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THOMAS MIDDLETON.

[Born, 1570. Buried, 4th July, 1627?]

THE dates of this author's birth and death are both unknown, though his living reputation, as the literary associate of Jonson, Fletcher, Massinger, Dekker, and Rowley, must have been considerable. If Oldys be correct, he was alive after November, 1627. Middleton was appointed chronologer to the city of London† in 1620, and in 1624 was cited before the privy-council, as author of The Game of Chess. The verses of Sir W. Lower, quoted by Oldys, allude to the poet's white locks, so that he was probably born as early as the middle of the sixteenth century.‡ His tragicomedy, "The Witch," according to Mr. Malone, was written anterior to Macbeth, and suggested to Shakspeare the witchcraft scenery in

LEANTIO APPROACHING HIS HOME.
FROM THE TRAGEDY OF "WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN."

How near I am now to a happiness

That earth exceeds not! not another like it.
The treasures of the deep are not so precious
As are the conceal'd comforts of a man
Lock'd up in woman's love. I scent the air
Of blessings, when I come but near the house.
What a delicious breath marriage sends forth,
The violet bed's not sweeter! Honest wedlock
Is like a banqueting house built in a garden,
On which the spring's chaste flowers take delight
To cast their modest odours; when base lust,
With all her powders, paintings, and best pride,
Is but a fair house built by a ditch side.
Now for a welcome

Able to draw men's envies upon man;
A kiss, now, that will hang upon my lip
As sweet as morning dew upon a rose,
And full as long.

LEANTIO'S AGONY FOR THE DESERTION OF HIS WIFE.

FROM THE SAME.

Leantio, a man of humble fortune, has married a beautiful wife, who is basely seduced by the Duke of Florence. The duke, with refined cruelty, invites them both to a feast, where he lavishes his undisguised admiration on his mistress. The scene displays the feelings of Leantio, restrained by ceremony and fear, under the insulting hospitality, at the conclusion of which he is left alone with Livia, a lady of the court, who has fallen in love with him, and wishes to attach his affections.

Leantio. (Without noticing Livia.) O HAST thou left me then, Bianca, utterly? O Bianca, now I miss thee! Oh! return, And save the faith of woman. I ne'er felt The loss of thee till now: 'tis an affliction Of greater weight than youth was made to bear; As if a punishment of after life

*MS. notes on Langbaine.

[ Or city poet. Jonson and Quarles filled the office after Middleton, which expired with Elkanah Settle, 1723-4.-C.] [The verses in question I believe to be a forgery of Chetwood.-DYCE's Middleton, vol. i. p. xiii.-C.]

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The songs beginning "Come

the latter play. away," &c., and Black Spirits," &c., of which only the first two words are printed in Macbeth, are found in the Witch. Independent of having afforded a hint to Shakspeare, Middleton's reputation cannot be rated highly for the pieces to which his name is exclusively attached. His principal efforts were in comedy, where he deals profusely in grossness and buffoonery. The cheats and debaucheries of the town are his favourite sources of comic intrigue. With a singular effort at the union of the sublime and familiar, he introduces, in one of his coarse drafts of London vice, an infernal spirit prompting a country gentleman to the seduction of a citizen's wife.§

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Lean. (Without noticing her.) Canst thou forget The dear pains my love took? how it has watch'd Whole nights together, in all weathers, for thee, Yet stood in heart more merry than the tempest That sung about mine ears,like dangerous flatterers, That can set all their mischiefs to sweet tunes, And then received thee from thy father's window, Into these arms, at midnight; when we embraced As if we had been statues only made for't, To show art's life, so silent were our comforts; And kiss'd as if our lips had grown together. Liv. This makes me madder to enjoy him now. Lean. (Without noticing her.) Canst thou forget all this, and better joys

That we met after this, which then new kisses Took pride to praise ?

Liv. I shall grow madder yet:-Sir! Lean. (Without noticing her.) This cannot be but of some close bawd's working :Cry mercy, lady! What would you say to me? My sorrow makes me so unmannerly, So comfort bless me, I had quite forgot you.

Liv. Nothing, but e'en in pity to that passion Would give your grief good counsel. Lean. Marry, and welcome, lady,

It never could come better.

Liv. Then first, sir,

To make away all your good thoughts at once of her, Know, most assuredly, she is a strumpet.

