"Pen. Sure, if we were all sirens, we should sing pit

ifully,

And 't were a comely music, when in parts

One sung another's knell; the turtle sighs

When he hath lost his mate; and yet some say
He must be dead first: 't is a fine deceit

Το pass away in a dream! indeed, I 've slept
With mine eyes open a great while. No falsehood
Equals a broken faith; there's not a hair

Sticks on my head but, like a leaden plummet,
It sinks me to the grave; I must creep thither;
The journey is not long.

"Pen. Spare your hand;

Believe me, I'll not hurt it.

"Org. My heart too.

"Pen. Complain not though I wring it hard: I'll kiss it; O, 't is a fine, soft palm!

hark, in thine ear;

Like whom do I look, prithee?-nay, no whispering.
Goodness! we had been happy; too much happiness
Will make folk proud, they say—but that is he-
[Pointing to ITHOCLES.

And yet he paid for 't home; alas! his heart

Is crept into the cabinet of the princess;

We shall have points and bride-laces. Remember,
When we last gathered roses in the garden,
I found my wits; but truly you lost yours.
That 's he, and still 't is he.

[Again pointing to ITHOCLES."

Now let us turn to the catastrophe. Calantha, after settling the succession of the kingdom, turns to the body of Ithocles.

"Cal. Forgive me :- - now I turn to thee, thou shadow Of my contracted lord! Bear witness all,

I put my mother's wedding-ring upon
His finger; 't was my father's last bequest.

[Places a ring on the finger of ITHOCLES.
Thus I new-marry him, whose wife I am;
Death shall not separate us. O my Lords,

I but deceived your eyes with antic gesture,

When one news straight came huddling on another,
Of death and death! and death! still I danced forward;
But it struck home, and here, and in an instant.

Be such mere women, who, with shrieks and outcries,

Can vow a present end to all their sorrows,

Yet live to [court] new pleasures, and outlive them:
They are the silent griefs which cut the heart-strings;
Let me die smiling.

"Near. "T is a truth too ominous.

"Cal. One kiss on these cold lips, my last! - [Kisses

Argos now 's Sparta's king. Command the voices

Which wait at th' altar now to sing the song
I fitted for my end."

Lamb speaks of this death-scene as

"carrying

us back to Calvary and the cross," (or uses words to that effect,) but this, it seems to me, is attributing too much importance to the mere physical fact of dying.

JOHN.

What one dies for, not his dying, glorifies him. The comparison is an irreverent one, as that must need be which matches a selfish love with a universal. Love's nobility is shown in this, that it strengthens us to make sacrifices for others, and not for the object of our love alone. All the good

we do is a service done to that, but that is not the sole recipient. Our love for one is only, therefore, made preeminent, that it may show us the beauty and holiness of that love whose arms are wide enough for all. It is easy enough to die for one we love so fiercely; but it is a harder and nobler martyrdom to live for others. Love is only then perfected, when it can bear to outlast the body, which was but its outward expression, and a prop for its infant steps, and can feel its union with the beloved spirit in a mild serenity, and an inward prompting to a thousand little unrewarded acts of every-day brotherhood. The love of one is a

mean, not an end.

PHILIP.

Another objection which I should feel inclined to bring against this scene is, that the breaking of Calantha's heart seems to be made too palpable and anatomical an event. It is too much like the mere bursting of a blood vessel, which Smith or Brown might accomplish, though wholly incapable of rendering themselves tragically available by the breaking of their hearts. It is like that stanza of the old ballad,

"She turned her back unto the wall,

And her face unto the rock;

And there, before her mother's eyes,
Her very heart it broke."

In the ballad, however, there is more propriety; the heroine's heart gives way suddenly, under a

sudden blow. But Calantha saves up her heartbreak, as it were, until it can come in with proper effect at the end of the tragedy.

Ford sometimes reminds one of the picturesque luxuriance of Fletcher. The following exquisite passage is very like Fletcher, and is a good specimen of Ford's lighter powers. When we read it, we almost wish he had written masques or pastorals rather than plays. The story is an old one, and was translated by Crashawe, in a poem which, for exquisite rhythm and diction, can hardly be paralleled in the language. Ford brings it in in his "Lover's Melancholy " :

"One morning early

This accident encountered me: I heard
The sweetest and most ravishing contention
That art and nature ever were at strife in.

A sound of music touched mine ears, or rather,
Indeed, entranced my soul: as I stole nearer,
Invited by the melody, I saw

This youth, this fair-faced youth, upon his lute,
With strains of strange variety and harmony,
Proclaiming, as it seemed, so bold a challenge
To the clear choristers of the woods, the birds,
That, as they flocked about him, all stood silent,
Wondering at what they heard: I wondered too.

A nightingale

Nature's best-skilled musician, undertakes

The challenge, and, for every several strain

The well-shaped youth could touch, she sang her own;
He could not run division with more art

Upon his quaking instrument, than she,
The nightingale, did with her various notes
Reply to; for a voice and for a sound,

Amethus, 't is much easier to believe

That such they were, than hope to hear again.

Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird,

Whom art had never taught clefs, moods, and notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study
Had busied many hours to perfect practice:
To end the controversy, in a rapture
Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,

So many voluntaries and so quick,

That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord and discord, lines of differing method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.

. The bird, ordained to be

Music's first martyr, strove to imitate

These several sounds; which, when her warbling throat
Failed in, for grief, down dropped she on his lute

And brake her heart!

I must give you a short passage from Crashawe's poem, which I cannot help thinking the best music in words I ever read. Crashawe was himself an exquisite musician. After the lutanist has played a strain, the nightingale answers.

"She measures every measure, every where
Meets art with art; sometimes, as if in doubt
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out,
Wails her plain ditty in one long-spun note,
Through the sleek passage of her open throat,
A clear, unwrinkled song; then doth she point it
With tender accents, and severely joint it
By short diminutives, that, being reared
In controverting warbles evenly shared,
With her sweet self she wrangles.