In dalliance with the nine in ev’ry nook,
A conning nature from her own sweet book.
But Ben, though “the greatest dramatic poet of his age,” after he left Cambridge, “worked with a trowel at the building of Lincoln’s Inn,” and died poor in everything but fame, in 1637. Ben, however, contrived to keep nearly as many “jovial days” in a year, as there are saints in the Roman calendar, and at a set time held a club at the same Devil Tavern, near Temple-bar, to which the celebrated Cambridge professor, and reformer of our church music, Dr. Maurice Greene, adjourned his concert upon his quarrel with Handel, which made the latter say of him with his natural dry humour, “Toctor Creene was gone to de tavil.” There Ben and his boon companions were still extant, when Tom Randolph (author of “The Muses’ Looking-Glass,” &c.,) a student of Trinity College, Cambridge, had ventured on a visit to London, where, it is said, he stayed so long, that he had already had a parley with his empty purse, when their fame made him long to see Ben and his associates. He accordingly, as Handel would have said, vent to de tavil, at their accustomed time of meeting; but being unknown to them, and without money, he was peeping into the room where they sat, when he was espied by Ben, who seeing him in a scholar’s thread-bare habit, cried out “John Bo-peep, come in.” He entered accordingly, and they, not knowing the wit of their guest, began to rhyme upon the meanness of his clothes, asking him if he could not make a verse, and, withal, to call for his quart of sack. There being but four, he thus addressed them:—
“I, John Bo-peep, to you four sheep,
With each one his good fleece,
If that you are willing to give me five shilling,
’Tis fifteen pence a-piece.”
“By Jesus,” exclaimed Ben (his usual oath,) “I believe this is my son Randolph!” which being confessed, he was kindly entertained, and Ben ever after called him his son, and, on account of his learning, gaiety, and humour, and readiness of repartee, esteemed him equal to Cartwright. He also grew in favour with the wits and poets of the metropolis, but was cut off, some say of intemperance, at the age of twenty-nine. His brother was a member of Christ Church, Oxford, and printed his works in 1638. Amongst the Memorabilia Cantabrigiæ of Milton is the fact, that his personal beauty obtained for him the soubriquet of
“THE LADY OF THE COLLEGE;”
And that he set a full value on his fine exterior, is evident from the imperfect Greek lines, entitled, “In Effigie ejus Sculptorem,” in Warton’s second edition of his Poems. Some have supposed he had himself in view, in his delineation of the person of Adam. Every body knows that his “Paradise Lost” brought him and his posterity less than 20l.: but every body does not know that there is a Latin translation of it, in twelve books, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, in MS., the work of one Mr. Power, a Fellow of that Society, who printed the First Book in 1691, and completed the rest at the Bermudas, where his difficulties had obliged him to fly, and from whence it was sent to Dr. Richard Bentley, to publish and pay his debts with. However, in spite of his creditors, it still remains in MS. The writer obtained, says Judge Hardinge, alluding I suppose, to “the tempest of his mind and of his habits,” the soubriquet of the “Æolian Exile.” There is also a bust of Milton in the Library of Trinity College, and some of his juvenile poems, &c., in his own hand-writing. Cowley was bread at Trinity College. His bust, too, graces its Library, and his portrait its Hall.
BOTH THESE ALUMNI,
When students, wrote Latin as well as English verses, and the curious in such matters, on reference to this work, will be amused by the difference of feeling with which their Alma Mater inspired them. To Cowley the Bowers of Granta and the Camus were the very seat of inspiration; Milton thought no epithet too mean to express their charms: yet, says Dyer, in his supplement, “it is difficult to conceive a more brilliant example of youthful talent than Milton’s Latin Poems of that period.” Though they “are not faultless, they render what was said of Gray applicable to Milton—