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Examining of the general circumstance,
Seeing your sorrow and your penitence,
And hearing therewithal the great desire
You have to see him e'er you left the world,
He gave to us his faith to follow us;

And sure he will be here immediately.

Mrs. Fra. You have half reviv'd me with the pleasing

news:

Raise me a little higher in my bed.

Blush I not, brother Acton? blush I not, sir Charles ? Can you not read my fault writ in my cheek?

Is not my crime there? tell me, gentlemen.

Char. Alas! good mistress, sickness hath not left you Blood in your face enough to make you blush.

Is

Mrs. Fra. Then sickness like a friend my fault would hide.

my husband come? my soul but tarries

His arrival, then I am fit for heaven.

Acton. I came to chide you, but my words of hate Are turn'd to pity and compassionate grief.

I came to rate you, but my brawls, you see,

Melt into tears, and I must weep by thee.
Here's mr. Frankford now.

Mr. Frankford enters.

Fran. Good-morrow, brother; morrow, gentlemen :
God, that hath laid this cross upon our heads,

Might (had he pleas'd) have made our cause of meeting
On a more fair and more contented ground:

But he that made us, made us to this woe.

Mrs. Fra. And is he come? methinks that voice 1

know.

Fran. How do you, woman?

Mrs. Fra. Well, mr. Frankford, well; but shall be

better

I hope within this hour. Will you vouchsafe

(Out of your grace, and your humanity) To take a spotted strumpet by the hand?

Fran.

Fran. This hand once held my heart in faster bonds
Than now 'tis grip'd by me. God pardon them
That made us first break hold.

Mrs. Fra. Amen, amen.

Out of my zeal to heaven, whither I'm now bound,
I was so impudent to wish you here;

And once more beg your pardon. Oh! good man,
And father to my children, pardon me.

Pardon, O pardon me: my fault so heinous is,
That if you in this world forgive it not,
Heaven will not clear it in the world to come.
Faintness hath so usurp'd upon my knees

That kneel I cannot: but on my heart's knees
My prostrate soul lies thrown down at your feet
To beg your gracious pardon. Pardon, O pardon

me!

Fran. As freely from the low depth of my soul As my Redeemer hath for us given his death,

I pardon thee; I will shed tears for thee;

Pray with thee:

And, in mere pity of thy weak estate,

I'll wish to die with thee.

All. So do we all.

Fran. Even as I hope for pardon at that day,
When the great judge of heaven in scarlet sits,
So be thou pardon'd. Tho' thy rash offence
Divorc'd our bodies, thy repentant tears
Unite our souls.

Char. Then comfort, mistress Frankford;
You see your husband hath forgiven your fall;

Then rouze your spirits, and cheer your fainting soul.

Susan. How is it with you?

Acton. How d'ye feel yourself?

Mrs. Fra. Not of this world.

Fran. I see you are not, and I weep to see it.

My wife, the mother to my pretty babes;
Both those lost names I do restore thee back,

And

And with this kiss I wed thee once again :
Tho' thou art wounded in thy honour'd name,
And with that grief upon thy death bed liest;
Honest in heart, upon my soul, thou diest.

Mrs. Fra. Pardon'd on earth, soul, thou in heaven art free

Once more. Thy wife dies thus embracing thee. 13

43 Heywood is a sort of prose Shakspeare. His scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. But we miss the Poet, that which in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface of the nature, Heywood's characters, his Country Gentlemen, &c. are exactly what we see (but of the best kind of what we see) in life. Shakspeare makes us believe, while we are among his lovely creations, that they are nothing but what we are familiar with, as in dreams new things seem old; but we awake, and sigh for the difference.

THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER.

HEYWOOD.

BY THOMAS

Young Geraldine comes home from his Travels, and finds his Playfellow, that should have been his Wife, married to old Wincott. The old Gentleman receives him hospitably, as a Friend of his Father's; takes delight to hear him tell of his Travels, and treats him in all respects like a second Father; his House being always open to him. Young Geraldine and the Wife agree not to wrong the old Gentleman.

Wife. Geraldine.

Ger. We now are left alone.

Wife. Why, say we be; who should be jealous of us? This is not first of many hundred nights,

That we two have been private, from the first

Of our acquaintance; when our tongues but clipt
Our mother's tongue, and could not speak it plain,
We knew each other: as in stature, so

Increast our sweet society. Since your travel,
And my late marriage, through my husband's love,
Mid-night has been as mid-day, and my bed-chamber
As free to you, as your own father's house,
And you as welcome to it.

Ger. I must confess,

It is in you, your noble courtesy ;
In him, a more than common confidence,
And, in his age, can scarce find precedent.
Wife. Most true: it is withal an argument,
That both our virtues are so deep imprest
In his good thoughts, he knows we cannot err.
Ger. A villain were he, to deceive such trust,
Or (were there one) a much worse character.
Wife. And she no less, whom either beauty, youth,
I

Time,

Time, place, or opportunity could tempt
To injure such a husband.

Ger. You deserve,

"Even for his sake, to be for ever young;
And he, for yours, to have his youth renew'd:
So mutual is your true conjugal love.
Yet had the fates so pleas'd-

Wife. I know your meaning.

It was once voic'd, that we two should have matcht;
The world so thought and many tongues so spake ;
But heaven hath now dispos'd us other ways:
And being as it is (a thing in me

Which I protest was never wisht nor sought),
Now done, I not repent it.

Ger. In those times

Of all the treasures of my hopes and love

You were th' Exchequer, they were stored in you;
And had not my unfortunate Travel crost them,
They had been here reserv'd still.

Wife. Troth they had,

I should have been your trusty Treasurer.
Ger. However, let us love still, I entreat;
That, neighbourhood and breeding will allow ;
So much, the laws divine and human both
Twixt brother and a sister will
approve :
Heaven then forbid that they should limit us
Wish well to one another.

Wife. If they should not,

We might proclaim they were not charitable,
Which were a deadly sin but to conceive.
Ger. Will you resolve me one thing?

Wife. As to one,

That in my bosom hath a second place,
Next my dear husband.

Ger. That's the thing I crave,

And only that; to have a place next him.

Wife. Presume on that already, but perhaps

You mean to stretch it further.

Ger.

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