The nymphs of wood and water;
Each tree's and fountain's daughter!
Go take them forth, it will be good
To see some wave it like a wood,
And others wind it like a flood;
In springs,
And rings,

Till the applause it brings,
Wakes Echo from her seat,
The closes to repeat.
[Ech. The closes to repeat.]
Echo the truest oracle on ground,

Though nothing but a sound.
[Ech. Though nothing but a sound.]
Beloved of Pan, the valleys queen.
[Ech. The valleys queen.]
And often heard, though never seen.
[Ech. Though never seen.]

Here the REVELS.

After which re-enter the Fencer. Fen. Room, room, there; where are you, shepherd? I am come again, with my second part of my bold bloods, the brave gamesters; who assure you by me, that they perceive no such wonder in all is done here but that they dare adventure another trial. They look for some sheepish devices here in Arcadia, not these, and therefore a hall! a hall! they demand.

Shep. Nay, then they are past pity, let them come, and not expect the anger of a deity to pursue them, but meet them. They have their punishment with their fact: they shall be sheep.

Fen. O spare me, by the law of nations, I am but their ambassador.

Shep. You speak in time, sir.

The THEBANS enter for the 2 ANTIMASQUE; which danced,

Shep. Now let them return with their solid heads, and carry their stupidity into Boeotia, whence they brought it, with an

emblem of themselves and their country. This is too pure an air for so gross brains. [They retire.

To the Nymphs.

End you the rites, and so be eased
Of these, and then great Pan is pleased.

HYMN IV.

Great Pan, the father of our peace and pleasure,

Who givest us all this leisure,

Hear what thy hallowed troop of herdsmen

pray

For this their holyday,

And how their vows to thee they in Lycæum pay.

Cho. So may our ewes receive the mounting rams,

And we bring thee the earliest of our lambs: So may the first of all our fells be thine, And both the beestning1 of our goats and kine;

As thou our folds dost still secure,

And keep'st our fountains sweet and pure; Drivest hence the wolf, the tod, the brock, Or other vermin from the flock. That we, preserved by thee, and thou observed by us,

May both live safe in shade of thy loved Mænalus.

Shep. Now each return unto his charge, And though to-day you've lived at large, And well your flocks have fed their fill, Yet do not trust your hirelings still. See yond' they go, and timely do The office you have put them to; But if you often give this leave, Your sheep and you they will deceive. Thus it ended.

or she-goat.-F. C.] 1 [Beestning is the first milk given by a cow

The tod], i.e. the fox.-WHAL.

By which he was discerned
To be one of the learned,
To entertain the queen here,
When last she was seen here.
And for the town of Coventry
To act to her sovereignty.
But so his lot fell out,
That serving then a-foot,
And being a little man
When the skirmish began

"Twixt the Saxon and the Dane,
(For thence the story was ta'en)
He was not so well seen

As he would have been o' the queen.
Though his sword were twice so long
As any man's else in the throng;
And for his sake the play

Was called for the second day.
But he made a vow

(And he performs it now)

That were he alive or dead,
Hereafter it should never be said

But Captain Cox should serve on horse
For better or for worse,

If any prince came hither,

And his horse should have a feather;
Nay, such a prince it might be,
Perhaps he should have three.
Now, sir, in your approach,

The rumbling of your coach
Awaking me, his ghost,
I come to play your host;
And feast your eyes and ears,

Collyn Clout, the Fryar and the Boy, Elynor Rumming, and the Nutbrooun Maid, with many moe than I rehearz here: I beleeve hee have them all at hiz fingers endz.

Then in Philosophy, both morale and naturale, I think he be az naturally overseen: beside Poetrie and Astronomie, and oother hid Sciencez, as I may gesse by the omberzt of his books: whereof part, az I remember, The Shepherdz Kalender, The Ship of Foalz, Danielz Dreamz, the Booke of Fortune, Stans puer ad Mensam, The hy wey to the Spitlhouse, Julian of Brainford's Testament, The Castle of Love, the Booget of Demaunds, the Hundred merry Talez, the Booke of Riddels, the Seaven Sororz of Wemen, the Prooud Wives Pater-Noster, the Chapman of a Peniworth of Wit: Beside his Auncient Playz, Yooth and Charitee, Hikskorner, Nugizee, Impacient Poverty, and herewith Doctor Boords Breviary of Health. What shoold I rehearz heer, what a Bunch of Ballets and Songs, all auncient; az Broom broom on Hil, So wo is me begon, truly lo, Over a Whinny Meg, Hey ding a ding, Bony lass upon a green, My bony on gave me a bek, By a bank as I lay and a hundred more he hath fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whip-cord. And as for Almanaks of Antiquitee (a point for Ephemeridees), I ween he

Neither with dogs nor bears,1
Though that have been a fit
Of our main-shire wit,

In times heretofore,

But now we have got a little more.
These then that we present
With a most loyal intent,

And, as the author saith,

No ill meaning to the catholic faith,
Are not so much beasts as fowls,
But a very nest of owls,

And natural, so thrive I,

I found them in the ivy,

A thing that though I blundered at,
It may in time be wondered at,
If the place but affords
Any store of lucky birds,
As I make them to flush,

Each owl out of his bush.

