1191	----	Transcribed from the 1895 Methuen and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org THE DOUBLE-DEALER A COMEDY _Interdum tamen et vocem Comoedia tollit_.--HOR. _Ar. Po._ _Huic equidem consilio palmam do_: _hic me magnifice_ _effero_, _qui vim tantam in me et potestatem habeam_ _tantae astutiae_, _vera dicendo ut eos ambos fallam_. SYR. in TERENT. _Heaut_. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES MONTAGUE, ONE OF THE LORDS OF THE TREASURY. Sir,--I heartily wish this play were as perfect as I intended it, that it might be more worthy your acceptance, and that my dedication of it to you might be more becoming that honour and esteem which I, with everybody who is so fortunate as to know you, have for you. It had your countenance when yet unknown; and now it is made public, it wants your protection. I would not have anybody imagine that I think this play without its faults, for I am conscious of several. I confess I designed (whatever vanity or ambition occasioned that design) to have written a true and regular comedy, but I found it an undertaking which put me in mind of _Sudet multum_, _frustraque laboret ausus idem_. And now, to make amends for the vanity of such a design, I do confess both the attempt and the imperfect performance. Yet I must take the boldness to say I have not miscarried in the whole, for the mechanical part of it is regular. That I may say with as little vanity as a builder may say he has built a house according to the model laid down before him, or a gardener that he has set his flowers in a knot of such or such a figure. I designed the moral first, and to that moral I invented the fable, and do not know that I have borrowed one hint of it anywhere. I made the plot as strong as I could because it was single, and I made it single because I would avoid confusion, and was resolved to preserve the three unities of the drama. Sir, this discourse is very impertinent to you, whose judgment much better can discern the faults than I can excuse them; and whose good nature, like that of a lover, will find out those hidden beauties (if there are any such) which it would be great immodesty for me to discover. I think I don't speak improperly when I call you a _lover_ of poetry; for it is very well known she has been a very kind mistress to you: she has not denied you the last favour, and she has been fruitful to you in a most beautiful issue. If I break off abruptly here, I hope everybody will understand that it is to avoid a commendation which, as it is your due, would be most easy for me to pay, and too troublesome for you to receive. I have since the acting of this play harkened after the objections which have been made to it, for I was conscious where a true critic might have put me upon my defence. I was prepared for the attack, and am pretty confident I could have vindicated some parts and excused others; and where there were any plain miscarriages, I would most ingenuously have confessed 'em. But I have not heard anything said sufficient to provoke an answer. That which looks most like an objection does not relate in particular to this play, but to all or most that ever have been written, and that is soliloquy. Therefore I will answer it, not only for my own sake, but to save others the trouble, to whom it may hereafter be objected. I grant that for a man to talk to himself appears absurd and unnatural, and indeed it is so in most cases; but the circumstances which may attend the occasion make great alteration. It oftentimes happens to a man to have designs which require him to himself, and in their nature cannot admit of a confidant. Such for certain is all villainy, and other less mischievous intentions may be very improper to be communicated to a second person. In such a case, therefore, the audience must observe whether the person upon the stage takes any notice of them at all or no. For if he supposes any one to be by when he talks to himself, it is monstrous and ridiculous to the last degree. Nay, not only in this case, but in any part of a play, if there is expressed any knowledge of an audience, it is insufferable. But otherwise, when a man in soliloquy reasons with himself, and _pro's_ and _con's_, and weighs all his designs, we ought not to imagine that this man either talks to us or to himself; he is only thinking, and thinking such matter as were inexcusable folly in him to speak. But because we are concealed spectators of the plot in agitation, and the poet finds it necessary to let us know the whole mystery of his contrivance, he is willing to inform us of this person's thoughts; and to that end is forced to make use of the expedient of speech, no other better way being yet invented for the communication of thought. Another very wrong objection has been made by some who have not taken leisure to distinguish the characters. The hero of the play, as they are pleased to call him (meaning Mellefont), is a gull, and made a fool, and cheated. Is every man a gull and a fool that is deceived? At that rate I'm afraid the two classes of men will be reduced to one, and the knaves themselves be at a loss to justify their title. But if an open-hearted honest man, who has an entire confidence in one whom he takes to be his friend, and whom he has obliged to be so, and who, to confirm him in his opinion, in all appearance and upon several trials has been so: if this man be deceived by the treachery of the other, must he of necessity commence fool immediately, only because the other has proved a villain? Ay, but there was caution given to Mellefont in the first act by his friend Careless. Of what nature was that caution? Only to give the audience some light into the character of Maskwell before his appearance, and not to convince Mellefont of his treachery; for that was more than Careless was then able to do: he never knew Maskwell guilty of any villainy; he was only a sort of man which he did not like. As for his suspecting his familiarity with my Lady Touchwood, let 'em examine the answer that Mellefont makes him, and compare it with the conduct of Maskwell's character through the play. I would beg 'em again to look into the character of Maskwell before they accuse Mellefont of weakness for being deceived by him. For upon summing up the enquiry into this objection, it may be found they have mistaken cunning in one character for folly in another. But there is one thing at which I am more concerned than all the false criticisms that are made upon me, and that is, some of the ladies are offended. I am heartily sorry for it, for I declare I would rather disoblige all the critics in the world than one of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have represented some women vicious and affected. How can I help it? It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of humankind; and there are but two sexes, male and female, _men_ and _women_, which have a title to humanity, and if I leave one half of them out, the work will be imperfect. I should be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliment to those ladies who are offended; but they can no more expect it in a comedy than to be tickled by a surgeon when he's letting 'em blood. They who are virtuous or discreet should not be offended, for such characters as these distinguish _them_, and make their beauties more shining and observed; and they who are of the other kind may nevertheless pass for such, by seeming not to be displeased or touched with the satire of this _comedy_. Thus have they also wrongfully accused me of doing them a prejudice, when I have in reality done them a service. You will pardon me, sir, for the freedom I take of making answers to other people in an epistle which ought wholly to be sacred to you; but since I intend the play to be so too, I hope I may take the more liberty of justifying it where it is in the right. I must now, sir, declare to the world how kind you have been to my endeavours; for in regard of what was well meant, you have excused what was ill performed. I beg you would continue the same method in your acceptance of this dedication. I know no other way of making a return to that humanity you shewed, in protecting an infant, but by enrolling it in your service, now that it is of age and come into the world. Therefore be pleased to accept of this as an acknowledgment of the favour you have shewn me, and an earnest of the real service and gratitude of, Sir, your most obliged, humble servant, WILLIAM CONGREVE. TO MY DEAR FRIEND MR. CONGREVE, ON HIS COMEDY CALLED THE DOUBLE-DEALER. Well then, the promised hour is come at last; The present age of wit obscures the past. Strong were our sires; and as they fought they writ, Conqu'ring with force of arms and dint of wit. Theirs was the giant race, before the flood; And thus, when Charles returned, our empire stood. Like Janus he the stubborn soil manured, With rules of husbandry the rankness cured, Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude, And boist'rous English wit with art indued. Our age was cultivated thus at length; But what we gained in skill we lost in strength. Our builders were with want of genius curst; The second temple was not like the first: Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length, Our beauties equal, but excel our strength. Firm Doric pillars found your solid base, The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space; Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace. In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise: He moved the mind, but had no power to raise. Great Johnson did by strength of judgment please Yet doubling Fletcher's force, he wants ease. In diff'ring talents both adorned their age; One for the study, t'other for the stage. But both to Congreve justly shall submit, One matched in judgment, both o'er-matched in wit. In him all beauties of this age we see, Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity, The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherly. All this in blooming youth you have achieved, Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved; So much the sweetness of your manners move, We cannot envy you, because we love. Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw A beardless consul made against the law, And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome; Though he with Hannibal was overcome. Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame, And scholar to the youth he taught became. O that your brows my laurel had sustained, Well had I been deposed if you had reigned! The father had descended for the son, For only you are lineal to the throne. Thus when the state one Edward did depose, A greater Edward in his room arose. But now, not I, but poetry is cursed; For Tom the Second reigns like Tom the First. But let 'em not mistake my patron's part, Nor call his charity their own desert. Yet this I prophesy: Thou shalt be seen (Though with some short parenthesis between) High on the throne of wit; and seated there, Not mine (that's little) but thy laurel wear. Thy first attempt an early promise made; That early promise this has more than paid. So bold, yet so judiciously you dare, That your least praise is to be regular. Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, But genius must be born, and never can be taught. This is your portion, this your native store, Heav'n, that but once was prodigal before, To Shakespeare gave as much; she could not give him more. Maintain your post: that's all the fame you need; For 'tis impossible you should proceed. Already I am worn with cares and age, And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: Unprofitably kept at heav'n's expense, I live a rent-charge on his providence. But you, whom every muse and grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains; and oh, defend, Against your judgment, your departed friend! Let not th' insulting foe my fame pursue; But shade those laurels which descend to you: And take for tribute what these lines express: You merit more; nor could my love do less. JOHN DRYDEN. PROLOGUE Spoken by MRS. BRACEGIRDLE. Moors have this way (as story tells) to know Whether their brats are truly got or no; Into the sea the new-born babe is thrown, There, as instinct directs, to swim or drown. A barbarous device, to try if spouse Has kept religiously her nuptial vows. Such are the trials poets make of plays, Only they trust to more inconstant seas; So does our author, this his child commit To the tempestuous mercy of the pit, To know if it be truly born of wit. Critics avaunt, for you are fish of prey, And feed, like sharks, upon an infant play. Be ev'ry monster of the deep away; Let's have a fair trial and a clear sea. Let nature work, and do not damn too soon, For life will struggle long e'er it sink down: And will at least rise thrice before it drown. Let us consider, had it been our fate, Thus hardly to be proved legitimate: I will not say, we'd all in danger been, Were each to suffer for his mother's sin: But by my troth I cannot avoid thinking, How nearly some good men might have 'scaped sinking. But, heav'n be praised, this custom is confined Alone to th' offspring of the muses kind: Our Christian cuckolds are more bent to pity; I know not one Moor-husband in the city. I' th' good man's arms the chopping bastard thrives, For he thinks all his own that is his wives'. Whatever fate is for this play designed, The poet's sure he shall some comfort find: For if his muse has played him false, the worst That can befall him, is, to be divorced: You husbands judge, if that be to be cursed. DRAMATIS PERSONAE. MEN. MASKWELL, a villain; pretended friend to Mellefont, gallant to Lady Touchwood, and in love with Cynthia,--_Mr. Betterton_. LORD TOUCHWOOD, uncle to Mellefont,--_Mr. Kynaston_. MELLEFONT, promised to, and in love with Cynthia,--_Mr. Williams_. CARELESS, his friend,--_Mr. Verbruggen_. LORD FROTH, a solemn coxcomb,--_Mr. Bowman_. BRISK, a pert coxcomb,--_Mr. Powell_. SIR PAUL PLYANT, an uxorious, foolish old knight; brother to Lady Touchwood, and father to Cynthia,--_Mr. Dogget_. WOMEN. LADY TOUCHWOOD, in love with Mellefont,--_Mrs. Barry_. CYNTHIA, daughter to Sir Paul by a former wife, promised to Mellefont,--_Mrs. Bracegirdle_. LADY FROTH, a great coquette; pretender to poetry, wit, and learning,--_Mrs. Mountfort_. LADY PLYANT, insolent to her husband, and easy to any pretender,--_Mrs. Leigh_. CHAPLAIN, BOY, FOOTMEN, AND ATTENDANTS. THE SCENE: A gallery in the Lord Touchwood's house, with chambers adjoining. ACT I. SCENE I. _A gallery in the Lord Touchwood's home_, _with chambers adjoining_. _Enter_ CARELESS, _crossing the stage_, _with his hat_, _gloves_, _and sword in his hands_; _as just risen from table_: MELLEFONT _following him_. MEL. Ned, Ned, whither so fast? What, turned flincher! Why, you wo' not leave us? CARE. Where are the women? I'm weary of guzzling, and begin to think them the better company. MEL. Then thy reason staggers, and thou'rt almost drunk. CARE. No, faith, but your fools grow noisy; and if a man must endure the noise of words without sense, I think the women have more musical voices, and become nonsense better. MEL. Why, they are at the end of the gallery; retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom, after dinner. But I made a pretence to follow you, because I had something to say to you in private, and I am not like to have many opportunities this evening. CARE. And here's this coxcomb most critically come to interrupt you. SCENE II. [_To them_] BRISK. BRISK. Boys, boys, lads, where are you? What, do you give ground? Mortgage for a bottle, ha? Careless, this is your trick; you're always spoiling company by leaving it. CARE. And thou art always spoiling company by coming in o't. BRISK. Pooh, ha, ha, ha, I know you envy me. Spite, proud spite, by the gods! and burning envy. I'll be judged by Mellefont here, who gives and takes raillery better than you or I. Pshaw, man, when I say you spoil company by leaving it, I mean you leave nobody for the company to laugh at. I think there I was with you. Ha, Mellefont? MEL. O' my word, Brisk, that was a home thrust; you have silenced him. BRISK. Oh, my dear Mellefont, let me perish if thou art not the soul of conversation, the very essence of wit and spirit of wine. The deuce take me if there were three good things said, or one understood, since thy amputation from the body of our society. He, I think that's pretty and metaphorical enough; i'gad I could not have said it out of thy company. Careless, ha? CARE. Hum, ay, what is't? BRISK. _O mon coeur_! What is't! Nay, gad, I'll punish you for want of apprehension. The deuce take me if I tell you. MEL. No, no, hang him, he has no taste. But, dear Brisk, excuse me, I have a little business. CARE. Prithee get thee gone; thou seest we are serious. MEL. We'll come immediately, if you'll but go in and keep up good humour and sense in the company. Prithee do, they'll fall asleep else. BRISK. I'gad, so they will. Well, I will, I will; gad, you shall command me from the Zenith to the Nadir. But the deuce take me if I say a good thing till you come. But prithee, dear rogue, make haste, prithee make haste, I shall burst else. And yonder your uncle, my Lord Touchwood, swears he'll disinherit you, and Sir Paul Plyant threatens to disclaim you for a son-in-law, and my Lord Froth won't dance at your wedding to-morrow; nor, the deuce take me, I won't write your Epithalamium--and see what a condition you're like to be brought to. MEL. Well, I'll speak but three words, and follow you. BRISK. Enough, enough. Careless, bring your apprehension along with you. SCENE III. MELLEFONT, CARELESS. CARE. Pert coxcomb. MEL. Faith, 'tis a good-natured coxcomb, and has very entertaining follies. You must be more humane to him; at this juncture it will do me service. I'll tell you, I would have mirth continued this day at any rate; though patience purchase folly, and attention be paid with noise, there are times when sense may be unseasonable as well as truth. Prithee do thou wear none to-day, but allow Brisk to have wit, that thou may'st seem a fool. CARE. Why, how now, why this extravagant proposition? MEL. Oh, I would have no room for serious design, for I am jealous of a plot. I would have noise and impertinence keep my Lady Touchwood's head from working: for hell is not more busy than her brain, nor contains more devils than that imaginations. CARE. I thought your fear of her had been over. Is not to-morrow appointed for your marriage with Cynthia, and her father, Sir Paul Plyant, come to settle the writings this day on purpose? MEL. True; but you shall judge whether I have not reason to be alarmed. None besides you and Maskwell are acquainted with the secret of my Aunt Touchwood's violent passion for me. Since my first refusal of her addresses she has endeavoured to do me all ill offices with my uncle, yet has managed 'em with that subtilty, that to him they have borne the face of kindness; while her malice, like a dark lanthorn, only shone upon me where it was directed. Still, it gave me less perplexity to prevent the success of her displeasure than to avoid the importunities of her love, and of two evils I thought myself favoured in her aversion. But whether urged by her despair and the short prospect of time she saw to accomplish her designs; whether the hopes of revenge, or of her love, terminated in the view of this my marriage with Cynthia, I know not, but this morning she surprised me in my bed. CARE. Was there ever such a fury! 'Tis well nature has not put it into her sex's power to ravish. Well, bless us, proceed. What followed? MEL. What at first amazed me--for I looked to have seen her in all the transports of a slighted and revengeful woman--but when I expected thunder from her voice, and lightning in her eyes, I saw her melted into tears and hushed into a sigh. It was long before either of us spoke: passion had tied her tongue, and amazement mine. In short, the consequence was thus, she omitted nothing that the most violent love could urge, or tender words express; which when she saw had no effect, but still I pleaded honour and nearness of blood to my uncle, then came the storm I feared at first, for, starting from my bed-side like a fury, she flew to my sword, and with much ado I prevented her doing me or herself a mischief. Having disarmed her, in a gust of passion she left me, and in a resolution, confirmed by a thousand curses, not to close her eyes till they had seen my ruin. CARE. Exquisite woman! But what the devil, does she think thou hast no more sense than to get an heir upon her body to disinherit thyself? for as I take it this settlement upon you is, with a proviso, that your uncle have no children. MEL. It is so. Well, the service you are to do me will be a pleasure to yourself: I must get you to engage my Lady Plyant all this evening, that my pious aunt may not work her to her interest. And if you chance to secure her to yourself, you may incline her to mine. She's handsome, and knows it; is very silly, and thinks she has sense, and has an old fond husband. CARE. I confess, a very fair foundation for a lover to build upon. MEL. For my Lord Froth, he and his wife will be sufficiently taken up with admiring one another and Brisk's gallantry, as they call it. I'll observe my uncle myself, and Jack Maskwell has promised me to watch my aunt narrowly, and give me notice upon any suspicion. As for Sir Paul, my wise father-in-law that is to be, my dear Cynthia has such a share in his fatherly fondness, he would scarce make her a moment uneasy to have her happy hereafter. CARE. So you have manned your works; but I wish you may not have the weakest guard where the enemy is strongest. MEL. Maskwell, you mean; prithee why should you suspect him? CARE. Faith I cannot help it; you know I never liked him: I am a little superstitious in physiognomy. MEL. He has obligations of gratitude to bind him to me: his dependence upon my uncle is through my means. CARE. Upon your aunt, you mean. MEL. My aunt! CARE. I'm mistaken if there be not a familiarity between them you do not suspect, notwithstanding her passion for you. MEL. Pooh, pooh! nothing in the world but his design to do me service; and he endeavours to be well in her esteem, that he may be able to effect it. CARE. Well, I shall be glad to be mistaken; but your aunt's aversion in her revenge cannot be any way so effectually shown as in bringing forth a child to disinherit you. She is handsome and cunning and naturally wanton. Maskwell is flesh and blood at best, and opportunities between them are frequent. His affection to you, you have confessed, is grounded upon his interest, that you have transplanted; and should it take root in my lady, I don't see what you can expect from the fruit. MEL. I confess the consequence is visible, were your suspicions just. But see, the company is broke up, let's meet 'em. SCENE IV. [_To them_] LORD TOUCHWOOD, LORD FROTH, SIR PAUL PLYANT, _and_ BRISK. LORD TOUCH. Out upon't, nephew. Leave your father-in-law and me to maintain our ground against young people! MEL. I beg your lordship's pardon. We were just returning. SIR PAUL. Were you, son? Gadsbud, much better as it is. Good, strange! I swear I'm almost tipsy; t'other bottle would have been too powerful for me,--as sure as can be it would. We wanted your company, but Mr. Brisk--where is he? I swear and vow he's a most facetious person, and the best company. And, my Lord Froth, your lordship is so merry a man, he, he, he. LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, Sir Paul, what do you mean? Merry! Oh, barbarous! I'd as lieve you called me fool. SIR PAUL. Nay, I protest and vow now, 'tis true; when Mr. Brisk jokes, your lordship's laugh does so become you, he, he, he. LORD FROTH. Ridiculous! Sir Paul, you're strangely mistaken, I find champagne is powerful. I assure you, Sir Paul, I laugh at nobody's jest but my own, or a lady's, I assure you, Sir Paul. BRISK. How? how, my lord? what, affront my wit! Let me perish, do I never say anything worthy to be laughed at? LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, don't misapprehend me; I don't say so, for I often smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh; 'tis such a vulgar expression of the passion; everybody can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jest of an inferior person, or when anybody else of the same quality does not laugh with one--ridiculous! To be pleased with what pleases the crowd! Now when I laugh, I always laugh alone. BRISK. I suppose that's because you laugh at your own jests, i'gad, ha, ha, ha. LORD FROTH. He, he, I swear though, your raillery provokes me to a smile. BRISK. Ay, my lord, it's a sign I hit you in the teeth, if you show 'em. LORD FROTH. He, he, he, I swear that's so very pretty, I can't forbear. CARE. I find a quibble bears more sway in your lordship's face than a jest. LORD TOUCH. Sir Paul, if you please we'll retire to the ladies, and drink a dish of tea to settle our heads. SIR PAUL. With all my heart. Mr. Brisk, you'll come to us, or call me when you joke; I'll be ready to laugh incontinently. SCENE V. MELLEFONT, CARELESS, LORD FROTH, BRISK. MEL. But does your lordship never see comedies? LORD FROTH. Oh yes, sometimes; but I never laugh. MEL. No? LORD FROTH. Oh no; never laugh indeed, sir. CARE. No! why, what d'ye go there for? LORD FROTH. To distinguish myself from the commonalty and mortify the poets; the fellows grow so conceited, when any of their foolish wit prevails upon the side-boxes. I swear,--he, he, he, I have often constrained my inclinations to laugh,--he, he, he, to avoid giving them encouragement. MEL. You are cruel to yourself, my lord, as well as malicious to them. LORD FROTH. I confess I did myself some violence at first, but now I think I have conquered it. BRISK. Let me perish, my lord, but there is something very particular in the humour; 'tis true it makes against wit, and I'm sorry for some friends of mine that write; but, i'gad, I love to be malicious. Nay, deuce take me, there's wit in't, too. And wit must be foiled by wit; cut a diamond with a diamond, no other way, i'gad. LORD FROTH. Oh, I thought you would not be long before you found out the wit. CARE. Wit! In what? Where the devil's the wit in not laughing when a man has a mind to't? BRISK. O Lord, why can't you find it out? Why, there 'tis, in the not laughing. Don't you apprehend me? My lord, Careless is a very honest fellow, but harkee, you understand me, somewhat heavy, a little shallow, or so. Why, I'll tell you now, suppose now you come up to me--nay, prithee, Careless, be instructed. Suppose, as I was saying, you come up to me holding your sides, and laughing as if you would--well--I look grave, and ask the cause of this immoderate mirth. You laugh on still, and are not able to tell me, still I look grave, not so much as smile. CARE. Smile, no, what the devil should you smile at, when you suppose I can't tell you! BRISK. Pshaw, pshaw, prithee don't interrupt me. But I tell you, you shall tell me at last, but it shall be a great while first. CARE. Well, but prithee don't let it be a great while, because I long to have it over. BRISK. Well then, you tell me some good jest or some very witty thing, laughing all the while as if you were ready to die, and I hear it, and look thus. Would not you be disappointed? CARE. No; for if it were a witty thing I should not expect you to understand it. LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, Mr. Careless, all the world allows Mr. Brisk to have wit; my wife says he has a great deal. I hope you think her a judge. BRISK. Pooh, my lord, his voice goes for nothing; I can't tell how to make him apprehend. Take it t'other way. Suppose I say a witty thing to you? CARE. Then I shall be disappointed indeed. MEL. Let him alone, Brisk, he is obstinately bent not to be instructed. BRISK. I'm sorry for him, the deuce take me. MEL. Shall we go to the ladies, my lord? LORD FROTH. With all my heart; methinks we are a solitude without 'em. MEL. Or what say you to another bottle of champagne? LORD FROTH. Oh, for the universe not a drop more, I beseech you. Oh, intemperate! I have a flushing in my face already. [_Takes out a pocket- glass and looks in it_.] BRISK. Let me see, let me see, my lord, I broke my glass that was in the lid of my snuff-box. Hum! Deuce take me, I have encouraged a pimple here too. [_Takes the glass and looks_.] LORD FROTH. Then you must mortify him with a patch; my wife shall supply you. Come, gentlemen, _allons_, here is company coming. SCENE VI. LADY TOUCHWOOD _and_ MASKWELL. LADY TOUCH. I'll hear no more. You are false and ungrateful; come, I know you false. MASK. I have been frail, I confess, madam, for your ladyship's service. LADY TOUCH. That I should trust a man whom I had known betray his friend! MASK. What friend have I betrayed? or to whom? LADY TOUCH. Your fond friend Mellefont, and to me; can you deny it? MASK. I do not. LADY TOUCH. Have you not wronged my lord, who has been a father to you in your wants, and given you being? Have you not wronged him in the highest manner, in his bed? MASK. With your ladyship's help, and for your service, as I told you before. I can't deny that neither. Anything more, madam? LADY TOUCH. More! Audacious villain! Oh, what's more, is most my shame. Have you not dishonoured me? MASK. No, that I deny; for I never told in all my life: so that accusation's answered; on to the next. LADY TOUCH. Death, do you dally with my passion? Insolent devil! But have a care,--provoke me not; for, by the eternal fire, you shall not 'scape my vengeance. Calm villain! How unconcerned he stands, confessing treachery and ingratitude! Is there a vice more black? Oh, I have excuses thousands for my faults; fire in my temper, passions in my soul, apt to ev'ry provocation, oppressed at once with love, and with despair. But a sedate, a thinking villain, whose black blood runs temperately bad, what excuse can clear? MASK. Will you be in temper, madam? I would not talk not to be heard. I have been [_she walks about disordered_] a very great rogue for your sake, and you reproach me with it; I am ready to be a rogue still, to do you service; and you are flinging conscience and honour in my face, to rebate my inclinations. How am I to behave myself? You know I am your creature, my life and fortune in your power; to disoblige you brings me certain ruin. Allow it I would betray you, I would not be a traitor to myself: I don't pretend to honesty, because you know I am a rascal; but I would convince you from the necessity of my being firm to you. LADY TOUCH. Necessity, impudence! Can no gratitude incline you, no obligations touch you? Have not my fortune and my person been subjected to your pleasure? Were you not in the nature of a servant, and have not I in effect made you lord of all, of me, and of my lord? Where is that humble love, the languishing, that adoration, which once was paid me, and everlastingly engaged? MASK. Fixt, rooted in my heart, whence nothing can remove 'em, yet you-- LADY TOUCH. Yet, what yet? MASK. Nay, misconceive me not, madam, when I say I have had a gen'rous and a faithful passion, which you had never favoured, but through revenge and policy. LADY TOUCH. Ha! MASK. Look you, madam, we are alone,--pray contain yourself and hear me. You know you loved your nephew when I first sighed for you; I quickly found it: an argument that I loved, for with that art you veiled your passion 'twas imperceptible to all but jealous eyes. This discovery made me bold; I confess it; for by it I thought you in my power. Your nephew's scorn of you added to my hopes; I watched the occasion, and took you, just repulsed by him, warm at once with love and indignation; your disposition, my arguments, and happy opportunity accomplished my design; I pressed the yielding minute, and was blest. How I have loved you since, words have not shown, then how should words express? LADY TOUCH. Well, mollifying devil! And have I not met your love with forward fire? MASK. Your zeal, I grant, was ardent, but misplaced; there was revenge in view; that woman's idol had defiled the temple of the god, and love was made a mock-worship. A son and heir would have edged young Mellefont upon the brink of ruin, and left him none but you to catch at for prevention. LADY TOUCH. Again provoke me! Do you wind me like a larum, only to rouse my own stilled soul for your diversion? Confusion! MASK. Nay, madam, I'm gone, if you relapse. What needs this? I say nothing but what you yourself, in open hours of love, have told me. Why should you deny it? Nay, how can you? Is not all this present heat owing to the same fire? Do you not love him still? How have I this day offended you, but in not breaking off his match with Cynthia? which, ere to-morrow, shall be done, had you but patience. LADY TOUCH. How, what said you, Maskwell? Another caprice to unwind my temper? MASK. By heav'n, no; I am your slave, the slave of all your pleasures; and will not rest till I have given you peace, would you suffer me. LADY TOUCH. O Maskwell! in vain I do disguise me from thee, thou know'st me, knowest the very inmost windings and recesses of my soul. O Mellefont! I burn; married to morrow! Despair strikes me. Yet my soul knows I hate him too: let him but once be mine, and next immediate ruin seize him. MASK. Compose yourself, you shall possess and ruin him too,--will that please you? LADY TOUCH. How, how? Thou dear, thou precious villain, how? MASK. You have already been tampering with my Lady Plyant. LADY TOUCH. I have: she is ready for any impression I think fit. MASK. She must be throughly persuaded that Mellefont loves her. LADY TOUCH. She is so credulous that way naturally, and likes him so well, that she will believe it faster than I can persuade her. But I don't see what you can propose from such a trifling design, for her first conversing with Mellefont will convince her of the contrary. MASK. I know it. I don't depend upon it. But it will prepare something else, and gain us leisure to lay a stronger plot. If I gain a little time, I shall not want contrivance. One minute gives invention to destroy, What to rebuild will a whole age employ. ACT II. SCENE I. LADY FROTH _and_ CYNTHIA. CYNT. Indeed, madam! Is it possible your ladyship could have been so much in love? LADY FROTH. I could not sleep; I did not sleep one wink for three weeks together. CYNT. Prodigious! I wonder want of sleep, and so much love and so much wit as your ladyship has, did not turn your brain. LADY FROTH. Oh, my dear Cynthia, you must not rally your friend. But really, as you say, I wonder too. But then I had a way. For, between you and I, I had whimsies and vapours, but I gave them vent. CYNT. How, pray, madam? LADY FROTH. Oh, I writ, writ abundantly. Do you never write? CYNT. Write what? LADY FROTH. Songs, elegies, satires, encomiums, panegyrics, lampoons, plays, or heroic poems? CYNT. O Lord, not I, madam; I'm content to be a courteous reader. LADY FROTH. Oh, inconsistent! In love and not write! If my lord and I had been both of your temper, we had never come together. Oh, bless me! What a sad thing would that have been, if my lord and I should never have met! CYNT. Then neither my lord nor you would ever have met with your match, on my conscience. LADY FROTH. O' my conscience, no more we should; thou say'st right. For sure my Lord Froth is as fine a gentleman and as much a man of quality! Ah! nothing at all of the common air. I think I may say he wants nothing but a blue ribbon and a star to make him shine, the very phosphorus of our hemisphere. Do you understand those two hard words? If you don't, I'll explain 'em to you. CYNT. Yes, yes, madam, I'm not so ignorant.--At least I won't own it, to be troubled with your instructions. [_Aside_.] LADY FROTH. Nay, I beg your pardon; but being derived from the Greek, I thought you might have escaped the etymology. But I'm the more amazed to find you a woman of letters and not write! Bless me! how can Mellefont believe you love him? CYNT. Why, faith, madam, he that won't take my word shall never have it under my hand. LADY FROTH. I vow Mellefont's a pretty gentleman, but methinks he wants a manner. CYNT. A manner! What's that, madam? LADY FROTH. Some distinguishing quality, as, for example, the _bel air_ or _brillant_ of Mr. Brisk; the solemnity, yet complaisance of my lord, or something of his own that should look a little _Je-ne-sais-quoish_; he is too much a mediocrity, in my mind. CYNT. He does not indeed affect either pertness or formality; for which I like him. Here he comes. LADY FROTH. And my lord with him. Pray observe the difference. SCENE II. [_To them_] LORD FROTH, MELLEFONT, _and_ BRISK. CYNT. Impertinent creature! I could almost be angry with her now. [_Aside_.] LADY FROTH. My lord, I have been telling Cynthia how much I have been in love with you; I swear I have; I'm not ashamed to own it now. Ah! it makes my heart leap, I vow I sigh when I think on't. My dear lord! Ha, ha, ha, do you remember, my lord? [_Squeezes him by the hand_, _looks kindly on him_, _sighs_, _and then laughs out_.] LORD FROTH. Pleasant creature! perfectly well, ah! that look, ay, there it is; who could resist? 'twas so my heart was made a captive first, and ever since t'has been in love with happy slavery. LADY FROTH. Oh, that tongue, that dear deceitful tongue! that charming softness in your mien and your expression, and then your bow! Good my lord, bow as you did when I gave you my picture; here, suppose this my picture. [_Gives him a pocket-glass_.] Pray mind, my lord; ah! he bows charmingly; nay, my lord, you shan't kiss it so much; I shall grow jealous, I vow now. [_He bows profoundly low_, _then kisses the glass_.] LORD FROTH. I saw myself there, and kissed it for your sake. LADY FROTH. Ah! Gallantry to the last degree. Mr. Brisk, you're a judge; was ever anything so well bred as my lord? BRISK. Never anything, but your ladyship; let me perish. LADY FROTH. Oh, prettily turned again; let me die, but you have a great deal of wit. Mr. Mellefont, don't you think Mr. Brisk has a world of wit? MEL. O yes, madam. BRISK. O dear, madam-- LADY FROTH. An infinite deal! BRISK. O heav'ns, madam-- LADY FROTH. More wit than anybody. BRISK. I'm everlastingly your humble servant, deuce take me, madam. LORD FROTH. Don't you think us a happy couple? CYNT. I vow, my lord, I think you the happiest couple in the world, for you're not only happy in one another, and when you are together, but happy in yourselves, and by yourselves. LORD FROTH. I hope Mellefont will make a good husband too. CYNT. 'Tis my interest to believe he will, my Lord. LORD FROTH. D'ye think he'll love you as well as I do my wife? I'm afraid not. CYNT. I believe he'll love me better. LORD FROTH. Heav'ns! that can never be. But why do you think so? CYNT. Because he has not so much reason to be fond of himself. LORD FROTH. Oh, your humble servant for that, dear madam. Well, Mellefont, you'll be a happy creature. MEL. Ay, my lord, I shall have the same reason for my happiness that your lordship has, I shall think myself happy. LORD FROTH. Ah, that's all. BRISK. [_To_ LADY FROTH.] Your ladyship is in the right; but, i'gad, I'm wholly turned into satire. I confess I write but seldom, but when I do--keen iambics, i'gad. But my lord was telling me your ladyship has made an essay toward an heroic poem. LADY FROTH. Did my lord tell you? Yes, I vow, and the subject is my lord's love to me. And what do you think I call it? I dare swear you won't guess--_The Sillabub_, ha, ha, ha. BRISK. Because my lord's title's Froth, i'gad, ha, ha, ha, deuce take me, very a propos and surprising, ha, ha, ha. LADY FROTH. He, ay, is not it? And then I call my lord Spumoso; and myself, what d'ye think I call myself? BRISK. Lactilla, may be,--i'gad, I cannot tell. LADY FROTH. Biddy, that's all; just my own name. BRISK. Biddy! I'gad, very pretty. Deuce take me if your ladyship has not the art of surprising the most naturally in the world. I hope you'll make me happy in communicating the poem. LADY FROTH. Oh, you must be my confidant, I must ask your advice. BRISK. I'm your humble servant, let me perish. I presume your ladyship has read Bossu? LADY FROTH. Oh yes, and Racine, and Dacier upon Aristotle and Horace. My lord, you must not be jealous, I'm communicating all to Mr. Brisk. LORD FROTH. No, no, I'll allow Mr. Brisk; have you nothing about you to shew him, my dear? LADY FROTH. Yes, I believe I have. Mr. Brisk, come, will you go into the next room? and there I'll shew you what I have. LORD FROTH. I'll walk a turn in the garden, and come to you. SCENE III. MELLEFONT, CYNTHIA. MEL. You're thoughtful, Cynthia? CYNT. I'm thinking, though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools; and they become more conspicuous by setting off one another. MEL. That's only when two fools meet, and their follies are opposed. CYNT. Nay, I have known two wits meet, and by the opposition of their wit render themselves as ridiculous as fools. 'Tis an odd game we're going to play at. What think you of drawing stakes, and giving over in time? MEL. No, hang't, that's not endeavouring to win, because it's possible we may lose; since we have shuffled and cut, let's even turn up trump now. CYNT. Then I find it's like cards, if either of us have a good hand it is an accident of fortune. MEL. No, marriage is rather like a game at bowls: fortune indeed makes the match, and the two nearest, and sometimes the two farthest, are together, but the game depends entirely upon judgment. CYNT. Still it is a game, and consequently one of us must be a loser. MEL. Not at all; only a friendly trial of skill, and the winnings to be laid out in an entertainment. What's here, the music? Oh, my lord has promised the company a new song; we'll get 'em to give it us by the way. [_Musicians crossing the stage_.] Pray let us have the favour of you, to practise the song before the company hear it. SONG. I. Cynthia frowns whene'er I woo her, Yet she's vext if I give over; Much she fears I should undo her, But much more to lose her lover: Thus, in doubting, she refuses; And not winning, thus she loses. II. Prithee, Cynthia, look behind you, Age and wrinkles will o'ertake you; Then too late desire will find you, When the power must forsake you: Think, O think o' th' sad condition, To be past, yet wish fruition. MEL. You shall have my thanks below. [_To the musicians_, _they go out_.] SCENE IV. [_To them_] SIR PAUL PLYANT _and_ LADY PLYANT. SIR PAUL. Gadsbud! I am provoked into a fermentation, as my Lady Froth says; was ever the like read of in story? LADY PLYANT. Sir Paul, have patience, let me alone to rattle him up. SIR PAUL. Pray, your ladyship, give me leave to be angry. I'll rattle him up, I warrant you, I'll firk him with a _certiorari_. LADY PLYANT. You firk him, I'll firk him myself; pray, Sir Paul, hold you contented. CYNT. Bless me, what makes my father in such a passion? I never saw him thus before. SIR PAUL. Hold yourself contented, my Lady Plyant. I find passion coming upon me by inflation, and I cannot submit as formerly, therefore give way. LADY PLYANT. How now! will you be pleased to retire and-- SIR PAUL. No, marry will I not be pleased: I am pleased to be angry, that's my pleasure at this time. MEL. What can this mean? LADY PLYANT. Gads my life, the man's distracted; why, how now, who are you? What am I? Slidikins, can't I govern you? What did I marry you for? Am I not to be absolute and uncontrollable? Is it fit a woman of my spirit and conduct should be contradicted in a matter of this concern? SIR PAUL. It concerns me and only me. Besides, I'm not to be governed at all times. When I am in tranquillity, my Lady Plyant shall command Sir Paul; but when I am provoked to fury, I cannot incorporate with patience and reason: as soon may tigers match with tigers, lambs with lambs, and every creature couple with its foe, as the poet says. LADY PLYANT. He's hot-headed still! 'Tis in vain to talk to you; but remember I have a curtain-lecture for you, you disobedient, headstrong brute. SIR PAUL. No, 'tis because I won't be headstrong, because I won't be a brute, and have my head fortified, that I am thus exasperated. But I will protect my honour, and yonder is the violator of my fame. LADY PLYANT. 'Tis my honour that is concerned, and the violation was intended to me. Your honour! You have none but what is in my keeping, and I can dispose of it when I please: therefore don't provoke me. SIR PAUL. Hum, gadsbud, she says true. Well, my lady, march on; I will fight under you, then: I am convinced, as far as passion will permit. [LADY PLYANT _and_ SIR PAUL _come up to_ MELLEFONT.] LADY PLYANT. Inhuman and treacherous-- SIR PAUL. Thou serpent and first tempter of womankind. CYNT. Bless me! Sir, madam, what mean you? SIR PAUL. Thy, Thy, come away, Thy; touch him not. Come hither, girl; go not near him, there's nothing but deceit about him. Snakes are in his peruke, and the crocodile of Nilus is in his belly; he will eat thee up alive. LADY PLYANT. Dishonourable, impudent creature! MEL. For heav'n's sake, madam, to whom do you direct this language? LADY PLYANT. Have I behaved myself with all the decorum and nicety befitting the person of Sir Paul's wife? Have I preserved my honour as it were in a snow-house for these three years past? Have I been white and unsullied even by Sir Paul himself? SIR PAUL. Nay, she has been an invincible wife, even to me; that's the truth on't. LADY PLYANT. Have I, I say, preserved myself like a fair sheet of paper for you to make a blot upon? SIR PAUL. And she shall make a simile with any woman in England. MEL. I am so amazed, I know not what to say. SIR PAUL. Do you think my daughter, this pretty creature--gadsbud, she's a wife for a cherubim!--do you think her fit for nothing but to be a stalking horse, to stand before you, while you take aim at my wife? Gadsbud, I was never angry before in my life, and I'll never be appeased again. MEL. Hell and damnation! This is my aunt; such malice can be engendered nowhere else. [_Aside_.] LADY PLYANT. Sir Paul, take Cynthia from his sight; leave me to strike him with the remorse of his intended crime. CYNT. Pray, sir, stay, hear him; I dare affirm he's innocent. SIR PAUL. Innocent! Why, hark'ee--come hither, Thy--hark'ee, I had it from his aunt, my sister Touchwood. Gadsbud, he does not care a farthing for anything of thee but thy portion. Why, he's in love with my wife. He would have tantalised thee, and made a cuckold of thy poor father, and that would certainly have broke my heart. I'm sure, if ever I should have horns, they would kill me; they would never come kindly--I should die of 'em like a child that was cutting his teeth--I should indeed, Thy--therefore come away; but providence has prevented all, therefore come away when I bid you. CYNT. I must obey. SCENE V. LADY PLYANT, MELLEFONT. LADY PLYANT. Oh, such a thing! the impiety of it startles me--to wrong so good, so fair a creature, and one that loves you tenderly--'tis a barbarity of barbarities, and nothing could be guilty of it-- MEL. But the greatest villain imagination can form, I grant it; and next to the villainy of such a fact is the villainy of aspersing me with the guilt. How? which way was I to wrong her? For yet I understand you not. LADY PLYANT. Why, gads my life, cousin Mellefont, you cannot be so peremptory as to deny it, when I tax you with it to your face? for now Sir Paul's gone, you are _corum nobus_. MEL. By heav'n, I love her more than life or-- LADY PLYANT. Fiddle faddle, don't tell me of this and that, and everything in the world, but give me mathemacular demonstration; answer me directly. But I have not patience. Oh, the impiety of it, as I was saying, and the unparalleled wickedness! O merciful Father! How could you think to reverse nature so, to make the daughter the means of procuring the mother? MEL. The daughter to procure the mother! LADY PLYANT. Ay, for though I am not Cynthia's own mother, I am her father's wife, and that's near enough to make it incest. MEL. Incest! O my precious aunt, and the devil in conjunction. [_Aside_.] LADY PLYANT. Oh, reflect upon the horror of that, and then the guilt of deceiving everybody; marrying the daughter, only to make a cuckold of the father; and then seducing me, debauching my purity, and perverting me from the road of virtue in which I have trod thus long, and never made one trip, not one _faux pas_. Oh, consider it! What would you have to answer for if you should provoke me to frailty? Alas! humanity is feeble, heav'n knows! very feeble, and unable to support itself. MEL. Where am I? is it day? and am I awake? Madam-- LADY PLYANT. And nobody knows how circumstances may happen together. To my thinking, now I could resist the strongest temptation. But yet I know, 'tis impossible for me to know whether I could or not; there's no certainty in the things of this life. MEL. Madam, pray give me leave to ask you one question. LADY PLYANT. O Lord, ask me the question; I'll swear I'll refuse it, I swear I'll deny it--therefore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you have brought all the blood into my face; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. O fie, cousin Mellefont! MEL. Nay, madam, hear me; I mean-- LADY PLYANT. Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first and hear you afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearing. Hearing is one of the senses, and all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my honour, I assure you; my honour is infallible and uncomeatable. MEL. For heav'n's sake, madam-- LADY PLYANT. Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of heav'n, and have so much wickedness in your heart? May be you don't think it a sin--they say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin. May be it is no sin to them that don't think it so; indeed, if I did not think it a sin--But still my honour, if it were no sin. But then, to marry my daughter for the conveniency of frequent opportunities, I'll never consent to that; as sure as can be, I'll break the match. MEL. Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees-- LADY PLYANT. Nay, nay, rise up; come, you shall see my good-nature. I know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; nor, I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a captive? I swear it is pity it should be a fault. But my honour,--well, but your honour, too--but the sin!--well, but the necessity--O Lord, here's somebody coming, I dare not stay. Well, you must consider of your crime; and strive as much as can be against it,--strive, be sure. But don't be melancholic; don't despair. But never think that I'll grant you anything. O Lord, no. But be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the marriage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind for your passion to me, yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! no, no, I can't be jealous, for I must not love you; therefore don't hope,--but don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming, I must fly. SCENE VI. MELLEFONT _alone_. MEL. [_After a pause_.] So then, spite of my care and foresight, I am caught, caught in my security. Yet this was but a shallow artifice, unworthy of my Machiavellian aunt. There must be more behind: this is but the first flash, the priming of her engine. Destruction follows hard, if not most presently prevented. SCENE VII. [_To him_] MASKWELL. MEL. Maskwell, welcome, thy presence is a view of land, appearing to my shipwrecked hopes. The witch has raised the storm, and her ministers have done their work: you see the vessels are parted. MASK. I know it. I met Sir Paul towing away Cynthia. Come, trouble not your head; I'll join you together ere to-morrow morning, or drown between you in the attempt. MEL. There's comfort in a hand stretched out to one that's sinking; though ne'er so far off. MASK. No sinking, nor no danger. Come, cheer up; why, you don't know that while I plead for you, your aunt has given me a retaining fee. Nay, I am your greatest enemy, and she does but journey-work under me. MEL. Ha! how's this? MASK. What d'ye think of my being employed in the execution of all her plots? Ha, ha, ha, by heav'n, it's true: I have undertaken to break the match; I have undertaken to make your uncle disinherit you; to get you turned out of doors; and to--ha, ha, ha, I can't tell you for laughing. Oh, she has opened her heart to me! I am to turn you a-grazing, and to--ha, ha, ha, marry Cynthia myself. There's a plot for you. MEL. Ha! Oh, see, I see my rising sun! Light breaks through clouds upon me, and I shall live in day--Oh, my Maskwell! how shall I thank or praise thee? Thou hast outwitted woman. But, tell me, how couldst thou thus get into her confidence? Ha! How? But was it her contrivance to persuade my Lady Plyant to this extravagant belief? MASK. It was; and to tell you the truth, I encouraged it for your diversion. Though it made you a little uneasy for the present, yet the reflection of it must needs be entertaining. I warrant she was very violent at first. MEL. Ha, ha, ha, ay, a very fury; but I was most afraid of her violence at last. If you had not come as you did, I don't know what she might have attempted. MASK. Ha, ha, ha, I know her temper. Well, you must know, then, that all my contrivances were but bubbles, till at last I pretended to have been long secretly in love with Cynthia; that did my business, that convinced your aunt I might be trusted; since it was as much my interest as hers to break the match. Then, she thought my jealousy might qualify me to assist her in her revenge. And, in short, in that belief, told me the secrets of her heart. At length we made this agreement, if I accomplish her designs (as I told you before) she has engaged to put Cynthia with all her fortune into my power. MEL. She is most gracious in her favour. Well, and, dear Jack, how hast thou contrived? MASK. I would not have you stay to hear it now; for I don't know but she may come this way. I am to meet her anon; after that, I'll tell you the whole matter. Be here in this gallery an hour hence; by that time I imagine our consultation may be over. MEL. I will; till then success attend thee. SCENE VIII. MASKWELL _alone_. Till then, success will attend me; for when I meet you, I meet the only obstacle to my fortune. Cynthia, let thy beauty gild my crimes; and whatsoever I commit of treachery or deceit, shall be imputed to me as a merit. Treachery? What treachery? Love cancels all the bonds of friendship, and sets men right upon their first foundations. Duty to kings, piety to parents, gratitude to benefactors, and fidelity to friends, are different and particular ties. But the name of rival cuts 'em all asunder, and is a general acquittance. Rival is equal, and love like death an universal leveller of mankind. Ha! But is there not such a thing as honesty? Yes, and whosoever has it about him, bears an enemy in his breast. For your honest man, as I take it, is that nice, scrupulous, conscientious person, who will cheat nobody but himself; such another coxcomb as your wise man, who is too hard for all the world, and will be made a fool of by nobody but himself; ha, ha, ha. Well, for wisdom and honesty give me cunning and hypocrisy; oh, 'tis such a pleasure to angle for fair-faced fools! Then that hungry gudgeon credulity will bite at anything. Why, let me see, I have the same face, the same words and accents when I speak what I do think, and when I speak what I do not think, the very same; and dear dissimulation is the only art not to be known from nature. Why will mankind be fools, and be deceived, And why are friends' and lovers' oaths believed, When each, who searches strictly his own mind, May so much fraud and power of baseness find? ACT III. SCENE I. LORD TOUCHWOOD _and_ LADY TOUCHWOOD. LADY TOUCH. My lord, can you blame my brother Plyant if he refuse his daughter upon this provocation? The contract's void by this unheard-of impiety. LORD TOUCH. I don't believe it true; he has better principles. Pho, 'tis nonsense. Come, come, I know my Lady Plyant has a large eye, and would centre everything in her own circle; 'tis not the first time she has mistaken respect for love, and made Sir Paul jealous of the civility of an undesigning person, the better to bespeak his security in her unfeigned pleasures. LADY TOUCH. You censure hardly, my lord; my sister's honour is very well known. LORD TOUCH. Yes, I believe I know some that have been familiarly acquainted with it. This is a little trick wrought by some pitiful contriver, envious of my nephew's merit. LADY TOUCH. Nay, my lord, it may be so, and I hope it will be found so. But that will require some time; for in such a case as this, demonstration is necessary. LORD TOUCH. There should have been demonstration of the contrary too, before it had been believed. LADY TOUCH. So I suppose there was. LORD TOUCH. How? Where? When? LADY TOUCH. That I can't tell; nay, I don't say there was. I am willing to believe as favourably of my nephew as I can. LORD TOUCH. I don't know that. [_Half aside_.] LADY TOUCH. How? Don't you believe that, say you, my lord? LORD TOUCH. No, I don't say so. I confess I am troubled to find you so cold in his defence. LADY TOUCH. His defence! Bless me, would you have me defend an ill thing? LORD TOUCH. You believe it, then? LADY TOUCH. I don't know; I am very unwilling to speak my thoughts in anything that may be to my cousin's disadvantage: besides, I find, my lord, you are prepared to receive an ill impression from any opinion of mine which is not consenting with your own. But, since I am like to be suspected in the end, and 'tis a pain any longer to dissemble, I own it to you; in short I do believe it, nay, and can believe anything worse, if it were laid to his charge. Don't ask me my reasons, my lord, for they are not fit to be told you. LORD TOUCH. I'm amazed: there must be something more than ordinary in this. [_Aside_.] Not fit to be told me, madam? You can have no interests wherein I am not concerned, and consequently the same reasons ought to be convincing to me, which create your satisfaction or disquiet. LADY TOUCH. But those which cause my disquiet I am willing to have remote from your hearing. Good my lord, don't press me. LORD TOUCH. Don't oblige me to press you. LADY TOUCH. Whatever it was, 'tis past. And that is better to be unknown which cannot be prevented; therefore let me beg you to rest satisfied. LORD TOUCH. When you have told me, I will. LADY TOUCH. You won't. LORD TOUCH. By my life, my dear, I will. LADY TOUCH. What if you can't? LORD TOUCH. How? Then I must know, nay, I will. No more trifling. I charge you tell me. By all our mutual peace to come; upon your duty-- LADY TOUCH. Nay, my lord, you need say no more, to make me lay my heart before you, but don't be thus transported; compose yourself. It is not of concern to make you lose one minute's temper. 'Tis not, indeed, my dear. Nay, by this kiss you shan't be angry. O Lord, I wish I had not told you anything. Indeed, my lord, you have frighted me. Nay, look pleased, I'll tell you. LORD TOUCH. Well, well. LADY TOUCH. Nay, but will you be calm? Indeed it's nothing but-- LORD TOUCH. But what? LADY TOUCH. But will you promise me not to be angry? Nay, you must--not to be angry with Mellefont? I dare swear he's sorry, and were it to do again, would not-- LORD TOUCH. Sorry for what? 'Death, you rack me with delay. LADY TOUCH. Nay, no great matter, only--well, I have your promise. Pho, why nothing, only your nephew had a mind to amuse himself sometimes with a little gallantry towards me. Nay, I can't think he meant anything seriously, but methought it looked oddly. LORD TOUCH. Confusion and hell, what do I hear? LADY TOUCH. Or, may be, he thought he was not enough akin to me, upon your account, and had a mind to create a nearer relation on his own; a lover you know, my lord. Ha, ha, ha. Well, but that's all. Now you have it; well remember your promise, my lord, and don't take any notice of it to him. LORD TOUCH. No, no, no. Damnation! LADY TOUCH. Nay, I swear you must not. A little harmless mirth; only misplaced, that's all. But if it were more, 'tis over now, and all's well. For my part I have forgot it, and so has he, I hope,--for I have not heard anything from him these two days. LORD TOUCH. These two days! Is it so fresh? Unnatural villain! Death, I'll have him stripped and turned naked out of my doors this moment, and let him rot and perish, incestuous brute! LADY TOUCH. Oh, for heav'n's sake, my lord, you'll ruin me if you take such public notice of it; it will be a town talk. Consider your own and my honour; nay, I told you you would not be satisfied when you knew it. LORD TOUCH. Before I've done I will be satisfied. Ungrateful monster! how long? LADY TOUCH. Lord, I don't know; I wish my lips had grown together when I told you. Almost a twelvemonth. Nay, I won't tell you any more till you are yourself. Pray, my lord, don't let the company see you in this disorder. Yet, I confess, I can't blame you; for I think I was never so surprised in my life. Who would have thought my nephew could have so misconstrued my kindness? But will you go into your closet, and recover your temper. I'll make an excuse of sudden business to the company, and come to you. Pray, good, dear my lord, let me beg you do now. I'll come immediately and tell you all; will you, my lord? LORD TOUCH. I will--I am mute with wonder. LADY TOUCH. Well, but go now, here's somebody coming. LORD TOUCH. Well, I go. You won't stay? for I would hear more of this. LADY TOUCH. I follow instantly. So. SCENE II. LADY TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL. MASK. This was a masterpiece, and did not need my help, though I stood ready for a cue to come in and confirm all, had there been occasion. LADY TOUCH. Have you seen Mellefont? MASK. I have; and am to meet him here about this time. LADY TOUCH. How does he bear his disappointment? MASK. Secure in my assistance, he seemed not much afflicted, but rather laughed at the shallow artifice, which so little time must of necessity discover. Yet he is apprehensive of some farther design of yours, and has engaged me to watch you. I believe he will hardly be able to prevent your plot, yet I would have you use caution and expedition. LADY TOUCH. Expedition indeed, for all we do must be performed in the remaining part of this evening, and before the company break up, lest my lord should cool and have an opportunity to talk with him privately. My lord must not see him again. MASK. By no means; therefore you must aggravate my lord's displeasure to a degree that will admit of no conference with him. What think you of mentioning me? LADY TOUCH. How? MASK. To my lord, as having been privy to Mellefont's design upon you, but still using my utmost endeavours to dissuade him, though my friendship and love to him has made me conceal it; yet you may say, I threatened the next time he attempted anything of that kind to discover it to my lord. LADY TOUCH. To what end is this? MASK. It will confirm my lord's opinion of my honour and honesty, and create in him a new confidence in me, which (should this design miscarry) will be necessary to the forming another plot that I have in my head.--To cheat you as well as the rest. [_Aside_.] LADY TOUCH. I'll do it--I'll tell him you hindered him once from forcing me. MASK. Excellent! Your ladyship has a most improving fancy. You had best go to my lord, keep him as long as you can in his closet, and I doubt not but you will mould him to what you please; your guests are so engaged in their own follies and intrigues, they'll miss neither of you. LADY TOUCH. When shall we meet?--at eight this evening in my chamber? There rejoice at our success, and toy away an hour in mirth. MASK. I will not fail. SCENE III. MASKWELL _alone_. I know what she means by toying away an hour well enough. Pox, I have lost all appetite to her; yet she's a fine woman, and I loved her once. But I don't know: since I have been in a great measure kept by her, the case is altered; what was my pleasure is become my duty, and I have as little stomach to her now as if I were her husband. Should she smoke my design upon Cynthia, I were in a fine pickle. She has a damned penetrating head, and knows how to interpret a coldness the right way; therefore I must dissemble ardour and ecstasy; that's resolved. How easily and pleasantly is that dissembled before fruition! Pox on't that a man can't drink without quenching his thirst. Ha! yonder comes Mellefont, thoughtful. Let me think. Meet her at eight--hum--ha! By heav'n I have it.--If I can speak to my lord before. Was it my brain or providence? No matter which--I will deceive 'em all, and yet secure myself. 'Twas a lucky thought! Well, this double-dealing is a jewel. Here he comes, now for me. [MASKWELL, _pretending not to see him_, _walks by him_, _and speaks as it were to himself_.] SCENE IV. [_To him_] MELLEFONT, _musing_. MASK. Mercy on us, what will the wickedness of this world come to? MEL. How now, Jack? What, so full of contemplation that you run over? MASK. I'm glad you're come, for I could not contain myself any longer, and was just going to give vent to a secret, which nobody but you ought to drink down. Your aunt's just gone from hence. MEL. And having trusted thee with the secrets of her soul, thou art villainously bent to discover 'em all to me, ha? MASK. I'm afraid my frailty leans that way. But I don't know whether I can in honour discover 'em all. MEL. All, all, man! What, you may in honour betray her as far as she betrays herself. No tragical design upon my person, I hope. MASK. No, but it's a comical design upon mine. MEL. What dost thou mean? MASK. Listen and be dumb; we have been bargaining about the rate of your ruin-- MEL. Like any two guardians to an orphan heiress. Well? MASK. And whereas pleasure is generally paid with mischief, what mischief I do is to be paid with pleasure. MEL. So when you've swallowed the potion you sweeten your mouth with a plum. MASK. You are merry, sir, but I shall probe your constitution. In short, the price of your banishment is to be paid with the person of-- MEL. Of Cynthia and her fortune. Why, you forget you told me this before. MASK. No, no. So far you are right; and I am, as an earnest of that bargain, to have full and free possession of the person of--your aunt. MEL. Ha! Pho, you trifle. MASK. By this light, I'm serious; all raillery apart. I knew 'twould stun you. This evening at eight she will receive me in her bedchamber. MEL. Hell and the devil, is she abandoned of all grace? Why, the woman is possessed. MASK. Well, will you go in my stead? MEL. By heav'n, into a hot furnace sooner. MASK. No, you would not; it would not be so convenient, as I can order matters. MEL. What d'ye mean? MASK. Mean? Not to disappoint the lady, I assure you. Ha, ha, ha, how gravely he looks. Come, come, I won't perplex you. 'Tis the only thing that providence could have contrived to make me capable of serving you, either to my inclination or your own necessity. MEL. How, how, for heav'n's sake, dear Maskwell? MASK. Why, thus. I'll go according to appointment; you shall have notice at the critical minute to come and surprise your aunt and me together. Counterfeit a rage against me, and I'll make my escape through the private passage from her chamber, which I'll take care to leave open. 'Twill be hard if then you can't bring her to any conditions. For this discovery will disarm her of all defence, and leave her entirely at your mercy--nay, she must ever after be in awe of you. MEL. Let me adore thee, my better genius! By heav'n I think it is not in the power of fate to disappoint my hopes--my hopes? My certainty! MASK. Well, I'll meet you here, within a quarter of eight, and give you notice. MEL. Good fortune ever go along with thee. SCENE V. MELLEFONT, CARELESS. CARE. Mellefont, get out o' th' way, my Lady Plyant's coming, and I shall never succeed while thou art in sight. Though she begins to tack about; but I made love a great while to no purpose. MEL. Why, what's the matter? She's convinced that I don't care for her. CARE. I can't get an answer from her, that does not begin with her honour, or her virtue, her religion, or some such cant. Then she has told me the whole history of Sir Paul's nine years courtship; how he has lain for whole nights together upon the stairs before her chamber-door; and that the first favour he received from her was a piece of an old scarlet petticoat for a stomacher, which since the day of his marriage he has out of a piece of gallantry converted into a night-cap, and wears it still with much solemnity on his anniversary wedding-night. MEL. That I have seen, with the ceremony thereunto belonging. For on that night he creeps in at the bed's feet like a gulled bassa that has married a relation of the Grand Signior, and that night he has his arms at liberty. Did not she tell you at what a distance she keeps him? He has confessed to me that, but at some certain times, that is, I suppose, when she apprehends being with child, he never has the privilege of using the familiarity of a husband with a wife. He was once given to scrambling with his hands, and sprawling in his sleep, and ever since she has him swaddled up in blankets, and his hands and feet swathed down, and so put to bed; and there he lies with a great beard, like a Russian bear upon a drift of snow. You are very great with him, I wonder he never told you his grievances: he will, I warrant you. CARE. Excessively foolish! But that which gives me most hopes of her is her telling me of the many temptations she has resisted. MEL. Nay, then you have her; for a woman's bragging to a man that she has overcome temptations is an argument that they were weakly offered, and a challenge to him to engage her more irresistibly. 'Tis only an enhancing the price of the commodity, by telling you how many customers have underbid her. CARE. Nay, I don't despair. But still she has a grudging to you. I talked to her t'other night at my Lord Froth's masquerade, when I'm satisfied she knew me, and I had no reason to complain of my reception; but I find women are not the same bare-faced and in masks, and a vizor disguises their inclinations as much as their faces. MEL. 'Tis a mistake, for women may most properly be said to be unmasked when they wear vizors; for that secures them from blushing and being out of countenance, and next to being in the dark, or alone, they are most truly themselves in a vizor mask. Here they come: I'll leave you. Ply her close, and by and by clap a _billet doux_ into her hand; for a woman never thinks a man truly in love with her, till he has been fool enough to think of her out of her sight, and to lose so much time as to write to her. SCENE VI. CARELESS, SIR PAUL, _and_ LADY PLYANT. SIR PAUL. Shan't we disturb your meditation, Mr. Careless? You would be private? CARE. You bring that along with you, Sir Paul, that shall be always welcome to my privacy. SIR PAUL. O sweet sir, you load your humble servants, both me and my wife, with continual favours. LADY PLYANT. Sir Paul, what a phrase was there? You will be making answers, and taking that upon you which ought to lie upon me. That you should have so little breeding to think Mr. Careless did not apply himself to me. Pray what have you to entertain anybody's privacy? I swear and declare in the face of the world I'm ready to blush for your ignorance. SIR PAUL. I acquiesce, my lady; but don't snub so loud. [_Aside to her_.] LADY PLYANT. Mr. Careless, if a person that is wholly illiterate might be supposed to be capable of being qualified to make a suitable return to those obligations, which you are pleased to confer upon one that is wholly incapable of being qualified in all those circumstances, I'm sure I should rather attempt it than anything in the world, [_Courtesies_] for I'm sure there's nothing in the world that I would rather. [_Courtesies_] But I know Mr. Careless is so great a critic, and so fine a gentleman, that it is impossible for me-- CARE. O heavens! madam, you confound me. SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, she's a fine person. LADY PLYANT. O Lord! sir, pardon me, we women have not those advantages; I know my imperfections. But at the same time you must give me leave to declare in the face of the world that nobody is more sensible of favours and things; for with the reserve of my honour I assure you, Mr. Careless, I don't know anything in the world I would refuse to a person so meritorious. You'll pardon my want of expression. CARE. O, your ladyship is abounding in all excellence, particularly that of phrase. LADY PLYANT. You are so obliging, sir. CARE. Your ladyship is so charming. SIR PAUL. So, now, now; now, my lady. LADY PLYANT. So well bred. CARE. So surprising. LADY PLYANT. So well dressed, so _bonne mine_, so eloquent, so unaffected, so easy, so free, so particular, so agreeable. SIR PAUL. Ay, so, so, there. CARE. O Lord, I beseech you madam, don't. LADY PLYANT. So gay, so graceful, so good teeth, so fine shape, so fine limbs, so fine linen, and I don't doubt but you have a very good skin, sir, CARE. For heaven's sake, madam, I'm quite out of countenance. SIR PAUL. And my lady's quite out of breath; or else you should hear--Gads-bud, you may talk of my Lady Froth. CARE. O fie, fie, not to be named of a day. My Lady Froth is very well in her accomplishments. But it is when my Lady Plyant is not thought of. If that can ever be. LADY PLYANT. O, you overcome me. That is so excessive. SIR PAUL. Nay, I swear and vow that was pretty. CARE. O, Sir Paul, you are the happiest man alive. Such a lady! that is the envy of her own sex, and the admiration of ours. SIR PAUL. Your humble servant. I am, I thank heaven, in a fine way of living, as I may say, peacefully and happily, and I think need not envy any of my neighbours, blessed be providence. Ay, truly, Mr. Careless, my lady is a great blessing, a fine, discreet, well-spoken woman as you shall see, if it becomes me to say so, and we live very comfortably together; she is a little hasty sometimes, and so am I; but mine's soon over, and then I'm so sorry.--O Mr. Careless, if it were not for one thing-- SCENE VII. CARELESS, SIR PAUL, LADY PLYANT, BOY _with a letter_. LADY PLYANT. How often have you been told of that, you jackanapes? SIR PAUL. Gad so, gad's-bud. Tim, carry it to my lady, you should have carried it to my lady first. BOY. 'Tis directed to your worship. SIR PAUL. Well, well, my lady reads all letters first. Child, do so no more; d'ye hear, Tim. BOY. No, and please you. SCENE VIII. CARELESS, SIR PAUL, LADY PLYANT. SIR PAUL. A humour of my wife's: you know women have little fancies. But as I was telling you, Mr. Careless, if it were not for one thing, I should think myself the happiest man in the world; indeed that touches me near, very near. CARE. What can that be, Sir Paul? SIR PAUL. Why, I have, I thank heaven, a very plentiful fortune, a good estate in the country, some houses in town, and some money, a pretty tolerable personal estate; and it is a great grief to me, indeed it is, Mr. Careless, that I have not a son to inherit this. 'Tis true I have a daughter, and a fine dutiful child she is, though I say it, blessed be providence I may say; for indeed, Mr. Careless, I am mightily beholden to providence. A poor unworthy sinner. But if I had a son! Ah, that's my affliction, and my only affliction; indeed I cannot refrain tears when it comes in my mind. [_Cries_.] CARE. Why, methinks that might be easily remedied--my lady's a fine likely woman-- SIR PAUL. Oh, a fine likely woman as you shall see in a summer's day. Indeed she is, Mr. Careless, in all respects. CARE. And I should not have taken you to have been so old-- SIR PAUL. Alas, that's not it, Mr. Careless; ah! that's not it; no, no, you shoot wide of the mark a mile; indeed you do, that's not it, Mr. Careless; no, no, that's not it. CARE. No? What can be the matter then? SIR PAUL. You'll scarcely believe me when I shall tell you--my lady is so nice. It's very strange, but it's true; too true--she's so very nice, that I don't believe she would touch a man for the world. At least not above once a year; I'm sure I have found it so; and, alas, what's once a year to an old man, who would do good in his generation? Indeed it's true, Mr. Careless, it breaks my heart. I am her husband, as I may say; though far unworthy of that honour, yet I am her husband; but alas-a-day, I have no more familiarity with her person--as to that matter--than with my own mother--no indeed. CARE. Alas-a-day, this is a lamentable story. My lady must be told on't. She must i'faith, Sir Paul; 'tis an injury to the world. SIR PAUL. Ah! would to heaven you would, Mr. Careless; you are mightily in her favour. CARE. I warrant you, what! we must have a son some way or other. SIR PAUL. Indeed I should be mightily bound to you if you could bring it about, Mr. Careless. LADY PLYANT. Here, Sir Paul, it's from your steward. Here's a return of 600 pounds; you may take fifty of it for the next half year. [_Gives him the letter_.] SCENE IX. [_To them_] LORD FROTH, CYNTHIA. SIR PAUL. How does my girl? Come hither to thy father, poor lamb: thou'rt melancholic. LORD FROTH. Heaven, Sir Paul, you amaze me, of all things in the world. You are never pleased but when we are all upon the broad grin: all laugh and no company; ah, then 'tis such a sight to see some teeth. Sure you're a great admirer of my Lady Whifler, Mr. Sneer, and Sir Laurence Loud, and that gang. SIR PAUL. I vow and swear she's a very merry woman; but I think she laughs a little too much. LORD FROTH. Merry! O Lord, what a character that is of a woman of quality. You have been at my Lady Whifler's upon her day, madam? CYNT. Yes, my lord. I must humour this fool. [_Aside_.] LORD FROTH. Well, and how? hee! What is your sense of the conversation? CYNT. Oh, most ridiculous, a perpetual comfort of laughing without any harmony; for sure, my lord, to laugh out of time, is as disagreeable as to sing out of time or out of tune. LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, right; and then, my Lady Whifler is so ready--she always comes in three bars too soon. And then, what do they laugh at? For you know laughing without a jest is as impertinent, hee! as, as-- CYNT. As dancing without a fiddle. LORD FROTH. Just i'faith, that was at my tongue's end. CYNT. But that cannot be properly said of them, for I think they are all in good nature with the world, and only laugh at one another; and you must allow they have all jests in their persons, though they have none in their conversation. LORD FROTH. True, as I'm a person of honour. For heaven's sake let us sacrifice 'em to mirth a little. [_Enter_ BOY _and whispers_ SIR PAUL.] SIR PAUL. Gads so.--Wife, wife, my Lady Plyant, I have a word. LADY PLYANT. I'm busy, Sir Paul, I wonder at your impertinence. CARE. Sir Paul, harkee, I'm reasoning the matter you know. Madam, if your ladyship please, we'll discourse of this in the next room. SIR PAUL. O ho, I wish you good success, I wish you good success. Boy, tell my lady, when she has done, I would speak with her below. SCENE X. CYNTHIA, LORD FROTH, LADY FROTH, BRISK. LADY FROTH. Then you think that episode between Susan, the dairy-maid, and our coachman is not amiss; you know, I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as in the country. BRISK. Incomparable, let me perish. But then, being an heroic poem, had you not better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great; besides, your ladyship's coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun--and you know the sun is called Heaven's charioteer. LADY FROTH. Oh, infinitely better; I'm extremely beholden to you for the hint; stay, we'll read over those half a score lines again. [_Pulls out a paper_.] Let me see here, you know what goes before,--the comparison, you know. [_Reads_.] For as the sun shines ev'ry day, So of our coachman I may say. BRISK. I'm afraid that simile won't do in wet weather; because you say the sun shines every day. LADY FROTH. No; for the sun it won't, but it will do for the coachman, for you know there's most occasion for a coach in wet weather. BRISK. Right, right, that saves all. LADY FROTH. Then I don't say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day too, you know, though we don't see him. BRISK. Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that. LADY FROTH. Well, you shall hear. Let me see. [_Reads_.] For as the sun shines ev'ry day, So of our coachman I may say, He shows his drunken fiery face, Just as the sun does, more or less. BRISK. That's right, all's well, all's well. 'More or less.' LADY FROTH reads: And when at night his labour's done, Then too, like Heav'n's charioteer the sun: Ay, charioteer does better. Into the dairy he descends, And there his whipping and his driving ends; There he's secure from danger of a bilk, His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk. For Susan you know, is Thetis, and so-- BRISK. Incomparable well and proper, egad--but I have one exception to make--don't you think bilk--(I know it's good rhyme)--but don't you think _bilk_ and _fare_ too like a hackney coachman? LADY FROTH. I swear and vow I'm afraid so. And yet our Jehu was a hackney coachman, when my lord took him. BRISK. Was he? I'm answered, if Jehu was a hackney coachman. You may put that in the marginal notes though, to prevent criticism--only mark it with a small asterism, and say, 'Jehu was formerly a hackney coachman.' LADY FROTH. I will. You'd oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem. BRISK. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish. LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, my dear, have you done? won't you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whifler and Mr. Sneer. LADY FROTH. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh, filthy Mr. Sneer; he's a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop, foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion. LORD FROTH. O silly! yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself. BRISK. Who, my Lady Toothless? Oh, she's a mortifying spectacle; she's always chewing the cud like an old ewe. CYNT. Fie, Mr. Brisk, eringo's for her cough. LADY FROTH. I have seen her take 'em half chewed out of her mouth, to laugh, and then put 'em in again. Foh! LORD FROTH. Foh! LADY FROTH. Then she's always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak, and sits in expectation of his no jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open-- BRISK. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad. Ha, ha, ha! CYNT. [_Aside_] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities. LADY FROTH. Then that t'other great strapping lady--I can't hit of her name; the old fat fool that paints so exorbitantly. BRISK. I know whom you mean--but deuce take me, I can't hit of her name neither. Paints, d'ye say? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish. LADY FROTH. Oh, you made a song upon her, Mr. Brisk. BRISK. He! egad, so I did. My lord can sing it. CYNT. O good, my lord, let's hear it. BRISK. 'Tis not a song neither, it's a sort of an epigram, or rather an epigrammatic sonnet; I don't know what to call it, but it's satire. Sing it, my lord. LORD FROTH sings. Ancient Phyllis has young graces, 'Tis a strange thing, but a true one; Shall I tell you how? She herself makes her own faces, And each morning wears a new one; Where's the wonder now? BRISK. Short, but there's salt in't; my way of writing, egad. SCENE XI. [_To them_] FOOTMAN. LADY FROTH. How now? FOOT. Your ladyship's chair is come. LADY FROTH. Is nurse and the child in it? FOOT. Yes, madam. LADY FROTH. O the dear creature! Let's go see it. LORD FROTH. I swear, my dear, you'll spoil that child, with sending it to and again so often; this is the seventh time the chair has gone for her to-day. LADY FROTH. O law! I swear it's but the sixth--and I haven't seen her these two hours. The poor creature--I swear, my lord, you don't love poor little Sapho. Come, my dear Cynthia, Mr. Brisk, we'll go see Sapho, though my lord won't. CYNT. I'll wait upon your ladyship. BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho? LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can sing a tune already. My lord, won't you go? Won't you? What! not to see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not stay. SCENE XII. CYNTHIA _alone_. CYNT. 'Tis not so hard to counterfeit joy in the depth of affliction, as to dissemble mirth in company of fools. Why should I call 'em fools? The world thinks better of 'em; for these have quality and education, wit and fine conversation, are received and admired by the world. If not, they like and admire themselves. And why is not that true wisdom? for 'tis happiness: and for ought I know, we have misapplied the name all this while, and mistaken the thing: since If happiness in self-content is placed, The wise are wretched, and fools only bless'd. ACT IV. SCENE I. MELLEFONT _and_ CYNTHIA. CYNT. I heard him loud as I came by the closet-door, and my lady with him, but she seemed to moderate his passion. MEL. Ay, hell thank her, as gentle breezes moderate a fire; but I shall counter-work her spells, and ride the witch in her own bridle. CYNT. It's impossible; she'll cast beyond you still. I'll lay my life it will never be a match. MEL. What? CYNT. Between you and me. MEL. Why so? CYNT. My mind gives me it won't, because we are both willing. We each of us strive to reach the goal, and hinder one another in the race. I swear it never does well when the parties are so agreed; for when people walk hand in hand there's neither overtaking nor meeting. We hunt in couples, where we both pursue the same game but forget one another; and 'tis because we are so near that we don't think of coming together. MEL. Hum, 'gad I believe there's something in it. Marriage is the game that we hunt, and while we think that we only have it in view, I don't see but we have it in our power. CYNT. Within reach; for example, give me your hand. You have looked through the wrong end of the perspective all this while, for nothing has been between us but our fears. MEL. I don't know why we should not steal out of the house this very moment and marry one another, without consideration or the fear of repentance. Pox o' fortune, portion, settlements, and jointures. CYNT. Ay, ay, what have we to do with 'em? You know we marry for love. MEL. Love, love, downright, very villainous love. CYNT. And he that can't live upon love deserves to die in a ditch. Here then, I give you my promise, in spite of duty, any temptation of wealth, your inconstancy, or my own inclination to change-- MEL. To run most wilfully and unreasonably away with me this moment and be married. CYNT. Hold. Never to marry anybody else. MEL. That's but a kind of negative consent. Why, you won't baulk the frolic? CYNT. If you had not been so assured of your own conduct I would not. But 'tis but reasonable that since I consent to like a man without the vile consideration of money, he should give me a very evident demonstration of his wit: therefore let me see you undermine my Lady Touchwood, as you boasted, and force her to give her consent, and then-- MEL. I'll do't. CYNT. And I'll do't. MEL. This very next ensuing hour of eight o'clock is the last minute of her reign, unless the devil assist her _in propria persona_. CYNT. Well, if the devil should assist her, and your plot miscarry-- MEL. Ay, what am I to trust to then? CYNT. Why, if you give me very clear demonstration that it was the devil, I'll allow for irresistible odds. But if I find it to be only chance, or destiny, or unlucky stars, or anything but the very devil, I'm inexorable: only still I'll keep my word, and live a maid for your sake. MEL. And you won't die one, for your own, so still there's hope. CYNT. Here's my mother-in-law, and your friend Careless; I would not have 'em see us together yet. SCENE II. CARELESS _and_ LADY PLYANT. LADY PLYANT. I swear, Mr. Careless, you are very alluring, and say so many fine things, and nothing is so moving to me as a fine thing. Well, I must do you this justice, and declare in the face of the world, never anybody gained so far upon me as yourself. With blushes I must own it, you have shaken, as I may say, the very foundation of my honour. Well, sure, if I escape your importunities, I shall value myself as long as I live, I swear. CARE. And despise me. [_Sighing_.] LADY PLYANT. The last of any man in the world, by my purity; now you make me swear. O gratitude forbid, that I should ever be wanting in a respectful acknowledgment of an entire resignation of all my best wishes for the person and parts of so accomplished a person, whose merit challenges much more, I'm sure, than my illiterate praises can description. CARE. [_In a whining tone_.] Ah heavens, madam, you ruin me with kindness. Your charming tongue pursues the victory of your eyes, while at your feet your poor adorer dies. LADY PLYANT. Ah! Very fine. CARE. [_Still whining_.] Ah, why are you so fair, so bewitching fair? O let me grow to the ground here, and feast upon that hand; O let me press it to my heart, my trembling heart: the nimble movement shall instruct your pulse, and teach it to alarm desire. (Zoons, I'm almost at the end of my cant, if she does not yield quickly.) [_Aside_.] LADY PLYANT. O that's so passionate and fine, I cannot hear. I am not safe if I stay, and must leave you. CARE. And must you leave me! Rather let me languish out a wretched life, and breath my soul beneath your feet. (I must say the same thing over again, and can't help it.) [_Aside_.] LADY PLYANT. I swear I'm ready to languish too! O my honour! Whither is it going? I protest you have given me the palpitation of the heart. CARE. Can you be so cruel-- LADY PLYANT. O rise, I beseech you, say no more till you rise. Why did you kneel so long? I swear I was so transported, I did not see it. Well, to show you how far you have gained upon me, I assure you, if Sir Paul should die, of all mankind there's none I'd sooner make my second choice. CARE. O Heaven! I can't out-live this night without your favour; I feel my spirits faint, a general dampness overspreads my face, a cold deadly dew already vents through all my pores, and will to-morrow wash me for ever from your sight, and drown me in my tomb. LADY PLYANT. Oh, you have conquered, sweet, melting, moving sir, you have conquered. What heart of marble can refrain to weep, and yield to such sad sayings! [_Cries_.] CARE. I thank Heaven, they are the saddest that I ever said. Oh! (I shall never contain laughter.) [_Aside_.] LADY PLYANT. Oh, I yield myself all up to your uncontrollable embraces. Say, thou dear dying man, when, where, and how. Ah, there's Sir Paul. CARE. 'Slife, yonder's Sir Paul, but if he were not come, I'm so transported I cannot speak. This note will inform you. [_Gives her a note_.] SCENE III. LADY PLYANT, SIR PAUL, CYNTHIA. SIR PAUL. Thou art my tender lambkin, and shalt do what thou wilt. But endeavour to forget this Mellefont. CYNT. I would obey you to my power, sir; but if I have not him, I have sworn never to marry. SIR PAUL. Never to marry! Heavens forbid! must I neither have sons nor grandsons? Must the family of the Plyants be utterly extinct for want of issue male? O impiety! But did you swear, did that sweet creature swear? ha! How durst you swear without my consent, ah? Gads-bud, who am I? CYNT. Pray don't be angry, sir, when I swore I had your consent; and therefore I swore. SIR PAUL. Why then the revoking my consent does annul, or make of none effect your oath; so you may unswear it again. The law will allow it. CYNT. Ay, but my conscience never will. SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, no matter for that, conscience and law never go together; you must not expect that. LADY PLYANT. Ay, but, Sir Paul, I conceive if she has sworn, d'ye mark me, if she has once sworn, it is most unchristian, inhuman, and obscene that she should break it. I'll make up the match again, because Mr. Careless said it would oblige him. [_Aside_.] SIR PAUL. Does your ladyship conceive so? Why, I was of that opinion once too. Nay, if your ladyship conceives so, I'm of that opinion again; but I can neither find my lord nor my lady to know what they intend. LADY PLYANT. I'm satisfied that my cousin Mellefont has been much wronged. CYNT. [_Aside_.] I'm amazed to find her of our side, for I'm sure she loved him. LADY PLYANT. I know my Lady Touchwood has no kindness for him; and besides I have been informed by Mr. Careless, that Mellefont had never anything more than a profound respect. That he has owned himself to be my admirer 'tis true, but he was never so presumptuous to entertain any dishonourable notions of things; so that if this be made plain, I don't see how my daughter can in conscience, or honour, or anything in the world-- SIR PAUL. Indeed if this be made plain, as my lady, your mother, says, child-- LADY PLYANT. Plain! I was informed of it by Mr. Careless. And I assure you, Mr. Careless is a person that has a most extraordinary respect and honour for you, Sir Paul. CYNT. [_Aside_.] And for your ladyship too, I believe, or else you had not changed sides so soon; now I begin to find it. SIR PAUL. I am much obliged to Mr. Careless really; he is a person that I have a great value for, not only for that, but because he has a great veneration for your ladyship. LADY PLYANT. O las, no indeed, Sir Paul, 'tis upon your account. SIR PAUL. No, I protest and vow, I have no title to his esteem, but in having the honour to appertain in some measure to your ladyship, that's all. LADY PLYANT. O law now, I swear and declare it shan't be so; you're too modest, Sir Paul. SIR PAUL. It becomes me, when there is any comparison made between-- LADY PLYANT. O fie, fie, Sir Paul, you'll put me out of countenance. Your very obedient and affectionate wife; that's all. And highly honoured in that title. SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, I am transported! Give me leave to kiss your ladyship's hand. CYNT. That my poor father should be so very silly! [_Aside_.] LADY PLYANT. My lip indeed, Sir Paul, I swear you shall. [_He kisses her_, _and bows very low_.] SIR PAUL. I humbly thank your ladyship. I don't know whether I fly on ground, or walk in air. Gads-bud, she was never thus before. Well, I must own myself the most beholden to Mr. Careless. As sure as can be, this is all his doing, something that he has said; well, 'tis a rare thing to have an ingenious friend. Well, your ladyship is of opinion that the match may go forward. LADY PLYANT. By all means. Mr. Careless has satisfied me of the matter. SIR PAUL. Well, why then, lamb, you may keep your oath, but have a care about making rash vows; come hither to me, and kiss papa. LADY PLYANT. I swear and declare, I am in such a twitter to read Mr. Careless his letter, that I can't forbear any longer. But though I may read all letters first by prerogative, yet I'll be sure to be unsuspected this time, Sir Paul. SIR PAUL. Did your ladyship call? LADY PLYANT. Nay, not to interrupt you, my dear. Only lend me your letter, which you had from your steward to-day; I would look upon the account again, and may be increase your allowance. SIR PAUL. There it is, madam, do you want a pen and ink? [_Bows and gives the letter_.] LADY PLYANT. No, no, nothing else, I thank you, Sir Paul. So, now I can read my own letter under the cover of his. [_Aside_.] SIR PAUL. He? And wilt thou bring a grandson at nine months end--he? A brave chopping boy. I'll settle a thousand pound a year upon the rogue as soon as ever he looks me in the face, I will, gads-bud. I'm overjoyed to think I have any of my family that will bring children into the world. For I would fain have some resemblance of myself in my posterity, he, Thy? Can't you contrive that affair, girl? Do, gads-bud, think on thy old father, heh? Make the young rogue as like as you can. CYNT. I'm glad to see you so merry, sir. SIR PAUL. Merry, gads-bud, I'm serious; I'll give thee five hundred pounds for every inch of him that resembles me; ah, this eye, this left eye! A thousand pounds for this left eye. This has done execution in its time, girl; why, thou hast my leer, hussey, just thy father's leer. Let it be transmitted to the young rogue by the help of imagination; why, 'tis the mark of our family, Thy; our house is distinguished by a languishing eye, as the house of Austria is by a thick lip. Ah! when I was of your age, hussey, I would have held fifty to one, I could have drawn my own picture--gads-bud I could have done--not so much as you, neither; but--nay, don't blush. CYNT. I don't blush, sir, for I vow I don't understand. SIR PAUL. Pshaw, pshaw, you fib, you baggage, you do understand, and you shall understand; come, don't be so nice. Gads-bud, don't learn after your mother-in-law my lady here. Marry, heaven forbid that you should follow her example; that would spoil all indeed. Bless us! if you should take a vagary and make a rash resolution on your wedding night, to die a maid, as she did; all were ruined, all my hopes lost. My heart would break, and my estate would be left to the wide world, he? I hope you are a better Christian than to think of living a nun, he? Answer me? CYNT. I'm all obedience, sir, to your commands. LADY PLYANT. [_Having read the letter_.] O dear Mr. Careless, I swear he writes charmingly, and he looks charmingly, and he has charmed me, as much as I have charmed him; and so I'll tell him in the wardrobe when 'tis dark. O criminy! I hope Sir Paul has not seen both letters. [_Puts the wrong letter hastily up_, _and gives him her own_.] Sir Paul, here's your letter; to-morrow morning I'll settle accounts to your advantage. SCENE IV. [_To them_] BRISK. BRISK. Sir Paul, gads-bud, you're an uncivil person, let me tell you, and all that; and I did not think it had been in you. SIR PAUL. O law, what's the matter now? I hope you are not angry, Mr. Brisk. BRISK. Deuce take me, I believe you intend to marry your daughter yourself; you're always brooding over her like an old hen, as if she were not well hatched, egad, he. SIR PAUL. Good strange! Mr. Brisk is such a merry facetious person, he, he, he. No, no, I have done with her, I have done with her now. BRISK. The fiddles have stayed this hour in the hall, and my Lord Froth wants a partner, we can never begin without her. SIR PAUL. Go, go child, go, get you gone and dance and be merry; I'll come and look at you by and by. Where's my son Mellefont? LADY PLYANT. I'll send him to them, I know where he is. BRISK. Sir Paul, will you send Careless into the hall if you meet him? SIR PAUL. I will, I will, I'll go and look for him on purpose. SCENE V. BRISK _alone_. BRISK. So now they are all gone, and I have an opportunity to practice. Ah! My dear Lady Froth, she's a most engaging creature, if she were not so fond of that damned coxcombly lord of hers; and yet I am forced to allow him wit too, to keep in with him. No matter, she's a woman of parts, and, egad, parts will carry her. She said she would follow me into the gallery. Now to make my approaches. Hem, hem! Ah ma- [_bows_.] dam! Pox on't, why should I disparage my parts by thinking what to say? None but dull rogues think; witty men, like rich fellows, are always ready for all expenses; while your blockheads, like poor needy scoundrels, are forced to examine their stock, and forecast the charges of the day. Here she comes, I'll seem not to see her, and try to win her with a new airy invention of my own, hem! SCENE VI. [_To him_] LADY FROTH. BRISK [_Sings_, _walking about_.] 'I'm sick with love,' ha, ha, ha, 'prithee, come cure me. I'm sick with,' etc. O ye powers! O my Lady Froth, my Lady Froth, my Lady Froth! Heigho! Break heart; gods, I thank you. [_Stands musing with his arms across_.] LADY FROTH. O heavens, Mr. Brisk! What's the matter? BRISK. My Lady Froth! Your ladyship's most humble servant. The matter, madam? Nothing, madam, nothing at all, egad. I was fallen into the most agreeable amusement in the whole province of contemplation: that's all--(I'll seem to conceal my passion, and that will look like respect.) [_Aside_.] LADY FROTH. Bless me, why did you call out upon me so loud? BRISK. O Lord, I, madam! I beseech your ladyship--when? LADY FROTH. Just now as I came in, bless me, why, don't you know it? BRISK. Not I, let me perish. But did I? Strange! I confess your ladyship was in my thoughts; and I was in a sort of dream that did in a manner represent a very pleasing object to my imagination, but--but did I indeed?--To see how love and murder will out. But did I really name my Lady Froth? LADY FROTH. Three times aloud, as I love letters. But did you talk of love? O Parnassus! Who would have thought Mr. Brisk could have been in love, ha, ha, ha. O heavens, I thought you could have no mistress but the Nine Muses. BRISK. No more I have, egad, for I adore 'em all in your ladyship. Let me perish, I don't know whether to be splenetic, or airy upon't; the deuce take me if I can tell whether I am glad or sorry that your ladyship has made the discovery. LADY FROTH. O be merry by all means. Prince Volscius in love! Ha, ha, ha. BRISK. O barbarous, to turn me into ridicule! Yet, ha, ha, ha. The deuce take me, I can't help laughing myself, ha, ha, ha; yet by heavens, I have a violent passion for your ladyship, seriously. LADY FROTH. Seriously? Ha, ha, ha. BRISK. Seriously, ha, ha, ha. Gad I have, for all I laugh. LADY FROTH. Ha, ha, ha! What d'ye think I laugh at? Ha, ha, ha. BRISK. Me, egad, ha, ha. LADY FROTH. No, the deuce take me if I don't laugh at myself; for hang me if I have not a violent passion for Mr. Brisk, ha, ha, ha. BRISK. Seriously? LADY FROTH. Seriously, ha, ha, ha. BRISK. That's well enough; let me perish, ha, ha, ha. O miraculous; what a happy discovery. Ah my dear charming Lady Froth! LADY FROTH. Oh my adored Mr. Brisk! [_Embrace_.] SCENE VII. [_To them_] LORD FROTH. LORD FROTH. The company are all ready. How now? BRISK. Zoons! madam, there's my lord. [_Softly to her_.] LADY FROTH. Take no notice, but observe me. Now, cast off, and meet me at the lower end of the room, and then join hands again; I could teach my lord this dance purely, but I vow, Mr. Brisk, I can't tell how to come so near any other man. Oh here's my lord, now you shall see me do it with him. [_They pretend to practise part of a country dance_.] LORD FROTH. Oh, I see there's no harm yet, but I don't like this familiarity. [_Aside_.] LADY FROTH. Shall you and I do our close dance, to show Mr. Brisk? LORD FROTH. No, my dear, do it with him. LADY FROTH. I'll do it with him, my lord, when you are out of the way. BRISK. That's good, egad, that's good. Deuce take me, I can hardly hold laughing in his face. [_Aside_.] LORD FROTH. Any other time, my dear, or we'll dance it below. LADY FROTH. With all my heart. BRISK. Come, my lord, I'll wait on you. My charming witty angel! [_To her_.] LADY FROTH. We shall have whispering time enough, you know, since we are partners. SCENE VIII. LADY PLYANT _and_ CARELESS. LADY PLYANT. Oh, Mr. Careless, Mr. Careless, I'm ruined, I'm undone. CARE. What's the matter, madam? LADY PLYANT. Oh, the unluckiest accident, I'm afraid I shan't live to tell it you. CARE. Heaven forbid! What is it? LADY PLYANT. I'm in such a fright; the strangest quandary and premunire! I'm all over in a universal agitation; I dare swear every circumstance of me trembles. O your letter, your letter! By an unfortunate mistake I have given Sir Paul your letter instead of his own. CARE. That was unlucky. LADY PLYANT. Oh, yonder he comes reading of it; for heaven's sake step in here and advise me quickly before he sees. SCENE IX. SIR PAUL _with the Letter_. SIR PAUL. O Providence, what a conspiracy have I discovered. But let me see to make an end on't. [_Reads_.] Hum--After supper in the wardrobe by the gallery. If Sir Paul should surprise us, I have a commission from him to treat with you about the very matter of fact. Matter of fact! Very pretty; it seems that I am conducting to my own cuckoldom. Why, this is the very traitorous position of taking up arms by my authority, against my person! Well, let me see. Till then I languish in expectation of my adored charmer.--Dying Ned Careless. Gads-bud, would that were matter of fact too. Die and be damned for a Judas Maccabeus and Iscariot both. O friendship! what art thou but a name? Henceforward let no man make a friend that would not be a cuckold: for whomsoever he receives into his bosom will find the way to his bed, and there return his caresses with interest to his wife. Have I for this been pinioned, night after night for three years past? Have I been swathed in blankets till I have been even deprived of motion? Have I approached the marriage bed with reverence as to a sacred shrine, and denied myself the enjoyment of lawful domestic pleasures to preserve its purity, and must I now find it polluted by foreign iniquity? O my Lady Plyant, you were chaste as ice, but you are melted now, and false as water. But Providence has been constant to me in discovering this conspiracy; still, I am beholden to Providence. If it were not for Providence, sure, poor Sir Paul, thy heart would break. SCENE X. [_To him_] LADY PLYANT. LADY PLYANT. So, sir, I see you have read the letter. Well, now, Sir Paul, what do you think of your friend Careless? Has he been treacherous, or did you give his insolence a licence to make trial of your wife's suspected virtue? D'ye see here? [_Snatches the letter as in anger_.] Look, read it. Gads my life, if I thought it were so, I would this moment renounce all communication with you. Ungrateful monster! He? is it so? Ay, I see it, a plot upon my honour; your guilty cheeks confess it. Oh, where shall wronged virtue fly for reparation? I'll be divorced this instant. SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, what shall I say? This is the strangest surprise. Why, I don't know anything at all, nor I don't know whether there be anything at all in the world, or no. LADY PLYANT. I thought I should try you, false man. I, that never dissembled in my life, yet to make trial of you, pretended to like that monster of iniquity, Careless, and found out that contrivance to let you see this letter, which now I find was of your own inditing--I do, heathen, I do. See my face no more; I'll be divorced presently. SIR PAUL. O strange, what will become of me? I'm so amazed, and so overjoyed, so afraid, and so sorry. But did you give me this letter on purpose, he? Did you? LADY PLYANT. Did I? Do you doubt me, Turk, Saracen? I have a cousin that's a proctor in the Commons; I'll go to him instantly. SIR PAUL. Hold, stay, I beseech your ladyship. I'm so overjoyed, stay, I'll confess all. LADY PLYANT. What will you confess, Jew? SIR PAUL. Why, now, as I hope to be saved, I had no hand in this letter--nay, hear me, I beseech your ladyship. The devil take me now if he did not go beyond my commission. If I desired him to do any more than speak a good word only just for me; gads-bud, only for poor Sir Paul, I'm an Anabaptist, or a Jew, or what you please to call me. LADY PLYANT. Why, is not here matter of fact? SIR PAUL. Ay, but by your own virtue and continency that matter of fact is all his own doing. I confess I had a great desire to have some honours conferred upon me, which lie all in your ladyship's breast, and he being a well-spoken man, I desired him to intercede for me. LADY PLYANT. Did you so? presumption! Oh, he comes, the Tarquin comes; I cannot bear his sight. SCENE XI. CARELESS, SIR PAUL. CARE. Sir Paul, I'm glad I've met with you, 'gad, I have said all I could, but can't prevail. Then my friendship to you has carried me a little farther in this matter. SIR PAUL. Indeed; well sir, I'll dissemble with him a little. [_Aside_.] CARE. Why, faith I have in my time known honest gentlemen abused by a pretended coyness in their wives, and I had a mind to try my lady's virtue. And when I could not prevail for you, gad, I pretended to be in love myself; but all in vain, she would not hear a word upon that subject. Then I writ a letter to her; I don't know what effects that will have, but I'll be sure to tell you when I do, though by this light I believe her virtue is impregnable. SIR PAUL. O Providence! Providence! What discoveries are here made? Why, this is better and more miraculous than the rest. CARE. What do you mean? SIR PAUL. I can't tell you, I'm so overjoyed; come along with me to my lady, I can't contain myself; come, my dear friend. CARE. So, so, so, this difficulty's over. [_Aside_.] SCENE XII. MELLEFONT, MASKWELL, _from different doors_. MEL. Maskwell! I have been looking for you--'tis within a quarter of eight. MASK. My lady is just gone into my lord's closet, you had best steal into her chamber before she comes, and lie concealed there, otherwise she may lock the door when we are together, and you not easily get in to surprise us. MEL. He? You say true. MASK. You had best make haste, for after she has made some apology to the company for her own and my lord's absence all this while, she'll retire to her chamber instantly. MEL. I go this moment. Now, fortune, I defy thee. SCENE XIII. MASKWELL _alone_. MASK. I confess you may be allowed to be secure in your own opinion; the appearance is very fair, but I have an after-game to play that shall turn the tables, and here comes the man that I must manage. SCENE XIV. [_To him_] LORD TOUCHWOOD. LORD TOUCH. Maskwell, you are the man I wished to meet. MASK. I am happy to be in the way of your lordship's commands. LORD TOUCH. I have always found you prudent and careful in anything that has concerned me or my family. MASK. I were a villain else. I am bound by duty and gratitude, and my own inclination, to be ever your lordship's servant. LORD TOUCH. Enough. You are my friend; I know it. Yet there has been a thing in your knowledge, which has concerned me nearly, that you have concealed from me. MASK. My lord! LORD TOUCH. Nay, I excuse your friendship to my unnatural nephew thus far. But I know you have been privy to his impious designs upon my wife. This evening she has told me all. Her good nature concealed it as long as was possible; but he perseveres so in villainy, that she has told me even you were weary of dissuading him, though you have once actually hindered him from forcing her. MASK. I am sorry, my lord, I can't make you an answer; this is an occasion in which I would not willing be silent. LORD TOUCH. I know you would excuse him--and I know as well that you can't. MASK. Indeed I was in hopes it had been a youthful heat that might have soon boiled over; but-- LORD TOUCH. Say on. MASK. I have nothing more to say, my lord; but to express my concern; for I think his frenzy increases daily. LORD TOUCH. How! Give me but proof of it, ocular proof, that I may justify my dealing with him to the world, and share my fortunes. MASK. O my lord! consider; that is hard. Besides, time may work upon him. Then, for me to do it! I have professed an everlasting friendship to him. LORD TOUCH. He is your friend; and what am I? MASK. I am answered. LORD TOUCH. Fear not his displeasure; I will put you out of his, and fortune's power, and for that thou art scrupulously honest, I will secure thy fidelity to him, and give my honour never to own any discovery that you shall make me. Can you give me a demonstrative proof? Speak. MASK. I wish I could not. To be plain, my lord, I intended this evening to have tried all arguments to dissuade him from a design which I suspect; and if I had not succeeded, to have informed your lordship of what I knew. LORD TOUCH. I thank you. What is the villain's purpose? MASK. He has owned nothing to me of late, and what I mean now, is only a bare suspicion of my own. If your lordship will meet me a quarter of an hour hence there, in that lobby by my lady's bed-chamber, I shall be able to tell you more. LORD TOUCH. I will. MASK. My duty to your lordship makes me do a severe piece of justice. LORD TOUCH. I will be secret, and reward your honesty beyond your hopes. SCENE XV. _Scene opening_, _shows Lady Touchwood's chamber_. MELLEFONT _solus_. MEL. Pray heaven my aunt keep touch with her assignation. O that her lord were but sweating behind this hanging, with the expectation of what I shall see. Hist, she comes. Little does she think what a mine is just ready to spring under her feet. But to my post. [_Goes behind the hangings_.] SCENE XVI. LADY TOUCHWOOD. LADY TOUCH. 'Tis eight o'clock; methinks I should have found him here. Who does not prevent the hour of love, outstays the time; for to be dully punctual is too slow. I was accusing you of neglect. SCENE XVII. LADY TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL, MELLEFONT _absconding_. MASK. I confess you do reproach me when I see you here before me; but 'tis fit I should be still behindhand, still to be more and more indebted to your goodness. LADY TOUCH. You can excuse a fault too well, not to have been to blame. A ready answer shows you were prepared. MASK. Guilt is ever at a loss, and confusion waits upon it; when innocence and bold truth are always ready for expression. LADY TOUCH. Not in love: words are the weak support of cold indifference; love has no language to be heard. MASK. Excess of joy has made me stupid! Thus may my lips be ever closed. [_Kisses her_.] And thus--O who would not lose his speech, upon condition to have joys above it? LADY TOUCH. Hold, let me lock the door first. [_Goes to the door_.] MASK. [_Aside_.] That I believed; 'twas well I left the private passage open. LADY TOUCH. So, that's safe. MASK. And so may all your pleasures be, and secret as this kiss-- MEL. And may all treachery be thus discovered. [_Leaps out_.] LADY TOUCH. Ah! [_Shrieks_.] MEL. Villain! [_Offers to draw_.] MASK. Nay, then, there's but one way. [_Runs out_.] SCENE XVIII. LADY TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT. MEL. Say you so, were you provided for an escape? Hold, madam, you have no more holes to your burrow; I'll stand between you and this sally-port. LADY TOUCH. Thunder strike thee dead for this deceit, immediate lightning blast thee, me, and the whole world! Oh! I could rack myself, play the vulture to my own heart, and gnaw it piecemeal, for not boding to me this misfortune. MEL. Be patient. LADY TOUCH. Be damned. MEL. Consider, I have you on the hook; you will but flounder yourself a- weary, and be nevertheless my prisoner. LADY TOUCH. I'll hold my breath and die, but I'll be free. MEL. O madam, have a care of dying unprepared, I doubt you have some unrepented sins that may hang heavy, and retard your flight. LADY TOUCH. O! what shall I do? say? Whither shall I turn? Has hell no remedy? MEL. None; hell has served you even as heaven has done, left you to yourself.--You're in a kind of Erasmus paradise, yet if you please you may make it a purgatory; and with a little penance and my absolution all this may turn to good account. LADY TOUCH. [_Aside_.] Hold in my passion, and fall, fall a little, thou swelling heart; let me have some intermission of this rage, and one minute's coolness to dissemble. [_She weeps_.] MEL. You have been to blame. I like those tears, and hope they are of the purest kind,--penitential tears. LADY TOUCH. O the scene was shifted quick before me,--I had not time to think. I was surprised to see a monster in the glass, and now I find 'tis myself; can you have mercy to forgive the faults I have imagined, but never put in practice?--O consider, consider how fatal you have been to me, you have already killed the quiet of this life. The love of you was the first wandering fire that e'er misled my steps, and while I had only that in view, I was betrayed into unthought of ways of ruin. MEL. May I believe this true? LADY TOUCH. O be not cruelly incredulous.--How can you doubt these streaming eyes? Keep the severest eye o'er all my future conduct, and if I once relapse, let me not hope forgiveness; 'twill ever be in your power to ruin me. My lord shall sign to your desires; I will myself create your happiness, and Cynthia shall be this night your bride. Do but conceal my failings, and forgive. MEL. Upon such terms I will be ever yours in every honest way. SCENE XIX. MASKWELL _softly introduces_ LORD TOUCHWOOD, _and retires_. MASK. I have kept my word, he's here, but I must not be seen. SCENE XX. LADY TOUCHWOOD, LORD TOUCHWOOD, MELLEFONT. LORD TOUCH. Hell and amazement, she's in tears. LADY TOUCH. [_Kneeling_.] Eternal blessings thank you.--Ha! my lord listening! O fortune has o'erpaid me all, all! all's my own! [_Aside_.] MEL. Nay, I beseech you rise. LADY TOUCH. [_Aloud_.] Never, never! I'll grow to the ground, be buried quick beneath it, e'er I'll be consenting to so damned a sin as incest! unnatural incest! MEL. Ha! LADY TOUCH. O cruel man, will you not let me go? I'll forgive all that's past. O heaven, you will not ravish me? MEL. Damnation! LORD TOUCH. Monster, dog! your life shall answer this! [_Draws and runs at_ MELLEFONT, _is held by_ LADY TOUCHWOOD.] LADY TOUCH. O heavens, my lord! Hold, hold, for heaven's sake. MEL. Confusion, my uncle! O the damned sorceress. LADY TOUCH. Moderate your rage, good my lord! He's mad, alas, he's mad. Indeed he is, my lord, and knows not what he does. See how wild he looks. MEL. By heaven, 'twere senseless not to be mad, and see such witchcraft. LADY TOUCH. My lord, you hear him, he talks idly. LORD TOUCH. Hence from my sight, thou living infamy to my name; when next I see that face, I'll write villain in't with my sword's point. MEL. Now, by my soul, I will not go till I have made known my wrongs. Nay, till I have made known yours, which, if possible, are greater,--though she has all the host of hell her servants. LADY TOUCH. Alas, he raves! Talks very poetry! For heaven's sake away, my lord, he'll either tempt you to extravagance, or commit some himself. MEL. Death and furies, will you not hear me?--Why by heaven she laughs, grins, points to your back; she forks out cuckoldom with her fingers, and you're running horn-mad after your fortune. [_As she is going she turns back and smiles at him_.] LORD TOUCH. I fear he's mad indeed.--Let's send Maskwell to him. MEL. Send him to her. LADY TOUCH. Come, come, good my lord, my heart aches so, I shall faint if I stay. SCENE XXI. MELLEFONT _alone_. MEL. Oh, I could curse my stars, fate, and chance; all causes and accidents of fortune in this life! But to what purpose? Yet, 'sdeath, for a man to have the fruit of all his industry grow full and ripe, ready to drop into his mouth, and just when he holds out his hand to gather it, to have a sudden whirlwind come, tear up tree and all, and bear away the very root and foundation of his hopes:--what temper can contain? They talk of sending Maskwell to me; I never had more need of him. But what can he do? Imagination cannot form a fairer and more plausible design than this of his which has miscarried. O my precious aunt, I shall never thrive without I deal with the devil, or another woman. Women, like flames, have a destroying power, Ne'er to be quenched, till they themselves devour. ACT V. SCENE I. LADY TOUCHWOOD _and_ MASKWELL. LADY TOUCH. Was't not lucky? MASK. Lucky! Fortune is your own, and 'tis her interest so to be. By heaven I believe you can control her power, and she fears it: though chance brought my lord, 'twas your own art that turned it to advantage. LADY TOUCH. 'Tis true it might have been my ruin. But yonder's my lord. I believe he's coming to find you: I'll not be seen. SCENE II. MASKWELL _alone_. MASK. So; I durst not own my introducing my lord, though it succeeded well for her, for she would have suspected a design which I should have been puzzled to excuse. My lord is thoughtful. I'll be so too; yet he shall know my thoughts: or think he does. SCENE III. [_To him_] LORD TOUCHWOOD. MASK. What have I done? LORD TOUCH. Talking to himself! MASK. 'Twas honest--and shall I be rewarded for it? No, 'twas honest, therefore I shan't. Nay, rather therefore I ought not; for it rewards itself. LORD TOUCH. Unequalled virtue! [_Aside_.] MASK. But should it be known, then I have lost a friend! He was an ill man, and I have gained; for half myself I lent him, and that I have recalled: so I have served myself, and what is yet better, I have served a worthy lord to whom I owe myself. LORD TOUCH. Excellent man! [_Aside_.] MASK. Yet I am wretched. Oh, there is a secret burns within this breast, which, should it once blaze forth, would ruin all, consume my honest character, and brand me with the name of villain. LORD TOUCH. Ha! MASK. Why do I love! Yet heaven and my waking conscience are my witnesses, I never gave one working thought a vent, which might discover that I loved, nor ever must. No, let it prey upon my heart; for I would rather die, than seem once, barely seem, dishonest. Oh, should it once be known I love fair Cynthia, all this that I have done would look like rival's malice, false friendship to my lord, and base self-interest. Let me perish first, and from this hour avoid all sight and speech, and, if I can, all thought of that pernicious beauty. Ha! But what is my distraction doing? I am wildly talking to myself, and some ill chance might have directed malicious ears this way. [_Seems to start_, _seeing my lord_.] LORD TOUCH. Start not; let guilty and dishonest souls start at the revelation of their thoughts, but be thou fixed, as is thy virtue. MASK. I am confounded, and beg your Lordship's pardon for those free discourses which I have had with myself. LORD TOUCH. Come, I beg your pardon that I overheard you, and yet it shall not need. Honest Maskwell! Thy and my good genius led me hither. Mine, in that I have discovered so much manly virtue; thine, in that thou shalt have due reward of all thy worth. Give me thy hand. My nephew is the alone remaining branch of all our ancient family: him I thus blow away, and constitute thee in his room to be my heir-- MASK. Now heaven forbid-- LORD TOUCH. No more--I have resolved. The writings are ready drawn, and wanted nothing but to be signed, and have his name inserted. Yours will fill the blank as well. I will have no reply. Let me command this time; for 'tis the last in which I will assume authority. Hereafter, you shall rule where I have power. MASK. I humbly would petition-- LORD TOUCH. Is't for yourself? [MASKWELL _pauses_.] I'll hear of nought for anybody else. MASK. Then witness heaven for me, this wealth and honour was not of my seeking, nor would I build my fortune on another's ruin. I had but one desire-- LORD TOUCH. Thou shalt enjoy it. If all I'm worth in wealth or interest can purchase Cynthia, she is thine. I'm sure Sir Paul's consent will follow fortune. I'll quickly show him which way that is going. MASK. You oppress me with bounty. My gratitude is weak, and shrinks beneath the weight, and cannot rise to thank you. What, enjoy my love! Forgive the transports of a blessing so unexpected, so unhoped for, so unthought of! LORD TOUCH. I will confirm it, and rejoice with thee. SCENE IV. MASKWELL _alone_. MASK. This is prosperous indeed. Why let him find me out a villain, settled in possession of a fair estate, and full fruition of my love, I'll bear the railings of a losing gamester. But should he find me out before! 'Tis dangerous to delay. Let me think. Should my lord proceed to treat openly of my marriage with Cynthia, all must be discovered, and Mellefont can be no longer blinded. It must not be; nay, should my lady know it--ay, then were fine work indeed! Her fury would spare nothing, though she involved herself in ruin. No, it must be by stratagem. I must deceive Mellefont once more, and get my lord to consent to my private management. He comes opportunely. Now will I, in my old way, discover the whole and real truth of the matter to him, that he may not suspect one word on't. No mask like open truth to cover lies, As to go naked is the best disguise. SCENE V. [_To him_] MELLEFONT. MEL. O Maskwell, what hopes? I am confounded in a maze of thoughts, each leading into one another, and all ending in perplexity. My uncle will not see nor hear me. MASK. No matter, sir, don't trouble your head: all's in my power. MEL. How? For heaven's sake? MASK. Little do you think that your aunt has kept her word. How the devil she wrought my lord into this dotage, I know not; but he's gone to Sir Paul about my marriage with Cynthia, and has appointed me his heir. MEL. The devil he has! What's to be done? MASK. I have it, it must be by stratagem; for it's in vain to make application to him. I think I have that in my head that cannot fail. Where's Cynthia? MEL. In the garden. MASK. Let us go and consult her: my life for yours, I cheat my lord. SCENE VI. LORD TOUCHWOOD, LADY TOUCHWOOD. LADY TOUCH. Maskwell your heir, and marry Cynthia! LORD TOUCH. I cannot do too much for so much merit. LADY TOUCH. But this is a thing of too great moment to be so suddenly resolved. Why Cynthia? Why must he be married? Is there not reward enough in raising his low fortune, but he must mix his blood with mine, and wed my niece? How know you that my brother will consent, or she? Nay, he himself perhaps may have affections otherwhere. LORD TOUCH. No, I am convinced he loves her. LADY TOUCH. Maskwell love Cynthia? Impossible! LORD TOUCH. I tell you he confessed it to me. LADY TOUCH. Confusion! How's this? [_Aside_.] LORD TOUCH. His humility long stifled his passion. And his love of Mellefont would have made him still conceal it. But by encouragement, I wrung the secret from him, and know he's no way to be rewarded but in her. I'll defer my farther proceedings in it till you have considered it; but remember how we are both indebted to him. SCENE VII. LADY TOUCHWOOD _alone_. LADY TOUCH. Both indebted to him! Yes, we are both indebted to him, if you knew all. Villain! Oh, I am wild with this surprise of treachery: it is impossible, it cannot be. He love Cynthia! What, have I been bawd to his designs, his property only, a baiting place? Now I see what made him false to Mellefont. Shame and distraction! I cannot bear it, oh! what woman can bear to be a property? To be kindled to a flame, only to light him to another's arms; oh! that I were fire indeed that I might burn the vile traitor. What shall I do? How shall I think? I cannot think. All my designs are lost, my love unsated, my revenge unfinished, and fresh cause of fury from unthought of plagues. SCENE VIII. [_To her_] SIR PAUL. SIR PAUL. Madam, sister, my lady sister, did you see my lady my wife? LADY TOUCH. Oh! Torture! SIR PAUL. Gads-bud, I can't find her high nor low; where can she be, think you? LADY TOUCH. Where she's serving you, as all your sex ought to be served, making you a beast. Don't you know you're a fool, brother? SIR PAUL. A fool; he, he, he, you're merry. No, no, not I, I know no such matter. LADY TOUCH. Why, then, you don't know half your happiness. SIR PAUL. That's a jest with all my heart, faith and troth. But harkee, my lord told me something of a revolution of things; I don't know what to make on't. Gads-bud, I must consult my wife:--he talks of disinheriting his nephew, and I don't know what. Look you, sister, I must know what my girl has to trust to, or not a syllable of a wedding, gads-bud!--to show you that I am not a fool. LADY TOUCH. Hear me: consent to the breaking off this marriage, and the promoting any other without consulting me, and I'll renounce all blood, all relation and concern with you for ever; nay, I'll be your enemy, and pursue you to destruction: I'll tear your eyes out, and tread you under my feet. SIR PAUL. Why, what's the matter now? Good Lord, what's all this for? Pooh, here's a joke indeed. Why, where's my wife? LADY TOUCH. With Careless, in the close arbour; he may want you by this time, as much as you want her. SIR PAUL. Oh, if she be with Mr. Careless, 'tis well enough. LADY TOUCH. Fool, sot, insensible ox! But remember what I said to you, or you had better eat your own horns, by this light you had. SIR PAUL. You're a passionate woman, gads-bud! But to say truth all our family are choleric; I am the only peaceable person amongst 'em. SCENE IX. MELLEFONT, MASKWELL, _and_ CYNTHIA. MEL. I know no other way but this he has proposed: if you have love enough to run the venture. CYNT. I don't know whether I have love enough, but I find I have obstinacy enough to pursue whatever I have once resolved; and a true female courage to oppose anything that resists my will, though 'twere reason itself. MASK. That's right. Well, I'll secure the writings and run the hazard along with you. CYNT. But how can the coach and six horses be got ready without suspicion? MASK. Leave it to my care; that shall be so far from being suspected, that it shall be got ready by my lord's own order. MEL. How? MASK. Why, I intend to tell my lord the whole matter of our contrivance; that's my way. MEL. I don't understand you. MASK. Why, I'll tell my lord I laid this plot with you on purpose to betray you; and that which put me upon it, was the finding it impossible to gain the lady any other way, but in the hopes of her marrying you. MEL. So. MASK. So, why so, while you're busied in making yourself ready, I'll wheedle her into the coach; and instead of you, borrow my lord's chaplain, and so run away with her myself. MEL. Oh, I conceive you; you'll tell him so. MASK. Tell him so! ay; why, you don't think I mean to do so? MEL. No, no; ha, ha, I dare swear thou wilt not. MASK. Therefore, for our farther security, I would have you disguised like a parson, that if my lord should have curiosity to peep, he may not discover you in the coach, but think the cheat is carried on as he would have it. MEL. Excellent Maskwell! Thou wert certainly meant for a statesman or a Jesuit; but thou art too honest for one, and too pious for the other. MASK. Well, get yourself ready, and meet me in half-an-hour, yonder in my lady's dressing-room; go by the back stairs, and so we may slip down without being observed. I'll send the chaplain to you with his robes: I have made him my own, and ordered him to meet us to-morrow morning at St. Albans; there we will sum up this account, to all our satisfactions. MEL. Should I begin to thank or praise thee, I should waste the little time we have. SCENE X. CYNTHIA, MASKWELL. MASK. Madam, you will be ready? CYNT. I will be punctual to the minute. [_Going_.] MASK. Stay, I have a doubt. Upon second thoughts, we had better meet in the chaplain's chamber here, the corner chamber at this end of the gallery, there is a back way into it, so that you need not come through this door, and a pair of private stairs leading down to the stables. It will be more convenient. CYNT. I am guided by you; but Mellefont will mistake. MASK. No, no, I'll after him immediately, and tell him. CYNT. I will not fail. SCENE XI. MASKWELL _alone_. MASK. Why, _qui vult decipi decipiatur_.--'Tis no fault of mine: I have told 'em in plain terms how easy 'tis for me to cheat 'em, and if they will not hear the serpent's hiss, they must be stung into experience and future caution. Now to prepare my lord to consent to this. But first I must instruct my little Levite; there is no plot, public or private, that can expect to prosper without one of them has a finger in't: he promised me to be within at this hour,--Mr. Saygrace, Mr. Saygrace! [_Goes to the chamber door and knocks_.] SCENE XII. MASKWELL, SAYGRACE. SAYGRACE [_looking out_.] Sweet sir, I will but pen the last line of an acrostic, and be with you in the twinkling of an ejaculation, in the pronouncing of an Amen, or before you can-- MASK. Nay, good Mr. Saygrace, do not prolong the time by describing to me the shortness of your stay; rather if you please, defer the finishing of your wit, and let us talk about our business; it shall be tithes in your way. SAYGRACE. [_Enters_.] You shall prevail: I would break off in the middle of a sermon to do you a pleasure. MASK. You could not do me a greater,--except the business in hand. Have you provided a habit for Mellefont? SAYGRACE. I have; they are ready in my chamber, together with a clean starched band and cuffs. MASK. Good, let them be carried to him; have you stitched the gown sleeve, that he may be puzzled, and waste time in putting it on? SAYGRACE. I have: the gown will not be indued without perplexity. MASK. Meet me in half-an-hour, here in your own chamber. When Cynthia comes, let there be no light, and do not speak, that she may not distinguish you from Mellefont. I'll urge haste to excuse your silence. SAYGRACE. You have no more commands? MASK. None: your text is short. SAYGRACE. But pithy: and I will handle it with discretion. MASK. It will be the first you have so served. SCENE XIII. LORD TOUCHWOOD, MASKWELL. LORD TOUCH. Sure I was born to be controlled by those I should command. My very slaves will shortly give me rules how I shall govern them. MASK. I am concerned to see your lordship discomposed. LORD TOUCH. Have you seen my wife lately, or disobliged her? MASK. No, my lord. What can this mean? [_Aside_.] LORD TOUCH. Then Mellefont has urged somebody to incense her. Something she has heard of you which carries her beyond the bounds of patience. MASK. This I feared. [_Aside_.] Did not your lordship tell her of the honours you designed me? LORD TOUCH. Yes. MASK. 'Tis that; you know my lady has a high spirit; she thinks I am unworthy. LORD TOUCH. Unworthy! 'Tis an ignorant pride in her to think so. Honesty to me is true nobility. However, 'tis my will it shall be so, and that should be convincing to her as much as reason. By Heaven, I'll not be wife-ridden; were it possible, it should be done this night. MASK. By Heaven, he meets my wishes! [_Aside_.] Few things are impossible to willing minds. LORD TOUCH. Instruct me how this may be done, you shall see I want no inclination. MASK. I had laid a small design for to-morrow (as love will be inventing) which I thought to communicate to your lordship. But it may be as well done to-night. LORD TOUCH. Here's company. Come this way and tell me. SCENE XIV. CARELESS _and_ CYNTHIA. CARE. Is not that he now gone out with my lord? CYNT. Yes. CARE. By heaven, there's treachery. The confusion that I saw your father in, my Lady Touchwood's passion, with what imperfectly I overheard between my lord and her, confirm me in my fears. Where's Mellefont? CYNT. Here he comes. SCENE XV. [_To them_] MELLEFONT. CYNT. Did Maskwell tell you anything of the chaplain's chamber? MEL. No. My dear, will you get ready? The things are all in my chamber; I want nothing but the habit. CARE. You are betrayed, and Maskwell is the villain I always thought him. CYNT. When you were gone, he said his mind was changed, and bid me meet him in the chaplain's room, pretending immediately to follow you and give you notice. MEL. How? CARE. There's Saygrace tripping by with a bundle under his arm. He cannot be ignorant that Maskwell means to use his chamber; let's follow and examine him. MEL. 'Tis loss of time; I cannot think him false. SCENE XVI. CYNTHIA, LORD TOUCHWOOD. CYNT. My lord musing! LORD TOUCH. He has a quick invention, if this were suddenly designed. Yet he says he had prepared my chaplain already. CYNT. How's this? Now I fear indeed. LORD TOUCH. Cynthia here! Alone, fair cousin, and melancholy? CYNT. Your lordship was thoughtful. LORD TOUCH. My thoughts were on serious business not worth your hearing. CYNT. Mine were on treachery concerning you, and may be worth your hearing. LORD TOUCH. Treachery concerning me? Pray be plain. Hark! What noise? MASK. (within) Will you not hear me? LADY TOUCH. (within) No, monster! traitor! No. CYNT. My lady and Maskwell! This may be lucky. My lord, let me entreat you to stand behind this screen and listen: perhaps this chance may give you proof of what you ne'er could have believed from my suspicions. SCENE XVII. LADY TOUCHWOOD _with a dagger_; MASKWELL; CYNTHIA _and_ LORD TOUCHWOOD _abscond_, _listening_. LADY TOUCH. You want but leisure to invent fresh falsehood, and soothe me to a fond belief of all your fictions: but I will stab the lie that's forming in your heart, and save a sin, in pity to your soul. MASK. Strike then, since you will have it so. LADY TOUCH. Ha! A steady villain to the last. MASK. Come, why do you dally with me thus? LADY TOUCH. Thy stubborn temper shocks me, and you knew it would; this is cunning all, and not courage. No; I know thee well, but thou shalt miss thy aim. MASK. Ha, ha, ha! LADY TOUCH. Ha! Do you mock my rage? Then this shall punish your fond, rash contempt. Again smile! [_Goes to strike_.] And such a smile as speaks in ambiguity! Ten thousand meanings lurk in each corner of that various face. Oh! that they were written in thy heart, That I, with this, might lay thee open to my sight! But then 'twill be too late to know-- Thou hast, thou hast found the only way to turn my rage. Too well thou knowest my jealous soul could never bear uncertainty. Speak, then, and tell me. Yet are you silent. Oh, I am wildered in all passions. But thus my anger melts. [_Weeps_.] Here, take this poniard, for my very spirits faint, and I want strength to hold it; thou hast disarmed my soul. [_Gives the dagger_.] LORD TOUCH. Amazement shakes me. Where will this end? MASK. So, 'tis well--let your wild fury have a vent; and when you have temper, tell me. LADY TOUCH. Now, now, now I am calm and can hear you. MASK. [_Aside_.] Thanks, my invention; and now I have it for you. First, tell me what urged you to this violence: for your passion broke in such imperfect terms, that yet I am to learn the cause. LADY TOUCH. My lord himself surprised me with the news you were to marry Cynthia, that you had owned our love to him, and his indulgence would assist you to attain your ends. CYNT. How, my lord? LORD TOUCH. Pray forbear all resentments for a while, and let us hear the rest. MASK. I grant you in appearance all is true; I seemed consenting to my lord--nay, transported with the blessing. But could you think that I, who had been happy in your loved embraces, could e'er be fond of an inferior slavery? LORD TOUCH. Ha! Oh, poison to my ears! What do I hear? CYNT. Nay, good my lord, forbear resentment; let us hear it out. LORD TOUCH. Yes, I will contain, though I could burst. MASK. I, that had wantoned in the rich circle of your world of love, could be confined within the puny province of a girl? No. Yet though I dote on each last favour more than all the rest, though I would give a limb for every look you cheaply throw away on any other object of your love: yet so far I prize your pleasures o'er my own, that all this seeming plot that I have laid has been to gratify your taste and cheat the world, to prove a faithful rogue to you. LADY TOUCH. If this were true. But how can it be? MASK. I have so contrived that Mellefont will presently, in the chaplain's habit, wait for Cynthia in your dressing-room; but I have put the change upon her, that she may be other where employed. Do you procure her night-gown, and with your hoods tied over your face, meet him in her stead. You may go privately by the back stairs, and, unperceived, there you may propose to reinstate him in his uncle's favour, if he'll comply with your desires--his case is desperate, and I believe he'll yield to any conditions. If not here, take this; you may employ it better than in the heart of one who is nothing when not yours. [_Gives the dagger_.] LADY TOUCH. Thou can'st deceive everybody. Nay, thou hast deceived me; but 'tis as I would wish. Trusty villain! I could worship thee. MASK. No more; it wants but a few minutes of the time; and Mellefont's love will carry him there before his hour. LADY TOUCH. I go, I fly, incomparable Maskwell! SCENE XVIII. MASKWELL, CYNTHIA, LORD TOUCHWOOD. MASK. So, this was a pinch indeed, my invention was upon the rack, and made discovery of her last plot. I hope Cynthia and my chaplain will be ready; I'll prepare for the expedition. SCENE XIX. CYNTHIA _and_ LORD TOUCHWOOD. CYNT. Now, my lord? LORD TOUCH. Astonishment binds up my rage! Villainy upon villainy! Heavens, what a long track of dark deceit has this discovered! I am confounded when I look back, and want a clue to guide me through the various mazes of unheard-of treachery. My wife! Damnation! My hell! CYNT. My lord, have patience, and be sensible how great our happiness is, that this discovery was not made too late. LORD TOUCH. I thank you, yet it may be still too late, if we don't presently prevent the execution of their plots;--ha, I'll do't. Where's Mellefont, my poor injured nephew? How shall I make him ample satisfaction? CYNT. I dare answer for him. LORD TOUCH. I do him fresh wrong to question his forgiveness; for I know him to be all goodness. Yet my wife! Damn her:--she'll think to meet him in that dressing-room. Was't not so? And Maskwell will expect you in the chaplain's chamber. For once, I'll add my plot too:--let us haste to find out, and inform my nephew; and do you, quickly as you can, bring all the company into this gallery. I'll expose the strumpet, and the villain. SCENE XX. LORD FROTH _and_ SIR PAUL. LORD FROTH. By heavens, I have slept an age. Sir Paul, what o'clock is't? Past eight, on my conscience; my lady's is the most inviting couch, and a slumber there is the prettiest amusement! But where's all the company? SIR PAUL. The company, gads-bud, I don't know, my lord, but here's the strangest revolution, all turned topsy turvy; as I hope for providence. LORD FROTH. O heavens, what's the matter? Where's my wife? SIR PAUL. All turned topsy turvy as sure as a gun. LORD FROTH. How do you mean? My wife? SIR PAUL. The strangest posture of affairs! LORD FROTH. What, my wife? SIR PAUL. No, no, I mean the family. Your lady's affairs may be in a very good posture; I saw her go into the garden with Mr. Brisk. LORD FROTH. How? Where, when, what to do? SIR PAUL. I suppose they have been laying their heads together. LORD FROTH. How? SIR PAUL. Nay, only about poetry, I suppose, my lord; making couplets. LORD FROTH. Couplets. SIR PAUL. Oh, here they come. SCENE XXI. [_To them_] LADY FROTH, BRISK. BRISK. My lord, your humble servant; Sir Paul, yours,--the finest night! LADY FROTH. My dear, Mr. Brisk and I have been star-gazing, I don't know how long. SIR PAUL. Does it not tire your ladyship? Are not you weary with looking up? LADY FROTH. Oh, no, I love it violently. My dear, you're melancholy. LORD FROTH. No, my dear; I'm but just awake. LADY FROTH. Snuff some of my spirit of hartshorn. LORD FROTH. I've some of my own, thank you, dear. LADY FROTH. Well, I swear, Mr. Brisk, you understood astronomy like an old Egyptian. BRISK. Not comparably to your ladyship; you are the very Cynthia of the skies, and queen of stars. LADY FROTH. That's because I have no light but what's by reflection from you, who are the sun. BRISK. Madam, you have eclipsed me quite, let me perish. I can't answer that. LADY FROTH. No matter. Hark 'ee, shall you and I make an almanac together? BRISK. With all my soul. Your ladyship has made me the man in't already, I'm so full of the wounds which you have given. LADY FROTH. O finely taken! I swear now you are even with me. O Parnassus, you have an infinite deal of wit. SIR PAUL. So he has, gads-bud, and so has your ladyship. SCENE XXII. [_To them_] LADY PLYANT, CARELESS, CYNTHIA. LADY PLYANT. You tell me most surprising things; bless me, who would ever trust a man? Oh my heart aches for fear they should be all deceitful alike. CARE. You need not fear, madam, you have charms to fix inconstancy itself. LADY PLYANT. O dear, you make me blush. LORD FROTH. Come, my dear, shall we take leave of my lord and lady? CYNT. They'll wait upon your lordship presently. LADY FROTH. Mr. Brisk, my coach shall set you down. ALL. What's the matter? [_A great shriek from the corner of the stage_.] SCENE XXIII. [_To them_] LADY TOUCHWOOD _runs out affrighted_, _my lord after her_, _like a parson_. LADY TOUCH. Oh, I'm betrayed. Save me, help me! LORD TOUCH. Now what evasion, strumpet? LADY TOUCH. Stand off, let me go. LORD TOUCH. Go, and thy own infamy pursue thee. You stare as you were all amazed,--I don't wonder at it,--but too soon you'll know mine, and that woman's shame. SCENE the last. LORD TOUCHWOOD, LORD FROTH, LADY FROTH, LADY PLYANT, SIR PAUL, CYNTHIA, MELLEFONT, MASKWELL, MELLEFONT _disguised in a parson's habit and pulling in_ MASKWELL. MEL. Nay, by heaven you shall be seen. Careless, your hand. Do you hold down your head? Yes, I am your chaplain, look in the face of your injured friend; thou wonder of all falsehood. LORD TOUCH. Are you silent, monster? MEL. Good heavens! How I believed and loved this man! Take him hence, for he's a disease to my sight. LORD TOUCH. Secure that manifold villain. [_Servants seize him_.] CARE. Miracle of ingratitude! BRISK. This is all very surprising, let me perish. LADY FROTH. You know I told you Saturn looked a little more angry than usual. LORD TOUCH. We'll think of punishment at leisure, but let me hasten to do justice in rewarding virtue and wronged innocence. Nephew, I hope I have your pardon, and Cynthia's. MEL. We are your lordship's creatures. LORD TOUCH. And be each other's comfort. Let me join your hands. Unwearied nights, and wishing days attend you both; mutual love, lasting health, and circling joys, tread round each happy year of your long lives. Let secret villany from hence be warned; Howe'er in private mischiefs are conceived, Torture and shame attend their open birth; Like vipers in the womb, base treachery lies, Still gnawing that, whence first it did arise; No sooner born, but the vile parent dies. [_Exeunt Omnes_.] EPILOGUE Spoken by MRS. MOUNTFORD. Could poets but foresee how plays would take, Then they could tell what epilogues to make; Whether to thank or blame their audience most. But that late knowledge does much hazard cost: Till dice are thrown, there's nothing won, nor lost. So, till the thief has stolen, he cannot know Whether he shall escape the law, or no. But poets run much greater hazards far Than they who stand their trials at the bar. The law provides a curb for it's own fury, And suffers judges to direct the jury: But in this court, what difference does appear! For every one's both judge and jury here; Nay, and what's worse, an executioner. All have a right and title to some part, Each choosing that in which he has most art. The dreadful men of learning all confound, Unless the fable's good, and moral sound. The vizor-masks, that are in pit and gallery, Approve, or damn, the repartee and raillery. The lady critics, who are better read, Inquire if characters are nicely bred; If the soft things are penned and spoke with grace; They judge of action too, and time, and place; In which we do not doubt but they're discerning, For that's a kind of assignation learning. Beaus judge of dress; the witlings judge of songs; The cuckoldom, of ancient right, to cits belongs. Thus poor poets the favour are denied Even to make exceptions, when they're tried. 'Tis hard that they must every one admit: Methinks I see some faces in the pit Which must of consequence be foes to wit. You who can judge, to sentence may proceed; But though he cannot write, let him be freed At least from their contempt who cannot read. 
