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Fran. How like the sun Labouring in his eclipse, dark and prodigious, She show'd till now! When, having won his way, How full of wonder he breaks out again, And sheds his virtuons beams! Excellent angel! (Forno less can that heavenly mind proclaim thee.) Honour of all thy sex! let it be lawful (And like a pilgrim thus I kneel to beg it, Not with profane lips now, nor burnt affections, But, reconciled to faith, with holy wishes,) To kiss that virgin hand!

Cel. Take your desire, sir,

And in a nobler way, for I dare trust you;
No other fruit my love must ever yield you,
I fear, no more!-Yet, your most constant memory
(So much I'm wedded to that worthiness)
Shall ever be my friend, companion, husband!
Farewell! and fairly govern your affections;
Stand, and deceive me not!—Oh, noble young man!
I love thee with my soul, but dare not say
it !
Once more, farewell, and prosper

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You're welcome, sister; and I would to Heaven
I could so bid you by another name.—
If you above love not such sins as these,
Circle my heart with thoughts as cold as snow,
To quench these rising flames that harbour here.
Pan. Sir, does it please you I shall speak?
Arb. Please me?

Ay, more than all the art of music can,
Thy speech doth please me: for it ever sounds
As thou brought'st joyful unexpected news:
And yet it is not fit thou should'st be heard ;
I pray thee, think so.

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Pan. Alas, sir, am I venom?
Arb. Yes, to me;

Though, of thyself, I think thee to be in
As equal a degree of heat or cold,

As Nature can make: yet, as unsound men
Convert the sweetest and the nourishing'st meats
Into diseases, so shall I, distemper'd,

Do thee: I pray thee, draw no nearer to me. Pan. Sir, this is that I would: I am of late Shut from the world, and why it should be thus Is all I wish to know.

Arb. Why, credit me,

Panthea, credit me, that am thy brother,
Thy loving brother, that there is a cause
Sufficient, yet unfit for thee to know,
That might undo thee everlastingly,
Only to hear. Wilt thou but credit this?
By Heaven, 'tis true: believe it, if thou canst.
Pan. Children and fools are very credulous,
And I am both, I think, for I believe,
If you dissemble, be it on your head!
I'll back unto my prison. Yet methinks,

I might be kept in some place where you are;
For in myself, I find, I know not what
To call it, but it is a great desire

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And I am left as far without a bound
As the wild ocean that obeys the winds;
Each sudden passion throws me where it lists,
And overwhelms all that oppose my will.
I have beheld thee with a lustful eye;
My heart is set on wickedness, to act
Such sins with thee, as I have been afraid
To think of. If thou dar'st consent to this,
Which, I beseech thee, do not, thou may'st gain
Thy liberty, and yield me a content;

If not, thy dwelling must be dark and close,
Where I may never see thee for Heaven

knows,

That laid this punishment upon my pride,
Thy sight at some time will enforce my madness
To make a start e'en to thy ravishing.
Now spit upon me, and call all reproaches
Thou canst devise together, and at once
Hurl 'em against me; for I am a sickness
As killing as the plague, ready to seize thee.

Pan. Far be it from me to revile the king!
But it is true, that I shall rather choose
To search out death, that else would search

out me,

And in a grave sleep with my innocence,
Than welcome such a sin. It is my fate;
To these cross accidents I was ordain'd,
And must have patience; and, but that my eyes
Have more of woman in 'em than my heart,
I would not weep. Peace enter you again!

Arb. Farewell; and, good Panthea, pray for me,
(Thy prayers are pure) that I may find a death,
However soon, before my passions grow,
That they forget what I desire is sin;

For thither they are tending: if that happen, Then I shall force thee, though thou wert a virgin

By vow to Heaven, and shall pull a heap

Of strange, yet uninvented, sin upon me.

Pan. Sir, I will pray for you! yet you shall know

It is a sullen fate that governs us:
For I could wish, as heartily as you,
I were no sister to you; I should then
Embrace your lawful love, sooner than health.
Arb. Couldst thou affect me then?
Pan. So perfectly,

That, as it is, I ne'er shall sway my heart
To like another.

Arb. Then I curse my birth!
Must this be added to my miseries,

That thou art willing too? Is there no stop
To our full happiness, but these mere sounds,
Brother and sister?

