in old servants who have received too much countenance, I am sure hath allwaies proceeded from the zeale and warmth of the most sincere affection and duty.

"I hope your majesty believes that the sharp chastisement I have received from the best natured and most bountifull master in the world, and whose kindnesse alone made my condition these many years supportable, hath enough mortifyed me as to this world and that I have not the presumption, or the madnesse, to imagyne or desire ever to be admitted to any employment or trust againe: but I do most humbly beseech your majesty by the memory of your father, who recommended me to you, with some testimony; and by your owne gracious reflection upon some one service I may have performed in my life, that hath been acceptable to you; that you will, by your royall power and interposition, putt a stop to this severe prosecution against me; and that my concernement may give no longer interruption to the great affaires of your kingdome; but that I may spend the small remainder of my life, which cannot hold long, in some parts beyond the seas, never to returne, where I will pray for your majesty, and never suffer the least diminution in the love and obedience of,

4 Another supplicating letter from the earl of Clarendon to Charles the second, written in his exile, seven years after, and dated Rouen, August 29. 1674, was printed in the Supplement to the Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii. p. xliv. His lordship patheti

Prefixed to the Tragedy of Albovine, 1629.

TO HIS FRIEND MR. WILLIAM D'AVENANT.

"Why should the fond ambition of a friend,
With such industrious accents strive to lend
A prologue to thy worth? Can ought of mine
Inrich thy volume? Th' hast rear'd thyself a shrine
Will out-live piramids : marble pillars shall,
Ere thy great muse, receive a funerall.

Thy wit hath purchas'd such a patron's name
To deck thy front, as must derive to fame
These tragick raptures, and indent with eyes
To spend hot teares t' inrich the sacrifice.

"ED. HYDE."

Printed with the 1st edit. of Donne's Poems, 1633.

" ON THE DEATH OF DR. DONNE.

"I cannot blame those men that knew thee well,
Yet dare not helpe the world to ring thy knell
In tunefull elegies; there's not language knowne
Fit for thy mention, but 't was first thy owne;
The epitaphs thou writ'st have so bereft
Our tongue of wit, there is not phansie left
Enough to weepe thee; what henceforth we see
Of art or nature, must result from thee.

There may perchance some busie gathering friend
Steale from thy owne workes, and that, varied, lend

cally implores the king's leave to return, and beg his bread in England; pleading, for his innocent children's sake, that he will give them their father again, and not suffer them to be complete orphans before nature hath made them so.

Which thou bestow'st on others, to thy hearse,
And so thou shalt live still in thine owne verse;
Hee that shall venture farther, may commit
A pitied errour, shew his zeale not wit.

Fate hath done mankinde wrong; Vertue may aime
Reward of conscience, never can, of fame;
Since her great trumpet's broke, could onely give
Faith to the world, command it to beleeve;

Hee then must write, that would define thy parts,
Here lyes the best divinitie all the arts.

"EDW. HYDE."7

At the death of Dr. Donne, Mr. Hyde could not be more than twenty-three; dazzled, therefore, by the false taste of the poet he celebrated, his verses exhibit too servile an imitation of that laboured wit, tortured sentiment, and inharmonious chime, which constituted what Dr. Johnson suitably termed "metaphysical poetry."]

7 In a casual conversation with the observant Mr. Reed, before this sheet proceeded to press, he suggested a slight doubt whether these pieces of poetry attached to chancellor Clarendon ; it being possible that they might belong to E. Hyde, a contributor to Cambridge Verses in 1635, (whereas lord Clarendon was an Oxford-man); and who has another copy of encomiastic lines to "his most dear and ingenious friend Thos. Randolph," before the Jealous Lovers, a comedy, printed in 1632. This is a family appeal, which some abler genealogist must be left to decide upon.

ANNE,

COUNTESS OF DORSET

AND

PEMBROKE.

THIS high-born and high-spirited lady was heiress of the Cliffords, earls of Cumberland, and was first married to Richard, earl of Dorset, whose life and actions she celebrated. Her second match was not so happy, being soon parted from her lord, that memorable simpleton Philip, earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, with whom Butler has so much diverted himself. Anne the countess was remarkably religious, magnificent, and disposed

The first wife of this earl was Susan, daughter of the earl of Oxford. I find a book set forth in her name, called “ The Countess of Montgomery's Eusebia, expressing briefly the Soul's praying Robes, by Newton, 1620." Vide Harl. Catal. vol. i. p. 100. [This earl, says Osborn, left nothing to testify his manhood but a beard, and children by that daughter of the last great earl of Oxford, whose lady was brought to his bed under the notion of his mistress, and from such a virtuous deceit she is said to proceed. In No. 412 of the Harl. Catalogue of printed books, a copy of Webb's Antiquities of Stonehenge is described with Notes, by Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.]

ANNE COUNTESS of DORSET & PEMBROKE,

from a Painting in Miniature by Ozias Humphry Esq. RA after the Original at Knowle.