A writer in The Paradise of dainty Devices, A.d. 1576, makes the following plaint:

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Why did the course of nature so ordain,

"That sugred sour must sauce the bitter sweet? "Which sour from sweet, might any means remove, "What hap, what heaven, what life were like to love!

JOHN BENNET.

The only printed work extant by this composer is "Madrigals to four voices, his first works, at London, "printed in Little Saint Hellens, by William Barley, Assigne of Thomas Morley, 1599:" dedicated to

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"The Right worshipful Ralph Asheton, Esq., one of "Her Majesty's Justices of Peace and Quorum, and of the “Oier and Terminer in the County Palantine of Lancaster, "and Receiver of Her Highness' Duchy revenues in the "said County, and the County Palantine of Chester." He therein requests his patron to accept these madrigals (seventeen in number) as "the first fruits of his simple skill, "the endeavours of a young wit, and tokens of a thankful "mind."

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Thomas Ravenscroft, whom he assisted with a few specimens for his Brief Discourse published in 1614, gives him a very high character, as being "a gentleman admi"rable for all kinds of composures, either in art or ayre, 'simple or mixed, of what nature soever: in whose works "the very life of that passion which the ditty sounded is so truly exprest, as if he had measured it alone by his own soul, and invented no other harmony than his own “sensible feeling did afford him." Most of his Composures fully justify Ravenscroft's eulogium; for example, Thirsis,

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sleepest thou; Come, shepherds; Sleep, fond fancy; Flow, O my tears, and All creatures now (one of the Triumphs of Oriana). It appears somewhat singular that so few of them have been handed down to us; for with the exception of the works above specified, I am aware of no others save one or two anthems in manuscript dated 1616.

CCXIV.

I wander up and down, and fain would rest me;
Yet cannot rest, such cares do still molest me.
All things conspire I see, and this consent in,
To find a place for me fit to lament in.

CCXV.

Come, shepherds, follow me,

Run up apace the mountain :

See lo! beside the fountain

Love laid to rest; how sweetly sleepeth he!

O take heed, come not nigh him,

But haste we hence and fly him ;

And, lovers, dance with gladness;

For while love sleeps, is truce with care and sadness.

These lines are most likely an imitation, as a similar idea of the danger of disturbing Love's slumbers is to be found in one of Morley's four-voice Madrigals, No. LXIX.

CCXVI.

Thirsis, sleepest thou? Holla! let not sorrow slay us.
Hold up thy head, man; said the gentle Melibus.
See! summer comes again, the country's pride adorning ;
Hark! how the cuckoo singeth this fair April morning.
Oh! said the shepherd, and sigh'd as one all undone,
Let me alone, alas! and drive him back to London.

The music of this is beautiful; and at the words Hark! how the cuckoo singeth, the well-known notes of that celebrated bird are most ingeniously interwoven in the several parts. The meaning of drive him back to London is not very apparent. Perhaps the expression had reference to some joke of the day.

CCXVII.

Ye restless thoughts, that harbour discontent,
Cease your assaults, and let my heart lament;
And let my tongue have leave to tell my grief,
That she may pity, though not grant relief.
Pity would help what love hath almost slain,
And salve the wound that fester'd this disdain.

Set also by John Wilbye, A.D. 1598.

CCXVIII.

When-as I glanced upon my lovely Phillis,

Whose cheeks are deck'd with roses and with lilies;

I me complain'd, that she me nought regarded;
And that my love with envy was rewarded.

Then wantonly she smiled,

And grief from me exiled.

The word envy is constantly used by old writers in the sense of hatred or malice.

"Since he stands obdurate,

"And that no lawful means can carry me

"Out of his envy's reach."-Merchant of Venice.

CCXIX.

O sleep, O sleep, fond fancy!

My head, alas! thou tirest,

With false delight of that which thou desirest.

Sleep, sleep, I say, fond fancy!

And leave my thoughts molesting:

Thy master's head hath need of sleep and resting.

This is a sweet morceau of true poetry, and set in a masterly manner by Bennet, and also by Morley for three voices in his Introduction to Music.

The word fancy came to be often used as synonymous with love. Vide Dr. Nott's edition of the Earl of Surrey's Poems. Fancy-free, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, means, free from the effects or power of love.

CCXX.

Flow, O my tears, and cease not!

Your spring-tides, out alas! methinks increase not.

Oh! when-oh! when begin you

To swell so high, that I may drown me in you?

This stanza is also set by Wilbye to music of three voices. I do not know why the original words, Weep, O mine eyes, have been altered to Flow, O my tears, unless to distinguish this Madrigal from another by Wilbye, for five voices, beginning with the former words.

In regard to just expression of the poetry, as well as beauty of harmony, nothing can excel the adaptation of Bennet.

CCXXI.

Since neither tunes of joy, nor notes of sadness,

Cruel unkind, can move thee,

I will go run away for rage and madness,

Because I will not love thee.

O come again, thy fruitless labour waste not:
How wilt thou run, fool, when thy heart thou hast not?

CCXXII.

Rest now, Amphion, rest thy charming lyre;
For Daphne's love makes sweeter melody:
Her love's concord with mine doth well conspire,
No discord jars in our love's sympathy:
Our concords have some discords mixt among :
Discording concords make the sweetest song.

As the effect of music is greatly heightened by the introduction of certain discordant sounds properly prepared and resolved into concords, so amantium ira amoris integratio

est.