Googe's

Eclogues.

In the meantime, Barnaby Googe had been sent by Cecil to Spain, towards the close of the year 1561, leaving with his friend, H. Blundeston, the little collection of his "Eglogs Epytaphes and Sonettes." Googe was away in Spain for about a year. During his absence his friend Blundeston sent the poems to be printed, and wrote for them, on the twenty-seventh of May, 1562, an address to the reader, followed by a preface in twelve stanzas of ottava rima. This preface set forth how Fancy gave one counsel as to the best way to refresh the Senses dulled with poring over books, and Reason gave another

"Lo here the eye a paper bunch doth see

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Of filed works of Googe's flowing head,
Left here behind when hence he passed from me,
In all the storms that winter's blasts bespread
Through swelling seas and lofty mountains high,
Of Pyrenei the paths unknown to tread-
Whose great goodwill I keep, and in his place
His verses crave to represent his face."

Barnaby Googe came back, and found his little book of verse already in the printer's hands. He then finished his longest piece, "Cupido Conquered," wrote a prose dedication to the ryght worshipfull M. William Lovelace Esquier, Reader of Grayes Inne," and published the book in March, 1563, the year in which he was appointed one of the queen's gentlemen pensioners. There were prefixed. lines of commendation by Alexander Neville, who published. in the same year, 1563, his translation of Seneca's Edipus." Neville's lines of commendation are such as Bully Bottom could have recited forcibly for the confusion of "those crab snouted beasts" by whom good verses are defamed. But in the earlier years of Elizabeth's reign such frothy lines are to be found in many who had grace and wit, and were able to show that they could discourse music when

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they did not roar. Good Bottom's "raging rocks with shivering shocks" attacked a form of eloquence not rare in Shakespeare's early days. This is how Alexander Neville began his suggestion to Barnaby Googe of the malice of small critics towards men who rise high above them—a malice that does no hurt to the strong

"The mountains high, the blustering winds,
The floods the rocks withstand,

The cities strong the cannons' shot

And threatening chieftain's hand;

The castles huge, by long besiege
And dreadful battle broke,

Both fire and flames and thundering thumps

And every deadly stroke

With fervent broiling furious rage

Doth beat and drive to ground
The long defencéd walls by force,
And throughly them confound."

The eight Eclogues at the beginning of Barnaby Googe's small collection of verse of his own * deal with the two powers of love and religion. Their general plan was suggested by familiarity with Mantuan. In the first eclogue Amyntas tells Daphnes of the pains of the young lover's state in honest and accepted love. In the second eclogue Dametas laments as a rejected lover—

"Thou seest her mind, what fear'st thou then,
Dametas, for to die?"

And after a lament with this for burden, Dametas kills

* Only three copies of Barnaby Googe's "Eglogs, Epytaphes and Sonnettes " were known to be in existence when Professor Arber obtained leave to make a transcript of the copy in possession of Mr. Henry Huth, and published the book for a shilling in 1871, with excellent introductory Notes, as one of his series of "English Reprints." Any of Professor Arber's publications may be had by application to the editor himself at 34, Wheeley's Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham.

himself. In the third eclogue, between Menalcas and Corydon, Corydon tells how his ram has been lamed by fight with the great ram of the flock given by the martyr of love, Dametas, to Tityrus. The talk then passes to "the Town's estate," where another Corydon of low birth-Bishop Bonner is represented as the persecutor of the faithful shepherds. This is set forth in a passage that distinctly figures the burning of heretics in Mary's reign. Barnaby Googe's Eclogues are all written in septenars, iambic lines of seven accents, split for convenience of printing in a small book with a narrow page. I quote the reference to Bonner as first written, and indicate the place where each line was divided

"The chiefest man in all our town | that bears the greatest sway
Is Corydon, no kin to me, | a neat herd th'other day.
This Corydon, come from the cart, | in honour chief doth sit,
And governs us because he hath | a crabbed clownish wit.
Now see the churlish cruelty that in his heart remains :
The seely sheep that Shepherds good | have fostered up with pains,
And brought away from stinking dales | on pleasant hills to feed,-
O cruel clownish Corydon ! | O curséd, carlish seed!-
1
The simple sheep constrainéd he | their pasture sweet to leave
And to their old corrupted grass | enforceth them to cleave.
Such sheep as would not them obey | but in their pasture bide,
With cruel flames they did consume | and vex on every side.
And with the sheep the shepherds good | (O hateful hounds of hell !)
They did torment and drive them out in places far to dwell.
Then diéd Daphnes for his sheep, | the chiefest of them all,
And fair Alexis flamed in fire | who never perish shall.

