moments, and the dull ground over which we have to plod in daily life: such are the metaphysical conceptions which underlie the shifting scenes and many-twinkling action of the masque. It would be unfair to institute any comparison between _Love’s Mistress_ considered as a poem, and the delicate version of the legend in the _Earthly Paradise_. Yet there are touches of true poetry here and there throughout the play. The haunted house of Love which receives Psyche and where Echo and Zephyrus are her attendants, the visit of her three sisters, and the midnight awaking of wrathful Cupid, are all conceived with light and airy fancy. Cupid in his anger utters this curse on women:-- “You shall be still rebellious, like the sea, And, like the winds, inconstant; things forbid You most shall covet, loathe what you would like You shall be wise in wishes, but, enjoying, Shall venture heaven’s loss for a little toying.” There is another aspect under which _Love’s Mistress_ may be viewed--as a very early attempt at classical burlesque. Cupid, for example, is the naughty boy of Olympus. He describes Juno’s anger against Ganymede:-- “The boy by chance upon her fan had spilled A cup of nectar: oh, how Juno swore! I told my aunt I’d give her a new fan To let Jove’s page be Cupid’s serving-man.” Vulcan appears at his forge with more orders than he knows how to deal with:-- “There’s half a hundred thunder-bolts bespoke; Neptune hath broke his mace; and Juno’s coach Must be new-mended, and the hindmost wheels Must have two spokes set in.” He thinks of making Venus “turn she-smith,” but “She’d spend me more In nectar and sweet balls to scour her cheeks, Smudged and besmeared with coal-dust and with smoke, Than all her work would come to.” This is, of course, very simple fooling. Yet it contains the germ of those more thorough-going parodies in which the present age delights.