The question of the incongruity of the various characters in Jonson's

pastoral is one which every reader of taste must decide for himself. All

that the critic can hope to do is to point out how the figures on the

stage compare with previous tradition and convention on the one hand, and

with the characters of actual life on the other. But in doing this I hope

to be able to vindicate Jonson's taste, for I believe Mr. Swinburne to be

in error in regarding the shepherds of the play as more, and the rustic

characters as less, idealized than Jonson intended them, and than they in

reality are. Were the shepherds the pure Arcadians Mr. Homer Smith asserts

them to be, and were it necessary with Mr. Swinburne to regard Scathlock

and Maudlin as mere parody and burlesque, then indeed Jonson's taste, as

exhibited in the _Sad Shepherd_, would not be worth defending. But it is

not so.

It is necessary in the first place, however, to make certain admissions.

It is true that in the fragment as we possess it there are certain

passages which pass beyond any legitimate idealization of the actual world

in which Jonson chose to lay his scene, and which contrast jarringly and

irreconcilably with the coarser threads of homespun. Thus Aeglamour, in so

far as it is possible to form an opinion, keeps too much of the artificial

Arcadianism of the Italians about him, and is hardly of a piece with the

rest of the personae. The same may be said of the name at least of Earine;

of her character it is impossible to judge--in one passage indeed we find

her talking broad dialect, but that doubtless only through an oversight of

the author. Much the same may be censured of individual passages: the

singularly out-of-place catalogue of 'Lovers Scriptures' put into the

mouth of Clarion, and, in a speech of Aeglamour's, the collocation of Dean

and Erwash, Idle, Snite, and Soar, with the nymphs and Graces that come

dancing out of the fourth ode of Horace. Some have been inclined to add an

occasional reminiscence of Sappho or so; but critics appear somewhat dense

at understanding that when Amie, for instance, speaks of 'the dear good

angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a

familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of

borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain

incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual

passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as

they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to

lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between

these and the less polished huntsmen. It should furthermore be

remembered--though the remark is perhaps strictly beside, or rather

beyond, the point--that where the incongruous elements are not

fundamental, it is always possible that they might have been removed had

the play undergone revision.

Subject to these reservations it appears to me that the characters and

general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent.

The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and

may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country

lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular

romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way

antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft

and fairy lore[289]. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far

as possible from being the conventional 'wise shepherd,' and certainly no

Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his

lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of

burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic

lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical

tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not

contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not,

since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether

necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is

going rather far to say that they 'belong to a definite age and country,'

they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be

wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson,

it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the

pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly

poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce

references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less

naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral,

introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable

characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the

same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also

noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one

passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise

incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of

Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically

something of an anachronism.

Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized

than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular

tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as

Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than

with Karol and Amie--a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood

tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it

exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the

popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock

and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely

less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That

Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found

is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like

Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect.

Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for

an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic

characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a

mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this

light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for

death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude

audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while

there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private

opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to

cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he

laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister

reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an

imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension,

removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of

romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less

idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but

regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more

in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the

shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and

other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition.

There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the

ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the

groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher

than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the

whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it

is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it

not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere

literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not

only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have

been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum

true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his

day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters

not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we

should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised

fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author

decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his _English Grammar_ shows,

was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and

it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral

himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of

language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have

escaped his critical eye.

Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor

importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in

previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in

popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a

veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it

remained unfinished at the death of its author.

* * * * *

In 1783 F. G. Waldron published his continuation of Jonson's fragment.

This work, while betraying throughout the date of its composition, and

falling in every respect short of the original, yet catches some measure

of its glamour and charm, and has received deserved, if somewhat

qualified, praise at the hands of Jonson's critics. The chief faults of

the piece are the writer's anxiety to marry every good character and

convert every bad one, and the manner in which the dramatic climax by

which Aeglamour and Earine should be brought together is frittered away.

The shepherdess is duly released from the hands of the lewd Lorel, but

only to find that her lover has drowned himself. The hermit is, of course,

introduced to revive the Sad Shepherd and restore his wits, and so all

ends happily. The only original passage of any particular merit is the

hunter's dirge over the drowned Aeglamour, which is perhaps worth

quoting[290]:

The chase is o'er, the hart is slain!

The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain;

With breath of bugles sound his knell,

Then lay him low in Death's drear dell!

Nor beauteous form, nor dappled hide,

Nor branchy head will long abide;

Nor fleetest foot that scuds the heath,

Can 'scape the fleeter huntsman, Death.

The hart is slain! his faithful deer,

In spite of hounds or huntsman near,

Despising Death, and all his train,

Laments her hart untimely slain!

The chase is o'er, the hart is slain!

The gentlest hart that grac'd the plain;

Blow soft your bugles, sound his knell,

Then lay him low in Death's drear dell!

(Act IV.)

Chapter VI.

The English Pastoral Drama

I

We have seen in an earlier chapter what had been achieved within the

limits of the mythological drama proper, and also how it had fared with

the attempts to introduce the Italian pastoral into England either by way

of translation or of direct imitation. We have also seen how, in three

notable compositions, three different and variously gifted artists had

endeavoured to produce a form of pastoral drama suited to the requirements

of the English stage, and how they had each in turn fallen short of

complete success. We have now to consider a series of plays, less

distinguished on the whole, though varying greatly in individual merit,

which, amid the luxuriant growth of the romantic drama, tended, in a more

spontaneous and less purposeful manner, towards the creation of something

of a pastoral tradition. We shall find in thèse plays a considerable

traditional influence, a groundwork, as it were, borrowed from the

Arcadian drama of Italy, together with frequent elements owing their

origin to plays of the mythological type. But in the great majority of

cases we shall also find another influence, which will serve to

differentiate these plays from those we have been hitherto concerned with.

This is the influence of the so-called pastoral romances of the Spanish

type, which manifests itself in the introduction of characters and

incidents, warlike, courtly, or adventurous, borrowed more or less

directly from the works of writers such as Sidney, Greene, and Lodge.

Their influence was extended and enduring, and survived until, towards the

middle of the seventeenth century, the fashionable tradition of the

_Astrée_ was introduced from France[291]. It was evinced both in a general

manner and likewise in direct dramatic adaptation. Since the romances

thus dramatized lay claim to a pastoral character, it will be necessary

for us to examine as briefly as may be these stage versions, however

little of the pastoral element may survive, as a preliminary to

considering other plays in which the debt is less specific.

There are extant at least seven plays founded upon Sidney's

_Arcadia_.[292] Since these appear to be wholly independent of one

another, it will be convenient to disregard chronology, and to consider

first those which have for subject the main story of the romance, four in

number, and then the remaining three founded upon various incidents.

First, then, and most important, Shirley's play bearing the same title as

the romance will claim our attention as the most full and faithful

stage-rendering of Sidney's work. Although not printed till 1640 the play

was, according to Mr. Fleay's plausible conjecture, performed on the

king's birthdayas early as 1632. It cannot exactly be pronounced a good

play, but the dramatization is effected in a manner which does justice to

the very great abilities of the author, and the same measure of success

would probably not have been attained by any other dramatist of the time.

At the opening of the play we find that Basilius, king of Arcadia, has, in

consequence of a threatening oracle, committed the government of his

kingdom into the hands of a nobleman Philanax, and retired into a rural

'desert' along with his wife Gynecia and his daughters Philoclea and

Pamela. Here they live in company with the 'most arrant dotish clowne'

Dametas, his wife Miso and daughter Mopsa, rustic characters which supply

a coarsely farcical element in the plot, certainly no less out of place

and inharmonious in the play than in the romance. There are also the

cousins Pyrocles and Musidorus, son and nephew respectively to Euarchus,

king of Thessaly, who have arrived in quest of the princesses' loves, and

have obtained positions near the objects of their affection, the one

disguised as an Amazon under the name of Zelmane, the other seeking

service under Dametas and assuming the name of Dorus. Complications,

moreover, have already arisen, Basilius falling in love with the supposed

Amazon, while Gynecia sees through the disguise and falls in love with the

concealed Pyrocles. The disguised lover, in order to allay suspicion, has

to feign a return of love to the queen and also to humour the dotage of

the king, in the meanwhile revealing himself and his love to Philoclea,

whom her father employs to court the affections of the Amazon. Musidorus,

on his part, while pretending to court Mopsa, takes the opportunity of

addressing his suit to Pamela. At length all is arranged, the princesses

consenting to accompany their lovers in flight, and the various guardians

being cleverly duped. Pyrocles gives rendezvous both to Basilius and

Gynecia in a dark and lonely cave, Dametas is sent to dig for hidden

treasure, Miso to seek her maligned husband in the house of one of her

female neighbours, and Mopsa to await the coming of Apollo in the

wishing-tree. Musidorus and Pamela make for the coast, while Pyrocles goes

to fetch his mistress Philoclea. While, however, he is endeavouring to

persuade her to take the final and irrevocable step, they are both

overcome by a strange drowsiness and are discovered by Dametas, who,

disappointed of his treasure, has missed his charge Pamela and comes to

give the alarm. Musidorus and his mistress on their side have been

captured by outlaws, who, discovering their identity, bring them back,

hoping thereby to secure their own pardons. In the meantime, in the cave

Gynecia has given Basilius by mistake for Zelmane a love potion, which

turns out apparently to be a strong narcotic, for the king at once falls

into a death-like trance, and the queen, discovering her mistake and

overcome by shame and remorse, accuses herself publicly of having poisoned

her husband, and is consequently put under guard. At this juncture

Euarchus happens to arrive in search of his son and nephew, and consents

to act as judge in the case. The princes, who for no apparent reason

assume false names, are brought up for judgement and sentenced to death by

Euarchus, whom, unaccountably enough, they fail to recognize. They are

about to be led off to execution when Basilius, who is lying on a bier in

the judgement hall, suddenly rises, the potion having spent its force.

