The light with a new fashion; which becomes them,
Like apes disfigur'd with the attires of men.

K. Hen. No question they much wrong their real worth,
In affectation of outlandish scum;

But they have faults, and we more: they foolish proud,
To jet in other's plumes so haughtily;

We proud, that they are proud of foolery,

Holding our worths more complete for their vaunts."

Bussy has not been long at court, where he conducts himself with the most consummate effrontery, before he involves himself in a quarrel with three courtiers, L'Anou, Barrisor, and Pyrhot. He himself is backed by two others, Brisac and Melynell, and a fierce duel ensues, in which all except Bussy are slain. The author puts a very animated, though somewhat exaggerated description of the fight into the mouth of a messenger. The following is an extract:

"So Barrisor (advis'd)

Advanc'd his naked rapier 'twixt both sides,
Ripp'd up the quarrel, and compar'd six lives,
Then laid in balance with six idle words;
Offer'd remission and contrition too;
Or else, that he and D'Ambois might conclude
The others' dangers. D'Ambois lik'd the last :
But Barrisor's friends (being equally engag'd
In the main quarrel) never would expose
His life alone, to that they all deserv'd.
And for the other offer of remission,
D'Ambois (that like a laurel put in fire,

Sparkled and spit) did much, much more than scorn
That his wrong should incense him so like chaff,
To go so soon out; and, like lighted paper,
Approve his spirit at once both fire and ashes.
So drew they lots, and in them fates appointed,
That Barrisor should fight with fiery D'Ambois;
Pyrhot with Melynell; with Brisac, L'Anou:
And then, like flame and powder, they commixt,
So sprightly, that I wish'd they had been spirits,
That the ne'er-shutting wounds they needs must open,
Might, as they open'd, shut and never kill.
But D'Ambois' sword that lighten'd as it flew,
Shot, like a pointed comet, at the face

Of manly Barrisor; and there it stuck:

Thrice pluck'd he at it, and thrice drew on thrusts
From him, that of himself was free as fire;

Who thrust still as he pluck'd, yet (past belief!)
He, with his subtle eye, hand, body, 'scap'd;
At last the deadly-biting point tugg'd off,
On fell his yet undaunted foe so fiercely,
That, only made more horrid with his wound,
Great D'Ambois shrunk, and gave a little ground;
But soon return'd, redoubled in his danger,
And at the heart of Barrisor seal'd his anger :
Then, as in Arden I have seen an oak

Long shook with tempests, and his lofty top
Bent to his root, which being at length made loose,
Even groaning with his weight, he 'gan to nod
This way and that, as loath his curled brows,
Which he had oft wrap'd in the sky with storms,
Should stoop, and yet his radical fibres burst.
Storm-like he fell, and hid the fear-cold earth.
So fell stout Barrisor, that had stood the shocks
Of ten set battles in your highness' war,

'Gainst the sole soldier of the world, Navarre."

The intrigue of D'Ambois with the Countess of Mountsurry, a lady of the strictest honour and highest reputation in the court, next affords an opportunity for displaying the matchless valour of this hero in another point of view. He has long been enamoured of this lady, the wife of one of Henry's courtiers, who is now in her turn taken with the attractions which D'Ambois exhibited before the king. A father confessor acts the convenient personage, and introduces the gallant lover through a trap-door in the dead of the night. The whole of this part of the play, with the exception of absurdly raising up Behemoth, is conducted with an interest and solemn effect not common with our author. Much talent is also shewn in the drawing of Tamyra, an arch hypocrite, who plays the adultress with the precise air of a puritan, and treats with her go-between, the friar, in the strictest language of religion and virtue. She thus dismisses her husband, who informs her he must spend the night

at court.

Farewell, my light and life: but not in him,

In mine own dark love and light, bent, to another.
Alas! that in the wane of our affections

We should supply it with a full dissembling,
In which each youngest maid is grown a mother.
Frailty is fruitful, one sin gets another:
Our loves like sparkles are that brightest shine,
When they go out; most vice shows most divine.

Go, maid, to bed; lend me your book; I'll pray,
Not like yourself, for form. I'll this night trouble
None of your services; make sure the doors,

And call your other fellows to their rest.

Now all ye peaceful regents of the night,
Silently-gliding exhalations,

Languishing winds, and murmuring falls of waters,
Sadness of heart, and ominous secureness,
Enchantments, dead sleeps, all the friends of rest,
That ever wrought upon the life of man,

Extend your utmost strengths; and this charm'd hour
Fix like the centre: make the violent wheels
Of Time and Fortune stand; and great existence,
The maker's treasury, now not seem to be,
To all but my approaching friends and me:
They come; alas! they come; fear, fear and hope
Of one thing, at one instant fight in me:

I love what most I loathe, and cannot live
Unless I compass that which holds my death:
For life's mere death, loving one that loathes me,
And he I love, will loathe me, when he sees

I fly my sex, my virtue, my renown,

To run so madly on a man unknown."

