brimstone see thou unceasingly bathe her. With glowing hot irons, singe and suck up that adulterized sinful beauty, wherewith she hath branded herself to infelicity."

Oh female pride, this is but the dalliance of thy doom, but the intermissive recreation of thy torments. The greatness of thy pains I want portentous words to portray. Whereinsoever thou hast took extreme delight and glory, therein shalt thou be plagued with extreme and despiteous malady. For thy flaring frounced periwigs low dangled down with love-locks, shalt thou have thy head side dangled down with more snakes than ever it had hairs. In the mould of thy brain shall they clasp their mouths, and gnawing through every part of thy skull, ensnarl their teeth amongst thy brains, as an angler ensnarleth his hook amongst weeds.

For thy rich borders, shalt thou have a number of discoloured scorpions rolled up together, and cockatrices that kill with their very sight shall continually stand spurting fiery poison in thine eyes. In the hollow cave of thy mouth, basilisks shall keep house, and supply thy talk with hissing when thou strivest to speak. At thy breasts (as at Cleopatra's), aspices shall be put out to nurse. For thy carcanets of pearl, shalt thou have carcanets of spiders, or the green venomous flies cantharides. Hell's torments were torments, if invention might conceit them. As no eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, no tongue can express, no thought comprehend the joys prepared for the elect, so no eye hath seen, no ear hath heard, no thought can comprehend the pains prepared for the rejected.

THOMAS DEKKER

no

HOW A GALLANT SHOULD BEHAVE HIMSELF IN A PLAYHOUSE

From THE GULS HORNE-BOOKE

THE theatre is your poets' Royal Exchange, upon which their muses, that are now turned to merchants, meeting, barter away that light commodity of words for a lighter ware than words-plaudities,

and the breath of the great beast; which, like the threatenings of two cowards, vanish all into air. Players are their factors, who put away the stuff and make the best of it they possibly can, as indeed 'tis their parts so to do. Your gallant, your courtier, and your captain had wont to be the soundest paymasters, and, I think, are still the surest chapmen; and these, by means that their heads are well stocked, deal upon this comical freight by the gross; when your groundling and gallery-commoner buys his sport by the penny, and like a haggler is glad to utter it again by retailing.

Sithence the place is so free in entertainment, allowing a stool as well to the farmer's son as to your templar, that your stinkard has the selfsame liberty to be there in his tobacco-fumes which your sweet courtier hath; and that your carman and tinker claim as strong a voice in their suffrage and sit to give judgment on the play's life and death as well as the proudest Momus among the tribe of critic, it is fit that he whom the most tailors' bills do make room for, when he comes, should not be basely, like a viol, cased up in a

corner.

Whether therefore the gatherers of the public or private playhouse stand to receive the afternoon's rent; let our gallant, having paid it, presently advance himself up to the throne of the stage; I mean not into the lord's room, which is now but the stage's suburbs; no, those boxes, by the iniquity of custom, conspiracy of waitingwomen and gentlemen-ushers that there sweat together, and the covetousness of sharers, are contemptibly thrust into the rear, and much new satin is there damned by being smothered to death in darkness. But on the very rushes where the comedy is to dance, yea, and under the state of Cambyses himself, must our feathered ostrich, like a piece of ordnance, he planted. valiantly, because impudently, beating down the mews and hisses of the opposed rascality.

For do but cast up a reckoning what large comingsin are pursed up by sitting on the stage. First, a conspicuous emi

nence is gotten, by which means the best and most essential parts of a gallant, good clothes, a proportionable leg, white hand, the Persian lock, and a tolerable beard, are perfectly revealed.

By sitting on the stage you have a signed patent to engross the whole commodity of censure, may lawfully presume to be a girder and stand at the helm to steer the passage of scenes, yet no man shall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an insolent, over-weening coxcomb.

By sitting on the stage you may, without travelling for it, at the very next door ask whose play it is, and by that quest of inquiry the law warrants you to avoid much mistaking. If you know not the author, you may rail against him, and peradventure so behave yourself that you may enforce the author to know you.

