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 Chapter 5

Multiple Choice (21) WARNING: CORRECT ANSWERS ARE IN THE SAME POSITION AND TAGGED WITH **.
YOU SHOULD RANDOMIZE THE LOCATION OF THE CORRECT ANSWERS IN YOUR EXAM.

1. When reading data from a file, the open function returns a(n) __________.
a. file object **
b. file name
c. file handle
d. file tuple

2. What function do you use to terminate a connection to a file?

a. close **
b. terminate
c. stop
d. disconnect

3. After all the lines of a file have been read, the readline method returns __________.
a. the empty string **
b. an empty tuple
c. the value None
d. a Throwback error

4. Python uses a(n) __________ as a temporary holding place for data to be written to disk.
a. buffer **
b. temp space
c. special memory location
d. list

5. When are the contents of the buffer written to disk?

a. When the buffer is full.
b. When the file is closed.
c. Both a & b. **
d. None of the above.

6. Which standard library module do you need to import in order to use the remove and rename
functions for files?
a. os **
b. file
c. path

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 d. pickle

7. A(n) __________ is an unordered collection of items with no duplicates.

a. set **
b. file
c. dictionary
d. tuple

8. Elements of a set are delimited with __________.

a. { } **
b. [ ]
c. ( )
d. < >

9. The statement set1.union(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates **
b. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2
c. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed
d. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed

10. The statement set1.intersection(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2 **
b. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates
c. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed
d. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed

11. The statement set1.difference(set2) is:

a. the set containing the elements that are in set1 with the elements of set2 removed **
b. the set containing the elements that are in set2 with the elements of in set1 removed
c. the set containing the elements that are in both set1 and set2
d. the set containing the elements that are in either set1 and set2 without duplicates

12. An attempt to open a nonexistent file for input:

a. generates a runtime error **
b. generates a syntax error
c. creates an empty input file
d. none of the above

13. If a file that already exists is opened for writing:

a. the contents of the file will be erased **
b. the new data to be written will be appended to the end of the rile
c. a Throwback error will occur

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 d. the user will be prompted for the action they wish to take

14. The default mode for opening a file is

a. reading **
b. writing
c. appending
d. deleting

15. To avoid a potential runtime error when opening files for reading or writing:
a. use the os.path.isfile function **
b. use the os.path.file.exists function
c. prompt the user for the action to take if the file does not exist
d. use the Boolean value try to check if the file exists

16. What is the output of the following Python statement?

print (set(“bookkeeper”))
a. {‘b’, ‘o’, ‘k’, ‘e’, ‘p’, ‘r’} **
b. {‘b’, ‘o’, ‘o’, ‘k’, ‘k’, ‘e’, ‘e’, ‘p’, ‘e’, ‘r’}
c. {‘o’, ‘k’, ‘e’}
d. {‘b’, ‘p’, ‘r’}

17. Each line of a CSV file is referred to as a(n) __________.

a. record **
b. tuple
c. field
d. comma field

18. Each piece of data in a CSV file record is referred to as a(n) __________.
a. field **
b. record
c. tuple
d. line

19. In a dictionary, a pair such such as “dog” : “rover” is called a(n) __________.
a. item **
b. pair
c. key
d. couple

20. Which file format stores data as a sequence of types that can only be access by special readers?
a. binary **
b. text

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 c. CSV-formatted
d. all of the above

21. In order for Python to use functions to work with binary files, you must first import which
standard library module?
a. pickle **
b. os
c. binaries
d. osfile

True/False (23)

1. After all the lines of a file have been read, the readline method returns the value None.

Answer: false

2. You must close a file in order to guarantee that all data has been physically written to the disk.

Answer: true

3. The remove and rename functions cannot be used with open files.

Answer: true

4. Sets cannot contain lists.

Answer: true

5. Sets can contain other sets.

Answer: false

6. Elements of a set have no order.

Answer: true

7. Elements of a set may be duplicated.

Answer: false

8. Two sets are equal if they contain the same elements.

Answer: true

9. Elements if a set cannot be ordered.

Answer: true

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

10. Sets cannot be created with comprehension.

Answer: false

11. infile is a descriptive name bot not mandatory for file input usage.

Answer: true

12. An attempt to open a nonexistent file for input generates a syntax error.

Answer: false

13. If a file that already exists is opened for writing, the contents of the file will be erased.

Answer: true

14. The default mode for opening a file is writing.

Answer: false

15. Only strings can be written to text file.

Answer: true

16. The value of set() is the empty set.

Answer: true

17. The data in the fields of each record in a CSV file normally should be related.

Answer: true

18. In a dictionary, keys must be immutable objects.

Answer: true

19. It is common to create dictionaries from text files.

Answer: true

20. Dictionaries cannot have other dictionaries as values.

Answer: false

21. A dictionary is an ordered structure that can be sorted.

Answer: false

22. Dictionaries cannot be created with comprehension.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

 Answer: false

23. Dictionary comprehension can be used to extract a subset of a dictionary.

Answer: true

Short Answer (11)

1. Complete the following function to open the file for reading and read the contents into a single
string named contents.

def readFile(file):

Answer:
infile = open(file, ‘r’)
contents = infile.read()

2. Write a Python statement to open a file called names for writing and assign it to a variable called
outfile.

Answer: outfile = open(names, ‘w’)

3. Write a Python statement to open a file called grades with the intent to add values to the end of
the file and assign it to a variable called outfile.

Answer: outfile = open(grades, ‘a’)

4. Write a single Python statement to convert the list [“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”] to a set
called seasons.

Answer: seasons = set([“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”])

5. Write a single Python statement to convert the tuple (“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”) to a
set called seasons.

Answer: seasons = set((“spring”, “summer”, “fall”, “winter”))

6. Why can’t elements of a set be indexed?

Answer: Elements of a set cannot be indexed have no order.

7. Explain the difference between a simple text file and a CSV-formatted file.

Answer: A simple text file has a single piece of data per line. A CSV-formatter file has several items
of data on each line with items separated by commas.

8. Write a Python statement to create an empty dictionary called dogs.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

Answer: dogs = { }

9. Write a Python statement to create a copy of the dictionary called dogs into a new dictionary
called canines.

Answer: canines = dict(dogs)

10. Create a dictionary called dogs for the following data.

Eddie Jack Russell

Lassie Collie
Ping Beagle

Answer: dogs = {“Eddie” : “Jack Russell”, “Lassie” : “Collie”, “Ping” : “Beagle”}

11. Why can’t lists and sets serve as keys for dictionaries?

Answer: Because dictionary keys must be immutable objects. Lists and sets are mutable.

