Pardon the bold comparison; yet there is

Something in you, resembles my great Mistress.
She blushes (aside).

Such very beams disperseth her bright eye,
Powerful to restore decrepit nature;

But when she frowns, and changes from her sweet
Aspect, (as in my fears I see you now,
Offended at my boldness,) she does blast
Poor Giovanni thus, and thus I wither
At heart, and wish myself a thing lost in
My own forgotten dust.

[Act iii., Sc. 2.1]

THE DEVIL'S LAW CASE. A TRAGI-COMEDY.
JOHN WEBSTER [See page 162]
Clergy-comfort.

I must talk to you, like a Divine, of patience.—2
I have heard some talk of it very much, and many
Times to their auditors' impatience; but I pray,
What practice do they make on't in their lives?
They are too full of choler with living honest,
And some of them not only impatient

Of their own slightest injuries, but stark mad
At one another's preferment.

Sepulture.

[Act ii., Sc. 3.3]

Two Bellmen, a Capuchin; ROMELIO, and others.
Cap. For pity's sake, you that have tears to shed,
Sigh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead,

4

For two unfortunate Nobles, whose sad fate

Leaves them both dead and excommunicate.
No churchman's pray'r to comfort their last groans,
No sacred seed of earth to hide their bones;

But as their fury wrought them out of breath,
The Canon speaks them guilty of their own death."

Rom. Denied Christian burial! I pray, what does that?
Or the dead lazy march in the funeral?

BY

[Works, 1833, vol. v. For other extracts from Shirley see note to page 393.] "["Of patience" should be in brackets. It is the subject of the foregoing conversation.]

Slain in a duel.

"[Five lines omitted.]

Or the flattery in the epitaph ?—which shows
More sluttish far than all the spiders' webs,
Shall ever grow upon it: what do these
Add to our well-being after death?
Cap. Not a scruple.

Rom. Very well then

I have a certain meditation,

(If I can think of,) somewhat to this purpose ;-
I'll say it to you, while my mother there
Numbers her beads.-

"You that dwell near these graves and vaults,
Which oft do hide physicians' faults,
Note what a small room does suffice
To express men's goods: their vanities
Would fill more volume in small hand,
Than all the evidence of Church Land.
Funerals hide men in civil wearing,

And are to the Drapers a good hearing;
Make th' Heralds laugh in their black rayment;
And all die Worthies, die with payment
To th' Altar offerings: tho' their fame,
And all the charity of their name,
"Tween heav'n and this, yield no more light
Than rotten trees, which shine in th' night.
O look the last Act be best in th' Play,
And then rest gentle bones! yet pray,
That when by the Precise you're view'd,
A supersedeas be not sued;

To remove you to a place more airy,
That in your stead they may keep chary
Stockfish, or seacoal; for the abuses

Of sacrilege have turn'd graves to vilder uses.
How then can any monument say,

Here rest these bones to the Last Day;

When Time, swift both of foot and feather,

May bear them the Sexton knows not whither ?—
What care I then, tho' my last sleep

Be in the desart, or in the deep;
No lamp, nor taper, day and night,
To give my charnel chargeable light?
I have there like quantity of ground;
And at the last day I shall be found." 1

[Act ii., Sc. 3.]

1 Webster was parish clerk at St. Andrew's, Holborn. The anxious recurrence to church-matters; sacrilege; tomb-stones; with the frequent introduction of dirges in this, and his other tragedies, may be traced to his professional sympathies.

Contarino's dead.

Immature Death.

O that he should die so soon!

Why, I pray, tell me :

Is not the shortest fever best? and are not

Bad plays the worse for their length?

Guilty Preferment.

I have a plot, shall breed,

Out of the death of these two noblemen;

Th' advancement of our house

Oh take heed

A grave is a rotten foundation.

Mischiefs.

-are like the visits of Franciscan friars,

They never come to prey upon us single.

Last Love strongest.

