[_An Elegy upon my best friend._] King's 'best friend' (or, as a MS. gives it, 'worthiest') was Katharine Stanhope, daughter of John Lord Stanhope of Harrington. Her husband, Robert Cholmondeley, successively created an Irish Viscount, an English Baron (his surname serving as title in each case), and Earl of Leinster, died very shortly after her and before the Restoration. There is a MS. sermon on her death attributed to King, but doubted by Hannah. The poem itself, unlike the next but like the three which follow that, appears printed in the 1664 issue. And it is, on the principles of this collection, not unimportant to notice that in these later printed pieces the irrational prodigality of capitals which, as has been noted, is absent from _1657_, reappears. There could be no stronger evidence that these things have nothing to do with the author, and are not worth reproducing.] [Line: 12 The original bestows a capital even upon 'Alive'--a thing capital in another way as illustrating the utter unreason of the practice.] [Lines: 15-18 Absent in _MS._] [Line: 36 Orig. 'nev'r'--a form unpronounceable but not uninteresting.] [Line: 40 your] _MS._ 'the'.] [Line: 43 crosses] _MS._ 'sorrows'.] _On the Earl of Essex._ [Died September 14, 1646.] Essex, twice made unhappy by a wife, Yet married worse unto the People's strife: He who, by two divorces, did untie His bond of wedlock and of loyalty: Who was by easiness of nature bred, To lead that tumult which first him misled; Yet had some glimm'ring sparks of virtue, lent To see (though late) his error, and repent: Essex lies here, like an inverted flame, Hid in the ruins of his house and name; 10 And as he, frailty's sad example, lies, Warns the survivors in his exequies. He shows what wretched bubbles great men are, Through their ambition grown too popular: For they, built up from weak opinion, stand On bases false as water, loose as sand. Essex in differing successes tried The fury and the falsehood of each side; Now with applauses deified, and then, Thrown down with spiteful infamy again:-- 20 Tells them, what arts soever them support, Their life is merely Time and Fortune's sport, And that no bladders, blown by common breath, Shall bear them up amidst the waves of Death: