Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/153

BEN JONSON 137 pieces in cordial praise of contemporary writers. There are also some beautiful songs too little known ; and it may be observed generally that Jonson's lyrics are strangely neglected, with the exception of three or four popular favourites, such as "Drink to me only with thine eyes," and that serene invocation of Hesperus in "Cynthia's Revels" (Act v. Sc. 3), " Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." But the most remarkable of the shorter poems are the epi- taphs and elegies, of which the finest are, I believe, the finest in the language. I will not speak here of the magnanimous and fervent tribute to the memory of Shakespeare ; and I merely mention the epitaphs on his own first daughter and first son, on Margaret Ratcliffe (the only acrostic I remember in his works), on Vincent Corbet, Philip Gray ; and the elegies on Lady Jane Pawlet, and on Lady Venetia Digby, whom he termed his Muse, and to whom the epigram, " Underwoods," xcvii., is addressed, being in praise of her husband, the celebrated Sir Kenelm Digby. But there are three which I am loth to omit, though two of them are generally known. The first is on Salathiel Pavy (Epigram 120), one of the boys of the Queen's Chapel, who performed in his " Cynthia's Revels " and " Poetaster," and of whom he was very fond : — " Weep with me, all you that read This little story : And know, for whom a tear you shed Death's self is sorry. 'Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature, As Heaven and Nature seemed to strive Which owned the creature.