No frowning cheere dare once prefume In hir fweet face to bee. Although fome lavishe lippes, Which like fome other beft, Will fay, the blemishe on hir browe 15 20 With goodly gleames of grace; Yet when he felte the flame Gan kindle in his breft, And herd dame Nature boaft by hir To break him of his reft, His hot newe-chofen love Not blyndfold then, to gaze on hir: 40 45 He chaunged into hate, And fodeynly with mightie mace Gan rap hir on the pate. It greeved Nature muche To fee the cruell deede : Mee feemes I fee hir, how the wept To fee hir dearling bleede. Wel yet, quod fhe, this hurt 50 Lo, thus was Bridges hurt In cradel of hir kind: The coward Cupide brake hir browe The fkar ftill there remains ; No force, there let it bee: There is no cloude that can eclipfe So bright a funne, as fhe. 60 65 VII. FAIR Ver. 62. In cradel of hir kind: i. e. in the cradle of her family, Query-See Warton's obfervations, vol. 2. p. 137. VII. FAIR ROSAMON D. Most of the circumflances in this popular story of king Henry II. and the beautiful Rosamond have been taken for fact by our English Hiftorians; who, unable to account for the unnatural conduct of queen Eleanor in ftimulating her fons to rebellion, have attributed it to jealoufy, and Juppofed that Henry's amour with Rofamond was the object of that paffion. Our old English annalists seem, most of them, to have followed Higden the monk of Chefter, whose account with some enlargements is thus given by Stow. "Rosamond the fayre 66 daughter of Walter lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II. "(poisoned by queen Elianor, as fome thought) dyed at "Woodflocke [A. D. 1177.] where king Henry had made for her a house of wonderfull working; so that no man or woman might come to her, but he that was inftructed by the king, or fuch as were right fecret with him touching the matter. This houfe after fome was named Laby"rinthus, or Dedalus worke, which was wrought like "to a knot in a garden, called a Maze † ; but it was com monly faid, that laftly the queene came to her by a clue of "thridde, or filke, and fo dealt with her, that she lived not long after: but when he was dead, fee was buried "at Godftow in an house of nunnes, befide Oxford, with "thefe verfes upon her tombe, 66 un "Hic jacet in tumba, Rosa mundi, non Rofa munda: "Non redolet, fed olet, quæ redolere folet. "In + Confifting of vaults under ground, arched and wall.d with brick and stone, according to Drayton. See note on his Epiftle of Rojamond. "In English thus : "The rofe of the world, but not the cleane flowre, Though he were fweete, now foully doth fhe ftinke. "A mirrour good for all men, that on her thinke.” Store's Annals, Ed. 1631. p. 154. How the queen gained admittance into Rofamond's bower is differently related. Holling fhed Speaks of it, as "the common report of the people, that the queene founde "bir out by a filken thread, which the king had drawne after him out of hir chamber with his foot, and dealt "with bir in fuch sharpe and cruell wife, that he lived 66 not long after." Vol. III. p. 115. On the other hand, in Speede's Hift. we are told that the jealous queen found. her out" by a clew of filke, fallen from Rofamund's lappe, as fhee fate to take ayre, and fuddenly fleeing from the fight of the fearcher, the end of her filke fastened to her foot, and the clev ftill unwinding, remained behinde : "which the queene followed, till fee had found what the "fought, and upon Rofamund jo vented her spleene, as the lady lived not long after." 3d Edit. p. 509. Our ballad maker with more ingenuity, and probably truth, tells us the clue was gained, by Jurprife, from the knight, who was left to guard her b wer. as much It is offervable, that none of the old writers attribute Rojamond's death to poifon, (Stow, above, mentions it meerly as a flight conjecture); they only give us to underfland, that the queen treated her barfbly; with furious menaces, we - may juppofe, and fharp expoftulations, which had fuch effect en her fpirits, that he did not long jurvive it. Indeed on ber |