Like flowers it withers with th' advancing year;
And age, like Winter, robs the blooming fair.
Oh, Araminta! cease thy wonted pride,
Nor longer in thy faithless charms confide!
Ev'n while the glass reflects thy sparkling eyes,
Their lustre and thy rosy colour flies!

Thus on the Fan the breathing figures shine,
And all the powers applaud the wise design.

The Cyprian queen the painted gift receives, And with a grateful bow the synol leaves. To the low world she bends her steepy way, Where Strephon pass'd the solitary day. She found him in a melancholy grove, His down-cast eyes betray'd desponding love; The wounded bark confess'd his slighted flame, And every tree bore false Corinna's name : In a cool shade he lay with folded arms, Curses his fortune, and upbraids her charms; When Venus to his wondering eyes appears, And with these words relieves his amorous cares: "Rise! happy youth, this bright machine surWhose rattling sticks my busy fingers sway; [vey, This present shall thy cruel charmer move, And in her fickle bosom kindle love.

"The Fan shall flutter in all female hands, And various fashions learn from various lands. For this shall elephants their ivory shed; And polish'd sticks the waving engine spread : His clouded mail the tortoise shall resign, And round the rivet pearly circles shine. On this shall Indians all their art employ, And with bright colours stain the gaudy toy; Their paint shall here in wildest fancies flow, Their dress,. their customs, their religion, show: So shall the British fair their minds improve, And on the Fan to distant climates rove. Here China's ladies shall their pride display, And silver figures gild their loose array; This boasts her little feet and winking eyes; That tunes the fife, or tinkling cymbal plies: Here cross-legg'd nobles in rich state shall dine; There in bright mail distorted heroes shine. The peeping Fan in modern times shall rise, Through which unseen the female ogle flies; This shall in temples the sly maid conceal, And shelter Love beneath Devotion's veil. Gay France shall make the Fan her artist's care, And with the costly trinket arm the fair. As learned orators, that touch the heart, With various action raise their soothing art, Both head and hand affect the listening throng, And humour each expression of the tongue; So shall each passion by the Fan be seen, From noisy anger to the sullen spleen."

While Venus spoke, joy shone in Strephon's eyes; Proud of the gift, he to Corinna flies: But Cupid (who delights in amorous ill, Wounds hearts, and leaves them to a woman's will) With certain aim a golden arrow drew, Which to Leander's panting bosom flew. Leander lov'd, and to the sprightly dame In gentle sighs reveal'd his growing flame: Sweet smiles Corinna to his sighs returns, And for the fop in equal passion burns.

Lo, Strephon comes! and, with a suppliant bow, Offers the present, and renews his vow.

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When she the fate of Niobe beheld,

Why has my pride against my heart rebell'd?" She sighing cry'd. Disdain forsook her breast, And Strephon now was thought a worthy guest.

GREAT marvel hath it been (and that not unworthily) to diverse worthy wits, that in this our island of Britain, in all rare sciences so greatly abounding, more especially in all kinds of poesy highly flourishing, no poet (though otherwise of notable cunning in roundelays) hath hit on the right simple eclogue after the true ancient guise of Theocritus, before this mine attempt.

Other poet travailing in this plain highway of pastoral know I none. Yet, certes, such it behoved a pastoral to be, as Nature in the country affordeth; and the manners also meetly copied from the rustical folk therein. In this also my love to my native country Britain much pricketh me forward, to describe aright the manners of our own honest and laborious ploughmen, in no wise sure more unworthy a British poet's imitation, than those of Sicily or Arcadie; albeit, not ignorant I am, what a rout and rabblement of critical gallimawfry hath been made of late days by certain young men of insipid delicacy, concerning, I wist not what, golden age, and other outrageous conceits, to which they would confine pasWhereof, I avow, I account nought at all, knowing no age so justly to be instiled golden, as this of our sovereign lady queen Anne.

toral.

