The public interest has been of late years so strongly manifested in favour of the poets of the seventeenth century, that little apology appears necessary for the republication of the following Poems. It would, however, be equally vain and foolish in the editor to claim for the author a place among the higher class of poets, or to exalt his due praise by depreciating the merits of his contemporaries.—Claiming only for Cæsar what to Cæsar is due, it may without arrogance be presumed that these pages will not be found inferior to the poems of others which have been fortunately republished, or familiarised to the generality of readers through the popular medium of selections.
The author of the following poems (an account of whose life may be considered as a necessary appendage to these pages) is said to have descended from the antient family of the Corbets in Shropshire. It were too laborious and pedantic in a work of this nature to trace his pedigree, but I should be pleased to find any proofs of their attachment to him: yet as the bishop did not usually “conceal his love,” I suspect he received no mark of their regard, at least till his elevation conferred rather than received obligation by acknowledgment.
Richard Corbet, successively bishop of Oxford and Norwich, was born at the village of Ewell in Surrey, in the year 1582: he was the only son of Bennet, or Benedicta, and Vincent Corbet, who, from causes which I have not discovered, assumed the name of Poynter. His father, a man of some eminence for his skill in gardening, and who is celebrated by Ben Jonson in an elegy[1] alike honourable to the subject, the poet, and the friend, for his many amiable virtues, resided at Whitton, a hamlet in the parish of Twickenham, where the poet passed his declining days. Under the will of his father[2] he inherited sundry freehold lands and tenements lying in St. Augustine’s parish, Watling-street, London, and five hundred pounds in money, which was directed to be paid him by Bennet, the father’s wife and sole executrix, upon his attaining the age of twenty-five years. After receiving the rudiments of education at Westminster School, he entered in Lent term 1597-8 at Broadgate Hall, and the year following was admitted a student of Christ-Church College, Oxford. In 1605 he proceeded Master of Arts, and became celebrated as a wit and a poet.
The following early specimen of his humour is preserved in a collection of “Mery Passages and Jeastes,” Harl. MS. No. 6395: “Ben Jonson was at a tavern, and in comes bishop Corbet (but not so then) into the next room. Ben Jonson calls for a quart of raw wine, and gives it to the tapster. ‘Sirrah!’ says he, ‘carry this to the gentleman in the next chamber, and tell him I sacrifice my service to him.’ The fellow did, and in those terms. ‘Friend!’ says bishop Corbet, ‘I thank him for his love; but pr’ythee tell him from me that he is mistaken, for sacrifices are always burnt.’”
In 1612, upon the death of the amiable and accomplished Henry Prince of Wales,
“The expectancy and rose of the fair state,”
and the theme of many a verse; the University, overwhelmed with grief, more especially as he had been a student of Magdalen College under the tutorage of Mr. John Wilkinson, (“afterwards the unworthy president of that house,”) and desirous of testifying their respect for his memory, deputed Corbet, then one of the proctors, to pronounce a funeral oration; “who,” to use the words of Antony Wood, “very oratorically speeched it in St. Maries church, before a numerous auditory[3].” On the 13th of March in the following year he performed a similar ceremony in the Divinity School on the interment of sir Thomas Bodley, the munificent founder of the library known by his name.