VINCENT CORBET,
The only son of the poet, was born (if the authority of a manuscript in the Harleian collection may be relied upon, in which this pathetic address appears,) on the 10th of November, 1627. From the following injunction in the bishop’s will[79], it seems he was educated at one of the universities: “I commit and commend the nurture and maintenance of my sonne and daughter unto the faythfull and loving care of my mother-in-law, declaring my intent, &c., that my sonne be placed at Oxford or Cambridge, where I require him, upon my blessing, to apply himself to his booke studiously and industriously.”
In 1648 he administered to the will[80] of his grandmother Anne Hutton; and of the further circumstances of his life I am ignorant.
TO HIS SON,
VINCENT CORBET,
On his Birth-Day, November 10, 1630, being then Three Years old.
What I shall leave thee none can tell,
But all shall say I wish thee well;
I wish thee, Vin, before all wealth,
Both bodily and ghostly health:
Nor too much wealth, nor wit, come to thee,
So much of either may undo thee.
I wish thee learning, not for show,
Enough for to instruct, and know;
Not such as gentlemen require,
To prate at table, or at fire.
I wish thee all thy mothers graces,
Thy fathers fortunes, and his places.
I wish thee friends, and one at court,
Not to build on, but support;
To keep thee, not in doing many
Oppressions, but from suffering any.
I wish thee peace in all thy ways,
Nor lazy nor contentious days;
And when thy soul and body part,
As innocent as now thou art[81].
AN EPITAPH
ON
Dr. DONNE, Dean of Pauls.
Born in 1573; died March 31, 1631.
He that would write an epitaph for thee,
And do it well, must first begin to be
Such as thou wert; for none can truly know
Thy worth, thy life, but he that hath liv’d so.
He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down
Enough to keep the gallants of the town;
He must have learning plenty, both the laws
Civil and common, to judge any cause;
Divinity great store, above the rest,
Not of the last edition, but the best.
He must have language, travel, all the arts,
Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts:
He must have friends the highest, able to do,
Such as Mecænas and Augustus too.
He must have such a sickness, such a death,
Or else his vain descriptions come beneath.
Who then shall write an epitaph for thee,
He must be dead first; let ’t alone for me.
CERTAIN FEW WOORDES
SPOKEN CONCERNINGE ONE
BENET CORBETT
AFTER HER DECEASE.
She died October the 2d, Anno 1634.
(From MS. Harl. No. 464.)
Here, or not many feet from hence,
The virtue lies call’d Patience.
Sickness and Death did do her honour
By loosing paine and feare upon her.
Tis true they forst her to a grave,
That’s all the triumph that they have....
A silly one.... Retreat o’er night
Proves conquest in the morning-fight:
She will rise up against them both....
All sleep, believe it, is not sloth.
And, thou that read’st her elegie,
Take something of her historie:
She had one husband and one sonne;
Ask who they were, and then have doone.