SUPPLEMENT OF

MODERN EPIGRAMMATISTS.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING

Was born at Whitton, in Middlesex, in 1609. He was a man of fortune, and spent his time and his money amongst the wits of the age. In the civil war he espoused the royal cause, and raised a troop of horse for the King. He died in 1641. The following pieces, though strictly admissible into this collection, are, like some by Sir Charles Sedley, on the border-land between epigrams and vers de société, and may be called by either name. They are taken from Tonson's edition of Suckling's Works, 1709.

WHY SO PALE?

Why so pale and wan, fond Lover?
Prithee why so pale?

Will, when looking well can't move her,

Looking ill prevail?

Prithee why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?

Prithee why so mute?

Will, when speaking well can't win her,

Saying nothing do't?

Prithee why so mute?

Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move,

This cannot take her;

If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her :-

The devil take her.

George Wither, who was contemporary with Suckling, writes in the same strain. The following is the first of several stanzas (Ellis' 66 Specimens of the Early English Poets," 1803, III. 83):

Shall I, wasting in despair,

Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause another's rosy are?

Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flowery meads in May;
If she be not so to me,

What care I how fair she be?

Lord Nugent has an epigram on the happy effects of a lady's disdain when constantly shown (Dodsley's "Collection of Poems," 1782, II. 244):

Since first you knew my am'rous smart,

Each day augments your proud disdain ;
"Twas then enough to break my heart,

And now, thank heav'n! to break my chain.
Cease, thou scorner, cease to shun me!
Now let love and hatred cease!
Half that rigour had undone me,

All that rigour gives me peace.

Possibly, however, Suckling's heroine was not indifferent, but carried too far the advice given by a lady in the following lines, and lost her lover by over anxiety to keep him ("The Grove," 1721, 56):

She, that would gain a constant lover,
Must at a distance keep the slave,

Not by a look her heart discover,

Men should but guess the thoughts we have.

Whilst they're in doubt, the flame increases,
And all attendance they will pay ;

When we're possess'd, their transport ceases,
And vows, like vapours, fleet away.

CONSTANCY.

Out upon it, I have lov'd
Three whole days together;
And am like to love three more,
If it prove fine weather.

Time shall moult away his wings

Ere he shall discover

In the whole wide world again
Such a constant lover.

But the spite on't is, no praise
Is due at all to me;

Love with me had made no stays
Had it any been but she.

Had it any been but she,
And that very face,

There had been at least, ere this,
A dozen dozen in her place!

Sir Charles Sedley, in an epigram "To Celia," acknowledges that, like Suckling, he would not be constant for an hour together, were not the object of his love the most charming of her sex (Sedley's "Poetical Works," 1707, 7):

Not, Celia, that I juster am

Or better than the rest:

For I would change each hour, like them,
Were not my heart at rest.

But I am tied to very thee,
By every thought I have:
Thy face I only care to see,
Thy heart I only crave.

All that in woman is adored
In thy dear self I find,

For the whole sex can but afford
The handsome and the kind.

Why then should I seek farther store,
And still make love anew?

When change itself can give no more
'Tis easy to be true.

The ladies to whom these poets professed such constancy, must have been the equals of her on whose girdle Waller wrote his elegant stanzas, the last of which forms in itself a beautiful little epigram;

A narrow compass! and yet there

Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair:
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.

LOVE TURNED TO HATRED.

I will not love one minute more I swear,

No not a minute; not a sigh or tear

Thou gett'st from me, or one kind look agen,

Tho' thou should'st court me to 't, and would'st begin.
I will not think of thee but as men do

Of debts and sins, and then I'll curse thee too:

For thy sake Woman shall be now to me
Less welcome than at midnight ghosts shall be:
I'll hate so perfectly, that it shall be
Treason to love that man that loves a she;
Nay, I will hate the very good, I swear,
That's in thy sex, because it does lie there;
Their very virtue, grace, discourse, and wit,

And all for thee. What! wilt thou love me yet?

Charles Cotton translated the following from the Italian of Guarini:

Fair and false, I burn 'tis true,
But by love am no ways moved;
Since your falsehood renders you
So unfit to be beloved;

Tigress, then, that you no more,
May triumph it in my smart,
It is fit you know before

That I now have cured my heart.

Henceforth then if I do mourn,
And that still I live in pain,
With another flame I burn;

Not with love; but with disdain.

These poets, perhaps, excused the change in their sentiments upon the principle laid down in the following epigram by Lord Nugent (Dodsley's "Collection of Poems," 1782, II. 243):

I lov'd thee beautiful and kind,
And plighted an eternal vow;
So alter'd are thy face and mind,
'Twere perjury to love thee now.

But in Suckling's epigram, the hatred was probably assumed to try the strength of the maiden's affection-who loved notwithstanding. It recalls Moore's epigram, entitled "The Surprise":

Chloris, I swear by all I ever swore,

That from this hour I shall not love thee more.―
"What! love no more? Oh! why this alter'd vow?"
Because I cannot love thee more-than now!

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.

Born 1628. Died 1700.

WRITTEN WHEN IN LOVE, ON A WINDOW OPPOSITE A STATUE OF LEDA.

("Gentleman's Magazine," New Series, VII. 9.)

Tell me, Leda, which is best,
Ne'er to move, or ne'er to rest?
Speak, that I may know thereby,
Who is happier, you or I?

To which Leda is supposed to have answered:

Mr. Temple, hear me tell:

Both to move and rest are well.
Who is happier, you or I?
To that question I reply-

If you'll stand here, and let me go,
Very shortly you will know.

On the strength of the answer obtained by Sir William Temple, a statue in Hampton Court Gardens was questioned, with an equally favourable result:

Q. Prithee, statue, tell me how

I can be as fair as thou?

A. The means I speedily will name,

I got whitewashed-do the same.

Some license must be allowed to those who, like Sir William Temple, are in love, but the practice of scratching upon windows, especially a man's own name, is severely and sensibly reprobated in the following lines "Written in pencil on the Sash of a Window of the Roadside Inn by Lodore" ("Notes and Queries," 4th S. VIII. 85) :

When I see a man's name
Scratched upon the glass,

I know he owns a diamond

And his father owns an ass.

SIR CHARLES SEDLEY,

A dramatic writer, a wit, and a courtier, was born about 1639. As a critic he was an oracle amongst the poets of the day. His own poetry was generally licentious, but some of his shorter pieces are elegant and lively. He died in 1701. The following epigrams are taken from the edition of his Works printed in 1707.