Bowl bearer. Do you hear, my friends? to whom did you sing all this now? Pardon me only that I ask you, for I do not look for an answer; I'll answer myself: I know it is now such a time as the Saturnals for all the world, that every man stands under the eaves of his own hat, and sings what pleases him; that's the right and the liberty of it. Now you sing of god Comus here, the belly-god; I say it is well, and I say it is not well; it is well as it is a ballad, and the belly worthy of it, I must needs say an 'twere forty yards of ballad more, as much ballad as tripe. But when the belly is not edified by it, it is not well; for where did you ever read or hear that the belly had any ears? Come, never pump for an answer, for you are defeated: our fellow Hunger there, that was as ancient a retainer to the Belly as any of us, was turned away for being unseasonable; not unreasonable, but unseasonable; and now is he, poor thin-gut, fain to get his living with teaching of starlings, magpies, 1parrots, and jack-daws, those things he would have taught the Belly. Beware of dealing with the Belly, the Belly will not be talked to, especially when he is full; then there is no venturing upon Venter, he will blow you all up, he will thunder indeed, la! Some in derision call him the father of farts; but I say he was the first inventor of great ordnance, and taught us to discharge them on festival days, would we had a fit feast for him, i' faith, to shew his activity; I would have something now fetched in to please his five senses, the throat; or the two senses, the eyes: pardon me for my two senses; for I that carry Hercules's bowl in the service may see double by my place; for I have drunk like a frog to-day: I would have a Tun now brought in to dance, and so many bottles about him. Ha! you

look as if you would make a problem of this; do you see, do you see? a problem. Why bottles, and why a tun? and why a tun, and why bottles, to dance? I say that men that drink hard and serve the Belly in any place of quality (as the Jovial Tinkers, or the Lusty Kindred), are living measures of drink, and can transform themselves, and do every day, to bottles or tuns, when they please: and when they have done all they can they are as I say again (for I think I said somewhat like it afore) but moving measures of drink, and there is a piece in the cellar can hold more than all they. This will I make good if it please our new god but to give a nod, for the Belly does all by signs; and I am all for the belly, the truest clock in the world to go by.

Here the FIRST ANTIMASQUE, danced by Men in the shape of bottles, tuns, &c.

Enter HERCULES.

Her. What rites are these? breeds earth more monsters yet?

Antæus scarce is cold: what can beget This store? and, stay!-such contraries upon her!

Is earth so fruitful of her own dishonour? Or 'cause his vice was inhumanity, Hopes she by vicious hospitality To work an expiation first? and then, (Help virtue), these are sponges and not men; Bottles; mere vessels; half a tun of paunch!

How? and the other half thrust forth in haunch!

Whose feast? the Belly's? Comus! and my

cup

Brought in to fill the drunken orgies up, And here abused; that was the crowned reward

Of thirsty heroes, after labour hard !2

hear what Macrobius offers on this subject: Herculem vero fictores veteres non sine causa cum poculo fecerunt, et nonnunquam casabundum et ebrium: non solum quod is heros bibax fuisse perhibetur, sed etiam quod antiqua historia est Herculem poculo tanquam navigio ventis immensa maria transisse." He adds, afterwards, it was much more probable that he passed the ocean, not in a bowl, or scyphus, but in a vessel which bore that name. Ego tamen arbitror non poculo Herculem maria transvectum, sed navigio cui Scypho nomen fuit."Saturnal. 1. v. c. 21.

It became the custom for succeeding heroes to drink in honour of Hercules out of a cup of the same form which he himself was supposed to have used. Thus Curtius, relating the man

Burdens and shames of nature, perish, die!
For yet you never lived, but in the sty
Of vice have wallowed, and in that swine's
strife,

Been buried under the offence of life :
Go reel and fall under the load you make,
Till your swollen bowels burst with what
you take.

