Whole manors, castles, towns, and lordships sold,
Cut out in clippings and in shreds of gold:
Their chambering fortitude they did descry
By their soft maiden voice and flickering eye*,
Their woman's manhood by their clothes perfum'd,
Coy looks, curl'd locks, and thin beards half consum'd,
Whose nice, effeminate, and base behaviour
Was counted comely, neat, and cleanly gesture.
Passing forth, one lo there they did behold
High lifted up with lofty roof of gold
The Bower of Bliss, in which there did abide
The lady's self, that should their cause decide,
On which the heavens still in a stedfast state.
Look'd alway blithe, diverting froward fate,
Not suffering icy frost or scorching sun
To vex th' inhabitants, that there did won :
For there eternal spring doth ever dwell,
Ne they of other season ought can tell ;
They labour not with hands of industry
To furrow up the earth's fertility;

Bubbles of sweat decline not from their brow,
Ne stooping labour makes their backs to bow:
Yet plenty of all fruits upon their ground
Seedless and artless every where is found.

slight alterations, and amongst other expressions he applies this to vice. It will be sufficient to refer to the passage, p. 101, edit. 1641. Jacks is a common expression, denoting contempt, with our older writers. Thus, in the Mirror for Magistrates, we meet with

No golden churl, no elbow-vaunting jack. P. 565. We still say contemptuously," a Jack in office."

*

... flickering eye.] A very expressive epithet; it is used by Dyer in his truly classical poem, the Fleece, to denote the tremulous and fluctuating motion of the waves:

Till, rising o'er the flickering wave, the Cape
Of Finisterre, &c.

B. iv.

Unto this bower Dan Cuckoo and his mate
Approaching nigh, lo standing at the gate,
Which framed was of purest ivory,
All painted o'er with many a history,

So sweetly wrought, that art in them did seem
To mock at nature as of no esteem;
Eftsoons they heard a pleasing harmony*,
Of music's most melodious minstrelsy,

Where sweet-voic'd birds, soft winds, and water's fall,
With voice and viol made agreement all;

The birds unto the voice did sweetly sing,

The voice did speak unto the viol's string,

That to the wind did sound now high, now low,

The wind to water's fall did gently blow.

The Cuckoo, by R. Niccols, p. 6-11, 1607, 4to.

* The concluding circumstances of this piece are literally taken from Spenser, whose exquisite lines will not, it is hoped, be considered as unnecessary here:

Eftsoons they heard a most melodious sound
Of all that mote delight a dainty ear,
Such as at once might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere;
Right hard it was for wight which did it hear,
To read what manner music that mote be;
For all that pleasing is to living ear,
Was there consorted in one harmony,

Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree.
The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade,
Their notes unto the voice attemper'd sweet;
Th' angelical soft-trembling voices made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet:
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmur of the water's fall:
The water's fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call:
The gentle-warbling wind low answered to all.

F. Queene, B. II. C. xii. st. 70, 71.

THE

CAVE OF DESPAIR.

ERE long they came near to a baleful bower,

Much like the mouth of that infernal cave,
That gaping stood all comers to devour,
Dark, doleful, dreary, like a greedy grave,
That still for carrion carcases doth crave.

The ground no herbs but venomous did bear,
Nor ragged trees did leave, but every where
Dead bones and skulls were cast, and bodies hanged were.

Upon the roof the bird of sorrow sat
Elonging joyful day* with her sad note,

* Elonging joyful day.] G. Fletcher has a similar term in the same poem, cant. i. stan. 41:

As when the cheerful sun elamping wide.

It is in vain to search for either of these expressions in the modern edition, as they are there thus altered:

As when the cheerful sun, light spreading wide.
Cant. i. st. 37, edit. 1783.

Keeping back joyful day.

Drummond, in his prose works, uses evanishing: "Riches being momentary and evanishing." P. 222, Edinb. 1711.

The most material features of this description are taken from Spenser, Faerie Queene, B. I. cant. ix. st. 33, 36. This is a curious instance of plagiarism, and serves to show us what little ceremony the poets of that day laboured under in pilfering from each other. The reader will be amply repaid for his trouble in turning to the passage in Spenser, who seems to have put forth all his strength to render the picture complete, and it is in delineations of such a hue that he peculiarly excels. The limits of my book will not permit me to quote the passage at length. See also Britannia's Pastorals by Browne, Vol. I. p. 162, Thompson's edit.

And through the shady air the fluttering bat
Did wave her leather sails, and blindly float,
While with her wings the fatal screech-owl smote

Th' unblessed house; there, on a craggy stone,
Celeno hung, and made his direful moan,

And all about the murder'd ghosts did shriek and groan.

Like cloudy moonshine in some shadowy grove,
Such was the light in which Despair did dwell,
But he himself with night for darkness strove,
His black uncombed locks dishevell'd fell
About his face, through which, as brands of hell,
Sunk in his skull his staring eyes did glow,

That made him deadly look; their glimpse did show Like cockatrices' eyes, that sparks of poison throw.

His clothes were ragged clouts, with thorns pinn'd fast,
And as he musing lay to stonie fright

A thousand wild chimeras would him cast:
As when a fearful dream, in midst of night,
Skips to the brain, and fancies to the sight

Some winged fury, straight the hasty foot,

Eager to fly, cannot pluck up his root,

The voice dies in the tongue, and mouth gapes without boot.

Now he would dream that he from heaven fell,
And then would snatch the air, afraid to fall;

And now he thought he sinking was to hell,

And then would grasp the earth, and now his stall
Him seemed hell, and then he out would crawl;
And ever as he crept would squint aside,
Lest him, perhaps, some fury had espy'd,
And then, alas! he should in chains for ever bide.

Therefore he softly shrunk, and stole away,
Ne ever durst to draw his breath for fear,
Till to the door he came, and there he lay
Panting for breath, as though he dying were,
And still he thought he felt their grapples tear

Him by the heels back to his ugly den;

Out fain he would have leap'd abroad, but then The heavens as hell he fear'd, that punish'd guilty men. Christ's Victorie, by G. Fletcher,

Cant. II. st. 23-28, Camb. 1610*.

* In the edition of Christ's Victory, together with the Purple Island, in 1783, many unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text; nor is the least apology for the proceeding offered, or even the circumstance itself mentioned. In almost every page injuries are done to the sense, where improvements were intended. The republication seems to have originated from a letter of Hervey's, Vol. II. Let. li., and to have been executed upon the ridiculous plan he there proposes. Now it is the indispensable duty of every editor of an ancient poet to exhibit the spelling of his author in the exact state in which he found it (unless indeed in such words as are evidently mistakes of the press), in order that the reader may trace the progress of orthography, together with that of poetry. Where this practice is not observed, a republication is not merely imperfect, but dangerous, as it leads to an infinity of mistakes, and can answer no possible end but that of multiplying the number of our books without adding to the sources of our information +. Whoever, therefore, takes up the edition alluded to, for the purposes of enjoying the poetry, making an extract, or a reference, can never be safe as to the authenticity of a single stanza. A neat republication of all Giles and Phineas Fletcher's poetry, from the old editions, faithfully reprinted, is much wanted.

+ This passage of Mr. Headley's is, by the present editor, faithfully preserved, but cannot be passed over without remark.

That the text of an ancient English Classic should be scrupulously adhered to, and transmitted to posterity unmutilated, and that the alterations in the edition of Christ's Victory, 1783, are reprehensible in the highest degree, are unquestionable; but that "it is the indispensable duty of every editor of an ancient poet to exhibit the spelling of his author in the exact state in which he found it," may reasonably be doubted. If we admit of such a decree in the laws of criticism, what is to become of the editorial labours of Steevens, of Malone, and of Ellis? particularly of the last-mentioned gentleman, who, by reversing the method adopted by Mr. Headley, has given to our elder poetry a popularity, of which a considerable portion at least must have been anticipated by Mr. Headley, but for this unfortunate error in his critical creed. This argument might be extended to a length more suited to a dissertation than to a note upon note; but we shall only add, that even Ritson, the most laborious plodder in literary antiquities since the days of Tom Hearne, became a convert to the present more enlightened system.