Pan. There is nothing else:

But these, alas! will separate us more
Than twenty worlds betwixt us.

Arb. I have lived

To conquer men, and now am overthrown
Only by words, brother and sister. Where
Have those words dwelling? I will find 'em out,
And utterly destroy 'em ; but they are
Not to be grasp'd let them be men or beasts,
And I will cut 'em from the earth; or towns,
And I will raze 'em, and then blow 'em up:

Let 'em be seas, and I will drink 'em off, And yet have unquench'd fire left in my breast:

Let 'em be anything but merely voice.

Pan. But 'tis not in the power' of any force, Or policy, to conquer them.

Arb. Panthea,

What shall we do? Shall we stand firmly here, And gaze our eyes out?

Pan. 'Would I could do so! But I shall weep out mine.

Arb. Accursed man,

Thou bought'st thy reason at too dear a rate;
For thou hast all thy actions bounded in
With curious rules, when every beast is free:
What is there that acknowledges a kindred,
But wretched man? Who ever saw the bull
Fearfully leave the heifer that he liked,
Because they had one dam?

Pan. Sir, I disturb you

And myself too; 'twere better I were gone. Arb. I will not be so foolish as I was; Stay, we will love just as becomes our births, No otherwise : brothers and sisters may Walk hand in hand together; so shall we. Come nearer Is there any hurt in this? Pan. I hope not.

Arb. 'Faith, there is none at all :
And tell me truly now, is there not one
You love above me?

Pan. No, by Heaven.
Arb. Why, yet

You sent unto Tigranes, sister.

Pan. True,

But for another: for the truth

Arb. No more,

I'll credit thee; I know thou canst not lie. Thou art all truth.

Pan. But is there nothing else, That we may do, but only walk? Methinks, Brothers and sisters lawfully may kiss.

Arb. And so they may, Panthea ; so will we; And kiss again too; we were too scrupulous And foolish, but we will be so no more.

Pan. If you have any mercy, let me go To prison, to my death, to anything:

I feel a sin growing upon my blood,

Worse than all these, hotter, I fear, than yours.
Arb. That is impossible: what should we do?
Pan. Fly, sir, for Heaven's sake.

Arb. So we must; away!
Sin grows upon us more by this delay.

Exeunt several ways.]

SIR JOHN DAVIES.

[Born, 1570. Died, 1626.]

SIR JOHN DAVIES wrote, at twenty-five years of age, a poem on the immortality of the soul; and at fifty-two, when he was a judge and a statesman, another on "the art of dancing*." Well might the teacher of that noble accomplishment, in Molière's comedy, exclaim, La philosophie est quelque chose-mais la danse!

Sir John was the son of a practising lawyer at Tisbury, in Wiltshire. He was expelled from the Temple for beating Richard Martin+, who was afterwards recorder of London; but his talents redeemed the disgrace. He was restored to the Temple, and elected to parliament, where, although he had flattered Queen Elizabeth in his poetry, he distinguished himself by supporting the privileges of the house, and by opposing royal monopolies. On the accession of King James he went to Scotland with Lord Hunsdon, and was received by the new sovereign with flattering cordiality, as author of the poem Nosce Teipsum.

In Ireland he was successively nominated solicitor and attorney general, was knighted, and chosen speaker of the Irish House of Commons, in opposition to the Catholic interest. Two works which he published as the fruits of his observation in that kingdom, have attached considerable importance to his name in the legal and political history of Ireland§. On his return to England he sat in parliament for Newcastle-under-Lyne, and had assurances of being appointed chief justice of England, when his death was suddenly occasioned by apoplexy. He married, while in Ireland, Eleanor, a daughter of Lord Audley, by whom he had a daughter, who was married to Ferdinand Lord Hastings, afterwards Earl of Huntingdon. Sir John's widow turned out an enthusiast and a prophetess. A volume of her ravings was published in 1649, for which the revolutionary government sent her to the Tower, and to Bethlehem Hospital.

THE VANITY OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

FROM "NOSCE TEIPSUM," OR A POEM ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

WHY did my parents send me to the schools, That I with knowledge might enrich my mind? Since the desire to know first made men fools, And did corrupt the root of all mankind.

