modesty, and desired the best interpretation of what was past, PLEUSIDIPPUS, whose courteous inclination could not withstand this submission, in sign of reconcilement, gave her a stoccado des labies; yet was he not so reconciled, but he kept on his purpose of going to Arcadia, whereat OLYMPIA (though she grudged inwardly, yet being loath to offend) held her peace, and determined to bestow upon him a remembrance, whereby he might be brought to think on her in his absence; which was, the device of a bleeding heart floating in the sea waves, curiously stamped in gold, with this motto about it: portum aut mortem, alluding, as it seemed, to the device in his shield, wherein (because it was taken up by EURILOCHUS ON the shore) was cunningly drawn in a field argent, the sea waves with Venus sitting on the top, in token that his affection was already fettered.

"Here, hold this," said she, “ my sweet PLEUSIDIPPUS, and hang it about thy neck, that when thou art in Arcadia, it may be ever in thy eye; so shall these drops of ruth, that paint out a painful truth, withdraw thy fancy from attracting strange beauty:" which said, the tears gushed from her eyes, and AGENOR's likewise, who gave him nothing so much in charge as to make haste of his return. PLEUSIDIPPUS, though he could have been content to have done the like for company, yet he had such a mind on his journey, that he brake off such ceremonies, and hasted a shipboard; and in a bark bound for Arcadia, having the wind favourable, made a short cut, so as in a day and night's sailing he arrived on the shore joining on the promontory, where he, his mother, and LAMEDON, were first wrecked.

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Leave we him wandering, with some few of his train that came with him, along the sea-side, to seek out some town or village where to refresh themselves, and let us a while to the court of DEMOCles, where our history began: who, having committed his daughter, with her tender babe, her husband MAXIMUS, and LAMEDON his

uncle, without oar or mariner, to the fury of the merciless waves; determined to leave the succession of his kingdom to uncertain chance; for his queen, with SEPH ESTIA'S loss (whom she deemed to be dead), took such thought, that within short time after she died. DEMOCLES, as careless of all weathers, spent his time, epicure like, in all kind of pleasures that either art or expence might afford, so as for his dissolute life he seemed another Heliogabalus, deriving his security from that grounded tranquillity which made it proverbial to the world, No heaven but Arcadia.

Having spent many years in this variety of vanity, Fame, determining to apply herself to his fancy, sounded in his ear the singular beauty of his daughter SAMELA: he, although he were an old colt, yet had not cast all his wanton teeth, which made him, under the bruit of being sick of a grievous apoplexy, steal from his court secretly, in the disguise of a shepherd, to come and seek out SAMELA, who, not a little proud of her new flock, lived more contented than if she had been queen of ARCADIA; and MELICERTUS, joying not a little that she was parted from MENAPHON, used every day to visit her without dread, and court her in such shepherd's terms as he had, which how they pleased her, I leave to you to imagine, when, as not long after, she vowed marriage to him solemnly, in presence of all the shepherds, but not to be solemnized till the prophecy was fulfilled, mentioned in the beginning of this history.

Although this penance exceeded the limits of his patience, yet, hoping that the oracle was not uttered in vain, and might as well (albeit he knew not which way) be accomplished in him as in any other, was contented to make a virtue of necessity, and await the utmost of his destiny. But PLEUSIDIPPUS, who by this time had perfected his policies, exchanging his garments with one of the herdgrooms of MENA PHION, tracing over the plains in the habit of a shepherd, chanced to meet with DEMOCLES as he was new come into those quarters, whom mistaking for an old shepherd, he began

many impertinent questions belonging to the sheep-cotes; at last he asked him if he knew SAMELA's sheepfold: who, answering doubtfully to all alike, made him half angry: and had not SAMELA passed by at that instant, to fill her bottle at a spring near the foot of the promontory, he should like enough have had first handsel of our new shepherd's sheep-hook. But the wonder of her beauty so wrought with his wounded fancy, that he thought report a partial spreader of her praises, and fame too base to talk of such forms.

