Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/162

 146 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES satisfying letters, to subscribe bills of exchange." This letter enclosed several poems, among which were two from Falkland, then Sir Lucius Gary ; the first being, "An Anniversary Epistle on Sir Henry Morison, with an Apostrophe to my father Jonson," and the other, an " Epistle to his noble father Ben." Falkland, in the letter accompanying, speaks most modestly of his verses : " What is ill in them (which I fear is all) belongs only to myself; if there be any- thing tolerable, it is somewhat you dropt negligently one day at The Dog, and I took it up." Morison died young in 1629 or 1630, just before Gary, then twenty, married his sister Letitia, of whom Glarendon says : " She was a lady of a most extraordinary wit and judgment, and of the most signal virtue and exemplary life that the age produced, and who brought him many hopeful children in which he took great delight." "Underwoods," Ixxxviii., as termed, "A Pindaric Ode to the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Gary and Sir H. Morison," being written on the early death of the latter. Here is the second antistrophe : — "Alas ! but Morison fell young : He never fell, — thou fall'st, my tongue. He stood a soldier to the last right end, A perfect patriot, and a noble friend ; But most a virtuous son. All offices were done By him so ample, full, and round, In weight, in measure, number, sound, As, though his age imperfect miglit appear, His life was of humanity the sphere." The third strophe has been often quoted : —