To find and fall upon each foe

Whereas his mistress means to go.

Before the Knight is Peril placed,
Which he by skipping overgoes,
And yet that Pawn can work a cast
To overthrow his greatest foes;
The Bishop's, Prudence, prying still
Which way to work his master's will.

The Rooks' poor Pawns are silly swains
Which seldom serve, except by hap,
And yet these Pawns can lay their trains
To catch a great man in a trap:
So that I see sometimes a groom
May not be sparéd from his room.

The Nature of the Chess men.
The King is stately, looking high;

The Queen doth bear like majesty; The Knight is hardy, valiant, wise;

The Bishop prudent and precise; The Rooks are rangers out of ray;1 The Pawns the pages in the play.

L'Envoy.

Then rule with Care and Quick Conceit, And fight with Knowledge as with Force,

So bear a Brain to dark deceit,

And work with Reason and Remorse: Forgive a fault when young men play, So give a mate, and go your way.

And when you play beware of check,

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Much ado there was, God wot,

He would love and she would not. She said, "Never man was true;" He says, "None was false to you." He said, he had lov'd her long;

She says,

"Love should have no wrong."

Corydon would kiss her then.
"Maids must kiss no men,

She

says,

Till they do for good and all;"
When she made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness truth
Never lov'd a truer youth;

Then with many a pretty oath,
Yea and nay, and faith and troth,
Such as seely shepherds use
When they will not love abuse,
Love that had been long deluded,
Was with kisses sweet concluded:
And Phillida with garlands gay,
Was made the Lady of the May.

Henry Willobie published in 1594 his "Avisa, or the True Picture of a Modest Maid and of a Chaste and Constant Wife," from which the following short poem is taken :

TO AVISA.

I find it true, that some have said, "It's hard to love and to be wise," For wit is oft by love betray'd,

And brought asleep by fond devise. Sith faith no favour can procure, My patience must my pain endure.

As faithful friendship mov'd, my tongue Your secret love and favour crave, And, as I never did you wrong,

This last request so let me have:Let no man know that I did move;

Let no man know that I did love.

10

The "Phoenix Nest" was followed in 1600 by 'England's Helicon," which contains pieces by famous writers with their names attached; among them Marlowe's "Passionate Shepherd" with the "Nymph's Reply," and some other pieces that have been already quoted. In the same year 1600 there was another collection entitled 66 England's Parnassus the Choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets, with their Poeticall Comparisons," a book largely consisting of extracts. Its editor signed himself "R. A." to two introductory sonnets. Then followed, in 1602, a "Poetical Rhapsody," edited by Francis Davison.

were somewhat older than he and wrote before him, are full of grace. The following song from the "Arraignment of Paris" is represented as sung on Mount Ida by Paris and Enone, before Juno, Venus, and Minerva have found the shepherd youth, and sight of Venus has wrought change of love. They sit under a tree together, says the stage direction. Paris has asked Enone for a song. She has run through her little stock of subjects, and says to him—

All these are old and known I know, yet, if thou wilt have

To the Most Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English Forces: Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, Knights, and all their brave and resolute Followers.

Have done with care, my hearts! aboard amain,
With stretching sails to plough the swelling waves:

Bid England's shore and Albion's chalky cliffs
Farewell: bid stately Troynovant1 adieu,
Where pleasant Thames from Isis' silver head
Begins her quiet glide, and runs along

To that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts her course,
Near neighbour to the ancient stony Tower,

The glorious hold that Julius Cæsar built.

Change love for arms; girt-to your blades, my boys! 10
Your rests and muskets take, take helm and targe,
And let god Mars his consort make you mirth,-
The roaring cannon, and the brazen trump,
The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife,
The shrieks of men, the princely courser's neigh.
Now vail your bonnets to your friends at home:
Bid all the lovely British dames adieu,

1 Troynovant. London, the New Troy, founded by Trojan Brut, of the race of Æneas, who was in old fable since Geoffrey of Monmouth's time (1147) first king of the land named after him, Britain.