© 2016 Pearson Education, Inc., Hoboken, NJ. All rights reserved.

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 We affect to wonder at Shakespear, and one or two more of that
period, as solitary instances upon record; whereas it is our own
dearth of information that makes the waste; for there is no time
more populous of intellect, or more prolific of intellectual wealth,
than the one we are speaking of. Shakespear did not look upon
himself in this light, as a sort of monster of poetical genius, or on his
contemporaries as ‘less than smallest dwarfs,’ when he speaks with
true, not false modesty, of himself and them, and of his wayward
thoughts, ‘desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope.’ We fancy
that there were no such men, that could either add to or take any
thing away from him, but such there were. He indeed overlooks and
commands the admiration of posterity, but he does it from the
tableland of the age in which he lived. He towered above his fellows,
‘in shape and gesture proudly eminent’; but he was one of a race of
giants, the tallest, the strongest, the most graceful, and beautiful of
them; but it was a common and a noble brood. He was not
something sacred and aloof from the vulgar herd of men, but shook
hands with nature and the circumstances of the time, and is
distinguished from his immediate contemporaries, not in kind, but
in degree and greater variety of excellence. He did not form a class or
species by himself, but belonged to a class or species. His age was
necessary to him; nor could he have been wrenched from his place in
the edifice of which he was so conspicuous a part, without equal
injury to himself and it. Mr. Wordsworth says of Milton, ‘that his
soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.’ This cannot be said with any
propriety of Shakespear, who certainly moved in a constellation of
bright luminaries, and ‘drew after him a third part of the heavens.’ If
we allow, for argument’s sake (or for truth’s, which is better), that he
was in himself equal to all his competitors put together; yet there was
more dramatic excellence in that age than in the whole of the period
that has elapsed since. If his contemporaries, with their united
strength, would hardly make one Shakespear, certain it is that all his
successors would not make half a one. With the exception of a single
writer, Otway, and of a single play of his (Venice Preserved), there is
nobody in tragedy and dramatic poetry (I do not here speak of
comedy) to be compared to the great men of the age of Shakespear,
and immediately after. They are a mighty phalanx of kindred spirits
closing him round, moving in the same orbit, and impelled by the
same causes in their whirling and eccentric career. They had the
same faults and the same excellences; the same strength and depth
and richness, the same truth of character, passion, imagination,
thought and language, thrown, heaped, massed together without
careful polishing or exact method, but poured out in unconcerned
profusion from the lap of nature and genius in boundless and
unrivalled magnificence. The sweetness of Deckar, the thought of
Marston, the gravity of Chapman, the grace of Fletcher and his
young-eyed wit, Jonson’s learned sock, the flowing vein of
Middleton, Heywood’s ease, the pathos of Webster, and Marlow’s
deep designs, add a double lustre to the sweetness, thought, gravity,
grace, wit, artless nature, copiousness, ease, pathos, and sublime
conceptions of Shakespear’s Muse. They are indeed the scale by
which we can best ascend to the true knowledge and love of him. Our
admiration of them does not lessen our relish for him: but, on the
contrary, increases and confirms it.—For such an extraordinary
combination and development of fancy and genius many causes may
be assigned; and we may seek for the chief of them in religion, in
politics, in the circumstances of the time, the recent diffusion of
letters, in local situation, and in the character of the men who
adorned that period, and availed themselves so nobly of the
advantages placed within their reach.
I shall here attempt to give a general sketch of these causes, and of
the manner in which they operated to mould and stamp the poetry of
the country at the period of which I have to treat; independently of
incidental and fortuitous causes, for which there is no accounting,
but which, after all, have often the greatest share in determining the
most important results.
The first cause I shall mention, as contributing to this general
effect, was the Reformation, which had just then taken place. This
event gave a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and
inquiry, and agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices
throughout Europe. The effect of the concussion was general; but the
shock was greatest in this country. It toppled down the full-grown,
intolerable abuses of centuries at a blow; heaved the ground from
under the feet of bigotted faith and slavish obedience; and the roar
and dashing of opinions, loosened from their accustomed hold,
might be heard like the noise of an angry sea, and has never yet
subsided. Germany first broke the spell of misbegotten fear, and gave
the watch-word; but England joined the shout, and echoed it back
with her island voice, from her thousand cliffs and craggy shores, in a
longer and a louder strain. With that cry, the genius of Great Britain
rose, and threw down the gauntlet to the nations. There was a mighty
fermentation: the waters were out; public opinion was in a state of
projection. Liberty was held out to all to think and speak the truth.
Men’s brains were busy; their spirits stirring; their hearts full; and
their hands not idle. Their eyes were opened to expect the greatest
things, and their ears burned with curiosity and zeal to know the
truth, that the truth might make them free. The death-blow which
had been struck at scarlet vice and bloated hypocrisy, loosened their
tongues, and made the talismans and love-tokens of Popish
superstition, with which she had beguiled her followers and
committed abominations with the people, fall harmless from their
necks.
The translation of the Bible was the chief engine in the great work.
It threw open, by a secret spring, the rich treasures of religion and
morality, which had been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed
the visions of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired
teachers (such they were thought) to the meanest of the people. It
gave them a common interest in the common cause. Their hearts
burnt within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by
giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. It cemented
their union of character and sentiment: it created endless diversity
and collision of opinion. They found objects to employ their faculties,
and a motive in the magnitude of the consequences attached to them,
to exert the utmost eagerness in the pursuit of truth, and the most
daring intrepidity in maintaining it. Religious controversy sharpens
the understanding by the subtlety and remoteness of the topics it
discusses, and braces the will by their infinite importance. We
perceive in the history of this period a nervous masculine intellect.
No levity, no feebleness, no indifference; or if there were, it is a
relaxation from the intense activity which gives a tone to its general
character. But there is a gravity approaching to piety; a seriousness
of impression, a conscientious severity of argument, an habitual
fervour and enthusiasm in their mode of handling almost every
subject. The debates of the schoolmen were sharp and subtle enough;
but they wanted interest and grandeur, and were besides confined to
a few: they did not affect the general mass of the community. But the
Bible was thrown open to all ranks and conditions ‘to run and read,’
with its wonderful table of contents from Genesis to the Revelations.
Every village in England would present the scene so well described in
Burns’s Cotter’s Saturday Night. I cannot think that all this variety
and weight of knowledge could be thrown in all at once upon the
mind of a people, and not make some impressions upon it, the traces
of which might be discerned in the manners and literature of the age.
For to leave more disputable points, and take only the historical
parts of the Old Testament, or the moral sentiments of the New,
there is nothing like them in the power of exciting awe and
admiration, or of rivetting sympathy. We see what Milton has made
of the account of the Creation, from the manner in which he has
treated it, imbued and impregnated with the spirit of the time of
which we speak. Or what is there equal (in that romantic interest and
patriarchal simplicity which goes to the heart of a country, and
rouses it, as it were, from its lair in wastes and wildernesses) equal to
the story of Joseph and his Brethren, of Rachael and Laban, of
Jacob’s Dream, of Ruth and Boaz, the descriptions in the book of
Job, the deliverance of the Jews out of Egypt, or the account of their
captivity and return from Babylon? There is in all these parts of the
Scripture, and numberless more of the same kind, to pass over the
Orphic hymns of David, the prophetic denunciations of Isaiah, or the
gorgeous visions of Ezekiel, an originality, a vastness of conception, a
depth and tenderness of feeling, and a touching simplicity in the
mode of narration, which he who does not feel, need be made of no
‘penetrable stuff.’ There is something in the character of Christ too
(leaving religious faith quite out of the question) of more sweetness
and majesty, and more likely to work a change in the mind of man,
by the contemplation of its idea alone, than any to be found in
history, whether actual or feigned. This character is that of a sublime
humanity, such as was never seen on earth before, nor since. This
shone manifestly both in his words and actions. We see it in his
washing the Disciples’ feet the night before his death, that
unspeakable instance of humility and love, above all art, all
meanness, and all pride, and in the leave he took of them on that
occasion, ‘My peace I give unto you, that peace which the world
cannot give, give I unto you’; and in his last commandment, that
‘they should love one another.’ Who can read the account of his
behaviour on the cross, when turning to his mother he said, ‘Woman,
behold thy son,’ and to the Disciple John, ‘Behold thy mother,’ and
‘from that hour that Disciple took her to his own home,’ without
having his heart smote within him! We see it in his treatment of the
woman taken in adultery, and in his excuse for the woman who
poured precious ointment on his garment as an offering of devotion
and love, which is here all in all. His religion was the religion of the
heart. We see it in his discourse with the Disciples as they walked
together towards Emmaus, when their hearts burned within them; in
his sermon from the Mount, in his parable of the good Samaritan,
and in that of the Prodigal Son—in every act and word of his life, a
grace, a mildness, a dignity and love, a patience and wisdom worthy
of the Son of God. His whole life and being were imbued, steeped in
this word, charity; it was the spring, the well-head from which every
thought and feeling gushed into act; and it was this that breathed a
mild glory from his face in that last agony upon the cross, ‘when the
meek Saviour bowed his head and died,’ praying for his enemies. He
was the first true teacher of morality; for he alone conceived the idea
of a pure humanity. He redeemed man from the worship of that idol,
self, and instructed him by precept and example to love his
neighbour as himself, to forgive our enemies, to do good to those that
curse us and despitefully use us. He taught the love of good for the
sake of good, without regard to personal or sinister views, and made
the affections of the heart the sole seat of morality, instead of the
pride of the understanding or the sternness of the will. In answering
the question, ‘who is our neighbour?’ as one who stands in need of
our assistance, and whose wounds we can bind up, he has done more
to humanize the thoughts and tame the unruly passions, than all who
have tried to reform and benefit mankind. The very idea of abstract
benevolence, of the desire to do good because another wants our
services, and of regarding the human race as one family, the
offspring of one common parent, is hardly to be found in any other
code or system. It was ‘to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the
Greeks foolishness.’ The Greeks and Romans never thought of
considering others, but as they were Greeks or Romans, as they were
bound to them by certain positive ties, or, on the other hand, as
separated from them by fiercer antipathies. Their virtues were the
virtues of political machines, their vices were the vices of demons,
ready to inflict or to endure pain with obdurate and remorseless
inflexibility of purpose. But in the Christian religion, ‘we perceive a
softness coming over the heart of a nation, and the iron scales that
fence and harden it, melt and drop off.’ It becomes malleable,
capable of pity, of forgiveness, of relaxing in its claims, and remitting
its power. We strike it, and it does not hurt us: it is not steel or
marble, but flesh and blood, clay tempered with tears, and ‘soft as
sinews of the new-born babe.’ The gospel was first preached to the
poor, for it consulted their wants and interests, not its own pride and
arrogance. It first promulgated the equality of mankind in the
community of duties and benefits. It denounced the iniquities of the
chief Priests and Pharisees, and declared itself at variance with
principalities and powers, for it sympathizes not with the oppressor,
but the oppressed. It first abolished slavery, for it did not consider
the power of the will to inflict injury, as clothing it with a right to do
so. Its law is good, not power. It at the same time tended to wean the
mind from the grossness of sense, and a particle of its divine flame
was lent to brighten and purify the lamp of love!
There have been persons who, being sceptics as to the divine
mission of Christ, have taken an unaccountable prejudice to his
doctrines, and have been disposed to deny the merit of his character;
but this was not the feeling of the great men in the age of Elizabeth
(whatever might be their belief) one of whom says of him, with a
boldness equal to its piety:
‘The best of men
That e’er wore earth about him, was a sufferer;
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed.’

