No: faire Arcadia cannot be compleater,
My prayse may lesson, but not make thee greater.
My Muse for lofty pitches shall not rome,
But homely pipen of her native home:
And to the swaynes, love rural minstralsie,
Thus, deare Britannia, will I sing of thee."
Marina, who is the first shepherdess introduced to us, is described in the following extract, which contains some animated lines, as about to drown herself through despair.
"Here is a mount, whose toppe seemes to despise
The farre inferiour vale that under lies:
Who, like a great man rais'd aloft by fate,
Measures his height by others' meane estate:
Neere to whose foote there glides a silver flood,
Falling from hence, I'll climbe unto my good :
And by it finish love and reason's strife,
And end my misery as well as life.
But as a coward's hartener in warre,
The stirring drumme keepes lesser noyse from farre,
So seeme the murmuring waves, tell in mine eare,
That guiltlesse bloud was never spilled there.
Then stay awhile; the beasts that haunt those springs,
Of whom I heare the fearefull bellowings,
May doe that deede, (as moved by my cry)
Whereby my soule, as spotlesse ivory,
May turne from whence it came, and, freed from hence,
Be unpolluted of that foule offence.
But why protract I time? Death is no stranger,
And generous spirits never feare for danger:
Death is a thing most naturall to us,
And feare doth onely make it odious.
As when to seeke her foode abroad doth rove
The Nuncius of peace, the seely dove,
Two sharpe-set hawkes doe her on each side hem,
And she knowes not which way to flye from them:
Or like a shippe, that tossed to and fro
With winde and tyde, the winde doth sternely blow,
And drives her to the maine, the tyde comes sore
And hurles her backe againe towards the shore;
And since her balast and her sailes doe lacke,
One brings her out, the other beates her backe;
Till one of them encreasing more his shockes,
Hurles her to shore, and rends her on the rockes :
So stood she long, twixt love and reason tost."
The deity of a spring thus resents the insult of some substance being thrown into his stream.
Starting, to wonder whence that noyse should grow:
Whether some ruder clowne in spite did fling
A lambe, untimely falne, into his spring :
And if it were, he solemnely then swore
His spring should flow some other way: no more
Should it in wanton manner ere be seene
To writhe in knots, or give a gowne of greene
Unto their meadowes, nor be seene to play,
Nor drive the rushy-mils, that in his way
The shepheards made: but rather for their lot,
Send them red waters that their sheepe should rot,
And with such moorish springs embrace their field,
That it should nought but mosse and rushes yeeld.
Upon each hillocke, where the merry boy
Sits piping in the shades his notes of joy,
He'd shew his anger, by some floud at hand,
And turne the same into a running sand.
Upon the oake, the plumbe-tree and the holme,
The stock-dove and the blackbird should not come,
Whose muting on those trees does make to grow
Rots curing hyphear, and the misseltoe."
The God, finding that it is a beautiful female who has fallen into his domains, makes love to her in the following strain, which flows as smoothly as his spring.
"Would she be wonne with me to stay,
My waters should bring from the sea
The corrall red, as tribute due,
And roundest pearles of orient hue:
Or in the richer veines of ground
Should seeke for her the diamond.
And whereas now unto my spring
They nothing else but gravell bring,
They should within a myne of gold
In piercing manner long time hold,
And having it to dust well wrought,
By them it hither should be brought;
With which ile pave and over-spread
My bottome, where her foote shall tread.
The best of fishes in my flood
Shall give themselves to be her food.
The trout, the dace, the pike, the breame,
The eele, that loves the troubled streame,
The miller's thombe, the hiding loach,
The perch, the ever-nibling roach,
The shoales with whom is Tavie fraught,
The foolish gudgeon quickly caught,
And last the little minnow-fish,
Whose chiefe delight in gravell is.
In right she cannot me despise
Because so low mine empire lyes,
For I could tell how Nature's store
Of majesty appeareth more
In waters, than in all the rest
Of elements. It seem'd her best
To give the waves most strength and powre;
For they doe swallow and devoure
The earth; the waters quence and kill
The flames of fire: and mounting still
Up in the aire, are seene to be,
As challenging a seignoree
Within the heavens, and to be one
That should have like dominion.
They be a seeling and a floore
Of clouds, caus'd by the vapours' store
Arising from them; vitall spirit
By which all things their life inherit
From them is stopped, kept asunder.
