You husbands, match not but for love,
Left some disliking after prove;
Women, be warn'd when you are wives,
What plagues are due to finful lives:

Then, maids and wives, in time amend,
For love and beauty will have end.

145

XXVII.

CORYDON's DOLEFUL KNELL.

This little fimple elegy is given, with fome corrections, from two copies, one of which is in “The golden garland of princely delights."

The burthen of the fong, DING DONG, &c. is at present appropriated to burlesque subjects, and therefore may excite only ludicrous ideas in a modern reader; but in the time of our poet it ufually accompanied the most folemn and mournful ftrains. Of this kind is that fine aerial Dirge in ShakeIpear's Tempeft,

"Full fadom five thy father lies,

Of his bones are corrall made;
Thoje are pearles that were his eyes;
"Nothing of him, that doth fade,
"But doth fuffer a fea-change
"Into Something rich and ftrange:

" Sea

"Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell, "Harke now I heare them, Ding dong bell.”

["Burtben, Ding dong.”]

I make no doubt but the poet intended to conclude this air in a manner the most folemn and expressive of melancholy.

M

Y Phillida, adieu love!

For evermore farewel!

Ay me! I've loft my true love,

And thus I ring her knell,

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong,

My Phillida is dead!

I'll stick a branch of willow

At my fair Phillis' head.

For my fair Phillida

Our bridal bed was made:

But 'ftead of filkes fo gay,

She in her fhroud is laid.
Ding, &c.

Her corpfe fhall be attended
By maides in fair array,
Till th' obfequies are ended,
And fhe is wrapt in clay.
Ding, &c.

5

10

15

Her

It is a custom in many parts of England, to carry a fine garland be

fore the corpfe of a woman who dies unmarried.

See above, preface to No. XI. Book II.

Inftead of faireft colours,

Set forth with curious art *,
Her image fhall be painted

On

my diftreffed heart.
Ding, &c.

35

And thereon fhall be graven

"Her epitaph fo faire,

"Here lies the lovelieft maiden,

"That e'er gave fhepheard care.
Ding, &c.

In fable will I mourne;

Blacke fhall be all my weede,

Ay me! I am forlorne,

Now Phillida is dead.

Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong,

My Phillida is dead!

I'll stick a branch of willow

At my fair Phillis' head.

40

45

*This aliudes to the painted effiges of Alabafter, anciently erected upon tombs and monuments.

THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK.

THE COMPLAINT OF CONSCIENCE.

I shall begin this THIRD BOOK with an old allegoric Satire: Amanner of moralizing, which, if it was not first introduced by the author of PIERCE PLOWMAN'S VISIONS, was at leaft chiefly brought into repute by that ancient fatirift. It is not fo generally known that the kind of verse used in this ballad hath any affinity with the peculiar metre of that writer, for which reafon I fall throw together fome curfory remarks on that very fingular fpecies of verfification, the nature of which has been fo little understood.

ON