Still as they ran up ; Suffolk his ax did ply, Beaumont and Willoughby Bare them right doughtily, Ferrers and Fanhope. Upon St. Crispin's day Fought was this noble fray, Which Fame did not delay, To England to carry ;

O, when shall English men With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed again Such a king Harry!

Master Edmund Spenser had done enough for the immortality of his name, had he only given us his Shepherd's Calendar, a master-piece, if any. The Colin Clout of Skoggan', under king Henry the Seventh, is pretty: but Barkley's Ship of Fools hath twenty wiser in it. Spenser is the prime pastoralist of England. My pastorals, bold upon a new strain, must speak for themselves, and the tabor striking up, if thou hast in thee any country quicksilver, thou hadst rather be at the sport, than hear thereof. Farewel.

THE READER OF HIS PASTORALS. SOMEWHAT is to be said, by way of general preparative, touching the name and nature of pastoral poesy, before I give thee my pastorals. Pastorals, as they are a species of poesy, signify feigned dialogues, or other speeches in verse, fathered upon herdsmen, whether opiliones, bubulci, &c. that is to say, shepherds, neat herds, &c. who are ordinary persons in this kind of poem, worthily therefore to be called base, or low. This, as all other forms of poesy, (excepting, perhaps, the admirable Latin Piscatories of that noble Neapolitan Sanazara) hath been received from the Greeks, and as at the second hand, from the Romans. The subject of pastorals, as the language of it ought to be poor, silly, and of the coarsest woof in appearance; nevertheless, the most high, and most noble matters of the world may be shadowed in them, and for certain sometimes are: but he who hath almost nothing pastoral in his pastorals, but the name, (which is my case), deals more plainly, because detracto velamine, he speaks of most weighty things. The Greek pastorals of Theocritus have the chief praise. Whether Virgil in his bucolics hath kept within pastoral humbleness, let Scaliger, and the nation of learned censors, dispute: the blessing which came in them to the testimonial majesty of the Christian name, out of Sibyls' monuments, cited before Christ's birth, must ever make Virgil venerable with me: and in the angels' song to shepherds at our Saviour's nativity, pastoral poesy seems consecrated. It is not of this time and place to show the originals of this invention: let it here suffice to have pointed out the best, and them so old, as may serve for prescription. The chief law of pastorals is the same which is of all poesy, and of all wise'carriage, to wit, decorum, and that not to be exceeded without leave, or without

PASTORALS.

THE FIRST ECLOGUE.

PHOEBUS full out his yearly course had run,
(The woeful Winter labouring to out-wear)
And though 'twas long first, yet at length begun
To heave himself up to our hemisphere,

For which pleas'd Heaven to see this happy hour,
O'ercome with joy, wept many a silver shower.
When Philomel, the augur of the Spring,
Whose tunes express a brother's trait'rous fact,
Whilst the fresh groves with her complaints do ring,
To Cynthia her sad tragedy doth act.

The jocund mirl, perch'd on the highest spray, Sings his love forth, to see the pleasant May. The crawling snake against the morning Sun, Like Iris shows his sundry colour'd coat, The gloomy shades and enviously doth shun, Ravish'd to hear the warbling birds to roat.

The buck forsakes the lawns where he hath fed, Fearing the hunt should view his velvet head. Through every part dispersed is the blood, The lusty Spring in fulness of her pride: Man, bird, and beast, each tree, and every flood, Highly rejoicing in this goodly tide :

Save Rowland, leaning on a ranpike 2 tree, Wasted with age, forlorn with woe was be. "Great God," quoth he, (with hands rear'd to the "Thou wise Creator of the starry light, Whose wondrous works thy essence do imply, (sky) In the dividing of the day and night :

The earth relieving with the teeming Spring, Which the late Winter low before did bring. "O thou strong Builder of the firmament, Who placed'st Phoebus in his fiery car, And for the planets wisely didst invent Their sundry mansions, that they should not jar, Appointing Cynthia mistress of the night, From Titan's flames to fetch her forked light, "From that bright palace where thou reign'st alone,

Whose floor with stars is gloriously enchas'd; Before the foot-stool of whose glittering throne Those thy high orders severally are plac'd,

Receive my vows, that may thy court ascend, Where thy clear presence all the powers attend. Skoggan. Mr. Warton thinks he must mean Skelton. C.

