[77] They also criticize the angels' singing in curiously technical language.

[78] Towneley Plays, XII. l. 377, &c., and l. 386, &c., cf. Vergil, Bucolics, IV. 6.

[79] It is perhaps necessary to define the above use of 'idealization' as that modification of photographie reality observable in all true art. It is only when the methods of art have become self-conscious that realism can become an end in itself.

[80] An English Garner: Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. Pollard, 1903, p. 87. The carol is from a MS. at Balliol College.

[81] The poem will be found in Arber's edition of the 'Miscellany,' p. 138, and in A. H. Bullen's reprint of England's Helicon, p. 56. In dealing with isolated poems I have quoted, wherever possible, from Bullen's reprints of the song books, &c.

[82] Forst = cared for.

[83] It first appeared as 'The Ploughman's Song' in the 'Entertainment at Elvetham' in 1591. This has been recently claimed for Lyly. Without expressing any opinion in this place as to the likelihood of such an ascription for the bulk of the piece, it may be remarked that the song in question is as like the rest of Breton's work in style as it is unlike anything to be found in Lyly's writings.

[84] Of all pedestrian, not to say reptilian, metres, this is perhaps the most intolerable; indeed, it was not until touched to new life by the genius of Blake that it deserved to be called a metre at all.

[85] See R. B. McKerrow's articles on the Elizabethan 'classical metres' in the Modern Language Quarterly for December, 1901, and April, 1902, iv. p. 172, and v. p. 6.

[86] Eclogues i-iv were printed by Pynson, and the fifth by Wynkyn de Worde early in the century; i-iii were twice reprinted about 1550. Barclay died in 1552.

[87] Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II. I suppose that it is on account of this statement of Barclay's that English critics have constantly referred to the work as pastoral. It is nothing but a prose invective against court life.

[88] See Dyce's Skelton, Introduction, p. xxxvi.

[89] 'Eglogs Epytaphes, and Sonettes. Newly written by Barnabe Googe: 1563. 15. Marche.' Reprinted by Professer Arber from the Huth copy.

[90] The title of the collection as originally published is obviously ambiguous—is Shepheardes' to be considered as singular or plural? There is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be little doubt that the title of Spenser's work was suggested by the Calender of Shepherds. On the other hand, I think it is likewise clear that the poet, in adopting it, was thinking particularly of Colin Clout—that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I think, a defensible spelling.

[91] The alternative view, which would make Spenser his own commentator, is not without supporters both in Germany and in this country. Even were the question, however, one of greater importance from our point of view, the 'proofs' so far adduced do not constitute sufficient of an a priori case to justify discussion here.

[92] Anglia, iii. p. 266, and ix. p. 205.

[93] At the end of the Calender Spenser placed as his motto 'Merce non mercede'—as merchandise, not for reward.

[94] On all questions relating to the Shepherd's Calender see C. H. Herford's edition, to which I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. So far as I am aware, we possess no more admirable edition of any monument of English literature.

[95] Cf. the titles of Drayton's Idea and Basse's MS. eclogues, infra.

[96] Discoveries, 1640 (-41), p. 116 (Gifford, 1875; Sec. cxxv). The 'ancients,' as appears from the context, are Chaucer and Gower.

[97] Apology for Poetry, 1595; Arber's edition, p. 63.

[98] Even Sidney's authorities break down to some extent. Theocritus certainly modified the literary dialect in his pastoral idyls, and we may recall that when Vergil began his third eclogue with the line—

Die mihi, Damoeta, cuium pecus? an Meliboei?

a wit of Rome retorted:

Die mihi, Damoeta, 'cuium pecus?' anne Latinum?

Or again it may be asked whether Lorenzo de' Medici is not as good a name to conjure by as Jacopo Sannazzaro.

[99] Some of the eclogues are mucn more pronouncedly dialectal than others, but even within the limits of a single one, literary and dialectal forms may often be found used indiscriminately. See Herford's remarks on the subject.

[100] 'February,' l. 33, &c. Lines 35-6 contain one of the few direct reminiscences of Chaucer. Cf. House of Fame, II. 1225-6. Spenser repeated the imitation, Faery Queen, VI. ix. 43-5, and was followed by Fletcher, Faithful Shepherdess, V. v. 183-4.

[101] Pastime of Pleasure, xxxv. 6, from the edition of 1555 (Percy Soc., 1845, p. 113).

[102] In the above instance the rime is sacrificed, and I do not mean that all anomalous lines in Spenser's measure become strict decasyllables when done into ME.; indeed, they do so of course only by accident. My point is that Chaucer's verse as read by the sixteenth-century editors must have often contained just such unmetrical lines as Spenser's. The view I have indicated above is that accepted by W. J. Courthope (History of English Poetry, ii. p. 253). Herford, on the other hand, while having recourse to Chancer's influence to explain Spenser's anomalies, regards the metre in question as derived from the old alliterative line. From this view I am reluctantly forced to dissent. The alliterative line may be readily traced in the mystery cycles, and later influenced the verse of the interludes and such comedies as Royster Doyster; and this tradition may have affected the verse of the later poets of the school of Lydgate, and even the popular ideas concerning Chaucer's metre. But as to the actual origin of Spenser's four-beat line there can surely be no doubt.

[103] The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of literary casuistry (Spenser, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the Calender and elsewhere, are 'in nicest keeping with character.' Such a theory ignores the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark. Apart from his own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser's compositions have for their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets. Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser's eclogues at all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily unknown.

[104] The MS. is now in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and is contained in the volume numbered 595 in the catalogue. It is entitled Poimenologia. The dedication to William James, Dean of Christ Church, fixes the date as between 1584 and 1596. Dove became Master of Arts in 1586, and since he does not describe himself as such, the translation probably belongs to an earlier date. I am indebted for knowledge of and information concerning this MS. to the kindness of Prof. Moore Smith, and of Dr. J. S. Reid, Librarian of Caius College.

[105] Winstanley (Lives of the English Poets, 1687, p. 196) ascribes it to Sir Richard Fanshawe; but he was no doubt confusing it with the Latin version of the Faithful Shepherdess.

[106] Faery Queen, VII. vi. 349, &c.

[107] Somewhat similar episodes occur both in the Orlando and the Gerusalemme, to the imitation of which, indeed, certain passages in Spenser can be directly referred.

[108] See A. H. Bullen's edition, two vols., 1890-91. The poems in question will be fonnd in vol. i, pp. 48, 58, 63 and 76.

[109] It is worth noting that in the last stanza all the early editions read 'Thenot' instead of 'Wrenock'; Thenot being the corresponding character in Spenser.

[110] Perhaps Anne Goodere: but the question is alien to our present discussion. Some of the allusions in the eclogues are obvious, and probably all the names, except perhaps the speaker's, conceal real personalities. In the Muses' Elizium, on the other hand, most of the names and characters appear to me fictitious. In connexion with the name 'Idea,' in which certain critics have wished to see a deep philosophical meaning, I would suggest that it may be nothing but the feminine of 'Idaeus,' that is, a shepherd of Mount Ida, a name found in the second eclogue of Petrarch. It is, however, true that the word 'idea' bore the meaning of 'an ideal,' in which sense, no doubt, we occasionally find it applied to England.

[111] Concerning translations of Watson's Latin poems, I may be allowed to refer to a paper contributed to the Modern Language Quarterly, February, 1904, vi. p. 125.

[112] Cf. the passage from Spenser's October eclogue, quoted on p. 88.

[113] A certain similarity between this poem and the song in Love's Labour's Lost, beginning:

On a day—alack the day!— Love, whose month was ever May;

has caused them to be at times ascribed to Shakespeare. They are subscribed 'Ignoto' in England's Helicon, but appeared among the poems published with Barnfield's Lady Pecunia in 1598, a tail of thirty lines of very inferior quality being substituted for the singularly perfect and effective final couplet. The poem appeared again in the following year in the Passionate Pilgrim, this time with both the couplet and the addition. The Helicon version is certainly by far the best, and not improbably represents the poem as originally written in imitation of Shakespeare's. See J. B. Henneman's paper in An English Miscellany, Oxford, 1901.

[114] Gascoigne's Steel Glass is far rather medieval in conception.

[115] Compare with the lines in Rosalynd, beginning 'Phoebe sat, sweet she sat,' those in Tarlton's News out of Purgatory, beginning, 'Down I sat, I sat down,' and see A. H. Bullen's Poems from Elizabethan Romances, 1890, p. xi.

[116] The copy of Pan's Pipe in the British Museum wants the Tale, but this will be found by itself marked C. 40. e. 68 (2, 3).

[117] Collier and Hazlitt supposed two William Basses, but the balance of evidence seems against the theory. See S. L. Lee in Dic. Nat. Biog., and the edition by R. W. Bond, 1893.

[118] Fleay (Biographical Chronicle, i. p. 67) identifies Musidore with Lodge, and 'Hero's last Musaeus' with H. Petowe. The latter identification, which had already been proposed by Collier (Bibliographical Account, i. p. 130), is in all probability correct.

[119] Printed by me in the Modern Language Quarterly, July, 1901, iv. p. 85.

[120] These are missing in most copies of the book; the only one I know containing them is in the Bodleian.

[121] I do not know who started the idea. It was mentioned in the Retrospective Review (ii. p. 180) in 1820, accepted by Sommer, and elaborated with small success by K. Windscheid. Masson makes no mention of it in his edition of Milton's poetical works. The author of Lycidas was probably a reader and admirer of Browne's poems, but of Britannia's Pastorals rather than of the decidedly inferior eclogues.

[122] The Arcadian Princess, translated by Brathwaite from Mariano Silesio, a kind of metaphorical manual of judicial polity, is in no way pastoral. It may be remarked that in 1627 there appeared as the work of one I. D. B. an 'Eclogue, ou Chant Pastoral,' on the marriage (1625) of Charles and Henrietta Maria, in which two Scotch Shepherds, Robin and Jacquet, discourse in French Alexandrines. Taylor's Pastoral of 1624 again, a fanciful treatise of religious and secular history, does not properly belong to pastoral tradition.

