JOHN MARSTON.

[IF we may trust Oldys, this dramatist was sprung from a Shropshire family, but the date of his birth is unknown. According to Anthony-à-Wood, Marston was a student in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was admitted Bachelor of Arts February 23d, 1592. Mr. Halliwell, editor of Marston's works, thinks this a mistake, and conjectures that the dramatist was another John Marston, mentioned by Wood, who was 'son of a father of both names, of the city of Coventry, Esquire,' who 'became either a commoner or a gentlemancommoner of Brasen-nose College in 1591, and in the beginning of February 1593 he was admitted Bachelor of Arts, as the eldest son of an esquire, and soon after completing that degree by determination, he went his way, and improved his learning in other faculties,'— alluding probably, says Mr. Halliwell, to his poetical and dramatic efforts. It is supposed that it was Marston's father who was appointed Lecturer of the Middle Temple in 1592; and according to Oldys, the dramatist married Mary, daughter of the Rev. William Wilkes, chaplain to James I., and rector of St. Martin's, Wiltshire. In Ben Jonson's conversations with Drummond, it is stated that Marston wrote his father-in-law's preachings, and his father-in-law his comedies,' which Gifford thinks is a humorous allusion to the sombre air of Marston's comedies, as contrasted with the cheerful tone of his father-in-law's discourses. Marston died in June 1634, and was buried near his father in the Temple Church in London, 'under the stone which hath written on it, Oblivioni Sacrum.' For these meagre statements concerning the life of Marston we are indebted to the painstaking researches of Mr. J. O. Halliwell, who has edited an excellent edition of the dramatist's works. Marston appears to have been at one time an intimate friend and ardent admirer of Ben Jonson, but having satirized Ben in two of his plays, a quarrel took place, Jonson replying with vigour in his Poetaster. We learn from Drummond that Jonson had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his Poetaster on him; the beginning of them were, that Marston represented him in the stage, in his youth given to venerie.' 'Were more known of the literary history of the period,' says Mr. Halliwell, it would perhaps be found that as there was probably more than one quarrel between these dramatists, so also was there more than one reconciliation.'

Marston, along with Jonson and Chapman, had a hand in Eastward Hoe. His principal dramas are The Scourge of Villany (printed 1598); Antonio and Mellida (1602), the second part of which, Antonio's Revenge, was published the same year; The Malcontent (1604); The Dutch Courtezan (1605); Parasitaster (1606); Sophonisba (1606); What You Will (1607); The Insatiate Countess (1613). Besides these, he wrote a number of poems, chiefly of a satirical cast, nearly all of which, as well as many of his dramas, are characterized by coarseness and impurity of language. Indeed his nature appears to have been essentially coarse and bitter; and in illustration of this Mr. Collier quotes from a contemporary diary the following anecdote:- Jo. Marston, the last Christmas, when he danced with Alderman More's wife's daughter, a Spaniard born, fell into a strange commendation of her wit and beauty. When he had done, she thought to pay him home, and told him she thought he was a poet. ""Tis true," said he, "for poets feign and lie; and so did I when I commended your beauty, for you are exceeding foul."'

Marston has undoubtedly vigour and originality, and one writer ranks him with Fletcher, Ford, and Massinger; he can be at times pathetic and quaintly humorous; but

his works are characterized by great inequality. Hazlitt calls him a writer of great merit, who rose to tragedy from the ground of comedy, and whose forte was not sympathy either with the stronger or softer emotions, but an impatient scorn and bitter indignation against the vices and follies of men, which vented itself either in comic verse or lofty invective. He was properly a satirist.' We have selected Antonio and Mellida, both on account of its intrinsic merits, and as being on the whole the most appropriate of Marston's dramas for a work like the present. It is printed as it stands in the original edition, except that the spelling is modernized.]

ANTONIO AND MELLIDA:

A HISTORY.

ACTED BY THE CHILDREN OF PAUL'S.

BY JOHN MARSTON.

London. 1602.

PIERO SFORZA, Duke of Venice.

ANDRUGIO, Duke of Genoa.

Dramatis Personæ.

CASTILIO BALTHAZAR.

CATZO, his Servant.

ANTONIO, Son of Andrugio, disguised as FLORI- DILDO, Servant to Balurdo.

ZELL, an Amazon.

GALEATZO, son of the Duke of Florence.

MATZAGENTE, a braggadocio, Duke of Milan's son.
FOROBOSCO, a parasite.

