The story of Midas (printed in 1592), including his subsequent decision between Apollo and Pan, needs no explanation. By the prologue we learn that in this form it was a union of several pieces: 'what 'heretofore hath been served in several dishes for a • feast is now minced in a charger for a gallimaufry ;' so that the author does not speak very respectfully of his work, nor does it deserve much praise. In one particular it merits notice, viz., that some of the comic scenes, between two sprightly lacqueys and a waiting-maid, are considerably better than those which relate to Midas, and superior perhaps to any others of the same description in Lyly's other works. may be necessary therefore to add a short specimen, with some pretensions to be thought lively without buffoonery.

It

Licio. But soft: here comes Pipenetta-What news? Pipenetta. I would not be in your coats for anything. 'Licio. Indeed, if thou shouldst rig up and down in our jackets, thou wouldst be thought a very tomboy. • Pipenetta. I mean I would not be in your cases. 'Petulus. Neither shalt thou, Pipenetta; for first they are too little for thy body, and then too fair to pull over so foul a skin.

Pipenetta. These boys be drunk. I would not be in your takings.

Licio. I think so, for we take nothing in our hands but weapons: it is for thee to use needles and pins

a sampler, not a buckler.

never have done-I

as you

shall be.

* The humour of the answer of Petulus depends upon taking curst

for coursed.

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'Petulus. Worse and worse: we are no chase, (pretty 'mopsy,) for deer we are not, neither red nor fallow, because we are bachelors and have not cornucopia: we " want heads. Hares we cannot be, because they are 'male one year and the next female: we change not our sex. Badgers we are not, for our legs are one as long as another; and who will take us to be foxes, that stand so near a goose and bite not?

'Pipenetta. Fools you are, and therefore good game for 'wise men to hunt. ... My mistress would rise, and 'lacks your worship to fetch her hair.

Petulus. Why, is it not on her head?

Pipenetta. Methinks it should; but I mean the hair

• that she must wear to-day.

'Licio. Why, doth she wear any but her own?

Pipenetta. In faith, Sir, no: I am sure it is her own when she pays for it.'

The plot of Mother Bombie (printed in 1594) relates principally to two fathers, one of whom has a foolish son, and the other a silly daughter, but neither of them knowing that the offspring of the other is half-witted. The object of the two old men is to impose their children upon each other, and this absurd scheme is absurdly enough conducted without wit or drollery. Mother Bombie, the cunning woman of Rochester,' is resorted to by various parties for information as to future events, and hence the title of the production. The only portion at all amusing is a scene between some mischievous pages and a hackneyman, who had lent one of them a horse: the description of the animal, which, among other perfections, 6 was so obedient that he would do

duty every minute on his knees, as though every

❝ stone had been his father,' seems imitated, in some degree, from Berni's praise of a mule that had been lent to him by a friend, beginning

• Dal piu profondo e tenebroso centro*,' &c.,

and would show, as was most probable, that Lyly was acquainted with the Italian poets.

A passage in The Maid's Metamorphosis (attributed to Lyly, and printed anonymously in 1600) was imitated from Spenser's Fairy Queen. This production is a pretty pastoral, chiefly in rhyme, some of the comic scenes between shepherd-boys and the page of a courtier being the only part of the performance in prose. Philander and Orestes are employed to carry away and murder Eurymene, a beautiful virgin of low parentage, with whom Ascanio, the king's son, had fallen desperately in love. They take compassion upon her, and leave her in a wood, where a forester and a shepherd fall in love with her. She is followed by the prince, but is sought in vain; and he exclaims in his despair

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• Adorned with the presence of my love,

The woods, I fear, such secret power shall prove, 'As they'll shut up each path, hide every way, Because they still would have her go astray,

And in that place would always have her seen,

Only because they would be ever green,

' And keep the winged choristers still there

To banish winter clean out of the year.'

Some pleasing variety is then given to the scene by

*Rime Piacevoli del Berni, Copetta, Francesi, &c., edit. Vicenza, 1609, vol. ii. fol. 4 b.

the intervention of Juno, Iris, and Somnus, who produce for Ascanio a vision of Eurymene, after which the fairies are introduced, singing and dancing

By the moon we sport and play,
With the night begins our day :

'As we dance the dew doth fall.

Trip it, little urchins all,

'Lightly as the little bee,

Two by two, and three by three,

'And about go we, and about go we.'

Fairies, as has been seen, are several times em ployed in Lyly's plays, but this is the first time he has made them vocal

First Fairy.

I do come about the copse,
'Leaping upon flowers' tops:
Then I get upon a fly,

• She carries me above the sky;
And trip and go.

Sec. Fairy. When a dew-drop falleth down,

'And doth light upon my crown,

'Then I shake my head and skip;

And about I trip.

Third Fairy. When I feel a girl asleep,

'Underneath her frock I peep,

There to sport, and there I play,
'And I bite her like a flea;
'And about I skip.'

The title of The Maid's Metamorphosis is derived from this circumstance:-Apollo falls in love with Eurymene, and boasts his power as a god: she calls upon him to prove it by changing her sex, and he complies, and is caught in the trap. Eurymene has

afterwards reason to regret her metamorphosis; and the Muses, at the instance of Arimanthus, a wizard, (and who turns out to be the father of Eurymene, and a banished nobleman,) induce Apollo to relent, and to restore the lady to her sex, after which she is united to Ascanio. It is in the following description of the spring, near which the Graces and Muses inhabit, that the imitation of Spenser is found

Then in these verdant fields, all richly dyed
'With nature's gifts and Flora's painted pride,
'There is a goodly spring, whose crystal streams,
'Beset with myrtles, keep back Phoebus' beams :
There in rich seats, all wrought of ivory,
'The Graces sit, listening the melody.
'The warbling birds do from their pretty bills
Unite in concord as the brook distils,

'Whose gentle murmur, with his buzzing notes,
'Is as a base unto their hollow throats *.
'Garlands beside they wear upon their brows,
'Made of all sorts of flowers earth allows,
From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise,
'As you would swear that place is Paradise.'

In the piece last noticed, Lyly introduced some blank-verses; but his Woman in the Moon (printed in 1597), with the exception of a few couplets, is entirely in that form of composition: it is, however, the blank-verse of a person accustomed to rhyme.

Fairy Queen, B. II., c. xii., st. 71. With reference to the four lines beginning' The warbling birds,' &c., it is, however, but fair to remember, that Spenser himself followed Tasso (Ger. Lib. xvi. 12.)

Vezzosi augelli infra le verdi fronde, &c.

and Lyly possibly resorted to the same original,