Chapter 3 of 20 · 3800 words · ~19 min read

Part 3

Worthy Friend, there is a saying, _Once well done, and ever done_; the wisest men have so considerately acted in their times, as by their learned works to build their own monuments, such as might eternize them to future ages: our Jonson named his, Works, when others were called Plays, though they cost him much of the lamp and oil; yet he so writ, as to oblige posterity to admire them. Our deceased Hero, Mr. Cleveland, knew how to difference legitimate births from abortives, his mighty genius anvilled out what he sent abroad, as his informed mind knew how to distinguish betwixt writing much and well; a few of our deceased poet's pages being worth cartloads of the scribblers of these times. It was my fortune to be in Newark, when it was besieged, where I saw a few [some] manuscripts of Mr. Cleveland's. Amongst others I have heard that he writ of the Treaty at Uxbridge, as I have been informed since by a person I intrusted to speak with one of Mr. Cleveland's noble friends, who received him courteously, and satisfied his inquiries; as concerning the papers that were left in his custody, more particularly of the Treaty at Uxbridge, that it was not finished, nor any of his other papers fit for the press. They were offered to the judicious consideration of one of the most accomplished persons of our age, he refusing to have them in any further examination, as he did not conceive that they could be published without some injury to Mr. Cleveland; from which time they have remained sealed and locked up: neither can I wonder at this obstruction, when I consider the disturbances our author met with in the time of the siege, how scarce and bad the paper was, the ink hardly to be discerned on it. The intimacy I had with Mr. Cleveland before and since these civil wars, gained most of these papers from him, it being not the least of his misfortunes, out of the love he had to pleasure his friends, to be unfurnished with his own manuscripts, as I have heard him say often. He was not so happy as to have any considerable collection of his own papers, they being dispersed amongst his friends; some whereof when he writ for them, he had no other answer, but that they were lost, or through the often reading, transcribing, or folding of them, worn to pieces. So that though he knew where he formerly bestowed some of them, yet they were not to be regained. For which reason, the poems he had left in his hands being so few, [and] of so inconsiderable [small] a volume, he could not (though he was often solicited) with honour to himself give his consent to the publishing of them, though indeed most of his former printed poems were truly his own, except such as have been lately added, to make up the volume. At the first some few of his verses were printed with the[2] character of the London Diurnal, a stitched pamphlet in quarto. Afterwards, as I have heard Mr. Cleveland say, the copies of verses that he communicated to his friends, the book-seller by chance meeting with them, being added to his book, they sold him another impression; in like manner such small additions (though but a paper or two of his incomparable verses or prose) posted off other editions, [whereas this edition hath the happiness to flourish with the remainder of Mr. Cleveland's last never before printed pieces.] I acknowledge some few of these papers I received [many of these last new printed papers] from one of Mr. Cleveland's near acquaintance, which when I sent to his ever to be honoured friend of Grays-Inn, he had not at that time the leisure to peruse them; but for what he had read of them, he told the person I intrusted, that he did believe them to be Mr. Cleveland's, he having formerly spoken of such papers of his, that were abroad in the hands of his friends, whom he could not remember. My intention was to reserve the collection of these manuscripts for my own private use; but finding many of these I had in my hands already published in the former poems, not knowing what further proceedings might attend the forwardness of the press, I thought myself concerned, not out of any worldly [unworthy] ends of profit, but out of a true affection to my deceased friend, to publish these his never [other] before extant pieces in Latin and English and to make this to be somewhat [like] a volume for the study. Some other poems are intermixed, such as the reader shall find to be of such persons as were for the most part Mr. Cleveland's contemporaries; some of them no less eminently known to the three nations. I hope the world cannot be so far mistaken in his genuine muse, as not to discern his pieces from any of the other poems; neither can I believe there are any persons so unkind, as not candidly to entertain the heroic fancies of the other gentlemen that are worthily placed to live in this volume. Some of their poems, contrary to my expectation--I being at such a distance--I have since heard[3] were before in print, but as they are excellently good and so few, the [but in this second edition I have crossed them out, only reserving those that were excellently good, and never before extant. The] reader (I hope) will the more freely accept them. Thus having ingenuously satisfied thee in these particulars, I shall not need to insert more; but that I have, to prevent surreptitious editions, published this collection; that by erecting this Pyramid of Honour, I might oblige posterity to perpetuate their memories, which is the highest ambition of him, who is,

Newark. Nov. 21, 1658.

