deserved his punishment; and we have Raleigh's authority (as well as his own) for adding, that it led to his hearty repentance.+] WEET Benjamin, since thou art young, [VARIATIONS.-1. My little Ben, nowe 'thou'-C. 'whilst A. 'while'-B.-2. 'And knowst not yet'-A B.-3, 4. 'Keepe it in thrall, while it is free; Imprison it, or it will thee.'—A B. (except 'whilst'-A.)—' Imprison it, whilst thou art free; Least that, as myne, imprison thee'-C.] + See Rel. Wotton. pp. 432-4-8, (followed by Wood, Lingard, and others) and Raleigh's Works, viii. 162, 211, Oxford edit.-Sir C. Cornwallis, who was implicated by Hoskins, and imprisoned a few days after him, addressed an Apologetic Letter to the King (preserved among both the Ashm, and Tann. MSS. and printed in Gutch's Collect. Cur. i. 161-7,) in which he seems anxious to deny any connection with him. A similar speech is said to have been delivered by a different person in an earlier Parliament. (See Heylin, Exam. Hist. ii. 71, and Foulis, Hist. Plots, &c. p. 65; but as a reference to Cobbett's Parl. Hist. i. 1097, will prove that part of their account is erroneous, we cannot be certain about the rest.) It is supposed that Wotton sat in the Parliament of 1614 as member for Hastings. (In 1625, he was member for Sandwich.) Hoskins sat for the city of Hereford, as before in 1603, and afterwards in 1628. See Not. Parl. sub annis. I. TIMMS THE LIE. [BY SIR WALTER raleigh.] [Ir has been reported, that this poem was written by Raleigh on the night before his execution in 1618;* but unluckily, it was in print ten years before that time, in the second edition of Davison's Poeticall Rhapsodie, 1608. The advocates of Raleigh's claim have sometimes fallen back on the position, that perhaps he composed it while he was expecting execution in 1603; but this ground also must be now relin * When Dr. Birch inserted it among Raleigh's Minor Works in 1751, (ii. 396,) he gave the tradition in a less substantial form :-"This Poem is supposed to be Sir Walter Raleigh's, and appears to have been written some short Time before his Death." But Dr. Farmer, who has marked Birch's variations in his copy of Davison, adds, "This was written (I think) by Sir Walter Rawleigh ye Night before He was beheaded." These two notes very fairly represent the manner in which the tradition would grow up. + Percy's Reliques, ii. 289, ed. 1765. Nicolas's edit. of Davison, Biogr. Not. p. ci. Malone's note, inserted in his copy of Davison, ed. 1621, in the Bodleian, was evidently written before he obtained the MS. mentioned in the next note. He thought of the earlier portion of Raleigh's long impri sonment. |
