with the nature of the thing, yet no whit answereth with the analysis and interpretation of the word. For they be not termed Eclogues, but Æglogues; which sentence this Author very well observing, upon good judgment, though indeed few goatherds have to do herein, nevertheless doubteth not to call them by the used and best known name. Other curious discourses hereof I reserve to greater occasion.
These twelve Æglogues, every where answering to the seasons of the twelve monethes, may be well divided into three forms or ranks. For either they be plaintive, as the first, the sixth, the eleventh, and the twelfth; or recreative, such as all those be, which contain matter of love, or commendation of special personages; or moral, which for the most part be mixed with some satyrical bitterness; namely, the second, of reverence due to old age; the fifth, of coloured deceit; the seventh and ninth, of dissolute shepheards and pastors; the tenth, of contempt of Poetry and pleasant Wits. And to this division may every thing herein be reasonably applied; a few only except, whose special purpose and meaning I am not privy to. And thus much generally of these twelve Æglogues. Now will we speak particularly of all, and first of the first, which he calleth by the first moneth’s name, Januarie: wherein to some he mayxx
