[134] When Johnson went on to describe the form of the poem as ’easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting,’ he was but exhibiting a critical incapacity which seriously impairs his authority in literary matters.

[135] For a detailed account of the poem, as well as for a number of parallel passages—­as well as some of doubtful relevance—­the reader may be referred to F. W. Moorman’s monograph.  I use the text of G. Goodwin’s edition of Browne’s poems, with introduction by A. H. Bullen, 2 vols., 1894.

[136] K. Windscheid professes to discover a different hand in the third book, and is inclined to ascribe it to some imitator of Browne.  Its merit is certainly not high, but it is no worse than parts of the former books; and Browne’s work is so notoriously unequal that I can see no excuse for depriving or relieving him of its authorship.

[137]

  The hatred which they bore was only this,
  That every one did hate to do amiss;
  Their fortune still was subject to their will;
  Their want—­O happy!—­was the want of ill. (II. iii. 447.)

Many readers may be inclined to pity poor men and women debarred from that

  First of all joys that unto sin belong—­
  The sweet felicity of doing wrong.

[138] Pail.

[139] The translater was afterwards knighted.  Who was the first person to ascribe this translation to Thomas Wilcox, a certain ’very painful minister of God’s word,’ I am not sure.  The mistake has, however, been constantly repeated, and led Underhill, in his able monograph on Spanish Literature in England, to give a detailed account of Wilcox and his wholly chimerical connexion with the spread of Spanish influence in this country.  The translation is preserved in the British Museum, Addit.  MS. 18,638, and contains the translator’s name perfectly clearly written, both on the title-page and at the end of the dedicatory epistle to Fulke Greville.  This MS. is a copy of the original made by the translator himself about 1617, and bears on the fly-leaf the name ‘Dorothy Grevell.’  The title-page is worth transcribing:  ’Diana de Monte mayor done out of Spanish by Thomas Wilso Esquire, In the yeare 1596 & dedicated to the Erle of Southampto who was then uppon y’e Spanish voiage w’th my Lord of Essex—­Wherein under the names and vailes of Sheppards and theire Lovers are covertly discoursed manie noble actions & affections of the Spanish nation, as is of y’e English of [sic] y’t admirable & never enough praised booke of S’r.  Phil:  Sidneyes Arcadia.’

[140] Arber’s edition, p. 83.

[141] See the useful table of correspondences given by Homer Smith in his paper on the Pastoral Influence in the English Drama.  All needful apparatus for the study of the story will of course be found in Furness’ ‘Variorum’ edition of the play.

[142] Macaulay once remarked of the Faery Queen, that few and weary are the readers who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast.  It might with equal or even greater force be contended that most readers are asleep ere the Arcadian princesses in Sidney’s romance are rescued from the power of Cecropia.