-as we love our youngest children best,
So the last fruit of our affection,
Wherever we bestow it, is most strong,
Most violent, most irresistible;

[Act iii., Sc. 3.]

[Ibid.]

[Ibid.]

Since 'tis indeed our latest harvest home,
Last merryment 'fore winter; and we Widows,
As men report of our best picture-makers,
We love the Piece we are in hand with better,
Than all the excellent work we have done before.

[Ibid.]

Leonora. Ha, my Son!

Mother's Anger.

I'll be a fury to him; like an Amazon lady,
I'd cut off this right pap that gave him suck,
To shoot him dead. I'll no more tender him,
Than had a wolf stol'n to my teat in th' night,
And robb'd me of my milk.

Distraction from Guilt.
Leonora (sola). Ha, ha! What say you?
I do talk to somewhat methinks; it may be,
My Evil Genius.-Do not the bells ring?

[Ibid.]

I have a strange noise in my head. Oh, fly in [pieces].
Come, age, and wither me into the malice

Of those that have been happy; let me have
One property for more than the devil of hell;
Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily;
Let me in this life fear no kind of ill,

That have no good to hope for. Let me sink,

Where neither man nor memory may find me. (Falls to the ground.") Confessor (entering). You are well employ'd, I hope; the best pillow in th' world

For this your contemplation is the earth,

And the best object, Heaven.
Leonora. I am whispering

To a dead friend

Obstacles.

Let those, that would oppose this union,
Grow ne'er so subtle, and entangle themselves
In their own work, like spiders; while we two
Haste to our noble wishes; and presume,
The hindrance of it will breed more delight,-
As black copartaments3 shew gold more bright.

Falling out.

To draw the Picture of Unkindness truly
Is, to express two that have dearly loved
And fall'n at variance.

[Act iii., Sc. 3.]

[Act i., Sc. 2.]

[Act i., Sc. 1.]

THE BRIDE. A COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1640]. BY

THOMAS NABBS

Antiquities.

HORTEN, a Collector. His friend.

Friend. You are [likewise] learned in Antiquities?
Hort. A little, Sir.

I should affect them more, were not tradition

One of the best assurances to show

They are the things we think them. What more proofs,

[Four lines and a half omitted.]
3 [Obsolete form of "compartment".]

2[Four lines.]

Except perhaps a little circumstance,
Have we for this or that to be a piece
Of Delphos' ruins? or the marble statues,
Made Athens glorious when she was supposed
To have more images of men than men?
A weather-beaten stone, with an inscription
That is not legible but thro' an optic,
Tells us its age; that in some Sibyl's cave
Three thousand years ago it was an altar,
"Tis satisfaction to our curiosity,

But ought not to necessitate belief.-1
For Antiquity,

I do not store up any under Grecian;

Your Roman antiques are but modern toys
Compared to them. Besides they are so counterfeit
With mouldings, 'tis scarce possible to find
Any but copies.

Friend. Yet you are confident
Of yours, that are of more doubt.
Hort. Others from their easiness

May credit what they please. My trial's such
Of any thing I doubt, all the impostors,
That ever made Antiquity ridiculous,
Cannot deceive me. If I light upon
Aught that's above my skill, I have recourse
To those, whose judgment at the second view
(If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher's
That eye-less, nose-less, mouth-less Statue is,
And who the workman was; tho' since his death
Thousands of years have been revolved.

[Act iv., Sc. 1.2]

Accidents to frustrate Purpose.

How various are the events that may depend
Upon one action, yet the end proposed
Not follow the intention! accidents

Will interpose themselves; like those rash men,

That thrust into a throng, occasioned

By some tumultuous difference, where perhaps
Their busy curiosity begets

New quarrels with new issues.3

1 [Twelve and a half lines omitted.]

3[For another extract from Nabbes see page 448.]

[Act v., Sc. 2.]

2[Ed. Bullen, vol. ii.]