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Menaphon. 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.

Amethus. 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, 'tis much easier to believe

That such they were, than hope to hear again.

For an amplification of the subject of this extract, see notice of RICHARD CRASHAW,

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 cliffs, 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

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THOMAS HEYWOOD was one of the most indefatigable of dramatic writers. He had, as he informs his readers, an entire hand, or at least a main finger,' in two hundred and twenty plays. He wrote also several prose works, besides attending to his business as an actor. Of his huge dramatic library, only twenty-three plays have come down to us, the best of which are: A Woman Killed with Kindness, the English Traveller, A Challenge for Beauty, the Royal King and Loyal Subject, the Lancashire Witches, the Rape of Lucrece, Love's Mistress, &c. The few particulars respecting Heywood's life and history have been gleaned from his own writings and the dates of his plays. The time of his birth is not known; but he was a native of Lincolnshire, and was a fellow of Peter-House, Cambridge: he is found writing for the stage in 1596, and he continued to exercise his ready pen down to the year 1640. In one of his prologues, he thus adverts to the various sources of his multifarious labours:

To give content to this most curious age,

The gods themselves we 've brought down to the stage, And figured them in planets; made even hell

Deliver up the Furies, by no spell

Saving the Muse's rapture-further we

Have trafficked by their help; no history

We have left unrifled; our pens have been dipped

As well in opening each hid manuscript

As tracks more vulgar, whether read or sung
In our domestic or more foreign tongue :

Of fairies, elves, nymphs of the sea and land,
The lawns, the groves, no number can be scanned
Which we have not given feet to.

This was written in 1637, and it shews how eager the playgoing public were then for novelties, though they possessed the theatre of Shakspeare and his contemporaries. The death of Heywood is equally unknown with the date of his birth. As a dramatist, he had a poetical fancy and abundance of classical imagery; but his taste was defective; and scenes of low buffoonery, 'merry accidents, intermixed with apt and witty jests,' deform his pieces. His humour, however, is more pure and moral than that of most of his contemporaries. 'There is a natural repose in his scenes,' says a dramatic critic, 'which contrasts pleasingly with the excitement that reigns in most of his contemporaries. Middleton looks upon his characters with the feverish anxiety with which we listen to the trial of great criminals, or watch their behaviour upon the scaffold. Webster lays out their corpses in the prison, and sings the dirge over them when they are buried at midnight in unhallowed ground. Heywood leaves his characters before they come into these situations. He walks quietly to and fro among them while they are yet at large as members of society; contenting himself with a sad smile at their follies, or with a frequent warning to them on the consequences of their crimes." The following description of Psyche, from Love's Mistress, is in his best

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Astioche. But Psyche lives, and on her breath attend Delights that far surmount all earthly joy; Music, sweet voices, and ambrosian fare;

Winds, and the light-winged creatures of the air; Clear channeled rivers, springs, and flowery meads, Are proud when Psyche wantons on their streams, When Psyche on their rich embroidery treads, When Psyche gilds their crystal with her beams. We have but seen our sister, and, behold!

She sends us with our laps full brimmed with gold.

In 1635, Heywood published a poem entitled the Hierarchy of Angels. In this piece he tells us how the names of his dramatic contemporaries were shortened or corrupted in familiar conversation :

Mellifluous Shakspeare, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but Will;
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
Be dipped in Castaly, is still but Ben.
Fletcher and Webster, of that learned pack
None of the meanest, was but Jack;
Dekker but Tom, nor May, nor Middleton,
And he's but now Jack Ford that once was John.
Various songs are scattered through Heywood's
neglected plays, some of them easy and flowing :
Song.

Pack, clouds, away, and welcome day;
With night we banish sorrow:
Sweet air, blow soft; mount, lark, aloft,
To give my love good-morrow :

*Henry Mackenzie in Edinburgh Review, vol. lxiii.

Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I 'Il borrow :
Bird, prune thy wing; nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow.

To give my love good-morrow,
Notes from them all I'll borrow.

Wake from thy nest, robin-redbreast;
Sing, birds, in every furrow;
And from each bill let music shrill
Give my fair love good-morrow.
Blackbird and thrush in every bush-
Stare, linnet, and cock-sparrow-
You pretty elves, amongst yourselves,
Sing my fair love good-morrow.

To give my love good-morrow,
Sing, birds, in every furrow.

Shepherds' Song.

