He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves, and teame of sparows,
Loses them too; then downe he throwes
The corrall of his lippe, the rose
Growing on's cheek, (but none knows how)
With these, the cristall of his brow,
And then, the dimple of his chinne :
All these did my Campaspe winne.
At last hee set her both his eyes;
Shee won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has shee done this to thee?
What shall (alas !) become of mee?”

In the same year appeared Sapho and Phaon. The Sybil's advice to Phaon, who is represented as having, in the first instance, conceived a passion for Sappho, although followed by a subsequent disgust, is worth quoting.

66

Sybil. Take heed you doe not as I did. Make not too much of fading beautie, which is faire in the cradle, and foule in the grave, resembling Polyon, whose leaves are white in the morning, and blue before night, or Anyta, which being a sweet flowre at the rising of the sun, becometh a weede, if it be not pluckt before the setting. Faire faces have no fruites, if they have no witnesses. When you shall behold over this tender flesh a tough skinne, your eyes, which were wont to glance at others' faces, will be sunk so hollow, that you can scarce look out of your owne head, and when all your teeth shall wagge as fast as your tongue, then will you repent the time which you cannot recall, and bee forced to beare what most you blame. Lose not the pleasant time of your youth, than the which there is nothing swifter, nothing sweeter. Beautie is a slipperie good, which decreaseth whilst it is increasing, resembling the medlar, which in the moment of his full ripenes, is knowen to be in a rottennesse. Whilst you looke in the glasse it waxeth old with time; if on the sun, parcht with heate; if on the winde, blasted with colde. A great care to keepe it, a short pause to enjoy it, a sodaine time to lose it. Bee not coy when you are courted; fortune's wings are made of time's feathers, which stay not whilst one may measure them. Be affable and curteous in youth, that you may be honoured in age. Roses that lose their colours, keepe their savours and pluckt from the stalke, are put to the stil. Cotonea because it boweth when the sun riseth, is sweetest, when it is oldest and children, which in their tender yeares sow curtesie, shall in their declining states reap pitie. Bee not proud of beautie's painting whose colours consume themselves, because they are beautie's painting."

:

We shall, also, take leave to quote Sappho's song from the same play.

"O cruell Love! on thee I lay

My curse, which shall strike blinde the day
Never may sleepe with velvet hand
Charme thine eyes with sacred wand;

Thy jaylours shall be hopes and feares,
Thy prison-mates, groanes, sighes, and teares;
Thy play, to weare out weary times,
Phantasticke passions, vowes, and rimes,
Thy bread bee frownes, thy drinke bee gall;
Such, as when you Phaon call

The bed thou lyest on by despaire,

Thy sleepe, fond dreames, thy dreames long care.
Hope (like thy foole) at thy bed's head

Mocke thee, till madnesse strike thee dead,
As, Phaon, thou dost mee with thy proud eyes:
In thee poore Sapho lives, for thee shee dies."

The story of Gallathea turns on a lustral sacrifice of the fairest and chastest virgin on the banks of " Humber flouds," as a peace-offering to Neptune for the sacrilege of the inhabitants in the rasing of his temple. The evasion of this customary propitiation by Gallathea and Phillida, the two fairest and chastest virgins in the country, by assuming the dress of shepherds, occasions the offering up of Hæbe; but Neptune being angry at this deceit, does not, as usual, send his agent, "the monster Agar," for the victim. Hæbe breaks out, whilst bound and in instant expectation of the sacrifice, into a passionate soliloquy, of which there is no parallel in Lilly. The latter part, beginning "farewell the sweet delights of life," is more especially beautiful and pathetic.

"Habe. Miserable and accursed Hæbe, that being neither faire nor fortunate thou shouldest bee thought most happy and beautiful. Curse thy birth, thy life, thy death, being borne to live in danger, and having liv'd, to die by deceite. Art thou the sacrifice to appease Neptune, and satisfie the custome, the bloodie custome, ordained for the safety of thy country. Ay, Hæbe, poore Hæbe, men will have it so, whose forces command our weake natures; nay the gods will have it so, whose powers dally with our purposes. The Ægyptians never cut their dates from the tree, because they are so fresh and greene. It is thought wickednes to pull roses from the stalkes in the garden of Palestine, for that they have so lively a red and whoso cutteth the incense tree in Arabia before it fall, committeth sacriledge.

"Shall it onely bee lawfull amongst us in the prime of youth, and pride of beautie, to destroy both youth and beautie: and what was honoured in fruits and flowres as a vertue, to violate in a virgine as a vice? But alas! destiny alloweth no dispute. Die Hæbe! Hæbe die!

wofull Hæbe and onely accursed Hæbe. Farewell the sweete delights of life, and welcome now the bitter pangs of death. Farewell you chast virgins, whose thoughts are divine, whose faces faire, whose fortunes are agreeable to your affections; enjoy and long enjoy the pleasure of your curled locks, the amiablenes of your wished looks, the sweetnesse of your tuned voices, the content of your inward thoughts, the pompe of your outward showes, onely Hæbe biddeth farwell to all the joyes that she conceived and you hope for-that shee possessed, and you shall; farewell the pompe of princes' courts, whose roofes are imbosst with golde, and whose pavements are decked with faire ladies, where the dayes are spent in sweet delights, the nights in pleasant dreames, where chastitie honoreth affections and commandeth-yieldeth to desire and conquereth.

