SOURCE: “The Three Masterpieces,” in Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, A. H. Bullen, 1906, pp. 264-316.

[In the following excerpt, Greg examines what he judges the two greatest English dramatic pastoral romances, John Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess and Ben Jonson's Sad Shepherd. He notes Fletcher's greater indebtedness to Italian pastoral dramas than to English courtly-chivalric pieces and finds Jonson's work—the first truly English pastoral—to be a fine achievement despite its several weaknesses. Greg compares these two pieces to Thomas Randolph's Amyntas, a work that, despite its “inferior” merit, shares with the other dramas certain characteristics of form.]

I

Among English pastorals there are two plays, and two only, that can be said to stand in the front rank of the romantic drama as a whole. The first of these is, of course, Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. In the case of the second the statement would perhaps be more correctly put in the conditional mood, for whatever might have been its importance had it reached completion, the fragmentary state of Jonson's Sad Shepherd has prevented its taking the place it deserves in the history of dramatic literature. With these two productions may for the purposes of criticism be classed Thomas Randolph's Amyntas, which, however inferior to the others in poetic merit, yet like them stands apart in certain matters of intention and origin from the general run of pastorals, and may, moreover, well support a claim to be considered one of the three chief English examples of the kind.

These three plays embrace a period of some thirty years, before, during, and after which a considerable number of dramatic productions, more or less pastoral in character, appeared. The chief feature in which the three plays we are about to consider are distinguished from these is a certain direct and conscious, though in no case subservient, relation they bear to the drama of the Italians; while at the same time we are struck with the absence of any influence of subsidiary or semipastoral tradition, of the mythological drama, or the courtly-chivalric romance. We shall therefore gain more by considering them in connexion with each other than we shall lose by abandoning strict chronological sequence.

When Fletcher's play was produced, probably in the winter of 1608-9, it proved a complete failure¹. An edition appeared without date, but before May, 1610, to which were prefixed verses by Field, Beaumont, Chapman, and Jonson. If, as some have supposed, the last named already had at the time a pastoral play of his own in contemplation, the reception accorded to his friend's venture can hardly have been encouraging, and may have led to the postponement of the plan; as we shall see, there is no reason to believe that the Sad Shepherd was taken in hand for another quarter of a century almost. The Faithful Shepherdess was revived long after Fletcher's death, at a court performance in 1633-4, and shone by comparison with Montagu's Shepherds' Paradise acted the year before. It was then again placed on the public boards at the Blackfriars, where it met with some measure of success.

The Faithful Shepherdess was the earliest, and long remained the only, deliberate attempt to acclimatize upon the popular stage in England a pastoral drama which should occupy a position corresponding to that of Tasso and Guarini in Italy. It was no crude attempt at transplantation, no mere imitation of definite models, as was the case with Daniel's work, but a deliberate act of creative genius inspired by an ambitious rivalry. Its author might be supposed well fitted for his task. Although it was one of his earliest, if not actually his very earliest work, it is clear that he must have already possessed an adequate and practical knowledge of stagecraft, and have been familiar with the temper of London audiences. He further possessed poetical powers of no mean order, in particular a lyrical gift almost unsurpassed among his fellows for grace and sweetness, howbeit somewhat lacking in the qualities of refinement and power. That he should have failed so signally is a fact worth attention. For fail he did. His friends, it is true, endeavoured as usual to explain the fiasco of the first performance by the ignorance and incompetence of the spectators, but we shall, I think, see reason to come ourselves to a scarcely less unfavourable conclusion. Nor is this failure to be explained by the inherent disadvantage at which the sentimental and lyrical pastoral stood when brought face to face with the wider and stronger interest of the romantic drama. Such considerations may to some extent account for the attitude of the contemporary audience; they cannot be supposed seriously to affect the critical verdict of posterity. We must trust to analysis to show wherein lay the weakness of the piece; later we may be able to suggest some cause for Fletcher's failure.

In the first place we may consider for a moment Fletcher's indebtedness to Tasso and Guarini, a question on which very different views have been held. As to the source of his inspiration, there can be no reasonable doubt, though it has been observed with truth by more than one critic, that the Faithful Shepherdess may more properly be regarded as written in rivalry, than in imitation, of the Italians. In any case, but for the Aminta and Pastor fido, the Faithful Shepherdess would never have come into being; as a type it reveals neither original invention nor literary evolution, but is a conscious attempt to adapt the Italian pastoral to the requirements of the English stage. As an individual piece, on the other hand, it is for the most part original and independent, little direct influence of the Italians being traceable in the plot, whether in general construction or in single incidents and characters. A certain resemblance has indeed been discovered between Guarini's Corisca and Fletcher's Cloe, but the fact chiefly shows the superficiality of the comparison upon which critics have relied, since if Corisca suggested some traits of Cloe, she may be held responsible for far more of Amarillis. Where Guarini depicted a courtesan, Fletcher has painted a yahoo. Corisca, wanton and cynical, plays, like Amarillis, the part of mischief-maker and deceiver, and, so far from seeking, like her successfully eludes the embraces of the shepherd-satyr. On the other hand, a clear difference between Fletcher's work and that of the Italians may be seen in the respective use made of supernatural agencies. From these the southern drama is comparatively free. A somewhat ultra-medicinal power of herbs, the introduction of an oracle in the preliminary history and of a wholly superfluous seer in the dénoûment make up the whole sum so far as the Pastor fido is concerned, while the Aminta cannot even show as much as this. In the Faithful Shepherdess we find not only the potent herbs, holy water, and magic taper of Clorin's bower, but the wonder-working well and the actual presence of the river-god, who rises, not to pay courtly compliments in the prologue, but to take an actual part in the plot². Alike in its positive and negative aspects Fletcher's relation to the Italian masters was conscious and acknowledged. Far from feigning ignorance, he boldly challenged comparison with his predecessors by imitating the very title of Guarini's play, or yet closer, had he known it, that of Contarini's Fida ninfa³.

A glance at the dramatis personae reveals a curious artificial symmetry which, as we shall shortly see, is significant of the spirit in which Fletcher approached the composition of his play. In Clorin we have a nymph vowed to perpetual virginity, an anchorite at the tomb of her dead lover; in Thenot a worshipper of her constancy, whose love she cures by feigning a return. In Perigot and Amoret are represented a pair of ideal lovers—so Fletcher gives us to understand—in whose chaste bosoms dwell no looser flames. Amarillis is genuinely enamoured of Perigot, with a love that bids modesty farewell, and will dare even crime and dishonour for its attainment; Cloe, as already said, is a study in erotic pathology. She is the female counterpart of the Sullen Shepherd, who inherits the traditional nature of the satyr, that monster having been transformed into the gentle minister of the cloistral Clorin. So, again, the character of Amarillis finds its counterpart in that of Alexis, whose love for Cloe is at least human; while Daphnis, who meets Cloe's desperate advances with a shy innocence, is in effect, whatever he may have been in intention, hardly other than a comic character. The river-god and the satyr, the priest of Pan and his attendant Old Shepherd, who themselves stand outside the circle of amorous intrigue, complete the list of personae.

