We have also the introduction of an Echo scene—­the earliest, I suppose, in English.  A notable feature of the play, on the other hand, are the songs, which are in some cases of rare excellence, and certain of which bear a resemblance to those found in Lyly’s plays.  In the lines sung by Eurymine—­

    Ye sacred Fyres, and powers above,
    Forge of desires working love,
    Cast downe your eye, cast downe your eye
    Upon a Mayde in miserie—­(I. i. 131.)

there is a subtlety of sound rare even in the work of lyrists of acknowledged merit.  Again, there is a fine swing in the song: 

    Round about, round about, in a fine Ring a: 
    Thus we daunce, thus we daunce, and thus we sing a. 
    Trip and go, too and fro[319], over this Greene a: 
    All about, in and out, for our brave Queene a. (II. ii. 105.)

The best of these songs, however, and indeed the gem of the whole play, is undoubtedly the duet of the shepherd and the ranger, as they call upon Eurymine, with its striking crescendo of antiphonal effect: 

    Gemulo. As little Lambes lift up their snowie sides,
    When mounting Larke salutes the gray-eyed morne—­

    Silvio. As from the Oaken leaves the honie glides,
    Where Nightingales record upon the thorne—­

    Ge. So rise my thoughts—­

    Sil. So all my sences cheere—­

    Ge. When she surveyes my flocks—­

    Sil. And she my Deare.

    Ge. Eurymine!

    Sil. Eurymine!

    Ge. Come foorth!

    Sil. Come foorth!

    Ge. Come foorth and cheere these plaines!

    Both. Eurymine, come foorth and cheere these plaines—­

    Sil. The Wood-mans Love—­

    Ge. And Lady of the Swaynes[320] (IV. ii. 39.)

Not long after the appearance of the Maid’s Metamorphosis there was written a play entitled The Fairy Pastoral, or the Forest of Elves, which is preserved in a manuscript belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, and was printed as long ago as 1824 by Joseph Haslewood, for the Roxburghe Club.  The author was William Percy, third son of Henry, eighth Earl of Northumberland, and the friend of Barnabe Barnes at Oxford, but of whose life, beyond the facts of its obscurity and seeming misery, little or nothing is known.  He left several manuscript plays, of which the present at least, dated 1603[321] at ‘Wolves Hill, my Parnassus,’ possesses neither interest nor merit.  It is an amateurish performance, partly in prose, partly in verse, either blank or rimed in couplets.  Where the author adopts verse as a vehicle, his language becomes crabbed and ungrammatical in its endeavour to accommodate itself to the unwonted