Now, I do find you parcel Devil indeed. Upon the point of trust! in your first charge, To tempt your mistress! [Beats Pug.] You do see, good wedlock, How I directed him? Mrs. Fitz. Why where, sir, were you? Fitz. Nay, there is one blow more for exercise: I told you, I should do it. [Strikes him again. Pug. Would you had done, sir. Fitz. O wife, the rarest man!-(yet there's another To put you in mind o' the last)-[Beats him again.] such a brave man, wife! Within, he has his projects, and does vent them The gallantest!-Were you tentiginous, ha? Would you be acting of the incubus? Did her silk's rustling move you? Pug. Gentle sir! Fitz. Out of my sight. If thy name were not Thou should'st not stay a minute with me. In, What I will do, and you shall know't aforehand, He has such plots! he will make me a duke! and your coachman bald Because he shall be bare enough. It appears from innumerable passages in our old plays, that it was then considered as a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered. Because he shall be bare enough. Do not you laugh, We are looking for a place, and all, in the map, What to be of. Have faith, be not an infidel. You know I am not easy to be gull'd. I swear, when I have my millions, else, I'll make Another, dutchess; if you have not faith. Mrs. Fitz. You'll have too much, I fear, in these false spirits. Fitz. Spirits! O, no such thing, wife; wit, mere wit. This man defies the Devil and all his works, He has his winged ploughs, that go with sails, And measur'd it within all, by the scale: The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom! There will be made seventeen or eighteen millions, Or more, as 't may be handled! wherefore think, Mrs. Fitz. You have strange phantasies! Enter MEERCRAFT and ENGINE. Meer. Where are you, sir? Fitz. I see thou hast no talent This way, wife. Up to thy gallery, do, chuck, Leave us to talk of it who understand it. [Exit Mrs. Fitz Meer. I think we have found a place to fit now, sir. Gloucester. Fitz. O no, I'll none. Meer. Why, sir? Fitz. 'Tis fatal.* you Meer. That you say right in. Spenser, I think the younger, Had his last honour thence. But he was but earl. Fitz. I know not that, sir. But Thomas of Woodstock, I'm sure was duke, and he was made away came to. Meer. By my faith you are cunning in the chronicle, sir. Fitz. No, I confess I have it from the playbooks," And think they are more authentic. 4 'Tis fatal,] See p. 47. 5 No; I confess I have it from the play-books, And think they are more authentic.] This harmless passage has drawn a world of obloquy on the poet from the commentators on Shakspeare. Malone and Steevens, in particular, are never weary of recurring to it with spiteful triumph. "In the Devil's an Ass, (says the former), all Shakspeare's historical plays are ridiculed." And in a dissertation to prove that Henry VI. was not written by Shakspeare, he observes the malignant Ben, in his Devil's an Ass, sneers at our author's pieces, which were probably then the only historical dramas on the stage.' And this is advanced in the very face of his own arguments, to prove that there were scores, perhaps hundreds, of others on it at the time!-In the very same page in which this wanton burst of impotent malice appears, he contends, that "it is clear Shakspeare was not the first who dramatized our old chronicles ; and that the principal events of the English history were familiar to the ears of his audience, before he commenced a writer for the stage." Why then was Jonson accused of aiming at Shakspeare for plays which he did not write?"Some (Mr. Malone remarks Eng. That is sure, sir. Meer. [whispers him.] What say you to this then? Fitz. No, a noble house Pretends to that. I will do no man wrong. 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, "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! Fitz. Ha! that last has a good sound: It goes like Groen-land, sir, if you mark it. 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! Have no foot left; as that must be, sir, one day. • 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 What follows is admirably turned by Pope : "Shades that to Bacon might retreat afford, And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight, |