What is this knowledge but the sky-stol'n fire,
For which the thieft still chain'd in ice doth sit?
And which the poor rude satyr did admire,
And needs would kiss, but burnt his lips with it.

In fine, what is it but the fiery coach

Which the youth|| sought, and sought his death withal,

Or the boy's wings¶ which, when he did approach The sun's hot beams, did melt and let him fall?

[*This is not the case; the "Poeme of Dauncing" appeared in 1596, in his twenty-sixth year, and, curious enough, with a dedicatory sonnet "To his very Friend, Ma. Rich. Martin." A copy, supposed unique, is in the Bridgewater Library. The poem was the work of fifteen days. See COLLIER'S Bibliographical Catalogue, p. 92. The poet wrote his name DAUYS.]

A respectable man, to whom Ben Jonson dedicated his Poetaster. + Prometheus.

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So might the heir whose father hath in play
Wasted a thousand pounds of ancient rent,
By painful earning of one groat a day
Hope to restore the patrimony spent.

The wits that dived most deep and soar'd most high,
Seeking man's powers, have found his weakness such;
Skill comes so slow, and time so fast doth fly,
We learn so little and forget so much.

For this the wisest of all moral men
Said, "he knew nought but that he did not know."
And the great mocking master mock'd not then,
When he said 'Truth was buried deep below.'

As spiders, touch'd, seek their web's inmost part;
As bees, in storms, back to their hives return;
As blood in danger gathers to the heart;
As men seek towns when foes the country burn:

If aught can teach us aught, affliction's looks (Making us pry into ourselves so near), Teach us to know ourselves beyond all books, Or all the learned schools that ever were.

She within lists my ranging mind hath brought,
That now beyond myself I will not go :
Myself am centre of my circling thought:
Only myself I study, learn, and know.

I know my body's of so frail a kind,
As force without, fevers within can kill ;
I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will.

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
Yet is she blind and ignorant in all ;
I know I'm one of nature's little kings,
Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain, and but a span ;
I know my sense is mock'd in every thing:
And, to conclude, I know myself a man,
Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

We seek to know the moving of each sphere,
And the strange cause of th' ebbs and floods of Nile;
But of that clock within our breasts we bear,
The subtle motions we forget the while.

For this few know themselves; for merchants broke
View their estate with discontent and pain;
And seas are troubled, when they do revoke
Their flowing waves into themselves again.

And while the face of outward things we find
Pleasing and fair, agreeable and sweet,
These things transport and carry out the mind,
That with herself the mind can never meet.

Yet if affliction once her wars begin,

And threat the feebler sense with sword and fire,
The mind contracts herself and shrinketh in,
And to herself she gladly doth retire.

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN A PERFECTION OR REFLEXION OF THE SENSE.

ARE they not senseless, then, that think the soul
Nought but a fine perfection of the sense,
Or of the forms which fancy doth enrol,
A quick resulting and a consequence?

What is it, then, that doth the sense accuse
Both of false judgments and fond appetites?
What makes us do what sense doth most refuse,
Which oft in torment of the sense delights?

Could any powers of sense the Roman move,
To burn his own right hand with courage stout?
Could sense make Marius sit unbound, and prove
The cruel lancing of the knotty gout?

Sense outsides knows-the soul through all things

sees;

Sense, circumstance; she doth the substance view: Sense sees the bark, but she the life of trees; Sense hears the sounds, but she the concord true.

Then is the soul a nature which contains
The power of sense within a greater power,
Which doth employ and use the sense's pains,
But sits and rules within her private bower.

THAT THE SOUL IS MORE THAN THE TEMPERATURE OF THE HUMOURS OF THE BODY.

If she doth, then, the subtle sense excel,
How gross are they that drown her in the blood,
Or in the body's humours temper'd well?
As if in them such high perfection stood.

As if most skill in that musician were,
Which had the best, and best tuned, instrument;
As if the pencil neat, and colours clear,
Had power to make the painter excellent.

Why doth not beauty, then, refine the wit,
And good complexion rectify the will?
Why doth not health bring wisdom still with it?
Why doth not sickness make men brutish still?

Who can in memory, or wit, or will,
Or air, or fire, or earth, or water, find ;
What alchymist can draw, with all his skill,
The quintessences of these from out the mind?

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