This was old honest Deckar, and the lines ought to embalm his
memory to every one who has a sense either of religion, or
philosophy, or humanity, or true genius. Nor can I help thinking,
that we may discern the traces of the influence exerted by religious
faith in the spirit of the poetry of the age of Elizabeth, in the means of
exciting terror and pity, in the delineation of the passions of grief,
remorse, love, sympathy, the sense of shame, in the fond desires, the
longings after immortality, in the heaven of hope, and the abyss of
despair it lays open to us.[12]
The literature of this age then, I would say, was strongly influenced
(among other causes), first by the spirit of Christianity, and secondly
by the spirit of Protestantism.
The effects of the Reformation on politics and philosophy may be
seen in the writings and history of the next and of the following ages.
They are still at work, and will continue to be so. The effects on the
poetry of the time were chiefly confined to the moulding of the
character, and giving a powerful impulse to the intellect of the
country. The immediate use or application that was made of religion
to subjects of imagination and fiction was not (from an obvious
ground of separation) so direct or frequent, as that which was made
of the classical and romantic literature.
For much about the same time, the rich and fascinating stores of
the Greek and Roman mythology, and those of the romantic poetry
of Spain and Italy, were eagerly explored by the curious, and thrown
open in translations to the admiring gaze of the vulgar. This last
circumstance could hardly have afforded so much advantage to the
poets of that day, who were themselves, in fact, the translators, as it
shews the general curiosity and increasing interest in such subjects,
as a prevailing feature of the times. There were translations of Tasso
by Fairfax, and of Ariosto by Harrington, of Homer and Hesiod by
Chapman, and of Virgil long before, and Ovid soon after; there was
Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch, of which Shakespear has
made such admirable use in his Coriolanus and Julius Cæsar: and
Ben Jonson’s tragedies of Catiline and Sejanus may themselves be
considered as almost literal translations into verse, of Tacitus,
Sallust, and Cicero’s Orations in his consulship. Boccacio, the divine
Boccacio, Petrarch, Dante, the satirist Aretine, Machiavel,
Castiglione, and others, were familiar to our writers, and they make
occasional mention of some few French authors, as Ronsard and Du
Bartas; for the French literature had not at this stage arrived at its
Augustan period, and it was the imitation of their literature a century
afterwards, when it had arrived at its greatest height (itself copied
from the Greek and Latin), that enfeebled and impoverished our
own. But of the time that we are considering, it might be said,
without much extravagance, that every breath that blew, that every
wave that rolled to our shores, brought with it some accession to our
knowledge, which was engrafted on the national genius. In fact, all
the disposable materials that had been accumulating for a long
period of time, either in our own, or in foreign countries, were now
brought together, and required nothing more than to be wrought up,
polished, or arranged in striking forms, for ornament and use. To
this every inducement prompted, the novelty of the acquisition of
knowledge in many cases, the emulation of foreign wits, and of
immortal works, the want and the expectation of such works among
ourselves, the opportunity and encouragement afforded for their
production by leisure and affluence; and, above all, the insatiable
desire of the mind to beget its own image, and to construct out of
itself, and for the delight and admiration of the world and posterity,
that excellence of which the idea exists hitherto only in its own
breast, and the impression of which it would make as universal as the
eye of heaven, the benefit as common as the air we breathe. The first
impulse of genius is to create what never existed before: the
contemplation of that, which is so created, is sufficient to satisfy the
demands of taste; and it is the habitual study and imitation of the
original models that takes away the power, and even wish to do the
like. Taste limps after genius, and from copying the artificial models,
we lose sight of the living principle of nature. It is the effort we make,
and the impulse we acquire, in overcoming the first obstacles, that
projects us forward; it is the necessity for exertion that makes us
conscious of our strength; but this necessity and this impulse once
removed, the tide of fancy and enthusiasm, which is at first a running
stream, soon settles and crusts into the standing pool of dulness,
criticism, and virtù.
What also gave an unusual impetus to the mind of man at this
period, was the discovery of the New World, and the reading of
voyages and travels. Green islands and golden sands seemed to arise,
as by enchantment, out of the bosom of the watery waste, and invite
the cupidity, or wing the imagination of the dreaming speculator.
Fairy land was realised in new and unknown worlds. ‘Fortunate
fields and groves and flowery vales, thrice happy isles,’ were found
floating ‘like those Hesperian gardens famed of old,’ beyond Atlantic
seas, as dropt from the zenith. The people, the soil, the clime,
everything gave unlimited scope to the curiosity of the traveller and
reader. Other manners might be said to enlarge the bounds of
knowledge, and new mines of wealth were tumbled at our feet. It is
from a voyage to the Straits of Magellan that Shakespear has taken
the hint of Prospero’s Enchanted Island, and of the savage Caliban
with his god Setebos.[13] Spenser seems to have had the same feeling
in his mind in the production of his Faery Queen, and vindicates his
poetic fiction on this very ground of analogy.
‘Right well I wote, most mighty sovereign,
That all this famous antique history
Of some the abundance of an idle brain
Will judged be, and painted forgery,
Rather than matter of just memory:
Since none that breatheth living air, doth know
Where is that happy land of faery
Which I so much do vaunt, but no where show,
But vouch antiquities, which nobody can know.

