Part 38 (1/2)

The Amoret of these _Poems_ may or may not be the Etesia of _Thalia Rediviva_; and she may or may not have been the poet's first wife. _Cf._ _Introduction_ (vol. i, p. x.x.xiii).

_To her white bosom._ _Cf._ _Hamlet_, ii. 2, 113, where Hamlet addresses a letter to Ophelia, ”in her excellent white bosom, these.”

P. 12. Song.

The MS. variant readings to this and to two of the following poems are written in pencil on a copy of the _Poems_ in the British Museum, having the press-mark 12304, a 24. There is no indication of their author, or of the source from which they are taken.

P. 13. To Amoret.

_The vast ring._ _Cf._ _Silex Scintillans_ (vol. i., pp. 150, 284).

P. 18. _A Rhapsodis._

_The Globe Tavern._ This appears to have been near, or even a part of, the famous theatre. There exists a forged letter of George Peele's, in which it is mentioned as a resort of Shakespeare's, but there is no authentic allusion to it by name earlier than an entry in the registers of St. Saviour's, Southwark, for 1637. An ”alehouse” is, however, alluded to in a ballad on the burning of the old Globe in 1613. (Rendle and Norman, _Inns of Old Southwark_, p. 326.)

_Tower-Wharf to Cymbeline and Lud_; that is, from the extreme east to the extreme west of the City. Statues of the mythical kings of Britain were set up in 1260 in niches on Ludgate. They were renewed when the gate was rebuilt in 1586. It stood near the Church of St. Martin's, Ludgate.

_That made his horse a senator_; _i.e._ Caligula. _Cf._ Suetonius Vit.

Caligulae, 55: ”_Incitato equo, cuius causa pridie circenses, ne inquietaretur, viciniae silentium per milites indicere solebat, praeter equile marmoreum et praesepe eburneum praeterque purpurea tegumenta ac monilia e gemmis, domum etiam et familiam et suppellectilem dedit, quo lautius nomine eius invitati acciperentur; consulatum quoque traditur destina.s.se._”

_he that ... crossed Rubicon_, _i.e._ Julius Caesar.

P. 21. To Amoret.

The third stanza is closely modelled on Donne; _cf._ Introduction (vol.

i., p. xxi). The curious reader may detect many other traces of Donne's manner of writing in these _Poems_ of 1646.

P. 23. To Amoret Weeping.

_Eat orphans ... patent it._ The ambition of a courtier under the Stuarts was to get the guardians.h.i.+p of a royal ward, or the grant of a monopoly in some article of necessity. Dr. Grosart quotes from Tustin's _Observations; or, Conscience Emblem_ (1646): ”By me, John Tustin, who hath been plundered and spoiled by the patentees for white and grey soap, eighteen several times, to his utter undoing.”

P. 26. Upon the Priory Grove, his usual Retirement.

Mr. Beeching, in the _Introduction_ (vol. i., p. xxiii), states following Dr. Grosart, that the Priory Grove was ”the home of a famous poetess of the day, Katherine Phillips, better known as 'the Matchless Orinda.'” Vaughan was certainly a friend of Mrs. Phillips (_cf._ pp.

100, 164, 211, with notes), whose husband, Colonel James Phillips, lived at the Priory, Cardigan; but she was not married until 1647.

Miss Morgan points out that there is still a wood on the outskirts of Brecon which is known as the Priory Grove. It is near the church and remains of a Benedictine Priory on the Honddu.

P. 28. Juvenal's Tenth Satire Translated.

This translation has a separate t.i.tle-page; _cf._ the _Bibliography_ (vol. ii., p. lvii).

OLOR ISCa.n.u.s.