//
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 POEMS, 
 
 CHIEFLY LYRICAL, 
 
 FROM ROMANCES AND PROSE-TRACTS OF 
 
 THE ELIZABETHAN AGE: 
 WITH CHOSEN POEMS OF NICHOLAS BRETON.
 
 NOTE. Two hundred and sixty copies of this 
 large paper edition printed, each of which is num- 
 bered. 
 
 No.
 
 POEMS, 
 
 CHIEFLY LYRICAL, 
 
 FROM ROMANCES AND PROSE-TRACTS OF 
 THE ELIZABETHAN AGE: 
 
 WITH CHOSEN POEMS OF NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 EDITED RY 
 
 A. H. BULLEN. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 JOHN C. NIMMO, 
 
 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. 
 
 1890.
 
 cms WICK PRESS: c. WHITTINGHAM AND co., TOOKS COURT, 
 
 CHANCERY LANE.
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IN the present volume I offer yet another col- 
 lection of Elizabethan verse to the admirers of 
 our old poets. Davison's "Poetical Rhapsody" 
 will follow without delay : and then I have done. 
 Ne quid nimis. 
 
 When I excused the absence of Greene and 
 Lodge from my anthology, " Lyrics from Eliza- 
 bethan Dramatists," I announced that I intended 
 to issue a collection of poems from Elizabethan 
 romances. I must confess that, on proceeding to sift 
 the poetry which is so copiously scattered through 
 the old prose romances, I was somewhat disap- 
 pointed. Much of it is of indifferent value and falls 
 far below the standard of excellence that I have tried 
 to preserve in my other anthologies. So I deter- 
 mined to alter my plan. Instead of devoting a 
 whole volume to the romances, I have divided the 
 anthology into three groups. The first contains 
 
 1221681
 
 vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 poems from the romances; in the second I have 
 assembled Nicholas Breton's choicest poems; and 
 the third embraces lyrics from Clement Robinson's 
 " Handful of Pleasant Delights," and from " The 
 Phcenix' Nest." Breton's poems are not readily ac- 
 cessible, and certainly deserve attention. Clement 
 Robinson's collection and " The Phoenix' Nest " are 
 with the exception of " Tottell's Miscellany " 
 the most interesting of the miscellanies issued 
 before 1600, the year of the publication of 
 " England's Helicon." 
 
 A learned and genial French scholar, M. Jules 
 Jusserand, gave us a year or two ago an excellent 
 account of the Elizabethan novel. He has recently 
 revised and enlarged his essay, which is presently 
 to make its appearance in English dress. As the 
 field is occupied by M. Jusserand, it is unneces- 
 sary for me to touch on the history of the early 
 novel. I am concerned only with the poetry of 
 the Elizabethan romances. The old Greek novelists 
 Heliodorus, Longus, Achilles Tatius, and the 
 rest did not garnish their stories with verse ; and 
 Apuleius stuck to prose. It was from Italy and 
 Spain that our romance-writers caught the habit of 
 mingling verse with prose. Almost invariably they 
 were indebted for their plots to foreign originals ; 
 and not seldom the verse with which they sought 
 to relieve the tedium of their narratives was " con- 
 veyed " from over-sea. Gervase Markham, in the
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 preface to his "English Arcadia," remarked that 
 Sir Philip Sidney lay under some obligation to a 
 Spanish romance, once highly esteemed in Eng- 
 land, the "Diana" of Jorges de Montemayor, 
 (and he might have added that Sidney was also 
 indebted to Sannazarro's "Arcadia"). A translation 
 of "Diana" was made by Bartholomew Yong, or 
 Young, as early as 1584, but was not published un- 
 til 1598. Yong did not succeed in rendering the 
 poetry neatly ; but the editor of " England's Heli- 
 con " devoted many pages of his anthology to 
 Yong's translations. As for the poetry in Sidney's 
 "Arcadia," it is undeniably disappointing. If we 
 want to see how true a poet Sidney really was, we 
 must go to the songs and sonnets of Astrophel and 
 Stella, not to the " Arcadia." In his romance he 
 indulges his fondness for metrical experiments ; he 
 sports in hexameters, asclepiads, sapphics, etc. 
 feats of agility that quickly exhaust the reader's 
 patience. 
 
 Thomas Lodge candidly acknowledges at times 
 his indebtedness to foreign originals. In " A Mar- 
 garite of America," 1589, he gives us renderings of 
 several Italian sonnets, and mentions the authors' 
 names. But he is not always careful to express his 
 obligations. In "Scylla's Metamorphosis," 1589, 
 he has the following dainty poem : 
 
 "The earth late choked with showers, 
 Is now arrayed in green ;
 
 viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Her bosom springs with flowers, 
 
 The air dissolves her teen : 
 The heavens laugh at her glory, 
 Yet bide I sad and sorry. 
 
 The woods are decked with leaves, 
 
 The trees are clothed gay ; 
 And Flora, crowned with sheaves, 
 
 With oaken boughs doth play ; 
 Where I am clad in black, 
 The token of my wrack. 
 
 The birds upon the trees 
 
 Do sing with pleasant voices, 
 And chant in their degrees 
 
 Their loves and lucky choices ; 
 When I, whilst they are singing, 
 With sighs mine arms am wringing. 
 
 The thrushes seek the shade, 
 
 And I my fatal grave ; 
 Their flight to heaven is made, 
 
 My walk on earth I have ; 
 They free, I thrall ; they jolly, 
 I sad and pensive wholly. 
 
 These verses have been justly admired, but it has 
 not been noticed that they are closely imitated 
 from the opening stanzas of a longer poem of 
 Philippe Desportes : 
 
 " La terre, naguere glacee, 
 Est ores de vert tapissee, 
 Son sein est embelli de fleurs,
 
 INTRODUCTION.. - ix 
 
 L'air est encore amoureux d'elle, 
 
 Le ciel rit de la voir si belle, 
 
 Et moi j'en augmente mes pleurs. 
 
 < 
 
 Les bois sont converts de feuillage, 
 De vert se pare le bocage, 
 Ses rameaux sont tous verdissants ; 
 Et moi, las ! prive de ma gloire, 
 Je m'habille de couleur noire, 
 Signe des ennuis que je sens. 
 
 Des oiseaux la troupe legere 
 Chantant d'une voix ramagere, 
 S'egaye aux bois a qui mieux mieux : 
 Et moi tout rempli de furie 
 Je sanglotte, soupire, et crie 
 Par les plus solitaires lieux. 
 
 Les oiseaux cherchent la verdure : 
 Moi je cherche une sepulture, 
 Pour voir mon malheur limite. 
 Vers le ciel ils ont leur voice : 
 Et mon ame trop desolee 
 N'aime rien que 1'obscurite. " 
 
 Desportes was widely read in England. Indeed, 
 Lodge, in " A Margarite of America," speaks of his 
 " poetical writings " as " being already for the most 
 part Englished and ordinarily in every man's hands." 
 This seems to be an exaggeration, but there can be 
 no doubt that Desportes had some influence on 
 English poetry. One of the finest poems in the 
 present volume is the passionate address (from 
 " The Phoenix' Nest ") beginning :
 
 x INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " O Night, O jealous Night, repugnant to my measures ! l 
 
 Night so long desired, yet cross to my content ! 
 There's none but only thou that can perform my pleasures, 
 
 And none but only thou that hindereth my intent. " 
 
 This first stanza is clearly out of Desportes : 
 
 " O Nuit, jalouse Nuit, centre moi conjuree, 
 Qui renflammes le ciel de nouvelle clairte, 
 
 T'ai-je done aujourd'hui tant de fois desiree 
 Pour etre si contraire a ma felicite ? " 
 
 But the anonymous English poet confines his 
 imitation to the first stanza. The later stanzas have 
 nothing in common with the French poem ; and I 
 do not hesitate to say that the English verses are 
 far richer and more fervid than anything written by 
 Desportes. The triumphant extravagance of the 
 final stanza is hardly to be found outside of our 
 Elizabethan poets : 
 
 " And when my will is wrought, then, Cynthia, shine, good 
 lady, 
 
 All other nights and days in honour of that night, 
 That happy heavenly night, that night so dark and shady, 
 
 Wherein my Love had eyes that lighted my delight ! " 
 
 It seems to me that whenever Lodge imitates 
 Desportes, he greatly improves upon his model. 
 Desportes has a sonnet beginning : 
 
 1 Old ed. "pleasures," which recurs in the third line. 
 The repetition would be intolerable.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 "On verra defaillir tous les astres aux cieux, 
 Les poissons a la mer, le sable a son rivage, 
 Au soleil ses rayons bannisseurs de 1'ombrage, 
 La verdure et les fleurs au printemps gracieux : 
 Plutot que la fureur des rapports envieux 
 Efface en mon visage un trait de votre image. " 
 
 Compare this with Lodge's poem (p. 43) be- 
 ginning : 
 
 " First shall the heavens want starry light, 
 The seas be robbed of their waves ; 
 The day want sun, and sun want bright, 
 The night want shade, the dead men graves ; 
 
 The April flowers and leaf and tree, 
 
 Before I false my faith to thee." 
 
 Desportes' sonnet is a bundle of dry conceits ; 
 Lodge's song is musical as a running brook. 
 
 Lodge's lyrical measures have frequently a flavour 
 of Ronsard. He does not adopt the metres invented 
 by Ronsard, but his own inventions seem to have 
 been inspired by Ronsard's example. In a curious 
 work entitled " Tarlton's News out of Purgatory," 
 issued anonymously in 1590, we have (what I take 
 to be) a sly parody on Lodge's Ronsardian poetry. 
 The writer (possibly Thomas Nashe) introduces us 
 to a company of poets assembled in Purgatory, 
 and we are entertained with a love-poem that pro- 
 fesses to be by Ronsard. As the passage is of 
 some interest, I make no apology for quoting it 
 entire (in the old spelling) : 
 
 " The tale of the Painter being ended, passing a
 
 xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 little further, I might see where sat a crew of men that 
 wore Baye garlands on their heads, and they were 
 Poets; amongst which was olde Ennius, Virgill, 
 luuenall, Propertius, and wanton Ovid, Martial, 
 Horace, and many moe which had written las- 
 civious verse or other heroicall poems. But above 
 them all I marked olde Ronsard, and he sat there 
 with a scroule in his hand, wherein was written the 
 description of Cassandra his mistresse, and because 
 his stile is not common, nor haue I heard our 
 English Poets write in that vaine, marke it, and I 
 will rehearse it, for I haue learned it by hart. 
 
 RONSARD'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS MISTRIS, WHICH HE 
 WERES IN HIS HANDS IN PURGATORY. 
 
 Downe I sat, 
 I sat downe, 
 
 Where Flora had bestowed her graces : 
 Greene it was, 
 It was greene 
 Far passing other places : 
 
 For art and nature did combine 
 With sights to witch the gasers eyne. 
 
 There I sat, 
 I sat there, 
 
 Viewing of this pride of places : 
 Straight I saw, 
 I saw straight, 
 
 The sweetest fair of all faces : 
 Such a face as did containe 
 Heavens shine in every veine.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Jtiii 
 
 I did looke, 
 Looke did I, 
 
 And there I saw Apollos wyers : 
 Bright they were, 
 They were bright ; 
 With them Auroras head he tires. 
 But this I wondred how that now 
 They shadowed in Cassanders b[r]ow. 
 
 Still I gazde, 
 I gazde still, 
 
 Spying Lunas mylke white glasse : 
 Commixt fine, 
 Fine commixt, 
 With the mornings ruddie blase : 
 
 This white and red their seating seeks 
 Upon Cassandraes smiling cheekes. 
 
 Two stars then, 
 Then two stars, 
 
 Passing Sunne or Moone in shine, 
 Appearde there, 
 There appearde, 
 And were forsooth my mistris eine, 
 
 From whence prowd Cupid threw his fire 
 To set a flame all mens desire. 
 
 Brests she had, 
 She had breasts, 
 
 White like the silver dove ; 
 Lie there did, 
 There did lye, 
 
 Cupid ouergrowne with love : 
 And in the vale that parts the plaine 
 Pitcht his tent there to remaine.
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This was she, 
 She was this, 
 
 The fairest fair that e'er I see, 
 I did muse, 
 Muse did I, 
 
 How such a creature fo[u]nd could be : 
 A voice replied from the Aire, 
 Shee alone and none so faire." 
 
 There can be no doubt that this poem is a clever 
 parody, not to be taken seriously. "Tarlton's 
 News" was licensed for publication in June, 
 1590; and Lodge's "Rosalynd" was licensed 
 later in the same year. But, after the fashion of 
 the time, " Rosalynd " had doubtless been cir- 
 culated in MS. before publication. If we turn to 
 " Rosalynd," I think that we shall have no difficulty 
 in discovering the poem at which the parodist was 
 poking his fun. It was surely " Montanus' Sonnet," 
 beginning : 
 
 " Phoebe sat, 
 Sweet she sat, 
 
 Sweet sat Phoebe when I saw her. . . . 
 
 Phoebe sat, 
 By a fount, 
 
 Sitting by a fount I spied her," etc. (pp. 44-5-) 
 
 The repetition 
 
 " Phoebe sat, 
 Sweet she sat,"
 
 INTRODUCTION. xv 
 
 is risky ; but 
 
 ' ' Down I sat, 
 I sat down," 
 
 is intentionally absurd. Lodge's poem is not 
 written in one of Ronsard's metres, but it cer- 
 tainly has something of the Ronsardian spirit. 
 At least the jocular author of "Tarlton's News" 
 discovered a resemblance between Ronsard and 
 Lodge. It would be interesting to discuss what 
 debt our old lyrists really owed to Ronsard and 
 his circle ; and I hope to take up the enquiry here- 
 after. 
 
 Robert Greene's romances and love-pamphlets 
 are insipid reading ; but the poetry interspersed is 
 frequently excellent. There is no sweeter cradle- 
 song than " Weep not, my wanton, smile upon 
 my knee" (p. 15), which was written about the 
 time when he cruelly deserted his wife and young 
 child. The story of his miserable life is too well 
 known. He died at thirty, worn out by his excesses. 
 In his last sickness none of his boon companions 
 came near him ; but he was visited by a former 
 mistress, the mother of his son Fortunatus. He 
 lay in the squalid house of a poor shoemaker 
 near Dowgate : and on the day before his death 
 he wrote that most pathetic letter to the wife whom 
 he had abandoned, " Doll, I charge thee, by the 
 love of our youth and by my soul's rest, that thou
 
 xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 wilt see this man paid ; for if he and his wife had 
 not succoured me, I had died in the streets. 
 Robert Greene." His pious hostess, in obedience 
 to his last injunction, crowned his dead body with 
 a garland of bays. Though his life was irregular, 
 no charge of depravity can be brought against his 
 writings. Throughout his novels he was careful to 
 inculcate rules of virtuous conduct. He lived in 
 the baser parts of London, consorting with thieves 
 and sharpers ; but he sang of " Flora and the 
 country-green," of wise content and quiet sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 From " The Mirror of Knighthood," a trans- 
 lation of the famous Spanish romance " Esj>eio de 
 Principes y Cavalleros " (which the curate in " Don 
 Quixote " condemned to the flames) I have gathered 
 some poems that will doubtless be new to the reader. 
 The English translation is in nine volumes, which 
 were published at various dates ranging from 1583 
 to 1 60 1. Only one perfect copy, preserved among 
 Douce's books in the Bodleian library, has come 
 down ; and it would be safe to say that no living 
 person has read through the nine volumes. But 
 in Elizabeth's days the book was highly esteemed, 
 particularly by romantic prentices and waiting- 
 maids. Sir Thomas Overbury, in his character of 
 " A Chamber-Maid," tells us " She reads Greene's 
 works over and over, but is so carried away with 
 the " Mirror of Knighthood," she is many times
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 resolved to run out of herself and become a lady- 
 errant." The first part was turned into English 
 by a lady, Margaret Tyler, who begged the critics 
 to deal gently with her translation on the ground 
 that "it is a womans woorke, though in a story 
 prophane and a matter more manlike than be- 
 commeth my sexe." Her apology for undertaking 
 the work is engaging and ingenious. She sees 
 men dedicating books to ladies ; and she urges 
 that, if ladies are allowed to read the books so 
 dedicated, they should have liberty to "farther 
 wade," for " it is all one for a woman to pen a storie 
 as for a man to addresse his storie to a woman.'' 
 Some ill-natured people might suggest that, if she 
 wanted to try her hand at translation, she should 
 have chosen a book of divinity. But in matters 
 of controversial divinity she dared not trust her 
 own judgment ; and such Spanish books of divinity 
 as she had read would be sure to " breed offence to 
 some." She foresees that some churlish persons, 
 who are able to read the original, will object to 
 see " theyr Spanish delight tourned to an English 
 pastime ; " but she contents herself with remarking 
 "What nature such men be of I list not greatly 
 dispute." Margaret Tyler went no further than 
 Part I. ; Parts II.-IV. were translated by " R. P." 
 (Robert Parry?); Parts V.-VI. appeared anony- 
 mously ; and a certain " L. A." was responsible 
 for Parts VII. -IX.
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 An indefatigable translator and adapter was 
 Anthony Munday. In the preface to my edition 
 of " England's Helicon " I spoke slightingly of 
 Munday; I pointed out how poor is the quality 
 of the poetry in his "Banquet of Dainty Conceits," 
 and scouted the notion that he should be identified 
 with the " Shepherd Tony." But Munday rose in 
 my estimation when I found in his pageant " Metro- 
 polis Coronata " the blithe song of Robin Hood 
 and his Huntsmen (printed in " Lyrics from Eliza- 
 bethan Dramatists," p. 87), a song which im- 
 mediately established his claim to the dirge in 
 " The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon" (ibid. 
 p. 86). It became clear to me that on rare oc- 
 casions this tedious old writer (who has been 
 irreverently styled "The Grub Street patriarch") 
 must have been genuinely inspired ; and I began 
 to suspect that, after all, he might be the Shepherd 
 Tony of " England's Helicon." In his very rare 
 book "Zelanto, the Fountain of Fame," 1580, I 
 found a tunable love-ditty. But my surprise was 
 great when, in turning over his "Primaleon," 1619, 
 I came upon the most famous of the Shepherd 
 Tony's poems " Beauty sat bathing by a spring ; " 
 and I am now driven to conclude that Anthony 
 Munday is the Shepherd Tony. " Primaleon " 
 was originally written in Castilian ; but Munday's 
 translation is stated on the title-page to have been 
 made " out of French and Italian." So far as I
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 have observed, he has kept closely to the French ver- 
 sion (of Gabriel Chappuis) ; but the poetry is his own 
 addition, and is not found in the French copy. 
 
 Among the other romance-writers from whom I 
 have quoted are John Dickenson (whose fluent 
 quatrains on " Cupid's Journey to Hell " take the 
 ear pleasantly) and Lady Mary Wroth, Sir Philip 
 Sidney's niece, authoress of "Urania." Ben 
 Jonson dedicated his "Alchemist" to Lady Mary 
 Wroth, and in " Underwoods " published a hand- 
 some sonnet in praise of her poetry. She was a 
 woman of brilliant parts, who had the misfortune 
 to be married to a jealous husband. Jonson's 
 chivalrous compliments were perhaps more ap- 
 preciated by the lady than by her husband Sir 
 Robert : 
 
 " in your verse all Cupid's armory, 
 His flames, his shafts, his quiver, and his bow, 
 His very eyes are yours to overthrow. " 
 
 Scanning the poetry with a critical eye, I could 
 not find much that was satisfactory. 
 
 Nicholas Breton, from whom I have quoted 
 largely, began to write as early as 1575, and 
 continued to issue books and pamphlets, in verse 
 and prose, down to 1626, in which year he is 
 supposed to have died. He was a very versatile 
 writer, and has given us moral and religious 
 poems, satires, romances, books of character, a 
 complete letter-writer, pastorals, and what not ?
 
 M INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The most attractive of all his books, to my think- 
 ing, is " The Passionate Shepherd," 1604, a small 
 collection of " pastoral verses written by the Shep- 
 herd Bonerto [i.e. Breton] to his beloved Shep- 
 herdess Aglaia." It is one of the very best speci- 
 mens of a style of poetry that was much cultivated 
 in Elizabethan times. Breton wrote always in 
 great haste, and never indulged in the luxury of 
 revision. He frequently allows his rhymes to 
 carry him along, and lets the sense shift for it- 
 self. We may not be quite sure at times in 
 reading " The Passionate Shepherd " that the 
 grammatical constructions are nicely adjusted, 
 and fastidious critics may complain that the 
 writing is too diffuse. But the poet is in his 
 gayest humour; we are charmed by the easy 
 flow of his verse, and should be churls if we 
 were not warmed by his enthusiasm. The pas- 
 toral beginning " Who can live in heart so glad ? " 
 (p. 1 08) is sustained throughout with the liveliest 
 spirit, and ends with a gallant flourish : 
 
 " Had I got a kingly grace, 
 I would leave my kingly place 
 And in heart be truly glad 
 To become a country lad ; 
 Hard to lie, and go full bare, 
 And to feed on hungry fare ; 
 So I might but live to be 
 Where I might but sit to see
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 Once a day, or all day long, 
 The sweet subject of my song : 
 In Aglaia's only eyes 
 All my worldly paradise." 
 
 There is always something of artificiality about 
 pastoral poetry; but Breton loved the country and 
 kept an observant eye. Quaintly and pleasantly 
 he tells of the subtle fox 
 
 " How the villain plies the box : 
 After feeding on his prey, 
 How he closely sneaks away 
 Through the hedge and down the furrow 
 Till he gets into his burrow " ; 
 
 and with what friendly interest he watches 
 
 " the black-haired coney 
 On a bank or sunny place 
 With her forefeet wash her face " ! 
 
 Breton was very popular, and in consequence un- 
 scrupulous publishers sometimes made free with 
 his name. In 1591 was published a book called 
 " Brytons Bowre of Delights," of which a unique 
 copy is preserved in a private library. I have not 
 been able to see this book, but in "The Pilgrimage 
 to Paradise " Breton distinctly states that he wrote 
 only a few of the poems. Another collection of 
 similar character is " The Arbour of Amorous 
 Devices ..." by N. B., Gent., 1593-4, of which a 
 unique copy, unfortunately imperfect, is preserved 
 among the books that Edward Capell bequeathed 
 to Trinity College, Cambridge. Here is found
 
 xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the beautiful cradle-song, "Come, little babe, 
 come, silly soul," (p. 92).* 
 
 Though I have some liking for Breton's devo- 
 tional poems, I can hardly allow that they are of 
 the first quality. He has been ranked with South- 
 well and Crashaw ; but this estimate is too high. 
 The poet to whom he bears nearest resemblance 
 in his religious musings is John Davies of Here- 
 ford. Both Davies and Breton could spin off any 
 quantity of devotional verse (respectable verse 
 too), when the feeling seized them; but their 
 fluency is very tiresome. Still the reader will find 
 something to admire in the excerpts that I have 
 given from Breton's religious poetry. Let him turn 
 to the stanzas beginning, " Men talk of love that 
 know not what it is" (p. 105). 
 
 More interesting than the religious poetry is the 
 collection of lyrical poems " Melancholic Humours 
 in verses of divers natures," 1600, to which Ben 
 
 1 In the Percy Folio MS. we have a cradle-song, " Balow, 
 my babe, ly still and sleepe," of which several versions (more 
 or less corrupt) were published in broadside form. It has 
 been ignorantly claimed as a Scotch song ("Lady Anne 
 Bothwell's Lament "). Rev. J. W. Ebsworth, in his " Rox- 
 burghe Ballads," Vol. VI., pt. xviii, pp. 575-580, points out 
 that all the "Balow" lullabies are poor imitations of 
 " Come, little babe." He is rightly contemptuous on the 
 subject of " the supposed Scottish origin, a hundred years 
 too late, and all the senseless chatter about Lady Anne 
 Bothwell."
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 Jonson prefixed a commendatory sonnet. Breton 
 is fond of playing on words and phrases, bandying 
 them to and fro, saying the same thing in a dozen 
 different ways, chasing a conceit about and about. 
 It is not very exalted work, but the rhymes have a 
 pleasant tinkle. One of the most characteristic 
 examples of this playful style is "Farewell, love, 
 and loving folly " (p. 97). If he had lived in these 
 days, he would have no doubt helped to revive the 
 old French forms, and would have given us rondels, 
 virelayes, triolets and the like. In " England's 
 Helicon " we have some of the best of his lyrical 
 poems. 1 Dr. Grosart in his edition of Breton's 
 works printed, from a MS. in private hands, some 
 poems that had not previously found their way into 
 print. Though it would not be right for me to 
 poach on his preserves, there can be no harm in 
 quoting here one little poem, a description of love- 
 making in the happy days of pastoral simplicity, 
 when girls did not look for costly presents (rings, 
 chains, etc.) from their lovers, but were content 
 with a row of pins or an empty purse, the days 
 when truth was on every shepherd's tongue and 
 maids had not learned to dissemble. Whether 
 there ever was such a time, since our first parents 
 
 1 In the present volume I have not included any poems of 
 Breton that are found in "England's Helicon," for I suppose 
 that the majority of readers will have my edition of that 
 anthology.
 
 xxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 were driven out of Paradise, we need not stop to 
 enquire. The old poets loved to talk about it ; 
 and this is what Breton has to say : 
 
 "In time of yore when shepherds dwelt 
 
 Upon the mountain-rocks ; 
 And simple people never felt 
 
 The pain of lovers' mocks : 
 But little birds would carry tales 
 
 'Twixt Susan and her sweeting, 
 And all the dainty nightingales 
 
 Did sing at lovers' meeting : 
 Then might you see what looks did pass 
 
 Where shepherds did assemble, 
 And where the life of true love was 
 
 When hearts could not dissemble. 
 
 Then yea and nay was thought an oath 
 
 That was not to be doubted, 
 And when it came to faith and troth 
 
 We were not to be flouted. 
 Then did they talk of curds and cream, 
 
 Of butter, cheese, and milk ; 
 There was no speech of sunny beam (?), 
 
 Nor of the golden silk. 
 Then for a gift a row of pins, 
 
 A purse, a pair of knives, 
 Was all the way that love begins ; 
 
 And so the shepherd wives. 
 But now we have so much ado, 
 
 And are so sore aggrieved, 
 That when we go about to woo 
 
 We cannot be believed ; 
 Such choice of jewels, rings, and chains, 
 
 That may but favour move,
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXY 
 
 And such intolerable pains 
 
 Ere one can hit on love ; 
 That if I still shall bide this life 
 
 'Twixt love and deadly hate, 
 I will go learn the country life 
 
 Or leave the lover's state." 
 
 As a satirist Breton had little of the " saeva in- 
 dignatio," real or assumed, of Marston or Hall; 
 and from his satirical or semi-satirical writings, we 
 really gain a truer insight into the manners of the 
 time than can be got from more violent writers. 
 There was nothing ill-natured or acrimonious about 
 Breton ; he might have said with Ben Jonson (but 
 with less fear of contradiction) 
 
 " All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth ; 
 Only a little salt remaineth." 
 
 His satirical reflections will sometimes strike a 
 modern reader as curiously apt. In his denuncia- 
 tion of the rich upstart (a standing dish for satirists) 
 he is neat and happy : 
 
 " He shall have ballads written in his praise, 
 Books dedicated to his patronage, 
 Wits working for his pleasure many ways, 
 Pedigrees sought to mend his parentage, 
 And linked perhaps in noble marriage. " 
 
 As a character-drawer he was not so terse and 
 epigrammatic as Overbury, but he was far more 
 genial. " The Good and the Bad," 1616, is much
 
 xxvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the manner of Fuller's " Holy and Profane 
 State." Indeed Fuller seems to have closely 
 studied these characters of Breton ; but he has im- 
 proved upon them, for he had it is needless to 
 say a richer vein of humour, a sounder and 
 profounder knowledge of the world, a pithier ex- 
 pression. 
 