O shepherds wail for Daphnes death, | Alexis hap lament,
And curse the force of cruel hearts | that them to death have sent!"

Daphnes, probably, was Cranmer, burnt on the twenty-first of March, 1556, when Googe was a youth of sixteen, and "the fair Alexis" may have glanced at women who were martyrs, like Anne Askew. It was only in this one of his eight eclogues that Barnaby Googe dealt in pastoral form with the struggles of the Reformation. In his fourth eclogue

Melibeus tells Palemon that he has been visited by the ghost of Dametas, who slew himself for love and is in hell, suffering far worse torment than that from which he sought escape. In the fifth eclogue, Egon tells Mopsus of a Faustus who sent his page, Valerius, to urge his suit to a fair lady, Claudia. The lady loved the page, and killed herself when she found that he was only pleading for his master. Then the master stole away, whereupon the page also lamented and ran into the woods and was seen no more: "Lo Faustus fled and Claudia dead, Valerius seen no more." In the sixth eclogue, Felix tells Faustus of the remedies for love: avoid sight of the shepherdess, burn her gifts and her letters, occupy mind and body. In the seventh, Sirenus and Silvanus lament the inconstancy of a shepherdess, Diana ; then comes to them a shepherdess, Selvaggia, whose shepherd has been inconstant, and there is dialogue of the constancy in love of men and women. Which can be trusted most? In the eighth eclogue, Cornix sings to Corydon of love and praise to God

"A God there is that guides the globe, and framed the fickle sphere, And placéd hath the stars above that we do gaze on here,

By whom we live, unthankful beasts, by whom we have our health,
By whom we gain our happy states, by whom we get our wealth;
A God that sends us that we need, a God that us defends,
A God from whom the angels high on mortal men attends;
A God of such a clemency that whoso him doth love
Shall here be sure to rest a while, and always rest above."

Minor
Poems.

Barnaby Googe's epitaphs are on Lord Sheffield, slain in a popular tumult (a piece written in Ercles' vein); on Master Shelley, killed in fight at Musselburgh; on Thomas Phaer, with highest praise of his translation of Virgil; and on Nicholas Grimald. That upon Grimald is written in ten-syllabled lines, and these also are split, while it is very clear that they were so divided after they were written.

Unless there really were a

flea in question, would any rhyme begin, as Googe is made to begin "An Epytaphe of the Death of Nicholas Grimoald," with "Beholde this Fle-"! Here let us again note how the poet wrote, and how his lines were afterwards divided for the sake of fitting them to a small page, and also of spreading a few pieces over as many pages as would, in the stationer's opinion, make a little book—

"Behold this fle | tyng world how al things fade,

How euery thyng | doth passe and weare awaye :
Each state of lyfe, | by comon course and trade,
Abydes no tyme | but hath a passyng daye.”

The rest of the piece has to be read back into this simple elegiac measure. Read as printed, it includes such lines as "Ne had the Mu-," "Nor had Maner-," "But Fortune fa-"-that last being the break in the line, "But Fortune favours Fools, as old men say." Among Googe's "Sonettes" -which are not sonnets in any technical sense, but short poems, various in size and form-we have an example of the old line of eight accents, not merely split in two, as it could fairly be, but cut into little quarters thus-—

'The happiest life that here we have my Cobham if I shall define,

The goodliest state | twixt birth and grave | most gracious | days and sweetest time-"

Googe has verses of friendly praise to Dean Nowell; suggests to "good aged Bale" that he might rest his pen; praises the plays of Richard Edwards, of her Majesty's Chapel; writes about his unfinished "translation of Pallingen"; writes verses to which his friend Alexander Neville appends answers in verse; bids a jaunty farewell to "Maystresse A," who will not marry him; and writes respectfully to "Maystresse D "-that is, to Mary Darrell, who did become his wife in 1564 or 1565, after a sharp battle against her