Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/93

SAINT-AMANT J'J on Tobacco by Sir Robert Aytoun, so closely re- sembling it that it was clear that either Sir Robert imitated Saint-Amant or Saint-Amant imitated Sir Robert; whence the question, Whose was the original? Sir Robert was born 1570, and died February 163I, as is recorded on his monument in Westminster Abbey. He studied civil law at the University of Paris, and was on the Continent from 1590 till 1603, when a Latin poem to King James brought him into favour with that monarch. He was an accomplished courtier, was private secretary to Queen Anne, and afterwards to Henrietta Maria, and received many a good gift from royalty. His English and Latin poems (he wrote others in Greek and French, but these have not been preserved) were privately printed in 187 1, by the Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D., Historiographer to the Historical Society, from the collation of two MSS., and the comparison with such of the pieces as appear in Watson's Collection. The sonnet on Tobacco is not in that collection. Aytoun's verses are smooth and graceful, and sometimes something more. Dryden said they were among the best of that age ; Burns altered, without improving, his " For- saken Mistress " (" I do confess thou art sae fair ") ; the first "Old-Long-Syne" is attributed to him; and the "Invocation of his Mistress," which Dr. Rogers prints in his volume, has been ascribed to Raleigh. It is that containing the well-known stanza : — " Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne'er so witty ; A beggar that is dumb, you know, Doth merit double pity." He was, therefore, quite capable of writing the sonnet