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 Your prince's entry into this his land ? A prince, who is so excellently good, His virtue is his honour, more than blood; In whose clear nature, as two suns, do rise The attributes of merciful and wise ; Whose laws are so impartial, that they must Be counted heavenly, 'cause they ’re truly just; Who does, with princely moderation, give His subjects an example how to live; Teaching their erring natures to direct Their wills, to what it ought most to effect: Yet you, wild fools, possess'd with giant rage, Dare, in your lawless fury, think to wagę War against Heaven; and from his shining throne Pull Jove himself, for you to tread upon; Were your heads circled with his own green oak, . Yet are they subject to his thunder stroke, And he can sink such wretches as rebel, From Heaven's sublimest height down to the depth

of Hell. i 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. Düll, stubborn fools! whose perverse judg

ments 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,
Whose every thought's an act of piety,
Who's all religious, furnishid with all good
That ever was comprised in flesh and blood,
Cannot direct you in the fittest way
To serve those powers to which himself does pay
True zealous worship, nay,'s so near allied
To them, himself must needs be deified ?

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 híther. 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, Laurel-crown'd conquest shall in triumph ride, Arm'd with the justice that attends his cause; You shall with penitence embrace his laws: He to the frozen northern clime shall bring A warmth so temperate, as shall force the Spring Usurp my privilege, and by his ray Night shall be changed into perpetual day: Plenty and happiness shall still increase,

As does his light; and turtle-footed peace
Dance like a fairy through his realms, while all
That envy him shall like swift comets fall,
By their own fire consumed ; and glorious he,
Ruling, as 't were, the force of destiny,
Shall have a long and prosperous reign on earth,
Then fly to Heaven, and give a new star birth.
A Flourish.--Enter RAYBRIGHT, HUMOUR, BOUNTY, and

DELIGHT.
But see, our star appears; and from his eye
Fly thousand beams of sparkling majesty.

Ray. What bold rebellious caitiffs dare disturb
The happy progress of our glorious peace,
Contemn the justite of our equal laws,
Profane those sacred rights, which still must be
Attendant on monarchal dignity?
I came to frolic with you, and to cheer
Your drooping souls by vigour of my beams,
And have I this strange welcome? Reverend Winter,
I'm come to be your guest; your bounteous, free
Condition does assure me, I shall have
A welcome entertainment.

Win. Illustrious sir! I am not ignorant How much expression my true zeal will want To entertain you fitly; yet my love And hearty duty shall be far above My outward welcome. To that glorious light Of Heaven, the Sun, which chases hence the night, I am so much a vassal, that I 'll strive, By honouring you to keep my faith alive To him, brave prince, through you; who do inherit Your father's cheerful heat and quick’ning spirit.

-and turtle-footed peace Dance like a fairy, &c.) This, as well as several other expressions in this elegant “augury,” is taken from the beautiful address to Élizabeth, in Jonson's Epilogue to Every Man out of his Humour.

“The throat of war be stopp'd within her realm,

And turtle-footed peace dance fairy-rings,

About her court, &c."-GIFFORD. Vol. II.-12

1

Therefore, as I am Winter, worn and spent
So far with age, I am 'Time's monument,
Antiquity's example ; in my zeal,
I, from my youth, a span of time will steal
To open the free treasures of my court,
And swell your soul with my delights and sport.

Ray. Never till now
Did admiration beget in me truly
The rare-match'd twins at once, pity and pleasure.
[Pity, that one]
So royal, so abundant in earth's blessings,
Should not partake the comfort of those beams,
With which the Sun, beyond extent, doth cheer
The other seasons; yet my pleasures with you,
From their false charms, do get the start, as far
As Heaven's great lamp from every minor star.

Win. Attendance on our' revels! let delight
Conjoin the day with sable-footed night;
Both shall forsake their orbs, and in one sphere
Meet in soft mirth and harmless pleasures here:
While pluinp Lyæus shall, with garland crown'd
Of triumph-ivy, in full cups abound
of Cretan wine, and shall dame Ceres call
To wait on you, at Winter's festival;
While gaudy Summer, Autumn, and the Spring
Shall to my lord their choicest viands bring.
We'll rob the sea, and from the subtle air
Fetch her inhabitants, to supply our fare!
That, were Apicius here, he in one night
Should sate with dainties his strong appetite.
Begin our revels then, and let all pleasure
Flow like the ocean in a boundless measure.

[.A flourish. (Here a Masque of the four Elements, Air, Fire,

Water, and Earth : and the four Complexions, Phlegm, Blood, Choler, and Melancholy.) 1 We have consulted the reader's taste by omitting, as much as possible, whatever might tend to adulterate the rich but somewhat careless poetry with which this drama is inlaid throughout; but his knowledge

Win. How do these pleasures please ?
Hüm. Pleasures !

of our old dramatic literature may be enlarged by a few observations on the “ masque” of which the mere title is given in the text. The mask itself grew out of an opinion strongly current among our ancestors (and which appears to have been derived to them through the schools from the Greek physicians), that man was composed of the four elements, the due proportion and commixture of which in his composition was what produced in him every kind of perfection, mental and bodily. Hence (not to multiply examples) the well-known commendation of Brutus by the first of all dramatic writers :

“His life was gentle, and the elements

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, This was a man.”—Jul. Cæs. v. 5. I ne disposition, again, of every man was supposed to arise froin four principal humours or fluids in his body; and, consequently, that which was prevalent in any one might he called his particular humour. Blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy were the four humours; the two latter being not so properly different fluids, as one fluid, bile, in two different states; common bile, xoan, choler, and black bile, pelayxodía. From these fluids were supposed to arise the four principal temperaments or complexions,—the sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic; the fluids themselves being more remotely referred to the four elements. Their connexion is thus stated by Howell: 'T" And it must be so while the starrs poure different influxes upon us, but especially while the humours within us have a symbolization with

he four elements, who are in ruthlesse conflict among themselfs who shall have the mastery, as the humors do in us for a predominancy."Parley of Beasts, p. 80.

It is upon this more immediate origin of the four temperaments or complexions from the four humours, and their more remote reference to the four elements, that much of “the morall maske” termed “Microcosmus” is founded. This drama, evidently formed upon “ The Sun's Darling," was written by Thomas Nabbes, an author “concerning whom,” according to the usual language of our old dramatic calendar, “scarce any thing is recorded," and was printed in 1637. The reader who has not a copy of Dodsley's collection of old plays may be amused by a transcription of some of the dramatis personæ.

FIRE, a fierce-countenanced young man, in a flame-coloured robe, wrought with divers-coloured gleams of fire; his hair red, and on his head a crown of fames. His creature a Vulcan.

Air, a young man of a variable countenance, in a blue robe, wrought with divers-coloured clouds ; his hair blue, and on his head a wreath of clouds. His creature a giant, or sylvan.

WATER, a woman in a sea-green robe, wrought with waves; her hair sea-green, and on her head a wreath of sedge, bound about with waves. Her creature a siren.

Earth, a young woman of a sad countenance, in a grass green robe, wrought with sundry fruits and flowers; her hair black, and on her head a chaplet of flowers. Her creature a pigmy.

CHOLER, à fencer ; his clothes red.