Val. Alas, sir, hear me! all that I can say In my excuse, is but to show love's warrant. Gost. Notable wag. Val. I know I have committed Of this sweet hand; my heart had been consumed Gost. O puissant wag, what huge large thongs he cuts Out of his friend Fortunio's stretching leather. Marc. Ant. He knows he does it but to blind my eyes. Gost. O excellent! these men will put up anything. Val. Had I not had her, I had lost my life: Which life indeed I would have lost before I had displeased you, had I not received it From such a kind, a wise, and honour'd father. Gost. Notable boy. Val. Yet do I here renounce Love, life and all, rather than one hour longer Endure to have your love eclipsed from me. Grat. O, I can hold no longer, if thy words Be used in earnest, my Valerio, Thou wound'st my heart, but I know 'tis in jest. Gost. No, I'll be sworn she has her liripoop too. SPEECH OF VALERIO TO RYNALDO, IN ANSWER TO HIS BITTER I TELL thee love is nature's second sun, For love informs them as the sun doth colours. As to joy one joy, and think both one thought, PRIDE. O, the good gods, How blind is pride! What eagles are we still In matters that belong to other men! What beetles in our own! THOMAS RANDOLPH. [Born, 1605. Died, 1634.] THOMAS RANDOLPH was the son of a steward to Lord Zouch. He was a king's scholar at Westminster, and obtained a fellowship at Cambridge. His wit and learning endeared him to Ben Jonson, who owned him, like Cartwright, as his adopted son in the Muses. Unhappily he followed the taste of Ben not only at the pen, but at the bottle; and he closed his life in poverty, at the age of twenty-nine,-a date lamentably premature, when we consider the promises of his genius. His wit and humour are very conspicuous in the Puritan characters, whom he supposes the spectators of his scenes in the Muse's Looking-Glass. Throughout the rest of that drama (though it is on the whole his best performance) he unfortunately prescribed to himself too hard and confined a system of dramatic effect. Professing simply, "in single scenes to show, How comedy presents each single vice, Ridiculous" he introduces the vices and contrasted humours of human nature in a tissue of unconnected personifications, and even refines his representations of abstract character into conflicts of speculative opinion. For his skill in this philosophical pageantry the poet speaks of being indebted to Aristotle, and probably thought of his play what Voltaire said of one of his own, "This would please you, if you were Greeks." The female critic's reply to Voltaire was very reasonable," But we are not Greeks." Judging of Randolph, however, by the plan which he professed to follow, his execution is vigorous: his ideal characters are at once distinct and various, and compact with the expression which he INTRODUCTORY SCENE OF "THE MUSES LOOKING-GLASS." Enter BIRD, a feather-man, and MRS. FLOWERDEW, wife to a haberdasher of small wares-the one having brought feathers to the playhouse, the other pins and looking-glasses— two of the sanctified fraternity of Blackfriars. Mrs. Flowerdew. SEE, brother, how the wicked To works of vanity! not a nook or corner Bird. Sister, were there not before inns- Mrs. F. Iniquity aboundeth, though pure zeal Teach, preach, huff, puff, and snuff at it; yet still, Still it aboundeth! Had we seen a church, A new-built church, erected north and south, It had been something worth the wondering at. Bird. Good works are done. Mrs. F. I say no works are good; No marvel now if playhouses increase, Mrs. F. Flat fornication! I wonder anybody takes delight Bird. Nay, and I have heard, Mrs. F. Or you sell feathers, brother; But are they not hang'd for it? Bird. Law grows partial, And finds it but chance-medley: and their comedies Will abuse you, or me, or anybody; We cannot put our moneys to increase By lawful usury, nor break in quiet, Nor put off our false wares, nor keep our wives Finer than others, but our ghosts must walk Upon their stages. Mrs. F. Is not this flat conjuring, To make our ghosts to walk ere we be dead? 1. Aristippus, or the Jovial Philosopher.-2. The Conceited Pedlar.-3. The Jealous Lovers, a comedy.-4. Amyntas, or the Impossible Dowry, a pastoral.-5. Hey for Honesty Down with Knavery, a comedy. Base, sinful, shameless, ugly, vile, deform'd, Mrs. F. I have heard 'our vicar Call play-houses the colleges of transgression, Bird. Why then the city will in time be made An university of iniquity. We dwell by Black-Friars college, where I wonder Mrs. F. It was a zealous prayer I heard a brother make concerning play-houses. Bird. For charity, what is't? Mrs. F. That the Globet Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice, I' th' time of reformation: lastly, he wish'd [garden, [science, Bird. A good prayer! Mrs. F. Indeed, it something pricks my conI come to sell 'em pins and looking-glasses. Bird. I have their custom, too, for all their feathers; 'Tis fit that we, which are sincere professors, Should gain by infidels. SPEECH OF ACOLASTUS THE EPICURE. O! Now for an eternity of eating! I would have My senses feast together; Nature envied us In giving single pleasures. Let me have My ears, eyes, palate, nose, and touch, at once †That the Globe, &c.