We that have known no greater state
Than this we live in, praise our fate;
For courtly silks in cares are spent,
When country's russet breeds content.
The power of sceptres we admire,
But sheep-hooks for our use desire.
Simple and low is our condition,
For here with us is no ambition:
We with the sun our flocks unfold,
Whose rising makes their fleeces gold;
Our music from the birds we borrow,
They bidding us, we, them, good-morrow.
Our habits are but coarse and plain,
Yet they defend from wind and rain;
As warm too, in an equal eye,

As those be-stained in scarlet dye.
The shepherd, with his home-spun lass,
As many merry hours doth pass,
As courtiers with their costly girls,
Though richly decked in gold and pearls;
And, though but plain, to purpose woo,
Nay, often with less danger too.
Those that delight in dainties' store,
One stomach feed at once, no more;
And, when with homely fare we feast,
With us it doth as well digest;
And many times we better speed,
For our wild fruits no surfeits breed.
If we sometimes the willow wear,
By subtle swains that dare forswear,
We wonder whence it comes, and fear
They've been at court, and learnt it there.

JAMES SHIRLEY.

The last of these dramatists-'a great race,' says Charles Lamb, 'all of whom spoke nearly the same language, and had a set of moral feelings and notions in common'-was JAMES SHIRLEY (1594-1666). Though chronologically belonging to a later period than that of James I. Shirley's plays are of the same general character as those of his predecessors, with perhaps a dash of the gay cavalier spirit, which was reviving. This dramatist was a native of London. Designed for holy orders, he was educated first at Oxford, where Archbishop Laud refused to ordain him, on account of his appearance being disfigured by a mole on his left cheek. He afterwards took the degree of A.M. at Cambridge, and officiated as curate near St Albans. Like his brother divine and poet, Crashaw, Shirley embraced the communion of the Church of Rome. He lived as a schoolmaster in St Albans, but afterwards settled in London, and became a voluminous dramatic

writer. Thirty-nine plays proceeded from his prolific pen; and a modern edition of his works (1833), edited by Gifford, with additions by Dyce, is in six octavo volumes. When the Master of the Revels, in 1633, licensed Shirley's play of the Young Admiral, he entered on his books an expression of his admiration of the drama, because it was free from oaths, profaneness, or obsceneness; trusting that his approbation would encourage the poet 'to pursue this beneficial and cleanly way of poetry.' Shirley is certainly less impure than most of his contemporaries, but he is far from faultless in this respect. His dramas seem to have been tolerably successful. When the civil wars broke out, the poet exchanged the pen for the sword, and took the field under his patron, the Earl of Newcastle. After the cessation of this struggle, a still worse misfortune befell our author in the shutting of the theatres, and he was forced to betake himself to his former occupation of a teacher. The Restoration does not seem to have mended his fortunes. In 1666, the Great Fire of London drove the poet and his family from their house in Whitefriars; and shortly after this event, both he and his wife died on the same day. A life of various labours and reverses thus found a sudden and tragic termination. Shirley's plays have less force and dignity than those of Massinger; less pathos than those of Ford. His comedies have the tone and manner of good society. Campbell has praised his 'polished and refined dialect, the airy touches of his expression, the delicacy of his sentiments, and the beauty of his similes.' He admits, however, what every reader feels, the want in Shirley of any strong passion or engrossing interest. Hallam more justly and comprehensively states: 'Shirley has no originality, no force in conceiving or delineating character, little of pathos, and less, perhaps, of wit; his dramas produce no deep impression in reading, and, of course, can leave none in the memory. But his mind was poetical; his better characters, especially females, express pure thoughts in pure language; he is never tumid or affected, and seldom obscure; the incidents succeed rapidly, the personages are numerous, and there is a general animation in the scenes, which causes us to read him with some pleasure. No very good play, nor possibly any very good scene, could be found in Shirley; but he has many lines of considerable beauty.' Of these fine lines, Dr Farmer, in his Essay on the Learning of Shakspeare, quoted perhaps the most beautiful, being part of Fernando's description, in the Brothers, of the charms of his mistress :

Her eye did seem to labour with a tear,
Which suddenly took birth, but overweighed
With its own swelling, dropt upon her bosom,
Which, by reflection of her light, appeared
As nature meant her sorrow for an ornament.
After, her looks grew cheerful, and I saw
A smile shoot graceful upward from her eyes,
As if they had gained a victory o'er grief;
And with it many beams twisted themselves,
Upon whose golden threads the angels walk
To and again from heaven.

In the same vein of delicate fancy and feeling is the following passage in the Grateful Servant, where Cleona learns of the existence of Foscari, from her page, Dulcino:

Cleona. The day breaks glorious to my darkened thoughts.

He lives, he lives yet! Cease, ye amorous fears,
More to perplex me.-Prithee, speak, sweet youth.
How fares my lord? Upon my virgin heart
I'll build a flaming altar, to offer up

A thankful sacrifice for his return

To life and me. Speak, and increase my comforts. Is he in perfect health?

Dulcino. Not perfect, madam,

Until you bless him with the knowledge of
Your constancy.

