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.

A Soldier, a Spaniard, an Italian dancer, a French tailor, a Forester, Maskers, Clowns, &c.

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;
Wake now, awake! see and taste them!

Ray. [waking.] That I might ever slumber, and enjoy

Contents as happy as the soul's best wishes
Can fancy or imagine! 't is a cruelty

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
Of earthly glories are to me diseases,

Infecting those sound parts which should preserve
The flattering retribution to my thankfulness.
Priest. Raybright,

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
As humble as the child of one that sweats
To eat the dear-earn'd bread of honest thrift.
Priest. Hast thou not flow'd in honours?
Ray. Honours! I'd not be baited with my fears
Of losing them, to be their monstrous creature
An age together: 't is besides as comfortable
To die upon the embroidery of the grass,
Unminded, as to set a world at gaze,

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
Desires of better life to those of this,

This scurvy one, this life scarce worth the keeping!
Priest. 'Tis melancholy, and too fond indulgence
To your own dull'd affections, sway your judgment;
You could not else be thus lost, or suspect

The care your ancestor the Sun takes of you.
Ray. The care! the scorn he throws on me.
Priest. Fy! fy!

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,
I am to tell you, how I have received

From your progenitor, my lord, the Sun,
A token, that he visibly will descend
From the celestial orb, to gratify

All your wild longings.

Ray. Very likely! when pray?

The world the while shall be beholding to him
For a long night;-candle and lantern, sure,

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