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This beautiful mold when I beheld to be indued with chastity, temperance, mildness, and all other good gifts of nature (as hereafter shall appear), when I saw her to surpass all in beauty, and yet a virgin, to excell all in piety, and yet a prince, to be inferior to none in all the lineaments of the body, 45 and yet superior to every one in all gifts of the mind, I began thus to pray, that as she hath lived forty years a virgin in great majesty, so she may live four score years a mother with great joy, that as with her we have long time had peace and plenty, so by her we may ever have quietness and abun50 dance, wishing this even from the bottom of a heart that wisheth well to England, though feareth ill, that either the world may end before she die, or she live to see her children's children in the world; otherwise how tickle their state is that now triumph, upon what a twist they hang that now 55 are in honor, they that live shall see, which I to think on, sigh! But God for his mercy's sake, Christ for his merit's sake, the Holy Ghost for his name's sake, grant to that realm comfort without any ill chance, and the prince they have without any other change, that the longer she liveth the 60 sweeter she may smell, like the bird Ibis, that she may be triumphant in victories like the palm tree, fruitful in her age like the vine, in all ages prosperous, to all men gracious, in all places glorious, so that there be no end of her praise until the end of all flesh.

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Thus did I often talk with myself, and wish with mine whole soul.

But whither do I wade, ladies, as one forgetting himself; thinking to sound the depth of her virtues with a few fathoms, when there is no bottom; for I know not how it cometh to 70 pass that, being in this labyrinth, I may sooner lose myself than find the end.

Behold, ladies, in this glass a queen, a woman, a virgin,

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With new-born sighs and denizen'd wit do sing;
You take wrong ways; those far-fet helps be such
As do bewray a want of inward touch,

And sure, at length stol'n goods do come to light:
But if, both for your love and skill, your name
You seek to nurse at fullest breasts of Fame,
Stella behold, and then begin to endite.

XXXI

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries!
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks: thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me

Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?

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Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue, there, ungratefulness?

Description of Arcadia

(From Arcadia, Book I, Chap. II)

There were hills which garnished their proud heights with stately trees; humble valleys whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers; meadows enamelled with all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers; thickets 5 which, being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so to, by the cheerful disposition of many well-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security, while the pretty lambs, with bleating oratory, craved the dams' comfort; here a shepherd's boy piping, as though he

should never be old; there a young shepherdess knitting, 10
and withal singing; and it seemed that her voice comforted
her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voice-
music. As for the houses of the country
came under their eye

-

for many houses they were all scattered, no two being one by the other, and yet not so far off as that it barred 15 mutual succour; a show, as it were, of an accompanable solitariness, and of a civil wildness.

"I pray you," said Musidorus, then first unsealing his long-silent lips, "what countries be these we pass through, which are so diverse in show, the one wanting no store, the 20 other having no store but of want?"

"The country," answered Claius, "where you were cast ashore, and now are passed through, is Laconia, not so poor by the barrenness of the soil-though in itself not passing fertile as by a civil war, which, being these two years 25 within the bowels of that estate, between the gentlemen and

the peasants
by them named Helots - hath in this sort,
as it were, disfigured the face of nature and made it so un-
hospitall as now you have found it; the towns neither of the
one side nor the other willingly opening their gates to 30
strangers, nor strangers willingly entering, for fear of being
mistaken.

"But this country, where now you set your foot, is Arcadia; and even hard by is the house of Kalander, whither we lead you this country being thus decked with peace and the 35 child of peace, good husbandry. These houses you see so scattered are of men, as we two are, that live upon the commodity of their sheep, and therefore, in the division of the Arcadian estate, are termed shepherds; a happy people, wanting little, because they desire not much."

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