Duke. Forbear, you monstrous women! do not

add

Murther to lust; your lives shall pay this forfeit.

Fer. Pox upon all cod-piece extravagancy! I am pepper'd-oh, oh, oh!-Duke, forgive me! Had I rid any tame beasts but Barbary wild colts, I had not thus been jerk'd out of the saddle. My forfeit was in my blood; and my life hath answer'd it. Vengeance on all wild whores, I say!—oh 'tis true-farewell, generation of hacknies.-oh!

Duke. He is dead.

To prison with those monstrous strumpets.

Pet. Stay,

I'll answer for my daughter.

Nib. And I for mine.

Oh well done, girls!

Fern. I for yon gentlewoman, sir.

[Dies.

Maur. Good my lord, I am an innocent in the business.

Duke. To prison with him!+ Bear the body hence.

Abbot. Here's fatal sad presages; but 'tis just, He dies by murther, that hath lived in lust.

[Exeunt.

4 Duke. To prison with him.] i. e. with Mauruccio, the only innocent person of the party. This good prince seems determined, like the Cardinal in a former play, to have some one to punish. Few third acts can be found so uniformly reprehensible and disgusting as this the only thing to praise in it, is the promptitude with which the author has freed himself, in part, from the loathsome incumbrance of such a worthless rabble.

:

ACT IV. SCENE I.

An Apartment in the Palace.

Enter DUKE, FIORMONDA, and D'AVOLOS.

Fior. Art thou Caraffa? is there in thy veins.
One drop of blood that issued from the loins
Of Pavy's ancient dukes? or dost thou sit
On great Lorenzo's seat, our glorious father,
And canst not blush to be so far beneath
The spirit of heroic ancestors?

Canst thou ingross a slavish shame, which men,
Far, far below the region of thy state,
Not more abhor, than study to revenge ?
Thou an Italian! I could burst with rage,
To think I have a brother so befool'd,
In giving patience to a harlot's lust.

D'Av. One, my lord, that doth so palpably, so apparently make her adulteries a trophy, whiles the poting-stick' to her unsatiate and more than

5 Poting-stick.] A poting, or, as it was more commonly called, a poking-stick, was a slender rod of bone or steel, for setting the plaits of ruffs, cuffs, &c. after starching. The name of this little implement grievously annoys old Stubbes; it was given to it, he says, by the devil, who brought in the practice of starching it might, perhaps, have been more elegant; otherwise, I do not see much amiss in it. Archdeacon Nares, in his valuable Glossary, quotes poted. On which he says, "I have seen this word only in the following instance, and do not exactly know its meaning: He keeps a starcht gate, weares a formall ruffe, A nosegay, set face, and a poted cuffe."

66

Hayw. Brit. iv. 20.

The meaning is clear enough: a cuff, of which the plaits had

goatish abomination jeers at, and flouts your sleepish, and more than sleepish security.

Fior. What is she, but the sallow-colour'd brat Of some unlanded bankrupt, taught to catch The easy fancy of young prodigal bloods, In springes of her stew-instructed art?— Here's your most virtuous duchess! your rare piece!

D'Av. More base in the infiniteness of her sensuality than córruption can infect:-to clip and inveigle your friend too! oh unsufferable!a friend! how of all men are you most unfortunate: -to pour out your soul into the bosom of such a creature, as holds it religion to make your own trust a key to open the passage to your own wife's womb, to be drunk in the privacies of your bed! -think upon that, sir.

Duke. Be gentle in your tortures, e'en for pity; For pity's cause, I beg it.

Fior. Be a prince!

Thou hadst better, duke, thou hadst, been born a peasant.

Now boys will sing thy scandal in the streets,
Tune ballads to thy infamy, get money

been starched, and stiffened and puffed out by the poting-stick. My old schoolmaster wore a coat with a cuff of this kind; it was large, and turned back very far on the sleeve. The good man had figured in it for half a century on Sundays; but, I grieve to say, it excited in his latter days more mirth than reverence in the ungracious urchins who followed him to church. This note (otherwise of no value) may serve to shew that poted cuffs came down, at least in the remote provinces, to Queen Anne's days.

By making pageants of thee, and invent
Some strangely-shaped man-beast, that may for

horns

Resemble thee, and call it Pavy's duke.

Duke. Endless immortal plague!

D'Av. There's the mischief, sir: in the meantime you shall be sure to have a bastard (of whom you did not so much as beget a little toe, a left ear, or half the farther side of an upper lip) inherit both your throne and name; this would kill the soul of very patience itself.

Duke. Forbear; the ashy paleness of my cheek Is scarleted in ruddy flakes of wrath;

And like some bearded meteor shall suck up,
With swiftest terror, all those dusky mists
That overcloud compassion in our breast.
You have rous'd a sleeping lion, whom no art,
No fawning smoothness shall reclaim; but blood.
And sister thou, thou Roderico, thou,

From whom I take the surfeit of my bane,
Henceforth no more so eagerly pursue,
To whet my dulness; you shall see Caraffa
Equal his birth, and matchless in revenge.

Fior. Why, now I hear you speak in majesty.
D'Av. And it becomes my lord most princely.
Duke. Does it? come hither, sister; thou art

near

In nature, and as near to me in love.
I love thee, yes, by yon bright firmament,
I love thee dearly; but observe me well:
If any private grudge, or female spleen,

Malice or envy, or such woman's frailty,
Have spurr'd thee on to set my soul on fire,
Without apparent certainty; I vow,

And vow again, by all [our] princely blood,
Hadst thou a double soul, or were the lives
Of fathers, mothers, children, or the hearts
Of all our tribes in thine, I would unrip
That womb of bloody mischief with these nails,
Where such a cursed plot as this was hatch'd.
But, D'Avolos, for thee-no more; to work
A yet more strong impression in my brain,
You must produce an instance to mine eye,
Both present and apparent-nay, you shall-

or

Fior. Or what? you will be mad? be rather wise;

Think on Ferentes first, and think by whom
The harmless youth was slaughter'd; had he liv'd,
He would have told you tales: Fernando fear'd it;
And to prevent him, under shew, forsooth,
Of rare device, most trimly cut him off.

Have you yet eyes, duke?

Duke. Shrewdly urged,-'tis piercing.

Fior. For looking on a sight shall split your soul.

You shall not care; I'll undertake myself
To do't some two days hence; for need, to-night-
But that you are in court.

D'Av. Right. Would you desire, my lord, to see them exchange kisses, sucking one another's lips, nay, begetting an heir to the dukedom, or