Mys¦tical | gram¦mar of | am¦orous | glan¦ces;

Feel¦ing of | pul¦ses, the | phy¦sic of | love;

Rhetor¦ical | cour¦tings and | mu¦sical | dan¦ces;

Num¦bering of | kiss¦es a¦rith¦metic | prove;

Eyes ¦ like a|stron¦omy;

Straight-¦limbed ge|om¦etry;

In ¦ her art's | in¦geny

Our wits ¦ were | sharp ¦ and keen.

Ne¦ver Mark | An¦tony

Dal¦lied more | wan¦tonly

With the fair ¦ | Egypt¦ian | Queen.

(Trisyllabic rhythm either dactylic7or anapaestic8as may be on general principles preferred.) And this may have occurred to him even with the first as thus:

When ¦ as the | night¦ingale | chan¦ted her | ves¦pers.

Now which of these is to be preferred? and which did the author mean? (two questions which are not so identical as they may seem). My own answer, which I have already given elsewhere,9is that both are uncertain, and that he probably had each of the rhythms in his head, but confusedly.10

'Square Cap' is much less doubtful, or not doubtful at all, and it may be thought to prove the anapaestic-dactylic scansion, especially the anapaestic of 'Mark Antony'. For it will be observed that, even from the first two verses, you can get no iambic run, except of the most tumbling character, on the linehere.

Come hith|er, Apoll|o's bounc|ing girl,

And in | a whole hip|pocrene | of sherry

Let 's drink | a round | till our brains | do whirl,

Tu|ning our pipes | to make | ourselves merry.

A Cam|bridge lass, Ve|nus-like born | of the froth

Of an old | half-filled jug | of bar|ley broth,

She, she | is my mis|tress, her sui|tors are many,

But she'll | have a Square|-cap if e'er | she have any.

The problem is scarcely one for dogmatic decision, but it is one of some interest, and of itself entitles Cleveland to attention of the prosodic kind. For these pieces are quite early—before 1645—and a third, 'How the Commencement grows new' (q.v.), is undeniably trisyllabic and meant for some such a tune as the 'Sellenger's Round' which it mentions.

With such a combination of interests, political, historical, poetical (as regards school and period), and prosodic, it will hardly be denied that Cleveland deserves his place here. But I must repeat that I am here endeavouring to deal with him strictly on the general principles of this Collection, and am in no way trying to occupy the ground so as to keep out a more elaborate edition. I have had help from my friends Professors Firth and Case in information and correction of contemporary facts; but full comment on Cleveland, from the historical side, would nearly fill this volume: and the problems of the work attributed to him would suffice for a very substantial bibliographical monograph. Neither of these, nor any exhaustive apparatus, even of the textual kind, do I pretend to supply. I simply endeavour—and have spent not a little time and trouble in endeavouring—to provide the student and lover of English literature with an accessible copy, sufficient in amount and fairly trustworthy in substance, of a curious and memorable figure in English verse.11

1Poems of John Cleveland, by John M. Berdan, New York, 1903.

2It has been said that we ought to adopt this spelling because of its connexion with a district of Yorkshire, which, before it was ransacked for iron ore, was both wild and beautiful. But as everybody now spellsthis'Cleveland', and as the title derived from it has always been so spelt, the argument seems an odd one.

3I am not certain that I have seen a copy of this, and its existence has been denied: but I have certainly seen it catalogued somewhere. It should perhaps be added that1699is only1687with a fresh title.

4The most important treatments besides Johnson's, treatments usefully separated in date, are contained in theRetrospective Review(vol. xii), Mr. Gosse's remarks inFrom Shakespeare to Pope, and Mr. Berdan's in the edition above mentioned.

5They were both St. John's men; and Benlowes must have been a benefactor of the College (see Evelyn'sDiary) while Cleveland was Fellow. Also Cleveland's Poems had been published, and again and again republished, years beforeTheophilaappeared.

6TheRetrospectiveeulogist was deeply hurt by Cleveland's parodying this, and of course drags in Milton once more. 'Could one fancy Milton parodyingLycidas?' Now there is considerable difference between 'Mark Antony' andLycidas: nor did Cleveland, so far as we know, dream of parodying his own poem on King. If Milton had had the humour to parody some of his own work, it would have been much the better for him and for us. No doubt Cleveland's actual parody is rather coarse and not extraordinarily witty: but there is no more objection to it in principle than to Thackeray's two forms of the 'Willow Song' inOttilia.

7Marked by straight bars.

8Marked by dotted bars.

9History of English Prosody(London, 1906-10), vol. iii, app. iii.

10Veryconfusedly on the trisyllabic side or ear: for 'In th' ĕvenĭng' is a very awkward dactyl, and 'th' ĕvenīng whīsp' not a much cleverer anapaest, while the same remark applies to 'frāgrănt fĭeld' and 'wīth rōsĕs' and their anapaestic counterparts.

11The extraordinary complexity of the editions of Cleveland has been glanced at above. The following summary will at least give the reader some idea of the facts, and the two original Prefaces will extra-illustrate these facts with some views of causes. It need only be added here that the principle of the collection now given is, of course, to exclude everything that is certainlynotCleveland's: and, in giving what certainly and probably is his, to arrange the items as far as possible in the order of their publication in the author's lifetime, though the impossibility of working with an actually complete collection of all the issues before one may have occasioned some error here. In the following abstract only thePoemsare referred to, as they alone concern us.

The original collection is contained inThe Character of a London Diurnal[prose] with several selectPoems, London, 1647. This was reprinted in the same year and the next so often that some admitthirteendifferent issues (of course, as was usual at the time, sometimes only 'stop-press' batches with slight changes made in what is practically the same edition), while no one I think has allowed less thanfive. There are substantive additions in several of these, but the singular characteristic of the whole, and indeed of Cleveland's publishedPoemsgenerally, is that part of the matter, even in the very earliest issue, is certainly not his: and that in very early forms these pieces were coolly headed 'Uncertain Authors'. The extent to which this jumbling and misattributing went on in the seventeenth century is generally if not very precisely known from the famous cases ofSic Vita(v. inf., on Bishop King, &c.), and of the epitaph sometimes assigned to Browne, more usually to Jonson. Another almost equally strange, though perhaps not so commonly known, is the assignment of some of the poems of a writer of position like the dramatist James Shirley to Carew. But Cleveland must have been rather exceptionally careless of his work during his life, and he was treated with exceptional impudence (see Williamson'sPreface) after his death. The process went on in 1651, to which two issues are assigned, with three or four pretty certainly spurious additions, while 1653 and 1654 each saw two more, the last being printed again in 1656 and 1657. This last was also the last printed in Cleveland's lifetime.

But he was hardly dead when in 1659 two different issues, each of them many times reprinted, took the most astounding liberties with his name. The first foisted in more than thirty pieces by Robert Fletcher, the translator of Martial. The other, calling itselfCleveland Revived, contains the remarkable and perfectly frank explanation, given below, of the principles on which the work of Mr. Williamson was conducted, and the critical notions which directed his 'virtuous endeavours'.

From the disaster of this singular fashion of building a poet's monument out of the fragments of other people's work, Cleveland may be said to have never been entirely relieved. For though twenty years later, in 1677Clievelandi Vindiciae(Preface and full title again subjoined) undertook the task and provided a sort of standard (which may, however, be over-valued), ten years later still, in 1687, the purged collection was reissued with all the spurious matter from previous ones heaped again on it, and this, with a fresh reissue (new title-paged and with a pasted-on finis*) in 1699, appear to be the commonest copies that occur.

In such a tangle it is not easy to know how to proceed, and I had made and discarded several plans before I fixed upon that actually adopted. I have taken the edition of 1653, which, with its reprints almost unaltered to 1657, represents the latest text current during the author's life and during a full lustrum of that. The contents of this I have printed, putting its fewspuriain italic, in the order in which they there appear. Next, I have given a few additions from 1677 (the only one of the later accessible editions which even pretends to give Cleveland, the whole Cleveland, and nothing but Cleveland) and other sources. As was notified above, completeapparatus criticusis not attempted in a text with such a history, for this would only suit a complete edition of Cleveland's whole works: but variants of apparent importance are supplied. I should add that while I myself have for many years possessed thetextus quasi-receptusof 1677, the exceeding kindness of Mr. Case left on my shelves—for a time disgracefully long as far as I am concerned—copies of 1653 itself, 1654, 1659, 1662 (with the 'exquisite remains' of Dick, Tom, and Harry), 1665, 1668, 1669 (with the letters added), and theomnium gatherumsof 1687 and 1699. The Bodleian copies of thePoemsof 1647, 1651, 1653, 1654, 1657, 1659, 1662, 1668, 1669, 1677, 1687 have also been used to check the collations; and the stitched quartos ofThe King's Disguise(undated, but known to be 1647) and theNews from Newcastle, 1651. The British Museum broadside ofThe Scots' Apostasyhas also been collated. Mr. Berdan's edition I have already mentioned. I have treated the text, as far as modernization of spelling goes, on the same principles as in preceding volumes.†

*This is apparently peculiar to some, perhaps to one, copy. The British Museum, Bodleian, &c. copies have it not.

