stand

[rap'd

As how adult'rous Jour, the king of Mambrant, Fair Josian bis dear love, his noble sword and steed: Which afterward by craft he in a palmer's weed Recover'd, and with him from Mambrant bare away.

And with two lions how he held a desperate fray, Assailing him at once, that fiercely on him flew: Which first he tam'd with wounds, then by the necks them drew, [shoulders burst; And 'gainst the harden'd earth their jaws and And that (Goliah-like) great Ascupart enforc'd To serve him for a slave, and by his horse to run. At Colein as again the glory that he won On that huge dragon, like the country to destroy; Whose sting struck like a lance, whose venom did destroy [brass; As doth a general plague: his scales like shields of His body, when he mov'd, like some unwieldy mass, Ev'n bruis'd the solid earth. Which boldly having

song

With all the sundry turns that might thereto belong,
Whilst yet she shapes her course how, he came back
to show,
[stow;
What powers he got abroad, how them he did be-
In England here again, how he by dint of sword
Unto his ancient lands and titles was restor❜d,
New-forest cry'd "Enough:" and Waltham, with
the Bere,
[would hear.
Both bade her hold her peace; for they no more
And for she was a flood, her fellows nought would
But slipping to their banks, slid silently away. [say;
When as the pliant Muse, with fair and even
flight,

Betwixt her silver wings is wafted to the Wight 18;
That isle, which jutting out into the sea so far,
Her offspring traineth up in exercise of war;
Those pirates to put back, that oft purloin her trade,
Or Spaniards or the French attempting to invade.
Of all the southern isles she holds the highest place,
And evermore hath been the great'st in Britain's
grace:

Not one of all her nymphs her sovereign fav'reth
Embraced in the arms of old Oceanus. [thus,

For none of her account so near her bosom stand, >Twixt Penwith's 19 farthest point and Goodwin's

queachy sand,

To wipe away the drops and moisture from her hand; And to the north, betwixt the fore-land and the firm,

She hath that narrow sea, which we the Solent term; Where those rough ireful tides, as in her streights they meet, [greet: With boist'rous shocks and roars each other rudely Which fiercely when they charge, and sadly make retreat, [beat,

Upon the bulwarkt forts of Hurst and Calsheot 20 Then to South-hampton run: which by her shores supply'd, [pride; (As Portsmouth by her strength) doth vilify their Both roads, that with our best may boldly hold their plea, [than they; Nor Plymouth's self hath borne more braver ships That from their anchoring bays have travelled to find [Ind,

Large China's wealthy realms, and view'd the either The pearly rich Peru; and with as prosperous fate Have born their full-spread sails upon the streams of Plate : [renew,

Whose pleasant harbours oft the sea-man's hope To rigg his late-craz'd bark, to spread a wanton clue; [songs, Where they with lusty sack, and mirthful sailors' Defy their passed storms, and laugh at Neptune's wrongs:

The danger quite forgot wherein they were of late, Who half so merry now as master and his mate? And victualling again, with brave and manlike minds [winds.

To seaward cast their eyes, and pray for happy But, partly by the floods sent thither from the shore, And islands that are set the bord'ring coast before; As one amongst the rest, a brave and lusty dame Call'd Portsey, whence that bay of Portsmouth hath her name; [compar'd By her, two little isles, her handmaids (which With those within the Pool, for deftness not out

dar'd)

rage)

No counsel could be heard their choler to assuage: When every one suspects the next that is in place To be the only cause and means of his disgrace. Some coming from the east, some from the setting Sun,

The liquid mountains still together mainly run; Ware woundeth wave again, and billow, billow

gores;

And topsy-turvy so fly tumbling to the shores. From hence the Solent sea, as some men thought, might stand [land. Amongst those things which we call wonders of our When towing up that stream 23, so negligent of fame,

As till this very day she yet conceals her name; By Bert and Waltham both that's equally embrac'd,

And lastly, at her fall, by Tichfield highly grac'd:
Whence, from old Windsor hill, and from the aged
Stone 2,
[be gone.
The Muse those countries sees, which call her to
The forests took their leave: Bere, Chute, and

