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With the Prince Ferdinand, unless I know it.— [Exeunt Servants.

In this distraction he may reveal
The murder.

Yond's my lingering consumption:
I am weary of her, and by any means
Would be quit of.

Julia. How now, my lord! What ails you? Card. Nothing.

Julia. Oh, you are much alter'd:

Come, I must be your secretary, and remove This lead from off your bosom: what's the matter?

Card. I may not tell you.

Julia. Are you so far in love with sorrow You cannot part with part of it? or think you I cannot love your grace when you are sad

As well as merry? or do you suspect

I, that have been a secret to your heart

These many winters, cannot be the same
Unto your tongue?

Card. Satisfy thy longing,

The only way to make thee keep my counsel

Is, not to tell thee.

Julia. Tell your echo this,

Or flatterers, that, like echoes, still report

What they hear though most imperfect, and not

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Bos. That I might find a great man like yourself,

Not out of his wits as the Lord Ferdinand,
To remember my service.

Card. I'll have thee hew'd in pieces.

Bos. Make not yourself such a promise of that life

Which is not yours to dispose of.

Card. Who plac'd thee here?

Bos. Her lust, as she intended.

Card. Very well:

Now you know me for your fellow-murderer.

Bos. And wherefore should you lay fair marble

colours

Upon your rotten purposes to me?

Unless you imitate some that do plot great

treasons,

And when they have done, go hide themselves i' the graves

Of those were actors in't?

Card. No more; there is

A fortune attends thee.

Bos. Shall I go sue to Fortune any longer? "Tis the fool's pilgrimage.

Card. I have honours in store for thee.

Bos. There are a many ways that conduct to seeming honour,

And some of them very dirty ones.
Card. Throw to the devil

Thy melancholy. The fire burns well;
What need we keep a stirring of't, and make
A greater smother? Thou wilt kill Antonio ?
Bos. Yes.

Card. Take up that body.

Bos. I think

shall

Shortly grow the common bier for churchyards Card. I will allow thee some dozen of attendants To aid thee in the murder.

Bos. Oh, by no means. Physicians that apply horse-leeches to any rank swelling use to cut off their tails, that the blood may run through them the faster. Let me have no train when I go to shed blood, lest it make me have a greater when I ride to the gallows.

Card. Come to me after midnight, to help to

remove

That body to her own lodging. I'll give out She died o' the plague; 'twill breed the less inquiry

After her death.

Bos. Where's Castruccio, her husband?
Card. He's rode to Naples, to take possession
Of Antonio's citadel.

Bos. Believe me, you have done a very happy
turn.

Card. Fail not to come. There is the master-
key

Of our lodgings; and by that you may conceive
What trust I plant in you.

Bos. You shall find me ready. [Exit CARDINAL.
Oh, poor Antonio, though nothing be so needful
To thy estate as pity, yet I find

Nothing so dangerous! I must look to my
footing.

In such slippery ice-pavements men had need
To be frost-nail'd well; they may break their
necks else;

The precedent's here afore me. How this man
Bears up in blood! seems fearless! Why, 'tis
well.

Security some men call the suburbs of hell,
Only a dead wall between. Well, good Antonio,
I'll seek thee out; and all my care shall be
To put thee into safety from the reach
Of these most cruel biters that have got
Some of thy blood already. It may be,
I'll join with thee in a most just revenge.
The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes
With the sword of justice. Still methinks the
duchess

Haunts me. There, there!-'Tis nothing but my
melancholy.

O Penitence, let me truly taste thy cup,
That throws men down only to raise them up!

ACT V-SCENE III.

Enter ANTONIO and DELIO.

[Exit.

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Than time: take time for't; be mindful of thy
safety.

Echo. Be mindful of thy safety.
Ant. Necessity compels me.

Make scrutiny throughout the passes
Of your own life, you'll find it impossible
To fly your fate.

Echo. Oh, fly your fate!

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Del. Hark! the dead stones seem to have pity on you,

And give you good counsel.

Ant. Echo, I will not talk with thee,

For thou art a dead thing.

Echo. Thou art a dead thing.

Ant. My duchess is asleep now,

And her little ones, I hope sweetly. O Heaven,
Shall I never see her more?

Echo. Never see her more.

Ant. I mark'd not one repetition of the echo But that; and on the sudden a clear light Presented me a face folded in sorrow.

Del. Your fancy merely.

Ant. Come, I'll be out of this ague,
For to live thus is not indeed to live;
It is a mockery and abuse of life.

I will not henceforth save myself by halves;
Lose all, or nothing.

Del. Your own virtue save you!
I'll fetch your eldest son, and second you.
It may be that the sight of his own blood,
Spread in so sweet a figure, may beget
The more compassion. However, fare you well.
Though in our miseries Fortune have a part,,
Yet in our noble sufferings she hath none:

Del. Yond's the cardinal's window. This for- Contempt of pain, that we may call our own. tification

Grew from the ruins of an ancient abbey;
And to yond side o' the river lies a wall,
Piece of a cloister, which in my opinion
Gives the best echo that you ever heard,
So hollow and so dismal, and withal
So plain in the distinction of our words,
That many have suppos'd it is a spirit
That answers.

