and frame, and life. This must be the character of the righteous, and such a character needs no such repentance as a sudden death can intercept; whether it happens by slipping the breath in a moment, with ease, or by a fall, or in a salt wave.

"In truth, Miss, a death-bed repentance is good for nothing. We must so live as to have all things ready for the great journey; if we expect a comfortable passage, and a welcome reception. The true Christian's case is a continued operation; there must be nothing to seek any minute of our lives. We must hasten as for life and soul to obtain that holiness without which no one shall see the Lord; and when this is done, we are always ready, with a heavenly easiness, with support, courage, and resignation, to pass through the gate of any sudden death, to the regions of eternity and day. What you say, Miss West, (the young creature replied), is just and beautiful, and I shall hereafter for ever pray, while I am in this world, that I may never be worn away like a stone by a continual dropping; but may, in the twinkling of an eye, depart; smoothly, I would choose, or let it be a rough way, as I design to comply with the whole method of salvation, and am sensible it consists in a change of heart and life, true faith in Christ, firm resolutions, and persevering obedience. what then, madam, must become of the bulk of mankind, who live, I am told, so as to want a late repentance? Will this avail them nothing? You seem to think the late repentance of a sinner is of no moment at all.

"I do so, my dear, (Miss West answered,) a death-bed repentance, the Bible, I am sure, declares worthless: and reason, so far as I know, can say nothing for it. Nor is this so severe a maxim as some may imagine, but a doctrine that excites the good to duty. It ought to awaken the sinner, and warn him to flee from the wrath to come. Since this is the case, the virtuous will make their whole lives oue constant endeavour after further improvements, and strain every nerve to reach that perfection of holiness, which is the foundation of perfect happiness. And if the vicious will not take counsel, and betimes reform, it is madness to think of retrieving the misery of an ill-spent life by a few late lamentations, as the nature and design of religion must exclude any such hope."

The shortest accounts of one of our author's adventures will not, we think, be unamusing. It is extracted from the dedication, and is a very animated little narrative.

"As I travelled once in the month of September, over a wild part of Yorkshire, and fancied in the afternoon that I was near the place I intended to rest at, it appeared, from a great water we came to, that we had for half a day being going wrong, and were many a mile from any village. This was vexatious; but what was worse, the winds began to blow outrageously, the clouds gathered, and, as the evening advanced, the rain came down like water-spouts from the heavens. All the good that offered was the ruins of a nunnery, within a few yards of the water, and among the walls, once sacred to devo

tion, a part of an arch that was enough to shelter us and our beasts from the floods and tempest. Into this we entered, the horses, and Moses, and his master, and for some hours were right glad to be so lodged. But, at last, the storm and rain were quite over, we saw the fair rising moon hang up her ready lamp, and with mild lustre drive back the hovering shades. Out then I came from the cavern, and as I walked for a while on the banks of the fine lake, I saw a handsome little boat, with two oars, in a creek; and concluded very justly, that there must be some habitation not far from one side or other of the water. Into the boat therefore we went, having secured our horses, and began to row round, the better to discover. Two hours we were at it as hard as we could labour, and then came to the bottom of a garden, which had a flight of stairs leading up to it. These I ascended. I walked on, and, at the farther end of the fine improved spot, came to a mansion. I immediately knocked at a door, sent in my story to the lady of the house, as there was no master, and in a few minutes was shewn into a parlour. I continued alone about a quarter of an hour, and then entered a lady, who struck me into amazement. She was a beauty, of whom I had been passionately fond when she was fourteen and I sixteen years of age. I saw her first in a French family of distinction, where my father had lodged me for the same reason as her parents had placed her there; that is, for the sake of the purity of the French tongue; and as she had a rational generosity of heart, and an understanding that was surprisingly luminous for her years; could construe an Ode of Horace in a manner the most delightful, and read a chapter in the Greek Testament with great ease every morning; she soon became my heart's fond idol; she appeared in my eyes as something more than mortal. I thought her a divinity. Books furnished us with an occasion of being often together, and we fancied the time was happily spent. But at once she disappeared. As she had a vast fortune, and as there was a suspicion of an amour, she was snatched away in a moment, and for twenty years from the afternoon she vanished, I could not see her or hear of her: whether living or dead, I knew not till the night I am speaking of, that I saw come into the room, the lovely Julia Desborough transformed into Mrs. Mort. Our mutual surprize was vastly great. We could not speak for some time. We knew each other as well as if it had been but an hour ago we parted, so strong was the impression made. She was still divinely fair; but I wondered she could remember me so well, as time and many shaking rubs had altered me very greatly for the worse. See how strangely things are brought about! Miss Desborough was removed all the way to Italy, kept many years abroad that she might never see me more, and in the character of Mrs. Mort, by accident, I found her in solitude in the same country I lived in, and still my friend. This lady told me, she had buried an admirable husband a few years ago, and, as she never had any liking to the world, she devoted her time to books, her old favorites, the education of her daughter, and the salvation of her soul. Miss Mort and she lived like two friends. They read and spun some hours of their time every day away. They had a few agreeable neighbours, and from the lake and cultivation of

their gardens derived a variety of successive pleasures. They had no relish for the tumultuous pleasures of the town; but in the charms of letters and religion, the philosophy of flowers, the converse of their neighbours, a linen manufactory, and their rural situation, were as happy as their wishes could rise to in this hemisphere. All this to me was like a vision. I wondered, I admired. Is this Miss Desborough with whom I was wont to pass so many hours in reading Milton to her, or Telemaque, or L'Avare de Moliere? What a fleeting scene is life! But a little while, and we go on to another world. Fortunate are they who are fit for the remove, who have a clear conception of the precariousness and vanity of all human things, and by virtue and piety so strive to act what is fairest and most laudable, and so pass becomingly through this life, that they may in the next obtain the blessed and immortal abodes prepared for those who can give up their account with joy."