By spreading your body on the stage and by being a justice in examining plays, you shall put yourself into such true scenical authority that some poet shall not dare to present his muse rudely upon your eyes without having first unmasked her, rifled her, and discovered all her bare and most mystical parts before you at a tavern; when you most knightly shall, for his pains, pay for both their suppers.

By sitting on the stage, you may with small cost purchase the dear acquaintance of the boys, have a good stool for sixpence, at any time know what particular part any of the infants present, get your match lighted, examine the playsuits' lace, and perhaps win wagers upon laying 'tis copper; etc.

And to conclude, whether you be a fool or a justice of peace, a cuckold or a captain, a Lord Mayor's son or a dawcock, a knave or an undersheriff, of what stamp soever you be, current or counterfeit, the stage, like time, will bring you to most perfect light and lay you open. Neither are you to be hunted from thence though the scarecrows in the yard hoot at you, hiss at you, spit at you, yea, throw dirt even in your teeth; 'tis most gentlemanlike patience to endure all this and to laugh at the silly animals. But if the rabble, with a full throat, cry "Away with the fool!" you were worse

than a madman to tarry by it, for the gentleman and the fool should never sit on the stage together.

Marry, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest, or rather, like a country serving-man, some five yards before them. Present not yourself on the stage, especially at a new play, until the quaking Prologue hath by rubbing got colour into his cheeks and is ready to give the trumpets their cue that he's upon point to enter; for then it is time, as though you were one of the properties, or that you dropped out of the hangings, to creep from behind the arras, with your tripos or three-footed stool in one hand and a teston mounted between a forefinger and a thumb in the other; for, if you should bestow your person upon the vulgar when the belly of the house is but half full, your apparel is quite eaten up, the fashion lost, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be devoured than if it were served up in the Counter amongst the poultry: avoid that as you would the bastone. It shall crown you with rich commendation to laugh aloud in the midst of the most serious and saddest scene of the terriblest tragedy, and to let that clapper, your tongue, be tossed so high that all the house may ring of it; your lords use it; your knights are apes to the lords, and do so too; your inn-o'-court man is zany to the knights, and (many very scurvily) comes likewise limping after it. Be thou a beagle to them all and never lin snuffing till you have scented them, for by talking and laughing, like a ploughman in a morris, you heap Pelion upon Ossa, glory upon glory as first, all the eyes in the galleries will leave walking after the players and only follow you, the simplest dolt in the house snatches up your name, and, when he meets you in the streets, or that you fall into his hands in the middle of a watch, his word shall be taken for you; he'll cry "He's such a gallant," and you pass. Secondly, you publish your temperance to the world, in that you seem not to resort thither to taste vain pleasures with a hungry appetite, but only as a gentleman to spend a foolish hour or two

because you can do nothing else. Thirdly, you mightily disrelish the audience, and disgrace the author; marry, you take up, though it be at the worst hand, a strong opinion of your own judgment and enforce the poet to take pity of your weakness, and, by some dedicated sonnet, to bring you into a better paradise, only to stop your mouth.

If you can, either for love or money, provide yourself a lodging by the waterside, for, above the convenience it brings to shun shoulder-clapping and to ship away your cockatrice betimes in the morning, it adds a kind of state unto you to be carried from thence to the stairs of your playhouse. Hate a sculler-remember that worse than to be acquainted with one o' th' scullery. No, your oars are your only sea-crabs. Board them, and take heed you never go twice together with one pair; often shifting is great credit to gentlemen and that dividing of your fare will make the poor watersnakes be ready to pull you in pieces to enjoy your custom. No matter whether, upon landing, you have money, or no; you may swim in twenty of their boats over the river upon ticket. Marry, when silver comes in, remember to pay treble their fare, and it will make your floundercatchers to send more thanks after you when you do not draw than when you do, for they know it will be their own another day.

Before the play begins, fall to cards. You may win or lose, as fencers do in a prize, and beat one another by confederacy, yet share the money when you meet at supper. Notwithstanding, to gull the ragamuffins that stand aloof gaping at you, throw the cards, having first torn four or five of them, round about the stage, just, upon the third sound, as though you had lost. It skills not if the four knaves lie on their backs and outface the audience; there's none such fools as dare take exceptions at them, because, ere the play go off, better knaves than they will fall into the company.

