concerning, I wist not what, golden age, and other outrageous conceits, to which they would confine Pastoral. Whereof, I avow, I account nought at all, knowing no age so justly to be instiled golden, as this of our sovereign lady Queen Anne.

This idle trumpery (only fit for schools and schoolboys) unto that ancient Dorick Shepherd Theocritus or his mates, was never known; he rightly, throughout his fifth Idyll, maketh his louts give foul language and behold their goats at rut in all simplicity.

Ωἰπόλος ὅκκ ̓ ἐσορῇ τὰς μηκάδας οἷα βατεῦνται,

Τάκεται ὀφθαλμώς, ὅτι οὐ τράγος αὐτὸς ἔγεντο.-THEOC.

Verily, as little pleasance receiveth a true homebred taste, from all the fine finical new-fangled fooleries of this gay Gothic garniture, wherewith they so nicely bedeck their court clowns, or clown courtiers (for, which to call them rightly, I wot not) as would a prudent citizen journeying to his country farms, should he find them occupied by people of this motley make, instead of plain downright hearty cleanly folk, such as be now tenants to the wealthy burgesses of this realme.

1

Furthermore, it is my purpose, gentle reader, to set before thee, as it were a picture, or rather lively landscape of thy own country, just as thou mightest see it, didest thou take a walk into the fields at the proper season: even as maister Milton hath elegantly set forth the same:

1 The word 'wealthy' occurs in the first edition only.

As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight;
The smell of grain or tedded grass or kine
Or dairie, each rural sight, each rural sound.

Thou wilt not find my shepherdesses idly piping on oaten reeds, but milking the kine, tying up the sheaves, or if the hogs are astray driving them to their styes. My shepherd gathereth none other nosegays but what are the growth of our own fields, he sleepeth not under myrtle shades, but under a hedge, nor doth he vigilantly defend his flocks from wolves, because there are none, as maister Spenser well observeth:

Well is known that since the Saxon King
Never was wolf seen, many or some
Nor in all Kent nor in christendom.

For as much as I have mentioned maister Spenser, soothly I must acknowledge him a bard of sweetest memorial. Yet hath his shepherd's boy at some times raised his rustic reed to rhimes more rumbling than rural. Diverse grave points also hath he handled of churchly matter and doubts in religion daily arising, to great clerks only appertaining. What liketh me best are his names, indeed right simple and meet for the country, such as Lobbin, Cuddy, Hobbinol, Diggon and others, some of which I have made bold to borrow. Moreover, as he called his eclogues, the shepherd's calendar, and divided the same into the twelve months,

I have chosen (peradventure not over-rashly) to name mine by the days of the week, omitting Sunday or the Sabbath, ours being supposed to be Christian shepherds, and to be then at church worship. Yet further of many of maister Spenser's eclogues it may be observed; though months they be called, of the said months therein, nothing is specified; wherein I have also esteemed him worthy mine imitation.

It

That principally, courteous reader, whereof I would have thee to be advertised (seeing I depart from the vulgar usage) is touching the language of my shepherds; which is soothly to say, such as is neither spoken by the country maiden or* the courtly dame; nay, not only such as in the present times is not uttered, but was never uttered in times past; and, if I judge aright, will never be uttered in times future. having too much of the country to be fit for the court, too much of the court to be fit for the country; too much of the language of old times to be fit for the present, too much of the present to have been fit for the old, and too much of both to be fit for any time to come. Granted also it is, that in this my language, I seem unto myself, as a London mason, who calculateth his work for a term of years, when he buildeth with old materials upon a ground-rent that is not his own, which soon turneth to rubbish and ruins. For this point, no reason can I allege, only deep learned ensamples having led me thereunto.

But here again, much comfort ariseth in me, from

the hopes, in that I conceive, when these words in the course of transitory things shall decay, it may so hap, in meet time that some lover of simplicity shall arise, who shall have the hardiness to render these mine eclogues in'o such more modern dialect as shall be then understood, to which end, glosses and explications of uncouth pastoral terms are annexed.

Gentle Reader, turn over the leaf, and entertain thyself with the prospect of thine own country, limned by the painful hand of

thy loving Countryman,

JOHN GAY.

That Queen, he said, to whom we owe
Sweet Peace that maketh riches flow;
That Queen who eased our tax of late,
Was dead, alas !—and lay in state.

At this, in tears was Cic'ly seen,
Buxoma tore her pinners clean,
In doleful dumps stood ev'ry clown,
The parson rent his band and gown.

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