The action which centres round these characters cannot be regarded as forming a plot in any strict sense of the term, though Fletcher has reaped a little praise here and there for his construction of one. It is hardly too much to say that the various complications arise and are solved, leaving the situation at the end precisely as it was at the beginning. Even so may the mailed figures in some ancestral hall start into life at the stroke of midnight, and hold high revel with the fair dames and damsels from out the gilt frames upon the walls, content to range themselves once more and pose in their former attitudes as soon as the first grey light of morning shimmers through the mullioned windows. Perigot and Amoret come through the trials of the night with their love unshaken, but apparently no nearer its fulfilment; Thenot's love for Clorin is cured for the moment, but is in danger of breaking out anew when he shall discover that she is after all constant to her vow; Cloe recovers from her amorous possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis are dispelled by the ‘sage precepts’ of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no more than the comedy of errors of a midsummer night.

The play, nevertheless, possesses merits which it would be unfair to neglect. Narrative is, in the first place, entirely dispensed with in favour of actual representation, though the result, it must be admitted, is somewhat kaleidoscopic. Next, the action is complete within itself, and needs no previous history to explain it; no slight advantage for stage representation. As a result the interest is kept constantly whetted, the movement is brisk and varied, and with the help of the verse goes far towards carrying off the many imperfections of the piece.

It will have been already noticed that the characters fall into certain distinct groups which may be regarded as exemplifying certain aspects of love. Supersensuous sentiment, chaste and honourable regard, too colourless almost to deserve the name of love, natural and unrestrained desire, and violent lust, all these are clearly typified. What we fail to find is the presentment of a love which shall reveal men and women neither as beasts of instinct nor as carved figures of alabaster fit only to adorn a tomb. This typical nature of the characters has given rise to a theory recently propounded that the play should be regarded as an allegory illustrative of certain aspects of love⁴. So regarded much of the absurdity, alike of the characters and of the action, is said to disappear. This may be so, but does it really mean anything more than that abstractions not being in fact possessed of character at all, and being as ideals unfettered by any demands of probability, absurdities pass unnoticed in their case which at the touchstone of actuality at once start into glaring prominence? Moreover, though the Faithful Shepherdess was among the first fruits of its author's genius, and though it may be contended that he never gained a complete mastery over the difficult art of dramatic construction, Fletcher early proved his familiarity with the popular demands of the romantic stage, and was far too practical a craftsman to be likely to add the dead-weight of a moral allegory to the already dangerous form of the Arcadian pastoral. The theory does not in reality bring the problem presented by Fletcher's play any nearer solution; since, if the characters are regarded solely as representing abstract ideas, such as chastity, desire, lust, they strip themselves of every shred of dramatic interest, and could not, as Fletcher must have known, stand the least chance upon the stage; while if they take to cover their nakedness however diaphanous a veil of dramatic personality, the absurdities of character and plot at once become apparent.

What truth there may be underlying this theory will, I think, be best explained upon a different hypothesis. Let us in the first place endeavour, so far as may be possible after the lapse of nearly three centuries, to realize the mental attitude of the author in approaching the composition of his play. In order to do this a closer analysis of the piece will be necessary.

The first point of importance for the interpretation of Fletcher's pastoralism is to be found in the quaintly self-confident preface which he prefixed to the printed edition. Throughout our inquiry we have observed two main types of pastoral, to one or other of which all work in this kind approaches; that, namely, in which the interest depends upon some allegorical or topical meaning lying beneath and beyond the apparent form, and that in which it is confined to the actual and obvious presentment itself. Of the former type Drayton wrote in the preface to his Pastorals: ‘The subject of Pastorals, as the language of it, ought to be poor, silly, and of the coursest Woofe in appearance. Neverthelesse, the most High and most Noble Matters of the World may bee shaddowed in them, and for certaine sometimes are⁵.’ In his preface to the Faithful Shepherdess the author adopts the opposite position, as Daniel, in the prologue to the Queen's Arcadia, and in spite of the strongly topical nature of that piece, had done before him. Fletcher in an oftenquoted passage writes: ‘Understand, therefore, a pastoral to be a representation of shepherds and shepherdesses with their actions and passions, which must be such as may agree with their natures, at least not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions; they are not to be adorned with any art, but such improper [i. e. common] ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and fountains, the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars, and such like.’ His interest would, then, appear to lie in a more or less realistic representation, and he appears more concerned to enforce a reasonable propriety of character than to discover deep matters of philosophy and state. This passage alone would, therefore, make the theory we glanced at above improbable. Fletcher next proceeds, in a passage of some interest in the history of criticism: ‘A tragi-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy, yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy, which must be a representation of familiar people, with such kind of trouble as no life be questioned; so that a god is as lawful in this as in a tragedy, and mean people as in a comedy.’ One would hardly have supposed it necessary to define tragi-comedy to the English public in 1610, and even had it been necessary, this could hardly be accepted as a very satisfactory definition. The audience, ‘having ever had a singular gift in defining,’ as the author sarcastically remarks, concluded a pastoral tragi-comedy ‘to be a play of country hired shepherds in gray cloaks, with curtailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, and sometimes killing one another’; and after all, so far as tragi-comedy is concerned, their belief was not unreasonable. Fletcher's definition is obviously borrowed from the academic criticism of the renaissance, and bears no relation to the living tradition of the English stage: since his play suggests acquaintance with Guarini's Pastor fido, it is perhaps not fantastic to imagine that in his preface he was indebted to the same author's Compendio della poesia tragicomica. What is important to note is Fletcher's concern at this point with critical theory.

Without seeking to dogmatize as to the exact extent of Fletcher's debt to individual Italian sources, it may safely be maintained that he was familiar with the writings of the masters of pastoral, and worked with his eyes open: whatever modifications he introduced into traditional characters were the result of deliberate intention. In general, two types of love may be traced in the Italian pastoral, namely the honest human desire of such characters as Mirtillo and Amarillis, Dorinda, Aminta, and the more or less close approach to mere sensuality found in Corisca and the satyrs. We nowhere find any approach to supersensuous passion, indifferent to its own consummation; Silvia and Silvio are either entirely careless, or else touched with a genuine human love. Nor are the more tumultuous sides of human passion represented, for it is impossible so to regard Corisca's love for Mirtillo, which is at bottom nothing but the cynical caprice of the courtesan, who regards her lovers merely as so many changes of garment—

Molti averne, uno goderne, e cangiar spesso.

Fletcher appears to have thought that success might lie in extending and refining upon the gamut of love. He possessed, when he set to work, no plot ready to hand capable of determining his characters, but appears to have selected what he considered a suitable variety of types to fill a pastoral stage, not because he desired to be in any way allegorical, but because in such a case it was the abstract relationship among the characters which alone could determine his choice. Having selected his characters, he further seems to have left them free to evolve a plot for themselves, a thing they signally failed to do. Thus there may be a certain truth underlying the theory with which we started, inasmuch as the characters appear to have been chosen, not for any particular dramatic business, but for certain abstract qualities, and some trace of their origin may yet cling about them in the accomplished work; but that Fletcher deliberately intended to illustrate a set of psychological conditions, not by dramatic presentation, but by the use of types and abstractions, is to my mind incredible. In the composition of his later plays he had the necessities of a given plot, incidents, or other fashioning cause, to determine the characters which it was in its turn to illustrate, and here he showed resourceful craftsmanship. In the case of the present play he had to fashion characters in vacuo and then weave them into such a plot as they might be capable of sustaining. In other words, he reversed the normal order of artistic creation, and attempted to make the abstract generate the concrete, instead of making the individual example imply, while being informed by, the fundamental idea.

