host

That threaten Gad in exile.

Love. I shall send you

To Amsterdam, to your cellar.

Ana. I will pray there,

Against thy house may dogs defile thy walls,

And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy roof,

This seat of falsehood, and this cave of

cozenage! [Exeunt Ana. and Trib.

1 Away, you Harry Nicholas !] A native of Leyden, commonly supposed to be the founder of that turbulent and mischievous sect called the Family of Love. He was a frantic enthusiast. Their tenets may be found in Blount. The bad honour, however, of giving birth to this society has been disputed with Nicholas by one David George, an Anabaptist, of Delft. Africa was not more fertile in monsters than Holland seems to have once been in theological visionaries of all kinds. In his better days Harry aspired to the name of a poet; he also translated a drama called An Enterlude of Myndes, "out of the base Almayne," and finally appears to have bewildered

himself in rendering a number of crack-brained German books into English.

2 I will feize you, sirrah ;] "I'll drive you: the word is common in our old authors, and, as Mr. Upton adds, still used in the west of England."WHAL.

Upton is right but the word does not mean, as Whalley supposes, to drive, but to beat, to chastise, to humble, &c., in which sense it may be heard every day.

Here stands my dove: stoop at her, &c.] To stoop is a well known term in falconry:-fall or pounce upon her as a hawk on the wing does upon his prey. Examples of so trite an expression are not necessary.

protest,

I honour thee for this match.
Love. O, do you so, sir?

Kas. Yes, an thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy,

I'll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage,

Than her own state.

Love. Fill a pipe full, Jeremy.

Face. Yes; but go in and take it, sir.
Love. We will-

I will be ruled by thee in anything,
Jeremy.

Kas. Slight, thou art not hide-bound, thou art a jovy boy!

Come, let us in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs.

Love. Whiff in with your sister, brother boy. [Exeunt Kas. and Dame P.] That master

That had received such happiness by a servant,

In such a widow, and with so much wealth,

Were very ungrateful, if he would not be

1 Of his own candour.] i.e., honour, fair reputation. The word occurs twice in Massinger in the same sense.

2 My part a little fell in this last scene, Yet 'twas decorum.] i.e., as Upton remarks, "I have not acted, however, against the suitableness, the decorum of character."

3 "In the Tempest," Mr. Malone says, "the epilogue is spoken by one of the drama, and adapted to the character of the speaker; a circumstance that I have not observed in the epilogues of any other author of that age.' Either I do not comprehend the meaning of this passage or the writer has totally overlooked Jonson. This is now the third epilogue in succession which is spoken by one of the persons in the drama, and adapted to the character of the speaker.

It is observed by Tate (in the preface to Duke and no Duke), that "the Alchemist cannot be read by any sensible man without astonishment." It is farce" (i.e., according to his wide definition of the term "from the beginning to the end; but such farce as bequeaths the blessing pronounced by Horace on him that shall attempt

the like:

And help his fortune, though with some small strain

Of his own candour. [advancing.]— 'Therefore, gentlemen,

And kind spectators, if I have outstript An old man's gravity, or strict canon, think

What a young wife and a good brain may do;

Stretch age's truth sometimes, and crack it too.

Speak for thyself, knave."
Face.

'So I will, sir. [advancing to the front of the stage.] Gentlemen, My part a little fell in this last scene, Yet 'twas decorum.2 And though I am clean

Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon,
Dol,

Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all
With whom I traded; yet I put myself
On you, that are my country and this
pelf,

Which I have got, if you do quit me,

rests

To feast you often, and invite new guests." [Exeunt,3

pass more than one Act of Parliament against the transmutation of metals: this, in fact, rather tended to serve the cause of the knavish pretender, by imposing secrecy on his dupes, and furnishing a plea for conducting his mysterious operations in obscure and unfrequented corners. What the terror of the law, however, could not effect, was brought about by the force of well directed ridicule; and the success of Cervantes in discrediting the legends of knight-errantry, was not more complete than that of Jonson in demolishing the sect of hermetic philosophers in this country. They vanished before him, like Mammon's hopes, in fumo: and though a solitary individual might, and occasionally did, reappear, as a body they were no longer visible.

It is a part of the usual ill-fortune which attends Jonson, that the very success of his satire has been urged as a drawback on its merits. "The pursuit," Hurd tells us, SO strongly exposed in this play is forgotten, and therefore its humour must appear exaggerated," Python is destroyed, and we instantly under&c. Surely this savours of ingratitude :-the rate the arm by which the monster tell. It was not so of old. Leaving this, however, let us descend to particulars. The character of Mammon is conceived in the united strength of genius and learning, and preserved in every situation with inimitable skill. Avarice, though powerful in him, is yet subservient to his baser passions; and he pants after riches merely to squander them on the most impure and sensual

gratifications: and it is finely imagined to involve him in an intrigue, of which (though fully aware of the fatal consequences) his uncontrollable licentiousness renders him the victim. In the elders, who are also most ably sustained, while their characters are kept perfectly distinct, it is the lust of power which inflames their cupidity; and to add fuel to this, the arguments of Subtle are chiefly directed. There are many portentous indications in this play of the ambitious views of the Puritans, views too fatally realized;—and it is apparent that the stage had formed juster notions of their power and pretensions than the court. While the dramatic poets were directing their satire against the turbulent activity of "the elect," James was seeking to soothe it by argument but he never understood this people: he supposed them to be a sect, and they were a faction.

In the contracted minds of Dapper and Drugger, wealth is sought for itself alone, yet their characters are discriminated with great art; and the grovelling but cunning trader is treated with a portion of cautious civility, which in the management of the greedy and credulous clerk, it is not thought necessary to assume.

Of Subtle, Face, and Dol it is almost superfluous to speak: they are not more known than

admired. Face seems to be the author's favourite, and he has furnished him with language well suited to the forth-right spirit and daring of his action: it is easy and unembarrassed, and has much of the comic flow of Fletcher, with more than his fulness and freedom. As if to confound the poet's detractors, who maintain that when he deserts the ancients he is nothing, this play, which is strictly original in all its parts, has in it a richness and raciness which are not found where he is supposed to be a copyist; and which those from whom he is said to derive the whole of his reputation do not always exhibit.

It was said by the critics of the last century, at the head of whom we may place Dryden, that the Silent Woman preserved the unities of time and place more strictly than any drama on the English stage: with the exception of the present play, the remark may be just; for it occupies no more time than the representation demands; and the plot, notwithstanding the amazing vigour and variety of the action, is confined to a single spot, without the slightest sacrifice of probability, while the action of the Silent Woman is extended to three or four, as occasion required. In a word, if a model be sought of all that is regular in design and perfect in execution in the English drama, it will be found (if found at all) in the ALCHEMIST.