That under many a standard well-advanc'd
Have hid the sweet alarms and braves of love;
Bid theatres and proud tragedians,

Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemaine, Tom Stukeley,' and the rest,
Adieu. To arms, to arms, to glorious arms!
With noble Norris, and victorious Drake,

Under the sanguine cross, brave England's badge,
To propagate religious piety,

And hew a passage with your conquering swords
By land and sea, wherever Phoebus' eye.
Th' eternal lamp of heaven, lends us light;
By golden Tagus, or the western Inde,
Or through the spacious bay of Portugal,
The wealthy ocean-main, the Tyrrhene sea,
From great Alcides' pillars branching forth
Even to the gulf that leads to lofty Rome;

Whether to Europe's bounds, or Asian plains,
To Afric's shore, or rich America,
Down to the shades of deep Avernus' crags,
Sail on, pursue your honours to your graves:
Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads,
And every climate virtue's tabernacle.

To arms, to arms, to honourable arms!

Hoise sails, weigh anchors up, plough up the seas With flying keels, plough up the land with swords: In God's name venture on; and let me say

To you, my mates, as Cæsar said to his,

Striving with Neptune's hills; "You bear," quoth he, "Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune in your ships."

You follow them, whose swords successful are:
You follow Drake, by sea the scourge of Spain,
The dreadful dragon, terror to your foes,
Victorious in his return from Inde,

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1 Tom Stukeley. Peele himself was author of the play upon Tom Stukeley. It is his "Battle of Alcazar." Stukeley was a younger brother of a good Devonshire family near Ilfracombe. He made up his mind that he would be a king of somewhere; thought first of Florida, then went to Italy, and won favour from Pope Pius V. by undertaking with 3,000 soldiers to beat the English out of Ireland. The Pope gave him, with his blessing, a string of titles, Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, a holy peacock's tail, and 800 soldiers paid by Spain. On his way to Ireland Stukeley landed in Portugal, when the king there, Sebastian, was on his way to Africa with two Moorish kings. Stukeley went with them, and advised them on their arrival to rest before fighting. They would not, and on the 4th of August, 1578, fought and lost the battle of Alcazar, in which the vainglorious Tom Stukeley was killed.

"A fatal fight, where in one day was slain

Three kings that were, and one that would be fain."

In all his high attempts unvanquished;
You follow noble Norris, whose renown,

Won in the fertile fields of Belgia,

Spreads by the gates of Europe to the courts
Of Christian kings and heathen potentates.
You fight for Christ, and England's peerless queen,
Elizabeth, the wonder of the world,

Over whose throne the enemies of God
Have thunder'd erst their vain successless braves.
O ten-times-treble happy men, that fight
Under the cross of Christ and England's queen,
And follow such as Drake and Norris are!
All honours do this cause accompany;
All glory on these endless honours waits:
These honours and this glory shall He send,
Whose honour and whose glory you defend.

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The songs of Elizabeth's time in which the note of war is struck are all alive in their fine earnestness. In 1585 Queen Elizabeth signed a treaty at Nonsuch engaging to supply 5,000 foot-soldiers and 1,000 horse in aid of the contest in the Netherlands

In the same year George Whetstone expressed the spirit in which Englishmen prepared to meet all perils of a contest between their little nation weakened by past discords, and not yet in the fulness of its power, and Spain at the height of its material power. He published a little prose book on "The Honourable Reputation of a Souldier: with a Morall Report of the Vertues, Offices, and (by abuse) the Disgrace of his Profession. Drawn out of the lines, documents and disciplines of the most renowned Romaine, Grecian, and other famous Martialistes. By George Whetstone, Gent." The woodcut upon the title-page is the bookseller's ideal of a Martialist (see page 247). Prefixed to the volume is this poem :—

TO THE RIGHT VALIANT GENTLEMEN AND SOLDIERS THAT ARE OR SHALL BE ARMED UNDER THE

ENSIGN OF ST. GEORGE: In recompense of worthy
adventures, Heaven, and everlasting Honour.

