We love the piece we are in hand with better Than all the excellent work we have done before.

Mother's anger.

Leonora. (sola.) Ha, my son !

I'll be a Fury to him: like an Amazon lady,
I'd cut off this right pap that gave him suck,
To shoot him dead: I'll no more tender him
Than had a wolf stol'n to my teat i' the night,
And robb'd me of my milk.

Distraction from guilt.

Leonora. (sola.) Ha, ha! What say you?
I do talk to somewhat, methinks; it may be,
My evil Genius.-Do not the bells ring?
I have a strange noise in my head: O, fly in pieces!
Come, age, and wither me into the malice
Of those that have been happy! let me have
One property more than the devil of hell,
Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily :
Let me in this life fear no kind of ill,
That have no good to hope for: let me die,
Where neither man nor memory may e'er find me.
[Falls to the grouna.
Confessor (entering). You are well employ'd, I hope :
the best pillow i' the world

For this your contemplation is the earth,

And the best object heaven.

Leonora. I am whispering to a dead friend.

Obstacles.

Let those that would oppose this union
Grow ne'er so subtle, and entangle themselves
In their own work like spiders; while we two
Haste to our noble wishes, and presume,
The hindrance of it will breed more delight,
As black copartiments show gold more bright.

Falling out.

To draw the picture of unkindness truly,
Is to express two that have dearly lov'd,
And fall'n at variance.

THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY; OR, THE HONEST MAN'S REVENGE :

BY CYRIL Tourneur.

D'AMVILLE (the Atheist), with the aid of his wicked instrument, BORACHIO, murders his brother, MONTFERRERS, for his estate. After the deed is done, BORACHIO and he talk together of the circumstances which attend the murder.

D'Am. Here's a sweet comedy. 'T begins with O dolentis, and concludes with ha, ha, he.

Bor. Ha, ha, he.

D'Am. O my echo! I could stand reverberating this sweet musical air of joy, till I had perish'd sound lungs with violent laughter. Lovely night-raven! th' hast seized a carcase.

my

Bor. Put him out on 's pain. I lay so fitly underneath the bank from whence he fell, that ere his faltering tongue could utter double O, I knock'd out his brains with this fair ruby, and had another stone just of this form and bigness ready, that I laid i' the broken skull upon the ground for 's pillow, against the which they thought he fell and perish'd.

D'Am. Upon this ground I'll build my manor house; And this shall be chiefest corner-stone.

Bor. 'T has crown'd the most judicious murder, that
The brain of man was e'er deliver'd of.

D'Am. Ay, mark the plot. Not any circumstance
That stood within the reach of the design,
Of persons, dispositions, matter, time, or place,

But by this brain of mine was made
An instrumental help; yet nothing from

Th' induction to th' accomplishment seem'd forced,
Or done o' purpose, but by accident.

[Here they reckon up the several circumstances.

Bor. Then darkness did

Protect the execution of the work

Both from prevention and discovery.
D'Am. Here was a murder bravely carried through
The eye of observation, unobserv'd.

Bor. And those that saw the passage of it, made
The instruments, yet knew not what they did.
D'Am. That power of rule, philosophers ascribe
To him they call the Supreme of the Stars,
Making their influences governors

Of sublunary creatures, when theirselves
Are senseless of their operations.

[Thunder and lightning. What! dost start at thunder? Credit my belief, 'tis a mere effect of nature, an exhalation hot and dry, involved within a watery vapour i' the middle region of the air; whose coldness congealing that thick moisture to a cloud, the angry exhalation shut within a prison of contrary quality, strives to be free, and with the violent eruption through the grossness of that cloud, makes this noise we hear.

Bor. 'Tis a fearful noise.

D'Am. 'Tis a brave noise; and, methinks, graces our accomplish'd project, as a peal of ordnance does a triumph. It speaks encouragement. Now nature shows thee how it favour'd our performance, to forbear this noise when we set forth, because it should not terrify my brother's going home, which would have dashed our purpose: to forbear this lightning in our passage, lest it should ha' warned him of the pitfall. Then

propitious nature wink'd at our proceedings; now it doth express how that forbearance favoured our success.

Drowned Soldier.

walking upon the fatal shore,

Among the slaughter'd bodies of their men,
Which the full-stomach'd sea had cast upon
The sands, it was my unhappy chance to light
Upon a face, whose favour when it liv'd
My astonish'd mind inform'd me I had seen.
He lay in 's armour, as if that had been
His coffin; and the weeping sea, (like one
Whose milder temper doth lament the death
Of him whom in his rage he slew) runs up
The shore, embraces him, kisses his cheek,
Goes back again, and forces up the sands
To bury him; and ev'ry time it parts,
Sheds tears upon him, till at last (as if
It could no longer endure to see the man
Whom it had slain, yet loath to leave him) with
A kind of unresolv'd unwilling pace,

Winding her waves one in another, (like
A man that folds his arms, or wrings his hands,
For grief) ebb'd from the body, and descends
As if it would sink down into the earth,
And hide itself for shame of such a deed.1

Match Refused.

I entertain the offer of this match,
With purpose to confirm it presently.
I have already mov'd it to my daughter;

1 This way of description which seems unwilling ever to leave off, weaving parenthesis within parenthesis, was brought to its height by Sir Philip Sidney. He seems to have set the example to Shakspeare. Many beautiful instances may be found all over the Arcadia. These bountiful wits always give full measure, pressed down and running over.

Her soft excuses savour'd at the first,
Methought, but of a modest innocence

Of blood, whose unmov'd stream was never drawn
Into the current of affection.

But when I
Replied with more familiar arguments,
Thinking to make her apprehension bold,
Her modest blush fell to a pale dislike,
And she refused it with such confidence,
As if she had been prompted by a love
Inclining firmly to some other man ;
And in that obstinacy she remains.

Love and Courage.

O, do not wrong him. 'Tis a generous mind
That led his disposition to the war :
For gentle love and noble courage are
So near allied, that one begets another :
Or love is sister, and courage is the brother.
Could I affect him better than before,

His soldier's heart would make me love him more.

THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY :

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

VINDICI addresses the Skull of his dead Lady.
THOU Sallow picture of my poison'd love,
My study's ornament, thou shell of death,
Once the bright face of my betrothed lady,
When life and beauty naturally fill'd out
These ragged imperfections;

When two heaven-pointed diamonds were set
In those unsightly rings

then 'twas a face

So far beyond the artificial shine

Of any woman's bought complexion,

That the uprightest man (if such there be