SCENE II.

A Room in BASSANES'S House.

Enter BASSANES, GRAUSIS, and PHULAS. Bass. Pray, use your recreations, all the service 'I will expect is quietness among ye;

Take liberty at home, abroad, at all times,
And in your charities appease the gods
Whom I, with my distractions, have offended.
Grau. Fair blessings on thy heart!
Phu. Here's a rare change!

Bass. Betake you to your several occasions;
And wherein I have heretofore been faulty,
Let your constructions mildly pass it over;
Henceforth I'll study reformation,-
-more
I have not for employment.

Grau. O, sweet man!

Thou art the very Honeycomb of Honesty.
Phu. The Garland of Good-will.'-Old lady,
hold up

Thy reverend snout, and trot behind me softly,
As it becomes a mule of ancient carriage.

[Exeunt GRAUSIS and PHULAS.
Bass. Beasts, only capable of sense, enjoy
The benefit of food and ease with thankfulness;
Such silly creatures, with a grudging, kick not
Against the portion nature hath bestow'd;
But men, endow'd with reason, and the use
Of reason, to distinguish from the chaff
Of abject scarcity, the quintessence,
Soul, and elixir of the earth's abundance,
The treasures of the sea, the air, nay, heaven,

1 The Honeycomb of Honesty, like the "Garland of Good-will," was - probably one of the popular miscellanies of the day. The quaint and alliterative titles to these collections of ballads, stories, jests, &c. gave every allusion to them an air of pleasantry; and perhaps excited a smile on the stage.-GIFFORD.

Repining at these glories of creation,

Are verier beasts than beasts; and of those beasts
The worst am I. I, who was made a monarch
Of what a heart could wish for, a chaste wife,
Endeavoured, what in me lay, to pull down
That temple built for adoration only,

And level 't in the dust of causeless scandal:-
But, to redeem a sacrilege so impious,
Humility shall pour before the deities
I have incens'd a largess of more patience
Than their displeased altars can require.
No tempests of commotion shall disquiet
The calms of my composure.

Enter ORGILUS.

Org. I have found thee,

Thou patron of more horrors than the bulk
Of manhood, hoop'd about with ribs of iron,
Can cram within thy breast: Penthea, Bassanes,
Curs'd by thy jealousies, more by thy dotage,
Is left a prey to phrensy.

Bass. Exercise

Your trials for addition to my penance;
I am resolv'd.

Org. Play not with misery

Past cure; some angry minister of fate hath
Deposed the empress of her soul, her reason,
From its most proper throne; but, what's the
miracle

More new, I, I have seen it, and yet live!

Bass. You may delude my senses, not my judg

ment;

"T is anchor'd into a firm resolution;

Dalliance of mirth or wit can ne'er unfix it:

Practise yet further.

Org. May thy death of love to her

Damn all thy comforts to a lasting fast
From every joy of life! thou barren rock,

By thee we have been split in ken of harbour.

Enter PENTHEA, with her hair loose, ITHOCLES, PHILEMA, and CHRISTALLA.

Ith. Sister, look up, your Ithocles, your brother Speaks to you; why d' you weep? dear, turn not from

me.

Here is a killing sight; lo, Bassanes,

A lamentable object!

Org. Man, dost see it?

Sports are more gamesome; am I yet in merriment? Why dost not laugh?

Bass. Divine and best of ladies,

Please to forget my outrage; mercy ever
Cannot but lodge under a roof so excellent:
I have cast off that cruelty of phrensy

Which once appeared imposture, and then juggled
To cheat my sleeps of rest.

Org. Was I in earnest ?

Pen. Sure, if we were all sirens, we should sing pitifully,

And 't were a comely music, when in parts
One sung another's knell; the turtle sighs
When he hath lost his mate; and yet some say
He must be dead first: 't is a fine deceit

To pass away in a dream! indeed, I've slept
With mine eyes open a great while. No falsehood
Equals a broken faith; there 's not a hair

Sticks on my head but, like a leaden plummet,
It sinks me to the grave: I must creep thither;
The journey is not long.

