"My passed life nought suffereth me to doubt "Noisome oblivion of the loathsome death. "Slay me! yet all th' offspring to come shall "know : "And this decease shall bring eternal life. "Yea, and (unless I fail, and all in vain, "Rome, I sometime thy Augur chosen was,) "Not evermore shall friendly Fortune thee. "Favour, Antonius! Once the day shall come "When her dear wights, by cruel spite thus slain, "Victorious Rome shall at thy hands require. "Melikes, therewhile, go see the hoped heaven.” Speech had he left, and therewith he, good man, His throat prepar'd, and held his head unmov'd. His hasting to those Fates the very knights Be loth to see, and, rage rebated, when They his bare neck beheld, and his hoar hairs, Scant could they hold the tears that forth 'gan burst, And almost fell from bloody hands the swords. Swaps off the head with his presumptuous iron. Which durst Antonius' life so lively paint. LORD VAUX. This poet (says Mr. Warton) was probably Thomas Lord Vaux, of Harrowden, in Northamptonshire, son of Lord Nicholas, with whom (though no poet), as Mr. Ritson observes, he has been confounded by Wood, and others. Puttenham gave the first occasion to this mistake. He succeeded his father in 1523, was summoned to Parliament in 1531, and seems to have lived till the latter end of Queen Mary's reign. Two poems in Tottel's collection, viz. "The "Assault of Cupid," and that which begins, "I loath that "I did love," (from whence three stanzas are quoted in the song of the grave-diggers in Hamlet) are certainly his. Several of his pieces are also preserved in "the Paradise of Dainty Devices." Mr. Ritson assigns a place among the poets to William lord Vaux, son of the above nobleman, and ascribes to him a share in the poems contained in the collection just mentioned, but adduces no authority. See Percy's Reliques I. 49, and Lord Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors. The assault of Cupid upon the fort, where the lover's heart lay wounded, and how he was taken. WHEN Cupid scaled first the fort Wherein my heart lay wounded sore, The battery was of such a sort, That I must yield, or die therefore. There saw I Love upon the wall, How he his banner did display; "Alarm! alarm!" he 'gan to call, And bade his soldiers keep array. The arms, the which that Cupid bare, Were pierced hearts with tears besprent, In silver and sable, to declare The steadfast love he always meant. There might you see his band all drest Good-will, the master of the shot, Stood in the rampire, brave, and proud; For 'spence of powder, he spar'd not "Assault! assault!" to cry aloud. There might you hear the cannons roar; Each piece discharg'd a lover's look; Which had the power to rend, and tore In any place whereas they took. The scaling-ladders were up set: And Beauty walked up and down, With bow in hand, and arrows whet. Then first Desire began to scale, Then pushed soldiers with their pikes, And halberdiers, with handy strokes ; The hargabushe 2 in flash it lights, And dims the air with misty smokes. And, as it is the 3 soldiers use, When shot and powder 'gins to want, I hanged up my flag of truce And pleaded for my life's grant. When Fancy thus had made her breach, |