steep, red cliff, advancing itself into the clouds, figuring the place, from whence (as I have been, not fabulously, informed) the honourable family of the Radcliffs first took their name, a clivo rubro, and is to be written with that orthography; as I have observed out of Master Camden, in his mention of the Earls of Sussex. This cliff was also a note of height, greatness, and antiquity. Before which, on the two sides, were erected two pilasters, charged with spoils and trophies of Love and his Mother, consecrate to marriage: amongst which were old and young persons figured, bound with roses, the wedding garments, rocks and spindles, hearts transfixed with arrows, others flaming, virgins' girdles, gyrlonds, and worlds of such like; all wrought round and bold and over head two personages, Triumph and Victory, in flying postures, and twice so big as the life, in place of the arch, and holding a gyrlond of myrtle for the key. All which, with the pillars, seemed to be of burnished gold, and embossed out of the metal. Beyond the cliff was seen nothing but clouds, thick and obscure; till on the sudden, with a solemn music, a bright sky breaking forth, there were discovered first two doves, then two swans with silver geers, drawing forth a triumphant chariot; in which Venus sat, crowned with her star, and beneath her the three Graces, or Charites, Aglaia, Thalia, Euphrosyne, all attired according to their antique figures. These, from their chariot, alighted on the top of the cliff, and descending by certain abrupt and winding passages, Venus having left her star only flaming in her seat, came to the earth, the Graces throwing gyrlonds all the way, and began to speak.

Spy, if you can, his footsteps on this green;

For here, as I am told, he late hath been, With divers of his brethren, † lending light From their best flames, to gild a glorious night;

Which I not grudge at, being done for her,

Whose honours to mine own I still prefer.
But he not yet returning, I'm in fear
Some gentle Grace or innocent Beauty
here

Be taken with him: or he hath surprised A second Psyche, and lives here disguised.

Find ye no track of his strayed feet?
I Grace. Not I.
2 Grace.
3 Grace.

Nor I.

Nor I.

as he was something too prone to do. He reads:

Yet Percy has very great merit: and by a sinSince ye hear this falser's play! gular chance, his only defect as an antiquary, want of accuracy, has led to the most beneficial consequences. Had he published his ancient poems in their genuine state, they would have passed unnoticed; but by fitting them in some measure to the ignorance of the times, by variations and additions which were always poetical, and sometimes tasteful, he continued to allure readers, who discovered at length that these neglected pieces had sufficient strength and feeling in them to justify a little rudeness and simplicity, and that they might be trusted on better acquaintance to their inherent and unsophisticated claims on the attention of every lover of truth and nature.

Maro, the golden trumpet of his fame, Gave him, read thou in this. A prince that draws

By example more than others do by laws :

That is so just to his great act, and thought,

To do, not what kings may, but what kings ought.

Who, out of piety, unto peace is vowed, To spare his subjects, yet to quell the proud;

And dares esteem it the first fortitude, To have his passions, foes at home, subdued.

That was reserved until the Parcæ spun Their whitest wool; and then his thread begun,

§ When she is nuptiis præfecta, with Juno, Suadela, Diana, and Jupiter himself. Paus. in Messeniac, et Plut. in Problem.

|| Æneas, the son of Venus, Virgil makes throughout the most exquisite pattern of piety, justice, prudence, and all other princely virtues, with whom (in way of that excellence) I coufer my sovereign, applying in his description his own word usurped of that poet, Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

and beard rough; his hat of blue, and ending in a cone; in his hand a hammer and tongs, as coming from the forge.

Vul. Which I have done; the best of

all my life:

And have my end if it but please my wife,

And she commend it to the laboured worth.

Cleave, solid rock! and bring the wonder forth.

At which, with a loud and full music, the Cliff parted in the midst, and discovered an illustrious concave, filled with an ample and glistering light, in which an artificial sphere was made of silver, eighteen foot in the diameter, that turned perpetually: the coluri were heightened with gold; so were the arctic and antarctic circles, the tropics, the equinoctial, the meridian and horizon; only the zodiac was of pure gold; in which the masquers, under the characters of the twelve signs, were placed, answering them in number; whose offices, with the whole frame as it turned, Vulcan went forward to describe.

