Ordel. I do Thier. And endless parting With all we can call ours, with all our sweetness, With youth, strength, pleasure, people, time, nay reason: For in the silent grave, no conversation,99 No joyful tread of friends, no yoice of lovers, No careful father's counsel, nothing's heard, Nor nothing is, but all oblivion, Dust and an endless darkness: and dare you, woman, Ordel. 'Tis of all sleeps the sweetest; 4 Children begin it to us, strong men seek it, Thier. Then you can suffer? Thier. Martel, a wonder! Here is a woman that dares die. Are you a wife ? Ordel. I am, sir. Yet tell me, Thier. And have children? She sighs and weeps, Ordel. O none, sir. Thier. Dare you venture, For a poor barren praise you ne'er shall hear, Ordel. With all but heaven, And yet die full of children; he that reads me And those chaste dames that keep my memory, ledge, And 99 There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. Eccles. And what I must do, lady. Ordel. You are the king, sir, And what you do I'll suffer; and that blessing That you desire, the gods shower on the kingdom. you, The gods have will'd it so, they've made the blessing Ordel. Fear me not. Thier. And meet death like a measure. Thier. Thou shalt be sainted, woman, and thy tomb Succeeding peers of France that rise by thy fall, Ordel. I dare, sir. Thier. Ha! (Pulls off her veil: he lets fall his sword.) Mar. O, sir, you must not do it. Thier. No, I dare not. There is an angel keeps that paradise, A fiery angel friend: O virtue, virtue, Ordel. Strike, sir, strike; And if in my poor death fair France may merit, A thousand days. Thier. First let the earth be barren, And man no more remember'd. Rise, Ordella, That ever dull flesh shewed us,-Oh my heart strings.100 Dd2 Martel 100 I have always considered this to be the finest scene in Fletcher, and Ordella the most perfect idea of the female heroic character, next to Calantha in the Broken Heart of Ford, that has been embodied in fiction. She is a piece of sainted nature. Yet noble as Martel relates to Thierry the manner of Ordella's death. Mar. The griev❜d Ordella, (for all other titles Love the whole scene is, it must be confessed that the manner of it, compared with Shakspeare's finest scenes, is slow and languid. Its motion is circular, not progressive. Each line revolves on itself in a sort of separate orbit. They do not join into one another like a running hand. Every step that we go we are stopped to admire some single object, like walking in beautiful scenery with a guide. This slowness I shall elsewhere have occasion to remark as characteristic of Fletcher. Another striking difference perceivable between Fletcher and Shakspeare, is the fondness of the former for unnatural and violent situations, like that in the scene before us. He seems to have thought that nothing great could be produced in an ordinary way. The chief incidents in the Wife for a Month, in Cupid's Revenge, in the Double Marriage, and in many more of his Tragedies, shew this. Shakspeare had nothing of this contortion in his mind, none of that craving after romantic incidents, and flights of strained and improbable virtue, which I think always betrays an imperfect moral sensibility. Love better than I have done, since she touch'd it, Of such most certain blessings: yet for proof, That straight it shook and sunk. WIT WITHOUT MONEY. A COMEDY. FLETCHER. BY JOHN The humour of a Gallant who will not be persuaded to keep his Lands, but chuses to live by his Wits rather. VALENTINE'S Uncle. Merchant, who has his Mortgage, He's taken up with those that woo the widow, Mer. How can he live by snatches from such people? He bore a worthy mind. Unc. Alas, he's sunk, His means are gone, he wants; and, which is worse, Takes a delight in doing so. Mer. That's strange, Unc. Runs lunatic if you but talk of states; But all a common riches; all men bound Mer. This is something dangerous. Unc. No gentleman, that has estate, to use it Grounding their fat faiths upon old country proverbs, "God bless the founders:" these he would have ventur'd |