BALURDO, a silly, 'mountebanking' courtier.
FELICE, a shrewd, contemplative cynic.
ALBERTO, a Venetian Gentleman.

LUCIO, Companion or Servant to Andrugio.
A Page.

MELLIDA, Piero's Daughter.
ROSSALINE, Niece to Piero.
FLAVIA, Maid to Rossaline.

Courtiers, etc.

SCENE-In and around Venice.

INDUCTION.

Enter GALEATZO, PIERO, ALBERTO, ANTONIO,
FOROBOSCO, BALURDO, MATZAGENTE, and
FELICE, with parts in their hands, having
cloaks cast over their apparel.

Gal. Come, sirs, come! the music will sound straight for entrance. Are ye ready, are ye perfect?

Pie. Faith! we can say our parts; but we are
ignorant in what mould we must cast our actors.
Alb. Whom do you personate?
Pie. Piero, Duke of Venice.

And stalks as proud upon the weakest stilts
Of the slight'st fortunes, as if Hercules
Or burly Atlas shouldered up their state.
Pie. Good; but whom act you?

Alb. The necessity of the play forceth me to act two parts: Andrugio, the distressed Duke of Genoa, and Alberto, a Venetian gentleman, enamoured on the Lady Rossaline; whose fortunes being too weak to sustain the port of her, he prov'd always disastrous in love; his worth being underpoised' by the uneven scale, that currents all things by the outward stamp of

Alb. Oh ho! then thus you frame your exterior opinion.
shape,

To haughty form of elate majesty;
As if you held the palsy shaking head

Of reeling chance, under your fortune's belt
In strictest vassalage: grow big in thought,
As swoln with glory of successful arms.

Pie. If that be all, fear not, I'll suit it right. Who cannot be proud, stroke up the hair, and strut?

Alb. Truth; such rank custom is grown popular;

And now the vulgar fashion strides as wide,

Gal. Well, and what dost thou play?
Bal. The part of all the world.

Alb. The part of all the world? What's that? Bal. The fool. Ay, in good deed law now, I play Balurdo, a wealthy mountebanking burgomasco's heir of Venice.

1 underpoised-undervalued.

2 currents-makes pass current, values.

3 burgomasco's-equivalent, we suppose, to burgomaster's.

Alb. Ha, ha! one whose foppish nature might seem great, only for wise men's recreation; and, like a juiceless bark, to preserve the sap of more strenuous spirits. A servile hound, that loves the scent of forerunning fashion, like an empty hollow vault, still giving an echo to wit: greedily champing what any other well-valued judgment had beforehand chew'd.

Foro. Ha, ha, ha! tolerably good; good faith, sweet wag.

Alb. Umh; why, tolerably good; good faith, sweet wag? Go, go; you flatter me.

Foro. Right; I but dispose my speech to the habit of my part.

Alb. Why, what plays he? [To FELICE. Feli. The wolf that eats into the breasts of princes; that breeds the lethargy and falling sickness in honour; makes justice look asquint; and blinds the eye of merited reward from viewing desertful virtue.

Alb. What's all this periphrasis, ha?

Feli. The substance of a supple-chapped flat

terer.

Feli. Rampum scrampum, mount tuftie Tamburlaine. What rattling thunderclap breaks from his lips?

Alb. Oh, 'tis native to his part. For acting a modern braggadocio under the person of Matzagente, the Duke of Milan's son, it may seem to suit with good fashion of coherence.

Pie. But methinks he speaks with a spruce attic accent of adulterate Spanish.

Alb. So 'tis resolv'd. For Milan being half Spanish, half High Dutch, and half Italian, the blood of chiefest houses is corrupt and mongrel'd, so that you shall see a fellow vainglorious for a Spaniard, gluttonous for a Dutchman, proud for an Italian, and a fantastic idiot for all. Such a one conceit this Matzagente.

Feli. But I have a part allotted me, which I have neither able apprehension to conceit, nor what I conceit gracious ability to utter.

Gal. Whoop, in the old cut 2 Good, show us a draught of thy spirit.

Feli. 'Tis steady, and must seem so impregnably fortressed with his own content that no envious Alb. Oh, doth he play Forobosco the Parasite? thought could ever invade his spirit; never surGood, i'faith.-Sirrah, you must seem now as veying any man so unmeasuredly happy, whom glib and straight in outward semblance as a I thought not justly hateful for some true imlady's busk, though inwardly as cross as a pair poverishment; never beholding any favour of of tailor's legs; having a tongue as nimble as Madam Felicity gracing another, which his wellhis needle, with servile patches of glavering bounded content persuaded not to hang in the flattery to stitch up the bracks of (the) un- front of his own fortune; and therefore as far worthily honoured. from envying any man, as he valued all men infinitely distant from accomplished beatitude. These native adjuncts appropriate to me the name of Felice. But last, good, thy humour.

