I know myself unworthy to be woo'd By thee, a god; for ere this, but for thee, I should have shown my weak mortality: Besides, by holy oath betwixt us twain, I am betrothed unto a shepherd swain, Whose comely face, I know, the gods above May make me leave to see, but not to love. River God. May he prove to thee as true! Fairest virgin, now adieu;

I must make my waters fly,

Lest they leave their channels dry,
And beasts that come unto the spring
Miss their morning's watering;
Which I would not; for of late
All the neighbour people sate
On my banks, and from the fold
Two white lambs of three weeks old
Offered to my deity;

For which this year they shall be free
From raging floods, that as they pass
Leave their gravel in the grass;
Nor shall their meads be overflown
When their grass is newly mown.
Amo. For thy kindness to me shown,
Never from thy banks be blown
Any tree, with windy force,

Cross thy streams, to stop thy course;
May no beast that comes to drink,
With his horns cast down thy brink;
May none that for thy fish do look,
Cut thy banks to dam thy brook;
Barefoot may no neighbour wade
In thy cool streams, wife nor maid,
When the spawn on stones do lie,
To wash their hemp, and spoil the fry!
River God. Thanks, virgin. I must down again.
Thy wound will put thee to no pain :

Wonder not so soon 'tis gone;

A holy hand was laid upon.

[If all the parts of this Play had been in unison with these innocent scenes,iand sweet lyric intermixtures, it had been a Poem fit to vie with Comus or the Arcadia, to have been put into the hands of boys and virgins, to have made matter for young dreams, like the loves of Hermia and Lysander. But a spot is on the face of this moon.-Nothing short of infatuation could have driven Fletcher upon mixing up with this blessedness such an ugly deformity as Cloe, the wanton shepherdess. Coarse words do but wound the ears; but a character of lewdness affronts the mind. Female lewdness at once shocks nature and morality. If Cloe was meant to set off Clorin by contrast, Fletcher should have known that such weeds by juxtaposition do not set off, but kill sweet flowers.]

COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE
THE SAME.

THERE are no sureties, good friend, will be taken
For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken :
A poem and a play too! why, 'tis like

A scholar that's a poet; their names strike
Their pestilence inward, when they take the air,
And kill outright; one cannot both fates bear.
But as a poet, that 's no scholar, makes
Vulgarity his whiffler,1 and so takes

Passage with ease and state through both sides, prease 2
Of
pageant seers; or, as scholars please,

That are no poets more than poets learn'd,
Since their art solely is by souls discern'd;
The others' falls within the common sense,
And sheds, like common light, her influence;
So, were your play no poem, but a thing
That every cobbler to his patch might sing,
A rout of nifles, like the multitude,

1 A person who cleared the way for a procession.
2 Press, crowd.

3 A set of trifles, frivolous things.

With no one limb of any art endu❜d,
Like would to like, and praise you. But because
Your poem only hath by us applause,
Renews the golden world, and holds through all
The holy laws of homely pastoral,

Where flowers and founts, and nymphs and semi-gods,
And all the Graces find their old abodes,
Where forests flourish but in endless verse,
And meadows nothing fit for purchasers;
This iron age, that eats itself, will never
Bite at your golden world, that others ever
Lov'd as itself. Then, like your book, do you
Live in old peace, and that for praise allow.

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

DEDICATIONS TO FLETCHER'S FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS, FROM FIRST QUARTO.

I. To that noble and true lover of learning, SIR WALter
ASTON.

Sir, I must ask your patience, and be true;
This play was never lik'd, unless by few

That brought their judgments with 'em; for, of late,
First the infection,1 then the common prate
Of common people, have such customs got,
Either to silence plays or like them not :
Under the last of which this interlude

Had fall'n, for ever, press'd down by the rude,
That like a torrent which the moist south feeds,
Drowns both before him the ripe corn and weeds,
Had not the saving sense of better men

1 The plague; in which times, the acting of plays appears to

have been discountenanced.

Redeem'd it from corruption. Dear sir, then,
Among the better souls, be you the best,
In whom, as in a centre, I take rest,
And proper being; from whose equal eye
And judgment nothing grows but purity.
Nor do I flatter, for, by all those dead,
Great in the Muses, by Apollo's head,
He that adds anything to you, 'tis done
Like his that lights a candle to the sun :
Then be, as you were ever, yourself still,
Mov'd by your judgment, not by love or will;
And when I sing again, (as who can tell
My next devotion to that holy well?)
Your goodness to the Muses shall be all
Able to make a work heroical.

II. To the inheritor of all worthiness, SIR WILLIAM

I.

II.

III.

SKIPWITH.

ODE.

If, from servile hope or love,

I may prove

But so happy to be thought for
Such a one, whose greatest ease
Is to please,

Worthy sir, I've all I sought for :
For no itch of greater name,
Which some claim

By their verses, do I show it
To the world; nor to protest

'Tis the best ;

These are lean faults in a poet ;

Nor to make it serve to feed
At my need,

Nor to gain acquaintance by it,
Nor to ravish kind attorneys

In their journeys,

Nor to read it after diet.

IV.

Far from me are all these aims,
Fittest frames

To build weakness on and pity;
Only to yourself, and such

Whose true touch

Makes all good, let me seem witty.

III. To the perfect gentleman, SIR ROBERT TOWNSEND.
If the greatest faults may crave
Pardon where contrition is,
Noble sir, I needs must have

A long one for a long amiss.

If

you ask me, how is this?

Upon my faith, I'll tell you frankly,
You love above my means to thank ye.

Yet, according to my talent,

As sour fortune loves to use me,

A poor shepherd I have sent

In home-spun gray for to excuse me;
And may all my hopes refuse me,

But when better comes ashore,
You shall have better, newer, more!
'Till when, like our desperate debtors,
Or our three-pil'd sweet "protesters,
I must please you in bare letters,
And so pay my debts, like jesters;
Yet I oft have seen good feasters,
Only for to please the pallet,

Leave great meat and choose a sallet.

Apologetical Preface, following these. To the reader.

If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of poem, lay down the book, or read this, which I would wish had been the prologue. It is a pastoral tragi-comedy which the people seeing when it was played, having ever had a singular gift

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