restraint of metre, which it nevertheless fails to do.  It is also apt to be laden to the point of obscurity with strange verbal mintage of the author’s own.  The plot is not strictly pastoral at all, the only characters that supply anything traditional in this line being the fairy hunters and huntresses.  Oberon, having heard that Hypsiphyle, the princess of Elvida or the Forest of Elves, neglects her charge and suffers the woods and quarry to decay, sends Orion to take over the government and reform the abuses.  The princess refuses to resign her authority, and a hunting contest ensues, in which, though she is vanquished, she in her turn overcomes her victor, and finally shares with him the fairy throne.  While this plot is in action three careless huntresses play tricks on their enamoured hunters, and, being fooled in their turn, at last consent to reward the service of their lovers.  The scenes are spun out by a thread of broad farce, supported by the fairy children, their schoolmaster, and his wench.  Some of the obscenity of this part may be elaborated from passages in the Maid’s Metamorphosis.  The piece has a prologue for representation at court, but it is most unlikely that it ever had that honour.  It is from beginning to end a graceless and mirthless composition.

Passing over the Faithful Shepherdess in 1609, we come to a play of a very different order from the last, namely, Phineas Fletcher’s Sicelides, a piscatorial, written for presentation before King James at Cambridge in 1614-5, though he left without seeing it.  It was acted before the University at King’s College, on March 13, and printed, surreptitiously it would appear, in 1631[322].  It is not easy to account for the neglect which has usually fallen to the lot of this play at the hands of critics[323].  No doubt among writers generally it has shared the neglect commonly bestowed on pastorals, while among those more particularly concerned with our present subject it has possibly been overlooked as being piscatory.  The fisher-poem, however, as we have already seen, is merely a variant of the pastoral, and must be included under the same general heading, while the play itself has no less poetic merit, and is certainly far more entertaining than the piscatory eclogues of the same author.  The scene, as the title implies, is laid in Sicily, which was natural enough, or indeed inevitable, in the case of a writer who would himself in all confidence have pointed to Theocritus as the fountain-head of his inspiration.

Perindus loves Glaucilla, the daughter of Glaucus and Circe, and his affection is returned.  In consequence, however, of an oracle he feigns indifference towards her, and though heart-sick when alone, meets her with mockery when she pleads her love.  Meanwhile Perindus’ sister, Olinda, is courted by Glaucilla’s brother, Thalander, to whose suit, however, she turns a deaf ear, and at last bids him leave the country.  He does so, but soon returns in disguise, resolved