Vittoria Corombona, an Italian. Her mate is a duke, an adulterous lover, another devil, to whom she says:

To pass away the time, I'll tell your grace

A dream I had last night. . .

Methought I walk'd about the mid of night,
Into a church-yard, where a goodly yew-tree

Spread her large root in ground. Under that yew,

As I sat sadly leaning on a grave

Checquer'd with cross-sticks, there came stealing in
Your duchess and my husband; one of them

A pick-axe bore, th' other a rusty spade,

And in rough terms they 'gan to challenge me
About this yew.

They told me my intent was to root up

That well-known yew, and plant i' th' stead of it

A wither'd black-thorn: and for that they vow'd

To bury me alive. My husband straight

With pick-axe 'gan to dig; and your fell duchess

With shovel, like a fury, voided out

The earth, and scattered bones; Lord, how, methought,

I trembled, and yet for all this terror

When to my rescue there arose, methought

A whirlwind, which let fall a massy arm

From that strong plant;

And both were struck dead by that sacred yew.

In that base shallow grave which was their due.

The import is clear, and her brother says, aside:

'Excellent devil! she hath taught him in a dream

To make away his duchess and her husband.'

Her husband is strangled, his wife is poisoned, and she, accused of both crimes, is brought before the tribunal. She defies her judges:

To the point.

Find me guilty, sever head from body,

We'll part good friends: I scorn to hold my life

At yours, or any man's entreaty, sir.

These are but feigned shadows of my evils;

Terrify babes, my lord, with painted devils;

I am past such needless palsy. For your names

Of whore and murderess, they proceed from you,
As if a man should spit against the wind;

The filth returns in's face.'

More insulting at the dagger's point:

'Yes, I shall welcome death

As princes do some great ambassadors;

I'll meet thy weapon half way. . . . Twas a manly blow;

The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;

And then thou wilt be famous."

Another is the Duchess of Malfi, who has secretly married her

steward. Her enraged brother determines to destroy her hus band and children, resolves to kill her, but will first torture her. He comes to her in the dark, pretends to be reconciled, speaks affectionately, offers her his hand, but gives her a dead man's, then suddenly exhibits a group of waxen figures, covered with wounds to represent her slaughtered family. Then appears a company of madmen, who leap and howl; at last, with executioners and a coffin, a grave-digger, whose taunting talk is of the charnel-house. Sensibility dies. Asked of what she is thinking, she replies, with fixed gaze:

The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,

The earth of flaming sulphur, yet I am not mad.'

Told that she is to be strangled, she replies, with brave, quiet dignity:

'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. . .

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.

Go, tell my brothers when I am laid out;

They then may feed in quiet.'

After this, her servant, the duke and his confidant, the cardinal and his mistress, are poisoned or assassinated. To the dying, in the midst of this butchery, what is the state of humanity? A troubled dream, a nightmare, a clashing destiny, and, at the end of all, a void:

'We are only like dead walls or vaulted graves,
That, ruin'd, yield no echo. Fare you well. . . .
O, this gloomy world!'

In what a shadow, or deep pit of darkness,
Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! ..

In all our quest of greatness,

Like wanton boys, whose pastime is their care,
We follow after bubbles blown in the air.
Pleasure of life, what is't? only the good hours

To little of the dramatic talent, as we pass on to its lower grades, are we able to accord a distinct notice. The writers have merit, might have left a rich legacy to all generations, but wrote too much, which is perhaps the fault of all ages and of every author. They have the diversity of human life, but no central principle of order. Their scenes are more effective as detached than as connected. All degrade their fine metal by the intermixture of baser. All afford veins or lumps of the precious ore in the duller substance of their work. Here are specimens:

'Man is a torch borne in the wind; a dream

But of a shadow.'1

Now, all ye peaceful regents of the night,

Silently gliding exhalations,

Languishing winds, and murmuring falls of waters,

Sadness of heart, and ominous secureness,

Enchantments, dead sleeps, all the friends of rest

That ever wrought upon the life of man,

Extend your utmost strengths; and this charmed hour
Fix like the centre.'2

'From his bright helm and shield did burn a most unwearied fire,
Like rich Autumnus' golden lamp, whose brightness men admire,
Past all the other host of stars, when with his cheerful face,
Fresh washed in lofty ocean waves, he doth the sky enchase.'”
Patience, my lord! why, 't is the soul of peace;
Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven;
It makes men look like gods. The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.'4
'He that in the sun is neither beam nor moat,
He that's not mad after a petticoat,
He for whom poor men's curses dig no grave,
He that is neither lord's nor lawyer's slave,

He that makes This his sea and That his shore,

He that in's coffin is richer than before,

He that counts Youth his sword and Age his staff,
He whose right hand carves his own epitaph,

He that upon his death-bed is a swan,

And dead no crow,- he is a Happy Man.'s

Of all the roses grafted on her cheeks,

Of all the graces dancing in her eyes,
Of all the music set upon her tongue,

'Chapman: a wise, manly, but irregular genius, greater as a translator of Homer than as a dramatist.

