The Project Gutenberg ebook of The Works of John Marston, edited by A. H. Bullen.

[315] “Io”—the joyful cry with which Hymen was invoked by the ancients. Cf. Catullus:—

“Ite, concinite in modum:
Io Hymen Hymenæe io,
Io Hymen Hymenæe!”

[316] Old eds. “Ful.”

[317] A sort of waltz, described in Sir John Davies’ Orchestra, st. 70.—Cf. Chapman’s May Day (1611), iv. 1:—

“Fill red-cheek’d Bacchus, let the Burdeux grape
Skip like [sic] lavoltas in their swelling veins”

—lines made up from the present passage.

[318] “Measure”—a grave solemn dance.

[319] See Collier’s Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry, iii. 251-2 (ed. 2).

[320] So Marston uses “knurl’d” (p. 166) for “gnarl’d.”

[321] Cf. Richard II., i. 1:—“Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood.”

[322] Proofs.

[323] Old eds. “And.”

THE MALCONTENT.

[324] Ed. 2. “Beniamini.”

TO THE READER.

I am an ill orator; and, in truth, use to indite more honestly than eloquently, for it is my custom to speak as I think, and write as I speak.

In plainness, therefore, understand, that in some things I have willingly erred, as in supposing a Duke of Genoa, and in taking names different from that city’s families: for which some may wittily accuse me; but my defence shall be as honest as many reproofs unto me have been most malicious. Since, I heartily protest, it was my care to write so far from reasonable offence, that even strangers, in whose state I laid my scene, should not from thence draw any disgrace to any, dead or living. Yet, in despite of my endeavours, I understand some have been most unadvisedly over-cunning in misinterpreting me, and with subtlety as deep as hell have maliciously spread ill rumours, which, springing from themselves, might to themselves have heavily returned. Surely I desire to satisfy every firm spirit, who, in all his actions, proposeth to himself no more ends than God and virtue do, whose intentions are always simple: to such I protest that, with my free understanding, I have not glanced at disgrace of any, but of those whose unquiet studies labour innovation, contempt of holy policy, reverend, comely superiority, and established unity: for the rest of my supposed tartness, I fear not but unto every worthy mind it will be approved so general and honest as may modestly pass with the freedom of a satire. I would fain leave the paper; only one thing afflicts me, to think that scenes, invented merely to be spoken, should be enforcively published to be read, and that the least hurt I can receive is to do myself the wrong. But, since others otherwise would do me more, the least inconvenience is to be accepted. I have myself, therefore, set forth this comedy; but so, that my enforced absence must much rely upon the printer’s discretion: but I shall entreat slight errors in orthography may be as slightly over-passed, and that the unhandsome shape which this trifle in reading presents, may be pardoned for the pleasure it once afforded you when it was presented with the soul of lively action.

[325] For this motto ed. 1. gives “Me mea sequentur fata.”

THE INDUCTION [326]

Sly. Why, we may sit upon the stage at the private house.[328] Thou dost not take me for a country gentleman, dost? dost think I fear hissing?[329] I’ll hold my life thou tookest me for one of the players.

Sly. By God’s slid, if you had, I would have given you but sixpence [330] for your stool. Let them that have stale suits sit in the galleries. Hiss at me! He that will be laughed out of a tavern or an ordinary, shall seldom feed well, or be drunk in good company.—Where’s Harry Condell, Dick Burbadge, and William Sly? Let me speak with some of them. 14

Sly. I tell you, no: I am one that hath seen this play often, and can give them intelligence for their action: I have most of the jests here in my table-book.

Sinklo. No, indeed, cousin: the audience then will take me for a viol-de-gambo, and think that you play upon me.

Sinklo. We stayed for you at supper last night at my cousin Honeymoon’s, the woollen-draper. After supper we drew cuts for a score of apricocks, the longest cut still to draw an apricock: by this light, ’twas Mistress Frank Honeymoon’s fortune still to have the longest cut: I did measure for the women.—What be these, coz? 32

Sly. I pray you, know this gentleman, my cousin; ’tis Master Doomsday’s son, the usurer.

Sly. No,[333] in good faith, for mine ease: look you, my hat’s the handle to this fan: God’s so, what a beast was I, I did not leave my feather at home! Well, but I’ll take an order with you. 41

Sly. Why, do you think I’ll have jests broken upon me in the play, to be laughed at? this play hath beaten all your gallants out of the feathers: Blackfriars hath almost spoiled Blackfriars for feathers.[334]

Sinklo. God’s so, I thought ’twas for somewhat our gentlewomen at home counselled me to wear my feather to the play: yet I am loth to spoil it.

