I'll not aloue give up my throat, but suffer Your rage to reach my family. Enter Prospero, Juliana, and Biancha. Alb. And my name To be no more remember'd. Duke. What are these? Ces. Biancha? 'tis Biancha, still Biancha! But strangely alter'd. Bapt. If that thirteen years Of absence could raze from my memory Pros. Thou my Baptista. Bapt. I dare not ask, dear friend, I am unworthy of! but yet deny not [happy, To let me know the place she hath made By having there her sepulchre. Pros. If your highness Please to vouchsafe a patient ear, we shall [court, Pros. Baptista's fortune in the Genoa His banishment, with his fair wife's restraint, You are acquainted with; what since hath follow'd. I faithfully will deliver. Ere eight moons A violent sickness, which call'd down com- Pros. Pray you, interrupt me not. Now to my fortunes! The girl well dispos'd of With a faithful friend of mine, my cruel fate Made me a prisoner to the Turkish raies, " Where for twelve years these hands tugg'd at the oar; But fortune tir'd at length with my afflictions, With my deliverers I serv'd, and got Baptista liv'd, and their dissolved friendship, So much from her devotion, as to wish me Bapt. Rage, and fury, leave me! [Throws away his sword. I am so full of happiness, there's no room left To entertain you. Oh, my long-lost jewel," Light of mine eyes, my soul's strength! Jul. My best lord! [fright me. Having embrac'd you thus, death cannot Bapt. Live long to do so, tho' I should fix here!- Pardon me43, Prospero, tho' I enquire Pros. That your happiness May be at all parts perfect, here she is! Wi' my faithful Host I left her, and with him Bapt. Oh, my blest one! Joy upon joy o'erwhelms me! [story Alb. I do Legin to melt too; this strange Works much upon me. Dke. Since it hath pleas'd Heav'n To grace us with this miracle, I that am Heav'n's instrument here, determine thus: Alberto, 48 Pardon me, Prospero, tho' I enquire.] I see no reason for asking Prospero's pardon for enquiring after his daughter; he might think Juliana might expect to engross his whole thoughts, and would therefore naturally ask her pardon for taking them from her; especially as he had just before said, that he could even fix himself for ever to the spot where she stood. I therefore put into the text what seems a more natural reading. Seward. Seward reads, But pardon me, tho' of Prospero I enquire; but surely there is no impropriety in civilly desiring pardon for the request of encreasing so long a story. VOL. III, Z z Be He had in the black art, was in making For. Wilt thou peach, thou varlet? Clown. This is one of his inagical raptures. Your censure! You demand, if I am guilty; Whir says my cloak, by a trick of legerdemain! Now I'm not guilty; I am guarded with Clown. Thus have I read to you your vir tues, which [of. Notwithstanding I would not have you proud For. Out, thou concealment of tallow, and counterfeit mummy! Duke. To th' gallies with them both! For a knave, is to be basted in a galley, For. And will not you [I hope Make a sour face at the same sauce, sirrah? To find thee so lean in one fortnight, thou Mayst be drawn by the ears thro' the hoop of a firkin. [to the gallies! Duke. Divide them, and away with them Clown. This will take down your pride, Duke. This day, [juggler. That hath giv'n birth to blessings beyond hope, Admits no criminal sentence. To the temple, And there with humbleness, praise Heaven's bounties! [when For blessings ne'er descend from thence, but A sacrifice in thanks ascends from men. 49 Vilify;] i. e. Hold cheap. [Exeunt omnes, CUPID'S REVENGE. A TRAGEDY. This Play seems to be the acknowledged production of both Writers. It was first printed in quarto, 1625; but has not been altered, that we can discover, or acted, many years. TIMANTUS, a villainous Sycophant. ZoILUS, Leucippus's Dwarf. PRIEST to Cupid. Four young MEN and MAIDS. Four CITIZENS. WOMEN. HIDASPES, Daughter to the Dukes CLEOPHILA, her Attendants. HERO, } BACHA, a Strumpet. URANIA, her Daughter. Bacha's MAID. Urania's MAID. NILO, sent in commission to pull down Cupid's Servants and Attendants. Images. ACT I. Dor. He's acquainted with 'em before. Age. She's doubtless very chaste and vir tuous. Dor. So is Leucippus her brother. Nisus. She's twenty years old; I wonder She ask not a husband. [refus'd Dor. That were a folly in her, having All the great princes in one part of the world; She'll die a maid. Age. She may ask but once, may she? Nisus. A hundred times this day, if she wills And, indeed, every day is such a day; for the' The duke has vow'd it only on this day, He keeps it every day; he can deny Her nothing. Cornets. Enter Hidaspes, Leucippus, Leon tius, Timantus, and Telamon. Leon. Come, fair Hidaspes! thou art duchess to-day. Loath Art thou prepar'd to ask? thou know'st my Zz ? Will And on my knees: the people of your land, Hid. Many ages before this, Contemn'd for that by every painful man2, I What I request shall both (Man's nature being ever credulous Which drink invented; and the winged boy Leon. But be advis'd, My fairest daughter! if he be a god, Leuc. There is no such power; Leon. This makes our youth unchaste: I Nephew Ismenus, break the statues down Be drawn, and hastily sent thro' the land, Ism. Sir, I'll break down none And, by a new oath, bind myself to keep it. At once bring me a full content.] From the answer of Leontius, it is plain some words are dropt here, signifying that her request shall content her father as well as herself. 