Cal. Welcome, O poison, physic against lust,
Thou wholesome medicine to a constant blood;
Thou rare apothecary that canst keep
My chastity preserved within this box
Of tempting dust, this painted earthen pot
That stands upon the stall of the white soul,
To set the shop out like a flatterer,

To draw the customers of sin : come, come,
Thou art no poison, but a diet drink
To moderate my blood: white-innocent wine,
Art thou made guilty of my death? Oh no,
For thou thyself art poison'd: take me hence,
For innocence shall murder innocence. [Drinks.
Ter. Hold, hold, thou shalt not die, my bride, my
wife.

O stop that speedy messenger of death; O let him not run down that narrow path Which leads unto thy heart, nor carry news To thy removing soul that thou must die. Cal. 'Tis done already, the spiritual court Is breaking up; all offices discharg'd, My soul removes from this weak standing-house Of frail mortality: dear father, bless Me now and ever: dearer man, farewell; I jointly take my leave of thee and life; Go, tell the king thou hast a constant wife. Fath. Smiles on my cheeks arise

To see how sweetly a true virgin dies.

[The beauty and force of this scene are much diminished to the reader of the entire play, when he comes to find that this solemn preparation is but a sham contrivance of the father's, and the potion which Calestina swallows nothing more than a sleeping draught; from the effects of which she is to awake in due time, to the surprise of her husband, and the great mirth and edification of the King and his courtiers.-As Hamlet says, they do but "poison in jest." The sentiments are worthy of a real martyrdom, and an Appian sacrifice in earnest.]

FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM
THE SAME.1

Horace. What could I do, out of a just revenge,
But bring them to the stage? they envy me,
Because I hold more worthy company.

Demetrius. Good Horace, no; my cheeks do blush
for thine,

As often as thou speak'st so.

Where one true

And nobly-virtuous spirit for thy best part
Loves thee, I wish one ten ev'n from my heart.
I make account I put up as deep share

In any good man's love, which thy worth owns,
As thou thyself; we envy not to see

Thy friends with bays to crown thy poesy.
No, here the gall lies; we, that know what stuff
Thy very heart is made of, know the stalk
On which thy learning grows, and can give life
To thy (once-dying) baseness, yet must we
Dance antics on thy paper.

Crispinus. This makes us angry, but not envious.
No; were thy wrap'd soul put in a new mould,
I'd wear thee as a jewel set in gold.

THE HONEST WHORE, A COMEDY:
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Hospital for Lunatics.

THERE are of mad men, as there are of tame,
All humour'd not alike. We have here some

1 In this comedy, Ben Jonson, under the name of Horace, is reprehended, in retaliation of his "Poetaster;" in which he had attacked two of his brother dramatists, probably Marston and Decker, under the name of Crispinus and Demetrius.

So apish and fantastick, play with a feather; And, though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image

So blemish'd and defaced, yet do they act

Such antick and such pretty lunacies,

That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile.
Others again we have, like hungry lions,
Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies.-

Patience.

Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace:
Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven;
It makes men look like gods.-The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him, was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit,
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.

THE SECOND PART OF THE HONEST

WHORE.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

BELLAFRONT, a reclaimed harlot, recounts some of the miseries of her profession.

LIKE an ill husband, though I knew the same
To be my undoing, followed I that game.
Oh, when the work of lust had earn'd my bread,
To taste it how I trembled, lest each bit,
Ere it went down, should choke me chewing it!
My bed seem'd like a cabin hung in hell,
The bawd hell's porter, and the liquorish wine
The pander fetch'd, was like an easy fine,
For which, methought, I leased away my soul,
And often times even in my quaffing-bowl

Thus said I to myself, I am a whore,

And have drunk down thus much confusion more. when in the street

A fair young modest damsel 1 I did meet
She seem'd to all a dove, when I pass'd by,
And I to all a raven: every eye

That followed her, went with a bashful glance;
At me each bold and jeering countenance
Darted forth scorn: to her, as if she had been
Some tower unvanquished, would they vail,
'Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail.

She, crown'd with reverend praises, passed by them, I, though with face mask'd, could not scape the hem,

For, as if Heaven had set strange marks on whores,
Because they should be pointing stocks to man,
Drest up in civilest shape, a courtezan,

Let her walk saint-like, noteless, and unknown,
Yet she 's betray'd by some trick of her own.

1 This simple picture of honour and shame, contrasted without violence, and expressed without immodesty, is worth all the strong lines against the harlot's profession, with which both Parts of this play are offensively crowded. A satirist is always to be suspected, who, to make vice odious, dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective gust. But so near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out sinner is sometimes found to make the best declaimer against sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions which in his unregenerate state served to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a moralist will serve him (a little turned) to expose the enormity of those appetites in other men. No one will doubt, who read Marston's Satires, that the author in some part of his life must have been something more than a theorist in vice. Have we never heard an old preacher in the pulpit display such an insight into the mystery of ungodliness, as made us wonder with reason how a good man came by it? When Cervantes with such proficiency of fondness dwells upon the Don's library, who sees not that he has been a great reader of books of knight errantry ? perhaps was at some time of his life in danger of falling into those very extravagances which he ridicules so happily in his hero?

The happy man.

He that makes gold his wife, but not his whore,
He that at noonday walks by a prison door,
He that i' th' sun is neither beam nor moat,
He that's not mad after a petticoat,

He for whom poor men's curses dig no grave,
He that is neither lord's nor lawyer's slave,
He that makes This his sea and That his shore,
He that in 's coffin is richer than before,

He that counts Youth his sword, and Age his staff,
He whose right hand carves his own epitaph,
He that upon his death-bed is a swan,

And dead, no crow, he is a Happy Man.

[The turn of this is the same with Iago's definition of a Deserving Woman: "She that was ever fair and never proud," &c. The matter is superior.]

WESTWARD HOE, A COMEDY:
BY THOMAS DECKER AND JOHN WEBSTER.

Pleasure, the general pursuit.

SWEET Pleasure!

Delicious Pleasure! earth's supremest good,
The spring of blood, though it dry up our blood.
Rob me of that (though to be drunk with pleasure,
As rank excess even in best things is bad,
Turns man into a beast), yet that being gone,
A horse and this (the goodliest shape) all one.
We feed, wear rich attires, and strive to cleave
The stars with marble towers; fight battles;
spend

Our blood, to buy us names; and in iron hold
Will we eat roots, to imprison fugitive gold: