LOVE.* WHAT thing is love ?-for sure love is a thing : thing; Love is a fire, love is a coal, Whose flame creeps in at every hole; And, as myself can best devise, His dwelling is in ladies' eyes, From whence he shoots his dainty darts And ever since was call'd a god That Mars with Venus play'd even and odd. * These ten lines were most obligingly transcribed for me by Dr. Bliss, from one of Rawlinson's MSS. (in the Bodleian library) which attributes them to "Mr. G. Peele." Since I received them from Oxford, I have discovered that they are an extract from the Hunting of Cupid: see p. 260. In an old play, the Wisdome of Doctor Dodypoll, 1600, Sig. A 4. Cornelia sings the first six of these lines with some very trifling variations. (From a Manuscript in the Cottonian Library, Vesp. A. xxv.) A It was a maid of my country, As she came by the hawthorn tree, At last she asked of this tree, ཙཎཾ ཅི ལྐོགས ཨཱཛྫཏི * Why did Ritson, who has given this ballad among his Ancient Songs, 1790, p. 146, omit to mention that the MS. has "G. Peele" appended to it? our poet's name is indeed written in a much more modern hand than the ballad, but it must have been there long before Ritson's day. That Peele was really the author of it, I think very doubtful. + Donkin Dargeson]" This tune, whatever it was, appears to have been in use till after the Restoration."-Ritson. The tree made answer by and by, I have good cause to grow triumphantly; Yea, quoth the maid, but where you grow, I marvel that you grow so green. Though many one take flowers fro' me, But how and they chance to cut thee down, Though that you do, it is no boot, And you, fair maid, can not do so, 258 THE HAWTHORN TREE. The maid with that began to blush, And turn'd her from the hawthorn bush ; When that she heard this marvellous doubt, With many a sigh she went her way, Besides all that, it put her in fear, For fear to lose the thing that should be seen But after this never I could hear Fragments of the Hunting of Cupid, from a MS. volume, (consisting chiefly of extracts from books,) by WILLIAM DRUMMOND of Hawthornden, belonging to the Society of Scottish Antiquaries. THE HUNTING OF CUPID,* BY GEORGE PEELE OF OXFORD, PASTORAL. ON the snowie browes of Albion. sueet woodes sueet running brookes, y' chide in a pleasant tune and make quiet murmur, leaving [laving?] the lilies, mints and waterflowers in ther gentle glide. making her face the marke of his wondring eies and his eyes the messengers of his woundit hart. Like a candle keepith but a litil roome zet blazeth round about. Heardgroome w' his strauberrie lasse. Some wt his sueet hart making false position putting a schort sillabe wher a long one should be. some a *This curious jumble is printed from a verbatim transcript of the original, made by Mr. David Laing of Edinburgh, who kindly examined with me the Drummond MSS. in the hope of finding some mention of Peele. The Hunting of Cupid, and Drummond's MSS. I have noticed in my account of Peele and his writings. |