Yours in all virtuous endeavours, E. WILLIAMSON.

[Footnote 1: This singular production is, in the original, punctuated after a fashion very suitable, in its entire irrationality, to the sentiments of its writer; but I have taken the liberty (and no other) of relieving the reader of an additional burden by at least separating the sentences. The second edition of 1660 shows some alterations which are given above in brackets.

Whether Mr. Williamson was one of the most impudent persons in the world, or merely (which seems more probable) an abject fool, may be left to the reader to determine. The thing does not seem to require much, if any, annotation. The author, I think, is not otherwise known, and the name is common enough. The well-known Secretary Williamson must have been his contemporary, and may have had some connexion with our paragon besides that of Cavalier principles. But _he_ was Joseph.]

[Footnote 2: 'a character' 1662 (third edition).]

[Footnote 3: 'I have since heard' omitted in 1662.]

The Stationer to the Reader.

Courteous Reader, thy free Acceptance of the former edition, encouraged me so far as to use my best diligence to gain what still remained in the hands of the Author's friends. I acknowledge myself to be obliged to Mr. Williamson, whose worthy example Mr. Cleveland's other honourers have since pursued. I shall not trouble thee, Reader, with any further Apologies, but only subscribe Mr. W. W. his last Verses in his following Elegy on Mr. Cleveland.

That Plagiary that can filch but one Conceit from Him, and keep the Theft unknown, At Noon from Phoebus, may by the same sleight, Steal Beams, and make 'em pass for his own light.

To the Right Worshipful and Reverend Francis Turner, D.D., Master of St. John's College in Cambridge, and to the Worthy Fellows of the same College.

GENTLEMEN,

That we interrupt your more serious studies with the offer of this piece, the injury that hath been and is done to the deceased author's ashes not only pleadeth our excuse, but engageth you (whose once he was, and within whose walls this standard of wit was first set up) in the same quarrel with us.

Whilst Randolph and Cowley lie embalmed in their own native wax, how is the name and memory of Cleveland equally profaned by those that usurp, and those that blaspheme it?--by those that are ambitious to lay their cuckoo's eggs in his nest, and those that think to raise up Ph[oe]nixes of wit by firing his spicy bed about him?

We know you have, not without passionate resentments, beheld the prostitution of his name in some late editions vended under it, wherein his orations are murthered over and over in barbarous Latin, and a more barbarous translation: and wherein is scarce one or other poem of his own to commute for all the rest. At least every Cuirassier of his hath a fulsome dragooner behind him, and Venus is again unequally yoked with a sooty anvil-beater. Cleveland thus revived dieth another death.

You cannot but have beheld with like zealous indignation how enviously our late mushroom-wits look up at him because he overdroppeth them, and snarl at his brightness as dogs at the Moon.

Some of these grand Sophys will not allow him the reputation of wit at all: yet how many such authors must be creamed and spirited to make up his Fuscara?[2] And how many of their slight productions may be gigged[3] out of one of his pregnant words? There perhaps you may find some leaf-gold, here massy wedges; there some scattered rays, here a galaxy; there some loose fancy frisking in the air, here Wit's Zodiac.

The quarrel in all this is upbraiding merit, and eminence his crime. His towering[4] fancy scareth so high a pitch that they fly like shades below him. The torrent thereof (which riseth far above their high water mark) drowneth their levels. Usurping upon the State Poetic of the time, he hath brought in such insolent measures of Wit and Language that, despairing to imitate, they must study to understand. That alone is Wit with them to which they are commensurate, and what exceedeth their scantling[5] is monstrous.