Buckholt, bid

Adieu; so Wolmer, and so Ashholt kindly did : And Pamber shook her head, as grieved at the heart;

When far upon her way, and ready to depart, As now the wand'ring Muse so sadly went along, To her last farewel, thus, the goodly forests song. "Dear Muse, to plead our right, whom time at last hath brought, [thought, Which else forlorn had lain, and banish'd every When thou ascend'st the hills, and from their rising shrouds [the clouds; Our sisters shalt command, whose tops once touch'd Old Arden when thou meet'st, or dost fair Sherwood 26 see,

[we: Tell them, that as they waste, so every day do Wish them, we of our griefs may be each other's heirs ; [theirs." Let them lament our fall, and we will mourn for Then turning from the south, which lies in public view

The Muse an oblique course doth seriously pursue; And pointing to the plains, she thither takes her

way;

[stay. For which, to gain her breath, she makes a little

THE Muse, yet observing her began course of chorographical longitude, traces eastward the southern shore of the isle. In this second sings Dorset and Hampshire; fitly here joined, as they join themselves, both having their south limits wash'd by the British Ocean.

Which th' ancients, for the love that they to Isis bare.

more perhaps to be given, than why adianthum is called capillus Veneris, or sengreen barba Jovis. Only thus: You have in Plutarch and Apuleins such variety of Isis' titles, and, in Clemens of Alexandria, so large circuits of her travels, that it were no more wonder to hear of her name in this northern climate, than in Egypt: especially we having three rivers of note (e) synonymies with her. Particularly to make her a sea-goddess, which the common story of her and Osiris her husband (son to Cham, and of whom Bale dares offer affirmance, that in his travelling over the world he first taught the Britons to make beer instead of wine) does not; Isis Pelagia (d), after Pausanias's testimony, hath an old coin (e). The special notice which antiquity took of her hair is not only showed by her attri bute (f) of dorixoues (g), but also in that her hair was kept as a sacred relic in Memphis (h), as Geryon's bones at Thebes, the boar's skin at Tegea, and such like elsewhere. And after this, to fit our coral just with her colour, Ethiopicis solibus Isis furva (i), she is called by Arnobius (k). Gentlewomen of black hair (no fault with brevity to turn to them) have no simple pattern of that part in this great goddess, whose name indeed comprehended whatsoever in the deity was feminine, and more too; nor will I swear, but that Anacreon, (a man very judicious in the provoking motives of wanton love) intending to bestow on his sweet mistress that one of the titles of womens special ornament, well-haired (1), thought of this, when he gave his painter direction to make her picture black-haired. But thus much out of the way.

Thou never by that name of White-hart hadst been known.

Very likely from the soil was the old name Black-more. By report of this country, the change was from a white hart, reserved here from chase by express will of Henry III. and afterward killed by Thomas de la Lynd, a gentleman of these parts. For the offence, a mulct imposed on the possessors of Black-more (called (m) whitehart silver) is to this day paid into the exchequer. The destruction of woods here bewailed by the Muse, is (upon occasion too often given) often seconded: but while the Muse bewails them, it is Marsyas (n) and his country-men that most want them.

On whom the wat'ry god'would oft have had his will. Purbeck (named, but indeed not, an isle, being joined to the firm land) stored with game of the forest.

(5) Isis' hair.

(c) Ouse. Leland, ad Cygn. Cant. (d) Isis of the sea. (e) Goltz. thes. antiq. (f) Loose hair'd. (g) Philostrat. in six. (h) Lucian. in six.

() Ethiopian sun-burnt.

(4) Adv. gent. 1. Black-hair.

cilius.

(4) Apud Plin. hist, natur. 1. 13. c. 15.

(m) Camden.

