Sus. Oh dead, Sir, Frank is dead. For. Alas, alas, my boy! I have not the heart Pray tell me, Sir, does this appear to you Host. How can it otherwise? For. O me most wretched of all wretched men! stranger his warm bleeding wounds If to Appear so grisly and so lamentable, How will they seem to me that am his father? Sus. Oh, Sir, look here. For. Dost long to have me blind? Then I'll behold them, since I know thy mind. Is this my son that doth so senseless lie, And swims in blood? my soul shall fly with his Being kill'd with grief, we both may have one grave. With age and sorrow. Host. Mr. Forest Sus. Father For. What says my girl? good morrow. clock, What's a That you are up so early? call up Frank; Sus. Alas, he cannot, father. For. Cannot, why? Sus. Do you not see his bloodless colour pale? For. Perhaps he's sickly, that he looks so pale. Sus. Do you not feel his pulse no motion keep, How still he lies? For. Then is he fast asleep. Sus. Do you not see his fatal eye-lid close? For. Oh me! my murder'd son ! Enter young MR. FOREST. Y. For. Sister! Sus. O brother, brother! Y. For. Father, how cheer you, Sir? why, you were wont To store for others comfort, that by sorrow Were any ways distress'd. Have Have you all wasted, And spared none to yourself? O. For. O Son, Son, Son, See, alas, see where thy brother lies. He dined with me to day, was merry, merry, Aye, that corpse was; he that lies here, see here, Dost thou not weep for him? Y. For. I shall find time; Oh see, When you have took some comfort, I'll begin To mourn his death, and scourge the murderer's sin. From mortal breast ran such a precious river. Y. For. Come, father, and dear sister, join with me ; Let us all learn our sorrows to forget. He owed a death, and he hath paid that debt. [If I were to be consulted as to a Reprint of our Old English Dramatists, I should advise to begin with the collected Plays of Heywood. He was a fellow Actor, and fellow Dramatist, with Shakspeare. He possessed not the imagination of the latter; but in all those qualities which gained for Shakspeare the attribute of gentle, he was not inferior to him. Generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths of passion; sweetness, in a word, and gentleness; Christianism; and true hearty Anglicism of feelings, shaping that Christianism; shine throughout his beautiful writings in a manner more conspicuous than in those of Shakspeare, but only more conspicuous, inasmuch as in Heywood these qualities are primary, in the other subordinate to poetry. I love them both equally, but Shakspeare has most of my wonder. Heywood should be known to his countrymen, as he deserves. His plots are almost invariably English. I am sometimes jealous, that Shakspeare laid so few of his scenes at home. I laud Ben Jonson, for that in one instance having framed the first draught of his Every Man in his Humour in Italy, he changed the scene, and Anglicised his characters. The names of them in the First Edition, may not be unamusing. How say you, Reader? do not Master Kitely, Mistress Kitely, Master Knowell, Brainworm, &c. read better than these Cisalpines?] THE GAME AT CHESS: A COMEDY. BY THOMAS MIDDLETON, 1624. Popish Priest to a great Court Lady, whom he hopes to make s Convert of. Let me contemplate; With holy wonder season my access, Of unmatch'd beauty, set in grace and goodness. Doth promise single life, and meek obedience. THE VIRGIN WIDOW: A COMEDY, 1649: THE ONLY PRODUCTION, IN THAT KIND, OF FRANCIS QUARLES, AUTHOR OF EMBLEMS. Song. How blest are they that waste their weary hours In solemn groves and solitary bowers, Where neither eye nor ear Can see or hear The frantic mirth And false delights of frolic earth; And breathe their pursy souls; Where neither grief consumes, nor griping want Away false joys; ye murther where ye kiss: There is no heaven to that, no life to this. When we were framed, the Fates consultedly Did make this law, that all things born should die. Yet Nature strove, And did deny We should be slaves At which, they heapt Such misery; Did wish to die : And thank their goodness, that they would foresee Another. Come, Lovers, bring your cares, Bring sigh-perfumed sweets; Bedew the grave with tears, Where Death with Virtue meets. |