Sinklo. Because I got it in the tilt-yard; there was a herald broke my pate for taking it up: but I have worn it up and down the Strand, and met him forty times since, and yet he dares not challenge it.

Condell. Why, sir, ’tis neither satire nor moral, but the mean passage of a history: yet there are a sort of discontented creatures that bear a stingless envy to great ones, and these will wrest the doings of any man to their base, malicious appliment; but should their interpretation come to the test, like your marmoset, they presently turn their teeth to their tail and eat it. 62

Sly. I will not go so far with you; but I say, any man that hath wit may censure,[335] if he sit in the twelve-penny room;[336] and I say again, the play is bitter.

Burbadge. Sir, you are like a patron that, presenting a poor scholar to a benefice, enjoins him not to rail against anything that stands within compass of his patron’s folly. Why should not we enjoy the ancient freedom of poesy? Shall we protest to the ladies that their painting makes them angels? or to my young gallant that his expenses in the brothel shall gain him reputation? No, sir, such vices as stand not accountable to law should be cured as men heal tetters, by casting ink upon them. Would you be satisfied in anything else, sir? 76

Condell. Faith, sir, the book was lost; and because ’twas pity so good a play should be lost, we found it, and play it. 81

Condell. Why not Malevole in folio with us, as Jeronimo in decimo-sexto [337] with them? They taught us a name for our play; we call it One for another.

Burbadge. Sooth, not greatly needful; only as your salad to your great feast, to entertain a little more time, and to abridge the not-received custom of music in our theatre. I must leave you, sir.

Sinklo. I durst lay four of mine ears the play is not so well acted as it hath been.

Lowin. Marry, sir, because I have heard of a fellow would offer to lay a hundred-pound wager that was not worth five baubees:[339] and in this kind you might venture four of your elbows; yet God defend [340] your coat should have so many! 104

Sinklo. Nay, truly, I am no great censurer; and yet I might have been one of the college of critics once. My cousin here hath an excellent memory indeed, sir.

Sly. Who, I? I’ll tell you a strange thing of myself; and I can tell you, for one that never studied the art of memory, ’tis very strange too. 110

Sly. Why, I’ll lay a hundred pound, I’ll walk but once down by the Goldsmiths’ Row in Cheap, take notice of the signs, and tell you them with a breath instantly.

Sly. They begin as the world did, with Adam and Eve. There’s in all just five and fifty.[341] I do use to meditate much when I come to plays too. What do you think might come into a man’s head now, seeing all this company? 120

Sly. I have an excellent thought. If some fifty of the Grecians that were crammed in the horse’-belly had eaten garlic, do you not think the Trojans might have smelt out their knavery?

Sinklo. O, but, coz, coz!
“Great [343] Alexander, when he came to the tomb of Achilles,
Spake with a big loud voice, O thou thrice blessèd and happy!” 131

Lowin. Good sir, will you leave the stage? I’ll help you to a private room.[345]

[Come [347] to them, and fencing of a congey with arms and legs, be round with them.

Gentlemen,[348] I could wish for the women’s sakes you had all soft cushions; and, gentlewomen, I could wish that for the men’s sakes you had all more easy standings.

What would they wish more but the play now? and that they shall have instantly. 144

[326] The Induction was added in ed. 2.

[327] For an account of William Sly and the other actors introduced in the Induction, see Collier’s Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare.

[328] The Malcontent had been acted at the Blackfriars Theatre, a private theatre. It was afterwards acted at the Globe, a public theatre.

[329] It was a common practice for gallants to sit on the stage; but when a coxcomb obstructed the view by planting himself in a prominent position, the audience naturally took offence. Dekker, in the chapter of the Gull’s Horn-Book, describing “how a gallant should behave himself at a play-house,” writes:—“But on the very rushes where the comedy is to dance, yea, and under the state of Cambyses himself, must our feathered estridge, like a piece of ordnance, be planted valiantly (because impudently), beating down the mews and hisses of the opposed rascality.”

[330] Sixpence, as we learn from the Gull’s Horn-Book, Induction to Cynthia’s Revels, &c., was the usual charge for the loan of a stool. Francis Lenton in his Young Gallant’s Whirligig tells us of an “expensive fool” who was ready to “pay an angel for a paltry stool.” It was not uncommon to pay a shilling for the convenience.

