Pot. I know mine own breath from All-Hallows, Pard. Nay, sirs, here may ye see The great toe of the Trinity: And once may roll it in his mouth, He shall never be vex'd with the tooth-ache. Pot. I pray you turn that relic about; Or else, because it is three toes in one, God made it as much as three toes alone. Pard. Well, let that pass, and iook upon this: To help the least as well as the most: This is a buttock-bone of Pentecost. Here is a box full of humble-bees, That stung Eve as she sat on her knees As for any relic he kiss'd this night. Good friends, I have yet here in this glass, The same sort of significant irony runs through the Apothecary's knavish enumeration of miraculous cures in his possession: "For this medicine helpeth one and other, And bringeth them in case that they need no other. A ittle thing is enough of this; For even the weight of one scrippal Shall make you as strong as a cripple. Here is a medicine no more like the same, Which commonly is called thus by name. But worketh universally; For it doth me as much good when I sell it, I beseech your mastership be good to me, So fine that you may dig it with a spade." After these quaint but pointed examples of it, Swift's boast with respect to the invention of irony, "Which I was born to introduce, Refin'd it first, and shew'd its use, can be allowed to be true only in part. The controversy between them being undecided, the Apothecary, to clench his pretensions "as a liar of the first magnitude," by a coup-de-grace, says to the Pedlar, "You are an honest man ;" but this home-thrust is somehow ingeniously parried. The Apothecary and Pardoner fall to their narrative vein again; and the latter tells a story of fetching a young woman from the lower world, from which I shall only give one specimen more as an instance of ludicrous and fantastic exaggeration. By the help of a passport from Lucifer, " 'given in the furnace of our palace," he obtains a safe conduct from one of the subordinate imps to his master's presence: "This devil and I walked arm in arm Their horns well gilt, their claws full clean, And all the residue of the fiends Did laugh thereat full well, like friends. But of my friend I saw no whit, Nor durst not ask for her as yet. Anon all this rout was brought in silence, Oh pleasant picture! O prince of hell!" &c. The piece concludes with some good wholesome advice from the Pedlar, who here, as well as in the poem of the Excursion,' performs the part of Old Morality; but he does not seem, as in the latter case, to be acquainted with the " mighty stream of Tendency." He is more full of "wise saws" than "modern instances;" as prosing, but less paradoxical! "But where ye doubt, the truth not knowing, But as the church does judge or take them, And so be you sure you cannot err, Nothing can be clearer than this. TheReturn from Parnassus' was "first publicly acted," as the title-page imports, "by the students in St. John's College, Cambridge." It is a very singular, a very ingenious, and, as I think, a very interesting performance. It contains criticisms on contemporary authors, strictures on living manners, and the earliest denunciation (I know of) of the miseries and unprofit ableness of a scholar's life. The only part I object to in our author's criticism is his abuse of Marston; and that, not because he says what is severe, but because he says what is not true of him. Anger may sharpen our insight into men's defects; but nothing should make us blind to their excellences. The whole passage is, however, so curious in itself (like the Edinburgh Review' lately published for the year 1755) that I cannot forbear quoting a great part of it. We find in the list of candidates for praise many a name— "That like a trumpet makes the spirits dance;" there are others that have long since sunk to the bottom of the stream of time, and no Humane Society of Antiquarians and Critics is ever likely to fish them up again. "Judicio. Read the names. Ingenioso. So I will, if thou wilt help me to censure them. Edmund Spenser, John Davis, Henry Constable, Thomas Lodge, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Watson, Michael Drayton, John Marston, Kit Marlowe, William Shakspeare; and one Churchyard, [who is consigned to an untimely grave.] Good men and true, stand together, hear your censure: what's thy judg ment of Spenser ? Jud. A sweeter swan than ever sung in Po; A shriller nightingale than ever blest The prouder groves of self-admiring Rome, Blithe was each valley, and each shepherd proud, Denying maintenance for his dear relief; Careless even to prevent his exequy, Scarce deigning to shut up his dying eye. Ing. Pity it is that gentler wits should breed, Where thick-skinned chuffs laugh at a scholar's need. But softly may our honour'd ashes rest, That lie by merry Chaucer's noble chest. But I pray thee proceed briefly in thy censure, that I may be proud of myself, as in the first, so in the last, my censure may jump with thine. Henry Constable, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Watson. Jud. Sweet Constable doth take the wondering ear, And lays it up in willing prisonment: Sweet honey-dropping Daniel doth wage That melts his heart in sugar'd sonnetting. That well may scorn base imitation. For Lodge and Watson, men of some desert, Lodge for his oar in every paper boat, He that turns over Galen every day, To sit and simper Euphues' legacy. Ing. Michael Drayton. Jud. Drayton's sweet Muse is like a sanguine dye, Able to ravish the rash gazer's eye. Ing. However, he wants one true note of a poet of our times; and that is this, he cannot swagger in a tavern, nor domineer in a pot-house. Johr Davis Jud. Acute John Davis, I affect thy rhymes, That jerk in hidden charms these looser times: Is graced with a fair and sweeping train. Ing. John Marston Jud. What, Monsieur Kinsayder, put up, man, put up for shame. Withouten bands or garters' ornament. Then royster doyster in his oily terms Cuts, thrusts, and foins at whomsoe'er he meets, And strews about Ram-alley meditations. Tut, what cares he for modest close-couch'd terms Cleanly to gird our looser libertines ? Give him plain naked words stript from their shirts, Ing. Christopher Marlowe Jud. Marlowe was happy in his buskin'd Muse: Alas! unhappy in his life and end. Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell, Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell. Ing. Our theatre hath lost, Pluto hath got A tragic penman for a dreary plot. Benjamin Jonson— Jud. The wittiest fellow of a bricklayer in England. F |