Your spirit is true Roman!-But your's greater Of the characters equidistant from Temperance, the Epicure and the Anchorite, we can afford to give but one, which is only inferior, if at all, to the Sir Epicure Mammon of Randolph's father-in-poetry," Old Ben." "O now for an eternity of eating! Fool was he that wish'd but a crane's short neck; Fresh, plump, and active; she that Mars enjoy'd Colax still continues through the play to prove each party in the right. He thus answers the Epicure. "It shows you a man of soft moving clay, When Nature thought the earth alone too little Doth nurse some curious dainty for man's food; To have us deaf? or when she plac'd us here, Be chaste and continent? Not to enjoy All pleasures, and at full, were to make Nature A vanity in her works." We shall quote next the extremes of Meekness. The quarrelsome Orgilus, and the patient Aorgus. Org. Persuade me not, he has awak'd a fury Aor. Why should not any man Bite his own thumb? Org. At me! wear I a sword To see men bite their thumbs-Rapiers and daggers— Org. Muskets and cannons !-eat it? He shall eat something else too that rides here; Aor. Sir, be patient. Org. You lie in your throat, and I will not. Aor. To what purpose is this impertinent madness? Org. Your mother was a whore, and I will not put it up. The nature of two injuries, your's to me Lies heavy, when that other would not turn An even scale, and yet it moves not me; My anger is not up. Org. But I will raise it; You are a fool! Be Aor. I know it, and shall I angry for a truth? Org. You are besides An arrant knave! Aor. So are my betters, sir. Org. I cannot move him-O my spleen, it rises; For very anger I could eat my knuckles. Aor. You may, or bite your thumb, all's one to me. Aor. 'Tis my wife's fault, not mine; I have no reason Then to be angry for another's sin.” The whole of this play is particularly well worth reading; and as we can thus recommend the whole (a rare instance in Randolph), we feel less compunction at leaving much that is good behind, and in closing our article with the proud Lady Philotimia," of too great nicety in her attire," and her sluggish and indolent husband. "Phil. What mole drest me to day? O patience! Luparus. I would the tailor had been hang'd for me, That first invented clothes-O Nature, Nature! Calves come into the world with doublets on, And oxen have no breeches to put off: The lamb is born with her frieze coat about her: With pulling on their hose and shoes i' th' morning, Phil. To see her negligence! she hath made this cheek Does she think that I can eat twice with the same, What! are you snoring there; you'll rise, you sluggard, Lup. Rise, and make you ready! To works of that, your happy birds make one; I had some hope then when the breasts went bare, Phil. Beshrew her for't, this wrinkle is not fill'd. Lup. Our sow ne'er washes, yet she has a face, Methinks, as cleanly, madam, as your's is, you durst wear your own. If Colax. Madam Superbia, You're studying the ladies' library, The looking-glass; 'tis well: so great a beauty Must have her ornaments. Nature adorns She decks the fields with various flowers; 'tis she In silver mail. But man she sent forth naked, Above her master-piece. You are the image Not yet worn out in man, are lost and buried. Phil. I see it to my grief, pray counsel him. These cobweb-lawns catch spiders. Sir, believe it; No doubt you spend the time your lady loses In tricking up her body, to clothe the soul. Lup. To clothe the soul? must the soul too be cloth'd? I protest, sir, I had rather have no soul Than be tormented with the clothing of it." ART. V.-The History of Britain, that part especially now called England. From the first Traditional Beginning, continued to the Norman Conquest, collected out of the Ancientest and best Authors thereof. By John Milton. London, 1677. Some apology may be thought necessary for making a work so accessible as the present the subject of criticism. The truth is, however, that it is a work which very few read, and which has for the greater part no attractions for the generality of readers; there are, nevertheless, a few passages of story and sentiment, which are calculated to be universally interesting; and it is with the purpose of separating these from the other matter, and presenting them to the reader in a collected form, that we have adopted it as the subject of an article. In reading the latter works of Milton, it is impossible not to be struck with the different view there given of the author's feelings and state of mind, from that exhibited in his earlier |