Richard Lovelace was the eldest son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich in Kent, and born there in 1618. He was educated at the Charter House, and removed at the age of sixteen, to Oxford, where he became a gentleman commoner of Gloucester Hall. Two years afterwards, on a visit made by the Court to the University, he was created a Master of Arts, which honour he thus prematurely obtained, as Wood "at the request of a great lady belonging

assures us,

to the Queen." *

Upon leaving the university he attached himself to the court, and obtained the patronage of Lord Goring, afterwards Earl of Norwich, who sent him in the capacity of an ensign with the army employed in Scotland in 1639. In the subsequent expedition to that country he held a captain's commission. During these military employments he commenced author, and wrote a tragedy called The Soldier, which was neither printed nor acted, and is probably lost.

Upon the pacification at Berwick, he quitted the army for a time, and retired to his estate in Kent, which according to Wood produced him an annual income of 500 pounds. Whether he took an active

* Lovelace appears to have been a great favourite with the ladies. Wood observes that he was "much admired and adored by the female sex." Andrew Marvell has the following lines:

"But when the beauteous ladies came to know That their dear Lovelace was endanger'd so; Lovelace that thaw'd the most congealed breast, He who best loved, and them defended best:" and James Howell

"Lovelace the minion of the Thespian dames,
Apollo's darling."

part in the military proceedings of that unhappy time, as might have been expected, or not, does not appear by the narrative of his biographer. He must however, have been held in considerable estimation by his Kentish contemporaries, as he was made choice of to deliver the first petition presented from that county to the House of Commons, for the restoration of the King, and by so doing, rendered himself obnoxious to that despotic assembly. He was apprehended in consequence, and confined a close prisoner in the Gatehouse at Westminster, and it was during this imprisonment that he composed the well-known and justly admired song "to Althea from prison." His confinement lasted only three or four months, when he was liberated upon bail, conditionally that he should not remove beyond the lines of communication without a pass from the Speaker of the House.

After the surrender of Oxford in 1646, when the King's affairs became desperate, he formed the resolution of embarking with the wreck of his fortune in the service of the French; with which intention he raised a regiment assumed the command of it and was wounded soon afterwards at Dunkirk.

He returned to England in 1648, and was upon his arrival in London, committed again as a prisoner to Peterhouse in that city, together with his brother Dudley, who was a captain in his regiment. This confinement lasted until after the judicial murder of the King; being then no longer an object of dread to the party in power, he was set at liberty. His unhappy condition at this time must be given in the words of the Oxford historian : Having consumed all his estate, he grew very melancholy, which at length brought him into a

consumption, became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, went in ragged clothes, whereas when he was in his glory, he wore cloth of gold and silver, and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places more befitting the worst of beggars and poorest of servants.”

Richard Lovelace died in a very mean lodging in Gunpowder-alley near Shoe-lane, and was buried at the west end of St. Bride's Church, in 1658.

Aubrey's account in a great measure confirms the foregoing, and is too curious to be omitted.

He

"Richard Lovelace, Esq. obiit in a cellar in Long Acre, a little before the restoration of his majesty. Mr. Edmund Wild, &c, had made collections for him and given him money. He was of in Kent, 5001. or more. He was an extraordinary handsome man, but proud. He wrote a poem called Lucasta, 8vo. 1649. was of Gloucester Hall, as I have been told. He had two younger brothers, viz. Col. F. R. L. and another that died at Carmarthen. George Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet-street, carried XXs. to him every Monday morning, from SirMany, and Charles Cotton, Esq. for months, but was never repaid."

Some doubts have been cast upon the veracity of Wood's account by the compiler of the Biographia Dramatica, who asserts that Lovelace could not have died in extreme poverty as his daughter and sole heir married the son of Lord Chief Justice Coke, and brought her husband an estate in Kent derived from her father. We have no means of confirming this statement: no intimation exists in any part of his works of his having been married, it is probable that some

G

other individual of the family may have given origin to this mistake, if it be one. Lovelace had three brothers who survived him, Thomas, Francis, and Dudley; two of them, at least, of the same rank in the army with himself. The first volume of his poems is dedicated to Lady Ann Lovelace, and the second to the Right Hon. John Lovelace, Esq. We fear, confirmed as it is by Aubrey's statement, the narrative of our poet's miserable reverse of fortune is but too true.

Richard Lovelace, if general report may be trusted, was a gentleman accomplished at all points. Nature had been unusually liberal in the graces of his person. "He was accounted" says Wood "the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld." James Howell in an elegy to his memory, has the following lines:

"The beauty of his soul did correspond

With his sweet outside, nay it went beyond:"

Another of his eulogists calls him "the lovely Lovelace," and Aubrey "an extraordinary handsome man." To this graceful exterior he added all the elegant accomplishments of his time, he was a perfect scholar, a good musician, and a fine poet:

..

"To sum up all, few men of fame but know

He was tam Marti, quam Mercurio."

Lovelace was in the

habit, during the early and happy period of his life, of sending his poetical compositions to the different musical composers of that time, by whom they were severally adapted to music, and he did not publish any collected edition of his works until the period of his last imprisonment. The

collection which he brought together and arranged at this time was printed in 1649, with the title of "Lucasta: Epodes, Odes, Sonnets, Songs, &c. to which is added Aramantha, a pastoral." To this small volume another was added in the year after his death, with the same general title of "Lucasta," collected and published by his brother Dudley. To the former of these volumes are appended eleven copies of commendatory verses, and to the latter several elegies to his memory. "Lucasta" was the poetical appellation of a lady to whom the greater part of these compositions were addressed, whose real name was Lucy Sacheverel. She is said to have possessed not only great personal beauty, but also ample fortune; but that she returned the poet's affection with equal ardour may be doubted, for she is reported to have married another person upon the rumour of his having received a fatal wound at Dunkirk. A print prefixed to the first collection of his poems, engraved by Faithorne, after a design of Sir Peter Lely's, is supposed to exhibit her portrait in the garb of a shepherdess. It is by no means remarkable for beauty. Indeed, the whole story may reasonably be doubted. Lovelace embarked to take the command of his regiment in 1647, he received his wound at Dunkirk soon afterwards, returned to London the next year, and published his poems in the year following. If the lady had been in such haste to dispose of herself upon mere report of his death, which if it had happened, must have happened so near home as to admit of being easily confirmed, she very little deserved from the poet the compliment of giving a title to his book published immediately afterwards, and of having her effigy displayed in the front of it; and it may be further remarked