Hang him alive; whoever lends a bit

Of bread to feed him, dies: speak not against it, I will be deaf to mercy.-Bear him hence!

D'Av. Mercy, new duke! here's my comfort, I make but one in the number of the tragedy of princes. [He is led off. Ros. Madam, a second charge is to perform Your brother's testament; we'll rear a tomb To those unhappy lovers, which shall tell Their fatal loves to all posterity.

Thus, then, for you; henceforth I here dismiss
The mutual comforts of our marriage bed:
Learn to new-live, my vows unmov'd shall stand;
And since your life hath been so much uneven,
Bethink, in time, to make your peace with heaven.
Fior. Oh me! is this your love?

Ros. 'Tis your desert;

Which no persuasion shall remove.

Abbot. 'Tis fit;

Purge frailty with repentance.

Fior. I embrace it.

Happy too late, since lust hath made me foul,
Henceforth I'll dress my bride-bed in my soul.
Ros. Please you to walk, lord Abbot?
Abbot. Yes, set on:

No age hath heard, no chronicle can say,
That ever here befel a sadder day.

[Exeunt.

The catastrophe of this drama does not shame its progress. Enough, indeed, are left to bury the dead, but the mortality is nearly as widely spread as in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore; and, to confess the

truth, had all the survivors, with the exception of the Abbot, been involved in the same fate, no one would have "raised the waters" for them. Roseilli had hitherto preserved some of our esteem; but his treatment of Fiormonda, who had done nothing to excite his displeasure, except giving him the dukedom, with herself, since he exclaimed, upon her promise of kindness,

"Blessed, for ever blessed be the words!

In death you have reviv'd me."

reduces him to a level with the rest. It is useless to observe on the other characters; the duchess dying in odour of chastity, after confessing and triumphing in her lascivious passion; the poor duke, in defiance of it, affirming that "no man was ever blest with so good and loving a wife," and falling upon his sword, that he may the sooner share her tomb, together with "his unequalled friend," who so zealously had laboured to dishonour him; with other anomalies of a similar kind, render this one of the least attractive of Ford's pieces. It is not, however, without its beauties;-many scenes are charmingly written for the greater part, and few of our author's works contain more striking examples of his characteristic merits and defects. It was received, the titlepage says, generally well; an expression of which it would be hazardous to fix the precise import; but the author and his friends appear to have regarded it with complacency.

London: Printed by C. Roworth, Bell Yard, Temple Bar.