Ant. I do love these ancient ruins.
We never tread upon them but we set
Our foot upon some reverend history.
And questionless, here, in this open court,
Which now lies naked to the injuries
Of stormy weather, some men lie interr'd
Lov'd the church so well, and gave so largely to't,
They thought it should have canopied their

bones

Till doomsday; but all things have their end:
Churches and cities, which have diseases like to

men,

Must have like death that we have.

Echo. Like death that we have.

Del. Now the echo hath caught you.

ACT V.-SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

Enter CARDINAL, PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO,

and GRISOLAN.

Card. You shall not watch to-night by the
sick prince;

His grace is very well recover'd.
Mal. Good my lord, suffer us.

Card. Oh, by no means;

The noise, and change of object in his eye,
Doth more distract him. I pray, all to bed;
And though you hear him in his violent fit,
Do not rise, I entreat you.

Pes. So, sir; we shall not.

Card. Nay, I must have you promise
Upon your honours, for I was enjoin'd to't
By himself; and he seem'd to urge it sensibly.
Pes. Let our honours bind this trifle.
Card. Nor any of your followers.

Mal. Neither.

Card. It may be, to make trial of your promise,
When he's asleep, myself will rise and feign
Some of his mad tricks, and cry out for help,
And feign myself in danger.

Mal. If your throat were cutting,

I'd not come at you, now I have protested
against it.

Card. Why, I thank you.

Gris. 'Twas a foul storm to-night.

Rod. The Lord Ferdinand's chamber shook
like an osier.

Mal. 'Twas nothing but pure kindness in the
devil,

To rock his own child.

[Exeunt all except the CARDINAL. Card. The reason why I would not suffer these About my brother, is, because at midnight may with better privacy convey

Julia's body to her own lodging. Oh, my conscience!

I would pray now; but the devil takes away
my heart

For having any confidence in prayer.
About this hour I appointed Bosola

To fetch the body. When he hath serv'd my
turn,
He dies.

Enter BOSOLA.

[Exit.

Bos. Ha! 'twas the cardinal's voice; I heard
him name

Bosola and my death. Listen; I hear one's
footing.

Enter FERDINAND.

Ferd. Strangling is a very quiet death.
Bos. [aside.] Nay, then, I see I must stand
upon my guard.

Ferd. What say to that? whisper softly; do
you agree to't? So; it must be done i' the dark:
the cardinal would not for a thousand pounds the
doctor should see it.
Bos. My death is plotted; here's the conse-
[Exit.
quence of murder.

We value not desert nor Christian breath,
When we know black deeds must be cur'd with
death.

Enter ANTONIO and Servant.

Serv. Here stay, sir, and be confident, I pray: I'll fetch you a dark lantern. [Exit.

Ant. Could I take him at his prayers,

There were hope of pardon.

Bos. Fall right, my sword!

[Stabs him.1

I'll not give thee so much leisure as to pray.

Ant. Oh, I am gone! Thou hast ended a long suit

In a minute.

Bos. What art thou?

Ant. A most wretched thing,

That only have thy benefit in death,

To appear myself.

Re-enter Servant with a Lantern.

Serv. Where are you, sir?

Ant. Very near my home.-Bosola!
Serv. O misfortune!

Bos. Smother thy pity; thou art dead else.-
Antonio!

The man I would have sav'd 'bove mine own life!
We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and
banded

Which way please them.-O good Antonio,

I'll whisper one thing in thy dying ear

1 Under the belief that he is the cardinal.

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Bos. Break, heart!

Ant. And let my son fly the courts of princes.
[Dics.

Bos. Thou seem'st to have lov'd Antonio?
Serv. I brought him hither,

To have reconcil'd him to the cardinal.
Bos. I do not ask thee that.

Take him up, if thou tender? thine own life,
And bear him where the lady Julia

I have this cardinal in the forge already;
Was wont to lodge.-Oh, my fate moves swift!
Now I'll bring him to the hammer. O direful
misprision!

I will not imitate things glorious,

No more than base; I'll be mine own example.-
On, on, and look thou represent, for silence,
The thing thou bear'st.

He

ACT V-SCENE V.

Enter CARDINAL with a Book.

[Exeunt.

Card. I am puzzled in a question about hell:
says, in hell there's one material fire,

And yet it shall not burn all men alike.
Lay him by. How tedious is a guilty conscience!
When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,
Methinks I see a thing arm'd with a rake,
That seems to strike at me.

Enter BOSOLA, and Servant bearing ANTONIO's
body.

Thou look'st ghastly:

Now, art thou come?

There sits in thy face some great determination
Mix'd with some fear.

Bos. Thus it lightens into action:

I am come to kill thee.

Card. Ha!-Help! our guard!'

