A separate Section can be devoted to songs in the manner of the early French pastoral. These were fashionable at a remote period in all parts of Europe; and I have already had occasion, in another piece of literary history, to call attention to the Italian madrigals of the fourteenth century composed in this species.[30] Their point is mainly this: A man of birth and education, generally a dweller in the town, goes abroad into the fields, lured by fair spring weather, and makes love among trees to a country wench.

The Vagi turn the pastoral to their own purpose, and always represent the greenwood lover as a clericus. One of these rural nieces has a pretty opening stanza:—

Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident.

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