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Give lords the affront.-Is it, my Zephyrus,

right?

Thou'rt sure thou saw'st it blood?

Face. Both blood and spirit, sir.

Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce,
For which I'll say unto my cook, 'There's
gold;

Go forth, and be a knight?
Face.

Sir, I'll go look 45

[Exit Face.
Do. My shirts
I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light
As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment,
It shall be such as might provoke the Persian,
Were he to teach the world riot anew. 50
My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins, per-
fum'd

A little, how it heightens.
Mam.

With gums of Paradise and eastern air.
Sur. And do you think to have the

Mam. No; I

stone with this?

do think t'have all this

with the stone!

Sur. Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,

Mam. I will have all my beds blown up, A pious, holy, and religious man,

not stuff"d:

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Down is too hard.-My mists
I'll have of perfume, vapoured 'bout the

room

To lose ourselves in; and my baths, like

pits,
To fall into: from whence we will come
forth,

And roll us dry in gossamer and roses,
Is it arriv'd at ruby?-And my flatterers 25
Shall be the pure and gravest of divines.-
And they shall fan me with ten estrich tails
A-piece, made in a plume to gather wind,
We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the
med'cine.

My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells,
Dishes of agate, set in gold, and studded
With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and
The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels'

rubies,

heels, Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl,

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Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy:
And I will eat these broths with spoons
of amber,

Headed with diamond and carbuncle.

My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd (1) salmons,

Knots, (2) godwits, (3) lampreys: I myself

will have

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The beards of barbels serv'd, instead of
salads;
Oil'd mushrooms; and the swelling, unctu-
ous paps

Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,

(1) Sliced. (2) A species of snipe, of which King Knot or Camute was very fond; hence the name. (3) Å bird, mentioned also by Cowley; probably the plover.

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Where you

nel-house,
shall find her sitting in her
form,

As fearful and melancholic as that
She is about; with caterpillers' kells, (2) 10
And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells.
Then she steals forth to relief in the fogs,
And rotten mists, upon the fends and bogs,
Down to the drowned lands of Lincolnshire;
To make ewes cast their lambs, swine eat

their farrow,

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And housewives' tun not work, (3) nor the

milk churn!

Writhe children's wrists, and suck their
breath in sleep,

Get vials of their blood! and where the sea
Casts up his slimy ooze, search for a weed
To open locks with, and to rivet charms,
Planted about her in the wicked feat
Of all her mischiefs; which are manifold.
(1) Retreat or cell. (2) Chrysalis. (3) Ferment.

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Wherewith she kills! where the sad mandrake grows, Whose groans are deathful; and dead-numbing night-shade,

The stupefying hemlock, adder's tongue, And martagan: (1) the shrieks of luckless owls

We hear, and croaking night-crows in the

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air! Green-bellied snakes, blue fire-drakes in the sky,

And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings! The scaly beetles, with their habergeons, That make a humming murmur as they fly! There in the stocks of trees, white fairies do dwell, 40 And span-long elves that dance about a pool, arms!

With each a little changeling in their

The airy spirits play with falling stars, And mount the spheres of fire to kiss the moon!

While she sits reading by the glow-worm's light,

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Or rotten wood, o'er which the worm hath crept, The baneful schedule of her nocent (2) charms.

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Horned poppy, cypress boughs,
The fig-tree wild that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the larch-tree comes,
The basilisk's blood and the viper's skin;
And now our orgies let us begin.
You fiends and fairies, if yet any be
Worse than ourselves, you that have
quak'd to see

These knots untied (she unties them)- exha
earth's rottenest vapours.
And strike a blindness through these blaz-
ing tapers.
deep we lay thee to
sleep;

Charm. Deep, O

We leave thee

Both milk and

drink by, if thou chance to be dry;

blood, the dew and th flood;

We breathe in thy bed, at the foot and the head;

(1) Quarry, prey. (2) Discharge.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

And when thou dost wake, Dame Earth shall quake

Such a birth to make, as is the Blue Drake. Dame. Stay; all our charms do nothing win

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Upon the night; our labour dies,
Our magic feature will not rise,
Nor yet the storm! We must repeat
More direful voices far, and beat
The ground with vipers, till it sweat.
Charm. Blacker go in, and blacker come out :
At thy going down, we give thee a shout;
Hoo!

