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
A great impiety, not to move you first
Before the dame, I meant to make my wife.
Consider what I am, yet young, and green,
Behold what she is; is there not in her
Ay, in her very eye, a power to conquer
Even age itself and wisdom? Call to mind,
Sweet father, what yourself being young have been,
Think what you may be; for I do not think
The world so far spent with you, but you may
Look back on such a beauty, and I hope
To see you young again, and to live long
With young affections; wisdom makes a man
Live young for ever: and where is this wisdom
If not in you? alas, I know not what
Rest in your wisdom to subdue affections;
But I protest it wrought with me so strongly,
That I had quite been drown'd in seas of tears,
Had I not taken hold in happy time

Of this sweet hand; my heart had been consumed
T'a heap of ashes with the flames of love,
Had it not sweetly been assuaged and cool'd
With the moist kisses of these sugar'd lips.

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
INVECTIVE AGAINST THE SEX.

I TELL thee love is nature's second sun,
Causing a spring of virtues where he shines.
And as without the sun, the world's great eye,
All colours, beauties, both of art and nature,
Are given in vain to men; so without love
All beauties bred in women are in vain,
All virtues born in men lie buried,

For love informs them as the sun doth colours.
And as the sun, reflecting his warm beams
Against the earth, begets all fruits and flowers,
So love, fair shining in the inward man,
Brings forth in him the honourable fruits
Of valour, wit, virtue, and haughty thoughts,
Brave resolution, and divine discourse.
O'tis the paradise! the heaven of earth!
And didst thou know the comfort of two hearts
In one delicious harmony united,

As to joy one joy, and think both one thought,
Live both one life, and there in double life, ....
Thou wouldst abhor thy tongue for blasphemy.

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 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
throng and crowd

To works of vanity! not a nook or corner
In all this house of sin, this cave of filthiness,
This den of spiritual thieves, but it is stuff'd,
Stuff'd, and stuff'd full, as is a cushion,
With the lewd reprobate.

Bird. Sister, were there not before inns-
Yes, I will say inns (for my zeal bids me
Say filthy inns) enough to harbour such
As travell'd to destruction the broad way,
But they build more and more-more shops of
Satan?

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;
Good works are merely popish and apocryphal.
Bird. But the bad abound, surround, yea, and
confound us.

No marvel now if playhouses increase,
For they are all grown so obscene of late,
That one begets another.

Mrs. F. Flat fornication!

I wonder anybody takes delight
To hear them prattle.

Bird. Nay, and I have heard,
That in a tragedy, I think they call it,
They make no more of killing one another,
Than you sell pins.

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,
Pernicious monsters!

Mrs. F. I have heard 'our vicar

Call play-houses the colleges of transgression,
Wherein the seven deadly sins are studied.

Bird. Why then the city will in time be made An university of iniquity.

We dwell by Black-Friars college, where I wonder
How that profane nest of pernicious birds
Dare roost themselves there in the midst of us,
So many good and well-disposed persons.
O impudence!

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,
Had been consumed; the Phoenix burnt to ashes;
The Fortune whipt for a blind whore; Blackfriars
He wonders how it 'scaped demolishing

I' th' time of reformation: lastly, he wish'd
The Bull might cross the Thames to the Bear-
And there be soundly baited.

[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.
FROM THE SAME.

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
Made of a summer's cloud; to my embraces
Give me a Venus hardly yet fifteen,
Fresh, plump, and active- she that Mars enjoy'd
Is grown too stale; and then at the same instant
My touch is pleased, I would delight my sight
With pictures of Diana and her nymphs
Naked and bathing, drawn by some Apelles;
By them some of our fairest virgins stand,
That I may see whether 'tis art or nature
Which heightens most my blood and appetite.
Nor cease I here: give me the seven orbs,
To charm my ears with their celestial lutes,
To which the angels that do move those spheres
Shall sing some am'rous ditty. Nor yet here
Fix I my bounds: the sun himself shall fire
The phoenix nest to make me a perfume,
While I do eat the bird, and eternally
Quaff off eternal nectar! These, single, are
But torments; but together, O together,
Each is a paradise! Having got such objects
To please the senses, give me senses too
Fit to receive those objects; give me, therefore,
An eagle's eye, a blood-hound's curious smell,
A stag's quick hearing; let my feeling be
As subtle as the spider's, and my taste
Sharp as a squirrel's-then I'll read the Alcoran,
And what delights that promises in future,
I'll practise in the present.