Can this be pleasure to extinguish man,
Or so quite change him in his figure? can
The Belly love his pain, and be content
With no delight but what's a punishment?
These monsters plague themselves, and
fitly too,

For they do suffer what and all they do.
But here must be no shelter nor no shrowd
For such: Sink, grove, or vanish into
cloud!

At this the GROVE and ANTIMASQUE vanished, and the whole Music was discovered sitting at the foot of the mountain, with PLEASURE and VIRTUE seated above them.

Cho. Great friend and servant of the good,
Let cool a while thy heated blood,

And from thy mighty labour cease.
Lie down, lie down,

And give thy troubled spirits peace:
Whilst Virtue, for whose sake
Thou dost this godlike travail take
May of the choicest herbage make,
Here on this mountain bred,
A crown, a crown
For thy immortal head.

Or fly:

Already they are fled,

Whom scorn had else left dead.

This is Jonson's authority. It is not likely that Swift had much acquaintance with Philostratus; and it is therefore highly probable that he derived the hint of the first assault of the Lilliputians on the slumbering Gulliver from the passage before us.

See here a crown the aged Hill hath sent thee,

My grandsire Atlas, he that did present

thee

With the best sheep that in his fold were found,

Or golden fruit in the Hesperian ground, For rescuing his fair daughters, then the prey

Of a rude pirate, as thou cam'st this way; And taught thee all the learning of the sphere,

And how, like him, thou might'st the heavens upbear,

As that thy labour's virtuous recompense. He, though a mountain now, hath yet the

sense

Of thanking thee for more, thou being still
Constant
to goodness, guardian of the hill;
Antæus by thee suffocated here,
And the voluptuous Comus, god of cheer,
Beat from his grove, and that defaced; but

now

The time's arrived that Atlas told thee of, how

B' unaltered law, and working of the stars, There should be a cessation of all jars, 'Twixt Virtue and her noted opposite, Pleasure; that both should meet here in the sight

Of Hesperus, the glory of the west,

The brightest star that from his burning

crest

Lights all on this side the Atlantic seas,
As far as to thy pillars, Hercules!

See where he shines, Justice and Wisdom

placed

About his throne, and those with honour graced,

Beauty and Love! it is not with his brother Bearing the world, but ruling such another Is his renown; PLEASURE for his delight IS RECONCILED TO VIRTUE, and this night Virtue brings forth twelve princes have been bred

In this rough mountain, and near Atlas' head,

The hill of knowledge; one, and chief of whom, 1

Of the bright race of Hesperus is come, Who shall in time the same that he is be, And now is only a less light than he: These now she trusts with Pleasure, and to these

She gives an entrance to the Hesperides,

1 Chief of whom.] The names of the twelve Masquers are not given; it appears, however, that they were led on by Charles, now Prince of

Fair beauty's garden; neither can she fear

They should grow soft, or wax effeminate here;

Since in her sight, and by her charge all's done,

Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on.

Here the whole Quire of music called the twelve MASQUERS forth from the top of the mountain, which then opened, with this

SONG.

Ope, aged Atlas, open then thy lap,
And from thy beamy bosom strike a
light,

That men may read in the mysterious
map
All lines,
And signs

Of royal education, and the right.

See how they come and show, That are but born to know.

Descend, Descend!

Though pleasure lead,
Fear not to follow :
They who are bred

Within the hill
Of skill,

May safely tread
What path they will,

No ground of good is hollow.

In their descent from the Hill, DÆDALUS came down before them.

Her. But, Hermes, stay, a little let me pause;

Who's this that leads?

Mer. A guide that gives them laws To all their motions, Dedalus the wise. Her. And doth in sacred harmony comprise His precepts? Mer. Yes.

Her. They may securely prove, Then, any labyrinth, though it be of love. Here, while they put themselves in form, DÆDALUS had his first

Wales. If we may trust Jenkin, in the next piece, this was the first time that he bore a part and danced in these entertainments.

SONG.

