the king to his rights, and for settling the government, &c. For which piece of service he was committed [April 30, 1642] to the Gatehouse at Westminster,1 "And one the Book prohibits, because Kent Their first Petition by the Authour sent." "Sir William Boteler, of Kent, returning about the beginning of April 1642, from his attendance (being then Gentleman Pentioner) on the king at Yorke, then celebrating St. George's feast, was by the earnest solicitation of the Gentry of Kent ingaged to joyn with them in presenting the most honest and famous Petition of theirs to the House of Commons, delivered by Captain Richard Lovelace, for which service the Captain was committed Prisoner to the Gate House, and Sir William Boteler to the Fleet, from whence, after some weeks close imprisonment, no impeachment in all that time brought in against him [Boteler], many Petitions being delivered and read in the House for his inlargement, he was at last upon bail of £20,000 (£15,000] remitted to his house in London, to attend de die in diem the pleasure of the House."-Mercurius Rusticus, 1646 (edit. 1685, pp. 7, 8). The fact was that, although on the 7th of April, 1642, the Kentish petition in favour of the Liturgy, &c. had been ordered by the House of Commons to be burned by the common hangman (Parliaments and Councils of England, 1839, p. 384), Boteler and Lovelace had the temerity, on the 30th of the same month, to come up to London, and present it again to the House. It was this which occasioned their committal. In the Verney Papers (Camd. Soc. 1845, p. 175) there is the following memorandum : 66 Captaine Lovelace committed to the Gatehouse Concerning Deering's petition." "Gatehouse, a prison in Westminster, near the west end of the Abbey, which leads into Dean's Yard, Tothill Street, and the Almonry "-Cunningham's Handbook of London, Past and PreBut for a more particular account, see Stow's Survey, ed. 1720, ii. lib. 6. sent. "The Gatehouse for a Prison was ordain'd, When in this land the third king Edward reign'd: where he made that celebrated song called, Stone Walls do not a Prison make, &c. After three or four months' [six or seven weeks'] imprisonment, he had his liberty upon bail of £40,000 [£4000?] not to stir out of the lines of communication without a pass from the speaker. During the time of this confinement to London, he lived beyond the income of his estate, either to keep up the credit and reputation of the king's cause by furnishing men with horses and arms, or by relieving ingenious men in want, whether scholars, musicians, soldiers, &c. Also, by furnishing his two brothers, Colonel Franc. Lovelace, and Captain William Lovelace (afterwards slain at Caermarthen)1 with men and money for the king's cause, and his other brother, called Dudley Posthumus Lovelace, with moneys for his maintenance in Holland, to study tactics and fortification in that school of war. After the rendition of Oxford garrison, in 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the French king, was colonel of it, and wounded at Dunkirk; and in 1648, returning into England, he, 1 Good lodging roomes, and diet it affords, But I had rather lye at home on boords." TAYLOR'S Praise and Virtue of a Jayle and Jaylers, (Works, 1630, ii. 130). By an inadvertence, I have spoken of Thomas, instead of William, Lovelace having perished at Caermarthen, in a note at p. 125. 2 It appears from the following copy of verses, printed in Tatham's Ostella, 1650, 4to., that Lovelace made a stay in the Netherlands about this time, if indeed he did not serve there with his regiment. with Dudley Posthumus before mentioned, then a captain under him, were both committed prisoners to UPON MY NOBLE FRIEND RICHARD LOVELACE, ESQ., HIS BEING IN HOLLAND. AN INVITATION. COME, Adonis, come again; What distaste could drive thee hence, Then, lov'd Adonis, come away, Wert thou sated with the spoil Phillis, fed with thy delights, In thy absence pines away; They have changed their mirth for cares, Then, lov'd Adonis, come away, Elpine, in whose sager looks Thou wert wont to take delight, Then, lov'd Adonis, come away, Peter House,1 in London, where he framed his poems for the press, entitled, Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, All the swains that once did use To converse with Love and thee, Then, lov'd Adonis, come away, For friendship brooks not thy delay. By thy sweet Althea's voice, We conjure thee to return; Or we'll rob thee of that choice, In whose flames each heart would burn: That inspir'd by her and sack, Such company we will not lack: That poets in the age to come, Shall write of our Elisium. 1 Peter, or rather Petre House, in Aldersgate Street, belonged at one time to the antient family by whose name it was known. The third Lord Petre, dying in 1638, left it, with other possessions in and about the city of London, to his son William. (Collins's Peerage, by Brydges, vii. 10, 11.) When Lovelace was committed to Peter House, and probably long before (Mercurius Rusticus, ed. 1685, pp. 76-79), this mansion was used as a house of detention for political prisoners; but in Ward's Diary (ed. Severn, p. 167), there is the following entry (like almost all Ward's entries, unluckily without date):-"My Lord Peters is an Essex man; hee hath a house in Aldersgate Street, wherein lives the Marquis of Dorchester:" implying that at that period (perhaps about 1660), the premises still belonged to the Petre family, though temporarily let to Lord Dorchester. Another celebrated house in the same street was London House, which continued for some time to be the town residence of the Bishops of London. When it had ceased to be an episcopal abode, it was adapted to the purposes of an ordinary dwelling, and, among the occupants, at a somewhat later period, was Tom Rawlinson, the great book-collector. See Stow, ed. 1720, ii. lib. iii. p. 121. Songs, &c., Lond. 1649, Oct. The reason why he gave that title was because, some time before, he had made his amours to a gentlewoman of great beauty and fortune, named Lucy Sacheverell, whom he usually called Lux casta; but she, upon a stray report that Lovelace was dead of his wound received at Dunkirk, soon after married.1 He also wrote Aramantha [Amarantha], a_Pastoral, printed with Lucasta. Afterwards a musical composition of two parts was set to part of it by Henry Lawes,3 sometimes servant to king Charles I., in his public and private music. 1 How different was the conduct, under similar circumstances, of the lady whom Charles Gerbier commemorates in his Elogium Heroinum, 1651, p. 127. "Democion, the Athenian virgin,” he tells us, 66 hearing that Leosthenes, to whom she was contracted, was slain in the wars, she killed herself; but before her death she thus reasoned with herself: Although my body is untoucht, yet should I fall into the imbraces of another, I should but deceive the second, since I am still married to the former in my heart." 999 2 Wood's story about Lucasta having been a Lucy Sacheverell, "a lady of great beauty and fortune," may reasonably be doubted. Lucasta, whoever she was, seems to have belonged to Kent; the Sacheverells were not a Kentish family. Besides, the corruption of Lucy Sacheverell into Lucasta is not very obvious, and rather violent; and the probability is that the author of the Athena was misled by his informant on this occasion. The plate etched by Lely and engraved by Faithorne, which is found in the second part of Lucasta, 1659, can scarcely be regarded as a portrait; it was, in all likelihood, a mere fancy sketch, and we are not perhaps far from the truth in our surmise that the artist was nearly, if not quite, as much in the dark as to who Lucasta was, as we are ourselves at the present day. 3 This is a mistake on the part of Wood, which (with many others) ought to be corrected in a new edition of the Athena. Lawes did not set to music Amarantha, a Pastoral, nor any portion of it; but he harmonized two stanzas of a little poem to |