very unequal in merit since so many different poets had a share in them. The best among them, certainly, are those written jointly by these two authors.

The comedies written by Fletcher alone are very brilliant, the dialogue is natural and sprightly—a model for later comedy style; but among the serious plays, those in which both these poets took part have the highest flights of poetry and strongest dramatic interest. Some of the best are Philaster, Valentinian, The Maid's Tragedy, and Thierry and Theodoret. Of all their plays I like best Philaster, or Love Lies Bleeding, and from this I have made some extracts for you to read.

The plot is of a Prince Philaster, the rightful heir to the crown of Sicily, which crown has been usurped by the reigning King, who desires to leave the succession to his daughter Arethusa. Philaster lives at liberty in Sicily, so much beloved by the people that the King dares not imprison or make away with him, although he is plotting by the marriage of Arethusa with a Spanish Prince to bring in foreign aid to strengthen his power. But Arethusa loves Philaster and is beloved by him, so that in the end all difficulties are solved by their marriage. Philaster is also loved by Euphasia, daughter of one of the lords of Sicily, who has taken the disguise of a page (Bellario) to follow Phialster, who guesses neither the secret of her love nor her birth.

Philaster thus describes this page, Bellario, to Arethusa: I have a boy

Sent by the gods, I hope to this intent,

Not yet seen in the court. Hunting the buck
I found him, sitting by the fountain's side,
Of which he borrowed some to quench his thirst,
And paid the nymph again as much in tears.
A garland lay by him, made by himself
Of many several flowers, bred in the vale,
Stuck in that mystic order, that the rareness
Delighted me. But ever when he turned
His tender eyes upon them, he would weep

As if he meant to make them grow again.
Seeing such pretty helpless innocence
Dwell in his face, I asked him all his story.
He told me that his parents gentle, died,
Leaving him to the mercy of the fields,

Which gave him roots; of the crystal springs,
Which did not stop their courses, and the sun,
Which still, he thanked him, yielded him his light.
Then took he up his garland, and did show
What every flower, as country people hold,
Did signify; and how all, ordered thus,

Expressed his grief. And, to my thoughts, did read
The prettiest lecture of his country art

That could be wished; so that, methought, I could
Have studied it. I gladly entertained him,
Who was as glad to follow, and have got
The trustingest, lovingest, and the gentlest boy
That ever master kept. Him will I send

To wait on you, and bear our hidden love."

The following speech is made by Euphasia when her disguise has been discovered by Philaster and the court, and the former demands of her why she has thus concealed her

sex.

She answers:

"My father oft would speak

Your worth and virtues; and, as I did grow
More and more apprehensive, I did thirst
To see the man so praised; but yet all this
Was but a maiden longing, to be lost
As soon as found; till sitting in my window
Printing my thoughts in lawn, I saw a god,
I thought, (but it was you) enter our gates.
My blood flew out, and back again as fast
As I had puffed it forth, and sucked it in
Like breath. Then was I called away in haste
To entertain you. Never was a man

Heaved from a sheep-cote to a sceptre, raised

So high in thoughts as I. * * I did hear you talk

Far above singing! After you were gone

I grew acquainted with my heart, and searched
What stirred it so. Alas! I found it love.
Yet could I but have lived

In presence of you, I had had my end,
For this I did delude my noble father
With a feigned pilgrimage, and dressed myself
In habit of a boy; and for I knew

My birth no match for you, I was past hope
Of having you; and understanding well
That when I made discovery of my sex
I could not stay with you, I made a vow,
By all the most religious things a maid
Could call together, never to be known,

While there was hope to hide me from men's eyes,
For other than I seemed, that I might ever

Abide with you. Then sat I by the fount

Where first you took me up."

Like all the rest of these poets, Fletcher wrote very pretty songs, which occur in a number of his plays. Here is one, which is in the same strain as John Milton's Penseroso, in which he praises the charm of Melancholy:

"Hence all you vain delights,

As short as are the nights

Wherein you spend your folly!
There's nought in this life sweet,
If men were wise to see 't,
But only melancholy;

O sweetest melancholy.

"Welcome folded arms, and fixed eyes,
A sigh that piercing mortifies,

A look that 's fastened to the ground.
A tongue chained up without a sound,
Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places that pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, where all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan!
These are the sounds we feed upon;

Then stretch our bones in a still, gloomy valley-
Nothing's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy."

TALK XXVI.

ON GEORGE CHAPMAN, JOHN WEBSTER, JOHN MARSTON, AND OTHER DRAMATISTS.

A GROUP of lesser names follow on Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher. One of the oldest among them is George Chapman, the first translator of Homer into English Born 1557. verse. This is his really great title to fame, al- Died 1634. though he wrote many plays, and was much esteemed as an original poet. He was born seven years before Shakspeare, and lived to be almost eighty. A writer who knew him in his latest days says, "He was much resorted to, latterly, by young persons of parts, as a sort of poetical chronicle, but choice whom he admitted to him, and preserved in his own person the dignity of Poetry, which he compared to a flower of the sun, that disdains to open its petals to

was very

the light of a smoky candle." This is to my mind a delightful picture of one of the patriarchs of the noble age of Elizabethan literature, holding court to receive the generation who were so unfortunate as to be born later.

Died 1652.

John Marston and John Webster were both poets of higher order than Chapman. Webster wrote two plays, I think more powerful, and more dramatically Vittoria Corombino, and Duchess of Malfi, which Born 1582? effective in the elements of horror and pathos they possess, than anything produced by these dramatic poets, always excepting Shakspeare. He also wrote a tragedy on the moving story of the Roman maiden, Virginia, and I will quote you the speech of Virginius in which he bids farewell to his daughter, before he sacrifices her-as an example of his

pathetic style.

[Virginius, embracing Virginia.]

"Farewell, my sweet Virginia, never, never,
Shall I taste fruit of the most blessed hope
I had in thee. Let me forget the thought
Of thy most pretty infancy, when first
Returning from the wars, I took delight
To rock thee in my target; when my girl
Would kiss her father in his burganet

Of glittering steel, hung round his armed neck,
And, viewing the bright metal, smile to see
Another fair Virginia smile on thee;

And when my wounds have smarted, I have sung
With an unskilful, yet a willing voice,

To bring my girl asleep.”

Marston is celebrated for his grim and satirical humor, Born 1575. which he shows forcibly in The Malcontent, the Died 1624. most noted, or best known, of all his dramas, but the same spirit appears in all he wrote. Like Shakspeare's fool, he "rails on lady Fortune in good set terms.' One of the characters in his play of What You Will says "Fortune is blind," on which the hero cries fiercely,

"You lie, you lie!

"None but a madman would deem Fortune blind.

How can she see to wound desert so nice.

Just in the speeding place? to girt lewd brows
With honor's wreath? Ha! Fortune blind? away.
How can she blinded then so rightly see

To starve rich worth and glut iniquity ?"
And another speech from the same character:
"Love! hang love!

It is the abject outcast of the world.

Hate all things; hate the world, thyself, all men;
Hate knowledge; strive not to be overwise;

It drew destruction into Paradise;

Hate honor, virtue, they are bates

That entice men's hopes to sadder fates;
Hate beauty, every ballad-monger

Can cry his idle, foppish humour;

Hate riches, wealth 's a flattering Jack-
Adores to the face, mews 'hind thy back-
He that is poor is firmly sped,