Over. You do conclude too fast; not knowing me, Nor the engines that I work by. "T is not alone The Lady Allworth's lands; but point out any man's In all the shire, and say they lie convenient And useful for your lordship; and once more,

I say aloud they are yours.

Lov.

I dare not own

What's by unjust and cruel means extorted:
My fame and credit are more dear to me
Than so to expose 'em to be censured by
The public voice.

Over.

Over. You run, my lord, no hazard⚫

Your reputation shall stand as fair

In all good men's opinions as now:

Nor can my actions, though condemned for ill,
Cast any foul aspersion upon yours.
For though I do contemn report myself
As a mere sound, I still will be so tender

Of what concerns you in all points of honour,
That the immaculate whiteness of your fame,
Nor your unquestioned integrity,

Shall e'er be sullied with one taint or spot

That may

take from your innocence and candour.

All my ambition is to have my daughter

Right honourable; which my lord can make her:

And might I live to dance upon my knee
A young Lord Lovel, born by her unto you,

I write nil ultra to my proudest hopes.
As for possessions and annual rents,
Equivalent to maintain you in the port
Your noole birth and present state require,
I do remove that burden from your shoulders,

And take it on mine own; for though I ruin

The country to supply your riotous waste;
The scourge of prodigals (want) shall never

Lov. Are you not frighted with the imprecations
And curses of whole families, made wretched
By your sinister practices?

Over.

Yes, as rocks are

When foamy billows split themselves against

Their flinty ribs; or as the moon is moved

When wolves, with hunger pined, howl at her brightness.

I am of a solid temper, and, like these,

Steer on a constant course: with mine own sword,

If called into the field, 1 can make that right
Which fearful enemies murmured at as wrong.
Now, for those other piddling complaints,
Breathed out in bitterness; as, when they call me
Extortioner, tyrant, cormorant, or intruder
On my poor neighbour's right, or grand encloser
Of what was common to my private use;

Nay, when my ears are pierced with widows' cries,
And undone orphans wash with tears my threshold,
I only think what 't is to have my daughter
Right honourable; and 't is a powerful charm,
Makes me insensible of remorse or pity,

Or the least sting of conscience.

Lov.

The toughness of your nature.

Over.

I admire

"T is for you,

My lord, and for my daughter, I am marble.

JOHN FORD, 1586-1639.

Contention of a Bird and a Musician

(From the Lover's Melancholy.)

MENAPHON and AMETHUS.

Men. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales Which poets of an elder time have feigned

To glorify their Tempe, bred in me
Desire of visiting that paradise.

To Thessaly I came; and living private,
Without acquaintance of more sweet companions
Than the old inmates to my love, my thoughts,
I day by day frequented silent groves,
And solitary walks. One morning early
This accident encountered me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention,
That art and nature ever were at strife in.
Amet. I cannot yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

Men.

I shall soon resolve you.
A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather,
Indeed, entranced my soul: As I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds.
That, as they flocked about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard. I wondered too.

Amet. And so do I; good! on

Men.

A nightingale,

Nature's best skilled musician, undertakes

The challenge, and for every several strain

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her own;

He could not run division with more art
Upon his quaking instrument, than she,

The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to: for a voice, and for a sound,
Amethus, 't is much easier to believe

That such they were, than hope to hear again.
Amet. How did the rivals part?

Men.

You term them rightly;

For they were rivals, and their mistress, harmony.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird

Whom art had never taught clefs, moods, or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice:
To end the controversy, in a rapture
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,
So many voluntaries, and so quick,

That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method

Meeting in one full centre of delight.

Amet. Now for the bird.

Men.

The bird, ordained to be

Music's first martyr, strove to imitate

These several sounds: which, when her warbling throat

Failed in, for grief, down dropped she on his lute,

And brake her heart! It was the quaintest sadness,

To see the conqueror upon her hearse,

To weep a funeral elegy of tears:

That, trust me, my Amethus, I could chide

Mine own unmanly weakness, that made me
A fellow-mourner with him.

Amet.

I believe thee.

Men. He looked upon the trophies of his art,

Then sighed, then wiped his eyes, then sighed and cried:
'Alas, poor creature! I will soon revenge
This cruelty upon the author of it:

Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,
Shall never more betray a harmless peace
To an untimely end:' and in that sorrow,
As he was pashing it against a tree,

Passed but just now by your next neighbour's house,
Where, as they say, dwells one young Lionel,
An unthrift youth; his father now at sea:
And there this night was held a sumptuous feast.
In the height of their carousing, all their brains
Warmed with the heat of wine, discourse was offered
Of ships and storms at sea: when suddenly,
Out of his giddy wildness, one conceives

The room wherein they quaffed to be a pinnace