The following year the poet of the Hecatompathia, Thomas Watson, a pastoralist of note according to the critics of his own age, but whose work in this line is chiefly Latin, published his ’Ecloga in Obitum Honoratissimi Viri, Domini Francisci Walsinghami, Equitis aurati, Divae Elizabethae a secretis, & sanctioribus consiliis,’ entitled Meliboeus, and also in the same year a translation of the piece into English.  The latter is considerably shorter than the original, but still of tedious length.  The usual transition from the dirge to the paean is managed with more than the usual lack of effect.  The eclogue contains a good deal beyond its immediate subject; for instance, a lament for Astrophel, a passage in praise of Spenser, and a panegyric on

    Diana, matchless Queene of Arcadie—­

all subjects hardly possible for a poet to escape, writing more pastorali in 1590.  Watson also left several other pastoral compositions in the learned tongue, which, from their eponymous hero, won for him the shepherd-name of Amyntas.  Thus in 1585 he published a work in Latin hexameter verse with the title ’Amyntas Thomae Watsoni Londinensis I. V. studiosi,’ divided into eleven ‘Querelae,’ which was ’paraphrastically translated’ by Abraham Fraunce into English hexameters, and published under the title ‘The Lamentations of Amyntas for the death of Phillis’ in 1587.  This translation, ‘somewhat altered’ to serve as a sequel to an English hexametrical version of Tasso’s Aminta, was republished in ’The Countesse of Pembrokes Ivychurch’ of 1591.  Again in 1592 Watson produced another work entitled Amintae Gaudia, part of which was translated under the title An Old-fashioned Love, and published as by I. T. in 1594.[111]

Next in order—­passing over Drayton, with whom we have been already sufficiently concerned—­is a writer who, without the advantage of original genius or brilliant imagination, succeeded by mere charm of poetic style and love of natural beauty, in lifting his work above the barren level of contemporary pastoral verse.  Richard Barnfield’s Affectionate Shepherd, imitated, as he frankly confesses, from Vergil’s Alexis, appeared in 1594.  Appended to it was a poem similar in tone and spirit, entitled The Shepherd’s Content, containing a description of country life and scenery, together with a lamentation for Sidney, a hymn to love, a praise of the poets, and other similar matters.  The easy if somewhat monotonous grace which pervades both these pieces is seen to better advantage in the delightful Shepherd’s Ode, which appeared in his Cynthia of 1595, and begins: 

    Nights were short and days were long,
    Blossoms on the hawthorn hong,
    Philomel, night-music’s king,
    Told the coming of the spring;

or in the yet more perfect song: