Persons. The WIDOW and DOCTOR.

Doct. You sent for me, gentlewoman? Wid. Sir, I did; and to this end: I have scruples in my conscience; Some doubtful problems which I cannot answer Nor reconcile; I'd have you make them plain. Doct. This is my duty pray speak your mind. Wid. And as I speak, I must remember heaven, That gave those blessings which I must relate: Sir, you now behold a wondrous woman; You only wonder at the epithet;

:

I can appprove it good: guess at mine age.

Doct. At the half-way 'twixt thirty and forty. Wid. "Twas not much amiss; yet nearest to the How think you then, is not this a wonder? [last. That a woman lives full seven-and-thirty years Maid to a wife, and wife unto a widow, Now widow'd, and mine own, yet all this while From the extremest verge of my remembrance, [* Prince Charles, afterwards Charles I. The play in

Even from my weaning hour unto this minute, Did never taste what was calamity?

I know not yet what grief is, yet have sought
An hundred ways for its acquaintance with me
Prosperity hath kept so close a watch,

That even those things that I have meant a cross,
Have that way turn'd a blessing. Is it not strange?
Doct. Unparallel'd; this gift is singular,
And to you alone belonging: you are the moon,
For there's but one, all women else are stars,
For there are none of like condition.
Full oft, and many, have I heard complain
Of discontents, thwarts, and adversities,
But a second to yourself I never knew :
To groan under the superflux of blessings,
To have ever been alien unto sorrow.
No trip of fate? Sure it is wonderful.

Wid. Ay, sir, 'tis wonderful: but is it well? For it is now my chief affliction.

I have heard you say, that the child of heaven Shall suffer many tribulations; [jects:

called The Birth of Merlin]

Then I that know not any chastisement,
How may I know my part of childhood?
Doct. "Tisa good doubt; but make it not extreme.
'Tis some affliction, that you are afflicted
For want of affliction; cherish that:
Yet wrest it not to misconstruction ;
For all your blessings are free gifts from heaven;
Health, wealth, and peace; nor can they turn to
But by abuse. Pray let me question you: [curses,
You lost a husband, was it no grief to you?

Wid. It was; but very small: no sooner I
Had given it entertainment as a sorrow,
But straight it turn'd unto my treble joy :
A comfortable revelation prompts me then,
That husband (whom in life I held so dear)
Had changed a frailty to unchanging joys;
Methought I saw him stellified in heaven,
And singing hallelujahs 'mongst a quire
Of white-sainted souls: then again it spake,
And said; it was a sin for me to grieve
At his best good, that I esteemed best :
And thus this slender shadow of a grief
Vanish'd again.

[from

Doct. All this was happy; nor can you wrest it
A heavenly blessing: do not appoint the rod;
Leave still the stroke unto the magistrate:
The time is not past, but you may feel enough.
Wid. One taste more I had, although but little,
Yet I would aggravate to make the most on't;
Thus 'twas: the other day it was my hap,
In crossing of the Thames,

To drop that wedlock ring from off my finger,
That once conjoined me and my dead husband;
It sunk; I prized it dear; the dearer, 'cause it kept
Still in mine eye the memory of my loss;
Yet I grieved the loss; and did joy withal,
That I had found a grief: and this is all
The sorrow I can boast of.

Doct. This is but small.

Wid. Nay, sure I am of this opinion,

That had I suffer'd a draught to be made for it,
The bottom would have sent it up again,
I am so wondrously fortunate.

Doct. You would not suffer it?

STEPHEN, A RECLAIMED GAMESTER, NEWLY MARRIED TO THE OVER-FORTUNATE WIDOW.

Persons-STEPHEN, ROBERT his nephew, and WIDOW.
Enter STEPHEN with bills and bonds.

Wife. How now, sweetheart? what hast thou
there ?

Steph. I find much debts belonging to you, sweet; And my care must be now to fetch them in.

Wife. Ha ha! prithee do not mistake thyself, Nor my true purpose; I did not wed to thrall, Or bind thy large expense, but rather to add A plenty to that liberty; I thought by this,

| Thou wouldst have stuff'd thy pockets full of gold, And thrown it at a hazard; made ducks and drakes,

And baited fishes with thy silver flies;
Lost, and fetch'd more: why, this had been my joy,
Perhaps at length thou wouldst have wasted my
store;

Why, this had been a blessing too good for me.
Steph. Content thee, sweet, those days are gone,
Ay, even from my memory;

I have forgot that e'er I had such follies,
And I'll not call 'em back my cares are bent
To keep your state, and give you all content.
Roger, go, call your fellow-servants up to me,
And to my chamber bring all books of debt ;
I will o'erlook, and cast up all accounts,
That I may know the weight of all my cares,
And once a year give up my stewardship.