 One of his most entertaining books is his " Fan- 
 tastics," a series of brief prose essays on "The 
 World," " Love," " Money," " Spring," " Summer," 
 "Harvest," "Winter," etc. He has a word to say 
 about each of the twelve months ; and then he 
 sketches Christmas Day, Lent, Good Friday, and 
 Easter Day. One's spirits droop at the description 
 of Lent; but with what gusto he dwells on the 
 joyousness that succeeds that season of sorrow, 
 when on Easter Day the starveling Jack-o'-Lent is 
 turned out of doors ; when the fishermen hang up 
 their nets, and the calf and the lamb walk toward 
 the pantry; when the air is wholesome and the 
 sky comfortable ! Another entertaining book, which 
 was very popular throughout the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, is " A Post with a Packet of Mad Letters," l 
 first printed in 1603 and afterwards enlarged, a 
 manual of correspondence for persons of all ages 
 and every degree. 
 
 Breton's novel "The Miseries of Mavillia, the 
 
 1 I have quoted some of these letters in the Notes at the 
 end of the volume.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
 
 most unfortunate lady that ever lived," 1599, is 
 dismissed with contempt by Dunlop (who had 
 probably never read it) in his " History of Fiction," 
 but I found it interesting. 1 Some of Breton's 
 tracts are, it must be owned, of the thinnest texture, 
 written merely to introduce a good anecdote ; as 
 in the case of " Grimello's Fortunes," 1604, where 
 we have the pretty jest of the Eel and the Mag- 
 pie. 2 Not the least whimsical of his writings is 
 his "Crossing of Proverbs," 1616, where he first 
 gives a proverb and then proceeds to take excep- 
 tion to it, as thus : " Two may keep counsel if 
 the third be away. Not if a woman be one " ; 
 " A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 
 Not if they be fast limed;" " Tis merry when 
 gossips meet. Not if they fall out about the 
 reckoning." 
 
 It is only in his moral and didactic writings that 
 Breton is ever tedious. His prose, which is always 
 quaint and neatly turned, is valuable for the bright, 
 cheerful pictures that it gives of Elizabethan so- 
 ciety; and his lyrical poetry at its best is very 
 good indeed. 
 
 Clement Robinson's miscellany " A Handful of 
 Pleasant Delights " was licensed for publication in 
 the summer of 1561 under the title of " A boke of 
 very pleasaunte Sonettes and storyes in myter"; but 
 
 1 In the Notes I give an account of " Mavillia." 
 
 * See the Notes for the tale of the Eel and the Magpie.
 
 xxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the earliest extant edition, preserved in an imper- 
 fect unique copy, is dated 1584. Some of the 
 poems in the 1584 edition were certainly written 
 after 1561. Robinson edited the volume, but it is 
 not known whether he wrote any of the poetry. 
 The name " Peter Picks " (a fictitious personage, I 
 suppose) is subscribed to some poems ; and others 
 profess to be by "I. Tomson," whoever he may 
 have been. All the poems were intended to be 
 sung to one or other popular tune. For instance, 
 " Maid, will ye love me, yea or no ? " was to be 
 sung to the tune of "The Merchant's Daughter 
 went over the Field " (a tune with which I am not 
 acquainted). Sometimes we are left to choose our 
 own tune. Thus, " I smile to see how you devise " 
 might be sung "to any pleasant tune." I have 
 included four songs from the miscellany, light, 
 careless ditties. 
 
 From "The Phoenix' Nest," edited in 1593 by 
 a certain " R. S.," I have chosen some of Lodge's 
 best lyrics and some good anonymous verse. At 
 one time I had thought of printing the " Phoenix' 
 Nest " in full ; but it is not altogether a satisfactory 
 anthology, and some of the choicest poems are 
 accessible in " England's Helicon " and in other 
 collections. It will be found that there is not 
 much spicery left in the Nest when we have rifled it 
 of the poems that appear in " England's Helicon " 
 and in the following pages.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxix 
 
 In conclusion, the reader will remember that the 
 present volume forms part of a series, which began 
 with " Lyrics from Elizabethan Songbooks " and 
 will end with Davison's " Poetical Rhapsody." 
 
 YELVERTON VILLAS, TWICKENHAM, 
 April, 1890.
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES.
 
 INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 FACE 
 
 A BLITHE and bonny country lass (Lodge) 50 
 
 ^J. A seeing friend, yet enemy to rest (Phainix' Nest) ... 144 
 
 A turtle sat upon a leafless tree (Lodge) 47 
 
 Accurst be Love and those that trust his trains (Lodge) .... 133 
 
 Ah, poor conceit, delight is dead (Breton) m 
 
 ^- Ah, what is Love ? It is a pretty thing (Greene) 22 
 
 And did not you hear of a mirth that befell (Friar Bacon) ... 61 
 
 As Love is cause of joy (Munday) 74 
 
 At shearing time she shall command (Breton) 112 
 
 Beauty sat bathing by a spring (Munday) 77 
 
 By your leave a little while (Breton) 99 
 
 Calling to mind mine eye long went about (Raleigh) 138 
 
 Children's A hs and women's Ohs (Breton) 100 
 
 Come, all the world, submit yourselves to care (Breton) . ... 57 
 
 Come, little babe, come, silly soul (Breton ?) 92 
 
 Cupid abroad was lated in the night (Greene) 21 
 
 Deceiving -world, that with alluring toys (Greene) 40 
 
 Declare, O mind, from fond desires excluded (Phoenix 1 Nest) . . 141 
 
 Dildido, dildido (Greene) 32 
 
 Down a down ! (Lodge) 48 
 
 Except I love I cannot have delight (Mirror of Knighthood) . . 63 
 
 Fain to content I bend myself to write (Lodge) 134 
 
 Fain would I have a pretty thing (Clement Robinson) .... 129 
 
 Fair Pastora, cease off delay (Mirror of Knighthood) .... 64 
 
 Farewell, Love and loving folly (Breton) 97 
 
 Fear not, faint heart, time may prove (Mirror of Knighthood) . 73 
 
 Fie, fie on blind fancy (Greene) 39 
 
 First shall the heavens want starry light (Lodge) 43 
 
 Flora hath been all about (Breton) 107
 
 xxxiv INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Fond feigning poets make of love a god (Greene) 20 
 
 For pity, pretty eyes, surcease (Lodge) 136 
 
 Fortune is blind, she looks on no man's need {Mirror of Knight- 
 hood) 67 
 
 He that hath spent his time in silent moan (Munday) .... 77 
 
 He that was gotten in a Christmas night (Breton) 117 
 
 Heavenly fair Urania's son (SheppardT) 86 
 
 I have neither plums nor cherries (Breton) HI 
 
 I smile to see how you devise (Clement Robinson) 1*7 
 
 I would I had as much as might be had (Breton) 117 
 
 / would thou wert not fair or I were wise (Breton) 58 
 
 If I must (swett Love) obey (Mirror of Knighthood) 66 
 
 If that love had been a king (Breton) 98 
 
 I II betide him that love seeks (TofU) 79 
 
 /* Cyprus sat fair Venus by a fount (Greene) 10 
 
 In time we see the silver drops (Greene) 9 
 
 It was a frosty winter-season (Greene) 35 
 
 // was a valley gaudy-green (Greene) 30 
 
 Let Mother-Earth now deck herself in flowers (Sidney) .... 5 
 
 Like to a top which runneth round (Brathwait) 85 
 
 T *.ike to Diana in her summer-weed (Greene) 17 
 
 Love in my bosom like a bee (Lodge) 41 
 
 Love, leaving Heaven, ganpost to Stygian lake (Dickenson) . . 53 
 
 Love resisted is a child (Mirror of Knighthood) 71 
 
 Love, what art thou ? a vain thought (Lady Mary Wroth) . . So 
 
 Lovely kind, and kindly loving (Breton) 101 
 
 Maid, will ye love -me, yea or no? (Clement Robinson) .... 131 
 
 Mars, in a fury 'gainst Love's brightest Queen (Greene) .... 19 
 
 Men talk of love that know not what it is (Breton) 105 
 
 My bonny lass, thine eye (Lodge) 136 
 
 My heart will burst except it be discharged (Mirror of Knighthood) 68 
 
 My true love hath my heart, and I have his (Sidney) 2 
 
 Nature, foreseeing hoio men would devise (Greene) 38 
 
 Now Christmas draweth near, and most men make good cheer 
 
 (Breton) 89 
 
 Now sleep, and take thy rest (Mabbe) 83 
 
 O Night, O jealous Night, repugnant to my measures (Phoenix' 
 
 Nest) 145 
 
 O words, which fall like summer dew on me (Sidney) 3
 
 INDEX OF FIKST LINES. XXXY 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Of all chaste birds the Phoenix doth excel (Lodge) ....... 45 
 
 Oh my thoughts, keep in your words (Breton) 94 
 
 Oh, tired heart, too full of sorrows (Breton) 96 
 
 On women Nature did bestow two eyes (Greene) 38 
 
 Once I thought, but falsely thought (Mirror of Knighthood) . . 70 
 
 Phillis kept sheep along the western plains (Greene) 12 
 
 Phoebe sat (Lodge) 44 
 
 Phoebus, farewell! a sweeter Saint I serve (Sidney) i 
 
 Pluck the fruit and taste the pleasure (Lodge) 51 
 
 Pretty twinkling starry eyes (Breton) 115 
 
 Prove but as constant as th' art bold (George-a-Green) .... 61 
 
 Reason and duty both com mandeth me (Munday) 76 
 
 She that is neither fair, nor rich, nor wise (Breton) 116 
 
 Sitting by a river's side (Greene) 34 
 
 Skin more pure than Ida's snow (Brathwait) 84 
 
 Some say Love (Greene) 14 
 
 Sweet Adon, dar st not glance thine eye (Greene) 24 
 
 Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content (Greene) .... 33 
 
 Tell me, tell me, pretty muse (Brettn) 114 
 
 That brow which doth with fair all fairs excel (Mirror of 
 
 Knighthood) 72 
 
 The Christmas nova is past, and I have kept my fast (Breton) . . 90 
 
 The drops of rain in time the marble pierce (Greene) 63 
 
 The gentle season of the year (Phoenix' Nest) .140 
 
 The Siren Venus nouriced in her lap (Greene) n 
 
 The time when first I fell in love (Phoenix' Nest) 139 
 
 The wealthy rascal, be he ne'er so base (Breton) 102 
 
 Though I be scorned, yet will I not disdain (Mirror of Knighthood) 65 
 
 To couple is a custom (Friar Bacon) 59 
 
 To make a truce, sweet Mistress, with your eyes (Phoenix' Nest) . 143 
 
 To see a strange outlandish fowl (Farley) 83 
 
 Trust not his wanton tears (Chettle) 78 
 
 Turn I my looks unto the skits (Lodge) 46 
 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee (Greene) 15 
 
 What art thou, Will ? (Breton) 55 
 
 Whate'er he is that would behold (Mirror of Knighthood) ... 74 
 
 When gods had framed the sweet of women's face (Greene) ... 18 
 
 When lordly Saturn in a sable robe (Greene) 26 
 
 When tender ewes brought home with evening sun (Greene) ... 16 
 
 Whenas the hunter goeth out (Clement Robinson) 125
 
 xxxvi INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Who can blame me if I love (.Lady Mary Wroth) 81 
 
 Who can live in heart so glad (Breton) 108 
 
 Who doth desire that chaste his wife should be (Sidney) .... 8 
 
 Who thinks himself at freedom most of all (Mirror of Knighthood) 62 
 
 Why dost thou haste away (Sidney) 4 
 
 With sorrow, tears, and discontent ( Young) 52 
 
 You birds whose -warbling* prove (Mabte) 83
 
 POEMS FROM ROMANCES AND 
 PROSE-TRACTS.
 
 From SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S 
 Arcadia, 1598. l 
 
 PHCEBUS, FAREWELL! 
 
 T3HCEBUS, farewell ! a sweeter Saint I serve : 
 -- The high conceits thy heav'nly wisdoms breed 
 My thoughts forget, my thoughts which never swerve 
 From her in whom is sown their freedom's seed, 
 And in whose eyes my daily doom I read. 
 
 Phoebus, farewell ! a sweeter Saint I serve : 
 Thou art far off, thy kingdom is above ; 
 She heaven on earth with beauties doth preserve ; 
 Thy beams I like, but her clear rays I love ; 
 Thy force I fear, her force I still do prove. 
 
 Phoebus, yield up thy title in my mind : 
 She doth possess, thy image is defaced ; 
 But, if thy rage some brave revenge will find, 
 On her who hath in me thy temple raced 
 Employ thy might that she my fires may taste, 
 And, how much more her worth surmounteth thee, 
 Make her as much more base by loving me. 
 
 i The poems that I have selected from Sidney's romance are 
 not found in the first edition (1590). 
 B
 
 SfJ? PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 MY TRUE LOVE HATH MY HEART, AND I HAVE HIS. 
 
 MY true love hath my heart, and I have his, 
 By just exchange one for the other given : 
 I hold his dear, and mine he can not miss ; 
 There never was a bargain better driven. 
 His heart in me keeps me and him in one ; 
 My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides : 
 He loves my heart for once it was his own ; 
 I cherish his because in me it bides. 
 His heart his wound received from my sight ; 
 My heart was wounded with his wounded heart : 
 For as from me on him his hurt did light, 
 So still methought in me his hurt did smart. 
 Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss : 
 My true love hath my heart, and I have his.
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 PROMISED WEAL. 
 
 O WORDS, which fall like summer dew on me ! 
 O breath, more sweet than is the growing bean ! 
 O tongue, in which all honeyed liquors be ! 
 O voice, that doth the thrush in shrillness stain ! 
 Do you say still this is her promise due : 
 That she is mine, as I to her am true ! 
 
 Gay hair, more gay than straw when harvest lies ! 
 
 Lips, red and plump as cherries' ruddy side ! 
 
 Eyes, fair and great, like fair great ox's eyes ! 
 
 O breast, in which two white sheep swell in pride ! 
 Join you with me to seal this promise due : 
 That she be mine, as I to her am true ! 
 
 But thou, white skin, as white as curds well pressed, 
 So smooth as sleek-stone like it smoothes each part ! 
 And thou, dear flesh, as soft as wool new dressed. 
 And yet as hard as brawn made hard by art ! 
 
 First four but say, next four their saying seal ; 
 
 But you must pay the gage of promised weal.
 
 SIX PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 TITAN'S BRIGHTNESS STAINED. 
 
 WHY dost thou haste away, 
 O Titan fair, the giver of the day ? 
 Is it to carry news 
 
 To western wights what stars in east appear ? 
 Or dost thou think that here 
 Is left a Sun whose beams thy place may use? 
 Yet stay, and well peruse 
 What be her gifts that make her equal thee ; 
 Bend all thy light to see 
 In earthly clothes enclosed a heavenly spark. 
 Thy running course cannot such beauties mark ; 
 No, no, thy motions be 
 Hastened from us with bar of shadow dark 
 Because that thou, the author of our sight, 
 Disdain'st we feel thee stained with other's light.
 
 PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM. 
 
 T ET Mother Earth now deck herself in flowers, 
 -* ' To see her offspring seek a good increase, 
 Where justest love doth vanquish Cupid's powers, 
 And war of thoughts is swallowed up in peace, 
 Which never may decrease, 
 But, like the turtles fair, 
 Live one in two, a well-united pair : 
 Which that no chance may stain, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 O Heaven ! awake, show forth thy stately face ; 
 Let not these slumbering clouds thy beauties hide, 
 But with thy cheerful presence help to grace 
 The honest Bridegroom and the bashful Bride, 
 Whose loves may ever bide, 
 Like to the elm and vine, 
 With mutual embracements them to twine : 
 
 In which delightful pain, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Ye Muses all ! which chaste affects allow 
 And have to Thyrsis shewed your secret skill, 
 To this chaste love your sacred favours bow ; 
 And so to him and her your gifts distill 
 
 That they all vice may kill 
 
 And, like to lilies pure,
 
 6 5/A- PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 May please all eyes, and spotless may endure : 
 
 Where that all bliss may reign, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Ye Nymphs which in the waters empire have ! 
 Since Thyrsis' music oft doth yield you praise, 
 Grant to the thing which we for Thyrsis crave : 
 Let one time but long first close up their days, 
 One grave their bodies seize ; 
 And, like two rivers sweet 
 When they though divers do together meet, 
 
 One stream both streams contain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Pan ! father Pan, the god of silly sheep ! 
 Whose care is cause that they in number grow, 
 Have much more care of them that them do keep, 
 Since from these good the others' good doth flow ; 
 And make their issue show 
 In number like the herd 
 Of younglings which thyself with love hast rear'd, 
 
 Or like the drops of rain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 Virtue, if not a God, yet God's chief part ! 
 Be thou the knot of this their open vow : 
 That still he be her head, she be his heart ; 
 He lean to her, she unto him do bow ; 
 Each other still allow ; 
 Like oak and mistletoe, 
 Her strength from him, his praise from her do grow ! 
 
 In which most lovely train, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain !
 
 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 But thou, foul Cupid, sire to lawless lust ! 
 Be thou far hence with thy empoisoned dart, 
 Which, though of glittering gold, shall here take rust 
 Where simple love, which chasteness doth impart, 
 Avoids thy hurtful art, 
 Not needing charming skill 
 Such minds with sweet affections for to fill : 
 
 W T hich being pure and plain, 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 All churlish words, shrewd answers, crabbed looks, 
 All privateness, self-seeking, inward spite, 
 All waywardness which nothing kindly brooks, 
 All strife for toys and claiming master's right, 
 Be hence aye put to flight ; 
 All stirring husband's hate 
 'Gainst neighbours good for womanish debate 
 
 Be fled, as things most vain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 All peacock pride and fruits of peacock's pride, 
 Longing to be with loss of substance gay, 
 With recklessness what may thy house betide 
 So that you may on higher slippers stay, 
 For ever hence away ! 
 Yet let not sluttery, 
 The sink of filth, be counted housewifery, 
 
 But keeping wholesome mean ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 But above all, away vile jealousy, 
 
 The evil of evils, just cause to be unjust !
 
 8 S7X PHILIP SIDNEY. 
 
 How can he love, suspecting treachery ? 
 How can she love, where love can not win trust ? 
 Go, snake ! hide thee in dust ; 
 Nor dare once show thy face 
 Where open hearts do hold so constant place 
 
 That they thy sting restrain ! 
 O Hymen ! long their coupled joys maintain ! 
 
 The Earth is decked with flowers, the Heavens dis- 
 played, 
 
 Muses grant gifts, Nymphs long and joined life, 
 Pan store of babes, virtue their thoughts well stayed, 
 Cupid's lust gone, and gone is bitter strife. 
 Happy man ! happy wife ! 
 No pride shall them oppress, 
 Nor yet shall yield to loathsome sluttishness ; 
 
 And jealousy is slain, 
 For Hymen will their coupled joys maintain. 
 
 TRUTH DOTH TRUTH DESERVE. 
 
 '1 1 7" HO doth desire that chaste his wife should be, 
 * * First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve : 
 Then such be he as she his worth may see, 
 And one man still credit with her preserve. 
 
 Not toying kind, nor causelessly unkind ; 
 Not stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right ; 
 Not spying faults, nor in plain errors blind ; 
 Never hard hand, nor ever reins too light.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 As far from want as far from vain expense 
 (The one doth force, the latter doth entice) ; 
 Allow good company, but keep from thence 
 All filthy mouths that glory in their vice. 
 This done, thou hast no more, but leave the rest 
 To virtue, fortune, time and woman's breast. 
 
 From ROBERT GREENE'S si riasto, 
 1584. 
 
 TIME. 
 
 IN time we see the silver drops 
 The craggy stones make soft ; 
 The slowest snail in time we see 
 Doth creep and climb aloft. 
 
 With feeble puffs the tallest pine 
 
 In tract of time doth fall ; 
 The hardest heart in time doth yield 
 
 To Venus' luring call. 
 
 Where chilling frost alate did nip, 
 
 There flasheth now a fire ; 
 Where deep disdain bred noisome hate, 
 
 There kindleth now desire. 
 
 Time causeth hope to have his hap : 
 
 What care in time not eased ? 
 In time I loathed that now I love, 
 
 In both content and pleased.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Perimedes the Blacksmith, 
 1588. 
 
 WANTON YOUTH. 
 
 T N Cyprus sat fair Venus by a fount, 
 J- Wanton Adonis toying on her knee : 
 She kissed the wag, her darling of account ; 
 
 The boy gan blush ; which when his lover see, 
 She smiled, and told him love might challenge debt, 
 And he was young, and might be wanton yet. 
 
 The boy waxed bold, fired by fond desire, 
 
 That woo he could and court her with conceit : 
 Reason spied this, and sought to quench the fire 
 
 With cold disdain ; but wily Adon straight 
 Cheered up the flame, and said, " Good sir, what let ? 
 I am but young, and may be wanton yet." 
 
 Reason replied, that beauty was a bane 
 
 To such as feed their fancy with fond love, 
 That when sweet youth with lust is overta'en, 
 It rues in age : this could not Adon move, 
 For Venus taught him still this rest to set, 
 That he was young, and might be wanton yet. 
 
 Where Venus strikes with beauty to the quick, 
 
 It little Vails sage Reason to reply ; 
 Few are the cares for such as are love-sick, 
 But love : then, though I wanton it awry, 
 And play the wag, from Adon this I get, 
 I am but young, and may be wanton yet.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 WANTON YOUTH REPROVED 
 
 THE Siren Venus nouriced * in her lap 
 Fair Adon, swearing whiles he was a youth 
 He might be wanton : note his after-hap, 
 
 The guerdon that such lawless lust ensu'th ; 
 So long he followed flattering Venus' lore, 
 Till, seely lad, he perished by a boar. 
 
 Mars in his youth did court this lusty dame, 
 
 He won her love ; what might his fancy let ? 
 He was but young : at last, unto his shame, 
 
 Vulcan entrapped them slyly in a net, 
 And called the gods to witness as a truth, 
 A lecher's fault was not excused by youth. 
 
 If crooked age accounteth youth his spring, 
 The spring, the fairest season of the year, 
 Enriched with flowers, and sweets, and many a thing, 
 
 That fair and gorgeous to the eyes appear ; 
 It fits that youth, the spring of man, should be 
 Riched with such flowers as virtue yieldeth thee. 
 
 1 Nursec 1 .
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 PHILLIS AND CORIDON. 
 
 P HILL IS kept sheep along the western plains, 
 And Condon did feed his flocks hard by : 
 This shepherd was the flower of all the swains 
 That traced the downs of fruitful Thessaly ; 
 And Phillis, that did far her flocks surpass 
 In silver hue, was thought a bonny lass. 
 
 A bonny lass, quaint in her country 'tire, 
 Was lovely Phillis, Coridon swore so ; 
 Her locks, her looks, did set the swain on fire, 
 
 He left his lambs, and he began to woo ; 
 He looked, he sighed, he courted with a kiss, 
 No better could the silly swad l than this. 
 
 He little knew to paint a tale of love, 
 
 Shepherds can fancy, but they cannot say : 
 Phillis gan smile, and wily thought to prove 
 
 What uncouth 2 grief poor Coridon did pay ; 
 She asked him how his flocks or he did fare, 
 Yet pensive thus his sighs did tell his care. 
 
 The shepherd blushed when Phillis questioned so, 
 And swore by Pan it was not for his flock[s] ; 
 
 " 'Tis love, fair Phillis, breedeth all this woe, 
 My thoughts are trapt within thy lovely locks, 
 
 1 Clown. 2 Strange, unaccustomed.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 13 
 
 Thine eye hath pierced, thy face hath set on fire ; 
 Fair Phillis kindleth Coridon's desire." 
 
 " Can shepherds love ? " said Phillis to the swain. 
 
 " Such saints as Phillis," Coridon replied. 
 " Men when they lust can many fancies feign," 
 
 Said Phillis. This not Coridon denied, 
 That lust had lies ; " But love," quoth he, "says truth : 
 Thy shepherd loves, then, Phillis, what ensu'th ? " 
 
 Phillis was won, she blushed and hung the head ; 
 
 The swain stept to, and cheered her with a kiss : 
 With faith, with troth, they struck the matter dead ; 
 
 So used they when men thought not amiss : 
 This love begun and ended both in one ; 
 Phillis was loved, and she liked Coridon.
 
 14 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Menaphvn, 1589. 
 IN LOVE'S DISPRAISE. 
 
 SOME say Love, 
 Foolish Love, 
 
 Doth rule and govern all the gods : 
 I say Love, 
 Inconstant Love, 
 
 Sets men's senses far at odds. 
 Some swear Love, 
 Smooth-faced l Love, 
 
 Is sweetest sweet that men can have : 
 I say Love, 
 Sour Love, 
 
 Makes virtue yield as beauty's slave : 
 A bitter sweet, a folly worst of all, 
 That forceth wisdom to be folly's thrall. 
 
 Love is sweet : 
 Wherein sweet ? 
 
 In fading pleasures that do pain. 
 Beauty sweet : 
 Is that sweet, 
 
 That yieldeth sorrow for a gain ? 
 If Love's sweet, 
 Herein sweet, 
 
 That minutes' joys are monthly woes : 
 'Tis not sweet, 
 That is sweet 
 
 Nowhere but where repentance grows. 
 Then love who list, if beauty be so sour ; 
 Labour for me, Love rest in prince's bower. 
 
 1 Old ed. " smooth 'd face. "
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 15 
 
 WEEP NOT, MY WANTON. 
 
 WEEP not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 
 Mother's wag, pretty boy, 
 Father's sorrow, father's joy ; 
 When thy father first did see 
 Such a boy by him and me, 
 He was glad, I was woe ; 
 Fortune changed made him so, 
 When he left his pretty boy, 
 Last his sorrow, first his joy. 
 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 
 
 Streaming tears that never stint, 
 
 Like pearl-drops from a flint, 
 
 Fell by course from his eyes, 
 
 That one another's place supplies ; 
 
 Thus he grieved in every part, 
 
 Tears of blood fell from his heart, 
 
 When he left his pretty boy, 
 
 Father's sorrow, father's joy. 
 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 
 
 The wanton smiled, father wept, 
 
 Mother cried, baby lept ; 
 
 More he crowed, more we cried, 
 
 Nature could not sorrow hide : 
 
 He must go, he must kiss 
 
 Child and mother, baby bliss, 1 
 
 For he left his pretty boy, 
 
 Father's sorrow, father's joy. 
 Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee ; 
 When thou art old there's grief enough for thee. 
 1 Bless.
 
 16 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 THE EAGLE AND THE FLY. 
 
 WHEN tender ewes, brought home with evening sun, 
 Wend to their folds, 
 
 And to their holds 
 The shepherds trudge when light of day is done, 
 
 Upon a tree 
 The eagle, Jove's fair bird, did perch ; 
 
 There resteth he : 
 
 A little fly his harbour then did search, 
 And did presume, though others laughed thereat, 
 To perch whereas the princely eagle sat. 
 
 The eagle frowned, and shook his royal wings, 
 
 And charged the fly 
 
 From thence to hie : 
 Afraid, in haste the little creature flings, 
 
 Yet seeks again, 
 Fearful, to perk him by the eagle's side : 
 
 With moody vein, 
 
 The speedy post of Ganymede replied, 
 " Vassal, avaunt, or with my wings you die : 
 Is't fit an eagle seat him with a fly ?" 
 
 The fly craved pity, still the eagle frowned : 
 
 The silly fly, 
 
 Ready to die, 
 Disgraced, displaced, fell grovelling to the ground : 
 
 The eagle saw, 
 And with a royal mind said to the fly, 
 
 " Be not in awe, 
 
 I scorn by me the meanest creature die ; 
 Then seat thee here." The joyful fly up flings, 
 And sat safe-shadowed with the eagle's wings.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 17 
 
 BORON'S DESCRIPTION OF SAMELA. 
 
