XXIV.

Farewel, ye streams, which once I loved deare Farewel, ye boys, which on your Chame do float;

Muses, farewel; if there be Muses here; Farewel, my nets, farewel my little boat: Come, sadder pipe; farewel, my meriy note: My Thomalin, with thee all sweetnesse dwell; Think of thy Thirsil, Thirsil loves thee well. Thomalin, my dearest deare, my Thomalin, farewel!

XXV.

DORUS.

Ab, haplesse boy, the fisher's joy and pride! Ah, wo is us, we cannot help thy wo!

Our pity vain: ill may that swain betide Whose undeserved spite hath wrong'd thee so. Thirsil, with thee our joy and wishes go.

XXVI.

MYRTILUS.

Dorus, some greater power prevents thy curse: So vile, so basely lives that hateful swain;

So base, so vile, that none can wish him worse. But Thirsil much a better state doth gain; For never will he find so thanklesse main.

It will be no injustice to our poet, if, while we read of Thomalin's taking leave of all the objects which were dearest to him, we have in our eye the sentiments of Theocritus's Daphnis, in his last adieu, and the thoughts of Virgil's Melibus, in

similar circumstances to Thomalin.

* Ω λύκοι, ὦ θῶες, ὦ ἀν' ωρεα φωλάδες ἄρκτοι,
Χαίρεθ· ὁ βωκόλος ύμμιν εγώ Δάφνις οὐκέτ' αν ὑλαν,
Οὐκες ̓ ἀνὰ δρυμώς, οὐκ ἄλσεα· χαῖρ ̓ Αρεθοισα,
Καὶ ποταμοὶ, τοὶ χεῖτε καλὸν κατα Θύμβριδος ύδως.
Δαφνις ἐγὼν ὁ δὲ τῆνος ὁ τας βωας ὧδε νομένων,
Δάφνις ὁ τὼς ταύρως καὶ πόρτας ὧδε ποτίςδον.

THEOC. Idyll. 1.

"You sea-born maids, that in the ocean reigne, (If in your courts is known love's matchlesse powre, Kindling his fire in your cold wat'ry bowre ;) Learn, by your own, to pity others' pain. Tryphon, thou know'st a thousand herbs in vain, But know'st not one to cure a love-sick heart'; See here a wound, that farre outgocs thy art.

The river Medway rises in what is called the Weald or woody part of Kent, and afterwards divides itself into many streams, five of which surround Tunbridge. navigable river, and at Rochester is so large as to It is a very beautiful and be the bed of the royal navy.

2 The greatest fault, perhaps, that can be found in Fletcher's poetry, is that studied quaintness of expression which is too frequently to be met with. The formality of an antithesis, which was so much the fashion of the age in which he wrote, is entirely opposite to the language of passion. It is surprising to think how universally so depraved a taste should have then prevailed, and how powerful it must have been, when Shakespeare himself was often carried away with the torrent. yet, with all this, we find that in old compositions, even these quaintnesses of expressions, which would disgust in compositions of the present time, have an effect which is sometimes not unpleasing, as they suggest to the mind the idea of a distant and less refined state of society, and of the progressive advancement of taste; reflections that always afford pleasure.

3

And

-Herbarum subjecta potentia nobis: Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis. OVID. Met. Apoll. & Daph.

XVII.

IM THELGON.

What is it then that causeth thy unrest?

Or wicked charms; or love's new-kindled fire? Ah! much I fear, love eats thy tender breast; Too well I know his never-quenched ire, Since I Amyntas lov'd, who me disdains'; And loves in me naught but my grief and pains.

IV. CHROMIS.

No lack of love did ever breed my smart;
I onely learn'd to pity others' pain,
And ward my breast from his deceiving art:
But one I love, and he loves me again:
In love this onely is my greatest sore,
He loves so much, and I can love no more.

V.

But when the fisher's trade, once highly priz'd,
And justly honour'd in those better times,
By every lozel-groom I see despis'd;

No marvel if I hate my jocund rhimes,
And hang my pipe upon a willow bough:
Might I grieve ever, if I grieve not now.