Now, sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or hath had a flirt at your mistress, or hath brought

either your feather or your red beard, or your little legs, etc. on the stage, you shall disgrace him worse than by tossing him in a blanket or giving him the bastinado in a tavern if, in the middle of his play, be it pastoral or comedy, moral or tragedy, you rise with a screwed and discontented face from your stool to be gone. No matter whether the scenes be good, or no; the better they are, the worse do you distaste them. And, being on your feet, sneak not away like a coward, but salute all your gentle acquaintance that are spread either on the rushes or on stools about you; and draw what troop you can from the stage after you. The mimics are beholden to you for allowing them elbow-room; their poet cries, perhaps, "a pox go with you," but care not you for that, there's no music without frets.

Marry, if either the company or indisposition of the weather bind you to sit it out, my counsel is then that you turn plain ape: take up a rush and tickle the earnest ears of your fellow gallants to make other fools fall a laughing; mew at passionate speeches; blare at merry; find fault with the music; whew at the children's action; whistle at the songs; and, above all, curse the sharers, that whereas the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embroidered felt and feather, Scotch fashion, for your mistress in the court, or your punk in the city, within two hours after you encounter the very same block on the stage, when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that morning.

To conclude: hoard up the finest playscraps you can get, upon which your lean wit may most savourly feed for want of other stuff, when the Arcadian and Euphuized gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon you. That quality, next to your shittlecock, is the only furniture to a courtier that's but a new beginner, and is but in his A B C of compliment. The next places that are filled, after the playhouses be emptied, are, or ought to be, taverns; into a tavern then let us next march, where the brains of one hogshead must be beaten out to make up another.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH
LETTER TO LADY RALEIGH

You shall receive, dear wife, my last words in these my last lines. My love I My love I send you, that you may keep it when I am dead; and my counsel, that you may remember it when I am no more. I would not, with my last will, present you with sorrows, dear Besse. Let them go to the grave with me, and be buried in the dust. And, seeing it is not the will of God that ever I shall see you in this life, bear my destruction gently and with a heart like yourself.

First, I send you all the thanks my heart can conceive, or my pen express, for your many troubles and cares taken for me, which though they have not taken effect as you wished - yet my debt is to you nevertheless; but pay it I never shall in this world.

Secondly, I beseech you, for the love you bare me living, that you do not hide yourself many days, but by your travel seek to help your miserable fortunes and the right of your poor child. Your mourning cannot avail me that am but dust.

You shall understand that my lands were conveyed to my child, bona fide. The writings were drawn at midsummer was twelvemonths, as divers can witness. My honest cousin Brett can testify so much, and Dalberie, too, can remember somewhat therein. And I trust my blood will quench their malice that desire my slaughter, and that they will not also seek to kill you and yours with extreme poverty. To what friend to direct thee I know not, for all mine have left me in the true time of trial, and I plainly perceive that my death was determined from the first day. Most sorry I am as God knoweth, that, being thus surprised with death, I can leave you no better estate. I meant you all mine office of wines, or that I could purchase by selling it; half my stuff and jewels, but some few for my boy. But God hath prevented all my determinations; the great God that worketh all in all. If you can live free from want, care for no more

for the rest is but vanity. Love God, and begin betimes to repose yourself on Him; therein shall you find true and lasting riches and endless comfort. For the rest, when you have traveled and wearied your thoughts on all sorts of worldly cogitations, you shall sit down by sorrow in the end. Teach your son also to serve and fear God, while he is young, that the fear of God may grow up in him. Then will God be a husband unto you and a father unto him; a husband and a father that can never be taken from you.

Bayly oweth me two hundred pounds, and Adrion six hundred pounds. In Jersey, also, I have much owing me. The arrearages of the wines will pay my debts. And, howsoever, for my soul's health, I beseech you pay all poor men. When I

am gone, no doubt you shall be sought unto by many, for the world thinks that I am very rich; but take heed of the pretences of men and of their affections, for they last but in honest and worthy men. And no greater misery can befall you in this life than to become a prey, and after to be despised. I speak it, God knows, not to dissuade you from marriage, for that will be best for you both in respect of God and the world. As for me, I am no more yours, nor you mine. Death hath cut us asunder, and God hath divided me from the world and you from me.

