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 A prince, who is so excellently good, Whose laws are so impartial, that they must Be counted heavenly, 'cause they're truly just; Were your heads circled with his own green oak, . From Heaven's sublimest height down to the depth of Hell. 1 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. Dull, stubborn fools! whose perverse judgments 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, To serve those powers to which himself does pay 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, Night shall be changed into perpetual day: As does his light; and turtle-footed peace1 Shall have a long and prosperous reign on earth, A Flourish.-Enter RAYBRIGHT, HUMOUR, BOUNTY, and But see, our star appears; and from his eye came to frolic with you, and to cheer A welcome entertainment. Win. Illustrious sir! I am not ignorant How much expression my true zeal will want 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. 1 -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 Elizabeth, 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 Therefore, as I am Winter, worn and spent I, from my youth, a span of time will steal 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, Of Cretan wine, and shall dame Ceres call While gaudy Summer, Autumn, and the Spring 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? 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. Tne disposition, again, of every man was supposed to arise from 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, xoλn, choler, and black bile, ueλayxoλía. 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: "And it must be so while the starrs poure different influxes upon us, but especially while the humours within us have a symbolization with the 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 flames. 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, a fencer; his clothes red. |