Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/588

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. DEC. is, 1020.

This we get again in 'The Fancies,' III. iii. 135b ;

Wince and cry wee-hee ! like a colt unbroken. Oolumello, one of the Queen's counsellors, expostulates with the King for his cold treatment of their royal mistress (111 1-3) ; The commons murmur, and the streets are fill'd With busy whispers.

In 'The Lover's Melancholy,' II. i. 6a., Sophronos complains of the injury to the commonwealth caused by the lethargy of the prince ;

The commons murmur, and the nobles grieve ; 'The court is now turn'd antic and grows wild, &c.

The violent speech in which Alphonso rejects the modest advances of the Queen (1181-94) a typical sample of the exag- gerated diction of Ford's characters in moments of passion I quote in full ;

Hence

Monstrous enchantress, by the death I owe To Nature, thou appear'st to me in this More impudent than impudence, the tide Of thy luxurious blood is at the full ; And cause thy raging plurisy of lust Cannot be sated by our royal warmth, Thou try 1 st all cunning petulant charms to raise A wanton devil up in our chaste breast. Buh we are cannon-proof against the shot Of all thy arts.

Here we have three indications of Ford's phraseology. " The death I owe to nature ' ' needs no further illustration. " Plurisy of lust " occurs again in "Tis Pity,' IV. iii. 4 Ob (Soranzo to Annabella) ;

Must your hot itch and plurisy of lust, The hey-day of your luxury, be fed Up to a surfeit, &c.

up in our

and with "raise a wanton devil chaste breast," we may compare

if the nimble devil That wantoned in your blood

in the first scene of 'The Witch of Edmonton. ,

Later on in this second act, Velasco in- dulges in such extravagant protestations of his devotion to Salassa, that she suspects his sincerity. "Phew,* my Lord," she exclaims, "It is not nobly done to mock me thus." Velasco replies (1391-4) ;

Mock you ? Most fair Salassa, if e'er truth Dwelt in a tongue, my words and thoughts are twins.

play " Phew, that's thy nobleness." It is a favourite exclamation of Ford's. See ' Love's Sacrifice,' IV. i. Ola, and V i. 94b, ' Lover's Melancholy,' I. ii. 4b,
 * This interjection occurs again at line 1617 of this
 * Broken Heart,' V. i. 70a.

The same periphrastic mode of expression is used by Nearchus in ' The Broken Heart,'

III. iv. 61b ;

My tongue arid heart are twins.

whilst the final couplet of Act II. ;

There is no act of folly but is common In use and practice to a scornful woman

recalls that with which Soranzo concludes his interview with Annabella in 'Tis Pity,'

IV. iii. ;

My reason tells me now, that " 'tis as common To err in frailty as o be a woman."

So much for the first two acts of this play. Even those most sceptical of " purely internal evidence " will surely agree that here alone there is sufficient to convict Ford. All that it seems worth while to add is that nowhere does the text suggest the presence of another hand, and that Ford has put his final stamp on the play in Velasco 's penultimate speech a few "lines before its close (3853-5) ;

To strive against the ordinance of fate, I find is all in vain.

The impossibility of escaping one's " fate " or "destiny" was the cardinal article of Ford's creed, and there are few of his dramas in which it does not find explicit utterance. See for instance ' Love's Sacrifice ' (end of IV. ii.) ; No toil can shun the violence of fate.

'The Lover's Melancholy ' (III. ii.) ;

...... in vain \ve strive to cross

The destiny that guides us.

and ' Perkin Warbeck ' (end of V. i. ) ;

Being driven By fate, it were in vain to strive with heaven.

Though it contains a number of fine declamatory speeches, ' The Queen ' falls far below the level of Ford's dramatic work at its best, exhibiting scarcely a trace of the tragic power and psychological insight manifested in ' Tis Pity, ' ' The Broken Heart,' or 'Perkin Warbeck.' The Queen of Arragon, who out-Grissils Griselda in patience and wifely obedience, is but little better than a lay figure, a colourless image of perfections incapable of rousing more than a tepid interest in her sorrows, while the king is equally remote from the semblance of humanity a morose monomaniac whose base ingratitude towards the Queen and readiness to put the worst construction on her actions, not all Ford's lofty eloquence. can render tolerable or plausible.

Enfield.

H *

SYKES.