ELLIOT. You remember the stanza in my favourite Italian, beginning,

Ingiustissimo Amor, perchè si raro
Corrispondenti fai nostri desiri?

BOURNE. I do, but it is not so applicable here as you imagine; for Cupid marking the love of the shepherdess and the austerity of the swain, makes their desires correspond, and wounds the latter, compelling him to love, even more strongly than he had loathed before he now seeks the object of his affections, and on his road pours out a most splendid picture of her charms: from this part I will make no quotation, principally because it is to be found at length in Englands Parnassus," 1600, under the crowded head of "Discriptions of Beautie and personage" (p. 400), where it takes up nearly three pages. The poet then proceeds;

"

"Her Corulus with warie search at last

At sodaine found, and as a man agast

At that he saw,
drew back with feare, and than
Remembring of his woes his sute began.
O sweete Corinna, blessed be the soyle
That yeelds thee rest amids thy dayly toyle,
And happie ground whereon thou satest so!
Blest be thy flocke which in these lawnes doo go,
And happie I but hauing leaue to looke.—
Which said, with feare he pawsd and bloud forsooke
His palie face, till she that wrought the fire
Restorde the red, and kindled sweete desire;

And with a bashfull looke beholding him,
Which many months her pleasant foe had bin,
She cast her armes about his drooping necke."

MORTON. The lines are as smooth and musical as any I remember to have read, even of a much later date: the shepherdess might have "a bashful look," but her action was not very bashful when she threw her arms about the neck of Corulus.

ELLIOT. Her bashful look was before she had recovered the surprise of a declaration, so unexpectedly made by one whom she had hitherto been unable to influence.

BOURNE. Every body knows how much food for poetry has been afforded by the disappointments and discordances of lovers, and Lodge seems to have set himself the task of showing what might be said when both hearts were consenting. After Corinna has expressed her astonishment, Corulus continues his speech.

-"O Nimph of beauties traine,

The onely cause and easer of my paine!
Tis not the want of any worldly ioy,

Nor fruitlesse breed of Lambes procures my noy;

Ne sigh I thus for any such mishap,

For these vaine goods I lull in fortunes lap:
But other greefes, and greater cause of care

As now, Corinna, my tormenters are.
Thy beautie Goddesse is the onely good;

Thy beautie makes mine eyes to streame a flood;

Thy beautie breakes my woonted pleasant sleepe,
Thy beautie causeth Corulus to weepe.
For other ioyes they now but shadowes be;
No ioye but sweete Corinnas loue for me.
Whereon I now beseech thee by that white
Which staines the lilly and affects my sight;
By those faire locks whereas the graces rest,
By those sweete eyes whereas all pleasures nest,
Doo yeelde me loue, or leaue me for to die!"

ELLIOT. Unless the shepherdess had changed her mind in consequence of the refusal of the youth, in the` first instance to make any return to her advances, or unless that "lob of spirits," Master Puck, had

"Streaked her eyes

And made her full of hateful fantasies,"

there seems no reason for his fears.

MORTON. What happened in the case before us, as related by Lodge, is somewhat out of the usual course, if we may believe our own experience, and Lod. Barry's authority.

"When a poor woman has laid open all

Her thoughts to you, then you grow proud and coy;
But when wise maids dissemble and keep close,
Then you, poor snakes, come creeping on your bellies
And with all oiled looks prostrate yourselues
Before our beauty's sun, where once but warm,
Like hateful snakes you strike us with your stings
And then forsake us." (Ram Alley, 1611, A. V.)

BOURNE. Corulus was bound not to take it for

granted that the lady would fall into his arms without solicitation, or any expression of contrition; and I do not know that he says much more than might be expected from so passionate an innamorato. Corinna, however, gives no opposition, and "with a kisse she sealed vp the deed," and the lovers are united and happy. This " delectable Aeglogue,” as Lodge calls it, being finished, old Solduvius discovers the disguise of Forbonius, and being all-powerful, throws him into prison and vigorously rates his daughter. Both continue resolute, and at last the father is obliged to give his consent to their union. This is the bare outline of the story, and as you saw the day before yesterday sufficient specimens of Lodge's prose, we need not enter more into detail regarding it; especially as we have yet to examine several curious tracts on the protracted contest for and against theatrical representations.

ELLIOT. Then are we to hear nothing from the poem at the end, "Truth's complaint over England?" BOURNE. I had forgot that, but a short specimen must suffice. The author invokes Melpomene, his "mournful Muse," to aid him in relating the complaint which Truth had made to him, that he might put it into verse: a correct notion of its style and tendency may be gathered from the three following stanzas, which are interesting as they refer to the state of the kingdom at the date they were written, viz. 1584. Truth addresses the author in these terms, as an old acquaintance:

"Whilome (deere friend) it was my chaunce to dwell Within an Iland compast by the waue, A safe defence a forren foe to quell:

Once Albion cald, next Britaine Brutus gaue, Now England hight, a plot of beautie braue; Which onelie soyle should seeme the seate to bee Of Paradise, if it from sinne were free.

"Within this place, within this sacred plot,

I first did frame my first contented bowre; There found I peace and plentie for to float,

There iustice rulde and shinde in euerie stowre; There was I loude and sought to euerie howre; Their Prince, content with plainnesse, loued Truth, And pride by abstinence was kept from youth.

"Then flew not fashions euerie day from Fraunce, Then sought not Nobles nouells from a farre, Then land was kept, not hazarded by chaunce, Then quiet minde preserud the soile from iarre; Cloth kept out cold, the poore releeued werre. This was the state, this was the luckie stowre, While Truth in England kept her stately bowre."

MORTON. The first stanza reminds one of Gaunt's fine apostrophe to England in Richard II.

"This other Eden, demy Paradise;

This fortress built by nature for herself," &c.

ELLIOT. It does, but they will not bear comparison. The general turn of the poem seems to be objurgatory and satirical.