Enter ROBErt.

Steph. Oh, nephew, are you come! the welcomest wish

That my heart has; this is my kinsman, sweet.
Wife. Let him be largely texted in your love,
That all the city may read it fairly:
You cannot remember me, and him forget;
We were alike to you in poverty.

[love,

Steph. I should have begg'd that bounty of your Though you had scanted me to have given't him ; For we are one, I an uncle nephew, He a nephew uncle. But, my sweet self, My slow request you have anticipated With proffer'd kindness; and I thank you for it. But how, kind cousin, does your father use you? Is your name found again within his books? Can he read son there?

Rob. 'Tis now blotted quite :

For by the violent instigation

Of my cruel step-mother, his vows and oaths
Are stamp'd against me, ne'er to acknowledge me,
Never to call, or bless me as a child;

But in his brow, his bounty and behaviour
I read it all most plainly.

[at home,

Steph. Cousin, grieve not at it; that father lost You shall find here; and with the loss of his inheYou meet another amply proffer'd you ; [ritance, Be my adopted son, no more my kinsman : (To his Wife.) So that this borrow'd bounty do From your consent. [not stray

Wife. Call it not borrow'd, sir; 'tis all your own; Here 'fore this reverend man I make it known, Thou art our child as free by adoption, As derived from us by conception, Birth, and propinquity; inheritor To our full substance.

Rob. You were born to bless us both; My knee shall practise a son's duty Even beneath a son's; giving you all The comely dues of parents; yet not Forgetting my duty to my father: Where'er I meet him he shall have my knee, Although his blessing ne'er return to me. [thee

Steph. Come then, my dearest son, I'll now give A taste of my love to thee: be thou my deputy, The factor and disposer of my business;

Keep my accounts, and order my affairs;
They must be all your own: for you, dear sweet,
Be merry, take your pleasure at home, abroad;
Visit your neighbours; aught that may seem good
To your own will; down to the country ride;
For cares and troubles lay them all aside,
And I will take them up; it's fit that weight
Should now lie all on me: take thou the height
Of quiet and content, let nothing grieve thee;
I brought thee nothing else, and that I'll give thee.
[Exit STEPHEN and ROBERT.

Wife. Will the tide never turn! was ever woman Thus burden'd with unhappy happiness! Did I from riot take him, to waste my goods, And he strives to augment it? I did mistake him. Doct. Spoil not a good text with a false comment; All these are blessings, and from heaven sent ; It is your husband's good, he's now transform'd To a better shade, the prodigal's return'd. Come, come, know joy, make not abundance scant; You 'plain of that which thousand women want.

ported at all at Oxford by the Earl of Pembroke, but by his own father, and concludes that he was withdrawn from it solely by the calamitous event of his death. Whatever was the cause, he left the university abruptly, and coming to London, without friends, or fortune, or profession, was, as he informs us himself, driven by his necessities to the stage for support.

Massinger was born at Salisbury, or probably at Wilton, in its neighbourhood, the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, in whose family he also appears to have been educated. That nobleman died in the poet's sixteenth year, who thus unfortunately lost whatever chance he ever had of his protecting kindness. His father continued indeed in the service of the succeeding earl *, who was an accomplished man, a votary of the muses, and one of the brightest ornaments of the court of Elizabeth and James; but he withheld his patronage from a man of genius, who had claims to it, and would have done it honour, for reasons that have not been distinctly explained in the scanty and sorrowful history of the poet. Mr. Gifford, dissatisfied with former reasons alleged for this neglect, and convinced from the perusal of his writings that Massinger was a catholic, conjectures that it may be attributed to his having offended the earl by having apostatised while at the university to that obnoxious faith. He was entered as a commoner of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, in his eighteenth year, where he continued only four years. Wood and Davies conclude that he missed a degree, and was suddenly withdrawn from the university, in consequence of Pembroke's disapprobation of his attachment to poetry and romances, instead of logic and philosophy. Mr. Gifford prefers the *William, the third Earl of Pembroke.

From the period of his arrival in London in 1606 till the year 1622, when his Virgin Martyr appeared in print, it is sufficiently singular that we should have no notice of Massinger, except in one melancholy relic that was discovered by Mr. Malone in Dulwich college, namely, a letter subscribed by him and two other dramatic poets +, in which they solicit the advance of five pounds from the theatrical manager, to save them from the horrors of a gaol. The distressful document accidentally discovers the fact of Massinger having assisted Fletcher in one of his dramas, and thus entitles Sir Aston Cokayne's assertion to belief, that he assisted him in more than one. Though Massinger therefore did not appear in print during the long period already mentioned, his time may be supposed to have been partly employed in those confederate undertakings which were so common during the early vigour of our stage; and there is the strongest presumptive evidence that he was also engaged in plays of his own composition, which have been lost to the world among those literary treasures that perished by the neglect of Warburton, the Somerset herald, and the unconscious sacrilege of his cook. Of Massinger's fame for rapidity in composition Langbaine has preserved a testimony in the lines of a contemporary poet: after the date of his first printed performance those of his subsequent works come in thick succession, and there can be little doubt that the period preceding it was equally prolific.

