VIRGIDEMIARUM.

SIXE BOOKES.

FIRST THREE BOOKES,

OF

TOOTH-LESSE SATYRS.

1. POETICALL

2. ACADEMICALL.

3. MORALL.

ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR.

By the kindness of Mr. Henry Ellis, of the British Museum, the Editor is enabled, in addition to the fruits of his own researches, to enrich the following masterly performance of his author with some of those elucidations, which his frequent imitation of the Classics and his perpetual allusions to temporary and local circumstances have rendered indispensable to a full comprehension of the spirit and beauty of his satire. Mr. Ellis has had it in contemplation to publish an edition of the Satires, fully illustrated: which design, it is to be hoped, he will find leisure to accomplish. In the mean time he has had the goodness to allow the Editor to select such notes from his papers, as might appear most necessary and he has also furnished him with Warton's notes on his author, contained in a few of the first sheets of the fourth volume of his History of English Poetry, which had passed the press before the death of the learned critic. Mr. Ellis's notes are marked E, and those of Mr. Warton W. For the rest the Editor is responsible.

Those obsolete words, which rarely occur in the Satires, are explained in the Notes. The following are such as repeatedly occur. For the rest, the Glossary to the Whole Works may be consulted.

Albe, or albee-albeit, although.
Betide-befal.

Certes-certainly.

Covetise-corvetousness.

Dight-dressed, decked.

Erst-first, formerly.

Eyne-eyes.

Gan-began.

Gin-begin.

Frere-friar.

Hundreth-hundred.

List-choose.

Meed-reward.

Mote, or mought-might.

Playned, playning-complained, complaining.
Rife-common.

Sith-since.

Spright---spirit.

Treen-trees.

Weene-to imagine.

Wot-to know.

Writhen-wrinkled, distorted, twisted.

HIS

DEFIANCE TO ENVY.

NAY; let the prouder Pines of Ida feare

The sudden fires of heaven; and decline
Their yeelding tops, that dar'd the skies whilere ':
And shake your sturdy trunks, ye prouder Pines,
Whose swelling graines are like be gald' aloné,
With the deep furrowes of the thunder-stone.
Stand ye secure, ye safer shrubs below,

In humble dales, whom heav'ns do not despight;
Nor angry clouds conspire your overthrow,
Envying at your too-disdainfull hight.

Let high attemps dread envy and ill tongues,
And cow'rdly shrink for fear of causelesse wrongs.
So wont big okes feare winding yvy weed:
So soaring egles feare the neighbour sonne :
So golden Mazor wont suspicion breed,
Of deadly Hemlock's poyson'd potion':

this sense

So adders shroud themselves in fayrest leaves:
So fouler fate the fayrer thing bereaves.

whilere—just now, a little while ago. Shakespeare uses erewhile in

Else your memory is bad, going o'er it EREWHILE.
LOVE'S LABOUR LOST. A. iv. Sc. 1.

Raleigh uses the word as Hall does.

· are like be gald

i. e. are like to be fretted, marked, or torn. So in Book IV. Sat. 5.

With some GAL'D trunk, ballac'd with straw and stone.

And in the conclusion to Book III.

Hold out, ye guiltie and ye GALLED hides.

'So golden Mazor wont suspicion breed

Of deadly Hemlock's poison'd potion.

Mazor, or mazer, is explained in the old dictionaries to be a standing-cup to drink in, commonly made of maeser, a Dutch word for maple. The contrast of the poet then is, between a cup usually made of maple, and the same cup made of gold.

Nor the low bush feares climbing yvy-twine:
Nor lowly bustard dreads the distant rayes:
Nor earthen pot wont secret death to shrine:
Nor suttle snake doth lurke in pathed wayes.

