ANT. How perfectly she points me to my story! (Aside.)
Madam, I did; and one whose pride and anger,
Ill manners, and worse mien, she doted on,
Doted to my undoing, and my ruin.
And, but for honour to your sacred beauty,
And reverence to the noble sex, though she fall,
As she must fall that durst be so unnoble,
I should say something unbeseeming me.
What out of love, and worthy love, I gave her,
Shame to her most unworthy mind! to fools,
To girls, and fiddlers, to her boys she flung,
And in disdain of me.
ALM. Pray you take me with you.
Of what complexion was she?
ANT. But that I dare not
Commit so great a sacrilege 'gainst virtue,
She look'd not much unlike—though far, far short,
Something, I see, appears—your pardon, madam—
Her eyes would smile so, but her eyes could cozen;
And so she would look sad; but yours is pity,
A noble chorus to my wretched story;
Hers was disdain and cruelty.
ALM. Pray heaven,
Mine be no worse! he has told me a strange story, (Aside.)" &c.—ED.]
* * * * *
The parts pointed out in Hieronimo as Ben Jonson's bear no traces of his style; but they are very like Shakspeare's; and it is very remarkable that every one of them re-appears in full form and development, and tempered with mature judgment, in some one or other of Shakspeare's great pieces.[1]
[Footnote 1: By Hieronimo Mr. Coleridge meant The Spanish Tragedy, and not the previous play, which is usually called The First Part of Jeronimo. The Spanish Tragedy is, upon the authority of Heywood, attributed to Kyd. It is supposed that Ben Jonson originally performed the part of Hieronimo, and hence it has been surmised that certain passages and whole scenes connected with that character, and not found in some of the editions of the play, are, in fact, Ben Jonson's own writing. Some of these supposed interpolations are amongst the best things in the Spanish Tragedy; the style is singularly unlike Jonson's, whilst there are turns and particular images which do certainly seem to have been imitated by or from Shakspeare. Mr. Lamb at one time gave them to Webster. Take this, passage, in the fourth act:—
"HIERON. What make you with your torches in the dark?
PEDRO. You bid us light them, and attend you here.
HIERON. No! you are deceived; not I; you are deceived.
Was I so mad to bid light torches now?
Light me your torches at the mid of noon,
When as the sun-god rides in all his glory;
Light me your torches then.