Dad. Come on, come on! and where you go,

So interweave the curious knot,
As ev'n the observer scarce may know
Which lines are Pleasure's, and which not.
First figure out the doubtful way,1

At which awhile all youth should stay,
Where she and Virtue did contend,
Which should have Hercules to friend.
Then as all actions of mankind
Are but a labyrinth or maze:
So let your dances be entwined,

Yet not perplex men unto gaze:

But measured, and so numerous too,
As men may read each act they do;
And when they see the graces meet
Admire the wisdom of your feet.
For dancing is an exercise,

Not only shows the mover's wit,
But maketh the beholder wise,
As he hath power to rise to it.

Here the first DANCE.
After which,
SONG.

Dæd. O more and more! this was so well, As praise wants half his voice to tell,

Again yourselves compose:

And now put all the aptness on,
Of figure, that proportion

Or colour can disclose:

That if those silent arts were lost,
Design and picture, they might boast
From you a newer ground;
Instructed by the height'ning sense
Of dignity and reverence,

In their true motions found.
Begin, begin; for look, the fair
Do longing listen to what air

You form your second touch:

That they may vent their murmuring hymns
Just to the [time] you move your limbs,
And wish their own were such.
Make haste, make haste, for this
The labyrinth of beauty is.

First figure out, &c.] This alludes to that beautiful apologue, the Choice of Hercules, by Prodicus.

2 Just to the] Some word (time or tune, probably) was lost at the press, or dropt in the MS. have already observed that all these Masques, from The Golden Age Restored, were

Here the second DANCE.
After which,
SONG.

The subtlest maze of all, that's love,
Dad. It follows now you are to prove
And if you stay too long,

The fair will think you do them wrong.

Go choose among-but with a mind
As gentle as the stroking wind

Runs o'er the gentler flowers.
And so let all your actions smile
As if they meant not to beguile
The ladies, but the hours.

125

Grace, laughter, and discourse may meet,
And yet the beauty not go less:
For what is noble should be sweet,
But not dissolved in wantonness.

Will you that I give the law

To all your sport, and sum it?
It should be such should envy draw,
But overcome it.

Here they danced with the LADIES, and the whole REVELS followed; which ended, MERCURY called to DÆDALUS in this speech: which was after repeated in SONG by two trebles, two tenors, a base, and the whole Chorus.

SONG.

Mer. An eye of looking back were well, Or any murmur that would tell Your thoughts, how you were sent, And went

To walk with Pleasure, not to dwell.

These, these are hours by Virtue spared,
Herself, she being her own reward.
But she will have you know,
That though

Her sports be soft, her life is hard.

You must return unto the Hill,
And there advance
With labour, and inhabit still

That height and crown,
From whence you ever may look down
Upon triumphed chance.

printed, or at least published, some years after the author's death. That any one could look into this wretched volume (the folio of 1641) and suppose that Jonson had any share in forming it, is quite extraordinary. There is not a page without some ridiculous blunder.

She, she it is in darkness shines, "Tis she that still herself refines,

By her own light to every eye; More seen, more known, when vice stands by:

And though a stranger here on earth, In heaven she hath her right of birth.

There, there is Virtue's seat: Strive to keep her your own;

"Tis only she can make you great, Though place here make you known.

1 This pleased the king so well, as he would see it again.] Who can wonder at it? It must have been a very graceful and splendid entertainment; and, with due respect be it spoken, nearly as worthy of the nobility as the private masquerades, &c., which, with such advantage to good manners, have been substituted for it. It is with peculiar modesty that we, who cannot eke out an evening's entertainment without the

After which they danced their last DANCE, and returned into the Scene, which closed, and was a mountain again, as before." And so it ended.

This pleased the king so well, as he would see it again; when it was presented with these additions-2

introduction of gamblers, hired buffoons, and voluntary jack-puddings, declaim on the 66 pedantry and wretched taste" of James and his Court.

2 With these additions] The sentence is incomplete, and must be filled up, as in the fol., with the words on the opposite page,--" For the Honour of Wales."