You would have died.

Men.

20

What can flock-owners do, When venture knaves the like? Did I not

see

You, villain, Damon's he-goat catch by craft,

Lycisca in full bark? And when I cried, "Now whither doth yon fellow hie him off?

O Tityrus, collect thy flock,"-you skulked Behind the rush-plats.

Dam. Should he not, when beat In playing, give the he-goat up to me, Which my reed-pipe had by its warblings won?

Should you not know it, that he-goat was mine;

And Damon did himself acknowledge it To me, but said he could not give it up.

30

Men. In playing you beat him? Or hath a pipe,

With wax cemented, e'er belonged to you? Were you not in the crossways, dunder

head,

"Soft! Whither away so fast?

A true man, or a thief, that gallops so?" Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, iv. 3. 26. "Contemned of all! and kicked too! Now I find it:

36.

My valour's fled, too, with mine honesty ;
For since I would be knave I must be coward."
Beaumont and Fletcher, The False One, iii. 2.

"Gracculo. Our most humble suit is, We may not twice be executed.

Timoleon. Twice! How meanest thou?
Grac. At the gallows first, and after in a ballad
Sung to some villainous tune."

Massinger, Bondman, v. 3.
"You shall scrape, and I will sing,
A scurvy ditty to a scurvy tune."
Duke of Milan, ii. 1.

See Milton's Lycidas: "And when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw."

pete.

Of heav'n-inspired Alcimedon, whereon,
Embossed upon them with an easy tool,
A limber vine attires the berry tufts,
Profusely scattered by the ivy wan.

44. Spenser has imitated this passage; Sh. Cal., March, 40:

"For, alas! at home I have a syre, A stepdame eke, as hote as fyre, That dewly adayes counts mine.' So the unfortunate Imogen complains of "A father cruel, and a stepdame false." Shakespeare, Cymbeline, i. 7. "A father? No!

In kinde a father, not in kindlinesse." Thomas Sackville, Ferrex and Porrex, i. 1. 46. "His corn and cattle served the neighbour

towns

With plentiful provision, yet his thrift
Could miss one beast among the herd."

J. Fletcher, The Noble Gentleman, ii. 1. 52. On a comparison of v. 38 of the Latin with Ec. v. 42, it seems doubtful that Salmasius and La Cerda are right in taking torno to mean a "" lathe," and superaddita, "superadded." This latter word there plainly means "inscribed;" and so here it appears to have the force of "embossed over."

53. So Spenser, in his 8th Eglogue, which is amœbæan, in imitation of his predecessors, Theocritus and Virgil:

"And over them spred a goodly wilde vine, Entrailed with a wanton yvy twine." Sh. Cal., Aug. 29.

And again, he ornaments the porch of the Castle of Temperance with the ivy and vine; Faerie Queene, ii. 9, 24:

"Of hewen stone the porch was fayrely wrought, Stone more of valew, and more smooth and fine, Then iett or marble far from Ireland brought: Over the which was cast a wandring vine, Enchaced with a wanton yvie twine."

The same image of trailing ivy is reproduced in an exquisite passage in the description of a fountain in the "Bower of Bliss;" F. Q., ii. 12, 61: "And over all of purest gold was spred A trayle of yvie in his native hew; For the rich metall was so coloured, That wight, who did not well avis'd it vew, Would surely deeme it to bee yvie trew: Low his lascivious armes adown did creepe, That themselves dipping in the silver dew Their fleecy flowres they fearfully did steepe, Which drops of christall seemd for wantones to weep."

This had a brother (his name I knew)," &c. Gay is more true to pastoral life than any of his predecessors: his swains have not even heard of philosophers. See the Shepherd's Week, Monday, 20-30.

64. Shakespeare's song in Henry the Eighth will readily occur to the reader; iii. 1:

"Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bend themselves when he did sing:
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers,
There had been a lasting spring.

"Every thing that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,

Hung their heads, and then lay by:

In sweet music is such art-
Killing care and grief of heart

Fall asleep, or, hearing, die."

Dryden puts the immortal Purcell before Orpheus: "We beg not hell our Orpheus to restore; Had he been there,

Their sovereign's fear

Had sent him back before.

The power of harmony too well they knew: He long ere this had tuned their jarring sphere, And left no hell below." Elegy on the Death of Mr. Purcell. "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast, To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. I've read that things inanimate have moved, And, as with living souls, have been informed By magic numbers and persuasive sound."

Congreve, The Mourning Bride, I. i. 1-5.

Hear these, or let Palemon, who, behold, Is coming. I shall manage that henceforth You do not challenge any man at song.

Dam. Come, then, if aught thou hast; in me delay

There shall be none, nor any man I fly; Only, Palæmon neighbor, these store up Within thy deepest thoughts—the matter is No trifle.

