n to send you in
return,--though, to tell truth, I am at work upon something which, if I
were to cut away and garble, perhaps I might send you an extract or two
that might not displease you; but I will not do that; and whether it
will come to anything, I know not, for I am as slow as a Fleming painter
when I compose anything. I will crave leave to put down a few lines of
old Christopher Marlowe's; I take them from his tragedy, "The Jew of
Malta." The Jew is a famous character, quite out of nature; but when we
consider the terrible idea our simple ancestors had of a Jew, not more
to be discommended for a certain discoloring (I think Addison calls it)
than the witches and fairies of Marlowe's mighty successor. The scene is
betwixt Barabas, the Jew, and Ithamore, a Turkish captive exposed to
sale for a slave.

BARABAS.

(_A precious rascal_.)

"As for myself, I walk abroad o' nights,
And kill sick people groaning under walls;
Sometimes I go about and poison wells;
And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves,
I am content to lose some of my crowns,
That I may, walking in my gallery,
See 'm go pinioned along by my door.
Being young, I studied physic, and began
To practise first upon the Italian;
There I enriched the priests with burials,
And always kept the sexton's arms in ure [3]
With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells.
And after that, was I an engineer,
And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany,
Under pretence of serving Charles the Fifth,
Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems.
Then after that was I an usurer,
And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting,
And tricks belonging unto brokery,
I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year,
And with young orphans planted hospitals,
And every moon made some or other mad;
And now and then one hang'd himself for grief,
Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll,
How I with interest tormented him."

Now hear Ithamore, the other gentle nature, explain how he has spent his
time:--

ITHAMORE

(_A Comical Dog_.)

"Faith, master, in setting Christian villages on fire,
Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley-slaves.
One time I was an hostler in an inn,
And in the night-time secret would I steal
To travellers' chambers, and there cut their throats.
Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd,
I strewed powder on the marble stones,
And therewithal their knees would rankle so,
That I have lau