The year 1595 also saw the publication of Francis Sabie's Pan's Pipe, which contains, according to the not wholly accurate title-page, 'Three Pastorall Eglogues, in English Hexameter.' These constituted the first attempt in English at writing original eclogues in Vergilian metre, and the injudicious experiment has not, I believe, been repeated. The subjects present little novelty of theme, but the treatment illustrates the natural tendency of English pastoral writers towards narrative and the influence of the romantic ballad motives. The same volume contains another work of Sabie's, namely, the Fishermaris Tale, a blank-verse rendering of Greene's Pandosto[[116]].
The three pastoral elegies of William Basse, published in 1602, the last work of the kind to appear in Elizabeth's reign, form in reality a short pastoral romance. The court-bred Anander falls in love with the shepherdess Muridella, and charges the sheep-boy Anetor to convey to her the knowledge of his passion. His love proving unkind he turns shepherd, and resolves to remain so until his suit obtains better grace. More than half a century later, namely in 1653, Basse prepared for press a manuscript containing a series of pastorals headed 'Clio, or The first Muse in 9 Eglogues in honor of 9 vertues,' and arranged according to the days of the week. The whole composition is singularly lacking alike in interest and merit.[[117]]
It is not surprising to find the eclogues of the early years of James' reign reflecting current events. In 1603 appeared a curious compilation, the work of Henry Chettle, bearing the title: 'Englandes Mourning Garment: Worne here by plaine Shepheardes; in memorie of their sacred Mistresse, Elizabeth, Queene of Vertue while shee lived, and Theame of Sorrow, being dead. To which is added the true manner of her Emperiall Funerall. After which foloweth the Shepheards Spring-Song, for entertainement of King James our most potent Soveraigne. Dedicated to all that loved the deceased Queene, and honor the living King.' The book is a strange medley of verse and prose, elegies on Elizabeth in the form of eclogues, and political lectures written in the style of the pastoral romance. The most interesting passage is an address to contemporary poets reproaching them for their neglect of the praises of the late queen. The pastoral names under which they are introduced appear to be merely nonce appellations, but are worth recording as they refer to a set outside the usual pastoral circle. Thus Corin is Chapman; Musaeus, of course Marlowe; English Horace, no doubt Jonson; Melicert, Shakespeare; Coridon, Drayton; Anti-Horace, most likely Dekker, and Moelibee, mentioned with him, possibly Marston. To Musidore, 'Hewres last Musaeus' (no doubt corrupt), and the 'infant muse,' it is more difficult to assign an identity.[[118]] Throughout Chettle assumes to himself Spenser's pastoral title.
To the same or the following year belong the twelve eclogues by Edward Fairfax, the translater of Tasso's Gerusalemme, which are now for the most part lost. One, the fourth, was printed in 1737 from the original manuscript, another in 1883 from a later transcript in the Bodleian, while a third is preserved in a fragmentary state in the British Museum.[[119]] All three deal chiefly with contemporary affairs, the two former being concerned with the abuses of the church, while the last is a panegyric of the 'present age,' and especially of English maritime adventure. This is certainly the most pleasing of the three, though the style is at times pretentious and over-charged with far-fetched allusions. There are, however, fine passages, as for instance the lines on Drake:
And yet some say that from the Ocean maine,
He will returne when Arthur comes againe.
More directly concerned with the political events of the day is the curious eclogue Δάφνις Πολυστέφανος by Sir George Buc, published in 1605, in praise of the Genest crown, the royal right by Apollo's divine decree of a long line of English kings, who are passed in review by way of introduction to the praises of their latest representative. The work was revised by an unknown hand for the accession of Charles, and republished under the title of The Great Plantagenet in 1635, as by 'Geo. Buck, Gent.' Sir George held the post of Master of the Revels from 1608 to 1622, and died the following year.
In 1607 appeared a poem 'Mirrha the Mother of Adonis,' by William Barksted, to which were appended three eclogues by Lewes Machin.[[120]] Of these, one describes the love of a shepherd and his nymph, while the other two treat the theme of Apollo and Hyacinth. Composed in easy verse of no particular distinction these poems belong to that borderland between the idyllic and the salacious on which certain shepherd-poets loved to dally.
The years 1614 and 1615 saw the appearance of works of considerably greater interest from every point of view, among others from that of what I have described as pastoral freemasonry. In the former year there appeared a small octavo volume entitled The Shepherd's Pipe. The chief contributor was William Browne of Tavistock, the first book of whose pastoral epic, Britannia's Pastorals, had appeared the previous year. Besides seven eclogues from his pen, the volume contained one by Christopher Brooke, one by Sir John Davies, and two by George Wither. These last two were republished in 1615, with three additional pieces, in Wither's collection entitled The Shepherd's Hunting. With the exception of one or two of Browne's, these fourteen eclogues all deal with the personal relation of the friends who disguise themselves respectively, Browne as Willy, Wither as Roget (a name later exchanged for that of Philarete), Brooke as Cuddie, and Davies as Wernock. Wither's were written, as we learn from the title-page of the 1615 volume, while the author was in prison in the Marshalsea for hunting vice with a pack of satires in full cry, that is, the Abuses Stript and Whipt of 1611. The verse seldom rises above an amiable mediocrity, the best that can be said for it being that it carries on, in a not wholly unworthy manner, the dainty tradition of the octosyllabic couplet between the Faithful Shepherdess and Milton's early poems. Browne's eclogues are chiefly remarkable for the introduction into the first of a long and rather tedious tale derived from a manuscript of Thomas Occleve's. The last of the series, an elegy on the death of Thomas, son of Sir Peter Manwood, has been quoted as the model of Lycidas, but the resemblance begins and ends with the fact that in either case the subject of the poem met his death by drowning--a resemblance which will scarcely support a charge of plagiarism[[121]].
In 1621 appeared six eclogues under the title of The Shepherd's Tales by the prolific miscellaneous writer Richard Brathwaite. Each in its turn recounts the amorous misfortunes of some swain, which usually arise out of the inconstancy of his sweetheart, and the prize of infelicity having been adjudged, the author, not perhaps without a touch of malice, sends the whole company off to a wedding. The Tales are noteworthy for the very pronounced dramatic gift they reveal, being in this respect quite unique in their kind. The same year saw the publication of the not very successful expansion of one of these eclogues into the pastoral narrative in verse, entitled 'Omphale or the Inconstant Shepherdesse.' Brathwaite had already in 1614 published the Poet's Willow, containing a 'Pastorall' which recounts the unsuccessful love of Berillus, an Arcadian shepherd, for the nymph Eliza[[122]].
Pursuing the chronological order we come next to Phineas Fletcher's 'Piscatorie Eclogs' appended to his Purple Island in 1633. Except that the scene is laid on the banks of a river instead of in the pastures, and that the characters spend their time looking after boats and nets instead of tending flocks, they differ in nought from the strictly pastoral compositions. They are seven in number, and deal either with personal subjects or with conventional themes. As an imitation of the Shepherd's Calender, without its uncouthness whether of subject or language, and equally without its originality or higher poetic value, the work is not wanting in merit, but it is most decidedly wanting in all power to arrest the reader's attention.