cients, with regard to the subjects of the drama, but lays a greater stress upon it than, we think, the occasion requires. If the passions be forcibly represented, it matters very little whether the story be previously known to the audience or not; for curiosity is a feeling which seldom arises within the walls of a theatre. They are, or ought to be, too much occupied with the present, to be solicitous about what is to ensue, or how the play is to terminate. The latter part, which treats of the Roman senate, contains an admirable exposition of a Terentian play.

"It has already been judiciously observed by a late writer on their tragedies, that it was only some tale derived from Thebes or Troy, or at least something that happened in those two ages; which was worn so threadbare by the pens of all the epick poets, and even by the tradition itself of the talkative Greeklings, (as Ben Jonson calls them,) that before it came upon the stage, it was already known to all the audience; and the people, so soon as ever they heard the name of Oedipus, knew as well as the poet, that he had killed his father by a mistake, and committed incest with his mother, before the play that they were not to hear of a great plague, an oracle, and the ghost of Laius: so that they sat with a yawning kind of expectation, till he was to come with his eyes pulled out, and speak a hundred or more verses in a tragick tone, in complaint of his misfortunes. But one Oedipus, Hercules, or Medea, had been tolerable: poor people, they escaped not so good cheap; they had still the chapon bouillé set before them, till their appetites were cloyed with the same dish, and, the novelty being gone, the pleasure vanished; so that one main end of Dramatick Poesy in its definition, which was to cause delight, was of consequence destroyed.

"In their comedies, the Romans generally borrowed their plots from the Greek poets; and theirs was commonly a little girl stolen or wandered from her parents, brought back unknown to the city, there got with child by some lewd young fellow, who, by the help of his servant, cheats his father; and when her time comes, to cry-Juno Lucina, fer opem, one or other sees a little box or cabinet which was carried away with her, and so discovers her to her friends, if some god do not prevent it, by coming down in a machine, and taking the thanks of it to himself.

sons.

"By the plot you may guess much of the characters of the perAn old father, who would willingly, before he dies, see his son well married; his debauched son, kind in his nature to his mistress, but miserably in want of money; a servant or slave, who has so much wit to strike in with him, and help to dupe his father; a braggadocio captain, a parasite, and a lady of pleasure.

"As for the poor honest maid, on whom the story is built, and who ought to be one of the principal actors in the play, she is commonly a mute in it: she has the breeding of the old Elizabeth way, which was for maids to be seen and not to be heard; and it is enough know she is willing to be married, when the fifth act requires it. "These are plots built after the Italian mode of houses,—you

you

see through them all at once: the characters are indeed the imitations of nature, but so narrow, as if they had imitated only an eye or an hand, and did not dare to venture on the lines of a face, or the proportion of a body."

ART. IV. A Small Treatise betwixt Arnalte and Lucenda: entitled; The Evil-intreated Lover; or, The Melancholy Knight. Originally written in the Greeke Tongue by an unknowne Author. Afterwards translated into Spanish; after that, for the excellency thereof, into the French Tongue by N. H. [Nicholas Herberai;] next by B. M. [Bartholomew Maraffi] into the Thuscan; and now turned into English verse by L. L. [Leonard Lawrence,] a well-wisher to the Muses. London, 1639. p.p. 128.

The principal, we had almost said the only, merit of this little work is its extreme rarity; but, in spite of its manifold offences against good taste, and even against common sense, there is a redeeming spirit about it which must preserve it from unmingled reprobation. The story is meagre in design and clumsy in execution; the sentiments extravagant and unnatural; and the language alternately bombastic and grovelling. But the author, (or, as he modestly calls himself, the translator,) had evidently the seeds of true poesy in him, which, with careful and judicious culture, might, instead of its poor and stinted crop, have brought forth a golden harvest. His feeling of his subject is deep and strong, but his power of utterance is unequal to his conceptions, and his passion evaporates in fantastic hyperboles and unnatural conceits. His descriptions of natural scenery, though minute, are rather vague and general than distinct and local; but he looks on nature with the enthusiasm of a poet's love, and sometimes succeeds in conveying to the reader a lively perception of his imaginings.'

The story of Arnalte and Lucenda is faithfully copied from an Italian tale, which was already familiar to the English reader in the prose translation of Claudius Hollyband,* but the poetical embellishments, such as they are, are the exclusive property of Leonard Lawrence. The poem is prefaced by a dedication "to his honoured uncle, Adam Lawrence metrical address "to the noble-minded reader;" another "to all faire ladies famous for their virtues ;" a third to "all ingenious poets ;" and six copies of commendatory verses by the author's friends. It thus commences:

* Published in his Italian Schoole Maister, 1608.

"There's but a summer past; the golden sunne,
He hath but once his annual course o'er-run,
And lodg'd his fire-breathing steeds within
The lofty stables of cold Pisce's inne:
And fragrant Flora, dewie-breasted queene
Of hills and vallies, which we all have seene
Be-spread with grasse-greene carpets, intermixt
With pleasing flowers *

Shee hath but once with this her train given place

To wint'ring Hyems, with his snow-white face."

