THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. THE public interest has been of late years so strongly manifested in favour of the poets of the seventeenth century, that little apology appears necessary for the republication of the following Poems. It would, however, be equally vain and foolish in the editor to claim for the author a place among the higher class of poets, or to exalt his due praise by depreciating the merits of his contemporaries.— Claiming only for Cæsar what to Cæsar is due, it may without arrogance be presumed that these pages will not be found inferior to the poems of others which have been fortunately 1 republished, or familiarised to the generality of readers through the popular medium of selections. THE author of the following poems. (an account of whose life may be considered as a necessary appendage to these pages) is said to have descended from the antient family of the Corbets in Shropshire. It were too laborious and pedantic in a work of this nature to trace his pedigree, but I should be pleased to find any proofs of their attachment to him: yet as the bishop did not usually "conceal his love," I suspect he received no mark of their regard, at least till his elevation conferred rather than received obligation by acknowledgment. Richard Corbet, successively bishop of Oxford and Norwich, was born at the village of Ewell in Surrey, in the year 1582: he was the only son of Bennet, or Benedicta, and Vincent Corbet, who, from causes which I have not discovered, assumed the name of Poynter. His father, a man of some eminence for his skill in gardening, and who is celebrated by Ben Jonson in an elegy' alike 1 An EPITAPH on Master VINCENT CORBET. I have my piety too, which, could It vent itself but as it would, Would say as much as both have done Before me here, the friend and son : For I both lost a friend and father, Of him whose bones this grave doth gather: That though they did possess each limb, A life that knew nor noise nor strife: honourable to the subject, the poet, and the friend, for his many amiable virtues, resided So of uncleanness or offence, That never came ill odour thence ! They were as specious as his trees. To licence ever was so light, As twice to trespass in his sight; His looks would so correct it, when It chid the vice, yet not the men. And more, much more, I should have done, 'But that I understood him scant: Now I conceive him by my want; And pray, who shall my sorrows read, I feel I'm rather dead than he. Reader, whose life and name did e'er become An epitaph, deserv'd a tomb: Nor wants it here through penury or sloth, JONSON'S Underwoods. |