Now these owls, some say, were men, And they may be so again,

If once they endure the light
Of your highness' sight:

For bank-rupts, we have known,
Rise to more than their own,
With a little-little savour

Of the prince's favour;

But as you like their tricks,

I'll spring them, they are but six.

HEY, OWL FIRST 12

This bird is London-bred,

As you may see by his horned head.

can sheaw from Jasper Laet of Antwerp unto Nostradam of Frauns, and thens untoo oour John Securiz of Salsbury. To stay ye no longer heer in, I dare say he hath az fair a Library for theez sciencez, and as many goodly monuments both in prose and poetry, and at afternoonz can talk az much without book az ony inholder betwixt Brainford and Bagshot, what degree soever he be.'

The letter-writer evidently meant to raise a smile at the Captain's expense; but there is no occasion for it. The list shews him to have been a diligent and successful collector of the domestic literature of his country, and so far he is entitled to praise. Some of the fugitive pieces here mentioned are now lost; one of them, however, the Hundred Merry Tales, which has long set the Shakspeare commentators by the ears, has partly been recovered within these few days (1816), pasted into the binding of an old book. It is now in Mr. Bindley's possession, and proves to be a collection of jests, of no great novelty or value.

1 Neither with dogs nor bears.] This allu les to the following passage in the Letter:—“ On the syxth day of her Majestyes cumming, a great sort of bandogs whear thear tyed in the utter cooart, and thyrteen bears in the inner," &c. See Massinger, vol. i. p. 44.

Hey, Owl first ] Here the captain probably

And had like to have been ta'en
At his shop in Ivy-lane,
Where he sold by the penny
Tobacco as good as any;
But whether it did provoke
His conscience, he sold smoke;
Or some other toy he took,
Towards his calling to look :
He fled by moonshine thence,
And broke for sixteen pence.

HEY, OWL SECOND!
This too, the more is the pity,
Is of the breed of the same city;
A true owl of London

That gives out he is undone,
Being a cheese-monger,
By trusting two of the younger
Captains, for the hunger

Of their half-starved number;
Whom since they have shipt away,
And left him God to pay,1
With those ears for a badge

Of their dealing with his Madge.
HEY, OWL THIRD!

A pure native bird2
This, and though his hue
Be not Coventry blue,
Yet is he undone

By the thread he has spun;
For since the wise town
Has let the sports down

Of May-games and morris,

For which he right sorry is;

Where their maids and their makes,3

At dancings and wakes,

Had their napkins and posies,
And the wipers for their noses,
And their smocks all-be-wrought
With his thread which they bought:
It now lies on his hands,

And having neither wit nor lands,
Is ready to hang or choke him,
In a skein of that that broke him.
HEY, OWL FOURTH!

Was once a bankrupt of worth;

produced, from beneath the foot-cloth of the hobby-horse, a block ridiculously dressed or painted to correspond with the description.

1 God to pay,] A cant term for a hopeless debt, nothing. See Epig. xii.

And having run a shifting-race,
At last, by money and grace,
Got him a serjeant's place,
And to be one of chace.
A full fortnight was not spent,
But out comes the parliament,
Takes away the use of his mace,

And left him in a worse than his first case.
HEY, OWL FIFTH!

But here was a defeat,

Never any so great,

Of a Don, a Spanish reader,

Who had thought to have been the leader, Had the match gone on,

Of our ladies one by one,

And triumphed our whole nation,
In his Rodomant fashion:
But now since the breach

He has not a scholar to teach.

HEY, OWL SIXTH !

The bird bringer-up is a knight,
But a passionate wight,
Who, since the Act against swearing,
(The tale's worth your hearing),
In this short time's growth
Hath at twelvepence an oath,
For that, I take it, is the rate,
Sworn himself out of his estate.

THE THIRD OWL VARIED.

A crop-eared scrivener this,
Who when he heard but the whis-
per of monies to come down,
Fright got him out of town
With all the bills and bands
Of other men's in his hands,
And cried, who will, drive the trade,
Since such a law they had made:
It was not he that broke,
Two i' the hundred spoke.
Nor cared he for the curse,
He could not hear much worse,
He had his ears in his purse.

blew thred, and then the towne was riche ever upon that trade in maner onely, and now our thredde comes all from beyond sea: wherefore that trade of Coventry is decaied, and thereby the towne likewise." This appeared long before

town must have suffered from more causes than the loss of its rural sports.

3 Where their maids, and their makes.] i.e. mates. So Chaucer:

"God shelde soche a lordes wife to take Another man to husbonde, or to make. WHAL.