1

John Marston

have published are his satires, called The Scourge of Villany, and the voluptuous, half-sarcastic romance in six-line stanza, The Metamorphosis of Pygmalion's Image, both of 1598. His bitterness of tongue was so great that he was nicknamed "Kinsayder," one who crops or "kinses" the tails of dogs. From 1601 to 1607 he seems to have lived by writing for the stage. His most important pieces are Antonio and Mellida, in two parts (1602); The Malcontent (1604); The Dutch Courtezan (1605); Parasitaster; or, The Fawn (1606); and What You Will (1607). He entered the Church, long held an incumbency in Hampshire or Wiltshire, and died in the parish of Aldermanbury on June 25, 1634.

Would suit the time with pleasing congruence!

May we be happy in our weak devoir,

And all part pleased in most wish'd content.

But sweat of Hercules can ne'er beget

So blest an issue. Therefore we proclaim,

If any spirit breathes within this round

Uncapable of weighty passion,

VOL. II

THE HISTORY OF Antonio and

(As from his birth being hugged in the arms
And nuzzled 'twixt the breasts of Happiness)
Who winks and shuts his apprehension up
From common sense of what men were, and are ;
Who would not know what men must be let such
Hurry amain from our black-visaged shows;
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast,
Nail'd to the earth with grief; if any heart,

Pierced through with anguish, pant within this ring
If there be any blood, whose heat is choked
And stifled with true sense of misery :

Y

Cyril Tour

neur

If aught of these strains fill this consort up,
They arrive most welcome. O, that our power
Could lackey or keep wing with our desires;
That with unused poise of style and sense
We might weigh massy in judicious scale!
Yet here's the prop that doth support our hopes :
When our scenes falter, or invention halts,
Your favour will give crutches to our faults.

TRAGEDIES

AND

COMEDIES

COLLECTED INTO
ONE VOLV ME.

Title-page of Marston's “Tragedies
and Comedies," 1633

From Ben Jonson's copy, with his autograph

THE SCHOLAR AND HIS DOG, from
"WHAT YOU WILL "

I was a scholar seven useful springs
Did I deflower in quotations

Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man;
The more I learnt, the more I learnt to
doubt.

Delight, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baused (kissed) leaves,

Toss'd o'er the dunces, pored on the old print

:

Of titled words and still my spaniel slept.
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins and still my spaniel
slept.

And still I held converse with Zabarell
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw

Of antique Donate: still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I; first, an sit anima;

Then, an it were mortal. O hold, hold; at
that

They're at brain-buffets, fell by the ears
amain

Pell-mell together: still my spaniel slept.
Then, whether 'twere corporeal, local, fix'd,
Ex traduce, but whether 't had free will
Or no, hot philosophers

Stood banding factions, all so strongly
propp'd,

I stagger'd, knew not which was firmer part, But thought, quoted, read, observed, and pryed,

:

Stuff'd noting-books and still my spaniel
slept.

At length he waked, and yawn'd; and by yon sky,
For aught I know he knew as much as I.

It is believed that Cyril Tourneuf (1575 ?-1626) was the son of Richard Tourneur, Governor of the Brill in Holland. Much of his life was probably spent in service in the Netherlands. In 1600 was published his outrageously metaphysical and obscure poem, The Transform'd Metamorphosis. His earliest play, The Revenger's Tragedy, was printed in 1607, and The Atheist's Tragedy in 1611. A third, The Nobleman, was licensed in 1612, but has been lost. Cyril Tourneur acted as the secretary of Sir Edward Cecil in the Cadiz expedition of 1625, and was among those disbanded soldiers who were put ashore at Kinsale on the return of the fleet. He was already ill, and he died in Ireland, in utter destitution, on February 28, 1626.

Here's an eye

Able to tempt a great man-to serve God;

A pretty hanging lip, that has forgot now to dissemble.
Methinks this mouth should make a swearer tremble;

A drunkard clasp his teeth, and not undo 'em,

To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.

Here's a cheek keeps her colour let the wind go whistle;
Spout rain, we fear thee not: be hot or cold,
All's one with us: and is not he absurd,
Whose fortunes are upon their faces set,
That fear no other God but wind and wet?

Does the silkworm expend her yellow
labours

For thee? for thee does she undo herself?
Are lordships sold to maintain ladyships,
For the poor benefit of a bewitching
minute ?

Why does yon fellow falsify highways,
And put his life between the judge's lips,
To refine such a thing? keep his horse and

men,

To beat their valours for her?

Surely we're all mad people, and they
Whom we think are, are not.

Does every proud and self-affecting dame
Camphire her face for this? and grieve her
Maker

In sinful baths of milk, when many an in-
fant starves,

For her superfluous outside, for all this ? Who now bids twenty pound a night? prepares

Music, perfumes, and sweetmeats? all are hush'd.

Thou mayst lie chaste now! it were fine, methinks,

To have thee seen at revels, forgetful feasts, And unclean brothels: sure 'twould fright the sinner,

And make him a good coward put a reveller

Out of his antick amble,

And cloy an epicure with empty dishes.

THE

339

REVENGERS

TRAGEDIE.

Here might a scornful and ambitious woman
Look through and through herself.-See, ladies, with false forms
You deceive men, but cannot deceive worms.

From "THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY

Walking upon the fatal shore,

Among the slaughter'd bodies of their men,
Which the full-stomach'd sea had cast upon
The sands, it was my unhappy chance to light
Upon a face, whose favour when it lived
My astonish'd mind inform'd me I had seen.
He lay in his armour, as if that had been
His coffin; and the weeping sea (like one

Title-page of Heywood's "Hierarchy of the Blessed Angel," 1635