It is a sphere I've formed round and

Hym. celebrated for the sun and moon. But more especially by Eurip. in Troad. he is made Facifer in Nuptiis. Which present office we give him here, as being Calor Naturæ, and Præses Luminis. See Plato in Cratyl. For his description read Pausan. in Eliac.

And by that act to his name did bring The honour to be saver of his king.] Seo

p. 36.

In Gemini, that noble power is shown That twins their hearts, and doth of two make one.

In Cancer, he that bids the wife give way With backward yielding to her husband's

sway.

In Leo, he that doth instil the heat
Into the man: which from the following seat
Is tempered so, as he that looks from thence
Sees yet they keep a Virgin innocence.

In Libra's room rules he that doth supply
All happy beds with sweet equality.

The Scorpion's place he fills, that makes the jars

And stings in wedlock; little strifes and

wars:

Which he in th' Archer's throne doth soon

remove,

By making with his shafts new wounds of love.

And those the follower with more heat inspires,

As in the Goat the sun renews his fires. In wet Aquarius' stead reigns he that showers

Fertility upon the genial bowers.

Last, in the Fishes place, sits he doth say, In married joys all should be dumb as they.

And this hath Vulcan for his Venus done, To grace the chaster triumph of her son. Ven. And for this gift will I to heaven return,

And vow for ever that my lamp shall burn With pure and chastest fire; or never shine*

But when it mixeth with thy sphere and · mine.

As Catul. hath it in Nup. Jul. et Manl. without Hymen, which is marriage, Nil potest Venus, fama quod bona comprobet, &c.

† One of the Cyclops, of whom, with the other two, Brontes and Steropes, see Virg. Eneid. Ferrum exercebant vasto Cyclopes in antro, Brontesque, Steropesque et nudus membra Pyracmon, &c.

As when Hom. Iliad. 2, makes Thetis for her son Achilles to visit Vulcan's house, he feigns that Vulcan had made twenty tripods or stools, with golden wheels, to move of themselves miraculously, and go out and return fitly. To which the invention of our dance alludes, and is in the poet a most elegant place, and worthy the tenth reading.

§ The two latter dances were made by Master

Here Venus returned to her chariot with the Graces; while Vulcan, calling out the priests of Hymen, who were the musicians, was interrupted by Pyracmon.t

Vul. Sing then, ye priests.

Pyrac. Stay, Vulcan, shall not these Come forth and dance?

Vul. Yes, my Pyracmon, please The eyes of these spectators with our art. Pyrac. Come here then, Brontes, bear a Cyclops part,

And Steropes, both with your sledges stand,

And strike a time unto them as they land; And as they forwards come, still guide their paces,

In musical and sweet proportioned graces; While I upon the work and frame attend, And Hymen's priests forth, at their seasons,

send

To chaunt their hymns; and make this square admire

Our great artificer, the god of fire. Here the musicians, attired in yellow, with wreaths of marjoram, and veils like Hymen's priests, sung the first staf of the following Epithalamion: which, because it was sung in pieces between the dances, shewed to be so many several songs, but was made to be read an entire poem. After the song they came forth (descending in an oblique motion) from the Zodiac, and danced their first dance; then music interposed (but varied with voices, only keeping the same chorus) they danced their second dance. So after their third and fourth dances, which were all full of elegancy and curious device. And thus it ended.§

Thomas Giles, the two first by Master Hier. Herne: who, in the persons of the two Cyclopes, beat a time to them with their hammers. The tunes were Master Alphonso Ferrabosco's. The device and act of the scene Master Ynigo Jones's, with addition of the trophies. For the invention of the whole and the verses, Assertar qui dicat esse meos, imponet plagiario pudorem.

The attire of the masquers throughout was most graceful and noble; partaking of the best both ancient and later figure. The colours carnation and silver, enriched both with embroidery and lace. The dressing of their heads, feathers and jewels; and so excellently ordered to the rest of the habit, as all would suffer under any description after the shew. Their performance of all, so magnificent and illustrious, that nothing can add to the seal of it, but the subscription of their names: