CCXI.

Draw on, sweet night, best friend unto those cares
That do arise from painful melancholy;

My life so ill through want of comfort fares,
That unto thee I consecrate it wholly.

Sweet night, draw on,-my griefs when they be told
To shades and darkness, find some ease from paining;
And while thou all in silence dost enfold,

I then shall have best time for my complaining.

A similar feeling pervades the following beautiful lines by Kirke White :—

"'Tis Midnight-on the globe dread slumber sits,
"And all is silence in the hour of sleep.

"I wake alone, to listen and to weep;

"To watch, my taper, thy pale beacon burn; "And while fond memory doth her vigils keep, To think of days that never can return!"

CCXII.

Stay, Corydon, thou swain,

Talk not so soon of dying:

What tho' thy heart be slain,

What tho' thy love be flying!

She threatens thee, but dares not strike;
Thy nymph is light and shadow-like;
For if thou follow her, she 'll fly from thee;

But if thou fly from her, she 'll follow thee.

The comparison between the coquettish nymph and the

shadow is highly poetical. Speaking of certain fickle dames, Burton says, "they will deny and take, stoutly re"fuse, and yet earnestly seek the same; repel to make you “advance with more eagerness; fly from you if you follow ; "but if averse, as a shadow they will follow you again: -fugientem sequitur, sequentem fugit."

CCXIII.

Softly, oh! drop, mine eyes, lest you be dry,
And make my heart with grief to melt and die.
Now pour out tears apace,—

Now stay,-O heavy case!

Alas! O sour-sweet woe !

O grief! O joy! why strive you so?

Can pain and joy in one poor heart consent?
Then sigh and sing, rejoice, lament.

Ah me! O passion strange and violent!

Was never wretch so sore tormented:

Nor joy, nor grief, can make my heart contented.

For while with joy I look on high,

Down, down I fall with grief—and die.

The antithesis sour-sweet, which also occurs in No. CCIII., is nearly akin to the dolcezze amarissime d'amore in Guarini's Pastor fido.

Cupid is constantly represented as mixing together the sours and sweets of life. Thus Catullus,

"Sancte puer, curis hominum qui gaudia misces."

"Celestial youth, 't is thy delight to throw
"On human bliss some tinge of human woe."

A writer in The Paradise of dainty Devices, A.d. 1576, makes the following plaint:

"Why did the course of nature so ordain,

"That sugred sour must sauce the bitter sweet? “Which sour from sweet, might any means remove, "What hap, what heaven, what life were like to love!"

JOHN BENNET.

The only printed work extant by this composer is "Madrigals to four voices, his first works, at London, printed in Little Saint Hellens, by William Barley, As"signe of Thomas Morley, 1599:" dedicated to

"The Right worshipful Ralph Asheton, Esq., one of "Her Majesty's Justices of Peace and Quorum, and of the "Oier and Terminer in the County Palantine of Lancaster, "and Receiver of Her Highness' Duchy revenues in the "said County, and the County Palantine of Chester." He therein requests his patron to accept these madrigals (seventeen in number) as "the first fruits of his simple skill, "the endeavours of a young wit, and tokens of a thankful "mind."

66

Thomas Ravenscroft, whom he assisted with a few specimens for his Brief Discourse published in 1614, gives him a very high character, as being "a gentleman admi"rable for all kinds of composures, either in art or ayre, simple or mixed, of what nature soever: in whose works "the very life of that passion which the ditty sounded is so truly exprest, as if he had measured it alone by his own soul, and invented no other harmony than his own "sensible feeling did afford him." Most of his Composures fully justify Ravenscroft's eulogium; for example, Thirsis,

sleepest thou; Come, shepherds; Sleep, fond fancy; Flow, O my tears, and All creatures now (one of the Triumphs of Oriana). It appears somewhat singular that so few of them have been handed down to us; for with the exception of the works above specified, I am aware of no others save one or two anthems in manuscript dated 1616.

CCXIV.

I wander up and down, and fain would rest me ;
Yet cannot rest, such cares do still molest me.
All things conspire I see, and this consent in,
To find a place for me fit to lament in.

CCXV.

Come, shepherds, follow me,

Run up apace the mountain :

See lo! beside the fountain

Love laid to rest; how sweetly sleepeth he!

O take heed, come not nigh him,

But haste we hence and fly him;

And, lovers, dance with gladness;

For while love sleeps, is truce with care and sadness.

These lines are most likely an imitation, as a similar idea of the danger of disturbing Love's slumbers is to be found in one of Morley's four-voice Madrigals, No. LXIX.

CCXVI.

Thirsis, sleepest thou? Holla! let not sorrow slay us.
Hold up thy head, man; said the gentle Melibœus.
See! summer comes again, the country's pride adorning ;
Hark! how the cuckoo singeth this fair April morning.
Oh! said the shepherd, and sigh'd as one all undone,
Let me alone, alas! and drive him back to London.

The music of this is beautiful; and at the words Hark! how the cuckoo singeth, the well-known notes of that celebrated bird are most ingeniously interwoven in the several parts. The meaning of drive him back to London is not very apparent. Perhaps the expression had reference to some joke of the day.

CCXVII.

Ye restless thoughts, that harbour discontent,
Cease your assaults, and let my heart lament;
And let my tongue have leave to tell my grief,
That she may pity, though not grant relief.
Pity would help what love hath almost slain,
And salve the wound that fester'd this disdain.

Set also by John Wilbye, A.D. 1598.

CCXVIII.

When-as I glanced upon my lovely Phillis,

Whose cheeks are deck'd with roses and with lilies;