more general lamentation on the lot of man, may best perhaps endure transcription. "How vain is every thing that lives by breath, That's only born, to be destroy'd by death! Is sure of nothing, but of toyl and pain, In a most tedious irksome yoke to draw: HENRY, THIRD LORD ARUNDEL OF WARDOUR, ONE of the lords imprisoned for the Popish plot, had behaved with distinguished bravery in the quarrel of Charles the first; but the merit of his religion and sufferings were stronger recommendations to James the second, in whose short reign lord Arundel was lord privy-seal, and much trusted. In a paltry collection, called "A Collection of eighty-six loyal Poems,' printed in 1685, by one of the lowest tools of the Roman Catholic faction, I find five little Meditations in verse, ascribed to this lord, and said to be written whilst he was prisoner in the Tower. In another poem in this collection, p. 227, it is said that Arundel was to have been chancellor 3. Another, on the death of Charles the [Nat. Thompson, the publisher, seems also to have been the compiler of this collection, which contains many pieces afterwards inserted in the State Poems.] 3 [LORD ARUNDEL, of old so warlike and bold, second, is so ridiculously bad, that I cannot help quoting the two first lines of it: "Hang all the streets with sable sad; and call The most remarkable piece in this miscellany, in which there are a few of a better style, is the elegy of Charles the first, which I have before mentioned, and which being printed, and ascribed to him in the life of his son, is a strong presumption of its authenticity. [This lord was the son of Thomas, lord Arundel, and lady Blanch Somerset, the heroine who bravely defended Wardour with a few men, for nine days, against the parliamentary forces under the command of Hungerford and Ludlow. In 1678 Henry lord Arundel was committed to the Tower upon the information of that miscreant Titus Oates, and impeached by the commons of high crimes, &c. without being brought to trial. He continued in confinement till 1683, when he was admitted to bail. He was constituted lord keeper of the privy-seal, and knight of the Bath, in 1686, and retiring to his seat at Breamore, on the abdication of James the second, he lived in great hospitality till his death in December 16944. • Collins's Peerage, vol. vii. p. 50. The following is one of the five poems attributed to "Lord Arundel of Warder, and Count of the sacred Roman Empire," and confers some credit on his lordship's moral sentiments and manly style. "A VALEDICTION TO THE WORLD. "Hence, all ye visions of the world's delight, To seek content which I could ne'er find out. Those pleasant charms that did my heart seduce, She tells me, 'tis high time to stemm that tide Those brutal passions do un-man our mind, I will to reason her just rights restore; But this, dear Lord! must be thy work, not mine, Set so my warring heart from passions free, 6 Loyal Poems, p. 214. |