My gentle patient, I would fain say more, If you would understand. Val. Oh! cruel woman! Cel. Yet, sure your sickness is not so forgetful, Nor you so willing to be lost? Fran. Pray stay there: Methinks you are not fair now; methinks more, Fran. You have no share in goodness; The modest, the immaculate !-Who are you? Cel. Do not rave, sir, Nor let the violence of thoughts distract you; Fran. Oh, double hearted! Oh, woman! perfect woman! what distraction Was meant to mankind when thou wast made a devil! What an inviting hell invented!-Tell me, And, if you yet remember what is goodness, Tell me by that, and truth, can one so cherish'd, Whose every day endeavours and desires Offer themselves like incense on your altar, Val. Oh! miracle! Fran. Whose all and every part of man, (pray mark me!) Like ready pages, wait upon your pleasures, you, dare Must you, cast off this man, (tho' he were willing, "That lost her father, friend, herself, her faith too, "To fawn upon a stranger," for aught you know, As faithless as yourself-in love, as fruitless? Val. Take her, with all my heart!-Thou art so honest, That 'tis most necessary I be undone. With all my soul possess her! Cel. Till this minute I scorn'd and hated you, and came to cozen you; Utter'd those things might draw a wonder on me, To make you mad. Fran. Good heaven! what is this woman? Cel. Nor did your danger, but in charity, Move me a whit; nor you appear unto me And from this hour you are the man I honour; Fran. Whither d'you drive me? Cel. Back to your honesty; make that good ever; 'Tis like a strong built castle, seated high, Fran. Is this serious, Or does she play still with me? Cel. Keep your ears, The two main ports that may betray you, strongly From light belief first, then from flattery, Especially where woman beats the parley; The body of your strength, your noble heart, From ever yielding to dishonest ends, Ridg'd round about with virtue, that no breaches, No subtle mines, may meet you! Fran. How like the sun Labouring in his eclipse, dark and prodigious, She shew'd till now! When, having won his way, How full of wonder he breaks out again, And sheds his virtuous beams! Excellent angel! (And like a pilgrim thus I kneel to beg it, Cel. Take your desire, sir, And in a nobler way, for I dare trust you; Stand, and deceive me not!-Oh, noble young man! I love thee with my soul, but dare not say it! SIR JOHN DAVIES. BORN 1570.-DIED 1626. SIR JOHN DAVIES wrote, at twenty-five years of age, a poem on the immortality of the soul; and at fifty-two, when he was a judge and a statesman, another on "the art of dancing." Well might the teacher of that noble accomplishment, in Moliere's comedy, exclaim, La philosophie est quelque chosemais la danse! Sir John was the son of a practising lawyer at Tisbury, in Wiltshire. He was expelled from the Temple for beating Richard Martyn1, who was afterwards recorder of London; but his talents redeemed the disgrace. He was restored to the Temple, and elected to parliament, where, although he had flattered Queen Elizabeth in his poetry, he distinguished himself by supporting the privileges of the house, and by opposing royal monopolies. On the accession of King James he went to Scotland with Lord Hunsdon, and was received by the new sovereign with flattering cordiality, as author of the poem Nosce teipsum. In Ireland he was successively nominated A respectable man, to whom Ben Jonson dedicated his Poctaster. |