below, 'tis ten to one he is come to fetch him home to supper, and now he may carry him home to his grave. Enter the Host, OLD FOREST, and SUSAN his daughter. Host. You must take comfort, Sir. For. Is he dead, is he dead, girl? Sus. Oh dead, Sir, Frank is dead. For. Alas, alas, my boy! I have not the heart Host. How can it otherwise? For. O me most wretched of all wretched men ! How will they seem to me that am his father? Will they not hale my eye-brows from their rounds, For. Dost long to have me blind? Then I'll behold them, since I know thy mind. Is this my son that doth so senseless lie, And swims in blood? my soul shall fly with his Being kill'd with grief, we both may have one grave. With age and sorrow. Host. Mr. Forest- What's a [clock, For. What says my girl? good morrow. For. Cannot, why? Sus. Do you not see his bloodless colour pale? For. Perhaps he 's sickly, that he looks so pale. Sus. Do you not feel his pulse no motion keep, How still he lies? For. Then is he fast asleep. Sus. Do you not see his fatal eye-lid close? For. Oh me! my murder'd son ! Enter young MR. FOREST. Y. For. Sister! Sus. O brother, brother! Y. For. Father, how cheer you, Sir? why, you were To store for others comfort, that by sorrow [wont Were any ways distress'd. Have you all wasted, O. For. O Son, Son, Son, See, alas, see where thy brother lies. He dined with me to-day, was merry, merry, Y. For. I shall find time ; Oh see, When you have took some comfort, I'll begin To mourn his death, and scourge the murderer's sin. O. For. Oh, when saw father such a tragic sight, And did outlive it? never, son, ah never, From mortal breast ran such a precious river. Y. For. Come, father, and dear sister, join with me; Let us all learn our sorrows to forget. He owed a death, and he hath paid that debt. [If I were to be consulted as to a reprint of our Old English Dramatists, I should advise to begin with the collected Plays of Heywood. He was a fellow Actor, and fellow Dramatist, with Shakspeare. He possessed not the imagination of the latter; but in all those qualities which gained for Shakspeare the attribute of gentle, he was not inferior to him. Generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths of passion; sweetness, in a word, and gentleness; Christianism; and true hearty Anglicism of feelings, shaping that Christianism; shine throughout his beautiful writ ings in a manner more conspicuous than in those of Shakspeare, but only more conspicuous, inasmuch as in Heywood these qualities are primary, in the other subordinate to poetry. I love them both equally, but Shakspeare has most of my wonder. Heywood should be known to his countrymen, as he deserves. His plots are almost invariably English. I am sometimes jealous, that Shakspeare laid so few of his scenes at home. I laud Ben Jonson, for that in one instance having framed the first draught of his Every Man in his Humour in Italy, he changed the scene, and Anglicised his characters. The names of them in the First Edition, may not be unamusing. How say you, Reader? Do not Master Kitely, Mistress Kitely, Master Knowell, Brainworm, &c. read better than these Cisalpines ?] TANCRED AND GISMUND: ACTED BEFORE THE COURT BY THE GENTLEMEN OF THE A Messenger brings to GISMUND a cup from the King her Father, enclosing the heart of her Lord, whom she had espoused without his sanction. Mess. Thy father, O Queen, here in this cup hath sent The thing to joy and comfort thee withal, Which thou lovedst best ev'n as thou wast content Gis. I thank my father, and thee, gentle Squire ; So, now is come the long-expected hour, Now hath my father satisfied his thirst What brings this cup? aye me, I thought no less; It is my Earl's, my County's pierced heart. Ah, my dear heart, sweet wast thou in thy life. To send me this mine own dear heart to me. Receive this token as thy last farewell. [She kisseth it. Thus hast thou run, poor heart, thy mortal race, And thou shalt have them; though I was resolved Only with blood, and with no weeping eye. [Nearly a century after the date of this Drama, Dryden produced his admirable version of the same story from Boccacio. The speech here extracted may be compared with the corresponding passage in the Sigismonda and Guiscardo, with no disadvantage to the elder performance. It is quite as weighty, as pointed, and as passionate.] THE TWO ANGRY WOMEN OF ABINGDON: A COMEDY. BY HENRY PORTER, 1599. Proverb-monger. This formal fool, your man, speaks nought but Proverbs; And, speak men what they can to him, he 'll answer And with a rotten hem say, "Hey my hearts," Without the consent of some great Proverb-monger. |