[331] Dr. Karl Elze in his Notes on the Elizabethan Dramatists (2nd. ser., pp. 160-4) indulges in some speculations about this actor.

[332] From A Funeral Elegy on Burbadge, first printed by Collier, we learn that the great actor took the part of Malevole in The Malcontent:—

“Vindex is gone, and what a loss was he!
Frankford, Brachiano, and Malevole.”

The elegy is in the main unquestionably genuine.

[333] “A quotation from the part of Osrick in Hamlet. Sly might have been the original performer of that character.”—Steevens.

[334] The meaning is that in The Malcontent, which had been originally acted at Blackfriars Theatre, the practice of wearing feathers had been so ridiculed that the feather-makers of Blackfriars had suffered injury in their business. In v. 4 occurs the passage in which the use of feathers is ridiculed:—“For as now-a-days no courtier but has his mistress, no captain but has his cockatrice, no cuckold but has his horns, and no fool but has his feather.” &c. Blackfriars was noted as being the residence of Puritans, many of whom followed the trade of feather-makers. There is some amusing ridicule of the Puritan feather-makers in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, Randolph’s Muses’ Looking-Glass, &c.

[335] Judge.

[336] Box.

[337] The expression “in decimo sexto” is used in reference to the company of the Children of the Chapel, acting at Blackfriars. Cf. Middleton’s Father Hubburd’s Tales (Works, ed. Bullen, viii. 64):—“But for fear I interrupt this small actor in less than decimo sexto, “&c. The Children’s Company at the Blackfriars seems to have appropriated Jeronimo, i.e., The Spanish Tragedy, in which the King’s Company at the Globe had an interest; whereupon the King’s Company retaliated by acting Malevole, i.e. The Malcontent. The expression “Malevole in folio” means “The Malcontent acted by men-actors.”—Dyce did not understand the passage.

[338] A proverbial saying. “L. S.” in the Shakespeare Society’s Papers, ii. 85 (1847), quotes from Plutarch’s Symposium, v. 1:—“For upon what other account should men be moved to admire Parmeno’s sow so much as to pass it into a proverb? Yet ’tis reported that Parmeno, being very famous for imitating the grunting of a pig, some endeavoured to rival and outdo him. And when the hearers, being prejudiced, cried out, ‘Very well, indeed, but nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow,’ one took a pig under his arm and came upon the stage; and when, tho’ they heard the very pig, they still continued, ‘This is nothing comparable to Parmeno’s sow,’ he threw his pig amongst them to show that they judged according to opinion and not truth” (Creech’s translation). Phædrus has a fable on the subject.

[339] Halfpennies.

[340] Forbid.

[341] “This is a pleasant exaggeration on the part of Sly. There were in all, as Stow tells, ‘ten fair dwelling-houses and fourteen shops.’ See ‘Goldsmiths’ Row’ in Handbook of London, ed. 1850.—P. Cunningham (Notes and Queries, 2d ser. vol. i. 71).

[342] The old ed. “he.”

[343] These lines are a translation by Gabriel Harvey’s younger brother John, of some lines of Petrarch, Son. cliii. They are quoted with two other “lusty hexameters” in a letter of Gabriel Harvey to Spenser. See Grosart’s edition of Gabriel Harvey, i. 89-90.

[344] Rogue.

[345] Box.

[346] It was the practice for gallants to smoke in the theatre. “Fie, this stinking tobacco kills me!” says the citizen’s wife, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, to the gallants smoking on the stage: “Would there were none in England! Now, I pray, gentlemen, what good does this stinking tobacco do you? nothing, I warrant you: make chimnies o’ your faces!”

[347] This stage direction is printed as part of the text in old ed.

[348] “This seems intended as a burlesque [?] on the epilogue to As You Like It.”—Reed.

Giovanni Altofronto, disguised as Malevole, sometime Duke of Genoa.
Pietro Jacomo, Duke of Genoa.
Mendoza, a minion to the Duchess of Pietro Jacomo.
Celso, a friend to Altofronto.
Bilioso, an old choleric marshal.
Prepasso, a gentleman-usher.
Ferneze, a young courtier, and enamoured on the Duchess.
Ferrardo, a minion to Duke Pietro Jacomo.

THE MALCONTENT.[349]

ACT I.

Pre. You think you are in a brothel-house, do you not?—This room is ill-scented.

So, perfume, perfume; some upon me, I pray thee.— The duke is upon instant entrance: so, make place there!

