Eng. That is sure, sir.

Meer. [whispers him.] What say you to this

then?

Fitz. No, a uoble house

Pretends to that. I will do no man wrong.
Meer. Then take one proposition more, and

hear it

As past exception.

Fitz. What is that?

-Meer. To be

Duke of those lands you shall recover: take Your title thence, sir, DUKE OF THE DROWN'D LANDS,

Or, DROWN'D LAND.

in another place) have supposed that Shakspeare was the first dramatic poet who introduced dramas, formed on the Chronicles, but this is an undoubted error. Every one of the subjects on which he constructed his historical plays, appears to have been brought upon the scene before his time." And yet Jonson could mean no one but Shakspeare! though, in fact, he merely puts into the mouth of his conceited simpleton, a trite observation which had probably been made by a hundred others. Mr. Malone is such a blind Bayard in his hostility to our poet, that it is seldom necessary to do more than to quote him against himself, to refute his charges. After proving from Gosson that the Chronicles had been ransacked for plays before 1580, while Shakspeare perhaps was "killing calves," as Aubrey says, "in a high style," he adds: Lodge urges in defence of plays, that they dilucidate and well explain many darke obscure histories, imprinting them in men's minds in such indelible characters that they can hardly be obliterated." And Heywood in his Apology for Actors, 1612, (four years prior to the date of the present drama,) says, 66 Plays have taught the unlearned the knowledge of many famous histories, instructed such as cannot read in the discovery of our English Chronicles: and what man have you now of that weake capacity that being possest of their true use, cannot discourse of any notable thing recorded even from William the Conqueror, until this day?" Yet Jonson with all this, and ten times more, before him, could not forsooth lightly touch on the same subject without being taxed from volume to volume, with malignantly sneering at Shakspeare!

66

Fitz. Ha! that last has a good sound:

I like it well. The duke of Drown'd-land?
Eng. Yes;

It goes like Groen-land, sir, if you mark it.
Meer. Ay;

And drawing thus your honour from the work,
You make the reputation of that greater,

And stay it the longer in your name.

Fitz. 'Tis true.

DROWN'D LANDS will live in drown'd-land!

Meer. Yes, when you

6

Have no foot left; as that must be, sir, one day.
And though it tarry in your heirs some forty,
Fifty descents, the longer liver at last, yet,
Must thrust them out on't, if no quirk in law,
Or odd vice of their own not do it first.
We see those changes daily the fair lands
That were the client's, are the lawyer's now;
And those rich manors there of goodman Taylor's,
Had once more wood upon them, than the yard
By which they were measured out for the last
purchase.

• Yes, when you

:

Have no foot left, as that must be, sir, one day, &c.]

The venturing upon so sad a truth in the midst of a project of deceit, is artful in the highest degree, and tends to throw an air of sincerity over the whole.

The speech itself is adapted with the most imposing gravity from Horace :

Nam propria telluris herum natura, neque illum
Nec me, nec quenquam statuit; nos expulit ille,
Illum aut nequities, aut vafri inscitia juris,
Postremo expellat certe vivacior hæres.

What follows is admirably turned by Pope :

❝ Shades that to Bacon might retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;

And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener, or city knight.”

Nature hath these vicissitudes. She makes
No man a state of perpetuity, sir.

Fitz. You are in the right. Let's in then, and conclude.

Re-enter PUG.

In my sight again! I'll talk with you anon.
[Exeunt Fitz. Meer. and Engine.
Pug. Sure he will geld me if I stay, or worse,
Pluck out my tongue, one of the two. This fool,
There is no trusting of him; and to quit him,
Were a contempt against my chief past pardon.
It was a shrewd disheartening this, at first!
Who would have thought a woman so well har-
ness'd,

Or rather well caparison'd, indeed,

That wears such petticoats, and lace to her smocks,

Broad seaming laces (as I see them hang there)
And garters which are lost, if she can shew them,'
Could have done this? Hell! why is she so
brave?

It cannot be to please duke Dottrel, sure,
Nor the dull pictures in her gallery,

Nor her own dear reflection in her glass;
Yet that may be: I have known many of them
Begin their pleasure, but none end it there:
(That I consider, as I go along with it)
They may, for want of better company,

7 And garters which are lost if she can shew them.] So the old copies read: but the sense seems to require the addition of not, which might be dropt at the press. "Garters of fourscore pound a pair," are mentioned by Satan in the first scene, and we may be pretty confident that some mode of displaying them was in use. Pug could see the lace of his lady's smock, and it is probable that the embroidered extremities of her garters were permitted to hang, as he says, quite as low as that.

Or that they think the better, spend an hour,
Two, three, or four, discoursing with their shadow;
But sure they have a farther speculation.
No woman drest with so much care and study,
Doth dress herself in vain. I'll vex this problem
A little more, before I leave it sure. [Exit.

SCENE II.

Manly's Chambers in Lincoln's Inn, opposite Fitzdottrel's House.

Enter WITTIPOL and MANLY.

Wit. This was a fortune happy above thought, That this should prove thy chamber; which I fear'd

Would be my greatest trouble! this must be
The very window, and that the room.
Man. It is.

I now remember, I have often seen there
A woman, but I never mark'd her much.
Wit. Where was your soul, friend?
Man. Faith, but now and then
Awake unto those objects.

Wit. You pretend so.

Let me not live, if I am not in love

More with her wit, for this direction now,

Than with her form, though I have praised that

prettily,

Since I saw her and you to-day. Read those:

[Gives him the copy of a song.

They'll go unto the air you love so well.

Try them unto the note, may be the music Will call her sooner; light, she's here! sing quickly.

Mrs. FITZDOTTREL appears at a window of her house fronting that of Manly's Chambers.

Mrs. Fitz. Either he understood him not; or else,

The fellow was not faithful in delivery
Of what I bade. And, I am justly pay'd,
That might have made my profit of his service,
But by mistaking, have drawn on his envy,'
And done the worse defeat upon myself.

[Manly sings. How! music? then he may be there: and is sure.

Enter Pug behind.

Pug. O is it so? is there the interview! Have I drawn to you, at last, my cunning lady? The Devil is an ass! fool'd off, and beaten ! Nay, made an instrument, and could not scent it! Well, since you have shewn the malice of a woman, No less than her true wit and learning, mistress, I'll try, if little Pug have the malignity To recompense it, and so save his danger. 'Tis not the pain, but the discredit of it, The Devil should not keep a body entire..

[Aside and exit.

66

This scene, the margin of the old copy tells us, is acted at two windows as out of two contiguous buildings." Whoever has noticed the narrow streets or rather lanes of our ancestors, and observed how story projected beyond story, till the windows of the upper rooms almost touched on different sides, will easily conceive the feasibility of every thing which takes place between Wittipol and his mistress, though they make their appearance in different houses.

• But by mistaking, have drawn on his envy.] i. e. ill-will, displeasure. As this sense of the word is altogether obsolete, it seems just necessary to notice it.