after her confession, I caused to be put out, but kept alive, to confirm what from Giovanni's own mouth you have heard. Now, my lord, what I have done you may judge of; and let your own wisdom be a judge in your own reason.

Car. Peace! first this woman,' chief in these effects,

My sentence is, that forthwith she be ta'en
Out of the city, for example's sake,

There to be burnt to ashes.

Don. 'Tis most just.

Car. Be it your charge, Donado, see it done. Don. I shall.

Vas. What for me? if death, 'tis welcome; I have been honest to the son, as I was to the father.

Car. Fellow, for thee, since what thou didst was done

Not for thyself, being no Italian,

We banish thee for ever; to depart

Within three days: in this we do dispense With grounds of reason, not of thine offence. Vas. 'Tis well; this conquest is mine, and I rejoice that a Spaniard outwent an Italian in revenge. [Exit.

3 First this woman, &c.] What! without hearing her? It is well, however, that some one was at hand to satisfy the Cardinal's fierce love of justice. The sacrifice, it must be confessed, is somewhat like that of the poor bed-rid weaver in Hudibras; and if, of the four who now remain alive upon the stage, three, including his Eminence, had been sentenced to the hurdle with her, few would have thought them too hardly dealt with.

SCENE VI. 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE.

I dare your worst———

235

237

but

wn

t I

wn

[Falls.

[They surround and wound him.

Oh I can stand no longer; feeble arms,
Have you so soon lost strength?

Vas. Now, you are welcome, sir!-Away, my masters, all is done; shift for yourselves, your reward is your own: shift for yourselves.

Band. Away, away!

[Aside to BAND.

Ereunt.

Vas. How do you, my lord? See you this? [pointing to Gro.] how is't?

Sor. Dead; but in death well pleas'd, that I

have liv'd

To see my wrongs reveng'd on that black devil.-
O Vasques, to thy bosom let me give

My last of breath; let not that lecher live-
Oh!-

ese

I

he

1st

Da.

Vas. The reward of peace and rest be with [you], my ever dearest lord and master!

Gio. Whose hand gave me this wound! Vas. Mine, sir: I was your first man; have you enough?

Gio. I thank thee, thou hast dose for me But what I would have else done on myself Art sure thy lord is dead?

Vas. Oh impudent slave!

As sure as I am sure to see thee de

Car. Think on thy life and end, and the

mercy.

Gio. Mercy? why, I have fond Inte

justice.

Car. Take up these slaughter'd bodies, see

them buried;

And all the gold and jewels, or whatsoever,
Confiscate by the canons of the church,
We seize upon to the Pope's proper use.
Rich. (Discovers himself.) Your grace's pardon;
thus long I liv'd disguised,

To see the effect of pride and lust at once
Brought both to shameful ends.

Car. What! Richardetto, whom we thought for dead?

Don. Sir, was it you———

Rich. Your friend.

Car. We shall have time

To talk at large of all; but never yet
Incest and murder have so strangely met.
Of one so young, so rich in nature's store,
Who could not say, TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE?
[Exeunt.

Here, instead of an Epilogue, we have, in the old copy, an applogy for the errors of the press. It forms, as the learned Partridge says, a strange non sequitur; and is, in truth, more captious than logical. As a just compliment, however, to the skill of the performers, and the good taste of Lord Peterborough, it merits preservation. "The general commendation deserved by the actors in the presentment of this tragedy, may easily excuse such faults as are escaped in the printing. A common charity may allow him the ability of spelling, whom a secure confidence assures that he cannot ignorantly err in the application of sense."

It

The remarks on this dreadful story cannot be more appositely terminated, perhaps, than by the following passage from the concluding chapter of Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors. is, as Mr. Lambe observes, “solemn and fine." "As there are many relations (he begins) whereto we cannot assent, and make some doubt thereof, so there are divers others whose verities we

fear, and heartily wish there were no truth therein.”—“ For, of sins heteroclital, and such as want either name or precedent, there is oftimes a sin in their histories. We desire no records of such enormities; sins should be accounted new, that they may be esteemed monstrous. They omit of monstrosity, as they fall from their rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society. The pens of men may sufficiently expatiate without these singularities of villainy; for as they increase the hatred of vice in some, so do they enlarge the theory of wickedness in all. And this is one thing that makes latter ages worse than were the former: for the vicious example of ages past poisons the curiosity of these present, affording a hint of sin unto seduceable spirits, and soliciting those unto the imitation of them, whose heads were never so perversely principled as to invent them. In things of this nature, silence commendeth history; 'tis the veniable part of things lost, wherein there must never rise a Pancirollus, nor remain any register, but that of hell."-p. 414.