"There is a description of a delightful grove, perfumed with 'odoriferous buds and herbs of price,' where fruits hang in gallant clusters from the trees, and birds tune their notes to the music of running water; so fair a pleasaunce 'that you are fain Where you last walked to turn and walk again.' A generous reader might apply that description to Browne's poetry; he might urge that the breezes which blew down these leafy alleys and over those trim parterres were not more grateful than the fragrance exhaled from the 'Pastorals'; that the brooks and birds babble and twitter in the printed page not less blithely than in that western Paradise. What so pleasant as to read of May-games, true-love knots, and shepherds piping in the shade? of pixies and fairy-circles? of rustic bridals and junketings? of angling, hunting the squirrel, nut-gathering? Of such subjects William Browne treats, singing like the shepherd in the 'Arcadia,' as though he would never grow old. He was a happy poet. It was his good fortune to grow up among wholesome surroundings whose gracious influences sank into his spirit. He loved the hills and dales round Tavistock, and lovingly described them in his verse. Frequently he indulges in descriptions of sunrise and sunset; they leave no vivid impression, but charm the reader by their quiet beauty. It cannot be denied that his fondness for simple, homely images sometimes led him into sheer fatuity; and candid admirers must also admit that, despite his study of simplicity, he could not refrain from hunting (as the manner was) after far-fetched outrageous conceits." Browne is a poet's poet. Drayton, Wither, Herbert, and John Davies of Hereford, wrote his praises. Mrs. Browning includes him in her 'Vision of Poets,' where she says:-- "Drayton and Browne,--with smiles they drew From outward Nature, still kept new From their own inward nature true." Milton studied him carefully, and just as his influence is perceived in the work of Keats, so is it found in 'Comus' and in 'Lycidas.' Browne acknowledges Spenser and Sidney as his masters, and his work shows that he loved Chaucer and Shakespeare. CIRCE'S CHARM Song from the 'Inner Temple Masque' Son of Erebus and night, Hie away; and aim thy flight Where consort none other fowl Than the bat and sullen owl; Where upon thy limber grass, Poppy and mandragoras, With like simples not a few, Hang forever drops of dew; Where flows Lethe without coil Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee hither, gentle sleep: With this Greek no longer keep. Thrice I charge thee by my wand, Thrice with moly from my hand Do I touch Ulysses's eyes, And with the jaspis: then arise, Sagest Greek! _CIRCE_.