A separate Section can be devoted to songs in the manner of the early
French pastoral. These were fashionable at a remote period in all
parts of Europe; and I have already had occasion, in another piece of
literary history, to call attention to the Italian madrigals of the
fourteenth century composed in this species.[30] Their point is mainly
this: A man of birth and education, generally a dweller in the town,
goes abroad into the fields, lured by fair spring weather, and makes
love among trees to a country wench.
The _Vagi_ turn the pastoral to their own purpose, and always
represent the greenwood lover as a _clericus_. One of these rural
nieces has a pretty opening stanza:--
"When the sweet Spring was ascending,
Not yet May, at April's ending,
While the sun was heavenward wending,
Stood a girl of grace transcending
Underneath the green bough, sending
Songs aloft with pipings."
Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident.