It relishes of better breeding than His present state dares promise.

Timol. I observe it.

Place the fair lady in the midst, that both,
Looking with covetous eyes upon the prize
They are to plead for, may, from the fair object,
Teach Hermes eloquence.

Leost. Am I fallen so low?

My birth, my honour, and what's dearest to me,
My love, and witness of my love, my service,
So undervalued, that I must contend
With one, where my excess of glory must
Make his o'erthrow a conquest? Shall my fulness
Supply defects in such a thing, that never
Knew anything but want and emptiness,
Give him a name, and keep it such, from this
Unequal competition? If my pride,
Or any bold assurance of my worth,

Has pluck'd this mountain of disgrace upon me,
I am justly punish'd, and submit; but if
I have been modest, and esteem'd myself
More injured in the tribute of the praise,
Which no desert of mine, prized by self-love,
Ever exacted, may this cause and minute
For ever be forgotten. I dwell long
Upon mine anger, and now turn to you,
Ungrateful fair one; and, since you are such,
'Tis lawful for me to proclaim myself,
And what I have deserved.

Cleo. Neglect and scorn

From me, for this proud vaunt.
Leost. You nourish, lady,

Your own dishonour in this harsh reply,
And almost prove what some hold of your sex ;
You are all made up of passion for if reason
Or judgment could find entertainment with you,
Or that you would distinguish of the objects
You look on, in a true glass, not seduced
By the false light of your too violent will,
I should not need to plead for that which you
With joy should offer. Is my high birth a blemish?
Or does my wealth, which all the vain expense
Of women cannot waste, breed loathing in you,
The honours I can call mine own thoughts, scandals?
Am I deform'd, or, for my father's sins,
Mulcted by nature? If you interpret these
As crimes, 'tis fit I should yield up myself
Most miserably guilty. But, perhaps,
(Which yet I would not credit,) you have seen
This gallant pitch the bar, or bear a burden
Would crack the shoulders of a weaker bondman;
Or any other boisterous exercise,
Assuring a strong back to satisfy

Your loose desires, insatiate as the grave.
Cleo. You are foul-mouth'd.

Archid. Ill-manner'd too.

Leost. I speak

In the way of supposition, and entreat you,
With all the fervour of a constant lover,

That you would free yourself from these aspersions,
Or any imputation black-tongued slander
Could throw on your unspotted virgin whiteness:

To which there is no easier way, than by Vouchsafing him your favour; him, to whom Next to the general, and the gods and fautors, The country owes her safety.

Timag. Are you stupid?

'Slight! leap into his arms, and there ask pardon-
Oh! you expect your slave's reply; no doubt
We shall have a fine oration! I will teach
My spaniel to howl in sweeter language,
And keep a better method.

Archid. You forget

The dignity of the place.
Diph. Silence!

Timol. [To Pisander.] Speak boldly.

Pisan. "Tis your authority gives me a tongue,
I should be dumb else; and I am secure,
I cannot clothe my thoughts, and just defence,
In such an abject phrase, but 'twill appear
Equal, if not above my low condition.

I need no bombast language, stolen from such
As make nobility from prodigious terms
The hearers understand not; I bring with me
No wealth to boast of, neither can I number
Uncertain fortune's favours with my merits;
I dare not force affection, or presume
To censure her discretion, that looks on me
As a weak man, and not her fancy's idol.
How I have loved, and how much I have suffer'd,
And with what pleasure undergone the burthen
Of my ambitious hopes, (in aiming at
The glad possession of a happiness,
The abstract of all goodness in mankind
Can at no part deserve,) with my confession
Of mine own wants, is all that can plead for me.
But if that pure desires, not blended with
Foul thoughts, that, like a river, keeps his course,
Retaining still the clearness of the spring
From whence it took beginning, may be thought
Worthy acceptance; then I dare rise up,
And tell this gay man to his teeth, I never
Durst doubt her constancy, that, like a rock,
Beats off temptations, as that mocks the fury
Of the proud waves; nor, from my jealous fears,
Question that goodness to which, as an altar
Of all perfection, he that truly loved
Should rather bring a sacrifice of service,
Than raze it with the engines of suspicion :
Of which, when he can wash an Ethiop white,
Leosthenes may hope to free himself;
But, till then, never.

Timag. Bold, presumptuous villain! [him, Pisan. I will go further, and make good upon I' the pride of all his honours, birth, and fortunes, He's more unworthy than myself.

リ

I long have march'd disguised! [Throws off his disguise.] that, when they know

Whom they have injured, they may faint with horror

Of my revenge, which, wretched men, expect,
As sure as fate, to suffer.