Explanations and recognitions of course follow, the oracle is

satisfactorily expounded, and all ends to the sound of marriage bells.

It will be seen that in spite of the description 'pastoral' which appears

on the title-page of the play, there is little or nothing of this nature

to be found in the plot, and in this it is typical of all the plays

founded upon Sidney's romance. The only pastoral element indeed is a sort

of show or masque, presented by the rustic characters in company with

certain shepherds, and even here little of a pastoral nature is visible

beyond the characters of the performers. As a play, the _Arcadia_ is

distinctly pleasing; the action is bright and easy, the gulling scenes are

very entertaining, and some of the love scenes, notably that in which

Pyrocles endeavours to persuade Philoclea to escape with him, are

charmingly written. Take for instance the following passage, in which the

princess confesses her love:[293]

such a truth

Shines in your language, and such innocence

In what you call affection, I must

Declare you have not plac'd one good thought here,

Which is not answer'd with my heart. The fire

Which sparkled in your bosom, long since leap'd

Into my breast, and there burns modestly:

It would have spread into a greater flame,

But still I curb'd it with my tears. Oh, Pyrocles,

I would thou wert Zelmane again! and yet,

I must confess I lov'd thee then; I know not

With what prophetick soul, but I did wish

Often, thou were a man, or I no woman.

_Pyrocles._ Thou wert the comfort of my sleeps.

_Philoclea._ And you

The object of my watches, when the night

Wanted a spell to cast me into slumber;

Yet when the weight of my own thoughts grew heavy

For my tear dropping eyes, and drew these curtains,

My dreams were still of thee--forgive my blushes--

And in imagination thou wert then

My harmless bedfellow.

_Pyr._ I arrive too soon

At my desires. Gently, oh gently, drop

These joys into me! lest, at once let fall,

I sink beneath the tempest of my blessings. (III. iv.)

Or again when he urges her to escape:

I could content myself

To look on Pyrocles, and think it happiness

Enough; or, if my soul affect variety

Of pleasure, every accent of thy voice

Shall court me with new rapture; and if these

Delights be narrow for us, there is left

A modest kiss, where every touch conveys

Our melting souls into each other's lips.

Why should not you be pleas'd to look on me?

To hear, and sometimes kiss, Philoclea?

Indeed you make me blush. [_Draws a veil over her face_.]

_Pyr._ What an eclipse

Hath that veil made! it was not night till now.

Look if the stars have not withdrawn themselves,

As they had waited on her richer brightness,

And missing of her eyes are stolen to bed. (ib.)

These passages display the tenderer side of Shirley's gift at its best,

and prove that, had he but set himself the task, he possessed the very

style needed for a successful imitation of the Italian pastoral adapted to

the temper of the English romantic drama.

But Shirley's, though the most complete, was not the earliest attempt at

placing Sir Philip's romance upon the boards. As long before as 1605 was

acted Day's _Isle of Gulls_, a farcical and no doubt highly topical play,

which is equally founded on the _Arcadia_, though it follows the story far

less closely. Day's title was probably suggested by Nashe's _Isle of

Dogs_, a satirical play performed in 1597, which brought its author into

trouble, but if it deserves Mr. Bullen's epithet of 'attractive,' it must

be admitted that it is almost the only part of the play to which that

epithet can be applied. Day was in no wise concerned to maintain the

polished and artificial dignity of the original; his satiric purpose

indeed called for a very different treatment. The _Isle of Gulls_ is a

comedy of the broadest and lowest description, almost uniformly lacking in

charm, notwithstanding a certain skill of dramatization, and the

occurrence of passages which are good enough of their kind. It will easily

be conceived that a highly ideal and romantic plot treated in the manner

of the realistic farce of low life may offer great opportunities of

satiric effect; but it must have made the courtly Sidney turn in his grave

to see his gracious puppets debased into the vulgar rogues and trulls of

the lower-class London drama. Day in no wise sought to hide his

indebtedness, but on the contrary acknowledged in the Induction that his

argument is but 'a little string or Rivolet, drawne from the full streine

of the right worthy Gentleman, Sir Phillip Sydneys well knowne Archadea.'

The chief differences between the play and its source are as follows.

Basilius and Gynetia--as Day writes the name--are duke and duchess of

Arcadia[294]--near which, apparently, the island is situated--Philoclea

and Pamela become Violetta and Hipolita, Pyrocles and Musidorus appear as

Lisander and Demetrius, Philanax and Calander from being lords of the

court become captains of the castles guarding the island, and Dametas

comes practically to occupy the post of Lord Chamberlain. Among the more

important characters Euarchus disappears and Aminter and Julio, rivals of

the princes in the ladies' loves, are added, as also Manasses,

'scribe-major' to Dametas. When the princes have at last prevailed upon

their loves to elope with them, and tricked as before their various

guardians into leaving the coast clear, they are in their turn persuaded

to leave the ladies in the charge of their disguised rivals, who, of

course, secure them as their prizes. Thus the gulling is singularly

complete all round, not least among the gulled being the audience, whose

sympathy has been carefully enlisted on the princes' behalf. The last

scene, in which all the characters forgather from their various ludicrous

occupations, is, as might be expected, one of considerable confusion,

which is rendered all the more confounded by frequent errors in the

speakers' names, which remain in spite of the labours of Day's

editor.[295]

If we approach the play with Sir Philip's romance in our mind, the

characters cannot but appear one and all offensive. In every case Day has

indulged in brutal caricature. The courtly characters are represented from

the point of view of a prurient-minded bourgeoisie; the rustic figures are

equally gross in their vulgarity; while the traitor Dametas, who serves as

a link between the two classes, is an upstart parasite, described with a

satiric touch not unworthy of Webster as 'a little hillock made great with

others' ruines.' But if we are content to forget the source of the play,

we may take a rather more charitable view. Not all the characters are

consistently revolting, several, including the princesses, having at times

a fine flavour of piquant roguishness, at others a touch of easy

sentiment. For a contemporary audience, of course, there were other points

of attraction in the play, for the satirical intent is sufficiently

obvious, though it is needless for us here to inquire into the personages

adumbrated, that investigation belonging neither to pastoral nor to

literary history properly speaking. By far the cleverest as well as the

most pleasing scene in the play is that introducing a game of bowls,[296]

during which Lisander courts Violetta in long-drawn metaphor. Part at

least of this brilliant double-edged word-play must be quoted, even though

the verse-capping may at times pass the bounds of strict decorum:

_Duke._ Doth our match hold?

_Duchess._ Yes, whose part will you take?

_Duke._ Zelmanes.

_Duchess._ Soft, that match is still to make.

_Violetta._ Lets cast a choice, the nearest two take one.

_Lisander._ My choice is cast; help sweet occasion.

_Viol._ Come, heere's agood.

_Lis._ Well, betterd.

_Duch._ Best of all:

_Lis._ The Duke and I.

_Duke._ The weakest goe to the wall.

_Viol._ Ile lead.

_Lis._ Ile follow.

_Viol._ We have both one mind.

_Lis._ In what?

_Viol._ In leaving the old folke behinde.

_Duke._ Well jested, daughter; and you lead not faire,

The hindmost hound though old may catch the hare.

_Duch._ Your last Boule come?

_Viol._ By the faith a me well led.

_Lis._ Would I might lead you.

_Viol._ Whither?

_Lis._ To my bed.

_Viol._ I am sure you would not.

_Lis._ By this aire I would.

_Viol._ I hope you would not hurt me and you should.

_Lis._ Ide love you, sweet ...

_Duke._ Daughter, your bowle winnes one.

_Viol._ None, of my Maidenhead, Father; I am gone:

The Amazon hath wonne one.

_Lis._ Yield to that.

_Viol._ The cast I doe.

_Lis._ Yourselfe?

_Viol._ Nay scrape out that. (II. v.)[297]

The unprinted dramas founded on the _Arcadia_ need not detain us long.

One is preserved in a volume of manuscript plays in the British Museum,

and is entitled _Love's Changelings' Change_.[298] It is written in a hand

of the first half of the seventeenth century, small and neat, but, partly

on account of the porous nature of the paper, exceedingly hard to read.

The dramatis personae include a full cast from the _Arcadia_; and somewhat

more stress appears to be laid on the pastoral elements than is the case

in either of the printed plays. From what I have thought it necessary to

decipher, however, I see no reason to differ from Mr. Bullen, who

dismisses it as 'a dull play.'[299] The prologue may serve as a specimen

of the style of the piece.

This Scaene's prepar'd for those that longe to see

The crosse Meanders in Loves destinie;

To see the changes in a shatterd wit

Proove a man Changlinge in attemptinge it;

To change a noble minde t'a gloz'd intent

Beefore such change will let um see th' event.

