My sweet-faced, godly beggar-boy, crave an alms,
Which with glad hand I gave,--with lucky hand!
And when I took thee home, my most chaste bosom
Methought was filled with no hot wanton fire,
But with a holy flame, mounting since higher,
On wings of cherubim, than it did before.

"_Ang._ Proud am I that my lady's modest eye
So likes so poor a servant.

"_Dor._ I have offered
Handfuls of gold but to behold thy parents.
I would leave kingdoms, were I queen of some,
To dwell with thy good father....
Show me thy parents;
Be not ashamed.

"_Angelo._ I am not: I did never
Know who my mother was; but by yon palace,
Filled with bright heavenly courtiers, I dare assure you,
And pawn these eyes upon it, and this hand,
My father is in heaven; and, pretty mistress,
If your illustrious hour-glass spend his sand,
No worse than yet it does upon my life,
You and I both shall meet my father there,
And he shall bid you welcome.

"_Dor._ O blessed day!
We all long to be there, but lose the way."

But the passage in all Dekkar's works which will be most likely to
immortalize his name is that often-quoted one, taken from a play whose
very name is unmentionable to prudish ears:--

"Patience, my lord! why, 't is the soul of peace;
It makes men look like gods--The best of men
That e'er wore earth about him was a Sufferer,
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit;
The first true gentleman that ever breathed."

A more sombre genius than Dekkar, though a genius more than once
associated with his own in composition, was John Webster, of whose
biography nothing is certainly known, except that he was a member of the
Merchant Tailors' Company. His works have been thrice republished within
thirty years; but the perusal of the whole does not add to the
impression left on the mind by his two great tragedies. His comic talent
was small; and for all the mirth in his comedies of "Westward Hoe" and
"Northward Hoe" we are probably indebted to his associate, Dekkar. His
play of "Appius and Virginia" is far from being an adequate rendering of
one of the most beautiful and affecting fables that ever crept into
history. "The Devil's Law Case," a tragi-comedy, has not sufficient
power to atone for the want of probability in the plot and want of
nature in the characters. Th