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;
Or when I view the hot salacious sparrow,
I wish myself that little bird of love.

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
To find us meat, and therefore stored the air
With winged creatures; not contented yet,
She made the water fruitful to delight us!
Nay, I believe the other element too

Would she

Doth nurse some curious dainty for man's food,
If we would use the skill to catch the salamander.
Did she do this to have us eat with temperance?
Or when she gave so many different odours
Of spices, unguents, and all sorts of flowers,
She cried not, "Stop your noses."
So sweet a choir of wing'd musicians, [give us
To have us deaf? or when she placed us here—
Here in a paradise, where such pleasing prospects,
So many ravishing colours, entice the eye,
Was it to have us wink? When she bestow'd
So powerful faces, such commanding beauties,
On many glorious nymphs, was it to say,
Be chaste and continent? Not to enjoy
All pleasures, and at full, were to make Nature
Guilty of that she ne'er was guilty of-
A vanity in her works.

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.
FROM HIS MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

HE is a parricide to his mother's name,
And with an impious hand murders her fame,
That wrongs the praise of women; that dares write
Libels on saints, or with foul ink requite
The milk they lent us! Better sex! command
To your defence my more religious hand,
At sword or pen; yours was the nobler birth,
For you of man were made, man but of earth-

The sun of dust; and though your sin did breed
His fall, again you raised him in your seed.
Adam, in 's sleep, again full loss sustain'd,
That for one rib a better half regain'd,
Who, had he not your blest creation seen
In Paradise an anchorite had been.
Why in this work did the creation rest,
But that Eternal Providence thought you best
Of all his six days' labour? Beasts should do
Homage to man, but man shall wait on you;
You are of comelier sight, of daintier touch,
A tender flesh, and colour bright, and such
As Parians see in marble; skin more fair,
More glorious head, and far more glorious hair;
Eyes full of grace and quickness; purer roses
Blush in your cheeks, a milder white composes
Your stately fronts; yourbreath,more sweet than his,
Breathes spice, and nectar drops at every kiss....

If, then, in bodies where the souls do dwell,
You better us, do then our souls excel?
No....

Boast we of knowledge, you are more than we,
You were the first ventured to pluck the tree;
And that more rhetoric in your tongues do
lie,

Let him dispute against that dares deny
Your least commands; and not persuaded be
With Samson's strength and David's piety,
To be your willing captives.....

Thus, perfect creatures, if detraction rise
Against your sex, dispute but with your eyes,
Your hand, your lip, your brow, there will be

sent

So subtle and so strong an argument, Will teach the stoic his affections too, And call the cynic from his tub to woo.

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.
I WENT from England into France,
Nor yet to learn to cringe nor dance,
Nor yet to ride nor fence;
Nor did I go like one of those
That do return with half a nose,
They carried from hence.

But I to Paris rode along,

Much like John Dory in the song,
Upon a holy tide;

I on an ambling nag did jet,
(I trust he is not paid for yet,)
And spurr'd him on each side.

And to St. Denis fast we came,
To see the sights of Notre Dame,
(The man that shows them snaffles,)
Where who is apt for to believe,
May see our Lady's right-arm sleeve,
And eke her old pantoffles;

Her breast, her milk, her very gown
That she did wear in Bethlehem town,
When in the inn she lay;

Yet all the world knows that's a fable,
For so good clothes ne'er lay in stable,
Upon a lock of hay.

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,
Which whoso sees his bonnet vails,
And, if he will, may kneel;
Some say 'twas false, 'twas never so,
Yet, feeling it, thus much I know,
It is as true as steel.

