“My passed life nought suffereth me to doubt
“ Noisome oblivion of the loathsome death.
“ Slay me! yet all th' offspring to come shall

“ know : “ And this decease shall bring eternal life. “ Yea, and (unless I fail, and all in vain, “ Rome, I sometime thy Augur chosen was,) “ Not evermore shall friendly Fortune thee • Favour, Antonius ! Once the day shall come “ When her dear wights, by cruel spite thus slain, “ Victorious Rome shall at thy hands require. “ Melikes, therewhile, go see the hoped heaven.” Speech had he left, and therewith he, good man, His throat prepar'd, and held his head unmov’d. His hasting to those Fates the very knights Be loth to see, and, rage rebated, when They his bare neck beheld, and his hoar hairs, Scant could they hold the tears that forth 'gan

burst, And almost fell from bloody hands the swords. Only the stern Herennius with grim look, “ Dastards, why stand you still ?” he saith, and

straight
Swaps off the head with his presumptuous iron.
Ne with that slaughter yet is he not filld.
Foul shame on shame to heap is his delight.
Wherefore the hands also doth he off smite,

Which durst Antonius' life so lively paint.
Him yielding strained ghost from welkin high
With loathy cheer lord Phæbus 'gan behold,
And in black cloud, they say, long hid his head.
The Latin Muses, and the Grayes they wept,
And for his fall eternally shall weep.
And lo! heart-piercing Pitho (strange to tell)
Who had to him suffic'd both sense and words,
When so he spake, and dress’d with nectar soote
That flowing tongue, when his wind-pipe disclos’d,
Fled with her fleeing friend, and, out alas,
Hath left the earth, ne will no more return,
Popilius fly'th therewhile, and leaving there
The senseless stock, a grisly sight doth bear
Unto Antonius' board, with mischief fed.

VOL. II.

LORD VAUX.

1

This poet (says Mr Warton) was probably Thomas Lord

Vaux, of Harrowden, in Northamptonshire, son of Lord Nicholas, with whom (though no poet), as Mr Ritson observes, he has been confounded by Wood, and others. Puttenbam gave the first occasion to this mistake. He succeeded his father in 1528, was summoned to Parliament in 1531, and seems to have lived till the latter end of Queen Mary's reign. Two poems in Tottel's collection, viz. “ The Assault of Cupid,” and that which begins,

“ I loath that I did love,” (from whence three stanzas are quoted in the song of the grave-diggers in

Hamlet) are certainly his.
Several of his pieces are also preserved in “ the Paradise

of Dainty Devices.”
Mr Ritson assigns a place among the poets to William lord

Vaux, son of the above nobleman, and ascribes to him a share in the poems contained in the collection just men

tioned, but adduces no authority. See Percy's Reliques, 1. 49, and Lord Walpole's Royal and

Noble Authors.

The Assault of Cupid upon the Fort, where the Lover's

Heart lay wounded, and how he was taken.

HEN Cupid scaled first the fort
Wherein my heart lay wounded sore,
The battery was of such a sort,

That I must yield, or die therefore.

Therë saw I Love

upon

the wall, How he his banner did display; « Alarm! alarm !” he 'gan to call,

And bade his soldiers keep array.

The
arms,

the which that Cupid bare,
Were pierced hearts with tears besprent,
In silver and sable, to declare

The steadfast love he always meant,

1

There might you see his band all drest

In colours like to white and black;
With powder and with pellets, prest

To bring the fort to spoil and sack,

Good-will, the master of the shot,

Stood in the rampire, brave and proud ;
For 'spence of powder, he spar'd not

- Assault ! assault !" to cry aloud.

There might you hear the çannons roar;

Each piece discharg'd a lover's look ;
Which had the power to rend, and tore

In any place whereas they took.

And even with the trumpet's sown

The scaling-ladders were up set : And Beauty walked up and down,

With bow in hand, and arrows whet.

Then first Desire began to scale,

And shrouded him under his targe, As one the worthiest of them all,

And aptest for to give the charge.

Then pushed soldiers with their pikes,

And halberdiers, with handy strokes ; The hargabushe 2 in flash it lights,

And dims the air with misty smokes.

And, as it is the 3. soldiers use,

When shot and powder 'gins to want, I hanged up my flag of truce

And pleaded for my lifés grant.

When Fancy thus had made her breach,

And Beauty enter'd with her band, With bag and baggage (silly wretch)

I yielded into-Beauty's hand.