II
The pastoral tradition, such as it was, that thus formed itself on the English stage remained to the end hesitating, tentative, and undefined. At no time did it become an enveloping atmosphere of artistic creation. Authors approached it as it were from the outside, from no sense of inner compulsion, but experimentally from the broader standpoint of the romantic drama, and with the air of pioneers and innovators, as if ignorant of what had been already achieved in the same line by their predecessors. Consequently, in spite of the considerable following it enjoyed, this romantic-pastoral tradition lacked vitality, and failed as a rule to attract authors of more pre-eminent powers. We have already seen how the three chief English experiments stand apart from it, and we shall find as we proceed that there are other plays as well which it is difficult to bring strictly into line, though they are not in themselves of sufficient importance to claim separate consideration. In some measure, indeed, it may be truly said that, like the history of the Senecan drama or of classical versification, the history of the dramatic pastoral in England is that of a long series of incoherent and more or less fruitless experiments. There is, however, an important difference between the two cases, for in the pastoral we are at least aware of a striving towards some new and but dimly apprehended form of artistic expression. It is true that this was never attained; and looking back from the vantage-ground of time we may doubt whether after all it was worth attaining, but it serves to differentiate the pastoral experiment from those others whose object was but the revival of a past for ever vanished. The English pastoral drama had one advantage at least over many other literary fopperies, in that it obeyed the fundamental law of literary progress, which is one with artistic evolution.
A chronological survey of the regular plays to be classed as pastorals will best serve the needs of our present inquiry, and for this purpose it is fortunate that in nearly all cases we possess evidence which enables us to date the work with tolerable accuracy, while the few which yet remain doubtful are themselves unimportant, and probably fall near the limit of our period. Even, however, were this not so, the singular independence of most of the pieces and the absence of any visible line of development would make uncertainty as to their order of far less consequence here than in many departments of literary history in which similar evidence is unhappily wanting.
In substance, then, the romantic pastoral in England was a combination of the Arcadian drama of Italy with the chivalric romance of Spain, as familiarized through the medium of Sidney's work, and also, though less consistently, with the never very fully developed tradition of the mythological play. In form, again, it may be said to represent the mingling of the conventions of the Italian drama with the freer action and more direct and dramatic presentation of the romantic stage. The earliest play in which these characteristics are found is the anonymous Maid's Metamorphosis, printed and probably acted 'by the Children of Powles' in 1600.[315] The plot, which from the blending of different elements it presents is of considerable historical interest, is briefly as follows. Eurymine, of whose connexions we hear nothing but that she is supposed to be lowly born, and Ascanio, the duke's son, are in love. The duke, discovering this, orders two of his retainers to lead Eurymine secretly into the forest and there slay her. Her youth and beauty, however, touch their hearts, and they agree to spare her on condition that she shall live among the country folk, and never return to court. They have no sooner left her than she meets with a shepherd and a hunter, who both fall in love on the spot, and whose rivalry supplies her with the means of livelihood. Ascanio now appears in search of his love, and is directed by Morpheus, at the hest of Juno, to seek out a certain hermit, who will be able to advise him. In the meantime, however, an unexpected complication has arisen. Apollo, meeting Eurymine in her shepherdess' disguise, has fallen violently in love, and threatens mischief. To escape from his pursuit she craves a boon, and having extorted a promise from the infatuated god, demands that he shall change her into a man. Much regretting his rash promise, Apollo complies. The next thing that happens is that the lovers meet. This is distinctly unsatisfactory, but at the suggestion of the hermit 'three or four Muses' and the 'Charities' or Graces are called in to help, and by their prayers at length induce Apollo to relent and restore Eurymine to her original sex. No sooner is this performed than she is discovered to be the daughter of the hermit, and he the exiled prince of Lesbos. At this juncture arrives a messenger from the duke, begging Ascanio to return to court, and adding casually, as it seems, that should Eurymine happen to be still alive she too will be welcome.
Thus we see the threefold weft, Arcadian, courtly, and mythological, weaving the fantastic web of the earliest of the romantic pastorals. Of the influence of the drama of Tasso and Guarini there is, indeed, but little, the plot being in no wise that of orthodox tradition; but shepherd and ranger are true Arcadians, neither disguised courtiers nor rustic clowns, as in the Sidneian romance. The author, whoever he was, may have drawn a hint for his plot from Lyly's Gallathea, in which, it will be remembered, Venus promises to change one of the enamoured maidens into a man, or else, maybe, direct from the tale of Iphis in Ovid.[316] As to the sources of the other elements, it will be sufficient for our purpose to note that the verse portions of the play are rimed throughout in couplets, a fact that carries them back towards Peele's Arraignment and the days previous to Marlowe. The slight comic business is in prose, and the characters of the three young rogues are directly traceable to the waggish pages of Lyly.[317]
The piece has the appearance of being a youthful work; the verse is often irregular and clumsy, and the rimes uncertain. On the whole, however, it contains not a little that is graceful and pleasing to the ear, while in description the unknown author shows himself a faithful and not unsuccessful disciple of Spenser in his idyllic mood. Here, for instance, are two passages which have been thought to reveal a study of the master:[318]
Within this ore-growne Forrest, there is found
A duskie Cave, thrust lowe into the ground:
So ugly darke, so dampie and so steepe,
As for his life the sunne durst never peepe
Into the entrance: which doth so afright
The very day, that halfe the world is night.
Where fennish fogges, and vapours do abound:
There Morpheus doth dwell within the ground,
No crowing Cocke, nor waking bell doth call,
Nor watchfull dogge disturbeth sleepe at all.
No sound is heard in compasse of the hill,
But every thing is quiet, whisht, and still.
Amid this Cave, upon the ground doth lie,
A hollow plancher, all of Ebonie
Cover'd with blacke, whereon the drowsie God,
Drowned in sleepe, continually doth nod. (II. i. 112.)