But let that man with better sense avise,

That of the world least part to us is read:
And daily how through hardy enterprize
Many great regions are discovered,
Which to late age were never mentioned.
Who ever heard of th’ Indian Peru?
Or who in venturous vessel measured
The Amazons’ huge river, now found true?
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did ever view?

Yet all these were when no man did them know,

Yet have from wisest ages hidden been:
And later times things more unknown shall show.
Why then should witless man so much misween
That nothing is but that which he hath seen?
What if within the moon’s fair shining sphere,
What if in every other star unseen,
Of other worlds he happily should hear,
He wonder would much more; yet such to some appear.’

Fancy’s air-drawn pictures after history’s waking dream shewed

like clouds over mountains; and from the romance of real life to the
idlest fiction, the transition seemed easy.—Shakespear, as well as
others of his time, availed himself of the old Chronicles, and of the
traditions or fabulous inventions contained in them in such ample
measure, and which had not yet been appropriated to the purposes of
poetry or the drama. The stage was a new thing; and those who had
to supply its demands laid their hands upon whatever came within
their reach: they were not particular as to the means, so that they
gained the end. Lear is founded upon an old ballad; Othello on an
Italian novel; Hamlet on a Danish, and Macbeth on a Scotch
tradition: one of which is to be found in Saxo-Grammaticus, and the
last in Hollingshed. The Ghost-scenes and the Witches in each, are
authenticated in the old Gothic history. There was also this
connecting link between the poetry of this age and the supernatural
traditions of a former one, that the belief in them was still extant,
and in full force and visible operation among the vulgar (to say no
more) in the time of our authors. The appalling and wild chimeras of
superstition and ignorance, ‘those bodiless creations that ecstacy is
very cunning in,’ were inwoven with existing manners and opinions,
and all their effects on the passions of terror or pity might be
gathered from common and actual observation—might be discerned
in the workings of the face, the expressions of the tongue, the
writhings of a troubled conscience. ‘Your face, my Thane, is as a book
where men may read strange matters.’ Midnight and secret murders
too, from the imperfect state of the police, were more common; and
the ferocious and brutal manners that would stamp the brow of the
hardened ruffian or hired assassin, more incorrigible and
undisguised. The portraits of Tyrrel and Forrest were, no doubt,
done from the life. We find that the ravages of the plague, the
destructive rage of fire, the poisoned chalice, lean famine, the
serpent’s mortal sting, and the fury of wild beasts, were the common
topics of their poetry, as they were common occurrences in more
remote periods of history. They were the strong ingredients thrown
into the cauldron of tragedy, to make it ‘thick and slab.’ Man’s life
was (as it appears to me) more full of traps and pit-falls; of hair-
breadth accidents by flood and field; more way-laid by sudden and
startling evils; it trod on the brink of hope and fear; stumbled upon
fate unawares; while the imagination, close behind it, caught at and
clung to the shape of danger, or ‘snatched a wild and fearful joy’ from
its escape. The accidents of nature were less provided against; the
excesses of the passions and of lawless power were less regulated,
and produced more strange and desperate catastrophes. The tales of
Boccacio are founded on the great pestilence of Florence, Fletcher
the poet died of the plague, and Marlow was stabbed in a tavern
quarrel. The strict authority of parents, the inequality of ranks, or the
hereditary feuds between different families, made more unhappy
loves or matches.
‘The course of true love never did run even.’

