The vulture feeding on his pleasing moan,
Glutted with music, scorn'd grown Tityus liver:
The Furies flung their snaky whips away,
And molt in tears at his enchanting lay,
No shrieches now were heard; all hell kept holyday.
That treble dog, whose voice, ne'er quiet, fears
All that in endless night's sad kingdom dwell,
Stood pricking up his thrice two listening ears,
With greedy joy drinking the sacred spell;
And softly whining, pity'd much his wrongs;
And now first silent at those dainty songs,
Oft wish'd himself more ears, and fewer mouths and tongues.
At length return'd with his Eurydice,
But with this law, not to return his eyes,
Till he was past the laws of Tartary;
(Alas! who gives love laws in miseries?
Love is love's law; love but to love is ty❜d)
Now when the dawns of neighbour day he spy'd,
Ah wretch! Eurydice he saw, and lost, and dy'd.
Purple Island, by P. Fletcher,
Cant. v. st. 61-67, edit. 1633.
At the return of Spring, the Nightingale and Cuckoo, disputing for the precedence in singing, agree to refer the matter to the decision of the Nymphs who inhabit the Bower of Bliss; they accordingly set out, and on their arrival we meet with the following description of the place.
WITH Philomel he took the ready way,
Which to the Bower of Bliss directly lay;
Where in the way they both amazed stood
To see the pleasance of that pleasant wood.
There many blissful bowers they did behold;
Whose dwellers, neither vex'd with heat nor cold,
Did there enjoy all things that might delight
The curious eye of any living wight:
For plenty there so lavish in her gift
Furnish'd each place in scorn of niggard thrift;
There many nymphs of more than heavenly hue
Had their abode: although, alas! but few
Amongst them all did come of heavenly kind,
So hard it is to gain the gifts of mind:
* This description was immediately taken from Spenser's Bower of Bliss, Faerie Queene, B. ii. cant. 12. Upon ideal paradises of the kind, the best poets in almost all ages and nations have lavished their descriptive powers. Homer has his gardens of Alcinous, and Virgil his Elysium; Ariosto his Island of Alcina, and Tasso his Garden of Armida; Camoens his Garden of Venus, Marino his Gardens of Adonis, and, lastly, Du Bartas and Milton their Gardens of Eden. Those who wish for minute and discriminative information on this subject are referred to Mickle's Dissertation, Lusiad, p. 424, 4to. edit.
Yet stately portance unto them was given*,
And in proportion like the states of heaven
They bare themselves: yet want both will and power
From love's assault to shield fair beauty's bower.
And more to beautify the goodly frames
Which God and nature gave these goodly dames,
Gentry their cradles at their birth did rock,
And drew their lineage from an ancient stock:
But what, alas! avails the fading flower
Of beauty's bud in those, that have no power
To guide the least part of the weaker sense,
And learn the lesson of pure continence ?
Or what is birth to those, that, so they win
The seeming sweetness of alluring sin,
Bastard their birth, and all their stock deprave,
To gain the thing which appetite doth crave:
Beauty in such, though much, is but disgrace,
And high-born birth, though kingly, is but base.
For fair is foul, where virtue is unknown,
And birth is base, where gifts of grace are none.
From hence Dan Cuckoo with fair Philomel
(Acquainted with each passage very well)
Forward proceeded in this pleasant wood,
Until they came unto that place where stood
The Bower of Bliss itself so fairly deckt,
That never eye beheld so fair aspéct:
In th' outer porch sat many a sleek-hair'd squire
Of pleasing semblance, full of loose desire,
*Yet stately portance, &c.] Thus Milton, of Eve;
In gait surpass'd, and goddess-like deport.
Their port was more than human, as they stood.
Of feature fit to feast a lady's eye;
But manly exercise unfit to try:
Their cunning did consist in sleights of love,
With which from loyalty they oft did move
Ladies' frail hearts: for unto many a one
They vow'd themselves, though faithful unto none.
Unto the secrets of the unchaste sheet
They sworn were, an oath for such unmeet:
For which their service oftentimes they fed
On ransack'd sweetness of the nuptial bed.
Mongst these there was a squire of greatest place,
And chiefest held in that great lady's grace,
Which dwelt in this same bower: for many a night
With her he stole a snatch of love's delight.
Yet he was false, disloyal to his dame:
For in his common talk, devoid of shame,
He of his lady's favour was too frank,
For which I can that lover little thank :
He was the usher to this dainty dame,
And Vanity men gave him unto name.
The inner porch seem'd entrance to entice *,
It fashion'd was with such quaint rare device;
The top with canopy of green was spread
Thicken'd with leaves of th' ivy's wanton head,
About the which the eglantine did twine
His prickling arms the branches to combine,
Bearing sweet flowers of more than fragrant odour,
Which stellified the roof with painted colour+;
* The inner porch seem'd entrance to entice.] Spenser, B. II. cant. xii. st. 53, 54.
+ Which stellified the roof with painted colour.] A word in use amongst the Poets of that day. Drayton has it in his Legend of Matilda:
By him who strives to stellify her name.
Again, in Drummond:
With roses here she stellified the ground.
On either side the vine did broad dilate
His swollen veins with wreathings intricate,
Whose bunches to the ground did seem t' incline,
As freely off'ring of their luscious wine:
Through this same porch went many a worthy wight
Unto the Bower of Bliss, both day and night,
Who at their entrance fresh and flush as May
Did bear themselves adorn'd in rich array:
But few return'd without the common curse
Of strange disease, of emptiness of purse,
Who discontented with their sad mishap
Walk'd to and fro, forlorn in deep disdain
With willow branch, for prize of all their pain.
From this same porch a walk directly lay,
Which to the Bower itself did lead the way,
With fruit-trees thick beset on either side,
Whose goodly fruit themselves did seem to hide
Beneath the leaves, as lurking from the eyes
Of strangers' greedy view, fearing surprise,
Whose arched boughs and leafy twigs together
With true love-knots entangled each in other,
Seem'd painted walls, on which when Zephyr blew
They spread themselves, disclosing unto view
The blossoms, buds, the birds, and painted flies,
That in their leaves lay hid from strangers' eyes:
This walk of people never empty was;
For to the Bower of Bliss one could not pass,
But that the way did swarm with jetting jacks*,
Who bare upon their French-diseased backs
* Jetting Jacks.] The word jetting seldom occurs applied to a person; it seems here to imply that restless and unsettled state peculiar to idleness. It is used by Quarles, describing the haggard: he says, that she
Jets oft from perch to perch. Sylvester, in his translation of Du Bartas, has borrowed many of Niccols' lines from this description, which he has printed with very
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