University of Virginia Library

Scene III.

Romanzo and Sylvia.
Romanzo.
After the Night how lovely springs the Morn!
After the shower how freshly blooms the green!
After the clouds and tempest of our fate,
How sweetly breaks the beauty of the sky,
And hangs its rainbow ev'n amid our tears!—
Now Mercy joins us in her circling arms,
And, like a beauteous mother, wishes us
All joy that can betide!—Is not her blessing
Already come upon us? Is not this
Perfect beatitude?

Sylvia.
O, but I fear
It will not last for ever!—'Tis too sweet.

Romanzo.
What should Heaven find in either of us two
That should provoke its shaft?—No! we will live,
Bosom to bosom thus, like harmless doves,
And so be spared for our great innocence!—
Look up, and smile!

Sylvia.
Nay, I am of thy mind—
Ecstasy is too deeply-soul'd to smile.
I am more near to weep; but such fond tears
As flow'rets, ill-intreated of the night,
Shed, when the morn-winds sing i' the Eastern gate
That father Sun doth rise.

Romanzo.
Is not this love
A happy thing? a fountain of new life,
Another urn of blood within the heart
That floods the ebbing veins; and teems new life
Through all those ruby channels?—O it is
Warmest of bosom-friends!—Joy'st not to feel
This downy bird rustle within thy arms,
Choosing his fragrant bed; as fond as he,
The nectar-bibbing fly, who doth disturb,
With most uxorious care, yon rose, the while
He settles in her breast?

Sylvia.
Is Love a bird?

Romanzo.
A boy!—with curls of crisped gold, like thine:
Lips like the fresh sea-coral: in his cheek
The sleepless Laughter cradles; and above
Perpetual Sport rides in his humorous eye.
This guest of man hath to his use beside
A quiver, and light arrows, and a bow;
With which he stings his votaries' willing hearts,
Aiming from beauty's hills, or vantage-ground,
Where he can light: then flies (for pinions he
Fleeces the wand'ring gossamer) to tend
The wounds his bolt hath made; and often there,
Like a good surgeon, pillows till they heal,
Or sweetly cruel makes them bleed again.
This is Love's picture; and his page of life
Writ in Time's chronicle.

Sylvia.
Sure it must be
A marvellous child!

Romanzo.
O, 'tis a winsome boy!
And tells such pleasant tales, and sings such songs,
With harp gay-tinkling like a Troubadour,
That icy nuns through charitable grates
Thrust forth their lovely arms to pamper him;
And so he often wounds them, while they leave
Their bosoms undefended.

Sylvia.
I would hear
Some of his minstrelsy.

Romanzo.
Why so thou hast:
He speaks through various lips; even now through mine.

Sylvia.
Ah! thou deceiv'st me: thou art he! but clothed
In shape more godlike.

Romanzo.
[Kisses her.

Sylvia.
Would it were sweeter,
For thy sake, than it is!—We are betroth'd,
And so I hold my petty treasures thine,
My lord and husband.

Romanzo.
Therefore in their use
I will be frugal, since thou 'rt generous.—

Sylvia.
Hark! hark! a cry!—

Romanzo.
Fear not!—thou 'rt in my arms.

Andrea without.

Alas! alas!—Help! help!—Do I live amongst Saracens or Turkies?—No pity? no assistance?— The good dame! the excellent old lady! Kidnapt! transposed! elevated!—She who saved me from that mad-pated fellow, my master!

Sylvia.

My mother!

Romanzo.

What 's this ruffian hurly? speak!

Enter Andrea.

Help, I say!—Rescue! rescue!—If ye have hearts the size of queen-cakes, let your swords leap from your scabbards, and cut down these sans-culottes! these Carbonari! sons of the Black Prince! whelps of Belzebub!—O Master! Master! turn away the eyes of your wrath from me upon those dingy freebooters!—Lamentable! O lamentable! lamentable!

Romanzo.

Speak! Who?—who?—

Sylvia.

If thou hast pity, speak!

Andrea.

Pity!—Am I not weeping my eyes out?—What can I do more?—Are either of ye half as pitiful a fellow?—Do I stand nonchancically here like a statue, as if I were gaping for bobcherries, or had set my mouth for a fly-trap?— Pity, indeed!—Am I not shouting, ranting, and calling down vengeance upon the heads of these nefarious woman-stealers as fast as tiles in a storm? —What call you this but pity,—active, stirring, practical,—I say, practical pity?—Oons! I should have been president of some humane society, or an overseer of the poor, at the least, had I remained turnspit to the Sardinian ambassador in England.