So much for the formal and theoretic side of the question. A few words as to the general tone and purpose of the play. For some reason unexplained, having selected his characters, which one may almost say exhibit every form of love except a wholesome and a human one, the author deemed it necessary that the whole should redound to the praise and credit of cloistral virginity and glozing ‘honour,’ and whatever else of unreal sentiment the cynicism of the renaissance had grafted on the superstition of the middle age. Again comparing the Faithful Shepherdess with Fletcher's other work, we find that when he is dealing with actual men and women in his romantic plays he troubles himself little concerning the moral which it may be possible to extract from his plot; he is rightly conscious that that at all events is not the business of art; but when he comes to create in vacuo he is at once obsessed by some Platonic theory regarding the ethical aim of the poet. The victory, therefore, shall be with the powers of good, purity and vestal maidenhood shall triumph and undergo apotheosis at his hands, the world shall see how fair a monument of stainless womanhood he can erect in melodious verse. Well and good; for this is indeed an object to which no self-respecting person can take exception. There was, however, one point the importance of which the author failed to realize, namely, that this ideal which he sought to honour was one with which he was himself wholly out of sympathy. Consequently, in place of the supreme picture of womanly purity he intended, he produced what is no better than a grotesque caricature. His cynical indifference is not only evident from many of his other works, but constantly forces itself upon our attention even in the present play. The falsity of his whole position appears in the unconvincing conventionality of the patterns of chastity themselves, and in the unreality of the characters which serve them as foils—Cloe being utterly preposterous except as a study in pathology, and Amarillis essentially a tragic figure who can only be tolerated on condition of her real character being carefully veiled. It appears again in the utterly irrational conversion and purification of these characters, and we may further trace it in the profound cynicism, all the more terrible because apparently unconscious, with which the author is content to dismiss Thenot, cured of his altruistic devotion by the shattering at one blow of all that he held most sacred in woman.

In this antagonism between Fletcher's own sympathies and the ideal he set before him seems to me to lie the key to the enigma of his play. Only one other rational solution is possible, namely that he intended the whole as an elaborate satire on all ideas of chastity whatever. It is hardly surprising, under the circumstances, that one of the most persistent false notes in the piece is that indelicacy of self-conscious virtue which we have before observed in the case of Tasso. If on the other hand we have to pronounce Fletcher free of any taint of seductive sentiment, we must nevertheless charge him with a considerable increase in that cynicism with regard to womankind in general which had by now become characteristic of the pastoral drama. We have already noticed it in the case of Tasso's ‘Or, non sai tu com' è fatta la donna?’ and of the words in which Corisca describes her changes of lovers, to say nothing of its appearance at the close of the Orfeo. In English poetry we find Daniel writing:

Light are their waving vailes, light their attires,
Light are their heads, and lighter their desires;

(Queen's Arcadia, II. iii.)

while with Fletcher the charge becomes yet more bitter. Thenot, contemplating the constancy of Clorin, is amazed

                                                                                that such virtue can
Be resident in lesser than a man,

(II. ii. 83.)

or that any should be found capable of mastering the suggestions of caprice

And that great god of women, appetite.

(ib. 146.)

Amarillis, courting Perigot, asks in scorn:

Still think'st thou such a thing as chastity
Is amongst women?

(III. i. 297.)

The Sullen Shepherd declares of the wounded Amoret:

                                                                                Thou wert not meant,
Sure, for a woman, thou art so innocent;

(ib. 358.)

and sums up his opinion of the sex in the words:

Women love only opportunity
And not the man.

(ib. 127.)

So Fletcher wrote, and in the same mood the arch-cynic of a later age exclaimed:

ev'ry Woman is at heart a Rake!

But it is high time to inquire how it is, supposing the objections we have been considering to be justly chargeable against the Faithful Shepherdess, that it should ever have come to be regarded as a classic of the language, that it should be by far the most widely known of its author's works, and that we should find ourselves turning to it again and again with ever-fresh delight. The reader has doubtless already answered the question. Fletcher brought to the composition of his play a gift of easy lyric versification, a command of varied rhythm, and a felicity of phrase, allusion, recollection, and echo, such as have seldom been surpassed. The wealth of pure poetry overflowing in every scene is of power to make us readily forget the host of objections which serious criticism must raise, and revel with mere delight in the verbal melody. The play is literally crowded with incidental sketches of exquisite beauty which suggest comparison with the more set descriptions of Tasso, and flash past on the speed of the verse as the flowers of the roadside and glimpses of the distant landscape through breaks in the hedge flash for an instant on the gaze of the rider⁶.

Before passing on, and in spite of the fact that the play must be familiar to most readers, I here transcribe a few of its most fascinating passages as the best defence Fletcher has to oppose to the objections of his critics. It is in truth no lame one⁷.

In the opening scene Clorin, who has vowed herself to a life of chastity at the grave of her lover, is met by the satyr, who at once bows in worship of her beauty. He has been sent by Pan to fetch fruits for the entertainment of ‘His paramour the Syrinx bright.’ ‘But behold a fairer sight!’ he exclaims on seeing Clorin:

By that heavenly form of thine,
Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods, for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold
And live. Therefore on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee
In worship of thy deity(8).

(I. i. 58.)

The next scene takes place in the neighbourhood of the village. At the conclusion of a festival we find the priest pronouncing blessing upon the assembled people and purging them with holy water⁹, after which they disperse with a song. As they are going, Perigot stays Amoret, begging her to lend an ear to his suit. He addresses her:

                                                                                Oh you are fairer far
Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star
That guides the wandering seaman through the deep,
Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep
Head of an agèd mountain, and more white
Than the new milk we strip before day-light
From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks,
Your hair more beauteous than those hanging locks
Of young Apollo!

(I. ii. 60.)

They agree to meet by night in the neighbouring wood, there to bind their love with mutual vows. The tryst is set where

                                        to that holy wood is consecrate
A virtuous well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.
By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn,
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither envy nor old time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness.
By this fresh fountain many a blushing maid
Hath crown'd the head of her long-lovèd shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity.

(I. ii. 99.)

Cloe, repulsed by Thenot, sings her roguishly wanton carol:

                    Come, shepherds, come!
                                        Come away
                                        Without delay,
Whilst the gentle time doth stay.
                    Green woods are dumb,
And will never tell to any
Those dear kisses, and those many
Sweet embraces, that are given;
Dainty pleasures, that would even
Raise in coldest age a fire
And give virgin blood desire
                                        Then if ever,
                                        Now or never,
                    Come and have it;
                                        Think not I
                                        Dare deny
                    If you crave it.

(I. iii. 71.)

Her fortune with the modest Daphnis is scarcely better, and she is just lamenting the coldness of men when Alexis enters and forthwith accosts her with his fervent suit. She agrees, with a pretty show of yielding modesty:

                                                                                lend me all thy red,
Thou shame-fac'd Morning, when from Tithon's bed
Thou risest ever maiden!

(ib. 176.)

The second act opens with the exquisite evensong of the priest:

Shepherds all and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course hath run.
See the dew-drops how they kiss
Every little flower that is,
Hanging on their velvet heads
Like a rope of crystal beads;
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from under ground,
At whose rising mists unsound,
Damps and vapours fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures, where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom.

(II. i. 1.)

