With the Prince Ferdinand, unless I know it.— [Exeunt Servants. In this distraction he may reveal Yond's my lingering consumption: Julia. How now, my lord! What ails you? Card. Nothing. Julia. Oh, you are much alter'd: Come, I must be your secretary, and remove This lead from off your bosom: what's the matter? Card. I may not tell you. Julia. Are you so far in love with sorrow You cannot part with part of it? or think you I cannot love your grace when you are sad As well as merry? or do you suspect I, that have been a secret to your heart These many winters, cannot be the same Card. Satisfy thy longing, The only way to make thee keep my counsel Is, not to tell thee. Julia. Tell your echo this, Or flatterers, that, like echoes, still report What they hear though most imperfect, and not Bos. That I might find a great man like yourself, Not out of his wits as the Lord Ferdinand, Card. I'll have thee hew'd in pieces. Bos. Make not yourself such a promise of that life Which is not yours to dispose of. Card. Who plac'd thee here? Bos. Her lust, as she intended. Card. Very well: Now you know me for your fellow-murderer. Bos. And wherefore should you lay fair marble colours Upon your rotten purposes to me? Unless you imitate some that do plot great treasons, And when they have done, go hide themselves i' the graves Of those were actors in't? Card. No more; there is A fortune attends thee. Bos. Shall I go sue to Fortune any longer? "Tis the fool's pilgrimage. Card. I have honours in store for thee. Bos. There are a many ways that conduct to seeming honour, And some of them very dirty ones. Thy melancholy. The fire burns well; Card. Take up that body. Bos. I think shall Shortly grow the common bier for churchyards Card. I will allow thee some dozen of attendants To aid thee in the murder. Bos. Oh, by no means. Physicians that apply horse-leeches to any rank swelling use to cut off their tails, that the blood may run through them the faster. Let me have no train when I go to shed blood, lest it make me have a greater when I ride to the gallows. Card. Come to me after midnight, to help to remove That body to her own lodging. I'll give out She died o' the plague; 'twill breed the less inquiry After her death. Bos. Where's Castruccio, her husband? Bos. Believe me, you have done a very happy Card. Fail not to come. There is the master- Of our lodgings; and by that you may conceive Bos. You shall find me ready. [Exit CARDINAL. Nothing so dangerous! I must look to my In such slippery ice-pavements men had need The precedent's here afore me. How this man Security some men call the suburbs of hell, Haunts me. There, there!-'Tis nothing but my O Penitence, let me truly taste thy cup, ACT V-SCENE III. Enter ANTONIO and DELIO. [Exit. Than time: take time for't; be mindful of thy Echo. Be mindful of thy safety. Make scrutiny throughout the passes Echo. Oh, fly your fate! Del. Hark! the dead stones seem to have pity on you, And give you good counsel. Ant. Echo, I will not talk with thee, For thou art a dead thing. Echo. Thou art a dead thing. Ant. My duchess is asleep now, And her little ones, I hope sweetly. O Heaven, Echo. Never see her more. Ant. I mark'd not one repetition of the echo But that; and on the sudden a clear light Presented me a face folded in sorrow. Del. Your fancy merely. Ant. Come, I'll be out of this ague, I will not henceforth save myself by halves; Del. Your own virtue save you! Del. Yond's the cardinal's window. This for- Contempt of pain, that we may call our own. tification Grew from the ruins of an ancient abbey; Ant. I do love these ancient ruins. bones Till doomsday; but all things have their end: men, Must have like death that we have. Echo. Like death that we have. Del. Now the echo hath caught you. ACT V.-SCENE IV. [Exeunt. Enter CARDINAL, PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, and GRISOLAN. Card. You shall not watch to-night by the His grace is very well recover'd. Card. Oh, by no means; The noise, and change of object in his eye, Pes. So, sir; we shall not. Card. Nay, I must have you promise Mal. Neither. Card. It may be, to make trial of your promise, Mal. If your throat were cutting, I'd not come at you, now I have protested Card. Why, I thank you. Gris. 'Twas a foul storm to-night. Rod. The Lord Ferdinand's chamber shook Mal. 