And again:
Then in these verdant fields al richly dide,
With natures gifts, and Floras painted pride:
There is a goodly spring whose christal streames
Beset with myrtles, keepe backe Phoebus beames:
There in rich seates all wrought of Ivory,
The Graces sit, listening the melodye:
The warbling Birds doo from their prettie billes
Unite in concord, as the brooke distilles,
Whose gentle murmure with his buzzing noates
Is as a base unto their hollow throates.
Garlands beside they weare upon their browes,
Made of all sorts of flowers earth allowes:
From whence such fragrant sweet perfumes arise,
As you would sweare that place is Paradise. (V. i. 104.)
The same influence may perhaps be traced in slighter sketches, such as the
grassie bed
With sommers gawdie dyaper bespred. (II. i. 55.)
Here is a passage in another strain, which culminates in a touch of haunting melody that Spenser himself might have envied:
I marvell that a rusticke shepheard dare
With woodmen thus audaciously compare?
Why, hunting is a pleasure for a King,
And Gods themselves sometime frequent the thing.
Diana with her bowe and arrowes keene,
Did often use the Chace, in Forrests greene.
And so alas, the good Athenian knight,
And swift Acteon herein tooke delight:
And Atalanta the Arcadian dame,
Conceiv'd such wondrous pleasure in the game,
That with her traine of Nymphs attending on,
She came to hunt the Bore of Calydon. (I. i. 318.)
We have also the introduction of an Echo scene--the earliest, I suppose, in English. A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly's plays. In the lines sung by Eurymine--
Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above,
Forge of desires working love,
Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye
Upon a Mayde in miserie--(I. i. 131.)
there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of acknowledged merit. Again, there is a fine swing in the song:
Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a:
Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a.
Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a:
All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.)
The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect:
Gemulo. As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides,
When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne--Silvio. As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides, Where Nightingales record upon the thorne--
Ge. So rise my thoughts--
Sil. So all my sences cheere--
Ge. When she surveyes my flocks--
Sil. And she my Deare.
Ge. Eurymine!
Sil. Eurymine!
Ge. Come foorth!
Sil. Come foorth!
Ge. Come foorth and cheere these plaines!
Both. Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines--
Sil. The Wood-mans Love--
Ge. And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.)
Not long after the appearance of the Maid's Metamorphosis there was written a play entitled The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves, which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe Club. The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or nothing is known. He left several manuscript plays, of which the present at least, dated 1603[321] at 'Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,' possesses neither interest nor merit. It is an amateurish performance, partly in prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets. Where the author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do. It is also apt to be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the author's own. The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy hunters and huntresses. Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and reform the abuses. The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne. While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent to reward the service of their lovers. The scenes are spun out by a thread of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and his wench. Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from passages in the Maid's Metamorphosis. The piece has a prologue for representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that honour. It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition.
Passing over the Faithful Shepherdess in 1609, we come to a play of a very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher's Sicelides, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it. It was acted before the University at King's College, on March 13, and printed, surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322]. It is not easy to account for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the hands of critics[323]. No doubt among writers generally it has shared the neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been overlooked as being piscatory. The fisher-poem, however, as we have already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues of the same author. The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the fountain-head of his inspiration.
Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his affection is returned. In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with mockery when she pleads her love. Meanwhile Perindus' sister, Olinda, is courted by Glaucilla's brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country. He does so, but soon returns in disguise, resolved on winning her. She in the meantime has relented of her coldness, and is pining for his love. An opportunity soon offers itself for his purpose. By mistake or through ignorance she plucks the Hesperian apples in the sacred grove, an offence for which she is condemned to be offered as a sacrifice to a monster who inhabits a cave on the shore, and is known by the name of Maleorchus. Andromeda-like, she is bound to a rock, and the orc is in the very act of rushing upon its prey, when Thalander interposes and succeeds in slaying the monster. Meanwhile Cosma--'a light nymph of Messina,' who replaces the 'wanton nymph of Corinth' of the Arcadian cast--has fallen in love with Perindus, and, determining to get rid at a stroke both of his sister Olinda and his mistress Glaucilla, gives the former a poison under pretence of a love-cure. Glaucilla hearing of this, and suspecting the supposed philtre, mingles with it an antidote, so that when Olinda drinks it she only falls into a death-like trance. Hereupon Cosma accuses Glaucilla of substituting a poison for the philtre. She is condemned to be cast from the cliffs, but Perindus comes forward and claims to die in her place. He is actually cast from the rocks, but falling into the sea is rescued by two fishermen. These, we may notice, are borrowed from the twenty-first idyl of Theocritus, and supply, together with Cosma's page and lovers, a comic under-plot to the play. Olinda now revives, Thalander discovering her love for him reveals himself, and Perindus' oracle being fulfilled, all ends happily, the festivities being crowned by the entirely unexpected and uncalled-for return of Tyrinthus, the father of Perindus and Olinda, who had been carried off long before by pirates.
This somewhat complex plot, the dependence of which on the Italian pastoral is evident, is padded with a good deal of farce, but though the construction never evinces any great power on the part of the author, it is not on the whole inadequate. The verse is in great part rimed in couplets, and there are frequent attempts at epigrammatic effect, which at times lead to some obscurity. The language betrays, as in the case of the author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such phrases as 'doe ycleape,' to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser. Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone:
Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it
That Sicelie affords a water-Poet. (II. vi.)
The stealing of the Hesperian apples, and the penalty entailed, appear to be imitated from the breaking of Pan's tree in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, as does also the devotion and rescue of Perindus[324]. The orc probably owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to Ariosto, and the influence of the Metamorphoses is likewise, as so often, present. The following is perhaps a rather favourable specimen of the verse, but many short passages and phrases of merit might be quoted:
The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes,
The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes,
And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames,
Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ...
