melt The very marrow, and not taint the skin; His wayes must not be seen through, the superficies Of the green centre must not taste his feet, When hell is plowed up with the wounding tracts, And all his harvest reap’t by hellish facts.

   Montsurry, when he discovers that the Friar had acted as confident
   in the intrigue betwixt his lady and d’Ambois, thus elegantly
   expresses the common idea of the world being turned upside down.

       Now, is it true, earth moves, and heaven stands still;
     Even heaven itself must see and suffer ill. 
     The too huge bias of the world hath swayed
     Her back-part upwards, and with that she braves
     This hemisphere, that long her month hath mocked. 
     The gravity of her religious face,
     Now grown too weighty with her sacrilege,
     And here discerned sophisticate enough,
     Turns to the antipodes, and all the forms
     That here allusions have impressed in her,
     Have eaten through her back, and now all see
     How she is riveted with hypocrisie.

   Yet, I observe, from the prologue to the edition of 1641, that the
   part of D’Ambois was considered as a high test of a players’
   talents: 

       —­Field is gone,
     Whose action first did give it name; and one
     Who came the neatest to him, is denied,
     By his grey beard, to shew the height and pride
     Of d’Ambois’ youth and braverie.  Yet to hold
     Our title still a-foot, and not grow cold,
     By giving’t o’er, a third man with his best
     Of care and paines defends our interest. 
     As Richard he was liked, nor do we fear,
     In personating d’Ambois, heile appear
     To faint, or goe lesse, so your free consent,
     As heretofore, give him encouragement.

   I believe the successor of Field, in this once favourite character,
   was Hart.  The piece was revived after the Restoration with great
   success.

5.  Dryden has elsewhere ridiculed this absurd passage.  The original
   has “periwig with wool.”

PROLOGUE.

  Now, luck for us, and a kind hearty pit;
  For he, who pleases, never fails of wit: 
  Honour is yours;
  And you, like kings at city-treats, bestow it;
  The writer kneels, and is bid rise a poet;
  But you are fickle sovereigns, to our sorrow;
  You dub to-day, and hang a man to-morrow: 
  You cry the same sense up, and down again,
  Just like brass-money once a year in Spain: 
  Take you in the mood, whate’er base metal come,
  You coin as fast as groats at Birmingham: 
  Though ’tis no more like sense, in antient plays,
  Than Rome’s religion like St Peter’s days. 
  In short, so swift your judgments turn and wind,
  You cast our fleetest wits a mile behind. 
  ’Twere well your judgments but in plays did range,