Of his private life literally nothing can be said

Nathaniel Field and Robert Daborne.

to be known, except that his dedications bespeak incessant distress and dependence, while the recommendatory poems prefixed to his plays address him with attributes of virtue, which are seldom lavished with flattery or falsehood on those who are poor. In one of his dedications he acknowledges the bounty of Philip, Earl of Montgomery, the brother to that Earl of Pembroke who so unaccountably neglected him ; but warm as Massinger's acknowledgments are, the assistance appears to have been but transitory. On the 17th of March, 1640, having gone to bed in apparent health the preceding night, he was found dead in the morning, in his own house, in the Bank-side. He was buried in the church-yard of St. Saviour's, and his fellowcomedians attended him to the grave; but it does not appear from the strictest search that a

stone or inscription of any kind marked the place where his dust was deposited; even the memorial of his mortality is given with a pathetic brevity, which accords but too well with the obscure and humble circumstances of his life-" March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a stranger *;" and of all his admirers only Sir Aston Cokayne dedicated a line to his memory. Even posterity did him long injustice: Rowe, who had discovered his merits in the depth of their neglect, forbore to be his editor, in the hopes of concealing his plagiarism from the Fatal Dowry†; and he seemed on the eve of oblivion, when Dodsley's reprint of our old plays brought him faintly into that light of reputation, which has been made perfectly distinct by Mr. Gifford's edition of his works.

Sforza, Duke of Milan, in his passionate attachment to his wife Marcelia, cannot endure the idea of her surviving him, and being called out to war, leaves an order to his favourite Francisco, that in the event of his falling in the contest he should put the duchess to death. Marcelia's discovery of this frantic order brings on the jealousy and deaths that form the catastrophe of the piece.

MARCELIA TEMPTED BY FRANCISCO.

Fran. LET them first know themselves, and how you are

To be served and honour'd; which, when they confess,

You may again receive them to your favour:
And then it will show nobly.

Mar. With my thanks

The duke shall pay you his, if he return
To bless us with his presence.
Fran. There is nothing

That can be added to your fair acceptance;
That is the prize, indeed; all else are blanks,
And of no value. As, in virtuous actions,
The undertaker finds a full reward,
Although conferr'd upon unthankful men;
So, any service done to so much sweetness,
However dangerous, and subject to

An ill construction, in your favour finds
A wish'd, and glorious end.

Marc. From you, I take this

As loyal duty; but, in any other,
It would appear gross flattery.

Fran. Flattery, madam!

You are so rare and excellent in all things,
And raised so high upon a rock of goodness,

As that vice cannot reach you; who but looks on
This temple, built by nature to perfection,
But must bow to it; and out of that zeal,
Not only learn to adore it, but to love it?
Marc. Whither will this fellow ?

Fran. Pardon, therefore, madam,
If an excess in me of humble duty
Teach me to hope, and though it be not in
The power of man to merit such a blessing,
My piety, for it is more than love,
May find reward.

Marc. You have it in my thanks;

And, on my hand, I am pleased that you shall take A full possession of it: but, take heed

That you fix here, and feed no hope beyond it; If you do, it will prove fatal.

Fran. Be it death,

And death with torments tyrants ne'er found out, Yet I must say, I love you.

Marc. As a subject;

And 'twill become you.

Fran. Farewell circumstance!

And since you are not pleased to understand me,
But by a plain and usual form of speech;
All superstitious reverence laid by,

I love you as a man, and, as a man,

I would enjoy you. Why do you start, and fly me?

I am no monster, and you but a woman,
A woman made to yield, and by example
Told it is lawful: favours of this nature,
Are, in our age, no miracles in the greatest;
And, therefore, lady-

Marc. Keep off. O you Powers !--
Libidinous beast! and, add to that, unthankful!
A crime which creatures wanting reason fly from;
Are all the princely bounties, favours, honours,
Which, with some prejudice to his own wisdom,
Thy lord and raiser hath conferr'd upon thee,
In three days' absence buried? Hath he made thee,
A thing obscure, almost without a name,

[* The real entry is, "1639. March 18. Philip Massinger, stranger"-that is, a non-parishioner; but it has hitherto been quoted as Mr. Campbell has quoted it.]

