Unthought of mischief in thy fiend-like power,
Dash it upon my miserable head.

Make me more wretch, more cursed if thou canst,
O, now my fate is more than I could fear:

My woes more weighty than my soul can bear."

Antonio visits the vault in which the body of his father is placed.

"I purify the air with odorous fume.

Graves, vaults, and tombs, groan not to bear my weight.
Cold flesh, bleak trunks, wrapt in your half-rot shrouds,

I

press you softly with a tender foot.

Most honour'd sepulchre, vouchsafe a wretch

Leave to weep o'er thee. Tomb, I'll not be long

Ere I creep in thee, and with bloodless lips
Kiss my cold father's cheek. I prythee, grave,
Provide soft mould to wrap my carcase in.

Thou royal spirit of Andrugio, where'er thou hoverest,
(Airy intellect) I heave up tapers to thee (view thy son),
In celebration of due obsequies.

Once every night I'll dew thy funeral hearse
With my religious tears.

O blessed father of a cursed son,

Thou diedst most happy, since thou livedst not
To see thy son most wretched, and thy wife
Pursued by him that seeks my guiltless blood.
O, in what orb thy mighty spirit soars;
Stoop and beat down this rising fog of shame,
That strives to blur thy blood, and girt defame
About my innocent and spotless brows."

The account of Mellida's death is exceedingly beautiful. The fool is Antonio in disguise.

"Being laid upon her bed, she grasp'd my hand,
And kissing it, spake thus: Thou very poor,
Why dost not weep? The jewel of thy brow,
The rich adornment that enchas'd thy breast,
Is lost; thy son, my love, is lost, is dead.
And do I live to say Antonio's dead?
And have I liv'd to see his virtues blurr'd
With guiltless blots? O world thou art too subtle
For honest natures to converse withal:
Therefore I'll leave thee; farewell, mart of woe,
I fly to clip my love, Antonio.

With that her head sunk down upon

her breast;

Her cheek chang'd earth, her senses slept in rest;
Until my fool, that crept unto the bed,

Screech'd out so loud, that he brought back her soul,
Call'd her again, that her bright eyes 'gan ope,

And star'd upon him: he, audacious fool,

Dar'd kiss her hand, wish'd her soft rest, lov'd bride;
She fumbled out thanks good, and so she died."

His two other tragedies, Sophonisba and The Insatiate Countess, are vastly inferior to Antonio and Mellida. In the former, there is little worthy of notice. We shall, however, make two short extracts from it. There is a striking description of the witch Erictho's cave.

"There once a charnel house, now a vast cave,

Over whose brow a pale and untrod grove

Throws out her heavy shade, the mouth thick arms
Of darksome yew, (sun proof,) for ever chokes;
Within rest barren darkness, fruitless drought
Pines in eternal night; the steam of hell

Yields not so lazy air."

The inhabitant of this appalling abode is drawn in a manner as horrid and as disgusting as can well be conceived.

"A loathsome yellow leanness spreads her face,
A heavy hell-like paleness loads her cheeks
Unknown to a clear heaven; but if dark winds,
Or thick black clouds drive back the blinded stars,
When her deep magic makes forc'd heaven quake,
And thunder, spite of Jove: Erictho then
From naked graves stalks out, heaves proud her head,
With long uncomb'd hair loaden, and strives to snatch
The night's quick sulphur; then she bursts up tombs
From half rot sear-cloths, then she scrapes dry gums
For her black rites: but when she finds a corse
But newly grav'd, whose entrails are not turn'd
To slimy filth, with greedy havock then

She makes fierce spoil; and swells with wicked triumph
To bury her lean knuckles in his eyes:

Then doth she gnaw the pale and o'ergrown nails
From his dry hand; but if she find some life

Yet lurking close, she bites his gelid lips,

And sticking her black tongue in his dry throat,
She breathes dire murmurs, which enforce him bear
Her baneful secrets to the spirits of horror."

The tragedy of the Insatiate Countess is not only worthless, but disgusting. There is, however, one touching passage, which we shall extract. Isabella, the insatiate Countess, after yielding to an inordinate indulgence of her passion, is brought to punishment. Duke Robert appears on the scaffold, in the habit of a friar, to take his leave of her.

