judge of his deeds, than absorbed and buried with | This black attire, abstraction from society, the dead, whom his indiscretion made so.

Marg. I knew a greatness ever to be resident in him, to which the admiring eyes of men should look up even in the declining and bankrupt state of his pride. Fain would I see him, fain talk with him; but that a sense of respect, which is violated, when without deliberation we press into the society of the unhappy, checks and holds me back. How, think you, he would bear my presence?

Sand. As of an assured friend, whom in the forgetfulness of his fortunes he past by. See him you must; but not to-night. The newness of the sight shall move the bitterest compunction and the truest remorse; but afterwards, trust me, dear lady, the happiest effects of a returning peace, and a gracious comfort, to him, to you, and all of us.

Marg. I think he would not deny me. He hath ere this received farewell letters from his brother, who hath taken a resolution to estrange himself, for a time, from country, friends, and kindred, and to seek occupation for his sad thoughts in travelling in foreign places, where sights remote and extern to himself may draw from him kindly and not painful

ruminations.

Sand. I was present at the receipt of the letter. The contents seemed to affect him, for a moment, with a more lively passion of grief than he has at any time outwardly shown. He wept with many tears (which I had not before noted in him), and appeared to be touched with the sense as of some unkindness; but the cause of their sad separation and divorce quickly recurring, he presently returned to his former inwardness of suffering.

Marg. The reproach of his brother's presence at this hour would have been a weight more than could be sustained by his already oppressed and sinking spirit. Meditating upon these intricate and widespread sorrows, hath brought a heaviness upon me, as of sleep. How goes the night?.

Sand. An hour past sun-set. You shall first refresh your limbs (tired with travel) with meats and some cordial wine, and then betake your no less wearied mind to repose.

Marg. A good rest to us all.

Sand. Thanks, lady.

Good thoughts, and frequent sighs, and seldom
smiles,

A cleaving sadness native to the brow,
All sweet condolements of like-grieved friends,
(That steal away the sense of loss almost)
Men's pity, and good offices
Which enemies themselves do for us then,
Putting their hostile disposition off,
As we put off our high thoughts and proud looks.
Pauses, and observes the pictures.

These pictures must be taken down:
The portraitures of our most ancient family
For nigh three hundred years! How have

listen'd,

To hear Sir Walter, with an old man's pride,
Holding me in his arms, a prating boy,
And pointing to the pictures where they hung,
Repeat by course their worthy histories,
(As Hugh de Widville, Walter, first of the name,
And Anne the handsome, Stephen, and famous

John:

Telling me, I must be famous John.)
But that was in old times.

Now, no more

Must I grow proud upon our house's pride.
I rather, I, by most unheard-of crimes,
Have backward tainted all their noble blood,
Rased out the memory of an ancient family,
And quite reversed the honours of our house.
Who now shall sit and tell us anecdotes ?

The secret history of his own times,
And fashions of the world when he was young,
How England slept out three-and-twenty years,
While Carr and Villiers ruled the baby king:
The costly fancies of the pedant's reign,
Balls, feastings, huntings, shows in allegory,
And Beauties of the court of James the First.

MARGARET enters.

John. Comes Margaret here to witness my disgrace?

0, lady, I have suffer'd loss,

And diminution of my honour's brightness.
You bring some images of old times, Margaret,
That should be now forgotten.

Marg. Old times should never be forgotten, John.

I came to talk about them with my friend.
John. I did refuse you, Margaret, in my pride.

Marg. If John rejected Margaret in his pride,

(As who does not, being splenetic, refuse Sometimes old playfellows,) the spleen being gone, The offence no longer lives.

O Woodvil, those were happy days,

When we two first began to love. When first,
Under pretence of visiting my father,
(Being then a stripling nigh upon my age,)
You came a wooing to his daughter, John.
Do you remember,

With what a coy reserve and seldom speech.
(Young maidens must be chary of their speech,

I kept the honours of my maiden pride?
I was your favourite then.

John. O Margaret, Margaret!

These your submissions to my low estate,

And cleavings to the fates of sunken Woodvil,
Write bitter things 'gainst my unworthiness.
Thou perfect pattern of thy slander'd sex,
Whom miseries of mine could never alienate,
Nor change of fortune shake; whom injuries,
And slights (the worst of injuries) which moved
Thy nature to return scorn with like scorn,
Then when you left in virtuous pride this house,
Could not so separate, but now in this

My day of shame, when all the world forsake me,
You only visit me, love, and forgive me..

Marg. Dost yet remember the green arbour, John,
In the south gardens of my father's house,
Where we have seen the summer sun go down,
Exchanging true love's vows without restraint?
And that old wood, you call'd your wilderness,
And vow'd in sport to build a chapel in it,
There dwell

"Like hermit poor

In pensive place obscure,"

And tell your Ave Maries by the curls
(Dropping like golden beads) of Margaret's hair;
And make confession seven times a day

Of every thought that stray'd from love and Margaret;
And I your saint the penance should appoint --
Believe me, sir, I will not now be laid
Aside, like an old fashion.

John. O lady, poor and abject are my thoughts;
My pride is cured, my hopes are under clouds,
I have no part in any good man's love,

none,

[Weeps.

In all earth's pleasures portion have
I fade and wither in my own esteem,
This earth holds not alive so poor a thing as I am.
I was not always thus.
Marg.
Thou noble nature,
Which lion-like didst awe the inferior creatures,
Now trampled on by beasts of basest quality,
My dear heart's lord, life's pride, soul-honour'd John!
Upon her knees (regard her poor request)
Your favourite, once beloved Margaret, kneels.
John. What would'st thou, lady, ever honour'd
Margaret?

