Is sure a creature of melancholy,

And will be found, or sitting in her fourm,
Or else at relief, like a hare.

Cla. You speak,

Alken, as if you knew the sport of witch-hunting,
Or starting of a hag.

Rob. Go, Sirs, about it,

Take George here with you, he can help to find her.
John. Rare sport, I swear, this hunting of the witch
Will make us.

Scar. Let's advise upon 't, like huntsmen.

Geo. An we can spy her once, she is our own.

Scath. First think which way she fourmeth, on what wind: Or north, or south.

Gco. For, as the shepherd said,

A witch is a kind of hare.

Scath. And marks the weather,

As the hare docs.

John. Where shall we hope to find her ?

Alk. Know you the witches dell?

Scar. No more than I do know the walks of hell.
Alk. Within a gloomy dimble she doth dwell,
Down in a pit o'er grown with brakes and briars,
Close by the ruins of a shaken abbey,

Torn with an earthquake down unto the ground,
'Mongst graves, and grots, near an old charnel house,
Where you shall find her sitting in her fourın,
As fearful, and melancholic, as that
She is about; with caterpillars' kells,
And knotty cobwebs, rounded in with spells.
Thence she steals forth to relief, in the fogs,
And rotten mists, upon the fens and bogs,
Down to the drowned lands of Lincolnshire;

To make ewes cast their lambs, swine cat their furrow!
The house-wife's tun not work, nor the milk churn!
Writhe children's wrists, and suck their breath in sleep!
Get vials of their blood! and where the sea
Casts up. his slimy ooze, search for a weed

To open locks with, and to rivet charms,
Planted about her, in the wicked scat
Of all her mischiefs, which are manifold.
John. I wonder such a story could be told
Of her dire deeds.

Gro. I thought a witches banks

Had enclosed nothing but the merry pranks

Of some old woman.

Scar. Yes, her malice more.

Scath. As it would quickly appear, had we the store

Of his collects.

Geo. Aye, this good learned man

Can speak her right.

Scar. He knows her shifts and haunts.

Alk. And all her wiles and turns.

The venom'd plants

Wherewith she kills! where the sad mandrake grows,

Whose groans are deathful! the dead numbing night-shade!
The stupifying hemlock! adder's-tongue,

And martegan! the shrieks of luckless owls,
We hear! and croaking night-crows in the air!
Green-bellied snakes! blue fire-drakes in the sky!
And giddy flitter-mice with leather wings!
The scaly beetles, with their habergeons
That make a humming murmur as they fly!
There, in the stocks of trees, white fays do dwell,
And span-long elves that dance about a pool,
With each a little changeling in their arms!
The airy spirits play with falling stars,
And mount the sphere of fire, to kiss the moon!
While she sits reading by the glow-worm's light,
Or rotten wood, o'er which the worin hath crept,
The baneful schedule of her nocent charms,
And binding characters, through which she wounds
Her puppets, the Sigilla of her witchcraft.
All this I know, and I will find her for you;
And show you her sitting in her fourm; I'll lay
My hand upon her; make her throw her scut
Along her back, when she doth start before us.

But you must give her law; and you shall see her
Make twenty leaps and doubles, cross the paths,
And then squat down beside us.

John. Crafty croan,

I long to be at the sport, and to report it.

Scar. We'll make this hunting of the witch as famous,
As any other blast of venery.

Geo. If we could come to see her, cry so haw once-
Alk. That I do promise, or I'm no good hag-finder.

CATILINE HIS CONSPIRACY, A TRAGEDY.
BY BEN. JONSON.

The morning of the Conspiracy.-Lentulus, Cethegus, and Catiline meet, before the other Conspirators are ready.

Lent. It is methinks a morning full of fate,

It riseth slowly, as her sullen car

Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it.
She is not rosy-finger'd, but swoln black.

Her face is like a water turn'd to blood,
And her sick head is bound about with clouds,
As if she threaten'd night ere noon of day.

It does not look as it would have a hail

Or health wish'd in it, as on other morns.

Cet. Why, all the fitter, Lentulus: our coming

Is not for salutation: we have business.

Cat. Said nobly, brave Cethegus. Where's Autronius?
Cet. Is he not come ?

Cat. Not here.

Cet. Not Vargunteius?

Cat. Neither.

Cet. A fire in their beds and bosoms,

That so well serve their sloth rather than virtue.
They are no Romans, and at such high need

As now

Lent. Both they, Longinus, Lecca, Curius,

Fulvius, Gabinus, gave me word last night,
By Lucius Bestia, they would all be here,
And early.

Cet. Yes! as you, had I not call'd you.
Come, we all sleep, and are mere dormice; flies
A little less than dead: more dulness hangs
On us than on the morn. We're spirit bound,
In ribs of ice; our whole bloods are one stone:
And honor cannot thaw us, nor our wants,
Though they burn hot as fevers to our states.
Cat. I muse they would be tardy at an hour
Of so great purpose.

Cel. If the gods had call'd

Them to a purpose, they would just have come
With the same tortoise speed; that are thus slow
To such an action, which the gods will envy;
As asking no less means than all their

powers
Conjoin'd to effect. I would have seen Rome burnt
By this time, and her ashes in an urn:
The kingdom of the senate rent asunder:

And the degenerate talking gown run frighted
Out of the air of Italy.

Cal. Spirit of men,

Thou heart of our great enterprise, how much

I love these voices in thee!

Cet. O the day's

Of Sylla's sway, when the free sword took leave
To act all that it would!

Cat. And was familiar

With entrails, as our augurs

Cet. Sons kill'd fathers,

Brothers their brothers

Cat. And had price and praise:

All hate and license giv'n it; all rage reins.

Cel. Slaughter bestrid the streets, and stretch'd himself To seem more huge: whilst to his stained thighs The gore he drew flow'd up, and carried down Whole heaps of limbs and bodies through his arch.

No age was spar'd, no sex.

Cat. Nay, no degree

Cct. Not infants in the porch of life were free.
The sick, the old, that could but hope a day
Longer by nature's bounty, not let stay.
Virgins and widows, matrons, pregnant wives,
All died.

Cat. 'Twas crime enough that they had lives.
To strike but only those that could do hurt,

Was dull and poor. Some fell, to make the number; As some, the prey.

Cet. The rugged Charon fainted,

And ask'd a navy rather than a boat,

To ferry over the sad world that came :

The maws and dens of beasts could not receive
The bodies that those souls were frighted from;
And even the graves were fill'd with men yet living,
Whose flight and fear had mix'd them with the dead.
Cat. And this shall be again, and more, and more,
Now Lentulus, the third Cornelius,

Is to stand up in Rome.

Lent. Nay, urge not that

Is so uncertain.

Cat. How!

Lent. I mean, not clear'd;

And therefore not to be reflected on.

Cal. The Sybil's leaves uncertain! or the comments, Of our grave, deep, divining inen, not clear!

Lent. All prophecies, you know, suffer the torture. Cat. But this already hath confess'd, without ; And so been weigh'd, examin'd, and compar'd, As 'twere malicious ignorance in him Would faint in the belief.

Lent. Do you believe it?

Cat. Do I love Lentulus, or pray to see it?
Lent. The augurs all are constant I am meant.
Cat. They had lost their science else.

Lent. They count from Cinna