THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD. [THIS charming song was originally printed (with the exception of the fourth and sixth stanzas) in The Passionate Pilgrim, a miscellany of poems written by different persons, although fraudulently ascribed on the title-page to Shakspeare. -See Shakspeare's Poems, An. Ed., p. 237. The Passionate Pilgrim was published in 1599, and in the following year the song, as it is here given, with the exception of the stanza in brackets, appeared under Marlowe's name in England's Helicon. In 1653, Isaak Walten reprinted it, with the additional stanza, in his Complete Angler. Few compositions of this kind have enjoyed a wider or more enduring popularity, or suggested more remarkable imitations. The music to which it was sung was discovered by Sir John Hawkins in a MS. of the age of Elizabeth, and will be found in Boswell's edition of Malone's Shakspeare, and in Chappell's collection of National English Airs. Numerous ballads and songs were composed to the air of Come live with me and be my love;' and there is some ground for believing that Marlowe's words had displaced a still earlier song, Adieu, my dear,' to the same tune. See Chappell's National Songs, ii. 139. Shakspeare quotes The Passionate Shepherd in the Merry Wives of Windsor, iii. 1, and Raleigh, Herrick, and Donne have either written answers to it, or constructed poems on the plan of which it may be regarded as the model.* Sir John Hawkins, who considers the song to be a beautiful one,' nevertheless objects to the want of truthfulness in its pastoral images. Buckles of gold,' he observes, 'coral clasps, and amber studs, silver Raleigh's answer, from the Nymph to the Shepherd, is printed immediately after Marlowe's poem in England's Helicon. It is said that in the earliest copies the initials W. R. were subscribed to the verses, but that the common signature, Ignoto, was afterwards pasted over them, because, as it has been generally supposed, Raleigh did not desire to be known. For the full consideration of the question of authorship, see the Rev. John Hannah's careful edition of the poems of Walton, Raleigh, and others, p. 125. The following is the answer, with an additional stanza from the Second Edition of the Complate dishes and ivory tables are luxurious, and consist not with the parsimony and simplicity of rural life and manners.' This criticism would be more just if it were not quite so literal. Allowance should be made for the fanciful treatment of the subject; nor is it at all certain that the silver dishes and ivory tables, which carry the luxuries of the Shepherd's life to the last excess of inconsistency, are really chargeable upon Marlowe. The rest of the poem breathes the pure air of the country, even to the coral clasps and Angler, interpolated, possibly by Walton himself. is enclosed in brackets: Walton's stanza THE NYMPH'S REPLY TO THE SHEPHERD. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten,- Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. [What should we talk of dainties, then,- But could youth last, and love still breed, Then those delights my mind might move Still more beautiful than this ingenious reply, and presenting a more amber studs, which Sir John Hawkins takes to be veritable jewellery, but which, being found in association with a girdle of straw and ivy buds, were apparently intended to typify the blossoms of flowers. For a passage in one of the plays attributed to Marlowe closely resembling the stanza objected to by Hawkins, see Lamb's Dram. Spec., i. 18.] COME live with me, and be my love; And we will all the pleasures prove And I will make thee beds of roses, A A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; since, and begins with the following stanza, in which Marlowe's opening is reproduced: Come live with me, and be my dear, And we will revel all the year, In plains and groves, on hills and dales, Where fragrant air breeds sweetest gales. Donne's imitation, called The Bait, also resumes Marlowe's opening, but takes the subject out of the region of nature into that of artifices and conceits. The following is the first verse: Come live with me, and be my love, Herrick's poem, which has more of the true rustic nature than any of Shall bless thy bed, and bless thy board. I Fair-lined slippers for the cold, Prepared each day for thee and me.]* FRAGMENT.+ WALKED along a stream, for pureness rare, No molten crystal, but a richer mine, Even Nature's rarest alchemy ran there,Diamonds resolved, and substance more divine, Through whose bright-gliding current might appear A thousand naked nymphs, whose ivory shine, Enamelling the banks, made them more dear Than ever was that glorious palace' gate Where the day-shining Sun in triumph sate. Upon this brim the eglantine and rose, The tamarisk, olive, and the almond tree, As kind companions, in one union grows, Folding their twining arms, as oft we see This stanza is taken from the reprint of the poem in the Second Edition of Walton's Complete Angler. From what source Walton ob tained it is unknown. In the same way, it will be seen from the previous note, he supplies an additional stanza to Raleigh's Answer. + Extracted from England's Parnassus, 1600. Turtle-taught lovers either other close, So did their garland-tops the brook o'erspread. Their leaves, that differed both in shape and show, DIALOGUE IN VERSE. [THIS Dialogue was first published by Mr. Collier in his volume of Alleyn Papers, edited for the Shakspeare Society. The original MS., found amongst the documents of Dulwich College, was written in prose on one side of a sheet of paper, with the name 'Kitt Marlowe' inscribed in a modern hand on the back. What connexion, if any, he may have had with it,' says Mr. Collier, it is impossible to determine, but it was obviously worthy of preservation, as a curious stage relic of an early date, and unlike anything else of the kind that has come down to us.' The words in brackets were deficient in the original, and have been supplied by Mr. Collier. The Dialogue was probably intended as an interlude in a play, or as an entertainment, terminating with a dance, after a play. It is essentially dramatic in character; but it would be rash to speculate upon the authorship from the internal evidence.] JACK. EEST thou not yon farmer's son? SEES He hath stolen my love from me, alas! What shall I do? I am undone; My heart will ne'er be as it was. Oh, but he gives her gay gold rings, |