Again, the heroic and martial spirit which breathes in our elder
writers, was yet in considerable activity in the reign of Elizabeth. ‘The
age of chivalry was not then quite gone, nor the glory of Europe
extinguished for ever.’ Jousts and tournaments were still common
with the nobility in England and in foreign countries: Sir Philip
Sidney was particularly distinguished for his proficiency in these
exercises (and indeed fell a martyr to his ambition as a soldier)—and
the gentle Surrey was still more famous, on the same account, just
before him. It is true, the general use of firearms gradually
superseded the necessity of skill in the sword, or bravery in the
person: and as a symptom of the rapid degeneracy in this respect, we
find Sir John Suckling soon after boasting of himself as one—
‘Who prized black eyes, and a lucky hit
At bowls, above all the trophies of wit.’

It was comparatively an age of peace,

‘Like strength reposing on his own right arm;’

but the sound of civil combat might still be heard in the distance, the
spear glittered to the eye of memory, or the clashing of armour
struck on the imagination of the ardent and the young. They were
borderers on the savage state, on the times of war and bigotry,
though in the lap of arts, of luxury, and knowledge. They stood on
the shore and saw the billows rolling after the storm: ‘they heard the
tumult, and were still.’ The manners and out-of-door amusements
were more tinctured with a spirit of adventure and romance. The war
with wild beasts, &c. was more strenuously kept up in country sports.
I do not think we could get from sedentary poets, who had never
mingled in the vicissitudes, the dangers, or excitements of the chase,
such descriptions of hunting and other athletic games, as are to be
found in Shakespear’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Fletcher’s
Noble Kinsmen.
With respect to the good cheer and hospitable living of those
times, I cannot agree with an ingenious and agreeable writer of the
present day, that it was general or frequent. The very stress laid upon
certain holidays and festivals, shews that they did not keep up the
same Saturnalian licence and open house all the year round. They
reserved themselves for great occasions, and made the best amends
they could, for a year of abstinence and toil by a week of merriment
and convivial indulgence. Persons in middle life at this day, who can
afford a good dinner every day, do not look forward to it as any
particular subject of exultation: the poor peasant, who can only
contrive to treat himself to a joint of meat on a Sunday, considers it
as an event in the week. So, in the old Cambridge comedy of the
Returne from Parnassus, we find this indignant description of the
progress of luxury in those days, put into the mouth of one of the
speakers.
‘Why is ‘t not strange to see a ragged clerke,
Some stammell weaver, or some butcher’s sonne,
That scrubb’d a late within a sleeveless gowne,
When the commencement, like a morrice dance,
Hath put a bell or two about his legges,
Created him a sweet cleane gentleman:
How then he ‘gins to follow fashions.
He whose thin sire dwelt in a smokye roofe,
Must take tobacco, and must wear a locke.
His thirsty dad drinkes in a wooden bowle,
But his sweet self is served in silver plate.
His hungry sire will scrape you twenty legges
For one good Christmas meal on new year’s day,
But his mawe must be capon cramm’d each day.’
Act III. Scene 2.

This does not look as if in those days ‘it snowed of meat and drink’
as a matter of course throughout the year!—The distinctions of dress,
the badges of different professions, the very signs of the shops, which
we have set aside for written inscriptions over the doors, were, as Mr.
Lamb observes, a sort of visible language to the imagination, and
hints for thought. Like the costume of different foreign nations, they
had an immediate striking and picturesque effect, giving scope to the
fancy. The surface of society was embossed with hieroglyphics, and
poetry existed ‘in act and complement extern.’ The poetry of former
times might be directly taken from real life, as our poetry is taken
from the poetry of former times. Finally, the face of nature, which
was the same glorious object then that it is now, was open to them;
and coming first, they gathered her fairest flowers to live for ever in
their verse:—the movements of the human heart were not hid from
them, for they had the same passions as we, only less disguised, and
less subject to controul. Deckar has given an admirable description
of a mad-house in one of his plays. But it might be perhaps objected,
that it was only a literal account taken from Bedlam at that time: and
it might be answered, that the old poets took the same method of
describing the passions and fancies of men whom they met at large,
which forms the point of communion between us: for the title of the
old play, ‘A Mad World, my Masters,’ is hardly yet obsolete; and we
are pretty much the same Bedlam still, perhaps a little better
managed, like the real one, and with more care and humanity shewn
to the patients!
Lastly, to conclude this account; what gave a unity and common
direction to all these causes, was the natural genius of the country,
which was strong in these writers in proportion to their strength. We
are a nation of islanders, and we cannot help it; nor mend ourselves
if we would. We are something in ourselves, nothing when we try to
ape others. Music and painting are not our forte: for what we have
done in that way has been little, and that borrowed from others with
great difficulty. But we may boast of our poets and philosophers.
That’s something. We have had strong heads and sound hearts
among us. Thrown on one side of the world, and left to bustle for
ourselves, we have fought out many a battle for truth and freedom.
That is our natural style; and it were to be wished we had in no
instance departed from it. Our situation has given us a certain cast of
thought and character; and our liberty has enabled us to make the
most of it. We are of a stiff clay, not moulded into every fashion, with
stubborn joints not easily bent. We are slow to think, and therefore
impressions do not work upon us till they act in masses. We are not
forward to express our feelings, and therefore they do not come from
us till they force their way in the most impetuous eloquence. Our
language is, as it were, to begin anew, and we make use of the most
singular and boldest combinations to explain ourselves. Our wit
comes from us, ‘like birdlime, brains and all.’ We pay too little
attention to form and method, leave our works in an unfinished
state, but still the materials we work in are solid and of nature’s
mint; we do not deal in counterfeits. We both under and over-do, but
we keep an eye to the prominent features, the main chance. We are
more for weight than show; care only about what interests ourselves,
instead of trying to impose upon others by plausible appearances,
and are obstinate and intractable in not conforming to common
rules, by which many arrive at their ends with half the real waste of
thought and trouble. We neglect all but the principal object, gather
our force to make a great blow, bring it down, and relapse into
sluggishness and indifference again. Materiam superabat opus,
cannot be said of us. We may be accused of grossness, but not of
flimsiness; of extravagance, but not of affectation; of want of art and
refinement, but not of a want of truth and nature. Our literature, in a
word, is Gothic and grotesque; unequal and irregular; not cast in a
previous mould, nor of one uniform texture, but of great weight in
the whole, and of incomparable value in the best parts. It aims at an
excess of beauty or power, hits or misses, and is either very good
indeed, or absolutely good for nothing. This character applies in
particular to our literature in the age of Elizabeth, which is its best
period, before the introduction of a rage for French rules and French
models; for whatever may be the value of our own original style of
composition, there can be neither offence nor presumption in saying,
that it is at least better than our second-hand imitations of others.
Our understanding (such as it is, and must remain to be good for any
thing) is not a thoroughfare for common places, smooth as the palm
of one’s hand, but full of knotty points and jutting excrescences,
rough, uneven, overgrown with brambles; and I like this aspect of the
mind (as some one said of the country), where nature keeps a good
deal of the soil in her own hands. Perhaps the genius of our poetry
has more of Pan than of Apollo; ‘but Pan is a God, Apollo is no more!’
 LECTURE II
ON THE DRAMATIC WRITERS CONTEMPORARY WITH
SHAKESPEAR, LYLY, MARLOW, HEYWOOD, MIDDLETON, AND
ROWLEY

