Why, then, the field is lost, and he rides home
Like a great conqueror: not answer him!
Out of thy part already! foil'd the scene!
Disrank'd the lines! disarm'd the action!

Ter. Yes, yes, true chastity is tongued so weak 'Tis overcome ere it know how to speak.

Fath. Come, come, thou happy close of every wrong, "Tis thou that canst dissolve the hardest doubt; "Tis time for thee to speak, we all are out. Daughter and you the man whom I call son, I must confess I made a deed of gift

To heaven and you, and gave my child to both;
When on my blessing I did charm her soul
In the white circle of true chastity,

Still to run true till death: now, sir, if not,
She forfeits my rich blessing, and is fined
With an eternal curse; then I tell you,
She shall die now, now whilst her soul is true.
Ter. Die!

Col. Aye, I am death's echo.

Fath. O my son :

I am her father; every tear I shed

Is threescore ten years old; I weep and smile
Two kinds of tears; I weep that she must die,
I smile that she must die a virgin : thus
We joyful men mock tears, and tears mock us.
Ter. What speaks that cup ?

Fath. White wine and poison.

Ter. Oh:

That very name of poison poisons me.

Thou winter of a man, thou walking grave,

Whose life is like a dying taper: how

Canst thou define a lover's labouring thoughts?

What scent hast thou but death! what taste but earth?
The breath that purls from thee is like the steam
Of a new-opened vault: I know thy drift;
Because thou 'rt travelling to the land of graves,
Thou covet'st company, and hither bring'st
A health of poison to pledge death: a poison
For this sweet spring; this element is mine,
This is the air I breathe; corrupt it not :

This heaven is mine, I bought it with my soul
Of him that sells a heaven to buy a soul.

Fath. Well, let her go; she's thine, thou call'st her thine,

Thy element, the air thou breath'st; thou know'st
The air thou breath'st is common; make her so.
Perhaps thou 'lt say none but the King shall wear
Thy night-gown, she that laps thee warm with love;
And that Kings are not common: then to shew
By consequence he cannot make her so.

Indeed she may promote her shame and thine,
And with your shames speak a good word for mine.
The King shining so clear, and we so dim,
Our dark disgraces will be seen through him.
Imagine her the cup of thy moist life,

What man would pledge a King in his own Wife ?
Ter. She dies that sentence poisons her: O life!
What slave would pledge a King in his own Wife?
Cal. Welcome O poison, physic against lust,
Thou wholesome medicine to a constant blood;
Thou rare apothecary that canst keep
My chastity preserv'd within this box

Of tempting dust, this painted earthen pot
That stands upon the stall of the white soul,
To set the shop out like a flatterer,

To draw the customers of sin: come, come,
Thou art no poison, but a diet drink

To moderate my blood: White-innocent Wine,
Art thou made guilty of my death? oh no,
For thou thyself art poison: take me hence,
For Innocence shall murder Innocence.

[Drinks.

Ter. Hold, hold, thou shalt not die, my bride, my

O stop that speedy messenger of death;

O let him not run down that narrow path

Which leads unto thy heart, nor carry news
To thy removing soul that thou must die.
Cal. 'Tis done already, the Spiritual Court
Is breaking up, all Offices discharg'd

My Soul removes from this weak Standing-house
Of frail mortality: Dear father, bless

Me now and ever: Dearer man, farewell;

[wife,

I jointly take my leave of thee and life;
Go tell the King thou hast a constant wife.
Fath. Smiles on my cheeks arise

To see how sweetly a true virgin dies.

[The beauty and force of this scene are much diminished to the reader of the entire play, when he comes to find that this solemn preparation is but a sham contrivance of the father's, and the potion which Cælestina swallows nothing more than a sleeping draught; from the effects of which she is to awake in due time, to the surprise of her husband, and the great mirth and edification of the King and his courtiers. As Hamlet says, they do but "poison in jest." The sentiments are worthy of a real martyrdom, and an Appian sacrifice in earnest.]

