He breathed his last, and with his crown bequeath'd you
Your Mother's wedding-ring, which here I tender.

Crot. Most strange.

Cal. Peace crown his ashes: we are Queen then.
Near. Long live Calantha, Sparta's sovereign Queen.
All. Long live the Queen.

Cal. What whisper'd Bassanes?

Bass. That my Penthea,1 miserable soul,

Was starv'd to death.

Cal. She's happy; she hath finish'd

A long and painful progress.—A third murmur
Pierc'd mine unwilling ears.

Org. That Ithocles

Was murder'd.

Cal. By whose hand?

Org. By mine: this weapon

Was instrument to my revenge. The reasons

2

Are just and known. Quit him of these, and then
Never lived gentleman of greater merit,
Hope, or abiliment to steer a kingdom.3
Cal. We begin our reign

With a first act of justice: thy confession,
Unhappy Orgilus, dooms thee a sentence;
But yet thy father's or thy sister's presence
Shall be excus'd: give, Crotolon, a blessing
To thy lost son; Euphranea,5 take a farewell:
And both begone."

4

(TO ORGILUS). Bloody relater of thy stains in blood;
For that thou hast reported him (whose fortunes
And life by thee are both at once snatch'd from him)

With honourable mention, make thy choice

Of what death likes thee best; there's all our bounty.
But to excuse delays, let me, dear cousin,

Entreat you and these lords see execution
Instant, before ye part.

Near. Your will commands us.

Org. One suit, just Queen; my last. Vouchsafe your clemency, That by no common hand I be divided

From this my humble frailty.

Cal. To their wisdoms,

1 Wife to Bassanes.

2 Penthea (sister to Ithocles) was betrothed at first to Orgilus, but compelled by her brother to marry Bassanes; by which forced match she becoming miserable, refused to take food, and died.

3[Eighteen lines omitted.] 6 [Six lines omitted.]

Who are to be spectators of thine end,

I make the reference. Those that are dead,
Are dead; had they not now died, of necessity

They must have paid the debt they owed to nature
One time or other. Use despatch, my lords.-
We'll suddenly prepare our Coronation.

Arm. "Tis strange these tragedies should never touch on

Her female pity.

Bass. She has a masculine spirit.

---

[Exit.

[Act v., Sc. 2.]

The Coronation of the Princess takes place after the execution of Orgilus. She enters the Temple, dressed in White, having a Crown on her Head. She kneels at the Altar. The dead Body of Ithocles (whom she should have married) is borne on a Hearse, in rich Robes, having a Crown on his Head; and placed by the side of the Altar, where she kneels. Her devotions ended, she rises.

CALANTHA. NEARCHUS. PROPHILUS.

CROTOLON.

BASSANES.

Cal. Our orisons are heard, the gods are merciful.

Now tell me, you, whose loyalties pay tribute

To us your lawful sovereign, how unskilful
Your duties, or obedience is, to render
Subjection to the sceptre of a virgin;
Who have been ever fortunate in princes
Of masculine and stirring composition.
A woman has enough to govern wisely
Her own demeanours, passions, and divisions.
A nation warlike, and inured to practice
Of policy and labour, cannot brook

A feminate authority: we therefore

Command your counsel, how you may advise us

In chusing of a husband, whose abilities

Can better guide this kingdom.

Near. Royal Lady,

Your law is in your will.

Arm. We have seen tokens

Of constancy too lately to mistrust it.

Crot. Yet if your Highness settle on a choice By your own judgment both allow'd and liked of, Sparta may grow in power and proceed

To an increasing height.1

1[Sixteen lines omitted.]

Cal. Cousin of Argos.

Near. Madam.

Cal. Were I presently

To chuse you for my Lord, I'll open freely

What articles I would propose to treat on,
Before our marriage.

Near. Name them, virtuous Lady.

Cal. I would presume you would retain the royalty Of Sparta in her own bounds: then in Argos Armostes might be viceroy; in Messene

Might Crotolon bear sway; and Bassanes

Be Sparta's marshal:

The multitudes of high employments could not
But set a peace to private griefs. These gentlemen,
Groneas and Lemophil, with worthy pensions,
Should wait upon your person in your chamber.
I would bestow Christalla on Amelus;
She'll prove a constant wife: and Philema
Should into Vesta's Temple.

Bass. This is a testament;

It sounds not like conditions on a marriage.
Near. All this should be perform'd.
Cal. Lastly, for Prophilus,

He should be (cousin) solemnly invested

In all those honours, titles, and preferments,

Which his dear friend and my neglected husband

Too short a time enjoy'd.

Proph. I am unworthy

To live in your remembrance.

