What spells, or charms, or invocations,

May the thing call'd Familiar be purchased?
I am shunn'd

And hated like a sickness; made a scorn

To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams
Talk of familiars in the shape of mice,

Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what,

That have appear'd; and suck'd, some say, their blood.
But by what means they came acquainted with them,
I'm now ignorant. Would some powers, good or bad,
Instruct me which way I might be reveng'd

Upon this churl. I'd go out of myself,

And give this fury leave to dwell within
This ruin'd cottage, ready to fall with age:
Abjure all goodness, be at hate with prayer,
And study curses, imprecations,

Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths,
Or any thing that's ill; so I might work

Revenge upon this miser, this black cur,

That barks, and bites, and sucks the very blood,

Of me, and of my credit. 'Tis all one

To be a witch as to be counted one.

CYRIL TOURNEUR, besides being concerned in the production of many others, wrote, himself, two very good dramas, The Atheist's Tragedy, and The Revenger's Tragedy. From the former we may select the following characteristic description of a Drowned Soldier :

Walking upon the fatal shore,

Among the slaughter'd bodies of their men,
Which the full-stomach'd sea had cast upon
The sands, it was my unhappy chance to light
Upon a face, whose favour, when it lived,
My astonish'd mind inform'd me I had seen.
He lay in his armour, as if that had been
His coffin; and the weeping sea (like one
Whose milder temper doth lament the death
Of him whom in his rage he slew) runs up
The shore, embraces him, kisses his cheek;
Goes back again, and forces up the sands
To bury him; and every time it parts,
Sheds tears upon him; till at last, (as if
It could no longer endure to see the man
Whom it had slain, yet loath to leave him,)
With a kind of unresolv'd unwilling pace,
Winding her waves one in another, (like
A man that folds his arms, or wrings his hands
For grief,) ebb'd from the body, and descends;
As if it would sink down into the earth,

And hide itself for shame of such a deed.

GEORGE COOKE was the author of a lively comedy under the title of Greene's Tu Quoque. From the character and finish of this play, we

should infer that it was far from being his only dramatic production, though no other has been preserved.

THOMAS NABBES, who died about 1645, was the author of a very successful masque, entitled Microcosmus. He also produced several other plays, which were written, either by himself alone, or conjointly with others. In 'Microcosmus' we find the following fine song of love:

Welcome, welcome, happy pair,

To these abodes where spicy air
Breathes perfumes, and every sense
Doth find his object's excellence;
Where 's no heat nor cold extreme,
No winter's ice, no summer's scorching beam;
Where's no sun, yet never night,

Day always springing from eternal light.

Chorus.-All mortal suffering laid aside,

Here in endless bliss abide.

NATHANIEL FIELD, who was an actor, and personated one of the characters in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster,' began to write for the stage about 1609. His principal dramas are Woman is a Weathercock, and Amends for Ladies. He also had the honor of aiding Massinger in the composition of The Fatal Dowry.'

JOHN DAY, in conjunction with Chettle, wrote The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, a popular comedy, and was also the author of two or three other plays, and some miscellaneous poems.

HENRY GLAPTHORNE was a prolific writer, and is mentioned by his contemporaries as 'one of the chief dramatic poets of the reign of Charles the First.' A number of his plays were published, the principal of which are, Albertus Wallenstein, The Hollander, Argalus and Parthenia, Wit in a Constable, and the Lady's Privilege. Glapthorne's plays abound with a certain smoothness and prettiness of expression which is very agreeable, but he is deficient in passion and energy.

THOMAS RANDOLPH, whom we have already noticed among the miscellaneous poets of this period, wrote The Muses' Looking-glass, and The Jealous Lovers. An anonymous play, Sweetman, the Woman-hater, with the production of which Randolph is supposed to have been connected, contains the following happy simile:

Justice, like lightning, ever should appear

To few men's ruin, but to all men's fear.

RICHARD BROME, one of the very best of these secondary dramatists, produced several plays, of which The Antipodes, The City Wit and The Court Beggar, long retained their place upon the stage.

Ford, Heywood, and Shirley close the long and interesting list of dramatic writers who adorned the age of Elizabeth and her two immediate

successors.

JOHN FORD was of a good Devonshire family, and was born in 1586. He received a university education, after which he repaired to London, and entered Gray's Inn, as a student of law. Having completed his legal studies and commenced his profession, he turned his attention to the drama as a pastime. His first efforts as a writer for the stage, were made in connection with Webster and Dekker. He also assisted Rowley in the composition of 'The Witch of Edmonton,' already mentioned, the last act of which is supposed to have been written entirely by Ford. In 1628, appeared The Lover's Melancholy, dedicated to his friends and associates of the society of Gray's Inn. In 1633, were published his three tragedies, The Brother and Sister, The Broken Heart, and Love's Sacrifice. He next wrote Perkin Warbeck, a correct and spirited historical drama. Two other pieces, Fancies Chaste and Noble, and The Lady's Trial, produced in 1638, complete the list of Ford's works. His death occurred in 1639, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.