[123] One of these appeared two years previously, entitled The Shepherd's Oracle.

[124] Appended to the third edition of the Arcadia, 1598.

[125] Appended to the Arcadia in 1613.

[126] Arcadia, 1590, fol. 237 verso.

[127] Opera, Basel, 1553, p. 622.

[128] The song is said to be between 'two nymphs, each answering other line for line'; but the simple alternation adopted by Spenser makes nonsense of the present poem. The above arrangement seems to distribute the lines best; viz. the first quatrain to Phillis, with interposition of lines 2 and 4 by Amaryllis, the second quatrain to Amaryllis, with interposition of line 2 only by Phillis.

[129] Others in the Passionate Pilgrim, 1599, and Walton's Complete Angler, 1653.

[130] So, rather than 'Fair-lined,' as Bullen prints; but query 'Fur-lined.'

[131] This is the text of England's Helicon, which is superior to that in the play, except for the omission of the couplet in brackets, and possibly in the reading 'hath sworn' for 'is sworn,' in l. 11.

[132] From E. K. Chambers' English Pastorals, p. 113. The date is uncertain, but a tune of the name was extant in 1603. The earliest recorded text is a broadside, of about 1650, in the Roxburghe collection (III. 142). The conjecture of an 'original issue, circa 1600,' is on the whole plausible. In that case there was, somewhere, a poet capable of anticipating the particular cadences of Sirena and Agincourt, and that poet is more likely to have been Drayton than another. See Ebsworth's edition for the Ballad Society (Roxburghe Ballads, vi. p. 460).

[133] Lycidas is almost too familiar, one might suppose, to need comment, but such irreconcilable views have been held by different authorities, from Dr. Johnson onwards, that it may not be idle to attempt to view the work critically in relation to pastoral tradition as a whole.

[134] When Johnson went on to describe the form of the poem as 'easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting,' he was but exhibiting a critical incapacity which seriously impairs his authority in literary matters.

[135] For a detailed account of the poem, as well as for a number of parallel passages—as well as some of doubtful relevance—the reader may be referred to F. W. Moorman's monograph. I use the text of G. Goodwin's edition of Browne's poems, with introduction by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., 1894.

[136] K. Windscheid professes to discover a different hand in the third book, and is inclined to ascribe it to some imitator of Browne. Its merit is certainly not high, but it is no worse than parts of the former books; and Browne's work is so notoriously unequal that I can see no excuse for depriving or relieving him of its authorship.

[137]

The hatred which they bore was only this, That every one did hate to do amiss; Their fortune still was subject to their will; Their want—O happy!—was the want of ill. (II. iii. 447.)

Many readers may be inclined to pity poor men and women debarred from that

First of all joys that unto sin belong— The sweet felicity of doing wrong.

[138] Pail.

[139] The translater was afterwards knighted. Who was the first person to ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain 'very painful minister of God's word,' I am not sure. The mistake has, however, been constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on Spanish Literature in England, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this country. The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 18,638, and contains the translator's name perfectly clearly written, both on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke Greville. This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name 'Dorothy Grevell.' The title-page is worth transcribing: 'Diana de Monte mayor done out of Spanish by Thomas Wilso Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle of Southampto who was then uppon y'e Spanish voiage w'th my Lord of Essex—Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish nation, as is of y'e English of [sic] y't admirable & never enough praised booke of S'r. Phil: Sidneyes Arcadia.'

[140] Arber's edition, p. 83.

[141] See the useful table of correspondences given by Homer Smith in his paper on the Pastoral Influence in the English Drama. All needful apparatus for the study of the story will of course be found in Furness' 'Variorum' edition of the play.

[142] Macaulay once remarked of the Faery Queen, that few and weary are the readers who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. It might with equal or even greater force be contended that most readers are asleep ere the Arcadian princesses in Sidney's romance are rescued from the power of Cecropia.

[143] Into purely bibliographical questions, such as the history of the Edinburgh edition of 1599, it is of course impossible to enter here.

[144] Letter in the State Papers. See Introduction to Sommer's facsimile of the first edition, 1891.

[145] Conversations with Drummond, X. Shakespeare Society, 1842, p. 10.

[146] K. Brunhuber, to whose work on the Arcadia (Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaeufer, 1903) I am in a measure indebted, failing to find many specific borrowings, is inclined to make light of Montemayor's influence. There can, however, be little question that, in general style and conception, Sidney, while influenced by the Greek romance, yet belonged essentially to the Spanish school.

[147] Analyses of the Arcadia will be fouud in all works upon the novel from Dunlop to J. J. Jusserand and W. Raleigh. Perhaps the fullest, which is also provided with copious extracts, is that in the Retrospective Review, 1820, ii. p. 1.

[148] An allegorical interpretation certainly found favour among the critics of the time, and was advanced by Puttenham in his Art of English Poesy (1589), even before the publication of the romance. See also Thomas Wilson's allusion on the title-page of his translation from the Diana, given above (p. 141, note).

[149] A critical edition remains, however, a desideratum.

[150] See Jusserand's English Novel in the time of Shakespeare, 1890, p. 274.

[151] The later fashionable pastoral of French origin, with the Astree as its type and chief representative, does not concern us, or at most concerns us so indirectly as not to warrant our lingering over it here.

[152] I should at once say that the view of the development of the pastoral drama adopted above is not endorsed by all scholars. To have set forth at length the considerations upon which it is based would have swollen beyond all bounds an introductory section of my work. Since, however, the question is one of considerable interest, I have added what I believe to be a fairly full and impartial discussion in the form of an appendix.

[153] 'Orfeo cantando giugne all' Inferno' is one of the stage directions.

[154] For an elaborate example (1547) of this kind of stage, on which various localities were simultaneously represented, see Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la langue et de la litterature francaise, ii. pp. 416-7.

[155] Concerning the play see the account given by Symonds, together with his admirable translation in Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, ii. p. 345, also an elaborate essay, 'L'Orfeo del Poliziano alla corte di Mantova,' by Isidoro del Lungo, in the Nuova antologia for August, 1881, and A. D'Ancona, Origini del teatro italiano, ii. pp. 2 and 106. The standard edition of Poliziano's Italian works, that by Carducci, is unfortunately not in the British Museum.

[156] A note concerning the use of the term 'nymph' may save confusion. Creizenach remarks that the introduction of a nymph as the beloved of a shepherd is a peculiarity of the renaissance pastoral which manifestly owes its origin to Boccaccio's Ninfale fiesolano (Geschichte des neueren Dramas, ii. p. 196). In so far as this view implies that the 'nymphs' of pastoral convention are the same order of beings as those either of the Ninfale or of classical myth, it appears to me utterly erroneous. The 'nymphs' who love the shepherds in the renaissance pastorals are nothing but shepherdesses. The confusion no doubt began with Boccaccio. The nymph of Diana in the Ninfale is, as we have already seen, nothing but a nun in pagan disguise. The nymphs of the Ameto are represented as of the classical type, but their amorous confessions reveal them as in nowise differing from mortal woman. The gradual change in the connotation of the word is one of the results of the blending of Christian and classical ideas. The original elemental or local spirits even in Greek myth acquired some of the characteristics of votaries (as in the legeud of Calisto), and these Christian tradition tended to accentuate, while popular romance, and in many cases contemporary manners, facilitated the connecting of such characters with tales of secret passion. Gradually, however, the idea of illicit love gave place to one merely of unrestrained natural desire, the religious elements of the character were forgotten as the supernatural had been earlier, and 'nymph' came to be no more than the feminine of 'shepherd' in an ideal society which by its freedom of intercourse, as by its honesty of dealing, presented a complete contrast to the polished circles of aristocratic Italy.

[157] A small circular picture in chiaroscuro among the arabesques of the cappella nova in the cathedral at Orvieto. It represents the youthful Orpheus crowned with the laureate wreath playing before Pluto and Proserpine upon a fiddle or crowd of antique pattern. At his feet lies Eurydice, while around are spirits of the other world.

[158] In some passages of this speech the resemblance with Ovid is very close:

famaque si ueteris non est mentita rapinae, uos quoque iunxit Amor... omnia debentur nobis, paulumque morati serius aut citius sedem properamus ad unam... haec quoque, cum iustos matura peregerit annos, iuris erit uestri; pro munere poscimus usum. quod si fata negant ueniam pro coniuge, certum est nolle redire mihi: leto gaudete duorum. (Met. x. 28, &c.)

[159] Cf. Amores, II. xii, ll. 1, 2, 5, and 16.

[160] This interpretation of the passion of Orpheus, characteristic as it is of renaissance thought, was not original. Though unknown in early times, it is found in Phanocles, a poet probably of the third or fourth century B. C.

[161] So original: revision 'oe oe.'

[162] The earliest edition I have seen is that contained in the 'Opere' of June 10, 1507, where the heading runs: 'Fabula di Caephalo coposta dal Signor Nicolo da Correggia a lo Illustrissimo. D. Hercole & da lui repsentata al suo floretissimo Populo di Ferrara nel. M. cccc. lxxxvi. adi. xxi. Ianuarii.' In this edition, printed at Venice by Manfrido Bono de Monteferrato, the works are said to be 'Stampate nouamente: & ben corrette.' Bibliographers record no edition previous to 1510. The date in the heading is either a misprint, or refers to the year 1486-7 according to the Venetian reckoning. See D'Ancona, Origini del teatro, ii. p. 128-9. Symonds (Renaissance, v. p. 120) quotes some Latin lines as from the prologue to this play. This is an error. He has misread D'Ancona, to whom he refers (ed. 1877), and from whom he evidently copied the quotation. The lines actually occur in the prologue to a Latin play on the subject of the taking of Granada.

[163] Rossi, Battista Guarini ed il Pastor Fido, 1886, p. 171, note 2.