VI. THELGON.

Ah, foolish boy! why should'st thou so lament To be like him whom thou dost like so well? The prince of fishers thousand torments rent.

To Heaven, lad, thou art bound: the way by Hell. Would'st thou ador'd, and great, and merry be, When he was mock'd, debas'd, and dead for thee?

VII.

Men's scorns should rather joy than sorrow move; For then thou highest art when thou art down. Their storms of hate should more blow up my love; Their laughters my applause, their mocks my

crown.

Sorrow for him, and shame let me betide, Who for me, wretch, in shame and sorrow died.

VIII.

CHROMIS.

Thelgon, 'tis not myself for whom I plain;
My private losse full easie could I bear,
If private losse might help the public gain:

But who can blame my grief, or chide my fear,
Since now the fisher's trade and honour'd name
Is made the common badge of scorn and shame?

IX.

Little know they the fisher's toilsome pain,'

Whose labour with his age, still growing, spends His care and watchings (oft mispent in vain) [not; The early morn begins, dark evening ends not. Too foolish men, that think all labour stands In travel of the feet or tired hands!

X.

Ah, wretched fishers! born to hate and strife; To others' good, but to your rape and spoil. This is the briefest summe of usher's life,

To sweat, to freeze, to watch, to fast, to toil; Hated to love, to live despis'd, forlorn;

A sorrow to himself, all others' scorn.

See Eclogue L

XI. THELGON.

Too well I know the fisher's thanklesse pain;
Yet bear it cheerfully, nor dare repine:
To grudge at losse is fond, (too foud and vain),
When highest causes justly it assigne.
Who bites the stone, and yet the dog condemnes,
Much worse is than the beast he so contemnes.

XII.

Chromis, how many fishers dost thou know,
That rule their boats, and use their nets aright?
That neither winde, nor time, nor tide foreslow?
Such some have been; but, ah! by tempests' spite,
Their boats are lost; while we may sit and moan,
That few were such, and now those few are none.

XIII.

CHROMIS.

Ah, cruel spite, and spiteful crueltie,

That thus hath robb'd our joy and desert shore' No more our seas shall hear your melody2; [more: Your songs and thrilling pipes shall sound no Silent our shores, our seas are vacant quite. Ah, spiteful crueltie, and cruel spite!

XIV.

THELGON.

Instead of these, a crew of idle grooms,
Idle and bold, that never saw the seas,
Fearlesse succeed, and fill their empty rooms:

Some lazy live, bathing in wealth and ease: Their floating boats with waves have leave to play, Their rusty hooks all yeare keep holiday.

XV.

Here stray their skiffes, themselves are never here;
Ne'er saw their boats: ill mought they fishers be:
Meantime some wanton boy the boat doth steer,
(Poor boat the while!) that cares as much as he:
Who in a brook a wherry cannot row,
Now backs the seas, before the seas he know.

XVI. CHROMIS.

Ah, foolish lads! that think with waves to play, And rule rough seas, which never knew comFirst in some river thy new skill essay, [mand! Till time and practice teach thy weakly hand: A thin, thin plank keeps in thy vital breath: Death ready waits. Fond boyes, to play with death!

XVII.

THELGON.

Some, stretching in their boats, supinely sleep,
Seasons in vain recall'd, and windes neglecting:
Others their hooks and baits in poison steep 3,
Neptune himself with deathful drugges infecting:
The fish their life and death together drink,
And dead pollute the seas with venom'd stink.

XVIII.

Some teach to work, but have no hands to row:
Some will be eves, but have no light to see:
Some will be guides, but have no feet to go:
Some deaf, yet eares; some dumbe, yet tongues
will be:
[all;
Dumbe, deaf, lame, blinde and maim'd; yet fishers
Fit for no use, but store an hospital.

2 Sec Eclogue II.

Poisonous and pernicious doctrines, which

XIX.

Some greater, scorning now their narrow boat, In mighty hulks and ships (like courts) do dwell;

Slaving the skiffes that in their seas do float;

Their silken sails with windes do proudly swell: And make full room for luxurie and pride. Their narrow bottomes stretch they large and wide,

XX.