Bil. The discord rather than the music is heard from the malcontent Malevole’s chamber.

Mal. [above, out of his chamber] Yaugh, god-a-man, what dost thou there? Duke’s Ganymede, Juno’s jealous of thy long stockings: shadow of a woman, what wouldst, weasel? thou lamb o’court, what dost thou bleat for? ah, you smooth-chinned catamite!

Pietro. Come down, thou rugged [350] cur, and snarl here; I give thy dogged sullenness free liberty: trot about and bespurtle whom thou pleasest. 21

Mal. I’ll come among you, you goatish-blooded toderers,[351] as gum into taffata, to fret, to fret: I’ll fall like a sponge into water, to suck up, to suck up. [Howls again.[352]] I’ll go to church,[353] and come to you.

Pietro. This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer when he was thrust out of the presence. His appetite is unsatiable as the grave; as far from any content as from heaven: his highest delight is to procure others’ vexation, and therein he thinks he truly serves heaven; for ’tis his position, whosoever in this earth can be contented is a slave and damned; therefore does he afflict all in that to which they are most affected. The elements struggle within him; his own soul is at variance within herself;[354] his speech is halter-worthy at all hours. I like him, faith: he gives good intelligence to my spirit, makes me understand those weaknesses which others’ flattery palliates.—Hark! they sing. [A song.] See, he comes. Now shall you hear the extremity of a malcontent: he is as free as air; he blows over every man. 42

Mal. Sects, sects. I have seen seeming piety change her robe so oft, that sure none but some arch-devil can shape her a new [358] petticoat.

Mal. But, damnation on a politic religion! I am weary: would I were one of the duke’s hounds now![359]

Pietro. But what’s the common news abroad, Malevole? thou doggest rumour still. 59

Mal. Common news! why, common words are, God save ye, Fare ye well; common actions, flattery and cozenage; common things, women and cuckolds.—And how does my little Ferrard? Ah, ye lecherous animal!—my little ferret, he goes sucking up and down the palace into every hen’s nest, like a weasel:—and to what dost thou addict thy time to now more than to those antique painted drabs that are still effected of young courtiers,—flattery, pride, and venery?

Mal. Phew! the devil: let him possess thee; he’ll teach thee to speak all languages most readily and strangely;[360] and great reason, marry, he’s travelled greatly i’ the world, and is everywhere.

Mal. Ay, save i’ the court.—[To Bilioso.] And how does my old muckhill, overspread with fresh snow? thou half a man, half a goat, all a beast! how does thy young wife, old huddle?[361]

Mal. Why, like the knight Sir Patrick Penlohans,[362] with killing o’ spiders for my lady’s monkey.[363]

Mal. Why, methinks I see that signior pawn his footcloth,[364] that metreza [365] her plate: this madam takes physic, that t’other monsieur may minister to her: here is a pander jewelled; there is [366] a fellow in shift of satin this day, that could not shift a shirt t’other night: here a Paris supports that Helen; there’s a Lady Guinever bears up that Sir Lancelot: dreams, dreams, visions, fantasies, chimeras, imaginations, tricks, conceits!—[To Prepasso.] Sir Tristram Trimtram, come aloft,[367] Jack-an-apes, with a whim-wham: here’s a knight of the land of Catito shall play at trap with any page in Europe; do the sword-dance with any morris-dancer in Christendom; ride at the ring [368] till the fin [369] of his eyes look as blue as the welkin; and run the wildgoose-chase even with Pompey the Huge.[370] 105

Mal. To the devil.—Now, signior Guerrino, that thou from a most pitied prisoner shouldst grow a most loathed flatterer!—Alas, poor Celso, thy star’s oppressed: thou art an honest lord: ’tis pity. 110

Mal. Ay, marry is’t, philosophical Equato; and ’tis pity that thou, being so excellent a scholar by art, should be so ridiculous a fool by nature.—I have a thing to tell you, duke: bid ’em avaunt, bid ’em avaunt.

Mal. Mendoza is the man makes thee a horned beast; duke, ’tis Mendoza cornutes thee.

Mal. As a lawyer’s beard.
There is an old crone in the court, her name is Maquerelle,
She is my mistress, sooth to say, and she doth ever tell me.
Blirt o’ rhyme, blirt o’ rhyme! Maquerelle is a cunning bawd; I am an honest villain; thy wife is a close drab; and thou art a notorious cuckold. Farewell, duke. 132

Mal. Dull, dull duke, can lazy patience make lame revenge? O God, for a woman to make a man that which God never created, never made!