[? Middleton's dramatic works, since this was written, have been collected by Rev. A. Dyce, whose contributions to English literary history are frequently quoted in this volume.-G.]

Lean. Ha! most assuredly? Speak not a thing So vile so certainly, leave it more doubtful.

Liv. Then I must leave all truth, and spare my knowledge,

A sin which I too lately found and wept for.
Lean. Found you it?

Liv. Ay, with wet eyes.

Lean. Oh, perjurious friendship!

Liv. You miss'd your fortunes when you met with her, sir.

Young gentlemen, that only love for beauty,
They love not wisely; such a marriage rather
Proves the destruction of affection;

It brings on want, and want's the key of whoredom.
I think you'd small means with her?

Lean. Oh, not any, lady.

[sir,

Liv. Alas, poor gentleman! what mean'st thou, Quite to undo thyself with thine own kind heart? Thou art too good and pitiful to woman: Marry, sir, thank thy stars for this bless'd fortune, That rids the summer of thy youth so well From many beggars, that had lain a sunning In thy beams only else, till thou hadst wasted The whole days of thy life in heat and labour. What would you say now to a creature found As pitiful to you, and as it were

E'en sent on purpose from the whole sex general, To requite all that kindness you have shown to't? Lean. What's that, madam?

Liv. Nay, a gentlewoman, and one able To reward good things; ay, and bears a conscience to❜t:

Couldst thou love such a one,that (blow all fortunes) Would never see thee want?

Nay more, maintain thee to thine enemy's envy, And shalt not spend a care for't, stir a thought, Nor break a sleep? unless love's music waked thee, Nor storm of fortune should: look upon me, And know that woman.

Lean. Oh, my life's wealth, Bianca!

[out?

Liv. Still with her name? will nothing wear it
That deep sigh went but for a strumpet, sir.
Lean. It can go for no other that loves me.
Liv. (Aside) He's vex'd in mind; I came too
soon to him:

Where's my discretion now, my skill,my judgment?
I'm cunning in all arts but my own, love.
"Tis as unseasonable to tempt him now
So soon, as [for] a widow to be courted
Following her husband's corse; or to make bargain
By the grave side, and take a young man there :
Her strange departure stands like a hearse yet
Before his eyes; which time will take down shortly.
[Exit.
Lean. Is she my wife till death, yet no more
mine?
[for?
That's a hard measure: then what's marriage good
Methinks by right I should not now be living,
And then 'twere all well. What a happiness
Had I been made of had I never seen her;
For nothing makes man's loss grievous to him,
But knowledge of the worth of what he loses;
For what he never had, he never misses:
She's gone for ever, utterly; there is
As much redemption of a soul from hell,

As a fair woman's body from his palace.
Why should my love last longer than her truth?
What is there good in woman to be loved,
When only that which makes her so has left her?
I cannot love her now, but I must like
Her sin, and my own shame too, and be guilty
Of law's breach with her, and mine own abusing;
All which were monstrous! then my safest course
For health of mind and body, is to turn
My heart, and hate her, most extremely hate her;
I have no other way: those virtuous powers
Which were chaste witnesses of both our troths,
Can witness she breaks first!

SCENE FROM "THE ROARING GIRL."

Mrs. Gallipot, the apothecary's wife, having received a letter from her friend Laxton that he is in want of money, thus bethinks her how to raise it.

ALAS, poor gentleman! troth, I pity him.
How shall I raise this money? thirty pound?
'Tis 30, sure, a 3 before an 0;

I know his 3's too well. My childbed linen,
Shall I pawn that for him? then, if my mark
Be known, I am undone; it may be thought
My husband's bankrupt: which way shall I turn?
Laxton, betwixt my own fears and thy wants
I'm like a needle 'twixt two adamants.
Enter Mr. GALLIPOT hastily.

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Mrs. G. Oh! he-he's born to be my undoer!
This hand,which thou call'st thine,to himwas given;
To him was I made sure i' the sight of heaven.
Mr. G. I never heard this-thunder!
Mrs. G. Yes, yes-before

I was to thee contracted, to him I swore.
Since last I saw him twelve months three times old
The moon hath drawn through her light silver bow;
But o'er the seas he went, and it was said-
But rumours lies-that he in France was dead:
But he's alive-oh, he's alive!-he sent
That letter to me, which in rage I rent,
Swearing, with oaths most damnably, to have me,
Or tear me from this bosom.-Oh, heavens save me!
Mr. G. My heart will break-Shamed and un-
done for ever!

