Cris. O, they are rid home in the coach, as fast as the wheels can run.

Tuc. God Jupiter is banished, I hear, and his cockatrice Juno lock'd up. 'Heart, an all the poetry in Parnassus get me to be a player again, I'll sell 'ein my share for a sesterce. But this is Humours, Horace, that goat-footed envious slave; he's turn'd faun now; an informer, the rogue 'tis he has betray'd us all. Did you not see him with the emperor crouching?

Cris. Yes.

Tuc. Well, follow me. Thou shalt libel, and I'll cudgel the rascal. Boy, provide me a truncheon. Revenge shall gratulate him, tam Marti, quam Mercurio.

Pyr. Ay, but, master, take heed how you give this out; Horace is a man of the sword.

Cris. Tis true, in troth; they say he's valiant." Tuc. Valiant? so is mine a-. Gods and fiends!

* He's turn'd faun now ;] The writers of Jonson's days seem to have connected, I know not why, the idea of a spy, or splenetic observer, with that of a faun. Marston calls one of his plays the Fawne, in allusion to a character in disguise, who watches and exposes all the persons of the drama in succession.

2 In troth, they say he's valiant.] It would seem from this as if Jonson did not join in the general outcry against the cowardice of Horace. I confess myself to be of his opinion. If Horace fled at the battle of Philippi, it was not till courage was become unavailable, and the best and bravest troops of the army had fallen on the spot. How beautifully does he paint all this!

"Tecum Philippos et celerem fugam
“Sensi, relicta non bene parmula ;
"Cum fracta virtus, et minaces,

..

Turpe! solum tetigere mento."

Was Pompeius Varus a coward? yet he too fled. Surely the non bene, the fracta virtus, and the turpe, all bear the same meaning, and allude to the decisive defeat, not to the ill conduct of the patriotic army. It argues as little good sense as liberality, to take advantage of a poetical expression, and, without

I'll blow him into air when I meet him next: he dares not fight with a puck-fist.

[Horace passes over the stage. Pyr. Master, he comes!

Tuc. Where? Jupiter save thee, my good poet, my noble prophet, my little fat Horace.I scorn to beat the rogue in the court; and I saluted him thus fair, because he should suspect nothing, the rascal. Come, we'll go see how far forward our journeyman is toward the untrussing

of him.'

Cris. Do you hear, captain? I'll write nothing in it but innocence, because I may swear I am innocent. [Exeunt.

SCENE VI.

Enter HORACE MECENAS, LUPUS, Histrio, and

Lictors.

Hor. Nay, why pursue you not the emperor For your reward now, Lupus ?

Mec. Stay, Asinius;

You and your stager, and your band of lictors:
I hope your service merits more respect,
Than thus, without a thanks, to be sent hence.
His. Well, well, jest on, jest on.

considering the circumstances under which it was used, to stigmatize the writer to all ages.

As for Ben, the Horace of the Poctaster, he was undoubtedly valiant. He had given fatal proofs of courage in a duel, in which he killed his antagonist; and he had acquitted himself with honour in his Flemish campaigns.

3 Come, we'll go see how far forward our journeyman is toward the untrussing of him.] More proof that Demetrius is Decker; for Crispinus is now on the stage!-A man with the spleen of a wren," might be gratified at seeing how the critics, like Ding-dong's sheep, blindly leap after one another.

Hor. Thou base, unworthy groom!

Lup. Ay, ay, 'tis good.

Hor. Was this the treason, this the dangerous plot,

Thy clamorous tongue so bellow'd through the court?

Hadst thou no other project to encrease
Thy grace with Cæsar, but this wolfish train,
To prey upon the life of innocent mirth
And harmless pleasures, bred of noble wit?
Away! I loath thy presence; such as thou,
They are the moths and scarabs of a state,'
The bane of empires, and the dregs of courts;
Who, to endear themselves to an employment,
Care not whose fame they blast, whose life they
endanger;

And, under a disguised and cobweb mask
Of love unto their sovereign, vomit forth
Their own prodigious malice; and pretending
To be the props and columns of their safety,
The guards unto his person and his peace,
Disturb it most, with their false, lapwing-cries.
Lup. Good! Cæsar shall know of this, believe

it.

Mec. Cæsar doth know it, wolf, and to his
knowledge,

He will, I hope, reward your base endeavours.
Princes that will but hear, or give access
To such officious spies, can ne'er be safe:
They take in poison with an open ear,
And, free from danger, become slaves to fear.
[Exeunt.

4 They are the moths and scarabs of a state.] "Moths, are small winged insects that eat clothes." Scarabs, are beetles. I mention this because I am told that the information may be useful to some readers.

5

with their false, lapwing cries.] See Sejanus.

SCENE VII.

An open Space before the Palace.

Enter OVID.

Banish'd the court! Let me be banish'd life,
Since the chief end of life is there concluded:"
Within the court is all the kingdom bounded,
And as her sacred sphere doth comprehend
Ten thousand times so much, as so much place
In any part of all the empire else;

So every body, moving in her sphere,
Contains ten thousand times as much in him,
As any other her choice orb excludes.
As in a circle, a magician then
Is safe against the spirit he excites;
But, out of it, is subject to his rage,
And loseth all the virtue of his art:
So I, exiled the circle of the court,
Lose all the good gifts that in it I 'joy'd.
No virtue current is, but with her stamp,
And no vice vicious, blanch'd with her white hand.
The court's the abstract of all Rome's desert,
And my dear Julia the abstract of the court.
Methinks, now I come near her, I respire
Some air of that late comfort I received;
And while the evening, with her modest veil,
Gives leave to such poor shadows as myself
To steal abroad, I, like a heartless ghost,
Without the living body of my love,

Will here walk and attend her: for I know

Is there concluded.] i. e. included or confined: there is a terrible number of Latinisms in this play.

Not far from hence she is imprisoned,
And hopes, of her strict guardian, to bribe
So much admittance, as to speak to me,
And chear my fainting spirits with her breath.
Julia. [appears above, at her chamber window.]
Ovid? my love?

Ovid. Here, heavenly Julia.

Jul. Here! and not here! O, how that word doth play

With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves,
Both one; and yet divided, as opposed!
I high, thou low: O, this our plight of place
Doubly presents the two lets of our love,
Local and ceremonial height, and lowness:
Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low.
Our minds are even yet; O, why should our bodies,
That are their slaves, be so without their rule?
I'll cast myself down to thee; if I die,
I'll ever live with thee: no height of birth,
Of place, of duty, or of cruel power,

Shall keep me from thee; should my father lock
This body up within a tomb of brass,
Yet I'll be with thee. If the forms I hold
Now in my soul, be made one substance with it;
That soul immortal, and the same 'tis now;
Death cannot raze the affects she now retaineth:
And then, may she be any where she will.
The souls of parents rule not children's souls,
When death sets both in their dissolv'd estates;
Then is no child nor father; then eternity
Frees all from any temporal respect.
I come, my Ovid, take me in thine arms,
And let me breathe my soul into thy breast.
Ovid. O stay, my love; the hopes thou dost

conceive

Of thy quick death, and of thy future life,
Are not authentical. Thou choosest death,