Fulvius, Gabinus, gave me word last night,
By Lucius Bestia, they would all be here,
And early.

Cet. Yes! as you, had I not call'd you.
Come, we all sleep, and are mere dormice; flies
A little less than dead: more dulness hangs
On us than on the morn. We're spirit bound,
In ribs of ice; our whole bloods are one stone:
And honor cannot thaw us, nor our wants,
Though they burn hot as fevers to our states.
Cat. I muse they would be tardy at an hour
Of so great purpose.

Cet. If the gods had call'd

Them to a purpose, they would just have come
With the same tortoise speed; that are thus slow
To such an action, which the gods will envy;
As asking no less means than all their powers
Conjoin'd to effect. I would have seen Rome burnt
By this time, and her ashes in an urn:

The kingdom of the senate rent asunder :

And the degenerate talking gown run frighted
Out of the air of Italy.

Cat. Spirit of men,

Thou heart of our great enterprise, how much

I love these voices in thee !

Cet. O the days

Of Sylla's sway, when the free sword took leave
To act all that it would!

Cat. And was familiar

With entrails, as our augurs

Cet. Sons kill'd fathers,

Brothers their brothers

Cat. And had price and praise :

All hate and license giv'n it; all rage reins.

Cet. Slaughter bestrid the streets, and stretch'd himself To seem more huge: whilst to his stained thighs The gore he drew flow'd up, and carried down

Whole heaps of limbs and bodies through his arch.

No age was spar'd, no sex.

Cat. Nay, no degree

Cet. Not infants in the porch of life were free.
The sick, the old, that could but hope a day
Longer by nature's bounty, not let stay.
Virgins and widows, matrons, pregnant wives,
All died.

Cat. 'Twas crime enough that they had lives.
To strike but only those that could do hurt,

Was dull and poor.

As some, the prey.

Some fell, to make the number;

Cet. The rugged Charon fainted,

And ask'd a navy rather than a boat,

To ferry over the sad world that came :
The maws and dens of beasts could not receive
The bodies that those souls were frighted from
And even the graves were fill'd with men yet living,
Whose flight and fear had mix'd them with the dead.
Cat. And this shall be again, and more, and more,
Now Lentulus, the third Cornelius,

Is to stand up in Rome.

Lent. Nay, urge not that

Is so uncertain.

Cat. How!

Lent. I mean, not clear'd;

And therefore not to be reflected on.

Cat. The Sybil's leaves uncertain! or the comments, Of our grave, deep, divining men, not clear!

Lent. All prophecies, you know, suffer the torture. Cat. But this already hath confess'd, without; And so been weigh'd, examin'd, and compar'd, As 'twere malicious ignorance in him Would faint in the belief.

Lent. Do you believe it?

Cat. Do I love Lentulus, or pray to see it?
Lent. The augurs all are constant I am meant.
Cat. They had lost their science else.

Lent. They count from Cinna

Cat. And Sylla next- -and so make you the third;
All that can say the sun is ris'n, must think it.

Lent. Men mark me more of late as I come forth!
Cat. Why, what can they do less? Cinna and Sylla
Are set and gone; and we must turn our eyes
On him that is, and shines. Noble Cethegus,
But view him with me here! He looks already
As if he shook a sceptre o'er the senate,
And the aw'd purple dropt their rods and axes.
The statues melt again, and household gods
In groans confess the travails of the city :
The very walls sweat blood before the change;
And stones start out to ruin, ere it comes.

Cet. But he, and we, and all, are idle still.
Lent. I am your creature, Sergius; and whate'er
The great Cornelian name shall win to be,

It is not augury, nor the Sybil's books

But Catiline, that makes it.

Cat. I am a shadow

To honor'd Lentulus, and Cethegus here
Who are the heirs of Mars.

THE NEW INN; OR, THE LIGHT HEART. A COMEDY.
BY BEN. JONSON.

Lovel discovers to the Host of the New Inn, his Love for the Lady Frances, and his reasons for concealing his Passion from her.

Lov. There is no life on earth, but being in love!
There are no studies, no delights, no business,

No intercourse, or trade of sense, or soul,
But what is love! I was the laziest creature,
The most unprofitable sign of nothing,
The veriest drone, and slept away my life
Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love!
And now I can out-wake the nightingale,
Out-watch an usurer, and out-walk him too,

Stalk like a ghost that haunted 'bout a treasure ;
And all that fancied treasure, it is love!

Host. But is your name Love-ill, sir, or Love-well?
I would know that.

Lov. I do not know it myself,

Whether it is. But it is love hath been
The hereditary passion of our house,
My gentle host, and, as I guess, my friend
The truth is, I have loved this lady long,
And impotently, with desire enough,
But no success: for I have still forborne
To express it in my person to her.

Host. How then?

Lov. I have sent her toys, verses, and anagrams,
Trials of wit, mere trifles, she has commended,

But knew not whence they came, nor could she guess.
Host. This was a pretty riddling way of wooing!
Lov. I oft have been too in her company

And look'd upon her a whole day, admir'd her,

Loved her, and did not tell her so, loved still,

Look'd still, and loved; and loved, and look'd, and sigh'd;

But, as a man neglected, I came off,

And unregarded.

Host. Could you blame her, sir,

When you were silent and not said a word?

Lov. O but I loved the more; and she might read it

Best in my silence, had she been

Host.

as melancholic,

As you are. Pray you, why would you stand mute, sir?

Lov. O thereon hangs a history, mine host.

Did you ever know or hear of the Lord Beaufort,

Who serv'd so bravely in France? I was his page,

And, ere he died, his friend! I follow'd him

First in the wars, and in the time of peace
I waited on his studies; which were right,
He had no Arthurs, nor no Rosicleers,
No Knights of the Sun, nor Amadis de Gauls,
Primalions, and Pantagruels, public nothings;

Abortives of the fabulous dark cloister,
Sent out to poison courts, and infest manners :
But great Achilles', Agamemnon's acts,
Sage Nestor's counsels, and Ulysses' sleights,
Tydides' fortitude, as Homer wrought them
In his immortal fancy, for examples
Of the heroic virtue. Or, as Virgil,
That master of the Epic Poem, limn’d
Pious Æneas, his religious prince,

Bearing his aged parent on his shoulders,

Rapt from the flames of Troy, with his young son.
And these he brought to practise and to use.
He gave me first my breeding, I acknowledge,
Then shower'd his bounties on me, like the Hours,
That open-handed sit upon the clouds,

And press the liberality of heaven

Down to the laps of thankful men! But then,
The trust committed to me at his death

Was above all, and left so strong a tye
On all my powers as time shall not dissolve,
Till it dissolve itself, and bury all :

The care of his brave heir and only son!

Who being a virtuous, sweet, young, hopeful lord,
Hath cast his first affections on this lady.
And though I know, and may presume her such,
As, out of humor, will return no love,
And therefore might indifferently be made.
The courting-stock for all to practise on,
As she doth practise on us all to scorn:
Yet out of a religion to my charge,

And debt profess'd, I have made a self-decree,

Ne'er to express my person though my passion

Burn me to cinders.

Lovel in the presence of the Lady Frances, the young Lord Beaufort, and

other Guests of the New Inn, defines what Love is.

Lov. What else

Is love, but the most noble, pure affection