Lady P. Burnt silk, and amber: You have muscadel Good in the house- Volp. You will not drink, and part? Lady P. No, fear not that. I doubt, we shall not get Some English saffron, half a dram would serve; Your sixteen cloves, a little musk, dried mints, Bugloss, and barley-meal Volp. She's in again! Before I feign'd diseases, now I have one. [Aside. Lady P. And these applied with a right scarlet cloth." Volp. Another flood of words! a very torrent! [Aside. Lady P. Shall I, sir, make you a poultice? Volp. No, no, no, I'm very well, you need prescribe no more. Lady P. I have a little studied physic; but now, I'm all for music, save, in the forenoons, An hour or two for painting. I would have A lady, indeed, to have all, letters and arts, louder they scream.-But is this true of grass-hoppers? Cicada and Ter is not a grass-hopper, for the poets describe it as sitting and singing on trees: however, the common translations must excuse our poet." This is certainly not our grass-hopper, which is the locust. It is to be wished that we could adopt some other name for the foreign insect, to prevent confusion: cigale or chicale would serve; though, indeed, tettix is as good as either. Both Ray and Chandler witnessed the singing of the cicada, the one in Italy, and the other in Greece: they do not speak of it with much rapture; and, to say the truth, a more tiresome annoying sound cannot well be heard. See the Poetaster, Vol. II. p. 543. 5 And these applied with a right scarlet cloth.] The virtues of a right scarlet cloth were once held so extraordinary, that Dr. John Gaddesden, by wrapping a patient in scarlet, cured him of the small-pox, without leaving so much as one mark in his face: and he commends it for an excellent method of cure: Capiatur scarletum, et involvatur variolosus totaliter, sicut ego feci, et est WHAL. bona cura. Be able to discourse, to write, to paint, Volp. The poet As old in time as Plato, and as knowing, Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine? Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all. [Aside. Lady P. I think I have two or three of them about me. Volp. The sun, the sea, will sooner both stand still Than her eternal tongue! nothing can 'scape it. [Aside. 6 When there is concent.] i. e. agreement or harmony, a Platonic expression. 7 The poet As old in time as Plato, and as knowing, Says that your highest female grace is silence.] The poet perhaps is Sophocles, Γυναιξι κοσμον ἡ σιγη φερει. Or Euripides, whom the Oracle pronounced the wiser, Γυναικι γαρ σιγη τε, και το σωφρονειν Καλλισον. This is Upton's note, though fathered, as usual, by Whalley. Jonson, however, whose reading was far more extensive than Upton suspected, alludes to a passage in Libanius. (Declam. vi.) Συ δε, ει μη εμε, αλλα κ αν τον σοφωτατον ποιητην αισχύνθητι, λέγοντα, Γυναι, γυναιξι κοσμον ἡ σιγη φέρει. x. T. a. As what follows in the rhetorician, sufficiently demonstrates. 3. Lady P. Here's Pastor FidoVolp. Profess obstinate silence; That's now my safest. Lady P. All our English writers, I mean such as are happy in the Italian, [Aside. Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly; He has so modern and facile a vein, Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear! Volp. Alas, my mind's perturb'd. Lady P. Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves, Make use of our philosophy- • Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he, In days of sonnetting, trusted them with much:] Lady Would-be is perfectly correct, both in what she says here of Petrarch, and above of Guarini. The Pastor Fido was plundered without mercy, or judgment: yet the theft was not unhappy; for though much poor conceit, and unnatural passion was thus introduced among us, many graces of expression, and delicacies of feeling accompanied them, which in the gradual improvement of taste, now first become an object of concern, enriched the language with beauties, which have not yet lost their power to charm. To Petrarch we are still more indebted-though the coarse and wholesale manner in which he was at first copied gave occasion to the well-merited reproofs of our early satirists. Thus Hall, "Or filch whole pages at a clap for need, Again: ❝ Or an 'hos ego' from old Petrarch's spright, Unto a plagiary sonnet-wight," &c. Volp. Oh me! Lady P. And as we find our passions do rebel, Encounter them with reason, or divert them, By giving scope unto some other humour Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies, There's nothing more doth overwhelm the judg ment, And cloud the understanding, than too much Of these same outward things, into that part, Volp. Now, the spirit Of patience help me! Lady P. Come, in faith, I must [Aside. Visit you more a days; and make you well: Volp. My good angel save me! [Aside. Lady P. There was but one sole man in all the world, With whom I e'er could sympathise; and he course, An't be but only, sir, to bring you asleep, Volp. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! Lady P. For we were coætanei, and brought up Volp. Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me! 3. Rid me of this my torture, quickly, there; The bells, in time of pestilence, ne'er made A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce Another woman, such a hail of words She has let fall. For hell's sake, rid her hence. Mos. Has she presented? Volp. O, I do not care; I'll take her absence, upon any price, With any loss. Mos. Madam Lady P. I have brought your patron I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight, • The Cock-pit comes not near it.] The Cock-pit! Had Jonson forgot that he was now in Venice?-But, perhaps, he saw no impropriety in giving this name to a theatre there. The Cockpit was one of our earliest theatres, and from the allusion in the text, as well as from many others which occur in our old drama. tists, it may be collected that it was frequented by the lowest and most disorderly of the people. After all, Venice was not much injured :—for Coryat, who was there about this time, |