Natural Antipathies.

Nature, that loves not to be questioned
Why she did this or that, but has her ends,
And know she does well, never gave the world
Two things so opposite, so contrary,

As he and I am : if a bowl of blood,

Drawn from this arm of mine, would poison thee, A draught of his would cure thee.

Interest in Virtue.

Why, my lord, are you so moved at this?
When any fall from virtue, I am distract;
I have an interest in 't.

ELEGY.

By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue,
By our long striving hopes, by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory

Of hurts, which spies and rivals threaten'd me,

in its day. For many years after the date of Philaster's first exhibition on the stage, scare a play can be found without one of these women pages in it, following in the train of some preengaged lover, calling on the gods to bless her happy rival (his mistress) whom no doubt she secretly curses in her heart, giving rise to many pretty équivoques by the way on the confusion of sex, and either made happy at last by some surprising turn of fate, or dismissed with the joint pity of the lovers and the audience. Our ancestors seem to have been wonderfully delighted with these transformations of sex. Women's parts were then acted by young men, What an odd double confusion it must have made, to see a boy play a woman playing a man! one cannot disentangle the perplexity without some violence to the imagination.

Donne has a copy of verses addressed to his mistress, dissuading her from a resolution, which she seems to have taken up from some of these scenical representations, of following him abroad as a page. It is so earnest, so weighty, so rich, in poetry, in sense, in wit, and pathos, that I have thought fit to insert it, as a solemn close in future to all such sickly fancies as he there deprecates. The story of his romantic and unfortunate marriage with the daughter of Sir George Moore, the lady here supposed to be addressed, may be read in Walton's Lives.

I calmly beg. But by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee; and all the oaths, which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,
I here unswear, and overswear them thus:
Thou shalt not love by means so dangerous.
Temper, O fair love, love's impetuous rage;
Be my true mistress, not my feigned page.
I'll go, and, by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind
Thirst to come back; O, if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar.
Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move

Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness: thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shivered

The fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.
Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved
Dangers unurged; feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one in the other be.
Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only. All will spy in thy face
A blushing womanly discovering grace.
Richly clothed apes are call'd apes, and as soon
Eclipsed as bright we call the moon the moon.
Men of France, changeable camelions,
Spittles of diseases, shops of fashions,
Lives' fuellers, and the rightest company
Of players which upon the world's stage be,
Will too too quickly know thee; and, alas!
Th' indifferent Italian, as we pass

His warm land, well content to think thee page,
Will hunt thee with such lust, and hideous rage,
As Lot's fair guests were vex'd. But none of these

Nor spongy Aydroptique Dutch shall thee displease,
If thou stay here. O stay here; for, for thee
England is only a worthy gallery,

To walk in expectation, till from thence
Our greatest king call thee to his presence.
When I am gone, dream me some happiness;
Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess;
Nor praise, nor dispraise me, nor bless, nor curse,
Openly love's force; nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnights' startings, crying out, 0, 0,
Nurse, O, my love is slain, I saw him go
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him,

Assail'd, fight, taken, stabb'd, bleed, fall, and die.

Augur me better chance, except dread Jove

Think it enough for me to have had thy love.

THE MAID'S TRAGEDY:
BY THE SAME AUTHORS.

AMINTOR, a noble gentleman, promises marriage to ASPATIA, and forsakes her by the king's command to wed EVADNE.-The grief of ASPATIA at being forsaken described.

This lady Walks discontented, with her watery eyes Bent on the earth. The unfrequented woods Are her delight; where, when she seeks a bank Stuck full of flowers, she with a sigh will tell Her servants what a pretty place it were To bury lovers in; and make her maids Pluck 'em, and strew her over like a corse. She carries with her an infectious grief, That strikes all her beholders: she will sing The mournful'st things that ever ear have heard, And sigh, and sing again; and when the rest Of our young ladies, in their wanton blood, Tell mirthful tales in course, that fill the room With laughter, she will, with so sad a look, Bring forth a story of the silent death Of some forsaken virgin, which her grief Will put in such a phrase that, ere she end, She 'll send them weeping one by one away.

The marriage-night of AMINTOR and Evadne.

EVADNE. ASPATIA. DULA, and other Ladies.
Evad. Would thou couldst instil
Some of thy mirth into Aspatia!

[To DULA.

Asp. It were a timeless smile should prove my cheek:
It were a fitter hour for me to laugh,
When at the altar the religious priest
Were pacifying the offended powers

With sacrifice, than now. This should have been
My right, and all your hands have been employ'd

In giving me a spotless offering

Το young Amintor's bed, as we are now
For you. Pardon, Evadne: would my worth
Were great as yours, or that the King, or he,
Or both, thought so! Perhaps he found me
worthless :

But till he did so, in these ears of mine,

These credulous ears, he poured the sweetest words That art or love could frame.

Evad. Nay, leave this sad talk, madam.

Asp. Would I could! then should I leave the cause.
Lay a garland on my hearse of the dismal yew.
Evad. That's one of your sad songs, madam.
Asp. Believe me, 'tis a very pretty one.
Evad. How is it, madam ?

Asp. Lay a garland on my hearse of the dismal yew;
Maidens, willow branches bear; say I died true.

My love was false, but I was firm from my hour of birth:

Upon my buried body lay lightly, gentle earth!

Madam, good night. May no discontent

Grow 'twixt your love and you! but, if there do, Inquire of me, and I will guide your moan; Teach you an artificial way to grieve, To keep your sorrow waking. Love your lord No worse than I: but, if you love so well, Alas, you may displease him! so did I. This is the last time you shall look on me.Ladies, farewell. As soon as I am dead, Come all and watch one night about my Bring each a mournful story and a tear, To offer at it when I go to earth: With flattering ivy clasp my coffin round ; Write on my brow my fortune; let my Be borne by virgins, that shall sing by course The truth of maids and perjuries of men. Evad. Alas, I pity thee!

hearse

bier

;

[AMINTOR enters.

Asp. Go, and be happy in your lady's love.

[To AMINTOr. May all the wrongs that you have done to me Be utterly forgotten in my death! I'll trouble you no more; yet I will take A parting kiss, and will not be denied.

[Kisses AMINTOR.

You'll come, my lord, and see the virgins weep
When I am laid in earth, though you yourself
Can know no pity. Thus I wind myself
Into this willow garland, and am prouder
That I was once your love, though now refus'd,
Than to have had another true to me.-

ASPATIA wills her Maidens to be sorrowful, because she is so.
ASPATIA. ANTIPHILA. OLYMPIAS.

Asp. Come, let's be sad, my girls.

That downcast of thine eye, Olympias, Shows a fine sorrow. Mark, Antiphila : Just such another was the nymph Enone, When Paris brought home Helen. Now, a tear; And then thou art a piece expressing fully The Carthage queen, when from a cold sea rock, Full with her sorrow, she tied fast her eyes To the fair Trojan ships; and, having lost them, Just as thine eyes do, down stole a tear.-Antiphila, What would this wench do, if she were Aspatia? Here she would stand, till some more pitying god Turn'd her to marble.-'Tis enough, my wench.— Show me the piece of needle-work you wrought. Ant. Of Ariadne, madam?

Asp. Yes, that piece.—

This should be Theseus; h'as a cozening face.-
You meant him for a man?

Ant. He was so, madam.

Asp. Why, then, 'tis well enough.-Never look back; You have a full wind and a false heart, Theseus.—