Hath often lodged in your house;
I thanke you for the same;
For why? it doth him jolly ease
To lie so neare his game.

But, for you have not furniture
Beseeming such a guest,

I bring his owne, and come myselfe
To see his lodging drest.

130

With that two sumpters were discharg'd,

135

In which were hangings brave,

Silke coverings, curtens, carpets, plate,
And al such turn should have.

When all was handsomly dispos'd,
She prayes them to have care
That nothing hap in their default,

140

That might his health impair:

And, Damsell, quoth shee, for it seemes

This houshold is but three

But when he knew those goods to be
His proper goods; though late,
Scarce taking leave, he home returnes
The matter to debate.

160

The countesse was a-bed, and he

With her his lodging tooke;

Sir, welcome home (quoth shee); this night

165

VII.
Dowsabell.

THE following stanzas were written by Michael Drayton, a poet of some eminence in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I.1 They are inserted in one of his Pastorals, the first edition of which bears this whimsical title. "Idea. The Shepheards Garland fashioned in nine Eglogs. Rowlands sacrifice to the nine muses. Lond. 1593, 4to." They are inscribed with the author's name at length, "To the noble and valerous gentleman master Robert Dudley," &c. It is very remarkable, that when Drayton reprinted them in the first folio edition of his works, 1619, he had given those Eclogues so thorough a revisal, that there is hardly a line to be found the same as in the old edition. This poem had received the fewest corrections, and therefore is chiefly given from the ancient copy, where it is thus introduced by one of his shepherds:

Listen to mee, my lovely shepheards joye,

And thou shalt heare, with mirth and mickle glee,

A prettie tale, which when I was a boy,

My toothles grandame oft hath tolde to me.

The author has professedly imitated the style and metre of some of the old metrical romances; particularly that of Sir Isenbras2, (alluded to in v. 3,) as the reader may judge from the following specimen:

Lordynges, lysten, and you shal here, &c.

1 He was born in 1563, and died in 1631. Biog. Brit.
2 As also Chaucer's Rhyme of Sir Topas, v. 6.

10

15

He was a hardye man,

and hye,

All men hym loved that hym se,

For a gentyll knight was he:
Harpers loved him in halı,
With other minstrells all,

For he gave them golde and fee, &c.

20

20

This ancient legend was printed in black letter, 4to, by IMyllyam Covland: no date. In the Cotton Library (Calig. A. 2,) is a MS. copy of the same romance containing the greatest variations. They are probably two different translations of some French original.

FARRE in the countrey of Arden,
There won'd a knight, hight Cassemen,
As bolde as Isenbras:
Fell was he, and eger bent,
In battell and in tournament,

As was the good Sir Topas.

He had, as antique stories tell,
A daughter cleaped Dowsabel,
A mayden fayre and free:

5

And for she was her fathers heire,
Full well she was y-cond the leyre

10

Her features all as fresh above,
As is the grasse that growes by Dove;
And lyth as lasse of Kent.

Her skin as soft as Lemster wooll,
As white as snow on Peakish Hull,
Or swanne that swims in Trent.

This mayden in a morne betime
Went forth, when May was in her prime,
To get sweete cetywall,

The honey-suckle, the harlocke,
The lilly and the lady-smocke,
To deck her summer hall.

Thus, as she wandred here and there,
Y-picking of the bloomed breere,

She chanced to espie

A shepheard sitting on a bancke,
Like chanteclere he crowed crancke,
And pip'd full merrilie.

He lear'd his sheepe as he him list,
When he would whistle in his fist,
To feede about him round;
Whilst he full many a carroll sung,
Untill the fields and meadowes rung,
And all the woods did sound.

In favour this same shepheards swayne
Was like the bedlam Tamburlayne 3,
Which helde prowd kings in awe:
But meeke he was as lamb mought be:
And innocent of ill as he 4

Whom his lewd brother slaw.

3 Alluding to Tamburlaine the Great, or the Scythian Shepheard, 1590, 8vo.

an old ranting play ascribed to Marlowe.

H

4 Sc. Abel.