"Farewell the soveraigne of all virtue, and goddesse of all virgins, Diana, whose perfections are impossible to be numbred, and therefore infinite; never to be matched, and therefore immortall. Farewell sweet parents, yet to be mine, unfortunate parents. How blessed had you beene in barrennes! how happy had I beene if I had not beene! Farewell life, vaine life, wretched life, whose sorrowes are long, whose end, doubtfull, whose miseries, certaine, whose hopes innumerable, whose feares intolerable. Come death! and welcome death whom nature cannot resist, because necessitie ruleth, nor defer because destiny hasteth. Come Agar, thou unsatiable monster of maidens' blood, and devourer of beauties' bowels, glut thyselfe till thou surfet, and let my life end thine. Teare these tender joynts with thy greedy jawes, these yellow locks with thy blacke feete, this faire face with thy foule teeth. Why abatest thou thy wonted swiftnesse? I am faire, I am a virgine, I am readie. Come Agar, thou horrible monster! and farewell world, thou viler monster."

The following scene, from the same play, between an Astrologer and a Serving-Man out of place, is a pleasant piece of extravagance.

"Rafe. But what have we yonder? What devout man? he will never speake till hee be urged, I will salute him. Sir, there lieth a purse under your feet, if I thought it was not yours, I would take it up.

Astrol. Doest thou not know that I was calculating the nativitie of Alexander's great horse?

Rafe. Why, what are you!

Astrol. An astronomer.

Rafe. What one of those that makes almanackes?

Astrol. Ipsissimus. I can tell the minute of thy birth, the moI can tell thee what weather shall bee betweene this and Octogessimus octavus mirabilis annus. When I list I can set a trap for the sun, catch the moone with lymetwigs, and goe a bat-fowling for stars. I can tell thee things past, and things to come, and with my cunning, measure how many yards of cloudes are beneath the skie. Nothing can happen which I foresee not, nothing shall.

ment of thy death, and the manner.

Rafe. I hope you, sir, you are no more than a god.

Astrol. I can bring the twelve signes out of their zodiacks, and hang them up at tavernes.

Rafe. I pray you, sir, tell mee what you cannot doe, for I perceive there is nothing so easie for you to compasse as impossibilities. But what be those signes?

Astrol. As a man should say, signes which governe the bodie. The ram governeth the head.

Rafe. That is the worst signe for the head.
Astrol. Why?

Rafe. Because it is a signe of an ill ewe.

Astrol. Tush, that signe must bee here. Then the bull for the throate, Capricornus for the knees.

Rafe. I will heare no more signes, if they be all such desperate signes: but seeing you are, (I know not who to terme you) shall I serve you? I would faine serve.

Astrol. I accept thee.

Rafe. Happy am I, for now shall I teach thoughts, and tell how many drops of water goes to the greatest showre of raine. You shall see me catch the moone in the chips like a cony in a pursnet.

Astrol. I will teach thee the golden number, the epact and the prime.

Rafe. I will meddle no more with numbring of gold, for multiplication is a miserable action; I pray, sir, what weather shall we have this houre threescore yeere?

Astrol. That I must cast by our judicials astronomicall, therefore come in with me, and thou shalt see every wrinkle of my astrologicall wisdome, and I will make the Heavens as plaine to thee as the highway; thy cunning shall sit cheeke by jole with the sunne's chariot: then shalt thou see what a base thing it is, to have others' thoughts creepe on the grounde, when as thine shall bee stitched to the starres.

Rafe. Then I shall be translated from this mortality.

Astrol. Thy thoughts shall be metamorphosed, and made hailefellows with the gods.

Rafe. O fortune! I feele my very braine morallized, and as it were a certaine contempt of earthly actions is crept into my minde, by an ætheriall contemplation. Come, let us in."

The songs form so beautiful a variation in Lilly's plays, that we are tempted to add one from this play also, which is sung by the Nymphs of Diana, to whom Cupid had done a shrewd turn.

"O yes! O yes! if any maid,
Whom leering Cupid has betraid
To frownes of spite, to eyes of scorne,
And would in madnes now see torne
The boy in pieces, let her come
Hither, and lay on him her doome.

The essence of Lilly's elaborate wit is not, in general, extracted from an acute discrimination of the nice, yet striking, difference or resemblance of things, or from the real similarity of words, but from the determined misconception and wilful distortion of both. His wit is too far-fetched and too violently contrasted. He is, in consequence, learnedly humourous and not naturally witty-gravely jocose and not riantly playful. We will make two more extracts to shew the nature of Lilly's humourous and punning qualifications.

The following is from Midas.

"Licio. Thou servest Mellacrites, and I his daughter; which is the better man?

Petulus. The masculine gender is more worthy than the feminine. Therefore Licio, backare.

Li. That is when those two genders are at jarre, but when they belong both to one thing, then.

Li. They then agree like the fiddle and the sticke.

Pet.

Pulchrè sane. God's blessing on thy blue nose, but Licio, my mistresse is a proper woman.

titie.

Li. Ay, but thou knowest not her properties.

Pet. I care not for her qualities, so I may embrace her quan

Li. Are you so peart?

Pet. Ay and so expert, that I can as well tell the thoughts of a woman's heart by her eyes, as the change of the weather by an almanacke.

Li. Sir boy, you must not be saucie.

Pet. No, but faithfull and serviceable.

Li. Locke up your lips, or I will lop them off. But sirra, for thy better instructions I will unfold every wrinkle of my mistresse' disposition.