COMUS A MASK PRESENTED AT LUDLOW CASTLE, 1634 BEFORE JOHN, EARL OF BRIDGEWATER THEN PRESIDENT OF WALES THE COPY OF A LETTER WRITTEN BY SIR HENRY WOTTON TO THE AUTHOR, SIR, UPON THE FOLLOWING POEM. From the College, this 13 of April, 1638. It was a special favour, when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and to enjoy it rightly; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst) and to have begged your conversation again jointly with your said learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together some good authors of the ancient time: among which I observed you to have been familiar. Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the sixth of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith; wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your songs and odes, wherein I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: Ipsa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer. For the work itself I had viewed some good while before, with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s poems, printed at Oxford; whereunto it is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and leave the reader con la bocca dolce. Now Sir, concerning your travels, wherein I may challenge a little more privilege of discourse with you; I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way; therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor, and you may surely receive from him good directions for shaping of your farther journey into Italy, where he did reside by my choice some time for the king, after mine own recess from Venice. I should think that your best line will be through the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by sea to Genoa, whence the passage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten as you do to Florence, or Sienna, the rather to tell you a short story, from the interest you have given me in your safety. At Sienna I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipione, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times, having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man, that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With him I had often much chat of those affairs; into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience) I had won confidence enough to beg his advice, how I might carry myself securely there, without offence of others, or of mine own conscience: Signor Arrigo meo (says he) pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto, will go safely over the whole world. Of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore (Sir) I will commit you with it to the best of all securities, God's dear love, remaining Your friend as much at command as any of longer date, P. S. Sir, I have expressly sent this my footboy to prevent your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the receipt of your obliging letter, having myself through some business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and diligent to entertain you with homenovelties, even for some fomentation of our friendship, too soon interrupted in the cradle. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOHN, LORD VISCOUNT BRACKLEY, Son and Heir Apparent to the Earl of Bridgewater, &c. MY LORD, This Poem, which received its first occasion of birth from yourself, and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, now returns again to make a final Dedication of itself to you. Although not openly acknowledged by the Author, yet it is a legitimate offspring, so lovely, and so much desired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my several friends satisfaction, and brought me to a necessity of producing it to the public view; and now to offer it up in all rightful devotion to those fair hopes, and rare endowments of your much promising youth, which give a full assurance, to all that know you, of a future excellence. Live, sweet Lord, to be the honour of your name, and receive this as your own, from the hands of him who hath by many favours been long obliged to your most honoured parents, and as in this representation your attendant Thyrsis, so now in all real expression, Your faithful and most humble servant, H. LAWES. |