A tree with age beginning to decay at the top.

Shepherds' great Sovereign, graciously receive, Those thoughts to thee continually erected, Nor let the world of comfort me bereave, Whilst I before it sadly lie dejected,

Whose sins, like fogs that over-cloud the air,
Darken those beams which promis'd ine so fair.
My hopes are fruitless, and my faith is vain,
And but mere shows, disposed me to mock,
Such are exalted basely that can feign,
And none regards just Rowland of the Rock.
To those fat pastures, which flocks healthful keep,
Malice denies me entrance with my sheep.

"Yet nill I Nature enviously accuse,
Nor blame the Heavens thus hapless me to make :
What they impose, but vainly we refuse,
When not our power their punishment can slake ;
Fortune the world that towzes to and fro,
Fickle to all, is constant in my woe.

"This only rests, time shall devour my sorrow,
And to affliction minister relief,
When as there never shall succeed a morrow,
Whose labouring hours shall lengthen out my grief,
Nor in my breast care sit again so deep:
Tyring the sad night with distemper'd sleep.
"And when that time expired hath the date,
What wears out all things, lastly perish must,
And that all-searching and impartial Fate
Shall take account of long-forgotten dust,

When every being silently shall cease,
Lock'd in the arms of everlasting peace."
Now in the ocean Titan quench'd his flame,
That summon'd Cynthia, to set up her light,
And she the near'st of the celestial frame,
Sat the most glorious on the brow of night;
When the poor swain, with heaviness opprest,
To the cold earth sunk sadly down to rest.

THE SECOND ECLOGUE.

MOTTO.

MIGHT my youth's mirth become the aged years,
My gentle shepherd, father of us all,
Wherewith I wonted to delight my pheers,
When to their sports they pleased me to call.
Now would I tune my miskins' on this green,
And frame my verse, the virtues to unfold
Of that sole phenix bird, my life's sole queen,
Whose locks do stain the three times burnish'd gold.
But melancholy settled in thy spleen,

My rhymes seem harsh to thy unrelish'd taste,
Thy wits that long replenish'd have not been,
Wanting kind moisture, do unkindly waste.

WINKEN.

Well, wanton, laugh not my old age to scorn, Nor twit me so, my senses to have lost;

The time hath been, when as my hopeful morn
Promis'd as much as now thy youth can boast.

My direful cares been drawn upon my face,
In crooked lines with age's iron pen,
The morphew quite discoloured the place,
Which had the power t' attract the eyes of men.

! A little bagpipe.

MOTTO.

Even so I ween: for thy old age's fever Deems sweetest potions bitter as the gall, And thy cold palate, having lost the savour, Receives no comfort by a cordial.

WINKEN.

As thou art, once was I a gamesome boy,
Ill-winter'd now, and aged as you see,
And well I know, thy swallow-winged joy
Quickly shall vanish as 'tis fled from me.
When on the arch of thy eclipsed eyes,
Time shall have deeply character'd thy death,
And sun-burnt age thy kindly moisture dries,
Thy wasted lungs be niggards of thy breath;
Thy brawn-fall'n arins and thy declining back
To the sad burthen of thy years shall yield,
And that thy legs their wonted force shall lack,
Able no more thy wretched trunk to wield.
Now am I like the knotty aged oak,
Whom wasting time hath made a tomb for dust,
That of his branches reft by tempest's stroke,
His bark consumes with canker-worms and rust.

1

And though thou seem'st like to the bragging bryer,
And spread'st thee like the morn-lov'd marygold,
Yet shall thy sap be shortly dry and seer,
Thy gawdy blossoms blemished with cold.
Even such a wanton and unruly swain,
Was little Rowland, when as lately he
Upon the verge of yonder neighb'ring plain,
Carved this rhyme upon a beechen tree.

THEN this great universe no less
Can serve her praises to express :
Betwixt her eyes, the poles of love,
The host of heavenly beauties move,
Depainted in their proper stories,
As well the fixt as wandering glories,
Which from their proper orbs not go,
Whether they gyre swift or slow:
Where from their lips, when she doth speak,
The music of those spheres do break,
Which their harmonious motion breedeth:
From whose cheerful breath proceedeth
That balmy sweetness that gives birth

To every offspring of the Earth:
The structure of whose gen'ral frame,
And state wherein she moves the same,

Is that proportion, Heaven's best treasure,
Whereby it doth all poise and measure,
So that alone her happy sight
Contains perfection and delight.

