What slave would pledge a King in his own Wife!
Cał. 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 wife,
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;
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 humor'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
Others again we have, like hungry lions,
Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies.—

Patience.

Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace :

you smile.

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 seemed 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

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 rumor 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,

*This simple picture of Honor 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 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 extravagances which he ridicules so happily in his Hero?

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.

Sweet Pleasure!

Pleasure, the general pursuit.

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,
A horse, and this (the goodliest shape) all one.
We feed; wear rich attires; and strive to cleave
The stars with marble towers; fight battles; spend
Our blood, to buy us names; and in iron hold
Will we eat roots to imprison fugitive gold:
But to do thus what spell can us excite ?
This; the strong magic of our appetite :
To feast which richly, life itself undoes.
Who'd not die thus ?

Why even those that starve in voluntary wants,
And, to advance the mind, keep the flesh poor,
The world enjoying them, they not the world;
Would they do this, but that they are proud to suck

A sweetness from such sourness?

*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.

Let music

Music.

Charm with her excellent voice an awful silence
Through all this building, that her sphery soul
May (on the wings of air) in thousand forms
Invisibly fly, yet be enjoy'd.

LINGUA; A COMEDY. BY ANTHONY BREWER.

Languages.

The ancient Hebrew, clad with mysteries;
The learned Greek, rich in fit epithets,
Blest in the lovely marriage of pure words;
The Chaldee wise, the Arabian physical,
The Roman eloquent, and Tuscan grave,

The braving Spanish, and the smooth-tongued French

Tragedy and Comedy.

-fellows both, both twins, but so unlike

As birth to death, wedding to funeral :

For this that rears himself in buskins quaint,
Is pleasant at the first, proud in the midst,

Stately in all, and bitter death at end.

That in the pumps doth frown at first acquaintance,
Trouble the midst, but in the end concludes

Closing up all with a sweet catastrophe.

This grave and sad, distained with brinish tears:
That light and quick, with wrinkled laughter painted:
This deals with nobles, kings, and emperors,
Full of great fears, great hopes, great enterprizes;
This other trades with men of mean condition,
His projects small, small hopes, and dangers little :
This gorgeous, broider'd with rich sentences:
That fair, and purfled round with merriments.
Both vice detect, and virtue beautify,

By being death's mirror, and life's looking-glass.