Only love waking rests and sleepe despises,
Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises.
With him the day as night, the night as day,
All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day.
How different from love is lovers guise!
He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.)
Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral that has survived appeared on the stage. This is a somewhat wild production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled The Careless Shepherdess. It was printed many years after its original production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by 'T. G. Mr. of Arts,' who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this ascription ever been challenged. Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629. It is probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture. It was, we are informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629. Consequently the 'praeludium,' the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last months of the author's life[325]. The question of the date is interesting principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson's Sad Shepherd:
This was her wonted place, on these green banks
She sate her down, when first I heard her play
Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be
Far from the spring she's left behinde. That Rose
I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke
Then court my eye; She must be here, or else
That gracefull Marygold wo'd shure have clos'd
Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that
Violet too wo'd hang its velvet head
To mourn the absence of her eyes[326]. (V. vii.)
The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical. Such interest as the play possesses is dependent on the plot. We have the conventional four characters: Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus. Philaritus is the son of Cleobulus, who is described as 'a gentleman of Arcadia,' and opposes his son's marriage with the daughter of a mere shepherd to the point of disowning him, whereupon the lover dons the pastoral garb, and so continues his suit to his unresponsive mistress. Castarina meanwhile informs her lover that she will show no favour to any suitor until the return of her banished father, Paromet. Both swains are of course in despair at the cruelty of their loves, but the behaviour of the nymphs is throughout marked by a certain sanity of feeling, which contrasts with the exaggerated devotions, and yet more exaggerated iciness, of their Italian predecessors. Philaritus, in the hope of rousing Arismena to jealousy, feigns love to Castarina, who readily meets his advances. He is so far successful that he awakes his mistress to the fact that she really loves him, but she determines to play the same trick upon him by feigning in her turn to love Lariscus. This has the immediate effect of making Philaritus challenge his supposed rival, who, having witnessed his pretended advances to Castarina, eagerly responds. Their meeting is, however, interrupted, in the one tolerably good scene in the play, by the appearance of the two shepherdesses, who threaten to slay one another unless their lovers desist. Arismena's coldness, it may be mentioned, has been shaken by Philaritus having rescued her from the pursuit of a satyr, and the two maidens now consent to make return for the long suit of their lovers. While, however, they are yet in the first transport of joy, a troop of satyrs appear, and carry off the girls by force, leaving the lovers to a despair rendered all the more bitter for Philaritus by the announcement that his father relents of his anger, and is willing to countenance his marriage with Arismena. After a vain search for traces of their loves the swains return home, where they are met by the same satyrs, still guarding their captives. They offer to run at them, when the two leaders discover themselves as the fathers respectively of Philaritus and Arismena. No satisfactory account of their motive for this outrage is offered, for while they are disputing of the matter the other satyrs, supposed to be their servants in disguise, suddenly disappear with the girls. Consternation follows, and great preparations are made for pursuit. Arismena and Castarina, however, apparently escape from their captors, for we next find them sleeping quietly in an arbour. Again a satyr enters, and carries off Arismena, whom Castarina on waking follows to the dwelling of the satyrs, where she finds her friend being courted by her captor. Meanwhile the rash pursuers have fallen into the hands of the pursued, and are brought in bound. Matters appear desperate, and the nymphs are actually brought on the stage apparently dead and lying in their coffins. They soon, however, show themselves to be alive, and the chief satyr reveals himself as the banished Paromet, who has been endeavouring to induce Arismena to marry him, in the hope thereby to get his sentence of banishment revoked. This, it appears, has already been done, and all now ends happily.
In this chaotic medley it will be observed that the plot is twice ravelled and loosed before the final solution. In the frequent enlèvements by the satyrs, as in the manner in which these deceive their employer, the story distantly recalls Ingegneri's Danza di Venere. One feature of importance is the comic character Graculus, who is well fooled by the pretended satyrs, and has an amusing though coarse part in prose. He seems to owe his origin to the broad humours of the vulgar stage, though he may be in a measure imitated from the roguish pages of Lyly, and so be the forerunner of Randolph's Dorylas. The tradition of the comic scenes, usually written in prose, was in process of crystallization, and from the Maid's Metamorphosis we can trace it onwards through the present piece, and such slighter compositions as the Converted Robber and Tatham's Love Crowns the End, to Randolph and even later writers. In the present case it was no innovation, nor is there any reason to suppose that it was unpopular with the audience.[327] What was an innovation was the 'gentleman of Arcadia,' a character for which the Spanish romance was without doubt responsible. In the Italian pastoral proper the shepherds are themselves the aristocracy of Arcadia, the introduction of such social hierarchy as is implied in the phrase being a point of chivalric and courtly tradition. Cleobulus, however, as well as his son Philaritus, is in fact purely Arcadian in character. Among other personae we find Apollo and the Sibyls, introduced for the sake of an oracle; Silvia, who more or less fills the office of priestess of Pan, and leads the shepherds to his shrine in a sort of masque; and a very superfluous 'Bonus Genius' of Castarina. This mythological element, however, though suggested, is not, any more than the courtly, put to the fore. I quote Silvia's song as the best example of the lyrical verse of the play:
Come Shepherds come, impale your brows
With Garlands of the choicest flowers
The time allows.
Come Nymphs deckt in your dangling hair,
And unto Sylvia's shady Bowers
With hast repair:
Where you shall see chast Turtles play,
And Nightingales make lasting May,
As if old Time his youthfull minde,
To one delightful season had confin'd. (II. i.)
