Lady P. Here's Pastor FidoVolp. Profess obstinate silence; That's now my safest.

Lady P. All our English writers,

[Aside.

I mean such as are happy in the Italian,
Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly ;
Almost as much as from Montagnié:

He has so modern and facile a vein,

Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear!
Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,
In days of sonnetting, trusted them with much :"
Dante is hard, and few can understand him.
But, for a desperate wit, there's Aretine;
Only, his pictures are a little obscene-

You mark me not,

Volp. Alas, my mind's perturb'd,

Lady P. Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves,

Make use of our philosophy-—

Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,

In days of sonnetting, trusted them with much:] Lady Would-be is perfectly correct, both in what she says here of Petrarch, and above of Guarini. The Pastor Fido was plundered without mercy, or judgment: yet the theft was not unhappy; for though much poor conceit, and unnatural passion was thus introduced among us, many graces of expression, and delicacies of feeling accompanied them, which in the gradual improvement of taste, now first become an object of concern, enriched the language with beauties, which have not yet lost their power to charm. To Petrarch we are still more indebted-though the coarse and wholesale manner in which he was at first copied gave occasion to the well-merited reproofs of our early satirists. Thus Hall,

"Or filch whole pages at a clap for need,
"From honest Petrarch, clad in English weed."

Again:

"Or an

hos ego' from old Petrarch's spright, Unto a plagiary sonnet-wight," &c,

Volp. Oh me!

Lady P. And as we find our passions do rebel, Encounter them with reason, or divert them, By giving scope unto some other humour Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies,

There's nothing more doth overwhelm the judgment,

And cloud the understanding, than too much
Settling and fixing, and, as 'twere, subsiding
Upon one object. For the incorporating
Of these same outward things, into that part,
Which we call mental, leaves some certain fæces
That stop the organs, and, as Plato says,
Assassinate our knowledge.

Volp. Now, the spirit

Of patience help me!

Lady P. Come, in faith, I must

[Aside.

Visit you more a days; and make you well:
Laugh and be lusty.

Volp. My good angel save me!

[Aside. Lady P. There was but one sole man in all

the world,

With whom I e'er could sympathise; and he
Would lie you, often, three, four hours together,
To hear me, speak; and be sometime so rapt,
As he would answer me quite from the purpose,
Like you, and you are like him, just. I'll dis-

course,

An't be but only, sir, to bring you asleep,
How we did spend our time and loves together,
For some six years.

Volp. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

Lady P. For we were coetanei, and brought

up

Volp. Some power, some fate, some fortune

rescue me!

3.

Enter MOSCA.

Mos. God save you, madam!
Lady P. Good sir.

Volp. Mosca! welcome,
Welcome to my redemption.
Mos. Why, sir?

Volp. Oh,

Rid me of this my torture, quickly, there;
My madam, with the everlasting voice:

The bells, in time of pestilence, ne'er made
Like noise, or were in that perpetual motion!
The Cock-pit comes not near it. All my house,
But now, steam'd like a bath with her thick
breath,

A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce Another woman, such a hail of words.

She has let fall. For hell's sake, rid her hence. Mos. Has she presented?

Volp. O, I do not care;

I'll take her absence, upon any price,

With any loss.

Mos. Madam

Lady P. I have brought your patron A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.

Mos. 'Tis well,

I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight,
Where you would little think it.—

The Cock-pit comes not near it.] The Cock-pit! Had Jonson forgot that he was now in Venice?-But, perhaps, he saw no impropriety in giving this name to a theatre there. The Cockpit was one of our earliest theatres, and from the allusion in the text, as well as from many others which occur in our old drama. tists, it may be collected that it was frequented by the lowest and most disorderly of the people. After all, Venice was not much injured :-for Coryat, who was there about this time,

Lady P. Where?

Mos. Marry,

Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend him,

Rowing upon the water in a gondole,

With the most cunning courtezan of Venice.1 Lady P. Is't true?

Mos. Pursue them, and believe your eyes: Leave me, to make your gift. [Exit Lady P. hastily.]-I knew 'twould take:

For, lightly, they that use themselves most license,* Are still most jealous.

Volp. Mosca, hearty thanks,

For thy quick fiction, and delivery of me.
Now to my hopes, what say'st thou?

Re-enter Lady P. WOULD-BE.

Lady P. But do you hear, sir?——
Volp. Again! I fear a paroxysm.
Lady P. Which way

Row'd they together?

Mos. Toward the Rialto.
Lady P. I pray you

lend me your

dwarf.

says, I was at one of their play-houses, where I saw a comedie acted. The house is very beggarly and base in comparison of our stately play-houses in England: neither can the actors compare with us for apparel, shewes, and musicke." p. 247. The conclusion of this speech is from Juvenal. Sat. vi.

1 With the most cunning courtezan of Venice.] Venice succeeded, and not unjustly, to all the celebrity of Corinth for rapacious, subtle, and accomplished wantons. Shakspeare notices this circumstance; as, indeed, do all the writers of his age, who have occasion to mention the city. The "leg-stretcher of Odcombe," (as Coryat aptly calls himself,) whose simple love of novelty involved him in the most ridiculous adventures, has a great deal of curious matter on this subject.

For, lightly, i. e. usually, or in common course. See Vol. II. p. 255.

WHAL.

--

Mos. I pray you take him. [Exit Lady P. Your hopes, sir, are like happy blossoms, fair, And promise timely fruit, if you will stay But the maturing; keep you at your couch, Corbaccio will arrive straight, with the Will; When he is gone, I'll tell you more.

Volp. My blood,

[Exit.

My spirits are return'd; I am alive:
And, like your wanton gamester at primero,'
Whose thought had whisper'd to him, not go less,
Methinks I lie, and draw--for an encounter.
[The scene closes upon Volpone.

SCENE II.

The Passage leading to Volpone's Chamber.
Enter MOSCA and BONARIO.

Mos. Sir, here conceal'd, [shews him a closet.] you may hear all. But, pray you,

Have patience, sir; [knocking within.]-the same's your father knocks:

I am compell'd to leave you.
Bon. Do so.-Yet

Cannot my thought imagine this a truth.

[Exit.

[Goes into the closet.

3 And like your wanton gamester at primero, &c.] Jonson has adopted the terms of this game, as they appear in, what sir John Harrington is pleased to call, an Epigram upon "The story of Marcus' life at Primero."

"Our Marcus never can encounter right,

"Yet drew two aces, and, for further spight,
"Had colour for it with a hopeful draught,
"But not encountered it avail'd him naught."

Not to go less, as I have already observed,-is not to adven

ture a smaller sum.