Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EPISTLE TO SIR CLIFFORD CLIFTON, THEN SITTING IN PARLIAMENT, by CHARLES COTTON


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EPISTLE TO SIR CLIFFORD CLIFTON, THEN SITTING IN PARLIAMENT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When from thy kind hand, my dearest, dear brother
Last Line: Since not prose, nor yet metre, he swears can express it.
Subject(s): Clifton, Sir Clifford (d. 1669)


WHEN from thy kind hand, my dearest, dear brother,
Whom I love as th'adst been the son of my Mother,
Nay, better, to tell you the truth of the story,
Had you into the world but two minutes before me;
I receiv'd thy kind letter, good Lord, how it eas'd me
Of the villanous spleen that for six days had seiz'd me:
I start from my couch, where I lay dull and muddy,
Of my servants inquiring the way to my study,
For, of truth, of late days I so little do mind it,
Should one turn me twice about I never should find it:
But by help of direction, I soon did arrive at
The place where I us'd to sit fooling in private.

So soon as got thither, I straight fell to calling,
Some call it invoking, but mine was plain bawling;
I call'd for my Muse, but no answer she made me,
Nor could I conceive why the slut should evade me.
I knew I there left her, and lock't her so safe in,
There could be no likelihood of her escaping:
Besides, had she scap't, I was sure to retrieve her,
She being so ugly that none would receive her:
I then fell to searching, since I could not hear her,
I sought all the shelves, but never the nearer:
I tumbled my papers, and rifled each packet,
Threw my books all on heaps, and kept such a racket,
Disordering all things, which before had their places
Distinct by themselves in several classes,
That who'd seen the confusion, and look't on the ware,
Would have thought he had been at Babylon Fair:
At last, when for lost I had wholly resign'd her,
Where canst thou imagine, dear Knight, I should find her?
Faith, in an old drawer, I late had not been in,
'Twixt a coarse pair of sheets of the housewife's own spinning,
A Sonnet instead of a coif her head wrapping,
I happily took her small Ladyship napping.

Why, how now, Minx, quoth I, what's the matter, I pray,
That you are so hard to be spoke with to-day?
Fie, fie, on this idleness, get up and rouse you,
For I have a present occasion to use you:
Our noble Maecenas, Sir Clifford of Cudcon,
Has sent here a letter, a kind and a good one:
Which must be suddenly answer'd, and finely,
Or the Knight will take it exceeding unkindly;
To which having some time sat musing and mute,
She answer'd sh'ad broke all the strings of her lute;
And had got such a rheum with lying alone,
That her voice was utterly broken and gone:
Besides this, she had heard, that of late I had made
A friendship with one that had since been her maid;
One Prose, a slatternly ill-favour'd toad,
As common as Hackney, and beaten as road,
With whom I sat up sometimes whole nights together,
Whilst she was exposed to the wind and the weather.
Wherefore, since that I did so slight and abuse her,
She likewise now hop'd I would please to excuse her.

At this sudden reply I was basely confounded,
I star'd like a Quaker, and groan'd like a Roundhead,
And in such a case, what the Fiend could one do?
My conscience convinc'd her reproaches were true;
To swagger, I durst not, I else could have beat her,
But what if I had, I'd been never the better,
To quarrel her then had been quite out of season,
And ranting would ne'er have reduc'd her to reason;
I therefore was fain to dissemble repentance,
I disclaim'd and forswore my late new acquaintance.
I kissed her, and hugg'd her, I clapt her, and chuck't her,
I push'd her down backward, and offer'd to have...
But the Jade would not buckle, she pish't and she pouted,
And wriggling away, fairly left me without it:
I caught her, and offered her money, a little,
At which she cried that were to plunder the Spittle:
I then, to allure her, propos'd to her, Fame,
Which she so much despised, she pish't at the name;
And told me in answer, that she could not glory at
The sail-bearing title of Muse to a Laureat,
Much less to a Rhymer did nought but disgust one,
And pretended to nothing but pitiful fustian.
But oh, at that word, how I rated and call'd her,
And had my fist up, with intent to have maul'd her:
At which, the poor slut, half afraid of the matter,
Changing her note, 'gan to wheedle and flatter;
Protesting she honour'd me, Jove knew her heart,
Above all the Peers o' th' Poetical Art:
But that of late time, and without provocation,
I had been extremely unjust to her passion.
Methought this founded, I then laid before her,
How long I had serv'd her, how much did adore her;
How much she herself stood oblig'd to the Knight,
For his kindness and favour, to whom we should write;
And thereupon called, to make her amends,
For a pipe and a bottle, and so we were Friends.