There is one thing that can be said in favour of the pastoral written by Ralph Knevet for the Society of Florists at Norwich, namely, that while adhering mainly to tradition, it is not indebted to any individual works. Of the author of Rhodon and Iris, as the play was called, little is known beyond the dates of his birth and death, 1600 and 1671, and the bare facts that he was at one time connected in the capacity of tutor or chaplain with the family of Sir William Paston of Oxmead, and after the restoration held the living of Lyng in Norfolk. The play appears to have been performed at the Florists' feast on May 3, 1631, and was printed the same year. The object the author had in view was the characterization of certain flowers in the persons of nymphs and shepherds; other characters are allegorical personifications, while Flora herself plays the part of the pastoral god from the machine. The weakness of the plot, as in so many cases, lies in the existence of two main threads of interest, whose connexion is wholly fortuitous, and neither of which is clearly subordinated to the other. In the present case no attempt is made to interweave the chivalric motive, in which Rhodon stands as champion of the oppressed Violetta, with the pastoral motive of his love for Iris. It is, moreover, hardly possible to credit the play with a plot at all, since one thread is cut short by a dea ex machina of the most mechanical sort, while in the other there is never any complication at all. The following is the outline of the action. The proud shepherd Martagan has encroached on and wasted the lands of Violetta, the sister of Rhodon, to whom she appeals for protection. The latter determines to demand reparation of Martagan, and, in case of his refusal, to offer battle on his sister's behalf. In the meantime, warned, as we are told, by the stars, he has abandoned his love Eglantine, and incontinently fallen in love with Iris. The forsaken nymph seeks the aid of a witch, Poneria (Wickedness), who with her associate Agnostus (Ignorance) is supporting the pretensions of Martagan. Poneria supplies Eglantine with a poison under pretence of a love-philtre, with instructions to administer it to Rhodon disguised as his love Iris, which she succeeds in doing. Meanwhile Martagan has refused to come to terms, and either side prepares for war. Violetta and Iris send Rhodon charms and salves for wounds by the hand of their servant Panace (All-heal), who happily arrives just as he has drunk the poison, and is in time to cure him. Rhodon now prepares for battle under the belief that Iris has sought his death, but being assured of her faith, he vows a double vengeance on his foes, to whose deceit he next attributes the attempt. The forces are about to join battle when, in response to the prayers of the nymphs, Flora appears and bids the warriors hold. Martagan she commands to refrain from the usurped territory, and charges his followers to keep the peace and abide by her award. Poneria and Agnostus she banishes from the land, and Eglantine for seeking unlawful means to her love is condemned to ten years' penance in a 'vestal Temple.' Thus Rhodon is free to celebrate his nuptials with Iris, though the matter is only referred to in the epilogue.
The plot, it will be seen, is anything but that of a pure pastoral. The large chivalric or at least martial element belongs less to the courtly and Spanish type than to that of works like Menaphon, or even Daphnis and Chloe. There is also a comic motive between Clematis and her fellow servant Gladiolus, which turns on the wardrobe and cosmetics of Eglantine and Poneria, and belongs to the tradition of court and city. The allegorical characters find their nearest parallel in those of the Queen's Arcadia.[328]
This amateurish effort is composed for the most part in a strangely unmetrical attempt at blank verse. It differs from the doggerel of the Fairy Pastoral in making no apparent attempt at scansion at all, and so at least escapes the crabbedness of Percy's language. It is not easy to see how the author came to write in this curious compromise between verse and prose, since it is more or less freely interspersed with passages both in blank verse and in couplets, which, while exhibiting no conspicuous poetical qualities, are both metrical and pleasing enough. Take, for example, the lines from Eglantine's lament:
Since that the gods will not my woe redresse,
Since men are altogether pittilesse,
Ye silent ghosts unto my plaints give eare;
Give ear, I say, ye ghosts, if ghosts can heare,
And listen to my plaints that doe excell
The dol'rous tune of ravish'd Philomel.
Now let Ixions wheele stand still a while,
Let Danaus daughters now surcease their toyle,
Let Sisyphus rest on his restlesse stone,
Let not the Apples flye from Plotas sonne,
And let the full gorg'd Vultur cease to teare
The growing liver of the ravisher;
Let these behold my sorrows and confesse
Their paines doe farre come short of my distresse. (II. iii.)
Or take Clematis' prayer for her mistress Eglantine:
Thou gentle goddesse of the woods and mountains,
That in the woods and mountains art ador'd,
The Maiden patronesse of chaste desires,
Who art for chastity renouned most,
Tresgrand Diana, who hast power to cure
The rankling wounds of Cupids golden arrowes,
Thy precious balsome deigne thou to apply
Unto the heart of wofull Eglantine. (I. iii.)
Or yet again, in lighter mood, Acanthus' boast:
When Sol shall make the Easterne Seas his bed,
When Wolves and Sheepe shall be together fed,...
When Venus shal turn Chast, and Bacchus become sober,
When fruit in April's ripe, that blossom'd in October,...
When Art shal be esteem'd, and golden pelfe laid down,
When Fame shal tel all truth, and Fortune cease to frown,
To Cupids yoke then I my necke will bow;
Till then, I will not feare loves fatall blow. (I. ii.)
Yet the author of the above passages--for there is no reason to suppose a second hand, and the play was published under his own direction--chose to write the main portion of his poem in a measure of this sort:
Oh impotent desires, allay the sad consort
Of a sublime Fortune, whose most ambitious flames
Disdaine to burne in simple Cottages,
Loathing a hard unpolish'd bed;
But Coveting to shine beneath a Canopy
Of rich Sydonian purple, all imbroider'd
With purest gold, and orientall Pearles. (I. iii.)
Why he should have so chosen I cannot presume to say; whether from haste and carelessness, or from a deliberate intention of writing a sort of measured prose; but it was certainly from no inability to be metrical. The occasional lyrics, moreover, are not without merit; the following lines, sung by Eglantine, are perhaps the most pleasing in the play:
Upon the blacke Rocke of despaire
My youthfull joyes are perish'd quite;
My hopes are vanish'd into ayre,
My day is turn'd to gloomy night;
For since my Rhodon deare is gone,
Hope, light, nor comfort, have I none.
