Nicholas Breton

“ With her fairest, sweetest flowers,
All to trim up all your bowers.
Bid the shepherds and their swains
See the beauty of their plains;
And command them with their flocks
To do reverence on the rocks;
Where they may so happy be
As her shadow but to see:
Bid the birds in every bush
Not a bird to be at hush:
But to sit, and chirp, and sing
To the beauty of the Spring:
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Call the sylvan nymphs together,
Bid them bring their musicks hither. ”

“ And in all your sweetest vein
Still Aglaia strike her strain;
But when she her walk doth turn,
Then begin as fast to mourn;
All your flowers and garlands wither
Put up all your pipes together;
Never strike a pleasing strain
Till she come abroad again. ”

“ How when he down declines, she droops and mourns,
Bedewed, as 'twere with tears, till he returns;
And how she veils her flowers when he is gone,
As if she scornèd to be lookèd on
By an inferior eye; or did contemn
To wait upon a meaner light than him.
When this I meditate, methinks the flowers
Have spirits far more generous than ours,
And give us fair examples to despise
The servile fawnings and idolatries,
Wherewith we court these earthly things below,
Which merit not the service we bestow.... ”

“ And thence apace the gentle twilight fled,
That had from hideous caverns ushered
All-drowsy Night, who in a car of jet,
By steeds of iron-grey, which mainly sweat
Moist drops on all the world, drawn through the sky,
The helps of darkness waited orderly.
First thick clouds rose from all the liquid plains;
Then mists from marishes, and grounds whose veins
Were conduit-pipes to many a crystal spring ”

“ North-east, not far from this great pool, there lies
A tract of beechy mountains, that arise,
With leisurely ascending, to such height
As from their tops the warlike Isle of Wight
You in the ocean's bosom may espy,
Though near two furlongs thence it lie.
The pleasant way, as up those hills you climb,
Is strewèd o'er with marjoram and thyme,
Which grows unset. The hedgerows do not want
The cowslip, violet, primrose, nor a plant
That freshly scents: as birch, both green and tall ”

“ The maids and fairies both were kept away,
And in a drought the caterpillars threw
Themselves upon the bud and every spray.
God shield the stock! if heaven send no supplies,
The fairest blossom of the garden dies. ”

“ Now every lad is wondrous trim,
And no man minds his labour;
Our lasses have provided them
A bagpipe and a tabour.
Young men and maids, and girls and boys
Give life to one another's joys;
And you anon shall by their noise
Perceive that they are merry.
Rank misers now do sparing shun,
Their hall of music soundeth;
And dogs thence with whole shoulders run,
So all things there aboundeth.
The country-folk themselves advance,
For Crowdy-Mutton's come out of France ”

“ Low sallows, on whose blooming bees do fall;
Fair woodbines, which about the hedges twine;
Smooth privet, and the sharp-sweet eglantine,
With many moe whose leaves and blossoms fair
The earth adorn and oft perfume the air. ”

“ And mate with everybody;
The honest now may play the knave,
And wise men play at noddy.
Some youths will now a mumming go,
Some others play at rowland-hoe,
And twenty other gameboys moe;
Because they will be merry. ”

“ That she cannot reach the skill
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How to climb that blessed hill
Where Aglaia's fancies dwell,
Where exceedings do excell,
And in simple truth confess
She is that fair shepherdess
To whom fairest flocks a-field
Do their service duly yield:
On whom never Muse hath gazèd
But in musing is amazèd;
Where the honour is too much
For their highest thoughts to touch ”

“ See our flocks do freely feed,
Here we may together sit,
And for music very fit
Is this place; from yonder wood
Comes an echo shrill and good,
Twice full perfectly it will
Answer to thine oaten quill.
Roget, droop not then, but sing
Some kind welcome to the spring.
The Shepherd's Pipe. A Round
All.
Now that the Spring hath fill'd our veins
With kind and active fire,
And made green liv'ries for the plains,
And every grove a quire:
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Sing me a song of merry glee,
And Bacchus fill the bowl.
1. Then here's to thee: 2. And thou to me
And every thirsty soul. ”

“ Not dreading loss, do sing again of love;
And like a man but lately tempest-toss'd,
Try if my stars still inauspicious prove:
Not to make good that poets never can
Long time without a chosen mistress be,
Do I sing thus ”

“ And yet unscornèd, serve a gentle nymph, the fairest she,
That ever was beloved of man, or eyes did ever see!
Yea, one whose tender heart would rue for my distress;
Yet I, poor I! must perish ne'ertheless.
And (which much more augments my care)
Unmoanèd I must die,
And no man e'er
Know why. ”

“ And quickly struck her tender neck in two;
Whereat the birds, methought, flew thence with speed,
And inly griev'd for such a cruel deed.
A rose, as fair as ever saw the North,
Grew in a little garden all alone ”

“ The former two were, in turn, under the patronage of that most cultured family, the Herberts, Breton being a protégé of "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," whom Browne (and not Ben Jonson, as is commonly said) eulogised thus in elegy. George Wither, being Browne's intimate friend, was presumably not unappreciated by the kinsfolk of George Herbert. Thus do they appear as in a bond of spiritual union.
Breton, a step-son to the poet Gascoigne, and the elder of our fascinating trio, is conspicuous for an unswerving, whole-hearted attachment to nature and rural scenes. ”

“ A group of poets graced with rarest charm and linked together by several and varied circumstances, each one figures here in unique evidence and bold relief of individuality. They are called of the order Spenserian; servants at the altar to the Pastoral Muse; and, in the reckoning of time, belong to that glorious age of great Elizabeth. Nicholas Breton (or Britton, as it is pronounced) and William Browne were both contributors to England's Helicon, of 1614, and Browne and Wither each submitted verses for The Shepherd's Pipe, a publication of the same year. ”

“ Fame, and that too after death, was all which hitherto the poets had promised themselves from this art. It seems to have been left to Wither to discover that poetry was a present possession, as well as a rich reversion, and that the Muse has a promise of both lives,--of this, and of that which was to come.--CHARLES LAMB.
William Browne (1591-? 1645)
I feel an envious touch, And tell thee Swain: that at thy fame I grutch, Wishing the Art that makes this Poem shine, And this thy Work (wert not thou wrongèd) mine. GEORGE WITHER: To the Author [of Britannia's Pastorals] . ”

“ It is quaint, simple, unassuming; without affectation, full of pathos, and gently sensitive. He was a man who knew no guile, and his sweet and artless nature is faithfully portrayed in the outpourings of an impressionable, poetic soul. To dance with rustic maidens on the lea; to sing by moonlight to the piper's strain; to be happy, always happy, such is the theme, delicate and refined, of these our half-forgotten poets.
W. B. KEMPLING.
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Nicholas Breton A Sweet Pastoral
Good Muse, rock me asleep
With some sweet harmony:
The weary eye is not to keep
Thy wary company. ”

“ Talk'd to the Echo; satyrs broke their dance,
And all the upper world lay in a trance.
Only the curled streams soft chidings kept;
And little gales that from the green leaf swept
Dry summer's dust, in fearful whisp'rings stirred.
As loath to waken any singing bird.
From Britannia's Pastorals. A Pleasant Grove ”

“ The Pembroke Booklets (First Series) III Nicholas Breton Pastoral Poems George Wither Selected Poetry William Browne (of Tavistock) Pastoral Poetry J. R. Tutin Hull 1906
Large Paper Edition, limited to 250 copies
Turnbull & Spears, Printers, Edinburgh.
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Nicholas Breton (1558-1626)
Thou that wouldst find the habit of true passion, And see a mind attired in perfect strains ... Look here on Breton's work.--BEN JONSON.
George Wither (1588-1667)
The praises of poetry have been often sung in ancient and in modern times ”