19094	----	MAGIC A FANTASTIC COMEDY [Illustration: G.K. Chesterton From a photograph] MAGIC A FANTASTIC COMEDY BY G.K. CHESTERTON G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON The Knickerbocker Press 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913 BY G.K. CHESTERTON The Knickerbocker Press, New York THE CHARACTERS THE DUKE DOCTOR GRIMTHORPE THE REV. CYRIL SMITH MORRIS CARLEON HASTINGS, _the Duke's Secretary_ THE STRANGER PATRICIA CARLEON _The action takes place in the Duke's Drawing-room._ NOTE THIS play was presented under the management of Kenelm Foss at The Little Theatre, London, on November 7, 1913, with the following cast: THE STRANGER FRANKLIN DYALL PATRICIA CARLEON MISS GRACE CROFT THE REV. CYRIL SMITH O.P. HEGGIE DR. GRIMTHORPE WILLIAM FARREN THE DUKE FRED LEWIS HASTINGS FRANK RANDELL MORRIS CARLEON LYONEL WATTS THE PRELUDE SCENE: _A plantation of thin young trees, in a misty and rainy twilight; some woodland blossom showing the patches on the earth between the stems._ THE STRANGER _is discovered, a cloaked figure with a pointed hood. His costume might belong to modern or any other time, and the conical hood is so drawn over the head that little can be seen of the face._ _A distant voice, a woman's, is heard, half-singing, half-chanting, unintelligible words. The cloaked figure raises its head and listens with interest. The song draws nearer and_ PATRICIA CARLEON _enters. She is dark and slight, and has a dreamy expression. Though she is artistically dressed, her hair is a little wild. She has a broken branch of some flowering tree in her hand. She does not notice the stranger, and though he has watched her with interest, makes no sign. Suddenly she perceives him and starts back._ PATRICIA. Oh! Who are you? STRANGER. Ah! Who am I? [_Commences to mutter to himself, and maps out the ground with his staff._] I have a hat, but not to wear; I wear a sword, but not to slay, And ever in my bag I bear A pack of cards, but not to play. PATRICIA. What are you? What are you saying? STRANGER. It is the language of the fairies, O daughter of Eve. PATRICIA. But I never thought fairies were like you. Why, you are taller than I am. STRANGER. We are of such stature as we will. But the elves grow small, not large, when they would mix with mortals. PATRICIA. You mean they are beings greater than we are. STRANGER. Daughter of men, if you would see a fairy as he truly is, look for his head above all the stars and his feet amid the floors of the sea. Old women have taught you that the fairies are too small to be seen. But I tell you the fairies are too mighty to be seen. For they are the elder gods before whom the giants were like pigmies. They are the Elemental Spirits, and any one of them is larger than the world. And you look for them in acorns and on toadstools and wonder that you never see them. PATRICIA. But you come in the shape and size of a man? STRANGER. Because I would speak with a woman. PATRICIA. [_Drawing back in awe._] I think you are growing taller as you speak. [_The scene appears to fade away, and give place to the milieu of_ ACT ONE, _the Duke's drawing-room, an apartment with open French windows or any opening large enough to show a garden and one house fairly near. It is evening, and there is a red lamp lighted in the house beyond. The_ REV. CYRIL SMITH _is sitting with hat and umbrella beside him, evidently a visitor. He is a young man with the highest of High Church dog-collars and all the qualities of a restrained fanatic. He is one of the Christian Socialist sort and takes his priesthood seriously. He is an honest man, and not an ass._ [_To him enters_ MR. HASTINGS _with papers in his hand._ HASTINGS. Oh, good evening. You are Mr. Smith. [_Pause._] I mean you are the Rector, I think. SMITH. I am the Rector. HASTINGS. I am the Duke's secretary. His Grace asks me to say that he hopes to see you very soon; but he is engaged just now with the Doctor. SMITH. Is the Duke ill? HASTINGS. [_Laughing._] Oh, no; the Doctor has come to ask him to help some cause or other. The Duke is never ill. SMITH. Is the Doctor with him now? HASTINGS. Why, strictly speaking, he is not. The Doctor has gone over the road to fetch a paper connected with his proposal. But he hasn't far to go, as you can see. That's his red lamp at the end of his grounds. SMITH. Yes, I know. I am much obliged to you. I will wait as long as is necessary. HASTINGS. [_Cheerfully._] Oh, it won't be very long. [_Exit._ [_Enter by the garden doors_ DR. GRIMTHORPE _reading an open paper. He is an old-fashioned practitioner, very much of a gentleman and very carefully dressed in a slightly antiquated style. He is about sixty years old and might have been a friend of Huxley's._ DOCTOR. [_Folding up the paper._] I beg your pardon, sir, I did not notice there was anyone here. SMITH. [_Amicably._] I beg yours. A new clergyman cannot expect to be expected. I only came to see the Duke about some local affairs. DOCTOR. [_Smiling._] And so, oddly enough, did I. But I suppose we should both like to get hold of him by a separate ear. SMITH. Oh, there's no disguise as far as I'm concerned. I've joined this league for starting a model public-house in the parish; and in plain words, I've come to ask his Grace for a subscription to it. DOCTOR. [_Grimly._] And, as it happens, I have joined in the petition against the erection of a model public-house in this parish. The similarity of our position grows with every instant. SMITH. Yes, I think we must have been twins. DOCTOR. [_More good-humouredly._] Well, what is a model public-house? Do you mean a toy? SMITH. I mean a place where Englishmen can get decent drink and drink it decently. Do you call that a toy? DOCTOR. No; I should call that a conjuring trick. Or, in apology to your cloth, I will say a miracle. SMITH. I accept the apology to my cloth. I am doing my duty as a priest. How can the Church have a right to make men fast if she does not allow them to feast? DOCTOR. [_Bitterly._] And when you have done feasting them, you will send them to me to be cured. SMITH. Yes; and when you've done curing them you'll send them to me to be buried. DOCTOR. [_After a pause, laughing._] Well, you have all the old doctrines. It is only fair you should have all the old jokes too. SMITH. [_Laughing also._] By the way, you call it a conjuring trick that poor people should drink moderately. DOCTOR. I call it a chemical discovery that alcohol is not a food. SMITH. You don't drink wine yourself? DOCTOR. [_Mildly startled._] Drink wine! Well--what else is there to drink? SMITH. So drinking decently is a conjuring trick that you can do, anyhow? DOCTOR. [_Still good-humouredly._] Well, well, let us hope so. Talking about conjuring tricks, there is to be conjuring and all kinds of things here this afternoon. SMITH. Conjuring? Indeed? Why is that? _Enter_ HASTINGS _with a letter in each hand._ HASTINGS. His Grace will be with you presently. He asked me to deal with the business matter first of all. [_He gives a note to each of them._ SMITH. [_Turning eagerly to the_ DOCTOR.] But this is rather splendid. The Duke's given £50 to the new public-house. HASTINGS. The Duke is very liberal. [_Collects papers._ DOCTOR. [_Examining his cheque._] Very. But this is rather curious. He has also given £50 to the league for opposing the new public-house. HASTINGS. The Duke is very liberal-minded. [_Exit._ SMITH. [_Staring at his cheque._] Liberal-minded!... Absent-minded, I should call it. DOCTOR. [_Sitting down and lighting a cigar._] Well, yes. The Duke does suffer a little from absence [_puts his cigar in his mouth and pulls during the pause_] of mind. He is all for compromise. Don't you know the kind of man who, when you talk to him about the five best breeds of dog, always ends up by buying a mongrel? The Duke is the kindest of men, and always trying to please everybody. He generally finishes by pleasing nobody. SMITH. Yes; I think I know the sort of thing. DOCTOR. Take this conjuring, for instance. You know the Duke has two wards who are to live with him now? SMITH. Yes. I heard something about a nephew and niece from Ireland. DOCTOR. The niece came from Ireland some months ago, but the nephew comes back from America to-night. [_He gets up abruptly and walks about the room._] I think I will tell you all about it. In spite of your precious public-house you seem to me to be a sane man. And I fancy I shall want all the sane men I can get to-night. SMITH. [_Rising also._] I am at your service. Do you know, I rather guessed you did not come here only to protest against my precious public-house. DOCTOR. [_Striding about in subdued excitement._] Well, you guessed right. I was family physician to the Duke's brother in Ireland. I knew the family pretty well. SMITH. [_Quietly._] I suppose you mean you knew something odd about the family? DOCTOR. Well, they saw fairies and things of that sort. SMITH. And I suppose, to the medical mind, seeing fairies means much the same as seeing snakes? DOCTOR. [_With a sour smile._] Well, they saw them in Ireland. I suppose it's quite correct to see fairies in Ireland. It's like gambling at Monte Carlo. It's quite respectable. But I do draw the line at their seeing fairies in England. I do object to their bringing their ghosts and goblins and witches into the poor Duke's own back garden and within a yard of my own red lamp. It shows a lack of tact. SMITH. But I do understand that the Duke's nephew and niece see witches and fairies between here and your lamp. [_He walks to the garden window and looks out._ DOCTOR. Well, the nephew has been in America. It stands to reason you can't see fairies in America. But there is this sort of superstition in the family, and I am not easy in my mind about the girl. SMITH. Why, what does she do? DOCTOR. Oh, she wanders about the park and the woods in the evenings. Damp evenings for choice. She calls it the Celtic twilight. I've no use for the Celtic twilight myself. It has a tendency to get on the chest. But what is worse, she is always talking about meeting somebody, some elf or wizard or something. I don't like it at all. SMITH. Have you told the Duke? DOCTOR. [_With a grim smile._] Oh, yes, I told the Duke. The result was the conjurer. SMITH. [_With amazement._] The _conjurer_? DOCTOR. [_Puts down his cigar in the ash-tray._] The Duke is indescribable. He will be here presently, and you shall judge for yourself. Put two or three facts or ideas before him, and the thing he makes out of them is always something that seems to have nothing to do with it. Tell any other human being about a girl dreaming of the fairies and her practical brother from America, and he would settle it in some obvious way and satisfy some one: send her to America or let her have her fairies in Ireland. Now the Duke thinks a conjurer would just meet the case. I suppose he vaguely thinks it would brighten things up, and somehow satisfy the believers' interest in supernatural things and the unbelievers' interest in smart things. As a matter of fact the unbeliever thinks the conjurer's a fraud, and the believer thinks he's a fraud, too. The conjurer satisfies nobody. That is why he satisfies the Duke. [_Enter the_ DUKE, _with_ HASTINGS, _carrying papers. The_ DUKE _is a healthy, hearty man in tweeds, with a rather wandering eye. In the present state of the peerage it is necessary to explain that the_ DUKE, _though an ass, is a gentleman._ DUKE. Good-morning, Mr. Smith. So sorry to have kept you waiting, but we're rather in a rush to-day. [_Turns to_ HASTINGS, _who has gone over to a table with the papers._] You know Mr. Carleon is coming this afternoon? HASTINGS. Yes, your Grace. His train will be in by now. I have sent the trap. DUKE. Thank you. [_Turning to the other two._] My nephew, Dr. Grimthorpe, Morris, you know, Miss Carleon's brother from America. I hear he's been doing great things out there. Petrol, or something. Must move with the times, eh? DOCTOR. I'm afraid Mr. Smith doesn't always agree with moving with the times. DUKE. Oh, come, come! Progress, you know, progress! Of course I know how busy you are; you mustn't overwork yourself, you know. Hastings was telling me you laughed over those subscriptions of mine. Well, well, I believe in looking at both sides of a question, you know. Aspects, as old Buffle called them. Aspects. [_With an all-embracing gesture of the arm._] You represent the tendency to drink in moderation, and you do good in _your_ way. The Doctor represents the tendency not to drink at all; and he does good in _his_ way. We can't be Ancient Britons, you know. [_A prolonged and puzzled silence, such as always follows the more abrupt of the_ DUKE'S _associations or disassociations of thought._ SMITH. [_At last, faintly._] Ancient Britons.... DOCTOR. [_To_ SMITH _in a low voice._] Don't bother. It's only his broad-mindedness. DUKE. [_With unabated cheerfulness._] I saw the place you're putting up for it, Mr. Smith. Very good work. Very good work, indeed. Art for the people, eh? I particularly liked that woodwork over the west door--I'm glad to see you're using the new sort of graining ... why, it all reminds one of the French Revolution. [_Another silence. As the_ DUKE _lounges alertly about the room_, SMITH _speaks to the_ DOCTOR _in an undertone._ SMITH. Does it remind you of the French Revolution? DOCTOR. As much as of anything else. His Grace never reminds me of anything. [_A young and very high American voice is heard calling in the garden. "Say, could somebody see to one of these trunks?"_ [MR. HASTINGS _goes out into the garden. He returns with_ MORRIS CARLEON, _a very young man: hardly more than a boy, but with very grown-up American dress and manners. He is dark, smallish, and active; and the racial type under his Americanism is Irish._ MORRIS. [_Humorously, as he puts in his head at the window._] See here, does a Duke live here? DOCTOR. [_Who is nearest to him, with great gravity._] Yes, only one. MORRIS. I reckon he's the one I want, anyhow. I'm his nephew. [_The_ DUKE, _who is ruminating in the foreground, with one eye rather off, turns at the voice and shakes_ MORRIS _warmly by the hand._ DUKE. Delighted to see you, my dear boy. I hear you've been doing very well for yourself. MORRIS. [_Laughing._] Well, pretty well, Duke; and better still for Paul T. Vandam, I guess. I manage the old man's mines out in Arizona, you know. DUKE. [_Shaking his head sagaciously._] Ah, very go-ahead man! Very go-ahead methods, I'm told. Well, I dare say he does a great deal of good with his money. And we can't go back to the Spanish Inquisition. [_Silence, during which the three men look at each other._ MORRIS. [_Abruptly._] And how's Patricia? DUKE. [_A little hazily._] Oh, she's very well, I think. She.... [_He hesitates slightly._ MORRIS. [_Smiling._] Well, then, where's Patricia? [_There is a slightly embarrassed pause, and the_ DOCTOR _speaks._ DOCTOR. Miss Carleon is walking about the grounds, I think. [MORRIS _goes to the garden doors and looks out._ MORRIS. It's a mighty chilly night to choose. Does my sister commonly select such evenings to take the air--and the damp? DOCTOR. [_After a pause._] If I may say so, I quite agree with you. I have often taken the liberty of warning your sister against going out in all weathers like this. DUKE. [_Expansively waving his hands about._] The artist temperament! What I always call the artistic temperament! Wordsworth, you know, and all that. [_Silence._ MORRIS. [_Staring._] All what? DUKE. [_Continuing to lecture with enthusiasm._] Why, everything's temperament, you know! It's her temperament to see the fairies. It's my temperament not to see the fairies. Why, I've walked all round the grounds twenty times and never saw a fairy. Well, it's like that about this wizard or whatever she calls it. For her there is somebody there. For us there would not be somebody there. Don't you see? MORRIS. [_Advancing excitedly._] Somebody there! What do you mean? DUKE. [_Airily._] Well, you can't quite call it a man. MORRIS. [_Violently._] A man! DUKE. Well, as old Buffle used to say, what is a man? MORRIS. [_With a strong rise of the American accent._] With your permission, Duke, I eliminate old Buffle. Do you mean that anybody has had the tarnation coolness to suggest that some man.... DUKE. Oh, not a _man_, you know. A magician, something mythical, you know. SMITH. Not a _man_, but a medicine man. DOCTOR. [_Grimly._] I am a medicine man. MORRIS. And you don't look mythical, Doc. [_He bites his finger and begins to pace restlessly up and down the room._ DUKE. Well, you know, the artistic temperament.... MORRIS. [_Turning suddenly._] See here, Duke! In most commercial ways we're a pretty forward country. In these moral ways we're content to be a pretty backward country. And if you ask me whether I like my sister walking about the woods on a night like this! Well, I don't. DUKE. I am afraid you Americans aren't so advanced as I'd hoped. Why! as old Buffle used to say.... [_As he speaks a distant voice is heard singing in the garden; it comes nearer and nearer, and_ SMITH _turns suddenly to the_ DOCTOR. SMITH. Whose voice is that? DOCTOR. It is no business of mine to decide! MORRIS. [_Walking to the window._] You need not trouble. I know who it is. _Enter_ PATRICIA CARLEON [_Still agitated._] Patricia, where have you been? PATRICIA. [_Rather wearily._] Oh! in Fairyland. DOCTOR. [_Genially._] And whereabouts is that? PATRICIA. It's rather different from other places. It's either nowhere or it's wherever you are. MORRIS. [_Sharply._] Has it any inhabitants? PATRICIA. Generally only two. Oneself and one's shadow. But whether he is my shadow or I am his shadow is never found out. MORRIS. He? Who? PATRICIA. [_Seeming to understand his annoyance for the first time, and smiling._] Oh, you needn't get conventional about it, Morris. He is not a mortal. MORRIS. What's his name? PATRICIA. We have no names there. You never really know anybody if you know his name. MORRIS. What does he look like? PATRICIA. I have only met him in the twilight. He seems robed in a long cloak, with a peaked cap or hood like the elves in my nursery stories. Sometimes when I look out of the window here, I see him passing round this house like a shadow; and see his pointed hood, dark against the sunset or the rising of the moon. SMITH. What does he talk about? PATRICIA. He tells me the truth. Very many true things. He is a wizard. MORRIS. How do you know he's a wizard? I suppose he plays some tricks on you. PATRICIA. I should know he was a wizard if he played no tricks. But once he stooped and picked up a stone and cast it into the air, and it flew up into God's heaven like a bird. MORRIS. Was that what first made you think he was a wizard? PATRICIA. Oh, no. When I first saw him he was tracing circles and pentacles in the grass and talking the language of the elves. MORRIS. [_Sceptically._] Do you know the language of the elves? PATRICIA. Not until I heard it. MORRIS. [_Lowering his voice as if for his sister, but losing patience so completely that he talks much louder than he imagines._] See here, Patricia, I reckon this kind of thing is going to be the limit. I'm just not going to have you let in by some blamed tramp or fortune-teller because you choose to read minor poetry about the fairies. If this gipsy or whatever he is troubles you again.... DOCTOR. [_Putting his hand on_ MORRIS'S _shoulder._] Come, you must allow a little more for poetry. We can't all feed on nothing but petrol. DUKE. Quite right, quite right. And being Irish, don't you know, Celtic, as old Buffle used to say, charming songs, you know, about the Irish girl who has a plaid shawl--and a Banshee. [_Sighs profoundly._] Poor old Gladstone! [_Silence as usual._ SMITH. [_Speaking to_ DOCTOR.] I thought you yourself considered the family superstition bad for the health? DOCTOR. I consider a family superstition is better for the health than a family quarrel. [_He walks casually across to_ PATRICIA.] Well, it must be nice to be young and still see all those stars and sunsets. We old buffers won't be too strict with you if your view of things sometimes gets a bit--mixed up, shall we say? If the stars get loose about the grass by mistake; or if, once or twice, the sunset gets into the east. We should only say, "Dream as much as you like. Dream for all mankind. Dream for us who can dream no longer. But do not quite forget the difference." PATRICIA. What difference? DOCTOR. The difference between the things that are beautiful and the things that are there. That red lamp over my door isn't beautiful; but it's there. You might even come to be glad it is there, when the stars of gold and silver have faded. I am an old man now, but some men are still glad to find my red star. I do not say they are the wise men. PATRICIA. [_Somewhat affected._] Yes, I know you are good to everybody. But don't you think there may be floating and spiritual stars which will last longer than the red lamps? SMITH. [_With decision._] Yes. But they are fixed stars. DOCTOR. The red lamp will last my time. DUKE. Capital! Capital! Why, it's like Tennyson. [_Silence._] I remember when I was an undergrad.... [_The red light disappears; no one sees it at first except_ PATRICIA, _who points excitedly._ MORRIS. What's the matter? PATRICIA. The red star is gone. MORRIS. Nonsense! [_Rushes to the garden doors._] It's only somebody standing in front of it. Say, Duke, there's somebody standing in the garden. PATRICIA. [_Calmly._] I told you he walked about the garden. MORRIS. If it's that fortune-teller of yours.... [_Disappears into the garden, followed by the_ DOCTOR. DUKE. [_Staring._] Somebody in the garden! Really, this Land Campaign.... [_Silence._ [MORRIS _reappears rather breathless._ MORRIS. A spry fellow, your friend. He slipped through my hands like a shadow. PATRICIA. I told you he was a shadow. MORRIS. Well, I guess there's going to be a shadow hunt. Got a lantern, Duke? PATRICIA. Oh, you need not trouble. He will come if I call him. [_She goes out into the garden and calls out some half-chanted and unintelligible words, somewhat like the song preceding her entrance. The red light reappears; and there is a slight sound as of fallen leaves shuffled by approaching feet. The cloaked_ STRANGER _with the pointed hood is seen standing outside the garden doors._ PATRICIA. You may enter all doors. [_The figure comes into the room_ MORRIS. [_Shutting the garden doors behind him._] Now, see here, wizard, we've got you. And we know you're a fraud. SMITH. [_Quietly._] Pardon me, I do not fancy that we know that. For myself I must confess to something of the Doctor's agnosticism. MORRIS. [_Excited, and turning almost with a snarl._] I didn't know you parsons stuck up for any fables but your own. SMITH. I stick up for the thing every man has a right to. Perhaps the only thing that every man has a right to. MORRIS. And what is that? SMITH. The benefit of the doubt. Even your master, the petroleum millionaire, has a right to that. And I think he needs it more. MORRIS. I don't think there's much doubt about the question, Minister. I've met this sort of fellow often enough--the sort of fellow who wheedles money out of girls by telling them he can make stones disappear. DOCTOR. [_To the_ STRANGER.] Do you say you can make stones disappear? STRANGER. Yes. I can make stones disappear. MORRIS. [_Roughly._] I reckon you're the kind of tough who knows how to make a watch and chain disappear. STRANGER. Yes; I know how to make a watch and chain disappear. MORRIS. And I should think you were pretty good at disappearing yourself. STRANGER. I have done such a thing. MORRIS. [_With a sneer._] Will you disappear now? STRANGER. [_After reflection._] No, I think I'll appear instead. [_He throws back his hood, showing the head of an intellectual-looking man, young but rather worn. Then he unfastens his cloak and throws it off, emerging in complete modern evening dress. He advances down the room towards the_ DUKE, _taking out his watch as he does so._] Good-evening, your Grace. I'm afraid I'm rather too early for the performance. But this gentleman [_with a gesture towards_ MORRIS] seemed rather impatient for it to begin. DUKE. [_Rather at a loss._] Oh, good-evening. Why, really--are you the...? STRANGER. [_Bowing._] Yes. I am the Conjurer. [_There is general laughter, except from_ PATRICIA. _As the others mingle in talk, the_ STRANGER _goes up to her._ STRANGER. [_Very sadly._] I am very sorry I am not a wizard. PATRICIA. I wish you were a thief instead. STRANGER. Have I committed a worse crime than thieving? PATRICIA. You have committed the cruellest crime, I think, that there is. STRANGER. And what is the cruellest crime? PATRICIA. Stealing a child's toy. STRANGER. And what have I stolen? PATRICIA. A fairy tale. CURTAIN ACT II _The same room lighted more brilliantly an hour later in the evening. On one side a table covered with packs of cards, pyramids, etc., at which the_ CONJURER _in evening dress is standing quietly setting out his tricks. A little more in the foreground the_ DUKE; _and_ HASTINGS _with a number of papers._ HASTINGS. There are only a few small matters. Here are the programmes of the entertainment your Grace wanted. Mr. Carleon wishes to see them very much. DUKE. Thanks, thanks. [_Takes the programmes._] HASTINGS. Shall I carry them for your Grace? DUKE. No, no; I shan't forget, I shan't forget. Why, you've no idea how businesslike I am. We have to be, you know. [_Vaguely._] I know you're a bit of a Socialist; but I assure you there's a good deal to do--stake in the country, and all that. Look at remembering faces now! The King never forgets faces. [_Waves the programmes about._] I never forget faces. [_Catches sight of the_ CONJURER _and genially draws him into the discussion._] Why, the Professor here who performs before the King [_puts down the programmes_]--you see it on the caravans, you know--performs before the King almost every night, I suppose.... CONJURER. [_Smiling._] I sometimes let his Majesty have an evening off. And turn my attention, of course, to the very highest nobility. But naturally I have performed before every sovereign potentate, white and black. There never was a conjurer who hadn't. DUKE. That's right, that's right! And you'll say with me that the great business for a King is remembering people? CONJURER. I should say it was remembering which people to remember. DUKE. Well, well, now.... [_Looks round rather wildly for something._] Being really businesslike.... HASTINGS. Shall I take the programmes for your Grace? DUKE. [_Picking them up._] No, no, I shan't forget. Is there anything else? HASTINGS. I have to go down the village about the wire to Stratford. The only other thing at all urgent is the Militant Vegetarians. DUKE. Ah! The Militant Vegetarians! You've heard of them, I'm sure. Won't obey the law [_to the_ CONJURER] so long as the Government serves out meat. CONJURER. Let them be comforted. There are a good many people who don't get much meat. DUKE. Well, well, I'm bound to say they're very enthusiastic. Advanced, too--oh, certainly advanced. Like Joan of Arc. [_Short silence, in which the_ CONJURER _stares at him._] CONJURER. _Was_ Joan of Arc a Vegetarian? DUKE. Oh, well, it's a very high ideal, after all. The Sacredness of Life, you know--the Sacredness of Life. [_Shakes his head._] But they carry it too far. They killed a policeman down in Kent. CONJURER. Killed a policeman? How Vegetarian! Well, I suppose it was, so long as they didn't eat him. HASTINGS. They are asking only for small subscriptions. Indeed, they prefer to collect a large number of half-crowns, to prove the popularity of their movement. But I should advise.... DUKE. Oh, give them three shillings, then. HASTINGS. If I might suggest.... DUKE. Hang it all! We gave the Anti-Vegetarians three shillings. It seems only fair. HASTINGS. If I might suggest anything, I think your Grace will be wise not to subscribe in this case. The Anti-Vegetarians have already used their funds to form gangs ostensibly to protect their own meetings. And if the Vegetarians use theirs to break up the meetings--well, it will look rather funny that we have paid roughs on both sides. It will be rather difficult to explain when it comes before the magistrate. DUKE. But I shall be the magistrate. [CONJURER _stares at him again._] That's the system, my dear Hastings, that's the advantage of the system. Not a logical system--no Rousseau in it--but see how well it works! I shall be the very best magistrate that could be on the Bench. The others would be biassed, you know. Old Sir Lawrence is a Vegetarian himself; and might be hard on the Anti-Vegetarian roughs. Colonel Crashaw would be sure to be hard on the Vegetarian roughs. But if I've paid both of 'em, of course I shan't be hard on either of 'em--and there you have it. Just perfect impartiality. HASTINGS. [_Restrainedly._] Shall I take the programmes, your Grace? DUKE. [_Heartily._] No, no; I won't forget 'em. [_Exit_ HASTINGS.] Well, Professor, what's the news in the conjuring world? CONJURER. I fear there is never any news in the conjuring world. DUKE. Don't you have a newspaper or something? Everybody has a newspaper now, you know. The--er--Daily Sword-Swallower or that sort of thing? CONJURER. No, I have been a journalist myself; but I think journalism and conjuring will always be incompatible. DUKE. Incompatible--Oh, but that's where I differ--that's where I take larger views! Larger laws, as old Buffle said. Nothing's _incompatible_, you know--except husband and wife and so on; you must talk to Morris about that. It's wonderful the way incompatibility has gone forward in the States. CONJURER. I only mean that the two trades rest on opposite principles. The whole point of being a conjurer is that you won't explain a thing that has happened. DUKE. Well, and the journalist? CONJURER. Well, the whole point of being a journalist is that you do explain a thing that hasn't happened. DUKE. But you'll want somewhere to discuss the new tricks. CONJURER. There are no new tricks. And if there were we shouldn't want 'em discussed. DUKE. I'm afraid you're not _really_ advanced. Are you interested in modern progress? CONJURER. Yes. We are interested in all tricks done by illusion. DUKE. Well, well, I must go and see how Morris is. Pleasure of seeing you later. [_Exit_ DUKE, _leaving the programmes._ CONJURER. Why are nice men such asses? [_Turns to arrange the table._] That seems all right. The pack of cards that is a pack of cards. And the pack of cards that isn't a pack of cards. The hat that looks like a gentleman's hat. But which, in reality, is no gentleman's hat. Only my hat; and I am not a gentleman. I am only a conjurer, and this is only a conjurer's hat. I could not take off this hat to a lady. I can take rabbits out of it, goldfish out of it, snakes out of it. Only I mustn't take my own head out of it. I suppose I'm a lower animal than a rabbit or a snake. Anyhow they can get out of the conjurer's hat; and I can't. I am a conjurer and nothing else but a conjurer. Unless I could show I was something else, and that would be worse. [_He begins to dash the cards rather irregularly about the table. Enter_ PATRICIA. PATRICIA. [_Coldly_] I beg your pardon. I came to get some programmes. My uncle wants them. [_She walks swiftly across and takes up the programmes._ CONJURER. [_Still dashing cards about the table._] Miss Carleon, might I speak to you a moment? [_He puts his hands in his pockets, stares at the table; and his face assumes a sardonic expression._] The question is purely practical. PATRICIA. [_Pausing at the door._] I can hardly imagine what the question can be. CONJURER. I am the question. PATRICIA. And what have I to do with that? CONJURER. You have everything to do with it. I am the question: you.... PATRICIA. [_Angrily._] Well, what am I? CONJURER. You are the answer. PATRICIA. The answer to what? CONJURER. [_Coming round to the front of the table and sitting against it._] The answer to me. You think I'm a liar because I walked about the fields with you and said I could make stones disappear. Well, so I can. I'm a conjurer. In mere point of fact, it wasn't a lie. But if it had been a lie I should have told it just the same. I would have told twenty such lies. You may or may not know why. PATRICIA. I know nothing about such lies. [_She puts her hand on the handle of the door, but the_ CONJURER, _who is sitting on the table and staring at his boots, does not notice the action, and goes on as in a sincere soliloquy._ CONJURER. I don't know whether you have any notion of what it means to a man like me to talk to a lady like you, even on false pretences. I am an adventurer. I am a blackguard, if one can earn the title by being in all the blackguard societies of the world. I have thought everything out by myself, when I was a guttersnipe in Fleet Street, or, lower still, a journalist in Fleet Street. Before I met you I never guessed that rich people ever thought at all. Well, that is all I have to say. We had some good conversations, didn't we? I am a liar. But I told you a great deal of the truth. [_He turns and resumes the arrangement of the table._ PATRICIA. [_Thinking._] Yes, you did tell me a great deal of the truth. You told me hundreds and thousands of truths. But you never told me the truth that one wants to know. CONJURER. And what is that? PATRICIA. [_Turning back into the room._] You never told me the truth about yourself. You never told me you were only the Conjurer. CONJURER. I did not tell you that because I do not even know it. I do not know whether I am only the Conjurer.... PATRICIA. What do you mean? CONJURER. Sometimes I am afraid I am something worse than the Conjurer. PATRICIA. [_Seriously._] I cannot think of anything worse than a conjurer who does not call himself a conjurer. CONJURER. [_Gloomily._] There is something worse. [_Rallying himself._] But that is not what I want to say. Do you really find that very unpardonable? Come, let me put you a case. Never mind about whether it is our case. A man spends his time incessantly in going about in third-class carriages to fifth-rate lodgings. He has to make up new tricks, new patter, new nonsense, sometimes every night of his life. Mostly he has to do it in the beastly black cities of the Midlands and the North, where he can't get out into the country. Now and again he does it at some gentleman's country-house, where he can get out into the country. Well, you know that actors and orators and all sorts of people like to rehearse their effects in the open air if they can. [_Smiles._] You know that story of the great statesman who was heard by his own gardener saying, as he paced the garden, "Had I, Mr. Speaker, received the smallest intimation that I could be called upon to speak this evening...." [PATRICIA _controls a smile, and he goes on with overwhelming enthusiasm._] Well, conjurers are just the same. It takes some time to prepare an impromptu. A man like that walks about the woods and fields doing all his tricks beforehand, and talking all sorts of gibberish because he thinks he is alone. One evening this man found he was not alone. He found a very beautiful child was watching him. PATRICIA. A child? CONJURER. Yes. That was his first impression. He is an intimate friend of mine. I have known him all my life. He tells me he has since discovered she is not a child. She does not fulfil the definition. PATRICIA. What is the definition of a child? CONJURER. Somebody you can play with. PATRICIA. [_Abruptly._] Why did you wear that cloak with the hood up? CONJURER. [_Smiling._] I think it escaped your notice that it was raining. PATRICIA. [_Smiling faintly._] And what did this friend of yours do? CONJURER. You have already told me what he did. He destroyed a fairy tale, for he created a fairy tale that he was bound to destroy. [_Swinging round suddenly on the table._] But do you blame a man very much, Miss Carleon, if he enjoyed the only fairy tale he had had in his life? Suppose he said the silly circles he was drawing for practice were really magic circles? Suppose he said the bosh he was talking was the language of the elves? Remember, he has read fairy tales as much as you have. Fairy tales are the only democratic institutions. All the classes have heard all the fairy tales. Do you blame him very much if he, too, tried to have a holiday in fairyland? PATRICIA. [_Simply._] I blame him less than I did. But I still say there can be nothing worse than false magic. And, after all, it was he who brought the false magic. CONJURER. [_Rising from his seat._] Yes. It was she who brought the real magic. [_Enter_ MORRIS, _in evening-dress. He walks straight up to the conjuring-table; and picks up one article after another, putting each down with a comment._ MORRIS. I know that one. I know that. I know that. Let's see, that's the false bottom, I think. That works with a wire. I know that; it goes up the sleeve. That's the false bottom again. That's the substituted pack of cards--that.... PATRICIA. Really, Morris, you mustn't talk as if you knew everything. CONJURER. Oh, I don't mind anyone knowing everything, Miss Carleon. There is something that is much more important than knowing how a thing is done. MORRIS. And what's that? CONJURER. Knowing how to do it. MORRIS. [_Becoming nasal again in anger._] That's so, eh? Being the high-toned conjurer because you can't any longer take all the sidewalk as a fairy. PATRICIA. [_Crossing the room and speaking seriously to her brother._] Really, Morris, you are very rude. And it's quite ridiculous to be rude. This gentleman was only practising some tricks by himself in the garden. [_With a certain dignity._] If there was any mistake, it was mine. Come, shake hands, or whatever men do when they apologize. Don't be silly. He won't turn you into a bowl of goldfish. MORRIS. [_Reluctantly._] Well, I guess that's so. [_Offering his hand._] Shake. [_They shake hands._] And you won't turn me into a bowl of goldfish anyhow, Professor. I understand that when you do produce a bowl of goldfish, they are generally slips of carrot. That is so, Professor? CONJURER. [_Sharply._] Yes. [_Produces a bowl of goldfish from his tail pockets and holds it under the other's nose._] Judge for yourself. MORRIS. [_In monstrous excitement._] Very good! Very good! But I know how that's done--I know how that's done. You have an india-rubber cap, you know, or cover.... CONJURER. Yes. [_Goes back gloomily to his table and sits on it, picking up a pack of cards and balancing it in his hand._ MORRIS. Ah, most mysteries are tolerably plain if you know the apparatus. [_Enter_ DOCTOR _and_ SMITH, _talking with grave faces, but growing silent as they reach the group._] I guess I wish we had all the old apparatus of all the old Priests and Prophets since the beginning of the world. I guess most of the old miracles and that were a matter of just panel and wires. CONJURER. I don't quite understand you. What old apparatus do you want so much? MORRIS. [_Breaking out with all the frenzy of the young free-thinker._] Well, sir, I just want that old apparatus that turned rods into snakes. I want those smart appliances, sir, that brought water out of a rock when old man Moses chose to hit it. I guess it's a pity we've lost the machinery. I would like to have those old conjurers here that called themselves Patriarchs and Prophets in your precious Bible.... PATRICIA. Morris, you mustn't talk like that. MORRIS. Well, I don't believe in religion.... DOCTOR. [_Aside._] Hush, hush. Nobody but women believe in religion. PATRICIA. [_Humorously._] I think this is a fitting opportunity to show you another ancient conjuring trick. DOCTOR. Which one is that? PATRICIA. The Vanishing Lady! [_Exit_ PATRICIA. SMITH. There is one part of their old apparatus I regret especially being lost. MORRIS. [_Still excited._] Yes! SMITH. The apparatus for writing the Book of Job. MORRIS. Well, well, they didn't know everything in those old times. SMITH. No, and in those old times they knew they didn't. [_Dreamily._] Where shall wisdom be found, and what is the place of understanding? CONJURER. Somewhere in America, I believe. SMITH. [_Still dreamily._] Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. The deep sayeth it is not in me, the sea sayeth it is not with me. Death and destruction say we have heard tell of it. God understandeth the way thereof and He knoweth the place thereof. For He looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole Heaven. But to man He hath said: Behold the fear of the Lord that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. [_Turns suddenly to the_ DOCTOR.] How's that for Agnosticism, Dr. Grimthorpe? What a pity that apparatus is lost. MORRIS. Well, you may just smile how you choose, I reckon. But I say the Conjurer here could be the biggest man in the big blessed centuries if he could just show us how the Holy old tricks were done. We must say this for old man Moses, that he was in advance of his time. When he did the old tricks they were new tricks. He got the pull on the public. He could do his tricks before grown men, great bearded fighting men who could win battles and sing Psalms. But this modern conjuring is all behind the times. That's why they only do it with schoolboys. There isn't a trick on that table I don't know. The whole trade's as dead as mutton; and not half so satisfying. Why he [_pointing to the_ CONJURER] brought out a bowl of goldfish just now--an old trick that anybody could do. CONJURER. Oh, I quite agree. The apparatus is perfectly simple. By the way, let me have a look at those goldfish of yours, will you? MORRIS. [_Angrily._] I'm not a paid play-actor come here to conjure. I'm not here to do stale tricks; I'm here to see through 'em. I say it's an old trick and.... CONJURER. True. But as you said, we never show it except to schoolboys. MORRIS. And may I ask you, Professor Hocus Pocus, or whatever your name is, whom you are calling a schoolboy? CONJURER. I beg your pardon. Your sister will tell you I am sometimes mistaken about children. MORRIS. I forbid you to appeal to my sister. CONJURER. That is exactly what a schoolboy would do. MORRIS. [_With abrupt and dangerous calm._] I am not a schoolboy, Professor. I am a quiet business man. But I tell you in the country I come from, the hand of a quiet business man goes to his hip pocket at an insult like that. CONJURER. [_Fiercely._] Let it go to his pocket! I thought the hand of a quiet business man more often went to someone else's pocket. MORRIS. You.... [_Puts his hand to his hip. The_ DOCTOR _puts his hand on his shoulder._ DOCTOR. Gentlemen, I think you are both forgetting yourselves. CONJURER. Perhaps. [_His tone sinks suddenly to weariness._] I ask pardon for what I said. It was certainly in excess of the young gentleman's deserts. [_Sighs._] I sometimes rather wish I could forget myself. MORRIS. [_Sullenly, after a pause._] Well, the entertainment's coming on; and you English don't like a scene. I reckon I'll have to bury the blamed old hatchet too. DOCTOR. [_With a certain dignity, his social type shining through his profession._] Mr. Carleon, you will forgive an old man, who knew your father well, if he doubts whether you are doing yourself justice in treating yourself as an American Indian, merely because you have lived in America. In my old friend Huxley's time we of the middle classes disbelieved in reason and all sorts of things. But we did believe in good manners. It is a pity if the aristocracy can't. I don't like to hear you say you are a savage and have buried a tomahawk. I would rather hear you say, as your Irish ancestors would have said, that you have sheathed your sword with the dignity proper to a gentleman. MORRIS. Very well. I've sheathed my sword with the dignity proper to a gentleman. CONJURER. And I have sheathed my sword with the dignity proper to a conjurer. MORRIS. How does the Conjurer sheath a sword? CONJURER. Swallows it. DOCTOR. Then we all agree there shall be no quarrel. SMITH. May I say a word? I have a great dislike of a quarrel, for a reason quite beyond my duty to my cloth. MORRIS. And what is that? SMITH. I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument. May I bring you back for a moment to the argument? You were saying that these modern conjuring tricks are simply the old miracles when they have once been found out. But surely another view is possible. When we speak of things being sham, we generally mean that they are imitations of things that are genuine. Take that Reynolds over there of the Duke's great-grandfather. [_Points to a picture on the wall._] If I were to say it was a copy.... MORRIS. Wal, the Duke's real amiable; but I reckon you'd find what you call the interruption of an argument. SMITH. Well, suppose I did say so, you wouldn't take it as meaning that Sir Joshua Reynolds never lived. Why should sham miracles prove to us that real Saints and Prophets never lived. There may be sham magic and real magic also. [_The_ CONJURER _raises his head and listens with a strange air of intentness._ SMITH. There may be turnip ghosts precisely because there are real ghosts. There may be theatrical fairies precisely because there are real fairies. You do not abolish the Bank of England by pointing to a forged bank-note. MORRIS. I hope the Professor enjoys being called a forged bank-note. CONJURER. Almost as much as being called the Prospectus of some American Companies. DOCTOR. Gentlemen! Gentlemen! CONJURER. I am sorry. MORRIS. Wal, let's have the argument first, then I guess we can have the quarrel afterwards. I'll clean this house of some encumbrances. See here, Mr. Smith, I'm not putting anything on your real miracle notion. I say, and Science says, that there's a cause for everything. Science will find out that cause, and sooner or later your old miracle will look mighty mean. Sooner or later Science will botanise a bit on your turnip ghosts; and make you look turnips yourselves for having taken any. I say.... DOCTOR. [_In a low voice to_ SMITH.] I don't like this peaceful argument of yours. The boy is getting much too excited. MORRIS. You say old man Reynolds lived; and Science don't say no. [_He turns excitedly to the picture._] But I guess he's dead now; and you'll no more raise your Saints and Prophets from the dead than you'll raise the Duke's great-grandfather to dance on that wall. [_The picture begins to sway slightly to and fro on the wall._ DOCTOR. Why, the picture is moving! MORRIS. [_Turning furiously on the_ CONJURER.] You were in the room before us. Do you reckon that will take us in? You can do all that with wires. CONJURER. [_Motionless and without looking up from the table._] Yes, I could do all that with wires. MORRIS. And you reckoned I shouldn't know. [_Laughs with a high crowing laugh._] That's how the derned dirty Spiritualists do all their tricks. They say they can make the furniture move of itself. If it does move they move it; and we mean to know how. [_A chair falls over with a slight crash._ [MORRIS _almost staggers and momentarily fights for breath and words._ MORRIS. You ... why ... that ... every one knows that ... a sliding plank. It can be done with a sliding plank. CONJURER. [_Without looking up._] Yes. It can be done with a sliding plank. [_The_ DOCTOR _draws nearer to_ MORRIS, _who faces about, addressing him passionately._ MORRIS. You were right on the spot, Doc, when you talked about that red lamp of yours. That red lamp is the light of science that will put out all the lanterns of your turnip ghosts. It's a consuming fire, Doctor, but it is the red light of the morning. [_Points at it in exalted enthusiasm._] Your priests can no more stop that light from shining or change its colour and its radiance than Joshua could stop the sun and moon. [_Laughs savagely._] Why, a real fairy in an elfin cloak strayed too near the lamp an hour or two ago; and it turned him into a common society clown with a white tie. [_The lamp at the end of the garden turns blue. They all look at it in silence._ MORRIS. [_Splitting the silence on a high unnatural note._] Wait a bit! Wait a bit! I've got you! I'll have you!... [_He strides wildly up and down the room, biting his finger._] You put a wire ... no, that can't be it.... DOCTOR. [_Speaking to him soothingly._] Well, well, just at this moment we need not inquire.... MORRIS. [_Turning on him furiously._] You call yourself a man of science, and you dare to tell me not to inquire! SMITH. We only mean that for the moment you might let it alone. MORRIS. [_Violently._] No, Priest, I will not let it alone. [_Pacing the room again._] Could it be done with mirrors? [_He clasps his brow._] You have a mirror.... [_Suddenly, with a shout._] I've got it! I've got it! Mixture of lights! Why not? If you throw a green light on a red light.... [_Sudden silence._ SMITH. [_Quietly to the_ DOCTOR.] You don't get blue. DOCTOR. [_Stepping across to the_ CONJURER.] If you have done this trick, for God's sake undo it. [_After a silence, the light turns red again._ MORRIS. [_Dashing suddenly to the glass doors and examining them._] It's the glass! You've been doing something to the glass! [_He stops suddenly and there is a long silence._ CONJURER. [_Still without moving._] I don't think you will find anything wrong with the glass. MORRIS. [_Bursting open the glass doors with a crash._] Then I'll find out what's wrong with the lamp. [_Disappears into the garden._ DOCTOR. It is still a wet night, I am afraid. SMITH. Yes. And somebody else will be wandering about the garden now. [_Through the broken glass doors_ MORRIS _can be seen marching backwards and forwards with swifter and swifter steps._ SMITH. I suppose in this case the Celtic twilight will not get on the chest. DOCTOR. Oh, if it were only the chest! _Enter_ PATRICIA. PATRICIA. Where is my brother? [_There is an embarrassed silence, in which the_ CONJURER _answers._ CONJURER. I am afraid he is walking about in Fairyland. PATRICIA. But he mustn't go out on a night like this; it's very dangerous! CONJURER. Yes, it is very dangerous. He might meet a fairy. PATRICIA. What do you mean? CONJURER. You went out in this sort of weather and you met this sort of fairy, and so far it has only brought you sorrow. PATRICIA. I am going out to find my brother. [_She goes out into the garden through the open doors._ SMITH. [_After a silence, very suddenly._] What is that noise? She is not singing those songs to him, is she? CONJURER. No. He does not understand the language of the elves. SMITH. But what are all those cries and gasps I hear? CONJURER. The normal noises, I believe, of a quiet business man. DOCTOR. Sir, I can understand your being bitter, for I admit you have been uncivilly received; but to speak like that just now.... [PATRICIA _reappears at the garden doors, very pale._ PATRICIA. Can I speak to the Doctor? DOCTOR. My dear lady, certainly. Shall I fetch the Duke? PATRICIA. I would prefer the Doctor. SMITH. Can I be of any use? PATRICIA. I only want the Doctor. [_She goes out again, followed by_ DR. GRIMTHORPE. _The others look at each other._ SMITH. [_Quietly._] That last was a wonderful trick of yours. CONJURER. Thank you. I suppose you mean it was the only one you didn't see through. SMITH. Something of the kind, I confess. Your last trick was the best trick I have ever seen. It is so good that I wish you had not done it. CONJURER. And so do I. SMITH. How do you mean? Do you wish you had never been a conjurer? CONJURER. I wish I had never been born. [_Exit_ CONJURER. [_A silence. The_ DOCTOR _enters, very grave._ DOCTOR. It is all right so far. We have brought him back. SMITH. [_Drawing near to him._] You told me there was mental trouble with the girl. DOCTOR. [_Looking at him steadily._] No. I told you there was mental trouble in the family. SMITH. [_After a silence._] Where is Mr. Morris Carleon? DOCTOR. I have got him into bed in the next room. His sister is looking after him. SMITH. His sister! Oh, then do you believe in fairies? DOCTOR. Believe in fairies? What do you mean? SMITH. At least you put the person who does believe in them in charge of the person who doesn't. DOCTOR. Well, I suppose I do. SMITH. You don't think she'll keep him awake all night with fairy tales? DOCTOR. Certainly not. SMITH. You don't think she'll throw the medicine-bottle out of window and administer--er--a dewdrop, or anything of that sort? Or a four-leaved clover, say? DOCTOR. No; of course not. SMITH. I only ask because you scientific men are a little hard on us clergymen. You don't believe in a priesthood; but you'll admit I'm more really a priest than this Conjurer is really a magician. You've been talking a lot about the Bible and the Higher Criticism. But even by the Higher Criticism the Bible is older than the language of the elves--which was, as far as I can make out, invented this afternoon. But Miss Carleon believed in the wizard. Miss Carleon believed in the language of the elves. And you put her in charge of an invalid without a flicker of doubt: because you trust women. DOCTOR. [_Very seriously._] Yes, I trust women. SMITH. You trust a woman with the practical issues of life and death, through sleepless hours when a shaking hand or an extra grain would kill. DOCTOR. Yes. SMITH. But if the woman gets up to go to early service at my church, you call her weak-minded and say that nobody but women can believe in religion. DOCTOR. I should never call this woman weak-minded--no, by God, not even if she went to church. SMITH. Yet there are many as strong-minded who believe passionately in going to church. DOCTOR. Weren't there as many who believed passionately in Apollo? SMITH. And what harm came of believing in Apollo? And what a mass of harm may have come of not believing in Apollo? Does it never strike you that doubt can be a madness, as well be faith? That asking questions may be a disease, as well as proclaiming doctrines? You talk of religious mania! Is there no such thing as irreligious mania? Is there no such thing in the house at this moment? DOCTOR. Then you think no one should question at all. SMITH. [_With passion, pointing to the next room._] I think _that_ is what comes of questioning! Why can't you leave the universe alone and let it mean what it likes? Why shouldn't the thunder be Jupiter? More men have made themselves silly by wondering what the devil it was if it wasn't Jupiter. DOCTOR. [_Looking at him._] Do you believe in your own religion? SMITH. [_Returning the look equally steadily._] Suppose I don't: I should still be a fool to question it. The child who doubts about Santa Claus has insomnia. The child who believes has a good night's rest. DOCTOR. You are a Pragmatist. _Enter_ DUKE, _absent-mindedly._ SMITH. That is what the lawyers call vulgar abuse. But I do appeal to practise. Here is a family over which you tell me a mental calamity hovers. Here is the boy who questions everything and a girl who can believe anything. Upon which has the curse fallen? DUKE. Talking about the Pragmatists. I'm glad to hear.... Ah, very forward movement! I suppose Roosevelt now.... [_Silence._] Well, we move you know, we move! First there was the Missing Link. [_Silence._] No! _First_ there was Protoplasm--and _then_ there was the Missing Link; and Magna Carta and so on. [_Silence._] Why, look at the Insurance Act! DOCTOR. I would rather not. DUKE. [_Wagging a playful finger at him._] Ah, prejudice, prejudice! You doctors, you know! Well, I never had any myself. [_Silence._ DOCTOR. [_Breaking the silence in unusual exasperation._] Any what? DUKE. [_Firmly._] Never had any Marconis myself. Wouldn't touch 'em. [_Silence._] Well, I must speak to Hastings. [_Exit_ DUKE, _aimlessly._ DOCTOR. [_Exploding._] Well, of all the.... [_Turns to_ SMITH.] You asked me just now which member of the family had inherited the family madness. SMITH. Yes; I did. DOCTOR. [_In a low, emphatic voice._] On my living soul, I believe it must be the Duke. CURTAIN ACT III _Room partly darkened, a table with a lamp on it, and an empty chair. From room next door faint and occasional sounds of the tossing or talking of the invalid._ _Enter_ DOCTOR GRIMTHORPE _with a rather careworn air, and a medicine bottle in his hand. He puts it on the table, and sits down in the chair as if keeping a vigil._ _Enter_ CONJURER, _carrying his bag, and cloaked for departure. As he crosses the room the_ DOCTOR _rises and calls after him._ DOCTOR. Forgive me, but may I detain you for one moment? I suppose you are aware that--[_he hesitates_] that there have been rather grave developments in the case of illness which happened after your performance. I would not say, of course, because of your performance. CONJURER. Thank you. DOCTOR. [_Slightly encouraged, but speaking very carefully._] Nevertheless, mental excitement is necessarily an element of importance in physiological troubles, and your triumphs this evening were really so extraordinary that I cannot pretend to dismiss them from my patient's case. He is at present in a state somewhat analogous to delirium, but in which he can still partially ask and answer questions. The question he continually asks is how you managed to do your last trick. CONJURER. Ah! My last trick! DOCTOR. Now I was wondering whether we could make any arrangement which would be fair to you in the matter. Would it be possible for you to give me in confidence the means of satisfying this--this fixed idea he seems to have got. [_He hesitates again, and picks his words more slowly._] This special condition of semi-delirious disputation is a rare one, and connected in my experience with rather unfortunate cases. CONJURER. [_Looking at him steadily._] Do you mean he is going mad? DOCTOR. [_Rather taken aback for the first time._] Really, you ask me an unfair question. I could not explain the fine shades of these things to a layman. And even if--if what you suggest were so, I should have to regard it as a professional secret. CONJURER. [_Still looking at him._] And don't you think you ask me a rather unfair question, Dr. Grimthorpe? If yours is a professional secret, is not mine a professional secret too? If you may hide truth from the world, why may not I? You don't tell your tricks. I don't tell my tricks. DOCTOR. [_With some heat._] Ours are not tricks. CONJURER. [_Reflectively._] Ah, no one can be sure of that till the tricks are told. DOCTOR. But the public can see a doctor's cures as plain as.... CONJURER. Yes. As plain as they saw the red lamp over his door this evening. DOCTOR. [_After a pause._] Your secret, of course, would be strictly kept by every one involved. CONJURER. Oh, of course. People in delirium always keep secrets strictly. DOCTOR. No one sees the patient but his sister and myself. CONJURER. [_Starts slightly._] Yes, his sister. Is she very anxious? DOCTOR. [_In a lower voice._] What would you suppose? [CONJURER _throws himself into the chair, his cloak slipping back from his evening dress. He ruminates for a short space and then speaks._ CONJURER. Doctor, there are about a thousand reasons why I should not tell you how I really did that trick. But one will suffice, because it is the most practical of all. DOCTOR. Well? And why shouldn't you tell me? CONJURER. Because you wouldn't believe me if I did. [_A silence, the_ DOCTOR _looking at him curiously._ [_Enter the_ DUKE _with papers in his hand. His usual gaiety of manner has a rather forced air, owing to the fact that by some vague sick-room associations he walks as if on tip-toe and begins to speak in a sort of loud or shrill whisper. This he fortunately forgets and falls into his more natural voice._ DUKE. [_To_ CONJURER.] So very kind of you to have waited, Professor. I expect Dr. Grimthorpe has explained the little difficulty we are in much better than I could. Nothing like the medical mind for a scientific statement. [_Hazily._] Look at Ibsen. [_Silence._ DOCTOR. Of course the Professor feels considerable reluctance in the matter. He points out that his secrets are an essential part of his profession. DUKE. Of course, of course. Tricks of the trade, eh? Very proper, of course. Quite a case of _noblesse oblige_ [_Silence._] But I dare say we shall be able to find a way out of the matter. [_He turns to the_ CONJURER.] Now, my dear sir, I hope you will not be offended if I say that this ought to be a business matter. We are asking you for a piece of your professional work and knowledge, and if I may have the pleasure of writing you a cheque.... CONJURER. I thank your Grace, I have already received my cheque from your secretary. You will find it on the counterfoil just after the cheque you so kindly gave to the Society for the Suppression of Conjuring. DUKE. Now I don't want you to take it in that way. I want you to take it in a broader way. Free, you know. [_With an expansive gesture._] Modern and all that! Wonderful man, Bernard Shaw! [_Silence._ DOCTOR. [_With a slight cough, resuming._] If you feel any delicacy the payment need not be made merely to you. I quite respect your feelings in the matter. DUKE. [_Approvingly._] Quite so, quite so. Haven't you got a Cause or something? Everybody has a cause now, you know. Conjurers' widows or something of that kind. CONJURER. [_With restraint._] No; I have no widows. DUKE. Then something like a pension or annuity for any widows you may--er--procure. [_Gaily opening his cheque-book and talking slang to show there is no ill-feeling._] Come, let me call it a couple of thou. [_The_ CONJURER _takes the cheque and looks at it in a grave and doubtful way. As he does so the_ RECTOR _comes slowly into the room._ CONJURER. You would really be willing to pay a sum like this to know the way I did that trick? DUKE. I would willingly pay much more. DOCTOR. I think I explained to you that the case is serious. CONJURER. [_More and more thoughtful._] You would pay much more.... [_Suddenly._] But suppose I tell you the secret and you find there's nothing in it? DOCTOR. You mean that it's really quite simple? Why, I should say that that would be the best thing that could possibly happen. A little healthy laughter is the best possible thing for convalescence. CONJURER. [_Still looking gloomily at the cheque._] I do not think you will laugh. DUKE. [_Reasoning genially._] But as you say it is something quite simple. CONJURER. It is the simplest thing there is in the world. That is why you will not laugh. DOCTOR. [_Almost nervously._] Why, what do you mean? What shall we do? CONJURER. [_Gravely._] You will disbelieve it. DOCTOR. And why? CONJURER. Because it is so simple. [_He springs suddenly to his feet, the cheque still in his hand._] You ask me how I really did the last trick. I will tell you how I did the last trick. I did it by magic. [_The_ DUKE _and_ DOCTOR _stare at him motionless; but the_ REV. SMITH _starts and takes a step nearer the table. The_ CONJURER _pulls his cloak round his shoulders. This gesture, as of departure, brings the_ DOCTOR _to his feet._ DOCTOR. [_Astonished and angry._] Do you really mean that you take the cheque and then tell us it was only magic? CONJURER. [_Pulling the cheque to pieces._] I tear the cheque, and I tell you it was only magic. DOCTOR. [_With violent sincerity._] But hang it all, there's no such thing. CONJURER. Yes there is. I wish to God I did not know that there is. DUKE. [_Rising also._] Why, really, magic.... CONJURER. [_Contemptuously._] Yes, your Grace, one of those larger laws you were telling us about. [_He buttons his cloak up at his throat and takes up his bag. As he does so the_ REV. SMITH _steps between him and the door and stops him for a moment._ SMITH. [_In a low voice._] One moment, sir. CONJURER. What do you want? SMITH. I want to apologize to you. I mean on behalf of the company. I think it was wrong to offer you money. I think it was more wrong to mystify you with medical language and call the thing delirium. I have more respect for conjurer's patter than for doctor's patter. They are both meant to stupify; but yours only to stupify for a moment. Now I put it to you in plain words and on plain human Christian grounds. Here is a poor boy who may be going mad. Suppose you had a son in such a position, would you not expect people to tell you the whole truth if it could help you? CONJURER. Yes. And I have told you the whole truth. Go and find out if it helps you. [_Turns again to go, but more irresolutely._ SMITH. You know quite well it will not help us. CONJURER. Why not? SMITH. You know quite well why not. You are an honest man; and you have said it yourself. Because he would not believe it. CONJURER. [_With a sort of fury._] Well, does anybody believe it? Do you believe it? SMITH. [_With great restraint._] Your question is quite fair. Come, let us sit down and talk about it. Let me take your cloak. CONJURER. I will take off my cloak when you take off your coat. SMITH. [_Smiling._] Why? Do you want me to fight? CONJURER. [_Violently._] I want you to be martyred. I want you to _bear_ witness to your own creed. I say these things are supernatural. I say this was done by a spirit. The Doctor does not believe me. He is an agnostic; and he knows everything. The Duke does not believe me; he cannot believe anything so plain as a miracle. But what the devil are you for, if you don't believe in a miracle? What does your coat mean, if it doesn't mean that there is such a thing as the supernatural? What does your cursed collar mean if it doesn't mean that there is such a thing as a spirit? [_Exasperated._] Why the devil do you dress up like that if you don't believe in it? [_With violence._] Or perhaps you don't believe in devils? SMITH. I believe.... [_After a pause._] I wish I could believe. CONJURER. Yes. I wish I could disbelieve. [_Enter_ PATRICIA _pale and in the slight négligée of the amateur nurse._ PATRICIA. May I speak to the Conjurer? SMITH. [_Hastening forward._] You want the Doctor? PATRICIA. No, the Conjurer. DOCTOR. Are there any developments? PATRICIA. I only want to speak to the Conjurer. [_They all withdraw, either at the garden or the other doors._ PATRICIA _walks up to_ CONJURER. PATRICIA. You must tell me how you did the trick. You will. I know you will. O, I know my poor brother was rude to you. He's rude to everybody! [_Breaks down._] But he's such a little, little boy! CONJURER. I suppose you know there are things men never tell to women. They are too horrible. PATRICIA. Yes. And there are things women never tell to men. They also are too horrible. I am here to hear them all. CONJURER. Do you really mean I may say anything I like? However dark it is? However dreadful it is? However damnable it is? PATRICIA. I have gone through too much to be terrified now. Tell me the very worst. CONJURER. I will tell you the very worst. I fell in love with you when I first saw you. [_Sits down and crosses his legs._ PATRICIA. [_Drawing back._] You told me I looked like a child and.... CONJURER. I told a lie. PATRICIA. O; this is terrible. CONJURER. I was in love, I took an opportunity. You believed quite simply that I was a magician? but I.... PATRICIA. It is terrible. It is terrible. I never believed you were a magician. CONJURER. [_Astounded._] Never believed I was a magician...! PATRICIA. I always knew you were a man. CONJURER. [_Doing whatever passionate things people do on the stage._] I am a man. And you are a woman. And all the elves have gone to elfland, and all the devils to hell. And you and I will walk out of this great vulgar house and be married.... Every one is crazy in this house to-night, I think. What am I saying? As if _you_ could marry _me_! O my God! PATRICIA. This is the first time you have failed in courage. CONJURER. What do you mean? PATRICIA. I mean to draw your attention to the fact that you have recently made an offer, I accept it. CONJURER. Oh, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. My mother was a lady and she married a dying fiddler who tramped the roads; and the mixture plays the cat and banjo with my body and soul. I can see my mother now cooking food in dirtier and dirtier lodgings, darning socks with weaker and weaker eyes when she might have worn pearls by consenting to be a rational person. PATRICIA. And she might have grown pearls, by consenting to be an oyster. CONJURER. [_Seriously._] There was little pleasure in her life. PATRICIA. There is little, a very little, in everybody's. The question is, what kind? We can't turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls. Your mother chose and I have chosen. CONJURER. [_Staring._] Immortal souls!... And I suppose if I knelt down to worship you, you and every one else would laugh. PATRICIA. [_With a smile of perversity._] Well, I think this is a more comfortable way. [_She sits down suddenly beside him in a sort of domestic way and goes on talking._] Yes. I'll do everything your mother did, not so well, of course; I'll darn that conjurer's hat--does one darn hats?--and cook the Conjurer's dinner. By the way, what is a Conjurer's dinner? There's always the goldfish, of course.... CONJURER. [_With a groan._] Carrots. PATRICIA. And, of course, now I come to think of it, you can always take rabbits out of the hat. Why, what a cheap life it must be! How do you cook rabbits? The Duke is always talking about poached rabbits. Really, we shall be as happy as is good for us. We'll have confidence in each other at least, and no secrets. I insist on knowing all the tricks. CONJURER. I don't think I know whether I'm on my head or my heels. PATRICIA. And now, as we're going to be so confidential and comfortable, you'll just tell me the real, practical, tricky little way you did that last trick. CONJURER. [_Rising, rigid with horror._] How I did that trick? I did it by devils. [_Turning furiously on_ PATRICIA.] You could believe in fairies. Can't you believe in devils? PATRICIA. [_Seriously._] No, I can't believe in devils. CONJURER. Well, this room is full of them. PATRICIA. What does it all mean? CONJURER. It only means that I have done what many men have done; but few, I think, have thriven by. [_He sits down and talks thoughtfully._] I told you I had mixed with many queer sets of people. Among others, I mixed with those who pretend, truly and falsely, to do our tricks by the aid of spirits. I dabbled a little in table-rapping and table-turning. But I soon had reason to give it up. PATRICIA. Why did you give it up? CONJURER. It began by giving me headaches. And I found that every morning after a Spiritualist _séance_ I had a queer feeling of lowness and degradation, of having been soiled; much like the feeling, I suppose, that people have the morning after they have been drunk. But I happen to have what people call a strong head; and I have never been really drunk. PATRICIA. I am glad of that. CONJURER. It hasn't been for want of trying. But it wasn't long before the spirits with whom I had been playing at table-turning, did what I think they generally do at the end of all such table-turning. PATRICIA. What did they do? CONJURER. They turned the tables. They turned the tables upon me. I don't wonder at your believing in fairies. As long as these things were my servants they seemed to me like fairies. When they tried to be my masters.... I found they were not fairies. I found the spirits with whom I at least had come in contact were evil ... awfully, unnaturally evil. PATRICIA. Did they say so? CONJURER. Don't talk of what they said. I was a loose fellow, but I had not fallen so low as such things. I resisted them; and after a pretty bad time, psychologically speaking, I cut the connexion. But they were always tempting me to use the supernatural power I had got from them. It was not very great, but it was enough to move things about, to alter lights, and so on. I don't know whether you realize that it's rather a strain on a man to drink bad coffee at a coffee-stall when he knows he has just enough magic in him to make a bottle of champagne walk out of an empty shop. PATRICIA. I think you behaved very well. CONJURER. [_Bitterly._] And when I fell at last it was for nothing half so clean and Christian as champagne. In black blind pride and anger and all kinds of heathenry, because of the impudence of a schoolboy, I called on the fiends and they obeyed. PATRICIA. [_Touches his arm._] Poor fellow! CONJURER. Your goodness is the only goodness that never goes wrong. PATRICIA. And what _are_ we to do with Morris? I--I believe you now, my dear. But he--he will never believe. CONJURER. There is no bigot like the atheist. I must think. [_Walks towards the garden windows. The other men reappear to arrest his movement._ DOCTOR. Where are you going? CONJURER. I am going to ask the God whose enemies I have served if I am still worthy to save a child. [_Exit into garden. He paces up and down exactly as_ MORRIS _has done. As he does so_, PATRICIA _slowly goes out; and a long silence follows, during which the remaining men stir and stamp very restlessly. The darkness increases. It is long before anyone speaks._ DOCTOR. [_Abruptly._] Remarkable man that Conjurer. Clever man. Curious man. Very curious man. A kind of man, you know.... Lord bless us! What's that? DUKE. What's what, eh? What's what? DOCTOR. I swear I heard a footstep. _Enter_ HASTINGS _with papers._ DUKE. Why, Hastings--Hastings--we thought you were a ghost. You must be--er--looking white or something. HASTINGS. I have brought back the answer of the Anti-Vegetarians ... I mean the Vegetarians. [_Drops one or two papers._ DUKE. Why, Hastings, you _are_ looking white. HASTINGS. I ask your Grace's pardon. I had a slight shock on entering the room. DOCTOR. A shock? What shock? HASTINGS. It is the first time, I think, that your Grace's work has been disturbed by any private feelings of mine. I shall not trouble your Grace with them. It will not occur again. [_Exit_ HASTINGS. DUKE. What an extraordinary fellow. I wonder if.... [_Suddenly stops speaking._ DOCTOR. [_After a long silence, in a low voice to_ SMITH.] How do you feel? SMITH. I feel I must have a window shut or I must have it open, and I don't know which it is. [_Another long silence._ SMITH. [_Crying out suddenly in the dark._] In God's name, go! DOCTOR. [_Jumping up rather in a tremble._] Really, sir, I am not used to being spoken to.... SMITH. It was not you whom I told to go. DOCTOR. No. [_Pause._] But I think I will go. This room is simply horrible. [_He marches towards the door._ DUKE. [_Jumping up and bustling about, altering cards, papers, etc., on tables._] Room horrible? Room horrible? No, no, no. [_Begins to run quicker round the room, flapping his hands like fins._] Only a little crowded. A little crowded. And I don't seem to know all the people. We can't like everybody. These large at-homes.... [_Tumbles on to a chair._ CONJURER. [_Reappearing at the garden doors._] Go back to hell from which I called you. It is the last order I shall give. DOCTOR. [_Rising rather shakily._] And what are you going to do? CONJURER. I am going to tell that poor little lad a lie. I have found in the garden what he did not find in the garden. I have managed to think of a natural explanation of that trick. DOCTOR. [_Warmly moved._] I think you are something like a great man. Can I take your explanation to him now? CONJURER. [_Grimly._] No thank you. I will take it myself. [_Exit into the other room._ DUKE. [_Uneasily._] We all felt devilish queer just now. Wonderful things there are in the world. [_After a pause._] I suppose it's all electricity. [_Silence as usual._ SMITH. I think there has been more than electricity in all this. _Enter_ PATRICIA, _still pale, but radiant._ PATRICIA. Oh, Morris is ever so much better! The Conjurer has told him such a good story of how the trick was done. _Enter_ CONJURER. DUKE. Professor, we owe you a thousand thanks! DOCTOR. Really, you have doubled your claim to originality! SMITH. It is much more marvellous to explain a miracle than to work a miracle. What was your explanation, by the way? CONJURER. I shall not tell you. SMITH. [_Starting._] Indeed? Why not? CONJURER. Because God and the demons and that Immortal Mystery that you deny has been in this room to-night. Because you know it has been here. Because you have felt it here. Because you know the spirits as well as I do and fear them as much as I do. SMITH. Well? CONJURER. Because all this would not avail. If I told you the lie I told Morris Carleon about how I did that trick.... SMITH. Well? CONJURER. YOU would believe it as he believed it. You cannot think [_pointing to the lamp_] how that trick could be done naturally. I alone found out how it could be done--after I had done it by magic. But if I tell you a natural way of doing it.... SMITH. Well?... CONJURER. Half an hour after I have left this house you will be all saying how it was done. [CONJURER _buttons up his cloak and advances to_ PATRICIA. CONJURER. Good-bye. PATRICIA. I shall not say good-bye. PATRICIA. Yes. That fairy tale has really and truly come to an end. [_Looks at him a little in the old mystical manner._] It is very hard for a fairy tale to come to an end. If you leave it alone it lingers everlastingly. Our fairy tale has come to an end in the only way a fairy tale can come to an end. The only way a fairy tale can leave off being a fairy tale. CONJURER. I don't understand you. PATRICIA. It has come true. CURTAIN * * * * * _A Selection from the Catalogue of_ G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS [Illustration: Publisher's Mark] Complete Catalogue sent on application New Comedies By LADY GREGORY The Bogie Men--The Full Moon--Coats Damer's Gold--McDonough's Wife _8^o. With Portrait in Photogravure. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65_ The plays have been acted with great success by the Abbey Company, and have been highly extolled by appreciative audiences and an enthusiastic press. They are distinguished by a humor of unchallenged originality. One of the plays in the collection, "Coats," depends for its plot upon the rivalry of two editors, each of whom has written an obituary notice of the other. The dialogue is full of crisp humor. "McDonough's Wife," another drama that appears in the volume, is based on a legend, and explains how a whole town rendered honor against its will. "The Bogie Men" has as its underlying situation an amusing misunderstanding of two chimney-sweeps. The wit and absurdity of the dialogue are in Lady Gregory's best vein. "Damer's Gold" contains the story of a miser beset by his gold-hungry relations. Their hopes and plans are upset by one they had believed to be of the simple of the world, but who confounds the Wisdom of the Wise. "The Full Moon" presents a little comedy enacted on an Irish railway station. It is characterized by humor of an original and delightful character and repartee that is distinctly clever. G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON Irish Plays By LADY GREGORY Lady Gregory's name has become a household word in America and her works should occupy an exclusive niche in every library. Mr. George Bernard Shaw, in a recently published interview, said Lady Gregory "is the greatest living Irishwoman.... Even in the plays of Lady Gregory, penetrated as they are by that intense love of Ireland which is unintelligible to the many drunken blackguards with Irish names who make their nationality an excuse for their vices and their worthlessness, there is no flattery of the Irish; she writes about the Irish as Molière wrote about the French, having a talent curiously like Molière." "The witchery of Yeats, the vivid imagination of Synge, the amusing literalism mixed with the pronounced romance of their imitators, have their place and have been given their praise without stint. But none of these can compete with Lady Gregory for the quality of universality. The best beauty in Lady Gregory's art is its spontaneity. It is never forced.... She has read and dreamed and studied, and slept and wakened and worked, and the great ideas that have come to her have been nourished and trained till they have grown to be of great stature."--_Chicago Tribune._ G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON Irish Folk-History Plays By LADY GREGORY _First Series. The Tragedies_ GRANIA KINCORA DERVORGILLA _Second Series. The Tragic Comedies_ THE CANAVANS THE WHITE COCKADE THE DELIVERER _2 vols. Each, $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65_ Lady Gregory has preferred going for her material to the traditional folk-history rather than to the authorized printed versions, and she has been able, in so doing, to make her plays more living. One of these, =Kincora=, telling of Brian Boru, who reigned in the year 1000, evoked such keen local interest that an old farmer travelled from the neighborhood of Kincora to see it acted in Dublin. The story of =Grania=, on which Lady Gregory has founded one of these plays, was taken entirely from tradition. Grania was a beautiful young woman and was to have been married to Finn, the great leader of the Fenians; but before the marriage, she went away from the bridegroom with his handsome young kinsman, Diarmuid. After many years, when Diarmuid had died (and Finn had a hand in his death), she went back to Finn and became his queen. Another of Lady Gregory's plays, =The Canavans= dealt with the stormy times of Queen Elizabeth, whose memory is a horror in Ireland second only to that of Cromwell. =The White Cockade= is founded on a tradition of King James having escaped from Ireland after the battle of the Boyne in a wine barrel. The choice of folk history rather than written history gives a freshness of treatment and elasticity of material which made the late J.M. Synge say that "Lady Gregory's method had brought back the possibility of writing historic plays." All these plays, except =Grania=, which has not yet been staged, have been very successfully performed in Ireland. They are written in the dialect of Kiltartan, which had already become familiar to leaders of Lady Gregory's books. G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON _Dramas of Importance_ Plays The Silver Box--Joy--Strife By John Galsworthy Author of "The Country House," etc. Crown 8vo. $1.35 net "By common consent, London has witnessed this week a play of serious importance, not approached by any other book or drama of the season, John Galsworthy's 'The Strife.' It is regarded not merely as a remarkable social document of significance, but as a creation which, while of the most modern realism, is yet classic in its pronounced art and exalted philosophy. The play shows the types of the strongest men as victims of comical events and of weaker men. It will be produced in America, where, on account of its realistic treatment of the subject of labor union, it is sure to be a sensation."--_Special cable dispatch to N.Y. Times._ The Nun of Kent A Drama By Grace Denio Litchfield Author of "Baldur the Beautiful," etc. Crown 8vo. $1.00 net "In this drama the pure essentials of dramatic writing are rarely blended.... The foundation for the stirring play is a pathetic episode given in Froude's Henry VIII.... "The lines of the poem, while full of thought, are also characterized by fervor and beauty. The strength of the play is centred upon a few characters.... 'The Nun of Kent' may be described as a fascinating dramatic story."--_Baltimore News._ Yzdra A Tragedy in Three Acts By Louis V. Ledoux Crown 8vo. Cloth. $1.25 net "There are both grace and strength in this drama and it also possesses the movement and spirit needed for presentation upon the stage. Some of the figures used are striking and beautiful, quite free from excess, and sometimes almost austere in their restraint. The characters are clearly individualized and a just balance is preserved in the action."--_The Outlook, New York._ New York G.P. Putnam's Sons London 
21334	----	THE BEAUX-STRATAGEM By George Farquhar 'He was a delightful writer, and one to whom I should sooner recur for relaxation and entertainment and without after-cloying and disgust, than any of the school of which he may be said to have been the last The Beaux-Stratagem reads quite as well as it acts: it has life, movement, wit, humour, sweet nature and sweet temper from beginning to end.' CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE PREFACE _The Author_. 'It is surprising,' says Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, 'how much English Comedy owes to Irishmen.' Nearly fifty years ago Calcraft enumerated eighty-seven Irish dramatists in a by no means exhaustive list, including Congreve, Southerne, Steele, Kelly, Macklin, and Farquhar--the really Irish representative amongst the dramatists of the Restoration, the true prototype of Goldsmith and Sheridan. Thoroughly Irish by birth and education, Captain George Farquhar (1677-1707) had delighted the town with a succession of bright, rattling comedies--Love and a Bottle (1698), The Constant Couple (1699), Sir Harry Wildair (1701), The Inconstant (1702), The Twin Rivals (1702), The Recruiting Officer (1706). In an unlucky moment, when hard pressed by his debts, he sold out of the army on the strength of a promise by the Duke of Ormond to gain him some preferment, which never came. In his misery and poverty, with a wife and two helpless girls to support, Farquhar was not forsaken by his one true friend, Robert Wilks. Seeking out the dramatist in his wretched garret in St Martin's Lane, the actor advised him no longer to trust to great men's promises, but to look only to his pen for support, and urged him to write another play. 'Write!' said Farquhar, starting from his chair; 'is it possible that a man can write with common-sense who is heartless and has not a shilling in his pockets?' 'Come, come, George,' said Wilks, 'banish melancholy, draw up your drama, and bring your sketch with you to-morrow, for I expect you to dine with me. But as an empty purse may cramp your genius, I desire you to accept my mite; here is twenty guineas.' Farquhar set to work, and brought the plot of his play to Wilks the next day; the later approved the design, and urged him to proceed without delay. Mostly written in bed, the whole was begun, finished, and acted within six weeks. The author designed to dedicate it to Lord Cadogan, but his lordship, for reasons unknown, declined the honour; he gave the dramatist a handsome present, however. Thus was _The Beaux-Stratagem_ written. Farquhar is said to have felt the approaches of death ere he finished the second act. On the night of the first performance Wilks came to tell him of his great success, but mentioned that Mrs. Oldfield wished that he could have thought of some more legitimate divorce in order to secure the honour of Mrs. Sullen. 'Oh,' said Farquhar, 'I will, if she pleases, solve that immediately, by getting a real divorce; marrying her myself, and giving her my bond that she shall be a widow in less than a fortnight' Subsequent events practically fulfilled this prediction, for Farquhar died during the run of the play: on the day of his extra benefit, Tuesday, 29th April 1707, the plaudits of the audience resounding in his ears, the destitute, broken-hearted dramatist passed to that bourne where stratagems avail not any longer. _Criticism of The Beaux-Stratagem_. Each play that Farquhar produced was an improvement on its predecessors, and all critics have been unanimous in pronouncing _The Beaux-Stratagem_ his best, both in the study and on the stage, of which it retained possession much the longest. Except _The Recruiting Officer_ and _The Inconstant_, revived at Covent Garden in 1825, and also by Daly in America in 1885, non of Farquhar's other plays has been put on the stage for upwards of a century. Hallam says: 'Never has Congreve equalled _The Beaux-Stratagem_ in vivacity, in originality of contrivance, or in clear and rapid development of intrigue'; and Hazlitt considers it 'sprightly lively, bustling, and full of point and interest: the assumed disguise of Archer and Aimwell is a perpetual amusement to the mind.' The action--which commences, remarkably briskly, in the evening and ends about midnight the next day--never flags for an instant. The well-contrived plot is original and simple (all Farquhar's plots are excellent), giving rise to a rapid succession of amusing and sensational incidents; though by no means extravagant or improbable, save possibly the mutual separation of Squire Sullen and his wife in the last scene--the weak point of the whole. Farquhar was a master in stage-effect. Aimwell's stratagem of passing himself off as the wealthy nobleman, his brother (a device previously adopted by Vanbrugh in _The Relapse_ and subsequently by Sheridan in his _Trip to Scarborough_), may perhaps be a covert allusion to the romantic story of the dramatist's own deception by the penniless lady who gave herself out to be possessed of a large fortune, and who thus induced him to marry her. The style adopted is highly dramatic, the dialogue being natural and flowing; trenchant and sprightly, but not too witty for a truthful reflex of actual conversation. The humour is genial and unforced; there is no smell of the lamp about it, no premeditated effort at dragging in jests, as in Congreve. As typical examples of Farquhar's _vis comica_ I Would cite the description of Squire Sullen's home-coming, and his 'pot of ale' speech, Aimwell's speech respecting conduct at church, the scene between Cherry and Archer about the £2000, and the final separation scene--which affords a curious view of the marriage tie and on which Leigh Hunt has founded an argument for divorce. This play contains several examples of Farquhar's curious habit of breaking out into a kind of broken blank verse occasionally for a few lines in the more serious passages. Partaking as it does of the elements of both comedy and force, it is the prototype of Goldsmith's _She Stoops to Conquer_, which it resembles in many respects. It will be remembered that Miss Hardcastle compares herself to Cherry (Act III.), and young Marlow and Hastings much resemble Archer and Aimwell. Goldsmith was a great admirer of the works of his fellow-countryman, especially _The Beaux-Stratagem_, and refers to them several times (Citizen of the World, letter 93; History of England, letter 16; Vicar of Wakefield, ch. 18), and in the Literary Magazine for 1758 he drew up a curious poetical scale in which he classes the Restoration dramatists thus:-- Congreve--Genius 15, Judgment 16, Learning 14, Versification 14; Vanbrugh--14, 15,14,10; Farquhar--15, 15, 10, io. Unlike Goldsmith, unhappily, Farquhar's moral tone is not high; sensuality is confounded with love, ribaldry mistaken for wit The best that can be said of him that he contrasts favourably with his contemporary dramatists; Virtue is not _always_ uninteresting in his pages. He is free from their heartlessness, malignity, and cruelty. The plot of _The Beaux-Stratagem_ is comparatively inoffensive, and the moral of the whole is healthy. Although a wit rather than a thinker, Farquhar in this play shows himself capable of serious feelings. It is remarkable how much Farquhar repeats himself. Hardly an allusion or idea occurs in this play that is not to be found elsewhere in his works. In the Notes I have pointed out many of these coincidences. _The Characters_. This play has added several distinct original personages to our stock of comedy characters, and it affords an excellent and lifelike picture of a peculiar and perishing phase of the manners of the time, especially those obtaining in the country house, and the village inn frequented by highwaymen. The sly, rascally landlord, Boniface (who has given his name to the class), is said to have been drawn from life, and his portrait, we are told, was still to be seen at Lichfield in 1775. The inimitable 'brother Scrub,' that 'indispensable appendage to a country gentleman's kitchen' (Hazlitt), with his ignorance and shrewd eye to the main chance, is likewise said to have been a well-known personage who survived till 1759, one Thomas Bond, servant to Sir Theophilus Biddulph; others say he died at Salisbury in 1744. Although Farquhar, like Goldsmith, undoubtedly drew his incidents and personages from his own daily associations, there is probably no more truth in these surmises than in the assertion (repeatedly made, though denied in his preface to _The Inconstant_) that Farquhar depicts himself in his young heroes, his rollicking 'men about town,' Roebuck, Mirabel, Wildair, Plume, Archer. Archer (copied by Hoadley in his character of Ranger in _The Suspicious Husband_) is a decided improvement on his predecessors, and is the best of all Farquhar's creations; he is assuredly the most brilliant footman that ever was, eminently sociable and, with all his easy, rattling volubility, never forgetful of his self-respect and never indifferent to the wishes or welfare of others. As Hunt has pointed out, the characters of Archer and Aimwell improve as the play progresses; they set out as mere intriguers, but prove in the end true gentlemen. They are sad rogues, no doubt, but they have no bitter cynicism, no meanness; Aimwell refuses to marry Dorinda under any deception. They thoroughly good fellows at bottom, manly, accomplished his spirited, eloquent, generous--the forerunners of Charles Surfor. Marriage retrieves them and turns them into respectable and adoring husbands. Though rattle-brained, much given to gallantry, and somewhat lax in morality, they are not knaves or monsters; they do not inspire disgust. Even the lumpish blockhead, Squire Sullen--according to Macaulay a type of the main strength of the Tory party for half a century after the Revolution--contrasts favourably with his prototype Sir John Brute in Vanbrugh's _Provoked Wife_, He is a sodden sot, who always goes to bed drunk, but he is not a demon; he does not beat his wife in public; he observes common decency somewhat. His wife is a witty, attractive, warm-hearted woman, whose faults are transparent; the chief one being that she has made the fatal mistake of marrying for fortune and position instead of for love. There is something pathetic in her position which claims our sympathy. She is well contrasted with her sister-in-law, the sincere, though somewhat weakly drawn, Dorinda; whilst their mother-in-law, Lady Bountiful, famed for her charity, is an amusing and gracious figure, which has often been copied. Cherry, with her honest heart and her quickness of perception, is also a distinct creation. Strange to say, the only badly drawn character is Foigard, the unscrupulous Irish Jesuit priest. Farquhar is fond of introducing an Irishman into each of his plays, but I cannot say that I think he is generally successful; certainly not in this instance. They are mostly broad caricatures, and speak an outlandish jargon, more like Welsh than Irish, supposed to be the Ulster dialect: anything more unlike it would be difficult to conceive. The early conventional stage Irishman, tracing him from Captain. Macmorris in Henry V.,through Ben Jonson's _Irish Masque_ and _New Inn_, Dekker's Bryan, Ford's Mayor of Cork, Shadwell's O'Divelly (probably Farquhar's model for Foigard), is truly a wondrous savage, chiefly distinguished by his use of the expletives 'Dear Joy!' and 'By Creesh!' This character naturally rendered the play somewhat unpopular in Ireland, and its repulsiveness is unrelieved (as it is in the case of Teague in _The Twin Rivals_) by a single touch of humour or native comicality. It is an outrage. _The First Performance_. _The Beaux-Stratagem_ was first performed on Saturday, 8th March 1707, at the Theatre Royal (or, as it was sometimes called, the Queen's Theatre), situated in the Haymarket, on the site afterwards occupied by Her Majesty's Theatre. It ran for ten nights only, owing to benefits. The cast on that occasion was a strong one. Robert Wilks (a brother-Irishman), who performed Archer, was the foremost actor of the day. He was Farquhar's lifelong friend, and appeared in all his plays, except _Love and a Bottle_ which was produced in London during Wilks's absence in Dublin. This actor's most famous part was 'Sir Harry Wildair' (_The Constant Couple_), which our author drew on purpose for him, and which ran for fifty-two nights on its first appearance. Farquhar himself said that when the stage had the misfortune to lose Wilks, 'Sir Harry Wildair' might go to the Jubilee! Peg Woffington is said to have been his only rival in this part. Sullen was the last original character undertaken by Verbruggen, a leading actor of the time. It was from Verbruggen's wife (probably the 'Mrs. V------' of Farquhar's letters) that the famous Mrs. Oldfield received her earliest instructions in acting. The last-named lady was the original Mrs. Sullen. Her connection with Farquhar is very interesting and romantic. She resided with her aunt, Mrs. Voss, who kept the Mitre Tavern in St, James's Market (between Jeryrm Street, Regent Street, and the Haymarket). One day, when she was aged sixteen, Farquhar, a smart young captain of twenty-two, happened to be dining there, and he overheard her reading Beaumont and Fletcher's _Scornful Lady_ aloud behind the bar. When Farquhar, much struck by her musical delivery and expression, pressed her to resume her reading, the tall and graceful girl consented with hesitation and bashfulness; although she afterwards confessed, 'I longed to be at it, and only needed a decent entreaty.' The dramatist quickly acquainted Sir John Vanbrugh with the jewel he had thus accidentally found, and she obtained through him an engagement at the Theatre Royal as 'Candiope' in Dryden's _Secret Love_. She soon became the fine lady of the stage, and was the original representative of no less than sixty-five characters. Pope disliked and satirised her severely; on the other hand, Cibber worshipped her. According to some, Farquhar fell violently in love with her, and she is the 'Penelope' of his letters; but although she often spoke of the happy hours she spent in his company, there appears to be no foundation for this surmise. Bowen, a low comedian of considerable talent, afterwards accidentally killed by Quin the actor, was Foigard; and Scrub--originally written for Colley Cibber, who, however, preferred Gibbet--was represented by Norris, a capital comic actor, universally known as 'Jubilee Dicky' on account of his representation of 'Dicky' in _The Constant Couple_. He had an odd, formal little figure, and a high squeaking voice; if he came into a coffee-house and merely called 'Waiter!' everybody present felt inclined to laugh. He had previously appeared in Farquhar's four principal plays, as also had Mills, who did Aimwell. Cibber tells us that the play was better received at Drury Lane than at the Haymarket, as, owing to the larger size of the latter house, it was difficult to hear. _Later Stage History_. Originally brought out under the title _The Stratagem_ only, which it retained in the playbills till 1787 (though printed with 'Beaux'), this play continued to be very popular with the stage down to the dawn of the present century; and many great actors and actresses appeared from time to time in its characters; In 1721 Quin acted in Lincoln's Inn Fields as Squire Sullen. The part of Mrs. Sullen has been undertaken by Mrs. Pritchard (1740 and 1761), Peg Woffington (1742, along with Garrick as Archer for the first time, and Macklin as Scrub), Mrs. Abington (1774, 1785, 1798), Mrs. Barry (1778), Miss Farren (1779), Mrs. Jordan (1802), Mrs. C. Kemble (1810), Mrs. Davison (1818), and Miss Chester (1823, for Dibdin's benefit, with Liston as Scrub). Garrick's repeated performances of Archer, in light blue and silver livery, were supremely good, more particularly in the scenes with Cherry, the picture scene with Mrs. Sullen, and when he delivers Lady Howd'ye's message. He generally acted with Weston, an inimitable Scrub; but at O'Brien's benefit at Drury Lane, 10th April 1761, Garrick himself played Scrub to O'Brien's Archer. On one occasion Garrick had refused Weston a loan of money, and Weston not appearing at the greenroom, Garrick came forward before the curtain and announced that he would himself play Scrub, as Weston was ill. Weston, who was in the gallery with a sham bailiff, shouted out, 'I am here, but the bailiff won't let me come '; whereupon the audience insisted on Garrick's paying the loan and relieving the debtor so as to enable him to play Scrub! Other famous Scrubs were Shutes (1774), Quick (1778, 1785, 1798), Bannister, junior (1802, will C. Kemble as Aimwell), Dowton (1802), Liston (1810), Johnstone (1821), and Keeley (1828, with C. Kemble as Arches and Miss Foote as Cherry; it ran for twelve nights at Covenl Garden). Goldsmith is said to have expressed a desire to art this part. On the occasion of Mrs. Abington's benefit (Covenl Garden, November 19, 1785), she took the part of Scrub for that night only, for a wager, it is said. Ladies were desired to send their servants to retain seats by four o'clock, and the pit and boxes were laid together. She disgraced herself, acting the part with her hair dressed for 'Lady Racket' in the afterpiece (_Three Hours After Marriage_). In April 1823 another female impersonator of this part appeared--not very successfully--in Miss Clara Fisher, with Farren as Archer. This was in Dublin (Hawkins' Street), where the play was frequently performed about 1821-1823. It was also the piece chosen for the re-opening of Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin, in 1759, when Mrs. Abington made her first appearance on the Irish stage as Mrs. Sullen. Miss Pope (1774), Mrs. Martyn (1785, 1798), and Mrs. Gibbs (1819) were the principal exponents of Cherry. In 1819 Emery did Gibbet. About 1810 the play was performed at the Royal Circus under Elliston as a _ballet d'action_, in order to evade the Patent Act. Otherwise, neither this play nor any other of Farquhar's seems ever to have been 'adapted' for the modern stage. In the present half-century _The Beaux-Stratagem_ has been but seldom performed. It was acted in London in 1856. In February 1878 Mr. Phelps gave it extremely well in the Annexe Theatre at the Westminster Aquarium. Lastly, William Farren, as Archer, revived it at the Imperial Theatre, on Monday, 22nd September 1879, with great success, a new Prologue (spoken by Mrs. Stirling) being written for the occasion. There were several matinees given in succession. The cast included Mr. Kyrle Bellew as Gibbet; Mr. Lionel Brough as Scrub; Miss Marie Litton as Mrs. Sullen; Mrs. Stirling--one of her last appearances--as Lady Bountiful; Dorinda, Miss Meyrick; Cherry, Miss Carlotta Addison; Gipsy, Miss Passinger; Aimwell, Mr. Edgar; Sir Charles Freeman, Mr. Denny; Sullen, Mr. Ryder; Foigard, Mr. Bannister; Boniface, Mr. Everill; Hounslow, Mr. Bunch; Bagshot, Mr. Leitch. The Epilogue for this occasion was written by Mr. Clement Scott. I know not if the play has been acted since that date. _Bibliography_. The first edition was published in a small quarto (78 pages) by Bernard Lintott, 'at the Cross-Keys next Nando's Coffeehouse in Fleet Street' between the two Temple gates. The British Museum Catalogue dates it 1707 (the copy in my possession, however, bears no date), but it is supposed not to have been published till 1710, three years after Farquhar's decease; whence some have erroneously dated his death in that year. Lintott, on January 27, 1707, had paid the dramatist £30. in advance for this play, double what he usually gave for a play. The same publisher issued the first complete edition of Farquhar's plays in an octavo volume, dedicated to John Eyre, with a quaint illustration prefixed to each play (we reproduce that prefixed to _The Beaux-Stratagem_), introducing all the characters of the play, and a frontispiece representing Farquhar being presented to Apollo by Ben Jonson. The general title-page is undated, but the title-pages of the various plays bear the date 1711, and all bear Lintott's name (sometimes alone, sometimes with others) save _Sir Harry Wildair_, which is said to be printed by James Knapton. Some say this volume did not appear till 1714. In 1760 Rivington published an edition of Farquhar which appears to be slightly 'bowdlerised.' At least two complete editions of his works were published in Dublin; one, described as the seventh, in two volumes small octavo, by Risk and Smith, in 1743 (including a memoir, and _Love and Business_), in which the title-pages of the various plays bear different dates, ranging from 1727 to 1741, _The Beaux-Stratagem_ being described as the twelfth edition, and dated 1739; the other, charmingly printed by Ewing in three 16mo volumes, dated 1775, with a vignette portrait and other illustrations, and containing a life by Thomas Wilkes. An Edinburgh edition of The _Beaux-Stratagem_, with life, appeared in 1768, and an edition in German in 1782 by J. Leonhardi, under the title _Die Stutzerlist_. Separate editions of the play also appeared in 1748, 1778, and 1824 (New York), and it is included in all the various collections of English plays, such as Bell's, Oxberry's, Inchbald's, Dibdin's, Cumberland's, etc., and in the collected editions of Farquhar's works dated 1718, 1728, 1736, 1742, 1760, and 1772. The principal modern editions of Farquhar are Leigh Hunt's (along with Wycherley, Vanbrugh, and Congreve), and Ewald's (1892), in two volumes large octavo. ADVERTISEMENT The reader may find some faults in this play, which my illness prevented the amending of; but there is great amends made in the representation, which cannot be matched, no more than the friendly and indefatigable care of Mr. Wilks, to whom I chiefly owe the success of the play. GEORGE FARQUHAR. DRAMATIS PERSONAE With names of the original actors and actresses. [Illustration: Dramatis1] S C E N E.--Lichfield. PROLOGUE _Spoken by Mr. Wilks_. WHEN strife disturbs, or sloth corrupts an age, Keen satire is the business of the stage. When the _Plain-Dealer_ writ, he lash'd those crimes, Which then infested most--the modish times: But now, when faction sleeps, and sloth is fled, And all our youth in active fields are bred; When through Great Britain's fair extensive round, The trumps of fame, the notes of UNION sound; When Anna's sceptre points the laws their course, And her example gives her precepts force: {10} There scarce is room for satire; all our lays Must be, or songs of triumph, or of praise. But as in grounds best cultivated, tares And poppies rise among the golden ears; Our product so, fit for the field or school, Must mix with nature's favourite plant--a fool: A weed that has to twenty summers ran, Shoots up in stalk, and vegetates to man. Simpling our author goes from field to field, And culls such fools as many diversion yield {20} And, thanks to Nature, there's no want of those, For rain or shine, the thriving coxcomb grows. Follies to-night we show ne'er lash'd before, Yet such as nature shows you every hour; Nor can the pictures give a just offence, For fools are made for jests to men of sense. THE BEAUX-STRATAGEM ACT I., SCENE I. _A Room in Bonifaces Inn_. _Enter Boniface running_. _Bon_. Chamberlain! maid! Cherry! daughter Cherry! all asleep? all dead? _Enter Cherry running_. _Cher_. Here, here! why d'ye bawl so, father? d'ye think we have no ears? _Bon_. You deserve to have none, you young minx! The company of the Warrington coach has stood in the hall this hour, and nobody to show them to their chambers. _Cher_. And let 'em wait farther; there's neither red-coat in the coach, nor footman behind it. {10} _Bon_. But they threaten to go to another inn to-night. _Cher_. That they dare not, for fear the coachman should overturn them to-morrow.--Coming! coming!-- Here's the London coach arrived. _Enter several people with trunks, bandboxes, and other luggage, and cross the stage_. _Bon_. Welcome, ladies! _Cher_. Very welcome, gentlemen!--Chamberlain, show the _Lion and the Rose_. [_Exit with the company_. _Enter Aimwell in a riding-habit, and Archer as footman, carrying a portmantle_. _Bon_. This way, this way, gentlemen! _Aim_. [_To Archer_.] Set down the things; go to the stable, and see my horses well rubbed. {20} _Arch_. I shall, sir. [_Exit_. _Aim_. You're my landlord, I suppose? _Bon_. Yes, sir, I 'm old Will Boniface, pretty well known upon this road, as the saying is. _Aim_. O Mr. Boniface, your servant! _Bon_. O sir!--What will your honour please to drink, as the saying is? _Aim_. I have heard your town of Lichfield much famed for ale; I think I 'll taste that. {29} _Bon_. Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style. _Aim_. You're very exact, I find, in the age of your ale. _Bon_. As punctual, sir, as I am in the age of my children. I'll show you such ale!--Here, tapster [_Enter Tapster_] broach number 1706, as the saying is.--Sir, you shall taste my _Anno Domini_.--I have lived in Lichfield, man and boy, above eight-and-fifty years, and, I believe, have not consumed eight-and-fifty ounces of meat. {42} _Aim_. At a meal, you mean, if one may guess your sense by your bulk. _Bon_. Not in my life, sir: I have fed purely upon ale; I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale. _Enter Tapster with a bottle and glass, and exit_. Now, sir, you shall see!--[_Fitting out a glass_.] Your worship's health.--[_Drinks_.] Ha! delicious, delicious! fancy it burgundy, only fancy it, and 'tis worth ten shillings a quart. {51} _Aim_. [Drinks,] 'Tis confounded strong! _Bon_. Strong! it must be so, or how should we be strong that drink it? _Aim_. And have you lived so long upon this ale, landlord? _Bon_. Eight-and-fifty years, upon my credit, sir--but it killed my wife, poor woman, as the saying is. _Aim_. How came that to pass? _Bon_. I don't know how, sir; she would not let the ale take its natural course, sir; she was for qualifying it every now and then with a dram, as the saying is; and an honest gentleman that came this way from Ireland, made her a present of a dozen bottles of usquebaugh--but the poor woman was never well after: but, howe'er, I was obliged to the gentleman, you know. {66} _Aim_. Why, was it the usquebaugh that killed her? _Bon_. My Lady Bountiful said so. She, good lady, did what could be done; she cured her of three tympanies, but the fourth carried her off. But she's happy, and I 'm contented, as the saying is. _Aim_. Who 's that Lady Bountiful you mentioned? _Bon_. 'Ods my life, sir, we'll drink her health.--[Drinks.] My Lady Bountiful is one of the best of women. Her last husband, Sir Charles Bountiful, left her worth a thousand pound, a year; and, I believe, she lays out one-half on't in charitable uses for the good of her neighbours. She cures rheumatisms, ruptures, and broken shins in men; green-sickness, obstructions, and fits of the mother, in women; the king's evil, chincough, and chilblains, in children: in short, she has cured more people in and about Lichfield within ten years than the doctors have killed in twenty; and that's a bold word. {84} _Aim_. Has the lady been any other way useful in her generation? _Bon_. Yes, sir; she has a daughter by Sir Charles, the finest woman in all our country, and the greatest _fortune_. She has a son too, by her first husband, Squire Sullen, who married a fine lady from London t' other day; if you please, sir, we 'll drink his health. _Aim_. What sort of a man is he? {92} _Bon_. Why, sir, the man 's well enough; says little, thinks less, and does--nothing at all, faith. But he's a man of a great estate, and values nobody. _Aim_. A sportsman, I suppose? _Bon_. Yes, sir, he's a man of pleasure; he plays at whisk and smokes his pipe eight-and-forty hours together sometimes. _Aim_. And married, you say? {100} _Bon_. Ay, and to a curious woman, sir. But he's a--he wants it here, sir. [_Pointing to his forehead_. _Aim_. He has it there, you mean? _Bon_. That's none of my business; he's my landlord, and so a man, you know, would not--But--ecod, he's no better than--Sir, my humble service to you.-- [_Drinks_.] Though I value not a farthing what he can do to me; I pay him his rent at quarter-day; I have a good running-trade; I have but one daughter, and I can give her--but no matter for that. {111} _Aim_. You're very happy, Mr. Boniface. Pray, what other company have you in town? _Bon_. A power of fine ladies; and then we have the French officers. _Aim_. Oh, that's right, you have a good many of those gentlemen: pray, how do you like their company? _Bon_. So well, as the saying is, that I could wish we had as many more of'em; they're full of money, and pay double for everything they have. They know, sir, that we paid good round taxes for the taking of 'em, and so they are willing to reimburse us a little. One of 'em lodges in my house. {123} _Re-enter Archer_. _Arch_. Landlord, there are some French gentlemen below that ask for you. _Bon_. I'll wait on 'em.--[_Aside to Archer_.] Does your master stay long in town, as the saying is? _Arch_. I can't tell, as the saying is. _Bon_. Come from London? _Arch_. No. {130} _Bon_. Going to London, mayhap? _Arch_. No. _Bon_. [_Aside_.] An odd fellow this.--[_To Aimwell_.] I beg your worship's pardon, I 'll wait on you in half a minute. [_Exit_. _Aim_. The coast's clear, I see.--Now, my dear Archer, welcome to Lichfield! _Arch_. I thank thee, my dear brother in iniquity. _Aim_. Iniquity! prithee, leave canting; you need not change your style with your dress. {140} _Arch_. Don't mistake me, Aimwell, for 'tis still my maxim, that there is no scandal like rags, nor any crime so shameful as poverty. _Aim_. The world confesses it every day in its practice though men won't own it for their opinion. Who did that worthy lord my brother, single out of the side-box to sup with him t' other night? _Arch_. Jack Handicraft, a handsome, well-dressed, mannerly, sharping rogue, who keeps the best company in town. {150} _Aim_. Right!' And, pray, who married my lady Manslaughter t'other day, the great fortune? _Arch_. Why, Nick Marrabone, a professed pickpocket, and a good bowler; but he makes a handsome figure, and rides in his coach, that he formerly used to ride behind. _Aim_. But did you observe poor Jack Generous in the Park last week. _Arch_. Yes, with his autumnal periwig, shading his melancholy face, his coat older than anything but its fashion, with one hand idle in his pocket, and with the other picking his useless teeth; and, though the Mall was crowded with company, yet was poor Jack as single and solitary as a lion in a desert. _Aim_. And as much avoided for no crime upon earth but the want of money. {166} _Arch_. And that's enough. Men must not be poor; idleness is the root of all evil; the world's wide enough, let 'em bustle. Fortune has taken the weak under her protection, but men of sense are left to their industry. {171} _Aim_. Upon which topic we proceed, and, I think, luckily hitherto. Would not any man swear now, that I am a man of quality, and you my servant, when if our intrinsic value were known-- _Arch_. Come, come, we are the men of intrinsic value who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money and hearts to spend it. {180} _Aim_. As to pur hearts, I grant ye, they are as willing tits as any within twenty degrees: but I can have no great opinion of our heads from the service they have done us hitherto, unless it be that they have brought us from London hither to Lichfield, made me a lord and you my servant. _Arch_. That 's more than you could expect already. But what money have we left? _Aim_. But two hundred pound. {189} _Arch_. And our horses, clothes, rings, etc.--Why, we have very good fortunes now for moderate people; and, let me tell you, that this two hundred pound, with the experience that we are now masters of, is a better estate than the ten we have spent--Our friends, indeed, began to suspect that our pockets were low, but we came off with flying colours, showed no signs of want either in word or deed. _Aim_. Ay, and our going to Brussels was a good pretence enough for our sudden disappearing; and, I warrant you, our friends imagine that we are gone a-volunteering. {201} _Arch_. Why, faith, if this prospect fails, it must e'en come to that I am for venturing one of the hundreds, if you will, upon this knight-errantry; but, in case it should fail, we 'll reserve t' other to carry us to some counterscarp, where we may die, as we lived, in a blaze. _Aim_. With all my heart; and we have lived justly, Archer: we can't say that we have spent our fortunes, but that we have enjoyed 'em. {210} _Arch_. Right! so much pleasure for so much money. We have had our pennyworths; and, had I millions, I would go to the same market again.--O London! London!--Well, we have had our share, and let us be thankful: past pleasures, for aught I know, are best, such as we are sure of; those to come may disappoint us. {217} _Aim_. It has often grieved the heart of me to see how some inhuman wretches murder their kind fortunes; those that, by sacrificing all to one appetite, shall starve all the rest. You shall have some that live only in their palates, and in their sense of tasting shall drown the other four: others are only epicures in appearances, such who shall starve their nights to make a figure a days, and famish their own to feed the eyes of others: a contrary sort confine their pleasures to the dark, and contract their specious acres to the circuit of a muff-string. {228} _Arch_. Right! But they find the Indies in that spot where they consume 'em, and I think your kind keepers have much the best on't: for they indulge the most senses by one expense, there's the seeing, hearing, and feeling, amply gratified; and, some philosophers will tell you, that from such a commerce there arises a sixth sense, that gives infinitely more pleasure than the other five put together, {237} _Aim_. And to pass to the other extremity, of all keepers I think those the worst that keep their money. _Arch_. Those are the most miserable wights in being, they destroy the rights of nature, and disappoint the blessings of Providence. Give me a man that keeps his five senses keen and bright as his sword, that has 'em always drawn out in their just order and strength, with his reason as commander at the head of 'em, that detaches 'em by turns upon whatever party of pleasure agreeably offers, and commands 'em to retreat upon the least appearance of disadvantage or danger! For my part, I can stick to my bottle while my wine, my company, and my reason, hold good; I can be charmed with Sappho's singing without falling in love with her face: I love hunting, but would not, like Actæon, be eaten up by my own dogs; I love a fine house, but let another keep it; and just so I love a fine woman. {255} _Aim_. In that last particular you have the better of me. _Arch_. Ay, you're such an amorous puppy, that I'm afraid you 'll spoil our sport; you can't counterfeit the passion without feeling it. _Aim_. Though the whining part be out of doors in town, 'tis still in force with the country ladies: and let me tell you, Frank, the fool in that passion shall-outdo the knave at any time. _Arch_. Well, I won't dispute it now; you command for the day, and so I submit: at Nottingham, you know, I am to be master. {266} _Aim_. And at Lincoln, I again. _Arch_. Then, at Norwich I mount, which, I think, shall be our last stage; for, if we fail there, we'll embark for Holland, bid adieu to Venus, and welcome Mars. _Aim_. A match!--Mum! _Re-enter Boniface_. _Bon_. What will your worship please to have for supper? _Aim_. What have you got? _Bon_. Sir, we have a delicate piece of beef in the pot, and a pig at the fire. _Aim_. Good supper-meat, I must confess. I can't eat beef, landlord. {278} _Arch_. And I hate pig. _Aim_. Hold your prating, sirrah! do you know who you are? _Bon_. Please to bespeak something else; I have everything in the house. _Aim_. Have you any veal? _Bon_. Veal! sir, we had a delicate loin of veal on Wednesday last. _Aim_. Have you got any fish or wildfowl? {287} _Bon_. As for fish, truly, sir, we are an inland town, and indifferently provided with fish, that 's the truth on't; and then for wildfowl--we have a delicate couple of rabbits. {291} _Aim_. Get me the rabbits fricasseed. _Bon_. Fricasseed! Lard, sir, they 'll eat much better smothered with onions. _Arch_. Psha! Damn your onions! _Aim_. Again, sirrah!--Well, landlord, what you please. But hold, I have a small charge of money, and your house is so full of strangers that I believe it may be safer in your custody than mine; for when this fellow of mine gets drunk he tends to nothing.--Here, sirrah, reach me the strong-box. {301} _Arch_. Yes, sir.--[_Aside_.] This will give us a reputation. [_Brings Aimwell the box_. _Aim_. Here, landlord; the locks are sealed down both for your security and mine; it holds somewhat above two hundred pound: if you doubt it I'll count it to you after supper; but be sure you lay it where I may have it at a minute's warning; for my affairs are a little dubious at present; perhaps I may be gone in half an hour, perhaps I may be your guest till the best part of that be spent; and pray order your ostler to keep my horses always saddled. But one thing above the rest I must beg, that you would let this fellow have none of your _Anno Domini_, as you call it; for he's the most insufferable sot--Here, sirrah, light me to my chamber. [_Exit, lighted by Archer_. _Bon_. Cherry! daughter Cherry! {315} _Re-enter Cherry_. _Cher_. D'ye call, father? _Bon_. Ay, child, you must lay by this box for the gentleman: 'tis full of money. _Cher_. Money! all that money! why, sure, father, the gentleman comes to be chosen parliament-man. Who is he? {321} _Bon_. I don't know what to make of him; he talks of keeping his horses ready saddled, and of going perhaps at a minute's warning, or of staying perhaps till the best part of this be spent. _Cher_. Ay, ten to one, father, he's a highwayman. _Bon_. A highwayman! upon my life, girl, you have hit it, and this box is some new-purchased booty. Now, could we find him out, the money were ours. _Cher_. He don't belong to our gang. {330} _Bon_. What horses have they? _Cher_. The master rides upon a black. _Bon_. A black! ten to one the man upon the black mare; and since he don't belong to our fraternity, we may betray him with a safe conscience: I don't think it lawful to harbour any rogues but my own. Look'ee, child, as the saying is, we must go cunningly to work, proofs we must have; the gentleman's servant loves drink, I'll ply him that way, and ten to one loves a wench: you must work him t' other way. {341} _Cher_. Father, would you have me give my secret for his? _Bon_. Consider, child, there's two hundred pound to boot.--[_Ringing without_.] Coming! coming!--Child, mind your business. [_Exit_. _Cher_. What a rogue is my father! My father! I deny it. My mother was a good, generous, free-hearted woman, and I can't tell how far her good nature might have extended for the good of her children. This landlord of mine, for I think I can call him no more, would betray his guest, and debauch his daughter into the bargain--by a footman too! _Re-enter Archer_. _Arch_. What footman, pray, mistress, is so happy as to be the subject of your contemplation? {355} _Cher_. Whoever he is, friend, he'll be but little the better for't. _Arch_. I hope so, for, I 'm sure, you did not think of me. _Cher_. Suppose I had? _Arch_. Why, then, you 're but even with me; for the minute I came in, I was a-considering in what manner I should make love to you. _Cher_. Love to me, friend! _Arch_. Yes, child. {364} _Cher_. Child! manners!--If you kept a little more distance, friend, it would become you much better. _Arch_. Distance! good-night, sauce-box. [_Going_. _Cher_. [_Aside_.] A pretty fellow! I like his pride.-- [_Aloud_.] Sir, pray, sir, you see, sir [_Archer returns_] I have the credit to be entrusted with your master's fortune here, which sets me a degree above his footman; I hope, sir, you an't affronted? {372} _Arch_. Let me look you full in the face, and I 'll tell you whether you can affront me or no. 'Sdeath, child, you have a pair of delicate eyes, and you don't know what to do with 'em! _Cher_. Why, sir, don't I see everybody? _Arch_. Ay, but if some women had 'em, they would kill everybody. Prithee, instruct me, I would fain make love to you, but I don't know what to say. {380} _Cher_. Why, did you never make love to anybody before? _Arch_. Never to a person of your figure I can assure you, madam: my addresses have been always confined to people within my own sphere, I never aspired so high before. [_Sings_. But you look so bright, And are dress'd so tight, That a man would swear you 're right, As arm was e'er laid over. {390} Such an air You freely wear To ensnare, As makes each guest a lover! Since then, my dear, I 'm your guest, Prithee give me of the best Of what is ready drest: Since then, my dear, etc. _Cher_. [_Aside_.] What can I think of this man?--[_Aloud_.] Will you give me that song, sir? {400} _Arch_. Ay, my dear, take it while 'tis warm.--[_Kisses her_.] Death and fire! her lips are honeycombs. _Cher_. And I wish there had been bees too, to have stung you for your impudence. _Arch_. There 's a swarm of Cupids, my little Venus, that has done the business much better. _Cher_. [_Aside_.] This fellow is misbegotten as well as I.-- [Aloud.] What's your name, sir? _Arch_. [_Aside_.] Name! egad, I have forgot it.--[_Aloud_.] Oh! Martin. {410} _Cher_. Where were you born? _Arch_. In St Martin's parish. _Cher_. What was your father? _Arch_. St. Martin's parish. _Cher_. Then, friend, good-night _Arch_. I hope not. _Cher_. You may depend upon't _Arch_. Upon what? _Cher_. That you're very impudent. _Arch_. That you 're very handsome. {420} _Cher_. That you're a footman. _Arch_. That you're an angel. _Cher_. I shall be rude. _Arch_. So shall I. _Cher_. Let go my hand. _Arch_. Give me a kiss. [_Kisses her_. [_Call without_.] Cherry! Cherry! _Cher_. I'm--my father calls; you plaguy devil, how durst you stop my breath so? Offer to follow me one step, if you dare. [_Exit_. _Arch_. A fair challenge, by this light! this is a pretty fair opening of an adventure; but we are knight-errants, and so Fortune be our guide. [_Exit_. ACT II., SCENE I. _A Gallery in Lady Bountifuls House_. _Enter Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda, meeting_. _Dor_. Morrow, my dear sister; are you for church this morning? _Mrs. Sul_. Anywhere to pray; for Heaven alone can help me. But I think, Dorinda, there's no form of prayer in the liturgy against bad husbands: _Dor_. But there's a form of law in Doctors-Common and I swear, sister Sullen, rather than see you this continually discontented, I would advise you apply to that: for besides the part that I bear your vexatious broils, as being sister to the husband and friend to the wife, your example gives me such an impression of matrimony, that I shall be apt condemn my person to a long vacation all its life But supposing, madam, that you brought it to case of separation, what can you urge against your husband? My brother is, first, the most constant man alive. _Mrs. Sul_. The most constant husband, I grant ye. _Dor_. He never sleeps from you. _Mrs. Sul_. No, he always sleeps with me. {20} _Dor_. He allows you a maintenance suitable to your quality. _Mrs. Sul_. A maintenance! do you take me, madam, for an hospital child, that I must sit down, and bless my benefactors for meat, drink, and clothes? As I take it, madam, I brought your brother ten thousand pounds, out of which I might expect some pretty things, called pleasures. _Dor_. You share in all the pleasures that the country affords. {30} _Mrs. Sul_. Country pleasures! racks and torments! Dost think, child, that my limbs were made for leaping of ditches, and clambering over stiles? or that my parents, wisely foreseeing my future happiness in country pleasures, had early instructed me in rural accomplishments of drinking fat ale, playing at whisk, and smoking tobacco with my husband? or of spreading of plasters, brewing of diet-drinks, and stilling rosemary-water, with the good old gentlewoman my mother-in-law? {40} _Dor_. I'm sorry, madam, that it is not more in our power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our entertainments were a little more polite, or your taste a little less refined. But, pray, madam, how came the poets and philosophers, that laboured so much in hunting after pleasure, to place it at last in a country life? {47} _Mrs. Sul_. Because they wanted money, child, to find out the pleasures of the town. Did you ever see a poet or philosopher worth ten thousand pounds? if you can show me such a man, I 'll lay you fifty pounds you'll find him somewhere within the weekly bills. Not that I disapprove rural pleasures, as the poets have painted them; in their landscape, every Phillis has her Corydon, every murmuring stream, and every flowery mead, gives fresh alarms to love. Besides, you'll find, that their couples were never married:--but yonder I see my Corydon, and a sweet swain it is, Heaven knows! Come, Dorinda, don't be angry, he's my husband, and your brother; and, between both, is he not a sad brute? {62} _Dor_. I have nothing to say to your part of him, you 're the best judge. _Mrs. Sul_. O sister, sister! if ever you marry, beware of a sullen, silent sot, one that's always musing, but never thinks. There's some diversion in a talking blockhead; and since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a little. Now you shall see, but take this by the way. He came home this morning at his usual hour of four, wakened me out of a sweet dream of something else, by tumbling over the tea-table, which he broke all to pieces; after his man and he had rolled about the room, like sick passengers in a storm, he comes flounce into bed, dead as a salmon into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face as greasy as his flannel night-cap. O matrimony! He tosses up the clothes with a barbarous swing over his shoulders, disorders the whole economy of my bed, leaves me half naked, and my whole night's comfort is the tuneable serenade of that wakeful nightingale, his nose! Oh, the pleasure of counting the melancholy clock by a snoring husband! But now, sister, you shall see how handsomely, being a well-bred man, he will beg my pardon. {87} _Enter Squire Sullen_. _Squire Sul_. My head aches consumedly. _Mrs. Sul_. Will you be pleased, my dear, to drink tea with us this morning? it may do your head good. _Squire Sul_. No. _Dor_. Coffee, brother? _Squire Sul_. Psha! _Mrs. Sul_. Will you please to dress, and go to church with me? the air may help you. _Squire Sul_. Scrub! [_Calls_. _Enter Scrub_. _Scrub_. Sir! _Squire Sul_. What day o' th' week is this? _Scrub_. Sunday, an't please your worship. {99} _Squire Sul_. Sunday! bring me a dram; and d'ye hear, set out the venison-pasty, and a tankard of strong beer upon the hall-table, I 'll go to breakfast [_Going_. _Dor_. Stay, stay, brother, you shan't get off so; you were very naught last night, and must make your wife reparation; come, come, brother, won't you ask pardon? _Squire Sul_. For what? _Dor_. For being drunk last night. _Squire Sul_. I can afford it, can't I? {109} _Mrs. Sul_. But I can't, sir. _Squire Sul_. Then you may let it alone. _Mrs. Sul_. But I must tell you, sir, that this is not to be borne. _Squire Sul_. I 'm glad on't. _Mrs. Sul_. What is the reason, sir, that you use me thus inhumanly? _Squire Sul_. Scrub! _Scrub_. Sir! {118} _Squire Sul_. Get things ready to shave my head. [_Exit_. _Mrs. Sul_. Have a care of coming near his temples, Scrub, for fear you meet something there that may turn the edge of your razor.--[_Exit Scrub_.] Inveterate stupidity I did you ever know so hard, so obstinate a spleen as his? O sister, sister! I shall never ha' good of the beast till I get him to town; London, dear London, is the place for managing and breaking a husband. _Dor_. And has not a husband the same opportunities there for humbling a wife? {129} _Mrs. Sul_. No, no, child, 'tis a standing maxim in conjugal discipline, that when a man would enslave his wife, he hurries her into the country; and when a lady would be arbitrary with her husband, she wheedles her booby up to town. A man dare not play the tyrant in London, because there are so many examples to encourage the subject to rebel. O Dorinda! Dorinda! a fine woman may do anything in London: o' my conscience, she may raise an army of forty thousand men. {139} _Dor_. I fancy, sister, you have a mind to be trying your power that way here in Lichfield; you have drawn the French count to your colours already. _Mrs. Sul_. The French are a people that can't live without their gallantries. _Dor_. And some English that I know, sister, are not averse to such amusements. _Mrs. Sul_. Well, sister, since the truth must out, it may do as well now as hereafter; I think, one way to rouse my lethargic, sottish husband, is to give him a rival: security begets negligence in all people, and men must be alarmed to make 'em alert-in their duty. Women are like pictures, of no value in the hands of a fool, till he hears men of sense bid high for the purchase. _Dor_. This might do, sister, if my brother's understanding were to be convinced into a passion for you; but, I fancy, there's a natural aversion on his side; and I fancy, sister, that you don't come much behind him, if you dealt fairly. {159} _Mrs. Sul_. I own it, we are united contradictions, fire and water: but I could be contented, with a great many other wives, to humour the censorious mob, and give the world an appearance of living well with my husband, could I bring him but to dissemble a little kindness to keep me in countenance. _Dor_. But how do you know, sister, but that, instead of rousing your husband by this artifice to a counterfeit kindness, he should awake in a real fury? _Mrs. Sul_. Let him: if I can't entice him to the one, I would provoke him to the other. {170} _Dor_. But how must I behave myself between ye? _Mrs. Sul_. You must assist me. _Dor_. What, against my own brother? _Mrs. Sul_. He's but half a brother, and I 'm your entire friend. If I go a step beyond the bounds of honour, leave me; till then, I expect you should go along with me in everything; while I trust my honour in your hands, you may trust your brother's in mine. The count is to dine here to-day. _Dor_. 'Tis a strange thing, sister, that I can't like that man. {181} _Mrs. Sul_. You like nothing; your time is not come; Love and Death have their fatalities, and strike home one time or other: you 'll pay for all one day, I warrant ye. But come, my lady's tea is ready, and 'tis almost church time. [_Exeunt_. ACT II., SCENE II. _A Room in Boniface's Inn_. _Enter Aimwell dressed, and Archer_. _Aim_. And was she the daughter of the house? _Arch_. The landlord is so blind as to think so; but I dare swear she has better blood in her veins. _Aim_. Why dost think so? _Arch_. Because the baggage has a pert _je ne sais quoi_; she reads plays, keeps a monkey, and is troubled with vapours. _Aim_. By which discoveries I guess that you know more of _Cher_. _Arch_. Not yet, faith; the lady gives herself airs; forsooth, nothing under a gentleman! _Aim_. Let me take her in hand. _Arch_. Say one word more of that, and I'll declare myself, spoil your sport there, and everywhere else; look ye, Aim well, every man in his own sphere. _Aim_. Right; and therefore you must pimp for your master. _Arch_. In the usual forms, good sir, after I have served myself.--But to our business. You are so well dressed, Tom, and make so handsome a figure, that I fancy you may do execution in a country church; the exterior part strikes first, and you're in the right to make that impression favourable. {23} _Aim_. There's something in that which may turn to advantage. The appearance of a stranger in a country church draws as many gazers as a blazing-star; no sooner he comes into the cathedral, but a train of whispers runs buzzing round the congregation in a moment: _Who is he? Whence comes he? Do you know him?_Then I, sir, tips me the verger with half-a-crown; he pockets the simony, and inducts me into the best pew in the church; I pull out my snuff-box, turn myself round, bow to the bishop, or the dean, if he be the commanding-officer; single out a beauty, rivet both my eyes to hers, set my nose a-bleeding by the strength of imagination, and show the whole church my concern, by my endeavouring to hide it; after the sermon, the whole town gives me to her for a lover, and by persuading the lady that I am a-dying for her, the tables are turned, and she in good earnest falls in love with me. {42} _Arch_. There's nothing in this, Tom, without a precedent; but instead of riveting your eyes to a beauty, try to fix 'em upon a fortune; that's our business at present. _Aim_. Psha! no woman can be a beauty without a fortune. Let me alone, for I am a marksman. _Arch_. Tom! _Aim_. Ay. {50} _Arch_. When were you at church before, pray? _Aim_. Um--I was there at the coronation. _Arch_. And how can you expect a blessing by going to church now? _Aim_. Blessing! nay, Frank, I ask but for a wife. [_Exit_. _Arch_. Truly, the man is not very unreasonable in his demands. [_Exit at the opposite door_. _Enter Boniface and Cherry_. _Bon_. Well, daughter, as the saying is, have you brought Martin to confess? {59} _Cher_. Pray, father, don't put me upon getting anything out of a man; I 'm but young, you know, father, and I don't understand wheedling. _Bon_. Young! why, you jade, as the saying is, can any woman wheedle that is not young? your mother was useless at five-and-twenty. Not wheedle! would you make your mother a whore, and me a cuckold, as the saying is? I tell you, his silence confesses it, and his master spends his money so freely, and is so much a gentleman every manner of way, that he must be a highwayman. {70} _Enter Gibbet, in a cloak_. _Gib_. Landlord, landlord, is the coast clear? _Bon_. O Mr. Gibbet, what 's the news? _Gib_. No matter, ask no questions, all fair and honourable.--Here, my dear Cherry.--[_Gives her a bag_.] Two hundred sterling pounds, as good as any that ever hanged or saved a rogue; lay 'em by with the rest; and here-three wedding or mourning rings, 'tis much the same you know-here, two silver-hilted swords; I took those from fellows that never show any part of their swords but the hilts-here is a diamond necklace which the lady hid in the privatest place in the coach, but I found it out-- this gold watch I took from a pawnbroker's wife; it was left in her hands by a person of quality: there's the arms upon the case. _Cher_. But who had you the money from? {86} _Gib_. Ah! poor woman! I pitied her;-from a poor lady just eloped from her husband. She had made up her cargo, and was bound for Ireland, as hard as she could drive; she told me of her husband's barbarous usage, and so I left her half-a-crown. But I had almost forgot, my dear Cherry, I have a present for you. _Cher_. What is 't? _Gib_. A pot of ceruse, my child, that I took out of a lady's under-pocket. _Cher_. What, Mr. Gibbet, do you think that I paint? _Gib_. Why, you jade, your betters do; I 'm sure the lady that I took it from had a coronet upon her handkerchief. Here, take my cloak, and go, secure the premises. {101} _Cher_. I will secure 'em. [_Exit_. _Bon_. But, hark'ee, where's Hounslow and Bagshot? _Gib_. They'll be here to-night. _Bon_. D' ye know of any other gentlemen o' the pad on this road? _Gib_. No. _Bon_. I fancy that I have two that lodge in the house just now. _Gib_. The devil! how d'ye smoke 'em? {110} _Bon_. Why, the one is gone to church. _Gib_. That's suspicious, I must confess. _Bon_. And the other is now in his master's chamber; he pretends to be servant to the other; we 'll call him out and pump him a little. _Gib_. With all my heart. _Bon_. Mr. Martin! Mr. Martin! [_Calls_. _Enter Archer, combing a periwig and singing_. _Gib_. The roads are consumed deep, I'm as dirty as Old Brentford at Christmas.--A good pretty fellow that; whose servant are you, friend? {120} _Arch_. My master's. _Gib_. Really! _Arch_. Really. _Gib_. That 's much.--The fellow has been at the bar by his evasions.--But, pray, sir, what is your master's name? _Arch_. _Tall, all, dall!_--[_Sings and combs the periwig._] This is the most obstinate curl-- _Gib_. I ask you his name? _Arch_. Name, sir--_tall, all, doll!_--I never asked him his name in my life.--_Tall, all, doll!_ {131} _Bon_. What think you now? [Aside to Gibbet. _Gib_. [_Aside to Boniface_.] Plain, plain, he talks now as if he were before a judge.--[_To Archer_.] But pray, friend, which way does your master travel? _Arch_. A-horseback. _Gib_. [_Aside_.] Very well again, an old offender, right-- [_To Archer_.] But, I mean, does he go upwards or downwards? _Arch_. Downwards, I fear, sir.--_Tall, all!_ {140} _Gib_. I 'm afraid my fate will be a contrary way. _Bon_. Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Martin, you 're very arch. This gentleman is only travelling towards Chester, and would be glad of your company, that's all.-- Come, captain, you'll stay to-night, I suppose? I'll show you a chamber--come, captain. _Gib_. Farewell, friend! _Arch_. Captain, your servant.--[_Exeunt Boniface and Gibbet._] Captain! a pretty fellow! 'Sdeath, I wonder that the officers of the army don't conspire to beat all scoundrels in red but their own. {151} _Re-enter Cherry_. _Cher_. [_Aside_.] Gone, and Martin here! I hope he did not listen; I would have the merit of the discovery all my own, because I would oblige him to love me. --[_Aloud_] Mr. Martin, who was that man with my father? _Arch_. Some recruiting Serjeant, or whipped-out trooper, I suppose. _Cher_. All's safe, I find. [_Aside_ _Arch_. Come, my dear, have you conned over the catechise I taught you last night? {161} _Cher_. Come, question me. _Arch_. What is love? _Cher_. Love is I know not what, it comes I know not how, and goes I know not when. _Arch_. Very well, an apt scholar.--[_Chucks her under the chin_.] Where does love enter? _Cher_. Into the eyes. _Arch_. And where go out? _Cher_. I won't tell ye. {170} _Arch_. What are the objects of that passion? _Cher_. Youth, beauty, and clean linen. _Arch_. The reason? _Cher_. The two first are fashionable in nature, and the third at court. _Arch_. That's my dear.--What are the signs and tokens of that passion? _Cher_. A stealing look, a stammering tongue, words improbable, designs impossible, and actions impracticable. {180} _Arch_. That's my good child, kiss me.---What must a lover do to obtain his mistress? _Cher_. He must adore the person that disdains him, he must bribe the chambermaid that betrays him, and court the footman that laughs at him. He must--he must-- _Arch_. Nay, child, I must whip you if you don't mind your lesson; he must treat his-- {188} _Cher_. Oh ay!--he must treat his enemies with respect, his friends with indifference, and all the world with contempt; he must suffer much, and fear more; he must desire much, and hope little; in short, he must embrace his ruin, and throw himself away. _Arch_. Had ever man so hopeful a pupil as mine!-- Come, my dear, why is love called a riddle? _Cher_. Because, being blind, he leads those that see, and, though a child, he governs a man. _Arch_. Mighty well!--And why is Love pictured blind? _Cher_. Because the painters out of the weakness or privilege of their art chose to hide those eyes that they could not draw. {199} _Arch_. That's my dear little scholar, kiss me again.-- And why should Love, that's a child, govern a man? _Cher_. Because that a child is the end of love. _Arch_. And so ends Love's catechism.--And now, my dear, we'll go in and make my master's bed. _Cher_. Hold, hold, Mr. Martin! You have taken a great deal of pains to instruct me, and what d' ye think I have learned by it? _Arch_. What? {209} _Cher_. That your discourse and your habit are contradictions, and it would be nonsense in me to believe you a footman any longer. _Arch_. 'Oons, what a witch it is! _Cher_. Depend upon this, sir, nothing in this garb shall ever tempt me; for, though I was born to servitude, I hate it. Own your condition, swear you love me, and then-- _Arch_. And then we shall go make my master's bed? _Cher_. Yes. {219} _Arch_. You must know, then, that I am born a gentleman, my education was liberal; but I went to London a younger brother, fell into the hands of sharpers, who stripped me of my money, my friends disowned me, and now my necessity brings me to what you see. _Cher_. Then take my hand--promise to marry me before you sleep, and I'll make you master of two thousand pounds. _Arch_. How! {229} _Cher_. Two thousand pounds that I have this minute in my own custody; so, throw off your livery this instant, and I 'll go find a parson. _Arch_. What said you? a parson! _Cher_. What! do you scruple? _Arch_. Scruple! no, no, but--Two thousand pounds, you say? _Cher_. And better. _Arch_. [_Aside_.] 'Sdeath, what shall I do?--[_Aloud_.] But hark 'ee, child, what need you make me master of yourself and money, when you may have the same pleasure out of me, and still keep your fortune in your hands? _Cher_. Then you won't marry me? {242} _Arch_. I would marry you, but-- _Cher_. O sweet sir, I'm your humble servant, you're fairly caught! Would you persuade me that any gentleman who could bear the scandal of wearing a livery would refuse two thousand pounds, let the condition be what it would? no, no, sir. But I hope you 'll pardon the freedom I have taken, since it was only to inform myself of the respect that I ought to pay you. [_Going_. _Arch_. [_Aside_.] Fairly bit, by Jupiter!--[_Aloud_.] Hold! hold!--And have you actually two thousand pounds? {254} _Cher_. Sir, I have my secrets as well as you; when you please to be more open I shall be more free, and be assured that I have discoveries that will match yours, be what they will. In the meanwhile, be satisfied that no discovery I make shall ever hurt you, but beware of my father! [_Exit_. _Arch_. So! we're like to have as many adventures in our inn as Don Quixote had in his. Let me see-- two thousand pounds--if the wench would promise to die when the money were spent, egad, one would marry her; but the fortune may go off in a year or two, and the wife may live--Lord knows how long. Then an innkeeper's daughter! ay, that's the devil--there my pride brings me off. {268} For whatsoe'er the sages charge on pride, The angels' fall, and twenty faults beside, On earth, I'm sure, 'mong us of mortal calling, Pride saves man oft, and woman too, from falling. [_Exit_. ACT III., SCENE I _The Gallery in Lady Bountiful's House. Enter Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda_. _Mrs. Su_., Ha! ha! ha! my dear sister, let me embrace thee! now we are friends indeed; for I shall have a secret of yours as a pledge for mine--now you'll be good for something, I shall have you conversable in the subjects of the sex. _Dor_. But do you think that I am so weak as to fall in love with a fellow at first sight? _Mrs. Sul_. Psha! now you spoil all; why should not we be as free in our friendships as the men? I warrant you, the gentleman has got to his confidant already, has avowed his passion, toasted your health, called you ten thousand angels, has run over your lips, eyes, neck, shape, air, and everything, in a description that warms their mirth to a second enjoyment. _Dor_. Your hand, sister, I an't well. _Mrs. Sul_. So--she's breeding already--come, child, up with it--hem a little--so--now tell me, don't you like the gentleman that we saw at church just now? _Dor_. The man's well enough. _Mrs. Sul_. Well enough! is he not a demigod, a Narcissus, a star, the man i' the moon? {21} _Dor_. O sister, I'm extremely ill! _Mrs. Sul_. Shall I send to your mother, child, for a little of her cephalic plaster to put to the soles of your feet, or shall I send to the gentleman for something for you? Come, unlace your stays, unbosom yourself. The man is perfectly a pretty fellow; I saw him when he first came into church. _Dor_. I saw him too, sister, and with an air that shone, methought, like rays about his person. {30} _Mrs. Sul_. Well said, up with it! _Dor_. No forward coquette behaviour, no airs to set him off, no studied looks nor artful posture--but Nature did it all-- _Mrs. Sul_. Better and better!--one touch more--come! _Dor_. But then his looks--did you observe his eyes? _Mrs. Sul_. Yes, yes, I did.--His eyes, well, what of his eyes? {38} _Dor_. Sprightly, but not wandering; they seemed to view, but never gazed on anything but me.--And then his looks so humble were, and yet so noble, that they aimed to tell me that he could with pride die at my feet, though he scorned slavery anywhere else. _Mrs. Sul_. The physic works purely!--How d' ye find yourself now, my dear? _Dor_. Hem! much better, my dear.--Oh, here comes our Mercury! _Enter Scrub_. Well, Scrub, what news of the gentleman? _Scrub_. Madam, I have brought you a packet of news. _Dor_. Open it quickly, come. {51} _Scrub_. In the first place I inquired who the gentleman was; they told me he was a stranger. Secondly, I asked what the gentleman was; they answered and said, that they never saw him before. Thirdly, I inquired what countryman he was; they replied, 'twas more than they knew. Fourthly, I demanded whence he came; their answer was, they could not tell. And, fifthly, I asked whither he went; and they replied, they knew nothing of the matter,--and this is all I could learn. {61} _Mrs. Sul_. But what do the people say? can't they guess? _Scrub_. Why, some think he's a spy, some guess he's a mountebank, some say one thing, some another: but, for my own part, I believe he's a Jesuit. _Dor_. A Jesuit! why a Jesuit? _Scrub_. Because he keeps his horses always ready saddled, and his footman talks French. _Mrs. Sul_. His footman! {70} _Scrub_. Ay, he and the count's footman were jabbering French like two intriguing ducks in a mill-pond; and I believe they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly. _Dor_. What sort of livery has the footman? _Scrub_. Livery! Lord, madam, I took him for a captain, he's so bedizzened with lace! And then he has tops to his shoes, up to his mid leg, a silver-headed cane dangling at his knuckles; he carries his hands in his pockets just so--[_walks in the French air_.--and has a fine long periwig tied up in a bag. --Lord, madam, he's clear another sort of man than I! {83} _Mrs. Sul_. That may easily be.--But what shall we do now, sister? _Dor_. I have it--this fellow has a world of simplicity, and some cunning, the first hides the latter by abundance.--Scrub! _Scrub_. Madam! _Dor_. We have a great mind to know who this gentleman is, only for our satisfaction. _Scrub_. Yes, madam, it would be a satisfaction, no doubt. _Dor_. You must go and get acquainted with his footman, and invite him hither to drink a bottle of your ale because you 're butler to-day. {95} _Scrub_. Yes, madam, I am butler every Sunday. _Mrs. Sul_. O' brave! sister, o' my conscience, you understand the mathematics already. 'Tis the best plot in the world: your mother, you know, will be gone to church, my spouse will be got to the ale-house with his scoundrels, and the house will be our own--so we drop in by accident, and ask the fellow some questions ourselves. In the country, you know, any stranger is company, and we're glad to take up with the butler in a country-dance, and happy if he 'll do us the favour. {106} _Scrub_. O madam, you wrong me! I never refused your ladyship the favour in my life. _Enter Gipsy_. _Gip_. Ladies, dinner's upon table. _Dor_. Scrub, we'll excuse your waiting--go where we ordered you. _Scrub_. I shall. [_Exeunt_. ACT III., SCENE II _A Room in Bonifaces Inn_. _Enter Aimwell and Archer_. _Arch_. Well, Tom, I find you 're a marksman. _Aim_. A marksman! who so blind could be, as not discern a swan among the ravens? _Arch_. Well, but hark'ee, Aimwell! _Aim_. Aimwell! call me Oroondates, Cesario, Amadis, all that romance can in a lover paint, and then I 'll answer. O Archer! I read her thousands in her looks, she looked like Ceres in her harvest: corn, wine and oil, milk and honey, gardens, groves, and purling streams played on her plenteous face. {10} _Arch_. Her face! her pocket, you mean; the corn, wine and oil, lies there. In short, she has ten thousand pounds, that's the English on't. _Aim_. Her eyes------ _Arch_. Are demi-cannons, to be sure; so I won't stand their battery. [_Going_. _Aim_.-Pray excuse me, my passion must have vent. _Arch_. Passion! what a plague, d' ye think these romantic airs will do our business? Were my temper as extravagant as yours, my adventures have something more romantic by half. {21} _Aim_. Your adventures! _Arch_. Yes, The nymph that with her twice ten hundred pounds, With brazen engine hot, and quoif clear-starched, Can fire the guest in warming of the bed---- There's a touch of sublime Milton for you, and the subject but an innkeeper's daughter! I can play with a girl as an angler does with his fish; he keeps it at the end of his line, runs it up the stream, and down the stream, till at last he brings it to hand, tickles the trout, and so whips it into his basket. _Enter Boniface_. _Bon_. Mr. Martin, as the saying is--yonder's an honest fellow below, my Lady Bountiful's butler, who begs the honour that you would go home with him and see his cellar. _Arch_. Do my _baise-mains_ to the gentleman, and tell him I will do myself the honour to wait on him immediately. [_Exit Boniface_. _Aim_. What do I hear? {40} Soft Orpheus play, and fair Toftida sing! _Arch_. Psha! damn your raptures; I tell you, here's a pump going to be put into the vessel, and the ship will get into harbour, my life on't. You say, there's another lady very handsome there? _Aim_. Yes, faith. _Arch_. I 'm in love with her already. _Aim_. Can't you give me a bill upon Cherry in the meantime? _Arch_. No, no, friend, all her corn, wine and oil, is ingrossed to my market. And once more I warn you, to keep your anchorage clear of mine; for if you fall foul of me, by this light you shall go to the bottom! What! make prize of my little frigate, while I am upon the cruise for you!---- _Aim_. Well, well, I won't. [_Exit Archer_. _Re-enter Boniface_. Landlord, have you any tolerable company in the house, I don't care for dining alone? _Bon_. Yes, sir, there's a captain below, as the saying is, that arrived about an hour ago. {60} _Aim_. Gentlemen of his coat are welcome everywhere; will you make him a compliment from me and tell him I should be glad of his company? _Bon_. Who shall I tell him, sir, would-- _Aim_. [_Aside_.] Ha! that stroke was well thrown in!-- [_Aloud._] I'm only a traveller, like himself, and would be glad of his company, that's all. _Bon_. I obey your commands, as the saying is. [_Exit_. _Re-enter Archer_. _Arch_. 'Sdeath I I had forgot; what title will you give yourself? {70} _Aim_. My brother's, to be sure; he would never give me anything else, so I'll make bold with his honour this bout:--you know the rest of your cue. _Arch_. Ay, ay. [_Exit_. _Enter Gibbet_. _Gib_. Sir, I 'm yours. _Aim_. 'Tis more than I deserve, sir, for I don't know you. _Gib_. I don't wonder at that, sir, for you never saw me before--[_Aside_] I hope. _Aim_. And pray, sir, how came I by the honour of seeing you now? {81} _Gib_. Sir, I scorn to intrude upon any gentleman--but my landlord-- _Aim_. O sir, I ask your pardon, you 're the captain he told me of? _Gib_. At your service, sir. _Aim_. What regiment, may I be so bold? _Gib_. A marching regiment, sir, an old corps. _Aim_. [_Aside_.] Very old, if your coat be regimental-- [_Aloud_.] You have served abroad, sir? {90} _Gib_. Yes, sir--in the plantations, 'twas my lot to be sent into the worst service; I would have quitted it indeed, but a man of honour, you know--Besides, 'twas for the good of my country that I should be abroad:--anything for the good of one's country-- I'm a Roman for that. _Aim_. [_Aside_.] One of the first; I 'll lay my life. [_Aloud_.] You found the West Indies very hot, sir? _Gib_. Ay, sir, too hot for me. _Aim_. Pray, sir, han't I seen your face at Will's coffee-house? {101} _Gib_. Yes, sir, and at White's too. _Aim_. And where is your company now, captain? _Gib_. They an't come yet. _Aim_. Why, d' ye expect 'em here? _Gib_. They 'll be here to-night, sir. _Aim_. Which way do they march? _Gib_. Across the country.--[_Aside_.] The devil's in 't, if I han't said enough to encourage him to declare! But I'm afraid he's not right; I must tack about {111} _Aim_. Is your company to quarter in Lichfield? _Gib_. In this house, sir. _Aim_. What! all? _Gib_. My company's but thin, ha! ha! ha! we are but three, ha! ha! ha! _Aim_. You're merry, sir. _Gib_. Ay, sir, you must excuse me, sir; I understand the world, especially the art of travelling: I don't care, sir, for answering questions directly upon the road-- for I generally ride with a charge about me. {121} _Aim_. Three or four, I believe. [Aside. _Gib_. I am credibly informed that there are highwaymen upon this quarter; not, sir, that I could suspect a gentleman of your figure--but truly, sir, I have got such a way of evasion upon the road, that I don't care for speaking truth to any man. _Aim_. [_Aside_.] Your caution may be necessary.--[_Aloud_.] Then I presume you're no captain? {129} _Gib_. Not I, sir; captain is a good travelling name, and so I take it; it stops a great many foolish inquiries that are generally made about gentlemen that travel, it gives a man an air of something, and makes the drawers obedient:--and thus far I am a captain, and no farther. _Aim_. And pray, sir, what is your true profession? _Gib_. O sir, you must excuse me!--upon my word, sir, I don't think it safe to tell ye. _Aim_. Ha! ha! ha! upon my word I commend you. _Re-enter Boniface_. Well, Mr. Boniface, what's the news? {140} _Bon_. There's another gentleman below, as the saying is, that hearing you were but two, would be glad to make the third man, if you would give him leave. _Aim_. What is he? _Bon_. A clergyman, as the saying is. _Aim_. A clergyman! is he really a clergyman? or is it only his travelling name, as my friend the captain has it? _Bon_. O sir, he's a priest, and chaplain to the French officers in town. {150} _Aim_. Is he a Frenchman? _Bon_. Yes, sir, born at Brussels. _Gib_. A Frenchman, and a priest! I won't be seen in his company, sir; I have a value for my reputation, sir. _Aim_. Nay, but, captain, since we are by ourselves--can he speak English, landlord? _Bon_. Very well, sir; you may know him, as the saying is, to be a foreigner by his accent, and that's all. _Aim_. Then he has been in England before? _Bon_. Never, sir; but he's a master of languages, as the saying is; he talks Latin--it does me good to hear him talk Latin. {162} _Aim_. Then you understand Latin, Mr Boniface? _Bon_. Not I, sir, as the saying is; but he talks it so very fast, that I 'm sure it must be good. _Aim_. Pray, desire him to walk up. _Bon_. Here he is, as the saying is. _Enter Foigard_. _Foi_. Save you, gentlemens, bote. _Aim_. [Aside.] A Frenchman!--[To Foigard.] Sir, your most humble servant. {170} _Foi_. Och, dear joy, I am your most faithful shervant, and yours alsho. _Gib_. Doctor, you talk very good English, but you have a mighty twang of the foreigner. _Foi_. My English is very veil for the vords, but we foreigners, you know, cannot bring our tongues about the pronunciation so soon. _Aim_. [_Aside_.] A foreigner! a downright Teague, by this light!--[_Aloud_.] Were you born in France, doctor? {180} _Foi_. I was educated in France, but I was borned at Brussels; I am a subject of the King of Spain, joy. _Gib_. What King of Spain, sir? speak! _Foi_. Upon my shoul, joy, I cannot tell you as yet. _Aim_. Nay, captain, that was too hard upon the doctor; he's a stranger. _Foi_. Oh, let him alone, dear joy; I am of a nation that is not easily put out of countenance. _Aim_. Come, gentlemen, I 'll end the dispute.--Here, landlord, is dinner ready? {190} _Bon_. Upon the table, as the saying is. _Aim_. Gentlemen--pray--that door-- _Foi_. No, no, fait, the captain must lead. _Aim_. No, doctor, the church is our guide. _Gib_. Ay, ay, so it is. [_Exit Foigard foremost, the others following_. ACT III., SCENE III. _The Gallery in Lady Bountiful's House_. _Enter Archer and Scrub singing, and hugging one another, the latter with a tankard in his hand Gipsy listening at a distance_. _Scrub_. _Tall, all, dall!_--Come, my dear boy, let 's have that song once more. _Arch_. No, no, we shall disturb the family.--But will you be sure to keep the secret? _Scrub_. Pho! upon my honour, as I'm a gentleman. _Arch_. 'Tis enough. You must know, then, that my master is the Lord Viscount Aimwell; he fought a duel t' other day in London, wounded his man so dangerously, that he thinks fit to withdraw till he hears whether the gentleman's wounds be mortal or not He never was in this part of England before, so he chose to retire to this place, that's all. {12} _Gip_. And that's enough for me. [_Exit_. _Scrub_. And where were you when your master fought? _Arch_. We never know of our masters' quarrels. _Scrub_. No! if our masters in the country here receive a challenge, the first thing they do is to tell their wives; the wife tells the servants, the servants alarm the tenants, and in half an hour you shall have the whole county in arms. {21} _Arch_. To hinder two men from doing what they have no mind for.--But if you should chance to talk now of my business? Scrub. Talk! ay, sir, had I not learned the knack of holding my tongue, I had never lived so long in a great family. _Arch_. Ay, ay, to be sure there are secrets in all families. _Scrub_. Secrets! ay;--but I 'll say no more. Come, sit down, we 'll make an end of our tankard: here-- [_Gives Archer the tankard_. _Arch_. With all my heart; who knows but you and I may come to be better acquainted, eh? Here's your ladies' healths; you have three, I think, and to be sure there must be secrets among 'em. [_Drinks_. _Scrub_. Secrets! ay, friend.--I wish I had a friend! _Arch_. Am not I your friend? come, you and I will sworn brothers. _Scrub_. Shall we? _Arch_.. From this minute. Give me a kiss:--and no brother Scrub-- _Scrub_. And now, brother Martin, I will tell you a secret that will make your hair stand on end. You must know that I am consumedly in love. _Arch_. That's a terrible secret, that's the truth on't _Scrub_. That jade, Gipsy, that was with us just now in the cellar, is the arrantest whore that ever wore a petticoat; and I 'm dying for love of her. _Arch_. Ha! ha! ha!--Are you in love with her person her virtue, brother Scrub? _Scrub_. I should like virtue best, because it is more durable than beauty: for virtue holds good with some women long, and many a day after they have lost it. _Arch_. In the country, I grant ye, where no woman's virtue is lost, till a bastard be found. _Scrub_. Ay, could I bring her to a bastard, I should have her all to myself; but I dare not put it upon, the lay, for fear of being sent for a soldier. Pray brother, how do you gentlemen in London like this same Pressing Act? _Arch_. Very ill, brother Scrub; 'tis the worst that ever was made for us. Formerly I remember the good days, when we could dun our masters for our wage and if they refused to pay us, we could have a warrant to carry 'em before a Justice: but now if we talk of eating, they have a warrant for us, and carry us before three Justices. _Scrub_. And to be sure we go, if we talk of eating; for the Justices won't give their own servants a bad example. Now this is my misfortune--I dare not speak in the house, while that jade Gipsy dings about like a fury.---Once I had the better end of the staff. _Arch_. And how comes the change now? _Scrub_. Why, the mother of all this mischief is a priest. _Arch_. A priest! _Scrub_. Ay, a damned son of a whore of Babylon, that came over hither to say grace to the French officers, and eat up our provisions. There's not a day goes over his head without a dinner or supper in this house. _Arch_. How came he so familiar in the family? {81} _Scrub_. Because he speaks English as if he had lived here all his life, and tells lies as if he had been a traveller from his cradle. _Arch_. And this priest, I'm afraid, has converted the affections of your Gipsy? _Scrub_. Converted! ay, and perverted, my dear friend: for, I 'm afraid, he has made her a whore and a papist! But this is not all; there's the French count and Mrs. Sullen, they 're in the confederacy, and for some private ends of their own, to be sure. _Arch_. A very hopeful family yours, brother Scrub! suppose the maiden lady has her lover too? _Scrub_. Not that I know: she's the best on 'em, that's the truth on't: but they take care to prevent my curiosity, by giving me so much business, that I'm a perfect slave. What d' ye think is my place in this family? _Arch_. Butler, I suppose. 99 _Scrub_. Ah, Lord help you! I 'll tell you. Of a Monday I drive the coach, of a Tuesday I drive the plough, on Wednesday I follow the hounds, a Thursday I dun the tenants, on Friday I go to market, on Saturday I draw warrants, and a Sunday I draw beer. _Arch_. Ha! ha! ha! if variety be a pleasure in life, you have enough on't, my dear brother. But what ladies are those? _Scrub_. Ours, ours; that upon the right hand is Mrs. Sullen, and the other is Mrs. Dorinda. Don't mind 'em; sit still, man. {110} _Enter Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda_. _Mrs. Sul_. I have heard my brother talk of my Lord Aimwell; but they say that his brother is the finer gentleman. _Dor_. That's impossible, sister. _Mrs. Sul_. He's vastly rich, but very close, they say. _Dor_. No matter for that; if I can creep into his heart, I 'll open his breast, I warrant him: I have heard say, that people may be guessed at by the behaviour of their servants; I could wish we might talk to that fellow. {120} _Mrs. Sul_. So do I; for I think he 's a very pretty fellow. Come this way, I'll throw out a lure for him presently. [_Dorinda and Mrs. Sullen walk a turn towards the opposite side of the stage_. _Arch_. [_Aside_.] Corn, wine, and oil indeed!--But, I think, the wife has the greatest plenty of flesh and blood; she should be my choice.--Ay, ay, say you so!--[_Mrs. Sullen drops her glove. Archer runs, takes it up and gives to her_.] Madam--your ladyship's glove. _Mrs. Sul_. O sir, I thank you!--[To Dorinda.] What a handsome bow the fellow has! {131} _Dor_. Bow! why, I have known several footmen come down from London set up here for dancing-masters, and carry off the best fortunes in the country. _Arch_. [_Aside_.] That project, for aught I know, had been better than ours.--[_To Scrub_.] Brother Scrub, why don't you introduce me? _Scrub_. Ladies, this is the strange gentleman's servant that you saw at church to-day; I understood he came from London, and so I invited him to the cellar, that he might show me the newest flourish in whetting my knives. {142} _Dor_. And I hope you have made much of him? _Arch_. Oh yes, madam, but the strength of your lady ship's liquor is a little too potent for the constitution of your humble servant. _Mrs. Sul_. What, then you don't usually drink ale? _Arch_. No, madam; my constant drink is tea, or a little wine and water. 'Tis prescribed me by the physician for a remedy against the spleen. {150} _Scrub_. Oh la! Oh la! a footman have the spleen! _Mrs. Sul_. I thought that distemper had been only proper to people of quality? _Arch_. Madam, like all other fashions it wears Out, and so descends to their servants; though in a great many of us, I believe, it proceeds from some melancholy particles in the blood, occasioned by the stagnation of wages. _Dor_. [_Aside to Mrs. Sullen_.] How affectedly the fello* talks!--[_To Archer_.] How long, pray, have yon served your present master? {161} _Arch_. Not long; my life has been mostly spent in the service of the ladies. _Mrs. Sul_. And pray, which service do you like best? _Arch_. Madam, the ladies pay best; the honour of serving them is sufficient wages; there is a charm in their looks that delivers a pleasure with their commands, and gives our duty the wings of inclination. _Mrs. Sul_. [_Aside_.] That flight was above the pitch of a livery.--[_Aloud_.] And, sir, would not you be satisfied to serve a lady again? {171} _Arch_. As a groom of the chamber, madam, but not as a footman. _Mrs. Sul_. I suppose you served as footman before? _Arch_. For that reason I would not serve in that post again; for my memory is too weak for the load of messages that the ladies lay upon their servants in London. My Lady Howd'ye, the last mistress I served, called me up one morning, and told me, 'Martin, go to my Lady Allnight with my humble service; tell her I was to wait on her ladyship yesterday, and left word with Mrs. Rebecca, that the preliminaries of the affair she knows of, are stopped till we know the concurrence of the person that I know of, for which there are circumstances wanting which we shall accommodate at the old place; but that in the meantime there is a person about her ladyship, that from several hints and surmises, was accessory at a certain time to the disappointments that naturally attend things, that to her knowledge are of more importance--' {191} _Mrs. Sul_., _Dor_. Ha! ha! ha! where are you going, sir? _Arch_. Why, I han't half done!--The whole howd'ye was about half an hour long; so I happened to misplace two syllables, and was turned off, and rendered incapable. _Dor_. [_Aside to Mrs. Sullen_.] The pleasantest fellow, sister, I ever saw!--[_To Archer_.] But, friend, if your master be married, I presume you still serve a lady? _Arch_. No, madam, I take care never to come into a married family; the commands of the master and mistress are always so contrary, that 'tis impossible to please both. {203} _Dor_. There's a main point gained: my lord is not married, I find. [_Aside_. _Mrs. Sul_. But I wonder, friend, that in so many good services, you had not a better provision made for you. _Arch_. I don't know how, madam. I had a lieutenancy offered me three or four times; but that is not bread, madam--I live much better as I do. {211} _Scrub_. Madam, he sings rarely! I was thought to do pretty well here in the country till he came; but alack a day, I 'm nothing to my brother Martin! _Dor_. Does he?--Pray, sir, will you oblige us with a song? _Arch_. Are you for passion or humour? _Scrub_. Oh le! he has the purest ballad about a trifle-- _Mrs. Sul_. A trifle! pray, sir, let's have it. _Arch_. I 'm ashamed to offer you a trifle, madam; but since you command me-- {221} [_Sings to the tune of Sir Simon the King_] A trifling song you shall hear, Begun with a trifle and ended: All trifling people draw near, And I shall be nobly attended. Were it not for trifles, a few, That lately have come into play; The men would want something to do, And the women want something to say. What makes men trifle in dressing? {235} Because the ladies (they know) Admire, by often possessing, That eminent trifle, a beau. When the lover his moments has trifled, The trifle of trifles to gain: No sooner the virgin is rifled, But a trifle shall part 'em again. What mortal man would be able At White's half an hour to sit? Or who could bear a tea-table, {240} Without talking of trifles for wit? The court is from trifles secure, Gold keys are no trifles, we see: White rods are no trifles, I 'm sure, Whatever their bearers may be. But if you will go to the place, Where trifles abundantly breed, The levee will show you His Grace Makes promises trifles indeed. A coach with six footmen behind, {250} I count neither trifle nor sin: But, ye gods! how oft do we find A scandalous trifle within. A flask of champagne, people think it A trifle, or something as bad: But if you 'll contrive how to drink it; You 'll find it no trifle, egad! A parson's a trifle at sea, A widow's a trifle in sorrow: A peace is a trifle to-day, {260} Who knows what may happen to-morrow! A black coat a trifle may cloke, Or to hide it, the red may endeavour: But if once the army is broke, We shall have more trifles than ever. The stage is a trifle, they say, The reason, pray carry along, Because at every new play, The house they with trifles so throng. But with people's malice to trifle, {270} And to set us all on a foot: The author of this is a trifle, And his song is a trifle to boot. _Mrs. Sul_. Very well, sir, we 're obliged to you.-- Something for a pair of gloves. [_Offering him money_. _Arch_. I humbly beg leave to be excused: my master, madam, pays me; nor dare I take money from any other hand, without injuring his honour, and disobeying his commands. [_Exit Archer and Scrub_. _Dor_. This is surprising! Did you ever see so pretty a well-bred fellow? {281} _Mrs. Sul_. The devil take him for wearing that livery! _Dor_. I fancy, sister, he may be some gentleman, a friend of my lord's, that his lordship has pitched upon for his courage, fidelity, and discretion, to bear him company in this dress, and who ten to one was his second too. _Mrs. Sul_. It is so, it must be so, and it shall be so!-- for I like him. _Dor_. What! better than the Count? {290} _Mrs. Sul_. The Count happened to be the most agreeable man upon the place; and so I chose him to serve me in my design upon my husband. But I should like this fellow better in a design upon myself. _Dor_. But now, sister, for an interview with this lord and this gentleman; how shall we bring that about? _Mrs. Sul_. Patience! you country ladies give no quarter if once you be entered. Would you prevent their desires, and give the fellows no wishing-time? Look'ee, Dorinda, if my Lord Aimwell loves you or deserves you, he'll find a way to see you, and there we must leave it. My business comes now upon the tapis. Have you prepared your brother? {303} _Dor_. Yes, yes. _Mrs. Sul_. And how did he relish it? _Dor_. He said little, mumbled something to himself, promised to be guided by me--but here he comes. _Enter Squire Sullen_. _Squire Sul_. What singing was that I heard just now? _Mrs. Sul_. The singing in your head, my dear; you complained of it all day. {310} _Squire Sul_. You're impertinent _Mrs. Sul_. I was ever so, since I became one flesh with you. _Squire Sul_. One flesh! rather two carcasses joined unnaturally together. _Mrs. Sul_. Or rather a living soul coupled to a dead body. _Dor_. So, this is fine encouragement for me! _Squire Sul_. Yes, my wife shows you what you must do. _Mrs. Sul_. And my husband shows you what you must suffer. {321} _Squire Sul_. 'Sdeath, why can't you be silent? _Mrs. Sul_. 'Sdeath, why can't you talk? _Squire Sul_. Do you talk to any purpose? _Mrs. Sul_. Do you think to any purpose? _Squire Sul_. Sister, hark'ee I--[_Whispers_.] I shan't be home till it be late. [_Exit_. _Mrs. Sul_. What did he whisper to ye? {328} _Dor_. That he would go round the back way, come into the closet, and listen as I directed him. But let me beg you once more, dear sister, to drop this project; for as I told you before, instead of awaking him to kindness, you may provoke him to a rage; and then who knows how far his brutality may carry him? _Mrs. Sul_. I 'm provided to receive him, I warrant you. But here comes the Count: vanish! [_Exit Dorinda_. _Enter Count Bellair_. Don't you wonder, Monsieur le Count, that I was not at church this afternoon? {339} _Count Bel_. I more wonder, madam, that you go dere at all, or how you dare to lift those eyes to heaven that are guilty of so much killing. _Mrs. Sul_. If Heaven, sir, has given to my eyes with the power of killing the virtue of making a cure, I hope the one may atone for the other. _Count Bel_. Oh, largely, madam, would your ladyship be as ready to apply the remedy as to give the wound. Consider, madam, I am doubly a prisoner; first to the arms of your general, then to your more conquering eyes. My first chains are easy--there a ransom may redeem me; but from your fetters I never shall get free. {352} _Mrs. Sul_. Alas, sir! why should you complain to me of your captivity, who am in chains myself? You know, sir, that I am bound, nay, must be tied up in that particular that might give you ease: I am like you, a prisoner of war--of war, indeed--I have given my parole of honour! would you break yours to gain your liberty? {359} _Count Bel_. Most certainly I would, were I a prisoner among the Turks; dis is your case, you 're a slave, madam, slave to the worst of Turks, a husband. _Mrs. Sul_. There lies my foible, I confess; no fortifications, no courage, conduct, nor vigilancy, can pretend to defend a place where the cruelty of the governor forces the garrison to mutiny. _Count Bel_. And where de besieger is resolved to die before de place.--Here will I fix [_Kneels_];--with tears, vows, and prayers assault your heart and never rise till you surrender; or if I must storm-- Love and St. Michael!--And so I begin the attack. {372} _Mrs. Sul_. Stand off!--[_Aside_.] Sure he hears me not! --And I could almost wish--he did not!--The fellow makes love very prettily.--[_Aloud_.] But, sir, why should you put such a value upon my person, when you see it despised by one that knows it so much better? _Count Bel_. He knows it not, though he possesses it; if he but knew the value of the jewel he is master of he would always wear it next his heart, and sleep with it in his arms. {382} _Mrs. Sul_. But since he throws me unregarded from him-- _Count Bel_. And one that knows your value well comes by and takes you up, is it not justice? [_Goes to lay hold of her_. _Enter Squire Sullen with his sword drawn_. _Squire Sul_. Hold, villain, hold! _Mrs. Sul_. [_Presenting a pistol_.] Do you hold! _Squire Sul_. What! murder your husband, to defend your bully! {390} _Mrs. Sul_. Bully! for shame, Mr. Sullen, bullies wear long swords, the gentleman has none; he's a prisoner, you know. I was aware of your outrage, and prepared this to receive your violence; and, if occasion were, to preserve myself against the force of this other gentleman. _Count Bel_. O madam, your eyes be bettre firearms than your pistol; they nevre miss. _Squire Sul_. What! court my wife to my face! _Mrs. Sul_. Pray, Mr. Sullen, put up; suspend your fury for a minute. {401} _Squire Sul_. To give you time to invent an excuse! _Mrs. Sul_. I need none. _Squire Sul_. No, for I heard every syllable of your discourse. _Count Bel_. Ah! and begar, I tink the dialogue was vera pretty. _Mrs. Sul_. Then I suppose, sir, you heard something of your own barbarity? _Squire Sul_. Barbarity! 'oons, what does the woman call barbarity? Do I ever meddle with you? {411} _Mrs. Sul_. No. _Squire Sul_. As for you, sir, I shall take another time. _Count Bel_. Ah, begar, and so must I. _Squire Sul_. Look'ee, madam, don't think that my anger proceeds from any concern I have for your honour, but for my own, and if you can contrive any way of being a whore without making me a cuckold, do it and welcome. {419} _Mrs. Sul_. Sir, I thank you kindly, you would allow me the sin but rob me of the pleasure. No, no, I 'm resolved never to venture upon the crime without the satisfaction of seeing you punished for't. _Squire Sul_. Then will you grant me this, my dear? Let anybody else do you the favour but that Frenchman, for I mortally hate his whole generation. [_Exit_. _Count Bel_. Ah, sir, that be ungrateful, for begar, I love some of yours.--Madam------ [_Approaching her_. _Mrs. Sul_. No, sir. {429} _Count Bel_. No, sir! garzoon, madam, I am not your husband. _Mrs. Sul_. 'Tis time to undeceive you, sir. I believed your addresses to me were no more than an amusement, and I hope you will think the same of my complaisance; and to convince you that you ought, you must know that I brought you hither only to make you instrumental in setting me right with my husband, for he was planted to listen by my appointment. _Count Bel_. By your appointment? {440} _Mrs. Sul_. Certainly. _Count Bel_. And so, madam, while I was telling twenty stories to part you from your husband, begar, I was bringing you together all the while? _Mrs. Sul_. I ask your pardon, sir, but I hope this will give you a taste of the virtue of the English ladies. _Count Bel_. Begar, madam, your virtue be vera great, but garzoon, your honeste be vera little. _Re-enter Dorinda_. _Mrs. Sul_. Nay, now, you 're angry, sir. {449} _Count Bel_. Angry!--_Fair Dorinda [Sings 'Fair Dorinda,' the opera tune, and addresses Dorinda._] Madam, when your ladyship want a fool, send for me. _Fair Dorinda, Revenge, etc, [Exit singing_. _Mrs. Sul_. There goes the true humour of his nation-- resentment with good manners, and the height of anger in a song! Well, sister, you must be judge, for you have heard the trial. _Dor_. And I bring in my brother guilty. _Mrs. Sul_. But I must bear the punishment. Tis hard, sister. {460} _Dor_. I own it; but you must have patience. _Mrs. Sul_. Patience! the cant of custom--Providence sends no evil without a remedy. Should I lie groaning under a yoke I can shake off, I were accessory to my ruin, and my patience were no better than self-murder. _Dor_. But how can you shake off the yoke? your divisions don't come within the reach of the law for a divorce. _Mrs. Sul_. Law! what law can search into the remote abyss of nature? what evidence can prove the unaccountable disaffections of wedlock? Can a jury sum up the endless aversions that are rooted in our souls, or can a bench give judgment upon antipathies? {474} _Dor_. They never pretended, sister; they never meddle, but in case of uncleanness. _Mrs. Sul_. Uncleanness! O sister! casual violation is a transient injury, and may possibly be repaired, but can radical hatreds be ever reconciled? No, no, sister, nature is the first lawgiver, and when she has set tempers opposite, not all the golden links of wedlock nor iron manacles of law can keep 'em fast. Wedlock we own ordain'd by Heaven's decree, But such as Heaven ordain'd it first to be;-- Concurring tempers in the man and wife As mutual helps to draw the load of life. View all the works of Providence above, The stars with harmony and concord move; View all the works of Providence below, {490} The fire, the water, earth and air, we know, All in one plant agree to make it grow. Must man, the chiefest work of art divine, Be doom'd in endless discord to repine? No, we should injure Heaven by that surmise, Omnipotence is just, were man but wise. [_Exeunt_. ACT IV., SCENE I _The Gallery in Lady Bountiful's House, Mrs. Sullen discovered alone_. _Mrs. Sul_. Were I born an humble Turk, where women have no soul nor property, there I must sit contented. But in England, a country whose women are its glory, must women be abused? where women rule, must women be enslaved? Nay, cheated into slavery, mocked by a promise of comfortable society into a wilderness of solitude! I dare not keep the thought about me. Oh, here comes something to divert me. _Enter a Countrywoman_. _Worn_. I come, an't please your ladyship--you're my Lady Bountiful, an't ye? {11} _Mrs. Sul_. Well, good woman, go on. _Worn_. I have come seventeen long mail to have a cure for my husband's sore leg. _Mrs. Sul_. Your husband! what, woman, cure your husband! _Worn_. Ay, poor man, for his sore leg won't let him stir from home. _Mrs. Sul_. There, I confess, you have given me a reason. Well, good woman, I 'll tell you what you must do. You must lay your husband's leg upon a table, and with a chopping-knife you must lay it open as broad as you can, then you must takeout the bone, and beat the flesh soundly with a rolling-pin, then take salt, pepper, cloves, mace, and ginger, some sweet-herbs, and season it very well, then roll it up like brawn, and put it into the oven for two hours. _Worn_. Heavens reward your ladyship!--I have two little babies too that are piteous bad with the graips, an't please ye. {30} _Mrs. Sul_. Put a little pepper and salt in their bellies, good woman. _Enter Lady Bountiful_. I beg your ladyship's pardon for taking your business out of your hands; I have been a-tampering here a little with one of your patients. _Lady Boun_. Come, good woman, don't mind this mad creature; I am the person that you want, I suppose. What would you have, woman? _Mrs. Sul_. She wants something for her husband's sore leg. {40} _Lady Boun_. What's the matter with his leg, goody? _Worn_. It come first, as one might say, with a sort of dizziness in his foot, then he had a kind of laziness in his joints, and then his leg broke out, and then it swelled, and then it closed again, and then it broke out again, and then it festered, and then it grew better, and then it grew worse again. _Mrs. Sul_. Ha! ha! ha! _Lady Boun_. How can you be merry with the misfortunes of other people? {50} Mrs. Sul, Because my own make me sad, madam. _Lady Boun_. The worst reason in the world, daughter; your own misfortunes should teach you to pity others. _Mrs. Sul_. But the woman's misfortunes and mine are nothing alike; her husband is sick, and mine, alas! is in health. _Lady Boun_. What! would you wish your husband sick? _Mrs. Sul_. Not of a sore leg, of all things. {59} _Lady Boun_. Well, good woman, go to the pantry, get your bellyful of victuals, then I 'll give you a receipt of diet-drink for your husband. But d'ye hear, goody, you must not let your husband move too much? _Worn_. No, no, madam, the poor man's inclinable enough to lie still. [_Exit_. _Lady Boun_. Well, daughter Sullen, though you laugh, I have done miracles about the country here with my receipts. {69} _Mrs. Sul_. Miracles indeed, if they have cured anybody; but I believe, madam, the patient's faith goes. farther toward the miracle than your prescription. _Lady Boun_. Fancy helps in some cases; but there's your husband, who has as little fancy as anybody, I brought him from death's door. _Mrs. Sul_. I suppose, madam, you made him drink plentifully of ass's milk. _Enter Dorinda, who runs to Mrs. Sullen_. _Dor_. News, dear sister! news! news! _Enter Archer, running_. _Arch_. Where, where is my Lady Bountiful?--Pray, which is the old lady of you three? {80} _Lady Boun_. I am. _Arch_. O madam, the fame of your ladyship's charity, goodness, benevolence, skill and ability, have drawn me hither to implore your ladyship's help in behalf of my unfortunate master, who is this moment breathing his last. _Lady Boun_. Your master! where is he? _Arch_. At your gate, madam. Drawn by the appearance of your handsome house to view it nearer, and walking up the avenue within five paces of the courtyard, he was taken ill of a sudden with a sort of I know not what, but down he fell, and there he lies. _Lady Boun_. Here, Scrub! Gipsy! all run, get my easy chair down stairs, put the gentleman in it, and bring him in quickly! quickly! {95} _Arch_. Heaven will reward your ladyship for this charitable act. _Lady Boun_. Is your master used to these fits? _Arch_. O yes, madam, frequently: I have known him have five or six of a night. {100} _Lady Boun_. What's his name? _Arch_. Lord, madam, he 's a-dying! a minute's care or neglect may save or destroy his life. _Lady Boun_. Ah, poor gentleman!--Come, friend, show me the way; I 'll see him brought in myself. [_Exit with Archer_. _Dor_. O sister, my heart flutters about strangely! I can hardly forbear running to his assistance. {107} _Mrs. Sul_. And I 'll lay my life he deserves your assistance more than he wants it. Did not I tell you that my lord would find a way to come at you? Love's his distemper, and you must be the physician; put on all your charms, summon all your fire into your eyes, plant the whole artillery of your looks against his breast, and down with him. _Dor_. O sister! I 'm but a young gunner; I shall be afraid to shoot, for fear the piece should recoil, and hurt myself. _Mrs. Sul_. Never fear, you shall see me shoot before you, if you will. {119} _Dor_. No, no, dear sister; you have missed your mark so unfortunately, that I shan't care for being instructed by you. _Enter Aimwell in a chair carried by Archer and Scrubs and counterfeiting a swoon; Lady Bountiful and Gipsy following_. _Lady Boun_. Here, here, let's see the hartshorn drops.-- Gipsy, a glass of fair water! His fit's very strong. --Bless me, how his hands are clinched! _Arch_. For shame, ladies, what d' ye do? why don't you help us?--[_To Dorinda_.] Pray, madam, take his hand, and open it, if you can, whilst I hold his head. [_Dorinda takes his hand_. _Dor_. Poor gentleman!--Oh!--he has got my hand within his, and squeezes it unmercifully-- {130} _Lady Boun_. 'Tis the violence of his convulsion, child. _Arch_. Oh, madam, he's perfectly possessed in these cases--he'll bite if you don't have a care. _Dor_. Oh, my hand! my hand! _Lady Boun_. What's the matter with the foolish girl? I have got his hand open, you see, with a great deal of ease. _Arch_. Ay, but, madam, your daughter's hand is somewhat warmer than your ladyship's, and the heat of it draws the force of the spirits that way. {140} _Mrs. Sul_. I find, friend, you're very learned in these sorts of fits. _Arch_. Tis no wonder, madam, for I 'm often troubled with them myself; I find myself extremely ill at this minute. [_Looking hard at Mrs. Sullen_. _Mrs. Sul_. I fancy I could find a way to cure you. [_Aside_. _Lady Boun_. His fit holds him very long. _Arch_. Longer than usual, madam.--Pray, young lady, open his breast and give him air. _Lady Boun_. Where did his illness take him first, pray? _Arch_. To-day at church, madam. {151} _Lady Boun_. In what manner was he taken? _Arch_. Very strangely, my lady. He was of a sudden touched with something in his eyes, which, at the first, he only felt, but could not tell whether 'twas pain or pleasure. _Lady Boun_. Wind, nothing but wind! _Arch_. By soft degrees it grew and mounted to his brain, there his fancy caught it; there formed it so beautiful, and dressed it up in such gay, pleasing colours, that his transported appetite seized the fair idea, and straight conveyed it to his heart That hospitable seat of life sent all its sanguine spirits forth to meet, and opened all its sluicy gates to take the stranger in. _Lady Boun_. Your master should never go without a bottle to smell to.--Oh--he recovers! The lavender-water--some feathers to burn under his nose-- Hungary water to rub his temples.--Oh, he comes to himself!--Hem a little, sir, hem.--Gipsy! bring the cordial-water. {171} [_Aimwell seems to awake in amaze_. _Dor_. How d' ye, sir? _Aim_. Where am I? [_Rising_. Sure I have pass'd the gulf of silent death, And now I land on the Elysian shore!-- Behold the goddess of those happy plains, Fair Proserpine--let me adore thy bright divinity. [_Kneels to Dorinda, and kisses her hand_. _Mrs. Sul_. So, so, so! I knew where the fit would end! _Aim_. Eurydice perhaps-- How could thy Orpheus keep his word, {180} And not look back upon thee? No treasure but thyself could sure have bribed him To look one minute off thee. _Lady Boun_. Delirious, poor gentleman! _Arch_. Very delirious, madam, very delirious. _Aim_. Martin's voice, I think. _Arch_. Yes, my Lord.--How does your lordship? _Lady Boun_. Lord! did you mind that, girls? [_A side to Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda_. _Aim_. Where am I? {189} _Arch_. In very good hands, sir. You were taken just now with one of your old fits, under the trees, just by this good lady's house; her ladyship had you taken in, and has miraculously brought you to yourself, as you see. _Aim_. I am so confounded with shame, madam, that I can now only beg pardon; and refer my acknowledgments for your ladyship's care till an opportunity offers of making some amends. I dare be no longer troublesome.--Martin! give two guineas to the servants. [_Going_. _Dor_. Sir, you may catch cold by going so soon into the air; you don't look, sir, as if you were perfectly recovered. {203} [_Here Archer talks to Lady Bountiful in dumb show_. _Aim_. That I shall never be, madam; my present illness is so rooted that I must expect to carry it to my grave. _Mrs. Sul_. Don't despair, sir; I have known several in your distemper shake it off with a fortnight's physic. {209} _Lady Boun_. Come, sir, your servant has been telling me that you're apt to relapse if you go into the air: your good manners shan't get the better of ours-- you shall sit down again, sir. Come, sir, we don't mind ceremonies in the country--here, sir, my service t'ye.--You shall taste my water; 'tis a cordial I can assure you, and of my own making-- drink it off, sir.--[_Aimwell drinks_.] And how d'ye find yourself now, sir? _Aim_. Somewhat better--though very faint still. {219} _Lady Boun_. Ay, ay, people are always faint after these fits.--Come, girls, you shall show the gentleman the house.--'Tis but an old family building, sir; but you had better walk about, and cool by degrees, than venture immediately into the air. You 'll find some tolerable pictures.--Dorinda, show the gentleman the way. I must go to the poor woman below. [_Exit_. _Dor_. This way, sir. _Aim_. Ladies, shall I beg leave for my servant to wait on you, for he understands pictures very well? {231} _Mrs. Sul_. Sir, we understand originals as well as he does pictures, so he may come along. [_Exeunt all but Scrub, Aimwell leading Dorinda. Enter Foigard_. _Foi_. Save you, Master Scrub! _Scrub_. Sir, I won't be saved your way--I hate a priest, I abhor the French, and I defy the devil. Sir, I 'm a bold Briton, and will spill the last drop of my blood to keep out popery and slavery. _Foi_. Master Scrub, you would put me down in politics, and so I would be speaking with Mrs. Shipsy. {240} _Scrub_. Good Mr. Priest, you can't speak with her; she's sick, sir, she's gone abroad, sir, she's--dead two months ago, sir. _Re-enter Gipsy_. _Gip_. How now, impudence! how dare you talk so saucily to the doctor?--Pray, sir, don't take it ill; for the common people of England are not so civil to strangers, as-- _Scrub_. You lie! you lie! 'tis the common people that are civilest to strangers. _Gip_. Sirrah, I have a good mind to--get you out I say. _Scrub_. I won't. . {251} _Gip_. You won't, sauce-box!--Pray, doctor, what, is the captain's name that came to your inn last night? _Scrub_. [Aside.] The captain! ah, the devil, there she hampers me again; the captain has me on one side, and the priest on t' other: so between the gown and the sword, I have a fine time on't.--But, _Cedunt arma toga_. [_Going_. _Gip_. What, sirrah, won't you march? _Scrub_. No, my dear, I won't march--but I'll walk.-- [_Aside_.] And I 'll make bold to listen a little too. [_Goes behind the side-scene and listens_. _Gip_. Indeed, doctor, the Count has been barbarously treated, that's the truth on't. {263} _Foi_. Ah, Mrs. Gipsy, upon my shoul, now, gra, his complainings would mollify the marrow in your bones, and move the bowels of your commiseration! He veeps, and he dances, and he fistles, and he swears, and he laughs, and he stamps, and he sings; in conclusion, joy, he's afflicted _à-la-Française_, and a stranger would not know whider to cry or to laugh with him. {271} _Gip_. What would you have me do, doctor? _Foi_. Noting, joy, but only hide the Count in Mrs. Sullen's closet when it is dark. _Gip_. Nothing! is that nothing? it would be both a sin and a shame, doctor. _Foi_. Here is twenty louis-d'ors, joy, for your shame and I will give you an absolution for the shin. _Gip_. Sut won't that money look like a bribe? {279} _Foi_. Dat is according as you shall tauk it. If you receive the money beforehand, 'twill be _logicè_, a bribe; but if you stay till afterwards, 'twill be only a gratification. _Gip_. Well, doctor, I 'll take it _logicè_ But what must I do with my conscience, sir? _Foi_. Leave dat wid me, joy; I am your priest, gra; and your conscience is under my hands. _Gip_. But should I put the Count into the closet-- _Foi_. Vel, is dere any shin for a man's being in a closhet? one may go to prayers in a closhet. {290} _Gip_. But if the lady should come into her chamber, and go to bed? _Foi_. Vel, and is dere any shin in going to bed, joy? _Gip_. Ay, but if the parties should meet, doctor? _Foi_. Vel den--the parties must be responsible. Do you be gone after putting the Count into the closhet; and leave the shins wid themselves. I will come with the Count to instruct you in your chamber. {299} _Gip_. Well, doctor, your religion is so pure! Methinks I'm so easy after an absolution, and can sin afresh with so much security, that I 'm resolved to die a martyr to't Here's the key of the garden door, come in the back way when 'tis late, I 'll be ready to receive you; but don't so much as whisper, only take hold of my hand; I 'll lead you, and do you lead the Count, and follow me. [_Exeunt_. _Scrub_. [_Coming forward_.] What witchcraft now have these two imps of the devil been a-hatching here? 'There 's twenty louis-d'ors'; I heard that, and saw the purse.--But I must give room to my betters. [_Exit_. _Re-enter Aimwell, leading Dorinda, and making love in dumb show; Mrs. Sullen and Archer following_. _Mrs. Sul_. [_To Archer_.] Pray, sir, how d'ye like that piece? {313} _Arch_. Oh, 'tis Leda! You find, madam, how Jupiter comes disguised to make love-- _Mrs. Sul_. But what think you there of Alexander's battles? _Arch_. We only want a Le Brun, madam, to draw greater battles, and a greater general of our own. The Danube, madam, would make a greater figure in a picture than the Granicus; and we have our Ramillies to match their Arbela. {322} _Mrs. Sul_. Pray, sir, what head is that in the corner there? _Arch_. O madam, 'tis poor Ovid in his exile. _Mrs. Sul_. What was he banished for? _Arch_. His ambitious love, madam.--[_Bowing_.] His misfortune touches me. _Mrs. Sul_. Was he successful in his amours? _Arch_. There he has left us in, the dark. He was too much a gentleman to tell. {331} _Mrs. Sul_. If he were secret, I pity him. _Arch_. And if he were successful, I envy him. _Mrs. Sul_. How d 'ye like that Venus over the chimney? _Arch_. Venus! I protest, madam, I took it for your picture; but now I look again, 'tis not handsome enough. _Mrs. Sul_. Oh, what a charm is flattery! If you would see my picture, there it is over that cabinet. How d' ye like it? {340} _Arch_. I must admire anything, madam, that has the least resemblance of you. But, methinks, madam --[_He looks at the picture and Mrs. Sullen three or four times, by turns_.] Pray, madam, who drew it? _Mrs. Sul_. A famous hand, sir. [_Here Aimwell and Dorinda go off_. _Arch_. A famous hand, madam!--Your eyes, indeed, are featured there; but where's the sparking moisture, shining fluid, in which they swim? The picture, indeed, has your dimples; but where's the swarm of killing Cupids that should ambush there? The lips too are figured out; but where's the carnation dew, the pouting ripeness that tempts the taste in the original? {353} _Mrs. Sul_. Had it been my lot to have matched with such a man! [_Aside_. _Arch_. Your breasts too--presumptuous man! what, paint Heaven!--Apropos, madam, in the very next picture is Salmoneus, that was struck dead with lightning, for offering to imitate Jove's thunder; I hope you served the painter so, madam? {360} _Mrs. Sul_. Had my eyes the power of thunder, they should employ their lightning better. _Arch_. There's the finest bed in that room, madam! I suppose 'tis your ladyship's bedchamber. _Mrs. Sul_. And what then, sir? _Arch_. I think the quilt is the richest that ever I saw. I can't at this distance, madam, distinguish the figures of the embroidery; will you give me leave, madam? {369} _Mrs. Sul_. [_Aside_.] The devil take his impudence!-- Sure, if I gave him an opportunity, he durst not offer it?--I have a great mind to try.--[_Going: Returns_.] 'Sdeath, what am I doing?--And alone, too!--Sister! sister! [_Runs out_. _Arch_. I 'll follow her close-- For where a Frenchman durst attempt to storm, A Briton sure may well the work perform. [_Going_. _Re-enter Scrub_. _Scrub_. Martin! brother Martin! {378} _Arch_. O brother Scrub, I beg your pardon, I was not a-going: here's a guinea my master ordered you. _Scrub_. A guinea! hi! hi! hi! a guinea! eh--by this light it is a guinea! But I suppose you expect one-and-twenty shillings in change? _Arch_. Not at all; I have another for Gipsy. _Scrub_. A guinea for her! faggot and fire for the witch! Sir, give me that guinea, and I 'll discover a plot. _Arch_. A plot! _Scrub_. Ay, sir, a plot, and a horrid plot! First, it must be a plot, because there's a woman in't: secondly, it must be a plot, because there's a priest in't: thirdly, it must be a plot, because there 's French gold in't: and fourthly, it must be a plot, because I don't know what to make on't. {393} _Arch_. Nor anybody else, I 'm afraid, brother Scrub. _Scrub_. Truly, I 'm afraid so too; for where there's a priest and a woman, there's always a mystery and a riddle. This I know, that here has been the doctor with a temptation in one hand and an absolution in the other, and Gipsy has sold herself to the devil; I saw the price paid down, my eyes shall take their oath on't. {401} _Arch_. And is all this bustle about Gipsy? _Scrub_. That's not all; I could hear but a word here and there; but I remember they mentioned a Count, a closet, a back-door, and a key. _Arch_. The Count!--Did you hear nothing of Mrs. Sullen? _Scrub_. I did hear some word that sounded that way; but whether it was Sullen or Dorinda, I could not distinguish. {409} _Arch_. You have told this matter to nobody, brother? _Scrub_. Told! no, sir, I thank you for that; I 'm resolved never to speak one word _pro_ nor _con_, till we have a peace. _Arch_. You're i' the right, brother Scrub. Here's a treaty afoot between the Count and the lady: the priest and the chambermaid are the plenipotentiaries. It shall go hard but I find a way to be included in the treaty.--Where 's the doctor now? _Scrub_. He and Gipsy are this moment devouring my lady's marmalade in the closet. {420} _Aim_. [_From without_.] Martin! Martin! _Arch_. I come, sir, I come. _Scrub_. But you forget the other guinea, brother Martin. _Arch_. Here, I give it with all my heart. _Scrub_. And I take it with all my soul.--[_Exit Archer_.] Ecod, I 'll spoil your plotting, Mrs. Gipsy! and if you should set the captain upon me, these two guineas will buy me off. [_Exit_. _Re-enter Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda, meeting_. _Mrs. Sul_. Well, sister! _Dor_. And well, sister! {430} _Mrs. Sul_. What's become of my lord? _Dor_. What's become of his servant? _Mrs. Sul_. Servant! he's a prettier fellow, and a finer gentleman by fifty degrees, than his master. _Dor_. O' my conscience, I fancy you could beg that fellow at the gallows-foot! _Mrs. Sul_. O' my conscience I could, provided I could put a friend of yours in his room. _Dor_. You desired me, sister, to leave you, when you transgressed the bounds of honour. {440} _Mrs. Sul_. Thou dear censorious country girl! what dost mean? You can't think of the man without the bedfellow, I find. _Dor_. I don't find anything unnatural in that thought: while the mind is conversant with flesh and blood, it must conform to the humours of the company. _Mrs. Sul_. How a little love and good company improves a woman! Why, child, you begin to live-- you never spoke before. {449} _Dor_. Because I was never spoke to.--My lord has told me that I have more wit and beauty than any of my sex; and truly I begin to think the man is sincere. _Mrs. Sul_. You're in the right, Dorinda; pride is the life of a woman, and flattery is our daily bread; and she's a fool that won't believe a man there, as much as she that believes him in anything else. But I 'll lay you a guinea that I had finer things said to me than you had. _Dor_. Done! What did your fellow say to ye? {460} _Mrs. Sul_. My fellow took the picture of Venus for mine. _Dor_. But my lover took me for Venus herself. _Mrs. Sul_. Common cant! Had my spark called me a Venus directly, I should have believed him a footman in good earnest. _Dor_. But my lover was upon his knees to me. _Mrs. Sul_. And mine was upon his tiptoes to me. _Dor_. Mine vowed to die for me. {468} _Mrs. Sul_. Mine swore to die with me. _Dor_. Mine spoke the softest moving things. _Mrs. Sul_. Mine had his moving things too. _Dor_. Mine kissed my hand ten thousand times, _Mrs. Sul_. Mine has all that pleasure to come. _Dor_. Mine offered marriage. _Mrs. Sul_. O Lard! d' ye call that a moving thing? {475} _Dor_. The sharpest arrow in his quiver, my dear sister! Why, my ten thousand pounds may lie brooding here this seven years, and hatch nothing at last but some ill-natured clown like yours. Whereas if I marry my Lord Aimwell, there will be titled, place, and precedence, the Park, the play, and the drawing-room, splendour, equipage, noise, and flambeaux.--_Hey, my Lady Aimwell's servants there!--Lights, lights to the stairs!--My Lady Aimwell's coach put forward!--Stand by make room for her ladyship!_--Are not these things moving?--What! melancholy of a sudden? {487} _Mrs. Sul_. Happy, happy sister! your angel has been watchful for your happiness, whilst mine has slept regardless of his charge. Long smiling years of circling joys for you, but not one hour for me! [_Weeps_. _Dor_. Come, my dear, we 'll talk of something else. _Mrs. Sul_. O Dorinda! I own myself a woman, full of my sex, a gentle, generous soul, easy and yielding to soft desires; a spacious heart, where love and all his train might lodge. And must the fair apartment of my breast be made a stable for a brute to lie in? _Dor_. Meaning your husband, I suppose? {499} _Mrs. Sul_. Husband! no; even husband is too soft a name for him.--But, come, I expect my brother here to-night or to-morrow; he was abroad when my father married me; perhaps he 'll find a way to make me easy. _Dor_. Will you promise not to make yourself easy in the meantime with my lord's friend? _Mrs. Sul_. You mistake me, sister. It happens with us as among the men, the greatest talkers are the greatest cowards? and there's a reason for it; those spirits evaporate in prattle, which might do more mischief if they took another course.-- Though, to confess the truth, I do love that fellow; --and if I met him dressed as he should be, and I undressed as I should be--look 'ee, sister, I have no supernatural gifts--I can't swear I could resist the temptation; though I can safely promise to avoid it; and that's as much as the best of us can do. [_Exeunt_. ACT IV., SCENE II. _A Room in Bonifaces Inn_. _Enter Aimwell and Archer laughing_. _Arch_. And the awkward kindness of the good motherly old gentlewoman-- _Aim_. And the coming easiness of the young one-- 'Sdeath, 'tis pity to deceive her! _Arch_. Nay, if you adhere to these principles, stop where you are. _Aim_. I can't stop; for I love her to distraction. _Arch_. 'Sdeath, if you love her a hair's-breadth beyond discretion, you must go no further. 9 _Aim_. Well, well, anything to deliver us from sauntering away our idle evenings at White's, Tom's, or Will's and be stinted to bare looking at our old acquaintance, the cards; because our impotent pockets can't afford us a guinea for the mercenary drabs. _Arch_. Or be obliged to some purse-proud coxcomb for a scandalous bottle, where we must not pretend to our share of the discourse, because we can't pay our club o' th' reckoning.--Damn it, I had rather sponge upon Morris, and sup upon a dish of bones scored behind the door! _Aim_. And there expose our want of sense by talking criticisms, as we should our want of money by railing at the government. _Arch_. Or be obliged to sneak into the side-box, and between both houses steal two acts of a play, and because we han't money to see the other three, we come away discontented, and damn the whole five. _Aim_. And ten thousand such rascally tricks--had we outlived our fortunes among our acquaintance.-- But now-- {30} _Arch_. Ay, now is the time to prevent all this:--strike while the iron is hot.--This priest is the luckiest part of our adventure; he shall marry you, and pimp for me. _Aim_. But I should not like a woman that can be so fond of a Frenchman. _Arch_. Alas, sir! Necessity has no law. The lady may be in distress; perhaps she has a confounded husband, and her revenge may carry her farther than her love. Egad, I have so good an opinion of her, and of myself, that I begin to fancy strange things: and we must say this for the honour of our women, and indeed of ourselves, that they do stick to their men as they do to their _Magna Charta_, If the plot lies as I suspect, I must put on the gentleman.--But here comes the doctor--I shall be ready. [_Exit_. [_Enter Foigard_.] _Foi_. Sauve you, noble friend. _Aim_. O sir, your servant! Pray, doctor, may I crave your name? {50} Foi, Fat naam is upon me? My naam is Foigard, joy. _Aim_. Foigard! a very good name for a clergyman. Pray, Doctor Foigard, were you ever in Ireland? Foi, Ireland! no, joy. Fat sort of plaace is dat saam Ireland? Dey say de people are catched dere when dey qre young. _Aim_. And some of 'em when they are old:--as for example.--[_Takes Foigard by the shoulder_.] Sir, I arrest you as a traitor against the government; you're a subject of England, and this morning showed me a commission, by which you served as chaplain in the French army. This is death by our law, and your reverence must hang for it. _Foi_. Upon my shoul, noble friend, dis is strange news you tell me! Fader Foigard a subject of England! de son of a burgomaster of Brussels, a subject of England! ubooboo---- {68} _Aim_. The son of a bog-trotter in Ireland! Sir, your tongue will condemn you before any bench in the kingdom. _Foi_. And is my tongue all your evidensh, joy? _Aim_. That's enough. _Foi_. No, no, joy, for I vill never spake English no more. _Aim_. Sir, I have other evidence.--Here, Martin! _Re-enter Archer_. You know this fellow? _Arch_. [_In a brogue_.] Saave you, my dear cussen, how does your health? {78} _Foi_. [Aside.] Ah! upon my shoul dere is my countryman, and his brogue will hang mine.--[_To Archer_.] _Mynheer, Ick wet neat watt hey xacht, Ick universton ewe neaty sacramant!_ _Aim_. Altering your language won't do, sir; this fellow knows your person, and will swear to your face. _Foi_. Faash! fey, is dere a brogue upon my faash too? _Arch_. Upon my soulvation dere ish, joy!--But cussen Mackshane, vil you not put a remembrance upon me? _Foi_. Mackshane! by St. Paatrick, dat ish my naam shure enough! [_Aside_. _Aim_. I fancy, Archer, you have it. [_Aside to Archer_. _Foi_. The devil hang you, joy! by fat acquaintance are you my cussen? {92} _Arch_. Oh, de devil hang yourshelf, joy! you know we were little boys togeder upon de school, and your foster-moder's son was married upon my nurse's chister, joy, and so we are Irish cussens. _Foi_. De devil taake de relation! vel, joy, and fat school was it? _Arch_. I tinks it vas--aay--'twas Tipperary. _Foi_. No, no, joy; it vas Kilkenny. {100} _Aim_. That 's enough for us--self-confession,---come, sir, we must deliver you into the hands of the next magistrate. _Arch_. He sends you to jail, you 're tried next assizes, and away you go swing into purgatory. _Foi_. And is it so wid you, cussen? _Arch_. It vil be sho wid you, cussen, if you don't immediately confess the secret between you and Mrs. Gipsy. Look 'ee, sir, the gallows or the secret, take your choice. {110} _Foi_. The gallows! upon my shoul I hate that saam gallow, for it is a diseash dat is fatal to our family. Vel, den, dere is nothing, shentlemens, but Mrs. Shullen would spaak wid the Count in her chamber at midnight, and dere is no haarm, joy, for I am to conduct the Count to the plash, myshelf. _Arch_. As I guessed.--Have you communicated the matter to the Count? _Foi_. I have not sheen him since. {120} _Arch_. Right again! Why then, doctor--you shall conduct me to the lady instead of the Count. _Foi_. Fat, my cussen to the lady! upon my shoul, gra, dat is too much upon the brogue. _Arch_. Come, come, doctor; consider we have got a rope about your neck, and if you offer to squeak, we 'll stop your windpipe, most certainly: we shall have another job for you in a day or two, I hope. _Aim_. Here 's company coming this way; let's into my chamber, and there concert our affairs farther. {130} _Arch_. Come, my dear cussen, come along. [_Exeunt_. _Enter Boniface, Hounslow, and Bagshot at one door, Gibbet at the opposite_. _Gib_. Well, gentlemen, 'tis a fine night for our enterprise. _Houn_. Dark as hell. _Bag_. And blows like the devil; our landlord here has showed us the window where we must break in, and tells us the plate stands in the wainscot cupboard in the parlour. _Bon_. Ay, ay, Mr. Bagshot, as the saying is, knives and forks, and cups and cans, and tumblers and tankards. There's one tankard, as the saying is, that's near upon as big as me; it was a present to the squire from his godmother, and smells of nutmeg and toast like an East-India ship. {143} _Houn_. Then you say we must divide at the stairhead? _Bon_. Yes, Mr Hounslow, as the saying is. At one end of that gallery lies my Lady Bountiful and her daughter, and at the other Mrs. Sullen. As for the squire-- _Gib_. He's safe enough, I have fairly entered him, and he's more than half seas over already. But such a parcel of scoundrels are got about him now, that, egad, I was ashamed to be seen in their company. _Bon_. Tis now twelve, as the saying is--gentlemen, you must set out at one. _Gib_. Hounslow, do you and Bagshot see our arms fixed, and I 'll come to you presently. _Houn.,Bag_. We will. [_Exeunt_. _Gib_. Well, my dear Bonny, you assure me that Scrub is a coward? _Bon_. A chicken, as the saying is. You 'll have no creature to deal with but the ladies. {161} _Gib_. And I can assure you, friend, there's a great deal of address and good manners in robbing a lady; I am the most a gentleman that way that ever travelled the road.--But, my dear Bonny, this prize will be a galleon, a Vigo business.--I warrant you we shall bring off three of four thousand pounds. _Bon_. In plate, jewels, and money, as the saying is, you may. {169} _Gib_. Why then, Tyburn, I defy thee! I'll get up to town, sell off my horse and arms, buy myself some pretty employment in the household, and be as snug and as honest as any courtier of 'em all. _Bon_. And what think you then of my daughter Cherry for a wife? _Gib_. Look 'ee, my'dear Bonny--Cherry _is the Goddess I adore_, as the song goes; but it is a maxim, that man and wife should never have it in their power to hang one another; for if they should, the Lord have mercy on 'em both! [_Exeunt_. ACT V., SCENE I. _A Room in Bonifaces Inn, Knocking without, enter Boniface_. _Bon_. Coming! Coming!--A coach and six foaming horses at this time o' night I some great man, as the saying is, for he scorns to travel with other people. _Enter Sir Charles Freeman_. _Sir Chas_. What, fellow! a public house, and abed when other people sleep? _Bon_. Sir, I an't abed, as the saying is. _Sir Chas_. Is Mr. Sullen's family abed, think 'ee? _Bon_. All but the squire himself, sir, as the saying is; he's in the house. _Sir Chas_. What company has he? {10} _Bon_. Why, sir, there 's the constable, Mr. Gage the exciseman, the hunch-backed barber, and two or three other gentlemen. _Sir Chas_. I find my sister's letters gave me the true picture of her spouse. [_Aside_. _Enter Squire Sullen, drunk_. _Bon_. Sir, here's the squire. _Squire Sul_. The puppies left me asleep--Sir! _Sir Chas_. Well, sir. _Squire Sul_. Sir, I am an unfortunate man--I have three thousand pounds a year, and I can't get a man to drink a cup of ale with me. {21} _Sir Chas_. That's very hard. _Squire Sul_. Ay, sir; and unless you have pity upon me, and smoke one pipe with me, I must e'en go home to my wife, and I had rather go to the devil by half. _Sir Chas_. But I presume, sir, you won't see your wife to-night; she 'll be gone to bed. You don't use to lie with your wife in that pickle? _Squire Sul_. What I not lie with my wife! why, sir, do you take me for an atheist or a rake? {30} _Sir Chas_. If you hate her, sir, I think you had better lie from her. _Squire Sul_. I think so too, friend. But I'm a Justice of peace, and must do nothing against the law. _Sir Chas_. Law! as I take it, Mr. Justice, nobody observes law for law's sake, only for the good of those for whom it was made. _Squire Sul_. But, if the law orders me to send you to jail you must lie there, my friend. _Sir Chas_. Not unless I commit a crime to deserve it _Squire Sul_. A crime? 'oons, an't I martied? {40} _Sir Chas_. Nay, sir, if you call a marriage a crime, you must disown it for a law. _Squire Sul_. Eh! I must be acquainted with you, sir.-- But, sir, I should be very glad to know the truth of this matter. _Sir Chas_. Truth, sir, is a profound sea, and few there be that dare wade deep enough to find out the bottom on't. Besides, sir, I 'm afraid the line of your understanding mayn't be long enough. {50} _Squire Sul_. Look'ee, sir, I have nothing to say to your sea of truth, but, if a good parcel of land can entitle a man to a little truth, I have as much as any He in the country. _Bon_. I never heard your worship, as the saying is, talk so much before. _Squire Sul_. Because I never met with a man that I liked before. _Bon_. Pray, sir, as the saying is, let me ask you one question: are not man and wife one flesh? {60} _Sir Chas_. You and your wife, Mr. Guts, may be one flesh, because ye are nothing else; but rational creatures have minds that must be united. _Squire Sul_. Minds! _Sir Chas_. Ay, minds, sir; don't you think that the mind takes place of the body? _Squire Sul_. In some people. _Sir Chas_. Then the interest of the master must be consulted before that of his servant {69} _Squire Sul_. Sir, you shall dine with me to-morrow!-- 'Oons, I always thought that we were naturally one. _Sir Chas_. Sir, I know that my two hands are naturally one, because they love one another, kiss one another, help one another in all the actions of life; but I could not say so much if they were always at cuffs. _Squire Sul_. Then 'tis plain that we are two. _Sir Chas_. Why don't you part with her, sir? _Squire Sul_. Will you take her, sir? _Sir Chas_. With all my heart. {79} _Squire Sul_. You shall have her to-morrow morning, and a venison-pasty into the bargain. _Sir Chas_. You 'll let me have her fortune too? _Squire Sul_. Fortune! why, sir, I have no quarrel at her fortune: I only hate the woman, sir, and none but the woman shall go. _Sir Chas_. But her fortune, sir-- _Squire Sul_. Can you play at whisk, sir? _Sir Chas_. No, truly, sir. _Squire Sul_. Nor at all-fours? _Sir Chas_. Neither. {90} _Squire Sul_. [_Aside_.] 'Oons! where was this man bred?-- [_Aloud_.] Burn me, sir! I can't go home, 'tis but two a clock. _Sir Chas_. For half an hour, sir, if you please; but you must consider 'tis late. _Squire Sul_. Late! that's the reason I can't go to bed.-- Come, sir! [_Exeunt_. _Enter Cherry, runs across the stage, and knocks at Aimwells chamber door. Enter Aimwell in his nightcap and gown_. _Aim_. What's the matter? you tremble, child; you're frighted. {99} _Cher_. No wonder, sir--But, in short, sir, this very minute a gang of rogues are gone to rob my Lady Bountiful's house. _Aim_. How! _Cher_. I dogged 'em to the very door, and left 'em breaking in. _Aim_. Have you alarmed anybody else with the news? _Cher_. No, no, sir, I wanted to have discovered the whole plot, and twenty other things, to your man Martin; but I have searched the whole house, and can't find him: where is he? {110} _Aim_. No matter, child; will you guide me immediately to the house? _Cher_. With all my heart, sir; my Lady Bountiful is my godmother, and I love Mrs. Dorinda so well-- _Aim_. Dorinda! the name inspires me, the glory and the danger shall be all my own.--Come, my life, let me but get my sword. [_Exeunt_. ACT V., SCENE II. _A Bedchamber in Lady Bountifuls House. Mrs. Sullen and Dorinda discovered undressed; a table and lights_. _Dor_. 'Tis very late, sister, no news of your spouse yet? _Mrs. Sul_. No, I 'm condemned to be alone till towards four, and then perhaps I may be executed with his company. _Dor_. Well, my dear, I'll leave you to your rest; you 'll go directly to bed, I suppose? _Mrs. Sul_. I don't know what to do.--Heigh-ho! _Dor_. That's a desiring sigh, sister. _Mrs. Sul_. This is a languishing hour, sister. _Dor_. And might prove a critical minute if the pretty fellow were here. {11} _Mrs. Sul_. Here! what, in my bedchamber at two o'clock o' th' morning, I undressed, the family asleep, my hated husband abroad, and my lovely fellow at my feet!--O 'gad, sister! _Dor_. Thoughts are free, sister, and them I allow you.-- So, my dear, good night. _Mrs. Sul_. A good rest to my dear Dorinda!--[_Exit Dorinda_.] Thoughts free! are they so? Why, then, suppose him here, dressed like a youthful, gay, and burning bridegroom, {21} [Here Archer steals out of a closet behind. with tongue enchanting, eyes bewitching, knees imploring.] --[_Turns a little on one side and sees Archer in the posture she describes_.]--Ah!--[_Shrieks, and runs to the other side of the stage_.] Have my thoughts raised a spirit?--What are you, sir, a man or a devil? _Arch_. A man, a man, madam. [_Rising_. _Mrs. Sul_. How shall I be sure of it? _Arch_. Madam, I'll give you demonstration this minute. [_Takes her hand_. _Mrs. Sul_. What, sir! do you intend to be rude? {31} _Arch_. Yes, madam, if you please. _Mrs. Sul_. In the name of wonder, whence came ye? _Arch_. From the skies, madam--I'm a Jupiter in love, and you shall be my Alcmena. _Mrs. Sul_. How came you in? _Arch_. I flew in at the window, madam; your cousin Cupid lent me his wings, and your sister Venus opened the casement. _Mrs. Sul_. I 'm struck dumb with wonder! {40} _Arch_. And I--with admiration! [_Looks passionately at her_. _Mrs. Sul_. What will become of me? _Arch_. How beautiful she looks!--The teeming jolly Spring smiles in her blooming face, and, when she was conceived, her mother smelt to roses, looked on lilies-- Lilies unfold their white, their fragrant charms, When the warm sun thus darts into their arms. [_Runs to her_. _Mrs. Sul_. Ah! [_Shrieks_. _Arch_. 'Oons, madam, what d' ye mean? you 'll raise the house. {51} _Mrs. Sul_. Sir, I 'll wake the dead before I bear this!-- What! approach me with the freedom of a keeper! I 'm glad on't, your impudence has cured me. _Arch_. If this be impudence--[_Kneels_.] I leave to your partial self; no panting pilgrim, after a tedious, painful voyage, e'er bowed before his saint with more devotion. {58} _Mrs. Sul_. [_Aside_.] Now, now, I 'm ruined if he kneels! --[_Aloud_.] Rise, thou prostrate engineer, not all thy undermining skill shall reach my heart.--Rise, and know I am a woman without my sex; I can love to all the tenderness of wishes, sighs, and tears --but go no farther.--Still, to convince you-that I'm more than woman, I can speak my frailty, confess my weakness even for you, but-- _Arch_. For me! [_Going to lay hold on her_. _Mrs. Sul_. Hold, sir! build not upon that; for my most mortal hatred follows if you disobey what I command you now.--Leave me this minute.--[_Aside_.] If he denies I 'm lost. {71} _Arch_. Then you 'll promise-- _Mrs. Sul_. Anything another time. _Arch_. When shall I come? _Mrs. Sul_. To-morrow--when you will. _Arch_. Your lips must seal the promise. _Mrs. Sul_. Psha! _Arch_. They must! they must! [_Kisses her_.] --Raptures and paradise!--And why not now, my angel? the time, the place, silence, and secrecy, all conspire. And the now conscious stars have preordained this moment for my happiness. [_Takes her in his arms_. _Mrs. Sul_. You will not! cannot, sure! {83} _Arch_. If the sun rides fast, and disappoints not mortals of to-morrow's dawn, this night shall crown my joys. _Mrs. Sul_. My sex's pride assist me! _Arch_. My sex's strength help me! _Mrs. Sul_. You shall kill me first! _Arch_. I 'll die with you. [_Carrying her off_. _Mrs. Sul_. Thieves! thieves! murder! {91} _Enter Scrub in his breeches, and one shoe_. _Scrub_. Thieves! thieves! murder! popery! _Arch_. Ha! the very timorous stag will kill in rutting time. [_Draws, and offers to stab Scrub_. _Scrub_. [_Kneeling_.] O pray, sir, spare all I have, and take my life! _Mrs. Sul_. [_Holding Archer's hand_.] What does the fellow mean? _Scrub_. O madam, down upon your knees, your marrow-bones! --he 's one of 'em. {100} _Arch_. Of whom? _Scrub_. One of the rogues--I beg your pardon, one of the honest gentlemen that just now are broke into the house. _Arch_. How! _Mrs. Sul_. I hope you did not come to rob me? _Arch_. Indeed I did, madam, but I would have taken nothing but what you might ha' spared; but your crying 'Thieves' has waked this dreaming fool, and so he takes 'em for granted. {110} _Scrub_. Granted! 'tis granted, sir; take all we have. _Mrs. Sul_. The fellow looks as if he were broke out of Bedlam. _Scrub_. 'Oons, madam, they 're broke into the house with fire and sword! I saw them, heard them; they 'll be here this minute. _Arch_. What, thieves! _Scrub_. Under favour, sir, I think so. _Mrs. Sul_. What shall we do, sir? _Arch_. Madam, I wish your ladyship a good night {120} _Mrs. Sul_. Will you leave me? _Arch_. Leave you! Lord, madam, did not you command me to be gone just now, upon pain of your immortal hatred? _Mrs. Sul_. Nay, but pray, sir---- [_Takes hold of him_. _Arch_. Ha! ha! ha! now comes my turn to be ravished. --You see now, madam, you must use men one way or other; but take this by the way; good madam, that none but a fool will give you the benefit of his courage, unless you'll take his love along with it. --How are they armed, friend? {131} _Scrub_. With sword and pistol, sir. _Arch_. Hush!--I see a dark lantern coming through the gallery--Madam, be assured I will protect you, or lose my life. _Mrs. Sul_. Your life! no, sir, they can rob me of nothing that I value half so much; therefore now, sir, let me entreat you to be gone. {138} _Arch_. No, madam, I'll consult my own safety for the sake of yours; I 'll work by stratagem. Have you courage enough to stand the appearance of 'em? _Mrs. Sul_. Yes, yes, since I have 'scaped your hands, I can face anything. _Arch_. Come hither, brother Scrub! don't you know me? _Scrub_. Eh, my dear brother, let me kiss thee. [_Kisses Archer_. _Arch_. This way--here---- [Archer and Scrub hide behind the bed. _Enter Gibbet, with a dark lantern in one hand, and a pistol in the other_. _Gib_. Ay, ay, this is the chamber, and the lady alone. _Mrs. Sul_. Who are you, sir? what would you have? d' ye come to rob me? {149} _Gib_. Rob you! alack a day, madam, I 'm only a younger brother, madam; and so, madam, if you make a noise, I 'll shoot you through the head; but don't be afraid, madam.--[_Laying his lantern and pistol upon the table_.] These rings, madam; don't be concerned, madam, I have a profound respect for you, madam; your keys, madam; don't be frighted, madam, I 'm the most of a gentleman. --[_Searching her pockets_.] This necklace, madam; I never was rude to any lady;--I have a veneration --for this necklace-- {160} [_Here Archer having come round, and seized the pistol takes Gibbet by the collar, trips up his heels, and claps the pistol to his breast_. _Arch_. Hold, profane villain, and take the reward of thy sacrilege! _Gib_. Oh! pray, sir, don't kill me; I an't prepared. _Arch_. How many is there of 'em, Scrub? _Scrub_. Five-and-forty, sir. _Arch_. Then I must kill the villain, to have him out of the way. _Gib_. Hold, hold, sir, we are but three, upon my honour. _Arch_. Scrub, will you undertake to secure him? _Scrub_. Not I, sir; kill him, kill him! {170} _Arch_. Run to Gipsy's chamber, there you'll find the doctor; bring him hither presently.--[_Exit Scrub, running_.] Come, rogue, if you have a short prayer, say it. _Gib_. Sir, I have no prayer at all; the government has provided a chaplain to say prayers for us on these occasions. _Mrs. Sul_. Pray, sir, don't kill him: you fright me as much as him. {179} _Arch_. The dog shall die, madam, for being the occasion of my disappointment.--Sirrah, this moment is your last. _Gib_. Sir, I 'll give you two hundred pounds to spare my life. _Arch_. Have you no more, rascal? _Gib_. Yes, sir, I can command four hundred, but I must reserve two of 'em to save my life at the sessions. _Re-enter Scrub and Foigard_. _Arch_. Here, doctor, I suppose Scrub and you between you may manage him. Lay hold of him, doctor. [_Foigard lays hold of Gibbet_. _Gib_. What! turned over to the priest already!-- Look 'ee, doctor, you come before your time; I an't condemned yet, I thank ye. {192} _Foi_. Come, my dear joy; I vill secure your body and your shoul too; I vill make you a good catholic, and give you an absolution. _Gib_. Absolution! can you procure me a pardon, doctor? _Foi_. No, joy-- _Gib_. Then you and your absolution may to the devil! {199} _Arch_. Convey him into the cellar, there bind him:-- take the pistol, and if he offers to resist, shoot him through the head--and come back to us with all the speed you can. _Scrub_. Ay, ay, come, doctor, do you hold him fast, and I 'll guard him. [_Exit Foigard with Gibbet, Scrub following_. _Mrs. Sul_. But how came the doctor-- _Arch_. In short, madam--[_Shrieking without_.] 'Sdeath! the rogues are at work with the other ladies--I 'm vexed I parted with the pistol; but I must fly to their assistance.--Will you stay here, madam, or venture yourself with me? {211} _Mrs. Sul_. [_Taking him by the arm_.] Oh, with you, dear sir, with you. [_Exeunt_. ACT V., SCENE III. _Another Bedchamber in the same. Enter Hounslow and Bagshot, with swords drawn, haling in Lady Bountiful and Dorinda_. _Houn_. Come, come, your jewels, mistress! _Bag_. Your keys, your keys, old gentlewoman! _Enter Aimwell and Cherry_. _Aim_. Turn this way, villains! I durst engage an army in such a cause. [_He engages them both_. _Dor_. O madam, had I but a sword to help the brave man! _Lady Boun_. There's three or four hanging up in the hall; but they won't draw. I 'll go fetch one, however. [_Exit_. _Enter Archer and Mrs. Sullen_. _Arch_. Hold, hold, my lord! every man his bird, pray. [_They engage man to man; Hounslow and Bagshot are thrown and disarmed_. _Cher_. [Aside.] What! the rogues taken! then they'll impeach my father: I must give him timely notice. [_Runs out_. _Arch_. Shall we kill the rogues? _Aim_. No, no, we 'll bind them. _Arch_. Ay, ay.--[_To Mrs. Sullen, who stands by him_.] Here, madam, lend me your garter. _Mrs. Sul_. [_Aside_.] The devil's in this fellow! he fights, loves, and banters, all in a breath.--[_Aloud_.] Here's a cord that the rogues brought with 'em, I suppose. {20} _Arch_. Right, right, the rogue's destiny, a rope to hang himself.--Come, my lord--this is but a scandalous sort of an office [_Binding the Highwaymen together_.] if our adventures should end in this sort of hangman-work; but I hope there is something in prospect, that-- _Enter Scrub_. _Arch_. Well, Scrub, have you secured your Tartar? _Scrub_. Yes, sir, I left the priest and him disputing about religion. _Aim_. And pray carry these gentlemen to reap the benefit of the controversy. {31} [_Delivers the prisoners to Scrubs who leads them out_. _Mrs. Sul_. Pray, sister, how came my lord here? _Dor_. And pray, how came the gentleman here? _Mrs. Sul_. I 'll tell you the greatest piece of villainy-- [_They talk in dumb show_. _Aim_. I fancy, Archer, you have been more successful in your adventures than the housebreakers. _Arch_. No matter for my adventure, yours is the principal.--Press her this minute to marry you--now while she's hurried between the palpitation of her fear and the joy of her deliverance, now while the tide of her spirits is at high-flood--throw yourself at her feet, speak some romantic nonsense or other --address her, like Alexander in the height of his victory, confound her senses, bear down her reason, and away with her.--The priest is now in the cellar, and dare not refuse to do the work. _Re-enter Lady Bountiful_. _Aim_. But how shall I get off without being observed? _Arch_. You a lover, and not find a way to get off!--Let me see-- _Aim_. You bleed, Archer. {50} _Arch_. 'Sdeath, I 'm glad on 't; this wound will do the business. I 'll amuse the old lady and Mrs. Sullen about dressing my wound, while you carry off Dorinda. _Lady Boun_. Gentlemen, could we understand how you would be gratified for the services-- _Arch_. Come, come, my lady, this is no time for compliments; I 'm wounded, madam. _Lady Boun., Mrs. Sut_. How! wounded! _Dor_. I hope, sir, you have received no hurt? {60} _Aim_. None but what you may cure---- [_Makes love in dumb show_. _Lady Boun_. Let me see your arm, sir--I must have some powder-sugar to stop the blood.--O me! an ugly gash; upon my word, sir, you must go into bed. _Arch_. Ay, my lady, a bed would do very well.--[_To Mrs. Sullen_.] Madam, will you do me the favour to conduct me to a chamber. _Lady Boun_. Do, do, daughter--while I get the lint and the probe and the plaster ready. [_Runs out one way, Aimwell carries off Dorinda another_. _Arch_. Come, madam, why don't you obey your mother's commands? {71} _Mrs. Sul_. How can you, after what is passed, have the confidence to ask me? _Arch_. And if you go to that, how can you, after what is passed, have the confidence to deny me? Was not this blood shed in your defence, and my life exposed for your protection? Look 'ee, madam, I 'm none of your romantic fools, that fight giants and monsters for nothing; my valour is downright Swiss; I'm a soldier of fortune, and must be paid.' {80} _Mrs. Sul_. 'Tis ungenerous in you, sir, to upbraid me with your services! _Arch_. 'Tis ungenerous in you, madam, not to reward 'em _Mrs. Sul_. How! at the expense of my honour? _Arch_. Honour! can honour consist with ingratitude? If you would deal like a woman of honour, do like a man of honour. D' ye think I would deny you in such a case? _Enter a Servant_. _Serv_. Madam, my lady ordered me to tell you, that your brother is below at the gate. [_Exit_. _Mrs. Sul_. My brother! Heavens be praised!--Sir, he shall thank you for your services; he has it in his power. {93} _Arch_. Who is your brother, madam? _Mrs. Sul_. Sir Charles Freeman.--You'll excuse me, sir; I must go and receive him. [_Exit_. _Arch_. Sir Charles Freeman! 'sdeath and hell! my old acquaintance. Now unless Aimwell has made good use of his time, all our fair machine goes souse into the sea like the Eddystone. [_Exit_. ACT V., SCENE IV. _The Gallery in the same house. Enter Aimwell and Dorinda_. _Dor_. Well, well, my lord, you have conquered; your late generous action will, I hope, plead for my easy yielding; though I must own, your lordship had a friend in the fort before. _Aim_. The sweets of Hybla dwell upon her tongue!-- Here, doctor-- _Enter Foigard with a book_. _Foi_. Are you prepared boat? _Dor_. I 'm ready. But first, my lord, one word.--I have a frightful example of a hasty marriage in my own family; when I reflect upon't it shocks me. Pray, my lord, consider a little-- {11} _Aim_. Consider! do you doubt my honour or my love? _Dor_. Neither: I do believe you equally just as brave: and were your whole sex drawn out forme to choose, I should not cast a look upon the multitude if you were absent. But, my lord, I'm a woman; colours, concealments may hide a thousand faults in me, therefore know me better first; I hardly dare affirm I know myself in anything except my love. {19} _Aim_. [Aside,] Such goodness who could injure! I find myself unequal to the task of villain; she has gained my soul, and made it honest like her own.-- I cannot, cannot hurt her.--[_Aloud_.] Doctor, retire. --[_Exit Foigard_] Madam, behold your lover and your proselyte, and judge of my passion by my conversion!--I 'm all a lie, nor dare I give a fiction to your arms; I 'm all counterfeit, except my passion. _Dor_. Forbid it, Heaven! a counterfeit! {29} _Aim_. I am no lord, but a poor needy man, come with a mean, a scandalous design to prey upon your fortune; but the beauties of your mind and person have so won me from myself that, like a trusty servant, I prefer the interest of my mistress to my own. _Dor_. Sure I have had the dream of some poor mariner, a sleepy image of a welcome port, and wake involved in storms!--Pray, sir, who are you? _Aim_. Brother to the man whose title I usurped, but stranger to his honour or his fortune. {39} _Dor_. Matchless honesty!--Once I was proud, sir, of your wealth and title, but now am prouder that you want it: now I can show my love was justly levelled, and had no aim but love.--Doctor, come in. _Enter Foigard at one door, Gipsy at another-, who whispers Dorinda_. [_To Foigard_.] Your pardon, sir, we shan't want you now.--[_To Aimweil_.] Sir, you must excuse me--I 'll wait on you presently. [_Exit with Gipsy_. _Foi_. Upon my shoul, now, dis is foolish. [_Exit_. _Aim_. Gone! and bid the priest depart!--It has an ominous look. _Enter Archer_. _Arch_. Courage, Tom!--Shall I wish you joy? {50} _Aim_. No. _Arch_. 'Oons, man, what ha' you been doing? _Aim_. O Archer! my honesty, I fear, has ruined me. _Arch_. How? _Aim_. I have discovered myself. _Arch_. Discovered! and without my consent? What! have I embarked my small remains in the same bottom with yours, and you dispose of all without my partnership? _Aim_. O Archer! I own my fault. 60 _Arch_. After conviction--'tis then too late for pardon.-- You may remember, Mr. Aimwell, that you proposed this folly: as you begun, so end it. Henceforth I 'll hunt my fortune single--so farewell! _Aim_. Stay, my dear Archer, but a minute. _Arch_. Stay! what, to be despised, exposed, and laughed at! No, I would sooner change conditions with the worst of the rogues we just now bound, than bear one scornful smile from the proud knight that once I treated as my equal. {70} _Aim_. What knight? _Arch_. Sir Charles Freeman, brother to the lady that I had almost--but no matter for that, 'tis a cursed night's work, and so I leave you to make the best on't. [_Going_. _Aim_. Freeman!--One word, Archer. Still I have hopes; methought she received my confession with pleasure. _Arch_. 'Sdeath, who doubts it? _Aim_. She consented after to the match; and still I dare believe she will be just. {81} _Arch_. To herself, I warrant her, as you should have been. _Aim_. By all my hopes she comes, and smiling comes! _Re-enter Dorinda, mighty gay_. _Dor_. Come, my dear lord--I fly with impatience to your arms--the minutes of my absence were a tedious year. Where's this priest? _Re-enter Foigard_. _Arch_. 'Oons, a brave girl! _Dor_. I suppose, my lord, this gentleman is privy to our affairs? {90} _Arch_. Yes, yes, madam, I 'm to be your father. _Dor_. Come, priest, do your office. _Arch_. Make haste, make haste, couple 'em any way.-- [_Takes Aimwells hand_.] Come, madam, I 'm to give you-- _Dor_. My mind's altered; I won't. _Arch_. Eh! _Aim_. I 'm confounded! _Foi_. Upon my shoul, and sho is myshelf. _Arch_. What 's the matter now, madam? {100} _Dor_. Look'ee, sir, one generous action deserves another. --This gentleman's honour obliged him to hide nothing from me; my justice engages me to conceal nothing from him. In short, sir, you are the person that you thought you counterfeited; you are the true Lord Viscount Aimwell, and I wish your Lordship joy.--Now, priest, you may be gone; if my Lord is pleased now with the match, let his Lordship marry me in the face of the world. _Aim., Arch_. What does she mean? {110} _Dor_. Here's a witness for my truth. _Enter Sir Charles Freeman and Mrs Sullen_. _Sir Chas_. My dear Lord Aimwell, I wish you joy. _Aim_. Of what? _Sir Chas_. Of your honour and estate. Your brother died the day before I left London; and all your friends have writ after you to Brussels;--among the rest I did myself the honour. _Arch_. Hark 'ee, sir knight, don't you banter now? _Sir Chas_. 'Tis truth, upon my honour. _Aim_. Thanks to the pregnant stars that formed this accident! {121} _Arch_. Thanks to the womb of time that brought it forth!--away with it! _Aim_. Thanks to my guardian angel that led me to the prize! [_Taking Dorindas hand_]. _Arch_. And double thanks to the noble Sir Charles Freeman.--My Lord, I wish you joy.--My Lady, I wish you joy.--Egad, Sir Freeman, you're the honestest fellow living!--'Sdeath, I'm grown strange airy upon this matter!--My Lord, how d'ye?--A word, my Lord; don't you remember something of a previous agreement, that entitles me to the moiety of this lady's fortune, which I think will amount to five thousand pounds? _Aim_. Not a penny, Archer; you would ha' cut my throat just now, because I would not deceive this lady. _Arch_. Ay, and I 'll cut your throat again, if you should deceive her now. {139} _Aim_. That's what I expected; and to end the dispute, the lady's fortune is ten thousand pounds, we'll divide stakes: take the ten thousand pounds or the lady. _Dor_. How! is your lordship so indifferent? _Arch_. No, no, no, madam! his Lordship knows very well that I 'll take the money; I leave you to his Lordship, and so we 're both provided for. _Enter Count Bellair_. _Count Bel_. _Mesdames et Messieurs_, I am your servant trice humble! I hear you be rob here. _Aim_. The ladies have been in some danger, sir. _Count Bel_. And, begar, our inn be rob too! {150} _Aim_. Our inn! by whom? _Count Bel_. By the landlord, begar!--Garzoon, he has rob himself, and run away! _Arch_. Robbed himself! _Count Bel_. Ay, begar, and me too of a hundre pound. _Arch_. A hundred pounds? _Count Bel_. Yes, that I owed him. _Aim_. Our money's gone, Frank. _Arch_. Rot the money! my wench is gone.--[_To Count Bellair_.] _Savez-vous quelquechase de Mademoiselle Cherry?_ {161} _Enter a Countryman with a strong-box and a letter_. _Coun_. Is there one Martin here? _Arch_. Ay, ay--who wants him? _Coun_. I have a box here, and letter for him. _Arch_. [_Taking the box_.] Ha! ha! ha! what's here? Legerdemain!--By this light, my lord, our money again!--But this unfolds the riddle.--[_Opening the letter_.] Hum, hum, hum!--Oh, 'tis for the public good, and must be communicated to the company. [_Reads_. Mr. Martin, lyo My father being afraid of an impeachment by the rogues that are taken to-night, is gone off; but if you can procure him a pardon, he'll make great discoveries that may be useful to the country. Could I have met you instead of your master to-night, I would have delivered myself into your hands, with a sum that much exceeds that in your strong-box, which I have sent you, with an assurance to my dear Martin that I shall ever be his most faithful friend till death. CHERRY BONIFACE. There's a billet-doux for you! As for the father, I think he ought to be encouraged; and for the daughter--pray, my Lord, persuade your bride to take her into her service instead of Gipsy. {184} _Aim_. I can assure you, madam, your deliverance was owing to her discovery. _Dor_. Your command, my Lord, will do without the obligation. I 'll take care of her. _Sir Chas_. This good company meets opportunely in favour of a design I have in behalf of my unfortunate sister. I intend to part her from her husband--gentlemen, will you assist me? {192} _Arch_. Assist you! 'sdeath, who would not? _Count Bel_. Assist! garzoon, we all assist! _Enter Squire Sullen_. _Squire Sul_. What 's all this? They tell me, spouse, that you had like to have been robbed. _Mrs. Sul_. Truly, spouse, I was pretty near it, had not these two gentlemen interposed. _Squire Sul_. How came these gentlemen here? _Mrs. Sul_. That's his way of returning thanks, you must know. {201} _Count Bel_. Garzoon, the question be apropos for all dat. _Sir Chas_. You promised last night, sir, that you would deliver your lady to me this morning. _Squire Sul_. Humph! _Arch_. Humph! what do you mean by humph? Sir, you shall deliver her--in short, sir, we have saved you and your family; and if you are not civil, we 'll unbind the rogues, join with 'em, and set fire to your house. What does the man mean? not part with his wife! {211} _Count Bel_. Ay, garzoon, de man no understan common justice. _Mrs. Sul_. Hold, gentlemen, all things here must move by consent, compulsion would spoil us; let my dear and I talk the matter over, and you shall judge it between us. _Squire Sul_. Let me know first who are to be our judges. Pray, sir, who are you? _Sir Chas_. I am Sir Charles Freeman, come to take away your wife. {221} _Squire Sul_. And you, good sir? _Aim_. Thomas, Viscount Aimwell, come to take away your sister. _Squire Sul_. And you, pray, sir? _Arch_. Francis Archer, esquire, come---- _Squire Sul_. To take away my mother, I hope. Gentlemen, you 're heartily welcome; I never met with three more obliging people since I was born!-- And now, my dear, if you please, you shall have the first word. {231} _Arch_. And the last, for five pounds! _Mrs. Sul_. Spouse! _Squire Sul_. Rib! _Mrs. Sul_. How long have we been married? _Squire Sul_. By the almanac, fourteen months; but by my account, fourteen years. _Mrs. Sul_. 'Tis thereabout by my reckoning. _Count Bel_. Garzoon, their account will agree. _Mrs. Sul_. Pray, spouse, what did you marry for? {240} _Squire Sul_. To get an heir to my estate. _Sir Chas_. And have you succeeded? _Squire Sul_. No. _Arch_. The condition fails of his side.--Pray, madam, what did you marry for? _Mrs. Sul_. To support the weakness of my sex by the strength of his, and to enjoy the pleasures of an agreeable society. _Sir Chas_. Are your expectations answered? _Mrs. Sul_. No. {250} _Count Bel_. A clear case! a clear case! _Sir Chas_. What are the bars to your mutual contentment? _Mrs. Sul_. In the first place, I can't drink ale with him. _Squire Sul_. Nor can I drink tea with her. _Mrs. Sul_. I can't hunt with you. _Squire Sul_. Nor can I dance with you. _Mrs. Sul_. I hate cocking and racing. _Squire Sul_. And I abhor ombre and piquet. _Mrs. Sul_. Your silence is intolerable. _Squire Sul_. Your prating is worse. {260} _Mrs. Sul_. Have we not been a perpetual offence to each other? a gnawing vulture at the heart? _Squire Sul_. A frightful goblin to the sight? _Mrs. Sul_. A porcupine to the feeling? _Squire Sul_. Perpetual wormwood to the taste? _Mrs. Sul_. Is there on earth a thing we could agree in? _Squire Sul_. Yes--to part. _Mrs. Sul_. With all my heart _Squire Sul_. Your hand. _Mrs. Sul_. Here. {270} _Squire Sul_. These hands joined us, these shall part us. --Away! _Mrs. Sul_. North _Squire Sul_. South. _Mrs. Sul_. East. _Squire Sul_. West--far as the poles asunder. _Count Bel_. Begar, the ceremony be vera pretty! _Sir Chas_. Now, Mr. Sullen, there wants only my sister's fortune to make us easy. _Squire Sul_. Sir Charles, you love your sister, and I love her fortune; every one to his fancy. {281} _Arch_. Then you won't refund; _Squire Sul_. Not a stiver. _Arch_. Then I find, madam, you must e'en go to your prison again. _Count Bel_. What is the portion? _Sir Chas_. Ten thousand pounds, sir. _Count Bel_. Garzoon, I 'll pay it, and she shall go home wid me. {289} _Arch_. Ha! ha! ha! French all over.-- Do you know, sir, what ten thousand pounds English is? _Count Bel_. No, begar, not justement. _Arch_. Why, sir, 'tis a hundred thousand livres. _Count Bel_. A hundre tousand livres! Ah! garzoon, me canno' do't, your beauties and their fortunes are both too much for me. _Arch_. Then I will.--This night's adventure has proved strangely lucky to us all--for Captain Gibbet in his walk had made bold, Mr. Sullen, with your study and escritoir, and had taken out all the writings of your estate, all the articles of marriage with this lady, bills, bonds, leases, receipts to an infinite value: I took 'em from him, and I deliver 'em to Sir Charles. [_Gives Sir Charles Freeman a parcel of papers and parchments_. _Squire Sul_. How, my writings!--my head aches consumedly.--Well, gentlemen, you shall have her fortune, but I can't talk. If you have a mind, Sir Charles, to be merry, and celebrate my sister's wedding and my divorce, you may command my house--but my head aches consumedly.--Scrub, bring me a dram. _Arch_. [_To Mrs. Sullen_.] Madam, there's a country dance to the trifle that I sung to-day; your hand, and we'll lead it up. _Here a Dance_. Twould be hard to guess which of these parties is the better pleased, the couple joined, or the couple parted; the one rejoicing in hopes of an untasted happiness, and the other in their deliverance from an experienced misery. Both happy in their several states we find, Those parted by consent, and those conjoined. Consent, if mutual, saves the lawyer's fee. Consent is law enough to set you free. [_Exeunt omnes_. EPILOGUE _Designed to be spoken in 'The Beaux-Stratagem'_. If to our play your judgment can't be kind, Let its expiring author pity find: Survey his mournful case with melting eyes, Nor let the bard be damn'd before he dies. Forbear, you fair, on his last scene to frown, But his true exit with a plaudit crown; Then shall the dying poet cease to fear The dreadful knell, while your applause he hear. At Leuctra so the conquering Theban died, Claim'd his friends' praises, but their tears denied: Pleased in the pangs of death he greatly thought Conquest with loss of life but cheaply bought The difference this, the Greek was one would fight As brave, though not so gay, as Serjeant Kite; Ye sons of Will's, what's that to those who write? To Thebes alone the Grecian owed his bays, You may the bard above the hero raise, Since yours is greater than Athenian praise. 
