Richard Lovelace

“ Lovelace had not the melodious and exquisite taste of Herrick, the wit of Suckling, or the power of Randolph (so often second only to his master Jonson) . Mr. Singer has praised the exuberant fancy of Lovelace; but, in my thinking, Lovelace was inferior in fancy, as well as in grace, both to Carew and the author of HESPERIDES. Yet Lovelace has left behind him one or two things, which I doubt if any of those writers could have produced, and which our greatest poets would not have been ashamed to own. ”

“ TO HIS NOBLE FRIEND CAPT. DUDLEY LOVELACE UPON HIS EDITION OF HIS BROTHERS POEMS. Thy pious hand, planting fraternal bayes,
Deserving is of most egregious praise;
Since 'tis the organ doth to us convey
From a descended sun so bright a ray. ”

“ A mercer now by th' yard does measure ore
An ode, which was but by the foot before;
Deals you an ell of epigram, and swears
It is the strongest and the finest wears.
No wonder, if a drawer verses rack,
If 'tis not his, 't may be the spir't of sack;
Whilst the fair bar-maid stroaks the muses teat,
For milk to make the posset up compleat. ”

“ TO HIS MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, ON HIS POEMS. He that doth paint the beauties of your verse,
Must use your pensil, be polite, soft, terse;
Forgive that man whose best of art is love,
If he no equall master to you prove. ”

“ You wrong'd in her the Houses priviledge;
Some that you under sequestration are,
Because you write when going to the Warre;
And one the book prohibits, because Kent
Their first Petition by the Authour sent.
But when the beauteous ladies came to know,
That their deare Lovelace was endanger'd so:
Lovelace, that thaw'd the most congealed brest,
He who lov'd best, and them defended best,
Whose hand so rudely grasps the steely brand,
Whose hand so gently melts the ladies hand,
They all in mutiny, though yet undrest,
Sally'd, and would in his defence contest. ”

“ ON THE BEST, LAST, AND ONLY REMAINING COMEDY OF MR. FLETCHER. THE WILD GOOSE CHASE.<92.1>
I'm un-ore-clowded, too! free from the mist!
The blind and late Heaven's-eyes great Occulist,
Obscured with the false fires of his sceme,
Not half those souls are lightned by this theme.
Unhappy murmurers, that still repine
(After th' Eclipse our Sun doth brighter shine) ,
Recant your false grief, and your true joys know;
Your blisse is endlesse, as you fear'd your woe!
What fort'nate flood is this! what storm of wit!
Oh, who would live, and not ore-whelm'd in it? ”

“ TO HIS NOBLE FRIEND, MR. RICHARD LOVELACE, UPON HIS POEMS. SIR,
Ovr times are much degenerate from those,
Which your sweet Muse, which your fair fortune chose;
And as complexions alter with the climes,
Our wits have drawne th' infection of our times.
That candid age no other way could tell
To be ingenious, but by speaking well.
Who best could prayse, had then the greatest prayse;
'Twas more esteemd to give then wear the bayes.
Modest ambition studi'd only then
To honour not her selfe, but worthy men. ”

“ Did I pronounce him dead! no, no! he lives,
And from his aromatique cell he gives
Spice-breathed fumes, whose odoriferous scent
(In zephre-gales which never can be spent)
Doth spread it self abroad, and much out-vies
The eastern bird in her self-sacrifice;
Or Father Phoebus, who to th' world derives
Such various and such multiformed lives,
Took notice that brave Lovelace did inspire
The universe with his Promethean fire,
And snatcht him hence, before his thread was spun,
En'ving that here should be another Sun. T. L.<113.1>
<113.1> Thomas Lovelace, one of the poet's brothers. ”

“ Twist their soft beams like these in their chast air?
As from bright numberlesse imbracing rayes
Are sprung th' industrious dayes,
So when they gaze,
And change their fertile eyes with the new morn,
A beauteous offspring is shot forth, not born. ”

“ LOVELACE, I offer at thy honour'd tomb.
And though thy vertues many friends have bred
To love thee liveing, and lament thee dead,
In characters far better couch'd then these,
Mine will not blott thy fame, nor theirs encrease.
'Twas by thine own great merits rais'd so high,
That, maugre time and fate, it shall not dye.
Sic flevit.
Charles Cotton.
<108.1> These lines may be found, with some verbal variations, in the poems of Charles Cotton, 1689, p. 481-2-3. ”