This change our Famous Princes had, beefore

Their borrowed shape could speake um any more,

And nought but this our Poet feares will seize

Your liking fancies with that new disease.

Wee hope the best: all wee can say tis strange

To heare with patient eares Loves changelinges Change

--which, if this is a fair sample, is very likely true. Below the prologue

the writer has added the couplet:

Th' old wits are gone: looke for noe new thing by us,

For _nullum est jam Dictum quod non sit dictum prius_.

The other play is preserved in a Bodleian manuscript,[300] and is entitled

'The Arcadian Lovers, or the Metamorphosis of Princes.' 'The name of the

author,' writes Mr. Hazlitt following Halliwell, 'was probably Moore, for

in the volume, written by the same hand as the play, is a dedication to

Madam Honoria Lee from the "meanest of her kinsmen," Thomas Moore. A

person of this name wrote _A Brief Discourse about Baptism_, 1649.' Mr.

Falconer Madan, however, in his catalogue ascribes the manuscript to the

early eighteenth century, a date certainly more in accordance with the

character of the handwriting. If, therefore, the conjecture concerning the

author's name is correct, he may be plausibly identified with the Sir

Thomas Moore whose tragedy _Mangora_ was acted in 1717. The manuscript,

which contains various poetical essays, includes not only the complete

play, which is in prose, but also a verse paraphrase of a large portion of

the same. Neither prose nor verse possesses the least merit.[301]

The earliest of the plays founded upon episodes in the _Arcadia_ is

Beaumont and Fletcher's _Cupid's Revenge_, which was acted by the children

of the Queen's Revels, and published in 1615.[302] A revision, possibly by

another hand, has introduced considerable confusion into the titles of the

personae, but need not otherwise concern us.[303] The plot of the play is

based on two episodes in the romance, one relating to the vengeance

exacted by Cupid on the princess Erona of Lycia for an insult offered to

his worship, the other to the intrigue of prince Plangus of Iberia with

the wife of a citizen, and the tragic complications arising therefrom.

These two stories are combined by the dramatists, with no very conspicuous

skill, into one plot. Plangus and Erona, under the names of Leucippus and

Hidaspes, are represented as brother and sister, children of the old

widowed duke of Lysia. They make common cause in seeking to abolish the

worship of Cupid, and their tragedies are represented as alike due to his

offended deity. No sooner has the old duke, yielding to his daughter's

prayers, prohibited the worship of the god, than Hidaspes falls

desperately in love with the deformed dwarf Zoilus, and begs him in

marriage of her father. The duke, infuriated at such an exhibition of

unnatural and disordered affection in his daughter, causes the dwarf to be

beheaded, whereupon the princess languishes and dies.[304] In the

meanwhile Leucippus has fallen in love with Bacha, the widow of a citizen,

and frequents her house secretly, where being surprised by his father, he

protests so strongly of her chastity--hoping thereby to save her credit

and his own--that the old duke falls in love with her himself, and shortly

afterwards marries her. Having now become duchess she seeks to renew her

intercourse with the prince, and being repulsed resolves upon revenge. She

makes the duke believe that his son is plotting against him, and so

secures his arrest and condemnation, hoping thereby to obtain the crown

for Urania, her daughter by a previous marriage. The citizens, however,

rise in revolt and rescue Leucippus, who thereupon goes into voluntary

exile. He is followed by Urania, a simple and innocent girl, who, knowing

her mother's designs upon his life, hopes to counteract her malice by

attending on the prince in the disguise of a page. The duchess in fact

sends a man to murder the prince, the attempt being frustrated by Urania,

who herself receives the blow and dies, the murderer being then slain by

Leucippus. In the meanwhile the duke dies, and the friends of the prince

hasten to him, bringing with them the duchess as a prisoner. She however,

seeing her schemes doomed to failure, nurses revenge, and succeeds in

stabbing Leucippus, then turning the dagger into her own heart.[305]

More ink than was necessary has been spilt over the motive of this wildly

melodramatic play. Seward expressed an opinion that there was nothing in

the action of the brother and sister deserving such severe retribution. To

him Mason retorted, with somewhat childish seriousness, that, the

characters being supposed pagan, the speech of the princess must be held

a sacrilegious blasphemy. So Sidney no doubt intended it, and so Beaumont,

who was evidently the author of the scene in question, intended it too,

and he would possibly, if left to himself, have executed the rest in a

manner consonant with this intention. But his collaborator took the

opportunity of adding a scene between certain of the lords of the court,

in which, with characteristic coarseness, he represented the condemned

worship in the light of mere vulgar licence. The fact is that not only the

playwrights, but, no doubt, the majority of the audience as well, were

interested chiefly in the extravagance of the plot, and cared little or

nothing for the adequacy of the motive. As a drama the piece is decidedly

poor, and the construction which ends the sister's part of the tragedy in

the second act leaves much to be desired. There is, moreover, something

particularly and unnecessarily revolting in Hidaspes' passion for the

deformed dwarf, and something forced in the contrast between Leucippus'

licentious relations with Bacha at the beginning of the play and the

self-righteousness of his later attitude. Both faults are unfortunately

rather typical, one of the extravagant colouring affected by the

dramatists, the other of the coarse and hasty characterization to which

Fletcher in particular is apt to condescend. There are, however, some good

passages in the play, though it is not always easy to assign them to their

author. The scenes in which Urania appears are pretty, though inferior to

the very similar ones in the nearly contemporary _Philaster_. The song of

the maidens as they watch by their dying mistress, palinode and dirge in

one, is striking in the blending of diverse modes:

Cupid, pardon what is past,

And forgive our sins at last!

Then we will be coy no more,

But thy deity adore;

Troths at fifteen we will plight,

And will tread a dance each night,

In the fields or by the fire,

With the youths that have desire.

* * * * *

Thus I shut thy faded light,

And put it in eternal night.

Where is she can boldly say,

Though she be as fresh as May,

She shall not by this corpse be laid,

Ere to-morrow's light do fade? (II. v.)

There is a suggestion of better things, too, in the lines:

he is like

Nothing that we have seen, yet doth resemble

Apollo, as I oft have fancied him,

When rising from his bed he stirs himself,

And shakes day from his hair. (I. iii.)

The authors, or one of them, had also learned something of Shakespeare's

quaint humour, as appears in the remark:

What should he be beheaded? we shall have it grow so base shortly,

gentlemen will be out of love with it. (II. iii.)

The main plot of the above reappears in _Andromana_, a play which was

published in 1660 as 'By J. S.' It had probably never been performed when

it was printed, and though the initials were possibly intended to suggest

Shirley's authorship, there can be little doubt that he was wholly

innocent of its parentage. An allusion to Denham's _Sophy_ places the date

of composition after 1642.[306] The plot is taken direct from the

_Arcadia_, the names being retained, and there is nothing to show that the

author, whoever he may have been, knew anything of _Cupid's Revenge_. The

story, however, is practically the same except for the addition of the

episode of Plangus defeating the Argive rebels, and the omission of the

character which appears as Urania in Beaumont and Fletcher's play and as

Palladius in the original romance. The end is also slightly different.

After the prince has been rescued by the citizens, Andromana, the queen,

plots a general massacre. Plangus overhears her conversation with her

instrument and confidant, and runs him through with his sword on the spot.

At Andromana's cries the king enters, and she forthwith accuses the

prince of attempting violence towards her; the king stabs his son,

Andromana stabs the king, next the prince's friend Inophilus, and finally

herself. She seems on the whole satisfied with this performance, and with

her last breath exclaims:

I have lived long enough to boast an act,

After which no mischief shall be new.

Little need be said of this play. It is wholly lacking in distinction of

any sort or kind, and the last act with the catastrophe is a mere piece of

extravagant botching. There are, however, here and there passages which

are worth rescuing from the general wreck. One of these is the opening of

the first scene between Plangus and Andromana:

_Plangus._ It cannot be so late.

_Andromana._ Believe 't, the sun

Is set, my dear, and candles have usurp'd

The office of the day.

_Plan._ Indeed, methinks

A certain mist, like darkness, hangs on my eye-lids.

But too great lustre may undo the sight:

A man may stare so long upon the sun

That he may look his eyes out; and certainly

'Tis so with me: I have so greedily

Swallow'd thy light that I have spoil'd my own.

_And._ Why shouldst thou tempt me to my ruin thus?

As if thy presence were less welcome to me

Than day to one who, 'tis so long ago

He saw the sun, hath forgot what light is. (I. v.)

Occasional touches, too, are not without flavour:

You can create me great, I know, sir,

But good you cannot. You might compel,

Entice me too, perhaps, to sin. But

Can you allay a gnawing conscience,

Or bind up bleeding reputation? (II. v. end.)

or, again:

Shall I believe a dream?

Which is a vapour borne along the stream

Of fancy. (V. iii.)