In the following scene Thenot declares to Clorin his singular passion, founded upon admiration of her constancy to her dead lover. He too can plead his love in verse of no ordinary strain:

                                                                                'Tis not the white or red
Inhabits in your cheek that thus can wed
My mind to adoration, nor your eye,
Though it be full and fair, your forehead high
And smooth as Pelops' shoulder; not the smile
Lies watching in those dimples to beguile
The easy soul, your hands and fingers long
With veins enamell'd richly, nor your tongue,
Though it spoke sweeter than Arion's harp;
Your hair woven in many a curious warp,
Able in endless error to enfold
The wandering soul; not the true perfect mould
Of all your body, which as pure doth shew
In maiden whiteness as the Alpen snow:
All these, were but your constancy away,
Would please me less than the black stormy day
The wretched seaman toiling through the deep.
But, whilst this honour'd strictness you do keep,
Though all the plagues that e'er begotten were
In the great womb of air were settled here,
In opposition, I would, like the tree,
Shake off those drops of weakness, and be free
Even in the arm of danger.

(II. ii. 116.)

The last lines, however fine in themselves, are utterly out of place in the mouth of this morbid sentimentalist. They breath the brave spirit of Chapman's outburst:

Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t'have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water and her keel plows air.

(Byron's Conspiracy, III. i.)

Into the details of the night's adventures there is no call for us to enter; it will be sufficient to detach a few passages from their setting, which can usually be done without material injury. The whole scenery of the wood, in the densest thicket of which Pan is feasting with his mistress, while about their close retreat the satyr keeps watch and ward, mingling now and again in the action of the mortals, is strongly reminiscent of the Midsummer Night's Dream. The wild-wood minister thus describes his charge in the octosyllabic couplets which constitute such a characteristic of the play:

Now, whilst the moon doth rule the sky,
And the stars, whose feeble light
Give a pale shadow to the night,
Are up, great Pan commanded me
To walk this grove about, whilst he,
In a corner of the wood
Where never mortal foot hath stood,
Keeps dancing, music and a feast
To entertain a lovely guest;
Where he gives her many a rose
Sweeter than the breath that blows
The leaves, grapes, berries of the best;
I never saw so great a feast.
But to my charge. Here must I stay
To see what mortals lose their way,
And by a false fire, seeming-bright,
Train them in and leave them right.

(III. i. 167.)

Perigot's musing when he meets Amoret and supposes her to be the transformed Amarillis is well conceived; he greets her:

                                                                                What art thou dare
Tread these forbidden paths, where death and care
Dwell on the face of darkness?

(IV. iv. 15.)

while not less admirable is the pathos of Amoret's pleading; how she had

                              lov'd thee dearer than mine eyes, or
that
Which we esteem our honour, virgin state;
Dearer than swallows love the early morn,
Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn;
Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast
Another, and far dearer than the last;
Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all
The self-love were within thee that did fall
With that coy swain that now is made a flower,
For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower! …
Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head,
And noise it to the world, my love is dead!

(ib. 102.)

Then again we have the lines in which the satyr heralds the early dawn:

See, the day begins to break,
And the light shoots like a streak
Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold
Whilst the morning doth unfold.
Now the birds begin to rouse,
And the squirrel from the boughs
Leaps to get him nuts and fruit;
The early lark, that erst was mute,
Carols to the rising day
Many a note and many a lay.

(ib. 165.)

The last act, with its obligation to wind up such loose threads of action as have been spun in the course of the play, is perhaps somewhat lacking in passages of particular beauty, but it yields us Amarillis' prayer as she flies from the Sullen Shepherd, and the final speech of the satyr. However out of keeping with character the former of these may be, it is in itself unsurpassed:

                                                                                If there be
Ever a neighbour-brook or hollow tree,
Receive my body, close me up from lust
That follows at my heels! Be ever just,
Thou god of shepherds, Pan, for her dear sake
That loves the rivers' brinks, and still doth shake
In cold remembrance of thy quick pursuit;
Let me be made a reed, and, ever mute,
Nod to the waters' fall, whilst every blast
Sings through my slender leaves that I was chaste!

(V. iii. 79.)

Lastly, we have the satyr's farewell to Clorin:

Thou divinest, fairest, brightest,
Thou most powerful maid and whitest,
Thou most virtuous and most blessèd,
Eyes of stars, and golden-tressèd
Like Apollo; tell me, sweetest,
What new service now is meetest
For the satyr? Shall I stray
In the middle air, and stay
The sailing rack, or nimbly take
Hold by the moon, and gently make
Suit to the pale queen of night
For a beam to give thee light?
Shall I dive into the sea
And bring thee coral, making way
Through the rising waves that fall
In snowy fleeces? Dearest, shall
I catch thee wanton fawns, or flies
Whose woven wings the summer dyes
Of many colours? get thee fruit,
Or steal from heaven old Orpheus' lute?
All these I'll venture for, and more,
To do her service all these woods adore.
…
So I take my leave and pray
All the comforts of the day,
Such as Phoebus' heat doth send
On the earth, may still befriend
Thee and this arbour!
Clorin.                                         And to
thee,
All thy master's love be free!

(V. v. 238 and 268.)

Such then is Fletcher's play. It is in the main original so far as its own individuality is concerned, and apart from the general tradition which it follows. Its direct debt to Guarini is confined to the title and certain traits in the characters of Cloe and Amarillis. Further indebtedness has, it is true, been found to Spenser, but some hint of the transformation of Amarillis, a few names and an occasional reminiscence, make up the sum total of specific obligations. Endowed with a poetic gift which far surpassed the imitative facility of Guarini and approached the consummate art of Tasso himself, Fletcher attempted to rival the Arcadian drama of the Italians. Not content, as Daniel had been, merely to reproduce upon accepted models, he realized that some fundamental innovation was necessary. But while he adopted and justified the greater licence and range of effect allowed upon the English stage, thereby altering the form from pseudo-classical to wholly romantic, he failed in any way to touch or vitalize the inner spirit of the kind, trusting merely to lively action and lyrical jewellery to hold the attention of his audience. He failed, and it was not till some years after his death that the play, having been stamped with the approbation of the court, won a tardy recognition from the general public; and even when, after the restoration, Pepys records a successful revival in 1663, he adds that it was ‘much thronged after for the scene's sake¹⁰.’

II

Randolph's play, entitled ‘Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry,’ belongs no doubt to the few years that intervened between the author's exchanging the academic quiet of Cambridge and the courts of Trinity, of which college he was a fellow, for the life and bustle of theatre and tavern in London about 1632, and his premature death which took place in March, 1635, before he had completed his thirtieth year. It is tempting to imagine that the revival of Fletcher's play on Twelfth Night, 1633-4, may possibly have occasioned Randolph's attempt, in which case the play must belong to the very last year of his life; but though there is nothing to make this supposition improbable, pastoral representations were far too general at that date for it to be necessary to look for any specific suggestion. The play first appeared in print in the collected edition of the author's poems edited by his brother in 1638.

