L THE WITCH OF EDMONTON; A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, &c. MOTHER SAWYER (before she turns Witch) alone. Saw. And why on me? why should the envious world That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Make me to credit it." BANKS, a Farmer, enters. Banks. Out, out upon thee, Witch. Saw. Dost call me Witch? Banks. I do, Witch, I do : And worse I would, knew I a name more hateful. What makest thou upon my ground ? Saw. Gather a few rotten sticks to warm me. I'll make thy bones rattle in thy skin elso. Saw. You won't? churl, cut-throat, miser: there they bo. Would they stuck cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. Saw. Dost strike me, slave, curmudgeon? Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. This Soliloquy anticipates all that Addison has said in the conclusion of the 117th Spectator. Banks. Cursing, thou hag ? take that, and that. [Exit. Saw. Strike, do and wither'd inay that hand and arm What is the name, where, and by what art learn'd} May the thing call'd Familiar be purchased? -I am shunn'd And hated like a sickness: made a scorn To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, That have appear'd: and suck'd, some say, their blood. Upon this churl, I'd go out of myself, Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, Revenge upon this miser, this black cur, That barks, and bites, and sucks the very blood Of me, and of my credit. 'Tis all one To be a witch as to be counted ono. She gets a familiar which serves her in the likeness of a Black Dog MOTHER SAWYER. Saw. I am dried up Familiar. With cursing and with madness; and have yet No blood to moisten these sweet lips of thine. Stand on thine hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy; And rub away some wrinkles on my brow, By making my old ribs to shrug for joy Of thy fine tricks. What hast thou done? Let's tickle. Famil. Yes, and nipt the sucking-child. Saw. Ho, ho, my dainty, My little pearl. No lady loves her hound, Monkey, or parakeet, as I do thee. Famil. The maid has been churning butter nine hours, but it shall not come. Saw. Let 'em eat cheese and choak. Famil. I had rare sport Among the clowns in the morrice. Saw. I could dance Out of my skin to hear thee. But, my curl-pate, Who, for a little soap lick'd by my sow, Struck, and had almost lamed it : did not I charge thee Her Familiar absents himself: she invokes hum. Thy curl'd head leaning on them. Come then, my darling, In some dark cloud; and, as I oft have seen Dragons and serpents in the elements, Appear thou now so to me. Art thou i' the sea! Muster up all the monsters from the deep, I must then fall to my old prayer: sanctibiceter nomen tuum. He comes in White. Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love? Famil. I am dogged, list not to tell thee, yet to torment thee, My whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding sheet. Saw. Am I near death? Famil. Be blasted with the news. Whiteness is day's footboy, a forerunner to light, which shows thy old rivel'd face: villainies are stript naked, the witch must be beaten out of her cockpit. Saw. Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? I am at peace with none; 'tis the black color, [Mother Sawyer differs from the hags of Middleton or Shakspeare. She is the plain traditional old woman Witch of our ancestors; poor, deformed and ignorant; the terror of villages, herself amenable to a justice. That should be a hardy sheriff, with the power of a county at his heels, that would lay hands on the Weird Sisters. They are of another jurisdiction. But upon the common and received opinion the author (or authors) have engrafted strong fancy. There is something frightfully earnest in her invocations to the Familiar.] THE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY; OR, THE HONEST MAN'S DAmville (the Atheist) with the aid of his wicked instrument, Borachio, murders his Brother, Montferrers, for his Estate. After the deed is done, Borachio and he talk together of the circumstances which attended the murder. D'Am. Here's a sweet comedy, begins with O dolentis, and concludes with ha, ha, he. Bor. Ha, ha, he. D'Am. O my echo! I could stand reverberating this sweet musical air of joy, till I had perished my sound lungs with violent laughter. Lovely night-raven, thou hast seized a carcase? Bor. Put him out on's pain. I lay so fitly underneath the bank from whence he fell, that ere his faltering tongue could utter double 0, I knocked out his brains with this fair ruby; and had another stone just of this form and bigness ready, that I had laid in the broken scull upon the ground for his pillow, against the which they thought he fell and perished. D'Am. Upon this ground I'll build my manor house, And this shall be chiefest corner stone. that circumstance Bor. This crown'd the most judicious murder, Or place, but by this brain of mine was made The induction to the accomplishment seem'd forced, [Here they reckon up the several circumstances. Bor. Then darkness did Protect the execution of the work Both from prevention and discovery. D'Am. Here was a murder bravely carried through Bor. And those that saw the passage of it, made [Thunder and lightning. Credit my belief, 'tis a mere effect of nature, an exhalation hot and dry, involved within a watry vapor in the middle region of the air, whose coldness congealing that thick moisture to a cloud, the angry exhalation shut within a prison of contrary quality, strives to be free; and with the violent |