Mrs. G. So black a day, poor wretch, went o'er thee never.

Mr. G. If thou shouldst wrestle with him at the law,

Thou'rt sure to fall; no odd slight, no prevention. I'll tell him th' art with child.

Mrs. G. Umph.

Mr. G. Or give out, that one of my men was

ta'en abed with thee.

Mrs. G. Worse and worse still;

You embrace a mischief to prevent an ill.

Mr. G. I'll buy thee of him-stop his mouth with gold

Think'st thou 'twill do?

Mrs. G. Oh me! heavens grant it would! Yet now my senses are set more in tune; He writ, as I remember in his letter, That he, in riding up and down, had spent, Ere he could find me, thirty pound.-Send that; Stand not on thirty with him.

Mr. G. Forty, Prue-say thou the word 'tis done.
We venture lives for wealth, but must do more
To keep our wives.-Thirty or forty, Prue?
Mrs. G. Thirty, good sweet!

Of an ill bargain let's save what we can;
I'll pay it him with tears.
He was a man,
When first I knew him, of a meek spirit;
All goodness is not yet dried up, I hope. [all;
Mr. G. He shall have thirty pound, let that stop
Love's sweets taste best when we have drunk
down gall.

FATHERS COMPARING SONS. BENEFIT OF IMPRISONMENT TO A WILD YOUTH. FROM THE SAME.

Persons.-SIR DAVY DAPPER, SIR ALEX. WENGRAVE, and SIR ADAM APPLETON.

Sir Dav. My son Jack Dapper, then, shall run All in one pasture. [with him, Sir Alex. Proves your son bad too, sir? [tian Sir Dav. As villany can make him : your SebasDotes but on one drab, mine on a thousand. A noise of fiddlers, tobacco, wine, and a A mercer, that will let him take up moreDice, and a water-spaniel with a duck.—Oh, Bring him a bed with these when his purse gingles Roaring boys follow at his tail, fencers and ningles, (Beasts Adam ne'er gave name to ;) these horseleeches suck

My son, till he being drawn dry, they all live on Sir Alex. Tobacco ?

[smoke.

Sir Dav. Right sir; but I have in my brain
A windmill going that shall grind to dust
The follies of my son, and make him wise
Or a stark fool.-Pray lend me your advice.
Both. That shall you, good Sir Davy.
Sir Dav. Here's the springe

That's set to catch this woodcock in-An action,
In a false name, unknown to him, is enter'd
I' the Counter to arrest Jack Dapper.
Both. Ha, ha, he!

[him?

Sir Dav. Think you the Counter cannot break Sir Alex. Break him? yes, and break his heart too, if he lie there long.

Sir Dav. I'll make him sing a counter-tenor, sure. Sir Alex. No way to tame him like it: there shall he learn

What money is indeed, and how to spend it.
Sir Dav. He's bridled there.

Sir Alex. Ay, yet knows not how to mend it.
Bedlam cures not more madmen in a year
Than one of the Counters does. Men pay more dear
There for their wit than anywhere. A Counter!
Why, 'tis an university.-Who not sees?
As scholars there, so here men take degrees,
And follow the same studies, all alike.
Scholars learn first logic and rhetoric,

So does a prisoner; with fine honied speech
At his first coming in, he doth persuade, beseech
He may be lodged—.

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To lie in a clean chamber..
But when he has no money, then does he try,
By subtle logic and quaint sophistry,

To make the keepers trust him.

Sir Adam. Say they do.
Sir Alex. Then he's a graduate.
Sir Dav. Say they trust him not.

Sir Alex. Then is he held a freshman and a sot,
And never shall commence, but being still barr'd,
Be expulsed from the master's side to the Two-
Or else i' the Holebeg placed. [penny ward,
Sir Ad. When then, I pray, proceeds a prisoner ?
Sir Alex. When, money being the theme,
He can dispute with his hard creditors' hearts,
And get out clear, he's then a master of arts.
Sir Davy, send your son to Wood-street college;
A gentleman can nowhere get more knowledge.

Sir Dav. These gallants study hard.
Sir Alex. True, to get money.

Sir Dav. Lies by the heels, i'faith! thanksthanks-I ha' sent

For a couple of bears shall paw him.

DEVOTION TO LOVE.