'Self did I see a swain not long ago,

About him thousand boats do waiting row;
Whose lordly ship kept all the rest in aw:

While all the fisher-boyes their bonnets vail,
His frowns are death, his word is firmest law;
And farre adore their lord with strucken sail.

XXI.

His eare is shut to simple fisher-swain ;

For Gemma's self (a sea-nymph great and high) Upon his boat attended long in vain :

What hope poore fisher-boy may come him

nigh?

His speech to her and presence he denied, Had Neptune come, Neptune he had defied.

XXII.

Where Tyber's swelling waves his banks o'erflow,
There princely fishers' dwell in courtly hails:
The trade they scorn, their hands forget to row;
Their trade, to plot their 1ising, others' falls:
Into their seas to draw the lesser brooks,
And fish for steeples high, with golden hooks.

while the people adopt, along with divine and necessary truths, they may be properly said to "drink their life and death together."

4 This is not the first instance that we have of the poet's using the figure of a ship and seamen in an allegorical sense. Sir David Lindsay, who wrote in the reign of James V. of Scotland, (about a hundred years before our poet) in speaking of the clergy of his time, draws a picture which has a striking resemblance to this of Fletcher's, though in rougher measure.

-To Peter and Paul though they succeed, I think they prove not that into their deed. For Peter, Andrew, and John, were fishers fine, Of men and women to the Christian faith: But they have spread their net, with hook and line, On rents, riches, on gold and other graith: Such fishing to neglect they will be laith. For why, they have fished over-thwart strands, A great part truly of all temporal lands. Christ did command Peter to feed his sheep;

And so he did them feed full tenderly; Of that command they take but little keep, But Christes sheep they spoil most piteously, And with the wool they clothe them curiously: Like greedy wolves they take of them their food: They eate their flesh, and drink both milk and blood. As who would make a steersman to a barge

Of one blind born, which can on danger see: If that ship drown, forsooth 1 say for me, Who gave the steersman such commission, Should of the ship make restitution. &c. Sir D. LINDSAY's Works, 3d B. of the Monarchy. The popes.

Oh, Prince of waters! Sovereigne of seas! Whom storms and calms, whom windes and waves obey;

If ever that great fisher did thee please,

Chide thou the windes, and furious waves allay: So on thy shores the fisher-boyes shall sing Sweet songs of peace to our sweet peace's King.

ECLOGUE V.

NICEA.

THE ARGUMENT.

Algon, walking sorrowfully along the banks of the Trent, met by Damon, who kindly enquires the cause of his affliction; but at the same time upbraids him, that, while all nature is gay and joyful, be alone should grieve. Algon describes his fee:ings, and Damon from thence discovers his passion for Nicæa. Algon complains of his fate, and Damon comforts him by teaching him how to win his mistress's affection. Nicæa herself is introduced, and yields at length to the suit of Algon, and intercession of Damon.

DAMON, ALGON, NICEA.

I.

THE well-known fisher-boy, that late his name, And place, and (ah, for pity!) mirth had

chang'd;

Which from the Muses' spring and churlish Chame Was fled, (his glory late, but now his shame;

For be with spite the gentle boy estrang'd:) Now long the Trent with his new fellows rang'd: There Damon (friendly Damon!) met the boy, Where lordly Trent kisses the Darwin coy, Bathing his liquid streams in lovers' melting joy..

II.

DAMON.

Algon, what lucklesse starre thy mirth hath blasted?
My joy in thee, and thou in sorrow drown'd.
The yeare, with winter storms all rent and wasted,
Hath now fresh youth and gentler seasons tasted:

The warmer Sun his bride hath newly gown'd, With firie arms clipping the wanton ground, And 'gets an Heaven on Earth: that primrose there, Which 'mongst those vi lets sheds his golden hair, Seems the Sunne's little sonne, fixt in his azure spheare.

Seest how the dancing lambes on flow'rie banks Forget their food, to mind their sweeter play? Seest how they skip, and, in their wanton pranks, Bond o'er the hillocks set in sportful ranks?