 T IKE to Diana in her summer- weed, 
 * ' Girt with a crimson robe of brightest dye, 
 Goes fair Samela ; 
 
 Whiter than be the flocks that straggling feed, 
 When washed by Arethusa Fount l they lie, 
 
 Is fair Samela ; 
 
 As fair Aurora in her morning-grey, 
 Decked with the ruddy glister of her love, 
 
 Is fair Samela ; 
 
 Like lovely Thetis on a calmed day, 
 
 Whenas her brightness Neptune's fancy move, 
 
 Shines fair Samela ; 
 
 Her tresses gold, her eyes like glassy streams, 
 Her teeth are pearl, the breasts are ivory 
 
 Of fair Samela ; 
 
 Her cheeks, like rose and lily, yield forth gleams, 
 Her brows bright arches framed of ebony : 
 
 Thus fair Samela 
 
 Passeth fair Venus in her bravest hue, 
 And Juno in the show of majesty, 
 
 For she's Samela ; 
 
 Pallas in wit, all three, if you well view, 
 For beauty, wit, and matchless dignity, 
 
 Yield to Samela. 
 
 1 Sidney Walker's correction. Old eds. "faint." 
 C
 
 i8 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Ciceronis Amor, 1589. 
 JEALOUSY. 
 
 "\ \J HEN gods had framed the sweet of women's 
 
 * face, 
 
 And locked men's looks within their golden hair, 
 That Phcebus blushed to see their matchless grace, 
 
 And heavenly gods on earth did make repair ; 
 To quip fair Venus' overweening pride, 
 Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied. 
 
 Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow ; 
 
 The amber sweet of love is turned to gall ; 
 Gloomy was heaven ; bright Phcebus did avow 
 
 He could be coy, and would not love at all, 
 Swearing, no greater mischief could be wrought 
 Than love united to a jealous thought.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 19 
 
 VENUS VICTRIX. 
 
 MARS in a fury 'gainst Love's brightest Queen, 
 Eut on his helm, and took him to his lance ; 
 On Erycinus 1 Mount was Mavors seen, 
 
 And there his ensigns did the god advance, 
 And by heaven's greatest gates he stoutly swore, 
 Venus should die, for she had wronged him sore. 
 
 Cupid heard this, and he began to cry, 
 And wished his mother's absence for a while : 
 
 " Peace, fool," quoth Venus ; " is it I must die ? 
 Must it be, Mars ? " with that she coined a smile ; 
 
 She trimmed her tresses, and did curl her hair, 
 
 And made her face with beauty passing fair. 
 
 A fan of silver feathers in her hand, 
 
 And in a coach of ebony she went : 
 She passed the place where furious Mars did stand, 
 
 And out her looks a lovely smile she sent ; 
 Then from her brows leaped out so sharp a frown, 
 That Mars for fear threw all his armour down. 
 
 He vowed repentance for his rash misdeed, 
 Blaming his choler that had caused his woe : 
 
 Venus grew gracious, and with him agreed, 
 But charged him not to threaten beauty so, 
 
 For women's looks are such enchanting charms 
 
 As can subdue the greatest god in arms. 
 
 i " Our author seems to forget here that the mountain, from 
 which Venus had the name of Erycina, was Eryx : it is not likely 
 that he wrote ' Erycina's Mount. ' " Dyce. In GREENE'S Orpha- 
 rion the form " Erycinus" occurs several times ; e.g. "I crave so 
 much favour at thy hands as to tell me whether Venus is resident 
 about this Mount of Erycinus or no."
 
 ao ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 LOVE SCHOOLED. 
 
 Tj*OND, feigning poets make of love a god, 
 J- And leave the laurel for the myrtle-boughs 
 When Cupid is a child not past the rod, 
 And fair Diana Daphne l most allows : 
 I'll wear the bays, and call the wag a boy, 
 And think of love but as a foolish toy. 
 
 Some give him bow and quiver at his back, 
 Some make him blind to aim without advice, 
 
 When, naked wretch, such feathered bolts he lack 
 And sight he hath, but cannot wrong the wise ; 
 
 For use but labour's weapon for defence, 
 
 And Cupid, like a coward, flieth thence. 
 
 He's god in court, but cottage calls him child, 
 And Vesta's virgins with their holy fires 
 
 Do cleanse the thoughts that fancy hath defiled, 
 And burn the palace of his fond desires ; 
 
 With chaste disdain they scorn the foolish god, 
 
 And prove him but a boy not past the rod. 
 
 i Olded. "Daphnis."
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Tlie Orpharion, licensed in 
 1589. 
 
 LOVE'S TREACHERY. 
 
 /""'UPID 1 abroad was lated in the night, 
 ^^ His wings were wet with ranging in the rain ; 
 Harbour he sought, to me he took his flight, 
 To dry his plumes : I heard the boy complain ; 
 I oped the door, and granted his desire, 
 I rose myself, and made the wag a fire. 
 
 Looking more narrow by the fire's flame, 
 
 I spied his quiver hanging by his back : 
 Doubting the boy might my misfortune frame, 
 I would have gone for fear of further wrack ; 
 But what I drad, did me poor wretch betide, 
 For forth he drew an arrow from his side. 
 
 He pierced the quick, and I began to start, 
 
 A pleasing wound, but that it was too high ; 
 His shaft procured a sharp, yet sugared smart : 
 Away he flew, for why 2 his wings were dry ; 
 But left the arrow sticking in my breast, 
 That sore I grieved I welcomed such a guest. 
 
 1 These verses (after Anacreon), with some textual variations, 
 are also found in Greene's Alcida, licensed in 1588. 
 
 2 " For why " = because.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From The Mourning Garment, 
 1590. 
 
 THE SHEPHERDS WIFE'S SONG. 
 
 A H, what is love? It is a pretty thing, 
 ** As sweet unto a shepherd as a king ; 
 
 And sweeter too, 
 
 For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, 
 And cares can make the sweetest love to frown : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 
 
 His flocks are folded, he comes home at night, 
 As merry as a king in his delight ; 
 
 And merrier too, 
 
 For kings bethink them what the state require, 
 Where shepherds careless carol by the fire : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 
 
 He kisseth first, then sits as blithe to eat 
 
 His cream and curds as doth the king his meat ; 
 
 And blither too, 
 
 For kings have often fears when they do sup, 
 Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ?
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 23 
 
 To bed he goes, as wanton then, I ween, 
 As is a king in dalliance with a queen ; 
 
 More wanton too, 
 
 For kings have many griefs affects to move, 
 Where shepherds have no greater grief than love : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swam ? 
 
 Upon his couch of straw he sleeps as sound, 
 As doth the king upon his beds of down ; 
 
 More sounder too, 
 
 For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill, 
 Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 
 
 Thus with his wife he spends the year, as blithe 
 As doth the king at every tide or sithe ; l 
 
 And blither too, 
 
 For kings have wars and broils to take in hand, 
 Where shepherds laugh and love upon the land : 
 
 Ah then, ah then, 
 
 If country loves such sweet desires do gain, 
 What lady would not love a shepherd swain ? 
 
 1 Time.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Never too Late, 1590. 
 
 N'OSEREZ vous, MON BEL AMI? 
 
 SWEET Adon, darest not glance thine eye 
 N'oserez vous, man bel ami ? 
 Upon thy Venus that must die ? 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, man bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? 
 
 See how sad thy Venus lies, 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 Love in heart, and tears in eyes ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 
 Thy face as fair as Paphos' brooks, 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 Wherein fancy baits her hooks ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N' oserez vous, mon bel ami f 
 
 Thy cheeks like cherries that do grow 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, ami? 
 Amongst the western mounts of snow ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez, vous, mon bel ami?
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 25 
 
 Thy lips vermilion, full of love, 
 
 N'oserez vous, man del ami ? 
 Thy neck as silver-white as dove ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, man bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 
 Thine eyes, like flames of holy fires, 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? 
 Burn all my thoughts with sweet desires ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 
 All thy beauties sting my heart ; 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 I must die through Cupid's dart ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? 
 
 Wilt thou let thy Venus die ? 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? 
 Adon were unkind, say I, 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami? 
 
 To let fair Venus die for woe 
 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami ? 
 That doth love sweet Adon so ; 
 
 Je vous en prie, pity me ; 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel, 
 N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?
 
 2 6 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Francesco's Fortunes ; or 
 the Second Part of Never 
 Too Late, 1590. 
 
 EURYMACHUS' FANCY IN THE PRIME OF HIS 
 AFFECTION. 
 
 WHEN lordly Saturn, in a sable robe, 
 Sat full of frowns and mourning in the west, 
 The evening-star scarce peeped from out her lodge, 
 And Phoebus newly gallopped to his rest ; 
 Even then 
 Did I 
 
 Within my boat sit in the silent streams, 
 All void of cares as he that lies and dreams. 
 
 As Phao, so a ferryman I was ; 
 The country-lasses said I was too fair : 
 With easy toil I laboured at mine oar, 
 To pass from side to side who did repair ; 
 
 And then 
 
 Did I 
 
 For pains take pence, and Charon-like transport 
 As soon the swain as men of high import. 
 
 When want of work did give me leave to rest, 
 My sport was catching of the wanton fish : 
 So did I wear the tedious time away, 
 And with my labour mended oft my dish ;
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 27 
 
 For why l 
 
 I thought 
 
 That idle hours were calendars of ruth, 
 And time ill-spent was prejudice to youth. 
 
 I scorned to love ; for were the nymph as fair 
 As she that loved the beauteous Latmian swain, 
 Her face, her eyes, her tresses, nor her brows 
 Like ivory, could my affection gain ; 
 
 For why 
 
 I said 
 
 With high disdain, " Love is a base desire, 
 And Cupid's flames, why, they're but watery fire." 
 
 As thus I sat, disdaining of proud Love, 
 " Have over, ferryman," there cried a boy ; 
 And with him was a paragon for hue, 
 A lovely damsel, beauteous and coy ; 
 
 And there 
 
 With her 
 
 A maiden, covered with a tawny veil, 
 Her face unseen for breeding lovers' bale. 
 
 I stirred 3 my boat, and when I came to shore, 
 The boy was winged ; methought it was a wonder ; 
 The dame had eyes like lightning, or the flash 
 That runs before the hot report of thunder ; 
 
 Her smiles 
 
 Were sweet, 
 
 Lovely her face ; was ne'er so fair a creature, 
 For earthly carcass had a heavenly feature. 
 
 1 " For why " = because. 2 Steered.
 
 28 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 " My friend," quoth she, " sweet ferryman, behold, 
 We three must pass, but not a farthing fare ; 
 But I will give, for I am Queen of love, 
 The brightest lass thou lik'st unto thy share ; 
 
 Choose where 
 
 Thou lov'st, 
 
 Be she as fair as Love's sweet lady is, 
 She shall be thine, if that will be thy bliss." 
 
 With that she smiled with such a pleasing face 
 As might have made the marble rock relent ; 
 But I, that triumphed in disdain of love, 
 Bade fie on him that to fond love was bent, 
 
 And then 
 
 Said thus, 
 
 " So light the ferryman for love doth care, 
 As Venus pass not if she pay no fare." 
 
 At this a frown sat on her angry brow ; 
 
 She winks upon her wanton son hard by ; 
 
 He from his quiver drew a bolt of fire, 
 
 And aimed so right as that he pierced mine eye ; 
 
 And then 
 
 Did she 
 
 Draw down the veil that hid the virgin's face, 
 Whose heavenly beauty lightened all the place. 
 
 Straight then I leaned mine ear upon mine arm, 
 And looked upon the nymph (if so) was fair ; 
 Her eyes were stars, and like Apollo's locks 
 Methought appeared the trammels of her hair :
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 Thus did 
 
 I gaze 
 
 And sucked in beauty, till that sweet desire 
 Cast fuel on, and set my thought on fire. 
 
 When I was lodged within the net of love, 
 And that they saw my heart was all on flame, 
 The nymph away, and with her trips along 
 The winged boy, and with her goes his dame : 
 
 O, then 
 
 I cried, 
 
 " Stay, ladies, stay, and take not any care, 
 You all shall pass, and pay no penny fare." 
 
 Away they fling, and looking coyly back, 
 They laugh at me, O, with a loud disdain ! 
 I send out sighs to overtake the nymph, 1 
 And tears, as lures, to call them back again ; 
 
 But they 
 
 Fly thence ; 
 
 But I sit in my boat, with hand on oar, 
 And feel a pain, but know not what's the sore. 
 
 At last I feel it is the flame of love, 
 I strive, but bootless, to express the pain ; 
 It cools, it fires, it hopes, it fears, it frets, 
 And stirreth passions throughout every vein ; 
 
 That down 
 
 I sat, 
 
 And sighing did fair Venus' laws approve, 
 And swore no thing so sweet and sour as love. 
 
 i Olded. "Nimphs."
 
 30 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 RADAGON IN DIANAM. 
 
 IT was a valley gaudy-green, 
 Where Dian at the fount was seen ; 
 Green it was, 
 And did pass 
 
 All other of Diana's bowers 
 In the pride of Flora's flowers. 
 
 A fount it was that no sun sees, 
 Circled in with cypress-trees, 
 
 Set so nigh 
 
 As Phoebus' eye 
 Could not do the virgins scathe, 
 To see them naked when they bathe. 
 
 She sat there all in white, 
 Colour fitting her delight : 
 Virgins so 
 Ought to go, 
 
 For white in armory is plac'd 
 To be the colour that is chaste. 
 
 Her tafPta cassock might you see 
 Tucked up above her knee, 
 
 Which did show 
 
 There below 
 
 Legs as white as whales-bone ; 
 So white and chaste were never none.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 31 
 
 Hard by her, upon the ground, 
 Sat her virgins in a round, 
 
 Bathing their 
 
 Golden hair, 
 
 And singing all in notes high, 
 " Fie on Venus' flattering eye ! 
 
 " Fie on love ! it is a toy ; 
 Cupid witless and a boy ; 
 
 All his fires, 
 
 And desires, 
 
 Are plagues that God sent down from high 
 To pester men with misery." 
 
 As thus the virgins did disdain 
 Lovers' joy and lovers' pain, 
 
 Cupid nigh 
 
 Did espy, 
 
 Grieving at Diana's song, 
 Slyly stole these maids among. 
 
 His bow of steel, darts of fire, 
 
 He shot amongst them sweet desire, 
 
 Which straight flies 
 
 In their eyes, 
 
 And at the entrance made them start, 
 For it ran from eye to heart. 
 
 Calisto straight supposed Jove 
 Was fair and frolic for to love ; 
 
 Dian she 
 
 Scaped not free, 
 For, well I wot, hereupon 
 She loved the swain Endymion ;
 
 3 2 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 Clytie Phoebus, and Chloris' eye 
 Thought none so fair as Mercury : 
 
 Venus thus 
 
 Did discuss 
 
 By her son in darts of fire, 
 None so chaste to check desire. 
 
 Dian rose with all her maids, 
 Blushing thus at love's braids : l 
 
 With sighs, all 
 
 Show their thrall ; 
 
 And flinging hence pronounce this saw, 
 "What so strong as love's sweet law?" 
 
 MULLIDOR'S MADRIGAL. 
 
 DILDIDO, dildido, 
 O love, O love, 
 I feel thy rage rumble below and above ! 
 
 In summer-time I saw a face, 
 
 Trap belle pour mat, he"las, h^las ! 
 Like to a stoned-horse was her pace : 
 
 Was ever young man so dismayed ? 
 Her eyes, like wax-torches, did make me afraid : 
 
 Trap belle pour moi, voild. mon tre"pas. 
 
 1 "'I.e., perhaps, crafts, deceits (vide Steevens's note on 
 "Since Frenchmen are so braid." Shakespeare's All well that 
 ends well, Act iv. sc. 2.)." Dyce.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 33 
 
 Thy beauty, my love, exceedeth supposes ; 
 Thy hair is a nettle for the nicest roses. 
 
 Man dieu, aide moi ! 
 That I with the primrose of my fresh wit 
 May tumble her tyranny under my feet : 
 
 He" done je serai unjeune roi! 
 Trap belle pour moi, hdlas, hJlas, 
 Trop belle pour moi, voila mon tripos. 
 
 From The Farewell to Folly, 
 I59i- 
 
 A MIND CONTENT. 
 
 SWEET are the thoughts that savour of content ; 
 The quiet mind is richer than a crown ; 
 Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent ; 
 The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown : 
 Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, 
 Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. 
 
 The homely house that harbours quiet rest ; 
 
 The cottage that affords no pride nor care ; 
 The mean that 'grees with country music best ; 
 
 The sweet consort of mirth and music's 1 fare ^ 
 Obscured life sets down a type of bliss : 
 A mind content both crown and kingdom is. 
 
 i "Music's fare" is hardly intelligible. Mr. W. J. Linton 
 (Rare Poems) reads " modest fare." 
 D
 
 34 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 From Philomela, the Lady Fife- 
 water's Nightingale, 1592. 
 
 PHILOMELA'S ODE THAT SHE SUNG IN HER ARBOUR. 
 
 SITTING by a river's side, 
 Where a silent stream did glide, 
 Muse I did of many things 
 That the mind in quiet brings. 
 I gan think how some men deem. 
 Gold their god ; and some esteem 
 Honour is the chief content 
 That to man in life is lent ; 
 And some others do contend, 
 Quiet none like to a friend ; 
 Others hold, there is no wealth 
 Compared to a perfect health ; 
 Some man's mind in quiet stands 
 When he is lord of many lands : 
 But I did sigh, and said all this 
 Was but a shade of perfect bliss ; 
 And in my thoughts I did approve, 
 Naught so sweet as is true love. 
 Love 'twixt lovers passeth these, 
 When mouth kisseth and heart 'grees, 
 With folded arms and lips meeting, 
 Each soul another sweetly greeting ; 
 For by the breath the soul fleeteth, 
 And soul with soul in kissing meeteth.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 35 
 
 If love be so sweet a thing, 
 That such happy bliss doth bring, 
 Happy is love's sugared thrall ; 
 But unhappy maidens all, 
 Who esteem your virgin blisses 
 Sweeter than a wife's sweet kisses. 
 No such quiet to the mind 
 As true love with kisses kind : 
 But if a kiss prove unchaste, 
 Then is true love quite disgrac'd. 
 Though love be sweet, learn this of me 
 No love sweet but honesty. 
 
 PHILOMELA'S SECOND ODE. 
 
 IT was frosty winter-season, 
 And fair Flora's wealth was geason. 1 
 Meads that erst with green were spread, 
 With choice flowers diap'red, 
 Had tawny veils ; cold had scanted 
 What the spring and nature planted. 
 Leafless boughs there might you see, 
 All except fair Daphne's tree : 
 On their twigs no birds perched ; 
 Warmer coverts now they searched ; 
 And by nature's secret reason, 
 Framed their voices to the season, 
 
 1 Rare, uncommon.
 
 36 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 With their feeble tunes bewraying 
 How they grieved the spring's decaying. 
 Frosty winter thus had gloomed 
 Each fair thing that summer bloomed ; 
 Fields were bare, and trees unclad, 
 Flowers withered, birds were sad : 
 When I saw a shepherd fold 
 Sheep in cote, to shun the cold. 
 Himself sitting on the grass, 
 That with frost withered was, 
 Sighing deeply, thus gan say ; 
 " Love is folly when astray : 
 Like to love no passion such, 
 For 'tis madness, if too much ; 
 If too little, then despair ; 
 If too high, he beats the air 
 With bootless cries ; if too low, 
 An eagle matcheth with a crow : 
 Thence grow jars. Thus I find, 
 Love is folly, if unkind ; 
 Yet do men most desire 
 To be heated with this fire, 
 Whose flame is so pleasing hot, 
 That they burn, yet feel it not. 
 Yet hath love another kind, 
 Worse than these unto the mind ; 
 That is, when a wanton eye 
 Leads desire clean awry, 
 And with the bee doth rejoice 
 Every minute to change choice, 
 Counting he were then in bliss, 
 If that each fair face were his. 
 Highly thus is love disgrac'd,
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 37 
 
 When the lover is unchaste, 
 And would taste of fruit forbidden, 
 'Cause the scape is easily hidden. 
 Though such love be sweet in brewing, 
 Bitter is the end ensuing ; 
 For the honour of love he shameth, 
 And himself with lust defameth ; 
 For a minute's pleasure gaining, 
 Fame and honour ever staining. 
 Gazing thus so far awry, 
 Last the chip falls in his eye ; 
 Then it burns that erst but heat him, 
 And his own rod gins to beat him ; 
 His choicest sweets turn to gall ; 
 He finds lust his sin's thrall ; 
 That wanton women in their eyes 
 Men's deceivings do comprise ; 
 That homage done to fair faces 
 Doth dishonour other graces. 
 If lawless love be such a sin, 
 Cursed is he that lives therein, 
 For the gain of Venus' game 
 Is the downfall unto shame." 
 Here he paused, and did stay ; 
 Sighed, and rose, and went away.
 
 38 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 ON women Nature did bestow two eyes, 
 Like heaven's bright lamps, in matchless beauty 
 shining, 
 
 Whose beams do soonest captivate the wise, 
 And wary heads, made rare by art's refining. 
 But why did Nature, in her choice combining, 
 Plant two fair eyes within a beauteous face, 
 That they might favour two with equal grace ? 
 Venus did soothe up Vulcan with one eye, 
 With th' other granted Mars his wished glee : 
 If she did so who Hymen did defy, 
 Think love no sin, but grant an eye to me ; 
 In vain else Nature gave two stars to thee : 
 If then two eyes may well two friends maintain, 
 Allow of two, and prove not Nature vain. 
 
 ANSWER. 
 
 TVT ATURE foreseeing how men would devise 
 
 * ^ More wiles than Proteus, women to entice, 
 
 Granted them two, and those bright-shining eyes, 
 
 To pierce into men's faults if they were wise ; 
 
 For they with show of virtue mask their vice : 
 
 Therefore to women's eyes belong these gifts, 
 
 The one must love, the other see men's shifts. 
 
 Both these await upon one simple heart, 
 
 And what they choose, it hides up without change. 
 
 The emerald will not with his portrait part, 
 
 Nor will a woman's thoughts delight to range ; 
 
 They hold it bad to have so bad exchange : [him, 
 
 One heart, one friend, though that two eyes do choose 
 
 No more but one, and heart will never lose him.
 
 ROBERT GREENE. 39 
 
 F 1 
 
 From The Groatsworth of Wit 
 bought with a Million of 
 Repentance, 1592. 
 
 LAMILIA'S SONG. 
 
 'IE, fie on blind fancy ! 
 It hinders youth's joy : 
 
 Fair virgins, learn by me 
 
 To count Love a toy. 
 
 When Love learned first the A B C of delight, 
 And knew no figures nor conceited phrase, 
 He simply gave to due desert her right, 
 He led not lovers in dark winding ways ; 
 He plainly willed to love, or flatly answered no : 
 But now who lists to prove, shall find it'nothing so. 
 
 Fie, fie, then, on fancy ! 
 
 It hinders youth's joy : 
 . Fair virgins, learn by me 
 
 To count love a toy. 
 
 For since he learned to use the poet's pen, 
 He learned likewise with smoothing words to feign, 
 Witching chaste ears with trothless tongues of men, 
 And wronged faith with falsehood and disdain. 
 He gives a promise now, anon he sweareth no : 
 Who listeth for to prove, shall find his changing so. 
 
 Fie, fie, then, on fancy ! 
 
 It hinders youth's joy : 
 
 Fair virgins, learn by me 
 
 To count Love a toy.
 
 40 ROBERT GREENE. 
 
 MISERR1MUS. 
 
 "pVECEIVING world, that with alluring toys 
 -*--' Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, 
 And scornest now to lend thy fading joys 
 T' outlength my life, whom friends have left forlorn ; 
 How well are they that die ere they be born, 
 And never see thy sleights, which few men shun 
 Till unawares they helpless are undone ! 
 
 Oft have I sung of Love and of his fire ; 
 But now I find that poet was advised, 
 Which made full feasts increasers of desire, 
 And proves weak Love was with the poor despised ; 
 For when the life with food is not sufficed, 
 What thoughts of love, what motion of delight, 
 What pleasance can proceed from such a wight ? 
 
 Witness my want, the murderer of my wit : 
 My ravished sense, of wonted fury reft, 
 Wants such conceit as should in poems fit 
 Set down the sorrow wherein I am left : 
 But therefore have high heavens their gifts bereft, 
 Because so long they lent them me to use, 
 And I so long their bounty did abuse. 
 
 O, that a year were granted me to live, 
 And for that year my former wits restored ! 
 What rules of life, what counsel would I give, 
 How should my sin with sorrow be deplored ! l 
 But I must die of every man abhorred : 
 
 Time loosely spent will not again be won ; 
 
 My time is loosely spent, and I undone. 
 
 1 Dyce's correction. Old ed. " then deplore. "
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 41 
 
 From THOMAS LODGE'S Rosa- 
 lind, 1590. 
 
 ROSALIND'S MADRIGAL. 
 
 LOVE in my bosom like a bee 
 Doth suck his sweet ; 
 Now with his wings he plays with me, 
 
 Now with his feet. 
 
 Within mine eyes he makes his nest, 
 His bed amidst my tender breast ; 
 My kisses are his daily feast, 
 And yet he robs me of my rest. 
 Ah wanton, will ye ? 
 
 And if I sleep, then percheth he, 
 
 With pretty flight, 
 And makes his pillow of my knee 
 
 The livelong night. 
 Strike I my lute, he tunes the string ; 
 He music plays if so I sing ; 
 He lends me every lovely thing ; 
 Yet cruel he my heart doth sting. 
 
 Whist, wanton, still ye ! 
 
 Else I with roses every day 
 
 Will whip you hence, 
 And bind you, when you long to play, 
 
 For your offence.
 
 42 THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 I'll shut mine eyes to keep you in, 
 I'll make you fast it for your sin, 
 I'll count your power not worth a pin. 
 Alas, what hereby shall I win, 
 If he gainsay me ? 
 
 What if I beat the wanton boy 
 
 With many a rod ? 
 He will repay me with annoy, 
 
 Because a god. 
 
 Then sit thou safely on my knee, 
 Then let thy bower my bosom be ; 
 Lurk in mine eyes, I like of thee. 
 O Cupid, so thou pity me, 
 
 Spare not, but play thee.
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 43 
 
 THE LOVER'S vow. 
 
 THIRST shall the heavens want starry light, 
 J- The seas be robbed of their waves ; 
 The day want sun, and sun want bright, 
 The night want shade, the dead men graves ; 
 The April flowers and leaf and tree, 
 Before I false my faith to thee. 
 
 First shall the tops of highest hills 
 By humble plains be overpried ; 
 And poets scorn the Muses' quills, 
 And fish forsake the water-glide ; 
 
 And Iris lose her coloured weed, 
 
 Before I fail thee at thy need. 
 
 First direful hate shall turn to peace, 
 And love relent in deep disdain ; 
 And death his fatal stroke shall cease, 
 And envy pity every pain ; 
 
 And pleasure mourn, and sorrow smile, 
 
 Before I talk of any guile. 
 
 First time shall stay his stayless race, 
 And winter bless his boughs with corn ; 
 And snow bemoisten July's face, 
 And winter spring, and summer mourn, 
 Before my pen by help of fame 
 Cease to recite thy sacred name.
 
 44 THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 MONTANUS' SONNET. 
 
 T)HCEBEsat, 
 *- Sweet she sat, 
 
 Sweet sat Phoebe when I saw her, 
 White her brow, 
 Coy her eye ; 
 
 Brow and eye how much you please me ! 
 Words I spent, 
 Sighs I sent ; 
 
 Sighs and words could never draw her. 
 Oh my love, 
 Thou art lost, 
 
 Since no sight could ever ease thee. 
 
