John Ford was an English playwright and poet of the Jacobean and Caroline eras born in Ilsington in Devon, England. His plays deal mainly with the conflict between passion and conscience. Although remembered primarily as a playwright, he also wrote a number of poems on themes of love and morality. Wikipedia
“Oh, happy kings,
Whose thrones are raised in their subjects' hearts.”
Perkin Warbeck, Act III, sc. i. (c. 1629-34)
Charles Lamb Specimens of English Dramatic Poets ([1808] 1854) p. 228.
Criticism
Act IV, sc. iii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
Act I, sc. iii.
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)
Act III, sc. iii.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
Act III, sc. v.
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)
“Revenge proves its own executioner.”
Act IV, sc. i.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
Act IV, sc. ii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
The Fancies, Chaste and Noble Act I, sc. iii.
Act I, sc. iii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)
Act I, sc. iii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
“Let them fear bondage who are slaves to fear;
The sweetest freedom is an honest heart.”
Act I, sc. iii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)
“Busy opinion is an idle fool.”
Act V, sc. iii.
'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)
“Glories
Of human greatness are but pleasing dreams,
And shadows soon decaying.”
Act III, sc. v.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
“Brother, even by my mother's dust, I charge you,
Do not betray me to your mirth or hate.”
Act I, sc. iii.
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)
“Tell us, pray, what devil
This melancholy is, which can transform
Men into monsters.”
Act III, sc. i.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
“Ford is rather a sculptor of character than a painter.”
Algernon Charles Swinburne Essays and Studies ([1875] 1888) p. 278.
Criticism
“We can drink till all look blue.”
Act IV, sc. ii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)
“Sister, look ye,
How, by a new creation of my tailor's
I've shook off old mortality.”
The Fancies, Chaste and Noble Act I, sc. iii. (1635-6)
“Nice philosophy
May tolerate unlikely arguments,
But heaven admits no jest.”
Act I, sc. i.
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)
Act II, sc. ii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
Act V, sc. v.
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)
“Fly hence, shadows, that do keep,
Watchful sorrows, charmed in sleep.”
Act V, sc. i.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
“Tempt not the stars, young man, thou canst not play
With the severity of fate.”
Act I, sc. iii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
“Melancholy
Is not, as you conceive, indisposition
Of body, but the mind's disease.”
Act III, sc. i.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
Act I, sc. ii.
The Lover's Melancholy (1628)
Act IV, sc. iii.
The Broken Heart (c. 1625-33)