Foro. I warrant you, I warrant you, you shall see me prove the very periwig to cover the bald pate of brainless gentility. Ho! I will so tickle the sense of bella gratiosa madonna with the titillation of hyperbolical praise, that I'll strike it in the nick, in the very nick, chuck.

Feli. Thou promisest more than I hope any spectator gives faith of performance; but why look you so dusky, ha?

[TO ANTONIO.

Ant. I was never worse fitted since the nativity of my actorship; I shall be hissed at, on my life now.

Feli. Why, what must you play?

Ant. Faith, I know not what: an hermaphrodite two parts in one; my true person being Antonio, son to the Duke of Genoa; though for the love of Mellida, Piero's daughter, I take this feigned presence of an Amazon, calling myself Florizell, and I know not what. I a voice to play a lady! I shall ne'er do it.

Alb. Oh! an Amazon should have such a voice, virago-like. Not play two parts in one? Away, away, 'tis common fashion. Nay, if you cannot bear two subtle fronts under one hood; idiot, go by, go by; off this world's stage! O time's impurity!

Ant. Aye, but when use hath taught me action to hit the right point of a lady's part, I shall grow ignorant, when I must turn young prince again, how but to truss my hose.

Feli. Tush, never put them off; for women wear the breeches still.

Mat. By the bright honour of a Milanese, and the resplendent fulgor of this steel, I will defend the feminine to death; and ding his spirit to the verge of hell, that dares divulge a lady's prejudice.7 [Exeunt ANTONIO and ALBERTO.

|

[Exit ALBERTO.

Ant. 'Tis to be describ'd by signs and tokens. For unless I were possess'd with a legion of spirits, 'tis impossible to be made perspicuous by any utterance: for sometimes he must take austere state, as for the person of Galeatzo, the son of the Duke of Florence, and possess his exterior presence with a formal majesty; keep popularity in distance, and on the sudden fling his honour so prodigally into a common arm, that he may seem to give up his indiscretion to the mercy of vulgar censure. Now as solemn as a traveller, and as grave as a Puritan's ruff; with the same breath as slight and scattered in his fashion as a-a-anything. Now as sweet and neat as a barber's casting-bottle; 3 straight as slovenly as the yeasty breast of an ale-knight; now lamenting, then chafing, straight laughing; then

Feli. What then?

Ant. Faith, I know not what: 't'ad been a right part for Proteus or Gew. Ho! blind Gew would ha' done't rarely, rarely.

Feli. I fear it is not possible to limn so many persons in so small a tablet as the compass of our plays afford.

Ant. Right! therefore I have heard that those persons, as he and you, Felice, that are but slightly drawn in this Comedy, should receive more exact accomplishment in a second part; which, if this obtains gracious acceptance, means to try his fortune.

Feli. Peace, here comes the Prologue. _Clear the stage. [Exeunt.

1 conceit-fancy, conceive.

2 i.e. holla! after the old fashion.-DILKE.

3 casting-bottle-a bottle for casting or sprinkling perfumes.

4 Gew was probably the name of some actor who had been a favourite, and left the stage from blindness.DILKE.

PROLOGUE.

Feli. Confusion to these limber sycophants.
No sooner mischief's born in regency,
But flattery christens it with policy.

Pie. Why, then, O me Celitum excelsissimum ! 2
The intestine malice and inveterate hate
I always bore to that Andrugio,
Glories in triumph o'er his misery;
Nor shall that carpet-boy Antonio

Match with my daughter, sweet-cheeked Mellida.
No; the public power makes my faction strong.
Feli. Ill, when public power strengtheneth
private wrong.

Pie. 'Tis horse-like not for a man to know his

force.

Feli. "Tis god-like for a man to feel remorse. Pie. Pish! I prosecute my family's revenge, Which I'll pursue with such a burning chase, Till I have dried up all Andrugio's blood; Weak rage that with slight pity is withstood.

[The cornets sound a flourish. What means that fresh triumphal flourish sound? Alb. The Prince of Milan, and young Florence heir,

Approach to gratulate your victory.

