frequent warning to them on the consequences of their crimes.' * The following description of Psyche, from Love's Mistress,' is in his best manner :

ADMETUS.-ASTIOCHE.-PETREA.

ADMETUS. Welcome to both in one! Oh, can you tell

What fate your sister hath?

BоTH. Psyche is well.

ADM. So among mortals it is often said,

Children and friends are well when they are dead.

ASTIOCHE. But Psyche lives, and on her breath attend
Delights that far surmount all earthly joy;

Music, sweet voices, and ambrosian fare;

Winds, and the light-winged creatures of the air;
Clear channeled rivers, springs, and flowery meads,
Are proud when Psyche wantons on their streams,
When Psyche on their rich embroidery treads,
When Psyche gilds their crystal with her beams.
We have but seen our sister, and, behold!

She sends us with our laps full brimmed with gold.

In 1635, Heywood published a poem entitled the Hierarchy of Angels.' In this piece he tells us how the names of his dramatic contemporaries were shortened or corrupted in familiar conversation: Mellifluous Shakspeare whose enchanting quill Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will; And famous Jonson, though his learned pen Be dipped in Castaly, is still but Ben. Fletcher and Webster, of that learned pack None of the meanest, was but Jack;

Dekker but Tom, nor May, nor Middleton,

And he's but now Jack Ford that once was John.

Various songs are scattered through Heywood's neglected plays, some of them easy and flowing:

Song.

Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day;
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft,
To give my love good-morrow:
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I'll borrow:
Bird, prune thy wing; nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow.

To give my love good-morrow,
Notes from them all I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin-redbreast;
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each bill let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush-
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow-
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow.

Shepherds'

We that have known no greater state
Than this we live in, praise our fate;
For courtly silks in cares are spent,
When country's russet breeds content.
The power of sceptres we admire,
But sheep-hooks for our use desire.
Simple and low is our condition,
For here with us is no ambition:

₹

To give my love good-morrow,
Sing, birds, in every furrow.
Song.

We with the sun our flocks unfold,
Whose rising makes their fleeces gold;
Our music from the birds we borrow,
They bidding us, we, them, good-morrow.
Our habits are but coarse and plain,
Yet they defend from wind and rain:
As warm too, in an equal eye,
As those be-stained in scarlet dye.

* Henry Mackenzie in Edinburgh Review, vol. lxiii.

The shepherd, with his home-spun lass,
As many merry hours doth pass,
As courtiers with their costly girls,
Though richly decked in gold and pearls;
And, though but plain, to purpose woo,
Nay, often with less danger too.
Those that delight in daintics' store,
One stomach feed at once, no more;

And, when with homely fare we feast,
With us it doth as well digest;
And many times we better speed,
For our wild fruits no surfeits breed.
If we sometimes the willow wear,
By subtle swains that dare forswear,
We wonder whence it comes, and fear
They've been at court, and learnt it there.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

The last of these dramatists- a great race,' says Charles Lamb, 'all of whom spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common-was JAMES SHIRLEY (1594-1666). Though chronologically belonging to a later period than that of James I. Shirley's plays are of the same general character as those of his predecessors, with perhaps a dash of the gay cavalier spirit, which was reviving. This dramatist was a native of London. Designed for holy orders, he was educated first at Oxford, where Archbishop Laud refused to ordain him, on account of his appearance being disfigured by a mole on his left cheek. He afterwards took the degree of A. M. at Cambridge, and officiated as curate near St. Albans. Like his brother divine, and poet, Crashaw, Shirley embraced the communion of the Church of Rome. He lived as a schoolmaster in St. Albans, but afterwards settled in London and became a voluminous dramatic writer. Thirty-nine plays proceeded from his prolific pen; and a modern edition of his works (1833), edited by Gifford, with additions by Dyce, is in six octavo volumes. When the master of the Revels, in 1633, licensed Shirley's play of the Young Admiral,' he entered on his books an expression of his admiration of the drama, because it was free from oaths, profaneness, or obsceneness; trusting that his approbation would encourage the poet to pursue this beneficial and cleanly way of poetry. Shirley is certainly less impure than most of his contemporaries, but he is far from faultless in this respect. His dramas seem to have been tolerably successful. When the civil wars broke out, the poet exchanged the pen for the sword, and took the field under his patron, the Earl of Newcastle. After the cessation of this struggle, a still worse misfortune befell our author in the shutting of the theatres, and he was forced to betake himself to his former occupation of a teacher. The Restoration does not seem to have mended his fortunes. In 1666, the Great Fire of London drove the poet and his family from their house in Whitefriars; and shortly after this event, both he and his wife died on the same day. A life of various labors and reverses thus found a sudden and tragic termination. Shirley's plays have less force and dignity than those of Massinger; less pathos than those of Ford. His comedies have the tone and manner of good society. Campbell has praised his 'polished and refined dialect, the airy touches of his expression, the delicacy of his sentiments, and the beauty of his similes.' He admits, however,