Leost. Ha! Pisander!

Timag. 'Tis the bold Theban!

Asot. There's no hope for me then :

I thought I should have put in for a share,
And borne Cleora from them both; but now

This stranger looks so terrible, that I dare not

So much as look on her.

Pisan. Now as myself,

Thy equal at thy best, Leosthenes.

For you, Timagoras, praise heaven you were born
Cleora's brother, 'tis your safest armour.
But I lose time. The base lie cast upon me,
I thus return: Thou art a perjured man,
False, and perfidious, and hast made a tender
Of love and service to this lady, when
Thy soul, if thou hast any, can bear witness,
That thou were not thine own: for proof of this,
Look better on this virgin, and consider,
This Persian shape laid by, and she appearing
In a Greekish dress, such as when first you saw her,
If she resemble not Pisander's sister,

Giov. There's no evasion, Lidia,

To gain the least delay, though I would buy it
At any rate. Greatness, with private men
Esteem'd a blessing, is to me a curse;

And we, whom, for our high births, they conclude
The only freemen, are the only slaves.
Happy the golden mean! had I been born
In a poor sordid cottage, not nursed up
With expectation to command a court,
I might, like such of your condition, sweetest,
Have ta'en a safe and middle course, and not,
As I am now, against my choice, compell'd
Or to lie grovelling on the earth, or raised
So high upon the pinnacles of state,

That I must either keep my height with danger,
Or fall with certain ruin.

Lid. Your own goodness Will be your faithful guard.

Giov. O, Lidia.

Cont. So passionate!

Giov. For, had I been your equal,

I might have seen and liked with mine own eyes,
And not, as now, with others; I might still,
And without observation, or envy,
As I have done, continued my delights
With you, that are alone, in my esteem,
The abstract of society: we might walk
In solitary groves, or in choice gardens ;
From the variety of curious flowers
Contemplate nature's workmanship, and wonders;
And then, for change, near to the murmur of
Some bubbling fountain, I might hear you sing,
And, from the well-tuned accents of your tongue,
In my imagination conceive

With what melodious harmony a choir

Of angels sing above their Maker's praises.

And then with chaste discourse, as we return'd, Imp feathers to the broken wings of time :And all this I must part from.

Cont. You forget

The haste upon us.

Giov. One word more,

And then I come.

And after this, when, with
Continued innocence of love and service,
I had grown ripe for hymeneal joys,
Embracing you, but with a lawful flame,
I might have been your husband.
Lid. Sir, was,

And ever am, your servant; but it was,
And 'tis, far from me in a thought to cherish
Such saucy hopes. If I had been the heir
Of all the globes and sceptres mankind bows to,
At my best you had deserved me; as I am,
Howe'er unworthy, in my virgin zeal
I wish you, as a partner of your bed,
A princess equal to you; such a one
That may make it the study of her life,
With all the obedience of a wife, to please you.
May you have happy issue, and I live
To be their humblest handmaid!

Giov. I am dumb,
And can make no reply.

Cont. Your excellence

Will be benighted.

Giov. This kiss, bathed in tears, May learn you what I should say.

FROM THE FATAL DOWRY*. ACT II. SCENE I

Enter PONTALIER, MALOTIN, and BEAUMONT, Mal. 'Tis strange. Beau. Methinks so.

Pont. In a man but young,

Yet old in judgment; theorick and practick
In all humanity, and to increase the wonder,
Religious, yet a soldier; that he should
Yield his free-living youth a captive for
The freedom of his aged father's corpse,
And rather choose to want life's necessaries,
Liberty, hope of fortune, than it should
In death be kept from Christian ceremony.

Mal. Come, 'tis a golden precedent in a son,
To let strong nature have the better hand,
In such a case, of all affected reason.
What years sit on this Charalois ?

Beau. Twenty-eight:

For since the clock did strike him seventeen old,
Under his father's wing this son hath fought,
Served and commanded, and so aptly both,
That sometimes he appeared his father's father,
And never less than 's son; the old man's virtues
So recent in him, as the world may swear,
Nought but a fair tree could such fair fruit bear.

*Mr. Gifford, in his edition of Massinger, has few doubts that it was written by Field.

Pont. But wherefore lets he such a barbarous law,

And men more barbarous to execute it,
Prevail on his soft disposition,

That he had rather die alive for debt

Of the old man, in prison, than they should
Rob him of sepulture; considering

These monies borrow'd bought the lenders peace,
And all the means they enjoy, nor were diffused
In any impious or licentious path?

