How durst thou cast a glance on this rich jewel, Spring. Bought! art thou sold then? Ray. Yes, with her gifts; she buys me with her graces. Health. Graces? a witch! Spring. What can she give thee? Spring. My Raybright, hear me; I regard not these. Ray. What dowry can you bring me? Is 't come to this? am I held poor and base! A girdle make whose buckles, stretch'd to the length, Shall reach from th' arctic to th' antarctic pole; Fol. Do you think to have him for a song? The moon beholds, her man shall reach 1 Not a lark, &c.] I attribute, without scruple, all these incidental glimpses of rural nature to Decker. Ford rarely, if ever, indulges in them. The lark is justly a great favourite with our old poets; and I should imagine, from my own observations, that a greater number of descriptive passages might be found respecting him than of the nightingale. A judicious collection of both would furnish not a few pages of surpassing taste and beauty. While I am writing this, the following simple and pretty address occurs to me. It is that of young Fitzwalter to his mistress, whom he meets at daybreak. "So early! then I see love's the best larke. His morning's caroll to the rising sun."-The Palsg. GIFFORD. Ray. Divinest! Fol. Here's a lady! Spring. Is 't come to who gives most? The self-same bay-tree, into which was turn'd Fol. Oh, base! turn poet? I would not be one myself. Hum. Dwell in mine arms aloft we'll hover, There all but books of Fancy's writing. Del. Not far off stands the Hippocrenian well, Whither I'll lead thee; and but drinking there, To welcome thee nine Muses shall appear, And with full bowels of knowledge thee inspire. Ray. Hang knowledge, drown your Muses! Fol. Ay, ay, or they'll drown themselves in sack and claret. Hum. Do not regard their toys; Be but my darling, age to free thee Ray. Oh, my all excellence! Spring. Speak thou for me; I am fainting. [TO HEALTH. Health. Leave her; take this, and travel through the world, I'll bring thee into all the courts of kings, Where thou shalt stay, and learn their languages; VOL. II.-10 Kiss ladies, revel out the nights in dancing, Spend half a world, my queen shall bear thee out: Nor any sickness shake thee: Youth and Health, As slaves, shall lackey by thy chariot-wheels: And who, for two such jewels, would not sell Th' East and West Indies? both are thine, so that— Ray. What? Fol. All lies! gallop over the world, and not grow old, nor be sick? a lie. One gallant went but into France last day, and was never his own man since; another stepped but into the Low Countries, and was drunk dead under the table; another did but peep into England, and it cost him more in good-morrows blown up to him under his window, by drums and trumpets, than his whole voyage; besides he ran mad upon 't.1 Hum. Here's my last farewell: ride along with me, I'll raise by art out of base earth a palace,* Shalt call together the most glorious spirits Hum. At one end of this palace shall be heard 1 The streets of London appear to have been grievously infested at this time with noises (i. e. little knots) of fiddlers, who pressed into ail companies, and pestered every new-comer with their salutations.— GIFFORD. 2 The original copy appears, from some mutilated remains of it, to have contained a description of the palace itseif, and also its garden: it was thought useless, however, to excite the reader's regret by inserting the mere fragments.. 1 For sorrow that his lute had not the charms To bring his fair Eurydice from hell: Ray. I'll hear no more: This ends your strife; you only I adore. {TO HUMOUR. Spring. Oh, I am sick at heart! unthankful man, 'Tis thou hast wounded me; farewell! Ray. Farewell! [She is led in by DELIGHT. Fol. Health, recover her; sirrah, Youth, look to her. Health. That bird that in her nest sleeps out the spring, May fly in summer; but with sickly wing. [Exeunt HEALTH and YOUTH. Hum. In triumph now I lead thee;-no, be thou Cæsar, And lead me. Ray. Neither! we'll ride with equal state, Both in one chariot, since we have equal fate. ACT III. SCENE I. The Confines of Spring and Summer. Enter RAYBRIGHT melancholy. [Exeunt. Ray. Oh, my dear love the Spring, I am cheated of thee! Thou hadst a body, the four elements1 Dwelt never in a fairer; a mind, princely: Thy language, like thy singers, musical. not waste The weight of a sad violet in excess; 1 See note, p. 134. Yet still thy board had dishes numberless: Enter FOLLY, singing an epitaph on the departed Ray. Thou idiot! hast thou none To poison with thy nasty jigs but mine, My matchless frame of nature, creation's wonder? Out of my sight! Fol. I am not in it; if I were, you'd see but scurvily. You find fault as patrons do with books, to give nothing. Ray. Vex me not, fool; turn out o' doors your roarer,1 French tailor, and that Spanish gingerbread, Fol. Myself! hang me, I'll not stir; poor Folly, honest Folly, jocundary Folly, forsake your lordship! no true gentleman hates me; and how many women are given daily to me, some not far off know. Tailor gone, Toledan gone, all gone, but I— Enter HUMOUR. Hum. My waiters quoited off by you! you flay them! Whence come these thunderbolts? what furies haunt you? Ray. You. Fol. She! Ray. Yes, and thou. Fol. Bow wow! Ray. I shall grow old, diseased, and melancholy; For you have robb'd me both of Youth and Health, And that Delight my Spring bestow'd upon me: But for you two I should be wondrous good; 4 See notes, p. 113 and 157. |