In this form and manner the author proceeds through twenty-two pages; after which he seems to have intended to ornament his work with figures and flowers. A few of these are sketched in pencil: but the design is left unfinished. There is much ingenuity in the production, mingled with much obscurity: while the laborious effort to make each flower furnish matter for three six-line stanzas, has sometimes attenuated the verse to unmeaning expletives. It is however not undeserving of a place among the published poesies which so profusely issued from the press during the "golden age of good Queen Bess."

The affectionate Shepheard. Containing the Complaint of Daphnis for the love of Ganymede.

Amor plus mellis, quam fellis, est.

London, printed by John Danter, for T. G. and E. N.

&c. 1594.

4to. pp. 56.

་་་་་་་

THIS was Barnefield's first publication. It is inscribed, in a metrical dedication, " to the right excellent and most beautifull lady, the Ladie Penelope Ritch;" and is signatured "Your Honours most af fectionate and perpetually devoted shepheard, Daphnis." The volume contains the following items:

1. The teares of an affectionate Shepheard, sicke for love: or the complaint of Daphnis for the love of

Ganimede.

2. The second daye's Lamentation of the affectionate Shepheard.

3. The Shepheard's Content, or the happiness of a harmles life: written upon occasion of the former subject.

4. The Complaint of Chastitie. Briefely touching the cause of the death of Matilda Fitswalters, an English Ladie, sometime loved of King John; after, poysoned. The storie is at large written by M. Drayton.*

3. Hellen's Rape: or a light Lanthorne for light Ladies. Written in English hexameters.

To the "Shepheard's Content" is subjoined the following Sonnet.

Loe! here behold these tributarie teares

Paid to thy faire, but cruell tyrant eyes :
Loe! here the blossome of my youthfull yeares,
Nipt with the fresh of thy wrath's winter, dyes.
Here, on Love's altar, I doo offer up
This burning hart, for my soule's sacrifice;
Here I receave this deadly poysned cup
Of Circe charm'd, wherein deepe magicke lyes :
Then teares, (if you be happie teares indeed)
And hart, (if thou be lodged in his brest)
And cup, (if thou can'st help despaire with speed)
Teares, hart, and cup, conjoine to make me blest.

• This ascertains the legendary poem of Drayton to have been written earlier than what has hitherto been apprehended.

Teares move, hart win, cup cause, ruth, love, desire,
In word, in deed, by moane, by zeale, by fire.

The following stanza may bear transcription.

Pride looks aloft, still staring on the starres,

Humility looks lowly on the ground;
Th' one menaceth the gods with civill warres,
The other toyles, till he have vertue found:
His thoughts are humble, not aspiring hye,
But pride looks haughtily with painfull eye.

That the "Complaint of Daphnis" should have been censured for impropriety, cannot, be wondered at, when the following stanza is perused, from the " Affeccionate Shepheard." It is in vain to plead the example of Virgil, in his Eclogue of Alexis: such licenses admit of no defence.

I have a pleasant noted nightingale

That sings as sweetly as the silver swan,
Kept in a cage of bone, as white as whale,
Which I, with singing of Philemon wan:
Her shalt thou have, and all I have beside,
If thou wilt be my boy, or els my bride.

I proceed to notice two other poetic publications by the same writer: both of peculiar rarity.

Cynthia, with certaine Sonnets, and the Legend of Cas

sandra.

Quod cupio nequeo,

At London, printed for Humfrey Lownes, and are to bee sold at the West doore of Paules. 1595.

12mo

1

This rare volume is dedicated by Richard Barnefeilde to "the most noble-minded Lord, William Stanley, Earl of Darby," and the author speaks of his years being so young, that his perfection cannot be great. To the courteous gentlemen readers he thus addresses himself, in extenuation of the exception that had been taken to his former work.

"Gentlemen,

"The last time there came forth a little toy of mine, intituled "The affectionate Shepheard:" in the which his Country Content found such friendly favor, that it hath incouraged me to publish my second fruites. The Affectionate Shepheard being the first: howsoever undeservedly (I protest) I have been thought of some, to have been the authour of two bookes hertofore. I need not to name them, because they are too well knowne already: nor will I deny them, because they are dislik't, but because they are not mine. This protestation, I hope, will satisfie the indifferent; and as for them that are maliciously envious, as I cannot, so I care not, to please.

Some there were that did interpret The Affectionate Shepheard otherwise then, in truth, I meant, touching the subject

thereof to wit, the love of a shepheard to a boy: a fault, the which I will not excuse, because I never made. Onely this, I will unshaddow my conceit-being nothing else but an imitation of Virgill, in the second Eglogue of Alexis. In one or two places in this booke, I use the name of Eliza pastorally. Wherin, lest any one should misconster my meaning (as I hope none will) I have here briefly discovered my harmeles conceipt as concerning that name; whereof once, in a simple shepheard's device, I wrote this Epigramme.

One name there is-which name above all other

I most esteeme, as time and place shall prove;
The one is Vesta, th' other Cupid's mother;
The first my goddesse is, the last my love;

Subject to both I am: to that by birth,

To this for beautie, fairest on the earth.

Thus, hoping you will beare with my rude conceit of "Cynthia ;" if for no other cause, yet for that it is the first imitation of the verse of that excellent poet, Maister SPENCER, in his Fayrie Queene. I leave you to the reading of that, which I so much desire may breed you delight.

RICHARD BARNEFEILD."

Stanzas here follow by T. T. "in commendatiun of the authour and his worke." Others are addressed by the poet" to his Mistresse." The poem of “ Cynthia" then commences in the following picturesque manner.

Now was the welkyn all invelloped

With duskie mantle of the sable night;
And Cynthia, lifting up her drouping head,
Blusht at the beautie of her borrow'd light:
When sleepe now summon'd every mortall wight,
Then, loe methought I saw, or seem'd to see,