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what every reader feels, the want in Shirley of any strong passion or engrossing interest. Hallam more justly and comprehensively states: Shirley has no originality, no force in conceiving or delineating character, little of pathos, and less, perhaps, of wit; his dramas produce no deep impression in reading, and, of course, can leave none in the memory. But his mind was poetical; his better characters, especially females, express pure thoughts in pure language; he is never tumid or affected, and seldom obscure; the incidents succeed rapidly, the personages are numerous, and there is a general animation in the scenes, which causes us to read him with some pleasure. No very good play, nor possibly any very good scene, could be found in Shirley; but he has many lines of considerable beauty. Of these fine lines, Dr. Farmer, in his Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare,' quoted perhaps the most beautiful, being part of Fernando's description, in the Brothers,' of the charms of his

mistress:

Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
Which suddenly took birth, but overweighed
With its own swelling, dropt upon her bosom,
Which, by reflection of her light, appeared
As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament.
After, her looks grew cheerful, and I saw
A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes,
As if they had gained a victory o'er grief;
And with it many beams twisted themselves,
Upon whose golden threads the angels walk
To and again from heaven.

In the same vein of delicate fancy and feeling is the following passage in the 'Grateful Servant,' where Cleona learns of the existence of Foscari, from her page, Dulcino:

CLEONA. The day breaks glorions to my darkened thoughts.

He lives, he lives yet! Cease, ye amorous fears,

More to perplex me.-Prithee, speak, sweet youth.

How fares my lord? Upon my virgin heart

I'll build a flaming altar, to offer up

A thankful sacrifice for his return

To life and me. Speak, and increase my comforts.
Is he in perfect health?

DULCINO. Not perfect, madam,

Until you bless him with the knowledge of

Your constancy.

CLE. O get thee wings, and fly, then;

Tell him my love doth burn like vesta! fire,

Which, with his memory richer than all spices,

Disperses odours round about my soul,

And did refresh it when 'twas dull and sad,
With thinking of his absence.

Yet stay,

Thou goest away too soon. Where is he? speak.
DUL. He gave me no commission for that, lady;
He will soon save that question by his presence.

CLE. Time has no feathers; he walks now on crutches.

Relate his gestures when he gave thee this.

What other words? Did mirth smile on his brow?

I would not for the wealth of this great world

1

He should suspect my faith. What said he, prithee?
DUL. He said what a warm lover, when desire
Makes eloquent, could speak; he said you were
Both star and pilot.

CLE. The sun's loved flower that shuts his yellow curtain
When he declineth, opens it again

At his fair rising with my parting lord

I closed all my delight; till his approach

It shall not spread itself.

The Prodigal Lady.-From the 'Lady of Pleasure?'
ARETINA and the STEWARD.

