Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/438

 are lost; therefore, prethee, dere brother, send them me agane and I hope they will have better locke. Ah when shall I see you."—"Mr Fanshaw sent us word he went within two dayes, and soe I was fayne to send won up secretly to him post with a box which I hope he will saefely bring you; for I was soe desirus you might have it by him, because I know not when I should get it so saefly convay'd to you."

Colton, the place from which these letters are dated, and where Sir R. Fanshaw wrote the poems, was a seat of Lord Aston's, about six miles from Tixall. It was, according to Pennant, a magnificent old mansion, and contained eighty lodging rooms; but it was burnt to the ground, a few years after this time, by the carelessness of a servant. On the spot where it stood, which commands a delightful view of the river, and vale, of Trent, there is now a farmhouse, the property of Lord Viscount Anson, of Shugborough.

During Lord Aston's absence in Spain, it appears to have been the occasional residence of his three daughters, Lady Persall, Gertrude Aston, afterwards Mrs Henry Thimelby, (who in the letter is called my sister Gatt,) and Mrs Fowler.

When Sir R. Fanshaw had this "Dreame," he certainly was sleeping on the same part of Parnassus, as Spenser was on, when he wrote his "Prothalamion, or a Spousall Verse," as I think will appear by the following extract:

"With that I saw two swannes of goodly hewe, Come softly swimming downe along the lee; The snow which doth the top of Pindus strew, Did never whiter shew, Nor Jove himselfe, when he a swan would be For love of Leda, whiter did appeare; Yet Leda was, (they say) as white as he, Yet not so white as these, nor nothing near."

And soon after he mentions the

lovely fowles, Which through the skie draw Venus' silver teeme.