"We would quote, if we could--only it might not look so proper, when isolated--the whole song at the close of Act the Second. The first line of it alone is worth all Pope's pastorals put together, and (we were going to add) half of those of Virgil; but we reverence too much the great follower of the Greeks, and true lover of the country. There is more sentiment, and equal nature, in the song at the end of Act the Fourth. Peggy is taking leave of her lover, who is going abroad:-- At setting day, and rising morn, With soul that still shall love thee, I'll ask of Heaven thy safe return, With all that can improve thee. I'll visit aft the Birken Bush, Where first thou kindly told me Sweet tales of love, _and hid my blush, Whilst round thou didst enfold me_. 'To all our haunts I will repair, By Greenwood-shaw or fountain; Or where the summer-day I'd share With thee upon yon mountain. There will I tell the trees and flowers, From thoughts unfeign'd and tender, _By vows_ you're mine, _by love_ is yours A heart which cannot wander.' "The charming and so (to speak) natural flattery of the loving delicacy of this distinction-- '_By vows_ you're mine, _by love_ is yours,' was never surpassed by a passion the most refined. It reminds us of a like passage in the anonymous words (Shakspeare might have written them) of the fine old English madrigal by Ford, 'Since first I saw your face.' Perhaps Ford himself wrote them; for the author of that music had sentiment enough in him for anything. The passage we allude to is-- 'What, I that _loved_, and you that _liked_, Shall _we_ begin to wrangle?' The highest refinement of the heart, though too rare in most classes, is luckily to be found in all; and hence it is, that certain meetings of extremes in lovers of different ranks in life are not always to be attributed either to a failure of taste on the one side, or unsuitable pretensions on the other. Scotish dukes have been known to meet with real Gentle-Shepherd heroines; and everybody knows the story of a lowly Countess of Exeter, who was too sensitive to survive the disclosure of the rank to which her lover had raised her."[53] [Footnote 53: A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla, by L. Hunt, p. 106. London, 1848.] ANECDOTE OF LADY STRANGE.