XII. HARPALUS.

AN ANCIENT ENGLISH PASTORAL.

THIS beautiful poem, which is perhaps the first attempt at pastoral writing in our language, is preserved among the Songs and Sonnettes of the Earl of Surrey, etc., 4to, in that part of the collection which consists of pieces by uncertain auctours. These poems were first published in 1557, ten years after that accomplished nobleman fell a victim to the tyranny of Henry VIII.; but it is presumed most of them were composed before the death of Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1541.

Though written perhaps near half a century before the Shepherd's Calendar,* this will be found far superior to any of those eclogues, in natural unaffected sentiments, in simplicity of style, in easy flow of versification, and all other beauties of pastoral poetry. Spenser ought to have profited more by so excellent a model.

XIII. ROBIN AND MAKYNE.

AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH PASTORAL.

MR. ROBERT HENRYSON (to whom we are indebted for this poem) appears to so much advantage among the writers of eclogue, that we are sorry we can give little other account of him besides what is contained in the following eloge, written by W. Dunbar, a Scottish poet, who lived about the middle of the 16th century:

"In Dumferling, he [Death] hath tane Broun,

With gude Mr. Robert Henryson."

Indeed, some little further insight into the history of this Scottish bard is gained from the title prefixed to some of his poems preserved in the British Museum, viz.: "The morall Fabillis of Esop, compylit be Maister Robert Henrisoun, scolmaister of Dunfermling, 1571." Harleian MSS. 3865, § I.

The poem as it here stands has been revised and amended by Allan Ramsay, from whose Ever-green it is chiefly printed.

H