But in the ill I have,

I'm left alive only to dig my grave.

XII.

Lost Beauty, I will die,
But I will thee recover,
And that I die not instantly,
Shows me more perfect lover:
For (my soul gone before)

I live not now to live, but to deplore.

THE FATAL JEALOUSY, A TRAGEDY: BY NEVIL PAYNE, 1673.

No truth absolute; after seeing a masque of gipsies. 1st Spectator. By this we see that all the world's a cheat,

Whose truths and falsehoods lie so intermix'd,

And are so like each other, that 'tis hard

To find the difference; who would not think these people

A real pack of such as we call gipsies?

2nd Spect. Things perfectly alike are but the same;
And these were gipsies, if we did not know
How to consider them the contrary :

So in terrestrial things there is not one
But takes its form and nature from our fancy,
Not its own being, and is but what we think it.
Ist Spect. But truth is still itself?

2nd Spect. No, not at all, as truth appears to us;
For oftentimes

That is a truth to me, that 's false to you.
So 'twould not be, if it was truly true.

How clouded man

Doubts first, and from one doubt doth soon proceed
A thousand more, in solving of the first!
Like nighted travellers we lose our way;
Then every ignis fatuus makes us stray,
By the false lights of reason led about,
Till we arrive where we at first set out:
"Nor shall we e'er truth's perfect highway see,
Till dawns the daybreak of eternity."

Apprehension.

Oh, Apprehension !

So terrible the consequence appears,

It makes my brain turn round, and night seem darker.

The moon begins to drown herself in clouds,
Leaving a duskish horror everywhere;

My sickly fancy makes the garden seem

Likes those benighted groves in Pluto's kingdoms. Injured husband.

Wife (dying). Oh, oh, I fain would live a little longer, If but to ask forgiveness of Gerardo,

My soul will scarce reach heaven without his pardon.

Gerardo (entering). Who's that would go to heaven, and wants my pardon?

Take it, whate'er thou art, and mayst thou be
Happy in death, whate'er thou didst design.

GERARDO; his wife murdered.

Ger. It is in vain to look them,1 if they hide;
The garden 's large; besides, perhap they are gone.
We'll to the body.

Serv. You're by it now, my lord.

Ger. This accident amazes me so much,

I go I know not where.

1 The murderers.

Doubt.

Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy,
Two passions which to reason give the lie;
For fear torments, and never doth assist,
And jealousy is love lost in a mist.

Both hoodwink truth, and go to blindman's buff,
Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough,
But all the while shift place; making the mind,
As it goes out of breath, despair to find;
And, if at last something it stumbles on,
Perhaps it calls it false, and then 'tis gone.
If true, what 's gain'd? only just time to see
A breachless 1 play, a game at liberty,

1

That has no other end than this, that men
Run to be tired, just to sit down again.

Owl.

Hark how the owl

Summons their souls to take a flight with her,
Where they shall be eternally benighted.

THE ENGLISH MONSIEUR, A COMEDY: BY THE HON. JAMES HOWARD, 1674.

The humour of a conceited Traveller, who is taken with every thing that is French.

English Monsieur. Gentlemen, if you please, let us dine together.

Vaine. I know a cook's shop has the best boil'd and roast beef in town.

Eng. Mons. Sir, since you are a stranger to me, I what you mean; but, were you

only ask

you

1 Breathless.

acquainted with me, I should take your greasy proposition as an affront to my palate.

Vaine. Sir, I only meant, by the consent of this company, to dine well together.

Eng. Mons. Do you call dining well, to eat out of a French house?

Vaine. Sir, I understand you as little as you do beef. Eng. Mons. Why then, to interpret my meaning plainly, if ever you make me such offer again, expect to hear from me next morning— Vaine. What, that you could not dine with me— Eng. Mons. No, sir, that I will fight with you. In short, sir, I can only tell you that I had once a dispute with a certain person in this kind, who defended the English way of eating; whereupon I sent him a challenge, as any man that has been in France would have done; we fought, and I kill'd him; and whereabouts do you guess I hit him? Vaine. I warrant you, in the small

gutsEng. Mons. I run him through his mistaken palate, which made me think the hand of justice guided my sword.

Eng. Mons. Madam, leading your ladyship puts me

in mind of France.

Lady. Why, sir?

Eng. Mons. Because you lead so like the French ladies.

Lady. Sir, why look you so earnestly on the ground? Eng. Mons. I'll lay a hundred pounds, here has been three English ladies walking up before us.

Crafty. How can you tell, sir?

Eng. Mons. By being in France.

Crafty. What a devil can he mean

?

Eng. Mons. I have often in France observed in gardens, when the company used to walk after a

small shower of rain, the impression of the French ladies' feet. I have seen such bon mien in their footsteps, that the king of France's Maître de Daunce could not have found fault with any one tread amongst them all. In this walk I find the toes of the English ladies ready to tread one upon another.

Vaine. Monsieur Frenchlove, well met !
Eng. Mons. I cannot say the like to you, sir, since I
am told you have done a damn'd English trick.
Vaine. In what?

Eng. Mons. In finding fault with a pair of tops I wore yesterday; and, upon my parole, I never had a pair sat better in my life. My leg looked in them not at all like an English leg. Vaine. Sir, all that I said of your tops was, that they made such a rushing noise as you walked, that my mistress could not hear one word of the love I made to her.

Eng. Mons. Sir, I cannot help that; for I shall justify my tops in the noise they were guilty of, since 'twas à la mode of France. Can you say it was an English noise?

Vaine. I can say, though your tops were made in France, they made a noise in England.

Eng. Mons. But still, sir, 'twas a French noise? Vaine. But cannot a French noise hinder a man from hearing?

Eng. Mons. No, certainly, that's a demonstration; for, look you, sir, a French noise is agreeable to the air, and therefore not unagreeable, and therefore not prejudicial, to the hearing, that is to say, to a person that has seen the world.

[The Monsieur comforts himself, when his mistress rejects him, that "'twas a denial with a French tone of voice, so that 'twas agreeable;" and, at her final departure, "Do you see, sir, how she leaves us? she walks away with a French step."]