Thus they deifie[6] his Wit and Fancy as the clown the plump oyster when he could not crack it. And now instead of that strenuous masculine style which breatheth in this author, we have only an enervous effeminate froth offered, as if they had taken the salivating pill before they set pen to paper. You must hold your breath in the perusal lest the jest vanish by blowing on.

Another blemish in this monster of perfection is the exuberance of his fancy. His manna lieth so thick upon the ground they loathe it. When he should only fan, he with hurricanos of wit stormeth the sense, and doth not so much delight his reader, as oppress and overwhelm him.

To cure this excess, their frugal wit hath reduced the world to a Lessian Diet.[7] If perhaps they entertain their reader with one good thought (as these new Dictators affect to speak) he may sit down and say Grace over it: the rest is words and nothing else.

We will leave them therefore to the most proper vengeance, to humour themselves with the perusal of their own poems: and leave the barber to rub their thick skulls with bran[8] until they are fit for musk. Only we will leave this friendly advice with them; that they have one eye upon John Tradescant's executor,[9] lest among his other Minims of Art and Nature he expose their slight conceits: and another upon the Royal Society, lest they make their poems the counterbalance when they intend to weigh air.

From these unequal censures we appeal to such competent judges as yourselves, in whose just value of him Cleveland shall live the wonder of his own, and the pattern of succeeding ages. And although we might (upon several accompts) bespeak your affections, yet (abstracting from these) we submit him to your severer judgements, and doubt not but he will find that patronage from you which is desired and expected by

Your humble Servants.

J. L. S. D.[10]

[Footnote 1: Here we get into _terra cognita_ as regards authorship. The editors had been, both of them, Cleveland's pupils at St. John's. 'J. L.' was John Lake (1624-1689), a man of great distinction--at this time Vicar of Leeds and Prebendary of York, later Bishop, first of Sodor and Man and then of Chichester, who while he held the last-named see had the double glory of withstanding James II as one of 'the Seven', and of refusing the Oath to William. 'S. D.' was also a Yorkshire clergyman--Samuel Drake--who had not only studied under Cleveland at Cambridge, but fought under him at Newark. He became Vicar of Pontefract; but (if the _D.N.B._ is right in assigning his death to the year 1673) his work on the great vindication of his tutor must have been done some time before publication. Francis Turner (1638-1700), of a much younger generation and an Oxford man, though admitted _ad eundem_ at Cambridge in 1662, had been Master of St. John's College since 1670, and was therefore properly selected as chief dedicatee. He was destined to be connected with Lake again in the great actions above noted as Bishop of Ely, and for the last ten years of his life was an active Jacobite agent.]

[Footnote 2: The description of _Cleaveland Revived_ in the third paragraph is perfectly just, and 'anvil-beater' is an obvious echo-gibe at Williamson's own phraseology. It is less certain what 'grand Sophys' are specially referred to further on--but Dryden _might_ be one.]

[Footnote 3: A Clevelandish word; _v. infra_, p. 65 (_Rupertismus_, l. 120).]

[Footnote 4: In orig., as often, 'touring', but to print this nowadays would invite misconception.]

[Footnote 5: 'Scantling' is used in various senses. Either that of 'rough draft' or, as in Taylor, 'small piece' would do; but it is at least possible that it is not a noun at all, but a direct participle from the verb to 'scantle', found in Drayton, and meaning 'to be deficient', 'come short'. Some, however, prefer the sense 'dimension' or 'measurement', which would make it a sort of varied repetition of 'commensurate'.]

[Footnote 6: 'Deifie' is of course wrong. 'Defy' is likeliest, and in a certain sense (frequent in Elizabethan writers) would do; but 'decry' seems wanted.]