The period of which I shall have to treat (from the Reformation to

the middle of Charles I.) was prolific in dramatic excellence, even
more than in any other. In approaching it, we seem to be
approaching the RICH STROND described in Spenser, where treasures
of all kinds lay scattered, or rather crowded together on the shore in
inexhaustible but unregarded profusion, ‘rich as the oozy bottom of
the deep in sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.’ We are
confounded with the variety, and dazzled with the dusky splendour
of names sacred in their obscurity, and works gorgeous in their
decay, ‘majestic, though in ruin,’ like Guyon when he entered the
Cave of Mammon, and was shewn the massy pillars and huge
unwieldy fragments of gold, covered with dust and cobwebs, and
‘shedding a faint shadow of uncertain light,
‘Such as a lamp whose light doth fade away,
Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night
Doth shew to him that walks in fear and sad affright.’

The dramatic literature of this period only wants exploring, to fill

the enquiring mind with wonder and delight, and to convince us that
we have been wrong in lavishing all our praise on ‘new-born gauds,
though they are made and moulded of things past;’ and in ‘giving to
dust, that is a little gilded, more laud than gilt o’er-dusted.’ In short,
the discovery of such an unsuspected and forgotten mine of wealth
will be found amply to repay the labour of the search, and it will be
hard, if in most cases curiosity does not end in admiration, and
modesty teach us wisdom. A few of the most singular productions of
these times remain unclaimed; of others the authors are uncertain;
many of them are joint productions of different pens; but of the best
the writers’ names are in general known, and obviously stamped on
the productions themselves. The names of Ben Jonson, for instance,
Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, are almost, though not quite, as
familiar to us, as that of Shakespear; and their works still keep
regular possession of the stage. Another set of writers included in the
same general period (the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of
the seventeenth century), who are next, or equal, or sometimes
superior to these in power, but whose names are now little known,
and their writings nearly obsolete, are Lyly, Marlow, Marston,
Chapman, Middleton, and Rowley, Heywood, Webster, Deckar, and
Ford. I shall devote the present and two following Lectures to the
best account I can give of these, and shall begin with some of the
least known.
The earliest tragedy of which I shall take notice (I believe the
earliest that we have) is that of Ferrex and Porrex, or Gorboduc (as it
has been generally called), the production of Thomas Sackville, Lord
Buckhurst, afterwards created Earl of Dorset, assisted by one
Thomas Norton. This was first acted with applause before the Queen
in 1561, the noble author being then quite a young man. This tragedy
being considered as the first in our language, is certainly a curiosity,
and in other respects it is also remarkable; though, perhaps, enough
has been said about it. As a work of genius, it may be set down as
nothing, for it contains hardly a memorable line or passage; as a
work of art, and the first of its kind attempted in the language, it may
be considered as a monument of the taste and skill of the authors. Its
merit is confined to the regularity of the plot and metre, to its general
good sense, and strict attention to common decorum. If the poet has
not stamped the peculiar genius of his age upon this first attempt, it
is no inconsiderable proof of strength of mind and conception
sustained by its own sense of propriety alone, to have so far
anticipated the taste of succeeding times, as to have avoided any
glaring offence against rules and models, which had no existence in
his day. Or perhaps a truer solution might be, that there were as yet
no examples of a more ambiguous and irregular kind to tempt him to
err, and as he had not the impulse or resources within himself to
strike out a new path, he merely adhered with modesty and caution
to the classical models with which, as a scholar, he was well
acquainted. The language of the dialogue is clear, unaffected, and
intelligible without the smallest difficulty, even to this day; it has ‘no
figures nor no fantasies,’ to which the most fastidious critic can
object, but the dramatic power is nearly none at all. It is written
expressly to set forth the dangers and mischiefs that arise from the
division of sovereign power; and the several speakers dilate upon the
different views of the subject in turn, like clever schoolboys set to
compose a thesis, or declaim upon the fatal consequences of
ambition, and the uncertainty of human affairs. The author, in the
end, declares for the doctrine of passive obedience and non-
resistance; a doctrine which indeed was seldom questioned at that
time of day. Eubulus, one of the old king’s counsellors, thus gives his
opinion—
‘Eke fully with the duke my mind agrees,
That no cause serves, whereby the subject may
Call to account the doings of his prince;
Much less in blood by sword to work revenge:
No more than may the hand cut off the head.
In act nor speech, no nor in secret thought,
The subject may rebel against his lord,
Or judge of him that sits in Cæsar’s seat,
With grudging mind to damn those he mislikes.
Though kings forget to govern as they ought,
Yet subjects must obey as they are bound.’

