Page images
PDF
EPUB

as a sentiment, it must be allowed to surpass the other; but as an account of the Duel itself, it is assuredly as different as playing is from no playing. Sentiment, however, completes everything, and we hope our readers will enjoy with us the concluding from Ford:

[ocr errors]

Menaphon. 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 and nature ever were at strife in.

A methus. I cannot yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

[blocks in formation]

A sound of music 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 choristers of the woods, the birds,
That as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wond'ring at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
A met. And so do I; good, on!

Men.
A nightingale,
Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes

The challenge, and for ev'ry 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,

Phillips, and others; but none of these 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 it celebrates." - ED.

The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to. For a voice, and for a sound,
Amethus, 'tis much easier to believe

That such they were, than hope to hear again.
A met. How did the rivals part?

Men.
You term them rightly,
For they were rivals, and their mistress harmony.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last

Into a pretty anger, that a bird

Whom art had never taught clefs, 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.

[blocks in formation]

Music's first martyr, strove to imitate

These several sounds: which, when her warbling throat Fail'd in, for grief down dropp'd 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,

That, trust me, my Amethus, I could chide

Mine own unmanly weakness, that made me
A fellow-mourner with him.

[blocks in formation]

Men. He look'd upon the trophies of his art,

Then sigh'd, then wip'd 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 dashing it against a tree,
I suddenly stept in.

THE MURDERED PUMP.

A STORY OF A WINTER'S NIGHT.

HE hero of the following sketch is a real person, and the main points in it, the pump and the refuge in the cellar, are recorded as facts. The latter took place in the house of Sir John Trevor, the Master of the Rolls, a kinsman of Mr. Lloyd's, who was a proud and irritable Welshman.

TIME. The Beginning of the Last Century.

SCENE. A Fog in Holborn towards Dawn. Enter Two Middle-aged Gentlemen, of the names of LANE and LLOYD, coming towards an old Pump

Lane. You're so quarrelsome, when you drink.

Lloyd. (Hiccuping.) No, I ain't.

Lane. Always contradicting everybody.

Lloyd. (Hiccuping.) No, I ain't.

Lane. So eager to say No, merely because other people say Yes.

Lloyd. (Hiccuping.) No, I ain't.

Lane. Why, you do it this very instant.

Lloyd. No, I don't.

Lane. You can't say Yes, if you would.

Lloyd. (Hiccuping.) Yes, I can.

Lane. No, you can't. Your very Yes is a No. You merely say it to contradict.

Lloyd. No, I don't.

Lane. Pooh, nonsense! And then you must draw your sword, forsooth, and add fury to folly. You'll get some tremendous lesson some day, and you really need it. I should like to give it you.

Lloyd. (Violently.) Take care, George Lane. (LLOYD stumbles.)

Lane. Take you care, of the gutter. I shan't pick you up. I shall leave you to cool yourself.

Lloyd. (Hiccuping.) No, you won't.

Lane. Oh, what, you remember my carrying you home last Thursday, do you? And this is your gratitude.

Lloyd.

Damn gratitude! I'll not be insulted.

Lane. Yes, you will, by forgiveness. You'll insult others, and be for

given.

Lloyd. No, I won't. Nobody shall forgive Roderick Lloyd. I should like to see 'em. (Standing still, putting his hand on his sword, and trying to speak very loudly.) Who forgives me? Who forgives Lloyd, I say? Come into the court, you rascal.

[blocks in formation]

Lloyd. Who forgives Roderick Lloyd, - Promontory, Pro-thonotary of— Lane. Of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, and so forth. Come along, and don't be an ass.

Lloyd. Fire and fury! A what? (Drawing his sword, and coming on.) A prothonotary called (He stumbles against the Pump.) Who the devil are you? Get out of the way.

Lane. (Aside.) A good thing, faith. He shall have it out.

Lloyd. (To the Pump.) Who are you, I say? Why don't you speak? Lane. He says you may go to the devil.

Lloyd. The devil he does! Draw, you scoundrel, or you're a dead man. Lane. He stands as stiff as a post.

Lloyd. (Furiously.) Draw, you infernal fool.

Lane. He says he defies your toasting-fork, and your Welsh-rabbit to boot.

Lloyd. Blood and thunder! (He runs the Pump through the body.) Lane. Good Heavens, Lloyd! what have you done? We must be off. Lloyd. Pink'd an infernal Welsh-rabbit—I mean a toasting, damnation prothonotary. Who's afraid?

Lane. Come along, man. This way, this way. Here, down the lane. The constables are coming, and you've done it at last, by Heavens !

[Exeunt down Chancery Lane.

LLOYD and LANE discovered listening.

It's too early. Nobody is stirring yet.

SCENE II. Daylight in a cellar.
Lane. It's nobody, depend on't.
Don't be down-hearted, Rory. You're a brave man, you know; and the
worse the luck, the greater the lion.

Lloyd. But I've left my sword in him.

Lane. No, have you though? That's unlucky.

Lloyd. Oh, that punch, that punch! and that cursed fool-poor fool, I

should say, - Progers. I shall come to shame, George. Oh, I shall. To

shame and to suffering. (He walks to and fro.)

Lane. No, no. The sword had no name on it?

Lloyd. Yes, it had.

Lane. But only initials.

Lloyd. No. Full length.

Lane. What, titles and all? Roderick Lloyd, Prothono

Lloyd. No, no. But name and address. Oh, wouldn't it be better if you would go out and see how matters are going on?

Lane. What, the crowd, and all that? No, I think best not. We are too well known hereabouts.

Lloyd. Then why didn't you go further?

Lane. You were too far gone already, Rory. I don't mean to jest. You can't suppose me guilty of that. But it's a phrase, you know. You were very drunk, and to say the truth, very wilful.

Lloyd. Oh, I was, I was.

Lane. You wouldn't be guided at all.

Lloyd. Too true, too true.

Lane. I was twenty minutes getting you away from that apple-woman, and half an hour, I'm sure, in persuading you to rise from the door-way. (Lloyd groans.) Then you wouldn't let me take your sword (for I was afraid of some mischief), and you must have stood, I think, ten minutes against that shopwindow, damning us all round-all the friends you had been disputing with. Lloyd. Oh, don't tell me all that again. It's cruel of you, George. Listen! great Heavens, listen!

Lane. It's only some milkman.

Lloyd. Only a milkman! How do you know? Besides, what do you mean by "only a milkman?" Can't a milkman hang me? Can't a milkman be furious? furious about a man that's killed?

Lane. Pray, sit down, and be easy. Sir John, 'tis true, doesn't appear; but that's his way. He never stands by a friend, you know; that is to say, openly. But secretly he can do any thing; and he will. I tell you again, that I woke him directly we came into the house, and he gave me his solemn oath that he would smuggle you into Wales, in the boot of his carriage. It is not a very big boot, but it's better than nothing.

Lloyd. Oh, a paradise, a paradise, if I were but in it. But repeat to me, George. What sort of a man was it that I had the misfortune to -to-. Tell me he was a bad fellow at any rate-a mohawk-a gallows bird, or something of that sort.

Lane. I wish I could. But he was a young gentleman, plainly in liquor himself.

Lloyd. Didn't he carry himself very stiffly?

Lane. Wonderfully, but with a sort of innocence too.

Lloyd. But he said insulting things.

Lane. Not he. That was your fancy.

Lloyd. What, didn't he tell me to go to the devil, and all that?

Lane. Not a bit. He was quite silent, and, in fact, evidently did not hear a word you uttered.

« PreviousContinue »