Music. Let music Charm with her excellent voice an awful silence LINGUA; A COMEDY. BY ANTHONY BREWER. Languages. The ancient Hebrew, clad with mysteries; The Roman eloquent, and Tuscan grave, The braving Spanish, and the smooth-tongued French Tragedy and Comedy. -fellows both, both twins, but so unlike As birth to death, wedding to funeral : That in the pumps doth frown at first acquaintance, Closing up all with a sweet catastrophe. This grave and sad, distained with brinish tears: By being death's mirror, and life's looking-glass. THE HISTORY OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA. THE FIRST PART. BY JOHN MARSTON. Andrugio, Duke of Genoa, banished his country, with the loss of a son, supposed drowned, is cast upon the territory of his mortal enemy the Duke of Venice with no attendants but Lucio, an old nobleman, and a Page. Andr. Is not yon gleam the shudd'ring Morn that flakes Luc. I think it is, so please your Excellence. My thoughts are fixt in contemplation Why this huge earth, this monstrous animal That eats her children, should not have eyes and ears. And forms no useless nor unperfect thing. Did Nature make the earth, or the earth Nature ? Nature forms things unperfect, useless, vain. That when a soul is splitted, sunk with grief, Exclaiming thus: O thou all bearing Earth, Which men do gape for till thou cramm'st their mouths And let me sink into thee: look who knocks; A wretch but lean relief on earth can find. Luc. Sweet Lord, abandon passion; and disarm. Since by the fortune of the tumbling sea We are roll'd up upon the Venice marsh, Let's clip all fortune, lest more low'ring fate Andr. More low'ring fate! O Lucio, choke that breath. Now I defy chance. Fortune's brow hath frown'd, Even to the utmost wrinkle it can bend : Her venom's spit. Alas! what country rests, And that Nor mischief, force, distress, nor hell can take: Luc. Speak like yourself: but give me leave, my Lord, To wish you safety. If you are but seen, Your arms display you; therefore put them off, Andr. Would'st have me go unarm'd among my foes? Being besieg'd by Passion, entering lists To combat with Despair and mighty Grief: My soul beleaguer'd with the crushing strength Whilst trumpets clamor with a sound of death. Luc. Peace, good my lord, your speech is all too light. Alas, survey your fortunes, look what's left Of all your forces and your utmost hopes; A weak old man, a page, and your poor self. He who hath that, hath a battalion royal, Armor of proof, huge troops of barbed steeds, [The situation of Andrugio and Lucio resembles that of Lear and Kent, in that King's distresses. Andrugio, like Lear, manifests a kind of royal impatience, a turbulent greatness, an affected resignation. The Enemies which he enters lists to combat, "Despair and mighty Grief, and sharp Impatience," and the Forces (" Cornets of Horse," &c.) which he brings to vanquish them, are in the boldest style of Allegory. They are such a race of mourners as "the infection of sorrows loud" in the intellect might beget on "some pregnant cloud" in the imagination.] ANTONIO'S REVENGE. THE SECOND PART OF THE HISTORY OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA. BY JOHN MARSTON. The Prologue.* The rawish dank of clumsy winter ramps The fluent summer's vein; and drizzling sleet O now methinks a sullen tragic scene *This prologue for its passionate earnestness, and for the tragic note of preparation which it sounds, might have preceded one of those old tales of Thebes, or Pelops' line, which Milton has so highly commended, as free from the common error of the poets in his days, "of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity, brought in without discretion corruptly to gratify the people." It is as solemn a preparative as the "warning voice which he who saw th' Apocalypse, heard cry." † Peels. Would suit the time with pleasing congruence. (As from his birth being hugged in the arms, Your favor will give crutches to our faults. Antonio, son to Andrugio Duke of Genoa, whom Piero the Venetian Prince and father-in-law to Antonio has cruelly murdered, kills Piero's little son, Julio, as a sacrifice to the ghost of Andrugio.—The scene, a church-yard: the time, midnight. JULIO. ANTONIO. Jul. Brother Antonio, are you here i'faith? Why do you frown? Indeed my sister said, That I should call you brother, that she did, When you were married to her. Buss me: good truth, I love you better than my father, 'deed. * "Sleek favorites of Fortune." Preface to Poems by S. T. Coleridge. |