Had roused him here, and shook his feathers, wet
With purple swelling nectar; and had let
The sweet and fruitful dew fall on the ground
To force out all the flowers that might be found :
Or a Minerva with her needle had
The enamour'd earth with all her riches clad,
And made the downy Zephyr as he flew
Still to be followed with the Spring's best hue.
The gaudy peacock boasts not in his train
So many lights and shadows, nor the rain-
Resolving Iris, when the Sun doth court her,
Nor purple pheasant while his aunt doth sport her
To hear him crow, and with a perched pride
Wave his discolour'd neck and purple side.
I have not seen the place could more surprise,
It looks, methinks, like one of Nature's eyes,
Or her whole body set in art : behold!
How the blue bindweed doth itself infold

6

Maia to the king and queen, (vol. vi. p. 462,) there is a reference to this favourite poet:

“The spice that from Panchaia comes,

The odour that Hydaspes lends.”
Quidquid turiferis spirat Panchaia silvis,

Quicquid odoratus longe blanditur Hydaspes.

while his aunt doth sport her,] i. e. his wanton mistress. Thus Brome:

Cicely. Is she your kinswoman-your aunt, or cousin ?
Sam. [aside] Means she in the mystical sense, of ill?

Toten. Court. But our old dramatists used this word in a very loose way. As the Gentleman's Recreation says of brach, it “ seems to be a mannerly word,” for an appellation peculiarly offensive to female ears. See vol. vi. p. 86.

behold !
How the blue bindweed doth itself infold

With honey-suckle, &c.] This passage settles the meaning of the speech of Titania, in Midsummer Night's Dream, on which

7

With honey-suckle, and both these intwine
Themselves with bryony and jessamine,
To cast a kind and odoriferous shade.
Phan. How better than they are, are all things

made
By Wonder ? But awhile refresh thine eye,
I'll put thee to thy oftener, What and Why?
Here, to a loud music, the Bower opens, and the

Masquers are discovered as the Glories of the
Spring:
Won. Thou wilt indeed; what better change ap-

pears?

Whence is it that the air so sudden clears,
And all things in a moment turn so mild ?
Whose breath or beams have got proud earth with

child, Of all the treasure that great Nature's worth, And makes her every minute to bring forth ? How comes it winter is so quite forced hence, And lock'd up under ground ? that every sense Hath several objects ? trees have got their heads, And fields their coats ? that now the shining meads Do boast the paunce, the lily, and the rose; And every flower doth laugh as Zephyr blows? so much has been written, and which, after all, is so little under stood.

“So doth the woodbine the sweet honey-suckle

Gently entwist.” The woodbine of Shakspeare is the blue bindweed of Jonson : in many of our counties the woodbine is still the name for the great convolvolus. If the reader will turn to this quotation, in the variorum Shakspeare, he will find three pages of nonsense, quotation heaped upon quotation to no purpose ; and this place in Jonson, which gives an easy and intelligent explanation of it, not once noticed! It should be added, that Steevens and Malone, to make out even their no-meaning, have been compelled to corrupt the text. This, however, was infinitely preferable to having recourse to “old Ben,” without any prospect of calumniating him.

That seas are now more even than the land ?
The rivers run as smoothed by his hand ;
Only their heads are crisped by his stroke:-
How plays the yearling with his brow scarce broke
Now in the open grass! and frisking lambs
Make wanton salts about their dry-suck'd dams !-
Who to repair their bags do rob the fields.

How is't each bough a several music yields ?
The lusty throstle, early nightingale,
Accord in tune, though vary in their tale;
The chirping swallow call'd forth by the sun,
And crested lark doth his division run ?
The yellow bees the air with murmur fill,
The finches carol, and the turtles bill ?
Whose power is this? what god ?
Phan.

Behold a king;
Whose presence maketh this perpetual spring;
The glories of which spring grow in that bower,
And are the marks and beauties of his power.

.
Cho. 'Tis he, 'tis he, and no power else,
That makes all this what Phant'sie tells ;
The founts, the flowers, the birds, the bees,
The herds, the flocks, the grass, the trees,
Do all confess him; but most these
Who call him lord of the four seas,
King of the less and greater isles,
And all those happy when he smiles.
Advance, his favour calls you to advance,

,
And do your this night's homage in a dance.

Here they danced their Entry, after which they

sung again.

Cho. Again! again! you cannot be
Of such a true delight too free,
Which, who once saw, would ever see :

And if they could the object prize,
Would, while it lasts, not think to rise,

But wish their bodies all were eyes.
Here they danced their Main DANCE, after which

they sung
Cho. In curious knots and mazes so,
The Spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora, had their motions too :

And thence did Venus learn to lead

The Idalian brawls, and so to tread
As if the wind, not she, did walk;

Nor prest a flower, nor bow'd a stalk.
Here they danced with the Ladies, and the whole

Revels followed; after which AURORA appeared, (the Night and Moon being descended,) and this Epilogue followed.

Aur. I was not wearier where I lay By frozen Tithon's side to-night ;8

8

8 I was not wearier where I lay

By frozen Tithon's side to-night, &c.] The ingenious Mr. Chalmers, the Lepidus of the grand triumvirate of Jonson's enemies, would probably start, had he ever looked into his works, at discovering that there was something in them besides “malice to Shakspeare," something, in short, from which the critic himself, vast as his knowledge confessedly is, might occasionally derive information. In illustrating the word Titan, which he explains with laudable accuracy to be a “poetical name for the Sun,” Mr. Chalmers brings forward this confirmation of it from the Phænix Nest,

“ Aurora now began to rise again
From watrie couch, and from old Tithon's side."

Lindsay, vol. iii. p. 488. Now though “ Titan " may be old, it is not very likely, I think, that he should be frozen; and as Jonson is generally allowed to be pretty correct in his epithets, it will be worth Mr. Chalmers' while to consider, previously to the republication of his glossary, whether Titan and Tithon may not be distinct personages.

Than I am willing now to stay,
And be a part of your delight.
But I am urged by the Day,
Against my will, to bid you come away.

Cho. They yield to time, and so must all.
As night to sport, day doth to action call ;
Which they the rather do obey,
Because the Morn with roses strews the way.

tres