She doth condemn my eager haste,
In passing the estate

Of my whole life into their hands
Who nought pay for 't but hate.

And not sufficed with this, she says,

I did release the right

Of my enjoyed liberty,

Unto your beauteous sight.

We have Madrigals entitled Spirituali, but this is the first example that I have met with of the Madrigale legale. I beg to recommend it to the attention of all musical gentlemen of the long robe.

CCXXVII.

In vain, my tongue, thou begg'st to ease my care;
In vain, mine eyes, ye gaze or look for aid;

In vain, mine ears, ye listen after air;

In vain, my thoughts, ye think what hath been said;
In vain my faith serves, where 't is not regarded;
In vain my hope, where truth is not rewarded.

"All is vanity," was the opinion of Solomon, and so seems to have thought the author of the preceding lines.

CCXXVIII.

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,

My feast of joy is but a dish of pain;

My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain.

The day is fled, and yet I saw no sun,

And now I live, and now my life is done.

The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung;
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves be green:
My youth is gone, and yet I am but young;
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen;
My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun;
And now I live, and now my life is done.

These very beautiful stanzas are also set to music by R. Allison in his Hour's Recreation, 1606; but they are of a considerably older date, being amongst John Mundy's Songs and Psalms, 1594. Spenser in "The Shepherd's "Calendar" has two lines of a similar character:

"And yet, alas! but now my spring's begun,
"And yet, alas! it is already done."

CCXXIX.

Sly thief, if so you will believe,
It nought or little did me grieve,
That my true heart you had bereft,
Until you it unkindly left.
Leaving, you lose; losing, you kill
That which I may forego so ill.

What thing more cruel can you do,
Than rob a man and kill him too?
Wherefore of love I ask this meed,
To bring you where you did this deed;
That there you may for your amisses,
Be damaged in a thousand kisses.

* Amerced.

Had the author of Hudibras lived when this Madrigal was written, the two first lines of the second stanza might from similarity of style have been attributed to him.

CCXXX.

Ye restless cares, companions of the night,
That wrap my joys in folds of endless woes;
Tire on my heart, and wound it with your spite,
Since love and fortune prove my equal foes.
Farewell, my hopes; farewell, my happy days;
Welcome, sweet grief, the subject of my lays.

From Robert Greene's Menaphon (afterwards called Arcadia), it is there entitled Menaphon's Song in bed. The word tire signifies to fasten upon, like a bird of prey, as in the Third Part of Henry the Sixth, act i. sc. 1.

"Tire on the flesh of me, and of my son."

And again,

"Ev'n as an empty eagle, sharp by fast,

"Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone."

Este's second set was published in 1606, and the dedication to the Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Gerard, Knight, is dated from Ely House, Holborn. It contains twenty-two compositions.

CCXXXI.

How merrily we live that shepherds be!
Roundelays still we sing with merry glee;
On the pleasant downs whereas our flocks we see.
We feel no care, we fear not fortune's frowns,
We have no envy which sweet mirth confounds.

In "The Complainte of Scotland," published at St. Andrews in 1549, the author (Wedderburn) gives a most vivid description of pastoral life. Being weak and sad thro' study he passes to "the green wholsom fields," where, says he, “I beheld mony herds blawing their buck-horns "and their corn pipes, calling and convoying mony fat "flocks to be fed on the fields: then the shepherds put "their sheep on banks and braes, and on dry hills to get "their pasture. Then I beheld the shepherds' wives and "their childer, that brought their morning breakfasts to "the shepherds. Then after their disjeune, they began "to talk of great merryness that was right pleasant to be "heard.

"When the shepherds had told all their pleasant stories, "then they and their wives began to sing sweet melodious

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songs of natural music of the antiquity, in good accords "and reports of diapason, diatesseron, and prolations. The "musician Amphion did sing sae dulce, that the stones "moved, and also the sheep and nolt*, and the fowls of the "air pronounced their bestial voice to sing with him; yet "nathless his harmonious song preferred not the sweet "songs of these shepherds.

“Then after this sweet celest harmony they began to 66 dance," &c., &c.

* Oxen.

CCXXXII.

So much to give and be so small regarded,
Is fault in you, or folly great in me:
For when the richest gifts are not rewarded,
What then for meaner can expected be?

A very sensible Rule of Three statement.

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CCXXXIII.

O metaphysical tobacco!

Fetch'd as far as from Morocco:
Thy searching fume

Exhales the rheum;

O metaphysical tobacco!

At the time when this most elaborate eulogium was penned, tobacco was somewhat of a novelty, having been introduced into England, about the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, by the expedition under Sir F. Drake, who being instructed by the Indians, used it against crudities "of the stomach, and certès since that time it is grown so frequent in use, and of such price, that many, nay most "part, with an insatiable desire do take of it; drawing into "their mouths the smoke thereof, (which is of a strong

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scent,) through a pipe made of earth," (making the nose serve for an Indian chimney, as Decker describes it in his Gull's Hornbook,) some for wantonness, or rather "fashion's sake, others for health's sake; insomuch that "tobacco shops are set up in a greater number than either "ale houses or taverns."-Annales of Elizabeth.

Paul Hentzner, an intelligent German who travelled in