THE LADY OF MAY,

A MASQUE.

Her most excellent Majesty walking in Wanstead Garden, as she passed down into the grove, there came suddenly among the train one apparelled like an honest man's wife of the country; where crying out for justice, and desiring all the lords and gentlemen to speak a good word for her, she was brought to the presence of her Majesty, to whom, upon her knees, she offered a supplication, and used this speech.

M

THE SUITER.

OST fair lady! for as for other your titles of state, statelier persons shall give you, and thus much mine own eyes are witnesses of; take here the complaint of me, poor wretch ! as deeply plunged in misery, as I wish to you the highest point of happiness.

Only one daughter I have, in whom I had placed all the hopes of my good hap, so well had she, with her good parts, recompensed my pain of bearing her, and care of bringing her up: but now, alas! that she is

come to the time I should reap my full comfort of her, so is she troubled with that notable matter, which we in the country call matrimony, as I cannot choose but fear the loss of her wits, at least of her honesty. Other women think they may be unhappily cumbered with one master-husband; my poor daughter is oppressed with two, both loving her, both equally liked of her, both striving to deserve her. But now, lastly (as this jealousy, forsooth, is a vile matter) each have brought their partakers with them, and are, at this present, without your presence redress it, in some bloody controversy; now, sweet lady, help; your own way guides you to the place where they encumber her. I dare stay here no longer, for our men say in the country, the sight of you is infectious.

And with that she went away a good pace, leaving the supplication with her Majesty, which very formally contained this

Το

SUPPLICATION.

Most Gracious Sovereign!

one, whose state is raised over all,

Whose face doth oft the bravest sort enchant ; Whose mind is such as wisest minds appal;

Who in one self these divers gifts can plant: How dare I, wretch! seek there my woes to rest, Where ears be burnt, eyes dazzled, hearts opprest?

shield;

Your state is great, your greatness is your
Your face hurts oft, but still it doth delight;
Your mind is wise, but still it makes you mild:
Such planted gifts enrich ev'n beggars' sight:

So dare I, wretch! my bashful fear subdue,

And feed mine ears, mine eyes, my heart in you.

Herewith, the woman suiter being gone, there was heard in the wood a confused noise, and forthwith there came out six shepherds, with as many fosters, hauling and pulling to whither side they should draw the Lady of May, who seemed to incline neither to the one nor the other side. Among them was Master Rombus, a schoolmaster of a village thereby, who, being fully persuaded of his own learned wisdom, came thither, with his authority to part their fray; where, for answer, he received many unlearned blows. But the Queen coming to the place where she was seen of them, though they knew not her estate, yet something there was which made them startle aside and gaze upon her: till old Father Lalus stepped forth (one of the substantiallest shepherds) and making a leg or two, said these few words.

LALUS THE OLD SHEPHERD.

May it please your dignity to give a little superfluous intelligence to that, which, with the opening of my mouth, my tongue and teeth shall deliver unto you. So it is, right worshipful audience, that a certain shecreature, which we shepherds call a woman, of a minsical countenance; but, by my white lamb, not three quarters so beauteous as yourself, hath disannulled the brainpan of two of our featiest young men. And will you wot how? By my mother Kit's soul, with a certain frenzical malady they call love: when I was a young man they called it flat folly. But here is a substantial schoolmaster can better disnounce the whole foundation of the matter, although, in sooth, for all his loquence, our young men were nothing duteous to his clerkship. Come on, come on, master schoolmaster, be not so bashless; we say, "that the fairest are ever the

gentlest:" tell the whole case, for you can much better vent the points of it than I.

Then came forward Master ROMBUS, and, with many special graces, made this learned oration.

Now the thunder-thumping Jove transfund his dotes into your excellent formosity, which have, with your resplendent beams, thus segregated the enmity of these rural animals: I am "potentissima domina,” a schoolmaster; that is to say, a pedagogue, one not a little versed in the disciplinating of the juvenile fry, wherein, to my laud I say it, I use such geometrical proportion, as neither wanted mansuetude nor correction for so it is described

Parcare subjectos, et debellire superbos.*

We hope the reader will hold us guiltless of the dog-latin which the rustic pedant is made to utter throughout the whole of this piece. The character of Master Rombus bears a striking resemblance to that of the erudite Holofernes in Love's Labour Lost. 66 He, too, draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." No doubt they were both intended to ridicule the tortured English, called Euphuism, which John Lyly, and his followers, had succeeded in bringing into a temporary fashion; and the chief credit of discarding which from general use, Drayton has ascribed, in the following lines, to Sir Philip Sidney:

The noble Sidney, with this last, arose,
That héroë for numbers and for prose,

That throughly pac'd our language, as to show
The plenteous English hand in hand might go
With Greek and Latin; and did first reduce
Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use;
Talking of stones, stars, plants, of fishes, flies,
Playing with words and idle similies. -

Yet hath not the pulchritude of my virtues protected me from the contaminating hands of these plebeians; for coming, "solummodo," to have parted their sanguinolent fray, they yielded me no more reverence, than if I had been some "pecorius asinus." I, even I, that am, who am I? "Dixi; verbus sapiento satum est." But what said that Trojan Æneas, when he sojourned in the surging sulks of the sandiferous seas?

Hæc olim memonasse juvebit.

Well, well, "ad propositos revertebo;" the purity of the verity is, that a certain "pulchra puella profectò," elected and constituted by the integrated determination of all this topographical region, as the sovereign lady of this dame Maia's month, hath been, "quodammodo," hunted, as you would say; pursued by two, a brace, a couple, a cast of young men, to whom the crafty coward Cupid had," inquam," delivered his dire dolorous dart.

But here the May-Lady interrupted his speech, saying to him,

Away, away, you tedious fool! your eyes are not worthy to look to yonder princely sight; much less your foolish tongue to trouble her wise ears.

At which Master ROMBUS, in a great chafe, cried out,

"O Tempori, O Moribus!" in profession a child; in dignity a woman; in years a lady; "in cæteris" maid; should thus turpify the reputation of my doctrine, with the superscription of a fool!"O Tempori, O Moribus!”