Palamon. Sing ye on, since we our seats Have ta'en together on the velvet turf; 79 And now teems every field, now every tree, Now leaf the woods, now fairest is the year. Begin, Damotas; thou shalt follow then, Menalcas: in alternate strains ye'll sing : Camenian [maidens] love alternate strains. Dam. From Jove, ye muses, is my spring [of song];

Of Jove are all things full; he tends the lands;

For him my lays an interest possess.

Men. And me doth Phoebus love; his rightful gifts

For Phoebus are for ever [found] with meHis bays, and sweetly-blushing martagon. 90

Dam. Me with an apple Galatea peltsThe wanton maid-and towards the willow trees

She hies, and longs that she may first be

seen.

Men. Aye, but to me presents himself unasked

My flame Amyntas, so that Delia is
No longer more familiar to our dogs.

Dam. For my own Venus presents are procured;

For I myself marked out the spot, whereon The airy culvers have amassed [their nest]. Men. That which I could, ten golden apples culled,

72.

100

"I loathe to brawl with such a blast as thou, Who art nought but a valiant voice; but if Thou shalt provoke me further, men shall say, 'Thou wert,' and not lament it."

Beaumont and Fletcher, Philaster, i. 2. 73. Lacessas (v. 51) would seem to mean "challenge," and not "provoke," for the reasons which • are given by Dr. Trapp.

78. Palæmon might have replied:

"Why, look you, sir! I can be as calm as silence
All the while music plays. Strike on, sweet friend,
As mild and merry as the heart of innocence."
T. Middleton, The Mayor of Queenborough, iii. 1.
93. "He kissed her, and breathed life into her lips,
Wherewith, as one displeased, away she trips;
Yet, as she went, full often looked behind."
C. Marlowe, Hero and Leander, Sestiad iii. 3-6.
66 A brisk Arabian girl came tripping by ;
Passing she cast at him a side-long glance,
And looked behind in hopes to be pursued."
J. Dryden, Don Sebastian, iv. r.

From off a wild-wood tree, I to my boy
Have sent; to-morrow other [ten] I'll send.
Dam. Oh! times how many, and what
[honied words],

To us hath Galatea said! Some part,
O breezes, waft ye to the ears of gods.

Men. What boots it that, Amyntas, thou dost not

Disdain me in thy very soul, if whilst The boars thou huntest, I watch o'er the nets?

Dam. Send Phyllis to me; 'tis my natal-day,

:

Iollas when I for the crops shall make
An off'ring with a heifer, come thyself.
Men. I Phyllis love 'fore other maids;
for she

112

At my departure wept, and long she cried, "Handsome Iollas, fare thee well, farewell."

Dam. The wolf is ruefulness to folds, To ripened fruit are showers, to the trees Are storms, to us is Amaryllis' wrath.

Men. To seeded crops is moisture a delight,

To weaned kids the arbute, willow lithe
To teeming flock, Amyntas is alone to me.
Dam. Our Muse doth Pollio affect,
although

It is agrestic: O Pierian dames,
Do ye a heifer for your reader feed.

ΙΟΙ.

121

Men. Yea, Pollio doth e'en himself compose

"Here be grapes, whose lusty blood
Is the learned poet's good;

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown

Than the squirrel's teeth that crack them:
Deign, O fairest fair, to take them.

For these black-eyed Dryope

Hath oftentimes commanded me
With my claspèd knee to climb."

J. Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess, i. 1. A Philips gracefully expands the idea: Past. 1: "How would I wander every day to find

The choice of wildings, blushing through the rind!

For glossy plums how lightsome climb the tree! How risk the vengeance of the thrifty bee!" 103. "His lip is softer, sweeter than the rose;

His mouth, and tongue, with dropping honey flows." Ben Johnson, Sad Shepherd, ii. 2. "Oh! Charm me with the music of thy tongue! I'm ne'er so blest, as when I hear thy vows, And listen to the language of thy heart." Otway, The Orphan, ii. end.

108. "We prune the orchards, and you cranch the fruit."

"For 'tis no trusting to yon foolish lowt." Two Gentlemen of Verona, iv. 4. 150. Or, perhaps, viewing nescio quis as an idiom:

They scarcely hold together by the bones:
Some eye or other witches my soft lambs.
"Yet pity me, Leneothoe, cure the wound
Thine eyes have made; pity a begging king;
Uncharm the charms of thy bewitching face,
Or thou wilt leave me dead."

T. May, The Heir, iv.

"My venom eyes

Strike innocency dead at such a distance." Beaumont and Fletcher, The Coxcomb, v. 2. "His eyes shoot poison at me; ha! he has Bewitched me, sure. Shirley, The Brothers, iv. 1. "You leer upon me, do you? There's an eye Wounds like a leaden sword."

Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, v. 2. 155. To this Milton seems to allude in Lycidas, where he speaks of Cam "footing slow," with "his bonnet-sedge,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower, inscribed with woe." And Young more directly, Night iii. 271, 2: "As poets feign'd from Ajax' streaming blood

Arose, with grief inscribed, a mournful flower." 160, 161. Or, if this be considered too free a version, the passage may be more literally rendered thus:

And whosoe'er may either dread sweet loves,
Or may the bitter prove.

But what these lines have to do with the matter in dispute nobody apparently can tell. According to the received text, they seem to furnish simple nonsense, from which no unauthorised supply of imaginary ellipses appears to relieve them. Heyne would cut the matter very short by evicting them at once, though all the manuscripts agree in conferring a legal title on these very troublesome tenants. Anthon alters the text without improving the sense. The emendation proposed by Wagner is extremely slight, and hardly unwarrantable. prefixes an "H" before the first "aut;" and so the passage assumes this form:

"Et quisquis amores

He

Haut metuet dulces, aut experietur amaros ;" which, paraphrased, yields the following meaning:

And (this appears from the experience of you both, that) whosoever is not afraid of love, (and therefore admits it into his heart,) will find it (one or other of two very opposite things, either) sweet or (else) bitter. (He clearly runs a great risk, and therefore perhaps he had better have nothing to do with it.)

Yet does not this come in very awkwardly, as part of a solemn judgment upon the relative merits

Or prove the gall, of love. Now shut ye up

161

The rills, my swains; the meads have drunk enough.

of two aspirants for poetic fame, who, however coarse, or worse than coarse, either or both may have been, were plainly very accomplished composers? But even if it were not awkward, surely it is commonplace and weak. After such a trial of extreme skill, it was unsatisfactory enough to be told that the issue of it was a drawn battle; but to receive the further announcement, that love was either honey or gall, must have seemed to them very like trifling with their disappointment.

Perhaps the explanation of Ruæus is as good as any: "Whoever is able to express, in the masterly way that you have done, the various effects of love."

Spenser makes Sir Scudamore agree with Palæmon's premises, though not in the implied advice which the above interpretation attributes to him: Faerie Queene, iv. 10, 1:

"True he it sayd, whatever man it sayd,

That love with gall and hony doth abound;
But if the one be with the other wayd,
For every dram of hony, therein found,
A pound of gall doth over it redound:
That I too true by triall have approved;
For since the day that first with deadly wound
My heart was launcht, and learned to have loved,

I never ioyed howre, but still with care was moved."

Shakespeare, too, introduces Venus predicting this heavy curse upon Love for the death of her lover:

"Since thou art dead, lo! here I prophesy, Sorrow on love hereafter shall attend:

It shall be waited on by jealousy,

Find sweet beginning, but unsavoury end. Ne'er settled equally, but high and low; That all love's pleasure shall not match her woe." Venus and Adonis.

| And with ancestral virtues shall he rule A world at peace. But unto thee, O boy, Her earliest tiny gifts with tillage none, Her gadding ivies at each step, with baccaris,

See intermingled, and himself be seen of them;

Shall earth unbosom, and Egyptian beans,
With the acacia smiling interspersed.
The she-goats of themselves shall carry
home

Their udders swoln with milk; nor shall the herds

Huge lions fear. The cradle's self for thee Shall pour forth charming flowers, (and the snake 31

Shall die, and guileful plant of bane shall die ;

At large Assyrian spikenard grow. But

soon

As th' heroes' praises, and a father's deeds,

26. Spenser makes the earth equally obsequious to Dame Nature:

"But th' Earth herself of her owne motion,
Out of her fruitful bosom made to growe
Most dainty trees, that, shooting up anon,
Did seem to bow their bloss'ming heads full lowe
For homage unto her, and like a throne did shew.
And all the Earth far underneath her feete
Was dight with flowers, that voluntary grew
Out of the ground, and sent forth odours sweet;
Tenne thousand more of sundry sent and hew,
That might delight the smell, or please the view,
The which the nymphes from all the brooks
thereby

Had gathered, they at her footstoole threw ;
That richer seem'd than any tapestry
That princes bowres adorne with painted imagery."
Faerie Queene, vii. 7, 8, 10.

28. Such a primeval state as Milton finely describes P. L. iv. :

"About them frisking play'd All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase

In wood or wilderness, forest or den.
Sporting the lion ramp'd, and in his paw
Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
Gamboll'd before them; the unwieldy elephant,
To make them mirth, used all his might, and
wreathed

His lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly,
Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine
His braided train, and of his fatal guile
Gave proof unheeded."

34. Now is he apt for knowledge: therefore know It is a more direct and even way,

To train to virtue those of princely blood
By examples than by precepts: if by examples
Whom should he rather strive to imitate
Than his own father?"

Webster, Vittoria Corombona, ii.