Faithless Beauty.
Louize. Dare you approach?
Vendome. Yes, but with fear, for sure you’re not Woman.
A Comet glitter’d in the air o’ late,
And kept some weeks the frighted kingdom waking.
Long hair it had, like you; a shining aspect;
Its beauty smiled, at the same time it frighten’d;
And every horror in it had a grace.
[From “Belphegor,” a Comedy, by John Wilson, 1690.]
Doria Palace described.
That thou’d’st been with us at Duke Doria’s garden!
The pretty contest between art and nature;
To see the wilderness, grots, arbours, ponds;
And in the midst, over a stately fountain,
The Neptune of the Ligurian sea—
Andrew Doria—the man who first
Taught Genoa not to serve: then to behold
The curious waterworks and wanton streams
Wind here and there, as if they had forgot
Their errand to the sea.
And then again, within
That vast prodigious cage, in which the groves
Of myrtle, orange, jessamine, beguile
The winged quire with a native warble,
And pride of their restraint. Then, up and down,
An antiquated marble, or broken statue,
Majestic ev’n in ruin.
And such a glorious palace:
Such pictures, carving, furniture! my words
Cannot reach half the splendour. And, after all,
To see the sea, fond of the goodly sight,
One while glide amorous, and lick her walls,
As who would say Come Follow; but, repuls’d,
Rally its whole artillery of waves,
And crowd into a storm!
[From the “Floating Island,” a Comedy, by the Rev. W. Strode, acted by the Students of Christ-Church, Oxford, 1639.]
Song.
Once Venus’ cheeks, that shamed the morn,
Their hue let fall;
Her lips, that winter had out-born,
In June look’d pale:
Her heat grew cold, her nectar dry;
No juice she had but in her eye,
The wonted fire and flames to mortify.
When was this so dismal sight?—
When Adonis bade good night.