*In this allusion to the birth of Pallas, he shows the conceit of her sonnet, both for matter and note; and by metaphor he expresseth how she delivered her words and tunes, which was by commission of the order philosophers set down in apprehension of our knowledge and affection of our senses; for first they affirm, the species of every object propagates itself by our Spirits to our common sense; that delivers it to the imaginative part; that to the cogitative; the cogitative to the passive intellect; the passive intellect to that which is called Dianoia, or Discursus; and that delivers it up to the mind, which order he observes in her utterance.

"Methinks, as in these liberal fumes I burn,

My mistress' lips be near with kiss-entices, And that which way soever I can turn,

spices,

Stirr'd up with nought but hell-descending gain,

The soul of fools that all their soul confounds,

The art of peasants and our nobles' stain, The bane of virtue and the bliss of sin, Which none but fools and peasants glory in.

on earth

Where virtues live, of virtuous men deceased,

Which in such like receive their second birth By smell and hearing* endlessly increased. They were mere flesh were not with them delighted,

And every such is perish'd like a beast, As all they shall that are so foggysprighted:

Odours feed love, and love clear heaven discovers,

Lovers wear sweets then-sweetest minds be lovers.

"Odour in heat and dryness is consite; Love, then a fire, is much thereto affected; And as ill smells do kill his appetite, With thankful savours it is still protected. Love lives in spirits; and our spirits be Nourish'd with odours, therefore love refected;

And air, less corpulent in quality

* By this allusion, drawn from the effects of sounds and odours, he intimates the eternity of virtue, saying the virtues of good men live in them, because they stir up pure inclinations to the like, as if infused in perfumes and sounds; besides, he infers that such as are neither delighted with sounds (intending by sounds all utterance of knowledge, as well as musical affections) nor with odours (which properly dry the brain and delight the instruments of the soul, making them the more capable of her faculties) such, saith he, perish without memory.

May safely drink, so in the wholesome

morn

After her walk, who there attends her eye, Is sure that day to taste no malady."

Thus was his course of odours sweet and slight,

Because he long'd to give his sight assay, And as in fervour of the summer's height, The sun is so ambitious in his sway;

He will not let the night an hour be placed,

So in this Cupid's night-oft seen in day, Now spread with tender clouds these odours cast

Her sight, his sun so wrought in his desires,

His savour vanish'd in his visual fires.

So vulture love on his increasing liver,
And fruitful entrails eagerly did feed,
And with the golden'st arrow in his
quiver,

Wounds him with longings that like torrents bleed.

To see the mine of knowledge that enrich'd

His mind with poverty, and desperate need.

A sight that with the thought of sight
bewitch'd;

A sight taught magic his deep mystery
Quicker in danger than Diana's* eye.

* Allusion to the transformation of Acteon with the sight of Diana.

Stay, therefore, Ovid; venture not; a sight

May prove thy rudeness more than show thee loving;

And make my mistress think thou think'st her light,

Which thought with lightest dames is nothing moving.

The slender hope of favour thou hast yet, Should make thee fear, such gross conclusions proving:

Besides, the thicket Flora's hands hath set To hide thy theft, is thin and hollowhearted;

And creeps retreat into her peaceful palace;

Yet straight high-flowing in her female pranks

Again she will be wanton, and again,
By no means staid, nor able to contain.

So Ovid with his strong affections striving, Mask'd in a friendly thicket near her bower,

Rubbing his temples, fainting and reviving, Fitting his garments, praying to the hour. Backwards and forwards went, and durst not venture

And should it keep thy secrets, thine own eye

Would fill thy thoughts so full of lightenings That thou must pass through more extremity,

Or stand content to burn beneath their wings.

Her honour 'gainst thy love in wager laid, Thou would'st be prick'd with other senses' stings,

To taste, and feel, and yet not there be stay'd:

These casts he cast and more, his wits more quick

Than can be cast by wit's arithmetic.

Forward and back and forward went he thus,
Like wanton* Thamysis that hastes to greet
The brackish court of old Oceanus;
And as by London's bosom she doth fleet,
Casts herself proudly through the bridge's
twists,

Where, as she takes again her crystal feet,

She curls her silver hair like amourists, Smoothes her bright cheeks, adorns her brow with ships,

And, empress like, along the coast she trips.

'Till coming near the sea, she hears him roar,

Tumbling her churlish billows in her

face,

Then, more dismay'd than insolent before, Charged to rough battle for his smooth embrace,

She croucheth close within her winding banks,

* A simile expressing the manner of his mind's contention in the desire of her sight and fear of her displeasure.

