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MELANCHOLY.

HENCE, all you vain delights,

As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy,

Oh, sweetest melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms, and fixèd eyes,
A sight that piercing mortifies,

A look that's fastened to the ground,
A tongue chained up without a sound!
Fountain heads, and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;

Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

A

CURSE

THE PASSIONATE LORD.

upon thee, for a slave!

Art thou here, and heardst me rave?

Fly not sparkles from mine eye,

To shew my indignation nigh?

Am I not all foam and fire,

With voice as hoarse as a town-crier?

How my back opes and shuts together
With fury, as old men's with weather!
Couldst thou not hear my teeth gnash hither?
Death, hell, fiends, and darkness!

I will thrash thy mangy carcase.
There cannot be too many tortures
Spent upon those lousy quarters.

Thou nasty, scurvy, mungrel toad,

Mischief on thee!

Light upon

thee

All the plagues that can confound thee,
Or did ever reign abroad!

Better a thousand lives it cost,

Than have brave anger spilt or lost.

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LAUGHING SONG.

[For several voices.]

H, how my lungs do tickle! ha, ha, ha.
Oh, how my lungs do tickle! ho, ho, ho,
Set a sharp jest
Against my breast,

Then how my lungs do tickle!

As nightingales,

And things in cambric rails,

Sing best against a prickle.*
Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!

Laugh! Laugh! Laugh! Laugh!
Wide! Loud! And vary!

A smile is for a simpering novice,

One that ne'er tasted caviare,

Nor knows the smack of dear anchovies.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho!

A giggling waiting wench for me,

That shows her teeth how white they be!

ho!

* A multitude of examples might be cited of the use of this favourite allusion by the old poets. Giles Fletcher assigns a reason for the painful pose of the nightingale while she is singing:

'Ne ever lets sweet rest invade her eyes,

But leaning on a thorn her dainty chest,
For fear soft sleep should steal into her breast,
Expresses in her song grief not to be expressed.'

Christ's Victory.

A thing not fit for gravity,

For theirs are foul and hardly three.
Ha, ha, ha!

Ho, ho, ho!

Democritus, thou ancient fleerer,

How I miss thy laugh, and ha' since!*
There thou named the famous[est] jeerer,
That e'er jeered in Rome or Athens.
Ha, ha, ha!

Ho, ho, ho.

How brave lives he that keeps a fool,
Although the rate be deeper!
But he that is his own fool, sir,
Does live a great deal cheaper.
Sure I shall burst, burst, quite break,
Thou art so witty.

'Tis rare to break at court,

For that belongs to the city.

Ha, ha! my spleen is almost worn
To the last laughter.

Oh, keep a corner for a friend;
A jest may come hereafter.

THOMAS MIDDLETON.

1570-1627.

[MR. DYCE conjectures that Thomas Middleton was born about 1570. His father was settled in London, where the poet was born. The materials gathered for his biography are scanty. He seems to have been admitted a member of Gray's Inn, to have been twice married, and to have contributed numerous pieces to the stage, sometimes in connection with

*Changed by Seward to

'How I miss thy laugh, and ha-sense.'

The change helps little towards clearing up the obscurity.

several of his contemporaries. He was appointed, in 1620, Chronologer to the City of London, and 'Inventor of its honourable Entertainments.' In 1624, the Spanish ambassador having complained to the King that the persons of the King of Spain, Conde de Gondomar, and others were represented upon the stage in 'a very scandalous comedy' called A Game at Chess, written by Middleton, the author and the actors were cited before the Privy Council. The actors appeared, and pleaded that the piece had been produced under the usual sanction of the Master of the Revels; but Middleton, 'shifting out of the way, and not attending the board with the rest,' was ordered to be arrested, and a warrant was issued for his apprehension. The play was in the meanwhile suppressed, and for a certain time the actors were prohibited from appearing. Middleton afterwards submitted, but no further punishment appears to have been inflicted. At this time, Middleton resided at Newington Butts, where he died in 1627.

Middleton may be fairly assigned a distinguished position amongst the dramatists of his period. His most conspicuous characteristics are a rich and natural humour and a poetical imagination. Nor was he deficient in passionate energy and pathos, although inferior in these qualities to some of his contemporaries.]

*

BLURT, MASTER CONSTABLE ;* OR, THE SPANIARD'S

NIGHT-WALK.

[First printed in 1602.]

WHAT LOVE IS LIKE.

LOVE is like a lamb, and love is like a lion;

Fly from love, he fights; fight, then does he fly on;

Love is all on fire, and yet is ever freezing;
Love is much in winning, yet is more in leesing:†

* A proverbial phrase.

+ Losing.

Love is ever sick, and yet is never dying;
Love is ever true, and yet is ever lying;
Love does doat in liking, and is mad in loathing;
Love indeed is anything, yet indeed is nothing.

PITY, PITY, PITY!

PITY, pity, pity!

Pity, pity, pity!

That word begins that ends a true-love ditty.
Your blessed eyes, like a pair of suns,
Shine in the sphere of smiling;
Your pretty lips, like a pair of doves,
Are kisses still compiling.

Mercy hangs upon your brow like a precious jewel:
O, let not then,

Most lovely maid, best to be loved of men, Marble lie upon your heart, that will make you cruel! Pity, pity, pity! Pity, pity, pity!

That word begins that ends a true-love ditty.

CHERRY LIP AND WANTON EYE.

LOVE for such a cherry lip

Would be glad to

pawn

Venus here to take a sip

his arrows;

Would sell her doves and team of sparrows.

But they shall not so;

Hey nonny, nonny no!

None but I this life must owe;

Hey nonny, nonny no!

Did Jove see this wanton eye,

Ganymede must wait no longer;

Phœbe here one night did lie,

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Would change her face and look much

*Mr. Dyce changes the line to

'Did Phoebe here one night lie,'

obtaining the sense at the cost of the melody.

younger.

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