virtue, as something which is to be relieved, from the approbation of which relief the spectators are to derive a certain soothing of self-referred satisfaction We turn away from the real essences of things to hunt after their relative shadows, moral duties : whereas, if the truth of things were fairly represented, the relative duties might be safely trusted to themselves, and moral philosophy lose the name of a science.]

the mother of shame and reproach; it is a disreputation that drowns all the other good parts that are in man; it is a disposition to all kind of evil; it is man's most foe; it is a leprosy full of anguish; it is a way that leads unto hell; it is a sea wherein our patience is overwhelmed, our honour is consumed, our lives are ended, and our souls are utterly lost and cast away for ever. The poor man is a kind of money that is not current; the subject of every idle housewife's chat; the offscum of the people; the dust of the street, first trampled under foot and then thrown on the dunghill; in conclusion, the poor man is the rich man's ass; he dineth with the last, fareth of the worst, and payeth dearest : his sixpence will not go so far as a rich man's threepence; his opinion is ignorance; his discretion, foolishness; his suffrage, scorn; his stock upon the common, abused by many and abhorred of all. If he come in company, he is not heard; if any chance to meet him, they seek to shun him; if he advise, though never so wisely, they grudge and murmur at him; if he work miracles, they say he is a witch; if virtuous, that he goeth about to deceive; his venial sin is a blasphemy; his thought is made treason; his cause, be it never so just, it is not regarded; and, to have his wrongs righted, he must appeal to that other life. All men crush him; no man favoureth him; there is no man that will relieve his wants; no man that will comfort him in his miseries; nor no man that will bear him company, when he is all alone, and oppressed with grief. None help him; all hinder him; none give him, all take from him; he is debtor to none, and yet must make payment to all. O, the unfortunate and poor condition of him that is poor, to whom even the very hours are sold, which the clock striketh, and pays custom for the sunshine in August!"

THE WITCH OF EDMONTON, A TRAGICOMEDY:

BY WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, &C.

MOTHER SAWYER (before she turns Witch) alone.

Saw. And why on me? why should the envious world

Throw all their scandalous malice upon me?
'Cause I am poor, deform'd, and ignorant,
And like a bow buckled and bent together,
By some more strong in mischiefs than myself,
Must I for that be made a common sink
For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues
To fall and run into? Some call me Witch,
And being ignorant of myself, they go
About to teach me how to be one: urging
That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so)
Forespeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn,
Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse:
This they enforce upon me; and in part

Make me to credit it.1

BANKS, a Farmer, enters.

Banks. Out, out upon thee, Witch.

Saw. Dost call me Witch?

Banks. I do, Witch, I do : and worse I would, knew I a name more hateful. What makest thou upon my ground?

Saw. Gather a few rotten sticks to warm me.
Banks. Down with them when I bid thee, quickly;
I'll make thy bones rattle in thy skin else.
Saw. You won't, churl, cut-throat, miser: there they

1 This soliloquy anticipates all that Addison has said in the conclusion of the 117th Spectator.

be. Would they stuck cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff

Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. Saw. Dost strike me, slave, curmudgeon? Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps,

And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. Banks. Cursing, thou hag! take that, and that.

[Exit. Saw. Strike, do, and wither'd may that hand and

arm

Whose blows have lamed me, drop from the rotten trunk.

Abuse me! beat me! call me hag and witch!
What is the name, where, and by what art learn'd?
What spells, what charms, or invocations,

May the thing call'd Familiar be purchased?
-I am shunn'd

And hated like a sickness: made a scorn

To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams Talk of Familiars in the shape of mice,

Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what,

That have appear'd, and suck'd, some say, their blood.

But by what means they came acquainted with

them,

I'm now ignorant. Would some power, good or

bad,

Instruct me which way I might be revenged
Upon this churl, I'd go out of myself,
And give this fury leave to dwell within
This ruin'd cottage, ready to fall with age;
Abjure all goodness, be at hate with prayer,
And study curses, imprecations,

Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths,
Or anything that 's ill; so I might work
Revenge upon this miser, this black cur,
That barks, and bites, and sucks the very blood

Of me, and of my credit. 'Tis all one
To be a witch as to be counted one.

She gets a Familiar which serves her in the likeness of a Black Dog. MOTHER SAWYER. Familiar.

Saw. I am dried up

With cursing and with madness; and have yet
No blood to moisten these sweet lips of thine.
Stand on thy hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy,
And rub away some wrinkles on my brow,
By making my old ribs to shrug for joy

Of thy fine tricks. What hast thou done? Let's tickle.

Hast thou struck the horse lame as I bid thee? Famil. Yes, and nipp'd the sucking child.

Saw. Ho, ho, my dainty,

My little pearl! No lady loves her hound,
Monkey, or parakeet, as I do thee.

Famil. The maid has been churning butter nine hours; but it shall not come.

Saw. Let 'em eat cheese and choke.

Famil. I had rare sport

Among the clowns i' th' morrice.

Saw. I could dance

Out o' my skin to hear thee.

That jade, that foul-tongued

But, my curl-pate,

-Nan Ratcliff,

Who, for a little soap lick'd by my sow,

Struck, and almost had lamed it; did not I charge

thee

To pinch that quean to th' heart?

Saw.

Her Familiar absents himself: she invokes him.

-Not see me in three days? I'm lost without my Tomalin; prithee come; Revenge to me is sweeter far than life :

Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings

Revenge comes flying to me: O, my best love! I am on fire, (even in the midst of ice)

Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them. Come then,

my darling,

If in the air thou hover'st, fall upon me
In some dark cloud; and, as I oft have seen
Dragons and serpents in the elements,

Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i' the sea?
Muster up all the monsters from the deep,
And be the ugliest of them: so that my bulch
Show but his swarth cheek to me, let earth cleave,
And break from hell, I care not could I run
Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world,
Up would I blow it, all to find out thee,
Though I lay ruin'd in it.—Not yet come !
I must then fall to my old prayer: sanctibiceter

nomen tuит.

He comes in white.

Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white,
As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love?
Famil. I am dogged, list not to tell thee, yet to
torment thee,

My whiteness puts thee in mind of thy windingsheet.

Saw. Am I near death?

Famil. Be blasted with the news; whiteness is day's footboy, a fore-runner to light, which shows thy old rivell'd face: villanies are stript naked, the witch must be beaten out of her cockpit. Saw. Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? I am at peace with none; 'tis the black colour, Or none, which I fight under: I do not like Thy puritan-paleness.

[Mother Sawyer differs from the hags of Middleton or Shakspeare. She is the plain traditional old woman witch of our