PRINTER TO THE READER.

It is now about six months since the most learned and judicious poet, B. JONSON, became a subject for these Elegies. The time interjected between his death and the publishing of these, shews that so great an argument ought to be considered, before handled; not that the Gentlemen's affections were less ready to grieve, but their judgments to write. At length the loose papers were consigned to the hands of a Gentleman, who truly honoured him (for he knew why he did so.) To his care you are beholding that they are now made yours. And he was willing to let you know the value of what you have lost, that you might the better recommended what you have left of him, to your posterity.

Farewell.

E. P.

It is now about six months,] Jonson died on the sixth of August, 1637; the Poems must therefore have appeared about the beginning of March 1638.

2 This 66 gentleman," we find in Howell's Letters, was Dr. Bryan Dappa, bishop of Winchester. Nor was the present collection of tributary offerings the only praise of this excellent man. The patron of learning when learning was proscribed, for the greater part of what is beautiful and useful in the writings of Mayne, Cartwright, and many others, religion and literature are indebted to the fostering protection of doctor Bryan Duppa. He was born at Greenwich 10th March, 1588, admitted of Christ Church Oxford, from Westminster School, in May 1605. After passing through various honourable situations in the university and at court, he was successively consecrated bishop of Chichester, Salisbury, and Winchester, and died at his favourite residence at Richmond the 26th March 1662. Charles II. visited him on his death bed, and begged his blessing on his bended knees.

There is great pleasure in opposing these honourable and liberal proofs of the good understanding which subsisted between contemporary poets to the slight and imperfect premises from which dramatic editors have laboured to deduce proofs of most opposite and disgraceful feelings. GILCHRIST.

AN EGLOGUE

ON THE DEATH OF BEN JONSON,

BETWEEN MELIBUS AND HYLAS.

MELIBUS.

HYLAS, the clear day boasts a glorious sun,
Our troop is ready, and our time is come:
That fox who hath so long our lambs destroy'd,
And daily in his prosperous rapine joy'd,
Is earth'd not far from hence; old Egon's son,
Rough Corilas, and lusty Corydon,

In part the sport, in part revenge desire,
And both thy tarrier and thy aid require.
Haste, for by this, but that for thee we stay'd,
The prey-devourer had our prey been made:
Hyl. Oh! Melibous, now I list not hunt,
Nor have that vigour as before I wont;
My presence will afford them no relief,
That beast I strive to chase is only grief.
Mel. What mean thy folded arms, thy down-

cast eyes,

Tears which so fast descend, and sighs which rise? What mean thy words, which so distracted fall As all thy joys had now one funeral?

Cause for such grief, can our retirements yield? That follows courts, but stoops not to the field. Hath thy stern step-dame to thy sire reveal'd Some youthful act, which thou couldst wish conceal'd?

Part of thy herd hath some close thief convey'd From open pastures to a darker shade?

Part of thy flock hath some fierce torrent drown'd? Thy harvest fail'd, or Amarillis frown'd?

Hyl. Nor love nor anger, accident nor thief,
Hath rais'd the waves of my unbounded grief:
To cure this cause, I would provoke the ire
Of my fierce step-dame or severer sire,
Give all my herds, fields, flocks, and all the grace
That ever shone in Amarillis' face.

Alas, that bard, that glorious bard is dead,
Who, when I whilom cities visited,

Hath made them seem but hours, which were full days,

Whilst he vouchsafed me his harmonious lays : And when he lived, I thought the country then A torture, and no mansion, but a den.

Mel. JONSON you mean, unless I much do err, I know the person by the character.

Hyl. You guess aright, it is too truly so, From no less spring could all these rivers flow. Mel. Ah, Hylas! then thy grief I cannot call A passion, when the ground is rational.

I now excuse thy tears and sighs, though those
To deluges, and these to tempests rose:
Her great instructor gone, I know the age
No less laments than doth the widow'd stage,
And only vice and folly, now are glad,
Our gods are troubled, and our prince is sad:
He chiefly who bestows light, health, and art,
Feels this sharp grief pierce his immortal heart,
He his neglected lyre away hath thrown,
And wept a larger, nobler Helicon,

To find his herbs, which to his wish prevail,
For the less love should his own favourite fail:
So moan'd himself when Daphne he ador'd,
That arts relieving all, should fail their lord.