Deel f. 24r - Four pieces on one sheet

(i) Untitled verses (author unknown).
Three eight-line stanzas. First line: ‘To daunten me to daunten me’.

(ii) Untitled verses, by Henry Birkhead (adapted by another writer?).
In Latin. First line: ‘Dum Capitolinæ reservassem Nubila Turres’. The variations from the printed version are probably later alterations.

(iii) ‘Epitaph upon Moliere’ (author unknown.
In French. First line: ‘’Cy git Celuy qui parut dans la Scene’.

(iv) Untitled verses, by Archibald Pitcairne (adapted by another writer?).
In Latin. First line: ‘Tellurem statuere Dii, sua littora Belgæ’. The variations from the printed version are probably later adaptations.

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Transcripts

1
To daunten me to daunten me
I thought nothing cou’d daunten me
When I was wanton young and free
I thought nothing cou’d daunten me
But Eighty eight and Eighty nine
And all the weary years since syne
With sicknes age and poverty
Alace have o’r sair daunten’d me.

2
Seck was the drink in fortie nyne
When Presbitry had right Divine
And now again the time is come
When all our drink is Seck and Mum
And so into the chair we see
Is mounted Mr. John Presbitry
And banish’d is all Christian Liquor
With Bishop, Curate, Dean, & Vicar.

3
Claret’s the only liquor can
Be said to chear the Heart of Man
And when a better sett of Starrs
Shall put a right end to our Wars
Then banish’d shall be Seck and Mum
And every thing that breeds humdrum
And with good claret we shall see
Restor’d our Prince and Prelacy.

——

Dum Capitolinæ reservassem Nubila Turres,
Ausæ prærupta pandere Jura Polo;
Paruit Oceanus Tibri, subservijt Urbi
Orbis: Cultricem Dij coluere suam.
Ab Dijs condi vulgare; Hæc gloria major,
Ponere Jura Dijs, quam posuisse Deos.

——

Epitaph upon Moliere

’Cy git Celuy qui parut dans la Scene
Le Sienge de la Vie Humain
Qui n’aura jamais son egale.
Mais se jouant de la Mort, ainsi que de la Vie
Elle trouva si belle sa copie
Q’elle en fit un originall.

——

Tellurem statuere Dij, sua littera Belgæ,
Immensæque fuit molis uterque labos:
Dij vacuo sparsas glomerarunt æthere terras,
Nil ubi, quod ceptis posset obesse, fuit.
At Belgis maria, et cæli, naturaque rerum
Obsidit; Obstentos sic domuere Deos.

A version of (i) is in A Collection of Loyal Songs, Poems, etc. (1750), pp. 70–1, but the second and third stanzas are quite different.

(ii) was printed, with variations, in a broadside of 1656 addressed to Henry Vane by Henry Stubbe (Wing S6048). The lines are headed ‘Pro Dominâ Româ’ and subscribed ‘H. Birchedus’. The broadside, which is untitled, begins ‘Illustrissimo, summæque spei juveni Henrico Vane Armigero’.

(iii) was printed, with variations and additional lines, in Le Mercure galant, tom. iv (1674), where it is one of a group of poems headed ‘Pieces en vers, sur la Mort de Moliere’.

(iv) was printed, with variations, in Selecta Poemata Archibaldi Pitcarnii, Gulielmi Scot, Thomae Kincadii, et aliorum (1727), p. 3, under the heading ‘In Belgas’. See also Pitcairne’s Latin Poems, ed. John and Winifred MacQueen (2009), p. 182.