An Elegy
Though beauty be the mark of praise,
And yours, of whom I sing, be such
As not the world can praise too much,
Yet is ’t your virtue now I raise.
A virtue, like allay, so gone
Throughout your form, as though that move,
And draw, and conquer all men’s love,
This subjects you to love of one,
Wherein you triumph yet: because
’Tis of yourself, and that you use
The noblest freedom, not to choose
Against or faith, or honour’s laws.
But who could less expect from you,
In whom alone Love lives again?
By whom he is restored to men;
And kept, and bred, and brought up true?
His falling temples you have reared,
The withered garlands ta’en away;
His altars kept from the decay
That envy wished, and nature feared;
And on them burns so chaste a flame,
With so much loyalty’s expense,
As Love, t’ acquit such excellence,
Is gone himself into your name.
And you are he: the deity
To whom all lovers are designed,
That would their better objects find;
Among which faithful troop am I;
Who, as an offering at your shrine,
Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
One spark of your diviner heat
To light upon a love of mine;
Which, if it kindle not, but scant
Appear, and that to shortest view,
Yet give me leave t’ adore in you
What I, in her, am grieved to want.
Footnotes
11 “So live with yourself that you do not know how ill yow mind is furnished.”
12 Αυτοδίδακτος
14 “A Puritan is a Heretical Hypocrite, in whom the conceit of his own perspicacity, by which he seems to himself to have observed certain errors in a few Church dogmas, has disturbed the balance of his mind, so that, excited vehemently by a sacred fury, he fights frenzied against civil authority, in the belief that he so pays obedience to God.”
17a Night gives counsel.
17b Plutarch in Life of Alexander. “Let it not be, O King, that you know these things better than I.”
19a “They were not our lords, but our leaders.”
19b “Much of it is left also for those who shall be hereafter.”
19c “No art is discovered at once and absolutely.”
22 With a great belly. Comes de Schortenhien.
23 “In all things I have a better wit and courage than good fortune.”
24a “The rich soil exhausts; but labour itself is an aid.”
24b “And the gesticulation is vile.”
25a “An end is to be looked for in every man, an animal most prompt to change.”
25b Arts are not shared among heirs.
31a “More loquacious than eloquent; words enough, but little wisdom.”—Sallust.
31b Repeated in the following Latin. “The best treasure is in that man’s tongue, and he has mighty thanks, who metes out each thing in a few words.”—Hesiod.
31c Vid. Zeuxidis pict. Serm. ad Megabizum.—Plutarch.
32a “While the unlearned is silent he may be accounted wise, for he has covered by his silence the diseases of his mind.”
32b Taciturnity.
33a “Hold your tongue above all things, after the example of the gods.”—See Apuleius.
33b “Press down the lip with the finger.”—Juvenal.
33c Plautus.
33d Trinummus, Act 2, Scen. 4.
34a “It was the lodging of calamity.”—Mart. lib. 1, ep. 85.
41 [“Ficta omnia celeriter tanquam flosculi decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum.”—Cicero.]
44a Let a Punic sponge go with the book.—Mart. 1. iv. epig. 10.
47a He had to be repressed.
49a A wit-stand.
49b Martial. lib. xi. epig. 91. That fall over the rough ways and high rocks.
59a Sir Thomas More. Sir Thomas Wiat. Henry Earl of Surrey. Sir Thomas Chaloner. Sir Thomas Smith. Sir Thomas Eliot. Bishop Gardiner. Sir Nicolas Bacon, L.K. Sir Philip Sidney. Master Richard Hooker. Robert Earl of Essex. Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Henry Savile. Sir Edwin Sandys. Sir Thomas Egerton, L.C. Sir Francis Bacon, L.C.
62a “Which will secure a long age for the known writer.”—Horat. de Art. Poetica.
66a They have poison for their food, even for their dainty.
74a Haud infima ars in principe, ubi lenitas, ubi severitas—plus polleat in commune bonum callere.
74b i.e., Machiavell.
81a “Censure pardons the crows and vexes the doves.”—Juvenal.
81b “Does not spread his net for the hawk or the kite.”—Plautus.
93 Parrhasius. Eupompus. Socrates. Parrhasius. Clito. Polygnotus. Aglaophon. Zeuxis. Parrhasius. Raphael de Urbino. Mich. Angelo Buonarotti. Titian. Antony de Correg. Sebast. de Venet. Julio Romano. Andrea Sartorio.
94 Plin. lib. 35. c. 2, 5, 6, and 7. Vitruv. lib. 8 and 7.
95 Horat. in “Arte Poet.”
106a Livy, Sallust, Sidney, Donne, Gower, Chaucer, Spenser, Virgil, Ennius, Homer, Quintilian, Plautus, Terence.
110a The interpreter of gods and men.
111a Julius Cæsar. Of words, see Hor. “De Art. Poet.;” Quintil. 1. 8, “Ludov. Vives,” pp. 6 and 7.
111b A prudent man conveys nothing rashly.
114a That jolt as they fall over the rough places and the rocks.
116a Directness enlightens, obliquity and circumlocution darken.
117a Ocean trembles as if indignant that you quit the land.
117b You might believe that the uprooted Cyclades were floating in.
118a Those armies of the people of Rome that might break through the heavens.—Cæsar. Comment. circa fin.
124a No one can speak rightly unless he apprehends wisely.
133a “Where the discussion of faults is general, no one is injured.”
133b “Gnaw tender little ears with biting truth.”—Per Sat. 1.
133c “The wish for remedy is always truer than the hope.”—Livius.
136a “Æneas dedicates these arms concerning the conquering Greeks.”—Virg. Æn. lib. 3.
136b “You buy everything, Castor; the time will come when you will sell everything.”—Martial, lib. 8, epig. 19.
136c “Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor.”
136d “Which is evident in every first song.”
139a “There is a god within us, and when he is stirred we grow warm; that spirit comes from heavenly realms.”
146a “If it were allowable for immortals to weep for mortals, the Muses would weep for the poet Nævius; since he is handed to the chamber of Orcus, they have forgotten how to speak Latin at Rome.”
148a “No one has judged poets less happily than he who wrote about them.”—Senec. de Brev. Vit, cap. 13, et epist. 88.
149a Heins, de Sat. 265.
149b Pag. 267.
149c Pag. 270. 271.
149d Pag. 273, et seq.
149e Pag. in comm. 153, et seq.
160a “And which jolt as they fall over the rough uneven road and high rocks.”—Martial, lib. xi. epig. 91.