The last in this somewhat dreary catalogue is Glapthorne's _Argalus and

Parthenia_, published in 1639 and acted probably the previous year. It is

founded on the episode related in Books I and III of the _Arcadia_,[307]

and possibly on Quarles' poem already noticed. The story is briefly as

follows. Demagoras, finding his suit to Parthenia rejected in favour of

Argalus, robs her of her beauty by means of a poisonous herb, an outrage

for which he is slain by his rival. After a while Parthenia regains her

beauty through the care and skill of the queen of Corinth, and returns to

her lover. During the marriage festivities the king sends for Argalus to

act as champion against a knight who has carried off his daughter, and

Argalus, obeying the summons, finds himself opposed to his friend

Amphialus. They fight, and Argalus is slain. Parthenia then appears

disguised as a warrior in armour, challenges Amphialus, and suffers a like

fate. With this inconsequent and unmotived tragedy is interwoven a slight

and incongruous underplot of rustic buffoonery. As a whole Glapthorne's

play is of inconsiderable merit. Here and there, however, we come upon a

passage which might make us hope better things of the author.[308] Of

Argalus it is said that

His gracions merit challenges a wife,

Faire as Parthenia, did she staine the East,

When the bright morne hangs day upon her cheeks

In chaines of liquid pearle. (I. i.)

Demagoras is a glorious warrior who would compel love as he has done fame.

Though Parthenia reminds him that

Mars did not wooe the Queen of Love in Armes,

his fierce soul yet dwells on deeds of force:

I'll bring on

Well-manag'd troops of Souldiers to the fight,

Draw big battaliaes, like a moving field

Of standing Corne, blown one way by the wind

Against the frighted enemy; (ib.)

and, remembering former conquests:

This brave resolve

Vanquish'd my steele wing'd Goddesse, and ingag'd

Peneian Daphne, who did fly the Sun,

Give up to willing ravishment, her boughes

T' invest my awfull front. (ib.)

Parthenia, healed from the poison, returns

her right

Beauty new shining like the Queen of night,

Appearing fresher after she did shroud

Her gawdy forehead in a pitchy cloud:

Love triumphs in her eyes; (III, end.)

and the pastoral poetess Sapho promises an 'epithalamy' for the bridal

pair,

Till I sing day from Tethis armes, and fire

With ayry raptures the whole morning quire,

Till the small birds their Silvan notes display

And sing with us, 'Joy to Parthenia!' (ib.)

Into her mouth, too, is put the following picture of the bride which has

some kinship with contemporary baroque in Italian architecture and

painting, and also occasionally anticipates in a remarkable manner the

diction of the following century.

The holy Priest had joyn'd their hands, and now

Night grew propitious to their Bridall vow,

Majestick Juno, and young Hymen flies

To light their Pines at faire Parthenia's eyes;

The little Graces amourously did skip,

With the small Cupids, from each lip to lip;

Venus her selfe was present, and untide

Her virgine Zone;[309] when loe, on either side

Stood as her handmaids, Chastity and Truth,

With that immaculate guider of her youth

Rose-colour'd Modestie: These did undresse

The beauteous maid, who now in readinesse,

The Nuptiall tapers waving 'bout her head,

Made poore her garments, and enrich'd her bed. (IV. i.)

So again we find single expressions which are striking, as when Parthenia

bids Amphialus, sooner than appease her wrath, to hope

To charme the Genius of the world to peace; (V.)

or when, dying, she commends herself to her dead lover:

take my breath

That flies to thee on the pale wings of death. (ib.)

And yet it would be scarcely unfair to describe these as for the most part

the beauties of decay; they are as rich embroidery upon rotten cloth, and

are achieved by careful elaboration of sensuous imagination, and the art

of arresting the attention upon a commonplace thought by the use of some

striking epithet or novel and daring turn of expression. For the wider and

more essential beauties of conception, character, and construction we look

in vain in Glapthorne's play.

Sidney's _Arcadia_, however, though the most important, was not the only

so-called pastoral romance which left dramatic progeny. It has been

customary to describe the _Thracian Wonder_, a play of uncertain

authorship, as founded upon the story of Curan and Argentile in Warner's

_Albion's England_, a metrical emporium of historical legend very popular

at the close of the sixteenth century. The narrative in question was later

expanded into a separate work by one William Webster, and published in

1617.[310] That Collier should have given a quite erroneous abstract of

Warner's tale, and should then have proceeded to claim it as the source of

the play in question, is perhaps no great matter for astonishment, nor

need it particularly surprise us to find certain modern critics swallowing

the whole fiction on Collier's authority. What is extraordinary is that a

scholar of Dyce's ability and learning should have been misled. For it is

quite evident that the _Thracian Wonder_ is based, though hardly closely,

on no less famous a work than Greene's _Menaphon_.[311] This should of

course have been apparent to critics even without the hint supplied by

Antimon in the second scene of Act IV: 'She cannot choose but love me now;

I'm sure old Menaphon ne'er courted in such clothes.' The dramatist,

however, has not followed his source slavishly; the pastoral element is

largely suppressed or at least subordinated, and the catastrophe somewhat

altered. Instead of the siege of the castle by the shepherds when the

heroine is carried off by her own son, we have the following ending. The

king himself carries off his daughter, and her son and husband, ignorant

of course of their mutual relationship, put themselves at the head of the

shepherds in pursuit. At this moment the country is invaded by the king of

Sicily, who comes to seek his son, the husband of the heroine, and by the

king of Africa, who comes to avenge the banished brother of the king of

Thrace. After much fighting it is resolved to decide the issue by single

combat, in the course of which explanations ensue which lead to a general

recognition and reconciliation. The pastoral element is represented by old

Antimon an antic shepherd, a clown his son, his daughter a careless

shepherdess and her despised lover, and a careless shepherd.

The play was printed in 1661 by Francis Kirkman, who ascribed it on the

title-page to John Webster and William Rowley. All critics are agreed that

the former at least had nothing to do with the composition; but beyond

that it is difficult to go. Perhaps the mention of 'old Menaphon' might be

taken to indicate that the romance was at least not new at the time of the

composition of the play, for Menaphon himself was not an old man. In spite

of the small merit of the play from a poetical point of view, and of

occasional extraordinary oversights in the plot--for instance, we are

never told how the infant who is shipwrecked on the shore, presumably of

Arcadia, comes to be a young man in the service of the king of Africa--its

badness has perhaps been exaggerated, and it is undoubtedly from the pen

of an experienced stage-hack. I do not know, however, that any passage is

worth quotation.[312]

Any argument in favour of an early date for the _Thracian Wonder_, based

on its being founded on Greene's romance, is sufficiently answered by

Thomas Forde's _Love's Labyrinth_, which is a much closer dramatization of

the same story, retaining the names and characters almost unchanged, but

which cannot have been written very long before its publication in 1660.

One episode, the death of Sephistia's mother, a character unknown to

Greene, is apparently borrowed from Gomersall's _Lodovick Sforza_.[313]

The play, which lies somewhat beyond our limits, represents in its worst

form the _débâcle_ of the old dramatic tradition, continued past its date

by writers who had no technical familiarity with the stage. It is equally

without poetic merit, except in a few incidental songs. Of these, some are

borrowed from Greene, one is a translation from Anacreon also printed in

the author's _Poetical Diversions_, some are original. Of the last, one

may be worth quoting.[314]

Fond love, no more

Will I adore

Thy feigned Deity;

Go throw thy darts

At simple hearts

And prove thy victory.

Whilst I do keep

My harmless sheep

Love hath no power on me;

'Tis idle soules

Which he controules,

The busy man is free.

(II. i.)

Readers of Suckling will recognize the inspiration of the following lines:

Why so nice and coy, fair Lady,

Prithee why so coy?

If you deny your hand and lip

Can I your heart enjoy?

Prithee why so coy?

(IV. iii.)

There is one obvious omission from the above list of plays founded on

pastoral romances, but it has been made intentionally. The interest which

from our present point of view attaches to _As You Like It_ lies less in

the relation of that play to its source in Lodge's romance than to the

fact that in it Shakespeare summed up to a great extent, and by

implication passed judgement upon, pastoral tradition as a whole. It will

therefore be more convenient and more appropriate to postpone

consideration of the piece until we have followed out the influence of

that tradition, and watched its effect in the wide field of the romantic

drama, and come at the end ourselves to face the question of the meaning

and the merits of pastoralism as a literary creed.

Looking back for a moment over the plays just passed in review, it is

impossible not to be struck by the fact that they present in themselves

but the slightest traces of pastoral. It is evident that it was not there

that lay the dramatists' interest in the romances. This observation is

important, for the tendency is not confined to those plays which are

directly founded on works of the sort. The idea of pastoral current among

the playwrights, and no doubt among the audience too, was largely derived

from novels such as the _Arcadia_, and, as we have seen, the tradition of

these works was one rather of polite chivalry and courtly adventure than

of pastoralism proper. Had no other forces been at work the tradition of

the stage influenced by the romances would have probably shown no trace of

pastoral at all. As it was, something of a genuinely pastoral tradition

arose out of the mythological plays and the attempts at imitating the

Italian drama, and this combined with the more popular but less genuine

pastoralism of the romances to produce the peculiar hybrid which we

commonly find passing under the name of pastoral in this country.

II

The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the

English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At

no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation.

Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner

compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic

drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what

had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors.

Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this

romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to

attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the

three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as

we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to

bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient

importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it

may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of

classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England

is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless

experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two

cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards

some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true

that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of

time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves

to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object

was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral

drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in

that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with

artistic evolution.

A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals

will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it

is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us

to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain

doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of

our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of

most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development

would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than

in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is

unhappily wanting.

In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of

the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as

familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less

consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the

mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the

mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and

more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest

play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous _Maid's

Metamorphosis_, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in

1600.[315] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it

presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows.

Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to

be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke,

discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly

into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch

their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live

among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner

left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in

love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of

livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by

Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be

able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication

has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has

fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his

pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the

infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much

regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens

is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the

suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or

Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo

to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this

performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he

the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the

duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it

seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be

welcome.

Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological,

weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of

the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but

little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd

and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic

clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have

drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's _Gallathea_, in which, it will be

remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a

man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[316] As to the

sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to

note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets,

a fact that carries them back towards Peele's _Arraignment_ and the days

previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the

characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish

pages of Lyly.[317]

The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often

irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it

contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in

description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not

unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance,

are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the

master:[318]

Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found

A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground:

So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe,

As for his life the sunne durst never peepe

Into the entrance: which doth so afright

The very day, that halfe the world is night.

Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound:

There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground,

No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call,

Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all.

No sound is heard in compasse of the hill,

But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still.

Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie,

A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie

Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God,

Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.)

And again:

Then in these verdant fields al richly dide,

With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride:

There is a goodly spring whose christal streames

Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames:

There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory,

The Graces sit, listening the melodye:

The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes

Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles,

Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates

Is as a base unto their hollow throates.

Garlands beside they weare upon their browes,

Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes:

From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise,

As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.)

The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the

grassie bed

With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.)

Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of

haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied:

I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare

With woodmen thus audaciously compare?

Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King,

And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing.

Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene,

Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene.

And so alas, the good Athenian knight,

And swift Acteon herein tooke delight:

And Atalanta the Arcadian dame,

Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game,

That with her traine of Nymphs attending on,

She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.)

We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose,

in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the

songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which

bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by

Eurymine--

Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above,

Forge of desires working love,

Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye

Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.)

there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of

acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song:

Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a:

Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a.

Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a:

All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.)

The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is

undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon

Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect:

_Gemulo._ As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides,

When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne--

_Silvio._ As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides,

Where Nightingales record upon the thorne--

_Ge._ So rise my thoughts--

_Sil._ So all my sences cheere--

_Ge._ When she surveyes my flocks--

_Sil._ And she my Deare.

_Ge._ Eurymine!

_Sil._ Eurymine!

_Ge._ Come foorth!

_Sil._ Come foorth!

_Ge._ Come foorth and cheere these plaines!

_Both._ Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines--

_Sil._ The Wood-mans Love--

_Ge._ And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.)

Not long after the appearance of the _Maid's Metamorphosis_ there was

written a play entitled _The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves_,

which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire,

and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe

Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of

Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose

life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or

nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present

at least, dated 1603[321] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses

neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in

prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the

author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and

ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted

restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to

be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the

author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only

characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy

hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess

of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the

woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and

reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a

hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her

turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne.

While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on

their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent

to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread

of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and

his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from

passages in the _Maid's Metamorphosis_. The piece has a prologue for

representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that

honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition.

Passing over the _Faithful Shepherdess_ in 1609, we come to a play of a

very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's

_Sicelides_, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at

Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before

the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed,

surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322]. It is not easy to account

for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the

hands of critics[323]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the

neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more

particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been

overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have

already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included

under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic

merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues

of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily,

which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer

who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the

fountain-head of his inspiration.

Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his

affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns

indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with

mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is

courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she

turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but

soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has

relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon

offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks

the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is

condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on

the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is

bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey,

when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile

Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of

Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and,

determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his

mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a

love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre,

mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls

into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting

a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but

Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast

from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen.

These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of

Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic

under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love

for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends

happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and

uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who

had been carried off long before by pirates.

This somewhat complex plot, the dependence of which on the Italian

pastoral is evident, is padded with a good deal of farce, but though the

construction never evinces any great power on the part of the author, it

is not on the whole inadequate. The verse is in great part rimed in

couplets, and there are frequent attempts at epigrammatic effect, which at

times lead to some obscurity. The language betrays, as in the case of the

author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such

phrases as 'doe ycleape,' to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser.

Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at

Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone:

Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it

That Sicelie affords a water-Poet. (II. vi.)

The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to

be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's _Britannia's

Pastorals_, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus[324]. The orc

probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the

influence of the _Metamorphoses_ is likewise, as so often, present. The

following is perhaps a rather favourable specimen of the verse, but many

short passages and phrases of merit might be quoted:

The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes,

The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes,

And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames,

Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ...

Only love waking rests and sleepe despises,

Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises.

With him the day as night, the night as day,

All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day.

How different from love is lovers guise!

He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.)

Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral

that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild

production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled

_The Careless Shepherdess._ It was printed many years after its original

production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr.

of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this

ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford,

where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the

living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is

probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but

the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are

informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at

Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the

playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,'

the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last

months of the author's life[325]. The question of the date is interesting

principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking

resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's _Sad

Shepherd_:

This was her wonted place, on these green banks

She sate her down, when first I heard her play

Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be

Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose

I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke

Then court my eye; She must be here, or else

That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd

Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that

Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head

To mourn the absence of her eyes[326]. (V. vii.)

The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight,

while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely

interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the

play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four

characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and

Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not

object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son

of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes

his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of

disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so

continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile

informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the

return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in

despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is

throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the

exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian

predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy,

feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far

successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves

him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her

turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus

challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances

to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in

the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two

shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers

desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by

Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two

maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers.

While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of

satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a

despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement

that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his

marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the

swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding

their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover

themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No

satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for

while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be

their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls.

Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit.

Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for

we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and

carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of

the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor.

Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and

are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are

actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins.

They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr

reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to

induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of

banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now

ends happily.

In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled

and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent _enlèvements_ by the

satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story

distantly recalls Ingegneri's _Danza di Venere_. One feature of importance

is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended

satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe

his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a

measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner

of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written

in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the _Maid's

Metamorphosis_ we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such

slighter compositions as the _Converted Robber_ and Tatham's _Love Crowns

the End_, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was

no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular

with the audience.[327] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of

Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt

responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves

the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as

is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition.

Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely

Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls,

introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the

office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a

sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This

mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the

courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the

lyrical verse of the play:

Come Shepherds come, impale your brows

With Garlands of the choicest flowers

The time allows.

Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair,

And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers

With hast repair:

Where you shall see chast Turtles play,

And Nightingales make lasting May,

As if old Time his youthfull minde,

To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.)

There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by

Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while

adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works.

Of the author of _Rhodon and Iris_, as the play was called, little is

known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare

facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or

chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the

restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have

been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the

same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of

certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters

are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of

the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many

cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose

connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly

subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to

interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the

oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is,

moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one

thread is cut short by a _dea ex machina_ of the most mechanical sort,

while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following

is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached

on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she

appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of

Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's

behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has

abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris.

The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who

with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of

Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a

love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as

his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused

to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send

Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace

(All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in

time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that

Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a

double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the

attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the

prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan

she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his

followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus

she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to

her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus

Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is

only referred to in the epilogue.

The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The

large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly

and Spanish type than to that of works like _Menaphon_, or even _Daphnis

and Chloe_. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow

servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine

and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The

allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the

_Queen's Arcadia_.[328]

This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely

unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the

_Fairy Pastoral_ in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so

at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to

see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse

and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both

in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous

poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for

example, the lines from Eglantine's lament:

Since that the gods will not my woe redresse,

Since men are altogether pittilesse,

Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare;

Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare,

And listen to my plaints that doe excell

The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel.

Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while,

Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle,

Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone,

Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne,

And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare

The growing liver of the ravisher;

Let these behold my sorrows and confesse

Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.)

Or take Clematis' prayer for her mistress Eglantine:

Thou gentle goddesse of the woods and mountains,

That in the woods and mountains art ador'd,

The Maiden patronesse of chaste desires,

Who art for chastity renouned most,

Tresgrand Diana, who hast power to cure

The rankling wounds of Cupids golden arrowes,

Thy precious balsome deigne thou to apply

Unto the heart of wofull Eglantine. (I. iii.)

Or yet again, in lighter mood, Acanthus' boast:

When Sol shall make the Easterne Seas his bed,

When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,...

When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober,

When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,...

When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down,

When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown,

To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow;

Till then, I will not feare loves fatall blow. (I. ii.)

Yet the author of the above passages--for there is no reason to suppose a

second hand, and the play was published under his own direction--chose to

write the main portion of his poem in a measure of this sort:

Oh impotent desires, allay the sad consort

Of a sublime Fortune, whose most ambitious flames

Disdaine to burne in simple Cottages,

Loathing a hard unpolish'd bed;

But Coveting to shine beneath a Canopy

Of rich Sydonian purple, all imbroider'd

With purest gold, and orientall Pearles. (I. iii.)

Why he should have so chosen I cannot presume to say; whether from haste

and carelessness, or from a deliberate intention of writing a sort of

measured prose; but it was certainly from no inability to be metrical. The

occasional lyrics, moreover, are not without merit; the following lines,

sung by Eglantine, are perhaps the most pleasing in the play:

Upon the blacke Rocke of despaire

My youthfull joyes are perish'd quite;

My hopes are vanish'd into ayre,

My day is turn'd to gloomy night;

For since my Rhodon deare is gone,

Hope, light, nor comfort, have I none.

