As we have sat at work, both of one rose,1 Yet in his full invention quick and ripe, (Our hive being clean-swept, and our day's work done,) Would play me twenty several tunes; yet I Nor minded Astrophel, nor his melody. Then there's Amniter, for whose love fair Leade My hive-born playfellows and fellow bees, He labours and toils, Than twenty lazy drones. I have heard my father, Steward of the hive, profess that he had rather Lose half the swarm than him. If a bee, poor or weak, Grows faint on 's way, or by misfortune break alive Or dead, he 'Il bring into the master's hive Him and his burthen. But the other day, 1 Prettily pilfered from the sweet passage in the Midsummer Night's Dream, where Helena recounts to Hermia their schoolday's friendship : We Hermia, like two artificial gods, Created with our needles both one flower, On the next plain, there grew a fatal fray Betwixt the wasps and us; the wind grew high, And a rough storm rag'd so impetuously, Our bees could scarce keep wing; then fell such rain, It made our colony forsake the plain, And fly to garrison, yet still he stood, And 'gainst the whole swarm made his party good, On damask roses, and the leaves of pines, I have seen him write such amorous moving lines Has, when I read them, envied her desert, PROREX, Viceroy of Bees under KING OBERON, describes his large prerogative. To us, who warranted by Oberon's love, Write Ourself Master Bee, both field and grove, Garden and orchard, lawns and flowery meads, Where th' amorous wind plays with the golden heads Of wanton cowslips, daisies in their prime, Are allow'd and given, by Oberon's free areed, [ -the doings, The births, the wars, the wooings, of these pretty little winged creatures are with continued liveliness portrayed throughout the whole of this curious old Drama, in words which bees would talk with, could they talk; the very air seems replete with humming and buzzing melodies, while we read them. Surely bees were never so be- rhymed before.] FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM THE SAME. Ober. A female bee! thy character ? Huswife both of herbs and flowers, To strew thy shrine, and trim thy bowers, Thy violets fuller sweetness owe; To kiss thee, and frequent thy grove, Unto our crown and royalty. OBERON holds a court, in which he sentences the Wasp, the Drone, and the Humble Bee, for divers offences against the Commonwealth of Bees. OBERON. PROREX, his viceroy and other Bees. Pro. And whither must these flies be sent ? ་ Underneath two hanging rocks Fruit, half-ripe, hang rivell'd and shrunk Culprits. Some mercy, Jove! Ober. You should have cried so in your youth, You ate their flesh, and drank their blood. Fairies, thrust them to their fate. OBERON then confirms PROREX in his government, and breaks up session Prorex shall again renew His potent reign: the massy world, Which in glittering orbs is hurl'd About the poles, be lord of: we Only reserve our royalty- THE HECTORS, A COMEDY: By E. PRESTWICH. A Waiting Maid wheedles an old Justice into a belief that her Lady is in love with him. Maid. I think there never was woman of so strange I a humour as she is, in this world; for from her infancy she ever doted on old men. have heard her say, that in these her late law troubles, it has been no small comfort to her, that she has been conversant with grave counsellors and serjeants, and what a happiness she had to look sometimes an hour together upon the judges. She will go and walk a whole afternoon in Charterhouse Garden, on purpose to view the ancient gentlemen there. Not long ago there was a young gentleman here about the town, who, hearing of her riches, and knowing this her humour, had almost got her, by counterfeiting himself to be an old man. Justice. And how came he to miss her? Maid. The strangeliest that ever you heard; for all things were agreed, the very writings drawn, and when he came to seal them, because he 1 The hum of Bees. |