FROM THE PLAY OF "BLURT, MASTER-CONSTABLE.”
O, HAPPY persecution, I embrace thee
With an unfetter'd soul; so sweet a thing
It is to sigh upon the rack of love,
Where each calamity is groaning witness
Of the poor martyr's faith. I never heard
Of any true affection but 'twas nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats

The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose.
Love, bred on earth, is often nursed in hell;
By rote it reads woe ere it learn to spell...
When I call back my vows to Violetta,
May I then slip into an òbscure grave,
Whose mould, unpress'd with stony monument
Dwelling in open air, may drink the tears
Of the inconstant clouds to rot me soon!....
He that truly loves,

Burns out the day in idle fantasies;
And when the lamb, bleating, doth bid good night
Unto the closing day, then tears begin

To keep quick time unto the owl, whose voice
Shrieks like the bell-man in the lover's ear,
Love's eye the jewel of sleep, oh, seldom wears!
The early lark is waken'd from her bed,
Being only by love's pains disquieted;
But, singing in the morning's ear, she weeps,
Being deep in love, at lovers' broken sleeps:
But say, a golden slumber chance to tie,
With silken strings, the cover of love's eye,
Then dreams, magician-like, mocking present
Pleasures, whose fading, leaves more discontent.

INDIGNATION AT THE SALE OF A WIFE'S HONOUR.

FROM "THE PHOENIX."

Of all the deeds yet this strikes the deepest wound
Into my apprehension,

Reverend and honourable matrimony,
Mother of lawful sweets, unshamed mornings,
Both pleasant and legitimately fruitful, without thee

All the whole world were soiled bastardy:
Thou art the only and the greatest form
That put'st a difference betwixt our desires
And the disorder'd appetites of beasts.

... But, if chaste and honest, There is another devil that haunts marriage, (None fondly loves but knows it,) jealousy, That wedlock's yellow sickness,

That whispering separation every minute,
And thus the curse takes his effect or progress.
The most of men, in their first sudden furies,
Rail at the narrow bounds of marriage,
And call't a prison; then it is most just
That the disease of the prison, jealousy,
Should thus affect 'em-but, oh! here I'm fix'd
To make sale of a wife! monstrous and foul!
An act abhorr'd in nature, cold in soul!

LAW.

FROM THE SAME.

THOU angel sent amongst us, sober Law,
Made with meek eyes, persuading action;
No loud immodest tongue-voiced like a virgin,
And as chaste from sale,

Save only to be heard, but not to rail-
How has abuse deform'd thee to all eyes!
Yet why so rashly for one's villain's fault
Do I arraign whole man? Admired Law!
Thy upper parts must needs be wholly pure
And incorruptible-th' are grave and wise;
"Tis but the dross beneath them, and the clouds
That get between thy glory and their praise,
That make the visible and foul eclipse;
For those that are near to thee are upright,
As noble in their conscience as their birth;
Know that damnation is in every bribe,
And rarely put it from them-rate the presenters,
And scourge 'em with five years' imprisonment
For offering but to tempt 'em :

This is true justice, exercised and used;
Woe to the giver, when the bribe's refused.
"Tis not their will to have law worse than war,
Where still the poorest die first,

To send a man without a sheet to his grave,
Or bury him in his papers;

"Tis not their mind it should be, nor to have
A suit hang longer than a man in chains,
Let him be ne'er so fasten'd.

CHARLES FITZGEFFREY,

[Died, 1636.]

CHARLES FITZGEFFREY was rector of the parish of St. Dominic, in Cornwall.

TO POSTERITY.

FROM ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS. 1600.

DAUGHTER of Time, sincere Posterity,
Always new-born, yet no man knows thy birth,
The arbitress of pure sincerity,

Yet changeable (like Proteus) on the earth, Sometime in plenty, sometime join'd with dearth:

Always to come, yet always present here, Whom all run after, none come after near. Unpartial judge of all, save present state, Truth's idioma of the things are past, But still pursuing present things with hate, And more injurious at the first than last, Preserving others, while thine own do waste; True treasurer of all antiquity,

Whom all desire, yet never one could see.

FROM FITZGEFFREY'S LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS
DRAKE. 1596.

