Faster than you can reap. What is your plot? Cur. Why now my Fulvia looks like her bright

name,

And is her self!

Ful. Nay, answer me, your plot: I pray thee tell me, Quintus.

Cur. Ay, these sounds

Become a mistress. Here is harmony!

When you are harsh, I see the way to bend you Is not with violence, but service.

A lady is a fire; gentle, a light.

Cruel,

Ful. Will you not tell me what I ask you?

Cur. All

[Kisses and flatters him along still.

That I can think, sweet love, or my breast holds, pour into thee.

I'll

Ful. What is your design then?

Cur. I'll tell thee; Catiline shall now be consul: But you will hear more shortly.

Ful. Nay, dear love――

Cur. I'll speak it in thine arms; let us go in.

3 Ful. Quite through

Our subtle lips.] i. e. thin, fine. So Shakspeare:

"Like to a bowl upon a subtle ground."

And Spenser has a parallel expression:

"Cover'd with lids devised of substance sly.”

WHAL.

These "thin, fine, sly" lips are none of Jonson's. His arelips, acquainted with the mystery of kissing: soft and balmy, like those of Dame Pliant, in the Alchemist:

"Subtle lips, that must be tasted often
To make a judgment."

Rome will be sack'd, her wealth will be our prize;
By public ruin private spirits must rise. [Exeunt.

CHORUS.

4

Great father Mars, and greater Jove,
By whose high auspice, Rome hath stood
So long; and first was built in blood
Of your great nephew, that then strove
Not with his brother, but your rites:
Be present to her now, as then,
And let not proud and factious men
Against your wills oppose their mights.

Our consuls now are to be made;
O, put it in the public voice
To make a free and worthy choice;
Excluding such as would invade

The commonwealth. Let whom we name
Have wisdom, foresight, fortitude,
Be more with faith than face endued,
And study conscience above fame.

Such as not seek to get the start

In state, by power, parts or bribes,
Ambition's bawds; but move the tribes

By virtue, modesty, desart.

Such as to justice will adhere,

Whatever great one it offend:

And from th' embraced truth not bend For envy, hatred, gifts or fear;

4 Of your great nephew,] i. e. grandson. The Romans used nepos both for a nephew and a grandchild: hence the former word in our old writers is common in either sense. Examples are unnecessary.

22

37

That by their deeds will make it known,
Whose dignity they do sustain;
And life, state, glory, all they gain,
Count the republic's, not their own.

Such the old Bruti, Decii were,
The Cipi, Curtii, who did give
Themselves for Rome, and would not live
As men, good only for a year.
Such were the great Camilli too;

The Fabii, Scipios; that still thought
No work at price enough was bought,
That for their country they could do.

And to her honour so did knit,

As all their acts were understood The sinews of the public good; And they themselves, one soul with it. These men were truly magistrates,

These neither practised force nor forms; Nor did they leave the helm in storms: And such they are make happy states.

5 The Cipi, Curtii, who did give

Themselves for Rome.] The story of the Bruti, Decii, and Curtii is well known; that of Cipus needs a little explanation: Genutius Cipus was a Roman prætor, who going out of the city, perceived horns to sprout suddenly from his head; inquiring into the prodigy, the aruspices declared that, if he returned into the city, it portended he would become a king: to prevent this, out of love to his country, he voluntarily went into exile. The story is told by Valerius Maximus, lib. v. cap. 6. Ovid gives it more at large in the 15th book of the Metamorphoses. WHAL.

ACT III. SCENE I.

The Field of Mars.

Enter CICERO, CATO, CATULUS, ANTONIUS, CRASSUS, CESAR, Chorus, Lictors, and People.

Cic. Great honours are great burdens, but on whom

They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
His cares must still be double to his joys,
In any dignity; where, if he err,

He finds no pardon: and for doing well

A most small praise, and that wrung out by force.

I speak this, Romans, knowing what the weight
Of the high charge, you have trusted to me, is:
Not that thereby I would with art decline
The good, or greatness of your benefit;
For I ascribe it to your singular grace,

• Great honours &c.] Jonson has taken especial care to involve his machinery in complete obscurity: so that I have been reduced to guess not only at every exit and entrance in the piece; but also at every place of the action. I know not how fortunate I may have been in this: but assuredly I should not have ventured on so laborious and unthankful a task had I not had more confidence in the reader's lenity than my own judgment. Here, however, the scene is sufficiently marked-Cicero is now in the Campus Martius, addressing the centuries after his unanimous election to the consulship. Catiline, strange to say, was a candidate for the same honour; but he was rejected with indignation, and C. Antonius given to Cicero for a colleague. The history here, as every where else, is closely and critically followed.

And vow to owe it to no title else,
Except the Gods, that Cicero is your consul.
I have no urns, no dusty monuments,
No broken images of ancestors,

Wanting an ear, or nose; no forged tables
Of long descents, to boast false honours from,
Or be my undertakers to your trust;
But a new man, as I am styled in Rome,
Whom you have dignified; and more, in whom
You have cut a way, and left it ope for virtue
Hereafter to that place: which our great men
Held, shut up with all ramparts, for themselves.
Nor have but few of them in time been made
Your consuls, so; new men, before me, none:
At my first suit, in my just year; preferr'd
To all competitors! and some the noblest

Cra. [Aside to Cæsar.] Now the vein swells!
Cæs. Up, glory.

Cic. And to have.

Your loud consents from your own utter'd voices,

Not silent books; nor from the meaner tribes,
But first and last, the universal concourse !
This is my joy, my gladness. But my care,
My industry and vigilance now must work,
That still your counsels of me be approved,
Both by your selves, and those, to whom you have,
With grudge, preferr'd me: Two things I must
labour,

That neither they upbraid, nor you repent you;
For every lapse of mine will now be call'd
Your error, if I make such: but my hope is,
So to bear through, and out, the consulship,
As spight shall ne'er wound you, though it may

me.

7 In my just year.] i. e. the 43d year of his age; none being capable of the consulship before that age. WHAL.