There is a lantern which the Jews,
When Judas led them forth, did use,
It weighs my weight down right;
But to believe it, you must think
The Jews did put a candle in't,
And then 'twas very light.

There's one saint there hath lost his nose,
Another 's head, but not his toes,

His elbow and his thumb;

But when that we had seen the rags,
We went to th' inn and took our nags,
And so away did come.

We came to Paris, on the Seine,
"Tis wondrous fair, 'tis nothing clean,
"Tis Europe's greatest town;

How strong it is I need not tell it,
For all the world may easily smell it,
That walk it up and down.

There many strange things are to see,
The palace and great gallery,

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,
And for old clothes the Frippery,
The house the queen did build.
St. Innocence, whose earth devours
Dead corpse in four and twenty hours,
And there the king was kill'd.

The Bastile and St. Denis street,
The Shafflenist like London Fleet,
The Arsenal no toy;

But if you'll see the prettiest thing,
Go to the court and see the king,
O 'tis a hopeful boy!

He is, of all his dukes and peers,
Reverenced for much wit at 's years,
Nor must you think it much;
For he with little switch doth play,
And make fine dirty pies of clay,
O, never king made such!

A bird that can but kill a fly,

Or prate, doth please his majesty,
"Tis known to every one;

The Duke of Guise gave him a parrot,
And he had twenty cannons for it,
For his new galleon.

O that I e'er might have the hap
To get the bird which in the map

Is call'd the Indian ruck!

I'd give it him, and hope to be
As rich as Guise or Liviné,
Or else I had ill-luck.

Birds round about his chamber stand,

And he them feeds with his own hand, "Tis his humility;

And if they do want any thing,
They need but whistle for their king,
And he comes presently.

But now, then, for these parts he must
Be enstiled Lewis the Just,
Great Henry's lawful heir;
When to his stile to add more words,
They'd better call him King of Birds,
Than of the great Navarre.

He hath besides a pretty quirk,
Taught him by nature, how to work
In iron with much ease;
Sometimes to the forge he goes,
There he knocks and there he blows,
And makes both locks and keys;

Which puts a doubt in every one,
Whether he be Mars or Vulcan's son.
Some few believe his mother;
But let them all say what they will,
I came resolved, and so think still,
As much th' one as th' other.

The people too dislike the youth,
Alleging reasons, for, in truth,
Mothers should honour'd be ;
Yet others say, he loves her rather
As well as ere she loved his father,
And that's notoriously—

His queen, a pretty little wench,
Was born in Spain, speaks little French,
She's ne'er like to be mother;

For her incestuous house could not
Have children which were not begot
By uncle or by brother.

Nor why should Lewis, being so just,
Content himself to take his lust
With his Lucina's mate,

And suffer his little pretty queen,
From all her race that yet hath been,
So to degenerate?

"Twere charity for to be known
To love others' children as his own,
And why? it is no shame,
Unless that he would greater be
Than was his father Henery,

Who, men thought, did the same.

THE FAIRIES' FAREWELL.

FAREWELL, rewards and Fairies!
Good housewives now you may say;

For now foul sluts in dairies,

Do fare as well as they :

And though they sweep their hearths no less
Than maids were wont to do,

Yet who of late for cleanliness
Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old abbeys,
The fairies lost command;

They did but change priests' babies,
But some have changed your land:
And all your children stol'n from thence
Are now grown Puritans,

Who live as changelings ever since,
For love of your domains.

At morning and at evening both
You merry were and glad,

So little care of sleep and sloth,
These pretty ladies had.

When Tom came home from labour,
Or Ciss to milking rose,

Then merrily went their tabor,
And nimbly went their toes.
Witness those rings and roundelays
Of theirs, which yet remain;
Were footed in Queen Mary's days
On many a grassy plain.
But since of late Elizabeth
And later James came in;
They never danced on any heath,
As when the time hath bin.
By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession:
Their songs were Ave Maries,
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas,
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.....

[* Anne of Austria.-C.]