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FOUR PLAYS, OR MORAL REPRESENTATIONS, IN ONE.

That's born a prince, and walks his pilgrimage,
Whose tender feet kiss the remorseless stones
Only, ne'er felt a travel like to it.

Alas, dear mother, you groan'd thus for me;
And yet, how disobedient have I been!

Ang. Peace, Violante; thou hast always been
Gentle and good.

Viol. Gerrard is better, mother.

Oh, if you knew the implicit innocency

Dwells in his breast, you'd love him like your pray❜rs.
I see no reason but my father might

Be told the truth, being pleased for Ferdinand

To woo himself; and Gerrard ever was

His full comparative. My uncle loves him,
As he loves Ferdinand.

Ang. No, not for the world!

Viol. As you please, mother. I am now, methinks,
Even in the land of Ease; I'll sleep.

Ang. Draw in

The bed nearer the fire.-Silken rest
Tie all thy cares up!

["Violanta's prattle is so very pretty, and so natural in her situation, that I could not resist giving it a place. Juno Lucina was never invoked with more elegance. Pope has been praised for giving dignity to a game of cards. It required at least as much address to ennoble a lying

in."-LAMB.

I must express my disagreement with this fine critic on his concluding observation. "Address" indeed it may require, with those who have at no time any but ignoble ideas of humanity; but to an earnest and loving heart, capable of expressing itself on such a subject, what could readily suggest more affecting and exalting words than an occasion which excites every tenderest fear, hope, and sympathy of a human creature? I am afraid we must say of our admirable friend, on this slip of his pen, as Queen Constance said of the Cardinal,

"He talks to me, that never had a son."]

!

MASQUE OF THE INNER TEMPLE AND GRAY'S INN. 201

THE MASQUE OF THE INNER TEMPLE AND GRAY'S INN. A CELESTIAL DANCE.

Song.

Shake off your heavy trance,
And leap into a dance,

Such as no mortals use to tread ;

Fit only for Apollo

To play to, for the Moon to lead,
And all the stars to follow!

THE ELDER BROTHER.

A GLUTTON OF BOOKS.

Andrew arrives with the books of his master Charles, the Elder Brother. Enter ANDREW, Cook, and Butler, with books.

And. Unload part of the library, and make room

For th' other dozen of carts; I'll strait be with you.

Cook. Why, hath he more books?

And. More than ten marts send over.
Butler. And can he tell their names?
And. Their names! he has 'em

As perfect as his Pater Noster; but that's nothing;
He has read them over, leaf by leaf, three thousand
times.

But here's the wonder; though their weight would sink
A Spanish carrack, without other ballast,

He carrieth them all in his head, and yet

He walks upright.

But. Surely he has a strong brain.

And. If all thy pipes of wine were filled with books,
Made of the barks of trees, or mysteries writ
In old moth-eaten vellum, he would sip thy cellar
Quite dry, and still be thirsty. Then, for's diet,
He eats and digests more volumes at a meal,
Than there would be larks (though the sky should fall)
Devour'd in a month in Paris. Yet fear not,

1 Carrack.] A large ship of burthen.

Sons o' th' buttery and kitchen! though his learned stomach

Cannot be appeas'd, he'll seldom trouble you;

His knowing stomach contemns your black-jacks,butler, And your flagons; and, cook, thy boil'd, thy roast, thy Cook. How liveth he? [baked!

And. Not as other men do;

Few princes fare like him. He breaks his fast
With Aristotle, dines with Tully, takes

His watering with the Muses, sups with Livy,
Then walks a turn or two in Via Lactea,2
And, after six hours' conference with the stars,
Sleeps with old Erra Puter3

PREJUDICES FOR AND AGAINST BOOKS.

MIRAMONT and BRISAC.

Mir. Nay, brother, brother!

1 Watering with the Muses.] Watering, in the sense of a refreshment between dinner and supper, would answer well (sometimes too well) to the modern tea; but in Beaumont and Fletcher's time, when tea was unknown, it seems to have meant taking any drink during that interval. 2 Via Lactea.] The Milky Way.

3 Erra Pater.] "Erra Pater" (Father Erra), the "Francis Moore Physician" of ancient almanacks, is said to have been some old astrologer, now forgotten.

