Queenly and most lovely dames of uncertain age, and tender instincts, it is not the present chronicler who will so far forget his reputation for gallantry, as to assert that "I should like to marry" is your favorite madrigal.

In the early days of Francesco's infatuation for Bianca he had given forth an impassioned madrigal, which once more he sang to her as his good angel-guardian: "Around my frail and battered barque There is always serenely swimming, And wakefully watching me, Lest I perish, a beautiful and powerful Dolphin.

Towards the end of the sixteenth, and beginning of the seventeenth, century, shone that constellation of English musicians, whose inimitable madrigals are still, and long will be, the delight of every lover of vocal harmony.

Kind madrigals!

But I must content myself now with a little madrigal, the only one fit for my purpose.

If the art of reading were cultivated in America as it is in France and Germany, I would not be surprised if some American Legouvé or Strakosch were to add to his répertoire such productions of prose as this humorously poetic "Zeus's Sentence," or that mystic madrigal, "Be Blessed.

Now, Morpheus, rouse thee from thy sable den, Charm all his senses with a slumb'ring trance; Whilst old Sylvanus send[s] a lovely train Of satyrs, dryades, and water nymphs Out of their bowers to tune their silver strings, And with sweet-sounding music sing Some pleasing madrigals and roundelays, To comfort Sophos in his deep distress.

They gazed with quiet pleasure upon the lovely landscape, and listened to the negroes as they sang their old, rude, touching madrigals, shouting, at times, to the horses of their teams, and not seldom sending on the air the loud rejoiceful outburst of their laughter.

Honest Walton mentions the said madrigal under the denomination of "certain smooth verses made long since by Kit Marlowe.

Often did he sing tender madrigals as they together sauntered in the woods and indulged in pastoral pursuits.

They gazed with quiet pleasure upon the lovely landscape, and listened to the negroes as they sang their old, rude, touching madrigals, shouting, at times, to the horses of their teams, and not seldom sending on the air the loud rejoiceful outburst of their laughter.

Now shall we have damnable Ballads out against us, Most wicked madrigals: and ten to one, Colonel, Sung to such lowsie, lamentable tunes.