Yet how little he was borne out in this inference by the unbiassed
dictates of his own mind, may appear from the freedom and
unguarded boldness of such lines as the following, addressed by a
favourite to a prince, as courtly advice.
‘Know ye that lust of kingdoms hath no law:
The Gods do bear and well allow in kings
The things that they abhor in rascal routs.
When kings on slender quarrels run to wars,
And then in cruel and unkindly wise
Command thefts, rapes, murder of innocents,
The spoil of towns, ruins of mighty realms;
Think you such princes do suppose themselves
Subject to laws of kind and fear of Gods?
Murders and violent thefts in private men
Are heinous crimes, and full of foul reproach;
Yet none offence, but deck’d with noble name
Of glorious conquests in the hands of kings.’
 The principal characters make as many invocations to the names
of their children, their country, and their friends, as Cicero in his
Orations, and all the topics insisted upon are open, direct, urged in
the face of day, with no more attention to time or place, to an enemy
who overhears, or an accomplice to whom they are addressed; in a
word, with no more dramatic insinuation or byeplay than the
pleadings in a court of law. Almost the only passage that I can
instance, as rising above this didactic tone of mediocrity into the
pathos of poetry, is one where Marcella laments the untimely death
of her lover, Ferrex.
‘Ah! noble prince, how oft have I beheld
Thee mounted on thy fierce and trampling steed,
Shining in armour bright before the tilt;
And with thy mistress’ sleeve tied on thy helm,
And charge thy staff to please thy lady’s eye,
That bowed the head-piece of thy friendly foe!
How oft in arms on horse to bend the mace,
How oft in arms on foot to break the sword,
Which never now these eyes may see again!’

There seems a reference to Chaucer in the wording of the following

lines—
‘Then saw I how he smiled with slaying knife
Wrapp’d under cloke, then saw I deep deceit
Lurk in his face, and death prepared for me.’[14]

Sir Philip Sidney says of this tragedy: ‘Gorboduc is full of stately

speeches, and well sounding phrases, climbing to the height of
Seneca his style, and as full of notable morality; which it doth most
delightfully teach, and thereby obtain the very end of poetry.’ And
Mr. Pope, whose taste in such matters was very different from Sir
Philip Sidney’s, says in still stronger terms: ‘That the writers of the
succeeding age might have improved as much in other respects, by
copying from him a propriety in the sentiments, an unaffected
perspicuity of style, and an easy flow in the numbers. In a word, that
chastity, correctness, and gravity of style, which are so essential to
tragedy, and which all the tragic poets who followed, not excepting
Shakespear himself, either little understood, or perpetually
neglected.’ It was well for us and them that they did so!
 The Induction to the Mirrour for Magistrates does his Muse more
credit. It sometimes reminds one of Chaucer, and at others seems
like an anticipation, in some degree, both of the measure and
manner of Spenser. The following stanzas may give the reader an
idea of the merit of this old poem, which was published in 1563.
‘By him lay heauie Sleepe cosin of Death
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corps, saue yeelding forth a breath.
Small keepe tooke he whom Fortune frowned on,
Or whom she lifted vp into the throne
Of high renowne, but as a liuing death,
So dead aliue, of life he drew the breath.

The bodies rest, the quiet of the hart,

The trauailes ease, the still nights feere was he.
And of our life in earth the better part,
Reuer of sight, and yet in whom we see
Things oft that tide, and oft that neuer bee.
Without respect esteeming equally
King Crœsus pompe, and Irus pouertie.

And next in order sad Old Age we found,

His beard all hoare, his eyes hollow and blind,
With drouping cheere still poring on the ground,
As on the place where nature him assign’d
To rest, when that the sisters had vntwin’d
His vitall thred, and ended with their knife
The fleeting course of fast declining life.

There heard we him with broke and hollow plaint

Rew with himselfe his end approaching fast,
And all for naught his wretched mind torment,
With sweete remembrance of his pleasures past,
And fresh delites of lustic youth forewast.
Recounting which, how would he sob and shreek?
And to be yong again of Ioue beseeke.

But and the cruell fates so fixed be,

That time forepast cannot returne againe,
This one request of Ioue yet prayed he:
That in such withred plight, and wretched paine,
As eld (accompanied with lothsome traine)
Had brought on him, all were it woe and griefe,
He might a while yet linger forth his life,
And not so soone descend into the pit:
Where Death, when he the mortall corps hath slaine,
With wretchlesse hand in graue doth couer it,
Thereafter neuer to enioy againe
The gladsome light, but in the ground ylaine,
In depth of darknesse waste and weare to nought,
As he had nere into the world been brought.

But who had seene him, sobbing how he stood

Vnto himselfe, and how he would bemone
His youth forepast, as though it wrought him good
To talke of youth, all were his youth foregone,
He would haue musde and maruail’d much whereon
This wretched Age should life desire so faine,
And knowes ful wel life doth but length his paine.