[164] I do not, of course, mean that no mythological plays were produced between the days of Correggio and those of Beccari, but that they show no signs of consistent development in a pastoral or indeed in any other direction.

[165] Il Verato secondo, 1593, p. 206.

[166] Compendio della poesia tragicomica, tratto dai duo Verati, 1602, pp. 49-50.

[167] In this and the following section I have used the texts of the exceedingly useful collection of Drammi de' boschi in the 'Biblioteca classica economica,' which comprises the Aminta, Pastor fido, Filli di Sciro, and Alceo.

[168] Symonds, in dealing with Tasso in the sixth volume of his Italian Renaissance, lays, to my mind very justly, considerable stress upon this quality.

[169] Quoted by Serassi, Tasso's biographer, in his preface to the Bodoni edition of the play (Crisopoli, 1789), p. 8.

[170] See Angelo Solerti, Vita di T. Tasso, Torino, Loescher, 1895, i. p. 181, &c. Carducci, 'Storia dell' Aminta,' the third of the Saggi, 80, 1st edition.

[171] Leigh Hunt pointed out, in some interesting if rather uncritical remarks prefixed to his translation of the Aminta (London, 1820), that some at any rate of the regular choruses cannot have formed part of the original composition. In fact the first edition (Aldus, 1581) contains those to Acts I and V only; that to Act II appeared in the second edition (Ferrara, 1581), and also in the collected Rime (Aldus, 1581); the rest were added in the Aldine quarto of 1590.

[172] Supposing always that this representation, of which Filippo Baldinucci, in his Notizie dei professori del disegno (sec. iv, dec. vii; 1688, p. 102), has left a glowing account, was a representation of the Aminta, and not, as some have maintained, of the Intrichi d' amore, another play sometimes ascribed to Tasso.

[173] Amore had already spoken the prologue to Lodovico Dolce's Dido; and a mythological play by Sannazzaro, of which the opening alone is extant, introduces Venus in pursuit of her son, and warning the ladies of the audience against his wiles (Creizenach, ii. p. 209). The prologue to the Pastor fido is put into the mouth of the river-god Alfeo, that of Bonarelli's Filli di Sciro, which begins with another Ovidian reminiscence (Amores, I. xiii. 40), and was written by Marino, is spoken by a personification of night, that of Ongaro's Alceo by Venus, of Castelletti's Amarilli by 'Apollo in habito pastorale,' of Cristoforo Lauro's Frutti d'amore by Janus in similar garb, of Cesana's Prova amoroso, by Hercules. The list might be extended indefinitely. Contarini, at the beginning of the next century, followed precedent less closely; his Finta Fiammetta has a dramatic prologue introducing Venus, Cupid, Anteros (the avenger of slighted love), and a chorus of amoretti; that of his Fida ninfa is spoken by the shade of Petrarch.

[174] Most of the identifications made by Menagio in his edition, Paris, 1650, have generally been accepted since, except by Fontanini, who would identify Pigna with Mopso. There seems, however, to be little doubt possible on the point, though it is not to Tasso's credit. For an audience conversant with the inner life of the court, the references to Elpino contained whole volumes of contemporary scandal. In Licori we may see Lucrezia Bendidio. This lady, the wife of Count Paolo Machiavelli, and sister-in-law of Guarini, is said to have been the mistress of Cardinal Luigi d' Este; but Pigna, too, courted her, and brooked no rivalry on the part of fledgling poets. Tasso appears to have paid her imprudent attention in the early days of his residence at Ferrara, and thus incurred the secretary's wrath. The princess Leonora remonstrated with her poet on his folly, and Tasso, by way of palinode, wrote a fulsome commentary on three of Pigna's wooden canzoni, ranking them with Petrarch's. Tasso is appareutly allnding to this incident when he puts into Elpino's mouth the words:

Quivi con Tirsi ragionando andava Pur di colei che nell' istessa rete Lui prima e me dappoi ravvolse e strinse; E preponendo alla sua fuga, al suo Libero stato il mio dolce servigio. (V. i. 61.)

The origin of the name 'Licori' may possibly, as Carducci points out (p. 94), be sought in an epigram, Ad Licorim, found among Pigna's Latin Carmina (1553). The whole incident throws a curious light on the pettiness of the Ferrarese Court, a characteristic in which it was, however, not peculiar. (See Rossi, pp. 34, &c.) It is perhaps worth while mentioning that by the antro dell' Aurora was no doubt intended the room in the castle, said to have formed part of the private apartments of Leonora, still known as the sala dell' Aurora, from a wretched fresco on the ceiling by the local artist Dosso Dossi.

[175] Aminta, I. i; Canace, IV. ii.

[176] Lettere del Guarini, Veneta, Ciotti, 1615, p. 92. See Rossi, 56^{1}

[177] I have already had occasion to point out that, from the time of Boccaccio onwards, a nymph of Diana might represent a nun, but the whole of Silvia's relations with Dafne make it plain that she is in no way vowed to virginity. Her being represented as a follower of Diana implies no more than that she is fancy-free, and so in a sense under the protection of the virgin goddess. This use of the phrase is as old as Theocritus: 'Artemis, be not wrathful, thy votary breaks her vow' (Idyl 27). And it is so used by Silvia herself in her proud and petulant retort to Aminta: 'Pastor, non mi toccar; son di Diana' (III. i).

[178] The idea passed from Italian into English verse:

tell me why This goblin 'honour,' by the world enshrined, Should make men atheists, and not women kind—

to improve upon the exceedingly neat bowdlerization which the Rev. J. W. Ebsworth has sought to palm off as the genuine text of Tom Carew.

[179] We have, in the passages quoted, a foretaste of the priggish extravagance of the Faithful Shepherdess. That there should have been found critics to combine just but wholly otiose condemnation of Cloe with reverential appreciation of the absurdities of Clorin and Thenot, and to clap applause to the self-conscious virtue, little removed from smugness, in which the 'moral grandeur' of the Lady of the Ludlow masque is clothed, is indeed a striking witness to the tyranny of conventional morality. If virginal purity were in fact the hypocritical convention which it is to some extent possible to condone in the Aminta, but which becomes wholly loathsome in the work of Fletcher, the sooner it disappeared from the region of practical ethics the better for the moral health of humanity.

[180] Menagio's edition is said to have appeared in 1650, but I have only seen the edition of 1655, which I also notice is the date given by Weise and Percopo (p. 319). The play is said to have been printed in Italy alone some two hundred times; there are twenty French translations, five German, at least nine English, several in Spanish and other languages. A version in the Slavonic Illyrian dialect appeared in 1598; a Latin one in iambic trimeters by Andrea Hiltebrando, a Pomeranian physician, in 1615; another in modern Greek in 1745. See Carducci, p. 99.

[181] Published, together with Paglia's reply, by Antonio Bulifon in his Lettere memorabili, Naples, 1698, iii. p. 307. The play had already been adversely criticized by Francesco Patrizi and Gian Vincenzo Gravina.

[182] 'L'Aminta difeso e illustrato da G. Fontanini,' Roma, 1700. Another edition appeared in 1730 at Venice, with further annotations by Uberto Benvoglienti.

[183] It is, however, perfectly true that the play, together with the writings in its defence and the notes, to be considered later, occupied the attention of the author for a period of fully twenty years, and it is possibly thus that the tradition arose. I may say that throughout this section I am under deep obligations to Rossi's monograph.

[184] Rossi, p. 183. I shall return to the point.

[185] In later days he was often called Giovanbattista, but the addition is without authority, in spite of its appearance in the British Museum catalogue.

[186] This preliminary history is drawn, as Guarini himself points out in his notes of 1602, from Pausanias (VII. 21), though less closely than he there implies. The rest of the plot he claimed as original, but it is to a large extent merely a rehandling of the same motive.

[187] Carino is said to represent Guarini in the same manner as Tirsi does Tasso.

[188] There is a legend that this scene was placed on the Index. This, anyhow, cannot refer to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but only to the Index Expurgatorius, which was at no time an officiai publication. But the whole story appears to be without foundation.

[189] In comparing the two pieces, it is worth remembering that, whereas the Aminta contains about 2,000 lines, the Pastor fido runs to close upon 7,000.

[190] Storia della letteratura italiana nel secolo XVI, Milano, 1880, pp. 244-7. See Rossi, p. 264. His argument is that it anticipated a revolt against the conventional nature of domestic love, reflecting better than any other dramatic work the ideas that towards the end of the cinquecento were, according to him, leading in the direction of a moral regeneration of Italian Society. It is, however, difficult to reconcile his theory with what we know of Italy in the days of the counter-reformation; while it may at the same time be doubted whether a tone of anaemic sentimentality is, in itself, preferable to one of cynical convention. It should be added that there is little regeneration of domestic love to be found in the partly pathetic and partly sordid tragedy of Guarini's own family.

[191] The quotations are from the opening scene of either play. The parallel is that selected by Symonds for quotation, and is among the most striking examples of Guarini's method, but similar instances might be collected from almost every scene.

[192] G. B. Manso, Vita di T. Tasso, Venezia, Denchino, 1621, p. 329. Carducci, p. 99.

[193] 'Il Pastor Fido Tragicomedia Pastorale di Battista Guarini, Dedicata al Ser'mo. D. Carlo Emanuele Duca di Sauoia, &c. Nelle Reali Nozze di S. A. con la Ser'ma. Infante D. Caterina d'Austria.' The tradition of a performance on this occasion dates from early in the seventeenth century, and is endorsed by the poet's nephew and biographer, Alessandro Guarini. It is in part due to a confusion of words: the play was presentato, but not rappresentato.

[194] Guarini, Lettere, Venetia, Ciotti, 1615, p. 174. Rossi, 228^{7}.

[195] At least one of these, a worthless production by a certain Niccolo Averara, is extant. That of 1598 was probably spoken by Hymen. Rossi, pp. 232-3.