A Cell where griefe the Landlord is

Shall be my palace of delight,

Where I will wooe with votes and sighes

Sweet death to end my sorrowes quite;

Since I have lost my Rhodon deare,

Deaths fleshlesse armes why should I feare? (I. iii.)

To treat of Walter Montagu's _Shepherds' Paradise_ at a length at all

commensurate with its own were to set a premium on dull prolixity; there

are, however, in spite of its restricted merits, a few points which give

it a claim upon our attention. A brief analysis will suffice. The King of

Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre.

The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira,

who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's.

The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds'

Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company,

and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence

the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and

likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile,

Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a

man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same

pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly

company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in

love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised

Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of

Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds

to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa,

it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the

prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to

Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen

perpetual queen[329].

The plot, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the school of the

Hispano-French romance, and the style, intricate, involved, and conceited,

in which this prose pastoral is written betrays the same origin. Moreover,

as Euphuism, objectionable enough in the romance, becomes ten times more

intolerable on the stage, so too with the language of the pastoral-amorous

tale of courtly chivalry. There are, however, incidental passages of

verse which in their own rather intricate and ergotic style are of greater

merit than the prose, though that is not saying much. The close dependence

of the piece upon the chivalric tradition serves to differentiate it from

the majority of those we have to consider; while certain external

circumstances have combined to give it a fortuitous reputation.

One of Montagu's passports to fame is an allusion in Suckling's _Session

of the Poets_, from which it is evident that the style of the play

attracted notice of an uncomplimentary character even among the writer's

contemporaries:

Wat Montagu now stood forth to his trial,

And did not so much as suspect a denial;

But witty Apollo asked him first of all,

If he understood his own pastoral!

The _Shepherds' Paradise_ is, however, best remembered on account of

circumstances attending its performance. It was acted, as we learn from a

letter of John Chamberlain's, on January 8, 1632-3, by the queen and her

ladies, who filled male and female parts alike. Almost simultaneously

appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in

which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who

appeared on the boards. As this, of course, was not the practice of the

public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific

instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any

personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the

supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears.

It is presumably at this point that Randolph's _Amyntas_ should appear in

a chronological survey of English pastoralism.

Of the 'Pastoral of Florimene,' presented at the queen's command before

the king at Whitehall, on December 21, 1635, we possess the plot only, and

it is even doubtful in what language the piece was composed[330]. The

songs in the introduction and the _intermedî_ were undoubtedly in French,

and the prologue by Fame in English; the rest is uncertain, but the French

forms of the names, and the fact that it was represented by 'les filles

françaises de la Reine' point in the same direction. The plot, which

belongs entirely to the court-pastoral type of the French romances, only

influenced in the _dénoûment_ by mythological tradition, appears to be

original in the same degree as most other pastoral inventions, that is, to

exhibit fresh variations on stock situations.[331] The relation of the

characters is involved, and not easily made out from the printed account

of the piece, but the outline of the plot is as follows. The shepherdess

Florimene is loved by the Delian shepherd Anfrize, who has long been her

servant, and the Arcadian stranger Filene, who in order to gain access to

the object of his devotion has disguised himself in female attire, and

passes under the name of Dorine. In this disguise he is courted by

Florimene's brother, Aristee. Filene, however, was loved in Arcadia by the

nymph Licoris, who has followed him disguised in shepherd's weeds.

Aristee, in order to sound the mind of his love, the supposed Dorine (i.e.

Filene), disguises himself in his sister Florimene's dress, and in this

garb receives to his astonishment the declaration of Filene's love.

Aristee immediately leaves him, and turns his affections towards the

faithful Lucinde, who has long pined for his love. She, however, has now

fallen in love with Lycoris in her male attire, and rejects the advances

of the penitent Aristee, continuing to do so even after she has discovered

her mistake. Lycoris, hearing of the disguise of Filene, seeks Florimene

at the moment when she is most incensed on discovering the deception, and

begs her good offices with Filene, which are readily promised. Florimene

accordingly rejects Filene when he presents himself, but he refuses to

show any favour to Lycoris until she shall have obtained his pardon from

Florimene. The latter is really in love with Filene all the time, and when

Lycoris comes to plead his cause, she readily grants her audience. Filene

now enters, and is about to pass his vows to Florimene when they are

interrupted by Anfrize, who in a fit of jealousy offers to kill Filene.

This attempt Florimene prevents with her sheep-hook, and declares that

they must all seek the award of Diana, by whose decision she promises to

abide. The goddess then appears. Lucinde she decrees shall restore her

love to Aristee; Lycoris, she informs the company, is own sister to

Filene, whose love she must therefore renounce. She then bids Anfrize and

Filene plead their cause, which they do, and she declares in favour of the

latter's suit, commanding at the same time that the unsuccessful Anfrize

shall wed the forlorn Lycoris. Thus all are happy, so far as having their

love affairs arranged by a third party can be supposed to make them.

Florimene, who had retired, perhaps to don her bridal robes, now returns

to complete the _tableau_. 'Here the Heavens open, and there appeare many

deities, who in their songs expresse their agreements to these

marriages'--which was, no doubt, thought very satisfactory by the

spectators.

The _Shepherds' Holiday_ is the most typical, as it is on the whole the

most successful, of those pastorals which exhibit the blending of the

Arcadian and courtly elements. It was printed in 1635, and the title-page

informs us that it was 'Written by J. R.,' initials which there is

satisfactory evidence for regarding as those of Joseph Rutter, the

translater of Corneille's _Cid_, who appears to have been in some way

attached to the households both of Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of

Dorset. The play was acted before Charles and his queen at Whitehall. The

following analysis will sufficiently express its nature.

At the opening of the play we find Thirsis grieving for the loss of

Silvia, a strange shepherdess who appeared amongst the pastoral

inhabitants of Arcadia some while previously, and has recently vanished,

carried off, as her lover supposes, by a satyr. Leaving him to his lament,

the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich

shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain

Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda. In a scene

between Hylas and Nerina she upbraids him with having once stolen a kiss

of her, and dismisses him in seeming anger; immediately he is gone,

however, delivering herself of a soliloquy in which she confesses her

love for him, which her father's commands forbid her to reveal. Daphnis,

finding her cold to his suit, seeks the help of Alcon, who supplies him

with a magic glass, in which whoso looks shall not choose but love the

giver. In reality it is poisoned, and upon his giving it to Nerina she

faints, and in appearance dies, after obtaining as her last request her

father's favour to her love for Hylas. The scene now shifts to court.

Silvia, who it appears is none other than the daughter of King Euarchus,

recounts how she had fled owing to the unwelcome suit of Cleander, the son

of the old councillor Eubulus, and on account of her love of the shepherd

Thirsis, whom she had seen and heard at the annual show which the country

folk were wont to perform at court. After a while, however, Cleander had

discovered her retreat and forced her to return. The shepherds are now

again about to present their rustic pageant, and she takes the opportunity

of sending a private message, seeking an interview with Thirsis. Meanwhile

Eubulus has explained to his son Cleander how Silvia is really his own

daughter, and consequently Cleander's sister. An oracle had led the king

to believe that if a son were born to him harm would ensue, and therefore

commanded that in that case the child should be destroyed. A son was born,

but Eubulus substituted his own daughter, whom he feigned dead, and

carried away the king's son with a necklace round his neck, intending to

commit him to the care of some shepherds, but being surprised by robbers

fled leaving the child to its fate. Returning now to the shepherds, the

play shows us Daphnis and Alcon seeking the tomb of Nerina with a

restorative. The glass, it seems, was intentionally poisoned by Alcon, who

adopted this elaborate device for placing the nymph in the power of her

lover should she continue obdurate. They restore her, and finding her

still unmoved by his suit Daphnis threatens her with violence. Her cries,

however, attract the swains, who arrive with Hylas at their head. Daphnis,

overcome with shame at the exposure of his villany, is glad to find a

friend in the despised Dorinda, while Nerina rewards her faithful Hylas in

accordance with her father's promise. Meanwhile at court Silvia and

Thirsis have been surprised in their secret interview, and both doomed to

die by the anger of the king. The necklace on Thirsis' neck, however,

leads to the discovery of his identity as the king's son, and all ends

happily.[332]

In point of dramatic construction the first three acts leave little to be

desired; as is so often the case, the weakness of the plot appears in the

unravelling. The double solution of the two threads, neither of which is

properly subordinated, and which are wholly independent, is a serious blot

on the dramatic merit of the play. The courtly element, moreover, is but

clumsily grafted on to the pastoral stock. Throughout the debts to

predecessors, whether of language or incident, are fairly obvious. The

verse in which the play is written is adequate and well sustained, and if

its dependence on Daniel is evident, no less so is the advance in

flexibility and expression which the language, as handled by the lesser

poets, has made in the course of the twenty years or so that separate the

_Shepherds' Holiday_ from _Hymen's Triumph_. Rutter's verse also displays

a certain nervousness of its own which is wanting in the model, though it

preserves the intermixture of blank verse with irregular rimes which

Daniel affected. These peculiarities may be illustrated in a passage which

opens with a reminiscence of Spenser:

All as the shepherd is, such be his flocks,

So pine and languish they, as in despair

He pines and languishes; their fleecy locks

Let hang disorder'd, as their master's hair,

Since she is gone that deck'd both him and them.

And now what beauty can there be to live,

When she is lost that did all beauty give? (I. i.)

