The Duchess of Malfi' 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 dependent 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 peculiar 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.

[Gives her a dead man's hand.

To which you have vowed 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;

And the hand, as sure as the ring; and do not doubt

But you shall have the heart too: when you need a friend,
Send to him that owed it, and you shall see

Whether he can aid you.

DUCH. Yon are very cold:

I fear you are not well after your travel.

Ha! lights! O horrible!

FERD. Let her have lights enough.

DUCH. What witchcraft doth he practise, that he hath left
A dead man's hand here?

[Exit.

Here is discovered, behind a traverse, the artificial figures of ANTONIO and his chil

dren, appearing as if they were dead.

BosoLA. Look you, here's the piece from which 'twas ta'en.
He doth present you this sad spectacle,

That, now you know directly they are dead,

Hereafter you may wisely cease to grieve

For that which cannot be recovered.

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.

DUCH. Is he mad too?

Death of the Duchess.

Bos. I am come to make thy tomb.

DUCH. Ha! my tomb?

Thou speak'st as if I lay upon my death-bed,

Gasping for breath: Dost thou perceive me sick?

Bos. Yes, and the more dangerously, since thy sickness is insensible.
DUCH. Thou art not mad sure: dost know me?

Bos. Yes.

DUCH. Who am I?

Bos. Thou art a box of wormseed; at best but a salvatory of green mummy. What's this flesh? a 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 earth-worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a 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 com pass of our prison.

DUCH. Am not I thy duchess ?

Bos. Thou art some great woman, sure, for riot begins to sit on thy foreheadclad in gray hairs-twenty years sooner than on a merry milkmaid's. 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, 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 death-bed?

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,

I wish it in their veins to do them good.

Bos. This is your last presence-chamber.
CARIOLA. O my sweet lady.

DUCH. Peace! it affrights not me.
Bos. I am the common bellinan,

That usually is sent to condemned persons
The night before they suffer.

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.
A long war disturbed your mind;
Here your perfect peace is signed.

Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin, their conception: their birth, weeping:
Their life, a general mist of error;

Their death, a hideous storm of terror.
Strew your hair with powder sweet,

Don clean linen, bathe your feet:

And the foul fiend more to check

A crucifix let bless your neck.

"Tis now full tide "tween night and day:
End your groan, and come away.

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

Some syrup for his cold: and let the girl

Say her prayers ere she sleep.-Now what you please.

What death?

What would it pleasure me to have my throat cut

With diamonds ? or to be smothered

With cassia? or to be shot to death with pearls?

I know death hath ten thousand several doors

For men to take their exits; and 'tis found

They go on such strange geometrical hinges,

You may open them both ways: any way-for heaven sake-
So I were out of your whispering. Tell my brothers

That I perceive death-now I'm well awake

Best gift is they can give or I can take.

I would fain put off my last woman's fault;
I'd not be tedious to you.

Pull, and pull strongly, for your able strength
Must pull down heaven upon me.

Yet stay; heaven gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees. Come violent death,
Serve for mandragora to make me sleep.
Go, tell my brothers, when I am laid out.
They then may feed in quiet.

FERDINAND enters.

FERD. Is she dead?

Bos. She is what you would have her.

Fix your eye here.

FERD. Constantly.

Bos. Do you not weep?

Other sins only speak; murder shriks out.

The element of water moistens the earth,

[They stangle her, kneeling

But blood flies upwards, and bedews the heavens.

FERD. Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young.

Bos. I think not so: her infelicity

Seemed to have years too many.

FERD. She and I were twins:

And should I die this instant, I had lived

Her time to a minute.

THOMAS MIDDLETON.

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 Witch 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 Shakspeare'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 complained to King James of the insult, and Middleton-who at first 'shifted out of the way' and the poor players were brought before the privy-council. 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:

Books old and young on heap they flung,
And burned them in the blazes-
Tom Dekker, Heywood, Middleton,
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:
The treasures of the deep are not so precious,
As are the concealed comforts of a man
Locked 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!

The Witch' is also an Italian plot; but the supernatural 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 Caldron.

Black spirits and white; red spirits and gray;
Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.
Titty. Tiffin, keep it stiff in ;

Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky;
Liard, Robin, you must bob in:
Round, around, around, about, about;

All ill come running in; all good keep out!
1ST WITCH. Here 's the blood of a bat.
HECATE. Put in that; oh, put in that.
2D WITCH. Here's libbard's bane.

HEC. Put it in again.

1ST WITCH. The juice of toad, the oil of edder.

2D WITCH. Those will make the younker madder.

ALL. Round, around, around, &c.

The salary given to the city poet is incidentally mentioned by Jonson in a letter soliciting assistance from the Earl of Newcastle in 1631. Yesterday the barbarous Court of Aldermen have withdrawn their chandlery pension for verjuice and mustard-£33 68. 8d.