Yet armes till that time did he never wield:

His
angry
As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:

steede did chide his foming bitt,

Full iolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,

As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

II.

And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore,

The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,

For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore, And dead, as living, ever him ador'd:

Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,

For soveraine hope, which in his helpe he had.
Right, faithfull, true he was in deede and word;
But of his cheere did seeme too solemne sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.

IV.

A lovely ladie rode him faire beside,

Upon a lowly asse more white then snow; Yet she much whiter; but the same did hide Under a vele, that wimpled was full low; And over all a blacke stole shee did throw, As one that inly mournd; so was she sad, And heavie sate upon her palfrey slow; Seemed in heart some hidden care she had; And by her in a line a milke-white lambe she lad.

VIII.

And foorth they passe, with pleasure forward led,
loying to heare the birdes sweete harmony,
Which therein shrouded from the tempest dred,
Seemd in their song to scorne the cruell sky.
Much can they praise the trees so straight and hy,
The sayling pine; the cedar proud and tall;
The vine-propp elme; the poplar never dry;
The builder oake, sole king of forrests all;
The aspine good for staves; the cypresse funerall;

IX.

The laurell, meed of mightie conquerours

And poets sage; the firre that weepeth still;
The willow, worne of forlorne paramours;

The eugh, obedient to the benders will;

The birch for shaftes; the sallow for the mill;
The mirrhe sweete-bleeding in the bitter wound;
The warlike beech; the ash for nothing ill;
The fruitful olive; and the platane round;

The carver holme; the maple, seldom inward sound.

[The Palace of Morpheus.]

XXXIX.

He, making speedy way through sperséd ayre,
And through the world of waters wide and deepe,
To Morpheus house doth hastily repaire,
Amid the bowels of the earth full steepe,
And low, where dawning day doth never peepe,
His dwelling is; there Tethys his wet bed
Doth ever wash, and Cynthia still doth steepe
In silver deaw his ever-drouping hed,

Whiles sad Night over him her mantle black doth spred;

XL.

Whose double gates he findeth locked fast;
The one faire fram'd of burnisht yvory,
The other all with silver overcast ;

And wakeful dogges before them farre doe lye,
Watching to banish Care their enimy,
Who oft is wont to trouble gentle Sleepe.

By them the sprite doth passe in quietly,

And unto Morpheus comes, whom drownéd deepe
In drowsie fit he findes; of nothing he takes keepe.

XLI.

And, more, to lulle him in his slumber soft,

A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,
And ever-drizling raine upon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,
As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne,
Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes
Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes.

CANTO VI.

[The Heroine meets the Sylvan Deities.]

IX.

The wyld wood-gods, arrivéd in the place,
There find the virgin, doolfull, desolate,
With ruffled rayments, and fayre blubbred face,
As her outrageous foe had left her late;

And trembling yet through feare of former hate:
All stand amazed at so un'couth sight,
And gin to pittie her unhappie state;
All stand astonied at her beauty bright,

In their rude eyes unworthy of so wofull plight.

XIII.

Their harts she ghesseth by their humble guise,
And yieldes her to extremitie of time:

So from the ground she fearlesse doth arise,
And walketh forth without suspect of crime:
They, all as glad as birdes of ioyous pryme,
Thence led her forth, about her dauncing round,
Shouting, and singing all a shepheards ryme;
And with greene braunches strowing all the ground,
Do worship her as queene with olive girlond cround.

XIV.

And all the way their merry pipes they sound,

That all the woods with double echo ring;
And with their hornéd feet doe weare the ground,
Leaping like wanton kids in pleasant spring.
So towards old Sylvanus they her bring;
Who, with the noyse awakéd, commeth out
To weet the cause, his weake steps governing
And agéd limbs on cypresse stadle1 stout;
And with an yvie twyne his waste is girt about.

XVI.

The wood-borne people fall before her flat,
And worship her as goddesse of the wood;
And old Sylvanus selfe bethinkes not, what
To thinke of wight so fayre; but gazing stood
In doubt to deeme her borne of earthly brood:

1 A support.

Sometimes dame Venus selfe he seemes to see;

But Venus never had so sober mood:

Sometimes Diana he her takes to be;

But misseth bow and shaftes, and buskins to her knee.

BOOK II. CANTO XII.

[The Harmony of Nature.]

LXX.

Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound,
Of all that mote delight a daintie eare,
Such as attonce might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:
Right hard it was for wight which did it heare,
To read what manner musicke that mote bee;
For all that pleasing is to living eare

Was there consorted in one harmonee;

Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

LXXI.

The ioyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet;
Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmure of the waters fall;
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

RICHARD HOOKER.

Richard Hooker, an eminent divine, was born near Exeter, in 1553, and died in 1600. His life was marked by no striking incidents. His chief work on "Ecclesiastical Polity" is a work of great erudition and eloquence. In the words of Hallam, "So stately and graceful is the march of his periods, so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrase, that I know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity."

CHURCH MUSIC.

TOUCHING musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing

effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it, harmony; a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent, being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind, more inwardly than any other sensible mean, the very standing, rising and falling, the very steps and inflections every way, the turns and varieties of all passions whereunto the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them, that, whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not more contentedly by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other. In harmony, the very image and character even of virtue and vice is perceived, the mind delighted with their resemblances, and brought, by having them often iterated, into a love of the things themselves. For which cause there is nothing more contagious and pestilent than some kinds of harmony; than some, nothing more strong and potent unto good. And that there is such a difference of one kind from another, we need no proof but our own experience, inasmuch as we are at the hearing of some more inclined unto sorrow and heaviness, of some more mollified and softened in mind; one kind apter to stay and settle us, another to move and stir our affections; there is that draweth to a marvellous grave and sober mediocrity; there is also that carrieth, as it were, into ecstasies, filling the mind with a heavenly joy, and for the time in a manner severing it from the body; so that, although we lay altogether aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the very harmony of sounds being framed in due sort, and carried from the ear to the spiritual faculties of our souls, is, by a native puissance and efficacy, greatly available to bring to a perfect temper whatsoever is there troubled; apt as well to quicken the spirits as to allay that which is too eager; sovereign against melancholy and despair; forcible to draw forth tears of devotion, if the mind be such as can yield them; able both to move and to moderate all affections. The prophet David having, therefore, singular knowledge, not in poetry alone, but in music also, judged them both to be things most necessary for the house of God, left behind him to that purpose a number of divinely indited poems, and was further the author of adding unto poetry melody in public prayer; melody, both vocal and instrumental, for the raising up of