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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,
Desire this place?

Ordel. 'Tis of all sleeps the sweetest;

4

Children begin it to us, strong men seek it,
And kings from height of all their painted glories
Fall like spent exhalations to this centre:
And those are fools that fear it, or imagine,
A few unhandsome pleasures, or life's profits,
Can recompence this place; and mad that stay it,
Till age blow out their lights, or rotten humours
Bring them dispers'd to the earth.

Thier. Then you can suffer?
Ordel. As willingly as say it.

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,
To part with these sweet hopes?

Ordel. With all but heaven,

And yet die full of children; he that reads me
When I am ashes, is my son in wishes;

And those chaste dames that keep my memory,
Singing my yearly requiems, are my daughters.
Thier. Then there is nothing wanting but my know.

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.
Thier. Thus much before I strike then, for I must kill

you,

The gods have will'd it so, they've made the blessing
Must make France young again, and me a man.
Keep up your strength still nobly,

Ordel. Fear me not.

Thier. And meet death like a measure.
Ordel. I am stedfast.

Thier. Thou shalt be sainted, woman, and thy tomb
Cut out in chrystal pure and good as thou art;
And on it shall be graven every age

Succeeding peers of France that rise by thy fall,
Till thou liest there like old and fruitful Nature.
Darest thou behold thy happiness?

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,
Ever and endless virtue.

Ordel. Strike, sir, strike;

And if in my poor death fair France may merit,
Give me a thousand blows, be killing me

A thousand days.

Thier. First let the earth be barren,

And man no more remember'd. Rise, Ordella,
The nearest to thy maker, and the purest

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
But take away from that) having from me,
Prompted by your last parting groan, enquir'd
What drew it from you, and the cause soon learn'd:
For she whom barbarism could deny nothing,
With such prevailing earnestness desir'd it,
'Twas not in me, though it had been my death,
To hide it from her; she, I say, in whom
All was, that Athens, Rome, or warlike Sparta,
Have register'd for good in their best women,
But nothing of their ill; knowing herself
Mark'd out, (I know not by what power, but sure
A cruel one) to die, to give you children;
Having first with a settled countenance
Look'd up to heaven, and then upon herself,
(It being the next best object) and then smil'd,
As if her joy in death to do you service,
Would break forth, in despite of the much sorrow
She shew'd she had to leave you; and then taking
Me by the hand, this hand which I must ever

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,
"Go" said she "to my lord, (and to go to him
"Is such a happiness I must not hope for)
"And tell him that he too much priz'd a trifle
"Made only worthy in his love, and her
"Thankful acceptance, for her sake to rob
"The orphan kingdom of such guardians, as
"Must of necessity descend from him;
"And therefore in some part of recompence
"Of his much love, and to shew to the world
"That 'twas not her fault only, but her fate,
"That did deny to let her be the mother

Of such most certain blessings: yet for proof,
"She did not envy her, that happy her,
"That is appointed to them; her quick end
"Should make way for her:" which no sooner spoke,
But in a moment this too ready engine
Made such a battery in the choicest castle
That ever Nature made to defend life,

That straight it shook and sunk.

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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,
Mer. When saw you Valentine ?
Unc. Not since the horse race.

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;
He can't be brought (now he has spent his own)
To think there is inheritance, or means,

But all a common riches; all men bound
To be his bailiffs.

Mer. This is something dangerous.

Unc. No gentleman, that has estate, to use it
In keeping house or followers; for those ways
He cries against for eating sins, dull surfeits,
Cramming of serving-men, mustering of beggars,
Maintaining hospitals for kites and curs,

Grounding their fat faiths upon old country proverbs, "God bless the founders:" these he would have ventur'd

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