2. And found himself conjoin'd For that by every painful man.] I know no meaning of the word conjoin'd that will suit the context, condemn'd is the natural word. Our poets' scheme in this play (which has many excellent things in it) seems to me quite amazing. That this just specch should be estcemed such an act of real impiety, as to receive the most shocking punishment ending in the murder and utter extirpation of the whole family, is surely a strange outrage on poetical justice, as well as on all the circle of moral virtues. I find Mr. Theobald has prevented me in the correction above, and Mr. Sympson has since sent me his reading, contemn'd. Seward. The next line rather warrants contemn'd than condemn'd. 3 -and the winged boy, (For so they call him) has his sacrifices, These loose naked statues through the land, And in every village, nay the palace Is not free from 'em.-] Here are certainly deficiencies both in measure and sense: the change of points, the removal of the and from the beginning of one line to the line above it, and the addition of a particle that adds strength to the sentiment, seems the most probable method of restoring the original, Seward, Ask Ask largely for thyself: dearer than life, Leuc. 'Twas well done, sister. [Exeunt all but the three Lords. Nisus. How like you this request, my lord? Dor. I know not yet, I am so full of wonWe shall be gods ourselves shortly, [der! An we pull 'em out of Heav'n o' this fashion. Age. We shall have wenches now when we can catch 'em, An we transgress thus. Nisus. An we abuse the gods once, Tis a justice we should be held at hard meat. For my part, I'll c'en make ready for mine own affection; Every man at his livery; and 'would that out To th' god for endless pleasures: he heard us, 'Abundance!' we had it, and this curse Age. By'r lady, we are like to have a long Flesh shall be flesh now! Gentlemen, I had rather [gunner. Have anger'd all the gods than that blind I remember, once the people did but slight him They let us wear gay cloaths without surveying: and, [husbands. Which was most lamentable, they lov'd their Nisus. I do remember it to my grief, young maids which Were as cold as cucumbers, and much of that Complexion; bawds were abolish'd; and (to [cuckolds. Misery it must come again) there were no Well, we'd need pray to keep these devils from us; [Lord! The times grow mischievous.-There he goes! Enter one with an Image. This is a sacrilege I have not heard of! 'Would I were gelt, that I might not feel what follows! [few years, Age. And I too. You shall see within these A fine confusion i'th' country; mark it! Nay, an we grow for to depose the powers, And set up Chastity again.-Well, I have done! A fine new goddess certainly, whose blessings Nisus. This comes of fullness, Dor. 'Would I were married! somewhat The race of gentry will quite run out now, 'Tis only left to husbands; if younger sisters Take not the greater charity, 'tis lawful. Age. Well, let come what will come, I am but one, And as the plague falls, I will shape myself: Nisus. This ill wind yet may blow the city good, [dren, And let them (if they can) get their own chilThey have hung long enough in doubt: but, howsoever, ['em. The old way was the surer; then they had Dor. Farewell, my lords! I'll e'en take up what rent I can before the day; I fear the year Age. We'll with you, sir. And, Love, so favour us, 5 Poor men can number their woers.] Wooers for mistresses is uncommon, but a word very near it is quite suitable to the character of the speaker, whores. After I had inserted this in the text, I found in Mr. Theobald's margin another conjecture, weathers for woers, with a Latin quotation, Pauperis est numerare pecus, as a proof of it. But my conjecture is much nearer the trace of the letters, as well as a more natural expression; for weathers being of the masculine gender, will never suit this place, though pecus might. Seward. 5 Wore their own fuces, Tho' they wear gay cloaths without surveying, And which was most lamentable, They lov'd their husbands.] The reader will find the metre here easily restored, but the sense, which seems quite lost in the second line, is not so readily recovered. The only conjecture that seems tolerable is what I venture into the text with great diffidence, but the reader had better have even a false reading with sense, than one without it, Seward. As |