At thy rising again thou shalt have two;
And if thou dost what we'd have thee do,
Thou shalt have three, thou shalt have
four,

Hoo! har! har! hoo!

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A cloud of pitch, a spur and a switch,
To haste him away, and a whirlwind
play,

Before and after, with thunder for laughter And storms of joy, of the roaring boy, His head of a drake, his tail of a snake. (A loud and beautiful music is heard, and the Witches vanish.)

BEAUMONT AND

FRANCIS BEAUMONT, the son of Judge Beaumont, was born in 1586, studied at Cambridge, and entered the Middle Temple, but abandoned his legal pursuits as early as 1606 and attached himself to the stage. In 1602 he wrote poetry, and attracted attention by the publication of his Salamis and Hermaphroditus. He produced his first play, "The Woman Hater,' at the age of 21, in conjunction with Fletcher. Between the years 1607 and 1615 he composed, with the help of Fletcher, plays to the number of thirty-eight, of which the principal are the following: 'Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, The Chances,' 'The Wild-Goose-Chase,' 'The Night-Walker,' "The False One,' 'The Bloody Brother,' "The Maid's Tragedy' and 'Boadicea.'

Beaumont and Fletcher show their talents better in Comedy than in Tragedy, but in the greater number of their plays there is much obscenity and indelicacy, which render them unfit for general perusal. Their partnership was brought to a close by the death of

FLETCHER.

Beaumont, which took place in 1616, when he was not quite thirty years of age.

JOHN FLETCHER was born in 1576 and studied at Cambridge, but did not take a degree there. Although Fletcher was ten years older than his friend Beaumont, the latter came first before the public, for Fletcher had written nothing alone, before the publication of their first joint play, The Woman-Hater,' in 1607. From this time till 1616 Fletcher and Beaumont wrote conjointly, and after the death of the latter, Fletcher composed eleven more pieces. He died in 1625. After Shakespeare, they have left us the best and richest dramas in the English language; but although their plays are very effective on the stage, exciting interest perhaps even more than those of Shakespeare, they fall short of his in force of expression and delineation of dramatists there is a coarseness which renders them character; and in nearly all the compositions of these unfit to be brought before the public at the present day.

CARATACH, PRINCE OF THE BRI- Has hung a little food and drink. Cheer TONS, WITH HIS NEPHEW HENGO.

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And when thou wakest either get meat to save thee,

Or lose my life i' the purchase. Good gods comfort thee! Enter Caratach and Hengo on the rock.

Car.

up, boy!

Do not forsake me now.
Hengo. Oh! uncle, uncle.

I feel I cannot stay long; yet I'll fetch it
To keep your noble life. Uncle, I'm heart
whole,

And would live.

Car. Thou shalt, long, I hope.
Hengo. But-my head, uncle-
Methinks the rock goes round.

Enter Macer and Judas, Romans.
Macer. Mark 'em well, Judas.
Judas. Peace, as you love your life.
Hengo. Do not you hear

The noise of bells?

Car. Of bells, boy? 'tis thy fancy.
Alas! thy body's full of wind.
Hengo. Methinks, sir,

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25

They ring a strange sad knell, a prepara

tion

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To some near funeral of state. Nay, weep not. chicken. Car. Oh! my poor Courage, my boy, I've found meat: 10 look, Hengo, Hengo. Fie, faint-hearted uncle; Look, where some blessed Briton, to pre- Come, tie me in your belt, and let me serve thee,

down.

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Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence

Who made the morning, and who plac'd the light

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Guide to thy labours; who call'd up the night.

Or painful to his slumbers;-easy, sweet, 5
And as a purling stream, thou son of
night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers
Pass by his troubled senses:-sing his pain, | In hollow murmurs to lock up thy powers.

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