Ger. Only thus far:

Your husband's old; to whom my soul does wish
A Nestor's age, so much he merits from me;
Yet if (as proof and nature daily teach,

Men cannot always live, especially

Such as are old and crazed ;) he be call'd hence,
Fairly, in full maturity of time,

And we two be reserv❜d to after life;

Will you confer your widow-hood on me?
Wife. You ask the thing I was about to beg;
Your tongue hath spoke mine own thoughts.
Ger. Tis enough, that word

Alone instates me happy: now, so please you,
We will divide; you to your private chamber,
I to find out my friend.

Wife. You are now my brother;

But then, my second husband.

[They part.

Young Geraldine absents himself from the House of Mr. Wincott longer than is usual to him. The old Gentleman sends for him, to find out the reason.-He pleads his Father's commands.

Wincott. Geraldine.

Ger. With due acknowledgment
Of all your more than many courtesies :

You have been my second father, and your wife
My noble and chaste mistress; all your servants
At my command; and this your bounteous table
As free and common as my father's house:
Neither 'gainst any or the least of these
Can I commence just quarrel.

Win. What might then be

The cause of this constraint, in thus absenting
Yourself from such as love you?

Ger. Out of many,

I will propose some few: the care I have

Of your (as yet unblemished) renown ;
The untoucht honour of your virtuous wife;
And (which I value least, yet dearly too)
My own fair reputation.

Win. How can these
In any way be question'd?
Ger. Oh, dear sir,

Bad tongues have been too busy with us all;
Of which I never yet had time to think,
But with sad thoughts and griefs unspeakable.
It hath been whisper'd by some wicked ones,
But loudly thunder'd in my father's ears,
By some that have malign'd our happiness;
(Heaven, if it can brook slander, pardon them)
That this my customary coming hither,
Hath been to base and sordid purposes;
To wrong your bed, injure her chastity,
And be mine own undoer: which, how false
Win. As heaven is true, I know it
Ger. Now this calumny
Arriving first unto my father's ears,
His easy nature was induced to think
That these things might perhaps be possible:
I answer'd him, as I would do to heaven,
And clear'd myself in his suspicious thoughts
As truly, as the high all-knowing judge
Shall of these stains acquit me; which are meerly
Aspersions and untruths. The good old man
Possest with my sincerity, and yet careful
Of your renown, her honour, and my fame,
To stop the worst that scandal could inflict,
And to prevent false rumours, charges me,
The cause remov'd, to take away the effect;
Which only could be, to forbear your house:
And this upon his blessing. You hear all.

Win. And I of all acquit you this your absence,
With which my love most cavill'd, orators

In your behalf. Had such things pass'd betwixt you,

Not

Not threats nor chidings could have driv'n you hence;
It pleads in your behalf, and speaks in her's;
And arms me with a double confidence
Both of your friendship and her loyalty.
I am happy in you both, and only doubtful
Which of you two doth most impart my love.
You shall not hence to-night.

Ger. Pray, pardon, sir.

Win. You are in your lodging.

Ger. But my father's charge.

Win. My conjuration shall dispense with that; You may be up as early as you please,

But hence to-night you shall not.

Ger. You are powerful.

Traveller's Stories.

Sir, my husband

Hath took much pleasure in your strange discourse
About Jerusalem and the Holy Land;
How the new city differs from the old ;
What ruins of the Temple yet remain ;
And whether Sion, and those hills about,
With these adjacent towns and villages,
Keep that proportion'd distance as we read:
And then in Rome, of that great Pyramis
Rear'd in the front, on four lions mounted;
How many of those Idol temples stand,
First dedicated to their heathen gods,
Which ruin'd, which to better use repair'd;
Of their Pantheon, and their Capitol ;
What structures are demolish'd, what remain.

And what more pleasure to an old man's ear,
That never drew save his own country's air,
Than hear such things related?

Shipwreck by Drink.

This Gentleman and I

Past but just now by your next neighbour's house,

Where

Where, as they say, dwells one young Lionel,
An unthrift youth: his father now at sea.
There this night

Was a great feast.

In the height of their carousing, all their brains
Warm'd with the heat of wine, discourse was offer'd
Of ships and storms at sea: when suddenly,
Out of his giddy wildness, one conceives
The room wherein they quaff'd to be a Pinnace,
Moving and floating, and the confus'd noise
To be the murmuring winds, gusts, mariners;
That their unsteadfast footing did proceed
From rocking of the vessel: This conceiv'd,
Each one begins to apprehend the danger,
And to look out for safety. Fly, saith one,
Up to the main top, and discover. He
Climbs by the bed-post to the tester there,
Reports a turbulent sea and tempest towards
And wills them, if they 'll save their ship and lives,
To cast their lading over-board. At this
All fall to work, and hoist into the street,
As to the sea, what next came to their hand,
Stools, tables, tressels, trenchers, bed-steds, cups,
Pots, plate, and glasses. Here a fellow whistles;
They take him for the boatswain: one lies struggling
Upon the floor, as if he swum for life:

;

A third takes the base-viol for the cock-boat,
Sits in the belly on't, labours, and rows;
His oar, the stick with which the fidler plaid:
A fourth bestrides his fellow, thinking to scape
(As did Arion) on the dolphin's back,

Still fumbling on a gittern. The rude multitude,
Watching without, and gaping for the spoil

Cast from the windows, went by th' ears about it;
The Constable is call'd to atone the broil;

Which done, and hearing such a noise within

Of eminent ship-wreck, enters th' house, and finds them In this confusion: they adore his Staff,

And

And think it Neptune's Trident; and that he
Comes with his Tritons (so they call'd his watch)
To calm the tempest and appease the waves:
And at this point we left them.45

45 This piece of pleasant exaggeration (which for its life and humour might have been told, or acted, by Petruchio himself) gave rise to the title of Cowley's Latin Play, Naufragium Joculare, and furnished the idea of the best scene in it.-Heywood's Preface to this Play is interesting, as it shews the heroic indifference about posterity, which some of these great writers seem to have felt. There is a magnanimity in Authorship as in every thing else.

"If Reader thou hast of this play been an Auditor, there is less apology to be used by intreating thy patience. This Tragi-comedy (being 1 reserved amongst 220 in which I had either an entire hand or at the least a main finger) coming accidentally to the press, and I having intelligence thereof, thought it not fit that it should pass as filius populi, a Bastard without a father to acknowledge it: true it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of works (as others *) one reason is that many of them by shifting and change of companies, have been negligently lost. Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print, and a third that it never was any great ambition in me to be in this kind voluminously read. All that I have further to say at this time is only this: censure I entreat as favourably as it is exposed to thy view freely. Ever

Studious of thy Pleasure and Profit
TH. HEYWOOD."

Of the 220 pieces which he here speaks of having been concerned in, only 25, as enumerated by Dodsley, have come down to us, for the reasons assigned in the preface. The rest have perished, exposed to the casualties of a theatre. Heywood's ambition seems to have been confined to the pleasure of hearing the Players speak his lines while he lived. It does not appear that he ever contemplated the possibility of being read by after ages. What a slender pittance of fame was motive sufficient to the production of such Plays as the English Traveller, the Challenge for Beauty, and the Woman Killed with Kindness! Posterity is bound to take care that a Writer loses nothing by such a noble modesty.

* He seems to glance at Ben Jonson.

THE