32419	----	Distributed Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 32419-h.htm or 32419-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32419/32419-h/32419-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32419/32419-h.zip) THE CONSTANT COUPLE; Or, A Trip to the Jubilee; A Comedy, in Five Acts; by GEORGE FARQUHAR, ESQ. As Performed at the Theatres Royal, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Printed Under the Authority of the Managers from the Prompt Book. With remarks by Mrs. Inchbald. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster Row. William Savage, Printer, London. REMARKS. George Farquhar, the author of this comedy, was the son of a clergyman in the north of Ireland. He was born in the year 1678, discovered an early taste for literature, and wrote poetic stanzas at ten years of age. In 1694 he was sent to Trinity College, Dublin, and there made such progress in his studies as to acquire considerable reputation. But he was volatile and poor--the first misfortune led him to expense; the second, to devise means how to support his extravagance. The theatre has peculiar charms for men of letters. Whether as a subject of admiration or animadversion, it is still a source of high amusement; and here Farquhar fixed his choice of a profession, in the united expectations of pleasure and of profit--he appeared on the stage as an actor, and was disappointed of both. The author of this licentious comedy is said to have possessed the advantages of person, manners, and elocution, to qualify him for an actor; but that he could never overcome his natural timidity. Courage is a whimsical virtue. It acts upon one man so as to make him expose his whole body to danger, whilst he dares not venture into the slightest peril one sentiment of his mind. Such is often the soldier's valour.--Another trembles to expose his person either to a wound or to the eye of criticism, and yet will dare to publish every thought that ever found entrance into his imagination. Such is often the valour of a poet. Farquhar, abashed on exhibiting his person upon the stage, sent boldly thither his most indecorous thoughts, and was rewarded for his audacity. In the year 1700 he brought out this comedy of "The Constant Couple; or, A Trip to the Jubilee." It was then the Jubilee year at Rome, and the author took advantage of that occurrence to render the title of his drama popular; for which cause alone it must be supposed he made any thing in his play refer to that festival, as no one material point is in any shape connected with it. At the time Farquhar was a performer, a sincere friendship was formed between him and Wilks, the celebrated fine gentleman of the stage--for him, Farquhar wrote the character of Sir Harry Wildair; and Wilks, by the very admirable manner in which he supported the part, divided with the author those honours which the first appearance of the work obtained him. As a proof that this famed actor's abilities, in the representation of the fine gentlemen of his day, were not over-rated, no actor, since he quitted the stage, has been wholly successful in the performance of this character; and, from Wilks down to the present time, the part has only been supported, with celebrity, by women. The noted Mrs. Woffington was highly extolled in Sir Harry; and Mrs. Jordan has been no less admired and attractive. But it must be considered as a disgrace to the memory of the men of fashion, of the period in which Wildair was brought on the stage, that he has ever since been justly personated, by no other than the female sex. In this particular, at least, the present race of fashionable beaux cannot be said to have degenerated; for, happily, they can be represented by men. The love story of Standard and Lurewell, in this play, is interesting to the reader, though, in action, an audience scarcely think of either of them; or of any one in the drama, with whom the hero is not positively concerned. Yet these two lovers, it would seem, love with all the usual ardour and constancy of gallants and mistresses in plays and novels--unfortunately, with the same short memories too! Authors, and some who do not generally deal in wonders, often make persons, the most tenderly attached to each other, so easily forget the shape, the air, the every feature of the dear beloved, as to pass, after a few years separation, whole days together, without the least conjecture that each is the very object of the other's search! Whilst all this surprising forgetfulness possesses them, as to the figure, face, and mind of him or her whom they still adore, show either of them but a ring, a bracelet, a mole, a scar, and here remembrance instantly occupies its place, and both are immediately inspired with every sensation which first testified their mutual passion. Still the sober critic must arraign the strength of this love with the shortness of its recollection; and charge the renewal of affection for objects that no longer appear the same, to fickleness rather than to constancy. The biographers of Farquhar, who differ in some articles concerning him, all agree that he was married, in the year 1704, to a lady, who was so violently in love with him, that, despairing to win him by her own attractions, she contrived a vast scheme of imposition, by which she allured him into wedlock, with the full conviction that he had married a woman of immense fortune. The same biographers all bestow the highest praise upon poor Farquhar for having treated this wife with kindness; humanely forgiving the fault which had deprived him of that liberty he was known peculiarly to prize, and reduced him to the utmost poverty, in order to support her and her children. This woman, whose pretended love was of such fatal import to its object, not long enjoyed her selfish happiness--her husband's health gradually declined, and he died four years after his marriage. It is related that he met death with fortitude and cheerfulness. He could scarcely do otherwise, when life had become a burden to him. He had, however, some objects of affection to leave behind, as appears by the following letter, which he wrote a few days before his decease, and directed to his friend Wilks:-- "DEAR BOB, "I have not any thing to leave you to perpetuate my memory, except two helpless girls; look upon them sometimes, and think of him that was, to the last moment of his life, thine, "GEORGE FARQUHAR." Wilks protected the children--their mother died in extreme indigence. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. DRURY LANE. COVENT GARDEN. SIR HARRY WILDAIR _Mr. Elliston._ _Mr. Lewis._ ALDERM. SMUGGLER _Mr. Dowton._ _Mr. Quick._ COLONEL STANDARD _Mr. Barrymore._ _Mr. Farren._ CLINCHER, JUN. _Mr. Collins._ _Mr. Blanchard._ BEAU CLINCHER _Mr. Bannister._ _Mr. Cubitt._ VIZARD _Mr. Holland._ _Mr. Macready._ TOM ERRAND _Mr. Wewitzer._ _Mr. Powell._ DICKY _Mr. Purser._ _Mr. Simmons._ CONSTABLE _Mr. Maddocks._ _Mr. Thompson._ SERVANTS _Mr. Fisher, &c._ LADY LUREWELL _Mrs. Powell._ _Miss Chapman._ LADY DARLING _Miss Tidswell._ _Miss Platt._ ANGELICA _Miss Mellon._ _Mrs. Mountain._ PARLY _Mrs. Scott._ _Miss Stuart._ TOM ERRAND'S WIFE _Mrs. Maddocks._ _SCENE--London._ THE CONSTANT COUPLE. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I _The Park_ _Enter_ VIZARD _with a Letter, his_ SERVANT _following_. _Vizard._ Angelica send it back unopened! say you? _Serv._ As you see, sir? _Vizard._ The pride of these virtuous women is more insufferable than the immodesty of prostitutes--After all my encouragement, to slight me thus! _Serv._ She said, sir, that imagining your morals sincere, she gave you access to her conversation; but that your late behaviour in her company has convinced her that your love and religion are both hypocrisy, and that she believes your letter, like yourself, fair on the outside, and foul within; so sent it back unopened. _Vizard._ May obstinacy guard her beauty till wrinkles bury it.--I'll be revenged the very first opportunity.----Saw you the old Lady Darling, her mother? _Serv._ Yes, sir, and she was pleased to say much in your commendation. _Vizard._ That's my cue----An esteem grafted in old age is hardly rooted out; years stiffen their opinions with their bodies, and old zeal is only to be cozened by young hypocrisy. [_Aside._] Run to the Lady Lurewell's, and know of her maid whether her ladyship will be at home this evening. Her beauty is sufficient cure for Angelica's scorn. [_Exit_ SERVANT. VIZARD _pulls out a Book, reads, and walks about_. _Enter_ SMUGGLER. _Smug._ Ay, there's a pattern for the young men o' th' times; at his meditation so early; some book of pious ejaculations, I'm sure. _Vizard._ This Hobbes is an excellent fellow! [_Aside._] Oh, uncle Smuggler! To find you at this end o' th' town is a miracle. _Smug._ I have seen a miracle this morning indeed, cousin Vizard. _Vizard._ What is it, pray, sir? _Smug._ A man at his devotion so near the court--I'm very glad, boy, that you keep your sanctity untainted in this infectious place; the very air of this park is heathenish, and every man's breath I meet scents of atheism. _Vizard._ Surely, sir, some great concern must bring you to this unsanctified end of the town. _Smug._ A very unsanctified concern, truly, cousin. _Vizard._ What is it? _Smug._ A lawsuit, boy--Shall I tell you?--My ship, the Swan, is newly arrived from St. Sebastian, laden with Portugal wines: now the impudent rogue of a tide-waiter has the face to affirm it is French wines in Spanish casks, and has indicted me upon the statute----Oh, conscience! conscience! these tide-waiters and surveyors plague us more than the war--Ay, there's another plague of the nation-- _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD. A red coat and cockade. _Vizard._ Colonel Standard, I'm your humble servant. _Colonel S._ May be not, sir. _Vizard._ Why so? _Colonel S._ Because----I'm disbanded. _Vizard._ How! Broke? _Colonel S._ This very morning, in Hyde-Park, my brave regiment, a thousand men, that looked like lions yesterday, were scattered, and looked as poor and simple as the herd of deer that grazed beside them. _Smug._ Tal, al deral. [_Singing._] I'll have a bonfire this night as high as the monument. _Colonel S._ A bonfire! Thou dry, withered, ill-nature; had not those brave fellows' swords defended you, your house had been a bonfire ere this, about your ears.----Did we not venture our lives, sir? _Smug._ And did we not pay for your lives, sir?--Venture your lives! I'm sure we ventured our money, and that's life and soul to me.----Sir, we'll maintain you no longer. _Colonel S._ Then your wives shall, old Actæon. There are five and thirty strapping officers gone this morning to live upon free quarter in the city. _Smug._ Oh, lord! oh, lord! I shall have a son within these nine months, born with a leading staff in his hand.----Sir, you are---- _Colonel S._ What, sir? _Smug._ Sir, I say that you are---- _Colonel S._ What, sir? _Smug._ Disbanded, sir, that's all----I see my lawyer yonder. [_Exit._ _Vizard._ Sir, I'm very sorry for your misfortune. _Colonel S._ Why so? I don't come to borrow money of you; if you're my friend, meet me this evening at the Rummer; I'll pay my foy, drink a health to my king, prosperity to my country, and away for Hungary to-morrow morning. _Vizard._ What! you won't leave us? _Colonel S._ What! a soldier stay here, to look like an old pair of colours in Westminster Hall, ragged and rusty! No, no----I met yesterday a broken lieutenant, he was ashamed to own that he wanted a dinner, but wanted to borrow eighteen pence of me to buy a new scabbard for his sword. _Vizard._ Oh, but you have good friends, colonel! _Colonel S._ Oh, very good friends! My father's a lord, and my elder brother, a beau; mighty good indeed! _Vizard._ But your country may, perhaps, want your sword again. _Colonel S._ Nay, for that matter, let but a single drum beat up for volunteers between Ludgate and Charing Cross, and I shall undoubtedly hear it at the walls of Buda. _Vizard._ Come, come, colonel, there are ways of making your fortune at home--Make your addresses to the fair; you're a man of honour and courage. _Colonel S._ Ay, my courage is like to do me wondrous service with the fair. This pretty cross cut over my eye will attract a duchess--I warrant 'twill be a mighty grace to my ogling--Had I used the stratagem of a certain brother colonel of mine, I might succeed. _Vizard._ What was it, pray? _Colonel S._ Why, to save his pretty face for the women, he always turned his back upon the enemy.--He was a man of honour for the ladies. _Vizard._ Come, come, the loves of Mars and Venus will never fail; you must get a mistress. _Colonel S._ Pr'ythee, no more on't--You have awakened a thought, from which, and the kingdom, I would have stolen away at once.----To be plain, I have a mistress. _Vizard._ And she's cruel? _Colonel S._ No. _Vizard._ Her parents prevent your happiness? _Colonel S._ Not that. _Vizard._ Then she has no fortune? _Colonel S._ A large one. Beauty to tempt all mankind, and virtue to beat off their assaults. Oh, Vizard! such a creature! _Enter_ SIR HARRY WILDAIR, _crosses the Stage singing, with_ FOOTMEN _after him_. Heyday! who the devil have we here? _Vizard._ The joy of the playhouse, and life of the park; Sir Harry Wildair, newly come from Paris. _Colonel S._ Sir Harry Wildair! Did not he go a volunteer some three or four years ago? _Vizard._ The same. _Colonel S._ Why, he behaved himself very bravely. _Vizard._ Why not? Dost think bravery and gaiety are inconsistent? He's a gentleman of most happy circumstances, born to a plentiful estate; has had a genteel and easy education, free from the rigidness of teachers, and pedantry of schools. His florid constitution being never ruffled by misfortune, nor stinted in its pleasures, has rendered him entertaining to others, and easy to himself. Turning all passion into gaiety of humour, by which he chuses rather to rejoice with his friends, than be hated by any; as you shall see. _Enter_ SIR HARRY WILDAIR. _Sir H._ Ha, Vizard! _Vizard._ Sir Harry! _Sir H._ Who thought to find you out of the Rubric so long? I thought thy hypocrisy had been wedded to a pulpit-cushion long ago.--Sir, if I mistake not your face, your name is Standard? _Colonel S._ Sir Harry, I'm your humble servant. _Sir H._ Come, gentlemen, the news, the news o' th' town, for I'm just arrived. _Vizard._ Why, in the city end o' th' town we're playing the knave, to get estates. _Colonel S._ And in the court end playing the fool, in spending them. _Sir H._ Just so in Paris. I'm glad we're grown so modish. _Vizard._ We are so reformed, that gallantry is taken for vice. _Colonel S._ And hypocrisy for religion. _Sir H._ A-la-mode de Paris again. _Vizard._ Nothing like an oath in the city. _Colonel S._ That's a mistake; for my major swore a hundred and fifty last night to a merchant's wife in her bed-chamber. _Sir H._ Pshaw! this is trifling; tell me news, gentlemen. What lord has lately broke his fortune at the clubs, or his heart at Newmarket, for the loss of a race? What wife has been lately suing in Doctor's-Commons for alimony: or what daughter run away with her father's valet? What beau gave the noblest ball at Bath, or had the gayest equipage in town? I want news, gentlemen. _Colonel S._ 'Faith, sir, these are no news at all. _Vizard._ But, pray, Sir Harry, tell us some news of your travels. _Sir H._ With all my heart.--You must know, then, I went over to Amsterdam in a Dutch ship. I went from thence to Landen, where I was heartily drubbed in battle, with the butt end of a Swiss musket. I thence went to Paris, where I had half a dozen intrigues, bought half a dozen new suits, fought a couple of duels, and here I am again _in statu quo_. _Vizard._ But we heard that you designed to make the tour of Italy: what brought you back so soon? _Sir H._ That which brought you into the world, and may perhaps carry you out of it;--a woman. _Colonel S._ What! quit the pleasures of travel for a woman? _Sir H._ Ay, colonel, for such a woman! I had rather see her _ruelle_ than the palace of Louis le Grand. There's more glory in her smile, than in the jubilee at Rome! and I would rather kiss her hand than the Pope's toe. _Vizard._ You, colonel, have been very lavish in the beauty and virtue of your mistress; and Sir Harry here has been no less eloquent in the praise of his. Now will I lay you both ten guineas a-piece, that neither of them is so pretty, so witty, or so virtuous, as mine. _Colonel S._ 'Tis done. _Sir H._ I'll double the stakes--But, gentlemen, now I think on't, how shall we be resolved? For I know not where my mistress may be found; she left Paris about a month before me, and I had an account---- _Colonel S._ How, sir! left Paris about a month before you? _Sir H._ Yes, sir, and I had an account that she lodged somewhere in St. James's. _Vizard._ How! somewhere in St. James's say you? _Sir H._ Ay, sir, but I know not where, and perhaps may'nt find her this fortnight. _Colonel S._ Her name, pray, Sir Harry? _Vizard._ Ay, ay, her name; perhaps we know her. _Sir H._ Her name! Ay, she has the softest, whitest hand that ever was made of flesh and blood; her lips so balmy sweet---- _Colonel S._ But her name, sir? _Sir H._ Then her neck and---- _Vizard._ But her name, sir? her quality? _Sir H._ Then her shape, colonel? _Colonel S._ But her name I want, sir. _Sir H._ Then her eyes, Vizard! _Colonel S._ Pshaw, Sir Harry! her name, or nothing! _Sir H._ Then if you must have it, she's called the Lady----But then her foot, gentlemen! she dances to a miracle. Vizard, you have certainly lost your wager. _Vizard._ Why, you have certainly lost your senses; we shall never discover the picture, unless you subscribe the name. _Sir H._ Then her name is Lurewell. _Colonel S._ 'Sdeath! my mistress! [_Aside._ _Vizard._ My mistress, by Jupiter! [_Aside._ _Sir H._ Do you know her, gentlemen? _Colonel S._ I have seen her, sir. _Sir H._ Canst tell where she lodges? Tell me, dear colonel. _Colonel S._ Your humble servant, sir. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Nay, hold, colonel; I'll follow you, and will know. [_Runs out._ _Vizard._ The Lady Lurewell his mistress! He loves her: but she loves me.----But he's a baronet, and I plain Vizard; he has a coach, and I walk on foot; I was bred in London, and he in Paris.----That very circumstance has murdered me----Then some stratagem must be laid to divert his pretensions. _Enter_ WILDAIR. _Sir H._ Pr'ythee, Dick, what makes the colonel so out of humour? _Vizard._ Because he's out of pay, I suppose. _Sir H._ 'Slife, that's true! I was beginning to mistrust some rivalship in the case. _Vizard._ And suppose there were, you know the colonel can fight, Sir Harry. _Sir H._ Fight! Pshaw--but he cannot dance, ha!--We contend for a woman, Vizard. 'Slife, man, if ladies were to be gained by sword and pistol only, what the devil should all we beaux do? _Vizard._ I'll try him farther. [_Aside._] But would not you, Sir Harry, fight for this woman you so much admire? _Sir H._ Fight! Let me consider. I love her----that's true;----but then I love honest Sir Harry Wildair better. The Lady Lurewell is divinely charming----right----but then a thrust i' the guts, or a Middlesex jury, is as ugly as the devil. _Vizard._ Ay, Sir Harry, 'twere a dangerous cast for a beau baronet to be tried by a parcel of greasy, grumbling, bartering boobies, who would hang you, purely because you're a gentleman. _Sir H._ Ay, but on t'other hand, I have money enough to bribe the rogues with: so, upon mature deliberation, I would fight for her. But no more of her. Pr'ythee, Vizard, cannot you recommend a friend to a pretty mistress by the bye, till I can find my own? You have store, I'm sure; you cunning poaching dogs make surer game, than we that hunt open and fair. Pr'ythee now, good Vizard. _Vizard._ Let me consider a little.--Now love and revenge inspire my politics! [_Aside._ [_Pauses whilst_ SIR HARRY _walks, singing_. _Sir H._ Pshaw! thou'rt longer studying for a new mistress, than a waiter would be in drawing fifty corks. _Vizard._ I design you good wine; you'll therefore bear a little expectation. _Sir H._ Ha! say'st thou, dear Vizard? _Vizard._ A girl of nineteen, Sir Harry. _Sir H._ Now nineteen thousand blessings light on thee. _Vizard._ Pretty and witty. _Sir H._ Ay, ay, but her name, Vizard! _Vizard._ Her name! yes--she has the softest, whitest hand that e'er was made of flesh and blood; her lips so balmy sweet---- _Sir H._ Well, well, but where shall I find her, man? _Vizard._ Find her!--but then her foot, Sir Harry! she dances to a miracle. _Sir H._ Pr'ythee, don't distract me. _Vizard._ Well then, you must know, that this lady is the greatest beauty in town; her name's Angelica: she that passes for her mother is a private bawd, and called the Lady Darling: she goes for a baronet's lady, (no disparagement to your honour, Sir Harry) I assure you. _Sir H._ Pshaw, hang my honour! but what street, what house? _Vizard._ Not so fast, Sir Harry; you must have my passport for your admittance, and you'll find my recommendation in a line or two will procure you very civil entertainment; I suppose twenty or thirty pieces handsomely placed, will gain the point. _Sir H._ Thou dearest friend to a man in necessity! Here, sirrah, order my carriage about to St. James's; I'll walk across the park. [_To his_ SERVANT. _Enter_ CLINCHER SENIOR. _Clinch._ Here, sirrah, order my coach about to St. James's, I'll walk across the park too--Mr. Vizard, your most devoted--Sir, [_To_ WILDAIR.] I admire the mode of your shoulder-knot; methinks it hangs very emphatically, and carries an air of travel in it: your sword-knot too is most ornamentally modish, and bears a foreign mien. Gentlemen, my brother is just arrived in town; so that, being upon the wing to kiss his hands, I hope you'll pardon this abrupt departure of, gentlemen, your most devoted, and most faithful humble servant. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Pr'ythee, dost know him? _Vizard._ Know him! why, it is Clincher, who was apprentice to my uncle Smuggler, the merchant in the city. _Sir H._ What makes him so gay? _Vizard._ Why, he's in mourning. _Sir H._ In mourning? _Vizard._ Yes, for his father. The kind old man in Hertfordshire t'other day broke his neck a fox-hunting; the son, upon the news, has broke his indentures; whipped from behind the counter into the side-box. He keeps his coach and liveries, brace of geldings, leash of mistresses, talks of nothing but wines, intrigues, plays, fashions, and going to the jubilee. _Sir H._ Ha! ha! ha! how many pounds of pulvil must the fellow use in sweetening himself from the smell of hops and tobacco? Faugh!--I' my conscience methought, like Olivia's lover, he stunk of Thames-Street. But now for Angelica, that's her name: we'll to the prince's chocolate-house, where you shall write my passport. _Allons._ [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. LADY LUREWELL'S _Lodgings_. _Enter_ LADY LUREWELL, _and her Maid_ PARLY. _Lady L._ Parly, my pocket-book--let me see--Madrid, Paris, Venice, London!--Ay, London! They may talk what they will of the hot countries, but I find love most fruitful under this climate----In a month's space have I gained--let me see, imprimis, Colonel Standard. _Parly._ And how will your ladyship manage him? _Lady L._ As all soldiers should be managed; he shall serve me till I gain my ends, then I'll disband him. _Parly._ But he loves you, madam. _Lady L._ Therefore I scorn him; I hate all that don't love me, and slight all that do; 'Would his whole deluding sex admir'd me, Thus would I slight them all. My virgin and unwary innocence Was wrong'd by faithless man; But now, glance eyes, plot brain, dissemble face, Lie tongue, and Plague the treacherous kind.---- Let me survey my captives.---- The colonel leads the van; next, Mr. Vizard, He courts me out of the "Practice of Piety," Therefore is a hypocrite; Then Clincher, he adores me with orangerie, And is consequently a fool; Then my old merchant, Alderman Smuggler, He's a compound of both;--out of which medley of lovers, if I don't make good diversion----What d'ye think, Parly? _Parly._ I think, madam, I'm like to be very virtuous in your service, if you teach me all those tricks that you use to your lovers. _Lady L._ You're a fool, child; observe this, that though a woman swear, forswear, lie, dissemble, backbite, be proud, vain, malicious, any thing, if she secures the main chance, she's still virtuous; that's a maxim. _Parly._ I can't be persuaded, though, madam, but that you really loved Sir Harry Wildair in Paris. _Lady L._ Of all the lovers I ever had, he was my greatest plague, for I could never make him uneasy: I left him involved in a duel upon my account: I long to know whether the fop be killed or not. _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD. Oh lord! no sooner talk of killing, but the soldier is conjured up. You're upon hard duty, colonel, to serve your king, your country, and a mistress too. _Colonel S._ The latter, I must confess, is the hardest; for in war, madam, we can be relieved in our duty; but in love, he, who would take our post, is our enemy; emulation in glory is transporting, but rivals here intolerable. _Lady L._ Those that bear away the prize in arms, should boast the same success in love; and, I think, considering the weakness of our sex, we should make those our companions who can be our champions. _Colonel S._ I once, madam, hoped the honour of defending you from all injuries, through a title to your lovely person; but now my love must attend my fortune. My commission, madam, was my passport to the fair; adding a nobleness to my passion, it stamped a value on my love; 'twas once the life of honour, but now its winding sheet; and with it must my love be buried. _Parly._ What? disbanded, Colonel? _Colonel S._ Yes, Mrs. Parly. _Parly._ Faugh, the nauseous fellow! he stinks of poverty already. [_Aside._ _Lady L._ His misfortune troubles me, because it may prevent my designs. [_Aside._ _Colonel S._ I'll chuse, madam, rather to destroy my passion by absence abroad, than have it starved at home. _Lady L._ I'm sorry, sir, you have so mean an opinion of my affection, as to imagine it founded upon your fortune. And, to convince you of your mistake, here I vow, by all that's sacred, I own the same affection now as before. Let it suffice, my fortune is considerable. _Colonel S._ No, madam, no; I'll never be a charge to her I love! The man, that sells himself for gold, is the worst of prostitutes. _Lady L._ Now, were he any other creature but a man, I could love him. [_Aside._ _Colonel S._ This only last request I make, that no title recommend a fool, no office introduce a knave, nor red coat a coward, to my place in your affections; so farewell my country, and adieu my love. [_Exit._ _Lady L._ Now the devil take thee for being so honourable: here, Parly, call him back, I shall lose half my diversion else. Now for a trial of skill. _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD. Sir, I hope you'll pardon my curiosity. When do you take your journey? _Colonel S._ To-morrow morning, early, madam. _Lady L._ So suddenly! which way are you designed to travel? _Colonel S._ That I can't yet resolve on. _Lady L._ Pray, sir, tell me; pray, sir; I entreat you; why are you so obstinate? _Colonel S._ Why are you so curious, madam? _Lady L._ Because---- _Colonel S._ What? _Lady L._ Because, I, I---- _Colonel S._ Because, what, madam?--Pray tell me. _Lady L._ Because I design to follow you. [_Crying._ _Colonel S._ Follow me! By all that's great, I ne'er was proud before. Follow me! By Heavens thou shalt not. What! expose thee to the hazards of a camp!--Rather I'll stay, and here bear the contempt of fools, and worst of fortune. _Lady L._ You need not, shall not; my estate for both is sufficient. _Colonel S._ Thy estate! No, I'll turn a knave, and purchase one myself; I'll cringe to the proud man I undermine; I'll tip my tongue with flattery, and smooth my face with smiles; I'll turn informer, office-broker, nay, coward, to be great; and sacrifice it all to thee, my generous fair. _Lady L._ And I'll dissemble, lie, swear, jilt, any thing, but I'll reward thy love, and recompense thy noble passion. _Colonel S._ Sir Harry, ha! ha! ha! poor Sir Harry, ha! ha! ha! Rather kiss her hand than the Pope's toe; ha! ha! ha! _Lady L._ What Sir Harry, Colonel? What Sir Harry? _Colonel S._ Sir Harry Wildair, madam. _Lady L._ What! is he come over? _Colonel S._ Ay, and he told me--but I don't believe a syllable on't---- _Lady L._ What did he tell you? _Colonel S._ Only called you his mistress; and pretending to be extravagant in your commendation, would vainly insinuate the praise of his own judgment and good fortune in a choice. _Lady L._ How easily is the vanity of fops tickled by our sex! _Colonel S._ Why, your sex is the vanity of fops. _Lady L._ On my conscience, I believe so. This gentleman, because he danced well, I pitched on for a partner at a ball in Paris, and ever since he has so persecuted me with letters, songs, dances, serenading, flattery, foppery, and noise, that I was forced to fly the kingdom. ----And I warrant you he made you jealous? _Colonel S._ 'Faith, madam, I was a little uneasy. _Lady L._ You shall have a plentiful revenge; I'll send him back all his foolish letters, songs, and verses, and you yourself shall carry them: 'twill afford you opportunity of triumphing, and free me from his further impertinence; for of all men he's my aversion. I'll run and fetch them instantly. [_Exit._ _Colonel S._ Dear madam, a rare project! Now shall I bait him, like Actæon, with his own dogs.----Well, Mrs. Parly, it is ordered by act of parliament, that you receive no more pieces, Mrs. Parly. _Parly._ 'Tis provided by the same act, that you send no more messages by me, good Colonel; you must not presume to send any more letters, unless you can pay the postage. _Colonel S._ Come, come, don't be mercenary; take example by your lady, be honourable. _Parly._ A-lack-a-day, sir, it shows as ridiculous and haughty for us to imitate our betters in their honour, as in their finery; leave honour to nobility that can support it: we poor folks, Colonel, have no pretence to't; and truly, I think, sir, that your honour should be cashiered with your leading-staff. _Colonel S._ 'Tis one of the greatest curses of poverty to be the jest of chambermaids! _Enter_ LUREWELL. _Lady L._ Here's the packet, Colonel; the whole magazine of love's artillery. [_Gives him the Packet._ _Colonel S._ Which, since I have gained, I will turn upon the enemy. Madam, I'll bring you the news of my victory this evening. Poor Sir Harry, ha! ha! ha! [_Exit._ _Lady L._ To the right about as you were; march, Colonel. Ha! ha! ha! Vain man, who boasts of studied parts and wiles! Nature in us, your deepest art beguiles, Stamping deep cunning in our frowns and smiles. You toil for art, your intellects you trace; Woman, without a thought, bears policy in her face. [_Exeunt._ ACT THE SECOND. SCENE I. CLINCHER JUNIOR'S _Lodgings_. _Enter_ CLINCHER JUNIOR, _opening a Letter_; SERVANT _following_. _Clinch. jun._ [Reads.] _Dear Brother--I will see you presently: I have sent this lad to wait on you; he can instruct you in the fashions of the town. I am your affectionate brother_, CLINCHER. Very well; and what's your name, sir? _Dicky._ My name is Dicky, sir. _Clinch. jun._ Dicky! _Dicky._ Ay, Dicky, sir. _Clinch. jun._ Very well; a pretty name! And what can you do, Mr. Dicky? _Dicky._ Why, sir, I can powder a wig, and pick up a whore. _Clinch. jun._ Oh, lord! Oh, lord! a whore! Why, are there many in this town? _Dicky._ Ha! ha! ha! many! there's a question, indeed!----Harkye, sir; do you see that woman there, in the pink cloak and white feathers. _Clinch. jun._ Ay, sir! what then? _Dicky._ Why, she shall be at your service in three minutes, as I'm a pimp. _Clinch. jun._ Oh, Jupiter Ammon! Why, she's a gentlewoman. _Dicky._ A gentlewoman! Why so they are all in town, sir. _Enter_ CLINCHER _senior_. _Clinch. sen._ Brother, you're welcome to London. _Clinch. jun._ I thought, brother, you owed so much to the memory of my father, as to wear mourning for his death. _Clinch. sen._ Why, so I do, fool; I wear this, because I have the estate; and you wear that, because you have not the estate. You have cause to mourn, indeed, brother. Well, brother, I'm glad to see you; fare you well. [_Going._ _Clinch. jun._ Stay, stay, brother.----Where are you going? _Clinch. sen._ How natural 'tis for a country booby to ask impertinent questions!--Harkye, sir; is not my father dead? _Clinch. jun._ Ay, ay, to my sorrow. _Clinch. sen._ No matter for that, he's dead; and am not I a young, powdered, extravagant English heir? _Clinch. jun._ Very right, sir. _Clinch. sen._ Why then, sir, you may be sure that I am going to the Jubilee, sir. _Clinch. jun._ Jubilee! What's that? _Clinch. sen._ Jubilee! Why, the Jubilee is----'Faith I don't know what it is. _Dicky._ Why, the Jubilee is the same thing as our Lord Mayor's day in the city; there will be pageants, and squibs, and raree-shows, and all that, sir. _Clinch. jun._ And must you go so soon, brother? _Clinch. sen._ Yes, sir; for I must stay a month at Amsterdam, to study poetry. _Clinch. jun._ Then I suppose, brother, you travel through Muscovy, to learn fashions; don't you, brother? _Clinch. sen._ Brother! Pr'ythee, Robin, don't call me brother; sir will do every jot as well. _Clinch. jun._ Oh, Jupiter Ammon! why so? _Clinch. sen._ Because people will imagine you have a spite at me.--But have you seen your cousin Angelica yet, and her mother, the Lady Darling? _Clinch. jun._ No; my dancing-master has not been with me yet. How shall I salute them, brother? _Clinch. sen._ Pshaw! that's easy; 'tis only two scrapes, a kiss, and your humble servant. I'll tell you more when I come from the Jubilee. Come along. [_Exeunt._ [Illustration: SIR HARRY WILDAIR.--HERE IS A NEST OF THE PRETTIEST GOLDFINCHES, THAT EVER CHIRPED IN A CAGE. ACT. II. SCENE. II.] SCENE II. LADY DARLING'S _House_. _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR _with a Letter_. _Sir H._ Like light and heat, incorporate we lay; We bless'd the night, and curs'd the coming day. Well, if this paper kite flies sure, I'm secure of my game----Humph!--the prettiest _bourdel_ I have seen; a very stately genteel one---- FOOTMEN _cross the Stage_. Heyday! equipage too!----'Sdeath, I'm afraid I've mistaken the house! _Enter_ LADY DARLING. No, this must be the bawd, by her dignity. _Lady D._ Your business, pray, sir? _Sir H._ Pleasure, madam. _Lady D._ Then, sir, you have no business here. _Sir H._ This letter, madam, will inform you farther. Mr. Vizard sent it, with his humble service to your ladyship. _Lady D._ How does my cousin, sir? _Sir H._ Ay, her cousin, too! that's right procuress again. [_Aside._ _Lady D._ [Reads.] _Madam----Earnest inclination to serve----Sir Harry----Madam----court my cousin----Gentleman----fortune_---- _Your ladyships most humble servant_, VIZARD. Sir, your fortune and quality are sufficient to recommend you any where; but what goes farther with me is the recommendation of so sober and pious a young gentleman as my cousin Vizard. _Sir H._ A right sanctified bawd o' my word! [_Aside._ _Lady D._ Sir Harry, your conversation with Mr. Vizard argues you a gentleman, free from the loose and vicious carriage of the town. I shall therefore call my daughter. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Now go thy way for an illustrious bawd of Babylon:--she dresses up a sin so religiously, that the devil would hardly know it of his making. _Enter_ LADY DARLING _with_ ANGELICA. _Lady D._ Pray, daughter, use him civilly; such matches don't offer every day. [_Exit_ LADY DARL. _Sir H._ Oh, all ye powers of love! an angel!--'Sdeath, what money have I got in my pocket? I can't offer her less than twenty guineas----and, by Jupiter, she's worth a hundred. _Ang._ 'Tis he! the very same! and his person as agreeable as his character of good humour.----Pray Heaven his silence proceed from respect! _Sir H._ How innocent she looks! How would that modesty adorn virtue, when it makes even vice look so charming!----By Heaven, there's such a commanding innocence in her looks, that I dare not ask the question! _Ang._ Now, all the charms of real love and feigned indifference assist me to engage his heart; for mine is lost already. _Sir H._ Madam--I--I----Zouns, I cannot speak to her!--Oh, hypocrisy! hypocrisy! what a charming sin art thou! _Ang._ He is caught; now to secure my conquest--I thought, sir, you had business to communicate. _Sir H._ Business to communicate! How nicely she words it!----Yes, madam, I have a little business to communicate. Don't you love singing-birds, madam? _Ang._ That's an odd question for a lover--Yes, sir. _Sir H._ Why, then, madam, here's a nest of the prettiest goldfinches that ever chirp'd in a cage; twenty young ones, I assure you, madam. _Ang._ Twenty young ones! What then, sir? _Sir H._ Why then, madam, there are----twenty young ones----'Slife, I think twenty is pretty fair. _Ang._ He's mad, sure!----Sir Harry, when you have learned more wit and manners, you shall be welcome here again. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Wit and manners! 'Egad, now, I conceive there is a great deal of wit and manners in twenty guineas--I'm sure 'tis all the wit and manners I have about me at present. What shall I do? _Enter_ CLINCHER JUNIOR _and_ DICKY. What the devil's here? Another cousin, I warrant ye!--Harkye, sir, can you lend me ten or a dozen guineas instantly? I'll pay you fifteen for them in three hours, upon my honour. _Clinch. jun._ These London sparks are plaguy impudent! This fellow, by his assurance, can be no less than a courtier. _Dicky._ He's rather a courtier by his borrowing. _Clinch. jun._ 'Faith, sir, I han't above five guineas about me. _Sir H._ What business have you here then, sir?--For, to my knowledge, twenty won't be sufficient. _Clinch. jun._ Sufficient! for what, sir? _Sir H._ What, sir! Why, for that, sir; what the devil should it be, sir? I know your business, notwithstanding all your gravity, sir. _Clinch. jun._ My business! Why, my cousin lives here. _Sir H._ I know your cousin does live here, and Vizard's cousin, and every body's cousin----Harkye, sir, I shall return immediately; and if you offer to touch her till I come back, I shall cut your throat, rascal. [_Exit._ _Clinch. jun._ Why, the man's mad, sure! _Dicky._ Mad, sir! Ay----Why, he's a beau. _Clinch. jun._ A beau! What's that? Are all madmen beaux? _Dicky._ No, sir; but most beaux are madmen.--But now for your cousin. Remember your three scrapes, a kiss, and your humble servant. [_Exeunt._ SCENE III. _A Street._ _Enter_ SIR HARRY WILDAIR, COLONEL STANDARD _following_. _Colonel S._ Sir Harry! Sir Harry! _Sir H._ I am in haste, Colonel; besides, if you're in no better humour than when I parted with you in the park this morning, your company won't be very agreeable. _Colonel S._ You're a happy man, Sir Harry, who are never out of humour. Can nothing move your gall, Sir Harry? _Sir H._ Nothing but impossibilities, which are the same as nothing. _Colonel S._ What impossibilities? _Sir H._ The resurrection of my father to disinherit me, or an act of parliament against wenching. A man of eight thousand pounds _per annum_ to be vexed! No, no; anger and spleen are companions for younger brothers. _Colonel S._ Suppose one called you a son of a whore behind your back. _Sir H._ Why, then would I call him rascal behind his back; so we're even. _Colonel S._ But suppose you had lost a mistress. _Sir H._ Why, then I would get another. _Colonel S._ But suppose you were discarded by the woman you love; that would surely trouble you. _Sir H._ You're mistaken, Colonel; my love is neither romantically honourable, nor meanly mercenary; 'tis only a pitch of gratitude: while she loves me, I love her; when she desists, the obligation's void. _Colonel S._ But to be mistaken in your opinion, sir; if the Lady Lurewell (only suppose it) had discarded you--I say, only suppose it----and had sent your discharge by me. _Sir H._ Pshaw! that's another impossibility. _Colonel S._ Are you sure of that? _Sir H._ Why, 'twere a solecism in nature. Why, we are finger and glove, sir. She dances with me, sings with me, plays with me, swears with me, lies with me. _Colonel S._ How, sir? _Sir H._ I mean in an honourable way; that is, she lies for me. In short, we are as like one another as a couple of guineas. _Colonel S._ Now that I have raised you to the highest pinnacle of vanity, will I give you so mortifying a fall, as shall dash your hopes to pieces.--I pray your honour to peruse these papers. [_Gives him the Packet._ _Sir H._ What is't, the muster-roll of your regiment, colonel? _Colonel S._ No, no, 'tis a list of your forces in your last love campaign; and, for your comfort, all disbanded. _Sir H._ Pr'ythee, good metaphorical colonel, what d'ye mean? _Colonel S._ Read, sir, read; these are the Sibyl's leaves, that will unfold your destiny. _Sir H._ So it be not a false deed to cheat me of my estate, what care I--[_Opening the Packet._] Humph! my hand!--_To the Lady Lurewell_--_To the Lady Lurewell_--_To the Lady Lurewell_--What the devil hast thou been tampering with, to conjure up these spirits? _Colonel S._ A certain familiar of your acquaintance, sir. Read, read. _Sir H._ [Reading.] _Madam, my passion----so natural----your beauty contending----force of charms----mankind----eternal admirer_, WILDAIR. --I ne'er was ashamed of my name before. _Colonel S._ What, Sir Harry Wildair out of humour! ha! ha! ha! Poor Sir Harry! More glory in her smile than in the Jubilee at Rome; ha! ha! ha! But then her foot, Sir Harry; she dances to a miracle! ha! ha! ha! Fie, Sir Harry; a man of your parts write letters not worth keeping! _Sir H._ Now, why should I be angry that a woman is a woman? Since inconstancy and falsehood are grounded in their natures, how can they help it?--Here's a copy of verses too: I must turn poet, in the devil's name--Stay--'Sdeath, what's here?--This is her hand----Oh, the charming characters!--[Reading.]--_My dear Wildair_,--That's I, 'egad!--_This huff-bluff Colonel_--that's he--_is the rarest fool in nature_--the devil he is!--_and as such have I used him_.--With all my heart, 'faith!--_I had no better way of letting you know that I lodge in Pall Mall_--LUREWELL.----Colonel, I am your most humble servant. _Colonel S._ Hold, sir, you shan't go yet; I ha'n't delivered half my message. _Sir H._ Upon my faith, but you have, colonel. _Colonel S._ Well, well, own your spleen; out with it; I know you're like to burst. _Sir H._ I am so, 'egad; ha! ha! ha! [_Laugh and point at one another._ _Colonel S._ Ay, with all my heart; ha! ha! Well, well, that's forced, Sir Harry. _Sir H._ I was never better pleased in all my life, by Jupiter. _Colonel S._ Well, Sir Harry, 'tis prudence to hide your concern, when there's no help for it. But, to be serious, now; the lady has sent you back all your papers there----I was so just as not to look upon them. _Sir H._ I'm glad on't, sir; for there were some things that I would not have you see. _Colonel S._ All this she has done for my sake; and I desire you would decline any further pretensions for your own sake. So, honest, goodnatured Sir Harry, I'm your humble servant. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Ha! ha! ha! poor colonel! Oh, the delight of an ingenious mistress! what a life and briskness it adds to an amour.--A legerdemain mistress, who, _presto_! _pass_! and she's vanished; then _hey_! in an instant in your arms again. [_Going._ _Enter_ VIZARD. _Vizard._ Well met, Sir Harry--what news from the island of love? _Sir H._ 'Faith, we made but a broken voyage by your chart; but now I am bound for another port: I told you the colonel was my rival. _Vizard._ The colonel--curs'd misfortune! another. [_Aside._ _Sir H._ But the civilest in the world; he brought me word where my mistress lodges. The story's too long to tell you now, for I must fly. _Vizard._ What, have you given over all thoughts of Angelica? _Sir H._ No, no; I'll think of her some other time. But now for the Lady Lurewell. Wit and beauty calls. That mistress ne'er can pall her lover's joys, Whose wit can whet, whene'er her beauty cloys. Her little amorous frauds all truths excel, And make us happy, being deceived so well. [_Exit._ _Vizard._ The colonel my rival too!----How shall I manage? There is but one way----him and the knight will I set a tilting, where one cuts t'other's throat, and the survivor's hanged: so there will be two rivals pretty decently disposed of. [_Exit._ SCENE IV. LADY LUREWELL'S _Lodgings_. _Enter_ LADY LUREWELL _and_ PARLY. _Lady L._ Has my servant brought me the money from my merchant? _Parly._ No, madam: he met Alderman Smuggler at Charing-Cross, who has promised to wait on you himself immediately. _Lady L._ 'Tis odd that this old rogue should pretend to love me, and at the same time cheat me of my money. _Parly._ 'Tis well, madam, if he don't cheat you of your estate; for you say the writings are in his hands. _Lady L._ But what satisfaction can I get of him?----Oh! here he comes! _Enter_ SMUGGLER. Mr. Alderman, your servant; have you brought me any money, sir? _Smug._ 'Faith, madam, trading is very dead; what with paying the taxes, losses at sea abroad, and maintaining our wives at home, the bank is reduced very low; money is very scarce. _Lady L._ Come, come, sir; these evasions won't serve your turn: I must have money, sir--I hope you don't design to cheat me? _Smug._ Cheat you, madam! have a care what you say: I'm an alderman, madam----Cheat you, madam! I have been an honest citizen these five-and-thirty years. _Lady L._ An honest citizen! Bear witness, Parly--I shall trap him in more lies presently. Come, sir, though I am a woman, I can take a remedy. _Smug._ What remedy, madam? You'll go to law, will ye? I can maintain a suit of law, be it right or wrong, these forty years--thanks to the honest practice of the courts. _Lady L._ Sir, I'll blast your reputation, and so ruin your credit. _Smug._ Blast my reputation! he! he! he! Why, I'm a religious man, madam; I have been very instrumental in the reformation of manners. Ruin my credit! Ah, poor woman! There is but one way, madam----you have a sweet leering eye. _Lady L._ You instrumental in the reformation?--How? _Smug._ I whipp'd all the pau-pau women out of the parish--Ah, that leering eye! Ah, that lip! that lip! _Lady L._ Here's a religious rogue for you, now!--As I hope to be saved, I have a good mind to beat the old monster. _Smug._ Madam, I have brought you about two hundred and fifty guineas (a great deal of money, as times go) and---- _Lady L._ Come, give 'em me. _Smug._ Ah, that hand, that hand! that pretty, soft, white----I have brought it; but the condition of the obligation is such, that whereas that leering eye, that pouting lip, that pretty soft hand, that--you understand me; you understand; I'm sure you do, you little rogue---- _Lady L._ Here's a villain, now, so covetous, that he would bribe me with my own money. I'll be revenged. [_Aside._]--Upon my word, Mr. Alderman, you make me blush,--what d'ye mean, pray? _Smug._ See here, madam. [_Pulls his Purse out._]--Buss and guinea! buss and guinea! buss and guinea! _Lady L._ Well, Mr. Alderman, you have such pretty winning ways, that I will--ha! ha! ha! _Smug._ Will you, indeed, he! he! he! my little cocket? And when, and where, and how? _Lady L._ 'Twill be a difficult point, sir, to secure both our honours: you must therefore be disguised, Mr. Alderman. _Smug._ Pshaw! no matter; I am an old fornicator; I'm not half so religious as I seem to be. You little rogue, why I'm disguised as I am; our sanctity is all outside, all hypocrisy. _Lady L._ No man is seen to come into this house after dark; you must therefore sneak in, when 'tis dark, in woman's clothes. _Smug._ With all my heart----I have a suit on purpose, my little cocket; I love to be disguised; 'ecod, I make a very handsome woman, 'ecod, I do. _Enter_ SERVANT, _who whispers_ LADY LUREWELL. _Lady L._ Oh, Mr. Alderman, shall I beg you to walk into the next room? Here are some strangers coming up. _Smug._ Buss and guinea first--Ah, my little cocket! [_Exit._ _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR. _Sir H._ My life, my soul, my all that Heaven can give!---- _Lady L._ Death's life with thee, without thee death to live. Welcome, my dear Sir Harry----I see you got my directions. _Sir H._ Directions! in the most charming manner, thou dear Machiavel of intrigue. _Lady L._ Still brisk and airy, I find, Sir Harry. _Sir H._ The sight of you, madam, exalts my air, and makes joy lighten in my face. _Lady L._ I have a thousand questions to ask you, Sir Harry. Why did you leave France so soon? _Sir H._ Because, madam, there is no existing where you are not. _Lady L._ _Oh, monsieur, je vous suis fort obligée_----But, where's the court now? _Sir H._ At Marli, madam. _Lady L._ And where my Count La Valier? _Sir H._ His body's in the church of Nôtre Dame; I don't know where his soul is. _Lady L._ What disease did he die of? _Sir H._ A duel, madam; I was his doctor. _Lady L._ How d'ye mean? _Sir H._ As most doctors do; I kill'd him. _Lady L._ _En cavalier_, my dear knight-errant--Well, and how, and how: what intrigues, what gallantries are carrying on in the _beau monde_? _Sir H._ I should ask you that question, madam, since your ladyship makes the _beau-monde_ wherever you come. _Lady L._ Ah, Sir Harry, I've been almost ruined, pestered to death here, by the incessant attacks of a mighty colonel; he has besieged me. _Sir H._ I hope your ladyship did not surrender, though. _Lady L._ No, no; but was forced to capitulate. But since you are come to raise the siege, we'll dance, and sing, and laugh---- _Sir H._ And love, and kiss----_Montrez moi votre chambre?_ _Lady L._ _Attends, attends, un peu_----I remember, Sir Harry, you promised me, in Paris, never to ask that impertinent question again. _Sir H._ Pshaw, madam! that was above two months ago: besides, madam, treaties made in France are never kept. _Lady L._ Would you marry me, Sir Harry? _Sir H._ Oh! I do detest marriage.--But I will marry you. _Lady L._ Your word, sir, is not to be relied on: if a gentleman will forfeit his honour in dealings of business, we may reasonably suspect his fidelity in an amour. _Sir H._ My honour in dealings of business! Why, madam, I never had any business in all my life. _Lady L._ Yes, Sir Harry, I have heard a very odd story, and am sorry that a gentleman of your figure should undergo the scandal. _Sir H._ Out with it, madam. _Lady L._ Why, the merchant, sir, that transmitted your bills of exchange to you in France, complains of some indirect and dishonourable dealings. _Sir H._ Who, old Smuggler? _Lady L._ Ay, ay, you know him, I find. _Sir H._ I have some reason, I think; why, the rogue has cheated me of above five hundred pounds within these three years. _Lady L._ 'Tis your business then to acquit yourself publicly; for he spreads the scandal every where. _Sir H._ Acquit myself publicly! I'll drive instantly into the city, and cane the old villain: he shall run the gauntlet round the Royal Exchange. _Lady L._ Why, he is in the house now, sir. _Sir H._ What, in this house? _Lady L._ Ay, in the next room. _Sir H._ Then, sirrah, lend me your cudgel. _Lady L._ Sir Harry, you won't raise a disturbance in my house? _Sir H._ Disturbance, madam! no, no, I'll beat him with the temper of a philosopher. Here, Mrs. Parly, show me the gentleman. [_Exit with_ PARLY. _Lady L._ Now shall I get the old monster well beaten, and Sir Harry pestered next term with bloodsheds, batteries, costs, and damages, solicitors and attorneys; and if they don't tease him out of his good humour, I'll never plot again. [_Exit._ SCENE V. _Another Room in the same House._ _Enter_ SMUGGLER. _Smug._ Oh, this damned tide-waiter! A ship and cargo worth five thousand pounds! Why, 'tis richly worth five hundred perjuries. _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR. _Sir H._ Dear Mr. Alderman, I'm your most devoted and humble servant. _Smug._ My best friend, Sir Harry, you're welcome to England. _Sir H._ I'll assure you, sir, there's not a man in the king's dominions I am gladder to meet, dear, dear Mr. Alderman. [_Bowing very low._ _Smug._ Oh, lord, sir, you travellers have the most obliging ways with you! _Sir H._ There is a business, Mr. Alderman, fallen out, which you may oblige me infinitely by----I am very sorry that I am forced to be troublesome; but necessity, Mr. Alderman---- _Smug._ Ay, sir, as you say, necessity----But, upon my word, sir, I am very short of money at present; but---- _Sir H._ That's not the matter, sir; I'm above an obligation that way: but the business is, I'm reduced to an indispensable necessity of being obliged to you for a beating----Here, take this cudgel. _Smug._ A beating, Sir Harry! ha! ha! ha! I beat a knight baronet! an alderman turn cudgel-player! Ha! ha! ha! _Sir H._ Upon my word, sir, you must beat me, or I cudgel you; take your choice. _Smug._ Pshaw! pshaw! you jest. _Sir H._ Nay, 'tis sure as fate----So, Alderman, I hope you'll pardon my curiosity. [_Strikes him._ _Smug._ Curiosity! Deuce take your curiosity, sir!--What d'ye mean? _Sir H._ Nothing at all; I'm but in jest, sir. _Smug._ Oh, I can take any thing in jest! but a man might imagine, by the smartness of the stroke, that you were in downright earnest. _Sir H._ Not in the least, sir; [_Strikes him._] not in the least, indeed, sir. _Smug._ Pray, good sir, no more of your jests; for they are the bluntest jests that ever I knew. _Sir H._ [_Strikes._] I heartily beg your pardon, with all my heart, sir. _Smug._ Pardon, sir! Well, sir, that is satisfaction enough from a gentleman. But, seriously, now, if you pass any more of your jests upon me, I shall grow angry. _Sir H._ I humbly beg your permission to break one or two more. [_Strikes him._ _Smug._ Oh, lord, sir, you'll break my bones! Are you mad, sir? Murder, felony, manslaughter! [SIR HARRY _knocks him down_. _Sir H._ Sir, I beg you ten thousand pardons; but I am absolutely compelled to it, upon my honour, sir: nothing can be more averse to my inclinations, than to jest with my honest, dear, loving, obliging friend, the Alderman. [_Striking him all this while_: SMUGGLER _tumbles over and over_. _Enter_ LADY LUREWELL. _Lady L._ Oh, lord! Sir Harry's murdering the poor old man. _Smug._ Oh, dear madam, I was beaten in jest, till I am murdered in good earnest. _Lady L._ Oh! you barbarous man!--Now the devil take you, Sir Harry, for not beating him harder--Well, my dear, you shall come at night, and I'll make you amends. [_Here_ SIR HARRY _takes Snuff_. _Smug._ Madam, I will have amends before I leave the place----Sir, how durst you use me thus! _Sir H._ Sir? _Smug._ Sir, I say that I will have satisfaction. _Sir H._ With all my heart. [_Throws Snuff into his Eyes._ _Smug._ Oh, murder! blindness! fire! Oh, madam, madam, get me some water. Water! fire! fire! water! [_Exit with_ LADY LUREWELL. _Sir H._ How pleasant is resenting an injury without passion! 'Tis the beauty of revenge. No spleen, no trouble, shall my time destroy: Life's but a span, I'll ev'ry inch enjoy. [_Exit._ ACT THE THIRD. SCENE I. _The Street._ _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD _and_ VIZARD. _Colonel S._ I bring him word where she lodged? I the civilest rival in the world? 'Tis impossible. _Vizard._ I shall urge it no farther, sir. I only thought, sir, that my character in the world might add authority to my words, without so many repetitions. _Colonel S._ Pardon me, dear Vizard. Our belief struggles hard, before it can be brought to yield to the disadvantage of what we love. But what said Sir Harry? _Vizard._ He pitied the poor credulous colonel, laughed heartily, flew away with all the raptures of a bridegroom, repeating these lines: A mistress ne'er can pall her lover's joys, Whose wit can whet, whene'er her beauty cloys. _Colonel S._ A mistress ne'er can pall! By all my wrongs he whores her, and I am made their property.----Vengeance----Vizard, you must carry a note for me to Sir Harry. _Vizard._ What, a challenge? I hope you don't design to fight? _Colonel S._ What, wear the livery of my king, and pocket an affront? 'Twere an abuse to his sacred Majesty: a soldier's sword, Vizard, should start of itself, to redress its master's wrong. _Vizard._ However, sir, I think it not proper for me to carry any such message between friends. _Colonel S._ I have ne'er a servant here; what shall I do? _Vizard._ There's Tom Errand, the porter, that plies at the Blue Posts, one who knows Sir Harry and his haunts very well; you may send a note by him. _Colonel S._ Here, you, friend. _Vizard._ I have now some business, and must take my leave; I would advise you, nevertheless, against this affair. _Colonel S._ No whispering now, nor telling of friends, to prevent us. He, that disappoints a man of an honourable revenge, may love him foolishly like a wife, but never value him as a friend. _Vizard._ Nay, the devil take him, that parts you, say I. [_Exit._ _Enter_ TOM ERRAND. _Tom._ Did your honour call porter? _Colonel S._ Is your name Tom Errand? _Tom._ People call me so, an't like your worship. _Colonel S._ D'ye know Sir Harry Wildair? _Tom._ Ay, very well, sir; he's one of my best masters; many a round half crown have I had of his worship; he's newly come home from France, sir. _Colonel S._ Go to the next coffee-house, and wait for me.----Oh, woman, woman, how blessed is man, when favoured by your smiles, and how accursed when all those smiles are found but wanton baits to sooth us to destruction. [_Exeunt._ _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR, _and_ CLINCHER SENIOR, _following_. _Clinch. sen._ Sir, sir, sir, having some business of importance to communicate to you, I would beg your attention to a trifling affair, that I would impart to your understanding. _Sir H._ What is your trifling business of importance, pray, sweet sir? _Clinch. sen._ Pray, sir, are the roads deep between this and Paris? _Sir H._ Why that question, sir? _Clinch. sen._ Because I design to go to the jubilee, sir. I understand that you are a traveller, sir; there is an air of travel in the tie of your cravat, sir: there is indeed, sir----I suppose, sir, you bought this lace in Flanders. _Sir H._ No, sir, this lace was made in Norway. _Clinch. sen._ Norway, sir? _Sir H._ Yes, sir, of the shavings of deal boards. _Clinch. sen._ That's very strange now, 'faith--Lace made of the shavings of deal boards! 'Egad, sir, you travellers see very strange things abroad, very incredible things abroad, indeed. Well, I'll have a cravat of the very same lace before I come home. _Sir H._ But, sir, what preparations have you made for your journey? _Clinch. sen._ A case of pocket-pistols for the bravos, and a swimming-girdle. _Sir H._ Why these, sir? _Clinch. sen._ Oh, lord, sir, I'll tell you----Suppose us in Rome now; away goes I to some ball--for I'll be a mighty beau. Then, as I said, I go to some ball, or some bear-baiting--'tis all one, you know--then comes a fine Italian _bona roba_, and plucks me by the sleeve: Signior Angle, Signior Angle--She's a very fine lady, observe that--Signior Angle, says she--Signiora, says I, and trips after her to the corner of a street, suppose it Russel Street, here, or any other street: then, you know, I must invite her to the tavern; I can do no less----There up comes her bravo; the Italian grows saucy, and I give him an English dowse on the face: I can box, sir, box tightly; I was a 'prentice, sir----But then, sir, he whips out his stiletto, and I whips out my bull-dog--slaps him through, trips down stairs, turns the corner of Russel Street again, and whips me into the ambassador's train, and there I'm safe as a beau behind the scenes. _Sir H._ Is your pistol charged, sir? _Clinch. sen._ Only a brace of bullets, that's all, sir. _Sir H._ 'Tis a very fine pistol, truly; pray let me see it. _Clinch. sen._ With all my heart, sir. _Sir H._ Harkye, Mr. Jubilee, can you digest a brace of bullets? _Clinch. sen._ Oh, by no means in the world, sir. _Sir H._ I'll try the strength of your stomach, however. Sir, you're a dead man. [_Presenting the Pistol to his Breast._ _Clinch. sen._ Consider, dear sir, I am going to the Jubilee: when I come home again, I am a dead man at your service. _Sir H._ Oh, very well, sir; but take heed you are not so choleric for the future. _Clinch. sen._ Choleric, sir! Oons, I design to shoot seven Italians in a week, sir. _Sir H._ Sir, you won't have provocation. _Clinch. sen._ Provocation, sir! Zouns, sir, I'll kill any man for treading upon my corns: and there will be a devilish throng of people there: they say that all the princes of Italy will be there. _Sir H._ And all the fops and fiddlers in Europe----But the use of your swimming girdle, pray sir? _Clinch. sen._ Oh lord, sir, that's easy. Suppose the ship cast away; now, whilst, other foolish people are busy at their prayers, I whip on my swimming girdle, clap a month's provision in my pocket, and sails me away, like an egg in a duck's belly. Well, sir, you must pardon me now, I'm going to see my mistress. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ This fellow's an accomplished ass before he goes abroad. Well, this Angelica has got into my heart, and I cannot get her out of my head. I must pay her t'other visit. [_Exit._ SCENE II. LADY DARLING'S _House_. _Enter_ ANGELICA, LADY DARLING, CLINCHER JUNIOR, _and_ DICKY. _Lady D._ This is my daughter, cousin. _Dicky._ Now sir, remember your three scrapes. _Clinch. jun._ [_Saluting_ ANGELICA.] One, two, three, your humble servant. Was not that right, Dicky? _Dicky._ Ay, 'faith, sir; but why don't you speak to her? _Clinch. jun._ I beg your pardon, Dicky; I know my distance. Would you have me to speak to a lady at the first sight? _Dicky._ Ay sir, by all means; the first aim is the surest. _Clinch. jun._ Now for a good jest, to make her laugh heartily----By Jupiter Ammon, I'll give her a kiss. [_Goes towards her._ _Enter_ WILDAIR, _interposing_. _Sir H._ 'Tis all to no purpose; I told you so before; your pitiful five guineas will never do. You may go; I'll outbid you. _Clinch. jun._ What the devil! the madman's here again. _Lady D._ Bless me, cousin, what d'ye mean? Affront a gentleman of his quality in my house? _Clinch. jun._ Quality!--Why, madam, I don't know what you mean by your madmen, and your beaux, and your quality----they're all alike, I believe. _Lady D._ Pray, sir, walk with me into the next room. [_Exit_ LADY DARLING, _leading_ CLINCHER, DICKY _following_. _Ang._ Sir, if your conversation be no more agreeable than 'twas the last time, I would advise you to make your visit as short as you can. _Sir H._ The offences of my last visit, madam, bore their punishment in the commission; and have made me as uneasy till I receive pardon, as your ladyship can be till I sue for it. _Ang._ Sir Harry, I did not well understand the offence, and must therefore proportion it to the greatness of your apology; if you would, therefore, have me think it light, take no great pains in an excuse. _Sir H._ How sweet must the lips be that guard that tongue! Then, madam, no more of past offences; let us prepare for joys to come. Let this seal my pardon. [_Kisses her Hand._ _Ang._ Hold, sir: one question, Sir Harry, and pray answer plainly--D'ye love me? _Sir H._ Love you! Does fire ascend? Do hypocrites dissemble? Usurers love gold, or great men flattery? Doubt these, then question that I love. _Ang._ This shows your gallantry, sir, but not your love. _Sir H._ View your own charms, madam, then judge my passion. _Ang._ If your words be real, 'tis in your power to raise an equal flame in me. _Sir H._ Nay, then, I seize---- _Ang._ Hold, sir; 'tis also possible to make me detest and scorn you worse than the most profligate of your deceiving sex. _Sir H._ Ha! a very odd turn this. I hope, madam, you only affect anger, because you know your frowns are becoming. _Ang._ Sir Harry, you being the best judge of your own designs, can best understand whether my anger should be real or dissembled; think what strict modesty should bear, then judge of my resentment. _Sir H._ Strict modesty should bear! Why, 'faith, madam, I believe, the strictest modesty may bear fifty guineas, and I don't believe 'twill bear one farthing more. _Ang._ What d'ye mean, sir? _Sir H._ Nay, madam, what do you mean? If you go to that. I think now, fifty guineas is a fine offer for your strict modesty, as you call it. _Ang._ I'm afraid you're mad, sir. _Sir H._ Why, madam, you're enough to make any man mad. 'Sdeath, are you not a---- _Ang._ What, sir? _Sir H._ Why, a lady of--strict modesty, if you will have it so. _Ang._ I shall never hereafter trust common report, which represented you, sir, a man of honour, wit, and breeding; for I find you very deficient in them all three. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Now I find, that the strict pretences, which the ladies of pleasure make to strict modesty, is the reason why those of quality are ashamed to wear it. _Enter_ VIZARD. _Vizard._ Ah! Sir Harry, have I caught you? Well, and what success? _Sir H._ Success! 'Tis a shame for you young fellows in town here, to let the wenches grow so saucy. I offered her fifty guineas, and she was in her airs presently, and flew away in a huff. I could have had a brace of countesses in Paris for half the money, and _je vous remercie_ into the bargain. _Vizard._ Gone in her airs, say you! and did not you follow her? _Sir H._ Whither should I follow her? _Vizard._ Into her bedchamber, man; she went on purpose. You a man of gallantry, and not understand that a lady's best pleased when she puts on her airs, as you call it! _Sir H._ She talked to me of strict modesty, and stuff. _Vizard._ Certainly. Most women magnify their modesty, for the same reason that cowards boast their courage--because they have least on't. Come, come, Sir Harry, when you make your next assault, encourage your spirits with brisk Burgundy: if you succeed, 'tis well; if not, you have a fair excuse for your rudeness. I'll go in, and make your peace for what's past. Oh, I had almost forgot----Colonel Standard wants to speak with you about some business. _Sir H._ I'll wait upon him presently; d'ye know where he may be found? _Vizard._ In the piazza of Covent Garden, about an hour hence, I promised to see him: and there you may meet him--to have your throat cut. [_Aside._] I'll go in and intercede for you. _Sir H._ But no foul play with the lady, Vizard. [_Exit._ _Vizard._ No fair play, I can assure you. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _The Street before_ LADY LUREWELL'S _Lodgings_. CLINCHER SENIOR, _and_ LUREWELL, _coquetting in the Balcony_.--_Enter_ STANDARD. _Colonel S._ How weak is reason in disputes of love! I've heard her falsehood with such pressing proofs, that I no longer should distrust it. Yet still my love would baffle demonstration, and make impossibilities seem probable. [_Looks up._] Ha! That fool too! What, stoop so low as that animal?--'Tis true, women once fallen, like cowards in despair, will stick at nothing; there's no medium in their actions. They must be bright as angels, or black as fiends. But now for my revenge; I'll kick her cully before her face, call her whore, curse the whole sex, and leave her. [_Goes in._ SCENE IV. _A Dining Room._ _Enter_ LADY LUREWELL _and_ CLINCHER SENIOR. _Lady L._ Oh lord, sir, it is my husband! What will become of you? _Clinch. sen._ Ah, your husband! Oh, I shall be murdered! What shall I do? Where shall I run? I'll creep into an oven--I'll climb up the chimney--I'll fly--I'll swim;----I wish to the lord I were at the Jubilee now. _Lady L._ Can't you think of any thing, sir? _Clinch. sen._ Think! not I; I never could think to any purpose in my life. _Lady L._ What do you want, sir? _Enter_ TOM ERRAND. _Tom._ Madam, I am looking for Sir Harry Wildair; I saw him come in here this morning; and did imagine he might be here still, if he is not gone. _Lady L._ A lucky hit! Here, friend, change clothes with this gentleman, quickly, strip. _Clinch. sen._ Ay, ay, quickly strip; I'll give you half a crown to boot. Come here; so. [_They change Clothes._ _Lady L._ Now slip you [_To_ CLINCH. SENIOR.] down stairs, and wait at the door till my husband be gone; and get you in there [_To_ TOM ERRAND.] till I call you. [_Puts_ ERRAND _in the next Room_. _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD. Oh, sir, are you come? I wonder, sir, how you have the confidence to approach me, after so base a trick. _Colonel S._ Oh, madam, all your artifices won't avail. _Lady L._ Nay, sir, your artifices won't avail. I thought, sir, that I gave you caution enough against troubling me with Sir Harry Wildair's company, when I sent his letters back by you; yet you, forsooth, must tell him where I lodged, and expose me again to his impertinent courtship! _Colonel S._ I expose you to his courtship! _Lady L._ I'll lay my life you'll deny it now. Come, come, sir: a pitiful lie is as scandalous to a red coat, as an oath to a black. _Colonel S._ You're all lies; first, your heart is false; your eyes are double; one look belies another; and then your tongue does contradict them all--Madam, I see a little devil just now hammering out a lie in your pericranium. _Lady L._ As I hope for mercy, he's in the right on't. [_Aside._ _Colonel. S._ Yes, yes, madam, I exposed you to the courtship of your fool Clincher, too; I hope your female wiles will impose that upon me----also---- _Lady L._ Clincher! Nay, now you're stark mad. I know no such person. _Colonel S._ Oh, woman in perfection! not know him! 'Slife, madam, can my eyes, my piercing jealous eyes, be so deluded? Nay, madam, my nose could not mistake him; for I smelt the fop by his pulvilio, from the balcony down to the street. _Lady L._ The balcony! ha! ha! ha! the balcony! I'll be hanged but he has mistaken Sir Harry Wildair's footman, with a new French livery, for a beau. _Colonel S._ 'Sdeath, madam! what is there in me that looks like a cully? Did I not see him? _Lady L._ No, no, you could not see him; you're dreaming, colonel. Will you believe your eyes, now that I have rubbed them open?--Here, you friend. _Enter_ TOM ERRAND, _in_ CLINCHER SENIOR'S _Clothes_. _Colonel S._ This is illusion all; my eyes conspire against themselves. Tis legerdemain. _Lady L._ Legerdemain! Is that all your acknowledgment for your rude behaviour?--Oh, what a curse is it to love as I do!--Begone sir, [_To_ TOM ERRAND.] to your impertinent master, and tell him I shall never be at leisure to receive any of his troublesome visits.--Send to me to know when I should be at home!--Begone, sir. [_Exit_ TOM ERRAND.] I am sure he has made me an unfortunate woman. [_Weeps._ _Colonel S._ Nay, then there is no certainty in nature; and truth is only falsehood well disguised. _Lady L._ Sir, had not I owned my fond, foolish passion, I should not have been subject to such unjust suspicions: but it is an ungrateful return. [_Weeping._ _Colonel S._ Now, where are all my firm resolves? I hope, madam, you'll pardon me, since jealousy, that magnified my suspicion, is as much the effect of love, as my easiness in being satisfied. _Lady L._ Easiness in being satisfied! No, no, sir; cherish your suspicions, and feed upon your jealousy: 'tis fit meat for your squeamish stomach. With me all women should this rule pursue: Who think us false, should never find us true. [_Exit in a Rage._ _Enter_ CLINCHER SENIOR _in_ TOM ERRAND'S _Clothes_. _Clinch. sen._ Well, intriguing is the prettiest, pleasantest thing for a man of my parts.--How shall we laugh at the husband, when he is gone?--How sillily he looks! He's in labour of horns already.--To make a colonel a cuckold! 'Twill be rare news for the alderman. _Colonel S._ All this Sir Harry has occasioned; but he's brave, and will afford me a just revenge.--Oh, this is the porter I sent the challenge by----Well sir, have you found him? _Clinch. sen._ What the devil does he mean now? _Colonel S._ Have you given Sir Harry the note, fellow? _Clinch. sen._ The note! what note? _Colonel S._ The letter, blockhead, which I sent by you to Sir Harry Wildair; have you seen him? _Clinch. sen._ Oh, lord, what shall I say now? Seen him? Yes, sir--no, sir.--I have, sir--I have not, sir. _Colonel S._ The fellow's mad. Answer me directly, sirrah, or I'll break your head. _Clinch. sen._ I know Sir Harry very well, sir; but as to the note, sir, I can't remember a word on't: truth is, I have a very bad memory. _Colonel S._ Oh, sir, I'll quicken your memory. [_Strikes him._ _Clinch. sen._ Zouns, sir, hold!--I did give him the note. _Colonel S._ And what answer? _Clinch. sen._ I mean, I did not give him the note. _Colonel S._ What, d'ye banter, rascal? [_Strikes him again._ _Clinch. sen._ Hold, sir, hold! He did send an answer. _Colonel S._ What was't, villain? _Clinch. sen._ Why, truly sir, I have forgot it: I told you that I had a very treacherous memory. _Colonel S._ I'll engage you shall remember me this month, rascal. [_Beats him, and exit._ _Enter_ LUREWELL _and_ PARLY. _Lady L._ Oh, my poor gentleman! and was it beaten? _Clinch. sen._ Yes, I have been beaten. But where's my clothes? my clothes? _Lady L._ What, you won't leave me so soon, my dear, will ye? _Clinch. sen._ Will ye!--If ever I peep into the colonel's tent again, may I be forced to run the gauntlet. But my clothes, madam. _Lady L._ I sent the porter down stairs with them: did not you meet him? _Clinch. sen._ Meet him? No, not I. _Parly._ No! He went out at the back door, and is run clear away, I'm afraid. _Clinch. sen._ Gone, say you, and with my clothes, my fine Jubilee clothes?--Oh, the rogue, the thief!--I'll have him hang'd for murder--But how shall I get home in this pickle? _Parly._ I'm afraid, sir, the colonel will be back presently, for he dines at home. _Clinch. sen._ Oh, then I must sneak off. Was ever such an unfortunate beau, To have his coat well thrash'd, and lose his coat also! [_Exit._ _Parly._ Methinks, madam, the injuries you have suffered by men must be very great, to raise such heavy resentments against the whole sex;--and, I think, madam, your anger should be only confined to the author of your wrongs. _Lady L._ The author! alas, I know him not. _Parly._ Not know him? Tis odd, madam, that a man should rob you of that same jewel, and you not know him. _Lady L._ Leave trifling: 'tis a subject that always sours my temper: but since, by thy faithful service, I have some reason to confide in your secresy, hear the strange relation.--Some twelve years ago, I lived at my father's house in Oxfordshire, blest with innocence, the ornamental, but weak guard of blooming beauty. Then it happened that three young gentlemen from the university coming into the country, and being benighted, and strangers, called at my father's: he was very glad of their company, and offered them the entertainment of his house. _Parly._ Which they accepted, no doubt. Oh, these strolling collegians are never abroad, but upon some mischief. _Lady L._ Two of them had a heavy, pedantic air: but the third---- _Parly._ Ah, the third, madam--the third of all things, they say, is very critical. _Lady L._ He was--but in short, nature formed him for my undoing. His very looks were witty, and his expressive eyes spoke softer, prettier things, than words could frame. _Parly._ There will be mischief by and by; I never heard a woman talk so much of eyes, but there were tears presently after. _Lady L._ My father was so well pleased with his conversation, that he begged their company next day; they consented, and next night, Parly---- _Parly._ Ah, next night, madam----next night (I'm afraid) was a night indeed. _Lady L._ He bribed my maid, with his gold, out of her modesty; and me, with his rhetoric, out of my honour. [_Weeps._] He swore that he would come down from Oxford in a fortnight, and marry me. _Parly._ The old bait, the old bait--I was cheated just so myself. [_Aside._] But had not you the wit to know his name all this while? _Lady L._ He told me that he was under an obligation to his companions, of concealing himself then, but, that he would write to me in two days, and let me know his name and quality. After all the binding oaths of constancy, I gave him a ring with this motto--"_Love and Honour_"--then we parted, and I never saw the dear deceiver more. _Parly._ No, nor never will, I warrant you. _Lady L._ I need not tell my griefs, which my father's death made a fair pretence for; he left me sole heiress and executrix to three thousand pounds a year: at last, my love for this single dissembler turned to a hatred of the whole sex; and, resolving to divert my melancholy, I went to travel. Here I will play my last scene; then retire to my country-house, and live solitary. We shall have that old impotent lecher, Smuggler, here to-night; I have a plot to swinge him, and his precise nephew, Vizard. _Parly._ I think, madam, you manage every body that comes in your way. _Lady L._ No, Parly; those men, whose pretensions I found just and honourable, I fairly dismissed, by letting them know my firm resolutions never to marry, But those villains, that would attempt my honour, I've seldom failed to manage. _Parly._ What d'ye think of the colonel, madam? I suppose his designs are honourable. _Lady L._ That man's a riddle; there's something of honour in his temper that pleases; I'm sure he loves me too, because he's soon jealous, and soon satisfied.--But hang him, I have teased him enough--Besides, Parly, I begin to be tired of my revenge: but this buss and guinea I must maul once more. I'll hansel his woman's clothes for him. Go, get me pen and ink; I must write to Vizard too. Fortune, this once assist me as before: Two such machines can never work in vain, As thy propitious wheel, and my projecting brain. [_Exeunt._ ACT THE FOURTH. SCENE I. _Covent Garden._ _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR _and_ COLONEL STANDARD, _meeting_. _Colonel S._ I thought, Sir Harry, to have met you ere this in a more convenient place; but since my wrongs were without ceremony, my revenge shall be so too.--Draw, sir. _Sir H._ Draw, sir! What shall I draw? _Colonel S._ Come, come, sir, I like your facetious humour well enough; it shows courage and unconcern. I know you brave, and therefore use you thus. Draw your sword. _Sir H._ Nay, to oblige you, I will draw; but the devil take me if I fight.--Perhaps, colonel, this is the prettiest blade you have seen. _Colonel S._ I doubt not but the arm is good; and therefore think both worth my resentment. Come, sir. _Sir H._ But, pr'ythee, colonel, dost think that I am such a madman, as to send my soul to the devil and body to the worms--upon every fool's errand? [_Aside._ _Colonel S._ I hope you're no coward, sir. _Sir H._ Coward, sir! I have eight thousand pounds a year, sir. _Colonel S._ You fought in the army, to my knowledge. _Sir H._ Ay, for the same reason that I wore a red coat; because 'twas fashionable. _Colonel S._ Sir, you fought a French count in Paris. _Sir H._ True, sir, he was a beau, like myself. Now you're a soldier, colonel, and fighting's your trade; and I think it downright madness to contend with any man in his profession. _Colonel S._ Come, sir, no more dallying; I shall take very unseemly methods, if you don't show yourself a gentleman. _Sir H._ A gentleman! Why, there again, now. A gentleman! I tell you once more, colonel, that I am a baronet, and have eight thousand pounds a year. I can dance, sing, ride, fence, understand the languages--Now I can't conceive how running you through the body should contribute one jot more to my gentility. But pray, colonel, I had forgot to ask you, what's the quarrel? _Colonel S._ A woman, sir. _Sir H._ Then I put up my sword. Take her. _Colonel S._ Sir, my honour's concerned. _Sir H._ Nay, if your honour be concerned with a woman, get it out of her hands as soon as you can.--An honourable lover is the greatest slave in nature: some will say, the greatest fool. Come, come, colonel, this is something about the Lady Lurewell, I warrant; I can give you satisfaction in that affair. _Colonel S._ Do so then immediately. _Sir H._ Put up your sword first; you know I dare fight, but I had much rather make you a friend than an enemy. I can assure you this lady will prove too hard for one of your temper. You have too much honour, too much in conscience, to be a favourite with the ladies. _Colonel S._ I'm assured, sir, she never gave you any encouragement. _Sir H._ A man can never hear reason with his sword in his hand. Sheath your weapon; and then, if I don't satisfy you, sheath it in my body. _Colonel S._ Give me but demonstration of her granting you any favour, and it is enough. _Sir H._ Will you take my word? _Colonel S._ Pardon me, sir, I cannot. _Sir H._ Will you believe your own eyes? _Colonel S._ 'Tis ten to one whether I shall or no; they have deceived me already. _Sir H._ That's hard--but some means I shall devise for your satisfaction--[_Noise._]--We must fly this place, else that cluster of mob will overwhelm us. [_Exeunt._ _Enter_ MOB, TOM ERRAND'S _Wife hurrying in_ CLINCHER SENIOR _in_ ERRAND'S _Clothes_. _Wife._ Oh! the villain, the rogue, he has murdered my husband. Ah, my poor Timothy! [_Crying._ _Clinch. sen._ Dem your Timothy!--your husband has murdered me, woman; for he has carried away my fine Jubilee clothes. _Mob._ Away with him----away with him to the Thames. _Clinch. sen._ Oh, if I had but my swimming girdle now! _Enter_ CONSTABLE. _Const._ Hold, neighbours, I command the peace. _Wife._ Oh, Mr. Constable, here's a rogue that has murdered my husband, and robbed him of his clothes. _Const._ Murder and robbery!--Then he must be a gentleman.----Hands off there; he must not be abused.----Give an account of yourself. Are you a gentleman? _Clinch. sen._ No, sir, I'm a beau. _Const._ A beau--Then you have killed nobody, I'm persuaded. How came you by these clothes, sir? _Clinch. sen._ You must know, sir, that walking along, sir, I don't know how, sir, I can't tell where, sir,--and so the porter and I changed clothes, sir. _Const._ Very well. The man speaks reason, and like a gentleman. _Wife._ But pray, Mr. Constable, ask him how he changed clothes with him. _Const._ Silence, woman, and don't disturb the court. Well, sir, how did you change clothes? _Clinch. sen._ Why, sir, he pulled off my coat, and I drew off his: so I put on his coat, and he put on mine. _Const._ Why, neighbour, I don't find that he's guilty: search him--and if he carries no arms about him, we'll let him go. [_They search his Pockets, and pull out his Pistols._ _Clinch. sen._ Oh, gemini! My Jubilee pistols! _Const._ What, a case of pistols! Then the case is plain. Speak, what are you, sir? Whence came you, and whither go you? _Clinch. sen._ Sir, I came from Russel Street, and am going to the Jubilee. _Wife._ You shall go the gallows, you rogue. _Const._ Away with him, away with him to Newgate, straight. _Clinch. sen._ I shall go to the Jubilee now, indeed. _Enter_ SIR. H. WILDAIR _and_ COLONEL STANDARD. _Sir H._ In short, colonel, 'tis all nonsense--fight for a woman! Hard by is the lady's house, if you please, we'll wait on her together: you shall draw your sword--I'll draw my snuff-box: you shall produce your wounds received in war--I'll relate mine by Cupid's dart: you shall swear--I'll sigh: you shall sa, sa, and I'll coupée; and if she flies not to my arms, like a hawk to its perch, my dancing-master deserves to be damned. _Colonel S._ With the generality of women, I grant you, these arts may prevail. _Sir H._ Generality of women! Why there again, you're out. They're all alike, sir: I never heard of any one that was particular, but one. _Colonel S._ Who was she, pray? _Sir H._ Penelope, I think she's called, and that's a poetical story too. When will you find a poet in our age make a woman so chaste? _Colonel S._ Well, Sir Harry, your facetious humour can disguise falsehood, and make calumny pass for satire; but you have promised me ocular demonstration that she favours you: make that good, and I shall then maintain faith and female to be as inconsistent as truth and falsehood. _Sir H._ But will you be convinced, if our plot succeeds. _Colonel S._ I rely on your word and honour, Sir Harry. _Sir H._ Then meet me half an hour hence at the Shakspeare; you must oblige me by taking a hearty glass with me toward the fitting me out for a certain project, which this night I undertake. _Colonel S._ I guess, by the preparation, that woman's the design. _Sir H._ Yes, 'faith.--I am taken dangerously ill with two foolish maladies, modesty and love: the first I'll cure with Burgundy, and my love by a night's lodging with the damsel. A sure remedy. _Probatum est._ _Colonel S._ I'll certainly meet you, sir. [_Exeunt severally._ _Enter_ CLINCHER JUNIOR _and_ DICKY. _Clinch. jun._ Ah, Dick, this London is a sad place, a sad vicious place: I wish that I were in the country again. And this brother of mine--I'm sorry he's so great a rake: I had rather see him dead than see him thus. _Dicky._ Ay, sir, he'll spend his whole estate at this same Jubilee. Who d'ye think lives at this same Jubilee? _Clinch. jun._ Who, pray? _Dicky._ The Pope. _Clinch. jun._ The devil he does! My brother go to the place where the Pope dwells! He's bewitched, sure! _Enter_ TOM ERRAND, _in_ CLINCHER SENIOR'S _Clothes_. _Dicky._ Indeed, I believe he is, for he's strangely altered. _Clinch. jun._ Altered! Why, he looks like a Jesuit already. _Tom._ This lace will sell. What a blockhead was the fellow to trust me with his coat! If I can get cross the garden, down to the water-side, I am pretty secure. _Clinch. jun._ Brother?--Alaw! Oh, gemini! Are you my brother? _Dicky._ I seize you in the kings name, sir. _Tom._ Oh, lord! should this prove some parliament man now! _Clinch. jun._ Speak, you rogue, what are you? _Tom._ A poor porter, and going of an errand. _Dicky._ What errand? Speak, you rogue. _Tom._ A fool's errand, I'm afraid. _Clinch. jun._ Who sent you? _Tom._ A beau, sir. _Dicky._ No, no; the rogue has murdered your brother, and stripped him of his clothes. _Clinch. jun._ Murdered my brother! Oh, crimini! Oh, my poor Jubilee brother! Stay, by Jupiter Ammon, I'm heir though. Speak, sir, have you killed him? Confess that you have killed him, and I'll give you half a crown. _Tom._ Who I, sir? Alack-a-day, sir, I never killed any man, but a carrier's horse once. _Clinch. jun._ Then you shall certainly be hanged; but confess that you killed him, and we'll let you go. _Tom._ Telling the truth hangs a man, but confessing a lie can do no harm: besides, if the worst come to the worst, I can but deny it again.--Well, sir, since I must tell you, I did kill him. _Clinch. jun._ Here's your money, sir.--But are you sure you killed him dead? _Tom._ Sir, I'll swear it before any judge in England. _Dicky._ But are you sure that he's dead in law? _Tom._ Dead in law! I can't tell whether he be dead in law. But he's as dead as a door nail; for I gave him seven knocks on the head with a hammer. _Dicky._ Then you have the estate by statute. Any man that's knocked on the head is dead in law. _Clinch. jun._ But are you sure he was compos mentis when he was killed? _Tom._ I suppose he was, sir; for he told me nothing to the contrary afterwards. _Clinch. jun._ Hey! Then I go to the Jubilee.--Strip, sir, strip. By Jupiter Ammon, strip. _Dicky._ Ah! don't swear, sir. [_Puts on his Brother's Clothes._ _Clinch. jun._ Swear, sir! Zoons, ha'n't I got the estate, sir? Come, sir, now I'm in mourning for my brother. _Tom._ I hope you'll let me go now, sir. _Clinch. jun._ Yes, yes, sir; but you must do the favour to swear positively before a magistrate, that you killed him dead, that I may enter upon the estate without any trouble. By Jupiter Ammon, all my religion's gone, since I put on these fine clothes.--Hey, call me a coach somebody. _Tom._ Ay, master, let me go, and I'll call one immediately. _Clinch. jun._ No, no; Dicky, carry this spark before a justice, and when he has made oath, you may discharge him. And I'll go see Angelica. [_Exeunt_ DICKY _and_ TOM.] Now that I'm an elder brother, I'll court, and swear, and rant and rake, and go to the Jubilee with the best of them. [_Exit._ SCENE II. LADY LUREWELL'S _House_. _Enter_ LADY LUREWELL _and_ PARLY. _Lure._ Are you sure that Vizard had my letter? _Parly._ Yes, yes, madam; one of your ladyship's footmen gave it to him in the Park, and he told the bearer, with all transports of joy, that he would be punctual to a minute. _Lady L._ Thus most villains some time or other are punctual to their ruin; Are all things prepared for his reception? _Parly._ Exactly to your ladyship's order: the alderman too is just come, dressed and cooked up for iniquity. _Lady L._ Then he has got woman's clothes on? _Parly._ Yes, madam, and has passed upon the family for your nurse. _Lady L._ Convey him into that closet, and put out the candles, and tell him, I'll wait on him presently. When he is tired of his situation, let the servants pretend they take him for a common rogue, come with the intent to rob the house, and pump him heartily. [_As_ PARLY _goes to put out the Candles, somebody knocks.--Music plays without._ _Lady L._ This must be Sir Harry; tell him I am not to be spoken with. _Parly._ Sir, my lady is not to be spoken with. _Sir H._ [_Without._] I must have that from her own mouth, Mrs. Parly. Play, gentlemen. [_Music plays again._ _Enter_ SIR HARRY. _Lady L._ 'Tis too early for serenading, Sir Harry. _Sir H._ Wheresoever love is, there music is proper. _Lady L._ But, Sir Harry, what tempest drives you here at this hour? _Sir H._ No tempest, madam, but love madam. [WILDAIR _taking her by the Hand_. _Lady L._ As pure and white as angels' soft desires. _Sir H._ Fierce, as when ripe consenting beauty fires. _Lady L._ [_Aside._] If this be a love token, [WILDAIR _drops a ring, she takes it up_.] your mistress's favours hang very loose about you, sir. _Sir H._ I can't, justly, madam, pay your trouble of taking it up, by any thing but desiring you to wear it. _Lady L._ You gentlemen have the cunningest ways of playing the fool, and are so industrious in your profuseness. Speak seriously, am I beholden to chance or design for this ring? _Sir H._ To design, upon my honour. And I hope my design will succeed. [_Aside._ _Lady L._ Shall I be free with you, Sir Harry? _Sir H._ With all my heart, madam, so I may be free with you. _Lady L._ Then plainly, sir, I shall beg the favour to see you some other time; for at this very minute I have two lovers in the house. _Sir H._ Then to be as plain, I must begone this minute, for I must see another mistress within these two hours. _Lady L._ Frank and free. _Sir H._ As you with me--Madam, your most humble servant. [_Exit._ _Lady L._ Nothing can disturb his humour. Now for my merchant and Vizard. [_Exit, and takes the Candles with her._ _Enter_ PARLY, _leading in_ SMUGGLER, _dressed in Woman's Clothes._ _Parly._ This way, Mr. Alderman. _Smug._ Well, Mrs. Parly,--I'm obliged to you for this trouble: here are a couple of shillings for you. Times are hard, very hard indeed; but next time I'll steal a pair of silk stockings from my wife, and bring them to you--What are you fumbling about my pockets for? _Parly._ Only setting the plaits of your gown: here, sir, get into this closet, and my lady will wait on you presently. [_Puts him into the Closet, runs out, and returns with_ VIZARD. _Vizard._ Where wouldst thou lead me, my dear auspicious little pilot? _Parly._ You're almost in port, sir; my lady's in the closet, and will come out to you immediately. _Vizard._ Let me thank thee as I ought. [_Kisses her._ _Parly._ Pshaw, who has hired me best? a couple of shillings, or a couple of kisses? [_Exit_ PARLY. _Vizard._ Propitious darkness guides the lover's steps; and night, that shadows outward sense, lights up our inward joy. _Smug._ My nephew's voice, and certainly possessed with an evil spirit. _Vizard._ Ha! I hear a voice. Madam----my life, my happiness, where are you, madam? _Smug._ Madam! He takes me for a woman too: I'll try him. Where have you left your sanctity, Mr. Vizard? _Vizard._ Talk no more of that ungrateful subject--I left it where it has only business, with day-light; 'tis needless to wear a mask in the dark. _Smug._ Well, sir, but I suppose your dissimulation has some other motive besides pleasure? _Vizard._ Yes, madam, the honestest motive in the world--interest----You must know, madam, that I have an old uncle, Alderman Smuggler; you have seen him, I suppose. _Smug._ Yes, yes, I have some small acquaintance with him. _Vizard._ 'Tis the most knavish, precise, covetous old rogue, that ever died of the gout. _Smug._ Ah, the young son of a whore! [_Aside._] Well, sir, and what of him? _Vizard._ Why, madam, he has a swingeing estate, which I design to purchase as a saint, and spend like a gentleman. He got it by cheating, and should lose it by deceit. By the pretence of my zeal and sobriety, I'll cozen the old miser, one of these days, out of a settlement and deed of conveyance---- _Smug._ It shall be a deed to convey you to the gallows then, ye young dog. [_Aside._ _Vizard._ And no sooner he's dead, but I'll rattle over his grave with a coach and six, to inform his covetous ghost how genteelly I spend his money. _Smug._ I'll prevent you, boy; for I'll have my money buried with me. [_Aside._ _Vizard._ Bless me, madam! here's a light coming this way. I must fly immediately.----When shall I see you, madam? _Smug._ Sooner than you expect, my dear. _Vizard._ Pardon me, dear madam, I would not be seen for the world. I would sooner forfeit my life, my pleasure, than my reputation. [_Exit._ _Smug._ Egad, and so would I too. [_Exit._ ACT THE FIFTH. SCENE I. LADY DARLING'S _House_. _Enter_ LADY DARLING _and_ ANGELICA. _Lady D._ Daughter, since you have to deal with a man of so peculiar a temper, you must not think the general arts of love can secure him; you may therefore allow such a courtier some encouragement extraordinary, without reproach to your modesty. _Ang._ I am sensible, madam, that a formal nicety makes our modesty sit awkward, and appears rather a chain to enslave, than a bracelet to adorn us; it should show, when unmolested, easy and innocent as a dove, but strong and vigorous as a falcon, when assaulted. _Lady D._ I'm afraid, daughter, you mistake Sir Harry's gaiety for dishonour. _Ang._ Though modesty, madam, may wink, it must not sleep, when powerful enemies are abroad. I must confess, that, of all men's, I would not see Sir Harry Wildair's faults. _Lady D._ You must certainly be mistaken, Angelica; for I'm satisfied Sir Harry's designs are only to court and marry you. _Ang._ His pretence, perhaps, was such. Pray, madam, by what means were you made acquainted with his designs? _Lady D._ Means, child! Why, my cousin Vizard, who, I'm sure, is your sincere friend, sent him. He brought me this letter from my cousin. [_Gives her the Letter, which she opens._ _Ang._ Ha! Vizard!--then I'm abused in earnest--Would Sir Harry, by his instigation, fix a base affront upon me? No, I can't suspect him of so ungenteel a crime--This letter shall trace the truth. [_Aside._]--My suspicions, madam, are much cleared; and I hope to satisfy your ladyship in my management, when I next see Sir Harry. _Enter_ SERVANT. _Serv._ Madam, here's a gentleman below, calls himself Wildair. _Lady D._ Conduct him up. [_Exit_ SERVANT.] Daughter, I won't doubt your discretion. [_Exit_ LADY DARLING. _Enter_ SIR HARRY WILDAIR. _Sir H._ Oh, the delights of love and Burgundy!--Madam, I have toasted your ladyship fifteen bumpers successively, and swallowed Cupids like loches to every glass. _Ang._ And what then, sir? _Sir H._ Why, then, madam, the wine has got into my head, and the Cupids into my heart; and unless, by quenching quick my flame, you kindly ease the smart, I'm a lost man, madam. _Ang._ Drunkenness, Sir Harry, is the worst pretence a gentleman can make for rudeness; for the excuse is as scandalous as the fault. Therefore, pray consider who you are so free with, sir; a woman of condition, that can call half a dozen footmen upon occasion. _Sir H._ Nay, madam, if you have a mind to toss me in a blanket, half a dozen chambermaids would do better service. Come, come, madam; though the wine makes me lisp, yet it has taught me to speak plainer. By all the dust of my ancient progenitors, I must this night rest in your arms. _Ang._ Nay, then----who waits there? _Enter_ FOOTMEN. Take hold of that madman, and bind him. _Sir H._ Nay, then, Burgundy's the word; slaughter will ensue. Hold--Do you know, scoundrels, that I have been drinking victorious Burgundy? [_Draws._ _Servants._ We know you're drunk, sir. _Sir H._ Then how have you the impudence, rascals, to assault a gentleman with a couple of flasks of courage in his head? _Servants._ We must do as our young mistress commands us. _Sir H._ Nay, then, have among ye, dogs! [_Throws Money among them; they scramble and take it up: he pelting them out, shuts the Door, and returns._] Rascals, poltroons!--I have charmed the dragon, and now the fruit's my own. I have put the whole army to flight; and now I'll take the general prisoner. [_Laying hold on her._ _Ang._ I conjure you, sir, by the sacred name of Honour, by your dead father's name, and the fair reputation of your mother's chastity, that you offer not the least offence. Already you have wronged me past redress. _Sir H._ Thou art the most unaccountable creature---- _Ang._ What madness, Sir Harry, what wild dream of loose desire, could prompt you to attempt this baseness?--View me well----the brightness of my mind, methinks, should lighten outwards, and let you see your mistake in my behaviour. _Sir H._ [_Mimicking._] Tal tidum, tidum, tal ti didi didum. A million to one, now, but this girl is just come flush from reading the Rival Queens----'Egad, I'll at her in her own cant--Oh, my Statira! Oh, my angry dear! turn thy eyes on me--behold thy beau in buskins. _Ang._ Behold me, sir; view me with a sober thought, free from those fumes of wine that throw a mist before your sight, and you shall find that every glance from my reproaching eyes is armed with sharp resentment, and with a virtuous pride that looks dishonour dead. _Sir H._ This is the first whore in heroics that I have met with. [_Aside._] Lookye, madam, as to that slender particular of your virtue, we sha'n't quarrel about it; you may be as virtuous as any woman in England, if you please. But, pray, madam, be pleased to consider, what is this same virtue that you make such a mighty noise about--Can your virtue keep you a coach and six? No, no; your virtuous women walk on foot.--Can your virtue stake for you at picquet? No. Then what business has a woman with virtue? Come, come, madam, I offered you fifty guineas; there's a hundred----The devil!--virtuous still!--Why, it is a hundred, five score, a hundred guineas. _Ang._ Oh, indignation! Were I a man, you durst not use me thus. But the mean, poor abuse you throw on me, reflects upon yourself: our sex still strikes an awe upon the brave, and only cowards dare affront a woman. _Sir H._ Affront! 'Sdeath, madam, a hundred guineas will set you up a bank at basset; a hundred guineas will furnish out your closet with china; a hundred guineas will give you an air of quality; a hundred guineas will buy you a rich cabinet for your billet-doux, or a fine Common Prayer Book for your virtue; a hundred guineas will buy a hundred fine things, and fine things are for fine ladies, and fine ladies are for fine gentlemen, and fine gentlemen are----'Egad, this Burgundy makes a man speak like an angel----Come, come, madam, take it, and put it to what use you please. _Ang._ I'll use it as I would the base unworthy giver, thus---- [_Throws down the Purse, and stamps upon it._ _Sir H._ I have no mind to meddle in state affairs; but these women will make me a parliament-man in spite of my teeth, on purpose to bring in a bill against their extortion. She tramples under foot that deity which all the world adores--Oh, the blooming pride of beautiful eighteen!--Pshaw!--I'll talk to her no longer; I'll make my market with the old gentlewoman; she knows business better----[_Goes to the Door._]--Here, you, friend: pray, desire the old lady to walk in----Harkye, 'egad, madam, I'll tell your mother. _Enter_ LADY DARLING. _Lady D._ Well, Sir Harry, and how d'ye like my daughter, pray? _Sir H._ Like her, madam!--Harkye, will you take it?--Why, 'faith, madam--Take the money, I say, or, 'egad, all's out. _Ang._ All shall out--Sir, you are a scandal to the name of gentleman. _Sir H._ With all my heart, madam--In short, madam, your daughter has used me somewhat too familiarly, though I have treated her like a woman of quality. _Lady D._ How, sir? _Sir H._ Why, madam, I have offered her a hundred guineas. _Lady D._ A hundred guineas! Upon what score? _Sir H._ Upon what score! Lord, lord, how these old women love to hear bawdy!--Why, 'faith, madam, I have never a _double entendre_ ready at present; but I suppose you know upon what score. _Ang._ Hold, sir, stop your abusive tongue, too loose for modest ears to hear----Madam, I did before suspect, that his designs were base, now they're too plain; this knight, this mighty man of wit and humour, is made a tool to a knave--Vizard has sent him on a bully's errand, to affront a woman; but I scorn the abuse, and him that offered it. _Lady D._ How, sir, come to affront us! D'ye know who we are, sir? _Sir H._ Know who you are! Why, your daughter there, is Mr. Vizard's --cousin, I suppose. And for you, madam--I suppose your ladyship to be one of those civil, obliging, discreet old gentlewomen, who keep their visiting days for the entertainment of their presenting friends, whom they treat with imperial tea, a private room, and a pack of cards. Now I suppose you do understand me. _Lady D._ This is beyond sufferance! But say, thou abusive man, what injury have you ever received from me, or mine, thus to engage you in this scandalous aspersion. _Ang._ Yes, sir, what cause, what motives could induce you thus to debase yourself below your rank? _Sir H._ Heyday! Now, dear Roxana, and you, my fair Statira, be not so very heroic in your style: Vizard's letter may resolve you, and answer all the impertinent questions you have made me. _Lady D. and Ang._ We appeal to that. _Sir H._ And I'll stand to't; he read it to me, and the contents were pretty plain, I thought. _Ang._ Here, sir, peruse it, and see how much we are injured, and you deceived. _Sir H._ [_Opening the Letter._] But hold, madam, [_To_ LADY DARLING.] before I read I'll make some condition:--Mr. Vizard says here, that I won't scruple thirty or forty pieces. Now, madam, if you have clapped in another cypher to the account, and made it three or four hundred, 'egad I'll not stand to't. _Lady D._ The letter, sir, shall answer you. _Sir H._ Well then--[Reads.] _Out of my earnest inclination to serve your ladyship, and my cousin Angelica_--Ay, ay, the very words, I can say it by heart--_I have sent Sir Harry Wildair to_--What the devil's this?--_Sent Sir Harry Wildair to court my cousin_--He read to me quite a different thing--_He's a gentleman of great parts and fortune_--He's a son of a whore, and a rascal--_And would make your daughter very happy_ [Whistles.] _in a husband_.----[_Looks foolish, and hums a Song._]--Oh! poor Sir Harry, what have thy angry stars designed? _Ang._ Now, sir, I hope you need no instigation to redress our wrongs, since even the injury points the way. _Lady D._ Think, sir, that our blood for many generations has run in the purest channel of unsullied honour. _Sir H._ Ay, madam. [_Bows to her._ _Ang._ Consider what a tender flower is woman's reputation, which the least air of foul detraction blasts. _Sir H._ Yes, madam. [_Bows to the other._ _Lady D._ Call then to mind your rude and scandalous behaviour. _Sir H._ Right, madam. [_Bows again._ _Ang._ Remember the base price you offered me. [_Exit._ _Sir H._ Very true, madam. Was ever man so catechized? _Lady D._ And think that Vizard,--villain Vizard,--caused all this, yet lives: that's all: farewell. _Sir H._ Stay, madam, [_To_ LADY DARLING.] one word; is there no other way to redress your wrongs, but by fighting? _Lady D._ Only one, sir; which, if you can think of, you may do: you know the business I entertained you for. _Sir H._ I understand you, madam. [_Exit_ LADY DARLING.] Here am I brought to a very pretty dilemma. I must commit murder, or commit matrimony; which is the best now? a license from Doctors' Commons, or a sentence from the Old Bailey?--If I kill my man, the law hangs me; if I marry my woman, I shall hang myself.----But, damn it--cowards dare fight:--I'll marry, that's the most daring action of the two. [_Exit._ SCENE II. _Newgate._ CLINCHER SENIOR, _solus_. _Clinch. sen._ How severe and melancholy are Newgate reflections! Last week my father died; yesterday I turned beau; to-day I am laid by the heels, and to-morrow shall be hung by the neck.----I was agreeing with a bookseller about printing an account of my journey through France and Italy; but now the history of my travels must be through Holborn, to Tyburn.--"The last dying speech of Beau Clincher, that was going to the Jubilee--Come, a halfpenny a-piece."--A sad sound, a sad sound, 'faith! 'Tis one way to make a man's death make a great noise in the world. _Enter_ TOM ERRAND. A reprieve! a reprieve! thou dear, dear--damned rogue. Where have you been? Thou art the most welcome--son of a whore; where's my clothes? _Tom._ Sir, I see where mine are. Come, sir, strip, sir, strip. _Clinch. sen._ Sir, you cannot master me, for I am twenty thousand strong. [_Exeunt, struggling._ SCENE III. LADY DARLING'S _House_. _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR, _with Cards_; SERVANTS _following_. _Sir H._ Here, fly all around, and bear these as directed; you to Westminster, you to St. James's, and you into the city. Tell all my friends, a bridegroom's joy invites their presence. Tell them, I am married. If any ask to whom, make no reply; but tell them, that I am married; that joy shall crown the day, and love the night. Begone, fly. _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD. A thousand welcomes, friend; my pleasure's now complete, since I can share it with my friend: brisk joy shall bound from me to you; then back again; and, like the sun, grow warmer by reflection. _Colonel S._ You are always pleasant, Sir Harry; but this transcends yourself: whence proceeds it? _Sir H._ Canst thou not guess, my friend? Whence flows all earthly joy? What is the life of man, and soul of pleasure? Woman.----What fires the heart with transport, and the soul with raptures?--Lovely woman----What is the master-stroke and smile of the creation, but charming, virtuous woman?--Methinks, my friend, you relish not my joy. What is the cause? _Colonel S._ Canst thou not guess?--What is the bane of man, and scourge of life, but woman?--What is the heathenish idol man sets up, and is damned for worshipping? Treacherous woman.--Woman, whose composition inverts humanity; their bodies heavenly, but their souls are clay. _Sir H._ Come, come, colonel, this is too much: I know your wrongs received from Lurewell may excuse your resentment against her. But it is unpardonable to charge the failings of a single woman upon the whole sex. I have found one, whose virtues---- _Colonel S._ So have I, Sir Harry; I have found one whose pride's above yielding to a prince. And if lying, dissembling, perjury, and falsehood, be no breaches in a woman's honour, she is as innocent as infancy. _Sir H._ Well, colonel, I find your opinion grows stronger by opposition; I shall now, therefore, wave the argument, and only beg you for this day to make a show of complaisance at least.--Here comes my charming bride. _Enter_ LADY DARLING _and_ ANGELICA. _Colonel S._ [_Saluting_ ANGELICA.] I wish you, madam, all the joys of love and fortune. _Enter_ CLINCHER JUNIOR. _Clinch. jun._ Gentlemen and ladies, I'm just upon the spur, and have only a minute to take my leave. _Sir H._ Whither are you bound, sir? _Clinch. jun._ Bound, sir! I'm going to the Jubilee, sir. _Lady D._ Bless me, cousin! how came you by these clothes? _Clinch. jun._ Clothes! ha! ha! ha! the rarest jest! ha! ha! ha! I shall burst, by Jupiter Ammon--I shall burst. _Lady D._ What's the matter, cousin? _Clinch. jun._ The matter! ha! ha! Why, an honest porter, ha! ha! ha! has knocked out my brother's brains--ha! ha! ha! _Sir H._ A very good jest, i'faith--ha! ha! ha! _Clinch. jun._ Ay, sir; but the best jest of all is, he knocked out his brains with a hammer--and so he is as dead as a door-nail! ha! ha! ha! _Lady D._ And do you laugh, wretch? _Clinch. jun._ Laugh! ha! ha! ha! let me see e'er a younger brother in England, that won't laugh at such a jest! _Ang._ You appeared a very sober, pious gentleman, some hours ago. _Clinch. jun._ Pshaw! I was a fool then; but now, madam, I'm a wit; I can rake now. As for your part, madam, you might have had me once; but now, madam, if you should fall to eating chalk, or gnawing the sheets, it is none of my fault. Now, madam, I have got an estate, and I must go to the Jubilee. _Enter_ CLINCHER SENIOR, _in a Blanket_. _Clinch. sen._ Must you so, rogue--must ye? You will go to the Jubilee, will you? _Clinch. jun._ A ghost! a ghost! send for the Dean and Chapter presently. _Clinch. sen._ A ghost! No, no, sirrah! I'm an elder brother, rogue. _Clinch. jun._ I don't care a farthing for that; I'm sure you're dead in law. _Clinch. sen._ Why so, sirrah--why so? _Clinch. jun._ Because, sir, I can get a fellow to swear he knocked out your brains. _Sir H._ An odd way of swearing a man out of his life! _Clinch. jun._ Smell him, gentlemen, he has a deadly scent about him. _Clinch. sen._ Truly, the apprehensions of death may have made me savour a little. O lord! the Colonel! The apprehension of him may make the savour worse, I'm afraid. _Clinch. jun._ In short, sir, were you a ghost, or brother, or devil, I will go to the Jubilee, by Jupiter Ammon. _Colonel S._ Go to the Jubilee! go to the bear-garden. Get you to your native plough and cart; converse with animals like yourself, sheep and oxen: men are creatures you don't understand. _Enter a_ SERVANT, _who whispers_ WILDAIR. _Sir H._ Let them alone, colonel, their folly will be now diverting. Come, gentlemen, we'll dispute this point some other time.--Madam, shall I beg you to entertain the company in the next room for a moment? [_To_ LADY DARLING. _Lady D._ With all my heart----Come, gentlemen. [_Exeunt all but_ WILDAIR. _Sir H._ A lady to inquire for me! Who can this be? _Enter_ LADY LUREWELL. Oh, madam, this favour is beyond my expectation--to come uninvited to dance at my wedding.----What d'ye gaze at, madam? _Lady L._ A monster--if thou'rt married, thou'rt the most perjured wretch that e'er avouch'd deceit. _Sir H._ Heyday! Why, madam, I'm sure I never swore to marry you: I made, indeed, a slight promise, upon condition of your granting me a small favour; but you would not consent, you know. _Lady L._ How he upbraids me with my shame!--Can you deny your binding vows, when this appears a witness against your falsehood! [_Shows a Ring._] Methinks the motto of this sacred pledge should flash confusion in your guilty face--Read, read here the binding words of love and honour--words not unknown to your perfidious tongue, though utter strangers to your treacherous heart. _Sir H._ The woman's stark staring mad, that's certain. _Lady L._ Was it maliciously designed to let me find my misery when past redress? To let me know you, only to know you false? Had not cursed chance showed me the motto, I had been happy: the first knowledge I had of you was fatal to me--and this second, worse. _Sir H._ What the devil is all this! Madam, I'm not at leisure for raillery at present, I have weighty affairs upon my hands: the business of pleasure, madam: any other time---- [_Going._ _Lady L._ Stay, I conjure you, stay. _Sir H._ 'Faith, I can't, my bride expects me; but harkye, when the honey-moon is over, about a month or two hence, I may do you a small favour. [_Exit._ _Lady L._ Grant me some wild expressions, Heavens, or I shall burst. Woman's weakness, man's falsehood, my own shame, and love's disdain, at once swell up my breast----Words, words, or I shall burst. [_Going._ _Enter_ COLONEL STANDARD. _Colonel S._ Stay, madam, you need not shun my sight; for if you are perfect woman, you have confidence to outface a crime, and bear the charge of guilt without a blush. _Lady L._ The charge of guilt! what, making a fool of you? I've done it, and glory in the act: dissembling to the prejudice of men, is virtue; and every look, or sign, or smile, or tear that can deceive, is meritorious. _Colonel S._ Very pretty principles, truly. If there be truth in woman, 'tis now in thee. Come, madam, you know that you're discovered, and, being sensible that you cannot escape, you would now turn to bay. That ring, madam, proclaims you guilty. _Lady L._ O monster, villain, perfidious villain! Has he told you? _Colonel S._ I'll tell it you, and loudly too. _Lady L._ O, name it not----Yet, speak it out, 'tis so just a punishment for putting faith in man, that I will bear it all. Speak now, what his busy scandal, and your improving malice, both dare utter. _Colonel S._ Your falsehood can't be reached by malice nor by satire; your actions are the justest libel on your fame; your words, your looks, your tears, I did believe in spite of common fame. Nay, 'gainst mine own eyes, I still maintained your truth. I imagined Wildair's boasting of your favours to be the pure result of his own vanity: at last he urged your taking presents of him; as a convincing proof of which, you yesterday from him received that ring, which ring, that I might be sure he gave it, I lent him for that purpose. _Lady L._ Ha! you lent it him for that purpose! _Colonel S._ Yes, yes, madam, I lent it him for that purpose----No denying it--I know it well, for I have worn it long, and desire it now, madam, to restore it to the just owner. _Lady L._ The just owner! Think, sir, think but of what importance 'tis to own it: if you have love and honour in your soul, 'tis then most justly yours; if not, you are a robber, and have stolen it basely. _Colonel S._ Ha! your words, like meeting flints, have struck a light, to show me something strange----But tell me instantly, is not your real name Manly? _Lady L._ Answer me first: did not you receive this ring about twelve years ago? _Colonel S._ I did. _Lady L._ And were not you about that time entertained two nights at the house of Sir Oliver Manly, in Oxfordshire? _Colonel S._ I was! I was! [_Runs to her, and embraces her._] The blest remembrance fires my soul with transport----I know the rest----you are the charming she, and I the happy man. _Lady L._ How has blind fortune stumbled on the right? But where have you wandered since?--'Twas cruel to forsake me. _Colonel S._ The particulars of my fortune are too tedious now: but to discharge myself from the stain of dishonour, I must tell you, that immediately upon my return to the university, my elder brother and I quarrelled: my father, to prevent farther mischief, posts me away to travel: I wrote to you from London, but fear the letter came not to your hands. _Lady L._ I never had the least account of you by letter, or otherwise. _Colonel S._ Three years I lived abroad, and at my return, found you were gone out of the kingdom, though none could tell me whither: missing you thus, I went to Flanders, served my king till the peace commenced; then fortunately going on board at Amsterdam, one ship transported us both to England. At the first sight I loved, though ignorant of the hidden cause----You may remember, madam, that, talking once of marriage, I told you I was engaged--to your dear self I meant. _Lady L._ Then men are still most generous and brave--and, to reward your truth, an estate of three thousand pounds a year waits your acceptance; and, if I can satisfy you in my past conduct, I shall expect the honourable performance of your promise, and that you will stay with me in England. _Colonel S._ Stay--Nor fame, nor glory e'er shall part us more. My honour can be no where more concerned than here. _Enter_ SIR H. WILDAIR _and_ ANGELICA. Oh, Sir Harry! Fortune has acted miracles to-day: the story's strange and tedious, but all amounts to this--that woman's mind is charming as her person, and I am made a convert too to beauty. _Sir H._ I wanted only this, to make my pleasure perfect. _Enter_ SMUGGLER. _Smug._ So, gentlemen and ladies, I'm glad to find you so merry; is my gracious nephew among ye? _Sir H._ Sir, he dares not show his face among such honourable company; for your gracious nephew is-- _Smug._ What, sir? Have a care what you say. _Sir H._ A villain, sir. _Smug._ With all my heart. I'll pardon you the beating me, for that very word. And pray, Sir Harry, when you see him next, tell him this news from me, that I have disinherited him--that I will leave him as poor as a disbanded quarter-master.--Oh, Sir Harry, he is as hypocritical---- _Lady L._ As yourself, Mr. Alderman. How fares my good old nurse, pray, sir?----Come, Mr. Alderman, for once let a woman advise:--Would you be thought an honest man, banish covetousness, that worst gout of age: avarice is a poor pilfering quality, of the soul, and will, as certainly cheat, as a thief would steal. Would you be thought a reformer of the times, be less severe in your censures, less rigid in your precepts, and more strict in your example. _Sir H._ Right, madam, virtue flows freer from imitation than compulsion; of which, colonel, your conversion and mine, are just examples. In vain are musty morals taught in schools, By rigid teachers, and as rigid rules, Where virtue with a frowning aspect stands, And frights the pupil from its rough commands But woman---- Charming woman can true converts make, We love the precept for the teacher's sake. Virtue in them appears so bright, so gay, We hear with transport, and with pride obey. [_Exeunt omnes._ * * * * * * Transcriber's note: The text includes a number of words with alternate spellings or spellings no longer common. These have been retained. A single instance of dy'e was changed to match the otherwise usual d'ye. The following additional changes were made to the text: Act II, Scene III, (Colonel Standard) I ha'n't vered half my message was changed to read: I ha'n't delivered half my message. Act IV, Scene II, (Lady Lurewell) This must be Sir Harry; tell him I am not be spoken with. was changed to read: This must be Sir Harry; tell him I am not to be spoken with. 
3480	----	Transcribed from the 1887 Cassell & Company edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org THE HUNCHBACK. THE LOVE-CHASE. BY JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_. 1887. INTRODUCTION James Sheridan Knowles was born at Cork in 1784, and died at Torquay in December, 1862, at the age of 78. His father was a teacher of elocution, who compiled a dictionary, and who was related to the Sheridans. He moved to London when his son was eight years old, and there became acquainted with William Hazlitt and Charles Lamb. The son, after his school education, obtained a commission in the army, but gave up everything for the stage, and made his first appearance at the Crow Street Theatre, in Dublin. He did not become a great actor, and when he took to writing plays he did not prove himself a great poet, but his skill in contriving situations through which a good actor can make his powers tell upon the public, won the heart of the great actor of his day, and as Macready's own poet he rose to fame. Before Macready had discovered him, Sheridan Knowles lived partly by teaching elocution at Belfast and Glasgow, partly by practice of elocution as an actor. In 1815 he produced at the Belfast Theatre his first play, _Caius Gracchus_. His next play, _Virginius_ was produced at Glasgow with great success. Macready, who had, at the age of seventeen, begun his career as an actor at his father's theatre in Birmingham, had, on Monday, October 5th, 1819, at the age of twenty-six, taken the Londoners by storm in the character of Richard III Covent Garden reopened its closed treasury. It was promptly followed by a success in _Coriolanus_, and Macready's place was made. He was at once offered fifty pounds a night for appearing on one evening a week at Brighton. It was just after that turn in Macready's fortunes that a friend at Glasgow recommended to him the part of Virginius in Sheridan Knowles's play lately produced there. He agreed unwillingly to look at it, and says that in April, 1820, the parcel containing the MS. came as he was going out. He hesitated, then sat down to read it that he might get a wearisome job over. As he read, he says, "The freshness and simplicity of the dialogue fixed my attention; I read on and on, and was soon absorbed in the interest of the story and the passion of its scenes, till at its close I found myself in such a state of excitement that for a time I was undecided what step to take. Impulse was in the ascendant, and snatching up my pen I hurriedly wrote, as my agitated feelings prompted, a letter to the author, to me then a perfect stranger." Bryan Procter (Barry Cornwall) read the play next day with Macready, and confirmed him in his admiration of it. Macready at once got it accepted at the theatre, where nothing was spent on scenery, but there was a good cast, and the enthusiasm of Macready as stage manager for the occasion half affronted some of his seniors. On the 17th of May, 1820, about a month after it came into Macready's hands, _Virginius_ was produced at Covent Garden, where, says the actor in his "Reminiscences," "the curtain fell amidst the most deafening applause of a highly-excited auditory." Sheridan Knowles's fame, therefore, was made, like that of his friend Macready, and the friendship between author and actor continued. Sheridan Knowles had a kindly simplicity of character, and the two qualities for which an actor most prizes a dramatist, skill in providing opportunities for acting that will tell, and readiness to make any changes that the actor asks for. The postscript to his first letter to Macready was, "Make any alterations you like in any part of the play, and I shall be obliged to you." When he brought to the great actor his play of _William Tell_--_Caius Gracchus_ had been produced in November, 1823--there were passages of writing in it that stopped the course of action, and, says Macready, "Knowles had less of the tenacity of authorship than most writers," so that there was no difficulty about alterations, Macready having in a very high degree the tenacity of actorship. And so, in 1825, _Tell_ became another of Macready's best successes. Sheridan Knowles continued to write for the stage until 1845, when he was drawn wholly from the theatre by a religious enthusiasm that caused him, in 1851, to essay the breaking of a lance with Cardinal Wiseman on the subject of Transubstantiation. Sir Robert Peel gave ease to his latter days by a pension of 200 pounds a year from the Civil List, which he had honourably earned by a career as dramatist, in which he sought to appeal only to the higher sense of literature, and to draw enjoyment from the purest source. Of his plays time two comedies {1} here given are all that have kept their place upon the stage. As one of the most earnest dramatic writers of the present century he is entitled to a little corner in our memory. Worse work of the past has lasted longer than the plays of Sheridan Knowles are likely to last through the future. H. M. THE HUNCHBACK. DRAMATIS PERSONAE. (AS ORIGINALLY PERFORMED AT COVENT GARDEN IN 1832.) _Julia_ Miss F. KEMBLE. _Helen_ Miss TAYLOR. _Master Walter_ Mr. J. S. KNOWLES. _Sir Thomas Clifford_ Mr. C. KEMBLE. _Lord Tinsel_ Mr. WRENCH. _Master Wilford_ Mr. J. MASON. _Modus_ Mr. ABBOTT. _Master Heartwell_ Mr. EVANS. _Gaylove_ Mr. HENRY. _Fathom_ Mr. MEADOWS. _Thomas_ Mr. BARNES. _Stephen_ Mr. PAYNE. _Williams_ Mr. IRWIN. _Simpson_ Mr. BRADY. _Waiter_ Mr. HEATH. _Holdwell_ Mr. BENDER. _Servants_ Mr. J. COOPER. Mr. LOLLETT. ACT I. SCENE I.--A Tavern. On one side SIR THOMAS CLIFFORD, at a table, with wine before him; on the other, MASTER WILFORD, GAYLOVE, HOLDWELL, and SIMPSON, likewise taking wine. _Wilf_. Your wine, sirs! your wine! You do not justice to mine host of the Three Tuns, nor credit to yourselves; I swear the beverage is good! It is as palatable poison as you will purchase within a mile round Ludgate! Drink, gentlemen; make free. You know I am a man of expectations; and hold my money as light as the purse in which I carry it. _Gay_. We drink, Master Wilford. Not a man of us has been chased as yet. _Wilf_. But you fill not fairly, sirs! Look at my measure! Wherefore a large glass, if not for a large draught? Fill, I pray you, else let us drink out of thimbles! This will never do for the friends of the nearest of kin to the wealthiest peer in Britain. _Gay_. We give you joy, Master Wilford, of the prospect of advancement which has so unexpectedly opened to you. _Wilf_. Unexpectedly indeed! But yesterday arrived the news that the Earl's only son and heir had died; and to-day has the Earl himself been seized with a mortal illness. His dissolution is looked for hourly; and I, his cousin in only the third degree, known to him but to be unnoticed by him--a decayed gentleman's son--glad of the title and revenues of a scrivener's clerk--am the undoubted successor to his estates and coronet. _Gay_. Have you been sent for? _Wilf_. No; but I have certified to his agent, Master Walter, the Hunchback, my existence, and peculiar propinquity; and momentarily expect him here. _Gay_. Lives there anyone that may dispute your claim--I mean vexatiously? _Wilf_. Not a man, Master Gaylove. I am the sole remaining branch of the family tree. _Gay_. Doubtless you look for much happiness from this change of fortune? _Wilf_. A world! Three things have I an especial passion for. The finest hound, the finest horse, and the finest wife in the kingdom, Master Gaylove! Gay. The finest wife? _Wilf_. Yes, sir; I marry. Once the earldom comes into my line, I shall take measures to perpetuate its remaining there. I marry, sir! I do not say that I shall love. My heart has changed mistresses too often to settle down in one servitude now, sir. But fill, I pray you, friends. This, if I mistake not, is the day whence I shall date my new fortunes; and, for that reason, hither have I invited you, that, having been so long my boon companions, you shall be the first to congratulate me. [Enter Waiter] _Waiter_. You are wanted, Master Wilford. _Wilf_. By whom? _Waiter_. One Master Walter. _Wilf_. His lordship's agent! News, sirs! Show him in! [Waiter goes out] My heart's a prophet, sirs--The Earl is dead. [Enter MASTER WALTER] Well, Master Walter. How accost you me? _Wal_. As your impatience shows me you would have me. My Lord, the Earl of Rochdale! _Gay_. Give you joy! _Hold_. All happiness, my lord! _Simp_. Long life and health unto your lordship! _Gay_. Come! We'll drink to his lordship's health! 'Tis two o'clock, We'll e'en carouse till midnight! Health, my lord! _Hold_. My lord, much joy to you! _Simp_. All good to your lordship! _Wal_. Give something to the dead! _Gay_. Give what? _Wal_. Respect! He has made the living! First to him that's gone, Say "Peace!"--and then with decency to revels! _Gay_. What means the knave by revels? _Wal_. Knave? _Gay_. Ay, knave! _Wal_. Go to! Thou'rt flushed with wine! _Gay_. Thou sayest false! Though didst thou need a proof thou speakest true, I'd give thee one. Thou seest but one lord here, And I see two! _Wal_. Reflect'st thou on my shape? Thou art a villain! _Gay_. [Starting up.] Ha! _Wal_. A coward, too! Draw! [Drawing his sword.] _Gay_. Only mark him! how he struts about! How laughs his straight sword at his noble back. _Wal_. Does it? It cuffs thee for a liar then! [Strikes GAYLOVE with his sword.] _Gay_. A blow! _Wal_. Another, lest you doubt the first! _Gay_. His blood on his own head! I'm for you, sir! [Draws.] _Clif_. Hold, sir! This quarrel's mine! [Coming forward and drawing.] _Wal_. No man shall fight for me, sir! _Clif_. By your leave, Your patience, pray! My lord, for so I learn Behoves me to accost you--for your own sake Draw off your friend! _Wal_. Not till we have a bout, sir! _Clif_. My lord, your happy fortune ill you greet! Ill greet it those who love you--greeting thus The herald of it! _Wal_. Sir, what's that to you? Let go my sleeve! _Clif_. My lord, if blood be shed On the fair dawn of your prosperity, Look not to see the brightness of its day. 'Twill be o'ercast throughout! _Gay_. My lord, I'm struck! _Clif_. You gave the first blow, and the hardest one! Look, sir; if swords you needs must measure, I'm Your mate, not he! _Wal_. I'm mate for any man! _Clif_. Draw off your friend, my lord, for your own sake! _Wilf_. Come, Gaylove! let's have another room. _Gay_. With all my heart, since 'tis your lordship's will. _Wilf_. That's right! Put up! Come, friends! [WILFORD and Friends go out.] _Wal_. I'll follow him! Why do you hold me? 'Tis not courteous of you! Think'st thou I fear them? Fear! I rate them but As dust! dross! offals! Let me at them!--Nay, Call you this kind? then kindness know I not; Nor do I thank you for't! Let go, I say! _Clif_. Nay, Master Walter, they're not worth your wrath. _Wal_. How know you me for Master Walter? By My hunchback, eh!--my stilts of legs and arms, The fashion more of ape's than man's? Aha! So you have heard them, too--their savage gibes As I pass on,--"There goes my lord!" aha! God made me, sir, as well as them and you. 'Sdeath! I demand of you, unhand me, sir! _Clif_. There, sir, you're free to follow them! Go forth, And I'll go too: so on your wilfulness Shall fall whate'er of evil may ensue. Is't fit you waste your choler on a burr? The nothings of the town; whose sport it is To break their villain jests on worthy men, The graver still the fitter! Fie for shame! Regard what such would say? So would not I, No more than heed a cur. _Wal_. You're right, sir; right, For twenty crowns! So there's my rapier up! You've done me a good turn against my will; Which, like a wayward child, whose pet is off, That made him restive under wholesome check, I now right humbly own, and thank you for. _Clif_. No thanks, good Master Walter, owe you me! I'm glad to know you, sir. _Wal_. I pray you, now, How did you learn my name? Guessed I not right? Was't not my comely hunch that taught it you? _Clif_. I own it. _Wal_. Right, I know it; you tell truth. I like you for't. _Clif_. But when I heard it said That Master Walter was a worthy man, Whose word would pass on 'change soon as his bond; A liberal man--for schemes of public good That sets down tens, where others units write; A charitable man--the good he does, That's told of, not the half; I never more Could see the hunch on Master Walter's back! _Wal_. You would not flatter a poor citizen? _Clif_. Indeed, I flatter not! _Wal_. I like your face-- A frank and honest one! Your frame's well knit, Proportioned, shaped! _Clif_. Good sir! _Wal_. Your name is Clifford-- Sir Thomas Clifford. Humph! You're not the heir Direct to the fair baronetcy? He That was, was drowned abroad. Am I not right? Your cousin, was't not?--so succeeded you To rank and wealth, your birth ne'er promised you. _Clif_. I see you know my history. _Wal_. I do. You're lucky who conjoin the benefits Of penury and abundance; for I know Your father was a man of slender means. You do not blush, I see. That's right! Why should you? What merit to be dropped on fortune's hill? The honour is to mount it. You'd have done it; For you were trained to knowledge, industry, Frugality, and honesty,--the sinews That surest help the climber to the top, And keep him there. I have a clerk, Sir Thomas, Once served your father; there's the riddle for you. Humph! I may thank you for my life to-day. _Clif_. I pray you say not so. _Wal_. But I will say so! Because I think so, know so, feel so, sir! Your fortune, I have heard, I think, is ample! And doubtless you live up to't? _Clif_. 'Twas my rule, And is so still, to keep my outlay, sir, A span within my means. _Wal_. A prudent rule! The turf is a seductive pastime! _Clif_. Yes. _Wal_. You keep a racing stud? You bet? _Clif_. No, neither. 'Twas still my father's precept--"Better owe A yard of land to labour, than to chance Be debtor for a rood!" _Wal_. 'Twas a wise precept. You've a fair house--you'll get a mistress for it? _Clif_. In time! _Wal_. In time! 'Tis time thy choice were made. Is't not so yet? Or is thy lady love The newest still thou seest? _Clif_. Nay, not so. I'd marry, Master Walter, but old use-- For since the age of thirteen I have lived In the world--has made me jealous of the thing That flattered me with hope of profit. Bargains Another would snap up, might be for me: Till I had turned and turned them! Speculations, That promised, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, Ay, cent-per-cent. returns, I would not launch in, When others were afloat, and out at sea; Whereby I made small gains, but missed great losses. As ever, then, I looked before I leaped, So do I now. _Wal_. Thou'rt all the better for it! Let's see! Hand free--heart whole--well-favoured--so! Rich, titled! Let that pass!--kind, valiant, prudent-- Sir Thomas, I can help thee to a wife, Hast thou the luck to win her! _Clif_. Master Walter! You jest! _Wal_. I do not jest. I like you! mark-- I like you, and I like not everyone! I say a wife, sir, can I help you to, The pearly texture of whose dainty skin Alone were worth thy baronetcy! Form And feature has she, wherein move and glow The charms, that in the marble, cold and still, Culled by the sculptor's jealous skill and joined there, Inspire us! Sir, a maid, before whose feet, A duke--a duke might lay his coronet, To lift her to his state, and partner her! A fresh heart too!--a young fresh heart, sir; one That Cupid has not toyed with, and a warm one-- Fresh, young, and warm! mark that! a mind to boot; Wit, sir; sense, taste;--a garden strictly tended-- Where nought but what is costly flourishes! A consort for a king, sir! Thou shalt see her! _Clif_. I thank you, Master Walter! As you speak, Methinks I see me at the altar-foot! Her hand fast locked in mine!--the ring put on! My wedding-bell rings merry in my ear; And round me throng glad tongues that give me joy To be the bridegroom of so fair a bride! _Wal_. What! sparks so thick? We'll have a blaze anon! _Servant_. [Entering.] The chariot's at the door. _Wal_. It waits in time! Sir Thomas, it shall bear thee to the bower Where dwells this fair--for she's no city belle, But e'en a sylvan goddess! _Clif_. Have with you! _Wal_. You'll bless the day you served the Hunchback, sir! [They go out.] SCENE II.--A Garden before a Country House. [Enter JULIA and HELEN.] _Helen_. I like not, Julia, this your country life. I'm weary on't! _Julia_. Indeed? So am not I! I know no other; would no other know! _Helen_. You would no other know! Would you not know Another relative?--another friend-- Another house--another anything, Because the ones you have already please you? That's poor content! Would you not be more rich, More wise, more fair? The song that last you learned You fancy well; and therefore shall you learn No other song? Your virginal, 'tis true, Hath a sweet tone; but does it follow thence, You shall not have another virginal? You may, love, and a sweeter one; and so A sweeter life may find than this you lead! _Julia_. I seek it not. Helen, I'm constancy! _Helen_. So is a cat, a dog, a silly hen, An owl, a bat,--where they are wont to lodge That still sojourn, nor care to shift their quarters. Thou'rt constancy? I am glad I know thy name! The spider comes of the same family, That in his meshy fortress spends his life, Unless you pull it down and scare him from it. And so thou'rt constancy? Ar't proud of that? I'll warrant thee I'll match thee with a snail From year to year that never leaves his house! Such constancy forsooth!--a constant grub That houses ever in the self-same nut Where he was born, till hunger drives him out, Or plunder breaketh through his castle wall! And so, in very deed, thou'rt constancy! _Julia_. Helen, you know the adage of the tree;-- I've ta'en the bend. This rural life of mine, Enjoined me by an unknown father's will, I've led from infancy. Debarred from hope Of change, I ne'er have sighed for change. The town To me was like the moon, for any thought I e'er should visit it--nor was I schooled To think it half so fair! _Helen_. Not half so fair! The town's the sun, and thou hast dwelt in night E'er since thy birth, not to have seen the town! Their women there are queens, and kings their men; Their houses palaces! _Julia_. And what of that? Have your town-palaces a hall like this? Couches so fragrant? walls so high-adorned? Casements with such festoons, such prospects, Helen, As these fair vistas have? Your kings and queens! See me a May-day queen, and talk of them! _Helen_. Extremes are ever neighbours. 'Tis a step From one to the other! Were thy constancy A reasonable thing--a little less Of constancy--a woman's constancy-- I should not wonder wert thou ten years hence The maid I know thee now; but, as it is, The odds are ten to one, that this day year Will see our May-day queen a city one! _Julia_. Never! I'm wedded to a country life: O, did you hear what Master Walter says! Nine times in ten the town's a hollow thing, Where what things are is nought to what they show; Where merit's name laughs merit's self to scorn! Where friendship and esteem that ought to be The tenants of men's hearts, lodge in their looks And tongues alone. Where little virtue, with A costly keeper, passes for a heap; A heap for none that has a homely one! Where fashion makes the law--your umpire which You bow to, whether it has brains or not! Where Folly taketh off his cap and bells, To clap on Wisdom, which must bear the jest! Where to pass current you must seem the thing, The passive thing, that others think; and not Your simple, honest, independent self! _Helen_. Ay: so says Master Walter. See I not What can you find in Master Walter, Julia, To be so fond of him! _Julia_. He's fond of me! I've known him since I was a child. E'en then, The week I thought a weary, heavy one, That brought not Master Walter. I had those About me then that made a fool of me, As children oft are fooled; but more I loved Good Master Walter's lesson than the play With which they'd surfeit me. As I grew up, More frequent Master Walter came, and more I loved to see him! I had tutors then, Men of great skill and learning--but not one That taught like Master Walter. What they'd show me, And I, dull as I was, but doubtful saw,-- A word from Master Walter made as clear As daylight! When my schooling days were o'er-- That's now good three years past--three years--I vow I'm twenty, Helen!--well, as I was saying, When I had done with school, and all were gone, Still Master Walter came! and still he comes, Summer or winter--frost or rain! I've seen The snow upon a level with the hedge, Yet there was Master Walter! _Helen_. Who comes here? A carriage, and a gay one--who alights? Pshaw! Only Master Walter! What see you, Which thus repairs the arch of the fair brow, A frown was like to spoil?--A gentleman! One of our town kings! Mark!--How say you now? Wouldst be a town queen, Julia? Which of us, I wonder, comes he for? _Julia_. For neither of us; He's Master Walter's clerk, most like. _Helen_. Most like! Mark him as he comes up the avenue; So looks a clerk! A clerk has such a gait! So does a clerk dress, Julia!--mind his hose-- They're very like a clerk's! a diamond loop And button, note you, for his clerkship's hat,-- O, certainly a clerk! A velvet cloak, Jerkin of silk, and doublet of the same,-- For all the world a clerk! See, Julia, see, How Master Walter bows, and yields him place, That he may first go in--a very clerk! I'll learn of thee, love, when I'd know a clerk! _Julia_. I wonder who he is! _Helen_. Wouldst like to know? Wouldst for a fancy ride to town with him? I prophesy he comes to take thee thither! _Julia_. He ne'er takes me to town! No, Helen, no! To town who will, a country life for me! _Helen_. We'll see! [Enter FATHOM.] _Fath_. You're wanted, madam. _Julia_. [Embarrassed.] Which of us? _Fath_. You, madam. _Helen_. Julia! what's the matter? Nay, Mount not the rose so soon! He must not see it A month hence. 'Tis loves flower, which once she wears, The maid is all his own. _Julia_. Go to! _Helen_. Be sure He comes to woo thee! He will bear thee hence; He'll make thee change the country for the town. _Julia_. I'm constancy. Name he the town to me, I'll tell what I think on't! _Helen_. Then you guess He comes a wooing? _Julia_. I guess nought. _Helen_. You do! At your grave words, your lips, more honest, smile, And show them to be traitors. Hie to him. _Julia_. Hie thee to soberness. [Goes out.] _Helen_. Ay, will I, when, Thy bridemaid, I shall hie to church with thee. Well, Fathom, who is come? _Fath_. I know not. _Helen_. What! Didst thou not hear his name? _Fath_. I did. _Helen_. What is't? _Fath_. I noted not. _Helen_. What hast thou ears for, then? _Fath_. What good were it for me to mind his name? I do but what I must do. To do that Is labour quite enough! _Wal_. [Without.] What, Fathom! _Fath_. Here. _Wal_. [Entering.] Here, sirrah! Wherefore didst not come to me? _Fath_. You did not bid me come. _Wal_. I called thee. _Fath_. Yes. And I said "Here;" and waited then to know Your worship's will with me. _Wal_. We go to town. Thy mistress, thou, and all the house. _Fath_. Well, sir? _Wal_. Mak'st thou not ready then to go to town? Hence, knave, despatch! [FATHOM goes out.] _Helen_. Go we to town? _Wal_. We do; 'Tis now her father's will she sees the town. _Helen_. I'm glad on't. Goes she to her father? _Wal_. No: At the desire of thine she for a term shares roof with thee. _Helen_. I'm very glad on't. _Wal_. What! You like her, then? I thought you would. 'Tis time She sees the town. _Helen_. It has been time for that These six years. _Wal_. By thy wisdom's count. No doubt You've told her what a precious place it is. _Helen_. I have. _Wal_. I even guessed as much. For that I told thee of her; brought thee here to see her; And prayed thee to sojourn a space with her; That its fair space, from thy too fair report, Might strike a novice less--so less deceive her. I did not put thee under check. _Helen_. 'Twas right,-- Else had I broken loose, and run the wilder! So knows she not her father yet: that's strange. I prithee how does mine? _Wal_. Well--very well. News for thee. _Helen_. What? _Wal_. Thy cousin is in town. _Helen_. My cousin Modus? _Wal_. Much do I suspect That cousin's nearer to thy heart than blood. _Helen_. Pshaw! Wed me to a musty library! Love him who nothing loves but Greek and Latin! But, Master Walter, you forget the main Surpassing point of all! Who's come with you? _Wal_. Ay, that's the question! _Helen_. Is he soldier or Civilian? lord or gentleman? He's rich, If that's his chariot! Where is his estate? What brings it in? Six thousand pounds a year? Twelve thousand, may be! Is he bachelor, Or husband? Bachelor I'm sure he is Comes he not hither wooing, Master Walter? Nay, prithee, answer me! _Wal_. Who says thy sex Are curious? That they're patient, I'll be sworn; And reasonable--very reasonable-- To look for twenty answers in a breath! Come, thou shalt be enlightened--but propound Thy questions one by one! Thou'rt far too apt A scholar! My ability to teach Will ne'er keep pace, I fear, with thine to learn. [They go out.] SCENE III.--An Apartment in the House. [Enter JULIA, followed by CLIFFORD.] _Julia_. No more! I pray you, sir, no more! _Clif_. I love you! _Julia_. You mock me, sir! _Clif_. Then is there no such thing On earth as reverence; honour filial, the fear Of kings, the awe of supreme heaven itself, Are only shows and sounds that stand for nothing. I love you! _Julia_. You have known me scarce a minute! _Clif_. Say but a moment, still I say I love you! Love's not a flower that grows on the dull earth; Springs by the calendar; must wait for the sun-- For rain;--matures by parts;--must take its time To stem, to leaf, to bud, to blow. It owns A richer soil, and boasts a quicker seed! You look for it, and see it not; and lo! E'en while you look, the peerless flower is up. Consummate in the birth! _Julia_. Is't fear I feel? Why else should beat my heart? It can't be fear! Something I needs must say. You're from the town; How comes it, sir, you seek a country wife? Methinks 'twill tax his wit to answer that. _Clif_. In joining contrasts lieth love's delight. Complexion, stature, nature, mateth it, Not with their kinds, but with their opposites. Hence hands of snow in palms of russet lie; The form of Hercules affects the sylph's; And breasts, that case the lion's fear-proof heart, Find their meet lodge in arms where tremors dwell! Haply for this, on Afric's swarthy neck, Hath Europe's priceless pearl been seen to hang, That makes the orient poor! So with degrees, Rank passes by the circlet-graced brow, Upon the forehead, bare, of notelessness To print the nuptial kiss. As with degrees So is't with habits; therefore I, indeed A gallant of the town, the town forsake, To win a country wife. _Julia_. His prompt reply My backward challenge shames! Must I give o'er? I'll try his wit again. Who marries me Must lead a country life. _Clif_. The life I'd lead! But fools would fly from it; for O! 'tis sweet! It finds the heart out, be there one to find; And corners in't where store of pleasures lodge, We never dreamed were there! It is to dwell 'Mid smiles that are not neighbours to deceit; Music, whose melody is of the heart; And gifts, that are not made for interest,-- Abundantly bestowed by Nature's cheek, And voice, and hand! It is to live on life, And husband it! It is to constant scan The handiwork of Heaven. It is to con Its mercy, bounty, wisdom, power! It is To nearer see our God! _Julia_. How like he talks To Master Walter! Shall I give it o'er? Not yet. Thou wouldst not live one half a year! A quarter mightst thou for the novelty Of fields and trees; but then it needs must be In summer time, when they go dressed. _Clif_. Not it! In any time--say winter! Fields and trees Have charms for me in very winter time. _Julia_. But snow may clothe them then. _Clif_. I like them full As well in snow! _Julia_. You do? _Clif_. I do. _Julia_. But night Will hide both snow and them, and that sets in Ere afternoon is out. A heavy thing, A country fireside in a winter's night, To one bred in the town,--where winter's said, For sun of gaiety and sportiveness, To beggar shining summer. _Clif_. I should like A country winter's night especially! _Julia_. You'd sleep by the fire. _Clif_. Not I; I'd talk to thee. _Julia_. You'd tire of that! _Clif_. I'd read to thee. _Julia_. And that! _Clif_. I'd talk to thee again. _Julia_. And sooner tire Than first you did, and fall asleep at last. You'd never do to lead a country life. _Clif_. You deal too harshly with me! Matchless maid, As loved instructor brightens dullest wit, Fear not to undertake the charge of me! A willing pupil kneels to thee, and lays His title and his fortune at your feet. _Julia_. His title and his fortune! [Enter MASTER WALTER and HELEN.--JULIA, disconcerted, retires with the latter.--CLIFFORD rises.] _Wal_. So, Sir Thomas! Aha! you husband time! Well, was I right? Is't not the jewel that I told you 'twas? Wouldst thou not give thine eyes to wear it? Eh? It has an owner, though,--nay, start not,--one That may be bought to part with't, and with whom I'll stand thy friend--I will--I say, I will! A strange man, sir, and unaccountable: But I can humour him--will humour him For thy sake, good Sir Thomas; for I like thee. Well, is't a bargain? Come, thy hand upon it. A word or two with thee. [They retire. JULIA and HELEN come forward.] _Julia_. Go up to town! _Helen_. Have I not said it ten times o'er to thee? But if thou likest it not, protest against it. _Julia_. Not if 'tis Master Walter's will. _Helen_. What then? Thou wouldst not break thy heart for Master Walter? _Julia_. That follows not! _Helen_. What follows not? _Julia_. That I Should break my heart, because we go to town. _Helen_. Indeed?--Oh, that's another matter. Well, I'd e'en advise thee then to do his will; And, ever after, when I prophesy, Believe me, Julia! [They retire. MASTER WALTER comes forward.] [Enter FATHOM.] _Fath_. So please you, sir, a letter,--a post-haste letter! The bearer on horseback, the horse in a foam--smoking like a boiler at the heat--be sure a posthaste letter! _Wal_. Look to the horse and rider. [Opens the letter and reads.] What's this? A testament addressed to me, Found in his lordship's escritoire, and thence Directed to be taken by no hand But mine. My presence instantly required. [SIR THOMAS, JULIA, and HELEN come forward.] Come, my mistresses, You dine in town to-day. Your father's will, It is, my Julia, that you see the world; And thou shalt see it in its best attire. Its gayest looks--its richest finery It shall put on for thee, that thou may'st judge Betwixt it, and this rural life you've lived. Business of moment I'm but thus advised of, Touching the will of my late noble master, The Earl of Rochdale, recently deceased, Commands me for a time to leave thee there. Sir Thomas, hand her to the chariot. Nay, I tell thee true. We go indeed to town! [They go out.] ACT II. SCENE I.--An Apartment in Master Heartwell's House. [Enter FATHOM and THOMAS.] _Thos_. Well, Fathom, is thy mistress up? _Fath_. She is, Master Thomas, and breakfasted. _Thos_. She stands it well! 'Twas five, you say, when she came home; and wants it now three-quarters of an hour of ten? Wait till her stock of country health is out. _Fath_. 'Twill come to that, Master Thomas, before she lives another month in town! three, four, five six o'clock are now the hours she keeps. 'Twas otherwise with her in the country. There, my mistress used to rise what time she now lies down. _Thos_. Why, yes; she's changed since she came hither. _Fath_. Changed, do you say, Master Thomas? Changed, forsooth! I know not the thing in which she is not changed, saving that she is still a woman. I tell thee there is no keeping pace with her moods. In the country she had none of them. When I brought what she asked for, it was "Thank you, Fathom," and no more to do; but now, nothing contents her. Hark ye! were you a gentleman, Master Thomas,--for then you know you would be a different kind of man,--how many times would you have your coat altered? _Thos_. Why, Master Fathom, as many times as it would take to make it fit me. _Fath_. Good! But, supposing it fitted thee at the first? _Thos_. Then would I have it altered not at all. _Fath_. Good! Thou wouldst be a reasonable gentleman. Thou wouldst have a conscience. Now hark to a tale about my lady's last gown. How many times, think you, took I it back to the sempstress? _Thos_. Thrice, may be. _Fath_. Thrice, may be! Twenty times, may be; and not a turn too many, for the truth on't. Twenty times, on the oath of the sempstress. Now mark me--can you count? _Thos_. After a fashion. _Fath_. You have much to be thankful for, Master Thomas. You London serving-men have a world of things, which we in the country never dream of. Now mark:--Four times took I it back for the flounce; twice for the sleeves; three for the tucker--How many times in all is that? _Thos_. Eight times to a fraction, Master Fathom. _Fath_. What a master of figures you are! Eight times--now recollect that! And then found she fault with the trimmings. Now tell me, how many times took I back the gown for the trimmings? _Thos_. Eight times more, perhaps! _Fath_. Ten times to a certainty. How many times makes that? _Thos_. Eighteen, Master Fathom, by the rule of addition. _Fath_. And how many times more will make twenty? Thee. Twice, by the same rule. _Fath_. Thou hast worked with thy pencil and slate, Master Thomas! Well, ten times, as I said, took I back the gown for the trimmings; and was she content after all? I warrant you no, or my ears did not pay for it. She wished, she said, that the slattern sempstress had not touched the gown, for nought had she done but botched it. Now what think you had the sempstress done to the gown? _Thos_. To surmise that, I must be learned in the sempstress's art. _Fath_. The sempstress's art! Thou hast hit it! Oh, the sweet sempstress! the excellent sempstress! Mistress of her scissors and needles, which are pointless and edgeless to her art! The sempstress had done nothing to the gown; yet raves and storms my mistress at her for having botched it in the making and mending; and orders her straight to make another one, which home the sempstress brings on Tuesday last. _Thos_. And found thy fair mistress as many faults with that? _Fath_. Not one! She finds it a very pattern of a gown! A well-sitting flounce! The sleeves a fit--the tucker a fit--the trimmings her fancy to a T--ha! ha! ha! and she praised the sempstress--ha! ha! ha! and she smiles at me, and I smile--ha! ha! ha! and the sempstress smiles--ha! ha! ha! Now, why did the sempstress smile? _Thos_. That she had succeeded so well in her art. _Fath_. Thou hast hit it again! The jade must have been born a sempstress! If ever I marry, she shall work for my wife. The gown was the same gown, and there was my mistress's twentieth mood! _Thos_. What think you will Master Walter say when he comes back? I fear he'll hardly know his country maid again. Has she yet fixed her wedding-day? _Fath_. She has, Master Thomas. I coaxed it from her maid. She marries, Monday week. _Thos_. Comes not Master Walter back to-day? _Fath_. Your master expects him. [A ringing.] Perhaps that's he. I prithee go and open the door; do, Master Thomas, do; for proves it my master, he'll surely question me. _Thos_. And what should I do? _Fath_. Answer him, Master Thomas, and make him none the wiser. He'll go mad, when he learns how my lady flaunts it! Go! open the door, I prithee. Fifty things, Master Thomas, know you, for one thing that I know! You can turn and twist a matter into any other kind of matter; and then twist and turn it back again, if needs be; so much you servants of the town beat us of the country, Master Thomas. Open the door, now; do, Master Thomas, do! [They go out.] SCENE II.--A Garden with two Arbours. [Enter MASTER HEARTWELL and MASTER WALTER meeting.] _Heart_. Good Master Walter, welcome back again! _Wal_. I'm glad to see you, Master Heartwell! _Heart_. How, I pray you, sped the mighty business which So sudden called you hence? _Wal_. Weighty, indeed! What thou wouldst ne'er expect--wilt scarce believe! Long-hidden wrong, wondrously come to light, And great right done! But more of this anon. Now of my ward discourse! Likes she the town? How does she? Is she well? Canst match me her Among your city maids? _Heart_. Nor court ones neither! She far outstrips them all! _Wal_. I knew she would. What else could follow in a maid so bred? A pure mind, Master Heartwell!--not a taint From intercourse with the distempered town; With which all contact was walled out, until, Matured in soundness, I could trust her to it, And sleep amidst infection! _Heart_. Master Walter! _Wal_. Well? _Heart_. Tell me, prithee, which is likelier To plough a sea in safety?--he that's wont To sail in it,--or he that by the chart Is master of its soundings, bearings,--knows Is headlands, havens, currents--where 'tis bold, And where behoves to keep a good look-out. The one will swim, where sinks the other one? _Wal_. The drift of this? _Heart_. Do you not guess it? _Wal_. Humph! _Heart_. If you would train a maid to live in town, Breed her not in the country! _Wal_. Say you so? And stands she not the test? _Heart_. As snow stands fire! Your country maid has melted all away, And plays the city lady to the height; Her mornings gives to mercers, milliners, Shoemakers, jewellers, and haberdashers; Her noons, to calls; her afternoons, to dressing; Evenings, to plays and drums; and nights, to routs, Balls, masquerades! Sleep only ends the riot, Which waking still begins! _Wal_. I'm all amaze! How bears Sir Thomas this? _Heart_. Why, patiently; Though one can see with pain. _Wal_. She loves him? Ha! That shrug is doubt! She'd ne'er consent to wed him Unless she loved him!--never! Her young fancy The pleasures of the town--new things--have caught, Anon their hold will slacken; she'll become Her former self again; to its old train Of sober feelings will her heart return; And then she'll give it wholly to the man Her virgin wishes chose! _Heart_. Here comes Sir Thomas; And with him Master Modus. _Wal_. Let them pass: I would not see him till I speak with her. [They retire into one of the Arbours.] [Enter CLIFFORD and MODUS.] _Clif_. A dreadful question is it, when we love, To ask if love's returned! I did believe Fair Julia's heart was mine--I doubt it now! But once last night she danced with me, her hand, To this gallant and that engaged, as soon As asked for? Maid that loved would scarce do this? Nor visit we together as we used, When first she came to town. She loves me less Than once she did--or loves me not at all. _Mod_. I'm little skilled, Sir Thomas, in the world: What mean you now to do? _Clif_. Remonstrate with her; Come to an understanding, and, at once, If she repents her promise to be mine, Absolve her from it--and say farewell to her. _Mod_. Lo, then, your opportunity--she comes-- My cousin also:--her will I engage, Whilst you converse together. _Clif_. Nay, not yet! My heart turns coward at the sight of her. Stay till it finds new courage! Let them pass. [CLIFFORD and MODUS retire into the other Arbour.] [Enter JULIA and HELEN.] _Helen_. So, Monday week will say good morn to thee A maid, and bid good night a sober wife! _Julia_. That Monday week, I trust, will never come, That brags to make a sober wife of me! _Helen_. How changed you are, my Julia! _Julia_. Change makes change. _Helen_. Why wedd'st thou, then? _Julia_. Because I promised him! _Helen_. Thou lovest him? _Julia_. Do I? _Helen_. He's a man to love! A right well-favoured man! _Julia_. Your point's well favoured. Where did you purchase it? In Gracechurch Street? _Helen_. Pshaw! never mind my point, but talk of him. _Julia_. I'd rather talk with thee about the lace. Where bought you it? In Gracechurch Street, Cheapside, Whitechapel, Little Britain? Can't you say Where 'twas you bought the lace? _Helen_. In Cheapside, then. And now, then, to Sir Thomas! He is just The height I like a man. _Julia_. Thy feather's just The height I like a feather! Mine's too short! What shall I give thee in exchange for it? _Helen_. What shall I give thee for a minute's talk About Sir Thomas? _Julia_. Why, thy feather. _Helen_. Take it! _Clif_. [Aside to MODUS.] What, likes she not to speak of me? _Helen_. And now Let's talk about Sir Thomas--much I'm sure He loves you. _Julia_. Much I'm sure, he has a right! Those know I who would give their eyes to be Sir Thomas, for my sake! _Helen_. Such too, know I. But 'mong them none that can compare with him, Not one so graceful. _Julia_. What a graceful set Your feather has! _Helen_. Nay, give it back to me, Unless you pay me for't. _Julia_. What was't to get? _Helen_. A minute's talk with thee about Sir Thomas. _Julia_. Talk of his title, and his fortune then. _Clif_. [Aside.] Indeed! I would not listen, yet I must! _Julia_. An ample fortune, Helen--I shall be A happy wife! What routs, what balls, what masques, What gala-days! _Clif_. [Aside.] For these she marries me! She'll talk of these! _Julia_. Think not, when I am wed, I'll keep the house as owlet does her tower, Alone,--when every other bird's on wing. I'll use my palfrey, Helen; and my coach; My barge, too, for excursion on the Thames: What drives to Barnet, Hackney, Islington! What rides to Epping, Hounslow, and Blackheath! What sails to Greenwich, Woolwich, Fulham, Kew! I'll set a pattern to your lady wives! _Clif_. [Aside.] Ay, lady? Trust me, not at my expense. _Julia_. And what a wardrobe! I'll have change of suits For every day in the year! and sets for days! My morning dress, my noon dress, dinner dress, And evening dress! Then will I show you lace A foot deep, can I purchase; if not, I'll specially bespeak it. Diamonds too! Not buckles, rings, and earrings only--but Whole necklaces and stomachers of gems! I'll shine! be sure I will. _Clif_. [Aside.] Then shine away; Who covets thee may wear thee;--I'm not he! _Julia_. And then my title! Soon as I put on The ring, I'm Lady Clifford. So I take Precedence of plain mistress, were she e'en The richest heiress in the land! At town Or country ball, you'll see me take the lead, While wives that carry on their backs the wealth To dower a princess, shall give place to me;-- Will I not profit, think you, by my right? Be sure I will! marriage shall prove to me A never-ending pageant. Every day Shall show how I am spoused! I will be known For Lady Clifford all the city through, And fifty miles the country round about. Wife of Sir Thomas Clifford, baronet-- Not perishable knight--who, when he makes A lady of me, doubtless must expect To see me play the part of one. _Clif_. [Coming forward.] Most true; But not the part which you design to play. _Julia_. A listener, sir! _Clif_. By chance, and not intent, Your speech was forced upon mine ear, that ne'er More thankless duty to my heart discharged! Would for that heart it ne'er had known the sense Which tells it 'tis a bankrupt, there, where most It coveted to be rich, and thought it was so! O Julia, is it you? Could I have set A coronet upon that stately brow, Where partial nature hath already bound A brighter circlet--radiant beauty's own-- I had been proud to see thee proud of it, So for the donor thou hadst ta'en the gift, Not for the gift ta'en him. Could I have poured The wealth of richest Croesus in thy lap, I had been blest to see thee scatter it, So I was still thy riches paramount! _Julia_. Know you me, sir! _Clif_. I do. On Monday week We were to wed--and are--so you're content; The day that weds, wives you to be widowed. Take The privilege of my wife; be Lady Clifford! Outshine the title in the wearing on't! My coffers, lands, all are at thy command; Wear all! but, for myself, she wears not me, Although the coveted of every eye, Who would not wear me for myself alone. _Julia_. And do you carry it so proudly, sir? _Clif_. Proudly, but still more sorrowfully, lady! I'll lead thee to the church on Monday week. Till then, farewell and then, farewell for ever! O Julia, I have ventured for thy love, As the bold merchant, who, for only hope Of some rich gain, all former gains will risk. Before I asked a portion of thy heart, I perilled all my own; and now, all's lost! [CLIFFORD and MODUS go out.] _Julia_. Helen! _Helen_. What ails you, sweet? _Julia_. I cannot breathe--quick, loose my girdle, oh! [Faints.] [MASTER WALTER and MASTER HEARTWELL come forward.] _Wal_. Good Master Heartwell, help to take her in, Whilst I make after him! and look to her! Unlucky chance that took me out of town! [They go out severally.] SCENE III.--The Street. [Enter CLIFFORD and STEPHEN, meeting.] _Ste_. Letters, Sir Thomas. _Clif_. Take them home again, I shall not read them now. _Ste_. Your pardon, sir, But here is one directed strangely. _Clif_. How? _Ste_. "To Master Clifford, gentleman, now styled Sir Thomas Clifford, baronet." _Clif_. Indeed! Whence comes that letter? _Ste_. From abroad. _Clif_. Which is it? _Ste_. So please you, this, Sir Thomas. _Clif_. Give it me. _Ste_. That letter brings not news to wish him joy upon. If he was disturbed before, which I guessed by his looks he was, he is not more at ease now. His hand to his head! A most unwelcome letter! If it brings him news of disaster, fortune does not give him his deserts; for never waited servant upon a kinder master. _Clif_. Stephen! _Ste_. Sir Thomas! _Clif_. From my door remove The plate that bears my name. _Ste_. The plate, Sir Thomas! _Clif_. The plate--collect my servants and instruct them To make out each their claims, unto the end Of their respective terms, and give them in To my steward. Him and them apprise, good fellow, That I keep house no more. As you go home, Call at my coachmaker's and bid him stop The carriage I bespoke. The one I have Send with my horses to the mart whereat Such things are sold by auction. They're for sale; Pack up my wardrobe, have my trunks conveyed To the inn in the next street; and when that's done, Go round my tradesmen and collect their bills, And bring them to me at the inn. _Ste_. The inn! _Clif_. Yes; I go home no more. Why, what's the matter? What has fallen out to make your eyes fill up? You'll get another place. I'll certify You're honest and industrious, and all That a servant ought to be. _Ste_. I see, Sir Thomas, Some great misfortune has befallen you? _Clif_. No! I have health; I have strength; my reason, Stephen, and A heart that's clear in truth, with trust in God. No great disaster can befall the man Who's still possessed of these! Good fellow, leave me. What you would learn, and have a right to know, I would not tell you now. Good Stephen, hence! Mischance has fallen on me--but what of that? Mischance has fallen on many a better man. I prithee leave me. I grow sadder while I see the eye with which you view my grief. 'Sdeath, they will out! I would have been a man, Had you been less a kind and gentle one. Now, as you love me, leave me. _Ste_. Never master So well deserved the love of him that served him. [STEPHEN goes out.] _Clif_. Misfortune liketh company; it seldom Visits its friends alone. Ha! Master Walter, And ruffled too. I'm in no mood for him. [Enter MASTER WALTER.] _Wal_. So, Sir--Sir Thomas Clifford! what with speed And choler--I do gasp for want of breath. _Clif_. Well, Master Walter? _Wal_. You're a rash young man, sir; Strong-headed and wrong-headed, and I fear, sir, Not over delicate in that fine sense Which men of honour pride themselves upon! _Clif_. Well, Master Walter? _Wal_. A young woman's heart, sir, Is not a stone to carve a posy on! Which knows not what is writ on't; which you may buy, Exchange, or sell, sir, keep or give away, sir: It is a richer--yet a poorer thing; Priceless to him that owns and prizes it; Worthless, when owned, not prized; which makes the man That covets it, obtains it, and discards it-- A fool, if not a villain, sir. _Clif_. Well, sir? _Wal_. You never loved my ward, sir! _Clif_. The bright Heavens Bear witness that I did! _Wal_. The bright Heavens, sir, Bear not false witness. That you loved her not Is clear--for had you loved her, you'd have plucked Your heart from out your breast, ere cast her from your heart! Old as I am, I know what passion is. It is the summer's heat, sir, which in vain We look for frost in. Ice, like you, sir, knows But little of such heat! We are wronged, sir, wronged! You wear a sword, and so do I. _Clif_. Well, sir! _Wal_. You know the use, sir, of a sword? _Clif_. I do. To whip a knave, sir, or an honest man! A wise man or a fool--atone for wrong, Or double the amount on't! Master Walter, Touching your ward, if wrong is done, I think On my side lies the grievance. I would not say so Did I not think so. As for love--look, sir, That hand's a widower's, to its first mate sworn To clasp no second one. As for amends, sir, You're free to get them from a man in whom You've been forestalled by fortune, for the spite Which she has vented on him, if you still Esteem him worth your anger. Please you read That letter. Now, sir, judge if life is dear To one so much a loser. _Wal_. What, all gone! Thy cousin living they reported dead! _Clif_. Title and land, sir, unto which add love! All gone, save life and honour, which, ere I'll lose, I'll let the other go. _Wal_. We're public here, And may be interrupted. Let us seek Some spot of privacy. Your letter, sir. [Gives it back.] Though fortune slights you, I'll not slight you; not Your title or the lack of it I heed. Whether upon the score of love or hate, With you and you alone I settle, sir. We've gone too far. 'Twere folly now to part Without a reckoning. _Clif_. Just as you please. _Wal_. You've done A noble lady wrong. _Clif_. That lady, sir, Has done me wrong. _Wal_. Go to, thou art a boy Fit to be trusted with a plaything, not A woman's heart. Thou knowest not what it is! And that I'll prove to thee, soon as we find Convenient place. Come on, sir! you shall get A lesson that shall serve you for the rest Of your life. I'll make you own her, sir, a piece Of Nature's handiwork, as costly, free From bias, flaw, and fair, as ever yet Her cunning hand turned out. Come on, sir! come! [They go out.] ACT III. SCENE I.--A Drawing-room. [Enter LORD TINSEL and the EARL OF ROCHDALE.] _Tin_. Refuse a lord! A saucy lady this. I scarce can credit it. _Roch_. She'll change her mind. My agent, Master Walter, is her guardian. _Tin_. How can you keep that Hunchback in his office? He mocks you. _Roch_. He is useful. Never heed him. My offer now do I present through him. He has the title-deeds of my estates, She'll listen to their wooing. I must have her. Not that I love her, but that all allow She's fairest of the fair. _Tin_. Distinguished well! 'Twere most unseemly for a lord to love!-- Leave that to commoners! 'Tis vulgar--she's Betrothed, you tell me, to Sir Thomas Clifford? _Roch_. Yes. _Tin_. That a commoner should thwart a lord! Yet not a commoner. A baronet Is fish and flesh. Nine parts plebeian, and Patrician in the tenth. Sir Thomas Clifford! A man, they say, of brains! I abhor brains As I do tools: they're things mechanical. So far are we above our forefathers They to their brains did owe their titles, as Do lawyers, doctors. We to nothing owe them, Which makes us far the nobler. _Roch_. Is it so? _Tin_. Believe me. You shall profit by my training; You grow a lord apace. I saw you meet A bevy of your former friends, who fain Had shaken hands with you. You gave them fingers! You're now another man. Your house is changed-- Your table changed--your retinue--your horse-- Where once you rode a hack, you now back blood;-- Befits it, then, you also change your friends! [Enter WILLIAMS.] _Will_. A gentleman would see your lordship. _Tin_. Sir! What's that? _Will_. A gentleman would see his lordship. _Tin_. How know you, sir, his lordship is at home? Is he at home because he goes not out? He's not at home, though there you see him, sir; Unless he certify that he's at home! Bring up the name of the gentleman, and then Your lord will know if he's at home or not. [WILLIAMS goes out.] Your man was porter to some merchant's door, Who never taught him better breeding Than to speak the vulgar truth! Well, sir? [WILLIAMS having re-entered.] _Will_. His name, So please your lordship, Markham. _Tin_. Do you know The thing? _Roch_. Right well! I'faith a hearty fellow, Son to a worthy tradesman, who would do Great things with little means; so entered him In the Temple. A good fellow, on my life. Nought smacking of his stock! _Tin_. You've said enough! His lordship's not at home. [WILLIAMS goes out.] We do not go By hearts, but orders! Had he family-- Blood--though it only were a drop--his heart Would pass for something; lacking such desert, Were it ten times the heart it is, 'tis nought! [Enter WILLIAMS.] _Will_. One Master Jones hath asked to see you lordship. _Tin_. And what was your reply to Master Jones? _Will_. I knew not if his lordship was at home. _Tin_. You'll do. Who's Master Jones? _Roch_. A curate's son. _Tin_. A curate's! Better be a yeoman's son! Was it the rector's son, he might be known, Because the rector is a rising man, And may become a bishop. He goes light, The curate ever hath a loaded back! He may be called the yeoman of the church, That sweating does his work, and drudges on, While lives the hopeful rector at his ease. How made you his acquaintance, pray? _Roch_. We read Latin and Greek together. _Tin_. Dropping them-- As, now that you're a lord, of course you've done-- Drop him--You'll say his lordship's not at home. _Will_. So please your lordship, I forgot to say, One Richard Cricket likewise is below. _Tin_. Who?--Richard Cricket! You must see him, Rochdale! A noble little fellow! A great man, sir! Not knowing whom, you would be nobody! I won five thousand pounds by him! _Roch_. Who is he? I never heard of him. _Tin_. What! never heard Of Richard Cricket!--never heard of him! Why, he's the jockey of Newmarket; you May win a cup by him, or else a sweepstakes. I bade him call upon you. You must see him. His lordship is at home to Richard Cricket. _Roch_. Bid him wait in the ante-room. [WILLIAMS goes out.] _Tin_. The ante-room! The best room in your house! You do not know The use of Richard Cricket! Show him, sir, Into the drawing-room. Your lordship needs Must keep a racing stud, and you'll do well To make a friend of Richard Cricket. Well, sir: What's that? [Enter WILLIAMS.] _Will_. So please your lordship, a petition. _Tin_. Hadst not a service 'mongst the Hottentots Ere thou camest hither, friend? Present thy lord With a petition! At mechanics' doors, At tradesmen's, shopkeepers', and merchants' only, Have such things leave to knock! Make thy lord's gate A wicket to a workhouse! Let us see it-- Subscriptions to a book of poetry! Cornelius Tense, M.A. Which means he construes Greek and Latin, works Problems in mathematics, can chop logic, And is a conjurer in philosophy, Both natural and moral.--Pshaw! a man Whom nobody, that is anybody, knows! Who, think you, follows him? Why, an M.D., An F.R.S., an F.AS., and then A D.D., Doctor of Divinity, Ushering in an LL.D., which means Doctor of Laws--their harmony, no doubt, The difference of their trades! There's nothing here But languages, and sciences, and arts. Not an iota of nobility! We cannot give our names. Take back the paper, And tell the bearer there's no answer for him:-- That is the lordly way of saying "No." But, talking of subscriptions, here is one To which your lordship may affix your name. _Roch_. Pray, who's the object? _Tin_. A most worthy man! A man of singular deserts; a man In serving whom your lordship will serve me,-- Signor Cantata. _Roch_. He's a friend of yours? _Tin_. Oh, no, I know him not! I've not that pleasure. But Lady Dangle knows him; she's his friend, He will oblige us with a set of concerts, Six concerts to the set.--The set, three guineas. Your lordship will subscribe? _Roch_. Oh, by all means. _Tin_. How many sets of tickets? Two at least. You'll like to take a friend? I'll set you down Six guineas to Signor Cantata's concerts, And now, my Lord, we'll to him; then we'll walk. _Roch_. Nay, I would wait the lady's answer. _Tin_. Wait! take an excursion to the country; let Her answer wait for you! _Roch_. Indeed! _Tin_. Indeed! Befits a lord nought like indifference. Say an estate should fall to you, you'd take it As it concerned more a stander by Than you. As you're a lord, be sure you ever Of that make little other men make much of; Nor do the thing they do, but the right contrary. Where the distinction else 'twixt them and you? [They go out.] SCENE II.--An Apartment in Master Heartwell's House. [MASTER WALTER discovered looking through title-deeds and papers.] _Wal_. So falls out everything, as I would have it, Exact in place and time. This lord's advances Receives she,--as, I augur, in the spleen Of wounded pride she will,--my course is clear. She comes--all's well--the tempest rages still. [JULIA enters, and paces the room in a state of high excitement.] _Julia_. What have my eyes to do with water? Fire Becomes them better! _Wal_. True! _Julia_. Yet, must I weep To be so monitored, and by a man! A man that was my slave! whom I have seen Kneel at my feet from morn till noon, content With leave to only gaze upon my face, And tell me what he read there,--till the page I knew by heart, I 'gan to doubt I knew, Emblazoned by the comment of his tongue! And he to lesson me! Let him come here On Monday week! He ne'er leads me to church! I would not profit by his rank, or wealth, Though kings might call him cousin, for their sake! I'll show him I have pride! _Wal_. You're very right! _Julia_. He would have had to-day our wedding-day! I fixed a month from this. He prayed and prayed; I dropped a week. He prayed and prayed the more! I dropped a second one. Still more he prayed! And I took off another week,--and now I have his leave to wed, or not to wed! He'll see that I have pride! _Wal_. And so he ought. _Julia_. O! for some way to bring him to my foot! But he should lie there! Why, 'twill go abroad That he has cast me off. That there should live The man could say so! Or that I should live To be the leavings of a man! _Wal_. Thy case I own a hard one! _Julia_. Hard? 'Twill drive me mad! His wealth and title! I refused a lord-- I did!--that privily implored my hand, And never cared to tell him on't! So much I hate him now, that lord should not in vain Implore my hand again! _Wal_. You'd give it him? _Julia_. I would. _Wal_. You'd wed that lord? _Julia_. That lord I'd wed;-- Or any other lord,--only to show him That I could wed above him! _Wal_. Give me your hand And word to that. _Julia_. There! Take my hand and word! _Wal_. That lord hath offered you his hand again. _Julia_. He has? _Wal_. Your father knows it: he approves of him. There are the title-deeds of the estates, Sent for my jealous scrutiny. All sound,-- No flaw, or speck, that e'en the lynx-eyed law Itself could find. A lord of many lands! In Berkshire half a county; and the same In Wiltshire, and in Lancashire! Across The Irish Sea a principality! And not a rood with bond or lien on it! Wilt give that lord a wife? Wilt make thyself A countess? Here's the proffer of his hand. Write thou content, and wear a coronet! _Julia_. [Eagerly.] Give me the paper. _Wal_. There! Here's pen and ink. Sit down. Why do you pause? A flourish of The pen, and you're a countess. _Julia_. My poor brain Whirls round and round! I would not wed him now, Were he more lowly at my feet to sue Than e'er he did! _Wal_. Wed whom? _Julia_. Sir Thomas Clifford. _Wal_. You're right. _Julia_. His rank and wealth are roots to doubt; And while they lasted, still the weed would grow, Howe'er you plucked it. No! That's o'er--that's done. Was never lady wronged so foul as I! [Weeps.] _Wal_. Thou'rt to be pitied. _Julia_. [Aroused.] Pitied! Not so bad As that. _Wal_. Indeed thou art, to love the man That spurns thee! _Julia_. Love him! Love! If hate could find A word more harsh than its own name, I'd take it, To speak the love I bear him! [Weeps.] _Wal_. Write thy own name, And show him how near akin thy hate's to hate. _Julia_. [Writes.] 'Tis done! _Wal_. 'Tis well! I'll come to you anon! [Goes out.] _Julia_. [Alone.] I'm glad 'tis done! I'm very glad 'tis done! I've done the thing I ought. From my disgrace This lord shall lift me 'bove the reach of scorn-- That idly wags its tongue, where wealth and state Need only beckon to have crowds to laud! Then how the tables change! The hand he spurned His betters take! Let me remember that! I'll grace my rank! I will! I'll carry it As I was born to it! I warrant none Shall say it fits me not:--but, one and all Confess I wear it bravely, as I ought! And he shall hear it! Ay, and he shall see it! I will roll by him in an equipage Would mortgage his estate--but he shall own His slight of me was my advancement! Love me! He never loved me! if he had, he ne'er Had given me up! Love's not a spider's web But fit to mesh a fly--that you can break By only blowing on't! He never loved me! He knows not what love is!--or, if he does, He has not been o'erchary of his peace! And that he'll find when I'm another's wife, Lost!--lost to him for ever! Tears again! Why should I weep for him? Who make their woes. Deserve them! What have I to do with tears? [Enter HELEN.] _Helen_. News, Julia, news! _Julia_. What! is't about Sir Thomas? _Helen_. Sir Thomas, say you? He's no more Sir Thomas! That cousin lives, as heir to whom, his wealth And title came to him. _Julia_. Was he not dead? _Helen_. No more than I am dead. _Julia_. I would 'twere not so. _Helen_. What say you, Julia? _Julia_. Nothing! _Helen_. I could kiss That cousin! couldn't you, Julia? _Julia_. Wherefore? _Helen_. Why For coming back to life again, as 'twere Upon his cousin to revenge you. _Julia_. Helen! _Helen_. Indeed 'tis true. With what a sorry grace The gentleman will bear himself without His title! Master Clifford! Have you not Some token to return him? Some love-letter? Some brooch? Some pin? Some anything? I'll be Your messenger, for nothing but the pleasure Of calling him plain "Master Clifford." _Julia_. Helen! _Helen_. Or has he aught of thine? Write to him, Julia, Demanding it! Do, Julia, if you love me; And I'll direct it in a schoolboy's hand, As round as I can write, "To Master Clifford." _Julia_. Helen! _Helen_. I'll think of fifty thousand ways To mortify him! I've a twentieth cousin, A care-for-nought, at mischief. Him I'll set, With twenty other madcaps like himself, To walk the streets the traitor most frequents And give him salutation as he passes-- "How do you, Master Clifford?" _Julia_. [Highly incensed.] Helen! _Helen_. Bless me! _Julia_. I hate you, Helen! [Enter MODUS.] _Mod_. Joy for you, fair lady! Our baronet is now plain gentleman-- And hardly that, not master of the means To bear himself as such. The kinsman lives Whose only rumoured death gave wealth to him, And title. A hard creditor he proves, Who keeps strict reckoning--will have interest. As well as principal. A ruined man Is now Sir Thomas Clifford! _Helen_. I'm glad on't. _Mod_. And so am I, A scurvy trick it was He served you, madam. Use a lady so! I merely bore with him. I never liked him. _Helen_. No more did I. No, never could I think He looked his title. _Mod_. No, nor acted it. If rightly they report, he ne'er disbursed To entertain his friends, 'tis broadly said, A hundred pounds in the year! He was most poor In the appointments of a man of rank, Possessing wealth like his. His horses, hacks! His gentleman, a footman! and his footman, A groom! The sports that men of quality And spirit countenance, he kept aloof from, From scruple of economy, not taste,-- As racing and the like. In brief, he lacked Those shining points that, more than name, denote High breeding; and, moreover, was a man Of very shallow learning. _Julia_. Silence, sir! For shame! _Helen_. Why, Julia! _Julia_. Speak not to me! Poor! Most poor! I tell you, sir, he was the making Of fifty gentlemen--each one of whom Were more than peer for thee! His title, sir, Lent him no grace he did not pay it back! Though it had been the highest of the high, He would have looked it, felt it, acted it, As thou couldst ne'er have done! When found you out You liked him not? It was not ere to-day! Or that base spirit I must reckon yours Which smiles where it would scowl--can stoop to hate And fear to show it! He was your better, sir, And is!--Ay, is! though stripped of rank and wealth, His nature's 'bove or fortune's love or spite, To blazon or to blurr it! [Retires.] _Mod_. [To HELEN.] I was told Much to disparage him--I know not wherefore. _Helen_. And so was I, and know as much the cause. [Enter MASTER WALTER, with parchments.] _Wal_. Joy, my Julia! Impatient love has foresight! Lo you here The marriage deeds filled up, except a blank To write your jointure. What you will, my girl! Is this a lover? Look! Three thousand pounds Per annum for your private charges! Ha! There's pin-money! Is this a lover? Mark What acres, forests, tenements, are taxed For your revenue; and so set apart, That finger cannot touch them, save thine own. Is this a lover? What good fortune's thine! Thou dost not speak; but, 'tis the way with joy! With richest heart, it has the poorest tongue! _Mod_. What great good fortune's this you speak of, sir? _Wal_. A coronet, Master Modus! You behold The wife elect, sir, of no less a man Than the new Earl of Rochdale--heir of him That's recently deceased. _Helen_. My dearest Julia, Much joy to you! _Mod_. All good attend you, madam! _Wal_. This letter brings excuses from his lordship, Whose absence it accounts for. He repairs To his estate in Lancashire, and thither We follow. _Julia_. When, sir? _Wal_. Now. This very hour. _Julia_. This very hour! O cruel, fatal haste! _Wal_. "O cruel, fatal haste!" What meanest thou? Have I done wrong to do thy bidding, then? I have done no more. Thou wast an offcast bride, And wouldst be an affianced one--thou art so! Thou'dst have the slight that marked thee out for scorn, Converted to a means of gracing thee-- It is so! If our wishes come too soon, What can make sure of welcome? In my zeal To win thee thine, thou know'st, at any time I'd play the steed, whose will to serve his lord, With his last breath gives his last bound for him! Since only noon have I despatched what well Had kept a brace of clerks, and more, on foot-- And then, perhaps, had been to do again!-- Not finished sure, complete--the compact firm, As fate itself had sealed it! _Julia_. Give you thanks! Though 'twere my death! my death! _Wal_. Thy death! indeed, For happiness like this, one well might die! Take thy lord's letter! Well? [Enter THOMAS, with a letter.] _Thos_. This letter, sir, The gentleman that served Sir Thomas Clifford-- Or him that was Sir Thomas--gave to me For Mistress Julia. _Julia_. Give it me! [Throwing away the one she holds.] _Wal_. [Snatching it.] For what? Wouldst read it? He's a bankrupt! stripped of title, House, chattels, lands, and all! A naked bankrupt, With neither purse, nor trust! Wouldst read his letter? A beggar! Yea, a very beggar!--fasts, unless He dines on alms! How durst he send thee a letter! A fellow cut on this hand, and on that; Bows and is cut again, and bows again! Who pays you fifty smiles for half a one,-- And that given grudgingly! To you a letter! I burst with choler! Thus I treat his letter! [Tears and throws it on the ground.] So! I was wrong to let him ruffle me; He is not worth the spending anger on! I prithee, Master Modus, use despatch, And presently make ready for our ride. You, Helen, to my Julia look--a change Of dresses will suffice. She must have new ones, Matches for her new state! Haste, friends. My Julia! Why stand you poring there upon the ground? Time flies. Your rise astounds you? Never heed-- You'll play my lady countess like a queen! [They go out.] ACT IV. SCENE I.--A Room in the Earl of Rochdale's [Eater HELEN.] _Helen_. I'm weary wandering from room to room; A castle after all is but a house-- The dullest one when lacking company. Were I at home, I could be company Unto myself. I see not Master Walter, He's ever with his ward. I see not her. By Master Walter's will she bides alone. My father stops in town. I can't see him. My cousin makes his books his company. I'll go to bed and sleep. No--I'll stay up And plague my cousin into making love! For, that he loves me, shrewdly I suspect. How dull he is that hath not sense to see What lies before him, and he'd like to find! I'll change my treatment of him. Cross him, where Before I used to humour him. He comes, Poring upon a book. What's that you read? [Enter MODUS.] _Mod_. Latin, sweet cousin. _Helen_. 'Tis a naughty tongue, I fear, and teaches men to lie. _Mod_. To lie! _Helen_. You study it. You call your cousin sweet, And treat her as you would a crab. As sour 'Twould seem you think her, as you covet her! Why how the monster stares, and looks about! You construe Latin, and can't construe that! _Mod_. I never studied women. _Helen_. No; nor men. Else would you better know their ways: nor read In presence of a lady. [Strikes the book from his hand.] _Mod_. Right you say, And well you served me, cousin, so to strike The volume from my hand. I own my fault; So please you--may I pick it up again? I'll put it in my pocket! _Helen_. Pick it up. He fears me as I were his grandmother! What is the book? _Mod_. 'Tis Ovid's Art of Love. _Helen_. That Ovid was a fool! _Mod_. In what? _Helen_. In that: To call that thing an art, which art is none. _Mod_. And is not love an art? _Helen_. Are you a fool, As well as Ovid? Love an art! No art But taketh time and pains to learn. Love comes With neither! Is't to hoard such grain as that, You went to college? Better stay at home, And study homely English. _Mod_. Nay, you know not The argument. _Helen_. I don't? I know it better Than ever Ovid did! The face--the form-- The heart--the mind we fancy, cousin; that's The argument! Why, cousin, you know nothing. Suppose a lady were in love with thee: Couldst thou by Ovid, cousin, find it out? Couldst find it out, wast thou in love thyself? Could Ovid, cousin, teach thee to make love? I could, that never read him! You begin With melancholy; then to sadness; then To sickness; then to dying--but not die! She would not let thee, were she of my mind! She'd take compassion on thee. Then for hope; From hope to confidence; from confidence To boldness;--then you'd speak; at first entreat; Then urge; then flout; then argue; then enforce; Make prisoner of her hand; besiege her waist; Threaten her lips with storming; keep thy word And carry her! My sampler 'gainst thy Ovid! Why cousin, are you frightened, that you stand As you were stricken dumb? The case is clear, You are no soldier. You'll ne'er win a battle. You care too much for blows! _Mod_. You wrong me there, At school I was the champion of my form; And since I went to college-- _Helen_. That for college! _Mod_. Nay, hear me! _Helen_. Well? What, since you went to college? You know what men are set down for, who boast Of their own bravery! Go on, brave cousin: What, since you went to college? Was there not One Quentin Halworth there? You know there was, And that he was your master! _Mod_. He my master! Thrice was he worsted by me. _Helen_. Still was he Your master. _Mod_. He allowed I had the best! Allowed it, mark me! nor to me alone, But twenty I could name. _Helen_. And mastered you At last! Confess it, cousin, 'tis the truth! A proctor's daughter you did both affect-- Look at me and deny it! Of the twain She more affected you;--I've caught you now, Bold cousin! Mark you? opportunity On opportunity she gave you, sir-- Deny it if you can!--but though to others, When you discoursed of her, you were a flame; To her you were a wick that would not light, Though held in the very fire! And so he won her-- Won her, because he wooed her like a man. For all your cuffings, cuffing you again With most usurious interest. Now, sir, Protest that you are valiant! _Mod_. Cousin Helen! _Helen_. Well, sir? _Mod_. The tale is all a forgery! _Helen_. A forgery! _Mod_. From first to last; ne'er spoke I To a proctor's daughter while I was at college. _Helen_. 'Twas a scrivener's then--or somebody's. But what concerns it whose? Enough, you loved her! And, shame upon you, let another take her! _Mod_. Cousin, I'll tell you, if you'll only hear me, I loved no woman while I was at college-- Save one, and her I fancied ere I went there. _Helen_. Indeed! Now I'll retreat, if he's advancing. Comes he not on! O what a stock's the man! Well, cousin? _Mod_. Well! What more wouldst have me say? I think I've said enough. _Helen_. And so think I. I did but jest with you. You are not angry? Shake hands! Why, cousin, do you squeeze me so? _Mod_. [Letting her go.] I swear I squeezed you not. _Helen_. You did not? _Mod_. No. I'll die if I did! _Helen_. Why then you did not, cousin, So let's shake hands again-- [He takes her hand as before.] O go and now Read Ovid! Cousin, will you tell me one thing: Wore lovers ruffs in Master Ovid's time? Behoved him teach them, then, to put them on;-- And that you have to learn. Hold up your head! Why, cousin, how you blush! Plague on the ruff! I cannot give't a set. You're blushing still! Why do you blush, dear cousin? So!--'twill beat me! I'll give it up. _Mod_. Nay, prithee, don't--try on! _Helen_. And if I do, I fear you'll think me bold. _Mod_. For what? _Helen_. To trust my face so near to thine. _Mod_. I know not what you mean. _Helen_. I'm glad you don't! Cousin, I own right well behaved you are, Most marvellously well behaved! They've bred You well at college. With another man My lips would be in danger! Hang the ruff! _Mod_. Nay, give it up, nor plague thyself, dear cousin. _Helen_. Dear fool! [Throws the ruff on the ground.] I swear the ruff is good for just As little as its master! There!--'Tis spoiled-- You'll have to get another! Hie for it, And wear it in the fashion of a wisp, Ere I adjust it for thee! Farewell, cousin! You'd need to study Ovid's Art of Love. [HELEN goes out.] _Mod_. [Solus.] Went she in anger! I will follow her,-- No, I will not! Heigho! I love my cousin! O would that she loved me! Why did she taunt me With backwardness in love? What could she mean? Sees she I love her, and so laughs at me, Because I lack the front to woo her? Nay, I'll woo her then! Her lips shall be in danger, When next she trusts them near me! Looked she at me To-day as never did she look before! A bold heart, Master Modus! 'Tis a saying A faint one never won fair lady yet! I'll woo my cousin, come what will on't. Yes: [Begins reading again, throws down the book.] Hang Ovid's Art of Love! I'll woo my cousin! [Goes out.] SCENE II.--The Banqueting-room in the Earl of Rochdale's Mansion. [Enter MASTER WALTER and JULIA.] _Wal_. This is the banqueting-room. Thou seest as far It leaves the last behind, as that excels The former ones. All is proportion here And harmony! Observe! The massy pillars May well look proud to bear the gilded dome. You mark those full-length portraits? They're the heads, The stately heads, of his ancestral line. Here o'er the feast they haply still preside! Mark those medallions! Stand they forth or not In bold and fair relief? Is not this brave? _Julia_. [Abstractedly.] It is. _Wal_. It should be so. To cheer the blood That flows in noble veins is made the feast That gladdens here! You see this drapery? 'Tis richest velvet! Fringe and tassels, gold! Is not this costly? _Julia_. Yes. _Wal_. And chaste, the while? Both chaste and costly? _Julia_. Yes. _Wal_. Come hither! There's a mirror for you. See! One sheet from floor to ceiling! Look into it, Salute its mistress! Dost not know her? _Julia_. [Sighing deeply.] Yes. _Wal_. And sighest thou to know her? Wait until To-morrow, when the banquet shall be spread In the fair hall; the guests--already bid, Around it; here, her lord; and there, herself; Presiding o'er the cheer that hails him bridegroom, And her the happy bride! Dost hear me? _Julia_. [Sighing still more deeply.] Yes. _Wal_. These are the day-rooms only, we have seen. For public and domestic uses kept. I'll show you now the lodging-rooms. [Goes, then turns and observes JULIA standing perfectly abstracted.] You're tired. Let it be till after dinner, then. Yet one I'd like thee much to see--the bridal chamber. [JULIA starts, crosses her hands upon her breast, and looks upwards.] I see you're tired: yet it is worth the viewing, If only for the tapestry which shows The needle like the pencil glows with life; [Brings down chairs--they sit.] The story's of a page who loved the dame He served--a princess!--Love's a heedless thing! That never takes account of obstacles; Makes plains of mountains, rivulets of seas, That part it from its wish. So proved the page, Who from a state so lowly, looked so high,-- But love's a greater lackwit still than this. Say it aspires--that's gain! Love stoops--that's loss! You know what comes. The princess loved the page. Shall I go on, or here leave off? _Julia_. Go on. _Wal_. Each side of the chamber shows a different stage Of this fond page, and fonder lady's love. {2} First--no, it is not that. _Julia_. Oh, recollect! _Wal_. And yet it is. _Julia_. No doubt it is. What is 't? _Wal_. He holds to her a salver, with a cup; His cheeks more mantling with his passion than The cup with the ruby wine. She heeds him not, For too great heed of him:--but seems to hold Debate betwixt her passion and her pride-- That's like to lose the day. You read it in Her vacant eye, knit brow, and parted lips, Which speak a heart too busy all within To note what's done without. Like you the tale? _Julia_. I list to every word. _Wal_. The next side paints The page upon his knee. He has told his tale; And found that when he lost his heart, he played No losing game: but won a richer one! There may you read in him, how love would seem Most humble when most bold,--you question which Appears to kiss her hand--his breath, or lips! In her you read how wholly lost is she Who trusts her heart to love. Shall I give o'er? _Julia_. Nay, tell it to the end. Is't melancholy? _Wal_. To answer that, would mar the story. _Julia_. Right. _Wal_. The third side now we come to. _Julia_. What shows that? _Wal_. The page and princess still. But stands her sire Between them. Stern he grasps his daughter's arm, Whose eyes like fountains play; while through her tears Her passion shines, as through the fountain drops The sun! His minions crowd around the page! They drag him to a dungeon. _Julia_. Hapless youth! _Wal_. Hapless indeed, that's twice a captive! heart And body both in bonds. But that's the chain, Which balance cannot weigh, rule measure, touch Define the texture of, or eye detect, That's forged by the subtle craft of love! No need to tell you that he wears it. Such The cunning of the hand that plied the loom, You've but to mark the straining of his eye, To feel the coil yourself! _Julia_. I feel't without! You've finished with the third side; now the fourth! _Wal_. It brings us to a dungeon, then. _Julia_. The page, The thrall of love, more than the dungeon's thrall, Is there? _Wal_. He is. He lies in fetters. _Julia_. Hard! Hard as the steel, the hands that put them on. _Wal_. Some one unrivets them! _Julia_. The princess? 'Tis! _Wal_. It is another page. _Julia_. It is herself! _Wal_. Her skin is fair; and his is berry-brown. His locks are raven black; and hers are gold. _Julia_. Love's cunning of disguises! spite of locks, Skin, vesture,--it is she, and only she What will not constant woman do for love That's loved with constancy! Set her the task, Virtue approving, that will baffle her! O'ertax her stooping, patience, courage, wit! My life upon it, 'tis the princess' self, Transformed into a page! _Wal_. The dungeon door Stands open, and you see beyond-- _Julia_. Her father! _Wal_. No; a steed. _Julia_. [Starting up.] O, welcome steed, My heart bounds at the thought of thee! Thou comest To bear the page from bonds to liberty. What else? _Wal_. [Rising.] The story's told. _Julia_. Too briefly told; O happy princess, that had wealth and state To lay them down for love! Whose constant love Appearances approved, not falsified! A winner in thy loss, as well as gain. _Wal_. Weighs love so much? _Julia_. What would you weigh 'gainst love That's true? Tell me with what you'd turn the scale? Yea, make the index waver? Wealth? A feather! Rank? Tinsel against bullion in the balance! The love of kindred? That to set 'gainst love! Friendship comes nearest to't; but put it in, Friendship will kick the beam!--weigh nothing 'gainst it! Weigh love against the world! Yet are they happy that have naught to say to it. _Wal_. And such a one art thou. Who wisely wed, Wed happily. The love thou speak'st of, A flower is only, that its season has, Which they must look to see the withering of, Who pleasure in its budding and its bloom! But wisdom is the constant evergreen Which lives the whole year through! Be that, your flower! [Enter a Servant.] Well? _Serv_. My lord's secretary is without. He brings a letter for her ladyship, And craves admittance to her. _Wal_. Show him in. _Julia_. No. _Wal_. Thou must see him. To show slight to him, Were slighting him that sent him. Show him in! [Servant goes out.] Some errand proper for thy private ear, Besides the letter he may bring. What mean This paleness and this trembling? Mark me, Julia! If, from these nuptials, which thyself invited-- Which at thy seeking came--thou wouldst be freed, Thou hast gone too far! Receding were disgrace, Sooner than see thee suffer which, the hearts That love thee most would wish thee dead! Reflect! Take thought! collect thyself! With dignity Receive thy bridegroom's messenger! for sure As dawns to-morrow's sun, to-morrow night Sees thee a wedded bride! [Goes out.] _Julia_. [Alone.] A wedded bride! Is it a dream? Is it a phantasm? 'Tis Too horrible for reality! for aught else Too palpable! O would it were a dream! How would I bless the sun that waked me from it! I perish! Like some desperate mariner Impatient of a strange and hostile land, Who rashly hoists his sail and puts to sea, And being fast on reefs and quicksands borne, Essays in vain once more to make the land, Whence wind and current drive him; I'm wrecked By mine own act! What! no escape? no hope? None! I must e'en abide these hated nuptials! Hated!--Ah! own it, and then curse thyself! That madest the bane thou loathest--for the love Thou bear'st to one who never can be thine! Yes--love! Deceive thyself no longer. False To say 'tis pity for his fall--respect, Engendered by a hollow world's disdain, Which hoots whom fickle fortune cheers no more! 'Tis none of these; 'tis love--and if not love, Why then idolatry! Ay, that's the name To speak the broadest, deepest, strongest passion, That ever woman's heart was borne away by! He comes! Thou'dst play the lady,--play it now! [Enter a Servant, conducting CLIFFORD, plainly attired as the EARL OF ROCHDALE'S Secretary.] Servant. His lordship's secretary. [Servant goes out.] _Julia_. Speaks he not? Or does he wait for orders to unfold His business? Stopped his business till I spoke, I'd hold my peace for ever! [CLIFFORD kneels; presenting a letter.] Does he kneel? A lady am I to my heart's content! Could he unmake me that which claims his knee, I'd kneel to him--I would! I would!--Your will? _Clif_. This letter from my lord. _Julia_. O fate! Who speaks? _Clif_. The secretary of my lord. _Julia_. I breathe! I could have sworn 'twas he! [Makes an effort to look at him, but is unable.] So like the voice-- I dare not look, lest there the form should stand! How came he by that voice? 'Tis Clifford's voice, If ever Clifford spoke! My fears come back-- Clifford the secretary of my lord! Fortune hath freaks, but none so mad as that! It cannot be!--It should not be!--A look, And all were set at rest. [Tries to look at him again, but cannot.] So strong my fears, Dread to confirm them takes away the power To try and end them! Come the worst, I'll look. [She tries again; and again is unequal to the task.] I'd sink before him if I met his eye! _Clif_. Will't please your ladyship to take the letter? Julia. There Clifford speaks again! Not Clifford's heart Could more make Clifford's voice! Not Clifford's tongue And lips more frame it into Clifford's speech! A question, and 'tis over! Know I you? _Clif_. Reverse of fortune, lady, changes friends; It turns them into strangers. What I am I have not always been! _Julia_. Could I not name you? _Clif_. If your disdain for one, perhaps too bold When hollow fortune called him favourite,-- Now by her fickleness perforce reduced To take an humble tone, would suffer you-- _Julia_. I might? _Clif_. You might! _Julia_. Oh, Clifford! is it you? _Clif_. Your answer to my lord. [Gives the letter.] _Julia_. Your lord! [Mechanically taking it.] _Clif_. Wilt write it? Or, will it please you send a verbal one? I'll bear it faithfully. _Julia_. You'll bear it? _Clif_. Madam, Your pardon, but my haste is somewhat urgent. My lord's impatient, and to use despatch Were his repeated orders. _Julia_. Orders? Well, I'll read the letter, sir. 'Tis right you mind His lordship's orders. They are paramount! Nothing should supersede them!--stand beside them! They merit all your care, and have it! Fit, Most fit, they should! Give me the letter, sir. _Clif_. You have it, madam. _Julia_. So! How poor a thing I look! so lost, while he is all himself! Have I no pride? [She rings, the Servant enters.] Paper, and pen, and ink! If he can freeze, 'tis time that I grow cold! I'll read the letter. [Opens it, and holds it as about to read it.] Mind his orders! So! Quickly he fits his habits to his fortunes! He serves my lord with all his will! His heart's In his vocation. So! Is this the letter? 'Tis upside down--and here I'm poring on't! Most fit I let him see me play the fool! Shame! Let me be myself! [A Servant enters with materials for writing.] A table, sir, And chair. [The Servant brings a table and chair, and goes out. She sits a while, vacantly gazing on the letter--then looks at CLIFFORD.] How plainly shows his humble suit! It fits not him that wears it! I have wronged him! He can't be happy--does not look it!--is not. That eye which reads the ground is argument Enough! He loves me. There I let him stand, And I am sitting! [Rises, takes a chair, and approaches CLIFFORD.] Pray you take a chair. [He bows, as acknowledging and declining the honour. She looks at him a while.] Clifford, why don't you speak to me? [She weeps.] _Clif_. I trust You're happy. _Julia_. Happy! Very, very happy! You see I weep, I am so happy! Tears Are signs, you know, of naught but happiness! When first I saw you, little did I look To be so happy!--Clifford! _Clif_. Madam? _Julia_. Madam! I call thee Clifford, and thou call'st me madam! _Clif_. Such the address my duty stints me to. Thou art the wife elect of a proud Earl, Whose humble secretary, sole, am I. _Julia_. Most right! I had forgot! I thank you, sir, For so reminding me; and give you joy, That what, I see, had been a burthen to you, Is fairly off your hands. _Clif_. A burthen to me! Mean you yourself? Are you that burthen, Julia? Say that the sun's a burthen to the earth! Say that the blood's a burthen to the heart! Say health's a burthen, peace, contentment, joy, Fame, riches, honours! everything that man Desires, and gives the name of blessing to E'en such a burthen, Julia were to me, Had fortune let me wear her. _Julia_. [Aside.] On the brink Of what a precipice I'm standing! Back, Back! while the faculty remains to do't! A minute longer, not the whirlpool's self More sure to suck me down! One effort! There! [She returns to her seat, recovers her self-possession, takes up the letter, and reads.] To wed to-morrow night! Wed whom? A man Whom I can never love! I should before Have thought of that. To-morrow night! This hour To-morrow! How I tremble! Happy bands To which my heart such freezing welcome gives, As sends an ague through me! At what means Will not the desperate snatch! What's honour's price? Nor friends, nor lovers,--no, nor life itself! Clifford! This moment leave me! [CLIFFORD retires up the stage out of JULIA'S sight.] Is he gone? O docile lover! Do his mistress' wish That went against his own! Do it so soon Ere well 'twas uttered! No good-bye to her! No word! no look! 'Twas best that he so went! Alas, the strait of her, who owns that best, Which last she'd wish were done? What's left me now? To weep! To weep! [Leans her head upon her arm, which rests upon the desk,--her other arm hanging listlessly at her side. CLIFFORD comes down the stage, looks a moment at her, approaches her, and kneeling, takes her hand.] _Clif_. My Julia! _Julia_. Here again! Up! up! By all thy hopes of Heaven, go hence! To stay's perdition to me! Look you, Clifford! Were there a grave where thou art kneeling now, I'd walk into 't, and be inearthed alive, Ere taint should touch my name! Should some one come And see thee kneeling thus! Let go my hand! Remember, Clifford, I'm a promised bride-- And take thy arm away! It has no right To clasp my waist! Judge you so poorly of me, As think I'll suffer this? My honour, sir! [She breaks from him, quitting her seat.] I'm glad you've forced me to respect myself-- You'll find that I can do so! _Clif_. I was bold-- Forgetful of your station and my own; There was a time I held your hand unchid! There was a time I might have clasped your waist-- I had forgot that time was past and gone! I pray you, pardon me! _Julia_. [Softened.] I do so, Clifford. _Clif_. I shall no more offend. _Julia_. Make sure of that. No longer is it fit thou keep'st thy post In's lordship's household. Give it up! A day-- An hour remain not in it! _Clif_. Wherefore? _Julia_. Live In the same house with me, and I another's? Put miles, put leagues between us! The same land Should not contain us. Oceans should divide us-- With barriers of constant tempests--such As mariners durst not tempt! O Clifford! Rash was the act so light that gave me up, That stung a woman's pride, and drove her mad-- Till in her frenzy she destroyed her peace! Oh, it was rashly done! Had you reproved-- Expostulated,--had you reasoned with me-- Tried to find out what was indeed my heart,-- I would have shown it--you'd have seen it. All Had been as naught can ever be again! _Clif_. Lovest thou me, Julia? _Julia_. Dost thou ask me, Clifford? _Clif_. These nuptials may be shunned!-- _Julia_. With honour? _Clif_. Yes! _Julia_. Then take me!--Stop--hear me, and take me then! Let not thy passion be my counsellor! Deal with me, Clifford, as my brother. Be The jealous guardian of my spotless name! Scan thou my cause as 'twere thy sister's. Let Thy scrutiny o'erlook no point of it,-- Nor turn it over once, but many a time:-- That flaw, speck--yea,--the shade of one,--a soil So slight, not one out of a thousand eyes Could find it out, may not escape thee; then Say if these nuptials can be shunned with honour! _Clif_. They can. _Julia_. Then take me, Clifford! [They embrace.] _Wal_. [Entering.] Ha! What's this? Ha! treason! What! my baronet that was, My secretary now? Your servant, sir! Is't thus you do the pleasure of your lord,-- That for your service feeds you, clothes you, pays you! Or takest thou but the name of his dependent? What's here?--a letter. Fifty crowns to one A forgery! I'm wrong. It is his hand. This proves thee double traitor! _Clif_. Traitor! _Julia_. Nay, Control thy wrath, good Master Walter! Do-- And I'll persuade him to go hence-- [MASTER WALTER retires up the stage.] I see For me thou bearest this, and thank thee, Clifford! As thou hast truly shown thy heart to me, So truly I to thee have opened mine! Time flies! To-morrow! If thy love can find A way, such as thou saidst, for my enlargement By any means thou canst, apprise me of it; And, soon as shown, I'll take it. _Wal_. Is he gone? _Julia_. He is this moment. If thou covetest me, Win me, and wear me! May I trust thee? Oh! If that's thy soul, that's looking through thine eyes, Thou lovest me, and I may!--I sicken, lest I never see thee more! _Clif_. As life is mine, The ring that on thy wedding-finger goes No hand but mine shall place there! _Wal_. Lingers he? _Julia_. For my sake, now away! And yet a word. By all thy hopes most dear, be true to me! Go now!--yet stay! Clifford, while you are here, I'm like a bark distressed and compassless, That by a beacon steers; when you're away, That bark alone and tossing miles at sea! Now go! Farewell! My compass--beacon--land! When shall my eyes be blessed with thee again! _Clif_. Farewell! [Goes out.] _Julia_. Art gone? All's chance--all's care--all's darkness. [Is led off by MASTER WALTER.] ACT V. SCENE I.--An Apartment in the Earl of Rochdale's. [Enter HELEN and FATHOM.] _Fath_. The long and short of it is this--if she marries this lord, she'll break her heart! I wish you could see her, madam. Poor lady! _Helen_. How looks she, prithee? _Fath_. Marry, for all the world like a dripping-wet cambric handkerchief! She has no colour nor strength in her; and does nothing but weep--poor lady! _Helen_. Tell me again what said she to thee? _Fath_. She offered me all she was mistress of to take the letter to Master Clifford. She drew her purse from her pocket--the ring from her finger--she took her very earrings out of her ears--but I was forbidden, and refused. And now I'm sorry for it! Poor lady! _Helen_. Thou shouldst be sorry. Thou hast a hard heart, Fathom. _Fath_. I, madam! My heart is as soft as a woman's. You should have seen me when I came out of her chamber--poor lady! _Helen_. Did you cry? _Fath_. No; but I was as near it as possible. I a hard heart! I would do anything to serve her, poor sweet lady! _Helen_. Will you take her letter, asks she you again? _Fath_. No--I am forbid. _Helen_. Will you help Master Clifford to an interview with her? _Fath_. No--Master Walter would find it out. _Helen_. Will you contrive to get me into her chamber? _Fath_. No--you would be sure to bring me into mischief. _Helen_. Go to! You would do nothing to serve her. You a soft heart! You have no heart at all! You feel not for her! _Fath_. But I tell you I do--and good right I have to feel for her. I have been in love myself. _Helen_. With your dinner! _Fath_. I would it had been! My pain would soon have been over, and at little cost. A fortune I squandered upon her!--trinkets--trimmings--treatings--what swallowed up the revenue of a whole year! Wasn't I in love? Six months I courted her, and a dozen crowns all but one did I disburse for her in that time! Wasn't I in love? An hostler--a tapster--and a constable, courted her at the same time, and I offered to cudgel the whole three of them for her! Wasn't I in love? _Helen_. You are a valiant man, Fathom. _Fath_. Am not I? Walks not the earth the man I am afraid of. _Helen_. Fear you not Master Walter? _Fath_. No. _Helen_. You do! _Fath_. I don't! _Helen_. I'll prove it to you. You see him breaking your young mistress's heart, and have not the manhood to stand by her. _Fath_. What could I do for her? _Helen_. Let her out of prison. It were the act of a man. _Fath_. That man am I! _Helen_. Well said, brave Fathom! _Fath_. But my place! _Helen_. I'll provide thee with a better one. _Fath_. 'Tis a capital place! So little to do, and so much to get for't. Six pounds in the year; two suits of livery; shoes and stockings, and a famous larder. He'd be a bold man that would put such a place in jeopardy. My place, madam, my place! _Helen_. I tell thee I'll provide thee with a better place. Thou shalt have less to do, and more to get. Now, Fathom, hast thou courage to stand by thy mistress? _Fath_. I have! _Helen_. That's right. _Fath_. I'll let my lady out. [Enter MASTER WALTER unperceived.] _Helen_. That's right. When, Fathom? _Fath_. To-night. _Helen_. She is to be married to-night. _Fath_. This evening, then. Master Walter is now in the library, the key is on the outside, and I'll lock him in. _Helen_. Excellent! You'll do it? _Fath_. Rely upon it. How he'll stare when he finds himself a prisoner, and my young lady at liberty! _Helen_. Most excellent! You'll be sure to do it? _Fath_. Depend upon me! When Fathom undertakes a thing, he defies fire and water-- _Wal_. [Coming forward.] Fathom! _Fath_. Sir! _Wal_. Assemble straight the servants. _Fath_. Yes, sir! _Wal_. Mind, And have them in the hall when I come down. _Fath_. Yes, sir! _Wal_. And see you do not stir a step, But where I order you. _Fath_. Not an inch, sir! _Wal_. See that you don't--away! So, my fair mistress, [FATHOM goes out.] What's this you have been plotting? An escape For mistress Julia? _Helen_. I avow it. _Wal_. Do you? _Helen_. Yes; and moreover to your face I tell you, Most hardly do you use her! _Wal_. Verily! _Helen_. I wonder where's her spirit! Had she mine She would not take 't so easily. Do you mean To force this marriage on her? _Wal_. With your leave. _Helen_. You laugh. _Wal_. Without it, then. I don't laugh now. _Helen_. If I were she, I'd find a way to escape. _Wal_. What would you do? _Helen_. I'd leap out of the window! _Wal_. Your window should be barred. _Helen_. I'd cheat you still!-- I'd hang myself ere I'd be forced to marry! _Wal_. Well said! You shall be married, then, to-night. _Helen_. Married to-night! _Wal_. As sure as I have said it. _Helen_. Two words to that. Pray who's to be my bridegroom? _Wal_. A daughter's husband is her father's choice. _Helen_. My father's daughter ne'er shall wed such husband! _Wal_. Indeed! _Helen_. I'll pick a husband for myself. _Wal_. Indeed! _Helen_. Indeed, sir; and indeed again! _Wal_. Go dress you for the marriage ceremony. _Helen_. But, Master Walter, what is it you mean? [Enter MODUS.] _Wal_. Here comes your cousin;--he shall be your bridesman! The thought's a sudden one,--that will excuse Defect in your appointments. A plain dress,-- So 'tis of white,--will do. _Helen_. I'll dress in black. I'll quit the castle. _Wal_. That you shall not do. Its doors are guarded by my lord's domestics, Its avenues--its grounds. What you must do, Do with a good grace! In an hour, or less, Your father will be here. Make up your mind To take with thankfulness the man he gives you. Now, [Aside] if they find not out how beat their hearts, I have no skill, not I, in feeling pulses. [Goes out.] _Helen_. Why, cousin Modus! What! will you stand by And see me forced to marry? Cousin Modus! Have you not got a tongue? Have you not eyes? Do you not see I'm very--very ill, And not a chair in all the corridor? _Mod_. I'll find one in the study. _Helen_. Hang the study! _Mod_. My room's at hand. I'll fetch one thence. _Helen_. You shan't I'd faint ere you came back! _Mod_. What shall I do? _Helen_. Why don't you offer to support me? Well? Give me your arm--be quick! [MODUS offers his arm.] Is that the way To help a lady when she's like to faint? I'll drop unless you catch me! [MODUS supports her.] That will do. I'm better now--[MODUS offers to leave her] don't leave me! Is one well Because one's better? Hold my hand. Keep so. I'll soon recover so you move not. Loves he-- [Aside.] Which I'll be sworn he does, he'll own it now. Well, cousin Modus? _Mod_. Well, sweet cousin! _Helen_. Well? You heard what Master Walter said? _Mod_. I did. _Helen_. And would you have me marry? Can't you speak? Say yes or no. _Mod_. No, cousin! _Helen_. Bravely said! And why, my gallant cousin? _Mod_. Why? _Helen_. Ay, why?-- Women, you know, are fond of reasons--why Would you not have me marry? How you blush! Is it because you do not know the reason? You mind me of a story of a cousin Who once her cousin such a question asked. He had not been to college, though--for books, Had passed his time in reading ladies' eyes. Which he could construe marvellously well, Though writ in language all symbolical. Thus stood they once together, on a day-- As we stand now--discoursed as we discourse,-- But with this difference,--fifty gentle words He spoke to her, for one she spoke to him!-- What a dear cousin! Well, as I did say, As now I questioned thee, she questioned him. And what was his reply? To think of it Sets my heart beating--'twas so kind a one! So like a cousin's answer--a dear cousin! A gentle, honest, gallant, loving cousin! What did he say?--A man might find it out, Though never read he Ovid's Art of Love-- What did he say? He'd marry her himself! How stupid are you, cousin! Let me go! _Mod_. You are not well yet? _Helen_. Yes. _Mod_. I'm sure you're not. _Helen_. I'm sure I am. _Mod_. Nay, let me hold you, cousin! I like it. _Helen_. Do you? I would wager you You could not tell me why you like it. Well? You see how true I know you! How you stare! What see you in my face to wonder at? _Mod_. A pair of eyes! _Helen_. At last he'll find his tongue--[Aside.] And saw you ne'er a pair of eyes before? _Mod_. Not such a pair. _Helen_. And why? _Mod_. They are so bright! You have a Grecian nose. _Helen_. Indeed. _Mod_. Indeed! _Helen_. What kind of mouth have I? _Mod_. A handsome one. I never saw so sweet a pair of lips! I ne'er saw lips at all till now, dear cousin! _Helen_. Cousin, I'm well,--you need not hold me now. Do you not hear? I tell you I am well! I need your arm no longer--take 't away! So tight it locks me, 'tis with pain I breathe! Let me go, cousin! Wherefore do you hold Your face so close to mine? What do you mean? _Mod_. You've questioned me, and now I'll question you. _Helen_. What would you learn? _Mod_. The use of lips. _Helen_. To speak. _Mod_. Naught else? _Helen_. How bold my modest cousin grows! Why, other use know you? _Mod_. I do! _Helen_. Indeed! You're wondrous wise? And pray what is it? _Mod_. This! [Attempts to kiss her.] _Helen_. Soft! my hand thanks you, cousin--for my lips I keep them for a husband!--Nay, stand off! I'll not be held in manacles again! Why do you follow me? _Mod_. I love you, cousin! _Helen_. O cousin, say you so! That's passing strange! Falls out most crossly--is a dire mishap-- A thing to sigh for, weep for, languish for, And die for! _Mod_. Die for! _Helen_, Yes, with laughter, cousin, For, cousin, I love you! _Mod_. And you'll be mine? _Helen_. I will. _Mod_. Your hand upon it. _Helen_. Hand and heart. Hie to thy dressing-room, and I'll to mine-- Attire thee for the altar--so will I. Whoe'er may claim me, thou'rt the man shall have me. Away! Despatch! But hark you, ere you go, Ne'er brag of reading Ovid's Art of Love! _Mod_. And cousin! stop--one little word with you! [She returns, he snatches a kiss--They go out severally.] SCENE II.--Julia's Chamber. [Enter JULIA.] _Julia_. No word from him, and evening now set in! He cannot play me false! His messenger Is dogged--or letter intercepted. I'm Beset with spies!--No rescue!--No escape!-- The hour at hand that brings my bridegroom home! No relative to aid me! friend to counsel me. [A knock at the door.] Come in. [Enter two Female Attendants.] Your will? _First Attendant_. Your toilet waits, my lady; 'Tis time you dress. _Julia_. 'Tis time I die! [A peal of bells.] What's that? _First Attendant_. Your wedding bells, my lady. _Julia_. Merrily They ring my knell! [Second Attendant presents an open case.] And pray you what are these? _Second Attendant_. Your wedding jewels. _Julia_. Set them by. _Second Attendant_. Indeed. Was ne'er a braver set! A necklace, brooch, And earrings all of brilliants, with a hoop To guard your wedding ring. _Julia_. 'Twould need a guard That lacks a heart to keep it! _Second Attendant_. Here's a heart Suspended from the necklace--one huge diamond Imbedded in a host of smaller ones! Oh! how it sparkles! _Julia_. Show it me! Bright heart, Thy lustre, should I wear thee, will be false,-- For thou the emblem art of love and truth,-- From her that wears thee unto him that gives thee. Back to thy case! Better thou ne'er shouldst leave it-- Better thy gems a thousand fathoms deep In their native mine again, than grace my neck, And lend thy fair face to palm off a lie! _First Attendant_. Will't please you dress? _Julia_. Ah! in infected clothes New from a pest-house! Leave me! If I dress, I dress alone! O for a friend! Time gallops! [Attendants go out.] He that should guard me is mine enemy! Constrains me to abide the fatal die, My rashness, not my reason cast! He comes, That will exact the forfeit!--Must I pay it?-- E'en at the cost of utter bankruptcy! What's to be done? Pronounce the vow that parts My body from my soul! To what it loathes Links that, while this is linked to what it loves! Condemned to such perdition! What's to be done? Stand at the altar in an hour from this! An hour thence seated at his board--a wife Thence!--frenzy's in the thought! What's to be done? [Enter MASTER WALTER.] _Wal_. What! run the waves so high? Not ready yet! Your lord will soon be here! The guests collect. _Julia_. Show me some way to 'scape these nuptials! Do it! Some opening for avoidance or escape,-- Or to thy charge I'll lay a broken heart! It may be, broken vows, and blasted honour, Or else a mind distraught! _Wal_. What's this? _Julia_. The strait I'm fallen into my patience cannot bear. It frights my reason--warps my sense of virtue! Religion!--changes me into a thing I look at with abhorring! _Wal_. Listen to me. _Julia_. Listen to me! If this contract Thou holdest me to--abide thou the result! Answer to heaven for what I suffer!--act! Prepare thyself for such calamity To fall on me, and those whose evil stars Have linked them with me, as no past mishap, However rare, and marvellously sad Can parallel! lay thy account to live A smileless life, die an unpitied death-- Abhorred, abandoned of thy kind,--as one Who had the guarding of a young maid's peace,-- Looked on and saw her rashly peril it; And when she saw her danger, and confessed Her fault, compelled her to complete her ruin! _Wal_. Hast done? _Julia_. Another moment, and I have. Be warned! Beware how you abandon me To myself! I'm young, rash, inexperienced! tempted By most insufferable misery! Bold, desperate, and reckless! Thou hast age Experience, wisdom, and collectedness,-- Power, freedom,--everything that I have not, Yet want, as none e'er wanted! Thou canst save me, Thou oughtst! thou must! I tell thee at his feet I'll fall a corse--ere mount his bridal bed! So choose betwixt my rescue and my grave;-- And quickly too! The hour of sacrifice Is near! Anon the immolating priest Will summon me! Devise some speedy means To cheat the altar of its victim. Do it! Nor leave the task to me! _Wal_. Hast done? _Julia_. I have. _Wal_. Then list to me--and silently, if not With patience.--[Brings chairs for himself and her.] How I watched thee from thy childhood I'll not recall to thee. Thy father's wisdom-- Whose humble instrument I was--directed Your nonage should be passed in privacy, From your apt mind that far outstripped your years, Fearing the taint of an infected world;-- For, in the rich grounds, weeds once taking root, Grow strong as flowers. He might be right or wrong! I thought him right; and therefore did his bidding. Most certainly he loved you--so did I; Ay! well as I had been myself your father! [His hand is resting upon his knee, JULIA attempts to take it--he withdraws it--looks at her--she hangs her head.] Well; you may take my hand! I need not say How fast you grew in knowledge, and in goodness,-- That hope could scarce enjoy its golden dreams So soon fulfilment realised them all! Enough. You came to womanhood. Your heart, Pure as the leaf of the consummate bud, That's new unfolded by the smiling sun, And ne'er knew blight nor canker! [JULIA attempts to place her other hand on his shoulder--he leans from her--looks at her--she hangs her head again.] Put it there! Where left I off? I know! When a good woman Is fitly mated, she grows doubly good, How good soe'er before! I found the man I thought a match for thee; and, soon as found, Proposed him to thee. 'Twas your father's will, Occasion offering, you should be married Soon as you reached to womanhood.--You liked My choice, accepted him.--We came to town; Where, by important matter summoned thence, I left you an affianced bride! _Julia_. You did! You did! [Leans her head upon her hand and weeps.] _Wal_. Nay, check thy tears! Let judgment now, Not passion, be awake. On my return, I found thee--what? I'll not describe the thing I found thee then! I'll not describe my pangs To see thee such a thing! The engineer Who lays the last stone of his sea-built tower, It cost him years and years of toil to raise-- And, smiling at it, tells the winds and waves To roar and whistle now--but, in a night, Beholds the tempest sporting in its place-- May look aghast, as I did! _Julia_. [Falling on her knees.] Pardon me! Forgive me! pity me! _Wal_. Resume thy seat. [Raises her.] I pity thee; perhaps not thee alone It fits to sue for pardon. _Julia_. Me alone! None other! _Wal_. But to vindicate myself, I name thy lover's stern desertion of thee. What wast thou then with wounded pride? A thing To leap into a torrent! throw itself From a precipice! rush into a fire! I saw Thy madness--knew to thwart it were to chafe it-- And humoured it to take that course, I thought, Adopted, least 'twould rue! _Julia_. 'Twas wisely done. _Wal_. At least 'twas for the best. _Julia_. To blame thee for it Was adding shame to shame! But Master Walter, These nuptials!--must they needs go on? Servant. [Entering.] More guests Arrive. _Wal_. Attend to them. [Servant goes out.] _Julia_. Dear Master Walter! Is there no way to escape these nuptials? _Wal_. Know'st not What with these nuptials comes? Hast thou forgot? _Julia_. What? _Wal_. Nothing!--I did tell thee of a thing. _Julia_. What was it? _Wal_. To forget it was a fault! Look back and think. _Julia_. I can't remember it. _Wal_. Fathers, make straws your children! Nature's nothing, Blood nothing! Once in other veins it runs, It no more yearneth for the parent flood, Than doth the stream that from the source disparts. Talk not of love instinctive--what you call so Is but the brat of custom! Your own flesh By habit cleaves to you--without, Hath no adhesion. [Aside.] So; you have forgot You have a father, and are here to meet him! _Julia_. I'll not deny it. _Wal_. You should blush for't. _Julia_. No! No! no: hear, Master Walter! what's a father That you've not been to me? Nay, turn not from me, For at the name a holy awe I own, That now almost inclines my knee to earth! But thou to me, except a father's name, Hast all the father been: the care--the love-- The guidance--the protection of a father. Canst wonder, then, if like thy child I feel,-- And feeling so, that father's claim forget Whom ne'er I knew save by the name of one? Oh, turn to me, and do not chide me! or If thou wilt chide, chide on! but turn to me! _Wal_. [Struggling with emotion.] My Julia! [Embraces her.] _Julia_. Now, dear Master Walter, hear me! Is there no way to 'scape these nuptials? _Wal_. Julia, A promise made admits not of release, Save by consent or forfeiture of those Who hold it--so it should be pondered well Before we let it go. Ere man should say I broke the word I had the power to keep, I'd lose the life I had the power to part with! Remember, Julia, thou and I to-day Must, to thy father, of thy training render A strict account. While honour's left to us, We have something--nothing, having all but that. Now for thy last act of obedience, Julia! Present thyself before thy bridegroom! [She assents.] Good! My Julia's now herself! Show him thy heart, And to his honour leave't to set thee free Or hold thee bound. Thy father will be by! SCENE III.--The Banqueting' Room. [Enter MASTER WALTER and MASTER HEARTWELL.] _Heart_. Thanks, Master Walter! Ne'er was child more bent To do her father's will, you'll own, than mine: Yet never one more froward. _Wal_. All runs fair-- Fair may all end! To-day you'll learn the cause That took me out of town. But soft a while,-- Here comes the bridegroom, with his friends, and here The all-obedient bride. [Enter on one hand JULIA, and on the other hand LORD ROCHDALE with LORD TINSEL and friends--afterwards CLIFFORD.] _Roch_. Is she not fair? _Tin_. She'll do. Your servant, lady! Master Walter, We're glad to see you. Sirs, you're welcome all. What wait they for? Are we to wed or not? We're ready--why don't they present the bride? I hope they know she is to wed an earl. _Roch_. Should I speak first? _Tin_. Not for your coronet! I, as your friend, may make the first advance. We've come here to be married. Where's the bride? _Wal_. There stands she, lord; if 'tis her will to wed, His lordship's free to take her. _Tin_. Not a step! I, as your friend, may lead her to your lordship. Fair lady, by your leave. _Julia_. No! not to you. _Tin_. I ask your hand to give it to his lordship. _Julia_. Nor to his lordship--save he will accept My hand without my heart! but I'll present My knee to him, and, by his lofty rank, Implore him now to do a lofty deed Will lift its stately head above his rank,-- Assert him nobler yet in worth than name,-- And, in the place of an unwilling bride, Unto a willing debt or make him lord,-- Whose thanks shall be his vassals, night and day That still shall wait upon him! _Tin_. What means this? _Julia_. What is't behoves a wife to bring her lord? _Wal_. A whole heart, and a true one. _Julia_. I have none! Not half a heart--the fraction of a heart! Am I a woman it befits to wed? _Wal_. Why, where's thy heart? _Julia_. Gone--out of my keeping! Lost, past recovery: right and title to it-- And all given up! and he that's owner on't, So fit to wear it, were it fifty hearts, I'd give it to him all! _Wal_. Thou dost not mean His lordship's secretary? _Julia_. Yes. Away Disguises! in that secretary know The master of the heart, of which the poor, Unvalued, empty casket, at your feet-- Its jewel gone--I now despairing throw! [Kneels.] Of his lord's bride he's lord! lord paramount! To whom her virgin homage first she paid,-- 'Gainst whom rebelled in frowardness alone, Nor knew herself how loyal to him, till Another claimed her duty--then awoke To sense of all she owed him--all his worth-- And all her undeservings! _Tin_. Lady, we came not here to treat of hearts,-- But marriage; which, so please you, is with us A simple joining, by the priest, of hands. A ring's put on, a prayer or two is said; You're man and wife,--and nothing more! For hearts, We oftener do without, than with them, lady! _Clif_. So does not wed this lady! _Tin_. Who are you? _Clif_. I'm secretary to the Earl of Rochdale. _Tin_. My lord! _Roch_. I know him not-- _Tin_. I know him now-- Your lordship's rival! Once Sir Thomas Clifford. _Clif_. Yes, and the bridegroom of that lady then, Then loved her--loves her still! _Julia_. Was loved by her-- Though then she knew it not!--is loved by her, As now she knows, and all the world may know! _Tin_. We can't be laughed at. We are here to wed, And shall fulfil our contract. _Julia_. Clifford! _Clif_. Julia! You will not give your hand? [A pause. JULIA seems utterly lost.] _Wal_. You have forgot Again. You have a father! _Julia_. Bring him now,-- To see thy Julia justify thy training, And lay her life down to redeem her word! _Wal_. And so redeems her all! Is it your will, My lord, these nuptials should go on? _Roch_. It is. _Wal_. Then is it mine they stop! _Tin_. I told your lordship You should not keep a Hunchback for your agent. _Wal_. Thought like my father, my good lord, who said He would not have a Hunchback for his son-- So do I pardon you the savage slight. My lord, that I am not as straight as you, Was blemish neither of my thought nor will, My head nor heart. It was no act of mine.-- Yet did it curdle Nature's kindly milk E'en where 'tis richest--in a parent's breast-- To cast me out to heartless fosterage, Nor heartless always, as it proved--and give My portion to another! the same blood-- But I'll be sworn, in vein, my lord, and soul-- Although his trunk did swerve no more than yours-- Not half so straight as I. _Tin_. Upon my life You've got a modest agent, Rochdale! Now He'll prove himself descended--mark my words-- From some small gentleman _Wal_. And so you thought, Where Nature played the churl, it would be fit That fortune played it too. You would have had My lord absolve me of my agency! Fair lord, the flaw did cost me fifty times-- A hundred times my agency:--but all's Recovered. Look, my lord, a testament To make a pension of his lordship's rent-roll! It is my father's, and was left by him, In case his heir should die without a son, Then to be opened. Heaven did send a son To bless the heir. Heaven took its gift away, He died--his father died. And Master Walter-- The unsightly agent of his lordship there-- The Hunchback whom your lordship would have stripped Of his agency--is now the Earl of Rochdale! _Tin_. We've made a small mistake here. Never mind, 'Tis nothing in a lord. _Julia_. The Earl of Rochdale! _Wal_. And what of that? Thou know'st not half my greatness! A prouder title, Julia, have I yet, Sooner than part with which I'd give that up, And be again plain Master Walter. What! Dost thou not apprehend me? Yes, thou dost! Command thyself; don't gasp. My pupil--daughter! Come to thy father's heart! [JULIA rushes into his arms.] [Enter FATHOM.] _Fath_. Thievery! Elopement--escape--arrest! _Wal_. What's the matter? _Fath_. Mistress Helen is running away with Master Modus--Master Modus is running away with Mistress Helen--but we have caught them, secured them, and here they come, to receive the reward of their merits. [Enter HELEN and MODUS, followed by Servants.] _Helen_. I'll ne'er wed man, if not my cousin Modus. _Mod_. Nor woman I, save cousin Helen's she. _Wal_. [To MASTER HEARTWELL.] A daughter, have you, and a nephew, too, Without their match in duty! Let them marry. For you, sir, who to-day have lost an earldom, Yet would have shared that earldom with my child-- My only one--content yourself with prospect Of the succession; it must fall to you, And fit yourself to grace it. Ape not those Who rank by pride. The man of simplest bearing Is yet a lord, when he's a lord indeed! _Tin_. The paradox is obsolete. Ne'er heed! Learn from his book, and practise out of mine! _Wal_. Sir Thomas Clifford, take my daughter's hand! If now you know the master of her heart! Give it, my Julia! You suspect, I see, And rightly, there has been some masking here. Content thee, daughter, thou shalt know anon, How jealousy of my mis-shapen back Made me mistrustful of a child's affections-- Who doubted e'en a wife's--so that I dropped The title of thy father, lest thy duty Should pay the debt thy love could solve alone. All this and more, that to thy friends and thee Pertains, at fitting time thou shalt be told. But now thy nuptials wait--the happy close Of thy hard trial--wholesome, though severe! The world won't cheat thee now--thy heart is proved;-- Thou know'st thy peace by finding out its bane, And ne'er will act from reckless impulse more! Footnotes: {1} The other play, The Love-Chase, is released in a separated eText with Project Gutenberg and not included here.--DP. {2} In representation, the passages following this are curtailed and the scene runs as follows:-- Master Walter continues-- The first side shows their passion in the dawn-- In the next side 'tis shining open day-- In the third there's clouding--I but touch on these To make a long tale brief, and bring thee to The last side. _Julia_. What shows that? _Wal_. The fate of love That will not be advised.--The scene's a dungeon, Its tenant is the page--he lies in fetters. _Julia_. Hard! Hard as the steel, the hands that put them on! &c. 
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3418	----	CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION By Bernard Shaw ACT I On the heights overlooking the harbor of Mogador, a seaport on the west coast of Morocco, the missionary, in the coolness of the late afternoon, is following the precept of Voltaire by cultivating his garden. He is an elderly Scotchman, spiritually a little weatherbeaten, as having to navigate his creed in strange waters crowded with other craft but still a convinced son of the Free Church and the North African Mission, with a faithful brown eye, and a peaceful soul. Physically a wiry small-knit man, well tanned, clean shaven, with delicate resolute features and a twinkle of mild humor. He wears the sun helmet and pagri, the neutral-tinted spectacles, and the white canvas Spanish sand shoes of the modern Scotch missionary: but instead of a cheap tourist's suit from Glasgow, a grey flannel shirt with white collar, a green sailor knot tie with a cheap pin in it, he wears a suit of clean white linen, acceptable in color, if not in cut, to the Moorish mind. The view from the garden includes much Atlantic Ocean and a long stretch of sandy coast to the south, swept by the north east trade wind, and scantily nourishing a few stunted pepper trees, mangy palms, and tamarisks. The prospect ends, as far as the land is concerned, in little hills that come nearly to the sea: rudiments, these, of the Atlas Mountains. The missionary, having had daily opportunities of looking at this seascape for thirty years or so, pays no heed to it, being absorbed in trimming a huge red geranium bush, to English eyes unnaturally big, which, with a dusty smilax or two, is the sole product of his pet flower-bed. He is sitting to his work on a Moorish stool. In the middle of the garden there is a pleasant seat in the shade of a tamarisk tree. The house is in the south west corner of the garden, and the geranium bush in the north east corner. At the garden-door of the house there appears presently a man who is clearly no barbarian, being in fact a less agreeable product peculiar to modern commercial civilization. His frame and flesh are those of an ill-nourished lad of seventeen; but his age is inscrutable: only the absence of any sign of grey in his mud colored hair suggests that he is at all events probably under forty, without prejudice to the possibility of his being under twenty. A Londoner would recognize him at once as an extreme but hardy specimen of the abortion produced by nature in a city slum. His utterance, affectedly pumped and hearty, and naturally vulgar and nasal, is ready and fluent: nature, a Board School education, and some kerbstone practice having made him a bit of an orator. His dialect, apart from its base nasal delivery, is not unlike that of smart London society in its tendency to replace diphthongs by vowels (sometimes rather prettily) and to shuffle all the traditional vowel pronunciations. He pronounces ow as ah, and i as aw, using the ordinary ow for o, i for a, a for u, and e for a, with this reservation, that when any vowel is followed by an r he signifies its presence, not by pronouncing the r, which he never does under these circumstances, but by prolonging and modifyinq the vowel, sometimes even to the extreme degree of pronouncing it properly. As to his yol for l (a compendious delivery of the provincial eh-al), and other metropolitan refinements, amazing to all but cockneys, they cannot be indicated, save in the above imperfect manner, without the aid of a phonetic alphabet. He is dressed in somebody else's very second best as a coast-guardsman, and gives himself the airs of a stage tar with sufficient success to pass as a possible fish porter of bad character in casual employment during busy times at Billingsgate. His manner shows an earnest disposition to ingratiate himself with the missionary, probably for some dishonest purpose. THE MAN. Awtenoon, Mr. Renkin. (The missionary sits up quickly, and turns, resigning himself dutifully to the interruption.) Yr honor's eolth. RANKIN (reservedly). Good afternoon, Mr. Drinkwotter. DRINKWATER. You're not best pleased to be hinterrupted in yr bit o gawdnin bow the lawk o me, gavner. RANKIN. A missionary knows nothing of leks of that soart, or of disleks either, Mr. Drinkwotter. What can I do for ye? DRINKWATER (heartily). Nathink, gavner. Awve brort noos fer yer. RANKIN. Well, sit ye doon. DRINKWATER. Aw thenk yr honor. (He sits down on the seat under the tree and composes himself for conversation.) Hever ear o Jadge Ellam? RANKIN. Sir Howrrd Hallam? DRINKWATER. Thet's im-enginest jadge in Hingland!--awlus gives the ket wen it's robbry with voylence, bless is awt. Aw sy nathink agin im: awm all fer lor mawseolf, AW em. RANKIN. Well? DRINKWATER. Hever ear of is sist-in-lor: Lidy Sisly Winefleet? RANKIN. Do ye mean the celebrated Leddy--the traveller? DRINKWATER. Yuss: should think aw doo. Walked acrost Harfricar with nathink but a little dawg, and wrowt abaht it in the Dily Mile (the Daily Mail, a popular London newspaper), she did. RANKIN. Is she Sir Howrrd Hallam's sister-in-law? DRINKWATER. Deeceased wawfe's sister: yuss: thet's wot SHE is. RANKIN. Well, what about them? DRINKWATER. Wot abaht them! Waw, they're EAH. Lannid aht of a steam yacht in Mogador awber not twenty minnits agow. Gorn to the British cornsl's. E'll send em orn to you: e ynt got naowheres to put em. Sor em awr (hire) a Harab an two Krooboys to kerry their laggige. Thort awd cam an teoll yer. RANKIN. Thank you. It's verra kind of you, Mr. Drinkwotter. DRINKWATER. Down't mention it, gavner. Lor bless yer, wawn't it you as converted me? Wot was aw wen aw cam eah but a pore lorst sinner? Down't aw ow y'a turn fer thet? Besawds, gavner, this Lidy Sisly Winefleet mawt wor't to tike a walk crost Morocker--a rawd inter the mahntns or sech lawk. Weoll, as you knaow, gavner, thet cawn't be done eah withaht a hescort. RANKIN. It's impoassible: th' would oall b' murrdered. Morocco is not lek the rest of Africa. DRINKWATER. No, gavner: these eah Moors ez their religion; an it mikes em dinegerous. Hever convert a Moor, gavner? RANKIN (with a rueful smile). No. DRINKWATER (solemnly). Nor never will, gavner. RANKIN. I have been at work here for twenty-five years, Mr. Drinkwotter; and you are my first and only convert. DRINKWATER. Down't seem naow good, do it, gavner? RANKIN. I don't say that. I hope I have done some good. They come to me for medicine when they are ill; and they call me the Christian who is not a thief. THAT is something. DRINKWATER. Their mawnds kennot rawse to Christiennity lawk hahrs ken, gavner: thet's ah it is. Weoll, ez haw was syin, if a hescort is wornted, there's maw friend and commawnder Kepn Brarsbahnd of the schooner Thenksgivin, an is crew, incloodin mawseolf, will see the lidy an Jadge Ellam through henny little excursion in reason. Yr honor mawt mention it. RANKIN. I will certainly not propose anything so dangerous as an excursion. DRINKWATER (virtuously). Naow, gavner, nor would I awst you to. (Shaking his head.) Naow, naow: it IS dinegerous. But hall the more call for a hescort if they should ev it hin their mawnds to gow. RANKIN. I hope they won't. DRINKWATER. An sow aw do too, gavner. RANKIN (pondering). 'Tis strange that they should come to Mogador, of all places; and to my house! I once met Sir Howrrd Hallam, years ago. DRINKWATER (amazed). Naow! didger? Think o thet, gavner! Waw, sow aw did too. But it were a misunnerstedin, thet wors. Lef the court withaht a stine on maw kerrickter, aw did. RANKIN (with some indignation). I hope you don't think I met Sir Howrrd in that way. DRINKWATER. Mawt yeppn to the honestest, best meanin pusson, aw do assure yer, gavner. RANKIN. I would have you to know that I met him privately, Mr. Drinkwotter. His brother was a dear friend of mine. Years ago. He went out to the West Indies. DRINKWATER. The Wust Hindies! Jist acrost there, tather sawd thet howcean (pointing seaward)! Dear me! We cams hin with vennity, an we deepawts in dawkness. Down't we, gavner? RANKIN (pricking up his ears). Eh? Have you been reading that little book I gave you? DRINKWATER. Aw hev, et odd tawms. Very camfitn, gavner. (He rises, apprehensive lest further catechism should find him unprepared.) Awll sy good awtenoon, gavner: you're busy hexpectin o Sr Ahrd an Lidy Sisly, ynt yer? (About to go.) RANKIN (stopping him). No, stop: we're oalways ready for travellers here. I have something else to say--a question to ask you. DRINKWATER (with a misgiving, which he masks by exaggerating his hearty sailor manner). An weollcome, yr honor. RANKIN. Who is this Captain Brassbound? DRINKWATER (guiltily). Kepn Brarsbahnd! E's-weoll, e's maw Kepn, gavner. RANKIN. Yes. Well? DRINKWATER (feebly). Kepn of the schooner Thenksgivin, gavner. RANKIN (searchingly). Have ye ever haird of a bad character in these seas called Black Paquito? DRINKWATER (with a sudden radiance of complete enlightenment). Aoh, nar aw tikes yer wiv me, yr honor. Nah sammun es bin a teolln you thet Kepn Brarsbahnd an Bleck Pakeetow is hawdentically the sime pussn. Ynt thet sow? RANKIN. That is so. (Drinkwater slaps his knee triumphantly. The missionary proceeds determinedly) And the someone was a verra honest, straightforward man, as far as I could judge. DRINKWATER (embracing the implication). Course a wors, gavner: Ev aw said a word agin him? Ev aw nah? RANKIN. But is Captain Brassbound Black Paquito then? DRINKWATER. Waw, it's the nime is blessed mather give im at er knee, bless is little awt! Ther ynt naow awm in it. She ware a Wust Hinjin--howver there agin, yer see (pointing seaward)--leastwaws, naow she worn't: she were a Brazilian, aw think; an Pakeetow's Brazilian for a bloomin little perrit--awskin yr pawdn for the word. (Sentimentally) Lawk as a Hinglish lidy mawt call er little boy Birdie. RANKIN (not quite convinced). But why BLACK Paquito? DRINKWATER (artlessly). Waw, the bird in its netral stite bein green, an e evin bleck air, y' knaow-- RANKIN (cutting him short). I see. And now I will put ye another question. WHAT is Captain Brassbound, or Paquito, or whatever he calls himself? DRINKWATER (officiously). Brarsbahnd, gavner. Awlus calls isseolf Brarsbahnd. RANKIN. Well. Brassbound, then. What is he? DRINKWATER (fervently). You awsks me wot e is, gavner? RANKIN (firmly). I do. DRINKWATER (with rising enthusiasm). An shll aw teoll yer wot e is, yr honor? RANKIN (not at all impressed). If ye will be so good, Mr. Drinkwotter. DRINKWATER (with overwhelming conviction). Then awll teoll you, gavner, wot he is. Ee's a Paffick Genlmn: thet's wot e is. RANKIN (gravely). Mr. Drinkwotter: pairfection is an attribute, not of West Coast captains, but of thr Maaker. And there are gentlemen and gentlemen in the world, espaecially in these latitudes. Which sort of gentleman is he? DRINKWATER. Hinglish genlmn, gavner. Hinglish speakin; Hinglish fawther; West Hinjin plawnter; Hinglish true blue breed. (Reflectively) Tech o brahn from the mather, preps, she bein Brazilian. RANKIN. Now on your faith as a Christian, Felix Drinkwotter, is Captain Brassbound a slaver or not? DRINKWATER (surprised into his natural cockney pertness). Naow e ynt. RANKIN. Are ye SURE? DRINKWATER. Waw, a sliver is abaht the wanne thing in the wy of a genlmn o fortn thet e YNT. RANKIN. I've haird that expression "gentleman of fortune" before, Mr. Drinkwotter. It means pirate. Do ye know that? DRINKWATER. Bless y'r awt, y' cawnt be a pawrit naradys. Waw, the aw seas is wuss pleest nor Piccadilly Suckus. If aw was to do orn thet there Hetlentic Howcean the things aw did as a bwoy in the Worterleoo Rowd, awd ev maw air cat afore aw could turn maw ed. Pawrit be blaowed!--awskink yr pawdn, gavner. Nah, jest to shaow you ah little thet there striteforard man y' mide mention on knaowed wot e was atorkin abaht: oo would you spowse was the marster to wich Kepn Brarsbahnd served apprentice, as yr mawt sy? RANKIN. I don't know. DRINKWATER. Gawdn, gavner, Gawdn. Gawdn o Kawtoom--stetcher stends in Trifawlgr Square to this dy. Trined Bleck Pakeetow in smawshin hap the slive riders, e did. Promist Gawdn e wouldn't never smaggle slives nor gin, an (with suppressed aggravation) WOWN'T, gavner, not if we gows dahn on ahr bloomin bended knees to im to do it. RANKIN (drily). And DO ye go down on your bended knees to him to do it? DRINKWATER (somewhat abashed). Some of huz is hanconverted men, gavner; an they sy: You smaggles wanne thing, Kepn; waw not hanather? RANKIN. We've come to it at last. I thought so. Captain Brassbound is a smuggler. DRINKWATER. Weoll, waw not? Waw not, gavner? Ahrs is a Free Tride nition. It gows agin us as Hinglishmen to see these bloomin furriners settin ap their Castoms Ahses and spheres o hinfluence and sich lawk hall owver Arfricar. Daown't Harfricar belong as much to huz as to them? thet's wot we sy. Ennywys, there ynt naow awm in ahr business. All we daz is hescort, tourist HOR commercial. Cook's hexcursions to the Hatlas Mahntns: thet's hall it is. Waw, it's spreadin civlawzytion, it is. Ynt it nah? RANKIN. You think Captain Brassbound's crew sufficiently equipped for that, do you? DRINKWATER. Hee-quipped! Haw should think sow. Lawtnin rawfles, twelve shots in the meggezine! Oo's to storp us? RANKIN. The most dangerous chieftain in these parts, the Sheikh Sidi el Assif, has a new American machine pistol which fires ten bullets without loadin; and his rifle has sixteen shots in the magazine. DRINKWATER (indignantly). Yuss; an the people that sells sich things into the ends o' them eathen bleck niggers calls theirseolves Christians! It's a crool shime, sow it is. RANKIN. If a man has the heart to pull the trigger, it matters little what color his hand is, Mr. Drinkwotter. Have ye anything else to say to me this afternoon? DRINKWATER (rising). Nathink, gavner, cept to wishyer the bust o yolth, and a many cornverts. Awtenoon, gavner. RANKIN. Good afternoon to ye, Mr. Drinkwotter. As Drinkwater turns to go, a Moorish porter comes from the house with two Krooboys. THE PORTER (at the door, addressing Rankin). Bikouros (Moroccan for Epicurus, a general Moorish name for the missionaries, who are supposed by the Moors to have chosen their calling through a love of luxurious idleness): I have brought to your house a Christian dog and his woman. DRINKWATER. There's eathen menners fer yer! Calls Sr Ahrd Ellam an Lidy Winefleet a Christian dorg and is woman! If ee ed you in the dorck et the Centl Crimnal, you'd fawnd aht oo was the dorg and oo was is marster, pretty quick, you would. RANKIN. Have you broat their boxes? THE PORTER. By Allah, two camel loads! RANKIN. Have you been paid? THE PORTER. Only one miserable dollar, Bikouros. I have brought them to your house. They will pay you. Give me something for bringing gold to your door. DRINKWATER. Yah! You oughter bin bawn a Christian, you ought. You knaow too mach. RANKIN. You have broat onnly trouble and expense to my door, Hassan; and you know it. Have I ever charged your wife and children for my medicines? HASSAN (philosophically). It is always permitted by the Prophet to ask, Bikouros. (He goes cheerfully into the house with the Krooboys.) DRINKWATER. Jist thort eed trah it orn, a did. Hooman nitre is the sime everywheres. Them eathens is jast lawk you an' me, gavner. A lady and gentleman, both English, come into the garden. The gentleman, more than elderly, is facing old age on compulsion, not resignedly. He is clean shaven, and has a brainy rectangular forehead, a resolute nose with strongly governed nostrils, and a tightly fastened down mouth which has evidently shut in much temper and anger in its time. He has a habit of deliberately assumed authority and dignity, but is trying to take life more genially and easily in his character of tourist, which is further borne out by his white hat and summery racecourse attire. The lady is between thirty and forty, tall, very goodlooking, sympathetic, intelligent, tender and humorous, dressed with cunning simplicity not as a businesslike, tailor made, gaitered tourist, but as if she lived at the next cottage and had dropped in for tea in blouse and flowered straw hat. A woman of great vitality and humanity, who begins a casual acquaintance at the point usually attained by English people after thirty years acquaintance when they are capable of reaching it at all. She pounces genially on Drinkwater, who is smirking at her, hat in hand, with an air of hearty welcome. The gentleman, on the other hand, comes down the side of the garden next the house, instinctively maintaining a distance between himself and the others. THE LADY (to Drinkwater). How dye do? Are you the missionary? DRINKWATER (modestly). Naow, lidy, aw will not deceive you, thow the mistike his but netral. Awm wanne of the missionary's good works, lidy--is first cornvert, a umble British seaman--countrymen o yours, lidy, and of is lawdship's. This eah is Mr. Renkin, the bust worker in the wust cowst vawnyawd. (Introducing the judge) Mr. Renkin: is lawdship Sr Ahrd Ellam. (He withdraws discreetly into the house.) SIR HOWARD (to Rankin). I am sorry to intrude on you, Mr. Rankin; but in the absence of a hotel there seems to be no alternative. LADY CICELY (beaming on him). Besides, we would so much RATHER stay with you, if you will have us, Mr. Rankin. SIR HOWARD (introducing her). My sister-in-law, Lady Cicely Waynflete, Mr. Rankin. RANKIN. I am glad to be of service to your leddyship. You will be wishing to have some tea after your journey, I'm thinking. LADY CICELY. Thoughtful man that you are, Mr. Rankin! But we've had some already on board the yacht. And I've arranged everything with your servants; so you must go on gardening just as if we were not here. SIR HOWARD. I am sorry to have to warn you, Mr. Rankin, that Lady Cicely, from travelling in Africa, has acquired a habit of walking into people's houses and behaving as if she were in her own. LADY CICELY. But, my dear Howard, I assure you the natives like it. RANKIN (gallantly). So do I. LADY CICELY (delighted). Oh, that is so nice of you, Mr. Rankin. This is a delicious country! And the people seem so good! They have such nice faces! We had such a handsome Moor to carry our luggage up! And two perfect pets of Krooboys! Did you notice their faces, Howard? SIR HOWARD. I did; and I can confidently say, after a long experience of faces of the worst type looking at me from the dock, that I have never seen so entirely villainous a trio as that Moor and the two Krooboys, to whom you gave five dollars when they would have been perfectly satisfied with one. RANKIN (throwing up his hands). Five dollars! 'Tis easy to see you are not Scotch, my leddy. LADY CICELY. Oh, poor things, they must want it more than we do; and you know, Howard, that Mahometans never spend money in drink. RANKIN. Excuse me a moment, my leddy. I have a word in season to say to that same Moor. (He goes into the house.) LADY CICELY (walking about the garden, looking at the view and at the flowers). I think this is a perfectly heavenly place. Drinkwater returns from the house with a chair. DRINKWATER (placing the chair for Sir Howard). Awskink yr pawdn for the libbety, Sr Ahrd. SIR HOWARD (looking a him). I have seen you before somewhere. DRINKWATER. You ev, Sr Ahrd. But aw do assure yer it were hall a mistike. SIR HOWARD. As usual. (He sits down.) Wrongfully convicted, of course. DRINKWATER (with sly delight). Naow, gavner. (Half whispering, with an ineffable grin) Wrorngfully hacquittid! SIR HOWARD. Indeed! That's the first case of the kind I have ever met. DRINKWATER. Lawd, Sr Ahrd, wot jagginses them jurymen was! You an me knaowed it too, didn't we? SIR HOWARD. I daresay we did. I am sorry to say I forget the exact nature of the difficulty you were in. Can you refresh my memory? DRINKWATER. Owny the aw sperrits o youth, y' lawdship. Worterleoo Rowd kice. Wot they calls Ooliganism. SIR HOWARD. Oh! You were a Hooligan, were you? LADY CICELY (puzzled). A Hooligan! DRINKWATER (deprecatingly). Nime giv huz pore thortless leds baw a gent on the Dily Chrornicle, lidy. (Rankin returns. Drinkwater immediately withdraws, stopping the missionary for a moment near the threshold to say, touching his forelock) Awll eng abaht within ile, gavner, hin kice aw should be wornted. (He goes into the house with soft steps.) Lady Cicely sits down on the bench under the tamarisk. Rankin takes his stool from the flowerbed and sits down on her left, Sir Howard being on her right. LADY CICELY. What a pleasant face your sailor friend has, Mr. Rankin! He has been so frank and truthful with us. You know I don't think anybody can pay me a greater compliment than to be quite sincere with me at first sight. It's the perfection of natural good manners. SIR HOWARD. You must not suppose, Mr. Rankin, that my sister-in-law talks nonsense on purpose. She will continue to believe in your friend until he steals her watch; and even then she will find excuses for him. RANKIN (drily changing the subject). And how have ye been, Sir Howrrd, since our last meeting that morning nigh forty year ago down at the docks in London? SIR HOWARD (greatly surprised, pulling himself together) Our last meeting! Mr. Rankin: have I been unfortunate enough to forget an old acquaintance? RANKIN. Well, perhaps hardly an acquaintance, Sir Howrrd. But I was a close friend of your brother Miles: and when he sailed for Brazil I was one of the little party that saw him off. You were one of the party also, if I'm not mistaken. I took particular notice of you because you were Miles's brother and I had never seen ye before. But ye had no call to take notice of me. SIR HOWARD (reflecting). Yes: there was a young friend of my brother's who might well be you. But the name, as I recollect it, was Leslie. RANKIN. That was me, sir. My name is Leslie Rankin; and your brother and I were always Miles and Leslie to one another. SIR HOWARD (pluming himself a little). Ah! that explains it. I can trust my memory still, Mr. Rankin; though some people do complain that I am growing old. RANKIN. And where may Miles be now, Sir Howard? SIR HOWARD (abruptly). Don't you know that he is dead? RANKIN (much shocked). Never haird of it. Dear, dear: I shall never see him again; and I can scarcely bring his face to mind after all these years. (With moistening eyes, which at once touch Lady Cicely's sympathy) I'm right sorry--right sorry. SIR HOWARD (decorously subduing his voice). Yes: he did not live long: indeed, he never came back to England. It must be nearly thirty years ago now that he died in the West Indies on his property there. RANKIN (surprised). His proaperty! Miles with a proaperty! SIR HOWARD. Yes: he became a planter, and did well out there, Mr. Rankin. The history of that property is a very curious and interesting one--at least it is so to a lawyer like myself. RANKIN. I should be glad to hear it for Miles's sake, though I am no lawyer, Sir Howrrd. LADY CICELY. I never knew you had a brother, Howard. SIR HOWARD (not pleased by this remark). Perhaps because you never asked me. (Turning more blandly to Rankin) I will tell you the story, Mr. Rankin. When Miles died, he left an estate in one of the West Indian islands. It was in charge of an agent who was a sharpish fellow, with all his wits about him. Now, sir, that man did a thing which probably could hardly be done with impunity even here in Morocco, under the most barbarous of surviving civilizations. He quite simply took the estate for himself and kept it. RANKIN. But how about the law? SIR HOWARD. The law, sir, in that island, consisted practically of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General; and these gentlemen were both retained by the agent. Consequently there was no solicitor in the island to take up the case against him. RANKIN. Is such a thing possible to-day in the British Empire? SIR HOWARD (calmly). Oh, quite. Quite. LADY CICELY. But could not a firstrate solicitor have been sent out from London? SIR HOWARD. No doubt, by paying him enough to compensate him for giving up his London practice: that is, rather more than there was any reasonable likelihood of the estate proving worth. RANKIN. Then the estate was lost? SIR HOWARD. Not permanently. It is in my hands at present. RANKIN. Then how did ye get it back? SIR HOWARD (with crafty enjoyment of his own cunning). By hoisting the rogue with his own petard. I had to leave matters as they were for many years; for I had my own position in the world to make. But at last I made it. In the course of a holiday trip to the West Indies, I found that this dishonest agent had left the island, and placed the estate in the hands of an agent of his own, whom he was foolish enough to pay very badly. I put the case before that agent; and he decided to treat the estate as my property. The robber now found himself in exactly the same position he had formerly forced me into. Nobody in the island would act against me, least of all the Attorney and Solicitor General, who appreciated my influence at the Colonial Office. And so I got the estate back. "The mills of the gods grind slowly," Mr. Rankin; "but they grind exceeding small." LADY CICELY. Now I suppose if I'd done such a clever thing in England, you'd have sent me to prison. SIR HOWARD. Probably, unless you had taken care to keep outside the law against conspiracy. Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first. LADY CICELY. So I do. But suppose your agent takes it into his head to give the estate back to his wicked old employer! SIR HOWARD. I heartily wish he would. RANKIN (openeyed). You wish he WOULD!! SIR HOWARD. Yes. A few years ago the collapse of the West Indian sugar industry converted the income of the estate into an annual loss of about 150 pounds a year. If I can't sell it soon, I shall simply abandon it--unless you, Mr. Rankin, would like to take it as a present. RANKIN (laughing). I thank your lordship: we have estates enough of that sort in Scotland. You're setting with your back to the sun, Leddy Ceecily, and losing something worth looking at. See there. (He rises and points seaward, where the rapid twilight of the latitude has begun.) LADY CICELY (getting up to look and uttering a cry of admiration). Oh, how lovely! SIR HOWARD (also rising). What are those hills over there to the southeast? RANKIN. They are the outposts, so to speak, of the Atlas Mountains. LADY CICELY. The Atlas Mountains! Where Shelley's witch lived! We'll make an excursion to them to-morrow, Howard. RANKIN. That's impoassible, my leddy. The natives are verra dangerous. LADY CICELY. Why? Has any explorer been shooting them? RANKIN. No. But every man of them believes he will go to heaven if he kills an unbeliever. LADY CICELY. Bless you, dear Mr. Rankin, the people in England believe that they will go to heaven if they give all their property to the poor. But they don't do it. I'm not a bit afraid of that. RANKIN. But they are not accustomed to see women going about unveiled. LADY CICELY. I always get on best with people when they can see my face. SIR HOWARD. Cicely: you are talking great nonsense and you know it. These people have no laws to restrain them, which means, in plain English, that they are habitual thieves and murderers. RANKIN. Nay, nay: not exactly that. LADY CICELY (indignantly). Of course not. You always think, Howard, that nothing prevents people killing each other but the fear of your hanging them for it. But what nonsense that is! And how wicked! If these people weren't here for some good purpose, they wouldn't have been made, would they, Mr. Rankin? RANKIN. That is a point, certainly, Leddy Ceecily. SIR HOWARD. Oh, if you are going to talk theology-- LADY CICELY. Well, why not? theology is as respectable as law, I should think. Besides, I'm only talking commonsense. Why do people get killed by savages? Because instead of being polite to them, and saying Howdyedo? like me, people aim pistols at them. I've been among savages--cannibals and all sorts. Everybody said they'd kill me. But when I met them, I said Howdyedo? and they were quite nice. The kings always wanted to marry me. SIR HOWARD. That does not seem to me to make you any safer here, Cicely. You shall certainly not stir a step beyond the protection of the consul, if I can help it, without a strong escort. LADY CICELY. I don't want an escort. SIR HOWARD. I do. And I suppose you will expect me to accompany you. RANKIN. 'Tis not safe, Leddy Ceecily. Really and truly, 'tis not safe. The tribes are verra fierce; and there are cities here that no Christian has ever set foot in. If you go without being well protected, the first chief you meet well seize you and send you back again to prevent his followers murdering you. LADY CICELY. Oh, how nice of him, Mr. Rankin! RANKIN. He would not do it for your sake, Leddy Ceecily, but for his own. The Sultan would get into trouble with England if you were killed; and the Sultan would kill the chief to pacify the English government. LADY CICELY. But I always go everywhere. I KNOW the people here won't touch me. They have such nice faces and such pretty scenery. SIR HOWARD (to Rankin, sitting down again resignedly). You can imagine how much use there is in talking to a woman who admires the faces of the ruffians who infest these ports, Mr. Rankin. Can anything be done in the way of an escort? RANKIN. There is a certain Captain Brassbound here who trades along the coast, and occasionally escorts parties of merchants on journeys into the interior. I understand that he served under Gordon in the Soudan. SIR HOWARD. That sounds promising. But I should like to know a little more about him before I trust myself in his hands. RANKIN. I quite agree with you, Sir Howrrd. I'll send Felix Drinkwotter for him. (He claps his hands. An Arab boy appears at the house door.) Muley: is sailor man here? (Muley nods.) Tell sailor man bring captain. (Muley nods and goes.) SIR HOWARD. Who is Drinkwater? RANKIN. His agent, or mate: I don't rightly know which. LADY CICELY. Oh, if he has a mate named Felix Drinkwater, it must be quite a respectable crew. It is such a nice name. RANKIN. You saw him here just now. He is a convert of mine. LADY CICELY (delighted). That nice truthful sailor! SIR HOWARD (horrified). What! The Hooligan! RANKIN (puzzled). Hooligan? No, my lord: he is an Englishman. SIR HOWARD. My dear Mr. Rankin, this man was tried before me on a charge of street ruffianism. RANKIN. So he told me. He was badly broat up, I am afraid. But he is now a converted man. LADY CICELY. Of course he is. His telling you so frankly proves it. You know, really, Howard, all those poor people whom you try are more sinned against than sinning. If you would only talk to them in a friendly way instead of passing cruel sentences on them, you would find them quite nice to you. (Indignantly) I won't have this poor man trampled on merely because his mother brought him up as a Hooligan. I am sure nobody could be nicer than he was when he spoke to us. SIR HOWARD. In short, we are to have an escort of Hooligans commanded by a filibuster. Very well, very well. You will most likely admire all their faces; and I have no doubt at all that they will admire yours. Drinkwater comes from the house with an Italian dressed in a much worn suit of blue serge, a dilapidated Alpine hat, and boots laced with scraps of twine. He remains near the door, whilst Drinkwater comes forward between Sir Howard and Lady Cicely. DRINKWATER. Yr honor's servant. (To the Italian) Mawtzow: is lawdship Sr Ahrd Ellam. (Marzo touches his hat.) Er Lidyship Lidy Winefleet. (Marzo touches his hat.) Hawtellian shipmite, lidy. Hahr chef. LADY CICELY (nodding affably to Marzo). Howdyedo? I love Italy. What part of it were you born in? DRINKWATER. Worn't bawn in Hitly at all, lidy. Bawn in Ettn Gawdn (Hatton Garden). Hawce barrer an street pianner Hawtellian, lidy: thet's wot e is. Kepn Brarsbahnd's respects to yr honors; an e awites yr commawnds. RANKIN. Shall we go indoors to see him? SIR HOWARD. I think we had better have a look at him by daylight. RANKIN. Then we must lose no time: the dark is soon down in this latitude. (To Drinkwater) Will ye ask him to step out here to us, Mr. Drinkwotter? DRINKWATER. Rawt you aw, gavner. (He goes officiously into the house.) Lady Cicely and Rankin sit down as before to receive the Captain. The light is by this time waning rapidly, the darkness creeping west into the orange crimson. LADY CICELY (whispering). Don't you feel rather creepy, Mr. Rankin? I wonder what he'll be like. RANKIN. I misdoubt me he will not answer, your leddyship. There is a scuffling noise in the house; and Drinkwater shoots out through the doorway across the garden with every appearance of having been violently kicked. Marzo immediately hurries down the garden on Sir Howard's right out of the neighborhood of the doorway. DRINKWATER (trying to put a cheerful air on much mortification and bodily anguish). Narsty step to thet ere door tripped me hap, it did. (Raising his voice and narrowly escaping a squeak of pain) Kepn Brarsbahnd. (He gets as far from the house as possible, on Rankin's left. Rankin rises to receive his guest.) An olive complexioned man with dark southern eyes and hair comes from the house. Age about 36. Handsome features, but joyless; dark eyebrows drawn towards one another; mouth set grimly; nostrils large and strained: a face set to one tragic purpose. A man of few words, fewer gestures, and much significance. On the whole, interesting, and even attractive, but not friendly. He stands for a moment, saturnine in the ruddy light, to see who is present, looking in a singular and rather deadly way at Sir Howard; then with some surprise and uneasiness at Lady Cicely. Finally he comes down into the middle of the garden, and confronts Rankin, who has been glaring at him in consternation from the moment of his entrance, and continues to do so in so marked a way that the glow in Brassbound's eyes deepens as he begins to take offence. BRASSBOUND. Well, sir, have you stared your fill at me? RANKIN (recovering himself with a start). I ask your pardon for my bad manners, Captain Brassbound. Ye are extraordinair lek an auld college friend of mine, whose face I said not ten minutes gone that I could no longer bring to mind. It was as if he had come from the grave to remind me of it. BRASSBOUND. Why have you sent for me? RANKIN. We have a matter of business with ye, Captain. BRASSBOUND. Who are "we"? RANKIN. This is Sir Howrrd Hallam, who will be well known to ye as one of Her Majesty's judges. BRASSBOUND (turning the singular look again on Sir Howard). The friend of the widow! the protector of the fatherless! SIR HOWARD (startled). I did not know I was so favorably spoken of in these parts, Captain Brassbound. We want an escort for a trip into the mountains. BRASSBOUND (ignoring this announcement). Who is the lady? RANKIN. Lady Ceecily Waynflete, his lordship's sister-in-law. LADY CICELY. Howdyedo, Captain Brassbound? (He bows gravely.) SIR HOWARD (a little impatient of these questions, which strike him as somewhat impertinent). Let us come to business, if you please. We are thinking of making a short excursion to see the country about here. Can you provide us with an escort of respectable, trustworthy men? BRASSBOUND. No. DRINKWATER (in strong remonstrance). Nah, nah, nah! Nah look eah, Kepn, y'knaow-- BRASSBOUND (between his teeth). Hold your tongue. DRINKWATER (abjectly). Yuss, Kepn. RANKIN. I understood it was your business to provide escorts, Captain Brassbound. BRASSBOUND. You were rightly informed. That IS my business. LADY CICELY. Then why won't you do it for us? BRASSBOUND. You are not content with an escort. You want respectable, trustworthy men. You should have brought a division of London policemen with you. My men are neither respectable nor trustworthy. DRINKWATER (unable to contain himself). Nah, nah, look eah, Kepn. If you want to be moddist, be moddist on your aown accahnt, nort on mawn. BRASSBOUND. You see what my men are like. That rascal (indicating Marzo) would cut a throat for a dollar if he had courage enough. MARZO. I not understand. I no spik Englis. BRASSBOUND. This thing (pointing to Drinkwater) is the greatest liar, thief, drunkard, and rapscallion on the west coast. DRINKWATER (affecting an ironic indifference). Gow orn, Gow orn. Sr Ahrd ez erd witnesses to maw kerrickter afoah. E knaows ah mech to believe of em. LADY CICELY. Captain Brassbound: I have heard all that before about the blacks; and I found them very nice people when they were properly treated. DRINKWATER (chuckling: the Italian is also grinning). Nah, Kepn, nah! Owp yr prahd o y'seolf nah. BRASSBOUND. I quite understand the proper treatment for him, madam. If he opens his mouth again without my leave, I will break every bone in his skin. LADY CICELY (in her most sunnily matter-of-fact way). Does Captain Brassbound always treat you like this, Mr. Drinkwater? Drinkwater hesitates, and looks apprehensively at the Captain. BRASSBOUND. Answer, you dog, when the lady orders you. (To Lady Cicely) Do not address him as Mr. Drinkwater, madam: he is accustomed to be called Brandyfaced Jack. DRINKWATER (indignantly). Eah, aw sy! nah look eah, Kepn: maw nime is Drinkworter. You awsk em et Sin Jorn's in the Worterleoo Rowd. Orn maw grenfawther's tombstown, it is. BRASSBOUND. It will be on your own tombstone, presently, if you cannot hold your tongue. (Turning to the others) Let us understand one another, if you please. An escort here, or anywhere where there are no regular disciplined forces, is what its captain makes it. If I undertake this business, I shall be your escort. I may require a dozen men, just as I may require a dozen horses. Some of the horses will be vicious; so will all the men. If either horse or man tries any of his viciousness on me, so much the worse for him; but it will make no difference to you. I will order my men to behave themselves before the lady; and they shall obey their orders. But the lady will please understand that I take my own way with them and suffer no interference. LADY CICELY. Captain Brassbound: I don't want an escort at all. It will simply get us all into danger; and I shall have the trouble of getting it out again. That's what escorts always do. But since Sir Howard prefers an escort, I think you had better stay at home and let me take charge of it. I know your men will get on perfectly well if they're properly treated. DRINKWATER (with enthusiasm). Feed aht o yr and, lidy, we would. BRASSBOUND (with sardonic assent). Good. I agree. (To Drinkwater) You shall go without me. DRINKWATER. (terrified). Eah! Wot are you a syin orn? We cawn't gow withaht yer. (To Lady Cicely) Naow, lidy: it wouldn't be for yr hown good. Yer cawn't hexpect a lot o poor honeddikited men lawk huz to ran ahrseolvs into dineger withaht naow Kepn to teoll us wot to do. Naow, lidy: hoonawted we stend: deevawdid we fall. LADY CICELY. Oh, if you prefer your captain, have him by all means. Do you LIKE to be treated as he treats you? DRINKWATER (with a smile of vanity). Weoll, lidy: y cawn't deenaw that e's a Paffick Genlmn. Bit hawbitrairy, preps; but hin a genlmn you looks for sich. It tikes a hawbitrairy wanne to knock aht them eathen Shikes, aw teoll yer. BRASSBOUND. That's enough. Go. DRINKWATER. Weoll, aw was hownly a teolln the lidy thet-- (A threatening movement from Brassbound cuts him short. He flies for his life into the house, followed by the Italian.) BRASSBOUND. Your ladyship sees. These men serve me by their own free choice. If they are dissatisfied, they go. If I am dissatisfied, they go. They take care that I am not dissatisfied. SIR HOWARD (who has listened with approval and growing confidence). Captain Brassbound: you are the man I want. If your terms are at all reasonable, I will accept your services if we decide to make an excursion. You do not object, Cicely, I hope. LADY CICELY. Oh no. After all, those men must really like you, Captain Brassbound. I feel sure you have a kind heart. You have such nice eyes. SIR HOWARD (scandalized). My DEAR Cicely: you really must restrain your expressions of confidence in people's eyes and faces. (To Brassbound) Now, about terms, Captain? BRASSBOUND. Where do you propose to go? SIR HOWARD. I hardly know. Where CAN we go, Mr. Rankin? RANKIN. Take my advice, Sir Howrrd. Don't go far. BRASSBOUND. I can take you to Meskala, from which you can see the Atlas Mountains. From Meskala I can take you to an ancient castle in the hills, where you can put up as long as you please. The customary charge is half a dollar a man per day and his food. I charge double. SIR HOWARD. I suppose you answer for your men being sturdy fellows, who will stand to their guns if necessary. BRASSBOUND. I can answer for their being more afraid of me than of the Moors. LADY CICELY. That doesn't matter in the least, Howard. The important thing, Captain Brassbound, is: first, that we should have as few men as possible, because men give such a lot of trouble travelling. And then, they must have good lungs and not be always catching cold. Above all, their clothes must be of good wearing material. Otherwise I shall be nursing and stitching and mending all the way; and it will be trouble enough, I assure you, to keep them washed and fed without that. BRASSBOUND (haughtily). My men, madam, are not children in the nursery. LADY CICELY (with unanswerable conviction). Captain Brassbound: all men are children in the nursery. I see that you don't notice things. That poor Italian had only one proper bootlace: the other was a bit of string. And I am sure from Mr. Drinkwater's complexion that he ought to have some medicine. BRASSBOUND (outwardly determined not to be trifled with: inwardly puzzled and rather daunted). Madam: if you want an escort, I can provide you with an escort. If you want a Sunday School treat, I can NOT provide it. LADY CICELY (with sweet melancholy). Ah, don't you wish you could, Captain? Oh, if I could only show you my children from Waynflete Sunday School! The darlings would love this place, with all the camels and black men. I'm sure you would enjoy having them here, Captain Brassbound; and it would be such an education for your men! (Brassbound stares at her with drying lips.) SIR HOWARD. Cicely: when you have quite done talking nonsense to Captain Brassbound, we can proceed to make some definite arrangement with him. LADY CICELY. But it's arranged already. We'll start at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, if you please, Captain. Never mind about the Italian: I have a big box of clothes with me for my brother in Rome; and there are some bootlaces in it. Now go home to bed and don't fuss yourself. All you have to do is to bring your men round; and I'll see to the rest. Men are always so nervous about moving. Goodnight. (She offers him her hand. Surprised, he pulls off his cap for the first time. Some scruple prevents him from taking her hand at once. He hesitates; then turns to Sir Howard and addresses him with warning earnestness.) BRASSBOUND. Sir Howard Hallam: I advise you not to attempt this expedition. SIR HOWARD. Indeed! Why? BRASSBOUND. You are safe here. I warn you, in those hills there is a justice that is not the justice of your courts in England. If you have wronged a man, you may meet that man there. If you have wronged a woman, you may meet her son there. The justice of those hills is the justice of vengeance. SIR HOWARD (faintly amused). You are superstitious, Captain. Most sailors are, I notice. However, I have complete confidence in your escort. BRASSBOUND (almost threateningly). Take care. The avenger may be one of the escort. SIR HOWARD. I have already met the only member of your escort who might have borne a grudge against me, Captain; and he was acquitted. BRASSBOUND. You are fated to come, then? SIR HOWARD (smiling). It seems so. BRASSBOUND. On your head be it! (To Lady Cicely, accepting her hand at last) Goodnight. He goes. It is by this time starry night. ACT II Midday. A roam in a Moorish castle. A divan seat runs round the dilapidated adobe walls, which are partly painted, partly faced with white tiles patterned in green and yellow. The ceiling is made up of little squares, painted in bright colors, with gilded edges, and ornamented with gilt knobs. On the cement floor are mattings, sheepskins, and leathern cushions with geometrical patterns on them. There is a tiny Moorish table in the middle; and at it a huge saddle, with saddle cloths of various colors, showing that the room is used by foreigners accustomed to chairs. Anyone sitting at the table in this seat would have the chief entrance, a large horseshoe arch, on his left, and another saddle seat between him and the arch; whilst, if susceptible to draughts, he would probably catch cold from a little Moorish door in the wall behind him to his right. Two or three of Brassbound's men, overcome by the midday heat, sprawl supine on the floor, with their reefer coats under their heads, their knees uplifted, and their calves laid comfortably on the divan. Those who wear shirts have them open at the throat for greater coolness. Some have jerseys. All wear boots and belts, and have guns ready to their hands. One of them, lying with his head against the second saddle seat, wears what was once a fashionable white English yachting suit. He is evidently a pleasantly worthless young English gentleman gone to the bad, but retaining sufficient self-respect to shave carefully and brush his hair, which is wearing thin, and does not seem to have been luxuriant even in its best days. The silence is broken only by the snores of the young gentleman, whose mouth has fallen open, until a few distant shots half waken him. He shuts his mouth convulsively, and opens his eyes sleepily. A door is violently kicked outside; and the voice of Drinkwater is heard raising urgent alarm. DRINKWATER. Wot ow! Wike ap there, will yr. Wike ap. (He rushes in through the horseshoe arch, hot and excited, and runs round, kicking the sleepers) Nah then. Git ap. Git ap, will yr, Kiddy Redbrook. (He gives the young qentleman a rude shove.) REDBOOK (sitting up). Stow that, will you. What's amiss? DRINKWATER (disgusted). Wot's amiss! Didn't eah naow fawrin, I spowse. REDBROOK. No. DRINKWATER (sneering). Naow. Thort it sifer nort, didn't yr? REDBROOK (with crisp intelligence). What! You're running away, are you? (He springs up, crying) Look alive, Johnnies: there's danger. Brandyfaced Jack's on the run. (They spring up hastily, grasping their guns.) DRINKWATER. Dineger! Yuss: should think there wors dineger. It's howver, thow, as it mowstly his baw the tawm YOU'RE awike. (They relapse into lassitude.) Waw wasn't you on the look-aht to give us a end? Bin hattecked baw the Benny Seeras (Beni Siras), we ev, an ed to rawd for it pretty strite, too, aw teoll yr. Mawtzow is it: the bullet glawnst all rahnd is bloomin brisket. Brarsbahnd e dropt the Shike's oss at six unnern fifty yawds. (Bustling them about) Nah then: git the plice ready for the British herristoracy, Lawd Ellam and Lidy Wineflete. REDBOOK. Lady faint, eh? DRINKWATER. Fynt! Not lawkly. Wornted to gow an talk, to the Benny Seeras: blaow me if she didn't! huz wot we was frahtnd of. Tyin up Mawtzow's wound, she is, like a bloomin orspittle nass. (Sir Howard, with a copious pagri on his white hat, enters through the horseshoe arch, followed by a couple of men supporting the wounded Marzo, who, weeping and terrorstricken by the prospect of death and of subsequent torments for which he is conscious of having eminently qualified himself, has his coat off and a bandage round his chest. One of his supporters is a blackbearded, thickset, slow, middle-aged man with an air of damaged respectability, named--as it afterwards appears--Johnson. Lady Cicely walks beside Marzo. Redbrook, a little shamefaced, crosses the room to the opposite wall as far away as possible from the visitors. Drinkwater turns and receives them with jocular ceremony.) Weolcome to Brarsbahnd Cawstl, Sr Ahrd an lidy. This eah is the corfee and commercial room. Sir Howard goes to the table and sits on the saddle, rather exhausted. Lady Cicely comes to Drinkwater. LADY CICELY. Where is Marzo's bed? DRINKWATER. Is bed, lidy? Weoll: e ynt petickler, lidy. E ez is chawce of henny flegstown agin thet wall. They deposit Marzo on the flags against the wall close to the little door. He groans. Johnson phlegmatically leaves him and joins Redbrook. LADY CICELY. But you can't leave him there in that state. DRINKWATER. Ow: e's hall rawt. (Strolling up callously to Marzo) You're hall rawt, ynt yer, Mawtzow? (Marzo whimpers.) Corse y'aw. LADY CICELY (to Sir Howard). Did you ever see such a helpless lot of poor creatures? (She makes for the little door.) DRINKWATER. Eah! (He runs to the door and places himself before it.) Where mawt yr lidyship be gowin? LADY CICELY. I'm going through every room in this castle to find a proper place to put that man. And now I'll tell you where YOU'RE going. You're going to get some water for Marzo, who is very thirsty. And then, when I've chosen a room for him, you're going to make a bed for him there. DRINKWATER (sarcastically). Ow! Henny ather little suvvice? Mike yrseolf at owm, y' knaow, lidy. LADY CICELY (considerately). Don't go if you'd rather not, Mr. Drinkwater. Perhaps you're too tired. (Turning to the archway) I'll ask Captain Brassbound: he won't mind. DRINKWATER (terrified, running after her and getting between her and the arch). Naow, naow! Naow, lidy: doesn't you goes disturbin the Kepn. Awll see to it. LADY CICELY (gravely). I was sure you would, Mr. Drinkwater. You have such a kind face. (She turns back and goes out through the small door.) DRINKWATER (looking after her). Garn! SIR HOWARD (to Drinkwater). Will you ask one of your friends to show me to my room whilst you are getting the water? DRINKWATER (insolently). Yr room! Ow: this ynt good enaf fr yr, ynt it? (Ferociously) Oo a you orderin abaht, ih? SIR HOWARD (rising quietly, and taking refuge between Redbrook and Johnson, whom he addresses). Can you find me a more private room than this? JOHNSON (shaking his head). I've no orders. You must wait til the capn comes, sir. DRINKWATER (following Sir Howard). Yuss; an whawl you're witin, yll tike your horders from me: see? JOHNSON (with slow severity, to Drinkwater). Look here: do you see three genlmen talkin to one another here, civil and private, eh? DRINKWATER (chapfallen). No offence, Miste Jornsn-- JOHNSON (ominously). Ay; but there is offence. Where's your manners, you guttersnipe? (Turning to Sir Howard) That's the curse o this kind o life, sir: you got to associate with all sorts. My father, sir, was Capn Johnson o Hull--owned his own schooner, sir. We're mostly gentlemen here, sir, as you'll find, except the poor ignorant foreigner and that there scum of the submerged tenth. (Contemptuously looking at Drinkwater) HE ain't nobody's son: he's only a offspring o coster folk or such. DRINKWATER (bursting into tears). Clawss feelin! thet's wot it is: clawss feelin! Wot are yer, arter all, bat a bloomin gang o west cowst cazhls (casual ward paupers)? (Johnson is scandalized; and there is a general thrill of indignation.) Better ev naow fembly, an rawse aht of it, lawk me, than ev a specble one and disgrice it, lawk you. JOHNSON. Brandyfaced Jack: I name you for conduct and language unbecoming to a gentleman. Those who agree will signify the same in the usual manner. ALL (vehemently). Aye. DRINKWATER (wildly). Naow. JOHNSON. Felix Drinkwater: are you goin out, or are you goin to wait til you're chucked out? You can cry in the passage. If you give any trouble, you'll have something to cry for. They make a threatenng movement towards Drinkwater. DRINKWATER (whimpering). You lee me alown: awm gowin. There's n'maw true demmecrettick feelin eah than there is in the owl bloomin M division of Noontn Corzwy coppers (Newington Causeway policemen). As he slinks away in tears towards the arch, Brassbound enters. Drinkwater promptly shelters himself on the captain's left hand, the others retreating to the opposite side as Brassbound advances to the middle of the room. Sir Howard retires behind them and seats himself on the divan, much fatigued. BRASSBOUND (to Drinkwater). What are you snivelling at? DRINKWATER. You awsk the wust cowst herristorcracy. They fawnds maw cornduck hanbecammin to a genlmn. Brassbound is about to ask Johnson for an explanation, when Lady Cicely returns through the little door, and comes between Brassbound and Drinkwater. LADY CICELY (to Drinkwater). Have you fetched the water? DRINKWATER. Yuss: nah YOU begin orn me. (He weeps afresh.) LADY CICELY (surprised). Oh! This won't do, Mr. Drinkwater. If you cry, I can't let you nurse your friend. DRINKWATER (frantic). Thet'll brike maw awt, wown't it nah? (With a lamentable sob, he throws himself down on the divan, raging like an angry child.) LADY CICELY (after contemplating him in astonishment for a moment). Captain Brassbound: are there any charwomen in the Atlas Mountains? BRASSBOUND. There are people here who will work if you pay them, as there are elsewhere. LADY CICELY. This castle is very romantic, Captain; but it hasn't had a spring cleaning since the Prophet lived in it. There's only one room I can put that wounded man into. It's the only one that has a bed in it: the second room on the right out of that passage. BRASSBOUND (haughtily). That is my room, madam. LADY CICELY (relieved). Oh, that's all right. It would have been so awkward if I had had to ask one of your men to turn out. You won't mind, I know. (All the men stare at her. Even Drinkwater forgets his sorrows in his stupefaction.) BRASSBOUND. Pray, madam, have you made any arrangements for my accommodation? LADY CICELY (reassuringly). Yes: you can have my room instead wherever it may be: I'm sure you chose me a nice one. I must be near my patient; and I don't mind roughing it. Now I must have Marzo moved very carefully. Where is that truly gentlemanly Mr. Johnson?--oh, there you are, Mr. Johnson. (She runs to Johnson, past Brassbound, who has to step back hastily out of her way with every expression frozen out of his face except one of extreme and indignant dumbfoundedness). Will you ask your strong friend to help you with Marzo: strong people are always so gentle. JOHNSON. Let me introdooce Mr. Redbrook. Your ladyship may know his father, the very Rev. Dean Redbrook. (He goes to Marzo.) REDBROOK. Happy to oblige you, Lady Cicely. LADY CICELY (shaking hands). Howdyedo? Of course I knew your father--Dunham, wasn't it? Were you ever called-- REDBROOK. The kid? Yes. LADY CICELY. But why-- REDBROOK (anticipating the rest of the question). Cards and drink, Lady Sis. (He follows Johnson to the patient. Lady Cicely goes too.) Now, Count Marzo. (Marzo groans as Johnson and Redbrook raise him.) LADY CICELY. Now they're NOT hurting you, Marzo. They couldn't be more gentle. MARZO. Drink. LADY CICELY. I'll get you some water myself. Your friend Mr. Drinkwater was too overcome--take care of the corner--that's it--the second door on the right. (She goes out with Marzo and his bearers through the little door.) BRASSBOUND (still staring). Well, I AM damned--! DRINKWATER (getting up). Weoll, blimey! BRASSBOUND (turning irritably on him). What did you say? DRINKWATER. Weoll, wot did yer sy yrseolf, kepn? Fust tawm aw yever see y' afride of ennybody. (The others laugh.) BRASSBOUND. Afraid! DRINKWATER (maliciously). She's took y' bed from hander yr for a bloomin penny hawcemen. If y' ynt afride, let's eah yer speak ap to er wen she cams bawck agin. BRASSBOUND (to Sir Howard). I wish you to understand, Sir Howard, that in this castle, it is I who give orders, and no one else. Will you be good enough to let Lady Cicely Waynflete know that. SIR HOWARD (sitting up on the divan and pulling himself together). You will have ample opportunity for speaking to Lady Cicely yourself when she returns. (Drinkwater chuckles: and the rest grin.) BRASSBOUND. My manners are rough, Sir Howard. I have no wish to frighten the lady. SIR HOWARD. Captain Brassbound: if you can frighten Lady Cicely, you will confer a great obligation on her family. If she had any sense of danger, perhaps she would keep out of it. BRASSBOUND. Well, sir, if she were ten Lady Cicelys, she must consult me while she is here. DRINKWATER. Thet's rawt, kepn. Let's eah you steblish yr hawthority. (Brassbound turns impatiently on him: He retreats remonstrating) Nah, nah, nah! SIR HOWARD. If you feel at all nervous, Captain Brassbound, I will mention the matter with pleasure. BRASSBOUND. Nervous, sir! no. Nervousness is not in my line. You will find me perfectly capable of saying what I want to say--with considerable emphasis, if necessary. (Sir Howard assents with a polite but incredulous nod.) DRINKWATER. Eah, eah! Lady Cicely returns with Johnson and Redbrook. She carries a jar. LADY CICELY (stopping between the door and the arch). Now for the water. Where is it? REDBROOK. There's a well in the courtyard. I'll come and work the bucket. LADY CICELY. So good of you, Mr. Redbrook. (She makes for the horseshoe arch, followed by Redbrook.) DRINKWATER. Nah, Kepn Brassbound: you got sathink to sy to the lidy, ynt yr? LADY CICELY (stopping). I'll come back to hear it presently, Captain. And oh, while I remember it (coming forward between Brassbound and Drinkwater), do please tell me Captain, if I interfere with your arrangements in any way. It I disturb you the least bit in the world, stop me at once. You have all the responsibility; and your comfort and your authority must be the first thing. You'll tell me, won't you? BRASSBOUND (awkwardly, quite beaten). Pray do as you please, madam. LADY CICELY. Thank you. That's so like you, Captain. Thank you. Now, Mr. Redbrook! Show me the way to the well. (She follows Redbrook out through the arch.) DRINKWATER. Yah! Yah! Shime! Beat baw a woman! JOHNSON (coming forward on Brassbound's right). What's wrong now? DRINKWATER (with an air of disappointment and disillusion). Down't awsk me, Miste Jornsn. The kepn's naow clawss arter all. BRASSBOUND (a little shamefacedly). What has she been fixing up in there, Johnson? JOHNSON. Well: Marzo's in your bed. Lady wants to make a kitchen of the Sheikh's audience chamber, and to put me and the Kid handy in his bedroom in case Marzo gets erysipelas and breaks out violent. From what I can make out, she means to make herself matron of this institution. I spose it's all right, isn't it? DRINKWATER. Yuss, an horder huz abaht as if we was keb tahts! An the kepn afride to talk bawck at er! Lady Cicely returns with Redbrook. She carries the jar full of water. LADY CICELY (putting down the jar, and coming between Brassbound and Drinkwater as before). And now, Captain, before I go to poor Marzo, what have you to say to me? BRASSBOUND. I! Nothing. DRINKWATER. Down't fank it, gavner. Be a men! LADY CICELY (looking at Drinkwater, puzzled). Mr. Drinkwater said you had. BRASSBOUND (recovering himself). It was only this. That fellow there (pointing to Drinkwater) is subject to fits of insolence. If he is impertinent to your ladyship, or disobedient, you have my authority to order him as many kicks as you think good for him; and I will see that he gets them. DRINKWATER (lifting up his voice in protest). Nah, nah-- LADY CICELY. Oh, I couldn't think of such a thing, Captain Brassbound. I am sure it would hurt Mr. Drinkwater. DRINKWATER (lachrymosely). Lidy's hinkyp'ble o sich bawbrous usage. LADY CICELY. But there's one thing I SHOULD like, if Mr. Drinkwater won't mind my mentioning it. It's so important if he's to attend on Marzo. BRASSBOUND. What is that? LADY CICELY. Well--you WON'T mind, Mr. Drinkwater, will you? DRINKWATER (suspiciously). Wot is it? LADY CICELY. There would be so much less danger of erysipelas if you would be so good as to take a bath. DRINKWATER (aghast). A bawth! BRASSBOUND (in tones of command). Stand by, all hands. (They stand by.) Take that man and wash him. (With a roar of laughter they seize him.) DRINKWATER (in an agony of protest). Naow, naow. Look eah-- BRASSBOUND (ruthlessly). In COLD water. DRINKWATER (shrieking). Na-a-a-a-ow. Aw eawn't, aw toel yer. Naow. Aw sy, look eah. Naow, naow, naow, naow, naow, NAOW!!! He is dragged away through the arch in a whirlwind of laughter, protests and tears. LADY CICELY. I'm afraid he isn't used to it, poor fellow; but REALLY it will do him good, Captain Brassbound. Now I must be off to my patient. (She takes up her jar and goes out by the little door, leaving Brassbound and Sir Howard alone together.) SIR HOWARD (rising). And now, Captain Brass-- BRASSBOUND (cutting him short with a fierce contempt that astonishes him). I will attend to you presently. (Calling) Johnson. Send me Johnson there. And Osman. (He pulls off his coat and throws it on the table, standing at his ease in his blue jersey.) SIR HOWARD (after a momentary flush of anger, with a controlled force that compels Brassbound's attention in spite of himself). You seem to be in a strong position with reference to these men of yours. BRASSBOUND. I am in a strong position with reference to everyone in this castle. SIR HOWARD (politely but threateningly). I have just been noticing that you think so. I do not agree with you. Her Majesty's Government, Captain Brassbound, has a strong arm and a long arm. If anything disagreeable happens to me or to my sister-in-law, that arm will be stretched out. If that happens you will not be in a strong position. Excuse my reminding you of it. BRASSBOUND (grimly). Much good may it do you! (Johnson comes in through the arch.) Where is Osman, the Sheikh's messenger? I want him too. JOHNSON. Coming, Captain. He had a prayer to finish. Osman, a tall, skinny, whiteclad, elderly Moor, appears in the archway. BRASSBOUND. Osman Ali (Osman comes forward between Brassbound and Johnson): you have seen this unbeliever (indicating Sir Howard) come in with us? OSMAN. Yea, and the shameless one with the naked face, who flattered my countenance and offered me her hand. JOHNSON. Yes; and you took it too, Johnny, didn't you? BRASSBOUND. Take horse, then; and ride fast to your master the Sheikh Sidi el Assif. OSMAN (proudly). Kinsman to the Prophet. BRASSBOUND. Tell him what you have seen here. That is all. Johnson: give him a dollar; and note the hour of his going, that his master may know how fast he rides. OSMAN. The believer's word shall prevail with Allah and his servant Sidi el Assif. BRASSBOUND. Off with you. OSMAN. Make good thy master's word ere I go out from his presence, O Johnson el Hull. JOHNSON. He wants the dollar. Brassbound gives Osman a coin. OSMAN (bowing). Allah will make hell easy for the friend of Sidi el Assif and his servant. (He goes out through the arch.) BRASSBOUND (to Johnson). Keep the men out of this until the Sheikh comes. I have business to talk over. When he does come, we must keep together all: Sidi el Assif's natural instinct will be to cut every Christian throat here. JOHNSON. We look to you, Captain, to square him, since you invited him over. BRASSBOUND. You can depend on me; and you know it, I think. JOHNSON (phlegmatically). Yes: we know it. (He is going out when Sir Howard speaks.) SIR HOWARD. You know also, Mr. Johnson, I hope, that you can depend on ME. JOHNSON (turning). On YOU, sir? SIR HOWARD. Yes: on me. If my throat is cut, the Sultan of Morocco may send Sidi's head with a hundred thousand dollars blood-money to the Colonial Office; but it will not be enough to save his kingdom--any more than it would saw your life, if your Captain here did the same thing. JOHNSON (struck). Is that so, Captain? BRASSBOUND. I know the gentleman's value--better perhaps than he knows it himself. I shall not lose sight of it. Johnson nods gravely, and is going out when Lady Cicely returns softly by the little door and calls to him in a whisper. She has taken off her travelling things and put on an apron. At her chatelaine is a case of sewing materials. LADY CICELY. Mr. Johnson. (He turns.) I've got Marzo to sleep. Would you mind asking the gentlemen not to make a noise under his window in the courtyard. JOHNSON. Right, maam. (He goes out.) Lady Cicely sits down at the tiny table, and begins stitching at a sling bandage for Marzo's arm. Brassbound walks up and down on her right, muttering to himself so ominously that Sir Howard quietly gets out of his way by crossing to the other side and sitting down on the second saddle seat. SIR HOWARD. Are you yet able to attend to me for a moment, Captain Brassbound? BRASSBOUND (still walking about). What do you want? SIR HOWARD. Well, I am afraid I want a little privacy, and, if you will allow me to say so, a little civility. I am greatly obliged to you for bringing us safely off to-day when we were attacked. So far, you have carried out your contract. But since we have been your guests here, your tone and that of the worst of your men has changed--intentionally changed, I think. BRASSBOUND (stopping abruptly and flinging the announcement at him). You are not my guest: you are my prisoner. SIR HOWARD. Prisoner! Lady Cicely, after a single glance up, continues stitching, apparently quite unconcerned. BRASSBOUND. I warned you. You should have taken my warning. SIR HOWARD (immediately taking the tone of cold disgust for moral delinquency). Am I to understand, then, that you are a brigand? Is this a matter of ransom? BRASSBOUND (with unaccountable intensity). All the wealth of England shall not ransom you. SIR HOWARD. Then what do you expect to gain by this? BRASSBOUND. Justice on a thief and a murderer. Lady Cicely lays down her work and looks up anxiously. SIR HOWARD (deeply outraged, rising with venerable dignity). Sir: do you apply those terms to me? BRASSBOUND. I do. (He turns to Lady Cicely, and adds, pointing contemptuously to Sir Howard) Look at him. You would not take this virtuously indignant gentleman for the uncle of a brigand, would you? Sir Howard starts. The shock is too much for him: he sits down again, looking very old; and his hands tremble; but his eyes and mouth are intrepid, resolute, and angry. LADY CICELY. Uncle! What do you mean? BRASSBOUND. Has he never told you about my mother? this fellow who puts on ermine and scarlet and calls himself Justice. SIR HOWARD (almost voiceless). You are the son of that woman! BRASSBOUND (fiercely). "That woman!" (He makes a movement as if to rush at Sir Howard.) LADY CICELY (rising quickly and putting her hand on his arm). Take care. You mustn't strike an old man. BRASSBOUND (raging). He did not spare my mother--"that woman," he calls her--because of her sex. I will not spare him because of his age. (Lowering his tone to one of sullen vindictiveness) But I am not going to strike him. (Lady Cicely releases him, and sits down, much perplexed. Brassbound continues, with an evil glance at Sir Howard) I shall do no more than justice. SIR HOWARD (recovering his voice and vigor). Justice! I think you mean vengeance, disguised as justice by your passions. BRASSBOUND. To many and many a poor wretch in the dock YOU have brought vengeance in that disguise--the vengeance of society, disguised as justice by ITS passions. Now the justice you have outraged meets you disguised as vengeance. How do you like it? SIR HOWARD. I shall meet it, I trust, as becomes an innocent man and an upright judge. What do you charge against me? BRASSBOUND. I charge you with the death of my mother and the theft of my inheritance. SIR HOWARD. As to your inheritance, sir, it was yours whenever you came forward to claim it. Three minutes ago I did not know of your existence. I affirm that most solemnly. I never knew--never dreamt--that my brother Miles left a son. As to your mother, her case was a hard one--perhaps the hardest that has come within even my experience. I mentioned it, as such, to Mr. Rankin, the missionary, the evening we met you. As to her death, you know--you MUST know--that she died in her native country, years after our last meeting. Perhaps you were too young to know that she could hardly have expected to live long. BRASSBOUND. You mean that she drank. SIR HOWARD. I did not say so. I do not think she was always accountable for what she did. BRASSBOUND. Yes: she was mad too; and whether drink drove her to madness or madness drove her to drink matters little. The question is, who drove her to both? SIR HOWARD. I presume the dishonest agent who seized her estate did. I repeat, it was a hard case--a frightful injustice. But it could not be remedied. BRASSBOUND. You told her so. When she would not take that false answer you drove her from your doors. When she exposed you in the street and threatened to take with her own hands the redress the law denied her, you had her imprisoned, and forced her to write you an apology and leave the country to regain her liberty and save herself from a lunatic asylum. And when she was gone, and dead, and forgotten, you found for yourself the remedy you could not find for her. You recovered the estate easily enough then, robber and rascal that you are. Did he tell the missionary that, Lady Cicely, eh? LADY CICELY (sympathetically). Poor woman! (To Sir Howard) Couldn't you have helped her, Howard? SIR HOWARD. No. This man may be ignorant enough to suppose that when I was a struggling barrister I could do everything I did when I was Attorney General. You know better. There is some excuse for his mother. She was an uneducated Brazilian, knowing nothing of English society, and driven mad by injustice. BRASSBOUND. Your defence-- SIR HOWARD (interrupting him determinedly). I do not defend myself. I call on you to obey the law. BRASSBOUND. I intend to do so. The law of the Atlas Mountains is administered by the Sheikh Sidi el Assif. He will be here within an hour. He is a judge like yourself. You can talk law to him. He will give you both the law and the prophets. SIR HOWARD. Does he know what the power of England is? BRASSBOUND. He knows that the Mahdi killed my master Gordon, and that the Mahdi died in his bed and went to paradise. SIR HOWARD. Then he knows also that England's vengeance was on the Mahdi's track. BRASSBOUND. Ay, on the track of the railway from the Cape to Cairo. Who are you, that a nation should go to war for you? If you are missing, what will your newspapers say? A foolhardy tourist. What will your learned friends at the bar say? That it was time for you to make room for younger and better men. YOU a national hero! You had better find a goldfield in the Atlas Mountains. Then all the governments of Europe will rush to your rescue. Until then, take care of yourself; for you are going to see at last the hypocrisy in the sanctimonious speech of the judge who is sentencing you, instead of the despair in the white face of the wretch you are recommending to the mercy of your God. SIR HOWARD (deeply and personally offended by this slight to his profession, and for the first time throwing away his assumed dignity and rising to approach Brassbound with his fists clenched; so that Lady Cicely lifts one eye from her work to assure herself that the table is between them). I have no more to say to you, sir. I am not afraid of you, nor of any bandit with whom you may be in league. As to your property, it is ready for you as soon as you come to your senses and claim it as your father's heir. Commit a crime, and you will become an outlaw, and not only lose the property, but shut the doors of civilization against yourself for ever. BRASSBOUND. I will not sell my mother's revenge for ten properties. LADY CICELY (placidly). Besides, really, Howard, as the property now costs 150 pounds a year to keep up instead of bringing in anything, I am afraid it would not be of much use to him. (Brassbound stands amazed at this revelation.) SIR HOWARD (taken aback). I must say, Cicely, I think you might have chosen a more suitable moment to mention that fact. BRASSBOUND (with disgust). Agh! Trickster! Lawyer! Even the price you offer for your life is to be paid in false coin. (Calling) Hallo there! Johnson! Redbrook! Some of you there! (To Sir Howard) You ask for a little privacy: you shall have it. I will not endure the company of such a fellow-- SIR HOWARD (very angry, and full of the crustiest pluck). You insult me, sir. You are a rascal. You are a rascal. Johnson, Redbrook, and a few others come in through the arch. BRASSBOUND. Take this man away. JOHNSON. Where are we to put him? BRASSBOUND. Put him where you please so long as you can find him when he is wanted. SIR HOWARD. You will be laid by the heels yet, my friend. REDBROOK (with cheerful tact). Tut tut, Sir Howard: what's the use of talking back? Come along: we'll make you comfortable. Sir Howard goes out through the arch between Johnson and Redbrook, muttering wrathfully. The rest, except Brassbound and Lady Cicely, follow. Brassbound walks up and down the room, nursing his indignation. In doing so he unconsciously enters upon an unequal contest with Lady Cicely, who sits quietly stitching. It soon becomes clear that a tranquil woman can go on sewing longer than an angry man can go on fuming. Further, it begins to dawn on Brassbound's wrath-blurred perception that Lady Cicely has at some unnoticed stage in the proceedings finished Marzo's bandage, and is now stitching a coat. He stops; glances at his shirtsleeves; finally realizes the situation. BRASSBOUND. What are you doing there, madam? LADY CICELY. Mending your coat, Captain Brassbound. BRASSBOUND. I have no recollection of asking you to take that trouble. LADY CICELY. No: I don't suppose you even knew it was torn. Some men are BORN untidy. You cannot very well receive Sidi el--what's his name?--with your sleeve half out. BRASSBOUND (disconcerted). I--I don't know how it got torn. LADY CICELY. You should not get virtuously indignant with people. It bursts clothes more than anything else, Mr. Hallam. BRASSBOUND (flushing, quickly). I beg you will not call me Mr. Hallam. I hate the name. LADY CICELY. Black Paquito is your pet name, isn't it? BRASSBOUND (huffily). I am not usually called so to my face. LADY CICELY (turning the coat a little). I'm so sorry. (She takes another piece of thread and puts it into her needle, looking placidly and reflectively upward meanwhile.) Do you know, You are wonderfully like your uncle. BRASSBOUND. Damnation! LADY CICELY. Eh? BRASSBOUND. If I thought my veins contained a drop of his black blood, I would drain them empty with my knife. I have no relations. I had a mother: that was all. LADY CICELY (unconvinced) I daresay you have your mother's complexion. But didn't you notice Sir Howard's temper, his doggedness, his high spirit: above all, his belief in ruling people by force, as you rule your men; and in revenge and punishment, just as you want to revenge your mother? Didn't you recognize yourself in that? BRASSBOUND (startled). Myself!--in that! LADY CECILY (returning to the tailoring question as if her last remark were of no consequence whatever). Did this sleeve catch you at all under the arm? Perhaps I had better make it a little easier for you. BRASSBOUND (irritably). Let my coat alone. It will do very well as it is. Put it down. LADY CICILY. Oh, don't ask me to sit doing nothing. It bores me so. BRASSBOUND. In Heaven's name then, do what you like! Only don't worry me with it. LADY CICELY. I'm so sorry. All the Hallams are irritable. BRASSBOUND (penning up his fury with difficulty). As I have already said, that remark has no application to me. LADY CICELY (resuming her stitching). That's so funny! They all hate to be told that they are like one another. BRASSBOUND (with the beginnings of despair in his voice). Why did you come here? My trap was laid for him, not for you. Do you know the danger you are in? LADY CICELY. There's always a danger of something or other. Do you think it's worth bothering about? BRASSBOUND (scolding her). Do I THINK! Do you think my coat's worth mending? LADY CICELY (prosaically). Oh yes: it's not so far gone as that. BRASSBOUND. Have you any feeling? Or are you a fool? LADY CICELY. I'm afraid I'm a dreadful fool. But I can't help it. I was made so, I suppose. BRASSBOUND. Perhaps you don't realize that your friend my good uncle will be pretty fortunate if he is allowed to live out his life as a slave with a set of chains on him? LADY CICELY. Oh, I don't know about that, Mr. H--I mean Captain Brassbound. Men are always thinking that they are going to do something grandly wicked to their enemies; but when it comes to the point, really bad men are just as rare as really good ones. BRASSBOUND. You forget that I am like my uncle, according to you. Have you any doubt as to the reality of HIS badness? LADY CICELY. Bless me! your uncle Howard is one of the most harmless of men--much nicer than most professional people. Of course he does dreadful things as a judge; but then if you take a man and pay him 5,000 pounds a year to be wicked, and praise him for it, and have policemen and courts and laws and juries to drive him into it so that he can't help doing it, what can you expect? Sir Howard's all right when he's left to himself. We caught a burglar one night at Waynflete when he was staying with us; and I insisted on his locking the poor man up until the police came, in a room with a window opening on the lawn. The man came back next day and said he must return to a life of crime unless I gave him a job in the garden; and I did. It was much more sensible than giving him ten years penal servitude: Howard admitted it. So you see he's not a bit bad really. BRASSBOUND. He had a fellow feeling for a thief, knowing he was a thief himself. Do you forget that he sent my mother to prison? LADY CICELY (softly). Were you very fond of your poor mother, and always very good to her? BRASSBOUND (rather taken aback). I was not worse than other sons, I suppose. LADY CICELY (opening her eyes very widely). Oh! Was THAT all? BRASSBOUND (exculpating himself, full of gloomy remembrances). You don't understand. It was not always possible to be very tender with my mother. She had unfortunately a very violent temper; and she--she-- LADY CICELY. Yes: so you told Howard. (With genuine pity for him) You must have had a very unhappy childhood. BRASSBOUND (grimily). Hell. That was what my childhood was. Hell. LADY CICELY. Do you think she would really have killed Howard, as she threatened, if he hadn't sent her to prison? BRASSBOUND (breaking out again, with a growing sense of being morally trapped). What if she did? Why did he rob her? Why did he not help her to get the estate, as he got it for himself afterwards? LADY CICELY. He says he couldn't, you know. But perhaps the real reason was that he didn't like her. You know, don't you, that if you don't like people you think of all the reasons for not helping them, and if you like them you think of all the opposite reasons. BRASSBOUND. But his duty as a brother! LADY CICELY. Are you going to do your duty as a nephew? BRASSBOUND. Don't quibble with me. I am going to do my duty as a son; and you know it. LADY CICELY. But I should have thought that the time for that was in your mother's lifetime, when you could have been kind and forbearing with her. Hurting your uncle won't do her any good, you know. BRASSBOUND. It will teach other scoundrels to respect widows and orphans. Do you forget that there is such a thing as justice? LADY CICELY (gaily shaking out the finished coat). Oh, if you are going to dress yourself in ermine and call yourself Justice, I give you up. You are just your uncle over again; only he gets £5,000 a year for it, and you do it for nothing. (She holds the coat up to see whether any further repairs are needed.) BRASSBOUND (sulkily). You twist my words very cleverly. But no man or woman has ever changed me. LADY CICELY. Dear me! That must be very nice for the people you deal with, because they can always depend on you; but isn't it rather inconvenient for yourself when you change your mind? BRASSBOUND. I never change my mind. LADY CICELY (rising with the coat in her hands). Oh! Oh!! Nothing will ever persuade me that you are as pigheaded as that. BRASSBOUND (offended). Pigheaded! LADY CICELY (with quick, caressing apology). No, no, no. I didn't mean that. Firm! Unalterable! Resolute! Ironwilled! Stonewall Jackson! That's the idea, isn't it? BRASSBOUND (hopelessly). You are laughing at me. LADY CICELY. No: trembling, I assure you. Now will you try this on for me: I'm SO afraid I have made it too tight under the arm. (She holds it behind him.) BRASSBOUND (obeying mechanically). You take me for a fool I think. (He misses the sleeve.) LADY CICELY. No: all men look foolish when they are feeling for their sleeves. BRASSBOUND. Agh! (He turns and snatches the coat from her; then puts it on himself and buttons the lowest button.) LADY CICELY (horrified). Stop. No. You must NEVER pull a coat at the skirts, Captain Brassbound: it spoils the sit of it. Allow me. (She pulls the lappels of his coat vigorously forward) Put back your shoulders. (He frowns, but obeys.) That's better. (She buttons the top button.) Now button the rest from the top down. DOES it catch you at all under the arm? BRASSBOUND (miserably--all resistance beaten out of him). No. LADY CICELY. That's right. Now before I go back to poor Marzo, say thank you to me for mending your jacket, like a nice polite sailor. BRASSBOUND (sitting down at the table in great agitation). Damn you! you have belittled my whole life to me. (He bows his head on his hands, convulsed.) LADY CICELY (quite understanding, and putting her hand kindly on his shoulder). Oh no. I am sure you have done lots of kind things and brave things, if you could only recollect them. With Gordon for instance? Nobody can belittle that. He looks up at her for a moment; then kisses her hand. She presses his and turns away with her eyes so wet that she sees Drinkwater, coming in through the arch just then, with a prismatic halo round him. Even when she sees him clearly, she hardly recognizes him; for he is ludicrously clean and smoothly brushed; and his hair, formerly mud color, is now a lively red. DRINKWATER. Look eah, kepn. (Brassbound springs up and recovers himself quickly.) Eahs the bloomin Shike jest appeahd on the orawzn wiv abaht fifty men. Thy'll be eah insawd o ten minnits, they will. LADY CICELY. The Sheikh! BRASSBOUND. Sidi el Assif and fifty men! (To Lady Cicely) You were too late: I gave you up my vengeance when it was no longer in my hand. (To Drinkwater) Call all hands to stand by and shut the gates. Then all here to me for orders; and bring the prisoner. DRINKWATER. Rawt, kepn. (He runs out.) LADY CICELY. Is there really any danger for Howard? BRASSBOUND. Yes. Danger for all of us unless I keep to my bargain with this fanatic. LADY CICELY. What bargain? BRASSBOUND. I pay him so much a head for every party I escort through to the interior. In return he protects me and lets my caravans alone. But I have sworn an oath to him to take only Jews and true believers--no Christians, you understand. LADY CICELY. Then why did you take us? BRASSBOUND. I took my uncle on purpose--and sent word to Sidi that he was here. LADY CICELY. Well, that's a pretty kettle of fish, isn't it? BRASSBOUND. I will do what I can to save him--and you. But I fear my repentance has come too late, as repentance usually does. LADY CICELY (cheerfully). Well, I must go and look after Marzo, at all events. (She goes out through the little door. Johnson, Redbrook and the rest come in through the arch, with Sir Howard, still very crusty and determined. He keeps close to Johnson, who comes to Brassbound's right, Redbrook taking the other side.) BRASSBOUND. Where's Drinkwater? JOHNSON. On the lookout. Look here, Capn: we don't half like this job. The gentleman has been talking to us a bit; and we think that he IS a gentleman, and talks straight sense. REDBROOK. Righto, Brother Johnson. (To Brassbound) Won't do, governor. Not good enough. BRASSBOUND (fiercely). Mutiny, eh? REDBROOK. Not at all, governor. Don't talk Tommy rot with Brother Sidi only five minutes gallop off. Can't hand over an Englishman to a nigger to have his throat cut. BRASSBOUND (unexpectedly acquiescing). Very good. You know, I suppose, that if you break my bargain with Sidi, you'll have to defend this place and fight for your lives in five minutes. That can't be done without discipline: you know that too. I'll take my part with the rest under whatever leader you are willing to obey. So choose your captain and look sharp about it. (Murmurs of surprise and discontent.) VOICES. No, no. Brassbound must command. BRASSBOUND. You're wasting your five minutes. Try Johnson. JOHNSON. No. I haven't the head for it. BRASSBOUND. Well, Redbrook. REDBROOK. Not this Johnny, thank you. Haven't character enough. BRASSBOUND. Well, there's Sir Howard Hallam for You! HE has character enough. A VOICE. He's too old. ALL. No, no. Brassbound, Brassbound. JOHNSON. There's nobody but you, Captain. REDRROOK. The mutiny's over, governor. You win, hands down. BRASSBOUND (turning on them). Now listen, you, all of you. If I am to command here, I am going to do what I like, not what you like. I'll give this gentleman here to Sidi or to the devil if I choose. I'll not be intimidated or talked back to. Is that understood? REDBROOK (diplomatically). He's offered a present of five hundred quid if he gets safe back to Mogador, governor. Excuse my mentioning it. SIR HOWARD. Myself AND Lady Cicely. BRASSBOUND. What! A judge compound a felony! You greenhorns, he is more likely to send you all to penal servitude if you are fools enough to give him the chance. VOICES. So he would. Whew! (Murmurs of conviction.) REDBROOK. Righto, governor. That's the ace of trumps. BRASSBOUND (to Sir Howard). Now, have you any other card to play? Any other bribe? Any other threat? Quick. Time presses. SIR HOWARD. My life is in the hands of Providence. Do your worst. BRASSBOUND. Or my best. I still have that choice. DRINKWATER (running in). Look eah, kepn. Eah's anather lot cammin from the sahth heast. Hunnerds of em, this tawm. The owl dezzit is lawk a bloomin Awd Pawk demonstrition. Aw blieve it's the Kidy from Kintorfy. (General alarm. All look to Brassbound.) BRASSBOUND (eagerly). The Cadi! How far off? DRINKWATER. Matter o two mawl. BRASSBOUND. We're saved. Open the gates to the Sheikh. DRINKWATER (appalled, almost in tears). Naow, naow. Lissn, kepn (Pointing to Sir Howard): e'll give huz fawv unnerd red uns. (To the others) Ynt yer spowk to im, Miste Jornsn--Miste Redbrook-- BRASSBOUND (cutting him short). Now then, do you understand plain English? Johnson and Redbrook: take what men you want and open the gates to the Sheikh. Let him come straight to me. Look alive, will you. JOHNSON. Ay ay, sir. REDBROOK. Righto, governor. They hurry out, with a few others. Drinkwater stares after them, dumbfounded by their obedience. BRASSBOUND (taking out a pistol). You wanted to sell me to my prisoner, did you, you dog. DRINKWATER (falling on his knees with a yell). Naow! (Brassbound turns on him as if to kick him. He scrambles away and takes refuge behind Sir Howard.) BRASSBOUND. Sir Howard Hallam: you have one chance left. The Cadi of Kintafi stands superior to the Sheikh as the responsible governor of the whole province. It is the Cadi who will be sacrificed by the Sultan if England demands satisfaction for any injury to you. If we can hold the Sheikh in parley until the Cadi arrives, you may frighten the Cadi into forcing the Sheikh to release you. The Cadi's coming is a lucky chance for YOU. SIR HOWARD. If it were a real chance, you would not tell me of it. Don't try to play cat and mouse with me, man. DRINKWATER (aside to Sir Howard, as Brassbound turns contemptuously away to the other side of the room). It ynt mach of a chawnst, Sr Ahrd. But if there was a ganbowt in Mogador Awbr, awd put a bit on it, aw would. Johnson, Redbrook, and the others return, rather mistrustfully ushering in Sidi el Assif, attended by Osman and a troop of Arabs. Brassbound's men keep together on the archway side, backing their captain. Sidi's followers cross the room behind the table and assemble near Sir Howard, who stands his ground. Drinkwater runs across to Brassbound and stands at his elbow as he turns to face Sidi. Sidi el Aasif, clad in spotless white, is a nobly handsome Arab, hardly thirty, with fine eyes, bronzed complexion, and instinctively dignified carriage. He places himself between the two groups, with Osman in attendance at his right hand. OSMAN (pointing out Sir Howard). This is the infidel Cadi. (Sir Howard bows to Sidi, but, being an infidel, receives only the haughtiest stare in acknowledgement.) This (pointing to Brassbound) is Brassbound the Franguestani captain, the servant of Sidi. DRINKWATER (not to be outdone, points out the Sheikh and Osman to Brassbound). This eah is the Commawnder of the Fythful an is Vizzeer Rosman. SIDI. Where is the woman? OSMAN. The shameless one is not here. BRASSBOUND. Sidi el Assif, kinsman of the Prophet: you are welcome. REDBROOK (with much aplomb). There is no majesty and no might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! DRINKWATER. Eah, eah! OSMAN (to Sidi). The servant of the captain makes his profession of faith as a true believer. SIDI. It is well. BRASSBOUND (aside to Redbrook). Where did you pick that up? REDRROOK (aside to Brassbound). Captain Burton's Arabian Nights--copy in the library of the National Liberal Club. LADY CICELY (calling without). Mr. Drinkwater. Come and help me with Marzo. (The Sheikh pricks up his ears. His nostrils and eyes expand.) OSMAN. The shameless one! BRASSBOUND (to Drinkwater, seizing him by the collar and slinging him towards the door). Off with you. Drinkwater goes out through the little door. OSMAN. Shall we hide her face before she enters? SIDI. NO. Lady Cicely, who has resumed her travelling equipment, and has her hat slung across her arm, comes through the little door supporting Marzo, who is very white, but able to get about. Drinkwater has his other arm. Redbrook hastens to relieve Lady Cicely of Marzo, taking him into the group behind Brassbound. Lady Cicely comes forward between Brassbound and the Sheikh, to whom she turns affably. LADY CICELY (proffering her hand). Sidi el Assif, isn't it? How dye do? (He recoils, blushing somewhat.) OSMAN (scandalized). Woman; touch not the kinsman of the Prophet. LADY CICELY. Oh, I see. I'm being presented at court. Very good. (She makes a presentation curtsey.) REDBROOK. Sidi el Assif: this is one of the mighty women Sheikhs of Franguestan. She goes unveiled among Kings; and only princes may touch her hand. LADY CICELY. Allah upon thee, Sidi el Assif! Be a good little Sheikh, and shake hands. SIDI (timidly touching her hand). Now this is a wonderful thing, and worthy to be chronicled with the story of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Is it not so, Osman Ali? OSMAN. Allah upon thee, master! it is so. SIDI. Brassbound Ali: the oath of a just man fulfils itself without many words. The infidel Cadi, thy captive, falls to my share. BRASSBOUND (firmly). It cannot be, Sidi el Assif. (Sidi's brows contract gravely.) The price of his blood will be required of our lord the Sultan. I will take him to Morocco and deliver him up there. SIDI (impressively). Brassbound: I am in mine own house and amid mine own people. I am the Sultan here. Consider what you say; for when my word goes forth for life or death, it may not be recalled. BRASSBOUND. Sidi el Assif: I will buy the man from you at what price you choose to name; and if I do not pay faithfully, you shall take my head for his. SIDI. It is well. You shall keep the man, and give me the woman in payment. SIR HOWARD AND BRASSBOUND (with the same impulse). No, no. LADY CICELY (eagerly). Yes, yes. Certainly, Mr. Sidi. Certainly. Sidi smiles gravely. SIR HOWARD. Impossible. BRASSBOUND. You don't know what you're doing. LADY CICELY. Oh, don't I? I've not crossed Africa and stayed with six cannibal chiefs for nothing. (To the Sheikh) It's all right, Mr. Sidi: I shall be delighted. SIR HOWARD. You are mad. Do you suppose this man will treat you as a European gentleman would? LADY CICELY. No: he'll treat me like one of Nature's gentlemen: look at his perfectly splendid face! (Addressing Osman as if he were her oldest and most attached retainer.) Osman: be sure you choose me a good horse; and get a nice strong camel for my luggage. Osman, after a moment of stupefaction, hurries out. Lady Cicely puts on her hat and pins it to her hair, the Sheikh gazing at her during the process with timid admiration. DRINKWATER (chuckling). She'll mawch em all to church next Sunder lawk a bloomin lot o' cherrity kids: you see if she doesn't. LADY CICELY (busily). Goodbye, Howard: don't be anxious about me; and above all, don't bring a parcel of men with guns to rescue me. I shall be all right now that I am getting away from the escort. Captain Brassbound: I rely on you to see that Sir Howard gets safe to Mogador. (Whispering) Take your hand off that pistol. (He takes his hand out of his pocket, reluctantly.) Goodbye. A tumult without. They all turn apprehensively to the arch. Osman rushes in. OSMAN. The Cadi, the Cadi. He is in anger. His men are upon us. Defend-- The Cadi, a vigorous, fatfeatured, choleric, whitehaired and bearded elder, rushes in, cudgel in hand, with an overwhelming retinue, and silences Osman with a sounding thwack. In a moment the back of the room is crowded with his followers. The Sheikh retreats a little towards his men; and the Cadi comes impetuously forward between him and Lady Cicely. THE CADI. Now woe upon thee, Sidi el Assif, thou child of mischief! SIDI (sternly). Am I a dog, Muley Othman, that thou speakest thus to me? THE CADI. Wilt thou destroy thy country, and give us all into the hands of them that set the sea on fire but yesterday with their ships of war? Where are the Franguestani captives? LADY CICELY. Here we are, Cadi. How dye do? THE CADI. Allah upon thee, thou moon at the full! Where is thy kinsman, the Cadi of Franguestan? I am his friend, his servant. I come on behalf of my master the Sultan to do him honor, and to cast down his enemies. SIR HOWARD. You are very good, I am sure. SIDI (graver than ever). Muley Othman-- TAE CADI (fumbling in his breast). Peace, peace, thou inconsiderate one. (He takes out a letter.) BRASSBOUND. Cadi-- THE CADI. Oh thou dog, thou, thou accursed Brassbound, son of a wanton: it is thou hast led Sidi el Assif into this wrongdoing. Read this writing that thou hast brought upon me from the commander of the warship. BRASSBOUND. Warship! (He takes the letter and opens it, his men whispering to one another very low-spiritedly meanwhile.) REDBROOK. Warship! Whew! JOHNSON. Gunboat, praps. DRINKWATER. Lawk bloomin Worterleoo buses, they are, on this cowst. Brassbound folds up the letter, looking glum. SIR HOWARD (sharply). Well, sir, are we not to have the benefit of that letter? Your men are waiting to hear it, I think. BRASSBOUND. It is not a British ship. (Sir Howard's face falls.) LADY CICELY. What is it, then? BRASSBOUND. An American cruiser. The Santiago. THE CADI (tearing his beard). Woe! alas! it is where they set the sea on fire. SIDI. Peace, Muley Othman: Allah is still above us. JOHNSON. Would you mind readin it to us, capn? BRASSBOUND (grimly). Oh, I'll read it to you. "Mogador Harbor. 26 Sept. 1899. Captain Hamlin Kearney, of the cruiser Santiago, presents the compliments of the United States to the Cadi Muley Othman el Kintafi, and announces that he is coming to look for the two British travellers Sir Howard Hallam and Lady Cicely Waynflete, in the Cadi's jurisdiction. As the search will be conducted with machine guns, the prompt return of the travellers to Mogador Harbor will save much trouble to all parties." THE CADI. As I live, O Cadi, and thou, moon of loveliness, ye shall be led back to Mogador with honor. And thou, accursed Brassbound, shall go thither a prisoner in chains, thou and thy people. (Brassbound and his men make a movement to defend themselves.) Seize them. LADY CICELY. Oh, please don't fight. (Brassbound, seeing that his men are hopelessly outnumbered, makes no resistance. They are made prisoners by the Cadi's followers.) SIDI (attempting to draw his scimitar). The woman is mine: I will not forego her. (He is seized and overpowered after a Homeric struggle.) SIR HOWARD (drily). I told you you were not in a strong position, Captain Brassbound. (Looking implacably at him.) You are laid by the heels, my friend, as I said you would be. LADY CICELY. But I assure you-- BRASSBOUND (interrupting her). What have you to assure him of? You persuaded me to spare him. Look at his face. Will you be able to persuade him to spare me? ACT III Torrid forenoon filtered through small Moorish windows high up in the adobe walls of the largest room in Leslie Rankin's house. A clean cool room, with the table (a Christian article) set in the middle, a presidentially elbowed chair behind it, and an inkstand and paper ready for the sitter. A couple of cheap American chairs right and left of the table, facing the same way as the presidential chair, give a judicial aspect to the arrangement. Rankin is placing a little tray with a jug and some glasses near the inkstand when Lady Cicely's voice is heard at the door, which is behind him in the corner to his right. LADE CICELY. Good morning. May I come in? RANKIN. Certainly. (She comes in, to the nearest end of the table. She has discarded all travelling equipment, and is dressed exactly as she might be in Surrey on a very hot day.) Sit ye doon, Leddy Ceecily. LADY CICELY (sitting down). How nice you've made the room for the inquiry! RANKIN (doubtfully). I could wish there were more chairs. Yon American captain will preside in this; and that leaves but one for Sir Howrrd and one for your leddyship. I could almost be tempted to call it a maircy that your friend that owns the yacht has sprained his ankle and cannot come. I misdoubt me it will not look judeecial to have Captain Kearney's officers squatting on the floor. LADY CICELY. Oh, they won't mind. What about the prisoners? RANKIN. They are to be broat here from the town gaol presently. LADY CICELY. And where is that silly old Cadi, and my handsome Sheikh Sidi? I must see them before the inquiry,or they'll give Captain Kearney quite a false impression of what happened. RANKIN. But ye cannot see them. They decamped last night, back to their castles in the Atlas. LADY CICELY (delighted). No! RANKIN. Indeed and they did. The poor Cadi is so terrified by all he has haird of the destruction of the Spanish fleet, that he daren't trust himself in the captain's hands. (Looking reproachfully at her) On your journey back here, ye seem to have frightened the poor man yourself, Leddy Ceecily, by talking to him about the fanatical Chreestianity of the Americans. Ye have largely yourself to thank if he's gone. LADY CICELY. Allah be praised! WHAT a weight off our minds, Mr. Rankin! RANKIN (puzzled). And why? Do ye not understand how necessary their evidence is? LADY CICELY. THEIR evidence! It would spoil everything. They would perjure themselves out of pure spite against poor Captain Brassbound. RANKIN (amazed). Do ye call him POOR Captain Brassbound! Does not your leddyship know that this Brasshound is--Heaven forgive me for judging him!--a precious scoundrel? Did ye not hear what Sir Howrrd told me on the yacht last night? LADY CICELY. All a mistake, Mr. Rankin: all a mistake, I assure you. You said just now, Heaven forgive you for judging him! Well, that's just what the whole quarrel is about. Captain Brassbound is just like you: he thinks we have no right to judge one another; and its Sir Howard gets £5,000 a year for doing nothing else but judging people, he thinks poor Captain Brassbound a regular Anarchist. They quarreled dreadfully at the castle. You mustn't mind what Sir Howard says about him: you really mustn't. RANKIN. But his conduct-- LADY CICELY. Perfectly saintly, Mr. Rankin. Worthy of yourself in your best moments. He forgave Sir Howard, and did all he could to save him. RANKIN. Ye astoanish me, Leddy Ceecily. LADY CICELY. And think of the temptation to behave badly when he had us all there helpless! RANKIN. The temptation! ay: that's true. Ye're ower bonny to be cast away among a parcel o lone, lawless men, my leddy. LADY CICELY (naively). Bless me, that's quite true; and I never thought of it! Oh, after that you really must do all you can to help Captain Brassbound. RANKIN (reservedly). No: I cannot say that, Leddy Ceecily. I doubt he has imposed on your good nature and sweet disposeetion. I had a crack with the Cadi as well as with Sir Howrrd; and there is little question in my mind but that Captain Brassbound is no better than a breegand. LADY CICELY (apparently deeply impressed). I wonder whether he can be, Mr. Rankin. If you think so, that's heavily against him in my opinion, because you have more knowledge of men than anyone else here. Perhaps I'm mistaken. I only thought you might like to help him as the son of your old friend. RANKIN (startled). The son of my old friend! What d'ye mean? LADY CICELY. Oh! Didn't Sir Howard tell you that? Why, Captain Brassbound turns out to be Sir Howard's nephew, the son of the brother you knew. RANKIN (overwhelmed). I saw the likeness the night he came here! It's true: it's true. Uncle and nephew! LADY CICELY. Yes: that's why they quarrelled so. RANKIN (with a momentary sense of ill usage). I think Sir Howrrd might have told me that. LADY CICELY. Of course he OUGHT to have told you. You see he only tells one side of the story. That comes from his training as a barrister. You mustn't think he's naturally deceitful: if he'd been brought up as a clergyman, he'd have told you the whole truth as a matter of course. RANKIN (too much perturbed to dwell on his grievance). Leddy Ceecily: I must go to the prison and see the lad. He may have been a bit wild; but I can't leave poor Miles's son unbefriended in a foreign gaol. LADY CICELY (rising, radiant). Oh, how good of you! You have a real kind heart of gold, Mr. Rankin. Now, before you go, shall we just put our heads together, and consider how to give Miles's son every chance--I mean of course every chance that he ought to have. RANKIN (rather addled). I am so confused by this astoanishing news-- LADY CICELY. Yes, yes: of course you are. But don't you think he would make a better impression on the American captain if he were a little more respectably dressed? RANKIN. Mebbe. But how can that be remedied here in Mogador? LADY CICELY. Oh, I've thought of that. You know I'm going back to England by way of Rome, Mr. Rankin; and I'm bringing a portmanteau full of clothes for my brother there: he's ambassador, you know, and has to be VERY particular as to what he wears. I had the portmanteau brought here this morning. Now WOULD you mind taking it to the prison, and smartening up Captain Brassbound a little. Tell him he ought to do it to show his respect for me; and he will. It will be quite easy: there are two Krooboys waiting to carry the portmanteau. You will: I know you will. (She edges him to the door.) And do you think there is time to get him shaved? RANKIN (succumbing, half bewildered). I'll do my best. LADY CICELY. I know you will. (As he is going out) Oh! one word, Mr. Rankin. (He comes back.) The Cadi didn't know that Captain Brassbound was Sir Howard's nephew, did he? RANKIN. No. LADY CICELY. Then he must have misunderstood everything quite dreadfully. I'm afraid, Mr. Rankin--though you know best, of course--that we are bound not to repeat anything at the inquiry that the Cadi said. He didn't know, you see. RANKIN (cannily). I take your point, Leddy Ceecily. It alters the case. I shall certainly make no allusion to it. LADY CICELY (magnanimously). Well, then, I won't either. There! They shake hands on it. Sir Howard comes in. SIR HOWARD. Good morning Mr. Rankin. I hope you got home safely from the yacht last night. RANKIN. Quite safe, thank ye, Sir Howrrd. LADY CICELY. Howard, he's in a hurry. Don't make him stop to talk. SIR HOWARD. Very good, very good. (He comes to the table and takes Lady Cicely's chair.) RANKIN. Oo revoir, Leddy Ceecily. LADY CICELY. Bless you, Mr. Rankin. (Rankin goes out. She comes to the other end of the table, looking at Sir Howard with a troubled, sorrowfully sympathetic air, but unconsciously making her right hand stalk about the table on the tips of its fingers in a tentative stealthy way which would put Sir Howard on his guard if he were in a suspicious frame of mind, which, as it happens, he is not.) I'm so sorry for you, Howard, about this unfortunate inquiry. SIR HOWARD (swinging round on his chair, astonished). Sorry for ME! Why? LADY CICELY. It will look so dreadful. Your own nephew, you know. SIR HOWARD. Cicely: an English judge has no nephews, no sons even, when he has to carry out the law. LADY CICELY. But then he oughtn't to have any property either. People will never understand about the West Indian Estate. They'll think you're the wicked uncle out of the Babes in the Wood. (With a fresh gush of compassion) I'm so SO sorry for you. SIR HOWARD (rather stiffly). I really do not see how I need your commiseration, Cicely. The woman was an impossible person, half mad, half drunk. Do you understand what such a creature is when she has a grievance, and imagines some innocent person to be the author of it? LADY CICELY (with a touch of impatience). Oh, quite. THAT'll be made clear enough. I can see it all in the papers already: our half mad, half drunk sister-in-law, making scenes with you in the street, with the police called in, and prison and all the rest of it. The family will be furious. (Sir Howard quails. She instantly follows up her advantage with) Think of papa! SIR HOWARD. I shall expect Lord Waynflete to look at the matter as a reasonable man. LADY CICELY. Do you think he's so greatly changed as that, Howard? SIR HOWARD (falling back on the fatalism of the depersonalized public man). My dear Cicely: there is no use discussing the matter. It cannot be helped, however disagreeable it may be. LADY CICELY. Of course not. That's what's so dreadful. Do you think people will understand? SIR HOWARD. I really cannot say. Whether they do or not, I cannot help it. LADY CICELY. If you were anybody but a judge, it wouldn't matter so much. But a judge mustn't even be misunderstood. (Despairingly) Oh, it's dreadful, Howard: it's terrible! What would poor Mary say if she were alive now? SIR HOWARD (with emotion). I don't think, Cicely, that my dear wife would misunderstand me. LADY CICELY. No: SHE'D know you mean well. And when you came home and said, "Mary: I've just told all the world that your sister-in-law was a police court criminal, and that I sent her to prison; and your nephew is a brigand, and I'm sending HIM to prison." she'd have thought it must be all right because you did it. But you don't think she would have LIKED it, any more than papa and the rest of us, do you? SIR HOWARD (appalled). But what am I to do? Do you ask me to compound a felony? LADY CICELY (sternly). Certainly not. I would not allow such a thing, even if you were wicked enough to attempt it. No. What I say is, that you ought not to tell the story yourself SIR HOWARD. Why? LADY CICELY. Because everybody would say you are such a clever lawyer you could make a poor simple sailor like Captain Kearney believe anything. The proper thing for you to do, Howard, is to let ME tell the exact truth. Then you can simply say that you are bound to confirm me. Nobody can blame you for that. SIR HOWARD (looking suspiciously at her). Cicely: you are up to some devilment. LADY CICELY (promptly washing her hands of his interests). Oh, very well. Tell the story yourself, in your own clever way. I only proposed to tell the exact truth. You call that devilment. So it is, I daresay, from a lawyer's point of view. SIR HOWARD. I hope you're not offended. LADY CICELY (with the utmost goodhumor). My dear Howard, not a bit. Of course you're right: you know how these things ought to be done. I'll do exactly what you tell me, and confirm everything you say. SIR HOWARD (alarmed by the completeness of his victory). Oh, my dear, you mustn't act in MY interest. You must give your evidence with absolute impartiality. (She nods, as if thoroughly impressed and reproved, and gazes at him with the steadfast candor peculiar to liars who read novels. His eyes turn to the ground; and his brow clouds perplexedly. He rises; rubs his chin nervously with his forefinger; and adds) I think, perhaps, on reflection, that there is something to be said for your proposal to relieve me of the very painful duty of telling what has occurred. LADI CICELY (holding off). But you'd do it so very much better. SIR HOWARD. For that very reason, perhaps, it had better come from you. LADY CICELY (reluctantly). Well, if you'd rather. SIR HOWARD. But mind, Cicely, the exact truth. LADY CICELY (with conviction). The exact truth. (They shake hands on it.) SIR HOWARD (holding her hand). Fiat justitia: ruat coelum! LADY CICELY. Let Justice be done, though the ceiling fall. An American bluejacket appears at the door. BLUEJACKET. Captain Kearney's cawmpliments to Lady Waynflete; and may he come in? LADY CICELY. Yes. By all means. Where are the prisoners? BLUEJACKET. Party gawn to the jail to fetch em, marm. LADY CICELY. Thank you. I should like to be told when they are coming, if I might. BLUEJACKET. You shall so, marm. (He stands aside, saluting, to admit his captain, and goes out.) Captain Hamlin Kearney is a robustly built western American, with the keen, squeezed, wind beaten eyes and obstinately enduring mouth of his profession. A curious ethnological specimen, with all the nations of the old world at war in his veins, he is developing artificially in the direction of sleekness and culture under the restraints of an overwhelming dread of European criticism, and climatically in the direction of the indiginous North American, who is already in possession of his hair, his cheekbones, and the manlier instincts in him, which the sea has rescued from civilization. The world, pondering on the great part of its own future which is in his hands, contemplates him with wonder as to what the devil he will evolve into in another century or two. Meanwhile he presents himself to Lady Cicely as a blunt sailor who has something to say to her concerning her conduct which he wishes to put politely, as becomes an officer addressing a lady, but also with an emphatically implied rebuke, as an American addressing an English person who has taken a liberty. LADY CICELY (as he enters). So glad you've come, Captain Kearney. KEARNEY (coming between Sir Howard and Lady Cicely). When we parted yesterday ahfternoon, Lady Waynflete, I was unaware that in the course of your visit to my ship you had entirely altered the sleeping arrangements of my stokers. I thahnk you. As captain of the ship, I am customairily cawnsulted before the orders of English visitors are carried out; but as your alterations appear to cawndooce to the comfort of the men, I have not interfered with them. LADY CICELY. How clever of you to find out! I believe you know every bolt in that ship. Kearney softens perceptibly. SIR HOWARD. I am really very sorry that my sister-in-law has taken so serious a liberty, Captain Kearney. It is a mania of hers--simply a mania. Why did your men pay any attention to her? KEARNEY (with gravely dissembled humor). Well, I ahsked that question too. I said, Why did you obey that lady's orders instead of waiting for mine? They said they didn't see exactly how they could refuse. I ahsked whether they cawnsidered that discipline. They said, Well, sir, will you talk to the lady yourself next time? LADY CICELY. I'm so sorry. But you know, Captain, the one thing that one misses on board a man-of-war is a woman. KEARNEY. We often feel that deprivation verry keenly, Lady Waynflete. LADY CICELY. My uncle is first Lord of the Admiralty; and I am always telling him what a scandal it is that an English captain should be forbidden to take his wife on board to look after the ship. KEARNEY. Stranger still, Lady Waynflete, he is not forbidden to take any other lady. Yours is an extraordinairy country--to an Amerrican. LADY CICELY. But it's most serious, Captain. The poor men go melancholy mad, and ram each other's ships and do all sorts of things. SIR HOWARD. Cicely: I beg you will not talk nonsense to Captain Kearney. Your ideas on some subjects are really hardly decorous. LADY CICELY (to Kearney). That's what English people are like, Captain Kearney. They won't hear of anything concerning you poor sailors except Nelson and Trafalgar. YOU understand me, don't you? KEARNEY (gallantly). I cawnsider that you have more sense in your wedding ring finger than the British Ahdmiralty has in its whole cawnstitootion, Lady Waynflete. LADY CICELY. Of course I have. Sailors always understand things. The bluejacket reappears. BLUEJACKET (to Lady Cicely). Prisoners coming up the hill, marm. KEARNEY (turning sharply on him). Who sent you in to say that? BLUEJACKET (calmly). British lady's orders, sir. (He goes out, unruffled, leaving Kearney dumbfounded.) SIR HOWARD (contemplating Kearney's expression with dismay). I am really very sorry, Captain Kearney. I am quite aware that Lady Cicely has no right whatever to give orders to your men. LADY CICELY. I didn't give orders: I just asked him. He has such a nice face! Don't you think so, Captain Kearney? (He gasps, speechless.) And now will you excuse me a moment. I want to speak to somebody before the inquiry begins. (She hurries out.) KEARNEY. There is sertnly a wonderful chahrn about the British aristocracy, Sir Howard Hallam. Are they all like that? (He takes the presidential chair.) SIR HOWARD (resuming his seat on Kearney's right). Fortunately not, Captain Kearney. Half a dozen such women would make an end of law in England in six months. The bluejacket comes to the door again. BLUEJACKET. All ready, sir. KEARNEY. Verry good. I'm waiting. The bluejacket turns and intimates this to those without. The officers of the Santiago enter. SIR HOWARD (rising and bobbing to them in a judicial manner). Good morning, gentlemen. They acknowledge the greeting rather shyly, bowing or touching their caps, and stand in a group behind Kearney. KEARNEY (to Sir Howard). You will be glahd to hear that I have a verry good account of one of our prisoners from our chahplain, who visited them in the gaol. He has expressed a wish to be cawnverted to Episcopalianism. SIR HOWARD (drily). Yes, I think I know him. KEARNEY. Bring in the prisoners. BLUEJACKET (at the door). They are engaged with the British lady, sir. Shall I ask her-- KEARNEY (jumping up and exploding in storm piercing tones). Bring in the prisoners. Tell the lady those are my orders. Do you hear? Tell her so. (The bluejacket goes out dubiously. The officers look at one another in mute comment on the unaccountable pepperiness of their commander.) SIR HOWARD (suavely). Mr. Rankin will be present, I presume. KEARNEY (angrily). Rahnkin! Who is Rahnkin? SIR HOWARD. Our host the missionary. KEARNEY (subsiding unwillingly). Oh! Rahnkin, is he? He'd better look sharp or he'll be late. (Again exploding.) What are they doing with those prisoners? Rankin hurries in, and takes his place near Sir Howard. SIR HOWARD. This is Mr. Rankin, Captain Kearney. RANKIN. Excuse my delay, Captain Kearney. The leddy sent me on an errand. (Kearney grunts.) I thought I should be late. But the first thing I heard when I arrived was your officer giving your compliments to Leddy Ceecily, and would she kindly allow the prisoners to come in, as you were anxious to see her again. Then I knew I was in time. KEARNEY. Oh, that was it, was it? May I ask, sir, did you notice any sign on Lady Waynflete's part of cawmplying with that verry moderate request? LADY CICELY (outside). Coming, coming. The prisoners are brought in by a guard of armed bluejackets. Drinkwater first, again elaborately clean, and conveying by a virtuous and steadfast smirk a cheerful confidence in his innocence. Johnson solid and inexpressive, Redbrook unconcerned and debonair, Marzo uneasy. These four form a little group together on the captain's left. The rest wait unintelligently on Providence in a row against the wall on the same side, shepherded by the bluejackets. The first bluejacket, a petty officer, posts himself on the captain's right, behind Rankin and Sir Howard. Finally Brassbound appears with Lady Cicely on his arm. He is in fashionable frock coat and trousers, spotless collar and cuffs, and elegant boots. He carries a glossy tall hat in his hand. To an unsophisticated eye, the change is monstrous and appalling; and its effect on himself is so unmanning that he is quite out of countenance--a shaven Samson. Lady Cicely, however, is greatly pleased with it; and the rest regard it as an unquestionable improvement. The officers fall back gallantly to allow her to pass. Kearney rises to receive her, and stares with some surprise at Brassbound as he stops at the table on his left. Sir Howard rises punctiliously when Kearney rises and sits when he sits. KEARNEY. Is this another gentleman of your party, Lady Waynflete? I presume I met you lahst night, sir, on board the yacht. BRASSBOUND. No. I am your prisoner. My name is Brassbound. DRINKWATER (officiously). Kepn Brarsbahnd, of the schooner Thenksgiv-- REDBROOK (hastily). Shut up, you fool. (He elbows Drinkwater into the background.) KEARNEY (surprised and rather suspicious). Well, I hardly understahnd this. However, if you are Captain Brassbound, you can take your place with the rest. (Brassbound joins Redbrook and Johnson. Kearney sits down again, after inviting Lady Cicely, with a solemn gesture, to take the vacant chair.) Now let me see. You are a man of experience in these matters, Sir Howard Hallam. If you had to conduct this business, how would you start? LADY CICELY. He'd call on the counsel for the prosecution, wouldn't you, Howard? SIR HOWARD. But there is no counsel for the prosecution, Cicely. LADY CICELY. Oh yes there is. I'm counsel for the prosecution. You mustn't let Sir Howard make a speech, Captain Kearney: his doctors have positively forbidden anything of that sort. Will you begin with me? KEARNEY. By your leave, Lady Waynfiete, I think I will just begin with myself. Sailor fashion will do as well here as lawyer fashion. LADY CICELY. Ever so much better, dear Captain Kearney. (Silence. Kearney composes himself to speak. She breaks out again). You look so nice as a judge! A general smile. Drinkwater splutters into a half suppressed laugh. REDBROOK (in a fierce whisper). Shut up, you fool, will you? (Again he pushes him back with a furtive kick.) SIR HOWARD (remonstrating). Cicely! KEARNEY (grimly keeping his countenance). Your ladyship's cawmpliments will be in order at a later stage. Captain Brassbound: the position is this. My ship, the United States cruiser Santiago, was spoken off Mogador latest Thursday by the yacht Redgauntlet. The owner of the aforesaid yacht, who is not present through having sprained his ankle, gave me sertn information. In cawnsequence of that information the Santiago made the twenty knots to Mogador Harbor inside of fifty-seven minutes. Before noon next day a messenger of mine gave the Cadi of the district sertn information. In cawnsequence of that information the Cadi stimulated himself to some ten knots an hour, and lodged you and your men in Mogador jail at my disposal. The Cadi then went back to his mountain fahstnesses; so we shall not have the pleasure of his company here to-day. Do you follow me so far? BRASSBOUND. Yes. I know what you did and what the Cadi did. The point is, why did you do it? KEARNEY. With doo patience we shall come to that presently. Mr. Rahnkin: will you kindly take up the parable? RANKIN. On the very day that Sir Howrrd and Lady Cicely started on their excursion I was applied to for medicine by a follower of the Sheikh Sidi el Assif. He told me I should never see Sir Howrrd again, because his master knew he was a Christian and would take him out of the hands of Captain Brassbound. I hurried on board the yacht and told the owner to scour the coast for a gunboat or cruiser to come into the harbor and put persuasion on the authorities. (Sir Howard turns and looks at Rankin with a sudden doubt of his integrity as a witness.) KEARNEY. But I understood from our chahplain that you reported Captain Brassbound as in league with the Sheikh to deliver Sir Howard up to him. RANKIN. That was my first hasty conclusion, Captain Kearney. But it appears that the compact between them was that Captain Brassbound should escort travellers under the Sheikh's protection at a certain payment per head, provided none of them were Christians. As I understand it, he tried to smuggle Sir Howrrd through under this compact, and the Sheikh found him out. DRINKWATER. Rawt, gavner. Thet's jest ah it wors. The Kepn-- REDBROOK (again suppressing him). Shut up, you fool, I tell you. SIR HOWARD (to Rankin). May I ask have you had any conversation with Lady Cicely on this subject? RANKIN (naively). Yes. (Sir Howard qrunts emphatically, as who should say "I thought so." Rankin continues, addressing the court) May I say how sorry I am that there are so few chairs, Captain and gentlemen. KEARNEY (with genial American courtesy). Oh, THAT's all right, Mr. Rahnkin. Well, I see no harm so far: it's human fawlly, but not human crime. Now the counsel for the prosecution can proceed to prosecute. The floor is yours, Lady Waynflete. LADY CICELY (rising). I can only tell you the exact truth-- DRINKWATER (involuntarily). Naow, down't do thet, lidy-- REDBROOK (as before). SHUT up, you fool, will you? LADY CICELY. We had a most delightful trip in the hills; and Captain Brassbound's men could not have been nicer--I must say that for them--until we saw a tribe of Arabs--such nice looking men!--and then the poor things were frightened. KEARNEY. The Arabs? LADY CICELY. No: Arabs are never frightened. The escort, of course: escorts are always frightened. I wanted to speak to the Arab chief; but Captain Brassbound cruelly shot his horse; and the chief shot the Count; and then-- KEARNEY. The Count! What Count? LADY CICELY. Marzo. That's Marzo (pointing to Marzo, who grins and touches his forehead). KEARNEY (slightly overwhelmed by the unexpected profusion of incident and character in her story). Well, what happened then? LADY CICELY. Then the escort ran away--all escorts do--and dragged me into the castle, which you really ought to make them clean and whitewash thoroughly, Captain Kearney. Then Captain Brassbound and Sir Howard turned out to be related to one another (sensation); and then of course, there was a quarrel. The Hallams always quarrel. SIR HOWARD (rising to protest). Cicely! Captain Kearney: this man told me-- LADY CICELY (swiftly interrupting him). You mustn't say what people told you: it's not evidence. (Sir Howard chokes with indignation.) KEARNEY (calmly). Allow the lady to proceed, Sir Howard Hallam. SIR HOWARD (recovering his self-control with a gulp, and resuming his seat). I beg your pardon, Captain Kearney. LADY CICELY. Then Sidi came. KEARNEY. Sidney! Who was Sidney? LADY CICELY. No, Sidi. The Sheikh. Sidi el Assif. A noble creature, with such a fine face! He fell in love with me at first sight-- SIR HOWARD (remonstrating). Cicely! LADY CICELY. He did: you know he did. You told me to tell the exact truth. KEARNEY. I can readily believe it, madam. Proceed. LADY CICELY. Well, that put the poor fellow into a most cruel dilemma. You see, he could claim to carry off Sir Howard, because Sir Howard is a Christian. But as I am only a woman, he had no claim to me. KEARNEY (somewhat sternly, suspecting Lady Cicely of aristocratic atheism). But you are a Christian woman. LADY CICELY. No: the Arabs don't count women. They don't believe we have any souls. RANKIN. That is true, Captain: the poor benighted creatures! LADY CICELY. Well, what was he to do? He wasn't in love with Sir Howard; and he WAS in love with me. So he naturally offered to swop Sir Howard for me. Don't you think that was nice of him, Captain Kearney? KEARNEY. I should have done the same myself, Lady Waynflete. Proceed. LADY CICELY. Captain Brassbound, I must say, was nobleness itself, in spite of the quarrel between himself and Sir Howard. He refused to give up either of us, and was on the point of fighting for us when in came the Cadi with your most amusing and delightful letter, captain, and bundled us all back to Mogador after calling my poor Sidi the most dreadful names, and putting all the blame on Captain Brassbound. So here we are. Now, Howard, isn't that the exact truth, every word of it? SIR HOWARD. It is the truth, Cicely, and nothing but the truth. But the English law requires a witness to tell the WHOLE truth. LADY CICELY. What nonsense! As if anybody ever knew the whole truth about anything! (Sitting down, much hurt and discouraged.) I'm sorry you wish Captain Kearney to understand that I am an untruthful witness. SIR HOWARD. No: but-- LADY CICELY. Very well, then: please don't say things that convey that impression. KEARNEY. But Sir Howard told me yesterday that Captain Brassbound threatened to sell him into slavery. LADY CICELY (springing up again). Did Sir Howard tell you the things he said about Captain Brassbound's mother? (Renewed sensation.) I told you they quarrelled, Captain Kearney. I said so, didn't I? REDBROOK (crisply). Distinctly. (Drinkwater opens his mouth to corroborate.) Shut up, you fool. LADY CICELY. Of course I did. Now, Captain Kearney, do YOU want me--does Sir Howard want me--does ANYBODY want me to go into the details of that shocking family quarrel? Am I to stand here in the absence of any individual of my own sex and repeat the language of two angry men? KEARNEY (rising impressively). The United States navy will have no hahnd in offering any violence to the pure instincts of womanhood. Lady Waynflete: I thahnk you for the delicacy with which you have given your evidence. (Lady Cicely beams on him gratefully and sits down triumphant.) Captain Brassbound: I shall not hold you respawnsible for what you may have said when the English bench addressed you in the language of the English forecastle-- (Sir Howard is about to protest.) No, Sir Howard Hallam: excuse ME. In moments of pahssion I have called a man that myself. We are glahd to find real flesh and blood beneath the ermine of the judge. We will all now drop a subject that should never have been broached in a lady's presence. (He resumes his seat, and adds, in a businesslike tone) Is there anything further before we release these men? BLUEJACKET. There are some dawcuments handed over by the Cadi, sir. He reckoned they were sort of magic spells. The chahplain ordered them to be reported to you and burnt, with your leave, sir. KEARNEY. What are they? BLUEJACKET (reading from a list). Four books, torn and dirty, made up of separate numbers, value each wawn penny, and entitled Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber of London; The Skeleton Horseman-- DRINKWATER (rushing forward in painful alarm, and anxiety). It's maw lawbrary, gavner. Down't burn em. KEARNEY. You'll be better without that sort of reading, my man. DRINKWATER (in intense distress, appealing to Lady Cicely) Down't let em burn em, Lidy. They dasn't if you horder them not to. (With desperate eloquence) Yer dunno wot them books is to me. They took me aht of the sawdid reeyellities of the Worterleoo Rowd. They formed maw mawnd: they shaowed me sathink awgher than the squalor of a corster's lawf-- REDBROOK (collaring him). Oh shut up, you fool. Get out. Hold your ton-- DRINKWATER (frantically breaking from him). Lidy, lidy: sy a word for me. Ev a feelin awt. (His tears choke him: he clasps his hands in dumb entreaty.) LADY CICELY (touched). Don't burn his books. Captain. Let me give them back to him. KEARNEY. The books will be handed over to the lady. DRINKWATER (in a small voice). Thenkyer, Lidy. (He retires among his comrades, snivelling subduedly.) REDBROOK (aside to him as he passes). You silly ass, you. (Drinkwater sniffs and does not reply.) KEARNEY. I suppose you and your men accept this lady's account of what passed, Captain Brassbound. BRASSBOUND (gloomily). Yes. It is true--as far as it goes. KEARNEY (impatiently). Do you wawnt it to go any further? MARZO. She leave out something. Arab shoot me. She nurse me. She cure me. KEARNEY. And who are you, pray? MARZO (seized with a sanctimonious desire to demonstrate his higher nature). Only dam thief. Dam liar. Dam rascal. She no lady. JOHNSON (revolted by the seeming insult to the English peerage from a low Italian). What? What's that you say? MARZO. No lady nurse dam rascal. Only saint. She saint. She get me to heaven--get us all to heaven. We do what we like now. LADY CICELY. Indeed you will do nothing of the sort Marzo, unless you like to behave yourself very nicely indeed. What hour did you say we were to lunch at, Captain Kearney? KEARNEY. You recall me to my dooty, Lady Waynflete. My barge will be ready to take off you and Sir Howard to the Santiago at one o'clawk. (He rises.) Captain Brassbound: this innquery has elicited no reason why I should detain you or your men. I advise you to ahct as escort in future to heathens exclusively. Mr. Rahnkin: I thahnk you in the name of the United States for the hospitahlity you have extended to us today; and I invite you to accompany me bahck to my ship with a view to lunch at half-past one. Gentlemen: we will wait on the governor of the gaol on our way to the harbor (He goes out, following his officers, and followed by the bluejackets and the petty officer.) SIR HOWARD (to Lady Cicely). Cicely: in the course of my professional career I have met with unscrupulous witnesses, and, I am sorry to say, unscrupulous counsel also. But the combination of unscrupulous witness and unscrupulous counsel I have met to-day has taken away my breath You have made me your accomplice in defeating justice. LADY CICELY. Yes: aren't you glad it's been defeated for once? (She takes his arm to go out with him.) Captain Brassbound: I will come back to say goodbye before I go. (He nods gloomily. She goes out with Sir Howard, following the Captain and his staff.) RANKIN (running to Brassbound and taking both his hands). I'm right glad ye're cleared. I'll come back and have a crack with ye when yon lunch is over. God bless ye. (Hs goes out quickly.) Brassbound and his men, left by themselves in the room, free and unobserved, go straight out of their senses. They laugh; they dance; they embrace one another; they set to partners and waltz clumsily; they shake hands repeatedly and maudlinly. Three only retain some sort of self-possession. Marzo, proud of having successfully thrust himself into a leading part in the recent proceedings and made a dramatic speech, inflates his chest, curls his scanty moustache, and throws himself into a swaggering pose, chin up and right foot forward, despising the emotional English barbarians around him. Brassbound's eyes and the working of his mouth show that he is infected with the general excitement; but he bridles himself savagely. Redbrook, trained to affect indifference, grins cynically; winks at Brassbound; and finally relieves himself by assuming the character of a circus ringmaster, flourishing an imaginary whip and egging on the rest to wilder exertions. A climax is reached when Drinkwater, let loose without a stain on his character for the second time, is rapt by belief in his star into an ecstasy in which, scorning all partnership, he becomes as it were a whirling dervish, and executes so miraculous a clog dance that the others gradually cease their slower antics to stare at him. BRASSBOUND (tearing off his hat and striding forward as Drinkwater collapses, exhausted, and is picked up by Redbrook). Now to get rid of this respectable clobber and feel like a man again. Stand by, all hands, to jump on the captain's tall hat. (He puts the hat down and prepares to jump on it. The effect is startling, and takes him completely aback. His followers, far from appreciating his iconoclasm, are shocked into scandalized sobriety, except Redbrook, who is immensely tickled by their prudery.) DRINKWATER. Naow, look eah, kepn: that ynt rawt. Dror a lawn somewhere. JOHNSON. I say nothin agen a bit of fun, Capn, but let's be gentlemen. REDBROOK. I suggest to you, Brassbound, that the clobber belongs to Lady Sis. Ain't you going to give it back to her? BRASSBOUND (picking up the hat and brushing the dust off it anxiously). That's true. I'm a fool. All the same, she shall not see me again like this. (He pulls off the coat and waistcoat together.) Does any man here know how to fold up this sort of thing properly? REDBROOK. Allow me, governor. (He takes the coat and waistcoat to the table, and folds them up.) BRASSBOUND (loosening his collar and the front of his shirt). Brandyfaced Jack: you're looking at these studs. I know what's in your mind. DRINKWATER (indignantly). Naow yer down't: nort a bit on it. Wot's in maw mawnd is secrifawce, seolf-secrifawce. BRASSBOUND. If one brass pin of that lady's property is missing, I'll hang you with my own hands at the gaff of the Thanksgiving--and would, if she were lying under the guns of all the fleets in Europe. (He pulls off the shirt and stands in his blue jersey, with his hair ruffled. He passes his hand through it and exclaims) Now I am half a man, at any rate. REDBROOK. A horrible combination, governor: churchwarden from the waist down, and the rest pirate. Lady Sis won't speak to you in it. BRASSBOUND. I'll change altogether. (He leaves the room to get his own trousers.) REDBROOK (softly). Look here, Johnson, and gents generally. (They gather about him.) Spose she takes him back to England! MARZO (trying to repeat his success). Im! Im only dam pirate. She saint, I tell you--no take any man nowhere. JOHNSON (severely). Don't you be a ignorant and immoral foreigner. (The rebuke is well received; and Marzo is hustled into the background and extinguished.) She won't take him for harm; but she might take him for good. And then where should we be? DRINKWATER. Brarsbahnd ynt the ownly kepn in the world. Wot mikes a kepn is brines an knollidge o lawf. It ynt thet ther's naow sitch pusson: it's thet you dunno where to look fr im. (The implication that he is such a person is so intolerable that they receive it with a prolonged burst of booing.) BRASSBOUND (returning in his own clothes, getting into his jacket as he comes). Stand by, all. (They start asunder guiltily, and wait for orders.) Redbrook: you pack that clobber in the lady's portmanteau, and put it aboard the yacht for her. Johnson: you take all hands aboard the Thanksgiving; look through the stores: weigh anchor; and make all ready for sea. Then send Jack to wait for me at the slip with a boat; and give me a gunfire for a signal. Lose no time. JOHNSON. Ay, ay, air. All aboard, mates. ALL. Ay, ay. (They rush out tumultuously.) When they are gone, Brassbound sits down at the end of the table, with his elbows on it and his head on his fists, gloomily thinking. Then he takes from the breast pocket of his jacket a leather case, from which he extracts a scrappy packet of dirty letters and newspaper cuttings. These he throws on the table. Next comes a photograph in a cheap frame. He throws it down untenderly beside the papers; then folds his arms, and is looking at it with grim distaste when Lady Cicely enters. His back is towards her; and he does not hear her. Perceiving this, she shuts the door loudly enough to attract his attention. He starts up. LADY CICELY (coming to the opposite end of the table). So you've taken off all my beautiful clothes! BRASSBOUND. Your brother's, you mean. A man should wear his own clothes; and a man should tell his own lies. I'm sorry you had to tell mine for me to-day. LADY CICELY. Oh, women spend half their lives telling little lies for men, and sometimes big ones. We're used to it. But mind! I don't admit that I told any to-day. BRASSBOUND. How did you square my uncle? LADY CICELY. I don't understand the expression. BRASSBOUND. I mean-- LADY CICELY. I'm afraid we haven't time to go into what you mean before lunch. I want to speak to you about your future. May I? BRASSBOUND (darkening a little, but politely). Sit down. (She sits down. So does he.) LADY CICELY. What are your plans? BRASSBOUND. I have no plans. You will hear a gun fired in the harbor presently. That will mean that the Thanksgiving's anchor's weighed and that she is waiting for her captain to put out to sea. And her captain doesn't know now whether to turn her head north or south. LADY CICELY. Why not north for England? BRASSBOUND. Why not south for the Pole? LADY CICELY. But you must do something with yourself. BRASSBOUND (settling himself with his fists and elbows weightily on the table and looking straight and powerfully at her). Look you: when you and I first met, I was a man with a purpose. I stood alone: I saddled no friend, woman or man, with that purpose, because it was against law, against religion, against my own credit and safety. But I believed in it; and I stood alone for it, as a man should stand for his belief, against law and religion as much as against wickedness and selfishness. Whatever I may be, I am none of your fairweather sailors that'll do nothing for their creed but go to Heaven for it. I was ready to go to hell for mine. Perhaps you don't understand that. LADY CICELY. Oh bless you, yes. It's so very like a certain sort of man. BRASSBOUND. I daresay but I've not met many of that sort. Anyhow, that was what I was like. I don't say I was happy in it; but I wasn't unhappy, because I wasn't drifting. I was steering a course and had work in hand. Give a man health and a course to steer; and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not. LADY CICELY. Sometimes he won't even stop to trouble about whether other people are happy or not. BRASSBOUND. I don't deny that: nothing makes a man so selfish as work. But I was not self-seeking: it seemed to me that I had put justice above self. I tell you life meant something to me then. Do you see that dirty little bundle of scraps of paper? LADY CICELY. What are they? BRASSBOUND. Accounts cut out of newspapers. Speeches made by my uncle at charitable dinners, or sentencing men to death--pious, highminded speeches by a man who was to me a thief and a murderer! To my mind they were more weighty, more momentous, better revelations of the wickedness of law and respectability than the book of the prophet Amos. What are they now? (He quietly tears the newspaper cuttings into little fragments and throws them away, looking fixedly at her meanwhile.) LADY CICELY. Well, that's a comfort, at all events. BRASSBOUND. Yes; but it's a part of my life gone: YOUR doing, remember. What have I left? See here! (He take up the letters) the letters my uncle wrote to my mother, with her comments on their cold drawn insolence, their treachery and cruelty. And the piteous letters she wrote to him later on, returned unopened. Must they go too? LADY CICELY (uneasily). I can't ask you to destroy your mother's letters. BRASSBOUND. Why not, now that you have taken the meaning out of them? (He tears them.) Is that a comfort too? LADY CICELY. It's a little sad; but perhaps it is best so. BRASSBOUND. That leaves one relic: her portrait. (He plucks the photograph out of its cheap case.) LADY CICELY (with vivid curiosity). Oh, let me see. (He hands it to her. Before she can control herself, her expression changes to one of unmistakable disappointment and repulsion.) BRASSBOUND (with a single sardonic cachinnation). Ha! You expected something better than that. Well, you're right. Her face does not look well opposite yours. LADY CICELY (distressed). I said nothing. BRASSBOUND. What could you say? (He takes back the portrait: she relinquishes it without a word. He looks at it; shakes his head; and takes it quietly between his finger and thumb to tear it.) LADY CICELY (staying his hand). Oh, not your mother's picture! BRASSBOUND. If that were your picture, would you like your son to keep it for younger and better women to see? LADY CICELY (releasing his hand). Oh, you are dreadful! Tear it, tear it. (She covers her eyes for a moment to shut out the sight.) BRASSBOUND (tearing it quietly). You killed her for me that day in the castle; and I am better without her. (He throws away the fragments.) Now everything is gone. You have taken the old meaning out of my life; but you have put no new meaning into it. I can see that you have some clue to the world that makes all its difficulties easy for you; but I'm not clever enough to seize it. You've lamed me by showing me that I take life the wrong way when I'm left to myself. LADY CICELY. Oh no. Why do you say that? BRASSBOUND. What else can I say? See what I've done! My uncle is no worse a man than myself--better, most likely; for he has a better head and a higher place. Well, I took him for a villain out of a storybook. My mother would have opened anybody else's eyes: she shut mine. I'm a stupider man than Brandyfaced Jack even; for he got his romantic nonsense out of his penny numbers and such like trash; but I got just the same nonsense out of life and experience. (Shaking his head) It was vulgar--VULGAR. I see that now; for you've opened my eyes to the past; but what good is that for the future? What am I to do? Where am I to go? LADY CICELY. It's quite simple. Do whatever you like. That's what I always do. BRASSBOUND. That answer is no good to me. What I like is to have something to do; and I have nothing. You might as well talk like the missionary and tell me to do my duty. LADY CICELY (quickly). Oh no thank you. I've had quite enough of your duty, and Howard's duty. Where would you both be now if I'd let you do it? BRASSBOUND. We'd have been somewhere, at all events. It seems to me that now I am nowhere. LADY CICELY. But aren't you coming back to England with us? BRASSBOUND. What for? LADY CICELY. Why, to make the most of your opportunities. BRASSBOUND. What opportunities? LADY CICELY. Don't you understand that when you are the nephew of a great bigwig, and have influential connexions, and good friends among them, lots of things can be done for you that are never done for ordinary ship captains? BRASSBOUND. Ah; but I'm not an aristocrat, you see. And like most poor men, I'm proud. I don't like being patronized. LADY CICELY. What is the use of saying that? In my world, which is now your world--OUR world--getting patronage is the whole art of life. A man can't have a career without it. BRASSBOUND. In my world a man can navigate a ship and get his living by it. LADY CICELY. Oh, I see you're one of the Idealists--the Impossibilists! We have them, too, occasionally, in our world. There's only one thing to be done with them. BRASSBOUND. What's that? LADY CICELY. Marry them straight off to some girl with enough money for them, and plenty of sentiment. That's their fate. BRASSBOUND. You've spoiled even that chance for me. Do you think I could look at any ordinary woman after you? You seem to be able to make me do pretty well what you like; but you can't make me marry anybody but yourself. LADY CICELY. Do you know, Captain Paquito, that I've married no less than seventeen men (Brassbound stares) to other women. And they all opened the subject by saying that they would never marry anybody but me. BRASSBOUND. Then I shall be the first man you ever found to stand to his word. LADY CICELY (part pleased, part amused, part sympathetic). Do you really want a wife? BRASSBOUND. I want a commander. Don't undervalue me: I am a good man when I have a good leader. I have courage: I have determination: I'm not a drinker: I can command a schooner and a shore party if I can't command a ship or an army. When work is put upon me, I turn neither to save my life nor to fill my pocket. Gordon trusted me; and he never regretted it. If you trust me, you shan't regret it. All the same, there's something wanting in me: I suppose I'm stupid. LADY CICELY. Oh, you're not stupid. BRASSBOUND. Yes I am. Since you saw me for the first time in that garden, you've heard me say nothing clever. And I've heard you say nothing that didn't make me laugh, or make me feel friendly, as well as telling me what to think and what to do. That's what I mean by real cleverness. Well, I haven't got it. I can give an order when I know what order to give. I can make men obey it, willing or unwilling. But I'm stupid, I tell you: stupid. When there's no Gordon to command me, I can't think of what to do. Left to myself, I've become half a brigand. I can kick that little gutterscrub Drinkwater; but I find myself doing what he puts into my head because I can't think of anything else. When you came, I took your orders as naturally as I took Gordon's, though I little thought my next commander would be a woman. I want to take service under you. And there's no way in which that can be done except marrying you. Will you let me do it? LADY CICELY. I'm afraid you don't quite know how odd a match it would be for me according to the ideas of English society. BRASSBOUND. I care nothing about English society: let it mind its own business. LADY CICELY (rising, a little alarmed). Captain Paquito: I am not in love with you. BRASSBOUND (also rising, with his gaze still steadfastly on her). I didn't suppose you were: the commander is not usually in love with his subordinate. LADY CICELY. Nor the subordinate with the commander. BRASSBOUND (assenting firmly). Nor the subordinate with the commander. LADY CICELY (learning for the first time in her life what terror is, as she finds that he is unconsciously mesmerizing her). Oh, you are dangerous! BRASSBOUND. Come: are you in love with anybody else? That's the question. LADY CICELY (shaking her head). I have never been in love with any real person; and I never shall. How could I manage people if I had that mad little bit of self left in me? That's my secret. BRASSBOUND. Then throw away the last bit of self. Marry me. LADY CICELY (vainly struggling to recall her wandering will). Must I? BRASSBOUND. There is no must. You CAN. I ask you to. My fate depends on it. LADY CICELY. It's frightful; for I don't mean to--don't wish to. BRASSBOUND. But you will. LADY CICELY (quite lost, slowly stretches out her hand to give it to him). I-- (Gunfire from the Thanksgiving. His eyes dilate. It wakes her from her trance) What is that? BRASSBOUND. It is farewell. Rescue for you--safety, freedom! You were made to be something better than the wife of Black Paquito. (He kneels and takes her hands) You can do no more for me now: I have blundered somehow on the secret of command at last (he kisses her hands): thanks for that, and for a man's power and purpose restored and righted. And farewell, farewell, farewell. LADY CICELY (in a strange ecstasy, holding his hands as he rises). Oh, farewell. With my heart's deepest feeling, farewell, farewell. BRASSBOUND. With my heart's noblest honor and triumph, farewell. (He turns and flies.) LADY CICELY. How glorious! how glorious! And what an escape! CURTAIN NOTES TO CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION SOURCES OF THE PLAY I claim as a notable merit in the authorship of this play that I have been intelligent enough to steal its scenery, its surroundings, its atmosphere, its geography, its knowledge of the east, its fascinating Cadis and Kearneys and Sheikhs and mud castles from an excellent book of philosophic travel and vivid adventure entitled Mogreb-el-Acksa (Morocco the Most Holy) by Cunninghame Graham. My own first hand knowledge of Morocco is based on a morning's walk through Tangier, and a cursory observation of the coast through a binocular from the deck of an Orient steamer, both later in date than the writing of the play. Cunninghame Graham is the hero of his own book; but I have not made him the hero of my play, because so incredible a personage must have destroyed its likelihood--such as it is. There are moments when I do not myself believe in his existence. And yet he must be real; for I have seen him with these eyes; and I am one of the few men living who can decipher the curious alphabet in which he writes his private letters. The man is on public record too. The battle of Trafalgar Square, in which he personally and bodily assailed civilization as represented by the concentrated military and constabular forces of the capital of the world, can scarcely be forgotten by the more discreet spectators, of whom I was one. On that occasion civilization, qualitatively his inferior, was quantitatively so hugely in excess of him that it put him in prison, but had not sense enough to keep him there. Yet his getting out of prison was as nothing compared to his getting into the House of Commons. How he did it I know not; but the thing certainly happened, somehow. That he made pregnant utterances as a legislator may be taken as proved by the keen philosophy of the travels and tales he has since tossed to us; but the House, strong in stupidity, did not understand him until in an inspired moment he voiced a universal impulse by bluntly damning its hypocrisy. Of all the eloquence of that silly parliament, there remains only one single damn. It has survived the front bench speeches of the eighties as the word of Cervantes survives the oraculations of the Dons and Deys who put him, too, in prison. The shocked House demanded that he should withdraw his cruel word. "I never withdraw," said he; and I promptly stole the potent phrase for the sake of its perfect style, and used it as a cockade for the Bulgarian hero of Arms and the Man. The theft prospered; and I naturally take the first opportunity of repeating it. In what other Lepantos besides Trafalgar Square Cunninghame Graham has fought, I cannot tell. He is a fascinating mystery to a sedentary person like myself. The horse, a dangerous animal whom, when I cannot avoid, I propitiate with apples and sugar, he bestrides and dominates fearlessly, yet with a true republican sense of the rights of the fourlegged fellowcreature whose martyrdom, and man's shame therein, he has told most powerfully in his Calvary, a tale with an edge that will cut the soft cruel hearts and strike fire from the hard kind ones. He handles the other lethal weapons as familiarly as the pen: medieval sword and modern Mauser are to him as umbrellas and kodaks are to me. His tales of adventure have the true Cervantes touch of the man who has been there--so refreshingly different from the scenes imagined by bloody-minded clerks who escape from their servitude into literature to tell us how men and cities are conceived in the counting house and the volunteer corps. He is, I understand, a Spanish hidalgo: hence the superbity of his portrait by Lavery (Velasquez being no longer available). He is, I know, a Scotch laird. How he contrives to be authentically the two things at the same time is no more intelligible to me than the fact that everything that has ever happened to him seems to have happened in Paraguay or Texas instead of in Spain or Scotland. He is, I regret to add, an impenitent and unashamed dandy: such boots, such a hat, would have dazzled D'Orsay himself. With that hat he once saluted me in Regent St. when I was walking with my mother. Her interest was instantly kindled; and the following conversation ensued. "Who is that?" "Cunninghame Graham." "Nonsense! Cunninghame Graham is one of your Socialists: that man is a gentleman." This is the punishment of vanity, a fault I have myself always avoided, as I find conceit less troublesome and much less expensive. Later on somebody told him of Tarudant, a city in Morocco in which no Christian had ever set foot. Concluding at once that it must be an exceptionally desirable place to live in, he took ship and horse: changed the hat for a turban; and made straight for the sacred city, via Mogador. How he fared, and how he fell into the hands of the Cadi of Kintafi, who rightly held that there was more danger to Islam in one Cunninghame Graham than in a thousand Christians, may be learnt from his account of it in Mogreb-el-Acksa, without which Captain Brassbound's Conversion would never have been written. I am equally guiltless of any exercise of invention concerning the story of the West Indian estate which so very nearly serves as a peg to hang Captain Brassbound. To Mr. Frederick Jackson of Hindhead, who, against all his principles, encourages and abets me in my career as a dramatist, I owe my knowledge of those main facts of the case which became public through an attempt to make the House of Commons act on them. This being so, I must add that the character of Captain Brassbound's mother, like the recovery of the estate by the next heir, is an interpolation of my own. It is not, however, an invention. One of the evils of the pretence that our institutions represent abstract principles of justice instead of being mere social scaffolding is that persons of a certain temperament take the pretence seriously, and when the law is on the side of injustice, will not accept the situation, and are driven mad by their vain struggle against it. Dickens has drawn the type in his Man from Shropshire in Bleak House. Most public men and all lawyers have been appealed to by victims of this sense of injustice--the most unhelpable of afflictions in a society like ours. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DIALECTS The fact that English is spelt conventionally and not phonetically makes the art of recording speech almost impossible. What is more, it places the modern dramatist, who writes for America as well as England, in a most trying position. Take for example my American captain and my English lady. I have spelt the word conduce, as uttered by the American captain, as cawndooce, to suggest (very roughly) the American pronunciation to English readers. Then why not spell the same word, when uttered by Lady Cicely, as kerndewce, to suggest the English pronunciation to American readers? To this I have absolutely no defence: I can only plead that an author who lives in England necessarily loses his consciousness of the peculiarities of English speech, and sharpens his consciousness of the points in which American speech differs from it; so that it is more convenient to leave English peculiarities to be recorded by American authors. I must, however, most vehemently disclaim any intention of suggesting that English pronunciation is authoritative and correct. My own tongue is neither American English nor English English, but Irish English; so I am as nearly impartial in the matter as it is in human nature to be. Besides, there is no standard English pronunciation any more than there is an American one: in England every county has its catchwords, just as no doubt every state in the Union has. I cannot believe that the pioneer American, for example, can spare time to learn that last refinement of modern speech, the exquisite diphthong, a farfetched combination of the French eu and the English e, with which a New Yorker pronounces such words as world, bird &c. I have spent months without success in trying to achieve glibness with it. To Felix Drinkwater also I owe some apology for implying that all his vowel pronunciations are unfashionable. They are very far from being so. As far as my social experience goes (and I have kept very mixed company) there is no class in English society in which a good deal of Drinkwater pronunciation does not pass unchallenged save by the expert phonetician. This is no mere rash and ignorant jibe of my own at the expense of my English neighbors. Academic authority in the matter of English speech is represented at present by Mr. Henry Sweet, of the University of Oxford, whose Elementarbuch des gesprochenen Engliach, translated into his native language for the use of British islanders as a Primer of Spoken English, is the most accessible standard work on the subject. In such words as plum, come, humbug, up, gum, etc., Mr. Sweet's evidence is conclusive. Ladies and gentlemen in Southern England pronounce them as plam, kam, hambag, ap, gan, etc., exactly as Felix Drinkwater does. I could not claim Mr. Sweet's authority if I dared to whisper that such coster English as the rather pretty dahn tahn for down town, or the decidedly ugly cowcow for cocoa is current in very polite circles. The entire nation, costers and all, would undoubtedly repudiate any such pronunciation as vulgar. All the same, if I were to attempt to represent current "smart" cockney speech as I have attempted to represent Drinkwater's, without the niceties of Mr. Sweet's Romic alphabets, I am afraid I should often have to write dahn tahn and cowcow as being at least nearer to the actual sound than down town and cocoa. And this would give such offence that I should have to leave the country; for nothing annoys a native speaker of English more than a faithful setting down in phonetic spelling of the sounds he utters. He imagines that a departure from conventional spelling indicates a departure from the correct standard English of good society. Alas! this correct standard English of good society is unknown to phoneticians. It is only one of the many figments that bewilder our poor snobbish brains. No such thing exists; but what does that matter to people trained from infancy to make a point of honor of belief in abstractions and incredibilities? And so I am compelled to hide Lady Cicely's speech under the veil of conventional orthography. I need not shield Drinkwater, because he will never read my book. So I have taken the liberty of making a special example of him, as far as that can be done without a phonetic alphabet, for the benefit of the mass of readers outside London who still form their notions of cockney dialect on Sam Weller. When I came to London in 1876, the Sam Weller dialect had passed away so completely that I should have given it up as a literary fiction if I had not discovered it surviving in a Middlesex village, and heard of it from an Essex one. Some time in the eighties the late Andrew Tuer called attention in the Pall Mall Gazette to several peculiarities of modern cockney, and to the obsolescence of the Dickens dialect that was still being copied from book to book by authors who never dreamt of using their ears, much less of training them to listen. Then came Mr. Anstey's cockney dialogues in Punch, a great advance, and Mr. Chevalier's coster songs and patter. The Tompkins verses contributed by Mr. Barry Pain to the London Daily Chronicle have also done something to bring the literary convention for cockney English up to date. But Tompkins sometimes perpetrates horrible solecisms. He will pronounce face as fits, accurately enough; but he will rhyme it quite impossibly to nice, which Tompkins would pronounce as newts: for example Mawl Enn Rowd for Mile End Road. This aw for i, which I have made Drinkwater use, is the latest stage of the old diphthongal oi, which Mr. Chevalier still uses. Irish, Scotch and north country readers must remember that Drinkwater's rs are absolutely unpronounced when they follow a vowel, though they modify the vowel very considerably. Thus, luggage is pronounced by him as laggige, but turn is not pronounced as tern, but as teun with the eu sounded as in French. The London r seems thoroughly understood in America, with the result, however, that the use of the r by Artemus Ward and other American dialect writers causes Irish people to misread them grotesquely. I once saw the pronunciation of malheureux represented in a cockney handbook by mal-err-err: not at all a bad makeshift to instruct a Londoner, but out of the question elsewhere in the British Isles. In America, representations of English speech dwell too derisively on the dropped or interpolated h. American writers have apparently not noticed the fact that the south English h is not the same as the never-dropped Irish and American h, and that to ridicule an Englishman for dropping it is as absurd as to ridicule the whole French and Italian nation for doing the same. The American h, helped out by a general agreement to pronounce wh as hw, is tempestuously audible, and cannot be dropped without being immediately missed. The London h is so comparatively quiet at all times, and so completely inaudible in wh, that it probably fell out of use simply by escaping the ears of children learning to speak. However that may be, it is kept alive only by the literate classes who are reminded constantly of its existence by seeing it on paper. Roughly speaking, I should say that in England he who bothers about his hs is a fool, and he who ridicules a dropped h a snob. As to the interpolated h, my experience as a London vestryman has convinced me that it is often effective as a means of emphasis, and that the London language would be poorer without it. The objection to it is no more respectable than the objection of a street boy to a black man or to a lady in knickerbockers. I have made only the most perfunctory attempt to represent the dialect of the missionary. There is no literary notation for the grave music of good Scotch. BLACKDOWN, August 1900 
3485	----	ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS By George Bernard Shaw ANNAJANSKA is frankly a bravura piece. The modern variety theatre demands for its "turns" little plays called sketches, to last twenty minutes or so, and to enable some favorite performer to make a brief but dazzling appearance on some barely passable dramatic pretext. Miss Lillah McCarthy and I, as author and actress, have helped to make one another famous on many serious occasions, from Man and Superman to Androcles; and Mr Charles Ricketts has not disdained to snatch moments from his painting and sculpture to design some wonderful dresses for us. We three unbent as Mrs Siddons, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr Johnson might have unbent, to devise a turn for the Coliseum variety theatre. Not that we would set down the art of the variety theatre as something to be condescended to, or our own art as elephantine. We should rather crave indulgence as three novices fresh from the awful legitimacy of the highbrow theatre. Well, Miss McCarthy and Mr Ricketts justified themselves easily in the glamor of the footlights, to the strains of Tchaikovsky's 1812. I fear I did not. I have received only one compliment on my share; and that was from a friend who said, "It is the only one of your works that is not too long." So I have made it a page or two longer, according to my own precept: EMBRACE YOUR REPROACHES: THEY ARE OFTEN GLORIES IN DISGUISE. Annajanska was first performed at the Coliseum Theatre in London on the 21st January, 1918, with Lillah McCarthy as the Grand Duchess, Henry Miller as Schneidekind, and Randle Ayrton as General Strammfest. ANNAJANSKA, THE BOLSHEVIK EMPRESS The General's office in a military station on the east front in Beotia. An office table with a telephone, writing materials, official papers, etc., is set across the room. At the end of the table, a comfortable chair for the General. Behind the chair, a window. Facing it at the other end of the table, a plain wooden bench. At the side of the table, with its back to the door, a common chair, with a typewriter before it. Beside the door, which is opposite the end of the bench, a rack for caps and coats. There is nobody in the room. General Strammfest enters, followed by Lieutenant Schneidekind. They hang up their cloaks and caps. Schneidekind takes a little longer than Strammfest, who comes to the table. STRAMMFEST. Schneidekind. SCHNEIDEKIND. Yes, sir. STRAMMFEST. Have you sent my report yet to the government? [He sits down.] SCHNEIDEKIND [coming to the table]. Not yet, sir. Which government do you wish it sent to? [He sits down.] STRAMMFEST. That depends. What's the latest? Which of them do you think is most likely to be in power tomorrow morning? SCHNEIDEKIND. Well, the provisional government was going strong yesterday. But today they say that the Prime Minister has shot himself, and that the extreme left fellow has shot all the others. STRAMMFEST. Yes: that's all very well; but these fellows always shoot themselves with blank cartridge. SCHNEIDEKIND. Still, even the blank cartridge means backing down. I should send the report to the Maximilianists. STRAMMFEST. They're no stronger than the Oppidoshavians; and in my own opinion the Moderate Red Revolutionaries are as likely to come out on top as either of them. SCHNEIDEKIND. I can easily put a few carbon sheets in the typewriter and send a copy each to the lot. STRAMMFEST. Waste of paper. You might as well send reports to an infant school. [He throws his head on the table with a groan.] SCHNEIDEKIND. Tired out, Sir? STRAMMFEST. O Schneidekind, Schneidekind, how can you bear to live? SCHNEIDEKIND. At my age, sir, I ask myself how can I bear to die? STRAMMFEST. You are young, young and heartless. You are excited by the revolution: you are attached to abstract things like liberty. But my family has served the Panjandrums of Beotia faithfully for seven centuries. The Panjandrums have kept our place for us at their courts, honored us, promoted us, shed their glory on us, made us what we are. When I hear you young men declaring that you are fighting for civilization, for democracy, for the overthrow of militarism, I ask myself how can a man shed his blood for empty words used by vulgar tradesmen and common laborers: mere wind and stink. [He rises, exalted by his theme.] A king is a splendid reality, a man raised above us like a god. You can see him; you can kiss his hand; you can be cheered by his smile and terrified by his frown. I would have died for my Panjandrum as my father died for his father. Your toiling millions were only too honored to receive the toes of our boots in the proper spot for them when they displeased their betters. And now what is left in life for me? [He relapses into his chair discouraged.] My Panjandrum is deposed and transported to herd with convicts. The army, his pride and glory, is paraded to hear seditious speeches from penniless rebels, with the colonel actually forced to take the chair and introduce the speaker. I myself am made Commander-in-Chief by my own solicitor: a Jew, Schneidekind! a Hebrew Jew! It seems only yesterday that these things would have been the ravings of a madman: today they are the commonplaces of the gutter press. I live now for three objects only: to defeat the enemy, to restore the Panjandrum, and to hang my solicitor. SCHNEIDEKIND. Be careful, sir: these are dangerous views to utter nowadays. What if I were to betray you? STRAMMFEST. What! SCHNEIDEKIND. I won't, of course: my own father goes on just like that; but suppose I did? STRAMMFEST [chuckling]. I should accuse you of treason to the Revolution, my lad; and they would immediately shoot you, unless you cried and asked to see your mother before you died, when they would probably change their minds and make you a brigadier. Enough. [He rises and expands his chest.] I feel the better for letting myself go. To business. [He takes up a telegram: opens it: and is thunderstruck by its contents.] Great heaven! [He collapses into his chair.] This is the worst blow of all. SCHNEIDEKIND. What has happened? Are we beaten? STRAMMFEST. Man, do you think that a mere defeat could strike me down as this news does: I, who have been defeated thirteen times since the war began? O, my master, my master, my Panjandrum! [he is convulsed with sobs.] SCHNEIDEKIND. They have killed him? STRAMMFEST. A dagger has been struck through his heart-- SCHNEIDEKIND. Good God! STRAMMFEST. --and through mine, through mine. SCHNEIDEKIND [relieved]. Oh, a metaphorical dagger! I thought you meant a real one. What has happened? STRAMMFEST. His daughter the Grand Duchess Annajanska, she whom the Panjandrina loved beyond all her other children, has--has-- [he cannot finish.] SCHNEIDEKIND. Committed suicide? STRAMMFEST. No. Better if she had. Oh, far far better. SCHNEIDEKIND [in hushed tones]. Left the Church? STRAMMFEST [shocked]. Certainly not. Do not blaspheme, young man. SCHNEIDEKIND. Asked for the vote? STRAMMFEST. I would have given it to her with both hands to save her from this. SCHNEIDEKIND. Save her from what? Dash it, sir, out with it. STRAMMFEST. She has joined the Revolution. SCHNEIDEKIND. But so have you, sir. We've all joined the Revolution. She doesn't mean it any more than we do. STRAMMFEST. Heaven grant you may be right! But that is not the worst. She had eloped with a young officer. Eloped, Schneidekind, eloped! SCHNEIDEKIND [not particularly impressed]. Yes, Sir. STRAMMFEST. Annajanska, the beautiful, the innocent, my master's daughter! [He buries his face in his hands.] The telephone rings. SCHNEIDEKIND [taking the receiver]. Yes: G.H.Q. Yes... Don't bawl: I'm not a general. Who is it speaking?... Why didn't you say so? don't you know your duty? Next time you will lose your stripe... Oh, they've made you a colonel, have they? Well, they've made me a field-marshal: now what have you to say?... Look here: what did you ring up for? I can't spend the day here listening to your cheek... What! the Grand Duchess [Strammfest starts.] Where did you catch her? STRAMMFEST [snatching the telephone and listening for the answer]. Speak louder, will you: I am a General I know that, you dolt. Have you captured the officer that was with her?... Damnation! You shall answer for this: you let him go: he bribed you. You must have seen him: the fellow is in the full dress court uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. I give you twelve hours to catch him or... what's that you say about the devil? Are you swearing at me, you... Thousand thunders! [To Schneidekind.] The swine says that the Grand Duchess is a devil incarnate. [Into the telephone.] Filthy traitor: is that the way you dare speak of the daughter of our anointed Panjandrum? I'll-- SCHNEIDEKIND [pulling the telephone from his lips]. Take care, sir. STRAMMFEST. I won't take care: I'll have him shot. Let go that telephone. SCHNEIDEKIND. But for her own sake, sir-- STRAMMFEST. Eh?-- SCHNEIDEKIND. For her own sake they had better send her here. She will be safe in your hands. STRAMMFEST [yielding the receiver]. You are right. Be civil to him. I should choke [he sits down]. SCHNEIDEKIND [into the telephone]. Hullo. Never mind all that: it's only a fellow here who has been fooling with the telephone. I had to leave the room for a moment. Wash out: and send the girl along. We'll jolly soon teach her to behave herself here... Oh, you've sent her already. Then why the devil didn't you say so, you--[he hangs up the telephone angrily]. Just fancy: they started her off this morning: and all this is because the fellow likes to get on the telephone and hear himself talk now that he is a colonel. [The telephone rings again. He snatches the receiver furiously.] What's the matter now?... [To the General.] It's our own people downstairs. [Into the receiver.] Here! do you suppose I've nothing else to do than to hang on to the telephone all day?... What's that? Not men enough to hold her! What do you mean? [To the General.] She is there, sir. STRAMMFEST. Tell them to send her up. I shall have to receive her without even rising, without kissing her hand, to keep up appearances before the escort. It will break my heart. SCHNEIDEKIND [into the receiver]. Send her up... Tcha! [He hangs up the receiver.] He says she is halfway up already: they couldn't hold her. The Grand Duchess bursts into the room, dragging with her two exhausted soldiers hanging on desperately to her arms. She is enveloped from head to foot by a fur-lined cloak, and wears a fur cap. SCHNEIDEKIND [pointing to the bench]. At the word Go, place your prisoner on the bench in a sitting posture; and take your seats right and left of her. Go. The two soldiers make a supreme effort to force her to sit down. She flings them back so that they are forced to sit on the bench to save themselves from falling backwards over it, and is herself dragged into sitting between them. The second soldier, holding on tight to the Grand Duchess with one hand, produces papers with the other, and waves them towards Schneidekind, who takes them from him and passes them on to the General. He opens them and reads them with a grave expression. SCHNEIDEKIND. Be good enough to wait, prisoner, until the General has read the papers on your case. THE GRAND DUCHESS [to the soldiers]. Let go. [To Strammfest]. Tell them to let go, or I'll upset the bench backwards and bash our three heads on the floor. FIRST SOLDIER. No, little mother. Have mercy on the poor. STRAMMFEST [growling over the edge of the paper he is reading]. Hold your tongue. THE GRAND DUCHESS [blazing]. Me, or the soldier? STRAMMFEST [horrified]. The soldier, madam. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Tell him to let go. STRAMMFEST. Release the lady. The soldiers take their hands off her. One of them wipes his fevered brow. The other sucks his wrist. SCHNEIDKIND [fiercely]. 'ttention! The two soldiers sit up stiffly. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, let the poor man suck his wrist. It may be poisoned. I bit it. STRAMMFEST [shocked]. You bit a common soldier! GRAND DUCHESS. Well, I offered to cauterize it with the poker in the office stove. But he was afraid. What more could I do? SCHNEIDEKIND. Why did you bite him, prisoner? THE GRAND DUCHESS. He would not let go. STRAMMFEST. Did he let go when you bit him? THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. [Patting the soldier on the back]. You should give the man a cross for his devotion. I could not go on eating him; so I brought him along with me. STRAMMFEST. Prisoner-- THE GRAND DUCHESS. Don't call me prisoner, General Strammfest. My grandmother dandled you on her knee. STRAMMFEST [bursting into tears]. O God, yes. Believe me, my heart is what it was then. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Your brain also is what it was then. I will not be addressed by you as prisoner. STRAMMFEST. I may not, for your own sake, call you by your rightful and most sacred titles. What am I to call you? THE GRAND DUCHESS. The Revolution has made us comrades. Call me comrade. STRAMMFEST. I had rather die. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then call me Annajanska; and I will call you Peter Piper, as grandmamma did. STRAMMFEST [painfully agitated]. Schneidekind, you must speak to her: I cannot--[he breaks down.] SCHNEIDEKIND [officially]. The Republic of Beotia has been compelled to confine the Panjandrum and his family, for their own safety, within certain bounds. You have broken those bounds. STRAMMFEST [taking the word from him]. You are I must say it--a prisoner. What am I to do with you? THE GRAND DUCHESS. You should have thought of that before you arrested me. STRAMMFEST. Come, come, prisoner! do you know what will happen to you if you compel me to take a sterner tone with you? THE GRAND DUCHESS. No. But I know what will happen to you. STRAMAIFEST. Pray what, prisoner? THE GLAND DUCHESS. Clergyman's sore throat. Schneidekind splutters; drops a paper: and conceals his laughter under the table. STRAMMFEST [thunderously]. Lieutenant Schneidekind. SCHNEIDEKIND [in a stifled voice]. Yes, Sir. [The table vibrates visibly.] STRAMMFEST. Come out of it, you fool: you're upsetting the ink. Schneidekind emerges, red in the face with suppressed mirth. STRAMMFEST. Why don't you laugh? Don't you appreciate Her Imperial Highness's joke? SCHNEIDEKIND [suddenly becoming solemn]. I don't want to, sir. STRAMMFEST. Laugh at once, sir. I order you to laugh. SCHNEIDEKIND [with a touch of temper]. I really can't, sir. [He sits down decisively.] STRAMMFEST [growling at him]. Yah! [He turns impressively to the Grand Duchess.] Your Imperial Highness desires me to address you as comrade? THE GRAND DUCHESS [rising and waving a red handkerchief]. Long live the Revolution, comrade! STRAMMFEST [rising and saluting]. Proletarians of all lands, unite. Lieutenant Schneidekind, you will rise and sing the Marseillaise. SCHNEIDEKIND [rising]. But I cannot, sir. I have no voice, no ear. STRAMMFEST. Then sit down; and bury your shame in your typewriter. [Schneidekind sits down.] Comrade Annajanska, you have eloped with a young officer. THE GRAND DUCHESS [astounded]. General Strammfest, you lie. STRAMMFEST. Denial, comrade, is useless. It is through that officer that your movements have been traced. [The Grand Duchess is suddenly enlightened, and seems amused. Strammfest continues an a forensic manner.] He joined you at the Golden Anchor in Hakonsburg. You gave us the slip there; but the officer was traced to Potterdam, where you rejoined him and went alone to Premsylople. What have you done with that unhappy young man? Where is he? THE GRAND DUCHESS [pretending to whisper an important secret]. Where he has always been. STRAMMFEST [eagerly]. Where is that? THE GRAND DUCHESS [impetuously]. In your imagination. I came alone. I am alone. Hundreds of officers travel every day from Hakonsburg to Potterdam. What do I know about them? STRAMMFEST. They travel in khaki. They do not travel in full dress court uniform as this man did. SCHNEIDEKIND. Only officers who are eloping with grand duchesses wear court uniform: otherwise the grand duchesses could not be seen with them. STRAMMFEST. Hold your tongue. [Schneidekind, in high dudgeon, folds his arms and retires from the conversation. The General returns to his paper and to his examination of the Grand Duchess.] This officer travelled with your passport. What have you to say to that? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Bosh! How could a man travel with a woman's passport? STRAMMFEST. It is quite simple, as you very well know. A dozen travellers arrive at the boundary. The official collects their passports. He counts twelve persons; then counts the passports. If there are twelve, he is satisfied. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then how do you know that one of the passports was mine? STRAMMFEST. A waiter at the Potterdam Hotel looked at the officer's passport when he was in his bath. It was your passport. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stuff! Why did he not have me arrested? STRAMMFEST. When the waiter returned to the hotel with the police the officer had vanished; and you were there with your own passport. They knouted him. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh! Strammfest, send these men away. I must speak to you alone. STRAMMFEST [rising in horror]. No: this is the last straw: I cannot consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible, that a daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one alone, were it even her own husband. THE GRAND DUCHESS. You forget that there is an exception. She may speak to a child alone. [She rises.] Strammfest, you have been dandled on my grandmother's knee. By that gracious action the dowager Panjandrina made you a child forever. So did Nature, by the way. I order you to speak to me alone. Do you hear? I order you. For seven hundred years no member of your family has ever disobeyed an order from a member of mine. Will you disobey me? STRAMMFEST. There is an alternative to obedience. The dead cannot disobey. [He takes out his pistol and places the muzzle against his temple.] SCHNEIDEKIND [snatching the pistol from him]. For God's sake, General-- STRAMMFEST [attacking him furiously to recover the weapon]. Dog of a subaltern, restore that pistol and my honor. SCHNEIDEKIND [reaching out with the pistol to the Grand Duchess]. Take it: quick: he is as strong as a bull. THE GRAND DUCHESS [snatching it]. Aha! Leave the room, all of you except the General. At the double! lightning! electricity! [She fires shot after shot, spattering the bullets about the ankles of the soldiers. They fly precipitately. She turns to Schneidekind, who has by this time been flung on the floor by the General.] You too. [He scrambles up.] March. [He flies to the door.] SCHNEIDEKIND [turning at the door]. For your own sake, comrade-- THE GRAND DUCHESS [indignantly]. Comrade! You!!! Go. [She fires two more shots. He vanishes.] STRAMMFEST [making an impulsive movement towards her]. My Imperial Mistress-- THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stop. I have one bullet left, if you attempt to take this from me [putting the pistol to her temple]. STRAMMFEST [recoiling, and covering his eyes with his hands]. No no: put it down: put it down. I promise everything: I swear anything; but put it down, I implore you. THE GRAND DUCHESS [throwing it on the table]. There! STRAMMFEST [uncovering his eyes]. Thank God! THE GRAND DUCHESS [gently]. Strammfest: I am your comrade. Am I nothing more to you? STRAMMFEST [falling on his knee]. You are, God help me, all that is left to me of the only power I recognize on earth [he kisses her hand]. THE GRAND DUCHESS [indulgently]. Idolater! When will you learn that our strength has never been in ourselves, but in your illusions about us? [She shakes off her kindliness, and sits down in his chair.] Now tell me, what are your orders? And do you mean to obey them? STRAMMFEST [starting like a goaded ox, and blundering fretfully about the room]. How can I obey six different dictators, and not one gentleman among the lot of them? One of them orders me to make peace with the foreign enemy. Another orders me to offer all the neutral countries 48 hours to choose between adopting his views on the single tax and being instantly invaded and annihilated. A third orders me to go to a damned Socialist Conference and explain that Beotia will allow no annexations and no indemnities, and merely wishes to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth throughout the universe. [He finishes behind Schneidekind's chair.] THE GRAND DUCHESS. Damn their trifling! STRAMMFEST. I thank Your Imperial Highness from the bottom of my heart for that expression. Europe thanks you. THE GRAND DUCHESS. M'yes; but--[rising]. Strammfest, you know that your cause--the cause of the dynasty--is lost. STRAMMFEST. You must not say so. It is treason, even from you. [He sinks, discouraged, into the chair, and covers his face with his hand.] THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not deceive yourself, General: never again will a Panjandrum reign in Beotia. [She walks slowly across the room, brooding bitterly, and thinking aloud.] We are so decayed, so out of date, so feeble, so wicked in our own despite, that we have come at last to will our own destruction. STRAMMFEST. You are uttering blasphemy. THE GRAND DUCHESS. All great truths begin as blasphemies. All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot set up my father's throne again. If they could, you would have done it, would you not? STRAMMFEST. God knows I would! THE GRAND DUCHESS. You really mean that? You would keep the people in their hopeless squalid misery? you would fill those infamous prisons again with the noblest spirits in the land? you would thrust the rising sun of liberty back into the sea of blood from which it has risen? And all because there was in the middle of the dirt and ugliness and horror a little patch of court splendor in which you could stand with a few orders on your uniform, and yawn day after day and night after night in unspeakable boredom until your grave yawned wider still, and you fell into it because you had nothing better to do. How can you be so stupid, so heartless? STRAMMFEST. You must be mad to think of royalty in such a way. I never yawned at court. The dogs yawned; but that was because they were dogs: they had no imagination, no ideals, no sense of honor and dignity to sustain them. THE GRAND DUCHESS. My poor Strammfest: you were not often enough at court to tire of it. You were mostly soldiering; and when you came home to have a new order pinned on your breast, your happiness came through looking at my father and mother and at me, and adoring us. Was that not so? STRAMMFEST. Do YOU reproach me with it? I am not ashamed of it. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, it was all very well for you, Strammfest. But think of me, of me! standing there for you to gape at, and knowing that I was no goddess, but only a girl like any other girl! It was cruelty to animals: you could have stuck up a wax doll or a golden calf to worship; it would not have been bored. STRAMMFEST. Stop; or I shall renounce my allegiance to you. I have had women flogged for such seditious chatter as this. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Do not provoke me to send a bullet through your head for reminding me of it. STRAMMFEST. You always had low tastes. You are no true daughter of the Panjandrums: you are a changeling, thrust into the Panjandrina's bed by some profligate nurse. I have heard stories of your childhood: of how-- THE GRAND DUCHESS. Ha, ha! Yes: they took me to the circus when I was a child. It was my first moment of happiness, my first glimpse of heaven. I ran away and joined the troupe. They caught me and dragged me back to my gilded cage; but I had tasted freedom; and they never could make me forget it. STRAMMFEST. Freedom! To be the slave of an acrobat! to be exhibited to the public! to-- THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, I was trained to that. I had learnt that part of the business at court. STRAMMFEST. You had not been taught to strip yourself half naked and turn head over heels-- THE GRAND DUCHESS. Man, I WANTED to get rid of my swaddling clothes and turn head over heels. I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to. I can do it still. Shall I do it now? STRAMMFEST. If you do, I swear I will throw myself from the window so that I may meet your parents in heaven without having my medals torn from my breast by them. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, you are incorrigible. You are mad, infatuated. You will not believe that we royal divinities are mere common flesh and blood even when we step down from our pedestals and tell you ourselves what a fool you are. I will argue no more with you: I will use my power. At a word from me your men will turn against you: already half of them do not salute you; and you dare not punish them: you have to pretend not to notice it. STRAMMFEST. It is not for you to taunt me with that if it is so. THE GRAND DUCHESS. [haughtily]. Taunt! I condescend to taunt! To taunt a common General! You forget yourself, sir. STRAMMFEST [dropping on his knee submissively]. Now at last you speak like your royal self. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh, Strammfest, Strammfest, they have driven your slavery into your very bones. Why did you not spit in my face? STRAMMFEST [rising with a shudder]. God forbid! THE GRAND DUCHESS. Well, since you will be my slave, take your orders from me. I have not come here to save our wretched family and our bloodstained crown. I am come to save the Revolution. STRAMMFEST. Stupid as I am, I have come to think that I had better save that than save nothing. But what will the Revolution do for the people? Do not be deceived by the fine speeches of the revolutionary leaders and the pamphlets of the revolutionary writers. How much liberty is there where they have gained the upper hand? Are they not hanging, shooting, imprisoning as much as ever we did? Do they ever tell the people the truth? No: if the truth does not suit them they spread lies instead, and make it a crime to tell the truth. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Of course they do. Why should they not? STRAMMFEST [hardly able to believe his ears]. Why should they not? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes: why should they not? We did it. You did it, whip in hand: you flogged women for teaching children to read. STRAMMFEST. To read sedition. To read Karl Marx. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Pshaw! How could they learn to read the Bible without learning to read Karl Marx? Why do you not stand to your guns and justify what you did, instead of making silly excuses? Do you suppose I think flogging a woman worse than flogging a man? I, who am a woman myself! STRAMMFEST. I am at a loss to understand your Imperial Highness. You seem to me to contradict yourself. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Nonsense! I say that if the people cannot govern themselves, they must be governed by somebody. If they will not do their duty without being half forced and half humbugged, somebody must force them and humbug them. Some energetic and capable minority must always be in power. Well, I am on the side of the energetic minority whose principles I agree with. The Revolution is as cruel as we were; but its aims are my aims. Therefore I stand for the Revolution. STRAMMFEST. You do not know what you are saying. This is pure Bolshevism. Are you, the daughter of a Panjandrum, a Bolshevist? THE GRAND DUCHESS. I am anything that will make the world less like a prison and more like a circus. STRAMMFEST. Ah! You still want to be a circus star. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes, and be billed as the Bolshevik Empress. Nothing shall stop me. You have your orders, General Strammfest: save the Revolution. STRAMMFEST. What Revolution? Which Revolution? No two of your rabble of revolutionists mean the same thing by the Revolution What can save a mob in which every man is rushing in a different direction? THE GRAND DUCHESS. I will tell you. The war can save it. STRAMMFEST. The war? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Yes, the war. Only a great common danger and a great common duty can unite us and weld these wrangling factions into a solid commonwealth. STRAMMFEST. Bravo! War sets everything right: I have always said so. But what is a united people without a united army? And what can I do? I am only a soldier. I cannot make speeches: I have won no victories: they will not rally to my call [again he sinks into his chair with his former gesture of discouragement]. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Are you sure they will not rally to mine? STRAMMFEST. Oh, if only you were a man and a soldier! THE GRAND DUCHESS. Suppose I find you a man and a soldier? STRAMMFEST [rising in a fury]. Ah! the scoundrel you eloped with! You think you will shove this fellow into an army command, over my head. Never. THE GRAND DUCHESS. You promised everything. You swore anything. [She marches as if in front of a regiment.] I know that this man alone can rouse the army to enthusiasm. STRAMMFEST. Delusion! Folly! He is some circus acrobat; and you are in love with him. THE GRAND DUCHESS. I swear I am not in love with him. I swear I will never marry him. STRAMMFEST. Then who is he? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Anybody in the world but you would have guessed long ago. He is under your very eyes. STRAMMFEST [staring past her right and left]. Where? THE GRAND DUCHESS. Look out of the window. He rushes to the window, looking for the officer. The Grand Duchess takes off her cloak and appears in the uniform of the Panderobajensky Hussars. STRAMMFEST [peering through the window]. Where is he? I can see no one. THE GRAND DUCHESS. Here, silly. STRAMMFEST [turning]. You! Great Heavens! The Bolshevik Empress! 
