“Another of another mind.
A king? oh, boon for my aspiring mind,
A cottage makes a country swad rejoice:
And as for death, I like him in his kind
But God forbid that he should be my choice!
A kingdom or a cottage or a grave,—
Nor last, nor next, but first and best I crave;
The rest I can, whenas I list, enjoy,
Till then salute me thus—Vive le roy!
“Another of another mind.
The greatest kings do least command content;
The greatest cares do still attend a crown;
A grave all happy fortunes doth prevent
Making the noble equal with the clown:
A quiet country life to lead I crave;
A cottage then; no kingdom nor a grave.”
Page [152]. “What is our life?”—A MS. copy of these verses is subscribed “Sr W. R.”, i.e., Sir Walter Raleigh. See Hannah’s “Poems of Raleigh and Wotton,” p. 27.
Compare the sombre verses, signed “Ignoto,” in “Reliquiæ Wottonianæ”:—
“Man’s life’s a tragedy; his mother’s womb,
From which he enters, is the tiring-room;
This spacious earth the theatre, and the stage
That country which he lives in: passions, rage,
Folly and vice are actors; the first cry
The prologue to the ensuing tragedy;
The former act consisteth of dumb shows;
The second, he to more perfection grows;
I’ the third he is a man and doth begin
To nurture vice and act the deeds of sin;
I’ the fourth declines; i’ the fifth diseases clog
And trouble him; then death’s his epilogue.”
Page [153]. “What needeth all this travail and turmoiling?”—Suggested by Spenser’s fifteenth sonnet:—
“Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle
Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain,
And both the Indias of their treasure spoile,
What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?
For loe! my Love doth in her selfe containe
All this worlds riches that may farre be found.
If Saphyres, loe! her eies be Saphyres plaine;
If Rubies, loe! hir lips be Rubies sound;
If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles, both pure and round;
If Yvorie, her forehead yvory weene;
If Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;
If Silver, her faire hands are silver sheene:
But that which fairest is but few behold,
Her mind, adornd with vertues manifold.”
Page [154], l. 1. “And fortune’s fate not fearing.”—Oliphant boldly reads, for the sake of the rhyme, “And fickle fortune scorning.”—in “England’s Helicon” the text is the same as in the song-book.
Page [158], l. 5. “And when she saw that I was in her danger.”—Within one’s danger = to be in a person’s power or control.
L. 16. “White Iope.”—Campion must have had in his mind a passage of Propertius (ii. 28);—