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short address to the reader he says-" I submit myself to the censure [opinion or judgment] of him, that is more than a meere reader, to whom I do impart part of my poore poeticall skill, upon which I have bestowed some idle houres: idle I call them, not in disgrace of so famous a skill; but to give the world notice that I make it not the chiefe part of my profession." His profession was not, and therefore his faculty could not be Poetry.

His present performance originated perhaps by Drayton's Owl, is loosely allegorical, and consists of a singing contention between Dan Cuckow and the Ovidian Philomel, or Casta, which somewhat resembles that between Pan and Apollo: while Phoebe, or Cynthia, and her nymphs (the Midases) are made umpires in the controversy. Vanity, the usher, or esquire to Dan Cuckow, conducts the rivals within a rural porch to the bower of bliss, and convenes the nymphs to sit in judgment, and pronounce which they should esteem

most fit

-for chiefe in words to sing,

As harbinger unto the joyfull Spring.

Foremost of these nymphs came "Mechafasto hight," a meretricious dame, and in her syren train a set of wantons, clad in habiliments of sundry fashion, and assumiug the garb of different sexes and nations, like courtesans at a masquerade.

Some in the antique Roman lord's attire
Did shape themselves, as seeming to aspire
Some Captaines place; or, as if they had been
Semiramis, that man-like monster-queene.

In Persian loose aray some did delight,
Or rather disaray, so loosely dight;

In the French doublet some again did jet,
Wanting but slops, to make a man compleat.
Some on their heads did beare the fatall signe,
Which of fooles' future fortune did divine.
Others again Morisko caps did weare,
Maid-Marian like, with brooches in each eare;
And Indian like did paint inch-thicke in view,
Though Nature's red and white were angels' hew.
Thus, with their fashions' strange varietie
They did bewray their mind's enormitie:
For things externall, sought with strong affect,
Internall thoughts both good and bad detect.

The motley appearance of these chosen arbitrators alarms the little Casta, and makes her timid heart turn cold. After a proclamation for silence, however, she perches aloft in sight of her auditors, and warbles the mythological history of her cruel fate. Having breathed this forth, in the sweetest lays that ever ear did hear,

-all other birds about the place

› Did tune their divers notes to do her grace;
As in approvance of her worth to sing,

As chief in woods to welcome in the Spring.

Dan Cuckow, though somewhat daunted at this result, yet knowing that he had "friends in place," sets forth his boastful tale; and although he admits the lays of his rival to be sweet, yet he deems them too sadly pathetical to welcome in the Spring, and fitted rather to become the Winter's chorister, and, with the redbreast, to bemoan the Summer past.

This said he chaunted out his Cuckow's song
Which laughter bred amongst the thickest throng:
Nor any prittie bird about the place

Would in their song vouchsafe to do him grace.

Notwithstanding this discouraging symptom, the chief of the nymphs decrees the palm to Dan Cuckow, whose voice had no variety, no change, no choice,* and proclaims her unjust sentence to the woodland quire:

and thereupon,

Such murmur as we heare in woods that grone,

When winds rouz'd up through hollow grounds do break ; Such noise was heard 'mongst those that heard her speake: And all the quier of birds about the place

Did droope and hang the head, for such disgrace

To wronged Philomel, and for her sake

A mournfull melodie did seeme to make.

Her

Poor Philomel, deprived of future hope, and overcome with grief, now falls into a sudden swoon. sister Progne raises and revives her, aided by the gentle Redbreast, the Titmouse, and the Wren, with whom she takes her flight (as a voluntary exile) to desert woods; where her sequestered dwelling is thus poetically described:

'Twas in a rocke, whose head itselfe did shroud
In mistie cloake of many a wandring cloud,
And whose thicke mossie sides and hollow wombe
To many a bird did yeeld much building roome:

* Greene says, in his Quip for an upstart Courtier, 1620, "The Cuckold's Quirister began to bewray April-Gentlemen with his never changed notes.”

It seated was downe in a valley low,
Where many a silver gliding streame did flow;
And leavie woods in arbor-wise did stand,
As made by art, and not by nature's hand.
From right side of this rocke there issued out
A crystall spring, which flowed round about
The bottome of the rock; whose upper brim,
Thick set with hearbs and flowers, smelt sweet and trim.
[Here] many prettie birds did seeme to sing,
Hovering about the rocke with painted wing.
This was the place of Philomel's abode,
With her companions in the desert wood.
Whereby faire Philomel did find no misse
Of wonted pleasure in the bower of blisse.

This 'wonted pleasure,' however, only continued during the pleasant Spring and gentle Summer; for when raging Hyems' came, (whose personification is depicted with much appropriate imagery, and who enters into an elemental conflict with Auster, Zephyrus, and Eurus,) poor forlorn Philomel, who now in hollow rocke inconsolate did dwell,' is advised by the Redbreast, aided by the persuasive speech of her neighbours Wren and Titmouse, to take their gregarious flight to Troynobant, where Progne dwelt, and to drive Dan Cuckow out. Progne encounters them on the way, and dissuades most eloquently from such a perilous enterprize. The Redbreast thus replies:

Certes, dame Progne, you have wisely said:
For better 'tis to live, we all agree,

In meane estate content, from danger free,
Then in the blind world's deem'd felicitie,
In trouble, care, and mind's perplexitie :

But we to Troynobant not only come,

For that we grieve at Winter's blasts at home;
But seeing many a bright cheek'd gentle dame,
Dwells here in Troynobant, we hither came.
That so thy sister Philomel might trie

If they, for love to honor'd chastitie,

Would drive Dan Cuckow from this place with shame,
And raise again sad Casta's dying name.

Progne exposes the futility of such an expectation, by representing that plenty, pleasure, ease, and idleness, had produced a voluptuousness of sensual indulgence, a degeneracy of mind, and a sordid profligacy, which sets shame and decorum at defiance. The gentle Philomel laments this wanton degradation of these fair nymphs,-erewhile,

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whose beautie's blaze

Did decke the world with like to Phœbus' raies;

Who with the flower of heavenly chastitie,

Their beautie's garland did so dignifie.

At the close of this parley, and while Philomel was indeed still speaking,

they did espie

How proud Dan Cuckow to and fro did flie;

Who vaunting in the ayre, with outstretch'd wing,
His bastard-note triumphantly did sing.

Enraged by this assurance, the Swallow, Robin Titmouse, and Wren, assailed him in the air, flew after him from place to place, flapt him with their pinions, and peckt him with their bills,

Untill from out of sight he quite was fled,

And in some covert place had hid his head.

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