HENRY PRINCE OF WALES.
Reading edition
Upon the death of the promising Henry (Nov. 6, 1612), a prince, according to Arthur Wilson[58], as eminent in nobleness as in blood, and who fell not without suspicion of foul play, the poets his cotemporaries, whom he liberally patronised, poured forth by reams their tributary verses.
Corbet, as it has been before observed, pronounced his funeral oration at Oxford.
Nor was this all: while his bones were perishing and his flesh was rottenness, Dr. Daniel Price, his chaplain during his life, continued to commemorate his dissolution by preaching an anniversary sermon. Neither the practice nor its execution was agreeable to Corbet, who, after a triennial repetition, thus attacked the anniversarist.
IN QUENDAM ANNIVERSARIORUM SCRIPTOREM.
Ter circum Iliacos raptaverat Hectora muros. Virg. Æn. 1. 483.
Even soe dead Hector thrice was triumph’d on The walls of Troy, thrice slain when Fates had done: So did the barbarous Greekes before their hoast Torment his ashes and profane his ghost: As Henryes vault, his peace, his sacred hearse, Are torne and batter’d by thine Anniverse. Was ’t not enough Nature and strength were foes, But thou must yearly murther him in prose? Or dost thou thinke thy raving phrase can make A lowder eccho then the Almanake? Trust mee, November doth more ghastly looke In Dade and Hopton’s[59] pennyworth then thy booke; And sadder record their fixt figure beares Then thy false-printed and ambitious teares. For were it not for Christmas, which is nigh, When spice, fruit eaten, and digested pye Call for waste paper; no man could make shift How to employ thy writings to his thrift. Wherefore forbear, for pity or for shame, And let some richer penne redeeme his fame From rottennesse. Thou leave him captive; since So vile a Price ne’ere ransom’d such a Prince.