How now, who's there, sprights, sprights?

Ped. We are your servants that attend you, sir
Hier. What make you with your torches in the dark ?
Ped. You bid us light them, and attend you here.
Hier. No, no, you are deceiv'd, not I, you are deceiv'd:
Was I so mad to bid you light your torches now?
Light me your torches at the mid of noon,
When as the sun god rides in all his glory;
Light me your torches then.

Ped. Then we burn day light.

Hier. Let it be burnt; night is a murd❜rous slut,
That would not have her treasons to be seen:
And yonder pale fac'd Hecate there, the moon,
Doth give consent to that is done in darkness.
And all those stars that gaze upon her face,
Are aglets on her sleeve, pins on her train :
And those that should be powerful and divine,
Do sleep in darkness when they most should shine.
Ped. Provoke them not, fair sir, with tempting words,

The heavens are gracious; and your miseries
And sorrow make you speak you know not what.

Hier. Villain, thou lyest, and thou doest nought
But tell me I am mad: thou lyest, I am not mad :

I know thee to be Pedro, and he Jaques.

I'll prove it to thee; and were I mad, how could I?

Where was she the same night, when my Horatio was murder'd? She should have shone: search thou the book:

Had the moon shone in my boy's face, there was a kind of grace,
That I know, nay, I do know had the murd❜rer seen him,

His weapon would have fallen, and cut the earth,
Had he been fram'd of nought but blood and death;
Alack, when mischief doth it knows not what,

What shall we say to mischief?

ISABELLA, his wife, enters.

Isa. Dear Hieronimo, come in a doors,

O seek not means to increase thy sorrow.

* Tags of points.

Hier. Indeed, Isabella, we do nothing here; I do not cry, ask Pedro and Jaques :

Not I indeed, we are very merry, very merry.

Isa. How? be merry here, be merry here?
Is not this the place, and this the very tree,
Where my Horatio died, where he was murder'd?
Hier. Was, do not say what: let her weep it out.
This was the tree, I set it of a kernel;
And when our hot Spain could not let it grow,
But that the infant and the human sap
Began to wither, duly twice a morning
Would I be sprinkling it with fountain water :
At last it grew and grew, and bore and bore:

Till at length it grew a gallows, and did bear our son.
It bore thy fruit and mine. O wicked, wicked plant.
See who knocks there.

Ped. It is a painter, sir.

[One knocks within at the door.

Hier. Bid him come in, and paint some comfort,
For surely there's none lives but painted comfort.
Let him come in, one knows not what may chance.
God's will that I should set this tree! but even so
Masters ungrateful servants rear from nought,
And then they hate them that did bring them up.

The Painter enters.

Pain. God bless you, sir.

Hier. Wherefore? why, thou scornful villain? How, where, or by what means should I be blest? Isa. What wouldst thou have, good fellow ? Pain. Justice, madam.

Hier. O ambitious beggar, wouldst thou have that

That lives not in the world?

Why, all the undelved mines cannot buy

An ounce of justice, 'tis a jewel so inestimable.

I tell thee, God hath engross'd all justice in his hands,

And there is none but what comes from him.

Pain. O then I see that God must right me for my murder'd

son.

Hier. How, was thy son murder'd?

Pain. Ay, sir, no man did hold a son so dear.
Hier. What, not as thine? that's a lie,
As massy as the earth: I had a son,
Whose least unvalued hair did weigh

A thousand of thy sons, and he was murder'd.
Pain. Alas, sir, I had no more but he.

Hier. Nor I, nor I; but this same one of mine
Was worth a legion. But all is one.

Pedro, Jaques, go in a doors, Isabella, go,
And this good fellow here, and 1,

Will range this hideous orchard up and down,
Like two she lions, 'reaved of their young.

Go in a doors I say.

Come let's talk wisely now.

Was thy son murdered?

Pain. Ay, sir.

Hier. So was mine.

[Exeunt.

(The Painter and he sit down.)

How dost thou take it? art thou not sometime mad?

Is there no tricks that come before thine eyes?
Pain. O lord, yes, sir.