Ith. But thou, Penthea,

Hast many years, I hope, to number yet,
Ere thou canst travel that way.

Bass. Let the sun first

Be wrapp'd up in an everlasting darkness,
Before the light of nature, chiefly form'd
For the whole world's delight, feel an eclipse
So universal!

Org. Wisdom, look ye, begins

To rave!-art thou mad too, antiquity?

Pen. Since I was first a wife, I might have been Mother to many pretty prattling babes;

They would have smiled when I smiled; and, for certain,

I should have cried when they cried :-truly, brother,
My father would have pick'd me out a husband,
And then my little ones had been no bastards;
But 't is too late for me to marry now.

Bass. Fall on me if there be a burning Etna,
And bury me in flames! sweats, hot as sulphur,
Boil through my pores:-affliction hath in store
No torture like to this.

Org. Behold a patience!

Lay by thy whining gray dissimulation,1
Do something worth a chronicle; show justice
Upon the author of this mischief; dig out
The jealousies that hatch'd this thraldom first
With thine own poniard: every antic rapture
Can roar as thine does.

Ith. Orgilus, forbear.

Bass. Disturb him not; it is a talking motion
Provided for my torment. What a fool am I
To wanton passion! ere I'll speak a word,
I will look on and burst.

Pen. I loved you once.

[TO ORG.

Org. Thou didst, wrong'd creature: in despite of

malice,

For it I'll love thee ever.

Pen. Spare your hand:

Believe me, I'll not hurt it.

Org. My heart too.

1 Lay by thy whining gray dissimulation.] This beautiful expression is happily adopted by Milton, the great plunderer of the poetical hive of our old dramatists.

"He ended here, and Satan, bowing low

His gray dissimulation," &c.-Par. Reg.

It would appear from the next speech that the unsuspicious Ithocles supposed Orgilus to address Bassanes, in this rant, in order to incite him to wreak vengeance on himself for his cruelty to Penthea; but the covert object of it is evidently Ithocles.-GIFFORD.

2 Org. My heart too.] Here is some mistake of the press, which I ann pretend to rectify.-GIFFORD.

Pen. Complain not though I wring it hard; I'll

kiss it;

Oh, 't is a fine soft palm!-hark, in thine ear;
Like whom do I look, prithee ?-nay, no whispering.
Goodness! we had been happy; too much happiness
Will make folk proud, they say-but that is he-

[Pointing to ITHOCLES. And yet he paid for 't home; alas! his heart Is crept into the cabinet of the princess;

We shall have points and bride-laces. Remember,
When we last gathered roses in the garden,
I found my wits; but truly you lost yours.
That's he, and still 't is he. [Again pointing to ITH.
Ith. Poor soul, how idly

Her fancies guide her tongue!
Bass. Keep in, vexation,
And break not into clamour.
Org. She has tutor❜d me;'

[Aside.

Some powerful inspiration checks my laziness:
Now let me kiss your hand, griev'd beauty.
Pen. Kiss it.-

Alack, alack, his lips be wondrous cold;

Dear soul, he has lost his colour: have you seen
A straying heart? all crannies! every drop
Of blood is turned to an amethyst,

Which married bachelors hang in their ears.
Org. Peace usher her into Elysium!

If this be madness, madness is an oracle.

[Exit.

Ith. Christalla, Philema, when slept my sister, Her ravings are so wild?

Chris. Sir, not these ten days.

Phil. We watch by her continually; besides,
We can not any way pray her to eat.
Bass. Oh,-misery of miseries!

Pen. Take comfort.

1 She has 'tutor'd me,] i. e. by repeatedly pointing out Ithocles to his resentment. What plan of vengeance Orgilus had previously meditated we know not; but the deep and irresistible pathos of this most afflicting scene evidently gives a deadly turn to his wrath.--GIFFORD.