"In mathematicks he was greater

Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater."-Hudibras. The appellation sometimes meant the almanack itself. Perhaps it was a name for astrology in general (from errare, to wander), typified under the aspect of a bearded sage,-old Father Wanderer; i. e. the Companion of the Planets; such being the meaning of the word planet. His face appears to have been a frontispiece to almanacks. In the Scornful Lady (Act IV. Scene I.), an elderly waiting-woman is accused by a disappointed lover of having

"A face as old as Erra Pater;

Such a prognosticating nose."

66

This passage in the Elder Brother is supposed by the commentators, with great probability, to have been in the recollection of Congreve when he wrote the beginning of Love for Love, where Valentine eulogises reading, and speaks of a page in Epictetus as a feast for an emperor." It is probable also, as others think, that the character of Valentine was further indebted to the Elder Brother. It may be observed that the title of Congreve's play is to be found in the closing speech of Charles, as given in the present volume.

Bri. Pray, sir, be not mov'd;

I meddle with no business but mine own;

And, in mine own, 'tis reason I should govern. Mir. But know to govern then, and understand, sir, And be as wise as you're hasty. Though you be

My brother, and from one blood sprung, I must tell you,
Heartily and home too--

Bri. What, sir?

Mir. What I grieve to find;

You are a fool, and an old fool, and that's two. Bri. We'll part 'em, if you please.

Mir. No, they're entail'd to you.

Seek to deprive an honest noble spirit,
Your eldest son, sir, and your very image

(But he's so like you, that he fares the worse for't),
Because he loves his book, and dotes on that,
And only studies how to know things excellent,
Above the reach of such coarse brains as yours,
Such muddy fancies, that never will know farther
Than when to cut your vines, and cozen merchants,
And choke your hide-bound tenants with musty harvests!
Bri. You go too fast.

Mir. I'm not come to my pace yet.

Because he has made his study all his pleasure,
And is retired into his contemplation,

Not meddling with the dirt and chaff of nature,
That makes the spirit of the mind mud too,
Therefore must he be flung from his inheritance?
Must he be dispossessed, and Monsieur Gingleboy,
His younger brother-

Bri. You forget yourself.

Mir. Because he has been at court, and learn'd new tongues, And how to speak a tedious piece of nothing,

То vary

his face as seamen do their compass,

To worship images of gold and silver,

And fall before the she-calves of the season,

Therefore must he jump into his brother's land? Bri. Have you done yet, and have you spake enough In praise of learning, sir?

Mir. Never enough.

Bri. But, brother, do you know what learning is ?
Mir. 'Tis not to be a justice of peace, as you are,
And palter out your time i' th' penal statutes;

To hear the curious tenets controverted

Between a Protestant constable and Jesuit cobbler;
Nor 'tis not the main moral of blind justice

(Which is deep learning), when your worship's tenants
Bring a light cause and heavy hens before you,
Both fat and feasible, a goose or pig;

And then you sit, like Equity, with both hands Weighing indifferently the state o' th' question. These are your quodlibets,' but no learning, brother. Bri. You are so parlously in love with learning,

That I'd be glad to know what you understand, brother:
I'm sure you have read all Aristotle.

Mir. 'Faith, no:

But I believe; I have a learned faith, sir;

And that's it makes a gentleman of my sort.

Though I can speak no Greek, I love the sound on't:
It goes so thundering as it conjured devils:
Charles speaks it loftily, and, if thou wert a man,
Or hadst but ever heard of Homer's Iliads,

Hesiod, and the Greek poets, thou wouldst run mad,
And hang thyself for joy thou hadst such a gentleman
To be thy son. Oh, he has read such things to me!
Bri. And you do understand 'em, brother?
Mir. I tell thee, no; that's not material; the sound's
Sufficient to confirm an honest man.

Good brother Brisac, does your young courtier,
That wears the fine clothes, and is the excellent gentle-
The traveller, the soldier, as you think too, [man,
Understand any other power than his tailor?

་་

Or know what motion is, more than an horse-race ?
What the moon means, but to light him home from
taverns ?
[clothes in ?
Or the comfort of the sun is, but to wear slash'd
And must this piece of ignorance be popp'd up,

1 Quodlibets.] "Quillet or quidlibet, what you please ;"-anything affirmed or denied, as any one pleases.-RICHARDSON'S Dictionary.