To all earth's joy; and so your master tell. Nic. I'll do your commendations.

Mrs Fra. O no:

I dare not so presume; nor to my children :
I am disclaim'd in both, alas! I am.

O never teach them, when they come to speak,
To name the name of mother; chide their tongue
If they by chance light on that hated word,

Tell them 'tis naught, for when that word they

name

(Poor pretty souls!) they harp on their own shame.
So, now unto my coach, then to my home,
So to my death-bed; for from this sad hour,
I never will nor eat, nor drink, nor taste
Of any cates that may preserve my life :
I never will nor smile, nor sleep, nor rest.

But when my tears have wash'd my black soul white,

Sweet Saviour, to thy hands I yield my sprite.

SIR

MRS FRANKFORD (dying). SIR FRANCIS ACTON, her brother. CHARLES MOUNTFORD, MR MALBY, and other of her husband's friends. Mal. How fare you, Mrs Frankford?

Mrs Fra. Sick, sick, O sick: give me some air. I

pray

Tell me, O tell me, where is Mr Frankford.
Will he not deign to see me ere I die?
Mal. Yes, Mrs Frankford: divers gentlemen
Your loving neighbours, with that just request
Have moved and told him of your weak estate:
Who, though with much ado to get belief,
Examining of the general circumstance,
Seeing your sorrow and your penitence,
And hearing therewithal the great desire
You have to see him ere you left the world,
He gave to us his faith to follow us;
And sure he will be here immediately.

Mrs Fra. You have half revived me with the pleasing news:

Raise me a little higher in my bed.

Blush I not, brother Acton? blush I not, Sir Charles?

Can you not read my fault writ in my cheek? Is not my crime there? tell me, gentlemen. Chas. Alas! good mistress, sickness hath not left you Blood in your face enough to make you blush. Mrs Fra. Then sickness, like a friend, my fault would hide.

Is my husband come? my soul but tarries

His arrival, then I am fit for heaven.

Acton. I came to chide you, but my words of hate
Are turn'd to pity and compassionate grief.
I came to rate you, but my brawls, you see,
Melt into tears, and I must weep by thee.
Here's Mr Frankford now.

MR FRANKFORD enters.

Fran. Good-morrow, brother; morrow, gentlemen :
God, that hath laid this cross upon our heads,
Might (had he pleased) have made our cause of
meeting

On a more fair and more contented ground:
But he that made us, made us to this woe.

Mrs Fra. And is he come ? methinks that voice I

know.

Fran. How do

you, woman ?

Mrs Fra. Well, Mr Frankford, well; but shall be better

I hope within this hour. Will you vouchsafe (Out of your grace and your humanity)

To take a spotted strumpet by the hand?

Fran. This hand once held my heart in faster bonds Than now 'tis griped by me. God pardon them That made us first break hold.

Mrs Fra. Amen, amen.

Out of my zeal to heaven, whither I'm now bound,
I was so impudent to wish you here;

And once more beg your pardon. O! good man,
And father to my children, pardon me.
Pardon, O pardon me my fault so heinous is,
That if you in this world forgive it not,
Heaven will not clear it in the world to come.
Faintness hath so usurp'd upon my knees

That kneel I cannot : but on my heart's knees
My prostrate soul lies thrown down at your feet
To beg your gracious pardon. Pardon, O pardon
me!

Fran. As freely from the low depth of my soul
As my Redeemer hath for us given his death,
I pardon thee; I will shed tears for thee;
Pray with thee:

And, in mere pity of thy weak estate,
I'll wish to die with thee.

All. So do we all.

Fran. Even as I hope for pardon at that day,

When the great judge of Heaven in scarlet sits,
So be thou pardon'd. Though thy rash offence
Divorced our bodies, thy repentant tears

Unite our souls.

Char. Then comfort, mistress Frankford;

You see your husband hath forgiven your fall; Then rouse your spirits, and cheer your fainting soul. Susan. How is it with you?

Acton. How d' ye feel yourself?

Mrs Fra. Not of this world.

Fran. I see you are not, and I weep to see it.
My wife, the mother to my pretty babes;
Both those lost names I do restore thee back,
And with this kiss I wed thee once again :
Though thou art wounded in thy honour'd name,
And with that grief upon thy death-bed liest ;

Honest in heart, upon my soul, thou diest. Mrs Fra. Pardon'd on earth, soul, thou in heaven art

free

Once more. Thy wife dies thus embracing thee.

[Heywood is a sort of prose Shakspeare. His scenes are to the full as natural and affecting. But we miss the Poet, that which in Shakspeare always appears out and above the surface of the nature. Heywood's characters, his country gentlemen, &c. are exactly what we see (but of the best kind of what we see) in life. Shakspeare makes us believe, while we are among his lovely creations, that they are nothing but what we are familiar with, as in dreams new things seem old: but we awake, and sigh for the difference.]

THE FAIR MAID OF THE EXCHANGE, A COMEDY:

BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 1607.

CRIPPLE offers to fit FRANK GOLDING with ready-made love epistles. Frank. Of thy own writing?

Crip. My own, I assure you, Sir.

Frank. Faith, thou hast robb'd some sonnet-book or

other,

And now wouldst make me think they are thy

own.

Crip. Why, think'st thou that I cannot write a letter,
Ditty, or sonnet, with judicial phrase,

As pretty, pleasing, and pathetical,
As the best Ovid-imitating dunce
In all the town?

Frank. I think thou canst not.

Crip. Yea, I'll swear I cannot.

Yet, sirrah, I could coney-catch the world,

Make myself famous for a sudden wit,
And be admir'd for my dexterity,
Were I disposed.

Frank. I prithee, how?

Crip. Why thus-There liv'd a poet in this town
(If we may term our modern writers poets),
Sharp-witted, bitter-tongued, his pen, of steel;
His ink was temper'd with the biting juice,
And extracts of the bitterest weeds that grew,
He never wrote but when the elements
Of fire and water tilted in his brain.
This fellow, ready to give up his ghost
To Lucia's bosom, did bequeathe to me
His library, which was just nothing

But rolls, and scrolls, and bundles of cast wit,
Such as durst never visit Paul's church-yard.
Amongst them all I happen'd on a quire
Or two of paper, fill'd with songs and ditties,
And here and there a hungry epigram;
These I reserve to my own proper use,
And, Paternoster-like, have conn'd them all.
I could now, when I am in company,
At ale-house, tavern, or an ordinary,
Upon a theme make an extemporal ditty
(Or one at least should seem extemporal),
Out of the abundance of this legacy,
That all would judge it, and report it too,
To be the infant of a sudden wit,
And then I were an admirable fellow.
Frank. This were a piece of cunning.

Crip. I could do more; for I could make inquiry
Where the best-witted gallants use to dine,
Follow them to the tavern, and there sit

In the next room with a calf's head and brimstone,
And over-hear their talk, observe their humours,
Collect their jests, put them into a play,
And tire them too with payment to behold

What I have filch'd from them. This I could do.
But oh, for shame that man should so arraign
Their own fee-simple wits for verbal theft !