Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/348

334 family, from whom two of the English kings descended. The etymology of the name of Pye, is ap Hugh, the letter u having the same sound in Welch as y; the family conformed to the Welch manner, from residing near that Principality; they bear for their arms, ermine, a bend lozengy, gules. William Pye came over with the Norman Conqueror; and his family became champions to the first kings of that race. Hugh Pye, probably his son, was lord of Kilpec Castle, in the Mynde Park, in Herefordshire; he had two sons, Thomas Pye de Kilpec and John."

The family ancient, as it was, had an additional lustre thrown on it when one of the Laureate's ancestors married the daughter of John Hampden. His father was Auditor of the Exchequer in the reign of James I. It was therefore his duty to pay to Ben Jonson the income (or rather part of it, for the marks had not then been increased to pounds), which his descendant afterwards received. There is a mendicant poetical epistle of the elder Laureate to Sir Robert Pye, to be found in Jonson's works.

"Father John Burgess, Necesity urges My woeful cry To Sir Robert Pie; And that he will venture To send my debenture. Tell him his Ben Knew the time when He loved the Muses; Though now he refuses To take apprehension Of a year's pension, And more is behind: Put him in mind Christmas is near, And neither good cheer, Mirth, fooling, or wit, Nor any least fit