My songs they be of Cynthia's praise, The worth that worthiness should move, Yet without love nought worth to me. The composition of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who was a youthful friend of Sir P. Sydney. I find two other sonnets of his, set to music by Dowland, but they have no particular merit. In 1600 was printed his "Second Book of Songs or "Airs of two, four and five parts, with Tableture for the "Lute or Orpherian, with the Viol de gamba; composed "by John Dowland, Batchelor of Music, and Lutenist to "the King of Denmark. Also an excellent lesson for the "Lute and Base Viol, called Dowland's adieu for Maister "Oliver Cromwell+. Published by George Eastland, and * Forester. + Unless this adieu means a mourning song for the death of Maister Oliver Cromwell, the said Oliver may probably have been that worthy Old English Gentleman, (Uncle to the Protector) at whose house in Northamptonshire King James the First stopped in his progress to London, "where there was such plenty and variety of meats, such di 66 are to be sold at his house near the Green Dragon and "Sword, in Fleet Street. The dedication to "the Right Honourable the Lady Lucy "Countess of Bedford is dated from Helsingnoure, in Den"mark, the 1st of June, 1600. "Excellent Lady, "I send unto your Ladyship from the Court of a Foreign "Prince the volume of my second labours. Your Ladyship hath in yourself an excellent agreement of many "virtues, of which, though I admire all, yet I am bound by "my profession to give especial honour to your knowledge "of music, which in the judgment of ancient times was an excellency so proper to women, that the Muses took their "name from it; and yet so rare, that the world durst "imagine but nine of them. I most humbly beseech your Ladyship to receive this work into your favour, and the "rather because it cometh far to beg it of you. 66 "Your Ladyship's in all humble devotion, This book contains twenty-two Madrigals. CLXVII. Time's eldest son, old the heir of ease, age Strength's foe, love's woe, and foster to devotion, But thinks sighs, tears, vows, prayers, and sacrifices 66 versity of wines, and these not riff raff, but ever the best of the kind; "and the cellars open at any man's pleasure: and who at his Majesty's 66 remove, distributed 50l. among his Majesty's officers." Cens. Lit., by Sir E. Brydges, vol. x. p. 241. Then sit thee down, and say thy Nunc dimittis, As that or this, Paratum est cor meum? O, that thy Saint would take in worth* thy heart, Stand by, and turn to Nolo emulari : Vivat Eliza for an Ave Mari. And teach those swains that live about thy cell, This is exceedingly clever, and from the style of the composition, as well as from the reference made to Queen Elizabeth, I should say was from the pen of the same author as No. CLXIII. The application of the different heads of parts of the Romish service in contradistinction to each other, is very happy. CLXVIII. Praise blindness, eyes, for seeing is deceit : Be dumb, vain tongue, words are but flattering winds: Break heart, and bleed, for there is no receipt To purge inconstancy from most men's minds. L'Envoy. And so I waked, amazed, and could not move; The Envoi was a sort of Postscript set forth by old French * Vide No. XXII. Poets at the end of their compositions, either to recommend them to the attention of some particular person, or to enforce what we are in the habit of calling The Moral of a song. I do not quite see the application of the above specimen; most likely the stanza is but a part of some longer poem. CLXIX. O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness, From fame's desire, from love's delight retired, To birds, to trees, to earth, impart I this, Experience, which alone repentance brings, Doth bid me now my heart from love estrange: And love low placed is base and apt to change. "Dorus By Sir Philip Sydney, in Arcadia, Book II. "had long kept silence from saying somewhat which might "tend to the glory of her in whom all glory to his seeming 66 was included; but now he brake it, singing these verses "called Asclepiads," "O sweet woods, &c." 66 CLXX. Fine knacks for ladies; cheap, choice, nice, and new. Good pennyworths, but money cannot move: I keep a fair, but for the fair to view; A beggar may be liberal of love. Tho' all my wares be trash, my heart is true. Great gifts are guiles, and look for gifts again, In coarsest shell the rarest pearls we find: "You have of these pedlers, that have more in them "than you'd think, sister."-Winter's Tale. The above seems a gentleman pedler, and an "admirable conceited fellow," as the clown calls Autolycus; one who at a fancyfair or court mask would catch more maidens' hearts with pretty speeches, than with all the points, pins, laces and gloves in his pack. |