With eyes caft up into the mayden's tower', The stately seates, the ladies bright of hewe, The palme-play, where, difpoyled for the game, The gravell grounde', with fleves tied on the helme®, The fecret groves, which ofte we made refounde y Swift's joke about the Maids of ho- Hearne, not attending to this etymology, abfurdly fuppofes, in one of his Prefaces, that a strong bastion in the old walls of the city of Oxford, called the MAIDENTOWER, was a prifon for confining the prostitutes of the town. z Pity. a At ball. b Rendered unfit, or unable, to play. Dazzled eyes. To tempt, to catch. • The ladies were ranged on the leads, or battlements, of the caftle to fee the play. The ground, or area, was ftrown with gravel, where they were trained in chivalry. At tournaments they fixed the fleeves of their mistreffes on fome part of their armour. h Looks. i Destroy. Recording Recording ofte what grace* ech one had founde, The wilde foreft, the clothed holtes with grene, The wide vales" eke, that harbourd us ech night, The fecret thoughtes imparted with such trust; for lowering the bonnet, or pulling off the hat. The word occurs in Chaucer, TR. CRESS. iii. 627. That fuch a raine from heaven gan A VAILE. And in the fourth book of his Boethius, "The light fire arifeth into height, and "the hevie yerthes AVAILEN by their 66 weightes." pag. 394. col. 2. edit. Urr. From the French verb AVALER, which is from their adverb AvAL, downward. See alfo Hearne's GLOSS. ROB. BR. p. 524Drayton uses this word, where perhaps it is not properly understood. ECL. iv. p. 1404. edit. 1753 With that, fhe gan to VALE her head, But not a word fhe faid, &c. "Probably the true reading is wales or walls. That is, lodgings, apartments, &c. These poems were very corruptly printed by Tottel. And And with this thought the bloud forfakes the face; "Give me accompt, where is my noble fere°, Eccho, alas, that doth my forrow rew', In the poet's fituation, nothing can be more natural and striking than the reflection with which he opens his complaint. There is also much beauty in the abruptness of his exordial exclamation. The fuperb palace, where he had passed the most pleafing days of his youth with the son of a king, was now converted into a tedious and folitary prison! This unexpected viciffitude of fortune awakens a new and interesting train of thought. The comparison of his paft and prefent circumstances recals their juvenile fports and amusements; which were more to be regretted, as young Richmond was now dead. Having described some of these with great elegance, he recurs to his first idea by a beautiful apostrophe. He appeals to the place of his confinement, once the fource of his highest pleasures: "O place of "bliss, renewer of my woes! And where is now my noble "friend, my companion is these delights, who was once your " inhabitant! Echo alone either pities or answers my question, "and returns a plaintive hollow found!" He clofes his complaint with an affecting and pathetic fentiment, much in the style of Petrarch. "To banish the miseries of my present "distress, I am forced on the wretched expedient of remembering a greater !" This is the confolation of a warm fancy. It is the philosophy of poetry. 66 Some of the following ftanzas, on a lover who prefumed to compare his lady with the divine Geraldine, have almost the ease and gallantry of Waller. The leading compliment, which has been used by later writers, is in the spirit of an Italian fiction. It is very ingenious, and handled with a high degree of elegance. Give place, ye Lovers, here before That spent your boftes and bragges in vaine: The best of yours, I dare wel faine, And therto hath a troth as just For what she fayth, ye may it truft, I could reherfe, if that I would, I knowe, I knowe, she swore with ragyng minde, There was no loffe, by lawe of kinde, She could not make the like againe t The verfification of these ftanzas is correct, the language polished, and the modulation mufical. The following stanza, of another ode, will hardly be believed to have been produced in the reign of Henry the eighth. Spite drave me into Boreas' raigne *, In an Elegy on the elder fir Thomas Wyat's death, his character is delineated in the following nervous and manly quatraines. A visage, fterne and mylde; where both did growe, A toung that ferv'd in forein realmes his king, An eye, whose judgement none affect could blind, |