Produced by Irma Spehar, Ralf Stephan, and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at  (This file was producedfrom images generously made available by The Internet Archive/CanadianLibraries)

The Pembroke Booklets

(First Series)

III

Nicholas Breton

Pastoral Poems

George Wither

Selected Poetry

William Browne

(of Tavistock)

Pastoral Poetry

J. R. Tutin

Hull

1906

Large Paper Edition, limited to 250 copies

Turnbull & Spears, Printers, Edinburgh.

{02}

Thou that wouldst find the habit of true passion,  And see a mind attired in perfect strains ...Look here on Breton's work.--BEN JONSON.

The praises of poetry have been often sung in ancient and inmodern times; strange powers have been ascribed to it of influenceover animate and inanimate auditors; its force over fascinatedcrowds has been acknowledged; but before Wither, no one evercelebrated its power at home, the wealth and the strength whichthis divine gift confers upon its possessor. Fame, and that tooafter death, was all which hitherto the poets had promised themselvesfrom this art. It seems to have been left to Wither todiscover that poetry was a present possession, as well as a richreversion, and that the Muse has a promise of both lives,--of this,and of that which was to come.--CHARLES LAMB.

                    I feel an envious touch,And tell thee Swain: that at thy fame I grutch,Wishing the Art that makes this Poem shine,And this thy Work (wert not thou wrongèd) mine.GEORGE WITHER: To the Author[of Britannia's Pastorals].

{03}

Contents