A Cell where griefe the Landlord is
Shall be my palace of delight,
Where I will wooe with votes and sighes
Sweet death to end my sorrowes quite;
Since I have lost my Rhodon deare,
Deaths fleshlesse armes why should I feare? (I. iii.)
To treat of Walter Montagu's Shepherds' Paradise at a length at all commensurate with its own were to set a premium on dull prolixity; there are, however, in spite of its restricted merits, a few points which give it a claim upon our attention. A brief analysis will suffice. The King of Castile negotiates a marriage between his son and the princess of Navarre. The former, however, is in love with a lady of the court named Fidamira, who repulses his advances in favour of Agenor, a friend of the prince's. The prince therefore resolves to leave the court and seek the Shepherds' Paradise, a sequestered vale inhabited by a select and courtly company, and induces Agenor to accompany him on his expedition. In their absence the king himself makes love to Fidamira, who, however, escapes, and likewise makes her way to the Shepherds' Paradise in disguise. Meanwhile, Belesa, the princess of Navarre, misliking of the proposed match with a man she has never seen, has withdrawn from her father's court to the same pastoral retreat, where she has at once been elected queen of the courtly company. On the arrival of the prince and his friend they both fall in love with her, but the prince's suit is seconded by the disguised Fidamira, and soon takes a favourable turn. At this point the King of Castile arrives in pursuit, together with an old councillor, who proceeds to reveal the relationship of the various characters. Fidamira and Belesa, it appears, are sisters, and Agenor their brother. The marriage of the prince and Belesa is of course solemnized; the king renews his suit to Fidamira, but she prefers to remain in Paradise, where she is chosen perpetual queen[329].
The plot, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the school of the Hispano-French romance, and the style, intricate, involved, and conceited, in which this prose pastoral is written betrays the same origin. Moreover, as Euphuism, objectionable enough in the romance, becomes ten times more intolerable on the stage, so too with the language of the pastoral-amorous tale of courtly chivalry. There are, however, incidental passages of verse which in their own rather intricate and ergotic style are of greater merit than the prose, though that is not saying much. The close dependence of the piece upon the chivalric tradition serves to differentiate it from the majority of those we have to consider; while certain external circumstances have combined to give it a fortuitous reputation.
One of Montagu's passports to fame is an allusion in Suckling's Session of the Poets, from which it is evident that the style of the play attracted notice of an uncomplimentary character even among the writer's contemporaries:
Wat Montagu now stood forth to his trial,
And did not so much as suspect a denial;
But witty Apollo asked him first of all,
If he understood his own pastoral!
The Shepherds' Paradise is, however, best remembered on account of circumstances attending its performance. It was acted, as we learn from a letter of John Chamberlain's, on January 8, 1632-3, by the queen and her ladies, who filled male and female parts alike. Almost simultaneously appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who appeared on the boards. As this, of course, was not the practice of the public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears.
It is presumably at this point that Randolph's Amyntas should appear in a chronological survey of English pastoralism.
Of the 'Pastoral of Florimene,' presented at the queen's command before the king at Whitehall, on December 21, 1635, we possess the plot only, and it is even doubtful in what language the piece was composed[330]. The songs in the introduction and the intermedî were undoubtedly in French, and the prologue by Fame in English; the rest is uncertain, but the French forms of the names, and the fact that it was represented by 'les filles françaises de la Reine' point in the same direction. The plot, which belongs entirely to the court-pastoral type of the French romances, only influenced in the dénoûment by mythological tradition, appears to be original in the same degree as most other pastoral inventions, that is, to exhibit fresh variations on stock situations.[331] The relation of the characters is involved, and not easily made out from the printed account of the piece, but the outline of the plot is as follows. The shepherdess Florimene is loved by the Delian shepherd Anfrize, who has long been her servant, and the Arcadian stranger Filene, who in order to gain access to the object of his devotion has disguised himself in female attire, and passes under the name of Dorine. In this disguise he is courted by Florimene's brother, Aristee. Filene, however, was loved in Arcadia by the nymph Licoris, who has followed him disguised in shepherd's weeds. Aristee, in order to sound the mind of his love, the supposed Dorine (i.e. Filene), disguises himself in his sister Florimene's dress, and in this garb receives to his astonishment the declaration of Filene's love. Aristee immediately leaves him, and turns his affections towards the faithful Lucinde, who has long pined for his love. She, however, has now fallen in love with Lycoris in her male attire, and rejects the advances of the penitent Aristee, continuing to do so even after she has discovered her mistake. Lycoris, hearing of the disguise of Filene, seeks Florimene at the moment when she is most incensed on discovering the deception, and begs her good offices with Filene, which are readily promised. Florimene accordingly rejects Filene when he presents himself, but he refuses to show any favour to Lycoris until she shall have obtained his pardon from Florimene. The latter is really in love with Filene all the time, and when Lycoris comes to plead his cause, she readily grants her audience. Filene now enters, and is about to pass his vows to Florimene when they are interrupted by Anfrize, who in a fit of jealousy offers to kill Filene. This attempt Florimene prevents with her sheep-hook, and declares that they must all seek the award of Diana, by whose decision she promises to abide. The goddess then appears. Lucinde she decrees shall restore her love to Aristee; Lycoris, she informs the company, is own sister to Filene, whose love she must therefore renounce. She then bids Anfrize and Filene plead their cause, which they do, and she declares in favour of the latter's suit, commanding at the same time that the unsuccessful Anfrize shall wed the forlorn Lycoris. Thus all are happy, so far as having their love affairs arranged by a third party can be supposed to make them. Florimene, who had retired, perhaps to don her bridal robes, now returns to complete the tableau. 'Here the Heavens open, and there appeare many deities, who in their songs expresse their agreements to these marriages'--which was, no doubt, thought very satisfactory by the spectators.
