borne off the bell, whose praise was one strain of unanimity for especial graces-all which laudations redounded to my deep satisfaction. The morning after the feast, ere the fresh Aurora had lost the dew adorned with seed-pearl (aljoforado) from her lovely locks, and Phoebus had ceased displaying his rays on the misty mountain-tops, we, some dozen of us, shepherdesses, the elite of the village, our hands in union, to the chime of a bag-pipe (gayta) and of an oaten-pipe making in and out caperings, sallied from the village to a green meadow, not remote, giving unfeigned content to those who witnessed our tangled dance. Now chance, up to that point, had well adjusted my advances, decreed that in this same mead all the identical hinds should assemble, and with them Artidoro, who on sight of us, tuned their tambourines to the cadence of our oaten-pipe, and with the same measure and dance came out to receive us, blending one with the other confusedly, and yet in time, changing sound and changing dance, so that it was necessary that the women should disunite and give their hands to the men; and it was my good fortune to find Artidoro for a partner. I cannot say how, dear ladies, you will estimate that conjuncture, but I must add, that I was so disconcerted that I could not conform to the steps of the dance, so that Artidoro had to move me towards himself with a soft violence, not to interrupt the symmetry of the measure, and so availing myself of the moment, I said, 'In what has my hand offended! Artidoro, that you press it?' He whispered in a tone inaudible to all but me: 'Rather what has my soul done, that you ill-treat it? 'My offence is obvious,' said I very meekly, but thine it is not possible to discern.' Here stands the mischief,' replied Artidoro, you contribute to do it, and you fail to apply the remedy.' So ceased our reasonings, for the measure done, I rested content and pensive at what Artidoro said; and though I held all for amorous remarks, no assurance of the fact followed. Soon all of us of both sexes were on the grass, and having recovered ourselves from the lively pastimes, the antique Eleuco, tuning up his instrument, a rebeck in unison with the oaten-pipe of another shepherd, asked Artidoro to sing something, for he seemed the worthiest so to do, to render thanks to heaven, to fail of which had been a deep ingratitude. Artidoro receiving Eleuco's

praises, commenced singing some verses which reviving in me those hints which had passed between us, I committed them to memory, and to this moment hold them fast, which though it may give affliction to hear them, only because by your hearing them you will better appreciate the position into which love has cast me. I will recite them in all their perfection :

1. In a sharp closed dark night,

Without ever seeing the wished-for day,
Bitter complaints increase continual;
From pleasure far, smile or content,
Deserveth he to be, in living death,
Who loveless passes life.

2. What can be the most cheerful life,
Without a shadow of brief thought-
Oh semblance natural of death-

If in these so many hours the day but lasts-
Then silence to the grief of anguish full,
Love's sweet smile admits not?

3. Where blind love dwells, dwell smiles;
Where it dies, dies our very existence too-
To wails converts the sapid pleasure,
And in the ever-during darksome night
Of peaceable day the clear night,
To live without, why that is bitterness !
4. The dreadful circumstance of death
Flies not the lover, ere with smiles
He longs for the occasion, and day hopes
When he may offer up his treasured life,
Until he sees the latest tranquil night
To amorous fire and dulcet wail made o'er.
5. The wail of love, the wail calls not-
Nor should death death invoke ;

Night should give no title to dark night-
Or smile solicit smile.

Life should exist in its own certainty,
Alone should wanton in its joyousness.

6. Oh for me venturesome in this day in truth,
When I may put restraint on grief,

And rejoice to have sacrificed my life
To her who could or life or death confer.

But what hope have I, barren smiles except-
From face the sun exceeding, and to night turns
Into clear day, has turned my dark night.
Love-my griefs accumulated into smiles,
And my approach of death to life prolonged.