Again the opening situation recalls that of _Hymen's Triumph_, a

resemblance rendered all the more striking by the retention of the actual

names, Silvia and Thirsis. In like manner the name and character of

Dorinda are taken from the _Pastor fido_. From the _Aminta_, of course,

comes Nerina's description of how her lover stole a kiss, though little of

the sensuous charm of the original survives; from the _Pastor fido_ her

confession of love as soon as she finds herself alone. The opening lines

of this speech are, indeed, a direct translation:

Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul,

Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina

But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so;

To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[333] (II. iii.)

But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the

construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his

own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his

love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and

also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter.

Verbal reminiscences of the _Aminta_ also are scattered through the play,

for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who

seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations

particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout.

Her father not unreasonably retorts:

Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is,

Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth

To follow you with lies and flatteries.

Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades,

Which will not always last, and you go crooked,

As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground,

Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.)

With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of

those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists

make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina,

Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly

have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our

attention.

Cowley's _Love's Riddle_, published in 1638, but written two or three

years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply

to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it

is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of

genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics

professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not

finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's

conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley

had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the

world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was

perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely

on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less

clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were

interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and

courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic

or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin.

Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the

shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at

the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her

suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and

Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron,

finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost

his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with

the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace,

daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral

characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis,

who fills at once the rôles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On

Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and

Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister

Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of

some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after

vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under

the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with

Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that

he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad

Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him

home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by

transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis,

working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and

Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus.

Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in

Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to

recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by

Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their

lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's

identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is

found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron,

stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby

removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and

Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent

to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted

by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs

is secured.

There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley

shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of

individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there

is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole

construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various

threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot,

fall apart of themselves, without any _dénoûment_, strictly speaking, at

all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work,

absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction.

The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of

mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below

the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which

possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found

in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora:

How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples

Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.)

or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her

brother's sword:

As sick men doe their beds, so have I yet

Injoy'd my selfe, with little rest, much trouble:

I have beene made the Ball of Love and Fortune,

And am almost worne out with often playing;

And therefore I would entertaine my death

As some good friend whose comming I expected. (V. iii.)

Mr. Gosse once expressed the opinion that Cowley's play is 'a distinct

following without imitation of _The Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph.'

Exactly what was meant by this phrase it is difficult to tell, but if it

was intended to imply any resemblance between the two pieces its

application is confined to the character of a woman to whom age has not

taught continence, and an incidental hit at the jargon of

astrologers.[334] That Cowley had read _The Jealous Lovers_, published in

1633, is by no means unlikely, for he was certainly acquainted with the

yet unpublished _Amyntas_. This he may perhaps have seen when it was

performed at Whitehall, and he imitated several passages of it in his own

Westminster play. The most important point of connexion is the madness of

Aphron, which is modelled with some closeness on that of Amyntas. Actual

verbal reminiscences are not common, but there can, I think, be little

doubt that the schoolboy has been imitating the half-grotesque,

half-poetic fantasies of the university wit, though he has wholly failed

to achieve his pathos. Again, the speech of Florellus at the opening of

Act III recalls the return both of Corymbus and of Claius in _Amyntas_,

while Cowley is much more likely to have been influenced to lay the scene

of his play in Sicily by Randolph's example than by his reading of

Theocritus, whose influence, if it exists, is of the slightest. Emulation,

rather than imitation, was Cowley's attitude towards his predecessor, and

his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have

been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the _Jealous Lovers_, she is

probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in

_Amyntas_. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the

liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will

not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of

incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the

loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere

schoolboy--though this is, indeed, his best excuse. Other parallels could

be pointed out, but it would be superfluous; convention and petty theft

are the warp and woof of the piece. The satire, which has met with some

praise, is, of course, staled by a hundred poets of the pastoral vein. The

position of Callidora, loved in her disguise by the two girls, recalls

that of many pastoral heroines before and since Daniel's Silvia,

particularly perhaps of the courtly Rosalind loved by the Arcadian Phoebe.

The chivalric admixture is, as usual, traceable to Sidney, and the duel

finds of course an obvious parallel in _Twelfth Night_. The discovery of

Bellula's identity recalls more particularly, perhaps, that of Chloe's in

Longus' romance, or may possibly indicate an acquaintance with Bonarelli's

_Filli di Sciro_, which might also be traced in the attribution to

centaurs of the character long identified with satyrs in pastoral

tradition.

It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral

tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English

stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a

schoolboy. _Love in its Extasy_, described on the title-page as 'a kind of

Royall Pastorall,' was written, at the age of seventeen, by a student of

Eton College, whom it has been customary to identify with one William

Peaps.[335] The date of composition is said in the stationer's preface to

have preceded by many years that of publication, 1649, we may perhaps

regard the piece as more or less contemporary with Cowley's juvenile

effort. There is, it is true, one passage,[336] treating of tyrants and

revolutions, which is such as a moderate supporter of 'divine right' might

have been expected to pen in the later days of the civil war; the

publisher's words, however, are unequivocal, and can hardly refer to a

period after 1642.

_Love in its Extasy_ itself cannot, without some straining of the term, be

called a pastoral, though there are certain links serving to connect it

with pastoral tradition. The only excuse, beyond that afforded by the

title-page, for including it in the present category is that several of

the characters, finding it for various reasons inconvenient to appear in

their own shapes, take upon themselves a pastoral disguise; but there is

no hint of any pastoral background to the action, not even the atmosphere

of a rural academy as in Montagu's play. The whole piece, however, is in

the style of the Hispano-French romance, in which pastoral or

pseudo-pastoral plays so large a part. To enter into the plot in detail is

for our present purpose unnecessary. It is apparently original, and,

considered as a romance, would do no small credit to its youthful author.

An exiled king and his lady-love assume the sheep-hook, as do also two

princes and the mistress of one of them, the mistress of the other

appearing in the disguise of a boy. Disguisings, potions, feigned deaths,

and recognitions, or rather revelations of identity, form the staple

elements of the plot. The play is long, the stage crowded, the plot

intricate and elaborated with a superabundance of incident; but it must be

admitted that the attention is held and the interest sustained, even to a

wearisome degree, throughout; that the characters are individualized, and

the action clear. These are no small merits, as any one whose fortune it

has been to wade through any considerable portion of the minor drama will

be ready to acknowledge; while the defects of the piece are those commonly

incident to immature work. The most conspicuous are the want of one

prominent interest, and the lack of definite climax; at least four equally

important threads are kept running through the play, and the dramatic

tension is at an almost constant pitch throughout. These characteristics

are those of the narrative romance and of the novel of adventure

respectively, and are fatal to the success of the dramatic form.

The verse is in a way peculiar. It is intended as blank verse, and it is

true that the licences taken do not exceed those commonly allowed by the

practice of dramatists such as Fletcher, but here they are wholly

unregulated by any natural feeling for metre or rhythm, and the resuit can

hardly be called pleasing. On the other hand, there are a few happy lines,

as where a lover bids his penitent mistress

Go,

Knock at Repentance gate, one tear of thine

Will easily compell an entrance. (V. ii.)

There are also some passages of forcible vigour, not always subject to

dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the qualities of life and brightness

displayed are sufficient to induce a belief that had the author begun

writing at a moment more propitious than the eve of the civil war, and

pursued his career on the practical London stage, our drama might have

been the richer by, say, a second Shirley, an addition which those who

know that writer best will probably rate most highly. In any case the

composition must, I think, be held to surpass in genuine qualities

Cowley's flashy precocity.

This will be the most convenient place to mention an anonymous and undated

play entitled _Love's Victory_, extracts from a manuscript of which were

printed in 1853.[337] The style of the piece is not much guide as to the

date, but the play does not appear to be early, in spite of the somewhat

archaic spelling. It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with

free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages. It is

of course difficult to gather much of the plot from the printed extracts,

but so far as it is possible to judge the play appears to have been a

pure pastoral, with Venus and Cupid introduced in the _finale_, while the

situations and characters are those habitual to pastorals, including the

quite superfluous protesting of a not very prepossessing chastity. The

only more original trait is the scene in which the nymphs meet and relate

their love adventures, a rather awkward device for carrying on the

involution of the plot. There is a certain ease in the verse, but on the

whole the poetic merit is small.[338]

We have now passed in review all the regular pastoral plays lying within

our scope. There remain a number of shorter compositions of a similar or

at least analogous nature, as well as a good many masques and other pieces

in which the pastoral element is more or less dominant. These it will for

our present purpose be convenient to consider in connexion with each

other, and without troubling ourselves too much concerning such nice

differences of form as may be found to exist among them.

Chapter VII.

