Et jure. Nam cum fana tot inviis
Moerent ruinis, ipsaque, ceu preces
Manusque non decora supplex
Tendat, opem rogat, heu negatam!
Tibi ipsa voti est ora sui rea.
Et solvet. O quam semper apud Deum
Litabis illum, cujus arae
Ipse preces prius audiisti!
[TRANSLATION. Prose G.; verse Cl.]
To the very reverend man Benjamin Lany, Doctor of Divinity, most worthy Master of Pembroke College [Cambridge], the least of the least of those that are his, R[ichard] C[rashaw] implores the divine protection.[41]
Even flowers have their own peculiar fruit, which we enjoy, if not so profitably, yet in a manner more refined. Nor is it unusual that, in accordance with the hope of Spring, making promises for herself as it were by her flowers, we demand credit for the maturer year, and even for Autumn itself. Forgive, then, most Reverend Sir, the Muse hastening into the presence of her Apollo, and exulting in the wantonness of earliest youth. She offers the flowers of a tender age, not the fruits of a late one, which flowers indeed it were unreasonable to demand in accordance with that late and sober maturity which we rightly look for in fruits—flowers which are more likely to be pleasing from the very fact of their precocious importunity,—to thee above all, whom a fatherly mind, as it is wont to happen, holds watching for every dawning of its hope, by which you may give yourself assurance of anything respecting the genius of your sons; after the manner also of those who, in haste for the reward of their labour and the price of their patience, from what they have themselves sown and tended, snatch greedily whatever part may project a little of a floweret, which, as with early bashfulness, is making trial of the airs and the open sky, and attach an odour to it, not so much from its own nature and character as from the inclination of their own mind, which fosters in it their own anxieties and hopes. Suffer then, Reverend Master, this little garland, made of flowers of such a sort, to be bound on thee; a festal one assuredly, and not able to endure that most auspicious star of thy countenance in any other way than—for it is even of such a graciousness—when it draws back with milder ray, and so far subtracts from itself. Nor assuredly than this kind of writing, provided it have sufficiently discharged its proper functions, could anything be more suitable to theological leisure; for in it without doubt the very substance of theology being overlaid with poetic grace, sets off its grandeur by loveliness. Finally, whatever this may be, you will nevertheless, I know, be able and willing to be lovingly disposed towards it; not as anything great or uncommon; not, in short, as anything worthy of you, but as your own—your own by highest right as having been called forth from your soil, by your light, and, in fine, into your hand. As for what fortune awaits this little book, deign to be persuaded, most worshipful Sir, not to scorn when addressing you now in a more public style him whom you have welcomed in private with so ready an affection. May you stand on its threshold, not only as its good omen but also as its subject! In very truth that countenance of yours is a Sacred Epigram, or teaches what it should be, where forsooth severity is tempered with love, and sanctity is mellowed by sweetness. You see me inclined towards a sphere denied to me—that of sounding your praises, I mean; which since your modesty has taken from me, it remains of necessity that I should be brief: yes indeed, I am too diffuse, seeing that the very subject is cut off from me in which alone I was, and even without irksomeness, able to be prolix. Farewell, most cultured of men, and do not disdain me, so insignificant a suppliant, for daring to honour your tranquil genius, and, since divinity even does not forbid this respecting itself, also to love it. But in the mean while give pardon to the Muse, to such a degree unrestrained as to have dared for this part at least of your praise, which is most due to you on account of sacred things that have been honoured amongst us, to fly towards you with a strain of such kind as this, whatever it may be:
Kind Guardian of the Muses' flock,
Through whom it breathes in learn'd repose,
Whether it choose the dripping rock,
Or where the open sunshine glows.
Not fairer he through trackless shade
Who led Æmonia's flocks of old;
Not even Apollo, when he play'd,
With defter touch could charm the fold.
If thou the eye serene dost grant,
Green fields are ours, and streams and hills,
And, since no Phœbus else we want,
The Muses with their dulcet quills.
Religion too with modest grace
Through thee assumes a gentler mien;
Through thee again can show her face,
No more in dust and ashes seen.
Her brows crown'd meetly, and, through thee,
Her God in sight of all confess'd,
She gives in her divinity
Meaning and law to garb and vest.