The Shepherds' Holiday is the most typical, as it is on the whole the most successful, of those pastorals which exhibit the blending of the Arcadian and courtly elements. It was printed in 1635, and the title-page informs us that it was 'Written by J. R.,' initials which there is satisfactory evidence for regarding as those of Joseph Rutter, the translater of Corneille's Cid, who appears to have been in some way attached to the households both of Sir Kenelm Digby and the Earl of Dorset. The play was acted before Charles and his queen at Whitehall. The following analysis will sufficiently express its nature.
At the opening of the play we find Thirsis grieving for the loss of Silvia, a strange shepherdess who appeared amongst the pastoral inhabitants of Arcadia some while previously, and has recently vanished, carried off, as her lover supposes, by a satyr. Leaving him to his lament, the play introduces us to the huntress Nerina, courted by the rich shepherd Daphnis, whose suit is favoured by her father, and the poor swain Hylas. Daphnis is in his turn loved by the nymph Dorinda. In a scene between Hylas and Nerina she upbraids him with having once stolen a kiss of her, and dismisses him in seeming anger; immediately he is gone, however, delivering herself of a soliloquy in which she confesses her love for him, which her father's commands forbid her to reveal. Daphnis, finding her cold to his suit, seeks the help of Alcon, who supplies him with a magic glass, in which whoso looks shall not choose but love the giver. In reality it is poisoned, and upon his giving it to Nerina she faints, and in appearance dies, after obtaining as her last request her father's favour to her love for Hylas. The scene now shifts to court. Silvia, who it appears is none other than the daughter of King Euarchus, recounts how she had fled owing to the unwelcome suit of Cleander, the son of the old councillor Eubulus, and on account of her love of the shepherd Thirsis, whom she had seen and heard at the annual show which the country folk were wont to perform at court. After a while, however, Cleander had discovered her retreat and forced her to return. The shepherds are now again about to present their rustic pageant, and she takes the opportunity of sending a private message, seeking an interview with Thirsis. Meanwhile Eubulus has explained to his son Cleander how Silvia is really his own daughter, and consequently Cleander's sister. An oracle had led the king to believe that if a son were born to him harm would ensue, and therefore commanded that in that case the child should be destroyed. A son was born, but Eubulus substituted his own daughter, whom he feigned dead, and carried away the king's son with a necklace round his neck, intending to commit him to the care of some shepherds, but being surprised by robbers fled leaving the child to its fate. Returning now to the shepherds, the play shows us Daphnis and Alcon seeking the tomb of Nerina with a restorative. The glass, it seems, was intentionally poisoned by Alcon, who adopted this elaborate device for placing the nymph in the power of her lover should she continue obdurate. They restore her, and finding her still unmoved by his suit Daphnis threatens her with violence. Her cries, however, attract the swains, who arrive with Hylas at their head. Daphnis, overcome with shame at the exposure of his villany, is glad to find a friend in the despised Dorinda, while Nerina rewards her faithful Hylas in accordance with her father's promise. Meanwhile at court Silvia and Thirsis have been surprised in their secret interview, and both doomed to die by the anger of the king. The necklace on Thirsis' neck, however, leads to the discovery of his identity as the king's son, and all ends happily.[332]
In point of dramatic construction the first three acts leave little to be desired; as is so often the case, the weakness of the plot appears in the unravelling. The double solution of the two threads, neither of which is properly subordinated, and which are wholly independent, is a serious blot on the dramatic merit of the play. The courtly element, moreover, is but clumsily grafted on to the pastoral stock. Throughout the debts to predecessors, whether of language or incident, are fairly obvious. The verse in which the play is written is adequate and well sustained, and if its dependence on Daniel is evident, no less so is the advance in flexibility and expression which the language, as handled by the lesser poets, has made in the course of the twenty years or so that separate the Shepherds' Holiday from Hymen's Triumph. Rutter's verse also displays a certain nervousness of its own which is wanting in the model, though it preserves the intermixture of blank verse with irregular rimes which Daniel affected. These peculiarities may be illustrated in a passage which opens with a reminiscence of Spenser:
All as the shepherd is, such be his flocks,
So pine and languish they, as in despair
He pines and languishes; their fleecy locks
Let hang disorder'd, as their master's hair,
Since she is gone that deck'd both him and them.
And now what beauty can there be to live,
When she is lost that did all beauty give? (I. i.)
Again the opening situation recalls that of Hymen's Triumph, a resemblance rendered all the more striking by the retention of the actual names, Silvia and Thirsis. In like manner the name and character of Dorinda are taken from the Pastor fido. From the Aminta, of course, comes Nerina's description of how her lover stole a kiss, though little of the sensuous charm of the original survives; from the Pastor fido her confession of love as soon as she finds herself alone. The opening lines of this speech are, indeed, a direct translation:
Alas! my Hylas, my beloved soul,
Durst she whom thou hast call'd cruel Nerina
But speak her thoughts, thou wouldst not think her so;
To thee she is not cruel, but to herself.[333] (II. iii.)
But these borrowings are by no means unskilful, so far at least as the construction is concerned. The discovery by Cleander that Silvia is his own sister, and the instant effect of the discovery in destroying his love, are of course commonplaces of the minor pastoral drama of Italy, and also occur in some of the plays we have been examining in this chapter. Verbal reminiscences of the Aminta also are scattered through the play, for instance, the lines in which Nerina protests her hatred of all who seek to win her from her state of unfettered virginity, protestations particularly fatuous, seeing that she is in love with Hylas throughout. Her father not unreasonably retorts:
Yes, you have made a vow, I know, which is,
Whilst you are young, you will have all the youth
To follow you with lies and flatteries.
Fool, they'll deceive you; when this colour fades,
Which will not always last, and you go crooked,
As if you sought your beauty, lost i' th' ground,
Then they will laugh at you! (II. v.)