Cle. O get thee wings, and fly, then;
Tell him my love doth burn like vestal fire,
Which, with his memory richer than all spices,
Disperses odours round about my soul,
And did refresh it when 'twas dull and sad,
With thinking of his absence.
Yet stay,

Thou goest away too soon. Where is he? speak.
Dul. He gave me no commission for that, lady;
He will soon save that question by his presence.
Cle. Time has no feathers; he walks now on
crutches.

Relate his gestures when he gave thee this.
What other words? Did mirth smile on his brow?
I would not for the wealth of this great world
He should suspect my faith. What said he, prithee?
Dul. He said what a warm lover, when desire
Makes eloquent, could speak; he said you were
Both star and pilot.

Cle. The sun's loved flower, that shuts his yellow

curtain

When he declineth, opens it again

At his fair rising: with my parting lord
I closed all my delight; till his approach
It shall not spread itself.

The Prodigal Lady.-Prom the Lady of Pleasure.

ARETINA and the STEWARD.

Steward. Be patient, madam; you may have your pleasure.

Aretina. 'Tis that I came to town for; I would not
Endure again the country conversation
To be the lady of six shires! The men,
So near the primitive making, they retain
A sense of nothing but the earth; their brains
And barren heads standing as much in want
Of ploughing as their ground: to hear a fellow
Make himself merry and his horse with whistling
Sellinger's round; t' observe with what solemnity
They keep their wakes, and throw for pewter candle-
sticks;

How they become the morris, with whose bells
They ring all into Whitsun-ales, and swear
Through twenty scarfs and napkins, till the hobbyhorse
Tire, and the Maid-Marian, dissolved to a jelly,
Be kept for spoon-meat.

Stew. These, with your pardon, are no argument
To make the country life appear so hateful;
At least to your particular, who enjoyed
A blessing in that calm, would you be pleased
To think so, and the pleasure of a kingdom:
While your own will commanded what should move
Delights, your husband's love and power joined
To give your life more harmony. You lived there
Secure and innocent, beloved of all;

Praised for your hospitality, and prayed for:
You might be envied, but malice knew

Not where you dwelt.-I would not prophesy,
But leave to your own apprehension
What may succeed your change.

A favourite though homely dance of those days, taking its title from an actor named St Leger.

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Enter SIR THOMAS BORNWELL.

Bornwell. How now, what's the matter? Angry, sweetheart ?

Aret. I am angry with myself,

To be so miserably restrained in things Wherein it doth concern your love and honour To see me satisfied.

Born. In what, Aretina,

Dost thou accuse me? Have I not obeyed
All thy desires against mine own opinion?
Quitted the country, and removed the hope
Of our return by sale of that fair lordship
We lived in; changed a calm and retired life
For this wild town, composed of noise and charge?
Aret. What charge more than is necessary
For a lady of my birth and education?

Born. I am not ignorant how much nobility
Flows in your blood; your kinsmen, great and powerful
I' th' state; but with this lose not your memory
Of being my wife. I shall be studious,
Madam, to give the dignity of your birth

All the best ornaments which become my fortune;
But would not flatter it, to ruin both,

And be the fable of the town, to teach
Other men loss of wit by mine, employed
To serve your vast expenses.

Aret. Am I then

Brought in the balance so, sir?

Born. Though you weigh

Me in a partial scale, my heart is honest,
And must take liberty to think you have
Obeyed no modest counsel to effect,

Nay, study, ways of pride and costly ceremony.
Your change of gaudy furniture, and pictures
Of this Italian master, and that Dutchman's;
Your mighty looking-glasses, like artillery,
Brought home on engines; the superfluous plate;
Antique and novel; vanities of tires;

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Fourscore pound suppers for my lord, your kinsman ;
Banquets for t' other lady, aunt, and cousins
And perfumes that exceed all: train of servants,
To stifle us at home and shew abroad,
More motley than the French or the Venetian,

About your coach, whose rude postilion

Must pester every narrow lane, till passengers

And tradesmen curse your choking up their stalls,
And common cries pursue your ladyship
For hindering o' their market.

Aret. Have you done, sir?

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Nor do I wish you should. My poorest servant
Shall not upbraid my tables, nor his hire,
Purchased beneath my honour. You make play,
Not a pastime, but a tyranny, and vex
Yourself and my estate by 't.

Aret. Good; proceed.

Born. Another game you have, which consumes more
Your fame than purse; your revels in the night,
Your meetings called the ball, to which appear,
As to the court of pleasure, all your gallants
And ladies, thither bound by a subpoena
Of Venus and small Cupid's high displeasure;
'Tis but the Family of Love translated
Into more costly sin. There was a play on 't,
And had the poet not been bribed to a modest
Expression of your antic gambols in 't,

Some darks had been discovered, and the deeds too;
In time he may repent, and make some blush
To see the second part danced on the stage.
My thoughts acquit you for dishonouring me
By any foul act, but the virtuous know
'Tis not enough to clear ourselves, but the
Suspicions of our shame.

Aret. Have you concluded
Your lecture?

Born. I have done; and howsoever
My language may appear to you, it carries
No other than my fair and just intent

To your delights, without curb to their modest
And noble freedom.

In the Ball, a comedy partly by Chapman, but chiefly by Shirley, a coxcomb (Bostock), crazed on the point of family, is shewn up in the most admirable manner. Sir Marmaduke Travers, by way of fooling him, tells him that he is rivalled in his suit of a particular lady by Sir Ambrose Lamount.

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Bos. Be an understanding knight,

And take my meaning; if he cannot shew

As much in heraldry

Mar. I do not know how rich he is in fields, But he is a gentleman.

Bos. Is he a branch of the nobility?

How many lords can he call cousin?-else
He must be taught to know he has presumed
To stand in competition with me.

Mar. You will not kill him?

Bos. You shall pardon me ;

I have that within me must not be provoked;
There be some living now that have been killed
For lesser matters.

Mar. Some living that have been killed?

Bos. I mean some living that have seen examples, Not to confront nobility; and I

Am sensible of my honour.

Mar. His name is

Sir Ambrose.

Bos. Lamount; a knight of yesterday,

And he shall die to-morrow; name another.

Mar. Not so fast, sir; you must take some breath. Bos. I care no more for killing half-a-dozen Knights of the lower house-I mean that are not Descended from nobility-than I do

To kick any footman; an Sir Ambrose were

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Bos. I think it would not; so my lord told me ;
Thou know'st my lord ?-not the earl, my other
Cousin-there's a spark his predecessors
Have matched into the blood; you understand
He put me upon this lady; I proclaim
No hopes; pray let's together, gentlemen;
If she be wise-I say no more; she shall not
Cost me a sigh, nor shall her love engage me
To draw a sword; I have vowed that.
Mar. You did but jest before.
Amb. 'Twere pity that one drop
Of your heroic blood should fall to th' ground:
Who knows but all your cousin lords may die.
Mar. As I believe them not immortal, sir.
Amb. Then you are gulf of honour, swallow all,
May marry some queen yourself, and get princes
To furnish the barren parts of Christendom.

The finest verses of Shirley occur in his play, the Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. They are said to have been greatly admired by Charles II. The thoughts are elevated, and the expression highly poetical.

Death's Final Conquest.

The glories of our birth and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hands on kings;
Sceptre and crown

Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield,
They tame but one another still;
Early or late,

They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath,
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow,

Then boast no more your mighty deeds; Upon Death's purple altar, now,

See where the victor victim bleeds:

All heads must come
To the cold tomb;

Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

There was a long cessation of the drama during the Civil War and the Commonwealth.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

In Puttenham's Art of English Poesy (1589), is the following 'ditty of Her Majesty's own making, passing sweet and harmonical :'

Verses by Queen Elizabeth.

The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,

And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy ;

For falsehood now doth flow, and subject faith doth ebb, Which would not be if reason ruled, or wisdom weaved

the web.

But clouds of toys untried do cloak aspiring minds, Which turn to rain, of late repent, by course of changed winds.

The top of hope supposed, the root of ruth will be,
And fruitless all their graffed guiles, as shortly ye shall see;
Then dazzled eyes with pride which great ambition
blinds,

Shall be unsealed by worthy wights, whose foresight falsehood finds,

The daughter of debate, that eke discord doth sow, Shall reap no grain where former rule hath taught still peace to grow.

No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port ; Our realm it brooks no stranger's force-let them elsewhere resort.

Our rusty sword with rest shall first his edge employ, To poll their tops that seek such change, and gape for future joy.

The Old and Young Courtier.
An old song made by an aged old pate,

Of an old worshipful gentleman, who had a great estate,
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate;
Like an old courtier of the queen's,
And the queen's old courtier.
With an old lady, whose anger one word assuages;
They every quarter paid their old servants their wages,
And never knew what belonged to coachmen, footmen,
nor pages,

But kept twenty old fellows with blue coats and badges;
Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old study filled with learned old books; With an old reverend chaplain-you might know him by his looks;

With an old buttery hatch worn quite off the hooks; And an old kitchen, that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks;

Like an old courtier, &c.

With an old hall, hung about with pikes, guns, and bows, With old swords and bucklers, that had borne many shrewd blows;

And an old frieze coat, to cover his worship's trunk hose;
And a cup of old sherry, to comfort his copper nose;
Like an old courtier, &c.

With a good old fashion, when Christmas was come,
To call in all his old neighbours with bagpipe and drum,
With good cheer enough to furnish every old room,
And old liquor enough to make a cat speak, and a man
dumb;

Like an old courtier, &c.

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