JOHN is discovered kneeling.—MARGARET standing over him.
John. (rises.) I cannot bear

To see you waste that youth and excellent beauty,
('Tis now the golden time of the day with you,)
In tending such a broken wretch as I am.

Marg. John will break Margaret's heart, if he
speak so.

O sir, sir, sir, you are too melancholy,
And I must call it caprice. I am somewhat bold
Perhaps in this. But you are now my patient,
(You know you gave me leave to call you so,)
And I must chide these pestileut humours from you.
John. They are gone.-

Mark, love, how cheerfully I speak!

I can smile too, and I almost begin

To understand what kind of creature Hope is.

Marg. Now this is better, this mirth becomes you,
John.

John. Yet tell me, if I over-act my mirth
(Being but a novice, I may fall into that error).
That were a sad indecency, you know.

Marg. Nay, never fear.

I will be mistress of your humours,

And you shall frown or smile by the book.
And herein I shall be most peremptory,
Cry, "This shows well, but that inclines to levity;
This frown has too much of the Woodvil in it,
But that fine sunshine has redeem'd it quite."
John. How sweetly Margaret robs me of myself!
Marg. To give you in your stead a better self!
Such as you were, when these eyes first beheld
You mounted on your sprightly steed, White Margery,
Sir Rowland my father's gift,

And all my maidens gave my heart for lost.
I was a young thing then, being newly come
Home from my convent education, where
Seven years I had wasted in the bosom of France:
Returning home true protestant, you call'd me
Your little heretic nun. How timid-bashful

Marg. That John would think more nobly of Did John salute his love, being newly seen!

Sir Rowland term'd it a rare modesty,

And praised it in a youth.

John. Now Margaret weeps herself.

(A noise of bells heard.)

Marg. Hark the bells, John.

John. Those are the church bells of St. Mary Ottery.
Marg. I know it.

John. St. Mary Ottery, my native village

In the sweet shire of Devon.
Those are the bells.

The bells are only now ringing for morning service, | Tears like a river flooded all my face,
And hast thou been at church already?

John. I left my bed betimes, I could not sleep,
And when I rose, I look'd (as my custom is)

From my chamber window, where I can see the sun So stealing down the stairs, like one that fear'd

THE WITCH.

A DRAMATIC SKETCH OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

CHARACTERS.

OLD SERVANT in the family of SIR FRANCIS FAIRFORD. STRANGER.

Servant. ONE summer night Sir Francis, as it So saying, she departed,

chanced,

Was pacing to and fro in the avenue

That westward fronts our house,

Among those aged oaks, said to have been planted

Three hundred years ago,

By a neighb'ring prior of the Fairford name.
Being o'ertask'd in thought, he heeded not

Leaving Sir Francis like a man, beneath
Whose feet a scaffolding was suddenly falling;
So he described it.

Stranger. A terrible curse! What follow'd?
Servant. Nothing immediate, but some two months
after,

Young Philip Fairford suddenly fell sick,

The importunate suit of one who stood by the gate, And none could tell what ail'd him; for he lay,
And begg'd an alms.

Some say he shoved her rudely from the gate
With angry chiding; but I can never think
(Our master's nature hath a sweetness in it)
That he could use a woman, an old woman,
With such discourtesy; but he refused her-
And better had he met a lion in his path
Than that old woman that night;
For she was one who practised the black arts,
And served the devil, being since burnt for witch-

craft.

She look'd at him as one that meant to blast him,
And with a frightful noise,

('Twas partly like a woman's voice,

And partly like the hissing of a snake,)

She nothing said but this

(Sir Francis told the words):

A mischief, mischief, mischief,

And a nine-times killing curse,

By day and by night, the caitiff wight,

Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door,

And shuts up the womb of his purse.

And still she cried

A mischief,

And a nine-fold withering curse:

For that shall come to thee that will undo thee,
Both all that thou fearest and worse.

And pined, and pined, till all his hair fell off,
And he, that was full-flesh'd, became as thin

As a two-months' babe that has been starved in the
nursing.

And sure I think

He bore his death-wound like a child;
With such rare sweetness of dumb melancholy
He strove to clothe his agony in smiles,
Which he would force up in his poor pale cheeks,
Like ill-timed guests that had no proper dwelling

there;

And, when they ask'd him his complaint, he laid
His hand upon his heart to show the place,
Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said,
And prick'd him with a pin.-
And thereupon Sir Francis call'd to mind
The beggar-witch that stood by the gateway
And begg'd an alms.

Stranger.
But did the witch confess?
Servant. All this and more at her death.

Stranger. I do not love to credit tales of magic.
Heaven's music, which is Order, seems unstrung,
And this brave world

(The mystery of God) unbeautified,

Disorder'd, marr'd, where such strange things are

acted

633

ALBUM VERSES.

WITH A FEW OTHERS.

DEDICATION.

TO THE PUBLISHER.

I do not know to whom a Dedication of these Trifles is more properly due than to yourself. You suggested the printing of them. You were desirous of exhibiting a specimen of the manner in which Publications, entrusted to your future care, would appear. With more propriety, perhaps, the "Christmas," or some other of your own simple, unpretending Compositions, might have served this purpose. But I forget-you have bid a long adieu to the Muses. I had on my hands sundry Copies of Verses written for Albums

Those books kept by modern young Ladies for show,

Of which their plain Grandmothers nothing did know

or otherwise floating about in Periodicals; which you have chosen in this manner to embody. I feel little interest in their publication. They are simply — Advertisement Verses.

It is not for me, nor you, to allude in public to the kindness of our honoured Friend, under whose auspices you are become a publisher. May that fine-minded Veteran in Verse enjoy life long enough to see his patronage justified! I venture to predict that your habits of industry, and your cheerful spirit, will carry you through the world. I am, Dear Moxon, your Friend and sincere Well-Wisher,

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