hearts are ready sacrifices to your name and honour, being, my lord, your lordship's most humble and most obligedly submissive servants, THEOPHILUS BIRD, ANDREW PENNEYCUICKE. Little more is known of Bird than what is told by the sensible author of the Historia Histrionica, that "he was one of the eminent actors at the Cockpit, before the wars." He probably played in the Lady's Trial, to which he has a prologue; and he is known to have taken a part in several of Beaumont and Fletcher's pieces. In 1647, when the success of the puritans had enabled them to close the theatres, and consign the great actors of that period to hopeless poverty, he joined with Lowin, Taylor, and others, in bringing out a folio edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, which they dedicated to Philip, Earl of Pembroke, who ill deserved the honour. Andrew Penneycuicke was also an actor of some celebrity. He is entitled to our gratitude for having, as Shirley expresses it, "in that tragical age in which the theatre itself was outacted," rescued not only this, and perhaps the following drama, but also Massinger's admirable comedy of the City Madam, from what he calls the "teeth of time;" and something yet more destructive than the teeth of time, the vulgar and malignant persecution of all that tended to harmonize and improve society.--GIFFORD. THE SUN'S DARLING, ACT I. SCENE I. A Temple with an Altar.-RAYBRIGHT discovered asleep. Enter the PRIEST of the Sun. Priest. LET your tunes, you sweet-voiced spheres, O'ertake him: Fools, with shadows smiling, Wake and find Hopes like wind, Idle hopes, beguiling. Thoughts fly away; Time hath pass'd them; Ray. [waking.] That I might ever slumber, and enjoy Contents as happy as the soul's best wishes Beyond example, to usurp the peace I sat enthron'd in; who was 't pluck'd me from it? Priest. Young man, look hither! Ray. Good, I envy not The pomp of your high office; all preferment Infecting those sound parts which should preserve Thou draw'st thy great descent from my grand patron, The Sun, whose priest I am. Ray. For small advantage. He who is high-born never mounts yon battle ments Of sparkling stars, unless he be in spirit While from a pinnacle I tumble down And break my neck, to be talk'd of and wonder'd at. Priest. You have worn rich habits. Ray. Fine ass-trappings! "T is a stout happiness to wear good clothes, Yet live and die a fool!-mew! Priest. You have had choice Of beauties to enrich your marriage-bed. Ray. Monkeys and paraquitoes are as pretty To play withal, though not indeed so gentle. Honesty's indeed a fine jewel, but the Indies Where't grows is hard to be discover'd: 'troth, sir, I care for no long travels with lost labour. Priest. Pleasures of every sense have been your servants, Whenas you have commanded them. Ray. To threaten ruin, Corrupt the purity of knowledge; wrest This scurvy one, this life scarce worth the keeping! The care your ancestor the Sun takes of you. Have you been sent out into stranger lands, Seen courts of foreign kings; by them been graced, To bring home such neglect? Ray. I have reason for it. Priest. Pray show it. Ray. Since my coming home I have found More sweets in one unprofitable dream, Than in my life's whole pilgrimage. Priest. Your fantasy Misleads your judgment vainly. Sir, in brief, From your progenitor, my lord, the Sun, All your wild longings. Ray. Very likely! when pray? The world the while shall be beholding to him Will grow to an excessive rate i' the city. Priest. These are but flashes of a brain disorder'd. Contain your float of spleen in seemly bounds; Your eyes shall be your witness. Ray. He may come. Enter TIME, whipping FOLLY, in rags, before him. Time. Hence, hence, thou shame of nature, mankind's foil! Time whips thee from the world, kicks thee, and scorns thee. Fol. Whip me from the world! why whip? am I VOL. II. 9 |