Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/459

 o* s. iv. dec. 16, -99.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 491 Li IN DON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER IB, 1899. CONTENTS.-No. 103. NOTES :—An Unclaimed Poem by Ben Jonson, 491—' Pick- wickian Studies,' 492—The Poet Parnell—Helib Family- Embalming Milk—Did Wellington and Nelson ever Meet ? —"Middiin'," 495—First Folio of Shakespeare—" Horn- ing"—"The Appearance"—"Peccary," 496. QUERIES :—" Bridge "—Duel In 1698 (?) - Phineas Cock- rane-Venn : Mountford—" Up, Guards, and at them! "— Arms on Book-plate-English Mile —Palm Wine, 497— Newman and 'N. & Q.'—Garrard, Master of the Charter- house—Cardinal Wardlaw—Buddha— " Lowestoft China" —Jewish Jesuits—Glastonbury Altars—Anonymous Poets in a ' Forget-me-not'—American Ship-name Wanted, 498 —" Mary had a little lamb "—Mrs. Hodges—Child's Book —"Marquee"—Coins in Foundation Stones - Stevenson Family—Companions of Cortes—Authors Wanted, 499. REPLIES : Oliver Cromwell and Music, 499-PIuto as God of Wealth, 501 -Flaxman's Wife—Albert Gate—Chimneys in Ancient Houses—Danish Place-names in Cheshire— Authorship of 'Red, White, and Blue,' 502—Christianity in Roman Britain—Scott's Scottish Dialect—" Ginns" in the Fylde, 503- Origin of English Coinage—Rent Services —Llvry-Epitaph in Prittlewell Church, 504-" My lodg- ing is on the cold ground," 605—"Tiffin"—Pewter and its Marks—Medal for Navarino—The Mint—" Nimmet," 506 —Dieskau—"Frail"—Poet's Immortality Self-predicted, 507—Surviving Word—"White-night "—Godfrey's Court —" In petto "—Coal Folk-lore—Holy Communion, 508. NOTES ON BOOKS:—'Benvenuto Cellini'—'The Daisy' —'The Cowslip'—'A New Riddle-Book'—Parry's 'The Scarlet Herring'—Thomson's ' Adventures of Beowulf— 'The docket Encyclopaedia'—'Journal of the Ex-Librls Society'—Magazines. Notices to Correspondents. AN UNCLAIMED POEM BY BEN JONSON. Ben Jonson has left so many writings behind him that some readers may be in- clined to say we have enough and to spare without adding to their number. But when they are told that the lines which I am about to quote and claim as his belong to a class of poetry in which he won pre-eminent distinction, and on which his fame mostly rests at the present day, they will, I feel sure, change their mind and gladly welcome the addition. It is not on his tragedies and comedies that this great writer's reputation is founded; it is on his shorter pieces, and especially on those of an elegiac character, in which he may be considered unapproached and almost unapproachable. For proof of this assertion I need only refer to his ' Epi- taph on Salathiel Pavy, a Child of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel,' the 'Epitaph on Eliza- beth, L. H.' (' Epigrams,' cxx. and exxiv.), his lines ' On the Portrait of Shakespeare,' and, above all, his ' Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke' ('Underwoods,' xi. and xv.), than which even he never wrote anything more exquisitely lovely. It is not, perhaps, with such immortal verses that the following deserve to be placed, but I think it will be granted that they are not unworthy of the author. They are quoted by William Camden ('Remaines concerning Britaine,' London, 1614, pp. 381-2), who says :— " For Prince Henry her grandchild,* of whose worth England seemed unworthy, many excellent Epitaphs were composed every where extant, but this have I selected s Reader, wonder thinke it none Though I spcake and am a stone. Here is shnnde caelestiall dust, And I keepe it but in trust. Should I not my Treasure tell, Wonder then you might as well, How this stone could choose but breake, If it had not learnt to speake. Hence amazd, and aske not mee, Whose these sacred ashes bee. Purposely it is conceald, For if that should be reveald, All that reade would by and by. Melt themselves to teares, and dy. Within this marble casket lies, A mathcles.se [matchlesse] iewell of rich prize, Whom Nature in the worlds disdaine, But shewd, and then put up againe." There cannot, I think, be the least doubt that these lines proceeded from Ben Jonson's prolific brain. They are similar in expres- sion and idea to those which I have men- tioned. The invocation to the " Reader " is especially characteristic, as any one ac- quainted with his poems will acknowledge. Camden does not give the writer's name. He quotes only two contemporary poets, Sam. Daniel and H. Holland, by name, but he was acquainted with the works of all the greatest, as may be seen from his own words:— " These may suffice for some Poeticall descrip- tions of our auncient Poets; if I would come to our own time, what a world could I present to you out of Sir Philip Sidney, Edw. Spencer, Samuel Daniel, Hugh Holland, Ben Iohnson, Thomas Campion, Mich. Drayton, George Chapman, Iohn Marston, William Shakespeare, and other most pregnant wits of these our times, whom succeeding ages may iustly admire."—' Remaines,' p. 324. Though he did not give the author's name, we may well believe, when we remember the friendship that ever existed between them, that Camden selected the above " epitaph " in compliment to his distinguished pupil. That may also explain why it was not in- cluded among his collected works. It would have been strange indeed if Jonson had failed to pay a poetical tribute to the memory of Prince Henry in the uni- of France, a Prineesse also incomparable for her princely endowments " (p. 379), and son of James I.; died "6 Nov., 1612, An. JEtat. 19, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, 12 Dec." (Salmon's ' Chrono- logical Historian,' London, 1733).
 * Grandchild of " Mary Queene of Scots, Dowager