Rise, mother; troth, this shower has made you higher.

Moth. O you heavens! take this infectious spot out of soul;

my

I'll rinse it in seven waters of mine eyes.

Make my tears salt enough to taste of grace. To weep is to our sex naturally given; But to weep truly, that 's a gift from Heaven. Vin. Nay, I'll kiss you now. Kiss her, brother : Let's marry her to our souls, wherein 's no lust, And honourably love her.

Hip. Let it be.

Vin. For honest women are so seld and rare,
'Tis good to cherish those poor few that are.
O you of easy wax! do but imagine,
Now the disease has left you, how leprously
That office would have cling'd unto your forehead!
All mothers that had any graceful hue

Would have worn masks to hide their face at you.
It would have grown to this, at your foul name
Green-coloured maids would have turn'd red with
shame.

Hip. And then our sister, full of hire and basenessVin. There had been boiling lead again!

The duke's son's great concubine!

A drab of state, a cloth, a silver slut,

To have her train borne up, and her soul trail i' th' dirt! great

Hip. To be miserably great; rich, to be eternally wretched.

Vin. O common madness!

Ask but the thriving'st harlot in cold blood,
She'd give the world to make her honour good.
Perhaps you'll say, but only to the duke's son
In private; why, she first begins with one
Who afterwards to thousands proves a whore :
Break ice in one place, it will crack in more.

Moth. Most certainly applied!

Hip. O brother, you forget your business.
Vin. And well remember'd; joy's a subtile elf;
I think man's happiest when he forgets himself.
Farewell, once dry, now holy-water'd mead;
Our hearts wear feathers, that before wore lead.
Moth. I'll give you this, that one I never knew
Plead better for, and 'gainst the devil than you.
Vin. You make me proud on 't.

Hip. Commend us in all virtue to our sister.
Vin. Ay, for the love of heaven, to that true maid.
Moth. With my best words.

Vin. Why, that was motherly said.1

CASTIZA seems to consent to her MOTHER's wicked notion.

Cast. Now, mother, you have wrought with me so strongly,

That what for my advancement, as to calm
The trouble of your tongue, I am content.

Moth. Content, to what?

Cast. To do as you had wish'd me;

To prostitute my breast to the duke's son,
And put myself to common usury.

Moth. I hope you will not so.

Cast. Hope you I will not?

That's not the hope you look to be saved in. Moth. Truth, but it is.

Cast. Do not deceive yourself.

I am as you, e'en out of marble wrought.

1 The reality and life of this dialogue passes any scenical illusion I ever felt. I never read it but my ears tingle, and I feel a hot blush spread my cheeks, as if I were presently about to "proclaim" some such "malefactions" of myself, as the brothers here rebuke in their unnatural parent, in words more keen and dagger-like than those which Hamlet speaks to his mother. Such power has the passion of shame truly personated, not only to "strike guilty creatures unto the soul," but to "appal" even those that are "free."

What would you now? are ye not pleased yet with me?

You shall not wish me to be more lascivious

Than I intend to be.

Moth. Strike not me cold.

Cast. How often have you charg'd me on your blessing
To be a cursed woman! when you knew
Your blessing had no force to make me lewd,
You laid your curse upon me; that did more,
The mother's curse is heavy; where that fights,
Sons set in storm and daughters lose their lights.
Moth. Good child, dear maid, if there be any spark
Of heavenly intellectual fire within thee,
O let my breath revive it to a flame !

Put not all out with woman's wilful follies.
I am recover'd of that foul disease

That haunts too many mothers; kind, forgive me,
Make me not sick in health! if then

My words prevail'd, when they were wickedness, How much more now when they are just and good! Cast. I wonder what you mean! are not you she, For whose infect persuasions, I could scarce Kneel out my prayers, and had much ado,

In three hours' reading, to untwist so much Of the black serpent as you wound about me? Moth. 'Tis unfruitful, held tedious to repeat what 's past.

I'm now your present mother.

Cast. Pish, now 'tis too late.

Moth. Bethink again, thou know'st not what thou say'st.

Cast. No! deny advancement! treasure! the duke's son !

Moth. O see, I spoke those words, and now they

poison me.

What will the deed do then?

Advancement, true; as high as shame can pitch!

For treasure; who e'er knew a harlot rich?
Or could build by the purchase of her sin
An hospital to keep their bastards in?

The duke's son; oh, when women are young courtiers,

They are sure to be old beggars;

To know the miseries most harlots taste,

Thou 'dst wish thyself unborn when thou art

unchaste.

Cast. O mother, let me twine about your neck,
And kiss you till my soul melt on your lips;
I did but this to try you.

Moth. O speak truth!

Cast. Indeed I did not; for no tongue has force
To alter me from honest:

If maidens would, men's words could have no power;

A virgin's honour is a crystal tower,

Which, being weak, is guarded with good spirits; Until she basely yields, no ill inherits.

Moth. O happy child! faith, and thy birth hath sav'd me.

'Mongst thousand daughters, happiest of all others; Be thou a glass for maids, and I for mothers.

Evil Report after Death.

What is it to have

A flattering false insculption on a tomb,

And in men's hearts reproach? the bowel'd corpse May be sear'd in, but (with free tongue I speak) The faults of great men through their sear-clothes break.

Bastards.

O what a grief 'tis, that a man should live
But once i' th' world, and then to live a bastard!
The curse o' the womb, the thief of nature,

Begot against the seventh commandment,
Half damn'd in the conception, by the justice
Of that unbribed everlasting law.

Too nice respects in Courtship.

Ceremony has made many fools.

It is as easy way unto a duchess,

As to a hatted dame, if her love answer :
But that by timorous honours, pale respects,
Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways
Hard of themselves.

PHILASTER; OR, LOVE LIES A-BLEEDING: A TRAGI-COMEDY.

BY FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLEtcher. PHILASTER tells the PRINCESS ARETHUSA how he first found the boy BELLARIO.

I have a boy, sent by the gods,

Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck,
I found him sitting by a fountain's side,

Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay him by, made by himself
Of many several flowers bred in the vale,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me but ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon 'em, he would weep,
As if he meant to make 'em grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story:
He told me that his parents gentle died,

Leaving him to the mercy of the fields

Which gave him roots; and of the crystal springs, Which did not stop their courses; and the sun,