Dare with misty eyes behold, And live therefore on this mould In worship of thy deity. To this present day ne'er grew, Never better, nor more true. Here be grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good, Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the squirrel whose teeth crack them; For these, black-eyed Driope Hath oftentimes commanded me With my clasped knee to climb. See how well the lusty time Hath deck'd their rising cheeks in red, Such as on your lips is spread. Here be berries for a queen, Some be red, some be green; These are of that luscious meat The great god Pan himself doth eat: All these, and what the woods can yield, The hanging mountain or the field, I freely offer, and ere long Will bring you more, more sweet and strong; Till then, humbly leave I take, Lest the great Pan do awake, That sleeping lies in a deep glade, Under a broad beech's shade. I must go, I must run, Swifter than the fiery sun. Clor. And all my fears go with thee. What greatness, or what private hidden power, Is there in me to draw submission From this rude man and beast?-Sure I am a mortal; The daughter of a shepherd; he was mortal, And she that bore me, mortal; prick my hand And it will bleed; a fever shakes me, and The self-same mind that makes the young lambs shrink, Makes me a-cold: my fear says I am mortal: Yet I have heard (my mother told it me), And now I do believe it, if I keep My virgin flower uncropt, pure, chaste, and fair, No goblin, wood-god, fairy, elf, or fiend, Satyr, or other power that haunts the groves, Shall hurt my body, or by vain illusion Y [Exit.] Draw me to wander after idle fires, To make me follow, and so tole me on Through mire and standing pools, to find my ruin. That break their confines. Then, strong chastity, [Faithful Shepherdess.] The lyrical pieces scattered throughout the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, though not generally equal, are still of much the same character as those with which Jonson's dramas abound. Of these we subjoin the following: THE POWER OF LOVE. Hear ye, ladies that despise What the mighty Love has done; Doted on a silver swan; Danae in a brazen tower, Where no love was, lov'd a shower. Hear ye, ladies that are coy, What the mighty Love can do, Fear the fierceness of the boy; The chaste moon he makes to woo. Vesta, kindling holy fires Circled round about with spies Never dreaming loose desires, Doting at the altar dies; Ilion in a short hour higher, He can build, and once more fire. [Valentinian.] SONG TO PAN, AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE FAITHFUL SHEPHERDESS. All ye woods, and trees, and bow'rs All ye virtues and ye pow'rs, That inhabit in the lakes, In the pleasant springs or brakes, Move your feet To our sound, All this ground, With his honour and his name That defends our flocks from blame. He is great and he is just, He is ever good, and must Whilst we sing Ever holy, Ever honour'd, ever young! Thus great Pan is ever sung. Lecture the Fifteenth. GEORGE CHAPMAN-THOMAS DEKKER-JOHN WEBSTER-THOMAS MIDDLETON JOHN MARSTON-PHILIP MASSINGER-ROBERT TAYLOR-WILLIAM ROWLEYCYRIL TOURNEUR-GEORGE COOKE-THOMAS NABBES-NATHANIEL FIELD-JOHN DAY-HENRY GLAPTHORNE-THOMAS RANDOLPH-RICHARD BROME-JOHN FORD -THOMAS HEYWOOD-JAMES SHIRLEY. THE great dramatists with whom we have been engaged during the last two lectures, have absorbed so much of our time and attention, that we shall be constrained to notice much more briefly those of their contemporaries who are still to pass in review before us. Of these, Chapman, Dekker, Webster, Middleton, Marston, and Massinger, first claim our attention. GEORGE CHAPMAN was born at Hitching Hill, Hertfordshire, in 1557. He commenced his collegiate studies at Oxford, and finished them at Cambridge; but in consequence of devoting himself at both universities to the Latin and Greek classics, to the exclusion of philosophy and logic, he did not succeed in obtaining his degree at either. From Cambridge he repaired to London, when the gracefulness of his manners and the elegance of his taste soon recommended him to the acquaintance, and even intimacy, of Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, and other leading wits of the age. Chapman commenced his literary career with a translation of the Iliad of Homer. This, with all its faults, is a production of great value and interest. It is written in the cumbrous and unwieldy old English measure of fourteen syllables; but notwithstanding this heavy drawback, such passages as the following description from the thirteenth book, of Neptune and his chariot, exhibit, with great clearness, the force and energy of the translation: He took much ruth to see the Greeks from Troy receive such ill, |