both himself and Raleigh shepherds. For just as at one time it
was the fashion to write poems in the form of a dream, so in
Spenser's day it was the fashion to write poems called pastorals,
in which the authors made believe that all their characters were
shepherds and shepherdesses.

"One day, quoth he, I sat (as was my trade)
Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoare,
Keeping my sheep amongst the cooly shade,
Of the green alders by the Mulla's* shore:
There a strange shepherd chanst to find me out,
Whether allured by my pipe's delight,
Whose pleasing sound y-shrilled far about,
Or thither led by chance, I know not right:
Whom when I asked from what place he came,
And how he hight, himself he did y-clep,
The Shepherd of the Ocean by name,
And said he came far from the main sea deep.
He sitting me beside in that same shade,
Provoked me to play some pleasant fit;**
And, when he heard the music that I made,
He found himself full greatly pleased at it."

*River Awbeg.
**Strain.

Spenser tells then how the "other shepherd" sang:--

"His song was all a lamentable lay,
Of great unkindness, and of usage hard,