Can be, but our imaginations

May make it ours? And here being thus together,
We are an endless mine to one another;

We are one another's wife, ever begetting

New births of love; we are father, friends, acquaintance;
We are, in one another, families;

I am your heir, and you are mine; this place

Is our inheritance; no hard oppressor

Dare take this from us: here, with a little patience,

We shall live long, and loving; no surfeits seek us;
The hand of war hurts none here, nor the seas
Swallow their youth. Were we at liberty,
A wife might part us lawfully, or business;
Quarrels consume us; envy of ill men
Crave our acquaintance; I might sicken, cousin,
Where you should never know it, and so perish
Without your noble hand to close mine eyes,
Or prayers to the gods: a thousand chances.
Were we from hence, would sever us.

PAL. You have made me

I thank you, cousin Arcite !-almost wanton
With my captivity: what a misery

It is to live abroad, and everywhere!

"Tis like a beast, methinks! I find the court here,

I'm sure, a more content; and all those pleasures,
That woo the wills of men to vanity,

I see through now; and am sufficient

To tell the world, 'Tis but a gaudy shadow,
That old Time, as he passes by, takes with him.
What had we been, old in the court of Creon,
Where sin is justice, lust and ignorance

The virtues of the great ones? Cousin Arcite,
Had not the loving gods found this place for us,
We had died, as they do, ill old men, unwept,
And had their epitaphs, the people's curses.
Shall I say more?

ARC. I would hear you still.

PAL. You shall.

Is there record of any two that loved

Better than we do, Arcite?

ARC. Sure there cannot.

PAL. I do not think it possible our friendship

Should ever leave us.

ARC. Till our deaths it cannot;

And after death our spirits shall be led

To those that love eternally. The Two Noble Kingmen, Act II. se. 1. Pastoral Love-From the Faithful Shepherdess.'

CLORIN and a SATYR with basket of fruit.

SATYR. Through yon same bending plain
That flings his arms down to the main,
And through these thick woods, have I run,
Whose bottom never kissed the sun,
Since the lusty spring began.
All to please my master Pan,
Have I trotted without rest,
To get him fruit; for at a feast
He entertains, this coming night,
His paramour the Syrinx bright:
But behold a fairer sight!
By that heavenly form of thine,

[Seeing CLORIN.

Brightest fair, thou art divine,
Sprung from great immortal race
Of the gods: for in thy face
Shines more awful majesty
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold,
And live therefore, on this mould
Lowly do I bend my knee,
In worship of thy deity.

Deign it, goddess, from my hand
To receive whate'er this land
From her fertile womb doth send
Of her choice fruits; and but lend
Belief to that the Satyr tells,
Fairer by the famous wells,
To this present day ne'er grew,
Never better, nor more true.

Here be grapes whose lusty blood,
Is the learned poets' good,

Sweeter yet did never crown

The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown

Than the squirrel whose teeth crack them;

Deign, O fairest fair, to take them:

For these, black-eyed Driope

Hath oftentimes commanded me

With my clasped knee to climb:

See how well the lusty time

Hath decked their rising cheeks in red,
Such as on your lips is spread.

Here be berries for a queen,

Some be red, some be green:

These are of that luscious meat

The great god Pan himself doth eat:

All these, and what the woods can yield,

The hanging mountain or the field,

I freely offer, and ere long

Will bring you more, more sweet and strong;

Till when, humbly leave I take,

Lest the great Pan do awake,

That sleeping lies in a deep glade,

Under a broad beech's shade.

I must go, I must run,

Swifter than the fiery sun.

CLORIN. And all my fears go with thee.

What greatness, or what private hidden power,

Is there in me to draw submission

From this rude man and beast?-sure I am mortal;

The daughter of a shepherd; he was mortal,

And she that bore me mortal; prick my hand

And it will bleed; a fever shakes me, and

The self-same wind that makes the young lambs shrink.
Makes me a-cold: my fear says I am mortal:

Yet I have heard-my mother told it me

And now I do believe it, if I keep

My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair,

No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend,

Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves,
Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion

Draw me to wander after idle fires,

Or voices calling me in dead of night
To make me follow, and so tole me on

Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruin.

[Exit.

Else why should this rough thing, who never knew
Manners nor smooth humanity, whose heats
Are rougher than himself, and more misshapen,
Thus mildly kneel to me? Sure there's a power
In that great name of Virgin, that binds fast
All rude uncivil bloods, all appetites

That break their confines. Then, strong Chastity,
Be thou my strongest guard; for here I'll dwell
In opposition against fate and hell!

PERIGOT and AMORET appoint to meet at the Virtuous Well.
PERIGOT. Stay, gentle Amoret, thou fair-browed maid.
Thy shepherd prays thee stay, that holds thee dear,

Equal with his soul's good.

AMORET. Speak, I give

Thee freedom, shepherd, and thy tongue be still

The same it ever was, as free from ill

As he whose conversation never knew

The court or city: be thou ever true.