Bos. Thou art deceiv'd;

They are out of thy howling.

Card. Hold; and I will faithfully divide
Revenues with thee.

Bos. Thy prayers and proffers

Are both unseasonable.

Card. Raise the watch! we are betray'd!
Bos. I have confin'd your flight:

I'll suffer your retreat to Julia's chamber,
But no further.

Card. Help! we are betray'd!

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Unless some rescue!

Gris. He doth this pretty well;

But it will not serve to laugh me out of mine honour.

Card. The sword's at my throat!

Rod. You would not bawl so loud then.
Mal. Come, come, let's go

To bed: he told us thus much aforehand.
Pes. He wish'd you should not come at him;
but, believe't,

The accent of the voice sounds not in jest:
I'll down to him, howsoever, and with engines
Force ope the doors.

Rod. Let's follow him aloof,

[Exit above.

And note how the cardinal will laugh at him.

[Exeunt above, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, and GRISOLAN.

Bos. There's for you first,

'Cause you shall not unbarricade the door To let in rescue.

[Kills the Servant.

Card. What cause hast thou to pursue my life?

Bos. Look there.

Card. Antonio!

Bos. Slain by my hand unwittingly.

Pray, and be sudden: when thou kill'dst thy sister,

Thou took'st from Justice her most equal balance, And left her naught but her sword.

Card. O mercy!

Bos. Now it seems thy greatness was only outward;

For thou fall'st faster of thyself than calamity Can drive thee. I'll not waste longer time; there!

Card. Thou hast hurt me.

Bos. Again!

[Stabs him.

Card. Shall I die like a leveret, Without any resistance ?-Help, help, help! I am slain!

Enter FERDINAND.

Ferd. The alarum! give me a fresh horse;
Rally the vauntguard, or the day is lost.
Yield, yield! I give you the honour of arms,
Shake iny sword over you; will you yield?
Card. Help me; I am your brother!
Ferd. The devil!

My brother fight upon the adverse party!
[He wounds the CARDINAL, and, in the scuffle,
gives BOSOLA his death-wound.

There flies your ransom.
Card. O justice!

I suffer now for what hath former been:
Sorrow is held the eldest child of sin.

Ferd. Now you're brave fellows. Cæsar's fortune was harder than Pompey's; Cæsar died in the arms of prosperity, Pompey at the feet of disgrace. You both died in the field. The pain's nothing: pain many times is taken away with the apprehension of greater, as the toothache with the sight of a barber that comes to pull it out: there's philosophy for you. Bos. Now my revenge is perfect.-Sink, thou [Kills FERDINAND.

main cause

Of my undoing!-The last part of my life
Hath done me best service.

Ferd. Give me some wet hay; I am brokenwinded.

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Card. Thou hast thy payment too. Bos. Yes, I hold my weary soul in my teeth; 'Tis ready to part from me. I do glory That thou, which stood'st like a huge pyramid Begun upon a large and ample base,

Shalt end in a little point, a kind of nothing.

Enter PESCARA, MALATESTI, RODERIGO, and • GRISOLAN.

Pes. How now, my lord!

Mal. Oh sad disaster!
Rod. How comes this?

Bos. Revenge for the Duchess of Malfi murder'd
By the Arragonian brethren; for Antonio
Slain by this hand; for lustful Julia

Poison'd by this man; and lastly for myself,
That was an actor in the main of all

Much 'gainst mine own good nature, yet i' the end
Neglected.

Pes. How now, my lord!
Card. Look to my brother:

He gave us these large wounds, as we were struggling

Here i' the rushes. And now, I pray, let me
Be laid by and never thought of.

[Dies. Pes. How fatally, it seems, he did withstand His own rescue!

Mal. Thou wretched thing of blood, How came Antonio by his death?

Bos. In a mist; I know not how:
Such a mistake as I have often seen
In a play. Oh, I am gone!

We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves,
That, ruin'd, yield no echo. Fare you well.
It may be pain, but no harm, to me to die
In so good a quarrel. Oh, this gloomy world!
In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!
Let worthy minds ne'er stagger in distrust
To suffer death or shame for what is just:
Mine is another voyage,

[Dies.

Pes. The noble Delio, as I came to the palace, Told me of Antonio's being here, and show'd me A pretty gentleman, his son and heir.

Enter DELIO, and ANTONIO's Son.

Mal. Oh, sir, you come too late!
Del. I heard so, and

Was arm'd for't ere I came. Let us make noble

use

Of this great ruin; and join all our force
To establish this young hopeful gentleman
In's mother's right. These wretched eminent
things

Leave no more fame behind 'em, than should one
Fall in a frost, and leave his print in snow;
As soon as the sun shines, it ever melts,
Both form and matter. I have ever thought
Nature doth nothing so great for great men
As when she's pleas'd to make them lords of truth:
Integrity of life is fame's best friend,
Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.
[Exeunt.

1 the rushes-i.e. on the rushes that then covered the floor in lieu of a carpet.-W. HAZLITT.

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

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