in that age; for many of the greatest monsters it produced and never were there any greater than in the reigns of the Tudors and the first Stuart received, after their deaths, a homage little inferior to an apotheosis. To be sure, all this praise was written" for a consideration;" the heir was expected to pay for "the miserable dole of consolation." Ford, however, declares that his muse was unpaid; and it deserved to be so. Who on earth could be expected to pay for such precious trash as the following?

"Life? ah, no life, but ever extinguish'd tapers!
Tapers? no tapers, but a burnt out light!
Light? ah, no light, but exhalation's vapours!
Vapours? no vapours, but ill-blinded sight!
Sight? ah, no sight, but hell's eternal night!

A night? no night, but picture of an elf!
An elf? no elf, but very death itself!"

After this specimen, the reader, we suspect, will wish to hear no more of Fame's Memorial.

The year when Ford became connected with the stage has not yet been discovered. The first of his acknowledged dramas, The Lover's Melancholy, was not printed until 1629; and it was acted, for the first time, the year before. How, then, had he been occupied from 1606 to 1628? If this was, as he himself asserted, "the first piece (drama) that ever courted reader," he certainly had written for the stage, though in connection with other dramatists. We know that he had assisted Decker in two dramas*, and Webster in one. Besides these, he had a hand in the composition of seven other pieces. It is therefore apparent that, when The Lover's Melancholy appeared, he was far from a novice in dramatic composition.

The Lover's Melancholy does not, in our opinion, deserve the praise it has obtained. Poetry it has, and poetry, too, of a higher order than we find in plays generally; but it has no more impress of real life, than

The Fairy Knight, and The Bristowe Merchant.

one of Virgil's pastorals. There is much grace, much sweetness, much true simplicity, in the sentiments and dialogue. We do not, however, like two recent critics, think that there is much pathos in it. The sorrows are too unreal, the expression too artificial, to move our pity. As a piece of art-for such it merely Is-this drama will be long admired.

Four years elapsed after the representation of this piece before Ford gave any thing more to the world. Fortunately, his pecuniary circumstances were too easy to render literary composition necessary. This was to him a great advantage. Not compelled, like the rest, to produce a given quantity in a given time, he could take his own leisure to finish his pieces. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is a fantastic and indelicate title: very easily might he have substituted a better one (indeed he could not have found a worse); but, provided our old writers could hit upon something striking, they little troubled themselves about its delicacy. The plot, which is a dreadful one, is derived from an Italian source: some of the particulars are said to be derived from a French tale by Rossell; but, if so, the tale itself is of another region the names, the allusions, above all, the spirit, are Italian. Why Ford chose such a plot, would be vain to inquire, unless it were to gratify the taste of an audience eager for the horrible. He could not have chosen one less suited to his own powers, which are those of description, not of passion. Our notice of it must be brief.

The scene opens with a confession from Giovanni, who is deeply in love with his own sister, to Bonaventura, a friar and his ghostly father. It is in the cell of the latter that the dreadful confession is made. Ford ought to have known that this ordinance of the Roman catholic church is, in catholic countries, always celebrated in the cathedral, unless sickness, or absence from the customary place, render this impossible. Giovanni would not have been permitted to enter the cell of any ~~~.. hut this is only one out of many instances that

might be adduced of the general ignorance of our ancestors respecting matters which lay beyond their daily experience. But, waiving this objection, the event on which the whole plot turns, is well described in the opening scene:

"Friar. Dispute no more in this; for know, young man, These are no school points; nice philosophy

May tolerate unlikely arguments,

But Heaven admits no jest: wits that presumed

On wit too much, by striving how to prove

There was no God, with foolish grounds of art,
Discover'd first the nearest way to hell;

To you I have unclasp'd my burden'd soul,

Emptied the storehouse of my thoughts and heart,
Made myself poor of secrets; have not left
Another word untold, which hath not spoke
All what I ever durst, or think, or know;
And yet is here the comfort I shall have?
Must I not do what all men else may, - love?
"Friar. Yes, you may love, fair son.
"Gio. Must I not praise

That beauty, which, if fram'd anew, the gods
Would make a god of, if they had it there;
And kneel to it, as I do kneel to them?
"Friar. Why, foolish madman!-
"Gio. Shall a peevish sound,

A customary form, from man to man,
Of brother and of sister, be a bar

'Twixt my perpetual happiness and me?
Say that we had one father, say one womb
(Curse to my joys!) gave both us life and birth;
Are we not, therefore, each to other bound
So much the more by nature? by the links
Of blood, of reason? nay, you will have it,
Even of religion, to be ever one,

One soul, one flesh, one love, one heart, one all?

"Friar. Have done, unhappy youth! for thou art lost.

"

CL 11

C