Line 18, It was the purest light of heaven for whose fair love they fell. "I am reminded," says Mr. Bullen, "of a fine passage in Drayton's Barons' Wars, canto vi.: 66 Looking upon proud Phaeton wrapped in fire, The gentle queen did much bewail his fall; But Mortimer commended his desire To lose one poor life or to govern all. 'What though,' quoth he, he madly did aspire And his great mind made him proud Fortune's thrall? He perished in the chariot of the sun.' PAGE 210, No. 240 Toss not my soul, O Love, 'twixt hope and fear! From John Dowland's Second Book of Songs and Airs, 1600. PAGE 212, No. 243 If waker care, if sudden pale colour The first part of this sonnet was suggested to Wyat by the sonnet of Petrarcu, beginning: S'una feda amorosa, un cor non finto, etc. of which the poet had elsewhere given an entire version. "If so," says Leigh Hunt (English Sonnets, p. 136), "the latter part may equally be supposed to have been suggested by some French song. I think I have a recollection of some such contrastment of a Phyllis and a Brunette in old French poetry. Yet these propositions and contrapositions are so common in love-poets, that the feeling may have originated with Sir Thomas himself; though he was a Petrarcist professed. In a court like that of Henry VIII. Wyat may well enough have met with a Brunette of his own, who revolted him with her ostentation and her love of wealth, ting his mercer's and jeweller's bills in a roar. The names of Brunet (Brunetta) and Phyllis in conjunction are to be found nowhere else, I believe, in English literature, except in Steele's amusing story of the two rival beauties in the Spectator, No. 86. Did he get them from Wyat? Wyat was just the sort of man to be loved and admired by Steele." set PAGE 214, No. 247 At her fair hands how have I grace entreated. First printed in Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, 1602, and set to music in Robert Jones' Ultimum Vale, 1608. PAGE 215, No. 248 I saw fair Chloris walk alone. Copied from the Ashmolean MS. 38, Art. II. It is given in Wit's Recreation, 1645, and Wit's Interpreter, 1655, 1671. Set to music by Purcell in Henry Playford's Theater of Musick, Pt. 3, 1686. PAGE 216, No. 249 Camella fair tripped o'er the plain. From Thomas Bateson's Second Set of Madrigals, 1618. PAGE 219, No. 253 Beauty sat bathing by a spring. This poem and the second following, No. 255, are undoubtedly by the same author. There are conflicting opinions, however, as to his identity. This song was published with six others in England's Helicon, 1600, and signed Shepherd Tony.' It is also found in Anthony Munday's Primaleon, 1619. "And though Anthony Munday," says 66 Mr. Quiller-Couch, "(our best plotter' according to Meres, and elsewhere less reverently, the Grub Street Patriarch '), could write poorly enough, as a rule, the evidence is sufficient that he was the Shepherd Tony' and author of this graceful lyric." "This charming lyric," writes Mr. Bullen, in his edition of England's Helicon, was written by Shepherd Tony,' who contributed six other poems. It would be pleasant to be able to identify the Shepherd Tony; but I fear that he will remain a mere nominis umbra. The suggestion that the delightful lyrist was Anthony Copely, author of A Fig for Fortune, 1596, and Wits, Fits, and Fancies, 1614, is ridiculous; and equally ridiculous is the suggestion that he was Anthony Munday.' This, however, was written before Mr. Bullen had become familiar with all of Munday's writings; and after the discovery of this poem in the Primaleon, he became convinced of the identity of Munday and the Shepherd Tony, recanting in an interesting note in the Introduction to the Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances. PAGE 220, No. 254 Follow a shadow, it still flies you. From The Forest. Drummond of Hawthornden thus relates the origin of this song: "Pembroke and his Lady discoursing, the Earl said, The women were men's shadows,' and she maintained them. Both appealing to Jonson, he affirmed it true, for which my Lady gave a penance to prove it in verse; hence his epigram." PAGE 220, No. 255 - See note to No. 253. PAGE 224, No. 257 My hope a counsel with my heart. From Michael Este's Madrigals of Three, Four, and Five Parts, 1604. PAGE 225, No. 258 Dear if you change, I'll never choose again. From John Dowland's First Book of Songs or Airs, 1597. PAGE 227, No. 261 Out upon it I have loved. This poem was found in an obscure volume of verse of the time of Charles I., by A. D., whom Hazlitt conjectured to be Alexander Dyce. The poem has been attributed to Suckling because it possesses the internal evidence of his peculiar qualities, which one, once having read The Careless Lover, can have no two opinions about. An answer was written by Sir Toby Matthews, which read: Say, but did you love so long? In troth, I needs must blame you: Truth, Time's fair and witty daughter, Y'are a subject fit for laughter, And more fool than lover. But I grant you merit praise For your constant folly; Since you doted three whole days, She to whom you prov'd so true, A dozen, dozen to disgrace. PAGE 234, No. 268 Steer hither, steer your winged pines. The opening song from The Inner Temple Masque, Presented by the Gentlemen there, January 13, 1614. Printed in 1772, by Thomas Davies, in his ed. of Browne on the authority of a MS. in the library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. PAGE 236, No. 271 The sea hath many thousand sands. Robert Jones' The Muses' Garden of Delights 1610. From PAGE 237, No. 272 Go, happy heart! for thou shalt lie. The Mad Lover, acted before 1618-19, act. iii. sc. 1. From PAGE 237, No. 273 Fra bank to bank, fra wood to wood I rin. Line 1, Rin: run. Line 2, Ourhailit: overspread. Line 7, Ingenrit: stir up. Line 8, Dauphin: dolphin. Line 12, Feidis: feeds. Line 13, Throw: through. There is some PAGE 238, No. 2740 waly, waly, up the bank. doubt about the date of this lament. It is believed by some to be a portion of the ballad Lord Jamie Douglas, and therefore as late as 1670. Professor Ayton believes that the verse belongs to the sixteenth century. Rev. S. Baring-Gould