SERIOUS FRAGMENTS

1.

Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nature; and they are more than one, whom the same misfortune joined together, than whom the same womb

gave life.

[H. Killigrew. The Conspiracy, 1638, Act v., Sc. 1. See p. 447.1]

II.

Dying Person.

-my soul

The warm embraces of her flesh is now,
Ev'n now forsaking; this frail body must
Like a lost feather fall from off the wing
Of Vanity—

[William Chamberlayne (1619-1689). Love's Victory,
1658. Act ii., p. 27.]

III.

-eternity:

Within those everlasting springs we shall

Meet with those joys, whose blasted embryos were

Here made abortive―

IV.

[Ibid., Act iii., p. 38.]

Crown declined by a Spiritual Person.

I know no more the way to temporal rule,
Than he that's born, and has his years come to him,
On a rough desart-

[Middleton. The Mayor of Queenborough,
Act i., Sc. 1.]

1 [See also p. 572.]

V.

To a Votaress.

Keep still that holy and immaculate fire,
You chaste lamp of eternity; 'tis a treasure,
Too precious for death's moment to partake
The twinkling of short life.-

[Middleton. The Mayor of Queenborough,
Act i., Sc. 2.]

VI.

The fame that a man wins himself is best;
That he may call his own: honours put to him
Make him no more a man than his clothes do,
Which are as soon ta'en off; for in the warmth
The heat comes from the body, not the weeds;
So man's true fame must strike from his own deeds.

VII.

[Ibid., Act ii., Sc. 3.]

Adventurers.

The sons of Fortune, she has sent us forth

To thrive by the red sweat of our own merits.—

VIII.

[Ibid., Act ii., Sc. 2.]

New made Honour.

-forgetfulness

Is the most pleasing virtue they can have,

That do spring up from nothing; for by the same,
Forgetting all, they forget whence they came.

IX.

Enone forsaken.

[Ibid., Act iii., Sc. 1.]

Beguil'd, disdain'd, and out of love, live long, thou Poplar tree,
And let thy letters grow in length to witness this with me.
Ah Venus, but for reverence unto thy sacred name,
To steal a silly maiden's love I might account it blame.-
And if the tales I hear be true, and blush for to recite,

Thou dost me wrong to leave the plains, and dally out of sight,
False Paris! this was not thy vow, when thou and I were one,
To range and change old love for new; but now those days be gone.
[Peele. Arraignment of Paris, Act iii., Sc. 1.
See p. 440.]

X.

Epilepsy.

-your [Cæsar's] disease the Gods ne'er gave to man,
But such a one as had a spirit too great
For all his body's passages to serve it;
Which notes the excess of your ambition.

[Chapman. Cæsar and Pompey, Act i., Sc. 1.
See p. 72.]

-upon whose reverend head

The milk-white pledge of wisdom sweetly spreads.

[Lodge. The Wounds of Civil War, Act i., Sc. 1.]

XIII.

Ladies Dancing.

a fine sweet earthquake, gently moved By the soft wind of whispering silks.

[Decker. Satiromastix, p. 209. See p. 56.]

XIV.

-sharp witted Poets; whose sweet verse

Makes heav'nly Gods break off their nectar draughts,

And lay their ears down to the lowly earth

[Arden of Feversham, Act i., Sc. 1. See p. 409.]

-thy name,

XV.

Grandsires' Love.

Old men do never truly doat, untill

Their children bring them babies.1

[Shirley. The Wedding, Act ii., Sc. 3.]

XVI.

To a false Mistress.

Which sweeten'd once the name of him that spake it.—

[Ibid., Act ii., Sc. 3.]

[This is really prose. Printed as one line in original.]

XVII.

Herod, jealous, to Mariamne.

Hast thou beheld thyself, and could'st thou stain
So rare perfection ?-ev'n for love of thee

I do profoundly hate thee.

The

[Lady Elizabeth Carew (fl. 1590). Tragedy of Mariam, Act iv., Sc. 4.]

XVIII.

Cleopatra.

The wanton Queen, that never loved for Love.—

XIX.

[Ibid., Act iv., Sc. 8.]

Conceit of a Princess' love.

"Twas but a waking dream,

Wherein thou madest thy wishes speak, not her;
In which thy foolish hopes strive to prolong
A wretched being so sickly children play
With health-loved toys, which for a time delay,
But do not cure the fit.

[Rowley. The Birth of Merlin, Act ii., Sc. 3.1]

XX.

Changing Colour at sudden News.

Why look'st thou red, and pale, and both, and neither ?— [The Wise Woman of Hogsdon. By Chapman,2 Act iv., Sc. 3.]

XXI.

Rich Usurer to his Mistress.

I will not 'joy my treasure but in thee,
And in thy looks I'll count it every hour;
And thy white arms shall be as bands to me,
Wherein are mighty lordships forfeited.—
Then triumph, Leon, richer in thy love,
Than all the hopes of treasure I possess.
Never was happy Leon rich before;
Nor ever was I covetous till now,
That I see gold so 'fined in thy hair.

[Chapman. The Blind Beggar of Alexandria.
Ed. 1873, p. 21.]

1

[Edited Warnke, 1887.]

[Lamb attributes this to Heywood.]

XXII.
Puritan.

-his face demure, with hand

On breast, as you have seen a canting preacher,
Aiming to cheat his audience, wanting matter,
Sigh, to seem holy, till he thought on something.-
[Anon. The Fatal Jealousy, Act iii. See p. 538.]

XXIII.

Sects.

Eternity, which puzzles all the world
To name the inhabitants that people it;
Eternity, whose undiscover'd country
We fools divide before we come to see it,
Making one part contain all happiness,
The other misery, then unseen fight for it:
All sects pretending to a right of choice,
Yet none go willingly to take a part.

XXIV.

Man is a vagabond both poor and proud,

[Ibid., Act iii.]

He treads on beasts who give him clothes and food;
But the Gods catch him wheresoe'er he lurks,

Whip him, and set him to all painful works:

And yet he brags he shall be crown'd when dead.
Were ever Princes in a Bridewell bred?

Nothing is sinfully begot but he :

Can base-born Bastards lawful Sovereigns be?

[Crowne. Thyestes, Act v., Sc. 1. See p. 546.]

XXV.

Wishes for Obscurity.

How miserable a thing is a Great Man!—
Take noisy vexing Greatness they that please;
Give me obscure and safe and silent ease.
Acquaintance and commerce let me have none
With any powerful thing but Time alone :
My rest let Time be fearful to offend,
And creep by me as by a slumbering friend;
Till, with ease glutted, to my bed I steal,
As men to sleep after a plenteous meal.