And what's the reason else of thunder,
Of lightning's flashes all about,
That with such violence breake out,
Causing such troubles and such jarres,
As with itselfe the world had warres?
And can there any thing appeare
More wonderfull, than in the aire
Congealed waters oft to spie
Continuing pendant in the skie?
Till falling downe in haile or snow,
They make those mortall wights below
To runne, and ever helpe desire
From his foe element the fire,
Which fearing then to come abroad
Within doores maketh his aboade," &c.
The reader will observe, in the following passage, some proofs of Browne's having taken his observations upon nature
from actual experience. We are not, indeed, aware of any book, which contains more original and accurate images drawn from rural life and scenery, than are to be found in the Britannia's Pastorals.-An extraordinary circumstance, if we consider the very early age at which they were written, and that the most important part of his life, immediately preceding their composition, had been spent at Oxford and the Inner Temple— But it is one of the properties of genius to confound the calculations of ordinary individuals, and display fruits at a time when the seeds are not imagined to be sown.
"Then walk'd they to a grove but neare at hand,
Where fiery Titan had but small command,
Because the leaves conspiring kept his beames,
For feare of hurting, when he's in extreames,
The under-flowers, which did enrich the ground
With sweeter scents than in Arabia found.
The earth doth yeeld, which they through pores exhale,
Earth's best of odours, th' aromaticall:
Like to that smell, which oft our sense descries
Within a field which long unplowed lyes,
Some-what before the setting of the sunne;
And where the raine-bow in the horizon
Doth pitch her tips: or as when in the prime,
The earth being troubled with a drought long time,
The hand of heaven his spungy clouds doth straine,
And throwes into her lap a showre of raine;
She sendeth up, conceived from the sunne,
A sweet perfume and exhalation.
Not all the oyntments brought from Delos isle ;
Nor from the confines of seaven-headed Nyle;
Nor that brought whence Phoenicians have abodes;
Nor Cyprus wilde vine-flowers; nor that of Rhodes;
Nor roses-oyle from Naples, Capua,
Saffron confected in Cilicia;
Nor that of quinces, nor of marjoram,
That ever from the isle of Coös, came.
Nor these, nor any else, though ne're so rare,
Could with this place for sweetest smels compare."
The characterization of the forest trees will remind the reader of that in Spenser, from which it is, perhaps, taken-it is, however, by no means inferior. Such enumerations of trees, flowers, birds, or other interesting classes of objects, are invariably, when well executed, favorites with the poetical reader.-In this extract, the different trees of the grove pass in review be
fore the mind, distinguished by their peculiar qualities and affections, until the whole assumes an appearance of life and animation; and acquires somewhat of the interest which we feel for a large body of individuals of various habits, ranks, and charac
"There stood the elme, whose shade so mildely dym
Doth nourish all that groweth under him.
Cipresse that like piramides runne topping,
And hurt the least of any by their dropping.
The alder, whose fat shadow nourisheth,
Each plant set neere to him long flowrisheth.
The heavie-headed plane-tree, by whose shade
The grasse growes thickest, men are fresher made.
The oake, that best endures the thunder shocks :
The everlasting ebene, cedar, boxe.
The olive that in wainscot never cleaves.
The amorous vine which in the elme still weaves.
The lotus, juniper, where wormes ne'er enter:
The
pyne, with whom men through the ocean venter.
The warlike yewgh, by which (more than the lance)
The strong-arm'd English spirits conquer'd France.
Amongst the rest, the tamariske there stood,
For huswive's besomes onely knowne most good.
The cold-place-loving birch, and servis tree:
The walnut loving vales, and mulbury.
The maple, ashe, that doe delight in fountaines,
Which have their currents by the sides of mountaines.
The laurell, mirtle, ivy, date, which hold
Their leaves all winter, be it ne'er so cold.'
The firre, that oftentimes doth rosin drop :
The beech that scales the welkin with his top:
All these, and thousand more within this grove,
By all the industry of nature strove
To frame an harbour that might keepe within it
The best of beauties that the world hath in it."
The description of two streams, one in pursuit of the other, is painted with a very lively and fanciful pencil. Indeed, one of the most remarkable peculiarities in the poetry of Browne, is its fancifulness-it is also one of its worst vices.-And, by fancifulness we wish to be understood, a wild and unmeasured play of the imagination—which endues, for instance, the properties of one being with the attributes of another-which disposes of pleasing ideas, and beautiful imagery, in the wrong place; and, by the idea of unfitness, gives an air of the ridiculous
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