"These were the verses, splendid shepherdesses, which with marvellous grace, and to the no less satisfaction of those who heard them, that day sang my Artidoro, about which act and the reasons to which I have already adverted, I seized the opportunity of imagining if by chance my appearance had caused any new amorous accident in Artidoro's breast, and how my suspicion was not proved vain until I found he did not return to the village to convince me of it." At this point of the love narration came Teolinda, when the shepherdesses heard a frightful noise of hinds and barking dogs, which caused them to end the discourse commenced, and stop to peep through the boughs, and so they perceived on a verdant meadow, which lay on the right, a pack of dogs crossing it, and pursuing a timid hare, which in all haste entered the thick brambles for protection, and in a short space at the same spot where the hinds were, they viewed it enter and go directly to the side of Galatea, quite exhausted from its long chase, and thus almost secure against the imminent dangers, dropped down on the soil nearly breathless, and as if he would speedily expire. The dogs, by smell and track, followed the hare close to where the women stood; Galatea, taking the panting leveret into her arms, stopped the vengeance of the hungry hounds, as it seemed unjust to her to leave the animal to chance. Some other hinds joined them in pursuit of their dogs and the timid creature, among them Galatea's father, out of respect for whom Galatea, Florisa, and Teolinda advanced to pay him merited courtesy. He and his companions were struck with Teolinda's comeliness, and in them it awakened a desire to know who she was, for in her they recognised a stranger. This meeting with Galatea and Florisa did not a little disconcert them, as it took from them the pleasure of hearing about the success of Teolinda's loves, whom they

solicited not to leave them for some days, if it did not interfere with the accomplishment of her desires. "Quite the contrary; to see if my desires can be satisfied, I find it convenient to remain on this bank a day or two, and so not to leave imperfect my story in its course. I am obedient to

your will."

Galatea and Florisa embraced, and were reassured of each other's friendship, and each promised to advance their mutual interests to the best of their power. During this process, the father of Galatea and the other hinds having spread their long, loose coats on the banks of the clear streamlet, and taking from their scrips some apples, invited Galatea and her companions to the repast, which they accepted; so down seated they satisfied hunger, as the close of the day had brought on fatigue also. Whilst the rural parties mutually entertained each other, the time came to return to the hamlet. Speedily Galatea and Florisa, turning to their flocks, collected them, and in Teolinda's company and the rest of the party, they all retired slowly to their dwellings. At the break of the hill where that morning they had met Elicio, and heard the pipe of the disappointed Lenio, a shepherd, in whose breast never love remained; and so satisfied and cheerful was he, that in what conversation or company soever he was, his sole object was to speak disparagingly of love and lovers, and in this strain flowed all his ditties, and for this sullen state he was known, spurned by some of his companions, so by some he was appreciated.

Galatea and her friends stopped to hear if Lenio, as usual, had a song to recite, and soon observing that he gave his instrument to a companion, at its sound he sung what now follows:

LENIO.

1. A vain, careless thought,
A lofty, foolish fancy.
Something indescribable
Which memory creates,

Wanting reality, quality, and base.

2. A hope which the wind raiseth ;
A grief with reverse of gladness;

A night confused without day;
A blind error of the mind.

3. These are the roots whence rise
The ancient celebrated chimera,
Which love for a name supports
In every soil.

4. But the soul which in love is delighted,
Deserves to be exiled from the land,
Not even to heaven admitted.

While Lenio was singing what we just heard, both Elicio and Erastro, with their wind instruments, came up, in company of the much-to-be-lamented Lisandro, and it seemed to Elicio that the evil which Lenio spoke of, love, as far as it extended with reason, went to show clearly his deception; and availing himself of the same ideas as are found in the verses which he had recited, when Galatea, Florisa, and Teolinda arrived, and the other herdsmen, to the sound of the rebeck of Erastro, Elicio beegan this strain :

1. He deserves who on the soil,

And in his breast doth love conceal,

That he should be expelled from heaven's height
And not be tolerated e'en on earth.

2. Love, which is perpetual virtue,

With many others which it reaches too,

By one similitude or another

Ascendeth to the first and infinite cause,
And he deserves whose zeal

Him banishes from such love,

That he should be expelled from heaven's height,
And not be tolerated e'en on earth.

3. A handsome countenance and figure,
Though obnoxious to mortality,
Is a copy and a seal

Of beauty divine;

And he who on this soil the beautiful,
Repudiates and hurls it to the ground,
Let him an outcast from high heaven be,
And be not suffered upon earth to dwell.