THE WITCH OF EDMONTON. A TRAGI-COMEDY. BY WILLIAM ROWLEY, THOMAS DECKER, JOHN FORD, &c. MOTHER SAWYER, (before she turns Witch) alone. Saw. And why on me why should the envious world Throw all their scandalous malice upon me? 'Cause I am poor, deform'd, and ignorant, And like a bow buckled and bent together By some more strong in mischiefs than myself; Must I for that be made a common sink For all the filth and rubbish of men's tongues To fall and run into? Some call me Witch, And being ignorant, of myself, they go About to teach me how to be one : urging That my bad tongue (by their bad usage made so) Forespeaks their cattle, doth bewitch their corn, Themselves, their servants, and their babes at nurse : This they enforce upon me; and in part Make me to credit it.59 Banks, a Farmer, enters. Banks. Out, out upon thee, Witch. Saw. Dost call me Witch? Banks. I do, Witch, I do: And worse I would, knew I a name more hateful. What makest thou upon my ground? Suw. Gather a few rotten sticks to warm me. Banks. Down with them when I bid thee, quickly; I'll make thy bones rattle in thy skin else. Saw. You wont? churl, cut-throat, miser: there they be. Would they stuck cross thy throat, thy bowels, thy maw, thy midriff 59 This Soliloquy anticipates all that Addison has said in the conclusion of the 117th Spectator. Banks. Banks. Say'st thou me so? Hag, out of my ground. Saw. Dost strike me, slave, curmudgeon? Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, And convulsions stretch and crack thy sinews. Banks. Cursing, thou hag? take that, and that. [Exit. Saw. Strike, do: and wither'd may that hand and arm Whose blows have lam'd me, drop from the rotten trunk. Abuse me! beat me! call me hag and witch! What is the name, where, and by what art learn'd? May the thing call'd Familiar be purchased? I am shunn'd And hated like a sickness: made a scorn To all degrees and sexes. I have heard old beldams Rats, ferrets, weasels, and I wot not what, That have appear'd; and suck'd, some say, their blood. Upon this churl, I'd go out of myself, Blasphemous speeches, oaths, detested oaths, To be a witch as to be counted one. She gets a Familiar which serves her in the likeness of u Black Dog. MOTHER SAWYER. Familiar. Saw. I am dried up With cursing and with madness; and have yet Stand Stand on thy hind-legs up. Kiss me, my Tommy; By making my old ribs to shrug for joy Of thy fine tricks. What hast thou done? Let's tickle. Hast thou struck the horse lame as I bid thee? Famil. Yes, and nipt the sucking-child. Saw. Ho, ho, my dainty, My little pearl. No lady loves her hound, Monkey, or parakeet, as I do thee. Famil. The maid has been churning butter nine hours, but it shall not come. Saw. Let 'm eat cheese and choak. Famil. I had rare sport Among the clowns in the morrice. Saw. I could dance Out of my skin to hear thee. That jade, that foul-tongued But, my curl-pate, Who, for a little soap lick'd by my sow, Struck, and had almost lamed it: did not I charge thee To pinch that quean to the heart? * * * Her Familiar absents himself: she invokes him. Saw. Not see me in three days? I'm lost without my Tomalin; prithee come; Revenge to me is sweeter far than life: Thou art my raven, on whose coal-black wings Revenge comes flying to me: Oh, my I am on fire (even in the midst of ice) Raking my blood up, till my shrunk knees feel Thy curl'd head leaning on them. darling, best love, * Come then, my Art thou i'the sea? If in the air thou hover'st, fall upon me Like a swift powder-mine beneath the world, Though I lay ruin'd in it. Not yet come? I must then fall to my old prayer: sanctibiceter nomen tuum. He comes in White. Saw. Why dost thou thus appear to me in white, As if thou wert the ghost of my dear love? Fumil. I am dogged, list not to tell thee, yet to torment thee, My whiteness puts thee in mind of thy winding sheet. Famil. Be blasted with the news. Whiteness is day's footboy, a fore-runner to light, which shews thy old rivel'd face: villainies are stript naked, the witch must be beaten out of her Saw. Why to mine eyes art thou a flag of truce? 60 Mother Sawyer differs from the hags of Middleton or Shakspeare. She is the plain traditional old woman Witch of our ancestors; poor, deformed, and ignorant; the terror of villages, herself amenable to a justice. That should be a hardy sheriff, with the power of the county at his heels, that would lay hands on the Weird Sisters. They are of another jurisdiction. But upon the common and received opinion the author (or authors) have engrafted strong fancy. There is something frightfully earnest in her invocations to the Familiar. THE HE ATHEIST'S TRAGEDY; OR THE HONEST MAN'S REVENGE. BY CYRIL TOURNEUR. D'Amville (the Atheist) with the aid of his wicked instrument, Borachio, murders his Brother, Montferrers, for his Estate. After the deed is done, Borachio and he talk together of the circumstances which attended the murder. D'Am. Here's a sweet comedy, begins with O dolentis, and concludes with ha, ha, he. Bor. Ha, ha, he. D'Am. O my echo! I could stand reverberating this sweet musical air of joy, till I had perished my sound lungs with violent laughter. Lovely nightraven, thou hast seized a carcase? Bor. Put him out on's pain. I lay so fitly underneath the bank from whence he fell, that ere his faultering tongue could utter double O, I knocked out his brains with this fair ruby; and had another stone just of this form and bigness ready, that I laid in the broken scull upon the ground for his pillow, against the which they thought he fell and perished. D'Am. Upon this ground I'll build my manor house, And this shall be chiefest corner stone. Bor. This crown'd the most judicious murder, that The brain of man was e'er deliver'd of. D'Am. Aye, mark the plot. Not any circumstance That stood within the reach of the design, Of persons, dispositions, matter, time, Or place, but by this brain of mine was made The induction to the accomplishment seem'd forced, |