HENRY TUBBE, 1648-54.

Th' Example of his Conversation
With fuch an high, illuftrious vigour shone,
The blackest Fangs of base Detraction
Had nothing to traduce or faften on.
His very Lookes did fairely edifie;

Not mask'd with forms of falfe Hypocrifie:
A gracefull Afpect, a Brow smooth'd with Love,
The Curls of Venus, with the Front of Jove;
An Eye like Mars, to threaten & command
More than the Burnish'd Scepter in his Hand:
A Standing like the Herald Mercurie ;
A Gesture humbly proud, & lowly high;
A Mountaine rooted deepe, that kiff'd the Skie,
A Combination and Formalitie

Of reall Features twisted in a String

Of rich Ingredients, fit to make a King.

Harleian MS. 4126, leaf 50 (or 51 by the 2nd numbering),
back. Epistles, Poems, Characters, &c., 1648-1654, by Hy.
Tubbe of St. John's College, Cambridge: from Eleg. VI on
"The Roiall Martyr," Charles I.

[The Passage was first pointed out by Mr. Halliwell, and was sent by me
to the first number of the new monthly, the Antiquary. It is somewhat
odd, that though Tubbe uses Shakspere's lines on Hamlet's Father-

See what a grace was seated on his Brow,
Hyperions curles, the front of Ioue himselfe,
An eye like Mars, to threaten or command
A Station, like the Herald Mercurie

New lighted on a heauen-kissing hill :

A Combination and a forme indeed,

Where euery God did seeme to set his Seale,

To giue the world assurance of a man.

1st Folio, Trag., p. 271, col. I,

yet he doesn't name Shakspere as one of the Learned Ghosts who are to greet him and his friend in Elysium, lf. 37 (or 39), back: "the great Shadow of Renowned BEN," and "Ingenious Randolph" are the only two specified for that honour.-F. J. F.]

1 Epistles I. f. 37, 39.

Our Spirits shall intermix, & weaue their knots;
Free from the trouble of these earthly Grotts;
Thence winged flie to the Elysian groves,

Where, whilst wee still renew our constant Loves,
A Thousand Troops of Learned Ghosts shall meet
Us, and our Comming thither gladly greet.

First the Great Shadow of Renowned BEN
Shall giue us hearty, joyfull Wellcome: then
Ingenious Randolph from his lovely Arms
Shall entertaine us with such mighty charms
Of Strict Embraces, that wee cannot wish
For any comforts greater than this Blisse.

[back]

ANON. 1649.

Here to evince that scandal has been thrown
Upon a name of honour; charactred

From a wrong perfon, coward and buffoon;
Call in your cafy faiths, from what you've read
To laugh at Falftaffe; as a humour fram'd
To grace the flage, to pleafe the age, mifnam'd.
No longer please your felves to injure names
Who lived to honour: if, as who dare breathe
A fyllable from Harry's choice, the Fames,
Conferr'd by Princes, may redeem from death?
Live Faftolffe then; whofe Truft and Courage once
Merited the first Government in France.

Stanza 136. 139

Tpivapxwdia: The several Reigns of Richard II, Henry
IV, and Henry V, MS. 8vo., 1649, in Hen. V.

howe'er the heaps

May crowd, in hungry expectation all,

To the Sweet Nugilogues of Jack and Hal.

ib. Stanza 138.

Then, from his bounty, blot out what may rife
Of comic mirth, to Falftoff's prejudice.

Stanza 140.

The first two stanzas above are from William Oldys's Life of Sir John Fastolf in "A General / Dictionary, / Historical and Critical: / in which / A New and Accurate Translation / of that of the Celebrated / Mr. Boyle, /

with the Corrections and Observations printed / in the late Edition at Paris, is included, and interspersed with several thousand Lives never before published. /. London. M D CC XXXVII. vol. 5, p. 195, note. Oldys says that as Shakspere's trespass was poetical, we shall end with a poetical animadversion taken from an original Historical Poem on Three of our Kings; in the possession of the writer of this article. Herein the Poet has five stanzas of reproof for this liberty taken on the Stage in derogation of our Knight; but, for brevity, shall at present repeat only these two,” those above.

In his article on Fastolff1 in the Biographia Britannica, 1793, Oldys quotes the few more lines, given above, from two more of the 5 stanzas he names in his first article. Yowell, in his account of Oldys in 3 N. & Q. i. 85 (Feb. 1, 1862), has a note by Bolton Corney, saying that the MS. of the Trinarchodia passt into the hands of "J. P. Andrews: Park describes it, Restituta, iv. 166.”

The first 2 stanzas above were quoted by Mr. Halliwell in his Character of Falstaff, 1841, p. 44, as from "An anonymous and inedited poet of the early part of the seventeenth century, whose MS. works were formerly in the possession of Oldys," with no other reference. This designedly vague way of referring to other men's quotations—when he refers to em at all—is Mr. Halliwell's normal one, and cannot be too strongly condemnd. It is unfair to the original quoter, and unfair to the reader, on whom is thrown the nuisance of a long search when he wants to find the original quotation, and remove Mr. H.'s later needless alterations of italics, &c. in it.-F. J. F.

1 Said in the B. Mus. Cat. to be revised and enlarged by Nicols.

Anonymous, 1649.

THE
PROLOGUE

TO THE

GENTRY.

Through rte Cher, Shurly want

Hough Johnfon, Shakespeare, Goffe, and Devenant,

The life of action, and their learned lines
Are loathed, by the Monsters of the times;
Yet your refined Soules, can penetrate
Their depth of merit, and excuse their Fate:

[Sig. A 2, 1. 3.]

In

The Famous Tragedie | of | King Charles I. | .
which is Included, | The several Combinations and
machinations that brought that incomparable Prince to
the Block, ... Printed in the year, 1649. p. 4.
[Dated in ink May 26.]

The play is full of classical allusions of all kinds, but particularly with allusions to the Trojan War. The references to Venus and her son (pp. 4, 34), to Thersites (p. 25), to Cleopatra, said to "dissolve inestimable precious Stones in every glasse of luscious Wine" (p. 33), and to Paris (p. 38), cannot be considered allusions to Shakspere. The fourth line of the passage printed above is a reference to the Puritan hatred of the stage. This Allusion was pointed out by Morris Jonas in Notes and Queries, 7th Series, vol. x, p. 4, col. 2. M.