Enter MATZAGENTE; PIERO meets him; embraceth; at which the cornets sound a flourish: they two stand, using seeming compliments, whilst the scene passeth above.

Mel. S. Mark, S. Mark! what kind of thing appears?

Ros. For fancy's passion, spit upon him; figh His face is varnished. In the name of love, What country bred that creature?

Mel. What is he, Flavia?

Fla. The heir of Milan, Seignior Matzagente.
He is made like a tilting staff; and looks
Ros. Matzagente! now, by my pleasure's hope,
For all the world like an o'er-roasted pig:
A great tobacco-taker too, that's flat;
For his eyes look as if they had been hung
In the smoke of his nose.

Mel. What husband will he prove, sweet
Rossaline?

Ros. Avoid him; for he hath a dwindled leg,
A low forehead, and a thin coal-black beard;
And will be jealous too, believe it, sweet;
For his chin sweats, and hath a gander neck,
A thin lip, and a little monkish eye;

Pie. We'll girt them with an ample waste of Precious, what a slender waist he hath!

love;

Conduct them to our presence royally.

Let volleys of the great artillery

From off our galleys' banks 3 play prodigal,
And sound loud welcome from their bellowing
[Exeunt all but PIERO.

mouths.

The cornets sound a cynet. Enter above, MELLIDA, ROSSALINE, and FLAVIA. Enter below, GALEATZO with Attendants; PIERO meeteth him, embraceth; at which the cornets sound a flourish; PIERO and GALEATZO exeunt; the rest stand still.

Mel. What prince was that passed through my father's guard?

Fla. 'Twas Galeatzo, the young Florentine. Ros. Troth, one that will besiege thy maidenhead;

Enter the walls, i'faith (sweet Mellida),

If that thy flankers 4 be not cannon-proof.
Mel. Oh, Mary Ambree! good, thy judgment,
wench;

7

Thy bright election's clear: what will he prove?
Ros. Hath a short finger and a naked chin,
A skipping eye; dare lay my judgment (faith)
His love is glibbery; there's no hold on't, wench.
Give me a husband whose aspect is firm;
A full cheeked gallant with a bouncing thigh;
Oh, he is the paradizo dell madonne contento.
Mel. Even such a one was my Antonio.

[The cornets sound a cynet.
Ros. By my nine and thirtieth servant? (sweet)
Thou art in love, but stand on tiptoed fair;
Here comes Saint Tristram Tirlery Whiffe,
i'faith.

He looks like a may-pole, or notched stick;
He'll snap in two at every little strain.
Give me a husband that will fill mine arms,
Fools relish not a lady's excellence.
Of steady judgment, quick and nimble sense;

[Exeunt all on the lower stage; at which the
cornets sound a flourish, and a peal of

shot is given.

Mel. The triumph's ended, but look, Rossaline,
What gloomy soul in strange accustrements 2
Walks on the pavement?

Ros. Good sweet, let's to her; pr'ythee, Mellida.
Mel. How covetous thou art of novelties!
Ros. Pish! 'tis our nature to desire things
That are thought strangers to the common cut.
Mel. I am exceedingly willing, but—
Ros. But what? pr'ythee go down; let's see her
face:

God send that neither wit nor beauty wants
Those tempting sweets, affection's adamants.

[Exeunt.

Ant. Come down, she comes like-oh, no simile
Is precious, choice, or elegant enough
To illustrate her descent; leap heart, she comes,-
She comes! smile heaven, and softest southern
wind

Kiss her cheek gently with perfumed breath.
She comes: creation's purity, admir'd,
Ador'd amazing rarity,-she comes!
Oh now, Antonio, press thy spirit forth
In following passion, knit thy senses close,
Heap up thy powers, double all thy man.

Enter MELLIDA, ROSSALINE, and FLAVIA.
She comes! Oh, how her eyes dart wonder on
my heart!
Mount blood, soul to my lips, taste Hebe's cup;
Stand firm on deck, when beauty's close fight's up.
Mel. Lady, your strange habit doth beget
Our pregnant thoughts, even great of much desire,
To be acquaint with your condition.

Ros. Good, sweet lady, without more cere-
monies,

What country claims your birth? and, sweet, your name?

1 What-what sort of.

2 accustrements - accoutrements; old Fr. accustre, to

accoutre.

3 close fights are things used to shelter the men from the enemy in action. Antonio's meaning is, therefore, I must meet her resolutely, because by my covering or disguise my real person is hid from her.'-DILKE.