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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.

So saying, she departed,

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

STRANGER.

A terrible curse! What followed?

SERVANT.

Nothing immediate, but some two months after
Young Philip Fairford suddenly fell sick,
And none could tell what ailed him; for he lay,
And pined, and pined, till all his hair fell off,
And he, that was full-fleshed, 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 little 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 asked him his complaint, he

laid

His hand upon his heart to shew the place,
Where Susan came to him a-nights, he said,
And prick'd him with a pin.—

And thereupon Sir Francis called to mind
The beggar-witch that stood by the gateway
And begged 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.

CURIOUS FRAGMENTS.

CURIOUS FRAGMENTS,

Extracted from a common-place book, which belonged to Robert Burton, the famous Author of The Anatomy of Melancholy.

EXTRACT I.

I DEMOCRITUS Junior have put my finishing pen to a tractate De Melancholia, this day December 5, 1620. First, I blesse the Trinity, which hath given me health to prosecute my worthlesse studies thus far, and make supplication, with a Laus Deo, if in any case these my poor labours may be found instrumental to weede out black melancholy, carking cares, harte-grief, from the mind of man. Sed hoc magis volo quam expecto.

I turn now to my book, i nunc liber, goe forth, my brave Anatomy, child of my brain-sweat, and yee, candidi lectores, lo! here I give him up to you, even do with him what you please, my masters. Some, I suppose will applaud, com

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