dinner-table; and it was "a little elf, if possible far lesser than itself," who brought in the table-cloth fashioned from white rose-leaves. The curious in Fairy table - appointments may like to know that the glasses of the dinner-service were cut out of ice thinner than any that can "the sea-betrothed Venetian" show, and cherry stones served for bottles

To each a seed pearl servèd for a screw,

And most of them were filled with early dew.

Here is the entrance of his Majesty of Fairydom as described by William Browne-and the description need not be despised by admirers of Shakespeare's or Drayton's elves

Next followed on

The Fairy nobles ushering Oberon,

Their mighty King, a prince of subtle power,
Clad in a suit of speckled gilliflower,

His hat by some choice master in the trade
Was (like a helmet) of a lily made,
His ruff a daisy was, so neatly trim,

As if of purpose it had grown for him.

His girdle, not three times as broad as thin,
Was of a little trout's self-spangled skin,
His boots (for he was booted at that tide)
Were fitly made of half a squirrel's hide.
His cloak was of the velvet-flower and lined
With flow'r-de-Luces of the choicest kind.

The repast ended, the king, good falconer as he called for the Hawks: the Hawks were Water Wagtails.

was,

With the exception of the Robin Redbreast, Philomel was William Browne's favourite among the birds. The sad, sweet Nightingale, the "allvoice Nightingale," the " delightful Nightingale," the "rueful Nightingale," is introduced again and again.

We have other charming bird-pictures in these pleasaunces

The fair downy silver-coated Swan.

The well-plum'd Goshawk (by the Egyptians grave)
Used in their mystic characters for speed.

And the Turtle-dove

Singing sad dirges on her lifeless love.

This is one of the many Nightingales

All things were hushed, each bird slept on his bough,
And night gave rest to him day tired at plough;
Each beast, each bird, and each day-toiling wight
Received the comfort of the silent night;
Free from the gripes of sorrows every one,
Except poor Philomel and Doridon.

She on a thorn sings sweet though sighing strains ;
He on a couch, more sad, more soft complains.

To the song of Philomel the summer night passed till such time as when

the lily-handed morn

Saw Phœbus stealing dew from Ceres' corn.

It was with a humorous smile on his lips that William Browne wrote his Musical Concert of Birds

The lofty treble sung the little Wren ;

Robin, the mean, that best of all loves men ;
The Nightingale the tenor, and the Thrush
The counter-tenor sweetly in a bush ;

And that the music might be full in parts,

Birds from the groves flew with right willing hearts.

For the production of "some droning parts bird ambassador was despatched to the King of Bees

Who, condescending, gladly flew along

To bear the bass to his well-tuned song.

a

The Crow, too, unbent

The Crow was willing they should be beholding
For his deep voice; but being hoarse with scolding,
He thus lends aid: upon an oak doth climb
And nodding with his head, so keepeth time.

Had nature unto man such simpless given,

He would, like birds, be far more near to Heaven,

adds the author, in parenthesis.

William Browne was a happy poet in the accident of his birth and in his environment. He came of gentle parentage. His lines fell in pleasant places. Crushing penury was never his lot. Yet there is melancholy and the nostalgia, noted by more than one critic, underlying the Fairy pageantry of his poetry. And truly, as Mr. Hazlitt points out, the writings of his maturer years contain many allusions to "the ravages which death had made in the ranks of his early friends, the forlornness of his destiny, and his disappointment in love."

Sometimes the melancholy may be accepted as the artificial, and humorous, melancholy of the author's pose, as when, for instance, the birds are dismissed, unless

Any be inclined

To sing a song as sad as I,

Let that sad bird be now so kind
As stay and bear me company,

And we will strive which shall outgo,
Love's heavy strains or my sad woe.

And again

Ye nymphs of Thames, if any Swan
Be ready now her last to sing,
O bring her hither, if ye can,
And sitting by us in a ring
Spend each a sigh while she and I
Together sing, together die.

But that his sky was often clouded we may believe from the fact that he lost his first wife and also his two sons of his second marriage. Then as a patriot who had lived in "great Eliza's" reign he felt to the quick the public indignities and multifold degradation that his country suffered under the rule of the Stewarts. In addition to these causes for melancholy, a sensitive, impressionable temperament and pitiful heart do not conduce to a placid contentment in the present, or a sanguine outlook for the future.

We cannot read his poems without becoming sensible of this tender-hearted pity for all that suffer.

In the coursing with greyhounds he writes of the "poor hare"; his sympathy is with the "sweet thrush," despoiled of her young; with the bird that lies panting when the shepherd boy's shaft has pierced her breast. Perhaps two of his sonnets show best this vein of loving-kindness and sense of the needless cruelty of man

I saw a silver Swan swim down the lee,
Singing a sad farewell unto the vale,
While fishes leapt to hear her melody,
And on each thorn a gentle Nightingale,
And many other birds forbore their notes,
Leaping from tree to tree as she along
The panting bosom of the torrent floats,
Rapt with the music of her dying song;
When from a thick and all-entangled spring
A neatherd rude came with no small ado
(Dreading an ill-presage to hear her sing)
And quickly struck her slender neck in two.

Whereat the birds (methought) flew thence with speed
And inly grieved for such a cruel deed.

Within the compass of a shady grove
I long time saw a loving Turtle fly,
And lastly pitching by her gentle Love,
Sit kindly billing in his company:

Till (hapless souls) a Falcon sharply bent,

Flew towards the place where these kind wretches stood,

And severing them, a fatal accident,

She from her mate flung speedy through the wood;
And, scaping from the Hawk, a fowler, set
Close and with cunning underneath the shade,
Entrapt the harmless creature in his net,

And, nothing movèd with the plaint she made,
Restrained her from the groves and deserts wide,
Where overgone with grief, poor bird, she died.