Nor baser deed dreads envy and ill tongues,
Nor shrinks so soone for feare of causelesse wrongs.
Needs me then hope, or doth me need mis-dread:
Hope for that honor, dread that wrongfull spight:
Spight of the partie, honor of the deed,
Which wont alone on loftie objects light.
That envy should accost my muse and mee,
For this so rude and recklesse poesie.
Would she but shade her tender brows with bay,
That now lye bare in carelesse wilfull rage;
And trance herselfe in that sweet extasey,
That rouzeth drouping thoughts of bashfull age.
(Tho now those bays and that aspired thought,
In carelesse rage she sets at worse than nought.)
Or would we loose her plumy pineon,

Manicled long with bonds of modest feare,
Soone might she have those kestrels' proud out gone,
Whose flightty wings are dew'd with weeter ayre;
And hopen now to shoulder from above
The eagle from the stayrs of friendly Jove.
Or list she rather in late tryumph reare
Eternall Trophees to some conqueror,
Whose dead deserts slept in his sepulcher,
And never saw, nor life, nor light before:

To lead sad Pluto captive with my song,
To grace the triumphs he obscured so long.
Or scoure the rusted swords of elvish knights,
Bathed in Pagan blood; or sheath them new
In misty morall types; or tell their fights,
Who mighty giants, or who monsters slew:
And by some strange inchanted speare and shield,
Vanquisht their foe, and wan' the doubtfull field.

May be she might in stately Stanzaes frame
Stories of ladies, and advent'rous knights,
To raise her silent and inglorious name
Unto a reach-lesse pitch of praises hight,

And somewhat say, as more unworthy done,
Worthy of brasse, and hoary marble-stone.

recklesse-careless, or severe.

'kestrels-a species of hawk: from the French querqelle, cercelle: these from the Latin circulus; so called from the shape or disposition of its tail.

• weeter-wetter.

1 wan-won.

Stories of ladies, and advent'rous knights.

A pointed allusion to the finished and descriptive poetry of Spenser. E.

Then might vaine envy waste her duller wing,
To trace the aery steps she spiting sees,
And vainly faint in hopelesse following
The clouded paths her native drosse denies.
But now such lowly Satyres here I sing,
Not worth our Muse, not worth their envying.
Too good, if ill, to be expos'd to blame :
Too good, if worse, to shadow shamelesse vice.
Ill, if too good, not answering their name:
So good and ill in fickle censure lies.

Since in our Satyre lyes both good and ill,
And they and it, in varying readers' will.
Witnesse, ye Muses, how I wilfull song
These heddy rhymes, withouten second care;
And wish't them worse, my guiltie thoughts emong;
The ruder Satyre should go rag'd and bare,

And show his rougher and his hairy hide,

Tho mine be smooth, and deckt in carelesse pride.
Would we but breath within a wax-bound quill,
Pan's sevenfold pipe, some plaintive pastorall;
To teach each hollow grove, and shrubby hill,
Ech murm'ring brooke, each solitary vale

To sound our love, and to our song accord,
Wearying eccho with one changelesse word.
Or list us make two striving shepheards sing,
With costly wagers for the victorie,
Under Menalcas judge; whiles one doth bring
A carven bole well wrought of beechen tree,
Praising it by the story, or the frame,

Or want of use, or skilfull maker's name.
Another layeth a well-marked lambe,
Or spotted kid, or some more forward steere",
And from the payle doth praise their fertile dam;
So do they strive in doubt, in hope, in feare,
Awayting for their trustie Umpire's doome,
Faulted as false, by him that's overcome.
Whether so me list my lovely thought to sing,
Come daunce, ye nimble Dryads, by my side;
Ye gentle wood-Nymphs, come; and with you bring
The willing faunes that mought your musick guide.

• Song for sung: thus spelt for the sake of the rhime. E. This conformity of the orthography to the rhime is very frequent. Indeed the orthography, in our author's days, was regulated by no fixed principles. There is no kind of conformity, in this respect, between the first edition of the Satires printed in 1597, and the subsequent editions of 1599, and 1602. I have followed, with very few exceptions, that of the first edition: from which edition I have also corrected several gross mistakes which had crept into all that followed.

1° steere-a young bullock.

"faulted-blamed, found fault with,