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

Ωπόλος ὅκαὶ ἐσορῇ τὰς μηκάδας, οἷα βατεῦνται, Τάκεται ὀφθαλμῶς, ὅτι οὐ τράγος αὐτὸς ἐγέντο. Theoc. Id. i. 87. true

Verily, as little pleasance receiveth a homebred taste, from all the fine finical newfangled fooleries of this gay Gothic garniture,

wherewith they so nicely bedeck their court clowns, or clown courtiers, (for, which to call them rightly, I wot not) as would a prudent citizen journeying to his country farms, should he find them occupied by people of this motley make, instead of plain downright hearty cleanly folk, such as be now tenants to the burgesses of this realm.

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

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

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

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

For as much as I have mentioned maister Spenser, soothly I must acknowledge him a bard of sweetest memorial. Yet hath his shepherd's boy at some times raised his rustic reed to rhymes more rumbling than rural. Diverse grave points also hath he handled of churchly matter, and doubts in religion daily arising, to great clerks only appertaining. What liketh me best are his names, indeed right simple and meet for the country, such as Lobbin, Cuddy, Hobbinol, Diggon, and others, some of which I have made bold to borrow. Moreover, as he called his eclogues, the Shepherd's Calendar, and divided the same into twelve months, I have chosen (peradventure not over-rashly) to name mine by the days of the week, omitting Sunday or the Sabbath, ours being supposed to be Christian shepherds, and to be then at church-worship. Yet further of many of mais. ter Spenser's eclogues it may be observed; though months they be called, of the said months therein nothing is specified; wherein I have also esteemed him worthy mine imitation.

too much of the present to have been fit for the old, and too much of both to be fit for any time to come. Granted also it is, that in this my language I seem unto myself as a London mason, who calculated his work for a term of years, when he buildeth with old materials upon a ground-rent that is not his own, which soon turns to rubbish and ruins. For this point, no reason can I allege, only deep-learned ensamples having led me thereunto.

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

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

Lo, I who erst beneath a tree
Sung Bumkinet and Bowzybee,
And Blouzelind and Marian bright,
In apron blue or apron white,
Now write my sonnets in a book,
For my good lord of Bolingbroke.

As lads and lasses stood around

To hear my boxen hautboy sound,
Our clerk came posting o'er the green
With doleful tidings of the queen;
"That queen," he said, to whom we owe
Sweet peace, that maketh riches flow;
That queen, who eas'd our tax of late,
Was dead, alas !-and lay in state."

At this, in tears was Cicely seen,
Buxoma tore her pinners clean,
In doleful dumps stood every clown,
The parson rent his band and gown.

For me, when as I heard that Death
Had snatch'd queen Anne to Elizabeth,
I broke my reed, and, sighing, swore,
I'd weep for Blouzelind no more.

While thus we stood as in a stound, And wet with tears, like dew, the ground, Full soon by bonfire and by bell We learnt our liege was passing well. A skilful leach (so God him speed) They said, had wrought this blessed deed.

To swell his couch; for, well I ween,
He sav'd the realm, who sav'd the queen.
Quoth I, "Please God, I'll hye with glee
To court, this Arbuthnot to see."
I sold my sheep, and lambkins too,
For silver loops and garment blue;

My boxen hautboy, sweet of sound,
For lace that edg'd mine hat around;
For Lightfoot, and my scrip, I got
A gorgeous sword, and eke a knot.

So forth I far'd to court with speed,
Of soldier's drum withouten dreed;
For peace allays the shepherd's fear
Of wearing cap of grenadier,

There saw I ladies all a-row,
Before their queen in seemly show.
No more I'll sing Buxoma brown,
Like Goldfinch in her Sunday gown;
Nor Clumsilis, nor Marian bright,
Nor damsel that Hobnelja hight.

But Lansdowne, fresh as flower of May,
And Berkeley, lady blithe and gay;
And Anglesea, whose speech exceeds
The voice of pipe, or oaten reeds;

And blooming Hyde, with eyes so rare;
And Montague beyond compare:
Such ladies fair would I depaint,
In roundelay or sonnet quaint.