 Phoebe sat 
 By a fount, 
 
 Sitting by a fount I spied her : 
 Sweet her touch, 
 Rare her voice : 
 
 Touch and voice what may distain you ? 
 As she sang, 
 I did sigh, 
 
 And by sighs whilst that I tried her, 
 Oh mine eyes i 
 You did lose 
 
 Her first sight, whose want did pain you.
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 45 
 
 Phoebe's flocks, 
 White as wool, 
 
 Yet were Phoebe's locks more whiter. 
 Phoebe's eyes 
 Dovelike mild, 
 
 Dovelike eyes, both mild and cruel ; 
 Montan swears, 
 In your lamps 
 
 He will die for to delight her. 
 Phoebe, yield, 
 Or I die : 
 
 Shall true hearts be fancy's fuel ? 
 
 PRAISE OF ROSALIND. 
 
 OF all chaste birds the Phoenix doth excel, 
 Of all strong beasts the lion bears the bell, 
 Of all sweet flowers the rose doth sweetest smell, 
 Of all fair maids my Rosalind is fairest. 
 
 Of all pure metals gold is only purest, 
 
 Of all high trees the pine hath highest crest, 
 
 Of all soft sweets I like my mistress' breast, 
 
 Of all chaste thoughts my mistress' thoughts are rarest. 
 
 Of all proud birds the eagle pleaseth Jove, 
 Of pretty fowls kind Venus likes the dove, 
 Of trees Minerva doth the olive love, 
 Of all sweet nymphs I honour Rosalind. 
 
 Of all her gifts her wisdom pleaseth most, 
 Of all her graces virtue she doth boast : 
 For all these gifts my life and joy is lost, 
 If Rosalind prove cruel and unkind.
 
 46 THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 TURN I MY LOOKS UNTO THE SKIES. 
 
 TURN I my looks unto the skies, 
 Love with his arrows wounds mine eyes ; 
 If so I gaze upon the ground, 
 Love then in every flower is found ; 
 Search I the shade to fly my pain, 
 He meets me in the shade again ; 
 Wend I to walk in secret grove, 
 Ev'n there I meet with sacred Love ; 
 If so I bain me in the spring, 
 Ev'n on the brink I hear him sing ; 
 If so I meditate alone, 
 He will be partner of my moan ; 
 If so I mourn, he weeps with me, 
 And where I am there will he be. 
 Whenas I talk of Rosalind 
 The god from coyness waxeth kind, 
 And seems in self-same flames to fry 
 Because he loves as well as I. 
 Sweet Rosalind, for pity rue, 
 For why * than Love I am more true : 
 He, if he speed, will quickly fly, 
 But in thy love I live and die. 
 
 1 " For why " = because.
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 47 
 
 MONTANUS' SONNET. 
 
 A TURTLE sat upon a leafless tree, 
 Mourning her absent pheer, 1 
 With sad and sorry cheer : 
 About her wondering stood 
 The citizens of wood, 
 And whilst her plumes she rents, 
 And for her love laments, 
 The stately trees complain them, 
 The birds with sorrow pain them : 
 Each one that doth her view, 
 Her pain and sorrows rue : 
 But were the sorrows known 
 That me hath overthrown, 
 Oh how would Phcebe sigh, if she did look on me ? 
 
 The lovesick Polypheme that could not see, 
 Who on the barren shore, 
 His fortunes doth deplore, 
 And melteth all in moan 
 For Galatea gone ; 
 And with his piteous cries, 
 Afflicts both earth and skies, 
 And to his woe betook, 
 Doth break both pipe and hook : 
 
 1 Mate.
 
 48 THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 For whom complains the morn, 
 For whom the Sea Nymphs mourn : 
 Alas, his pain is nought ; 
 For were my woe but thought, 
 Oh how would Phoebe sigh, if she did look on me ? 
 
 Beyond compare my pain : 
 
 Yet glad am I, 
 If gentle Phoebe deign 
 
 To see her Montan die. 
 
 PHCEBE'S SONNET, A REPLY TO MONTANUS' PASSION. 
 
 DOWN a down !" 
 Thus Phyllis sung 
 By fancy once distressed : 
 " Whoso by foolish loves are stung, 
 Are worthily oppressed, 
 
 And so sing I. With a down, down !" 
 
 " When love was first begot, 
 
 And by the mother's 1 will 
 Did fall to human lot 
 
 His solace to fulfil, 
 Devoid of all deceit 
 
 A chaste and holy fire 
 Did quicken man's conceit, 
 
 And women's breasts inspire. 
 
 i So ed. 1609 (and England's Helicon). Earlier eds. 
 " moouers."
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 49 
 
 The gods that saw the good 
 
 That mortals did approve, 
 With kind and holy mood, 
 
 Began to talk of love. 
 
 " Down a down 1" 
 
 Thus Phyllis sung 
 By fancy once distressed, etc. 
 
 But during this accord, 
 
 A wonder strange to hear : 
 Whilst love in deed and word 
 
 Most faithful did appear, 
 False semblance came in place, 
 
 By jealousy attended, 
 And with a double face 
 
 Both love and fancy blended. 
 Which makes the gods forsake, 
 
 And men from fancy fly, 
 And maidens scorn a make, 1 
 
 Forsooth and so will I. 
 
 " Down a down !" 
 Thus Phyllis sung 
 
 By fancy once distressed : 
 " Who so by foolish love are stung 
 
 Are worthily oppressed. 
 And so sing I, with down, a down, a down a." 
 
 1 ' ' Make " an old form of mate.
 
 SO THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 CORYDON'S SONG. 
 
 A BLITHE and bonny country lass, 
 *\ Heigh ho, the bonny lass : 
 Sat sighing on the tender grass, 
 
 And weeping said, " Will none come woo me ?" 
 A smicker boy, a lither swain, 
 
 Heigh ho, a smicker swain, 
 That in his love was wanton fain, 
 
 With smiling looks straight came unto her. 
 
 When as the wanton wench espied, 
 
 Heigh ho, when she espied, 
 The means to make herself a bride, 
 
 She simpered smooth like bonnybell : 
 The swain that saw her squint-eyed kind, 
 
 Heigh ho, squint-eyed kind, 
 His arms about her body twined, 
 
 And " Fair lass, how fare ye well ? " 
 
 The country kit said " Well forsooth, 
 
 Heigh ho, well forsooth ; 
 But that I have a longing tooth, 
 
 A longing tooth that makes me cry." 
 " Alas !" said he, "what gars thy grief? 
 
 Heigh ho, what gars thy grief?" 
 " A wound," quoth she, " without relief: 
 
 I fear a maid that I shall die."
 
 THOMAS LODGE. 51 
 
 " If that be all," the shepherd said, 
 
 " Heigh ho," the shepherd said, 
 " I'll make thee wive it, gentle maid, 
 
 And so recure thy malady." 
 
 Hereon they kissed with many an oath, 
 
 Heigh ho, with many an oath, 
 And 'fore God Pan did plight their troth, 
 
 And to the church they hied them fast. 
 
 And God send every pretty peat, 
 
 Heigh ho, the pretty peat, 
 That fears to die of this conceit, 
 
 So kind a friend to help at last. 
 
 From The famous, true, and 
 historical life of Robert, 
 second Duke of Normandy, 
 I59I- 
 
 WHILST YOUTHFUL SPORTS ARE LASTING. 
 
 PLUCK the fruit and taste the pleasure, 
 Youthful Lordings, of delight ; 
 Whilst occasion gives you seizure, 
 
 Feed your fancies and your sight : 
 
 After death, when you are gone, 
 Joy and pleasure is there none. 
 
 Here on earth nothing is stable, 
 
 Fortune's changes well are known ; 
 Whilst as youth doth then enable, 
 Let your seeds of joy be sown : 
 
 After death, when you are gone, 
 Joy and pleasure is there none.
 
 S 2 BARTHOLOMEW YOUNG. 
 
 Feast it freely with your lovers, 
 
 Blithe and wanton sports do fade, 
 Whilst that lovely Cupid hovers 
 Round about this lovely shade : 
 Sport it freely one to one, 
 After death is pleasure none, 
 
 Now the pleasant spring allureth, 
 
 And both place and time invites : 
 But, alas, what heart endureth 
 
 To disclaim his sweet delights ? 
 
 After death, when we are gone, 
 Joy and pleasure is there none. 
 
 From BARTHOLOMEW YOUNG'S 
 Diana of George of Monte- 
 mayor, 1598. l 
 
 LOVE'S SUSTENANCE. 
 
 WITH sorrow, tears, and discontent 
 Love his forces doth augment. 
 
 Water is to meads delight, 
 
 And the flax doth please the fire ; 
 
 Oil in lamp agreeth right ; 
 
 Green meads are all the flocks' desire ; 
 
 Ripening fruit and wheaty ears 
 
 With due heat are well content ; 
 
 And with pains and many tears 
 
 Love his forces doth augment. 
 
 i Young completed his translation of the Spanish romance in 
 1583. I have given only one brief specimen of the poetry. If 
 the reader is interested in Young's verse, I refer him to England's 
 Helicon (where he will find more than enough of it).
 
 JOHN D1CKENSON. 53 
 
 From JOHN DJCKENSON'S Aris- 
 bas, Euphues amidst his 
 slumbers, 1594. 
 
 CUPID'S JOURNEY TO HELL. 
 
 T OVE, leaving heaven, 'gan post to Stygian lake, 
 -* ' And, being landed on the farther shore, 
 For Pluto's palace did his journey make, 
 To view his uncle's court and royal store. 
 
 Thus, having crept from mother's side by stealth, 
 He welcomed is with pomp by bloodless ghosts ; 
 And hell's grim tyran, 1 greeting him with health, 
 His royalties to powerful nephew boasts. 
 
 Having viewed each strange hue of monstrous shape, 
 They feasted with great jollity in hell ; 
 And sauced their meat with store of pressed grape, 
 Till wine did wit and sense from them expel. 
 
 Sleep, caused by fumes to their o'ercharged brains, 
 Did seize on both ; first Pluto took a nap ; 
 Next Cupid (thus his quaffing mood constrains) 
 Lay down to rest him, dreading no mishap. 
 
 In haste the fondling from his shoulders threw 
 His dear-bought quiver and his fatal bow : 
 Fair Proserpine came in, and at the view 
 Forthwith exclaimed, " These, these have wrought my 
 woe ! 
 
 1 An old form of tyrant.
 
 54 JOHN D1CKENSON. 
 
 These, these caused me (deprived of wonted joy) 
 T'inhabit Hell ; these fired the lecher's lust : 
 But sith they are misguided by a boy, 
 I will commit them to another's trust." 
 
 This said, came Plutus headlong tumbling in, 
 Plutus the god of coin, blind as the other ; 
 Whom, with fair words the guileful queen did win 
 T'usurp those gifts and seem Love's second brother. 
 
 At first he feared, at last he was delighted 
 With using them, and smiled oft to think 
 How men's affections, by those shafts excited, 
 Obeyed his doom, which love with gold did link. 
 
 Cupid awaking missed the dreaded signs 
 Of godhead's might ; strange passions did him toss ; 
 He wreathes his arms in folds and them untwines, 
 Thus childishly he moans his hapless loss. 
 
 He wept, he fled, in hell he durst not hide him, 
 Grieved with the murmur of so many souls ; 
 Near heaven he dares not come lest Venus chide him 
 What should he do whom Fortune thus controuls ? 
 
 Foul fall the wag that lost so rare a jewel ! 
 
 Long may he lurk, that could no better guard 
 
 His father's toil, his mother's pride, the fuel 
 
 Which for hearts' wracks eyes' glances have prepared ! 
 
 Sith then the god of gain usurps Love's room, 
 I will with gifts make suit for gracious doom.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 55 
 
 From NICHOLAS BRETON'S The 
 Will of Wit; Wit's Will, 
 or Will's Wit, Chuse you 
 Whether, 1599. 
 
 A SONG BETWEEN WIT AND WILL. 
 Wit. 
 
 WHAT art thou, Will ? Will. A babe of Nature's 
 brood. 
 Wit. Who was thy sire ? Will. Sweet Lust, as lovers 
 
 say. 
 Wit. Thy mother who? Will. Wild lusty wanton 
 
 blood. 
 Wit. When wert thou born ? Will. In merry month 
 
 of May. 
 Wit. And where brought up? Will. In school of 
 
 little skill. 
 Wit. What learn'dst thou there? Will. Love is my 
 
 lesson still. 
 
 Wit. Where read'st thou that? Will. In lines of 
 
 sweet delight. 
 Wit. The author who ? Will. Desire did draw the 
 
 book. 
 Wit. Whoteacheth? Will. Time. Wit. What order? 
 
 Will. Lovers' right. 
 Wit. What's that ? Will. To catch content by hook 
 
 or crook. 
 Wit. Where keeps he school ? Will. In wilderness of 
 
 woe. 
 Wit. Why lives he there ? Will. The Fates appoint 
 
 it so.
 
 56 . NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 Wit. Why did they so? Will. It was their secret 
 
 will. 
 Wit. What was their will? Will. To work fond 
 
 lovers woe. 
 Wit. What was their woe? Will. By spite their 
 
 sport to spill. 
 Wit. What was their sport? Will. Dame Nature 
 
 best doth know. 
 Wit. How grows their spite? Will. By want of wish. 
 
 Wit. What's that ? 
 Will. Wit knows right well, Will may not tell thee 
 
 what. 
 
 Wit. Then, Will, adieu. Will. Yet stand me in some 
 
 steed. 
 Wit. Wherewith, sweet Will? Will. Alas, by thine 
 
 advice. 
 Wit. Whereto, good Will? Will. To win my wish 
 
 with speed. 
 Wit. I know not how. Will. O Lord, that Will were 
 
 wise ! 
 Wit. Wouldst thou be wise ? Will. Full fain. Wit. 
 
 Then come from school. 1 
 Take this of Wit : Love learns to play the fool. 
 
 i The words " Then come from school " are given to Will in 
 old ed.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 57 
 
 THE SONG OF CARE. 
 
 /~""*OME, all the world, submit yourselves to Care, 
 ^-" And him acknowledge for your chiefest king ; 
 With whom no king or keisar may compare, 
 Who bears so great a sway in everything : 
 At home, abroad, in peace and eke in war, 
 Care chiefly stands to either make or mar. 
 
 The court he keeps is in a wise conceit, 
 
 His house a head where reason rules the wit ; 
 
 His seat the heart that hateth all deceit, 
 His bed the brain that feels no frantic fit, 
 
 His diet is the cates of sweet content : 
 
 Thus is his life in heavenly pleasure spent. 
 
 His kingdom is the whole world round about ; 
 
 Sorrow his sword to such as do rebel ; 
 His counsel wisdom that decides each doubt ; 
 
 His skill foresight, of things to come to tell ; 
 His chief delight is studies of device 
 To keep his subjects out of miseries. 
 
 O courteous king, O high and mighty Care, 
 What shall I write in honour of thy name ? 
 
 But to the world by due desert declare 
 Thy royal state and thy immortal fame. 
 
 Then so I end, as I at first begun, 
 
 Care is the King of kings when all is done.
 
 58 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 From The Strange Fortunes of 
 , Two Excellent Princes, 1600. 
 
 A CONCEIT. 
 
 T WOULD thou wert not fair, or I were wise ; 
 *- I would thou hadst no face or I no eyes ; 
 I would thou wert not wise, or I not fond ; 
 Or thou not free, or I not so in bond. 
 
 But thou art fair, and I cannot be wise : 
 Thy sunlike face hath blinded both mine eyes ; 
 Thou canst not be but wise, nor I but fond ; 
 Nor thou but free, nor I but still in bond. 
 
 Yet am I wise to think that thou art fair ; 
 Mine eyes their pureness in thy face repair ; 
 Nor am I fond, that do thy wisdom see ; 
 Nor yet in bond, because that thou art free. 
 
 Then in thy beauty only make me wise, 
 And in thy face the Graces guide thine eyes ; 
 And in thy wisdom only see me fond ; 
 And in thy freedom keep me still in bond. 
 
 So shalt thou still be fair and I be wise ; 
 Thy face shine still upon my cleared eyes ; 
 Thy wisdom only see how I am fond ; 
 Thy freedom only keep me still in bond. 
 
 So would I thou wert fair and I were wise ; 
 So would thou hadst thy face and I mine eyes ; 
 So would I thou wert wise, and I were fond ; 
 And thou wert free, and I were still in bond.
 
 HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON. 59 
 
 From The Famous History of 
 Friar Bacon. 
 
 PEGGY THE BROWN. 
 
 To a Northern tune of " Cam'st thou not from New- 
 castle?" 
 
 T^O couple is a custom, 
 J- All things thereto agree : 
 Why should not I then love ? 
 Since love to all is free. 
 
 But I'll have one that's pretty, 
 
 Her cheeks of scarlet dye, 
 For to breed my delight 
 
 When that I lig her by. 
 
 Tho' virtue be a dowry, 
 
 Yet I'll chuse money store : 
 If my love prove untrue, 
 
 With that I can get more. 
 
 The fair is oft unconstant, 
 
 The black is often proud, 
 I'll chuse a lovely brown : 
 
 Come, fiddler, scrape thy crowd. 
 
 Come, fiddler, scrape thy crowd, 
 
 For Peggy the brown is she 
 Must be my bride : God guide 
 
 That Peggy and I agree.
 
 60 HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON. 
 
 AFTER THE WEDDING. 1 
 
 AND did not you hear of a mirth that befell 
 *-*' The morrow after a wedding day, 
 At carrying a bride at home to dwell ? 
 And away to Twiver away, away ! 
 
 The quintain was set and the garlands were made, 
 'Tis a pity old custom should ever decay ; 
 
 And woe be to him that was horsed on a jade, 
 For he carried no credit away, away 1 
 
 We met a consort of fiddle-de-dees, 
 
 We set them a-cock-horse, and made them to play 
 The "Winning of Bullen " and " Upsie-frees ; " 2 
 
 And away to Twiver away, away ! 
 
 There was ne'er a lad in all the parish 
 
 That would go to the plow that day 
 But on his fore-horse his wench he carries ; 
 
 And away to Twiver away, away ! 
 
 The butler was quick and the ale he did tap, 
 The maidens did make the chamber full gay ; 
 
 The serving-men gave me a fuddling-cap, 
 And I did carry it away, away. 
 
 1 This ballad with some slight textual variations is given by 
 Scott in the notes appended to Waverley. 
 
 2 "The Winning of Bullen" and " Upsie Frees" are old 
 dance tunes.
 
 HISTORY OF GEORGE-A-GREEN. 61 
 
 The smith of the town his liquor so took 
 
 That he was persuaded the ground looked blue ; 
 
 And I dare boldly to swear on a book 
 Such smiths as he there are but a few. 
 
 A posset was made, and the women did sip 
 And simpering said they could eat no more ; 
 
 Full many a maid was laid on the lip : 
 I'll say no more but so give o'er. 
 
 From The History of George-a- 
 Green, The Pindar of Wake- 
 field. 
 
 A LOVE-LETTER. 
 
 PROVE but as constant as th' art bold 
 Thy suit shall never be controll'd ; 
 I am not to be bought or sold 
 For wealth or treasure. 
 
 Let suitors fret and fathers rage, 
 Then keep me in an iron cage ; 
 Yet I myself to thee engage 
 I'll use my pleasure. 
 
 Then be no longer discontent ; 
 I write no more than what is meant ; 
 With this my hand my heart is sent ; 
 Be 't thine endeavour 
 
 To lay some plot how we may meet, 
 And lovingly each other greet 
 With amorous words and kisses sweet : 
 Thine for ever.
 
 62 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 From The Second Part of the 
 Mirror of Knighthood. Now 
 Newly translated out of 'Span- 
 ish by R. P., 1583. 
 
 LOVE'S WILES. 
 
 \ T 7" HO thinks himself at freedom most of all, 
 ^ * And least esteems of Lady Venus' fire, 
 Let him not boast, for he may soonest fall, 
 
 And quickly feel the fury of her ire : 
 Her blinded son such sudden shafts lets fly 
 That freest hearts are first enthralled thereby. 
 
 There is not one which may himself defend, 
 By strength nor wit, from mighty Cupid's dart, 
 
 For that unseen he doth his arrows send 
 And unperceived with pain doth pierce the heart, 
 
 Bereaving wholly all delight and joy, 
 
 Leaving behind distress and great annoy. 
 
 The wonted weal he into woe doth turn 
 Of him that once despised hath his power : 
 
 His cold affection he doth cause to burn, 
 And turns his sweet to most detested sour, 
 
 Triumphing most with terror to torment 
 
 The man that erst against his will was bent.
 
 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 63 
 
 NO DELIGHT WITHOUT LOVE. 
 
 EXCEPT I love I cannot have delight, 
 It is a care that doth to life belong ; 
 For why l I hold that life in great despite 
 That hath not sour 2 mixt with sweet among. 
 And though the torments which I feel be strong, 
 Yet had I rather thus for to remain 
 Than laugh, and live, not feeling lover's pain. 
 
 HIS HEARTLESS MISTRESS. 
 
 HPHE drops of rain in time the marble pierce, 
 J- Submission makes the lion's heart relent ; 
 But, Love, thy cruel torments are so fierce, 
 That mischiefs new thou daily dost invent ; 
 For she, whose sight my heart in sunder rent, 
 Regardeth neither of my faith nor grief, 
 Nor yet yields death, which is my sole relief. 
 
 1 " For why " = because. 
 
 2 A dissyllable (written " sower" in the early edition).
 
 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 TO PASTORA. 
 
 TJ*AIR Pastora, cease off delay, 
 *- With speed declare the certainty, 
 Whether thou wilt my love repay ; 
 If not, then know that I must die. 
 
 I wish for life that I might thee adore, 
 And largely show the love to thee I bear : 
 
 And if that thou offended seem therefore, 
 With speed by speech let it to me appear ; 
 
 Which done, then know that for a certainty, 
 
 Thy sentence given, I am prepared to die. 
 
 Thou well dost see, or plainly may'st perceive, 
 That long time since I had thee in regard : 
 
 Frame not thy lips thy lover to deceive, 
 With scoffs and scorns return not thy reward 
 
 Which if thou do, I never will reply, 
 
 But meekly yield, as ready prest l to die. 
 
 1 " Ready prest " = ready and eager.
 
 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 65 
 
 From The Sixth Book of the Mir- 
 ror of Knighthood, Being the 
 First Book of the Third Part. 
 . . . Translated by R. P., 1598. 
 
 THE PATIENT LOVER. 
 
 THOUGH I be scorned, yet will I not disdain, 
 But bend my thoughts fair beauty to adore ; 
 What though she smile when I sigh and complain, 
 It is, I know, to try my faith the more : 
 
 For she is fair, and fairness is regarded ; 
 And I am firm, firm love will be rewarded, 
 
 Suppose I love and languish to my end, 
 
 And she my plaints, my sighs, my prayers despise : 
 
 O 'tis enough, when Fates for me do send, 
 
 If she vouchsafe to close my dying eyes ; 
 
 Which if she do, and chance to drop a tear, 
 From death to life that balm will me uprear.
 
 66 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 I 
 
 LOVE'S MARTIAL KNIGHT. 
 
 IF I must (sweet Love) obey, 
 Be pitiful to me, I pray, 
 And let me have my love's reward ; 
 With pity let her me regard, 
 And then thy quiver I will fill, 
 With arrows to content thy will. 
 
 I for thee will l ever fight, 
 
 My name shall be Love's Martial Knight > 
 
 On my shield thee will I wear, 
 
 Still thy colours will I bear ; 
 If thou help my heart distressed, 
 Thou shalt be [for] ever blessed. 
 
 To my fair I will appeal 
 
 That with me she gently deal. 
 
 Farewell, Hope ! Love will not yield : 
 
 Yet I bear him on my shield ! 
 The froward 2 boy is too too cross, 
 And delighteth in my loss. 
 
 1 Old ed. " I for thee will I euer fight." 
 
 2 Old ed. " toward."
 
 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 67 
 
 From The Eighth Book of the 
 Mirror of Knighthood : Being 
 the third of the third Part. 
 Englished out of the Spanish 
 Tongue, 1599. 
 
 BLIND FORTUNE. 
 
 T^ORTUNE is blind, she looks on no man's need ; 
 
 - And deaf, she hearkens unto no man's call ; 
 
 And cruel, she respects not who doth bleed ; 
 
 And envious, she rejoiceth at one's fall. 
 
 No beauty can unmask her hoodwinked eyes, 
 
 No force can drive attention to her ears, 
 
 No grief make her dead-sleeping pity rise, 
 
 Nor is her envy thawed with virtue's tears. 
 
 She at adventures lets her favours fly, 
 
 Without proportion, without due regards : 
 
 The base unworthy now she mounts on high, 
 
 And fatteth dunghills with her best rewards. 
 
 Anon they tumble to their first estate, 
 
 And other on the tottering wheel are set : 
 
 Who never find repentance till too late, 
 
 And then they find it in sad sorrow's net. 
 
 Such Fortune is, and, oh, what hap have I 
 
 To serve a goddess lighter than the wind, 
 
 Constant in nothing but inconstancy, 
 
 As also envious, cruel, deaf and blind ! 
 
 Fortune is blind ; oh, what can me betide 
 But blind mishap, that serve so blind a guide !
 
 68 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 THE LOVER RECANTS HIS FORMER HERESY. 
 
 MY heart will burst except it be discharged 
 Of his huge load, that doth oppress it so : 
 Streams stopped o'erflow the banks, if not enlarged, 
 And fire supprest doth much more fiercer grow : 
 Great woes ript up, but half the woe remains, 
 But pains concealed doth aggravate the pains. 
 Sing then, my soul, the story of my loss, 
 Form in sweet words the anguish of my mind : 
 Yet do not : singing ill becomes a cross, 
 Rather sigh out, how hard Love's yoke I find. 
 Love is a sickness, singing [is] a joy : 
 And pleasure is no packhorse for annoy. 
 But must I then, knowing Love a disease 
 That fills our souls with strange calamities, 
 Spite of my heart enforce myself to please, 
 And in mine own arms hug my miseries ? 
 
 And seeing still my state wax worse and worse, 
 Must I of force embrace and kiss my curse ? 
 I must, I must, Cupid hath sworn I must, 
 And 'tis in vain and bootless to resist : 
 Then be not, Love, oh, be not too unjust, 
 I yield me to thy rule, rule how thou list : 
 For my reclaimed rebellion shall bring forth 
 A treble duty to thy glorious worth. 
 Oh Love, sweet Love, oh high and heavenly Love, 
 The court of pleasure, paradise of rest ! 
 Without whose circuit all things bitter prove,
 
 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 69 
 
 Within whose centure l every wretch is blest : 
 
 grant me pardon, sacred deity, 
 
 1 do recant my former heresy ! 
 
 And thou the dearest 2 idol of my thought, 
 
 Whom love I did, and do, and always will : 
 
 Oh pardon what my coy disdain hath wrought, 
 
 My coy disdain, the author of this ill : 
 And for the pride that I have showed before, 
 By Love I swear, I'll love thee ten times more. 
 
 Hast thou shed tears ? those tears will I repay, 
 
 Ten tears for one, a hundred tears for ten. 
 
 Hath my proud rigour hunted thee astray? 
 
 I'll lose my life, or bring thee back agen : 
 Each sigh I'll quittance with a thousand groans, 
 And each complaint with a whole age of moans. 
 
 And when I find thee, as I find thee will, 
 
 Or lose myself in seeking what I love, 
 
 Then will I try with all true humble skill 
 
 Thy pity on my great offence to move : 
 Till when, my griefs are more than tongue can tell, 
 My days are nights, and every place is hell. 
 
 1 Cincture. 2 Old ed. "gearest"
 
 70 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 LOVE'S A BEE, AND BEES HAVE STINGS. 
 
 ONCE I thought, but falsely thought 
 Cupid all delight had brought, 
 And that love had been a treasure, 
 And a palace full of pleasure, 
 But alas ! too soon I prove, 
 Nothing is so sour as love ; 
 
 That for sorrow my muse sings, 
 Love's a bee, and bees have stings. 
 
