Pri. You dare not do 't.

Jaf. Indeed, my lord, I dare not.

My heart, that awes me, is too much my master;

Three years are passed since first our vows were plighted, During which time, the world must bear me witness,

I've treated Belvidera like your daughter,

The daughter of a senator of Venice;

Distinction, place, attendance, and observance,
Due to her birth, she always has commanded;
Out of my little fortune I've done this,
Because, though hopeless e'er to win your nature,
The world might see I loved her for herself,
Not as the heiress of the great Priuli.

Pri. No more.

Jaf. Yes, all, and then adieu forever.

There's not a wretch that lives on common charity
But's happier than me: for I have known
The luscious sweets of plenty; every night
Have slept with soft content about my head,
And never waked but to a joyful morning;
And now must fall, like a full ear of corn,
Whose blossom 'scaped, yet 's withered in the ripening.
Pri. Home, and be humble! study to retrench;
Discharge the lazy vermin in thy hall,

Those pageants of thy folly;

Reduce the glittering trappings of thy wife
To humble weeds, fit for thy little state;
Then to some suburb cottage both retire;

Drudge to feed loathsome life; get brats, and starve !
Home, home, I say!

Jaf. Yes, if my heart would let me

This proud, this swelling heart; home I would go,
But that my doors are hateful to my eyes,
Filled and dammed up with gaping creditors.
I've now not fifty ducats in the world,
Yet still I am in love, and pleased with ruin.
O, Belvidera! O! she is my wife

(Exit.)

And we will bear our wayward fate together,

But ne 'er know comfort more!

*

(Enter Belvidera.)

Belvidera. My lord, my love, my refuge!
Happy my eyes when they behold thy face!
My heavy heart will leave its doleful beating,
At sight of thee, and bound with sprightly joys.
O, smile, as when our loves were in their spring,
And cheer my fainting soul!

Jaf. As when our loves

Were in their spring! Has then my fortune changed thee?
Art thou not, Belvidera, still the same

Kind, good and tender, as my arms first found thee?
If thou art altered, where shall I have harbor?
Where ease my loaded heart? O! where complain?
Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,
When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,
With all the resolution of strong truth?
I joy more in thee

Than did thy mother, when she hugged thee first,
And blessed the gods for all her travail past.

Jaf. Can there in woman be such glorious faith?
Sure, all ill stories of thy sex are false!
Oh, woman! lovely woman! Nature made thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without you!
Angels are painted fair, to look like you;
There's in you all that we believe of heaven;
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,

Eternal joy, and everlasting love!

Bel. If love be treasure, we 'll be wondrous rich. O! lead me to some desert, wide and wild,

Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul

May have its vent,

where I may tell aloud,

To the high heavens, and every listening planet,
With what a boundless stock my bosom 's fraught!
Jaf. O, Belvidera! doubly I'm a beggar –

Undone by fortune, and in debt to thee!
Want, worldly want, that hungry, meagre fiend,
Is at my heels, and chases me in view.

Canst thou bear cold and hunger? Can these limbs,
Framed for the tender offices of love,

Endure the bitter grips of smarting poverty?
When banished by our miseries abroad,

As suddenly we shall be, to seek out,

In some far climate, where our names are strangers,
For charitable succor, wilt thou then,

When in a bed of straw we shrink together,

And the bleak winds shall whistle round our heads,
Wilt thou then talk thus to me?

Wilt thou then
Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love?
Bel. O! I will love, even in madness, love thee!
Though my distracted senses should forsake me,
I'd find some intervals when my poor heart
Should 'suage itself, and be let loose to thine.
Though the bare earth be all our resting place,
Its roots our food, some cliff our habitation,

I'll make this arm a pillow for thy head;

And, as thou sighing liest, and swelled with sorrow,
Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love

Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest;

Then praise our God, and watch thee till the morning.

Jaf. Hear this, you heavens, and wonder how you made her!

Reign, reign, ye monarchs, that divide the world!

Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know

Tranquillity and happiness like mine;
Like gaudy ships, the obsequious billows fall,
And rise again to lift you in your pride;
They wait but for a storm, and then devour you!
I, in my private bark, already wrecked,

Like a poor merchant, driven to unknown land,
That had, by chance, packed up his choicest treasure
In one dear casket, and saved only that;
Since I must wander further on the shore,
Thus hug my little, but my precious store,
Resolve to scorn and trust my fate no more.

