The Stationer to the Reader.
〈Prefixed to Cleaveland Revived, 1660〉
Courteous Reader, thy free Acceptance of the former edition, encouraged me so far as to use my best diligence to gain what still remained in the hands of the Author's friends. I acknowledge myself to be obliged to Mr. Williamson, whose worthy example Mr. Cleveland's other honourers have since pursued. I shall not trouble thee, Reader, with any further Apologies, but only subscribe Mr. W. W. his last Verses in his following Elegy on Mr. Cleveland.
That Plagiary that can filch but one
Conceit from Him, and keep the Theft unknown,
At Noon from Phoebus, may by the same sleight,
Steal Beams, and make 'em pass for his own light.
〈Prefixed to Clievelandi Vindiciae, 1677[1]〉
To the Right Worshipful and Reverend
Francis Turner, D.D., Master of St. John's College
in Cambridge, and to the Worthy Fellows
of the same College.
Gentlemen,
That we interrupt your more serious studies with the offer of this piece, the injury that hath been and is done to the deceased author's ashes not only pleadeth our excuse, but engageth you (whose once he was, and within whose walls this standard of wit was first set up) in the same quarrel with us.
Whilst Randolph and Cowley lie embalmed in their own native wax, how is the name and memory of Cleveland equally profaned by those that usurp, and those that blaspheme it?—by those that are ambitious to lay their cuckoo's eggs in his nest, and those that think to raise up Phœnixes of wit by firing his spicy bed about him?
We know you have, not without passionate resentments, beheld the prostitution of his name in some late editions vended under it, wherein his orations are murthered over and over in barbarous Latin, and a more barbarous translation: and wherein is scarce one or other poem of his own to commute for all the rest. At least every Cuirassier of his hath a fulsome dragooner behind him, and Venus is again unequally yoked with a sooty anvil-beater. Cleveland thus revived dieth another death.
You cannot but have beheld with like zealous indignation how enviously our late mushroom-wits look up at him because he overdroppeth them, and snarl at his brightness as dogs at the Moon.
Some of these grand Sophys will not allow him the reputation of wit at all: yet how many such authors must be creamed and spirited to make up his Fuscara?[2] And how many of their slight productions may be gigged[3] out of one of his pregnant words? There perhaps you may find some leaf-gold, here massy wedges; there some scattered rays, here a galaxy; there some loose fancy frisking in the air, here Wit's Zodiac.
The quarrel in all this is upbraiding merit, and eminence his crime. His towering[4] fancy scareth so high a pitch that they fly like shades below him. The torrent thereof (which riseth far above their high water mark) drowneth their levels. Usurping upon the State Poetic of the time, he hath brought in such insolent measures of Wit and Language that, despairing to imitate, they must study to understand. That alone is Wit with them to which they are commensurate, and what exceedeth their scantling[5] is monstrous.
Thus they deifie[6] his Wit and Fancy as the clown the plump oyster when he could not crack it. And now instead of that strenuous masculine style which breatheth in this author, we have only an enervous effeminate froth offered, as if they had taken the salivating pill before they set pen to paper. You must hold your breath in the perusal lest the jest vanish by blowing on.
Another blemish in this monster of perfection is the exuberance of his fancy. His manna lieth so thick upon the ground they loathe it. When he should only fan, he with hurricanos of wit stormeth the sense, and doth not so much delight his reader, as oppress and overwhelm him.
To cure this excess, their frugal wit hath reduced the world to a Lessian Diet.[7] If perhaps they entertain their reader with one good thought (as these new Dictators affect to speak) he may sit down and say Grace over it: the rest is words and nothing else.
We will leave them therefore to the most proper vengeance, to humour themselves with the perusal of their own poems: and leave the barber to rub their thick skulls with bran[8] until they are fit for musk. Only we will leave this friendly advice with them; that they have one eye upon John Tradescant's executor,[9] lest among his other Minims of Art and Nature he expose their slight conceits: and another upon the Royal Society, lest they make their poems the counterbalance when they intend to weigh air.
From these unequal censures we appeal to such competent judges as yourselves, in whose just value of him Cleveland shall live the wonder of his own, and the pattern of succeeding ages. And although we might (upon several accompts) bespeak your affections, yet (abstracting from these) we submit him to your severer judgements, and doubt not but he will find that patronage from you which is desired and expected by
Your humble Servants.
J. L. S. D.[10]
[1] Here we get into terra cognita as regards authorship. The editors had been, both of them, Cleveland's pupils at St. John's. 'J. L.' was John Lake (1624-1689), a man of great distinction—at this time Vicar of Leeds and Prebendary of York, later Bishop, first of Sodor and Man and then of Chichester, who while he held the last-named see had the double glory of withstanding James II as one of 'the Seven', and of refusing the Oath to William. 'S. D.' was also a Yorkshire clergyman—Samuel Drake—who had not only studied under Cleveland at Cambridge, but fought under him at Newark. He became Vicar of Pontefract; but (if the D.N.B. is right in assigning his death to the year 1673) his work on the great vindication of his tutor must have been done some time before publication. Francis Turner (1638-1700), of a much younger generation and an Oxford man, though admitted ad eundem at Cambridge in 1662, had been Master of St. John's College since 1670, and was therefore properly selected as chief dedicatee. He was destined to be connected with Lake again in the great actions above noted as Bishop of Ely, and for the last ten years of his life was an active Jacobite agent.
[2] The description of Cleaveland Revived in the third paragraph is perfectly just, and 'anvil-beater' is an obvious echo-gibe at Williamson's own phraseology. It is less certain what 'grand Sophys' are specially referred to further on—but Dryden might be one.
[3] A Clevelandish word; v. infra, [p. 65] (Rupertismus, l. 120).
[4] In orig., as often, 'touring', but to print this nowadays would invite misconception.
[5] 'Scantling' is used in various senses. Either that of 'rough draft' or, as in Taylor, 'small piece' would do; but it is at least possible that it is not a noun at all, but a direct participle from the verb to 'scantle', found in Drayton, and meaning 'to be deficient', 'come short'. Some, however, prefer the sense 'dimension' or 'measurement', which would make it a sort of varied repetition of 'commensurate'.
[6] 'Deifie' is of course wrong. 'Defy' is likeliest, and in a certain sense (frequent in Elizabethan writers) would do; but 'decry' seems wanted.
[7] A common phrase for an earlier 'Banting' regime derived from the Hygiasticon (Antwerp, 1623) of Leonard Lessius (1554-1624). I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. Comrie, Lecturer on the History of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. The next sentence may, or rather must, be a reference to (in fact, a fling at) Dryden, Essay of Dramatic Poesy (vol. i, p. 52, ed. Ker, Oxford, 1900), who censures Cleveland for not giving 'a great thought' in 'words ... commonly received'. I owe the reminder of this to Mr. Thorn-Drury.
[8] The use of bran for shampooing is not perhaps so well known as that for poultices, foot-baths, &c. It is always a softener as well as a detergent.
[9] Ashmole.
[10] Perhaps I should add a very few words explaining why I have not made this 'authenticated' edition the base of mine. I have not done so because the editors, excellent as was evidently their intention, have after all given us no reasons for their exclusions and inclusions; because, though they have corrected some obvious errors, their readings by no means always intrinsically commend themselves to me; and especially because the distance between 1647 and 1677 reflects itself, to no small degree, in a certain definite modernisation of form, grammatical and prosodic. 1653 has much more contemporariness.