Beau. True! for my part, were it my father's trunk, The tyrannous ram-heads with their horns should gore it,

Or cast it to their curs, than they less currish,
Ere prey on me so with their lion-law,
Being in my free will, as in his, to shun it.

Pont. Alas! he knows himself in poverty lost. For in this partial avaricious age

What price bears honour? virtue ? long ago
It was but praised, and freezed; but now-a-days
"Tis colder far, and has nor love nor praise :
The very praise now freezeth too; for nature
Did make the heathen far more Christian then,
Than knowledge us, less heathenish, Christian.
Mal. This morning is the funeral?
Pont. Certainly.

And from this prison,-'twas the son's request,
That his dear father might interment have,
See, the young son enter'd a lively grave!

Beau. They come :-observe their order.

Solemn Music. Enter the Funeral Procession. The Coffin borne by four, preceded by a Priest. Captains, Lieutenants. Ensigns, and Soldiers; Mourners, Scutcheons, &c. and very good order. ROMONT and CHARALOIS, 1 followed by the Gaolers and Officers, with Creditors. meet it.

Charal. How like a silent stream shaded with
And gliding softly with our windy sighs, [night,
Moves the whole frame of this solemnity!
Tears, sighs, and blacks filling the simile;
Whilst I, the only murmur in this grove
Of death, thus hollowly break forth. Vouchsafe
[To the bearers. |
To stay awhile.-Rest, rest in peace, dear earth!
Thou that brought'st rest to their unthankful lives,
Whose cruelty denied thee rest in death!
Here stands thy poor exécutor, thy son,
That makes his life prisoner to bail thy death;
Who gladlier puts on this captivity,

Than virgins, long in love, their wedding weeds.
Of all that ever thou hast done good to,
These only have good memories; for they
Remember best forget not gratitude.

I thank you for this last and friendly love:
To the Soldiers.
And though this country, like a viperous mother,
Not only hath eat up ungratefully
All means of thee, her son, but last, thyself,
Leaving thy heir so bare and indigent,
He cannot raise thee a poor monument,
Such as a flatterer or a usurer hath;
Thy worth, in every honest breast, builds one,
Making their friendly hearts thy funeral stone.
Pont. Sir.

Charal. Peace! Oh, peace! this scene is wholly mine.

weeps.

Ha! let me see! my miracle is eased,
The gaolers and the creditors do weep;

Even they that make us weep, do weep themselves.
Be these thy body's balm! these and thy virtue
Keep thy fame ever odoriferous,

Whilst the great, proud, rich, undeserving man,
Alive stinks in his vices, and being vanish'd,
The golden calf, that was an idol deck'd
With marble pillars, jet, and porphyry,
Shall quickly, both in bone and name, consume,
Though wrapt in lead, spice, searcloth, and perfume!

Priest. On.

Charal. One moment more,
But to bestow a few poor legacies,

All I have left in my dead father's rights,
And I have done. Captain, wear thou these spurs,

For so it did in him. Ensign, this cuirass,
Your general's necklace once. You, gentle bearers,
Divide this purse of gold; this other strew
Among the poor; 'tis all I have. Romont-
Wear thou this medal of himself that, like

A hearty oak, grew'st close to this tall pine,
Even in the wildest wilderness of war, [selves :
Whereon foes broke their swords, and tired them-
Wounded and hack'd ye were, but never fell'd.
For me, my portion provide in heaven!-
My root is earth'd, and I, a desolate branch,
Left scatter'd in the highway of the world,
Trod under foot, that might have been a column
Mainly supporting our demolish'd house.
This would I wear as my inheritance-
And what hope can arise to me from it,
When I and it are both here prisoners!
* His father's sword.

SUCKLING, Who gives levity its gayest expression, was the son of the comptroller of the household to Charles I. Langbaine tells us that he spoke Latin at five years of age; but with what correctness or fluency we are not informed. His versatile mind certainly acquired many accomplishments, and filled a short life with many pursuits, for he was a traveller, a soldier,a lyricand dramatic poet, and a musician. After serving a campaign under Gustavus Adolphus, he returned to England, was favoured by Charles I., and wrote some pieces, which were exhibited for the amusement of the court with sumptuous splendour. When the civil wars broke out he expended 12007.*

on the equipment of a regiment for the king, which was distinguished, however, only by its finery and cowardice. A brother poet crowned his disgrace with a ludicrous song. The event is said to have affected him deeply with shame; but he did not live long to experience that most incurable of the heart's diseases. Having learnt that his servant had robbed him, he drew on his boots in great haste; a rusty nailt, that was concealed in one of them, pierced his heel, and produced a mortification, of which he died. His poems, his five plays, together with his letters, speeches, and tracts, have been collected into one volume.