[196] It has sometimes been supposed that the Baldini edition, Ferrara, 1590, was the earlier, but Guarini's letter is conclusive.

[197] Of this edition the British Museum possesses a magnificent copy on large and thick paper, bearing on the title-page the inscription: 'Al Ser^{mo}. Principe di Vinegia Marin Grimani,' showing that it was the presentation copy to the Doge at the time of publication. Another copy on large but not on thick paper is in my own possession, and has on the title-page the remains of a similar inscription beginning apparently 'All Ill^{mo} et R^{mo}...' I rather suspect it of being the copy presented to the ecclesiastic, whoever he was, who represented the Congregation of the Index at Venice. Innumerable editions followed; I have notes of no less than fifty during the half-century succeeding publication, i.e. 1590-1639.

[198] The authorship of the notes is placed beyond doubt by a letter of Guarini's, otherwise it might have been doubted whether even he could have been guilty of the fulsome self-laudation they contain. On the controversy see Rossi, pp. 238-43.

[199] Certain modern writers have shown themselves worthy descendants of the criticaster of Vicenza by insisting that the play should properly be called the Pastorella fida. Guarini was weak enough to reply to Malacreta's carpings in his notes, and thereby exposed himself to similar attacks from posterity.

[200] The absurdity lies of course in the commanding merit ascribed to the piece. As Saintsbury has pointed out in his History of Criticism, had Aristotle known the romantic drama of the renaissance, the Poetics would have been largely another work.

[201] Summo evidently thought that Pescetti's defence at least was the work of Guarini himself. There is no evidence that this was so, but Rossi considers it not improbable that Guarini at least directed the labours of his supporters.

[202] It is unnecessary to enter into any further discussion of these plays. The following titles, however, quoted by Stiefel in his review of Rossi, may be mentioned. Scipione Dionisio, Amore cortese, 1570 (?) (not the Alessandro Dionisio whose ecloga, entitled Amorosi sospiri, with intermezzos of a mythological character, was printed in 1599); Niccolo degli Angeli, Ligurino, 1574 (so Allacci, Drammaturgia, 1755; the only edition in the British Museum is dated 1594; Venus and Silenus are among the characters, and the prologue is spoken by 'Tempo'); Cesare della Valle, Filide, 1579; Giovanni Fratta, La Nigella, 1580; Cristoforo Castelletti, Amarilli, 1580 (which edition, though given by Allacci, appears to be now unknown, as is also the date of composition; a second edition appeared in 1582; the prologue was spoken by 'Apollo in habito pastorale,' and Ongaro contributed a commendatory sonnet); Giovanni Donato Cuchetti, La Pazzia, 1581; Pietro Cresci, Tirena, 1584; Alessandro Mirari, Mauriziano, 1584; Dionisio Rondinelli, Galizia, 1583 (his Pastor vedovo was printed in 1599, with a prologue spoken by 'Primavera,' and an echo scene).

[203] Preface to the Bodoni edition of the Aminta, p. 12.

[204] This episode of the double love of Celia formed the subject of an attack on the play. The author wrote an elaborate defence which was printed at Ancona in 1612. It runs to 221 quarto pages.

[205] I am aware that attempts have been made to find evidence of Italian influence in Lyly, but of this later.

[206] The piece appeared anonymously, but the authorship is attested by Nashe in his preface to Greene's Menaphon, 1589. Some songs from the play also appear over Peele's signature in England's Helicon, 1600. I have quoted from A. H. Bullen's edition of Peele's works, 2 vols. 1888.

[207] Fraunce's translation in his Ivychurch (vide post), and J. Wolfe's edition, together with the Pastor fido, both 1591.

[208] Like Dove. Cf. p. 98.

[209] i.e. coupled impartially with its reward.

[210] Umpire.

[211] Groves.

[212] The entry of the piece to R. Jones, on July 26, 1591, in the Stationers' Register, coupled with the fact that England's Parnassus quotes almost entirely from printed works, puts this practically beyond doubt. It is of course possible that a copy may yet be discovered.

[213] Dr. Henry Jackson, than whom no classical scholar has devoted more study to the Elizabethan drama, draws my attention to the fact that a somewhat indelicate passage in the play, obscurely hinted at in Drummond's notes (ed. Bullen, ii. p. 366), evidently forms the basis of that poet's own epigram 'Of Nisa' (ed. Turnbull, p. 104).

[214] Two other plays of Lyly's appear at first sight to present pastoral features. There are five 'shepherds' among the dramatis personae of Mydas, but they appear in one scene only (IV. ii), and merely represent the common people, introduced to comment on the actions of the king. The names, as is usual with Lyly, except in the case of comic characters, are classical. The other play is Mother Bombie, which, however, is nothing but a comedy of low life, combining the tradition of the Latin comedy with the native farce, which goes back through Gammer Gurton to the old interludes. It contains a good deal of honest fun and a notable lack of Euphuism.

[215] For many years, indeed, his romance continued to run through ever-fresh editions, that of 1636 being the twelfth. It is clear, however, that its public had changed.

[216] It is a curious fact that the authorship of these songs, though it has never been seriously questioned, rests on very uncertain evidence. I may refer to an article on the subject in the Modern Language Review for October, 1905, i. p. 43.

[217] A play entitled 'Iphis and Ianthe, or A marriage without a man,' was entered on the Stationers' Register on June 29, 1660, as the work of Shakespeare.

[218] Lyly may very possibly have known the story of Hesione cited by R. W. Bond (ii. 421), but it presents no particular points of similarity, and the outline of the legend was of course common property. A similar sacrifice forms an episode in Orlando furioso, VIII. 52, &c.; the sacrifice of a youth to an orribile serpe also forms the central incident in Orazio Serono's Fida Armilla, 1610; while the motive of the annual sacrifice occurs of course in the Pastor fido.

[219] There can be little doubt as to the identity of the 'Commoedie of Titirus and Galathea,' entered on the Stationers' Register under date April 1, 1585; and now that, thanks to Bond's researches, it is evident that the reference to Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus (see III. iii) was no ex post facto prophecy, but borrowed from Richard Harvey's Astrological Discourse of 1583, there is no reason to suppose a double date.

[220] Bond argues in favour of the extant text being mutilated, and representing a late revival about 1600. I am not prepared, and in the present place certainly not concerned, to dispute his hypothesis; whatever the cause, the literary result is unsatisfactory, and from his remarks concerning its dramatic merits I must emphatically dissent.

[221] Bond's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for nip of the quarto.

[222] This story, strangely characterized as 'extremely attractive' by Bond, is elaborated from that given by Ovid in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses. I have elsewhere alluded to the theory of Italian pastoral influence in Lyly. I had in mind L. L. Schiicking's monograph on Die stofflichen Beziehungen der englischen Komodie zur italienischen bis Lilly, Halle, 1901, but must here state that to my mind he has completely failed to prove his thesis. I need not enter into details in this place, but may refer to Bond's discussion in his 'Note on Italian influence in Lyly's plays' (ii. p. 473). There is, however, one passage in Love's Metamorphosis (not mentioned by Schucking) which suggests a reminiscence of the Aminta; Cupid, namely, describes himself (V. i.) as 'such a god that maketh thunder fall out of Joves hand, by throwing thoughts into his heart.' Compare the lines in Tasso's Prologue:

un dio... Che fa spesso cader di mano a Marte La sanguinosa spada... E le folgori eterne al sommo Giove.

I give the parallel for what it is worth. So far as I am aware it is the only one which can claim the least plausibility, and alone it is clearly insufficient to prove any borrowing on the part of the English playwright.

[223] Bond adduces some fairly strong reasons for supposing it later than 1590. A. W. Ward was evidently unable to make up his mind upon the question, and treats the play at the head of the list of Lyly's works, in which it seems to me that he hardly does justice to his critical powers.

[224] A very similar reminiscence of Marlowe's rhythm: /p And think I wear a rich imperial crowne, p/ occurs in the old play of King Leir, which must belong to about the same date, c. 1592.

[225] It is possible, though of course by no means necessary, that we have a specifie reminiscence of the lines in Faustus:

More lovely than the monarch of the sky In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms. (Sc. xv.)

[226] I have of course not concerned myself with those mythological plays which offer no pastoral features. Nor is it possible to go into the question of the Latin plays performed at the Universities. I may, however, mention the Atalanta of Philip Parsons, a short piece preserved in the British Museum, MS. Harl. 6924, and dedicated to no less a person than Laud, when President of St. John's, Oxford, a position he held from 1611 to 1615. The play is founded upon the Boeotian legend of Atalanta, though the laying of the scene in Arcadia would appear to indicate a confusion with the other version. Pastoral characters and scenes are introduced.

[227] See the epistle dedicatory to the Countess of Pembroke, prefixed to the Ivychurch, in which the translation appeared, 1591.

[228] The choruses to Acts III and IV are omitted, which proves that Fraunce worked, as we should expect, from some edition previous to the Aldine quarto of 1590. There are also certain unimportant alterations in the translation from Watson. For a more detailed examination of Fraunce's relation to his Italian original, see an article by E. Koeppel on 'Die englischen Tasso-Uebersetzungen des 16. Jahrhunderts,' in Anglia, vol. xi (1889), p. 11.

[229] 'Phillis, alas, tho' thou live, another by this will be dying' would be a more elegant as well as more correct rendering of 'Oime! tu vivi; Altri non gia': it would, however, not scan according to Fraunce's rules.

[230] Numerous French translations were, moreover, available for such as happened to be more familiar with that language.