? Ibid.

Ibid: Homer.

Decker; a hopeful, cheerful, humane spirit, who turned vexations and miseries into commodities.

5 Ibid.

1st Witch.

Of all that was past woman's excellence,
In her white bosom; look, a painted boar
Circumscribes all!'

'Love hang love!

It is the abject outcast of the world.

Hate all things; hate the world, thyself, all men;
Hate knowledge; strive not to be overwise;

It drew destruction into Paradise;

Hate honor, virtue, they are bates

That entice men's hopes to sadder fates.'2

• As having clasped a rose
Within my palm, the rose being ta'en away,
My hand retains a little breath of sweet,
So may man's trunk, his spirit slipp'd away,
Hold still a faint perfume of his sweet guest.'

'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;
Lizard, Robin, you must bob in:
Round, around, around, about, about;
All ill come running in; all good keep out!
Here's the blood of a bat.

Hecate. Put in that; oh, put in that. 2d Witch. Here's libbard's bane.

Hecate. Put it in again.

The juice of a toad, the oil of adder.
Those will make the younker madder.
Round, around, around, about, about;

All ill come running in; all good keep out!'

'Now I go, now I fly

Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I.

Oh, what dainty pleasure 'tis

To ride in the air,

When the moon shines fair,

And sing and dance, and toy and kiss!

Over woods, high rocks, and mountains,

Over seas, our mistress' fountains,

Over steep towers and turrets,

We fly by night, 'mongst troops of spirits.
No ring of bells to our ears sounds:
No howls of wolves, no yelp of hounds;

No not the noise of waters' breach,

Or cannon's roar our height can reach.'

Simple and low is our condition,
For here with ns is no ambition:
We with the sun our flocks unfold,

Whose rising makes their fleeces gold;
Our music from the birds we borrow,

They bidding us, we them, good-morrow.

2 Marston; properly a satirist, bitter, misanthropic, cankered. Ibid. Middleton; a sagacious cynic, best known by his play of The Witch.

$ Ibid.

Our habits are but coarse and plain,

Yet they defend from wind and rain:
As warm too, in an equal eye,

As those bestained in scarlet dye.

The shepherd, with his homespun lass,

As many merry hours doth pass,

As courtiers with their costly girls,

Though richly dressed in gold and pearls.'

In Shirley, last of the great race, the fire and passion of the grand old era passes away. Imagination is driven from its last asylum. The sword is drawn, and the theatres are closed. Dramatists are stigmatized, actors are arrested; and when, after the lapse of a few years, they return to their old haunts, it is as roisterers under a foreign yoke.

Prose. The drooping flower of poesy was succeeded by a blossom of prose, produced by the same inner growth, and, at its highest point, tinged with the like ideal colors. A half dozen writers will exhibit the expansion. We omit, at present, those who offer only the material of knowledge, the substance of wisdom merely,―annalists, antiquaries, scientists, pamphleteers, whether poets, dramatists, divines, or politicians; and pass to those who bring us merit of execution, as well as the residuary element of thought-value. Of Bacon we shall elsewhere treat. Fulness of thought and splendor of workmanship raise him into the realm of pure literature. Less originative and luminous, though of the same band of scholars and dreamers, is Robert Burton, an ecclesiastic, a recluse, an eccentric, spasmodically gay, as a rule sad. To amuse and relieve himself, after thirty years' reading, he wrote the Anatomy of Melancholy, an enormous medley of ideas, musical, medical, poetical, mathematical, philosophical; every page garnished with Latin, Greek, or French, from rare and unknown authors. It is the only book that ever took Dr. Johnson out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. Here is a faint suggestion of his style-a glimpse into its jumble of observation, erudition, anecdote, instruction, and

amusement:

'Boccace hath a pleasant tale to this purpose, which he borrowed from the Greeks, and which Beroaldus hath turned into Latin, Bebelius into verse, of Cymon and Iphigenia. This Cymon was a fool, a proper man of person, and the governor of Cyprus' son, but a very ass; insomuch that his father being ashamed of him, sent him to a farm

1 Thomas Heywood; graceful and gentle, one of the most prolific writers the world has ever seen.