"Bear record, all you blessed saints in heaven,

I come not to torment thee in thy death;
For, of himself, he's terrible enough.
But call to mind a lady like yourself,
And think how ill in such a beauteous soul,
Upon the instant morrow of her nuptials,
Apostacy and wild revolt would shew.
Withal imagine, that she had a lord

Jealous the air should ravish her chaste looks;
Doting, like the Creator in his models,

Who views them every minute and with care
Mixt in his fear of their obedience to him.
Suppose she sung through famous Italy,
More common than the looser songs of Petrarch,
Το
every several Zany's instrument:

And he, poor wretch, hoping some better fate
Might call her back from her adulterate purpose,
Lives in obscure and almost unknown life;
Till hearing that she is condemn'd to die,
For he once lov'd her, lends his pined corpse
Motion to bring him to her stage of honour,
Where, drown'd in woe at her so dismal chance,
He clasps her thus he falls into a trance."

The comedy of What you Will is after the author's own heart. In it he has poured out the whole bitterness of his satirical spirit. Quadratus and Lampatho rival each other in the asperity of their invective. Every man rails at his neighbour. In short, there is nothing but railing from beginning to end. There are two passages which are more particularly worth extracting, and which we shall accordingly present to our readers' notice. Lampatho, an indigent scholar, describes his laborious life, and the vanity of scholastic learning, in a manner the most forcible, and illustrated by an illusion the most impressive.

"Lam. In heaven's handy-work there's nought, None more vile, accursed, reprobate to bliss

Than man, 'mong men a scholar most.
Things only fleshly sensitive, an ox or horse,
They live, and eat, and sleep, and drink, and die;
And are not touch'd with recollections

Of things o'erpast, or stagger'd infant doubts

Of things succeeding: but leave the manly beasts,
And give but pence a-piece to have a sight

Of beastly man now

Sim. (From within.) What so, Lampatho! good truth I will

not pay your ordinary if you come not.

Lam. Dost hear that voice? I'll make a parrot now

As good a man as he in fourteen nights;

I never heard him vent a syllable

Of his own creating since I knew the use
Of eyes and ears. Well, he's perfect bless'd,
Because a perfect beast. I'll 'gage my heart
He knows no difference essential

"Twixt my dog and him. The whoreson sot is bless'd,
Is rich in ignorance, makes fair usance on't,
And every day augments his barbarism;
So love me Calmness, I do envy him for❜t.
I was a scholar: seven useful springs
Did I deflour in quotations

Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man ;
The more I learnt the more I learnt to doubt,
Knowledge and wit, faith's foes, turn faith about.

Sim. (From within.) Nay, come, good Signior, I stay all the gentlemen here, I wou'd fain give my pretty page a puddingpie.

Lam. Honest Epicure.

Nay mark, list! Delight, Delight, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baus'd leaves,

Toss'd o'er the dunces, por'd on the old print

Of titled words, and still my spaniel slept.

Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, 'bated my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins, and still my spaniel slept.
And still I held converse with Zabarell,

Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antic Donate, still my spaniel slept.
Still on went I, first an sit anima,

Then, an it were mortal; oh, hold, hold,

At that they are at brain buffets; fell by the ears,
Amain, pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.
Then whether 'twere corporeal, local, fix'd,

Extraduce; but whether 't had free will
Or no, O philosophers

Stood banding factions, all so strongly propp'd,
I stagger'd, knew not which was firmer part;
But thought, quoted, read, observ'd, and pried,
Stuff'd noting books, and still my spaniel slept.
At length he wak'd, and yawn'd, and by yon sky,
For aught I know, he knew as much as I.

Sim. (From within.) Delicate good Lampatho, come away,
I assure you I'll give but two-pence more.

Lam. How 'twas created, how the soul exists;

One talks of motes, the soul was made of motes;
Another fire, t'other light, a third of star-like nature;
Hippo, water; Anaximenes, air;

Aristoxenus, music; Critias, I know not what;
company of odd Phrenetici

A

Did eat my youth; and when I crept abroad,
Finding my numbness in this nimble age,

I fell a railing; but now soft and slow,

I know, I know nought, but I nought do know;
What shall I do, what plot, what course pursue?"

There are some thoughts on conjugal love, expressed in a pure and beautiful strain.

،، If love be holy, if that mystery
Of co-united hearts be sacrament;
If the unbounded goodness have infus'd
A sacred ardour of a mutual love

Into our species; if those amorous joys,

Those sweets of life, those comforts even in death,
Spring from a cause above our reason's reach;
If that clear flame deduce its heat from heaven,
"Tis, like its cause, eternal; always one,
As is th' instiller of divinest love,
Unchang'd by time, immortal, maugre death.
But, oh, 'tis grown a figment; love a jest;
A comic posey; the soul of man is rotten,
Even to the core, no sound affection.

Our love is hollow, vaulted, stands on props
Of circumstance, profit, or ambitious hopes."

In addition to these two extracts, we think that the following song will not be unacceptable, as a specimen of our author's lyrical powers.