Fable.

Upon a time, Reputation, Love, and Death,
Would travel o'er the world: and 'twas concluded
That they should part, and take three several ways.
Death told them, they should find him in great battles,
Or cities plagued with plagues: Love gives them counsel
To inquire for him 'mongst unambitious shepherds,
Where dowries were not talk'd of; and sometimes,
'Mongst quiet kindred that had nothing left
By their dead parents: Stay, quoth Reputation;
Do not forsake me, for it is my nature,
If once I part from any man I meet,

I am never found again.

Another.

A Salmon, as she swam unto the sea,
Met with a Dog-fish; who encounters her
With his rough language: Why art thou so bold
To mix thyself with our high state of floods?
Being no eminent courtier, but one

That for the calmest and fresh time of the year
Dost live in shallow rivers, rank'st thyself
With silly Smelts and Shrimps :-and darest thou
Pass by our Dog-ship without reverence ?
O (quoth the Salmon) sister, be at peace;
Thank Jupiter we both have past the net.
Our value never can be truly known,
Till in the fisher's basket we be shown:
In the market then my price may be the higher;
Even when I am nearest to the cook and fire.
So to great men the moral may be stretched:

Men oft are valued high when they are most wretched.

THE WHITE DEVIL: OR, VITTORIA COROMBONA, A LADY OF VENICE: A TRAGEDY, BY JOHN WEBSTER'. The arraignment of VITTORIA.-PAULO GIORDANO URSINI, Duke of Brachiano, for the love of VITTORIA COROMBONA, a Venetian lady, and at her suggestion, causes her husband CAMILLO to be murdered. Suspicion falls upon VITTORIA, who is tried at Rome, on a double

1 The author's Dedication to this Play is so modest, yet so conscious of self-merit withal, he speaks so frankly of the deservings of others, and by implication insinuates his own deserts so ingenuously, that I cannot for.

charge of murder and incontinence, in the presence of CARDINAL MONTICELSO, cousin to the deceased CAMILLO; FRANCISCO DE MEDICIS, brother-in-law to BRACHIANO; the Ambassadors of France, Spain, England, &c. As the arraignment is beginning, the Duke confidently

enters the court.

Mon. Forbear, my lord, here is no place assign'd you:
This business, by his holiness, is left

To our examination.

bear inserting it, as a specimen how a man may praise himself gracefully and commend others without suspicion of envy.

"To the Reader.

"In publishing this Tragedy, I do but challenge to myself that liberty which other men have taken before me; not that I affect praise by it, for nos hæc novimus esse nihil; only since it was acted in so open and black a theatre, that it wanted (that which is the only grace and setting-out of a tragedy) a full and understanding auditory; and that, since that time, I have noted, most of the people that come to that play-house resemble those ignorant asses (who visiting stationers' shops, their use is not to inquire for good books, but new books), I present it to the general view with this confidence,

Nec rhonchos metues malignorum

Nec scombris tunicas dabis molestas.

If it be objected this is no true dramatic poem, I shall easily confess it, non potes in nugas dicere plura meas, ipse ego quam dixi; willingly, and not ignorantly, have I faulted. For should a man present, to such an auditory, the most sententious tragedy that ever was written, observing all the critical laws, as height of style, and gravity of person, enrich it with the sententious chorus, and, as it were, enliven death, in the passionate and weighty Nuntius; yet after all this divine rapture, O dura messorum ilia! the breath that comes from the uncapable multitude is able to poison it; and ere it be acted, let the author resolve to fix to every scene this of Horace :

Hac hodie porcis comedenda relinques.

"To those who report I was a long time in finishing this Tragedy, I confess, I do not write with a goose-quill winged with two feathers; and if they will needs make it my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides to Alcestides, a tragic writer: Alcestides objecting that Euripides had only, in three days, composed three verses, whereas himself had written three hundred: Thou tellest truth (quoth he); but here's the difference: thine shall only be read for three days, whereas mine shall continue three ages.

"Detraction is the sworn friend to ignorance: for mine own part, I have ever truly cherished my good opinion of other men's worthy labours, especially of that full and heightened style of Master Chapman, the laboured and understanding works of Master Jonson, the no less worthy composures of the both worthily excellent Master Beaumont and Master Fletcher; and lastly (without wrong last to be named), the right happy and copious industry of Master Shakspeare, Master Decker, and Master

Bra. May it thrive with you!

Fra. A chair there for his lordship.

[Lays a rich gown

Bra. Forbear your kindness; an unbidden guest
Should travel as Dutch women go to church,
Bear their stool with them.

Mon. At your pleasure, sir.

under him.

