CATILINE HIS CONSPIRACY,
A TRAGEDY:

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

The morning of the conspiracy.-LENTULUS, CETHEGUS, and CATILINE meet, before the other Conspirators are ready.

Lent. It is, methinks, a morning full of fate!
It riseth slowly, as her sullen car

Had all the weights of sleep and death hung at it!
She is not rosy-finger'd, but swoll'n black;
Her face is like a water turn'd to blood,

And her sick head is bound about with clouds,
As if she threaten'd night ere noon of day!

It does not look as it would have a hail
Or health wish'd in it, as on other morns.
Cet. Why, all the fitter, Lentulus; our coming
Is not for salutation, we have business.

Cat. Said nobly, brave Cethegus! Where's Autronius?
Cet. Is he not come ?

Cat. Not here.

Cet. Not Vargunteius?

Cat. Neither.

Cet. A fire in their beds and bosoms,

That so well serve their sloth rather than virtue !
They are no Romans,—and at such high need
As now!

Lent. Both they, Longinus, Lecca, Curius,
Fulvius, Gabinus, gave me word, last night,
By Lucius Bestia, they would all be here,
And early.

Cet. Yes; as you, had I not call'd you.

Come, we all sleep, and are mere dormice; flies
A little less than dead: more dulness hangs
On us than on the morn. We are spirit-bound
In ribs of ice, our whole bloods are one stone,

And honour cannot thaw us, nor our wants,
Though they burn hot as fevers to our states.
Cat. I muse they would be tardy at an hour
Of so great purpose.

Cet. If the gods had call'd

Them to a purpose, they would just have come
With the same tortoise speed; that are thus slow
To such an action, which the gods will envy,
As asking no less means than all their powers,
Conjoin'd, to effect! I would have seen Rome

burnt

By this time, and her ashes in an urn;
The kingdom of the senate rent asunder,
And the degenerate talking gown run frighted
Out of the air of Italy.

Cat. Spirit of men!

Thou heart of our great enterprise! how much I love these voices in thee!

Get. O, the days

Of Sylla's sway, when the free sword took leave To act all that it would!

Cat. And was familiar

With entrails, as our augurs

Get. Sons kill'd fathers,

Brothers their brothers.

Cat. And had price and praise.

All hate had licence given it, all rage reins. Get. Slaughter bestrid the streets, and stretch'd himself To seem more huge; whilst to his stained thighs The gore he drew flow'd up, and carried down Whole heaps of limbs and bodies through his arch. No age was spared, no sex.

Cat. Nay, no degree.

Cet. Not infants in the porch of life were free.
The sick, the old, that could but hope a day
Longer by nature's bounty, not let stay.
Virgins, and widows, matrons, pregnant wives,

All died.

Cat. 'Twas crime enough, that they had lives:
To strike but only those that could do hurt,
Was dull and poor: some fell to make the number,
As some the prey.

Get. The rugged Charon fainted,

And ask'd a navy, rather than a boat,

To ferry over the sad world that came :

;

The maws and dens of beasts could not receive The bodies that those souls were frighted from And e'en the graves were fill'd with men yet living, Whose flight and fear had mix'd them with the dead.

Cat. And this shall be again, and more, and more, Now Lentulus, the third Cornelius,

Is to stand up in Rome.

Lent. Nay, urge not that
Is so uncertain.

Cat. How!

Lent. I mean, not clear'd,

And therefore not to be reflected on.

Cat. The Sibyl's leaves uncertain! or the comments
Of our grave, deep, divining men not clear !
Lent. All prophecies, you know, suffer the torture.
Cat. But this already hath confess'd, without :
And so been weigh'd, examined and compared,
As 'twere malicious ignorance in him

Would faint in the belief.

Lent. Do you believe it?

Cat. Do I love Lentulus, or pray to see it?
Lent. The augurs all are constant I am meant.
Cat. They had lost their science else.

Lent. They count from Cinna.

Cat. And Sylla next, and so make you the third;
All that can say the sun is risen, must think it.
Lent. Men mark me more of late, as I come forth!
Cat. Why, what can they do less? Cinna and Sylla

Are set and gone; and we must turn our eyes
On him that is, and shines. Noble Cethegus,
But view him with me here! he looks already
As if he shook a sceptre o'er the senate,

And the awed purple dropp'd their rods and axes:
The statues melt again, and household gods
In groans confess the travails of the city;
The very walls sweat blood before the change,
And stones start out to ruin ere it comes.

Cet. But he, and we, and all are idle still.
Lent. I am your creature, Sergius; and whate'er
The great Cornelian name shall win to be,
It is not augury nor the Sibyl's books,

But Catiline that makes it.

Cat. I am a shadow

To honour'd Lentulus and Cethegus here,
Who are the heirs of Mars.

THE NEW INN; OR, THE LIGHT HEART. A COMEDY:

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

LOVEL discovers to the Host of the New Inn, his love for the LADY
FRANCES, and his reasons for concealing his passion from her.

Lov. There is no life on earth, but being in love!
There are no studies, no delights, no business,
No intercourse, or trade of sense, or soul,
But what is love! I was the laziest creature,
The most unprofitable sign of nothing,
The veriest drone, and slept away my life
Beyond the dormouse, till I was in love!
And now, I can outwake the nightingale,
Outwatch an usurer, and outwalk him too;
Stalk like a ghost, that haunted 'bout a treasure,
And all that phant'sied treasure, it is love.

Host. But is your name Love-ill, sir, or Love-well?

I would know that.

Lov. I do not know 't myself,

Whether it is; but it is love hath been.
The hereditary passion of our house,
My gentle host, and, as I guess, my friend:
The truth is, I have loved this lady long,
And impotently, with desire enough,
But no success: for I have still forborne
To express it, in my person, to her.
Host. How then?

Lov. I have sent her toys, verses, and

anagrams, Trials of wit, mere trifles she has commended, But knew not whence they came, nor could she

guess.

Host. This was a pretty riddling way of wooing!
Lov. I oft have been too in her company :

And look'd upon her a whole day; admired her;
Loved her, and did not tell her so; loved still,
Look'd still, and loved; and loved, and look'd, and
sigh'd:

But, as a man neglected, I came off,

And unregarded

Host. Could you blame her, sir,

When you were silent, and not said a word?

Lov. O but I loved the more; and she might read it Best in my silence, had she been

Host.

As melancholic

As you are! Pray you, why would you stand mute, sir?

Lov. O, thereon hangs a history, mine host.

Did you e'er know, or hear of the lord Beaufort,
Who serv'd so bravely in France? I was his page,
And ere he died, his friend: I follow'd him
First, in the wars, and, in the times of peace,
I waited on his studies; which were right.
He had no Arthurs, nor no Rosicleers,