passes for an argument to prove the existence of such a place. If there be no one image which rises to the height of the sublime, yet the confluence and assemblage of them all produces an effect equal to the grandest poetry. Xerxes' army that drank up whole rivers from their numbers may stand for single Achilles. Epicure Mammon is the most determined offspring of the author. It has the whole "matter and copy of the father, eye, nose, lip, the trick of his frown: It is just such a swaggerer as contemporaries have described old Ben to be. Meercraft, Bobadil, the Host of the New Inn, have all his "image and superscription :' but Mammon is arrogant pretension personified. Sir Sampson Legend, in Love for Love, is such another lying overbearing character, but he does not come up to Epicure Mammon. What a "tow'ring bravery" there is in his sensuality! He affects no pleasure under a Sultan. It is as if "" Egypt with Assyria strove in luxury."] XXXIX. THE NEW INN; OR, THE LIGHT HEART: BY THE SAME. LOVEL discovers to the HOST of the New Inn his Love for Lov. There is no life on earth, but being in love! Stalk like a ghost that haunted 'bout a treasure; 10 Host. But is your name Love-ill, sir, or Love-well? ( Lov. I do not know it myself, My gentle host, and, as I guess, my friend; Host. How then! Lov. I have sent her toys, verses, and anagrams, 10 And look'd upon her a whole day, admir'd her, Look'd still, and loved; and loved, and look'd, and sigh'd; But, as a man neglected, I came off, And unregarded. Host. Could you blame her, sir, When you were silent and not said a word? 20 Lov. O but I loved the more; and she might read it Best in my silence, had she been as melancholic, Host. As you are. Pray you, why would you stand mute, sir? Lov. O thereon hangs a history, mine host. Did you ever know or hear of the Lord Beaufort, Who serv'd so bravely in France? I was his page, And, ere he died, his friend! I follow'd him First in the wars, and in the times of peace I waited on his studies; which were right. He had no Arthurs, nor no Rosicleers, 30 40 That master of the Epic Poem, limn'd Bearing his aged parent on his shoulders, Rapt from the flames of Troy, with his young son. And press the liberality of heaven Down to the laps of thankful men! But then, 10 On all my powers as time shall not dissolve, Till it dissolve itself, and bury all: The care of his brave heir and only son ! Who being a virtuous, sweet, young, hopeful lord, And though I know, and may presume her such, And debt profess'd, I have made a self-decree, 20 LOVEL, in the presence of the LADY FRANCES, the young LORD BEAUFORT, and other Guests of the New Inn, defines what Love is. Lov. What else Is love, but the most noble, pure affection Of what is truly beautiful and fair, Desire of union with the thing beloved? 30 Beau. I have read somewhere, that man and woman Were, in the first creation, both one piece, And being cleft asunder, ever since Love was an appetite to be rejoin'd. Lov. It is a fable of Plato's, in his banquet, And utter'd there by Aristophanes. Host. 'Twas well remember'd here, and to good use. But on with your description what love is. |