HORTENSIUS (an Officer) enters.

Hor. How, o' th' ground?

Mar. O mother, now remember what I told

Of breaking off the crucifix. Farewell.

There are some sins, which Heaven doth duly punish
In a whole family. This it is to rise

By all dishonest means.

Let all men know,

That tree shall long time keep a steady foot,
Whose branches spread no wider than the root.
Cor. O my perpetual sorrow!

Hor. Virtuous Marcello !

He's dead. Pray leave him, lady: come, you shall.
Cor. Alas! he is not dead; he's in a trance.

Why, here's no body shall get anything by his death.
Let me call him again, for God's sake!

Hor. I would you were deceived.

Cor. O you abuse me, you

How many have gone away thus, for lack of 'tendance! abuse me, you abuse me!

191

Rear up's head, rear up's head; his bleeding inward will kill him. Hor. You see he is departed.

Cor. Let me come to him; give me him as he is; if he be turn'd to earth, let me but give him one hearty kiss, and you shall put us both into one coffin. Fetch a looking-glass, see if his breath will not stain it; or pull out some feathers from my pillow, and lay them to his lips: will you lose him for a little painstaking

Hor. Your kindest office is to

pray for him.

Cor. Alas! I would not pray for him yet. He may live to lay me i' th' ground, and pray for me, if you'll let me come to

him.

The DUKE enters with FLAMINEO, and PAGE.

Bra. Was this your handy-work?

Fla. It was my misfortune.

Cor. He lies, he lies; he did not kill him: these have kill'd him,

that would not let him be better look'd to.

Bra. Have comfort, my griev'd mother.

Cor. O yon' screech-owl!

Hor. Forbear, good Madam.

Cor. Let me go, let me go.

[She runs to FLAMINEO with her

The God of heaven forgive thee. Dost not wonder

knife drawn, and coming to him, lets it fall.

I

pray for thee? I'll tell thee what's the reason: I have scarce breath to number twenty minutes;

I'd not spend that in cursing. Fare thee well:
Half of thyself lies there: and may'st thou live
To fill an hour-glass with his moulder'd ashes,
To tell how thou should'st spend the time to come
In blest repentance.

Bra. Mother, pray tell me

How came he by his death? what was the quarrel?
Cor. Indeed, my younger boy presum'd too much
Upon his manhood, gave him bitter words,
Drew his sword first; and so, I know not how,
For I was out of my wits, he fell with's head
Just in my bosom.

Page. This is not true, Madam.

Cor. I pr'ythee peace.

One arrow's graz'd already: it were vain

To lose this, for that will ne'er be found again.1

*

[Act v., Sc. 2.]

Francisco describes to Flamineo the grief of Cornelia at the

Is

grown a very

funeral of Marcello.

Your reverend Mother

old woman in two hours.

I found them winding of Marcello's corse:
And there is such a solemn melody,

"Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies;

Such as old grandames, watching by the dead,

Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, believe me,

I had no eyes to guide me forth the room,

Funeral Dirge for Marcello.

They were so o'ercharg'd with water.

[Act v., Sc. 4.]

[His Mother sings it.

Call for the Robin-red breast, and the Wren,

Since o'er shady groves they hover,

And with leaves and flowers do cover

The friendless bodies of unburied men.

The Ant, the Field-mouse, and the Mole,

Call unto his funeral dole

To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm,
And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm;
But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.

[Sixteen lines end the Scene.]

[Act v., Sc. 4.3]

I never saw anything like this Dirge, except the Ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned Father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates.

Folded Thoughts.

Come, come, my lord, untie your folded thoughts, And let them dangle loose as a bride's hair.

Your sister's poison'd.

Dying Princes.

[Act iii., Sc. 2.]

To see what solitariness is about dying Princes! As heretofore they have unpeopled towns, divorced friends, and made great houses unhospitable! so now, O justice! where are their flatterers now? flatterers are but the shadows of princes' bodies; the least thick cloud makes them invisible.

Natural Death.

O, thou soft natural death! that art joint twin
To sweetest slumber!-no rough-bearded comet
Stares on thy mild departure; the dull Owl
Beats not against thy casement; the hoarse Wolf
Scents not thy carrion. Pity winds thy corse,
Whilst horror waits on princes'-

Vow of Murder rebuked.

Miserable creature,

If thou persist in this 'tis damnable.

Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood,
And not be tainted with a shameful fall?

Or like the black and melancholic yew-tree,

Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves
And yet to prosper?--

Which doth present us with all other sins

[Act v., Sc. 3.]

[Ibid.]

[Act iv., Sc. 2.]

[Act v., Sc. 3.]

Thrice candied o'er; despair, with gall and stibium,
Yet we carouse it off!1

[Act v., Sc. 6.]

[For other extracts from Webster see pages 59 and 498.]

VOL. IV.-13

THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY [PUBLISHED 1629: PRODUCED 1628]. BY JOHN FORD [FLOURISHED 1639] Contention of a Bird and a Musician.

Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales

Which poets of an elder time have feign'd

To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting that paradise.

To Thessaly I came, and living private,
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves
And solitary walks. One morning early

This accident encounter'd me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art or nature ever were at strife in.1
A sound of musick touch'd mine ears, or rather
Indeed entranc'd my soul: : as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-fac'd youth, upon his lute
With strains of strange variety and harmony
Proclaiming (as it seem'd) so bold a challenge
To the clear quiristers of the woods, the birds,
That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wonder'd too.2
A Nightingale,

Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes

The challenge; and, for every several strain

The well-shap'd youth could touch, she sung her down;

He could not run division with more art

Upon his quaking instrument, than she

The nightingale did with her various notes
Reply to.3

Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger; that a bird,

Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes,

Should vie with him for mastery, whose study

Had busied many hours to perfect practice:

To end the controversy, in a rapture
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,
So many voluntaries, and so quick,
That there was curiosity and cunning,
Concord in discord, lines of diff'ring method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.

The bird (ordain'd to be

Musick's first martyr) strove to imitate

These several sounds: which when her warbling throat
Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute

And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness,
To see the conqueror upon her hearse

To weep a funeral elegy of tears.1

He looks upon the trophies of his art,

Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes, then sigh'd, and cried, "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge

This cruelty upon the author of it.

Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,

Shall never more betray a harmless peace

To an untimely end:" and in that sorrow,
As he was pashing it against a tree,

I suddenly stept in.

[Act i., Sc. 1.2]

This Story, which is originally to be met with in Strada's Prolusions, has been paraphrased in rhyme by Crashaw, Ambrose Phillips, and others: but none of those versions can at all compare for harmony and grace with this blank verse of Ford's: it is as fine as anything in Beaumont and Fletcher; and almost equals the strife which it celebrates.

THE LADIES' TRIAL [PUBLISHED 1639: PRODUCED 1638]. BY JOHN FORD

Auria, in the possession of Honours, Preferment, Fame, can find по peace in his mind while he thinks his Wife unchaste.

AURIA. AURELIO.

Auria. Count of Savona, Genoa's admiral,

Lord Governor of Corsica, enroll'd

A Worthy of my country, sought and sued to,
Prais'd, courted, flatter'd !-3

-My triumphs

Are echoed under every roof, the air

Is streightned with the sound, there is not room
Enough to brace them in; but not a thought
Doth pierce into the grief that cabins here:
Here through a creek, a little inlet, crawls
A flake no bigger than a sister's thread,
Which sets the region of my heart a fire.
I had a kingdom once, but am depos'd

[Three lines omitted.]

[Mermaid Series, ed. Ellis.]

[Fifteen lines omitted.]