CCXLIX.

When to the gloomy woods,

When to the barren plain,

When to the stony rocks and sullen floods
I wailing go, and of my love complain;
How senseless sure, think I, by love I grow,
Who thus to senseless objects tell my woe.

Yet these my piercing moans
Have touched oft so nigh,

That they to me reply :

But cruel she, more senseless than hard stones,
All heedless of my pains,

No answer gives-unmoved still remains.

CCL.

If floods of tears could cleanse my follies past,
Or smoke of sighs make sacrifice for sin;
If groaning cries might salve my faults at last,
Or endless moan for error, pardon win:
Then would I cry, weep, sigh, and ever moan
Mine errors, faults, sins, follies past and gone.

Set also by John Dowland, in his Second Book of Madrigals.

* "With smoke of sighs sometime I might behold
"The place all dim'd like to the morning mist."
Mirror for Magistrates.

CCLI.

Have I found her? O, rich finding !
Goddess like for to behold,
Her fair tresses seemly binding
In a chain of pearl and gold.
Chain me, chain me, O most fair;

Chain me to thee with that hair.

Next to the eyes, the hair is considered to possess the greatest power over a lover's heart*, and upon the authority of most poets from Homer downwards, that of a light colour receives the highest admiration. Venus, Helen, Dido, Briseis, &c. were flavicomæ omnes. The golden hair of Jason inflamed the heart of Medea: Paris, Menelaus, Patroclus and Achilles were all yellow-haired. In England she whose hair was like threads of gold, and in Scotland the lassie wi' the lint white locks have been equally celebrated.

This Madrigal is also set by Pilkington, A.D. 1612.

CCLII.

Camilla fair tripp'd o'er the plain,

I followed quickly after;

Have overtak'n her I would fain,

And kiss'd when I had caught her.

*"O Helen, fair beyond compare!

"I'll make a garland of thy hair
"Shall bind my heart for evermair.”

See also No. CCLIV.

Scotch Ballad, Helen of Kirconnell.

But hope being past, her to obtain,
Camilla, loud I call :

She answer'd me with great disdain,
I'll not kiss thee at all.

CCLIII.

Cupid in a bed of roses

Sleeping, chanced to be stung
Of a bee that lay among
The flowers, where he himself

reposes:

And thus to his mother weeping
Told, that he this wound did take,
Of a little winged snake,

As he lay securely sleeping.
Citherea smiling said,

That if so great sorrow spring

From a silly bee's weak sting,

As can make thee thus dismay'd;

What anguish feel they, think'st thou, and what pain,
Whom thy empoison'd arrows cause complain?

This will at once be recognised as a translation, (and by no means an inelegant one,) of the well-known ode of AnaI have not been able to ascertain the author, nor am I aware of an entire English version of Anacreon, bearing date earlier than that by Stanley, anno 1651.

creon.

CCLIV.

Her hair's a net of golden wire,

Wherein my heart led by my wand'ring eyes
So fast entangled is, that in no wise

It can or will again retire;

But rather will in that sweet bondage die,
Than break one hair to gain its liberty.

The two last lines are neatly turned. Having already commented (vide No. CCLI.) upon the power of Ladies' hair in binding the heart of Man, I shall merely illustrate the present Madrigal by a translation from an old writer. "The hairs are Cupid's nets to catch all comers; a brushy "wood in which he builds his nest, and under whose shadow "all loves a thousand several ways sport themselves."

CCLV.

Fond love is blind, blind therefore lovers be;
But I more blind, who ne'er my love did see.
Pygmalion loved an image, I a name ;

I laugh'd at him, but now deserve like blame.
Thus foolishly I leap before I look,
Seeing no bait, I swallow'd have the hook.

Ah, Cupid grant that I may never see

Her, who thus thro' mine ear hath wounded me ;
If thro' mine eyes another wound she give,

Cupid, alas! then I no longer live :

But die, poor wretch, shot thro' and thro' the liver*,
With those sharp arrows she stole from thy quiver.

* Vide No. CXCIV.

The poet here seems to have fallen in love from the report of others.

RICHARD ALISON

Was the author of a Publication entitled

"An Hour's Recreation in music, apt for instruments "and voices, framed for the delight of gentlemen and "others which are well affected to that quality. All for the "most part with two trebles, necessary for such as teach "in private families; with a prayer for the long preserva"tion of the King and his posterity, and a thanksgiving for "the deliverance of the whole estate from the late conspiracy*; by Richard Alison, Gentleman, and Practicioner "in the Art. London: printed by John Windet, the assigne "of William Barley, and are to be sold at the Golden An"chor in Paternoster-row, 1606." Dedicated to

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"The right worthily honoured and most free respecter "of all virtue, my esteemed and singular good Patron, Sir "John Scudamore, Knight.

"How noble, how ancient, and how effectual the Art "of Music is, many excellent discourses of theorists, deeply "learned in the science, have already so confirmed and "illustrated, that it might seem as much arrogancy in me "to attempt the praise thereof, as it argues malice or igno66 rance in such as seek to exclude it out of divine or human society. I will only allege one testimony out of an epistle, which that ancient Father Martin Luther did "write to Senfelius the Musician; which is so ample in "commendation of his Art, that it were superfluous to add any other. Music,' saith he, 'to Devils we know is "hateful and intolerable, and I plainly think, neither am

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* The Gunpowder Plot.