God with St. George! Allons, brave gentlemen!
Set spears in rest, renew your ancient fame:
Press midst the pikes, the cannon do not shen.1

Your ancestors, with passage through the same,
This proverb raised among the French, their Foes,
Vous es si fier que un Anglois.

Thou art as fierce as is an Englishman,

The French still say, and proof the same did teach :
Turn you the French into Castilian :

It hath a grace in such a lofty speech:
Your cause is good and Englishmen you are,
Your foes be men, even as Frenchmen were.
The force of death, that raiseth many fears

In craven hearts, which courage do despise;
Long lives the man that dies in lusty years,
In actions wherein honour may arise.
And wherein may you honour more expect
Than wrongéd men to succour and protect?

The Lion preys upon the stoutest beast,

Yet licks the sheep, the which the Wolf hath wound,
So worthy minds, proud looks that feareth least,

Doth help to raise the wounded from the ground.
Like Lions then, the Arms of England shield,
Prey on your foes, and pity those that yield.

I say no more, but God be your good speed,
And send you help, which I did never taste;
And if this book you do witsafe to read,

You cannot think your labour spent in waste,
Which doth contain the moral rules of those
That followed Mars in thickest press of foes.

For news is carried to and fro, that we must forth to warfare go:

Men muster now in every place, and soldiers are prest forth

apace.

Faint not, spend blood, to do your Queen and country good :
Fair words, good pay, will make men cast all care away.
The time of War is come, prepare your corslet, spear, and
shield,

Methinks I hear the drum strike doleful marches to the field:

Tantara, tantara, the trumpets sound, which makes our hearts with joy abound.

The roaring guns are heard afar, and everything denounceth War;

10 Serve God, stand stout, bold courage brings this gear about. Fear not, forth run; faint heart fair lady never won.

Ye curious carpet knights, that spend the time in sport and play,

Abroad, and see new sights, your country's cause calls you

Our cause is good we need not doubt; in sign of courage give a shout:

March forth, be strong, good hap will come ere it be long. Shrink not, fight well, for lusty lads must bear the bell:

All you that will shun devil, must dwell in warfare every day;

The world, the flesh, and devil, always do seek our soul's decay,

Strive with these foes with all your might, so shall you fight a worthy fight.

That conquest doth deserve most praise where vice do yield

3 Alarm (Italian "all'armi," To Arms!). Sounding the alarm-bell is sounding the bell that calls to arms.

Devil, pronounced "de'il."

For cares cause kings full oft their sleep to spill,
Where weary shepherds lie and snort their fill:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

Thus with his wife he spends the year, as blithe
As doth the king at every tide or sithe;1
And blither too,

For kings have wars and broils to take in hand,
Where shepherds laugh and love upon the land:
Ah then, ah then,

If country loves such sweet desires do gain,
What lady would not love a shepherd swain?

2

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was

Not daintier than this, in its half artificial beauty, is the famous little pastoral written by Marlowe of the "mighty line." Christopher Marlowe of like age with Shakespeare, but coming from his University to London, he leapt while yet young into fame as a dramatist, and raised the drama to the point beyond which Shakespeare only could advance it. It was the genius of Marlowe that established blank verse as the measure of English dramatic poetry, leaving only to Shakespeare the task of developing the full variety of force and beauty that is within the compass of its music. This is Marlowe's song, from which Shakespeare, in the "Merry Wives of Windsor," made Sir Hugh Evans, waiting for his adversary, sing a line or two :

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair linéd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

1 Sithe, occasion. First-English "sith," a path or journey, time of occasion.

2 The phrase is from Ben Jonson's Poem to the Memory of Shake speare:

"And tell thee how far thou didst our Lyiy outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe's mighty line."