For sensualists in your own sepulchre,

Even by your life-time; yet are dead already.
Oct. How's this? come, be more mild.

Cast. You chide me soberly;

Then, sir, I tune my voice to other music.
You are an eminent statist; be a father
To such unfriended virgins as your bounty
Hath drawn into a scandal: you are powerful
In means; a bachelor, freed from the jealousies
Of wants; convert this privacy of maintenance
Into your own court; let this, as you call it,
Your Academy, have a residence there;
And there survey your charity yourself:
That when you shall bestow on worthy husbands,
With fitting portions, such as you know worthy,
You may yield to the present age, example,
And to posterity, a glorious chronicle;

There were a work of piety! The other is

A scorn upon your tombstone; where the reader Will but expound, that when you liv'd, you pandar'd

Your own purse and your fame. I am too bold, sir; Some anger and some pity hath directed

A wand'ring trouble.

Oct. Be not known what passages

The time hath lent; for once, I can bear with you.

Cast. I'll countenance the hazard of suspicion, And be your guest awhile.

Oct. Be-but hereafterI know not what.-Livio !

Re-enter LIVIO and MOROSA.

Liv. My lord.

Cast. Indeed, sir,

I cannot part wi' ye yet.

Oct. Well, then, thou shalt not,

My precious Castamela.-Thou hast a sister,

A perfect sister, Livio.

Mor. All is inck'd here,'

Good soul, indeed!

Liv. I'd speak with you anon.

Cast. It may be so.

[Aside.

Oct. Come, fair one.

Liv. Oh, I am cheated!

[Exeunt.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

An Apartment in the Palace.

Enter LIVIO and CASTAMELA.

Liv. Prithee, be serious.

Cast. Prithee, interrupt not

The paradise of my becharming thoughts,
Which mount my knowledge to the sphere I move

D'ye know to whom you talk this?

9 All is inck'd here.] So the old copy. If the poet meant to endow this convenient character with any feeling of goodness, this may be an expression of regret at finding, as she supposed, Castamela giving way to the marquis: should this not be admitted, we might then read nick'd, a transposition of the letters of the former word. This must be allowed to be a very beautiful scene, and Castamela rises considerably in the reader's estimation. She does not fall in that which follows.

Cast. To the gentleman

Of my lord's horse, new-stept into the office!
"Tis a good place, sir, if you can be thankful.
Demean your carriage in it so, that negligence,
Or pride of your preferment, oversway not
The grace you hold in his esteem; such fortunes
Drop not down every day: observe the favour
That rais'd you to this fortune.

Liv. Thou mistak'st sure

What person thou hold'st speech with.
Cast. Strange and idle.

Liv. Is't possible? why, you are turn'd a mistress,

A mistress of the trim! Beshrew me, lady,
You keep a stately port; but it becomes you not.
Our father's daughter, if I err not rarely,

Delighted in a softer, humbler sweetness,
Not in a hey-dey-gay of scurvy gallantry:
You do not brave it like a thing o' th' fashion,
You ape the humour faintly.

Cast. "Love, dear maid,

Is but desire of beauty, and 'tis proper
For beauty to desire to be beloved."

Liv. Fine sport!

You mind not me; will you yet hear me, madam? Cast. "Thou shalt not wish for any full addi

tion,

Which may adorn thy rarities to boast 'em,
That bounty can withhold."-I know I shall not.
Liv. And so you clapt the bargain! the conceit

on't

Tickles your contemplation! 'tis come out now:

A woman's tongue, I see, some time or other,

Will
prove her traitor; this was all I sifted,
And here have found thee wretched.

Cast. We shall flourish;

Feed high henceforth, man, and no straiten'd

more be

Within the limits of an empty patience;
Nor tire our feeble eyes with gazing only
On greatness, which enjoys the swing of plea-

sures;

But be ourselves the object of their envy,

To whom a service would have seem'd ambition.
It was thy cunning, Livio, I applaud it,
Fear nothing; I'll be thrifty in thy projects:
Want? misery? may all such want as think on't!
Our footing shall be firm.

Liv. You are much witty.
Why, Castamela, this to me?

you counterfeit Most palpably; I am too well acquainted With thy condition, sister. If the marquis Hath utter'd one unchaste, one wanton syllable, Provoking thy contempt; not all the flatteries Of his assurance to our hopes of rising Can, or shall, slave our souls.

Cast. Indeed not so, sir;

You

are beside the point, most gentle signor! I'll be no more your ward, no longer chamber'd,

I

I am too well acquainted

With thy condition, sister.] i. e. natural disposition. We have had this in a former play, (The Broken Heart) but as the word ambiguous appearance in this place, it seemed not improper

has an

to advert to it.

Nor mew'd up to the lure of your devotion;
Trust me, I must not, will not, dare not; surely
I cannot, for my promise past; and sufferance
Of former trials hath too strongly arm'd me:
You may take this for answer.

Liv. In such earnest!

Hath goodness left thee quite? Fool, thou art wand'ring

In dangerous fogs, which will corrupt the purity
Of every noble virtue dwelt within thee.
Come home again, home, Castamela, sister,
Home to thine own simplicity; and rather
Than yield thy memory up to the witchcraft
Of an abused confidence, be courted

For Romanello.

Cast. Romanello!

Liv. Scorn'st thou

The name? thy thoughts I find, then, are chang'd, rebels

To all that's honest; that's to truth and honour.
Cast. So, sir, and in good time!
Liv. Thou art fallen suddenly

Into a plurisy of faithless impudence;

A whorish itch infects thy blood, a leprosy
Of raging lust, and thou art mad to prostitute
The glory of thy virgin-dower basely

For common sale. This foulness must be purged,
Or thy disease will rankle to a pestilence,
Which can even taint the very air about thee;
But I shall study physic.

Cast. Learn good manners:

I take it, you are saucy.