Like Fletcher's play, the Amyntas is a conscious attempt at so altering the accepted type of the Arcadian pastoral as to fit it for representation on the popular stage, for though acted, as the title-page informs us, before their Majesties at Whitehall, it was probably also performed and intended by the author for performance on the public boards¹¹. Yet the two experiments differ widely. Fletcher, as we have seen, while completing the romanticizing of the pastoral by employing the machinery and conventions of the English instead of the classical stage, nevertheless introduced into his play none of the diversity and breadth of interest commonly found in the romantic drama proper, and indeed the Faithful Shepherdess lacks almost entirely even that elaboration and firmness of plot which we find in the Pastor fido. Randolph, on the other hand, chose a plot closely resembling Guarini's in structure, and even retained much of the scenic arrangement of the Italian theatre. But in the complexity of action and multiplicity of incident, in the comedy of certain scenes and the substratum of pure farce in others, he introduced elements of the popular drama of a nature powerfully to affect the essence of his production. Where Fletcher substituted for a theoretic classicism an academic romanticism, Randolph insisted on treating the venerable proprieties of the pastoral according to the traditions of English melodrama. …

[I maintain] that the Amyntas is one of the most interesting and important of the experiments which English writers made in the pastoral drama, that it possesses dramatic qualities to which few of its kind can pretend, and that pervading and transforming the whole is the genial humour and the sparkling wit of its brilliant and short-lived author. His pastoral muse was a hearty buxom lass, and kind withal, not overburdened with modesty, yet wholesome and cleanly, and if at times her laugh rings out where the subject passes the natural enjoyment of kind, it is even then careless and merry, and there is often a ground of real fun in the jest. Her finest qualities are a sharp and ready wit and a wealth of imaginative pathos, alike pervaded by her bubbling humour; on the other hand there are moments, if rare, when in an ill-considered attempt to assume the buskin tread she reveals in her paste-board fustian somewhat of the unregeneracy of the plebian trull. The time may yet come when Randolph's reputation, based upon his other works—the Jealous Lovers, a Plautine comedy, clever, but preposterous in more ways than one, the Muses' Looking Glass, a perfectly undramatic morality of humours, and the poems, generally witty, occasionally graceful, and more than occasionally improper—will be enhanced by the recognition of the fact that he came nearer than any other writer to reconciling a kind of pastoral with the temper of the English stage. It was at least in part due to a constitutional indifference on the part of the London public to the loves and sorrows of imaginary swains and nymphs, that Randolph's play failed to leave any appreciable mark upon our dramatic literature¹².

III

In Jonson's Sad Shepherd we find ourselves once again considering a work which is not only one of very great interest in the history of pastoral, but which at the same time raises important questions of literary criticism. So far the most interesting compositions we have had to consider—Daniel's Hymen's Triumph, Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess, Randolph's Amyntas—have been attempts either to transplant the Italian pastoral as it stood, or else so to modify and adapt as to fit it to the very different conditions of the English stage. Jonson, on the other hand, aimed at nothing less than the creation of an English pastoral drama. Except for such comparatively unimportant works as Gallathea and the Converted Robber¹³, the spectators found themselves, for the first time, on English soil. In spite of the occasional reminiscences of Theocritus and the Arcadian erudition concerning the ‘Lovers Scriptures,’ the nature of the characters is largely English. The names are not those of pastoral tradition, but rather of the popular romance, Aeglamour, Lionel, Clarion, Mellifleur, Amie, or more homely, yet without Spenser's rusticity, Alken; while the one name of learned origin is a coining of Jonson's own, Earine, the spirit of the spring. The silvan element, which had been variously present since Tasso styled his play favola boschereccia, was used by Jonson to admirable purpose in the introduction of Robin Hood and his crew. A new departure was made in the conjoining of the rustic and burlesque elements with the supernatural, in the persons of the witch Maudlin, her familiar Puck-hairy, her son the rude swineherd Lorel, and her daughter Douce the proud. In every case Jonson appropriated and adapted an already familiar element, but he did so in a manner to fashion out of the thumbed conventions of a hackneyed tradition something fresh and original and new.

Unfortunately the play is but half finished, or, at any rate, but half is at present extant. The fragment, as we have it, was first published, some years after the author's death, in the second volume of the folio of 1640, and the questions as to whether it was ever finished and to what date the composition should be assigned are too intricate to be entered upon here. Suffice it to say that no conclusive arguments exist for supposing that more of the play ever existed than what we now possess, nor that what exists was written very long before the author's death. It is conceivable that the play may contain embedded in it fragments of earlier pastoral work, but the attempt to identify it with the lost May Lord has little to recommend it¹⁴. Seeing that the play is far from being as generally familiar as its poetic merit deserves, I may be allowed to give a more or less detailed analysis of it in this place¹⁵.

After a prologue in which Jonson gives his views on pastoral with characteristic self-confidence, the Sad Shepherd, Aeglamour, appears, lamenting in a brief monologue the loss of his love Earine, who is supposed to have been drowned in the Trent.

Here she was wont to goe! and here! and here!
Just where those Daisies, Pincks, and Violets grow:
The world may find the Spring by following her;
For other print her aerie steps neere left.

(I. i.)

He retires at the approach of Marian and the huntsmen, who are about to fetch of the king's venison for the feast at which Robin Hood is to entertain the shepherds of the vale of Belvoir. When they have left the stage Aeglamour comes forward and resumes his lament in a strain of melancholic madness. He is again interrupted by the approach of Robin Hood, who enters at the head of the assembled shepherds and country maidens. Robin welcomes his guests, and his praise of rustic sports calls forth from Friar Tuck the well-known diatribe against the ‘sourer sort of shepherds,’ in which Jonson vented his bitterness against the hypocritical pretensions of the puritan reformers—a passage which yields, in biting satire, neither to his own presentation in the Alchemist nor to Quarles' scathing burlesque quoted on an earlier page. As they discourse they become aware of Aeglamour sitting moodily apart, unheeding them. He talks to himself like a madman.

                                                            It will be rare, rare, rare!
An exquisite revenge: but peace, no words!
Not for the fairest fleece of all the Flock:
If it be knowne afore, 'tis all worth nothing!
Ile carve it on the trees, and in the turfe,
On every greene sworth, and in every path,
Just to the Margin of the cruell Trent;
There will I knock the story in the ground,
In smooth great peble, and mosse fill it round,
Till the whole Countrey read how she was drown'd;
And with the plenty of salt teares there shed,
Quite alter the complexion of the Spring.
Or I will get some old, old Grandam thither,
Whose rigid foot but dip'd into the water,
Shall strike that sharp and suddaine cold throughout,
As it shall loose all vertue; and those Nimphs,
Those treacherous Nimphs pull'd in Earine;
Shall stand curl'd up, like Images of Ice;
And never thaw! marke, never! a sharpe Justice.
Or stay, a better! when the yeares at hottest,
And that the Dog-starre fomes, and the streame boiles,
And curles, and workes, and swells ready to sparkle;
To fling a fellow with a Fever in,
To set it all on fire, till it burne,
Blew as Scamander, 'fore the walls of Troy,
When Vulcan leap'd in to him, to consume him.

(I. v.)

