VPON THE SUDDEN RESTRAINT OF THE EARL OF SOMERSET, THEN FALLING FROM FAVOUR. ["THE following verses," says Mr. Park,* " addressed to the lord Bacon, when falling from favour,' are too good to be immured in the obscure little volume whence they are now extracted." Then, after quoting this present piece from "Bacon's Felicity of Queen Elizabeth, &c. 1651, p. 158," he proceeds;-" Sir E. Brydges has observed to me, that the above verses were collected into Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, and bear a denotation of having been addressed to the earl of Somerset. I might add, however, that those denotations are of doubtful authority, and that the first edition of the Reliquiæ gave it no earlier appropriation than Bacon's Felicity, &c. Both books were published in the same year." This is mere trifling. Park is not even accurate; for the *Edit. of Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, ii. 208, note. title in Rel. Wotton. does not say that it was "addressed to the earl of Somerset," but that it was written "upon his sudden restraint:"--but there are graver faults in the passage; for first, the assertion that the "denotations" of Rel. Wotton." are of doubtful authority," is evidently made at random. Park shewed that he had not read that volume with much care, when he forgot that it contained the Poem, and needed to be reminded of it by Sir Egerton Brydges. His own copy of Rel. Wotton. is now before me; and though it contains several MS. notes, the reference to Bacon's Felicity among the rest,-not a single error in the Poetical part is pointed out.-Next, the publication of both books in 1651 goes for nothing; as the one was prepared by Izaak Walton, with Sir Henry's own papers in his hands; while the other was an unauthorized translation of Bacon's Latin tract, made, says Archbishop Tennison, by "a person of more good will than ability."*—Lastly, although the lines might be made to apply to Bacon, on the ground that his submission and consequent fall arose from obedience to the King's command, their application to Somerset is far more direct and obvious. Bacon's sentence was passed May 3: 1621 : Somerset was committed into custody, Oct. 18: 1615: and this latter event will give us the probable date of the Poem. Its imagery is singularly confused. The Variations are from two MS. copies. A=Archbishop Sancroft's Collection, MS. Tann. 465, fol. 61, vo. Title, "On the suddaine restraint of a Favourite." It is given to Wotton. B MS. Rawl. Poet. 147, p. 97. The title originally was, "Sr. H. W. (on ye Duke [sic] of Somer.)" but the other title, as in the former MS., was afterwards written in. Signature, "Sr. H. W."-The copy printed by Park nearly agrees with that in Rel. Wotton.] * See Montagu's Life of Bacon, Note 4 H. AZLED thus with height of place, [5] Then, since Fortunes favours fade, But if Greatness be so blind [10] As to trust in Towers of Air, Let it be with Goodness lin'd, That at least the Fall be fair. Then, though darkned, you shall say, [15] Vertue is the roughest way, · But proves at Night a Bed of Down. H. W. [VARIATIONS. 1: 'Thus dazzled'-A B. 'wth ye height'—A. -2. While'-B.-3. 'heeds'-B.-5. 'fortunes children'—A B. -9. Or if'-A B.-13. 'though broken he may say'-B. 'hee may say' also in A.-14. 'When freinds doe faile'-A. 'When freinds sinke'-B.-15. 'hardest way'—A B.-16. Butt at night'-A. 'Yet at night'-B.-Mr. Campbell has introduced two new variations into this Poem, (Spec. p. 158, second ed.) viz. 5. Yet since'—and 13. dark and'-.] * "They both slept long in the arms of Fortune." Parallel of Essex and Buckingham, Rel. Wotton. p. 182. [ACCORDING to a MS. note in the copy of Rel. Wotton. which belonged successively to Ritson and Park, this piece was "printed as early as 1614, with the fourth edit. of Overbury's Wife and Characters;" but it is not found in those copies of either the 4to. or 8vo. edit. of Overbury published in that year, which I have had an opportunity of examining.* Other traces of its existence occur soon afterwards; for Mr. Collier found a part of the first stanza at Dulwich, in the handwriting of Edward Alleyn, on a scrap of paper which contained, on the other side, a memorandum dated 1616. (Life of Alleyn, p. 54.) Jonson's visit to Drummond of Hawthornden is now known to have ended before January 17: 1619 and in his Conversations we find the remark, "Sir Edward [Henry] Wotton's verses of a happie lyfe, he [Jonson] hath by heart." (Laing's ed. p. 8.) Mr. Freeman is therefore in error when he says, "It may be presumed, * I do not know when it was first printed with Overbury. In the first ed. of the Reliques (i. 296.) Percy took it from an edit, of 1638. He had not then seen Rel. Wotton. that Sir Henry designed this as a picture of himself in his retirement" (Lives of Kentish Poets, i. 250); for the piece must have been written some time before he withdrew from active employment. The Variations in the different copies of these verses are unusually numerous. I have collected those of six, of which the first has been previously collated by Mr. Dyce. I believe that others might have been added; but their number is perhaps too great already.—A=a copy in Ben Jonson's handwriting, which Mr. Collier found among the Dulwich MSS. and printed in his Life of Alleyn, p. 53.—B=MS. Malone 13, fol. 11. Signature, “Sr. H. Wotton.”—C= MS. Malone 19, p. 138, where it is headed by Wotton's name.-D an old MS. Collection belonging to Mr. Pickering, fol. 115, vo. This copy has neither title nor signature.-E-a copy among the Poems appended to "Le Prince d'Amour," 1660. p. 134. Title, "Happiness." No signature.—F=Percy's Reliques, i. 333, ed. 1839, where it is printed from Rel. Wotton. ed. 1651, “compared with one or two other copies."] 鳳 OW happy is he born and taught, [5] Whose Passions not his Masters are; Who envies none that chance doth raise, [10] Nor Vice [; who never] understood |