THE HONEST WHORE.

A COMEDY. BY THOMAS DECKER.

Hospital for Lunatics.

There are of mad men, as there are of tame,
All humour'd not alike. We have here some
So apish and fantastic, play with a feather;
And, though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image
So blemish'd and defac'd, yet do they act
Such antick and such pretty lunacies,

That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile.
Others again we have, like hungry lions,
Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies.-

Patience.

Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace:

Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven;
It makes men look like gods.-The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a Sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ;
The first true gentleman that ever breath'd.

THE SECOND PART OF THE HONEST WHORE. BY THOMAS DECKER.

BELLAFRONT, a reclaimed Harlot, recounts some of the miseries of her profession.

Like an ill husband, though I knew the same
To be my undoing, follow'd I that game.
Oh when the work of lust had earn'd my bread,
To taste it how I trembled, lest each bit
Ere it went down should choke me chewing it.
My bed seem'd like a cabin hung in hell,
The bawd hell's porter, and the liquorish wine
The pandar fetch'd was like an easy fine
For which methought I leas'd away my soul,
And oftentimes even in my quaffing-bowl
Thus said I to myself: I am a Whore,
And have drunk down thus much confusion more.
when in the street

A fair young modest damsel* I did meet,
She seem'd to all a Dove, when I pass'd by,
And I to all a Raven; every eye

*This simple picture of Honour and Shame, contrasted without violence, and expressed without immodesty, is worth all the strong lines against the Harlot's Profession, with which both Parts of this play are offensively crowded. A Satirist is always to be suspected, who, to make vice odious, dwells upon all its acts and minutest circumstances with a sort of relish and retrospective gust. But so near are the boundaries of panegyric and invective, that a worn-out Sinner is sometimes found to make the best Declaimer

against Sin. The same high-seasoned descriptions which in his unregenerate state served to inflame his appetites, in his new province of a Moralist will serve him (a little turned) to expose the enormity of those appetites in other men. No one will doubt, who reads Marston's Satires, that the author in some part of his life must have been something more than a theorist in vice. Have we never heard of an old preacher in the pulpit display such an insight into the mystery of ungodliness, as made us wonder with reason how a good man came by it? When Cervantes with such proficiency of fondness dwells upon the Don's library, who sees not that he has been a great reader of books of Knight-Errantry? perhaps was at some time of his life in danger of falling into those very extravagancies which he ridicules so happily in his Hero?

That follow'd her, went with a bashful glance;
At me each bold and jeering countenance
Darted forth scorn: to her as if she had been
Some Tower unvanquished would they vail;
'Gainst me swoln rumour hoisted every sail :
She crown'd with reverend praises pass'd by them,
I though with face mask'd could not 'scape the Hem;
For, as if heaven had set strange marks on whores,
Because they should be pointing stocks to man,
Drest up in civilest shape a Courtezan;

Let her walk saint-like noteless and unknown,
Yet she's betray'd by some trick of her own.

The Happy Man.

He that makes gold his wife, but not his whore,
He that at noon day walks by a prison door,
He that in the sun is neither beam nor moat,
He that's not mad after a petticoat,

He for whom poor men's curses dig no grave,
He that is neither Lord's nor Lawyer's slave,
He that makes This his sea and That his shore,
He that in 's coffin is richer than before,

He that counts Youth his sword and Age his staff,
He whose right hand carves his own epitaph,
He that upon his death-bed is a Swan,
And dead, no Crow; he is a Happy Man*

WESTWARD HOE. A COMEDY.

BY THOMAS DECKER AND JOHN WEBSTER.

Pleasure, the general pursuit.

Sweet Pleasure !

Delicious Pleasure! earth's supremest good,
The spring of blood, though it dry up our blood.
Rob me of that (though to be drunk with pleasure,
As rank excess even in best things is bad,
Turns man into a beast) yet, that being gone,

*The turn of this is the same with Iago's definition of a Deserving Woman: "She that was ever fair and never proud," &c. The matter is superior.