3486	----	THE INCA OF PERUSALEM: AN ALMOST HISTORICAL COMEDIETTA By George Bernard Shaw I must remind the reader that this playlet was written when its principal character, far from being a fallen foe and virtually a prisoner in our victorious hands, was still the Caesar whose legions we were resisting with our hearts in our mouths. Many were so horribly afraid of him that they could not forgive me for not being afraid of him: I seemed to be trifling heartlessly with a deadly peril. I knew better; and I have represented Caesar as knowing better himself. But it was one of the quaintnesses of popular feeling during the war that anyone who breathed the slightest doubt of the absolute perfection of German organization, the Machiavellian depth of German diplomacy, the omniscience of German science, the equipment of every German with a complete philosophy of history, and the consequent hopelessness of overcoming so magnificently accomplished an enemy except by the sacrifice of every recreative activity to incessant and vehement war work, including a heartbreaking mass of fussing and cadging and bluffing that did nothing but waste our energies and tire our resolution, was called a pro-German. Now that this is all over, and the upshot of the fighting has shown that we could quite well have afforded to laugh at the doomed Inca, I am in another difficulty. I may be supposed to be hitting Caesar when he is down. That is why I preface the play with this reminder that when it was written he was not down. To make quite sure, I have gone through the proof sheets very carefully, and deleted everything that could possibly be mistaken for a foul blow. I have of course maintained the ancient privilege of comedy to chasten Caesar's foibles by laughing at them, whilst introducing enough obvious and outrageous fiction to relieve both myself and my model from the obligations and responsibilities of sober history and biography. But I should certainly put the play in the fire instead of publishing it if it contained a word against our defeated enemy that I would not have written in 1913. The Inca of Perusalem was performed for the first time in England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre, London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as the Inca. PROLOGUE The tableau curtains are closed. An English archdeacon comes through them in a condition of extreme irritation. He speaks through the curtains to someone behind them. THE ARCHDEACON. Once for all, Ermyntrude, I cannot afford to maintain you in your present extravagance. [He goes to a flight of steps leading to the stalls and sits down disconsolately on the top step. A fashionably dressed lady comes through the curtains and contemplates him with patient obstinacy. He continues, grumbling.] An English clergyman's daughter should be able to live quite respectably and comfortably on an allowance of £150 a year, wrung with great difficulty from the domestic budget. ERMYNTRUDE. You are not a common clergyman: you are an archdeacon. THE ARCHDEACON [angrily]. That does not affect my emoluments to the extent of enabling me to support a daughter whose extravagance would disgrace a royal personage. [Scrambling to his feet and scolding at her.] What do you mean by it, Miss? ERMYNTRUDE. Oh really, father! Miss! Is that the way to talk to a widow? THE ARCHDEACON. Is that the way to talk to a father? Your marriage was a most disastrous imprudence. It gave you habits that are absolutely beyond your means--I mean beyond my means: you have no means. Why did you not marry Matthews: the best curate I ever had? ERMYNTRUDE. I wanted to; and you wouldn't let me. You insisted on my marrying Roosenhonkers-Pipstein. THE ARCHDEACON. I had to do the best for you, my child. Roosenhonkers-Pipstein was a millionaire. ERMYNTRUDE. How did you know he was a millionaire? THE ARCHDEACON. He came from America. Of course he was a millionaire. Besides, he proved to my solicitors that he had fifteen million dollars when you married him. ERYNTRUDE. His solicitors proved to me that he had sixteen millions when he died. He was a millionaire to the last. THE ARCHDEACON. O Mammon, Mammon! I am punished now for bowing the knee to him. Is there nothing left of your settlement? Fifty thousand dollars a year it secured to you, as we all thought. Only half the securities could be called speculative. The other half were gilt-edged. What has become of it all? ERMYNTRUDE. The speculative ones were not paid up; and the gilt-edged ones just paid the calls on them until the whole show burst up. THE ARCHDEACON. Ermyntrude: what expressions! ERMYNTRUDE. Oh bother! If you had lost ten thousand a year what expressions would you use, do you think? The long and the short of it is that I can't live in the squalid way you are accustomed to. THE ARCHDEACON. Squalid! ERMYNTRUDE. I have formed habits of comfort. THE ARCHDEACON. Comfort!! ERMYNTRUDE. Well, elegance if you like. Luxury, if you insist. Call it what you please. A house that costs less than a hundred thousand dollars a year to run is intolerable to me. THE ARCHDEACON. Then, my dear, you had better become lady's maid to a princess until you can find another millionaire to marry you. ERMYNTRUDE. That's an idea. I will. [She vanishes through the curtains.] THE ARCHDEACON. What! Come back. Come back this instant. [The lights are lowered.] Oh, very well: I have nothing more to say. [He descends the steps into the auditorium and makes for the door, grumbling all the time.] Insane, senseless extravagance! [Barking.] Worthlessness!! [Muttering.] I will not bear it any longer. Dresses, hats, furs, gloves, motor rides: one bill after another: money going like water. No restraint, no self-control, no decency. [Shrieking.] I say, no decency! [Muttering again.] Nice state of things we are coming to! A pretty world! But I simply will not bear it. She can do as she likes. I wash my hands of her: I am not going to die in the workhouse for any good-for-nothing, undutiful, spendthrift daughter; and the sooner that is understood by everybody the better for all par---- [He is by this time out of hearing in the corridor.] THE PLAY A hotel sitting room. A table in the centre. On it a telephone. Two chairs at it, opposite one another. Behind it, the door. The fireplace has a mirror in the mantelpiece. A spinster Princess, hatted and gloved, is ushered in by the hotel manager, spruce and artifically bland by professional habit, but treating his customer with a condescending affability which sails very close to the east wind of insolence. THE MANAGER. I am sorry I am unable to accommodate Your Highness on the first floor. THE PRINCESS [very shy and nervous.] Oh, please don't mention it. This is quite nice. Very nice. Thank you very much. THE MANAGER. We could prepare a room in the annexe-- THE PRINCESS. Oh no. This will do very well. She takes of her gloves and hat: puts them on the table; and sits down. THE MANAGER. The rooms are quite as good up here. There is less noise; and there is the lift. If Your Highness desires anything, there is the telephone-- THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you, I don't want anything. The telephone is so difficult: I am not accustomed to it. THE MANAGER. Can I take any order? Some tea? THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you. Yes: I should like some tea, if I might--if it would not be too much trouble. He goes out. The telephone rings. The Princess starts out of her chair, terrified, and recoils as far as possible from the instrument. THE PRINCESS. Oh dear! [It rings again. She looks scared. It rings again. She approaches it timidly. It rings again. She retreats hastily. It rings repeatedly. She runs to it in desperation and puts the receiver to her ear.] Who is there? What do I do? I am not used to the telephone: I don't know how--What! Oh, I can hear you speaking quite distinctly. [She sits down, delighted, and settles herself for a conversation.] How wonderful! What! A lady? Oh! a person. Oh, yes: I know. Yes, please, send her up. Have my servants finished their lunch yet? Oh no: please don't disturb them: I'd rather not. It doesn't matter. Thank you. What? Oh yes, it's quite easy. I had no idea--am I to hang it up just as it was? Thank you. [She hangs it up.] Ermyntrude enters, presenting a plain and staid appearance in a long straight waterproof with a hood over her head gear. She comes to the end of the table opposite to that at which the Princess is seated. THE PRINCESS. Excuse me. I have been talking through the telephone: and I heard quite well, though I have never ventured before. Won't you sit down? ERMYNTRUDE. No, thank you, Your Highness. I am only a lady's maid. I understood you wanted one. THE PRINCESS. Oh no: you mustn't think I want one. It's so unpatriotic to want anything now, on account of the war, you know. I sent my maid away as a public duty; and now she has married a soldier and is expecting a war baby. But I don't know how to do without her. I've tried my very best; but somehow it doesn't answer: everybody cheats me; and in the end it isn't any saving. So I've made up my mind to sell my piano and have a maid. That will be a real saving, because I really don't care a bit for music, though of course one has to pretend to. Don't you think so? ERMYNTRUDE. Certainly I do, Your Highness. Nothing could be more correct. Saving and self-denial both at once; and an act of kindness to me, as I am out of place. THE PRINCESS. I'm so glad you see it in that way. Er--you won't mind my asking, will you?--how did you lose your place? ERMYNTRUDE. The war, Your Highness, the war. THE PRINCESS. Oh yes, of course. But how-- ERMYNTRUDE [taking out her handkerchief and showing signs of grief]. My poor mistress-- THE PRINCESS. Oh please say no more. Don't think about it. So tactless of me to mention it. ERMYNTRUDE [mastering her emotion and smiling through her tears]. Your Highness is too good. THE PRINCESS. Do you think you could be happy with me? I attach such importance to that. ERMYNTRUDE [gushing]. Oh, I know--I shall. THE PRINCESS. You must not expect too much. There is my uncle. He is very severe and hasty; and he is my guardian. I once had a maid I liked very much; but he sent her away the very first time. ERMYNTRUDE. The first time of what, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. Oh, something she did. I am sure she had never done it before; and I know she would never have done it again, she was so truly contrite and nice about it. ERMYNTRUDE. About what, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. Well, she wore my jewels and one of my dresses at a rather improper ball with her young man; and my uncle saw her. ERYMNTRUDE. Then he was at the ball too, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS [struck by the inference]. I suppose he must have been. I wonder! You know, it's very sharp of you to find that out. I hope you are not too sharp. ERMYNTRUDE. A lady's maid has to be, Your Highness. [She produces some letters.] Your Highness wishes to see my testimonials, no doubt. I have one from an Archdeacon. [She proffers the letters.] THE PRINCESS [taking them]. Do archdeacons have maids? How curious! ERMYNTRUDE. No, Your Highness. They have daughters. I have first-rate testimonials from the Archdeacon and from his daughter. THE PRINCESS [reading them]. The daughter says you are in every respect a treasure. The Archdeacon says he would have kept you if he could possibly have afforded it. Most satisfactory, I'm sure. ERMYNTRUDE. May I regard myself as engaged then, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS [alarmed]. Oh, I'm sure I don't know. If you like, of course; but do you think I ought to? ERMYNTRUDE. Naturally I think Your Highness ought to, most decidedly. THE PRINCESS. Oh well, if you think that, I daresay you're quite right. You'll excuse my mentioning it, I hope; but what wages--er--? ERMYNTRUDE. The same as the maid who went to the ball. Your Highness need not make any change. THE PRINCESS. M'yes. Of course she began with less. But she had such a number of relatives to keep! It was quite heartbreaking: I had to raise her wages again and again. ERMYNTRUDE. I shall be quite content with what she began on; and I have no relatives dependent on me. And I am willing to wear my own dresses at balls. THE PRINCESS. I am sure nothing could be fairer than that. My uncle can't object to that, can he? ERMYNTRUDE. If he does, Your Highness, ask him to speak to me about it. I shall regard it as part of my duties to speak to your uncle about matters of business. THE PRINCESS. Would you? You must be frightfully courageous. ERMYNTRUDE. May I regard myself as engaged, Your Highness? I should like to set about my duties immediately. THE PRINCESS. Oh yes, I think so. Oh certainly. I-- A waiter comes in with the tea. He places the tray on the table. THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you. ERMYNTRUDE [raising the cover from the tea cake and looking at it]. How long has that been standing at the top of the stairs? THE PRINCESS [terrified]. Oh please! It doesn't matter. THE WAITER. It has not been waiting. Straight from the kitchen, madam, believe me. ERMYNTRUDE. Send the manager here. THE WAITER. The manager! What do you want with the manager? ERMYNTRUDE. He will tell you when I have done with him. How dare you treat Her Highness in this disgraceful manner? What sort of pothouse is this? Where did you learn to speak to persons of quality? Take away your cold tea and cold cake instantly. Give them to the chambermaid you were flirting with whilst Her Highness was waiting. Order some fresh tea at once; and do not presume to bring it yourself: have it brought by a civil waiter who is accustomed to wait on ladies, and not, like you, on commercial travellers. THE WAITER. Alas, madam, I am not accustomed to wait on anybody. Two years ago I was an eminent medical man, my waiting-room was crowded with the flower of the aristocracy and the higher bourgeoisie from nine to six every day. But the war came; and my patients were ordered to give up their luxuries. They gave up their doctors, but kept their week-end hotels, closing every career to me except the career of a waiter. [He puts his fingers on the teapot to test its temperature, and automatically takes out his watch with the other hand as if to count the teapot's pulse.] You are right: the tea is cold: it was made by the wife of a once fashionable architect. The cake is only half toasted: what can you expect from a ruined west-end tailor whose attempt to establish a second-hand business failed last Tuesday week? Have you the heart to complain to the manager? Have we not suffered enough? Are our miseries nev---- [the manager enters]. Oh Lord! here he is. [The waiter withdraws abjectly, taking the tea tray with him.] THE MANAGER. Pardon, Your Highness; but I have received an urgent inquiry for rooms from an English family of importance; and I venture to ask you to let me know how long you intend to honor us with your presence. THE PRINCESS [rising anxiously]. Oh! am I in the way? ERMYNTRUDE [sternly]. Sit down, madam. [The Princess sits down forlornly. Ermyntrude turns imperiously to the Manager.] Her Highness will require this room for twenty minutes. THE MANAGER. Twenty minutes! ERMYNTRUDE. Yes: it will take fully that time to find a proper apartment in a respectable hotel. THE MANAGER. I do not understand. ERMYNTRUDE. You understand perfectly. How dare you offer Her Highness a room on the second floor? THE MANAGER. But I have explained. The first floor is occupied. At least-- ERMYNTRUDE. Well? at least? THE MANAGER. It is occupied. ERMYNTRUDE. Don't you dare tell Her Highness a falsehood. It is not occupied. You are saving it up for the arrival of the five-fifteen express, from which you hope to pick up some fat armaments contractor who will drink all the bad champagne in your cellar at 5 francs a bottle, and pay twice over for everything because he is in the same hotel with Her Highness, and can boast of having turned her out of the best rooms. THE MANAGER. But Her Highness was so gracious. I did not know that Her Highness was at all particular. ERMYNTRUDE. And you take advantage of Her Highness's graciousness. You impose on her with your stories. You give her a room not fit for a dog. You send cold tea to her by a decayed professional person disguised as a waiter. But don't think you can trifle with me. I am a lady's maid; and I know the ladies' maids and valets of all the aristocracies of Europe and all the millionaires of America. When I expose your hotel as the second-rate little hole it is, not a soul above the rank of a curate with a large family will be seen entering it. I shake its dust off my feet. Order the luggage to be taken down at once. THE MANAGER [appealing to the Princess]. Can Your Highness believe this of me? Have I had the misfortune to offend Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. Oh no. I am quite satisfied. Please-- ERMYNTRUDE. Is Your Highness dissatisfied with me? THE PRINCESS [intimidated]. Oh no: please don't think that. I only meant-- ERMYNTRUDE [to the manager]. You hear. Perhaps you think Her Highness is going to do the work of teaching you your place herself, instead of leaving it to her maid. THE MANAGER. Oh please, mademoiselle. Believe me: our only wish is to make you perfectly comfortable. But in consequence of the war, all royal personages now practise a rigid economy, and desire us to treat them like their poorest subjects. THE PRINCESS. Oh yes. You are quite right-- ERMYNTRUDE [interrupting]. There! Her Highness forgives you; but don't do it again. Now go downstairs, my good man, and get that suite on the first floor ready for us. And send some proper tea. And turn on the heating apparatus until the temperature in the rooms is comfortably warm. And have hot water put in all the bedrooms-- THE MANAGER. There are basins with hot and cold taps. ERMYNTRUDE [scornfully]. Yes: there WOULD be. Suppose we must put up with that: sinks in our rooms, and pipes that rattle and bang and guggle all over the house whenever anyone washes his hands. I know. THE MANAGER [gallant]. You are hard to please, mademoiselle. ERMYNTRUDE. No harder than other people. But when I'm not pleased I'm not too ladylike to say so. That's all the difference. There is nothing more, thank you. The Manager shrugs his shoulders resignedly; makes a deep bow to the Princess; goes to the door; wafts a kiss surreptitiously to Ermyntrude; and goes out. THE PRINCESS. It's wonderful! How have you the courage? ERMYNTRUDE. In Your Highness's service I know no fear. Your Highness can leave all unpleasant people to me. THE PRINCESS. How I wish I could! The most dreadful thing of all I have to go through myself. ERMYNTRUDE. Dare I ask what it is, Your Highness? THE PRINCESS. I'm going to be married. I'm to be met here and married to a man I never saw. A boy! A boy who never saw me! One of the sons of the Inca of Perusalem. ERMYNTRUDE. Indeed? Which son? THE PRINCESS. I don't know. They haven't settled which. It's a dreadful thing to be a princess: they just marry you to anyone they like. The Inca is to come and look at me, and pick out whichever of his sons he thinks will suit. And then I shall be an alien enemy everywhere except in Perusalem, because the Inca has made war on everybody. And I shall have to pretend that everybody has made war on him. It's too bad. ERMYNTRUDE. Still, a husband is a husband. I wish I had one. THE PRINCESS. Oh, how can you say that! I'm afraid you're not a nice woman. ERMYNTRUDE. Your Highness is provided for. I'm not. THE PRINCESS. Even if you could bear to let a man touch you, you shouldn't say so. ERMYNTRUDE. I shall not say so again, Your Highness, except perhaps to the man. THE PRINCESS. It's too dreadful to think of. I wonder you can be so coarse. I really don't think you'll suit. I feel sure now that you know more about men than you should. ERMYNTRUDE. I am a widow, Your Highness. THE PRINCESS [overwhelmed]. Oh, I BEG your pardon. Of course I ought to have known you would not have spoken like that if you were not married. That makes it all right, doesn't it? I'm so sorry. The Manager returns, white, scared, hardly able to speak. THE MANAGER. Your Highness, an officer asks to see you on behalf of the Inca of Perusalem. THE PRINCESS [rising distractedly]. Oh, I can't, really. Oh, what shall I do? THE MANAGER. On important business, he says, Your Highness. Captain Duval. ERMYNTRUDE. Duval! Nonsense! The usual thing. It is the Inca himself, incognito. THE PRINCESS. Oh, send him away. Oh, I'm so afraid of the Inca. I'm not properly dressed to receive him; and he is so particular: he would order me to stay in my room for a week. Tell him to call tomorrow: say I'm ill in bed. I can't: I won't: I daren't: you must get rid of him somehow. ERMYNTRUDE. Leave him to me, Your Highness. THE PRINCESS. You'd never dare! ERMYNTRUDE. I am an Englishwoman, Your Highness, and perfectly capable of tackling ten Incas if necessary. I will arrange the matter. [To the Manager.] Show Her Highness to her bedroom; and then show Captain Duval in here. THE PRINCESS. Oh, thank you so much. [She goes to the door. Ermyntrude, noticing that she has left her hat and gloves on the table, runs after her with them.] Oh, THANK you. And oh, please, if I must have one of his sons, I should like a fair one that doesn't shave, with soft hair and a beard. I couldn't bear being kissed by a bristly person. [She runs out, the Manager bowing as she passes. He follows her.] Ermyntrude whips off her waterproof; hides it; and gets herself swiftly into perfect trim at the mirror, before the Manager, with a large jewel case in his hand, returns, ushering in the Inca. THE MANAGER. Captain Duval. The Inca, in military uniform, advances with a marked and imposing stage walk; stops; orders the trembling Manager by a gesture to place the jewel case on the table; dismisses him with a frown; touches his helmet graciously to Ermyntrude; and takes off his cloak. THE INCA. I beg you, madam, to be quite at your ease, and to speak to me without ceremony. ERMYNTRUDE [moving haughtily and carelessly to the table]. I hadn't the slightest intention of treating you with ceremony. [She sits down: a liberty which gives him a perceptible shock.] I am quite at a loss to imagine why I should treat a perfect stranger named Duval: a captain! almost a subaltern! with the smallest ceremony. THE INCA. That is true. I had for the moment forgotten my position. ERMYNTRUDE. It doesn't matter. You may sit down. THE INCA [frowning.] What! ERMYNTRUDE. I said, you...may...sit...down. THE INCA. Oh. [His moustache droops. He sits down.] ERMYNTRUDE. What is your business? THE INCA. I come on behalf of the Inca of Perusalem. ERMYNTRUDE. The Allerhochst? THE INCA. Precisely. ERMYNTRUDE. I wonder does he feel ridiculous when people call him the Allerhochst. THE INCA [surprised]. Why should he? He IS the Allerhochst. ERMYNTRUDE. Is he nice looking? THE INCA. I--er. Er--I. I--er. I am not a good judge. ERMYNTRUDE. They say he takes himself very seriously. THE INCA. Why should he not, madam? Providence has entrusted to his family the care of a mighty empire. He is in a position of half divine, half paternal, responsibility towards sixty millions of people, whose duty it is to die for him at the word of command. To take himself otherwise than seriously would be blasphemous. It is a punishable offence--severely punishable--in Perusalem. It is called Incadisparagement. ERMYNTRUDE. How cheerful! Can he laugh? THE INCA. Certainly, madam. [He laughs, harshly and mirthlessly.] Ha ha! Ha ha ha! ERMYNTRUDE [frigidly]. I asked could the Inca laugh. I did not ask could you laugh. THE INCA. That is true, madam. [Chuckling.] Devilish amusing, that! [He laughs, genially and sincerely, and becomes a much more agreeable person.] Pardon me: I am now laughing because I cannot help it. I am amused. The other was merely an imitation: a failure, I admit. ERMYNTRUDE. You intimated that you had some business? THE INCA [producing a very large jewel case, and relapsing into solemnity.] I am instructed by the Allerhochst to take a careful note of your features and figure, and, if I consider them satisfactory, to present you with this trifling token of His Imperial Majesty's regard. I do consider them satisfactory. Allow me [he opens the jewel case and presents it.] ERMYNTRUDE [staring at the contents]. What awful taste he must have! I can't wear that. THE INCA [reddening]. Take care, madam! This brooch was designed by the Inca himself. Allow me to explain the design. In the centre, the shield of Arminius. The ten surrounding medallions represent the ten castles of His Majesty. The rim is a piece of the telephone cable laid by His Majesty across the Shipskeel canal. The pin is a model in miniature of the sword of Henry the Birdcatcher. ERMYNTRUDE. Miniature! It must be bigger than the original. My good man, you don't expect me to wear this round my neck: it's as big as a turtle. [He shuts the case with an angry snap.] How much did it cost? THE INCA. For materials and manufacture alone, half a million Perusalem dollars, madam. The Inca's design constitutes it a work of art. As such, it is now worth probably ten million dollars. ERMYNTRUDE. Give it to me [she snatches it]. I'll pawn it and buy something nice with the money. THE INCA. Impossible, madam. A design by the Inca must not be exhibited for sale in the shop window of a pawnbroker. [He flings himself into his chair, fuming.] ERMYNTRUDE. So much the better. The Inca will have to redeem it to save himself from that disgrace; and the poor pawnbroker will get his money back. Nobody would buy it, you know. THE INCA. May I ask why? ERMYNTRUDL. Well, look at it! Just look at it! I ask you! THE INCA [his moustache drooping ominously]. I am sorry to have to report to the Inca that you have no soul for fine art. [He rises sulkily.] The position of daughter-in-law to the Inca is not compatible with the tastes of a pig. [He attempts to take back the brooch.] ERMYNTRUDE [rising and retreating behind her chair with the brooch]. Here! you let that brooch alone. You presented it to me on behalf of the Inca. It is mine. You said my appearance was satisfactory. THE INCA. Your appearance is not satisfactory. The Inca would not allow his son to marry you if the boy were on a desert island and you were the only other human being on it [he strides up the room.] ERMYNTRUDE [calmly sitting down and replacing the case on the table]. How could he? There would be no clergyman to marry us. It would have to be quite morganatic. THE INCA [returning]. Such an expression is out of place in the mouth of a princess aspiring to the highest destiny on earth. You have the morals of a dragoon. [She receives this with a shriek of laughter. He struggles with his sense of humor.] At the same time [he sits down] there is a certain coarse fun in the idea which compels me to smile [he turns up his moustache and smiles.] ERMYNTRUDE. When I marry the Inca's son, Captain, I shall make the Inca order you to cut off that moustache. It is too irresistible. Doesn't it fascinate everyone in Perusalem? THE INCA [leaning forward to her energetically]. By all the thunders of Thor, madam, it fascinates the whole world. ERMYNTRUDE. What I like about you, Captain Duval, is your modesty. THE INCA [straightening up suddenly]. Woman, do not be a fool. ERMYNTRUDE [indignant]. Well! THE INCA. You must look facts in the face. This moustache is an exact copy of the Inca's moustache. Well, does the world occupy itself with the Inca's moustache or does it not? Does it ever occupy itself with anything else? If that is the truth, does its recognition constitute the Inca a coxcomb? Other potentates have moustaches: even beards and moustaches. Does the world occupy itself with those beards and moustaches? Do the hawkers in the streets of every capital on the civilized globe sell ingenious cardboard representations of their faces on which, at the pulling of a simple string, the moustaches turn up and down, so--[he makes his moustache turn, up and down several times]? No! I say No. The Inca's moustache is so watched and studied that it has made his face the political barometer of the whole continent. When that moustache goes up, culture rises with it. Not what you call culture; but Kultur, a word so much more significant that I hardly understand it myself except when I am in specially good form. When it goes down, millions of men perish. ERMYNTRUDE. You know, if I had a moustache like that, it would turn my head. I should go mad. Are you quite sure the Inca isn't mad? THE INCA. How can he be mad, madam? What is sanity? The condition of the Inca's mind. What is madness? The condition of the people who disagree with the Inca. ERMYNTRUDE. Then I am a lunatic because I don't like that ridiculous brooch. THE INCA. No, madam: you are only an idiot. ERMYNTRUDE. Thank you. THE INCA. Mark you: It is not to be expected that you should see eye to eye with the Inca. That would be presumption. It is for you to accept without question or demur the assurance of your Inca that the brooch is a masterpiece. ERMYNTRUDE. MY Inca! Oh, come! I like that. He is not my Inca yet. THE INCA. He is everybody's Inca, madam. His realm will yet extend to the confines of the habitable earth. It is his divine right; and let those who dispute it look to themselves. Properly speaking, all those who are now trying to shake his world predominance are not at war with him, but in rebellion against him. ERMYNTRUDE. Well, he started it, you know. THE INCA. Madam, be just. When the hunters surround the lion, the lion will spring. The Inca had kept the peace of years. Those who attacked him were steeped in blood, black blood, white blood, brown blood, yellow blood, blue blood. The Inca had never shed a drop. ERMYNTRUDE. He had only talked. THE INCA. Only TALKED! ONLY talked! What is more glorious than talk? Can anyone in the world talk like him? Madam, when he signed the declaration of war, he said to his foolish generals and admirals, 'Gentlemen, you will all be sorry for this.' And they are. They know now that they had better have relied on the sword of the spirit: in other words, on their Inca's talk, than on their murderous cannons. The world will one day do justice to the Inca as the man who kept the peace with nothing but his tongue and his moustache. While he talked: talked just as I am talking now to you, simply, quietly, sensibly, but GREATLY, there was peace; there was prosperity; Perusalem went from success to success. He has been silenced for a year by the roar of trinitrotoluene and the bluster of fools; and the world is in ruins. What a tragedy! [He is convulsed with grief.] ERMYNTRUDE. Captain Duval, I don't want to be unsympathetic; but suppose we get back to business. THE INCA. Business! What business? ERMYNTRUDE. Well, MY business. You want me to marry one of the Inca's sons: I forget which. THE INCA. As far as I can recollect the name, it is His Imperial Highness Prince Eitel William Frederick George Franz Josef Alexander Nicholas Victor Emmanuel Albert Theodore Wilson-- ERMYNTRUDE [interrupting]. Oh, please, please, mayn't I have one with a shorter name? What is he called at home? THE INCA. He is usually called Sonny, madam. [With great charm of manner.] But you will please understand that the Inca has no desire to pin you to any particular son. There is Chips and Spots and Lulu and Pongo and the Corsair and the Piffler and Jack Johnson the Second, all unmarried. At least not seriously married: nothing, in short, that cannot be arranged. They are all at your service. ERMYNTRUDE. Are they all as clever and charming as their father? THE INCA [lifts his eyebrows pityingly; shrugs his shoulders; then, with indulgent paternal contempt]. Excellent lads, madam. Very honest affectionate creatures. I have nothing against them. Pongo imitates farmyard sounds--cock crowing and that sort of thing--extremely well. Lulu plays Strauss's Sinfonia Domestica on the mouth organ really screamingly. Chips keeps owls and rabbits. Spots motor bicycles. The Corsair commands canal barges and steers them himself. The Piffler writes plays, and paints most abominably. Jack Johnson trims ladies' hats, and boxes with professionals hired for that purpose. He is invariably victorious. Yes: they all have their different little talents. And also, of course, their family resemblances. For example, they all smoke; they all quarrel with one another; and they none of them appreciate their father, who, by the way, is no mean painter, though the Piffler pretends to ridicule his efforts. ERMYNTRUDE. Quite a large choice, eh? THE INCA. But very little to choose, believe me. I should not recommend Pongo, because he snores so frightfully that it has been necessary to build him a sound-proof bedroom: otherwise the royal family would get no sleep. But any of the others would suit equally well--if you are really bent on marrying one of them. ERMYNTRUDE. If! What is this? I never wanted to marry one of them. I thought you wanted me to. THE INCA. I did, madam; but [confidentially, flattering her] you are not quite the sort of person I expected you to be; and I doubt whether any of these young degenerates would make you happy. I trust I am not showing any want of natural feeling when I say that from the point of view of a lively, accomplished, and beautiful woman [Ermyntrude bows] they might pall after a time. I suggest that you might prefer the Inca himself. ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, Captain, how could a humble person like myself be of any interest to a prince who is surrounded with the ablest and most far-reaching intellects in the world? TAE INCA [explosively]. What on earth are you talking about, madam? Can you name a single man in the entourage of the Inca who is not a born fool? ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, how can you say that! There is Admiral von Cockpits-- THE INCA [rising intolerantly and striding about the room]. Von Cockpits! Madam, if Von Cockpits ever goes to heaven, before three weeks are over the Angel Gabriel will be at war with the man in the moon. ERMYNTRUDE. But General Von Schinkenburg-- THE INCA. Schinkenburg! I grant you, Schinkenburg has a genius for defending market gardens. Among market gardens he is invincible. But what is the good of that? The world does not consist of market gardens. Turn him loose in pasture and he is lost. The Inca has defeated all these generals again and again at manoeuvres; and yet he has to give place to them in the field because he would be blamed for every disaster--accused of sacrificing the country to his vanity. Vanity! Why do they call him vain? Just because he is one of the few men who are not afraid to live. Why do they call themselves brave? Because they have not sense enough to be afraid to die. Within the last year the world has produced millions of heroes. Has it produced more than one Inca? [He resumes his seat.] ERMYNTRUDE. Fortunately not, Captain. I'd rather marry Chips. THE INCA [making a wry face]. Chips! Oh no: I wouldn't marry Chips. ERMYNTRUDE. Why? THE INCA [whispering the secret]. Chips talks too much about himself. ERMYNTRUDE. Well, what about Snooks? THE INCA. Snooks? Who is he? Have I a son named Snooks? There are so many--[wearily] so many--that I often forget. [Casually.] But I wouldn't marry him, anyhow, if I were you. ERMYNTRUDE. But hasn't any of them inherited the family genius? Surely, if Providence has entrusted them with the care of Perusalem--if they are all descended from Bedrock the Great-- THE INCA [interrupting her impatiently]. Madam, if you ask me, I consider Bedrock a grossly overrated monarch. ERMYNTRUDE [shocked]. Oh, Captain! Take care! Incadisparagement. THE INCA. I repeat, grossly overrated. Strictly between ourselves, I do not believe all this about Providence entrusting the care of sixty million human beings to the abilities of Chips and the Piffler and Jack Johnson. I believe in individual genius. That is the Inca's secret. It must be. Why, hang it all, madam, if it were a mere family matter, the Inca's uncle would have been as great a man as the Inca. And--well, everybody knows what the Inca's uncle was. ERMYNTRUDE. My experience is that the relatives of men of genius are always the greatest duffers imaginable. THE INCA. Precisely. That is what proves that the Inca is a man of genius. His relatives ARE duffers. ERMYNTRUDE. But bless my soul, Captain, if all the Inca's generals are incapables, and all his relatives duffers, Perusalem will be beaten in the war; and then it will become a republic, like France after 1871, and the Inca will be sent to St Helena. THE INCA [triumphantly]. That is just what the Inca is playing for, madam. It is why he consented to the war. ERMYNTRUDE. What! THE INCA. Aha! The fools talk of crushing the Inca; but they little know their man. Tell me this. Why did St Helena extinguish Napoleon? ERMYNTRUDE. I give it up. THE INCA. Because, madam, with certain rather remarkable qualities, which I should be the last to deny, Napoleon lacked versatility. After all, any fool can be a soldier: we know that only too well in Perusalem, where every fool is a soldier. But the Inca has a thousand other resources. He is an architect. Well, St Helena presents an unlimited field to the architect. He is a painter: need I remind you that St Helena is still without a National Gallery? He is a composer: Napoleon left no symphonies in St Helena. Send the Inca to St Helena, madam, and the world will crowd thither to see his works as they crowd now to Athens to see the Acropolis, to Madrid to see the pictures of Velasquez, to Bayreuth to see the music dramas of that egotistical old rebel Richard Wagner, who ought to have been shot before he was forty, as indeed he very nearly was. Take this from me: hereditary monarchs are played out: the age for men of genius has come: the career is open to the talents: before ten years have elapsed every civilized country from the Carpathians to the Rocky Mountains will be a Republic. ERMYNTRUDE. Then goodbye to the Inca. THE INCA. On the contrary, madam, the Inca will then have his first real chance. He will be unanimously invited by those Republics to return from his exile and act as Superpresident of all the republics. ERMYNTRUDE. But won't that be a come-down for him? Think of it! after being Inca, to be a mere President! THE INCA. Well, why not! An Inca can do nothing. He is tied hand and foot. A constitutional monarch is openly called an India-rubber stamp. An emperor is a puppet. The Inca is not allowed to make a speech: he is compelled to take up a screed of flatulent twaddle written by some noodle of a minister and read it aloud. But look at the American President! He is the Allerhochst, if you like. No, madam, believe me, there is nothing like Democracy, American Democracy. Give the people voting papers: good long voting papers, American fashion; and while the people are reading the voting papers the Government does what it likes. ERMYNTRUDE. What! You too worship before the statue of Liberty, like the Americans? THE INCA. Not at all, madam. The Americans do not worship the statue of Liberty. They have erected it in the proper place for a statue of Liberty: on its tomb [he turns down his moustaches.] ERMYNTRUDE [laughing]. Oh! You'd better not let them hear you say that, Captain. THE INCA. Quite safe, madam: they would take it as a joke. [He rises.] And now, prepare yourself for a surprise. [She rises]. A shock. Brace yourself. Steel yourself. And do not be afraid. ERMYNTRUDE. Whatever on earth can you be going to tell me, Captain? THE INCA. Madam, I am no captain. I-- ERMYNTRUDE. You are the Inca in disguise. THE INCA. Good heavens! how do you know that? Who has betrayed me? ERMYNTRUDE. How could I help divining it, Sir? Who is there in the world like you? Your magnetism-- THE INCA. True: I had forgotten my magnetism. But you know now that beneath the trappings of Imperial Majesty there is a Man: simple, frank, modest, unaffected, colloquial: a sincere friend, a natural human being, a genial comrade, one eminently calculated to make a woman happy. You, on the other hand, are the most charming woman I have ever met. Your conversation is wonderful. I have sat here almost in silence, listening to your shrewd and penetrating account of my character, my motives, if I may say so, my talents. Never has such justice been done me: never have I experienced such perfect sympathy. Will you--I hardly know how to put this--will you be mine? ERMYNTRUDE. Oh, Sir, you are married. THE INCA. I am prepared to embrace the Mahometan faith, which allows a man four wives, if you will consent. It will please the Turks. But I had rather you did not mention it to the Inca-ess. If you don't mind. ERMYNTRUDE. This is really charming of you. But the time has come for me to make a revelation. It is your Imperial Majesty's turn now to brace yourself. To steel yourself. I am not the princess. I am-- THE INCA. The daughter of my old friend Archdeacon Daffodil Donkin, whose sermons are read to me every evening after dinner. I never forget a face. ERMYNTRUDE. You knew all along! THE INCA [bitterly, throwing himself into his chair]. And you supposed that I, who have been condemned to the society of princesses all my wretched life, believed for a moment that any princess that ever walked could have your intelligence! ERMYNTRUDE. How clever of you, Sir! But you cannot afford to marry me. THE INCA [springing up]. Why not? ERMYNTRUDE. You are too poor. You have to eat war bread. Kings nowadays belong to the poorer classes. The King of England does not even allow himself wine at dinner. THE INCA [delighted]. Haw! Ha ha! Haw! haw! [He is convulsed with laughter, and, finally has to relieve his feelings by waltzing half round the room.] ERMYNTRUDE. You may laugh, Sir; but I really could not live in that style. I am the widow of a millionaire, ruined by your little war. THE INCA. A millionaire! What are millionaires now, with the world crumbling? ERMYNTRUDE. Excuse me: mine was a hyphenated millionaire. THE INCA. A highfalutin millionaire, you mean. [Chuckling]. Haw! ha ha! really very nearly a pun, that. [He sits down in her chair.] ERMYNTRUDE [revolted, sinking into his chair]. I think it quite the worst pun I ever heard. THE INCA. The best puns have all been made years ago: nothing remained but to achieve the worst. However, madam [he rises majestically; and she is about to rise also]. No: I prefer a seated audience [she falls back into her seat at the imperious wave of his hand]. So [he clicks his heels]. Madam, I recognize my presumption in having sought the honor of your hand. As you say, I cannot afford it. Victorious as I am, I am hopelessly bankrupt; and the worst of it is, I am intelligent enough to know it. And I shall be beaten in consequence, because my most implacable enemy, though only a few months further away from bankruptcy than myself, has not a ray of intelligence, and will go on fighting until civilization is destroyed, unless I, out of sheer pity for the world, condescend to capitulate. ERMYNTRUDE. The sooner the better, Sir. Many fine young men are dying while you wait. THE INCA [flinching painfully]. Why? Why do they do it? ERMYNTRUDE. Because you make them. THE INCA. Stuff! How can I? I am only one man; and they are millions. Do you suppose they would really kill each other if they didn't want to, merely for the sake of my beautiful eyes? Do not be deceived by newspaper claptrap, madam. I was swept away by a passion not my own, which imposed itself on me. By myself I am nothing. I dare not walk down the principal street of my own capital in a coat two years old, though the sweeper of that street can wear one ten years old. You talk of death as an unpopular thing. You are wrong: for years I gave them art, literature, science, prosperity, that they might live more abundantly; and they hated me, ridiculed me, caricatured me. Now that I give them death in its frightfullest forms, they are devoted to me. If you doubt me, ask those who for years have begged our taxpayers in vain for a few paltry thousands to spend on Life: on the bodies and minds of the nation's children, on the beauty and healthfulness of its cities, on the honor and comfort of its worn-out workers. They refused: and because they refused, death is let loose on them. They grudged a few hundreds a year for their salvation: they now pay millions a day for their own destruction and damnation. And this they call my doing! Let them say it, if they dare, before the judgment-seat at which they and I shall answer at last for what we have left undone no less than for what we have done. [Pulling himself together suddenly.] Madam, I have the honor to be your most obedient [he clicks his heels and bows]. ERMYNTRUDE. Sir! [She curtsies.] THE INCA [turning at the door]. Oh, by the way, there is a princess, isn't there, somewhere on the premises? ERMYNTRUDE. There is. Shall I fetch her? THE INCA [dubious], Pretty awful, I suppose, eh? ERMYNTRUDE. About the usual thing. THE INCA [sighing]. Ah well! What can one expect? I don't think I need trouble her personally. Will you explain to her about the boys? ERMYNTRUDE. I am afraid the explanation will fall rather flat without your magnetism. THE INCA [returning to her and speaking very humanly]. You are making fun of me. Why does everybody make fun of me? Is it fair? ERMYNTRUDE [seriously]. Yes, it is fair. What other defence have we poor common people against your shining armor, your mailed fist, your pomp and parade, your terrible power over us? Are these things fair? THE INCA. Ah, well, perhaps, perhaps. [He looks at his watch.] By the way, there is time for a drive round the town and a cup of tea at the Zoo. Quite a bearable band there: it does not play any patriotic airs. I am sorry you will not listen to any more permanent arrangement; but if you would care to come-- ERMYNTRUDE [eagerly]. Ratherrrrrr. I shall be delighted. THE INCA [cautiously]. In the strictest honor, you understand. ERMYNTRUDE. Don't be afraid. I promise to refuse any incorrect proposals. THE INCA [enchanted]. Oh! Charming woman: how well you understand men! He offers her his arm: they go out together. 
3487	----	AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT A TRUE-TO-LIFE FARCE By George Bernard Shaw I wish to express my gratitude for certain good offices which Augustus secured for me in January, 1917. I had been invited to visit the theatre of war in Flanders by the Commander-in-Chief: an invitation which was, under the circumstances, a summons to duty. Thus I had occasion to spend some days in procuring the necessary passport and other official facilities for my journey. It happened just then that the Stage Society gave a performance of this little play. It opened the heart of every official to me. I have always been treated with distinguished consideration in my contracts with bureaucracy during the war; but on this occasion I found myself persona grata in the highest degree. There was only one word when the formalities were disposed of; and that was "We are up against Augustus all day." The showing-up of Augustus scandalized one or two innocent and patriotic critics who regarded the prowess of the British army as inextricably bound up with Highcastle prestige. But our Government departments knew better: their problem was how to win the war with Augustus on their backs, well-meaning, brave, patriotic, but obstructively fussy, self-important, imbecile, and disastrous. Save for the satisfaction of being able to laugh at Augustus in the theatre, nothing, as far as I know, came of my dramatic reduction of him to absurdity. Generals, admirals, Prime Ministers and Controllers, not to mention Emperors, Kaisers and Tsars, were scrapped remorselessly at home and abroad, for their sins or services, as the case might be. But Augustus stood like the Eddystone in a storm, and stands so to this day. He gave us his word that he was indispensable and we took it. Augustus Does His Bit was performed for the first time at the Court Theatre in London by the Stage Society on the 21st January, 1917, with Lalla Vandervelde as The Lady, F. B.J. Sharp as Lord Augustus Highcastle, and Charles Rock as Horatio Floyd Beamish. AUGUSTUS DOES HIS BIT The Mayor's parlor in the Town Hall of Little Pifflington. Lord Augustus Highcastle, a distinguished member of the governing class, in the uniform of a colonel, and very well preserved at forty-five, is comfortably seated at a writing-table with his heels on it, reading The Morning Post. The door faces him, a little to his left, at the other side of the room. The window is behind him. In the fireplace, a gas stove. On the table a bell button and a telephone. Portraits of past Mayors, in robes and gold chains, adorn the walls. An elderly clerk with a short white beard and whiskers, and a very red nose, shuffles in. AUGUSTUS [hastily putting aside his paper and replacing his feet on the floor]. Hullo! Who are you? THE CLERK. The staff [a slight impediment in his speech adds to the impression of incompetence produced by his age and appearance]. AUGUSTUS. You the staff! What do you mean, man? THE CLERK. What I say. There ain't anybody else. AUGUSTUS. Tush! Where are the others? THE CLERK. At the front. AUGUSTUS. Quite right. Most proper. Why aren't you at the front? THE CLERK. Over age. Fifty-seven. AUGUSTUS. But you can still do your bit. Many an older man is in the G.R.'s, or volunteering for home defence. THE CLERK. I have volunteered. AUGUSTUS. Then why are you not in uniform? THE CLERK. They said they wouldn't have me if I was given away with a pound of tea. Told me to go home and not be an old silly. [A sense of unbearable wrong, till now only smouldering in him, bursts into flame.] Young Bill Knight, that I took with me, got two and sevenpence. I got nothing. Is it justice? This country is going to the dogs, if you ask me. AUGUSTUS [rising indignantly]. I do not ask you, sir; and I will not allow you to say such things in my presence. Our statesmen are the greatest known to history. Our generals are invincible. Our army is the admiration of the world. [Furiously.] How dare you tell me that the country is going to the dogs! THE CLERK. Why did they give young Bill Knight two and sevenpence, and not give me even my tram fare? Do you call that being great statesmen? As good as robbing me, I call it. AUGUSTUS. That's enough. Leave the room. [He sits down and takes up his pen, settling himself to work. The clerk shuffles to the door. Augustus adds, with cold politeness] Send me the Secretary. THE CLERK. I'M the Secretary. I can't leave the room and send myself to you at the same time, can I? AUGUSTUS, Don't be insolent. Where is the gentleman I have been corresponding with: Mr Horatio Floyd Beamish? THE CLERK [returning and bowing]. Here. Me. AUGUSTUS. You! Ridiculous. What right have you to call yourself by a pretentious name of that sort? THE CLERK. You may drop the Horatio Floyd. Beamish is good enough for me. AUGUSTUS. Is there nobody else to take my instructions? THE CLERK. It's me or nobody. And for two pins I'd chuck it. Don't you drive me too far. Old uns like me is up in the world now. AUGUSTUS. If we were not at war, I should discharge you on the spot for disrespectful behavior. But England is in danger; and I cannot think of my personal dignity at such a moment. [Shouting at him.] Don't you think of yours, either, worm that you are; or I'll have you arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act, double quick. THE CLERK. What do I care about the realm? They done me out of two and seven-- AUGUSTUS. Oh, damn your two and seven! Did you receive my letters? THE CLERK. Yes. AUGUSTUS. I addressed a meeting here last night--went straight to the platform from the train. I wrote to you that I should expect you to be present and report yourself. Why did you not do so? THE CLERK. The police wouldn't let me on the platform. AUGUSTUS. Did you tell them who you were? THE CLERK. They knew who I was. That's why they wouldn't let me up. AUGUSTUS. This is too silly for anything. This town wants waking up. I made the best recruiting speech I ever made in my life; and not a man joined. THE CLERK. What did you expect? You told them our gallant fellows is falling at the rate of a thousand a day in the big push. Dying for Little Pifflington, you says. Come and take their places, you says. That ain't the way to recruit. AUGUSTUS. But I expressly told them their widows would have pensions. THE CLERK. I heard you. Would have been all right if it had been the widows you wanted to get round. AUGUSTUS [rising angrily]. This town is inhabited by dastards. I say it with a full sense of responsibility, DASTARDS! They call themselves Englishmen; and they are afraid to fight. THE CLERK. Afraid to fight! You should see them on a Saturday night. AUGUSTUS. Yes, they fight one another; but they won't fight the Germans. THE CLERK. They got grudges again one another: how can they have grudges again the Huns that they never saw? They've no imagination: that's what it is. Bring the Huns here; and they'll quarrel with them fast enough. AUGUSTUS [returning to his seat with a grunt of disgust]. Mf! They'll have them here if they're not careful. [Seated.] Have you carried out my orders about the war saving? THE CLERK. Yes. AUGUSTUS. The allowance of petrol has been reduced by three quarters? THE CLERK. It has. AUGUSTUS. And you have told the motor-car people to come here and arrange to start munition work now that their motor business is stopped? THE CLERK. It ain't stopped. They're busier than ever. AUGUSTUS. Busy at what? THE CLERK. Making small cars. AUGUSTUS. NEW cars! THE CLERK. The old cars only do twelve miles to the gallon. Everybody has to have a car that will do thirty-five now. AUGUSTUS. Can't they take the train? THE CLERK. There ain't no trains now. They've tore up the rails and sent them to the front. AUGUSTUS. Psha! THE CLERK. Well, we have to get about somehow. AUGUSTUS. This is perfectly monstrous. Not in the least what I intended. THE CLERK. Hell-- AUGUSTUS. Sir! THE CLERK [explaining]. Hell, they says, is paved with good intentions. AUGUSTUS [springing to his feet]. Do you mean to insinuate that hell is paved with MY good intentions--with the good intentions of His Majesty's Government? THE CLERK. I don't mean to insinuate anything until the Defence of the Realm Act is repealed. It ain't safe. AUGUSTUS. They told me that this town had set an example to all England in the matter of economy. I came down here to promise the Mayor a knighthood for his exertions. THE CLERK. The Mayor! Where do I come in? AUGUSTUS. You don't come in. You go out. This is a fool of a place. I'm greatly disappointed. Deeply disappointed. [Flinging himself back into his chair.] Disgusted. THE CLERK. What more can we do? We've shut up everything. The picture gallery is shut. The museum is shut. The theatres and picture shows is shut: I haven't seen a movie picture for six months. AUGUSTUS. Man, man: do you want to see picture shows when the Hun is at the gate? THE CLERK [mournfully]. I don't now, though it drove me melancholy mad at first. I was on the point of taking a pennorth of rat poison-- AUGUSTUS. Why didn't you? THE CLERK. Because a friend advised me to take to drink instead. That saved my life, though it makes me very poor company in the mornings, as [hiccuping] perhaps you've noticed. AUGUSTUS. Well, upon my soul! You are not ashamed to stand there and confess yourself a disgusting drunkard. THE CLERK. Well, what of it? We're at war now; and everything's changed. Besides, I should lose my job here if I stood drinking at the bar. I'm a respectable man and must buy my drink and take it home with me. And they won't serve me with less than a quart. If you'd told me before the war that I could get through a quart of whisky in a day, I shouldn't have believed you. That's the good of war: it brings out powers in a man that he never suspected himself capable of. You said so yourself in your speech last night. AUGUSTUS. I did not know that I was talking to an imbecile. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. There must be an end of this drunken slacking. I'm going to establish a new order of things here. I shall come down every morning before breakfast until things are properly in train. Have a cup of coffee and two rolls for me here every morning at half-past ten. THE CLERK. You can't have no rolls. The only baker that baked rolls was a Hun; and he's been interned. AUGUSTUS. Quite right, too. And was there no Englishman to take his place? THE CLERK. There was. But he was caught spying; and they took him up to London and shot him. AUGUSTUS. Shot an Englishman! THE CLERK. Well, it stands to reason if the Germans wanted to spy they wouldn't employ a German that everybody would suspect, don't it? AUGUSTUS [rising again]. Do you mean to say, you scoundrel, that an Englishman is capable of selling his country to the enemy for gold? THE CLERK. Not as a general thing I wouldn't say it; but there's men here would sell their own mothers for two coppers if they got the chance. AUGUSTUS. Beamish, it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest. THE CLERK. It wasn't me that let Little Pifflington get foul. I don't belong to the governing classes. I only tell you why you can't have no rolls. AUGUSTUS [intensely irritated]. Can you tell me where I can find an intelligent being to take my orders? THE CLERK. One of the street sweepers used to teach in the school until it was shut up for the sake of economy. Will he do? AUGUSTUS. What! You mean to tell me that when the lives of the gallant fellows in our trenches, and the fate of the British Empire, depend on our keeping up the supply of shells, you are wasting money on sweeping the streets? THE CLERK. We have to. We dropped it for a while; but the infant death rate went up something frightful. AUGUSTUS. What matters the death rate of Little Pifflington in a moment like this? Think of our gallant soldiers, not of your squalling infants. THE CLERK. If you want soldiers you must have children. You can't buy em in boxes, like toy soldiers. AUGUSTUS. Beamish, the long and the short of it is, you are no patriot. Go downstairs to your office; and have that gas stove taken away and replaced by an ordinary grate. The Board of Trade has urged on me the necessity for economizing gas. THE CLERK. Our orders from the Minister of Munitions is to use gas instead of coal, because it saves material. Which is it to be? AUGUSTUS [bawling furiously at him]. Both! Don't criticize your orders: obey them. Yours not to reason why: yours but to do and die. That's war. [Cooling down.] Have you anything else to say? THE CLERK. Yes: I want a rise. AUGUSTUS [reeling against the table in his horror]. A rise! Horatio Floyd Beamish, do you know that we are at war? THE CLERK [feebly ironical]. I have noticed something about it in the papers. Heard you mention it once or twice, now I come to think of it. AUGUSTUS. Our gallant fellows are dying in the trenches; and you want a rise! THE CLERK. What are they dying for? To keep me alive, ain't it? Well, what's the good of that if I'm dead of hunger by the time they come back? AUGUSTUS. Everybody else is making sacrifices without a thought of self; and you-- THE CLERK. Not half, they ain't. Where's the baker's sacrifice? Where's the coal merchant's? Where's the butcher's? Charging me double: that's how they sacrifice themselves. Well, I want to sacrifice myself that way too. Just double next Saturday: double and not a penny less; or no secretary for you [he stiffens himself shakily, and makes resolutely for the door.] AUGUSTUS [looking after him contemptuously]. Go, miserable pro-German. THE CLERK [rushing back and facing him]. Who are you calling a pro-German? AUGUSTUS. Another word, and I charge you under the Act with discouraging me. Go. The clerk blenches and goes out, cowed. The telephone rings. AUGUSTUS [taking up the telephone receiver.] Hallo. Yes: who are you?... oh, Blueloo, is it?... Yes: there's nobody in the room: fire away. What?... A spy!... A woman!... Yes: brought it down with me. Do you suppose I'm such a fool as to let it out of my hands? Why, it gives a list of all our anti-aircraft emplacements from Ramsgate to Skegness. The Germans would give a million for it--what?... But how could she possibly know about it? I haven't mentioned it to a soul, except, of course, dear Lucy... Oh, Toto and Lady Popham and that lot: they don't count: they're all right. I mean that I haven't mentioned it to any Germans.... Pooh! Don't you be nervous, old chap. I know you think me a fool; but I'm not such a fool as all that. If she tries to get it out of me I'll have her in the Tower before you ring up again. [The clerk returns.] Sh-sh! Somebody's just come in: ring off. Goodbye. [He hangs up the receiver.] THE CLERK. Are you engaged? [His manner is strangely softened.] AUGUSTUS. What business is that of yours? However, if you will take the trouble to read the society papers for this week, you will see that I am engaged to the Honorable Lucy Popham, youngest daughter of-- THE CLERK. That ain't what I mean. Can you see a female? AUGUSTUS. Of course I can see a female as easily as a male. Do you suppose I'm blind? THE CLERK. You don't seem to follow me, somehow. There's a female downstairs: what you might call a lady. She wants to know can you see her if I let her up. AUGUSTUS. Oh, you mean am I disengaged. Tell the lady I have just received news of the greatest importance which will occupy my entire attention for the rest of the day, and that she must write for an appointment. THE CLERK. I'll ask her to explain her business to me. I ain't above talking to a handsome young female when I get the chance [going]. AUGUSTUS. Stop. Does she seem to be a person of consequence? THE CLERK. A regular marchioness, if you ask me. AUGUSTUS. Hm! Beautiful, did you say? THE CLERK. A human chrysanthemum, sir, believe me. AUGUSTUS. It will be extremely inconvenient for me to see her; but the country is in danger; and we must not consider our own comfort. Think how our gallant fellows are suffering in the trenches! Show her up. [The clerk makes for the door, whistling the latest popular ballad]. Stop whistling instantly, sir. This is not a casino. CLERK. Ain't it? You just wait till you see her. [He goes out.] Augustus produces a mirror, a comb, and a pot of moustache pomade from the drawer of the writing-table, and sits down before the mirror to put some touches to his toilet. The clerk returns, devotedly ushering a very attractive lady, brilliantly dressed. She has a dainty wallet hanging from her wrist. Augustus hastily covers up his toilet apparatus with The Morning Post, and rises in an attitude of pompous condescension. THE CLERK [to Augustus]. Here she is. [To the lady.] May I offer you a chair, lady? [He places a chair at the writing-table opposite Augustus, and steals out on tiptoe.] AUGUSTUS. Be seated, madam. THE LADY [sitting down]. Are you Lord Augustus Highcastle? AUGUSTUS [sitting also]. Madam, I am. TAE LADY [with awe]. The great Lord Augustus? AUGUSTUS. I should not dream of describing myself so, Madam; but no doubt I have impressed my countrymen--and [bowing gallantly] may I say my countrywomen--as having some exceptional claims to their consideration. THE LADY [emotionally]. What a beautiful voice you have! AUGUSTUS. What you hear, madam, is the voice of my country, which now takes a sweet and noble tone even in the harsh mouth of high officialism. THE LADY. Please go on. You express yourself so wonderfully! AUGUSTUS. It would be strange indeed if, after sitting on thirty-seven Royal Commissions, mostly as chairman, I had not mastered the art of public expression. Even the Radical papers have paid me the high compliment of declaring that I am never more impressive than when I have nothing to say. THE LADY. I never read the Radical papers. All I can tell you is that what we women admire in you is not the politician, but the man of action, the heroic warrior, the beau sabreur. AUGUSTUS [gloomily]. Madam, I beg! Please! My military exploits are not a pleasant subject, unhappily. THE LADY. Oh, I know I know. How shamefully you have been treated! what ingratitude! But the country is with you. The women are with you. Oh, do you think all our hearts did not throb and all our nerves thrill when we heard how, when you were ordered to occupy that terrible quarry in Hulluch, and you swept into it at the head of your men like a sea-god riding on a tidal wave, you suddenly sprang over the top shouting "To Berlin! Forward!"; dashed at the German army single-handed; and were cut off and made prisoner by the Huns. AUGUSTUS. Yes, madam; and what was my reward? They said I had disobeyed orders, and sent me home. Have they forgotten Nelson in the Baltic? Has any British battle ever been won except by a bold initiative? I say nothing of professional jealousy, it exists in the army as elsewhere; but it is a bitter thought to me that the recognition denied me by my country--or rather by the Radical cabal in the Cabinet which pursues my family with rancorous class hatred--that this recognition, I say, came to me at the hands of an enemy--of a rank Prussian. THE LADY. You don't say so! AUGUSTUS. How else should I be here instead of starving to death in Ruhleben? Yes, madam: the Colonel of the Pomeranian regiment which captured me, after learning what I had done, and conversing for an hour with me on European politics and military strategy, declared that nothing would induce him to deprive my country of my services, and set me free. I offered, of course, to procure the release in exchange of a German officer of equal quality; but he would not hear of it. He was kind enough to say he could not believe that a German officer answering to that description existed. [With emotion.] I had my first taste of the ingratitude of my own country as I made my way back to our lines. A shot from our front trench struck me in the head. I still carry the flattened projectile as a trophy [he throws it on the table; the noise it makes testifies to its weight]. Had it penetrated to the brain I might never have sat on another Royal Commission. Fortunately we have strong heads, we Highcastles. Nothing has ever penetrated to our brains. THE LADY. How thrilling! How simple! And how tragic! But you will forgive England? Remember: England! Forgive her. AUGUSTUS [with gloomy magnanimity]. It will make no difference whatever to my services to my country. Though she slay me, yet will I, if not exactly trust in her, at least take my part in her government. I am ever at my country's call. Whether it be the embassy in a leading European capital, a governor-generalship in the tropics, or my humble mission here to make Little Pifflington do its bit, I am always ready for the sacrifice. Whilst England remains England, wherever there is a public job to be done you will find a Highcastle sticking to it. And now, madam, enough of my tragic personal history. You have called on business. What can I do for you? THE LADY. You have relatives at the Foreign Office, have you not? AUGUSTUS [haughtily]. Madam, the Foreign Office is staffed by my relatives exclusively. THE LADY. Has the Foreign Office warned you that you are being pursued by a female spy who is determined to obtain possession of a certain list of gun emplacements? AUGUSTUS [interrupting her somewhat loftily]. All that is perfectly well known to this department, madam. THE LADY [surprised and rather indignant]. Is it? Who told you? Was it one of your German brothers-in-law? AUGUSTUS [injured, remonstrating]. I have only three German brothers-in-law, madam. Really, from your tone, one would suppose that I had several. Pardon my sensitiveness on that subject; but reports are continually being circulated that I have been shot as a traitor in the courtyard of the Ritz Hotel simply because I have German brothers-in-law. [With feeling.] If you had a German brother-in-law, madam, you would know that nothing else in the world produces so strong an anti-German feeling. Life affords no keener pleasure than finding a brother-in-law's name in the German casualty list. THE LADY. Nobody knows that better than I. Wait until you hear what I have come to tell you: you will understand me as no one else could. Listen. This spy, this woman-- AUGUSTUS [all attention]. Yes? THE LADY. She is a German. A Hun. AUGUSTUS. Yes, yes. She would be. Continue. THE LADY. She is my sister-in-law. AUGUSTUS [deferentially]. I see you are well connected, madam. Proceed. THE LADY. Need I add that she is my bitterest enemy? AUGUSTUS. May I--[he proffers his hand. They shake, fervently. From this moment onward Augustus becomes more and more confidential, gallant, and charming.] THE LADY. Quite so. Well, she is an intimate friend of your brother at the War Office, Hungerford Highcastle, Blueloo as you call him, I don't know why. AUGUSTUS [explaining]. He was originally called The Singing Oyster, because he sang drawing-room ballads with such an extraordinary absence of expression. He was then called the Blue Point for a season or two. Finally he became Blueloo. THE LADY. Oh, indeed: I didn't know. Well, Blueloo is simply infatuated with my sister-in-law; and he has rashly let out to her that this list is in your possession. He forgot himself because he was in a towering rage at its being entrusted to you: his language was terrible. He ordered all the guns to be shifted at once. AUGUSTUS. What on earth did he do that for? THE LADY. I can't imagine. But this I know. She made a bet with him that she would come down here and obtain possession of that list and get clean away into the street with it. He took the bet on condition that she brought it straight back to him at the War Office. AUGUSTUS. Good heavens! And you mean to tell me that Blueloo was such a dolt as to believe that she could succeed? Does he take me for a fool? THE LADY. Oh, impossible! He is jealous of your intellect. The bet is an insult to you: don't you feel that? After what you have done for our country-- AUGUSTUS. Oh, never mind that. It is the idiocy of the thing I look at. He'll lose his bet; and serve him right! THE LADY. You feel sure you will be able to resist the siren? I warn you, she is very fascinating. AUGUSTUS. You need have no fear, madam. I hope she will come and try it on. Fascination is a game that two can play at. For centuries the younger sons of the Highcastles have had nothing to do but fascinate attractive females when they were not sitting on Royal Commissions or on duty at Knightsbridge barracks. By Gad, madam, if the siren comes here she will meet her match. THE LADY. I feel that. But if she fails to seduce you-- AUGUSTUS [blushing]. Madam! THE LADY [continuing]--from your allegiance-- AUGUSTUS. Oh, that! THE LADY.--she will resort to fraud, to force, to anything. She will burgle your office: she will have you attacked and garotted at night in the street. AUGUSTUS. Pooh! I'm not afraid. THE LADY. Oh, your courage will only tempt you into danger. She may get the list after all. It is true that the guns are moved. But she would win her bet. AUGUSTUS [cautiously]. You did not say that the guns were moved. You said that Blueloo had ordered them to be moved. THE LADY. Well, that is the same thing, isn't it? AUGUSTUS. Not quite--at the War Office. No doubt those guns WILL be moved: possibly even before the end of the war. THE LADY. Then you think they are there still! But if the German War Office gets the list--and she will copy it before she gives it back to Blueloo, you may depend on it--all is lost. AUGUSTUS [lazily]. Well, I should not go as far as that. [Lowering his voice.] Will you swear to me not to repeat what I am going to say to you; for if the British public knew that I had said it, I should be at once hounded down as a pro-German. THE LADY. I will be silent as the grave. I swear it. AUGUSTUS [again taking it easily]. Well, our people have for some reason made up their minds that the German War Office is everything that our War Office is not--that it carries promptitude, efficiency, and organization to a pitch of completeness and perfection that must be, in my opinion, destructive to the happiness of the staff. My own view--which you are pledged, remember, not to betray--is that the German War Office is no better than any other War Office. I found that opinion on my observation of the characters of my brothers-in-law: one of whom, by the way, is on the German general staff. I am not at all sure that this list of gun emplacements would receive the smallest attention. You see, there are always so many more important things to be attended to. Family matters, and so on, you understand. THE LADY. Still, if a question were asked in the House of Commons-- AUGUSTUS. The great advantage of being at war, madam, is that nobody takes the slightest notice of the House of Commons. No doubt it is sometimes necessary for a Minister to soothe the more seditious members of that assembly by giving a pledge or two; but the War Office takes no notice of such things. THE LADY [staring at him]. Then you think this list of gun emplacements doesn't matter!! AUGUSTUS. By no means, madam. It matters very much indeed. If this spy were to obtain possession of the list, Blueloo would tell the story at every dinner-table in London; and-- THE LADY. And you might lose your post. Of course. AUGUSTUS [amazed and indignant]. I lose my post! What are you dreaming about, madam? How could I possibly be spared? There are hardly Highcastles enough at present to fill half the posts created by this war. No: Blueloo would not go that far. He is at least a gentleman. But I should be chaffed; and, frankly, I don't like being chaffed. THE LADY. Of course not. Who does? It would never do. Oh never, never. AUGUSTUS. I'm glad you see it in that light. And now, as a measure of security, I shall put that list in my pocket. [He begins searching vainly from drawer to drawer in the writing-table.] Where on earth--? What the dickens did I--? That's very odd: I--Where the deuce--? I thought I had put it in the--Oh, here it is! No: this is Lucy's last letter. THE LADY [elegiacally]. Lucy's Last Letter! What a title for a picture play! AUGUSTUS [delighted]. Yes: it is, isn't it? Lucy appeals to the imagination like no other woman. By the way [handing over the letter], I wonder could you read it for me? Lucy is a darling girl; but I really can't read her writing. In London I get the office typist to decipher it and make me a typed copy; but here there is nobody. THE LADY [puzzling over it]. It is really almost illegible. I think the beginning is meant for "Dearest Gus." AUGUSTUS [eagerly]. Yes: that is what she usually calls me. Please go on. THE LADY [trying to decipher it]. "What a"--"what a"--oh yes: "what a forgetful old"--something--"you are!" I can't make out the word. AUGUSTUS [greatly interested]. Is it blighter? That is a favorite expression of hers. THE LADY. I think so. At all events it begins with a B. [Reading.] "What a forgetful old"--[she is interrupted by a knock at the door.] AUGUSTUS [impatiently]. Come in. [The clerk enters, clean shaven and in khaki, with an official paper and an envelope in his hand.] What is this ridiculous mummery sir? THE CLERK [coming to the table and exhibiting his uniform to both]. They've passed me. The recruiting officer come for me. I've had my two and seven. AUGUSTUS [rising wrathfully]. I shall not permit it. What do they mean by taking my office staff? Good God! they will be taking our hunt servants next. [Confronting the clerk.] What did the man mean? What did he say? THE CLERK. He said that now you was on the job we'd want another million men, and he was going to take the old-age pensioners or anyone he could get. AUGUSTUS. And did you dare to knock at my door and interrupt my business with this lady to repeat this man's ineptitudes? THE CLERK. No. I come because the waiter from the hotel brought this paper. You left it on the coffeeroom breakfast-table this morning. THE LADY [intercepting it]. It is the list. Good heavens! THE CLERK [proffering the envelope]. He says he thinks this is the envelope belonging to it. THE LADY [snatching the envelope also]. Yes! Addressed to you, Lord Augustus! [Augustus comes back to the table to look at it.] Oh, how imprudent! Everybody would guess its importance with your name on it. Fortunately I have some letters of my own here [opening her wallet.] Why not hide it in one of my envelopes? then no one will dream that the enclosure is of any political value. [Taking out a letter, she crosses the room towards the window, whispering to Augustus as she passes him.] Get rid of that man. AUGUSTUS [haughtily approaching the clerk, who humorously makes a paralytic attempt to stand at attention]. Have you any further business here, pray? THE CLERK. Am I to give the waiter anything; or will you do it yourself? AUGUSTUS. Which waiter is it? The English one? THE CLERK. No: the one that calls hisself a Swiss. Shouldn't wonder if he'd made a copy of that paper. AUGUSTUS. Keep your impertinent surmises to yourself, sir. Remember that you are in the army now; and let me have no more of your civilian insubordination. Attention! Left turn! Quick march! THE CLERK [stolidly]. I dunno what you mean. AUGUSTUS. Go to the guard-room and report yourself for disobeying orders. Now do you know what I mean? THE CLERK. Now look here. I ain't going to argue with you-- AUGUSTUS. Nor I with you. Out with you. He seizes the clerk: and rushes him through the door. The moment the lady is left alone, she snatches a sheet of official paper from the stationery rack: folds it so that it resembles the list; compares the two to see that they look exactly alike: whips the list into her wallet: and substitutes the facsimile for it. Then she listens for the return of Augustus. A crash is heard, as of the clerk falling downstairs. Augustus returns and is about to close the door when the voice of the clerk is heard from below. THE CLERK. I'll have the law of you for this, I will. AUGUSTUS [shouting down to him]. There's no more law for you, you scoundrel. You're a soldier now. [He shuts the door and comes to the lady.] Thank heaven, the war has given us the upper hand of these fellows at last. Excuse my violence; but discipline is absolutely necessary in dealing with the lower middle classes. THE LADY. Serve the insolent creature right! Look I have found you a beautiful envelope for the list, an unmistakable lady's envelope. [She puts the sham list into her envelope and hands it to him.] AUGUSTUS. Excellent. Really very clever of you. [Slyly.] Come: would you like to have a peep at the list [beginning to take the blank paper from the envelope]? THE LADY [on the brink of detection]. No no. Oh, please, no. AUGUSTUS. Why? It won't bite you [drawing it out further.] THE LADY [snatching at his hand]. Stop. Remember: if there should be an inquiry, you must be able to swear that you never showed that list to a mortal soul. AUGUSTUS. Oh, that is a mere form. If you are really curious-- THE LADY. I am not. I couldn't bear to look at it. One of my dearest friends was blown to pieces by an aircraft gun; and since then I have never been able to think of one without horror. AUGUSTUS. You mean it was a real gun, and actually went off. How sad! how sad! [He pushes the sham list back into the envelope, and pockets it.] THE LADY. Ah! [Great sigh of relief]. And now, Lord Augustus, I have taken up too much of your valuable time. Goodbye. AUGUSTUS. What! Must you go? THE LADY. You are so busy. AUGUSTUS. Yes; but not before lunch, you know. I never can do much before lunch. And I'm no good at all in the afternoon. From five to six is my real working time. Must you really go? THE LADY. I must, really. I have done my business very satisfactorily. Thank you ever so much [she proffers her hand]. AUGUSTUS [shaking it affectionately as he leads her to the door, but fast pressing the bell button with his left hand]. Goodbye. Goodbye. So sorry to lose you. Kind of you to come; but there was no real danger. You see, my dear little lady, all this talk about war saving, and secrecy, and keeping the blinds down at night, and so forth, is all very well; but unless it's carried out with intelligence, believe me, you may waste a pound to save a penny; you may let out all sorts of secrets to the enemy; you may guide the Zeppelins right on to your own chimneys. That's where the ability of the governing class comes in. Shall the fellow call a taxi for you? THE LADY. No, thanks: I prefer walking. Goodbye. Again, many, many thanks. She goes out. Augustus returns to the writing-table smiling, and takes another look at himself in the mirror. The clerk returns, with his head bandaged, carrying a poker. THE CLERK. What did you ring for? [Augustus hastily drops the mirror]. Don't you come nigh me or I'll split your head with this poker, thick as it is. AUGUSTUS. It does not seem to me an exceptionally thick poker. I rang for you to show the lady out. THE CLERK. She's gone. She run out like a rabbit. I ask myself why was she in such a hurry? THE LADY'S VOICE [from the street]. Lord Augustus. Lord Augustus. THE CLERK. She's calling you. AUGUSTUS [running to the window and throwing it up]. What is it? Won't you come up? THE LADY. Is the clerk there? AUGUSTUS. Yes. Do you want him? THE LADY. Yes. AUGUSTUS. The lady wants you at the window. THE CLERK [rushing to the window and putting down the poker]. Yes, ma'am? Here I am, ma'am. What is it, ma'am? THE LADY. I want you to witness that I got clean away into the street. I am coming up now. The two men stare at one another. THE CLERK. Wants me to witness that she got clean away into the street! AUGUSTUS. What on earth does she mean? The lady returns. THE LADY. May I use your telephone? AUGUSTUS. Certainly. Certainly. [Taking the receiver down.] What number shall I get you? THE LADY. The War Office, please. AUGUSTUS. The War Office!? THE LADY. If you will be so good. AUGUSTUS. But--Oh, very well. [Into the receiver.] Hallo. This is the Town Hall Recruiting Office. Give me Colonel Bogey, sharp. A pause. THE CLERK [breaking the painful silence]. I don't think I'm awake. This is a dream of a movie picture, this is. AUGUSTUS [his ear at the receiver]. Shut up, will you? [Into the telephone.] What?... [To the lady.] Whom do you want to get on to? THE LADY. Blueloo. AUGUSTUS [into the telephone]. Put me through to Lord Hungerford Highcastle... I'm his brother, idiot... That you, Blueloo? Lady here at Little Pifflington wants to speak to you. Hold the line. [To the lady.] Now, madam [he hands her the receiver]. THE LADY [sitting down in Augustus's chair to speak into the telephone]. Is that Blueloo?... Do you recognize my voice?... I've won our bet.... AUGUSTUS. Your bet! THE LADY [into the telephone]. Yes: I have the list in my wallet.... AUGUSTUS. Nothing of the kind, madam. I have it here in my pocket. [He takes the envelope from his pocket: draws out the paper: and unfolds it.] THE LADY [continuing]. Yes: I got clean into the street with it. I have a witness. I could have got to London with it. Augustus won't deny it.... AUGUSTUS [contemplating the blank paper]. There's nothing written on this. Where is the list of guns? THE LADY [continuing]. Oh, it was quite easy. I said I was my sister-in-law and that I was a Hun. He lapped it up like a kitten.... AUGUSTUS. You don't mean to say that-- THE LADY [continuing]. I got hold of the list for a moment and changed it for a piece of paper out of his stationery rack: it was quite easy [she laughs: and it is clear that Blueloo is laughing too]. AUGUSTUS. What! THE CLERK [laughing slowly and laboriously, with intense enjoyment]. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha! [Augustus rushes at him; he snatches up the poker and stands on guard.] No you don't. THE LADY [still at the telephone, waving her disengaged hand behind her impatiently at them to stop making a noise]. Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh!!! [Augustus, with a shrug, goes up the middle of the room. The lady resumes her conversation with the telephone.] What?... Oh yes: I'm coming up by the 1.35: why not have tea with me at Rumpelmeister's?... Rum-pel-meister's. You know: they call it Robinson's now... Right. Ta ta. [She hangs up the receiver, and is passing round the table on her way towards the door when she is confronted by Augustus.] AUGUSTUS. Madam, I consider your conduct most unpatriotic. You make bets and abuse the confidence of the hardworked officials who are doing their bit for their country whilst our gallant fellows are perishing in the trenches-- THE LADY. Oh, the gallant fellows are not all in the trenches, Augustus. Some of them have come home for a few days' hard-earned leave; and I am sure you won't grudge them a little fun at your expense. THE CLERK. Hear! hear! AUGUSTUS [amiably]. Ah, well! For my country's sake--! 
3488	----	GREAT CATHERINE (WHOM GLORY STILL ADORES) By George Bernard Shaw "In Catherine's reign, whom Glory still adores" BYRON THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR GREAT CATHERINE Exception has been taken to the title of this seeming tomfoolery on the ground that the Catherine it represents is not Great Catherine, but the Catherine whose gallantries provide some of the lightest pages of modern history. Great Catherine, it is said, was the Catherine whose diplomacy, whose campaigns and conquests, whose plans of Liberal reform, whose correspondence with Grimm and Voltaire enabled her to cut such a magnificent figure in the eighteenth century. In reply, I can only confess that Catherine's diplomacy and her conquests do not interest me. It is clear to me that neither she nor the statesmen with whom she played this mischievous kind of political chess had any notion of the real history of their own times, or of the real forces that were moulding Europe. The French Revolution, which made such short work of Catherine's Voltairean principles, surprised and scandalized her as much as it surprised and scandalized any provincial governess in the French chateaux. The main difference between her and our modern Liberal Governments was that whereas she talked and wrote quite intelligently about Liberal principles before she was frightened into making such talking and writing a flogging matter, our Liberal ministers take the name of Liberalism in vain without knowing or caring enough about its meaning even to talk and scribble about it, and pass their flogging Bills, and institute their prosecutions for sedition and blasphemy and so forth, without the faintest suspicion that such proceedings need any apology from the Liberal point of view. It was quite easy for Patiomkin to humbug Catherine as to the condition of Russia by conducting her through sham cities run up for the occasion by scenic artists; but in the little world of European court intrigue and dynastic diplomacy which was the only world she knew she was more than a match for him and for all the rest of her contemporaries. In such intrigue and diplomacy, however, there was no romance, no scientific political interest, nothing that a sane mind can now retain even if it can be persuaded to waste time in reading it up. But Catherine as a woman with plenty of character and (as we should say) no morals, still fascinates and amuses us as she fascinated and amused her contemporaries. They were great sentimental comedians, these Peters, Elizabeths, and Catherines who played their Tsarships as eccentric character parts, and produced scene after scene of furious harlequinade with the monarch as clown, and of tragic relief in the torture chamber with the monarch as pantomime demon committing real atrocities, not forgetting the indispensable love interest on an enormous and utterly indecorous scale. Catherine kept this vast Guignol Theatre open for nearly half a century, not as a Russian, but as a highly domesticated German lady whose household routine was not at all so unlike that of Queen Victoria as might be expected from the difference in their notions of propriety in sexual relations. In short, if Byron leaves you with an impression that he said very little about Catherine, and that little not what was best worth saying, I beg to correct your impression by assuring you that what Byron said was all there really is to say that is worth saying. His Catherine is my Catherine and everybody's Catherine. The young man who gains her favor is a Spanish nobleman in his version. I have made him an English country gentleman, who gets out of his rather dangerous scrape, by simplicity, sincerity, and the courage of these qualities. By this I have given some offence to the many Britons who see themselves as heroes: what they mean by heroes being theatrical snobs of superhuman pretensions which, though quite groundless, are admitted with awe by the rest of the human race. They say I think an Englishman a fool. When I do, they have themselves to thank. I must not, however, pretend that historical portraiture was the motive of a play that will leave the reader as ignorant of Russian history as he may be now before he has turned the page. Nor is the sketch of Catherine complete even idiosyncratically, leaving her politics out of the question. For example, she wrote bushels of plays. I confess I have not yet read any of them. The truth is, this play grew out of the relations which inevitably exist in the theatre between authors and actors. If the actors have sometimes to use their skill as the author's puppets rather than in full self-expression, the author has sometimes to use his skill as the actors' tailor, fitting them with parts written to display the virtuosity of the performer rather than to solve problems of life, character, or history. Feats of this kind may tickle an author's technical vanity; but he is bound on such occasions to admit that the performer for whom he writes is "the onlie begetter" of his work, which must be regarded critically as an addition to the debt dramatic literature owes to the art of acting and its exponents. Those who have seen Miss Gertrude Kingston play the part of Catherine will have no difficulty in believing that it was her talent rather than mine that brought the play into existence. I once recommended Miss Kingston professionally to play queens. Now in the modern drama there were no queens for her to play; and as to the older literature of our stage: did it not provoke the veteran actress in Sir Arthur Pinero's Trelawny of the Wells to declare that, as parts, queens are not worth a tinker's oath? Miss Kingston's comment on my suggestion, though more elegantly worded, was to the same effect; and it ended in my having to make good my advice by writing Great Catherine. History provided no other queen capable of standing up to our joint talents. In composing such bravura pieces, the author limits himself only by the range of the virtuoso, which by definition far transcends the modesty of nature. If my Russians seem more Muscovite than any Russian, and my English people more insular than any Briton, I will not plead, as I honestly might, that the fiction has yet to be written that can exaggerate the reality of such subjects; that the apparently outrageous Patiomkin is but a timidly bowdlerized ghost of the original; and that Captain Edstaston is no more than a miniature that might hang appropriately on the walls of nineteen out of twenty English country houses to this day. An artistic presentment must not condescend to justify itself by a comparison with crude nature; and I prefer to admit that in this kind my dramatic personae are, as they should be, of the stage stagey, challenging the actor to act up to them or beyond them, if he can. The more heroic the overcharging, the better for the performance. In dragging the reader thus for a moment behind the scenes, I am departing from a rule which I have hitherto imposed on myself so rigidly that I never permit myself, even in a stage direction, to let slip a word that could bludgeon the imagination of the reader by reminding him of the boards and the footlights and the sky borders and the rest of the theatrical scaffolding, for which nevertheless I have to plan as carefully as if I were the head carpenter as well as the author. But even at the risk of talking shop, an honest playwright should take at least one opportunity of acknowledging that his art is not only limited by the art of the actor, but often stimulated and developed by it. No sane and skilled author writes plays that present impossibilities to the actor or to the stage engineer. If, as occasionally happens, he asks them to do things that they have never done before and cannot conceive as presentable or possible (as Wagner and Thomas Hardy have done, for example), it is always found that the difficulties are not really insuperable, the author having foreseen unsuspected possibilities both in the actor and in the audience, whose will-to-make-believe can perform the quaintest miracles. Thus may authors advance the arts of acting and of staging plays. But the actor also may enlarge the scope of the drama by displaying powers not previously discovered by the author. If the best available actors are only Horatios, the authors will have to leave Hamlet out, and be content with Horatios for heroes. Some of the difference between Shakespeare's Orlandos and Bassanios and Bertrams and his Hamlets and Macbeths must have been due not only to his development as a dramatic poet, but to the development of Burbage as an actor. Playwrights do not write for ideal actors when their livelihood is at stake: if they did, they would write parts for heroes with twenty arms like an Indian god. Indeed the actor often influences the author too much; for I can remember a time (I am not implying that it is yet wholly past) when the art of writing a fashionable play had become very largely the art of writing it "round" the personalities of a group of fashionable performers of whom Burbage would certainly have said that their parts needed no acting. Everything has its abuse as well as its use. It is also to be considered that great plays live longer than great actors, though little plays do not live nearly so long as the worst of their exponents. The consequence is that the great actor, instead of putting pressure on contemporary authors to supply him with heroic parts, falls back on the Shakespearean repertory, and takes what he needs from a dead hand. In the nineteenth century, the careers of Kean, Macready, Barry Sullivan, and Irving, ought to have produced a group of heroic plays comparable in intensity to those of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; but nothing of the kind happened: these actors played the works of dead authors, or, very occasionally, of live poets who were hardly regular professional playwrights. Sheridan Knowles, Bulwer Lytton, Wills, and Tennyson produced a few glaringly artificial high horses for the great actors of their time; but the playwrights proper, who really kept the theatre going, and were kept going by the theatre, did not cater for the great actors: they could not afford to compete with a bard who was not for an age but for all time, and who had, moreover, the overwhelming attraction for the actor-managers of not charging author's fees. The result was that the playwrights and the great actors ceased to think of themselves as having any concern with one another: Tom Robertson, Ibsen, Pinero, and Barrie might as well have belonged to a different solar system as far as Irving was concerned; and the same was true of their respective predecessors. Thus was established an evil tradition; but I at least can plead that it does not always hold good. If Forbes Robertson had not been there to play Caesar, I should not have written Caesar and Cleopatra. If Ellen Terry had never been born, Captain Brassbound's Conversion would never have been effected. The Devil's Disciple, with which I won my cordon bleu in America as a potboiler, would have had a different sort of hero if Richard Mansfield had been a different sort of actor, though the actual commission to write it came from an English actor, William Terriss, who was assassinated before he recovered from the dismay into which the result of his rash proposal threw him. For it must be said that the actor or actress who inspires or commissions a play as often as not regards it as a Frankenstein's monster, and will have none of it. That does not make him or her any the less parental in the fecundity of the playwright. To an author who has any feeling of his business there is a keen and whimsical joy in divining and revealing a side of an actor's genius overlooked before, and unsuspected even by the actor himself. When I snatched Mr Louis Calvert from Shakespeare, and made him wear a frock coat and silk hat on the stage for perhaps the first time in his life, I do not think he expected in the least that his performance would enable me to boast of his Tom Broadbent as a genuine stage classic. Mrs Patrick Campbell was famous before I wrote for her, but not for playing illiterate cockney flower-maidens. And in the case which is provoking me to all these impertinences, I am quite sure that Miss Gertrude Kingston, who first made her reputation as an impersonator of the most delightfully feather-headed and inconsequent ingenues, thought me more than usually mad when I persuaded her to play the Helen of Euripides, and then launched her on a queenly career as Catherine of Russia. It is not the whole truth that if we take care of the actors the plays will take care of themselves; nor is it any truer that if we take care of the plays the actors will take care of themselves. There is both give and take in the business. I have seen plays written for actors that made me exclaim, "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!" But Burbage may have flourished the prompt copy of Hamlet under Shakespeare's nose at the tenth rehearsal and cried, "How oft the sight of means to do great deeds makes playwrights great!" I say the tenth because I am convinced that at the first he denounced his part as a rotten one; thought the ghost's speech ridiculously long; and wanted to play the king. Anyhow, whether he had the wit to utter it or not, the boast would have been a valid one. The best conclusion is that every actor should say, "If I create the hero in myself, God will send an author to write his part." For in the long run the actors will get the authors, and the authors the actors, they deserve. Great Catherine was performed for the first time at the Vaudeville Theatre in London on the 18th November 1913, with Gertrude Kingston as Catherine, Miriam Lewes as Yarinka, Dorothy Massingham as Claire, Norman McKinnell as Patiomkin, Edmond Breon as Edstaston, Annie Hill as the Princess Dashkoff, and Eugene Mayeur and F. Cooke Beresford as Naryshkin and the Sergeant. GREAT CATHERINE THE FIRST SCENE 1776. Patiomkin in his bureau in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburgh. Huge palatial apartment: style, Russia in the eighteenth century imitating the Versailles du Roi Soleil. Extravagant luxury. Also dirt and disorder. Patiomkin, gigantic in stature and build, his face marred by the loss of one eye and a marked squint in the other, sits at the end of a table littered with papers and the remains of three or four successive breakfasts. He has supplies of coffee and brandy at hand sufficient for a party of ten. His coat, encrusted with diamonds, is on the floor. It has fallen off a chair placed near the other end of the table for the convenience of visitors. His court sword, with its attachments, is on the chair. His three-cornered hat, also bejewelled, is on the table. He himself is half dressed in an unfastened shirt and an immense dressing-gown, once gorgeous, now food-splashed and dirty, as it serves him for towel, handkerchief, duster, and every other use to which a textile fabric can be put by a slovenly man. It does not conceal his huge hairy chest, nor his half-buttoned knee breeches, nor his legs. These are partly clad in silk stockings, which he occasionally hitches up to his knees, and presently shakes down to his shins, by his restless movement. His feet are thrust into enormous slippers, worth, with their crust of jewels, several thousand roubles apiece. Superficially Patiomkin is a violent, brutal barbarian, an upstart despot of the most intolerable and dangerous type, ugly, lazy, and disgusting in his personal habits. Yet ambassadors report him the ablest man in Russia, and the one who can do most with the still abler Empress Catherine II, who is not a Russian but a German, by no means barbarous or intemperate in her personal habits. She not only disputes with Frederick the Great the reputation of being the cleverest monarch in Europe, but may even put in a very plausible claim to be the cleverest and most attractive individual alive. Now she not only tolerates Patiomkin long after she has got over her first romantic attachment to him, but esteems him highly as a counsellor and a good friend. His love letters are among the best on record. He has a wild sense of humor, which enables him to laugh at himself as well as at everybody else. In the eyes of the English visitor now about to be admitted to his presence he may be an outrageous ruffian. In fact he actually is an outrageous ruffian, in no matter whose eyes; but the visitor will find out, as everyone else sooner or later fends out, that he is a man to be reckoned with even by those who are not intimidated by his temper, bodily strength, and exalted rank. A pretty young lady, Yarinka, his favorite niece, is lounging on an ottoman between his end of the table and the door, very sulky and dissatisfied, perhaps because he is preoccupied with his papers and his brandy bottle, and she can see nothing of him but his broad back. There is a screen behind the ottoman. An old soldier, a Cossack sergeant, enters. THE SERGEANT [softly to the lady, holding the door handle]. Little darling honey, is his Highness the prince very busy? VARINKA. His Highness the prince is very busy. He is singing out of tune; he is biting his nails; he is scratching his head; he is hitching up his untidy stockings; he is making himself disgusting and odious to everybody; and he is pretending to read state papers that he does not understand because he is too lazy and selfish to talk and be companionable. PATIOMKIN [growls; then wipes his nose with his dressing-gown]!! VARINKA. Pig. Ugh! [She curls herself up with a shiver of disgust and retires from the conversation.] THE SERGEANT [stealing across to the coat, and picking it up to replace it on the back of the chair]. Little Father, the English captain, so highly recommended to you by old Fritz of Prussia, by the English ambassador, and by Monsieur Voltaire (whom [crossing himself] may God in his infinite mercy damn eternally!), is in the antechamber and desires audience. PATIOMKIN [deliberately]. To hell with the English captain; and to hell with old Fritz of Prussia; and to hell with the English ambassador; and to hell with Monsieur Voltaire; and to hell with you too! THE SERGEANT. Have mercy on me, Little Father. Your head is bad this morning. You drink too much French brandy and too little good Russian kvass. PATIOMKIN [with sudden fury]. Why are visitors of consequence announced by a sergeant? [Springing at him and seizing him by the throat.] What do you mean by this, you hound? Do you want five thousand blows of the stick? Where is General Volkonsky? THE SERGEANT [on his knees]. Little Father, you kicked his Highness downstairs. PATIOMKIN [flinging him dawn and kicking him]. You lie, you dog. You lie. THE SERGEANT. Little Father, life is hard for the poor. If you say it is a lie, it is a lie. He FELL downstairs. I picked him up; and he kicked me. They all kick me when you kick them. God knows that is not just, Little Father! PATIOMKIN [laughs ogreishly; then returns to his place at the table, chuckling]!!! VARINKA. Savage! Boot! It is a disgrace. No wonder the French sneer at us as barbarians. THE SERGEANT [who has crept round the table to the screen, and insinuated himself between Patiomkin's back and Varinka]. Do you think the Prince will see the captain, little darling? PATIOMKIN. He will not see any captain. Go to the devil! THE SERGEANT. Be merciful, Little Father. God knows it is your duty to see him! [To Varinka.] Intercede for him and for me, beautiful little darling. He has given me a rouble. PATIOMKIN. Oh, send him in, send him in; and stop pestering me. Am I never to have a moment's peace? The Sergeant salutes joyfully and hurries out, divining that Patiomkin has intended to see the English captain all along, and has played this comedy of fury and exhausted impatience to conceal his interest in the visitor. VARINKA. Have you no shame? You refuse to see the most exalted persons. You kick princes and generals downstairs. And then you see an English captain merely because he has given a rouble to that common soldier. It is scandalous. PATIOMKIN. Darling beloved, I am drunk; but I know what I am doing. I wish to stand well with the English. VARINKA. And you think you will impress an Englishman by receiving him as you are now, half drunk? PATIOMKIN [gravely]. It is true: the English despise men who cannot drink. I must make myself wholly drunk [he takes a huge draught of brandy.] VARINKA. Sot! The Sergeant returns ushering a handsome strongly built young English officer in the uniform of a Light Dragoon. He is evidently on fairly good terms with himself, and very sure of his social position. He crosses the room to the end of the table opposite Patiomkin's, and awaits the civilities of that statesman with confidence. The Sergeant remains prudently at the door. THE SERGEANT [paternally]. Little Father, this is the English captain, so well recommended to her sacred Majesty the Empress. God knows, he needs your countenance and protec-- [he vanishes precipitately, seeing that Patiomkin is about to throw a bottle at him. The Captain contemplates these preliminaries with astonishment, and with some displeasure, which is not allayed when, Patiomkin, hardly condescending to look at his visitor, of whom he nevertheless takes stock with the corner of his one eye, says gruffly]. Well? EDSTASTON. My name is Edstaston: Captain Edstaston of the Light Dragoons. I have the honor to present to your Highness this letter from the British ambassador, which will give you all necessary particulars. [He hands Patiomkin the letter.] PATIOMKIN [tearing it open and glancing at it for about a second]. What do you want? EDSTASTON. The letter will explain to your Highness who I am. PATIOMKIN. I don't want to know who you are. What do you want? EDSTASTON. An audience of the Empress. [Patiomkin contemptuously throws the letter aside. Edstaston adds hotly.] Also some civility, if you please. PATIOMKIN [with derision]. Ho! VARINKA. My uncle is receiving you with unusual civility, Captain. He has just kicked a general downstairs. EDSTASTON. A Russian general, madam? VARINKA. Of course. EDSTASTON. I must allow myself to say, madam, that your uncle had better not attempt to kick an English officer downstairs. PATIOMKIN. You want me to kick you upstairs, eh? You want an audience of the Empress. EDSTASTON. I have said nothing about kicking, sir. If it comes to that, my boots shall speak for me. Her Majesty has signified a desire to have news of the rebellion in America. I have served against the rebels; and I am instructed to place myself at the disposal of her Majesty, and to describe the events of the war to her as an eye-witness, in a discreet and agreeable manner. PATIOMKIN. Psha! I know. You think if she once sets eyes on your face and your uniform your fortune is made. You think that if she could stand a man like me, with only one eye, and a cross eye at that, she must fall down at your feet at first sight, eh? EDSTASTON [shocked and indignant]. I think nothing of the sort; and I'll trouble you not to repeat it. If I were a Russian subject and you made such a boast about my queen, I'd strike you across the face with my sword. [Patiomkin, with a yell of fury, rushes at him.] Hands off, you swine! [As Patiomkin, towering over him, attempts to seize him by the throat, Edstaston, who is a bit of a wrestler, adroitly backheels him. He falls, amazed, on his back.] VARINKA [rushing out]. Help! Call the guard! The Englishman is murdering my uncle! Help! Help! The guard and the Sergeant rush in. Edstaston draws a pair of small pistols from his boots, and points one at the Sergeant and the other at Patiomkin, who is sitting on the floor, somewhat sobered. The soldiers stand irresolute. EDSTASTON. Stand off. [To Patiomkin.] Order them off, if you don't want a bullet through your silly head. THE SERGEANT. Little Father, tell us what to do. Our lives are yours; but God knows you are not fit to die. PATIOMKIN [absurdly self-possessed]. Get out. THE SERGEANT. Little Father-- PATIOMKIN [roaring]. Get out. Get out, all of you. [They withdraw, much relieved at their escape from the pistol. Patiomkin attempts to rise, and rolls over.] Here! help me up, will you? Don't you see that I'm drunk and can't get up? EDSTASTON [suspiciously]. You want to get hold of me. PATIOMKIN [squatting resignedly against the chair on which his clothes hang]. Very well, then: I shall stay where I am, because I'm drunk and you're afraid of me. EDSTASTON. I'm not afraid of you, damn you! PATIOMKIN [ecstatically]. Darling, your lips are the gates of truth. Now listen to me. [He marks off the items of his statement with ridiculous stiff gestures of his head and arms, imitating a puppet.] You are Captain Whatshisname; and your uncle is the Earl of Whatdyecallum; and your father is Bishop of Thingummybob; and you are a young man of the highest spr--promise (I told you I was drunk), educated at Cambridge, and got your step as captain in the field at the GLORIOUS battle of Bunker's Hill. Invalided home from America at the request of Aunt Fanny, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. All right, eh? EDSTASTON. How do you know all this? PATIOMKIN [crowing fantastically]. In er lerrer, darling, darling, darling, darling. Lerrer you showed me. EDSTASTON. But you didn't read it. PATIOMKIN [flapping his fingers at him grotesquely]. Only one eye, darling. Cross eye. Sees everything. Read lerrer inceince--istastaneously. Kindly give me vinegar borle. Green borle. On'y to sober me. Too drunk to speak porply. If you would be so kind, darling. Green borle. [Edstaston, still suspicious, shakes his head and keeps his pistols ready.] Reach it myself. [He reaches behind him up to the table, and snatches at the green bottle, from which he takes a copious draught. Its effect is appalling. His wry faces and agonized belchings are so heartrending that they almost upset Edstaston. When the victim at last staggers to his feet, he is a pale fragile nobleman, aged and quite sober, extremely dignified in manner and address, though shaken by his recent convulsions.] Young man, it is not better to be drunk than sober; but it is happier. Goodness is not happiness. That is an epigram. But I have overdone this. I am too sober to be good company. Let me redress the balance. [He takes a generous draught of brandy, and recovers his geniality.] Aha! That's better. And now listen, darling. You must not come to Court with pistols in your boots. EDSTASTON. I have found them useful. PATIOMKIN. Nonsense. I'm your friend. You mistook my intention because I was drunk. Now that I am sober--in moderation--I will prove that I am your friend. Have some diamonds. [Roaring.] Hullo there! Dogs, pigs: hullo! The Sergeant comes in. THE SERGEANT. God be praised, Little Father: you are still spared to us. PATIOMKIN. Tell them to bring some diamonds. Plenty of diamonds. And rubies. Get out. [He aims a kick at the Sergeant, who flees.] Put up your pistols, darling. I'll give you a pair with gold handgrips. I am your friend. EDSTASTON [replacing the pistols in his boots rather unwillingly]. Your Highness understands that if I am missing, or if anything happens to me, there will be trouble. PATIOMKIN [enthusiastically]. Call me darling. EDSTASTON. It is not the English custom. PATIOMKIN. You have no hearts, you English! [Slapping his right breast.] Heart! Heart! EDSTASTON. Pardon, your Highness: your heart is on the other side. PATIOMKIN [surprised and impressed]. Is it? You are learned! You are a doctor! You English are wonderful! We are barbarians, drunken pigs. Catherine does not know it; but we are. Catherine's a German. But I have given her a Russian heart [he is about to slap himself again.] EDSTASTON [delicately]. The other side, your Highness. PATIOMKIN [maudlin]. Darling, a true Russian has a heart on both sides. The Sergeant enters carrying a goblet filled with precious stones. PATIOMKIN. Get out. [He snatches the goblet and kicks the Sergeant out, not maliciously but from habit, indeed not noticing that he does it.] Darling, have some diamonds. Have a fistful. [He takes up a handful and lets them slip back through his fingers into the goblet, which he then offers to Edstaston.] EDSTASTON. Thank you, I don't take presents. PATIOMKIN [amazed]. You refuse! EDSTASTON. I thank your Highness; but it is not the custom for English gentlemen to take presents of that kind. PATIOMKIN. Are you really an Englishman? EDSTASTON [bows]! PATIOMKIN. You are the first Englishman I ever saw refuse anything he could get. [He puts the goblet on the table; then turns again to Edstaston.] Listen, darling. You are a wrestler: a splendid wrestler. You threw me on my back like magic, though I could lift you with one hand. Darling, you are a giant, a paladin. EDSTASTON [complacently]. We wrestle rather well in my part of England. PATIOMKIN. I have a Turk who is a wrestler: a prisoner of war. You shall wrestle with him for me. I'll stake a million roubles on you. EDSTASTON [incensed]. Damn you! do you take me for a prize-fighter? How dare you make me such a proposal? PATIOMKIN [with wounded feeling]. Darling, there is no pleasing you. Don't you like me? EDSTASTON [mollified]. Well, in a sort of way I do; though I don't know why I should. But my instructions are that I am to see the Empress; and-- PATIOMKIN. Darling, you shall see the Empress. A glorious woman, the greatest woman in the world. But lemme give you piece 'vice--pah! still drunk. They water my vinegar. [He shakes himself; clears his throat; and resumes soberly.] If Catherine takes a fancy to you, you may ask for roubles, diamonds, palaces, titles, orders, anything! and you may aspire to everything: field-marshal, admiral, minister, what you please--except Tsar. EDSTASTON. I tell you I don't want to ask for anything. Do you suppose I am an adventurer and a beggar? PATIOMKIN [plaintively]. Why not, darling? I was an adventurer. I was a beggar. EDSTASTON. Oh, you! PATIOMKIN. Well: what's wrong with me? EDSTASTON. You are a Russian. That's different. PATIOMKIN [effusively]. Darling, I am a man; and you are a man; and Catherine is a woman. Woman reduces us all to the common denominator. [Chuckling.] Again an epigram! [Gravely.] You understand it, I hope. Have you had a college education, darling? I have. EDSTASTON. Certainly. I am a Bachelor of Arts. PATIOMKIN. It is enough that you are a bachelor, darling: Catherine will supply the arts. Aha! Another epigram! I am in the vein today. EDSTASTON [embarrassed and a little offended]. I must ask your Highness to change the subject. As a visitor in Russia, I am the guest of the Empress; and I must tell you plainly that I have neither the right nor the disposition to speak lightly of her Majesty. PATIOMKIN. You have conscientious scruples? EDSTASTON. I have the scruples of a gentleman. PATIOMKIN. In Russia a gentleman has no scruples. In Russia we face facts. EDSTASTON. In England, sir, a gentleman never faces any facts if they are unpleasant facts. PATIOMKIN. In real life, darling, all facts are unpleasant. [Greatly pleased with himself.] Another epigram! Where is my accursed chancellor? these gems should be written down and recorded for posterity. [He rushes to the table: sits down: and snatches up a pen. Then, recollecting himself.] But I have not asked you to sit down. [He rises and goes to the other chair.] I am a savage: a barbarian. [He throws the shirt and coat over the table on to the floor and puts his sword on the table.] Be seated, Captain. EDSTASTON Thank you. They bow to one another ceremoniously. Patiomkin's tendency to grotesque exaggeration costs him his balance; he nearly falls over Edstaston, who rescues him and takes the proffered chair. PATIOMKIN [resuming his seat]. By the way, what was the piece of advice I was going to give you? EDSTASTON. As you did not give it, I don't know. Allow me to add that I have not asked for your advice. PATIOMKIN. I give it to you unasked, delightful Englishman. I remember it now. It was this. Don't try to become Tsar of Russia. EDSTASTON [in astonishment]. I haven't the slightest intention-- PATIOMKIN. Not now; but you will have: take my words for it. It will strike you as a splendid idea to have conscientious scruples--to desire the blessing of the Church on your union with Catherine. EDSTASTON [racing in utter amazement]. My union with Catherine! You're mad. PATIOMKIN [unmoved]. The day you hint at such a thing will be the day of your downfall. Besides, it is not lucky to be Catherine's husband. You know what happened to Peter? EDSTASTON [shortly; sitting down again]. I do not wish to discuss it. PATIOMKIN. You think she murdered him? EDSTASTON. I know that people have said so. PATIOMKIN [thunderously; springing to his feet]. It is a lie: Orloff murdered him. [Subsiding a little.] He also knocked my eye out; but [sitting down placidly] I succeeded him for all that. And [patting Edstaston's hand very affectionately] I'm sorry to say, darling, that if you become Tsar, I shall murder you. EDSTASTON [ironically returning the caress]. Thank you. The occasion will not arise. [Rising.] I have the honor to wish your Highness good morning. PATIOMKIN [jumping up and stopping him on his way to the door]. Tut tut! I'm going to take you to the Empress now, this very instant. EDSTASTON. In these boots? Impossible! I must change. PATIOMKIN. Nonsense! You shall come just as you are. You shall show her your calves later on. EDSTASTON. But it will take me only half an hour to-- PATIOMKIN. In half an hour it will be too late for the petit lever. Come along. Damn it, man, I must oblige the British ambassador, and the French ambassador, and old Fritz, and Monsieur Voltaire and the rest of them. [He shouts rudely to the door.] Varinka! [To Edstaston, with tears in his voice.] Varinka shall persuade you: nobody can refuse Varinka anything. My niece. A treasure, I assure you. Beautiful! devoted! fascinating! [Shouting again.] Varinka, where the devil are you? VARINKA [returning]. I'll not be shouted for. You have the voice of a bear, and the manners of a tinker. PATIOMKIN. Tsh-sh-sh. Little angel Mother: you must behave yourself before the English captain. [He takes off his dressing-gown and throws it over the papers and the breakfasts: picks up his coat: and disappears behind the screen to complete his toilette.] EDSTASTON. Madam! [He bows.] VARINKA [courtseying]. Monsieur le Capitaine! EDSTASTON. I must apologize for the disturbance I made, madam. PATIOMKIN [behind the screen]. You must not call her madam. You must call her Little Mother, and beautiful darling. EDSTASTON. My respect for the lady will not permit it. VARINKA. Respect! How can you respect the niece of a savage? EDSTASTON [deprecatingly]. Oh, madam! VARINKA. Heaven is my witness, Little English Father, we need someone who is not afraid of him. He is so strong! I hope you will throw him down on the floor many, many, many times. PATIOMKIN [behind the screen]. Varinka! VARINKA. Yes? PATIOMKIN. Go and look through the keyhole of the Imperial bed-chamber; and bring me word whether the Empress is awake yet. VARINKA. Fi donc! I do not look through keyholes. PATIOMKIN [emerging, having arranged his shirt and put on his diamonded coat]. You have been badly brought up, little darling. Would any lady or gentleman walk unannounced into a room without first looking through the keyhole? [Taking his sword from the table and putting it on.] The great thing in life is to be simple; and the perfectly simple thing is to look through keyholes. Another epigram: the fifth this morning! Where is my fool of a chancellor? Where is Popof? EDSTASTON [choking with suppressed laughter]!!!! PATIOMKIN [gratified]. Darling, you appreciate my epigram. EDSTASTON. Excuse me. Pop off! Ha! ha! I can't help laughing: What's his real name, by the way, in case I meet him? VARINKA [surprised]. His real name? Popof, of course. Why do you laugh, Little Father? EDSTASTON. How can anyone with a sense of humor help laughing? Pop off! [He is convulsed.] VARINKA [looking at her uncle, taps her forehead significantly]!! PATIOMKIN [aside to Varinka]. No: only English. He will amuse Catherine. [To Edstaston.] Come, you shall tell the joke to the Empress: she is by way of being a humorist [he takes him by the arm, and leads him towards the door]. EDSTASTON [resisting]. No, really. I am not fit-- PATIOMKIN. Persuade him, Little angel Mother. VARINKA [taking his other arm]. Yes, yes, yes. Little English Father: God knows it is your duty to be brave and wait on the Empress. Come. EDSTASTON. No. I had rather-- PATIOMKIN [hauling him along]. Come. VARINKA [pulling him and coaxing him]. Come, little love: you can't refuse me. EDSTASTON. But how can I? PATIOMKIN. Why not? She won't eat you. VARINKA. She will; but you must come. EDSTASTON. I assure you--it is quite out of the question--my clothes-- VARINKA. You look perfect. PATIOMKIN. Come along, darling. EDSTASTON [struggling]. Impossible-- VARINKA. Come, come, come. EDSTASTON. No. Believe me--I don't wish--I-- VARINKA. Carry him, uncle. PATIOMKIN [lifting him in his arms like a father carrying a little boy]. Yes: I'll carry you. EDSTASTON. Dash it all, this is ridiculous! VARINKA [seizing his ankles and dancing as he is carried out]. You must come. If you kick you will blacken my eyes. PATIOMKIN. Come, baby, come. By this time they have made their way through the door and are out of hearing. THE SECOND SCENE The Empress's petit lever. The central doors are closed. Those who enter through them find on their left, on a dais of two broad steps, a magnificent curtained bed. Beyond it a door in the panelling leads to the Empress's cabinet. Near the foot of the bed, in the middle of the room, stands a gilt chair, with the Imperial arms carved and the Imperial monogram embroidered. The Court is in attendance, standing in two melancholy rows down the side of the room opposite to the bed, solemn, bored, waiting for the Empress to awaken. The Princess Dashkoff, with two ladies, stands a little in front of the line of courtiers, by the Imperial chair. Silence, broken only by the yawns and whispers of the courtiers. Naryshkin, the Chamberlain, stands by the head of the bed. A loud yawn is heard from behind the curtains. NARYSHKIN [holding up a warning hand]. Ssh! The courtiers hastily cease whispering: dress up their lines: and stiffen. Dead silence. A bell tinkles within the curtains. Naryshkin and the Princess solemnly draw them and reveal the Empress. Catherine turns over on her back, and stretches herself. CATHERINE [yawning]. Heigho--ah--yah--ah--ow--what o'clock is it? [Her accent is German.] NARYSHKIN [formally]. Her Imperial Majesty is awake. [The Court falls on its knees.] ALL. Good morning to your Majesty. NARYSHKIN. Half-past ten, Little Mother. CATHERINE [sitting up abruptly]. Potztausend! [Contemplating the kneeling courtiers.] Oh, get up, get up. [All rise.] Your etiquette bores me. I am hardly awake in the morning before it begins. [Yawning again, and relapsing sleepily against her pillows.] Why do they do it, Naryshkin? NARYSHKIN. God knows it is not for your sake, Little Mother. But you see if you were not a great queen they would all be nobodies. CATHERINE [sitting up]. They make me do it to keep up their own little dignities? So? NARYSHKIN. Exactly. Also because if they didn't you might have them flogged, dear Little Mother. CATHERINE [springing energetically out of bed and seating herself on the edge of it]. Flogged! I! A Liberal Empress! A philosopher! You are a barbarian, Naryshkin. [She rises and turns to the courtiers.] And then, as if I cared! [She turns again to Naryshkin.] You should know by this time that I am frank and original in character, like an Englishman. [She walks about restlessly.] No: what maddens me about all this ceremony is that I am the only person in Russia who gets no fun out of my being Empress. You all glory in me: you bask in my smiles: you get titles and honors and favors from me: you are dazzled by my crown and my robes: you feel splendid when you have been admitted to my presence; and when I say a gracious word to you, you talk about it to everyone you meet for a week afterwards. But what do I get out of it? Nothing. [She throws herself into the chair. Naryshkin deprecates with a gesture; she hurls an emphatic repetition at him.] Nothing!! I wear a crown until my neck aches: I stand looking majestic until I am ready to drop: I have to smile at ugly old ambassadors and frown and turn my back on young and handsome ones. Nobody gives me anything. When I was only an Archduchess, the English ambassador used to give me money whenever I wanted it--or rather whenever he wanted to get anything out of my sacred predecessor Elizabeth [the Court bows to the ground]; but now that I am Empress he never gives me a kopek. When I have headaches and colics I envy the scullerymaids. And you are not a bit grateful to me for all my care of you, my work, my thought, my fatigue, my sufferings. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. God knows, Little Mother, we all implore you to give your wonderful brain a rest. That is why you get headaches. Monsieur Voltaire also has headaches. His brain is just like yours. CATHERINE. Dashkoff, what a liar you are! [Dashkoff curtsies with impressive dignity.] And you think you are flattering me! Let me tell you I would not give a rouble to have the brains of all the philosophers in France. What is our business for today? NARYSHKIN. The new museum, Little Mother. But the model will not be ready until tonight. CATHERINE [rising eagerly]. Yes, the museum. An enlightened capital should have a museum. [She paces the chamber with a deep sense of the importance of the museum.] It shall be one of the wonders of the world. I must have specimens: specimens, specimens, specimens. NARYSHKIN. You are in high spirits this morning, Little Mother. CATHERINE [with sudden levity.] I am always in high spirits, even when people do not bring me my slippers. [She runs to the chair and sits down, thrusting her feet out.] The two ladies rush to her feet, each carrying a slipper. Catherine, about to put her feet into them, is checked by a disturbance in the antechamber. PATIOMKIN [carrying Edstaston through the antechamber]. Useless to struggle. Come along, beautiful baby darling. Come to Little Mother. [He sings.] March him baby, Baby, baby, Lit-tle ba-by bumpkins. VARINKA [joining in to the same doggerel in canon, a third above]. March him, baby, etc., etc. EDSTASTON [trying to make himself heard]. No, no. This is carrying a joke too far. I must insist. Let me down! Hang it, will you let me down! Confound it! No, no. Stop playing the fool, will you? We don't understand this sort of thing in England. I shall be disgraced. Let me down. CATHERINE [meanwhile]. What a horrible noise! Naryshkin, see what it is. Naryshkin goes to the door. CATHERINE [listening]. That is Prince Patiomkin. NARYSHKIN [calling from the door]. Little Mother, a stranger. Catherine plunges into bed again and covers herself up. Patiomkin, followed by Varinka, carries Edstaston in: dumps him down on the foot of the bed: and staggers past it to the cabinet door. Varinka joins the courtiers at the opposite side of the room. Catherine, blazing with wrath, pushes Edstaston off her bed on to the floor: gets out of bed: and turns on Patiomkin with so terrible an expression that all kneel down hastily except Edstaston, who is sprawling on the carpet in angry confusion. CATHERINE. Patiomkin, how dare you? [Looking at Edstaston.] What is this? PATIOMKIN [on his knees, tearfully]. I don't know. I am drunk. What is this, Varinka? EDSTASTON [scrambling to his feet]. Madam, this drunken ruffian-- PATIOMKIN. Thas true. Drungn ruffian. Took dvantage of my being drunk. Said: take me to Lil angel Mother. Take me to beaufl Empress. Take me to the grea'st woman on earth. Thas whas he he said. I took him. I was wrong. I am not sober. CATHERINE. Men have grown sober in Siberia for less, Prince. PATIOMKIN. Serve em right! Sgusting habit. Ask Varinka. Catherine turns her face from him to the Court. The courtiers see that she is trying not to laugh, and know by experience that she will not succeed. They rise, relieved and grinning. VARINKA. It is true. He drinks like a pig. PATIOMKIN [plaintively]. No: not like pig. Like prince. Lil Mother made poor Patiomkin prince. Whas use being prince if I mayn't drink? CATHERINE [biting her lips]. Go. I am offended. PATIOMKIN. Don't scold, Lil Mother. CATHERINE [imperiously]. Go. PATIOMKIN [rising unsteadily]. Yes: go. Go bye bye. Very sleepy. Berr go bye bye than go Siberia. Go bye bye in Lil Mother's bed [he pretends to make an attempt to get into the bed]. CATHERINE [energetically pulling him back]. No, no! Patiomkin! What are you thinking of? [He falls like a log on the floor, apparently dead drunk.] THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. Scandalous! An insult to your Imperial Majesty! CATHERINE. Dashkoff: you have no sense of humor. [She steps down to the door level and looks indulgently at Patiomkin. He gurgles brutishly. She has an impulse of disgust.] Hog. [She kicks him as hard as she can.] Oh! You have broken my toe. Brute. Beast. Dashkoff is quite right. Do you hear? PATIOMKIN. If you ask my pi-pinion of Dashkoff, my pipinion is that Dashkoff is drunk. Scanlous. Poor Patiomkin go bye bye. [He relapses into drunken slumbers.] Some of the courtiers move to carry him away. CATHERINE [stopping them]. Let him lie. Let him sleep it off. If he goes out it will be to a tavern and low company for the rest of the day. [Indulgently.] There! [She takes a pillow from the bed and puts it under his head: then turns to Edstaston: surveys him with perfect dignity: and asks, in her queenliest manner.] Varinka, who is this gentleman? VARINKA. A foreign captain: I cannot pronounce his name. I think he is mad. He came to the Prince and said he must see your Majesty. He can talk of nothing else. We could not prevent him. EDSTASTON [overwhelmed by this apparent betrayal]. Oh! Madam: I am perfectly sane: I am actually an Englishman. I should never have dreamt of approaching your Majesty without the fullest credentials. I have letters from the English ambassador, from the Prussian ambassador. [Naively.] But everybody assured me that Prince Patiomkm is all-powerful with your Majesty; so I naturally applied to him. PATIOMKIN [interrupts the conversation by an agonized wheezing groan as of a donkey beginning to bray]!!! CATHERINE [like a fishfag]. Schweig, du Hund. [Resuming her impressive royal manner.] Have you never been taught, sir, how a gentleman should enter the presence of a sovereign? EDSTASTON. Yes, Madam; but I did not enter your presence: I was carried. CATHERINE. But you say you asked the Prince to carry you. EDSTASTON. Certainly not, Madam. I protested against it with all my might. I appeal to this lady to confirm me. VARINKA [pretending to be indignant]. Yes, you protested. But, all the same, you were very very very anxious to see her Imperial Majesty. You blushed when the Prince spoke of her. You threatened to strike him across the face with your sword because you thought he did not speak enthusiastically enough of her. [To Catherine.] Trust me: he has seen your Imperial Majesty before. CATHERINE [to Edstaston]. You have seen us before? EDSTASTON. At the review, Madam. VARINKA [triumphantly]. Aha! I knew it. Your Majesty wore the hussar uniform. He saw how radiant! how splendid! your Majesty looked. Oh! he has dared to admire your Majesty. Such insolence is not to be endured. EDSTASTON. All Europe is a party to that insolence, Madam. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. All Europe is content to do so at a respectful distance. It is possible to admire her Majesty's policy and her eminence in literature and philosophy without performing acrobatic feats in the Imperial bed. EDSTASTON. I know nothing about her Majesty's eminence in policy or philosophy: I don't pretend to understand such things. I speak as a practical man. And I never knew that foreigners had any policy: I always thought that policy was Mr. Pitt's business. CATHERINE [lifting her eyebrows]. So? VARINKA. What else did you presume to admire her Majesty for, pray? EDSTASTON [addled]. Well, I--I--I--that is, I--[He stammers himself dumb.] CATHERINE [after a pitiless silence]. We are waiting for your answer. EDSTASTON. But I never said I admired your Majesty. The lady has twisted my words. VARINKA. You don't admire her, then? EDSTASTON. Well, I--naturally--of course, I can't deny that the uniform was very becoming--perhaps a little unfeminine--still--Dead silence. Catherine and the Court watch him stonily. He is wretchedly embarrassed. CATHERINE [with cold majesty]. Well, sir: is that all you have to say? EDSTASTON. Surely there is no harm in noticing that er--that er--[He stops again.] CATHERINE. Noticing that er--? [He gazes at her, speechless, like a fascinated rabbit. She repeats fiercely.] That er--? EDSTASTON [startled into speech]. Well, that your Majesty was--was--[soothingly] Well, let me put it this way: that it was rather natural for a man to admire your Majesty without being a philosopher. CATHERINE [suddenly smiling and extending her hand to him to be kissed]. Courtier! EDSTASTON [kissing it]. Not at all. Your Majesty is very good. I have been very awkward; but I did not intend it. I am rather stupid, I am afraid. CATHERINE. Stupid! By no means. Courage, Captain: we are pleased. [He falls on his knee. She takes his cheeks in her hands: turns up his face: and adds] We are greatly pleased. [She slaps his cheek coquettishly: he bows almost to his knee.] The petit lever is over. [She turns to go into the cabinet, and stumbles against the supine Patiomkin.] Ach! [Edstaston springs to her assistance, seizing Patiomkin's heels and shifting him out of the Empress's path.] We thank you, Captain. He bows gallantly and is rewarded by a very gracious smile. Then Catherine goes into her cabinet, followed by the princess Dashkoff, who turns at the door to make a deep courtsey to Edstaston. VARINKA. Happy Little Father! Remember: I did this for you. [She runs out after the Empress.] Edstaston, somewhat dazed, crosses the room to the courtiers, and is received with marked deference, each courtier making him a profound bow or curtsey before withdrawing through the central doors. He returns each obeisance with a nervous jerk, and turns away from it, only to find another courtier bowing at the other side. The process finally reduced him to distraction, as he bumps into one in the act of bowing to another and then has to bow his apologies. But at last they are all gone except Naryshkin. EDSTASTON. Ouf! PATIOMKIN [jumping up vigorously]. You have done it, darling. Superbly! Beautifully! EDSTASTON [astonished]. Do you mean to say you are not drunk? PATIOMKIN. Not dead drunk, darling. Only diplomatically drunk. As a drunken hog, I have done for you in five minutes what I could not have done in five months as a sober man. Your fortune is made. She likes you. EDSTASTON. The devil she does! PATIOMKIN. Why? Aren't you delighted? EDSTASTON. Delighted! Gracious heavens, man, I am engaged to be married. PATIOMKIN. What matter? She is in England, isn't she? EDSTASTON. No. She has just arrived in St. Petersburg. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF [returning]. Captain Edstaston, the Empress is robed, and commands your presence. EDSTASTON. Say I was gone before you arrived with the message. [He hurries out. The other three, too taken aback to stop him, stare after him in the utmost astonishment.] NARYSHKIN [turning from the door]. She will have him knouted. He is a dead man. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. But what am I to do? I cannot take such an answer to the Empress. PATIOMKIN. P-P-P-P-P-P-W-W-W-W-W-rrrrrr [a long puff, turning into a growl]! [He spits.] I must kick somebody. NARYSHKIN [flying precipitately through the central doors]. No, no. Please. THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF [throwing herself recklessly in front of Patiomkin as he starts in pursuit of the Chamberlain]. Kick me. Disable me. It will be an excuse for not going back to her. Kick me hard. PATIOMKIN. Yah! [He flings her on the bed and dashes after Naryshkin.] THE THIRD SCENE In a terrace garden overlooking the Neva. Claire, a robust young English lady, is leaning on the river wall. She turns expectantly on hearing the garden gate opened and closed. Edstaston hurries in. With a cry of delight she throws her arms round his neck. CLAIRE. Darling! EDSTASTON [making a wry face]. Don't call me darling. CLAIRE [amazed and chilled]. Why? EDSTASTON. I have been called darling all the morning. CLAIRE [with a flash of jealousy]. By whom? EDSTASTON. By everybody. By the most unutterable swine. And if we do not leave this abominable city now: do you hear? now; I shall be called darling by the Empress. CLAIRE [with magnificent snobbery]. She would not dare. Did you tell her you were engaged to me? EDSTASTON. Of course not. CLAIRE. Why? EDSTASTON. Because I didn't particularly want to have you knouted, and to be hanged or sent to Siberia myself. CLAIRE. What on earth do you mean? EDSTASTON. Well, the long and short of it is--don't think me a coxcomb, Claire: it is too serious to mince matters--I have seen the Empress; and-- CLAIRE. Well, you wanted to see her. EDSTASTON. Yes; but the Empress has seen me. CLAIRE. She has fallen in love with you! EDSTASTON. How did you know? CLAIRE. Dearest: as if anyone could help it. EDSTASTON. Oh, don't make me feel like a fool. But, though it does sound conceited to say it, I flatter myself I'm better looking than Patiomkin and the other hogs she is accustomed to. Anyhow, I daren't risk staying. CLAIRE. What a nuisance! Mamma will be furious at having to pack, and at missing the Court ball this evening. EDSTASTON. I can't help that. We haven't a moment to lose. CLAIRE. May I tell her she will be knouted if we stay? EDSTASTON. Do, dearest. He kisses her and lets her go, expecting her to run into the house. CLAIRE [pausing thoughtfully]. Is she--is she good-looking when you see her close? EDSTASTON. Not a patch on you, dearest. CLAIRE [jealous]. Then you did see her close? EDSTASTON. Fairly close. CLAIRE. Indeed! How close? No: that's silly of me: I will tell mamma. [She is going out when Naryshkin enters with the Sergeant and a squad of soldiers.] What do you want here? The Sergeant goes to Edstaston: plumps down on his knees: and takes out a magnificent pair of pistols with gold grips. He proffers them to Edstaston, holding them by the barrels. NARYSHKIN. Captain Edstaston: his Highness Prince Patiomkin sends you the pistols he promised you. THE SERGEANT. Take them, Little Father; and do not forget us poor soldiers who have brought them to you; for God knows we get but little to drink. EDSTASTON [irresolutely]. But I can't take these valuable things. By Jiminy, though, they're beautiful! Look at them, Claire. As he is taking the pistols the kneeling Sergeant suddenly drops them; flings himself forward; and embraces Edstaston's hips to prevent him from drawing his own pistols from his boots. THE SERGEANT. Lay hold of him there. Pin his arms. I have his pistols. [The soldiers seize Edstaston.] EDSTASTON. Ah, would you, damn you! [He drives his knee into the Sergeant's epigastrium, and struggles furiously with his captors.] THE SERGEANT [rolling on the ground, gasping and groaning]. Owgh! Murder! Holy Nicholas! Owwwgh! CLAIRE. Help! help! They are killing Charles. Help! NARYSHKIN [seizing her and clapping his hand over her mouth]. Tie him neck and crop. Ten thousand blows of the stick if you let him go. [Claire twists herself loose: turns on him: and cuffs him furiously.] Yow--ow! Have mercy, Little Mother. CLAIRE. You wretch! Help! Help! Police! We are being murdered. Help! The Sergeant, who has risen, comes to Naryshkin's rescue, and grasps Claire's hands, enabling Naryshkin to gag her again. By this time Edstaston and his captors are all rolling on the ground together. They get Edstaston on his back and fasten his wrists together behind his knees. Next they put a broad strap round his ribs. Finally they pass a pole through this breast strap and through the waist strap and lift him by it, helplessly trussed up, to carry him of. Meanwhile he is by no means suffering in silence. EDSTASTON [gasping]. You shall hear more of this. Damn you, will you untie me? I will complain to the ambassador. I will write to the Gazette. England will blow your trumpery little fleet out of the water and sweep your tinpot army into Siberia for this. Will you let me go? Damn you! Curse you! What the devil do you mean by it? I'll--I'll--I'll-- [he is carried out of hearing]. NARYSHKIN [snatching his hands from Claire's face with a scream, and shaking his finger frantically]. Agh! [The Sergeant, amazed, lets go her hands.] She has bitten me, the little vixen. CLAIRE [spitting and wiping her mouth disgustedly]. How dare you put your dirty paws on my mouth? Ugh! Psha! THE SERGEANT. Be merciful, Little angel Mother. CLAIRE. Do not presume to call me your little angel mother. Where are the police? NARYSHKIN. We are the police in St Petersburg, little spitfire. THE SERGEANT. God knows we have no orders to harm you, Little Mother. Our duty is done. You are well and strong; but I shall never be the same man again. He is a mighty and terrible fighter, as stout as a bear. He has broken my sweetbread with his strong knees. God knows poor folk should not be set upon such dangerous adversaries! CLAIRE. Serve you right! Where have they taken Captain Edstaston to? NARYSHKIN [spitefully]. To the Empress, little beauty. He has insulted the Empress. He will receive a hundred and one blows of the knout. [He laughs and goes out, nursing his bitten finger.] THE SERGEANT. He will feel only the first twenty and he will be mercifully dead long before the end, little darling. CLAIRE [sustained by an invincible snobbery]. They dare not touch an English officer. I will go to the Empress myself: she cannot know who Captain Edstaston is--who we are. THE SERGEANT. Do so in the name of the Holy Nicholas, little beauty. CLAIRE. Don't be impertinent. How can I get admission to the palace? THE SERGEANT. Everybody goes in and out of the palace, little love. CLAIRE. But I must get into the Empress's presence. I must speak to her. THE SERGEANT. You shall, dear Little Mother. You shall give the poor old Sergeant a rouble; and the blessed Nicholas will make your salvation his charge. CLAIRE [impetuously]. I will give you [she is about to say fifty roubles, but checks herself cautiously]--Well: I don't mind giving you two roubles if I can speak to the Empress. THE SERGEANT [joyfully]. I praise Heaven for you, Little Mother. Come. [He leads the way out.] It was the temptation of the devil that led your young man to bruise my vitals and deprive me of breath. We must be merciful to one another's faults. THE FOURTH SCENE A triangular recess communicating by a heavily curtained arch with the huge ballroom of the palace. The light is subdued by red shades on the candles. In the wall adjoining that pierced by the arch is a door. The only piece of furniture is a very handsome chair on the arch side. In the ballroom they are dancing a polonaise to the music of a brass band. Naryshkin enters through the door, followed by the soldiers carrying Edstaston, still trussed to the pole. Exhausted and dogged, he makes no sound. NARYSHKIN. Halt. Get that pole clear of the prisoner. [They dump Edstaston on the floor and detach the pole. Naryshkin stoops over him and addresses him insultingly.] Well! are you ready to be tortured? This is the Empress's private torture chamber. Can I do anything to make you quite comfortable? You have only to mention it. EDSTASTON. Have you any back teeth? NARYSHKIN [surprised]. Why? EDSTASTON. His Majesty King George the Third will send for six of them when the news of this reaches London; so look out, damn your eyes! NARYSHKIN [frightened]. Oh, I assure you I am only obeying my orders. Personally I abhor torture, and would save you if I could. But the Empress is proud; and what woman would forgive the slight you put upon her? EDSTASTON. As I said before: Damn your eyes! NARYSHKIN [almost in tears]. Well, it isn't my fault. [To the soldiers, insolently.] You know your orders? You remember what you have to do when the Empress gives you the word? [The soldiers salute in assent.] Naryshkin passes through the curtains, admitting a blare of music and a strip of the brilliant white candlelight from the chandeliers in the ballroom as he does so. The white light vanishes and the music is muffled as the curtains fall together behind him. Presently the band stops abruptly: and Naryshkin comes back through the curtains. He makes a warning gesture to the soldiers, who stand at attention. Then he moves the curtain to allow Catherine to enter. She is in full Imperial regalia, and stops sternly just where she has entered. The soldiers fall on their knees. CATHERINE. Obey your orders. The soldiers seize Edstaston, and throw him roughly at the feet of the Empress. CATHERINE [looking down coldly on him]. Also [the German word], you have put me to the trouble of sending for you twice. You had better have come the first time. EDSTASTON [exsufflicate, and pettishly angry]. I haven't come either time. I've been carried. I call it infernal impudence. CATHERINE. Take care what you say. EDSTASTON. No use. I daresay you look very majestic and very handsome; but I can't see you; and I am not intimidated. I am an Englishman; and you can kidnap me; but you can't bully me. NARYSHKIN. Remember to whom you are speaking. CATHERINE [violently, furious at his intrusion]. Remember that dogs should be dumb. [He shrivels.] And do you, Captain, remember that famous as I am for my clemency, there are limits to the patience even of an Empress. EDSTASTON. How is a man to remember anything when he is trussed up in this ridiculous fashion? I can hardly breathe. [He makes a futile struggle to free himself.] Here: don't be unkind, your Majesty: tell these fellows to unstrap me. You know you really owe me an apology. CATHERINE. You think you can escape by appealing, like Prince Patiomkin, to my sense of humor? EDSTASTON. Sense of humor! Ho! Ha, ha! I like that. Would anybody with a sense of humor make a guy of a man like this, and then expect him to take it seriously? I say: do tell them to loosen these straps. CATHERINE [seating herself]. Why should I, pray? EDSTASTON. Why! Why! Why, because they're hurting me. CATHERINE. People sometimes learn through suffering. Manners, for instance. EDSTASTON. Oh, well, of course, if you're an ill-natured woman, hurting me on purpose, I have nothing more to say. CATHERINE. A monarch, sir, has sometimes to employ a necessary, and salutary severity-- EDSTASTON [Interrupting her petulantly]. Quack! quack! quack! CATHERINE. Donnerwetter! EDSTASTON [continuing recklessly]. This isn't severity: it's tomfoolery. And if you think it's reforming my character or teaching me anything, you're mistaken. It may be a satisfaction to you; but if it is, all I can say is that it's not an amiable satisfaction. CATHERINE [turning suddenly and balefully on Naryshkin]. What are you grinning at? NARYSHKIN [falling on his knees in terror]. Be merciful, Little Mother. My heart is in my mouth. CATHERINE. Your heart and your mouth will be in two separate parts of your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand. Go. And take your men with you. [Naryshkin crawls to the door. The soldiers rise.] Stop. Roll that [indicating Edstaston] nearer. [The soldiers obey.] Not so close. Did I ask you for a footstool? [She pushes Edstaston away with her foot.] EDSTASTON [with a sudden squeal]. Agh!!! I must really ask your Majesty not to put the point of your Imperial toe between my ribs. I am ticklesome. CATHERINE. Indeed? All the more reason for you to treat me with respect, Captain. [To the others.] Begone. How many times must I give an order before it is obeyed? NARYSHKIN. Little Mother: they have brought some instruments of torture. Will they be needed? CATHERINE [indignantly]. How dare you name such abominations to a Liberal Empress? You will always be a savage and a fool, Naryshkin. These relics of barbarism are buried, thank God, in the grave of Peter the Great. My methods are more civilized. [She extends her toe towards Edstaston's ribs.] EDSTASTON [shrieking hysterically]. Yagh! Ah! [Furiously.] If your Majesty does that again I will write to the London Gazette. CATHERINE [to the soldiers]. Leave us. Quick! do you hear? Five thousand blows of the stick for the soldier who is in the room when I speak next. [The soldiers rush out.] Naryshkin: are you waiting to be knouted? [Naryshkin backs out hastily.] Catherine and Edstaston are now alone. Catherine has in her hand a sceptre or baton of gold. Wrapped round it is a new pamphlet, in French, entitled L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus. She calmly unrolls this and begins to read it at her ease as if she were quite alone. Several seconds elapse in dead silence. She becomes more and more absorbed in the pamphlet, and more and more amused by it. CATHERINE [greatly pleased by a passage, and turning over the leaf]. Ausgezeiehnet! EDSTASTON. Ahem! Silence. Catherine reads on. CATHERINE. Wie komisch! EDSTASTON. Ahem! ahem! Silence. CATHERINE [soliloquizing enthusiastically]. What a wonderful author is Monsieur Voltaire! How lucidly he exposes the folly of this crazy plan for raising the entire revenue of the country from a single tax on land! how he withers it with his irony! how he makes you laugh whilst he is convincing you! how sure one feels that the proposal is killed by his wit and economic penetration: killed never to be mentioned again among educated people! EDSTASTON. For Heaven's sake, Madam, do you intend to leave me tied up like this while you discuss the blasphemies of that abominable infidel? Agh!! [She has again applied her toe.] Oh! Oo! CATHERINE [calmly]. Do I understand you to say that Monsieur Voltaire is a great philanthropist and a great philosopher as well as the wittiest man in Europe? EDSTASTON. Certainly not. I say that his books ought to be burnt by the common hangman [her toe touches his ribs]. Yagh! Oh don't. I shall faint. I can't bear it. CATHERINE. Have you changed your opinion of Monsieur Voltaire? EDSTASTON. But you can't expect me as a member of the Church of England [she tickles him] --agh! Ow! Oh Lord! he is anything you like. He is a philanthropist, a philosopher, a beauty: he ought to have a statue, damn him! [she tickles him]. No! bless him! save him victorious, happy and glorious! Oh, let eternal honors crown his name: Voltaire thrice worthy on the rolls of fame! [Exhausted.] Now will you let me up? And look here! I can see your ankles when you tickle me: it's not ladylike. CATHERINE [sticking out her toe and admiring it critically]. Is the spectacle so disagreeable? EDSTASTON. It's agreeable enough; only [with intense expression] for heaven's sake don't touch me in the ribs. CATHERINE [putting aside the pamphlet]. Captain Edstaston, why did you refuse to come when I sent for you? EDSTASTON. Madam, I cannot talk tied up like this. CATHERINE. Do you still admire me as much as you did this morning? EDSTASTON. How can I possibly tell when I can't see you? Let me get up and look. I can't see anything now except my toes and yours. CATHERINE. Do you still intend to write to the London Gazette about me? EDSTASTON. Not if you will loosen these straps. Quick: loosen me. I'm fainting. CATHERINE. I don't think you are [tickling him]. EDSTASTON. Agh! Cat! CATHERINE. What [she tickles him again]. EDSTASTON [with a shriek]. No: angel, angel! CATHERINE [tenderly]. Geliebter! EDSTASTON. I don't know a word of German; but that sounded kind. [Becoming hysterical.] Little Mother, beautiful little darling angel mother: don't be cruel: untie me. Oh, I beg and implore you. Don't be unkind. I shall go mad. CATHERINE. You are expected to go mad with love when an Empress deigns to interest herself in you. When an Empress allows you to see her foot you should kiss it. Captain Edstaston, you are a booby. EDSTASTON [indignantly]. I am nothing of the kind. I have been mentioned in dispatches as a highly intelligent officer. And let me warn your Majesty that I am not so helpless as you think. The English Ambassador is in that ballroom. A shout from me will bring him to my side; and then where will your Majesty be? CATHERINE. I should like to see the English Ambassador or anyone else pass through that curtain against my orders. It might be a stone wall ten feet thick. Shout your loudest. Sob. Curse. Scream. Yell [she tickles him unmercifully]. EDSTASTON [frantically]. Ahowyou!!!! Agh! oh! Stop! Oh Lord! Ya-a-a-ah! [A tumult in the ballroom responds to his cries]. VOICES FROM THE BALLROOM. Stand back. You cannot pass. Hold her back there. The Empress's orders. It is out of the question. No, little darling, not in there. Nobody is allowed in there. You will be sent to Siberia. Don't let her through there, on your life. Drag her back. You will be knouted. It is hopeless, Mademoiselle: you must obey orders. Guard there! Send some men to hold her. CLAIRE'S VOICE. Let me go. They are torturing Charles in there. I WILL go. How can you all dance as if nothing was happening? Let me go, I tell you. Let--me--go. [She dashes through the curtain, no one dares follow her.] CATHERINE [rising in wrath]. How dare you? CLAIRE [recklessly]. Oh, dare your grandmother! Where is my Charles? What are they doing to him? EDSTASTON [shouting]. Claire, loosen these straps, in Heaven's name. Quick. CLAIRE [seeing him and throwing herself on her knees at his side]. Oh, how dare they tie you up like that! [To Catherine.] You wicked wretch! You Russian savage! [She pounces on the straps, and begins unbuckling them.] CATHERINE [conquering herself with a mighty effort]. Now self-control. Self-control, Catherine. Philosophy. Europe is looking on. [She forces herself to sit down.] EDSTASTON. Steady, dearest: it is the Empress. Call her your Imperial Majesty. Call her Star of the North, Little Mother, Little Darling: that's what she likes; but get the straps off. CLAIRE. Keep quiet, dear: I cannot get them off if you move. CATHERINE [calmly]. Keep quite still, Captain [she tickles him.] EDSTASTON. Ow! Agh! Ahowyow! CLAIRE [stopping dead in the act of unbuckling the straps and turning sick with jealousy as she grasps the situation]. Was THAT what I thought was your being tortured? CATHERINE [urbanely]. That is the favorite torture of Catherine the Second, Mademoiselle. I think the Captain enjoys it very much. CLAIRE. Then he can have as much more of it as he wants. I am sorry I intruded. [She rises to go.] EDSTASTON [catching her train in his teeth and holding on like a bull-dog]. Don't go. Don't leave me in this horrible state. Loosen me. [This is what he is saying: but as he says it with the train in his mouth it is not very intelligible.] CLAIRE. Let go. You are undignified and ridiculous enough yourself without making me ridiculous. [She snatches her train away.] EDSTASTON. Ow! You've nearly pulled my teeth out: you're worse than the Star of the North. [To Catherine.] Darling Little Mother: you have a kind heart, the kindest in Europe. Have pity. Have mercy. I love you. [Claire bursts into tears.] Release me. CATHERINE. Well, just to show you how much kinder a Russian savage can be than an English one (though I am sorry to say I am a German) here goes! [She stoops to loosen the straps.] CLAIRE [jealously]. You needn't trouble, thank you. [She pounces on the straps: and the two set Edstaston free between them.] Now get up, please; and conduct yourself with some dignity if you are not utterly demoralized. EDSTASTON. Dignity! Ow! I can't. I'm stiff all over. I shall never be able to stand up again. Oh Lord! how it hurts! [They seize him by the shoulders and drag him up.] Yah! Agh! Wow! Oh! Mmmmmm! Oh, Little Angel Mother, don't ever do this to a man again. Knout him; kill him; roast him; baste him; head, hang, and quarter him; but don't tie him up like that and tickle him. CATHERINE. Your young lady still seems to think that you enjoyed it. CLAIRE. I know what I think. I will never speak to him again. Your Majesty can keep him, as far as I am concerned. CATHERINE. I would not deprive you of him for worlds; though really I think he's rather a darling [she pats his cheek]. CLAIRE [snorting]. So I see, indeed. EDSTASTON. Don't be angry, dearest: in this country everybody's a darling. I'll prove it to you. [To Catherine.] Will your Majesty be good enough to call Prince Patiomkin? CATHERINE [surprised into haughtiness]. Why? EDSTASTON. To oblige me. Catherine laughs good-humoredly and goes to the curtains and opens them. The band strikes up a Redowa. CATHERINE [calling imperiously]. Patiomkin! [The music stops suddenly.] Here! To me! Go on with your music there, you fools. [The Redowa is resumed.] The sergeant rushes from the ballroom to relieve the Empress of the curtain. Patiomkin comes in dancing with Yarinka. CATHERINE [to Patiomkin]. The English captain wants you, little darling. Catherine resumes her seat as Patiomkin intimates by a grotesque bow that he is at Edstaston's service. Yarinka passes behind Edstaston and Claire, and posts herself on Claire's right. EDSTASTON. Precisely. [To Claire. ] You observe, my love: "little darling." Well, if her Majesty calls him a darling, is it my fault that she calls me one too? CLAIRE. I don't care: I don't think you ought to have done it. I am very angry and offended. EDSTASTON. They tied me up, dear. I couldn't help it. I fought for all I was worth. THE SERGEANT [at the curtains]. He fought with the strength of lions and bears. God knows I shall carry a broken sweetbread to my grave. EDSTASTON. You can't mean to throw me over, Claire. [Urgently.] Claire. Claire. VARINKA [in a transport of sympathetic emotion, pleading with clasped hands to Claire]. Oh, sweet little angel lamb, he loves you: it shines in his darling eyes. Pardon him, pardon him. PATIOMKIN [rushing from the Empress's side to Claire and falling on his knees to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, little cherub! little wild duck! little star! little glory! little jewel in the crown of heaven! CLAIRE. This is perfectly ridiculous. VARINKA [kneeling to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, little delight, little sleeper in a rosy cradle. CLAIRE. I'll do anything if you'll only let me alone. THE SERGEANT [kneeling to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, lest the mighty man bring his whip to you. God knows we all need pardon! CLAIRE [at the top of her voice]. I pardon him! I pardon him! PATIOMKIN [springing up joyfully and going behind Claire, whom he raises in his arms]. Embrace her, victor of Bunker's Hill. Kiss her till she swoons. THE SERGEANT. Receive her in the name of the holy Nicholas. VARINKA. She begs you for a thousand dear little kisses all over her body. CLAIRE [vehemently]. I do not. [Patiomkin throws her into Edstaston's arms.] Oh! [The pair, awkward and shamefaced, recoil from one another, and remain utterly inexpressive.] CATHERINE [pushing Edstaston towards Claire]. There is no help for it, Captain. This is Russia, not England. EDSTASTON [plucking up some geniality, and kissing Claire ceremoniously on the brow]. I have no objection. VARINKA [disgusted]. Only one kiss! and on the forehead! Fish. See how I kiss, though it is only my horribly ugly old uncle [she throws her arms round Patiomkin's neck and covers his face with kisses]. THE SERGEANT [moved to tears]. Sainted Nicholas: bless your lambs! CATHERINE. Do you wonder now that I love Russia as I love no other place on earth? NARYSHKIN [appearing at the door]. Majesty: the model for the new museum has arrived. CATHERINE [rising eagerly and making for the curtains]. Let us go. I can think of nothing but my museum. [In the archway she stops and turns to Edstaston, who has hurried to lift the curtain for her.] Captain, I wish you every happiness that your little angel can bring you. [For his ear alone.] I could have brought you more; but you did not think so. Farewell. EDSTASTON [kissing her hand, which, instead of releasing, he holds caressingly and rather patronizingly in his own]. I feel your Majesty's kindness so much that I really cannot leave you without a word of plain wholesome English advice. CATHERINE [snatching her hand away and bounding forward as if he had touched her with a spur]. Advice!!! PATIOMKIN. Madman: take care! NARYSHKIN. Advise the Empress!! THE SERGEANT. Sainted Nicholas! VARINKA. Hoo hoo! [a stifled splutter of laughter]. EDSTASTON [following the Empress and resuming kindly but judicially]. After all, though your Majesty is of course a great queen, yet when all is said, I am a man; and your Majesty is only a woman. CATHERINE. Only a wo-- [she chokes]. EDSTASTON [continuing]. Believe me, this Russian extravagance will not do. I appreciate as much as any man the warmth of heart that prompts it; but it is overdone: it is hardly in the best taste: it is really I must say it--it is not proper. CATHERINE [ironically, in German]. So! EDSTASTON. Not that I cannot make allowances. Your Majesty has, I know, been unfortunate in your experience as a married woman-- CATHERINE [furious]. Alle Wetter!!! EDSTASTON [sentimentally]. Don't say that. Don't think of him in that way. After all, he was your husband; and whatever his faults may have been, it is not for you to think unkindly of him. CATHERINE [almost bursting]. I shall forget myself. EDSTASTON. Come! I am sure he really loved you; and you truly loved him. CATHERINE [controlling herself with a supreme effort]. No, Catherine. What would Voltaire say? EDSTASTON. Oh, never mind that vile scoffer. Set an example to Europe, Madam, by doing what I am going to do. Marry again. Marry some good man who will be a strength and support to your old age. CATHERINE. My old--[she again becomes speechless]. EDSTASTON. Yes: we must all grow old, even the handsomest of us. CATHERINE [sinking into her chair with a gasp]. Thank you. EDSTASTON. You will thank me more when you see your little ones round your knee, and your man there by the fireside in the winter evenings--by the way, I forgot that you have no fireside here in spite of the coldness of the climate; so shall I say by the stove? CATHERINE. Certainly, if you wish. The stove by all means. EDSTASTON [impulsively]. Ah, Madam, abolish the stove: believe me, there is nothing like the good old open grate. Home! duty! happiness! they all mean the same thing; and they all flourish best on the drawing-room hearthrug. [Turning to Claire.] And now, my love, we must not detain the Queen: she is anxious to inspect the model of her museum, to which I am sure we wish every success. CLAIRE [coldly]. I am not detaining her. EDSTASTON. Well, goodbye [wringing Patiomkin's hand] goo-oo-oodbye, Prince: come and see us if ever you visit England. Spire View, Deepdene, Little Mugford, Devon, will always find me. [To Yarinka, kissing her hand.] Goodbye, Mademoiselle: goodbye, Little Mother, if I may call you that just once. [Varinka puts up her face to be kissed.] Eh? No, no, no, no: you don't mean that, you know. Naughty! [To the Sergeant.] Goodbye, my friend. You will drink our healths with this [tipping him]. THE SERGEANT. The blessed Nicholas will multiply your fruits, Little Father. EDSTASTON. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. He goes out backwards, bowing, with Claire curtseying, having been listened to in utter dumbfoundedness by Patiomkin and Naryshkin, in childlike awe by Yarinka, and with quite inexpressible feelings by Catherine. When he is out of sight she rises with clinched fists and raises her arms and her closed eyes to Heaven. Patiomkin: rousing himself from his stupor of amazement, springs to her like a tiger, and throws himself at her feet. PATIOMKIN. What shall I do to him for you? Skin him alive? Cut off his eyelids and stand him in the sun? Tear his tongue out? What shall it be? CATHERINE [opening her eyes]. Nothing. But oh, if I could only have had him for my--for my--for my-- PATIOMKIN [in a growl of jealousy]. For your lover? CATHERINE [with an ineffable smile]. No: for my museum. 
