I have heard some talk of it very much, and many
Times to their auditors’ impatience; but I pray,
What practice do they make on’t in their lives?
They are too full of choler with living honest,--
And some of them not only impatient
Of their own slightest injuries, but stark mad
At one another’s preferment.
_Sepulture._
_Two Bellmen, a Capuchin; Romelio, and others._
_Cap._ For pity’s sake, you that have tears to shed,
Sigh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead,
For two unfortunate Nobles,[293] whose sad fate
Leaves them both dead and excommunicate.
No churchman’s pray’r to comfort their last groans
No sacred seed of earth to hide their bones;
But as their fury wrought them out of breath,
The Canon speaks them guilty of their own death.
_Rom._ Denied Christian burial! I pray, what does that?
Or the dead lazy march in the funeral?
Or the flattery in the epitaph?--which shows
More sluttish far than all the spiders’ webs,
Shall ever grow upon it: what do these
Add to our well-being after death?
_Cap._ Not a scruple.
_Rom._ Very well then--
I have a certain meditation,
(If I can think of,) somewhat to this purpose;--
I’ll say it to you, while my mother there
Numbers her beads.--
“You that dwell near these graves and vaults,
Which oft do hide physicians’ faults,
Note what a small room does suffice
To express men’s goods: their vanities
Would fill more volume in small hand,
Than all the evidence of Church Land.
Funerals hide men in civil wearing,
And are to the Drapers a good hearing;
Make th’ Heralds laugh in their black rayment;
And all die Worthies, die with payment
To th’ Altar offerings: tho’ their fame,
And all the charity of their name,
’Tween heav’n and this, yield no more light
Than rotten trees, which shine in th’ night.
O look the last Act be best in th’ Play,
And then rest gentle bones! yet pray,
That when by the Precise you’re view’d,
A supersedeas be not sued;
To remove you to a place more airy,
That in your stead they may keep chary
Stockfish, or seacoal; for the abuses
Of sacrilege have turn’d graves to vilder uses.
How then can any monument say,
Here rest these bones to the Last Day;
When Time, swift both of foot and feather,
May bear them the Sexton knows not whither?--
What care I then, tho’ my last sleep
Be in the desart, or in the deep;
No lamp, nor taper, day and night,
To give my charnel chargeable light?
I have there like quantity of ground;
And at the last day I shall be found.”[294]
_Immature Death._
Contarino’s dead.
O that he should die so soon!
Why, I pray, tell me:
Is not the shortest fever best? and are not
Bad plays the worse for their length?
_Guilty preferment._
I have a plot, shall breed,
Out of the death of these two noblemen;
Th’ advancement of our house--
Oh take heed
A grave is a rotten foundation.
_Mischiefs_
----- are like the visits of Franciscan friars,
They never come to prey upon us single.
_Last Love strongest._
-- as we love our youngest children best,
So the last fruit of our affection,
Wherever we bestow it, is most strong,
Most violent, most irresistible;
Since ’tis indeed our latest harvest home,
Last merryment ’fore winter; and we Widows,
As men report of our best picture-makers,
We love the Piece we are in hand with better.
Than all the excellent work we have done before.
_Mother’s anger._
_Leonora._ Ha, my Son!
I’ll be a fury to him; like an Amazon lady,
I’d cut off this right pap that gave him suck,
To shoot him dead. I’ll no more tender him,
Than had a wolf stol’n to my teat in th’ night,
And robb’d me of my milk.
_Distraction from guilt._
_Leonora_ (_sola_). Ha, ha! What say you?
I do talk to somewhat methinks; it may be.
My Evil Genius.--Do not the bells ring?
I’ve a strange noise in my head. Oh, fly in
Come, age, and wither me into the malice
Of those that have been happy; let me have
One property for more than the devil of hell;
Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily;
Let me in this life fear no kind of ill,
That have no good to hope for. Let me sink,
Where neither man nor memory may find me. (_falls to the ground_).
_Confessor_ (_entering_). You are well employ’d, I hope; the best
pillow in th’ world
For this your contemplation is the earth
And the best object, Heaven.
_Leonora._ I am whispering
To a dead friend----
_Obstacles._
Let those, that would oppose this union,
Grow ne’er so subtle, and entangle themselves
In their own work, like spiders; while we two
Haste to our noble wishes; and presume,
The hindrance of it will breed more delight,--
As black copartaments shews gold more bright.
_Falling out._
To draw the Picture of Unkindness truly
Is, to express two that have dearly loved
And fal’n at variance.
* * * * *
[From the “Bride,” a Comedy, by Thomas Nabbs, 1640.]
_Antiquities._
_Horten, a Collector. His friend._
_Friend._ You are learned in Antiquities?
_Horten._ A little, Sir.
I should affect them more, were not tradition
One of the best assurances to show
They are the things we think them. What more proofs,
Except perhaps a little circumstance,
Have we for this or that to be a piece
Of Delphos’ ruins? or the marble statues,
Made Athens glorious when she was supposed
To have more images of men than men?
A weather-beaten stone, with an inscription
That is not legible but thro’ an optic,
Tells us its age; that in some Sibyl’s cave
Three thousand years ago it was an altar,
Tis satisfaction to our curiosity,
But ought not to necessitate belief.--
For Antiquity,
I do not store up any under Grecian;
Your Roman antiques are but modern toys
Compared to them. Besides they are so counterfeit
With mouldings, tis scarce possible to find
Any but copies.
_Friend._ Yet you are confident
Of yours, that are of more doubt.
_Horten._ Others from their easiness
May credit what they please. My trial’s such
Of any thing I doubt, all the impostors,
That ever made Antiquity ridiculous,
Cannot deceive me. If I light upon
Ought that’s above my skill, I have recourse
To those, whose judgment at the second view
(If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher’s
That eye-less; nose-less, mouth-less Statue is,
And who the workman was; tho’ since his death
Thousands of years have been revolved.
_Accidents to frustrate Purpose._
How various are the events that may depend
Upon one action, yet the end proposed
Not follow the intention! accidents
Will interpose themselves; like those rash men,
That thrust into a throng, occasioned
By some tumultuous difference, where perhaps
Their busy curiosity begets
New quarrels with new issues.