I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme ;
From that time unto this season,

I received nor rhyme nor reason.

Lines on his promised Pension,1

For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Hymn in Honour of Beauty. Line 132.

A sweet attractive kinde of grace,

A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face

The lineaments of gospel-books.

Elegiac on a Friend's Passion for his Astrophill.

Full little knowest thou that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide;

To loose good dayes that might be better spent,
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow.

To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires; To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne, To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.

Mother Hubberd's Tale. Line 895.

1 This tradition is confirmed by an entry in Manningham's nearly contemporaneous Diary, May 4, 1602.

2 This piece was printed in The Phonix Nest, 4to, 1593, where it is anonymous. Todd has shown that it was written by Mathew Roydon.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

1552-1618.

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

The Nymph's Reply to the Passionate Shepherd.

Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne'er so witty;
A beggar that is dumb, you know,
May challenge double pity.

Passions are likened best to Floods and Streams.

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay. Verses to Edmund Spenser.

O eloquent, just and mightie Death! whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawne together all the farre stretchéd greatnesse, all the pride, crueltie and ambition of men, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!

Historie of the World, Book v. Pt. 1, ad fin.

Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall. Written on a pane of glass, in Queen Elizabeth's presence.1

If thy heart fail thee, why then climb at all.

1554-1586.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

Sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge. The Defence of Poesy.

He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner.

Ibid.

I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglass, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.

Ibid.

High erected thoughts seated in the heart of courtesy. Arcadia. Book i.

They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.

My dear, my better half.

Ibid.

Ibid. Book iii.

Have I caught my heav'nly jewel.'

Astrophel and Stella. Second Song.

O wearisome condition of humanity!

Mustapha. Act v. Sc. 4.

And out of mind as soon as out of sight.2

Sonnet lvi.

1 Quoted by Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii. Sc. 3.

2 Cf. Kempis, Imitation of Christ, Book i. Ch. 23.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE. 1565-1593.

WORKS (ED. DYCE, 1862).

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?1
Hero and Leander.

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Woods or steepy mountains, yields.

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.

By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

Ibid.

And I will make thee beds of roses,

And a thousand fragrant posies.

Ibid.

When all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that are not heaven.

Faustus.

Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!

Ibid.

O, thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

Ibid.

1 Quoted by Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act iii. Sc. 5.

[Faustus continued.

Cut is the branch that might have grown full

straight,

And burned is Apollo's laurel bough,'

That sometime grew within this learnèd man.

Infinite riches in a little room.

Ibid.

The Jew of Malta. Act i.

Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness.

Ibid. Acti.

Now will I shew myself to have more of the serpent than the dove; that is, more knave than fool.

Love me little, love me long.2

Ibid. Act ii.

RICHARD HOOKER.

Ibid.

Act iv.

1553-1600.

Of Law there can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world: all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power. Ecclesiastical Polity. Book i.

That to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery.

1 O, withered is the garland of the war,

The soldier's pole is fallen.

Ibid. Book i.

Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Activ. Sc. 13.

2 See Herrick, p. 159.