ne?
Ah! holy traytour to your brother prince,
Rob'd of his birth-right and preheminence!
Could you ascend yon' chaire of state e're him,
And snatch from th' heire the starry diadem?
Making your honours now as much uneven,
As gods on earth are lesse then saints in heav'n.
Triumph! sing triumphs, then! Oh, put on all
Your richest lookes, drest for this festivall!
Thoughts full of ravisht reverence, with eyes
So fixt, as when a saint we canonize;
Clap wings with Seraphins before the throne
At this eternall coronation,
And teach your soules new mirth, such as may be
Worthy this birth-day to divinity.
But ah! these blast your feasts, the jubilies
We send you up are sad, as were our cries,
And of true joy we can expresse no more
Thus crown'd, then when we buried thee before.
Princesse in heav'n, forgivenes! whilst we
Resigne our office to the HIERARCHY.
<60.1> All historical and genealogical works are deficient
in minute information relative to the family of Charles I.
Even in Anderson's ROYAL GENEALOGIES, 1732, and in the folio
editions of Rapin and Tindal, these details are overlooked.
At page 36 of his DESCENDANTS OF THE STUARTS, 1858, Mr. Townend
observes that two of the children of Charles I. died in infancy,
and of these the Princesse Katherine, commemorated by Lovelace,
was perhaps one. The present verses were originally printed
in MUSARUM OXONIENSIUM CHARISTERIA, Oxon. 1638, 4to, from which
a few better readings have been obtained. With the exceptions
mentioned in the notes, the variations of the earlier text from
that found here are merely literal.
<> P. 140. PRINCESSE KATHERINE, BORNE, &C., IN ONE DAY.
In Ellis's ORIGINAL LETTERS, Second Series, iii. 265, is printed
a scrap from Harl. MS. 6988, in the handwriting of the Princess
Elizabeth, daughter of Charles I., giving a list of the children
of that prince by Henrietta Maria, with the dates of their birth.
There mention is made of a Princess Katherine, born Jan. 29, 1639.
1639 is, I believe, a slip of the pen for 1637; that is to say,
the princess was born on the 29th of January, 1637-8. This
discrepancy between the CHARISTERIA and the memorandum in Harl. MS.
escaped Sir H. Ellis, who was possibly unaware of the existence of
the former. For, unless a mistake is assumed on the part of the
writer of the MS., the existence of TWO Princesses Katherine must
be granted.
<60.2> This reading from CHARISTERIA, 1638, seems preferabl
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