†Since the above Introduction was first written an additional revision of the texts has been made by Mr. Percy Simpson with assistance from Mr. Thorn-Drury, as referred to in the General Preface of this volume. There can be no doubt that their labours, superadded to those of Professor Case, have enabled me to put forth in this edition a text infinitely superior to any previous one, though my part of the credit is the least. Yet, after all, I dare say Cleveland remains, as he has been impartially described, 'a terrible tangle'.

As stated above, it has been thought better to follow the miscellaneous arrangement of1653than the classified but not strictly chronological one of1677. For those, however, who may desire it, the chronological order of thepoliticalpoems is here added: 1637-8,Princess Elizabeth's Birth; 1640,A Dialogue; 1641,Epitaph on Strafford,Smectymnuus,The King's Return; 1642,Rupertismus; 1643,Upon Sir Thomas Martin,The Mixed Assembly; 1643-4,The Rebel Scot,The Scots' Apostasy; 1645,The Hue and Cry,Elegy on Laud,The General Eclipse,The King's Disguise; 1649,Elegy on Charles I.

〈Prefixed toCleaveland Revived, 16591〉

Worthy Friend, there is a saying,Once well done, and ever done; the wisest men have so considerately acted in their times, as by their learned works to build their own monuments, such as might eternize them to future ages: our Jonson named his, Works, when others were called Plays, though they cost him much of the lamp and oil; yet he so writ, as to oblige posterity to admire them. Our deceased Hero, Mr. Cleveland, knew how to difference legitimate births from abortives, his mighty genius anvilled out what he sent abroad, as his informed mind knew how to distinguish betwixt writing much and well; a few of our deceased poet's pages being worth cartloads of the scribblers of these times. It was my fortune to be in Newark, when it was besieged, where I saw a few [some] manuscripts of Mr. Cleveland's. Amongst others I have heard that he writ of the Treaty at Uxbridge, as I have been informed since by a person I intrusted to speak with one of Mr. Cleveland's noble friends, who received him courteously, and satisfied his inquiries; as concerning the papers that were left in his custody, more particularly of the Treaty at Uxbridge, that it was not finished, nor any of his other papers fit for the press. They were offered to the judicious consideration of one of the most accomplished persons of our age, he refusing to have them in any further examination, as he did not conceive that they could be published without some injury to Mr. Cleveland; from which time they have remained sealed and locked up: neither can I wonder at this obstruction, when I consider the disturbances our author met with in the time of the siege, how scarce and bad the paper was, the ink hardly to be discerned on it. The intimacy I had with Mr. Cleveland before and since these civil wars, gained most of these papers from him, it being not the least of his misfortunes, out of the love he had to pleasure his friends, to be unfurnished with his own manuscripts, as I have heard him say often. He was not so happy as to have any considerable collection of his own papers, they being dispersed amongst his friends; some whereof when he writ for them, he had no other answer, but that they were lost, or through the often reading, transcribing, or folding of them, worn to pieces. So that though he knew where he formerly bestowed some of them, yet they were not to be regained. For which reason, the poems he had left in his hands being so few, [and] of so inconsiderable [small] a volume, he could not (though he was often solicited) with honour to himself give his consent to the publishing of them, though indeed most of his former printed poems were truly his own, except such as have been lately added, to make up the volume. At the first some few of his verses were printed with the2character of the London Diurnal, a stitched pamphlet in quarto.Afterwards, as I have heard Mr. Cleveland say, the copies of verses that he communicated to his friends, the book-seller by chance meeting with them, being added to his book, they sold him another impression; in like manner such small additions (though but a paper or two of his incomparable verses or prose) posted off other editions, [whereas this edition hath the happiness to flourish with the remainder of Mr. Cleveland's last never before printed pieces.] I acknowledge some few of these papers I received [many of these last new printed papers] from one of Mr. Cleveland's near acquaintance, which when I sent to his ever to be honoured friend of Grays-Inn, he had not at that time the leisure to peruse them; but for what he had read of them, he told the person I intrusted, that he did believe them to be Mr. Cleveland's, he having formerly spoken of such papers of his, that were abroad in the hands of his friends, whom he could not remember. My intention was to reserve the collection of these manuscripts for my own private use; but finding many of these I had in my hands already published in the former poems, not knowing what further proceedings might attend the forwardness of the press, I thought myself concerned, not out of any worldly [unworthy] ends of profit, but out of a true affection to my deceased friend, to publish these his never [other] before extant pieces in Latin and English and to make this to be somewhat [like] a volume for the study. Some other poems are intermixed, such as the reader shall find to be of such persons as were for the most part Mr. Cleveland's contemporaries; some of them no less eminently known to the three nations. I hope the world cannot be so far mistaken in his genuine muse, as not to discern his pieces from any of the other poems; neither can I believe there are any persons so unkind, as not candidly to entertain the heroic fancies of the other gentlemen that are worthily placed to live in this volume. Some of their poems, contrary to my expectation—I being at such a distance—I have since heard3were before in print, but as they are excellently good and so few, the [but in this second edition I have crossed them out, only reserving those that were excellently good, and never before extant. The] reader (I hope) will the more freely accept them. Thus having ingenuously satisfied thee in these particulars, I shall not need to insert more; but that I have, to prevent surreptitious editions, published this collection; that by erecting this Pyramid of Honour, I might oblige posterity to perpetuate their memories, which is the highest ambition of him, who is,

