For sorrow that his lute had not the charms
To bring his fair Eurydice from heil:
Then, at another end,

Ray. I'll hear no more:
This ends your strife ; you only I adore.

(To HUMOUR. Spring; Oh, I am sick at heart ! unthankful man, 'Tis thou hast wounded me; farewell !

[She is led in by DELIGHT. Ray. Farewell! Fol. Health, recover her; sirrah, Youth, look

to her. Health. That bird that in her nest sleeps out the

spring, May fly in summer; but-with sickly wing.

[Exeunt Health and YOUTH. Hum. In triumph now I lead thee ;-no, be thou

Cæsar, And lead me.

Ray. Neither! we'll ride with equal state, Both in one chariot, since we have equal fate.

[Exeunt.

ACT III. SCENE I.

The Confines of Spring and Summer.

Enter RAYBRIGHT melancholy. Ray. Oh, my dear love the Spring, I am cheated

of thee! Thou hadst a body, the four elements! Dwelt never in a fairer; a mind, princely: Thy language, like thy singers, musical. How cool wert thou in anger! in thy diet, How temperate, and yet sumptuous! thou wouldst

not waste The weight of a sad violet in excess ;

i See note, p. 134.

Yet still thy board had dishes numberless :
Dumb beasts even loved thee; once a young lark
Sat on thy hand, and gazing on thine eyes,
Mounted and sung, thinking them moving skies.
Enter FOLLY, singing an epitaph on the departed

SPRING.
Ray. Thou idiot! hast thou none
To poison with thy nasty jigs but mine,
My matchless frame of nature, creation's wonder ?
Out of my sight!

Fol. I am not in it; if I were, you'd see but scur-
vily. You find fault as patrons do with books, to
give nothing.
Ray. Vex me not, fool; turn out o' doors your

roarer, French tailor, and that Spanish gingerbread, And your Italian skipper; then, sir, yourself.

Fol. Myself! hang me, I'll not stir; poor Folly, honest Folly, jocundary Folly, forsake your lordship! no true gentleman hates me; and how many women are given daily to me, some not far off know. Tailor gone, Toledan gone, all gone, but I

Enter HUMOUR.
Hum. My waiters quoited off by you! you flay

them!
Whence come these thunderbolts? what furies

haunt you?
Ray. You.
Fol. She !
Ray. Yes, and thou.
Fol. Bow wow !

Ray. I shall grow old, diseased, and melancholy;
For you have robb’d me both of Youth and Health,
And that Delight my Spring bestow'd upon me:
But for you two I should be wondrous good;

1 See notes, p. 113 and 157.

By you I have been cozen'd, baffled, torn
From the embracements of the noblest creature

Hum. Your Spring ?
Ray. Yes, she, even she, only the Spring,
She was unhappy never, but in two sons,
March, a rade roaring fool,

Fol. And April, a whining puppy.
Hum. But May was a fine piece,
Ray. Mirror of faces.
Hum. When will you sing my praises thus ?

Ray. Thy praises,
That art a common creature !

Hum. Common!

Ray. Yes, common: I cannot pass through any prince's court, Through any country, camp, town, city, village, But up your name is cried, nay curs'd; a ven

geance On this your debauch'd' Humour !"

Fol. A vinter spoke those very words, last night, to a company of roaring-boys, that would not pay their reckoning. Ray. The courtier has his Humour, has he not,

Folly?

1 We know not whether Decker's classical attainments were such as to enable him to read what is termed “The Old Comedy" of the Greeks; hut much of the humour in this scene forcibly reminds us of that singular department of dramátic literature. The resemblance, it is most probable, was purely accidental. Those who have travelled no farther in our own old drama than the Corporal Nymn of Shakspeare, or the Asper of Ben Jonson, need scarcely be reminded, that the word humour was one which our ancestors delighted to trace and hunt through every change of meaning and variety of application. See further the note at

2 The roaring-boys, or angry boys, or terrible boys (for they were known by all these denominations) were in Ford's and Ben Jonson's days what the muhocks were in Addison's—the noisy bucks and bullies of the town, who formed the pest and annoyance of all sober people. The breed extended, as will be seen by the following drama, though in a mitigated form, to the country. From a pleasant comedy, written conjointly by Decker and Middleton, and entitled “The Roaring Girl,” it should appear that the character was not exclusively confined to the male sex.

page 134.

Fol. Yes, marry, has he,- folly: the courtier's humour is to be brave, and not pay for 't; to be proud, and no man care for 't.

Ray. Brave ladies have their humours,
Fol. Who has to do with that, but brave lords?
Ray. Your citizens have brave humours.

Fol. A collier being drunk jostled a knight into the kennel, and cried, 't was his humour; the knight broke his coxcomb, and that was his humour.

Ray. And yet you are not common!

Hum. No matter what I am:
Rail, curse, be frantic; get you to the tomb
Of your rare mistress ; dig up your dead Spring,
Fondle, and kiss her: me have you lost.

Fol. And I scorn to be found.
Ray. Stay; must I lose all comfort ? dearest,

stay ;
There's such a deal of magic in those eyes,
I'm charm'd to kiss these only.

Hum. If ever for the Spring you do but sigh, I take

my

bells. Fol. And I my hobby-horse :-will you be merry then, and jocund?

Ray. As merry as the cuckoos of the Spring.
Fol. Again!
Ray. How, lady, lies the way?

Hum. I'll be your convoy,
And bring you to the court of the Sun's queen
Summer, a glorious and majestic creature;
Her face outshining the poor Spring's as far
As a sunbeam does a lamp, the moon a star.
Ray. Such are the spheres I'd move in.--Attend
us, Folly.

[Exeunt.

i \ ever for the spring you do but sigh,

I take my bells,] i. e. I fly away,—an allusion to falconry. Before the hawk was thrown off the fist, a light strap of leather, garnished with bells, was buckled round her leg, by which the course of her erratie flight was discovered. --GIFFORD.

SCENE II.

Near the SUMMER's Court.

Enter RAYBRIGHT and HUMOUR.
Ray. I muse, my nimble Folly stays so long.
Hum. He's quick enough of foot, and counts, I

swear,
That minute cast away not spent on you.

Ray. His company is music next to yours;
Both of you are a consort, and your tunes
Lull me asleep; and, when I most am sad,
My sorrows vanish from me in soft dreams :
But how far must we travel? Is 't our motion
That puts us in this heat, or is the air
In love with us, it clings with such embraces,
It keeps us in this warmth ?

Hum. This shows her court
Is not far off you covet so to see;
Her subjects seldom kindle needless fires,
The Sun lends them his flames.

Ray. Has she rare buildings?

Hum. Magnificent and curious : cvery noon
The horses of the day bait-there; while he,
Who in a golden chariot makes them gallop
In twelve hours o'er the world, alights awhile,
To give a love-kiss to the Summer-queen.

Ray. And shall we have fine sights there?
Huiu Oh!
Ray. And hear
More ravishing music?

Hum. All the choristers
That learn'd to sing i’ the temple of the Spring,
By' her attain such cunning, that when the winds
Roar and are mad, and clouds in antic gambols

1 i. e. by the aid of Summer.'