Mal. A cuckold: to be made a thing that’s hoodwinked with kindness, whilst every rascal fillips his brows; to have a coxcomb with egregious horns pinned to a lord’s back, every page sporting himself with delightful laughter, whilst he must be the last must know it: pistols and poniards! pistols and poniards! 143

Mal.[374] Nay, to select among ten thousand fairs
A lady far inferior to the most,
In fair proportion both of limb and soul;
To take her from austerer check of parents,
To make her his by most devoutful rites, 150
Make her commandress of a better essence
Than is the gorgeous world, even of a man;
To hug her with as rais’d an appetite
As usurers do their delv’d-up treasury
(Thinking none tells it but his private self);
To meet her spirit in a nimble kiss,
Distilling panting ardour to her heart;
True to her sheets, nay, diets strong his blood,
To give her height of hymeneal sweets,——

Mal. Whilst she lisps, and gives him some court-quelquechose,[375]
Made only to provoke, not satiate:
And yet even then the thaw of her delight
Flows from lewd heat of apprehension,
Only from strange imagination’s rankness,
That forms the adulterer’s presence in her soul,
And makes her think she clips the foul knave’s loins.
Pietro. Affliction to my blood’s root!

Mal. Nay, think, but think what may proceed of this; Adultery is often the mother of incest. 170

Mal. Yes, incest: mark:—Mendoza of his wife begets perchance a daughter: Mendoza dies; his son marries this daughter: say you? nay, ’tis frequent, not only probable, but no question often acted, whilst ignorance, fearless ignorance, clasps his own seed.

Mal. Adultery? why, next to the sin of simony, ’tis the most horrid transgression under the cope of salvation. 180

Mal. Because (thanks to some churchmen) our age will leave them nothing to sin with. But adultery, O dulness! should show [376] exemplary punishment, that intemperate bloods may freeze but to think it. I would damn him and all his generation: my own hands should do it; ha, I would not trust heaven with my vengeance:—anything. 191

Pietro. Anything, anything, Malevole: thou shalt see instantly what temper my spirit holds. Farewell; remember I forget thee not; farewell.

Mal.[377] Farewell.
Lean thoughtfulness, a sallow meditation,
Suck thy veins dry, distemperance rob thy sleep!
The heart’s disquiet is revenge most deep:
He that gets blood, the life of flesh but spills,
But he that breaks heart’s peace, the dear soul kills. 200
Well, this disguise doth yet afford me that
Which kings do seldom hear, or great men use,—
Free speech: and though my state’s usurp’d,
Yet this affected strain gives me a tongue
As fetterless as in an emperor’s.
I may speak foolishly, ay, knavishly,
Always carelessly, yet no one thinks it fashion
To poise my breath; for he that laughs and strikes
Is lightly felt, or seldom struck again.
Duke, I’ll torment thee now; my just revenge 210
From thee than crown a richer gem shall part:
Beneath God, naught’s so dear as a calm heart.

Mal. Peace, speak low, peace! O Celso, constant lord,
(Thou to whose faith I only rest discover’d,
Thou, one of full ten millions of men,
That lovest virtue only for itself;
Thou in whose hands old Ops may put her soul)
Behold forever-banish’d Altofront,
This Genoa’s last year’s duke. O truly noble! 220
I wanted those old instruments of state,
Dissemblance and suspect: I could not time it, Celso;
My throne stood like a point midst [378] of a circle,
To all of equal nearness; bore with none;
Rein’d all alike; so slept in fearless virtue,
Suspectless, too suspectless; till the crowd,
(Still lickorous of untried novelties)
Impatient with severer government
Made strong with Florence, banish’d Altofront.

Celso. Strong with Florence! ay, thence your mischief rose; 230
For when the daughter of the Florentine
Was match’d once with this Pietro, now duke,
No stratagem of state untried was left,
Till you of all——

Mal. Of all was quite bereft:
Alas, Maria too close prisonèd,
My true-faith’d duchess, i’ the citadel!

Mal. O, no,[379] climb not a falling tower, Celso;
’Tis well held desperation, no zeal,
Hopeless to strive with fate: peace; temporise. 240
Hope, hope, that ne’er forsak’st the wretched’st man,
Yet bidd’st me live, and lurk in this disguise!
What, play I well the free-breath’d discontent?
Why, man, we are all philosophical monarchs
Or natural fools. Celso, the court’s a-fire;
The duchess’ sheets will smoke for’t ere’t be long:
Impure Mendoza, that sharp-nos’d lord, that made
The cursèd match link’d Genoa with Florence,
Now broad-horns the duke, which he now knows.
Discord to malcontents is very manna: 250
When the ranks are burst, then scuffle, Altofront.

