Wife. O'tis your son.

Fos. I know him not.

I am no king, unless of scorn and woe,

Why kneel'st thou then, why dost thou mock me so?
Rob. O my dear father, hither am I come,

Not like a threatening storm to encrease your wrack,
For I would take all sorrows from your back,

To lay them all on my own.

Fos. Rise, mischief, rise; away, and get thee gone.
Rob. O if I be thus hateful to your eye,

I will depart, and wish I soon may die;
Yet let your blessing, Sir, but fall on me.
Fos. My heart still hates thee.

Wife. Sweet husband.

Fos. Get you both gone;

That misery takes some rest that dwells alone.

Away, thou villain.

Rob. Heaven can tell;

Ake but your finger, I to make it well

Would cut my hand off.

Fos. Hang thee, hang thee.

Wife. Husband.

Fos. Destruction meet thee. Turn the key there, ho. Rob. Good Sir, I'm gone, I will not stay to grieve you.

Oh, knew you, for your woes what pains I feel,

You would not scorn me so. See, Sir, to cool
Your heat of burning sorrow, I have got
Two hundred pounds, and glad it is my lot
To lay it down with reverence at your feet;
No comfort in the world to me is sweet,
Whilst thus you live in moan.

Fos. Stay.

Rob. Good truth, Sir, I'll have none of it back, Could but one penny of it save my life.

Wife. Yet stay, and hear him: Oh unnatural strife

In a hard father's bosom.

Fos. I see mine error now: Oh, can there grow A rose upon a bramble? did there ere flow

Poison and health together in one tide?

I'm born a man: reason may step aside,
And lead a father's love out of the way:
Forgive me, my good boy, I went astray;
Look, on my knees I beg it: not for joy,
Thou bring'st this golden rubbish; which I spurn:
But glad in this, the heavens mine eye-balls turn,
And fix them right to look upon that face,
Where love remains with pity, duty, grace.
Oh my dear wronged boy.

Rob. Gladness o'erwhelms

My heart with joy: I cannot speak.
Wife. Crosses of this foolish world

Did never grieve my heart with torments more
Than it is now grown light

With joy and comfort of this happy sight. 51

51 The old play-writers are distinguished by an honest boldness of exhibition, they shew every thing without being ashamed. If a reverse in fortune be the thing to be personified, they fairly bring us to the prison-grate and the alms-basket. A poor man on our stage is always a gentleman, he may be known by a peculiar neatness of apparel, and by wearing black. Our delicacy, in fact, forbids the dramatizing of Distress at all. It is never shewn in its essential properties;* it appears but as the adjunct to some virtue, as something which is to be relieved, from the approbation of which relief the spectators are to derive a certain soothing of self-referred satisfaction. We turn away from the real essences of things to hunt after their relative shadows, moral duties: whereas, if the truth of things were fairly represented, the relative duties might be safely trusted to themselves, and moral philosophy lose the name of a science.

* Guzman de Alfarache in that good old book "The Spanish Rogue," has summed up a few of the properties of poverty-" that poverty, which is not the daughter of the spirit, is but the mother of shame and reproach; it is a disreputation that drowns all the other good parts that are in man; it is a disposition to all kind of evil; it is man's most foe; it is a leprosy full of anguish; it is a way that leads unto hell; it is a sea wherein our patience is overwhelmed, our honor is consumed, our lives are ended, and our souls are utterly lost and cast away for ever. The poor man is a kind of money that is not current; the subject of every idle huswive's chat; the offscum of the people; the dust of the street, first trampled under foot and then thrown on the dunghill; in conclusion, the poor

man is the rich man's ass. He dineth with the last, fareth of the worst, and payeth dearest: his sixpence will not go so far as a rich man's threepence; his opinion is ignorance; his discretion, foolishness; his suffrage scorn; his stock upon the common, abused by many and abhorred of all. If he come in company, he is not heard; if any chance to meet him, they seek to shun him; if he advise, though never so wisely, they grudge and murmur at him; if he work miracles, they say he is a witch; if virtuous, that he goeth about to deceive; his venial sin is a blasphemy; his thought is made treason; his cause, be it never so just, it is not regarded; and, to have his wrongs righted, he must appeal to that other life. All men crush him; no man favoreth him; there is no man that will relieve his wants; no man that will comfort him in his miseries; nor no man that will bear him company, when he is all alone, and oppressed with grief. None help him; all hinder him; none give him, all take from him; he is debtor to none, and yet must make payment to all. O the unfortunate and poor condition of him that is poor, to whom even the very hours are sold, which the clock striketh, and pays custom for the sun-shine in August."

WOMEN

WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN.

A TRAGEDY. BY THOMAS MIDDLETON.

1

Livia, the Duke's creature, cajoles a poor Widow with the appearance of Hospitality and neighborly Attentions, that she may get her Daughter in Law (who is left in the Mother's care in the Son's absence) into her trains, to serve the Duke's pleasure.

LIVIA. WIDOW. A Gentleman, Livia's guest.

Liv. Widow, come, come, I have a great quarrel to

you,

Faith I must chide you that you must be sent for;
You make yourself so strange, never come at us,
And yet so near a neighbor, and so unkind;

Troth, you're to blame; you cannot be more welcome
Το any house in Florence, that I'll tell you.

Wid. My thanks must needs acknowledge so much, madam.

Liv. How can you be so strange then? I sit here Sometimes whole days together without company, When business draws this gentleman from home, And should be happy in society

Which I so well affect as that of yours.

I know you're alone too; why should not we
Like two kind neighbors then supply the wants
Of one another, having tongue-discourse,
Experience in the world, and such kind helps,
To laugh down time and meet age merrily?

Wid. Age, madam! you speak mirth: 'tis at my door,

But a long journey from your Ladyship yet.

Liv. My faith, I'm nine and thirty, every stroke, wench: And 'tis a general observation

'Mongst

'Mongst knights; wives, or widows, we account ourselves
Then old, when young men's eyes leave looking at us.
Come, now I have thy company, I'll not part with it
Till after supper.

Wid. Yes, I must crave pardon, madam.

Liv. I swear you shall stay supper; we have no strangers,

woman,

None but my sojourners and I, this gentleman

And the young heir his ward; you know your company. Wid. Some other time I will make bold with you, madam.

Do

Liv. Faith she shall not go.

you think I'll be forsworn? Wid. 'Tis a great while

Till supper time; I'll take my leave then now, madam, And come again in the evening, since your ladyship Will have it so.

Liv. In the evening! by my troth, wench,

I'll keep you while I have you; you've great business sure,
To sit alone at home: I wonder strangely

What pleasure you take in't. Were't to me now,
I should be ever at one neighbour's house
Or other all day long; having no charge,
Or none to chide you, if you go, or stay,

Who may live merrier, aye, or more at heart's ease?
Come, we'll to chess or draughts, there are an hundred

tricks

To drive out time till supper, never fear't, wench.

To

(A Chess-board is set.) Wid. I'll but make one step home, and return straight,

madam.

Liv. Come, I'll not trust you, you make more excuses your kind friends than ever I knew any. What business can you have, if you be sure You've lock'd the doors? and, that being all you have, I know you're careful on't: one afternoon So much to spend here! say I should entreat To lie a night or two, or a week, with me,

you now

Or