Look how the industrious bee in fragrant May,
When Flora gilds the earth with golden flowers,
Inveloped in her sweet perfumed array,
Doth leave his honey-limed delicious bowers,
More richly wrought than prince's stately towers,
Waving his silken wings amid the air,
And to the verdant gardens makes repair.
First falls he on a branch of sugar'd thyme,
Then from the marygold he sucks the sweet,

And then the mint, and then the rose doth climb,
Then on the budding rosemary doth light,
Till with sweet treasure having charged his feet,
Late in the evening home he turns again,
Thus profit is the guerdon of his pain.
So in the May-tide of his summer age
Valour enmoved the mind of vent'rous Drake
To lay his life with winds and waves in gage,
And bold and hard adventures t' undertake,
Leaving his country for his country's sake;
Loathing the life that cowardice doth stain,
Preferring death, if death might honour gain....

RICHARD NICCOLS.

[Died, 1584.]

THE plan of the Mirror for Magistrates, begun by Ferrers and Sackville, was followed up by Churchyard, Phayer, Higgins, Drayton, and many others. The last contributor of any note was Niccols, in 1610, in his Winter Night's Vision. Niccols was the author of the "Cuckow," written

FROM THE LEGEND OF ROBERT DUKE OF
NORMANDY.

Robert, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of William the Conqueror, on his return from the Crusades was imprisoned by Henry I. in Cardiff Castle. He thus describes a walk with his keeper, previous to his eyes being put out.

As bird in cage debarr'd the use of wings,
Her captived life as nature's chiefest wrong,
In doleful ditty sadly sits and sings,
And mourns her thralled liberty so long,
Till breath be spent in many a sithful song:
So here captived I many days did spend
In sorrow's plaint, till death my days did end.

Where as a prisoner though I did remain;
Yet did my brother grant this liberty,
To quell the common speech, which did complain
On my distress, and on his tyranny,
That in his parks and forests joining by,

When I did please I to and fro might go,
Which in the end was cause of all my woe.
For on a time, when as Aurora bright
Began to scale heaven's steepy battlement,
And to the world disclose her cheerful light,
As was my wont, I with my keeper went
To put away my sorrow's discontent :

Thereby to ease me of my captive care, And solace my sad thoughts in th' open air. Wand'ring through forest wide, at length we gain A steep cloud-kissing rock, whose horned crown With proud imperial look beholds the main, Where Severn's dangerous waves run rolling down, From th' Holmes into the seas, by Cardiff town, Whose quick-devouring sands so dangerous been To those that wander Amphitrite's green : As there we stood, the country round we eyed To view the workmanship of nature's hand, There stood a mountain, from whose weeping side

in imitation of Drayton's "Owl," and several poems of temporary popularity, and of a drama, entitled The Twynne's Tragedy. He was a Londoner, and having studied (says Wood) at Oxford, obtained some employment worthy of his faculties; but of what kind, we are left to conjecture.

A brook breaks forth into the low-lying land,
Here lies a plain, and there a wood doth stand,
Here pastures,meads,corn-fields, a vale do crown.
A castle here shoots up, and there a town.
Here one with angle o'er a silver stream
With baneful bait the nibbling fish doth feed;
There in a plough'd-land, with his painful team,
The ploughman sweats,in hope for labour's meed...
Here sits a goatherd on a craggy rock,

And there in shade a shepherd with his flock.
The sweet delight of such a rare prospect
Might yield content unto a careful eye;
Yet down the rock descending in neglect
Of such delight, the sun now mounting high,
I sought the shade in vale, which low did lie,
Where we reposed us on a green-wood side,
A'front the which a silver stream did glide.
There dwelt sweet Philomel, who never more
May bide the abode of man's society,
Lest that some sterner Tereus than before,
Who cropt the flower of her virginity,
'Gainst her should plot some second villany;
Whose doleful tunes to mind did cause me call
The woful story of her former fall.

The redbreast, who in bush fast by did stand
As partner of her woes, his part did ply,
For that the gifts, with which Autumnus' hand
Had graced the earth, by winter's wrath should die,
From whose cold cheeks bleak blasts began to fly,

Which made me think upon my summer past
And winter's woes, which all my life should last.
My keeper, with compassion moved to see
How grief's impulsions in my breast did beat, [he,
Thus silence broke: "Would God (my Lord,) quoth
This pleasant land, which nature's hand hath set
Before your eyes, might cause you to forget
Your discontent, the object of the eye
Ofttimes gives ease to woes which inward lie.

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