A few months ago a letter, bearing the following curious superscription,
was put into the post-office in Manchester:--“For Mr. Colwell that Keeps
the Shop in Back Anderson-st. to Bee Gave to Jack Timlen that Keeps the
pigs in his own Sellar in Back Anderson-st. the irish man that has the
Large family that bgs the mail from Mr. Colwell and milk to
Bolton.”[195]
[195] Bolton Express.
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. XIX.
[From the “Silver Age,” an Historical Play, by Thomas Heywood, 1613.]
_Proserpine seeking Flowers._
_Pros._ O may these meadows ever barren be,
That yield of flowers no more variety!
Here neither is the White nor Sanguine Rose,
The Strawberry Flower, the Paunce, nor Violet;
Methinks I have too poor a meadow chose:
Going to beg, I am with a Beggar met,
That wants as much as I. I should do ill
To take from them that need.--
* * * * *
_Ceres, after the Rape of her Daughter._
_Cer._ Where is my fair and lovely Proserpine?
Speak, Jove’s fair Daughter, whither art thou stray’d
I’ve sought the meadows, glebes, and new-reap’d fields
Yet cannot find my Child. Her scatter’d flowers,
And garland half-made-up, I have lit upon;
But her I cannot spy. Behold the trace
Of some strange wagon,[196] that hath scorcht the trees,
And singed the grass: these ruts the sun ne’er sear’d.
Where art thou, Love, where art thou, Proserpine?--
_She questions Triton for her Daughter._
_Cer._----thou that on thy shelly trumpet
Summons the sea-god, answer from the depth.
_Trit._ On Neptune’s sea-horse with my concave trump
Thro’ all the abyss I’ve shrill’d thy daughter’s loss.
The channels clothed in waters, the low cities
In which the water-gods and sea-nymphs dwell,
I have perused; sought thro’ whole woods and forests
Of leafless coral, planted in the deeps;
Toss’d up the beds of pearl; rouzed up huge whales,
And stern sea-monsters, from their rocky dens;
Those bottoms, bottomless; shallows and shelves,
And all those currents where th’ earth’s springs break in;
Those plains where Neptune feeds his porpoises,
Sea-morses, seals, and all his cattle else:
Thro’ all our ebbs and tides my trump hath blazed her,
Yet can no cavern shew me Proserpine.
_She questions the Earth._
_Cer._ Fair sister Earth, for all these beauteous fields,
Spread o’er thy breast; for all these fertile crops,
With which my plenty hath enrich’d thy bosom;
For all those rich and pleasant wreaths of grain,
With which so oft thy temples I have crowned;
For all the yearly liveries, and fresh robes,
Upon thy summer beauty I bestow--
Shew me my Child!
_Earth._ Not in revenge, fair Ceres,
That your remorseless ploughs have rak’t my breast,
Nor that your iron-tooth’d harrows print my face
So full of wrinkles; that you dig my sides
For marle and soil, and make me bleed my springs
Thro’ all my open’d veins to weaken me--
Do I conceal your Daughter. I have spread
My arms from sea to sea, look’d o’er my mountains,
Examin’d all my pastures, groves, and plains,
Marshes and wolds, my woods and champain fields,
My dens and caves--and yet, from foot to head,
I have no place on which the Moon[197] doth tread.
_Cer._ Then, Earth, thou’st lost her; and, for Proserpine,
I’ll strike thee with a lasting barrenness.
No more shall plenty crown thy fertile brows;
I’ll break thy ploughs, thy oxen murrain-strike:
With idle agues I’ll consume thy swains;
Sow tares and cockles in thy lands of wheat,
Whose spikes the weed and cooch-grass shall outgrow,
And choke it in the blade. The rotten showers
Shall drown thy seed, which the hot sun shall parch,
Or mildews rot; and what remains, shall be
A prey to ravenous birds.--Oh Proserpine!--
You Gods that dwell above, and you below,
Both of the woods and gardens, rivers, brooks,
Fountains and wells, some one among you all
Shew me her self or grave: to you I call.
_Arethusa riseth._
_Are._ That can the river Arethusa do.
My streams you know, fair Goddess, issue forth
From Tartary by the Tenarian isles:
My head’s in Hell where Stygian Pluto reigns.
There did I see the lovely Proserpine,
Whom Pluto hath rapt hence; behold her girdle,
Which on her way dropt from her lovely waist,
And scatter’d in my streams.--Fair Queen, adieu!
Crown you my banks with flowers, as I tell true.
* * * * *
[From the “Golden Age,” an Historical Play, by the same Author, 1611.]
_Sibilla, the Wife of Saturn, is by him enjoined to slay the new-born
Jupiter. None can do it for his smiles._
_Sibilla. Vesta. Nurse._
_Sib._ Mother, of all that ever mothers were
Most wretched! Kiss thy sweet babe ere he die,
That hath life only lent to suffer death.
Sweet Lad, I would thy father saw thee smile.
Thy beauty, and thy pretty infancy,
Would mollify his heart, were’t hew’d from flint,
Or carved with iron tools from Corsic rock.
Thou laugh’st to think thou must be kill’d in jest.
Oh! if thou needs must die, I’ll be thy murtheress,
And kill thee with my kisses, pretty knave.--
And can’st thou laugh to see thy mother weep?
Or art thou in thy chearful smiles so free,
In scorn of thy rude father’s tyranny?
I’ll kiss thee ere I kill thee: for my life
The Lad so smiles, I cannot hold the knife.
_Vest._ Then give him me; I am his Grandmother,
And I will kill him gently: this sad office
Belongs to me, as to the next of kin.
_Sib._ _For heaven’s sake, when you kill him, hurt him not._
_Vest._ Come, little knave, prepare your naked throat
I have not heart to give thee many wounds,
My kindness is to take thy life at once.
Now--
Alack, my pretty Grandchild, smilest thou still?
I have lust to kiss, but have no heart to kill.
_Nurse._ You may be careless of the King’s command
But it concerns me; and I love my life
More than I do a Stripling’s. Give him me,
I’ll make him sure; a sharp weapon lend,
I’ll quickly bring the Youngster to his end.--
Alack, my pretty knave, ’twere more than sin
With a sharp knife to touch thy tender skin.
O Madam, he’s so full of angel grace,
I cannot strike, he smiles so in my face.
_Sib._ I’ll wink, and strike; come, once more reach him hither;
For die he must, so Saturn hath decreed:
’Las, for a world I would not see him bleed.
_Vest._ Ne shall he do. But swear me secrecy;
The Babe shall live, and we be dangerless.