Robin now accosts him, hoping, since his vengeance is so complete, that he will consent to join his fellows in honouring the spring. At this his distracted fancy breaks out afresh:

A Spring, now she is dead: of what, of thornes?
Briars, and Brambles? Thistles? Burs, and Docks?
Cold Hemlock? Yewgh? the Mandrake, or the Boxe?
These may grow still; but what can spring betide?
Did not the whole Earth sicken, when she died?
As if there since did fall one drop of dew,
But what was wept for her! or any stalke
Did beare a Flower! or any branch a bloome,
After her wreath was made. In faith, in faith,
You doe not faire, to put these things upon me,
Which can in no sort be: Earine,
Who had her very being, and her name,
With the first knots, or buddings of the Spring,
Borne with the Primrose, and the Violet,
Or earliest Roses blowne: when Cupid smil'd,
And Venus led the Graces out to dance,
And all the Flowers, and Sweets in Natures lap,
Leap'd out, and made their solemne Conjuration,
To last, but while shee liv'd. Doe not I know,
How the Vale wither'd the same Day? … that since,
No Sun, or Moone, or other cheerfull Starre
Look'd out of heaven! but all the Cope was darke,
As it were hung so for her Exequies!
And not a voice or sound, to ring her knell,
But of that dismall paire, the scritching Owle,
And buzzing Hornet! harke, harke, harke, the foule
Bird! how shee flutters with her wicker wings!
Peace, you shall heare her scritch.

(ib.)

To distract him Karoline sings a song. But after all he is but mad north-north-west, and though he would study the singer's conceits ‘as a new philosophy,’ he also thinks to pay the singer.

Some of these Nimphs here will reward you; this,
This pretty Maid, although but with a kisse;
                                                                                [Forces Amie to kiss Karolin.
Liv'd my Earine, you should have twenty,
For every line here, one; I would allow 'hem
From mine owne store, the treasure I had in her:
Now I am poore as you.

(ib.)

There follows a charming scene in which Marian, returning with the quarry, relates the fortunes of the chase, and proceeds, amid Robin's interruptions, to tell how ‘at his fall there hapt a chance worth mark.’

Robin. I! what was that, sweet
Marian?                     [Kisses her.
                                                                                Marian. You'll
not heare?
Rob. I love these interruptions in
a Story;           [Kisses her again.
                                                                      They make it sweeter.
Mar.                                         You doe know,
as soone
As the Assay is taken—                              [Kisses her again.
Rob.                                                             On, my Marian.
I did but take the Assay.

(I. vi.)

To cut the story short, while the deer was breaking up, there

                                                                                sate a Raven
On a sere bough! a growne great Bird! and Hoarse!

crying for its bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie complains that she is not well, ‘sick,’ as her brother Lionel jestingly explains, ‘of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.’ They go off the stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the strange chance, when Marian reappears, seemingly in ill-humour, insults Robin and his guests, orders Scathlock to carry the deer as a gift to Mother Maudlin, and departs, leaving all in amazement. In the next act Maudlin relates to her daughter Douce how it was she who, in the guise of Marian, thus gulled Robin and his guests out of their venison and brought discord into their feast. Douce is clad in the dress of Earine, who, it now appears, was not drowned, but is imprisoned by the witch in a hollow tree, and destined by her as her son Lorel's mistress. The swineherd now enters with the object of wooing the imprisoned damsel, whom he releases from the tree, Maudlin and Douce retiring the while to watch his success, which is small. Baffled, he again shuts the girl up in her natural cell, and his mother, coming forward, rates him soundly for his clownish ways, reading him a lecture for his guidance in his intercourse with women, in which she seems little concerned by the presence of her daughter. This latter, so far as it is possible to judge from the few speeches assigned to her in the fragment, appears to be of a more agreeable nature than one might, under the circumstances, have expected. Jonson sought, it would appear, to invest her with a certain pathos, presenting a character of natural good feeling, but in which no moral instinct has ever been awakened; and it is by no means improbable that he may have intended to dissociate her from her surroundings in order to balance the numbers of his nymphs and swains¹⁶. After Lorel has left them, Maudlin shows Douce the magic girdle, by virtue of which she effects her transformations, and by which she may always be recognized through her disguises. In the next scene we find Amie suffering from the effect of Karol's kiss. She is ill at ease, she knows not why, and the innocent description of her love-pain possesses, in spite of its quaint artificiality, something of the naïveté of Daphnis and Chloe.

How often, when the Sun, heavens brightest birth,
Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth,
Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by
A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie,
Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree,
Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee?
Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost,
The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost,
My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence,
Or large good fires, I made, drave winter thence.
But now, my whole flocks fells, nor this thick grove,
Enflam'd to ashes, can my cold remove;
It is a cold and heat, that doth out-goe
All sense of Winters, and of Summers so.

(II. iv.)

To the shepherdesses enters Robin, who upbraids Marian for her late conduct towards him and his guests. She of course protests ignorance of the whole affair, bids Scathlock fetch again the venison, and remains unconvinced of Robin's being in earnest, till Maudlin herself comes to thank her for the gift. Marian endeavours to treat with the witch, and begs her to return the venison sent through some mistake, but Maudlin declares that she has already departed it among her poor neighbours. At this moment, however, Scathlock returns with the deer on his shoulders, to the discomfiture of the witch, who curses the feast, and after tormenting poor Amie, who between sleeping and waking betrays the origin of her disease, departs in an evil humour. The scene is noteworthy for its delicate comedy and pathos.

Amie [asleep]. O Karol, Karol, call him back againe …
          O', ô.
Marian. How is't Amie?
Melifleur.                               Wherefore
start you?
Amie. O' Karol, he is faire,
and sweet.
Maud.                                         What then?
Are there not flowers as sweet, and faire, as men?
The Lillie is faire! and Rose is sweet!
Amie.                                         I',
so!
Let all the Roses, and the Lillies goe:
Karol is only faire to mee!
Mar.                                                             And why?
Amie. Alas, for Karol, Marian, I
could die.
Karol he singeth sweetly too!
Maud.                                         What then?
Are there not Birds sing sweeter farre, then Men?
Amie. I grant the Linet, Larke, and
Bul-finch sing,
But best, the deare, good Angell of the Spring,
The Nightingale.
Maud.                                         Then why?
then why, alone,
Should his notes please you?
Amie. This verie morning, but—I
did bestow—
It was a little 'gainst my will, I know—
A single kisse, upon the seelie Swaine,
And now I wish that verie kisse againe.
His lip is softer, sweeter then the Rose,
His mouth, and tongue with dropping honey flowes;
The relish of it was a pleasing thing.
Maud. Yet like the Bees it had a
little sting.
Amie. And sunke, and sticks yet in
my marrow deepe
And what doth hurt me, I now wish to keepe.

(II. vi.)

After this exhibition of her malice the shepherds and huntsmen no longer doubt that it was Maudlin herself who deceived them in the shape of Marian, and they determine to pursue her through the forest. The wise shepherd, Alken, undertakes the direction of this novel ‘blast of venerie,’ and thus discourses of her unhallowed haunts:

Within a gloomie dimble shee doth dwell,
Downe in a pitt, ore-growne with brakes and briars,
Close by the ruines of a shaken Abbey
Torne, with an Earth-quake, down unto the ground;
'Mongst graves, and grotts, neare an old Charnell house,
Where you shall find her sitting in her fourme,
As fearfull, and melancholique, as that
Shee is about; with Caterpillers kells,
And knottie Cobwebs, rounded in with spells.
Thence shee steales forth to relief, in the foggs,
And rotten Mistes, upon the fens, and boggs,
Downe to the drowned Lands of Lincolneshire.
… [There] the sad Mandrake growes,
Whose grones are deathfull! the dead-numming Night-shade!
The stupifying Hemlock! Adders tongue!
And Martagan! the shreikes of lucklesse Owles,
Wee heare! and croaking Night-Crowes in the aire!
Greene-bellied Snakes! blew fire-drakes in the skie!
And giddie Flitter-mice, with lether wings!
The scalie Beetles, with their habergeons,
That make a humming Murmur as they flie!
There, in the stocks of trees, white Faies doe dwell,
And span-long Elves, that dance about a poole,
With each a little Changeling, in their armes!
The airie spirits play with falling starres,
And mount the Sphere of fire, to kisse the Moone!
While, shee sitts reading by the Glow-wormes light,
Or rotten wood, o're which the worme hath crept,
The banefull scedule of her nocent charmes.

