Sold. I'll drill you how to give the lie, and stab in the punto; if you dare not fight, then how to vamp✦ a rotten quarrel without ado.

Ray. How? dare not fight! there's in me the Sun's fire.

Hum No more of this:-(dances)-awake the music! Oyez! music!

Ray. No more of this;-this sword arms me for

battle.

Hum. Come then, let thou and I rise

arms;

The field, embraces; kisses, our alarms.

up in

Fol. A dancer and a tailor! yet stand still? Strike up.

[Music.-A Dance.

Re-enter SPRING, HEALTH, Youth, Delight.

Spring. Oh, thou enticing strumpet! how durst thou

Throw thy voluptuous spells about a temple
That's consecrate to me?

Hum. Poor Spring, goody herb-wife !
How dar'st thou cast a glance on this rich jewel,
I have bought for my own wearing?

Spring. Bought! art thou sold then?

Ray. Yes, with her gifts; she buys me with her graces.

4 I'll teach you how to vamp, &c.] i. e. to patch up a quarrel. P. 255,

See

Health. Graces? a witch!

Spring. What can she give thee?-
Ray. All things.

Spring. Which I for one bubble cannot add a sea to?

Fol. And show him a hobby-horse in my like

ness.

Spring. My Raybright, hear me; I regard not

these.

Ray. What dowry can you bring me?
Spring. Dowry? ha!

Is't come to this? am I held poor and base!

A girdle make whose buckles, stretch'd to th'

length,

Shall reach from th' arctic to th' antarctic pole;
What ground soe'er thou canst with that enclose
I'll give thee freely: not a lark, that calls'
The morning up, shall build on any turf
But she shall be thy tenant, call thee lord,
And for her rent pay thee in change of songs.
Ray. I must turn bird-catcher.

Fol. Do you think to have him for a song?

Not a lark, &c.] I attribute, without scruple, all these incidental glimpses of rural nature to Decker. Ford rarely, if ever, indulges in them. The lark is justly a great favourite with our old poets; and I should imagine, from my own observations, that a greater number of descriptive passages might be found respecting him, than of the nightingale. A judicious collection of both would furnish not a few pages of surpassing taste and beauty. While I am writing this, the following simple and pretty address occurs to me. It is that of Young Fitzwalter to his mistress, whom he meets at day-break.

"So early! then I see love's the best larke:
For the corne-builder has not warbled yet

His morning's caroll to the rising sun."-The Palsg.

Hum. Live with me still, and all the measures,

Play'd to by the spheres, I'll teach thee; Let's but thus dally, all the pleasures

The moon beholds, her man shall reach thee.

Ray. Divinest!

Fol. Here's a lady!

Spring. Is't come to who gives most?
The self-same bay-tree, into which was turn'd
Peneian Daphne, I have still kept green;
That tree shall now be thine: about it sit
All the old poets, with fresh laurel crown'd,
Singing in verse the praise of chastity;
Hither when thou shalt come, they all shall rise,
Sweet cantos of thy love and mine to sing,

And invoke none but thee as Delian king.
Ray. Live by singing ballads!

Fol. Oh, base! turn poet? I would not be one myself.

Hum. Dwell in mine arms, aloft we'll hover,

And see fields of armies fighting:
Oh, part not from me! I'll discover

There all, but books of fancy's writing.

Del. Not far off stands the Hippocrenian well Whither I'll lead thee, and but drinking there, To welcome thee, nine Muses shall appear; And with full bowls of knowledge thee inspire.

Ray. Hang knowledge, drown your Muses! Fol. Aye, aye, or they'll drown themselves in sack and claret,

Hum. Do not regard their toys;

Be but my darling, age to free thee
From her curse, shall fall a-dying;
Call me thy empress; Time to see thee
Shall forget his art of flying.

Ray. Oh, my all excellence!

Spring. Speak thou for me; I am fainting.

[TO HEALTH. Health. Leave her; take this, and travel through the world,"

I'll bring thee into all the courts of kings,
Where thou shalt stay, and learn their languages;
Kiss ladies, revel out the nights in dancing,
The day [in] manly pastimes; snatch from Time
His glass, and let the golden sands run forth
As thou shalt jog them; riot it, go brave,
Spend half a world, my queen shall bear thee out :
Yet all this while, though thou climb hills of years,
Shall not one wrinkle sit upon thy brow,

Nor any sickness shake thee; Youth and Health,
As slaves, shall lackey by thy chariot wheels:
And who, for two such jewels, would not sell
Th' East and West Indies? both are thine, so
that-
Ray. What?

Fol. All lies! gallop over the world, and not grow old, nor be sick? a lie. One gallant went but into France last day, and was never his own

Leave her, take this, and travel through the world.] It is plain, from Folly's next speech, that this is the true reading the old copy has,—-take this, and travel, tell the world.

:

man since; another stept but into the Low Countries, and was drunk dead under the table; another did but peep into England, and it cost him more in good-morrows blown up to him under his window, by drums and trumpets, than his whole voyage; besides, he ran mad upon't." Hum. Here's my last farewell: ride along with me; I'll raise by art out of base earth a palace, a crystal stream,

Whither thyself, waving

*

8

Shall call together the most glorious spirits
Of all the kings that have been in the world;
And they shall come, only to feast with thee.
Ray. Rare!

Hum. At one end of this palace shall be heard
That music which gives motion to the heaven;
And in the midst Orpheus shall sit and weep,
For sorrow that his lute had not the charms
To bring his fair Eurydice from hell:
Then, at another end,--

7 I scarcely know how to understand this. France and the Low Countries are characterised by their well known attributes; but the greeting of strangers (if that be the poet's meaning) was never before, I believe, made the distinctive mark of England. It is sufficiently clear, however, that the streets of London were grievously infested with noises (little knots) of fiddlers, who pressed into all companies, and pestered every new-comer with their salutations. Thus, Withers :

8

Oh! how I scorn

Those raptures, which are free and nobly born,
Should, fiddler-like, for entertainment, scrape
At strangers' windows!-Malto.

Here again something is apparently lost;-perhaps a description of the palace-garden.

omission.

All that can be done is to mark the