The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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A Speech Presented unto King James at a Tilting, in the Behalf of the Two Noble Brothers (1613)

  A Speech Presented unto King James at a Tilting, in the Behalf
of the Two Noble Brothers, Sir Robert and Sir Henry Rich,
now Earls of Warwick and Holland

Two noble knights, whom true desire and zeal

Hath armed at all points, charge me humbly kneel

Unto thee, king of men, their noblest parts

To tender thus: their lives, their loves, their hearts!

The elder of these two,  rich hope’s increase, 5

Presents a royal altar of fair peace,

And, as an everlasting sacrifice,

His life, his love, his honour which ne’er dies

He freely brings, and  on this altar lays

As true oblations. His brother’s emblem says 10

Except your gracious eye, as through a glass

Made   prospective, behold him, he must pass

Still that same little point he was; but when

Your royal eye, which still creates new men,

Shall look, and on him so, then art’s a liar 15

If from a little spark he rise not fire.

A Speech at a Tilting First printed by Gifford from JnB 471 (in Bodleian, MS Ashmole 38, a verse miscellany compiled c. 1638 by Nicholas Burghe, d. 1670), which ascribes it to Jonson. Sir Robert Rich (1587–1658), later Earl of Warwick, danced in (and contributed to the cost of) Haddington, and his brother Henry (1590–1649), later Earl of Holland, danced in Love’s Tr. They were both sons of Robert Rich, first Earl of Warwick, and Penelope Devereux, Sidney’s Stella. The tilting, ‘where there was more gallantry both for number and bravery than hath been since the King came in’, occurred 24 Mar. 1613 (Nichols, Progresses (James), 2.609–10). Sir Henry Wotton described it in less glowing terms: ‘The two Riches only made a speech to the king; the rest were contented with bare imprese, whereof some were so dark that their meaning is not yet understood, unless perchance that were their meaning, not to be understood. The two best, to my fancy, were those of the two Earls brothers [i.e. the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery]: the first a small exceeding white pearl, and the word solo candore valeo [I am strong only in brightness/candor]. The other a sun casting a glance on the side of a pillar, and the beams reflecting, with this motto: splendente refulget [when shone on he flashes brightly]. In which devices there seemed an agreement; the elder brother to allude to his own nature, and the younger to his fortune’ (Wotton, Letters, 1661, 5–6).[Editor: Colin Burrow]
5 rich hope’s increase i.e. the elder son of Robert Rich.
9 on] H&S; one JnB 471
12 prospective magnifying. Presumably the younger Rich’s emblem featured a telescope, available from c. 1609; though the phrase ‘prospective glass’ is found earlier, e.g. Greene, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, 5.105. The MS reads ‘prespective’, which may indicate a pun on the art of perspective, often used in royal entertainments. As it happened the younger brother, Sir Henry, excelled at the tilting (Nichols, Progresses (James), 2.610).
12 prospective] H&S; prespective JnB 471; perspective G