Tixall Poetry/Notes to the Honourable Mrs Henry Thimelby's Poems
Notes
to the
Honourable Mrs Henry Thimelby's Poems.
P. 85. Mrs Thimelby was at this time a widow, and, in the expression of her humble sorrows, she seems to think that her child was taken from her on account of her faults, that it might be joined to its father in heaven on account of his virtues.
P. 86. It is pleasing to read such effusions on conjugal affection; "a subject (says Dr Percy) not often celebrated by the libertine muses."
P. 89. H T is Henry Thimelby, husband of the Authoress.
P. 90. E T is Edward Thimelby, the poet; and this is an answer to the poem, p. 45, entitled "Self-love mentayned to the faire Self-detiyer, my Sister Th," which was probably written by him. The examples here brought by Mrs Thimelby in illustration and in support of her opinion, are very forcible and apposite. In honour of the ladies they are all heroines. Birtha, Rhodalind, and Bellario, are female characters in Davenant's Gondibert," a poem which still finds some readers, and still exercises the ingenuity of critics.
When King Edward I. had been stabbed, as was supposed, by a poisoned dagger in the Holy Land, Eleanor his queen sucked out the poison.
Who was
Stept still before at sight o'th' frightful sword,
my confined knowledge of minute history will not enable me to explain.
That shews who were, and these, how we may be.
A judicious distinction between history and fiction.
P. 92. This is an elegy on the death of the first Lord Aston, who died in 1639, soon after his return from his second embassy in Spain.
As not consistent with his high estate.
So Tickell, in his beautiful Elegy on Addison:
Slow comes the verse, that real woe inspires.
Grief unaffected suits but ill with art,
And flowing numbers with a bleeding heart.
That gave me life, and not that death kill me, &c,
Why wither not the leaves that want their sap?
Shakesp. Rich. III. Jet. 2. Sc. i.
"Indeed (says Lloyd) there was in his countenance such a throne of sweetness, and his words had so powerful a charm, set off with so agreeable and taking gravity, that the respect due to him was not lost in the love he had deserved; nor the love he attained to abated by the respect he commanded."—Worthies, vol. ii. p. 249.
In Lord Bagot's house, at Blithfield, about eight miles from Tixall, there is a portrait of the first Lord Aston painted on board. He has a firm, but pleasing countenance; short, light-coloured hair, and whiskers; his dress is black, laced with gold; and round his neck is a triple gold chain, which is said to have been a present from King Charles I.
P. 94. These lines were composed on the marriage of Walter, second Lord Aston, with the Lady Mary Weston, daughter of Richard Weston, Earl of Portland, which took place in the year 1629.
P. 95. l. 7.Which though to-day, like some bright shrine of art, &c.
A remarkable story is related of Francis Borgia, Duke of Gandia in Spain, who afterwards became a saint. He was appointed to conduct the funeral of a Spanish princess, who had died suddenly, to a town at some distance from Madrid. When the procession arrived at the place of interment, it was his duty to see the face of the princess uncovered, that he might be able to swear that it was really her body. But she was in so short a time, so dreadfully changed, that it was impossible to have known it to be her. His imagination was so struck with this horrid spectacle of one, whom he had seen but a few days before, in all the bloom of youth, and splendour of a court, that he soon after renounced all his honours, titles, and estates, and became a jesuit.
|P. 97. Lady Persall was the Honourable Frances Aston, third daughter of the first Lord Aston, and sister to Mrs Henry Thimelby, author of these poems. Sir Wm. Persall of Canwell, her husband, had been previously married to a sister of Sir John Thimelby, of Irnham, so that there was a close connexion between the families. As to mistick patches, I fancy there is often a good deal of mystery in a patch. Those who would be more learned on the subject, may find some information in several papers of the Spectator.
L. 9.Your heart I feare wept, as your eyes did smile.
A beautiful line.
P. 98.How soon these faire and forward springs
Are nipt by some unruly blast!
Thus Milton, "On the death of a fair infant:"
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,
Summer's chief honour, if thou hadst out-lasted
Bleak winter's force that made thy blossom dry.
In the MS. from which the First Division of these poems was copied, there are also some verses "On the Death of Mrs Hall," of which the following seem worthy of preservation: The fates Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis, are introduced spinning the clue of her life; then follows this exclamation:
For any touch but hands divine;
Foo soft, too slender, and too weake!
Its weight alone must make it breake.
So snapps the lute-string, when il reares
A note too high for mortall eares:
So faints the over strait-laced stemme,
Under the Tulipp's diadem:
And so the thin-blowne buble vyes
T'outpaint the rainbow till it dyes.
P. 99. Milton concludes the poem just quoted above, with sentiments and expressions very similar to these:
Her false imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent.