DANIEL DEFOE. 1661-1731.

Defoe was born in London, and was the son of a butcher. He engaged in several varieties of trade, but without success. He took the side of the Whigs, in the political controversies of his day, and turned his ironical and satirical talents against his opponents so powerfully, that he was charged with libel by the House of Commons, fined, set in the pillory, and imprisoned. In a Hymn to the Pillory, he wittily calls it

"A hieroglyphic state machine,
Condemned to punish fancy in."

Yet, his character stood so high that he was employed by the court of Queen Anne on a mission to Scotland. He at length abandoned politics, and at the age of fifty-five, after "his spirit had been broken, and his means wasted, by persecution, and his health struck down by apoplexy," composed his Robinson Crusoe, and a great number of fictions that followed it. His life" seems to have been one of continued struggle with want, dulness, and persecution. He died insolvent, author of two hundred and ten books and pamphlets. As a novelist he was the father of Richardson, and partly of Fielding; as an essayist, he suggested the Tatler and Spectator; and in grave irony he may have given to Swift his first lessons."

[From the "Life of Colonel Jack."]

THE TROUBLES OF A. YOUNG THIEF.

I HAVE often thought since that, and with some mirth too, how I had really more wealth than I knew what to do with, [five pounds, his share of the plunder ;] - for lodging I had none, nor any box or drawer to hide my money in, nor had I any pocket but such as I say was full of holes. I knew nobody in the world, that I could go and desire them to lay it up for me; for, being a poor, naked, ragged boy, they would presently say I had robbed somebody, and perhaps lay hold of me, and my money would be my crime, as they say it often is in foreign countries; and now, as I was full of wealth, behold I was full of care, for what to do to secure my money, I could not. tell; and this held me so long, and was so vexatious to me the next day, that I truly sat down and cried.

Nothing could be more perplexing than this money was to me, all that night. I carried it in my hand a good while, for it was in gold all but 14s.; and that is to say, it was four guineas, and that 14s. was more difficult to carry than the four guineas. At last, I sat down and pulled off one of my shoes, and put the four

guineas into that; but after I had gone a while, my shoe hurt me so I could not go; so I was faiu to sit down again, and take it out of my shoe, and carry it in my hand; then I found a dirty linen rag in the street, and I took that up, and wrapt it all together, and carried it in that a good way.

*

*

*

Well, I carried it home with me to my lodging in the glasshouse, and when I went to go to sleep, I knew not what to do with it; if I had let any of the black crew I was with know of it, I should have been smothered in the ashes for it, or robbed of it, or some trick or other put upon me for it; so I knew not what to do, but lay with it in my hand, and my hand in my bosom; but then sleep went from mine eyes. O, the weight of human care! I, a poor beggar-boy, could not sleep, so soon as I had but a little money to keep, who, before that, could have slept upon a heap of brick-bats, stones or cinders, or anywhere, as sound as a rich man does on his down bed, and sounder too.

Every now and then dropping asleep, I should dream that my money was lost, and start like one frightened; then, finding it fast in my hand, try to go to sleep again, but could not for a long while; then drop and start again. At last a fancy came into my head, that if I fell asleep, I should dream of the money, and talk of it in my sleep, and tell that I had money; which, if I should do, and one of the rogues should hear me, they would pick it out of my bosom, and my hand too, without waking me; and after that thought, I could not sleep a wink more: so I passed that night over in care and anxiety enough; and this, I may safely say, was the first night's rest that I had lost by the cares of this life, and the deceitfulness of riches.

As soon as it was day, I got out of the hole we lay in, and rambled abroad in the fields towards Stepney; and there I mused and considered what I should do with this money, and many a time I wished that I had not had it; for, after all my ruminating upon it, and what course I should take with it, or where I should put it, I could not hit upon any one thing, or any possible method to secure it; and it perplexed me so, that at last, as I said just now, I sat down and cried heartily.

When my crying was over, my case was the same; I had the money still, and what to do with it I could not tell. At last it