STEWARD. Be patient, madam; you may have your pleasure.
ARETINA. 'Tis that I came to town for; I would not

Endure again the country conversation

To be the lady of six shires! The men,

So near the primitive making, they retain

A sense of nothing but the earth; their brains

And barren heads standing as much in want

Of ploughing as their ground; to hear a fellow
Make himself merry and his horse with whistling

ellinger's round; (1) t' observe with what solemnity

They keep their wakes, and throw for pewter candlesticks;
How they become the morris, with whose bells

They ring all into Whitsun-ales, and swear

Through twenty scarfs and napkins, till the hobbyhorse
Tire, and the Maid-Marian, dissolved to a jelly,

Be kept for spoon-meat.

STEW. These, with your pardon, are no argument
To make the country life appear so hateful

At least to your particular, who enjoyed

A blessing in that calm, would you be pleased
To think so, and the pleasure of a kingdom:

While your own will commanded what should move
Delights, your husband's love and power joined
To give your life more harmony. You lived there
Secure and innocent, beloved of all;

Praised for your hospitality, and prayed for:

You might be envied, but malice knew

Not where you dwelt.-I would not prophesy,

But leave to your own apprehension

What may succeed your change.

ARET. You do imagine,

No doubt, you have talked wisely, and confuted

London past all defence. Your master should

Do well to send you back into the country,

With title of superintendent bailie.

Enter SIR THOMAS BORNWELL.

BORNWELL. How now, what's the matter?

Angry, sweetheart?

ARET. I am angry with myself,

To be so miserably restrained in things
Wherein it doth concern your love and nonour

To see me satisfied.

BORN. In what, Aretina,

Dost thou accuse me? Have I not obeyed

All thy desire against mine own opinion?

1A favourite though homely dance of those days, taking its title from an actor named St. Leger.

Quitted the country, and removed the hope
Of our return by sale of that fair lordship
We lived in; changed a calm and retired life
For this wild town, composed of noise and charge?
ARET. What charge more than is necessary

For a lady of my birth and education?

BORN. I am not ignorant how much nobility Flows in your blood; your kinsmen, great and powerful I' th' state; but with this lose not your memory

Of being my wife. I shall be studious,

Madam, to give the dignity of your birth

All the best ornaments which become my fortune;
But would not flatter it, to ruin both

And be the fable of the town, to teach
Other men loss of wit by mine, employed
To serve your vast expenses.

ARET. Am I then

Brought in the balance so, sir?

BORN. Though you weigh

Me in a partial scale, my heart is honest,
And must take liberty to think you have
Obeyed no modest counsel to effect,

Nay, study, ways of pride and costly ceremony.
Your change of gaudy furniture, and pictures
Of this Italian master, and that Dutchman's;
Your mighty looking-glasses, like artillery,
Brought home on engines; the superfluous plate;
Antique and novel; vanities of tires;

Fourscore pound suppers for my lord, your kinsman;
Banquets for t' other lady, aunt, and cousins;

And perfumes that exceed all: train of servants,

To stifle us at home and shew abroad,

More motley than the French or the Venetian,

About your coach, whose rude postilion

Must pester every narrow lane, till passengers

And tradesmen curse your choking up their stalls,
And common cries pursue your ladyship
For hindering o' their market.

ARET. Have you done, sir?

BORN. I could accuse the gaiety of your wardrobe
And prodigal embroideries, under which

Rich satins, plushes, cloth of silver, dare
Not shew their own complexions; your jewels,
Able to burn out the spectator's eyes,

And shew like bonfires on you by the tapers:
Something might here be spared, with safety of
Your birth and honour, since the truest wealth
Shines from the soul, and draws up just admirers.
I could urge something more.

ARET. Pray, do; I like

Your homily of thrift.

BORN. I could wish, madam, You would not game so much.

ARET. A gamester too!

BORN. But are not come to that repentance yet
Should teach you skill enough to raise your profit;
You look not through the subtlety of cards

And mysterics of dice, nor can you save
Charge with the box, buy petticoats and pearls,
And keep your family by the precious income;
Nor do I wish you should. My poorest servant
Shall not upbraid my tables, nor his hire,