press, and I having intelligence thereof, thought it not fit that it should pass as filius populi, a Bastard without a father to acknowledge it: true it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of works (as others*): one reason is, that many of them by shifting and change of companies, have been negligently lost. Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print, and a third that it never was any great ambition in me to be in this kind voluminously read. All that I have further to say at this time is only this: censure I entreat as favourably as it is exposed to thy view freely.

"Ever

"Studious of thy Pleasure and Profit,

"TH. HEYWOOD."

Of the 220 pieces which he here speaks of having been concerned in, only 25, as enumerated by Dodsley, have come down to us, for the reasons assigned in the preface. The rest have perished, exposed to the casualties of a theatre. Heywood's ambition seems to have been confined to the pleasure of hearing the Players speak his lines while he lived. It does not appear that he ever contemplated the possibility of being read by after ages. What a slender pittance of fame was motive sufficient to the production of such Plays as the English Traveller, the Challenge for Beauty, and the Woman Killed with Kindness! Posterity is bound to take care that a Writer loses nothing by such a noble modesty.]

LXXIII.

A CHALLENGE FOR BEAUTY.

BY THE SAME.

PETROCELLA a fair Spanish Lady loves MONTFERRERS, an English Sea Captain, who is Captive to VALLADAUra, a noble Spaniard.—VALLADAURA loves the Lady, and employs MONTFERRERS to be the Messenger of his love to her.

Pet.

Mont.

PETROCELLA. MONTFERRERS.
What art thou in thy country?
There, a man.

* He seems to glance at Ben Jonson.

Pet. What here?

Mont.

Pet.

No better than you see: a slave.
Whose?

Mont. His that hath redeem'd me.

Pet. Valladaura's?

Mont. Yes, I proclaim 't; I that was once mine

own,

Am now become his creature.

Pet. I perceive,

Your coming is to make me think you noble.

Would you persuade me deem your friend a God? 10
For only such make men. Are you a gentleman?
Mont. Not here; for I am all dejectedness,
Captive to fortune, and a slave to want;

I cannot call these clothes I wear mine own,
I do not eat but at another's cost,

This air I breathe is borrow'd; ne'er was man
So poor and abject. I have not so much

In all this universe as a thing to leave,
Or a country I can freely boast is mine.
My essence and my being is another's.
What should I say? I am not any thing;
And I possess as little.

Pet. Tell me that?

Come, come, I know you to be no such man.
You are a soldier valiant and renown'd;
Your carriage tried by land, and prov'd at sea;
Of which I have heard such full expression,
No contradiction can persuade you less;

And in this faith I am constant.

Mont. A mere worm,

Trod on by every fate.

Pet. Rais'd by your merit

To be a common argument through Spain,

And speech at princes' tables, for your worth;
Your presence when you please to expose 't abroad
Attracts all eyes, and draws them after you;
And those that understand you, call their friends,
And pointing through the street, say, "This is he,
This is that brave and noble Englishman,
Whom soldiers strive to make their precedent,
And other men their wonder."

Mont. This your scorn

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40

Makes me appear more abject to myself,

Than all diseases I have tasted yet

Had power to asperse upon me; and yet, lady,
I could say something, durst I.

Pet. Speak 't at once.

Mont. And yet

Pet. Nay, but we'll admit no pause.

Mont. I know not how my phrase may relish you, And loth I were to offend; even in what's past I must confess I was too bold. Farewell;

I shall no more distaste you.

Pet. Sir, you do not;

I do proclaim you do not. Stay, I charge you;
Or, as you say you have been fortune's scorn,
So ever prove to woman.

Mont. You charge deeply,
And yet now I bethink me-

Pet. As you are a soldier,

And Englishman, have hope to be redeem'd
From this your scorned bondage you sustain,
Have comfort in your mother and fair sister,
Renown so blazed in the ears of Spain,

Hope to rebreathe that air you tasted first,
So tell me-

Mont. What?

Pet. Your apprehension catch'd,

And almost was in sheaf

Mont. Lady, I shall.

Pet. And in a word.

Mont. I will.

Pet. Pronounce it then.

Mont. I love you.

Pet. Ha, ha, ha.

Mont. Still it is my misery

Thus to be mock'd in all things.

Pet. Pretty, faith.

Mont. I look'd thus to be laughed at; my estate

And fortunes, I confess, deserve no less,

That made me so unwilling to denounce
Mine own derisions: but alas! I find

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40

No nation, sex, complexion, birth, degree,
But jest at want, and mock at misery.

Pet. Love me?