has discovered and printed in his Songs of the West, 1892, a traditional song of the West-Counties, which has the two stanzas: I leaned my back against an oak, So did my false love prove to me. Line 17, Now Arthur Seat: the hill by Edinburgh, near the foot of which is St. Anthony's Well. PAGE 243, No. 279 They flee from me that sometime did me seek. "Under the figure of a lady offering to him unsolicited the tenderest mark of affection, he describes, in a lively manner, his early good fortune and success in life when, as he expresses himself in the ode preceding, using the same metaphorical language adopted in the present ode, Methought, Fortune me kissed.' Following the same figure he naturally refers his subsequent misfortunes to that constitutional levity, that 'strange fashion of forsaking, which is too common with the gentler sex. The ode is one of no considerable merit; it is original and full of feeling." (Nott, Howard and Wyat.) Line 2, Stalking within my chamber: to steal softly with noiseless step. Sometimes. to steal upon one as in the soft and imperceptible approach of sleep. Cf. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, 1. 8400: The lover is of colour dead and pale; Line 13, Sweetly she did me kiss: The propriety of this image depends in great measure on a circumstance which grew out of the manners of the days of chivalry, and which is now forgotten. Whenever a lady accepted the service of a knight, or acknowledged a person as her servant, or lover, she gave him a kiss, voluntarily offered on her part; and this was considered to be an inviolable bond of obligation. The reverence with which women were approached in those days ensured that this simple mark of approbation was never misconceived or abused. Cf. Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida, Bk. III., line 180, where Cressida, permitting Troilus to become her knight, advances modestly towards him, supported by her uncle, and gives him the formal kiss. For the prevalence of the custom in England, see Erasmus' Letter to his friend Faustus Andrelinus. Also, for the use of Erasmus' correspondence on this custom, see Mr. Maurice Hewlett's The Duchess of Nona, in The Little Novels of Italy, chap. I. PAGE 245, No. 281 While that the sun with his beams hot. From William Byrd's Songs of Sundry Natures, 1589. Appeared also in England's Helicon, 1600. PAGE 246, No. 282 Sly thief, if so you will believe. From Michael Este's Madrigals, 1604. PAGE 247, No. 283- Think'st thou to seduce me then with words that have no meaning? From Campion's Fourth Book of Airs, 1617. There is another version of this song given in William Corkine's Airs, 1610, with only three stanzas; for this version see Works of Thomas Campion, Bullen ed., 1891, p. 286. PAGE 248, No. 285 Thou send'st to me a heart was sound. From Oxford Music School MS. F., 575. "I seem to have met [these verses]," says Mr. Bullen (More Lyrics from Elizabethan SongBooks), "in print somewhere, but cannot at the moment trace them. For neatness and elegance they are worthy of Ben Jonson." Dr. Grosart ascribed this poem to Donne. and printed it in his edition of the poet's Works, vol. ii., p. 254, adding the two following stanzas: The heart I sent thee had no stain; It was entire and sound; But thou hast sent it back again O Heavens, how wouldst thou use a heart Since thou hast slain mine with a dart - PAGE 252, No. 288 - Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now. Sonnet xc. Shake-speare's Sonnettes, 1609. See Sonnet lxxxix., of which this sonnet takes up the last word, pleading pathetically for hatred; for the worst, speedily, if at all. (Dowden.) Line 6, The rearward of a conquer'd woe: cf. Much Ado About Nothing, act iv. sc. 1: Thought I thy spirit were stronger than thy flames, Strike at thy life. Line 13, And other strains of woe: cf. Much Ado About Nothing, act v. sc. 1: Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine And let it answer every strain for strain. PAGE 252, No. 289- Disdain me still that I may ever love. From John Dowland's A Pilgrim's Solace, 1612. PAGE 253, No. 291 When thou, poor Excommunicate. The first and third stanzas of this poem were set to music by Henry Lawes in Ayres and Dialogues, 1653. PAGE 258, No. 297 My lute awake! perform the last. "This Ode," says Nott, occurs in the Nugae Antiquae, vol. ii., p. 252, Ed. 1775, and is there given to Lord Rochford; evidently erroneously, for it is here printed from the Harington MS., No. 1, p. 80, which was Wyat's own MS., and is signed with his name in his own handwriting. It is a poem of singular merit. It is one of the most elegant amatory Odes in our language. It is as beautifully arranged in all its parts as any of the odes of Horace. The Lute, to which the Ode is addressed, corresponded nearly to the modern guitar. It was the instrument to which almost all the amatory compositions of our early poets were sung; whence they were properly called Songs, corresponding to the Italian Cantate. Every person of good education played on the lute. Surrey excelled on that instrument, and composed to it several elegant airs. should not scruple to say that this Ode of Wyat is more elegant and feeling than that of Horace to Lydia on a subject nearly similar. - Lib. I., Ode 25." Line 7, As lead to grave in marble stone: i. e., It would be more easy for lead, which is the softest of metals, to engrave characters on hard marble, than it is for me to make an impression on her obdurate heart. To grave: in the sense of making an impression upon, was common among the early writers. Cf. Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida, Bk. II., 1. 1241: But ye have played the tyrant all too long, And hard was it your heart for to grave. Line 26, May chance thee lie: Wyat, says Nott, is incomparably more elegant and pleasing in this passage than Horace in the following lines: Cum tibi flagrans amor, et libido Non sine questu, etc. And it is Nott's opinion that, "there is nothing in the whole of Horace's ode equal in beauty to the two lines which conclude the seventh stanza in Wyat: "Then shalt thou know beauty but lent, |