'Twas nothing but pure kindness in the To rock his own child. [Exeunt all except the CARDINAL. Card. The reason why I would not suffer these About my brother, is, because at midnight may with better privacy convey Julia's body to her own lodging. Oh, my conscience! I would pray now; but the devil takes away For having any confidence in prayer. To fetch the body. When he hath serv'd my Enter BOSOLA. [Exit. Bos. Ha! 'twas the cardinal's voice; I heard Bosola and my death. Listen; I hear one's Enter FERDINAND. Ferd. Strangling is a very quiet death. Ferd. What say to that? whisper softly; do We value not desert nor Christian breath, Enter ANTONIO and Servant. Serv. Here stay, sir, and be confident, I pray: I'll fetch you a dark lantern. [Exit. Ant. Could I take him at his prayers, There were hope of pardon. Bos. Fall right, my sword! [Stabs him.1 I'll not give thee so much leisure as to pray. Ant. Oh, I am gone! Thou hast ended a long suit In a minute. Bos. What art thou? Ant. A most wretched thing, That only have thy benefit in death, To appear myself. Re-enter Servant with a Lantern. Serv. Where are you, sir? Ant. Very near my home.-Bosola! Bos. Smother thy pity; thou art dead else.- The man I would have sav'd 'bove mine own life! Which way please them.-O good Antonio, I'll whisper one thing in thy dying ear 1 Under the belief that he is the cardinal. Bos. Break, heart! Ant. And let my son fly the courts of princes. Bos. Thou seem'st to have lov'd Antonio? To have reconcil'd him to the cardinal. Take him up, if thou tender? thine own life, I have this cardinal in the forge already; I will not imitate things glorious, No more than base; I'll be mine own example.- He ACT V-SCENE V. Enter CARDINAL with a Book. [Exeunt. Card. I am puzzled in a question about hell: And yet it shall not burn all men alike. Enter BOSOLA, and Servant bearing ANTONIO's Thou look'st ghastly: Now, art thou come? There sits in thy face some great determination Bos. Thus it lightens into action: I am come to kill thee. Card. Ha!-Help! our guard!' Bos. Thou art deceiv'd; They are out of thy howling. Card. Hold; and I will faithfully divide Bos. Thy prayers and proffers Are both unseasonable. Card. Raise the watch! we are betray'd! I'll suffer your retreat to Julia's chamber, Card. Help! we are betray'd! Unless some rescue! Gris. He doth this pretty well; But it will not serve to laugh me out of mine honour. Card. The sword's at my throat! Rod. You would not bawl so loud then. To bed: he told us thus much aforehand. The accent of the voice sounds not in jest: Rod. Let's follow him aloof, [Exit above. And note how the cardinal will laugh at him. [Exeunt above, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, and GRISOLAN. Bos. There's for you first, 'Cause you shall not unbarricade the door To let in rescue. [Kills the Servant. Card. What cause hast thou to pursue my life? Bos. Look there. Card. Antonio! Bos. Slain by my hand unwittingly. Pray, and be sudden: when thou kill'dst thy sister, Thou took'st from Justice her most equal balance, And left her naught but her sword. Card. O mercy! Bos. Now it seems thy greatness was only outward; For thou fall'st faster of thyself than calamity Can drive thee. I'll not waste longer time; there! Card. Thou hast hurt me. Bos. Again! [Stabs him. Card. Shall I die like a leveret, Without any resistance ?-Help, help, help! I am slain! Enter FERDINAND. Ferd. The alarum! give me a fresh horse; My brother fight upon the adverse party! There flies your ransom. I suffer now for what hath former been: Ferd. Now you're brave fellows. Cæsar's fortune was harder than Pompey's; Cæsar died in the arms of prosperity, Pompey at the feet of disgrace. You both died in the field. The pain's nothing: pain many times is taken away with the apprehension of greater, as the toothache with the sight of a barber that comes to pull it out: there's philosophy for you. Bos. Now my revenge is perfect.-Sink, thou [Kills FERDINAND. main cause Of my undoing!-The last part of my life Ferd. Give me some wet hay; I am brokenwinded. Card. Thou hast thy payment too. Bos. Yes, I hold my weary soul in my teeth; 'Tis ready to part from me. I do glory That thou, which stood'st like a huge pyramid Begun upon a large and ample base, Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing. Enter PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, and • GRISOLAN. Pes. How now, my lord! Mal. Oh sad disaster! Bos. Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murder'd Poison'd by this man; and lastly for myself, Much 'gainst mine own good nature, yet i' the end Pes. How now, my lord! He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling Here i' the rushes. And now, I pray, let me [Dies. Pes. How fatally, it seems, he did withstand His own rescue! Mal. Thou wretched thing of blood, How came Antonio by his death? Bos. In a mist; I know not how: We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves, [Dies. Pes. The noble Delio, as I came to the palace, Told me of Antonio's being here, and show'd me A pretty gentleman, his son and heir. Enter DELIO, and ANTONIO's Son. Mal. Oh, sir, you come too late! Was arm'd for't ere I came. Let us make noble use Of this great ruin; and join all our force Leave no more fame behind 'em, than should one 1 the rushes-i.e. on the rushes that then covered the floor in lieu of a carpet.-W. HAZLITT. JOHN MARSTON. [IF we may trust Oldys, this dramatist was sprung from a Shropshire family, but the date of his birth is unknown. According to Anthony-à-Wood, Marston was a student in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was admitted Bachelor of Arts February 23d, 1592. Mr. Halliwell, editor of Marston's works, thinks this a mistake, and conjectures that the dramatist was another John Marston, mentioned by Wood, who was son of a father of both names, of the city of Coventry, Esquire,' who 'became either a commoner or a gentlemancommoner of Brasen-nose College in 1591, and in the beginning of February 1593 he was admitted Bachelor of Arts, as the eldest son of an esquire, and soon after completing that degree by determination, he went his way, and improved his learning in other faculties,'— alluding probably, says Mr. Halliwell, to his poetical and dramatic efforts. It is supposed that it was Marston's father who was appointed Lecturer of the Middle Temple in 1592 ; and according to Oldys, the dramatist married Mary, daughter of the Rev. William Wilkes, chaplain to James I., and rector of St. Martin's, Wiltshire. In Ben Jonson's conversations with Drummond, it is stated that 'Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies,' which Gifford thinks is a humorous allusion to the sombre air of Marston's comedies, as contrasted with the cheerful tone of his father-in-law's discourses. Marston died in June 1634, and was buried near his father in the Temple Church in London, 'under the stone which hath written on it, Oblivioni Sacrum.' For these meagre statements concerning the life of Marston we are indebted to the painstaking researches of Mr. J. O. Halliwell, who has edited an excellent edition of the dramatist's works. Marston appears to have been at one time an intimate friend and ardent admirer of Ben Jonson, but having satirized Ben in two of his plays, a quarrel took place, Jonson replying with vigour in his Poetaster. We learn from Drummond that Jonson had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage, in his youth given to venerie.' 'Were more known of the literary history of the period,' says Mr. Halliwell, 'it would perhaps be found that as there was probably more than one quarrel between these dramatists, so also was there more than one reconciliation.' Marston, along with Jonson and Chapman, had a hand in Eastward Hoe. His principal dramas are The Scourge of Villany (printed 1598); Antonio and Mellida (1602), the second part of which, Antonio's Revenge, was published the same year; The Malcontent (1604); The Dutch Courtezan (1605); Parasitaster (1606); Sophonisba (1606); What You Will (1607); The Insatiate Countess (1613). Besides these, he wrote a number of poems, chiefly of a satirical cast, nearly all of which, as well as many of his dramas, are characterized by coarseness and impurity of language. Indeed his nature appears to have been essentially coarse and bitter; and in illustration of this Mr. Collier quotes from a contemporary diary the following anecdote:-'Jo. Marston, the last Christmas, when he danced with Alderman More's wife's daughter, a Spaniard born, fell into a strange commendation of her wit and beauty. When he had done, she thought to pay him home, and told him she thought he was a poet. ""Tis true," said he, "for poets feign and lie; and so did I when I commended your beauty, for you are exceeding foul."" Marston has undoubtedly vigour and originality, and one writer ranks him with Fletcher, Ford, and Massinger; he can be at times pathetic and quaintly humorous; but |