[?presented].

"'He had heard that the Petition, that went under the name of
the Kentish Petition, was burnt by the hands of the common hangman.

"'He never heard of any order of either, [or] of both, the Houses
concerning [the Petition].

"'He was at Hull on Thursday or Friday was a sevennight: as he
came from Yorke, he took Hull in the way. He had heard, that

Sir Roger Twisden was questioned for the like Petition.
"'He was yesterday at BLACKHEATH.'

"Resolved, upon the question, that Captain Lovelace shall be
presently Committed prisoner to the Gatehouse.

"Resolved, upon the question, that Sir William Boteler shall be
presently committed prisoner to the Fleet.

"Ordered, that the sergeant shall apprehend them, and carry them
in safe custody, and deliver them as prisoners to the several

prisons aforesaid."
On the 4th May, 1642, the House of Commons ordered Mr. Whittlock

and others to prepare a charge against Mr. Lovelace and Sir William
Boteler with all expedition; but nothing further is heard of the

matter till the 17th June, When Lovelace<2.23> and Boteler
petitioned the House separately for their release from custody.

Hereupon Sir William was discharged on finding personal bail to the
extent of 10,000, with a surety for 5000; and in

the case of his companion in misfortune it was ordered, on the
question, that "he be forthwith bailed upon GOOD security." This

"good security," surely, did not reach the sum mentioned by Wood,
namely, 40,000; but it is likely that the author of the

ATHENAE is ONLY wrong by a cypher, and that the amount fixed was
4000, as it has been already suggested. Thus Lovelace's

confinement did not exceed seven weeks in duration, and the
probability, is that the sole inconvenience, which he subsequently

experienced, was the loss of the bail.
The description left by Wood and Aubrey of the end of Lovelace

can only be reconciled with the fact, that his daughter and heiress
conveyed Kingsdown, Hever,<2.24> and a moiety of Chipsted,

to the Cokes by marriage with Mr. Henry Coke, by presuming that
those manors were entailed; while Lovelace Place, as well perhaps

as Bayford and Goodneston, not being similarly secured, were sold
to defray the owner's incumbrances. At any rate it is not,

upon the whole, very probable that he died in a hovel, in a state
of absolute poverty;<2.25> that he received a pound a week

(equal to about 4 of our money) from two friends,
Cotton and another, Aubrey himself admits; and we may rest

satisfied that, however painful the contrast may have been between
the opening and close of that career, the deplorableaccount given

in the ATHENAE, and in the so-called LIVES OF EMINENT MEN, is much
exaggerated and overdrawn.

It has not hitherto been remarked, that among the Kentish gentry
who, from time to time, elected to change the nature of their

tenure from gavelkind to primogeniture, were the Lovelaces
themselves, in the person of Thomas Lovelace,<2.26> who, by Act of

Parliament 2 and 3 Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several
other families, the power of version" target="_blank" title="n.转化；变换；皈依">conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was

not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn
in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much

reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the
precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William

Lovelace of Gray's Inn, who died in 1576, and who was great-
grandfather to the author of LUCASTA. The circumstance that the

real property of Thomas Lovelace aforesaid, situated in Kent, was
released by Act of Parliament, 2 and 3 Edw. VI. from the operations

of gavelkind tenure (assuming, as is most likely to have been the
case, that he was of the same stock as the poet, though not an

immediate ancestor,) seems to explain the following allusion by
Dudley Lovelace in the verses prefixed by him to LUCASTA, 1649:--

"Those by the landed have been writ,
Mine's but a younger-brother wit."

As well as the subjoined lines by Lovelace in the poem entitled,
"To Lucasta, from Prison," (see p. 44 of present edition):--

"Next would I court my LIBERTY,
And then my birthright, PROPERTY."

There is evidence to prove that Lovelace was on intimate terms
with some of the wits of his time, and that he had friendly

relations with many of them--such as Hall, Rawlins, Lenton, and
particularly the Cottons. John Tatham, the City Poet, and author

of THE FANCIES THEATER, 1640, knew him well, and addressed to him
some stanzas, not devoid of merit, during his stay abroad.

In 1643, Henry Glapthorne, a celebrateddramatist and poet
of the same age, dedicated to Lovelace his poem of WHITEHALL,

printed in that year in a quarto pamphlet, with elegies
on the Earls of Bedford and Manchester.<2.27> The pages

of LUCASTA bear testimony to the acquaintance of the author
with Anthony Hodges of New College, Oxford, translator of

CLITOPHON AND LEUCIPPE from the Greek of Achilles Tatius
(or rather probably from a Latin version of the original),

and with other<2.28> members of the University.<2.29>
Although it is stated by Wood that LUCASTA was prepared for the

press by Lovelace himself, on his return from the Continent in
1648, it is impossible to believe that any care was bestowed on the

correction of the text, or on the arrangement of the various pieces
which compose the volume: nor did his brother Dudley Posthumus, who

edited the second part of the book in 1659, perform his task in any
degree better. In both instances, the printer seems to have been

suffered to do the work in his own way, and very infamously he has
done it. To supply all the short-comings of the author and his

literary executor at this distance of time, is, unfortunately, out
of the power of any editor; but in the present republication I have

taken the liberty of rearranging the poems, to a certain extent in
the order in which it may be conjectured that they were written;

and where Lovelace contributed commendatory verses to other works,
either before or after the appearance of the first portion of

LUCASTA, the two texts have been collated, and improved readings
been occasionally obtained.

The few poems, on which the fame of Lovelace may be said to rest,
are emanations not only of the stirring period in which he lived,

but of the peculiar circumstances into which he was thrown
at different epochs of his life. Lovelace had not the melodious

and exquisite taste of Herrick, the wit of Suckling, or the power
of Randolph (so often second only to his master Jonson).

Mr. Singer has praised the exuberant fancy of Lovelace; but,
in my thinking, Lovelace was inferior in fancy, as well as in

grace, both to Carew and the author of HESPERIDES. Yet Lovelace
has left behind him one or two things, which I doubt if any of

those writers could have produced, and which our greatest poets
would not have been ashamed to own. Winstanley was so far right in

instituting a comparison between Lovelace and Sydney, that it is
hard to name any one in the entire circle of early English

literature except Sydney and Wither, who could have attempted, with
any chance of success, the SONG TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON; and how

differently Sydney at least would have handled it! We know what
Herrick would have made of it; it would have furnished the theme

for one more invocation to Julia. From Suckling we should have had
a bantering playfulness, or a fescennine gaiety, equally unsuited

to the subject. Waller had once an opportunity of realizing the
position, which has been described by his contemporary in immortal

stanzas; but Waller, when he was under confinement, was thinking
too much of his neck to write verses with much felicity, and

preferred waiting, till he got back to Beaconsfield (when his
inspiration had evaporated), to pour out his feelings to Lady

Dorothy or Lady Sophia. Wither's song, "Shall I wasting in
Despair," is certainly superior to the SONG TO ALTHEA. Wither was

frequently equal to Lovelace in poetical imagery and sentiment, and
he far excelled him in versification. The versification of

Lovelace is indeed more rugged and unmusical than that of any other
writer of the period, and this blemish is so conspicuous throughout