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Denham, come help me to laugh, At old Daph, Whose fancies are higher than chaff. |
Daph swells afterwards into “Daphne;” a change of sex inflicted on the poet for making one of his heroines a man; and this new alliance to Apollo becomes a source of perpetual allusion to the bays—
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Cheer up, small wits, now you shall crowned be,— Daphne himself is turn’d into a tree. |
One of the club inquires about the situation of Avenant—
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——where now it lies, Whether in Lombard,[328] or the skies. |
Because, as seven cities disputed for the birth of Homer, so after ages will not want towns claiming to be Avenant—
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Some say by Avenant no place is meant, And that our Lombard is without descent; And as, by Bilk, men mean there’s nothing there, So come from Avenant, means from no where. Thus Will, intending D’Avenant to grace, Has made a notch in’s name like that in’s face. |
D’Avenant had been knighted for his good conduct at the siege of Gloucester, and was to be tried by the Parliament, but procured his release without trial. This produces the following sarcastic epigram:—
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UPON FIGHTING WILL.
The King knights Will for fighting on his side; Yet when Will comes for fighting to be tried, There is not one in all the armies can Say they e’er felt, or saw, this fighting man. Strange, that the Knight should not be known i’ th’ field; A face well charged, though nothing in his shield. Sure fighting Will like basilisk did ride Among the troops, and all that saw Will died; Else how could Will, for fighting, be a Knight, And none alive that ever saw Will fight? |
Of the malignancy of their wit, we must preserve one specimen. They probably harassed our poet with anonymous 413 despatches from the Club: for there appears another poem on D’Avenant’s anger on such an occasion:—