WESTWARD HOE. A COMEDY, BY THOMAS DECKER AND JOHN WEBSTER,

Sweet Pleasure!

Pleasure, the general pursuit,

Delicious Pleasure! earth's supremest good,

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The spring of blood, though it dry up our blood.
Rob me of that (though to be drunk with pleasure,
As rank excess even in best things is bad,
Turns man into a beast) yet, that being gone,
A horse, and this (the goodliest shape) all one.
We feed; wear rich attires; and strive to cleave
The stars with marble towers; fight battles; spend
Our blood, to buy us names; and in iron hold
Will we eat roots to imprison fugitive gold:
But to do thus what spell can us excite?
This; the strong magic of our appetite:
To feast which richly, life itself undoes.
Who'd not die thus ?

Why even those that starve in voluntary wants,
And, to advance the mind, keep the flesh poor,
The world enjoying them, they not the world;
Would they do this, but that they are proud to suck
A sweetness from such sourness?

Music.

Let music

Charm with her excellent voice an awful silence
Through all this building, that her sphery soul
May (on the wings of air) in thousand forms
Invisibly fly, yet be enjoy'd.

THE

THE HISTORY OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA. THE FIRST PART. BY JOHN MARSTON.

Andrugio Duke of Genoa, banished his country, with the loss of a son supposed drowned, is cast upon the territory of his mortal enemy the Duke of Venice; with no attendants but Lucio an old nobleman, and a page.

Andr. Is not yon gleam the shuddring Morn that flakes
With silver tincture the east verge of heaven?
Luc. I think it is, so please your Excellence.
Andr. Away, I have no Excellence to please.
Prithee observe the custom of the world;
That only flatters greatness, states exalts.
And please my Excellence! O Lucio,
Thou hast been ever held respected, dear,
Even precious to Andrugio's inmost love:
Good, flatter not.

My thoughts are fixt in contemplation
Why this huge earth, this monstrous animal
That eats her children, should not have eyes
Philosophy maintains that Nature's wise,
And forms no useless nor unperfect thing.

and ears,

Did Nature make the earth, or the earth Nature?
For earthly dirt makes all things, makes the man,

Moulds me up honour, and, like a cunning Dutchman,
Paints me a puppet even with seeming breath,

And gives a sot appearance of a soul.

Go to, go to; thou ly'st, Philosophy.

Nature forms things unperfect, useless, vain.

Why made she not the earth with eyes and ears?
That she might see desert and hear men's plaints;
That when a soul is splitted, sunk with grief,
He might fall thus upon the breast of Earth,
And in her ear halloo his misery,
Exclaiming thus: O thou all bearing Earth,

Which men do gape for till thou cram'st their mouths
And choaks't their throats with dust; open thy breast,
And let me sink into thee: look who knocks;
Andrugio calls. But O she's deaf and blind.
A wretch but lean relief on earth can find.

Luc. Sweet Lord, abandon passion; and disarm.
Since by the fortune of the tumbling sea

We are roll'd up upon the Venice marsh,

Let's clip all fortune, lest more low'ring fate

Andr. More low'ring fate! O Lucio, choak that breath.

Now I defy chance. Fortune's brow hath frown'd,

Even to the utmost wrinkle it can bend :

Her venom's spit. Alas! what country rests,
What son, what comfort, that she can deprive ?
Triumphs not Venice in my overthrow ?
Gapes not my native country for my blood?
Lies not my son tomb'd in the swelling main?
And in more low'ring fate? There's nothing left
Unto Andrugio but Andrugio;

And that

Nor mischief, force, distress, nor hell can take;
Fortune my fortunes not my mind shall shake.

Luc. Speak like yourself: but give me leave, my Lord, To wish your safety. If you are but seen,

Your arms display you; therefore put them off,
And take-

Andr. Would'st have me go unarm'd
among my foes?
Being besieg'd by Passion, entering lists
To combat with Despair and mighty Grief:
My soul beleaguer'd with the crushing strength
Of sharp Impatience. Ha, Lucio; go unarm'd?
Come, soul, resume the valour of thy birth;
Myself myself will dare all opposites:
I'll muster forces, an unvanquish'd power:
Cornets of horse shall press th' ungrateful earth;
This hollow-wombed mass shall inly groan
And murmur to sustain the weight of arms:
Ghastly Amazement, with upstarted hair,

Shall

Shall hurry on before, and usher us,

Whilst trumpets clamour with a sound of death.

Luc. Peace, good my lord, your speech is all too light. Alas, survey your fortunes, look what's left

Of all your forces and your utmost hopes;

A weak old man, à page, and your poor self.

Andr. Andrugio lives; and a Fair Cause of Arms.
Why, that's an army all invincible.

He who hath that, hath a battalion royal,
Armour of proof, huge troops of barbed steeds,
Main squares of pikes, millions of harquebush.
O, a Fair Cause stands firm, and will abide;
Legions of Angels fight upon her side.25

25 The situation of Andrugio and Lucio resembles that of Lear and Kent, in that King's distresses. Andrugio, like Lear, manifests a kind of royal impatience, a turbulent greatness, an affected resignation. The Enemies which he enters lists to combat, "Despair, and mighty Grief, and sharp Impatience," and the Forces ("Cornets of Horse," &c.) which he brings to vanquish them, are in the boldest style of Allegory. They are such a "race of mourners" as "the infection of sorrows loud" in the intellect might beget on 66 some pregnant cloud "in the imagination.

ANTONIO'S REVENGE. THE SECOND PART OF
THE HISTORY OF ANTONIO AND MELLIDA.
BY JOHN MARSTON.

The Prologue.26

The rawish dank of clumsy winter ramps

The fluent summer's vein: and drizzling sleet
Chilleth the wan bleak cheek of the numm'd earth,
Whilst snarling gusts nibble the juiceless leaves

From the nak'd shuddring branch, and pills26 the skin
From off the soft and delicate aspects.

O now methinks a sullen tragic scene

Would suit the time with pleasing congruence.
May we be happy in our weak devoir,
And all part pleased in most wish'd content.
But sweat of Hercules can ne'er beget
So blest an issue. Therefore we proclaim,
If any spirit breathes within this round
Uncapable of weighty passion,

(As from his birth being hugged in the arms
And nuzled 'twixt the breasts of Happiness28)
Who winks and shuts his apprehension up

From common sense of what men were, and are;
Who would not know what men must be let such
Hurry amain from our black visag'd shows;
We shall affright their eyes. But if a breast,

26 This Prologue for its passionate earnestness, and for the tragic note of preparation which it sounds, might have preceded one of those old tales of Thebes, or Pelops' line, which Milton has so highly commended, as free from the common error of the poets in his days," of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity, brought in without discretion corruptly to gratify the people."It is as solemn a preparative as the "warning voice which he who saw th' Apocalyps, heard cry"-.

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27 peels.

"Sleek favorites of Fortune." Preface to Poems by S. T. Coleridge.

Nail'd