With which he goes off to attend to the shearing of his sheep, one of those wholly unnecessary operations which the less skilful pastoralists make it a virtue to thrust upon our attention. The scene between Nerina, Daphnis, and Dorinda, a sort of three-cornered love-suit, may possibly have suggested to Cowley the best scene in the play which next claims our attention.
Cowley's Love's Riddle, published in 1638, but written two or three years earlier, is the work of a boy of sixteen, and though it serves amply to prove the precocity of its author, it does not therefore follow that it is itself possessed of any conspicuous merit. To find in it passages of genuine observation and love of nature, as one of Cowley's critics professes to do, is unpardonably partial; to grumble with another at not finding them is futile; even with a third to see in the piece 'a boy's conception of Sicilian life' is, to say the least, unnecessary. Cowley had, indeed, a great deal too much of 'the precocious humour of the world-wise boy' to put forward his play as anything of the kind; he was perfectly aware that it was an absolutely unreal fantasy, based entirely on convention and imitation, the sole merit of which was the more or less clever manner in which borrowing, reminiscence, and tradition were interwoven and combined. The plot is a mixture of the pastoral and courtly, or at least aristocratic, types, not uninfluenced by the rustic or comic, which, like the chivalric, is no doubt of Sidneian origin.
Calidora, the daughter of noble parents in Sicily, retires among the shepherd folk disguised in man's apparel, in order, as we only learn at the end of the play, to escape from the violence of Aphron, one of her suitors. Her other suitor, Philistus, as well as her brother Florellus and Philistus' sister Clariana, all set off in search of her, while Aphron, finding her fled from his pursuit, wanders aimlessly about, having lost his reason. Thus the courtly characters are all brought in contact with the country swains, among whom Palaemon courts the disdainful Hylace, daughter of the crabbed Melarnus and the old hag Truga. Other pastoral characters are old Aegon and his supposed daughter Bellula, and Alupis, who fills at once the rôles of the 'merry' shepherd and the 'wise.' On Callidora's appearance in boy's attire among the shepherd folk Hylace and Bellula alike fall in love with her, while in his search for his sister Florellus falls in love with Bellula. This gives occasion for a scene of some merit between Callidora, Bellula, and Florellus, in which, after vainly disputing of their loves, they form a sort of triple alliance under the name of Love's Riddle. A similar scene could obviously be worked with Callidora, Hylace, and Palaemon, and it is perhaps to Cowley's credit that he has avoided the obvious parallelism. Meanwhile Clariana has met the mad Aphron without recognizing him, and taking pity on his state brings him home to cure him, an attempt in which she is successful. He rewards her by transferring to her his somewhat questionable attentions. Also Alupis, working on Truga, has tricked her into seeking the marriage of Hylace and Palaemon; a plan, however, which is upset by Hylace and Melarnus. Florellus in the meantime becomes impatient at finding a rival in Bellula's love, and seeks a duel with Callidora. She apparently fails to recognize her brother, and is forced to fight. They are separated by Philistus and Bellula. The two girls faint, and are carried by their lovers into the house where Clariana is nursing Aphron. Callidora's identity is discovered, and her parents arrive upon the scene. Bellula is found to be, not, as was supposed, Aegon's daughter, but sister to Aphron, stolen by pirates in childhood. Aegon makes Palaemon his heir, thereby removing Melarnus' objection to his suit to Hylace, while the latter and Bellula, discovering the hopelessness of their love for Callidora, consent to reward their respective lovers. Aphron, cured and forgiven, is accepted by Clariana, and thus, all bars removed, the happiness of the four pairs is secured.
There has been a tendency to exaggerate the merits of this plot. Cowley shows, indeed, some skill in the ravelling and in the handling of individual scenes, but in the unravelling he is far from happy, and there is often an utter lack of motive about his characters. Where the whole construction, indeed, depends upon no inner necessity, the various threads, as soon as their interweaving ceases to be necessary to the plot, fall apart of themselves, without any dénoûment, strictly speaking, at all. Thus Cowley's play has the characteristic faults of immature work, absence of rational characterization, and want of logical construction.
The verse, though well sustained, is on a singularly tedious level of mediocrity, while the lyrics introduced are all alike considerably below the general level. There are seldom more than a few lines together which possess any distinguishing merit, such as an indulgent editor has found in Bellula's exclamation when she first falls in love with Callidora:
How red his cheekes are! so our garden apples
Looke on that side where the hot Sun salutes them; (I. ii.)
or in the lines with which Callidora prepares to meet death from her brother's sword:
As sick men doe their beds, so have I yet
Injoy'd my selfe, with little rest, much trouble:
I have beene made the Ball of Love and Fortune,
And am almost worne out with often playing;
And therefore I would entertaine my death
As some good friend whose comming I expected. (V. iii.)