[231] Though not a point of much importance, I may as well take the opportunity of endeavouring to clear up the singular confusion which has surrounded the authorship. The ascription to John Reynolds rests ultimately upon the authority of Edward Phillips, in whose Theatrum Poetarum, 1675, we find s.v. Torquato Tasso the note (pt. ii, p. 186): 'Amintas, a Pastoral, elegantly translated into English by John Reynolds.' Who this John was is open to question. The Dic. Nat. Biog. recognizes three John Reynolds in the first half of the seventeenth century: (1) John Reynolds, or Reinolds (1584-1614), epigrammatist, fellow of New College, Oxford; (2) John Reynolds, of Exeter, (fl. 1621-50), author of God's Revenge against Murder, and of translations from French and Dutch; and (3) Sir John Reynolds, colonel in the Parliamentary army. The British Museum Catalogue, on the other hand, distinguishes between John Reynolds, of Exeter, author of God's Revenge and other works, and John Reynolds the translator (to whom the Aminta is tentatively ascribed). I am not aware of any authority for this distinction, though there is nothing in the composition of God's Revenge to make one suppose the author capable of producing the translation of the Aminta. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the incidental verse in some of his other works, notably in the Flower of Fidelity, a romance published in 1650, is distinctly on a more respectable level than his prose. The ascription, however, to John Reynolds has not very much to support it. Phillips' authority is second-rate at best, and is not likely to be at its best in the present case. It is indeed surprising that he should have been acquainted with this early translation rather than with that by John Dancer, which appeared in 1660, and must have been far more generally known at the end of the seventeenth century. The first to identify the translator with Henry Reynolds was, so far as I am aware, Mary A. Scott, in her valuable series of papers on 'Elizabethan Translations from the Italian,' in the Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (vol. xi. p. 112); and the same view was taken independently by the writer of a notice in the Dic. Nat. Biog. This ascription is based upon the entry in the Stationers' Register, which runs: '7 Novembris 1627. William Lee. Entred for his Copye under the handes of Sir Henry Herbert and both the wardens A booke called Torquato Tassos Aminta Englished by Henry Reynoldes ... vj^{d}' (Arber, iv. p. 188). Several songs of his are extant, and an epistle of Drayton's is dedicated to him. This appears to me the more reasonable ascription of the two. The writer in the Dic. Nat. Biog. further claims that the identity of the translator with Henry Reynolds is proved by internal evidence of style. I may add that Serassi, in his remarks prefixed to the Bodoni edition of the Aminta (Parma, 1789), ascribed the present translation to Oldmixon through a confusion of the dates 1628 and 1698.

[232] Streams or inlets.

[233] The unfortunate cacophony of the opening is the retribution on the translator for not having the courage to begin with a hypermetrical line.

[234] Later translations of the Aminta may be mentioned: John Oldmixon, 1698; P. B. Du Bois, in prose, with Italian, 1726; William Ayre [1737]; Percival Stockdale, 1770; and, lastly, the very graceful rendering by Leigh Hunt, 1820. As lately as 1900 a gentleman who need not be named had the impertinence to publish, in an American series, a mediocre version of the Aminta as being 'Now first rendered into English.' I may mention that some confusion has been introduced into the question of the date of Du Bois' translation by the wholly unwarranted opinion on the part of the B. M. catalogue that the second (undated) edition appeared c. 1650. I have compared the two editions at the Bodleian, and have no doubt that the second belongs to c. 1730.

[235] The facts are as follow. The entry on the Stationers' Register is dated September 16, 1601, and does not mention the translator's name. The first edition, quarto, 1602, contains a sonnet by Daniel, addressed to Sir Edward Dymocke, in which he refers to the translator as the knight's 'kinde Countryman.' This is followed by 'A Sonnet of the Translator, dedicated to that honourable Knight his kinsman, Syr Edward Dymock.' After this comes an epistle dedicatory addressed to Sir Edward, and signed by Simon Waterson, the publisher, dated 'London this last of December. 1601.' In it the writer speaks of Sir Edward's 'nearenesse of kinne to the deceased Translator.' The play was reprinted in 1633, in 12mo, with an epistle dedicatory by John Waterson to 'Charles Dymock, Esquire,' beginning: 'That it may appeare unto the world, that you are Heire of what ever else was your Fathers, as well as of his vertues, I heere restore what formerly his gracious acceptance made onely his: Which as a testimonie to all, that it received Life from none but him, was content to loose its being with us, since he ceased to bee.' Through the hyperbolical ambiguity of this passage it clearly appears that Charles was Sir Edward's son, but not in the least that he was the translator as has been supposed, still less that he was the son of the translator, as has also been suggested. The play is first mentioned in the second edition (1782) of the Biographia Dramatica, where the translator is said to be a 'Mr. Dymock,' and Charles is identified as his son. This was copied in the 1812 edition, and also by Halliwell, while Mr. Hazlitt has the astonishing statement that the version was by 'Charles Dymock and a second person unknown.' The Dic. Nat. Biog. does not recognize any of the persons concerned. There is, however, one curious piece of evidence which has been so far overlooked. In the list of plays, namely, appended by the publisher Edward Archer to his edition of the Old Law in 1656, occurs the entry: 'Faithfull Shepheardesse. C[omedy]. John Dymmocke.' The compiler has of course confused the translation with Fletcher's play, but the ascription is nevertheless interesting. If we insist on identifying the translator at all, it must be with this John Dymocke. The entries in Archer's list, however, are far too untrustworthy for their unsupported evidence to carry much weight. A translation 'by D. D. Gent. 12mo. 1633,' recorded by Halliwell and others, is evidently due to a series of blunders on the part of bibliographers, though what the origin of the initials is I have been unable to discover. They are probably due to Coxeter.

[236] MS. Addit. 29,493.

[237] I understand that an edition of Fanshawe's works is in preparation for Mr. Bullen.

[238] Later translations of the Pastor fido appeared in 1782 [by William Grove], and in 1809 [by William Clapperton?].

[239] MS. Ff. ii. 9.

[240] The allusion, which has hitherto escaped notice, will be found quoted below, p. 252 note.

[241] In this note the Pastor fido is said to have been 'Translated by some Author before this,' but the context makes it evident that 'some' is a misprint for 'the same.'

[242] It might be objected that J. S. is called 'Gent,' while Sidnam is termed esquire; but it should be remarked that in the MS. the 'Esq;' has been added in a later hand.

[243] MS. Sloane 836, folio 76^{v}.

[244] MS. Sloane 857, folio 195^{v}.

[245] MS. Addit. 12,128. Another MS. in the Bodleian.

[246] No doubt the Samuel Brooke who became Master in 1629. He was the brother of the Christopher Brooke who appears in Wither's eclogues under the pastoral name of Cuddie. Cf. p. 116.

[247] There is something wrong with this date. The princes were at Cambridge 2-4 March, 1612-13. (See Nichols' James I, iii. (iv.) p. 1086-7. The date 'March 6' in ii. p. 607 is an error.) Probably 'Martij 30,' which appears in the University Library MS., as well as in several MSS. at Trinity, is a slip of the transcriber for 'Martij 3,' which would set both day and year right. Nichols, indeed, gives the date as 'Martii 3,' but he refers to the Emmanuel MS., which, like the others, reads '30.'

[248] MS. Ee. 5. 16.

[249] An anonymous writer in B. M. MS. Harl. 7044, quoted by Nichols (James I, i. p. 553), has the following description: 'Veneris, 30 Augusti [1605]. There was an English play acted in the same place before the Queen and young Prince, with all the Ladies and Gallants attending the Court. It was penned by Mr. Daniel, and drawn out of Fidus Pastor, which was sometimes acted by King's College men in Cambridge. I was not there present, but by report it was well acted and greatly applauded. It was named "Arcadia Reformed."' This has led Fleay into a strange error. 'The Queen's Arcadia' he says (Biog. Chron. i. p. 110), 'although it is not known to have been acted till 1605, Aug. 30, had been prepared earlier (and perhaps acted at Herbert's marriage, 1604, Dec. 27), for it is called "Arcadia, reformed."' Of course the allusion is to the reformation of Arcadia, not the revision of the play. The play was printed the following year.

[250] For further details concerning the occasion of this piece, as also for information on the state of the text, I may refer to an article of mine in the Modern Language Quarterly for August, 1903, vi. p. 59. The first edition appeared in 1615.

[251] Grosart's edition, printed, not always very correctly, from the collected works of 1623, offers too unsatisfactory a text for quotation. I have therefore quoted from the edition of 1623 itself, corrected, where necessary, by the separate editions, and, in the case of Hymen's Triumph, by Drummond's MS.

[252] Dramatic prologues occur in some of the later Italian pastorals (see p. 185, note). That to Hymen's Triumph recalls the dialogue between Comedy and Envy prefixed to Mucedorus.

[253] Alexis is one of those characters whose appearance, while not essential to the plot, lends life to the romantic drama, and whose conspicuous absence in the neo-classic type is ill compensated by the prodigal introduction of superfluous confidants.

[254] It is just possible that Daniel took a hint for this episode from Dickenson's romance, Arisbas (1594), meutioned above, p. 147.

[255] The similarity between Silvia and Shakespeare's Viola and Beaumont's Euphrasia-Bellario is too obvious to need comment. It may, however, be remarked that in Noci's Cintia (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy, to find her lover courting another nymph. See p. 212.

[256] This narrative has been much admired, notably by Lamb and Coleridge, critics from whom it is not good to differ; but I must nevertheless confess that, to my taste, Daniel's sentiment, here as elsewhere, is inclined to verge upon the fulsome and the ludicrous.

[257] It is evident that this pompous inflation of style damaged the piece upon the stage, for on Feb. 10, 1613-4, John Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, described the performance as 'solemn and dull.'

[258] The corresponding passage in the Aminta (I. ii.) is marred by a series of rather artificial conceits.

[259] Architecture or building. A very rare use not recognized by the New English Dictionary, though it is also found in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals (I. iv. 405):

To find an house ybuilt for holy deed, With goodly architect, and cloisters wide.

[260] Guarini had already called dreams (Pastor fido, I. iv):

Immagini del di, guaste e corrotte Dall' ombre della notte.

[261] Saintsbury, in his Elizabethan Literature, insists, not unnaturally, on Daniel's lack of strength. Upon this Grosart commented in his edition (iv. p. xliv.): 'This seems to me exceptionally uncritical.... One special quality of Samuel Daniel is the inevitableness with which he rises when any "strong" appeal is made to ... his imagination.' The partiality of an editor could surely go no further.