A tone of pensive tenderness and pathos, with a peculiarly soft and musical style of blank verse, characterizes all the dramas of this poet. The choice of his subjects was unhappy; yet Coleridge suggests, that the selection of horrible stories for his two best plays, may have been merely an exercise of intellectual power. 'His moral sense was gratified by indignation at the dark possibilities of sin, and by compassion for rare extremes of suffering.' The scenes in his 'Brother and Sister,' describing the criminal loves of Annabella and Giovanni, are painfully interesting, and to the feelings, harrowing in the extreme; and yet they contain his best poetry and finest expression.

The truth is, the old dramatists loved to sport and dally with such forbidden themes, as they tempted the imagination, and thus awoke slumbering fires of pride, passion, and wickedness, that lurk in the recesses of the human heart. They lived in an age of excitement-the newly-awakened intellect warring with the senses-the baser parts of humanity with its noblest qualities. In this struggle, the dramatic poets were plunged; and they depicted forcibly what they saw and felt. Much as they wrote, their time was not spent in shady retirement: they flung themselves into the full tide of the passions, sounded its depths, wrestled with its difficulties and defilements, and were borne onward in headlong career. A few, like poor Marlow and Greene, sunk early in undeplored misery, and nearly all were unhappy. This very recklessness and daring, however, gave a mighty impulse and freedom to their genius. They were emancipated from ordinary restraints; they were strong in their skeptic pride and self-will; they surveyed the whole of life, and gave expression to those wild half-shaped thoughts and unnatural promptings, which wiser conduct and reflection

would have instantly repressed and condemned. With them the passion of love was an all-pervading fire, that consumed the decencies of life: sometimes it was gross and sensual, but in other moments, imbued with a wild, preternatural sweetness and fervor. Anger, pity, jealousy, revenge, remorse, and the other primary feelings and elements of our nature, were crowded into their short existence, as they were into their scenes. Nor was the light of religion quenched: there were glimpses of heaven in the midst. of the darkest vice and debauchery. Happily the better genius of Shakspeare lifted him above this agitated region.

Ford was apparently of regular deportment, but of morbid diseased imagination. Charles Lamb ranks him with the first order of poets; but this praise is excessive. Admitting his sway over the tender passions, and the occasional beauty of his language and conceptions, still he wants the strength and elevation of great genius. He has, however, the power over tears, and makes his readers sympathize even with his vicious characters. Illustrative of this author's genius and style, we shall present only the following passage:

CONTENTION OF A BIRD AND A MUSICIAN,

Menaphon and Amethus.

Men. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales

Which poets of an elder time have feign'd

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 encounter'd me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention,
That art (and) nature ever were at strife in.
Amet. I can not yet conceive what you infer
By art and nature.

Men. I shall soon resolve you.

A sound of music touch'd 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 seem'd, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flock'd about him, all stood silent,
Wond'ring at what they heard. I wonder'd too.
Amet. And so do I; good! on-

Men. A nightingale,

Nature's best skill'd 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.
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
In a pretty anger, that a bird

Whom art had never taught clefs, 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, ordain'd to be

Music's first martyr, strove to imitate

These several sounds: which, when her warbling throat
Failed in, for grief, down dropp'd she on his lute
And broke her heart! It was the quaintest sadness,

To see the conqueror upon her hearse,

To weep a funeral elegy of tears;

That, trust me, my Amethus, I could chide

Mine own unmanly weakness, that made me
A fellow-mourner with him.

Amet. I believe thee.

Men. He look'd upon the trophies of his art,

Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes, then sigh'd and cried:
'Alas poor creature! I will soon revenge

This cruelty upon the author of it:

Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood,

Shall never more betray a harmless peace

To an untimely end:' and in that sorrow,

As he was pashing it against a tree,

I suddenly stept in.

Amet. Thou hast discours'd

A truth of mirth and pity.

[Lover's Melancholy.]

THOMAS HEYWOOD was both an actor and poet. Of his life so few particulars have been preserved, that we can ascertain neither the period of his birth, nor the time of his death. He was a native of Lincolnshire, and was a fellow of Peter House College, Cambridge. He commenced writing for the stage as early as 1596, and continued to exercise his ready pen until 1640; during which time he had, as he himself informs us, ' an entire hand, `or at least a main finger, in two hundred and twenty plays.' Of this vast number of dramas, only twenty-three have been preserved; the best of which are A Woman Killed with Kindness, The English Traveller, A Challenge for Beauty, The Royal King and Loyal Subjects, The Lancaster