And veil your gracious pomp in lovely Nature's scorn,
Fast by your flow'rs to take the summer's air,
Then woful blushing tempt her glorious eyes,
To spread their tears, Adonis' death reporting,
And tell Love's torments sorrowing for her friend,
Whose drops of blood within your leaves consorting
Report fair Venus' moans withouten end.

Then may remorse, in pitying of my smart,
Dry up my tears, and dwell within her heart."

From "Morley's Canzonets." 1597.

"When lo! by break of morning,

My love her self adorning,

Doth walk the woods so dainty,

Gath'ring sweet violets and cowslips plenty,
The birds enamour'd sing and praise my Flora,
Lo! here a new Aurora !"

From "Wilbye's Madrigals." 1598.

"Flora gave me fairest flowers,

None so fair in Flora's treasure;

These I plac'd on Phillis' bowers,

She was pleas'd, and she my pleasure:

Smiling meadows seem to say,

Come, ye wantons, here to play."

"Ye restless thoughts, that harbour discontent,
Cease your assaults, and let my heart lament;
And let my tongue have leave to tell my grief;
That she may pity, though not grant relief:
Pity would help what Love hath almost slain,
And salve the wound that fester'd this disdain.”

From "Weelkes's Ballets and Madrigals." 1598.

"Sweet Love, I will no more abuse thee,
Nor with my [wanton] voice accuse thee,
But tune my notes unto thy praise,
And tell the world, Love ne'er decays;
Sweet Love doth concord ever cherish,
What wanteth concord soon doth perish."

"Sweet heart, arise, why do you sleep,
When lovers wanton sports do keep?
The sun doth shine, the birds do sing,
And May delight and joy doth bring;
Then join we hands, and dance till night,
"Tis pity Love should want his right."

"Phillis hath sworn she loves the man,
That knows what's love, and love her can;
Philemon then must needs agree—

Phillis, my choice of choice shall be."

"In pride of May

The fields are gay,

The birds do sweetly sing,

So nature would

That all things should

With joy begin the spring.

Then Lady dear,

Do you appear

In beauty like the spring;

I will dare say

The birds that day

More cheerfully will sing."

From "Weelkes's Madrigals." 1600.

"When Thoralis delights to walk,

The fairies do attend her,
They sweetly sing and sweetly talk,
And sweetly do commend her;
The satyrs leap and dance the round,
And make their congés to the ground,
And evermore their song it is,

Long may'st thou live, fair Thoralis !"

T. P.

ART. LXXXV. Chrestoleros. Seven bookes of Epigrames: Written by T. B. London: Imprinted by R. Bradocke. 1598. 12mo. pp. 184.

A PROSE dedication to Sir Charles Blount, Knt. Lord Mountjoy, concludes with an epigram signed THOMAS BASTARD: of whom several notices may be seen in Wood's Athenæ, Vol. I. Warton's History of English Poetry, Vol. IV. and the late edition of Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum. Sir John Harington addressed two of his epigrams to this Master Bastard. By Heath and Sheppard he was also

*Heath's compliment runs thus:

"Ad Tho. Bastardum Epigrammatistam. Thy epigrams are of no bastard race,

For they dare gaze the world's eye in the face."

complimented. Wood says he was "much guilty of the vices belonging to poets, and given to libelling;" on which account he was removed from a fellowship of New College, Oxford. Two specimens of this libelling propensity have been preserved by Wood, among his manuscript collections in the Ashmolean Museum. A Latin poem, by Bastard, occurs in Ph. Sidnai Peplus, 1587. From his epigrams, &c. he would seem to have been patronized by Lord Mountjoy, the Earl of Suffolk, and others; yet he frequently speaks of his poverty, and thus contrasts his situation with those earlier and better days when the furor poeticus was excited by prosperous fortune.

"But now, left naked of prosperitie,
And subject unto bitter injurie;
So poor of sense, so bare of wit I am,

Not neede herselfe can drive an epigram."

Warton describes him to have been an elegant classic scholar, and better qualified for that species of the occasional pointed Latin epigram, established by his fellow-collegian, John Owen, than for any sort of English versification. With allowance however for its quaint close, the following specimen from his epigrams, is creditable to the writer's poetic taste and social feeling.

"Ad Thomam Strangwaies.

Strangwaies! leave London and her sweet contents,
Or bring them down to me, to make me glad,

And give one month to country-merriments;
Give me a few days, for the years I had.

The poets' songs and sports we will read over,
Which in their golden quire they have resounded,
And spill our readings one upon another,

And read our spillings, sweetly so confounded.
Nulam shall lend us light in midst of day,
When to the even valley we repair;
When we delight ourselves with talk, or play
Sweet, with the infant grass and virgin air:
These in the heat, but in the even, later

We'll walk the meads, and read trouts in the water."

Nine or ten passages from Bastard are cited in England's Parnassus, 1600; and besides several sermons, a panegyrical poem is still extant, which was addressed on his accession, "Serenissimo potentissimoque monarchæ Jacobo, Magnæ Britanniæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ, regi magnam Britanniam."

T. P.

ART. LXXXVI. Skialetheia, or a Shadowe of Truth, in certaine Epigrams and Satyres. London. 1598. 12mo.

EPIG. 3.

Of Titus.

"Titus oft vaunts his gentry every where,

Blazoning his coate, deriving 's pedigree:
What need'st thou daily, Titus, jade mine care?
I will beleeve thy house's auncestry:
If that be auncient which we doe forget,
Thy gentry's so: none can remember it."

EPIG. 9.

Of Paule.

"Paule daily wrongs me, yet he daily sweares He wisheth me as well as to his soule: