Luc. O was it you? come then. O stay awhile. I know not where I am, nor what I am;

Nor you, nor these I know, nor any thing.

THE GENTLEMAN OF VENICE:

A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY JAMES SHIRLEY, 1665.

GIOVANNI, of noble extraction, but brought up a Gardener, and ignorant of any greater birth, loves BELLAURA, a Princess; and is beloved again.

BELLAURA. GIOVANNI.

Bell. How now, Giovanni;

What, with a sword! You were not used to appear Thus arm'd. Your weapon is a spade, I take it.

Gio. It did become my late profession, Madam; But I am changed

Bell. Not to a soldier?

Gio. It is a title, Madam, will much grace me;
And with the best collection of my thoughts
I have ambition to the wars.

Bell. You have?

Gio. O 'tis a brave profession and rewards
All loss we meet, with double weight in glory;
A calling, Princes still are proud to own;
And some do willingly forget their crowns,
To be commanded. 'Tis the spring of all
We here entitle fame to; Emperors,
And all degrees of honours, owing all
Their names to this employment; in her vast
And circular embraces holding Kings,
And making them; and yet so kind as not
To exclude such private things as I, who may
Learn and commence in her great arts.-My life
Hath been too useless to my self and country;
'Tis time I should employ it, to deserve

A name within their registry, that bring

The wealth, the harvest, home of well-bought honour. Bell. Yet I can see

Through all this revolution, Giovanni,

"Tis something else has wrought this violent change.
Pray let me be of counsel with your thoughts,
And know the serious motive; come, be clear.
I am no enemy, and can assist
Where I allow the cause.

Gio. You may be angry,

Madam, and chide it as a saucy pride
In me to name or look at honour; nor
Can I but know what small addition
Is my unskilful arm to aid a country.

Bell. I may therefore justly suspect there is
Something of other force, that moves you to
The wars. Enlarge my knowledge with the secret.
Gio. At this command I open my heart. Madam,
I must confess there is another cause,

Which I dare not in my obedience

Obscure, since you will call it forth; and yet
I know you will laugh at me-

Bell. It would ill

Become my breeding, Giovanni-
Gio. Then,

Know, Madam, I am in love.

Bell. In love with whom?

Gio. With one I dare not name, she is so much Above my birth and fortunes.

Bell. I commend

Your flight. But does she know it?

Gio. I durst never

Appear with so much boldness to discover

My heart's so great ambition; it is here still

A strange and busy guest.

Bell. And you think absence

May cure this wound

Gio. Or death

Bell. I may presume

You think she 's fair

Gio. I dare as soon question your beauty, Madam,

The only ornament and star of Venice,

Pardon the bold comparison; yet there is

Something in you, resembles my great Mistress.

She blushes-(aside).

Such very beams disperseth her bright eye,
Powerful to restore decrepit nature;

But when she frowns, and changes from her sweet
Aspect, (as in my fears I see you now,
Offended at my boldness,) she does blast
Poor Giovanni thus, and thus I wither
At heart, and wish myself a thing lost in
My own forgotten dust.

THE DEVIL'S LAW CASE:

A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY JOHN WEBSTER, 1623.

Clergy-comfort.

I must talk to you, like a Divine, of patience.-
I have heard some talk of it very much, and many
Times to their auditors' impatience; but I pray,
What practice do they make on 't in their lives?
They are too full of choler with living honest,-
And some of them not only impatient

Of their own slightest injuries, but stark mad
At one another's preferment.

Sepulture.

Two Bellmen, a Capuchin; ROMELIO, and others. Cap. For pity's sake, you that have tears to shed, Sigh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead,

For two unfortunate Nobles*, whose sad fate
Leaves them both dead and excommunicate.
No churchman's pray'r to comfort their last groans,
No sacred seed of earth to hide their bones;
But as their fury wrought them out of breath,
The Canon speaks them guilty of their own death.
Rom. Denied Christian burial! I pray, what does
Or the dead lazy march in the funeral?
Or the flattery in the epitaph ?-which shows
More sluttish far than all the spiders' webs,

*Slain in a duel.

[that?

Shall ever grow upon it: what do these
Add to our well-being after death?
Cap. Not a scruple.

Rom. Very well then

I have a certain meditation,

(If I can think of,) somewhat to this purpose ;— I'll say it to you, while my mother there Numbers her beads.

"You that dwell near these graves and vaults,
Which oft do hide physicians' faults,

Note what a small room does suffice
To express men's goods: their vanities
Would fill more volume in small hand,
Than all the evidence of Church Land.
Funerals hide men in civil wearing,
And are to the Drapers a good hearing;
Make th' Heralds laugh in their black raiment ;
And all die Worthies, die with payment
To th' Altar offerings: tho' their fame,
And all the charity of their name,
'Tween heav'n and this, yield no more light
Than rotten trees, which shine in th' night.
O look the last Act be best in th' Play,
And then rest gentle bones! yet pray,
That when by the Precise you're view'd,
A supersedeas be not sued;

To remove you to a place more airy,
That in your stead they may keep chary
Stockfish, or seacole; for the abuses

Of sacrilege have turn'd graves to viler uses.
How then can any monument say,

Here rest these bones to the Last Day;

When Time, swift both of foot and feather,

May bear them the Sexton knows not whither ?-
What care I then, tho' my last sleep
Be in the desart, or in the deep;
No lamp, nor taper, day and night,
To give my charnel chargeable light?
I have there like quantity of ground;
And at the last day I shall be found *."

* Webster was parish clerk at St. Andrew's, Holborn. The

Immature Death.

Contarino's dead.

O that he should die so soon!

Why, I pray, tell me :

Is not the shortest fever best? and are not
Bad plays the worse for their length?

Guilty Preferment.

I have a plot, shall breed,

Out of the death of these two noblemen;
Th' advancement of our house-

O take heed!

A grave is a rotten foundation.

Mischiefs

are like the visits of Franciscan friars, They never come to prey upon us single.

Last Love strongest.

as we love our youngest children best,
So the last fruit of our affection,
Wherever we bestow it, is most strong,
Most violent, most irresistible;

Since 'tis indeed our latest harvest home,
Last merriment 'fore winter; and we Widows,
As men report of our best picture-makers,
We love the Piece we are in hand with better,
Than all the excellent work we have done before.

Mother's Anger.

Leonora. Ha, my Son!

I'll be a fury to him; like an Amazon lady,
I'd cut off this right pap that gave him suck,
To shoot him dead. I'll no more tender him,
Than had a wolf stol'n to my teat in th' night,
And robb'd me of my milk.

Distraction from Guilt.

Leonora (sola). Ha, ha! What say you?

anxious recurrence to church matters; sacrilege; tomb-stones; with the frequent introduction of dirges; in this, and his other tragedies, may be traced to his professional sympathies.