Re-enter HUмour.

Hum. You have had precious pleasures, choice

of drunkenness ;

Will you be gone?

Ray. I feel a war within me,

And every doubt that resolution kills

Springs up a greater: in the year's revolution,
There cannot be a season more delicious,
When Plenty, Summer's daughter, empties daily
Her cornucopia, fill'd with choicest viands.

Fol. Plenty's horn is always full in the city.
Ray. When temperate heat offends not with ex-
tremes,

When day and night have their distinguishment
With a more equal measure;-

Hum. Ha! in contemplation?

Ray. When the bright Sun, with kindly distant beams

Gilds ripen'd fruit ;

Hum. And what fine meditation

Transports you thus?

You study some encomium

Upon the beauty of the garden's queen;

You'd make the paleness to supply the vacancy
Of Cynthia's dark defect.

Come, Raybright; whatsoe'er suggestions

Have won on thy apt weakness, leave these empty And hollow-sounding pleasures, that include

Only a windy substance of delight,

Which every motion alters into air;

I'll stay no longer here.

Ray. I must.

Hum. You shall not;

These are adulterate mixtures of vain follies;
I'll bring thee

Into the court of Winter; there thy food

Shall not be sickly fruits, but healthful broths,
Strong meat and dainty.

Fol. Pork, beef, mutton, very sweet mutton, veal, venison, capon, fine fat capon, partridge, snipe, plover, larks, teal, admirable teal, my lord.

Hum. Mystery there, like to another nature,
Confects the substance of the choicest fruits
In a rich candy, with such imitation

Of form and colour, 't will deceive the eye,
Until the taste be ravish'd.

Fol. Comfits and caraways, marchpanes' and marmalades, sugar-plums and pippin-pies, gingerbread and walnuts.

Hum. Nor is his bounty limited; he 'll not spare To exhaust the treasure of a thousand Indies.

Fol. Two hundred pound suppers, and neither fiddlers nor broken glasses reckoned; besides, a hundred pound a throw, ten times together, if you can hold out so long.

Ray. You tell me wonders!

Be my conductress; I'll fly this place in secret;
Three quarters of my time are almost spent,
The last remains to crown my full content.
Now, if I fail, let man's experience read me;
'T was Humour, join'd with Folly, did mislead me.
Hum. Leave this naked season,

Wherein the very trees shake off their locks,
It is so poor and barren.

Ray. Come, let's go taste old Winter's fresh delights,

And swell with pleasures our big appetites.
The Summer, Autumn, [Winter,] and the Spring,
As 't were, conjoin'd in one conjugal ring
(An emblem of four provinces we sway),
Shall all attend our pastimes night and day;
Shall both be subject to our glorious state,
While we enjoy the blessings of our fate :2

1 Marchpane was a sweet biscuit composed of sugar and almonds, like those now called maccaroni. It was a constant article in the desserts of our ancestors, and it appeared sometimes on more solemn occasions. When Elizabeth visited Cambridge, the University presented their chancellor, Sir William Cecil, with two pair of gloves, a marchpane, and two sugar-loaves. Peck's Desid. Curiosa, ii. 29.

2 Here the fourth act probably ended in the first sketch of this drama, as what follows seems merely preparatory to the introduction of Raybright in a character which could not have originally been in the writer's

And since we have notice that some brabarous

spirits

Mean to oppose our entrance, if by words

They'll not desist, we 'll force our way with swords. [Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The Court of WInter.

Enter several Clowns.

1 Clown. Hear you the news, neighbour?

2 Clown. Yes, to my grief, neighbour; they say our prince Raybright is coming hither, with whole troops and trains of courtiers: we are like to have a fine time on 't, neighbours.

3 Clown. Oh, these courtiers, neighbours, are pestilent knaves; but I'll pluck a crow1 with some of 'em.

1 Clown. 'Faith, neighbour, let's lay our heads together, and resolve to die like men.

2 Clown. They may talk, and call us rebels, but a fig for that; let's be true among ourselves, and with our swords in hand resist his entrance.

