Lucasta [7]
seems to explain the following allusion by Dudley Lovelace in the verses prefixed by him to LUCASTA, 1649:--
"Those by the landed have been writ, Mine's but a younger-brother wit."
As well as the subjoined lines by Lovelace in the poem entitled, "To Lucasta, from Prison," (see p. 44 of present edition):--
"Next would I court my LIBERTY, And then my birthright, PROPERTY."
There is evidence to prove that Lovelace was on intimate terms with some of the wits of his time, and that he had friendly relations with many of them--such as Hall, Rawlins, Lenton, and particularly the Cottons. John Tatham, the City Poet, and author of THE FANCIES THEATER, 1640, knew him well, and addressed to him some stanzas, not devoid of merit, during his stay abroad. In 1643, Henry Glapthorne, a celebrated dramatist and poet of the same age, dedicated to Lovelace his poem of WHITEHALL, printed in that year in a quarto pamphlet, with elegies on the Earls of Bedford and Manchester.<2.27> The pages of LUCASTA bear testimony to the acquaintance of the author with Anthony Hodges of New College, Oxford, translator of CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE from the Greek of Achilles Tatius (or rather probably from a Latin version of the original), and with other<2.28> members of the University.<2.29>
Although it is stated by Wood that LUCASTA was prepared for the press by Lovelace himself, on his return from the Continent in 1648, it is impossible to believe that any care was bestowed on the correction of the text, or on the arrangement of the various pieces which compose the volume: nor did his brother Dudley Posthumus, who edited the second part of the book in 1659, perform his task in any degree better. In both instances, the printer seems to have been suffered to do the work in his own way, and very infamously he has done it. To supply all the short-comings of the author and his literary executor at this distance of time, is, unfortunately, out of the power of any editor; but in the present republication I have taken the liberty of rearranging the poems, to a certain extent in the order in which it may be conjectured that they were written; and where Lovelace contributed commendatory verses to other works, either before or after the appearance of the first portion of LUCASTA, the two texts have been collated, and improved readings been occasionally obtained.
The few poems, on which the fame of Lovelace may be said to rest, are emanations not only of the stirring period in which he lived, but of the peculiar circumstances into which he was thrown at different epochs of his life. Lovelace had not the melodious and exquisite taste of Herrick, the wit of Suckling, or the power of Randolph (so often second only to his master Jonson). Mr. Singer has praised the exuberant fancy of Lovelace; but, in my thinking, Lovelace was inferior in fancy, as well as in grace, both to Carew and the author of HESPERIDES. Yet Lovelace has left behind him one or two things, which I doubt if any of those writers could have produced, and which our greatest poets would not have been ashamed to own. Winstanley was so far right in instituting a comparison between Lovelace and Sydney, that it is hard to name any one in the entire circle of early English literature except Sydney and Wither, who could have attempted, with any chance of success, the SONG TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON; and how differently Sydney at least would have handled it! We know what Herrick would have made of it; it would have furnished the theme for one more invocation to Julia. From Suckling we should have had a bantering playfulness, or a fescennine gaiety, equally unsuited to the subject. Waller had once an opportunity of realizing the position, which has been described by his contemporary in immortal stanzas; but Waller, when he was under confinement, was thinking too much of his neck to write verses with much felicity, and preferred waiting, till he got back to Beaconsfield (when his inspiration had evaporated), to pour out his feelings to Lady Dorothy or Lady Sophia. Wither's song,
"Those by the landed have been writ, Mine's but a younger-brother wit."
As well as the subjoined lines by Lovelace in the poem entitled, "To Lucasta, from Prison," (see p. 44 of present edition):--
"Next would I court my LIBERTY, And then my birthright, PROPERTY."
There is evidence to prove that Lovelace was on intimate terms with some of the wits of his time, and that he had friendly relations with many of them--such as Hall, Rawlins, Lenton, and particularly the Cottons. John Tatham, the City Poet, and author of THE FANCIES THEATER, 1640, knew him well, and addressed to him some stanzas, not devoid of merit, during his stay abroad. In 1643, Henry Glapthorne, a celebrated dramatist and poet of the same age, dedicated to Lovelace his poem of WHITEHALL, printed in that year in a quarto pamphlet, with elegies on the Earls of Bedford and Manchester.<2.27> The pages of LUCASTA bear testimony to the acquaintance of the author with Anthony Hodges of New College, Oxford, translator of CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE from the Greek of Achilles Tatius (or rather probably from a Latin version of the original), and with other<2.28> members of the University.<2.29>
Although it is stated by Wood that LUCASTA was prepared for the press by Lovelace himself, on his return from the Continent in 1648, it is impossible to believe that any care was bestowed on the correction of the text, or on the arrangement of the various pieces which compose the volume: nor did his brother Dudley Posthumus, who edited the second part of the book in 1659, perform his task in any degree better. In both instances, the printer seems to have been suffered to do the work in his own way, and very infamously he has done it. To supply all the short-comings of the author and his literary executor at this distance of time, is, unfortunately, out of the power of any editor; but in the present republication I have taken the liberty of rearranging the poems, to a certain extent in the order in which it may be conjectured that they were written; and where Lovelace contributed commendatory verses to other works, either before or after the appearance of the first portion of LUCASTA, the two texts have been collated, and improved readings been occasionally obtained.
The few poems, on which the fame of Lovelace may be said to rest, are emanations not only of the stirring period in which he lived, but of the peculiar circumstances into which he was thrown at different epochs of his life. Lovelace had not the melodious and exquisite taste of Herrick, the wit of Suckling, or the power of Randolph (so often second only to his master Jonson). Mr. Singer has praised the exuberant fancy of Lovelace; but, in my thinking, Lovelace was inferior in fancy, as well as in grace, both to Carew and the author of HESPERIDES. Yet Lovelace has left behind him one or two things, which I doubt if any of those writers could have produced, and which our greatest poets would not have been ashamed to own. Winstanley was so far right in instituting a comparison between Lovelace and Sydney, that it is hard to name any one in the entire circle of early English literature except Sydney and Wither, who could have attempted, with any chance of success, the SONG TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON; and how differently Sydney at least would have handled it! We know what Herrick would have made of it; it would have furnished the theme for one more invocation to Julia. From Suckling we should have had a bantering playfulness, or a fescennine gaiety, equally unsuited to the subject. Waller had once an opportunity of realizing the position, which has been described by his contemporary in immortal stanzas; but Waller, when he was under confinement, was thinking too much of his neck to write verses with much felicity, and preferred waiting, till he got back to Beaconsfield (when his inspiration had evaporated), to pour out his feelings to Lady Dorothy or Lady Sophia. Wither's song,