By one intense act, all its verity:
Which by a thousand and ten thousand words
It would have took a poor diluted pleasure
To have imperfectly express'd.
Urania makes a mock assignation with the King, and substi tutes the Queen in her place. The King describes the supposed meeting to the Confident, whom he had employed to solicit for his guilty passion.
Pyrrhus, I'll tell thee all. When now the night
Grew black enough to hide a skulking action;
And Heav'n had ne'er an eye unshut to see
Her Representative on Earth creep 'mongst
Those poor defenceless worms, whom Nature left
An humble prey to every thing, and no
Asylum but the dark; I softly stole
To yonder grotto thro' the upper walks,
And there found my Urania. But I found her,
I found her, Pyrrhus, not a Mistress, but
A Goddess rather; which made me now to be
No more her Lover, but Idolater.
She only whisper'd to me, as she promised,
Yet never heard I any voice so loud;
And, tho' her words were gentler far than those
That holy priests do speak to dying Saints,
Yet never thunder signified so much.
And (what did more impress whate'er she said)
Methought her whispers were my injured Queen's,
Her manner just like hers! and when she urged,
Among a thousand things, the injury
I did the faithful'st Princess in the world;
Who now supposed me sick, and was perchance
Upon her knees offering up holy vows
For him who mock'd both Heav'n and her, and was
Now breaking of that vow he made her, when
With sacrifice he call'd the Gods to witness:
When she urged this, and wept, and spake so like
My poor deluded Queen, Pyrrhus, I trembled;
Almost persuaded that it was her angel
Spake thro' Urania's lips, who for her sake
Took care of me, as something she much loved.
It would be long to tell thee all she said,
How oft she sigh'd, how bitterly she wept :
But the effect-Urania still is chaste;
And with her chaster lips hath promised to
Invoke blest Heav'n for my intended sin.
ALL FOOLS. A COMEDY. BY GEORGE CHAPMAN. [PUBLISHED] 1605
'tis Nature's second Sun,
Causing a spring of Virtues where he shines;
And as without the Sun, the world's Great Eye,
All colours, beauties, both of art and nature,
Are given in vain to man; so without Love
All beauties bred in women are in vain,
All virtues born in men lie buried;
For Love informs them as the Sun doth colours:
And as the Sun, reflecting his warm beams
Against the earth, begets all fruits and flowers,
So Love, fair shining in the inward man,
Brings forth in him the honourable fruits
Of valour, wit, virtue, and haughty thoughts,
Brave resolution, and divine discourse.
Love with Jealousy.
such Love is like a smoky fire
In a cold morning. Though the fire be chearful,
Yet is the smoke so foul and cumbersome,
"Twere better lose the fire than find the smoke.
I walking in the place where men's Law Suits
Are heard and pleaded, not so much as dreaming
Of any such encounter; steps me forth
Their valiant Foreman with the word "I 'rest you."
I made no more ado but laid these paws
Close on his shoulders, tumbling him to earth;
And there sat he on his posteriors
Like a baboon: and turning me about,
1 [For further extracts from this play see Appendix, p. 591.]
2[Mermaid Series, ed. Phelps, 1895.]
I strait espied the whole troop issuing on me.
I step me back, and drawing my old friend here,
Made to the midst of 'em, and all unable
To endure the shock, all rudely fell in rout,
And down the stairs they ran in such a fury,
As meeting with a troop of Lawyers there,
Mann'd by their Clients (some with ten, some with twenty,
Some five, some three; he that had least had one),
Upon the stairs, they bore them down afore them.
But such a rattling then there was amongst them,
Of ravish'd Declarations, Replications,
Rejoinders, and Petitions, all their books
And writings torn, and trod on, and some lost,
That the poor Lawyers coming to the Bar
Could say nought to the matter, but instead
Were fain to rail, and talk beside their books,
Without all order.1
THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES. A COMEDY [SEE PAGE 101]. BY THOMAS HEYWOOD [AND RICHARD BROME]
My Uncle has of late become the sole
Discourse of all the country; for of a man respected
As master of a govern'd family,
The House (as if the ridge were fix'd below,
And groundsils lifted up to make the roof)
All now's turn'd topsy-turvy,
In such a retrograde and preposterous way
As seldom hath been heard of, I think never.
The Good Man
In all obedience kneels unto his Son;
He with an austere brow commands his Father.
The Wife presumes not in the Daughter's sight
Without a prepared curtsy; the Girl she
Expects it as a duty; chides her Mother,
Who quakes and trembles at each word she speaks.
1[For other extracts from Chapman see note to page 83.]
And what's as strange, the Maid-she domineers
O'er her young Mistress, who is awed by her.
The Son, to whom the Father creeps and bends,
Stands in as much fear of the groom his Man!
All in such rare disorder, that in some
As it breeds pity, and in others wonder,
So in the most part laughter. It is thought,
This comes by WITCHCRAFT.
A COMEDY [PUBLISHED
1640 WRITTEN 1639]. BY HENRY GLAPTHORNE [FLOURISHED 1639]
Collegian. Did you, ere we departed from the College, O'erlook my Library?
Servant. Yes, Sir; and I find,
Altho' you tell me Learning is immortal,
The paper and the parchment 'tis contain❜d in
Savours of much mortality.
The moths have eaten more
Authentic Learning, than would richly furnish
A hundred country pedants; yet the worms
Are not one letter wiser.
ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM; HIS TRUE AND LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY. AUTHOR UNKNOWN. [PUBLISHED] 1592
Alice Arden with Mosbie her Paramour conspire the murder of her husband.
Mos. How now, Alice, what sad and passionate?
Make me partaker of thy pensiveness;
Fire divided burns with lesser force.
[Glapthorne's Plays, 1874, vol. i. See also "Facetiæ," page 566.]
Al. But I will dam that fire in my breast, Till by the force thereof my part consume. Ah Mosbie!
Mos. Such deep pathaires, like to a cannon's burst, Discharged against a ruinated wall,
Breaks my relenting heart in thousand pieces.
Ungentle Alice, thy sorrow is my sore;
Thou know'st it well, and 'tis thy policy
To forge distressful looks, to wound a breast
Where lies a heart which dies when thou art sad.
It is not Love that loves to anger Love.
Al. It is not Love that loves to murther Love.
Mos. How mean you that?
Al. Thou know'st how dearly Arden loved me.
Mos. And then--
Al. And then-conceal the rest, for 'tis too bad,
Lest that my words be carried to the wind,
And publish'd in the world to both our shames.
I pray thee, Mosbie, let our springtime wither ;
Our harvest else will yield but loathsome weeds.
Forget, I pray thee, what has past betwixt us:
For now I blush and tremble at the thoughts.
Mos. What, are you changed?
Al. Aye, to my former happy life again;
From title of an odious strumpet's name
To honest Arden's wife, not Arden's honest wife-
Ha Mosbie! 'tis thou hast rifled me of that,
And made me slanderous to all my kin.
Even in my forehead is thy name engraven,
A mean Artificer, that low-born name!
I was bewitcht; woe-worth the hapless hour
And all the causes that enchanted me.
Mos. Nay, if thou ban, let me breathe curses forth; And if you stand so nicely at your fame,
Let me repent the credit I have lost.
I have neglected matters of import,
That would have 'stated me above thy state;
For slow'd advantages, and spurn'd at time;
Aye, Fortune's right hand Mosbie hath forsook,
To take a wanton giglot by the left.
I left the marriage of an honest maid,
Whose dowry would have weigh'd down all thy wealth;
Whose beauty and demeanour far exceeded thee.
This certain good I lost for changing bad,
And wrapt my credit in thy company.
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