(II. viii.)

In the third act we are introduced to Puck-hairy, who laments his lot as the familiar of the malignant witch in whose service he has now to ‘firk it like a goblin’ about the woods. Meanwhile Karol meets Douce in the dress of Earine, who, however, runs off on the approach of Aeglamour. The latter fancies she is the ghost of his drowned love, and falls into a ‘superstitious commendation’ of her. His delusions are conceived in a vein no less happy and more distinctly poetical than those of Amyntas.

But shee, as chaste as was her name, Earine,
Dy'd undeflowr'd: and now her sweet soule hovers,
Here, in the Aire, above us; and doth haste
To get up to the Moone, and Mercury;
And whisper Venus in her Orbe; then spring
Up to old Saturne, and come downe by Mars,
Consulting Jupiter; and seate her selfe
Just in the midst with Phoebus, tempring all
The jarring Spheeres, and giving to the World
Againe, his first and tunefull planetting!
O' what an age will here be of new concords!
Delightfull harmonie! to rock old Sages,
Twice infants, in the Cradle o' Speculation,
And throw a silence upon all the creatures! …
The loudest Seas, and most enraged Windes
Shall lose their clangor; Tempest shall grow hoarse;
Loud Thunder dumbe; and every speece of storme
Laid in the lap of listning Nature, husht,
To heare the changed chime of this eighth spheere!

(III. ii.)

After this Lionel appears in search of Karol, who is in requisition for the distressed Amie. They are about to go off together when Maudlin again appears in the shape of Marian, with the news that Amie is recovered and their presence no longer required. At this moment, however, Robin appears, and suspecting the witch, who tries to escape, seizes her by the girdle and runs off the stage with her. The girdle breaks, and Robin returns with it in his hand, followed by the witch in her own shape. Robin and the shepherds go off with the prize, while Maudlin summons Puck to her aid and sets to plotting revenge. Lorel also appears for the purpose of again addressing himself to his imprisoned mistress, and, if necessary, putting his mother's precepts into practice. With the words of the witch:

                                                                                Gang thy gait, and try
Thy turnes with better luck, or hang thy sel';

the fragment breaks off abruptly. From the Argument prefixed to Act III we know that Lorel's purpose with Earine was interrupted by the entrance of Clarion and Aeglamour, and her discovery was only prevented by a sudden mist called up by Maudlin. The witch then set about the recovery of her girdle, was tracked by the huntsmen as she wove her spells, but escaped by the help of her goblin and through the over-eagerness of her pursuers. …

Subject to [some] reservations it appears to me that the characters and general tone of Jonson's pastoral are perfectly harmonious and congruent. The shepherds are far removed from the types of Arcadian convention, and may more properly be regarded as idealizations from the actual country lads and lasses of merry England. Their names are borrowed from popular romance, which, if somewhat French in its tone, was certainly in no way antagonistic to the legends of Sherwood nor to the agency of witchcraft and fairy lore¹⁷. Even Alken, in spite of his didactic bent, is as far as possible from being the conventional ‘wise shepherd,’ and certainly no Arcadian ever displayed such knowledge as he of the noble art, while his lecture on the blast of hag-hunting, though savouring somewhat of burlesque, contains perhaps the most thoroughly charming and romantic lines that ever flowed from the pen of the great exponent of classical tradition. That the characters owe nothing to Arcadian tradition is not contended, nor do I know that it would be desirable that they should not, since that tradition forms at least a convenient, if not an altogether necessary, precedent for such pastoral idealization; but even if it is going rather far to say that they ‘belong to a definite age and country,’ they have yet sufficient individuality and community of human nature to be wholly fitting companions for the gallant Robin and his fair lady. Jonson, it would appear, consciously adopted the pastoral method, if hardly the pastoral mood, of Theocritus, in contradistinction to that of the courtly poets in Italy. It will be noticed that he has not forborne to introduce references to sheepcraft, but the fact that these enter more or less naturally into the discourse, and are not, as in Fletcher's pastoral, introduced in the vain hope of giving local colour to wholly uncolourable characters, saves them from having the same stilted effect, and is at the same time evidence of the greater reality of Jonson's personae. It is also noteworthy that Jonson has even ventured upon allegorical matter in one passage at least, but has succeeded in doing so in a manner in no wise incongruous with the nature of actual rustics, though the collocation of Robin Hood and the rise of Puritanism must be admitted to be historically something of an anachronism.

Robin and Maid Marian are, of course, characters no whit less idealized than the shepherds, though the process was largely effected by popular tradition instead of by the author. But this being so, such characters as Much and Scathlock must be no less incongruous with Robin and Marian than with Karol and Amie—a proportion which those who love the old Sherwood tradition would be loath to admit. In any case the incongruity, if it exists, is not of Jonson's devising, but consecrated for ages in the popular mind. The truth is, however, that Much and Little John, Scathlock and Scarlet are, in spite of their more homely speech and humour, scarcely less idealized than any of the other characters I have mentioned. That Jonson has even sought to tone down such harshness of contrast as he found is noticeable in his treatment of a recognized figure of burlesque like Friar Tuck, who is throughout portrayed with decorum and respect.

Lastly, to come to the third group of characters. If it was impossible for an English audience to regard as burlesque such popular and sympathetic characters as Robin and his merry men, so a malignant witch and a mischievous elf were far too serious agents of ill to be treated in this light either. Characters whose unholy powers would have fitted them for death at the stake can scarcely have been regarded even by the rude audiences of pre-restoration London as fitting subjects of farce, while there is nothing to lead us to suppose that Jonson, whatever his private opinion on the subject may have been, sought in the present instance to cast ridicule upon the belief in witches, but rather it is evident that he laid hands upon everything that could give colour to their sinister reputation. On the other hand, he has treated the whole subject with an imaginative touch which relieves us of all tragic or moral apprehension, removes all the squalid and unblessed surroundings into the region of romantic art, and makes it impossible to regard the characters as less idealized than those of the shepherds and huntsmen. I cannot myself but regard the elements of witchcraft and fairy employed by Jonson as far more in harmony not only with Robin Hood and his men, but also with the shepherds of Belvoir vale, than would have been the oracles, satyrs, and other outworn machinery of regular pastoral tradition.