There many a worthy wight I've seen,
In ribbon blue and ribbon green:
As Oxford, who a wand doth bear,
Like Moses, in our Bibles fair;
Who for our traffic forms designs,
And gives to Britain Indian mines.
Now, shepherds, clip your fleecy care;
Ye maids, your spinning-wheels prepare;
Ye weavers, all your shuttles throw,
And bid broad-cloths and serges grow;
For trading free shall thrive again,
Nor leasings lewd affright the swain.

There saw I St. John, sweet of mien, Full stedfast both to church and queen; With whose fair name I'll deck my strain; St. John, right courteous to the swain.

For thus he told me on a day, "Trim are thy sonnets. gentle Gay; And, certes, mirth it were to see Thy joyous madrigals twice three, With preface meet, and notes profound, Imprinted fair, and well ye-bound." All suddenly then home I sped, And did ev'n as my lord had said.

Lo, here thou hast mine cclogues fair, But let not these detain thine ear. Let not th' affairs of states and kings Wait, while our Bouzybeus sings. Rather than verse of simple swain Should stay the trade of France or Spain; Or, for the plaint of parson's maid, Yon emperor's packets be delay'd; In sooth, I swear by holy Paul, I'll burn book, preface, notes, and all.

MONDAY; OR, THE SQUABBLE.

LOBBIN CLOUT, CUDDY, CLODDIPOLE.

LOBBIN CLOUT.

THY younglings, Cuddy, are but just awake, No thrustles shrill the bramble-bush forsake,

Ver. 3. Welkin, the same as welken, an old Saxon word, signifying a cloud; by poetical licence it is frequently taken for the element, or sky, as may appear by this verse in the Dream of Chaucer

Ne in all the welkin was no cloud. -Sheen, or shine, an old word for shining, or bright.

Ver. 5. Scant, used in the ancient British authors for scarce.

Ver. 6. Rear, an expression in several counties of England, for early in the morning

Ver. 7. To ween, derived from the Saxon, to think, or conceive.

Ver. 25. Erst, a contraction of ere this; it signifies sometime ago, or formerly.

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When in the ring the rustic routs he threw,
The damsels' pleasures with his conquests grew;
Or when aslant the cudgel threats his head,
His danger smites the breast of every maid,
But chief of Marian. Marian lov'd the swain,
The parson's maid, and neatest of the plain;
Marian, that soft could stroke the udder'd cow,
Or lessen with her sieve the barley-mow;
Marbled with sage the hardening cheese she press'd,
And yellow butter Marian's skill confess'd;
But Marian now, devoid of country cares,
Nor yellow butter, nor sage-cheese, prepares,
For yearning love the witless maid employs,
And "Love" say swains, "all busy heed destroys."
Colin makes mock at all her piteous smart;
A lass that Cicely hight had won his heart,
Cicely, the western lass, that tends the kee,
The rival of the parson's maid was she.
In dreary shade now Marian lies along,
And, mixt with sighs, thus wails in plaining song:
Ah, woeful day! ah, woeful noon and morn!
When first by thee my younglings white were
Then first, I ween, I cast a lover's eye,
My sheep were silly, but more silly I.
Beneath the shears they felt no lasting smart,
They lost but fleeces, while I lost a heart.
"Ah, Colin! canst thou leave thy sweetheart
true?

20

[shorn;

30

What I have done for thee, will Cicely do?
Will she thy linen wash, or hosen darn,
And knit thee gloves made of her own spun yarn?
Will she with huswife's hand provide thy meat?
And every Sunday morn thy neckcloth plait,
Which o'er thy kersey doublet spreading wide,
In service-time drew Cicely's eyes aside?