мотто.

O divine love! which so aloft can raise,
And lift the mind out of the earthly mire,
And dost inspire us with so glorious praise,
As with the Heavens doth equal man's desire:
What doth not help to deck thy holy shrine,
With Venus' myrtle and Apollo's tree?
Who will not say that thou art most divine,
At least, confess a deity in thee?

WINKEN.

A foolish boy, full ill is he repay'd:

For now the wanton pines in endless pain,
And sore repents what he before mis-said.
So may they be, which can so lewdly feign.
Now hath this yonker torn his tressed locks,
And broke his pipe which was of sound so sweet,
Forsaking his companions and their flocks,
And casts his garland loosely at his feet.
And being shrouded in a homely coat,
And full of sorrow, (I him sitting by)
He turn'd his rebec to a mournful note,
And thereto sung this doleful elegy:

"UPON a bank with roses set about,
Where turtles oft sit joining bill to bill,
And gentle springs steal softly murm'ring out,
Washing the foot of Pleasure's sacred hill:
There little Love sore wounded lies,
His bow and arrows broken,
Bedew'd with tears from Venus' eyes,
Oh, grievous to be spoken!

"Bear him my heart, slain with her scornful eye,
Where sticks the arrow which that heart did kill,
With whose sharp pile, request him, ere he die,
About the same to write his latest will;

And bid him send it back to me,
At instant of his dying,
That cruel, cruel she, may see,
My faith and her denying. ́

His chapel be a mournful cypress' shade,
And for a chantry Philomel's sweet lay,
Where prayers shall continually be made
By pilgrim lovers passing by that way,

With nymphs' and shepherds' yearly moan,
His timeless death beweeping,
In telling that my heart alone
Hath his last will in keeping."
MOTTO.

Woe's the for him that pineth so in pain,
Alas, poor Rowland, how for him I grieve!
That such a bait should breed so foul a bane,
Yet she not deign his sorrow to relieve.

THE THIRD ECLOGUE.

PERKIN

ROWLAND, for shame, awake thy drowsy Muse,
Time plays the hunt's-up to thy sleepy head;
Why ly'st thou here, whilst we are ill bested,
Foul idle swain?

Who ever heard thy pipe and pleasing vein,
And now doth hear this scurvy minstrelsy,
Tending to nought, but beastly ribaldry,
That doth not muse?

Then slumber not with dull Endymion;
But tune thy reed to dapper verilayes,
And sing awhile of blessed Beta's praise,'
Of none but she.

Above the rest so happy may'st thou be,
For learned Colin lays his pipes to gage,
And is to Fayrie gone a pilgrimage,
The more our moan.

ROWLAND.

What, Beta, shepherd? she is Pan's belov'd,
Fair Beta's praise beyond our strain doth stretch,
A note too high for my poor pipe to reach,
An oaten reed.

The most unfit to speak of worthy's deed,
I'll set my song unto a lower key,
Whereas a horn-pipe I may safely play,
And unreprov'd.

With flattery my Muse could never fadge,
Nor could this vain scurrility affect,
From looser youth to win a light respect,
Too base and vile..

Me that doth make, that I care not the while,
Myself above Tom Piper to advance,
Which so bestirs him at the Morrice-dance,
For penny wage.

PERKIN.

Rowland, so toys esteemed often are,
And fashions ever vary with the time,
But since the season doth require some rhyme,
With lusty glee,

Let me then hear that roundelay of thee,
Which once thou sang'st to me in Janevier,
When Robin-red-breast, sitting on a briar,
The burthen bare.

ROWLAND.

Well, needs I must, yet with a heavy heart, Yet were not Beta, sure, I would not sing, Whose praise the echoes cease not yet to ring Up to the skies.

PERKIN.

Be blythe, good Rowland, then, and clear thine eyes,
And since good Robin to his roost is gone,
Supply his want, and put two parts in one,
To show thy art.