[Footnote 7: A common phrase for an earlier 'Banting' regime derived from the _Hygiasticon_ (Antwerp, 1623) of Leonard Lessius (1554-1624). I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. Comrie, Lecturer on the History of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. The next sentence may, or rather must, be a reference to (in fact, a fling at) Dryden, _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ (vol. i, p. 52, ed. Ker, Oxford, 1900), who censures Cleveland for not giving 'a _great_ thought' in 'words ... commonly received'. I owe the reminder of this to Mr. Thorn-Drury.]

[Footnote 8: The use of bran for shampooing is not perhaps so well known as that for poultices, foot-baths, &c. It is always a _softener_ as well as a detergent.]

[Footnote 9: Ashmole.]

[Footnote 10: Perhaps I should add a very few words explaining why I have not made this 'authenticated' edition the base of mine. I have not done so because the editors, excellent as was evidently their intention, have after all given us no reasons for their exclusions and inclusions; because, though they have corrected some obvious errors, their readings by no means always intrinsically commend themselves to me; and especially because the distance between 1647 and 1677 reflects itself, to no small degree, in a certain definite _modernisation_ of form, grammatical and prosodic. 1653 has much more _contemporariness_.]

POEMS.

To the State of Love. Or the Senses' Festival.

I saw a vision yesternight, Enough to sate a Seeker's sight; I wished myself a Shaker there, And her quick pants my trembling sphere. It was a she so glittering bright, You'd think her soul an Adamite; A person of so rare a frame, Her body might be lined with' same. Beauty's chiefest maid of honour, You may break Lent with looking on her. 10 Not the fair Abbess of the skies, With all her nunnery of eyes, Can show me such a glorious prize!

And yet, because 'tis more renown To make a shadow shine, she's brown; A brown for which Heaven would disband The galaxy, and stars be tanned; Brown by reflection as her eye Deals out the summer's livery. Old dormant windows must confess 20 Her beams; their glimmering spectacles, Struck with the splendour of her face, Do th' office of a burning-glass. Now where such radiant lights have shown, No wonder if her cheeks be grown Sunburned, with lustre of her own.

My sight took pay, but (thank my charms!) I now impale her in mine arms; (Love's compasses confining you, Good angels, to a circle too.) 30 Is not the universe strait-laced When I can clasp it in the waist? My amorous folds about thee hurled, With Drake I girdle in the world; I hoop the firmament, and make This, my embrace, the zodiac. How would thy centre take my sense When admiration doth commence At the extreme circumference?

Now to the melting kiss that sips 40 The jellied philtre of her lips; So sweet there is no tongue can praise 't Till transubstantiate with a taste. Inspired like Mahomet from above By th' billing of my heavenly dove, Love prints his signets in her smacks, Those ruddy drops of squeezing wax, Which, wheresoever she imparts, They're privy seals to take up hearts. Our mouths encountering at the sport, 50 My slippery soul had quit the fort, But that she stopped the sally-port.

Next to these sweets, her lips dispense (As twin conserves of eloquence) The sweet perfume her breath affords, Incorporating with her words. No rosary this vot'ress needs-- Her very syllables are beads; No sooner 'twixt those rubies born, But jewels are in ear-rings worn. 60 With what delight her speech doth enter; It is a kiss o' th' second venter. And I dissolve at what I hear, As if another Rosamond were Couched in the labyrinth of my ear.

Yet that 's but a preludious bliss, Two souls pickeering in a kiss. Embraces do but draw the line, 'Tis storming that must take her in. When bodies join and victory hovers 70 'Twixt the equal fluttering lovers, This is the game; make stakes, my dear! Hark, how the sprightly chanticleer (That Baron Tell-clock of the night) Sounds boutesel to Cupid's knight. Then have at all, the pass is got, For coming off, oh, name it not! Who would not die upon the spot?

[_To the State of Love, &c._ appeared first _1651_. The stanzas are not divided in the early editions, but are so in _1677_. Carew's _Rapture_ may have given some suggestions, Apuleius and Lucretius also; but not much is required. The substance is shocking to pure prudery, no doubt; but, as observed in the introduction, there is perhaps more gusto in the execution than in _Fuscara_.