[262] The prodigality of Oh's and Ah's is an obvious characteristic of his verse, which may possibly have been in Jonson's mind when, in the prologue to the Sad Shepherd, he wrote:

But that no stile for Pastorall should goe Current, but what is stamp'd with Ah, and O; Who judgeth so, may singularly erre.

[263] This could hardly be maintained as literally true were we to include the Latin plays of the Universities. Of these, however, I propose to take merely incidental notice. In no case do they appear to be of considerable importance, and they are, as a rule, only preserved in MSS. which are often difficult of access. I may here mention one which reached the distinction of print, and is of a more regularly Italian structure than most. The title-page reads: 'Melanthe Fabula pastoralis acta cum Iacobus Magnae Brit. Franc. & Hiberniae Rex, Cantabrigiam suam nuper inviseret, ibidemq; Musarum, atque eius animi gratia dies quinque Commoraretur. Egerunt alumni Coll. San. et Individuae Trinitatis. Cantabrigiae. Excudebat Cantrellus Legge. Mart. 27. 1615.' The play was acted, according to the invaluable John Chamberlain, on March 10, 1614-5, and appears to have made a very favourable impression. It belongs to the series of entertainments which included the representation of Albumazar, and was to have included that of Phineas Fletcher's Sicelides, had the king remained another night. The author of Melanthe is said to have been 'Mr. Brookes,' probably the Dr. Samuel Brooke who had produced the already-mentioned translation of Bonarelli's Filli di Sciro two years before. See Nichols' Progresses of James I, iii. p. 55.

[264] Fleay considers the Faithful Shepherdess a joint production of Beaumont and Fletcher. The only external evidence in favour of this theory is a remark of Jonson's reported by Drummond: 'Flesher and Beaumont, ten yeers since, hath [sic] written the Faithfull Shipheardesse, a Tragicomedie, well done.' Considering that the same authority makes Jonson ascribe the Inner Temple Masque to Fletcher, his statement as to the Faithful Shepherdess cannot be allowed much weight, while I hardly think that the fact of Beaumont having prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher in the original edition can be set aside as lightly as Fleay appears to think. He relies chiefly upon internal evidence, but in his Biographical Chronicle, at any rate, does not venture upon a detailed division. For myself, I can only discover one hand in the play, and that hand Fletcher's. Fleay places the date of representation before July, 1608, on account of an outbreak of the plague lasting from then to Nov. 1609, but A. H. Thorndike (The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere, Worcester, Mass., 1901, p. 14) has shown good reason for believing that dramatic performances were much less interfered with by the plague than Fleay imagined.

[265] Most of these, it may be remarked, as well as the character of Thenot and the unconventional role of the satyr, find parallels in the earlier stages of the Italian pastoral. The transformation-well recalls the enchanted lake of the Sacrifizio; the introduction of a supernatural agent in the plot reminds us of the same play, as well as of Epicuro's Mirzia; the friendly satyr, of this latter, which may be, in its turn, indebted to the revised version of the Orfeo; the character of Thenot is anticipated in the Sfortunato. I give the resemblances for what they are worth, which is perhaps not much; it is unlikely that Fletcher should have been acquainted with any of the plays in question, though of course not impossible. The magic taper appears to be a native superstition, a survival of the ordeal by fire.

[266] Certain critics have suggested that the Pastor fido might more appropriately have borne the title of Fletcher's play. This is absurd, since it would mean giving the title-role to the wholly secondary Dorinda. Perhaps they failed to perceive that Mirtillo and not Silvio is the hero. With Fletcher's play the case stands otherwise. There is absolutely nothing to show whether the title refers to the presiding genius of the piece, Clorin, faithful to the memory of the dead, or to the central character, Amoret, faithful in spite of himself to her beloved Perigot. I incline to believe that it is the latter that is the 'faithful shepherdess,' since it might be contended that, in the conventional language of pastoral, Clorin would be more properly described as the 'constant shepherdess.' (Cf. II. ii. 130.)

[267] See Homer Smith's paper on Pastoral Influence in the English Drama. His theory concerning the Faithful Shepherdess will be found on p. 407. Whatever plausibility there may be in the general idea, the detailed application there put forward would appear to be a singular instance of misapplied ingenuity in pursuance of a preconceived idea.

[268] 'Poems' [1619], p. 433. Compare Boccaccio's account of pastoral poetry already quoted, p. 18, note.

[269] One fault, which even the beauty of the verse fails to conceal, is the introduction of all sorts of stilted and otiose allusions to sheepcraft, which only serve to render yet more apparent the inherent absurdity of the artificial pastoral. These Tasso and Guarini had had the good taste to avoid, but we have already had occasion to notice them in the case of Bonarelli. Daniel is likewise open to censure on this score.

[270] I quote, of course, from Dyce's text, but have for convenience added the line numbers from F. W. Moorman's edition in the 'Temple Dramatists.'

[271] The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious power of virginity that has guarded her from attack and subdued his savage nature appears a little fatuous.

[272] Specifically from 'wanton quick desires' and 'lustful heat.' One is almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been.

[273] In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of La Fida pastora, by 'FF. Anglo-Britannus,' namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page.

[274] As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to court representation.

[275] Randolph's familiarity with Guarini is evident throughout, and there is at least one distinct reminiscence, namely Thestylis' humorous expansion of Corisca's remark about changing her lovers like her clothes:

Other Nymphs Have their varietie of loves, for every gowne, Nay, every petticote; I have only one, The poore foole Mopsus! (I. ii.)

[276] A word borrowed by Randolph from the Greek, [Greek: o)mphe/], a divine voice or prophecy. He may possibly have associated the word with the Delphic [Greek: o)mphalo/s].

[277] It is possible that Laurinda's indecision may owe something to the doppio amore of Celia in the Filli di Sciro. See especially III. i. of that play.

[278] Homer Smith quotes as Halliwell's the description of the play as 'one of the finest specimens of pastoral poetry in our language, partaking of the best properties of Guarini's and Tasso's poetry, without being a servile imitation of either.' He has been misled into supposing that the comments in the Dictionary of Plays are original. The above first appears in the Biographia Dramatica of 1812, and may therefore be ascribed to Stephen Jones. All Halliwell did was to omit the further words, 'its style is at once simple and elevated, natural and dignified.' The whole description is of course in the very worst style of critical claptrap. Halliwell reprinted the 'fairy' scenes in his Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night's Dream (Shakespeare Soc., 1845), though how they were supposed to illustrate anything of the kind we are not informed.

[279] 1822, p. 61. This, the only modern edition of Randolph, is one of the worst edited books in the language, and no literary drubbing was ever better deserved than that administered by the Saturday Review on August 21, 1875. As the text is quite useless for purposes of quotation, I have had recourse to the very correct first edition of the Poems, 1638, checked by a collation of the numerous subsequent issues.

[280] The sense in the original is defective.

[281] i.e. Tethys, a very common confusion.

[282] The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole collection was freqnently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 twice. In 1703 appeared the Fickle Shepherdess, 'As it is Acted in the New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all by Women.' This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to be 'abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.' It is in fact a prose rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good verse into bad prose.

[283] Vide post, p. 382.

[284] For a detailed discussion of the evidence I must refer the reader to the Introduction to my reprint of the play in the Materialien zur Kunde des aelteren Englischen Dramas (vol. xi, 1905). The following summary may be quoted. '(i) There is no ground for supposing that there ever existed more of the Sad Shepherd than we at present possess. (ii) The theory of the substantial identity of the Sad Shepherd and the May Lord must be rejected, there being no reason to suppose that the latter was dramatic at all. (iii) The two works may, however, have been to some extent connected in subject, and fragments of the one may survive embedded in the other. (iv) The May Lord was most probably written in the autumn of 1613. (v) The date of the Sad Shepherd cannot be fixed with certainty; but there is no definite evidence to oppose to the first line of the prologue and the allusion in Falkland's elegy [in Jonsonus Virbius], which agree in placing it in the few years preceding Jonson's death.'

[285] The play has no doubt been somewhat lost in the big collected editions of the author's works, and has also suffered from its fragmentary state. Previous to my own reprint it had only once been issued as a separate publication, namely, by F. G. Waldrou, whose edition, with continuation, appeared in 1783. One of the best passages, however (II. viii), was given in Lamb's Specimens. In quoting from the play I have preferred to follow the original of 1640, as in my own reprint, merely correcting certain obvions errors, rather than Gifford's edition, in which wholly unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text.

[286] Waldron, in his continuation, matches her with Clarion.

[287] It involves, moreover, the critical fallacy of supposing that poetry is a sort of richly embroidered garment wherewith to clothe the nakedness of the underlying substance. This may be so in certain cases in which the poet is made and not born, or in which he forces himself to work at an uncongenial theme. But in a genuine work of art the substance cannot so be separated from the form without injury to both. The poetry in this case is not an external adornment, but a necessary part of the structure, without which it would be something else than what it is. Verse, when in organic relation with the subject, modifies the character of that subject itself, and the subject can only be rightly apprehended through the medium of the verse. I contend that the Sad Shepherd is a case in point, and Mr. Swinburne's remarks, I conceive, bear out my view. I shall not, therefore, seek to analyse the types represented by the characters—styling poor little Amie a modification of the type of the 'forward shepherdess'!—nor count the number of lines assigned respectively to the shepherds, to the huntsmen, or to the witch; but shall endeavonr to ascertain the particular object Jonson had in view in adopting a particular presentation of the subject, the means he employed, and the measure of success he achieved.

[288] The distinction which appears to belong peculiarly to the drama is most likely a survival of the influence of the mythological plays, in which the huntress nymphs of Diana frequently appear. We find, however, a tendency to a similar dualism in Mantuan's upland and lowland swains.

