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, Fol. Plenty's horn is always full in the city. When day and night have their distinguishment 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 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; Into the court of Winter; there thy food Shall not be sickly fruits, but healthful broths, 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, Of form and colour, 't will deceive the eye, 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; Wherein the very trees shake off their locks, Ray. Come, let's go taste old Winter's fresh delights, And swell with pleasures our big appetites. 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 A prince, who is so excellently good, Whose laws are so impartial, that they must' Were your heads circled with his own green oak, 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, To serve those powers to which himself does pay 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, Night shall be changed into perpetual day : |