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 :

Charm his fancies, ope his ears;

Now wake him!

[Music within.

SONG.

Fancies are but streams

Of vain pleasure:
They, who by their dreams

True joys measure,
Feasting starve, laughing weep,

Playing smart; whilst in sleep

Fools, with shadows smiling,
Wake and find
Hopes like wind,

Idle hopes, beguiling.

Thoughts fly away; Time hath passed 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! 'tis a cruelty
Beyond example, to usurp the peace

I sat enthroned 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?

fears

I'd not be baited with my

Of losing them, to be their monstrous creature
An age together: 'tis besides as comfortable
To die upon the embroidery of the grass,
Unminded, as to set a world at gaze,
Whilst 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!

'Tis 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. Monkies 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 judg

ment;

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. Fie! fie!

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

VOL. II.

I

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 lanthorn, sure,
Will
grow to an excessive rate i' th' 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 a dog, a cur, a mongrel? bow wow! do thy worst, I defy thee.

Out on Time, I care not;
Being past, 'tis nothing,
I'll be free and spare not;
Sorrows are life's loathing.
Melancholy
Is but folly;

[Sings.

Mirth and youth are plotters:
Time, go hang thee!
I will bang thee,

Though I die in totters.*

Go, mend thyself, cannibal! 'tis not without need; I am sure the times were never more beggarly and proud: waiting women flaunt it in cast-suits, and their ladies fall for 'em; knaves over-brave wise men, while wise men stand with cap and knee to fools. Pitiful Time! pitiful Time!

Time. Out, foul, prodigious and abortive birth!
Behold, the sand-glass of thy days is broke.
Fol. Bring me another; I'll shatter that too.
Time. No, thou'st mis-spent thy hours, la-
vish'd, fool-like,

The circuit of thy life, in ceaseless riots;
It is not therefore fit, that thou shouldst live
In such a court, as the Sun's majesty

Vouchsafes to illuminate with his bright beams.

Fol. In any court, father bald-pate, where my grannam the Moon shows her horns. I'll live here and laugh at the bravery of ignorance, maugre thy abominable beard.

Time. Priest of the Sun, 'tis near about the minute

Thy patron will descend; scourge hence this trifle:
Time is ne'er lost, till, in the common schools
Of impudence, time meets with wilful fools. [Exit.
Ray. Pray, sir, what are you?

Fol. No matter what; what are you?

*Though I die in totters.] i. e. tatters. So the word was usually written by our dramatists.-GIFFORD.