SAMELA, espying this fair shepherd so far overgone in his gazing, stepped to him, and asked him if he knew her, that he so overlooked her. "Pardon me, fair shepherdess," said PLEUSIDIppus, "if it be a fault; for I cannot choose, being eagle-sighted, but gaze on the sun the first time I see it." "And truly I cannot choose but compare you to one of Æsop's apes, that finding a glow-worm in the night, took it for a fire; and you, seeing a face full of deformi

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ties, mistake it for the sun.' Indeed, it may be, mine eyes made opposite to such an object may fail in their office, having their lights rebated by such brightness." Nay, not unlike,” quoth SAMELA; "for else, out of doubt, you would see your way better." Why," quoth PLEUSIDIPPUS, "I cannot go out of the way when I meet such glistering goddesses in my way." "How now, Sir Paris, are you out of your arithmetic? I think you have lost your wits with your eyes, that mistake Arcadia for Ida, and a shepherdess for a goddess." "However it please you," quoth PLEUSIDIPPUS, "to derogate from my prowess by the title of Paris, know that I am not so far out of my arithmetic, but that by multiplication I can make two of one in an hour's warning; or be as good as a cypher to fill up a place at the worst hand; for my wit sufficeth, be it never so simple, to prove both re and voce, that there can be no vacuum in rerum natura: and mine eyes, or else they deceive me, will enter so far in art, as, niger est contrarius albo, and teach me how to discern twixt black and white."

Much other circumstance of prattle passed between them, which the Arcadian records do not show, nor I remember. Sufficeth, he pleaded love, and was repulsed; which drove him into such a choler, that meeting his supposed shepherd, who, lying under a bush, had all this while overheard them, he entered into such terms of indignation as Jove, shaking his earth-quaking hair, when he sat in consultation of Licaon. Wherefore, DEMOCLES, perceiving PLEUSIDIPPUS repulsed, who was every way graced with the ornaments of nature, began to cast over his bad pennyworths, in whose face age had furrowed her wrinkles, except he should lay his crown down at her feet, and tell her he was king of Arcadia; which in commonwealth's respects, seeming not commodious, he thought to turn a new leaf, and make this young shepherd the means to perfect his purpose. He had, not far from that place, a strong castle, which was inhabited as then by none but tilsmen and herd-grooms; thither did he persuade PLEUSIDIPPUS to carry her perforce, and effect that by constraint that he could not achieve by entreaty; who, listening not a little to this counsel, that was never plotted for his advantage, presently put in practice what he of late gave in precepts, and waiting till the evening that SAMELA should fold her sheep, having given his men the watch-word, maugre all the shepherds adjoining, he mounted her behind him; and being by DEMOCLES directed to the castle, he made such havock among the stubborn herdsmen, that will they, nill they, he was lord of the castle. Yet might not this prevail with SAMELA, who, constant to her old shepherd, would not entertain any new love, which made PLEUSIDIPPUS think all his harvest lost in the reaping, and blemish all his delights with a mournful drooping.

But DEMOCLES, that looked for a mountain of gold in a molehill, finding her alone, began to discourse his love in more ample manner than ever PLEUSIDIPPUS; telling her how he was a king, what his revenues were, what power he had to advance her, with

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many other proud vaunts of his wealth, and prodigal terms of his treasure. SAMELA hearing the name of a king, and perceiving him to be her father, stood amazed, like Medusa's metamorphosis, and blushing oft with intermingled sighs, began to think how injurious Fortune was to her, shewn in such an incestuous father: but he, hot-spurred in his purpose, gave her no time to deliberate or consider of the matter, but required either a quick consent, or a present denial. She told him that the shepherd MELICERTUS was already entitled in the interest of her beauty, wherefore it was in vain what he or any other could plead in the way of persuasion.

He thereupon entered into a large field of the baseness of shepherds, and royalties of kings, with many other assembled arguments of delight that would have fetched Venus from her sphere to disport but SAMELA, whose mouth could digest no other meat save only her sweet MELICERTUS, ashamed so long to hold parley with her father about such a matter, flung away to her withdrawing chamber in a dissembled rage, and there, after her wonted manner, bewailed her misfortunes.

DEMOCLES, plunged thus in a labyrinth of restless passions, seeing MELICERTUS's figure was so deeply printed in the centre of her thoughts, as neither the resolution of his fancy, his metamorphosis from a king to a traveller, crowns, kingdoms, preferments, (batteries that soon overthrow the fortress of women's fantasies); when DEMOCLES, I say, saw that none of these could remove SAMELA, hearing that the Arcadian shepherds were in an uproar for the loss of their beautiful shepherdess, his hot love changing to a bird of coy disdain, he intended by some revenge either to obtain his love, or satisfy his hate: whereupon thoroughly resolved, he stole away secretly in his shepherd's apparel, and got him down to the plains, where he found all the swains in a mutiny about the recovery of their beautiful paragon. DEMOCLES stepping amongst the rout, demanded the cause of their controversy. "Marry, Sir,"