[289] It has recently been argued with much ingenuity that Marian is originally none other than the familiar figure of French pastourelles. However this may be, it is a question with which I am not here concerned. It was the English Robin Hood tradition that formed part of Jonson's rough material. See E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, i. p. 175.

[290] The author, however, is at fault in his terms of art. If the quarry to which he likens Aeglamour had a dappled hide, it was a fallow and not a red deer. In this case it should have been called a buck, and not a hart. Again, the female should have been a doe: deer is a generic name including both sexes of red, fallow, and roe alike.

[291] A translation of the Astree appeared as early as 1620, but the French fashion obtained no hold over the popular taste till the later days of the Commonwealth.

[292] I may say that this section was written as it stands before K. Brunhuber's essay on Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachlaufer came into my hands. He gives a superficial account of several printed plays, but was unaware of the existence of those in MS.

[293] The quotations are from the Gifford-Dyce edition of Shirley's Works (1833), the only collected edition that has appeared. The text stands badly in need of revision, but I have had to content myself with a few obvious corrections. For instance, in the passage quoted above, the editors have followed the quarto in reducing l. 13 to nonsense, by reading 'no man,' and l. 20 by reading 'And the imagination.'

[294] So at least in the printed play. In the original draft, and probably also in the acting version, as Fleay has pointed out, they were king and queen, and of this traces remain. Thus we twice find Gynetia addressed as 'Queen,' while elsewhere 'Duke' rimes with 'spring,' and 'Duchess' with 'spleen.' The alteration was no doubt made from motives of prudence. Even so the play was, according to Fleay, published surreptitiously, i.e. it does not appear on the Stationers' Register.

[295] A. H. Bullen's reprint of Day's works was privately printed in 1881. Though the text is not in all respects satisfactory, I have thought myself justified in quoting from it as the only edition available.

[296] Not tennis, as Mr. Bullen states (Introd. p. 17), oblivious for the moment of the impossibility of representing a tennis match on the stage, as well as of the fact that the game was never, in Elizabethan times, played by ladies.

[297] There is one printed play, the relation of which to the Arcadia is not very clear. The title, Mucedorus, at once suggests some connexion, but it is difficult to follow it out in detail. Mucedorus, 'the king's sonne of Valentia,' leaves his father's court and goes disguised as a shepherd to win the love of Amadine, 'the king's daughter of Arragon.' He twice rescues the princess, is sentenced to banishment, and reveals his identity just as his father arrives in search of him. The play was originally printed in 1598, but no doubt originated some years earlier, c. 1588 according to Fleay. Most of the resemblances with the Arcadia, however, are due to scenes which first appeared in 1610, in which edition the king of Valentia first plays a part. Beyond Mucedorus' disguise there is absolutely nothing pastoral in the play. With the exception of some of the additional scenes, which are undoubtedly by a different hand from the rest, the play is unrelieved rubbish. Probably the original author utilized in the composition of his piece such elements and incidents of the Arcadia as he had gathered orally while the unfinished work still circulated in MS. Later the reviser, being aware of this source, expanded the play from a knowledge of the completed work. It cannot be said to be a dramatization of the romance, though it is undoubtedly in a manner founded upon it.

[298] Egerton MS. 1994. Not Love's Changelings Changed, as usually quoted.

[299] Old Plays, ii. p. 432.

[300] Rawl. Poet, 3.

[301] In the Bodleian MS. Ashmole 788 is a Latin epistle by Philip Kynder, a miscellaneous writer and court agent under Charles I, born in 1600 at latest, which was 'prefixt before my Silvia, a Latin comedie or pastorall, translated from the Archadia, written at eighteen years of age.' (See Halliwell's Dic. of Plays.) The 'Archadia' might, of course, refer either to Sannazzaro's or Lope de Vega's romances, though this is highly improbable.

[302] So much we learn from the title-page itself. The play had very likely been acted at court some years earlier, but the document mentioning such a performance, printed by Cunningham, is of doubtful authenticity, while Fleay contradicts himself upon the subject. The question is, happily, immaterial to our present purpose.

[303] Here, as in the Isle of Gulls, the titles of Duke and Duchess have been imperfectly substituted for King and Queen, probably for court performance.

[304] The story in the romance is very different. Erona, after many adventures, marries her lover. Both episodes are related in Book II, chapters xiii and following (ed. 1590). They are epitomized by Dyce, whose edition I have of course used.

[305] Here, again, the catastrophe of the play bears no resemblance to the romance.

[306] See III. v. According to Chetwood (British Theatre, 1752, p. 47), the play was revived in 1671, with a prologue attributing it to Shirley. This is, of course, possible, but it requires more than Chetwood's unsupported authority to render it probable. Fleay suggests that the author is the same as the J. S. of Phillis of Scyros, namely, as I have shown, Jonathan Sidnam. This seems to me highly improbable. The play is printed in Hazlitt's Dodsley, vol. xiv, whence I quote, with necessary corrections.

[307] Bk. I. chaps. v-viii, Bk. III. chap. xii, in the edition of 1590.

[308] Quotations are taken, with corrections, from Pearson's reprint of Glapthorne's works (1874).

[309] K. Deighton's emendation, undoubtedly correct, for 'Love' of the original. (Conjectural Readings, second series, Calcutta, 1898, p. 136.)

[310] I have been unable to trace this work beyond a reference to Heber's sale given in Hazlitt's Handbook. The original story will be found in Albion's England, Book IV, chap. xx, of the first Part, published in 1586. As Dr. Ward points out, it is a variant of the old romance of Havelok. Edel, with a view to disinheriting his niece Argentile, heir to Diria (?Deira), of which he is regent, seeks to marry her to a base scullion. This menial, however, is really Curan, prince of Danske, who has sought the court in disguise, in the hope of obtaining the love of the princess, who is mewed up from intercourse with the world. Of this Argentile is ignorant, and when she hears of her uncle's purpose, she contrives to escape from court and lives disguised as a shepherdess. After her flight Curan also leaves the court and assumes a shepherd's garb, and meeting Argentile by chance again falls in love with her without knowing who she is. After a while he reveals his identity, and she hers; they are married, and he conquers back her kingdom from the usurping Edel.

[311] So far as I am aware, A. B. Grosart was the first to point this out. (Spenser, iii. p. lxx.)

[312] It is printed in Hazlitt's Webster, vol. iv. Fleay, with characteristic assurance, identifies the Thracian Wonder with a lost play of Heywood's, known only from Henslowe's Diary, and there called 'War without blows and love without suit.' He argues: 'in i. 2, "You never shall again renew your suit;" but the love is given at the end without any suit; and in iii. 2, "Here was a happy war finished without blows."' The identification, however, will not bear examination. No battle, it is true, is fought at Sicily's first appearance, but the title, War without Blows could hardly be applied to a play in which the whole of the last act is occupied with fierce fighting between three different nations. So with the second title, Love without Suit. Serena indeed grants her love in the end without any reason whatever, but only after her lover has 'suited' himself clean out of his five wits. Moreover, it is not certain that this second title should not be Love without Strife. Heywood's play, I have little doubt, was a mere love-comedy (cf. such titles as The Amorous War, and similar expressions in the dramatists passim). The identification, moreover, would necessitate the date 1598, though this does not prevent Fleay from stating that the piece is founded on William Webster's poem published in 1617. So early a date seems to me rather improbable. Since William Webster's poem has nothing to do with the present piece, the suggestion that Kirkman's attribution of the play to John Webster was due to a confusion of course falls to the ground.

[313] According to S. L. Lee in the Dic. Nat. Biog., who follows the Biographia Dramatica.

[314] It will be found in Mr. Bullen's admirable collection, Lyrics from the Dramatists, 1889, p. 231.

[315] Reprinted in 1882 by A. H. Bullen in the first volume of his Old English Plays, and more recently by R. W. Bond in his edition of Lyly. In quoting, I have generally followed the latter, though I have preferred my own arrangement of certain passages. None of the suggestions that have been put forward as to the authorship of the play appear to me to carry much weight. The ascription of the whole to Lyly, first made by Archer in 1656, and repeated by Halliwell as late as 1860, is now utterly discredited. The view, first advanced by Edmund Gosse, that the author was John Day, has been tentatively endorsed by both editors of the piece; but I agree with Professer Gollancz in thinking it unlikely on the ground of style. Fleay assigns the serious (verse) portion of the play to Daniel, and the comic (prose) scenes to Lyly. It seems to me unlikely, however, that Daniel, who was shortly to appear as the chief exponent of the orthodox Italian tradition, should at this date have been concerned in the production of a typical example of the hybrid pastoral of the English stage. Nor do I believe that Lyly was in any way concerned in the piece, though some scenes are evident imitations of his work. This, however, involves the question of the authorship of the lyrics found in Lyly's plays, and I must refer for a detailed discussion to my article upon the subject already cited (p. 227).

[316] Metamorphoses, ix. 667, &c. Ward is moved to characterize the plot as a theme of 'Ovidian lubricity.' I question whether any such censure is merited. That the theme is one which would have become intolerably suggestive in the hands of the Sienese Intronati, for instance, may be admitted, but the author has treated the story with complete naivete. The obscene passages referred to later on (p. 345) occur in the comic action, and are in no way connected with the point in question. Ward further informs us that the play is 'throughout in rime,' notwithstanding the fact that something approaching a quarter of the whole is in prose.

[317] I must repeat that I see no advantage to be gained from the method adopted by Homer Smith, who tries to extract and separate the strictly pastoral elements from the medley. A play is not a child's puzzle that can be taken to pieces and labelled, nor even a chemical compound to be analysed into its component parts. What is of interest is to note the various influences which have affected and modified the growth of the literary organism.

[318] Though the author may very likely have known Spenser's description of the house of Morpheus (Faery Queen, I. i. 348, &c.), he certainly drew his own account straight from Ovid (Metam. xi. 592, &c.), to which, of course, Spenser was also indebted. I am rather inclined to think the author drew his material from Golding's translation (xi. 687, &c.). With the second passage quoted, cf. Faery Queen, II. xii. 636, &c.

