What slave would pledge a King in his own Wife! To draw the customers of sin: come, come, [Drinks. Ter. Hold, hold, thou shalt not die, my bride, my wife, Cal. 'Tis done already, the Spiritual Court My Soul removes from this weak Standing-house 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 And, though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image Patience. Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace : you smile. Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven; THE SECOND PART OF THE HONEST WHORE. 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. 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, That follow'd her, went with a bashful glance; The happy Man. He that makes gold his wife, but not his whore, *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 counts Youth his sword and Age his staff, 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, Why even those that starve in voluntary wants, 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 LINGUA; A COMEDY. BY ANTHONY BREWER. Languages. The ancient Hebrew, clad with mysteries; 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, Stately in all, and bitter death at end. That in the pumps doth frown at first acquaintance, Closing up all with a sweet catastrophe. This grave and sad, distained with brinish tears: By being death's mirror, and life's looking-glass. |