† In The Fair Penitent.

The envy of great fortunes? Have I graced thee,
Beyond thy rank, and entertain'd thee, as
A friend, and not a servant? and is this,
This impudent attempt to taint mine honour,
The fair return of both our ventured favours!
Fran. Hear my excuse.

Marc. The devil may plead mercy,
And with as much assurance, as thou yield one.
Burns lust so hot in thee? or is thy pride
Grown up to such a height, that, but a princess,
No woman can content thee; and, add to it,
His wife and princess, to whom thou art tied
In all the bonds of duty?-Read my life,
And find one act of mine so loosely carried,
That could invite a most self-loving fool,
Set off with all that fortune could throw on him,
To the least hope to find way to my favour;
And, what's the worst mine enemies could wish me,
I'll be thy strumpet.

Fran. 'Tis acknowledged, madam,
That your whole course of life hath been a pattern
For chaste and virtuous women. In your beauty,
Which I first saw, and loved, as a fair crystal,
I read your heavenly mind, clear and untainted;
And while the duke did prize you to your value,
Could it have been in man to pay that duty,
I well might envy him, but durst not hope
To stop you in your full career of goodness:
But now I find that he's fall'n from his fortune,
And, howsoever he would appear doting,
Grown cold in his affection; I presume,
From his most barbarous neglect of you,
To offer my true service. Nor stand I bound,
To look back on the courtesies of him,
That, of all living men, is most unthankful.
Marc. Unheard-of impudence!
Fran. You'll say I am modest,

When I have told the story. Can he tax me,
That have received some worldly trifles from him,
For being ungrateful; when he, that first tasted,
And hath so long enjoy'd, your sweet embraces,
In which all blessings that our frail condition
Is capable of, are wholly comprehended,
As cloy'd with happiness, contemns the giver
Of his felicity! and, as he reach'd not
The masterpiece of mischief which he aims at,
Unless he pay those favours he stands bound to,
With fell and deadly hate!-You think he loves you
With unexampled fervour; nay, dotes on you,

As there were something in you more than woman:
When, on my knowledge, he long since hath wish'd
You were among the dead ;-and I, you scorn so,
Perhaps, am your preserver.

Marc. Bless me, good angels,

Or I am blasted! Lies so false and wicked,
And fashion'd to so damnable a purpose,
Cannot be spoken by a human tongue.
My husband hate me! give thyself the lie,
False and accursed! Thy soul, if thou hast any,
Can witness, never lady stood so bound
To the unfeign'd affection of her lord,
As I do to my Sforza. If thou wouldst work

Upon my weak credulity, tell me, rather,
That the earth moves; the sun and stars stand still;
The ocean keeps nor floods nor ebbs; or that
There's peace between the lion and the lamb;
Or that the ravenous eagle and the dove
Keep in one aerie, and bring up their young;
Or anything that is averse to nature:
And I will sooner credit it, than that
My lord can think of me, but as a jewel,
He loves more than himself, and all the world.
Fran. O innocence abused! simplicity cozen'd!
It were a sin, for which we have no name,
To keep you longer in this wilful error.
Read his affection here ;-[Gives her a paper.]
-and then observe

How dear he holds you! "Tis his character,
Which cunning yet could never counterfeit.

Marc. 'Tis his hand, I'm resolved of it. I'll try What the inscription is.

Fran. Pray you, do so.

Fran. What have I done! Madam! for heaven's sake, madam!-O my fate! I'll bend her body: this is, yet, some pleasure: I'll kiss her into a new life. Dear lady!She stirs. For the duke's sake, for Sforza's sakeMarc. Sforza's! stand off; though dead, I will And even my ashes shall abhor the touch [be his, Of any other.-O unkind, and cruel! Learn, women, learn to trust in one another; There is no faith in man: Sforza is false, False to Marcelia !

Fran. But I am true,

And live to make you happy. All the pomp, State, and observance you had, being his, Compared to what you shall enjoy, when mine, Shall be no more remember'd. Lose his memory, And look with cheerful beams on your new creature; And know, what he hath plotted for your good, Fate cannot alter. If the emperor

Take not his life, at his return he dies,

And by my hand; my wife, that is his heir,

Shall quickly follow :-then we reign alone!

For with this arm I'll swim through seas of blood, Or make a bridge, arch'd with the bones of men, But I will grasp my aims in you, my dearest, Dearest, and best of women!

Marc. Thou art a villain!

All attributes of archvillains made into one,
Cannot express thee. I prefer the hate
Of Sforza, though it mark me for the grave,
Before thy base affection. I am yet

Pure and unspotted in my true love to him;
Nor shall it be corrupted, though he's tainted: