CCVII.

Down in a valley as Alexis trips,
Daphne sat sweetly sleeping.

Soon as the wanton touch'd her ruddy lips,

She nicely* fell a weeping.

The youth then gently greets her,

And sighing oft intreats her.

But when nor sighs nor kisses moved her pity,
With plaints he warbles forth this mournful ditty.

Hard Destinies! are love and beauty parted?

Fair Daphne so disdainful!

Cupid, thy shafts are too unjustly darted;
Fond Love, thy wounds be painful.

But sith my lovely jewel

Is proved so coy and cruel,

I'll live and frolic in her beauty's treasure,

But languish, faint, and die in her displeasure.

If not the most beautiful, Down in a valley is certainly one of the most elaborate of all Wilbye's compositions. I need but call the attention of those who have the music, to the close working of the parts and exquisite suspensions at the words with plaints he warbles forth this mournfu. ditty. Until lately, only one portion of it was reprinted, (and that in a very incorrect manner by Warren and Bland in their respective collections;) and it is not by any means a solitary instance of the carelessness (to use no harsher term) displayed by the first-named person in his republication of old music.

It is provoking to witness the mistakes arising from un

* Delicately, bashfully.

K

skilfulness on the part of the first arranger, and afterwards perpetuated by the carelessness of others, who with the most singular perversity will take for authority a modern printed or even manuscript copy rather than the author's own original works.

CCVIII.

Weep, weep, mine eyes, my heart can take no rest;
Weep, weep, my heart, mine eyes shall ne'er be blest ;
Weep eyes, weep heart, and both this accent cry,
A thousand deaths, Flamminia, I die.

Ah, cruel fate! Death, do thy worst, I care not:
Ah me! Leander, now to die I fear not.

I hope when I am dead,

In the Elysian plain

To meet my love, and there

With joy to love again.

I have been obliged to patch up the last six lines, in order to give them something like rhythm.

CCIX.

Ye that do live in pleasures plenty,
And dwell in music's sweetest airs;

Whose eyes are quick, whose ears are dainty,
Not clogg'd with earth, or worldly cares;
Come sing this song made in Amphion's praise,
Who now is dead; yet you his fame can raise.

Call him again, let him not die,

But live in music's sweetest breath; Place him in fairest memory,

And let him triumph over death.

O sweetly sung! his living wish attend ye:

These were his words, The mirth of Heaven God send ye.

This is evidently a funeral song upon some celebrated musician, likely enough Thomas Morley, who died about the year 1608; and for whom Thomas Weelkes makes lamentation in a doleful dump. Vide No. CLIV.

CCX.

Where most my thoughts, there least mine eye is striking ; Where least I come, there most my heart abideth :

Where most I love, I never show my liking;

From what my mind doth hold, my body slideth. I show least care, where most my care dependeth; A coy regard, where most my soul attendeth.

Poets are fond of representing true love as bashful, and shunning public observation

"Among the rest young Edwin bow'd,

"But never talk'd of love."-Goldsmith.

Loin le fatras de la triste eloquence, as a French epigrammatist writes ;—make me no fine speeches before company, but merely

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give me a blink o' your bonny black ee, "And look as you were na looking at me.”—Burns.

CCXI.

Draw on, sweet night, best friend unto those cares
That do arise from painful melancholy;

My life so ill through want of comfort fares,
That unto thee I consecrate it wholly.

Sweet night, draw on,-my griefs when they be told
To shades and darkness, find some ease from paining;
And while thou all in silence dost enfold,

I then shall have best time for my complaining.

A similar feeling pervades the following beautiful lines by Kirke White :—

"'Tis Midnight-on the globe dread slumber sits,
"And all is silence in the hour of sleep.

"I wake alone, to listen and to weep;

"To watch, my taper, thy pale beacon burn; " And while fond memory doth her vigils keep, 'To think of days that never can return!"

CCXII.

Stay, Corydon, thou swain,

Talk not so soon of dying:

What tho' thy heart be slain,

What tho' thy love be flying!

She threatens thee, but dares not strike ;
Thy nymph is light and shadow-like;

For if thou follow her, she 'll fly from thee;

But if thou fly from her, she 'll follow thee.

The comparison between the coquettish nymph and the

shadow is highly poetical. Speaking of certain fickle dames, Burton says, "they will deny and take, stoutly re“fuse, and yet earnestly seek the same; repel to make you "advance with more eagerness; fly from you if you follow; "but if averse, as a shadow they will follow you again: -fugientem sequitur, sequentem fugit.”

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CCXIII.

Softly, oh! drop, mine eyes, lest you be dry,
And make my heart with grief to melt and die.
Now pour out tears apace,—

Now stay,-O heavy case!

Alas! O sour-sweet woe!

O grief! O joy! why strive you so?

Can pain and joy in one poor heart consent?
Then sigh and sing, rejoice, lament.

Ah me! O passion strange and violent!

Was never wretch so sore tormented:

Nor joy, nor grief, can make my heart contented.

For while with joy I look on high,

Down, down I fall with grief-and die.

The antithesis sour-sweet, which also occurs in No. CCIII., is nearly akin to the dolcezze amarissime d'amore in Guarini's Pastor fido.

Cupid is constantly represented as mixing together the sours and sweets of life. Thus Catullus,

"Sancte puer, curis hominum qui gaudia misces."

"Celestial youth, 't is thy delight to throw
"On human bliss some tinge of human woe."