 When I thought I had obtained 
 That dear solace, which if gained 
 Should have caused all joy to spring, 
 Viewed, I found it no such thing : 
 But instead of sweet desires, 
 Found a rose hemmed in with briars ; 
 That for sorrow my muse sings, 
 Love's a bee, and bees have stings. 
 
 Wonted pleasant life adieu, 
 Love hath changed thee for a new : 
 New indeed, and sour I prove it, 
 Yet I cannot choose but love it ; 
 And as if it were delight, 
 I pursue it day and night ; 
 
 That with sorrow my muse sings, 
 I love bees, though bees have stings.
 
 THE .MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 71 
 
 POSIES. 
 
 LOVE resisted is a child ; 
 Suffered, is a tiger wild. 
 
 The scourge of heaven and earth, hell, sea and land, 
 Is scourged and mastered by a human hand. 
 
 My heart's heart likes my heart, and I again 
 Like my heart's heart ; so both content remain. 
 
 Mars and Cupid differ far, 
 Love cannot agree with war ; 
 And till Mars and Love agree 
 Look not, Love, to conquer me. 
 
 If Fortune's hand be not a stop, 
 I will attain the highest top ; 
 The which if Fortune do deny, 
 Fortune is to blame, not I.
 
 72 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 
 
 HIS MISTRESS' PERFECTIONS. 
 
 THAT brow which doth with fair all fairs excel, 
 Those eyes that shining lends the world his light, 
 That gracious mouth where all the Graces dwell, 
 That dimpled chin, the whetstone of delight, 
 
 Those two rare mounts, of lilies and of roses, 
 That in their swelling all content encloses : 
 
 That brow, eye, mouth, chin, and most dainty cheek, 
 Doth call, keep, hold, bind, and in gyves restrain 
 My heart, eye, ear, my thought, and judgment eke, 
 That no-wise force can free me thence again : 
 Yet do I love my pleasing pain so well 
 That 'bove all joys I prize my heavenly hell. 
 
 Let dunghill baseness and the earthy mind 
 His summum bonum place in what he list, 
 My soul, which strange divinity doth find 
 Within thy face's centure to consist, 
 
 Will not consent that any other be 
 
 My only good but only, only thee. 
 
 Thy brow shall be the dreadful snowy bar 
 
 Where I will daily for thy mercy plead ; 
 
 Thy shining eye my path-directing star ; 
 
 Thy mouth the laws, which I must keep, shall read ; 
 Thy chin and cheek shall equal power bear, 
 The first to cheer, the last to keep in fear.
 
 THE MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD. 73 
 
 And thou thyself, goddess of my desire, 
 
 In my heart's temple daily I'll adore; 
 
 No other deity will I admire, 
 
 No other power divine will I implore : 
 Great goddess, keep me in thy favour-shine, 
 My heart, eye, ear, my thought and judgment's thine. 
 
 FEAR NOT, FAINT HEART. 
 
 FEAR not, faint heart, time may prove 
 A sovereign plaster for your love. 
 Such a faith so firmly grounded, 
 Such a love so kindly placed, 
 From a heart so deeply wounded, 
 From a person so well graced, 
 Needs must get the heart's desiring, 
 Though hope yet seem not to say it ; 
 And though this time seem retiring, 
 Time hereafter may repay it. 
 
 Fear not, faint heart, time may prove 
 A sovereign plaster for your love.
 
 74 ANTHONY MUNDAY. 
 
 CUPID'S SPORTING- PLACE. 
 
 "IITHATE'ER he is that would behold 
 V Imperious Cupid's sporting- place, 
 Here to gaze let him be bold, 
 On this beauteous comely grace. 
 
 Here doth rarest beauty dwell, 
 On her brow doth Cupid sit ; 
 This is she that doth excel, 
 Both for her beauty, love, and wit. 
 
 In her Cupid taketh rest, 
 Joy and bliss with her have end ; 
 Who knoweth her is double blest, 
 Whose beauty day to night doth lend. 
 
 From ANTHONY MUNDAY'S Ze~ 
 lanto, the Fountain of Fame, 
 1580. 
 
 THE SONG WHICH MISTRESS URSULA SUNG TO HER 
 LUTE TO ZELANTO. 
 
 AS Love is cause of joy, 
 So Love procureth care ; 
 As Love doth end annoy, 
 
 So Love doth cause despair ; 
 But yet I oft heard say, 
 
 And wise men like did give, 
 That no one at this day 
 
 Without a Love can live. 
 And think you I will Love defy ? 
 No, no, I love until I die.
 
 ANTHONY MUNDAY. 75 
 
 Love knits the sacred knot, 
 
 Love heart and hand doth bind ; 
 Love will not shrink one jot, 
 
 But Love doth keep his kind ; 
 Love maketh friends of foes, 
 
 Love stays the commonwealth ; 
 Love doth exile all woes 
 
 That would impair our health : 
 Since Love doth men and monsters move, 
 What man so fond will love disprove ? 
 
 Love keeps the happy peace, 
 
 Love doth all strife allay, 
 Love sendeth rich increase, 
 
 Love keepeth wars away ; 
 Love of itself is all, 
 
 Love hath no fellow-mate ; 
 Love causeth me and shall 
 
 Love those that love my state. 
 Then love will I until I die ; 
 And all fond love I will defie.
 
 76 ANTHONY MUNDA Y. 
 
 From The Famous and Renowned 
 History of Primaleon of 
 Greece. Translated out of 
 French and Italian into Eng- 
 lish by A[NTHONY] M[UN- 
 DAY], 1619. 
 
 THE HOPEFUL LOVER. 
 
 T3 EASON and duty both commandeth me 
 *> To love and serve the sovereign of my life, 
 Whose virtues Time's eternal wonders be, 
 And sweet appeasers of heart-breaking strife. 
 
 Though day and night my sorrows do increase 
 Through my unworthiness to taste her grace, 
 Yet with my soul her heavenly looks make peace, 
 Whereby my thoughts some comfort do embrace. 
 
 If then ungentle Fate urge not constraint 
 To leave the place where my most comfort is, 
 One time or other she may hear my plaint 
 And with kind pity help what's now amiss. 
 
 Be not so cruel to thy servant then, 
 For thou shalt find him dutiful and true, 
 And to exceed common esteem of men 
 In loyalty ; and so, sweet soul, adieu !
 
 ANTHONY MUNDAY. 77 
 
 KIND DISCONTENT. 
 
 HE that hath spent his time in silent moan, 
 And ne'er saw merry minute in his life, 
 To sad conceit makes all his sorrows known, 
 Who (to forestall pleasure's ensuing strife) 
 
 Tells him whole stories of sweet discontent, 
 To add more vigour to his languishment. 
 
 In such a Heaven of inward happiness 
 
 My labouring thoughts are earnestly employed : 
 
 Hating the vulgar track of idleness 
 
 Wherein so many infant-wits have joyed, 
 
 And finding that it doth such comfort bring, 
 Kind Discontent, I hail thee as my king. 
 
 BEAUTY SAT BATHING. 
 
 T) EAUTY sat bathing by a spring 
 
 *-* Where fairest shades did hide her ; 
 
 The winds blew calm, the birds did sing, 
 
 The cool streams ran beside her. 
 My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye 
 
 To see what was forbidden l 
 But better memory said Fie ; 
 
 So vain desire was chidden. 
 
 1 So England" s Helicon. The romance gives "hidden." (There 
 are other trifling differences of reading. )
 
 HENRY CHETTLE. 
 
 Into a slumber then I fell, 
 
 And fond imagination 
 Seemed to see, but could not tell 
 
 Her feature or her fashion : 
 But even as babes in dreams do smile 
 
 And sometimes fall a-weeping, 
 So I awaked as wise that while 
 
 As when I fell a-sleeping. 
 
 From Piers Plainness Seven 
 Years' Prenticeship. By 
 H[ENRY]C[HETTLE]. 1595. 
 
 WILY CUPID. 
 
 not his wanton tears 
 A Lest they beguile ye ; 
 Trust not his childish sigh, 
 
 He breatheth slily. 
 Trust not his touch, 
 
 His feeling may defile ye ; 
 Trust nothing that he doth, 
 
 The wag is wily. 
 If you suffer him to prate, 
 You will rue it over-late. 
 
 Beware of him, for he is witty : 
 Quickly strive the boy to bind, 
 Fear him not for he is blind : 
 
 If he get loose, he shows no pity.
 
 ROBERT TOFTE. 79 
 
 From Honours Academy, or the 
 Famous Pastoral of the Fair 
 Shepherdess Julietta. Done 
 into English by R[OBERT] 
 T[OFTE], Gentleman, 1610. 
 
 DEFIANCE TO LOVE. 
 
 T O VE^fare thou well, live will I now 
 Quiet amongst the greenwood bough. 
 
 Ill betide him that love seeks, 
 He shall live but with lean cheeks ; 
 He that fondly falls in love, 
 A slave still to grief shall prove. 
 
 Love, fare thou well, live will I now 
 Quiet amongst the greenwood bough. 
 
 What an ass and fool is he 
 That will serve and may go free ! J 
 In world's not a wench so fair 
 But I for my life more care. 
 Love, fare thou well, &c. 
 
 I like not these dames so smooth 
 As would have men court and love ; 
 For as constant I them find 
 As the sea is or the wind. 
 Love, fare thou well, &c. 
 
 1 Old ed. " That may serue, and will goe frfce. "
 
 8o LADY MARY WROTH. 
 
 Once I loved one that was kind, 
 But she did what pleased her mind ; 
 Better 'tis ne'er to be born 
 Than live as another's scorn. 
 Love, fare thou well, etc. 
 
 Then, Love, thee I do defy, 
 
 I hate thy bad dealing I ; 
 
 He is a fool that lives in pain, 
 
 A toy so small for to gain. 
 
 Love, fare thou well, live will I now 
 Quiet amongst the greenwood bough. 
 
 From LADY MARY WROTH'S 
 Urania, 1621. 
 
 LOVE, WHAT ART THOU ? 
 
 LOVE, what art thou ? a vain thought 
 In our minds by fancy wrought : 
 Idle smiles did thee beget 
 While fond wishes made the net, 
 Which so many fools have caught. 
 
 Love, what art thou ? light and fair, 
 Fresh as morning, clear as th' air ; 
 But too soon thy evening change 
 Makes thy worth with coldness range : 
 Still thy joy is mixed with care. 
 
 Love, what art thou ? a sweet flower, 
 Once full-blown, dead in an hour ; 
 Dust in wind as staid remains 
 As thy pleasure or our gains, 
 If thy humour change to lour.
 
 LADY MARY WROTH. 81 
 
 Love, what art thou ? childish, vain, 
 Firm as bubbles made by rain ; 
 Wantonness thy greatest pride ; 
 These foul faults thy virtues hide : 
 But babes can no staidness gain. 
 
 Love, what art thou ? causeless-curst. 
 Yet, alas, these not the worst ; 
 Much more of thee may be said. 
 But thy law I once obeyed ; 
 Therefore say no more at first. 
 
 WHO CAN BLAME ME IF I LOVE? 
 
 ~t T 7" HO can blame me if I love, 
 Since Love before the world did move ? 
 
 When I loved not I despaired, 
 
 Scarce for handsomeness I cared ; 
 
 Since so much I am refined 
 
 As new framed of state and mind, 
 Who can blame me if I love, 
 Since Love before the world did move ? 
 
 Some in truth of Love beguiled 
 Have him blind and childish styled ; 
 But let none in these persist, 
 Since, so judging, judgment missed. 
 Who can blame me ? 
 G
 
 82 JAMES MABBE. 
 
 Love in chaos did appear ; 
 When nothing was yet he seemed clear 
 Nor when light could be descried, 
 To his crown a light was tied. 
 Who can blame me ? 
 
 Love is truth and doth delight 
 Whereas honour shines most bright ; 
 Reason's self doth Love approve, 
 Which makes us ourselves to love. 
 Who can blame me ? 
 
 Could I my past time begin, 
 I would not commit such sin 
 To live an hour and not to love, 
 Since Love makes us perfect prove. 
 Who can blame me ? 
 
 From JAMES MABBE'S Celatina, 
 1631. 
 
 NOW SLEEP, AND TAKE THY REST. 
 
 NOW sleep, and take thy rest, 
 Once grieved and pained wight, 
 Since she now loves thee best 
 Who is thy heart's delight. 
 Let joy be thy soul's guest, 
 
 And care be banished quite, 
 Since she hath thee expressed 
 To be her favourite.
 
 HENRY FARLEY. 83 
 
 WAITING. 
 
 YOU birds whose warblings prove 
 Aurora draweth near, 
 Go fly and tell my Love 
 
 That I expect him here. 
 The night doth posting move, 
 
 Yet comes he not again : 
 
 God grant some other love 
 
 Do not my Love detain. 
 
 From HENRY FARLEY'S St. 
 Paul's Church, her Bill for 
 the Parliament, 1621. 
 
 A COMPLAINT. 
 
 TO see a strange outlandish fowl, 
 A quaint baboon, an ape, an owl, 
 A dancing bear, a giant's bone, 
 A foolish engine move alone, 
 A morris dance, a puppet-play, 
 Mad Tom to sing a roundelay, 
 A woman dancing on a rope, 
 Bull-baiting also at the Hope, 
 A rimer's jests, a jugler's cheats, 
 A tumbler showing cunning feats, 
 Or players acting on the stage, 
 There goes the bounty of our age : 
 But unto any pious motion 
 There's little coin and less devotion.
 
 84 RICHARD BRATHWAIT. 
 
 From RICHARD BRATHWAIT'S 
 The English Gentlewoman, 
 1631. 
 
 MOUNTING HYPERBOLES. 1 
 
 SKIN more pure than Ida's snow, 
 Whiter far than Moorish milk ; 
 Sweeter than Ambrosia too, 
 Softer than the Paphian silk, 
 Indian plumes or thistle-down, 
 Or May-blossoms newly-blown, 
 Is my mistress, rosy-pale, 
 Adding beauty to her veil. 
 
 1 " An excellent piece of coraplimental stuff to catch a self- 
 conceited one. Many you have of your sex who are too attentive 
 auditors in the report of their own praises. Nothing can be 
 attributed to them which they hold not properly due unto them. 
 Which conceits many times so transports them as, Narcissus-like, 
 they are taken with their own shadows, doting on nothing more 
 than these encomiastic bladders of their desertless praises. Let 
 me advise you, whose discretion should be far from giving light 
 ear to such airy Tritons, to disrelish the oily compliments of these 
 amorous sycophants." x
 
 RICHARD BRATHWAIT. 85 
 
 From RICHARD BRATHWAIT'S 
 The Arcadian Princess, or 
 The Triumphof Justice, 1635. 
 
 Argument. Themis ta reproves such, as being wedded 
 to their own opinion, will not incline to Reason, 
 but prefer a precipitate Will before a deliberate 
 Judgment. 
 
 LIKE to a top, which runneth round 
 And never winneth any ground ; 
 Or th' dying scion of a vine 
 That rather breaks than it will twine ; 
 Or th' sightless mole whose life is spent 
 Divided from her element ; 
 Or plants removed from Tagus' shore, 
 Who never bloom nor blossom more ; 
 Or dark Cimmerians who delight 
 In shady shroud of pitchy night ; 
 Or mopping apes who are possest 
 Their cubs are ever prettiest : 
 So he who makes his own opinion 
 To be his one and only minion, 
 Nor will incline in any season 
 To th' weight of proof or strength of reason, 
 But prefers Will precipitate 
 'Fore Judgment that's deliberate ; 
 He ne'er shall lodge within my roof 
 Till, rectified by due reproof, 
 He labour to reform this ill 
 By giving way to others' will.
 
 86 SAMUEL SHEPPARD (?). 
 
 From SAMUEL SHEPPARD'S The 
 Loves of Amandus and 
 Sophronia, 1650. 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM. 
 
 HEAVENLY fair Urania's son, 
 Thou that dwell'st on Helicon, 
 Hymen, O thy brows impale, 
 To the bride the bridegroom hale. 
 Take thy saffron robe and come 
 With sweet-flowered marjoram ; 
 Yellow socks of woollen wear, 
 With a smiling look appear ; 
 Shrill Epithalamiums sing, 
 Let this day with pleasure spring ; 
 Nimbly dance ; the flaming tree The Pine. 
 Take in that fair hand of thine. 
 Let good auguries combine 
 For the pair that now are wed ; 
 Let their joys be nourished, 
 Like a myrtle, ever green, 
 Owned by the Cyprian queen, 
 Who fosters it with rosy dew, 
 Where her nymphs their sport pursue. 
 Leave th' Aonian cave behind 
 (Come, O come with willing mind !) 
 And the Thespian rocks, whence drill 
 Aganippe waters still. 
 Chastest virgins, you that are 
 Either for to make or mar, 
 Make the air with Hymen ring, 
 Hymen, Hymenaeus sing !
 
 CHOSEN POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 89 
 
 From A Flourish upon Fancy, 
 IS77- 
 
 A Gentleman being on a Christmas Eve in a very 
 solitary place, among very solemn company, where 
 was but small cheer, less mirth, and least music, 
 being very earnestly entreated to sing a Christmas 
 Carol, with much ado sung as Jolloweth. 
 
 "VI OW Christmas draweth near, and most men make 
 * ^1 good cheer, 
 
 With heigh-ho, care away ! 
 I, like a sickly mome, in drowsy dumps at home, 
 
 Will naught but fast and pray. 
 
 Some sing and dance for life, some card and dice as 
 rife, 
 
 Some use old Christmas games ; 
 But I, oh wretched wight ! in dole both day and night 
 
 Must dwell, the world so frames. 
 
 In court what pretty toys, what fine and pleasant joys 
 
 To pass the time away ! 
 
 In country naught but care ; sour cheese-curds chiefest 
 fare ; 
 
 For wine a bowl of whey. 
 
 For every dainty dish, of flesh or else of fish, 
 
 And for your drink in court, 
 
 A dish of young fried frogs, sod houghs of mezled 
 hogs, 
 
 A cup of small-tap wort.
 
 90 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 And for each courtly sight, each show that may delight 
 
 The eye or else the mind ; 
 In country thorns and brakes, and many miry lakes, 
 
 Is all the good you find. 
 
 And for fine enteries, halls, chambers, galleries, 
 
 And lodgings many moe, 
 
 Here desert woods or plains, where no delight re- 
 mains, 
 
 To walk in to and fro. 
 
 In court, for to be short, for every pretty sport 
 
 That may the heart delight ; 
 In country many a grief, and small or no relief 
 
 To aid the wounded wight. 
 
 And in this desert place, I, wretch ! in woeful case, 
 
 This merry Christmas-time, 
 Content myself perforce to rest my careful corse : 
 
 And so I end my rime. 
 
 In the latter end of Christmas the same gentleman was 
 likewise desired to sing; and, although against his 
 will, was content to sing asfolloweth. 
 
 THE Christmas now is past, and I have kept my 
 fast 
 
 With prayer every day ; 
 
 And like a country clown, with nodding up and down, 
 Have passed the time away.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 91 
 
 As for old Christmas games, or dancing with fine 
 dames, 
 
 Or shows, or pretty plays, 
 A solemn oath I swear, I came not where they were 
 
 Not all these holy-days. 
 
 I did not sing one note, except it were by rote, 
 
 Still buzzing like a bee, 
 To ease my heavy heart of some though little smart, 
 
 For want of other glee. 
 
 And as for pleasant wine, there was no drink so fine 
 
 For to be tasted here ; 
 Full simple was my fare, if that I should compare 
 
 The same to Christmas cheer. 
 
 I saw no kind of sight that might my mind delight, 
 
 Believe me, noble dame ; 
 But everything I saw did fret at woe my maw 
 
 To think upon the same. 
 
 Upon some bushy balk full fain I was to walk 
 
 In woods, from tree to tree, 
 For want of better room : but since my fatal doom 
 
 Hath so appointed me, 
 
 I stood therewith content, till Christmas full was spent, 
 
 In hope that God will send 
 A better yet next year, my heavy heart to cheer : 
 
 And so I make an end.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON (?). 
 
 From The Arbour of Amorous 
 Devices, 1593-4. 
 
 A SWEET LULLABY. 
 
 , little babe, come, silly soul, 
 Thy father's shame, thy mother's grief, 
 
 Born as I doubt to all our dole, 
 
 And to thyself unhappy chief : 
 Sing lullaby and lap it warm, 
 Poor soul that thinks no creature harm. 
 
 Thou little think'st and less dost know, 
 The cause of this thy mother's moan, 
 Thou want'st the wit to wail her woe, 
 And I myself am all alone : 
 
 Why dost thou weep ? why dost thou wail ? 
 
 And knowest not yet what thou dost ail. 
 
 Come, little wretch, ah silly heart, 
 Mine only joy, what can I more ? 
 If there be any wrong thy smart, 
 That may the destinies implore : 
 'Twas I, I say, against my will, 
 I wail the time, but be thou still. 
 
 And dost thou smile ? oh thy sweet face, 
 Would God Himself He might thee see,
 
 NICHOLAS BKETON(1). 
 
 No doubt thou would'st soon purchase grace, 
 I know right well, for thee and me : 
 
 But come to mother, babe, and play, 
 
 For father false is fled away. 
 
 Sweet boy, if it by fortune chance 
 Thy father home again to send, 
 If death do strike me with his lance, 
 Yet mayst thou me to him commend : 
 If any ask thy mother's name, 
 Tell how by love she purchased blame. 
 
 Then will his gentle heart soon yield : 
 
 I know him of a noble mind : 
 
 Although a lion in the field, 
 
 A lamb in town thou shalt him find : 
 Ask blessing, babe, be not afraid, 
 His sugared words hath me betrayed. 
 
 Then mayst thou joy and be right glad ; 
 
 Although in woe I seem to moan, 
 
 Thy father is no rascal lad, 
 
 A noble youth of blood and bone : 
 
 His glancing looks, if he once smile, 
 Right honest women may beguile. 
 
 Come little boy and rock a-sleep, 
 
 Sing lullaby and be thou still ; 
 
 I that can do naught else but weep, 
 
 Will sit by thee and wail my fill : 
 God bless my babe, and lullaby, 
 From this thy father's quality.
 
 94 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 From Melancholic Humours, 
 1600. 
 
 SEE AND SAY NOTHING. 
 
 OH my thoughts, keep in your words, 
 Lest their passage do repent ye ; 
 Knowing, fortune still affords 
 Nothing, but may discontent ye. 
 
 If your saint be like the sun, 
 
 Sit not ye in Phoebus' chair, 
 Lest, when once the horses run, 
 
 Ye be Dedalus his heir. 
 
 If your labours well deserve, 
 Let your silence only grace them ; 
 
 And in patience hope preserve, 
 That no fortune can deface them. 
 
 If your friend do grow unkind, 
 Grieve, but do not seem to show it : 
 
 For a patient heart shall find 
 Comfort, when the soul shall know it. 
 
 If your trust be all betrayed, 
 Try, but trust no more at all : 
 
 But in soul be not dismayed, 
 Whatsoever do befall.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 95 
 
 In yourselves yourselves inclose, 
 
 Keep your secrecies unseen ; 
 Lest, when ye yourselves disclose, 
 
 Ye had better never been. 
 
 And whatever be your state, . 
 
 Do not languish over-long ; 
 Lest you find it, all too late, 
 
 Sorrow be a deadly song. 
 
 And be comforted in this, 
 
 If your passions be concealed, 
 Cross or comfort, bale or bliss, 
 
 'Tis the best, is not revealed. 
 
 So, my dearest thoughts, adieu, 
 
 Hark, whereto my soul doth call ye : 
 
 Be but secret, wise, and true, 
 Fear no evil can befall ye.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 A DOLEFUL PASSION. 
 
 OH, tired heart too full of sorrows, 
 In night-like days, despairing morrows ; 
 How canst thou think, so deeply grieved, 
 To hope to live to be relieved ? 
 
 Good fortune hath all grace forsworn thee, 
 And cruel care hath too much torn thee : 
 Unfaithful friends do all deceive thee ; 
 Acquaintance all unkindly leave thee. 
 
 Beauty out of her book doth blot thee, 
 And love hath utterly forgot thee : 
 Patience doth but to passion move thee, 
 While only honour lives to love thee. 
 
 Thine enemies all ill devise thee, 
 Thy friends but little good advise thee ; 
 And they who most do duty owe thee, 
 Do seem as though they do not know thee. 
 
 Thus pity weeps to look upon thee, 
 To see how thou art woe-begone-thee ; 
 And while these passions seek to spill thee, 
 Death but attends the hour to kill thee. 
 
 And since no thought is coming to thee, 
 That any way may comfort do thee, 
 Dispose thy thoughts as best may please thee, 
 That heaven of all thy hell may ease thee.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 97 
 
 A FAREWELL TO LOVE. 
 
 "PAREWELL, love and loving folly, 
 J- All thy thoughts are too unholy : 
 Beauty strikes thee full of blindness, 
 And then kills thee with unkindness. 
 
 Farewell, wit and witty reason, 
 All betrayed by fancy's treason : 
 Love hath of all joy bereft thee, 
 And to sorrow only left thee. 
 
 Farewell, will and wilful fancy, 
 All in danger of a frenzy : 
 Love to beauty's bow hath won thee, 
 And together all undone thee. 
 
 Farewell, beauty, sorrow's agent ; 
 Farewell, sorrow, patience' pageant ; 
 Farewell, patience, passion's stayer ; 
 Farewell, passion, love's betrayer. 
 
 Sorrow's agent, patience' pageant, 
 Passion's stayer, love's betrayer, 
 Beauty, sorrow, patience, passion, 
 Farewell, life of such a fashion. 
 
 Fashion, so good fashions spilling ; 
 Passion, so with passions killing ; 
 Patience, so with sorrow wounding ; 
 Farewell, beauty, love's confounding. 
 H
 
 98 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 A SOLEMN TOY. 
 
 IF that love had been a king, 
 He would have commanded beauty 
 But he is a silly thing, 
 That hath sworn to do her duty. 
 
 If that love had been a god, 
 He had then been full of grace : 
 
 But how grace and love are odd, 
 Tis too plain a piteous case. 
 
 No : love is an idle jest, 
 That hath only made a word, 
 
 Like unto a cuckoo's nest, 
 That hath never hatched a bird. 
 
 Then from nothing to conceive 
 That may any substance be, 
 
 Yet so many doth deceive ; 
 Lord of heaven, deliver me.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 99 
 
 A SMILE MISCONSTRUED. 
 
 T) Y your leave, a little while : 
 -*-' Love hath got a beauty's smile 
 
 From on earth the fairest face 
 But he may be much deceived, 
 Kindness may be misconceived, 
 
 Laughing oft is in disgrace. 
 
 Oh but he doth know her nature, 
 And to be that blessed creature, 
 
 That doth answer love with kindness- 
 Tush, the phoenix is a fable ; 
 Phoebus' horses have no stable ; 
 
 Love is often full of blindness. 
 
 Oh but he doth hear her voice, 
 Which doth make his heart rejoice 
 
 With the sweetness of her sound 
 Simple hope may be abused. 
 Hears he not he is refused ? 
 
 Which may give his heart a wound. 
 
 No : love can believe it never, 
 Beauty favours once and ever, 
 
 Though proud envy play the elf : 
 Truth and patience have approved, 
 Love shall ever be beloved, 
 
 If my mistress be herself.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 A WAGGERY. 
 
 CHILDREN'S Ahs and women's Ohs, 
 ^-' Do a wondrous grief disclose ; 
 Where a dug the t'one will still, 
 And the t'other but a will 
 
 Then in God's name let them cry ; 
 While they cry, they will not die : 
 For but few that are so curst 
 As to cry until they burst. 
 
 Say, some children are untoward : 
 So some women are as froward : 
 Let them cry them, 'twill not kill them ; 
 There is time enough to still them. 
 
 But if pity will be pleased 
 To relieve the small diseased, 
 When the help is once applying, 
 They will quickly leave their crying. 
 