Mal. ’Tis gone; ’tis swallow’d like a mineral:
Some way ’twill work; pheut, I’ll not shrink:
He’s resolute who can no lower sink.

O [380] the father of May-poles! did you never see a fellow whose strength consisted in his breath, respect in his office, religion in [381] his lord, and love in himself? why, then, behold.

Mal. My right worshipful lord, your court night-cap makes you have a passing high forehead.

Bil. I can tell you strange news, but I am sure you know them already: the duke speaks much good of you.

Mal. Just: what though I called thee old ox, egregious wittol, broken-bellied coward, rotten mummy? yet, since I am in favour—— 272

Bil. Words of course, terms of disport. His grace presents you by me a chain, as his grateful remembrance for—I am ignorant for what; marry, ye may impart: yet howsoever—come—dear friend; dost know my son?

Bil. He shall eat wood-cocks, dance jigs, make possets, and play at shuttle-cock with any young lord about the court: he has as sweet a lady too; dost know her little bitch? 281

Bil. Believe me, a she-bitch: O, ’tis a good creature! thou shalt be her servant. I’ll make thee acquainted with my young wife too: what! I keep her not at court for nothing. ’Tis grown to supper-time; come to my table: that, anything I have, stands open to thee.

Mal. [aside to Celso] How smooth to him that is in state of grace,
How servile is the rugged’st courtier’s face!
What profit, nay, what nature would keep down, 290
Are heav’d to them are minions to a crown.
Envious ambition never sates his thirst,
Till sucking all, he swells and swells, and burst.[382]

Bil. I shall now leave you with my always-best wishes; only let’s hold betwixt us a firm correspondence, a mutual friendly-reciprocal kind of steady-unanimous-heartily-leagued——

Mal. Did your signiorship ne’er see a pigeon-house that was smooth, round, and white without, and full of holes and stink within? ha’ ye not, old courtier? 300

Mal. Mendoza, hark ye, hark ye. You are a treacherous villain: God b’ wi’ ye!

Mal. We are all the sons of heaven, though a tripe-wife were our mother: ah, you whoreson, hot-reined he-marmoset! Ægisthus! didst ever hear of one Ægisthus?

Mal. Ay, Ægisthus: he was a filthy incontinent fleshmonger, such a one as thou art.

Mal. Ay, at the resurrection.
No vulgar seed but once may rise and shall;
No king so huge but ’fore he die may fall.

Men. Now, good Elysium! what a delicious heaven is it for a man to be in a prince’s favour! O sweet God! O pleasure! O fortune! O all thou best of life! what should I think, what say, what do to be a favourite, a minion? to have a general timorous respect observe a man, a stateful silence in his presence, solitariness in his absence, a confused hum and busy murmur of obsequious suitors training him; the cloth held up, and way proclaimed before him; petitionary vassals licking the pavement with their slavish knees, whilst some odd palace-lampreels that engender with snakes, and are full of eyes on both sides, with a kind of insinuated [384] humbleness, fix all their delights [385] upon his brow. O blessed state! what a ravishing prospect doth the Olympus of favour yield! Death, I cornute the duke! Sweet women! most sweet ladies! nay, angels! by heaven, he is more accursed than a devil that hates you, or is hated by you; and happier than a god that loves you, or is beloved by you: you preservers of mankind, life-blood of society, who would live, nay, who can live without you? O paradise! how majestical is your austerer presence! how imperiously chaste is your more modest face! but, O, how full of ravishing attraction is your pretty, petulant, languishing, lasciviously-composed countenance! these amorous smiles, those soul-warming sparkling glances, ardent as those flames that singed the world by heedless Phaeton! in body how delicate,[386] in soul how witty, in discourse how pregnant, in life how wary, in favours how judicious, in day how sociable, and in night how—— O pleasure unutterable! indeed, it is most certain, one man cannot deserve only to enjoy a beauteous woman: but a duchess! in despite of Phœbus, I’ll write a sonnet instantly in praise of her. 357

THE MALCONTENT.

TO THE READER.

THE INDUCTION[326]

THE MALCONTENT.[349]

ACT I.

THE INDUCTION [326]