with our greatest poets. The translator has always admired Comus as much
as the Pastoral Romance; he has read them together, and been used to
consider them as illustrating each other. Any verbal coincidences into
which he may have fallen, are therefore to be ascribed where they are
due, to him, and not to the author. And upon the whole, let the
imperfections of the Pastoral Romance be what they will, he trusts he
shall be regarded as making a valuable present to the connoisseurs and
the men of taste, and an agreeable addition to the innocent amusements
of the less laborious classes of the polite world.






BOOK THE FIRST

CHARACTER OF THE SHEPHERDESS AND HER LOVER.--FEAST OF RUTHYN.--SONGS OF
THE BARDS.


Listen, O man! to the voice of wisdom. The world thou inhabitest was not
intended for a theatre of fruition, nor destined for a scene of repose.
False and treacherous is that happiness, which has been preceded by no
trial, and is connected with no desert. It is like the gilded poison
that undermines the human frame. It is like the hoarse murmur of the
winds that announces the brewing tempest. Virtue, for such is the decree
of the Most High, is evermore obliged to pass through the ordeal of
temptation, and the thorny paths of adversity. If, in this day of her
trial, no foul blot obscure her lustre, no irresolution and instability