Dare with misty eyes behold,

And live therefore on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee

In worship of thy deity.
Deign it, goddess, from my hand
To receive whate'er this land
From her fertile womb doth send
Of her choice fruits; and but lend
Belief to that the Satyr tells,
Fairer by the famous wells

To this present day ne'er grew,

Never better, nor more true.

Here be grapes whose lusty blood

Is the learned poet's good,

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown

Than the squirrel whose teeth crack them;
Deign, O fairest fair, to take them:

For these, black-eyed Driope

Hath oftentimes commanded me

With my clasped knee to climb.

See how well the lusty time

Hath deck'd their rising cheeks in red,

Such as on your lips is spread.

Here be berries for a queen,

Some be red, some be green;

These are of that luscious meat

The great god Pan himself doth eat:

All these, and what the woods can yield,

The hanging mountain or the field,

I freely offer, and ere long

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;

Till then, humbly leave I take,

Lest the great Pan do awake,

That sleeping lies in a deep glade,

Under a broad beech's shade.

I must go, I must run,

Swifter than the fiery sun.

Clor. And all my fears go with thee.

What greatness, or what private hidden power,

Is there in me to draw submission

From this rude man and beast?-Sure I am a mortal;

The daughter of a shepherd; he was mortal,

And she that bore me, mortal; prick my hand

And it will bleed; a fever shakes me, and

The self-same mind that makes the young lambs shrink,

Makes me a-cold: my fear says I am mortal:

Yet I have heard (my mother told it me),

And now I do believe it, if I keep

My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair,

No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend,

Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves,

Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion

Y

[Exit.]

Draw me to wander after idle fires,
Or voices calling me in dead of night

To make me follow, and so tole me on

Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruin.
Else why should this rough thing, who never knew
Manners nor smooth humanity, whose heats
Are rougher than himself, and more misshapen,
Thus mildly kneel to me? Sure there's a power
In that great name of Virgin, that binds fast
All rude uncivil bloods, all appetites

That break their confines. Then, strong chastity,
Be thou my strongest guard; for here I'll dwell
In opposition against fate and hell.

[Faithful Shepherdess.]

The lyrical pieces scattered throughout the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, though not generally equal, are still of much the same character as those with which Jonson's dramas abound. Of these we subjoin the following:

THE POWER OF LOVE.

Hear ye, ladies that despise

What the mighty Love has done;
Fear examples and be wise:
Fair Calisto was a nun:
Leda, sailing on the stream,
To deceive the hopes of man
Love accounted but a dream,

Doted on a silver swan;

Danae in a brazen tower,

Where no love was, lov'd a shower.

Hear ye, ladies that are coy,

What the mighty Love can do,

Fear the fierceness of the boy;

The chaste moon he makes to woo.

Vesta, kindling holy fires

Circled round about with spies

Never dreaming loose desires,

Doting at the altar dies;

Ilion in a short hour higher,

He can build, and once more fire.

[Valentinian.]

SONG TO PAN, AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE FAITHFUL

SHEPHERDESS.

All ye woods, and trees, and bow'rs

All ye virtues and ye pow'rs,

That inhabit in the lakes,

In the pleasant springs or brakes,

Move your feet

To our sound,
Whilst we greet

All this ground,

With his honour and his name

That defends our flocks from blame.

He is great and he is just,

He is ever good, and must
Thus be honour'd. Daffodilies,
Roses, pinks, and loved lilies,
Let us fling,

Whilst we sing
Ever holy,

Ever holy,

Ever honour'd, ever young!

Thus great Pan is ever sung.

Lecture the Fifteenth.

GEORGE

CHAPMAN-THOMAS DEKKER-JOHN WEBSTER-THOMAS

MIDDLETON

JOHN MARSTON-PHILIP MASSINGER-ROBERT TAYLOR-WILLIAM ROWLEYCYRIL TOURNEUR-GEORGE COOKE-THOMAS NABBES-NATHANIEL FIELD-JOHN

DAY-HENRY GLAPTHORNE-THOMAS RANDOLPH-RICHARD BROME-JOHN FORD -THOMAS HEYWOOD-JAMES SHIRLEY.

THE great dramatists with whom we have been engaged during the last

two lectures, have absorbed so much of our time and attention, that we shall be constrained to notice much more briefly those of their contemporaries who are still to pass in review before us. Of these, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Middleton, Marston, and Massinger, first claim our attention.

GEORGE CHAPMAN was born at Hitching Hill, Hertfordshire, in 1557. He commenced his collegiate studies at Oxford, and finished them at Cambridge; but in consequence of devoting himself at both universities to the Latin and Greek classics, to the exclusion of philosophy and logic, he did not succeed in obtaining his degree at either. From Cambridge he repaired to London, when the gracefulness of his manners and the elegance of his taste soon recommended him to the acquaintance, and even intimacy, of Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, and other leading wits of the age. Chapman commenced his literary career with a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This, with all its faults, is a production of great value and interest. It is written in the cumbrous and unwieldy old English measure of fourteen syllables; but notwithstanding this heavy drawback, such passages as the following description from the thirteenth book, of Neptune and his chariot, exhibit, with great clearness, the force and energy of the translation:

He took much ruth to see the Greeks from Troy receive such ill,
And mightily incens'd with Jove, stoop'd straight from that steep hill;
That shook as he flew off, so hard his parting press'd the height,
The woods and all the great hills near, trembled beneath the weight
Of his immortal moving feet: three steps he only took,
Before he far off Ægas reach'd; but with the fourth it shook