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Damon.

SONG.

Celimena, of my heart

None shall e'er bereave you:
If, with your good leave, I may
Quarrel with you once a day,
I will never leave you.

Celimena. Passion's but an empty name,
Where respect is wanting:
Damon, you mistake your aim;

Hang your heart, and burn your flame,
If you must be ranting.

Damon. Love as dull and muddy is,
As decaying liquor:
Anger sets it on the lees,
And refines it by degrees,
Till it works the quicker.

Celimena. Love by quarrels to beget

Damon.

Wisely you endeavour;

With a grave physician's wit,
Who, to cure an ague fit,
Put me in a fever.

Anger rouses love to fight,

And his only bait is,

'Tis the spur to dull delight,
And is but an eager bite,
When desire at height is.

Celimena. If such drops of heat can fall
In our wooing weather;

VOL. III.

If such drops of heat can fall,
We shall have the devil and all
When we come together.

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Wild. Your judgment, gentlemen; a man, or a maid?

Bel. An you make no better harmony after you are married, than you have before, you are the miserablest couple in Christendom.

Wild. "Tis no great matter; if I had had a good voice, she would have spoiled it before to-morrow. Bel. When Maskall has married Beatrix, you may learn of her.

Mask. You shall put her life into a lease, then. Wild. Upon condition, that when I drop into your house from hunting, I may set my slippers at your door, as a Turk does at a Jew's, that you may not

enter.

Theo. And while you refresh yourself within, he shall wind the horn without.

Mask. I'll throw up my lease first.

Bel. Why, thou wouldst not be so impudent, to marry Beatrix for thyself only?

Beat. For all his ranting and tearing now, I'll pass my word, he shall degenerate into as tame and peaceable a husband, as a civil woman would wish to have.

Enter Don MELCHOR, with a Servant.

Mel. Sir

Alon. I know what you would say, but your discovery comes too late now.

Mel. Why, the ladies are found.

Aur. But their inclinations are lost, I can assure you.

Jac. Look you, sir, there goes the game: Your plate-fleet is divided; half for Spain, and half for England.

Theo. You are justly punished for loving two.

Mel. Yet I have the comfort of a cast lover: I will think well of myself, and despise my mistresses. [Exit.

DANCE.

Bel. Enough, enough; let's end the carnival abed. Wild. And for these gentlemen, whene'er they try, May they all speed as soon, and well as I.

[Exeunt.

My part being small, I have had time to-day,
To mark your various censures of our play.
First, looking for a judgment or a wit,

Like Jews, I saw them scattered through the pit;
And where a knot of smilers lent an ear

To one that talked, I knew the foe was there.
The club of jests went round; he, who had none,
'Borrowed o'the next, and told it for his own.
Among the rest, they kept a fearful stir,
In whispering that he stole the Astrologer;
And said, betwixt a French and English plot,
He eased his half-tired muse, on pace and trot.
Up starts a Monsieur, new come o'er, and warm
In the French stoop, and the pull-back o'the arm;
Morbleu, dit il, and cocks, I am a rogue,
But he has quite spoiled the feigned Astrologue.
'Pox, says another, here's so great a stir
With a son of a whore farce that's regular,
A rule, where nothing must decorum shock!
Damme, 'tis as dull, as dining by the clock.
An evening! Why the devil should we be vext,
Whether he gets the wench this night or next?
When I heard this, I to the poet went,
Told him the house was full of discontent,
And asked him what excuse he could invent.
He neither swore or stormed, as poets do,
But, most unlike an author, vowed 'twas true;

Yet said, he used the French like enemies,

And did not steal their plots, but made them prize.
But should he all the pains and charges count
Of taking them, the bill so high would mount,
That, like prize-goods, which through the office come,
He could have had them much more cheap at home.
He still must write; and, banquier-like, each day
Accept new bills, and he must break, or pay.
When through his hands such sums must yearly run,
You cannot think the stock is all his own.
His haste his other errors might excuse,
But there's no mercy for a guilty muse;
For, like a mistress, she must stand or fall,
And please you to a height, or not at all.

1

TYRANNIC LOVE;

OR, THE

ROYAL MARTYR.

A

TRAGEDY,

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