At this point the vault opens and discloses the Friar and Bussy. The lady, though her visitants have come at her express desire, pretends to object to the unseasonableness of the hour, and will not be pacified until an excuse is urged, with which she herself has furnished the friar.

"O father, but at this suspicious hour

You know how apt best men are to suspect us,
In any cause, that makes suspicion's shadow

No greater than the shadow of a hair:

And you're to blame: what though my lord and husband
Lie forth to night? and since I cannot sleep

When he is absent, I sit up to night,

Though all the doors are sure, and all our servants

As sure bound with their sleeps; yet there is one
That wakes above, whose eye no sleep can bind:

He sees through doors, and darkness, and our thoughts;
And therefore as we should avoid with fear,

To think amiss, ourselves before his search;

So should we be as curious to shun

All cause that others think not ill of us.'

Tamyra soon begins to feel the fearfulness of guilt, and thus describes her anxiety to her lover, who endeavours to console her.

"Tam. Before I was secure 'gainst death and hell;

But now am subject to the heartless fear

Of every shadow, and of every breath,

And would change firmness with an aspen-leaf;

So confident a spotless conscience is;

So weak a guilty: oh, the dangerous siege
Sin lays about us! and the tyranny
He exercises when he hath expugn'd.
Like to the horror of a winter's thunder,
Mix'd with a gushing storm, that suffer nothing
To stir abroad on earth, but their own rages,
Is sin, when it hath gathered head above us,
No roof, no shelter, can secure us so;
But he will drown our cheeks in fear or woe.

D'Amb. Sin is a coward, madam, and insults

But on our weakness, in his truest valour;
And so our ignorance tames us, that we let
His shadows fright us; and, like empty clouds,
In which our faulty apprehensions forge
The forms of dragons, lions, elephants,
When they hold no proportion, the sly charms
Of the witch policy makes him like a monster,
Kept only to show men for servile money:
That false hag often paints him in her cloth
Ten times more monstrous than he is in troth:
In three of us, the secret of our meeting,
Is only guarded, and three friends as one
Have ever been esteem'd: as our three powers
That in one soul, are, as in one united:
Why should we fear then? for myself I swear,
Sooner shall torture be the sire to pleasure,
And health be grievous to one long time sick,
your

Than the dear jewel of fame in me,

Be made an outcast to your infamy."

D'Ambois soon deserts the interests of his patron, Monsieur, now grown envious of the favour which the king bestows upon this "Fortune's proud mushroom," as he is called, "shot up in a single night." Bussy, who fears nothing and dares every thing, is not slow in shewing the contempt in which he holds his, former protector. In the following spirited scene, he is represented as entering the stage to Monsieur, as if snatching

at a crown in the air, on which he is intently gazing, thus to mock and ridicule the ambitious desires of the heir to the throne; after which, follows a compact of a most extraordinary description, part of which we quote.

"D'Amb. Oh, royal object!

Mons. Thou dream'st awake: object in th' empty air?
D'Amb. Worthy the brows of Titan, worth his chair.
Mons. Pray thee, what mean'st thou?

D'Amb. See you not a crown

Empale the forehead of the great king Monsieur?
Mons. Oh, fie upon thee!

D'Amb. Prince, that is the subject

Of all these your retir'd and sole discourses.

Mons. Wilt thou not leave that wrongful supposition?
D'Amb. Why wrongful? to suppose the doubtless right
To the succession worth the thinking on.

Mons. Well, leave these jests: how I am overjoyed
With thy wish'd presence, and how fit thou com'st,
For, of mine honour, I was sending for thee.
D'Amb. To what end?

Mons. Only for thy company,

Which I have still in thought, but that's no payment
On thy part made with personal appearance.
Thy absence so long suffered, oftentimes

Puts me in some little doubt thou dost not love me.
Wilt thou do one thing therefore now sincerely?

D'Amb. Ay, any thing, but killing of the king.
Mons. Still in that discord, and ill-taken note?
How most unseasonably thou playest the cuckoo
In this thy fall of friendship?

D'Amb. Then do not doubt,

That there is any act within my nerves,
But killing of the king, that is not yours.

Mons. I will not then; to prove which by my love

Shown to thy virtues, and by all fruits else
Already sprung from that still flourishing tree,

With whatsoever may hereafter spring,

I charge thee utter, even with all the freedom

Both of thy noble nature and thy friendship,

The full and plain state of me in thy thoughts.

D'Amb. What, utter plainly what I think of you 1?
Mons. Plain as truth.

D'Amb. Why this swims quite against the stream of
greatness.

Great men would rather hear their flatteries,