ant lotus laid' 80
E Catalectis Vet[erum] Poet[arum] 81
Seven Epigrams [Plato]:
I. Upon one named Aster 81
II. Upon Aster's Death 81
III. On Dion, engraved on his Tomb at Syracuse 82
IV. On Alexis 82
V. On Archaeanassa 82
VI. Love Sleeping 82
VII. On a Seal 83

TEXTUAL NOTES 85

A LIST OF EDITIONS OF THOMAS STANLEY'S POEMS AND
TRANSLATIONS 101

INDEX TO FIRST LINES 107

PREFATORY NOTE

Thomas Stanley's quiet life began in 1625, the year of the accession of
that King whom English poets have loved most. He came, though in the
illegitimate line, from the great Stanleys, Earls of Derby. His father,
descended from Edward, third Earl, was Sir Thomas Stanley of
Leytonstone, Essex, and Cumberlow, Hertfordshire; and his mother was
Mary, daughter to Sir William Hammond of St. Alban's Court, Nonington,
near Canterbury. Following the almost unbroken law of the heredity of
genius, Stanley derived his chief mental qualities from his mother; and
through her he was nearly related to the poets George Sandys, William
Hammond, Sir John Marsham the chronologer, Richard Lovelace and his less
famous brother; as, through his father, to a fellow-poet perhaps dearer
to him than any of these, Sir Edward Sherburne.

His tutor, at home, not at College, was William Fairfax, son of the
translator of Tasso. With translation in his own blood, that
accomplished and affectionate gentleman succeeded in inspiring his
forward charge with a taste for the same rather thankless game, and
with a love of modern foreign classics which he never lost. It was
thrown at Stanley, afterwards, that in courting the Muses, he had
profited only too well by Fairfax's aid: but the charge, if ever a
serious one at all, was absurdly ill-founded. It may have been based on
a wrong reading of that very generous acknowledgement beginning: 'If we
are one, dear friend,' which is printed in this volume; for the muddled
mi