There remains the rusticity of language which distinguishes some of the ruder characters from others more refined. That some contrast between the groups was intended is indisputable, that the contrast is rather harsher than the author intended may be plausibly maintained. There is, on the whole, a lack of graduation. Into the question of dialectism in general it is needless to enter. The speech employed would be inoffensive, were it not that it is, and is felt to be, no genuine dialect at all, but a mere literary convention, a mixture of broad Yorkshire and Lothian Scots, not only utterly out of place in Sherwood forest, but such as can never have been spoken by any sane rustic. Still more than of Spenser is Ben's dictum true of himself, that where he departed from the cultivated English of his day, whether in imitation of the ancients or of provincial dialect matters not, he failed to write any language at all. Yet here, if anywhere, we should be justified in arguing that it is unfair to judge an unrevised fragment as if it were a completed work in the form in which the author decided to give it to the world. Jonson, as his English Grammar shows, was not without a knowledge of the antiquities at least of our tongue, and it is reasonable to suppose that, had he lived to publish his pastoral himself, he would have removed some of the more glaring enormities of language, along with certain other improprieties which could hardly have escaped his critical eye.

Jonson then, as it seems to me, setting aside a few points of minor importance, successfully combined what he found suited to his purpose in previous pastoral tradition, with what was most romantic and attractive in popular legend and a genuine idealization from actual types, to produce a veritable English pastoral, which failed of success only in that it remained unfinished at the death of its author.

Notes

1. Fleay considers the Faithful Shepherdess a joint production of Beaumont and Fletcher. The only external evidence in favour of this theory is a remark of Jonson's reported by Drummond: ‘Flesher and Beaumont, ten yeers since, hath [sic] written the Faithful Shipheardesse, a Tragicomedie, well done.’ Considering that the same authority makes Jonson ascribe the Inner Temple Masque to Fletcher, his statement as to the Faithful Shepherdess cannot be allowed much weight, while I hardly think that the fact of Beaumont having prefixed commendatory verses to Fletcher in the original edition can be set aside as lightly as Fleay appears to think. He relies chiefly upon internal evidence, but in his Biographical Chronicle, at any rate, does not venture upon a detailed division. For myself, I can only discover one hand in the play, and that hand Fletcher's. Fleay places the date of representation before July, 1608, on account of an outbreak of the plague lasting from then to Nov. 1609, but A. H. Thorndike (The Influence of Beaumont and Fletcher on Shakspere, Worcester, Mass., 1901, p. 14) has shown good reason for believing that dramatic performances were much less interfered with by the plague than Fleay imagined.

2. Most of these, it may be remarked, as well as the character of Thenot and the unconventional rôle of the satyr, find parallels in the earlier stages of the Italian pastoral. The transformation-well recalls the enchanted lake of the Sacrifizio; the introduction of a supernatural agent in the plot reminds us of the same play, as well as of Epicuro's Mirzia; the friendly satyr, of this latter, which may be, in its turn, indebted to the revised version of the Orfeo; the character of Thenot is anticipated in the Sfortunato. I give the resemblances for what they are worth, which is perhaps not much; it is unlikely that Fletcher should have been acquainted with any of the plays in question, though of course not impossible. The magic taper appears to be a native superstition, a survival of the ordeal by fire.

3. Certain critics have suggested that the Pastor fido might more appropriately have borne the title of Fletcher's play. This is absurd, since it would mean giving the title-rôle to the wholly secondary Dorinda. Perhaps they failed to perceive that Mirtillo and not Silvio is the hero. With Fletcher's play the case stands otherwise. There is absolutely nothing to show whether the title refers to the presiding genius of the piece, Clorin, faithful to the memory of the dead, or to the central character, Amoret, faithful in spite of himself to her beloved Perigot. I incline to believe that it is the latter that is the ‘faithful shepherdess,’ since it might be contended that, in the conventional language of pastoral, Clorin would be more properly described as the ‘constant shepherdess.’ (Cf. II. ii. 130.)

4. See Homer Smith's paper on Pastoral Influence in the English Drama. His theory concerning the Faithful Shepherdess will be found on p. 407. Whatever plausibility there may be in the general idea, the detailed application there put forward would appear to be a singular instance of misapplied ingenuity in pursuance of a preconceived idea.

5. ‘Poems’ [1619], p. 433. Compare Boccaccio's account of pastoral poetry already quoted, p. 18, note.

6. One fault, which even the beauty of the verse fails to conceal, is the introduction of all sorts of stilted and otiose allusions to sheepcraft, which only serve to render yet more apparent the inherent absurdity of the artificial pastoral. These Tasso and Guarini had had the good taste to avoid, but we have already had occasion to notice them in the case of Bonarelli. Daniel is likewise open to censure on this score.

7. I quote, of course, from Dyce's text, but have for convenience added the line numbers from F. W. Moorman's edition in the ‘Temple Dramatists.’

8. The officious critic must be forgiven for remarking that the satyr is not, as might be supposed from this speech, suddenly tamed by Clorin's beauty and virtue, but shows himself throughout as of a naturally gentle disposition. Consequently Clorin's argument that it is the mysterious power of virginity that has guarded her from attack and subdued his savage nature appears a little fatuous.

9. Specifically from ‘wanton quick desires’ and ‘lustful heat.’ One is almost tempted to imagine that the author is laughing in his sleeve when we discover of what little avail the solemn ceremony has been.

10. In 1658 there appeared a Latin translation, under the title of La Fida pastora, by ‘FF. Anglo-Britannus,’ namely, Sir Richard Fanshawe, as appears from an engraved monogram on the title-page.

11. As Fleay points out, the prologue and epilogue are not suited to court representation.

12. The fact that the play was never published as a separate work makes it difficult to estimate its popularity with the reading public. The whole collection was frequently reprinted, 1638, 1640, 1643, 1652, 1664 and 1668 twice. In 1703 appeared the Fickle Shepherdess, ‘As it is Acted in the New Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. By Her Majesties Servants. Play'd all by Women.’ This piece is said in the epistle dedicatory to Lady Gower to be ‘abreviated from an Author famous in his Time.’ It is in fact a prose rendering, much compressed, of the main action of Randolph's play, the language being for the most part just sufficiently altered to turn good verse into bad prose.

13. Vide post, p. 382.

14. For a detailed discussion of the evidence I must refer the reader to the Introduction to my reprint of the play in the Materialien zur Kunde des älteren Englischen Dramas (vol. xi, 1905). The following summary may be quoted. ‘(i) There is no ground for supposing that there ever existed more of the Sad Shepherd than we at present possess. (ii) The theory of the substantial identity of the Sad Shepherd and the May Lord must be rejected, there being no reason to suppose that the latter was dramatic at all. (iii) The two works may, however, have been to some extent connected in subject, and fragments of the one may survive embedded in the other. (iv) The May Lord was most probably written in the autumn of 1613. (v) The date of the Sad Shepherd cannot be fixed with certainty; but there is no definite evidence to oppose to the first line of the prologue and the allusion in Falkland's elegy [in Jonsonus Virbius], which agree in placing it in the few years preceding Jonson's death.’

15. The play has no doubt been somewhat lost in the big collected editions of the author's works, and has also suffered from its fragmentary state. Previous to my own reprint it had only once been issued as a separate publication, namely, by F. G. Waldron, whose edition, with continuation, appeared in 1783. One of the best passages, however (II. viii), was given in Lamb's Specimens. In quoting from the play I have preferred to follow the original of 1640, as in my own reprint, merely correcting certain obvious errors, rather than Gifford's edition, in which wholly unwarrantable liberties are taken with the text.

16. Waldron, in his continuation, matches her with Clarion.

17. It has recently been argued with much ingenuity that Marian is originally none other than the familiar figure of French pastourelles. However this may be, it is a question with which I am not here concerned. It was the English Robin Hood tradition that formed part of Jonson's rough material. See E. K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, i. p. 175.