Masques and General Influence

I

The history of the English masque offers a very interesting study in what

may be called literary morphology. Under the influence of the stage the

early disguisings and spectacular dances developed into a semi-dramatic

kind, intermediate between the literary drama and mere scenic displays,

and recognized as possessing a definite nature and proper limitations of

its own. To this highly individualized form of art the term masque may

often with convenience and propriety be restricted, but all such rigid and

exclusive definitions have this disadvantage, that they tend to make lines

of division appear clearer and more logically convincing than they in fact

usually are, and further that they tempt us to neglect the often numerous

and closely allied specimens which cannot be brought to accommodate

themselves to the abstract type. Those writers who deny that _Comus_ is a

masque are entirely justified from their point of view; it is a question

of classification, and the classification which it is convenient to adopt

may vary according to the nature of the investigation in hand. It must

not, therefore, be thought that I place myself in antagonism to critics

such as Dr. Brotanek for example, if I give to the term masque its widest

possible signification as including not only the regular and highly

developed compositions of the Jonsonian type, but also mere pageants on

the one hand, and what may be called miniature plays on the other; all

dramatic or semi-dramatic pieces, in short, which it is undesirable or

inconvenient to treat along with the regular productions. Approaching the

question as we do, not from the point of view of the evolution of a

particular literary form, but from that of a persistent ideal and

quasi-philosophical tradition, which manifests itself in all manner of

forms and fashions, we have a perfect right to adopt whatever

classification suits our purpose best, provided always that we have a

clear notion what it is we are discussing. I propose, therefore, to treat

in chronological order all those pieces which, owing to their less fully

developed dramatic form, were omitted from the previous chapter. Something

no doubt has been sacrificed by thus separating the regular dramas from

the slighter and more occasional compositions, for in the earlier times

especially these latter serve to fill considerable gaps in the sequence,

and must have had a powerful influence in fashioning that pastoral

tradition to which the pieces we have already considered belong.

The connexion of the pastoral with the masque began very early, and may

well have been more constant than we should be tempted to suppose from the

isolated examples that remain. The union was a natural one, for the

pastoral, whether in its Arcadian or chivalric guise, was well suited to

supply the framework for graceful poetry and elaborate dances alike, while

the rustic and burlesque elements were equally capable of furnishing

matter for the antimasque, when the form had reached that stage of

structural elaboration. The allusive and allegorical features which had

long been traditional in the pastoral likewise suited the topical and

occasional nature of the masque. The connexion, however, with the stricter

forms at least, was never very close, the tendency on the part of the

pastoral to confine itself to a mere external formalism being even more

noticeable here than in the case of the regular drama.

The earliest instance of this connexion of which we have notice is one of

interest in English history. It is none other than the masquerade in which

Henry appeared disguised as a shepherd at Wolsey's feast, which, according

to Shakespeare, was the occasion of his first meeting with Anne Boleyn.

The disguising is attested by the authority of Cavendish and Hall, but it

is clear that the pastoral element was confined to the garb, there being

no indication of anything of the nature of a literary presentation.

The first literary specimen of the kind does not appear till near the

middle of Elizabeth's reign, and even then there is barely an excuse for

classing it as pastoral. The composition in question is the slight

entertainment, to which the name of _The Lady of May_ has been given by

modern critics, composed by Sidney for presentation before Elizabeth

during her visit to Leicester at Wanstead, in May, 1578. It appears to

have been his earliest work. Though not itself a masque in the strict

sense of the word in which we have learnt to use it, the piece contains

the undeveloped germs of most of the later characteristics of the kind.

The Queen in her walks through the grounds came to a spot where the

May-Lady was being courted by a shepherd and a 'foster,' hotly contending

for the prize. The strife was stayed, and, the deserts of either party

being duly set forth, the Lady referred the choice to the Queen, who

decided in favour of the pastoral suitor. A song and music ended the show.

A strongly rustic element is sustained by the Lady's mother and the old

shepherd Dorcas, while a touch of broad burlesque is introduced in the

character of the pedagogue Rombus, who speaks in a style really little

more extravagant than that of Sidney's own _Arcadia_. As in the romance,

at the end of which the piece was first printed in 1598, the occasional

songs are of small merit.

The spring-like freshness that characterizes so much of Peele's best work

breathes deliciously through the polite convention of the _Descensus

Astraeae_, the 'Pageant, borne before M. William Web, Lord Maior of the

Citie of London on the day he tooke his oath; beeing the 29. of October.

1591.' The conceit is graceful in itself, and significant of the sentiment

of contemporary London. Astraea, bearing her sheep-hook as a sort of

pastoral sceptre, typified the Queen, and passed on in her triumphal car

with the words:

Feed on, my flock, among the gladsome green,

Where heavenly nectar flows above the banks;

Such pastures are not common to be seen:

Pay to immortal Jove immortal thanks,

For what is good fro heaven's high throne doth fall;

And heaven's great architect be praised for all[339].

In her praise the graces, the virtues, and a champion utter appropriate

speeches, whilst Superstition, a friar, and Ignorance, a priest, together

with other malcontents, shrink back abashed before her onward march.

The following year appeared the anonymous 'Speeches delivered to her

Majestie this last progresse, at the Right Honorable the Lady Russels, at

Bissam, the Right Honorable the Lorde Chandos, at Sudley, at the Right

Honorable the Lord Norris, at Ricorte.' This piece being very

characteristic of a certain sort of courtly shows, and itself possessing

rather greater intrinsic interest than is to be found in most of the

compositions we shall have to examine, may lay claim to a somewhat more

detailed discussion. As the Queen approached through the woods towards

Bisham, cornets were heard to sound, and presently there appeared a wild

man who began his speech thus:

I followed this sounde, as enchanted; neither knowing the reason why,

nor how to bee ridde of it: unusuall to these Woods, and, I feare, to

our gods prodigious. Sylvanus whom I honour, is runne into a Cave: Pan,

whom I envye, courting of the Shepheardesse. Envie I thee Pan? No, pitty

thee; an eie-sore to chast Nymphes, yet still importunate. Honour thee

Sylvanus? No, contemne thee; fearefull of Musicke in the Woods, yet

counted the god of the Woods.

He then proceeds to welcome the royal visitor. Further on 'At the middle

of the Hill sate Pan, and two Virgins keeping sheepe, and sowing in their

Samplers.' Pan courts the shepherdesses, who mock him, and finally all

join in welcome of the Queen. 'At the bottome of the hill,' we read

further, 'entring into the hous, Ceres with her Nymphes in an harvest

Cart, meete her Majesty, having a Crowne of wheat-ears with a Jewell.'

Ceres sings:

Swel Ceres now, for other Gods are shrinking;

Pomona pineth,

Fruitlesse her tree;

Fair Phoebus shineth

Onely on mee.

Conceit doth make me smile whilst I am thinking,...

All other Gods of power bereven,

Ceres only Queene of heaven.

With Robes and flowers let me be dressed;

Cynthia that shineth

Is not so cleare,

Cynthia declineth

When I appeere,

Yet in this Ile shee raignes as blessed, ...

And in my eares still fonde Fame whispers,

Cynthia shalbe Ceres Mistres.

She then proceeds to welcome the Queen as 'Greater then Ceres.' At Sudely

Castle her Majesty was received by an old shepherd with a long speech;

whereafter we read: 'Sunday, Apollo running after Daphne,' a show

accompanied by a speech from another shepherd, at the end whereof, the

metamorphosis safely accomplished, 'her Majesty sawe Apollo with the tree,

having on one side one that sung, on the other one that plaide.'

Sing you, plaie you, but sing and play my truth,

This tree my Lute, these sighes my notes of ruth:

The Lawrell leafe for ever shall bee greene,

And chastety shalbe Apolloes Queene.

If gods maye dye, here shall my tombe be plaste,

And this engraven, 'Fonde Phoebus, Daphne chaste.'

'The song ended, the tree rived, and Daphne issued out, Apollo ranne

after, with these words:'

Faire Daphne staye, too chaste because too faire,

Yet fairer in mine eies, because so chaste,

And yet because so chaste, must I despaire?

And to despaire, I yeelded have at last.

'Daphne running to her Majestie uttered this:'

I stay, for whether should chastety fly for succour, but to the Queene

of chastety, &c.

a speech which can without loss be left to the imagination of the reader.

The third day's show was prevented by bad weather: it was designed thus.

Summoned by one clad in sheep-skins, the Queen was to be led to where the

shepherds of Cotswold were engaged in choosing a king and queen of the

feast by the simple divination of a bean and a pea concealed in a cake.

After a while spying her Majesty, the whole company should have joined in

a welcome. The rest of the show is in no wise pastoral. The very marked

Euphuism of the prose portions, combined with some lyrical merit, makes

the composition worth notice, and has led to its ascription to the pen of

Lyly himself. It was, of course, composed and presented for her Majesty's

delectation at a time when Lyly's plays were the delight of the court; but

however grateful we may feel to Mr. Bond for having made this and other

similar pieces accessible in his edition of the poet, we need not

necessarily accept his view of the authorship.[340]

To the end of the sixteenth century belong undoubtedly many of the pieces

printed for the first time in 1637 in Thomas Heywood's volume of

_Dialogues and Dramas_.[341] The only one of these that can really be

styled pastoral is a slight composition entitled _Amphrissa, or the

Forsaken Shepherdess_. Two shepherdesses, Pelopaea and Alope, meet and

fall to discoursing of love and inconstancy, and cite incidentally the

unhappy case of Amphrissa, who at that moment appears in person and joins

in the conversation. The nymphs undertake her cure, and give her much wise

counsel while they crown her with willow. Then there appears upon the

scene the huntress queen of Arcadia herself, attended by her nymphs,

virgin Diana, before whom the country maidens bow in awe. She graciously

raises them, and the slight piece ends with dance and song.

In this drama or dialogue or masque, or whatever it may be most

appropriately called, we see all plot disappear, and the interest

concentrate itself in the dialogue, which, for all that it is written in

blank verse of some rhythmical merit, reveals a strong inclination towards

Euphuism. Thus we read of men how