Newark. Nov. 21, 1658.

Yours in all virtuous endeavours,

E. Williamson.

1This singular production is, in the original, punctuated after a fashion very suitable, in its entire irrationality, to the sentiments of its writer; but I have taken the liberty (and no other) of relieving the reader of an additional burden by at least separating the sentences. The second edition of 1660 shows some alterations which are given above in brackets.

Whether Mr. Williamson was one of the most impudent persons in the world, or merely (which seems more probable) an abject fool, may be left to the reader to determine. The thing does not seem to require much, if any, annotation. The author, I think, is not otherwise known, and the name is common enough. The well-known Secretary Williamson must have been his contemporary, and may have had some connexion with our paragon besides that of Cavalier principles. Buthewas Joseph.

2'a character' 1662 (third edition).

3'I have since heard' omitted in 1662.

〈Prefixed toCleaveland Revived, 1660〉

Courteous Reader, thy free Acceptance of the former edition, encouraged me so far as to use my best diligence to gain what still remained in the hands of the Author's friends. I acknowledge myself to be obliged to Mr. Williamson, whose worthy example Mr. Cleveland's other honourers have since pursued. I shall not trouble thee, Reader, with any further Apologies, but only subscribe Mr. W. W. his last Verses in his following Elegy on Mr. Cleveland.

That Plagiary that can filch but oneConceit from Him, and keep the Theft unknown,At Noon from Phoebus, may by the same sleight,Steal Beams, and make 'em pass for his own light.

That Plagiary that can filch but one

Conceit from Him, and keep the Theft unknown,

At Noon from Phoebus, may by the same sleight,

Steal Beams, and make 'em pass for his own light.

Gentlemen,

That we interrupt your more serious studies with the offer of this piece, the injury that hath been and is done to the deceased author's ashes not only pleadeth our excuse, but engageth you (whose once he was, and within whose walls this standard of wit was first set up) in the same quarrel with us.

Whilst Randolph and Cowley lie embalmed in their own native wax, how is the name and memory of Cleveland equally profaned by those that usurp, and those that blaspheme it?—by those that are ambitious to lay their cuckoo's eggs in his nest, and those that think to raise up Phœnixes of wit by firing his spicy bed about him?

We know you have, not without passionate resentments, beheld the prostitution of his name in some late editions vended under it, wherein his orations are murthered over and over in barbarous Latin, and a more barbarous translation: and wherein is scarce one or other poem of his own to commute for all the rest. At least every Cuirassier of his hath a fulsome dragooner behind him, and Venus is again unequally yoked with a sooty anvil-beater. Cleveland thus revived dieth another death.

You cannot but have beheld with like zealous indignation how enviously our late mushroom-wits look up at him because he overdroppeth them, and snarl at his brightness as dogs at the Moon.

Some of these grand Sophys will not allow him the reputation of wit at all: yet how many such authors must be creamed and spirited to make up his Fuscara?2And how many of their slight productions may be gigged3out of one of his pregnant words? There perhaps you may find some leaf-gold, here massy wedges; there some scattered rays, here a galaxy; there some loose fancy frisking in the air, here Wit's Zodiac.

The quarrel in all this is upbraiding merit, and eminence his crime. His towering4fancy scareth so high a pitchthat they fly like shades below him. The torrent thereof (which riseth far above their high water mark) drowneth their levels. Usurping upon the State Poetic of the time, he hath brought in such insolent measures of Wit and Language that, despairing to imitate, they must study to understand. That alone is Wit with them to which they are commensurate, and what exceedeth their scantling5is monstrous.

