See Rushworth’s Collections, vol. ii. p. 471.
[76] This refers to a popular tract published in 1622, under that title, in favour of the Low Countries, and for the purpose of prejudicing the people of England against the marriage which Villiers was negotiating when this poem was addressed to him. The negotiation was not only disgraceful, but unsuccessful:
—αισχρον γαρ ἡμιν, και προς αισχυνη κακον.
[77] “On the 29th of May,” says sir Richard Baker, “the queen was brought to bed of a young son, which was baptized at St. James’s on the 27th of June, and named Charles. It is observed that at his nativity, at London, was seen a star about noon-time: what it portended, good or ill, we leave to the astrologers.” Baker’s Chronicle, p. 497. 1660. fol.
[78] If any one is at this time ignorant of the practice alluded to in this line, of the sponsors at christenings giving spoons to the child as a baptismal present, it is not the fault of the commentators on Shakespeare, who have multiplied examples of the custom in their notes on Henry the Eighth, vol. xv. p. 197. edit. 1803.
[79] Reg. Prerog. Court Cant. Sadler 97.
[80] Ibid. Rivers 18.
[81] Cartwright has not unhappily imitated this poem in his address “To Mr. W. B. at the Birth of his first Child:” a few lines may be given:
I wish religion timely be
Taught him with his A B C.