“ Saw'st and dislik'st its vaine pompe, then didst flye
Up for eternall glories to the skye?
Like a religious ambitious one,
Aspiredst for the everlasting crowne?
Ah! holy traytour to your brother prince,
Rob'd of his birth-right and preheminence!
Could you ascend yon' chaire of state e're him,
And snatch from th' heire the starry diadem?
Making your honours now as much uneven,
As gods on earth are lesse then saints in heav'n.
Triumph! sing triumphs, then! Oh, put on all
Your richest lookes, drest for this festivall! ”

“ Your self you have a good physician shown
To his much grieved friends and to your own,
In giving this elixir'd medecine,
For greatest grief a soveraign anodine.
Sir, from your Brother y' have convey'd us bliss;
Now, since your genius so concurs with his,
Let your own quill our next enjoyments frame;
All must be rich, that's grac'd with Lovelace name. ”

“ His SCHOLLARS school'd, sayd if he had been wise
He should have wove in one two COMEDIES;
The first for th' gallery, in which the throne
To their amazement should descend alone,
The rosin-lightning flash, and monster spire
Squibs, and words hotter then his fire.
Th' other for the gentlemen oth' pit,
Like to themselves, all spirit, fancy, wit,
In which plots should be subtile as a flame,
Disguises would make PROTEUS stil the same:
Humours so rarely humour'd and exprest,
That ev'n they should thinke 'em so, not drest ”

“ And when all wells are drawne dry,
I'll drink a teare out of thine eye. ”

“ Those who have any acquaintance with the history of early English music need not to be informed that it was formerly the practice of our own composers to seek the patronage of the gentlemen and ladies about the Court for their works, and to identify their names with them. ”

“ Fair as original light first from the chaos shot,
When day in virgin-beams triumph'd, and night was not,
And as that breath infus'd in the new-breather good,
When ill unknown was dumb, and bad not understood;
Chearful, as that aspect at this world's finishing,
When cherubims clapp'd wings, and th' sons of Heaven did sing;
Chast as th' Arabian bird, who all the ayr denyes,<79.1>
And ev'n in flames expires, when with her selfe she lyes.
Oh! she's as kind as drops of new faln April showers,
That on each gentle breast spring fresh perfuming flowers;
She's constant, gen'rous, fixt ”

“ Parliamentary literature has not a very strong fascination for the editors of old authors, and the biographers of Lovelace have uniformly overlooked the mine of information which lies in the LORDS' AND COMMONS' JOURNALS. The subject was apparently introduced, for the first time, into Parliament on the 28th March, 1642, when a conference of both Houses took place, respecting "a petition from Kent, which, praying for a Restoration of the Bishops, Liturgy and Common Prayer, and other constitutional measures, was voted seditious and against privilege and the peace of the kingdom;" ”

“ Johanna.
! of the Earls of Leicester.
!
——————————————————-
! ! ! !
Richard. Ciriac. . . . . . . . .
The above has been partly derived from a communication to the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE for Dec. 1791, by Sir Egerton Brydges, who chiefly compiled it from Hasted, compared with Berry's KENT GENEALOGIES, 474, where there are a few inaccuracies. It is, of course, a mere skeleton-tree, and furnishes no information as to the collateral branches, the connexion between the houses of Stanley and Lovelace, &c. ”

“ In 1636, when the king and queen were for some days entertained at Oxon, he was, at the request of a great lady belonging to the queen, made to the Archbishop of Canterbury [Laud] , then Chancellor of the University, actually created, among other persons of quality, Master of Arts, though but of two years' standing; at which time his conversation being made public, and consequently his ingenuity and generous soul discovered, he became as much admired by the male, as before by the female, sex. ”

“ Few readers require to be told that anagrams and acrostics were formerly one of the most fashionable species of composition. Lovelace here pictures a poetaster "stewing" his brains with a poem of this description, which of course demanded a certain amount of tedious and minute attention to the arrangement of the name of the individual to whom the anagram or acrostic was to be addressed, and this was especially the case, where the writer contemplated a DOUBLE acrostic. ”

“ When beauty once thy vertuous paint hath on,
Age needs not call her to vermilion;
Her beams nere shed or change like th' hair of day,<88.11>
She scatters fresh her everlasting ray.
Nay, from her ashes her fair virgin fire
Ascends, that doth new massacres conspire,
Whilst we wipe off the num'rous score of years,
And do behold our grandsire [s] as our peers;
With the first father of our house compare
We do the features of our new-born heir:
For though each coppied a son, they all
Meet in thy first and true original. ”

“ It was a very usual practice (then even more so than now) among familiar acquaintances to use the abbreviated Christian name in addressing each other; thus Suckling was JACK; Davenant, WILL; Carew, TOM, &c.; in the preceding generation Marlowe had been KIT; Jonson, BEN; Greene, ROBIN, and so forth; and although there is no positive proof that Lovelace and Suckling were intimate, it is extremely probable that such was the case, more especially as they were not only brother poets, but both country gentlemen belonging to neighbouring counties. ”