We have now, we think, given sufficient extracts from these Memoirs, to enable the reader to judge of the soundness both of the author's head and heart. With some of his peculiarities we cannot become perfectly acquainted, without a reference to the work itself; the most remarkable of which is the skilful combination of theological disquisition with the most lively sallies of a playful imagination: a little history or a romantic adventure blossoms in the midst of a Discussion on the Origin of Evil, or a Question in Fluxions. He controverts the dogmas of differing sects-describes the tones of a flute or a violin-with the same ardour and the same vivacity. And all this in the most agreeable and easy manner. Even in the vehemence of controversy, in which he sometimes oversteps the bounds of temperate language, we cannot help observing the kindness of his heart and the sodality of his disposition. But notwithstanding the facility with which he passes on from grave reasoning to gay description, he never loses sight of his great object, which he only quits to return to it with increased earnestness, and which seems to have lighted up in his breast a flame, glowing with an intense heat, which death alone could extinguish.

The accomplished females, to whom our lively author introduces us, are not of a common description, and they are still less common in acquirements than in talents. He has estimated the former, not according to the general standard of female qualifications, but according to one or two instances of rarely gifted women. It is not, for instance, a usual thing to find ladies solving problems in fluxions to prove Bishop Berkley wrong and Sir Isaac Newton right; or pointing out the errors of such writers as Chubb; but yet there is nothing either impossible or ridiculous in it. He has, however, adorned them with more feminine, more delightful, and more useful ac

complishments, and with the exception of the slight colour of pedantry with which he has tinged some of their characters, they are fine specimens of moral and intellectual women. For ourselves we can say, with truth, that when we rise from the perusal of their discourses we feel ourselves better for it, and are thankful for the opportunity we have met with of forming an acquaintance with an author who is, at the same time, a deep scholar and a good gentleman.

ART. VII.-The History of Antonio and Mellida, a Tragedy. Written by John Marston. London, 4to. 1602.

Antonio's Revenge. The Second Part of the History of Antonio and Mellida. Written by John Marston.

The Malcontent, augmented by J. Marston, played by the King's Majesty's Servants. Webster. London, 4to. 1604.

London, 4to. 1602.

with the Additions Written by John

The Dutch Courtezan, as it hath been divers times presented at the Blacke Fryars by the Children of the Queene's Majestie's Revels. Written by John Marston. London, 4to. 1605.

The Wonder of Women, or the Tragedie of Sophonisba, as it hath been sundry times acted at the Blacke Fryers. London, 4to. 1606.

Parasitaster, or the Fawne, as it hath been divers times presented at the Blacke Fryars, by the Children of the Queene's Majestie's Revels. Written by John Marston. London, 4to. 1606.

What you

Will. By John Marston. London, 4to. 1607. The Insatiate Countess. Written by John Marston. London, 4to.

1613.

Fame seems to lose half its value by being annexed to a name only, unaccompanied with a knowledge of the biography of its owner, of the means by which he gained the difficult ascent to eminence, of the circumstances of his progress, of the obstructions he met with, and the manner in which they were overcome. There is no substance in a mere name upon which we can fix our admiration-it is a shadow, a nonentity-it might as well be Monsier Kinsayder as John Marston, or the converse. When Fame was preparing with a mighty voice to sound forth Marston's praise, he modestly laid his hand on the trumpet and

stopped her before she could announce more than John Marston. "I have ever more endeavoured," says he, "to know myselfe, than to be known of others, and rather to be impartially beloved of all, than factiously to be admired of a few; yet so powerfully have I been enticed with the delights of poetry, and (I must ingenuously confesse) above better desert, so fortunate in these stage-pleasings, that (let my resolutions be never so fixed, to call mine eyes unto myselfe), I much feare that most lamentable death of him :

Qui nimis notus omnibus,

Ignotus moritur sibi.-Seneca.

But since the over-vehement pursuite of these delights hath been the sicknesse of my youth, and now is growne to be the vice of my firmer age, since to satisfie others I neglecte myselfe, let it be the curtesie of my peruser rather to pitie myselfe-hindring labours than to malice me, and let him be pleased to be my reader and not my interpreter."

The notices of his life are so scanty, that it is not worth while to transfer them to this place; and we shall therefore immediately proceed to the discussion of his character as a writer, illustrated with quotations, in our usual manner.

Marston favoured the world with the eight plays, whose titles are prefixed to this article. Of these, three are tragedies, and the rest comedies, or tragi-comedies. In his youth, he began with being a bitter biting satirist in " sporting merriment," as he expresses it in his Scourge of Villainy,* and ended with being one in reality in his old age. His early efforts, together with the satirical reflections which were passed upon him, appear to have given a decided character to his mind, and we accordingly find those passages, particularly in his comedies, which are written with most force, are caustic reflections on the follies and vices of man, and his favourite characters indignant censurers of manners, as Feliche in Antonio and Mellida, Lamfatho in What you Will, Hercules in the Parasitaster, and Mahoole in the Malcontent. There is, indeed, a striking resemblance in many of his comic characters, which continually remind one of the author's propensity to satirical invective. Although little of real passion is to be found in the plays of Marston, there is a vigour, an apparent earnestness, both in his thoughts and language, which well supplies the place of the more genuine feelings of nature. He wants that delicacy of perception, that absorption of his own consciousness in the feelings

Published 1599.