 Let the child then suck his fill, 
 Let the woman have her will ; 
 All will hush, was heard before ; 
 Ah and Oh, will cry no more.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 AN ODD CONCEIT. 
 
 LOVELY kind, and kindly loving, 
 Such a mind were worth the moving 
 Truly fair, and fairly true, 
 Where are all these, but in you ? 
 
 Wisely kind, and kindly wise ; 
 Blessed life, where such love lies ! 
 Wise, and kind, and fair, and true, 
 Lovely live all these in you. 
 
 Sweetly dear, and dearly sweet ; 
 Blessed, where these blessings meet ! 
 Sweet, fair, wise, kind, blessed, true, 
 Blessed be all these in you !
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 From Patquil't Madcap, 1600. 
 
 AN INVECTIVE AGAINST THE WICKED OF THE 
 WORLD. 
 
 ' pHE wealthy rascal, be he ne'er so base, 
 -*- Filthy, ill-favoured, ugly to behold, 
 Mole-eye, plaice-mouth, dog's tooth, and camel's face, 
 Blind, dumb, and deaf, diseased, rotten, old, 
 Yet, if he have the coffers full of gold, 
 
 He shall have reverence, curtsy, cap and knee, 
 And worship, like a man of high degree. 
 
 He shall have ballads written in his praise, 
 Books dedicated to his patronage, 
 Wits working for his pleasure many ways, 
 Pedigrees sought to mend his parentage, 
 And linked perhaps in noble marriage ; 
 
 He shall have all that this vile world can give him, 
 That into pride, the devil's mouth, may drive him. 
 
 If he can speak, his words are oracles, 
 
 If he can see, his eyes are spectacles, 
 
 If he can hear, his ears are miracles, 
 
 If he can stand, his legs are pinnacles : 
 
 Thus in the rules of reason's obstacles, 
 If he be but a beast in shape and nature, 
 Yet, give him wealth, he is a goodly creature. 
 
 But, be a man of ne'er so good a mind, 
 As fine a shape as nature can devise ; 
 Virtuous and gracious, comely, wise, and kind, 
 Valiant, well given, full of good qualities, 
 And almost free from fancy's vanities :
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 103 
 
 Yet let him want this filthy worldly dross, 
 He shall be sent but to the Beggar's Cross. 
 
 The fool will scoff him, and the knave abuse him, 
 And every rascal in his kind disgrace him, 
 Acquaintance leave him, and his friends refuse him : 
 And every dog will from his door displace him. 
 Oh this vile world will seek so to deface him 
 That, until death do come for to relieve him, 
 He shall have nothing here but that may grieve him. 
 
 If he hdve pence to purchase pretty things, 
 She that doth loathe him will dissemble love ; 
 While the poor man his heart with sorrow wrings 
 To see how want doth women's love remove, 
 And make a jackdaw of a turtle-dove : 
 
 If he be rich, worlds serve him for his pelf, 
 If he be poor, he may go serve himself. 
 ***** 
 
 Let but a dunce, a dizard, or a dolt 
 
 Get him a welted gown, a satin coat ; 
 
 Then though at random he do shoot his bolt, 
 
 By telling of an idle tale by rote, 
 
 Where wisdom finds not one good word to note : 
 Yea, though he can but gruntle like a swine, 
 Yet to the eight wise men he shall be nine. 
 
 But for a poor man, be he ne'er so wise, 
 Grounded in rules of wit and reason's grace, 
 And in his speeches never so precise, 
 To put no word out of discretion's place ; 
 Yet shall you see, in shutting up the case, 
 A peasant sloven with the purse's sleight, 
 Will hum and haw him quite out of conceit.
 
 
 104 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Take an odd vicar in a village-town, 
 That only prays for plenty and for peace ; 
 If he can get him but a threadbare gown, 
 And tithe a pig, and eat a goose in grease, 
 And set his hand unto his neighbour's lease, 
 And bid the clerk on Sundays ring the bell, 
 He is a churchman fits the parish well. 
 
 But, if he get a benefice of worth, 
 
 That may maintain good hospitality, 
 
 And in the pulpit bring a figure forth, 
 
 Of faith and works with a formality, 
 
 And tell a knave of an ill quality ; 
 
 If with his preaching he can fill the purse, 
 He is a good man, God send ne'er a worse. 
 
 But yet this simple idle-headed ass, 
 
 That scarce hath learned to spell the Hebrew names, 
 
 Sir John Lack- Latin with a face of brass, 
 
 Who all by rote his poor collations frames, 
 
 And after service falls to alehouse games, 
 
 Howe'er his wit may give the fool the lurch, 
 
 He is not fit to govern in the church. 
 
 While he that spends the labour of his youth, 
 But in the Book of the eternal bliss, 
 And can and will deliver but the truth, 
 In which the hope of highest comfort is, 
 That cannot lead the faithful soul amiss : 
 
 However so his state of wealth decline, 
 
 Deserves the title of the true divine.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 105 
 
 From The Longing of a 
 Blessed Heart, 1601. 
 
 WHAT IS LOVE? 
 
 MEN talk of love that know not what it is : 
 For could we know what love may be indeed, 
 We would not have our minds so led amiss 
 With idle toys, that wanton humours feed ; 
 But in the rules of higher reason read 
 What love may be, so from the world concealed, 
 Yet all too plainly to the world revealed. 
 
 Some one doth fain love is a blinded god ; 
 His blindness him more half a devil shows : 
 For love with blindness never made abode, 
 Which all the power of wit and reason knows : 
 And from whose grace the ground of knowledge grows : 
 But such blind eyes, that can no better see, 
 Shall never live to come where love may be. 
 
 Some only think it only is a thought 
 
 Bred in the eye, and buzzeth in the brain, 
 
 And breaks the heart, until the mind be brought 
 
 To feed the senses with a sorry vein, 
 
 Till wits, once gone, come never home again : 
 
 And then too late in mad conceit do prove, 
 
 Fantastic wits are ever void of love. 
 
 Some think it is a babe of beauty's getting, 
 Nursed up by nature, and time's only breeding ; 
 A pretty work to set the wits a-whetting,
 
 io6 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 Upon a fancy of a humour's feeding : 
 
 Where reason finds but little sense in reading. 
 
 No, no : I see, children must go to school ; 
 
 Philosophy is not for every fool. 
 
 And some again think there is no such thing, 
 But in conceit a kind of coined jest ; 
 Which only doth of idle humours spring, 
 Like to a bird within a phoenix' nest, 
 Where never yet did any young one rest. 
 
 But let such fools take heed of blasphemy, 
 
 For love is high in his divinity. 
 
 But to be short, to learn to find him out, 
 'Tis not in beauty's eyes, nor babies' hearts ; 
 He must go beat another world about, 
 And seek for love but in those living parts 
 Of reason's light, that is the life of arts, 
 That will perceive, though he can never see, 
 The perfect essence whereof love may be. 
 
 It is too clear a brightness for man's eye ; 
 
 Too high a wisdom for his wits to find ; 
 
 Too deep a secret for his sense to try ; 
 
 And all too heavenly for his earthly mind ; 
 
 It is a grace of such a glorious kind 
 As gives the soul a secret power to know it, 
 But gives no heart nor spirit power to show it. 
 
 It is of heaven and earth the highest beauty, 
 
 The powerful hand of heaven's and earth's creation, 
 
 The due commander of all spirits' duty,
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 107 
 
 The Deity of angels' adoration, 
 
 The glorious substance of the soul's salvation : 
 The light of truth that all perfection trieth, 
 And life that gives the life that never dieth. 
 
 It is the height of good and hate of ill, 
 
 Triumph of truth, and falsehood's overthrow ; 
 
 The only worker of the highest will ; 
 
 And only knowledge that doth knowledge know ; 
 
 And only ground where it doth only grow : 
 It is in sum the substance of all bliss, 
 Without whose blessing all thing \sic\ nothing is. 
 
 From The Passionate Shep- 
 herd, 1604. 
 
 WELCOME TO AGLAIA. 
 
 TJLORA hath been all about, 
 
 And hath brought her wardrobe out ; 
 With her fairest, sweetest flowers, 
 All to trim up all your bowers. 
 Bid the shepherds and their swains 
 See the beauty of their plains ; 
 And command them with their flocks 
 To do reverence on the rocks, 
 Where they may so happy be 
 As her shadow but to see. 
 Bid the birds in every bush, 
 Not a bird to be at hush ; 
 But to sit, chirp, and sing, 
 To the beauty of the spring. 
 Call the sylvan nymphs together, 
 Bid them bring their music hither ;
 
 io8 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 Trees, their barky silence break, 
 Crack yet though they cannot speak. 
 Bid the purest, whitest swan, 
 Of her feathers make her fan : 
 Let the hound the hare go chase, 
 Lambs and rabbits run at base : 
 Flies be dancing in the sun, 
 While the silk- worm's webs are spun : 
 Hang a fish on every hook, 
 As she goes along the brook : 
 So with all your sweetest powers 
 Entertain her in your bowers, 
 Where her ear may joy to hear 
 How ye make your sweetest quire : 
 And in all your sweetest vein, 
 Still Aglaia strike the strain. 
 But when she her walk doth turn, 
 Then begin as fast to mourn : 
 All your flowers and garlands wither, 
 Put up all your pipes together : 
 Never strike a pleasing strain 
 Till she come abroad again. 
 
 WORLDLY PARADISE. 
 
 WHO can live in heart so glad 
 As the merry country lad ? 
 Who upon a fair green balk 
 May at pleasure sit and walk, 
 And amid the azure skies, 
 See the morning sun arise ; 
 While he hears in every spring, 
 How the birds do chirp and sing :
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 109 
 
 Or, before the hounds in cry, 
 
 See the hare go stealing by : 
 
 Or, along the shallow brook, 
 
 Angling with a baited hook, 
 
 See the fishes leap and play 
 
 In a blessed sunny day : 
 
 Or to hear the partridge call, 
 
 Till she have her covey all : 
 
 Or to see the subtle fox, 
 
 How the villain plies the box ; 
 
 After feeding on his prey, 
 
 How he closely sneaks away, 
 
 Through the hedge and down the furrow 
 
 Till he gets into his burrow : 
 
 Then the bee to gather honey, 
 
 And the little black-haired coney, 
 
 On a bank for sunny place 
 
 With her forefeet wash her face : 
 
 Are not these, with thousands moe 
 
 Than the courts of kings do know, 
 
 The true pleasing spirits sights, 
 
 That may breed true love's delights ? 
 
 But with all this happiness, 
 
 To behold that shepherdess, 
 
 To whose eyes all shepherds yield 
 
 All the fairest of the field, 
 
 Fair Aglaia in whose face, 
 
 Lives the shepherds' highest grace : 
 
 In whose worthy wonder praise, 
 
 See what her true shepherd says. 
 
 She is neither proud nor fine, 
 
 But in spirit more divine : 
 
 She can neither lour nor leer,
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 But a sweeter smiling cheer : 
 
 She had never painted face, 
 
 But a sweeter smiling grace : 
 
 She can never love dissemble, 
 
 Truth doth so her thoughts assemble 
 
 That, where wisdom guides her will, 
 
 She is kind and constant still. 
 
 All in sum she is that creature, 
 
 Of that truest comfort's Nature, 
 
 That doth show (but in exceedings) 
 
 How their praises had their breedings. 
 
 Let then poets fain their pleasure, 
 
 In their fictions of love's treasure : 
 
 Proud high spirits seek their graces, 
 
 In their idol painted faces : 
 
 My love's spirit's lowliness, 
 
 In affection's humbleness, 
 
 Under heav"n no happiness 
 
 Seeks but in this shepherdess. 
 
 For whose sake I say and swear, 
 
 By the passions that I bear, 
 
 Had I got a kingly grace, 
 
 I would leave my kingly place 
 
 And in heart be truly glad ' 
 
 To become a country lad ; 
 
 Hard to lie, and go full bare, 
 
 And to feed on hungry fare : 
 
 So I might but live to be, 
 
 Where I might but sit to see, 
 
 Once a day, or all day long, 
 
 The sweet subject of my song : 
 
 In Aglaia's only eyes 
 
 All my worldly paradise.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 A SOLEMN LONG ENDURING PASSION. 
 
 T HAVE neither plums nor cherries, 
 
 -* Nuts, nor apples, nor strawberries ; 
 
 Pins nor laces, points nor gloves, 
 
 Nor a pair of painted doves : 
 
 Shuttlecock nor trundle-ball, 
 
 To present thy love withal : 
 
 But a heart, as true and kind 
 
 As an honest faithful mind 
 
 Can devise for to invent, 
 
 To thy patience I present. 
 
 At thy fairest feet it lies : 
 
 Bless it with thy blessed eyes : 
 
 Take it up into thy hands, 
 
 At whose only grace it stands, 
 
 To be comforted for ever 
 
 Or to look for comfort never. 
 
 Oh it is a strange affect, 
 
 That my fancy doth effect ! 
 
 I am caught and cannot start : 
 
 Wit and reason, eye and heart, 
 
 All are witnesses to me, 
 
 Love hath sworn me slave to thee. 
 
 Let me then be but thy slave, 
 
 And no further favour crave : 
 
 Send me forth to tend thy flock, 
 
 On the highest mountain rock ; 
 
 Or command me but to go 
 
 To the valley ground below :
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 All shall be alike to me, 
 Where it please thee I shall be. 
 Let my fate be what thou wilt, 
 Save my life, or see it spilt : 
 Keep [me] fasting on thy mountain, 
 Charge me not come near thy fountain 
 In the storms and bitter blasts, 
 Where the sky all overcasts : 
 In the coldest frost and snow 
 That the earth did ever know, 
 Let me sit and bite my thumbs, 
 Where I see no comfort comes : 
 All the sorrows I can prove, 
 Cannot put me from my love. 
 
 THE DESCRIPTION AND PRAISE OF HIS 
 FAIREST LOVE. 
 
 A T shearing time she shall command 
 ** The finest fleece of all my wool : 
 And if her pleasure but demand 
 The fattest from the lean to cull, 
 She shall be mistress of my store : 
 Let me alone to work for more. 
 
 My cloak shall lie upon the ground, 
 From wet and dust to keep her feet : 
 My pipe with his best measure's sound, 
 Shall welcome her with music sweet : 
 And in my scrip some cates at least 
 Shall bid her to a shepherd's feast.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. "3 
 
 My staff shall stay her in her walk, 
 My dog shall at her heels attend her : 
 And I will hold her with such talk 
 As I do hope shall not offend her : 
 My ewes shall bleat, my lambs shall play, 
 To show her all the sport they may. 
 
 Why, I will tell her twenty things, 
 That I have heard my mother tell ; 
 Of plucking of the buzzard's wings, 
 For killing of her cockerel, 
 And hunting Reynard to his den 
 For frighting of her sitting hen : 
 
 How she would say, when she was young, 
 That lovers were ashamed to lie, 
 And truth was so on every tongue, 
 That love meant naught but honesty ; 
 " And sirrah (quoth she then to me) 
 Let ever this thy lesson be : 
 
 Look when thou lovest, love but one, 
 And let her worthy be thy love : 
 Then love her in thy heart alone, 
 And let her in thy passions prove." 
 
 And I will tell her such fine tales, 
 As for the nonce I will devise : 
 Of lapwings and of nightingales, 
 And how the swallow feeds on flies ; 
 And of the hare, the fox, the hound, 
 The pasture and the meadow ground. 
 I
 
 U4 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 And of the springs, and of the wood, 
 And of the forests and the deer, 
 And of the rivers and the floods, 
 And of the mirth and merry cheer, 
 And of the looks and of the glances 
 Of maids and young men in their dances 
 
 Of clapping hands, and drawing gloves, 
 And of the tokens of love's truth, 
 And of the pretty turtle-doves, 
 That teach the billing tricks of youth. 
 
 TELL ME, TELL ME, PRETTY MUSE. 
 
 HPELL me, tell me pretty muse, 
 -I- Canst thou neither will nor choose 
 But be busy with my brain, 
 Still to put my wits to pain? 
 Shall my heart within my breast 
 Never have an hour of rest ? 
 
 Idle humour what doth ail thee ? 
 Not a thought that can avail thee : 
 Be thou ne'er so woe-begone thee, 
 Beauty will not look upon thee ; 
 Fortune wholly hath forlorn thee ; 
 And for love, it hath forsworn thee. 
 
 But if virtue have procured thee, 
 And that honour have conjured thee
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON 115 
 
 In affection's royalty 
 To discharge love's loyalty, 
 That the eye of truth may see, 
 Then do what thou wilt for me. 
 
 Work my wit unto thy will, 
 Keep thy hammers working still : 
 Use thine art in every thought, 
 With such temper to be wrought, 
 That Aglaia may approve 
 Virtue's skill in framing love. 
 
 But if any labour lack, 
 Or if either flaw or crack 
 Make the metal not so fine 
 That the work be not divine, 
 And well fit for honour's store, 
 Never come at me no more. 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 TDRETTY twinkling starry eyes, 
 * How did nature first devise 
 Such a sparkling in your sight 
 As to give love such delight 
 As to make him, like a fly, 
 Play with looks until he die ? 
 
 Sure ye were not made at first, 
 For such mischief to be cursed :
 
 n6 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 As to kill affection's care, 
 That doth only truth declare ! 
 Where worth's wonders never wither, 
 Love and beauty live together. 
 
 Blessed eyes, then give your blessing, 
 That, in passion's best expressing, 
 Love that only lives to grace ye, 
 May not suffer pride deface ye, 
 But, in gentle thought's directions, 
 Show the praise of your perfections. 
 
 From Choice, Chance and 
 Change; or Conceits in their 
 Colours, 1606. 
 
 A FOUL IDLE SLUT. 
 
 SHE that is neither fair, nor rich, nor wise, 
 And yet as proud as any peacock's tail ; 
 Mumps with her lips and winketh with her eyes, 
 And thinks the world of fools will never fail ; 
 Stands on her pantofles for lack of shoes, 
 And idly talks for want of better wit ; 
 Will have her will whatever so she lose, 
 And say her mind although she die for it ; 
 Is cousin-german to a jack-an-apes, 
 And sister to her mother's speckled sow ; 
 Kin to a codshead when he kindly gapes, 
 Aunt to an ass and cousin to a cow : 
 
 What will be said of her, so fit for no man ? 
 
 " O fie upon her, 'twas a filthy woman 1"
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 117 
 
 UPON A MERRY HONEST FELLOW THAT WAS OUT 
 OF TUNE FOR HIS PURSE. 
 
 T T E that was gotten in a Christmas night 
 
 -*- -* After a deal of mirth and merry cheer, 
 
 When Tom and Tib were in their true delight, 
 
 And he loved her, and she held him full dear ; 
 
 Brought up in plainness, truth, and honesty ; 
 
 Cannot away to hear of knavery ; 
 
 Lives with his neighbours in rare amity, 
 
 And cares not for this worldly bravery ; 
 
 Goes through the world with yea and nay and so, 
 
 And meddles with no matters of import : 
 
 When to his grave this honest man shall go, 
 
 What will the world of all his worth report ? 
 
 " Here lies a man, like hives that have no honey, 
 
 An honest creature, but he had no money." 
 
 From I Would, and Would Not, 
 1614. 
 
 I WOULD, AND WOULD NOT. 
 
 I WOULD I had as much as might be had 
 Of wealthy wishes, to the world's content : 
 That I might live all like a lusty lad, 
 
 And scorn the world, and care not how it went : 
 But eat, and drink, and sleep, and sing, and play, 
 And so in pleasures, pass my time away.
 
 n8 NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 And yet I would not : for, too wealthy then, 
 I should be troubled with a world of toys : 
 
 Kindred, companions, troops of serving-men ; 
 Fashion-devisers, fools, and girls and boys : 
 
 Fiddlers, and jesters, monkeys, apes, baboons, 
 
 Drunkards, and swaggerers, and such trouble-towns. 
 
 Besides I should forget to find the way, 
 That leads the soul to her eternal bliss ; 
 
 And then my state were at a woeful stay. 
 No, I would wish a better world than this, 
 
 And in afflictions here on earth to dwell 
 
 Rather than seek my heaVn on earth, and run to hell. 
 ***** 
 
 I would I were an innocent, a fool, 
 That can do nothing else but laugh or cry : 
 
 And eat fat meat and never go to school ; 
 And be in love but with an apple-pie : 
 
 Wear a pied coat, a coxcomb, and a bell, 
 
 And think it did become me passing well. 
 
 And yet I would not : for then should I not 
 Discern the difference 'twixt the good and bad, 
 
 Nor how the gain of all the world is got, 
 Nor who are sober, wise, nor who are mad, 
 
 Nor in the truth of follies sense to see : 
 
 Who's the fool now ? there's no such fool as he ? 
 ***** 
 
 I would I were a keeper of a park, 
 
 To walk with my bent cross-bow, and my hound, 
 To know my game, and closely in the dark 
 
 To lay a barren doe upon the ground, 
 And by my venison, more than by my fees, 
 To feed on better meat than bread and cheese.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 119 
 
 And yet I would not : lest if I be spied, 
 I might be turned quite out of my walk ; 
 
 And afterwards more punishment abide 
 Than 'longs unto a little angry talk ; 
 
 And cause more mischief after all come to me 
 
 Than all the good the does did ever do me. 
 
 No, I would rather be an honest keeper, 
 
 To walk my park, and look unto my pales ; 
 And not to play the sluggard and the sleeper, 
 
 And hold my landlord up with idle tales ; 
 Take but my fees, be merry with my dame, 
 And so to gain and keep an honest name. 
 
 ***** 
 I would I were a high astronomer, 
 
 That I might make my walk among the stars : 
 And by my insight might foresee afar 
 
 What were to come, and talk of peace and wars, 
 Of lives and deaths, and wonders to ensue, 
 Although perhaps but few do fall out true. 
 
 And yet I would not : for then do I doubt, 
 With too much study I should grow stark mad : 
 
 When one conceit would put another out, 
 While giddy brains beyond themselves would gad, 
 
 And, seeking for the man within the moon, 
 
 Mistake a morning for an afternoon. 
 
 No, I would rather learn no more to know 
 Than of the times and seasons of the year : 
 
 What days the fairs are kept, and how to go 
 From town to town, and every shire to shire ; ' 
 
 That termers may not their day-notebooks slack, 
 
 And so to make an honest almanack. 
 
 1 Pronounced " sheer " (and so written in the old edition).
 
 izo NICHOLAS BRETON. 
 
 ***** 
 I would I were a player, and could act 
 
 As many parts as came upon a stage : 
 And in my brain could make a full compact, 
 
 Of all that passeth betwixt youth and age ; 
 That I might have five shares in every play 
 And let them laugh that bear the bell away. 
 
 And yet I would not : for then do I fear, 
 
 If I should gall some goose-cap with my speech, 
 
 That he would fret and fume, and chafe, and swear, 
 As if some flea had bit him by the breech, 
 
 And in some passion or strange agony 
 
 Disturb both me and all the company. 
 
 I would I were a poet, and could write 
 The passages of this paltry world in rime : 
 
 And talk of wars, and many a valiant fight, 
 And how the captains did to honour climb : 
 
 Of wise, and fair, of gracious, virtuous, kind, 
 
 And of the bounty of a noble mind. 
 
 But speak but little of the life of love, 
 Because it is a thing so hard to find ; 
 
 And touch but little at the turtle-dove, 
 
 Seeing there are but few birds of that kind ; 
 
 And libel against lewd and wicked hearts, 
 
 That on the earth do play the devil's parts. 
 
 And yet I would not : for then would my brains 
 
 Be with a world of toys intoxicate : 
 And I should fall upon a thousand veins, 
 
 Of this and that, and well I know not what : 
 When some would say, that saw my frantic fits, 
 Surely the poet is beside his wits.
 
 NICHOLAS BRETON. 21 
 
 DEAD DELIGHT. 1 
 
 A H, poor Conceit, Delight is dead ! 
 ** Thy pleasant days are done : 
 The shady dales must be his walk 
 That cannot see the sun. 
 
 The world I now to witness call, 
 
 The heavens my records be, 
 If ever I were false to Love 
 
 Or Love were true to me. 
 
 I know it now, I knew it not, 
 
 But all too late I rue it ; 
 I rue not that I knew it not, 
 
 But that I ever knew it. 
 
 My care is not a fond conceit 
 That breeds a feigned smart ; 
 
 My griefs do gripe me at the gall, 
 And gnaw me at the heart. 
 
 My tears are not those feigned drops 
 
 That fall from fancy's eyes, 
 But bitter streams of strange distress 
 
 Wherein discomfort lies. 
 
 My sighs are not those heavy sighs 
 
 That shews a sickly breath ; 
 My passions are the perfect signs, 
 
 And very pains of death. 
 
 In sum, to make a doleful end, 
 
 To see my death so nigh, 
 That sorrow bids me sing my last, 
 
 And so my senses die. 
 
 1 This poem was printed anonymously in "The Phosnix' Nest," 
 1593. It is ascribed to Breton on early MS. authority. See Dr. 
 Grosart's edition of Breton, Part XXV., p. 20.
 
 POEMS 
 
 CLEMENT ROBINSON'S "A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT 
 
 DELIGHTS," 1584; AND FROM "THE 
 
 PHCENIX' NEST," 1593.
 
 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 125 
 
 THE LOVER COMPARETH SOME SUBTLE SUITERS TO 
 THE HUNTER. 
 
 To the tune of " The Painter." 
 
 WHENAS the hunter goeth out, 
 With hounds in brace, 
 The hart to hunt and set about 
 
 With wily trace, 
 
 He doth it more to see and view 
 Her wiliness (I tell you true), 
 Her trips and skips, now here, now there, 
 With squats and flats, which hath no peer ; 
 
 More than to win or get the game 
 
 To bear away : 
 He is not greedy of the same ; 
 
 Thus hunters say. 
 So some men hunt by hot desire 
 To Venus' dames, and do require 
 
 By favour to have her, or else they will die ; 
 
 They love her and prove her ; and wot ye why ? 
 
 Forsooth to see her subtleness 
 
 And wily way, 
 When they (God knows) mean nothing less 
 
 Than they do say :
 
 126 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 
 
 For when they see they may her win, 
 They leave then where they did begin : 
 
 They prate, and make the matter nice, 
 
 And leave her in Fools' Paradise. 
 
 Wherefore, of such, good Lady, now 
 
 Wisely beware, 
 Lest flinging fancies in their brow 
 
 Do breed you care : 
 And at the first give them the check, 
 Lest they at last give you the geek l 
 
 And scornfully disdaine ye then : 
 
 In faith there are such kind of men. 
 
 But I am none of those indeed, 
 
 Believe me now : 
 I am your man, if you be need ; 
 
 I make a vow 
 
 To serve you without doubleness, 
 With fervent heart, my own mistress. 
 
 Demand me, command me, what please ye and 
 whan ; 
 
 I will be still ready, as I am true man. 
 
 1 ' ' Give you the geek " flout you.
 
 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 127 
 
 A PROPER SONNET, 
 
 Intituled "I smile to see how you devise." 
 
 To any pleasant Tune. 
 
 I SMILE to see how you devise 
 New masking nets my eyes to blear ; 
 Yourself you cannot so disguise 
 But as you are you must appear. 
 
 Your privy winks at board I see, 
 And how you set your roving mind : 
 
 Yourself you cannot hide from me ; 
 Although I wink, I am not blind. 
 
 The secret sighs, and feigned cheer, 
 That oft doth pain thy careful breast, 
 
 Tq me right plainly doth appear ; 
 I see in whom thy heart doth rest. 
 
 And though thou mak'st a feigned vow 
 That love no more thy heart should nip, 
 
 Yet think I know, as well as thou, 
 The fickle helm doth guide the ship. 
 
 The salamander in the fire 
 
 By course of kind doth bathe his limbs ; 
 The floating fish tak'th his desire 
 
 In running streams whereas he swims.
 
 iz8 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 
 
 So thou in change dost take delight ; 
 
 Full well I know thy slippery kind ; 
 In vain thou seem'st to dim my sight, 
 
 Thy rolling eyes bewray'th thy mind. 
 
