“Love in hart, and tears in eyes ; * * amy? * ? "All thy beauties sting my heart; "N'oseres vous, mon bel, mon bel, “N'oseres vous, mon bel amy?" &c. I have not been able to ascertain who it was that first gave so extraordinary a turn to this celebrated fable, but I suspect it to have proceeded from some of the Italian poets. The late Mr. Warton, whom I consulted on this subject, was not more successful than myself in investigating this point. The poem already quoted, which I imagine was written by Henry Constable, being only found in a very scarce miscellany, entitled England's Helicon, quarto 1600, I shall subjoin it. Henry Constable was the author of some sonnets prefixed to Sir Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie, and is "worthily joined (says A. Wood,) with Sir Edward Dyer," some of whose verses are preserved in the Paradise of Daintie Devises, 1580.-Constable likewise wrote some sonnets printed in 1594, and some of his verses are cited in a miscellaneous collection entitled England's Parnassus, 1600. He was of St. John's College, in Cambridge, and took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1579. Edmund Bolton in his Hypercritica, (which appears to have been written after the year 1616, and remained in manuscript till 1722, when it was printed by Hall at the end of Triveti Annales,) has taken a view of some of our old English poets, and classes Constable with Gascoigne, Dyer, Warner, and Thomas Sackville, earl of Dorset. "Noble Henry Constable (says he,) was a great master of English tongue, nor had any gentleman of our nation a more pure, quick, or higher delivery of conceit: witness among all other, that sonnet of his before his majesty's Lepanto. I have not seen much of Sir Edward's Dyer's Poetry. Among the lesser late poets George Gascoigne's works may be endured. But the best of those times, (if Albion's England be not preferred,) is The Mirrour of Magistrates, and in that Mirrour, Sackville's Induction." The first eight lines of each stanza of the following poem ought rather perhaps to be printed in four, as the rhymes are in the present mode not so obvious; but I have followed the arrangement of the old copy, which probably was made by the author. MALone. The miscellany from which the following song was extracted is no longer so scarce as when Mr. Malone described it as such. It has within these few years been reprinted. Yet as an illustration of our author's poem, I have not thought I was justified in removing it from its place. BOSWELL. Speake, shee said, thou fairest, See mee, I am pale and wan: I for loue implore thee; Christall teares with that downe ran. Him heerewith shee forc'd To come sit downe by her; Shee his necke embracde, gazing in his face: Hee, like one transform'd, stir'd no looke to eye her. Euery hearbe did wooe him, growing in that place, Each bird with a dittie, Prayed him for pitty, In behalfe of beauties queene; Waters' gentle murmour Craved him to loue her, Yet no liking could be seene. Boy, shee say'd, looke on mee, Speake, I pray thee, my delight: Coldly hee reply'd, And in breefe deny'd To bestow on her a sight, I am now too young to be wonne by beauty; Tender are my yeeres; I am yet a bud: Fayre thou art, shee said; then it is thy dutie, Wert thou but a blossome, to effect my good. Every beauteous flower Boasteth in my power, Byrds and beasts my lawes effect; Mirrha, thy faire mother, Most of any other, Did my louely hests respect. Be with me delighted, Thou shalt be requited, Every Nimph on thee shall tend; All the Gods shall loue thee, Man shall not reproue thee, Loue himselfe shall be thy freend. Wend thee from mee, Venus, I am not disposed; Thou wringest mee too hard; pre-thee, let me goe: Fie! what a paine it is thus to be enclosed? If loue begin with labour, A short kiss I doe it find: Wilt thou leaue me so? Yet thou shalt not goe; Breathe once more thy balmie wind : It smelleth of the Mirh-tree, That to the world did bring thee; Neuer was perfume so sweet. When she had thus spoken, She gave him a token, And theyr naked bosoms meet. huntsmen follow fast, At the name of boare Venus seemed dying: Deadly-coloured pale roses ouer cast. Speake, sayd shee, no more Of following the boare, Thou unfit for such a chase: Course the fearfull hare, Venson doe not spare, If thou wilt yeeld Venus grace. Shun the boare, I pray thee, Else I still will stay thee; Herein he vow'd to please her minde: Then her armes enlarged, Loth shee him discharged; Forth he went as swift as winde. Thetis Phoebus' steedes in the west retained; Hunting sport was past, Loue her loue did seeke: Sight of him too soone gentle Queene shee gained; On the ground he lay, blood had left his cheeke: For an orped swine Smit him in the groyne ; Deadly wound his death did bring : Shee fell in a swound, And, awakte, her hands did wring. Nimphs and Satires skipping Came together tripping; Eccho euery cry exprest: Venus by her power Turn'd him to a flower, Which she weareth in her creast *. H. C. * in her CREAST.] I suspect this is a misprint, and that the poet wrote breast, The word orped, which occurs in this stanza, and of which I know not the derivation, is used by Golding, (as an anonymous writer has observed,) in his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, 1587, b. viii. : Yet should this hand of mine, "Even maugre dame Diana's hart, confound this orped swine." Again, in the thirteenth book: "the orped giant Polypheme." Terribilem Polyphemum. Again, in A Herrings Tale: containing a poetical fiction of diverse matters worthy the reading, quarto, 1598: 66 Straight as two launces coucht by orped knights at rest." Gower uses the word in like manner in his Confessio Amantis, 1554, b. i. fol. 22: "That thei woll gette of their accord "Some orped knight to sle this lord." So also Gawin Douglas in his translation of Virgil, Æn. x. : "Amid the Trojanis by favour of Mars, quod sche." Per medios insignis equo tumidusque secundo Marte ruat. Orped seems to have signified, proud, swelling; and to have included largeness of size, as well as haughtiness and fierceness of demeanour. Skinner idly enough conjectures that it is derived from oripeau, Fr. leaf-brass, or tinsel; in consequence of which in Cole's and Kersey's Dictionaries the word has been absurdly interpreted gilded. MALONE. gilded. |