Be sure he shall not miss sad punishment
'Fore he shall rule! On to my cell of shame.

"Pietro. My cell 't is, lady; where, instead of masks,
Musick, tilts, tournies, and such court-like shews,
The hollow murmur of the checkless winds
Shall groan again; whilst the unquiet sea
Shakes the whole rock with foamy battery.
There usherless the air comes in and out;
The rheumy vault will force your eyes to weep,
Whilst you behold true desolation.

A rocky desolation shall pierce your eyes,
Where all at once one reaches where he stands,
With brows the roof, both walls with both his hands.

"Aurelia, It is too good. Blessed spirit of my lord !
O in what orb soe'er thy soul is thron'd,
Behold me worthily most miserable !
O let the anguish of my contrite spirit
Intreat some reconciliation:

If not, O joy, triumph in my just grief,
Death is the end of woes, and tears relief.

" Pietro. Belike your lord not lov'd you, was unkind.
"Aurelia. O heaven!

As the soul lov'd the body, so lov'd he :
'Twas death to him to part my presence,
Heaven to see me pleased.

Yet I, like to a wretch given o'er to hell,
Brake all the sacred rites of marriage,
To clip a base ungentle faithless villain.
O God! a very pagan reprobate
What should I say! ungrateful, throws me out,
From whom I lost soul, body, fame and honour.
But 't is most fit: why should a better fate
Attend on any who forsakes chaste sheets;
Fly the embrace of a devoted heart,
Join'd by a solemn vow 'fore God and man,
To taste the brackish blood of beastly lust,
In an adulterous touch? O ravenous immodesty!
Insatiate impudence of appetite !

Look here's your end, for mark what sap in dust,
What good in sin, even so much love in lust.
Joy to thy ghost, sweet lord; pardon to me."

Marston was a satirist, as well as a dramatic poet; and was second only to bishop Hall.

scarcely leave learning and the way to preferment, for an author's drudgery and the precarious hopes of the dramatic life. As a player, we hear of him in the company of prince Henry. As a dramatist he is rather known from his co-operation with Middleton, Fletcher, Massinger, and Decker, than for his own compositions. Yet he wrote several, of which four at least were printed, and some which were never published. His Match at Midnight is said to be the most tolerable of his performances. It is not without comic power; it gives us no little insight into the manners of the times; and it has some striking scenes. Here its praise must end.

7. Nathaniel Field may be placed in the same rank as Rowley, Middleton, and Decker. He, too, co-operated with other writers in the production of several pieces. For two of his own he is most read, - A Woman's a Weathercock, and Amends for Ladies. These we have not read, and we shall therefore give no opinion respecting them. Of the author, nothing is known but that he was cotemporary with Massinger, Shirley, and Ford.

But

8. Thomas May is more celebrated as an historian and a political adherent of the Roundheads, than for his dramatic talents. These place him merely with the third, or even fourth, rate writers of his age. The Heir and The Old Couple are well known, but they will scarcely bear a perusal. He had, however, a very classical taste (he was of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge); he had some reading; and he excelled as a translater. His Lucan was highly praised. neither for his poetry nor his translations did he succeed so well in the world as for his political tendencies. It may, however, be doubted whether the zeal he exhibited in behalf of the parliament was the result of conviction. His aversion to the court arose, we are told, from his being refused the post of laureate, which was conferred on Davenant. However this be, he was a great favourite with the regicides, and on his death, in 1650,

he

After the Restoration, however, his bones, with those of many others, were dug up, and thrown into a pit near St. Margaret's church.

9. Of Robert Davenport, who died about two years before Shirley, we know nothing except that he wrote about nine plays, one of which, The City Night Cap, is familiar to the readers of Dodsley's Collection.

10. William Cartwright was superior in dramatic merit to many of the preceding. Whether he was of Northway in Gloucestershire, and born in 1611, as Wood affirms, or of Burford in Oxfordshire, and born in 1615, as Lloyd assures us, we need not inquire. By the former writer, his father is said to have been so much reduced in circumstances, as to be fain to keep an inn at Cirencester. However this be, he had excellent means of education. From the grammar school at Cirencester, he was sent to Westminster; and from Westminster to Christ Church, Oxford, where he prosecuted his studies with much reputation. In what year he embraced holy orders we are not informed; but we are told that he was an eminent preacher, and that, in his post of metaphysical reader, he gave unmixed satisfaction. He must, indeed, have been a man of great acquirements, or bishop Fell would not have said that he was "the utmost man could come to." Nor would Ben Jonson have called him by the endearing name of " son," and declared that he wrote every thing "like a man." His virtues are said to have been equal to his learning. Had he lived, he would certainly have been raised to the bench. The last mark of honour which his university conferred on him, that of junior proctor, he only survived six months. He died of a malignant fever in 1643, before he had reached the prime of life; and his death gave much pain to the university, and even, we are told, to the court, which happened then to be at Oxford.

But if Cartwright was thus eminent as a scholar, we have yet to learn that he has many claims as a dramatist.

Four of his English plays probably all that he wrote

- we have read; but we cannot, in conscience, term him a man of genius. If his good taste, his knowledge of critical rules, prevent him from sinking below mediocrity, he is never sublime; his plots are defective; he has little knowledge of life, and less of the human heart. But his sentiments are just, his language is forcible, his versification vigorous; and if he be not well adapted for the stage, he will be read in the closet.

Of some inferior writers, as Suckling, Brome, Marmion, Habington, Randolph, Fisher, Tomkis, Cook, Brewer, Wilkins, Barry, Taylor, we have neither the space nor the desire to say one word. If the reader wishes to know more of them, he may to a certain extent be gratified by wading through Dodsley's Collection.