Jonson, of being a slow writer, but he consoles himself with the example of Euripides, and confesses that he did not write with a goose quill winged with two feathers. In this slighted play there are some exquisite touches of pathos and natural feeling. The grief of a group of mourners over a dead body is thus described : I found them winding of Marcello's corse, "Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies, To which you have vow'd much love: the ring upon't You gave. Duch. I affectionately kiss it. Ferd. Pray do, and bury the print of it in your heart. I will leave this ring with you for a love token; Send to him that ow'd it, and you shall see Duch. You are very cold: Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, be- I fear you are not well after your travel. lieve me, I had no eyes to guide me forth the room, The funeral dirge for Marcello, sung by his mother, possesses, says Charles Lamb, that intenseness of feeling which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates :' Call for the robin red-breast and the wren, And with leaves and flowers do cover The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm, And, when gay tombs are robb'd, sustain no harm; But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again. The following couplet has been admired : Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; But, look'd to near, have neither heat nor light. The Duchess of Malfy' abounds more in the terrible graces. It turns on the mortal offence which the lady gives to her two proud brothers, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, and a cardinal, by indulging in a generous though infatuated passion for Antonio, her steward. This passion,' Mr Dyce justly remarks, a subject most difficult to treat, is managed with infinite delicacy; and, in a situation of great peril for the author, she condescends without being degraded, and declares the affection with which her dependant had inspired her without losing anything of dignity and respect.' The last scenes of the play are conceived in a spirit which every intimate student of our elder dramatic literature must feel to be pecu liar to Webster. The duchess, captured by Bosola, is brought into the presence of her brother in an imperfect light, and is taught to believe that he wishes to be reconciled to her. [Scene from the Duchess of Malfy.] Ferd. Where are you? Duch. Here, sir. Ferd. This darkness suits you well. Duch. I would ask you pardon. Ferd. You have it; For I account it the honourablest revenge, Ha! lights! O horrible! Ferd. Let her have lights enough. [Exit. Duch. What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left A dead man's hand here? [Here is discovered, behind a traverse, the artificial figures of Antonio and his children, appearing as if they were dead.] Bos. Look you, here's the piece from which 'twas ta'en. He doth present you this sad spectacle, Duch. There is not between heaven and earth one wish I stay for after this. Afterwards, by a refinement of cruelty, the brother sends a troop of madmen from the hospital to make a concert round the duchess in prison. After they have danced and sung, Bosola enters disguised as an old man. [Death of the Duchess.] Duch. Is he mad too? Bos. I am come to make thy tomb. Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my deathbed, Duch. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me! Bos. Yes. Duch. Who am I? salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh! little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those paper-prisons boys use to keep flies in, more contemptible; since ours is to preserve earthworms. Didst thou ever see a lark in cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world is like her little turf of grass; and the heaven o'er our heads like her looking glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison. Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a Duch. Am not I thy duchess ? Bos. Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy forehead (clad in grey hairs) Where I may kill, to pardon. Where are your cubs ? twenty years' sooner than on a merry milkmaid's Duch. Whom? Thou sleepest worse, than if a mouse should be forced to take up her lodging in a cat's ear: a little infant that breeds its teeth, should it lie with thee, would cry out, as if thou wert the more unquiet bedfellow. Duch. I am Duchess of Malfy still. Bos. That makes thy sleeps so broken. Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; But, look'd to near, have neither heat nor light. Duch. Thou art very plain. Bos. My trade is to flatter the dead, not the living. I am a tomb-maker. Duch. And thou comest to make my tomb! Duch. Let me be a little merry. Of what stuff wilt thou make it? Bos. Nay, resolve me first; of what fashion? Duch. Why, do we grow fantastical in our deathbed? Do we affect fashion in the grave? Bos. Most ambitiously. Princes' images on their tombs do not lie as they were wont, seeming to pray up to heaven but with their hands under their cheeks (as if they died of the toothache): they are not carved with their eyes fixed upon the stars; but, as their minds were wholly bent upon the world, the self-same way they seem to turn their faces. Duch. Let me know fully, therefore, the effect Of this thy dismal preparation, This talk, fit for a charnel. Bos. Now I shall. [A coffin, cords, and a bell produced. Here is a present from your princely brothers; And may it arrive welcome, for it brings Last benefit, last sorrow. Duch. Let me see it. I have so much obedience in my blood, Duch. Peace, it affrights not me. That usually is sent to condemn'd persons Duch. Even now thou saidst Thou wast a tomb-maker. Bos. "Twas to bring you By degrees to mortification: Listen. Dirge. Hark, now every thing is still; This screech-owl, and the whistler shrill, Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly don her shroud. Much you had of land and rent; Your length in clay 's now competent. Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping? Tis now full tide 'tween night and day: Car. Hence, villains, tyrants, murderers: alas ! What will you do with my lady? Call for help. Duch. To whom; to our next neighbours? They are mad folks. Farewell, Cariola. I pray thee look thou giv'st my little boy Bos. Strangling. Here are your executioners. The apoplexy, catarrh, or cough o' the lungs, Bos. Doth not death fright you? Knowing to meet such excellent company With cassia or to be shot to death with pearls ? So I were out of your whispering: tell my brothers Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength Yet stay, heaven gates are not so highly arch'd [They strangle her, kneeling. A conjecture that an old neglected drama by THOMAS MIDDLETON supplied the witchcraft scenery, and part of the lyrical incantations, of Macbeth,' has kept alive the name of this poet. So late as 1778, Middleton's play, the Wich, was first published by Reed from the author's manuscript. It is possible that the 'Witch' may have preceded Macbeth;' but as the latter was written in the fulness of Shak. speare's fame and genius, we think it is more probable that the inferior author was the borrower. He may have seen the play performed, and thus caught the spirit and words of the scenes in question; or, for aught we know, the 'Witch' may not have been written till after 1623, when Shakspeare's first folio appeared. We know that after this date Middleton was writing for the stage, as, in 1624, his play, A Game at Chess, was brought out, and gave great offence at court, by bringing on the stage the king of Spain, and his ambassador, Gondomar. The latter dleton (who at first shifted out of the way') and complained to King James of the insult, and Midthe poor players were brought before the privycouncil. They were only reprimanded for their audacity in bringing modern Christian kings upon the stage.' If the dramatic sovereign had been James himself, nothing less than the loss of ears and noses would have appeased offended royalty! Middleton wrote about twenty plays: in 1603, we find him assisting Dekker at a court-pageant, and he was afterwards concerned in different pieces with Rowley, Webster, and other authors. He would seem to have been well-known as a dramatic writer. On Shrove Tuesday, 1617, the London apprentices, in an idle riot, demolished the Cockpit Theatre, and an old ballad describing the circumstance, states 14 Books old and young on heap they flung, And other wandering crazys. In 1620, Middleton was made chronologer, or city poet, of London, an office afterwards held by Ben Jonson, and which expired with Settle in 1724. He died in July 1627. The dramas of Middleton have no strongly-marked character; his best is Women Beware of Women, a tale of love and jealousy, from the Italian. The following sketch of married happiness is delicate, and finely expressed : [Happiness of Married Life.] How near am I now to a happiness That earth exceeds not! not another like it : Able to draw men's envies upon man; Hec. What! Firestone, our sweet son ! Fire. A little sweeter than some of you; or a dunghill were too good for one. Hec. How much hast there! Fire. Nineteen, and all brave plump ones; besides six lizzards, and three serpentine eggs. Hec. Dear and sweet boy! What herbs hast thou! Fire. I have some mar-martin and mandragon. Hec. Mar-maritin and mandragora thou would'st say. Fire. Here's pannax too. I thank thee; my pan akes, I am sure, with kneeling down to cut 'em. Hec. And selago. Were they all cropt by moonlight! The Witch' is also an Italian plot, but the superna-Hedge Hissop too! How near he goes my cuttings! tural agents of Middleton are the old witches of legendary story, not the dim mysterious unearthly beings that accost Macbeth on the blasted heath. The Charm Song' is much the same in both : The Witches going about the Cauldron. Black spirits and white; red spirits and grey; All ill come running in; all good keep out ! 1st Witch. The juice of toad, the oil of adder. The flight of the witches by moonlight is described with a wild gusto and delight; if the scene was written before Macbeth,' Middleton deserves the credit of true poetical imagination: : Enter HECATE, STADLIN, HOPPO, and other Witches. Hec. The moon's a gallant; see how brisk she rides! Stad. Here's a rich evening, Hecate. Hec. Ay, is't not, wenches, To take a journey of five thousand miles ? Hec. Oh, it will be precious. Heard you the owl yet? As we came through now. Fire. Every blade of 'em, or I'm a mooncalf, mother. Hec. Hie thee home with 'em. Look well to th' house to-night; I am for aloft. Fire. Aloft, quoth you! I would you would break your neck once, that I might have all quickly. [Aside.]-Hark, hark, mother! they are above the steeple already, flying over your head with a noise of musicians. Hec. They are, indeed; help me! help me! I'm too late else. Hec. [Above.] Here. And Hoppo too, and Hellwain too: Hec. I will but 'noint and then I mount. [A Spirit descends in the shape of a cat. [Above.] There's one come down to fetch his dues; A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood; And why thou stay'st so long, I muse, I muse, Hec. Oh, art thou come; What news, what news? Spirit. All goes still to our delight, Refuse, refuse. Hec. Now, I am furnish'd for the flight. Fire. Hark, hark! The cat sings a brave treble in her own language. Hec. [Ascending with the Spirit.] Now I go, now I fly, When the moon shines fair, And sing, and dance, and toy and kiss! JOHN MARSTON. ROBERT TAYLOR-WILLIAM ROWLEY-CYRIL TOURNEUR. Among the other dramatists at this time may be mentioned ROBERT TAYLOR, author of the Hog hath Lost his Pearl; WILLIAM ROWLEY, an actor and joint writer with Middleton and Dekker, who produced several plays; CYRIL TOURNEUR, author of two good dramas, the Atheist's Tragedy and the Revenger's Tragedy. A tragi-comedy, the Witch of Edmonton, is remarkable as having been the work of at least three authors-Rowley, Dekker, and Ford. It embodies, in a striking form, the vulgar superstitions respecting witchcraft, which so long debased the popular mind in England : [Scene from the Witch of Edmonton.] MOTHER SAWYER alone. Saw. And why on me? why should the envious world JOHN MARSTON, a rough and vigorous satirist and dramatic writer, produced his Malcontent, a comedy, prior to 1600; his Antonio and Mellida, a tragedy, in 1602; the Insatiate Countess, What You Will, and other plays, written between the latter date and 1634, when he died. He was also connected with Throw all their scandalous malice upon me? Jonson and Chapman in the composition of the un- 'Cause I am poor, deform'd, and ignorant, fortunate comedy, Eastward Hoe. In his subsequent And like a bow buckled and bent together quarrel with Jonson, Marston was satirised by Ben By some more strong in mischiefs than myself; in his Poetaster,' under the name of Demetrius. Must I for that be made a common sink Marston was author of two volumes of miscellaneous For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues poetry, translations, and satires, one of which (Pig-To fall and run into? Some call me witch, malion's Image) was ordered to be burned for its And being ignorant of myself, they go 'icentiousness. Mr Collier, who states that Marston About to teach me how to be one : urging seems to have attracted a good deal of attention in That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) his own day, quotes from a contemporary diary the Forespeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, following anecdote:- Nov. 21, 1602.-Jo. Marston, Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse : the last Christmas, when he danced with Alderman This they enforce upon me; and in part More's wife's daughter, a Spaniard born, fell into a strange commendation of her wit and beauty. When he had done, she thought to pay him home, and told him she thought he was a poet. 