So she, redoubling her former force,

Ranged through the woods, and rent the breeding vaults
Of proudest savages, to save herself.

Feed then, and faint not, fair Calipolis;
For, rather than fierce famine shall prevail
To gnaw thy entrails with her thorny teeth,
The conquering Lioness shall attend on thee,
And lay huge heaps of slaughter'd carcases
As bulwarks in her way to keep her back.
I will provide thee of a princely Ospray,
That, as she flieth over fish in pools,

The fish shall turn their glistering bellies up,
And thou shall take the liberal choice of all.
Jove's stately Bird with wide-commanding wings
Shall hover still about thy princely head,
And beat down fowls by shoals into thy lap.
Feed then, and faint not, fair Calipolis.

[This address, for its barbaric splendor of conception, extravagant vein of promise, not to mention some idiomatic peculiarities, and the very structure of the verse, savours strongly of Marlowe; but the real author, I believe, is unknown.]

THE SEVEN CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM. BY JOHN KIRK. ACTED 1638.

Calib, the Witch, in the opening Scene, in a Storm.

Calib. Ha! louder a little; so, that burst was well. Again; ha, ha! house, house your heads, ye fear-struck mortal fools, when Calib's consort plays A hunts-up to her. How rarely doth it languell In mine ears! these are mine organs; the toad, The bat, the raven, and the fell whistling bird,

1

Are all my anthem-singing quiristers.

Such sapless roots, and liveless wither'd woods,

Are pleasanter to me than to behold

The jocund month of May, in whose green head of youth

The amorous Flora strews her various flowers,

And smiles to see how brave she has deckt her girl.

But pass we May, as game for fangled fools,

That dare not set a foot in Art's dark, se-
-cret, and bewitching path, as Calib has.
Here is my mansion.

Within the rugged bowels of this cave,

This crag,

this cliff, this den; which to behold
Would freeze to ice the hissing trammels of Medusa.
Yet here enthroned I sit, more richer in my spells
And potent charms, than is the stately Mountain Queen,
Drest with the beauty of her sparkling gems,

To vie a lustre 'gainst the heavenly lamps.

But we are sunk in these antipodes; so choakt
With darkness is great Calib's cave, that it

Can stifle day. It can ?-it shall-for we do loath the

light;

And, as our deeds are black, we hug the night.

But where's this Boy, my GEORGE, my Love, my Life,
Whom Calib lately dotes on more than life?
I must not have him wander from my love
Farther than summons of my eye, or beck,
Can call him back again. But 'tis my fiend-
-begotten and deform'd Issue*, misleads him:
For which I'll rock him in a storm of hail,

And dash him 'gainst the pavement on the rocky den;
He must not lead my Joy astray from me.

The parents of that Boy, begetting him,

A sort of young Caliban, her son, who presently enters, complaining of a "bloody coxcomb" which the Young Saint George had given him.

Begot and bore the issue of their deaths;
Which done*, the Child I stole,

Thinking alone to triumph in his death,
And bathe my body in his popular gore;
But dove-like Nature favour'd so the Child,
That Calib's killing knife fell from her hand;
And, 'stead of stabs, I kiss'd the red-lipt Boy.

TWO TRAGEDIES IN ONE. BY ROBERT YARRINGTON, WHO WROTE IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

Truth, the Chorus, to the Spectators.

All you, the sad Spectators of this Act,
Whose hearts do taste a feeling pensiveness
Of this unheard-of savage massacre :
Oh be far off to harbour such a thought,
As this audacious murderer put in act!
'I see your sorrows flow up to the brim,
And overflow your cheeks with brinish tears:
But though this sight bring surfeit to the eye,
Delight your ears with pleasing harmony,
That ears may countercheck your eyes, and say,

66

Why shed you tears? this deed is but a Play †.”

Murderer to his Sister, about to stow away the trunk of the body, having severed it from the limbs.

Hark, Rachel! I will cross the water strait,
And fling this middle mention of a Man

Into some ditch.

• Calib had killed the parents of the Young Saint George. + The whole theory of the reason of our delight in Tragic Repre sentations, which has cost so many elaborate chapters of Criticism, is condensed in these four last lines: Aristotle quintessentialised.

[It is curious. that this old Play comprises the distinct action of two Atrocities; the one a vulgar murder, committed in our own Thames Street, with the names and incidents truly and historically set down; the other a Murder in high life, supposed to be acting at the same time in Italy, the scenes alternating between that country and England: the Story of the latter is mutatis mutandis no other than that of our own "Babes in the Wood," transferred to Italy, from delicacy no doubt to some of the family of the rich Wicked Uncle, who might yet be living. The treatment of the two differs as the romance-like narratives in "God's Revenge against Murder," in which the Actors of the Murders (with the trifling exception that they were Murderers) are represented as most accomplished and every way amiable young Gentlefolks of either sex-as much as that differs from the honest unglossing pages of the homely Newgate Ordinary.]

THE ARRAIGNMENT OF PARIS: A DRAMATIC PAS. TORAL BY GEORGE PEEL, 1584.

Flora dresses Ida Hill, to honour the coming of the Three Goddesses.

Flora. Not Iris in her pride and bravery Adorns her Arch with such variety;

Nor doth the Milk-white Way in frosty night.

Appear so fair and beautiful in sight,

As done these fields, and groves, and sweetest bowers,
Bestrew'd and deck'd with parti-colour'd flowers.
Along the bubbling brooks, and silver glide,
That at the bottom doth in silence slide,
The watery flowers and lilies on the banks
Like blazing comets burgeon all in ranks;
Under the hawthorn and the poplar tree,
Where sacred Phoebe may delight to be:
The primrose, and the purple hyacinth,
The dainty violet, and the wholesome minth;

The double daisy, and the cowslip (Queen
Of summer flowers), do over-peer the green;
And round about the valley as ye pass,

Ye may ne see (for peeping flowers) the grass.-
They are at hand by this.

Juno hath left her chariot long ago,

And hath return'd her peacocks by her Rainbow;
And bravely, as becomes the Wife of Jove,
Doth honour by her presence to our grove:
Fair Venus she hath let her sparrows fly,
To tend on her, and make her melody;
Her turtles and her swans unyoked be,
And flicker near her side for company:
Pallas hath set her tigers loose to feed,
Commanding them to wait when she hath need :
And hitherward with proud and stately pace,
To do us honour in the sylvan chace,
They march, like to the pomp of heav'n above,
Juno, the Wife and Sister of King Jove,
The warlike Pallas, and the Queen of Love.

The Muses, and Country Girls, assemble to welcome the

Pomona.

Goddesses.

with country store like friends we

venture forth.

Think'st, Faunus, that these Goddesses will take our gifts in worth?

Faun. Nay, doubtless; for, 'shall tell thee, Dame, 'twere better give a thing,

A sign of love, unto a mighty person, or a King,

Than to a rude and barbarous swain both bad and basely

born
:

FOR GENTLY TAKES THE GENTLEMAN THAT OFT THE

CLOWN WILL SCORN.