“ Lovelace hath long been dead, and he<111.2> can be
Oblig'd to no man for an elegie.
Are you all turn'd to silence, or did he
Retain the only sap of poesie,
That kept all branches living? must his fall
Set an eternal period upon all?
So when a spring-tide doth begin to fly<111.3>
From the green shoar, each neighbouring creek grows dry.
But why do I so pettishly detract
An age that is so perfect, so exact?
In all things excellent, it is a fame
Or glory to deceased Lovelace name:
For he is weak in wit, who doth deprave
Anothers worth to make his own seem brave ”

“ If I have freedome in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that sore above
Enjoy such liberty. ”

“ Waller had once an opportunity of realizing the position, which has been described by his contemporary in immortal stanzas; but Waller, when he was under confinement, was thinking too much of his neck to write verses with much felicity, and preferred waiting, till he got back to Beaconsfield (when his inspiration had evaporated) , to pour out his feelings to Lady Dorothy or Lady Sophia. Wither's song, "Shall I wasting in Despair," is certainly superior to the SONG TO ALTHEA. Wither was frequently equal to Lovelace in poetical imagery and sentiment, and he far excelled him in versification. ”

“ You that do suck for thirst your black quil's blood,<90.6>
And chaw your labour'd papers for your food,
I will inform you how and what to praise,
Then skin y' in satin as young Lovelace plaies.
Beware, as you would your fierce guests, your lice,
To strip the cloath of gold from cherish'd vice;
Rather stand off with awe and reverend fear,
Hang a poetick pendant in her ear,
Court her as her adorers do their glasse,
Though that as much of a true substance has,
Whilst all the gall from your wild<90.7> ink you drain,
The beauteous sweets of vertues cheeks to stain ”

“ There is evidence to prove that Lovelace was on intimate terms with some of the wits of his time, and that he had friendly relations with many of them—such as Hall, Rawlins, Lenton, and particularly the Cottons. John Tatham, the City Poet, and author of THE FANCIES THEATER, 1640, knew him well, and addressed to him some stanzas, not devoid of merit, during his stay abroad. ”

“ ELLINDA is a female friend of the poet, who occasionally stayed at her house, and on one occasion (p. 79) had a serious illness there. ELLINDA marries AMYNTOR, under which disguise, I suspect, lurks the well known Maecenas of his time, Endymion Porter. If Porter be AMYNTOR, of course ELLINDA must be the Lady Olivia Porter, his wife. ARIGO (see the poem of AMYNTOR'S GROVE) signifies Porter's friend, Henry Jermyn. It may be as well to add that the LETTICE mentioned at p. 121, was the Lady Lettice Goring, wife of Lovelace's friend, and third daughter of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. ”

“ The versification of Lovelace is indeed more rugged and unmusical than that of any other writer of the period, and this blemish is so conspicuous throughout LUCASTA, and is noticeable in so many cases, where it might have been avoided with very little trouble, that we are naturally led to the inference that Lovelace, in writing, accepted from indolence or haste, the first word which happened to occur to his mind. ”

“ Wood does not, in the case of Lovelace, adopt Aubrey's account, and it is to be observed that, IF the poet died as poor as he is represented by both writers to have died, he would have been buried by the parish, and, dying in Long Acre, the parochial authorities would not have carried him to Fleet Street for sepulture. ”

“ Whose love, like to the flame, can know no end.
The marble step that to the alter brings
The hallowed priests with their clean offerings,
Shall hold their names that humbly crave to be
Votaries to th' shrine, and grateful friends to thee.
So shal we live (although our offrings prove
Meane to the world) for ever by thy love.
Tho. Rawlins.<11.1>
<11.1> A well known dramatist and poet. ”

“ To fox oneself is TO GET DRUNK, and to fox a person is TO MAKE HIM DRUNK. The word in this sense belongs to the cant vocabulary. But in the present case, fox merely signifies TO FARE or TO FEAST.
<5.2> A Dutch penny. It is very likely that this individual had served with the poet in Holland.
<5.3> Three members of this family, or at least three persons of this name, probably related, figure in the history of the present period, viz., Colonel John Jephson, apparently a military associate of Lovelace ”

“ Winstanley was so far right in instituting a comparison between Lovelace and Sydney, that it is hard to name any one in the entire circle of early English literature except Sydney and Wither, who could have attempted, with any chance of success, the SONG TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON; and how differently Sydney at least would have handled it! We know what Herrick would have made of it ”