(n) Destruction of woods.

except that of Hampton-court, made by Henry VIII.) acknowledges William her maker, that is, the Norman Conqueror. His love to this kind of possession and pleasure was such, that he constituted loss of eyes (b) punishment for taking his venery: so affirm expressly Florence of Worcester, Henry of Huntingdon, Walter Mapez, and others, although the author of Distinctio Aquila, with some of later time, falsly laid it to William Rufus's charge. To justify my truth, and for variety, see these rhimes, even breathing antiquity (c):

Game of houndes he lovede inou, and of wild best, And is (d) forest, and is wodes, and mest the niwe forest,

gret wou:

That is in Suthamtessire, for thulke he lovede inow, And astored well mid (e) bestes, and lese (ƒ) mid [route, Dor he cast out of house and hom of men a great And binom (g) their lond thritti mile and more

thereaboute,

[fede,

And made it all foreste and lese the bests vor to Of pouer men diserited he nom let el hede: Theruore therein vell mony mischeuing, [king, And is sone was thereine issote (h) William the red And is o (i) sone, that het Richard, caght there is deth also, [thereto,

And Richard is o (i) neveu, brec there his neck As he rod an honteth, and perauntre his horse sprend, [trend. The vnright ido to pouer men to such mesauntre

But to quit you of this antique verse, I return to the pleasanter Muse.

Her famous Bevis so were 't in her power to choose.

About the Norman invasion was Bevis famous with title of earl of Southampton; Duncton in Wiltshire known for his residence. What credit you are to give to the hyperbolies of Itchin in her relation of Bevis, your own judgment, and the author's censure in the admonition of the other rivers here personated, I presume, will direct. And it is wished that the poetical monks in

celebration of him, Arthur, and other such worthies, had contained themselves within bounds of likelihood; or else that some judges, proportionate to those of the Grecian games (4), (who always by public authority pulled down the statues erected, if they exceeded the true symmetry of the victors) had given such exorbitant fictions their desert. The sweet grace of an enchanting poem (as unimitable Pindar (1) affirms) often compels belief; but so far have the indigested reports of barren and monkish invention expatiated out of the lists of truth, that from their intermixed and absurd falsities hath proceeded doubt, and, in some, even denial of what was truth. His sword is kept as a relic in Arundel castle, not equalling in length (as it is now worn) that of Edward III. at Westminster.

And for great Arthur's seat her Winchester prefer Whose old round table yet, &c.

For him, his table, order, knights, and places of their celebration, look to the fourth song. When Portsey, weighing well the ill to her might grow.

ing in by Portsmouth endures the forcible violence of that troublesome sea, as the verse tells you in this fiction of wooing.

Portsey, an island in a creek of the Solent, com

POLY-OLBION.

SONG THE THIRD.

THE ARGUMENT.

In this third song great threat'nings are,
And tending all to nymphish war.
Old Wansdike uttereth words of hate,
Depraving Stonendge's estate.
Clear Avon and fair Willy strive,
Each pleading her prerogative.
The plain the forests doth disdain :
The forests rail upon the plain.

The Muse then seeks the shire's extremes,
To find the fountain of great Thames;
Falls down with Avon, and descries
Both Bath's and Bristol's braveries:
Then views the Somersetian soil;
Through marshes, mines, and mores doth toil,
To Avalon to Arthur's grave,
Sadly bemoan'd of Ochy cave.
Then with delight she bravely brings
The princely Parret from her springs,
Preparing for the learned plea
(The next in song) in the Severn sea.

Their oaken wreaths, O Muse, shall offer up to And when thou shap'st thy course tow'rds where the soil is rank,

The Somersetian maids, by swelling Sabrin's bank Shall strew the way with flowers (where thou art coming on)

Brought from marshy grounds by aged Avalon 1. From Sarum thus we set, remov'd from whence

it stood

The chalky Chiltern fields, nor Kelmarsh self compares

With Everley, for store and swiftness of her hares: A horse of greater speed, nor yet a righter hound, Not any where 'twixt Kent and Caledon is found. Nor yet the level south can show a smoother race, Whereas the ballow' nag outstrips the winds in chase;

As famous in the west for matches yearly try'd, As Garterley, possest of all the northern pride; And on his match as much the western horseman lays,