PERI. When I fall off from my affection,
Or mingle my clean thoughts with ill desires,
First let our great God cease to keep my flocks,
That being left alone without a guard,

The wolf, or winter's rage, summer's great heat,
And want of water, rots, or what to us

Of ill is yet unknown, fall speedily,

And in their general ruin let me go.

AMO. I pray thee, gentle shepherd, wish not so:

I do believe thee, 'tis as hard for me

To think thee false, and harder than for thee
To hold me foul.

PERI. Oh, you are fairer far

Than the chaste blushing morn, or that fair star

That guides the wandering seamen through the deep,
Straighter than straightest pine upon the steep
Head of an aged mountain, and more white
Than the new milk we strip before daylight
From the full-freighted bags of our fair flocks.

Your hair more beautious than those hanging locks
Of young Apollo.

AMO. Shepherd, be not lost,

Y' are sailed too far already from the coast

Of our discourse.

PERI. Did you not tell me once

I should not love alone, I should not lose

Those many passions, vows, and holy oaths,

I've sent to heaven? Did you not give your hand,
Even that fair hand, in hostage? Do not then
Give back again those sweets to other men

You yourself vowed were mine.

AMO. Shepherd, so far as maiden's modesty
May give assurance, I am once more thine.
Once more I give my hand; be ever free
From that great foe to faith, foul jealousy,
PERI. I take it as my best good; and desire,
For stronger confirmation of our love,

To meet this happy night in that fair grove,

Where all true shepherds have rewarded been

For their long service. Say, sweet, shall it hold?

AMO. Dear friend, you must not blame me if I make,
A doubt of what the silent night may do--
Maids must be fearful.

PERI. Oh, do not wrong my honest simple truth;
Myself and my affections are as pure

As those chaste flames that burn before the shrine
Of the great Dian: only my intent

To draw you thither was to plight our troths,
With interchange of mutual chaste embraces,
And ceremonious tying of ourselves.

For to that holy wood is consecrate

A Virtuous Well, about whose flowery banks
The nimble-footed fairies dance their rounds
By the pale moonshine, dipping oftentimes
Their stolen children, so to make them free
From dying flesh and dull mortality.

By this fair fount hath many a shepherd sworn
And given away his freedom, many a troth
Been plight, which neither Envy nor old Time
Could ever break, with many a chaste kiss given
In hope of coming happiness: by this

Fresh fountain many a blushing maid

Hath crowned the head of her long-loved shepherd
With gaudy flowers, whilst he happy sung
Lays of his love and dear captivity.

Act 1. sc. 2.

The lyrical pieces scattered throughout Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are generally in the same graceful and fanciful style as the poetry of the Faithful Shepherdess.' Some are here subjoined:

To Sleep.-From the same.
Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,
Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose
On this afflicted prince: fall like a cloud

In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud
Or painful to his slumbers; easy, sweet [light ?],
And as a purling stream, thou son of Night,
Pass by his troubled senses, sing his pain
Like hollow murmuring wind, or silver rain.
Into this prince, gently, oh, gently slide,
And kiss him into slumbers like a bride!

Song to Pan, at the Conclusion of the 'Faithful Shepherdess.'

All ye woods, and trees, and bowers,

All ye virtues and ye powers

That inhabit in the lakes,

In the pleasant springs or brakes,

Move your feet

To our sound,
Whilst we greet

All this ground,

With his honour and his name

That defends our flocks from blame.

He is great and he is just,

He is ever good, and must

Thus be honoured. Daffodilies,

Roses, pinks, and loved lilies,
Let us fling,

Whilst we sing,
Ever holy,
Ever holy,

Ever honoured, ever young !
Thus great Pan is ever sung.

Rollo.

Hide, O hide those hills of snow,

Which thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow

Are yet of those that April wears;
But first set my poor heart free,
Bound in those icy chains by thee.

GEORGE CHAPMAN.

GEORGE CHAPMAN, the translator of Homer, wrote early and copiously for the stage. His first play, the Blind Beggar of Alexandria,' was printed in 1598, the same year that witnessed Ben Jonson's first and masterly dramatic effort. Previous to this, Chapman had translated part of the Iliad;' and his lofty fourteen-syllable rhyme, with such lines as the following, would seem to have promised a great tragic poet:

From his bright helm and shield did burn a most unwearied fire,
Like rich Autumnus' golden lamp, whose brightness men admire,
Past all the other host of stars, when with his cheerful face,
Fresh washed in lofty ocean waves, he doth the sky enchase.

The beauty of Chapman's compound Homeric epithets, as far-shooting Phoebus, the ever-living gods, the many-headed hill, silver-footed Thetis, the triple-feathered helm, the fair-haired boy, high-walled Thebes, the strong-winged lance, &c. bear the impress of a poetical imagination, chaste yet luxuriant. But however spirited and lofty as a translator, Chapman proved but a heavy and cumbrous dramatic writer. He continued to supply the theatre with tragedies and comedies up to 1620 or later; yet of the sixteen that have descended to us, not one possesses the creative and vivifying power of dramatic