Nicholas Breton

“ 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. ”

“ Over the door of a house in Brittany also one often finds the image of the patron saint of the occupant.
In Brittany down to our own time honor continues to be paid to a great number of saints not known elsewhere, never canonized by the Roman church and probably in their origin having little of Christian character, more than likely Christian representatives of earlier, local, pagan divinities. The functions of these local Breton saints are specialized to an extent hardly found elsewhere at the present time. Ailments are subject to the cure of particular saints. ”

“ Foolish love is only folly;
Wanton love is too unholy;
Greedy love is covetous;
Idle love is frivolous;
But the gracious love is it
That doth prove the work of it.
Beauty but deceives the eye;
Flattery leads the ear awry;
Wealth doth but enchant the wit ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.
{02}
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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sweet Love, begone awhile,
⁠Thou knowest my heaviness:
Beauty is born but to beguile
⁠My heart of happiness.
See how my little flock,
⁠That loved to feed on high.
Do headlong tumble down the rock,
⁠And in the valley die. ”

“ The worldly prince doth in his sceptre hold
A kind of heaven in his authorities;
The wealthy miser, in his mass of gold,
Makes to his soul a kind of Paradise;
The epicure that eats and drinks all day. ”

“ Crack yet, though they cannot speak
Bid the purest, whitest swan
Of her feathers make her fan;
Let the hound the hare go chase;
Lambs and rabbits run at base;
Flies be dancing in the sun,
While the silk-worm's webs are spun ”

“ 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 ”

“ Then may'st thou joy and be right glad,
Although in woe I seem to moan;
Thy father is no rascal lad:
A noble youth of blood and bone,
⁠His glancing looks, if he once smile,
⁠Right honest women may beguile. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Say that I should say I love ye,
⁠Would you say 'tis but a saying?
But if Love in prayers move ye,
⁠Will ye not be moved with praying?
Think I think that Love should know ye,
⁠Will you think 'tis but a thinking? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ There stood a man (was never man
⁠For woman so distressed) :
This man beheld a heavenly view,
⁠Which did such virtue give
As clears the blind, and helps the lame,
⁠And makes the dead man live. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Nor conceit that can unfold it.
⁠Though in thoughts be all its being.
Oh! it maketh old men witty,
⁠Young men wanton, women idle,
While that patience weeps, for pity
⁠Reason bite not nature's bridle. ”

“ Robin the mean, that best of all loves men;
The nightingale the tenor, and the thrush
The counter-tenor sweetly in a bush.
And that the music might be full in parts,
Birds from the groves flew with right willing hearts;
But (as it seem'd) they thought (as do the swains,
Which tune their pipes on sack'd Hibernia's plains)
There should some droning part be, therefore will'd
Some bird to fly into a neighb'ring field,
In embassy unto the King of Bees,
To aid his partners on the flowers and trees
Who, condescending, gladly flew along
To bear the bass to his well-tuned song. ”

“ Yet let me know thou dost not scorn
⁠To cast a look on me.
But if thy beauty make thee proud,
⁠Think then what is ordain'd;
The heavens have never yet allow'd
⁠That love should be disdain'd. ”

“ O, fair eyes, yet let me see,
⁠One good look, and I am gone:
Look on me, for I am he,
⁠Thy poor silly Corydon.
Thou that art the shepherds' queen.
⁠Look upon thy silly swain;
By thy comfort have been seen
⁠Dead men brought to life again. ”

“ 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. ”

“ O hands that hold the highest thoughts in thrall!
O wit that weighs the depth of all desert!
O sense that shews the secret sweet of all!
The heaven of heavens with heavenly power preserve thee,
Love but thyself, and give me leave to serve thee.
To serve, to live to look upon those eyes,
To look, to live to kiss that heavenly hand,
To sound that wit that doth amaze the mind,
To know that sense, no sense can understand,
To understand that all the world may know,
Such wit, such sense, eyes, hands, there are no moe. ”

“ Then she made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness, truth
Never loved a truer youth.
Thus with many a pretty oath,
Yea, and nay, and faith and troth!—
Such as silly shepherds use
When they will not love abuse ”

“ 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. ”

“ That she cannot reach the skill
{09}
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 ”

“ 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:
{10}
Call the sylvan nymphs together,
Bid them bring their musicks hither. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ For well he knew, where came the queen.
⁠The shepherd durst not stay:
And where that he durst not be seen,
⁠The sheep must needs away.
To ask her if she saw his flock,
⁠Might happen patience move. ”

“ 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:
{57}
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. ”

“ She said, her beauty was the mark
⁠That did amaze the highest mind;
He said, he only made the mist
⁠Whereby the senses grew so blind.
She said, that only for her sake,
⁠The best would venture life and limb:
He said, she was too much deceiv'd ”

“ 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 ”

“ To be sure, his best and earlier work has all of that delightful extravagance and amorous colouring peculiar to the age. But there is reflected a homely dignity and mobile, felicitous vein in which the poet seems endowed with every attribute of a melodist. Exquisite, graceful and diverse he, at times, would soar to flights of highest inspiration and bedeck the page with gems of rarest worth. In the heptasyllabic couplet he is decidedly successful.
And lastly William Browne, than whom we have not a more modest and retiring singer, here makes his bow with a slender portfolio of excerpts. ”

“ 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] . ”

“ At all events the progress which can be stated is mainly to be stated in negatives. The Breton, as I first knew him, believed in all sorts of superstitious rubbish. He now believes in nothing at all. He was disposed to honour and respect God, and his priest, and his seigneur perhaps somewhat too indiscriminately. Now he neither honours nor respects any earthly or heavenly thing. These at least were the observations which a second, or rather third visit to the country a few years ago suggested to me, mainly, it is true, as regards the urban population. ”

“ From the far-away time when the disciples of the good St. Patrick, among whom, says the Breton legend, “he was like a nightingale among wrens, or a beech-tree among ferns,” first planted the cross in Armorica, up to that last crusade in defence of it wherein only yesterday, as it were, Lamoricière and Pimodan and their gallant comrades sacrificed themselves as chivalrously as any knight of old on the fatal field of Castelfidardo, the Breton has never wavered in his faith. Evil example has not availed to weaken it; persecution has only made it stronger ”

“ In the first place, nothing on earth could make you look a perfect fright, or anything like one, Popsy dear; and in the second place, I don’t know that I’m Socialist enough myself ever to have the courage of my opinions as Le Breton has. Certainly, I should never attempt to force them unwillingly upon others. You must remember, Edie, it’s one thing for Le Breton to be so communistic as all that comes to, and quite another thing for you and me. Le Breton’s father was a general and a knight, you see; and people will never forget that his mother’s Lady Le Breton still, whatever he does. ”