The Virgin's Revenge.

MAN.

Just is your doom, bright maid,
just the disdain you show;
With scorn for scorn i'm paid:
the pow'rs thus let me know
What 'tis to sigh and pine for love,
since I unmoved cou'd see

Beauties with tears, and their tender fears:

kind Virgins, sigh for me!

FINIS.

37.

Printed for J. Clark, W. Thacker[a]y, and T. Passinger

72

[In Black-letter. Date, before August, 1685: licensed by Roger L'Estrange.]

Philander and Phillis.

"Phillis is my only joy,

Faithless as the wind or seas;
Sometimes coming, sometimes coy,
Yet she never fails to please;
If with a frown I am cast down,
Phillis smiling and beguiling

Makes me happier than before.
Though, alas! too late I find
Nothing can her fancy fix;
Yet, the moment she is kind,

I forgive her all her tricks;

Which though I see, I can't get free-
She deceiving, I believing :

What need Lovers wish for more?"

-Sedley's Miscellany Poems, 1702.

If the luckless Philander of the following ballad-group had been

reasonable in his passionate love, as Sir Charles Sedley was in regard to the other Phillis, he might have avoided suicide and the investment in two Ghosts, his own and the lady's. The tragic fate of these lovers, failing to move us, recalls a memory of Bully Bottom's Pyramus and Thisbe; but here the deaths take place in opposite succession. On p. 33 we gave an account of the original song, by Nat Lee, which was reprinted in Bagford Ballads, p. 542, 1877.

[Roxburghe Collection (i.e. Bright's), IV. 78; Pepys, III. 9.]

The True Lovers' Tragedy :

Being an Incomparable Ballad of [a] Gentleman and his Lady, that both killed themselves for Love, under the disguised Names of

Philander and Phillis.

Phillis, Philander's scatter'd Garment finds,
And thinks him slain, for which with Fate she joyns,
And with her Fatal Poniard striketh Deep,

As Life no longer can its Station keep;

The Crimson Streams so fast flow'd from her Veins,
Yet Dying, of her Love's dear Loss complains:
No sooner Death had closed her Starry Eyes,
But her Return'd Philander her espyes;

And finding that for him she lost her Breath,

He kills himself, and Crowns his Love with Death.

To A NEW PLAY-HOUSE TUNE; or, Oh! cruel bloody Fate.

The True Lovers' Tragedy.

Then Purple Waves of Blood

ran streaming down the Floor, Unmov'd she saw the Flood,

and bless'd her Dying hour; "Philander," and "Philander," still, the Bleeding Phillis cry'd: She wept a while,

and she forc'd a Smile,

then Clos'd her Eyes and Dy'd.1 27

Upon the Blushing Ground,
stain'd with her Virgin Blood,
She lay in Death's deep Swound,
close by the Murmuring Flood,
Which, for the Lovely Phillis sake,
complain'd of cruel Fate,
Which caus'd such care,
as had wrought despair,
I weep it to Relate.

39

36

Hen, loe! Philander came,

With joy to seek his love,

And her dear Promise claim,

while Moon-beams, from above,

Did twinkle through the thickest shade,

and guild the flowry plain,

When he espys,

And, "Ah, Phillis!" cries, (Not thinking she was slain.)

Arise, arise, from Earth, shake off this dull repose;

Phillis, my onely mirth,

to thee Philander bows:

Sooner I would have come to thee,

had not a Lyon stay'd

My course, to fight,

For which exploit

he Lifeless now is made.

"Ah me! what's this? she's Cold:

ye Gods! quite Breathless too. Oh Death, durst thou infold? this beautie's not thy due.

Alas! O cruel Fate," he cry'd,

"by her own hand, 'tis well,
Oh, the dismal blow
That did overthrow !

by Heav'ns, for me she fell!

"Behold my Garments dy'd
in Phillis precious blood.
Which falling from my side
made her suppose me dead:

And therefore fell for love of me,
ah, cruel destiny!

And shall Philander

Live to wander ?

45

54

Even with my latest breath."

81

Printed for P. Brooksby, at the Hospital-Gate, in West-smithfield.

90

[In the original, the flying Cupid woodcut of our second part is omitted. In Black-letter. Date, 1680, or soon after. Douce's, I. 74, printed for T. Vere. We give on next page the Sequel mentioned on our ur p. 33, and on p. 389 add another Philander ballad, beginning "Alas! poor female Sex." Two others follow later.]

1 Thus far, with a slight change, the original three verses by Nat. Lee were reproduced. All that follows is additional in the street-ballad alone.

[Roxburghe Collection (=B. H. Bright's), IV. 6; Pepys, III. 378.]

A Strange Apparition;

The second Meeting of two self-murthering Lovers,

Phillis and Philander.

Mistaken Phillis kill'd her self, thinking Philander Slain,
Philander quickly followed her, and now they'r met again.
TO THE TUNE OF, Oh, Cruel bloody Fate.

Printed for J. Wright, J. Clarke, W. Thackeray, and T. Passinger.

81

90

99

[Black-letter. Two cuts. Date, between 1680 and 1683. The misprint of "his" for "her," in tenth line, is here corrected; it had probably been written "hir," as was not uncommonly done of old. The chief woodcut must have originally belonged to some amatory volume of much earlier date, probably before 1614.]