Hobinol

or Hobbinol is Gabriel Harvey, physician, LL.D., a friend and college chum of Edmund Spenser, the poet. Spenser, in his ecl. iv., makes The not inquire, “What gars thee to weep?” and Hobinol replies it is because his friend Colin, having been flouted by Rosalind (ecl. i.), has broken his pipe and seems heart-broken with grief. The not then begs Hobinol to sing to him one of Colin’s own songs, and Hobinol sings the lay of “Elisa, queen of the shepherds” ( Queen Elizabeth ), daughter of Syrinx and Pan ( Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. ). He says Phœbus thrust out his golden head to gaze on her, and was amazed to see a sun on earth brighter and more dazzling than his own. The Graces requested she might make a fourth grace, and she was received amongst them and reigned with them in heaven. The shepherds then strewed flowers to the queen, and Elisa dismi ed them, saying that at the proper season she would reward them with ripe damsons (ecl. iv.) Ecl. ix. is a dialogue between Hobinol and Diggon Davie, upon Popish abuses. (See Diggon Davie ).—Spenser, Shephearde’s Calendar (1572.)