Arriving first unto my father's ears, Shall of these stains acquit me; which are merely Win. And I of all acquit you: this your absence, With which my love most cavill'd, orators In your behalf. Had such things pass'd betwixt you, Ger. Pray, pardon, sir. Win. You are in your lodging. Ger. But my father's charge. Win. My conjuration shall dispense with that; Ger. You are powerful. Traveller's Stories. Sir, my husband Hath took much pleasure in your strange discourse About Jerusalem and the Holy Land; How the new city differs from the old ; What ruins of the Temple yet remain ; And what more pleasure to an old man's ear, Shipwreck by Drink. This Gentleman and I Passt but just now by your next neighbor's house, Was a great feast. In the height of their carousing, all their brains Out of his giddy wildness, one conceives All fall to work, and hoist into the street, As to the sea, what next came to their hand, A third takes the base-viol for the cock-boat, His oar, the stick with which the fiddler played: Still fumbling on a gittern.The rude multitude, Cast from the windows, went by th' ears about it; Of eminent ship-wreck, enters th' house, and finds them And think it Neptune's Trident; and that he And at this point we left them. [This piece of pleasant exaggeration (which, for its life and humor, might have been told or acted by Petruchio himself,) gave rise to the title of Cowley's Latin Play, Naufragium Joculare, and furnished the idea of the best scene in it. Heywood's Preface to this Play is interesting, as it shows the heroic indifference about posterity, which some of these great writers seem to have felt. There is a magnanimity in Authorship as in everything else. "If Reader thou hast of this play been an Auditor, there is less apology to be used by entreating thy patience. This Tragi-comedy (being one reserved amongst 220 in which I had either an entire hand, or at the least a main finger) coming accidentally to the press, and I having intelligence thereof, thought it not fit that it should pass as filius populi, a Bastard without a father to acknowledge it: true it is that my plays are not exposed to the world in volumes, to bear the title of works (as others*): one reason is, that many of them, by shifting and change of companies, have been negligently lost. Others of them are still retained in the hands of some actors, who think it against their peculiar profit to have them come in print, * He seems to glance at Ben Jonson. and a third that it never was any great ambition in me to be in this kind voluminously read. All that I have further to say at this time is only this: censure I entreat as favorably as it is exposed to thy view freely. "Ever "Studious of thy Pleasure and Profit, Of the 220 pieces which he here speaks of having been concerned in, only 25, as enumerated by Dodsley, have come down to us, for the reasons assigned in the preface. The rest have perished, exposed to the casualties of a theatre. Heywood's ambition seems to have been confined to the pleasure of hearing the Players speak his lines while he lived. It does not appear that he ever contemplated the possibility of being read by after ages. What a slender pittance of fame was motive sufficient to the production of such Plays as the English Traveller, the Challenge for Beauty, and the Woman Killed with Kindness! Posterity is bound to take care that a Writer loses nothing by such a noble modesty.] THE LATE LANCASHIRE WITCHES: A COMEDY. BY THOMAS HEYWOOD AND RICHARD BROOME. Mr. Generous, by taking off a Bridle from a seeming Horse in his Stable, discovers it to be his Wife, who has transformed herself by Magical Practices, and is a Witch. MR. GENEROUS. WIFE. ROBIN, a groom. Gen. My blood is turned to ice, and all my vitals To be thus lost in wonder? Wife. Sir. Gen. Amazement still pursues me, how am I chang'd, Or brought ere I can understand myself Rob. You will believe no witches? Gen. This makes me believe all, aye, anything; And that myself am nothing. Prithee, Robin, Lay me to myself open; what art thou, Or this new transform'd creature? Rob. I am Robin; And this your wife, my mistress. Gen. Tell me, the earth Shall leave its seat, and mount to kiss the moon; Shall leave her sphere, to stoop to us thus low. Rob. A bridle; a jugling bridle, Sir. A witch! my wife a witch! The more I strive to unwind Myself from this meander, I the more Therein am intricated. Art thou a witch? Prithee, woman, Wife. It cannot be denied, I am such a curst creature. Gen. Keep aloof: And do not come too near me. O my trust; Been of my soul so chary, still to study What best was for its health, to renounce all The works of that black fiend with my best force; And hath that serpent twined me so about, That I must lie so often and so long With a devil in my bosom? Wife. Pardon, Sir. [She looks down.] Gen. Pardon! can such a thing as that be hoped ? Lift up thine eyes, lost woman, to yon hills; It must be thence expected: look not down |