Nugae Antiquae
Most Noble Prince,
It was sometime since your will, that I should send unto you such scraps and fragments of wit and poesy as I might, from my poor brain; but as respect is due to crowned heads, and as such should be honored before clownish heads, I have here sent to your Highness a pretty verse, made by that unfortunate, and yet in his godliness I wist, most fortunate King; Henry the Sixth; it hath often caused much grief to think on the perilous state of that good King, not forgetting to remark how he framed his life to meet his death. I met with this verse in a book of my grandfather's writing, whose father was so much in the troubles and wars of York and Lancaster, as to lose all his lands for being a commander on the wrong side, and among the traitors, if so I may say; and yet thus saith a poet:<198>
Treason doth never prosper;—What's the reason?
Why;—if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
But this is not King Henry's verse. My ancestor Sir James Harington did once take prisoner, with his party, this poor Prince; for which the House of York did grant him a parcel of lands in the northern counties, and which he was fool enough to lose again, after the battle of Bosworth, when King Henry the Seventh came to the crown; and methinks I feel his folly to this time, for, on forfeiture of twenty-five rich manors, it was time for our house to travel to southward, where, if they brought no lands, they found some, from the goodness of Henry the Eighth.
The verse I did mean to present your Highness with, is as doth now follow, and well suiteth the temper and condition of him who made it:
"Kingdoms are but cares;
State is devoid of stay;
Riches are ready snares,
And hasten to decay.
Pleasure is a privy prick
Which vice doth still provoke;
Pomp, unprompt; and fame, a flame;
Power, a smouldering smoke.
Who meaneth to remove the rock
Out of the slimy mud,
Shall mire himself, and hardly 'scape
The swelling of the flood.
So much for poor King Henry's verse; and now take (if your Highness will excuse it) some of his prose: for I find written under this, in the same hand, the following sentences; and no doubt they were not given as his without good credit and grounds:
"Patience is the armour and conquest of the godly: this meriteth mercy, when causeless is suffered sorrow."
"Naught else is war but fury and madness, wherein is not advice but rashness; not right but rage, ruleth and reigneth."
HENRY."
And none so truly could speak thus as our poor author, under his piteous imprisonment, his bloody kingdom, his distressed kindred; from all which God hath now most marvelously freed and delivered these realms.
As I have thus given your Highness a short example of royal poetry, I will not in haste forsake the matter and descend from high to low; but will now venture to send to your reading a special verse of King Henry the Eighth, when he conceived love for Anne Boleyn. And hereof I entertain no doubt of the author; for, if I had no better reason than the rhyme, it were sufficient to think that no other than such a Kig could write such a sonnet; but of this my father oft gave me good assurance, who was in his household.<199> This sonnet was sung to the lady, at his commandment, and here followeth:—
The eagle's force subdues each bird that flies
What metal can resist the flaming fire?
Doth not the sun dazzle the clearest eyes?
And melt the ice, and make the frost retire?
The hardest stones are pierced through with tools;
The wisest are, with Princes, made but fools.
Thus have I given your Highness another example of royal poetry; nor, if time did serve, or your time, would permit, should I omit some prettier verses of our late princess, of blessed remembrance; but enow at this time.
I have complied with your request, and sent my Ariosto for your Highness' entertainment, humbly suing for some special mark of your approbation in return from the hand and head of that Prince who claimeth the dutiful obeisance and unequalled estimation of
His honoured servant,
JOHN HARINGTON.