Thus they deifie6his Wit and Fancy as the clown the plump oyster when he could not crack it. And now instead of that strenuous masculine style which breatheth in this author, we have only an enervous effeminate froth offered, as if they had taken the salivating pill before they set pen to paper. You must hold your breath in the perusal lest the jest vanish by blowing on.

Another blemish in this monster of perfection is the exuberance of his fancy. His manna lieth so thick upon the ground they loathe it. When he should only fan, he with hurricanos of wit stormeth the sense, and doth not so much delight his reader, as oppress and overwhelm him.

To cure this excess, their frugal wit hath reduced the world to a Lessian Diet.7If perhaps they entertain their reader with one good thought (as these new Dictators affect to speak) he may sit down and say Grace over it: the rest is words and nothing else.

We will leave them therefore to the most proper vengeance, to humour themselves with the perusal of their own poems: and leave the barber to rub their thick skulls with bran8until they are fit for musk. Only we will leave this friendly advice with them; that they have one eye upon John Tradescant's executor,9lest among his other Minims of Art and Nature he expose their slight conceits: and another upon the Royal Society, lest they make their poems the counterbalance when they intend to weigh air.

From these unequal censures we appeal to such competent judges as yourselves, in whose just value of him Cleveland shall live the wonder of his own, and the pattern of succeeding ages. And although we might (upon several accompts) bespeak your affections, yet (abstracting from these) we submit him to your severer judgements, and doubt not but he will find that patronage from you which is desired and expected by

Your humble Servants.

J. L. S. D.10

1Here we get intoterra cognitaas regards authorship. The editors had been, both of them, Cleveland's pupils at St. John's. 'J. L.' was John Lake (1624-1689), a man of great distinction—at this time Vicar of Leeds and Prebendary of York, later Bishop, first of Sodor and Man and then of Chichester, who while he held the last-named see had the double glory of withstanding James II as one of 'the Seven', and of refusing the Oath to William. 'S. D.' was also a Yorkshire clergyman—Samuel Drake—who had not only studied under Cleveland at Cambridge, but fought under him at Newark. He became Vicar of Pontefract; but (if theD.N.B.is right in assigning his death to the year 1673) his work on the great vindication of his tutor must have been done some time before publication. Francis Turner (1638-1700), of a much younger generation and an Oxford man, though admittedad eundemat Cambridge in 1662, had been Master of St. John's College since 1670, and was therefore properly selected as chief dedicatee. He was destined to be connected with Lake again in the great actions above noted as Bishop of Ely, and for the last ten years of his life was an active Jacobite agent.

2The description ofCleaveland Revivedin the third paragraph is perfectly just, and 'anvil-beater' is an obvious echo-gibe at Williamson's own phraseology. It is less certain what 'grand Sophys' are specially referred to further on—but Drydenmightbe one.

3A Clevelandish word;v. infra,p. 65(Rupertismus, l. 120).

4In orig., as often, 'touring', but to print this nowadays would invite misconception.

5'Scantling' is used in various senses. Either that of 'rough draft' or, as in Taylor, 'small piece' would do; but it is at least possible that it is not a noun at all, but a direct participle from the verb to 'scantle', found in Drayton, and meaning 'to be deficient', 'come short'. Some, however, prefer the sense 'dimension' or 'measurement', which would make it a sort of varied repetition of 'commensurate'.

6'Deifie' is of course wrong. 'Defy' is likeliest, and in a certain sense (frequent in Elizabethan writers) would do; but 'decry' seems wanted.

7A common phrase for an earlier 'Banting' regime derived from theHygiasticon(Antwerp, 1623) of Leonard Lessius (1554-1624). I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. Comrie, Lecturer on the History of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. The next sentence may, or rather must, be a reference to (in fact, a fling at) Dryden,Essay of Dramatic Poesy(vol. i, p. 52, ed. Ker, Oxford, 1900), who censures Cleveland for not giving 'agreatthought' in 'words ... commonly received'. I owe the reminder of this to Mr. Thorn-Drury.

8The use of bran for shampooing is not perhaps so well known as that for poultices, foot-baths, &c. It is always asofteneras well as a detergent.

9Ashmole.

10Perhaps I should add a very few words explaining why I have not made this 'authenticated' edition the base of mine. I have not done so because the editors, excellent as was evidently their intention, have after all given us no reasons for their exclusions and inclusions; because, though they have corrected some obvious errors, their readings by no means always intrinsically commend themselves to me; and especially because the distance between 1647 and 1677 reflects itself, to no small degree, in a certain definitemodernisationof form, grammatical and prosodic. 1653 has much morecontemporariness.

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