Remember your poor child for his father's sake, that comforted you and loved you in his happiest times. Get those letters, if it be possible, which I writ to the Lords, wherein I sued for my life, but God knoweth that it was for you and yours that I desired it, but it is true that I disdain myself for begging it. And know it, dear wife, that your son is the child of a true man, and who, in his own respect, despiseth death, and all his misshapen and ugly forms.

I cannot write much. God knows how hardly I stole this time, when all sleep, and it is time to separate my thoughts from the world. Beg my dead body, which living was denied you, and either lay it at Sherborne if the land continue, or in Exeter church by my father and mother.

I can write no more. Time and death call me away.

The everlasting, infinite powerful, and inscrutable God, that Almighty God that is goodness itself, mercy itself, the true life and light, keep you and yours, and have mercy on me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors and false accusers; and send us to meet in His glorious kingdom. My true wife, farewell. Bless my poor boy; pray for me. My true God hold you both in His arms.

Written with the dying hand of sometime thy husband, but now (alas!) overthrown.

Yours that was; but now not my own,
W. Raleigh.

THE LAST FIGHT OF THE
REVENGE

THE Lord Thomas Howard, with six of her Majesty's ships, six victuallers of London, the bark Ralegh and two or three pinnaces riding at anchor near unto Flores, one of the westerly islands of the Azores, the last of August in the afternoon, had intelligence by one Captain Middleton, of the approach of the Spanish armada. Which Middleton, being in a very good sailer, had kept them company three days before, of good purpose, both to discover their forces the more, as also to give advice to my Lord Thomas of their approach. He had no sooner delivered the news but the fleet was in sight: many of our ships' companies were on shore in the island; some providing ballast for their ships; others filling of water and refreshing themselves from the land with such things as they could either for money, or by force recover. By reason whereof, our ships being all pestered and romaging, everything was out of order and very light for want of ballast, and that which was most to our disadvantage, the one half part of the men of every ship sick and utterly unserviceable. For in the Revenge there were ninety diseased: in the Bonaventure, not so many in health as could handle her main sail. For had not twenty men been taken out of a bark of Sir George Carey's,

his being commanded to be sunk, and those appointed to her, she had hardly ever recovered England. The rest for the most part, were in little better state. The names of her Majesty's ships were these as followeth the Defiance, which was admiral, the Revenge vice-admiral, the Bonaventure commanded by Captain Cross, the Lion by George Fenner, the Foresight by Mr. Thomas Vavasour, and the Crane by Duffield. The Foresight and the Crane being but small ships, only the other were of the middle size; the rest, besides the bark Ralegh commanded by Captain Thin, were victuallers, and of small force or none. The Spanish fleet, having shrouded their approach by reason of the island, were now so soon at hand, as our ships had scarce time to weigh their anchors, but some of them were driven to let slip their cables and set sail. Sir Richard Grenville was the last weighed, to recover the men that were upon the island, which otherwise had been lost. The Lord Thomas with the rest very hardly recovered the wind, which Sir Richard Grenville not being able to do, was persuaded by the master and others to cut his main sail, and cast about, and to trust to the sailing of his ship: for the squadron of Seville were on his weather bow. But Sir Richard utterly refused to turn from the enemy, alleging that he would rather choose to die, than to dishonour himself, his country and her Majesty's ship, persuading his company that he would pass through the two squadrons in despite of them: and enforce those of Seville to give him way. Which he performed upon divers of the foremost, who, as the mariners term it, sprang their luff and fell under the lee of the Revenge. But the other course had been the better, and might right well have been answered in so great an impossibility of prevailing. Notwithstanding out of the greatness of his mind, he could not be persuaded. In the meanwhile as he attended those which were nearest him, the great San Philip being in the wind of him, and coming towards him, becalmed his sails in such sort, as the ship could neither make way nor feel the helm: so huge and high charged was the Spanish