P. 100. l. 4.God loves the child that quickly dies.
This is a Greek proverb. Ον Φιλει Θεος αποθνηςκει νεος.
Cannal in mourning. Cannal, is Canwell, the seat of Sir William Persall. The family of Persall, or Pershall, was ancient in Staffordshire; for it appears, that Adam de Pershall, who married Agnes, daughter and heir of John de Gaverswall, was sheriff of that county, 15. Edward III.
The estate, and house of Canwell, formerly a priory, and a beautiful spot, about five miles from Lichfield, is now the property of Sir Robert Lawley, Bart.
P. 101.how soone is sed,
A mother's losse, the Cady Persall dead!
So Waller, 'On the Death of my Lady Rich:'
Strook all our ears—the Lady Rich is dead!
Heart-rending news! and fatal to those few
Who her resemble, and her steps pursue;
That death should license have to range among
The fair, the wise, the virtuous, and the young.
Ibid. Lady Southcote was Elizabeth Aston, eldest daughter of Walter, second Lord Aston, and wife of Sir John Southcote, of Albery, in the parish of Merstham, in Surrey.
"At Albery, was formerly a capital mansion house, the residence of the Southcotes. The family were Roman Catholics, and are said to have quitted in disgust, on being refused burial for one of them in the chancel. The house was called Albery Place, and was taken down in 1750. The chapel is said to have been very splendid. The loss of this family was long felt in the parish, and a grateful remembrance of their extensive charities, has been handed down to the present day. During their residence, no calamity or casualty happened to an individual, no unproductive season occasioned a scarcity, but ready assistance was given. The last Lady Southcote is said to have been constantly stationed, at certain well-known times, on her garden-terrace overlooking the road, prepared to hear every petition, and to answer every claim on her benevolence."—Manning's Surrey, vol. ii. p. 260.
"The arms of Southcote were Argent, a Chevron Gules, between three Cools sable."—Morant's Essex, vol. i. p. 110.
The marriage, commemorated in these lines, took place about the year 1656.
P. 103. l. 10.Did not her soule shine through the cristall case?
See the idol of your lover
Earth put in a cristall cover!—See above, p. 59.
l. 15.It were a sin to wish her here againe:
This line recalls to my mind a pretty epitaph on a child, I have met with somewhere:
Once all their joy, now all their tears:
He's now past sense, past fear of pain,
'Twere sin to wish him here again.
P. 104. l. 9. 'Tis his return, &c.
Waller has the same thought in his poem 'On the Prince of Orange.'
Blossoms and fruit, at once are found;
In him we all admire the same
His flowery youth with wisdom crowned.
P. 105. The elegies, elegiacal epitaphs, and other plaintive pieces, scattered up and down these poems, are perhaps the best in the whole collection. Just about this time last year, (March 1811) when I was busily employed in transcribing these poems, I received the melancholy intelligence of the death of a young lady, "in her prime," a near relation: the circumstances of which, all together, might afford as mournful a subject for the elegiac muse, as any affliction of the kind that ever happened. This young lady was Miss Constable, only child of Francis Constable, Esq., of Burton Constable, and Wycliffe, in the county of York. She was near 17 years of age, and died of a rapid decline, in the arms of her disconsolate mother, after an illness of not more than three weeks. Though I did not want any additional cause to recall my mind to the frequent contemplation of this sorrowful subject, yet the accidental circumstance of frequently reading and transcribing these little elegies, naturally gave my thoughts a sort of poetic impulse, till at last I produced the following stanzas; which, in the hope of preserving her name, and as a slender offering to her memory, I am happy to insert in this place.
Maria,
an elegy.
Frail is the virgin lily's flower,
Frail is the blushing rose,
When first in Flora's vernal hour
Their beauties they disclose.
But far more frail, alas! than they
The blooming maid is seen,
Who, mildly bright as dawning day
Steps forth on life's gay scene.
O soft-eyed Pity! lend thine ear,
Thy accents mix with mine;
O drop with me that gushing tear
On this cold marble shrine!
Maria I—speechless at the sound,
I feel my blood run cold—
Do I—within this narrow ground—
Do I thy grave behold!
Youth, beauty, fortune, noble birth,
To grace her steps combined;
To these—a rarer gift on earth—
Was joined a lovely mind.
Sad change! as emulous they strove
To gild her gay career;
Death—treacherous death her shroud had wove—
And laid her lifeless here.
Her parents—ah! my bleeding heart
The lab'ring verse denies;
An only child—their life's best part—
Torn—hurried from their eyes!
But see! triumphant o'er death's power,
Rapt in seraphic love,
She shines a star, who fell a flower,
In endless bliss above.
Fair spirit! bending o'er thy tomb,
I pay this tribute due;
Lost—sunk within this narrow room—
Maria!—oh!—adieu.