2906	----	FIRST SERIES PLAYS By John Galsworthy THE SILVER BOX A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS PERSONS OF THE PLAY JOHN BARTHWICK, M.P., a wealthy Liberal MRS. BARTHWICK, his wife JACK BARTHWICK, their son ROPER, their solicitor MRS. JONES, their charwoman MARLOW, their manservant WHEELER, their maidservant JONES, the stranger within their gates MRS. SEDDON, a landlady SNOW, a detective A POLICE MAGISTRATE AN UNKNOWN LADY, from beyond TWO LITTLE GIRLS, homeless LIVENS, their father A RELIEVING OFFICER A MAGISTRATE'S CLERK AN USHER POLICEMEN, CLERKS, AND OTHERS TIME: The present. The action of the first two Acts takes place on Easter Tuesday; the action of the third on Easter Wednesday week. ACT I. SCENE I. Rockingham Gate. John Barthwick's dining-room. SCENE II. The same. SCENE III. The same. ACT II. SCENE I. The Jones's lodgings, Merthyr Street. SCENE II. John Barthwick's dining-room. ACT III. A London police court. ACT I SCENE I The curtain rises on the BARTHWICK'S dining-room, large, modern, and well furnished; the window curtains drawn. Electric light is burning. On the large round dining-table is set out a tray with whisky, a syphon, and a silver cigarette-box. It is past midnight. A fumbling is heard outside the door. It is opened suddenly; JACK BARTHWICK seems to fall into the room. He stands holding by the door knob, staring before him, with a beatific smile. He is in evening dress and opera hat, and carries in his hand a sky-blue velvet lady's reticule. His boyish face is freshly coloured and clean-shaven. An overcoat is hanging on his arm. JACK. Hello! I've got home all ri----[Defiantly.] Who says I sh'd never 've opened th' door without 'sistance. [He staggers in, fumbling with the reticule. A lady's handkerchief and purse of crimson silk fall out.] Serve her joll' well right--everything droppin' out. Th' cat. I 've scored her off--I 've got her bag. [He swings the reticule.] Serves her joly' well right. [He takes a cigarette out of the silver box and puts it in his mouth.] Never gave tha' fellow anything! [He hunts through all his pockets and pulls a shilling out; it drops and rolls away. He looks for it.] Beastly shilling! [He looks again.] Base ingratitude! Absolutely nothing. [He laughs.] Mus' tell him I've got absolutely nothing. [He lurches through the door and down a corridor, and presently returns, followed by JONES, who is advanced in liquor. JONES, about thirty years of age, has hollow cheeks, black circles round his eyes, and rusty clothes: He looks as though he might be unemployed, and enters in a hang-dog manner.] JACK. Sh! sh! sh! Don't you make a noise, whatever you do. Shu' the door, an' have a drink. [Very solemnly.] You helped me to open the door--I 've got nothin, for you. This is my house. My father's name's Barthwick; he's Member of Parliament--Liberal Member of Parliament: I've told you that before. Have a drink! [He pours out whisky and drinks it up.] I'm not drunk [Subsiding on a sofa.] Tha's all right. Wha's your name? My name's Barthwick, so's my father's; I'm a Liberal too--wha're you? JONES. [In a thick, sardonic voice.] I'm a bloomin' Conservative. My name's Jones! My wife works 'ere; she's the char; she works 'ere. JACK. Jones? [He laughs.] There's 'nother Jones at College with me. I'm not a Socialist myself; I'm a Liberal--there's ve--lill difference, because of the principles of the Lib--Liberal Party. We're all equal before the law--tha's rot, tha's silly. [Laughs.] Wha' was I about to say? Give me some whisky. [JONES gives him the whisky he desires, together with a squirt of syphon.] Wha' I was goin' tell you was--I 've had a row with her. [He waves the reticule.] Have a drink, Jonessh 'd never have got in without you--tha 's why I 'm giving you a drink. Don' care who knows I've scored her off. Th' cat! [He throws his feet up on the sofa.] Don' you make a noise, whatever you do. You pour out a drink--you make yourself good long, long drink--you take cigarette--you take anything you like. Sh'd never have got in without you. [Closing his eyes.] You're a Tory--you're a Tory Socialist. I'm Liberal myself--have a drink--I 'm an excel'nt chap. [His head drops back. He, smiling, falls asleep, and JONES stands looking at him; then, snatching up JACK's glass, he drinks it off. He picks the reticule from off JACK'S shirt-front, holds it to the light, and smells at it.] JONES. Been on the tiles and brought 'ome some of yer cat's fur. [He stuffs it into JACK's breast pocket.] JACK. [Murmuring.] I 've scored you off! You cat! [JONES looks around him furtively; he pours out whisky and drinks it. From the silver box he takes a cigarette, puffs at it, and drinks more whisky. There is no sobriety left in him.] JONES. Fat lot o' things they've got 'ere! [He sees the crimson purse lying on the floor.] More cat's fur. Puss, puss! [He fingers it, drops it on the tray, and looks at JACK.] Calf! Fat calf! [He sees his own presentment in a mirror. Lifting his hands, with fingers spread, he stares at it; then looks again at JACK, clenching his fist as if to batter in his sleeping, smiling face. Suddenly he tilts the rest o f the whisky into the glass and drinks it. With cunning glee he takes the silver box and purse and pockets them.] I 'll score you off too, that 's wot I 'll do! [He gives a little snarling laugh and lurches to the door. His shoulder rubs against the switch; the light goes out. There is a sound as of a closing outer door.] The curtain falls. The curtain rises again at once. SCENE II In the BARTHWICK'S dining-room. JACK is still asleep; the morning light is coming through the curtains. The time is half-past eight. WHEELER, brisk person enters with a dust-pan, and MRS. JONES more slowly with a scuttle. WHEELER. [Drawing the curtains.] That precious husband of yours was round for you after you'd gone yesterday, Mrs. Jones. Wanted your money for drink, I suppose. He hangs about the corner here half the time. I saw him outside the "Goat and Bells" when I went to the post last night. If I were you I would n't live with him. I would n't live with a man that raised his hand to me. I wouldn't put up with it. Why don't you take your children and leave him? If you put up with 'im it'll only make him worse. I never can see why, because a man's married you, he should knock you about. MRS. JONES. [Slim, dark-eyed, and dark-haired; oval-faced, and with a smooth, soft, even voice; her manner patient, her way of talking quite impersonal; she wears a blue linen dress, and boots with holes.] It was nearly two last night before he come home, and he wasn't himself. He made me get up, and he knocked me about; he didn't seem to know what he was saying or doing. Of course I would leave him, but I'm really afraid of what he'd do to me. He 's such a violent man when he's not himself. WHEELER. Why don't you get him locked up? You'll never have any peace until you get him locked up. If I were you I'd go to the police court tomorrow. That's what I would do. MRS. JONES. Of course I ought to go, because he does treat me so badly when he's not himself. But you see, Bettina, he has a very hard time--he 's been out of work two months, and it preys upon his mind. When he's in work he behaves himself much better. It's when he's out of work that he's so violent. WHEELER. Well, if you won't take any steps you 'll never get rid of him. MRS. JONES. Of course it's very wearing to me; I don't get my sleep at nights. And it 's not as if I were getting help from him, because I have to do for the children and all of us. And he throws such dreadful things up at me, talks of my having men to follow me about. Such a thing never happens; no man ever speaks to me. And of course, it's just the other way. It's what he does that's wrong and makes me so unhappy. And then he 's always threatenin' to cut my throat if I leave him. It's all the drink, and things preying on his mind; he 's not a bad man really. Sometimes he'll speak quite kind to me, but I've stood so much from him, I don't feel it in me to speak kind back, but just keep myself to myself. And he's all right with the children too, except when he's not himself. WHEELER. You mean when he's drunk, the beauty. MRS. JONES. Yes. [Without change of voice] There's the young gentleman asleep on the sofa. [They both look silently at Jack.] MRS. JONES. [At last, in her soft voice.] He does n't look quite himself. WHEELER. He's a young limb, that's what he is. It 's my belief he was tipsy last night, like your husband. It 's another kind of bein' out of work that sets him to drink. I 'll go and tell Marlow. This is his job. [She goes.] [Mrs. Jones, upon her knees, begins a gentle sweeping.] JACK. [Waking.] Who's there? What is it? MRS. JONES. It's me, sir, Mrs. Jones. JACK. [Sitting up and looking round.] Where is it--what--what time is it? MRS. JONES. It's getting on for nine o'clock, sir. JACK. For nine! Why--what! [Rising, and loosening his tongue; putting hands to his head, and staring hard at Mrs. Jones.] Look here, you, Mrs.----Mrs. Jones--don't you say you caught me asleep here. MRS. JONES. No, sir, of course I won't sir. JACK. It's quite an accident; I don't know how it happened. I must have forgotten to go to bed. It's a queer thing. I 've got a most beastly headache. Mind you don't say anything, Mrs. Jones. [Goes out and passes MARLOW in the doorway. MARLOW is young and quiet; he is cleanshaven, and his hair is brushed high from his forehead in a coxcomb. Incidentally a butler, he is first a man. He looks at MRS. JONES, and smiles a private smile.] MARLOW. Not the first time, and won't be the last. Looked a bit dicky, eh, Mrs. Jones? MRS. JONES. He did n't look quite himself. Of course I did n't take notice. MARLOW. You're used to them. How's your old man? MRS. JONES. [Softly as throughout.] Well, he was very bad last night; he did n't seem to know what he was about. He was very late, and he was most abusive. But now, of course, he's asleep. MARLOW. That's his way of finding a job, eh? MRS. JONES. As a rule, Mr. Marlow, he goes out early every morning looking for work, and sometimes he comes in fit to drop--and of course I can't say he does n't try to get it, because he does. Trade's very bad. [She stands quite still, her fan and brush before her, at the beginning and the end of long vistas of experience, traversing them with her impersonal eye.] But he's not a good husband to me--last night he hit me, and he was so dreadfully abusive. MARLOW. Bank 'oliday, eh! He 's too fond of the "Goat and Bells," that's what's the matter with him. I see him at the corner late every night. He hangs about. MRS. JONES. He gets to feeling very low walking about all day after work, and being refused so often, and then when he gets a drop in him it goes to his head. But he shouldn't treat his wife as he treats me. Sometimes I 've had to go and walk about at night, when he wouldn't let me stay in the room; but he's sorry for it afterwards. And he hangs about after me, he waits for me in the street; and I don't think he ought to, because I 've always been a good wife to him. And I tell him Mrs. Barthwick wouldn't like him coming about the place. But that only makes him angry, and he says dreadful things about the gentry. Of course it was through me that he first lost his place, through his not treating me right; and that's made him bitter against the gentry. He had a very good place as groom in the country; but it made such a stir, because of course he did n't treat me right. MARLOW. Got the sack? MRS. JONES. Yes; his employer said he couldn't keep him, because there was a great deal of talk; and he said it was such a bad example. But it's very important for me to keep my work here; I have the three children, and I don't want him to come about after me in the streets, and make a disturbance as he sometimes does. MARLOW. [Holding up the empty decanter.] Not a drain! Next time he hits you get a witness and go down to the court---- MRS. JONES. Yes, I think I 've made up my mind. I think I ought to. MARLOW. That's right. Where's the ciga----? [He searches for the silver box; he looks at MRS. JONES, who is sweeping on her hands and knees; he checks himself and stands reflecting. From the tray he picks two half-smoked cigarettes, and reads the name on them.] Nestor--where the deuce----? [With a meditative air he looks again at MRS. JONES, and, taking up JACK'S overcoat, he searches in the pockets. WHEELER, with a tray of breakfast things, comes in.] MARLOW. [Aside to WHEELER.] Have you seen the cigarette-box? WHEELER. No. MARLOW. Well, it's gone. I put it on the tray last night. And he's been smoking. [Showing her the ends of cigarettes.] It's not in these pockets. He can't have taken it upstairs this morning! Have a good look in his room when he comes down. Who's been in here? WHEELER. Only me and Mrs. Jones. MRS. JONES. I 've finished here; shall I do the drawing-room now? WHEELER. [Looking at her doubtfully.] Have you seen----Better do the boudwower first. [MRS. JONES goes out with pan and brush. MARLOW and WHEELER look each other in the face.] MARLOW. It'll turn up. WHEELER. [Hesitating.] You don't think she---- [Nodding at the door.] MARLOW. [Stoutly.] I don't----I never believes anything of anybody. WHEELER. But the master'll have to be told. MARLOW. You wait a bit, and see if it don't turn up. Suspicion's no business of ours. I set my mind against it. The curtain falls. The curtain rises again at once. SCENE III BARTHWICK and MRS. BARTHWICK are seated at the breakfast table. He is a man between fifty and sixty; quietly important, with a bald forehead, and pince-nez, and the "Times" in his hand. She is a lady of nearly fifty, well dressed, with greyish hair, good features, and a decided manner. They face each other. BARTHWICK. [From behind his paper.] The Labour man has got in at the by-election for Barnside, my dear. MRS. BARTHWICK. Another Labour? I can't think what on earth the country is about. BARTHWICK. I predicted it. It's not a matter of vast importance. MRS. BARTHWICK. Not? How can you take it so calmly, John? To me it's simply outrageous. And there you sit, you Liberals, and pretend to encourage these people! BARTHWICK. [Frowning.] The representation of all parties is necessary for any proper reform, for any proper social policy. MRS. BARTHWICK. I've no patience with your talk of reform--all that nonsense about social policy. We know perfectly well what it is they want; they want things for themselves. Those Socialists and Labour men are an absolutely selfish set of people. They have no sense of patriotism, like the upper classes; they simply want what we've got. BARTHWICK. Want what we've got! [He stares into space.] My dear, what are you talking about? [With a contortion.] I 'm no alarmist. MRS. BARTHWICK. Cream? Quite uneducated men! Wait until they begin to tax our investments. I 'm convinced that when they once get a chance they will tax everything--they 've no feeling for the country. You Liberals and Conservatives, you 're all alike; you don't see an inch before your noses. You've no imagination, not a scrap of imagination between you. You ought to join hands and nip it in the bud. BARTHWICK. You 're talking nonsense! How is it possible for Liberals and Conservatives to join hands, as you call it? That shows how absurd it is for women----Why, the very essence of a Liberal is to trust in the people! MRS. BARTHWICK. Now, John, eat your breakfast. As if there were any real difference between you and the Conservatives. All the upper classes have the same interests to protect, and the same principles. [Calmly.] Oh! you're sitting upon a volcano, John. BARTHWICK. What! MRS. BARTHWICK. I read a letter in the paper yesterday. I forget the man's name, but it made the whole thing perfectly clear. You don't look things in the face. BARTHWICK. Indeed! [Heavily.] I am a Liberal! Drop the subject, please! MRS. BARTHWICK. Toast? I quite agree with what this man says: Education is simply ruining the lower classes. It unsettles them, and that's the worst thing for us all. I see an enormous difference in the manner of servants. BARTHWICK, [With suspicious emphasis.] I welcome any change that will lead to something better. [He opens a letter.] H'm! This is that affair of Master Jack's again. "High Street, Oxford. Sir, We have received Mr. John Barthwick, Senior's, draft for forty pounds!" Oh! the letter's to him! "We now enclose the cheque you cashed with us, which, as we stated in our previous letter, was not met on presentation at your bank. We are, Sir, yours obediently, Moss and Sons, Tailors." H 'm! [Staring at the cheque.] A pretty business altogether! The boy might have been prosecuted. MRS. BARTHWICK. Come, John, you know Jack did n't mean anything; he only thought he was overdrawing. I still think his bank ought to have cashed that cheque. They must know your position. BARTHWICK. [Replacing in the envelope the letter and the cheque.] Much good that would have done him in a court of law. [He stops as JACK comes in, fastening his waistcoat and staunching a razor cut upon his chin.] JACK. [Sitting down between them, and speaking with an artificial joviality.] Sorry I 'm late. [He looks lugubriously at the dishes.] Tea, please, mother. Any letters for me? [BARTHWICK hands the letter to him.] But look here, I say, this has been opened! I do wish you would n't---- BARTHWICK. [Touching the envelope.] I suppose I 'm entitled to this name. JACK. [Sulkily.] Well, I can't help having your name, father! [He reads the letter, and mutters.] Brutes! BARTHWICK. [Eyeing him.] You don't deserve to be so well out of that. JACK. Haven't you ragged me enough, dad? MRS. BARTHWICK. Yes, John, let Jack have his breakfast. BARTHWICK. If you hadn't had me to come to, where would you have been? It's the merest accident--suppose you had been the son of a poor man or a clerk. Obtaining money with a cheque you knew your bank could not meet. It might have ruined you for life. I can't see what's to become of you if these are your principles. I never did anything of the sort myself. JACK. I expect you always had lots of money. If you've got plenty of money, of course---- BARTHWICK. On the contrary, I had not your advantages. My father kept me very short of money. JACK. How much had you, dad? BARTHWICK. It's not material. The question is, do you feel the gravity of what you did? JACK. I don't know about the gravity. Of course, I 'm very sorry if you think it was wrong. Have n't I said so! I should never have done it at all if I had n't been so jolly hard up. BARTHWICK. How much of that forty pounds have you got left, Jack? JACK. [Hesitating.] I don't know--not much. BARTHWICK. How much? JACK. [Desperately.] I have n't got any. BARTHWICK. What? JACK. I know I 've got the most beastly headache. [He leans his head on his hand.] MRS. BARTHWICK. Headache? My dear boy! Can't you eat any breakfast? JACK. [Drawing in his breath.] Too jolly bad! MRS. BARTHWICK. I'm so sorry. Come with me; dear; I'll give you something that will take it away at once. [They leave the room; and BARTHWICK, tearing up the letter, goes to the fireplace and puts the pieces in the fire. While he is doing this MARLOW comes in, and looking round him, is about quietly to withdraw.] BARTHWICK. What's that? What d 'you want? MARLOW. I was looking for Mr. John, sir. BARTHWICK. What d' you want Mr. John for? MARLOW. [With hesitation.] I thought I should find him here, sir. BARTHWICK. [Suspiciously.] Yes, but what do you want him for? MARLOW. [Offhandedly.] There's a lady called--asked to speak to him for a minute, sir. BARTHWICK. A lady, at this time in the morning. What sort of a lady? MARLOW. [Without expression in his voice.] I can't tell, sir; no particular sort. She might be after charity. She might be a Sister of Mercy, I should think, sir. BARTHWICK. Is she dressed like one? MARLOW. No, sir, she's in plain clothes, sir. BARTHWICK. Did n't she say what she wanted? MARLOW. No sir. BARTHWICK. Where did you leave her? MARLOW. In the hall, sir. BARTHWICK. In the hall? How do you know she's not a thief--not got designs on the house? MARLOW. No, sir, I don't fancy so, sir. BARTHWICK. Well, show her in here; I'll see her myself. [MARLOW goes out with a private gesture of dismay. He soon returns, ushering in a young pale lady with dark eyes and pretty figure, in a modish, black, but rather shabby dress, a black and white trimmed hat with a bunch of Parma violets wrongly placed, and fuzzy-spotted veil. At the Sight of MR. BARTHWICK she exhibits every sign of nervousness. MARLOW goes out.] UNKNOWN LADY. Oh! but--I beg pardon there's some mistake--I [She turns to fly.] BARTHWICK. Whom did you want to see, madam? UNKNOWN. [Stopping and looking back.] It was Mr. John Barthwick I wanted to see. BARTHWICK. I am John Barthwick, madam. What can I have the pleasure of doing for you? UNKNOWN. Oh! I--I don't [She drops her eyes. BARTHWICK scrutinises her, and purses his lips.] BARTHWICK. It was my son, perhaps, you wished to see? UNKNOWN. [Quickly.] Yes, of course, it's your son. BARTHWICK. May I ask whom I have the pleasure of speaking to? UNKNOWN. [Appeal and hardiness upon her face.] My name is----oh! it does n't matter--I don't want to make any fuss. I just want to see your son for a minute. [Boldly.] In fact, I must see him. BARTHWICK. [Controlling his uneasiness.] My son is not very well. If necessary, no doubt I could attend to the matter; be so kind as to let me know---- UNKNOWN. Oh! but I must see him--I 've come on purpose--[She bursts out nervously.] I don't want to make any fuss, but the fact is, last--last night your son took away--he took away my [She stops.] BARTHWICK. [Severely.] Yes, madam, what? UNKNOWN. He took away my--my reticule. BARTHWICK. Your reti----? UNKNOWN. I don't care about the reticule; it's not that I want--I 'm sure I don't want to make any fuss--[her face is quivering]--but --but--all my money was in it! BARTHWICK. In what--in what? UNKNOWN. In my purse, in the reticule. It was a crimson silk purse. Really, I wouldn't have come--I don't want to make any fuss. But I must get my money back--mustn't I? BARTHWICK. Do you tell me that my son----? UNKNOWN. Oh! well, you see, he was n't quite I mean he was [She smiles mesmerically.] BARTHWICK. I beg your pardon. UNKNOWN. [Stamping her foot.] Oh! don't you see--tipsy! We had a quarrel. BARTHWICK. [Scandalised.] How? Where? UNKNOWN. [Defiantly.] At my place. We'd had supper at the----and your son---- BARTHWICK. [Pressing the bell.] May I ask how you knew this house? Did he give you his name and address? UNKNOWN. [Glancing sidelong.] I got it out of his overcoat. BARTHWICK. [Sardonically.] Oh! you got it out of his overcoat. And may I ask if my son will know you by daylight? UNKNOWN. Know me? I should jolly--I mean, of course he will! [MARLOW comes in.] BARTHWICK. Ask Mr. John to come down. [MARLOW goes out, and BARTHWICK walks uneasily about.] And how long have you enjoyed his acquaintanceship? UNKNOWN. Only since--only since Good Friday. BARTHWICK. I am at a loss--I repeat I am at a---- [He glances at this unknown lady, who stands with eyes cast down, twisting her hands And suddenly Jack appears. He stops on seeing who is here, and the unknown lady hysterically giggles. There is a silence.] BARTHWICK. [Portentously.] This young--er--lady says that last night--I think you said last night madam--you took away---- UNKNOWN. [Impulsively.] My reticule, and all my money was in a crimson silk purse. JACK. Reticule. [Looking round for any chance to get away.] I don't know anything about it. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] Come, do you deny seeing this young lady last night? JACK. Deny? No, of course. [Whispering.] Why did you give me away like this? What on earth did you come here for? UNKNOWN. [Tearfully.] I'm sure I didn't want to--it's not likely, is it? You snatched it out of my hand--you know you did--and the purse had all my money in it. I did n't follow you last night because I did n't want to make a fuss and it was so late, and you were so---- BARTHWICK. Come, sir, don't turn your back on me--explain! JACK. [Desperately.] I don't remember anything about it. [In a low voice to his friend.] Why on earth could n't you have written? UNKNOWN. [Sullenly.] I want it now; I must have, it--I 've got to pay my rent to-day. [She looks at BARTHWICK.] They're only too glad to jump on people who are not--not well off. JACK. I don't remember anything about it, really. I don't remember anything about last night at all. [He puts his hand up to his head.] It's all--cloudy, and I 've got such a beastly headache. UNKNOWN. But you took it; you know you did. You said you'd score me off. JACK. Well, then, it must be here. I remember now--I remember something. Why did I take the beastly thing? BARTHWICK. Yes, why did you take the beastly----[He turns abruptly to the window.] UNKNOWN. [With her mesmeric smile.] You were n't quite were you? JACK. [Smiling pallidly.] I'm awfully sorry. If there's anything I can do---- BARTHWICK. Do? You can restore this property, I suppose. JACK. I'll go and have a look, but I really don't think I 've got it. [He goes out hurriedly. And BARTHWICK, placing a chair, motions to the visitor to sit; then, with pursed lips, he stands and eyes her fixedly. She sits, and steals a look at him; then turns away, and, drawing up her veil, stealthily wipes her eyes. And Jack comes back.] JACK. [Ruefully holding out the empty reticule.] Is that the thing? I 've looked all over--I can't find the purse anywhere. Are you sure it was there? UNKNOWN. [Tearfully.] Sure? Of course I'm sure. A crimson silk purse. It was all the money I had. JACK. I really am awfully sorry--my head's so jolly bad. I 've asked the butler, but he has n't seen it. UNKNOWN. I must have my money---- JACK. Oh! Of course--that'll be all right; I'll see that that's all right. How much? UNKNOWN. [Sullenly.] Seven pounds-twelve--it's all I 've got in the world. JACK. That'll be all right; I'll--send you a cheque. UNKNOWN. [Eagerly.] No; now, please. Give me what was in my purse; I've got to pay my rent this morning. They won't' give me another day; I'm a fortnight behind already. JACK. [Blankly.] I'm awfully sorry; I really have n't a penny in my pocket. [He glances stealthily at BARTHWICK.] UNKNOWN. [Excitedly.] Come I say you must--it's my money, and you took it. I 'm not going away without it. They 'll turn me out of my place. JACK. [Clasping his head.] But I can't give you what I have n't got. Don't I tell you I have n't a beastly cent. UNKNOWN. [Tearing at her handkerchief.] Oh! do give it me! [She puts her hands together in appeal; then, with sudden fierceness.] If you don't I'll summons you. It's stealing, that's what it is! BARTHWICK. [Uneasily.] One moment, please. As a matter of---er --principle, I shall settle this claim. [He produces money.] Here is eight pounds; the extra will cover the value of the purse and your cab fares. I need make no comment--no thanks are necessary. [Touching the bell, he holds the door ajar in silence. The unknown lady stores the money in her reticule, she looks from JACK to BARTHWICK, and her face is quivering faintly with a smile. She hides it with her hand, and steals away. Behind her BARTHWICK shuts the door.] BARTHWICK. [With solemnity.] H'm! This is nice thing to happen! JACK. [Impersonally.] What awful luck! BARTHWICK. So this is the way that forty pounds has gone! One thing after another! Once more I should like to know where you 'd have been if it had n't been for me! You don't seem to have any principles. You--you're one of those who are a nuisance to society; you--you're dangerous! What your mother would say I don't know. Your conduct, as far as I can see, is absolutely unjustifiable. It's--it's criminal. Why, a poor man who behaved as you've done --d' you think he'd have any mercy shown him? What you want is a good lesson. You and your sort are--[he speaks with feeling]--a nuisance to the community. Don't ask me to help you next time. You're not fit to be helped. JACK. [Turning upon his sire, with unexpected fierceness.] All right, I won't then, and see how you like it. You would n't have helped me this time, I know, if you had n't been scared the thing would get into the papers. Where are the cigarettes? BARTHWICK. [Regarding him uneasily.] Well I 'll say no more about it. [He rings the bell.] I 'll pass it over for this once, but---- [MARLOW Comes in.] You can clear away. [He hides his face behind the "Times."] JACK. [Brightening.] I say, Marlow, where are the cigarettes? MARLOW. I put the box out with the whisky last night, sir, but this morning I can't find it anywhere. JACK. Did you look in my room? MARLOW. Yes, sir; I've looked all over the house. I found two Nestor ends in the tray this morning, so you must have been smokin' last night, sir. [Hesitating.] I 'm really afraid some one's purloined the box. JACK. [Uneasily.] Stolen it! BARTHWICK. What's that? The cigarette-box! Is anything else missing? MARLOW. No, sir; I 've been through the plate. BARTHWICK. Was the house all right this morning? None of the windows open? MARLOW. No, sir. [Quietly to JACK.] You left your latch-key in the door last night, sir. [He hands it back, unseen by BARTHWICK] JACK. Tst! BARTHWICK. Who's been in the room this morning? MARLOW. Me and Wheeler, and Mrs. Jones is all, sir, as far as I know. BARTHWICK. Have you asked Mrs. Barthwick? [To JACK.] Go and ask your mother if she's had it; ask her to look and see if she's missed anything else. [JACK goes upon this mission.] Nothing is more disquieting than losing things like this. MARLOW. No, sir. BARTHWICK. Have you any suspicions? MARLOW, No, sir. BARTHWICK. This Mrs. Jones--how long has she been working here? MARLOW. Only this last month, sir. BARTHWICK. What sort of person? MARLOW. I don't know much about her, sir; seems a very quiet, respectable woman. BARTHWICK. Who did the room this morning? MARLOW. Wheeler and Mrs. Jones, Sir. BARTHWICK. [With his forefinger upraised.] Now, was this Mrs. Jones in the room alone at any time? MARLOW. [Expressionless.] Yes, Sir. BARTHWICK. How do you know that? MARLOW. [Reluctantly.] I found her here, sir. BARTHWICK. And has Wheeler been in the room alone? MARLOW. No, sir, she's not, sir. I should say, sir, that Mrs. Jones seems a very honest---- BARTHWICK. [Holding up his hand.] I want to know this: Has this Mrs. Jones been here the whole morning? MARLOW. Yes, sir--no, sir--she stepped over to the greengrocer's for cook. BARTHWICK. H'm! Is she in the house now? MARLOW. Yes, Sir. BARTHWICK. Very good. I shall make a point of clearing this up. On principle I shall make a point of fixing the responsibility; it goes to the foundations of security. In all your interests---- MARLOW. Yes, Sir. BARTHWICK. What sort of circumstances is this Mrs. Jones in? Is her husband in work? MARLOW. I believe not, sir. BARTHWICK. Very well. Say nothing about it to any one. Tell Wheeler not to speak of it, and ask Mrs. Jones to step up here. MARLOW. Very good, sir. [MARLOW goes out, his face concerned; and BARTHWICK stays, his face judicial and a little pleased, as befits a man conducting an inquiry. MRS. BARTHWICK and hey son come in.] BARTHWICK. Well, my dear, you've not seen it, I suppose? MRS. BARTHWICK. No. But what an extraordinary thing, John! Marlow, of course, is out of the question. I 'm certain none of the maids as for cook! BARTHWICK. Oh, cook! MRS. BARTHWICK. Of course! It's perfectly detestable to me to suspect anybody. BARTHWICK. It is not a question of one's feelings. It's a question of justice. On principle---- MRS. BARTHWICK. I should n't be a bit surprised if the charwoman knew something about it. It was Laura who recommended her. BARTHWICK. [Judicially.] I am going to have Mrs. Jones up. Leave it to me; and--er--remember that nobody is guilty until they're proved so. I shall be careful. I have no intention of frightening her; I shall give her every chance. I hear she's in poor circumstances. If we are not able to do much for them we are bound to have the greatest sympathy with the poor. [MRS. JONES comes in.] [Pleasantly.] Oh! good morning, Mrs. Jones. MRS. JONES. [Soft, and even, unemphatic.] Good morning, sir! Good morning, ma'am! BARTHWICK. About your husband--he's not in work, I hear? MRS. JONES. No, sir; of course he's not in work just now. BARTHWICK. Then I suppose he's earning nothing. MRS. JONES. No, sir, he's not earning anything just now, sir. BARTHWICK. And how many children have you? MRS. JONES. Three children; but of course they don't eat very much sir. [A little silence.] BARTHWICK. And how old is the eldest? MRS. JONES. Nine years old, sir. BARTHWICK. Do they go to school? MRS. JONES, Yes, sir, they all three go to school every day. BARTHWICK. [Severely.] And what about their food when you're out at work? MRS. JONES. Well, Sir, I have to give them their dinner to take with them. Of course I 'm not always able to give them anything; sometimes I have to send them without; but my husband is very good about the children when he's in work. But when he's not in work of course he's a very difficult man. BARTHWICK. He drinks, I suppose? MRS. JONES. Yes, Sir. Of course I can't say he does n't drink, because he does. BARTHWICK. And I suppose he takes all your money? MRS. JONES. No, sir, he's very good about my money, except when he's not himself, and then, of course, he treats me very badly. BARTHWICK. Now what is he--your husband? MRS. JONES. By profession, sir, of course he's a groom. BARTHWICK. A groom! How came he to lose his place? MRS. JONES. He lost his place a long time ago, sir, and he's never had a very long job since; and now, of course, the motor-cars are against him. BARTHWICK. When were you married to him, Mrs. Jones? MRS. JONES. Eight years ago, sir that was in---- MRS. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] Eight? You said the eldest child was nine. MRS. JONES. Yes, ma'am; of course that was why he lost his place. He did n't treat me rightly, and of course his employer said he couldn't keep him because of the example. BARTHWICK. You mean he--ahem---- MRS. JONES. Yes, sir; and of course after he lost his place he married me. MRS. BARTHWICK. You actually mean to say you--you were---- BARTHWICK. My dear---- MRS. BARTHWICK. [Indignantly.] How disgraceful! BARTHWICK. [Hurriedly.] And where are you living now, Mrs. Jones? MRS. JONES. We've not got a home, sir. Of course we've been obliged to put away most of our things. BARTHWICK. Put your things away! You mean to--to--er--to pawn them? MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, to put them away. We're living in Merthyr Street--that is close by here, sir--at No. 34. We just have the one room. BARTHWICK. And what do you pay a week? MRS. JONES. We pay six shillings a week, sir, for a furnished room. BARTHWICK. And I suppose you're behind in the rent? MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, we're a little behind in the rent. BARTHWICK. But you're in good work, aren't you? MRS. JONES. Well, Sir, I have a day in Stamford Place Thursdays. And Mondays and Wednesdays and Fridays I come here. But to-day, of course, is a half-day, because of yesterday's Bank Holiday. BARTHWICK. I see; four days a week, and you get half a crown a day, is that it? MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, and my dinner; but sometimes it's only half a day, and that's eighteen pence. BARTHWICK. And when your husband earns anything he spends it in drink, I suppose? MRS. JONES. Sometimes he does, sir, and sometimes he gives it to me for the children. Of course he would work if he could get it, sir, but it seems there are a great many people out of work. BARTHWICK. Ah! Yes. We--er--won't go into that. [Sympathetically.] And how about your work here? Do you find it hard? MRS. JONES. Oh! no, sir, not very hard, sir; except of course, when I don't get my sleep at night. BARTHWICK. Ah! And you help do all the rooms? And sometimes, I suppose, you go out for cook? MRS. JONES. Yes, Sir. BARTHWICK. And you 've been out this morning? MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, of course I had to go to the greengrocer's. BARTHWICK. Exactly. So your husband earns nothing? And he's a bad character. MRS. JONES. No, Sir, I don't say that, sir. I think there's a great deal of good in him; though he does treat me very bad sometimes. And of course I don't like to leave him, but I think I ought to, because really I hardly know how to stay with him. He often raises his hand to me. Not long ago he gave me a blow here [touches her breast] and I can feel it now. So I think I ought to leave him, don't you, sir? BARTHWICK. Ah! I can't help you there. It's a very serious thing to leave your husband. Very serious thing. MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, of course I 'm afraid of what he might do to me if I were to leave him; he can be so very violent. BARTHWICK. H'm! Well, that I can't pretend to say anything about. It's the bad principle I'm speaking of---- MRS. JONES. Yes, Sir; I know nobody can help me. I know I must decide for myself, and of course I know that he has a very hard life. And he's fond of the children, and its very hard for him to see them going without food. BARTHWICK. [Hastily.] Well--er--thank you, I just wanted to hear about you. I don't think I need detain you any longer, Mrs. Jones. MRS. JONES. No, sir, thank you, sir. BARTHWICK. Good morning, then. MRS. JONES. Good morning, sir; good morning, ma'am. BARTHWICK. [Exchanging glances with his wife.] By the way, Mrs. Jones--I think it is only fair to tell you, a silver cigarette-box --er--is missing. MRS. JONES. [Looking from one face to the other.] I am very sorry, sir. BARTHWICK. Yes; you have not seen it, I suppose? MRS. JONES. [Realising that suspicion is upon her; with an uneasy movement.] Where was it, sir; if you please, sir? BARTHWICK. [Evasively.] Where did Marlow say? Er--in this room, yes, in this room. MRS. JONES. No, Sir, I have n't seen it--of course if I 'd seen it I should have noticed it. BARTHWICK. [Giving hey a rapid glance.] You--you are sure of that? MRS. JONES. [Impassively.] Yes, Sir. [With a slow nodding of her head.] I have not seen it, and of course I don't know where it is. [She turns and goes quietly out.] BARTHWICK. H'm! [The three BARTHWICKS avoid each other's glances.] The curtain falls. ACT II SCENE I The JONES's lodgings, Merthyr Street, at half-past two o'clock. The bare room, with tattered oilcloth and damp, distempered walls, has an air of tidy wretchedness. On the bed lies JONES, half-dressed; his coat is thrown across his feet, and muddy boots are lying on the floor close by. He is asleep. The door is opened and MRS. JONES comes in, dressed in a pinched black jacket and old black sailor hat; she carries a parcel wrapped up in the "Times." She puts her parcel down, unwraps an apron, half a loaf, two onions, three potatoes, and a tiny piece of bacon. Taking a teapot from the cupboard, she rinses it, shakes into it some powdered tea out of a screw of paper, puts it on the hearth, and sitting in a wooden chair quietly begins to cry. JONES. [Stirring and yawning.] That you? What's the time? MRS. JONES. [Drying her eyes, and in her usual voice.] Half-past two. JONES. What you back so soon for? MRS. JONES. I only had the half day to-day, Jem. JONES. [On his back, and in a drowsy voice.] Got anything for dinner? MRS. JONES. Mrs. BARTHWICK's cook gave me a little bit of bacon. I'm going to make a stew. [She prepares for cooking.] There's fourteen shillings owing for rent, James, and of course I 've only got two and fourpence. They'll be coming for it to-day. JONES. [Turning towards her on his elbow.] Let 'em come and find my surprise packet. I've had enough o' this tryin' for work. Why should I go round and round after a job like a bloomin' squirrel in a cage. "Give us a job, sir"--"Take a man on"--"Got a wife and three children." Sick of it I am! I 'd sooner lie here and rot. "Jones, you come and join the demonstration; come and 'old a flag, and listen to the ruddy orators, and go 'ome as empty as you came." There's some that seems to like that--the sheep! When I go seekin' for a job now, and see the brutes lookin' me up an' down, it's like a thousand serpents in me. I 'm not arskin' for any treat. A man wants to sweat hisself silly and not allowed that's a rum start, ain't it? A man wants to sweat his soul out to keep the breath in him and ain't allowed--that's justice that's freedom and all the rest of it! [He turns his face towards the wall.] You're so milky mild; you don't know what goes on inside o' me. I'm done with the silly game. If they want me, let 'em come for me! [MRS. JONES stops cooking and stands unmoving at the table.] I've tried and done with it, I tell you. I've never been afraid of what 's before me. You mark my words--if you think they've broke my spirit, you're mistook. I 'll lie and rot sooner than arsk 'em again. What makes you stand like that--you long-sufferin', Gawd-forsaken image--that's why I can't keep my hands off you. So now you know. Work! You can work, but you have n't the spirit of a louse! MRS. JONES. [Quietly.] You talk more wild sometimes when you're yourself, James, than when you 're not. If you don't get work, how are we to go on? They won't let us stay here; they're looking to their money to-day, I know. JONES. I see this BARTHWICK o' yours every day goin' down to Pawlyment snug and comfortable to talk his silly soul out; an' I see that young calf, his son, swellin' it about, and goin' on the razzle-dazzle. Wot 'ave they done that makes 'em any better than wot I am? They never did a day's work in their lives. I see 'em day after day. MRS. JONES. And I wish you wouldn't come after me like that, and hang about the house. You don't seem able to keep away at all, and whatever you do it for I can't think, because of course they notice it. JONES. I suppose I may go where I like. Where may I go? The other day I went to a place in the Edgware Road. "Gov'nor," I says to the boss, "take me on," I says. "I 'aven't done a stroke o' work not these two months; it takes the heart out of a man," I says; "I 'm one to work; I 'm not afraid of anything you can give me!" "My good man," 'e says, "I 've had thirty of you here this morning. I took the first two," he says, "and that's all I want." "Thank you, then rot the world!" I says. "Blasphemin'," he says, "is not the way to get a job. Out you go, my lad!" [He laughs sardonically.] Don't you raise your voice because you're starvin'; don't yer even think of it; take it lyin' down! Take it like a sensible man, carn't you? And a little way down the street a lady says to me: [Pinching his voice] "D' you want to earn a few pence, my man?" and gives me her dog to 'old outside a shop-fat as a butler 'e was--tons o' meat had gone to the makin' of him. It did 'er good, it did, made 'er feel 'erself that charitable, but I see 'er lookin' at the copper standin' alongside o' me, for fear I should make off with 'er bloomin' fat dog. [He sits on the edge of the bed and puts a boot on. Then looking up.] What's in that head o' yours? [Almost pathetically.] Carn't you speak for once? [There is a knock, and MRS. SEDDON, the landlady, appears, an anxious, harassed, shabby woman in working clothes.] MRS. SEDDON. I thought I 'eard you come in, Mrs. Jones. I 've spoke to my 'usband, but he says he really can't afford to wait another day. JONES. [With scowling jocularity.] Never you mind what your 'usband says, you go your own way like a proper independent woman. Here, jenny, chuck her that. [Producing a sovereign from his trousers pocket, he throws it to his wife, who catches it in her apron with a gasp. JONES resumes the lacing of his boots.] MRS. JONES. [Rubbing the sovereign stealthily.] I'm very sorry we're so late with it, and of course it's fourteen shillings, so if you've got six that will be right. [MRS. SEDDON takes the sovereign and fumbles for the change.] JONES. [With his eyes fixed on his boots.] Bit of a surprise for yer, ain't it? MRS. SEDDON. Thank you, and I'm sure I'm very much obliged. [She does indeed appear surprised.] I 'll bring you the change. JONES. [Mockingly.] Don't mention it. MRS. SEDDON. Thank you, and I'm sure I'm very much obliged. [She slides away.] [MRS. JONES gazes at JONES who is still lacing up his boots.] JONES. I 've had a bit of luck. [Pulling out the crimson purse and some loose coins.] Picked up a purse--seven pound and more. MRS. JONES. Oh, James! JONES. Oh, James! What about Oh, James! I picked it up I tell you. This is lost property, this is! MRS. JONES. But is n't there a name in it, or something? JONES. Name? No, there ain't no name. This don't belong to such as 'ave visitin' cards. This belongs to a perfec' lidy. Tike an' smell it. [He pitches her the purse, which she puts gently to her nose.] Now, you tell me what I ought to have done. You tell me that. You can always tell me what I ought to ha' done, can't yer? MRS. JONES. [Laying down the purse.] I can't say what you ought to have done, James. Of course the money was n't yours; you've taken somebody else's money. JONES. Finding's keeping. I 'll take it as wages for the time I 've gone about the streets asking for what's my rights. I'll take it for what's overdue, d' ye hear? [With strange triumph.] I've got money in my pocket, my girl. [MRS. JONES goes on again with the preparation of the meal, JONES looking at her furtively.] Money in my pocket! And I 'm not goin' to waste it. With this 'ere money I'm goin' to Canada. I'll let you have a pound. [A silence.] You've often talked of leavin' me. You 've often told me I treat you badly--well I 'ope you 'll be glad when I 'm gone. MRS. JONES. [Impassively.] You have, treated me very badly, James, and of course I can't prevent your going; but I can't tell whether I shall be glad when you're gone. JONES. It'll change my luck. I 've 'ad nothing but bad luck since I first took up with you. [More softly.] And you've 'ad no bloomin' picnic. MRS. JONES. Of course it would have been better for us if we had never met. We were n't meant for each other. But you're set against me, that's what you are, and you have been for a long time. And you treat me so badly, James, going after that Rosie and all. You don't ever seem to think of the children that I 've had to bring into the world, and of all the trouble I 've had to keep them, and what 'll become of them when you're gone. JONES. [Crossing the room gloomily.] If you think I want to leave the little beggars you're bloomin' well mistaken. MRS. JONES. Of course I know you're fond of them. JONES. [Fingering the purse, half angrily.] Well, then, you stow it, old girl. The kids 'll get along better with you than when I 'm here. If I 'd ha' known as much as I do now, I 'd never ha' had one o' them. What's the use o' bringin' 'em into a state o' things like this? It's a crime, that's what it is; but you find it out too late; that's what's the matter with this 'ere world. [He puts the purse back in his pocket.] MRS. JONES. Of course it would have been better for them, poor little things; but they're your own children, and I wonder at you talkin' like that. I should miss them dreadfully if I was to lose them. JONES. [Sullenly.] An' you ain't the only one. If I make money out there--[Looking up, he sees her shaking out his coat--in a changed voice.] Leave that coat alone! [The silver box drops from the pocket, scattering the cigarettes upon the bed. Taking up the box she stares at it; he rushes at her and snatches the box away.] MRS. JONES. [Cowering back against the bed.] Oh, Jem! oh, Jem! JONES. [Dropping the box onto the table.] You mind what you're sayin'! When I go out I 'll take and chuck it in the water along with that there purse. I 'ad it when I was in liquor, and for what you do when you 're in liquor you're not responsible-and that's Gawd's truth as you ought to know. I don't want the thing--I won't have it. I took it out o' spite. I 'm no thief, I tell you; and don't you call me one, or it'll be the worse for you. MRS. JONES. [Twisting her apron strings.] It's Mr. Barthwick's! You've taken away my reputation. Oh, Jem, whatever made you? JONES. What d' you mean? MRS. JONES. It's been missed; they think it's me. Oh! whatever made you do it, Jem? JONES. I tell you I was in liquor. I don't want it; what's the good of it to me? If I were to pawn it they'd only nab me. I 'm no thief. I 'm no worse than wot that young Barthwick is; he brought 'ome that purse that I picked up--a lady's purse--'ad it off 'er in a row, kept sayin' 'e 'd scored 'er off. Well, I scored 'im off. Tight as an owl 'e was! And d' you think anything'll happen to him? MRS. JONES. [As though speaking to herself.] Oh, Jem! it's the bread out of our mouths! JONES. Is it then? I'll make it hot for 'em yet. What about that purse? What about young BARTHWICK? [MRS. JONES comes forward to the table and tries to take the box; JONES prevents her.] What do you want with that? You drop it, I say! MRS. JONES. I 'll take it back and tell them all about it. [She attempts to wrest the box from him.] JONES. Ah, would yer? [He drops the box, and rushes on her with a snarl. She slips back past the bed. He follows; a chair is overturned. The door is opened; Snow comes in, a detective in plain clothes and bowler hat, with clipped moustaches. JONES drops his arms, MRS. JONES stands by the window gasping; SNOW, advancing swiftly to the table, puts his hand on the silver box.] SNOW. Doin' a bit o' skylarkin'? Fancy this is what I 'm after. J. B., the very same. [He gets back to the door, scrutinising the crest and cypher on the box. To MRS. JONES.] I'm a police officer. Are you Mrs. Jones? MRS. JONES. Yes, Sir. SNOW. My instructions are to take you on a charge of stealing this box from J. BARTHWICK, Esquire, M.P., of 6, Rockingham Gate. Anything you say may be used against you. Well, Missis? MRS. JONES. [In her quiet voice, still out of breath, her hand upon her breast.] Of course I did not take it, sir. I never have taken anything that did n't belong to me; and of course I know nothing about it. SNOW. You were at the house this morning; you did the room in which the box was left; you were alone in the room. I find the box 'ere. You say you did n't take it? MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, of course I say I did not take it, because I did not. SNOW. Then how does the box come to be here? MRS. JONES. I would rather not say anything about it. SNOW. Is this your husband? MRS. JONES. Yes, sir, this is my husband, sir. SNOW. Do you wish to say anything before I take her? [JONES remains silent, with his head bend down.] Well then, Missis. I 'll just trouble you to come along with me quietly. MRS. JONES. [Twisting her hands.] Of course I would n't say I had n't taken it if I had--and I did n't take it, indeed I did n't. Of course I know appearances are against me, and I can't tell you what really happened: But my children are at school, and they'll be coming home--and I don't know what they'll do without me. SNOW. Your 'usband'll see to them, don't you worry. [He takes the woman gently by the arm.] JONES. You drop it--she's all right! [Sullenly.] I took the thing myself. SNOW. [Eyeing him] There, there, it does you credit. Come along, Missis. JONES. [Passionately.] Drop it, I say, you blooming teck. She's my wife; she 's a respectable woman. Take her if you dare! SNOW. Now, now. What's the good of this? Keep a civil tongue, and it'll be the better for all of us. [He puts his whistle in his mouth and draws the woman to the door.] JONES. [With a rush.] Drop her, and put up your 'ands, or I 'll soon make yer. You leave her alone, will yer! Don't I tell yer, I took the thing myself. SNOW. [Blowing his whistle.] Drop your hands, or I 'll take you too. Ah, would you? [JONES, closing, deals him a blow. A Policeman in uniform appears; there is a short struggle and JONES is overpowered. MRS. JONES raises her hands avid drops her face on them.] The curtain falls. SCENE II The BARTHWICKS' dining-room the same evening. The BARTHWICKS are seated at dessert. MRS. BARTHWICK. John! [A silence broken by the cracking of nuts.] John! BARTHWICK. I wish you'd speak about the nuts they're uneatable. [He puts one in his mouth.] MRS. BARTHWICK. It's not the season for them. I called on the Holyroods. [BARTHWICK fills his glass with port.] JACK. Crackers, please, Dad. [BARTHWICK passes the crackers. His demeanour is reflective.] MRS. BARTHWICK. Lady Holyrood has got very stout. I 've noticed it coming for a long time. BARTHWICK. [Gloomily.] Stout? [He takes up the crackers--with transparent airiness.] The Holyroods had some trouble with their servants, had n't they? JACK. Crackers, please, Dad. BARTHWICK. [Passing the crackers.] It got into the papers. The cook, was n't it? MRS. BARTHWICK. No, the lady's maid. I was talking it over with Lady Holyrood. The girl used to have her young man to see her. BARTHWICK. [Uneasily.] I'm not sure they were wise---- MRS. BARTHWICK. My dear John, what are you talking about? How could there be any alternative? Think of the effect on the other servants! BARTHWICK. Of course in principle--I wasn't thinking of that. JACK. [Maliciously.] Crackers, please, Dad. [BARTHWICK is compelled to pass the crackers.] MRS. BARTHWICK. Lady Holyrood told me: "I had her up," she said; "I said to her, 'You'll leave my house at once; I think your conduct disgraceful. I can't tell, I don't know, and I don't wish to know, what you were doing. I send you away on principle; you need not come to me for a character.' And the girl said: 'If you don't give me my notice, my lady, I want a month's wages. I'm perfectly respectable. I've done nothing.'"'--Done nothing! BARTHWICK. H'm! MRS. BARTHWICK. Servants have too much license. They hang together so terribly you never can tell what they're really thinking; it's as if they were all in a conspiracy to keep you in the dark. Even with Marlow, you feel that he never lets you know what's really in his mind. I hate that secretiveness; it destroys all confidence. I feel sometimes I should like to shake him. JACK. Marlow's a most decent chap. It's simply beastly every one knowing your affairs. BARTHWICK. The less you say about that the better! MRS. BARTHWICK. It goes all through the lower classes. You can not tell when they are speaking the truth. To-day when I was shopping after leaving the Holyroods, one of these unemployed came up and spoke to me. I suppose I only had twenty yards or so to walk to the carnage, but he seemed to spring up in the street. BARTHWICK. Ah! You must be very careful whom you speak to in these days. MRS. BARTHWICK. I did n't answer him, of course. But I could see at once that he wasn't telling the truth. BARTHWICK. [Cracking a nut.] There's one very good rule--look at their eyes. JACK. Crackers, please, Dad. BARTHWICK. [Passing the crackers.] If their eyes are straight-forward I sometimes give them sixpence. It 's against my principles, but it's most difficult to refuse. If you see that they're desperate, and dull, and shifty-looking, as so many of them are, it's certain to mean drink, or crime, or something unsatisfactory. MRS. BARTHWICK. This man had dreadful eyes. He looked as if he could commit a murder. "I 've 'ad nothing to eat to-day," he said. Just like that. BARTHWICK. What was William about? He ought to have been waiting. JACK. [Raising his wine-glass to his nose.] Is this the '63, Dad? [BARTHWICK, holding his wine-glass to his eye, lowers it and passes it before his nose.] MRS. BARTHWICK. I hate people that can't speak the truth. [Father and son exchange a look behind their port.] It 's just as easy to speak the truth as not. I've always found it easy enough. It makes it impossible to tell what is genuine; one feels as if one were continually being taken in. BARTHWICK. [Sententiously.] The lower classes are their own enemies. If they would only trust us, they would get on so much better. MRS. BARTHWICK. But even then it's so often their own fault. Look at that Mrs. Jones this morning. BARTHWICK. I only want to do what's right in that matter. I had occasion to see Roper this afternoon. I mentioned it to him. He's coming in this evening. It all depends on what the detective says. I've had my doubts. I've been thinking it over. MRS. BARTHWICK. The woman impressed me most unfavourably. She seemed to have no shame. That affair she was talking about--she and the man when they were young, so immoral! And before you and Jack! I could have put her out of the room! BARTHWICK. Oh! I don't want to excuse them, but in looking at these matters one must consider---- MRS. BARTHWICK. Perhaps you'll say the man's employer was wrong in dismissing him? BARTHWICK. Of course not. It's not there that I feel doubt. What I ask myself is---- JACK. Port, please, Dad. BARTHWICK. [Circulating the decanter in religious imitation of the rising and setting of the sun.] I ask myself whether we are sufficiently careful in making inquiries about people before we engage them, especially as regards moral conduct. JACK. Pass the-port, please, Mother! MRS. BARTHWICK. [Passing it.] My dear boy, are n't you drinking too much? [JACK fills his glass.] MARLOW. [Entering.] Detective Snow to see you, Sir. BARTHWICK. [Uneasily.] Ah! say I'll be with him in a minute. MRS. BARTHWICK. [Without turning.] Let him come in here, Marlow. [SNOW enters in an overcoat, his bowler hat in hand.] BARTHWICK. [Half-rising.] Oh! Good evening! SNOW. Good evening, sir; good evening, ma'am. I 've called round to report what I 've done, rather late, I 'm afraid--another case took me away. [He takes the silver box out o f his pocket, causing a sensation in the BARTHWICK family.] This is the identical article, I believe. BARTHWICK. Certainly, certainly. SNOW. Havin' your crest and cypher, as you described to me, sir, I 'd no hesitation in the matter. BARTHWICK. Excellent. Will you have a glass of [he glances at the waning port]--er--sherry-[pours out sherry]. Jack, just give Mr. Snow this. [JACK rises and gives the glass to SNOW; then, lolling in his chair, regards him indolently.] SNOW. [Drinking off wine and putting down the glass.] After seeing you I went round to this woman's lodgings, sir. It's a low neighborhood, and I thought it as well to place a constable below --and not without 'e was wanted, as things turned out. BARTHWICK. Indeed! SNOW. Yes, Sir, I 'ad some trouble. I asked her to account for the presence of the article. She could give me no answer, except to deny the theft; so I took her into custody; then her husband came for me, so I was obliged to take him, too, for assault. He was very violent on the way to the station--very violent--threatened you and your son, and altogether he was a handful, I can till you. MRS. BARTHWICK. What a ruffian he must be! SNOW. Yes, ma'am, a rough customer. JACK. [Sipping his mine, bemused.] Punch the beggar's head. SNOW. Given to drink, as I understand, sir. MRS. BARTHWICK. It's to be hoped he will get a severe punishment. SNOW. The odd thing is, sir, that he persists in sayin' he took the box himself. BARTHWICK. Took the box himself! [He smiles.] What does he think to gain by that? SNOW. He says the young gentleman was intoxicated last night [JACK stops the cracking of a nut, and looks at SNOW.] [BARTHWICK, losing his smile, has put his wine-glass down; there is a silence--SNOW, looking from face to face, remarks] --took him into the house and gave him whisky; and under the influence of an empty stomach the man says he took the box. MRS. BARTHWICK. The impudent wretch! BARTHWICK. D' you mean that he--er--intends to put this forward to-morrow? SNOW. That'll be his line, sir; but whether he's endeavouring to shield his wife, or whether [he looks at JACK] there's something in it, will be for the magistrate to say. MRS. BARTHWICK. [Haughtily.] Something in what? I don't understand you. As if my son would bring a man like that into the house! BARTHWICK. [From the fireplace, with an effort to be calm.] My son can speak for himself, no doubt. Well, Jack, what do you say? MRS. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] What does he say? Why, of course, he says the whole story's stuff! JACK. [Embarrassed.] Well, of course, I--of course, I don't know anything about it. MRS. BARTHWICK. I should think not, indeed! [To Snow.] The man is an audacious ruffian! BARTHWICK. [Suppressing jumps.] But in view of my son's saying there's nothing in this--this fable--will it be necessary to proceed against the man under the circumstances? SNOW. We shall have to charge him with the assault, sir. It would be as well for your son to come down to the Court. There'll be a remand, no doubt. The queer thing is there was quite a sum of money found on him, and a crimson silk purse. [BARTHWICK starts; JACK rises and sits dozen again.] I suppose the lady has n't missed her purse? BARTHWICK. [Hastily.] Oh, no! Oh! No! JACK. No! MRS. BARTHWICK. [Dreamily.] No! [To SNOW.] I 've been inquiring of the servants. This man does hang about the house. I shall feel much safer if he gets a good long sentence; I do think we ought to be protected against such ruffians. BARTHWICK. Yes, yes, of course, on principle but in this case we have a number of things to think of. [To SNOW.] I suppose, as you say, the man must be charged, eh? SNOW. No question about that, sir. BARTHWICK. [Staring gloomily at JACK.] This prosecution goes very much against the grain with me. I have great sympathy with the poor. In my position I 'm bound to recognise the distress there is amongst them. The condition of the people leaves much to be desired. D' you follow me? I wish I could see my way to drop it. MRS. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] John! it's simply not fair to other people. It's putting property at the mercy of any one who likes to take it. BARTHWICK. [Trying to make signs to her aside.] I 'm not defending him, not at all. I'm trying to look at the matter broadly. MRS. BARTHWICK. Nonsense, John, there's a time for everything. SNOW. [Rather sardonically.] I might point out, sir, that to withdraw the charge of stealing would not make much difference, because the facts must come out [he looks significantly at JACK] in reference to the assault; and as I said that charge will have to go forward. BARTHWICK. [Hastily.] Yes, oh! exactly! It's entirely on the woman's account--entirely a matter of my own private feelings. SNOW. If I were you, sir, I should let things take their course. It's not likely there'll be much difficulty. These things are very quick settled. BARTHWICK. [Doubtfully.] You think so--you think so? JACK. [Rousing himself.] I say, what shall I have to swear to? SNOW. That's best known to yourself, sir. [Retreating to the door.] Better employ a solicitor, sir, in case anything should arise. We shall have the butler to prove the loss of the article. You'll excuse me going, I 'm rather pressed to-night. The case may come on any time after eleven. Good evening, sir; good evening, ma'am. I shall have to produce the box in court to-morrow, so if you'll excuse me, sir, I may as well take it with me. [He takes the silver box and leaves them with a little bow.] [BARTHWICK makes a move to follow him, then dashing his hands beneath his coat tails, speaks with desperation.] BARTHWICK. I do wish you'd leave me to manage things myself. You will put your nose into matters you know nothing of. A pretty mess you've made of this! MRS. BARTHWICK. [Coldly.] I don't in the least know what you're talking about. If you can't stand up for your rights, I can. I 've no patience with your principles, it's such nonsense. BARTHWICK. Principles! Good Heavens! What have principles to do with it for goodness sake? Don't you know that Jack was drunk last night! JACK. Dad! MRS. BARTHWICK. [In horror rising.] Jack! JACK. Look here, Mother--I had supper. Everybody does. I mean to say--you know what I mean--it's absurd to call it being drunk. At Oxford everybody gets a bit "on" sometimes---- MRS. BARTHWICK. Well, I think it's most dreadful! If that is really what you do at Oxford? JACK. [Angrily.] Well, why did you send me there? One must do as other fellows do. It's such nonsense, I mean, to call it being drunk. Of course I 'm awfully sorry. I 've had such a beastly headache all day. BARTHWICK. Tcha! If you'd only had the common decency to remember what happened when you came in. Then we should know what truth there was in what this fellow says--as it is, it's all the most confounded darkness. JACK. [Staring as though at half-formed visions.] I just get a-- and then--it 's gone---- MRS. BARTHWICK. Oh, Jack! do you mean to say you were so tipsy you can't even remember---- JACK. Look here, Mother! Of course I remember I came--I must have come---- BARTHWICK. [Unguardedly, and walking up and down.] Tcha!--and that infernal purse! Good Heavens! It'll get into the papers. Who on earth could have foreseen a thing like this? Better to have lost a dozen cigarette-boxes, and said nothing about it. [To his wife.] It's all your doing. I told you so from the first. I wish to goodness Roper would come! MRS. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] I don't know what you're talking about, John. BARTHWICK. [Turning on her.] No, you--you--you don't know anything! [Sharply.] Where the devil is Roper? If he can see a way out of this he's a better man than I take him for. I defy any one to see a way out of it. I can't. JACK. Look here, don't excite Dad--I can simply say I was too beastly tired, and don't remember anything except that I came in and [in a dying voice] went to bed the same as usual. BARTHWICK. Went to bed? Who knows where you went--I 've lost all confidence. For all I know you slept on the floor. JACK. [Indignantly.] I did n't, I slept on the---- BARTHWICK. [Sitting on the sofa.] Who cares where you slept; what does it matter if he mentions the--the--a perfect disgrace? MRS. BARTHWICK. What? [A silence.] I insist on knowing. JACK. Oh! nothing. MRS. BARTHWICK. Nothing? What do you mean by nothing, Jack? There's your father in such a state about it! JACK. It's only my purse. MRS. BARTHWICK. Your purse! You know perfectly well you have n't got one. JACK. Well, it was somebody else's--it was all a joke--I did n't want the beastly thing. MRS. BARTHWICK. Do you mean that you had another person's purse, and that this man took it too? BARTHWICK. Tcha! Of course he took it too! A man like that Jones will make the most of it. It'll get into the papers. MRS. BARTHWICK. I don't understand. What on earth is all the fuss about? [Bending over JACK, and softly.] Jack now, tell me dear! Don't be afraid. What is it? Come! JACK. Oh, don't Mother! MRS. BARTHWICK. But don't what, dear? JACK. It was pure sport. I don't know how I got the thing. Of course I 'd had a bit of a row--I did n't know what I was doing--I was--I Was--well, you know--I suppose I must have pulled the bag out of her hand. MRS. BARTHWICK. Out of her hand? Whose hand? What bag--whose bag? JACK. Oh! I don't know--her bag--it belonged to--[in a desperate and rising voice] a woman. MRS. BARTHWICK. A woman? Oh! Jack! No! JACK. [Jumping up.] You would have it. I did n't want to tell you. It's not my fault. [The door opens and MARLOW ushers in a man of middle age, inclined to corpulence, in evening dress. He has a ruddy, thin moustache, and dark, quick-moving little eyes. His eyebrows aye Chinese.] MARLOW. Mr. Roper, Sir. [He leaves the room.] ROPER. [With a quick look round.] How do you do? [But neither JACK nor MRS. BARTHWICK make a sign.] BARTHWICK. [Hurrying.] Thank goodness you've come, Roper. You remember what I told you this afternoon; we've just had the detective here. ROPER. Got the box? BARTHWICK. Yes, yes, but look here--it was n't the charwoman at all; her drunken loafer of a husband took the things--he says that fellow there [he waves his hand at JACK, who with his shoulder raised, seems trying to ward off a blow] let him into the house last night. Can you imagine such a thing. [Roper laughs. ] BARTHWICK. [With excited emphasis.]. It's no laughing matter, Roper. I told you about that business of Jack's too--don't you see the brute took both the things--took that infernal purse. It'll get into the papers. ROPER. [Raising his eyebrows.] H'm! The purse! Depravity in high life! What does your son say? BARTHWICK. He remembers nothing. D--n! Did you ever see such a mess? It 'll get into the papers. MRS. BARTHWICK. [With her hand across hey eyes.] Oh! it's not that---- [BARTHWICK and ROPER turn and look at her.] BARTHWICK. It's the idea of that woman--she's just heard---- [ROPER nods. And MRS. BARTHWICK, setting her lips, gives a slow look at JACK, and sits down at the table.] What on earth's to be done, Roper? A ruffian like this Jones will make all the capital he can out of that purse. MRS. BARTHWICK. I don't believe that Jack took that purse. BARTHWICK. What--when the woman came here for it this morning? MRS. BARTHWICK. Here? She had the impudence? Why was n't I told? [She looks round from face to face--no one answers hey, there is a pause.] BARTHWICK. [Suddenly.] What's to be done, Roper? ROPER. [Quietly to JACK.] I suppose you did n't leave your latch-key in the door? JACK. [Sullenly.] Yes, I did. BARTHWICK. Good heavens! What next? MRS. BARTHWICK. I 'm certain you never let that man into the house, Jack, it's a wild invention. I'm sure there's not a word of truth in it, Mr. Roper. ROPER. [Very suddenly.] Where did you sleep last night? JACK. [Promptly.] On the sofa, there--[hesitating]--that is--I---- BARTHWICK. On the sofa? D' you mean to say you did n't go to bed? JACK.[Sullenly.] No. BARTHWICK. If you don't remember anything, how can you remember that? JACK. Because I woke up there in the morning. MRS. BARTHWICK. Oh, Jack! BARTHWICK. Good Gracious! JACK. And Mrs. Jones saw me. I wish you would n't bait me so. ROPER. Do you remember giving any one a drink? JACK. By Jove, I do seem to remember a fellow with--a fellow with [He looks at Roper.] I say, d' you want me----? ROPER. [Quick as lightning.] With a dirty face? JACK. [With illumination.] I do--I distinctly remember his---- [BARTHWICK moves abruptly; MRS. BARTHWICK looks at ROPER angrily, and touches her son's arm.] MRS. BARTHWICK. You don't remember, it's ridiculous! I don't believe the man was ever here at all. BARTHWICK. You must speak the truth, if it is the truth. But if you do remember such a dirty business, I shall wash my hands of you altogether. JACK. [Glaring at them.] Well, what the devil---- MRS. BARTHWICK. Jack! JACK. Well, Mother, I--I don't know what you do want. MRS. BARTHWICK. We want you to speak the truth and say you never let this low man into the house. BARTHWICK. Of course if you think that you really gave this man whisky in that disgraceful way, and let him see what you'd been doing, and were in such a disgusting condition that you don't remember a word of it---- ROPER. [Quick.] I've no memory myself--never had. BARTHWICK. [Desperately.] I don't know what you're to say. ROPER. [To JACK.] Say nothing at all! Don't put yourself in a false position. The man stole the things or the woman stole the things, you had nothing to do with it. You were asleep on the sofa. MRS. BARTHWICK. Your leaving the latch-key in the door was quite bad enough, there's no need to mention anything else. [Touching his forehead softly.] My dear, how hot your head is! JACK. But I want to know what I 'm to do. [Passionately.] I won't be badgered like this. [MRS. BARTHWICK recoils from him.] ROPER. [Very quickly.] You forget all about it. You were asleep. JACK. Must I go down to the Court to-morrow? ROPER. [Shaking his head.] No. BARTHWICK. [In a relieved voice.] Is that so? ROPER. Yes. BARTHWICK. But you'll go, Roper. ROPER. Yes. JACK. [With wan cheerfulness.] Thanks, awfully! So long as I don't have to go. [Putting his hand up to his head.] I think if you'll excuse me--I've had a most beastly day. [He looks from his father to his mother.] MRS. BARTHWICK. [Turning quickly.] Goodnight, my boy. JACK. Good-night, Mother. [He goes out. MRS. BARTHWICK heaves a sigh. There is a silence.] BARTHWICK. He gets off too easily. But for my money that woman would have prosecuted him. ROPER. You find money useful. BARTHWICK. I've my doubts whether we ought to hide the truth---- ROPER. There'll be a remand. BARTHWICK. What! D' you mean he'll have to appear on the remand. ROPER. Yes. BARTHWICK. H'm, I thought you'd be able to----Look here, Roper, you must keep that purse out of the papers. [ROPER fixes his little eyes on him and nods.] MRS. BARTHWICK. Mr. Roper, don't you think the magistrate ought to be told what sort of people these Jones's are; I mean about their immorality before they were married. I don't know if John told you. ROPER. Afraid it's not material. MRS. BARTHWICK. Not material? ROPER. Purely private life! May have happened to the magistrate. BARTHWICK. [With a movement as if to shift a burden.] Then you'll take the thing into your hands? ROPER. If the gods are kind. [He holds his hand out.] BARTHWICK. [Shaking it dubiously.] Kind eh? What? You going? ROPER. Yes. I've another case, something like yours--most unexpected. [He bows to MRS. BARTHWICK, and goes out, followed by BARTHWICK, talking to the last. MRS. BARTHWICK at the table bursts into smothered sobs. BARTHWICK returns.] BARTHWICK. [To himself.] There'll be a scandal! MRS. BARTHWICK. [Disguising her grief at once.] I simply can't imagine what Roper means by making a joke of a thing like that! BARTHWICK. [Staring strangely.] You! You can't imagine anything! You've no more imagination than a fly! MRS. BARTHWICK. [Angrily.] You dare to tell me that I have no imagination. BARTHWICK. [Flustered.] I--I 'm upset. From beginning to end, the whole thing has been utterly against my principles. MRS. BARTHWICK. Rubbish! You have n't any! Your principles are nothing in the world but sheer fright! BARTHWICK. [Walking to the window.] I've never been frightened in my life. You heard what Roper said. It's enough to upset one when a thing like this happens. Everything one says and does seems to turn in one's mouth--it's--it's uncanny. It's not the sort of thing I've been accustomed to. [As though stifling, he throws the window open. The faint sobbing of a child comes in.] What's that? [They listen.] MRS. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] I can't stand that crying. I must send Marlow to stop it. My nerves are all on edge. [She rings the bell.] BARTHWICK. I'll shut the window; you'll hear nothing. [He shuts the window. There is silence.] MRS. BARTHWICK. [Sharply.] That's no good! It's on my nerves. Nothing upsets me like a child's crying. [MARLOW comes in.] What's that noise of crying, Marlow? It sounds like a child. BARTHWICK. It is a child. I can see it against the railings. MARLOW. [Opening the window, and looking out quietly.] It's Mrs. Jones's little boy, ma'am; he came here after his mother. MRS. BARTHWICK. [Moving quickly to the window.] Poor little chap! John, we ought n't to go on with this! BARTHWICK. [Sitting heavily in a chair.] Ah! but it's out of our hands! [MRS. BARTHWICK turns her back to the window. There is an expression of distress on hey face. She stands motionless, compressing her lips. The crying begins again. BARTHWICK coveys his ears with his hands, and MARLOW shuts the window. The crying ceases.] The curtain falls. ACT III Eight days have passed, and the scene is a London Police Court at one o'clock. A canopied seat of Justice is surmounted by the lion and unicorn. Before the fire a worn-looking MAGISTRATE is warming his coat-tails, and staring at two little girls in faded blue and orange rags, who are placed before the dock. Close to the witness-box is a RELIEVING OFFICER in an overcoat, and a short brown beard. Beside the little girls stands a bald POLICE CONSTABLE. On the front bench are sitting BARTHWICK and ROPER, and behind them JACK. In the railed enclosure are seedy-looking men and women. Some prosperous constables sit or stand about. MAGISTRATE. [In his paternal and ferocious voice, hissing his s's.] Now let us dispose of these young ladies. USHER. Theresa Livens, Maud Livens. [The bald CONSTABLE indicates the little girls, who remain silent, disillusioned, inattentive.] Relieving Officer! [The RELIEVING OFFICER Steps into the witness-box.] USHER. The evidence you give to the Court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God! Kiss the book! [The book is kissed.] RELIEVING OFFICER. [In a monotone, pausing slightly at each sentence end, that his evidence may be inscribed.] About ten o'clock this morning, your Worship, I found these two little girls in Blue Street, Fulham, crying outside a public-house. Asked where their home was, they said they had no home. Mother had gone away. Asked about their father. Their father had no work. Asked where they slept last night. At their aunt's. I 've made inquiries, your Worship. The wife has broken up the home and gone on the streets. The husband is out of work and living in common lodging-houses. The husband's sister has eight children of her own, and says she can't afford to keep these little girls any longer. MAGISTRATE. [Returning to his seat beneath the canopy of justice.] Now, let me see. You say the mother is on the streets; what evidence have you of that? RELIEVING OFFICER. I have the husband here, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. Very well; then let us see him. [There are cries of "LIVENS." The MAGISTRATE leans forward, and stares with hard compassion at the little girls. LIVENS comes in. He is quiet, with grizzled hair, and a muffler for a collar. He stands beside the witness-box.] And you, are their father? Now, why don't you keep your little girls at home. How is it you leave them to wander about the streets like this? LIVENS. I've got no home, your Worship. I'm living from 'and to mouth. I 've got no work; and nothin' to keep them on. MAGISTRATE. How is that? LIVENS. [Ashamedly.] My wife, she broke my 'ome up, and pawned the things. MAGISTRATE. But what made you let her? LEVINS. Your Worship, I'd no chance to stop 'er, she did it when I was out lookin' for work. MAGISTRATE. Did you ill-treat her? LIVENS. [Emphatically.] I never raised my 'and to her in my life, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. Then what was it--did she drink? LIVENS. Yes, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. Was she loose in her behaviour? LIVENS. [In a low voice.] Yes, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. And where is she now? LIVENS. I don't know your Worship. She went off with a man, and after that I---- MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes. Who knows anything of her? [To the bald CONSTABLE.] Is she known here? RELIEVING OFFICER. Not in this district, your Worship; but I have ascertained that she is well known---- MAGISTRATE. Yes--yes; we'll stop at that. Now [To the Father] you say that she has broken up your home, and left these little girls. What provision can you make for them? You look a strong man. LIVENS. So I am, your Worship. I'm willin' enough to work, but for the life of me I can't get anything to do. MAGISTRATE. But have you tried? LIVENS. I've tried everything, your Worship--I 've tried my 'ardest. MAGISTRATE. Well, well---- [There is a silence.] RELIEVING OFFICER. If your Worship thinks it's a case, my people are willing to take them. MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes, I know; but I've no evidence that this man is not the proper guardian for his children. [He rises oval goes back to the fire.] RELIEVING OFFICER. The mother, your Worship, is able to get access to them. MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes; the mother, of course, is an improper person to have anything to do with them. [To the Father.] Well, now what do you say? LIVENS. Your Worship, I can only say that if I could get work I should be only too willing to provide for them. But what can I do, your Worship? Here I am obliged to live from 'and to mouth in these 'ere common lodging-houses. I 'm a strong man--I'm willing to work --I'm half as alive again as some of 'em--but you see, your Worship, my 'airs' turned a bit, owing to the fever--[Touches his hair]--and that's against me; and I don't seem to get a chance anyhow. MAGISTRATE. Yes-yes. [Slowly.] Well, I think it 's a case. [Staring his hardest at the little girls.] Now, are you willing that these little girls should be sent to a home. LIVENS. Yes, your Worship, I should be very willing. MAGISTRATE. Well, I'll remand them for a week. Bring them again to-day week; if I see no reason against it then, I 'll make an order. RELIEVING OFFICER. To-day week, your Worship. [The bald CONSTABLE takes the little girls out by the shoulders. The father follows them. The MAGISTRATE, returning to his seat, bends over and talks to his CLERK inaudibly.] BARTHWICK. [Speaking behind his hand.] A painful case, Roper; very distressing state of things. ROPER. Hundreds like this in the Police Courts. BARTHWICK. Most distressing! The more I see of it, the more important this question of the condition of the people seems to become. I shall certainly make a point of taking up the cudgels in the House. I shall move---- [The MAGISTRATE ceases talking to his CLERK.] CLERK. Remands! [BARTHWICK stops abruptly. There is a stir and MRS. JONES comes in by the public door; JONES, ushered by policemen, comes from the prisoner's door. They file into the dock.] CLERK. James Jones, Jane Jones. USHER. Jane Jones! BARTHWICK. [In a whisper.] The purse--the purse must be kept out of it, Roper. Whatever happens you must keep that out of the papers. [ROPER nods.] BALD CONSTABLE. Hush! [MRS. JONES, dressed in hey thin, black, wispy dress, and black straw hat, stands motionless with hands crossed on the front rail of the dock. JONES leans against the back rail of the dock, and keeps half turning, glancing defiantly about him. He is haggard and unshaven.] CLERK. [Consulting with his papers.] This is the case remanded from last Wednesday, Sir. Theft of a silver cigarette-box and assault on the police; the two charges were taken together. Jane Jones! James Jones! MAGISTRATE. [Staring.] Yes, yes; I remember. CLERK. Jane Jones. MRS. JONES. Yes, Sir. CLERK. Do you admit stealing a silver cigarette-box valued at five pounds, ten shillings, from the house of John BARTHWICK, M.P., between the hours of 11 p.m. on Easter Monday and 8.45 a.m. on Easter Tuesday last? Yes, or no? MRS. JONES. [In a logy voice.] No, Sir, I do not, sir. CLERK. James Jones? Do you admit stealing a silver cigarette-box valued at five pounds, ten shillings, from the house of John BARTHWICK, M.P., between the hours of 11 p.m. on Easter Monday and 8.45 A.M. on Easter Tuesday last. And further making an assault on the police when in the execution of their duty at 3 p.m. on Easter Tuesday? Yes or no? JONES. [Sullenly.] Yes, but I've got a lot to say about it. MAGISTRATE. [To the CLERK.] Yes--yes. But how comes it that these two people are charged with the same offence? Are they husband and wife? CLERK. Yes, Sir. You remember you ordered a remand for further evidence as to the story of the male prisoner. MAGISTRATE. Have they been in custody since? CLERK. You released the woman on her own recognisances, sir. MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes, this is the case of the silver box; I remember now. Well? CLERK. Thomas Marlow. [The cry of "THOMAS MARLOW" is repeated MARLOW comes in, and steps into the witness-box.] USHER. The evidence you give to the court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Kiss the book. [The book is kissed. The silver box is handed up, and placed on the rail.] CLERK. [Reading from his papers.] Your name is Thomas Marlow? Are you, butler to John BARTHWICK, M.P., of 6, Rockingham Gate? MARLOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. Is that the box? MARLOW. Yes Sir. CLERK. And did you miss the same at 8.45 on the following morning, on going to remove the tray? MARLOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. Is the female prisoner known to you? [MARLOW nods.] Is she the charwoman employed at 6, Rockingham Gate? [Again MARLOW nods.] Did you at the time of your missing the box find her in the room alone? MARLOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. Did you afterwards communicate the loss to your employer, and did he send you to the police station? MARLOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. [To MRS. JONES.] Have you anything to ask him? MRS. JONES. No, sir, nothing, thank you, sir. CLERK. [To JONES.] James Jones, have you anything to ask this witness? JONES. I don't know 'im. MAGISTRATE. Are you sure you put the box in the place you say at the time you say? MARLOW. Yes, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. Very well; then now let us have the officer. [MARLOW leaves the box, and Snow goes into it.] USHER. The evidence you give to the court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. [The book is kissed.] CLERK. [Reading from his papers.] Your name is Robert Allow? You are a detective in the X. B. division of the Metropolitan police force? According to instructions received did you on Easter Tuesday last proceed to the prisoner's lodgings at 34, Merthyr Street, St. Soames's? And did you on entering see the box produced, lying on the table? SNOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. Is that the box? Snow. [Fingering the box.] Yes, Sir. CLERK. And did you thereupon take possession of it, and charge the female prisoner with theft of the box from 6, Rockingham Gate? And did she deny the same? SNOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. Did you take her into custody? Snow. Yes, Sir. MAGISTRATE. What was her behaviour? SNOW. Perfectly quiet, your Worship. She persisted in the denial. That's all. MAGISTRATE. DO you know her? SNOW. No, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. Is she known here? BALD CONSTABLE. No, your Worship, they're neither of them known, we 've nothing against them at all. CLERK. [To MRS. JONES.] Have you anything to ask the officer? MRS. JONES. No, sir, thank you, I 've nothing to ask him. MAGISTRATE. Very well then--go on. CLERK. [Reading from his papers.] And while you were taking the female prisoner did the male prisoner interpose, and endeavour to hinder you in the execution of your duty, and did he strike you a blow? SNOW. Yes, Sir. CLERK. And did he say, "You, let her go, I took the box myself"? SNOW. He did. CLERK. And did you blow your whistle and obtain the assistance of another constable, and take him into custody? SNOW. I did. CLERK. Was he violent on the way to the station, and did he use bad language, and did he several times repeat that he had taken the box himself? [Snow nods.] Did you thereupon ask him in what manner he had stolen the box? And did you understand him to say he had entered the house at the invitation of young Mr. BARTHWICK [BARTHWICK, turning in his seat, frowns at ROPER.] after midnight on Easter Monday, and partaken of whisky, and that under the influence of the whisky he had taken the box? SNOW. I did, sir. CLERK. And was his demeanour throughout very violent? SNOW. It was very violent. JONES. [Breaking in.] Violent---of course it was! You put your 'ands on my wife when I kept tellin' you I took the thing myself. MAGISTRATE. [Hissing, with protruded neck.] Now--you will have your chance of saying what you want to say presently. Have you anything to ask the officer? JONES. [Sullenly.] No. MAGISTRATE. Very well then. Now let us hear what the female prisoner has to say first. MRS. JONES. Well, your Worship, of course I can only say what I 've said all along, that I did n't take the box. MAGISTRATE. Yes, but did you know that it was taken? MRS. JONES. No, your Worship. And, of course, to what my husband says, your Worship, I can't speak of my own knowledge. Of course, I know that he came home very late on the Monday night. It was past one o'clock when he came in, and he was not himself at all. MAGISTRATE. Had he been drinking? MRS. JONES. Yes, your Worship. MAGISTRATE. And was he drunk? MRS. JONES. Yes, your Worship, he was almost quite drunk. MAGISTRATE. And did he say anything to you? MRS. JONES. No, your Worship, only to call me names. And of course in the morning when I got up and went to work he was asleep. And I don't know anything more about it until I came home again. Except that Mr. BARTHWICK--that 's my employer, your Worship--told me the box was missing. MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes. MRS. JONES. But of course when I was shaking out my husband's coat the cigarette-box fell out and all the cigarettes were scattered on the bed. MAGISTRATE. You say all the cigarettes were scattered on the bed? [To SNOW.] Did you see the cigarettes scattered on the bed? SNOW. No, your Worship, I did not. MAGISTRATE. You see he says he did n't see them. JONES. Well, they were there for all that. SNOW. I can't say, your Worship, that I had the opportunity of going round the room; I had all my work cut out with the male prisoner. MAGISTRATE. [To MRS. JONES.] Well, what more have you to say? MRS. JONES. Of course when I saw the box, your Worship, I was dreadfully upset, and I could n't think why he had done such a thing; when the officer came we were having words about it, because it is ruin to me, your Worship, in my profession, and I have three little children dependent on me. MAGISTRATE. [Protruding his neck]. Yes--yes--but what did he say to you? MRS. JONES. I asked him whatever came over him to do such a thing --and he said it was the drink. He said he had had too much to drink, and something came over him. And of course, your Worship, he had had very little to eat all day, and the drink does go to the head when you have not had enough to eat. Your Worship may not know, but it is the truth. And I would like to say that all through his married life, I have never known him to do such a thing before, though we have passed through great hardships and [speaking with soft emphasis] I am quite sure he would not have done it if he had been himself at the time. MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes. But don't you know that that is no excuse? MRS. JONES. Yes, your Worship. I know that it is no excuse. [The MAGISTRATE leans over and parleys with his CLERK.] JACK. [Leaning over from his seat behind.] I say, Dad---- BARTHWICK. Tsst! [Sheltering his mouth he speaks to ROPER.] Roper, you had better get up now and say that considering the circumstances and the poverty of the prisoners, we have no wish to proceed any further, and if the magistrate would deal with the case as one of disorder only on the part of---- BALD CONSTABLE. HSSShh! [ROPER shakes his head.] MAGISTRATE. Now, supposing what you say and what your husband says is true, what I have to consider is--how did he obtain access to this house, and were you in any way a party to his obtaining access? You are the charwoman employed at the house? MRS. JONES. Yes, your Worship, and of course if I had let him into the house it would have been very wrong of me; and I have never done such a thing in any of the houses where I have been employed. MAGISTRATE. Well--so you say. Now let us hear what story the male prisoner makes of it. JONES. [Who leans with his arms on the dock behind, speaks in a slow, sullen voice.] Wot I say is wot my wife says. I 've never been 'ad up in a police court before, an' I can prove I took it when in liquor. I told her, and she can tell you the same, that I was goin' to throw the thing into the water sooner then 'ave it on my mind. MAGISTRATE. But how did you get into the HOUSE? JONES. I was passin'. I was goin' 'ome from the "Goat and Bells." MAGISTRATE. The "Goat and Bells,"--what is that? A public-house? JONES. Yes, at the corner. It was Bank 'oliday, an' I'd 'ad a drop to drink. I see this young Mr. BARTHWICK tryin' to find the keyhole on the wrong side of the door. MAGISTRATE. Well? JONES. [Slowly and with many pauses.] Well---I 'elped 'im to find it--drunk as a lord 'e was. He goes on, an' comes back again, and says, I 've got nothin' for you, 'e says, but come in an' 'ave a drink. So I went in just as you might 'ave done yourself. We 'ad a drink o' whisky just as you might have 'ad, 'nd young Mr. BARTHWICK says to me, "Take a drink 'nd a smoke. Take anything you like, 'e says." And then he went to sleep on the sofa. I 'ad some more whisky--an' I 'ad a smoke--and I 'ad some more whisky--an' I carn't tell yer what 'appened after that. MAGISTRATE. Do you mean to say that you were so drunk that you can remember nothing? JACK. [Softly to his father.] I say, that's exactly what---- BARTHWICK. TSSh! JONES. That's what I do mean. MAGISTRATE. And yet you say you stole the box? JONES. I never stole the box. I took it. MAGISTRATE. [Hissing with protruded neck.] You did not steal it-- you took it. Did it belong to you--what is that but stealing? JONES. I took it. MAGISTRATE. You took it--you took it away from their house and you took it to your house---- JONES. [Sullenly breaking in.] I ain't got a house. MAGISTRATE. Very well, let us hear what this young man Mr.--Mr. BARTHWICK has to say to your story. [SNOW leaves the witness-box. The BALD CONSTABLE beckons JACK, who, clutching his hat, goes into the witness-box. ROPER moves to the table set apart for his profession.] SWEARING CLERK. The evidence you give to the court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God. Kiss the book. [The book is kissed.] ROPER. [Examining.] What is your name? JACK. [In a low voice.] John BARTHWICK, Junior. [The CLERK writes it down.] ROPER. Where do you live? JACK. At 6, Rockingham Gate. [All his answers are recorded by the Clerk.] ROPER. You are the son of the owner? JACK. [In a very low voice.] Yes. ROPER. Speak up, please. Do you know the prisoners? JACK. [Looking at the JONESES, in a low voice.] I 've seen Mrs. Jones. I [in a loud voice] don't know the man. JONES. Well, I know you! BALD CONSTABLE. HSSh! ROPER. Now, did you come in late on the night of Easter Monday? JACK. Yes. ROPER. And did you by mistake leave your latch key in the door? JACK. Yes. MAGISTRATE. Oh! You left your latch-key in the door? ROPER. And is that all you can remember about your coming in? JACK. [In a loud voice.] Yes, it is. MAGISTRATE. Now, you have heard the male prisoner's story, what do you say to that? JACK. [Turning to the MAGISTRATE, speaks suddenly in a confident, straight-forward voice.] The fact of the matter is, sir, that I 'd been out to the theatre that night, and had supper afterwards, and I came in late. MAGISTRATE. Do you remember this man being outside when you came in? JACK. No, Sir. [He hesitates.] I don't think I do. MAGISTRATE. [Somewhat puzzled.] Well, did he help you to open the door, as he says? Did any one help you to open the door? JACK. No, sir--I don't think so, sir--I don't know. MAGISTRATE. You don't know? But you must know. It is n't a usual thing for you to have the door opened for you, is it? JACK. [With a shamefaced smile.] No. MAGISTRATE. Very well, then---- JACK. [Desperately.] The fact of the matter is, sir, I'm afraid I'd had too much champagne that night. MAGISTRATE. [Smiling.] Oh! you'd had too much champagne? JONES. May I ask the gentleman a question? MAGISTRATE. Yes--yes--you may ask him what questions you like. JONES. Don't you remember you said you was a Liberal, same as your father, and you asked me wot I was? JACK. [With his hand against his brow.] I seem to remember---- JONES. And I said to you, "I'm a bloomin' Conservative," I said; an' you said to me, "You look more like one of these 'ere Socialists. Take wotever you like," you said. JACK. [With sudden resolution.] No, I don't. I don't remember anything of the sort. JONES. Well, I do, an' my word's as good as yours. I 've never been had up in a police court before. Look 'ere, don't you remember you had a sky-blue bag in your 'and [BARTHWICK jumps.] ROPER. I submit to your worship that these questions are hardly to the point, the prisoner having admitted that he himself does not remember anything. [There is a smile on the face of Justice.] It is a case of the blind leading the blind. JONES. [Violently.] I've done no more than wot he 'as. I'm a poor man; I've got no money an' no friends--he 's a toff--he can do wot I can't. MAGISTRATE: Now, now? All this won't help you--you must be quiet. You say you took this box? Now, what made you take it? Were you pressed for money? JONES. I'm always pressed for money. MAGISTRATE. Was that the reason you took it? JONES. No. MAGISTRATE. [To SNOW.] Was anything found on him? SNOW. Yes, your worship. There was six pounds twelve shillin's found on him, and this purse. [The red silk purse is handed to the MAGISTRATE. BARTHWICK rises his seat, but hastily sits down again.] MAGISTRATE. [Staring at the purse.] Yes, yes--let me see [There is a silence.] No, no, I 've nothing before me as to the purse. How did you come by all that money? JONES. [After a long pause, suddenly.] I declines to say. MAGISTRATE. But if you had all that money, what made you take this box? JONES. I took it out of spite. MAGISTRATE. [Hissing, with protruded neck.] You took it out of spite? Well now, that's something! But do you imagine you can go about the town taking things out of spite? JONES. If you had my life, if you'd been out of work---- MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes; I know--because you're out of work you think it's an excuse for everything. JONES. [Pointing at JACK.] You ask 'im wot made 'im take the---- ROPER. [Quietly.] Does your Worship require this witness in the box any longer? MAGISTRATE. [Ironically.] I think not; he is hardly profitable. [JACK leaves the witness-box, and hanging his head, resumes his seat.] JONES. You ask 'im wot made 'im take the lady's---- [But the BALD CONSTABLE catches him by the sleeve.] BALD CONSTABLE. SSSh! MAGISTRATE. [Emphatically.] Now listen to me. I 've nothing to do with what he may or may not have taken. Why did you resist the police in the execution of their duty? JONES. It war n't their duty to take my wife, a respectable woman, that 'ad n't done nothing. MAGISTRATE. But I say it was. What made you strike the officer a blow? JONES. Any man would a struck 'im a blow. I'd strike 'im again, I would. MAGISTRATE. You are not making your case any better by violence. How do you suppose we could get on if everybody behaved like you? JONES. [Leaning forward, earnestly.] Well, wot, about 'er; who's to make up to 'er for this? Who's to give 'er back 'er good name? MRS. JONES. Your Worship, it's the children that's preying on his mind, because of course I 've lost my work. And I've had to find another room owing to the scandal. MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes, I know--but if he had n't acted like this nobody would have suffered. JONES. [Glaring round at JACK.] I 've done no worse than wot 'e 'as. Wot I want to know is wot 's goin' to be done to 'im. [The BALD CONSTABLE again says "HSSh"] ROPER. Mr. BARTHWICK wishes it known, your Worship, that considering the poverty of the prisoners, he does not press the charge as to the box. Perhaps your Worship would deal with the case as one of disorder. JONES. I don't want it smothered up, I want it all dealt with fair --I want my rights---- MAGISTRATE. [Rapping his desk.] Now you have said all you have to say, and you will be quiet. [There is a silence; the MAGISTRATE bends over and parleys with his CLERK.] Yes, I think I may discharge the woman. [In a kindly voice he addresses MRS. JONES, who stands unmoving with her hands crossed on the rail.] It is very unfortunate for you that this man has behaved as he has. It is not the consequences to him but the consequences to you. You have been brought here twice, you have lost your work-- [He glares at JONES]--and this is what always happens. Now you may go away, and I am very sorry it was necessary to bring you here at all. MRS. JONES. [Softly.] Thank you very much, your Worship. [She leaves the dock, and looking back at JONES, twists her fingers and is still.] MAGISTRATE. Yes, yes, but I can't pass it over. Go away, there's a good woman. [MRS. JONES stands back. The MAGISTRATE leans his head on his hand; then raising it he speaks to JONES.] Now, listen to me. Do you wish the case to be settled here, or do you wish it to go before a jury? JONES. [Muttering.] I don't want no jury. MAGISTRATE. Very well then, I will deal with it here. [After a pause.] You have pleaded guilty to stealing this box---- JONES. Not to stealin'---- BALD CONSTABLE. HSSShh! MAGISTRATE. And to assaulting the police---- JONES. Any man as was a man---- MAGISTRATE. Your conduct here has been most improper. You give the excuse that you were drunk when you stole the box. I tell you that is no excuse. If you choose to get drunk and break the law afterwards you must take the consequences. And let me tell you that men like you, who get drunk and give way to your spite or whatever it is that's in you, are--are--a nuisance to the community. JACK. [Leaning from his seat.] Dad! that's what you said to me! BARTHWICK. TSSt! [There is a silence, while the MAGISTRATE consults his CLERK; JONES leans forward waiting.] MAGISTRATE. This is your first offence, and I am going to give you a light sentence. [Speaking sharply, but without expression.] One month with hard labour. [He bends, and parleys with his CLERK. The BALD CONSTABLE and another help JONES from the dock.] JONES. [Stopping and twisting round.] Call this justice? What about 'im? 'E got drunk! 'E took the purse--'e took the purse but [in a muffled shout] it's 'is money got 'im off--JUSTICE! [The prisoner's door is shut on JONES, and from the seedy-looking men and women comes a hoarse and whispering groan.] MAGISTRATE. We will now adjourn for lunch! [He rises from his seat.] [The Court is in a stir. ROPER gets up and speaks to the reporter. JACK, throwing up his head, walks with a swagger to the corridor; BARTHWICK follows.] MRS. JONES. [Turning to him zenith a humble gesture.] Oh! sir! [BARTHWICK hesitates, then yielding to his nerves, he makes a shame-faced gesture of refusal, and hurries out of court. MRS. JONES stands looking after him.] The curtain falls. 
3544	----	HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND By George Bernard Shaw PREFACE Like many other works of mine, this playlet is a piece d'occasion. In 1905 it happened that Mr Arnold Daly, who was then playing the part of Napoleon in The Man of Destiny in New York, found that whilst the play was too long to take a secondary place in the evening's performance, it was too short to suffice by itself. I therefore took advantage of four days continuous rain during a holiday in the north of Scotland to write How He Lied To Her Husband for Mr Daly. In his hands, it served its turn very effectively. I print it here as a sample of what can be done with even the most hackneyed stage framework by filling it in with an observed touch of actual humanity instead of with doctrinaire romanticism. Nothing in the theatre is staler than the situation of husband, wife and lover, or the fun of knockabout farce. I have taken both, and got an original play out of them, as anybody else can if only he will look about him for his material instead of plagiarizing Othello and the thousand plays that have proceeded on Othello's romantic assumptions and false point of honor. A further experiment made by Mr Arnold Daly with this play is worth recording. In 1905 Mr Daly produced Mrs Warren's Profession in New York. The press of that city instantly raised a cry that such persons as Mrs Warren are "ordure," and should not be mentioned in the presence of decent people. This hideous repudiation of humanity and social conscience so took possession of the New York journalists that the few among them who kept their feet morally and intellectually could do nothing to check the epidemic of foul language, gross suggestion, and raving obscenity of word and thought that broke out. The writers abandoned all self-restraint under the impression that they were upholding virtue instead of outraging it. They infected each other with their hysteria until they were for all practical purposes indecently mad. They finally forced the police to arrest Mr Daly and his company, and led the magistrate to express his loathing of the duty thus forced upon him of reading an unmentionable and abominable play. Of course the convulsion soon exhausted itself. The magistrate, naturally somewhat impatient when he found that what he had to read was a strenuously ethical play forming part of a book which had been in circulation unchallenged for eight years, and had been received without protest by the whole London and New York press, gave the journalists a piece of his mind as to their moral taste in plays. By consent, he passed the case on to a higher court, which declared that the play was not immoral; acquitted Mr Daly; and made an end of the attempt to use the law to declare living women to be "ordure," and thus enforce silence as to the far-reaching fact that you cannot cheapen women in the market for industrial purposes without cheapening them for other purposes as well. I hope Mrs Warren's Profession will be played everywhere, in season and out of season, until Mrs Warren has bitten that fact into the public conscience, and shamed the newspapers which support a tariff to keep up the price of every American commodity except American manhood and womanhood. Unfortunately, Mr Daly had already suffered the usual fate of those who direct public attention to the profits of the sweater or the pleasures of the voluptuary. He was morally lynched side by side with me. Months elapsed before the decision of the courts vindicated him; and even then, since his vindication implied the condemnation of the press, which was by that time sober again, and ashamed of its orgy, his triumph received a rather sulky and grudging publicity. In the meantime he had hardly been able to approach an American city, including even those cities which had heaped applause on him as the defender of hearth and home when he produced Candida, without having to face articles discussing whether mothers could allow their daughters to attend such plays as You Never Can Tell, written by the infamous author of Mrs Warren's Profession, and acted by the monster who produced it. What made this harder to bear was that though no fact is better established in theatrical business than the financial disastrousness of moral discredit, the journalists who had done all the mischief kept paying vice the homage of assuming that it is enormously popular and lucrative, and that I and Mr Daly, being exploiters of vice, must therefore be making colossal fortunes out of the abuse heaped on us, and had in fact provoked it and welcomed it with that express object. Ignorance of real life could hardly go further. One consequence was that Mr Daly could not have kept his financial engagements or maintained his hold on the public had he not accepted engagements to appear for a season in the vaudeville theatres [the American equivalent of our music halls], where he played How He Lied to Her Husband comparatively unhampered by the press censorship of the theatre, or by that sophistication of the audience through press suggestion from which I suffer more, perhaps, than any other author. Vaudeville authors are fortunately unknown: the audiences see what the play contains and what the actor can do, not what the papers have told them to expect. Success under such circumstances had a value both for Mr Daly and myself which did something to console us for the very unsavory mobbing which the New York press organized for us, and which was not the less disgusting because we suffered in a good cause and in the very best company. Mr Daly, having weathered the storm, can perhaps shake his soul free of it as he heads for fresh successes with younger authors. But I have certain sensitive places in my soul: I do not like that word "ordure." Apply it to my work, and I can afford to smile, since the world, on the whole, will smile with me. But to apply it to the woman in the street, whose spirit is of one substance with our own and her body no less holy: to look your women folk in the face afterwards and not go out and hang yourself: that is not on the list of pardonable sins. POSTSCRIPT. Since the above was written news has arrived from America that a leading New York newspaper, which was among the most abusively clamorous for the suppression of Mrs Warren's Profession, has just been fined heavily for deriving part of its revenue from advertisements of Mrs Warren's houses. Many people have been puzzled by the fact that whilst stage entertainments which are frankly meant to act on the spectators as aphrodisiacs, are everywhere tolerated, plays which have an almost horrifyingly contrary effect are fiercely attacked by persons and papers notoriously indifferent to public morals on all other occasions. The explanation is very simple. The profits of Mrs Warren's profession are shared not only by Mrs Warren and Sir George Crofts, but by the landlords of their houses, the newspapers which advertize them, the restaurants which cater for them, and, in short, all the trades to which they are good customers, not to mention the public officials and representatives whom they silence by complicity, corruption, or blackmail. Add to these the employers who profit by cheap female labor, and the shareholders whose dividends depend on it [you find such people everywhere, even on the judicial bench and in the highest places in Church and State], and you get a large and powerful class with a strong pecuniary incentive to protect Mrs Warren's profession, and a correspondingly strong incentive to conceal, from their own consciences no less than from the world, the real sources of their gain. These are the people who declare that it is feminine vice and not poverty that drives women to the streets, as if vicious women with independent incomes ever went there. These are the people who, indulgent or indifferent to aphrodisiac plays, raise the moral hue and cry against performances of Mrs Warren's Profession, and drag actresses to the police court to be insulted, bullied, and threatened for fulfilling their engagements. For please observe that the judicial decision in New York State in favor of the play does not end the matter. In Kansas City, for instance, the municipality, finding itself restrained by the courts from preventing the performance, fell back on a local bye-law against indecency to evade the Constitution of the United States. They summoned the actress who impersonated Mrs Warren to the police court, and offered her and her colleagues the alternative of leaving the city or being prosecuted under this bye-law. Now nothing is more possible than that the city councillors who suddenly displayed such concern for the morals of the theatre were either Mrs Warren's landlords, or employers of women at starvation wages, or restaurant keepers, or newspaper proprietors, or in some other more or less direct way sharers of the profits of her trade. No doubt it is equally possible that they were simply stupid men who thought that indecency consists, not in evil, but in mentioning it. I have, however, been myself a member of a municipal council, and have not found municipal councillors quite so simple and inexperienced as this. At all events I do not propose to give the Kansas councillors the benefit of the doubt. I therefore advise the public at large, which will finally decide the matter, to keep a vigilant eye on gentlemen who will stand anything at the theatre except a performance of Mrs Warren's Profession, and who assert in the same breath that [a] the play is too loathsome to be bearable by civilized people, and [b] that unless its performance is prohibited the whole town will throng to see it. They may be merely excited and foolish; but I am bound to warn the public that it is equally likely that they may be collected and knavish. At all events, to prohibit the play is to protect the evil which the play exposes; and in view of that fact, I see no reason for assuming that the prohibitionists are disinterested moralists, and that the author, the managers, and the performers, who depend for their livelihood on their personal reputations and not on rents, advertisements, or dividends, are grossly inferior to them in moral sense and public responsibility. It is true that in Mrs Warren's Profession, Society, and not any individual, is the villain of the piece; but it does not follow that the people who take offence at it are all champions of society. Their credentials cannot be too carefully examined. HOW HE LIED TO HER HUSBAND It is eight o'clock in the evening. The curtains are drawn and the lamps lighted in the drawing room of Her flat in Cromwell Road. Her lover, a beautiful youth of eighteen, in evening dress and cape, with a bunch of flowers and an opera hat in his hands, comes in alone. The door is near the corner; and as he appears in the doorway, he has the fireplace on the nearest wall to his right, and the grand piano along the opposite wall to his left. Near the fireplace a small ornamental table has on it a hand mirror, a fan, a pair of long white gloves, and a little white woollen cloud to wrap a woman's head in. On the other side of the room, near the piano, is a broad, square, softly up-holstered stool. The room is furnished in the most approved South Kensington fashion: that is, it is as like a show room as possible, and is intended to demonstrate the racial position and spending powers of its owners, and not in the least to make them comfortable. He is, be it repeated, a very beautiful youth, moving as in a dream, walking as on air. He puts his flowers down carefully on the table beside the fan; takes off his cape, and, as there is no room on the table for it, takes it to the piano; puts his hat on the cape; crosses to the hearth; looks at his watch; puts it up again; notices the things on the table; lights up as if he saw heaven opening before him; goes to the table and takes the cloud in both hands, nestling his nose into its softness and kissing it; kisses the gloves one after another; kisses the fan: gasps a long shuddering sigh of ecstasy; sits down on the stool and presses his hands to his eyes to shut out reality and dream a little; takes his hands down and shakes his head with a little smile of rebuke for his folly; catches sight of a speck of dust on his shoes and hastily and carefully brushes it off with his handkerchief; rises and takes the hand mirror from the table to make sure of his tie with the gravest anxiety; and is looking at his watch again when She comes in, much flustered. As she is dressed for the theatre; has spoilt, petted ways; and wears many diamonds, she has an air of being a young and beautiful woman; but as a matter of hard fact, she is, dress and pretensions apart, a very ordinary South Kensington female of about 37, hopelessly inferior in physical and spiritual distinction to the beautiful youth, who hastily puts down the mirror as she enters. HE [kissing her hand] At last! SHE. Henry: something dreadful has happened. HE. What's the matter? SHE. I have lost your poems. HE. They were unworthy of you. I will write you some more. SHE. No, thank you. Never any more poems for me. Oh, how could I have been so mad! so rash! so imprudent! HE. Thank Heaven for your madness, your rashness, your imprudence! SHE [impatiently] Oh, be sensible, Henry. Can't you see what a terrible thing this is for me? Suppose anybody finds these poems! what will they think? HE. They will think that a man once loved a woman more devotedly than ever man loved woman before. But they will not know what man it was. SHE. What good is that to me if everybody will know what woman it was? HE. But how will they know? SHE. How will they know! Why, my name is all over them: my silly, unhappy name. Oh, if I had only been christened Mary Jane, or Gladys Muriel, or Beatrice, or Francesca, or Guinevere, or something quite common! But Aurora! Aurora! I'm the only Aurora in London; and everybody knows it. I believe I'm the only Aurora in the world. And it's so horribly easy to rhyme to it! Oh, Henry, why didn't you try to restrain your feelings a little in common consideration for me? Why didn't you write with some little reserve? HE. Write poems to you with reserve! You ask me that! SHE [with perfunctory tenderness] Yes, dear, of course it was very nice of you; and I know it was my own fault as much as yours. I ought to have noticed that your verses ought never to have been addressed to a married woman. HE. Ah, how I wish they had been addressed to an unmarried woman! how I wish they had! SHE. Indeed you have no right to wish anything of the sort. They are quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the difficulty. What will my sisters-in-law think of them? HE [painfully jarred] Have you got sisters-in-law? SHE. Yes, of course I have. Do you suppose I am an angel? HE [biting his lips] I do. Heaven help me, I do--or I did--or [he almost chokes a sob]. SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder] Listen to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a dream, and to love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband having disagreeable relatives, can I? HE [brightening up] Ah, of course they are your husband's relatives: I forgot that. Forgive me, Aurora. [He takes her hand from his shoulder and kisses it. She sits down on the stool. He remains near the table, with his back to it, smiling fatuously down at her]. SHE. The fact is, Teddy's got nothing but relatives. He has eight sisters and six half-sisters, and ever so many brothers--but I don't mind his brothers. Now if you only knew the least little thing about the world, Henry, you'd know that in a large family, though the sisters quarrel with one another like mad all the time, yet let one of the brothers marry, and they all turn on their unfortunate sister-in-law and devote the rest of their lives with perfect unanimity to persuading him that his wife is unworthy of him. They can do it to her very face without her knowing it, because there are always a lot of stupid low family jokes that nobody understands but themselves. Half the time you can't tell what they're talking about: it just drives you wild. There ought to be a law against a man's sister ever entering his house after he's married. I'm as certain as that I'm sitting here that Georgina stole those poems out of my workbox. HE. She will not understand them, I think. SHE. Oh, won't she! She'll understand them only too well. She'll understand more harm than ever was in them: nasty vulgar-minded cat! HE [going to her] Oh don't, don't think of people in that way. Don't think of her at all. [He takes her hand and sits down on the carpet at her feet]. Aurora: do you remember the evening when I sat here at your feet and read you those poems for the first time? SHE. I shouldn't have let you: I see that now. When I think of Georgina sitting there at Teddy's feet and reading them to him for the first time, I feel I shall just go distracted. HE. Yes, you are right. It will be a profanation. SHE. Oh, I don't care about the profanation; but what will Teddy think? what will he do? [Suddenly throwing his head away from her knee]. You don't seem to think a bit about Teddy. [She jumps up, more and more agitated]. HE [supine on the floor; for she has thrown him off his balance] To me Teddy is nothing, and Georgina less than nothing. SHE. You'll soon find out how much less than nothing she is. If you think a woman can't do any harm because she's only a scandalmongering dowdy ragbag, you're greatly mistaken. [She flounces about the room. He gets up slowly and dusts his hands. Suddenly she runs to him and throws herself into his arms]. Henry: help me. Find a way out of this for me; and I'll bless you as long as you live. Oh, how wretched I am! [She sobs on his breast]. HE. And oh! how happy I am! SHE [whisking herself abruptly away] Don't be selfish. HE [humbly] Yes: I deserve that. I think if I were going to the stake with you, I should still be so happy with you that I could hardly feel your danger more than my own. SHE [relenting and patting his hand fondly] Oh, you are a dear darling boy, Henry; but [throwing his hand away fretfully] you're no use. I want somebody to tell me what to do. HE [with quiet conviction] Your heart will tell you at the right time. I have thought deeply over this; and I know what we two must do, sooner or later. SHE. No, Henry. I will do nothing improper, nothing dishonorable. [She sits down plump on the stool and looks inflexible]. HE. If you did, you would no longer be Aurora. Our course is perfectly simple, perfectly straightforward, perfectly stainless and true. We love one another. I am not ashamed of that: I am ready to go out and proclaim it to all London as simply as I will declare it to your husband when you see--as you soon will see--that this is the only way honorable enough for your feet to tread. Let us go out together to our own house, this evening, without concealment and without shame. Remember! we owe something to your husband. We are his guests here: he is an honorable man: he has been kind to us: he has perhaps loved you as well as his prosaic nature and his sordid commercial environment permitted. We owe it to him in all honor not to let him learn the truth from the lips of a scandalmonger. Let us go to him now quietly, hand in hand; bid him farewell; and walk out of the house without concealment and subterfuge, freely and honestly, in full honor and self-respect. SHE [staring at him] And where shall we go to? HE. We shall not depart by a hair's breadth from the ordinary natural current of our lives. We were going to the theatre when the loss of the poems compelled us to take action at once. We shall go to the theatre still; but we shall leave your diamonds here; for we cannot afford diamonds, and do not need them. SHE [fretfully] I have told you already that I hate diamonds; only Teddy insists on hanging me all over with them. You need not preach simplicity to me. HE. I never thought of doing so, dearest: I know that these trivialities are nothing to you. What was I saying--oh yes. Instead of coming back here from the theatre, you will come with me to my home--now and henceforth our home--and in due course of time, when you are divorced, we shall go through whatever idle legal ceremony you may desire. I attach no importance to the law: my love was not created in me by the law, nor can it be bound or loosed by it. That is simple enough, and sweet enough, is it not? [He takes the flower from the table]. Here are flowers for you: I have the tickets: we will ask your husband to lend us the carriage to show that there is no malice, no grudge, between us. Come! SHE [spiritlessly, taking the flowers without looking at them, and temporizing] Teddy isn't in yet. HE. Well, let us take that calmly. Let us go to the theatre as if nothing had happened, and tell him when we come back. Now or three hours hence: to-day or to-morrow: what does it matter, provided all is done in honor, without shame or fear? SHE. What did you get tickets for? Lohengrin? HE. I tried; but Lohengrin was sold out for to-night. [He takes out two Court Theatre tickets]. SHE. Then what did you get? HE. Can you ask me? What is there besides Lohengrin that we two could endure, except Candida? SHE [springing up] Candida! No, I won't go to it again, Henry [tossing the flower on the piano]. It is that play that has done all the mischief. I'm very sorry I ever saw it: it ought to be stopped. HE [amazed] Aurora! SHE. Yes: I mean it. HE. That divinest love poem! the poem that gave us courage to speak to one another! that revealed to us what we really felt for one another! That-- SHE. Just so. It put a lot of stuff into my head that I should never have dreamt of for myself. I imagined myself just like Candida. HE [catching her hands and looking earnestly at her] You were right. You are like Candida. SHE [snatching her hands away] Oh, stuff! And I thought you were just like Eugene. [Looking critically at him] Now that I come to look at you, you are rather like him, too. [She throws herself discontentedly into the nearest seat, which happens to be the bench at the piano. He goes to her]. HE [very earnestly] Aurora: if Candida had loved Eugene she would have gone out into the night with him without a moment's hesitation. SHE [with equal earnestness] Henry: do you know what's wanting in that play? HE. There is nothing wanting in it. SHE. Yes there is. There's a Georgina wanting in it. If Georgina had been there to make trouble, that play would have been a true-to-life tragedy. Now I'll tell you something about it that I have never told you before. HE. What is that? SHE. I took Teddy to it. I thought it would do him good; and so it would if I could only have kept him awake. Georgina came too; and you should have heard the way she went on about it. She said it was downright immoral, and that she knew the sort of woman that encourages boys to sit on the hearthrug and make love to her. She was just preparing Teddy's mind to poison it about me. HE. Let us be just to Georgina, dearest SHE. Let her deserve it first. Just to Georgina, indeed! HE. She really sees the world in that way. That is her punishment. SHE. How can it be her punishment when she likes it? It'll be my punishment when she brings that budget of poems to Teddy. I wish you'd have some sense, and sympathize with my position a little. HE. [going away from the piano and beginning to walk about rather testily] My dear: I really don't care about Georgina or about Teddy. All these squabbles belong to a plane on which I am, as you say, no use. I have counted the cost; and I do not fear the consequences. After all, what is there to fear? Where is the difficulty? What can Georgina do? What can your husband do? What can anybody do? SHE. Do you mean to say that you propose that we should walk right bang up to Teddy and tell him we're going away together? HE. Yes. What can be simpler? SHE. And do you think for a moment he'd stand it, like that half-baked clergyman in the play? He'd just kill you. HE [coming to a sudden stop and speaking with considerable confidence] You don't understand these things, my darling, how could you? In one respect I am unlike the poet in the play. I have followed the Greek ideal and not neglected the culture of my body. Your husband would make a tolerable second-rate heavy weight if he were in training and ten years younger. As it is, he could, if strung up to a great effort by a burst of passion, give a good account of himself for perhaps fifteen seconds. But I am active enough to keep out of his reach for fifteen seconds; and after that I should be simply all over him. SHE [rising and coming to him in consternation] What do you mean by all over him? HE [gently] Don't ask me, dearest. At all events, I swear to you that you need not be anxious about me. SHE. And what about Teddy? Do you mean to tell me that you are going to beat Teddy before my face like a brutal prizefighter? HE. All this alarm is needless, dearest. Believe me, nothing will happen. Your husband knows that I am capable of defending myself. Under such circumstances nothing ever does happen. And of course I shall do nothing. The man who once loved you is sacred to me. SHE [suspiciously] Doesn't he love me still? Has he told you anything? HE. No, no. [He takes her tenderly in his arms]. Dearest, dearest: how agitated you are! how unlike yourself! All these worries belong to the lower plane. Come up with me to the higher one. The heights, the solitudes, the soul world! SHE [avoiding his gaze] No: stop: it's no use, Mr Apjohn. HE [recoiling] Mr Apjohn!!! SHE. Excuse me: I meant Henry, of course. HE. How could you even think of me as Mr Apjohn? I never think of you as Mrs Bompas: it is always Cand-- I mean Aurora, Aurora, Auro-- SHE. Yes, yes: that's all very well, Mr Apjohn [He is about to interrupt again: but she won't have it] no: it's no use: I've suddenly begun to think of you as Mr Apjohn; and it's ridiculous to go on calling you Henry. I thought you were only a boy, a child, a dreamer. I thought you would be too much afraid to do anything. And now you want to beat Teddy and to break up my home and disgrace me and make a horrible scandal in the papers. It's cruel, unmanly, cowardly. HE [with grave wonder] Are you afraid? SHE. Oh, of course I'm afraid. So would you be if you had any common sense. [She goes to the hearth, turning her back to him, and puts one tapping foot on the fender]. HE [watching her with great gravity] Perfect love casteth out fear. That is why I am not afraid. Mrs Bompas: you do not love me. SHE [turning to him with a gasp of relief] Oh, thank you, thank you! You really can be very nice, Henry. HE. Why do you thank me? SHE [coming prettily to him from the fireplace] For calling me Mrs Bompas again. I feel now that you are going to be reasonable and behave like a gentleman. [He drops on the stool; covers his face with his hand; and groans]. What's the matter? HE. Once or twice in my life I have dreamed that I was exquisitely happy and blessed. But oh! the misgiving at the first stir of consciousness! the stab of reality! the prison walls of the bedroom! the bitter, bitter disappointment of waking! And this time! oh, this time I thought I was awake. SHE. Listen to me, Henry: we really haven't time for all that sort of flapdoodle now. [He starts to his feet as if she had pulled a trigger and straightened him by the release of a powerful spring, and goes past her with set teeth to the little table]. Oh, take care: you nearly hit me in the chin with the top of your head. HE [with fierce politeness] I beg your pardon. What is it you want me to do? I am at your service. I am ready to behave like a gentleman if you will be kind enough to explain exactly how. SHE [a little frightened] Thank you, Henry: I was sure you would. You're not angry with me, are you? HE. Go on. Go on quickly. Give me something to think about, or I will--I will--[he suddenly snatches up her fan and it about to break it in his clenched fists]. SHE [running forward and catching at the fan, with loud lamentation] Don't break my fan--no, don't. [He slowly relaxes his grip of it as she draws it anxiously out of his hands]. No, really, that's a stupid trick. I don't like that. You've no right to do that. [She opens the fan, and finds that the sticks are disconnected]. Oh, how could you be so inconsiderate? HE. I beg your pardon. I will buy you a new one. SHE [querulously] You will never be able to match it. And it was a particular favorite of mine. HE [shortly] Then you will have to do without it: that's all. SHE. That's not a very nice thing to say after breaking my pet fan, I think. HE. If you knew how near I was to breaking Teddy's pet wife and presenting him with the pieces, you would be thankful that you are alive instead of--of--of howling about five shillings worth of ivory. Damn your fan! SHE. Oh! Don't you dare swear in my presence. One would think you were my husband. HE [again collapsing on the stool] This is some horrible dream. What has become of you? You are not my Aurora. SHE. Oh, well, if you come to that, what has become of you? Do you think I would ever have encouraged you if I had known you were such a little devil? HE. Don't drag me down--don't--don't. Help me to find the way back to the heights. SHE [kneeling beside him and pleading] If you would only be reasonable, Henry. If you would only remember that I am on the brink of ruin, and not go on calmly saying it's all quite simple. HE. It seems so to me. SHE [jumping up distractedly] If you say that again I shall do something I'll be sorry for. Here we are, standing on the edge of a frightful precipice. No doubt it's quite simple to go over and have done with it. But can't you suggest anything more agreeable? HE. I can suggest nothing now. A chill black darkness has fallen: I can see nothing but the ruins of our dream. [He rises with a deep sigh]. SHE. Can't you? Well, I can. I can see Georgina rubbing those poems into Teddy. [Facing him determinedly] And I tell you, Henry Apjohn, that you got me into this mess; and you must get me out of it again. HE [polite and hopeless] All I can say is that I am entirely at your service. What do you wish me to do? SHE. Do you know anybody else named Aurora? HE. No. SHE. There's no use in saying No in that frozen pigheaded way. You must know some Aurora or other somewhere. HE. You said you were the only Aurora in the world. And [lifting his clasped fists with a sudden return of his emotion] oh God! you were the only Aurora in the world to me. [He turns away from her, hiding his face]. SHE [petting him] Yes, yes, dear: of course. It's very nice of you; and I appreciate it: indeed I do; but it's not reasonable just at present. Now just listen to me. I suppose you know all those poems by heart. HE. Yes, by heart. [Raising his head and looking at her, with a sudden suspicion] Don't you? SHE. Well, I never can remember verses; and besides, I've been so busy that I've not had time to read them all; though I intend to the very first moment I can get: I promise you that most faithfully, Henry. But now try and remember very particularly. Does the name of Bompas occur in any of the poems? HE [indignantly] No. SHE. You're quite sure? HE. Of course I am quite sure. How could I use such a name in a poem? SHE. Well, I don't see why not. It rhymes to rumpus, which seems appropriate enough at present, goodness knows! However, you're a poet, and you ought to know. HE. What does it matter--now? SHE. It matters a lot, I can tell you. If there's nothing about Bompas in the poems, we can say that they were written to some other Aurora, and that you showed them to me because my name was Aurora too. So you've got to invent another Aurora for the occasion. HE [very coldly] Oh, if you wish me to tell a lie-- SHE. Surely, as a man of honor--as a gentleman, you wouldn't tell the truth, would you? HE. Very well. You have broken my spirit and desecrated my dreams. I will lie and protest and stand on my honor: oh, I will play the gentleman, never fear. SHE. Yes, put it all on me, of course. Don't be mean, Henry. HE [rousing himself with an effort] You are quite right, Mrs Bompas: I beg your pardon. You must excuse my temper. I have got growing pains, I think. SHE. Growing pains! HE. The process of growing from romantic boyhood into cynical maturity usually takes fifteen years. When it is compressed into fifteen minutes, the pace is too fast; and growing pains are the result. SHE. Oh, is this a time for cleverness? It's settled, isn't it, that you're going to be nice and good, and that you'll brazen it out to Teddy that you have some other Aurora? HE. Yes: I'm capable of anything now. I should not have told him the truth by halves; and now I will not lie by halves. I'll wallow in the honor of a gentleman. SHE. Dearest boy, I knew you would. I--Sh! [she rushes to the door, and holds it ajar, listening breathlessly]. HE. What is it? SHE [white with apprehension] It's Teddy: I hear him tapping the new barometer. He can't have anything serious on his mind or he wouldn't do that. Perhaps Georgina hasn't said anything. [She steals back to the hearth]. Try and look as if there was nothing the matter. Give me my gloves, quick. [He hands them to her. She pulls on one hastily and begins buttoning it with ostentatious unconcern]. Go further away from me, quick. [He walks doggedly away from her until the piano prevents his going farther]. If I button my glove, and you were to hum a tune, don't you think that-- HE. The tableau would be complete in its guiltiness. For Heaven's sake, Mrs Bompas, let that glove alone: you look like a pickpocket. Her husband comes in: a robust, thicknecked, well groomed city man, with a strong chin but a blithering eye and credulous mouth. He has a momentous air, but shows no sign of displeasure: rather the contrary. HER HUSBAND. Hallo! I thought you two were at the theatre. SHE. I felt anxious about you, Teddy. Why didn't you come home to dinner? HER HUSBAND. I got a message from Georgina. She wanted me to go to her. SHE. Poor dear Georgina! I'm sorry I haven't been able to call on her this last week. I hope there's nothing the matter with her. HER HUSBAND. Nothing, except anxiety for my welfare and yours. [She steals a terrified look at Henry]. By, the way, Apjohn, I should like a word with you this evening, if Aurora can spare you for a moment. HE [formally] I am at your service. HER HUSBAND. No hurry. After the theatre will do. HE. We have decided not to go. HER HUSBAND. Indeed! Well, then, shall we adjourn to my snuggery? SHE. You needn't move. I shall go and lock up my diamonds since I'm not going to the theatre. Give me my things. HER HUSBAND [as he hands her the cloud and the mirror] Well, we shall have more room here. HE [looking about him and shaking his shoulders loose] I think I should prefer plenty of room. HER HUSBAND. So, if it's not disturbing you, Rory--? SHE. Not at all. [She goes out]. When the two men are alone together, Bompas deliberately takes the poems from his breast pocket; looks at them reflectively; then looks at Henry, mutely inviting his attention. Henry refuses to understand, doing his best to look unconcerned. HER HUSBAND. Do these manuscripts seem at all familiar to you, may I ask? HE. Manuscripts? HER HUSBAND. Yes. Would you like to look at them a little closer? [He proffers them under Henry's nose]. HE [as with a sudden illumination of glad surprise] Why, these are my poems. HER HUSBAND. So I gather. HE. What a shame! Mrs Bompas has shown them to you! You must think me an utter ass. I wrote them years ago after reading Swinburne's Songs Before Sunrise. Nothing would do me then but I must reel off a set of Songs to the Sunrise. Aurora, you know: the rosy fingered Aurora. They're all about Aurora. When Mrs Bompas told me her name was Aurora, I couldn't resist the temptation to lend them to her to read. But I didn't bargain for your unsympathetic eyes. HER HUSBAND [grinning] Apjohn: that's really very ready of you. You are cut out for literature; and the day will come when Rory and I will be proud to have you about the house. I have heard far thinner stories from much older men. HE [with an air of great surprise] Do you mean to imply that you don't believe me? HER HUSBAND. Do you expect me to believe you? HE. Why not? I don't understand. HER HUSBAND. Come! Don't underrate your own cleverness, Apjohn. I think you understand pretty well. HE. I assure you I am quite at a loss. Can you not be a little more explicit? HER HUSBAND. Don't overdo it, old chap. However, I will just be so far explicit as to say that if you think these poems read as if they were addressed, not to a live woman, but to a shivering cold time of day at which you were never out of bed in your life, you hardly do justice to your own literary powers--which I admire and appreciate, mind you, as much as any man. Come! own up. You wrote those poems to my wife. [An internal struggle prevents Henry from answering]. Of course you did. [He throws the poems on the table; and goes to the hearthrug, where he plants himself solidly, chuckling a little and waiting for the next move]. HE [formally and carefully] Mr Bompas: I pledge you my word you are mistaken. I need not tell you that Mrs Bompas is a lady of stainless honor, who has never cast an unworthy thought on me. The fact that she has shown you my poems-- HER HUSBAND. That's not a fact. I came by them without her knowledge. She didn't show them to me. HE. Does not that prove their perfect innocence? She would have shown them to you at once if she had taken your quite unfounded view of them. HER HUSBAND [shaken] Apjohn: play fair. Don't abuse your intellectual gifts. Do you really mean that I am making a fool of myself? HE [earnestly] Believe me, you are. I assure you, on my honor as a gentleman, that I have never had the slightest feeling for Mrs Bompas beyond the ordinary esteem and regard of a pleasant acquaintance. HER HUSBAND [shortly, showing ill humor for the first time] Oh, indeed. [He leaves his hearth and begins to approach Henry slowly, looking him up and down with growing resentment]. HE [hastening to improve the impression made by his mendacity] I should never have dreamt of writing poems to her. The thing is absurd. HER HUSBAND [reddening ominously] Why is it absurd? HE [shrugging his shoulders] Well, it happens that I do not admire Mrs Bompas--in that way. HER HUSBAND [breaking out in Henry's face] Let me tell you that Mrs Bompas has been admired by better men than you, you soapy headed little puppy, you. HE [much taken aback] There is no need to insult me like this. I assure you, on my honor as a-- HER HUSBAND [too angry to tolerate a reply, and boring Henry more and more towards the piano] You don't admire Mrs Bompas! You would never dream of writing poems to Mrs Bompas! My wife's not good enough for you, isn't she. [Fiercely] Who are you, pray, that you should be so jolly superior? HE. Mr Bompas: I can make allowances for your jealousy-- HER HUSBAND. Jealousy! do you suppose I'm jealous of YOU? No, nor of ten like you. But if you think I'll stand here and let you insult my wife in her own house, you're mistaken. HE [very uncomfortable with his back against the piano and Teddy standing over him threateningly] How can I convince you? Be reasonable. I tell you my relations with Mrs Bompas are relations of perfect coldness--of indifference-- HER HUSBAND [scornfully] Say it again: say it again. You're proud of it, aren't you? Yah! You're not worth kicking. Henry suddenly executes the feat known to pugilists as dipping, and changes sides with Teddy, who it now between Henry and the piano. HE. Look here: I'm not going to stand this. HER HUSBAND. Oh, you have some blood in your body after all! Good job! HE. This is ridiculous. I assure you Mrs. Bompas is quite-- HER HUSBAND. What is Mrs Bompas to you, I'd like to know. I'll tell you what Mrs Bompas is. She's the smartest woman in the smartest set in South Kensington, and the handsomest, and the cleverest, and the most fetching to experienced men who know a good thing when they see it, whatever she may be to conceited penny-a-lining puppies who think nothing good enough for them. It's admitted by the best people; and not to know it argues yourself unknown. Three of our first actor-managers have offered her a hundred a week if she'd go on the stage when they start a repertory theatre; and I think they know what they're about as well as you. The only member of the present Cabinet that you might call a handsome man has neglected the business of the country to dance with her, though he don't belong to our set as a regular thing. One of the first professional poets in Bedford Park wrote a sonnet to her, worth all your amateur trash. At Ascot last season the eldest son of a duke excused himself from calling on me on the ground that his feelings for Mrs Bompas were not consistent with his duty to me as host; and it did him honor and me too. But [with gathering fury] she isn't good enough for you, it seems. You regard her with coldness, with indifference; and you have the cool cheek to tell me so to my face. For two pins I'd flatten your nose in to teach you manners. Introducing a fine woman to you is casting pearls before swine [yelling at him] before SWINE! d'ye hear? HE [with a deplorable lack of polish] You call me a swine again and I'll land you one on the chin that'll make your head sing for a week. HER HUSBAND [exploding] What--! He charges at Henry with bull-like fury. Henry places himself on guard in the manner of a well taught boxer, and gets away smartly, but unfortunately forgets the stool which is just behind him. He falls backwards over it, unintentionally pushing it against the shins of Bompas, who falls forward over it. Mrs Bompas, with a scream, rushes into the room between the sprawling champions, and sits down on the floor in order to get her right arm round her husband's neck. SHE. You shan't, Teddy: you shan't. You will be killed: he is a prizefighter. HER HUSBAND [vengefully] I'll prizefight him. [He struggles vainly to free himself from her embrace]. SHE. Henry: don't let him fight you. Promise me that you won't. HE [ruefully] I have got a most frightful bump on the back of my head. [He tries to rise]. SHE [reaching out her left hand to seize his coat tail, and pulling him down again, whilst keeping fast hold of Teddy with the other hand] Not until you have promised: not until you both have promised. [Teddy tries to rise: she pulls him back again]. Teddy: you promise, don't you? Yes, yes. Be good: you promise. HER HUSBAND. I won't, unless he takes it back. SHE. He will: he does. You take it back, Henry?--yes. HE [savagely] Yes. I take it back. [She lets go his coat. He gets up. So does Teddy]. I take it all back, all, without reserve. SHE [on the carpet] Is nobody going to help me up? [They each take a hand and pull her up]. Now won't you shake hands and be good? HE [recklessly] I shall do nothing of the sort. I have steeped myself in lies for your sake; and the only reward I get is a lump on the back of my head the size of an apple. Now I will go back to the straight path. SHE. Henry: for Heaven's sake-- HE. It's no use. Your husband is a fool and a brute-- HER HUSBAND. What's that you say? HE. I say you are a fool and a brute; and if you'll step outside with me I'll say it again. [Teddy begins to take off his coat for combat]. Those poems were written to your wife, every word of them, and to nobody else. [The scowl clears away from Bompas's countenance. Radiant, he replaces his coat]. I wrote them because I loved her. I thought her the most beautiful woman in the world; and I told her so over and over again. I adored her: do you hear? I told her that you were a sordid commercial chump, utterly unworthy of her; and so you are. HER HUSBAND [so gratified, he can hardly believe his ears] You don't mean it! HE. Yes, I do mean it, and a lot more too. I asked Mrs Bompas to walk out of the house with me--to leave you--to get divorced from you and marry me. I begged and implored her to do it this very night. It was her refusal that ended everything between us. [Looking very disparagingly at him] What she can see in you, goodness only knows! HER HUSBAND [beaming with remorse] My dear chap, why didn't you say so before? I apologize. Come! Don't bear malice: shake hands. Make him shake hands, Rory. SHE. For my sake, Henry. After all, he's my husband. Forgive him. Take his hand. [Henry, dazed, lets her take his hand and place it in Teddy's]. HER HUSBAND [shaking it heartily] You've got to own that none of your literary heroines can touch my Rory. [He turns to her and claps her with fond pride on the shoulder]. Eh, Rory? They can't resist you: none of em. Never knew a man yet that could hold out three days. SHE. Don't be foolish, Teddy. I hope you were not really hurt, Henry. [She feels the back of his head. He flinches]. Oh, poor boy, what a bump! I must get some vinegar and brown paper. [She goes to the bell and rings]. HER HUSBAND. Will you do me a great favor, Apjohn. I hardly like to ask; but it would be a real kindness to us both. HE. What can I do? HER HUSBAND [taking up the poems] Well, may I get these printed? It shall be done in the best style. The finest paper, sumptuous binding, everything first class. They're beautiful poems. I should like to show them about a bit. SHE [running back from the bell, delighted with the idea, and coming between them] Oh Henry, if you wouldn't mind! HE. Oh, I don't mind. I am past minding anything. I have grown too fast this evening. SHE. How old are you, Henry? HE. This morning I was eighteen. Now I am--confound it! I'm quoting that beast of a play [he takes the Candida tickets out of his pocket and tears them up viciously]. HER HUSBAND. What shall we call the volume? To Aurora, or something like that, eh? HE. I should call it How He Lied to Her Husband. 
3830	----	TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In the printed version of this text, all apostrophes for contractions such as "can't", "wouldn't" and "he'd" were omitted, to read as "cant", "wouldnt" and "hed". This etext restores the omitted apostrophes. OVERRULED BERNARD SHAW 1912 PREFACE TO OVERRULED. THE ALLEVIATIONS OF MONOGAMY. This piece is not an argument for or against polygamy. It is a clinical study of how the thing actually occurs among quite ordinary people, innocent of all unconventional views concerning it. The enormous majority of cases in real life are those of people in that position. Those who deliberately and conscientiously profess what are oddly called advanced views by those others who believe them to be retrograde, are often, and indeed mostly, the last people in the world to engage in unconventional adventures of any kind, not only because they have neither time nor disposition for them, but because the friction set up between the individual and the community by the expression of unusual views of any sort is quite enough hindrance to the heretic without being complicated by personal scandals. Thus the theoretic libertine is usually a person of blameless family life, whilst the practical libertine is mercilessly severe on all other libertines, and excessively conventional in professions of social principle. What is more, these professions are not hypocritical: they are for the most part quite sincere. The common libertine, like the drunkard, succumbs to a temptation which he does not defend, and against which he warns others with an earnestness proportionate to the intensity of his own remorse. He (or she) may be a liar and a humbug, pretending to be better than the detected libertines, and clamoring for their condign punishment; but this is mere self-defence. No reasonable person expects the burglar to confess his pursuits, or to refrain from joining in the cry of Stop Thief when the police get on the track of another burglar. If society chooses to penalize candor, it has itself to thank if its attack is countered by falsehood. The clamorous virtue of the libertine is therefore no more hypocritical than the plea of Not Guilty which is allowed to every criminal. But one result is that the theorists who write most sincerely and favorably about polygamy know least about it; and the practitioners who know most about it keep their knowledge very jealously to themselves. Which is hardly fair to the practice. INACCESSIBILITY OF THE FACTS. Also it is impossible to estimate its prevalence. A practice to which nobody confesses may be both universal and unsuspected, just as a virtue which everybody is expected, under heavy penalties, to claim, may have no existence. It is often assumed--indeed it is the official assumption of the Churches and the divorce courts that a gentleman and a lady cannot be alone together innocently. And that is manifest blazing nonsense, though many women have been stoned to death in the east, and divorced in the west, on the strength of it. On the other hand, the innocent and conventional people who regard the gallant adventures as crimes of so horrible a nature that only the most depraved and desperate characters engage in them or would listen to advances in that direction without raising an alarm with the noisiest indignation, are clearly examples of the fact that most sections of society do not know how the other sections live. Industry is the most effective check on gallantry. Women may, as Napoleon said, be the occupation of the idle man just as men are the preoccupation of the idle woman; but the mass of mankind is too busy and too poor for the long and expensive sieges which the professed libertine lays to virtue. Still, wherever there is idleness or even a reasonable supply of elegant leisure there is a good deal of coquetry and philandering. It is so much pleasanter to dance on the edge of a precipice than to go over it that leisured society is full of people who spend a great part of their lives in flirtation, and conceal nothing but the humiliating secret that they have never gone any further. For there is no pleasing people in the matter of reputation in this department: every insult is a flattery; every testimonial is a disparagement: Joseph is despised and promoted, Potiphar's wife admired and condemned: in short, you are never on solid ground until you get away from the subject altogether. There is a continual and irreconcilable conflict between the natural and conventional sides of the case, between spontaneous human relations between independent men and women on the one hand and the property relation between husband and wife on the other, not to mention the confusion under the common name of love of a generous natural attraction and interest with the murderous jealousy that fastens on and clings to its mate (especially a hated mate) as a tiger fastens on a carcase. And the confusion is natural; for these extremes are extremes of the same passion; and most cases lie somewhere on the scale between them, and are so complicated by ordinary likes and dislikes, by incidental wounds to vanity or gratifications of it, and by class feeling, that A will be jealous of B and not of C, and will tolerate infidelities on the part of D whilst being furiously angry when they are committed by E. THE CONVENTION OF JEALOUSY That jealousy is independent of sex is shown by its intensity in children, and by the fact that very jealous people are jealous of everybody without regard to relationship or sex, and cannot bear to hear the person they "love" speak favorably of anyone under any circumstances (many women, for instance, are much more jealous of their husbands' mothers and sisters than of unrelated women whom they suspect him of fancying); but it is seldom possible to disentangle the two passions in practice. Besides, jealousy is an inculcated passion, forced by society on people in whom it would not occur spontaneously. In Brieux's Bourgeois aux Champs, the benevolent hero finds himself detested by the neighboring peasants and farmers, not because he preserves game, and sets mantraps for poachers, and defends his legal rights over his land to the extremest point of unsocial savagery, but because, being an amiable and public-spirited person, he refuses to do all this, and thereby offends and disparages the sense of property in his neighbors. The same thing is true of matrimonial jealousy; the man who does not at least pretend to feel it and behave as badly as if he really felt it is despised and insulted; and many a man has shot or stabbed a friend or been shot or stabbed by him in a duel, or disgraced himself and ruined his own wife in a divorce scandal, against his conscience, against his instinct, and to the destruction of his home, solely because Society conspired to drive him to keep its own lower morality in countenance in this miserable and undignified manner. Morality is confused in such matters. In an elegant plutocracy, a jealous husband is regarded as a boor. Among the tradesmen who supply that plutocracy with its meals, a husband who is not jealous, and refrains from assailing his rival with his fists, is regarded as a ridiculous, contemptible and cowardly cuckold. And the laboring class is divided into the respectable section which takes the tradesman's view, and the disreputable section which enjoys the license of the plutocracy without its money: creeping below the law as its exemplars prance above it; cutting down all expenses of respectability and even decency; and frankly accepting squalor and disrepute as the price of anarchic self-indulgence. The conflict between Malvolio and Sir Toby, between the marquis and the bourgeois, the cavalier and the puritan, the ascetic and the voluptuary, goes on continually, and goes on not only between class and class and individual and individual, but in the selfsame breast in a series of reactions and revulsions in which the irresistible becomes the unbearable, and the unbearable the irresistible, until none of us can say what our characters really are in this respect. THE MISSING DATA OF A SCIENTIFIC NATURAL HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. Of one thing I am persuaded: we shall never attain to a reasonable healthy public opinion on sex questions until we offer, as the data for that opinion, our actual conduct and our real thoughts instead of a moral fiction which we agree to call virtuous conduct, and which we then--and here comes in the mischief--pretend is our conduct and our thoughts. If the result were that we all believed one another to be better than we really are, there would be something to be said for it; but the actual result appears to be a monstrous exaggeration of the power and continuity of sexual passion. The whole world shares the fate of Lucrezia Borgia, who, though she seems on investigation to have been quite a suitable wife for a modern British Bishop, has been invested by the popular historical imagination with all the extravagances of a Messalina or a Cenci. Writers of belles lettres who are rash enough to admit that their whole life is not one constant preoccupation with adored members of the opposite sex, and who even countenance La Rochefoucauld's remark that very few people would ever imagine themselves in love if they had never read anything about it, are gravely declared to be abnormal or physically defective by critics of crushing unadventurousness and domestication. French authors of saintly temperament are forced to include in their retinue countesses of ardent complexion with whom they are supposed to live in sin. Sentimental controversies on the subject are endless; but they are useless, because nobody tells the truth. Rousseau did it by an extraordinary effort, aided by a superhuman faculty for human natural history, but the result was curiously disconcerting because, though the facts were so conventionally shocking that people felt that they ought to matter a great deal, they actually mattered very little. And even at that everybody pretends not to believe him. ARTIFICIAL RETRIBUTION. The worst of that is that busybodies with perhaps rather more than a normal taste for mischief are continually trying to make negligible things matter as much in fact as they do in convention by deliberately inflicting injuries--sometimes atrocious injuries--on the parties concerned. Few people have any knowledge of the savage punishments that are legally inflicted for aberrations and absurdities to which no sanely instructed community would call any attention. We create an artificial morality, and consequently an artificial conscience, by manufacturing disastrous consequences for events which, left to themselves, would do very little harm (sometimes not any) and be forgotten in a few days. But the artificial morality is not therefore to be condemned offhand. In many cases it may save mischief instead of making it: for example, though the hanging of a murderer is the duplication of a murder, yet it may be less murderous than leaving the matter to be settled by blood feud or vendetta. As long as human nature insists on revenge, the official organization and satisfaction of revenge by the State may be also its minimization. The mischief begins when the official revenge persists after the passion it satisfies has died out of the race. Stoning a woman to death in the east because she has ventured to marry again after being deserted by her husband may be more merciful than allowing her to be mobbed to death; but the official stoning or burning of an adulteress in the west would be an atrocity because few of us hate an adulteress to the extent of desiring such a penalty, or of being prepared to take the law into our own hands if it were withheld. Now what applies to this extreme case applies also in due degree to the other cases. Offences in which sex is concerned are often needlessly magnified by penalties, ranging from various forms of social ostracism to long sentences of penal servitude, which would be seen to be monstrously disproportionate to the real feeling against them if the removal of both the penalties and the taboo on their discussion made it possible for us to ascertain their real prevalence and estimation. Fortunately there is one outlet for the truth. We are permitted to discuss in jest what we may not discuss in earnest. A serious comedy about sex is taboo: a farcical comedy is privileged. THE FAVORITE SUBJECT OF FARCICAL COMEDY. The little piece which follows this preface accordingly takes the form of a farcical comedy, because it is a contribution to the very extensive dramatic literature which takes as its special department the gallantries of married people. The stage has been preoccupied by such affairs for centuries, not only in the jesting vein of Restoration Comedy and Palais Royal farce, but in the more tragically turned adulteries of the Parisian school which dominated the stage until Ibsen put them out of countenance and relegated them to their proper place as articles of commerce. Their continued vogue in that department maintains the tradition that adultery is the dramatic subject par excellence, and indeed that a play that is not about adultery is not a play at all. I was considered a heresiarch of the most extravagant kind when I expressed my opinion at the outset of my career as a playwright, that adultery is the dullest of themes on the stage, and that from Francesca and Paolo down to the latest guilty couple of the school of Dumas fils, the romantic adulterers have all been intolerable bores. THE PSEUDO SEX PLAY. Later on, I had occasion to point out to the defenders of sex as the proper theme of drama, that though they were right in ranking sex as an intensely interesting subject, they were wrong in assuming that sex is an indispensable motive in popular plays. The plays of Moliere are, like the novels of the Victorian epoch or Don Quixote, as nearly sexless as anything not absolutely inhuman can be; and some of Shakespear's plays are sexually on a par with the census: they contain women as well as men, and that is all. This had to be admitted; but it was still assumed that the plays of the XIX century Parisian school are, in contrast with the sexless masterpieces, saturated with sex; and this I strenuously denied. A play about the convention that a man should fight a duel or come to fisticuffs with his wife's lover if she has one, or the convention that he should strangle her like Othello, or turn her out of the house and never see her or allow her to see her children again, or the convention that she should never be spoken to again by any decent person and should finally drown herself, or the convention that persons involved in scenes of recrimination or confession by these conventions should call each other certain abusive names and describe their conduct as guilty and frail and so on: all these may provide material for very effective plays; but such plays are not dramatic studies of sex: one might as well say that Romeo and Juliet is a dramatic study of pharmacy because the catastrophe is brought about through an apothecary. Duels are not sex; divorce cases are not sex; the Trade Unionism of married women is not sex. Only the most insignificant fraction of the gallantries of married people produce any of the conventional results; and plays occupied wholly with the conventional results are therefore utterly unsatisfying as sex plays, however interesting they may be as plays of intrigue and plot puzzles. The world is finding this out rapidly. The Sunday papers, which in the days when they appealed almost exclusively to the lower middle class were crammed with police intelligence, and more especially with divorce and murder cases, now lay no stress on them; and police papers which confined themselves entirely to such matters, and were once eagerly read, have perished through the essential dulness of their topics. And yet the interest in sex is stronger than ever: in fact, the literature that has driven out the journalism of the divorce courts is a literature occupied with sex to an extent and with an intimacy and frankness that would have seemed utterly impossible to Thackeray or Dickens if they had been told that the change would complete itself within fifty years of their own time. ART AND MORALITY. It is ridiculous to say, as inconsiderate amateurs of the arts do, that art has nothing to do with morality. What is true is that the artist's business is not that of the policeman; and that such factitious consequences and put-up jobs as divorces and executions and the detective operations that lead up to them are no essential part of life, though, like poisons and buttered slides and red-hot pokers, they provide material for plenty of thrilling or amusing stories suited to people who are incapable of any interest in psychology. But the fine artists must keep the policeman out of his studies of sex and studies of crime. It is by clinging nervously to the policeman that most of the pseudo sex plays convince me that the writers have either never had any serious personal experience of their ostensible subject, or else have never conceived it possible that the stage door present the phenomena of sex as they appear in nature. THE LIMITS OF STAGE PRESENTATION. But the stage presents much more shocking phenomena than those of sex. There is, of course, a sense in which you cannot present sex on the stage, just as you cannot present murder. Macbeth must no more really kill Duncan than he must himself be really slain by Macduff. But the feelings of a murderer can be expressed in a certain artistic convention; and a carefully prearranged sword exercise can be gone through with sufficient pretence of earnestness to be accepted by the willing imaginations of the younger spectators as a desperate combat. The tragedy of love has been presented on the stage in the same way. In Tristan and Isolde, the curtain does not, as in Romeo and Juliet, rise with the lark: the whole night of love is played before the spectators. The lovers do not discuss marriage in an elegantly sentimental way: they utter the visions and feelings that come to lovers at the supreme moments of their love, totally forgetting that there are such things in the world as husbands and lawyers and duelling codes and theories of sin and notions of propriety and all the other irrelevancies which provide hackneyed and bloodless material for our so-called plays of passion. PRUDERIES OF THE FRENCH STAGE. To all stage presentations there are limits. If Macduff were to stab Macbeth, the spectacle would be intolerable; and even the pretence which we allow on our stage is ridiculously destructive to the illusion of the scene. Yet pugilists and gladiators will actually fight and kill in public without sham, even as a spectacle for money. But no sober couple of lovers of any delicacy could endure to be watched. We in England, accustomed to consider the French stage much more licentious than the British, are always surprised and puzzled when we learn, as we may do any day if we come within reach of such information, that French actors are often scandalized by what they consider the indecency of the English stage, and that French actresses who desire a greater license in appealing to the sexual instincts than the French stage allows them, learn and establish themselves on the English stage. The German and Russian stages are in the same relation to the French and perhaps more or less all the Latin stages. The reason is that, partly from a want of respect for the theatre, partly from a sort of respect for art in general which moves them to accord moral privileges to artists, partly from the very objectionable tradition that the realm of art is Alsatia and the contemplation of works of art a holiday from the burden of virtue, partly because French prudery does not attach itself to the same points of behavior as British prudery, and has a different code of the mentionable and the unmentionable, and for many other reasons the French tolerate plays which are never performed in England until they have been spoiled by a process of bowdlerization; yet French taste is more fastidious than ours as to the exhibition and treatment on the stage of the physical incidents of sex. On the French stage a kiss is as obvious a convention as the thrust under the arm by which Macduff runs Macbeth through. It is even a purposely unconvincing convention: the actors rather insisting that it shall be impossible for any spectator to mistake a stage kiss for a real one. In England, on the contrary, realism is carried to the point at which nobody except the two performers can perceive that the caress is not genuine. And here the English stage is certainly in the right; for whatever question there arises as to what incidents are proper for representation on the stage or not, my experience as a playgoer leaves me in no doubt that once it is decided to represent an incident, it will be offensive, no matter whether it be a prayer or a kiss, unless it is presented with a convincing appearance of sincerity. OUR DISILLUSIVE SCENERY. For example, the main objection to the use of illusive scenery (in most modern plays scenery is not illusive; everything visible is as real as in your drawing room at home) is that it is unconvincing; whilst the imaginary scenery with which the audience provides a platform or tribune like the Elizabethan stage or the Greek stage used by Sophocles, is quite convincing. In fact, the more scenery you have the less illusion you produce. The wise playwright, when he cannot get absolute reality of presentation, goes to the other extreme, and aims at atmosphere and suggestion of mood rather than at direct simulative illusion. The theatre, as I first knew it, was a place of wings and flats which destroyed both atmosphere and illusion. This was tolerated, and even intensely enjoyed, but not in the least because nothing better was possible; for all the devices employed in the productions of Mr. Granville Barker or Max Reinhardt or the Moscow Art Theatre were equally available for Colley Cibber and Garrick, except the intensity of our artificial light. When Garrick played Richard II in slashed trunk hose and plumes, it was not because he believed that the Plantagenets dressed like that, or because the costumes could not have made him a XV century dress as easily as a nondescript combination of the state robes of George III with such scraps of older fashions as seemed to playgoers for some reason to be romantic. The charm of the theatre in those days was its makebelieve. It has that charm still, not only for the amateurs, who are happiest when they are most unnatural and impossible and absurd, but for audiences as well. I have seen performances of my own plays which were to me far wilder burlesques than Sheridan's Critic or Buckingham's Rehearsal; yet they have produced sincere laughter and tears such as the most finished metropolitan productions have failed to elicit. Fielding was entirely right when he represented Partridge as enjoying intensely the performance of the king in Hamlet because anybody could see that the king was an actor, and resenting Garrick's Hamlet because it might have been a real man. Yet we have only to look at the portraits of Garrick to see that his performances would nowadays seem almost as extravagantly stagey as his costumes. In our day Calve's intensely real Carmen never pleased the mob as much as the obvious fancy ball masquerading of suburban young ladies in the same character. HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE. Theatrical art begins as the holding up to Nature of a distorting mirror. In this phase it pleases people who are childish enough to believe that they can see what they look like and what they are when they look at a true mirror. Naturally they think that a true mirror can teach them nothing. Only by giving them back some monstrous image can the mirror amuse them or terrify them. It is not until they grow up to the point at which they learn that they know very little about themselves, and that they do not see themselves in a true mirror as other people see them, that they become consumed with curiosity as to what they really are like, and begin to demand that the stage shall be a mirror of such accuracy and intensity of illumination that they shall be able to get glimpses of their real selves in it, and also learn a little how they appear to other people. For audiences of this highly developed class, sex can no longer be ignored or conventionalized or distorted by the playwright who makes the mirror. The old sentimental extravagances and the old grossnesses are of no further use to him. Don Giovanni and Zerlina are not gross: Tristan and Isolde are not extravagant or sentimental. They say and do nothing that you cannot bear to hear and see; and yet they give you, the one pair briefly and slightly, and the other fully and deeply, what passes in the minds of lovers. The love depicted may be that of a philosophic adventurer tempting an ignorant country girl, or of a tragically serious poet entangled with a woman of noble capacity in a passion which has become for them the reality of the whole universe. No matter: the thing is dramatized and dramatized directly, not talked about as something that happened before the curtain rose, or that will happen after it falls. FARCICAL COMEDY SHIRKING ITS SUBJECT. Now if all this can be done in the key of tragedy and philosophic comedy, it can, I have always contended, be done in the key of farcical comedy; and Overruled is a trifling experiment in that manner. Conventional farcical comedies are always finally tedious because the heart of them, the inevitable conjugal infidelity, is always evaded. Even its consequences are evaded. Mr. Granville Barker has pointed out rightly that if the third acts of our farcical comedies dared to describe the consequences that would follow from the first and second in real life, they would end as squalid tragedies; and in my opinion they would be greatly improved thereby even as entertainments; for I have never seen a three-act farcical comedy without being bored and tired by the third act, and observing that the rest of the audience were in the same condition, though they were not vigilantly introspective enough to find that out, and were apt to blame one another, especially the husbands and wives, for their crossness. But it is happily by no means true that conjugal infidelities always produce tragic consequences, or that they need produce even the unhappiness which they often do produce. Besides, the more momentous the consequences, the more interesting become the impulses and imaginations and reasonings, if any, of the people who disregard them. If I had an opportunity of conversing with the ghost of an executed murderer, I have no doubt he would begin to tell me eagerly about his trial, with the names of the distinguished ladies and gentlemen who honored him with their presence on that occasion, and then about his execution. All of which would bore me exceedingly. I should say, "My dear sir: such manufactured ceremonies do not interest me in the least. I know how a man is tried, and how he is hanged. I should have had you killed in a much less disgusting, hypocritical, and unfriendly manner if the matter had been in my hands. What I want to know about is the murder. How did you feel when you committed it? Why did you do it? What did you say to yourself about it? If, like most murderers, you had not been hanged, would you have committed other murders? Did you really dislike the victim, or did you want his money, or did you murder a person whom you did not dislike, and from whose death you had nothing to gain, merely for the sake of murdering? If so, can you describe the charm to me? Does it come upon you periodically; or is it chronic? Has curiosity anything to do with it?" I would ply him with all manner of questions to find out what murder is really like; and I should not be satisfied until I had realized that I, too, might commit a murder, or else that there is some specific quality present in a murderer and lacking in me. And, if so, what that quality is. In just the same way, I want the unfaithful husband or the unfaithful wife in a farcical comedy not to bother me with their divorce cases or the stratagems they employ to avoid a divorce case, but to tell me how and why married couples are unfaithful. I don't want to hear the lies they tell one another to conceal what they have done, but the truths they tell one another when they have to face what they have done without concealment or excuse. No doubt prudent and considerate people conceal such adventures, when they can, from those who are most likely to be wounded by them; but it is not to be presumed that, when found out, they necessarily disgrace themselves by irritating lies and transparent subterfuges. My playlet, which I offer as a model to all future writers of farcical comedy, may now, I hope, be read without shock. I may just add that Mr. Sibthorpe Juno's view that morality demands, not that we should behave morally (an impossibility to our sinful nature) but that we shall not attempt to defend our immoralities, is a standard view in England, and was advanced in all seriousness by an earnest and distinguished British moralist shortly after the first performance of Overruled. My objection to that aspect of the doctrine of original sin is that no necessary and inevitable operation of human nature can reasonably be regarded as sinful at all, and that a morality which assumes the contrary is an absurd morality, and can be kept in countenance only by hypocrisy. When people were ashamed of sanitary problems, and refused to face them, leaving them to solve themselves clandestinely in dirt and secrecy, the solution arrived at was the Black Death. A similar policy as to sex problems has solved itself by an even worse plague than the Black Death; and the remedy for that is not Salvarsan, but sound moral hygiene, the first foundation of which is the discontinuance of our habit of telling not only the comparatively harmless lies that we know we ought not to tell, but the ruinous lies that we foolishly think we ought to tell. OVERRULED. A lady and gentleman are sitting together on a chesterfield in a retired corner of the lounge of a seaside hotel. It is a summer night: the French window behind them stands open. The terrace without overlooks a moonlit harbor. The lounge is dark. The chesterfield, upholstered in silver grey, and the two figures on it in evening dress, catch the light from an arc lamp somewhere; but the walls, covered with a dark green paper, are in gloom. There are two stray chairs, one on each side. On the gentleman's right, behind him up near the window, is an unused fireplace. Opposite it on the lady's left is a door. The gentleman is on the lady's right. The lady is very attractive, with a musical voice and soft appealing manners. She is young: that is, one feels sure that she is under thirty-five and over twenty-four. The gentleman does not look much older. He is rather handsome, and has ventured as far in the direction of poetic dandyism in the arrangement of his hair as any man who is not a professional artist can afford to in England. He is obviously very much in love with the lady, and is, in fact, yielding to an irresistible impulse to throw his arms around her. THE LADY. Don't--oh don't be horrid. Please, Mr. Lunn [she rises from the lounge and retreats behind it]! Promise me you won't be horrid. GREGORY LUNN. I'm not being horrid, Mrs. Juno. I'm not going to be horrid. I love you: that's all. I'm extraordinarily happy. MRS. JUNO. You will really be good? GREGORY. I'll be whatever you wish me to be. I tell you I love you. I love loving you. I don't want to be tired and sorry, as I should be if I were to be horrid. I don't want you to be tired and sorry. Do come and sit down again. MRS. JUNO [coming back to her seat]. You're sure you don't want anything you oughtn't to? GREGORY. Quite sure. I only want you [she recoils]. Don't be alarmed. I like wanting you. As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death. MRS. JUNO. Yes; but the impulse to commit suicide is sometimes irresistible. GREGORY. Not with you. MRS. JUNO. What! GREGORY. Oh, it sounds uncomplimentary; but it isn't really. Do you know why half the couples who find themselves situated as we are now behave horridly? MRS. JUNO. Because they can't help it if they let things go too far. GREGORY. Not a bit of it. It's because they have nothing else to do, and no other way of entertaining each other. You don't know what it is to be alone with a woman who has little beauty and less conversation. What is a man to do? She can't talk interestingly; and if he talks that way himself she doesn't understand him. He can't look at her: if he does, he only finds out that she isn't beautiful. Before the end of five minutes they are both hideously bored. There's only one thing that can save the situation; and that's what you call being horrid. With a beautiful, witty, kind woman, there's no time for such follies. It's so delightful to look at her, to listen to her voice, to hear all she has to say, that nothing else happens. That is why the woman who is supposed to have a thousand lovers seldom has one; whilst the stupid, graceless animals of women have dozens. MRS. JUNO. I wonder! It's quite true that when one feels in danger one talks like mad to stave it off, even when one doesn't quite want to stave it off. GREGORY. One never does quite want to stave it off. Danger is delicious. But death isn't. We court the danger; but the real delight is in escaping, after all. MRS. JUNO. I don't think we'll talk about it any more. Danger is all very well when you do escape; but sometimes one doesn't. I tell you frankly I don't feel as safe as you do--if you really do. GREGORY. But surely you can do as you please without injuring anyone, Mrs. Juno. That is the whole secret of your extraordinary charm for me. MRS. JUNO. I don't understand. GREGORY. Well, I hardly know how to begin to explain. But the root of the matter is that I am what people call a good man. MRS. JUNO. I thought so until you began making love to me. GREGORY. But you knew I loved you all along. MRS. JUNO. Yes, of course; but I depended on you not to tell me so; because I thought you were good. Your blurting it out spoilt it. And it was wicked besides. GREGORY. Not at all. You see, it's a great many years since I've been able to allow myself to fall in love. I know lots of charming women; but the worst of it is, they're all married. Women don't become charming, to my taste, until they're fully developed; and by that time, if they're really nice, they're snapped up and married. And then, because I am a good man, I have to place a limit to my regard for them. I may be fortunate enough to gain friendship and even very warm affection from them; but my loyalty to their husbands and their hearths and their happiness obliges me to draw a line and not overstep it. Of course I value such affectionate regard very highly indeed. I am surrounded with women who are most dear to me. But every one of them has a post sticking up, if I may put it that way, with the inscription Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. How we all loathe that notice! In every lovely garden, in every dell full of primroses, on every fair hillside, we meet that confounded board; and there is always a gamekeeper round the corner. But what is that to the horror of meeting it on every beautiful woman, and knowing that there is a husband round the corner? I have had this accursed board standing between me and every dear and desirable woman until I thought I had lost the power of letting myself fall really and wholeheartedly in love. MRS. JUNO. Wasn't there a widow? GREGORY. No. Widows are extraordinarily scarce in modern society. Husbands live longer than they used to; and even when they do die, their widows have a string of names down for their next. MRS. JUNO. Well, what about the young girls? GREGORY. Oh, who cares for young girls? They're sympathetic. They're beginners. They don't attract me. I'm afraid of them. MRS. JUNO. That's the correct thing to say to a woman of my age. But it doesn't explain why you seem to have put your scruples in your pocket when you met me. GREGORY. Surely that's quite clear. I-- MRS. JUNO. No: please don't explain. I don't want to know. I take your word for it. Besides, it doesn't matter now. Our voyage is over; and to-morrow I start for the north to my poor father's place. GREGORY [surprised]. Your poor father! I thought he was alive. MRS. JUNO. So he is. What made you think he wasn't? GREGORY. You said your POOR father. MRS. JUNO. Oh, that's a trick of mine. Rather a silly trick, I Suppose; but there's something pathetic to me about men: I find myself calling them poor So-and-So when there's nothing whatever the matter with them. GREGORY [who has listened in growing alarm]. But--I--is?-- wa--? Oh, Lord! MRS. JUNO. What's the matter? GREGORY. Nothing. MRS. JUNO. Nothing! [Rising anxiously]. Nonsense: you're ill. GREGORY. No. It was something about your late husband-- MRS. JUNO. My LATE husband! What do you mean? [clutching him, horror-stricken]. Don't tell me he's dead. GREGORY [rising, equally appalled]. Don't tell me he's alive. MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't frighten me like this. Of course he's alive--unless you've heard anything. GREGORY. The first day we met--on the boat--you spoke to me of your poor dear husband. MRS. JUNO [releasing him, quite reassured]. Is that all? GREGORY. Well, afterwards you called him poor Tops. Always poor Tops, Our poor dear Tops. What could I think? MRS. JUNO [sitting down again]. I wish you hadn't given me such a shock about him; for I haven't been treating him at all well. Neither have you. GREGORY [relapsing into his seat, overwhelmed]. And you mean to tell me you're not a widow! MRS. JUNO. Gracious, no! I'm not in black. GREGORY. Then I have been behaving like a blackguard. I have broken my promise to my mother. I shall never have an easy conscience again. MRS. JUNO. I'm sorry. I thought you knew. GREGORY. You thought I was a libertine? MRS. JUNO. No: of course I shouldn't have spoken to you if I had thought that. I thought you liked me, but that you knew, and would be good. GREGORY [stretching his hands towards her breast]. I thought the burden of being good had fallen from my soul at last. I saw nothing there but a bosom to rest on: the bosom of a lovely woman of whom I could dream without guilt. What do I see now? MRS. JUNO. Just what you saw before. GREGORY [despairingly]. No, no. MRS. JUNO. What else? GREGORY. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted: Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. MRS. JUNO. They won't if they hold their tongues. Don't be such a coward. My husband won't eat you. GREGORY. I'm not afraid of your husband. I'm afraid of my conscience. MRS. JUNO [losing patience]. Well! I don't consider myself at all a badly behaved woman; for nothing has passed between us that was not perfectly nice and friendly; but really! to hear a grown-up man talking about promises to his mother! GREGORY [interrupting her]. Yes, Yes: I know all about that. It's not romantic: it's not Don Juan: it's not advanced; but we feel it all the same. It's far deeper in our blood and bones than all the romantic stuff. My father got into a scandal once: that was why my mother made me promise never to make love to a married woman. And now I've done it I can't feel honest. Don't pretend to despise me or laugh at me. You feel it too. You said just now that your own conscience was uneasy when you thought of your husband. What must it be when you think of my wife? MRS. JUNO [rising aghast]. Your wife!!! You don't dare sit there and tell me coolly that you're a married man! GREGORY. I never led you to believe I was unmarried. MRS. JUNO. Oh! You never gave me the faintest hint that you had a wife. GREGORY. I did indeed. I discussed things with you that only married people really understand. MRS. JUNO. Oh!! GREGORY. I thought it the most delicate way of letting you know. MRS. JUNO. Well, you ARE a daisy, I must say. I suppose that's vulgar; but really! really!! You and your goodness! However, now we've found one another out there's only one thing to be done. Will you please go? GREGORY [rising slowly]. I OUGHT to go. MRS. JUNO. Well, go. GREGORY. Yes. Er--[he tries to go]. I--I somehow can't. [He sits down again helplessly]. My conscience is active: my will is paralyzed. This is really dreadful. Would you mind ringing the bell and asking them to throw me out? You ought to, you know. MRS. JUNO. What! make a scandal in the face of the whole hotel! Certainly not. Don't be a fool. GREGORY. Yes; but I can't go. MRS. JUNO. Then I can. Goodbye. GREGORY [clinging to her hand]. Can you really? MRS. JUNO. Of course I--[she wavers]. Oh, dear! [They contemplate one another helplessly]. I can't. [She sinks on the lounge, hand in hand with him]. GREGORY. For heaven's sake pull yourself together. It's a question of self-control. MRS. JUNO [dragging her hand away and retreating to the end of the chesterfield]. No: it's a question of distance. Self-control is all very well two or three yards off, or on a ship, with everybody looking on. Don't come any nearer. GREGORY. This is a ghastly business. I want to go away; and I can't. MRS. JUNO. I think you ought to go [he makes an effort; and she adds quickly] but if you try I shall grab you round the neck and disgrace myself. I implore you to sit still and be nice. GREGORY. I implore you to run away. I believe I can trust myself to let you go for your own sake. But it will break my heart. MRS. JUNO. I don't want to break your heart. I can't bear to think of your sitting here alone. I can't bear to think of sitting alone myself somewhere else. It's so senseless--so ridiculous--when we might be so happy. I don't want to be wicked, or coarse. But I like you very much; and I do want to be affectionate and human. GREGORY. I ought to draw a line. MRS. JUNO. So you shall, dear. Tell me: do you really like me? I don't mean LOVE me: you might love the housemaid-- GREGORY [vehemently]. No! MRS. JUNO. Oh, yes you might; and what does that matter, anyhow? Are you really fond of me? Are we friends--comrades? Would you be sorry if I died? GREGORY [shrinking]. Oh, don't. MRS. JUNO. Or was it the usual aimless man's lark: a mere shipboard flirtation? GREGORY. Oh, no, no: nothing half so bad, so vulgar, so wrong. I assure you I only meant to be agreeable. It grew on me before I noticed it. MRS. JUNO. And you were glad to let it grow? GREGORY. I let it grow because the board was not up. MRS. JUNO. Bother the board! I am just as fond of Sibthorpe as-- GREGORY. Sibthorpe! MRS. JUNO. Sibthorpe is my husband's Christian name. I oughtn't to call him Tops to you now. GREGORY [chuckling]. It sounded like something to drink. But I have no right to laugh at him. My Christian name is Gregory, which sounds like a powder. MRS. JUNO [chilled]. That is so like a man! I offer you my heart's warmest friendliest feeling; and you think of nothing but a silly joke. A quip like that makes you forget me. GREGORY. Forget you! Oh, if I only could! MRS. JUNO. If you could, would you? GREGORY [burying his shamed face in his hands]. No: I'd die first. Oh, I hate myself. MRS. JUNO. I glory in myself. It's so jolly to be reckless. CAN a man be reckless, I wonder. GREGORY [straightening himself desperately]. No. I'm not reckless. I know what I'm doing: my conscience is awake. Oh, where is the intoxication of love? the delirium? the madness that makes a man think the world well lost for the woman he adores? I don't think anything of the sort: I see that it's not worth it: I know that it's wrong: I have never in my life been cooler, more businesslike. MRS. JUNO. [opening her arms to him] But you can't resist me. GREGORY. I must. I ought [throwing himself into her arms]. Oh, my darling, my treasure, we shall be sorry for this. MRS. JUNO. We can forgive ourselves. Could we forgive ourselves if we let this moment slip? GREGORY. I protest to the last. I'm against this. I have been pushed over a precipice. I'm innocent. This wild joy, this exquisite tenderness, this ascent into heaven can thrill me to the uttermost fibre of my heart [with a gesture of ecstasy she hides her face on his shoulder]; but it can't subdue my mind or corrupt my conscience, which still shouts to the skies that I'm not a willing party to this outrageous conduct. I repudiate the bliss with which you are filling me. MRS. JUNO. Never mind your conscience. Tell me how happy you are. GREGORY. No, I recall you to your duty. But oh, I will give you my life with both hands if you can tell me that you feel for me one millionth part of what I feel for you now. MRS. JUNO. Oh, yes, yes. Be satisfied with that. Ask for no more. Let me go. GREGORY. I can't. I have no will. Something stronger than either of us is in command here. Nothing on earth or in heaven can part us now. You know that, don't you? MRS. JUNO. Oh, don't make me say it. Of course I know. Nothing--not life nor death nor shame nor anything can part us. A MATTER-OF-FACT MALE VOICE IN THE CORRIDOR. All right. This must be it. The two recover with a violent start; release one another; and spring back to opposite sides of the lounge. GREGORY. That did it. MRS. JUNO [in a thrilling whisper] Sh--sh--sh! That was my husband's voice. GREGORY. Impossible: it's only our guilty fancy. A WOMAN'S VOICE. This is the way to the lounge. I know it. GREGORY. Great Heaven! we're both mad. That's my wife's voice. MRS. JUNO. Ridiculous! Oh! we're dreaming it all. We [the door opens; and Sibthorpe Juno appears in the roseate glow of the corridor (which happens to be papered in pink) with Mrs. Lunn, like Tannhauser in the hill of Venus. He is a fussily energetic little man, who gives himself an air of gallantry by greasing the points of his moustaches and dressing very carefully. She is a tall, imposing, handsome, languid woman, with flashing dark eyes and long lashes. They make for the chesterfield, not noticing the two palpitating figures blotted against the walls in the gloom on either side. The figures flit away noiselessly through the window and disappear]. JUNO [officiously] Ah: here we are. [He leads the way to the sofa]. Sit down: I'm sure you're tired. [She sits]. That's right. [He sits beside her on her left]. Hullo! [he rises] this sofa's quite warm. MRS. LUNN [bored] Is it? I don't notice it. I expect the sun's been on it. JUNO. I felt it quite distinctly: I'm more thinly clad than you. [He sits down again, and proceeds, with a sigh of satisfaction]. What a relief to get off the ship and have a private room! That's the worst of a ship. You're under observation all the time. MRS. LUNN. But why not? JUNO. Well, of course there's no reason: at least I suppose not. But, you know, part of the romance of a journey is that a man keeps imagining that something might happen; and he can't do that if there are a lot of people about and it simply can't happen. MRS. LUNN. Mr. Juno: romance is all very well on board ship; but when your foot touches the soil of England there's an end of it. JUNO. No: believe me, that's a foreigner's mistake: we are the most romantic people in the world, we English. Why, my very presence here is a romance. MRS. LUNN [faintly ironical] Indeed? JUNO. Yes. You've guessed, of course, that I'm a married man. MRS. LUNN. Oh, that's all right. I'm a married woman. JUNO. Thank Heaven for that! To my English mind, passion is not real passion without guilt. I am a red-blooded man, Mrs. Lunn: I can't help it. The tragedy of my life is that I married, when quite young, a woman whom I couldn't help being very fond of. I longed for a guilty passion--for the real thing--the wicked thing; and yet I couldn't care twopence for any other woman when my wife was about. Year after year went by: I felt my youth slipping away without ever having had a romance in my life; for marriage is all very well; but it isn't romance. There's nothing wrong in it, you see. MRS. LUNN. Poor man! How you must have suffered! JUNO. No: that was what was so tame about it. I wanted to suffer. You get so sick of being happily married. It's always the happy marriages that break up. At last my wife and I agreed that we ought to take a holiday. MRS. LUNN. Hadn't you holidays every year? JUNO. Oh, the seaside and so on! That's not what we meant. We meant a holiday from one another. MRS. LUNN. How very odd! JUNO. She said it was an excellent idea; that domestic felicity was making us perfectly idiotic; that she wanted a holiday, too. So we agreed to go round the world in opposite directions. I started for Suez on the day she sailed for New York. MRS. LUNN [suddenly becoming attentive] That's precisely what Gregory and I did. Now I wonder did he want a holiday from me! What he said was that he wanted the delight of meeting me after a long absence. JUNO. Could anything be more romantic than that? Would anyone else than an Englishman have thought of it? I daresay my temperament seems tame to your boiling southern blood-- MRS. LUNN. My what! JUNO. Your southern blood. Don't you remember how you told me, that night in the saloon when I sang "Farewell and adieu to you dear Spanish ladies," that you were by birth a lady of Spain? Your splendid Andalusian beauty speaks for itself. MRS. LUNN. Stuff! I was born in Gibraltar. My father was Captain Jenkins. In the artillery. JUNO [ardently] It is climate and not race that determines the temperament. The fiery sun of Spain blazed on your cradle; and it rocked to the roar of British cannon. MRS. LUNN. What eloquence! It reminds me of my husband when he was in love before we were married. Are you in love? JUNO. Yes; and with the same woman. MRS. LUNN. Well, of course, I didn't suppose you were in love with two women. JUNO. I don't think you quite understand. I meant that I am in love with you. MRS. LUNN [relapsing into deepest boredom] Oh, that! Men do fall in love with me. They all seem to think me a creature with volcanic passions: I'm sure I don't know why; for all the volcanic women I know are plain little creatures with sandy hair. I don't consider human volcanoes respectable. And I'm so tired of the subject! Our house is always full of women who are in love with my husband and men who are in love with me. We encourage it because it's pleasant to have company. JUNO. And is your husband as insensible as yourself? MRS. LUNN. Oh, Gregory's not insensible: very far from it; but I am the only woman in the world for him. JUNO. But you? Are you really as insensible as you say you are? MRS. LUNN. I never said anything of the kind. I'm not at all insensible by nature; but (I don't know whether you've noticed it) I am what people call rather a fine figure of a woman. JUNO [passionately] Noticed it! Oh, Mrs. Lunn! Have I been able to notice anything else since we met? MRS. LUNN. There you go, like all the rest of them! I ask you, how do you expect a woman to keep up what you call her sensibility when this sort of thing has happened to her about three times a week ever since she was seventeen? It used to upset me and terrify me at first. Then I got rather a taste for it. It came to a climax with Gregory: that was why I married him. Then it became a mild lark, hardly worth the trouble. After that I found it valuable once or twice as a spinal tonic when I was run down; but now it's an unmitigated bore. I don't mind your declaration: I daresay it gives you a certain pleasure to make it. I quite understand that you adore me; but (if you don't mind) I'd rather you didn't keep on saying so. JUNO. Is there then no hope for me? MRS. LUNN. Oh, yes. Gregory has an idea that married women keep lists of the men they'll marry if they become widows. I'll put your name down, if that will satisfy you. JUNO. Is the list a long one? MRS. LUNN. Do you mean the real list? Not the one I show to Gregory: there are hundreds of names on that; but the little private list that he'd better not see? JUNO. Oh, will you really put me on that? Say you will. MRS. LUNN. Well, perhaps I will. [He kisses her hand]. Now don't begin abusing the privilege. JUNO. May I call you by your Christian name? MRS. LUNN. No: it's too long. You can't go about calling a woman Seraphita. JUNO [ecstatically] Seraphita! MRS. LUNN. I used to be called Sally at home; but when I married a man named Lunn, of course that became ridiculous. That's my one little pet joke. Call me Mrs. Lunn for short. And change the subject, or I shall go to sleep. JUNO. I can't change the subject. For me there is no other subject. Why else have you put me on your list? MRS. LUNN. Because you're a solicitor. Gregory's a solicitor. I'm accustomed to my husband being a solicitor and telling me things he oughtn't to tell anybody. JUNO [ruefully] Is that all? Oh, I can't believe that the voice of love has ever thoroughly awakened you. MRS. LUNN. No: it sends me to sleep. [Juno appeals against this by an amorous demonstration]. It's no use, Mr. Juno: I'm hopelessly respectable: the Jenkinses always were. Don't you realize that unless most women were like that, the world couldn't go on as it does? JUNO [darkly] You think it goes on respectably; but I can tell you as a solicitor-- MRS. LUNN. Stuff! of course all the disreputable people who get into trouble go to you, just as all the sick people go to the doctors; but most people never go to a solicitor. JUNO [rising, with a growing sense of injury] Look here, Mrs. Lunn: do you think a man's heart is a potato? or a turnip? or a ball of knitting wool? that you can throw it away like this? MRS. LUNN. I don't throw away balls of knitting wool. A man's heart seems to me much like a sponge: it sops up dirty water as well as clean. JUNO. I have never been treated like this in my life. Here am I, a married man, with a most attractive wife: a wife I adore, and who adores me, and has never as much as looked at any other man since we were married. I come and throw all this at your feet. I! I, a solicitor! braving the risk of your husband putting me into the divorce court and making me a beggar and an outcast! I do this for your sake. And you go on as if I were making no sacrifice: as if I had told you it's a fine evening, or asked you to have a cup of tea. It's not human. It's not right. Love has its rights as well as respectability [he sits down again, aloof and sulky]. MRS. LUNN. Nonsense! Here, here's a flower [she gives him one]. Go and dream over it until you feel hungry. Nothing brings people to their senses like hunger. JUNO [contemplating the flower without rapture] What good's this? MRS. LUNN [snatching it from him] Oh! you don't love me a bit. JUNO. Yes I do. Or at least I did. But I'm an Englishman; and I think you ought to respect the conventions of English life. MRS. LUNN. But I am respecting them; and you're not. JUNO. Pardon me. I may be doing wrong; but I'm doing it in a proper and customary manner. You may be doing right; but you're doing it in an unusual and questionable manner. I am not prepared to put up with that. I can stand being badly treated: I'm no baby, and can take care of myself with anybody. And of course I can stand being well treated. But the thing I can't stand is being unexpectedly treated, It's outside my scheme of life. So come now! you've got to behave naturally and straightforwardly with me. You can leave husband and child, home, friends, and country, for my sake, and come with me to some southern isle--or say South America--where we can be all in all to one another. Or you can tell your husband and let him jolly well punch my head if he can. But I'm damned if I'm going to stand any eccentricity. It's not respectable. GREGORY [coming in from the terrace and advancing with dignity to his wife's end of the chesterfield]. Will you have the goodness, sir, in addressing this lady, to keep your temper and refrain from using profane language? MRS. LUNN [rising, delighted] Gregory! Darling [she enfolds him in a copious embrace]! JUNO [rising] You make love to another man to my face! MRS. LUNN. Why, he's my husband. JUNO. That takes away the last rag of excuse for such conduct. A nice world it would be if married people were to carry on their endearments before everybody! GREGORY. This is ridiculous. What the devil business is it of yours what passes between my wife and myself? You're not her husband, are you? JUNO. Not at present; but I'm on the list. I'm her prospective husband: you're only her actual one. I'm the anticipation: you're the disappointment. MRS. LUNN. Oh, my Gregory is not a disappointment. [Fondly] Are you, dear? GREGORY. You just wait, my pet. I'll settle this chap for you. [He disengages himself from her embrace, and faces Juno. She sits down placidly]. You call me a disappointment, do you? Well, I suppose every husband's a disappointment. What about yourself? Don't try to look like an unmarried man. I happen to know the lady you disappointed. I travelled in the same ship with her; and-- JUNO. And you fell in love with her. GREGORY [taken aback] Who told you that? JUNO. Aha! you confess it. Well, if you want to know, nobody told me. Everybody falls in love with my wife. GREGORY. And do you fall in love with everybody's wife? JUNO. Certainly not. Only with yours. MRS. LUNN. But what's the good of saying that, Mr. Juno? I'm married to him; and there's an end of it. JUNO. Not at all. You can get a divorce. MRS. LUNN. What for? JUNO. For his misconduct with my wife. GREGORY [deeply indignant] How dare you, sir, asperse the character of that sweet lady? a lady whom I have taken under my protection. JUNO. Protection! MRS. JUNO [returning hastily] Really you must be more careful what you say about me, Mr. Lunn. JUNO. My precious! [He embraces her]. Pardon this betrayal of my feeling; but I've not seen my wife for several weeks; and she is very dear to me. GREGORY. I call this cheek. Who is making love to his own wife before people now, pray? MRS. LUNN. Won't you introduce me to your wife, Mr. Juno? MRS. JUNO. How do you do? [They shake hands; and Mrs. Juno sits down beside Mrs. Lunn, on her left]. MRS. LUNN. I'm so glad to find you do credit to Gregory's taste. I'm naturally rather particular about the women he falls in love with. JUNO [sternly] This is no way to take your husband's unfaithfulness. [To Lunn] You ought to teach your wife better. Where's her feelings? It's scandalous. GREGORY. What about your own conduct, pray? JUNO. I don't defend it; and there's an end of the matter. GREGORY. Well, upon my soul! What difference does your not defending it make? JUNO. A fundamental difference. To serious people I may appear wicked. I don't defend myself: I am wicked, though not bad at heart. To thoughtless people I may even appear comic. Well, laugh at me: I have given myself away. But Mrs. Lunn seems to have no opinion at all about me. She doesn't seem to know whether I'm wicked or comic. She doesn't seem to care. She has no more sense. I say it's not right. I repeat, I have sinned; and I'm prepared to suffer. MRS. JUNO. Have you really sinned, Tops? MRS. LUNN [blandly] I don't remember your sinning. I have a shocking bad memory for trifles; but I think I should remember that--if you mean me. JUNO [raging] Trifles! I have fallen in love with a monster. GREGORY. Don't you dare call my wife a monster. MRS. JUNO [rising quickly and coming between them]. Please don't lose your temper, Mr. Lunn: I won't have my Tops bullied. GREGORY. Well, then, let him not brag about sinning with my wife. [He turns impulsively to his wife; makes her rise; and takes her proudly on his arm]. What pretension has he to any such honor? JUNO. I sinned in intention. [Mrs. Juno abandons him and resumes her seat, chilled]. I'm as guilty as if I had actually sinned. And I insist on being treated as a sinner, and not walked over as if I'd done nothing, by your wife or any other man. MRS. LUNN. Tush! [She sits down again contemptuously]. JUNO [furious] I won't be belittled. MRS. LUNN [to Mrs. Juno] I hope you'll come and stay with us now that you and Gregory are such friends, Mrs. Juno. JUNO. This insane magnanimity-- MRS. LUNN. Don't you think you've said enough, Mr. Juno? This is a matter for two women to settle. Won't you take a stroll on the beach with my Gregory while we talk it over. Gregory is a splendid listener. JUNO. I don't think any good can come of a conversation between Mr. Lunn and myself. We can hardly be expected to improve one another's morals. [He passes behind the chesterfield to Mrs. Lunn's end; seizes a chair; deliberately pushes it between Gregory and Mrs. Lunn; and sits down with folded arms, resolved not to budge]. GREGORY. Oh! Indeed! Oh, all right. If you come to that--[he crosses to Mrs. Juno; plants a chair by her side; and sits down with equal determination]. JUNO. Now we are both equally guilty. GREGORY. Pardon me. I'm not guilty. JUNO. In intention. Don't quibble. You were guilty in intention, as I was. GREGORY. No. I should rather describe myself guilty in fact, but not in intention. JUNO { rising and } What! MRS. JUNO { exclaiming } No, really-- MRS. LUNN { simultaneously } Gregory! GREGORY. Yes: I maintain that I am responsible for my intentions only, and not for reflex actions over which I have no control. [Mrs. Juno sits down, ashamed]. I promised my mother that I would never tell a lie, and that I would never make love to a married woman. I never have told a lie-- MRS. LUNN [remonstrating] Gregory! [She sits down again]. GREGORY. I say never. On many occasions I have resorted to prevarication; but on great occasions I have always told the truth. I regard this as a great occasion; and I won't be intimidated into breaking my promise. I solemnly declare that I did not know until this evening that Mrs. Juno was married. She will bear me out when I say that from that moment my intentions were strictly and resolutely honorable; though my conduct, which I could not control and am therefore not responsible for, was disgraceful--or would have been had this gentleman not walked in and begun making love to my wife under my very nose. JUNO [flinging himself back into his chair] Well, I like this! MRS. LUNN. Really, darling, there's no use in the pot calling the kettle black. GREGORY. When you say darling, may I ask which of us you are addressing? MRS. LUNN. I really don't know. I'm getting hopelessly confused. JUNO. Why don't you let my wife say something? I don't think she ought to be thrust into the background like this. MRS. LUNN. I'm sorry, I'm sure. Please excuse me, dear. MRS. JUNO [thoughtfully] I don't know what to say. I must think over it. I have always been rather severe on this sort of thing; but when it came to the point I didn't behave as I thought I should behave. I didn't intend to be wicked; but somehow or other, Nature, or whatever you choose to call it, didn't take much notice of my intentions. [Gregory instinctively seeks her hand and presses it]. And I really did think, Tops, that I was the only woman in the world for you. JUNO [cheerfully] Oh, that's all right, my precious. Mrs. Lunn thought she was the only woman in the world for him. GREGORY [reflectively] So she is, in a sort of a way. JUNO [flaring up] And so is my wife. Don't you set up to be a better husband than I am; for you're not. I've owned I'm wrong. You haven't. MRS. LUNN. Are you sorry, Gregory? GREGORY [perplexed] Sorry? MRS. LUNN. Yes, sorry. I think it's time for you to say you're sorry, and to make friends with Mr. Juno before we all dine together. GREGORY. Seraphita: I promised my mother-- MRS. JUNO [involuntarily] Oh, bother your mother! [Recovering herself] I beg your pardon. GREGORY. A promise is a promise. I can't tell a deliberate lie. I know I ought to be sorry; but the flat fact is that I'm not sorry. I find that in this business, somehow or other, there is a disastrous separation between my moral principles and my conduct. JUNO. There's nothing disastrous about it. It doesn't matter about your principles if your conduct is all right. GREGORY. Bosh! It doesn't matter about your principles if your conduct is all right. JUNO. But your conduct isn't all right; and my principles are. GREGORY. What's the good of your principles being right if they won't work? JUNO. They WILL work, sir, if you exercise self-sacrifice. GREGORY. Oh yes: if, if, if. You know jolly well that self-sacrifice doesn't work either when you really want a thing. How much have you sacrificed yourself, pray? MRS. LUNN. Oh, a great deal, Gregory. Don't be rude. Mr. Juno is a very nice man: he has been most attentive to me on the voyage. GREGORY. And Mrs. Juno's a very nice woman. She oughtn't to be; but she is. JUNO. Why oughtn't she to be a nice woman, pray? GREGORY. I mean she oughtn't to be nice to me. And you oughtn't to be nice to my wife. And your wife oughtn't to like me. And my wife oughtn't to like you. And if they do, they oughtn't to go on liking us. And I oughtn't to like your wife; and you oughtn't to like mine; and if we do we oughtn't to go on liking them. But we do, all of us. We oughtn't; but we do. JUNO. But, my dear boy, if we admit we are in the wrong where's the harm of it? We're not perfect; but as long as we keep the ideal before us-- GREGORY. How? JUNO. By admitting we were wrong. MRS. LUNN [springing up, out of patience, and pacing round the lounge intolerantly] Well, really, I must have my dinner. These two men, with their morality, and their promises to their mothers, and their admissions that they were wrong, and their sinning and suffering, and their going on at one another as if it meant anything, or as if it mattered, are getting on my nerves. [Stooping over the back of the chesterfield to address Mrs. Juno] If you will be so very good, my dear, as to take my sentimental husband off my hands occasionally, I shall be more than obliged to you: I'm sure you can stand more male sentimentality than I can. [Sweeping away to the fireplace] I, on my part, will do my best to amuse your excellent husband when you find him tiresome. JUNO. I call this polyandry. MRS. LUNN. I wish you wouldn't call innocent things by offensive names, Mr. Juno. What do you call your own conduct? JUNO [rising] I tell you I have admitted-- GREGORY { } What's the good of keeping on at that? MRS. JUNO { together } Oh, not that again, please. MRS. LUNN { } Tops: I'll scream if you say that again. JUNO. Oh, well, if you won't listen to me--! [He sits down again]. MRS. JUNO. What is the position now exactly? [Mrs. Lunn shrugs her shoulders and gives up the conundrum. Gregory looks at Juno. Juno turns away his head huffily]. I mean, what are we going to do? MRS. LUNN. What would you advise, Mr. Juno? JUNO. I should advise you to divorce your husband. MRS. LUNN. Do you want me to drag your wife into court and disgrace her? JUNO. No: I forgot that. Excuse me; but for the moment I thought I was married to you. GREGORY. I think we had better let bygones be bygones. [To Mrs. Juno, very tenderly] You will forgive me, won't you? Why should you let a moment's forgetfulness embitter all our future life? MRS. JUNO. But it's Mrs. Lunn who has to forgive you. GREGORY. Oh, dash it, I forgot. This is getting ridiculous. MRS. LUNN. I'm getting hungry. MRS. JUNO. Do you really mind, Mrs. Lunn? MRS. LUNN. My dear Mrs. Juno, Gregory is one of those terribly uxorious men who ought to have ten wives. If any really nice woman will take him off my hands for a day or two occasionally, I shall be greatly obliged to her. GREGORY. Seraphita: you cut me to the soul [he weeps]. MRs. LUNN. Serve you right! You'd think it quite proper if it cut me to the soul. MRS. JUNO. Am I to take Sibthorpe off your hands too, Mrs. Lunn? JUNO [rising] Do you suppose I'll allow this? MRS. JUNO. You've admitted that you've done wrong, Tops. What's the use of your allowing or not allowing after that? JUNO. I do not admit that I have done wrong. I admit that what I did was wrong. GREGORY. Can you explain the distinction? JUNO. It's quite plain to anyone but an imbecile. If you tell me I've done something wrong you insult me. But if you say that something that I did is wrong you simply raise a question of morals. I tell you flatly if you say I did anything wrong you will have to fight me. In fact I think we ought to fight anyhow. I don't particularly want to; but I feel that England expects us to. GREGORY. I won't fight. If you beat me my wife would share my humiliation. If I beat you, she would sympathize with you and loathe me for my brutality. MRS. LUNN. Not to mention that as we are human beings and not reindeer or barndoor fowl, if two men presumed to fight for us we couldn't decently ever speak to either of them again. GREGORY. Besides, neither of us could beat the other, as we neither of us know how to fight. We should only blacken each other's eyes and make fools of ourselves. JUNO. I don't admit that. Every Englishman can use his fists. GREGORY. You're an Englishman. Can you use yours? JUNO. I presume so: I never tried. MRS. JUNO. You never told me you couldn't fight, Tops. I thought you were an accomplished boxer. JUNO. My precious: I never gave you any ground for such a belief. MRS. JUNO. You always talked as if it were a matter of course. You spoke with the greatest contempt of men who didn't kick other men downstairs. JUNO. Well, I can't kick Mr. Lunn downstairs. We're on the ground floor. MRS. JUNO. You could throw him into the harbor. GREGORY. Do you want me to be thrown into the harbor? MRS. JUNO. No: I only want to show Tops that he's making a ghastly fool of himself. GREGORY [rising and prowling disgustedly between the chesterfield and the windows] We're all making fools of ourselves. JUNO [following him] Well, if we're not to fight, I must insist at least on your never speaking to my wife again. GREGORY. Does my speaking to your wife do you any harm? JUNO. No. But it's the proper course to take. [Emphatically]. We MUST behave with some sort of decency. MRS. LUNN. And are you never going to speak to me again, Mr. Juno? JUNO. I'm prepared to promise never to do so. I think your husband has a right to demand that. Then if I speak to you after, it will not be his fault. It will be a breach of my promise; and I shall not attempt to defend my conduct. GREGORY [facing him] I shall talk to your wife as often as she'll let me. MRS. JUNO. I have no objection to your speaking to me, Mr. Lunn. JUNO. Then I shall take steps. GREGORY. What steps? Juno. Steps. Measures. Proceedings. What steps as may seem advisable. MRS. LUNN [to Mrs. Juno] Can your husband afford a scandal, Mrs. Juno? MRS. JUNO. No. MRS. LUNN. Neither can mine. GREGORY. Mrs. Juno: I'm very sorry I let you in for all this. I don't know how it is that we contrive to make feelings like ours, which seems to me to be beautiful and sacred feelings, and which lead to such interesting and exciting adventures, end in vulgar squabbles and degrading scenes. JUNO. I decline to admit that my conduct has been vulgar or degrading. GREGORY. I promised-- JUNO. Look here, old chap: I don't say a word against your mother; and I'm sorry she's dead; but really, you know, most women are mothers; and they all die some time or other; yet that doesn't make them infallible authorities on morals, does it? GREGORY. I was about to say so myself. Let me add that if you do things merely because you think some other fool expects you to do them, and he expects you to do them because he thinks you expect him to expect you to do them, it will end in everybody doing what nobody wants to do, which is in my opinion a silly state of things. JUNO. Lunn: I love your wife; and that's all about it. GREGORY. Juno: I love yours. What then? JUNO. Clearly she must never see you again. MRS. JUNO. Why not? JUNO. Why not! My love: I'm surprised at you. MRS. JUNO. Am I to speak only to men who dislike me? JUNO. Yes: I think that is, properly speaking, a married woman's duty. MRS. JUNO. Then I won't do it: that's flat. I like to be liked. I like to be loved. I want everyone round me to love me. I don't want to meet or speak to anyone who doesn't like me. JUNO. But, my precious, this is the most horrible immorality. MRS. LUNN. I don't intend to give up meeting you, Mr. Juno. You amuse me very much. I don't like being loved: it bores me. But I do like to be amused. JUNO. I hope we shall meet very often. But I hope also we shall not defend our conduct. MRS. JUNO [rising] This is unendurable. We've all been flirting. Need we go on footling about it? JUNO [huffily] I don't know what you call footling-- MRS. JUNO [cutting him short] You do. You're footling. Mr. Lunn is footling. Can't we admit that we're human and have done with it? JUNO. I have admitted it all along. I-- MRS. JUNO [almost screaming] Then stop footling. The dinner gong sounds. MRS. LUNN [rising] Thank heaven! Let's go in to dinner. Gregory: take in Mrs. Juno. GREGORY. But surely I ought to take in our guest, and not my own wife. MRS. LUNN. Well, Mrs. Juno is not your wife, is she? GREGORY. Oh, of course: I beg your pardon. I'm hopelessly confused. [He offers his arm to Mrs. Juno, rather apprehensively]. MRS. JUNO. You seem quite afraid of me [she takes his arm]. GREGORY. I am. I simply adore you. [They go out together; and as they pass through the door he turns and says in a ringing voice to the other couple] I have said to Mrs. Juno that I simply adore her. [He takes her out defiantly]. MRS. LUNN [calling after him] Yes, dear. She's a darling. [To Juno] Now, Sibthorpe. JUNO [giving her his arm gallantly] You have called me Sibthorpe! Thank you. I think Lunn's conduct fully justifies me in allowing you to do it. MRS. LUNN. Yes: I think you may let yourself go now. JUNO. Seraphita: I worship you beyond expression. MRS. LUNN. Sibthorpe: you amuse me beyond description. Come. [They go in to dinner together]. 