[319] 'Trip and go' was a proverbial expression, and is found, with its obvious rime 'to and fro,' in several old dance-songs.

[320] The only composition I can recall which at all anticipates the peculiar effect of this lyric is Thestylis' song in the Arraignment of Paris (III. ii.), to which, in the old edition, is appended the quaint note, 'The grace of this song is in the Shepherds' echo to her verse.'

[321] Fleay gives the date 1601, following Halliwell, but Haslewood has 1603.

[322] According to Fleay, it 'was intended to be presented to James I on 13th Mar. 1614.' This date must be a slip, since it was not till 1615 that the king was at Cambridge. It is, moreover, correctly given in his History of the Stage. The preparations also appear to have been for the eleventh, not the thirteenth. Fleay further mentions a performance at King's before Charles I, but gives no authority.

[323] An exception must be made of Ward, whose remarks are almost excessively laudatory, though his treatment of the piece is necessarily slight.

[324] The incidents occur, however, in Book II of Browne's work (Songs 4 and 5), which was not printed till 1616. Either, therefore, Fletcher had seen Browne's poem in manuscript, or else the play, as originally performed, differed from the printed version. I think it unlikely that the borrowing should have been the other way.

[325] Fleay confuses the two performances, and, by placing Goffe's death in 1627, is forced to suppose that the 'praeludium' was added by another hand. It may be noticed that, if this introduction is by Goffe, Salisbury Court was probably opened in the spring, a point otherwise unsettled.

[326] The resemblance with the Sad Shepherd, I. i, is almost too close to be fortuitous. It is, on the other hand, not easily accounted for. The whole passage quoted above is somewhat markedly superior to the general level of the verse in the play, not merely the two or three lines in which a distinct resemblance to Jonson can be traced. Is it possible that both Goffe and Jonson were following, the one slavishly, the other with more imagination, one common original, now unknown? Or can it be that Goffe is here reproducing a passage from an early unpublished work of Jonson's own, a passage which Jonson later refashioned into the singularly perfect speech of Aeglamour?

[327] Homer Smith, in making these assertions, overlooks historical evidence. It is, however, only fair to Goffe to say that other critics apparently take a very much more favourable view of the merits of the piece than I am able to do.

[328] Hardly in those of the prologue to Hymen's Triumph, as suggested by Homer Smith.

[329] W. C. Hazlitt (Manual of Plays, p. 25) records: 'Bellessa, the Shepherd's Queen: The scene, Galicia. An unpublished and incomplete drama in prose and verse. Fol.' In the absence of further evidence I conclude that this is an imperfect MS. of Montagu's piece.

[330] The designs for the scene, by Inigo Jones, are preserved in the British Museum, MS. Lansd. 1,171, fols. 15-16. Fols. 5-6 of the same MS. contain the ground-plans 'for a pasterall in the hall at whitthall w'ch was ackted by the ffrench on St Thomas day the 23th of decemb'r 1635,' which may refer to the same piece.

[331] It may, however, be founded on some French romance.

[332] The play will be found in Hazlitt's 'Dodsley,' vol. xii, whence I quote. Hazlitt suggests that 'the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis' may have had its foundation in certain intrigues traceable in Digby's memoirs, and Fleay would see in the characters of Stella and Mirtillus a hint of Dorset's liaison with Lady Venetia. I suppose that it has been thought necessary to find allusions to actual persons, chiefly because the author explicitly denies their existence. Homer Smith describes the play as a pure Arcadian drama. 'The court element,' he writes, 'is so completely overshadowed by the pastoral' as to justify the classification, in spite, apparently, of the fact that the heroine never appears on the stage in pastoral guise at all, and that in the greater part of the last three acts the scene is laid at court.

[333] See above, p. 246, for Fanshawe's version of the passage in question.

[334] Were it not for these points of similarity, I should have supposed Gosse to have been misled by the pastoral-sounding title of Randolph's Plautine comedy into confusing it with the Amyntas. The criticism is from an article in the Cornhill for December, 1876. Homer Smith cites it.

[335] The surname rests on Kirkman's authority, the addition of the Christian name is apparently due to Chetwood, and is therefore to be accepted with caution. I have been unable to trace any one of the name.

[336] II. ii, sig. C 1^v of the old edition.

[337] Halliwell, Description of MSS. in the Public Library, Plymouth, to which are added Some Fragments of Early Literature hitherto unpublished. MS. CII is a copy of the original manuscript in the possession of Sir E. Dering. A manuscript of the play was in Quaritch's Catalogue for November, 1899; I have been unable to trace it.

[338] I may take the opportanity of mentioning in a note one or two Latin plays. In Emmanuel College (to the courtesy of whose librarian, Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh, I am much indebted) is preserved the manuscript of a play entitled Parthenia, which was no doubt acted at Cambridge, but concerning which no record apparently survives. The introduction of 'Pan Arcadiae deus' and of a character 'Cacius Latro' show that the piece was influenced both by the mythological drama and the romance of adventure. The most interesting point about the play is that the chief male characters bear the names of Philissides and Amyntas, which will be recognized as the pastoral titles of Sidney and Watson respectively. Since, however, the handwriting appears to be after 1600, and there is no correspondeuce in the female parts, it is more than doubtful whether any allusion was intended. Another Cambridge piece is the Silvanus, a MS. of which is in the Bodleian (Douce 234). It was performed on January 13, 1596, and may possibly have been written by one Anthony Rollinson—the name is erased.

[339] Bullen's Peele, i.p. 363.

[340] The only recorded copy of the original is in the British Museum, but is imperfect, having the title-page in facsimile from some other copy at present unknown. A reprint from another copy, possibly of a different edition, is found in Nichols' Progresses of Elisabeth, from which a modernized reprint was prepared by the Lee Priory Press in 1815. Finally, it appears in Mr. Bond's edition of Lyly, i. p. 471, whence I quote.

[341] See the excellent edition by W. Bang, Materialien zur Kunde des alteren englischen Dramas, vol. iii, 1903.

[342] All necessary apparatns for the study of this literary curiosity will be fonnd in Miss M. L. Lee's edition, 1893. The original is a MS. in the Bodleian.

[343] See A. H. Thorndike, Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspeare, 1901, p. 32. In Mucedorus (I. i. 51) we find mention of a shepherd's disguise used 'in Lord Julio's masque.' The passage occurs in the additional scenes of 1610, and there are numerous masques of the period that might claim to be that referred to. Fleay conjectures 'The Shepherds' Mask of James I.'s time,' and elsewhere identifies this title, which he gets from Halliwell's Dictionary, with Jonson's masque, Pan's Anniversary, or the Shepherds' Holiday. This, however, was produced at earliest in 1623, and can hardly therefore have been alluded to in 1610. Halliwell took his title from the British Museum MS. Addit. 10,444, in which appears the music for a number of 'masques,' or dances taken from masques, and in which this particular Shepherds' Masque (fol. 34^{v}) is dated 1635.

[344] The date here assigned presents obvions difficultes. It would naturally mean that it was performed after March 24, 1625; but as James died after about a fortnight's serious illness on March 27, this can hardly be accepted. Nichols placed the performance conjecturally in August, 1624, for reasons which I am inclined to regard as satisfactory. Fleay pronounces in favour of June 19, 1623, with a confidence not altogether calculated to inspire the like feeling in others.

[345] Lives, Oxford, 1898, i. p. 251.

[346] 'The Dramatic Works of John Tatham,' 1879. In Maidment and Logan's Dramatists of the Restoration.

[347] Another parallel may be found in Shirley's Maid's Revenge, IV. iv, where the wounded Antonio exclaims:

Where art, Berinthia? let me breathe my last Upon thy lip; make haste, lest I die else.

The situation, however, is different. Shirley's play was licensed in 1626.

[348] In a small quarto volume, classed as Addit. MS. 14,047. The piece has hitherto been ascribed to George Wilde, on the authority of Halliwell. There appears to be no reason for this ascription, beyond the fact that the same volume also contains two pieces by Wilde. His name, however, does not occur in connexion with the present play, and the volume, which is in a variety of hands, certainly includes work not by him. Wilde was scholar and fellow of St. John's, chaplain to Laud, and Bishop of Londonderry after the restoration. His plays consist of the two comedies in this volume, viz. the Latin Euphormus, sive Cupido Adultus, acted on Feb. 5, 1634/5, and the Hospital of Lovers, acted before the king and queen on Aug. 29, 1636, both at St. John's. He is also said to have written another Latin play, called Hermophus, though nothing is known of it beyond the record of its being acted. It was most probably the same as Euphormus, the titles being anagrams of each other.

[349] The Dic. Nat. Biog. gives the date as 1635.

[350] The stage directions for these entries are interesting: (l) 'Enter An Antique [i.e. antimasque] of Sheapheards'; (2) 'enter the Masque'; (3) 'the masque enters and dances, and after wardes exit.' The terms 'masque' and 'antimasque' appear to have been used technically for the dances of the masque proper, and of its burlesque counterpart. In this sense the words occur repeatedly in the British Museum Addit. MS. 10,444, which contains the music only. In the present case the masquers appear to have been distinct from the characters of the play.

[351] R. Brotanek, Die englischen Maskenspiele, 1902, p. 201. See also the edition by R. Brotanek and W. Bang, Materialien zur Kunde des aelteren Englischen Dramas, vol. ii, 1903; and further in the Modern Language Quarterly for April, 1904, vii. p. 17.

[352] The first issue was printed 'for the use of the Author,' without date, but was received by Thomason on Sept. 1, 1656, which would appear to dispose of the fiction that Cox died in 1648.

[353] This letter was prefixed to the masque in the collected edition of the Poems (1645), but was written to the author without view to publication.

[354] Fifty-eight lines in decasyllabic couplets—not eighty-three lines of blank verse, as for some inexplicable reason Masson asserts (i. p. 150).