Enter WINTER.

Win. Bold, saucy mortals, dare you then aspire With snow and ice to quench the sphere of fire?

contemplation. James I. died not many months after the first appearance of the Sun's Darling, and I can think of no more probable cause for the insertion of this purpureus pannus, than a desire in,the managers to gratify the common feeling, by paying some extraordinary compliment to the youthful monarch, his successor. On the score of poetry, the speeches of Winter are entitled to praise; but they grievously offend on the side of propriety, and bear no relation whatever to the previous language and conduct of Raybright. But the readers of our ancient drama must be prepared for inconsistencies of this kind, and be as indulgent to them as possible, in consideration of the many excellencies by which they are almost invariably redeemed.-GIFFORD.

1 Pluck a crow.] A vulgar expression for picking a quarrel with a person.-GIFFord.

Are your hearts frozen like your clime, from

thence

All temperate heat's fled of obedience?

How durst you else with force think to withstand
Your prince's entry into this his land?

A prince, who is so excellently good,
His virtue is his honour, more than blood;
In whose clear nature, as two suns, do rise
The attributes of merciful and wise;

Whose laws are so impartial, that they must'
Be counted heavenly, 'cause they 're truly just;
Who does, with princely moderation, give
His subjects an example how to live;
Teaching their erring natures to direct
Their wills, to what it ought most to effect:
Yet you, wild fools, possess'd with giant rage,
Dare, in your lawless fury, think to wage
War against Heaven; and from his shining throne
Pull Jove himself, for you to tread upon;

Were your heads circled with his own green oak,
Yet are they subject to his thunder stroke,
And he can sink such wretches as rebel,

From Heaven's sublimest height down to the depth of Hell.

1 Clown. Nay, let him do his worst; there's many a tall' fellow, besides us, will rather die than see his living taken from them, nay, even eat up; all things are grown so dear, there's no enduring more mouths than our own, neighbour.

2 Clown. Thou 'rt a wise fellow, neighbour: prate is but prate. They say this prince too would bring new laws upon us, new rites into the temples of our gods; and that's abominable; we'll all be hang'd first.

Win. Dull, stubborn fools! whose perverse judgments still

Are governed by the malice of your will,

1 Tall and brave are synonymous terms in our old dramas.

Things void of soul! can you conceive, that he,
Whose every thought 's an act of piety,
Who's all religious, furnish'd with all good
That ever was comprised in flesh and blood,
Cannot direct you in the fittest way

To serve those powers to which himself does pay
True zealous worship, nay,'s so near allied
To them, himself must needs be deified?

Enter FOLLY.

Fol. Save you, gentlemen! "T is very cold; you live in frost; you've Winter still about you. 2 Clown. What are you, sir?

Fol. A courtier, sir; but, you may guess, a very foolish one to leave the bright beams of my lord, the prince, to travel hither. I have an ague on me; do you not see me shake? Well, if our courtiers, when they come hither, have not young lasses, good wines, and fires, to heat their blood, 't will freeze into an apoplexy. Farewell, frost! I'll go seek a fire to thaw me; I'm all ice, I fear, already.

[Exit

1 Clown. Farewell, and be hanged! ere such as these shall eat what we have sweat for, we 'll spend our bloods. Come, neighbours, let's go call our company together, and go meet this prince he talks so of.

3 Clown. Some shall have but a sour welcome of it, if my crabtree cudgel hold here.

Win. You're mad in your rebellious minds: but hear

What I presage, with understanding clear:

This prince shall come, and, by his glorious side,
Laurel-crown'd conquest shall in triumph ride,
Arm'd with the justice that attends his cause;
You shall with penitence embrace his laws:
He to the frozen northern clime shall bring
A warmth so temperate, as shall force the Spring
Usurp my privilege, and by his ray

Night shall be changed into perpetual day :
Plenty and happiness shall still increase,