The SCENE,

ARCADIA.

The Court being seated, enter three NYMPHIS, strewing several sorts of flowers, followed by an old SHEPHERD, with a censer and perfumes.

I Nym. Thus, thus begin the yearly rites

Are due to Pan on these bright nights;
His morn now riseth, and invites
To sports, to dances, and delights:
All envious and profane, away,
This is the shepherd's holyday.

2 Nym. Strew, strew the glad and smiling ground

With every flower, yet not confound
The primrose drop, the spring's own

spouse,

Bright day's eyes, and the lips of cows, The garden star, the queen of May, The rose, to crown the holyday. 3 Nym. Drop, drop your violets, change your hues,

Now red, now pale, as lovers use,
And in your death go out as well,
As when you lived unto the smell:

That from your odor all may say,
This is the shepherd's holyday.

Shep. Well done, my pretty ones, rain roses still,

Until the last be dropt: then hence; and fill Your fragrant prickles for a second shower. Bring corn-flag, tulips, and Adonis' flower, Fair ox-cye, goldly-locks, and columbine,

The breath thereof Panchaia may envy,
The colors China, and the light the sky.
Loud Music.

The Scene opens, and the MASQUERS are discovered sitting about the Fountain of Light, with the Musicians, attired like the Priests of Pan, standing in the work beneath them.

Enter a Fencer, flourishing.

Fen. Room for an old trophy of time; a son of the sword, a servant of Mars, the minion of the muses, and a master of fence! One that hath shown his quarters, and played his prizes at all the games of Greece in his time; as fencing, wrestling, leaping, dancing, what not? and hath now usher'd hither, by the light of my long sword, certain bold boys of Boeotia, who are come to challenge the Arcadians at their own sports, call them forth on their own holyday, and dance them down on their own green

swarth.

Shep. 'Tis boldly attempted, and must be a Baotian enterprise, by the face of it, from all the parts of Greece else, especially at this time, when the best, and bravest spirits of Arcadia, called together by the excellent Arcas, are yonder sitting about the Fountain of Light, in consultation of what honors they may do to the great Pan, by increase of anniversary rites, fitted to the music of his peace.

Fen. Peace to thy Pan, and mum to thy music, swain; there is a tinker of Thebes a coming, called Epam, with his kettle, will make all Ar

the purpose? say, if singing, you shall be sung down; if dancing, danced down. There is no more to be done with you, but know what; which it is; and you are in smoke, gone, vapored, vanished, blown, and, as a man would say, in a word of two syllables, nothing.

Shep. This is short, though not so sweet. Surely the better part of the solemnity here will be dancing.

Fen. Enough: they shall be met with instantly in their own sphere, the sphere of their own activity, a dance. But by whom, expect: no Cynætheian, nor Satyrs; but, as I said, boys of Boeotia, things of Thebes, (the town is ours, shepherd)

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 Baotia, whence they brought it, with an emblem of themselves, and their country. This is too purs an air for so gross brains. [They retire.

To the Nymphs.

End you the rites, and so be eas'd
Of these, and then great Pan is pleas'd.

HYMN IV.

Great Pan, the father of our peace and pleasure,
Who giv'st us all this leisure,

Hear what thy hallow'd 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 beestning of our goats and kine; As thou our folds dost still secure,

And keep'st our fountains sweet and pure;
Driv'st hence the wolf, the tod, the brock,
Or other vermin from the flock;
That we, preserv'd by thee, and thou observ'd by us,
May both live safe in shade of thy lov'd Mænalus.
Shep. Now each return unto his charge,

And though to-day you've liv'd 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

Enter Captain Cox, on his Hobby-horse.
Room! room! for my horse will wince,

If he come within so many yards of a prince
And though he have not on his wings,
He will do strange things.

He is the Pegasus that uses
To wait on Warwick Muses;
And on gaudy-days he paces
Before the Coventry Graces;

For to tell you true, and in rhyme,

He was foal'd in queen Elizabeth's time,
When the great earl of Lester

In this castle did feast her.

Now, I am not so stupid

To think, you think me a Cupid,
Or a Mercury that sit him;

Though these cocks here would fit him:
But a spirit very civil,
Neither poet's god, nor devil,
An old Kenelworth fox,
The ghost of captain Cox,
For which I am the bolder,
To wear a cock on each shoulder.
This Captain Cox, by St. Mary,
Was at Bullen with king Ha-ry;
And (if some do not vary)
Had a goodly library,
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,
(From 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 call'd 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 would 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,
Neither with dogs nor bears,
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 blunder'd at,
It may in time be wonder'd 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 mer And they may be so again,

If once they endure the light
Of your highness' sight:
For bankrupts, we have known
Rise to more than their own,
With a little-little savor

Of the prince's favor;

But as you like their tricks,

I'll spring them, they are but six.

HEY, OWL FIRST!

This bird is London-bred,

As you may see by his horn'd head.
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 moon-shine 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 cheesemonger,

By trusting two of the younger Captains, for the hunger

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

Of their dealing with his Madge.

HEY, OWL THIRD!

A pure native bird

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,
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;
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 triumph'd 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 twelve-pence an oath,
For that, I take it, is the rate,
Sworn himself out of his estate.

THE THIRD OWL VARIED. A crop-ear'd scrivener, this, Who when he heard but the whisper 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 car'd he for the curse, He could not hear much worse, He had his ears in his purse.