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And lengthen out thy days; his followers gone?
Cupid and Fortune, take you charge of him.
Here thou, my brightest queen, must end thy reign;
Some nine months hence I'll shine on thee again.
[Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

The Court of Autumn.

Enter POMONA, RAYBRIGHT, CUPID, and FORTUNE. Ray. Your entertainments, Autumn's bounteous queen,

Have feasted me with rarities as delicate

As the full growth of an abundant year
Can ripen to my palate.

Pom. They are but courtings

Of gratitude to our dread lord, the Sun,

From whom thou draw'st thy name: the feast of fruits

Cur gardens yield are much too coarse for thee;
Could we contract the choice of nature's plenty
Into one form, and that form to contain
All delicacies which the wanton sense
Would relish, or desire to invent to please it,
The present were unworthy far to purchase
A sacred league of friendship.

Ray. I have rioted

In surfeits of the ear, with various music

Of warbling birds; I have smelt perfumes of roses, And every flower with which the fresh-trimm'd

earth

Is mantled in the Spring could mock my senses

1 I thy wounds will cure,

And lengthen out thy days.] The Sun takes a strange way to lengthen out the days of Summer, by putting an instant end to them. It must be confessed, that the god acts very capriciously in this scene, and that Summer, considering her short stay, is most ungently treated on all sides.--GIFFORT.

VOL. II.-11

With these fine barren lullabies; the Summer
Invited my then ranging eyes to look on
Large fields of ripen'd corn, presenting trifles
Of waterish petty dainties; but my taste
Is only here pleas'd: the other objects claim
The style of formal, these are real bounties.
Pom. We can transcend thy wishes; whom the
creatures

Of every age and quality post, madding,
From land to land and sea to sea, to meet,
Shall wait upon thy nod, Fortune and Cupid.
Love! yield thy quiver and thine arrows up
To this great prince of time; before him, Fortune!
Pour out thy mint of treasures; crown him sovereign
Of what his thoughts can glory to command:
He shall give payment of a royal prize,
To Fortune judgment, and to Cupid eyes.

For. Be a merchant, I will freight thee

With all store that time is bought for.

Cup. Be a lover, I will wait thee

With success in life most sought for. For. Be enamour'd on bright honour,

And thy greatness shall shine glorious.

Cup. Chastity, if thou smile on her,

Shall grow servile, thou victorious.

For. Be a warrior, conquest ever

Shall triumphantly renown thee.

Cup. Be a courtier, beauty never

Shall but with her duty crown thee. For. Fortune's wheel is thine, depose me;

I'm thy slave, thy power has bound me.
Cup. Cupid's shafts are thine, dispose me ;

Love loves love; thy graces wound me.
Both. Live, reign! pity is fame's jewel ;
We obey; oh! be not cruel.

Ray. You ravish me with infinites, and lay
A bounty of more sovereignty and amazement,
Than the Atlas of mortality can support.

Enter, behind, HUMOUR and FOLLY.

Hum. What's here?

Fol. Nay, pray observe.

Ray. Be my heart's empress, build your kingdom there.

Hum. With what an earnestness he compli [ments.]

Ray. Till now my longings were ne'er satisfied, And the desires of my sensual appetite

Were only fed with barren expectations

To what I now am fill'd with.

Pom. These are too little; more are due to him That is the pattern of his father's glory:

Dwell but among us, industry shall strive
To make another artificial nature,

And change all other seasons into ours.

Hum. Shall my heart break? I can contain no

longer.

[Comes forward with FOLLY.

Ray. How fares my lov'd Humour ?

Hum. A little stirr'd;-no matter, I'll be merry; Call for some music-do not;-I'll be melancholy.

Pom. Lady, I hope 't is no neglect of courtesy In us, that so disturbs you; if it rise

From any discontent, reveal the cause;

It shall be soon removed.

Hum. Oh, my heart!—

Help to unlace my gown.-[To RAY.]-I'm a goodly fool

To be thus play'd on.

Pom. Why, madam?

We can be courteous without stain of honour:

Our bounty gives him a welcome free,

But chaste and honourable.

[A flourish.-Shouts within.

Ray. The meaning of this mirth?

Pom. My lord is coming.

Ray. Let us attend to humble our best thanks, For these high favours.

Enter AUTUMN and BACCHANALIAN.

Pom. My dearest lord, according to th' injunction Of your command, I have, with all observance, Given entertainment to this noble stranger.

Aut. The Sun-born Raybright, minion of my love! Let us be twins in heart; thy grandsire's beams Shine graciously upon our fruits and vines. I am his vassal servant, tributary;

And for his sake, the kingdoms I possess

I will divide with thee; thou shalt command
The Lydian Tmolus, and Campanian mounts,
To nod their grape-crown'd heads into thy bowls,
Expressing their rich juice; a hundred grains,
Both from the Beltic and Sicilian fields,
Shall be congested for thy sacrifice,

In Ceres' fane; Tiber shall pay thee apples,
And Sicyon olives; all the choicest fruits
Thy father's heat doth ripen.

Ray. Make me but treasurer

Of your respected favours, and that honour
Shall equal my ambition.

Aut. My Pomona,

Speed to prepare a banquet of all novelties.
This is a day of rest, and we the whiles

Will sport before our friends, and shorten time
With length of wonted revels.

Pom. I obey.

Will 't please you, madam? a retirement

From these extremes, in men more tolerable,

Will better fit our modesties.

Hum. I'll drink,

And be a Bacchanalian-no, I will not.
Enter, I'll follow ;-stay, I'll go before.

1 The terms expressing and congested, which occur in this and the next line but one, are used in their strict Latin senses; the first meaning to press out, the second to keep together. This part of the scene is indeed pretty thickly strewed with classical allusions, some of which, it is presumed, were not intended to bear the test of very exact scholarship.

Pom. Even what Humour pleaseth.

[Exeunt Huм. and Poм.

Aut. Raybright, a health to Phœbus!

[A flourish.-Drinks.

These are the peans which we sing to him,
And yet we wear no bays; our cups are only
Crown'd2 with Lyæus' blood: to him a health!
[A flourish.-Drinks.

Ray. I must pledge that too.

Aut. Now, one other health

To our grand patron, call'd Good-fellowship;
Whose livery all our people hereabout
Are clad in.

Ray. I am for that too.

Aut. 'Tis well;

[Flourish.-Drinks.

Let it go round; and, as our custom is

Of recreations of this nature, join

Your voices, as you drink, in lively notes;
Sing Iös unto Bacchus.

Fol. My father was a French nightingale, and my mother an English wagtail; I was born a cuckoo in the spring, and lost my voice in summer, with laying my eggs in a sparrow's nest: but I'll venture for one:-fill my dish-every one take his own, and when I hold up my finger, off with it.

Aut. Begin.

FOLLY sings.

Cast away care; for he that loves sorrow
Nor lengthens a day, nor can buy him to-morrow:
Money is trash; and he that will spend it,
Let him drink merrily, Fortune will send it.
Merrily, merrily, Oh, ho! ho!

Play it off stiffly, we may not part so.

1 i. e. we wear not the insignia of that deity.

2 A crowned cup is a term by no means unfrequent in our old dramas. Without troubling the reader with classical authorities, it will be sufSicient to observe, that it implies a cup so full of liquor that the contents rise above the brim like a crown. Lyæus is another name for Bacchus.

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