"Sir,
"I have so long beene in your debt that I am almost desperate
in my selfe of making you paiment, till this fancy by
ravishing from you a new curtesie in its patronage, promised
me it would satisfie part of my former engagements to you.
Wonder not to see it invade you thus on the sudden; gratitude
is aeriall, and, like that element, nimble in its motion and
performance; though I would not have this of mine of a French
disposition, to charge hotly and retreat unfortunately: there
may appeare something in this that may maintaine the field
courageously against Envy, nay come off with honour; if you,
Sir, please to rest satisfied that it marches under your
ensignes, which are the desires of
"Your true honourer,
"Hen. Glapthorne."

<2.28> It has never, so far as I am aware, been suggested that
the friend to whom Sir John Suckling addressed his capital ballad:--

"I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,"

may have been Lovelace. It was a very usual practice (then even
more so than now) among familiar acquaintances to use the
abbreviated Christian name in addressing each other; thus Suckling
was JACK; Davenant, WILL; Carew, TOM, &c.; in the preceding
generation Marlowe had been KIT; Jonson, BEN; Greene, ROBIN, and so
forth; and although there is no positive proof that Lovelace and
Suckling were intimate, it is extremely probable that such was the
case, more especially as they were not only brother poets, but both
country gentlemen belonging to neighbouring counties. Suckling