Laden with hopes and promises of favour.
So vile a thing is craft in every heart,
As it makes power itself descend to art.
While Mustapha, that neither hoped nor fear'd,
Seeing the storms of rage and danger coming,
Yet came; and came accompanied with power.
But neither power, which warranted his safety,
Nor safety, that makes violence a justice,
Could hold him from obedience to this throne;
A gulph, which hath devour'd many a one.
Zang. Alas! could neither truth appease his fury,
Nor his unlook'd humility of coming,
any secret-witnessing remorses?
Can nature from herself make such divorces ?
Tell on, that all the world may rue and wonder.
Achm. There is a place environed with trees,
Upon whose shadow'd centre there is pitch'd
A large embroider'd sumptuous pavilion;
The stately throne of tyranny and murder;
Where mighty men are slain, before they know
That they to other than to honour go.
Mustapha no sooner to the port did come,
But thither he is sent for and conducted
By six slave eunuchs, either taught to colour
Mischief with reverence, or forced, by nature,
To reverence true virtue in misfortune.
While Mustapha, whose heart was now resolved,
Not fearing death, which he might have prevented;
Nor craving life, which he might well have gotten,
If he would other duties have forgotten;
Yet glad to speak his last thoughts to his father,
Desired the eunuchs to entreat it for him.
They did; wept they, and kneeled to his father.
But bloody rage that glories to be cruel,
And jealousy that fears she is not fearful,
Made Solyman refuse to hear, or pity.
He bids them haste their charge; and bloody-eyed
Beholds his son, while he obeying died.
Zang. How did that doing heart endure to suffer?
Tell on.
Quicken my powers, harden'd and dull to good,
Which, yet unmoved, hear tell of brother's blood.
Achm. While these six eunuchs to this charge appointed
(Whose hearts had never used their hands to pity,
Whose hands, now only, trembled to do murder)
With reverence and fear stood still amazed
Loath to cut off such worth, afraid to save it;
Mustapha, with thoughts resolved and united,
Bids them fulfil their charge and look no further.
Their hearts afraid to let their hands be doing,
The cord, that hateful instrument of murder,
They lifting up let fall, and falling lift it:
Each sought to help, and helping hinder❜d other.
Till Mustapha, in haste to be an angel,
With heavenly smiles, and quiet words, foreshows
The joy and peace of those souls where he goes.
His last words were: "O father, now forgive me;
Forgive them too that wrought my overthrow:
Let my grave never minister offences.
For since my father coveteth my death,
Behold with joy I offer him my breath."
The eunuchs roar: Solyman his rage is glutted:
His thoughts divine of vengeance for this murder :
Rumour flies up and down: the people murmur:
Sorrow gives laws before men know the truth :
Fear prophesieth aloud, and threatens ruth.
ROSTEN describes to ACHMAT the popular fury which followed upon the execution of Mustapha.
Ros. When Mustapha was by the eunuchs strangled,
Forthwith his camp grew doubtful of his absence:
The guard of Solyman himself did murmur:
People began to search their prince's counsels :
Fury gave laws: the laws of duty vanish'd:
Kind fear of him they loved self-fear had banish'd.
The headlong spirits were the heads that guided:
He that most disobey'd, was most obey'd.
Fury so suddenly became united,
As while her forces nourished confusion,
Confusion seem'd with discipline delighted.
Towards Solyman they run: and as the waters,
That meet with banks of snow, makes snow grow water;
So, ev'n those guards, that stood to interrupt them,
Give easy passage, and pass on amongst them.
Solyman, who saw this storm of mischief coming,
Thinks absence his best argument unto them:
Retires himself, and sends me to demand,
What they demanded, or what meant their coming?
I speak: they cried for Mustapha and Achmat.
Some bid away; some kill; some save; some hearken.
Those that cried save, were those that sought to kill me.
Who cried hark, were those that first brake silence:
They held that bade me go. Humility was guilty;
Words were reproach; silence in me was scornful;
They answer'd ere they ask'd; assured, and doubted.
I fled; their fury follow'd to destroy me;
Fury made haste; haste multiplied their fury;
Each would do all; none would give place to other.
The hindmost strake; and while the foremost lifted
Their arms to strike, each weapon hinder❜d other :
Their running let their strokes, strokes let their running.
Desire, mortal enemy to desire,
Made them that sought my life, give life unto me.
