e
title-page, was being acted at the Cockpit, Drury Lane. His other pieces
were produced rather later. I am inclined to think that _The Lady
Mother_, in spite of the wild improbability of the plot and the poorness
of much of the comic parts, is our author's best work. In such lines as
the following (IV., 1) there is a little flickering of pathos:--

"Enough, good friend; no more.
Had a rude _Scythian_, ignorant of tears,
Unless the wind enforced them from his eyes,
Heard this relation, sure he would have wept;
And yet I cannot. I have lost all sense
Of pitty with my womanhood, and now
That once essentiall Mistress of my soule,
Warme charity, no more inflames my brest
Then does the glowewormes uneffectuall fire
The ha[n]d that touches it. Good sir, desist
The agravation of your sad report; [_Weepe_.
Ive to much griefe already."

The "glowewormes uneffectuall fire" is of course pilfered from Hamlet,
but it is happily introduced. There is some humour in the scene (I., 2)
where the old buck, Sir Geoffrey, who is studying a compliment to his
mistress while his hair is being trimmed by his servant before the glass,
puts by the importunity of his scatter-brain'd nephew and the blustering
captain, who vainly endeavour to bring him to the point and make him
disburse. On the whole I am confident that _The Lady Mother_ will be
found less tedious than any other of Glapthorne's pieces.

THE LADY MOTHER: A COMEDY.

BY HENRY GLAPTHORNE.

_Written in 1635, and now printed for the first time_.

The Play of The Lady Mother.

_Actus Primus_.

(SCENE 1.)

_Enter Thorowgood, Bonvill & Grimes_.

_Bon_. What? will it be a match man?
Shall I kneele to thee and aske thee blessing, ha?

_Tho_. Pish! I begin to feare her, she does
Dally with her affection: I admire itt.

_Bon_. Shee and her daughters
Created were for admiration only,
And did my Mistress and her sister not
Obscure their mothers luster fancy could not
Admitt a fuller bewty.

_Tho_. Tis easier to expresse
Where nimble winds lodge, ore investigate
An eagles passage through the agill ayre
Then to invent a paraphrase to expresse
How much true virtue is indebted to their
Unparaleld perfections.

_Bon_. Nay[56], but shall I not be acquainted with your designe? when we
must marry, faith to save charges of two wedding dinners, lets cast so
that one day may yeild us bridegroome,--I to the d