For treasure: who e'er knew a Harlot rich?

Or could build by the purchase of her sin

An hospital to keep their bastards in?

The duke's son! oh; when women are young courtiers,
They are sure to be old beggars.

To know the miseries most harlots taste,

Thou'dst wish thyself unborn when thou'rt unchaste.

Cast. O mother, let me twine about your neck,

And kiss you till my soul melt on your lips;

I did but this to try you.

Moth. O speak truth.

Cast. Indeed I did not; for no tongue hath force

To alter me from honest:

If maidens would, men's words could have no power;

A virgin's honor is a crystal tower,

Which being weak is guarded with good spirits;

Until she basely yields, no ill inherits.

Moth. O happy child! faith, and thy birth, hath saved me,

'Mongst thousand daughters, happiest of all others;

Buy thou a glass for maids, and I for mothers.

Evil Report after Death.

What is it to have

A flattering false insculption on a tomb,

And in men's hearts reproach? the 'bowel'd corps
May be sear'd in, but (with free tongue I speak)
The faults of great men through their sear-clothes break.

Bastards.

Oh what a grief 'tis that a man should live

But once in the world, and then to live a Bastard?

The curse of the womb, the thief of nature,

Begot against the seventh commandment,
Half damn'd in the conception by the justice
Of that unbribed everlasting law.

Too nice respects in Courtship.
Ceremony has made many fools.

It is as easy way unto a duchess

As to a hatted dame, if her love answer:
But that by timorous honors, pale respects,
Idle degrees of fear, men make their ways
Hard of themselves.

THE DEVIL'S LAW CASE; OR, WHEN WOMEN GO TO LAW, THE DEVIL IS FULL OF BUSINESS. A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY JOHN WEBSTER.

Contarino challenges Ercole to fight him for the possession of Jolenta, whom they both love.

Con. Sir; my love to you has proclaim'd you one,
Whose word was still led by a noble thought,
And that thought follow'd by as fair a deed:
Deceive not that opinion: we were students
At Padua together, and have long

To the world's eye shown like friends.
Was it hearty on your part to me?

Erc. Unfained.

Con. You are false

To the good thought I held of you; and now,
Join the worst part of man to you, your malice,
To uphold that falsehood. Sacred innocence
Is fled your bosom. Signor, I must tell you;
To draw the picture of unkindness truly,
Is to express two that have dearly loved,
And fall'n at variance. 'Tis a wonder to me,
Knowing my interest in the fair Jolenta,
That you should love her.

Erc. Compare her beauty and my youth together,
And you will find the fair effects of love

No miracle at all.

Con. Yes, it will prove

Prodigious to you: I must stay your voyage.
Erc. Your warrant must be mighty.

Con. 'Tis a seal

From heaven to do it, since you'd ravish from me
What's there intitled mine; and yet I vow,
By the essential front of spotless virtue,
I have compassion of both our youths:
To approve which, I have not tane the way
Like an Italian, to cut your throat

By practice that had giv'n you now for dead
And never frown'd upon you.

You must fight with me.

Erc. I will, Sir.

Con. And instantly.

Ere. I will haste before you. Point whither.

Con. Why, you speak nobly; and, for this fair dealing,

Were the rich jewel (which we vary for)

A thing to be divided, by my life,

I would be well content to give you half:

But since 'tis vain to think we can be friends,

Tis needful one of us be tane away

From being the other's enemy.

Erc. Yet, methinks,

This looks not like a quarrel.

It

Con. Not a quarrel!

Erc. You have not apparelled your fury well;

goes too plain, like a scholar.

Con. It is an ornament,

Makes it more terrible; and you shall find it
A weighty injury, and attended on

By discreet valor; because I do not strike you,
Or give you the lie (such foul preparatives

Would show like the stale injury of wine)

I

reserve my rage to sit on my sword's piont;

Which a great quantity of your best blood

Can't satisfy.

Erc. You promise well to yourself.

Shall 's have no seconds?

Con. None, for fear of prevention.
Erc. The length of our weapons-
Con. We'll fit them by the way:

So whether our time calls us to live or die,
Let us do both like noble gentlemen,

And true Italians.

Erc. For that, let me embrace you.

Con. Methinks, being an Italian, I trust you
To come somewhat too near me:

But your jealousy gave that embrace, to try
If I were arm'd; did it not?

Erc. No, believe me.

I take your heart to be sufficient proof
Without a privy coat: and, for my part,
A taffaty is all the shirt of mail

I am arm'd with.

Con. You deal equally.*

Sitting for a picture.

Must you have my Picture?

You will enjoin me to a strange punishment.
With what a compell'd face a woman sits
While she is drawing? I have noted divers
Either to fain smiles, or suck in the lips,
To have a little mouth; ruffle the cheeks,
To have the dimple seen; and so disorder
The face with affectation, at next sitting

It has not been the same: I have known others
Have lost the entire fashion of their face
In half an hour's sitting—in hot weather—
The painting on their face has been so mellow,
They have left the poor man harder work by half
To mend the copy he wrought by : But indeed,
If ever I would have mine drawn to the life,
I would have a painter steal it at such a time

I were devoutly kneeling at my prayers;
There is then a heavenly beauty in 't, the soul
Moves in the superficies.

* I have selected this scene as the model of a well managed and gentlemanlike difference.

Honorable Employment.

Oh, my lord, lie not idle :

The chiefest action for a man of great spirit
Is never to be out of action. We should think ;
The soul was never put into the body,

Which has so many rare and curious pieces
Of mathematical motion, to stand still.

Virtue is ever sowing of her seeds:

In the trenches for the soldier; in the wakeful study
For the scholar; in the furrows of the sea

For men of our profession: of all which
Arise and spring up honor.

Selling of Land.

I could wish

That noblemen would ever live in the country,
Rather than make their visits up to the city
About such business. Noble houses

Have no such goodly prospects any way
As into their own land: the decay of that
(Next to their begging church-land) is a ruin
Worth all men's pity.

Dirge in a Funeral Pageant.

All the flowers of the spring

Meet to perfume our burying:

These have but their growing prime,
And man does flourish but his time.
Survey our progress from our birth
;
We are set, we grow, we turn to earth.
Courts adieu, and all delights,

All bewitching appetites.

Sweetest breath and clearest eye
(Like perfumes) go out and die;
And consequently this is done,
As shadows wait upon the sun.
Vain the ambition of kings,

Who seek by trophies and dead things