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Tib. [within] Ovid!

Ovid. Who's there? Come in.

Enter TIBULLUS.

Tib. Good morrow, lawyer."

Ovid. Good morrow, dear Tibullus; welcome : sit down.

Tib. Not I. What, so hard at it? Let's see, what's here?

Numa in decimo nono! Nay, I will see it

Ovid. Prithee away

Tib. If thrice in field a man vanquish his foe, 'Tis after in his choice to serve or no.

How now, Ŏvid! Law cases in verse?

Ovid. In troth, I know not; they run from my pen unwittingly, if they be verse. news abroad?

What's the

Good morrow, lawyer.] It should be observed, that Ovid is still in the cap and gown which he had assumed upon the entrance of his father.

9 they run from my pen unwittingly, if they be verse.]

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Sponte tamen numeros carmen veniebat ad aptos,

“Et quod conabar scribere, versus erat.”

The above, however, is but a poor specimen of it; though it serves well enough to shew that Lord Hardwicke was not the first who thought of putting the common law into verse. As Whalley brought back the date of this law from the 4to, it is here retained; though, with some little injustice, perhaps, to Jonson. He had discovered, I imagine, the impropriety of attributing regulations of a warlike nature to Numa, and therefore omitted the title upon a revision of the play.

We hear no more of Ovid's law; yet he was somewhat farther advanced in it than Jonson seems to admit: he was apparently a very respectable advocate. He tells Augustus that he had pleaded causes in his youth with success, as one of the Centumviri; and that, when he heard private disputes as a judge, the losing parties were satisfied with the equity of his decision: “Nec male commissa est nobis fortuna reorum, "Lisque," &c. -Trist. lib. ii. v. 93.

Tib. Off with this gown; I come to have thee walk.

Ovid. No, good Tibullus, I'm not now in case. Pray let me alone.

Tib. How! not in case?

'Slight, thou'rt in too much case, by all this law. Ovid. Troth, if I live, I will new dress the law In sprightly Poesy's habiliments.

Tib. The hell thou wilt! What! turn law into verse?

Thy father has school'd thee, I see. Here, read that same;

There's subject for you; and, if I mistake not, A supersedeas to your melancholy.

Ovid. How! subscribed Julia! O my life, my heaven!

Tib. Is the mood changed?

Ovid. Music of wit! note for th' harmonious spheres!

Celestial accents, how you ravish me!

Tib. What is it, Ovid?

Ovid. That I must meet my Julia, the princess Julia.

Tib. Where?

Ovid. Why, at

Heart, I've forgot; my passion so transports me.
Tib. I'll save your pains: it is at Albius' house,
The jeweller's, where the fair Lycoris lies.
Ovid. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus' love?
Tib. Ay, he'll be there too, and my Plautia.
Ovid. And why not your Delia ?

Tib. Yes, and your Corinna.

Ovid. True; but, my sweet Tibullus, keep that

secret;

I would not, for all Rome, it should be thought I veil bright Julia underneath that name:

Julia, the gem and jewel of my soul,

That takes her honours from the golden sky,
As beauty doth all lustre from her eye.
The air respires the pure Elysian sweets

In which she breathes, and from her looks descend
The glories of the summer.

Heaven she is,

Praised in herself above all praise; and he Which hears her speak, would swear the tuneful orbs

Turn'd in his zenith only.

Tib. Publius, thou'lt lose thyself.

Ovid. O, in no labyrinth can I safelier err, Than when I lose myself in praising her. Hence, law, and welcome Muses! though not rich, Yet are you pleasing: let's be reconciled, And new made one. Henceforth, I promise faith, And all my serious hours to spend with you; With you, whose music striketh on my heart, And with bewitching tones steals forth my spirit, In Julia's name; fair Julia: Julia's love Shall be a law, and that sweet law I'll study, The law and art of sacred Julia's love: All other objects will but abjects prove.

Tib. Come, we shall have thee as passionate as Propertius, anon.

Ovid. O, how does my Sextus?

Tib. Faith, full of sorrow for his Cynthia's death.
Ovid. What, still?

Tib. Still, and still more, his griefs do grow
upon him

As do his hours. Never did I know

An understanding spirit so take to heart
The common work of Fate.

Ovid. O, my Tibullus,

Let us not blame him; for against such chances The heartiest strife of virtue is not proof.

We may read constancy and fortitude

To other souls; but had ourselves been struck

With the like planet, had our loves, like his,
Been ravish'd from us by injurious death,
And in the height and heat of our best days,
It would have crack'd oursinews, shrunk our veins,
And made our very heart-strings jar, like his.
Come, let's go take him forth, and prove if mirth
Or company will but abate his passion.

Tib. Content, and I implore the gods it may.
[Exeunt.

ACT II. SCENE I.

A Room in Albius's House.

Enter ALBIUS and CRISPINUS.

Alb. Master Crispinus, you are welcome: pray use a stool, sir. Your cousin Cytheris will come down presently. We are so busy for the receiving of these courtiers here, that I can scarce be a minute with myself, for thinking of them: Pray you sit, sir; pray you sit, sir.

Crisp. I am very well, sir. Never trust me, but you are most delicately seated here, full of sweet delight and blandishment! an excellent air, an excellent air!

Alb. Ay, sir, 'tis a pretty air. These courtiers run in my mind still; I must look out. For Jupiter's sake, sit, sir; or please you walk into the garden? There's a garden on the back-side. Crisp. I am most strenuously well, I thank you,

sir.

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Enter CHLOE, with two Maids.

Chloe. Come, bring those perfumes forward a little, and strew some roses and violets here: Fie! here be rooms savour the most pitifully rank that ever I felt. I cry the gods mercy, [sees Albius] my husband's in the wind of us!

Alb. Why, this is good, excellent, excellent! well said, my sweet Chloe; trim up your house most obsequiously.

Chloe. For Vulcan's sake, breathe somewhere else: in troth, you overcome our perfumes exceedingly; you are too predominant.

Alb. Hear but my opinion, sweet wife.

Chloe. A pin for your pinion! In sincerity, if you be thus fulsome to me in every thing, I'll be divorced. Gods my body! you know what you were before I married you; I was a gentlewoman born, I; I lost all my friends to be a citizen's wife, because I heard, indeed, they kept their wives as fine as ladies; and that we might rule our husbands like ladies, and do what we listed; do you think I would have married you,

else?

Alb. I acknowledge, sweet wife :-she speaks the best of any woman in Italy, and moves as mightily; which makes me, I had rather she should make bumps on my head, as big as my two fingers, than I would offend her. But, sweet wife

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Chloe. Yet again! Is it not grace enough for you, that I call you husband, and you call me wife; but you must still be poking me, against my will, to things?

Alb. But you know, wife, here are the greatest ladies, and gallantest gentlemen of Rome, to be

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