Or let his eyes her beauty's ocean enter, At last with prayer he pierceth Juno's ear, Great goddess of audacity and fear.

"Great goddess of audacity and fear, Queen of Olympus, Saturn's eldest seed, That dost the sceptre over Samos bear, And rulest all nuptial rites with power and meed,

Since thou in nature art the mean to mix Still sulphur humours, and canst therefore speed

Such as in Cyprian sports their pleasures fix,

Venus herself, and Mars by thee embracing, Assist my hopes, me and my purpose gracing.

"Make love within me not too kind but, pleasing,

Exiling aspen fear out of his forces, My inward sight with outward seeing, easing,

And if he please further to stretch his

courses,

Arm me with courage to make good his charges;

Too much desire to please, pleasure divorces, Attempts, and not entreats, get ladies' largess.

Wit is with boldness prompt, with terror daunted,

And grace is sooner got of dames than granted.

This said, he charged the arbour Visus. with his eye,

Which pierced it through, and at her breasts reflected,

Striking him to the heart with ecstasy; As do the sunbeams 'gainst the earth prorected,

With their reverberate vigour mount in flames,

And burn much more than where they were directed,

He saw th' extraction of all fairest dames: The fair of beauty, as whole countries come And show their riches in a little room.

Here Ovid sold his freedom for a look, And with that look was ten times more enthrall'd,

He blush'd, look'd pale, and like a fever shook,

And as a burning* vapour being exhaled,

Promised by Phoebus' eye to be a star, Heaven's walls denying to be further scaled,

The force dissolves that drew it up so far:

And then it lightens 'gainst his death and falls,

So Ovid's power, this powerful sight appals.

This beauty's fair is an enchantment made By Nature's witchcraft, tempting men to buy,

With endless shows, what endlessly will fade,

Yet promise chapmen all eternity;

But like to goods ill got, a fate it hath, Brings men enrich'd therewith to beggary, Unless th' enricher be as rich in faith, Enamour'd, like good self-love, with her

own,

Seen in another, then 'tis heaven alone.

For sacred beauty is the fruit of sight,
The courtesy that speaks before the
tongue,

The feast of souls, the glory of the light,
Envy of age, and everlasting young,
Pity's commander, Cupid's richest throne,
Music entranced, never duly sung,

The sum and court of all proportion; And that I may dull speeches best afford All rhetoric's flowers in less than in a word.

Then in the truest wisdom can be thought Spite of the public axiom worldings hold, That nothing wisdom is that getteth nought,

This all-things-nothing, since it is no gold. Beauty enchasing love, love gracing beauty,

*This simile expresseth the cause and substance of those exhalations which vulgarly are called falling stars: so Homer and Virgil call them stellas cadentes, Homer comparing the descent of Pallas among the Trojans to a falling star.

To such as constant sympathies enfold,. To perfect riches doth a sounder duty Than all endeavours, for by all consent, All wealth and wisdom rests in true content.

Contentment is our heaven, and all our deeds

Bend in that circle, seld' or never closed, More than the letter in the word precedes, And to conduce that compass is reposed.

More force and art in beauty join'd with love

Than thorns with wisdom, joys of them composed

Are arms more proof 'gainst any grief
we prove

Than all their virtue-scorning misery,
Or judgments graven in stoic gravity.

But as weak colour always is allow'd
The proper object of a human eye,
Though light be with a far more force
endow'd

In stirring up the visual faculty,

This colour being but of virtuous light A feeble image; and the cause doth lie

In th' imperfection of a human sight, So this for love and beauty, love's cold fire May serve for my praise, though it merit higher.

With this digression we will now return To Ovid's prospect in his fancy's storm. He thought he saw the arbour's bosom burn,

Blazed with a fire wrought in a lady's form; Where silver pass'd the least; and

Nature's vaunt

Did such a precious miracle perform,

She lay, and seem'd a flood of diamant Bounded in flesh; as still as Vesper's hair, When not an aspen-leaf is stirr'd with air.

She lay* at length, like an immortal soul
At endless rest in blest Elysium;
And then did true felicity enrol
So fair a lady figure of her kingdom.

Now Ovid's muse as in her tropic shined And he, struck dead, was mere heavenborn become,

So his quick verse in equal height was shrined;

The amplification of this simile is taken from the blissful state of souls in Elysium, as Virgil feigns; and expresseth a regenerate beauty in all life and perfection, not intimating any rest of death. But in peace of that eternal spring, he pointeth to that life of life-this beauty-clad naked lady..