Fuller testifies to the care which was bestowed upon trees in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth-" when woods were in a far better condition than nowadays."

As Spenser welcomed Daniel, so Drayton welcomed William Browne

Drive forth thy flock, young pastor, to that plain
Where our old shepherds wont their flocks to feed ;
To those clear walks where many a skilful swain

To'ards the calm ev'ning tun'd his pleasant reed.

And William Browne obeyed the request of his friend. His muse led him to the plain where the old shepherds were wont to feed their flocks, to the clear walks where, at evening, Spenser, Sidney, and many a skilful swain had tuned his pleasant reed.

In Britannia's Pastorals we are in England, but it is the England of romance and of fairy, and there is unity in the variety, the "variety in unity" which signifies art, given by the fusing power of a poetic

mind.

"The story of the Pastorals, if story there be, is naught. But to lovers of our old poets Britannia's Pastorals will always be a favourite lounging book. They know that at whatever page they open they have not far to travel before they find entertainment." So writes Mr. Bullen in his delightful introduction to The Muses Library edition of the works of William Browne.

The reader of Britannia's Pastorals finds himself indeed wandering in a vast, beautiful, and bewildering maze, wherein he comes at every few paces upon some curious or gaily-coloured spectacle-an entertainment after the fashion of an old device or masque.

In this succession of quaint pageants the wanderer meets "all beauteous ladies," wood-nymphs, mermaids with sea-green hair, a hapless damsel, a shepherd's swain, whose only revenue is his "train of milk-white sheep," a shepherdess, her "flaxen hair crowned by an anadem," a benevolent water-god, Cupids

A many Cupids, each set on his Swan,
Guided with reins of gold and silver twist
The spotless birds about them as they list;

the nymph of the river clad in her green-silk frock and mantle fringed with "rich and twisted gold"; maidens who deck up their windows with flowers of many hues

a dame,

Like to the changes which we daily see
About the dove's neck with variety;

fair as the morn

Or lovely blooms the PEACH tree that adorn;

"Fair silver-footed Thetis," Triton, Charon, a cruel monster, King Oberon, "shag-haired satyrs, "tripping fauns" (the "shag-haired satyrs and the tripping fauns "), "gallant stags,' "gallant stags," "well-fleeced flocks," a fairy troop- the fairies of Britannia's Pastorals are rarely accomplished.

Among other enchanted places we find ourselves in a scented grove-scented with aromatic buds and flowers sweeter than those of Araby, or "all the ointments brought from Delos Isle."

When we are well lost in the labyrinth of Britannia's Pastorals, the poets are introduced to us by name-" divinest Spenser," Sidney, Chapman, Ben Jonson, "all-loved Drayton," "well-languaged

Daniel," Brooke, Wither; and wherever we go we hear the song of birds innumerable; we also hear an elegy on the death of Prince Henry of Wales, and a lament for "our hero, honoured Essex." Queen Elizabeth enters into the entertainment, and in a song of which the argument runs

A Redbreast doth from pining save

Marina shut in Famine's cave

the fame is sung of the great sea-captains, Grenville, Gilbert, Hawke, " the Drake."

Immediately afterwards we come upon a bevy of sea-nymphs learning of fishermen to knit nets

Wherein to wind up their dishevell'd hairs.

Then, by the entreaties of "the fair queen of the liquid plains," we hear a pretty shepherd chant a sad ditty, as a sample of which the following lines may

be taken :

Upon the waves of late a silver Swan

By me did ride,

And thrilled with my woes forthwith began
To sing, and died.

It must be confessed that in Britannia's Pastorals we are for ever losing our way and failing to find it. But what matter. We are happy in our wanderings, and no one in a hurry would, I imagine, ever attempt to read the old "lounging book."

As to the author, he does not for a moment pretend to keep to the matter-of-fact highway of life or letters, but likens his digressions to a maiden gone out to gather blossoms, and

Seen far off to stray if she have spied

A flower that might increase her posy's pride.

a

William Browne's muse was for ever seeing flower that might increase her posy's pride," and she gathered in her treasures with an eager hand.

Plenty of leisure, a taste for old verse, a disposition to admire pastoral poetry, a love of birds, beasts, trees, and flowers, will ensure enjoyment of this poetic treat.

In regard to the birds, from every bush and branch. we hear the singing of birds in William Browne's covers. He loved birds as well as did Chaucer and Spenser; and the Robin Redbreast in particular plays a prominent part among the " persons represented.'

""

It was the intervention of the Robin Redbreast which preserved the unhappy maid Marina from death by starvation, when, incarcerated in Famine's Cave, she could only view the world without through a loophole in the rock.

We meet this "loving bird"

on a well-leaved thorn "

"sweetly singing

No sooner had the bird the maiden eyed,
But leaping on the rock, down from the bough
He takes a cherry up (which he but now
Had thither brought and on that place had laid
Till to the cleft his song had brought the maid),
And flying with the small stem in his bill
(A choicer fruit than hangs on Bacchus' hill),
In fair Marina's bosom took his rest,

A heavenly seat fit for so sweet a guest.

But, alas, for Marina's little friend

One rosy morn

The willing Redbreast, flying through a thorn,

Against a prickle gored his tender side

And in an instant so, poor creature, died.

Yet in the magical atmosphere of Britannia's

Pastorals, the Robin, like many a creature in a less romantic world, accomplished by dying more than living he had achieved. Having lost her feathered almoner

The fair Marina, almost spent

With grief and fear of future famishment,

gave utterance to such heart-rending cries that no less a goddess than Thetis was moved by the piteous sound to commit the captive's deliverance to Triton. Triton proved equal to the occasion. No sooner was he set on shore than he found the cave, removed the rocky door, and set the prisoner free

For whose relief from imminent decay

My muse awhile will here keep holiday.

The precincts haunted by chivalrous Robins and sympathetic Nightingales was the country, too, of countless charming Fairies,-Fairies with an appreciation of the Poets; for within the Courts of Faëry the walls were hung with tapestry woven by the hand of

and in addition to the triumphs and revellings of Oberon, depicted in the tapestry woven in Fairy looms, a pretty compliment to the author of The Faerie Queene was included-an image of Spenser

The learned Spenser on a little hill

Curiously wrought, lay, as he turned his quill.

True to their good old custom, the Fairies of this Devon pastoral made use of a mushroom for a

1 Lineage.