1

Shal we then mingle with the base,
And bring a silver-tinsell race?
Whilst th' issue noble wil not passe
The gold alloyd1 (almost halfe brasse),
And th' blood in each veine doth appeare,

e;

Part thick Booreinn, part Lady Cleare
Like to the sordid insects sprung
From Father Sun and Mother Dung:
Yet lose we not the hold we have,
But faster graspe the trembling slave;
Play at baloon with's heart, and winde
The strings like scaines, steale into his minde
Ten thousand false and feigned joyes
Far worse then they; whilst, like whipt boys,
After this scourge hee's hush with toys.

3

This heard, Sir, play stil in her eyes,

And be a dying, live like flyes

Caught by their angle-legs, and whom

The torch laughs peece-meale to consume.

Allayd–Lucasta.

2 So Editor's MS.

Lucasta has hells.

3 From this word down to lives is omitted in the MS. copy.

4 Original has lives.

TO ALTHEA.

FROM PRISON.

SONG.

SET BY DR. JOHN WILSON.1

I.

CHEN love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates;

And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;

When I lye tangled in her haire,

And fetterd to her eye,3

The first stanza of this famous song is harmonized in Cheerfull Ayres or Ballads: First composed for one single voice, and since set for three voices. By John Wilson, Dr. in Music, Professor of the same in the University of Oxford. Oxford, 1660 (Sept. 20, 1659), 4to. p. 10. I have sometimes thought that, when Lovelace composed this production, he had in his recollection some of the sentiments in Wither's Shepherds Hunting, 1615. See, more particularly, the sonnet (at p. 248 of Mr. Gutch's Bristol edition) commencing:

"I that er'st while the world's sweet air did draw."

2 Peele, in King David and Fair Bethsabe, 1599, has a similar figure, where David says:

"Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,

And brings my longings tangled in her hair."

The "lover" is of course Bethsabe.

3 Thus Middleton, in his More Dissemblers besides Women, printed in 1657, but written before 1626, says:

"But for modesty,

I should fall foul in words upon fond man,
That can forget his excellence and honour,
His serious meditations, being the end

Of his creation, to learn well to die;
And live a prisoner to a woman's eye."

The birds,1 that wanton in the aire,
Know no such liberty.

II.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,

Our carelesse heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;

When thirsty griefe in wine we steepe,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes, that tipple in the deepe,

Know no such libertie.

III.

When (like committed linnets 2) I
With shriller throat shall sing

1 Original reads gods; the present word is substituted in accordance with a MS. copy of the song printed by the late Dr. Bliss, in his edition of Woods Athena. If Dr. Bliss had been aware of the extraordinary corruptions under which the text of LUCASTA laboured, he would have had less hesitation in adopting birds as the true reading. The "Song to Althea," is a favourable specimen of the class of composition to which it belongs; but I fear that it has been over-estimated.

2 Percy very unnecessarily altered like committed linnets to linnet-like confined (Percy's Reliques, ii. 247; Moxon's ed.) Ellis (Specimens of Early English Poets, ed. 1801, iii. 252) says that this latter reading is "more intelligible." It is not, however, either what Lovelace wrote, or what (it may be presumed) he intended to write, and nothing, it would seem, can be clearer than the passage as it stands, committed signifying, in fact, nothing more than confined. It is fortunate for the lovers of early English literature that Bp. Percy had comparatively little to do with it. Emendation of a text is well enough; but the wholesale and arbitrary slaughter of it is quite another

matter.

The sweetnes, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King.

When I shall voyce aloud, how good
He is, how great should be,
Inlarged winds, that curle the flood,

Know no such liberty.

IV.

Stone walls doe not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that sore above
Enjoy such liberty.

OW the peace is made at the foes rate,3 Whilst men of armes to kettles their old helmes translate,

And drinke in caskes of honourable plate.

1 Particulars of this celebrated man, afterward created Earl of Norwich, may be found in Eachard's History, Rushworth's Collections, Whitelocke's Memoirs, Collins' Peerage by Brydges, Pepys' Diary (i. 150, ed. 1858), and Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, (ed. 1779, ii. 479). Whitelocke speaks very highly of his military character. In a poem called The Gallants of the Times, printed in "Wit Restored,” 1658, there is the following passage:

"A great burgandine for Will Murray's sake

George Symonds, he vows the first course to take:
When Stradling a Græcian dog let fly,

Who took the bear by the nose immediately;

To see them so forward Hugh Pollard did smile,

Who had an old curr of Canary oyl,

And held up his head that George Goring might see,

Who then cryed aloud, To mee, boys, to mee!"

See, also, The Answer :

"George, Generall of Guenefrieds,

He is a joviall lad,

Though his heart and fortunes disagree

Oft times to make him sad."

Consult Davenant's Works, 1673, p. 247, and Fragmenta Au