Dived low as to the center, and then reacht
Unto the Primum Mobile above,

(Nor 'scaped Things Intermediate), for your love
These have been acted often; all have past
Censure of which some live, and some are cast.
For this in agitation, stay the end;
Tho' nothing please, yet nothing can offend.2

A CHALLENGE FOR BEAUTY.

A TRAGI-COMEDY

[See page 84] BY T. HEYWOOD

In the Prologue to this Play, Heywood commends the English Plays; not without a censure of some writers, who in his time had begun to degenerate.

The Roman and Athenian Dramas far
Differ from us: and those that frequent are
In Italy and France, ev'n in these days,
Compared with ours, are rather Jiggs than Plays.
Like of the Spanish may be said, and Dutch;
None, versed in language, but confess them such.
They do not build their projects on that ground;
Nor have their phrases half the weight and sound,
Our labour'd Scenes have had. And yet our nation
(Already too much tax'd for imitation,

In seeking to ape others) cannot 'quit

Some of our Poets, who have sinn'd in it.

For where, before, great Patriots, Dukes, and Kings,
Presented for some high facinorous things,*
Were the stage subject; now we strive to fly
In their low pitch, who never could soar high:
For now the common argument entreats
Of puling Lovers, crafty Bawds, or Cheats.

1 His own Play.

"[See also "Serious Fragments," page 573.] [Works, vol. v., Prologue. See also page 546.]

The foundations of the English Drama were laid deep in tragedy by Marlowe, and others-Marlowe especially-while our comedy was yet in its lisping state. To this tragic preponderance (forgetting his own sweet Comedies, and Shakspeare's), Hey. wood seems to refer with regret; as in the "Roscian Strain" he evidently alludes to Alleyn, who was great in the "Jew of Malta," as Heywood elsewhere testifies, and in the principal tragic parts both of Marlowe and Shakspeare.

Or the flattery in the epitaph?—which shows
More sluttish far than all the spiders' webs,
Shall ever grow upon it: what do these
Add to our well-being after death?
Cap. Not a scruple.

Rom. Very well then

I have a certain meditation,

(If I can think of,) somewhat to this purpose ;while my mother there

I'll say it to you,

Numbers her beads.

"You that dwell near these graves and vaults,
Which oft do hide physicians' faults,

Note what a small room does suffice
To express men's goods: their vanities
Would fill more volume in small hand,
Than all the evidence of Church Land.
Funerals hide men in civil wearing,

And are to the Drapers a good hearing;
Make th' Heralds laugh in their black rayment;
And all die Worthies, die with payment
To th' Altar offerings: tho' their fame,
And all the charity of their name,

"Tween heav'n and this, yield no more light
Than rotten trees, which shine in th' night.
O look the last Act be best in th' Play,
And then rest gentle bones! yet pray,
That when by the Precise you're view'd,
A supersedeas be not sued;

To remove you to a place more airy,
That in your stead they may keep chary
Stockfish, or seacoal; for the abuses

Of sacrilege have turn'd graves to vilder uses.
How then can any monument say,

Here rest these bones to the Last Day;

When Time, swift both of foot and feather,

May bear them the Sexton knows not whither ?—
What care I then, tho' my last sleep

Be in the desart, or in the deep;
No lamp, nor taper, day and night,
To give my charnel chargeable light?
I have there like quantity of ground;
And at the last day I shall be found." 1

[Act ii., Sc. 3.]

1 Webster was parish clerk at St. Andrew's, Holborn. The anxious recurrence to church-matters; sacrilege; tomb-stones; with the frequent introduction of dirges in this, and his other tragedies, may be traced to his professional sympathies.

II.

That thy theatre's loud noise
May be virgin's chaste applause ;
And the stoled matron, grave divine,
Their lectures done, may tend to thine :

III.

That no actor's made profane,

To debase Gods, to raise thy strain; And people forced, that hear thy Play, Their money and their souls to pay:

IV.

That thou leav'st affected phrase To the shops to use and praise; And breath'st a noble Courtly vein,— Such as may Cæsar entertain,

V.

When he wearied would lay down
The burdens that attend a crown ;
Disband his soul's severer powers;
In mirth and ease dissolve two hours:

VI.

These are thy inferior arts,
These I call thy second parts.

But when thou carriest on the plot,
And all are lost in th' subtle knot:

VII.

When the scene sticks to every thought,

And can to no event be brought;

When (thus of old the scene betraid)

Poets call'd Gods unto their aid,

I have a strange noise in my head. Oh, fly in [pieces].
Come, age, and wither me into the malice
Of those that have been happy; let me have
One property for more than the devil of hell;
Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily;
Let me in this life fear no kind of ill,

That have no good to hope for.1 Let me sink,

Where neither man nor memory may find me. (Falls to the ground.2) Confessor (entering). You are well employ'd, I hope; the best pillow in th' world

For this your contemplation is the earth,

And the best object, Heaven.

Leonora. I am whispering

To a dead friend-

Obstacles.

Let those, that would oppose this union,
Grow ne'er so subtle, and entangle themselves
In their own work, like spiders; while we two
Haste to our noble wishes; and presume,
The hindrance of it will breed more delight,-
As black copartaments shews gold more bright.

[Act iii., Sc. 3.]

[Act i., Sc. 2.]

Falling out.

To draw the Picture of Unkindness truly
Is, to express two that have dearly loved
And fal'n at variance.

[Act i., Sc. 1.]

THE BRIDE. A COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1640].

THOMAS NABBS

Antiquities.

HORTEN, a Collector. His friend.

Friend. You are [likewise] learned in Antiquities ?
Hort. A little, Sir.

I should affect them more, were not tradition

One of the best assurances to show

They are the things we think them. What more proofs,

[Four lines and a half omitted.]

2[Four lines.]

BY

Where poets flourish but in endless verse,
And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers:
This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never
Bite at your Golden World, that others ever
Loved as itself. Then like your Book, do you
Live in old peace: and that far praise allow.

G. Chapman.

COMMENDATORY VERSES BEFORE THE REBELLION. A TRAGEDY [PUBLISHED 1640]. BY T. RAWLINS [1620 ?-1670]1

To see a Springot of thy tender

age

With such a lofty strain to word a Stage;
To see a Tragedy from thee in print,
With such a world of fine meanders in't;
Puzzles my wond'ring soul: for there appears
Such disproportion 'twixt thy lines and years,
That when I read thy lines, methinks I see
The sweet-tongued Ovid fall upon his knee
With "Parce Precor." Every line and word
Runs in sweet numbers of its own accord.
But I am thunderstruck,2 that all this while
Thy unfeather'd quill should write a tragic style.
This, above all, my admiration draws,

That one so young should know dramatic laws:
"Tis rare, and therefore is not for the span

Or

greasy thumbs of every common man.

The damask rose that sprouts before the Spring,
Is fit for none to smell at but a king.

Go on, sweet friend: I hope in time to see
Thy temples rounded with the Daphnean tree;
And if men ask, "Who nurs'd thee?" I'll say thus,
"It was the Ambrosian Spring of Pegasus."

[See Dodsley, vol. xiv.]

Robert Chamberlain.

"[Should be "wonderstruck ".]