"One God is God of both (as poets feign);

"One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

Numberless instances might be produced to show with how little scruple the printers, and even the authors of that time, pillaged one another. A song, which is inserted in Lylly's Alexander, and Campaspe, in Blount's republication of his plays, "O for a bowl of fat Canary," is appended to the second edition of Middleton's A Mad World My Masters, as "a catch for the fifth Act sung by Sir Bounteous Progresse to his guests." But I find among Mr. Malone's poetical tracts the most singular instance of plagiarism I recollect to have met with. W. L. (whom these initials point out I know not) published in 1603 two poems, one entitled, Nothing for a New Yeare's Gift; the other, The Effects proceeding from Nothing, He concludes the dedication to his patron, Sir William Hide, in which he speaks very modestly of his sickly spirit and virgin Muse, with these lines:

"You lookt for Nothing Nothing I empart

"With the poore remnant of my broken hart."

He has kept his word: for he has done little more than transcribe a certain number of passages from Sylvester's Du Bartas. I should not perhaps have discovered this, had he not been so unfortunate in his selection, as to take those lines to which Dryden has given an unhappy celebrity:

"To glaze the lakes and bridle up the floods,
"And perriwig with snow the bald-pate woods."

BOSWELL.

THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM.

I.

SWEET Cytherea, sitting by a brook,

With young Adonis, lovely, fresh and green,
Did court the lad with many a lovely look,
Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.
She told him stories to delight his ear;

She show'd him favours to allure his eye;

To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there:
Touches so soft still conquer chastity'.
But whether unripe years did want conceit,
Or he refus'd to take her figur'd proffer,

The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,
But smile and jest at every gentle offer:

Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward;
He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!

II.

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn 2. And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,

'TOUCHES SO Soft still CONQUER chastity.] Thus, in Cymbe

line:

66

a touch more rare

"Subdues all pangs, all fears." STEEVENS.

2 Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn, &c.] Of this Sonnet the following translation was made by the late Mr. Vincent Bourne :

Vix matutinum ebiberat de gramine rorem

Umbrosa invitans Phoebus ad antra boves,
Cum secum placidi Cytherea ad fluminis undas
Adventum expectans sedit, Adoni, tuum.
Sub salicis sedit ramis, ubi sæpe solebat
Procumbens fastum deposuisse puer.

Estus erat gravis; at gravior sub pectore divæ
Qui fuit, et longe sævior, æstus erat.

When Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
A longing tarriance for Adonis made,
Under an osier growing by a brook,

A brook, where Adon us'd to cool his spleen :
Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
For his approach, that often there had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim;
The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,
Yet not so wistly, as this queen on him:

He spying her, bounc'd in, whereas he stood;
O Jove, quoth she, why was not I a flood?

III.

Fair was the morn, when the fair queen of love,

Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove 4,
For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;
Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill":
Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds;
Once, quoth she, did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,

Mox puer advenit, posuitque a corpore vestem,
Tam prope vix Venerem delituisse ratus ;
Utque deam vidit recubantem in margine ripæ,
Attonitus mediis insiliebat aquis.

Crudelem decepta dolum fraudemque superbum
Ut videt, his mæstis ingemit illa modis :
Cur ex æquoreæ spumâ cum nascerer undæ,

Non ipsa, o, inquit, Jupiter! unda fui! MALONE. Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,] The line preceding this is lost. MALONE.

upon a steep-up hill:] It has been suggested to me that this ought to be printed-upon a steep up-hill; but the other regulation is undoubtedly right. So, in a former sonnet:

"And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill—.”

MALONE.

Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!

See, in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore": She showed hers; he saw more wounds than one, And blushing fled, and left her all alone.

IV.

Venus with young Adonis sitting by her",
Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him;
She told the youngling how god Mars did try herR,
And as he fell to her, so fell she to him 9.

See, in my thigh, quoth she, here was the sore, &c.] Rabelais hath sported with the same thought in a chapter where he relateth the story of the Old Woman and the Lion. La Fontaine also indulgeth himself in Le Diable Papefiguiere, after a manner no whit more chastised:

Bref aussi tôt qu'il apperçut l'enorme
Solution de continuité,

Il demeura si fort épouvanté,

Qu'il prit la fuite, et laissa-la Perrette.

The varlet Shakspeare, however, on this occasion might have remembered the ancient ballad of the Gelding of the Devil, which beginneth thus:

"A merry jest I will you tell," &c.

And now I bethink me, somewhat like the same fancy occurreth in the Speculum Majus of Vincentius Bellovacensis, otherwise Vincent de Beauvais. AMNER.

7 FAIR Venus with Adonis sitting by her,] The old copy reads: "Venus with Adonis sitting by her."

The defect of the metre shows that a word was omitted at the press. This remark I owe to Dr. Farmer. MALONE.

I have given the epithet young as it is found in Fidessa.

the Preliminary Remarks. BoSWELL.

See

8 She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,] See Venus and Adonis, ante:

"I have been woo'd, as I entreat thee now,
"Even by the stern and direful god of war," &c.

MALONE.

how god Mars did try her." So, Prior:
"By Mars himself that armour has been try'd."

STEEVENS.

And as he fell to her, so FELL SHE to him.] I have given this line from Fidessa; the want of metre shows it to be corrupt as it appears in Jaggard :

"And as he fell to her, she fell to him."
2 D

VOL. XX.

Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god embrac'd me;
And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;

Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god unlac'd me,
As if the boy should use like loving charms:
Even thus, quoth she, he seized on my lips,
And with her lips on his did act the seizure;
And as she fetched breath, away he skips,
And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.
Ah! that I had my lady at this bay,
To kiss and clip me till I run away1!

The emphasis must be laid upon "to him," as the corresponding rhyme is "woo him." BOSWELL.

To kiss and clip me till I run away!] The latter part of this poem is thus given in Fidessa: the reader, by comparing them, will judge which was most likely to be the original, and which has suffered most from imperfect memory :

"Even thus, quoth she, the wanton god embrac'd me;
"And thus she clasp'd Adonis in her arms :

"Even thus, quoth she, the warlike god unlac'd me,
"As if the boy should use like loving charms :

"But he, a wayward boy, refus'd her offer,

"

"And ran away, the beauteous queen neglecting ;

Showing both folly to abuse her proffer,

"And all his sex of cowardice detecting;

"Oh, that I had my mistress at that bay,

"To kiss and clip me till I ran away." BOSWELL.

Crabbed age and youth, &c.] This little poem is likewise found in the Garland of Good Will, Part III. Dr. Percy thinks that it was intended for the mouth of Venus, "weighing the comparative merits of youthful Adonis and aged Vulcan." See the Reliques of Ancient Poetry, vol. i. p. 337, 2d edit.

This song is alluded to in The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tam'd, by Fletcher :

86

Thou fond man,

"Hast thou forgot the ballad, Crabbed age?

"Can May and January match together,

"And never a storm between them?" MALONE.

As we know not that Vulcan was much more aged than his brethren, Mars, Mercury, or Phoebus, and especially as the