The shepheard ware a sheepe-gray cloke, 55 Shall neither sheepe nor shepheard hould, Which was of the finest loke, Except thou favour mee. 100 VIII. The Farewell to Love. FROM Beaumont and Fletcher's play, enti- | And there behold beauty still young. tled The Lover's Progress, act iii. sc. 1. That time can ne'er corrupt, nor death destroy, ADIEU, fond love, farewell you wanton powers; Immortal sweetness by fair angels sung, I am free again. Fly to fools, that sigh away their time: 5 10 And honoured by eternity and joy: IX. Ulysses and the Syren. -affords a pretty poetical contest between Pleasure and Honour. It is found at the end of "Hymen's Triumph: a pastoral tragicomedie," written by Daniel, and printed among his works, 4to, 1623.*-Daniel, who was a contemporary of Drayton's, and is said to have been poet laureat to Queen Elizabeth, was born in 1562, and died in 1619. Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery (to whom Daniel had been Tutor), has inserted a small portrait of him in a fulllength picture of herself, preserved at Appleby Castle, in Cumberland. This little poem is the rather selected for a specimen of Daniel's poetic powers, as it is omitted in the later edition of his works, 2 vols. 12mo. 1718. SYREN. COME, worthy Greeke, Ulysses come, ULYSSES. Faire nymph, if fame or honour were With danger seek it forth; SYREN. Ulysses, O be not deceiv'd With that unreall name: And rests on others' fame. Begotten only to molest Our peace, and to beguile (The best thing of our life) our rest, ULYSSES. 10 15 20 Delicious nymph, suppose there were 25 Enjoy the day in mirth the while, And spend the night in sleepe. * In this edition it is collated with a copy printed at the end of his "Tragedie of Cleopatra. London, 1607," 12mo. Yet manlinesse would scorne to weare The time in idle sport: THIS beautiful poem, which possesses a classical elegance hardly to be expected in the age of James I., is printed from the 4th edition of Davison's Poems, &c., 1621. It is also found in a later miscellany, entitled, "Le Prince d'Amour," 1660, 8vo. Francis Davison, editor of the poems above referred to, was son of that unfortunate secretary of state, who suffered so much from the affair of Mary Queen of Scots. These poems, he tells us in his preface, were written by himself, by his brother [Walter], who was a soldier in the wars of the Low Countries, and by some dear friends "anonymoi." Among them are found some pieces by Sir J. Davis, the Countess of Pembroke, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, and other wits of those times. Who God doth late and early pray More of his grace than gifts to lend ; And entertains the harmless day With a well-chosen book or friend. 20 This man is freed from servile bands XII. Gilderoy. -was a famous robber, who lived about the middle of the last century, if we may credit the histories and story-books of highwaymen, which relate many improbable feats of him, as his robbing Cardinal Richelieu, Oliver Cromwell, &c. But these stories have probably no other authority, than the records of Grub-street: At least the "Gilderoy," who is the hero of Scottish Songsters, seems to have lived in an earlier age; for, in Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, vol. ii. 1733, 8vo., is a copy of this ballad, which, though corrupt and interpolated, contains some lines that appear to be of genuine antiquity: in these he is represented as contemporary with Mary Queen of Scots: ex. gr. "The Queen of Scots possessed nought, And ein whan they were scant.” These lines perhaps might safely have been inserted among the following stanzas, which are given from a written copy, that appears to have received some modern corrections. Indeed the common popular ballad contained come indecent luxuriances that required the pruning-hook. Wi' garters hanging doune : 5 Oh! that he still had been content, Wi' me to lead his life; Oh! sike twa charming een he had, A breath as sweet as rose, 10 But, ah! his manfu' heart was bent, 45 He was my jo and hearts delight, My handsome Gilderoy. |