ROWLAND.

“STAY, Thames, to hear my song, thờu great and

famous flood,

Beta alone the phenix is of all thy wat'ty brood,
The queen of virgins only she,

The king of floods allotting thee.

Of all the rest, be joyful then to see this happy day, Thy Beta now alone shall be the subject of my lay,

Ff

With dainty and delightsome strains of dapper

verilayes:

[praise; Come, lovely shepherds, sit by me, to tell our Beta's And let us sing so high a verse, [sing, Her sovereign virtues to rehearse, That little birds shall silent sit to hear us shepherds Whilst rivers backward bend their course, and flow up to their spring.

Range all thy swans, fair Thames, together on a ránk, [ing bank, And place them each in their degree upon thy windAnd let them set together all, Time keeping with the water's fall:

And crave the tuneful nightingale to help them with her lay. [our May. The woosel and the throstle-cock, chief music of

See what a troop of nymphs come leading hand in hand, [the strand:

In such a number that well-near they take up all And hark, how merrily they sing,

That makes the neighbouring meadows ring, And Beta comes before alone, clad in a purple pall, And as the queen of all the rest, doth wear a coronal. "Trim up her golden tresses with Apollo's sacred tree, Whose tutage and especial care I wish her still That for his darling hath prepar'd A glorious crown as her reward,

[to be,

Not such a golden crown as haughty Cesar wears, But such a glittering starry one as Ariadne bears.

"Maids, get the choicest flowers, a garland and entwine, [eglantine, Nor pinks, nor pansies, let there want, be sure of See that there be store of lilies,

(Call'd of shepherds daffadillies) [flower-de-lis,

With roses damask, white, and red, the dearest The cowslip of Jerusalem, and clove of Paradise. "O thou great eye of Heaven, the day's most dearest light,

[night,

With thy bright sister Cynthia, the glory of the And those that make ye seven,

To us the near'st of Heaven, And thou, O gorgeous Iris, with all thy colours dy'd, When she streams forth her rays, then dash'd is all your pride.

"In thee whilst she beholds (O flood!) her heavenly face, [her embrace,

cious sea,

The sea-gods in their wat'ry arms would gladly Th' enticing Syrens in their lays, And Tritons do resound her praise, Hasting with all the speed they can unto the spa[holyday. And thro' all Neptune's court proclaim our Beta's "O evermore refresh the root of the fat olive tree, in whose sweet shadow ever may thy banks preWith bays that poets do adorn, [served be, And myrtle of chaste lovers worn, That fair may be the fruit, the boughs preserv'd by [cease. peace, And let the mournful cypress die, and here for ever

"We'll strew the shore with pearl, where Beta walks alone, Indian stone, And we will pave her summer bower with the rich Perfume the air, and make it sweet,

For such a goddess as is meet,

sacrifice,

"Beta, long may thine altars smoke with yearly [solemnize, And long thy sacred temples may their high days Thy shepherds watch by day and night, Thy maids attend thy holy light,

And thy large empire stretch her arms from East into the West, [ing crest." And Albion on the Apennines advance her conquerPERKIN.

Thanks, gentle Rowland, for thy roundelay,

And as for Beta, burthen of thy song,
The shepherds' goddess may she flourish long,
And happy be,

And not disdain to be belov'd of thee:
Triumphing Albion, clap thy hands for joy,
That hast so long not tasted of anuoy,
Nor that thou may.

SHEPHERD, why creep we in this lowly vein,
As though our store no better us affords?
And in this season, when the stirring swain
Makes the wide fields sound with great thund'ring
words?

Not as 'twas wont, now rural be our rhymes,
Shepherds of late are waxed wond'rous neat.
Though they were richer in the former times,
We be enraged with more kinuty heat.
The wither'd laurel freshly grows again,
Which simply shadow'd the Pierian spring,
Which oft invites the solitary swain
Thither, to hear those sacred virgins sing :
Then if thy Muse bave spent her wonted zeal,
With wither'd twists thy forehead shall be bound:
But if with these she dare advance her sail,
Amongst the best then may she be renown'd.

GORBO.

Shepherd, these men at mighty things do xim,
And therefore press into the learned troop,
With filed phrase to dignify their name,
Else with the world shut in this shameful coop.