Love, O Love! is the only Treasure,

Joy and blessing from the grave and wise. Give me Love, and Life, and Pleasure,

I shall never envy what the World enjoys.

16

In Love I chiefly now delight,

And, Doting grown in me, no wonder,

The Darts which did me once affright,

And dread me far worse than [could] Thunder, Now are welcome unto me,

Increasing still my warm desire:

Celia's captive I must be,

Celia, thou most cunningly hast play'd the Thief.

32

The True-Lovers' Paradise.

Farewell all those pleasant Joys

Wherein Free-men are delighted!
For they to me appear as Toys,

By me they ever shall be slighted:
Love's the thing that doth possess me,
His Riches fain I would enjoy:

With my Celia, Cupid bless me,

Nothing then of Crosses can my Love annoy.

453

64

Printed for J. Conyers, at the Black-Raven, in Holborn.

[In Black-letter. Three woodcuts: the central one is on p. 456. Date, 1672-1679.]

Identical with "The Enchanted Lover" in the first two verses (as already mentioned on p. 447), because they both reproduce entire the same "New Playhouse Song," there is somewhat more of a rapturous exaltation in the enamoured swain, and less of direct praise bestowed on the Celia, than in the companion or rival ballad. Once more brought together in our pages, after having been long dissevered, they afford a good specimen of the trade-machinery of their day; by which each gay lyric of the theatre was transformed into the street broadside, and travelled into country villages on market-days, by the aid of some musical "Cheap-man" of an Autolycus, who rolled out the notes with his voice to tempt the rustic for a purchase of the ballad, in order to win the heart of the maids.

To the same ballad of "The Enchanted Lover" belong the following two cuts, which originally adorned some book, wherefrom several other engravings have drifted into such broadside ballads. They will soon be reproduced. All are of an allegorical or emblematic character, like this couple of Daphne-figures with sprouting fingers in an orchard; or the moralizing Jester, seated on a block of stone. Three more of these allegories are in "Loyalty Unfeigned,' on our p. 641. Others will be met successively in "The Courtier's Health,' "The Good-Fellow's Frollic," and "The Good-Fellow's Consideration," of next volume. In "Unfortunate Jockey," a girl nursing a baby, and in "The Suffolk Miracle," a repentant Magdalen, two more cuts seem to belong to the same series of Emblems. When we have gathered all these cuts, we shall devote a page to their description. The tune named for the next ballad refers to the Playhouse Song which we have twice printed (on pp. 448 and 451), in the first two verses of each of the immediately preceding Ballads, viz. "The Enchanted Lover," and "The True-Lover's Paradise.' It seemed best to bring the whole of them together.

[These cuts belong to "The Enchanted Lover," p. 450.]

[Roxburghe Collection = Bright's, IV. 36.]

The Confined Lover.

No Prison like to Cupid's Gaol,
where some confined be,

When Sighs and Tears cannot prevail
to purchase Liberty,

Till tender Females do apply

a Balsom to the Wound:

Some Lovers live, some sighing dye,

and so the World goes round.

TO THE TUNE OF, [Ah! how pleasant are] The Charms of Love.

[Centre cut is on p. 456. As to the Tune, see previous page.]

H how powerful is her Charming eye,

which so strangely doth enslave me;

Cupid, I feel thy Tyranny,

of all my sense thou dost bereave me :

The more I strive for to get free,

the stronger I find is my Desire:

Thou art, my Dear, the only she

that to my burning flame still adds a scorching fire.

Now, now in Fetters I'le Delight,

and joy to see my self thus Chained;

For when thou art out of my sight,

I find myself extreamly pained:

8

The Confined Lover.

While others sweetly take their rest,

in secret I do mourn for thee;

And then my sorrows makes me blest,

My Silvia, I delight my self in none but thee.
Sweet Dreams too often vex my Soul,
when waking I do find them flatter,
Methinks I see her through a Hole,

and yet by no means can come at her:
Oh! then I storm, like one inraged,
and blame that wanton winking Boy,
No sooner is my heart asswaged,

But Silvia is again my Love and dearest Joy.

But should she prove to me unkind,

and give to me a flat denyal,

No joys on earth could ease my mind,

who while I live must needs be Loyal:

No fals[e]hood shall be found in me, whilst I retain my murmuring breath,

But Silvia, I'le be true to thee,

455

16

24

[while until

32

while I chance to meet with grim and pale-fac'd Death.

Then let the world on me look strange,

and blame my fond and helpless passion,

The wavering mind delights in change,

and calls perhaps my Vow a rash one: But let man count me what he pleases, Oh! Love is a pain I now delight in, Nor can be any such Diseases

as Females' angry frowns, when they their Loves are slighting. Betwixt my pleasure and my pain,

I am sometimes pleas'd, sometimes tormented; Though once I did Love clear disdain,

I now therewith am well contented: And thus I spend my Youthful days, in Doting and in fond desire, But when Love's passion I dispraise, immediately I burn and fry in endless Fire.

Let none despise the Winged Boy,

whose Darts are of exceeding power,

And those who Love do count a Toy, may loose their freedoms in an hour:

And when they'r once lay'd up an' chained, no sighs can purchase Liberty,

Where Cupid finds himself disdained,

[=I disdain'd love.

his darts that are resistless then he soon lets flye.

48

56

Yet to be Strangers to his Fires

is altogether hapless counted, For he that's fill'd with hot desires

to the heighth of joy is surely mounted.

For if one minute brings him pain,

the next doth bring him much more pleasure;

Then let no man kind love disdain,

for 'tis the best of worldly joys, and earthly treasure.

64

Oh! Mortals, pattern take by me,

that now in Love am so delighted,

Methinks I gain my Liberty

when I perceive my self but slighted. And then my self I do recall,

I chide my self who vow'd to love,

When I, poor Captive, was in Thrall,

I thought my self as happy as the Souls above.

Finis.

Printed for J. Deacon, at the sign of the Rainbow, near David's Inn, in Holborn.

[Black-letter. Three woodcuts, the right-hand Cupid is below. Date, about 1680.] In the original Roxburghe Collection, volume second, immediately after the ballad of "The Enchanted Lover," comes "England's Darling," praising the Duke of Monmouth (Roxb. Coll., II. 140); but this we remove to follow the other three E-initialed ballads, "England's New Bell-man," "England's Triumph," and "The English Fortune-Teller." We finish them at once, and leave "England's Darling" to form the commencement of the Monmouth Group, on our p. 503.

This plump flying Cupid, with his "too, too solid flesh," forms the centrepiece of pp. 451 and 454. The other figure (with "very little flesh," says the honest Yorkshireman John Browdie,) belongs to p. 426. "Ah! sure a pair!" etc.

"His darts, that are resistless, then he soon lets fly."