[These two tragedies of Lord Brooke might with more propriety have been termed political treatises than plays. Their author has strangely contrived to make passion, character and interest, of the highest order subservient to the expression of state dogmas and mysteries. He is nine parts Machiavel and Tacitus, for one part Sophocles or Seneca. In this writer's estimate of the faculties of his own mind, the understanding must have held a most tyrannical pre-eminence. Whether we look into his plays, or his most passionate love-poems, we shall find all frozen and made rigid with intellect. The finest movements of the human heart, the utmost grandeur of which the soul is capable, are essentially comprised in the actions and speeches of Calica and Camena. Shakspeare, who seems to have had a peculiar delight in contemplating womanly perfection, whom for his many sweet images of female excellence all women are in an especial manner bound to love, has not raised the idéal of the female character higher than Lord Brooke in these two women has done. But it requires a study equivalent to the learning of a new language to understand their meaning when they speak. It is indeed hard to hit :
Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day
Or seven though one should musing sit.
It is as if a being of pure intellect should take upon him to express the emotions of our sensitive natures. There would be all knowledge, but sympathetic expression would be wanting.]
THE CASE IS ALTERED: A COMEDY, BY BEN JONSON.
The present humour to be followed.
AURELIA, PHENIXELLA, sisters; their mother being lately dead.
Aur. Room for a case of matrons, colour'd black:
How motherly my mother's death hath made us!
I would I had some girls now to bring up;
O, I could make a wench so virtuous,
She should say grace to every bit of meat,
And gape no wider than a wafer's thickness,
And she should make French courtesies so most low
That every touch should turn her over backward.
Phon. Sister, these words become not your attire,
Nor your estate; our virtuous mother's death
Should print more deep effects of sorrow in us,
Than may be worn out in so little time.
Aur. Sister, i' faith you take too much tobacco,
It makes you black within as you are without.
What, true-stitch sister, both your sides alike!
Be of a slighter work; for, of my word,
You shall be sold as dear, or rather dearer.
Will you
be bound to customs and to rites,
Shed profitable tears, weep for advantage;
Or else do all things as you are inclined?
Eat when your stomach serves, saith the physician,
Not at eleven and six. So, if your humour
Be now affected with this heaviness,
Give it the reins, and spare not; as I do
In this my pleasurable appetite.
It is Precisianism to alter that,
With austere judgment, that is given by nature.
I wept (you saw) too, when my mother died;
For then I found it easier to do so,
And fitter with my mode, than not to weep:
But now 'tis otherwise. Another time
Perhaps I shall have such deep thoughts of her,
That I shall weep afresh some twelvemonth hence;
And I will weep, if I be so disposed;
And put on black as grimly then as now.-
Let the mind go still with the body's stature:
Judgement is fit for judges; give me nature.
Presentiment of treachery, vanishing at the sight of the person suspected.
Lord PAULO FARNESE. (Speaking to himself of ANGELO.)
My thoughts cannot propose a reason
Why I should fear or faint thus in my hopes
Of one so much endeared to my
Some spark it is, kindled within the soul,
Whose light yet breaks not to the outward sense,
That propagates this timorous suspect.
His actions never carried
Of change or weakness; then I injure him,
In being thus cold-conceited of his faith.
O, here he comes. [While he speaks ANGELO enters.
Angelo. How now, sweet lord, what's the matter?
Paul. Good faith, his presence makes me half-ashamed
Of my stray'd thoughts.
JAQUES (a Miser) worships his gold.
Jaq. 'Tis not to be told
What servile villanies men will do for gold.
O, it began to have a huge strong smell,
With lying so long together in a place:
I'll give it vent, it shall have shift enough;
And if the devil, that envies all goodness,
Have told them of my gold, and where I kept it,
I'll set his burning nose once more a work
To smell where I removed it. Here it is;
I'll hide and cover it with this horse-dung.
Who will suppose that such a precious nest
Is crown'd with such a dunghill excrement ?
In, my dear life, sleep sweetly, my dear child,
Scarce lawfully begotten, but yet gotten,
And that's enough. Rot all hands that come near thee,
Except mine own. Burn out all eyes that see thee,
Except mine own. All thoughts of thee be poison
To their enamour'd hearts, except mine own.
I'll take no leave, sweet prince, great emperor,
But see thee every minute: king of kings,
I'll not be rude to thee, and turn my back.
In going from thee, but go backward out,
With my face toward thee, with humble courtesies.
[The passion for wealth has worn out much of its grossness by tract of time. Our ancestors certainly conceived of money as able to confer a
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