lay me i' the ground, and pray for me, if you'll let me come to him. The DUKE enters with FLAMINEO, and PAGE. Bra. Was this your handy-work? Fla. It was my misfortune. Cor. He lies, he lies; he did not kill him: these have kill'd him, that would not let him be better look'd to. Bra. Have comfort, my grieved mother. Cor. O yon' screech-owl! Hor. Forbear, good madam. Cor. Let me go, let me go. [She runs to FLAMINEO with her I knife drawn, and coming to him, lets it fall. The God of heaven forgive thee. Dost not wonder Bra. Mother, pray tell me How came he by his death? what was the quarrel? Drew his sword first; and so, I know not how, Page. This is not true, madam. Cor. I prithee peace. One arrow's grazed already: it were vain To lose this, for that will ne'er be found again. FRANCISCO describes to FLAMINEO the grief of CORNELIA at the funeral of MARCELLO. Your reverend mother Is grown a very old woman in two hours. 'Tween doleful songs, tears, and sad elegies; Were wont to outwear the nights with; that, believe me, I had no eyes to guide me forth the room, Funeral Dirge for MARCELLO. [His MOTHER sings it. Call for the robin-redbreast, and the wren, The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, To raise him hillocks that shall keep him warm, Come, come, my lord, untie your folded thoughts, Your sister's poison'd. Dying Princes. To see what solitariness is about dying princes! As heretofore they have unpeopled towns, divorced friends, and made great houses unhospitable! so now, O justice! where are their flatterers now? flatterers are but the shadows of princes' bodies; the least thick cloud makes them invisible. Natural Death. O, thou soft natural death! that art joint twin Vow of Murder rebuked. Miserable creature, If thou persist in this, 'tis damnable. Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, 1 I never saw anything like this Dirge, except the Ditty which reminds Ferdinand of his drowned father in the Tempest. As that is of the water, watery; so this is of the earth, earthy. Both have that intenseness of feeling, which seems to resolve itself into the elements which it contemplates. Or like the black and melancholic yew-tree, Dying Man. See, see how firmly he doth fix his eye O, hold it constant. settles his wild spirits: and so his eyes Melt into tears. Despair. O, the cursed devil, Which doth present us with all other sins THE LOVER'S MELANCHOLY, BY JOHN FORD. Contention of a Bird and a Musician. Passing from Italy to Greece, the tales Desire of visiting that paradise. To Thessaly I came, and living private, This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute Nature's best skill'd musician, undertakes The challenge; and, for every several strain The well-shaped youth could touch, she sung her down; Upon his quaking instrument, than she The nightingale did with her various notes Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last Whom art had never taught cliffs, moods, or notes, Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly, That there was curiosity and cunning, Concord in discord, lines of differing method The bird (ordain'd to be Music's first martyr) strove to imitate These several sounds: which when her warbling throat Fail'd in, for grief down dropt she on his lute And brake her heart. It was the quaintest sadness, To weep a funeral elegy of tears. He looks upon the trophies of his art, Then sigh'd, then wiped his eyes, then sigh'd, and cried, "Alas! poor creature, I will soon revenge This cruelty upon the author of it. Henceforth this lute, guilty of innocent blood, Shall never more betray a harmless peace To an untimely end:" and in that sorrow, I suddenly stept in. [This story, which is originally to be met with in Strada's Prolusions, has been paraphrased in rhyme by Crashaw, Ambrose Phillips, and others: but none of those versions can at all compare for harmony and grace with this blank verse of Ford's: it is as fine as anything in Beaumont and Fletcher; and almost equals the strife which it celebrates.] THE LADIES' TRIAL, BY JOHN FORD. AURIA, in the possession of honours, preferment, fame, can find no peace in his mind while he thinks his Wife unchaste. AURIA. AURELIO. Auria. Count of Savona, Genoa's admiral, A worthy of my country, sought and sued to, My triumphs Are echoed under every roof, the air Is streighten'd with the sound, there is not room Auria. At home! That home, Aurelio speaks of, I have lost: On any outcast parings coarse and mouldy, LOVE'S SACRIFICE: A TRAGEDY, BY JOHN FORD. BIANCHA, Wife to CARAFFA, Duke of Pavia, loves and is loved by FERNANDO the Duke's favourite. She long resists his importunate suit; at length, she enters the room where he is sleeping, and awakens him, to hear her confession of her love for him. BIANCHA. FERDINAND, sleeping. Bian. Resolve, and do; 'tis done. What, are those eyes, Which lately were so over-drown'd in tears, |