Lo! I have made a Calender for every year, That steel in strength, and time in durance, shall outwear; And, if I marked well the stars' revolution, It shall continue till the world's dissolution, To teach the ruder shepheard how to feed his sheep, And from the falser's fraud his folded flock to keep. Go, little Calender! thou hast a free passport; Go but a lowly gate amongst the meaner sort: Dare not to match thy pipe with Tityrus his style, Nor with the Pilgrim[22] that the ploughman play'd a while; But follow them far off, and their high steps adore; The better please, the worse despise; I ask no more. MERCE NON MERCEDE. (For recompense, but not for hire.) NOTES. _Page xviii, note 1._--The name of the writer of this letter is unknown. _Page 5, note 2._--"Hobbinol:" the author's friend Gabriel Harvey. _Page 10, note 3._--"Good Friday:" Good Friday is said to frown, as being a fast-day. _Page 16, note 4._--Thenot's emblem means, in substance, that God, who is aged Himself, being without beginning of days, makes those whom He loves, to be aged, like Himself; and that it is a mark of His favour to be old. Cuddie's emblem is, "No old man fears God"--a sarcasm against Thenot. _Page 29, note 5._--"Tawdry:" is here used in its primitive sense, denoting something bought at the fair of St. Ethelred, or St. Awdrey. _Page 30, note 6._--"This poesy is taken out of Virgil, and there of him used in the person of Æneas to his mother Venus, appearing to him in likeness of one of Diana's damsels; being there most divinely set forth. To which similitude of divinity Hobbinol comparing the excellency of Elisa, and being through the worthiness of Colin's song, as it were, overcome with the hugeness of his imagination, bursteth out in great admiration, (_O quam te memorem virgo!_) being otherwise unable, than by sudden silence, to express the worthiness of his conceit. Whom Thenot answereth with another part of the like verse, as confirming by his grant and approvance, that Elisa is no whit inferior to the majesty of her, of whom the poet so boldly pronounced, _O dea certe!_"--E. K. _Page 35, note 7._--"Algrind:" Archbishop Grindall. _Page 37, note 8._--"Fox," "Kid:" "By the Kid may be understood the simple sort of the faithful and true Christians; by his dam, Christ, that hath already with careful watchwords (as here doth the Goat) warned her little ones to beware of such doubling deceit; by the Fox, the false and faithless Papists, to whom is no credit to be given, nor fellowship to be used."--E. K. _Page 41, note 9._--"Sir John:" a name applied to a Popish priest. _Page 47, note 10._--"Tityrus:" Chaucer is meant. _Page 53, note 11._--"Morrell:" supposed to be Elmer, or Aylmer, Bishop of London. _Page 53, note 12._--"The sun:" the sun enters Leo in July. _Page 59, note 13._--"An eagle:" the same story is told of the death of Eschylus.