A copy of this poem, with many minor variants, is in Bodleian MS. Tanner 306, fol. 424: it has one noteworthy reading, 'took sey', i.e. 'say' or 'assay'--the hunting term--in l. 27.]

[Lines: 2, 3 The use of capitals in the seventeenth century is so erratic that it is dangerous to base much on it. But both 'Seekers' and 'Shakers' (a variant of 'Quakers') were actually among the countless sects of the time, as well of course as 'Adamites'. _1651_. _1653_, _1654_, and _1657_ have 'tempt' for _1677_ 'sate'.]

[Line: 4 pants _1677_: 'pulse' _1651_, _1653_, _1654_, _1657_.]

[Line: 10 'You'd break a Lent' _1651_, _1653_.]

[Lines: 11-13 Benlowes's lines (_v. sup._ i. 356)--

The lady prioress of the cloistered sky, &c.--

are more poetic than these, but may be less original. Even that, however, is uncertain. Both poets, though Benlowes was a good deal the elder, were of St. John's, and must, even in other ways, have known each other: _Theophila_ appeared a year after the edition in which this poem was first included. But the indebtedness may be the other way, or common to an earlier original, or non-existent.]

[Line: 19 Deals out] The earlier texts have 'Dazzle's', but _1677_ seems here to have introduced the true reading found also in the _MS._ 'Deals out' is far more poetical: the eye clothes with its own reflection sky and stars, and earth.]

[Lines: 20-3 The punctuation of all editions, including Mr. Berdan's, makes these lines either totally unintelligible, or very confused, by putting a stop at 'spectacles' and none at 'beams'. That adopted in the text makes it quite clear.]

[Line: 30 circle] 'compass' _1651_, _1653_, evidently wrong.]

[Line: 33 It is not impossible that Aphra Behn had these lines unconsciously in her head when she wrote her own finest passage. Unconsciously, for the drift is quite different; but 'hurled', 'amorous', and 'world' come close together in both.]

[Line: 34 _1651_, _1653_ again 'compass' for 'girdle'.]

[Line: 37 'would', the reading of _1651_, _1653_, infinitely better than 'could', that of _1677_.]

[Line: 45 In this pyramidally metaphysical passage Cleveland does not quite play the game. Mahomet's pigeon did not _kiss_ him. But 'privy seals to take up hearts' is very dear to fancy, most delicate, and of liberal conceit. So also 'jewels are in ear-rings worn' below; where the game is played to its rigour, though the reader may not at first see it.]

[Line: 46 his] 'her' _1651_, _1653_; but it clearly should be 'his', which is in _1677_.]

[Line: 53 _1651_, _1653_ read 'Next to those sweets her lips dispense', _nescio an melius_.]

[Line: 61 her] 'our,' a variant of one edition (_1665_) is all wrong.]

[Line: 62 Mr. Berdan has strangely misinterpreted 'venter'. The phrase is quite a common one--'of the second _marriage_.' The first kiss comes of lip and lip, the second of lip and love.]

[Line: 67 pickeering] 'marauding', 'skirmishing in front of an army'.]

[Line: 70 For 'join' [jine] _1651_, _1653_ and others have 'whine'--suggesting the Latin _gannitus_ frequent in such contexts. But 'join' must be right. Professor Gordon points out that the passage is a reminiscence of Donne, in his _Extasie_:

As 'twixt two equall Armies, Fate Suspends uncertaine victorie, Our soules (which to advance their state Were gone out,) hung 'twixt her, and mee.(13-16.)

This is contrasted with the bodily 'entergrafting' of l. 9, &c.]

[Line: 74 When 'prose and sense' came in they were very contemptuous of this Baron Tell-clock. But the image is complete, congruous, and capable of being championed.]

[Line: 75 'Boutesel' of course = 'boot and saddle', albeit 'boute' does not mean 'boot'.]

The Hecatomb to his Mistress.