Hier. Art a painter? canst paint me a tear, a wound?
A groan or a sigh? canst paint me such a tree as this?
Pain. Sir, I am sure you have heard of my painting;
My name 's Bazardo.

Hier. Bazardo! 'fore God an excellent fellow. Look you,

sir.

Do you see? I'd have you paint me in my gallery, in your oil colors matted, and draw me five years younger than I am: do you see, sir? let five years go, let them go,-my wife Isabella standing by me, with a speaking look to my son Horatio, which should intend to this, or some such like purpose; God bless thee, my sweet son; and my hand leaning upon his head thus, sir, de you see? may it be done?

Pain. Very well, sir.

Hier. Nay, I pray mark me, sir.

Then, sir, would I have you paint me this tree, this very tree: Canst paint a doleful cry?

Pain. Seemingly, sir.

Hier. Nay, it should cry; but all is one.

Well, sir, paint me a youth run thro' and thro' with villains' swords hanging upon this tree.

Canst thou draw a murd'rer?

Pain. I'll warrant you, sir; I have the pattern of the most notorious villains that ever lived in all Spain.

Hier. O, let them be worse, worse: stretch thine art,

And let their beards be of Judas's own color,

And let their eye-brows jut over: in any case observe that ;
Then, sir, after some violent noise,

Bring me forth in my shirt and my gown under my arm, with
my torch in my hand, and my sword rear'd up thus,—
And with these words; What noise is this? who calls Hieronimo ?
May it be done?

Pain. Yea, sir.

Hier. Well, sir, then bring me forth, bring me thro' alley and alley, still with a distracted countenance going along, and let my hair heave up my night-cap.

Let the clouds scowl, make the moon dark, the stars extinct, the winds blowing, the bells tolling, the owls shrieking, the toads croaking, the minutes jarring, and the clock striking twelve.

And then at last, sir, starting, behold a man hanging, and tott'ring, and tottʼring, as you know the wind will wave a man, and I with a trice to cut him down.

And looking upon him by the advantage of my torch, find it to be my son Horatio.

There you may show a passion, there you may show a passion. Draw me like old Priam of Troy, crying, the house is a fire, the house is a fire; and the torch over my head; make me curse, make me rave, make me cry, make me mad, make me well again, make me curse hell, invocate, and in the end leave me in a trance, and so forth.

Pain. And is this the end?

Hier. O no, there is no end: the end is death and madness; And I am never better than when I am mad;

Then methinks I am a brave fellow;

Then I do wonders; but reason abuseth me;
And there's the torment, there's the hell.

And last, sir, bring me to one of the murderers;
Were he as strong as Hector,

Thus would I tear and drag him up and down.

(He beats the Painter in.)

[These scenes, which are the very salt of the old play (which without them is but a caput mortuum, such another piece of flatness as Locrine), Hawkins, in his republication of this tragedy, has thrust out of the text into the notes: as omitted in the Second Edition, "printed for Ed. Allde, amended of such gross blunders as passed in the first:" and thinks them to have been foisted in by the players.—A late discovery at Dulwich College has ascertained that two sundry payments were made to Ben Jonson by the Theatre for furnishing additions to Hieronimo. See last edition of Shakspeare by Reed. There is nothing in the undoubted plays of Jonson which would authorize us to suppose that he could have supplied the scenes in question. I should suspect the agency of some “more potent spirit." Webster might have furnished them. They are full of that wild solemn preternatural cast of grief which bewilders us in the Duchess of Malfy.]

THE LOVE OF KING DAVID AND FAIR BETHSABE, WITH THE TRAGEDY OF ABSALOM. BY GEORGE PEELE.

Bethsabe, with her maid, bathing. She sings: and David sits above, viewing her.

The Song.

HoT sun, cool fire, temper'd with sweet air,
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair :
Shine sun, burn fire, breathe air and ease me,
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me;
Shadow (my sweet nurse) keep me from burning,
Make not my glad cause, cause of mourning.
Let not my beauty's fire
Enflame unstaid desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.