Mr. Gosse once expressed the opinion that Cowley's play is 'a distinct following without imitation of The Jealous Lovers of Thomas Randolph.' Exactly what was meant by this phrase it is difficult to tell, but if it was intended to imply any resemblance between the two pieces its application is confined to the character of a woman to whom age has not taught continence, and an incidental hit at the jargon of astrologers.[334] That Cowley had read The Jealous Lovers, published in 1633, is by no means unlikely, for he was certainly acquainted with the yet unpublished Amyntas. This he may perhaps have seen when it was performed at Whitehall, and he imitated several passages of it in his own Westminster play. The most important point of connexion is the madness of Aphron, which is modelled with some closeness on that of Amyntas. Actual verbal reminiscences are not common, but there can, I think, be little doubt that the schoolboy has been imitating the half-grotesque, half-poetic fantasies of the university wit, though he has wholly failed to achieve his pathos. Again, the speech of Florellus at the opening of Act III recalls the return both of Corymbus and of Claius in Amyntas, while Cowley is much more likely to have been influenced to lay the scene of his play in Sicily by Randolph's example than by his reading of Theocritus, whose influence, if it exists, is of the slightest. Emulation, rather than imitation, was Cowley's attitude towards his predecessor, and his means are not always happy. Thus, though the humours of Truga may have been suggested by the character of Dipsa in the Jealous Lovers, she is probably introduced into Cowley's play as the counterpart of Dorylas in Amyntas. Randolph trod on thin ice in some of the speeches of the liquorish wag, whose 'years are yet uncapable of love,' but censure will not stick to the witty knave. On the other hand, Cowley's portrait of incontinent age in Truga fails wholly of being comic, and appears all the loathlier for the fact that the author himself was still a mere schoolboy--though this is, indeed, his best excuse. Other parallels could be pointed out, but it would be superfluous; convention and petty theft are the warp and woof of the piece. The satire, which has met with some praise, is, of course, staled by a hundred poets of the pastoral vein. The position of Callidora, loved in her disguise by the two girls, recalls that of many pastoral heroines before and since Daniel's Silvia, particularly perhaps of the courtly Rosalind loved by the Arcadian Phoebe. The chivalric admixture is, as usual, traceable to Sidney, and the duel finds of course an obvious parallel in Twelfth Night. The discovery of Bellula's identity recalls more particularly, perhaps, that of Chloe's in Longus' romance, or may possibly indicate an acquaintance with Bonarelli's Filli di Sciro, which might also be traced in the attribution to centaurs of the character long identified with satyrs in pastoral tradition.
It is a coincidence, but one significant of the nature of the pastoral tradition, if such it can be called, that had sprung up on the English stage, that the next play to claim our notice is again the work of a schoolboy. Love in its Extasy, described on the title-page as 'a kind of Royall Pastorall,' was written, at the age of seventeen, by a student of Eton College, whom it has been customary to identify with one William Peaps.[335] The date of composition is said in the stationer's preface to have preceded by many years that of publication, 1649, we may perhaps regard the piece as more or less contemporary with Cowley's juvenile effort. There is, it is true, one passage,[336] treating of tyrants and revolutions, which is such as a moderate supporter of 'divine right' might have been expected to pen in the later days of the civil war; the publisher's words, however, are unequivocal, and can hardly refer to a period after 1642.
Love in its Extasy itself cannot, without some straining of the term, be called a pastoral, though there are certain links serving to connect it with pastoral tradition. The only excuse, beyond that afforded by the title-page, for including it in the present category is that several of the characters, finding it for various reasons inconvenient to appear in their own shapes, take upon themselves a pastoral disguise; but there is no hint of any pastoral background to the action, not even the atmosphere of a rural academy as in Montagu's play. The whole piece, however, is in the style of the Hispano-French romance, in which pastoral or pseudo-pastoral plays so large a part. To enter into the plot in detail is for our present purpose unnecessary. It is apparently original, and, considered as a romance, would do no small credit to its youthful author. An exiled king and his lady-love assume the sheep-hook, as do also two princes and the mistress of one of them, the mistress of the other appearing in the disguise of a boy. Disguisings, potions, feigned deaths, and recognitions, or rather revelations of identity, form the staple elements of the plot. The play is long, the stage crowded, the plot intricate and elaborated with a superabundance of incident; but it must be admitted that the attention is held and the interest sustained, even to a wearisome degree, throughout; that the characters are individualized, and the action clear. These are no small merits, as any one whose fortune it has been to wade through any considerable portion of the minor drama will be ready to acknowledge; while the defects of the piece are those commonly incident to immature work. The most conspicuous are the want of one prominent interest, and the lack of definite climax; at least four equally important threads are kept running through the play, and the dramatic tension is at an almost constant pitch throughout. These characteristics are those of the narrative romance and of the novel of adventure respectively, and are fatal to the success of the dramatic form.
The verse is in a way peculiar. It is intended as blank verse, and it is true that the licences taken do not exceed those commonly allowed by the practice of dramatists such as Fletcher, but here they are wholly unregulated by any natural feeling for metre or rhythm, and the resuit can hardly be called pleasing. On the other hand, there are a few happy lines, as where a lover bids his penitent mistress
Go,
Knock at Repentance gate, one tear of thine
Will easily compell an entrance. (V. ii.)
There are also some passages of forcible vigour, not always subject to dramatic propriety. Nevertheless, the qualities of life and brightness displayed are sufficient to induce a belief that had the author begun writing at a moment more propitious than the eve of the civil war, and pursued his career on the practical London stage, our drama might have been the richer by, say, a second Shirley, an addition which those who know that writer best will probably rate most highly. In any case the composition must, I think, be held to surpass in genuine qualities Cowley's flashy precocity.
This will be the most convenient place to mention an anonymous and undated play entitled Love's Victory, extracts from a manuscript of which were printed in 1853.[337] The style of the piece is not much guide as to the date, but the play does not appear to be early, in spite of the somewhat archaic spelling. It is in rime; mostly decasyllabic couplets, but with free intermixture of alternative rime and frequent lyrical passages. It is of course difficult to gather much of the plot from the printed extracts, but so far as it is possible to judge the play appears to have been a pure pastoral, with Venus and Cupid introduced in the finale, while the situations and characters are those habitual to pastorals, including the quite superfluous protesting of a not very prepossessing chastity. The only more original trait is the scene in which the nymphs meet and relate their love adventures, a rather awkward device for carrying on the involution of the plot. There is a certain ease in the verse, but on the whole the poetic merit is small.[338]
We have now passed in review all the regular pastoral plays lying within our scope. There remain a number of shorter compositions of a similar or at least analogous nature, as well as a good many masques and other pieces in which the pastoral element is more or less dominant. These it will for our present purpose be convenient to consider in connexion with each other, and without troubling ourselves too much concerning such nice differences of form as may be found to exist among them.