Frois

d'un jeu, et d'un passe-temps. Jouer leur jeu, ont-ils dit les arbaletriers qui faisoient pleuvoir une grele de traits: Jouer gros jeu, pour donner battaille: Jouer des mains; et une infinitè d'autres façons de parler semblables se recontrent souvent dans la lecture de recits militaires de nos ecrivains. sart, en rapportant la mort de Duc Winceslas, fait ainsi son portrait; En celuy temps [1383] trespassa de ce siecle-le gentil et joly Duc Winceslas de Boheme, Duc de Luxemburgh et de Brabant, qui en son temps noble, frisque, sage, amoreux, et armeret avoit este *." Some of their late campaigns have begun in the same spirit; which, how ever, have often ended very seriously nor have the balls and the battles of those lively Generals, Soubise and Broglio, been always executed with equal good humour and brilliancy.

B. v. c. ix. s. xi.

M. de la Curne de S. Palaye. supr. citat. tom. ii. pag. 61. Not.

He is describing Guile.

Als at his back a great wide net he bore,
With which he seldom fished at the brooke,
But us'd to fish for fooles on the dry shore.

This net seems to be borrowed from the like expedient used by the giant Caligo

rante.

Piacer fra tanta crudelta si prende
D'una Rete, &c *.

And in this crueltie he has great sport

To use the service of a certaine net.

HARRINGTON.

B. vi. c. xi. s. ii.

Like as is now befalne to this faire maid,

Faire Pastorell, &c.

The distress of Pastorell is somewhat simi

1

lar to that of Ariosto's Isabel, who is seized by certain outlaws or pirates, and imprisoned in a cave, in order to be sold for a slave t.

* C. xv. s. 44. seq.

† C. xii. s. 91. seq.

This pastoral part of the Fairy Queen seems to have been occasioned by Sydney's Arcadia, and in conformity to the common fashion of the times, which abounded in pastoral poetry.

Hence our author.

Our pleasant groves which planted were with paines,
That with our musicke wont so oft to ring,

And arbors sweet in which the shepherd swaines

Were wont so oft their Pastorals to sing,

They have cut downe, and all their pleasance mard,
That now no pastoral is to be hard *.

And Hall, in the Prologue † to his Satires, published in 1597.

Would yee but breathe within a wax-bound quill,
Pan's seven-fold pipe, some plaintive Pastoral;
To teach each hallow'd grove, and shrubbie hill,
Each murmuring brook, and solitarie vale,
To sound our love, and to our song accord,
Wearying echo with one changelesse word. ‡

* Tears of the Muses.

+ Ibid.

A Defiance to Envie, b. 1. s. 14.

And in the first Satire, he declares that he

cannot follow the fashionable cant of the times.

Nor under everie bank, and everie tree,
Speake rimes unto mine oaten minstralsie *.

The Miscellanies of Queen Elizabeth's age, and of the following reign, are filled with this species of poetry, in which it was usual for every young writer, at least, to try his skill. The first collection of pastorals I have met with in English, is, I think, in

Eglogs, Epitaphs, and Sonnets, newly written by Barnabie Googe, &c, 1563."Googe was the translator of Palingenius. The study of the Italian poets, particularly the recent publication of the Prosa of Sannazarius, which certainly gave rise to the Arcadia, produced this inundation of pastorals. Tasso's Aminta was now too but just pub

* B. i. s. 1.

lished, and became extremely popular.These Spenser copied; but one of his most finished and elegant pastorals, December, is literally translated from old Clement Marot, which is not observed by the commentator, E. K. I will give great part of the French at length, which, as also the remainder, the reader may compare with the English at his leisure.

Chantant ainsi: O Pan, dieu souverain,
Qui de garder ne fus onc paresseux
Parcs, et brebris, et les maistres d'iceux,
Et remets sur tous gentils pastoureaux,
Quand ils n'ont prez, ne loges, ne toreaux,
Je te supply (si onc en ces bas estres
Daignas ouyr chansonnettes champestres)
Escoute un peu, de ton verd cabinet
Le chant rural de petit Robinet.

Sur le printemps de ma jeunesse folle,
Je resemblois l'arondelle, qui volle
Puis ca, puis la : l'aage me conduisoit
Sans peur, ne soing, ou le cœur me disoit.