"Where'er I gad, I cannot hide my care,
My new disasters in my look appear.
White as the curd my ruddy cheek is grown,
So thin my features, that I'm hardly known.
Our neighbours tell me oft, in joking talk,
Of ashes, leather, oatmeal, bran, and chalk;
Unwittingly of Marian they divine,

40

And wist not that with thoughtful love I pine.
Yet Colin Clout, untoward shepherd swain,
Walks whistling blithe, while pitiful I plain.
"Whilom with thee 'twas Marian's dear delight
To moil all day, and merry-make at night.
50
If in the soil you guide the crooked share,
Your early breakfast is my constant care;
And when with even hand you strow the grain,
I fright the thievish rooks from off the plain.
In misling days, when I my thresher heard,
With nappy beer I to the barn repair'd;
Lost in the music of the whirling flail,
To gaze on thee I left the smoking pail :
In harvest, when the Sun was mounted high,
My leathern bottle did thy draught supply;
Whene'er you mow'd, I follow'd with the rake,
And have full oft been sun-burnt for thy sake:
When in the welkin gathering showers were seen,
I lagg'd the last with Colin on the green;
And when at eve returning with thy car,
Awaiting heard the jingling bells from far,
Straight on the fire the sooty pot I plac'd,
To warm thy broth I burnt my hands for haste.
When hungry thou stood'st staring, like an oaf,
Islie'd the luncheon from the barley-loaf;

60

70

With crumbled bread I thicken'd well thy mess.
Ah, love me more, or love thy pottage less!

"Last Friday's eve, when as the Sun was set,
I, near yon stile, three sallow gypsies met.
Upon my hand they cast a poring look,
Bid me beware, and thrice their heads they shook:
They said, that many crosses I must prove;
Some in my worldly gain, but most in love.
Next morn I miss'd three hens and our old cock,
And off the hedge two pinners and a smock; 80
I bore these losses with a Christian mind,
And no mishaps could feel, while thou wert kind.
But since, alas! I grew my Colin's scorn,
I've known no pleasure, night, or noon, or morn.
Help me, ye gypsies; bring him home again,
And to a constant lass give back her swain.
"Have I not sat with thee full many a night,
When dying embers were our only light,
When every creature did in slumbers lie,
Besides our cat, my Colin Clout, and I?
No troublous thoughts the cat or Colin more,
While I alone am kept awake by love.

"Remember, Colin, when at last year's wake
I bought the costly present for thy sake;
Could'st thou spell o'er the posy on thy knife,
And with another change thy state of life?
If thou forgett'st, I wot, I can repeat,
My memory can tell the verse so sweet:

As this is grav'd upon this knife of thine,
So is thy image on this heart of mine.'
But woe is me! such presents luckless prove,
For knives, they tell me, always sever love."

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100

Thus Marian wail'd, her eyes with tears brimful, When Goody Dobbins brought her cow to bull. With apron blue to dry her tears she sought, Then saw the cow well serv'd, and took a groat.

WEDNESDAY; OR, THE DUMPS'.

SPARABELLA.

THE wailings of a maiden I recite,
A maiden fair, that Sparabella hight.
Such strains ne'er warble in the linnet's throat,
Nor the gay goldfinch chants so sweet a note.
No magpye chatter'd, nor the painted jay,
No ox was heard to low, nor ass to bray;
No rustling breezes play'd the leaves among,
While thus her madrigal the damsel sung.

Dumps, or dumbs, made use of to express a fit of the sullens Some have pretended that it is derived from Dumops, a king of Egypt, that built a pyramid, and died of melancholy. So mopes, after the same manner, is thought to have come from Merops, another Egyptian king, that died of the same distemper. But our English antiquaries have conjectured that dumps, which is a grievous heaviness of spirits, comes from the word dumplin, the heaviest kind of pudding that is eaten in this country, much used in Norfolk, and other counties of England.

Ver. 5.

Immemor herbarum quos est mirata juvenca Certantes, quorum stupefactæ carmine lynces, Et mutata suos requiêrunt flumina cursus.

Virg.