Were cut, and both fell as their spirit flew Upwards; and still hunt honour at the view. And now, of all the six, sole D'Ambois stood Untouch'd, save only with the others' blood. Henry. All slain outright but he? Nuntius. All slain outright but he, Who kneeling in the warm life of his friends, (All freckled with the blood his rapier rain'd) He kiss'd their pale lips, and bade both farewell. False Greatness. As cedars beaten with continual storms, In forming a colossus, if they make him Sourness of countenance, manners' cruelty, Yet differ not from those colossic statues, Which, with heroic forms without o'erspread, Virtue.-Policy. as great seamen using all their wealth Topp'd with all titles, spreading all our reaches, Nick of Time. There is a deep nick in time's restless wheel strikes : As rhetoric, yet works not persuasion, But only is a mean to make it work, So no man riseth by his real merit, But when it cries clink in his Raiser's spirit. Difference of the English and French Courts. HENRY. GUISE. MONTSURRY. Guise. I like not their1 court fashion, it is too crestfallen In all observance, making demigods Of their great nobles; and of their old queen 2 An ever young and most immortal goddess. Mont. No question she's the rarest queen in Europe. Guise. But what 's that to her immortality? Henry. Assure you, cousin Guise, so great a courtier, No queen in Christendom may vaunt herself. Not mix'd with clowneries used in common houses, But, as courts should be, th' abstracts of their kingdoms, In all the beauty, state, and worth they hold ; 1 The English. 2 Queen Elizabeth. Than in her court, her kingdom. Our French court Is a mere mirror of confusion to it: The king and subject, lord and every slave, custom Keep this assur'd confusion from our eyes, 'Tis ne'er the less essentially unsightly. FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM Invocation for secrecy at a love-meeting. Tamyra. Now all the peaceful regents of the night, Silently-gliding exhalations, Languishing winds, and murmuring falls of waters, Sadness of heart, and ominous secureness, Enchantments, dead sleeps, all the friends of rest, That ever wrought upon the life of man, Extend your utmost strengths; and this charm'd hour Fix like the Centre: make the violent wheels At the meeting. Here's nought but whispering with us: like a calm Before a tempest, when the silent air Lays her soft ear close to the earth, to hearken For that she fears is coming to afflict her. 1 D'Ambois, with whom she has an appointment. Invocation for a spirit of intelligence. D'Ambois. I long to know How my dear mistress fares; and be inform'd What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed Lord. Methought the spirit, When he had utter'd his perplex'd presage, Threw his chang'd countenance headlong into clouds ; His forehead bent, as he would hide his face; Where sense is blindest; open now the heart The friar dissuades the husband of Tamyra from revenge. Your wife's offence serves not, were it the worst To sever your eternal bonds and hearts; 1 He wants to know the fate of Tamyra, whose intrigue with him has been discovered by her husband, 2 This calling upon Light and Darkness for information, but, above all, the description of the spirit-"Threw his changed countenance headlong into clouds "-is tremendous, to the curdling of the blood. I know nothing in poetry like it. Nor is it manly, much less husbandly, With churlish strokes, or beastly odds of strength; BUSSY D'AMBOIS HIS REVENGE, BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 1613. Plays and Players. Guise. I would have these things Brought upon stages, to let mighty misers See all their grave and serious miseries play'd, As once they were in Athens, and old Rome. Clermont. Nay, we must now have nothing brought on stages But puppetry, and pied ridiculous antics : Men thither come to laugh, and feed fool-fat, Check at all goodness there, as being profan'd: When wheresoever Goodness comes, she makes The place still sacred, though with other feet Never so much 'tis scandal'd and polluted. Let me learn any thing that fits a man, In any stables shown, as well as stages.— Baligny. Why? is not all the world esteem'd a stage? Clermont. Yes, and right worthily; and stages too Have a respect due to them, if but only 1 The thunderbolt. |