Thy trident will grow useless, which doth still
Wild tempests, if thou let tame rivers kill.
Meantime, we owe thee nothing. Our first debt
40Lies cancell'd in thy wat'ry cabinet.
We have for Her thou sent'st us from the main,
Return'd a Venus back to thee again.
An Elegy upon Mrs. Kirk, &c.] This and the following were not in Hannah's MS. He, perhaps not quite accurately, regards this as King's only indulgence in what he also regarded as 'the frigid and artificial style popular among his contemporaries'. But he thought it better than the companion piece in Heath's Clarastella (v. inf.). From this latter we learn that Mrs. Kirk was one of the numerous victims of 'shooting the bridge'. The piece is frigid enough certainly, but rather from want of 'conceit' than because of it. (Mr. Thorn-Drury has reminded me of Glapthorne's two elegies on the same subject. They form the last contents of the 1874 reprint and give more detail in their title, 'On the noble and much to be lamented Mrs. Anne Kirk, wife to Mr. Geo. Kirk, Gent. of the Robes and of his Majesty's Bed Chamber, who was unfortunately drowned passing London Bridge, July 6. 1641'.)
3 fin'd] = 'paid fine', as often.