-The Globe, the Phoenix, the Fortune, the Blackfriars, the Red Bull, and Bear Garden, were names of several play-houses then in being. Enjoy their happiness. Lay me in a bed COLAX, THE FLATTERER, BETWEEN THE DISMAL PHILOSOPHER ANAISTHETUS AND THE EPICURE ACOLASTUS, ACCOMMODATING HIS OPINIONS TO BOTH. FROM THE SAME. Acolastus. THEN let's go drink a while. Anaisthetus. "Tis too much labour. Happy That never drinks!... [Tantalus, Colax. Sir, I commend this temperance. Your Is able to contemn these petty baits, [arm'd soul These slight temptations, which we title pleasures, That are indeed but names. Heaven itself knows No such like thing. The stars nor eat, nor drink, Nor lie with one another, and you imitate Those glorious bodies; by which noble abstinence You gain the name of moderate, chaste, and sober, While this effeminate gets the infamous terms Of glutton, drunkard, and adulterer; Pleasures that are not man's, as man is man, But as his nature sympathies with beasts. You shall be the third Cato-this grave look And rigid eyebrow will become a censorBut I will fit you with an object, Sir, My noble Anaisthetus, that will please you; It is a looking-glass, wherein at once You may see all the dismal groves and caves, The horrid vaults, dark cells, and barren deserts, With what in hell itself can dismal be! Anaisth. This is, indeed, a prospect fit for me. [Exit. Acolas. He cannot see a stock or stone, but preHe wishes to be turn'd to one of those. [sently I have another humour-I cannot see A fat voluptuous sow with full delight Wallow in dirt, but I do wish myself Transform'd into that blessed epicure; Colax. It shows you a man of soft moving clay, Not made of flint. Nature has been bountiful To provide pleasures, and shall we be niggards At plentiful boards? He's a discourteous guest That will observe a diet at a feast. When Nature thought the earth alone too little Would she Doth nurse some curious dainty for man's food, COLAX TO PHILOTIMIA, OR THE PROUD LADY. FROM THE SAME. Colax. MADAM Superbia, You're studying the lady's library, The looking-glass: 'tis well, so great a beauty Must have her ornaments; nature adorns The peacock's tail with stars; 'tis she arrays The bird of paradise in all her plumes, She decks the fields with various flowers; 'tis she Spangled the heavens with all their glorious lights; She spotted th' ermine's skin, and arm'd the fish In silver mail: but man she sent forth nakedNot that he should remain so-but that he, Endued with reason, should adorn himself With every one of these. To silk-worm is Only man's spinster, else we might suspect That she esteem'd the painted butterfly Above her master-piece; you are the image Of that bright goddess, therefore wear the jewels Of all the East-let the Red Sea be ransack'd To make you glitter! THE PRAISE OF WOMAN. HE is a parricide to his mother's name, The sun of dust; and though your sin did breed If, then, in bodies where the souls do dwell, Boast we of knowledge, you are more than we, Let him dispute against that dares deny Thus, perfect creatures, if detraction rise sent So subtle and so strong an argument, Will teach the stoic his affections too, And call the cynic from his tub to woo. RICHARD CORBET. [Born, 1582. Died, 1635.] THE anecdotes of this facetious bishop, quoted | by Headley from the Aubrey MSS. would fill several pages of a jest-book. It is more to his honour to be told, that though entirely hostile in his principles to the Puritans, he frequently softened, with his humane and characteristic plea santry, the furious orders against them which Laud enjoined him to execute. On the whole he does credit to the literary patronage of James, who made him dean of Christ's Church, and successively bishop of Oxford and Norwich. DR. CORBET'S JOURNEY INTO FRANCE. But I to Paris rode along, Much like John Dory in the song, I on an ambling nag did jet, And to St. Denis fast we came, Her breast, her milk, her very gown Yet all the world knows that's a fable, No carpenter could by his trade Gain so much coin as to have made A gown of so rich stuff; 'Yet they, poor souls, think for their credit, That they believe old Joseph did it, 'Cause he deserv'd enough. There is one of the cross's nails, There is a lantern which the Jews, There's one saint there hath lost his nose, His elbow and his thumb; But when that we had seen the rags, We came to Paris, on the Seine, How strong it is I need not tell it, There many strange things are to see, The Place Royal doth excel, The New Bridge, and the statues there, At Notre Dame St. Q. Pater, The steeple bears the bell. For learning the University, The Bastile and St. Denis street, But if you'll see the prettiest thing, He is, of all his dukes and peers, A bird that can but kill a fly, Or prate, doth please his majesty, The Duke of Guise gave him a parrot, O that I e'er might have the hap Is call'd the Indian ruck! I'd give it him, and hope to be Birds round about his chamber stand, And he them feeds with his own hand, "Tis his humility; And if they do want any thing, But now, then, for these parts he must He hath besides a pretty quirk, Which puts a doubt in every one, The people too dislike the youth, His queen, a pretty little wench, For her incestuous house could not Nor why should Lewis, being so just, And suffer his little pretty queen, "Twere charity for to be known Who, men thought, did the same. THE FAIRIES' FAREWELL. FAREWELL, rewards and Fairies! For now foul sluts in dairies, Do fare as well as they : And though they sweep their hearths no less Yet who of late for cleanliness Lament, lament, old abbeys, They did but change priests' babies, Who live as changelings ever since, At morning and at evening both So little care of sleep and sloth, When Tom came home from labour, Then merrily went their tabor, [* Anne of Austria.-C.] |