THE WITCH OF EDMONTON: A TRAGI-COMEDY, BY WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, &c. MOTHER SAWYER (before she turns Witch) alone. Saw. And why on me? why should the envious world Throw all their scandalous malice upon me? 'Cause I am poor, deform'd, and ignorant, And like a bow buckled and bent together By some more strong in mischiefs than myself; Must I for that be made a common sink For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues To fall and run into? Some call me Witch And being ignorant, of myself, they go About to teach me how to be one: urging That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Forespeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse: This they enforce upon me; and in part Make me to credit it'. BANKS, a Farmer, enters. Banks. Out, out upon thee, Witch. Saw. Dost call me Witch? Banks. I do, Witch, I do: And worse I would, knew I a name more hateful. Saw. Gather a few rotten sticks to warm me. Sawo. You won't? churl, cut-throat, miser: there they be. Would they stuck cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. Saw. Dost strike me, slave, curmudgeon? Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, [Exit. And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. Banks. Cursing, thou hag? take that, and that. Saw. Strike, do: and wither'd may that hand and arm Whose blows have lamed me, drop from the rotten trunk. Abuse me! beat me! call me hag and witch! What is the name, where, and by what art learn'd? 1 This soliloquy anticipates all that Addison has said in the conclusion of the 117th Spectator. 154 WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, ETC. What spells, or charms, or invocations, And hated like a sickness: made a scorn To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, That have appear'd; and suck'd, some say, their blood. blood She gets a Familiar which serves her in the likeness of a Black Dog. MOTHER SAWYER. Familiar. Saw. I am dried up With cursing and with madness; and have yet Stand on thy hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy; By making my old ribs to shrug for joy Of thy fine tricks. What hast thou done? Let's tickle. Famil. Yes, and nipt the sucking child. Saw. Ho, ho, my dainty, My little pearl! No lady loves her hound, Famil. The maid has been churning butter nine hours, but it shall not come. Saw. Let 'm eat cheese and choke. Famil. I had rare sport Among the clowns in the morrice. Saw. I could dance Saw. Out of my skin to hear thee. But, my curl-pate, Nan Ratcliff, Who, for a little soap lick'd by my sow, Struck, and had almost lamed it did not I charge thee * * Her Familiar absents himself: she invokes him. Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them. Come then, my dar- In some dark cloud; and, as I oft have seen Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i' the sea? Muster up all the monsters from the deep, And be the ugliest of them: so that my bulch [ling. I must then fall to my old prayer: sanctibiceter nomen tuum. He comes in white. Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love? Famil. I am dogged, list not to tell thee, yet to torment thee, My whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding-sheet. Saw. Am I near death? Famil. Be blasted with the news. Whiteness is day's footboy, a fore-runner to light, which shows thy old rivel'd face: villanies are stript naked, the witch must be beaten out of her cockpit. Saw. Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? I am at peace with none; 'tis the black colour, Or none, which I fight under: I do not like Thy puritan-paleness.- [Mother Sawyer differs from the hags of Middleton or Shakspeare. She is the plain traditional old woman witch of our ancestors; poor, deformed, and ignorant; the terror of villages, herself amenable to a justice. That should be a hardy sheriff, with the power of a county at his heels, that would lay hands on the Weird Sisters. They are of another jurisdiction. But upon the common and received opinion the author (or authors) have engrafted strong fancy. There is something frightfully earnest in her invocations to the Familiar.] THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY; OR, THE HONEST MAN'S REVENGE. BY CYRIL TOURNEUR. D'AMVILLE (the Atheist), with the aid of his wicked instrument, BORACHIO, murders his brother, MONTFERRERS, for his estate. After the deed is done, BORACHIO and he talk together of the circumstances which attend the murder. D'Am. Here's a sweet comedy, begins with O dolentis, and concludes with ha, ha, he. Bor. Ha, ha, he. D'Am. O my echo! I could stand reverberating this sweet musical air of joy, till I had perished my sound lungs with violent laughter. Lovely night-raven, thou hast seized a carcase? Bor. Put him out on 's pain. I lay so fitly underneath the Bor. This crown'd the most judicious murder, that The induction to the accomplishment seem'd forced, [Here they reckon up the several circumstances, Bor. Then darkness did Protect the execution of the work Both from prevention and discovery D'Am. Here was a murder bravely carried through Bor. And those that saw the passage of it, made [Thunder and lightning. What! dost start at thunder? Credit my belief, 'tis a mere effect of nature, an exhalation hot and dry, involved within a watery vapour in the middle region of the air, whose coldness congealing that thick moisture to a cloud, the angry exhalation shut within a prison of contrary quality, strives to be free; and with the violent eruption through the grossness of that cloud, makes this noise we hear. Bor. 'Tis a fearful noise. D'Am. 'Tis a brave noise; and, methinks, graces our accomplished project, as a peal of ordnance does a triumph. It speaks encouragement. Now nature shows thee how it favoured our performance to forbear this noise when we set forth, because it should not terrify my brother's going home, which would have dashed our purpose: to forbear this lightning in our passage, lest it should have warned him of the pitfall. Then propitious nature winked at our proceedings; now, it doth express how that forbearance favoured our success. * ** Drowned Soldier. walking upon the fatal shore, Among the slaughter'd bodies of their men, |