Sylvia.

Agony choaks me!—O I shall go mad!

Romanzo.

Dastardly hound! I'll shake thy story out of thee!

Andrea.

Pray do not; it would discompose me much in the telling of it, I assure you. Mark me now—“Here 'tis!” as neighbour Geronymo says; or thus it stands, or this is the tot of the matter. We proceeded on our excursion, or incursion (to speak critically, for we were about to enter the preserve of a Nabob, though, indeed, we had a special licence from his diabolical lordship)—Well! —Take your knuckless off my throat, I beseech you, sir; my words come out pip! pip! like bullets from a potgun. Well—as I was saying,—the

peasants and I, or, in other words, I and the peasants, which you will,—proceeded on our progress to seek for young Mrs. Roselle, the miller's daughter, in the wood, just there, over your worship's nose, where the grass is so parched and thin, it would hardly fodder a goose. Well! so far, so good —A little more vent, if you please, sir! I shall never run out else. Well—When we had come thither, lo and behold ye! no Mrs. Roselle; not the print of her shoe upon the moss, though she wore beechen ones an inch thick, and clouted from heel to toe with sixpenny hobnails. Well!—no maid o' the mill, as I told ye, was to be found there, but in her stead the shapes and figures of one Mrs. Sylvia, as the peasants entitled her: some country-hoyden, I surmise, that purls a little through an oaten pipe, and infests these parts in a sheep-keeping character,—a “dear Pastora,” as one might say, a Mrs. Simplicity—O! your worship! do not tuck that thumb so inexorably under my gizzard as if you were nailing up wall-fruit—You'll spoil my story!

Romanzo.

Would I could strangle thee, and hear thee after!

Andrea.

Why, indeed, hanging is almost too good a death for an informer; but it is considered more politic to reward him. However, to proceed

as we went on: I being foremost, that is, foremost in the rear, I debouche towards dame Agatha, who, indeed, was coming by hasty marches to warn us of some danger, and I communicate to her my intelligence—

Romanzo.

Well?—What did she?—what?—what?—speak it!

Andrea.

Fell all of a heap like a haycock, your worship; and thereupon darted immediately into the wood as if her heels were loaded with quicksilver; from thence bolted into the arms of a couple of Black Hussars, who carried her off to perdition: And so, if they don't live happy, I hope—

Sylvia.

Fly! fly, and save her!—O your mercy, Heavens!

[Swoons.
Romanzo.
Hear me, thou villain!—On thy hopes of life,
Here and hereafter, guard this lovely one,
Sustain, restore, and tend her, while hard fate
Keeps me from that dear office,—or as sure
As lightning blasts, thy doom is fixt—

[Exit.
Andrea.

Indeed so it appears: to be ever surrounded and o'erwhelmed by innumerable and indescribable miseries and mischances, accidents and offences, dreadful calamities and singular occurrences!—They come as thick upon me as if they were showered from a dredging-box! I am

powdered with sorrows and afflictions! Salted, peopered, pickled! roasted, basted, stewed, fried, crimped, scarified, tossed like a pancake, and beaten like a batter, upon all occasions! Finally, I have been cooked up into a devil, and may perhaps be buried alive in a minced-pie to be served up at a Christmas-feast among the Cannibals. Nevertheless, I will endeavour to revive this lovely maiden according to the prescriptions of Galen and Hippocrypha—

Raises Sylvia in his arms.

Truly, my adventures follow one another with marvellous dexterity: if they were only printed I might string them together like ballads, and sell them by the yard as they do popular songs, or Bologna sausages: I should have every mob-cap in the neighbourhood peeping out of the attics, and have copper jingling about me as if I were playing the triangle,—could I only bring myself to chant my own deeds for remuneration.—Here now am I, without ever having studied more of the Healing Art than a farrier's dog,—here am Iinstalled as physician-general of this uninhabited district, and condemned under the penalty of bastinado and carbonization, to raise this mortal from the dead, as if I had invented an universal restorative!—'Sbodikins! it is too much! were my shoulders as broad as Mount

Hatless, I could not long bear this world of negotiations that is laid upon them!—If I were any thing less than the most tender-hearted Samaritan in all Christendom, I would leave this pretty faint-away here to get well as she could, by the study of “Every man his own physician,” and take to my heels like a dancing bear when I am threatened with such a flagellation. But no matter!—the heart of man was made for misfortune as an ass's back for a packsaddle. We must be all stocks and philosophers!—I'll run for a capfull of the limpid, to baptize her.

[Exit.

Scene closes.