 I see him smile that doth possess 
 Thy mind, which once I honoured most ; 
 
 If he be wise, he may well guess 
 Thy love, soon won, will soon be lost. 
 
 And sith thou canst no man entice 
 That he should still love thee alone, 
 
 Thy beauty now hath lost her price ; 
 I see thy savoury scent is gone. 
 
 Therefore leave off thy wonted play ; 
 
 But as thou art thou wilt appear, 
 Unless thou canst devise a way 
 
 To dark the sun that shines so clear. 
 
 And keep thy friend that thou hast won ; 
 
 In truth to him thy love supply, 
 Lest he at length, as I have done, 
 
 Take off thy bells and let thee fly.
 
 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 129 
 
 A PROPER SONG, 
 
 Intituled, " Fain would I have a pretty thing to give unto my 
 
 Lady." 
 To the tune of "Lusty Gallant." 
 
 FAIN would I have a pretty thing 
 To give unto my Lady : 
 I name no thing, nor I mean no thing, 
 But as pretty a thing as may be. 
 
 Twenty journeys would I make, 
 And twenty ways would hie me, 
 
 To make adventure for her sake, 
 To set some matter by me : 
 
 But I would fain have a pretty thing, etc. 
 
 I name no thing, nor I mean no thing, etc. 
 
 Some do long for pretty knacks, 
 
 And some for strange devices : 
 God send me that my lady lacks, 
 
 I care not what the price is. 
 Thus fain, etc. 
 
 Some go here, and some go there, 
 
 Where gazes * be not geason ; a 
 And I go gaping everywhere, 
 
 But still come out of season. 
 Yet fain, etc. 
 
 I walk the town and tread the street, 
 
 In every corner seeking 
 The pretty thing I cannot meet 
 
 That's for my lady's liking. 
 Fain, etc. 
 
 1 Shows to gaze at ; gazingstocks. z Scarce, rare. 
 K
 
 130 A HANDFUL Of PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 
 
 The mercers pull me, going by, 
 The silk-wives say, "What lack ye?" 
 
 " The thing you have not," then say I : 
 " Ye foolish knaves, go pack ye ! " 
 
 But fain, etc. 
 
 It is not all the silk in Cheap, 
 
 Nor all the golden treasure ; 
 Nor twenty bushels on a heap 
 
 Can do my lady pleasure. 
 But fain, etc. 
 
 The gravers of the golden shows 
 
 With jewels do beset me ; 
 The sempsters in the shops that sews, 
 
 They do nothing but let me. 
 But fain, etc. 
 
 But were it in the wit of man 
 
 By any means to make it, 
 I could for money buy it than, 
 
 And say, " Fair Lady, take it." 
 Thus fain, etc. 
 
 Lady, what a luck is this 
 That my good willing misseth, 
 
 To find what pretty thing it is 
 
 That my good lady wisheth. 
 Thus fain would I have had this pretty thing 
 
 To give unto my lady : 
 
 1 said no harm, nor I meant no harm, 
 
 But as pretty a thing as may be.
 
 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 131 
 
 A PROPER WOOING-SONG. 
 Intituled, " Maid, will ye love me, yea or no?" 
 
 To the tune of " The Merchant's Daughter went over 
 the Field." 
 
 MAID, will ye love me, yea or no ? 
 Tell me the truth, and let me go. 
 It can be no less than a sinful deed, 
 
 Trust me truly, 
 
 To linger a lover that looks to speed, 
 In due time duly. 
 
 You maids, that think yourselves as fine 
 
 As Venus and all the Muses nine, 
 
 The Father himself when He first made man, 
 
 Trust me truly, 
 Made you for his help, when the world began, 
 
 In due time duly. 
 
 Then sith God's will was even so, 
 
 Why should you disdain your lover tho ? * 
 
 But rather with a willing heart 
 
 Love him truly : 
 For in so doing you do but your part ; 
 
 Let reason rule ye. 
 
 Consider, Sweet, what sighs and sobs 
 Do nip my heart, with cruel throbs, 
 
 1 "Tho" then.
 
 132 A HANDFUL OF PLEASANT DELIGHTS. 
 
 And all, my Dear, for love of you, 
 
 Trust me truly : 
 But I hope that you will some mercy show, 
 
 In due time duly. 
 
 If that you do my case well weigh, 
 And show some sign whereby I may 
 Have some good hope of your good grace, 
 
 Trust me truly, 
 I count myself in a blessed case ; 
 
 Let reason rule ye. 
 
 And for my part, whilst I do live, 
 
 To love you most faithfully, my hand I give ; 
 
 Forsaking all other for your sweet sake, 
 
 Trust me truly : 
 In token whereof my troth I betake 
 
 To yourself most duly. 
 
 And though for this time we must depart, 
 Yet keep you this ring, true-token of my heart 
 Till time do serve we meet again, 
 
 Let reason rule ye ; 
 When an answer of comfort I trust to obtain, 
 
 In due time duly. 
 
 Now must I depart with sighing tears, 
 With sobbing heart and burning ears, 
 Pale in the face, and faint as I may, 
 
 Trust me truly : 
 But I hope our next meeting a joyful day 
 
 In due time duly.
 
 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 133 
 
 By THOMAS LODGE. 
 ACCURST BE LOVE ! 
 
 A CCURSTbe Love, and those that trust his trains! 
 ** He tastes the fruit whilst others toil ; 
 He brings the lamp, we lend the oil ; 
 He sows distress, we yield him soil ; 
 He wageth war, we bide the foil. 
 
 Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 
 He lays the trap, we seek the snare ; 
 He threat'neth death, we speak him fair ; 
 He coins deceits, we foster care ; 
 He favoureth pride, we count it rare. 
 
 Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 
 
 He seemeth blind, yet wounds with art ; 
 
 He vows content, he pays with smart ; 
 
 He swears relief, yet kills the heart ; 
 
 He calls for truth, yet scorns desart. 
 
 Accurst be Love, and those that trust his trains ! 
 
 Whose heaven is hell, whose perfect joys are pains.
 
 134 THE PHCENIX" NEST. 
 
 By THOMAS LODGE. 
 
 THE LOVER'S THEME. 
 
 FAIN to content, I bend myself to write, 
 But what to write my mind can scarce conceive 
 Your radiant eyes crave objects of delight, 
 My heart no glad impressions can receive : 
 To write of grief is but a tedious thing, 
 And woeful men of woe must needly 1 sing. 
 
 To write the truce, the wars, the strife, the peace, 
 That Love once wrought in my distempered heart, 
 Were but to cause my wonted woes increase, 
 And yield new life to my concealed smart : 
 
 Who tempts the ear with tedious lines of grief, 
 That waits for joy, complains without relief. 
 
 To write what pains supplanteth others' joy, 
 For-thy 2 is folly in the greatest wit : 
 Who feels may best decipher the annoy : 
 Who knows the grief but he that tasteth it ? 
 
 Who writes of woe must needs be woe-begone, 
 And writing feel, and feeling write of moan. 
 
 To write the temper of my last desire, 
 
 That likes me best, and appertains you most : 
 
 You are the Pharos whereto now retire 
 
 1 Necessarily. 2 Therefore.
 
 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 135 
 
 My thoughts, long wand'ring in a foreign coast : 
 In you they live, to other joys they die, 
 And, living, draw their food from your fair eye. 
 
 Enforced by Love, and that effectual fire 
 
 That springs from you to quicken loyal hearts, 
 
 I write in part the prime of my desire, 
 
 My faith, my fear, that springs from your desarts : 
 
 My faith, whose firmness never shunneth trial ; 
 
 My fear, the dread and danger of denial. 
 
 To write in brief a legend in a line, 
 
 My heart hath vowed to draw his life from yours ; 
 
 My looks have made a sun of your sweet eyne, 
 
 My soul doth draw his essence from your powers : 
 And what I am, in fortune or in love, 
 All those have sworn to serve for your behove. 
 
 My senses seek their comforts from your sweet ; 
 
 My inward mind your outward fair admires ; 
 
 My hope lies prostrate at your pity's feet ; 
 
 My heart, looks, soul, sense, mind, and hope desires 
 Belief and favour in your lovely sight : 
 Else all will cease to live and pen to write.
 
 136 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 
 
 By THOMAS LODGE. 
 FOR PITY, PRETTY EYES, SURCEASE. 
 
 FOR pity, pretty eyes, surcease 
 To give me war ! and grant me peace. 
 Triumphant eyes, why bear you arms 
 Against a heart that thinks no harms ? 
 A heart already quite appalled, 
 A heart that yields and is enthralled ? 
 Kill rebels, proudly that resist ; 
 Not those that in true faith persist, 
 And conquered serve your deity. 
 Will you, alas ! command me die ? 
 Then die I yours, and death my cross ; 
 But unto you pertains the loss. 
 
 By THOMAS LODGE. 
 LOVE'S WITCHERY. 
 
 MY bonny lass, thine eye, 
 So sly, 
 
 Hath made me sorrow so ; 
 Thy crimson cheeks, my dear, 
 
 So clear, 
 Have so much wrought my woe ;
 
 THE PHOSNIX' NEST. 137 
 
 Thy pleasing smiles and grace, 
 
 Thy face, 
 
 Have ravished so my sprites, 
 That life is grown to nought 
 
 Through thought 
 Of love, which me affrights. 
 
 For fancy's flames of fire 
 
 Aspire 
 
 Unto such furious power 
 As, but the tears I shed 
 
 Make dead 
 The brands would me devour, 
 
 I should consume to nought 
 
 Through thought 
 
 Of thy fair shining eye, 
 
 Thy cheeks, thy pleasing smiles, 
 The wiles 
 
 That forced my heart to die ; 
 
 Thy grace, thy face, the part 
 
 Where art 
 
 Stands gazing still to see 
 The wondrous gifts and power, 
 
 Each hour, 
 That hath bewitched me.
 
 i 3 8 THE PIKE NIX' NEST. 
 
 By SIR WALTER RALEIGH.! 
 THE EXCUSE. 
 
 /CALLING to mind mine eye long went about 
 V^ T'entice my heart to seek to leave my breast, 
 All in a rage I thought to pull it out, 
 By whose device I lived in such unrest : 
 
 What could it say to purchase so my grace ? 
 
 Forsooth, that it had seen my mistress' face. 
 
 Another time I likewise call to mind 
 My heart was he that all my woe had wrought ; 
 For he my breast, the fort of love, resigned, 
 When of such wars my fancy never thought : 
 
 What could it say when I would have him slain ? 
 
 But he was yours, and had forgot me clean. 
 
 At length when I perceived both eye and heart 
 Excused themselves as guiltless of mine ill, 
 I found myself was cause of all my smart, 
 And told myself, Myself now slay I will : 
 
 But when I found myself to you was true, 
 I loved myself because myself loved you. 
 
 1 No author's name is given in "The Phoenix' Nest" ; but the 
 poem was quoted by Puttenham in 1589 as " a most excellent 
 ditty, written by Sir Walter Raleigh. "
 
 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 139 
 
 NO MINUTE GOOD TO LOVE. 
 
 THE time when first I fell in love, 
 Which now I must lament ; 
 The year wherein I lost such time 
 To compass my content ; 
 
 The day wherein I saw too late 
 
 The follies of a lover ; 
 The hour wherein I found such loss 
 
 As care cannot recover ; 
 
 And last, the minute of mishap 
 Which makes me thus to plain ; 
 
 The doleful fruits of lovers' suits, 
 Which labour lose in vain : 
 
 Doth make me solemnly protest, 
 
 As I with pain do prove, 
 There is no time, year, day, nor hour, 
 
 Nor minute, good to love.
 
 140 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 
 
 DISCONSOLATE. 
 
 *T*HE gentle season of the year 
 -* Hath made my blooming branch appear, 
 
 And beautified the land with flowers ; 
 The air doth savour with delight, 
 The heavens do smile to see the sight, 
 
 And yet mine eyes augments their showers. 
 
 The meads are mantled all with green, 
 The trembling leaves have clothed the treen, 
 
 The birds with feathers new do sing ; 
 But I, poor soul ! when wrong doth wrack, 
 Attire myself in mourning black, 
 
 Whose leaf doth fall amid his spring ! 
 
 And, as you see the scarlet rose 
 
 In his sweet prime his buds disclose, 
 
 Whose hue is with the sun revived ; 
 So, in the April of mine age, 
 My lively colours do assuage, 
 
 Because my sunshine is deprived. 
 
 My heart, that wonted was of yore 
 Light as the winds abroad to soar, 
 
 Amongst the buds, when beauty springs, 
 Now only hovers over you ; 
 As doth the bird that's taken new 
 
 And mourns when all her neighbours sings.
 
 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 141 
 
 When every man is bent to sport, 
 Then pensive I alone resort 
 
 Into some solitary walk ; 
 As doth the doleful turtle-dove, 
 Who, having lost her faithful love, 
 
 Sits mourning on some withered stalk. 
 
 There to myself I do recount 
 
 How far my woes my joys surmount, 
 
 How Love requiteth me with hate ; 
 How all my pleasures end in pain, 
 How hate doth say my hope is vain, 
 
 How fortune frowns upon my state. 
 
 And in this mood, charged with despair, 
 With vapoured sighs I dim the air, 
 
 And to the gods make this request : 
 That, by the ending of my life, 
 I may have truce with this strange strife, 
 
 And bring my soul to better rest. 
 
 A COUNTER-LOVE. 
 
 Declare, O mind, from fond desires excluded, 
 That thou didst find erewhile, by love deluded. 
 
 AN eye, the plot whereon Love sets his gin ; 
 Beauty, the trap wherein the heedless fall ; 
 A smile, the train that draws the simple in ; 
 Sweet words, the wily instrument of all : 
 
 Entreaties, posts ; fair promises are charms ; 
 Writing, the messenger that wooes our harms.
 
 142 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 
 
 Mistress and servant, titles of mischance ; 
 
 Commandments done, the act of slavery ; 
 
 Their colours worn, a clownish cognisance ; 
 
 And double duty, petty drudgery : 
 
 And when she twines and dallies with thy locks, 
 Thy freedom then is brought into the stocks. 
 
 To touch her hand, her hand binds thy desire ; 
 To wear her ring, her ring is Nessus' gift ; 
 To feel her breast, her breast doth blow the fire ; 
 To see her bare, her bare a baleful drift ; 
 
 To bait thine eyes thereon, is loss of sight ; 
 
 To think of it, confounds thy senses quite. 
 
 Kisses, the keys to sweet consuming sin ; 
 
 Closings, Cleopatra's adders at thy breast ; 
 
 Feigned resistance then she will begin, 
 
 And yet unsatiable in all the rest : 
 
 And when thou dost unto the act proceed, 
 The bed doth groan and tremble at the deed. 
 
 Beauty, a silver dew that falls in May ; 
 Love is an egg-shell with that humour filled ; 
 Desire, a winged boy, coming that way, 
 Delights and dallies with it in the field : 
 
 The fiery sun draws up the shell on high ; 
 
 Beauty decays, Love dies, Desire doth fly. 
 
 Unharmed, give ear : that thing is hap'ly caught, 
 That cost some dear, if thou mayst ha't for naught.
 
 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 143 
 
 THE LOVER'S HEART. 
 
 'T^O make a truce, sweet Mistress, with your eyes, 
 A. How often have I proffered you my heart ! 
 
 Which proffers, unesteemed, you despise, 
 
 As far too mean to equal your desart : 
 
 Your mind, wherein all high perfections flow, 
 Deigns not the thought of things that are so low. 
 
 To strive to alter his desires were vain, 
 
 Whose vowed heart affects no other place ; 
 
 The which since you despise, I do disdain 
 
 To count it mine, as erst before it was ; 
 
 For that is mine which you alone allow, 
 As I am yours and only live for you. 
 
 Now, if I him forsake and he not find 
 His wretched exile succoured by your eyes, 
 He cannot yield to serve another's mind, 
 Nor live alone ; for nature that denies : 
 
 Then die he must, for other choice is none, 
 
 But live in you or me, or die alone. 
 
 Whose hapless death, when Fame abroad hath blown, 
 
 Blame and reproach procures unto us both ; 
 
 I, as unkind, forsaking so mine own ; 
 
 But you much more, from whom the rigour grow'th : 
 And so much more will your dishonour be, 
 By how much more it loved you than me. 
 
 Sweet lady, then the heart's misfortune rue, 
 Whose love and service evermore was true.
 
 144 TH E PHCENIX" NEST. 
 
 THE DESCRIPTION OF JEALOUSY. 
 
 A SEEING friend, yet enemy to rest ; 
 A wrangling passion, yet a gladsome thought ; 
 A bad companion, yet a welcome guest ; 
 A knowledge wished, yet found too soon unsought : 
 From heaven supposed, yet sure condemned to 
 
 hell 
 Is jealousy, and there forlorn doth dwell. 
 
 And thence doth send fond fear and false suspect 
 To haunt our thoughts, bewitched with mistrust ; 
 Which breeds in us the issue and effect 
 Both of conceits and actions far unjust ; 
 
 The grief, the shame, the smart whereof doth 
 prove 
 
 That jealousy's both death and hell to love. 
 
 For what but hell moves in the jealous heart, 
 Where restless fear works out all wanton joys, 
 Which doth both quench and kill the loving part, 
 And cloys the mind with worse than known annoys, 
 
 Whose pressure far exceeds hell's deep extremes ? 
 
 Such life leads Love, entangled with misdeems.
 
 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 145 
 
 LOVE HATH EYES BY NIGHT. 
 
 NIGHT, O jealous Night, repugnant to rriy 
 
 measures ! l 
 
 O Night so long desired, yet cross to my content ! 
 There's none but only thou that can perform my 
 
 pleasures, 
 Yet none but only thou that hindereth my intent. 
 
 Thy beams, thy spiteful beams, thy lamps that burn too 
 
 brightly, 
 
 Discover all my trains and naked lay my drifts, 
 That night by night I hope, yet fail my purpose 
 
 nightly ; 
 Thy envious glaring gleam defeateth so my shifts. 
 
 Sweet Night, withold thy beams, \vithold them till 
 
 tomorrow ! 
 
 Whose joy's in lack so long a hell of torment breeds. 
 Sweet Night, sweet gentle Night, do not prolong my 
 
 sorrow : 
 Desire is guide to me, and Love no lodestar needs. 
 
 Let sailors gaze on Stars, and Moon so freshly shining ; 
 Let them that miss the way be guided by the light ; 
 
 1 Old ed. "pleasures." 
 L
 
 146 THE PHCENIX' NEST. 
 
 \ know my Lady's bower, there needs no more 
 
 divining ; 
 
 Affection sees in dark, and Love hath eyes by 
 night. 
 
 Dame Cynthia, couch awhile ! hold in thy horns for 
 
 shining, 
 And glad not lowring Night with thy too glorious 
 
 rays ; 
 
 But be she dim and dark, tempestuous and repining, 
 That in her spite my sport may work thy endless 
 praise. 
 
 And when my will is wrought, then, Cynthia, shine, 
 
 good lady, 
 
 All other nights and days in honour of that night, 
 That happy heavenly night, that night so dark and 
 
 shady, 
 Wherein my Love had eyes that lighted my delight !
 
 NOTES.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page xvii. R. P. There was a Robert Parry who 
 in 1595 published a romance " Moderatus, or the 
 Adventures of the Black Knight." I suspect that this 
 person was the " R. P." who is responsible for a 
 portion of the " Mirror of Knighthood " (though there 
 is another claimant to the initials Richard Parre). 
 
 There is plenty of verse in " Moderatus," but it is of 
 poor quality. As the romance is of the highest rarity, 
 I will find room here for one of the poems, a warning 
 to incautious maids '. 
 
 " What fancies foul doth silly maids entice 
 To like and love the false and nattering wight ! 
 What viper would the selfsame thing despise 
 Which erst he sought with all his force and might ! 
 But fond I was ; and fickle his desire, 
 Like bavin's blaze that soon was set on fire. 
 
 Such fire it was that wrought my deep annoy ; 
 
 Such fool I was that credulous would prove, 
 
 And trust repose in him that did but toy 
 
 And, full of lust, would counterfeit some love : 
 Lo, to my care, with grief of heart I find 
 His flattering words, which were but blasts of wind. 
 
 What cockatrice so pleasant once could smile, 
 And cover fraud with such a glorious bait !
 
 150 NOTES. 
 
 Who would have thought such beauty covered guile ; 
 
 But fowlers still, their snares being laid, do wait 
 And counterfeit, the silly birds to trap : 
 So did this wretch, the more is my ill-hap." 
 
 Page xxvi. " A Post with a Packet of Mad Letters." 
 The first letter that I will quote is " A Letter to his 
 Mistris desiring Marriage." It is a frank, straight- 
 forward proposal, couched in language that precludes 
 all possibility of future misunderstanding : 
 
 " Courteous Mistris Amee, the only joy of my heart, 
 I thought it fitting to declare my minde in writing to 
 you : long time haue I rested your true and constant 
 loue, hoping to finde the like true affection from you : 
 I write not in any dissembling sort, my tongue doth 
 declare my heart, assuring you that I doe not regard 
 any portion, but your hearty loue to remaine firme to 
 me. I would be glad to know when you would appoint 
 the day of our marriage, if it stand so to your liking : 
 deare Amee, take some pitty on him that loueth you so 
 well : you know that I haue beene profferd good mens 
 daughters in mariage, but I could neuer fancy any so 
 well as your selfe. I desire to know the fulnesse of your 
 affection, whether it doth equall mine or no, and upon 
 the receit of your answer, you shall see me shortly after : 
 (though I receiue you in your smocke,) I haue sufficient 
 meanes to prouide for you and me both. I haue sent 
 you a ring in token of loue, which I pray you accept of. 
 I omit all eloquence, not doubting but you will consider 
 my feruent zeale which cannot be expressed with words. 
 Thus requesting your answer, I commit you to God, 
 resting 
 
 Your assured loving friend till death, H. K"
 
 NOTES. 151 
 
 The four following letters relate to a love-quarrel and 
 reconciliation ; 
 
 A Letter to laugh at after the old fashion 
 
 of love to a Maid. 
 
 " After my hearty commendations, trusting in God 
 that you are in good health as I was at the writing 
 hereof, with my Father, my Mother, my Brothers and 
 Sisters, and all my good friends, (thanks be to God). 
 The cause of my writing to you at this time, is, that 
 Margery, I doe heare since my comming from Wake- 
 field, when you know what talke wee had together at 
 the signe of the blue Cuckoe, and how you did giue me 
 your hand, and sweare that you would not forsake me 
 for all the world : and how you made me buy a Ring 
 and a Heart, that cost me eightee'ne pence, which I 
 left with you, and you gaue me a Napkin to weare in 
 my Hat, I thanke you, which I will weare to my dying 
 day. And I maruell if it be true as I heare, that you 
 haue altered your mind, & are made sure to my neigh- 
 bour Hoglins younger Son. Truly Margery you do 
 not well in so doing, and God will plague you for it : 
 and I hope I shal liue, and if I neuer haue you : for 
 there are more maids the Manikin, and I count myselfe 
 worth the whistling after. And therefore praying you 
 to write me your answer by this bearer my friend, 
 touching the truth of all how the matter stands with 
 you, I commit you to God, From Callowgreene, 
 
 Your true love, R. P." 
 
 Her Answer. 
 
 " Truely Roger, I did not looke for such a Letter from 
 your hands : I would you should know I scorne it ;
 
 152 NOTES. 
 
 Haue I gotten my Fathers, and Mothers ill will for you, 
 to bee so vsed at your hands ? I perceiue, and if you 
 be so jealous already, you would bee somewhat another 
 day. I am glad I finde you, that you can beleeue any 
 thing of me : but it is no matter, I care not : send me 
 my Napkin, and you shall haue your Ring and your 
 Heart, for I can haue enow if I neuer see you more : 
 for there are more Batchelors then Roger, and my 
 penny is as good siluer as yours, and therefore seeing 
 you are so lustie, euen put vp your pipes for I will haue 
 no more to doe with you : And so vnsaying al that euer 
 hath beene said betwixt vs, make your choise where 
 you list, I know where to be beloued, and so I end, 
 from Wakefield, 
 
 M. K." 
 
 Roger to Margerie his Sweet-heart. 
 " Margerie, I haue receiued your snappish Letter, 
 whereby I se"e you are more angry, then I thought 
 you would haue bee"ne for a mis-word or two, but I hope 
 to mend what is amisse : for I see I was too blame : for 
 now I find the knauery of the world, I will looke a little 
 better to my selfe : for it was your Cousins doing to de- 
 uise lies, to set you and me out, but if you will be ruled 
 by me, wde will me'et with them well enough : vpon 
 Friday I wil me'et you at the market : where we will 
 haue a Cake and a Pot, at the Pickerill and Spurre, 
 there we will strike vp a bargaine, that will not be 
 broken in hast : and so sorry with all my heart that I 
 haue done as I haue done : sending the"e twenty kisses 
 by my sister Parnell, and this bowed Groat for a Loue- 
 token, I rest, 
 
 Yours from all the world R. P."
 
 NOTES. 153 
 
 Her Answer. 
 
 " Oh Roger, the world is well amended : I thought you 
 were misused, to write to me as you did : but friends 
 are nere so farre out, but they may be as far in againe : 
 and therefore since it was against your will, I forgiue 
 you with all my heart : & let my cousin doe his worst, 
 He not goe from my word : on Friday lie me"et you at 
 ten of the clock, and bring a pe"ece of bacon in my 
 pocket, to relish a cup of Ale, when it shall goe hard, if 
 all hit right, but some body shall wipe their nose for 
 their knauery, and so Roger, hoping that you will no 
 more abuse me as you haue done, to beleeue lies and 
 tales of me, till you know the truth, treading all vnkind- 
 nesse vnder foot, I rest, with all my heart, as I was and 
 will be euer. Yours asyozt know, M. R. n 
 
 I now quote a letter from a gentleman detained in 
 London on legal business to his wife in the country ; 
 with the wife's answer : 
 
 To a wife in the Country. 
 
 " Good Wife, in all kindnesse I commit me to thy self, 
 assuring thee that I thinke it long till I haue dispatched 
 my businesse, and am at home againe : But I hope of 
 good successe in my suite, for my Counsell doth war- 
 rant my case cleere : Vpon Friday next I shall haue 
 triall, which I doubt not will goe on my side : if it doe 
 not, my thought is taken, for I thanke God I can Hue 
 without it, though I would be loath to lose it. My 
 health, I thanke God, I haue well, and pray for the 
 same to thee and thine. I pray you send me vp twenty 
 pounds by this Bearer, with al spded, and within fiue 
 daies after the dispatch of my businesse, expect my
 
 154 NOTES. 
 
 comming downe : in the meane time kisse my little 
 Babes for me'e, to whom with thy selfe, I send my 
 hearts hoping commendations, and so in haste I com- 
 mit tlide to the Almightie. 
 London Your -very loving Husband^ R. TV' 
 
 Her Answer. 
 
 " Swdet-heart, your Messengers haste makes mee 
 briefer than other wise I would be : the good dispatch 
 of your businesse I hope, and heartily pray for : your 
 health I am glad of, and your returne cannot be so 
 soone as wished for. Your money I haue sent by this 
 Bearer. Your little ones with my selfe would be glad 
 to see you, who doe not a little misse you for diuers 
 causes too tedious at this time to trouble you withall : 
 But in any wise remember your Girles Cawle, and your 
 Boyes Hat, which will not be a little welcome. But 
 good Husband, make one end or another with it this 
 Tearme, lest delaies and demurres, make you to spend 
 more in it then it is worth : But you know what to doe 
 better than I can aduise you : and therefore leauing it 
 to your discretion, to doe what shall best please you, I 
 commit you to God, and rest, in haste. 
 
 Chaulkley. Your very loving Wife, M. T." 
 