Euph. Excellent Lady.

Near. Madam, what means that word, neglected husband?

Cal. Forgive me : Now I turn to thee, thou shadow

(To the dead Body of Ithocles.)

Of my contracted Lord: bear witness all,
I put my mother's wedding-ring upon
His finger; 'twas my father's last bequest:
Thus I new marry him, whose wife I am;
Death shall not separate us. O my lords,
I but deceiv'd your eyes with antick gesture,
When one news straight came huddling on another,
Of death, and death, and death, still I danc'd forward
But it struck home, and here, and in an instant.
Be such mere women, who with shrieks and outcries
Can vow a present end to all their sorrows;
Yet live to vow new pleasures, and out-live them.

They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings:

Let me die smiling.

Near. "Tis a truth too ominous.

Cal. One kiss on these cold lips; my last. Crack, crack. Argos now's Sparta's King.

[Dies.

[Act v., Sc. 3.]

I do not know where to find in any Play a catastrophe so grand, so solemn, and so surprising as this. This is indeed, according to Milton, to "describe high passions and high actions." The fortitude of the Spartan Boy who let a beast gnaw out his bowels till he died without expressing a groan, is a faint bodily image of this dilaceration of the spirit and exenteration of the inmost mind, which Calantha with a holy violence against her nature keeps closely covered, till the last duties of a Wife and a Queen are fulfilled. Stories of martyrdom are but of chains and the stake; a little bodily suffering; these torments

On the purest spirits prey

As on entrails, joints, and limbs,

With answerable pains, but more intense.

What a noble thing is the soul in its strengths and in its weaknesses! who would be less weak than Calantha? who can be so strong? the expression of this transcendent scene almost bears me in imagination to Calvary and the Cross; and I seem to perceive some analogy between the scenical sufferings which I am here contemplating, and the real agonies of that final completion to which I dare no more than hint a reference.

Ford was of the first order of Poets. He sought for sublimity, not by parcels in metaphors or visible images, but directly where she has her full residence in the heart of man; in the actions and sufferings of the greatest minds. There is a grandeur of the soul above mountains, seas, and the elements. Even in the poor

perverted reason of Giovanni and Annabella (in the Play which precedes this) we discern traces of that fiery particle, which in the irregular starting from out of the road of beaten action, discovers something of a right line even in obliquity, and shows hints of an improveable greatness in the lowest descents and degradations of

our nature.

HYMEN'S TRIUMPH : A PASTORAL TRAGI-COMEDY [PUBLISHED 1615]. BY SAMUEL DANIEL [1562-1619] Love in Infancy.

Ah, I remember well (and how can I

But evermore remember well) when first

Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt when as we sat and sigh'd

And look'd upon each other, and conceiv'd

Not what we ail'd, yet something we did ail;
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,

And what was our disease we could not tell.

Then would we kiss, then sigh, then look. And thus
In that first garden of our simpleness

We spent our childhood. But when years began

To reap the fruit of knowledge; ah, how then
Would she with graver looks, with sweet stern brow,
Check my presumption and my forwardness;
Yet still would give me flowers, still would me show
What she would have me, yet not have me know!

Love after Death.

[Act i., Sc. 1.1]

Palamon. Fie, Thyrsis, with what fond remembrances Dost thou these idle passions entertain!

For shame leave off to waste your youth in vain,

And feed on shadows: make your choice anew;

You other nymphs shall find, no doubt will be

As lovely, and as fair, and sweet as she.

Thyrsis. As fair and sweet as she! Palæmon, peace: Ah, what can pictures be unto the life?

What sweetness can be found in images?

Which all nymphs else besides her seem to me.

She only was a real creature, she,

Whose memory must take up all of me.
Should I another love, then must I have
Another heart, for this is full of her,
And evermore shall be: here is she drawn
At length, and whole: and more, this table is
A story, and is all of her; and all

Wrought in the liveliest colours of my blood;
And can there be a room for others here?
Should I disfigure such a piece, and blot

The perfect'st workmanship that love e'er wrought?
Palamon, no, ah no, it cost too dear;

It must remain entire whilst life remains,
The monument of her and of my pains.

The Story of Isulia.

There was sometimes a nymph,

Isulia named, and an Arcadian born,2
Whose mother dying left her very young
Unto her father's charge, who carefully
Di dbreed her up until she came to years
Of womanhood, and then provides a match
Both rich and young, and fit enough for her.
But she, who to another shepherd had,
Call'd Sirthis, vow'd her love, as unto one
Her heart esteem'd more worthy of her love,

1[Daniel's Works, ed. Grosart, vol. iii.]

[Act i., Sc. 1.]

2[Two lines omitted.]