Young Geraldine absents kimself from the house of Mr. Wincott longer than is usual to him The old Gentleman sends for him, to find out the He pleads his Father's commands,

reason.

WINCOTT. GERALDINE.

Ger. With due acknowledgment
Of all your more than many courtesies:
You have been my second father, and your wife
My noble and chaste mistress; all your servants
At my command; and this your bounteous table
As free and common as my father's house:
Neither 'gainst any or the least of these
Can I commence this quarrel.

Win. What might then be

The cause of this constraint, in thus absenting
Yourself from such as love you?

Ger. Out of many,

I will propose some few: the care I have
Of your (as yet unblemished) renown ;
The untoucht honor of your virtuous wife;
And (which I value least, yet dearly too)
My own fair reputation.

Win. How can these

In any way be question'd ?

Ger. Oh, dear sir,

Bad tongues have been too busy with us all;
Of which I never yet had time to think,
But with sad thoughts and griefs unspeakable.
It hath been whisper'd by some wicked ones,
But loudly thunder'd in my father's cars,
By some that have maligned our happiness
(Heaven, if it can brook slander, pardon them),
That this my customary coming hither,
Hath been to base and sordid purposes;
To wrong your bed, injure her chastity,
And be mine own undoer: which, how false-
Win. As heaven is true, I know it-
Ger. Now this calumny

Arriving first unto my father's ears,
His easy nature was induced to think
That these things might perhaps be possible:
I answer'd him, as I would do to heaven,
And clear'd myself in his suspicious thoughts
As truly, as the high all-knowing judge

Shall of these stains acquit me; which are merely
Aspersions and untruths. The good old man ·
Possessed with my sincerity, and yet careful
Of your renown, her honor, and my fame,
To stop the worst that scandal could inflict
And to prevent false rumors, charges me
The cause remov'd, to take away th' effect;
Which only could be, to forbear your house:
And this upon his blessing. You hear all.

Win. And I of all acquit you: this your absence,
With which my love most cavill'd, orators

In your behalf. Had such things pass'd betwixt you,
Not threats nor chidings could have driv'n you hence;
It pleads in your behalf, and speaks in her's;
And arms me with a double confidence
Both of your friendship and her loyalty.
I am happy in you both, and only doubtful
Which of you two doth most impart my love.
You shall not hence to-night.

Ger. Pray, pardon, sir.

Win. You are in your lodging.

Ger. But my father's charge.

Win. My conjuration shall dispense with that;

You may be up as early as you please,

But hence to-night you shall not.

Ger. You are powerful.

Traveller's Stories.

Sir, my husband

Hath took much pleasure in your strange discourse
About Jerusalem and the Holy Land;

How the new city differs from the old ;

What ruins of the Temple yet remain ;
And whether Sion, and those hills about,
With these adjacent towns and villages,
Keep that proportioned distance as we read:
And then in Rome, of that great Pyramis
Rear'd in the front, on four lions mounted;
How many of those Idol temples stand,
First dedicated to their heathen gods,
Which ruin'd, which to better use repair'd ;
Of their Pantheon, and their Capitol ;
What structures are demolish'd, what remain.

And what more pleasure to an old man's ear,
That never drew save his own country's air,
Than hear such things related?

Shipwreck by Drink.

This Gentleman and I

Passt but just now by your next neighbor's house,
Where, as they say, dwells one young Lionel,
An unthrift youth: his father now at sea.
There this night

Was a great feast.

In the height of their carousing, all their brains Warm'd with the heat of wine, discourse was offer'd Of ships and storms at sea: when suddenly,

Out of his giddy wildness, one conceives

The room wherein they quaff'd to be a Pinnace,
Moving and floating, and the confus'd noise.
To be the murmuring winds, gusts, mariners;
That their unsteadfast footing did proceed
From rocking of the vessel: this conceiv'd,
Each one begins to apprehend the danger,
And to look out for safety. Fly, saith one,
Up to the main top, and discover. He
Climbs up the bed-post to the tester there,
Reports a turbulent sea and tempest towards;
And wills them, if they'll save their ship and lives,
To cast their lading over-board. At this

All fall to work, and hoist into the street,

As to the sea, what next came to their hand,
Stools, tables, tressels, trenchers, bed-steds, cups,
Pots, plate, and glasses. Here a fellow whistles;
They take him for the boatswain: one lies struggling
Upon the floor, as if he swam for life:

A third takes the base-viol for the cock-boat,
Sits in the belly on't, labors, and rows;

His oar, the stick with which the fiddler played:
A fourth bestrides his fellow, thinking to scape
(As did Arion) on the dolphin's back,

Still fumbling on a gittern.—The rude multitude,
Watching without, and gaping for the spoil
Cast from the windows, went by th' ears about it;
The Constable is call'd to atone the broil;
Which done, and hearing such a noise within

Of eminent ship-wreck, enters th' house, and finds them
In this confusion: they adore his Staff,

And think it Neptune's Trident; and that he
Comes with his Tritons (so they call'd his watch)
To calm the tempest and appease the waves:
And at this point we left them.

[This piece of pleasant exazzeration (which, for its life and humor, might have been told or acted by Petruchio himself,) gave rise to the title of Cowley's Latin Play, Naufragium Joculare, and furnished the idea of the best scene in it. Heywood's Preface to this Play is interesting, as it shows the heroic indifference about posterity, which some of these great writers seem to have felt. There is a magnanimity in Authorship as in everything else.

“If Reader thou hast of this play been an Auditor, there is less apology to be used by entreating thy patience. This Tragi-comedy (being one reserved amongst 220 in which I had either an entire hand, or at the least a main finger) coming accidentally to the press, and I having intelligence thereof, thought it not fit that it should pass as filius populi, a Bastard with out a father to acknowledge it: true it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of works (as others®): one reason is, that many of them, by shifting and change of companies, have been neg. ligently lost. Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print,

He seems to glance at Ben Jonson.

and a third that it never was any great ambition in me to be in this kind voluminously read. All that I have further to say at this time is only this: censure I entreat as favorably as it is exposed to thy view freely.

"Ever

"Studious of thy Pleasure and Profit,
"TH. HEYWOOD."

Of the 220 pieces which he here speaks of having been concerned in, only 25, as enumerated by Dodsley, have come down to us, for the reasons assigned in the preface. The rest have perished, exposed to the casualties of a theatre. Heywood's ambition seems to have been confined to the pleasure of hearing the Players speak his lines while he lived. It does not appear that he ever contemplated the possibility of being read by after ages. What a slender pittance of fame was motive sufficient to the production of such Plays as the English Traveller, the Challenge for Beauty, and the Woman Killed with Kindness! Posterity is bound to take care that a Writer loses nothing by such a noble modesty.]

THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES: A COMEDY. BY THOMAS HEYWOOD AND RICHARD BROOME,

Mr. Generous, by taking off a Bridle from a seeming Horse in his Stable, discovers it to be his Wife, who has transformed herself by Magical Practices, and is a Witch.

MR. GENEROUS. WIFE. ROBIN, a groom.

Gen. My blood is turned to ice, and all my vitals
Have ceas'd their working. Dull stupidity
Surpriseth me at once, and hath arrested
That vigorous agitation, which till now
Exprest a life within me. I, methinks,
Am a meer marble statue, and no man.
Unweave my age, O time, to any first thread;
Let me lose fifty years, ia ignorance spent ;
That, being made an infant once again,
I may begin to know. What, or where am I,
To be thus lost in wonder?

Wife. Sir.

Gen. Amazement still pursues me, how am I chang'd, Or brought ere I can understand myself

Into this new world!