Stand to the table, gentlewoman.-Now, Signior,
Fall to your plea.

Lawyer. Domine judex, converte oculos in hanc pestem mulierum corruptissimam.

Vit. What's he?

Fra. A lawyer, that pleads against you.

Vit. Pray, my lord, let him speak his usual tongue;
I'll make no answer else.

Fra. Why, you understand Latin.

Vit. I do, sir, but amongst this auditory

Which come to hear my cause, the half or more
May be ignorant in 't.

Mon. Go on, sir.

Vit. By your favour,

I will not have my accusation clouded
In a strange tongue: all this assembly
Shall hear what you can charge me with.

Fra. Signior,

[guage.

You need not stand on 't much; pray, change your lanMon. O, for God's sake! gentlewoman, your credit

Shall be more famous by it.

Law. Well then, have at you.

Vit. I am the mark, sir, I'll give aim to you,

And tell you how near you shoot.

Law. Most literated judges, please your lordships
So to connive your judgements to the view
Of this debauch'd and diversivolent woman;
Who such a concatenation

Of mischief hath effected, that to extirp

The memory of it, must be the consummation
Of her, and her projections.

Heywood, wishing what I write may be read by their light; protesting that, in the strength of mine own judgement, I know them so worthy, that though I rest silent in my own work, yet to most of theirs, I dare (without flattery) fix that of Martial: non norunt hæc monumenta mori."

Vit. What's all this?

Law. Hold your peace!

Exorbitant sins must have exulceration.
Vit. Surely, my lords, this lawyer hath swallow'd
Some apothecaries' bills, or proclamations;
And now the hard and undigestible words
Come up

like stones we use give hawks for physic.
Why, this is Welsh to Latin.

Law. My lords, the woman

Knows not her tropes, nor is perfect

In the academic derivation

Of grammatical elocution.

Fra Sir, your pains

Shall be well spared, and your deep eloquence
Be worthily applauded among those
Which understand you.

Law. My good lord.

Fra. Sir,

Put up your papers in your fustian bag;

[FRANCISCO speaks this as in scorn.

Cry mercy, sir, 'tis buckram, and accept
My notion of your learn'd verbosity.

Law. I most graduatically thank your lordship;

I shall have use for them elsewhere.

[out

Mon. (to VITTORIA.) I shall be plainer with you, and paint Your follies in more natural red and white,

Than that upon your cheek.

Vit. O, you mistake,

You raise a blood as noble in this cheek

As ever was your mother's.

Mon. I must spare you, till proof cry whore to that.
Observe this creature here, my honour'd lords,
A woman of a most prodigious spirit.

Vit. My honourable lord,

It doth not suit a reverend cardinal

To play the lawyer thus.

Mon. O, your trade instructs your language.

You see, my lords, what goodly fruit she seems,
Yet like those apples travellers report

To

grow where Sodom and Gomorrah stood,
I will but touch her, and you straight shall see
She 'll fall to soot and ashes.

Vit. Your envenom'd apothecary should do 't.
Mon. I am resolved,

Were there a second paradise to lose,

This devil would betray it.

Vit. O, poor charity,

Thou art seldom found in scarlet!

Mon. Who knows not how, when several night by night
Her gates were choked with coaches, and her rooms
Outbraved the stars with several kinds of lights;
When she did counterfeit a prince's court

In music, banquets, and most riotous surfeits;
This whore forsooth was holy!

Vit. Ha! whore? what's that?

Mon. Shall I expound whore to you? sure I shall.

I'll give their perfect character. They are first,
Sweetmeats which rot the eater: in man's nostrils
Poison'd perfumes. They are cozening alchymy;
Shipwrecks in calmest weather. What are whores ?
Cold Russian winters, that appear so barren,
As if that nature had forgot the spring.
They are the true material fire of hell.

Worse than those tributes i' the low countries paid,
Exactions upon meat, drink, garments, sleep;
Ay, even on man's perdition, his sin.
They are those brittle evidences of law,
Which forfeit all a wretched man's estate

For leaving out one syllable. What are whores ?
They are those flattering bells have all one tune,
At weddings and at funerals. Your rich whores
Are only treasuries by extortion fill'd,

And emptied by cursed riot. They are worse,
Worse than dead bodies, which are begg'd at the gallows
And wrought upon by surgeons, to teach man
Wherein he is imperfect. What's a whore ?
She's like the gilt counterfeited coin,

Which, whosoe'er first stamps it, brings in trouble
All that receive it.

Vit. This character 'scapes me.

Mon. You, gentlewoman?

Take from all beasts and from all minerals

Their deadly poison

Vit. Well, what then?