Crookebackt he was, toothshaken, and blere eyde,

Went on three feete, and sometime crept on foure,
With old lame bones, that ratled by his side,
His scalpe all pil’d, and he with eld forelore:
His withred fist still knocking at Deaths dore,
Fumbling and driueling as he drawes his breath,
For briefe, the shape and messenger of Death.’
John Lyly (born in the Weold of Kent about the year 1553), was the
author of Midas and Endymion, of Alexander and Campaspe, and of
the comedy of Mother Bombie. Of the last it may be said, that it is
very much what its name would import, old, quaint, and vulgar.—I
may here observe, once for all, that I would not be understood to say,
that the age of Elizabeth was all of gold without any alloy. There was
both gold and lead in it, and often in one and the same writer. In our
impatience to form an opinion, we conclude, when we first meet with
a good thing, that it is owing to the age; or, if we meet with a bad one,
it is characteristic of the age, when, in fact, it is neither; for there are
good and bad in almost all ages, and one age excels in one thing,
another in another:—only one age may excel more and in higher
things than another, but none can excel equally and completely in all.
The writers of Elizabeth, as poets, soared to the height they did, by
indulging their own unrestrained enthusiasm: as comic writers, they
chiefly copied the manners of the age, which did not give them the
same advantage over their successors. Lyly’s comedy, for instance, is
‘poor, unfledged, has never winged from view o’ th’ nest,’ and tries in
vain to rise above the ground with crude conceits and clumsy levity.
Lydia, the heroine of the piece, is silly enough, if the rest were but as
witty. But the author has shewn no partiality in the distribution of
his gifts. To say truth, it was a very common fault of the old comedy,
that its humours were too low, and the weaknesses exposed too great
to be credible, or an object of ridicule, even if they were. The
affectation of their courtiers is passable, and diverting as a contrast
to present manners; but the eccentricities of their clowns are ‘very
tolerable, and not to be endured.’ Any kind of activity of mind might
seem to the writers better than none: any nonsense served to amuse
their hearers; any cant phrase, any coarse allusion, any pompous
absurdity, was taken for wit and drollery. Nothing could be too
mean, too foolish, too improbable, or too offensive, to be a proper
subject for laughter. Any one (looking hastily at this side of the
question only) might be tempted to suppose the youngest children of
Thespis a very callow brood, chirping their slender notes, or silly
swains ‘grating their lean and flashy jests on scrannel pipes of
wretched straw.’ The genius of comedy looked too often like a lean
and hectic pantaloon; love was a slip-shod shepherdess; wit a parti-
coloured fool like Harlequin, and the plot came hobbling, like a
clown, after all. A string of impertinent and farcical jests (or rather
blunders), was with great formality ushered into the world as ‘a right
pleasant and conceited comedy.’ Comedy could not descend lower
than it sometimes did, without glancing at physical imperfections
and deformity. The two young persons in the play before us, on
whom the event of the plot chiefly hinges, do in fact turn out to be no
better than changelings and natural idiots. This is carrying innocence
and simplicity too far. So again, the character of Sir Tophas in
Endymion, an affected, blustering, talkative, cowardly pretender,
treads too near upon blank stupidity and downright want of common
sense, to be admissible as a butt for satire. Shakespear has contrived
to clothe the lamentable nakedness of the same sort of character with
a motley garb from the wardrobe of his imagination, and has
redeemed it from insipidity by a certain plausibility of speech, and
playful extravagance of humour. But the undertaking was nearly
desperate. Ben Jonson tried to overcome the difficulty by the force of
learning and study: and thought to gain his end by persisting in
error; but he only made matters worse; for his clowns and coxcombs
(if we except Bobadil), are the most incorrigible and insufferable of
all others.—The story of Mother Bombie is little else than a tissue of
absurd mistakes, arising from the confusion of the different
characters one with another, like another Comedy of Errors, and
ends in their being (most of them), married in a game at cross-
purposes to the persons they particularly dislike.
To leave this, and proceed to something pleasanter, Midas and
Endymion, which are worthy of their names and of the subject. The
story in both is classical, and the execution is for the most part
elegant and simple. There is often something that reminds one of the
graceful communicativeness of Lucian or of Apuleius, from whom
one of the stories is borrowed. Lyly made a more attractive picture of
Grecian manners at second-hand, than of English characters from
his own observation. The poet (which is the great merit of a poet in
such a subject) has transported himself to the scene of action, to
ancient Greece or Asia Minor; the manners, the images, the
traditions are preserved with truth and delicacy, and the dialogue (to
my fancy) glides and sparkles like a clear stream from the Muses’
spring. I know few things more perfect in characteristic painting,
than the exclamation of the Phrygian shepherds, who, afraid of
betraying the secret of Midas’s ears, fancy that ‘the very reeds bow
down, as though they listened to their talk’; nor more affecting in
sentiment, than the apostrophe addressed by his friend Eumenides
to Endymion, on waking from his long sleep, ‘Behold the twig to
which thou laidest down thy head, is now become a tree.’ The
narrative is sometimes a little wandering and desultory; but if it had
been ten times as tedious, this thought would have redeemed it; for I
cannot conceive of any thing more beautiful, more simple or
touching, than this exquisitely chosen image and dumb proof of the
manner in which he had passed his life, from youth to old age, in a
dream, a dream of love. Happy Endymion! Faithful Eumenides!
Divine Cynthia! Who would not wish to pass his life in such a sleep, a
long, long sleep, dreaming of some fair heavenly Goddess, with the
moon shining upon his face, and the trees growing silently over his
head!—There is something in this story which has taken a strange
hold of my fancy, perhaps ‘out of my weakness and my melancholy’;
but for the satisfaction of the reader, I will quote the whole passage:
‘it is silly sooth, and dallies with the innocence of love, like the old
age.’
‘Cynthia. Well, let us to Endymion. I will not be so stately (good Endymion) not
to stoop to do thee good; and if thy liberty consist in a kiss from me, thou shalt
have it. And although my mouth hath been heretofore as untouched as my
thoughts, yet now to recover thy life (though to restore thy youth it be impossible) I
will do that to Endymion, which yet never mortal man could boast of heretofore,
nor shall ever hope for hereafter. (She kisses him).
Eumenides. Madam, he beginneth to stir.
Cynthia. Soft, Eumenides, stand still.
Eumenides. Ah! I see his eyes almost open.
Cynthia. I command thee once again, stir not: I will stand behind him.
Panelion. What do I see? Endymion almost awake?
Eumenides. Endymion, Endymion, art thou deaf or dumb? Or hath this long
sleep taken away thy memory? Ah! my sweet Endymion, seest thou not
Eumenides, thy faithful friend, thy faithful Eumenides, who for thy sake hath been
careless of his own content? Speak, Endymion! Endymion! Endymion!
Endymion. Endymion! I call to mind such a name.
Eumenides. Hast thou forgotten thyself, Endymion? Then do I not marvel thou
rememberest not thy friend. I tell thee thou art Endymion, and I Eumenides.
Behold also Cynthia, by whose favour thou art awaked, and by whose virtue thou
shalt continue thy natural course.
Cynthia. Endymion! Speak, sweet Endymion! Knowest thou not Cynthia?
Endymion. Oh, heavens! whom do I behold? Fair Cynthia, divine Cynthia?
Cynthia. I am Cynthia, and thou Endymion.
Endymion. Endymion! What do I hear? What! a grey beard, hollow eyes,
withered body, and decayed limbs, and all in one night?
Eumenides. One night! Thou hast slept here forty years, by what enchantress, as
yet it is not known: and behold the twig to which thou laidest thy head, is now
become a tree. Callest thou not Eumenides to remembrance?
Endymion. Thy name I do remember by the sound, but thy favour I do not yet
call to mind: only divine Cynthia, to whom time, fortune, death, and destiny are
subject, I see and remember; and in all humility, I regard and reverence.
Cynthia. You shall have good cause to remember Eumenides, who hath for thy
safety forsaken his own solace.
Endymion. Am I that Endymion, who was wont in court to lead my life, and in
justs, tourneys, and arms, to exercise my youth? Am I that Endymion?
Eumenides. Thou art that Endymion, and I Eumenides: wilt thou not yet call me
to remembrance?
Endymion. Ah! sweet Eumenides, I now perceive thou art he, and that myself
have the name of Endymion; but that this should be my body, I doubt: for how
could my curled locks be turned to gray hair, and my strong body to a dying
weakness, having waxed old, and not knowing it?
Cynthia. Well, Endymion, arise: awhile sit down, for that thy limbs are stiff and
not able to stay thee, and tell what thou hast seen in thy sleep all this while. What
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