Upon the Death of Sir William Twisden
MS Folger, 229-32*.
1903 Reynolds prints Folger text, 61-67; rpt of 1903 Reynolds: 1930 Fausset 34-9.
William Twisden was a grandson of Anne Finch Twysden, daughter to Sir Moyle and Elizabeth Heneage Finch, and was thus a distant cousin to Heneage; his father, Sir Roger Twysden, had been a much-admired member of the gentry who managed to remain on good sides of everyone during Civil War and Interregnum. Since in the Folger a final passage has been obliterated, the implicit royalism of the elegy is muted; the dreaming poet is Milton of Lycidas, and Spenser's elegy on Sir Philip Sidney is alluded to in her note (Twisden a "second Astrophel". Beautiful, sensitive elegy from a "sad awaken'd heart" who laments her own and her country's loss of the old "Traditions… Of great, and of Illustrious Men." This poem has great beauty. She has a wonderful way of suggesting vast distances through the very concision of the couplet and general nouns. This anticipates Pope.
After November 27, 1696, date of Sir Wm's death.
Page Last Updated 7 January 2003