He should be (cousin) solemnly invested In all those honors, titles, and preferments, Which his dear friend and my neglected husband Proph. I am unworthy Near. Madam, what means that word, neglected hus band? Cal. Forgive me: Now I turn to thee, thou shadow (To the dead Body of Ithocles.) Of my contracted Lord: bear witness all, I put my mother's wedding ring upon His finger; 'twas my father's last bequest: Thus I new marry him, whose wife I am; Death shall not separate us. O my lords, I but deceiv'd your eyes with antick gesture, When one news straight came huddling on another, Of death, and death, and death, still I danc'd forward;' But it struck home, and here, and in an instant. Be such mere women, who with shrieks and outcries Can vow a present end to all their sorrows: Yet live to vow new pleasures, and out-live them. They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings: Let me die smiling. Near. "Tis a truth too ominous. Cal. One kiss on these cold lips; my last. crack. Argos now's Sparta's King. Crack, (Dies.) [I do not know where to find in any Play a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this. This is indeed, according to Milton, to "describe high passions and high actions." The fortitude of the Spartan Boy who let a beast gnaw out his bowels till he died without expressing a groan, is a faint bodily image of this dilaceration of the spirit, and exente ration of the inmost mind, which Calantha with a holy violence against her nature keeps closely covered, till the last duties of a Wife and a Queen are fulfilled. Stories of martyrdom are but of chains and the stake; a little bodily suffering; these torments On the purest spirits prey As on entrails, joints, and limbs, With answerable pains, but more intense. What a noble thing is the soul in its strengths and in its weaknesses! who would be less weak than Calantha? who can be so strong? the expression of this transcendant scene almost bears me in imagination to Calvary and the Cross; and I seem to perceive some analogy between the scenical sufferings which I am here contemplating, and the real agonies of that final completion to which I dare no more than hint a reference. Ford was of the first order of Poets. He sought for sublimity not by parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has her full residence in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds. There is a grandeur of the soul above mountains, seas, and the elements. Even in the poor perverted reason of Giovanni and Annabella (in the Play which precedes this) we discern traces of that fiery particle, which in the irregular starting from out of the road of beaten action, discovers something of a right line even in obliquity, and shews hints of an improveable greatness in the lowest descents and degradations of our nature.] HYMEN'S TRIUMPH: A PASTORAL TRAGI-COMEDY. BY SAMUEL DANIEL. Love in Infancy. Ah, I remember well (and how can I But evermore remember well) when first Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was And yet were well, and yet we were not well, Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look: And thus We spent our childhood: But when years began Love after Death. Palamon. Fie, Thirsis, with what fond remembrances Dost thou these idle passions entertain! For shame leave off to waste your youth in vain, You other nymphs shall find, no doubt will be As lovely, and as fair, and sweet as she. Thirsis. As fair and sweet as she! Palæmon, peace: Ah, what can pictures be unto the life? What sweetness can be found in images? Which all nymphs else besides her seem to me. Whose memory must take up all of me. Wrought in the liveliest colours of my blood; The perfect'st workmanship that love e'er wrought? It must remain entire whilst life remains, The Story of Isulia. There was sometimes a nymph, Isulia named, and an Arcadian born, And presently hoisted sail and so away. Had cast her eyes about to view that hell Of horror, whereinto she was so suddenly emplung'd, She spies a woman sitting with a child Sucking her breast, which was the captain's wife. "O woman, if that name of a woman may 66 Move you to pity, pity a poor maid; "The most distressed soul that ever breath'd; "And save me from the hands of those fierce men. "Let me not be defil'd and made unclean, "Dear woman, now, and I will be to you Keep this poor body clean and undeflower'd, "Which is all I will ever seek. For know "It is not fear of death lays me thus low, "But of that stain will make my death to blush." All this would nothing move the woman's heart, Whom yet she would not leave, but still besought; "O woman, by that infant at your breast, "And by the pains it cost you in the birth, The infant's feet; and, "Oh, sweet babe," (said she) |