"Ah, wanton Boy! like to the bee A little bee doth thee affright, But, ah! my wounds are full of spight, And cannot be re-cured:" The Boy, that guess'd his Mother's paine, She suck'd the wound, and swag'd the sting, Then let no lovers sorrow; To-day though griefe attaint his heart, Amends will come to-morrow. THO. LODGE. This poem, it may be remarked, is much more delicately and more elegantly turned than Spenser's Madrigal of Venus, Cupid, and the Bee. See Mr. Todd's edition, Vol. VIII. p. 184. The subject of both, it may be added, is apparently taken from the 19th Idyllium of Theocritus. ART. XXVIII. A Poetical Rapsodie; containing diverse Sonnets, Odes, Elegies, Madrigals, Epigrams, Pastorals, Eglogues, with other Poems, both in Rime and Measured Verse. For varietie and pleasure, the like never yet published. The Bee and Spider by a diverse power, Sucke hony and poyson from the selfe-same flower.* *So Chettle, in his Kind Hart's dreame, 1592; "From one selfe flower the bee and spider sucke Honey and poyson." Newly corrected and augmented. London. Printed by William Stansby for Roger THIS perhaps most valuable of our early metrica] miscellanies (the rare occurrence of which can alone account for the little use which has been made of it by our republishers of early English poetry,) was first printed in 1602; and passed through three successive and augmented editions in 1608, 1611, and 1621. The principal contributor appears to have been the avowed editor, FRANCIS DAVISON, Son of that unfortunate Secretary of State, who suffered so much from the affair of Mary Queen of Scots.+ Being a poet himself, he was more ably qualified for the delicate task of selection from his contemporaries, than BODENHAM, the compiler of "England's Helicon," in 1600; though his publisher, like some modern purveyors of literature, seems to have slighted the judgment and taste of an editor, for the purpose of making a bulkier book. This we gather from the preface, which, as it contains a casual notice of Walter Davison, the natural and poetical brother to Francis, and as it is written in a strain of animated defiance to the hypercritics of that period, is here transcribed. "To the Reader. "Being induced by some private reasons and by the instant entreaty of speciall friends, to suffer some *This miscellany is now in the Lee Press. Part I. has already appeared, 1815. + See Reliques of English Poetry, I. 332, edit. 1794. A very friendly letter from the Earl of Essex to Walter Davison is printed in Birch's Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth. of my worthlesse poems to be published, I desired to make some written by my deere friends Anonymoi, and my deerer Brother, to beare them company: both, without their consent; the latter being in the low-country warres, and the rest utterly ignorant thereof. My friends' names I concealed; mine owne and my brother's, I willed the Printer to suppresse, as well as I had concealed the other, which he having put in without my privity, we must now undergo a sharper censure perhaps than our namelesse workes should have done; and I especially. For if their poems be liked, the praise is due to their invention; if disliked, the blame both by them and all men will be derived upon me, for publishing that which they meant to suppresse. • "If thou thinke we affect fame by these kinds of writings, though I thinke them no disparagement even to the best judgements, yet I answere in all our behalfes, with the princely shepherd, Dorus, Our hearts do seeke another estimation. If thou condemne poetry in generall, and affirme that it doth intoxicate the braine, and make men utterly unfit eyther for more serious studies, or for any active course of life, I onely say-Jubeo te stultum esse libenter. Since experience proves by examples of many, both dead and living, that divers delighted and excelling herein, being princes or statesmen, have governed and counselled as wisely; being souldiers, have commanded armies as fortunately; being lawyers, have pleaded as judicially and eloquently; being divines, have written and taught as profoundly; and being of any other profession, have discharged it as sufficiently, as any other men whatsoever. If, liking other kinds, thou mislike the lyricall, because the chiefest subject thereof is love;-I reply, that love being vertuously intended and worthily placed, is the whetstone of wit and spurre to all generous actions; and many excellent spirits with great fame of wit and no staine of judgement, have written excellently in this kind, and specially the ever-praiseworthy Sidney: so as if thou wilt needs make a fault, for mine owne part, Haud timeo, si jam nequeo defendere crimen Cum tanto commune viro. "If any except against the mixing (both at the beginning and end of this booke) of diverse things written by great and learned personages,* with our meane and worthlesse scriblings, I utterly disclaim it; as being done by the Printer, eyther to grace the forefront with Sir Philip Sidney's and others' names, or to make the booke grow to a competent volume. "For these poems in particular, I could alledge these excuses-that those under the name of Anonymos were written (as appeareth by divers things to Sir Philip Sidney living, and of him, dead) almost twenty yeares since, when poetry was farre from that perfection to which it hath now attained: that my brother is by profession a souldier, and was not eighteen years old when he writ these toys: that mine owne were made most of them sixe or seven yeares since, at idle times as I journeyed up and *Two Letters written by Francis to his father, Secretary Davison, occur in Dr. Birch's 14th Vol. of Transcripts and Extracts from the MSS. of Ant. Bacon, Esq. and were printed in the Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth's time, Vol. II. downe during my travails. But to leave their works to justifie themselves, or the authors to justifie their works, and to speake of mine owne; thy dislikes I contemne, thy praises (which I neither deserve nor expect) I esteeme not; as hoping (God willing), ere long to regaine thy good opinion, if lost, or more deservedly to continue it, if already obtained, by some graver worke. Farewell. FRA. DAVISON." The edition of 1611 is preceded by an alphabetical table of contents, and a dedicatory sonnet "To the most noble, honorable, and worthy Lord William Earle of Pembroke,* Lord Herbert of Cardiffe, Marmion, and St. Quintine: Great Earle, whose brave heroike minde is higher e Whose outward shape, though it most lovely be, Who, rich in fading wealth, in endlesse treasure, FRA. DAVISON."+ The poetical patron of Ben Jonson, Abr. Fraunce, Daniel, Davies of Hereford, &c. To this signature was added in edit. 1602, "The devoted admirer of your Lordship's noble virtues, humbly dedicates his owne, his brother's, and Anonymos' poems, both in his owne and their names.". |