Notes and Queries, Number 13, January 26, 1850Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 13, January 26, 1850
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
It was "Printed at London by E.A.," i.e. Edward Allde, without date; and
it may have been duly noticed by the last editor of _The Complete
Angler_. However, neither this nor Heber's MS. throw any new light upon
the small tract (in 8vo., and of perhaps not more than two sheets) with
the title of which I commenced, and regarding which I request
information. It is a poem in eight-line stanzas, and it is dedicated, at
the back of the title-page, "To his honourable Master, Sir Richard
Wenman, Knight," without another word addressed to his patron.
My fragment of four leaves, or half an 8vo. sheet, contains stanzas (one
on each page), numbered 5, 6, 7, 8. 13, 14.; and the earliest of them is
this:--
"To you I therefore weepe: To you alone
I shew the image of your teares, in mine;
That mine (by shewing your teares) may be show'n
To be like yours, so faithfull so divine:
Such as more make the publique woe their owne,
Then their woe publique, such as not confine
Themselves to times, nor yet forms from examples borrow:
Where losse is infinit, there boundlesse is the sorrow."
I have preserved even the printer's punctuation, for the sake of more
perfect identification, if any of your readers are acquainted with the
existence of a copy of the production, or of any portion of it. The
above stanza, being numbered "5," of course it was preceded by four
others, of which I can give no account. Another stanza, from this
literary and bibliographical rarity, may not be unacceptable; it is the
eighth--
"Here then run forth thou River of my woes
In cease lesse currents of complaining verse:
Here weepe (young Muse) while elder pens compose
More solemne Rites unto his sacread Hearse.
And, as when happy earth did, here, enclose
His heavn'ly minde, his Fame then Heav'n did pierce.
Now He in Heav'n doth rest, now let his Fame earth fill;
So, both him then posses'd: so both possesse him still."
Therefore, although Basse had written his _Sword and Buckler_ in 1602
(if it were the same man), he still called his Muse "young" in 1613. I
cannot call to mind any precedent for the form of stanza adopted by him,
consisting, as it does, of six ten-syllable lines, rhyming alternately,
followed by a twelve-syllable couplet. None of the other stanzas contain
personal matter; the grief of the author of _Great Britain's Sun's-set_
seems as artificial as might be expected; and his tears were probably
brought to the surface by the usual pecuniary force-pump.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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