37012	----	Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net THE RECRUITING OFFICER, A COMEDY, IN FIVE ACTS; BY GEORGE FARQUHAR, ESQ. AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE ROYAL, COVENT GARDEN. PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS FROM THE PROMPT BOOK. WITH REMARKS BY MRS. INCHBALD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME PATERNOSTER ROW. WILLIAM SAVAGE, PRINTER, LONDON. REMARKS. If the two last acts of this drama were equal to the three first, it would rank the foremost among Farquhar's works; for these are brilliant in wit, humour, character, incident, and every other requisite necessary to form a complete comedy. But the decrease of merit in a play, on approaching its conclusion, is, as in all other productions, of most unfortunate consequence. The author was himself a recruiting officer, and possibly gathered all the materials for this play on the very spot where he has placed his scene--Shrewsbury. He has dedicated the piece "to all friends round the Wrekin," and has thanked the inhabitants of the town for that cheerful hospitality, which made, he adds, "the recruiting service, to some men the greatest fatigue on earth, to me the greatest pleasure in the world." He even acknowledges, that he found the country folk, whom he has here introduced--meaning those most excellently drawn characters of Rose, her brother, and the two recruits,--under the shade of that beforementioned hill near Shrewsbury, the Wrekin; and it may be well supposed, that he discovered Serjeant Kite in his own Regiment, and Captain Plume in his own person. Certainly those characters have every appearance of being copied from life--and probably, many other of his Salopian acquaintance have here had their portraits drawn to perfection. The disguise of Sylvia in boy's clothes, is an improbable, and romantic occurrence; yet it is one of those dramatic events, which were considered as perfectly natural in former times; although neither history, nor tradition, gives any cause to suppose, that the English ladies were accustomed to attire themselves in man's apparel; and reason assures us, that they could seldom, if ever, have concealed their sex by such stratagem. Another incident in the "Recruiting Officer" might have had its value a hundred years ago--just the time since the play was first acted; but to the present generation, it is so dull, that it casts a heaviness upon all those scenes, whereon it has any influence. Fortune-tellers are now a set of personages, in whom, and in whose skill or fraud, no rational person takes interest; and though such people still exist by their profession, they are so vile, they are beneath satire; and their dupes such ideots, they do not even enjoy sense enough, for their folly to produce risibility. Perhaps, the author despised this part of his play, as much as the severest critic can do; but having expended his store of entertainment upon the foregoing scenes, he was compelled to supply the bulk of the two last acts, from the scanty fund of wasted spirits, and exhausted invention. The life of Farquhar was full of adventures.--As a student, he was expelled the college of Dublin, for adventuring profane wit upon a sacred theme, given to him by his tutor for his exercise. As an actor, he forsook the stage in grief and horror, on having unknowingly made use of a real sword, instead of a counterfeit one, by which he wounded a brother performer, with whom he had to fence in a tragedy, nearly to the loss of his life. In love, and marriage, his enterprises were still more unhappily terminated.--And merely as an author, and a soldier, can any events of his life be accounted prosperous. As a dramatic writer, Farquhar was eminently successful; and in his military capacity, he was ever honoured and beloved--whether fighting with a great army in Flanders, or recruiting with a small party in Shropshire. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. CAPTAIN PLUME _Mr. Holman._ JUSTICE BALANCE _Mr. Murray._ WORTHY _Mr. Whitfield._ SERJEANT KITE _Mr. Knight._ BULLOCK _Mr. Fawcett._ FIRST RECRUIT _Mr. Munden._ SECOND RECRUIT _Mr. Emery._ WELSH COLLIER _Mr. Farley._ CONSTABLE _Mr. Thompson._ CAPTAIN BRAZEN _Mr. Lewis._ MELINDA _Miss Chapman._ ROSE _Mrs. Gibbs._ LUCY _Mrs. Litchfield._ SYLVIA _Mrs. Johnson._ _SCENE--Shrewsbury._ THE RECRUITING OFFICER. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. _The Market Place._ _Drum beats the Grenadier's March.--Enter_ SERJEANT KITE, _followed by_ THOMAS APPLETREE, COSTAR PEARMAIN, _and the_ MOB. Kite. [_Making a Speech._] If any gentlemen soldiers or others, have a mind to serve his majesty, and pull down the French king; if any 'prentices have severe masters, any children have undutiful parents; if any servants have too little wages, or any husband too much wife, let them repair to the noble Serjeant Kite, at the sign of the Raven, in this good town of Shrewsbury, and they shall receive present relief and entertainment.--[_Drum._]--Gentlemen, I don't beat my drums here to insnare or inveigle any man; for you must know, gentlemen, that I am a man of honour: besides, I don't beat up for common soldiers; no, I list only grenadiers; grenadiers, gentlemen.----Pray, gentlemen, observe this cap--this is the cap of honour; it dubs a man a gentleman, in the drawing of a trigger; and he, that has the good fortune to be born six foot high, was born to be a great man--Sir, will you give me leave to try this cap upon your head? _Cost._ Is there no harm in't? won't the cap list me? _Kite._ No, no, no more than I can.--Come, let me see how it becomes you. _Cost._ Are you sure there is no conjuration in it? no gunpowder plot upon me? _Kite._ No, no, friend; don't fear, man. _Cost._ My mind misgives me plaguily.--Let me see it--[_Going to put it on._] It smells woundily of sweat and brimstone. Smell, Tummas. _Tho._ Ay, wauns does it. _Cost._ Pray, Serjeant, what writing is this upon the face of it? _Kite._ The crown, or the bed of honour. _Cost._ Pray now, what may be that same bed of honour? _Kite._ Oh! a mighty large bed! bigger by half than the great bed at Ware--ten thousand people may lie in it together, and never feel one another. _Cost._ My wife and I would do well to lie in't, for we don't care for feeling one another----But do folk sleep sound in this same bed of honour? _Kite._ Sound! ay, so sound that they never wake. _Cost._ Wauns! I wish again that my wife lay there. _Kite._ Say you so! then I find, brother---- _Cost._ Brother! hold there friend; I am no kindred to you that I know of yet.--Lookye, serjeant, no coaxing, no wheedling, d'ye see--If I have a mind to list, why so--if not, why 'tis not so--therefore take your cap and your brothership back again, for I am not disposed at this present writing.--No coaxing, no brothering me, 'faith. _Kite._ I coax! I wheedle! I'm above it, sir: I have served twenty campaigns----but, sir, you talk well, and I must own that you are a man, every inch of you; a pretty, young, sprightly fellow!--I love a fellow with a spirit; but I scorn to coax; 'tis base; though I must say, that never in my life have I seen a man better built. How firm and strong he treads! he steps like a castle! but I scorn to wheedle any man--Come, honest lad! will you take share of a pot? _Cost._ Nay, for that matter, I'll spend my penny with the best he that wears a head, that is, begging your pardon, sir, and in a fair way. _Kite._ Give me your hand then; and now, gentlemen, I have no more to say but this--here's a purse of gold, and there is a tub of humming ale at my quarters--'tis the king's money, and the king's drink--he's a generous king, and loves his subjects--I hope, gentlemen, you won't refuse the king's health. _All Mob._ No, no, no. _Kite._ Huzza, then! huzza for the king, and the honour of Shropshire. _All Mob._ Huzza! _Kite._ Beat drum. [_Exeunt, shouting.--Drum beating the Grenadier's March._ _Enter_ PLUME, _in a Riding Habit_. _Plume._ By the Grenadier's march, that should be my drum, and by that shout, it should beat with success.--Let me see--four o'clock--[_Looking on his Watch._] At ten yesterday morning I left London--an hundred and twenty miles in thirty hours is pretty smart riding, but nothing to the fatigue of recruiting. _Enter_ KITE. _Kite._ Welcome to Shrewsbury, noble captain! from the banks of the Danube to the Severn side, noble captain! you're welcome. _Plume._ A very elegant reception, indeed, Mr. Kite. I find you are fairly entered into your recruiting strain--Pray what success? _Kite._ I've been here a week, and I've recruited five. _Plume._ Five! pray what are they? _Kite._ I have listed the strong man of Kent, the king of the gipsies, a Scotch pedlar, a scoundrel attorney, and a Welsh parson. _Plume._ An attorney! wert thou mad? list a lawyer! discharge him, discharge him, this minute. _Kite._ Why, sir? _Plume._ Because I will have nobody in my company that can write; a fellow that can write, can draw petitions--I say this minute discharge him. _Kite._ And what shall I do with the parson? _Plume._ Can he write? _Kite._ Hum? he plays rarely upon the fiddle. _Plume._ Keep him, by all means--But how stands the country affected? were the people pleased with the news of my coming to town? _Kite._ Sir, the mob are so pleased with your honour, and the justices and better sort of people, are so delighted with me, that we shall soon do your business----But, sir, you have got a recruit here, that you little think of. _Plume._ Who? _Kite._ One that you beat up for the last time you were in the country. You remember your old friend Molly, at the Castle? _Plume._ She's not with child, I hope? _Kite._ She was brought to-bed yesterday. _Plume._ Kite, you must father the child. _Kite._ And so her friends will oblige me to marry the mother. _Plume._ If they should, we'll take her with us; she can wash, you know, and make a bed upon occasion. _Kite._ Ay, or unmake it upon occasion. But your honour knows that I am married already. _Plume._ To how many? _Kite._ I can't tell readily--I have set them down here upon the back of the muster-roll. [_Draws it out._] Let me see--_Imprimis_, Mrs. Shely Snikereyes; she sells potatoes upon Ormond key, in Dublin--Peggy Guzzle, the brandy woman at the Horse Guards, at Whitehall--Dolly Waggon, the carrier's daughter, at Hull--Mademoiselle Van Bottomflat, at the Buss--then Jenny Oakum, the ship-carpenter's widow, at Portsmouth; but I don't reckon upon her, for she was married at the same time to two lieutenants of marines, and a man of war's boatswain. _Plume._ A full company--you have named five--come, make them half a dozen--Kite, is the child a boy, or a girl? _Kite._ A chopping boy. _Plume._ Then set the mother down in your list, and the boy in mine; enter him a grenadier, by the name of Francis Kite, absent upon furlow--I'll allow you a man's pay for his subsistence; and now, go comfort the wench in the straw. _Kite._ I shall, sir. _Plume._ But hold, have you made any use of your fortune-teller's habit since you arrived? _Kite._ Yes, yes, sir; and my fame's all about the country for the most faithful fortune-teller that ever told a lie--I was obliged to let my landlord into the secret, for the convenience of keeping it so; but he is an honest fellow, and will be faithful to any roguery that is trusted to him. This device, sir, will get you men, and me, money, which, I think, is all we want at present--But yonder comes your friend, Mr. Worthy--Has your honour any further commands? _Plume._ None at present. [_Exit_ KITE.] 'Tis indeed, the picture of Worthy, but the life is departed. _Enter_ WORTHY. What, arms across, Worthy! methinks you should hold them open when a friend's so near--The man has got the vapours in his ears, I believe. I must expel this melancholy spirit. _Spleen, thou worst of fiends below,_ _Fly, I conjure thee, by this magic blow._ [_Slaps_ WORTHY _on the Shoulder_. _Wor._ Plume! my dear captain! welcome. Safe and sound returned! _Plume._ I escaped safe from Germany, and sound, I hope, from London: you see I have lost neither leg, arm, nor nose. Then for my inside, 'tis neither troubled with sympathies, nor antipathies; and I have an excellent stomach for roast beef. _Wor._ Thou art a happy fellow: once I was so. _Plume._ What ails thee, man? no inundations nor earthquakes, in Wales, I hope? Has your father rose from the dead, and reassumed his estate? _Wor._ No. _Plume._ Then you are married, surely? _Wor._ No. _Plume._ Then you are mad, or turning quaker? _Wor._ Come, I must out with it.----Your once gay, roving friend, is dwindled into an obsequious, thoughtful, romantic, constant coxcomb. _Plume._ And pray, what is all this for? _Wor._ For a woman. _Plume._ Shake hands, brother. If you go to that, behold me as obsequious, as thoughtful, and as constant a coxcomb, as your worship. _Wor._ For whom? _Plume._ For a regiment--but for a woman! 'Sdeath! I have been constant to fifteen at a time, but never melancholy for one: and can the love of one bring you into this condition? Pray, who is this wonderful Helen? _Wor._ A Helen, indeed! not to be won under ten years' siege; as great a beauty, and as great a jilt. _Plume._ A jilt! pho! is she as great a whore? _Wor._ No, no. _Plume._ 'Tis ten thousand pities!--But who is she?--do I know her? _Wor._ Very well. _Plume._ That's impossible----I know no woman that will hold out a ten years' siege. _Wor._ What think you of Melinda? _Plume._ Melinda! why she began to capitulate this time twelvemonth, and offered to surrender upon honourable terms: and I advised you to propose a settlement of five hundred pounds a year to her, before I went last abroad. _Wor._ I did, and she hearkened to it, desiring only one week to consider--when beyond her hopes the town was relieved, and I forced to turn the siege into a blockade. _Plume._ Explain, explain. _Wor._ My Lady Richly, her aunt in Flintshire, dies, and leaves her, at this critical time, twenty thousand pounds. _Plume._ Oh, the devil! what a delicate woman was there spoiled! But, by the rules of war, now----Worthy, blockade was foolish--After such a convoy of provisions was entered the place, you could have no thought of reducing it by famine; you should have redoubled your attacks, taken the town by storm, or have died upon the breach. _Wor._ I did make one general assault, but was so vigorously repulsed, that, despairing of ever gaining her for a mistress, I have altered my conduct, given my addresses the obsequious, and distant turn, and court her now for a wife. _Plume._ So, as you grew obsequious, she grew haughty, and, because you approached her like a goddess, she used you like a dog. _Wor._ Exactly. _Plume._ 'Tis the way of them all----Come, Worthy, your obsequious and distant airs will never bring you together; you must not think to surmount her pride by your humility. Would you bring her to better thoughts of you, she must be reduced to a meaner opinion of herself. Let me see, the very first thing that I would do, should be, to lie with her chambermaid, and hire three or four wenches in the neighbourhood to report, that I had got them with child--Suppose we lampooned all the pretty women in town, and left her out; or, what if we made a ball, and forgot to invite her, with one or two of the ugliest. _Wor._ These would be mortifications I must confess; but we live in such a precise, dull place, that we can have no balls, no lampoons, no---- _Plume._ What, no bastards! and so many recruiting officers in town! I thought 'twas a maxim among them, to leave as many recruits in the country as they carried out. _Wor._ Nobody doubts your good will, noble captain, in serving your country; witness our friend Molly at the Castle; there have been tears in town about that business, captain. _Plume._ I hope Sylvia has not heard of it. _Wor._ Oh, sir, have you thought of her? I began to fancy you had forgot poor Sylvia. _Plume._ Your affairs had quite put mine out of my head. 'Tis true, Sylvia and I had once agreed to go to bed together, could we have adjusted preliminaries; but she would have the wedding before consummation, and I was for consummation before the wedding: we could not agree. _Wor._ But do you intend to marry upon no other conditions? _Plume._ Your pardon, sir, I'll marry upon no condition at all--If I should, I am resolved never to bind myself down to a woman for my whole life, till I know whether I shall like her company for half an hour. Suppose I married a woman without a leg--such a thing might be, unless I examined the goods before-hand.--If people would but try one another's constitutions before they engaged, it would prevent all these elopements, divorces, and the devil knows what. _Wor._ Nay, for that matter, the town did not stick to say that---- _Plume._ I hate country towns for that reason.--If your town has a dishonourable thought of Sylvia, it deserves to be burnt to the ground--I love Sylvia, I admire her frank, generous disposition--there's something in that girl more than woman--In short, were I once a general, I would marry her. _Wor._ 'Faith, you have reason--for were you but a corporal, she would marry you--but my Melinda coquets it with every fellow she sees--I'll lay fifty pounds she makes love to you. _Plume._ I'll lay you a hundred, that I return it if she does--Look ye, Worthy, I'll win her, and give her to you afterwards. _Wor._ If you win her, you shall wear her, 'faith; I would not value the conquest, without the credit of the victory. _Enter_ KITE. _Kite._ Captain, captain! a word in your ear. _Plume._ You may speak out, here are none but friends. _Kite._ You know, sir, that you sent me to comfort the good woman in the straw, Mrs. Molly--my wife, Mr. Worthy. _Wor._ O ho! very well. I wish you joy, Mr. Kite. _Kite._ Your worship very well may--for I have got both a wife and a child in half an hour--But as I was saying--you sent me to comfort Mrs. Molly--my wife, I mean--but what d'ye think, sir? she was better comforted before I came. _Plume._ As how? _Kite._ Why, sir, a footman in a blue livery had brought her ten guineas to buy her baby-clothes. _Plume._ Who, in the name of wonder, could send them? _Kite._ Nay, sir, I must whisper that--Mrs. Sylvia. _Plume._ Sylvia! generous creature! _Wor._ Sylvia! impossible! _Kite._ Here are the guineas, sir--I took the gold as part of my wife's portion. Nay, farther, sir, she sent word the child should be taken all imaginable care of, and that she intended to stand godmother. The same footman, as I was coming to you with this news, called after me, and told me, that his lady would speak to me--I went, and upon hearing that you were come to town, she gave me half a guinea for the news, and ordered me to tell you, that Justice Balance, her father, who is just come out of the country, would be glad to see you. _Plume._ There's a girl for you, Worthy!--Is there any thing of woman in this? no, 'tis noble, generous, manly friendship. Show me another woman that would lose an inch of her prerogative that way, without tears, fits, and reproaches. The common jealousy of her sex, which is nothing but their avarice of pleasure, she despises, and can part with the lover, though she dies for the man--Come, Worthy--where's the best wine? for there I'll quarter. _Wor._ At Horton's. _Plume._ Let's away, then.--Mr. Kite, go to the lady, with my humble service, and tell her, I shall only refresh a little, and wait upon her. _Wor._ Hold, Kite--have you seen the other recruiting captain? _Kite._ No, sir; I'd have you to know I don't keep such company. _Plume._ Another! who is he? _Wor._ My rival, in the first place, and the most unaccountable fellow--but I'll tell you more as we go. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _An Apartment._ MELINDA _and_ SYLVIA _meeting_. _Mel._ Welcome to town, cousin Sylvia. [_Salute._] I envied you your retreat in the country; for Shrewsbury, methinks, and all your heads of shires, are the most irregular places for living: here we have smoke, scandal, affectation, and pretension; in short, every thing to give the spleen--and nothing to divert it--then the air is intolerable. _Syl._ Oh, madam! I have heard the town commended for its air. _Mel._ But you don't consider, Sylvia, how long I have lived in it; for I can assure you that to a lady the least nice in her constitution--no air can be good above half a year. Change of air I take to be the most agreeable of any variety in life. _Syl._ As you say, cousin Melinda, there are several sorts of airs. _Mel._ Psha! I talk only of the air we breathe, or more properly of that we taste--Have not you, Sylvia, found a vast difference in the taste of airs? _Syl._ Pray, cousin, are not vapours a sort of air? Taste air! you might as well tell me I may feed upon air! but pr'ythee, my dear Melinda! don't put on such an air to me. Your education and mine were just the same, and I remember the time when we never troubled our heads about air, but when the sharp air from the Welsh mountains made our fingers ache in a cold morning, at the boarding-school. _Mel._ Our education, cousin, was the same, but our temperaments had nothing alike; you have the constitution of an horse. _Syl._ So far as to be troubled neither with spleen, cholic, nor vapours. I need no salts for my stomach, no hartshorn for my head, nor wash for my complexion; I can gallop all the morning after the hunting-horn, and all the evening after a fiddle. In short, I can do every thing with my father, but drink and shoot flying; and I am sure I can do every thing my mother could, were I put to the trial. _Mel._ You are in a fair way of being put to't, for I am told your captain is come to town. _Syl._ Ay, Melinda, he is come, and I'll take care he shan't go without a companion. _Mel._ You are certainly mad, cousin! _Syl._ "And there's a pleasure in being mad, Which none but madmen know." _Mel._ Thou poor romantic Quixote!--hast thou the vanity to imagine that a young sprightly officer, that rambles o'er half the globe in half a year, can confine his thoughts to the little daughter of a country justice, in an obscure part of the world? _Syl._ Psha! what care I for his thoughts; I should not like a man with confined thoughts; it shows a narrowness of soul. In short, Melinda, I think a petticoat a mighty simple thing, and I am heartily tired of my sex. _Mel._ That is, you are tired of an appendix to our sex, that you can't so handsomely get rid of in petticoats as if you were in breeches.--O'my conscience, Sylvia, hadst thou been a man, thou hadst been the greatest rake in Christendom. _Syl._ I should have endeavoured to know the world, which a man can never do thoroughly without half a hundred friendships, and as many amours. But now I think on't, how stands your affair with Mr. Worthy? _Mel._ He's my aversion. _Syl._ Vapours! _Mel._ What do you say, madam? _Syl._ I say, that you should not use that honest fellow so inhumanly: he's a gentleman of parts and fortune, and besides that, he's my Plume's friend; and by all that's sacred, if you don't use him better, I shall expect satisfaction. _Mel._ Satisfaction! you begin to fancy yourself in breeches in good earnest--But, to be plain with you, I like Worthy the worse for being so intimate with your captain; for I take him to be a loose, idle, unmannerly coxcomb. _Syl._ Oh, Madam! you never saw him, perhaps, since you were mistress of twenty thousand pounds: you only knew him when you were capitulating with Worthy for a settlement, which perhaps might encourage him to be a little loose and unmannerly with you. _Mel._ What do you mean, madam? _Syl._ My meaning needs no interpretation, madam. _Mel._ Better it had, madam; for methinks you are too plain. _Syl._ If you mean the plainness of my person, I think your ladyship's as plain as me to the full. _Mel._ Were I sure of that, I would be glad to take up with a rakehelly officer, as you do. _Syl._ Again! lookye, madam, you are in your own house. _Mel._ And if you had kept in yours, I should have excused you. _Syl._ Don't be troubled, madam; I shan't desire to have my visit returned. _Mel._ The sooner, therefore, you make an end of this, the better. _Syl._ I am easily persuaded to follow my inclinations; and so, madam, your humble servant. [_Exit._ _Mel._ Saucy thing! _Enter_ LUCY. _Lucy._ What's the matter, madam? _Mel._ Did not you see the proud nothing, how she swelled upon the arrival of her fellow? _Lucy._ Her fellow has not been long enough arrived, to occasion any great swelling, madam; I don't believe she has seen him yet. _Mel._ Nor shan't, if I can help it.--Let me see--I have it; bring me pen and ink--Hold, I'll go write in my closet. _Lucy._ An answer to this letter, I hope, madam? [_Presents a Letter._ _Mel._ Who sent it? _Lucy._ Your captain, madam. _Mel._ He's a fool, and I'm tired of him: send it back unopened. _Lucy._ The messenger's gone, madam. _Mel._ Then how should I send an answer? Call him back immediately, while I go write. [_Exeunt._ ACT THE SECOND. SCENE I. _An Apartment._ _Enter_ JUSTICE BALANCE _and_ PLUME. _Bal._ Lookye, captain, give us but blood for our money, and you shan't want men. Ad's my life, captain, get us but another marshal of France, and I'll go myself for a soldier. _Plume._ Pray, Mr. Balance, how does your fair daughter? _Bal._ Ah, captain! what is my daughter to a marshal of France? we're upon a nobler subject; I want to have a particular description of the last battle. _Plume._ The battle, sir, was a very pretty battle as any one should desire to see; but we were all so intent upon victory, that we never minded the battle: all that I know of the matter is, our general commanded us to beat the French, and we did so; and, if he pleases but to say the word, we'll do it again. But pray, sir, how does Mrs. Sylvia? _Bal._ Still upon Sylvia! for shame, captain! you are engaged already--wedded to the war: victory is your mistress, and 'tis below a soldier to think of any other. _Plume._ As a mistress, I confess--but as a friend, Mr. Balance---- _Bal._ Come, come, captain, never mince the matter; would not you seduce my daughter, if you could? _Plume._ How, sir? I hope she is not to be seduced. _Bal._ 'Faith, but she is, sir; and any woman in England of her age and complexion, by your youth and vigour. Lookye, captain, once I was young, and once an officer, as you are, and I can guess at your thoughts now by what mine were then; and I remember very well that I would have given one of my legs to have deluded the daughter of an old country gentleman like me, as I was then like you. _Plume._ But, sir, was that country gentleman your friend and benefactor? _Bal._ Not much of that. _Plume._ There the comparison breaks: the favours, sir, that---- _Bal._ Pho, pho! I hate set speeches: if I have done you any service, captain, it was to please myself. I love thee, and if I could part with my girl, you should have her as soon as any young fellow I know; but I hope you have more honour than to quit the service, and she more prudence than to follow the camp: but she's at her own disposal; she has five thousand pounds in her pocket, and so--Sylvia, Sylvia! [_Calls._ _Enter_ SYLVIA. _Syl._ There are some letters, sir, come by the post from London; I left them upon the table in your closet. _Bal._ And here is a gentleman from Germany.--[_Presents_ PLUME _to her_.] Captain, you'll excuse me; I'll go read my letters, and wait on you. [_Exit._ _Syl._ Sir, you are welcome to England. _Plume._ You are indebted to me a welcome, madam, since the hopes of receiving it from this fair hand was the principal cause of my seeing England. _Syl._ I have often heard that soldiers were sincere; may I venture to believe public report? _Plume._ You may, when 'tis backed by private insurance; for I swear, madam, by the honour of my profession, that whatever dangers I went upon, it was with the hope of making myself more worthy of your esteem; and if ever I had thoughts of preserving my life, 'twas for the pleasure of dying at your feet. _Syl._ Well, well, you shall die at my feet, or where you will; but you know, sir, there is a certain will and testament to be made beforehand. _Plume._ My will, madam, is made already, and there it is; and if you please to open that parchment, which was drawn the evening before the battle of Hockstet, you will find whom I left my heir. Syl. _Mrs. Sylvia Balance._ [_Opens the Will, and reads._] Well, captain, this is a handsome and substantial compliment; but I can assure you I am much better pleased with the bare knowledge of your intention, than I should have been in the possession of your legacy: but, methinks, sir, you should have left something to your little boy at the Castle. _Plume._ That's home. [_Aside._] My little boy! lack-a-day, madam! that alone may convince you 'twas none of mine: why, the girl, madam, is my serjeant's wife, and so the poor creature gave out that I was the father, in hopes that my friends might support her in case of necessity.--That was all, madam--my boy! no, no, no! _Enter a_ SERVANT. _Serv._ Madam, my master has received some ill news from London, and desires to speak with you immediately; and he begs the captain's pardon, that he can't wait on him, as he promised. _Plume._ Ill news! Heavens avert it! nothing could touch me nearer than to see that generous, worthy gentleman afflicted. I'll leave you to comfort him; and be assured that if my life and fortune can be any way serviceable to the father of my Sylvia, he shall freely command both. _Syl._ The necessity must be very pressing that would engage me to endanger either. [_Exeunt severally._ SCENE II. _Another Apartment._ _Enter_ BALANCE _and_ SYLVIA. _Syl._ Whilst there is life there is hope, sir; perhaps my brother may recover. _Bal._ We have but little reason to expect it; the doctor acquaints me here, that before this comes to my hands he fears I shall have no son.--Poor Owen! but the decree is just; I was pleased with the death of my father, because he left me an estate; and now I am punished with the loss of an heir to inherit mine. I must now look upon you as the only hopes of my family; and I expect that the augmentation of your fortune will give you fresh thoughts and new prospects. _Syl._ My desire in being punctual in my obedience, requires that you would be plain in your commands, sir. _Bal._ The death of your brother makes you sole heiress to my estate, which you know is about three thousand pounds a year: this fortune gives you a fair claim to quality and a title: you must set a just value upon yourself, and, in plain terms, think no more of Captain Plume. _Syl._ You have often commended the gentleman, sir. _Bal._ And I do so still; he's a very pretty fellow; but though I liked him well enough for a bare son-in-law, I don't approve of him for an heir to my estate and family; five thousand pounds indeed I might trust in his hands, and it might do the young fellow a kindness; but--od's my life! three thousand pounds a year would ruin him, quite turn his brain--A captain of foot worth three thousand pounds a year! 'tis a prodigy in nature! _Enter a_ SERVANT. _Serv._ Sir, here's one with a letter below for your worship, but he will deliver it into no hands but your own. _Bal._ Come, show me the messenger. [_Exit with_ SERVANT. _Syl._ Make the dispute between love and duty, and I am prince Prettyman exactly.--If my brother dies, ah, poor brother! if he lives, ah, poor sister! It is bad both ways, I'll try it again--Follow my own inclinations, and break my father's heart; or obey his commands, and break my own? Worse and worse.--Suppose I take it thus: A moderate fortune, a pretty fellow, and a pad; or a fine estate, a coach and six, and an ass.--That will never do neither. _Enter_ BALANCE _and a_ SERVANT. _Bal._ Put four horses to the coach. [_To a_ SERVANT, _who goes out_.] Ho, Sylvia! _Syl._ Sir. _Bal._ How old were you when your mother died? _Syl._ So young that I don't remember I ever had one; and you have been so careful, so indulgent to me since, that indeed I never wanted one. _Bal._ Have I ever denied you any thing you asked of me? _Syl._ Never, that I remember. _Bal._ Then, Sylvia, I must beg that once in your life you would grant me a favour. _Syl._ Why should you question it, sir? _Bal._ I don't; but I would rather counsel than command. I don't propose this with the authority of a parent, but as the advice of your friend, that you would take the coach this moment, and go into the country. _Syl._ Does this advice, sir, proceed from the contents of the letter you received just now? _Bal._ No matter; I will be with you in three or four days, and then give my reasons: but before you go, I expect you will make me one solemn promise. _Syl._ Propose the thing, sir. _Bal._ That you will never dispose of yourself to any man without my consent. _Syl._ I promise. _Bal._ Very well; and to be even with you, I promise I never will dispose of you without your own consent: and so, Sylvia, the coach is ready. Farewell. [_Leads her to the Door, and returns._] Now, she's gone, I'll examine the contents of this letter a little nearer. [_Reads._ SIR, _My intimacy with Mr. Worthy has drawn a secret from him, that he had from his friend Captain Plume; and my friendship and relation to your family oblige me to give you timely notice of it. The captain has dishonourable designs upon my cousin Sylvia. Evils of this nature are more easily prevented than amended; and that you would immediately send my cousin into the country, is the advice of_, _Sir, your humble servant_, MELINDA. Why, the devil's in the young fellows of this age; they are ten times worse than they were in my time: had he made my daughter a whore, and forswore it, like a gentleman, I could almost have pardoned it; but to tell tales beforehand is monstrous.--Hang it! I can fetch down a woodcock or a snipe, and why not a hat and cockade? I have a case of good pistols, and have a good mind to try. _Enter_ WORTHY. Worthy, your servant. _Wor._ I'm sorry, sir, to be the messenger of ill news. _Bal._ I apprehend it, sir; you have heard that my son Owen is past recovery. _Wor._ My letters say he's dead, sir. _Bal._ He's happy, and I am satisfied: the stroke of Heaven I can bear; but injuries from men, Mr. Worthy, are not so easily supported. _Wor._ I hope, sir, you are under no apprehensions of wrong from any body. _Bal._ You know I ought to be. _Wor._ You wrong my honour, in believing I could know any thing to your prejudice, without resenting it as much as you should. _Bal._ This letter, sir, which I tear in pieces, to conceal the person that sent it, informs me that Plume has a design upon Sylvia, and that you are privy to it. _Wor._ Nay, then, sir, I must do myself justice, and endeavour to find out the author. [_Takes up a Bit._]--Sir, I know the hand, and if you refuse to discover the contents, Melinda shall tell me. [_Going._ _Bal._ Hold, sir; the contents I have told you already; only with this circumstance--that her intimacy with Mr. Worthy had drawn the secret from him. _Wor._ Her intimacy with me! Dear sir! let me pick up the pieces of this letter, 'twill give me such a power over her pride to have her own an intimacy under her hand.--This was the luckiest accident! [_Gathering up the Letter._] The aspersion, sir, was nothing but malice; the effect of a little quarrel between her and Mrs. Sylvia. _Bal._ Are you sure of that, sir? _Wor._ Her maid gave me the history of part of the battle just now, as she overheard it: but I hope, sir, your daughter has suffered nothing upon the account. _Bal._ No, no, poor girl! she's so afflicted with the news of her brother's death, that, to avoid company, she begged leave to go into the country. _Wor._ And is she gone? _Bal._ I could not refuse her, she was so pressing; the coach went from the door the minute before you came. _Wor._ So pressing to be gone, sir?--I find her fortune will give her the same airs with Melinda, and then Plume and I may laugh at one another. _Bal._ Like enough; women are as subject to pride as men are; and why mayn't great women as well as great men forget their old acquaintance? But come, where's this young fellow? I love him so well, it would break the heart of me to think him a rascal.--I am glad my daughter's gone fairly off though.--[_Aside._] Where does the captain quarter? _Wor._ At Horton's; I am to meet him there two hours hence, and we should be glad of your company. _Bal._ Your pardon, dear Worthy! I must allow a day or two to the death of my son. The decorum of mourning is what we owe the world, because they pay it to us; afterwards I'm yours over a bottle, or how you will. _Wor._ Sir, I'm your humble servant. [_Exeunt apart._ SCENE III. _The Street._ _Enter_ KITE, _with_ COSTAR PEARMAIN _in one Hand, and_ THOMAS APPLETREE _in the other, drunk_. KITE _sings_. _Our 'prentice Tom may now refuse_ _To wipe his scoundrel master's shoes,_ _For now he's free to sing and play_ _Over the hills and far away._ _Over, &c._ [The Mob sing the Chorus. _We shall lead more happy lives_ _By getting rid of brats and wives,_ _That scold and brawl both night and day,_ _Over the hills and far away._ _Over, &c._ _Kite._ Hey, boys! thus we soldiers live! drink, sing, dance, play;--we live, as one should say--we live--'tis impossible to tell how we live--we are all princes--why, why you are a king--you are an emperor, and I'm a prince--now, an't we? _Tho._ No serjeant, I'll be no emperor. _Kite._ No! _Tho._ I'll be a justice of peace. _Kite._ A justice of peace, man! _Tho._ Ay, wauns will I; for since this pressing act, they are greater than any emperor under the sun. _Kite._ Done; you are a justice of peace, and you are a king, and I am a duke, and a rum duke, an't I? _Cost._ I'll be a queen. _Kite._ A queen. _Cost._ Ay, of England, that's greater than any king of them all. _Kite._ Bravely said, 'faith! huzza for the queen. [_Huzza._] But harkye, you Mr. Justice, and you Mr. Queen, did you ever see the king's picture? _Both._ No! no! no! _Kite._ I wonder at that; I have two of them set in gold, and as like his majesty, God bless the mark! see here, they are set in gold. [_Takes two broad pieces out of his pocket; presents one to each._ _Tho._ The wonderful works of nature! [_Looking at it._ What's this written about? here's a posy, I believe.--Ca-ro-lus!--what's that, serjeant? _Kite._ O! Carolus! why, Carolus is Latin for King George; that's all. _Cost._ Tis a fine thing to be a scollard.--Serjeant, will you part with this? I'll buy it on you, if it come within the compass of a crown. _Kite._ A crown! never talk of buying; 'tis the same thing among friends, you know; I'll present them to ye both: you shall give me as good a thing. Put them up, and remember your old friend when I am over the hills and far away. [_They sing, and put up the Money._ _Enter_ PLUME, _singing_. _Over the hills and over the main,_ _To Flanders, Portugal, or Spain_ _The king commands and we'll obey,_ _Over the hills and far away._ Come on my men of mirth, away with it; I'll make one among ye. Who are these hearty lads? _Kite._ Off with your hats; 'ounds! off with your hats: this is the captain, the captain. _Tho._ We have seen captains afore now, mun. _Cost._ Ay, and lieutenant-captains too. 'Sflesh! I'll keep on my nab. _Tho._ And I'se scarcely d'off mine for any captain in England. My vether's a freeholder. _Plume._ Who are those jolly lads, serjeant? _Kite._ A couple of honest brave fellows that are willing to serve the king: I have entertained them just now as volunteers, under your honour's command. _Plume._ And good entertainment they shall have: volunteers are the men I want; those are the men fit to make soldiers, captains, generals. _Cost._ Wounds, Tummas, what's this! are you listed? _Tho._ Flesh! not I: are you, Costar? _Cost._ Wounds! not I. _Kite._ What! not listed? ha! ha! ha! a very good jest, i'faith. _Cost._ Come, Tummus, we'll go home. _Tho._ Ay, ay, come. _Kite._ Home! for shame, gentlemen; behave yourselves better before your captain. Dear Tummas, honest Costar! _Tho._ No, no! we'll be gone. _Kite._ Nay, then, I command you to stay: I place you both centinels in this place for two hours, to watch the motion of St. Mary's clock you, and you the motion of St. Chad's; and he, that dares stir from his post till he be relieved, shall have my sword in his guts the next minute. _Plume._ What's the matter, serjeant? I'm afraid you are too rough with these gentlemen. _Kite._ I'm too mild, sir; they disobey command, sir; and one of them should be shot, for an example to the other. _Cost._ Shot! Tummas? _Plume._ Come, gentlemen, what's the matter? _Tho._ We don't know; the noble serjeant is pleas'd to be in a passion, sir; but---- _Kite._ They disobey command; they deny their being listed. _Tho._ Nay, serjeant, we don't downright deny it, neither; that we dare not do, for fear of being shot; but we humbly conceive, in a civil way, and begging your worship's pardon, that we may go home. _Plume._ That's easily known. Have either of you received any of the king's money? _Cost._ Not a brass farthing, sir. _Kite._ They have each of them received one-and-twenty shillings, and 'tis now in their pockets. _Cost._ Wounds! if I have a penny in my pocket but a bent sixpence, I'll be content to be listed and shot into the bargain. _Tho._ And I: look ye here, sir. _Cost._ Nothing but the king's picture, that the serjeant gave me just now. _Kite._ See there, a guinea, one and twenty shillings; t'other has the fellow on't. _Plume._ The case is plain, gentlemen: the goods are found upon you: those pieces of gold are worth one-and-twenty shillings each. _Cost._ So it seems that Carolus is one-and-twenty shillings in Latin. _Tho._ 'Tis the same thing in Greek, for we are listed. _Cost._ Flesh; but we an't, Tummus: I desire to be carried before the mayor, captain. [CAPTAIN _and_ SERJEANT _whisper the while._ _Plume._ 'Twill never do, Kite--your damned tricks will ruin me at last--I won't lose the fellows, though, if I can help it.--Well, gentlemen, there must be some trick in this; my serjeant offers to take his oath that you are fairly listed. _Tho._ Why, captain, we know that you soldiers have more liberty of conscience than other folks; but for me or neighbour Costar here to take such an oath, 'twould be downright perjuration. _Plume._ Lookye, rascal, you villain! If I find that you have imposed upon these two honest fellows, I'll trample you to death, you dog--Come, how was't? _Tho._ Nay, then we'll speak. Your serjeant, as you say, is a rogue, an't like your worship, begging your worship's pardon--and-- _Cost._ Nay, Tummus, let me speak, you know I can read.----And so, sir, he gave us those two pieces of money for pictures of the king, by way of a present. _Plume._ How? by way of a present! the son of a whore! I'll teach him to abuse honest fellows like you!--scoundrel! rogue! villain! [_Beats off the Serjeant, and follows._ _Both._ O brave noble captain! huzza! A brave captain, 'faith! _Cost._ Now, Tummas, Carolus is Latin for a beating. This is the bravest captain I ever saw--Wounds! I've a month's mind to go with him. _Enter_ PLUME. _Plume._ A dog, to abuse two such honest fellows as you.--Lookye, gentlemen, I love a pretty fellow; I come among you as an officer to list soldiers, not as a kidnapper to steal slaves. _Cost._ Mind that, Tummas. _Plume._ I desire no man to go with me but as I went myself; I went a volunteer, as you or you may do; for a little time carried a musket, and now I command a company. _Tho._ Mind that, Costar. A sweet gentleman! _Plume._ Tis true, gentlemen, I might take an advantage of you; the king's money was in your pockets--my serjeant was ready to take his oath you were listed; but I scorn to do a base thing; you are both of you at your liberty. _Cost._ Thank you, noble captain----Icod! I can't find in my heart to leave him, he talks so finely. _Tho._ Ay, Costar, would he always hold in this mind. _Plume._ Come, my lads, one thing more I'll tell you: you're both young tight fellows, and the army is the place to make you men for ever: every man has his lot, and you have yours: what think you of a purse of French gold out of a monsieur's pocket, after you have dashed out his brains with the but end of your firelock, eh? _Cost._ Wauns! I'll have it. Captain--give me a shilling; I'll follow you to the end of the world. _Tho._ Nay, dear Costar! do'na: be advis'd. _Plume._ Here, my hero, here are two guineas for thee, as earnest of what I'll do farther for thee. _Tho._ Do'na take it; do'na, dear Costar. [_Cries, and pulls back his Arm._ _Cost._ I wull--I wull--Waunds! my mind gives me that I shall be a captain myself--I take your money, sir, and now I am a gentleman. _Plume._ Give me thy hand; and now you and I will travel the world o'er, and command it wherever we tread.--Bring your friend with you, if you can. [_Aside._ _Cost._ Well, Tummas, must we part? _Tho._ No, Costar, I cannot leave thee.--Come, captain, I'll e'en go along too; and if you have two honester simpler lads in your company than we two have been, I'll say no more. _Plume._ Here, my lad. [_Gives him Money._] Now, your name? _Tho._ Tummas Appletree. _Plume._ And yours? _Cost._ Costar Pearmain. _Plume._ Well said, Costar! Born where? _Tho._ Both in Herefordshire. _Plume._ Very well. Courage, my lads. Now we'll Sings. _Over the hills, and far away._ _Courage, boys, it's one to ten_ _But we return all gentlemen;_ _While conq'ring colours we display,_ _Over the hills, and far away._ Kite, take care of them. _Enter_ KITE. _Kite._ An't you a couple of pretty fellows, now! Here, you have complained to the captain; I am to be turned out, and one of you will be serjeant. Which of you is to have my halberd? _Both Rec._ I. _Kite._ So you shall--in your guts.--March, you sons of whores! [_Beats them off._ ACT THE THIRD. SCENE I. _The Market Place._ _Enter_ PLUME _and_ WORTHY. _Wor._ I cannot forbear admiring the equality of our fortunes: we love two ladies, they meet us half way, and just as we were upon the point of leaping into their arms, fortune drops in their laps, pride possesses their hearts, a maggot fills their heads, madness takes them by the tails; they snort, kick up their heels, and away they run. _Plume._ And leave us here to mourn upon the shore--a couple of poor melancholy monsters. What shall we do? _Wor._ I have a trick for mine; the letter, you know, and the fortune-teller. _Plume._ And I have a trick for mine. _Wor._ What is't? _Plume._ I'll never think of her again. _Wor._ No! _Plume._ No; I think myself above administering to the pride of any woman, were she worth twelve thousand a-year; and I ha'n't the vanity to believe I shall gain a lady worth twelve hundred. The generous, goodnatured Sylvia, in her smock, I admire; but the haughty and scornful Sylvia, with her fortune, I despise.--What! sneak out of town, and not so much as a word, a line, a compliment!--'Sdeath! how far off does she live? I'll go and break her windows. _Wor._ Ha! ha! ha! ay, and the window-bars too, to come at her. Come, come, friend, no more of your rough military airs. _Enter_ KITE. _Kite._ Captain! captain! Sir, look yonder; she's a-coming this way. 'Tis the prettiest, cleanest, little tit! _Plume._ Now, Worthy, to show you how much I'm in love--here she comes. But, Kite, what is that great country fellow with her? _Kite._ I can't tell, sir. _Enter_ ROSE, _followed by her Brother_ BULLOCK, _with Chickens on her Arm, in a Basket_. _Rose._ Buy chickens, young and tender chickens, young and tender chickens. _Plume._ Here, you chickens. _Rose._ Who calls? _Plume._ Come hither, pretty maid. _Rose._ Will you please to buy, sir? _Wor._ Yes, child, we'll both buy. _Plume._ Nay, Worthy, that's not fair; market for yourself--Come, child, I'll buy all you have. _Rose._ Then all I have is at your service. [_Courtesies._ [Illustration: RECRUITING OFFICER CAPTAIN PLUME--LET ME SEE; YOUNG & TENDER YOU SAY. ACT III SCENE I] _Wor._ Then must I shift for myself, I find. [_Exit._ _Plume._ Let me see; young and tender, you say. [_Chucks her under the Chin._ _Rose._ As ever you tasted in your life, sir. _Plume._ Come, I must examine your basket to the bottom, my dear! _Rose._ Nay, for that matter, put in your hand; feel, sir; I warrant my ware is as good as any in the market. _Plume._ And I'll buy it all, child, were it ten times more. _Rose._ Sir, I can furnish you. _Plume._ Come, then, we won't quarrel about the price; they're fine birds.--Pray, what's your name, pretty creature! _Rose._ Rose, sir. My father is a farmer within three short miles o' the town: we keep this market; I sell chickens, eggs, and butter, and my brother Bullock there sells corn. _Bul._ Come, sister, haste--we shall be late home. [_Whistles about the Stage._ _Plume._ Kite! [_Tips him the wink, he returns it._] Pretty Mrs. Rose--you have--let me see--how many? _Rose._ A dozen, sir, and they are richly worth a crown. _Bul._ Come, Rouse; I sold fifty strake of barley to-day in half this time; but you will higgle and higgle for a penny more than the commodity is worth. _Rose._ What's that to you, oaf? I can make as much out of a groat as you can out of fourpence, I'm sure--The gentleman bids fair, and when I meet with a chapman, I know how to make the best of him--And so, sir, I say for a crown-piece the bargain's yours. _Plume._ Here's a guinea, my dear! _Rose._ I can't change your money, sir. _Plume._ Indeed, indeed, but you can--my lodging is hard by, chicken! and we'll make change there. [_Goes off, she follows him._ _Kite._ So, sir, as I was telling you, I have seen one of these hussars eat up a ravelin for his breakfast, and afterwards pick his teeth with a palisado. _Bul._ Ay, you soldiers see very strange things; but pray, sir, what is a rabelin? _Kite._ Why, 'tis like a modern minc'd pie, but the crust is confounded hard, and the plums are somewhat hard of digestion. _Bul._ Then your palisado, pray what may he be? Come, Rouse, pray ha' done. _Kite._ Your palisado is a pretty sort of bodkin, about the thickness of my leg. _Bul._ That's a fib, I believe. [_Aside._] Eh! where's Rouse? Rouse, Rouse! 'Sflesh! where's Rouse gone? _Kite._ She's gone with the captain. _Bul._ The captain! wauns! there's no pressing of women, sure. _Kite._ But there is, sure. _Bul._ If the captain should press Rouse, I should be ruined----Which way went she? Oh! the devil take your rabelins and palisadoes! [_Exit._ _Kite._ You shall be better acquainted with them, honest Bullock, or I shall miss of my aim. _Enter_ WORTHY. _Wor._ Why thou art the most useful fellow in nature to your captain, admirable in your way I find. _Kite._ Yes, sir, I understand my business, I will say it. _Wor._ How came you so qualified? _Kite._ You must know, sir, I was born a gipsy, and bred among that crew till I was ten years old; there I learned canting and lying: I was bought from my mother Cleopatra by a certain nobleman for three pistoles, there I learned impudence and pimping: I was turned off for wearing my lord's linen, and drinking my lady's ratafia, and turned bailiff's follower; there I learned bullying and swearing: I at last got into the army; and there I learned whoring and drinking--so that if your worship pleases to cast up the whole sum, viz. canting, lying, impudence, pimping, bullying, swearing, whoring, drinking, and a halberd, you will find the sum total amount to a Recruiting Serjeant. _Wor._ And pray what induced you to turn soldier? _Kite._ Hunger and ambition. But here comes Justice Balance. _Enter_ BALANCE _and_ BULLOCK. _Bal._ Here you, serjeant, where's your captain? here's a poor foolish fellow comes clamouring to me with a complaint that your captain has pressed his sister. Do you know any thing of this matter, Worthy? _Wor._ Ha! ha! ha! I know his sister is gone with Plume to his lodging, to sell him some chickens. _Bal._ Is that all? the fellow's a fool. _Bul._ I know that, an't like your worship; but if your worship pleases to grant me a warrant to bring her before your worship, for fear of the worst. _Bal._ Thou'rt mad, fellow; thy sister's safe enough. _Kite._ I hope so too. [_Aside._ _Wor._ Hast thou no more sense, fellow, than to believe that the captain can list women? _Bul._ I know not whether they list them, or what they do with them, but I'm sure they carry as many women as men with them out of the country. _Bal._ But how came you not to go along with your sister? _Bul._ Lord, sir, I thought no more of her going than I do of the day I shall die: but this gentleman here, not suspecting any hurt neither, I believe--you thought no harm, friend, did you? _Kite._ Lack-a-day, sir, not I----only that I believe I shall marry her to-morrow. _Bal._ I begin to smell powder. Well, friend, but what did that gentleman with you? _Bul._ Why, sir, he entertained me with a fine story of a great sea-fight between the Hungarians, I think it was, and the wild Irish. _Kite._ And so, sir, while we were in the heat of battle--the captain carried off the baggage. _Bal._ Serjeant, go along with this fellow to your captain, give him my humble service, and desire him to discharge the wench, though he has listed her. _Bul._ Ay, and if she ben't free for that, he shall have another man in her place. _Kite._ Come, honest friend, you shall go to my quarters instead of the captain's. [_Aside._ [_Exeunt_ KITE _and_ BULLOCK. _Bal._ We must get this mad captain his complement of men, and send him packing, else he'll overrun the country. _Wor._ You see, sir, how little he values your daughter's disdain. _Bal._ I like him the better: I was just such another fellow at his age: But how goes your affair with Melinda? _Wor._ Very slowly. My mistress has got a captain too, but such a captain!--as I live, yonder he comes! _Bal._ Who, that bluff fellow in the sash? I don't know him. _Wor._ But I engage he knows you and every body at first sight: his impudence were a prodigy, were not his ignorance proportionable; he has the most universal acquaintance of any man living, for he won't be alone, and nobody will keep him company twice: then he's a Cæsar among the women, _veni, vidi, vici_, that's all. If he has but talked with the maid, he swears he has lain with the mistress: but the most surprising part of his character is his memory, which is the most prodigious and the most trifling in the world. _Bal._ I have known another acquire so much by travel as to tell you the names of most places in Europe, with their distances of miles, leagues, or hours, as punctually as a postboy; but for any thing else as ignorant as the horse that carries the mail. _Wor._ This is your man, sir, add but the traveller's privilege of lying, and even that he abuses: this is the picture, behold the life. _Enter_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ Mr. Worthy, I'm your servant, and so forth--Harkye, my dear! _Wor._ Whispering, sir, before company, is not manners, and when nobody's by 'tis foolish. _Brazen._ Company! _mort de ma vie!_ I beg the gentleman's pardon--who is he? _Wor._ Ask him. _Brazen._ So I will. My dear! I am your servant, and so forth--Your name, my dear? _Bal._ Very laconic, sir. _Brazen._ Laconic! a very good name truly. I have known several of the Laconics abroad. Poor Jack Laconic! he was killed at the battle of Landen. I remember that he had a blue ribband in his hat that very day, and after he fell, we found a piece of neat's tongue in his pocket. _Bal._ Pray, sir, did the French attack us, or we them, at Landen? _Brazen._ The French attack us! No, sir, we attacked them on the----I have reason to remember the time, for I had two-and-twenty horses killed under me that day. _Wor._ Then, sir, you must have rid mighty hard. _Bal._ Or, perhaps, sir, like my countrymen, you rid upon half a dozen horses at once. _Brazen._ What do ye mean, gentlemen? I tell you they were killed, all torn to pieces by cannon-shot, except six I staked to death upon the enemy's _cheveaux de frise_. _Bal._ Noble captain! may I crave your name? _Brazen._ Brazen, at your service. _Bal._ Oh, Brazen! a very good name. I have known several of the Brazens abroad. _Wor._ Do you know one Captain Plume, sir? _Brazen._ Is he any thing related to Frank Plume in Northamptonshire?--Honest Frank! many, many a dry bottle have we cracked hand to fist. You must have known his brother Charles, that was concerned in the India company; he married the daughter of Old Tonguepad, the master in Chancery, a very pretty woman, only she quinted a little; she died in child-bed of her first child, but the child survived: 'twas a daughter, but whether it was called Margaret or Margery, upon my soul, I can't remember. [_Looking on his Watch._] But, gentlemen, I must meet a lady, a twenty thousand pounder, presently, upon the walk by the water--Worthy, your servant; Laconic, yours. [_Exit._ _Bal._ If you can have so mean an opinion of Melinda, as to be jealous of this fellow, I think she ought to give you cause to be so. _Wor._ I don't think she encourages him so much for gaining herself a lover, as to set up a rival. Were there any credit to be given to his words, I should believe Melinda had made him this assignation. I must go see, sir, you'll pardon me. [_Exit._ _Bal._ Ay, ay, sir, you're a man of business--But what have we got here? _Enter_ ROSE, _singing_. _Rose._ And I shall be a lady, a captain's lady, and ride single, upon a white horse with a star, upon a velvet side-saddle; and I shall go to London, and see the tombs, and the lions, and the king and queen. Sir, an please your worship, I have often seen your worship ride through our grounds a-hunting, begging your worship's pardon. Pray, what may this lace be worth a-yard? [_Showing some Lace._ _Bal._ Right Mecklin, by this light! Where did you get this lace, child? _Rose._ No matter for that, sir; I came honestly by it. _Bal._ I question it much. [_Aside._ _Rose._ And see here, sir, a fine Turkey-shell snuff-box, and fine mangere: see here. [_Takes Snuff affectedly._] The captain learned me how to take it with an air. _Bal._ Oh ho! the captain! now the murder's out. And so the captain taught you to take it with an air? _Rose._ Yes; and give it with an air too. Will your worship please to taste my snuff? [_Offers the Box affectedly._ _Bal._ You are a very apt scholar, pretty maid! And pray, what did you give the captain for these fine things? _Rose._ He's to have my brother for a soldier, and two or three sweethearts I have in the country; they shall all go with the captain. Oh! he's the finest man, and the humblest withal! Would you believe it, sir? he carried me up with him to his own chamber, with as much fam-mam-mil-yararality, as if I had been the best lady in the land. _Bal._ Oh! he's a mighty familiar gentleman as can be. _Enter_ PLUME, _singing_. Plume. _But it is not so_ _With those that go_ _Thro' frost and snow----_ _Most apropos,_ _My maid with the milking pail._ [_Takes hold of_ ROSE. How, the justice! then I'm arraigned, condemned and executed. _Bal._ Oh, my noble captain! _Rose._ And my noble captain, too, sir. _Plume._ 'Sdeath! child, are you mad?--Mr. Balance, I am so full of business about my recruits, that I ha'n't a moment's time to----I have just now three or four people to---- _Bal._ Nay, captain, I must speak to you-- _Rose._ And so must I too, captain. _Plume._ Any other time, sir--I cannot, for my life, sir-- _Bal._ Pray, sir---- _Plume._ Twenty thousand things--I would--but--now, sir, pray--Devil take me--I cannot--I must--[_Breaks away._ _Bal._ Nay, I'll follow you. [_Exit._ _Rose._ And I too. [_Exit._ SCENE II. _The Walk by the Severn Side._ _Enter_ MELINDA _and her Maid_ LUCY. _Mel._ And pray was it a ring, or buckle, or pendants, or knots; or in what shape was the almighty gold transformed, that has bribed you so much in his favour? _Lucy._ Indeed, madam, the last bribe I had from the captain, was only a small piece of Flanders' lace, for a cap. _Mel._ Ay, Flanders' lace is a constant present from officers to their women. They every year bring over a cargo of lace, to cheat the king of his duty, and his subjects of their honesty. _Lucy._ They only barter one sort of prohibited goods for another, madam. _Mel._ Has any of them been bartering with you, Mrs. Pert, that you talk so like a trader? _Lucy._ One would imagine, madam, by your concern for Worthy's absence, that you should use him better when he's with you. _Mel._ Who told you, pray, that I was concerned for his absence? I'm only vexed that I have had nothing said to me these two days: as one may love the treason and hate the traitor. Oh! here comes another captain, and a rogue that has the confidence to make love to me; but indeed, I don't wonder at that, when he has the assurance to fancy himself a fine gentleman. _Lucy._ If he should speak o' th' assignation I should be ruined! [_Aside._ _Enter_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ True to the touch, 'faith! [_Aside._] Madam, I am your humble servant, and all that, madam. A fine river, this same Severn--Do you love fishing, madam? _Mel._ 'Tis a pretty melancholy amusement for lovers. _Brazen._ I'll go and buy hooks and lines presently; for you must know, madam, that I have served in Flanders against the French, in Hungary against the Turks, and in Tangier against the Moors, and I was never so much in love before; and split me, madam, in all the campaigns I ever made, I have not seen so fine a woman as your ladyship. _Mel._ And from all the men I ever saw, I never had so fine a compliment: but you soldiers are the best bred men, that we must allow. _Brazen._ Some of us, madam; but there are brutes among us too, very sad brutes; for my own part, I have always had the good luck to prove agreeable. I have had very considerable offers, madam--I might have married a German princess, worth fifty thousand crowns a-year, but her stove disgusted me. The daughter of a Turkish bashaw fell in love with me, too, when I was a prisoner among the Infidels; she offered to rob her father of his treasure, and make her escape with me; but I don't know how, my time was not come: hanging and marriage, you know, go by destiny: Fate has reserved me for a Shropshire lady, worth twenty thousand pounds. Do you know any such person, madam? _Mel._ Extravagant coxcomb! [_Aside._] To be sure, a great many ladies of that fortune would be proud of the name of Mrs. Brazen. _Brazen._ Nay, for that matter, madam, there are women of very good quality of the name of Brazen. _Enter_ WORTHY. _Mel._ Oh, are you there, gentleman?--Come, captain, we'll walk this way. Give me your hand. _Brazen._ My hand, heart's blood, and guts, are at your service. Mr. Worthy, your servant, my dear! [_Exit, leading_ MELINDA. _Wor._ Death and fire! this is not to be borne! _Enter_ PLUME. _Plume._ No more it is, 'faith. _Wor._ What? _Plume._ The March beer at the Raven. I have been doubly serving the king, raising men, and raising the excise. Recruiting and elections are rare friends to the excise. _Wor._ You a'n't drunk? _Plume._ No, no, whimsical only; I could be mighty foolish, and fancy myself mighty witty. Reason still keeps its throne, but it nods a little, that's all. _Wor._ Then you're just fit for a frolic. _Plume._ Just so. _Wor._ Then recover me that vessel, from that Tangerine. _Plume._ She's well rigged, but how is she manned? _Wor._ By Captain Brazen, that I told you of to-day; she is called the Melinda, a first rate I can assure you; she sheered off with him just now, on purpose to affront me; but according to your advice I would take no notice, because I would seem to be above a concern for her behaviour; but have a care of a quarrel. _Plume._ No, no; I never quarrel with any thing in my cups, but an oyster-wench, or a cookmaid, and if they ben't civil, I knock them down. But hearkye, my friend, I'll make love, and I must make love--I tell you what, I'll make love like a platoon. _Wor._ Platoon! how's that? _Plume._ I'll kneel, stoop, and stand, 'faith: most ladies are gained by platooning. _Wor._ Here they come; I must leave you. [_Exit._ _Plume._ So! now must I look as sober and demure as a whore at a christening. _Enter_ BRAZEN _and_ MELINDA. _Brazen._ Who's that, madam? _Mel._ A brother officer of yours, I suppose, sir. _Brazen._ Ay--my dear! [_To_ PLUME. _Plume._ My dear! [_Run and embrace._ _Brazen._ My dear boy! how is't? Your name, my dear! If I be not mistaken, I have seen your face. _Plume._ I never saw yours in my life, my dear----but there's a face well known as the sun's, that shines on all, and is by all adored. _Brazen._ Have you any pretensions, sir? _Plume._ Pretensions! _Brazen._ That is, sir, have you ever served abroad? _Plume._ I have served at home, sir, for ages served this cruel fair, and that will serve the turn, sir. _Mel._ So, between the fool and the rake, I shall bring a fine spot of work upon my hands! _Brazen._ Will you fight for the lady, sir? _Plume._ No, sir, but I'll have her notwithstanding. _Thou peerless princess of Salopian plains,_ _Envy'd by nymphs, and worshipp'd by the swains--_ _Brazen._ Oons, sir! not fight for her? _Plume._ Pr'ythee be quiet--I shall be out-- _Behold, how humbly does the Severn glide,_ _To greet thee, princess of the Severn side._ _Brazen._ Don't mind him, madam--if he were not so well dressed, I should take him for a poet; but I'll show you the difference presently. Come, madam, we'll place you between us, and now the longest sword carries her. [_Draws._ Mel. [_Shrieking._] _Enter_ WORTHY. Oh, Mr. Worthy! save me from these madmen! [_Exit with_ WORTHY. _Plume._ Ha! ha! ha! why don't you follow, sir, and fight the bold ravisher? _Brazen._ No, sir, you are my man. _Plume._ I don't like the wages; I won't be your man. _Brazen._ Then you're not worth my sword. _Plume._ No; pray what did it cost? _Brazen._ It cost me twenty pistoles in France, and my enemies thousands of lives in Flanders. _Plume._ Then they had a dear bargain. _Enter_ SYLVIA, _in Man's Apparel_. _Syl._ Save ye, save ye! gentlemen. _Brazen._ My dear, I'm yours. _Plume._ Do you know the gentleman? _Brazen._ No, but I will presently--Your name, my dear? _Syl._ Wilful, Jack Wilful, at your service. _Brazen._ What, the Kentish Wilfuls, or those of Staffordshire? _Syl._ Both, sir, both; I'm related to all the Wilfuls in Europe, and I'm head of the family at present. _Plume._ Do you live in the country, sir? _Syl._ Yes, sir, I live where I stand; I have neither home, house, or habitation, beyond this spot of ground. _Brazen._ What are you, sir? _Syl._ A rake. _Plume._ In the army, I presume. _Syl._ No, but I intend to list immediately. Lookye, gentlemen, he that bids the fairest, has me. _Brazen._ Sir, I'll prefer you; I'll make you a corporal this minute. _Plume._ Corporal! I'll make you my companion; you shall eat with me. _Brazen._ You shall drink with me. Then you shall receive your pay, and do no duty. _Syl._ Then you must make me a field-officer. _Plume._ Pho, pho, pho! I'll do more than all this; I'll make you a corporal, and give you a brevet for serjeant. _Brazen._ Can you read and write, sir? _Syl._ Yes. _Brazen._ Then your business is done--I'll make you chaplain to the regiment. _Syl._ Your promises are so equal, that I'm at a loss to chuse. There is one Plume, that I hear much commended, in town; pray, which of you is Captain Plume? _Plume._ I am Captain Plume. _Brazen._ No, no, I am Captain Plume. _Syl._ Heyday! _Plume._ Captain Plume! I'm your servant, my dear! _Brazen._ Captain Brazen! I'm yours--The fellow dares not fight. [_Aside._ _Enter_ KITE. _Kite._ Sir, if you please---- [_Goes to whisper_ PLUME. _Plume._ No, no, there's your captain. Captain Plume, your serjeant has got so drunk, he mistakes me for you. _Brazen._ He's an incorrigible sot. Here, my Hector of Holborn, here's forty shillings for you. _Plume._ I forbid the bans. Lookye, friend, you shall list with Captain Brazen. _Syl._ I will see Captain Brazen hanged first; I will list will Captain Plume: I am a free-born Englishman, and will be a slave my own way. Lookye, sir, will you stand by me? [_To_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ I warrant you, my lad. _Syl._ Then I will tell you, Captain Brazen, [_To Plume_.] that you are an ignorant, pretending, impudent coxcomb. _Brazen._ Ay, ay, a sad dog. _Syl._ A very sad dog. Give me the money, noble Captain Plume. _Plume._ Then you won't list with Captain Brazen? _Syl._ I won't. _Brazen._ Never mind him, child; I'll end the dispute presently. Harkye, my dear! [_Takes_ PLUME _to one Side of the Stage, and entertains him in dumb Show_. _Kite._ Sir, he in the plain coat is Captain Plume; I am his serjeant, and will take my oath on't. _Syl._ What! you are serjeant Kite? _Kite._ At your service. _Syl._ Then I would not take your oath for a farthing. _Kite._ A very understanding youth of his age: but I see a storm coming. _Syl._ Now, serjeant, I shall see who is your captain, by your knocking down the other. _Kite._ My captain scorns assistance, sir. _Brazen._ How dare you contend for any thing, and not dare to draw your sword? But you are a young fellow, and have not been much abroad; I excuse that; but pr'ythee, resign the man, pr'ythee do: you are a very honest fellow. _Plume._ You lie; and you are a son of a whore. [_Draws, and makes up to_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ Hold, hold; did not you refuse to fight for the lady? [_Retiring._ _Plume._ I always do, but for a man I'll fight knee-deep; so you lie again. [PLUME _and_ BRAZEN _fight a traverse or two about the Stage_, SYLVIA _draws, and is held by_ KITE, _who sounds to Arms with his Mouth, takes_ SYLVIA _in his Arms, and carries her off the Stage_. _Brazen._ Hold! where's the man? _Plume._ Gone. _Brazen._ Then what do we fight for? [_Puts up._] Now let's embrace, my dear! _Plume._ With all my heart, my dear! [_Putting up._] I suppose Kite has listed him by this time. [_Embraces._ _Brazen._ You are a brave fellow: I always fight with a man before I make him my friend; and if once I find he will fight, I never quarrel with him afterwards. And now I'll tell you a secret, my dear friend! that lady we frightened out of the walk just now, I found in bed this morning, so beautiful, so inviting; I presently locked the door--but I'm a man of honour--but I believe I shall marry her nevertheless--her twenty thousand pounds, you know, will be a pretty conveniency. I had an assignation with her here, but your coming spoiled my sport. Curse you, my dear, but don't do so again---- _Plume._ No, no, my dear! men are my business at present. [_Exeunt._ ACT THE FOURTH. SCENE I. _The Walk._ _Enter_ ROSE _and_ BULLOCK, _meeting_. _Rose._ Where have you been, you great booby? you are always out of the way in the time of preferment. _Bul._ Preferment! who should prefer me? _Rose._ I would prefer you! who should prefer a man, but a woman? Come, throw away that great club, hold up your head, cock your hat, and look big. _Bul._ Ah, Rouse, Rouse! I fear somebody will look big sooner than folk think of. Here has been Cartwheel, your sweetheart; what will become of him? _Rose._ Lookye, I'm a great woman, and will provide for my relations: I told the captain how finely he played upon the tabor and pipe, so he sat him down for drum-major. _Bul._ Nay, sister, why did not you keep that place for me? you know I have always loved to be a drumming, if it were but on a table, or on a quart pot. _Enter_ SYLVIA. _Syl._ Had I but a commission in my pocket, I fancy my breeches would become me as well as any ranting fellow of them all; for I take a bold step, a rakish toss, and an impudent air, to be the principal ingredients in the composition of a captain. What's here? Rose, my nurse's daughter! I'll go and practise. Come, child, kiss me at once. [_Kisses her._] And her brother too! Well, honest Dungfork, do you know the difference between a horse and a cart, and a cart-horse, eh? _Bul._ I presume that your worship is a captain, by your clothes and your courage. _Syl._ Suppose I were, would you be contented to list, friend? _Rose._ No, no; though your worship be a handsome man, there be others as fine as you. My brother is engaged to Captain Plume. _Syl._ Plume! do you know Captain Plume? _Rose._ Yes, I do, and he knows me. He took the ribbands out of his shirt sleeves, and put them into my shoes: see there--I can assure you that I can do any thing with the captain. _Bul._ That is, in a modest way, sir. Have a care what you say, Rouse; don't shame your parentage. _Rose._ Nay, for that matter, I am not so simple as to say that I can do any thing with the captain but what I may do with any body else. _Syl._ So!----And pray what do you expect from this captain, child? _Rose._ I expect sir!--I expect--but he ordered me to tell nobody--but suppose he should propose to marry me? _Syl._ You should have a care, my dear! men will promise any thing beforehand. _Rose._ I know that; but he promised to marry me afterwards. _Bul._ Wauns! Rouse, what have you said? _Syl._ Afterwards! After what? _Rose._ After I had sold my chickens--I hope there's no harm in that. _Enter_ PLUME. _Plume._ What, Mr. Wilful so close with my market woman! _Syl._ I'll try if he loves her. [_Aside._] Close, sir, ay, and closer yet, sir. Come, my pretty maid, you and I will withdraw a little. _Plume._ No, no, friend, I han't done with her yet. _Syl._ Nor have I begun with her; so I have as good a right as you have. _Plume._ Thou'rt a bloody impudent fellow! _Syl._ Sir, I would qualify myself for the service. _Plume._ Hast thou really a mind to the service? _Syl._ Yes, sir, so let her go. _Rose._ Pray, gentlemen, don't be so violent. _Plume._ Come, leave it to the girl's own choice. Will you belong to me or to that gentleman? _Rose._ Let me consider; you're both very handsome. _Plume._ Now the natural inconstancy of her sex begins to work. _Rose._ Pray, sir, what will you give me? _Bul._ Dunna be angry, sir, that my sister should be mercenary, for she's but young. _Syl._ Give thee, child! I'll set thee above scandal; you shall have a coach with six before and six behind; an equipage to make vice fashionable, and put virtue out of countenance. _Plume._ Pho! that's easily done: I'll do more for thee, child, I'll buy you a furbelow-scarf, and give you a ticket to see a play. _Bul._ A play! wauns! Rouse, take the ticket, and let's see the show. _Syl._ Lookye, captain, if you won't resign, I'll go list with Captain Brazen this minute. _Plume._ Will you list with me if I give up my title? _Syl._ I will. _Plume._ Take her; I'll change a woman for a man at any time. _Rose._ I have heard before, indeed, that you captains used to sell your men. _Bul._ Pray, captain, do not send Rouse to the Western Indies. _Plume._ Ha! ha! ha! West Indies! No, no, my honest lad, give me thy hand; nor you nor she shall move a step farther than I do. This gentleman is one of us, and will be kind to you, Mrs. Rose. _Rose._ But will you be so kind to me, sir, as the captain would? _Syl._ I can't be altogether so kind to you; my circumstances are not so good as the captain's; but I'll take care of you, upon my word. _Plume._ Ay, ay, we'll all take care of her; she shall live like a princess, and her brother here shall be--What would you be? _Bul._ Oh, sir, if you had not promised the place of drum-major! _Plume._ Ay, that is promised; but what think you of barrack-master? you are a person of understanding, and barrack-master you shall be--But what's become of this same Cartwheel you told me of, my dear? _Rose._ We'll go fetch him--Come, brother barrack-master--We shall find you at home, noble captain? [_Exeunt_ ROSE _and_ BULLOCK. _Plume._ Yes, yes; and now, sir, here are your forty shillings. _Syl._ Captain Plume, I despise your listing money; if I do serve, 'tis purely for love--of that wench, I mean--now let me beg you to lay aside your recruiting airs, put on the man of honour, and tell me plainly what usage I must expect when I am under your command? _Plume._ Your usage will chiefly depend upon your behaviour; only this you must expect, that if you commit a small fault I will excuse it; if a great one I'll discharge you; for something tells me I shall not be able to punish you. _Syl._ And something tells me that if you do discharge me 'twill be the greatest punishment you can inflict; for were we this moment to go upon the greatest dangers in your profession, they would be less terrible to me than to stay behind you--And now, your hand, this lists me--and now you are my captain. _Plume._ Your friend. 'Sdeath! there's something in this fellow that charms me. _Syl._ One favour I must beg--this affair will make some noise, and I have some friends that would censure my conduct, if I threw myself into the circumstance of a private centinel of my own head--I must therefore take care to be impressed by the act of parliament; you shall leave that to me. _Plume._ What you please as to that--Will you lodge at my quarters in the mean time? _Syl._ No, no, captain; you forget Rose; she's to be my bedfellow, you know. _Plume._ I had forgot: pray be kind to her. [_Exeunt severally._ _Enter_ MELINDA _and_ LUCY. _Lucy._ You are thoughtful, madam, am not I worthy to know the cause? _Mel._ Oh, Lucy! I can hold my secret no longer. You must know, that hearing of a famous fortune-teller in town, I went disguised to satisfy a curiosity which has cost me dear. The fellow is certainly the devil, or one of his bosom-favourites: he has told me the most surprising things of my past life. _Lucy._ Things past, madam, can hardly be reckoned surprising, because we know them already. Did he tell you any thing surprising that was to come? _Mel._ One thing very surprising; he said, I should die a maid! _Lucy._ Die a maid! come into the world for nothing!--Dear madam! if you should believe him, it might come to pass; for the bare thought on't might kill one in four and twenty hours--And did you ask him any questions about me? _Mel._ You! why I passed for you. _Lucy._ So 'tis I that am to die a maid--But the devil was a liar from the beginning; he can't make me die a maid--I've put it out of his power already. [_Aside._ _Mel._ I do but jest. I would have passed for you, and called myself Lucy; but he presently told me my name, my quality, my fortune, and gave me the whole history of my life. He told me of a lover I had in this country, and described Worthy exactly, but in nothing so well as in his present indifference--I fled to him for refuge here to-day; he never so much as encouraged me in my fright, but coldly told me that he was sorry for the accident, because it might give the town cause to censure my conduct; excused his not waiting on me home, made me a careless bow, and walked off--'Sdeath! I could have stabbed him or myself, 'twas the same thing--Yonder he comes--I will so use him! _Lucy._ Don't exasperate him; consider what the fortune-teller told you. Men are scarce, and as times go it is not impossible for a woman to die a maid. _Enter_ WORTHY. _Mel._ No matter. _Wor._ I find she's warned; I must strike while the iron is hot--You've a great deal of courage, madam, to venture into the walks where you were so lately frightened. _Mel._ And you have a quantity of impudence, to appear before me, that you so lately have affronted. _Wor._ I had no design to affront you, nor appear before you either, madam; I left you here because I had business in another place, and came hither thinking to meet another person. _Mel._ Since you find yourself disappointed, I hope you'll withdraw to another part of the walk. _Wor._ The walk is broad enough for us both. [_They walk by one another, he with his Hat cocked, she fretting, and tearing her Fan; he offers her his Box, she strikes it out of his Hand; while he is gathering it up_, BRAZEN _enters, and takes her round the Waist; she cuffs him_.] _Brazen._ What, here before me, my dear! _Mel._ What means this insolence? _Lucy._ Are you mad? don't you see Mr. Worthy? [_To_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ No, no; I'm struck blind--Worthy! odso! well turned--My mistress has wit at her fingers' ends--Madam, I ask your pardon; 'tis our way abroad--Mr. Worthy, you're the happy man. _Wor._ I don't envy your happiness very much, if the lady can afford no other sort of favours but what she has bestowed upon you. _Mel._ I'm sorry the favour miscarried, for it was designed for you, Mr. Worthy; and be assured 'tis the last and only favour you must expect at my hands----captain, I ask your pardon. [_Exit with_ LUCY. _Brazen._ I grant it----You see, Mr. Worthy, 'twas only a random-shot; it might have taken off your head as well as mine. Courage, my dear! 'tis the fortune of war; but the enemy has thought fit to withdraw, I think. _Wor._ Withdraw! Oons! sir, what d'ye mean by withdraw? _Brazen._ I'll show you. [_Exit._ _Wor._ She's lost, irrecoverably lost, and Plume's advice has ruined me. 'Sdeath! why should I, that knew her haughty spirit, be ruled by a man that's a stranger to her pride? _Enter_ PLUME. _Plume._ Ha! ha! ha! a battle royal! Don't frown so, man; she's your own, I'll tell you: I saw the fury of her love in the extremity of her passion. The wildness of her anger is a certain sign that she loves you to madness. That rogue, Kite, began the battle with abundance of conduct, and will bring you off victorious, my life on't: he plays his part admirably. _Wor._ But what could be the meaning of Brazen's familiarity with her? _Plume._ You are no logician, if you pretend to draw consequences from the actions of fools--Whim, unaccountable whim, hurries them on, like a man drunk with brandy before ten o'clock in the morning----But we lose our sport; Kite has opened above an hour ago: let's away. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _A Chamber, a Table with Books and Globes._ KITE _disguised in a strange Habit, sitting at a Table_. _Kite._ [_Rising._] By the position of the heavens, gained from my observation upon these celestial globes, I find that Luna was a tide-waiter, Sol a surveyor, Mercury a thief, Venus a whore, Saturn an alderman, Jupiter a rake, and Mars a serjeant of grenadiers--and this is the system of Kite the conjurer. _Enter_ PLUME _and_ WORTHY. _Plume._ Well, what success? _Kite._ I have sent away a shoemaker and a tailor already; one's to be a captain of marines, and the other a major of dragoons--I am to manage them at night----Have you seen the lady, Mr. Worthy? _Wor._ Ay, but it won't do--Have you showed her her name, that I tore off from the bottom of the letter? _Kite._ No, sir, I reserve that for the last stroke. _Plume._ What letter? _Wor._ One that I would not let you see, for fear that you should break windows in good earnest. Here captain, put it into your pocket-book, and have it ready upon occasion. [_Knocking at the Door._ _Kite._ Officers, to your posts. Tycho, mind the door. [_Exeunt_ PLUME _and_ WORTHY.--SERVANT _opens the Door_. _Enter_ MELINDA _and_ LUCY. _Kite._ Tycho, chairs for the ladies. _Mel._ Don't trouble yourself; we shan't stay, doctor. _Kite._ Your ladyship is to stay much longer than you imagine. _Mel._ For what? _Kite._ For a husband--For your part, madam, you won't stay for a husband. [_To_ LUCY. _Lucy._ Pray, doctor, do you converse with the stars, or the devil? _Kite._ With both; when I have the destinies of men in search, I consult the stars; when the affairs of women come under my hands, I advise with my t'other friend. _Mel._ And have you raised the devil upon my account? _Kite._ Yes, madam, and he's now under the table. _Lucy._ Oh, Heavens protect us! Dear madam, let's be gone. _Kite._ If you be afraid of him, why do ye come to consult him! _Mel._ Don't fear, fool: do you think, sir, that because I'm a woman I'm to be fooled out of my reason, or frighted out of my senses? Come, show me this devil. _Kite._ He's a little busy at present, but when he has done he shall wait on you. _Mel._ What is he doing? _Kite._ Writing your name in his pocket-book. _Mel._ Ha! ha! my name! pray what have you or he to do with my name? _Kite._ Lookye, fair lady! the devil is a very modest person, he seeks nobody unless they seek him first; he's chained up, like a mastiff, and can't stir unless he be let loose--You come to me to have your fortune told--do you think, madam, that I can answer you of my own head? No, madam; the affairs of women are so irregular, that nothing less than the devil can give any account of them. Now to convince you of your incredulity, I'll show you a trial of my skill. Here, you Cacodemo del Plumo, exert your power, draw me this lady's name, the word Melinda, in proper letters and characters of her own hand-writing--do it at three motions--one--two--three--'tis done--Now, madam, will you please to send your maid to fetch it? _Lucy._ I fetch it! the devil fetch me if I do. _Mel._ My name, in my own hand-writing! that would be convincing indeed! _Kite._ Seeing is believing. [_Goes to the Table, and lifts up the Carpet._] Here Tre, Tre, poor Tre, give me the bone, sirrah. There's your name upon that square piece of paper. Behold-- _Mel._ 'Tis wonderful! my very letters to a tittle! _Lucy._ 'Tis like your hand, madam; but not so like your hand, neither; and now I look nearer 'tis not like your hand at all. _Kite._ Here's a chambermaid now will outlie the devil! _Lucy._ Lookye, madam, they shan't impose upon us; people can't remember their hands no more than they can their faces--Come, madam, let us be certain; write your name upon this paper, then we'll compare the two hands. [_Takes out a Paper, and folds it._ _Kite._ Any thing for your satisfaction, madam--Here is pen and ink. [MELINDA _writes_, LUCY _holds the Paper_. _Lucy._ Let me see it, madam; 'tis the same--the very same--But I'll secure one copy for my own affairs. [_Aside._ _Mel._ This is demonstration. _Kite._ 'Tis so, madam--the word demonstration comes from Dæmon, the father of lies. _Mel._ Well, doctor, I'm convinced: and now, pray, what account can you give of my future fortune? _Kite._ Before the sun has made one course round this earthly globe, your fortune will be fixed for happiness or misery. _Mel._ What! so near the crisis of my fate? _Kite._ Let me see--About the hour of ten to-morrow morning you will be saluted by a gentleman who will come to take his leave of you, being designed for travel; his intention of going abroad is sudden, and the occasion a woman. Your fortune and his are like the bullet and the barrel, one runs plump into the other--In short, if the gentleman travels, he will die abroad, and if he does you will die before he comes home. _Mel._ What sort of a man is he? _Kite._ Madam, he's a fine gentleman, and a lover; that is, a man of very good sense, and a very great fool. _Mel._ How is that possible, doctor? _Kite._ Because, madam--because it is so--A woman's reason is the best for a man's being a fool. _Mel._ Ten o'clock, you say? _Kite._ Ten--about the hour of tea-drinking throughout the kingdom. _Mel._ Here, doctor. [_Gives Money._] Lucy, have you any questions to ask? _Lucy._ Oh, madam! a thousand. _Kite._ I must beg your patience till another time, for I expect more company this minute; besides, I must discharge the gentleman under the table. _Lucy._ O, pray, sir, discharge us first! _Kite._ Tycho, wait on the ladies down stairs. [_Exeunt_ MELINDA _and_ LUCY. _Enter_ WORTHY _and_ PLUME. _Kite._ Mr. Worthy, you were pleased to wish me joy to-day; I hope to be able to return the compliment to-morrow. _Wor._ I'll make it the best compliment to you that ever I made in my life, if you do; but I must be a traveller, you say? _Kite._ No farther than the chops of the channel, I presume, sir. _Plume._ That we have concerted already. [_Knocking hard._] Heyday! you don't profess midwifery, doctor? _Kite._ Away to your ambuscade. [_Exeunt_ WORTHY _and_ PLUME. _Enter_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ Your servant, my dear? _Kite._ Stand off, I have my familiar already. _Brazen._ Are you bewitched, my dear? _Kite._ Yes, my dear! but mine is a peaceable spirit, and hates gunpowder. Thus I fortify myself: [_Draws a Circle round him._] and now, captain, have a care how you force my lines. _Brazen._ Lines! what dost talk of lines! you have something like a fishing-rod there, indeed; but I come to be acquainted with you, man--What's your name, my dear? _Kite._ Conundrum. _Brazen._ Conundrum? rat me! I knew a famous doctor in London of your name--Where were you born? _Kite._ I was born in Algebra. _Brazen._ Algebra! 'tis no country in Christendom, I'm sure, unless it be some place in the Highlands in Scotland. _Kite._ Right--I told you I was bewitched. _Brazen._ So am I, my dear! I am going to be married--I have had two letters from a lady of fortune, that loves me to madness, fits, cholic, spleen, and vapours----shall I marry her in four and twenty hours, ay or no? _Kite._ Certainly. _Brazen._ Gadso, ay---- _Kite._--Or no--but I must have the year and the day of the month when these letters were dated. _Brazen._ Why, you old bitch! did you ever hear of love letters dated with the year and day of the month? do you think billetdoux are like bank bills? _Kite._ They are not so good, my dear--but if they bear no date, I must examine the contents. _Brazen._ Contents! that you shall, old boy! here they be both. _Kite._ Only the last you received, if you please. [_Takes the Letter._] Now, sir, if you please to let me consult my books for a minute, I'll send this letter enclosed to you with the determination of the stars upon it to your lodgings. _Brazen._ With all my heart--I must give him--[_Puts his Hands in his Pockets._] Algebra! I fancy, doctor, 'tis hard to calculate the place of your nativity--Here--[_Gives him Money._] And, if I succeed, I'll build a watch-tower on the top of the highest mountain in Wales, for the study of astrology, and the benefit of the Conundrums. [_Exit._ _Enter_ PLUME _and_ WORTHY. _Wor._ O doctor! that letter's worth a million; let me see it: and now I have it, I'm afraid to open it. _Plume._ Pho! let me see it. [_Opening the Letter._] If she be a jilt--Damn her, she is one--there's her name at the bottom on't. _Wor._ How! then I'll travel in good earnest--By all my hopes, 'tis Lucy's hand. _Plume._ Lucy's! _Wor._ Certainly--'tis no more like Melinda's character, than black is to white. _Plume._ Then 'tis certainly Lucy's contrivance to draw in Brazen for a husband--But are you sure 'tis not Melinda's hand? _Wor._ You shall see; where's the bit of paper I gave you just now that the devil wrote Melinda upon? _Kite._ Here, sir. _Plume._ 'Tis plain they are not the same; and is this the malicious name that was subscribed to the letter which made Mr. Balance send his daughter into the country? _Wor._ The very same: the other fragments I showed you just now. _Plume._ But 'twas barbarous to conceal this so long, and to continue me so many hours in the pernicious heresy of believing that angelic creature could change. Poor Sylvia! _Wor._ Rich Sylvia, you mean, and poor captain; ha! ha! ha!--Come, come, friend, Melinda is true, and shall be mine; Sylvia is constant, and may be yours. _Plume._ No, she's above my hopes----but for her sake, I'll recant my opinion of her sex. By some the sex is blam'd without design, Light harmless censure, such as yours and mine, Sallies of wit, and vapours of our wine: Others the justice of the sex condemn, And, wanting merit to create esteem, Would hide their own defects by censuring them: But they, secure in their all-conq'ring charms, Laugh at our vain attempts, our false alarms. He magnifies their conquests who complains, For none would struggle, were they not in chains. [_Exeunt._ ACT THE FIFTH. SCENE I. JUSTICE BALANCE'S _House_. _Enter_ BALANCE _and_ SCALE. _Scale._ I say, 'tis not to be borne, Mr. Balance. _Bal._ Lookye, Mr. Scale, for my own part I shall be very tender in what regards the officers of the army--I only speak in reference to Captain Plume--for the other spark I know nothing of. _Scale._ Nor can I hear of any body that does--Oh! here they come. _Enter_ SYLVIA, BULLOCK, ROSE, PRISONERS, _and_ CONSTABLE. _Const._ May it please your worships, we took them in the very act, _re infecta_, sir--The gentleman, indeed, behaved himself like a gentleman, for he drew his sword and swore, and afterwards laid it down and said nothing. _Bal._ Give the gentleman his sword again--Wait you without. [_Exeunt_ CONSTABLE _and_ WATCH.] I'm sorry, sir, [_To_ SYLVIA.] to know a gentleman upon such terms, that the occasion of our meeting should prevent the satisfaction of an acquaintance. _Syl._ Sir, you need make no apology for your warrant, no more than I shall do for my behaviour--my innocence is upon an equal foot with your authority. _Scale._ Innocence! have you not seduced that young maid? _Syl._ No, Mr. Goosecap, she seduced me. _Bul._ So she did, I'll swear--for she proposed marriage first. _Bal._ What, then you are married, child? [_To_ ROSE. _Rose._ Yes, sir, to my sorrow. _Bal._ Who was witness? _Bul._ That was I--I danc'd, threw the stocking, and spoke jokes by their bedside, I'm sure. _Bal._ Who was the minister? _Bul._ Minister! we are soldiers, and want no minister--they were married by the articles of war. _Bal._ Hold thy prating, fool----Your appearance, sir, promises some understanding; pray, what does this fellow mean? _Syl._ He means marriage, I think--but that, you know, is so odd a thing, that hardly any two people under the sun agree in the ceremony; but among soldiers 'tis most sacred--our sword, you know, is our honour, that we lay down--the Hero jumps over it first, and the Amazon after--Leap, rogue; follow, whore--the drum beats a ruff, and so to bed: that's all: the ceremony is concise. _Bul._ And the prettiest ceremony, so full of pastime and prodigality---- _Bal._ What! are you a soldier? _Bul._ Ay, that I am--Will your worship lend me your cane, and I'll show you how I can exercise? _Bal._ Take it. [_Strikes him over the Head._]--Your name, pray, sir? [_To_ SYLVIA. _Syl._ Captain Pinch: I cock my hat with a pinch, I take snuff with a pinch, pay my whores with a pinch; in short, I can do any thing at a pinch but fight. _Bal._ And pray, sir, what brought you into Shropshire? _Syl._ A pinch, sir: I know you country gentlemen want wit, and you know that we town gentlemen want money, and so---- _Bal._ I understand you, sir--Here, constable---- _Enter_ CONSTABLE. Take this gentleman into custody, till further orders. _Rose._ Pray, your worship, don't be uncivil to him, for he did me no hurt; he's the most harmless man in the world, for all he talks so. _Scale._ Come, come, child, I'll take care of you. _Syl._ What, gentlemen, rob me of my freedom and my wife at once! 'tis the first time they ever went together. _Bal._ Harkye, constable. [_Whispers him._ _Const._ It shall be done, sir--come along, sir. [_Exeunt_ CONSTABLE, BULLOCK, _and_ SYLVIA. _Bal._ Come, Mr. Scale, we'll manage the spark presently. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _The Market Place._ _Enter_ PLUME _and_ KITE. _Plume._ A baker, a tailor, a smith, butchers, carpenters, and journeymen shoemakers, in all thirty-nine--I believe the first colony planted in Virginia had not more trades in their company than I have in mine. _Kite._ The butcher, sir, will have his hands full, for we have two sheep-stealers among us--I hear of a fellow, too, committed just now for stealing of horses. _Plume._ We'll dispose of him among the dragoons--Have we never a poulterer among us? _Kite._ Yes, sir, the king of the gipsies is a very good one; he has an excellent hand at a goose or a turkey--Here's Captain Brazen, sir. I must go look after the men. _Enter_ BRAZEN, _reading a Letter_. _Brazen._ Um, um, um, the canonical hour----Um, um, very well--My dear Plume! give me a buss. _Plume._ Half a score, if you will, my dear! What hast got in thy hand, child? _Brazen._ 'Tis a project for laying out a thousand pounds. _Plume._ Were it not requisite to project first how to get it in? _Brazen._ You can't imagine, my dear, that I want twenty thousand pounds! I have spent twenty times as much in the service--But if this twenty thousand pounds should not be in specie---- _Plume._ What twenty thousand? _Brazen._ Harkye---- [_Whispers._ _Plume._ Married! _Brazen._ Presently; we're to meet about half a mile out of town, at the waterside--and so forth--[_Reads._] _For fear I should be known by any of Worthy's friends, you must give me leave to wear my mask till after the ceremony which will make me for ever yours._--Lookye there, my dear dog! [_Shows the Bottom of the Letter to_ PLUME. _Plume._ Melinda! and by this light her own hand! Once more, if you please, my dear--Her hand exactly--Just now, you say? _Brazen._ This minute; I must be gone. _Plume._ Have a little patience, and I'll go with you. _Brazen._ No, no, I see a gentleman coming this way that may be inquisitive; 'tis Worthy, do you know him? _Plume._ By sight only. _Brazen._ Have a care, the very eyes discover secrets. [_Exit._ _Enter_ WORTHY. _Wor._ To boot and saddle, captain, you must mount. _Plume._ Whip and spur, Worthy, or you won't mount. _Wor._ But I shall; Melinda and I are agreed; she's gone to visit Sylvia, we are to mount and follow; and could we carry a parson with us, who knows what might be done for us both? _Plume._ Don't trouble your head; Melinda has secured a parson already. _Wor._ Already! do you know more than I? _Plume._ Yes, I saw it under her hand--Brazen and she are to meet half a mile hence, at the waterside, there to take boat, I suppose, to be ferried over to the Elysian Fields, if there be any such thing in matrimony. _Wor._ I parted with Melinda just now; she assured me she hated Brazen, and that she resolved to discard Lucy for daring to write letters to him in her name. _Plume._ Nay, nay, there's nothing of Lucy in this--I tell ye, I saw Melinda's hand as surely as this is mine. _Wor._ But I tell you, she's gone this minute to Justice Balance's country-house. _Plume._ But I tell you, she's gone this minute to the waterside. _Enter a_ SERVANT. _Serv._ Madam Melinda has sent word that you need not trouble yourself to follow her, because her journey to Justice Balance's is put off, and she's gone to take the air another way. [_To_ WORTHY. _Wor._ How! her journey put off? _Plume._ That is, her journey was a put off to you. _Wor._ 'Tis plain, plain--But how, where, when is she to meet Brazen? _Plume._ Just now, I tell you, half a mile hence, at the waterside. _Wor._ Up or down the water? _Plume._ That I don't know. _Wor._ I'm glad my horses are ready--I shall return presently. [_Exit._ _Plume._ You'll find me at the Hall: the justices are sitting by this time, and I must attend them. [_Exit._ SCENE III. _A Court of Justice._ BALANCE, SCALE, _and_ SCRUPLE, _upon the Bench_; CONSTABLE, KITE, MOB. KITE _and_ CONSTABLE _advance_. _Kite._ Pray, who are those honourable gentlemen upon the bench? _Const._ He in the middle is Justice Balance, he on the right is Justice Scale, and he on the left is Justice Scruple, and I am Mr. Constable; four very honest gentlemen. _Kite._ O dear, sir! I am your most obedient servant. [_Saluting the_ CONSTABLE.] I fancy, sir, that your employment and mine are much the same; for my business is to keep people in order, and, if they disobey, to knock them down; and then we are both staff officers. _Const._ Nay, I'm a serjeant myself--of the militia--Come, brother, you shall see me exercise. Suppose this a musket; now I'm shouldered. [_Puts his Staff on his right Shoulder._ _Kite._ Ay, you are shouldered pretty well for a constable's staff, but for a musket you must put it on the other shoulder, my dear! _Const._ Adso! that's true--Come, now give the word of command. _Kite._ Silence. _Const._ Ay, ay, so we will--we will be silent. _Kite._ Silence, you dog, silence! [_Strikes him over the Head with his Halbert._ _Const._ That's the way to silence a man with a witness. What do you mean, friend? _Kite._ Only to exercise you, sir. _Const._ Your exercise differs so much from ours, that we shall ne'er agree about it; if my own captain had given me such a rap, I had taken the law of him. _Enter_ PLUME. _Bal._ Captain, you're welcome. _Plume._ Gentlemen, I thank you. _Scrup._ Come, honest captain, sit by me. [PLUME _ascends, and sits upon the Bench_.]--Now, produce your prisoners----Here, that fellow there, set him up. Mr. Constable, what have you to say against this man? _Const._ I have nothing to say against him, an' please you. _Bal._ No; what made you bring him hither? _Const._ I don't know, an' please your worship. _Scale._ Did not the contents of your warrant direct you what sort of men to take up? _Const._ I can't tell, an' please ye; I can't read. _Scrup._ A very pretty constable, truly. I find we have no business here. _Kite._ May it please the worshipful bench, I desire to be heard in this case, as being the counsel for the king. _Bal._ Come, serjeant, you shall be heard, since nobody else will speak; we won't come here for nothing. _Kite._ This man is but one man, the country may spare him, and the army wants him; besides, he's cut out by nature for a grenadier; he's five feet ten inches high; he shall box, wrestle, or dance the Cheshire round with any man in the country; he gets drunk every Sabbath-day, and he beats his wife. _Wife._ You lie, sirrah, you lie; an please your worship, he's the best natured pains-taking'st man in the parish, witness my five poor children. _Scrup._ A wife and five children? you constable, you rogue, how durst you impress a man that has a wife and five children? _Scale._ Discharge him, discharge him. _Bal._ Hold, gentlemen. Harkye, friend, how do you maintain your wife and five children? _Plume._ They live upon wild-fowl and venison, sir; the husband keeps a gun, and kills all the hares and partridges within five miles round. _Bal._ A gun! nay if he be so good at gunning, he shall have enough on't. He may be of use against the French, for he shoots flying to be sure. _Scrup._ But his wife and children, Mr. Balance? _Wife._ Ay, ay, that's the reason you would send him away; you know I have a child every year, and you are afraid that they should come upon the parish at last. _Plume._ Lookye there, gentlemen; the honest woman has spoke it at once; the parish had better maintain five children this year, than six or seven the next. That fellow, upon this high feeding, may get you two or three beggars at a birth. _Wife._ Lookye, Mr. Captain, the parish shall get nothing by sending him away, for I won't lose my teeming-time, if there be a man left in the parish. _Bal._ Send that woman to the house of correction,----and the man---- _Kite._ I'll take care of him, if you please. [_Takes him down._ _Scale._ Here, you constable, the next. Set up that black-faced fellow, he has a gunpowder look; what can you say against this man, constable? _Const._ Nothing, but that he's a very honest man. _Plume._ Pray, gentlemen, let me have one honest man in my company, for the novelty's sake. _Bal._ What are you, friend? _Mob._ A collier; I work in the coal-pits. _Scrup._ Lookye, gentlemen, this fellow has a trade, and the act of parliament here expresses, that we are to impress no man that has any visible means of a livelihood. _Kite._ May it please your worship, this man has no visible means of a livelihood, for he works underground. _Plume._ Well said, Kite; besides, the army wants miners. _Bal._ Right, and had we an order of government for't, we could raise you in this and the neighbouring county of Stafford, five hundred colliers, that would run you under ground like moles, and do more service in a siege, than all the miners in the army. _Scrup._ Well, friend, what have you to say for yourself? _Mob._ I'm married. _Kite._ Lack-a-day! so am I. _Mob._ Here's my wife, poor woman. _Bal._ Are you married, good woman? _Woman._ I'm married in conscience. _Kite._ May it please your worship, she's with child in conscience. _Scale._ Who married you, mistress? _Woman._ My husband: we agreed that I should call him husband, to avoid passing for a whore, and that he should call me wife, to shun going for a soldier. _Plume._ A very pretty couple! What say you, Mr. Kite? will you take care of the woman? _Kite._ Yes, sir, she shall go with us to the sea-side, and there, if she has a mind to drown herself, we'll take care nobody shall hinder her. _Bal._ Here, constable, bring in my man.[_Exit_ CONSTABLE.] Now, captain, I'll fit you with a man such as you never listed in your life. _Enter_ CONSTABLE _and_ SYLVIA. Oh, my friend Pinch! I'm very glad to see you. _Syl._ Well, sir, and what then? _Scale._ What then! is that your respect to the bench? _Syl._ Sir, I don't care a farthing for you, nor your bench neither. _Scrup._ Lookye, gentlemen, that's enough; he's a very impudent fellow, and fit for a soldier. _Scale._ A notorious rogue, I say, and very fit for a soldier. _Const._ A whoremaster, I say, and therefore fit to go. _Bal._ What think you, captain? _Plume._ I think he's a very pretty fellow, and therefore fit to serve. _Syl._ Me for a soldier! send your own lazy lubberly sons at home; fellows that hazard their necks every day, in the pursuit of a fox, yet dare not peep abroad to look an enemy in the face. _Const._ May it please your worships, I have a woman at the door to swear a rape against this rogue. _Syl._ Is it your wife, or daughter, booby? _Bal._ Pray, captain, read the articles of war; we'll see him listed immediately. _Plume._ [Reads. _Articles of war, against mutiny and desertion, &c._ _Syl._ Hold, sir----Once more, gentlemen, have a care what you do; for you shall severely smart for any violence you offer to me; and you, Mr. Balance, I speak to you particularly, you shall heartily repent it. _Plume._ Lookye, young spark, say but one word more, and I'll build a horse for you as high as the cieling, and make you ride the most tiresome journey that ever you made in your life. _Syl._ You have made a fine speech, good Captain Huff-cap! but you had better be quiet; I shall find a way to cool your courage. _Plume._ Pray, gentlemen, don't mind him, he's distracted. _Syl._ 'Tis false! I am descended of as good a family as any in your county; my father is as good a man as any upon your bench, and I am heir to twelve hundred pounds a-year. _Bal._ He's certainly mad. Pray, captain, read the articles of war. _Syl._ Hold, once more. Pray, Mr. Balance, to you I speak; suppose I were your child, would you use me at this rate? _Bal._ No, 'faith: were you mine, I would send you to Bedlam first, and into the army afterwards. _Syl._ But consider my father, sir; he's as good, as generous, as brave, as just a man as ever served his country; I'm his only child; perhaps the loss of me may break his heart. _Bal._ He's a very great fool if it does. Captain, if you don't list him this minute, I'll leave the court. _Plume._ Kite, do you distribute the levy money to the men, while I read. _Kite._ Ay, sir. Silence, gentlemen! [PLUME _reads the Articles of War_. _Bal._ Very well; now, captain, let me beg the favour of you not to discharge this fellow, upon any account whatsoever. Bring in the rest. _Const._ There are no more, an't please your worship. _Bal._ No more! There were five, two hours ago. _Syl._ 'Tis true, sir; but this rogue of a constable let the rest escape, for a bribe of eleven shillings a man, because he said the act allowed him but ten, so the odd shilling was clear gains. _All Just._ How! _Syl._ Gentlemen, he offered to let me go away for two guineas, but I had not so much about me: this is truth, and I am ready to swear it. _Kite._ And I'll swear it: give me the book--'tis for the good of the service. _Mob._ May it please your worship, I gave him half a crown, to say that I was an honest man; but now, since that your worships have made me a rogue, I hope I shall have my money again. _Bal._ 'Tis my opinion, that this constable be put into the captain's hands, and if his friends don't bring four good men for his ransom by to-morrow night, captain, you shall carry him to Flanders. _Scale. Scrup._ Agreed, agreed. _Plume._ Mr. Kite, take the constable into custody. _Kite._ Ay, ay, sir. [_To the_ CONSTABLE.] Will you please to have your office taken from you? or will you handsomely lay down your staff, as your betters have done before you? [CONSTABLE _drops his Staff_. _Bal._ Come, gentlemen, there needs no great ceremony in adjourning this court. Captain, you shall dine with me. _Kite._ Come, Mr. Militia Serjeant, I shall silence you now, I believe, without your taking the law of me. [_Exeunt._ SCENE IV. _A Room in_ BALANCE'S _House_. _Enter_ BALANCE _and_ STEWARD. _Stew._ We did not miss her till the evening, sir; and then, searching for her in the chamber that was my young master's, we found her clothes there; but the suit that your son left in the press, when he went to London, was gone. _Bal._ The white, trimm'd with silver? _Stew._ The same. _Bal._ You ha'n't told that circumstance to any body? _Stew._ To none but your worship. _Bal._ And be sure you don't. Go into the dining-room, and tell Captain Plume that I beg to speak with him. _Stew._ I shall. [_Exit._ _Bal._ Was ever man so imposed upon! I had her promise, indeed, that she would never dispose of herself without my consent--I have consented with a witness, given her away as my act and my deed--and this, I warrant, the captain thinks will pass. No, I shall never pardon him the villany, first, of robbing me of my daughter, and then the mean opinion he must have of me, to think that I could be so wretchedly imposed upon: her extravagant passion might encourage her in the attempt, but the contrivance must be his. I'll know the truth presently. _Enter_ PLUME. Pray, captain, what have you done with our young gentleman soldier? _Plume._ He's at my quarters, I suppose, with the rest of my men. _Bal._ Does he keep company with the common soldiers? _Plume._ No, he's generally with me. _Bal._ He lies with you, I presume? _Plume._ No, 'faith; the young rogue fell in love with Rose, and has lain with her, I think, since she came to town. _Bal._ So that between you both, Rose has been finely managed. _Plume._ Upon my honour, sir, she had no harm from me. _Bal._ All's safe, I find--Now, captain, you must know, that the young fellow's impudence in court was well grounded; he said I should heartily repent his being listed, and so I do, from my soul. _Plume._ Ay! for what reason? _Bal._ Because he is no less than what he said he was--born of as good a family as any in this county, and he is heir to twelve hundred pounds a-year. _Plume._ I'm very glad to hear it--for I wanted but a man of that quality to make my company a perfect representative of the whole commons of England. _Bal._ Won't you discharge him? _Plume._ Not under a hundred pounds sterling. _Bal._ You shall have it, for his father is my intimate friend. _Plume._ Then you shall have him for nothing. _Bal._ Nay, sir, you shall have your price. _Plume._ Not a penny, sir; I value an obligation to you much above an hundred pounds. _Bal._ Perhaps, sir, you shan't repent your generosity----Will you please to write his discharge in my pocket-book? [_Gives his Book._] In the mean time, we'll send for the gentleman. Who waits there? _Enter_ STEWARD. Go to the captain's lodging, and inquire for Mr. Wilful; tell him his captain wants him here immediately. _Serv._ Sir, the gentleman's below at the door, inquiring for the captain. _Plume._ Bid him come up. Here's the discharge, sir. _Bal._ Sir, I thank you--'Tis plain he had no hand in't. [_Aside._ _Enter_ SYLVIA. _Syl._ I think, captain, you might have used me better, than to leave me yonder among your swearing drunken crew; and you, Mr. Justice, might have been so civil as to have invited me to dinner, for I have eaten with as good a man as your worship. _Plume._ Sir, you must charge our want of respect upon our ignorance of your quality--but now you are at liberty, I have discharged you. _Syl._ Discharged me! _Bal._ Yes, sir, and you must once more go home to your father. _Syl._ My father! then I am discovered----Oh, sir! [_Kneeling._] I expect no pardon. _Bal._ Pardon! no, no, child; your crime shall be your punishment: here, captain, I deliver her over to the conjugal power, for her chastisement. Since she will be a wife, be you a husband, a very husband--When she tells you of her love, upbraid her with her folly; be modishly ungrateful, because she has been unfashionably kind; and use her worse than you would any body else, because you can't use her so well as she deserves. _Plume._ And are you, Sylvia, in good earnest? _Syl._ Earnest! I have gone too far to make it jest, sir. _Plume._ And do you give her to me in good earnest? _Bal._ If you please to take her, sir. _Plume._ Why then I have saved my legs and arms, and lost my liberty; secure from wounds, I am prepared for the gout; farewell subsistence, and welcome taxes--Sir, my liberty and the hope of being a general, are much dearer to me than your twelve hundred pounds a-year--but to your love, madam, I resign my freedom, and, to your beauty, my ambition--greater in obeying at your feet, than commanding at the head of an army. _Enter_ WORTHY. _Wor._ I am sorry to hear, Mr. Balance, that your daughter is lost. _Bal._ So am not I, sir, since an honest gentleman has found her. _Enter_ MELINDA. _Mel._ Pray, Mr. Balance, what's become of my cousin Sylvia? _Bal._ Your cousin Sylvia is talking yonder with your cousin Plume. _Mel. and Wor._ How! _Syl._ Do you think it strange, cousin, that a woman should change; but I hope you'll excuse a change that has proceeded from constancy: I altered my outside, because I was the same within, and only laid by the woman, to make sure of my man: that's my history. _Mel._ Your history is a little romantic, cousin; but since success has crowned your adventures, you will have the world on your side, and I shall be willing to go with the tide, provided you'll pardon an injury I offered you in the letter to your father. _Plume._ That injury, madam, was done to me, and the reparation I expect, shall be made to my friend: make Mr. Worthy happy, and I shall be satisfied. _Mel._ A good example, sir, will go a great way--When my cousin is pleased to surrender, 'tis probable I shan't hold out much longer. _Enter_ BRAZEN. _Brazen._ Gentlemen, I am yours--Madam, I am not yours. _Mel._ I'm glad on't, sir. _Brazen._ So am I--You have got a pretty house here, Mr. Laconic. _Bal._ 'Tis time to right all mistakes--My name, sir, is Balance. _Brazen._ Balance! Sir, I am your most obedient--I know your whole generation--had not you an uncle that was governor of the Leeward Islands, some years ago? _Bal._ Did you know him? _Brazen._ Intimately, sir, he played at billiards to a miracle--You had a brother too, that was a captain of a fire-ship--poor Dick--he had the most engaging way with him of making punch--and then his cabin was so neat--but his poor boy Jack was the most comical bastard--Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! a pickled dog, I shall never forget him. _Plume._ Have you got your recruits, my dear? _Brazen._ Not a stick, my dear! _Plume._ Probably I shall furnish you, my dear! instead of the twenty thousand pounds you talked of, you shall have the twenty brave recruits that I have raised, at the rate they cost me----My commission I lay down, to be taken up by some braver fellow, that has more merit, and less good fortune--whilst I endeavour, by the example of this worthy gentleman, to serve my king and country at home. _With some regret I quit the active field,_ _Where glory full reward for life does yield;_ _But the recruiting trade, with all its train_ _Of endless plague, fatigue, and endless pain,_ _I gladly quit, with my fair spouse to stay,_ _And raise recruits the matrimonial way._ [Exeunt omnes. THE END. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE A number of obvious misspellings have been corrected and missing punctuation has been silently added. Contemporary spellings have generally been retained (e.g. but for butt, cieling, ideot, quinted for squinted). One character name appears in the text as both Tummus and Tummas. Two additional changes were made: In Act 3, scene 2, one instance of "are" was deleted in the sentence: You lie; and you are a son of a whore. In Act 4, scene 1, build has replaced built in the sentence: I'll build a watch-tower. 
3612	----	JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND by BERNARD SHAW ACT I Great George Street, Westminster, is the address of Doyle and Broadbent, civil engineers. On the threshold one reads that the firm consists of Mr Lawrence Doyle and Mr Thomas Broadbent, and that their rooms are on the first floor. Most of their rooms are private; for the partners, being bachelors and bosom friends, live there; and the door marked Private, next the clerks' office, is their domestic sitting room as well as their reception room for clients. Let me describe it briefly from the point of view of a sparrow on the window sill. The outer door is in the opposite wall, close to the right hand corner. Between this door and the left hand corner is a hatstand and a table consisting of large drawing boards on trestles, with plans, rolls of tracing paper, mathematical instruments and other draughtsman's accessories on it. In the left hand wall is the fireplace, and the door of an inner room between the fireplace and our observant sparrow. Against the right hand wall is a filing cabinet, with a cupboard on it, and, nearer, a tall office desk and stool for one person. In the middle of the room a large double writing table is set across, with a chair at each end for the two partners. It is a room which no woman would tolerate, smelling of tobacco, and much in need of repapering, repainting, and recarpeting; but this is the effect of bachelor untidiness and indifference, not want of means; for nothing that Doyle and Broadbent themselves have purchased is cheap; nor is anything they want lacking. On the walls hang a large map of South America, a pictorial advertisement of a steamship company, an impressive portrait of Gladstone, and several caricatures of Mr Balfour as a rabbit and Mr Chamberlain as a fox by Francis Carruthers Gould. At twenty minutes to five o'clock on a summer afternoon in 1904, the room is empty. Presently the outer door is opened, and a valet comes in laden with a large Gladstone bag, and a strap of rugs. He carries them into the inner room. He is a respectable valet, old enough to have lost all alacrity, and acquired an air of putting up patiently with a great deal of trouble and indifferent health. The luggage belongs to Broadbent, who enters after the valet. He pulls off his overcoat and hangs it with his hat on the stand. Then he comes to the writing table and looks through the letters which are waiting for him. He is a robust, full-blooded, energetic man in the prime of life, sometimes eager and credulous, sometimes shrewd and roguish, sometimes portentously solemn, sometimes jolly and impetuous, always buoyant and irresistible, mostly likeable, and enormously absurd in his most earnest moments. He bursts open his letters with his thumb, and glances through them, flinging the envelopes about the floor with reckless untidiness whilst he talks to the valet. BROADBENT [calling] Hodson. HODSON [in the bedroom] Yes sir. BROADBENT. Don't unpack. Just take out the things I've worn; and put in clean things. HODSON [appearing at the bedroom door] Yes sir. [He turns to go back into the bedroom. BROADBENT. And look here! [Hodson turns again]. Do you remember where I put my revolver? HODSON. Revolver, sir? Yes sir. Mr Doyle uses it as a paper-weight, sir, when he's drawing. BROADBENT. Well, I want it packed. There's a packet of cartridges somewhere, I think. Find it and pack it as well. HODSON. Yes sir. BROADBENT. By the way, pack your own traps too. I shall take you with me this time. HODSON [hesitant]. Is it a dangerous part you're going to, sir? Should I be expected to carry a revolver, sir? BROADBENT. Perhaps it might be as well. I'm going to Ireland. HODSON [reassured]. Yes sir. BROADBENT. You don't feel nervous about it, I suppose? HODSON. Not at all, sir. I'll risk it, sir. BROADBENT. Have you ever been in Ireland? HODSON. No sir. I understand it's a very wet climate, sir. I'd better pack your india-rubber overalls. BROADBENT. Do. Where's Mr Doyle? HODSON. I'm expecting him at five, sir. He went out after lunch. BROADBENT. Anybody been looking for me? HODSON. A person giving the name of Haffigan has called twice to-day, sir. BROADBENT. Oh, I'm sorry. Why didn't he wait? I told him to wait if I wasn't in. HODSON. Well Sir, I didn't know you expected him; so I thought it best to--to--not to encourage him, sir. BROADBENT. Oh, he's all right. He's an Irishman, and not very particular about his appearance. HODSON. Yes sir, I noticed that he was rather Irish.... BROADBENT. If he calls again let him come up. HODSON. I think I saw him waiting about, sir, when you drove up. Shall I fetch him, sir? BROADBENT. Do, Hodson. HODSON. Yes sir [He makes for the outer door]. BROADBENT. He'll want tea. Let us have some. HODSON [stopping]. I shouldn't think he drank tea, sir. BROADBENT. Well, bring whatever you think he'd like. HODSON. Yes sir [An electric bell rings]. Here he is, sir. Saw you arrive, sir. BROADBENT. Right. Show him in. [Hodson goes out. Broadbent gets through the rest of his letters before Hodson returns with the visitor]. HODSON. Mr Affigan. Haffigan is a stunted, shortnecked, smallheaded, redhaired man of about 30, with reddened nose and furtive eyes. He is dressed in seedy black, almost clerically, and might be a tenth-rate schoolmaster ruined by drink. He hastens to shake Broadbent's hand with a show of reckless geniality and high spirits, helped out by a rollicking stage brogue. This is perhaps a comfort to himself, as he is secretly pursued by the horrors of incipient delirium tremens. HAFFIGAN. Tim Haffigan, sir, at your service. The top o the mornin to you, Misther Broadbent. BROADBENT [delighted with his Irish visitor]. Good afternoon, Mr Haffigan. TIM. An is it the afthernoon it is already? Begorra, what I call the mornin is all the time a man fasts afther breakfast. BROADBENT. Haven't you lunched? TIM. Divil a lunch! BROADBENT. I'm sorry I couldn't get back from Brighton in time to offer you some; but-- TIM. Not a word, sir, not a word. Sure it'll do tomorrow. Besides, I'm Irish, sir: a poor ather, but a powerful dhrinker. BROADBENT. I was just about to ring for tea when you came. Sit down, Mr Haffigan. TIM. Tay is a good dhrink if your nerves can stand it. Mine can't. Haffigan sits down at the writing table, with his back to the filing cabinet. Broadbent sits opposite him. Hodson enters emptyhanded; takes two glasses, a siphon, and a tantalus from the cupboard; places them before Broadbent on the writing table; looks ruthlessly at Haffigan, who cannot meet his eye; and retires. BROADBENT. Try a whisky and soda. TIM [sobered]. There you touch the national wakeness, sir. [Piously] Not that I share it meself. I've seen too much of the mischief of it. BROADBENT [pouring the whisky]. Say when. TIM. Not too sthrong. [Broadbent stops and looks enquiringly at him]. Say half-an-half. [Broadbent, somewhat startled by this demand, pours a little more, and again stops and looks]. Just a dhrain more: the lower half o the tumbler doesn't hold a fair half. Thankya. BROADBENT [laughing]. You Irishmen certainly do know how to drink. [Pouring some whisky for himself] Now that's my poor English idea of a whisky and soda. TIM. An a very good idea it is too. Dhrink is the curse o me unhappy counthry. I take it meself because I've a wake heart and a poor digestion; but in principle I'm a teetoatler. BROADBENT [suddenly solemn and strenuous]. So am I, of course. I'm a Local Optionist to the backbone. You have no idea, Mr Haffigan, of the ruin that is wrought in this country by the unholy alliance of the publicans, the bishops, the Tories, and The Times. We must close the public-houses at all costs [he drinks]. TIM. Sure I know. It's awful [he drinks]. I see you're a good Liberal like meself, sir. BROADBENT. I am a lover of liberty, like every true Englishman, Mr Haffigan. My name is Broadbent. If my name were Breitstein, and I had a hooked nose and a house in Park Lane, I should carry a Union Jack handkerchief and a penny trumpet, and tax the food of the people to support the Navy League, and clamor for the destruction of the last remnants of national liberty-- TIM. Not another word. Shake hands. BROADBENT. But I should like to explain-- TIM. Sure I know every word you're goin to say before yev said it. I know the sort o man yar. An so you're thinkin o comin to Ireland for a bit? BROADBENT. Where else can I go? I am an Englishman and a Liberal; and now that South Africa has been enslaved and destroyed, there is no country left to me to take an interest in but Ireland. Mind: I don't say that an Englishman has not other duties. He has a duty to Finland and a duty to Macedonia. But what sane man can deny that an Englishman's first duty is his duty to Ireland? Unfortunately, we have politicians here more unscrupulous than Bobrikoff, more bloodthirsty than Abdul the Damned; and it is under their heel that Ireland is now writhing. TIM. Faith, they've reckoned up with poor oul Bobrikoff anyhow. BROADBENT. Not that I defend assassination: God forbid! However strongly we may feel that the unfortunate and patriotic young man who avenged the wrongs of Finland on the Russian tyrant was perfectly right from his own point of view, yet every civilized man must regard murder with abhorrence. Not even in defence of Free Trade would I lift my hand against a political opponent, however richly he might deserve it. TIM. I'm sure you wouldn't; and I honor you for it. You're goin to Ireland, then, out o sympithy: is it? BROADBENT. I'm going to develop an estate there for the Land Development Syndicate, in which I am interested. I am convinced that all it needs to make it pay is to handle it properly, as estates are handled in England. You know the English plan, Mr Haffigan, don't you? TIM. Bedad I do, sir. Take all you can out of Ireland and spend it in England: that's it. BROADBENT [not quite liking this]. My plan, sir, will be to take a little money out of England and spend it in Ireland. TIM. More power to your elbow! an may your shadda never be less! for you're the broth of a boy intirely. An how can I help you? Command me to the last dhrop o me blood. BROADBENT. Have you ever heard of Garden City? TIM [doubtfully]. D'ye mane Heavn? BROADBENT. Heaven! No: it's near Hitchin. If you can spare half an hour I'll go into it with you. TIM. I tell you hwat. Gimme a prospectus. Lemme take it home and reflect on it. BROADBENT. You're quite right: I will. [He gives him a copy of Mr Ebenezer Howard's book, and several pamphlets]. You understand that the map of the city--the circular construction--is only a suggestion. TIM. I'll make a careful note o that [looking dazedly at the map]. BROADBENT. What I say is, why not start a Garden City in Ireland? TIM [with enthusiasm]. That's just what was on the tip o me tongue to ask you. Why not? [Defiantly] Tell me why not. BROADBENT. There are difficulties. I shall overcome them; but there are difficulties. When I first arrive in Ireland I shall be hated as an Englishman. As a Protestant, I shall be denounced from every altar. My life may be in danger. Well, I am prepared to face that. TIM. Never fear, sir. We know how to respict a brave innimy. BROADBENT. What I really dread is misunderstanding. I think you could help me to avoid that. When I heard you speak the other evening in Bermondsey at the meeting of the National League, I saw at once that you were--You won't mind my speaking frankly? TIM. Tell me all me faults as man to man. I can stand anything but flatthery. BROADBENT. May I put it in this way?--that I saw at once that you were a thorough Irishman, with all the faults and all, the qualities of your race: rash and improvident but brave and goodnatured; not likely to succeed in business on your own account perhaps, but eloquent, humorous, a lover of freedom, and a true follower of that great Englishman Gladstone. TIM. Spare me blushes. I mustn't sit here to be praised to me face. But I confess to the goodnature: it's an Irish wakeness. I'd share me last shillin with a friend. BROADBENT. I feel sure you would, Mr Haffigan. TIM [impulsively]. Damn it! call me Tim. A man that talks about Ireland as you do may call me anything. Gimme a howlt o that whisky bottle [he replenishes]. BROADBENT [smiling indulgently]. Well, Tim, will you come with me and help to break the ice between me and your warmhearted, impulsive countrymen? TIM. Will I come to Madagascar or Cochin China wid you? Bedad I'll come to the North Pole wid you if yll pay me fare; for the divil a shillin I have to buy a third class ticket. BROADBENT. I've not forgotten that, Tim. We must put that little matter on a solid English footing, though the rest can be as Irish as you please. You must come as my--my--well, I hardly know what to call it. If we call you my agent, they'll shoot you. If we call you a bailiff, they'll duck you in the horsepond. I have a secretary already; and-- TIM. Then we'll call him the Home Secretary and me the Irish Secretary. Eh? BROADBENT [laughing industriously]. Capital. Your Irish wit has settled the first difficulty. Now about your salary-- TIM. A salary, is it? Sure I'd do it for nothin, only me cloes ud disgrace you; and I'd be dhriven to borra money from your friends: a thing that's agin me nacher. But I won't take a penny more than a hundherd a year. [He looks with restless cunning at Broadbent, trying to guess how far he may go]. BROADBENT. If that will satisfy you-- TIM [more than reassured]. Why shouldn't it satisfy me? A hundherd a year is twelve-pound a month, isn't it? BROADBENT. No. Eight pound six and eightpence. TIM. Oh murdher! An I'll have to sind five timme poor oul mother in Ireland. But no matther: I said a hundherd; and what I said I'll stick to, if I have to starve for it. BROADBENT [with business caution]. Well, let us say twelve pounds for the first month. Afterwards, we shall see how we get on. TIM. You're a gentleman, sir. Whin me mother turns up her toes, you shall take the five pounds off; for your expinses must be kep down wid a sthrong hand; an--[He is interrupted by the arrival of Broadbent's partner.] Mr Laurence Doyle is a man of 36, with cold grey eyes, strained nose, fine fastidious lips, critical brown, clever head, rather refined and goodlooking on the whole, but with a suggestion of thinskinedness and dissatisfaction that contrasts strongly with Broadbent's eupeptic jollity. He comes in as a man at home there, but on seeing the stranger shrinks at once, and is about to withdraw when Broadbent reassures him. He then comes forward to the table, between the two others. DOYLE [retreating]. You're engaged. BROADBENT. Not at all, not at all. Come in. [To Tim] This gentleman is a friend who lives with me here: my partner, Mr Doyle. [To Doyle] This is a new Irish friend of mine, Mr Tim Haffigan. TIM [rising with effusion]. Sure it's meself that's proud to meet any friend o Misther Broadbent's. The top o the mornin to you, sir! Me heart goes out teeye both. It's not often I meet two such splendid speciments iv the Anglo-Saxon race. BROADBENT [chuckling] Wrong for once, Tim. My friend Mr Doyle is a countryman of yours. Tim is noticeably dashed by this announcement. He draws in his horns at once, and scowls suspiciously at Doyle under a vanishing mark of goodfellowship: cringing a little, too, in mere nerveless fear of him. DOYLE [with cool disgust]. Good evening. [He retires to the fireplace, and says to Broadbent in a tone which conveys the strongest possible hint to Haffigan that he is unwelcome] Will you soon be disengaged? TIM [his brogue decaying into a common would-be genteel accent with an unexpected strain of Glasgow in it]. I must be going. Ivnmportnt engeegement in the west end. BROADBENT [rising]. It's settled, then, that you come with me. TIM. Ish'll be verra pleased to accompany ye, sir. BROADBENT. But how soon? Can you start tonight--from Paddington? We go by Milford Haven. TIM [hesitating]. Well--I'm afreed--I [Doyle goes abruptly into the bedroom, slamming the door and shattering the last remnant of Tim's nerve. The poor wretch saves himself from bursting into tears by plunging again into his role of daredevil Irishman. He rushes to Broadbent; plucks at his sleeve with trembling fingers; and pours forth his entreaty with all the brogue be can muster, subduing his voice lest Doyle should hear and return]. Misther Broadbent: don't humiliate me before a fella counthryman. Look here: me cloes is up the spout. Gimme a fypounnote--I'll pay ya nex choosda whin me ship comes home--or you can stop it out o me month's sallery. I'll be on the platform at Paddnton punctial an ready. Gimme it quick, before he comes back. You won't mind me axin, will ye? BROADBENT. Not at all. I was about to offer you an advance for travelling expenses. [He gives him a bank note]. TIM [pocketing it]. Thank you. I'll be there half an hour before the thrain starts. [Larry is heard at the bedroom door, returning]. Whisht: he's comin back. Goodbye an God bless ye. [He hurries out almost crying, the 5 pound note and all the drink it means to him being too much for his empty stomach and overstrained nerves]. DOYLE [returning]. Where the devil did you pick up that seedy swindler? What was he doing here? [He goes up to the table where the plans are, and makes a note on one of them, referring to his pocket book as he does so]. BROADBENT. There you go! Why are you so down on every Irishman you meet, especially if he's a bit shabby? poor devil! Surely a fellow-countryman may pass you the top of the morning without offence, even if his coat is a bit shiny at the seams. DOYLE [contemptuously]. The top of the morning! Did he call you the broth of a boy? [He comes to the writing table]. BROADBENT [triumphantly]. Yes. DOYLE. And wished you more power to your elbow? BROADBENT. He did. DOYLE. And that your shadow might never be less? BROADBENT. Certainly. DOYLE [taking up the depleted whisky bottle and shaking his head at it]. And he got about half a pint of whisky out of you. BROADBENT. It did him no harm. He never turned a hair. DOYLE. How much money did he borrow? BROADBENT. It was not borrowing exactly. He showed a very honorable spirit about money. I believe he would share his last shilling with a friend. DOYLE. No doubt he would share his friend's last shilling if his friend was fool enough to let him. How much did he touch you for? BROADBENT. Oh, nothing. An advance on his salary--for travelling expenses. DOYLE. Salary! In Heaven's name, what for? BROADBENT. For being my Home Secretary, as he very wittily called it. DOYLE. I don't see the joke. BROADBENT. You can spoil any joke by being cold blooded about it. I saw it all right when he said it. It was something--something really very amusing--about the Home Secretary and the Irish Secretary. At all events, he's evidently the very man to take with me to Ireland to break the ice for me. He can gain the confidence of the people there, and make them friendly to me. Eh? [He seats himself on the office stool, and tilts it back so that the edge of the standing desk supports his back and prevents his toppling over]. DOYLE. A nice introduction, by George! Do you suppose the whole population of Ireland consists of drunken begging letter writers, or that even if it did, they would accept one another as references? BROADBENT. Pooh! nonsense! He's only an Irishman. Besides, you don't seriously suppose that Haffigan can humbug me, do you? DOYLE. No: he's too lazy to take the trouble. All he has to do is to sit there and drink your whisky while you humbug yourself. However, we needn't argue about Haffigan, for two reasons. First, with your money in his pocket he will never reach Paddington: there are too many public houses on the way. Second, he's not an Irishman at all. BROADBENT. Not an Irishman! [He is so amazed by the statement that he straightens himself and brings the stool bolt upright]. DOYLE. Born in Glasgow. Never was in Ireland in his life. I know all about him. BROADBENT. But he spoke--he behaved just like an Irishman. DOYLE. Like an Irishman!! Is it possible that you don't know that all this top-o-the-morning and broth-of-a-boy and more-power-to-your-elbow business is as peculiar to England as the Albert Hall concerts of Irish music are? No Irishman ever talks like that in Ireland, or ever did, or ever will. But when a thoroughly worthless Irishman comes to England, and finds the whole place full of romantic duffers like you, who will let him loaf and drink and sponge and brag as long as he flatters your sense of moral superiority by playing the fool and degrading himself and his country, he soon learns the antics that take you in. He picks them up at the theatre or the music hall. Haffigan learnt the rudiments from his father, who came from my part of Ireland. I knew his uncles, Matt and Andy Haffigan of Rosscullen. BROADBENT [still incredulous]. But his brogue! DOYLE. His brogue! A fat lot you know about brogues! I've heard you call a Dublin accent that you could hang your hat on, a brogue. Heaven help you! you don't know the difference between Connemara and Rathmines. [With violent irritation] Oh, damn Tim Haffigan! Let's drop the subject: he's not worth wrangling about. BROADBENT. What's wrong with you today, Larry? Why are you so bitter? Doyle looks at him perplexedly; comes slowly to the writing table; and sits down at the end next the fireplace before replying. DOYLE. Well: your letter completely upset me, for one thing. BROADBENT. Why? LARRY. Your foreclosing this Rosscullen mortgage and turning poor Nick Lestrange out of house and home has rather taken me aback; for I liked the old rascal when I was a boy and had the run of his park to play in. I was brought up on the property. BROADBENT. But he wouldn't pay the interest. I had to foreclose on behalf of the Syndicate. So now I'm off to Rosscullen to look after the property myself. [He sits down at the writing table opposite Larry, and adds, casually, but with an anxious glance at his partner] You're coming with me, of course? DOYLE [rising nervously and recommencing his restless movements]. That's it. That's what I dread. That's what has upset me. BROADBENT. But don't you want to see your country again after 18 years absence? to see your people, to be in the old home again? To-- DOYLE [interrupting him very impatiently]. Yes, yes: I know all that as well as you do. BROADBENT. Oh well, of course [with a shrug] if you take it in that way, I'm sorry. DOYLE. Never you mind my temper: it's not meant for you, as you ought to know by this time. [He sits down again, a little ashamed of his petulance; reflects a moment bitterly; then bursts out] I have an instinct against going back to Ireland: an instinct so strong that I'd rather go with you to the South Pole than to Rosscullen. BROADBENT. What! Here you are, belonging to a nation with the strongest patriotism! the most inveterate homing instinct in the world! and you pretend you'd rather go anywhere than back to Ireland. You don't suppose I believe you, do you? In your heart-- DOYLE. Never mind my heart: an Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination. How many of all those millions that have left Ireland have ever come back or wanted to come back? But what's the use of talking to you? Three verses of twaddle about the Irish emigrant "sitting on the stile, Mary," or three hours of Irish patriotism in Bermondsey or the Scotland Division of Liverpool, go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face. Why, man alive, look at me! You know the way I nag, and worry, and carp, and cavil, and disparage, and am never satisfied and never quiet, and try the patience of my best friends. BROADBENT. Oh, come, Larry! do yourself justice. You're very amusing and agreeable to strangers. DOYLE. Yes, to strangers. Perhaps if I was a bit stiffer to strangers, and a bit easier at home, like an Englishman, I'd be better company for you. BROADBENT. We get on well enough. Of course you have the melancholy of the Celtic race-- DOYLE [bounding out of his chair] Good God!!! BROADBENT [slyly]--and also its habit of using strong language when there's nothing the matter. DOYLE. Nothing the matter! When people talk about the Celtic race, I feel as if I could burn down London. That sort of rot does more harm than ten Coercion Acts. Do you suppose a man need be a Celt to feel melancholy in Rosscullen? Why, man, Ireland was peopled just as England was; and its breed was crossed by just the same invaders. BROADBENT. True. All the capable people in Ireland are of English extraction. It has often struck me as a most remarkable circumstance that the only party in parliament which shows the genuine old English character and spirit is the Irish party. Look at its independence, its determination, its defiance of bad Governments, its sympathy with oppressed nationalities all the world over! How English! DOYLE. Not to mention the solemnity with which it talks old-fashioned nonsense which it knows perfectly well to be a century behind the times. That's English, if you like. BROADBENT. No, Larry, no. You are thinking of the modern hybrids that now monopolize England. Hypocrites, humbugs, Germans, Jews, Yankees, foreigners, Park Laners, cosmopolitan riffraff. Don't call them English. They don't belong to the dear old island, but to their confounded new empire; and by George! they're worthy of it; and I wish them joy of it. DOYLE [unmoved by this outburst]. There! You feel better now, don't you? BROADBENT [defiantly]. I do. Much better. DOYLE. My dear Tom, you only need a touch of the Irish climate to be as big a fool as I am myself. If all my Irish blood were poured into your veins, you wouldn't turn a hair of your constitution and character. Go and marry the most English Englishwoman you can find, and then bring up your son in Rosscullen; and that son's character will be so like mine and so unlike yours that everybody will accuse me of being his father. [With sudden anguish] Rosscullen! oh, good Lord, Rosscullen! The dullness! the hopelessness! the ignorance! the bigotry! BROADBENT [matter-of-factly]. The usual thing in the country, Larry. Just the same here. DOYLE [hastily]. No, no: the climate is different. Here, if the life is dull, you can be dull too, and no great harm done. [Going off into a passionate dream] But your wits can't thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You've no such colors in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh, the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heartscalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming! [Savagely] No debauchery that ever coarsened and brutalized an Englishman can take the worth and usefulness out of him like that dreaming. An Irishman's imagination never lets him alone, never convinces him, never satisfies him; but it makes him that he can't face reality nor deal with it nor handle it nor conquer it: he can only sneer at them that do, and [bitterly, at Broadbent] be "agreeable to strangers," like a good-for-nothing woman on the streets. [Gabbling at Broadbent across the table] It's all dreaming, all imagination. He can't be religious. The inspired Churchman that teaches him the sanctity of life and the importance of conduct is sent away empty; while the poor village priest that gives him a miracle or a sentimental story of a saint, has cathedrals built for him out of the pennies of the poor. He can't be intelligently political, he dreams of what the Shan Van Vocht said in ninety-eight. If you want to interest him in Ireland you've got to call the unfortunate island Kathleen ni Hoolihan and pretend she's a little old woman. It saves thinking. It saves working. It saves everything except imagination, imagination, imagination; and imagination's such a torture that you can't bear it without whisky. [With fierce shivering self-contempt] At last you get that you can bear nothing real at all: you'd rather starve than cook a meal; you'd rather go shabby and dirty than set your mind to take care of your clothes and wash yourself; you nag and squabble at home because your wife isn't an angel, and she despises you because you're not a hero; and you hate the whole lot round you because they're only poor slovenly useless devils like yourself. [Dropping his voice like a man making some shameful confidence] And all the while there goes on a horrible, senseless, mischievous laughter. When you're young, you exchange drinks with other young men; and you exchange vile stories with them; and as you're too futile to be able to help or cheer them, you chaff and sneer and taunt them for not doing the things you daren't do yourself. And all the time you laugh, laugh, laugh! eternal derision, eternal envy, eternal folly, eternal fouling and staining and degrading, until, when you come at last to a country where men take a question seriously and give a serious answer to it, you deride them for having no sense of humor, and plume yourself on your own worthlessness as if it made you better than them. BROADBENT [roused to intense earnestness by Doyle's eloquence]. Never despair, Larry. There are great possibilities for Ireland. Home Rule will work wonders under English guidance. DOYLE [pulled up short, his face twitching with a reluctant smile]. Tom: why do you select my most tragic moments for your most irresistible strokes of humor? BROADBENT. Humor! I was perfectly serious. What do you mean? Do you doubt my seriousness about Home Rule? DOYLE. I am sure you are serious, Tom, about the English guidance. BROADBENT [quite reassured]. Of course I am. Our guidance is the important thing. We English must place our capacity for government without stint at the service of nations who are less fortunately endowed in that respect; so as to allow them to develop in perfect freedom to the English level of self-government, you know. You understand me? DOYLE. Perfectly. And Rosscullen will understand you too. BROADBENT [cheerfully]. Of course it will. So that's all right. [He pulls up his chair and settles himself comfortably to lecture Doyle]. Now, Larry, I've listened carefully to all you've said about Ireland; and I can see nothing whatever to prevent your coming with me. What does it all come to? Simply that you were only a young fellow when you were in Ireland. You'll find all that chaffing and drinking and not knowing what to be at in Peckham just the same as in Donnybrook. You looked at Ireland with a boy's eyes and saw only boyish things. Come back with me and look at it with a man's, and get a better opinion of your country. DOYLE. I daresay you're partly right in that: at all events I know very well that if I had been the son of a laborer instead of the son of a country landagent, I should have struck more grit than I did. Unfortunately I'm not going back to visit the Irish nation, but to visit my father and Aunt Judy and Nora Reilly and Father Dempsey and the rest of them. BROADBENT. Well, why not? They'll be delighted to see you, now that England has made a man of you. DOYLE [struck by this]. Ah! you hit the mark there, Tom, with true British inspiration. BROADBENT. Common sense, you mean. DOYLE [quickly]. No I don't: you've no more common sense than a gander. No Englishman has any common sense, or ever had, or ever will have. You're going on a sentimental expedition for perfectly ridiculous reasons, with your head full of political nonsense that would not take in any ordinarily intelligent donkey; but you can hit me in the eye with the simple truth about myself and my father. BROADBENT [amazed]. I never mentioned your father. DOYLE [not heeding the interruption]. There he is in Rosscullen, a landagent who's always been in a small way because he's a Catholic, and the landlords are mostly Protestants. What with land courts reducing rents and Land Acts turning big estates into little holdings, he'd be a beggar this day if he hadn't bought his own little farm under the Land Purchase Act. I doubt if he's been further from home than Athenmullet for the last twenty years. And here am I, made a man of, as you say, by England. BROADBENT [apologetically]. I assure you I never meant-- DOYLE. Oh, don't apologize: it's quite true. I daresay I've learnt something in America and a few other remote and inferior spots; but in the main it is by living with you and working in double harness with you that I have learnt to live in a real world and not in an imaginary one. I owe more to you than to any Irishman. BROADBENT [shaking his head with a twinkle in his eye]. Very friendly of you, Larry, old man, but all blarney. I like blarney; but it's rot, all the same. DOYLE. No it's not. I should never have done anything without you; although I never stop wondering at that blessed old head of yours with all its ideas in watertight compartments, and all the compartments warranted impervious to anything that it doesn't suit you to understand. BROADBENT [invincible]. Unmitigated rot, Larry, I assure you. DOYLE. Well, at any rate you will admit that all my friends are either Englishmen or men of the big world that belongs to the big Powers. All the serious part of my life has been lived in that atmosphere: all the serious part of my work has been done with men of that sort. Just think of me as I am now going back to Rosscullen! to that hell of littleness and monotony! How am I to get on with a little country landagent that ekes out his 5 per cent with a little farming and a scrap of house property in the nearest country town? What am I to say to him? What is he to say to me? BROADBFNT [scandalized]. But you're father and son, man! DOYLE. What difference does that make? What would you say if I proposed a visit to YOUR father? BROADBENT [with filial rectitude]. I always made a point of going to see my father regularly until his mind gave way. DOYLE [concerned]. Has he gone mad? You never told me. BROADBENT. He has joined the Tariff Reform League. He would never have done that if his mind had not been weakened. [Beginning to declaim] He has fallen a victim to the arts of a political charlatan who-- DOYLE [interrupting him]. You mean that you keep clear of your father because he differs from you about Free Trade, and you don't want to quarrel with him. Well, think of me and my father! He's a Nationalist and a Separatist. I'm a metallurgical chemist turned civil engineer. Now whatever else metallurgical chemistry may be, it's not national. It's international. And my business and yours as civil engineers is to join countries, not to separate them. The one real political conviction that our business has rubbed into us is that frontiers are hindrances and flags confounded nuisances. BROADBENT [still smarting under Mr Chamberlain's economic heresy]. Only when there is a protective tariff-- DOYLE [firmly] Now look here, Tom: you want to get in a speech on Free Trade; and you're not going to do it: I won't stand it. My father wants to make St George's Channel a frontier and hoist a green flag on College Green; and I want to bring Galway within 3 hours of Colchester and 24 of New York. I want Ireland to be the brains and imagination of a big Commonwealth, not a Robinson Crusoe island. Then there's the religious difficulty. My Catholicism is the Catholicism of Charlemagne or Dante, qualified by a great deal of modern science and folklore which Father Dempsey would call the ravings of an Atheist. Well, my father's Catholicism is the Catholicism of Father Dempsey. BROADBENT [shrewdly]. I don't want to interrupt you, Larry; but you know this is all gammon. These differences exist in all families; but the members rub on together all right. [Suddenly relapsing into portentousness] Of course there are some questions which touch the very foundations of morals; and on these I grant you even the closest relationships cannot excuse any compromise or laxity. For instance-- DOYLE [impatiently springing up and walking about]. For instance, Home Rule, South Africa, Free Trade, and the Education Rate. Well, I should differ from my father on every one of them, probably, just as I differ from you about them. BROADBENT. Yes; but you are an Irishman; and these things are not serious to you as they are to an Englishman. DOYLE. What! not even Home Rule! BROADBENT [steadfastly]. Not even Home Rule. We owe Home Rule not to the Irish, but to our English Gladstone. No, Larry: I can't help thinking that there's something behind all this. DOYLE [hotly]. What is there behind it? Do you think I'm humbugging you? BROADBENT. Don't fly out at me, old chap. I only thought-- DOYLE. What did you think? BROADBENT. Well, a moment ago I caught a name which is new to me: a Miss Nora Reilly, I think. [Doyle stops dead and stares at him with something like awe]. I don't wish to be impertinent, as you know, Larry; but are you sure she has nothing to do with your reluctance to come to Ireland with me? DOYLE [sitting down again, vanquished]. Thomas Broadbent: I surrender. The poor silly-clever Irishman takes off his hat to God's Englishman. The man who could in all seriousness make that recent remark of yours about Home Rule and Gladstone must be simply the champion idiot of all the world. Yet the man who could in the very next sentence sweep away all my special pleading and go straight to the heart of my motives must be a man of genius. But that the idiot and the genius should be the same man! how is that possible? [Springing to his feet] By Jove, I see it all now. I'll write an article about it, and send it to Nature. BROADBENT [staring at him]. What on earth-- DOYLE. It's quite simple. You know that a caterpillar-- BROADBENT. A caterpillar!!! DOYLE. Yes, a caterpillar. Now give your mind to what I am going to say; for it's a new and important scientific theory of the English national character. A caterpillar-- BROADBENT. Look here, Larry: don't be an ass. DOYLE [insisting]. I say a caterpillar and I mean a caterpillar. You'll understand presently. A caterpillar [Broadbent mutters a slight protest, but does not press it] when it gets into a tree, instinctively makes itself look exactly like a leaf; so that both its enemies and its prey may mistake it for one and think it not worth bothering about. BROADBENT. What's that got to do with our English national character? DOYLE. I'll tell you. The world is as full of fools as a tree is full of leaves. Well, the Englishman does what the caterpillar does. He instinctively makes himself look like a fool, and eats up all the real fools at his ease while his enemies let him alone and laugh at him for being a fool like the rest. Oh, nature is cunning, cunning! [He sits down, lost in contemplation of his word-picture]. BROADBENT [with hearty admiration]. Now you know, Larry, that would never have occurred to me. You Irish people are amazingly clever. Of course it's all tommy rot; but it's so brilliant, you know! How the dickens do you think of such things! You really must write an article about it: they'll pay you something for it. If Nature won't have it, I can get it into Engineering for you: I know the editor. DOYLE. Let's get back to business. I'd better tell you about Nora Reilly. BROADBENT. No: never mind. I shouldn't have alluded to her. DOYLE. I'd rather. Nora has a fortune. BROADBENT [keenly interested]. Eh? How much? DOYLE. Forty per annum. BROADBENT. Forty thousand? DOYLE. No, forty. Forty pounds. BROADBENT [much dashed.] That's what you call a fortune in Rosscullen, is it? DOYLE. A girl with a dowry of five pounds calls it a fortune in Rosscullen. What's more 40 pounds a year IS a fortune there; and Nora Reilly enjoys a good deal of social consideration as an heiress on the strength of it. It has helped my father's household through many a tight place. My father was her father's agent. She came on a visit to us when he died, and has lived with us ever since. BROADBENT [attentively, beginning to suspect Larry of misconduct with Nora, and resolving to get to the bottom of it]. Since when? I mean how old were you when she came? DOYLE. I was seventeen. So was she: if she'd been older she'd have had more sense than to stay with us. We were together for 18 months before I went up to Dublin to study. When I went home for Christmas and Easter, she was there: I suppose it used to be something of an event for her, though of course I never thought of that then. BROADBENT. Were you at all hard hit? DOYLE. Not really. I had only two ideas at that time, first, to learn to do something; and then to get out of Ireland and have a chance of doing it. She didn't count. I was romantic about her, just as I was romantic about Byron's heroines or the old Round Tower of Rosscullen; but she didn't count any more than they did. I've never crossed St George's Channel since for her sake--never even landed at Queenstown and come back to London through Ireland. BROADBENT. But did you ever say anything that would justify her in waiting for you? DOYLE. No, never. But she IS waiting for me. BROADBENT. How do you know? DOYLE. She writes to me--on her birthday. She used to write on mine, and send me little things as presents; but I stopped that by pretending that it was no use when I was travelling, as they got lost in the foreign post-offices. [He pronounces post-offices with the stress on offices, instead of on post]. BROADBENT. You answer the letters? DOYLE. Not very punctually. But they get acknowledged at one time or another. BROADBENT. How do you feel when you see her handwriting? DOYLE. Uneasy. I'd give 50 pounds to escape a letter. BROADBENT [looking grave, and throwing himself back in his chair to intimate that the cross-examination is over, and the result very damaging to the witness] Hm! DOYLE. What d'ye mean by Hm!? BROADBENT. Of course I know that the moral code is different in Ireland. But in England it's not considered fair to trifle with a woman's affections. DOYLE. You mean that an Englishman would get engaged to another woman and return Nora her letters and presents with a letter to say he was unworthy of her and wished her every happiness? BROADBENT. Well, even that would set the poor girl's mind at rest. DOYLE. Would it? I wonder! One thing I can tell you; and that is that Nora would wait until she died of old age sooner than ask my intentions or condescend to hint at the possibility of my having any. You don't know what Irish pride is. England may have knocked a good deal of it out of me; but she's never been in England; and if I had to choose between wounding that delicacy in her and hitting her in the face, I'd hit her in the face without a moment's hesitation. BROADBENT [who has been nursing his knee and reflecting, apparently rather agreeably]. You know, all this sounds rather interesting. There's the Irish charm about it. That's the worst of you: the Irish charm doesn't exist for you. DOYLE. Oh yes it does. But it's the charm of a dream. Live in contact with dreams and you will get something of their charm: live in contact with facts and you will get something of their brutality. I wish I could find a country to live in where the facts were not brutal and the dreams not unreal. BROADBENT [changing his attitude and responding to Doyle's earnestness with deep conviction: his elbows on the table and his hands clenched]. Don't despair, Larry, old boy: things may look black; but there will be a great change after the next election. DOYLE [jumping up]. Oh get out, you idiot! BROADBENT [rising also, not a bit snubbed]. Ha! ha! you may laugh; but we shall see. However, don't let us argue about that. Come now! you ask my advice about Miss Reilly? DOYLE [reddening]. No I don't. Damn your advice! [Softening] Let's have it, all the same. BROADBENT. Well, everything you tell me about her impresses me favorably. She seems to have the feelings of a lady; and though we must face the fact that in England her income would hardly maintain her in the lower middle class-- DOYLE [interrupting]. Now look here, Tom. That reminds me. When you go to Ireland, just drop talking about the middle class and bragging of belonging to it. In Ireland you're either a gentleman or you're not. If you want to be particularly offensive to Nora, you can call her a Papist; but if you call her a middle-class woman, Heaven help you! BROADBENT [irrepressible]. Never fear. You're all descended from the ancient kings: I know that. [Complacently] I'm not so tactless as you think, my boy. [Earnest again] I expect to find Miss Reilly a perfect lady; and I strongly advise you to come and have another look at her before you make up your mind about her. By the way, have you a photograph of her? DOYLE. Her photographs stopped at twenty-five. BROADBENT [saddened]. Ah yes, I suppose so. [With feeling, severely] Larry: you've treated that poor girl disgracefully. DOYLE. By George, if she only knew that two men were talking about her like this--! BROADBENT. She wouldn't like it, would she? Of course not. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, Larry. [More and more carried away by his new fancy]. You know, I have a sort of presentiment that Miss Really is a very superior woman. DOYLE [staring hard at him]. Oh you have, have you? BROADBENT. Yes I have. There is something very touching about the history of this beautiful girl. DOYLE. Beau--! Oho! Here's a chance for Nora! and for me! [Calling] Hodson. HODSON [appearing at the bedroom door]. Did you call, sir? DOYLE. Pack for me too. I'm going to Ireland with Mr Broadbent. HODSON. Right, sir. [He retires into the bedroom.] BROADBENT [clapping Doyle on the shoulder]. Thank you, old chap. Thank you. ACT II Rosscullen. Westward a hillside of granite rock and heather slopes upward across the prospect from south to north, a huge stone stands on it in a naturally impossible place, as if it had been tossed up there by a giant. Over the brow, in the desolate valley beyond, is a round tower. A lonely white high road trending away westward past the tower loses itself at the foot of the far mountains. It is evening; and there are great breadths of silken green in the Irish sky. The sun is setting. A man with the face of a young saint, yet with white hair and perhaps 50 years on his back, is standing near the stone in a trance of intense melancholy, looking over the hills as if by mere intensity of gaze he could pierce the glories of the sunset and see into the streets of heaven. He is dressed in black, and is rather more clerical in appearance than most English curates are nowadays; but he does not wear the collar and waistcoat of a parish priest. He is roused from his trance by the chirp of an insect from a tuft of grass in a crevice of the stone. His face relaxes: he turns quietly, and gravely takes off his hat to the tuft, addressing the insect in a brogue which is the jocular assumption of a gentleman and not the natural speech of a peasant. THE MAN. An is that yourself, Misther Grasshopper? I hope I see you well this fine evenin. THE GRASSHOPPER [prompt and shrill in answer]. X.X. THE MAN [encouragingly]. That's right. I suppose now you've come out to make yourself miserable by admyerin the sunset? THE GRASSHOPPER [sadly]. X.X. THE MAN. Aye, you're a thrue Irish grasshopper. THE GRASSHOPPER [loudly]. X.X.X. THE MAN. Three cheers for ould Ireland, is it? That helps you to face out the misery and the poverty and the torment, doesn't it? THE GRASSHOPPER [plaintively]. X.X. THE MAN. Ah, it's no use, me poor little friend. If you could jump as far as a kangaroo you couldn't jump away from your own heart an its punishment. You can only look at Heaven from here: you can't reach it. There! [pointing with his stick to the sunset] that's the gate o glory, isn't it? THE GRASSHOPPER [assenting]. X.X. THE MAN. Sure it's the wise grasshopper yar to know that! But tell me this, Misther Unworldly Wiseman: why does the sight of Heaven wring your heart an mine as the sight of holy wather wrings the heart o the divil? What wickedness have you done to bring that curse on you? Here! where are you jumpin to? Where's your manners to go skyrocketin like that out o the box in the middle o your confession [he threatens it with his stick]? THE GRASSHOPPER [penitently]. X. THE MAN [lowering the stick]. I accept your apology; but don't do it again. And now tell me one thing before I let you go home to bed. Which would you say this counthry was: hell or purgatory? THE GRASSHOPPER. X. THE MAN. Hell! Faith I'm afraid you're right. I wondher what you and me did when we were alive to get sent here. THE GRASSHOPPER [shrilly]. X.X. THE MAN [nodding]. Well, as you say, it's a delicate subject; and I won't press it on you. Now off widja. THE GRASSHOPPER. X.X. [It springs away]. THE MAN [waving his stick] God speed you! [He walks away past the stone towards the brow of the hill. Immediately a young laborer, his face distorted with terror, slips round from behind the stone. THE LABORER [crossing himself repeatedly]. Oh glory be to God! glory be to God! Oh Holy Mother an all the saints! Oh murdher! murdher! [Beside himself, calling Fadher Keegan! Fadher Keegan]! THE MAN [turning]. Who's there? What's that? [He comes back and finds the laborer, who clasps his knees] Patsy Farrell! What are you doing here? PATSY. O for the love o God don't lave me here wi dhe grasshopper. I hard it spakin to you. Don't let it do me any harm, Father darlint. KEEGAN. Get up, you foolish man, get up. Are you afraid of a poor insect because I pretended it was talking to me? PATSY. Oh, it was no pretending, Fadher dear. Didn't it give three cheers n say it was a divil out o hell? Oh say you'll see me safe home, Fadher; n put a blessin on me or somethin [he moans with terror]. KEEGAN. What were you doin there, Patsy, listnin? Were you spyin on me? PATSY. No, Fadher: on me oath an soul I wasn't: I was waitn to meet Masther Larry n carry his luggage from the car; n I fell asleep on the grass; n you woke me talkin to the grasshopper; n I hard its wicked little voice. Oh, d'ye think I'll die before the year's out, Fadher? KEEGAN. For shame, Patsy! Is that your religion, to be afraid of a little deeshy grasshopper? Suppose it was a divil, what call have you to fear it? If I could ketch it, I'd make you take it home widja in your hat for a penance. PATSY. Sure, if you won't let it harm me, I'm not afraid, your riverence. [He gets up, a little reassured. He is a callow, flaxen polled, smoothfaced, downy chinned lad, fully grown but not yet fully filled out, with blue eyes and an instinctively acquired air of helplessness and silliness, indicating, not his real character, but a cunning developed by his constant dread of a hostile dominance, which he habitually tries to disarm and tempt into unmasking by pretending to be a much greater fool than he really is. Englishmen think him half-witted, which is exactly what he intends them to think. He is clad in corduroy trousers, unbuttoned waistcoat, and coarse blue striped shirt]. KEEGAN [admonitorily]. Patsy: what did I tell you about callin me Father Keegan an your reverence? What did Father Dempsey tell you about it? PATSY. Yis, Fadher. KEEGAN. Father! PATSY [desperately]. Arra, hwat am I to call you? Fadher Dempsey sez you're not a priest; n we all know you're not a man; n how do we know what ud happen to us if we showed any disrespect to you? N sure they say wanse a priest always a priest. KEEGAN [sternly]. It's not for the like of you, Patsy, to go behind the instruction of your parish priest and set yourself up to judge whether your Church is right or wrong. PATSY. Sure I know that, sir. KEEGAN. The Church let me be its priest as long as it thought me fit for its work. When it took away my papers it meant you to know that I was only a poor madman, unfit and unworthy to take charge of the souls of the people. PATSY. But wasn't it only because you knew more Latn than Father Dempsey that he was jealous of you? KEEGAN [scolding him to keep himself from smiling]. How dar you, Patsy Farrell, put your own wicked little spites and foolishnesses into the heart of your priest? For two pins I'd tell him what you just said. PATSY [coaxing] Sure you wouldn't-- KEEGAN. Wouldn't I? God forgive you! You're little better than a heathen. PATSY. Deedn I am, Fadher: it's me bruddher the tinsmith in Dublin you're thinkin of. Sure he had to be a freethinker when he larnt a thrade and went to live in the town. KEEGAN. Well, he'll get to Heaven before you if you're not careful, Patsy. And now you listen to me, once and for all. You'll talk to me and pray for me by the name of Pether Keegan, so you will. And when you're angry and tempted to lift your hand agen the donkey or stamp your foot on the little grasshopper, remember that the donkey's Pether Keegan's brother, and the grasshopper Pether Keegan's friend. And when you're tempted to throw a stone at a sinner or a curse at a beggar, remember that Pether Keegan is a worse sinner and a worse beggar, and keep the stone and the curse for him the next time you meet him. Now say God bless you, Pether, to me before I go, just to practise you a bit. PATSY. Sure it wouldn't be right, Fadher. I can't-- KEEGAN. Yes you can. Now out with it; or I'll put this stick into your hand an make you hit me with it. PATSY [throwing himself on his knees in an ecstasy of adoration]. Sure it's your blessin I want, Fadher Keegan. I'll have no luck widhout it. KEEGAN [shocked]. Get up out o that, man. Don't kneel to me: I'm not a saint. PATSY [with intense conviction]. Oh in throth yar, sir. [The grasshopper chirps. Patsy, terrified, clutches at Keegan's hands] Don't set it on me, Fadher: I'll do anythin you bid me. KEEGAN [pulling him up]. You bosthoon, you! Don't you see that it only whistled to tell me Miss Reilly's comin? There! Look at her and pull yourself together for shame. Off widja to the road: you'll be late for the car if you don't make haste [bustling him down the hill]. I can see the dust of it in the gap already. PATSY. The Lord save us! [He goes down the hill towards the road like a haunted man]. Nora Reilly comes down the hill. A slight weak woman in a pretty muslin print gown [her best], she is a figure commonplace enough to Irish eyes; but on the inhabitants of fatter-fed, crowded, hustling and bustling modern countries she makes a very different impression. The absence of any symptoms of coarseness or hardness or appetite in her, her comparative delicacy of manner and sensibility of apprehension, her thin hands and slender figure, her travel accent, with the caressing plaintive Irish melody of her speech, give her a charm which is all the more effective because, being untravelled, she is unconscious of it, and never dreams of deliberately dramatizing and exploiting it, as the Irishwoman in England does. For Tom Broadbent therefore, an attractive woman, whom he would even call ethereal. To Larry Doyle, an everyday woman fit only for the eighteenth century, helpless, useless, almost sexless, an invalid without the excuse of disease, an incarnation of everything in Ireland that drove him out of it. These judgments have little value and no finality; but they are the judgments on which her fate hangs just at present. Keegan touches his hat to her: he does not take it off. NORA. Mr Keegan: I want to speak to you a minute if you don't mind. KEEGAN [dropping the broad Irish vernacular of his speech to Patsy]. An hour if you like, Miss Reilly: you're always welcome. Shall we sit down? NORA. Thank you. [They sit on the heather. She is shy and anxious; but she comes to the point promptly because she can think of nothing else]. They say you did a gradle o travelling at one time. KEEGAN. Well you see I'm not a Mnooth man [he means that he was not a student at Maynooth College]. When I was young I admired the older generation of priests that had been educated in Salamanca. So when I felt sure of my vocation I went to Salamanca. Then I walked from Salamanca to Rome, an sted in a monastery there for a year. My pilgrimage to Rome taught me that walking is a better way of travelling than the train; so I walked from Rome to the Sorbonne in Paris; and I wish I could have walked from Paris to Oxford; for I was very sick on the sea. After a year of Oxford I had to walk to Jerusalem to walk the Oxford feeling off me. From Jerusalem I came back to Patmos, and spent six months at the monastery of Mount Athos. From that I came to Ireland and settled down as a parish priest until I went mad. NORA [startled]. Oh dons say that. KEEGAN. Why not? Don't you know the story? how I confessed a black man and gave him absolution; and how he put a spell on me and drove me mad. NORA. How can you talk such nonsense about yourself? For shame! KEEGAN. It's not nonsense at all: it's true--in a way. But never mind the black man. Now that you know what a travelled man I am, what can I do for you? [She hesitates and plucks nervously at the heather. He stays her hand gently]. Dear Miss Nora: don't pluck the little flower. If it was a pretty baby you wouldn't want to pull its head off and stick it in a vawse o water to look at. [The grasshopper chirps: Keegan turns his head and addresses it in the vernacular]. Be aisy, me son: she won't spoil the swing-swong in your little three. [To Nora, resuming his urbane style] You see I'm quite cracked; but never mind: I'm harmless. Now what is it? NORA [embarrassed]. Oh, only idle curiosity. I wanted to know whether you found Ireland--I mean the country part of Ireland, of course--very small and backwardlike when you came back to it from Rome and Oxford and all the great cities. KEEGAN. When I went to those great cities I saw wonders I had never seen in Ireland. But when I came back to Ireland I found all the wonders there waiting for me. You see they had been there all the time; but my eyes had never been opened to them. I did not know what my own house was like, because I had never been outside it. NORA. D'ye think that's the same with everybody? KEEGAN. With everybody who has eyes in his soul as well as in his head. NORA. But really and truly now, weren't the people rather disappointing? I should think the girls must have seemed rather coarse and dowdy after the foreign princesses and people? But I suppose a priest wouldn't notice that. KEEGAN. It's a priest's business to notice everything. I won't tell you all I noticed about women; but I'll tell you this. The more a man knows, and the farther he travels, the more likely he is to marry a country girl afterwards. NORA [blushing with delight]. You're joking, Mr Keegan: I'm sure yar. KEEGAN. My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world. NORA [incredulous]. Galong with you! KEEGAN [springing up actively]. Shall we go down to the road and meet the car? [She gives him her hand and he helps her up]. Patsy Farrell told me you were expecting young Doyle. NORA [tossing her chin up at once]. Oh, I'm not expecting him particularly. It's a wonder he's come back at all. After staying away eighteen years he can harly expect us to be very anxious to see him, can he now? KEEGAN. Well, not anxious perhaps; but you will be curious to see how much he has changed in all these years. NORA [with a sudden bitter flush]. I suppose that's all that brings him back to look at us, just to see how much WE'VE changed. Well, he can wait and see me be candlelight: I didn't come out to meet him: I'm going to walk to the Round Tower [going west across the hill]. KEEGAN. You couldn't do better this fine evening. [Gravely] I'll tell him where you've gone. [She turns as if to forbid him; but the deep understanding in his eyes makes that impossible; and she only looks at him earnestly and goes. He watches her disappear on the other side of the hill; then says] Aye, he's come to torment you; and you're driven already to torment him. [He shakes his head, and goes slowly away across the hill in the opposite direction, lost in thought]. By this time the car has arrived, and dropped three of its passengers on the high road at the foot of the hill. It is a monster jaunting car, black and dilapidated, one of the last survivors of the public vehicles known to earlier generations as Beeyankiny cars, the Irish having laid violent tongues on the name of their projector, one Bianconi, an enterprising Italian. The three passengers are the parish priest, Father Dempsey; Cornelius Doyle, Larry's father; and Broadbent, all in overcoats and as stiff as only an Irish car could make them. The priest, stout and fatherly, falls far short of that finest type of countryside pastor which represents the genius of priesthood; but he is equally far above the base type in which a strongminded and unscrupulous peasant uses the Church to extort money, power, and privilege. He is a priest neither by vocation nor ambition, but because the life suits him. He has boundless authority over his flock, and taxes them stiffly enough to be a rich man. The old Protestant ascendency is now too broken to gall him. On the whole, an easygoing, amiable, even modest man as long as his dues are paid and his authority and dignity fully admitted. Cornelius Doyle is an elder of the small wiry type, with a hardskinned, rather worried face, clean shaven except for sandy whiskers blanching into a lustreless pale yellow and quite white at the roots. His dress is that of a country-town titan of business: that is, an oldish shooting suit, and elastic sided boots quite unconnected with shooting. Feeling shy with Broadbent, he is hasty, which is his way of trying to appear genial. Broadbent, for reasons which will appear later, has no luggage except a field glass and a guide book. The other two have left theirs to the unfortunate Patsy Farrell, who struggles up the hill after them, loaded with a sack of potatoes, a hamper, a fat goose, a colossal salmon, and several paper parcels. Cornelius leads the way up the hill, with Broadbent at his heels. The priest follows; and Patsy lags laboriously behind. CORNELIUS. This is a bit of a climb, Mr. Broadbent; but it's shorter than goin round be the road. BROADBENT [stopping to examine the great stone]. Just a moment, Mr Doyle: I want to look at this stone. It must be Finian's die-cast. CORNELIUS [in blank bewilderment]. Hwat? BROADBENT. Murray describes it. One of your great national heroes--I can't pronounce the name--Finian Somebody, I think. FATHER DEMPSEY [also perplexed, and rather scandalized]. Is it Fin McCool you mean? BROADBENT. I daresay it is. [Referring to the guide book]. Murray says that a huge stone, probably of Druidic origin, is still pointed out as the die cast by Fin in his celebrated match with the devil. CORNELIUS [dubiously]. Jeuce a word I ever heard of it! FATHER DEMPSEY [very seriously indeed, and even a little severely]. Don't believe any such nonsense, sir. There never was any such thing. When people talk to you about Fin McCool and the like, take no notice of them. It's all idle stories and superstition. BROADBENT [somewhat indignantly; for to be rebuked by an Irish priest for superstition is more than he can stand]. You don't suppose I believe it, do you? FATHER DEMPSEY. Oh, I thought you did. D'ye see the top o the Roun Tower there? That's an antiquity worth lookin at. BROADBENT [deeply interested]. Have you any theory as to what the Round Towers were for? FATHER DEMPSEY [a little offended]. A theory? Me! [Theories are connected in his mind with the late Professor Tyndall, and with scientific scepticism generally: also perhaps with the view that the Round Towers are phallic symbols]. CORNELIUS [remonstrating]. Father Dempsey is the priest of the parish, Mr Broadbent. What would he be doing with a theory? FATHER DEMPSEY [with gentle emphasis]. I have a KNOWLEDGE of what the Roun Towers were, if that's what you mean. They are the forefingers of the early Church, pointing us all to God. Patsy, intolerably overburdened, loses his balance, and sits down involuntarily. His burdens are scattered over the hillside. Cornelius and Father Dempsey turn furiously on him, leaving Broadbent beaming at the stone and the tower with fatuous interest. CORNELIUS. Oh, be the hokey, the sammin's broke in two! You schoopid ass, what d'ye mean? FATHER DEMPSEY. Are you drunk, Patsy Farrell? Did I tell you to carry that hamper carefully or did I not? PATSY [rubbing the back of his head, which has almost dented a slab of granite] Sure me fut slpt. Howkn I carry three men's luggage at wanst? FATHER DEMPSEY. You were told to leave behind what you couldn't carry, an go back for it. PATSY. An whose things was I to lave behind? Hwat would your reverence think if I left your hamper behind in the wet grass; n hwat would the masther say if I left the sammin and the goose be the side o the road for annywan to pick up? CORNELIUS. Oh, you've a dale to say for yourself, you, butther-fingered omadhaun. Wait'll Ant Judy sees the state o that sammin: SHE'LL talk to you. Here! gimme that birdn that fish there; an take Father Dempsey's hamper to his house for him; n then come back for the rest. FATHER DEMPSEY. Do, Patsy. And mind you don't fall down again. PATSY. Sure I-- CORNELIUS [bustling him up the bill] Whisht! heres Ant Judy. [Patsy goes grumbling in disgrace, with Father Dempsey's hamper]. Aunt Judy comes down the hill, a woman of 50, in no way remarkable, lively and busy without energy or grip, placid without tranquillity, kindly without concern for others: indeed without much concern for herself: a contented product of a narrow, strainless life. She wears her hair parted in the middle and quite smooth, with a fattened bun at the back. Her dress is a plain brown frock, with a woollen pelerine of black and aniline mauve over her shoulders, all very trim in honor of the occasion. She looks round for Larry; is puzzled; then stares incredulously at Broadbent. AUNT JUDY. Surely to goodness that's not you, Larry! CORNELIUS. Arra how could he be Larry, woman alive? Larry's in no hurry home, it seems. I haven't set eyes on him. This is his friend, Mr Broadbent. Mr Broadbent, me sister Judy. AUNT JUDY [hospitably: going to Broadbent and shaking hands heartily]. Mr. Broadbent! Fancy me takin you for Larry! Sure we haven't seen a sight of him for eighteen years, n he only a lad when he left us. BROADBENT. It's not Larry's fault: he was to have been here before me. He started in our motor an hour before Mr Doyle arrived, to meet us at Athenmullet, intending to get here long before me. AUNT JUDY. Lord save us! do you think he's had n axidnt? BROADBENT. No: he's wired to say he's had a breakdown and will come on as soon as he can. He expects to be here at about ten. AUNT JUDY. There now! Fancy him trustn himself in a motor and we all expectn him! Just like him! he'd never do anything like anybody else. Well, what can't be cured must be injoored. Come on in, all of you. You must be dyin for your tea, Mr Broadbent. BROADBENT [with a slight start]. Oh, I'm afraid it's too late for tea [he looks at his watch]. AUNT JUDY. Not a bit: we never have it airlier than this. I hope they gave you a good dinner at Athenmullet. BROADBENT [trying to conceal his consternation as he realizes that he is not going to get any dinner after his drive] Oh--er--excellent, excellent. By the way, hadn't I better see about a room at the hotel? [They stare at him]. CORNELIUS. The hotel! FATHER DEMPSEY. Hwat hotel? AUNT JUDY. Indeedn you'e not goin to a hotel. You'll stay with us. I'd have put you into Larry's room, only the boy's pallyass is too short for you; but we'll make a comfortable bed for you on the sofa in the parlor. BROADBENT. You're very kind, Miss Doyle; but really I'm ashamed to give you so much trouble unnecessarily. I shan't mind the hotel in the least. FATHER DEMPSEY. Man alive! There's no hotel in Rosscullen. BROADBENT. No hotel! Why, the driver told me there was the finest hotel in Ireland here. [They regard him joylessly]. AUNT JUDY. Arra would you mind what the like of him would tell you? Sure he'd say hwatever was the least trouble to himself and the pleasantest to you, thinkin you might give him a thruppeny bit for himself or the like. BROADBENT. Perhaps there's a public house. FATHER DEMPSEY [grimly.] There's seventeen. AUNT JUDY. Ah then, how could you stay at a public house? They'd have no place to put you even if it was a right place for you to go. Come! is it the sofa you're afraid of? If it is, you can have me own bed. I can sleep with Nora. BROADBENT. Not at all, not at all: I should be only too delighted. But to upset your arrangements in this way-- CORNELIUS [anxious to cut short the discussion, which makes him ashamed of his house; for he guesses Broadbent's standard of comfort a little more accurately than his sister does] That's all right: it'll be no trouble at all. Hweres Nora? AUNT JUDY. Oh, how do I know? She slipped out a little while ago: I thought she was goin to meet the car. CORNELIUS [dissatisfied] It's a queer thing of her to run out o the way at such a time. AUNT JUDY. Sure she's a queer girl altogether. Come. Come in, come in. FATHER DEMPSEY. I'll say good-night, Mr Broadbent. If there's anything I can do for you in this parish, let me know. [He shakes hands with Broadbent]. BROADBENT [effusively cordial]. Thank you, Father Dempsey. Delighted to have met you, sir. FATHER DEMPSEY [passing on to Aunt Judy]. Good-night, Miss Doyle. AUNT JUDY. Won't you stay to tea? FATHER DEMPSEY. Not to-night, thank you kindly: I have business to do at home. [He turns to go, and meets Patsy Farrell returning unloaded]. Have you left that hamper for me? PATSY. Yis, your reverence. FATHER DEMPSEY. That's a good lad [going]. PATSY [to Aunt Judy] Fadher Keegan sez-- FATHER DEMPSEY [turning sharply on him]. What's that you say? PATSY [frightened]. Fadher Keegan-- FATHER DEMPSEY. How often have you heard me bid you call Mister Keegan in his proper name, the same as I do? Father Keegan indeed! Can't you tell the difference between your priest and any ole madman in a black coat? PATSY. Sure I'm afraid he might put a spell on me. FATHER DEMPSEY [wrathfully]. You mind what I tell you or I'll put a spell on you that'll make you lep. D'ye mind that now? [He goes home]. Patsy goes down the hill to retrieve the fish, the bird, and the sack. AUNT JUDY. Ah, hwy can't you hold your tongue, Patsy, before Father Dempsey? PATSY. Well, what was I to do? Father Keegan bid me tell you Miss Nora was gone to the Roun Tower. AUNT JUDY. An hwy couldn't you wait to tell us until Father Dempsey was gone? PATSY. I was afeerd o forgetn it; and then maybe he'd a sent the grasshopper or the little dark looker into me at night to remind me of it. [The dark looker is the common grey lizard, which is supposed to walk down the throats of incautious sleepers and cause them to perish in a slow decline]. CORNELIUS. Yah, you great gaum, you! Widjer grasshoppers and dark lookers! Here: take up them things and let me hear no more o your foolish lip. [Patsy obeys]. You can take the sammin under your oxther. [He wedges the salmon into Patsy's axilla]. PATSY. I can take the goose too, sir. Put it on me back and gimme the neck of it in me mouth. [Cornelius is about to comply thoughtlessly]. AUNT JUDY [feeling that Broadbent's presence demands special punctiliousness]. For shame, Patsy! to offer to take the goose in your mouth that we have to eat after you! The master'll bring it in for you. [Patsy, abashed, yet irritated by this ridiculous fastidiousness, takes his load up the hill]. CORNELIUS. What the jeuce does Nora want to go to the Roun Tower for? AUNT JUDY. Oh, the Lord knows! Romancin, I suppose. Props she thinks Larry would go there to look for her and see her safe home. BROADBENT. I'm afraid it's all the fault of my motor. Miss Reilly must not be left to wait and walk home alone at night. Shall I go for her? AUNT JUDY [contemptuously]. Arra hwat ud happen to her? Hurry in now, Corny. Come, Mr Broadbent. I left the tea on the hob to draw; and it'll be black if we don't go in an drink it. They go up the hill. It is dark by this time. Broadbent does not fare so badly after all at Aunt Judy's board. He gets not only tea and bread-and-butter, but more mutton chops than he has ever conceived it possible to eat at one sitting. There is also a most filling substance called potato cake. Hardly have his fears of being starved been replaced by his first misgiving that he is eating too much and will be sorry for it tomorrow, when his appetite is revived by the production of a bottle of illicitly distilled whisky, called pocheen, which he has read and dreamed of [he calls it pottine] and is now at last to taste. His good humor rises almost to excitement before Cornelius shows signs of sleepiness. The contrast between Aunt Judy's table service and that of the south and east coast hotels at which he spends his Fridays-to-Tuesdays when he is in London, seems to him delightfully Irish. The almost total atrophy of any sense of enjoyment in Cornelius, or even any desire for it or toleration of the possibility of life being something better than a round of sordid worries, relieved by tobacco, punch, fine mornings, and petty successes in buying and selling, passes with his guest as the whimsical affectation of a shrewd Irish humorist and incorrigible spendthrift. Aunt Judy seems to him an incarnate joke. The likelihood that the joke will pall after a month or so, and is probably not apparent at any time to born Rossculleners, or that he himself unconsciously entertains Aunt Judy by his fantastic English personality and English mispronunciations, does not occur to him for a moment. In the end he is so charmed, and so loth to go to bed and perhaps dream of prosaic England, that he insists on going out to smoke a cigar and look for Nora Reilly at the Round Tower. Not that any special insistence is needed; for the English inhibitive instinct does not seem to exist in Rosscullen. Just as Nora's liking to miss a meal and stay out at the Round Tower is accepted as a sufficient reason for her doing it, and for the family going to bed and leaving the door open for her, so Broadbent's whim to go out for a late stroll provokes neither hospitable remonstrance nor surprise. Indeed Aunt Judy wants to get rid of him whilst she makes a bed for him on the sofa. So off he goes, full fed, happy and enthusiastic, to explore the valley by moonlight. The Round Tower stands about half an Irish mile from Rosscullen, some fifty yards south of the road on a knoll with a circle of wild greensward on it. The road once ran over this knoll; but modern engineering has tempered the level to the Beeyankiny car by carrying the road partly round the knoll and partly through a cutting; so that the way from the road to the tower is a footpath up the embankment through furze and brambles. On the edge of this slope, at the top of the path, Nora is straining her eyes in the moonlight, watching for Larry. At last she gives it up with a sob of impatience, and retreats to the hoary foot of the tower, where she sits down discouraged and cries a little. Then she settles herself resignedly to wait, and hums a song--not an Irish melody, but a hackneyed English drawing-room ballad of the season before last--until some slight noise suggests a footstep, when she springs up eagerly and runs to the edge of the slope again. Some moments of silence and suspense follow, broken by unmistakable footsteps. She gives a little gasp as she sees a man approaching. NORA. Is that you, Larry? [Frightened a little] Who's that? [BROADBENT's voice from below on the path]. Don't be alarmed. NORA. Oh, what an English accent you've got! BROADBENT [rising into view] I must introduce myself-- NORA [violently startled, retreating]. It's not you! Who are you? What do you want? BROADBENT [advancing]. I'm really so sorry to have alarmed you, Miss Reilly. My name is Broadbent. Larry's friend, you know. NORA [chilled]. And has Mr Doyle not come with you? BROADBENT. No. I've come instead. I hope I am not unwelcome. NORA [deeply mortified]. I'm sorry Mr Doyle should have given you the trouble, I'm sure. BROADBENT. You see, as a stranger and an Englishman, I thought it would be interesting to see the Round Tower by moonlight. NORA. Oh, you came to see the tower. I thought--[confused, trying to recover her manners] Oh, of course. I was so startled--It's a beautiful night, isn't it? BROADBENT. Lovely. I must explain why Larry has not come himself. NORA. Why should he come? He's seen the tower often enough: it's no attraction to him. [Genteelly] An what do you think of Ireland, Mr Broadbent? Have you ever been here before? BROADBENT. Never. NORA. An how do you like it? BROADBENT [suddenly betraying a condition of extreme sentimentality]. I can hardly trust myself to say how much I like it. The magic of this Irish scene, and--I really don't want to be personal, Miss Reilly; but the charm of your Irish voice-- NORA [quite accustomed to gallantry, and attaching no seriousness whatever to it]. Oh, get along with you, Mr Broadbent! You're breaking your heart about me already, I daresay, after seeing me for two minutes in the dark. BROADBENT. The voice is just as beautiful in the dark, you know. Besides, I've heard a great deal about you from Larry. NORA [with bitter indifference]. Have you now? Well, that's a great honor, I'm sure. BROADBENT. I have looked forward to meeting you more than to anything else in Ireland. NORA [ironically]. Dear me! did you now? BROADBENT. I did really. I wish you had taken half as much interest in me. NORA. Oh, I was dying to see you, of course. I daresay you can imagine the sensation an Englishman like you would make among us poor Irish people. BROADBENT. Ah, now you're chaffing me, Miss Reilly: you know you are. You mustn't chaff me. I'm very much in earnest about Ireland and everything Irish. I'm very much in earnest about you and about Larry. NORA. Larry has nothing to do with me, Mr Broadbent. BROADBENT. If I really thought that, Miss Reilly, I should--well, I should let myself feel that charm of which I spoke just now more deeply than I--than I-- NORA. Is it making love to me you are? BROADBENT [scared and much upset]. On my word I believe I am, Miss Reilly. If you say that to me again I shan't answer for myself: all the harps of Ireland are in your voice. [She laughs at him. He suddenly loses his head and seizes her arms, to her great indignation]. Stop laughing: do you hear? I am in earnest--in English earnest. When I say a thing like that to a woman, I mean it. [Releasing her and trying to recover his ordinary manner in spite of his bewildering emotion] I beg your pardon. NORA. How dare you touch me? BROADBENT. There are not many things I would not dare for you. That does not sound right perhaps; but I really--[he stops and passes his hand over his forehead, rather lost]. NORA. I think you ought to be ashamed. I think if you were a gentleman, and me alone with you in this place at night, you would die rather than do such a thing. BROADBENT. You mean that it's an act of treachery to Larry? NORA. Deed I don't. What has Larry to do with it? It's an act of disrespect and rudeness to me: it shows what you take me for. You can go your way now; and I'll go mine. Goodnight, Mr Broadbent. BROADBENT. No, please, Miss Reilly. One moment. Listen to me. I'm serious: I'm desperately serious. Tell me that I'm interfering with Larry; and I'll go straight from this spot back to London and never see you again. That's on my honor: I will. Am I interfering with him? NORA [answering in spite of herself in a sudden spring of bitterness]. I should think you ought to know better than me whether you're interfering with him. You've seen him oftener than I have. You know him better than I do, by this time. You've come to me quicker than he has, haven't you? BROADBENT. I'm bound to tell you, Miss Reilly, that Larry has not arrived in Rosscullen yet. He meant to get here before me; but his car broke down; and he may not arrive until to-morrow. NORA [her face lighting up]. Is that the truth? BROADBENT. Yes: that's the truth. [She gives a sigh of relief]. You're glad of that? NORA [up in arms at once]. Glad indeed! Why should I be glad? As we've waited eighteen years for him we can afford to wait a day longer, I should think. BROADBENT. If you really feel like that about him, there may be a chance for another man yet. Eh? NORA [deeply offended]. I suppose people are different in England, Mr Broadbent; so perhaps you don't mean any harm. In Ireland nobody'd mind what a man'd say in fun, nor take advantage of what a woman might say in answer to it. If a woman couldn't talk to a man for two minutes at their first meeting without being treated the way you're treating me, no decent woman would ever talk to a man at all. BROADBENT. I don't understand that. I don't admit that. I am sincere; and my intentions are perfectly honorable. I think you will accept the fact that I'm an Englishman as a guarantee that I am not a man to act hastily or romantically, though I confess that your voice had such an extraordinary effect on me just now when you asked me so quaintly whether I was making love to you-- NORA [flushing] I never thought-- BROADHHNT [quickly]. Of course you didn't. I'm not so stupid as that. But I couldn't bear your laughing at the feeling it gave me. You--[again struggling with a surge of emotion] you don't know what I-- [he chokes for a moment and then blurts out with unnatural steadiness] Will you be my wife? NORA [promptly]. Deed I won't. The idea! [Looking at him more carefully] Arra, come home, Mr Broadbent; and get your senses back again. I think you're not accustomed to potcheen punch in the evening after your tea. BROADBENT [horrified]. Do you mean to say that I--I--I--my God! that I appear drunk to you, Miss Reilly? NORA [compassionately]. How many tumblers had you? BROADBENT [helplessly]. Two. NORA. The flavor of the turf prevented you noticing the strength of it. You'd better come home to bed. BROADBENT [fearfully agitated]. But this is such a horrible doubt to put into my mind--to--to--For Heaven's sake, Miss Reilly, am I really drunk? NORA [soothingly]. You'll be able to judge better in the morning. Come on now back with me, an think no more about it. [She takes his arm with motherly solicitude and urges him gently toward the path]. BROADBENT [yielding in despair]. I must be drunk--frightfully drunk; for your voice drove me out of my senses [he stumbles over a stone]. No: on my word, on my most sacred word of honor, Miss Reilly, I tripped over that stone. It was an accident; it was indeed. NORA. Yes, of course it was. Just take my arm, Mr Broadbent, while we're goin down the path to the road. You'll be all right then. BROADBENT [submissively taking it]. I can't sufficiently apologize, Miss Reilly, or express my sense of your kindness when I am in such a disgusting state. How could I be such a bea-- [he trips again] damn the heather! my foot caught in it. NORA. Steady now, steady. Come along: come. [He is led down to the road in the character of a convicted drunkard. To him there it something divine in the sympathetic indulgence she substitutes for the angry disgust with which one of his own countrywomen would resent his supposed condition. And he has no suspicion of the fact, or of her ignorance of it, that when an Englishman is sentimental he behaves very much as an Irishman does when he is drunk]. ACT III Next morning Broadbent and Larry are sitting at the ends of a breakfast table in the middle of a small grass plot before Cornelius Doyle's house. They have finished their meal, and are buried in newspapers. Most of the crockery is crowded upon a large square black tray of japanned metal. The teapot is of brown delft ware. There is no silver; and the butter, on a dinner plate, is en bloc. The background to this breakfast is the house, a small white slated building, accessible by a half-glazed door. A person coming out into the garden by this door would find the table straight in front of him, and a gate leading to the road half way down the garden on his right; or, if he turned sharp to his left, he could pass round the end of the house through an unkempt shrubbery. The mutilated remnant of a huge planter statue, nearly dissolved by the rains of a century, and vaguely resembling a majestic female in Roman draperies, with a wreath in her hand, stands neglected amid the laurels. Such statues, though apparently works of art, grow naturally in Irish gardens. Their germination is a mystery to the oldest inhabitants, to whose means and taste they are totally foreign. There is a rustic bench, much roiled by the birds, and decorticated and split by the weather, near the little gate. At the opposite side, a basket lies unmolested because it might as well be there as anywhere else. An empty chair at the table was lately occupied by Cornelius, who has finished his breakfast and gone in to the room in which he receives rents and keeps his books and cash, known in the household as "the office." This chair, like the two occupied by Larry and Broadbent, has a mahogany frame and is upholstered in black horsehair. Larry rises and goes off through the shrubbery with his newspaper. Hodson comes in through the garden gate, disconsolate. Broadbent, who sits facing the gate, augurs the worst from his expression. BROADBENT. Have you been to the village? HODSON. No use, sir. We'll have to get everything from London by parcel post. BROADBENT. I hope they made you comfortable last night. HODSON. I was no worse than you were on that sofa, sir. One expects to rough it here, sir. BROADBENT. We shall have to look out for some other arrangement. [Cheering up irrepressibly] Still, it's no end of a joke. How do you like the Irish, Hodson? HODSON. Well, sir, they're all right anywhere but in their own country. I've known lots of em in England, and generally liked em. But here, sir, I seem simply to hate em. The feeling come over me the moment we landed at Cork, sir. It's no use my pretendin, sir: I can't bear em. My mind rises up agin their ways, somehow: they rub me the wrong way all over. BROADBENT. Oh, their faults are on the surface: at heart they are one of the finest races on earth. [Hodson turns away, without affecting to respond to his enthusiasm]. By the way, Hodson-- HODSON [turning]. Yes, sir. BROADBENT. Did you notice anything about me last night when I came in with that lady? HODSON [surprised]. No, sir. BROADBENT. Not any--er--? You may speak frankly. HODSON. I didn't notice nothing, sir. What sort of thing ded you mean, sir? BROADBENT. Well--er--er--well, to put it plainly, was I drunk? HODSON [amazed]. No, sir. BROADBENT. Quite sure? HODSON. Well, I should a said rather the opposite, sir. Usually when you've been enjoying yourself, you're a bit hearty like. Last night you seemed rather low, if anything. BROADBENT. I certainly have no headache. Did you try the pottine, Hodson? HODSON. I just took a mouthful, sir. It tasted of peat: oh! something horrid, sir. The people here call peat turf. Potcheen and strong porter is what they like, sir. I'm sure I don't know how they can stand it. Give me beer, I say. BROADBENT. By the way, you told me I couldn't have porridge for breakfast; but Mr Doyle had some. HODSON. Yes, sir. Very sorry, sir. They call it stirabout, sir: that's how it was. They know no better, sir. BROADBENT. All right: I'll have some tomorrow. Hodson goes to the house. When he opens the door he finds Nora and Aunt Judy on the threshold. He stands aside to let them pass, with the air of a well trained servant oppressed by heavy trials. Then he goes in. Broadbent rises. Aunt Judy goes to the table and collects the plates and cups on the tray. Nora goes to the back of the rustic seat and looks out at the gate with the air of a woman accustomed to have nothing to do. Larry returns from the shrubbery. BROADBENT. Good morning, Miss Doyle. AUNT JUDY [thinking it absurdly late in the day for such a salutation]. Oh, good morning. [Before moving his plate] Have you done? BROADBENT. Quite, thank you. You must excuse us for not waiting for you. The country air tempted us to get up early. AUNT JUDY. N d'ye call this airly, God help you? LARRY. Aunt Judy probably breakfasted about half past six. AUNT JUDY. Whisht, you!