The incidents of the poem, which are detailed with a prolixity which would exhaust the patience of any one but a reviewer, may be comprised in a very few words. The supposed narrator of the tale, in his travels is bewildered in

"a desart place

Set thick with trees, whose lofty tops aspire
To kisse the clouds;

Spreading their branches with that large extent,
That from my eyes they hid the firmament;
Under their shades the vallies prostrate lay,
Where wolves and foxes did their gamboiles play:
No silly sheepe or lambes were ever seene

To browse or feed upon those plaines, though greene:
The labouring oxe, nor the milke-giving cow,

Did e'er graze there, nor hath the sharpe-edg'd plough
Beene ever knowne to furrowe up that land:

No house or cottage on that ground did stand;
'Twas unfrequented, not a tract was seene,
Of man or beast, 'twas all o'ergrowne with greene,
With thistles, thornes, and the scratching brier:
The boxe and holly, which withstand the ire
Of winter's rage, for they are alwayes seene
For to survive, clad in their robes of greene.
No noise I heard, no cry of coupled hounds,

Whose bawling throats doe make the woods resound
Their yelping clamour; all was quiet there:
No lusty keeper hollow'd in his deere;
'Twas hush and silent, 'lesse some pretty rill,
Which murmuring, ran at foot of some tall hill,
Or else the whistlings that the wind did breath,
Which made a rushling 'mongst the trembling leafes.
No shepheard pip't, the whilst his flocks did graize;
No pretty birds did warble out sweet layes,

Unlesse 'twere such whose chirping notes did sound
Anthems of sorrow to the list'ning ground:

It seem'd to be the seate of pensive care,
Of melancholy, and of grim dispaire.

There mourning sate the harmlesse turtle-dove,
And sung sad dirges on her lifeless love."

The traveller, at last, reaches a stately but dismal mansion, where he is hospitably welcomed, and courteously entertained by Arnalte, the melancholy owner. The latter relates to his guest the cause of his voluntary seclusion in this desert place: he was a native of Thebes, and in viewing the funeral of “ eminent man, in Thebes' city known," became enamoured of the charms of his grieving daughter, Lucenda, who is thus de

lineated:

"his daughter, who, alas! did seeme
Like faire fac'd Venus, love's cœlestiall queene,
When shee wore mourning for the timeless death
Of sweete Adonis,

*

For shee with shreekes, and sad lamenting cryes,
Distil'd salt teares,

* * *

In that abundant manner, as if all

The rainy showeres had beene forc'd to fall,
Trickling along her cheekes; which to my view
Seem'd like transparent drops of pearly dew
On fragrant roses, e'er the bright-fac'd sunne
Had kist them drye: teares did not only runne
From her bright cristall fountaines, for she tare
Her silken vestments, and her flaxe-like haire :
The Cypresse vaile, which her faire face did shrowd,
Like golden Phoebus in a watry cloud,

Shee rent in peeces, with her snow-white hands
Disheveled her curious breded bands:

The winds enamour'd *

At the faire prospect of so rich a sight,

Breath'd forth their milder gales, and gently blew
Their fanning windes, by which her bright haire flew
In amourous dangling, frisling her faire tresses,
Which in meanders hung, and curled esses:
And like the surges of the rowling maine
They rise and fall, or as upon some plaine
Wee see the pretty rising hillockes stand,
Or as the furrowes of the plow'd up land;
These sunne-like tresses twin'd in artlesse knots,
Where in close ambush wanton Cupid lurkes,

an

As sparkling diamonds shine her splendent eyes,
Or as bright stars, which twinkle in the skies;

Her nose well featur'd, of the handsom'st mould,
Not long, or peaked, signs that grace a scold:
Her cheekes resemble two fresh flowry banks
Where bright carnations grow in disperst rankes;
And in those cheekes the red and white discloses
Such pleasing glimpse, as lawne o'erspreading roses :
Her lips like rubies, which by art are joyn'd,
Doe sweetely close and friendly are combin'd;
And for their colour, they by farre exceede
The rosiate blood, which purple grapes doe bleed;
Who when they move, they presently doe shew
Of orient pearles, a well-ranged row:
Her organ-voyce it well may paralell

The sweete-tun'd notes of pretty Philomel;

After besieging this paragon for a long time with speeches and letters of an unmerciful length, which she relished as little as our readers would do were we to extract them, just as he began to entertain hopes of success, he is overwhelmed by the intelligence of her marriage with his friend Yerso, the confident of his love. Enraged at this deception, he challenges his successful rival to single combat before the king-his invitation is accepted-the combat commences with due formality.

"our lances being burst,

Which flew to shivers, lying scatter'd round
Upon the verdant grasse and trampled ground.
Our staves thus broke, we quickly did betake
Us to our keen-edg'd swords, that they might make
Good what our speares had fail'd of their pretence:
Then fiercely driving, we did both commence