Ye violets that first appeare,

By your pure purple mantles known
Like the proud virgins of the yeare,
As if the Spring were all your own;
What are you when the Rofe is blown?

Ye curious chaunters of the wood,

That warble forth dame Nature's layes,
Thinking your paffions understood

By your weak accents: what's your praise,
When Philomell her voyce fhall raife?

So when my miftris fhal be feene

In fweetneffe of her looks and minde;
By virtue first, then choyce a queen ;
Tell me, if fhe was not defign'd

Th' eclypfe and glory of her kind ?

10

15

20

VIII.

THE OLD AND YOUNG COURTIER.

This excellent old fong, the fubject of which is a comparifon between the manners of the old gentry, as ftill fubfifting in the times of Elizabeth, and the modern refinements af

8

fected

main aber merit and fortu.. 4 eres worth a thou 'and pounds, t becanje it came

2

* 2. "gambil the Queen of Babemic

Čas ang is printed from the Reliquie Wo: cerations from an old MS. copy.

O meaner beauties of the night, Which poerly fitiste our eles More Zw your zumber, then your light ; You common people of the kies,

What are your ghen the Sun shall rife?

feted by their fons in the reigns of her fucceffors, is given from an ancient black-letter copy in the Pepys collection, eompared with another printed among fome miscellaneous poems and fongs" in a book intituled, "Le Prince d' amour.' "1660. 8vo.

66

A

N old fong made by an aged old pate,

Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a greate
eftate,

That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate;
Like an old courtier of the queen's,

And the queen's old courtier.

With an old lady, whose anger one word afswages; They every quarter paid their old servants their wages, And never knew what belong'd to coachmen, footmen,

nor pages,

But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges; Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old study fill'd full of learned old books, With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his looks.

With an old buttery hatch worn quite off the hooks,

And an old kitchen, that maintain'd half a dozen old

cooks;

Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old hall, hung about with pikes, guns, and bows, With old fwords, and bucklers, that had born many fhrewde blows,

And an old frize coat, to cover his worship's trunk hofe, And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nofe ; Like an old courtier, &c.

With a good old fashion, when Christmaffe was come, To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe, and drum, With good chear enough to furnish every old room, And old liquor able to make a cat speak, and man dumb, Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old falconer, huntfman, and a kennel of hounds, That never hawked, nor hunted, but in his own grounds, Who, like a wife man, kept himself within his own bounds,

And when he dyed gave every child a thousand good pounds;

Like an old courtier, &c.

But to his eldest fon his house and land he affign'd, Charging him in his will to keep the old bountifull mind, To be good to his old tenants, and to his neighbours be

kind:

But in the enfuing ditty you shall hear how he was inclin'd;

Like a young courtier of the king's,
And the king's young courtier.