POLYHYMNI A.* 1590.

THE AGED MAN-AT-ARMS.

HIS golden locks time hath to silver turned;

His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain; youth waneth by encreasing. Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen. Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.

His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,

And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man at arms must now serve on his knees,

And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.

And when he saddest sits in homely cell,

He'll teach his swains this carol for a song: 'Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well, Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.' Goddess, allow this aged man his right,

To be your beadsman now that was your knight.

* A description of a Triumph at Tilt, held before Queen Elizabeth in the Tilt Yard at Westminster in 1590. This very rare poem was reprinted by Mr. Dyce, in his edition of Peele's works, from a copy in the University of Edinburgh, amongst the books presented by Drummond. The copy was slightly mutilated, but the deficiencies were supplied from a MS. found in an old house in Oxfordshire. The above song, or sonnet, taken from Polyhymnia, is extracted by Ellis, in his Specimens from Segur's Honour, Military and Civil (1602), and is also given by Beloe, from the Garrick collection in the British Museum. Mr. Dyce throws a doubt upon Beloe's veracity, by stating that he searched in vain for a copy of Polyhymnia in that collection; but Beloe's version was evidently derived, notwithstanding, from the original work, and not from Segur's reprint, which exhibits several variations.

THE HUNTING OF CUPID.* 1591.

QUESTION AND ANSWER.

MELAMPUS, when will Love be void of fears?

When Jealousy hath neither eyes nor ears. Melampus, when will Love be thoroughly shrieved? When it is hard to speak, and not believed. Melampus, when is Love most malcontent? When lovers range, and bear their bows unbent. Melampus, tell me when Love takes least harm? When swains' sweet pipes are puffed, and trulls are

warm.

Melampus, tell me when is love best fed?

When it has sucked the sweet that ease hath bred.
Melampus, when is time in love ill spent?
When it earns meed and yet receives no rent.
Melampus, when is time well spent in Love?
When deeds win meed, and words love works do prove.

CUPID'S ARROWS.

AT Venus' entreaty for Cupid her son

These arrows by Vulcan were cunningly done.
The first is Love, as here you may behold,
His feathers, head, and body, are of gold:

The second shaft is Hate, a foe to love,
And bitter are his torments for to prove:

The third is Hope, from whence our comfort springs,
His feathers [they] are pulled from Fortune's wings:
Fourth Jealousy in basest minds doth dwell,

This metal Vulcan's Cyclops sent from hell.

* No copy of this work, apparently a sort of dramatic pastoral, is known to be in existence. These three songs, two of which are familiar to the readers of the Helicon and the Parnassus, and a scanty fragment of the dialogue, were preserved by Drummond in his commonplace book, and have been included by Mr. Dyce in his edition of Peele's works.

THE DRAMATISTS.

5

LOVE.

WHAT thing is love?—for sure love is a thing;

Love is a prick, love is a sting,

Love is a pretty, pretty thing;

Love is a fire, love is a coal,

Whose flame creeps in at every hole;

And, as myself can best devise,

His dwelling is in ladies' eyes,

From whence he shoots his dainty darts

Into the lusty gallants' hearts:

And ever since was called a god

That Mars with Venus played even and odd.

THE OLD WIVES' TALE. 1595.

THE MAID'S RESOLVE.

WHENAS* the rye reach to the chin,

And chopcherry, chopcherry ripe within,

Strawberries swimming in the cream,
And schoolboys playing in the stream;
Then O, then O, then O, my true love said,
"Till that time come again

She could not live a maid!

CELANTE AT THE WELL.

GENTLY dip, but not too deep,

fear you make the golden beard to weep. [A head comes up with ears of corn, and she counts them in her lap.

Fair maiden, white and red,

Comb me smooth, and stroke my head,

And thou shalt have some cockell-bread.

Gently dip, but not too deep,

For fear thou make the golden beard to weep.

* When.

Fair maid, white and red,

Comb me smooth, and stroke my head,
And every hair a sheaf shall be,

And every sheaf a golden tree.

[A head comes up full of gold, and she combs it into her lap.

DAVID AND BETHSA BE. 1599.

BETHSABE BATHING.

HOT sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,

Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair: Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe air, and ease me; Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me, and please me: Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning, Make not my glad cause cause of mourning. Let not my beauty's fire Inflame unstayed desire, Nor pierce any bright eye That wandereth lightly.

ROBERT GREENE.

1560-1592.

[THE bulk of Greene's dramatic works, like those of his friend Peele, perished in the fire of London, or mouldered into dust in the closets of the theatres. Only five of his plays have come down to us, and they contain but a single song. He shows no lyrical aptitude in his dramatic works; and, being compelled to write for subsistence, he had little leisure for cultivating any form of poetry he could not accomplish with ease and facility. Assuming him to be the author of this solitary song (the play in which it appears was written in conjunction with Lodge), it is an indifferent sample of his skill. He wrote better verses (and worse), and was capable occasionally of much beauty and neatness. Some of his best

short pieces will be found in England's Helicon. The song may, without much hesitation, be ascribed to Greene. It is scarcely worthy of Lodge, whose lyrics were generally of a higher and more imaginative cast.

Robert Greene was a native of Norwich, where he was born, according to different accounts, in 1560 or 1550. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and took his degrees of A.B. and A.M. in 1578 and 1583. In 1588 he was incorporated at Oxford. In the interval he travelled on the Continent, and is supposed to have described some of his adventures in his Groat's Worth of Wit and Never too Late. He is said to have taken orders, and there is no doubt he studied medicine; but it is certain he followed neither profession. Like Peele, he seems to have appeared occasionally on the stage, probably as an amateur in some of his own pieces. The confessions he published of his career trace a course of almost incredible depravity. Upon his return to England, he set up for a man about town, and plunged into the grossest vices of the metropolis. It was easier for a man of genius, who loved pleasure and hated restraint, to write plays and 'love pamphlets,' than to sit down to the sober labours of the pulpit or the hospital; and Greene found in this occupation easy, although uncertain, means of living, and indulging his tastes. Somewhere in the country he married a lady of good family, and as soon as she had borne him a child, and he had expended her portion, he deserted her. The reason he assigns for this piece of turpitude is, that she was so virtuous as to endeavour to seduce him from his debaucheries. He acknowledged that he acted as ill to his friends as to his wife, exhausting their good offices, and repaying them with ingratitude. The consequence was, that he sank at last into the lowest depths of penury and degradation, running up scores at alehouses, living precariously by his pen, and forsaken by all acquaintances who were able to render him any service. The only associates he retained in his dissipation were Peele, Marlowe, and Nash, and these, as profligate and unprincipled as himself, abandoned him in the