'Tis true, said he, for poets feign and lie; and so did I when I commended your beauty, for you are exceeding foul.' This coarseness seems to have been characteristic of Marston: his comedies contain strong biting satires, but he is far from being a moral writer. Hazlitt says, his forte was not sympathy either with the stronger or softer emotions, but an impatient scorn and bitter indignation against the vices and follies of men, which vented itself either in comic irony or in lofty invective. The following humorous sketch of a scholar and his dog is worthy of Shakspeare:I was a scholar: seven useful springs Did I deflower in quotations Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man; Then, an it were mortal. O hold, hold; at that Make me to credit it. BANKS, a Farmer, enters. And worse I would, knew I a name more hateful. Saw. Gather a few rotten sticks to warm me. Saw. You won't! churl, cut-throat, miser! there they be. Would they stuck 'cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. Saw. Strike, do and wither'd may that hand and arm, Whose blows have lam'd me, drop from the rotten Abuse me! beat me! call me hag and witch! And hated like a sickness; made a scorn Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, And study curses, imprecations, [A Drowned Soldier.] [From Tourneur's' Atheist's Tragedy.'"] Walking upon the fatal shore, A man that folds his arms, or wrings his hands, An anonymous play, the Return from Parnassus, was acted by the students of St John's college, Cambridge, about the year 1602: it is remarkable for containing criticisms on contemporary authors, all poets. Each author is summoned up for judgment, and dismissed after a few words of commendation or censure. Some of these poetical criticisms are finely written, as well as curious. Of Spenser A sweeter swan than ever sung in Po; The following extract introduces us to Marlow, Jonson, and Shakspeare; but to the latter only as the author of the Venus' and 'Lucrece.' Ingenioso reads out the names, and Judicio pronounces judg ment: Ing. Christopher Marlow. Jud. Marlow was happy in his buskin'd muse; Jud. The wittiest fellow of a bricklayer in England. Jud. Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape; The author afterwards introduces Kempe and Bur- GEORGE COOKE-THOMAS NABBES-NATHANTEL FIELD DOLPH-RICHARD BROME. A lively comedy, called Green's Tu Quoque, was written by GEORGE COOKE, a contemporary of Shakspeare. THOMAS NABBES (died about 1645) was the author of Microcosmus, a masque, and of several other plays. In 'Microcosmus' is the following fine song of love : Welcome, welcome, happy pair, No winter's ice, no summer's scorching beam; Day always springing from eternal light. Here in endless bliss abide. NATHANIEL FIELD (who was one of the actors in Ben Jonson's 'Poetaster') began to write for the stage Weathercock, Amends for Ladies, &c. He had the about 1609 or 1610, and produced Woman is a honour of being associated with Massinger in the composition of the Fatal Dowry. JOHN DAY, in conjunction with Chettle, wrote the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, a popular comedy, and was also author of two or three other plays, and some miscellaneous poems. HENRY GLAPTHORNE is mentioned as one of the chiefest dramatic poets of the reign of Charles I. Five of his plays are printed-Albertus Wallenstein, the Hollander, Argalus and Parthenia, Wit in a Constable, the Lady's Privilege, &c. There is a certain smoothness and prettiness of expression about Glapthorne (particularly in his 'Albertus'), but he is deficient in passion and energy. THOMAS RANDOLPH (1607-1634) wrote the Muses' LookingGlass, the Jealous Lovers, &c. In an anonymous play, Sweetman the Woman-hater, is the following happy simile: Justice, like lightning, ever should appear To few men's ruin, but to all men's fear. RICHARD BROME, one of the best of the secondary dramatists, produced several plays, the Antipodes, the City Wit, the Court Beggar, &c. Little is known of the personal history of these authors: a few scattered dates usually make up the whole amount of their biography. The public demand for theatrical novelties called forth a succession of writers in this popular and profitable walk of literature, who seem to have discharged their ephemeral tasks, and sunk with their works into oblivion. The glory of Shakspeare has revived some of the number, like halos style and thought, is visible on the pages of most of round his name; and the rich stamp of the age, in them. PHILIP MASSINGER. The reign of James produced no other tragic poet equal to PHILIP MASSINGER, an unfortunate author, whose life was spent in obscurity and poverty, and |