ully accounted for by the fact that they were
probably written separately from the plays, and handed round amongst the
boys together with the musical score[124]. These songs are of various
kinds and of widely different value. We have, for example, the purely
comic poem, probably accompanied by gesture and pantomime, such as the
song of Petulus from _Midas_, beginning, "O my Teeth! deare Barber ease
me," with interruptions and refrains supplied by his companion and the
scornful Motto. Many of these songs, indeed, are cast into dialogue
form, sometimes each page singing a verse by himself, as in "O for a
Bowle of fatt canary." This last is the earliest of Lyly's wine-songs,
which for swing and vigour are among some of the best in our language,
reminding us irresistibly of those pagan chants of the mediaeval
wandering scholar which the late Mr Symonds has collected for us in his
_Wine, Women, and Song_. The drinking song, "Io Bacchus," which occurs
in _Mother Bombie_, is undoubtedly, I think, modelled on one of these
earlier student compositions; the reference to the practice of throwing
hats into the fire is alone sufficient to suggest it. But it is as a
writer of the lyric proper that Lyly is best known. No one but Herrick,
perhaps, has given us more graceful love trifles woven about some
classical conceit. Mr Palgrave has familiarized us with the best, _Cupid
and my Campaspe played_, but there are others only less charming than
this. The same theme is employed in the following:

"O Cupid! Monarch over Kings!
Wherefore hast thou feet and wings?
Is it to show how swift thou art,
When thou would'st wound a tender heart?
Thy wings being clipped, and feet held still,
Thy bow so many would not kill.
It is all one in Venus' wanton school
Who highest sits, the wise man or the fool!
Fools in love's college
Have far more knowledge
To read a woman over,
Than a neat prating lover.
Nay, 'tis confessed
That fools please women best[125]!"

[123] Bond, III. p. 433.

[124] Bond, I. p. 36, II. p. 265.

[125] _Mother Bombie_, Act III. Sc. III. 1-14.

Another quotation must be permitted. This time it is no embroidered
conceit, but one of those lyrics of pure nature music, of which the
Renaissance poets were so lavish, touched with the fire of Spring, with
the light of hope, bird-notes untroubled by doubt, unconscious of
pessimism, which are th