As the rank riding Scots upon their galloways. And as the western soil as sound a horse doth breed, [Tweed:

As doth the land that lies betwixt the Trent and No hunter, so, but finds the breeding of the west The only kind of hounds for mouth, and nostril best;

That cold doth seldom fret, nor heat doth over-hail; As standing in the flight, as pleasant on the trail; Free hunting, eas'ly check'd, and loving every chase; [pace : Straight running, hard and tough, of reasonable Not heavy, as that hound which Lancashire doth breed ;

Nor as the northern kind, so light and hot of speed, Upon the clearer chase, or on the foiled train, Doth make the sweetest cry, in woodland or on plain. [bear Where she, of all the plains of Britain, that doth The name to be the first (renowned every where) Hath worthily obtain'd that Stonendge there should stand: [land 10,

She, first of plains; and that, first wonder of the She Wansdike also wins, by whom she is embrac'd, That in his aged arms doth gird her ampler waist: Who (for a mighty mound sith long he did remain §. Betwixt the Mercians rule, and the West-Saxons reign,

And therefore of his place himself he proudly bare) Had very oft been heard with Stonendge to compare ; [t' upbraid, Whom for a paltry ditch, when Stonendge pleas'd The old man taking heart, thus to that trophy said: "Dull heap, that thus thy head above the rest [there;

dost rear,

Precisely yet not know'st who first did place thee But traytor basely turn'd, to Merlin's skill dost fly, And with his magics dost thy maker's truth bely : Conspirator with time, now grown so mean and [before; Comparing these his spirits with those that went Yet rather art content thy builder's praise to lose, Than passed greatness should thy present wants disclose. [story;

poor,

Ill did those mighty men to trust thee with their That hast forgot their names, who rear'd thee for their glory:

Two places famous for hares, the one in Buckinghamshire, the other in Northampton

For all their wondrous cost, thou that has serv'd them so,

What 'tis to trust to tombs, by thee we easily know." [complain,

In these invectives thus whilst Wansdike doth He interrupted is by that imperious Plain", §. To hear two crystal floods to court her, that apply [her eye. Themselves, which should be seen most gracious in First, Willy boasts herself more worthy than the

other,

And better far deriv'd: as having to her mother Fair Selwood", and to bring up Diver in her train; [restrain, Which, when the envious soil would from her course A mile creeps under earth, as flying all resort; And how clear Nader waits attendance in her court;

And therefore claims of right the Plain should hold her dear, [names the shire 14. Which gives that town the name; which likewise The eastern Avon vaunts, and doth upon her take

To be the only child of shadeful Savernake", As Ambray's ancient flood, herself and to enstyle The Stonendge's best-lov'd, first wonder of the isle; And what (in her behoof) might any want supply, She vaunts the goodly seat of famous Sal'sbury; Where meeting pretty Bourne, with many a kind embrace, [place, Betwixt their crystal arms they clip that loved Report, as lately rais'd, unto these rivers came, §. That Bath's clear Avon (waxt imperious through her fame) [disdain, Their dalliance should deride; and that by her Some other smaller brooks, belonging to the Plain, A question seem'd to make, whereas the shire sent forth [worth; Two Avons, which should be the flood of greatest This stream, which to the south the Celtic sea doth get,

Or that which from the north saluteth Somerset. This when these rivers heard, that even but

lately strove [best lover Which best did love the Plain, or had the Plain's They straight themselves combine: for Willy wisely weigh'd,

That should her Avon lose the day for want of aid,
If one so great and near were overprest with power,
The foe (she being less) would quickly her devour.
As two contentious kings, that on each little jar,
Defiances send forth, proclaiming open war,
Until some other realm, that on their frontiers lies,
Be hazarded again by other enemies,
Do then betwixt themselves to composition fall,
To countercheck that sword, else like to conquer
all:
[bear.

So falls it with these floods, that deadly hate do
And whilst on either part strong preparations were,
It greatly was suppos'd strange strife would there
have been,

Had not the goodly Plain (plac'd equally between)