Labor, in tuæ spem gratiæ.'
Collier, misreading this dedication, claimed the Idillia for Sir Edward Dyer, and his mistake has been followed by some later bibliographers. But in the first place there is nothing to show that 'E.D.' was Sir Edward Dyer; and in the second it is perfectly plain that the translations were dedicated to 'E.D.,' not written by him. The rhymed fourteen-syllable lines are somewhat uncouth and do scant justice to the liquid melody of Theocritus' hexameters; but though these Idillia have no great literary value, the hardy pioneer is entitled to some credit for breaking new ground. Only one copy (preserved in the Bodleian Library) of the original edition is known. Some years ago a small edition, for private circulation, was issued from the press of Rev. H.C. Daniel.
Richard Barnfield(1574-1627) had genuine poetical gifts, but seldom displayed them to advantage. Born in 1574 at Norbury, near Newport, Shropshire, he was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and is conjectured to have been a member of Gray's Inn. He seems to have spent most of his time in the country, leading the life of a country gentleman. In 1594 he published The Affectionate Shepheard (with a dedication to Lady Penelope Rich), and in 1595 Cynthia. His last work, The Encomion of Lady Pecunia, followed in 1598, a second edition (with changes and additions) appearing in 1605. He died in March 1626-7, leaving a son and a grand-daughter. In his will he is described as of 'Dorlestone, in the Countie of Stafford, Esquire.'[4]
The Affectionate Shepheard was inspired by Virgil's Second Eclogue. Though the choice of subject was not happy, it must be allowed that in describing country contentment and the pastimes of silly shepherds Barnfield shows un-laboured fluency and grace, with playful touches of quaint extravagance. The passage beginning 'And when th'art wearie of thy keeping Sheepe'(pp. 159, 160) and ending 'Like Lillyes in a bed of roses shed' is a pleasant piece of poetical embroidery. Barnfield doubtless adopted the six-line stanza in imitation of Venus and Adonis, 1593(which had in turn been modelled on Lodge's Glaucus and Scylla, 1589). It has been recently pointed out—by Mr. Charles Crawford in Notes and Queries—that some passages in The Affectionate Shepheard were closely imitated from Marlowe and Nashe's Dido (published in 1594), and that one line has been taken straight out of Marlowe's Edward II. Appended to The Affectionate Shepheard are The Complainte of Chastitie, in imitation of Michael Drayton, and Hellens Rape—a copy of 'English Hexameters' so atrociously bad that one wonders whether it was written to bring contempt on the metre which Gabriel Harvey and others were vainly striving to popularise.
To Cynthia is prefixed a copy of high-flying commendatory verses, from which very little sense can be extracted, by 'T.T.,' possibly Thomas Thorpe, the publisher of Shakespeare's Sonnets. In the address to 'The Curteous Gentlemen Readers' Barnfield claims indulgence for Cynthia on the ground that it was the first 'imitation of the verse of that excellent Poet, Maister Spencer, in his Fayrie Queene.' The poem is a compliment to Queen Elizabeth, who is adjudged by Jove to have merited the golden apple wrongly given by Paris to Venus. When Barnfield mentioned that he borrowed the metre of Cynthia from Spenser, he forgot to add that the matter was drawn from Peele's Arraignment of Paris. To Cynthia succeed twenty sonnets extolling, after the fashion of the age, the beauty and virtues of an imaginary youth, Ganymede. In the last sonnet Barnfield introduces compliments to Spenser (Colin) and Drayton (Rowland):—
'Ah had great Colin, chiefe of sheepheards all,
Or gentle Rowland, my professed friend,
Had they thy beautie, or my pennance pend,
Greater had beene thy fame, and lesse my fall:
But since that euerie one cannot be wittie,