So again there is some grace in a song which catches perhaps a distant echo of Peele’s gem: 

    Gloriana. Sit, while I do gather flowers
    And depopulate the bowers. 
    Here’s a kiss will come to thee!

    Lysander. Give me one, I’ll give thee three!

    Both. Thus in harmless sport we may
    Pass the idle hours away.

Gloriana. Hark! hark, how fine The birds do chime!  And pretty Philomel Her moan doth tell. (p. 22.)

Another of these miniature pastorals is preserved in a British Museum manuscript, where it bears the title of The Converted Robber.[348] No author’s name appears, but a plausible conjecture may be advanced.  The scene of the piece, namely, is Stonehenge, and it is evident that the occasion on which it was first performed had some connexion with Salisbury, for there is obviously a topical allusion in the final words: 

    Lett us that do noe envy beare um
    Wish all felicity to Sarum.

Now in 1636,[349] according to Anthony a Wood, there was acted at St. John’s College, Oxford, a play by John Speed, entitled Stonehenge, the occasion being the return of Dr. Richard Baylie after his installation as Dean of Salisbury.  We can hardly be far wrong in identifying the two pieces.  The only difficulty is that in the manuscript the play is dated 1637.  This, however, may either be a mere slip of the scribe, or may possibly imply that the piece was produced in 1636-7, the scribe adopting the popular and modern, whereas Wood always adhered to the old or legal reckoning.

The piece possesses a certain interest from the fact of its forming, in a stricter sense than any of the other pieces we have examined, a link between the drama and the masque.  In this it somewhat resembles Comus, employing a more or less dramatic plot as the setting for the formai dances of the masque.[350]

The story is simple enough.  A band of robbers and a company of shepherds and shepherdesses keep on Salisbury Plain in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge—­’stoy[=n]age y^{e} wonder y^{t} is vpon that Playne of Sarum’—­which forms the background of the scene.  It chanced that the shepherdess Clarinda, falling into the hands of the robbers, was saved from dishonour by their chief Alcinous, an action which won for him her love, and having escaped, she returned dressed as a boy in order to serve him.  Meanwhile the robbers have decided to make a raid upon the shepherd folk, and Alcinous, disguising himself as a stranger shepherd, mixes among them, while his companions Autolicus and Conto lie in wait hard by.  During a festival Alcinous seeks the love of Castina, Clarinda’s sister, and finding her unmoved by entreaty threatens force.  At this she attempts to stab herself, and the robber chief is so struck that he vows to reform and is converted to the pastoral life.  His companions, left in the lurch, fall upon the shepherds of their own accord, but are soon brought to see reason by the hand and tongue of their chief, and are content to follow him in his conversion.  Clarinda now discovers herself and marries Alcinous, while Castina and her fellow shepherdess Avonia consent to reward their faithful swains, Palaemon and Dorus.