"
And, to speake from the very bottome of my heart, not to mention the
integrity and innocence of shepherds, upon which so many have insisted
and copiously declaimed, methinkes he is much more happy in a wood
that at ease contemplates the universe as his own, and in it the sunn
and starrs, the pleasing meadows, shades, groves, green banks, stately
trees, flowing springs, and the wanton windings of a river, fit
objects for quiet innocence, than he that with fire and sword disturbs
the world, and measures his possessions by the wast that lies about
him.
These plaines doe abound with hares, fallow deer, partridges, and
bustards. [The fallow deer and bustards have long since disappeared
from these plains; but hares and partridges abound in the vicinity of
gentlemen's seats, particularly around Everleigh, Tidworth, Amesbury,
Wilbury, Wilton, Earl-Stoke, Clarendon, &c. - Vide ante, p.64.
- J. B.] In this tract is ye Earle of Pembroke's noble seat at Wilton;
but the Arcadia and the Daphne is about Vernditch and Wilton; and
these romancy plaines and boscages did no doubt conduce to the
hightening of Sir Philip Sydney's phansie. He lived much in these
parts, and his most masterly touches of his pastoralls he wrote here
upon the spott, where they were conceived. 'Twas about these purlieus
that the muses were wont to appeare to Sir Philip Sydney, and where he
wrote down their dictates in his table book, though on horseback.* For
those nimble fugitives, except they be presently registred, fly away,
and perhaps can never be caught again.
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