Of what is truly beautiful and fair?
Desire of union with the thing beloved?

Beau. I have read somewhere, that man and woman Were, in the first creation, both one piece,

And being cleft asunder, ever since

Love was an appetite to be rejoin'd.

Lov. It is a fable of Plato's, in his banquet,

And utter'd there by Aristophanes.

Host. 'Twas well remember'd here, and to good use. But on with your description what love is.

Desire of union with the thing beloved.

Lov. I meant a definition.

For I make

The efficient cause, what's beautiful and fair.
The formal cause, the appetite of union.

The final cause, the union itself.

But larger, if you 'll have it, by description:
It is a flame and ardor of the mind,

Dead in the proper corps, quick in another's:
Transfers the lover into the loved.

That he, or she, that loves, engraves or stamps
The idea of what they love, first in themselves:
Or, like to glasses, so their minds take in
The forms of their belov'd, and them reflect.
It is the likeness of affections,

Is both the parent and the nurse of love.
Love is a spiritual coupling of two souls,

So much more excellent as it least relates

Unto the body; circular, eternal ;

Not feign'd, or made, but born: And then, so precious,

As nought can value it but itself, So free,

As nothing can command it but itself.

And in itself so round and liberal,

As, where it favors, it bestows itself.

But we must take and understand this love

Along still as a name of dignity,

Not pleasure.

True love hath no unworthy thought, no light
Loose unbecoming appetite, or strain;

PART II.

But fixed, constant, pure, immutable.

Beau. I relish not these philosophical feasts;
Give me a banquet o' sense, like that of Ovid;
A form, to take the eye; a voice, mine ear;
Pure aromatics to my scent; a soft

Smooth dainty hand to touch; and, for my taste,
Ambrosiac kisses to melt down the palate.

Lov. They are the earthly, lower form of lovers,
Are only taken with what strikes the senses,
And love by that loose scale.
Altho' I grant,
We like what's fair and graceful in an object,
And (true) would use it, in them all we tend to,
Both of our civil and domestic deeds,

In ordering of an army, in our style,
Apparel, gesture, building, or what not?
All arts and actions do affect their beauty.
But put the case, in travel I may meet
Some gorgeous structure, a brave frontispiece,
Shall I stay captive in the outer court,
Surpriz'd with that, and not advanced to know
Who dwells there, and inhabiteth the house?
There is my friendship to be made, within ;
With what can love me again; not with the walls,
Doors, windows, architrabes, the frieze, and cornice.
My end is lost in loving of a face,

An eye, lip, nose, hand, foot, or other part,
Whose all is but a statue if the mind

Move not, which only can make the return.
The end of love is, to have two made one
In will, and in affection, that the minds
Be first inoculated, not the bodies,
The body's love is frail, subject to change,
And alter still with it: The mind's is firm,

One and the same, proceedeth first from weighing,
And well examining what is fair and good;
Then what is like in reason, fit in manners;
That breeds good will: good will desire of union.
So knowledge first begets benevolence,

Benevolence breeds friendship, friendship love :
And where it starts or steps aside from this,

It is a mere degenerate appetite,

A lost, oblique, deprav'd affection,

And bears no mark or character of love.
Nor do they trespass within bounds of pardon,
That giving way and licence to their love,
Divest him of his noblest ornaments,
Which are his modesty and shamefac'dness:
And so they do, that have unfit designs
Upon the parties they pretend to love.
For what's more monstrous, more a prodigy,
Than to hear me protest truth of affection
Unto a person that I would dishonor?
And what's a more dishonor, than defacing
Another's good with forfeiting mine own,
And drawing on a fellowship of sin?

From note of which though for a while we may
Be both kept safe by caution, yet the conscience
Cannot be cleans'd. For what was hitherto
Call'd by the name of love, becomes destroy'd
Then, with the fact; the innocency lost,
The bating of affection soon will follow;
And love is never true that is not lasting :
No more than any can be pure or perfect,
That entertains more than one object.

[These and the preceding extracts may serve to show the poetical fancy and elegance of mind of the supposed rugged old Bard. A thousand beautiful passages might be adduced from those numerous court masques and entertainments which he was in the daily habit of furnishing, to prove the same thing. But they do not come within my plan. That which follows is a specimen of that talent for comic humor, and the assemblage of ludicrous images, on which his reputation chiefly rests. It may serve for a variety after so many serious extracts.]

THE ALCHEMIST: A COMEDY. BY BEN. JONSON.

Epicure Mammon, a Knight, deceived by the pretensions of Subtle (the Alchemist), glories in the prospect of obtaining the Philosopher's Stone; and promises what rare things he will do with it.

MAMMON. SURLY, his Friend. The Scene, SUBTLE's House.

Mam. Come on, Sir. Now you set your foot on shore In novo orbe. Here's the rich Peru;

And there within, sir, are the golden mines,

Great Solomon's Ophir! He was sailing to 't

Three years, but we have reached it in ten months.
This is the day wherein to all my friends

I will pronounce the happy word, Be rich.
This day you shall be spectatissimi.

You shall no more deal with the hollow dye,

Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping

The livery punk for the young heir, that must
Seal at all hours in his shirt. No more,

If he deny, ha' him beaten to 't, as he is
That brings him the commodity. No more
Shall thirst of sattin, or the covetous hunger
Of velvet entrails for a rude-spun cloke
To be display'd at Madam Augusta's, make
The sons of Sword and Hazard fall before
The golden calf, and on their knees whole nights
Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets;

Or go a feasting after drum and ensign.

No more of this. You shall start up young Viceroys,
And have your punques and punquetees, my Surly :
And unto thee I speak it first, Be rich.

Where is my Subtle there? within ho

FACE answers from within.
Sir,

He'll come to you by and by.

Mam. That's his fire-drake,

His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals

Till he firk Nature up in her own centre.

You are not faithful, sir. This night I'll change
All that is metal in thy house to gold:

And early in the morning will I send

To all the plumbers and the pewterers,

And buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury,

For all the copper.

Sur. What, and turn that too?

Mam. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall,

And make them perfect Indies? You admire now ?

Sur. No, faith.

Mam. But when you see the effects of the great medicine!

Of which one part projected on a hundred

Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon,

Shall turn it to as many of the Sun ;

Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum :
You will believe me.

Sur. Yes, when I see 't, I will.

Mam. Ha! why,

Do you think I fable with you? I assure you,
He that has once the flower of the Sun,
The perfect Ruby, which we call Elixir,
Not only can do that, but by its virtue
Can confer honor, love, respect, long life,
Give safety, valor, yea, and victory,

To whom he will. In eight and twenty days
I'll make an old man of fourscore a child.
Sur. No doubt; he's that already.
Mam. Nay, I mean,

Restore his years, renew him like an eagle,

To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters,
Young giants, as our philosophers have done

(The ancient patriarchs afore the flood)

But taking, once a week, on a knife's point

The quantity of a grain of mustard of it,

Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids.

Sur. The decay'd vestals of Pickt-hatch would thank you, That keep the fire alive there.

Mam. 'Tis the secret