Grace and remembrance (17) be unto you both,

And welcome to our fhearing.

Pol. Shepherdess,

(A fair one are you) well you fit our ages

With flowers of winter.

Nature and Art.

Per. Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on fummer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter; the fairest flowers o' th' feafon Are our carnations, and ftreak'd gilly-flowers, Which fome call nature's baftards: of that kind Our ruftic garden's barren, and I care not To get flips of them.

Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden,

Do you neglect them?

Per. For I have heard it faid,

There is an art, which in their piedness fhares
With great creating nature.

Pol. Say there be :

Yet nature is made better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean: fo, over that art,

Which you say adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes; you fee, fweet maid, we marry

A gentle fcyon to the wildeft ftock;

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race.

This is an art

Which does mend nature, change it rather; but

The art itself is nature.

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gilly-flowers, And do not call them baftards.

A Garland

(17) Grace and remembrance.] Rue was called Herb of Grace; Rosemary was the emblem of remembrance: it was ufually carried at funerals and anciently supposed to ftrengthen the memory; for which purpose it is prescribed in some old books of physic. J. and St.

:

Per.

A Garland for middle-aged Men.

-I'll not put

The dibble in earth, to fet one flip of them;

No more than, were I painted, I wou'd wish
This youth should say, 'twere well; and only there-

fore

Defire to breed by me

There's flowers for you;

Hot lavender, mint, favoury, marjoram,
The marygold, that goes to bed with th' fun,
And with him rifes, weeping; these are flowers
Of middle fummer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age.

A Garland for young Men.

Cam. I fhould leave grazing, were I of your flock, And only live by gazing.

Per. Out, alas!

You'd be fo lean, that blafts of January

Wou'd blow you through and through; now my faireft friend,

I wou'd I had fome flowers o' the fpring, that might
Become your time of day; and yours, and yours,
That wear upon your virgin-branches yet
Your maidenheads growing: O, Proferpina, (18)

For

(18) O, Proferpina, &c.] Milton ftrews the hearfe of his Lycidas with beautiful vernal flowers, not unlike those the pretty Perdita wishes for the garland of her lover.

Purple all the ground with vernal flower:

Bring the rathe primrose, that forfaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jeffamine,
The white pink, and the panfie ftreakt with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rofe, and the well-attir'd woodbine,
With cowflips wan that hang the penfive head,
And every flow'r that fad embroid❜ry wears;

Bid

For the flow'rs now, that, frighted, thou let'ft fall
From Dis's waggon! (19) early daffodils,
That come before the fwallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, (20)
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, e'er they can behold
Bright Phabus in his ftrength; (a malady
Moft incident to maids ;) gold oxlips, and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-lis being one.

O, thefe I lack

To make you garlands of, and, my fweet friend,
To ftrow him o'er and o'er.

Flo. What like a corfe?

Per. No, like a bank, for love to lie and play on; Not like a corfe: or if; not to be bury'd,

But quick, and in mine arms.

Bid amaranthus all his beauty fhed,
And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,

To ftrew the laureat hearfe where Lycid lies.

A Lover's

The reader will find a paffage, worth comparing with this of S. in As you like it, p. 27, the note.

See alfo Ophelia's distribution of flowers in Hamlet.
(19) From Dis's waggon.] So Ovid,

-Ut fumma veftem laxavit ab orâ,
Collecti flores tunicis cecidere remiffis.

St.

(20) Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes.] I suspect that our author mistakes Juno for Pallas, who was the goddefs of blue eyes. Sweeter than an eye lid, is an odd image: but perhaps he ufes fweet in the general sense, for delightful. J.

It was formerly the fashion to kifs the eyes, as a mark of extraordinary tenderness. I have fomewhere met with an account of the firft reception one of our kings gave to his new queen, where he is said to have kissed her fayre eyes. The eyes of Juno were as remarkable as thofe of Pallas. BOWTIS TOTVIα Hgn. Homer.

St.

A Lover's Commendation.

What (21) you do,

Still betters what is done; when you fpeak, (fweet)
I'd have you do it ever; when you fing,

I'd have you buy and fell fo; fo, give alms;
Pray, fo; and for the ord'ring your affairs,
To fing them too.

When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o' the fea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move ftill, fill so,

And own no other function: each your doing, (22)
So fingular in each particular,

Crowns what you 're doing in the prefent deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

Honeft

(21) What, &c.] So, a little further, one of the com

pany fays,

This is the prettieft low-born lafs, that ever
Ran on the green sod: nothing she does or feems,
But fmacks of fomething greater than herself,
Too noble for this place.

And when it is faid afterwards, She dances featly-the old hepherd adds, So fhe does any thing.

Ovid, that great master of love, well affured of the truth of this, that every thing done by the perfon we love is agreeable, thus makes his Sappho complain, in her epistle to Phaon.

My mufic then you could for ever hear,

And all my words were mufic to your ear;
You ftopp'd with kiffes my enchanting tongue,
And found my kiffes fweeter than my fong:
In all I pleas'd, but most in what was best,
And the last joy was dearer than the rest:

Then with each glance, each word, each motion fir'd,
You ftill enjoy'd, and yet you still defir'd.

Pope.

(22) Each your doing, &c.] That is, your manner in sach act crowns the act. 7..

Per. O Doricles,

Honeft Wooing.

Your praises are too large; but that your youth,
And the true blood which peeps fo fairly through 't,
Do plainly give you out an unflain'd fhepherd;
With wifdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You woo'd me the falfe

way. Flo. I think you have

As little skill to fear, (23) as I have purpose
To put you to 't. But come; our dance, I pray :-
Your hands, my Perdita: fo turtles pair,

That never mean to part.

They call him, Doricles: he boasts himself To have a worthy feeding: (24) but I have it Upon his own report, and I believe it;

He looks like footh. He fays, he loves my daughter; I think fo too for never gaz'd the moon

Upon the water, as he'll ftand and read,

:

As 'twere, my daughter's eyes and to be plain,
I think there is not half a kifs to chufe,
Who loves another best.

Clown's

(23) As little skill to fear.] To have skill to do a thing, was a phrase then in use equivalent to have reason to do a thing. W. Thefe paffages are in the true character of youth in the different fexes: fincerity on one fide and confidence on the other. Deceit and diffidence are the fruits of

riper or more rotten years. Mrs. G.

(24) Worthy feeding.] W. propofes breeding. But J. conceives feeding to be a pafture, and a worthy feeding to be a tract of pafturage, not inconfiderable, not unworthy my daughter's fortune."