Being thus made Friends, we fell to debating
What kind of verse we should congratulate in:
I said 't must be dogg'rel, which when I had said,
Maliciously smiling, she nodded her head,
Saying dogg'rel might pass to a Friend would not show it,
And do well enough for a Derbyshire Poet.
Yet mere simple dogg'rel, she said, would not do 't,
It needs must be galloping dogg'rel to boot,
For amblers and trotters, though th' had thousands of feet,
Could never however be made to be fleet;
But would make so damnable slow a progression,
They'd not reach up to Westminster till the next Session.

Thus then unto thee, my dear Brother, and Sweeting,
In Canterbury verse I send health and kind greeting,
Wishing thee honour, but if thou bee'st cloyed we't,
Above what thy ancestry ever enjoy'd yet;
May'st thou sit where now seated, without fear of blushing
Till thy little fat buttock e'en grow to the cushion.
Give his Majesty money, no matter who pays it,
For we never can want it so long as he has it;
But, wer't wisdom to trust saucy counsel in letters,
I'd advise thee beware falling out with thy betters;
I have heard of two dogs once that fought for a bone,
But the proverb's so greasy, I'll let it alone;
A word is enough to the wise; then resent it,
A rash act than mended is sooner repented:
And, as for the thing call'd a traitor; if any
Be proved to be such, as I doubt there's too many;
Let him e'en be hang'd up, and never be pray'd for,
What a pox were blocks, gibbets, and gallowses made for?
But I grow monstrous weary, and how should I choose,
This galloping rhyme has quite jaded my Muse:
And I swear, if thou look'st for more posting of hers,
Little Knight, thou must needs lend her one of thy spurs.
Farewell then, dear Bully, but ne'er look for a name,
For, expecting no honour, I will have no shame:
Yet, that you may guess at the party that writes t'ee,
And not grope in the dark, I'll hold up these lights t'ee.
For his stature, he's but a contemptible male,
And grown something swab with drinking good ale;
His looks, than your brown, a little thought brighter,
Which grey hairs make every year whiter and whiter,
His visage, which all the rest mainly disgraces,
Is warp't, or by age, or cutting of faces.
So that, whether 'twere made so, or whether 'twere marr'd,
In good sooth, he's a very unpromising bard:
His legs, which creep out of two old-fashioned knapsacks,
Are neither two millposts, nor yet are they trap-sticks;
They bear him, when sober, bestir 'em and spare not,
And who the Devil can stand when they are not?

Thus much for his person, now for his condition,
That's sick enough full to require a physician:
He always wants money, which makes him want ease,
And he's always besieged, though himself of the Peace,
By an army of duns, who batter with scandals,
And are foemen more fierce than the Goths or the Vandals.
But when he does sally, as sometimes he does,
Then hey for Bess fuckson, and a fig for his foes:
He's good fellow enough to do every one right,
And never was first that ask't, what time of Night:
His delight is to toss the can merrily round,
And loves to be wet, but hates to be drown'd:
He fain would be just, but sometimes he cannot,
Which gives him the trouble that other men ha' not.
He honours his Friend, but he wants means to show it,
And loves to be Rhyming, but is the worst Poet,
Yet among all these vices, to give him his due,
He has the virtue to be a true lover of you.
But how much he loves you, he says you may guess it,
Since not Prose, nor yet Metre, he swears can express it.





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