'SONG.
'While Morpheus thus does gently lay
His powerful charge upon each part,
Making thy spirits ev'n obey
The silver charms of his dull art;
'I, thy Good Angel, from thy side—
As smoke doth from the altar rise,
Making no noise as it doth glide,—
Will leave thee in this soft surprise;
'And from the clouds will fetch thee down
A holy vision, to express
Thy right unto an earthly crown;
No power can make this kingdom less.
'But gently, gently, lest I bring
A start in sleep by sudden flight,
Playing aloof, and hovering,
Till I am lost unto the sight.
'This is a motion still and soft,
So free from noise and cry
That Jove himself, who hears a thought,
Knows not when we pass by.'
The play appears to have been printed without the writer's consent, in 1638, in an imperfect form; but it was not until fifteen years afterwards that he published an amended copy of it under the title of 'Pallantus and Eudora.' He also wrote another play, 'The Tyrant King of Crete,' which was never acted. Many of his sermons too were printed; one of them, Pepys—who seems to have gone almost everywhere, and heard almost everything—listened to in 1663: 'At Chapel I had room in the Privy Seale pewe with other gentlemen;' but he has left no record of the impression produced. Probably, therefore, it was not very deep or lasting; and, in fact, the sermons have no special excellence: yet there is something true and pathetic in this saying: 'Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nature; and they are more than one, whom the same misfortune joined together, than to whom the same womb gave life.'
The Rev. W. J. Loftie, in his 'History of the Savoy,' tells us that Henry Killigrew succeeded Sheldon as Master, and that he was no more careful and economic in the management of the decaying establishment than was his predecessor; yet King William III.'s Commissioners tell a somewhat different story, and describe him as 'a man of generous and public spirit, as his expenses in the Chapel of the said Hospital, and of King Henry VII. at Westminster, who was the founder of the said Hospital, do sufficiently testify.'
In the Savoy itself Henry Killigrew lived, paying £1 a year for his lodgings. No pleasant neighbourhood was that 'Sanctuary'[89] which Macaulay thus describes:
'The Savoy was another place of the same kind as Whitefriars; smaller indeed, and less renowned, but inhabited by a not less lawless population. An unfortunate tailor, who ventured to go thither for the purpose of demanding payment for a debt, was set upon by the whole mob of cheats, ruffians, and courtezans. He offered to give a full discharge to his debtor, and a treat to the rabble, but in vain. He had violated their "franchises," and this crime was not to be pardoned. He was knocked down, stripped, tarred, and feathered. A rope was tied round his waist. He was dragged naked up and down the street amidst yells of "A bailiff! a bailiff!" Finally he was compelled to kneel down, and curse his father and mother—and then "to limp home without a rag upon him."'