 I will end with two business letters, touching the 
 purchase of some property : 
 
 A Letter to a friend for dispatch of businesse. 
 " I am bold to intreat your kindnesse, to stead mee 
 in what you may touching the purchase of the Mills 
 and Hop-gardens, for which if your neighbour will take
 
 NOTES. 155 
 
 mine offer, I am for him, or else I must otherwise de- 
 termine of my money that I haue reserued onely for 
 that vse. I am offered great penny-worths in diuers 
 places : but the ayre pleaseth me well about that house, 
 and the trouts in the little brookes haue made me haue 
 a great mind to dwell thereabouts : if therefore you can 
 bring him to my price, I will be beholding to you : if 
 not, let me know his mind, and I am satisfied : for to 
 tel you the troth, I would haue it though it cost me 
 more then it is worth, and so intreating you to do me"e 
 what good you can herein for which you shall not find 
 me vnthankfull, I rest, 
 
 Your loving friend, A. W" 
 
 The Answer, 
 
 " I receiued your Letter, dated the xiii of this month, 
 whereby I vnderstand your mind touching the lease of 
 the two Milles and Hopp-gardens : but I cannot bring 
 it to passe one penny vnder the Summe, whervpon he 
 tels me you were in a manner agreed : the man is hard 
 but very honest : and the land good, and lieth finely to 
 the house : the Soyle is healthfull : and there is good 
 store of Springs : besides the Riuer is not farre off, where- 
 by you may haue carriage weekley from the City vpon a 
 small reckoning : but vse your discretion, the price you 
 know, and me"e you may command, but time would not 
 be deferred, for there are many about it : and therefore 
 leauing to your discretion, either to take it, or refuse it, 
 with assurance of my helpe to the vtmost of my power, 
 either in this or what else may pleasure you, I alwaies 
 rest, 
 
 Yours as you know, T. D"
 
 156 NOTES. 
 
 Page xxvi. The Miseries of Mavillia. Mavillia was 
 certainly an ill-starred lady. When she was in her fifth 
 year the town in which she resided was sacked, and 
 her father and mother were brutally murdered. A poor 
 laundress in the train of the victorious army took 
 charge of the young Mavillia, but treated her with 
 scant kindness. When her parents were alive the little 
 creature had been universally petted. Her father would 
 take her by the chin and call her his good girl, his 
 sweet mouse, and dad's bird. He had always an apple 
 or a pear ready for her. The neighbours, too, made 
 much of her, and every pretty child was glad to play 
 with her. But now the case was altered. If she cried 
 for a little drink, or some bread and butter, or asked 
 to be put to bed, the laundress was after her with a 
 birchen rod. Then if she happened to be playing with 
 the cat or the dog, or making a doll out of some old 
 rags, up would come the laundress, slap her in the face, 
 toss her by the shoulders, and set her to study her Christ- 
 cross row the alphabet of the old primers. The child 
 was an apt pupil, and soon learned to read any place in 
 the bible, so that then her protectress took some delight 
 in her and used her more kindly. Her needlework 
 gave her some distress at first, and she got many a 
 clout on the ear from the old dame ; but by perse- 
 verance she became skilful with her needle. At length 
 the town was recaptured by her own countrymen, and 
 she was treated with every consideration by the cap- 
 tain. He arranged that she should be sent to her 
 uncle's house far away, and appointed certain gentle- 
 men (together with his own page) to conduct her. As 
 she and her escort were passing through a Wbod they 
 were attacked by brigands. The fight was so fierce
 
 NOTES. 1 57 
 
 that all were killed except Mavillia and the page. The 
 two trudged along all the horses had been killed 
 through that day and through the night and the next 
 morning. They were very hungry ; the poor page had 
 got his pistol ready in case he should sight a pigeon, 
 but no pigeon could he see. By good luck, however, 
 a cow wandered their way ; they uttered a hasty 
 prayer that she would stand still " till they had gotten 
 of her milk to comfort themselves withal," and then 
 Mavillia took off her hat and milked the cow into it, 
 the creature making no resistance. They each had a 
 good draught and kept some in the hat for the mor- 
 row. But a sad accident befell on the next night. The 
 page, lying down on a bank to take a snatch of rest 
 (for he was quite worn out), leaned inadvertently on 
 his dag or pistol, which was under his girdle ; where- 
 upon the pistol discharged a bullet into his right hip. 
 Mavillia was deeply distressed, but the page bore up 
 right manfully. " Mistress," quoth he, " the hurt 
 grieves me not so much as to think how I am hindered 
 from my hearty desire to show mine humble duty in 
 conducting you to your uncle's house. But since God 
 hath laid His punishment upon me, I beseech Him to 
 grant me His grace to take it patiently : alas ! I 
 think I am the most unhappy villain in the world. 
 But, mistress, this is the world ; a man that hath 
 travelled many countries and passed great perils, being 
 tossed in many tempests among the boiling billows of 
 sore seas, in the end comes home and perhaps walking 
 but through his own ground, his foot slips off a bridge 
 and [he] is drowned in a ditch." Mavillia tends the 
 page with devoted care, and having a knowledge of 
 simples succeeds in procuring him some relief from
 
 158 NOTES. 
 
 his pain. While they are speculating as to how they 
 shall get their next meal the page observes a fox 
 carrying off a lamb. Mavillia runs after the fox and 
 frightens him with a loud cry, so that he drops the 
 lamb, which they proceed to dress and cook. The 
 lamb lasted them for some days until the page was 
 strong enough to start again on the journey, leaning 
 one hand on Mavillia's shoulder and resting on a staff 
 with the other. They passed through a great forest 
 and came to a high hill. When they had gone over 
 the hill, they found on the other side a huge boar 
 waiting, who rushed with open mouth at the poor page. 
 The page shot him through the head, but not before 
 he had been sorely wounded by the boar in the leg. 
 Mavillia bound up the hurt ; then on they went again, 
 and presently came to a cottage belonging to a poor 
 shepherd. The shepherd's wife (a crabbed old woman) 
 and her daughter were within. After some to-do the 
 wanderers are admitted, and the page is put to bed. 
 But he is past all help, and dies the same night. On 
 his death-bed he hands a purse full of gold to the old 
 woman for her own use (for he had taken all the money 
 that he could find on his dead friends and their as- 
 sailants) and lays injunctions that Mavillia is to want 
 for nothing ; and he gives another purse of gold that 
 is to be kept until Mavillia demands it. The next 
 morning the old dame begins betimes to give proofs 
 of her churlish condition. She insists that Mavillia is 
 to put off her gentlewoman's apparel and wear coarse 
 clothing if she wants to see the page buried. After 
 the funeral Mavillia's troubles start afresh. The old 
 dame sets her to hemming hempen stuff with a great 
 coarse needle. As for the money left by the page,
 
 NOTES. 159 
 
 the shepherd spends it in purchasing a piece of land 
 and a fair house. Mavillia has to card, and knit, 
 and brew, and bake, weed the garden, feed the hogs, 
 scour pots, turn the spit, sweep the house out ; and to 
 help her there was but one other maid who was such 
 an idle baggage that she would do nothing but sleep. 
 When the shepherd moved into his fair house other 
 servants were taken, and Mavillia was set to attend on 
 the old woman's daughter, "the most ill-favoured and 
 untoward urchin that ever was born." " This baggage 
 must I go teach her book, and forsooth touch her I 
 must not, but ' Good mistress, look on your book. 
 Yea, that is a fair gentlewoman,' when she said never 
 a word, but I was fain to speak for her. If I com- 
 plained of her then ' O you think much of your pains ; 
 would you have her read as well as you the first day ? 
 Go, come not to me with such twittle twattle ' : then 
 [would she] go to the girl, ' Doth she say thou wilt not 
 learn ? Marry, she lies. Hold here, wilt thou have a 
 plum or an apple ? Yea, marry it is a good girl ' : then 
 was I glad to get apples and pears and such gear to 
 bring her to the book. And then the apish elf for my 
 heart would not say a word, so that I could not for my 
 life but give her a little slap on the shoulders ; and if I 
 did but even touch her the monkey would set out the 
 throat and cry so vengeously that to it must the 
 mother come, and then ' How now, girl ? tell me, doth 
 she beat thee ? Minion, you were best not touch her, 
 see you ; the wench would learn well enough, an you 
 were willing to teach her : well, ye were best use her 
 gently lest ye fare the worse for it ' ; and so away she 
 goes. Now would I sit weeping for grief that the 
 squall would learn no faster ; and if the hilding had
 
 160 NOTES. 
 
 got out of my sight that she had run paddling about, 
 and by chance spotted any of her clothes, or taken a 
 fall (and yet it was old enough, being betwixt seven 
 and eight years of age, to go alone), yet, as I say, if 
 aught was amiss with her, I was checked, snibbed, 
 called proud minx, rated like a dog, and now and then 
 beaten so extremely if the old crone were in an angry 
 mood, as she was seldom little better." The only 
 grain of comfort for Mavillia was that the old shepherd 
 took her part. When his wife was laying on her with 
 a faggot-stick he would often interfere. Sometimes, 
 when his wife was out of the way, he would produce 
 from his pocket pieces of white bread and roast meat ; 
 and from time to time he would give her a piece of 
 gold and bid her lay it up for her marriage. After 
 three or four years the old dame was seized with 
 the gout in her toes, fingers, knees and almost all her 
 joints ; and so violently was she racked that Mavillia 
 in spite of all the ill-treatment she had received 
 was frequently moved to tears. At length she died of 
 the gout, covetous to the last, and leaving not a groat 
 to Mavillia who had tended her so patiently. Shortly 
 afterwards the shepherd fell ill and Mavillia had to 
 nurse him. He grew worse and worse, and feeling 
 that his end was near, he called one or two trusted 
 neighbours, and gave special injunctions that Mavillia 
 was to receive at his death five hundred pounds. The 
 knavish executors determined to defraud poor Mavillia. 
 Finding in a chest the gold pieces which the shepherd 
 had given her and which she had carefully hoarded, 
 they accused her of having stolen the money. The 
 constable was summoned and she was carried before 
 the justice, a vicious little maidservant giving evidence
 
 NOTES. 161 
 
 against her, and sent to gaol to await her trial. She 
 passed a miserable time in gaol, shocked by the vile 
 behaviour of her fellow-prisoners. At the trial her 
 former pupil, the shepherd's daughter, who has 
 meanwhile been married, and from being a rude chit 
 has become a graceful young lady gives evidence in 
 her favour. The maid who had brought the charge, 
 repents of her villainy and confesses the truth. Mavillia 
 receives her five hundred pounds from the executors, 
 and goes on a visit to the house of her former pupil. 
 Divers gentlemen now became suitors to her. Among 
 them was an "old doting lover, a rich chuff in the 
 country, who having lately buried his old Jone " now 
 made up to Mavillia. She hated the sight of him, and 
 the stubble of his rough old shaven beard used to vex 
 her extremely. She could not away with the stale jests 
 of the old dizard ; he was as deaf as a door, and 
 croop-shouldered ; but he went bravely, he had a fair 
 chain about his neck, a brooch in his hat, and on his 
 finger a seal ring with an ounce of gold in it at least. 
 Mavillia's affections were fixed on a very different sort 
 of person, a young gentleman of grace and refine- 
 ment, who was her devoted admirer. To escape from 
 the importunity of her ancient suitor she agreed to 
 marry the young man privately. But the old fellow got 
 tidings of the matter, and on the marriage-day turned 
 up at the church door, and in threatening words swore 
 to be revenged. He wreaked his vengeance in a most 
 horrible manner. She was walking abroad some time 
 afterwards with her husband to see after some sheep 
 that belonged to them, when a couple of merciless 
 knaves (hired for the purpose) ran up with drawn 
 swords, the old ruffian following on horseback. The 
 M
 
 i6a NOTES. 
 
 bravoes seized her husband by the shoulders and shook 
 him like a dog. Mavillia implored for mercy for her 
 husband with all earnestness and eloquence. The 
 scoundrel seemed to relent and said " Well then, come 
 hither, let me have a kiss for all the love I have borne 
 thee, and so I will bid thee farewell." With tears of 
 gratitude in her eyes Mavillia went forward to be 
 kissed, and the villain horresco referens bit off her 
 nose. Poor Mavillia ! She bitterly resented the out- 
 rage, and implored Heaven to take vengeance on the 
 wretch who had wronged her : " O rascal, begotten 
 in an ill hour, born to mischief, brought up in villainy 
 and continuing in the same, Heaven will plague thee, 
 and those teeth that tare my harmless face will the 
 devil tear out with a hot firehook ! " Her husband 
 afterwards succeeded in killing the old scoundrel. She 
 concludes her story at the point where her husband 
 comes home wounded by some friends of the wretch 
 he had killed ; she drops her pen in order to attend to 
 his comfort. 
 
 Page xxvii. " The Eel and the Magpie." So far as 
 the magpie is concerned, this is an old story re-told ; 
 but I can say nothing about the eel. I keep the old 
 spelling, for it heightens the quaintness of the tale : 
 
 " A neighbour of mine, in good case to Hue, though 
 not verie wealthie, and yet such a one as with his 
 formality on a Hollidaie at Church would haue bene 
 taken for the Hedborough of the Parish ; this honest 
 substantiall man, drawing one daie a Mill-poole, 
 among other fish, lighted on a verie great Eele : which, 
 hauing got on lande, hee brought into his house, and 
 put it with small Eeles into a Cesterne, where, feeding 
 of it euery Morning and Euening, hee made (as it
 
 NOTES. 163 
 
 were) an Idoll of it. For, there passed not a dale 
 wherein hee had not that care of his Eele, that it 
 seemed that hee had not of greater and better matters. 
 This Eele, being taken about Candelmas, hee meant 
 to keepe and feede till Lent following, when hee meant 
 to present him to his Land-lord, for a great gratula- 
 tion : in the meane-time, hee neuer went out of doores 
 without giuing warning to his wife and his seruants, to 
 looke wel to his Eele. When he came in, How doth 
 mine Eele ? when were you with mine Eele ? who looked 
 to mine Eele ? I charge you looke well to mine Eele. 
 Now his wife, a iollie stout Dame, who made more 
 reckoning of honestie, than either beautie or wisdome 
 (for she was troubled with neither) had in her house a 
 young Pie : (which we call a Magot-a-Pie). This 
 Bird, hauing bin hatched in a Neste hard vnder her 
 chamber window, she chaunced to take into her educa- 
 tion : and being one that loued to heare a tongue 
 wagge, either her owne, her Gossips, her Maides, or her 
 Pyes : for if one were still, the other must be walking : 
 and when they were all vpon the going, there was no 
 still-piece of musique : It fell out that this Good-wife, 
 not a little displeased at her Goose-mans folly in such 
 so much care ouer the fish, that the flesh was but a 
 litle set by : one daie, (when her Asseband was gone 
 forth) sitting with her maid at the wheele, so full at 
 her heart that yet her tongue would haue swelled if it 
 had not broke out at her mouth, began thus to fall in 
 hande with her Maid-seruant : I dare not depose for 
 her Virginitie, but, as I said, her maid : she fell thus 
 to breake her minde vnto. Wench, quoth she, doest 
 thou not see what a sturre thy maister keepes with a 
 scuruy Eele ? In good earnest a litle thing would make
 
 i6 4 NOTES. 
 
 me take her out of the Cesterne, and put her in a Pye, 
 or eate her some waie or other : for better haue one 
 chiding for all then haue such a doe as we haue 
 about her. In truth, Mistresse, quoth she, (as one 
 whose mouth hung verie fitting for such a piece of 
 meate) if it please you, I will quickly ridde you of 
 this trouble. My maister is ridde to your Landlords, 
 and there I know he will tarrie to night : if it please 
 you I will fetch her out of the Cesterne, and kill her, 
 and flea her, and put her in a Pye, and you may dis- 
 patch her ere he come home, or saue a piece for him 
 when he is quiet after his chiding. Content, wench, 
 quoth she, I pray thee dispatch her quickly. I warrant 
 you, quoth shee, forsooth with a trice. Thus was the 
 Eeles death approaching, and the matter thoroughly 
 enacted. Now the Pye being made and baked, and 
 set on the Table, and betwixt the maide and her Dame 
 (or mistresse) brought to such a passe that there was 
 very litle left for her master : the Magot-a-Pye like a 
 vyle Bird (that would keepe no counsaile, but duely 
 would vse her tongue, to talke of all that she saw or 
 heard) no sooner saw the good-man come into the 
 house, but (as shee was taught to speake), began with 
 Welcome home, maister : and then (more then she was 
 taught), she fell to pratle, Hoh maister, my Dame hath 
 eaten the Eele : my Dame hath eaten the Eele : my 
 Dame hath eaten the great Eele. The good man re- 
 membring his fish, began now to aske his wife, How 
 doth mine Eele ? What meanes the Bird to talke thus 
 of eating the great Eele ? Tush, Husband, quoth she, 
 warme you I pray you, and goe to bed. It is cold and 
 late, talke of your Eele tomorrow. No, quoth he, I will 
 not goe to bed, till I haue scene mine Eele : and
 
 NOTES. 165 
 
 therewith in a bodily feare of that which was fallen out, 
 goes to the Cesterne, and there finding his Eele gonne, 
 comes in againe, as dead at hart as a Stocke-fish, (and 
 yet resolued to brawle out of reason). Comes [Cries ? ] 
 out : Why hoh ! The good wife, ready to burst with 
 laughing and yet keeping it in with a fayned sigh, sits 
 downe in a chaire, and hangs the head, as though she 
 had had the mother. The maid hauing wit enough, (to 
 make a foole of a tame-goose,) meetes her maister, and 
 catching him in her armes cries out, But softly, maister, 
 be a man, and mooue not all. My dame you know loues 
 you well, and it may be she breedes, and [will] bring 
 you a boye worth twenty bushels of Eeles : saie she 
 had a minde to it, and hath eaten it : if you should 
 seeme to chide for it, it may be a meane to cast her 
 awaie, and that she goes with : and therefore say nothing 
 of it, let it goe. For indeed it is gone. Saist thou so, my 
 Girle ? quoth hee, I thanke thee : hold thee, there is a 
 Tester for thee for thy good counsaile, I warrant thee 
 all shall be well. Then in a goes to his wife, & findes 
 her in her chaire sitting as it were heauily : comes to 
 her and takes her by the hand with, How now wife ? be 
 of good cheere, and take no thought, much good doe 
 thy hart with her, take the rest that are left, if thou 
 haue a minde to them I pray thee. With this, she (as 
 it were awaked out of a trance) said, I thanke you good 
 husband, and so after a few home-complaints, to bed 
 they went, where they agreed so well, that the next 
 morning hee had his part (though it were the least) of 
 that was left, and glad of it too, and so without more 
 adoe goes about his busines. But no sooner was he 
 out of doores, but the mistresse and the maid went to 
 the bird, the Pye, and taking her out of the Cage,
 
 166 NOTES. 
 
 plucked all the feathers off from her head, and left her 
 as bare as a balde Coote, which in the cold winter was 
 very vncomfortable : which done she was put into the 
 Cage againe, with these wordes, Tell tales againe of 
 the Eele, doe. 
 
 Now about dinner time, comes in againe the good- 
 ' man, and brings in with him a neighbour of his, with a 
 good face, but a balde head, that he had almost no 
 haire on it. Now the Pye being let out of the Cage, no 
 sooner sees this man put off his hat, but she skips on 
 his shoulders and sayes : Oh, your head hath bene 
 puld as well as mine, for telling of tales. You haue told 
 my maister, how my dame eate the great Eele : (and 
 so she would do to any that shee saw bald, that came 
 into the house.) And was not this a merrie iest of the 
 Pye and an Eele ? " 
 
 Page 46. " Turn I my looks unto the skies." This 
 poem was doubtless suggested by the following sonnet 
 of Desportes : 
 
 " Si je me siez a 1'ombre, aussi soudainement 
 Amour, laissant son arc, s'assied et se repose ; 
 Si je pense a des vers, je le voy qui compose ; 
 Si je plains mes douleurs, il se plaint hautement. 
 
 Si je me plains au mal, il accroist mon tourment ; 
 Si je respans des pleurs, son visage il arrose ; 
 Si je monstre ma playe, en ma poitrine enclose, 
 II defait son bandeau, 1'essuyant doucement. 
 
 Si je vais par les bois, aux bois il m'accompagne ; 
 Si je me suis cruel, dans mon sang il se bagne ; 
 Si je vais a la guerre, il devient mon soldart. 
 
 Si je passe la mer, il conduit ma nacelle ; 
 Bref, jamais 1'importun de moy ne se de'part, 
 Pour rendre mon d6sir et ma peine eternelle." 
 
 Lodge was fond of this sonnet of Desportes. In
 
 NOTES. 167 
 
 "Scylla's Metamorphosis," 1589, he gives us a literal 
 rendering, which he reprinted (with some alterations) 
 in " Phillis : Honoured with Sundry Poems," 1 593. 
 His translation runs thus : 
 
 " If so I seek the shades I suddenly do see 
 The god of love forsake his bow and sit me by ; 
 If that I think to write his Muses pliant be, 
 If so I plain my grief the wanton boy will cry. 
 
 If I lament his pride he doth increase my pain ; 
 If tears my cheeks attaint, his cheeks are moist with moan ; 
 If I disclose the wounds the which my heart hath slain, 
 He takes his fascia off and wipes them dry anon. 
 
 If so I walk the woods, the woods are his delight ; 
 If I myself torment, he bathes him in my blood ; 
 He will my soldier be if once I went to fight ; 
 If seas delight, he steers my bark amid the flood : 
 
 In brief the cruel God doth never from me go, 
 
 But makes my lasting love eternal with my woe." 
 
 He gives us no inkling that this is a translation. 
 
 In making my selections from Lodge, I have con- 
 fined myself to his romances and to " The Phoenix' 
 Nest." In his " Phillis," we have one of the best of 
 his shorter poems : 
 
 " Love gilds 1 the roses of thy lips 
 
 And flies about them like a bee ; 
 If I approach he forward skips, 
 
 And if I kiss he stingeth me. 
 
 Love in thine eyes doth build his bower, 
 
 And sleeps within their pretty shine ; 
 And if I look the boy will lower, 
 
 And from their orbs shoots shafts divine. 
 
 Love works thy heart within his fire, 
 And in my tears doth firm the same ; 
 
 1 Olded. "guides," evidently a misprint for " guildes. "
 
 168 NOTES. 
 
 And if I tempt it will retire, 
 And of my plaints doth make a game. 
 
 Love, let me cull her choicest flowers ; 
 
 And pity me, and calm her eye ; 
 Make soft her heart, dissolve her lowers ; 
 
 Then will I praise thy deity. 
 
 But if thou do not, Love, I'll truly serve her 
 In spite of thee, and by firm faith deserve her." 
 
 Page 55. "A Song between Wit and Will." The 
 Earl of Oxford has a dialogue between Fancy and 
 Desire which bears some resemblance to this poem of 
 Breton. It begins : 
 
 " Come hither, shepherd's swain. Sir, what do you require? 
 I pray thee show to me thy name. My name is fond Desire. 
 When wert thou born, Desire ? In pomp and prime of May. 
 By whom, sweet boy, wert thou begot? By fond Conceit, men 
 say," etc. , 
 
 See Hannah's " Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh," etc., 
 1885, pp. 142-3. Probably both the Earl of Oxford 
 and Lodge took a hint from a sonnet of Desportes, 
 
 " Amour, quand fus-tu n6 ? Ce fut lors que la terre 
 S'e"maille de couleurs et les bois de verdeur. 
 De qui fus-tu con9eu? D'une puissante ardeur 
 Qu' oisivete' lascive en soy-mesmes enserre," etc. 
 
 Page 58. " I would thou wert not fair." This poem 
 is set to music in John Bartlet's " Book of Airs," 1606. 
 
 Page 59. " Friar Bacon." This popular romance 
 is of the sixteenth century ; but the earliest extant 
 edition is dated 1627. Of " George-a- Green " we have 
 no editions before the eighteenth century. 
 
 Page 77. " Beauty sat bathing by a spring." In 
 my edition of " England's Helicon " I printed by an
 
 NOTES. 169 
 
 unaccountable oversight, " Beauty sat bathing in a 
 spring." 
 
 Page 79. " Honour's Academy." A translation 
 from the French romance of Ollenix du Mont Sacre, 
 i.e. Nicolas de Montreux, " Les Bergeries de Juli- 
 ette," 1592. 
 
 Page 82. " The Spanish Bawd, represented in 
 Celestina," a dramatic romance in twenty-one acts, 
 was translated from the Spanish of Fernando de Rojas. 
 The translator, James Mabbe, assumed the name Don 
 Diego Puede-ser. 
 
 Page 85. "The Arcadian Princess" was translated 
 from the Italian of Mariano Silesio, a Florentine, who 
 died in 1368. 
 
 Page 86. " Heavenly fair Urania's son." Samuel 
 Sheppard was a notorious plagiarist. He must have 
 stolen this epithalamium from somebody ; and he cer- 
 tainly seems to have corrupted the text. It would be 
 interesting to discover the genuine original in its in- 
 tegrity. The only other place in which I have met the 
 poem is Joshua Poole's "English Parnassus," 1655, 
 where the text is far more corrupt than in Sheppard's 
 romance. 
 
 Page 116. "Choice, Chance, and Change." This 
 work was published anonymously, but unquestionably 
 it belongs to Nicholas Breton. 
 
 Page 138. "The Excuse." Hannah, in his edition 
 of Raleigh's poems, gives a somewhat different text 
 from Oldys' " Life of Raleigh," p. Iv, after " the copy of 
 a celebrated lady, Lady Isabella Thynne, who probably 
 had it out of the family " : 
 
 " Calling to mind, my eyes went long about 
 
 To cause my heart for to forsake my breast, 
 
 N
 
 i 7 o NOTES. 
 
 All in a rage I sought to pull them out, 
 
 As who had been such traitors to my rest : 
 What could they say to win again my grace ? 
 Forsooth that they had seen my mistress' face. 
 
 Another time, my heart I called to mind, 
 
 Thinking that he this woe on me had brought, 
 
 Because that he to love his force resigned, 
 
 When of such wars my fancy never thought : 
 
 What could he say when I would him have slain ? 
 
 That he was hers, and had foregone my chain. 
 
 At last, when I perceived both eyes and heart 
 Excuse themselves, as guiltless of my ill, 
 
 I found myself the cause of all my smart, 
 
 And told myself that I myself would kill : 
 
 Yet when I saw myself to you was true, 
 
 I loved myself, because myself loved you."
 
 LIST OF AUTHORS, ETC. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 FAMOUS HISTORY OF FRIAR BACON 59-61 
 
 BRATHWAIT, RICHARD 84-85 
 
 BRETON, NICHOLAS 55-58, 89-121 
 
 CHETTLE, HENRY 78 
 
 DICKENSON, JOHN . . * 53-S4 
 
 FARLEY, HENRY 83 
 
 HISTORY OF GEORGE- A-GREEN 61 
 
 GREENE, ROBERT 9-40 
 
 LODGE, THOMAS 41-52, 133-137 
 
 MABBE, JAMES 82-83 
 
 MIRROR OF KNIGHTHOOD 62-74 
 
 MUNDAY, ANTHONY 74-78 
 
 PHCENIX' NEST 133-146 
 
 RALEIGH, SIR WALTER 138 
 
 ROBINSON, CLEMENT (A Handful of Pleasant 
 
 Delights} 125-132 
 
 SHEPPARD, SAMUEL [?] 86 
 
 SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP 1-9 
 
 TOFTE, ROBERT 79-80 
 
 WROTH, LADY MARY 80-82 
 
 YOUNG, BARTHOLOMEW 52
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: c. WHITTINGHAM AND co., 
 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES 
 
 COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below. 
 
 DEC 9 '84 14 D/ 
 27 MM '84 
 
 Book Slip-35m-7,'63(D863484)4280
 
 UCLA-College Library 
 
 PR 1207 B87p 
 
 L 005 666 397 4 
 
 College 
 Library 
 
 PR 
 
 1207 
 
 B87p