--draggin the parlor chairs out into the gardn n givin Mr Broadbent his death over his meals out here in the cold air. [To Broadbent] Why d'ye put up with his foolishness, Mr Broadbent? BROADBENT. I assure you I like the open air. AUNT JUDY. Ah galong! How can you like what's not natural? I hope you slept well. NORA. Did anything wake yup with a thump at three o'clock? I thought the house was falling. But then I'm a very light sleeper. LARRY. I seem to recollect that one of the legs of the sofa in the parlor had a way of coming out unexpectedly eighteen years ago. Was that it, Tom? BROADBENT [hastily]. Oh, it doesn't matter: I was not hurt--at least--er-- AUNT JUDY. Oh now what a shame! An I told Patsy Farrll to put a nail in it. BROADBENT. He did, Miss Doyle. There was a nail, certainly. AUNT JUDY. Dear oh dear! An oldish peasant farmer, small, leathery, peat faced, with a deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is in effect pathetic--the voice of a man of hard life and many sorrows--comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but now he is dressed respectably in a black frock coat, tall hat, and pollard colored trousers; and his face is as clean as washing can make it, though that is not saying much, as the habit is recently acquired and not yet congenial. THE NEW-COMER [at the gate]. God save all here! [He comes a little way into the garden]. LARRY [patronizingly, speaking across the garden to him]. Is that yourself, Mat Haffigan? Do you remember me? MATTHEW [intentionally rude and blunt]. No. Who are you? NORA. Oh, I'm sure you remember him, Mr Haffigan. MATTHEW [grudgingly admitting it]. I suppose he'll be young Larry Doyle that was. LARRY. Yes. MATTHEW [to Larry]. I hear you done well in America. LARRY. Fairly well. MATTHEW. I suppose you saw me brother Andy out dhere. LARRY. No. It's such a big place that looking for a man there is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. They tell me he's a great man out there. MATTHEW. So he is, God be praised. Where's your father? AUNT JUDY. He's inside, in the office, Mr Haffigan, with Barney Doarn n Father Dempsey. Matthew, without wasting further words on the company, goes curtly into the house. LARRY [staring after him]. Is anything wrong with old Mat? NORA. No. He's the same as ever. Why? LARRY. He's not the same to me. He used to be very civil to Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as surly and stand-off as a bear. AUNT JUDY. Oh sure he's bought his farm in the Land Purchase. He's independent now. NORA. It's made a great change, Larry. You'd harly know the old tenants now. You'd think it was a liberty to speak t'dhem--some o dhem. [She goes to the table, and helps to take off the cloth, which she and Aunt Judy fold up between them]. AUNT JUDY. I wonder what he wants to see Corny for. He hasn't been here since he paid the last of his old rent; and then he as good as threw it in Corny's face, I thought. LARRY. No wonder! Of course they all hated us like the devil. Ugh! [Moodily] I've seen them in that office, telling my father what a fine boy I was, and plastering him with compliments, with your honor here and your honor there, when all the time their fingers were itching to beat his throat. AUNT JUDY. Deedn why should they want to hurt poor Corny? It was he that got Mat the lease of his farm, and stood up for him as an industrious decent man. BROADBENT. Was he industrious? That's remarkable, you know, in an Irishman. LARRY. Industrious! That man's industry used to make me sick, even as a boy. I tell you, an Irish peasant's industry is not human: it's worse than the industry of a coral insect. An Englishman has some sense about working: he never does more than he can help--and hard enough to get him to do that without scamping it; but an Irishman will work as if he'd die the moment he stopped. That man Matthew Haffigan and his brother Andy made a farm out of a patch of stones on the hillside--cleared it and dug it with their own naked hands and bought their first spade out of their first crop of potatoes. Talk of making two blades of wheat grow where one grew before! those two men made a whole field of wheat grow where not even a furze bush had ever got its head up between the stones. BROADBENT. That was magnificent, you know. Only a great race is capable of producing such men. LARRY. Such fools, you mean! What good was it to them? The moment they'd done it, the landlord put a rent of 5 pounds a year on them, and turned them out because they couldn't pay it. AUNT JUDY. Why couldn't they pay as well as Billy Byrne that took it after them? LARRY [angrily]. You know very well that Billy Byrne never paid it. He only offered it to get possession. He never paid it. AUNT JUDY. That was because Andy Haffigan hurt him with a brick so that he was never the same again. Andy had to run away to America for it. BROADBENT [glowing with indignation]. Who can blame him, Miss Doyle? Who can blame him? LARRY [impatiently]. Oh, rubbish! What's the good of the man that's starved out of a farm murdering the man that's starved into it? Would you have done such a thing? BROADBENT. Yes. I--I--I--I--[stammering with fury] I should have shot the confounded landlord, and wrung the neck of the damned agent, and blown the farm up with dynamite, and Dublin Castle along with it. LARRY. Oh yes: you'd have done great things; and a fat lot of good you'd have got out of it, too! That's an Englishman all over! make bad laws and give away all the land, and then, when your economic incompetence produces its natural and inevitable results, get virtuously indignant and kill the people that carry out your laws. AUNT JUDY. Sure never mind him, Mr Broadbent. It doesn't matter, anyhow, because there's harly any landlords left; and ther'll soon be none at all. LARRY. On the contrary, ther'll soon be nothing else; and the Lord help Ireland then! AUNT JUDY. Ah, you're never satisfied, Larry. [To Nora] Come on, alanna, an make the paste for the pie. We can leave them to their talk. They don't want us [she takes up the tray and goes into the house]. BROADBENT [rising and gallantly protesting] Oh, Miss Doyle! Really, really-- Nora, following Aunt Judy with the rolled-up cloth in her hands, looks at him and strikes him dumb. He watches her until she disappears; then comes to Larry and addresses him with sudden intensity. BROADBENT. Larry. LARRY. What is it? BROADBENT. I got drunk last night, and proposed to Miss Reilly. LARRY. You HWAT??? [He screams with laughter in the falsetto Irish register unused for that purpose in England]. BROADBENT. What are you laughing at? LARRY [stopping dead]. I don't know. That's the sort of thing an Irishman laughs at. Has she accepted you? BROADBENT. I shall never forget that with the chivalry of her nation, though I was utterly at her mercy, she refused me. LARRY. That was extremely improvident of her. [Beginning to reflect] But look here: when were you drunk? You were sober enough when you came back from the Round Tower with her. BROADBENT. No, Larry, I was drunk, I am sorry to say. I had two tumblers of punch. She had to lead me home. You must have noticed it. LARRY. I did not. BROADBENT. She did. LARRY. May I ask how long it took you to come to business? You can hardly have known her for more than a couple of hours. BROADBENT. I am afraid it was hardly a couple of minutes. She was not here when I arrived; and I saw her for the first time at the tower. LARRY. Well, you are a nice infant to be let loose in this country! Fancy the potcheen going to your head like that! BROADBENT. Not to my head, I think. I have no headache; and I could speak distinctly. No: potcheen goes to the heart, not to the head. What ought I to do? LARRY. Nothing. What need you do? BROADBENT. There is rather a delicate moral question involved. The point is, was I drunk enough not to be morally responsible for my proposal? Or was I sober enough to be bound to repeat it now that I am undoubtedly sober? LARRY. I should see a little more of her before deciding. BROADBENT. No, no. That would not be right. That would not be fair. I am either under a moral obligation or I am not. I wish I knew how drunk I was. LARRY. Well, you were evidently in a state of blithering sentimentality, anyhow. BROADBENT. That is true, Larry: I admit it. Her voice has a most extraordinary effect on me. That Irish voice! LARRY [sympathetically]. Yes, I know. When I first went to London I very nearly proposed to walk out with a waitress in an Aerated Bread shop because her Whitechapel accent was so distinguished, so quaintly touching, so pretty-- BROADBENT [angrily]. Miss Reilly is not a waitress, is she? LARRY. Oh, come! The waitress was a very nice girl. BROADBENT. You think every Englishwoman an angel. You really have coarse tastes in that way, Larry. Miss Reilly is one of the finer types: a type rare in England, except perhaps in the best of the aristocracy. LARRY. Aristocracy be blowed! Do you know what Nora eats? BROADBENT. Eats! what do you mean? LARRY. Breakfast: tea and bread-and-butter, with an occasional rasher, and an egg on special occasions: say on her birthday. Dinner in the middle of the day, one course and nothing else. In the evening, tea and bread-and-butter again. You compare her with your Englishwomen who wolf down from three to five meat meals a day; and naturally you find her a sylph. The difference is not a difference of type: it's the difference between the woman who eats not wisely but too well, and the woman who eats not wisely but too little. BROADBENT [furious]. Larry: you--you--you disgust me. You are a damned fool. [He sits down angrily on the rustic seat, which sustains the shock with difficulty]. LARRY. Steady! stead-eee! [He laughs and seats himself on the table]. Cornelius Doyle, Father Dempsey, Barney Doran, and Matthew Haffigan come from the house. Doran is a stout bodied, short armed, roundheaded, red-haired man on the verge of middle age, of sanguine temperament, with an enormous capacity for derisive, obscene, blasphemous, or merely cruel and senseless fun, and a violent and impetuous intolerance of other temperaments and other opinions, all this representing energy and capacity wasted and demoralized by want of sufficient training and social pressure to force it into beneficent activity and build a character with it; for Barney is by no means either stupid or weak. He is recklessly untidy as to his person; but the worst effects of his neglect are mitigated by a powdering of flour and mill dust; and his unbrushed clothes, made of a fashionable tailor's sackcloth, were evidently chosen regardless of expense for the sake of their appearance. Matthew Haffigan, ill at ease, coasts the garden shyly on the shrubbery side until he anchors near the basket, where he feels least in the way. The priest comes to the table and slaps Larry on the shoulder. Larry, turning quickly, and recognizing Father Dempsey, alights from the table and shakes the priest's hand warmly. Doran comes down the garden between Father Dempsey and Matt; and Cornelius, on the other side of the table, turns to Broadbent, who rises genially. CORNELIUS. I think we all met las night. DORAN. I hadn't that pleasure. CORNELIUS. To be sure, Barney: I forgot. [To Broadbent, introducing Barney] Mr Doran. He owns that fine mill you noticed from the car. BROADBENT [delighted with them all]. Most happy, Mr Doran. Very pleased indeed. Doran, not quite sure whether he is being courted or patronized, nods independently. DORAN. How's yourself, Larry? LARRY. Finely, thank you. No need to ask you. [Doran grins; and they shake hands]. CORNELIUS. Give Father Dempsey a chair, Larry. Matthew Haffigan runs to the nearest end of the table and takes the chair from it, placing it near the basket; but Larry has already taken the chair from the other end and placed it in front of the table. Father Dempsey accepts that more central position. CORNELIUS. Sit down, Barney, will you; and you, Mat. Doran takes the chair Mat is still offering to the priest; and poor Matthew, outfaced by the miller, humbly turns the basket upside down and sits on it. Cornelius brings his own breakfast chair from the table and sits down on Father Dempsey's right. Broadbent resumes his seat on the rustic bench. Larry crosses to the bench and is about to sit down beside him when Broadbent holds him off nervously. BROADBENT. Do you think it will bear two, Larry? LARRY. Perhaps not. Don't move. I'll stand. [He posts himself behind the bench]. They are all now seated, except Larry; and the session assumes a portentous air, as if something important were coming. CORNELIUS. Props you'll explain, Father Dempsey. FATHER DEMPSEY. No, no: go on, you: the Church has no politics. CORNELIUS. Were yever thinkin o goin into parliament at all, Larry? LARRY. Me! FATHER DEMPSEY [encouragingly] Yes, you. Hwy not? LARRY. I'm afraid my ideas would not be popular enough. CORNELIUS. I don't know that. Do you, Barney? DORAN. There's too much blatherumskite in Irish politics a dale too much. LARRY. But what about your present member? Is he going to retire? CORNELIUS. No: I don't know that he is. LARRY [interrogatively]. Well? then? MATTHEW [breaking out with surly bitterness]. We've had enough of his foolish talk agen lanlords. Hwat call has he to talk about the lan, that never was outside of a city office in his life? CORNELIUS. We're tired of him. He doesn't know hwere to stop. Every man can't own land; and some men must own it to employ them. It was all very well when solid men like Doran and me and Mat were kep from ownin land. But hwat man in his senses ever wanted to give land to Patsy Farrll an dhe like o him? BROADBENT. But surely Irish landlordism was accountable for what Mr Haffigan suffered. MATTHEW. Never mind hwat I suffered. I know what I suffered adhout you tellin me. But did I ever ask for more dhan the farm I made wid me own hans: tell me that, Corny Doyle, and you that knows. Was I fit for the responsibility or was I not? [Snarling angrily at Cornelius] Am I to be compared to Patsy Farrll, that doesn't harly know his right hand from his left? What did he ever suffer, I'd like to know? CORNELIUS. That's just what I say. I wasn't comparin you to your disadvantage. MATTHEW [implacable]. Then hwat did you mane be talkin about givin him lan? DORAN. Aisy, Mat, aisy. You're like a bear with a sore back. MATTHEW [trembling with rage]. An who are you, to offer to taitch me manners? FATHER DEMPSEY [admonitorily]. Now, now, now, Mat none o dhat. How often have I told you you're too ready to take offence where none is meant? You don't understand: Corny Doyle is saying just what you want to have said. [To Cornelius] Go on, Mr Doyle; and never mind him. MATTHEW [rising]. Well, if me lan is to be given to Patsy and his like, I'm goin oura dhis. I-- DORAN [with violent impatience] Arra who's goin to give your lan to Patsy, yowl fool ye? FATHER DEMPSEY. Aisy, Barney, aisy. [Sternly, to Mat] I told you, Matthew Haffigan, that Corny Doyle was sayin nothin against you. I'm sorry your priest's word is not good enough for you. I'll go, sooner than stay to make you commit a sin against the Church. Good morning, gentlemen. [He rises. They all rise, except Broadbent]. DORAN [to Mat]. There! Sarve you dam well right, you cantankerous oul noodle. MATTHEW [appalled]. Don't say dhat, Fadher Dempsey. I never had a thought agen you or the Holy Church. I know I'm a bit hasty when I think about the lan. I ax your pardn for it. FATHER DEMPSEY [resuming his seat with dignified reserve]. Very well: I'll overlook it this time. [He sits down. The others sit down, except Matthew. Father Dempsey, about to ask Corny to proceed, remembers Matthew and turns to him, giving him just a crumb of graciousness]. Sit down, Mat. [Matthew, crushed, sits down in disgrace, and is silent, his eyes shifting piteously from one speaker to another in an intensely mistrustful effort to understand them]. Go on, Mr Doyle. We can make allowances. Go on. CORNELIUS. Well, you see how it is, Larry. Round about here, we've got the land at last; and we want no more Goverment meddlin. We want a new class o man in parliament: one dhat knows dhat the farmer's the real backbone o the country, n doesn't care a snap of his fingers for the shoutn o the riff-raff in the towns, or for the foolishness of the laborers. DORAN. Aye; an dhat can afford to live in London and pay his own way until Home Rule comes, instead o wantin subscriptions and the like. FATHER DEMPSEY. Yes: that's a good point, Barney. When too much money goes to politics, it's the Church that has to starve for it. A member of parliament ought to be a help to the Church instead of a burden on it. LARRY. Here's a chance for you, Tom. What do you say? BROADBENT [deprecatory, but important and smiling]. Oh, I have no claim whatever to the seat. Besides, I'm a Saxon. DORAN. A hwat? BROADBENT. A Saxon. An Englishman. DORAN. An Englishman. Bedad I never heard it called dhat before. MATTHEW [cunningly]. If I might make so bould, Fadher, I wouldn't say but an English Prodestn mightn't have a more indepindent mind about the lan, an be less afeerd to spake out about it, dhan an Irish Catholic. CORNELIUS. But sure Larry's as good as English: aren't you, Larry? LARRY. You may put me out of your head, father, once for all. CORNELIUS. Arra why? LARRY. I have strong opinions which wouldn't suit you. DORAN [rallying him blatantly]. Is it still Larry the bould Fenian? LARRY. No: the bold Fenian is now an older and possibly foolisher man. CORNELIUS. Hwat does it matter to us hwat your opinions are? You know that your father's bought his farm, just the same as Mat here n Barney's mill. All we ask now is to be let alone. You've nothin against that, have you? LARRY. Certainly I have. I don't believe in letting anybody or anything alone. CORNELIUS [losing his temper]. Arra what d'ye mean, you young fool? Here I've got you the offer of a good seat in parliament; n you think yourself mighty smart to stand there and talk foolishness to me. Will you take it or leave it? LARRY. Very well: I'll take it with pleasure if you'll give it to me. CORNELIUS [subsiding sulkily]. Well, why couldn't you say so at once? It's a good job you've made up your mind at last. DORAN [suspiciously]. Stop a bit, stop a bit. MATTHEW [writhing between his dissatisfaction and his fear of the priest]. It's not because he's your son that he's to get the sate. Fadher Dempsey: wouldn't you think well to ask him what he manes about the lan? LARRY [coming down on Mat promptly]. I'll tell you, Mat. I always thought it was a stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing sort of thing to leave the land in the hands of the old landlords without calling them to a strict account for the use they made of it, and the condition of the people on it. I could see for myself that they thought of nothing but what they could get out of it to spend in England; and that they mortgaged and mortgaged until hardly one of them owned his own property or could have afforded to keep it up decently if he'd wanted to. But I tell you plump and plain, Mat, that if anybody thinks things will be any better now that the land is handed over to a lot of little men like you, without calling you to account either, they're mistaken. MATTHEW [sullenly]. What call have you to look down on me? I suppose you think you're everybody because your father was a land agent. LARRY. What call have you to look down on Patsy Farrell? I suppose you think you're everybody because you own a few fields. MATTHEW. Was Patsy Farrll ever ill used as I was ill used? tell me dhat. LARRY. He will be, if ever he gets into your power as you were in the power of your old landlord. Do you think, because you're poor and ignorant and half-crazy with toiling and moiling morning noon and night, that you'll be any less greedy and oppressive to them that have no land at all than old Nick Lestrange, who was an educated travelled gentleman that would not have been tempted as hard by a hundred pounds as you'd be by five shillings? Nick was too high above Patsy Farrell to be jealous of him; but you, that are only one little step above him, would die sooner than let him come up that step; and well you know it. MATTHEW [black with rage, in a low growl]. Lemme oura this. [He tries to rise; but Doran catches his coat and drags him down again] I'm goin, I say. [Raising his voice] Leggo me coat, Barney Doran. DORAN. Sit down, yowl omadhaun, you. [Whispering] Don't you want to stay an vote against him? FATHER DEMPSEY [holding up his finger] Mat! [Mat subsides]. Now, now, now! come, come! Hwats all dhis about Patsy Farrll? Hwy need you fall out about HIM? LARRY. Because it was by using Patsy's poverty to undersell England in the markets of the world that we drove England to ruin Ireland. And she'll ruin us again the moment we lift our heads from the dust if we trade in cheap labor; and serve us right too! If I get into parliament, I'll try to get an Act to prevent any of you from giving Patsy less than a pound a week [they all start, hardly able to believe their ears] or working him harder than you'd work a horse that cost you fifty guineas. DORAN. Hwat!!! CORNELIUS [aghast]. A pound a--God save us! the boy's mad. Matthew, feeling that here is something quite beyond his powers, turns openmouthed to the priest, as if looking for nothing less than the summary excommunication of Larry. LARRY. How is the man to marry and live a decent life on less? FATHER DEMPSEY. Man alive, hwere have you been living all these years? and hwat have you been dreaming of? Why, some o dhese honest men here can't make that much out o the land for themselves, much less give it to a laborer. LARRY [now thoroughly roused]. Then let them make room for those who can. Is Ireland never to have a chance? First she was given to the rich; and now that they have gorged on her flesh, her bones are to be flung to the poor, that can do nothing but suck the marrow out of her. If we can't have men of honor own the land, lets have men of ability. If we can't have men with ability, let us at least have men with capital. Anybody's better than Mat, who has neither honor, nor ability, nor capital, nor anything but mere brute labor and greed in him, Heaven help him! DORAN. Well, we're not all foostherin oul doddherers like Mat. [Pleasantly, to the subject of this description] Are we, Mat? LARRY. For modern industrial purposes you might just as well be, Barney. You're all children: the big world that I belong to has gone past you and left you. Anyhow, we Irishmen were never made to be farmers; and we'll never do any good at it. We're like the Jews: the Almighty gave us brains, and bid us farm them, and leave the clay and the worms alone. FATHER DEMPSEY [with gentle irony]. Oh! is it Jews you want to make of us? I must catechize you a bit meself, I think. The next thing you'll be proposing is to repeal the disestablishment of the so-called Irish Church. LARRY. Yes: why not? [Sensation]. MATTHEW [rancorously]. He's a turncoat. LARRY. St Peter, the rock on which our Church was built, was crucified head downwards for being a turncoat. FATHER DEMPSEY [with a quiet authoritative dignity which checks Doran, who is on the point of breaking out]. That's true. You hold your tongue as befits your ignorance, Matthew Haffigan; and trust your priest to deal with this young man. Now, Larry Doyle, whatever the blessed St Peter was crucified for, it was not for being a Prodestan. Are you one? LARRY. No. I am a Catholic intelligent enough to see that the Protestants are never more dangerous to us than when they are free from all alliances with the State. The so-called Irish Church is stronger today than ever it was. MATTHEW. Fadher Dempsey: will you tell him dhat me mother's ant was shot and kilt dead in the sthreet o Rosscullen be a soljer in the tithe war? [Frantically] He wants to put the tithes on us again. He-- LARRY [interrupting him with overbearing contempt]. Put the tithes on you again! Did the tithes ever come off you? Was your land any dearer when you paid the tithe to the parson than it was when you paid the same money to Nick Lestrange as rent, and he handed it over to the Church Sustentation Fund? Will you always be duped by Acts of Parliament that change nothing but the necktie of the man that picks your pocket? I'll tell you what I'd do with you, Mat Haffigan: I'd make you pay tithes to your own Church. I want the Catholic Church established in Ireland: that's what I want. Do you think that I, brought up to regard myself as the son of a great and holy Church, can bear to see her begging her bread from the ignorance and superstition of men like you? I would have her as high above worldly want as I would have her above worldly pride or ambition. Aye; and I would have Ireland compete with Rome itself for the chair of St Peter and the citadel of the Church; for Rome, in spite of all the blood of the martyrs, is pagan at heart to this day, while in Ireland the people is the Church and the Church the people. FATHER DEMPSEY [startled, but not at all displeased]. Whisht, man! You're worse than mad Pether Keegan himself. BROADBENT [who has listened in the greatest astonishment]. You amaze me, Larry. Who would have thought of your coming out like this! [Solemnly] But much as I appreciate your really brilliant eloquence, I implore you not to desert the great Liberal principle of Disestablishment. LARRY. I am not a Liberal: Heaven forbid! A disestablished Church is the worst tyranny a nation can groan under. BROADBENT [making a wry face]. DON'T be paradoxical, Larry. It really gives me a pain in my stomach. LARRY. You'll soon find out the truth of it here. Look at Father Dempsey! he is disestablished: he has nothing to hope or fear from the State; and the result is that he's the most powerful man in Rosscullen. The member for Rosscullen would shake in his shoes if Father Dempsey looked crooked at him. [Father Dempsey smiles, by no means averse to this acknowledgment of his authority]. Look at yourself! you would defy the established Archbishop of Canterbury ten times a day; but catch you daring to say a word that would shock a Nonconformist! not you. The Conservative party today is the only one that's not priestridden--excuse the expression, Father [Father Dempsey nods tolerantly]--cause it's the only one that has established its Church and can prevent a clergyman becoming a bishop if he's not a Statesman as well as a Churchman. He stops. They stare at him dumbfounded, and leave it to the priest to answer him. FATHER DEMPSEY [judicially]. Young man: you'll not be the member for Rosscullen; but there's more in your head than the comb will take out. LARRY. I'm sorry to disappoint you, father; but I told you it would be no use. And now I think the candidate had better retire and leave you to discuss his successor. [He takes a newspaper from the table and goes away through the shrubbery amid dead silence, all turning to watch him until he passes out of sight round the corner of the house]. DORAN [dazed]. Hwat sort of a fella is he at all at all? FATHER DEMPSEY. He's a clever lad: there's the making of a man in him yet. MATTHEW [in consternation]. D'ye mane to say dhat yll put him into parliament to bring back Nick Lesthrange on me, and to put tithes on me, and to rob me for the like o Patsy Farrll, because he's Corny Doyle's only son? DORAN [brutally]. Arra hould your whisht: who's goin to send him into parliament? Maybe you'd like us to send you dhere to thrate them to a little o your anxiety about dhat dirty little podato patch o yours. MATTHEW [plaintively]. Am I to be towld dhis afther all me sufferins? DORAN. Och, I'm tired o your sufferins. We've been hearin nothin else ever since we was childher but sufferins. Haven it wasn't yours it was somebody else's; and haven it was nobody else's it was ould Irelan's. How the divil are we to live on wan anodher's sufferins? FATHER DEMPSEY. That's a thrue word, Barney Doarn; only your tongue's a little too familiar wi dhe devil. [To Mat] If you'd think a little more o the sufferins of the blessed saints, Mat, an a little less o your own, you'd find the way shorter from your farm to heaven. [Mat is about to reply] Dhere now! Dhat's enough! we know you mean well; an I'm not angry with you. BROADBENT. Surely, Mr Haffigan, you can see the simple explanation of all this. My friend Larry Doyle is a most brilliant speaker; but he's a Tory: an ingrained oldfashioned Tory. CORNELIUS. N how d'ye make dhat out, if I might ask you, Mr Broadbent? BROADBENT [collecting himself for a political deliverance]. Well, you know, Mr Doyle, there's a strong dash of Toryism in the Irish character. Larry himself says that the great Duke of Wellington was the most typical Irishman that ever lived. Of course that's an absurd paradox; but still there's a great deal of truth in it. Now I am a Liberal. You know the great principles of the Liberal party. Peace-- FATHER DEMPSEY [piously]. Hear! hear! BROADBENT [encouraged]. Thank you. Retrenchment--[he waits for further applause]. MATTHEW [timidly]. What might rethrenchment mane now? BROADBENT. It means an immense reduction in the burden of the rates and taxes. MATTHEW [respectfully approving]. Dhats right. Dhats right, sir. BROADBENT [perfunctorily]. And, of course, Reform. CORNELIUS } FATHER DEMPSEY} [conventionally]. Of course. DORAN } MATTHEW [still suspicious]. Hwat does Reform mane, sir? Does it mane altherin annythin dhats as it is now? BROADBENT [impressively]. It means, Mr Haffigan, maintaining those reforms which have already been conferred on humanity by the Liberal Party, and trusting for future developments to the free activity of a free people on the basis of those reforms. DORAN. Dhat's right. No more meddlin. We're all right now: all we want is to be let alone. CORNELIUS. Hwat about Home Rule? BROADBENT [rising so as to address them more imposingly]. I really cannot tell you what I feel about Home Rule without using the language of hyperbole. DORAN. Savin Fadher Dempsey's presence, eh? BROADBENT [not understanding him] Quite so--er--oh yes. All I can say is that as an Englishman I blush for the Union. It is the blackest stain on our national history. I look forward to the time-and it cannot be far distant, gentlemen, because Humanity is looking forward to it too, and insisting on it with no uncertain voice--I look forward to the time when an Irish legislature shall arise once more on the emerald pasture of College Green, and the Union Jack--that detestable symbol of a decadent Imperialism--be replaced by a flag as green as the island over which it waves--a flag on which we shall ask for England only a modest quartering in memory of our great party and of the immortal name of our grand old leader. DORAN [enthusiastically]. Dhat's the style, begob! [He smites his knee, and winks at Mat]. MATTHEW. More power to you, Sir! BROADBENT. I shall leave you now, gentlemen, to your deliberations. I should like to have enlarged on the services rendered by the Liberal Party to the religious faith of the great majority of the people of Ireland; but I shall content myself with saying that in my opinion you should choose no representative who--no matter what his personal creed may be--is not an ardent supporter of freedom of conscience, and is not prepared to prove it by contributions, as lavish as his means will allow, to the great and beneficent work which you, Father Dempsey [Father Dempsey bows], are doing for the people of Rosscullen. Nor should the lighter, but still most important question of the sports of the people be forgotten. The local cricket club-- CORNELIUS. The hwat! DORAN. Nobody plays bats ball here, if dhat's what you mean. BROADBENT. Well, let us say quoits. I saw two men, I think, last night--but after all, these are questions of detail. The main thing is that your candidate, whoever he may be, shall be a man of some means, able to help the locality instead of burdening it. And if he were a countryman of my own, the moral effect on the House of Commons would be immense! tremendous! Pardon my saying these few words: nobody feels their impertinence more than I do. Good morning, gentlemen. He turns impressively to the gate, and trots away, congratulating himself, with a little twist of his head and cock of his eye, on having done a good stroke of political business. HAFFIGAN [awestruck]. Good morning, sir. THE REST. Good morning. [They watch him vacantly until he is out of earshot]. CORNELIUS. Hwat d'ye think, Father Dempsey? FATHER DEMPSEY [indulgently] Well, he hasn't much sense, God help him; but for the matter o that, neither has our present member. DORAN. Arra musha he's good enough for parliament what is there to do there but gas a bit, an chivy the Goverment, an vote wi dh Irish party? CORNELIUS [ruminatively]. He's the queerest Englishman I ever met. When he opened the paper dhis mornin the first thing he saw was that an English expedition had been bet in a battle in Inja somewhere; an he was as pleased as Punch! Larry told him that if he'd been alive when the news o Waterloo came, he'd a died o grief over it. Bedad I don't think he's quite right in his head. DORAN. Divil a matther if he has plenty o money. He'll do for us right enough. MATTHEW [deeply impressed by Broadbent, and unable to understand their levity concerning him]. Did you mind what he said about rethrenchment? That was very good, I thought. FATHER DEMPSEY. You might find out from Larry, Corny, what his means are. God forgive us all! it's poor work spoiling the Egyptians, though we have good warrant for it; so I'd like to know how much spoil there is before I commit meself. [He rises. They all rise respectfully]. CORNELIUS [ruefully]. I'd set me mind on Larry himself for the seat; but I suppose it can't be helped. FATHER DEMPSEY [consoling him]. Well, the boy's young yet; an he has a head on him. Goodbye, all. [He goes out through the gate]. DORAN. I must be goin, too. [He directs Cornelius's attention to what is passing in the road]. Look at me bould Englishman shakin hans wid Fadher Dempsey for all the world like a candidate on election day. And look at Fadher Dempsey givin him a squeeze an a wink as much as to say It's all right, me boy. You watch him shakin hans with me too: he's waitn for me. I'll tell him he's as good as elected. [He goes, chuckling mischievously]. CORNELIUS. Come in with me, Mat. I think I'll sell you the pig after all. Come in an wet the bargain. MATTHEW [instantly dropping into the old whine of the tenant]. I'm afeerd I can't afford the price, sir. [He follows Cornelius into the house]. Larry, newspaper still in hand, comes back through the shrubbery. Broadbent returns through the gate. LARRY. Well? What has happened. BROADBENT [hugely self-satisfied]. I think I've done the trick this time. I just gave them a bit of straight talk; and it went home. They were greatly impressed: everyone of those men believes in me and will vote for me when the question of selecting a candidate comes up. After all, whatever you say, Larry, they like an Englishman. They feel they can trust him, I suppose. LARRY. Oh! they've transferred the honor to you, have they? BROADBENT [complacently]. Well, it was a pretty obvious move, I should think. You know, these fellows have plenty of shrewdness in spite of their Irish oddity. [Hodson comes from the house. Larry sits in Doran's chair and reads]. Oh, by the way, Hodson-- HODSON [coming between Broadbent and Larry]. Yes, sir? BROADBENT. I want you to be rather particular as to how you treat the people here. HODSON. I haven't treated any of em yet, sir. If I was to accept all the treats they offer me I shouldn't be able to stand at this present moment, sir. BROADBENT. Oh well, don't be too stand-offish, you know, Hodson. I should like you to be popular. If it costs anything I'll make it up to you. It doesn't matter if you get a bit upset at first: they'll like you all the better for it. HODSON. I'm sure you're very kind, sir; but it don't seem to matter to me whether they like me or not. I'm not going to stand for parliament here, sir. BROADBENT. Well, I am. Now do you understand? HODSON [waking up at once]. Oh, I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure. I understand, sir. CORNELIUS [appearing at the house door with Mat]. Patsy'll drive the pig over this evenin, Mat. Goodbye. [He goes back into the house. Mat makes for the gate. Broadbent stops him. Hodson, pained by the derelict basket, picks it up and carries it away behind the house]. BROADBENT [beaming candidatorially]. I must thank you very particularly, Mr Haffigan, for your support this morning. I value it because I know that the real heart of a nation is the class you represent, the yeomanry. MATTHEW [aghast] The yeomanry!!! LARRY [looking up from his paper]. Take care, Tom! In Rosscullen a yeoman means a sort of Orange Bashi-Bazouk. In England, Mat, they call a freehold farmer a yeoman. MATTHEW [huffily]. I don't need to be insthructed be you, Larry Doyle. Some people think no one knows anythin but dhemselves. [To Broadbent, deferentially] Of course I know a gentleman like you would not compare me to the yeomanry. Me own granfather was flogged in the sthreets of Athenmullet be them when they put a gun in the thatch of his house an then went and found it there, bad cess to them! BROADBENT [with sympathetic interest]. Then you are not the first martyr of your family, Mr Haffigan? MATTHEW. They turned me out o the farm I made out of the stones o Little Rosscullen hill wid me own hans. BROADBENT. I have heard about it; and my blood still boils at the thought. [Calling] Hodson-- HODSON [behind the corner of the house] Yes, sir. [He hurries forward]. BROADBENT. Hodson: this gentleman's sufferings should make every Englishman think. It is want of thought rather than want of heart that allows such iniquities to disgrace society. HODSON [prosaically]. Yes sir. MATTHEW. Well, I'll be goin. Good mornin to you kindly, sir. BROADBENT. You have some distance to go, Mr Haffigan: will you allow me to drive you home? MATTHEW. Oh sure it'd be throublin your honor. BROADBENT. I insist: it will give me the greatest pleasure, I assure you. My car is in the stable: I can get it round in five minutes. MATTHEW. Well, sir, if you wouldn't mind, we could bring the pig I've just bought from Corny. BROADBENT [with enthusiasm]. Certainly, Mr Haffigan: it will be quite delightful to drive with a pig in the car: I shall feel quite like an Irishman. Hodson: stay with Mr Haffigan; and give him a hand with the pig if necessary. Come, Larry; and help me. [He rushes away through the shrubbery]. LARRY [throwing the paper ill-humoredly on the chair]. Look here, Tom! here, I say! confound it! [he runs after him]. MATTHEW [glowering disdainfully at Hodson, and sitting down on Cornelius's chair as an act of social self-assertion] N are you the valley? HODSON. The valley? Oh, I follow you: yes: I'm Mr Broadbent's valet. MATTHEW. Ye have an aisy time of it: you look purty sleek. [With suppressed ferocity] Look at me! Do I look sleek? HODSON [sadly]. I wish I ad your ealth: you look as hard as nails. I suffer from an excess of uric acid. MATTHEW. Musha what sort o disease is zhouragassid? Didjever suffer from injustice and starvation? Dhat's the Irish disease. It's aisy for you to talk o sufferin, an you livin on the fat o the land wid money wrung from us. HODSON [Coolly]. Wots wrong with you, old chap? Has ennybody been doin ennything to you? MATTHEW. Anythin timme! Didn't your English masther say that the blood biled in him to hear the way they put a rint on me for the farm I made wid me own hans, and turned me out of it to give it to Billy Byrne? HODSON. Ow, Tom Broadbent's blood boils pretty easy over ennything that appens out of his own country. Don't you be taken in by my ole man, Paddy. MATTHEW [indignantly]. Paddy yourself! How dar you call me Paddy? HODSON [unmoved]. You just keep your hair on and listen to me. You Irish people are too well off: that's what's the matter with you. [With sudden passion] You talk of your rotten little farm because you made it by chuckin a few stownes dahn a hill! Well, wot price my grenfawther, I should like to know, that fitted up a fuss clawss shop and built up a fuss clawss drapery business in London by sixty years work, and then was chucked aht of it on is ed at the end of is lease withaht a penny for his goodwill. You talk of evictions! you that cawn't be moved until you've run up eighteen months rent. I once ran up four weeks in Lambeth when I was aht of a job in winter. They took the door off its inges and the winder aht of its sashes on me, and gave my wife pnoomownia. I'm a widower now. [Between his teeth] Gawd! when I think of the things we Englishmen av to put up with, and hear you Irish hahlin abaht your silly little grievances, and see the way you makes it worse for us by the rotten wages you'll come over and take and the rotten places you'll sleep in, I jast feel that I could take the oul bloomin British awland and make you a present of it, jast to let you find out wot real ardship's like. MATTHEW [starting up, more in scandalized incredulity than in anger]. D'ye have the face to set up England agen Ireland for injustices an wrongs an disthress an sufferin? HODSON [with intense disgust and contempt, but with Cockney coolness]. Ow, chuck it, Paddy. Cheese it. You danno wot ardship is over ere: all you know is ah to ahl abaht it. You take the biscuit at that, you do. I'm a Owm Ruler, I am. Do you know why? MATTHEW [equally contemptuous]. D'ye know, yourself? HODSON. Yes I do. It's because I want a little attention paid to my own country; and thet'll never be as long as your chaps are ollerin at Wesminister as if nowbody mettered but your own bloomin selves. Send em back to hell or C'naught, as good oul English Cromwell said. I'm jast sick of Ireland. Let it gow. Cut the cable. Make it a present to Germany to keep the oul Kyzer busy for a while; and give poor owld England a chawnce: thets wot I say. MATTHEW [full of scorn for a man so ignorant as to be unable to pronounce the word Connaught, which practically rhymes with bonnet in Ireland, though in Hodson's dialect it rhymes with untaught]. Take care we don't cut the cable ourselves some day, bad scran to you! An tell me dhis: have yanny Coercion Acs in England? Have yanny removables? Have you Dublin Castle to suppress every newspaper dhat takes the part o your own counthry? HODSON. We can beyave ahrselves withaht sich things. MATTHEW. Bedad you're right. It'd only be waste o time to muzzle a sheep. Here! where's me pig? God forgimme for talkin to a poor ignorant craycher like you. HODSON [grinning with good-humored malice, too convinced of his own superiority to feel his withers wrung]. Your pig'll ave a rare doin in that car, Paddy. Forty miles an ahr dahn that rocky lane will strike it pretty pink, you bet. MATTHEW [scornfully]. Hwy can't you tell a raisonable lie when you're about it? What horse can go forty mile an hour? HODSON. Orse! Wy, you silly oul rotten it's not a orse it's a mowtor. Do you suppose Tom Broadbent would gow off himself to arness a orse? MATTHEW [in consternation]. Holy Moses! Don't tell me it's the ingine he wants to take me on. HODSON. Wot else? MATTHEW. Your sowl to Morris Kelly! why didn't you tell me that before? The divil an ingine he'll get me on this day. [His ear catches an approaching teuf-teuf] Oh murdher! it's comin afther me: I hear the puff puff of it. [He runs away through the gate, much to Hodson's amusement. The noise of the motor ceases; and Hodson, anticipating Broadbent's return, throws off the politician and recomposes himself as a valet. Broadbent and Larry come through the shrubbery. Hodson moves aside to the gate]. BROADBENT. Where is Mr Haffigan? Has he gone for the pig? HODSON. Bolted, sir! Afraid of the motor, sir. BROADBENT [much disappointed]. Oh, that's very tiresome. Did he leave any message? HODSON. He was in too great a hurry, sir. Started to run home, sir, and left his pig behind him. BROADBENT [eagerly]. Left the pig! Then it's all right. The pig's the thing: the pig will win over every Irish heart to me. We'll take the pig home to Haffigan's farm in the motor: it will have a tremendous effect. Hodson! HODSON. Yes sir? BROADBENT. Do you think you could collect a crowd to see the motor? HODSON. Well, I'll try, sir. BROADBENT. Thank you, Hodson: do. Hodson goes out through the gate. LARRY [desperately]. Once more, Tom, will you listen to me? BROADBENT. Rubbish! I tell you it will be all right. LARRY. Only this morning you confessed how surprised you were to find that the people here showed no sense of humor. BROADBENT [suddenly very solemn]. Yes: their sense of humor is in abeyance: I noticed it the moment we landed. Think of that in a country where every man is a born humorist! Think of what it means! [Impressively] Larry we are in the presence of a great national grief. LARRY. What's to grieve them? BROADBENT. I divined it, Larry: I saw it in their faces. Ireland has never smiled since her hopes were buried in the grave of Gladstone. LARRY. Oh, what's the use of talking to such a man? Now look here, Tom. Be serious for a moment if you can. BROADBENT [stupent] Serious! I!!! LARRY. Yes, you. You say the Irish sense of humor is in abeyance. Well, if you drive through Rosscullen in a motor car with Haffigan's pig, it won't stay in abeyance. Now I warn you. BROADBENT [breezily]. Why, so much the better! I shall enjoy the joke myself more than any of them. [Shouting] Hallo, Patsy Farrell, where are you? PATSY [appearing in the shrubbery]. Here I am, your honor. BROADBENT. Go and catch the pig and put it into the car--we're going to take it to Mr Haffigan's. [He gives Larry a slap on the shoulders that sends him staggering off through the gate, and follows him buoyantly, exclaiming] Come on, you old croaker! I'll show you how to win an Irish seat. PATSY [meditatively]. Bedad, if dhat pig gets a howlt o the handle o the machine-- [He shakes his head ominously and drifts away to the pigsty]. ACT IV The parlor in Cornelius Doyle's house. It communicates with the garden by a half glazed door. The fireplace is at the other side of the room, opposite the door and windows, the architect not having been sensitive to draughts. The table, rescued from the garden, is in the middle; and at it sits Keegan, the central figure in a rather crowded apartment. Nora, sitting with her back to the fire at the end of the table, is playing backgammon across its corner with him, on his left hand. Aunt Judy, a little further back, sits facing the fire knitting, with her feet on the fender. A little to Keegan's right, in front of the table, and almost sitting on it, is Barney Doran. Half a dozen friends of his, all men, are between him and the open door, supported by others outside. In the corner behind them is the sofa, of mahogany and horsehair, made up as a bed for Broadbent. Against the wall behind Keegan stands a mahogany sideboard. A door leading to the interior of the house is near the fireplace, behind Aunt Judy. There are chairs against the wall, one at each end of the sideboard. Keegan's hat is on the one nearest the inner door; and his stick is leaning against it. A third chair, also against the wall, is near the garden door. There is a strong contrast of emotional atmosphere between the two sides of the room. Keegan is extraordinarily stern: no game of backgammon could possibly make a man's face so grim. Aunt Judy is quietly busy. Nora it trying to ignore Doran and attend to her game. On the other hand Doran is reeling in an ecstasy of mischievous mirth which has infected all his friends. They are screaming with laughter, doubled up, leaning on the furniture and against the walls, shouting, screeching, crying. AUNT JUDY [as the noise lulls for a moment]. Arra hold your noise, Barney. What is there to laugh at? DORAN. It got its fut into the little hweel--[he is overcome afresh; and the rest collapse again]. AUNT JUDY. Ah, have some sense: you're like a parcel o childher. Nora, hit him a thump on the back: he'll have a fit. DORAN [with squeezed eyes, exsuflicate with cachinnation] Frens, he sez to dhem outside Doolan's: I'm takin the gintleman that pays the rint for a dhrive. AUNT JUDY. Who did he mean be that? DORAN. They call a pig that in England. That's their notion of a joke. AUNT JUDY. Musha God help them if they can joke no better than that! DORAN [with renewed symptoms]. Thin-- AUNT JUDY. Ah now don't be tellin it all over and settin yourself off again, Barney. NORA. You've told us three times, Mr Doran. DORAN. Well but whin I think of it--! AUNT JUDY. Then don't think of it, alanna. DORAN. There was Patsy Farrll in the back sate wi dhe pig between his knees, n me bould English boyoh in front at the machinery, n Larry Doyle in the road startin the injine wid a bed winch. At the first puff of it the pig lep out of its skin and bled Patsy's nose wi dhe ring in its snout. [Roars of laughter: Keegan glares at them]. Before Broadbint knew hwere he was, the pig was up his back and over into his lap; and bedad the poor baste did credit to Corny's thrainin of it; for it put in the fourth speed wid its right crubeen as if it was enthered for the Gordn Bennett. NORA [reproachfully]. And Larry in front of it and all! It's nothn to laugh at, Mr Doran. DORAN. Bedad, Miss Reilly, Larry cleared six yards backwards at wan jump if he cleared an inch; and he'd a cleared seven if Doolan's granmother hadn't cotch him in her apern widhout intindin to. [Immense merriment]. AUNT JUDY, Ah, for shame, Barney! the poor old woman! An she was hurt before, too, when she slipped on the stairs. DORAN. Bedad, ma'am, she's hurt behind now; for Larry bouled her over like a skittle. [General delight at this typical stroke of Irish Rabelaisianism]. NORA. It's well the lad wasn't killed. DORAN. Faith it wasn't o Larry we were thinkin jus dhen, wi dhe pig takin the main sthreet o Rosscullen on market day at a mile a minnit. Dh ony thing Broadbint could get at wi dhe pig in front of him was a fut brake; n the pig's tail was undher dhat; so that whin he thought he was putn non the brake he was ony squeezin the life out o the pig's tail. The more he put the brake on the more the pig squealed n the fasther he dhruv. AUNT JUDY. Why couldn't he throw the pig out into the road? DORAN. Sure he couldn't stand up to it, because he was spanchelled-like between his seat and dhat thing like a wheel on top of a stick between his knees. AUNT JUDY. Lord have mercy on us! NORA. I don't know how you can laugh. Do you, Mr Keegan? KEEGAN [grimly]. Why not? There is danger, destruction, torment! What more do we want to make us merry? Go on, Barney: the last drops of joy are not squeezed from the story yet. Tell us again how our brother was torn asunder. DORAN [puzzled]. Whose bruddher? KEEGAN. Mine. NORA. He means the pig, Mr Doran. You know his way. DORAN [rising gallantly to the occasion]. Bedad I'm sorry for your poor bruddher, Misther Keegan; but I recommend you to thry him wid a couple o fried eggs for your breakfast tomorrow. It was a case of Excelsior wi dhat ambitious baste; for not content wid jumpin from the back seat into the front wan, he jumped from the front wan into the road in front of the car. And-- KEEGAN. And everybody laughed! NORA. Don't go over that again, please, Mr Doran. DORAN. Faith be the time the car went over the poor pig dhere was little left for me or anywan else to go over except wid a knife an fork. AUNT JUDY. Why didn't Mr Broadbent stop the car when the pig was gone? DORAN. Stop the car! He might as well ha thried to stop a mad bull. First it went wan way an made fireworks o Molly Ryan's crockery stall; an dhen it slewed round an ripped ten fut o wall out o the corner o the pound. [With enormous enjoyment] Begob, it just tore the town in two and sent the whole dam market to blazes. [Nora offended, rises]. KEEGAN [indignantly]. Sir! DORAN [quickly]. Savin your presence, Miss Reilly, and Misther Keegan's. Dhere! I won't say anuddher word. NORA. I'm surprised at you, Mr Doran. [She sits down again]. DORAN [refectively]. He has the divil's own luck, that Englishman, annyway; for when they picked him up he hadn't a scratch on him, barrn hwat the pig did to his cloes. Patsy had two fingers out o jynt; but the smith pulled them sthraight for him. Oh, you never heard such a hullaballoo as there was. There was Molly, cryin Me chaney, me beautyful chaney! n oul Mat shoutin Me pig, me pig! n the polus takin the number o the car, n not a man in the town able to speak for laughin-- KEEGAN [with intense emphasis]. It is hell: it is hell. Nowhere else could such a scene be a burst of happiness for the people. Cornelius comes in hastily from the garden, pushing his way through the little crowd. CORNELIUS. Whisht your laughin, boys! Here he is. [He puts his hat on the sideboard, and goes to the fireplace, where he posts himself with his back to the chimneypiece]. AUNT JUDY. Remember your behavior, now. Everybody becomes silent, solemn, concerned, sympathetic. Broadbent enters, roiled and disordered as to his motoring coat: immensely important and serious as to himself. He makes his way to the end of the table nearest the garden door, whilst Larry, who accompanies him, throws his motoring coat on the sofa bed, and sits down, watching the proceedings. BROADBENT [taking off his leather cap with dignity and placing it on the table]. I hope you have not been anxious about me. AUNT JUDY. Deedn we have, Mr Broadbent. It's a mercy you weren't killed. DORAN. Kilt! It's a mercy dheres two bones of you left houldin together. How dijjescape at all at all? Well, I never thought I'd be so glad to see you safe and sound again. Not a man in the town would say less [murmurs of kindly assent]. Won't you come down to Doolan's and have a dhrop o brandy to take the shock off? BROADBENT. You're all really too kind; but the shock has quite passed off. DORAN [jovially]. Never mind. Come along all the same and tell us about it over a frenly glass. BROADBENT. May I say how deeply I feel the kindness with which I have been overwhelmed since my accident? I can truthfully declare that I am glad it happened, because it has brought out the kindness and sympathy of the Irish character to an extent I had no conception of. SEVERAL {Oh, sure you're welcome! PRESENT. {Sure it's only natural. {Sure you might have been kilt. A young man, on the point of bursting, hurries out. Barney puts an iron constraint on his features. BROADBENT. All I can say is that I wish I could drink the health of everyone of you. DORAN. Dhen come an do it. BROADBENT [very solemnly]. No: I am a teetotaller. AUNT JUDY [incredulously]. Arra since when? BROADBENT. Since this morning, Miss Doyle. I have had a lesson [he looks at Nora significantly] that I shall not forget. It may be that total abstinence has already saved my life; for I was astonished at the steadiness of my nerves when death stared me in the face today. So I will ask you to excuse me. [He collects himself for a speech]. Gentlemen: I hope the gravity of the peril through which we have all passed--for I know that the danger to the bystanders was as great as to the occupants of the car--will prove an earnest of closer and more serious relations between us in the future. We have had a somewhat agitating day: a valuable and innocent animal has lost its life: a public building has been wrecked: an aged and infirm lady has suffered an impact for which I feel personally responsible, though my old friend Mr Laurence Doyle unfortunately incurred the first effects of her very natural resentment. I greatly regret the damage to Mr Patrick Farrell's fingers; and I have of course taken care that he shall not suffer pecuniarily by his mishap. [Murmurs of admiration at his magnanimity, and A Voice "You're a gentleman, sir"]. I am glad to say that Patsy took it like an Irishman, and, far from expressing any vindictive feeling, declared his willingness to break all his fingers and toes for me on the same terms [subdued applause, and "More power to Patsy!"]. Gentlemen: I felt at home in Ireland from the first [rising excitement among his hearers]. In every Irish breast I have found that spirit of liberty [A cheery voice "Hear Hear"], that instinctive mistrust of the Government [A small pious voice, with intense expression, "God bless you, sir!"], that love of independence [A defiant voice, "That's it! Independence!"], that indignant sympathy with the cause of oppressed nationalities abroad [A threatening growl from all: the ground-swell of patriotic passion], and with the resolute assertion of personal rights at home, which is all but extinct in my own country. If it were legally possible I should become a naturalized Irishman; and if ever it be my good fortune to represent an Irish constituency in parliament, it shall be my first care to introduce a Bill legalizing such an operation. I believe a large section of the Liberal party would avail themselves of it. [Momentary scepticism]. I do. [Convulsive cheering]. Gentlemen: I have said enough. [Cries of "Go on"]. No: I have as yet no right to address you at all on political subjects; and we must not abuse the warmhearted Irish hospitality of Miss Doyle by turning her sittingroom into a public meeting. DORAN [energetically]. Three cheers for Tom Broadbent, the future member for Rosscullen! AUNT JUDY [waving a half knitted sock]. Hip hip hurray! The cheers are given with great heartiness, as it is by this time, for the more humorous spirits present, a question of vociferation or internal rupture. BROADBENT. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, friends. NORA [whispering to Doran]. Take them away, Mr Doran [Doran nods]. DORAN. Well, good evenin, Mr Broadbent; an may you never regret the day you wint dhrivin wid Halligan's pig! [They shake hands]. Good evenin, Miss Doyle. General handshaking, Broadbent shaking hands with everybody effusively. He accompanies them to the garden and can be heard outside saying Goodnight in every inflexion known to parliamentary candidates. Nora, Aunt Judy, Keegan, Larry, and Cornelius are left in the parlor. Larry goes to the threshold and watches the scene in the garden. NORA. It's a shame to make game of him like that. He's a gradle more good in him than Barney Doran. CORNELIUS. It's all up with his candidature. He'll be laughed out o the town. LARRY [turning quickly from the doorway]. Oh no he won't: he's not an Irishman. He'll never know they're laughing at him; and while they're laughing he'll win the seat. CORNELIUS. But he can't prevent the story getting about. LARRY. He won't want to. He'll tell it himself as one of the most providential episodes in the history of England and Ireland. AUNT JUDY. Sure he wouldn't make a fool of himself like that. LARRY. Are you sure he's such a fool after all, Aunt Judy? Suppose you had a vote! which would you rather give it to? the man that told the story of Haffigan's pig Barney Doran's way or Broadbent's way? AUNT JUDY. Faith I wouldn't give it to a man at all. It's a few women they want in parliament to stop their foolish blather. BROADBENT [bustling into the room, and taking off his damaged motoring overcoat, which he put down on the sofa]. Well, that's over. I must apologize for making that speech, Miss Doyle; but they like it, you know. Everything helps in electioneering. Larry takes the chair near the door; draws it near the table; and sits astride it, with his elbows folded on the back. AUNT JUDY. I'd no notion you were such an orator, Mr Broadbent. BROADBENT. Oh, it's only a knack. One picks it up on the platform. It stokes up their enthusiasm. AUNT JUDY. Oh, I forgot. You've not met Mr Keegan. Let me introjooce you. BROADBENT [shaking hands effusively]. Most happy to meet you, Mr Keegan. I have heard of you, though I have not had the pleasure of shaking your hand before. And now may I ask you--for I value no man's opinion more--what you think of my chances here. KEEGAN [coldly]. Your chances, sir, are excellent. You will get into parliament. BROADBENT [delighted]. I hope so. I think so. [Fluctuating] You really think so? You are sure you are not allowing your enthusiasm for our principles to get the better of your judgment? KEEGAN. I have no enthusiasm for your principles, sir. You will get into parliament because you want to get into it badly enough to be prepared to take the necessary steps to induce the people to vote for you. That is how people usually get into that fantastic assembly. BROADBENT [puzzled]. Of course. [Pause]. Quite so. [Pause]. Er--yes. [Buoyant again] I think they will vote for me. Eh? Yes? AUNT JUDY. Arra why shouldn't they? Look at the people they DO vote for! BROADBENT [encouraged]. That's true: that's very true. When I see the windbags, the carpet-baggers, the charlatans, the--the--the fools and ignoramuses who corrupt the multitude by their wealth, or seduce them by spouting balderdash to them, I cannot help thinking that an honest man with no humbug about him, who will talk straight common sense and take his stand on the solid ground of principle and public duty, must win his way with men of all classes. KEEGAN [quietly]. Sir: there was a time, in my ignorant youth, when I should have called you a hypocrite. BROADBENT [reddening]. A hypocrite! NORA [hastily]. Oh I'm sure you don't think anything of the sort, Mr Keegan. BROADBENT [emphatically]. Thank you, Miss Reilly: thank you. CORNELIUS [gloomily]. We all have to stretch it a bit in politics: hwat's the use o pretendin we don't? BROADBENT [stiffly]. I hope I have said or done nothing that calls for any such observation, Mr Doyle. If there is a vice I detest--or against which my whole public life has been a protest--it is the vice of hypocrisy. I would almost rather be inconsistent than insincere. KEEGAN. Do not be offended, sir: I know that you are quite sincere. There is a saying in the Scripture which runs--so far as the memory of an oldish man can carry the words--Let not the right side of your brain know what the left side doeth. I learnt at Oxford that this is the secret of the Englishman's strange power of making the best of both worlds. BROADBENT. Surely the text refers to our right and left hands. I am somewhat surprised to hear a member of your Church quote so essentially Protestant a document as the Bible; but at least you might quote it accurately. LARRY. Tom: with the best intentions you're making an ass of yourself. You don't understand Mr Keegan's peculiar vein of humor. BROADBENT [instantly recovering his confidence]. Ah! it was only your delightful Irish humor, Mr Keegan. Of course, of course. How stupid of me! I'm so sorry. [He pats Keegan consolingly on the back]. John Bull's wits are still slow, you see. Besides, calling me a hypocrite was too big a joke to swallow all at once, you know. KEEGAN. You must also allow for the fact that I am mad. NORA. Ah, don't talk like that, Mr Keegan. BROADBENT [encouragingly]. Not at all, not at all. Only a whimsical Irishman, eh? LARRY. Are you really mad, Mr Keegan? AUNT JUDY [shocked]. Oh, Larry, how could you ask him such a thing? LARRY. I don't think Mr Keegan minds. [To Keegan] What's the true version of the story of that black man you confessed on his deathbed? KEEGAN. What story have you heard about that? LARRY. I am informed that when the devil came for the black heathen, he took off your head and turned it three times round before putting it on again; and that your head's been turned ever since. NORA [reproachfully]. Larry! KEEGAN [blandly]. That is not quite what occurred. [He collects himself for a serious utterance: they attend involuntarily]. I heard that a black man was dying, and that the people were afraid to go near him. When I went to the place I found an elderly Hindoo, who told me one of those tales of unmerited misfortune, of cruel ill luck, of relentless persecution by destiny, which sometimes wither the commonplaces of consolation on the lips of a priest. But this man did not complain of his misfortunes. They were brought upon him, he said, by sins committed in a former existence. Then, without a word of comfort from me, he died with a clear-eyed resignation that my most earnest exhortations have rarely produced in a Christian, and left me sitting there by his bedside with the mystery of this world suddenly revealed to me. BROADBENT. That is a remarkable tribute to the liberty of conscience enjoyed by the subjects of our Indian Empire. LARRY. No doubt; but may we venture to ask what is the mystery of this world? KEEGAN. This world, sir, is very clearly a place of torment and penance, a place where the fool flourishes and the good and wise are hated and persecuted, a place where men and women torture one another in the name of love; where children are scourged and enslaved in the name of parental duty and education; where the weak in body are poisoned and mutilated in the name of healing, and the weak in character are put to the horrible torture of imprisonment, not for hours but for years, in the name of justice. It is a place where the hardest toil is a welcome refuge from the horror and tedium of pleasure, and where charity and good works are done only for hire to ransom the souls of the spoiler and the sybarite. Now, sir, there is only one place of horror and torment known to my religion; and that place is hell. Therefore it is plain to me that this earth of ours must be hell, and that we are all here, as the Indian revealed to me--perhaps he was sent to reveal it to me to expiate crimes committed by us in a former existence. AUNT JUDY [awestruck]. Heaven save us, what a thing to say! CORNELIUS [sighing]. It's a queer world: that's certain. BROADBENT. Your idea is a very clever one, Mr Keegan: really most brilliant: I should never have thought of it. But it seems to me--if I may say so--that you are overlooking the fact that, of the evils you describe, some are absolutely necessary for the preservation of society, and others are encouraged only when the Tories are in office. LARRY. I expect you were a Tory in a former existence; and that is why you are here. BROADBENT [with conviction]. Never, Larry, never. But leaving politics out of the question, I find the world quite good enough for me: rather a jolly place, in fact. KEEGAN [looking at him with quiet wonder]. You are satisfied? BROADBENT. As a reasonable man, yes. I see no evils in the world--except, of course, natural evils--that cannot be remedied by freedom, self-government, and English institutions. I think so, not because I am an Englishman, but as a matter of common sense. KEEGAN. You feel at home in the world, then? BROADBENT. Of course. Don't you? KEEGAN [from the very depths of his nature]. No. BROADBENT [breezily]. Try phosphorus pills. I always take them when my brain is overworked. I'll give you the address in Oxford Street. KEEGAN [enigmatically: rising]. Miss Doyle: my wandering fit has come on me: will you excuse me? AUNT JUDY. To be sure: you know you can come in n nout as you like. KEEGAN. We can finish the game some other time, Miss Reilly. [He goes for his hat and stick. NORA. No: I'm out with you [she disarranges the pieces and rises]. I was too wicked in a former existence to play backgammon with a good man like you. AUNT JUDY [whispering to her]. Whisht, whisht, child! Don't set him back on that again. KEEGAN [to Nora]. When I look at you, I think that perhaps Ireland is only purgatory, after all. [He passes on to the garden door]. NORA. Galong with you! BROADBENT [whispering to Cornelius]. Has he a vote? CORNELIUS [nodding]. Yes. An there's lots'll vote the way he tells them. KEEGAN [at the garden door, with gentle gravity]. Good evening, Mr Broadbent. You have set me thinking. Thank you. BROADBENT [delighted, hurrying across to him to shake hands]. No, really? You find that contact with English ideas is stimulating, eh? KEEGAN. I am never tired of hearing you talk, Mr Broadbent. BROADBENT [modestly remonstrating]. Oh come! come! KEEGAN. Yes, I assure you. You are an extremely interesting man. [He goes out]. BROADBENT [enthusiastically]. What a nice chap! What an intelligent, interesting fellow! By the way, I'd better have a wash. [He takes up his coat and cap, and leaves the room through the inner door]. Nora returns to her chair and shuts up the backgammon board. AUNT JUDY. Keegan's very queer to-day. He has his mad fit on him. CORNELIUS [worried and bitter]. I wouldn't say but he's right after all. It's a contrairy world. [To Larry]. Why would you be such a fool as to let him take the seat in parliament from you? LARRY [glancing at Nora]. He will take more than that from me before he's done here. CORNELIUS. I wish he'd never set foot in my house, bad luck to his fat face! D'ye think he'd lend me 300 pounds on the farm, Larry? When I'm so hard up, it seems a waste o money not to mortgage it now it's me own. LARRY. I can lend you 300 pounds on it. CORNELIUS. No, no: I wasn't putn in for that. When I die and leave you the farm I should like to be able to feel that it was all me own, and not half yours to start with. Now I'll take me oath Barney Doarn's goin to ask Broadbent to lend him 500 pounds on the mill to put in a new hweel; for the old one'll harly hol together. An Haffigan can't sleep with covetn that corner o land at the foot of his medda that belongs to Doolan. He'll have to mortgage to buy it. I may as well be first as last. D'ye think Broadbent'd len me a little? LARRY. I'm quite sure he will. CORNELIUS. Is he as ready as that? Would he len me five hunderd, d'ye think? LARRY. He'll lend you more than the land'll ever be worth to you; so for Heaven's sake be prudent. CORNELIUS [judicially]. All right, all right, me son: I'll be careful. I'm goin into the office for a bit. [He withdraws through the inner door, obviously to prepare his application to Broadbent]. AUNT JUDY [indignantly]. As if he hadn't seen enough o borryin when he was an agent without beginnin borryin himself! [She rises]. I'll bory him, so I will. [She puts her knitting on the table and follows him out, with a resolute air that bodes trouble for Cornelius]. Larry and Nora are left together for the first time since his arrival. She looks at him with a smile that perishes as she sees him aimlessly rocking his chair, and reflecting, evidently not about her, with his lips pursed as if he were whistling. With a catch in her throat she takes up Aunt Judy's knitting, and makes a pretence of going on with it. NORA. I suppose it didn't seem very long to you. LARRY [starting]. Eh? What didn't? NORA. The eighteen years you've been away. LARRY. Oh, that! No: it seems hardly more than a week. I've been so busy--had so little time to think. NORA. I've had nothin else to do but think. LARRY. That was very bad for you. Why didn't you give it up? Why did you stay here? NORA. Because nobody sent for me to go anywhere else, I suppose. That's why. LARRY. Yes: one does stick frightfully in the same place, unless some external force comes and routs one out. [He yawns slightly; but as she looks up quickly at him, he pulls himself together and rises with an air of waking up and getting to work cheerfully to make himself agreeable]. And how have you been all this time? NORA. Quite well, thank you. LARRY. That's right. [Suddenly finding that he has nothing else to say, and being ill at ease in consequence, he strolls about the room humming a certain tune from Offenbach's Whittington]. NORA [struggling with her tears]. Is that all you have to say to me, Larry? LARRY. Well, what is there to say? You see, we know each other so well. NORA [a little consoled]. Yes: of course we do. [He does not reply]. I wonder you came back at all. LARRY. I couldn't help it. [She looks up affectionately]. Tom made me. [She looks down again quickly to conceal the effect of this blow. He whistles another stave; then resumes]. I had a sort of dread of returning to Ireland. I felt somehow that my luck would turn if I came back. And now here I am, none the worse. NORA. Praps it's a little dull for you. LARRY. No: I haven't exhausted the interest of strolling about the old places and remembering and romancing about them. NORA [hopefully]. Oh! You DO remember the places, then? LARRY. Of course. They have associations. NORA [not doubting that the associations are with her]. I suppose so. LARRY. M'yes. I can remember particular spots where I had long fits of thinking about the countries I meant to get to when I escaped from Ireland. America and London, and sometimes Rome and the east. NORA [deeply mortified]. Was that all you used to be thinking about? LARRY. Well, there was precious little else to think about here, my dear Nora, except sometimes at sunset, when one got maudlin and called Ireland Erin, and imagined one was remembering the days of old, and so forth. [He whistles Let Erin Remember]. NORA. Did jever get a letter I wrote you last February? LARRY. Oh yes; and I really intended to answer it. But I haven't had a moment; and I knew you wouldn't mind. You see, I am so afraid of boring you by writing about affairs you don't understand and people you don't know! And yet what else have I to write about? I begin a letter; and then I tear it up again. The fact is, fond as we are of one another, Nora, we have so little in common--I mean of course the things one can put in a letter--that correspondence is apt to become the hardest of hard work. NORA. Yes: it's hard for me to know anything about you if you never tell me anything. LARRY [pettishly]. Nora: a man can't sit down and write his life day by day when he's tired enough with having lived it. NORA. I'm not blaming you. LARRY [looking at her with some concern]. You seem rather out of spirits. [Going closer to her, anxiously and tenderly] You haven't got neuralgia, have you? NORA. No. LARRY [reassured]. I get a touch of it sometimes when I am below par. [absently, again strolling about] Yes, yes. [He begins to hum again, and soon breaks into articulate melody]. Though summer smiles on here for ever, Though not a leaf falls from the tree, Tell England I'll forget her never, [Nora puts down the knitting and stares at him]. O wind that blows across the sea. [With much expression] Tell England I'll forget her ne-e-e-e-ver O wind that blows acro-oss-- [Here the melody soars out of his range. He continues falsetto, but changes the tune to Let Erin Remember]. I'm afraid I'm boring you, Nora, though you're too kind to say so. NORA. Are you wanting to get back to England already? LARRY. Not at all. Not at all. NORA. That's a queer song to sing to me if you're not. LARRY. The song! Oh, it doesn't mean anything: it's by a German Jew, like most English patriotic sentiment. Never mind me, my dear: go on with your work; and don't let me bore you. NORA [bitterly]. Rosscullen isn't such a lively place that I am likely to be bored by you at our first talk together after eighteen years, though you don't seem to have much to say to me after all. LARRY. Eighteen years is a devilish long time, Nora. Now if it had been eighteen minutes, or even eighteen months, we should be able to pick up the interrupted thread, and chatter like two magpies. But as it is, I have simply nothing to say; and you seem to have less. NORA. I--[her tears choke her; but the keeps up appearances desperately]. LARRY [quite unconscious of his cruelty]. In a week or so we shall be quite old friends again. Meanwhile, as I feel that I am not making myself particularly entertaining, I'll take myself off. Tell Tom I've gone for a stroll over the hill. NORA. You seem very fond of Tom, as you call him. LARRY [the triviality going suddenly out of his voice]. Yes I'm fond of Tom. NORA. Oh, well, don't let me keep you from him. LARRY. I know quite well that my departure will be a relief. Rather a failure, this first meeting after eighteen years, eh? Well, never mind: these great sentimental events always are failures; and now the worst of it's over anyhow. [He goes out through the garden door]. Nora, left alone, struggles wildly to save herself from breaking down, and then drops her face on the table and gives way to a convulsion of crying. Her sobs shake her so that she can hear nothing; and she has no suspicion that she is no longer alone until her head and breast are raised by Broadbent, who, returning newly washed and combed through the inner door, has seen her condition, first with surprise and concern, and then with an emotional disturbance that quite upsets him. BROADBENT. Miss Reilly. Miss Reilly. What's the matter? Don't cry: I can't stand it: you mustn't cry. [She makes a choked effort to speak, so painful that he continues with impulsive sympathy] No: don't try to speak: it's all right now. Have your cry out: never mind me: trust me. [Gathering her to him, and babbling consolatorily] Cry on my chest: the only really comfortable place for a woman to cry is a man's chest: a real man, a real friend. A good broad chest, eh? not less than forty-two inches--no: don't fuss: never mind the conventions: we're two friends, aren't we? Come now, come, come! It's all right and comfortable and happy now, isn't it? NORA [through her tears]. Let me go. I want me hankerchief. BROADBENT [holding her with one arm and producing a large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket]. Here's a handkerchief. Let me [he dabs her tears dry with it]. Never mind your own: it's too small: it's one of those wretched little cambric handkerchiefs-- NORA [sobbing]. Indeed it's a common cotton one. BROADBENT. Of course it's a common cotton one--silly little cotton one--not good enough for the dear eyes of Nora Cryna-- NORA [spluttering into a hysterical laugh and clutching him convulsively with her fingers while she tries to stifle her laughter against his collar bone]. Oh don't make me laugh: please don't make me laugh. BROADBENT [terrified]. I didn't mean to, on my soul. What is it? What is it? NORA. Nora Creena, Nora Creena. BROADBENT [patting her]. Yes, yes, of course, Nora Creena, Nora acushla [he makes cush rhyme to plush]. NORA. Acushla [she makes cush rhyme to bush]. BROADBENT. Oh, confound the language! Nora darling--my Nora--the Nora I love-- NORA [shocked into propriety]. You mustn't talk like that to me. BROADBENT [suddenly becoming prodigiously solemn and letting her go]. No, of course not. I don't mean it--at least I do mean it; but I know it's premature. I had no right to take advantage of your being a little upset; but I lost my self-control for a moment. NORA [wondering at him]. I think you're a very kindhearted man, Mr Broadbent; but you seem to me to have no self-control at all [she turns her face away with a keen pang of shame and adds] no more than myself. BROADBENT [resolutely]. Oh yes, I have: you should see me when I am really roused: then I have TREMENDOUS self-control. Remember: we have been alone together only once before; and then, I regret to say, I was in a disgusting state. NORA. Ah no, Mr Broadbent: you weren't disgusting. BROADBENT [mercilessly]. Yes I was: nothing can excuse it: perfectly beastly. It must have made a most unfavorable impression on you. NORA. Oh, sure it's all right. Say no more about that. BROADBENT. I must, Miss Reilly: it is my duty. I shall not detain you long. May I ask you to sit down. [He indicates her chair with oppressive solemnity. She sits down wondering. He then, with the same portentous gravity, places a chair for himself near her; sits down; and proceeds to explain]. First, Miss Reilly, may I say that I have tasted nothing of an alcoholic nature today. NORA. It doesn't seem to make as much difference in you as it would in an Irishman, somehow. BROADBENT. Perhaps not. Perhaps not. I never quite lose myself. NORA [consolingly]. Well, anyhow, you're all right now. BROADBENT [fervently]. Thank you, Miss Reilly: I am. Now we shall get along. [Tenderly, lowering his voice] Nora: I was in earnest last night. [Nora moves as if to rise]. No: one moment. You must not think I am going to press you for an answer before you have known me for 24 hours. I am a reasonable man, I hope; and I am prepared to wait as long as you like, provided you will give me some small assurance that the answer will not be unfavorable. NORA. How could I go back from it if I did? I sometimes think you're not quite right in your head, Mr Broadbent, you say such funny things. BROADBENT. Yes: I know I have a strong sense of humor which sometimes makes people doubt whether I am quite serious. That is why I have always thought I should like to marry an Irishwoman. She would always understand my jokes. For instance, you would understand them, eh? NORA [uneasily]. Mr Broadbent, I couldn't. BROADBENT [soothingly]. Wait: let me break this to you gently, Miss Reilly: hear me out. I daresay you have noticed that in speaking to you I have been putting a very strong constraint on myself, so as to avoid wounding your delicacy by too abrupt an avowal of my feelings. Well, I feel now that the time has come to be open, to be frank, to be explicit. Miss Reilly: you have inspired in me a very strong attachment. Perhaps, with a woman's intuition, you have already guessed that. NORA [rising distractedly]. Why do you talk to me in that unfeeling nonsensical way? BROADBENT [rising also, much astonished]. Unfeeling! Nonsensical! NORA. Don't you know that you have said things to me that no man ought to say unless--unless--[she suddenly breaks down again and hides her face on the table as before] Oh, go away from me: I won't get married at all: what is it but heartbreak and disappointment? BROADBENT [developing the most formidable symptoms of rage and grief]. Do you mean to say that you are going to refuse me? that you don't care for me? NORA [looking at him in consternation]. Oh, don't take it to heart, Mr Br-- BROADBENT [flushed and almost choking]. I don't want to be petted and blarneyed. [With childish rage] I love you. I want you for my wife. [In despair] I can't help your refusing. I'm helpless: I can do nothing. You have no right to ruin my whole life. You--[a hysterical convulsion stops him]. NORA [almost awestruck]. You're not going to cry, are you? I never thought a man COULD cry. Don't. BROADBENT. I'm not crying. I--I--I leave that sort of thing to your damned sentimental Irishmen. You think I have no feeling because I am a plain unemotional Englishman, with no powers of expression. NORA. I don't think you know the sort of man you are at all. Whatever may be the matter with you, it's not want of feeling. BROADBENT [hurt and petulant]. It's you who have no feeling. You're as heartless as Larry. NORA. What do you expect me to do? Is it to throw meself at your head the minute the word is out o your mouth? BROADBENT [striking his silly head with his fists]. Oh, what a fool! what a brute I am! It's only your Irish delicacy: of course, of course. You mean Yes. Eh? What? Yes, yes, yes? NORA. I think you might understand that though I might choose to be an old maid, I could never marry anybody but you now. BROADBENT [clasping her violently to his breast, with a crow of immense relief and triumph]. Ah, that's right, that's right: That's magnificent. I knew you would see what a first-rate thing this will be for both of us. NORA [incommoded and not at all enraptured by his ardor]. You're dreadfully strong, an a gradle too free with your strength. An I never thought o whether it'd be a good thing for us or not. But when you found me here that time, I let you be kind to me, and cried in your arms, because I was too wretched to think of anything but the comfort of it. An how could I let any other man touch me after that? BROADBENT [touched]. Now that's very nice of you, Nora, that's really most delicately womanly [he kisses her hand chivalrously]. NORA [looking earnestly and a little doubtfully at him]. Surely if you let one woman cry on you like that you'd never let another touch you. BROADBENT [conscientiously]. One should not. One OUGHT not, my dear girl. But the honest truth is, if a chap is at all a pleasant sort of chap, his chest becomes a fortification that has to stand many assaults: at least it is so in England. NORA [curtly, much disgusted]. Then you'd better marry an Englishwoman. BROADBENT [making a wry face]. No, no: the Englishwoman is too prosaic for my taste, too material, too much of the animated beefsteak about her. The ideal is what I like. Now Larry's taste is just the opposite: he likes em solid and bouncing and rather keen about him. It's a very convenient difference; for we've never been in love with the same woman. NORA. An d'ye mean to tell me to me face that you've ever been in love before? BROADBENT. Lord! yes. NORA. I'm not your first love? BROADBENT. First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it. No, my dear Nora: I've done with all that long ago. Love affairs always end in rows. We're not going to have any rows: we're going to have a solid four-square home: man and wife: comfort and common sense--and plenty of affection, eh [he puts his arm round her with confident proprietorship]? NORA [coldly, trying to get away]. I don't want any other woman's leavings. BROADBENT [holding her]. Nobody asked you to, ma'am. I never asked any woman to marry me before. NORA [severely]. Then why didn't you if you're an honorable man? BROADBENT. Well, to tell you the truth, they were mostly married already. But never mind! there was nothing wrong. Come! Don't take a mean advantage of me. After all, you must have had a fancy or two yourself, eh? NORA [conscience-stricken]. Yes. I suppose I've no right to be particular. BROADBENT [humbly]. I know I'm not good enough for you, Nora. But no man is, you know, when the woman is a really nice woman. NORA. Oh, I'm no better than yourself. I may as well tell you about it. BROADBENT. No, no: let's have no telling: much better not. I shan't tell you anything: don't you tell ME anything. Perfect confidence in one another and no tellings: that's the way to avoid rows. NORA. Don't think it was anything I need be ashamed of. BROADBENT. I don't. NORA. It was only that I'd never known anybody else that I could care for; and I was foolish enough once to think that Larry-- BROADBENT [disposing of the idea at once]. Larry! Oh, that wouldn't have done at all, not at all. You don't know Larry as I do, my dear. He has absolutely no capacity for enjoyment: he couldn't make any woman happy. He's as clever as be-blowed; but life's too earthly for him: he doesn't really care for anything or anybody. NORA. I've found that out. BROADBENT. Of course you have. No, my dear: take my word for it, you're jolly well out of that. There! [swinging her round against his breast] that's much more comfortable for you. NORA [with Irish peevishness]. Ah, you mustn't go on like that. I don't like it. BROADBENT [unabashed]. You'll acquire the taste by degrees. You mustn't mind me: it's an absolute necessity of my nature that I should have somebody to hug occasionally. Besides, it's good for you: it'll plump out your muscles and make em elastic and set up your figure. NORA. Well, I'm sure! if this is English manners! Aren't you ashamed to talk about such things? BROADBENT [in the highest feather]. Not a bit. By George, Nora, it's a tremendous thing to be able to enjoy oneself. Let's go off for a walk out of this stuffy little room. I want the open air to expand in. Come along. Co-o-o-me along. [He puts her arm into his and sweeps her out into the garden as an equinoctial gale might sweep a dry leaf]. Later in the evening, the grasshopper is again enjoying the sunset by the great stone on the hill; but this time he enjoys neither the stimulus of Keegan's conversation nor the pleasure of terrifying Patsy Farrell. He is alone until Nora and Broadbent come up the hill arm in arm. Broadbent is still breezy and confident; but she has her head averted from him and is almost in tears]. BROADBENT [stopping to snuff up the hillside air]. Ah! I like this spot. I like this view. This would be a jolly good place for a hotel and a golf links. Friday to Tuesday, railway ticket and hotel all inclusive. I tell you, Nora, I'm going to develop this place. [Looking at her] Hallo! What's the matter? Tired? NORA [unable to restrain her tears]. I'm ashamed out o me life. BROADBENT [astonished]. Ashamed! What of? NORA. Oh, how could you drag me all round the place like that, telling everybody that we're going to be married, and introjoocing me to the lowest of the low, and letting them shake hans with me, and encouraging them to make free with us? I little thought I should live to be shaken hans with be Doolan in broad daylight in the public street of Rosscullen. BROADBENT. But, my dear, Doolan's a publican: a most influential man. By the way, I asked him if his wife would be at home tomorrow. He said she would; so you must take the motor car round and call on her. NORA [aghast]. Is it me call on Doolan's wife! BROADBENT. Yes, of course: call on all their wives. We must get a copy of the register and a supply of canvassing cards. No use calling on people who haven't votes. You'll be a great success as a canvasser, Nora: they call you the heiress; and they'll be flattered no end by your calling, especially as you've never cheapened yourself by speaking to them before--have you? NORA [indignantly]. Not likely, indeed. BROADBENT. Well, we mustn't be stiff and stand-off, you know. We must be thoroughly democratic, and patronize everybody without distinction of class. I tell you I'm a jolly lucky man, Nora Cryna. I get engaged to the most delightful woman in Ireland; and it turns out that I couldn't have done a smarter stroke of electioneering. NORA. An would you let me demean meself like that, just to get yourself into parliament? BROADBENT [buoyantly]. Aha! Wait till you find out what an exciting game electioneering is: you'll be mad to get me in. Besides, you'd like people to say that Tom Broadbent's wife had been the making of him--that she got him into parliament--into the Cabinet, perhaps, eh? NORA. God knows I don't grudge you me money! But to lower meself to the level of common people. BROADBENT. To a member's wife, Nora, nobody is common provided he's on the register. Come, my dear! it's all right: do you think I'd let you do it if it wasn't? The best people do it. Everybody does it. NORA [who has been biting her lip and looking over the hill, disconsolate and unconvinced]. Well, praps you know best what they do in England. They must have very little respect for themselves. I think I'll go in now. I see Larry and Mr Keegan coming up the hill; and I'm not fit to talk to them. BROADBENT. Just wait and say something nice to Keegan. They tell me he controls nearly as many votes as Father Dempsey himself. NORA. You little know Peter Keegan. He'd see through me as if I was a pane o glass. BROADBENT. Oh, he won't like it any the less for that. What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering. Not that I would flatter any man: don't think that. I'll just go and meet him. [He goes down the hill with the eager forward look of a man about to greet a valued acquaintance. Nora dries her eyes, and turns to go as Larry strolls up the hill to her]. LARRY. Nora. [She turns and looks at him hardly, without a word. He continues anxiously, in his most conciliatory tone]. When I left you that time, I was just as wretched as you. I didn't rightly know what I wanted to say; and my tongue kept clacking to cover the loss I was at. Well, I've been thinking ever since; and now I know what I ought to have said. I've come back to say it. NORA. You've come too late, then. You thought eighteen years was not long enough, and that you might keep me waiting a day longer. Well, you were mistaken. I'm engaged to your friend Mr Broadbent; and I'm done with you. LARRY [naively]. But that was the very thing I was going to advise you to do. NORA [involuntarily]. Oh you brute! to tell me that to me face. LARRY [nervously relapsing into his most Irish manner]. Nora, dear, don't you understand that I'm an Irishman, and he's an Englishman. He wants you; and he grabs you. I want you; and I quarrel with you and have to go on wanting you. NORA. So you may. You'd better go back to England to the animated beefsteaks you're so fond of. LARRY [amazed]. Nora! [Guessing where she got the metaphor] He's been talking about me, I see. Well, never mind: we must be friends, you and I. I don't want his marriage to you to be his divorce from me. NORA. You care more for him than you ever did for me. LARRY [with curt sincerity]. Yes of course I do: why should I tell you lies about it? Nora Reilly was a person of very little consequence to me or anyone else outside this miserable little hole. But Mrs Tom Broadbent will be a person of very considerable consequence indeed. Play your new part well, and there will be no more neglect, no more loneliness, no more idle regrettings and vain-hopings in the evenings by the Round Tower, but real life and real work and real cares and real joys among real people: solid English life in London, the very centre of the world. You will find your work cut out for you keeping Tom's house and entertaining Tom's friends and getting Tom into parliament; but it will be worth the effort. NORA. You talk as if I were under an obligation to him for marrying me. LARRY. I talk as I think. You've made a very good match, let me tell you. NORA. Indeed! Well, some people might say he's not done so badly himself. LARRY. If you mean that you will be a treasure to him, he thinks so now; and you can keep him thinking so if you like. NORA. I wasn't thinking o meself at all. LARRY. Were you thinking of your money, Nora? NORA. I didn't say so. LARRY. Your money will not pay your cook's wages in London. NORA [flaming up]. If that's true--and the more shame for you to throw it in my face if it IS true--at all events it'll make us independent; for if the worst comes to the worst, we can always come back here an live on it. An if I have to keep his house for him, at all events I can keep you out of it; for I've done with you; and I wish I'd never seen you. So goodbye to you, Mister Larry Doyle. [She turns her back on him and goes home]. LARRY [watching her as she goes]. Goodbye. Goodbye. Oh, that's so Irish! Irish both of us to the backbone: Irish, Irish, Irish-- Broadbent arrives, conversing energetically with Keegan. BROADBENT. Nothing pays like a golfing hotel, if you hold the land instead of the shares, and if the furniture people stand in with you, and if you are a good man of business. LARRY. Nora's gone home. BROADBENT [with conviction]. You were right this morning, Larry. I must feed up Nora. She's weak; and it makes her fanciful. Oh, by the way, did I tell you that we're engaged? LARRY. She told me herself. BROADBENT [complacently]. She's rather full of it, as you may imagine. Poor Nora! Well, Mr Keegan, as I said, I begin to see my way here. I begin to see my way. KEEGAN [with a courteous inclination]. The conquering Englishman, sir. Within 24 hours of your arrival you have carried off our only heiress, and practically secured the parliamentary seat. And you have promised me that when I come here in the evenings to meditate on my madness; to watch the shadow of the Round Tower lengthening in the sunset; to break my heart uselessly in the curtained gloaming over the dead heart and blinded soul of the island of the saints, you will comfort me with the bustle of a great hotel, and the sight of the little children carrying the golf clubs of your tourists as a preparation for the life to come. BROADBENT [quite touched, mutely offering him a cigar to console him, at which he smiles and shakes his head]. Yes, Mr Keegan: you're quite right. There's poetry in everything, even [looking absently into the cigar case] in the most modern prosaic things, if you know how to extract it [he extracts a cigar for himself and offers one to Larry, who takes it]. If I was to be shot for it I couldn't extract it myself; but that's where you come in, you see [roguishly, waking up from his reverie and bustling Keegan goodhumoredly]. And then I shall wake you up a bit. That's where I come in: eh? d'ye see? Eh? eh? [He pats him very pleasantly on the shoulder, half admiringly, half pityingly]. Just so, just so. [Coming back to business] By the way, I believe I can do better than a light railway here. There seems to be no question now that the motor boat has come to stay. Well, look at your magnificent river there, going to waste. KEEGAN [closing his eyes]. "Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy waters." BROADBENT. You know, the roar of a motor boat is quite pretty. KEEGAN. Provided it does not drown the Angelus. BROADBENT [reassuringly]. Oh no: it won't do that: not the least danger. You know, a church bell can make a devil of a noise when it likes. KEEGAN. You have an answer for everything, sir. But your plans leave one question still unanswered: how to get butter out of a dog's throat. BROADBENT. Eh? KEEGAN. You cannot build your golf links and hotels in the air. For that you must own our land. And how will you drag our acres from the ferret's grip of Matthew Haffigan? How will you persuade Cornelius Doyle to forego the pride of being a small landowner? How will Barney Doran's millrace agree with your motor boats? Will Doolan help you to get a license for your hotel? BROADBENT. My dear sir: to all intents and purposes the syndicate I represent already owns half Rosscullen. Doolan's is a tied house; and the brewers are in the syndicate. As to Haffigan's farm and Doran's mill and Mr Doyle's place and half a dozen others, they will be mortgaged to me before a month is out. KEEGAN. But pardon me, you will not lend them more on their land than the land is worth; so they will be able to pay you the interest. BROADBENT. Ah, you are a poet, Mr Keegan, not a man of business. LARRY. We will lend everyone of these men half as much again on their land as it is worth, or ever can be worth, to them. BROADBENT. You forget, sir, that we, with our capital, our knowledge, our organization, and may I say our English business habits, can make or lose ten pounds out of land that Haffigan, with all his industry, could not make or lose ten shillings out of. Doran's mill is a superannuated folly: I shall want it for electric lighting. LARRY. What is the use of giving land to such men? they are too small, too poor, too ignorant, too simpleminded to hold it against us: you might as well give a dukedom to a crossing sweeper. BROADBENT. Yes, Mr Keegan: this place may have an industrial future, or it may have a residential future: I can't tell yet; but it's not going to be a future in the hands of your Dorans and Haffigans, poor devils! KEEGAN. It may have no future at all. Have you thought of that? BROADBENT. Oh, I'm not afraid of that. I have faith in Ireland, great faith, Mr Keegan. KEEGAN. And we have none: only empty enthusiasms and patriotisms, and emptier memories and regrets. Ah yes: you have some excuse for believing that if there be any future, it will be yours; for our faith seems dead, and our hearts cold and cowed. An island of dreamers who wake up in your jails, of critics and cowards whom you buy and tame for your own service, of bold rogues who help you to plunder us that they may plunder you afterwards. Eh? BROADBENT [a little impatient of this unbusinesslike view]. Yes, yes; but you know you might say that of any country. The fact is, there are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency, and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient. It don't matter whether they're English or Irish. I shall collar this place, not because I'm an Englishman and Haffigan and Co are Irishmen, but because they're duffers and I know my way about. KEEGAN. Have you considered what is to become of Haffigan? LARRY. Oh, we'll employ him in some capacity or other, and probably pay him more than he makes for himself now. BROADBENT [dubiously]. Do you think so? No no: Haffigan's too old. It really doesn't pay now to take on men over forty even for unskilled labor, which I suppose is all Haffigan would be good for. No: Haffigan had better go to America, or into the Union, poor old chap! He's worked out, you know: you can see it. KEEGAN. Poor lost soul, so cunningly fenced in with invisible bars! LARRY. Haffigan doesn't matter much. He'll die presently. BROADBENT [shocked]. Oh come, Larry! Don't be unfeeling. It's hard on Haffigan. It's always hard on the inefficient. LARRY. Pah! what does it matter where an old and broken man spends his last days, or whether he has a million at the bank or only the workhouse dole? It's the young men, the able men, that matter. The real tragedy of Haffigan is the tragedy of his wasted youth, his stunted mind, his drudging over his clods and pigs until he has become a clod and a pig himself--until the soul within him has smouldered into nothing but a dull temper that hurts himself and all around him. I say let him die, and let us have no more of his like. And let young Ireland take care that it doesn't share his fate, instead of making another empty grievance of it. Let your syndicate come-- BROADBENT. Your syndicate too, old chap. You have your bit of the stock. LARRY. Yes, mine if you like. Well, our syndicate has no conscience: it has no more regard for your Haffigans and Doolans and Dorans than it has for a gang of Chinese coolies. It will use your patriotic blatherskite and balderdash to get parliamentary powers over you as cynically as it would bait a mousetrap with toasted cheese. It will plan, and organize, and find capital while you slave like bees for it and revenge yourselves by paying politicians and penny newspapers out of your small wages to write articles and report speeches against its wickedness and tyranny, and to crack up your own Irish heroism, just as Haffigan once paid a witch a penny to put a spell on Billy Byrne's cow. In the end it will grind the nonsense out of you, and grind strength and sense into you. BROADBENT [out of patience]. Why can't you say a simple thing simply, Larry, without all that Irish exaggeration and talky-talky? The syndicate is a perfectly respectable body of responsible men of good position. We'll take Ireland in hand, and by straightforward business habits teach it efficiency and self-help on sound Liberal principles. You agree with me, Mr Keegan, don't you? KEEGAN. Sir: I may even vote for you. BROADBENT [sincerely moved, shaking his hand warmly]. You shall never regret it, Mr Keegan: I give you my word for that. I shall bring money here: I shall raise wages: I shall found public institutions, a library, a Polytechnic [undenominational, of course], a gymnasium, a cricket club, perhaps an art school. I shall make a Garden city of Rosscullen: the round tower shall be thoroughly repaired and restored. KEEGAN. And our place of torment shall be as clean and orderly as the cleanest and most orderly place I know in Ireland, which is our poetically named Mountjoy prison. Well, perhaps I had better vote for an efficient devil that knows his own mind and his own business than for a foolish patriot who has no mind and no business. BROADBENT [stiffly]. Devil is rather a strong expression in that connexion, Mr Keegan. KEEGAN. Not from a man who knows that this world is hell. But since the word offends you, let me soften it, and compare you simply to an ass. [Larry whitens with anger]. BROADBENT [reddening]. An ass! KEEGAN [gently]. You may take it without offence from a madman who calls the ass his brother--and a very honest, useful and faithful brother too. The ass, sir, is the most efficient of beasts, matter-of-fact, hardy, friendly when you treat him as a fellow-creature, stubborn when you abuse him, ridiculous only in love, which sets him braying, and in politics, which move him to roll about in the public road and raise a dust about nothing. Can you deny these qualities and habits in yourself, sir? BROADBENT [goodhumoredly]. Well, yes, I'm afraid I do, you know. KEEGAN. Then perhaps you will confess to the ass's one fault. BROADBENT. Perhaps so: what is it? KEEGAN. That he wastes all his virtues--his efficiency, as you call it--in doing the will of his greedy masters instead of doing the will of Heaven that is in himself. He is efficient in the service of Mammon, mighty in mischief, skilful in ruin, heroic in destruction. But he comes to browse here without knowing that the soil his hoof touches is holy ground. Ireland, sir, for good or evil, is like no other place under heaven; and no man can touch its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse. It produces two kinds of men in strange perfection: saints and traitors. It is called the island of the saints; but indeed in these later years it might be more fitly called the island of the traitors; for our harvest of these is the fine flower of the world's crop of infamy. But the day may come when these islands shall live by the quality of their men rather than by the abundance of their minerals; and then we shall see. LARRY. Mr Keegan: if you are going to be sentimental about Ireland, I shall bid you good evening. We have had enough of that, and more than enough of cleverly proving that everybody who is not an Irishman is an ass. It is neither good sense nor good manners. It will not stop the syndicate; and it will not interest young Ireland so much as my friend's gospel of efficiency. BROADBENT. Ah, yes, yes: efficiency is the thing. I don't in the least mind your chaff, Mr Keegan; but Larry's right on the main point. The world belongs to the efficient. KEEGAN [with polished irony]. I stand rebuked, gentlemen. But believe me, I do every justice to the efficiency of you and your syndicate. You are both, I am told, thoroughly efficient civil engineers; and I have no doubt the golf links will be a triumph of your art. Mr Broadbent will get into parliament most efficiently, which is more than St Patrick could do if he were alive now. You may even build the hotel efficiently if you can find enough efficient masons, carpenters, and plumbers, which I rather doubt. [Dropping his irony, and beginning to fall into the attitude of the priest rebuking sin] When the hotel becomes insolvent [Broadbent takes his cigar out of his mouth, a little taken aback], your English business habits will secure the thorough efficiency of the liquidation. You will reorganize the scheme efficiently; you will liquidate its second bankruptcy efficiently [Broadbent and Larry look quickly at one another; for this, unless the priest is an old financial hand, must be inspiration]; you will get rid of its original shareholders efficiently after efficiently ruining them; and you will finally profit very efficiently by getting that hotel for a few shillings in the pound. [More and more sternly] Besides those efficient operations, you will foreclose your mortgages most efficiently [his rebuking forefinger goes up in spite of himself]; you will drive Haffigan to America very efficiently; you will find a use for Barney Doran's foul mouth and bullying temper by employing him to slave-drive your laborers very efficiently; and [low and bitter] when at last this poor desolate countryside becomes a busy mint in which we shall all slave to make money for you, with our Polytechnic to teach us how to do it efficiently, and our library to fuddle the few imaginations your distilleries will spare, and our repaired Round Tower with admission sixpence, and refreshments and penny-in-the-slot mutoscopes to make it interesting, then no doubt your English and American shareholders will spend all the money we make for them very efficiently in shooting and hunting, in operations for cancer and appendicitis, in gluttony and gambling; and you will devote what they save to fresh land development schemes. For four wicked centuries the world has dreamed this foolish dream of efficiency; and the end is not yet. But the end will come. BROADBENT [seriously]. Too true, Mr Keegan, only too true. And most eloquently put. It reminds me of poor Ruskin--a great man, you know. I sympathize. Believe me, I'm on your side. Don't sneer, Larry: I used to read a lot of Shelley years ago. Let us be faithful to the dreams of our youth [he wafts a wreath of cigar smoke at large across the hill]. KEEGAN. Come, Mr Doyle! is this English sentiment so much more efficient than our Irish sentiment, after all? Mr Broadbent spends his life inefficiently admiring the thoughts of great men, and efficiently serving the cupidity of base money hunters. We spend our lives efficiently sneering at him and doing nothing. Which of us has any right to reproach the other? BROADBENT [coming down the hill again to Keegan's right hand]. But you know, something must be done. KEEGAN. Yes: when we cease to do, we cease to live. Well, what shall we do? BROADBENT. Why, what lies to our hand. KEEGAN. Which is the making of golf links and hotels to bring idlers to a country which workers have left in millions because it is a hungry land, a naked land, an ignorant and oppressed land. BROADBENT. But, hang it all, the idlers will bring money from England to Ireland! KEEGAN. Just as our idlers have for so many generations taken money from Ireland to England. Has that saved England from poverty and degradation more horrible than we have ever dreamed of? When I went to England, sir, I hated England. Now I pity it. [Broadbent can hardly conceive an Irishman pitying England; but as Larry intervenes angrily, he gives it up and takes to the bill and his cigar again] LARRY. Much good your pity will do it! KEEGAN. In the accounts kept in heaven, Mr Doyle, a heart purified of hatred may be worth more even than a Land Development Syndicate of Anglicized Irishmen and Gladstonized Englishmen. LARRY. Oh, in heaven, no doubt! I have never been there. Can you tell me where it is? KEEGAN. Could you have told me this morning where hell is? Yet you know now that it is here. Do not despair of finding heaven: it may be no farther off. LARRY [ironically]. On this holy ground, as you call it, eh? KEEGAN [with fierce intensity]. Yes, perhaps, even on this holy ground which such Irishmen as you have turned into a Land of Derision. BROADBENT [coming between them]. Take care! you will be quarrelling presently. Oh, you Irishmen, you Irishmen! Toujours Ballyhooly, eh? [Larry, with a shrug, half comic, half impatient, turn away up the hill, but presently strolls back on Keegan's right. Broadbent adds, confidentially to Keegan] Stick to the Englishman, Mr Keegan: he has a bad name here; but at least he can forgive you for being an Irishman. KEEGAN. Sir: when you speak to me of English and Irish you forget that I am a Catholic. My country is not Ireland nor England, but the whole mighty realm of my Church. For me there are but two countries: heaven and hell; but two conditions of men: salvation and damnation. Standing here between you the Englishman, so clever in your foolishness, and this Irishman, so foolish in his cleverness, I cannot in my ignorance be sure which of you is the more deeply damned; but I should be unfaithful to my calling if I opened the gates of my heart less widely to one than to the other. LARRY. In either case it would be an impertinence, Mr Keegan, as your approval is not of the slightest consequence to us. What use do you suppose all this drivel is to men with serious practical business in hand? BROADBENT. I don't agree with that, Larry. I think these things cannot be said too often: they keep up the moral tone of the community. As you know, I claim the right to think for myself in religious matters: in fact, I am ready to avow myself a bit of a--of a--well, I don't care who knows it--a bit of a Unitarian; but if the Church of England contained a few men like Mr Keegan, I should certainly join it. KEEGAN. You do me too much honor, sir. [With priestly humility to Larry] Mr Doyle: I am to blame for having unintentionally set your mind somewhat on edge against me. I beg your pardon. LARRY [unimpressed and hostile]. I didn't stand on ceremony with you: you needn't stand on it with me. Fine manners and fine words are cheap in Ireland: you can keep both for my friend here, who is still imposed on by them. I know their value. KEEGAN. You mean you don't know their value. LARRY [angrily]. I mean what I say. KEEGAN [turning quietly to the Englishman] You see, Mr Broadbent, I only make the hearts of my countrymen harder when I preach to them: the gates of hell still prevail against me. I shall wish you good evening. I am better alone, at the Round Tower, dreaming of heaven. [He goes up the hill]. LARRY. Aye, that's it! there you are! dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming! KEEGAN [halting and turning to them for the last time]. Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of Time. BROADBENT [reflectively]. Once, when I was a small kid, I dreamt I was in heaven. [They both stare at him]. It was a sort of pale blue satin place, with all the pious old ladies in our congregation sitting as if they were at a service; and there was some awful person in the study at the other side of the hall. I didn't enjoy it, you know. What is it like in your dreams? KEEGAN. In my dreams it is a country where the State is the Church and the Church the people: three in one and one in three. It is a commonwealth in which work is play and play is life: three in one and one in three. It is a temple in which the priest is the worshipper and the worshipper the worshipped: three in one and one in three. It is a godhead in which all life is human and all humanity divine: three in one and one in three. It is, in short, the dream of a madman. [He goes away across the hill]. BROADBENT [looking after him affectionately]. What a regular old Church and State Tory he is! He's a character: he'll be an attraction here. Really almost equal to Ruskin and Carlyle. LARRY. Yes; and much good they did with all their talk! BROADBENT. Oh tut, tut, Larry! They improved my mind: they raised my tone enormously. I feel sincerely obliged to Keegan: he has made me feel a better man: distinctly better. [With sincere elevation] I feel now as I never did before that I am right in devoting my life to the cause of Ireland. Come along and help me to choose the site for the hotel. 
38759	----	Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOURS; _A COMEDY_; IN THREE ACTS. FROM THE French Dramas _L'Indigent_ & _Le Dissipateur_. AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRE-ROYAL, HAY-MARKET. BY MRS. INCHBALD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR G. G. J. AND J. ROBINSON, PATER-NOSTER-ROW. M,DCC,XCI. _PROLOGUE_, BY T. VAUGHAN, ESQ. SPOKEN BY MR. BANNISTER, JUN. To PUFF, or not to Puff--that is the Question-- Puff by all means, say I, it helps digestion. To prove my maxim true, pray read the Papers-- From _Quacks of State_, to those who cure the Vapours. You'll find them, one and all, puff high their skill, Tho' nine in ten, are oft'ner found to kill.-- Yet Puff's the word, which gives at least a name, And oftener gains the _undeserving_ Fame: Or wherefore read we of _Lord Fanny's_ Taste, Of _me_--an Actor--_wonderfully chaste_! And yet so squeamish is our Lady elf, She'd rather die--than paragraph herself; So fix'd on me--the _Prologue speaking Hack_, To stop, with _Puff-direct_, the Critic Pack, Who yelp, and foaming, bark from morn to night, } And when run hard--turn tail--then snap and bite; } Putting the timid Hare-like-Bard to flight. } To such, the best and only Puff to hit, } Is that which honest CANDOUR must admit, } A Female Scribbler is an harmless Wit; } And who so harmless as our present Bard, Claiming no greater or distinct reward, Than what from free Translation is her due, Which here in fullest trust she leaves to you: With this remark--Who own their Debts with pride, Are well entitled to the Credit Side. And as for those with whom she makes so free They'll ne'er complain of English Liberty; But glory to behold their Tinsel shine, Through the rich Bullion of the English Line. Fear then avaunt! Trust to a BRITISH JURY-- With them, an honest Verdict I'll ensure you: Let Echo catch the sound--'Tis PRATT[1] enacts, You're _Judges of the Law, as well as Facts_. On this she rests her Cause, and hopes to find, As Friends, and _Next Door Neighbours_, you'll be kind; At least, this only punishment ensue, _A Frown_--and that's severe enough, from you. _Thus puff'd_--I freely to the Court commit her, Not doubting, as a Woman, you'll acquit her-- And now join issue, Sirs, without delay-- } Judging from _written Evidence_ our Play, } And--_send her a good Deliverance_, I pray. } [1: Vide, Earl CAMDEN'S celebrated and Constitutional Speech and Opinion on the subject of Libels.] _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ._ _MEN._ Sir George Splendorville Mr. PALMER. Mr. Manly Mr. KEMBLE. Mr. Blackman Mr. BADDELEY. Mr. Lucre Mr. R. PALMER. Lord Hazard Mr. EVATT. Willford Mr. AICKIN. Henry Mr. PALMER, Jun. Bluntly Mr. BANNISTER, Jun. _WOMEN._ Lady Caroline Seymour Mrs. BROOKS. Lady Bridget Squander Miss HEARD. Evans Mrs. EDWARDS. Eleanor Mrs. KEMBLE. Other Ladies, Gentlemen, Servants, &c. SCENE----LONDON. NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOURS. _A COMEDY._ ACT I. SCENE I. _An Antichamber at Sir_ GEORGE SPLENDORVILLE'_s_, _adjoining a Ball-room_. _Enter_ BLUNTLY, _meeting a Servant in Livery_. BLUNTLY. Come, come, is not every thing ready? Is not the ball-room prepared yet? It is past ten o'clock. SERVANT. We have only to fix up the new chandelier. BLUNTLY. I'll have no new chandelier. SERVANT. My master said the last ball he gave, the company were in the dark. BLUNTLY. And if you blind them with too much light, they will be in the dark still. SERVANT. The musicians, sir, wish for some wine. BLUNTLY. What, before the ball begins? No, tell them if they are tipsy at the end of it, it will be quite soon enough. SERVANT. You are always so cross, Mr. Bluntly, when my master is going to have company. BLUNTLY. Have not I a right to be cross? For while the whole house is in good humour, if there was not one person cross enough to take a little care, every thing would be wasted and ruined through extreme good temper. (_A man crosses the stage._) Here, you--Mister----Pray are you the person who was sent with the chandelier? SHOPMAN. Yes, sir. BLUNTLY. Then please to take it back again--We don't want it. SHOPMAN. What is your objection to it, sir? BLUNTLY. It will cost too much. SHOPMAN. Mr. Bluntly, all the trades-people are more frightened at you than at your master.--Sir George, Heaven bless him! never cares how much a thing costs. BLUNTLY. That is, because he never cares whether he pays for it or not----but if he did, depend upon it he would be very particular. Tradesmen all wish to be paid for their ware, don't they? SHOPMAN. Certainly, sir. BLUNTLY. Then why will they force so many unnecessary things, and make so many extravagant charges as to put all power of payment out of the question? _Enter_ EVANS:----_The Tradesman goes off at the opposite Door._ BLUNTLY. How do you do, Mrs. Evans? [_Sullenly._ EVANS. What makes you sigh, Mr. Bluntly? BLUNTLY. What makes you smile? EVANS. To see all the grand preparations for the ball this evening. I anticipate the joy my lady will take here, and I smile for _her_. BLUNTLY. And I sigh for my master.--I foresee all the bills that will be brought in, for this evening's expence, and I anticipate the sorrow it will one day be to _him_. EVANS. But consider, Mr. Bluntly, your master has my lady's fortune to take. BLUNTLY. Yes, but I consider he has your lady to take along with it; and I prophecy one will stick by him some time after the other is gone. EVANS. For shame.--My lady, I have no doubt, will soon cure Sir George of his extravagance. BLUNTLY. It will then be by taking away the means.--Why, Lady Caroline is as extravagant as himself. EVANS. You are mistaken.--She never gives routs, masquerades, balls, or entertainments of any kind. BLUNTLY. But she constantly goes to them whenever she is invited. EVANS. That, I call but a slight imprudence.--She has no wasteful indiscretions like Sir George. For instance, she never makes a lavish present. BLUNTLY. No, but she _takes_ a lavish present, as readily as if she did. EVANS. And surely you cannot call that imprudence? BLUNTLY. No, I call it something worse. EVANS. Then, although she loves gaming to distraction, and plays deep, yet she never loses. BLUNTLY. No, but she always wins--and _that_ I call something worse. [_A loud rapping at the street-door._ EVANS. Here's the company. Will you permit me, Mr. Bluntly, to stand in one corner, and have a peep at them? BLUNTLY. If you please. (_Rapping again._) What spirit there is in that, Rat, tat, tat, tat.--And what life, frolic, and joy, the whole house is going to experience except myself. As for me, I am ready to cry at the thoughts of it all. [_Exit._ _Enter_ LADY CAROLINE. LADY CAROLINE. Here, the first of the company. I am sorry for it. (EVANS _comes forward_.) Evans, what has brought you hither? EVANS. I came, my lady, to see the preparations making on _your_ account--for it is upon your account alone, that Sir George gives this grand _fête_. LADY CAROLINE. Why, I do flatter myself it is.--But where is he? What is it o'clock?--It was impossible to stay at the stupid opera.--How do I look? I once did intend to wear those set of diamonds Sir George presented me with the other morning--but then, I reflected again, that if---- EVANS. Ah, my lady, what a charming thing to have such a lover--Sir George prevents every wish--he must make the best of husbands. LADY CAROLINE. And yet my father wishes to break off the marriage--he talks of his prodigality--and, certainly, Sir George lives above his income. EVANS. But then, Madam, so does every body else. LADY CAROLINE. But Sir George ought undoubtedly to change his conduct, and not be thus continually giving balls and entertainments--and inviting to his table acquaintance, that not only come to devour his dinners and suppers, but him. EVANS. And there are people malicious enough to call your ladyship one of his devourers too. LADY CAROLINE. As a treaty of marriage is so nearly concluded between us, I think, Mrs. Evans, I am at liberty to visit Sir George, or to receive his presents, without having my character, or my delicacy called in question. (_A loud rapping._) The company are coming: is it not strange he is not here to receive them. [_Exit_ EVANS. _Enter two Ladies and a Gentleman, who curtsy and bow to_ LADY CAROLINE.--SIR GEORGE _enters at the opposite door, magnificently dressed_. SIR GEORGE. Ladies, I entreat your pardon; dear Lady Caroline excuse me. I have been in the country all the morning, and have had scarce time to return to town and dress for your reception. [_Another rapping._ _Enter_ MR. LUCRE, LORD HAZARD, LADY BRIDGET SQUANDER, &C. SIR GEORGE. Dear Lucre, I am glad to see you. MR. LUCRE. My dear Sir George, I had above ten engagements this evening, but they all gave place to your invitation. SIR GEORGE. Thank you.--My dear Lady Bridget-- LADY BRIDGET. It is impossible to resist an invitation from the most polished man alive. (_Sir_ GEORGE _bows_.) What a superb dress! (_in his hearing, as he turns away_) and what an elegant deportment. MR. LUCRE. [_After speaking apart with_ SIR GEORGE. No, I am not in a state to take any part at Pharo--I am ruin'd.--Would you believe it Sir George, I am not worth a farthing in the world. SIR GEORGE. Yes, I believed it long ago. MR. LUCRE. Now we are on that subject--could you lend me a hundred pounds? SIR GEORGE. [_Taking out his pocket-book._ I have about me, only this bill for two hundred. MR. LUCRE. That will do as well--I am not circumstantial. (_Takes it._) And my dear Sir George command my purse at any time--all it contains, will ever be at your service. SIR GEORGE. I thank you. MR. LUCRE. Nay, though I have no money of my own, yet you know I can always raise friends--and by heaven! my dear Sir George, I often wish to see you reduced to my circumstances, merely to prove how much I could, and _would_, do to serve you. SIR GEORGE. I sincerely thank you. MR. LUCRE. And one can better ask a favour for one's friend than for one's-self, you know: for when one wants to borrow money on one's own account, there are so many little delicacies to get the better of--such as I felt just now.--I was as pale as death, I dare say, when I asked you for this money--did not you perceive I was? SIR GEORGE. I can't say I did. MR. LUCRE. But you must have observed I hesitated, and looked very foolish. SIR GEORGE. I thought for my part, that I looked as foolish.--But I hope I did not hesitate. MR. LUCRE. Nor ever will, when a friend applys to you, I'll answer for it--Nor ever shall a friend hesitate when you apply. LORD HAZARD. [_Taking_ SIR GEORGE _aside_. The obligations I am under to you for extricating me from that dangerous business-- SIR GEORGE. Never name it. LORD HAZARD. Not only name it, Sir George, but shortly I hope to return the kindness; and, if I do but live---- SIR GEORGE. [_To the company._ Permit me to conduct you to the next apartment. LADY CAROLINE. Most willingly, Sir George. I was the first who arrived; which proves my eagerness to dance. SIR GEORGE. [_Aside to her._ But let me hope, passion for dancing was not the only one, that caused your impatience. [_As the company move towards the ball-room_, Mr. LUCRE _and_ LORD HAZARD _come forward_. MR. LUCRE. Oh! there never was such a man in the world as the master of this house; there never was such a friendly, generous, noble heart; he has the best heart in the world, and the best taste in dress. [_The company Exeunt, and the music is heard to begin._ SCENE II. _An Apartment, which denotes the Poverty of the Inhabitants._ HENRY _and_ ELEANOR _discovered_. ELEANOR. It is very late and very cold too, brother; and yet we have neither of us heart to bid each other good night. HENRY. No--beds were made for rest. ELEANOR. And that noise of carriages and link-boys at Sir George Splendorville's, next door, would keep us awake, if our sorrows did not. HENRY. The poor have still more to complain of, when chance throws them thus near the rich,--it forces upon their minds a comparison might drive them to despair, if-- ELEANOR. --If they should not have good sense enough to reflect, that all this bustle and show of pleasure, may fall very short of happiness; as all the distress _we_ feel, has not yet, thank Heaven, reached to misery. HENRY. What do you call it then? ELEANOR. A trial; sent to make us patient. HENRY. It may make you so, but cannot me. Good morning to you. [_Going._ ELEANOR. Nay, it is night yet. Where are you going? HENRY. I don't know.--To take a walk.--The streets are not more uncomfortable than this place, and scarcely colder. ELEANOR. Oh, my dear brother! I cannot express half the uneasiness I feel when you part from me, though but for the shortest space. HENRY. Why? ELEANOR. Because I know your temper; you are impatient under adversity; you rashly think providence is unkind; and you would snatch those favours, which are only valuable when bestowed. HENRY. What do you mean? ELEANOR. Nay, do not be angry; but every time you go out into this tempting town, where superfluous riches continually meet the eye of the poor, I tremble lest you should forfeit your honesty for that, which Heaven decreed should not belong to you. HENRY. And if I did, you would despise and desert me? ELEANOR. No: not desert you; for I am convinced you would only take, to bring to me; but this is to assure you, I do not want for any thing. HENRY. Not want?--Nor does my father? ELEANOR. Scarcely, while we visit him. Every time he sees us we make him happy; but he would never behold us again if we behaved unworthy of him. HENRY. What! banish us from a prison? ELEANOR. And although it is a prison, you could not be happy under such a restriction. HENRY. Happy!--When was I happy last? ELEANOR. Yesterday, when your father thanked you for your kindness to him. Did we not all three weep with affection for each other? and was not that happiness? HENRY. It was--nor will I give up such satisfaction, for any enticement that can offer.----Be contented, Eleanor,--for your sake and my father's, I will be honest.--Nay, more,--I will be scrupulously proud--and that line of conduct which my own honour could not force me to follow, my love to _you_ and _him_, shall compel me to.--When, through necessity, I am tempted to plunder, your blushes and my father's anguish shall hold my hand.--And when I am urged through impatience, to take away my own life, your lingering death and his, shall check the horrid suggestion, and I will live for you. ELEANOR. Then do not ever trust yourself away, at least from one of us. HENRY. Dear sister! do you imagine that your power is less when separated from me? Do you suppose I think less frequently on my father and his dismal prison, because we are not always together? Oh! no! he comes even more forcibly to my thoughts in his absence--and then, more bitterly do I feel his misery, than while the patient old man, before my eyes, talks to me of his consolations; his internal comforts from a conscience pure, a mind without malice, and a heart, where every virtue occupy a place.--Therefore, do not fear that I shall forget either him or you, though I might possibly forget myself. [_Exit._ ELEANOR. If before him I am cheerful, yet to myself I must complain. [_Weeps_] And that sound of festivity at the house adjoining is insupportable! especially when I reflect that a very small portion of what will be wasted there only this one night, would be sufficient to give my dear father liberty. [_A rapping at the door of her chamber, on the opposite entrance._] ELEANOR. Who's there? MR. BLACKMAN. Open the door. [_Without._ ELEANOR. The voice of our landlord. [_Goes to the door._ Is it you, Mr. Blackman? BLACKMAN. Yes, open the door. [_Rapping louder._ [_She opens it:_ BLACKMAN _enters, followed by_ BLUNTLY.] BLACKMAN. What a time have you made me wait!--And in the name of wonder, why do you lock your door? Have you any thing to lose? Have not you already sold all the furniture you brought hither? And are you afraid of being stolen yourself? [ELEANOR _retires to the back of the Stage_. BLUNTLY. Is this the chamber? BLACKMAN. Yes, Sir, yes, Mr. Bluntly, this is it. [BLACKMAN _assumes a very different tone of voice in speaking to_ BLUNTLY _and_ ELEANOR; _to the one he is all submissive humility, to the other all harshness._] BLUNTLY. This! [_Contemptuously._ BLACKMAN. Why yes, sir,--this is the only place I have left in my own house, since your master has been pleased to occupy that next door, while his own magnificent one has been repairing.--Lock yourself up, indeed! (_Looking at_ ELEANOR.)--You have been continually asking me for more rooms, Mr. Bluntly, and have not I made near half a dozen doors already from one house to the other, on purpose to accommodate your good family.--Upon my honour, I have not now a single chamber but what I have let to these lodgers, and what I have absolute occasion for myself. BLUNTLY. And if you do put yourself to a little inconvenience, Mr. Blackman, surely my master-- BLACKMAN. Your master, Mr. Bluntly, is a very good man--a very generous man--and I hope at least he has found me a very lucky one; for good luck is all the recommendation which I, in my humble station, aspire to--and since I have been Sir George's attorney, I have gained him no less than two law-suits. BLUNTLY. I know it. I know also that you have lost him four. BLACKMAN. We'll drop the subject.--And in regard to this room, sir, it does not suit, you say? BLUNTLY. No, for I feel the cold wind blow through every crevice. BLACKMAN. But suppose I was to have it put a little into repair? That window, for instance, shall have a pane or two of glass put in; the cracks of the door shall be stopt up; and then every thing will have a very different appearance. BLUNTLY. And why has not this been done before? BLACKMAN. Would you have me be laying out my money, while I only let the place at a paltry price, to people who I am obliged to threaten to turn into the streets every quarter, before I can get my rent from them? BLUNTLY. Is that the situation of your lodgers at present? BLACKMAN. Yes.--But they made a better appearance when they first came, or I had not taken such persons to live thus near to your master. BLUNTLY. That girl (_looking at_ ELEANOR) seems very pretty--and I dare say my master would not care if he was nearer to her. BLACKMAN. Pshaw, pshaw--she is a poor creature--she is in great distress. She is misery itself. BLUNTLY. I feel quite charmed with misery.--Who belongs to her? BLACKMAN. A young man who says he is her brother--very likely he is not--but that I should not enquire about, if they could pay my rent. If people will pay me, I don't care what they are. (_Addressing himself to_ ELEANOR) I desire you will tell your brother when he comes in, that I have occasion for the money which will be due to me to-morrow--and if I don't receive it before to-morrow night, he must seek some other habitation. BLUNTLY. Hush, Mr. Blackman--if you speak so loud, you will have our company in the next house hear you. BLACKMAN. And if they did, do you think it would spoil their dancing? No, Mr. Bluntly.--And in that respect, I am a person of fashion.--I never suffer any distress to interfere with my enjoyments. ELEANOR. [_Coming to him._ Dear sir, have but patience a little while longer.--Indeed, I hope you will lose nothing. BLACKMAN. I _won't_ lose any thing. [_Going._ ELEANOR. [_Following him._ Sir, I would speak a single word to you, if you will be so good as to hear me? BLUNTLY. Ay, stay and hear her. ELEANOR. [_Looking at_ BLUNTLY. But I wish to speak to him by ourselves. BLUNTLY. Then I'll withdraw. BLACKMAN. What have you to say? [_In anger._ BLUNTLY. Hear her, Mr. Blackman--or may none of her sex ever listen to you. [_Exit._ BLACKMAN. If it is only to entreat me to let you continue here, I am gone in an instant.----Come, speak quickly, for I have no time to lose.--Come, speak, speak. ELEANOR. But are you resolved to have no pity? You know in what a helpless situation we are--and the deplorable state of my poor father. [_Weeping._ BLACKMAN. Ay, I thought what you had to say--farewel, farewel. ELEANOR. [_Laying hold of him._ Oh! do not plunge us into more distress than we can bear; but open your heart to compassion. BLACKMAN. I can't----'tis a thing I never did in my life. [_Going, he meets_ BLUNTLY, _who stops him_. BLUNTLY. Well, have you granted her request? BLACKMAN. I would do a great deal to oblige you, Mr. Bluntly--and if you will only give your word for the trifle of rent owing, why, I am not so hard-hearted but I will suffer her to stay. BLUNTLY. Well, well,--I will give my word. BLACKMAN. But remember, it is not to be put down to your master's account, but to your own.--I am not to give credit. ELEANOR. Nor am I to lay my brother under an obligation of this nature. (_To_ BLUNTLY) I thank you for your offer, sir, but I cannot accept it. BLACKMAN. [_In extreme anger._ What do you mean by that? BLUNTLY. Perhaps she is right. ELEANOR. My brother would resent my acceptance of a favour from a stranger. BLACKMAN. Your brother resent! A poor man resent! Did you ever hear of any body's regarding a poor man's resentment? ELEANOR. No--nor a poor woman's prayers. BLACKMAN. Yes, I will regard your prayers, if you will suffer this gentleman to be your friend. ELEANOR. Any acquaintance of your's, Mr. Blackman, I must distrust. BLACKMAN. Do you hear with what contempt she treats us both? BLUNTLY. But perhaps she is right--at least, in treating one of us so, I am sure she is--and I will forgive her wronging the one, for the sake of her doing justice to the other. _Enter_ HENRY: _he starts at seeing_ BLACKMAN _and_ BLUNTLY. HENRY. Who are these? BLACKMAN. "Who are these?" Did you ever hear such impertinence? (_Going up to him_) Pray who are you, sir? HENRY. I am a man. BLACKMAN. Yes--but I am a lawyer. HENRY. Whatever you are, this apartment is mine, not your's--and I desire you to leave it. BLACKMAN. But to-morrow it will be mine, and then I shall desire _you_ to leave it, and force you to leave it. HENRY. Eleanor, retire to the other chamber; I am sorry I left you. [_Leads her off._ BLACKMAN. And I am sorry that I and my friend should come here to be affronted. BLUNTLY. Mr. Blackman, I won't be called names. BLACKMAN. Names, sir! What names did I call you? BLUNTLY. Did not you call me your friend? I assure you, sir, I am not used to be called names. I am but a servant whose character is every thing--and I'll let you know that I am _not_ your friend. BLACKMAN. Why, you blockhead, does not your master call himself my friend? BLUNTLY. Yes, my master is a great man, and he can get a place without a character,--but if I lose mine, I am ruined; therefore take care how you miscal me for the future, for I assure you I won't bear it. I am not your friend, and you shall find I am not. [_Exit (in great anger)_, BLACKMAN _following_. END OF THE FIRST ACT. ACT II. SCENE I. _An Apartment at_ SIR GEORGE SPLENDORVILLE'S. _Enter_ SIR GEORGE, _followed by_ BLUNTLY. SIR GEORGE. What's o'clock? [_Rubbing his eyes._ BLUNTLY. Just noon, sir. SIR GEORGE. Why was I waked so early? BLUNTLY. You were not waked, sir--You rung. SIR GEORGE. Then it was in my sleep--and could not you suppose so?----After going to bed at five, to make me rise at noon! (_in a violent passion_) What am I to do with myself, sir, till it is time to go out for the evening? BLUNTLY. You have company to dinner you know, sir. SIR GEORGE. No, it is to supper--and what am I to do with myself till that time? BLUNTLY. Company again to supper, Sir? SIR GEORGE. Yes, and the self-same company I had last night--I invited them upon Lady Caroline's account--to give her an opportunity of revenge, for the money she lost here yesterday evening--and I am all weariness--I am all lassitude and fretfulness till the time arrives.--But now I call to mind, I have an affair that may engage my attention a few hours. You were giving me an account, Bluntly, of that beautiful girl I saw enter at Blackman's? BLUNTLY. Yes, sir, I saw her late last night in Mr. Blackman's house--she lodges there. SIR GEORGE. Indeed? In Blackman's house? I am glad to hear it. BLUNTLY. And he has assured me, sir, that she and her family are in the greatest poverty imaginable. SIR GEORGE. I am glad to hear it. BLUNTLY. They have been it seems above a twelvemonth in London, in search of some rich relations; but instead of meeting with them, the father was seen and remembered by an old creditor who has thrown him into prison. SIR GEORGE. I am very glad to hear it. BLUNTLY. But the young woman, Sir, has been so short a time in town, she has, seemingly, a great deal of modesty and virtue. SIR GEORGE. And I am very glad to hear of that too--I like her the better--you know I do--for I am weary of that ready compliance I meet with from the sex. BLUNTLY. But if I might presume to advise, sir--as you are so soon to be married to her ladyship, whom you love with sincere affection, you should give up this pursuit. SIR GEORGE. And I _shall_ give it up, Bluntly, before my marriage takes place--for, short as that time may be, I expect this passion will be over and forgotten, long before the interval has passed away.--But that brother you were mentioning---- BLUNTLY. I have some reason to think, that with all his poverty, he has a notion of honour. SIR GEORGE. [_Laughing._ Oh! I have often tried the effect of a purse of gold with people of honour.--Have you desired them to be sent for as I ordered. BLUNTLY. I have, Sir. SIR GEORGE. See if they are come. [_Exit_ BLUNTLY.] Ah! my dear Lady Caroline, it is you, and only you, whom I love with a sincere passion! but in waiting this long expected event of our marriage, permit me to indulge some less exalted wishes. _Enter_ BLUNTLY. SIR GEORGE. Are they come? BLUNTLY. The young man is in the anti-chamber, sir, but his sister is not with him. (_Speaking to_ HENRY _who is without_) Please to walk this way--my master desires to see you. SIR GEORGE. No, no, no--I do not desire to see him, if his sister is not there.--Zounds you scoundrel what did you call him in for? _Enter_ HENRY, _and bows_. [SIR GEORGE _looks at him with a careless familiarity_--BLUNTLY _leaves the room_.] SIR GEORGE. Young man, I am told you are very poor--you may have heard that I am very rich--and I suppose you are acquainted with the extensive meaning of the word--generosity. HENRY. [_After an hesitation._] Perhaps not, sir. SIR GEORGE. The meaning of it, as I comprehend, is, for the rich to give to the poor.--Have you any thing to ask of me in which I can serve you? HENRY. Your proposal is so general, I am at a loss what to answer--but you are no doubt acquainted with the extensive meaning of the word, _pride_,--and that will apologize for the seeming indifference with which I receive your offer. SIR GEORGE. Your pride seems extensive indeed.--I heard your father was in prison, and I pitied him. HENRY. Did you, Sir?--Did you pity my father:--I beg your pardon--if I have said any thing to offend you pray forgive it--nor let my rudeness turn your companion away from him, to any other object. SIR GEORGE. Would a small sum release him from confinement? Would about a hundred pounds---- HENRY. I have no doubt but it would. SIR GEORGE. Then take that note.----Be not surprised--I mean to dispose of a thousand guineas this way, instead of fitting up a theatre in my own house.--That (_giving him the note_) is a mere trifle; my box at the opera, or my dinner; I mean to dine alone to morrow, instead of inviting company. HENRY. Sir George, I spoke so rudely to you at first, that I know no other way to shew my humility, than to accept your present without reluctance.--I do therefore, as the gift of benevolence, not as the insult of better fortune. SIR GEORGE. You have a brother, have not you? HENRY. No, Sir--and only one sister. SIR GEORGE. A sister is it? well, let me see your father and your brother--your sister I mean--did not you say?--you said a sister, did not you? HENRY. Yes, Sir. SIR GEORGE. Well, let me see your father and her; they will rejoice at their good fortune I imagine, and I wish to be a witness of their joy. HENRY. I will this moment go to our lawyer, extricate my father, and we will all return and make you the spectator of the happiness you have bestowed. Forgive my eagerness to disclose your bounty, sir, if, before I have said half I feel, I fly to reveal it to my father; to whom I can more powerfully express my sensations--than in your presence. [_Exit._ SIR GEORGE. That bait has taken--and now, if the sister will only be as grateful. _Enter_ BLUNTLY. BLUNTLY. Dear sir, what can you have said to the young man? I never saw a person so much affected! SIR GEORGE. In what manner? BLUNTLY. The tears ran down his cheeks as he passed along, and he held something in his hand which he pressed to his lips, and then to his heart, as if it was a treasure. SIR GEORGE. It is a treasure, Bluntly--a hundred Guineas. BLUNTLY. But for which, I believe, you expect a greater treasure in return. SIR GEORGE. Dost think so Bluntly?--dost think the girl is worth a hundred pounds? BLUNTLY. If she refuses, she is worth a thousand--but if she complies, you have thrown away your money. SIR GEORGE. Just the reverse. BLUNTLY. But I hope, sir, you do not mean to throw away any more thus--for although this sum, by way of charity, may be well applied, yet indeed, sir, I know some of your creditors as much in want as this poor family. SIR GEORGE. How!--You are in pay by some of my creditors I suppose? BLUNTLY. No, Sir, you must pay them, before they can pay any body. SIR GEORGE. You are impertinent--leave the room instantly, and go in search of this sister; now, while the son is gone to release his father.--Tell her, her brother is here, and bring her hither immediately. BLUNTLY. But, sir, if you will only give me leave to speak one word-- SIR GEORGE. Do, speak; [_Goes to the chimney-piece and takes down a pistol_] only speak a single syllable, and I'll send a ball instantly through your head. BLUNTLY. I am dumb, Sir--I don't speak indeed, Sir--upon my life I don't. I wish I may die if I speak a word. SIR GEORGE. Go on the errand I told you; and if you dare to return without the girl this is your fate. [_Holding up the pistol._ BLUNTLY. Yes, Sir. [_Exit._ SIR GEORGE. [_Laying the pistol on the table._ Impertinent puppy; to ruffle the temper of a man of fashion with hints of prudence and morality, and paying his debts--all this from a servant too. The insolent, chattering---- _Enter_ BLUNTLY. BLUNTLY. May I speak now, sir? SIR GEORGE. What have you to say? BLUNTLY. Mr. Blackman, sir. SIR GEORGE. Bid him come in. _Enter_ BLACKMAN. _Exit_ BLUNTLY. SIR GEORGE. Good morning, Mr. Blackman; come, sit down. BLACKMAN. [_Bowing respectfully._ I am glad, Sir George, I have found you alone, for I come to speak to you on important business. SIR GEORGE. Business!----no--not now if you please. BLACKMAN. But I must, sir--I have been here ten times before, and have been put off, but now you must hear what I have to say. SIR GEORGE. Don't be long then--don't be tedious, Mr. Blackman--for I expect a, a--in short, I expect a pretty woman. BLACKMAN. When she comes, I will go. SIR GEORGE. Very well, speak quickly then. What have you to say? BLACKMAN. I come to speak upon the subject of your father's will; by which you know, you run the hazard of losing great part of what he left behind. SIR GEORGE. But what am I to do? BLACKMAN. There is no time to be lost. Consider, that Mr. Manly, the lawyer, whom your father employed, is a man who pretends to a great deal of morality; and it was he who, when your father found himself dying, alarmed his conscience, and persuaded him to make this Will in favour of a second person. Now, I think that you and I both together, ought to have a meeting with this conscientious lawyer. SIR GEORGE. But I should imagine, Mr. Blackman, that if he is really a conscientious man, you and he will not be upon good terms. BLACKMAN. Oh! people of our avocation differ in respect to conscience. Puzzle, confound, and abuse each other, and yet are upon good terms. SIR GEORGE. But I fear---- BLACKMAN. Fear nothing.--There are a vast number of resources in our art.--It is so spacious, and yet so confined--so sublime, and yet so profound--so distinct, and yet so complicated--that if ever this person with whom your fortune is divided should be found, I know how to envelope her in a labyrinth, where she shall be lost again in a hurry.----But your father's lawyer being a very honest--I mean a very particular man in his profession,--I have reason to fear we cannot gain him over to our purpose.--If, therefore,-- _Enter_ BLUNTLY. SIR GEORGE. My visitor is come, as I told you. BLACKMAN. [_Rising._ And I am gone, as I told you. [_Going._ _Enter_ ELEANOR. BLACKMAN. [_Aside._ My lodger! ah! ah! (_To her in a whisper_) You may stay another quarter. [_Exit._ SIR GEORGE. (_To_ Eleanor) I am glad to see you.--Bluntly-- [_Makes a sign to him to leave the room._ BLUNTLY. Sir? [SIR GEORGE _waves his hand and nods his head a second time_. BLUNTLY. Sir?---- [_Still affecting not to understand him._ SIR GEORGE. I bid you go. [_Angrily._ BLUNTLY. You bid me go, sir?--Oh yes, sir.--Very well, sir.--But indeed, sir, I did not hear you before, sir.--Indeed I did not. [_Bows, and exit with reluctance, which_ ELEANOR _observes_. ELEANOR. Pardon me, sir.--I understood my brother was here, but I find he is not. SIR GEORGE. He is but this instant gone, and will return immediately.--Stay then with me till he comes. (_Takes her hand._) Surely you cannot refuse to remain with me a few moments; especially as I have a great deal to say to you that may tend to your advantage. Why do you cast your eyes with such impatience on that door? (_Goes and locks it._) There, now you may look at it in vain. ELEANOR. For heaven sake, why am I locked in? SIR GEORGE. Because you should not escape. ELEANOR. That makes me resolve I will--Open the door, sir. [_Going to it._ SIR GEORGE. Nay, listen to me. Your sentiments, I make no doubt, are formed from books. ELEANOR. No, from misfortunes--yet more instructive. SIR GEORGE. You shall never know misfortune more--you, nor your relations.--But this moment I presented your brother with a sum of money, and he left me with professions of the deepest gratitude. ELEANOR. My brother!--Has he received money from you? Ah! he promised me he'd not disgrace his family. SIR GEORGE. How! Family, indeed! ELEANOR. I cannot remain here a moment longer. Open the door, sir--open it immediately. [_Raising her voice._ BLUNTLY. [_Without._ Sir, sir, sir,--open the door, if you please--you are wanted, sir. SIR GEORGE. S'death! who can want me in such haste? [_Opens the door, and appears confounded._ _Enter_ BLUNTLY. SIR GEORGE. Well, sir! BLUNTLY. ----Did you call, sir? SIR GEORGE. It was _you_ who called, sir. BLUNTLY. Who, I, sir? SIR GEORGE. Yes, sir, you--Who wants me? BLUNTLY. [_Looking at_ ELEANOR. Perhaps it was _you_ that called, Ma'am. ELEANOR. It _was_ I that called: and pray be so kind as to conduct me to my own lodgings. [BLUNTLY _offers her his hand_. SIR GEORGE. Dare not to touch her--or to stay another moment in the room.--Begone. [BLUNTLY _looks at_ ELEANOR _aside, and points to the pistol; then bows humbly, and retires_. SIR GEORGE. And now, my fair Lucretia---- [_He is going to seize her--she takes up the pistol and presents it._ ELEANOR. No, it's not _myself_ I'll kill--'Tis you. SIR GEORGE. [_Starting._ Nay, nay, nay, lay it down.--Lay that foolish thing down; I beg you will. (_Trembling._) It is charged--it may go off. ELEANOR. I mean it to go off. SIR GEORGE. But no jesting--I never liked jesting in my life. ELEANOR. Nor I--but am always serious.--Dare not, therefore, insult me again, but let me go to my wretched apartments. [_Passes by him, presenting the pistol._ SIR GEORGE. Go to the---- [_She turns short at the door, and presents it again._ SIR GEORGE. What would you do?--Here Bluntly! Bluntly! [_Exit_ ELEANOR. _Enter_ BLUNTLY. BLUNTLY. Did you call or no, sir? SIR GEORGE. Yes, sir, I did call now. (_In a threatening accent._) Don't you think you have behaved very well this morning? BLUNTLY. Yes, sir, I think I have. SIR GEORGE. I am not joking. BLUNTLY. Nor am I, sir. SIR GEORGE. And do not you think I should behave very well, if I was to discharge you my service? BLUNTLY. As well as can be expected, sir. SIR GEORGE. Why did you break in upon me just now? Did you think I was going to murder the girl? BLUNTLY. No, sir, I suspected neither love nor murder. SIR GEORGE. What then did you suspect? BLUNTLY. Why, sir, if I may make bold to speak--I was afraid the poor girl might be robbed: and of all she is worth in the world. SIR GEORGE. Blockhead! I suppose you mean her virtue? [_Smiling with contempt._ BLUNTLY. Why, to say the truth, sir, virtue is a currency that grows scarce in the world now-a-days--and some men are so much in need of it, that they think nothing of stopping a harmless female passenger in her road through life, and plundering her of it without remorse, though its loss, embitters every hour she must afterwards pass in her journey. _Enter_ HENRY. HENRY. Sir George, my father, liberated from prison by your bounty, is come gratefully to offer---- _Enter_ WILLFORD _and_ ELEANOR. ELEANOR. [_Holding her father by the hand, to prevent his going forward._ Oh, my father! whither are you going? Turn back--turn back. HENRY. [_To his father._ This is your benefactor--the man whose benevolence has put an end to your sufferings. [ELEANOR _bursts into tears and retires up the stage_. WILLFORD. How, sir, can I ever repay what I owe to you?--or how describe those emotions, which your goodness at this moment makes me feel? SIR GEORGE. [_In confusion._ Very well--very well--'tis all very well. (_Aside_) I wish it was.--(_To him_) I am glad I have been of service to you. WILLFORD. You have been like mercy to us all. My daughter's gratitude overflows in tears.--But why, my child, do you keep apart from us? Can you be too timid to confess your obligation? SIR GEORGE. Let her alone--let her indulge her humour. WILLFORD. Speak, Eleanor. SIR GEORGE. No, I had rather she would be silent. WILLFORD. You offend me by this obstinacy. ELEANOR. [_Going to_ WILLFORD _and taking his hand_. Oh, my father!--Oh! I cannot----I cannot speak. WILLFORD. Wherefore?--Explain this moment, what agitates you thus. ELEANOR. You must return to confinement again. WILLFORD. How? ELEANOR. The money that has set you free, was given for the basest purposes--and by a man as far beneath you in principle, as you are beneath him in fortune. Disdain the obligation--and come my father, return to prison. WILLFORD. Yes.--And with more joy than I left it. (_To_ SIR GEORGE) Joy, in my daughter's virtuous contempt of thee. (_To his children_) Leave the house instantly. [_Exit_ HENRY _and_ ELEANOR. WILLFORD. [_Addressing himself to_ SIR GEORGE. Your present is but deposited in a lawyer's hands, whose word gained me my liberty--he shall immediately return it to you, while I return to imprisonment. SIR GEORGE. If the money is in a lawyer's hands, my good friend, it may be some time before you get it returned. [_Going._ WILLFORD. Stay, Sir George--(_he returns_) And look me in the face while you insult me. (SIR GEORGE _looks on the floor_.) You cannot.--I therefore triumph, while you stand before me abashed like a culprit.--Yet be assured, unthinking, dissipated man, that with all your insolence and cruelty towards me and mine, I have still the charity to rejoice, even for your sake, at seeing you thus confounded. This shame is at least one trait in your favour; and while it revenges my wrongs, gives me joy to find, you are not a _hardened_ libertine. [_Exeunt._ END OF THE SECOND ACT. ACT III. SCENE I. _The apartment at_ SIR GEORGE SPLENDORVILLE'S, _where the night has been passed at play--Several card-tables with company playing_--SIR GEORGE _and_ LADY CAROLINE _at the same table_. SIR GEORGE _rises furiously_. SIR GEORGE. Never was the whole train of misfortunes so united to undo a man, as this night to ruin me. The most obstinate round of ill luck---- MR. LUCRE. [_Waking from a sleep._ What is all that? You have lost a great deal of money, I suppose? SIR GEORGE. Every guinea I had about me, and fifteen thousand besides, for which I have given my word. MR. LUCRE. Fifteen thousand guineas! and I have not won one of them.--Oh, confusion upon every thing that has prevented me. SIR GEORGE. [_Taking_ LADY CAROLINE _aside_. Lady Caroline, you are the sole person who has profited by my loss.--Prove to me that your design was not to ruin me; to sink me into the abyss of misfortune,--prove to me, you love me in return for all my tender love to you. And (_taking up the cards_) give me my revenge in one single cut. LADY CAROLINE. If this is the proof you require, I consent. SIR GEORGE. Thank you.--And it is for double or quit.--Thank you. [_She shuffles and cuts._ SIR GEORGE. Ay, it will be mine--thank you.--I shall be the winner--thank you. (_He cuts--then tears the cards and throws them on the floor._) Destraction!--Furies of the blackest kind conspire against me, and all their serpents are in my heart.--Cruel, yet beloved woman! Could you thus abuse and take advantage of the madness of my situation? LADY CAROLINE. Your misfortunes, my dear Sir George--make you blind. SIR GEORGE. [_Taking her again aside._ No, they have rather opened my eyes, and have shown me what you are.--Still an object I adore; but I now perceive your are one to my ruin devoted.--If any other intention had directed you, would you have thus decoyed me to my folly?--You know my proneness to play, your own likelihood of success, and have palpably allured me to my destruction. Ungrateful woman, you never loved me, but taught me to believe so, in order to partake of my prodigality.--Do not be suspicious, madam; the debt shall be discharged within a week. LADY CAROLINE. [_With the utmost indifference._ That will do, sir--I depend upon your word; and that will do. [_Exit curtsying._ SIR GEORGE. Ungrateful--cruel--she is gone without giving me one hope.--She even insults--despises me. MR. LUCRE. [_Coming forward._ Indeed, my dear friend, I compassionate your ill luck most feelingly; and yet I am nearly as great an object of compassion on this occasion as yourself; for I have not won a single guinea of all your losses: if I had, why I could have borne your misfortune with some sort of patience. LADY BRIDGET. My dear Sir George, your situation affects me so extremely, I cannot stay a moment longer in your presence. [_Goes to the door, and returns._] But you may depend upon my prayers. [_Exit._ LORD HAZARD. Sir George, if I had any consolation to offer, it should be at your service--but you know--you are convinced--I have merely a sufficiency of consolation--that is, of friends and of money to support myself in the rank of life I hold in the world. For without that--without that rank--I sincerely wish you a good morning. [_Exit_ LORD HAZARD. SIR GEORGE. Good morning. [_The company by degrees all steal out of the room, except_ Mr. LUCRE. SIR GEORGE. [_Looking around._ Where are all my guests?--the greatest part gone without a word in condolence, and the rest torturing me with insulting wishes. Here! behold! here is the sole reliance which I have prepared for the hour of misfortune; and what is it?--words--compliments--desertion--and from those, whose ingratitude makes their neglect still more poignant. [_Turns and perceives_ Mr. LUCRE.] Lucre, my dear Lucre, are not you amazed at what you see? MR. LUCRE. No, not at all--'tis the way of the world--we caress our acquaintances whilst they are happy and in power, but if they fall into misfortune, we think we do enough if we have the good nature to pity them. SIR GEORGE. And are you, one of these friends? MR. LUCRE. I am like the rest of the world.--I was in the number of your flatterers; but at present you have none--for you may already perceive, we are grown sincere. SIR GEORGE. But have not you a thousand times desired me, in any distress, to prove you? MR. LUCRE. And you do prove me now, do you not?--Heaven bless you. [_Shaking hands with him_] I shall always have a regard for you--but for any thing farther--I scorn professions which I do not mean to keep. [_Going._ SIR GEORGE. Nay, but Lucre! consider the anguish in which you leave me!--consider, that to be forsaken by my friends is more affecting than the loss of all my fortune. Though you have nothing else to give me, yet give me your company. MR. LUCRE. My dear friend I _cannot_. Reflect that I am under obligations to you--so many indeed that I am ashamed to see you.----I am naturally bashful; and do not be surprised if I should never have the confidence to look you in the face again. [_Exit._ SIR GEORGE. This is the world, such as I have heard it described, but not such as I could ever believe it to be.--But I forgive--I forget all the world except Lady Caroline--her ingratitude fastens to my heart and drives me to despair. She, on whom I have squandered so much--she, whom I loved--and whom I still love, spite of her perfidy! (_Enter_ BLUNTLY.) Well, Bluntly--behold the friendship of the friends I loved! This morning I was in prosperity and had many--this night I am ruined, and I have not one. BLUNTLY. Ruined, sir? SIR GEORGE. Totally: and shall be forced to part with every thing I possess to pay the sums I owe.----Of course, I shall part with all my servants--and do you endeavour to find some other place. BLUNTLY. But first, sir,--permit me to ask a favour of you? SIR GEORGE. A favour of me? I have no favours now to grant. BLUNTLY. I beg your pardon, sir--you have one--and I entreat it on my knees. SIR GEORGE. What would you ask of me? BLUNTLY. To remain along with you still.--I will never quit you; but serve you for nothing, to the last moment of my life. SIR GEORGE. I have then one friend left. (_Embracing him._) And never will I forget to acknowledge the obligation. _Enter_ BLACKMAN. BLACKMAN. Pardon me--sir--I beg ten thousand pardons--pray excuse me, (_In the most servile manner_,) for entering before I sent to know if you were at leisure--but your attendants are all fast asleep on the chairs of your antichamber.--I could not wake a soul--and I imagined you yourself were not yet up. SIR GEORGE. On the contrary, I have not yet been in bed. And when I do go there, I wish never to rise from it again. BLACKMAN. Has any thing unexpected happened? SIR GEORGE. Yes.--That I am ruined--inevitably ruined--Behold (_Shewing the cards_) the only wreck of my fortune. BLACKMAN. (_Starting._) Lost all your fortune? SIR GEORGE. All I am worth--and as much more as I am worth. [BLACKMAN _draws a chair, sits down with great familiarity, and stares_ SIR GEORGE _rudely in the face_. BLACKMAN. Lost all you are worth? He, he, he, he! (_Laughs maliciously._) Pretty news, truly! Why then I suppose I have lost great part of what I am worth? all which you are indebted to me?--However there is a way yet to retrieve you. But--please to desire your servant to leave the room. SIR GEORGE. Bluntly, leave us a moment. (_Exit_ BLUNTLY.) Well, Mr. Blackman, what is this grand secret? BLACKMAN. Why, in the state to which you have reduced yourself, there is certainly no one hope for you, but in that portion, that half of your fortune, which the will of your father keeps you out of. SIR GEORGE. But how am I to obtain it? The lawyer in whose hands it is placed, will not give it up, without being insured from any future demand by some certain proofs. BLACKMAN. And suppose I should search, and find proofs? Suppose I have them already by me?--But upon this occasion, you must not only rely implicitly on what I say, but it is necessary you should say the same yourself. SIR GEORGE. If you advance no falsehood, I cannot have any objection. BLACKMAN. Falsehood!--falsehood!--I apprehend, Sir George, you do not consider, that there is a particular construction put upon words and phrases in the practice of the law, which the rest of the world, out of that study, are not clearly acquainted with. For instance, _falsehood_ with _us_, is not _exactly_ what it is with other people. SIR GEORGE. How! Is truth, immutable truth, to be corrupted and confounded by men of the law? BLACKMAN. I was not speaking of truth--that, we have nothing to do with. SIR GEORGE. I, must not say so, however, sir.--And in this crisis of my sufferings, it is the only comfort, the only consolatory reflection left me, that truth and I, will never separate. BLACKMAN. Stick to your truth--but confide in me as usual.--You will go with me, then, to Mr. Manly, your father's lawyer, and corroborate all that I shall say? SIR GEORGE. Tell me, but what you intend to say? BLACKMAN. I can't do that. In the practice of the law, we never know what we intend to say--and therefore our blunders, when we make them, are in some measure excusable--and if I should chance to make a blunder or two, I mean any trivial mistake, when we come before this lawyer, you must promise not to interfere, or in any shape contradict me. SIR GEORGE. A mere lapse of memory, I have nothing to do with. BLACKMAN. And my memory grows very bad; therefore you must not disconcert me. SIR GEORGE. Come, let us begone--I am ready to go with you this moment. BLACKMAN. I must first go home, and prepare a few writings. SIR GEORGE. But call to mind that I rely upon your honour. BLACKMAN. Do you think Bluntly, your servant, is an honest man? SIR GEORGE. I am sure he is. BLACKMAN. Then, to quiet your fears, I will take him along with us; and you will depend on what he shall say, I make no doubt? SIR GEORGE. I would stake my being upon his veracity. BLACKMAN. Call him in, then, and bid him do as I command him. SIR GEORGE. Here, Bluntly. (_Enter_ BLUNTLY.) Mr. Blackman has some business with you--listen to him with attention, and follow his directions. [_Exit._ BLACKMAN. You know, I suppose, the perilous situation of your master? [BLUNTLY _shakes his head, and wipes his eyes._ BLACKMAN. Good fellow! good fellow!--and you would, I dare say, do any thing to rescue him from the misery with which he is surrounded? BLUNTLY. I would lay down my life. BLACKMAN. You can do it for less. Only put on a black coat, and the business is done. BLUNTLY. What's that all? Oh! if I can save him by putting on a black coat, I'll go buy mourning, and wear it all my life. BLACKMAN. There's a good fellow. I sincerely thank you for this attachment to your master. [_Shaking him by the hand._ BLUNTLY. My dear Blackman, I beg your pardon for what I am going to say; but as you behave thus friendly on this unfortunate occasion, I must confess to you--that till now I always hated you.--I could not bear the sight of you.--For I thought you (I wish I may die if I did not) one of the greatest rogues in the world. I fancied you only waited on, and advised my master to make your market of him.--But now your attention to him in his distress, when all his friends have forsaken him, is so kind--Heaven bless you--Heaven bless you--I'll go buy a black coat. [_Going._ BLACKMAN. I have something more to say to you.--When you have put on this coat, you must meet your master and me at Mr. Manly's, the lawyer; and when we are all there, you must mind and say, exactly what I say. BLUNTLY. And what will that be? BLACKMAN. Oh! something. BLUNTLY. I have no objection to say something--but I hope you won't make me say any thing. BLACKMAN. You seem to doubt me once more, sir? BLUNTLY. No, I am doubting you now for the first time; for I always thought I was _certain_ before. BLACKMAN. And will you not venture to say yes, and no, to what I shall advance? BLUNTLY. Why--I think I may venture to say yes to your no, and no to your yes, with a safe conscience. BLACKMAN. If you do not instantly follow me and do all that I shall propose, your master is ruined.--Would you see him dragged to prison? BLUNTLY. No, I would sooner go myself. BLACKMAN. Then why do you stand talking about a safe conscience. Half my clients would have been ruined if I had shewn my zeal as you do. Conscience indeed! Why, this is a matter of law, to serve your master in his necessity. BLUNTLY. I have heard necessity has no law--but if it has no conscience, it is a much worse thing than I took it for.--No matter for that--come along.--Oh my poor master!--I would even tell a _lie_ to save him. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _A lawyer's study._ MR. MANLY _discovered at his writing-desk--a Servant attending_. MANLY. Who do you say wants to speak with me? SERVANT. Mr. Lucre, sir. MANLY. And who else? SERVANT. A person who says his name is Willford, he looks as if he came from the country, and seems in mean circumstances. MANLY. Show him to me directly. And take Mr. Lucre, or any other person of fashion that may call, to my clerks. [_Exit Servant._] But for the poor, let them be under _my_ protection. _Enter_ WILLFORD _and_ ELEANOR. MANLY. Come in--walk in, and let me know what I can do to serve you. WILLFORD. I deposited, sir, in your clerk's hands, a sum of money to set me free from confinement for debt.--On his word, I was discharged--he owns he has not yet paid away this money, still he refuses to restore it to me, though in return I again render up my person. MANLY. And why would you do this? WILLFORD. Because my honour--I mean my conscience--for that's the poor man's honour--is concerned. MANLY. Explain yourself. WILLFORD. A son of mine, received this sum I speak of, and thought it _given_ him; while it was only meant as a purchase--a purchase of what we had no right to sell--and therefore it must be restored to the owner. MANLY. And who is he? WILLFORD. Sir George Splendorville--I suppose you have heard of him? MANLY. He, you mean, who by the desire of his father's will, lately changed his name from Blandford? WILLFORD. Sir! MANLY. The name, which some part of the family, while reduced, had taken. WILLFORD. Good Heaven! Is there such a circumstance in his story? MANLY. Why do you ask with such emotion? WILLFORD. Because he is the man, in search of whom I left my habitation in the country, to present before him a destitute young woman, a near relation. MANLY. What relation?--Be particular in your answer. WILLFORD. A sister. MANLY. I thank you for your intelligence. You have named a person who for these three years past, I have in vain endeavoured to find.--But did you say she was in poverty? WILLFORD. I did. MANLY. I give you joy then--for I have in my possession a deed which conveys to a lost daughter of Sir George's father, the other half of the fortune he bequeathed his son--but as yet, all my endeavours have been in vain to find where she, and an uncle, to whose care she was entrusted in her infancy, are retired. WILLFORD. [_Turning to_ ELEANOR. Now, Eleanor, arm yourself with fortitude--with fortitude to bear not the frowns, but the smiles of fortune. Be humble, collected, and the same you have ever been, while I for the first time inform you--you are not my daughter.--And from this gentleman's intelligence add, you are rich--you are the deceased Blandford's child, and Splendorville's sister. ELEANOR. Oh! Heavens! Do I lose a father such as you, to gain a brother such as he is? MANLY. [_To_ WILLFORD. There can be no mistake on this occasion--And you, if I am not deceived, are the brother of the late Mr. Blandford. Your looks, your person, your very voice confirms it. WILLFORD. I have writings in my care, shall prove it beyond a doubt; with the whole narrative of our separation when he with his son, then a youth, embarked for India; where I suppose, riches, soon succeeded poverty. _Enter_ SERVANT. SERVANT. Lady Caroline Seymour, sir, is at the door in her carriage, and will not be denied admittance. She says she must see you upon some very urgent business. MANLY. [_To_ WILLFORD _and_ ELEANOR. Will you do me the favour to step for a moment into this room? Lady Caroline will not stay long. I'll not detain you. [_Exit_ WILLFORD _and_ ELEANOR. _Enter_ LADY CAROLINE. LADY CAROLINE. Dear Mr. Manly, I have a thousand apologies to make--And yet I am sure you will excuse the subject of my visit, when you consider---- MANLY. Your ladyship will please to sit down. [_He draws chairs and they sit._ LADY CAROLINE. You cannot be ignorant, Mr. Manly--you must know, the terms of acquaintance on which Sir George Splendorville and I have been, for some time past?--you were his father's agent; his chief solicitor; and although you are not employed by Sir George, yet the state of his affairs cannot be concealed from you--Has he, or has he not, any inheritance yet to come? MANLY. Pardon me, madam--though not entrusted by Sir George, I will, nevertheless, keep his secrets. LADY CAROLINE. That is plainly telling me he is worth nothing. MANLY. By no means--Sir George, in spite of his profusion, must still be rich. He has preserved his large estate in Wales; and as to money, I do not doubt but he has a considerable sum. LADY CAROLINE. Not a guinea. I won it all from him last night. MANLY. You? You, who are to become his wife? LADY CAROLINE. I might, had I not been thus fortunate. But why should I marry him, when his riches are mine, without that ceremony. MANLY. Inconsiderate man!--what will be the end of his imprudence! Yet, Heaven be praised! he has still that fine estate, I just now mentioned. LADY CAROLINE. Indeed he has not--that has belonged to me these three months. MANLY. To you! LADY CAROLINE. Yes--Bought for me under another name by agents; and for half its value. MANLY. Madman!--Yet your ladyship must excuse me. I know your income stinted, and till the death of the Earl, your father, where could you raise sufficient to make even half the purchase. LADY CAROLINE. From Splendorville's own prodigality--from lavish presents made to me by him. _Enter_ SERVANT. SERVANT. Sir George Splendorville, sir, desires to speak with you--he is at the door with Mr. Blackman. LADY CAROLINE. Oh Heavens! do not let him see me here. [_She is hastening to the room where_ WILLFORD _and his daughter are._ MANLY. I have company there--walk in here, if you Please. [_Shows her another door and she enters._ MANLY. [_To the servant._ Desire Sir George to walk in. _Enter_ SIR GEORGE _and_ BLACKMAN. MANLY. Sir George, do me the favour to sit down. [_He looks coolly on_ BLACKMAN, _and pointing to a chair says_ Good morning. _They sit._ SIR GEORGE. Mr. Manly, my attorney will let you know the business on which I am come. BLACKMAN. Why yes, Mr. Manly, it is extremely hard that Sir George has for so long a time been kept out of a very large part of his fortune; particularly, as he has had occasion for it. SIR GEORGE. I have had occasion for it I assure you Mr. Manly; and I have occasion for it at this very time. MR. MANLY. But so may the person, sir, from whom you would take it. In a word, Sir George, neither your lawyer nor you, shall prevail on me to give up the trust reposed in me by your father, without certain evidence, that your sister will never come to make her claim. BLACKMAN. You are not afraid of ghosts, are you? MANLY. No, nor of robbers either:----you cannot frighten me, Mr. Blackman. BLACKMAN. Then depend upon it, the sister of Sir George can never appear in any other manner than as a spirit. For, here, sir, (_taking from his pocket a parcel of papers_) here are authentic letters to prove her death. (SIR GEORGE _looks confused_.) MANLY. Her death! BLACKMAN. Yes, her death. Here is a certificate from the curate of the parish in which she was buried. MANLY. Buried too! BLACKMAN. Yes, sir, buried. Here is also an affidavit from the sexton of the said village, signed by the overseer and churchwardens, testifying the same.--You see, (_shewing him the paper, and reading at the fame time_) "Died Anno Domini, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine, the seventeenth of June----" [_Mr._ MANLY _takes the paper, and while he is reading_, SIR GEORGE _says apart_---- SIR GEORGE. How near to the brink of infamy has my imprudence led me! And s'death, my confusion takes from me the power to explain, and expose the scoundrel. Mr. Manly, I will leave you for the present; but you shall hear from me shortly,--when this matter shall be accounted for clearly--perfectly to your satisfaction, you may depend upon it.--(_Going._) MANLY. Stay, Sir George, and---- BLACKMAN. Aye, Sir George, stay and see Mr. Manly's objections wholly removed. He seems to doubt the evidence of paper; I must, therefore, beg leave to produce a living witness--the gentleman whom I appointed to meet me here. MANLY. And who is he? BLACKMAN. The apothecary, who attended Sir George's sister in her dying illness. [SIR GEORGE _starts_. MANLY. Desire him to walk in by all means. What is the matter, Sir George, you look discomposed? BLACKMAN. Sir George is something nervous, Mr. Manly; and you know the very name of a medical gentleman, will affect the nerves of some people. [BLACKMAN _goes to the door, and leads on_ BLUNTLY, _dressed in mourning_. SIR GEORGE. [_Aside._ Bluntly!--But I will see the end of this. MANLY. (_Bowing to him_). You are an apothecary, I think, sir? [BLUNTLY _looks at_ BLACKMAN] BLACKMAN. Yes, sir. BLUNTLY. (_After seeming inclined to say_, No). Yes, sir. MANLY. Pray sir, what disorder took the young lady, on whose account you have been brought hither, out of the world? [BLUNTLY _looks at_ BLACKMAN.] BLACKMAN. Oh! the old disorder, I suppose. BLUNTLY. The old disorder. MANLY. And pray what may that be, sir? (BLACKMAN _offers to reply_). Mr. Blackman, Please to let this gentleman speak for himself.--What is it you mean, pray sir, by the old disorder? BLUNTLY. I--I--mean--Love, sir. MANLY. You will not pretend to say, that love, was the cause of her death? BLUNTLY. (_Confused and hesitating_). That--and a few fits of the gout. MANLY. I fear, sir, you are not in perfect health yourself--you tremble and look very pale. BLACKMAN. That is because the subject affects him. MANLY. Do you then never mention the young lady without being affected? BLUNTLY. Never, sir--for had you seen her as I did--um--Had you seen her.----She was in very great danger from the first; but after I attended her, she was in greater danger still.--I advised a physician to be called in; on which she grew worse.--We had next a consultation of physicians; and then it was all over with her. SIR GEORGE. (_Rising from his chair_). Blackman, this is too much--all my calamities are inferior to this--Desist, therefore, or---- BLACKMAN. (_To_ BLUNTLY.) Desist--He cannot bear to hear the pathetic description. Consider the lady was his sister--and though he had not the pleasure of knowing her--yet, poor thing--(_affecting to weep_)--poor young woman! he cannot help lamenting her loss. BLUNTLY. No more can I--for though she was not my relation--yet she was my Patient. (_pretending to weep also_). SIR GEORGE. I can bear no more.--Mr. Manly, you are imposed upon. But think not, however appearances may be against me, that I came here as the tool of so infamous a deceit.--Thoughtlessness, Mr. Manly, has embarrassed my circumstances; and thoughtlessness alone, has made me employ a villain to retrieve them. BLACKMAN. Mighty fine! SIR GEORGE. I have no authority, sir, to affirm, that my sister is not alive; and I am confident the account you have just now heard, of her death, is but an artifice. My indiscretions have reduced me nearly to beggary; but I will perish in confinement--cheerfully perish--rather than owe my affluence to one dishonourable action. BLACKMAN. Grief has turned his brain. MANLY. Sir George, I honour your feelings; and as for the feelings of these gentlemen, I am extremely happy, that it is in my power to dry up their tears, and calm all their sorrows. SIR GEORGE. Sir! BLACKMAN. How? In what way? MANLY. (_Going to the door where_ WILLFORD _and his niece are_.) Come forth, young lady, to the arms of a brother, and relieve the anguish of these mourners, who are lamenting your decease. (ELEANOR _and_ WILLFORD _enter_)--Yes, Sir George, here is that sister, whom those gentlemen assure us, is dead;--and this is the brother of your father.--These are proofs, as convincing, I hope, as any Mr. Blackman can produce. SIR GEORGE. She, my sister! Her pretended father my uncle too! (_Aside_) Blackman, you would have plunged me into an anguish I never knew before; you would have plunged me into shame. BLUNTLY. And so you _have_ me. BLACKMAN. Pshaw.--Mr. Manly, notwithstanding you are these people's voucher, this appears but a scheme.--These persons are but adventurers, and may possibly have about them forgeries, such as an honest man, like myself, would shudder at. MANLY. [_Going to the door._ Who's there? [_Enter Servant._] Shew that--that Mr. Blackman, out of my house instantly; and take care you never admit him again. BLACKMAN. Sir George, will you suffer this? SIR GEORGE. Aye, and a great deal more. BLUNTLY. Look'ee Blackman.--If you don't fall down upon your knees, and beg my pardon at the street door, for the trick you have put upon me, in assuring me my master's sister was really dead, and that I could do her no injury, by doing him a service--if you don't beg my pardon for this, I'll give you such an assault and battery as you never had to do with in your life. BLACKMAN. Beat me--do, beat me--I'll thank you for beating me--I'd be beat every hour of the day, to recover damages. [_Exit with_ BLUNTLY. SIR GEORGE. My sister--with the sincerest joy I call you by that name--and while I thus embrace you, offer you a heart, that beats with all the pure and tender affection, which our kindred to each other claims.--In you (_embracing his uncle_) I behold my father; and experience an awful fear, mingled with my regard. WILLFORD. Continue still that regard, and even that fear--these filial sentiments may prove important; and they shall ever be repaid with my paternal watchings, friendship, and love. ELEANOR. My brother---- SIR GEORGE. I have been unworthy of you--I will be so no more, but imitate your excellence. Yet, when I reflect---- [LADY CAROLINE _comes softly from the inner apartment, and attends to the discourse_. ELEANOR. My brother, do not imagine---- SIR GEORGE. Leave me, leave me to all the agonies of my misconduct.--Where is my fortune? Now _all_ irrecoverably gone--My last, my only resource is now to be paid to another--I have lost every thing. LADY CAROLINE. [_Coming forward._ No, Sir George, _nothing_--since I possess all that was yours. SIR GEORGE. How! LADY CAROLINE. Behold a friend in your necessities--a mistress whom your misfortunes cannot drive away--but who, experiencing much of your unkindness, still loves you; and knowing your every folly, will still submit to honour, and obey you. I received your lavish presents, but to hoard them for you--made myself mistress of your fortune, but to return it to you--and with it, all my own. SIR GEORGE. Can this be real? Can I be raised in one moment, from the depths of misery to unbounded happiness? _Enter_ SERVANT. SERVANT. A young man, who says he is Mr. Willford's son, is called to enquire for him. MANLY. Shew him in. [SIR GEORGE _and_ LADY CAROLINE _retire to the back part of the stage_. _Enter_ HENRY. WILLFORD. Come, Henry, and take leave of your sister for ever. HENRY. How so, sir?--What do you mean? To be parted from her, would be the utmost rigour of fortune. MANLY. The affection with which you speak, young gentleman, seems to convey something beyond mere brotherly love. WILLFORD. I some years since revealed to him she was _not_ his sister. ELEANOR. And he, some years since, implied it to me. Yet, in such doubtful terms, I knew not which of us had the sorrow not to be your child.--I now find it is myself--and I aver it to be a sorrow, for which, all the fortune I am going to possess will not repay me. SIR GEORGE. Then, my dearest sister, indulge the hope you may yet be his daughter. This young man's merit deserves a reward, and in _time_ he may learn to love you by a still nearer tie than that, you have so long known to exist between you; nay, even by a nearer tie than that of brother. HENRY. I am in doubt of what I hear--Eleanor, since our short separation, there cannot surely have been any important discovery-- MANLY. Be not surprised--great discoveries, which we labour in vain for years to make, are frequently brought about in one lucky moment, without any labour at all. SIR GEORGE. True--for till this day arose, I had passed every hour since my birth, without making one discovery to my advantage--while this short, but propitious morning, has discovered to me all my former folly--and discovered to me--how to be in future happy. THE END. EPILOGUE, BY T. VAUGHAN, ESQ. SPOKEN BY MRS. KEMBLE. "Long before the beginning of this Play," I heard some DEEP ones in the Green-Room, say, They had their fears and doubts--whilst some did quake-- And others wish'd it bed-time for her sake. Do you, our best Physicians, ever kind, } Prescribe our true Cephalic for the Mind, } Of these our Neighbours, and _kind Friends_--behind, } And with it, give a cordial of the best, To one, with deepest Gratitude imprest. For some there are--I have them in my eye-- Will sicken and turn pale with jealousy, Whene'er we scribbling Women wield the Pen, Or dare invade the Rights of scribbling Men; And fir'd with zeal, in dread array appear-- With Tenets from the _learned_ Hemisphere; Thence cry (_kind Souls_) "Invention is the only Art, And mere Translation but a second Part; Besides--_we Men of Taste_--can ne'er withstand E'en Nature's GARRICK thus at second Hand! Then why do Comic Writers live on Theft, When such Ragouts and Dainties still are left? Not richer were, in CONGREVE'S days or BEHN, For now, the Males are Females--Women, Men-- Nay some so _manly_, and so orthodox, Will drive you four in Hand--or hold the Box; And if perchance the fatal Die is thrown, Will storm and swear, like any Lord in Town." But might I whisper in this Censor's ear, I'd prove his observations too severe-- And urge--"Translation to hit off with skill, Is not the province of each common Quill; But by improving what was writ before, Tho' Genius may be less, our Judgment's more; And whilst we paint with energy from Life, The gallant Husband, or _more gallant Wife_, With Tints from living Portraits from the Spot, It matters not by whom related--or begot; And thus, much surer shall we reach the Heart, Than all the _lifeless_ pomp of _boasted_ Art." As such, deny her not--at least the merit Of giving _Gallic Froth_--true BRITISH SPIRIT. And as for you, ye Fair, how blooms the Cheek, How sweet the Temper which those eyes bespeak? No Midnight Oil has e'er destroy'd a Grace, Or Gaming's Horrors found with you a place; But Cupid lent you all those winning Arts, Which at a glance--can warm the coldest Hearts. Check then with me these Censors as unjust, Who form their judgments--_as they live_--on Trust. Nor ever credit what they dare to say, Unless with you they join, and like our Play. Use for a signal then--your Magic Fan, And all the House will follow to a Man; Or should there be a disaffected few-- _A Counter Revolution_--rests with you. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Contemporary spellings and hyphenation have been retained even where inconsistent. Two obvious spelling errors were corrected (reception for receptiou; demand for emand). A single misspelling of WILLFORD as WILLORD was corrected. In ACT 2, Scene 1, "then" was changed to "than" in Henry's sentence: I know no other way to shew my humility, than to accept your present In ACT 3, Scene 1, "your" was changed to "you" in Sir George's sentence: Still an object I adore; but I now perceive you are one to my ruin devoted. On two occasions where the same word appeared at the end of one line and the beginning of the next, the superfluous word was deleted. They were: ACT 2, Scene 1, Sir George: You were giving me an an account, Bluntly (...) ACT 3, Scene 1, Sir George: Lucre, my dear Lucre, are not you amazed at at what you see? 
4003	----	ANDROCLES AND THE LION BERNARD SHAW 1912 PROLOGUE Overture; forest sounds, roaring of lions, Christian hymn faintly. A jungle path. A lion's roar, a melancholy suffering roar, comes from the jungle. It is repeated nearer. The lion limps from the jungle on three legs, holding up his right forepaw, in which a huge thorn sticks. He sits down and contemplates it. He licks it. He shakes it. He tries to extract it by scraping it along the ground, and hurts himself worse. He roars piteously. He licks it again. Tears drop from his eyes. He limps painfully off the path and lies down under the trees, exhausted with pain. Heaving a long sigh, like wind in a trombone, he goes to sleep. Androcles and his wife Megaera come along the path. He is a small, thin, ridiculous little man who might be any age from thirty to fifty-five. He has sandy hair, watery compassionate blue eyes, sensitive nostrils, and a very presentable forehead; but his good points go no further; his arms and legs and back, though wiry of their kind, look shrivelled and starved. He carries a big bundle, is very poorly clad, and seems tired and hungry. His wife is a rather handsome pampered slattern, well fed and in the prime of life. She has nothing to carry, and has a stout stick to help her along. MEGAERA (suddenly throwing down her stick) I won't go another step. ANDROCLES (pleading wearily) Oh, not again, dear. What's the good of stopping every two miles and saying you won't go another step? We must get on to the next village before night. There are wild beasts in this wood: lions, they say. MEGAERA. I don't believe a word of it. You are always threatening me with wild beasts to make me walk the very soul out of my body when I can hardly drag one foot before another. We haven't seen a single lion yet. ANDROCLES. Well, dear, do you want to see one? MEGAERA (tearing the bundle from his back) You cruel beast, you don't care how tired I am, or what becomes of me (she throws the bundle on the ground): always thinking of yourself. Self! self! self! always yourself! (She sits down on the bundle). ANDROCLES (sitting down sadly on the ground with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands) We all have to think of ourselves occasionally, dear. MEGAERA. A man ought to think of his wife sometimes. ANDROCLES. He can't always help it, dear. You make me think of you a good deal. Not that I blame you. MEGAERA. Blame me! I should think not indeed. Is it my fault that I'm married to you? ANDROCLES. No, dear: that is my fault. MEGAERA. That's a nice thing to say to me. Aren't you happy with me? ANDROCLES. I don't complain, my love. MEGAERA. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. ANDROCLES. I am, my dear. MEGAERA. You're not: you glory in it. ANDROCLES. In what, darling? MEGAERA. In everything. In making me a slave, and making yourself a laughing-stock. Its not fair. You get me the name of being a shrew with your meek ways, always talking as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth. And just because I look a big strong woman, and because I'm good-hearted and a bit hasty, and because you're always driving me to do things I'm sorry for afterwards, people say "Poor man: what a life his wife leads him!" Oh, if they only knew! And you think I don't know. But I do, I do, (screaming) I do. ANDROCLES. Yes, my dear: I know you do. MEGAERA. Then why don't you treat me properly and be a good husband to me? ANDROCLES. What can I do, my dear? MEGAERA. What can you do! You can return to your duty, and come back to your home and your friends, and sacrifice to the gods as all respectable people do, instead of having us hunted out of house and home for being dirty, disreputable, blaspheming atheists. ANDROCLES. I'm not an atheist, dear: I am a Christian. MEGAERA. Well, isn't that the same thing, only ten times worse? Everybody knows that the Christians are the very lowest of the low. ANDROCLES. Just like us, dear. MEGAERA. Speak for yourself. Don't you dare to compare me to common people. My father owned his own public-house; and sorrowful was the day for me when you first came drinking in our bar. ANDROCLES. I confess I was addicted to it, dear. But I gave it up when I became a Christian. MEGAERA. You'd much better have remained a drunkard. I can forgive a man being addicted to drink: its only natural; and I don't deny I like a drop myself sometimes. What I can't stand is your being addicted to Christianity. And what's worse again, your being addicted to animals. How is any woman to keep her house clean when you bring in every stray cat and lost cur and lame duck in the whole countryside? You took the bread out of my mouth to feed them: you know you did: don't attempt to deny it. ANDROCLES. Only when they were hungry and you were getting too stout, dearie. MEGAERA. Yes, insult me, do. (Rising) Oh! I won't bear it another moment. You used to sit and talk to those dumb brute beasts for hours, when you hadn't a word for me. ANDROCLES. They never answered back, darling. (He rises and again shoulders the bundle). MEGAERA. Well, if you're fonder of animals than of your own wife, you can live with them here in the jungle. I've had enough of them and enough of you. I'm going back. I'm going home. ANDROCLES (barring the way back) No, dearie: don't take on like that. We can't go back. We've sold everything: we should starve; and I should be sent to Rome and thrown to the lions-- MEGAERA. Serve you right! I wish the lions joy of you. (Screaming) Are you going to get out of my way and let me go home? ANDROCLES. No, dear-- MEGAERA. Then I'll make my way through the forest; and when I'm eaten by the wild beasts you'll know what a wife you've lost. (She dashes into the jungle and nearly falls over the sleeping lion). Oh! Oh! Andy! Andy! (She totters back and collapses into the arms of Androcles, who, crushed by her weight, falls on his bundle). ANDROCLES (extracting himself from beneath her and slapping her hands in great anxiety) What is it, my precious, my pet? What's the matter? (He raises her head. Speechless with terror, she points in the direction of the sleeping lion. He steals cautiously towards the spot indicated by Megaera. She rises with an effort and totters after him). MEGAERA. No, Andy: you'll be killed. Come back. The lion utters a long snoring sigh. Androcles sees the lion and recoils fainting into the arms of Megaera, who falls back on the bundle. They roll apart and lie staring in terror at one another. The lion is heard groaning heavily in the jungle. ANDROCLES (whispering) Did you see? A lion. MEGAERA (despairing) The gods have sent him to punish us because you're a Christian. Take me away, Andy. Save me. ANDROCLES (rising) Meggy: there's one chance for you. It'll take him pretty nigh twenty minutes to eat me (I'm rather stringy and tough) and you can escape in less time than that. MEGAERA. Oh, don't talk about eating. (The lion rises with a great groan and limps towards them). Oh! (She faints). ANDROCLES (quaking, but keeping between the lion and Megaera) Don't you come near my wife, do you hear? (The lion groans. Androcles can hardly stand for trembling). Meggy: run. Run for your life. If I take my eye off him, its all up. (The lion holds up his wounded paw and flaps it piteously before Androcles). Oh, he's lame, poor old chap! He's got a thorn in his paw. A frightfully big thorn. (Full of sympathy) Oh, poor old man! Did um get an awful thorn into um's tootsums wootsums? Has it made um too sick to eat a nice little Christian man for um's breakfast? Oh, a nice little Christian man will get um's thorn out for um; and then um shall eat the nice Christian man and the nice Christian man's nice big tender wifey pifey. (The lion responds by moans of self-pity). Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, now (taking the paw in his hand) um is not to bite and not to scratch, not even if it hurts a very, very little. Now make velvet paws. That's right. (He pulls gingerly at the thorn. The lion, with an angry yell of pain, jerks back his paw so abruptly that Androcles is thrown on his back). Steadeee! Oh, did the nasty cruel little Christian man hurt the sore paw? (The lion moans assentingly but apologetically). Well, one more little pull and it will be all over. Just one little, little, leetle pull; and then um will live happily ever after. (He gives the thorn another pull. The lion roars and snaps his jaws with a terrifying clash). Oh, mustn't frighten um's good kind doctor, um's affectionate nursey. That didn't hurt at all: not a bit. Just one more. Just to show how the brave big lion can bear pain, not like the little crybaby Christian man. Oopsh! (The thorn comes out. The lion yells with pain, and shakes his paw wildly). That's it! (Holding up the thorn). Now it's out. Now lick um's paw to take away the nasty inflammation. See? (He licks his own hand. The lion nods intelligently and licks his paw industriously). Clever little liony-piony! Understands um's dear old friend Andy Wandy. (The lion licks his face). Yes, kissums Andy Wandy. (The lion, wagging his tail violently, rises on his hind legs and embraces Androcles, who makes a wry face and cries) Velvet paws! Velvet paws! (The lion draws in his claws). That's right. (He embraces the lion, who finally takes the end of his tail in one paw, places that tight around Androcles' waist, resting it on his hip. Androcles takes the other paw in his hand, stretches out his arm, and the two waltz rapturously round and round and finally away through the jungle). MEGAERA (who has revived during the waltz) Oh, you coward, you haven't danced with me for years; and now you go off dancing with a great brute beast that you haven't known for ten minutes and that wants to eat your own wife. Coward! Coward! Coward! (She rushes off after them into the jungle). ACT I Evening. The end of three converging roads to Rome. Three triumphal arches span them where they debouch on a square at the gate of the city. Looking north through the arches one can see the campagna threaded by the three long dusty tracks. On the east and west sides of the square are long stone benches. An old beggar sits on the east side of the square, his bowl at his feet. Through the eastern arch a squad of Roman soldiers tramps along escorting a batch of Christian prisoners of both sexes and all ages, among them one Lavinia, a goodlooking resolute young woman, apparently of higher social standing than her fellow-prisoners. A centurion, carrying his vinewood cudgel, trudges alongside the squad, on its right, in command of it. All are tired and dusty; but the soldiers are dogged and indifferent, the Christians light-hearted and determined to treat their hardships as a joke and encourage one another. A bugle is heard far behind on the road, where the rest of the cohort is following. CENTURION (stopping) Halt! Orders from the Captain. (They halt and wait). Now then, you Christians, none of your larks. The captain's coming. Mind you behave yourselves. No singing. Look respectful. Look serious, if you're capable of it. See that big building over there? That's the Coliseum. That's where you'll be thrown to the lions or set to fight the gladiators presently. Think of that; and it'll help you to behave properly before the captain. (The Captain arrives). Attention! Salute! (The soldiers salute). A CHRISTIAN (cheerfully) God bless you, Captain. THE CENTURION (scandalised) Silence! The Captain, a patrician, handsome, about thirty-five, very cold and distinguished, very superior and authoritative, steps up on a stone seat at the west side of the square, behind the centurion, so as to dominate the others more effectually. THE CAPTAIN. Centurion. THE CENTURION. (standing at attention and saluting) Sir? THE CAPTAIN (speaking stiffly and officially) You will remind your men, Centurion, that we are now entering Rome. You will instruct them that once inside the gates of Rome they are in the presence of the Emperor. You will make them understand that the lax discipline of the march cannot be permitted here. You will instruct them to shave every day, not every week. You will impress on them particularly that there must be an end to the profanity and blasphemy of singing Christian hymns on the march. I have to reprimand you, Centurion, for not only allowing this, but actually doing it yourself. THE CENTURION. The men march better, Captain. THE CAPTAIN. No doubt. For that reason an exception is made in the case of the march called Onward Christian Soldiers. This may be sung, except when marching through the forum or within hearing of the Emperor's palace; but the words must be altered to "Throw them to the Lions." The Christians burst into shrieks of uncontrollable laughter, to the great scandal of the Centurion. CENTURION. Silence! Silen-n-n-n-nce! Where's your behavior? Is that the way to listen to an officer? (To the Captain) That's what we have to put up with from these Christians every day, sir. They're always laughing and joking something scandalous. They've no religion: that's how it is. LAVINIA. But I think the Captain meant us to laugh, Centurion. It was so funny. CENTURION. You'll find out how funny it is when you're thrown to the lions to-morrow. (To the Captain, who looks displeased) Beg pardon, Sir. (To the Christians) Silennnnce! THE CAPTAIN. You are to instruct your men that all intimacy with Christian prisoners must now cease. The men have fallen into habits of dependence upon the prisoners, especially the female prisoners, for cooking, repairs to uniforms, writing letters, and advice in their private affairs. In a Roman soldier such dependence is inadmissible. Let me see no more of it whilst we are in the city. Further, your orders are that in addressing Christian prisoners, the manners and tone of your men must express abhorrence and contempt. Any shortcoming in this respect will be regarded as a breach of discipline.(He turns to the prisoners) Prisoners. CENTURION (fiercely) Prisonerrrrrs! Tention! Silence! THE CAPTAIN. I call your attention, prisoners, to the fact that you may be called on to appear in the Imperial Circus at any time from tomorrow onwards according to the requirements of the managers. I may inform you that as there is a shortage of Christians just now, you may expect to be called on very soon. LAVINIA. What will they do to us, Captain? CENTURION. Silence! THE CAPTAIN. The women will be conducted into the arena with the wild beasts of the Imperial Menagerie, and will suffer the consequences. The men, if of an age to bear arms, will be given weapons to defend themselves, if they choose, against the Imperial Gladiators. LAVINIA. Captain: is there no hope that this cruel persecution-- CENTURION (shocked) Silence! Hold your tongue, there. Persecution, indeed! THE CAPTAIN (unmoved and somewhat sardonic) Persecution is not a term applicable to the acts of the Emperor. The Emperor is the Defender of the Faith. In throwing you to the lions he will be upholding the interests of religion in Rome. If you were to throw him to the lions, that would no doubt be persecution. The Christians again laugh heartily. CENTURION (horrified) Silence, I tell you! Keep silence there. Did anyone ever hear the like of this? LAVINIA. Captain: there will be nobody to appreciate your jokes when we are gone. THE CAPTAIN (unshaken in his official delivery) I call the attention of the female prisoner Lavinia to the fact that as the Emperor is a divine personage, her imputation of cruelty is not only treason, but sacrilege. I point out to her further that there is no foundation for the charge, as the Emperor does not desire that any prisoner should suffer; nor can any Christian be harmed save through his or her own obstinacy. All that is necessary is to sacrifice to the gods: a simple and convenient ceremony effected by dropping a pinch of incense on the altar, after which the prisoner is at once set free. Under such circumstances you have only your own perverse folly to blame if you suffer. I suggest to you that if you cannot burn a morsel of incense as a matter of conviction, you might at least do so as a matter of good taste, to avoid shocking the religious convictions of your fellow citizens. I am aware that these considerations do not weigh with Christians; but it is my duty to call your attention to them in order that you may have no ground for complaining of your treatment, or of accusing the Emperor of cruelty when he is showing you the most signal clemency. Looked at from this point of view, every Christian who has perished in the arena has really committed suicide. LAVINIA. Captain: your jokes are too grim. Do not think it is easy for us to die. Our faith makes life far stronger and more wonderful in us than when we walked in darkness and had nothing to live for. Death is harder for us than for you: the martyr's agony is as bitter as his triumph is glorious. THE CAPTAIN (rather troubled, addressing her personally and gravely) A martyr, Lavinia, is a fool. Your death will prove nothing. LAVINIA. Then why kill me? THE CAPTAIN. I mean that truth, if there be any truth, needs no martyrs. LAVINIA. No; but my faith, like your sword, needs testing. Can you test your sword except by staking your life on it? THE CAPTAIN (suddenly resuming his official tone) I call the attention of the female prisoner to the fact that Christians are not allowed to draw the Emperor's officers into arguments and put questions to them for which the military regulations provide no answer. (The Christians titter). LAVINIA. Captain: how CAN you? THE CAPTAIN. I call the female prisoner's attention specially to the fact that four comfortable homes have been offered her by officers of this regiment, of which she can have her choice the moment she chooses to sacrifice as all well-bred Roman ladies do. I have no more to say to the prisoners. CENTURION. Dismiss! But stay where you are. THE CAPTAIN. Centurion: you will remain here with your men in charge of the prisoners until the arrival of three Christian prisoners in the custody of a cohort of the tenth legion. Among these prisoners you will particularly identify an armorer named Ferrovius, of dangerous character and great personal strength, and a Greek tailor reputed to be a sorcerer, by name Androcles. You will add the three to your charge here and march them all to the Coliseum, where you will deliver them into the custody of the master of the gladiators and take his receipt, countersigned by the keeper of the beasts and the acting manager. You understand your instructions? CENTURION. Yes, Sir. THE CAPTAIN. Dismiss. (He throws off his air of parade, and descends down from the perch. The Centurion seats on it and prepares for a nap, whilst his men stand at ease. The Christians sit down on the west side of the square, glad to rest. Lavinia alone remains standing to speak to the Captain). LAVINIA. Captain: is this man who is to join us the famous Ferrovius, who has made such wonderful conversions in the northern cities? THE CAPTAIN. Yes. We are warned that he has the strength of an elephant and the temper of a mad bull. Also that he is stark mad. Not a model Christian, it would seem. LAVINIA. You need not fear him if he is a Christian, Captain. THE CAPTAIN (coldly) I shall not fear him in any case, Lavinia. LAVINIA (her eyes dancing) How brave of you, Captain! THE CAPTAIN. You are right: it was silly thing to say. (In a lower tone, humane and urgent) Lavinia: do Christians know how to love? LAVINIA (composedly) Yes, Captain: they love even their enemies. THE CAPTAIN. Is that easy? LAVINIA. Very easy, Captain, when their enemies are as handsome as you. THE CAPTAIN. Lavinia: you are laughing at me. LAVINIA. At you, Captain! Impossible. THE CAPTAIN. Then you are flirting with me, which is worse. Don't be foolish. LAVINIA. But such a very handsome captain. THE CAPTAIN. Incorrigible! (Urgently) Listen to me. The men in that audience tomorrow will be the vilest of voluptuaries: men in whom the only passion excited by a beautiful woman is a lust to see her tortured and torn shrieking limb from limb. It is a crime to dignify that passion. It is offering yourself for violation by the whole rabble of the streets and the riff-raff of the court at the same time. Why will you not choose rather a kindly love and an honorable alliance? LAVINIA. They cannot violate my soul. I alone can do that by sacrificing to false gods. THE CAPTAIN. Sacrifice then to the true God. What does his name matter? We call him Jupiter. The Greeks call him Zeus. Call him what you will as you drop the incense on the altar flame: He will understand. LAVINIA. No. I couldn't. That is the strange thing, Captain, that a little pinch of incense should make all that difference. Religion is such a great thing that when I meet really religious people we are friends at once, no matter what name we give to the divine will that made us and moves us. Oh, do you think that I, a woman, would quarrel with you for sacrificing to a woman god like Diana, if Diana meant to you what Christ means to me? No: we should kneel side by side before her altar like two children. But when men who believe neither in my god nor in their own--men who do not know the meaning of the word religion--when these men drag me to the foot of an iron statue that has become the symbol of the terror and darkness through which they walk, of their cruelty and greed, of their hatred of God and their oppression of man--when they ask me to pledge my soul before the people that this hideous idol is God, and that all this wickedness and falsehood is divine truth, I cannot do it, not if they could put a thousand cruel deaths on me. I tell you, it is physically impossible. Listen, Captain: did you ever try to catch a mouse in your hand? Once there was a dear little mouse that used to come out and play on my table as I was reading. I wanted to take him in my hand and caress him; and sometimes he got among my books so that he could not escape me when I stretched out my hand. And I did stretch out my hand; but it always came back in spite of me. I was not afraid of him in my heart; but my hand refused: it is not in the nature of my hand to touch a mouse. Well, Captain, if I took a pinch of incense in my hand and stretched it out over the altar fire, my hand would come back. My body would be true to my faith even if you could corrupt my mind. And all the time I should believe more in Diana than my persecutors have ever believed in anything. Can you understand that? THE CAPTAIN (simply) Yes: I understand that. But my hand would not come back. The hand that holds the sword has been trained not to come back from anything but victory. LAVINIA. Not even from death? THE CAPTAIN. Least of all from death. LAVINIA. Then I must not come back either. A woman has to be braver than a soldier. THE CAPTAIN. Prouder, you mean. LAVINIA (startled) Prouder! You call our courage pride! THE CAPTAIN. There is no such thing as courage: there is only pride. You Christians are the proudest devils on earth. LAVINIA (hurt) Pray God then my pride may never become a false pride. (She turns away as if she did not wish to continue the conversation, but softens and says to him with a smile) Thank you for trying to save me from death. THE CAPTAIN. I knew it was no use; but one tries in spite of one's knowledge. LAVINIA. Something stirs, even in the iron breast of a Roman soldier! THE CAPTAIN. It will soon be iron again. I have seen many women die, and forgotten them in a week. LAVINIA. Remember me for a fortnight, handsome Captain. I shall be watching you, perhaps. THE CAPTAIN. From the skies? Do not deceive yourself, Lavinia. There is no future for you beyond the grave. LAVINIA. What does that matter? Do you think I am only running away from the terrors of life into the comfort of heaven? If there were no future, or if the future were one of torment, I should have to go just the same. The hand of God is upon me. THE CAPTAIN. Yes: when all is said, we are both patricians, Lavinia, and must die for our beliefs. Farewell. (He offers her his hand. She takes it and presses it. He walks away, trim and calm. She looks after him for a moment, and cries a little as he disappears through the eastern arch. A trumpet-call is heard from the road through the western arch). CENTURION (waking up and rising) Cohort of the tenth with prisoners. Two file out with me to receive them. (He goes out through the western arch, followed by four soldiers in two files). Lentulus and Metellus come into the square from the west side with a little retinue of servants. Both are young courtiers, dressed in the extremity of fashion. Lentulus is slender, fair-haired, epicene. Metellus is manly, compactly built, olive skinned, not a talker. LENTULUS. Christians, by Jove! Let's chaff them. METELLUS. Awful brutes. If you knew as much about them as I do you wouldn't want to chaff them. Leave them to the lions. LENTULUS (indicating Lavinia, who is still looking towards the arches after the captain). That woman's got a figure. (He walks past her, staring at her invitingly, but she is preoccupied and is not conscious of him). Do you turn the other cheek when they kiss you? LAVINIA (starting) What? LENTULus. Do you turn the other cheek when they kiss you, fascinating Christian? LAVINIA. Don't be foolish. (To Metellus, who has remained on her right, so that she is between them) Please don't let your friend behave like a cad before the soldiers. How are they to respect and obey patricians if they see them behaving like street boys? (Sharply to Lentulus) Pull yourself together, man. Hold your head up. Keep the corners of your mouth firm; and treat me respectfully. What do you take me for? LENTULUS (irresolutely) Look here, you know: I--you--I-- LAVINIA. Stuff! Go about your business. (She turns decisively away and sits down with her comrades, leaving him disconcerted). METELLUS. You didn't get much out of that. I told you they were brutes. LENTULUS. Plucky little filly! I suppose she thinks I care. (With an air of indifference he strolls with Metellus to the east side of the square, where they stand watching the return of the Centurion through the western arch with his men, escorting three prisoners: Ferrovius, Androcles, and Spintho. Ferrovius is a powerful, choleric man in the prime of life, with large nostrils, staring eyes, and a thick neck: a man whose sensibilities are keen and violent to the verge of madness. Spintho is a debauchee, the wreck of a good-looking man gone hopelessly to the bad. Androcles is overwhelmed with grief, and is restraining his tears with great difficulty). THE CENTURION (to Lavinia) Here are some pals for you. This little bit is Ferrovius that you talk so much about. (Ferrovius turns on him threateningly. The Centurion holds up his left forefinger in admonition). Now remember that you're a Christian, and that you've got to return good for evil. (Ferrovius controls himself convulsively; moves away from temptation to the east side near Lentulus; clasps his hands in silent prayer; and throws himself on his knees). That's the way to manage them, eh! This fine fellow (indicating Androcles, who comes to his left, and makes Lavinia a heartbroken salutation) is a sorcerer. A Greek tailor, he is. A real sorcerer, too: no mistake about it. The tenth marches with a leopard at the head of the column. He made a pet of the leopard; and now he's crying at being parted from it. (Androcles sniffs lamentably). Ain't you, old chap? Well, cheer up, we march with a Billy goat (Androcles brightens up) that's killed two leopards and ate a turkey-cock. You can have him for a pet if you like. (Androcles, quite consoled, goes past the Centurion to Lavinia, and sits down contentedly on the ground on her left). This dirty dog (collaring Spintho) is a real Christian. He mobs the temples, he does (at each accusation he gives the neck of Spintho's tunic a twist); he goes smashing things mad drunk, he does; he steals the gold vessels, he does; he assaults the priestesses, he does pah! (He flings Spintho into the middle of the group of prisoners). You're the sort that makes duty a pleasure, you are. SPINTHO (gasping) That's it: strangle me. Kick me. Beat me. Revile me. Our Lord was beaten and reviled. That's my way to heaven. Every martyr goes to heaven, no matter what he's done. That is so, isn't it, brother? CENTURION. Well, if you're going to heaven, _I_ don't want to go there. I wouldn't be seen with you. LENTULUS. Haw! Good! (Indicating the kneeling Ferrovius). Is this one of the turn-the-other-cheek gentlemen, Centurion? CENTURION. Yes, sir. Lucky for you too, sir, if you want to take any liberties with him. LENTULUS (to Ferrovius) You turn the other cheek when you're struck, I'm told. FERROVIUS (slowly turning his great eyes on him) Yes, by the grace of God, I do, NOW. LENTULUS. Not that you're a coward, of course; but out of pure piety. FERROVIUS. I fear God more than man; at least I try to. LENTULUS. Let's see. (He strikes him on the cheek. Androcles makes a wild movement to rise and interfere; but Lavinia holds him down, watching Ferrovius intently. Ferrovius, without flinching, turns the other cheek. Lentulus, rather out of countenance, titters foolishly, and strikes him again feebly). You know, I should feel ashamed if I let myself be struck like that, and took it lying down. But then I'm not a Christian: I'm a man. (Ferrovius rises impressively and towers over him. Lentulus becomes white with terror; and a shade of green flickers in his cheek for a moment). FERROVIUS (with the calm of a steam hammer) I have not always been faithful. The first man who struck me as you have just struck me was a stronger man than you: he hit me harder than I expected. I was tempted and fell; and it was then that I first tasted bitter shame. I never had a happy moment after that until I had knelt and asked his forgiveness by his bedside in the hospital. (Putting his hands on Lentulus's shoulders with paternal weight). But now I have learnt to resist with a strength that is not my own. I am not ashamed now, nor angry. LENTULUS (uneasily) Er--good evening. (He tries to move away). FERROVIUS (gripping his shoulders) Oh, do not harden your heart, young man. Come: try for yourself whether our way is not better than yours. I will now strike you on one cheek; and you will turn the other and learn how much better you will feel than if you gave way to the promptings of anger. (He holds him with one hand and clenches the other fist). LENTULUS. Centurion: I call on you to protect me. CENTURION. You asked for it, sir. It's no business of ours. You've had two whacks at him. Better pay him a trifle and square it that way. LENTULUS. Yes, of course. (To Ferrovius) It was only a bit of fun, I assure you: I meant no harm. Here. (He proffers a gold coin). FERROVIUS (taking it and throwing it to the old beggar, who snatches it up eagerly, and hobbles off to spend it) Give all thou hast to the poor. Come, friend: courage! I may hurt your body for a moment; but your soul will rejoice in the victory of the spirit over the flesh. (He prepares to strike). ANDROCLES. Easy, Ferrovius, easy: you broke the last man's jaw. Lentulus, with a moan of terror, attempts to fly; but Ferrovius holds him ruthlessly. FERROVIUS. Yes; but I saved his soul. What matters a broken jaw? LENTULUS. Don't touch me, do you hear? The law-- FERROVIUS. The law will throw me to the lions tomorrow: what worse could it do were I to slay you? Pray for strength; and it shall be given to you. LENTULUS. Let me go. Your religion forbids you to strike me. FERROVIUS. On the contrary, it commands me to strike you. How can you turn the other cheek, if you are not first struck on the one cheek? LENTULUS (almost in tears) But I'm convinced already that what you said is quite right. I apologize for striking you. FERROVIUS (greatly pleased) My son: have I softened your heart? Has the good seed fallen in a fruitful place? Are your feet turning towards a better path? LENTULUS (abjectly) Yes, yes. There's a great deal in what you say. FERROVIUS (radiant) Join us. Come to the lions. Come to suffering and death. LENTULUS (falling on his knees and bursting into tears) Oh, help me. Mother! mother! FERROVIUS. These tears will water your soul and make it bring forth good fruit, my son. God has greatly blessed my efforts at conversion. Shall I tell you a miracle--yes, a miracle--wrought by me in Cappadocia? A young man--just such a one as you, with golden hair like yours--scoffed at and struck me as you scoffed at and struck me. I sat up all night with that youth wrestling for his soul; and in the morning not only was he a Christian, but his hair was as white as snow. (Lentulus falls in a dead faint). There, there: take him away. The spirit has overwrought him, poor lad. Carry him gently to his house; and leave the rest to heaven. CENTURION. Take him home. (The servants, intimidated, hastily carry him out. Metellus is about to follow when Ferrovius lays his hand on his shoulder). FERROVIUS. You are his friend, young man. You will see that he is taken safely home. METELLUS (with awestruck civility) Certainly, sir. I shall do whatever you think best. Most happy to have made your acquaintance, I'm sure. You may depend on me. Good evening, sir. FERROVIUS (with unction) The blessing of heaven upon you and him. Metellus follows Lentulus. The Centurion returns to his seat to resume his interrupted nap. The deepest awe has settled on the spectators. Ferrovius, with a long sigh of happiness, goes to Lavinia, and offers her his hand. LAVINIA (taking it) So that is how you convert people, Ferrovius. FERROVIUS. Yes: there has been a blessing on my work in spite of my unworthiness and my backslidings--all through my wicked, devilish temper. This man-- ANDROCLES (hastily) Don't slap me on the back, brother. She knows you mean me. FERROVIUS. How I wish I were weak like our brother here! for then I should perhaps be meek and gentle like him. And yet there seems to be a special providence that makes my trials less than his. I hear tales of the crowd scoffing and casting stones and reviling the brethren; but when I come, all this stops: my influence calms the passions of the mob: they listen to me in silence; and infidels are often converted by a straight heart-to-heart talk with me. Every day I feel happier, more confident. Every day lightens the load of the great terror. LAVINIA. The great terror? What is that? Ferrovius shakes his head and does not answer. He sits down beside her on her left, and buries his face in his hands in gloomy meditation. ANDROCLES. Well, you see, sister, he's never quite sure of himself. Suppose at the last moment in the arena, with the gladiators there to fight him, one of them was to say anything to annoy him, he might forget himself and lay that gladiator out. LAVINIA. That would be splendid. FERROVIUS (springing up in horror) What! ANDROCLES. Oh, sister! FERROVIUS. Splendid to betray my master, like Peter! Splendid to act like any common blackguard in the day of my proving! Woman: you are no Christian. (He moves away from her to the middle of the square, as if her neighborhood contaminated him). LAVINIA (laughing) You know, Ferrovius, I am not always a Christian. I don't think anybody is. There are moments when I forget all about it, and something comes out quite naturally, as it did then. SPINTHO. What does it matter? If you die in the arena, you'll be a martyr; and all martyrs go to heaven, no matter what they have done. That's so, isn't it, Ferrovius? FERROVIUS. Yes: that is so, if we are faithful to the end. LAVINIA. I'm not so sure. SPINTHO. Don't say that. That's blasphemy. Don't say that, I tell you. We shall be saved, no matter WHAT we do. LAVINIA. Perhaps you men will all go into heaven bravely and in triumph, with your heads erect and golden trumpets sounding for you. But I am sure I shall only be allowed to squeeze myself in through a little crack in the gate after a great deal of begging. I am not good always: I have moments only. SPINTHO. You're talking nonsense, woman. I tell you, martyrdom pays all scores. ANDROCLES. Well, let us hope so, brother, for your sake. You've had a gay time, haven't you? with your raids on the temples. I can't help thinking that heaven will be very dull for a man of your temperament. (Spintho snarls). Don't be angry: I say it only to console you in case you should die in your bed tonight in the natural way. There's a lot of plague about. SPINTHO (rising and running about in abject terror) I never thought of that. O Lord, spare me to be martyred. Oh, what a thought to put into the mind of a brother! Oh, let me be martyred today, now. I shall die in the night and go to hell. You're a sorcerer: you've put death into my mind. Oh, curse you, curse you! (He tries to seize Androcles by the throat). FERROVIUS (holding him in a grip of iron) What's this, brother? Anger! Violence! Raising your hand to a brother Christian! SPINTHO. It's easy for you. You're strong. Your nerves are all right. But I'm full of disease. (Ferrovius takes his hand from him with instinctive disgust). I've drunk all my nerves away. I shall have the horrors all night. ANDROCLES (sympathetic) Oh, don't take on so, brother. We're all sinners. SPINTHO (snivelling, trying to feel consoled). Yes: I daresay if the truth were known, you're all as bad as I am. LAVINIA (contemptuously) Does THAT comfort you? FERROVIUS (sternly) Pray, man, pray. SPINTHO. What's the good of praying? If we're martyred we shall go to heaven, shan't we, whether we pray or not? FERROVIUS. What's that? Not pray! (Seizing him again) Pray this instant, you dog, you rotten hound, you slimy snake, you beastly goat, or-- SPINTHO. Yes: beat me: kick me. I forgive you: mind that. FERROVIUS (spurning him with loathing) Yah! (Spintho reels away and falls in front of Ferrovius). ANDROCLES (reaching out and catching the skirt of Ferrovius's tunic) Dear brother: if you wouldn't mind--just for my sake-- FERROVIUS. Well? ANDROCLES. Don't call him by the names of the animals. We've no right to. I've had such friends in dogs. A pet snake is the best of company. I was nursed on goat's milk. Is it fair to them to call the like of him a dog or a snake or a goat? FERROVIUS. I only meant that they have no souls. ANDROCLES (anxiously protesting) Oh, believe me, they have. Just the same as you and me. I really don't think I could consent to go to heaven if I thought there were to be no animals there. Think of what they suffer here. FERROVIUS. That's true. Yes: that is just. They will have their share in heaven. SPINTHO (who has picked himself up and is sneaking past Ferrovius on his left, sneers derisively)!! FERROVIUS (turning on him fiercely) What's that you say? SPINTHO (cornering). Nothing. FERROVIUS (clenching his fist) Do animals go to heaven or not? SPINTHO. I never said they didn't. FERROVIUS (implacable) Do they or do they not? SPINTHO. They do: they do. (Scrambling out of Ferrovius's reach). Oh, curse you for frightening me! A bugle call is heard. CENTURION (waking up) Tention! Form as before. Now then, prisoners, up with you and trot along spry. (The soldiers fall in. The Christians rise). A man with an ox goad comes running through the central arch. THE OX DRIVER. Here, you soldiers! clear out of the way for the Emperor. THE CENTURION. Emperor! Where's the Emperor? You ain't the Emperor, are you? THE OX DRIVER. It's the menagerie service. My team of oxen is drawing the new lion to the Coliseum. You clear the road. CENTURION. What! Go in after you in your dust, with half the town at the heels of you and your lion! Not likely. We go first. THE OX DRIVER. The menagerie service is the Emperor's personal retinue. You clear out, I tell you. CENTURION. You tell me, do you? Well, I'll tell you something. If the lion is menagerie service, the lion's dinner is menagerie service too. This (pointing to the Christians) is the lion's dinner. So back with you to your bullocks double quick; and learn your place. March. (The soldiers start). Now then, you Christians, step out there. LAVINIA (marching) Come along, the rest of the dinner. I shall be the olives and anchovies. ANOTHER CHRISTIAN (laughing) I shall be the soup. ANOTHER. I shall be the fish. ANOTHER. Ferrovius shall be the roast boar. FERROVIUS (heavily) I see the joke. Yes, yes: I shall be the roast boar. Ha! ha! (He laughs conscientiously and marches out with them). ANDROCLES. I shall be the mince pie. (Each announcement is received with a louder laugh by all the rest as the joke catches on). CENTURION (scandalised) Silence! Have some sense of your situation. Is this the way for martyrs to behave? (To Spintho, who is quaking and loitering) I know what YOU'LL be at that dinner. You'll be the emetic. (He shoves him rudely along). SPINTHO. It's too dreadful: I'm not fit to die. CENTURION. Fitter than you are to live, you swine. They pass from the square westward. The oxen, drawing a waggon with a great wooden cage and the lion in it, arrive through the central arch. ACT II Behind the Emperor's box at the Coliseum, where the performers assemble before entering the arena. In the middle a wide passage leading to the arena descends from the floor level under the imperial box. On both sides of this passage steps ascend to a landing at the back entrance to the box. The landing forms a bridge across the passage. At the entrance to the passage are two bronze mirrors, one on each side. On the west side of this passage, on the right hand of any one coming from the box and standing on the bridge, the martyrs are sitting on the steps. Lavinia is seated half-way up, thoughtful, trying to look death in the face. On her left Androcles consoles himself by nursing a cat. Ferrovius stands behind them, his eyes blazing, his figure stiff with intense resolution. At the foot of the steps crouches Spintho, with his head clutched in his hands, full of horror at the approach of martyrdom. On the east side of the passage the gladiators are standing and sitting at ease, waiting, like the Christians, for their turn in the arena. One (Retiarius) is a nearly naked man with a net and a trident. Another (Secutor) is in armor with a sword. He carries a helmet with a barred visor. The editor of the gladiators sits on a chair a little apart from them. The Call Boy enters from the passage. THE CALL Boy. Number six. Retiarius versus Secutor. The gladiator with the net picks it up. The gladiator with the helmet puts it on; and the two go into the arena, the net thrower taking out a little brush and arranging his hair as he goes, the other tightening his straps and shaking his shoulders loose. Both look at themselves in the mirrors before they enter the passage. LAVINIA. Will they really kill one another? SPINTHO. Yes, if the people turn down their thumbs. THE EDITOR. You know nothing about it. The people indeed! Do you suppose we would kill a man worth perhaps fifty talents to please the riffraff? I should like to catch any of my men at it. SPINTHO. I thought-- THE EDITOR (contemptuously) You thought! Who cares what you think? YOU'LL be killed all right enough. SPINTHO (groans and again hides his face)!!! Then is nobody ever killed except us poor-- LAVINIA. Christians? THE EDITOR. If the vestal virgins turn down their thumbs, that's another matter. They're ladies of rank. LAVINIA. Does the Emperor ever interfere? THE EDITOR. Oh, yes: he turns his thumbs up fast enough if the vestal virgins want to have one of his pet fighting men killed. ANDROCLES. But don't they ever just only pretend to kill one another? Why shouldn't you pretend to die, and get dragged out as if you were dead; and then get up and go home, like an actor? THE EDITOR. See here: you want to know too much. There will be no pretending about the new lion: let that be enough for you. He's hungry. SPINTHO (groaning with horror) Oh, Lord! Can't you stop talking about it? Isn't it bad enough for us without that? ANDROCLES. I'm glad he's hungry. Not that I want him to suffer, poor chap! but then he'll enjoy eating me so much more. There's a cheerful side to everything. THE EDITOR (rising and striding over to Androcles) Here: don't you be obstinate. Come with me and drop the pinch of incense on the altar. That's all you need do to be let off. ANDROCLES. No: thank you very much indeed; but I really mustn't. THE EDITOR. What! Not to save your life? ANDROCLES. I'd rather not. I couldn't sacrifice to Diana: she's a huntress, you know, and kills things. THE EDITOR. That don't matter. You can choose your own altar. Sacrifice to Jupiter: he likes animals: he turns himself into an animal when he goes off duty. ANDROCLES. No: it's very kind of you; but I feel I can't save myself that way. THE EDITOR. But I don't ask you to do it to save yourself: I ask you to do it to oblige me personally. ANDROCLES (scrambling up in the greatest agitation) Oh, please don't say that. That is dreadful. You mean so kindly by me that it seems quite horrible to disoblige you. If you could arrange for me to sacrifice when there's nobody looking, I shouldn't mind. But I must go into the arena with the rest. My honor, you know. THE EDITOR. Honor! The honor of a tailor? ANDROCLES (apologetically) Well, perhaps honor is too strong an expression. Still, you know, I couldn't allow the tailors to get a bad name through me. THE EDITOR. How much will you remember of all that when you smell the beast's breath and see his jaws opening to tear out your throat? SPINTHO (rising with a yell of terror) I can't bear it. Where's the altar? I'll sacrifice. FERROVIUS. Dog of an apostate. Iscariot! SPINTHO. I'll repent afterwards. I fully mean to die in the arena I'll die a martyr and go to heaven; but not this time, not now, not until my nerves are better. Besides, I'm too young: I want to have just one more good time. (The gladiators laugh at him). Oh, will no one tell me where the altar is? (He dashes into the passage and vanishes). ANDROCLES (to the Editor, pointing after Spintho) Brother: I can't do that, not even to oblige you. Don't ask me. THE EDITOR. Well, if you're determined to die, I can't help you. But I wouldn't be put off by a swine like that. FERROVIUS. Peace, peace: tempt him not. Get thee behind him, Satan. THE EDITOR (flushing with rage) For two pins I'd take a turn in the arena myself to-day, and pay you out for daring to talk to me like that. Ferrovius springs forward. LAVINIA (rising quickly and interposing) Brother, brother: you forget. FERROVIUS (curbing himself by a mighty effort) Oh, my temper, my wicked temper! (To the Editor, as Lavinia sits down again, reassured). Forgive me, brother. My heart was full of wrath: I should have been thinking of your dear precious soul. THE EDITOR. Yah! (He turns his back on Ferrovius contemptuously, and goes back to his seat). FERROVIUS (continuing) And I forgot it all: I thought of nothing but offering to fight you with one hand tied behind me. THE EDITOR (turning pugnaciously) What! FERROVIUS (on the border line between zeal and ferocity) Oh, don't give way to pride and wrath, brother. I could do it so easily. I could-- They are separated by the Menagerie Keeper, who rushes in from the passage, furious. THE KEEPER. Here's a nice business! Who let that Christian out of here down to the dens when we were changing the lion into the cage next the arena? THE EDITOR. Nobody let him. He let himself. THE KEEPER. Well, the lion's ate him. Consternation. The Christians rise, greatly agitated. The gladiators sit callously, but are highly amused. All speak or cry out or laugh at once. Tumult. LAVINIA. Oh, poor wretch! FERROVIUS. The apostate has perished. Praise be to God's justice! ANDROCLES. The poor beast was starving. It couldn't help itself. THE CHRISTIANS. What! Ate him! How frightful! How terrible! Without a moment to repent! God be merciful to him, a sinner! Oh, I can't bear to think of it! In the midst of his sin! Horrible, horrible! THE EDITOR. Serve the rotter right! THE GLADIATORS. Just walked into it, he did. He's martyred all right enough. Good old lion! Old Jock doesn't like that: look at his face. Devil a better! The Emperor will laugh when he hears of it. I can't help smiling. Ha ha ha!!!!! THE KEEPER. Now his appetite's taken off, he won't as much as look at another Christian for a week. ANDROCLES. Couldn't you have saved him brother? THE KEEPER. Saved him! Saved him from a lion that I'd just got mad with hunger! a wild one that came out of the forest not four weeks ago! He bolted him before you could say Balbus. LAVINIA (sitting down again) Poor Spintho! And it won't even count as martyrdom! THE KEEPER. Serve him right! What call had he to walk down the throat of one of my lions before he was asked? ANDROCLES. Perhaps the lion won't eat me now. THE KEEPER. Yes: that's just like a Christian: think only of yourself! What am I to do? What am I to say to the Emperor when he sees one of my lions coming into the arena half asleep? THE EDITOR. Say nothing. Give your old lion some bitters and a morsel of fried fish to wake up his appetite. (Laughter). THE KEEPER. Yes: it's easy for you to talk; but-- THE EDITOR (scrambling to his feet) Sh! Attention there! The Emperor. (The Keeper bolts precipitately into the passage. The gladiators rise smartly and form into line). The Emperor enters on the Christians' side, conversing with Metellus, and followed by his suite. THE GLADIATORS. Hail, Caesar! those about to die salute thee. CAESAR. Good morrow, friends. Metellus shakes hands with the Editor, who accepts his condescension with bluff respect. LAVINIA. Blessing, Caesar, and forgiveness! CAESAR (turning in some surprise at the salutation) There is no forgiveness for Christianity. LAVINIA. I did not mean that, Caesar. I mean that WE forgive YOU. METELLUS. An inconceivable liberty! Do you not know, woman, that the Emperor can do no wrong and therefore cannot be forgiven? LAVINIA. I expect the Emperor knows better. Anyhow, we forgive him. THE CHRISTIANS. Amen! CAESAR. Metellus: you see now the disadvantage of too much severity. These people have no hope; therefore they have nothing to restrain them from saying what they like to me. They are almost as impertinent as the gladiators. Which is the Greek sorcerer? ANDROCLES (humbly touching his forelock) Me, your Worship. CAESAR. My Worship! Good! A new title. Well, what miracles can you perform? ANDROCLES. I can cure warts by rubbing them with my tailor's chalk; and I can live with my wife without beating her. CAESAR. Is that all? ANDROCLES. You don't know her, Caesar, or you wouldn't say that. CAESAR. Ah, well, my friend, we shall no doubt contrive a happy release for you. Which is Ferrovius? FERROVIUS. I am he. CAESAR. They tell me you can fight. FERROVIUS. It is easy to fight. I can die, Caesar. CAESAR. That is still easier, is it not? FERROVIUS. Not to me, Caesar. Death comes hard to my flesh; and fighting comes very easily to my spirit (beating his breast and lamenting) O sinner that I am! (He throws himself down on the steps, deeply discouraged). CAESAR. Metellus: I should like to have this man in the Pretorian Guard. METELLUS. I should not, Caesar. He looks a spoilsport. There are men in whose presence it is impossible to have any fun: men who are a sort of walking conscience. He would make us all uncomfortable. CAESAR. For that reason, perhaps, it might be well to have him. An Emperor can hardly have too many consciences. (To Ferrovius) Listen, Ferrovius. (Ferrovius shakes his head and will not look up). You and your friends shall not be outnumbered to-day in the arena. You shall have arms; and there will be no more than one gladiator to each Christian. If you come out of the arena alive, I will consider favorably any request of yours, and give you a place in the Pretorian Guard. Even if the request be that no questions be asked about your faith I shall perhaps not refuse it. FERROVIUS. I will not fight. I will die. Better stand with the archangels than with the Pretorian Guard. CAESAR. I cannot believe that the archangels--whoever they may be--would not prefer to be recruited from the Pretorian Guard. However, as you please. Come: let us see the show. As the Court ascends the steps, Secutor and the Retiarius return from the arena through the passage; Secutor covered with dust and very angry: Retiarius grinning. SECUTOR. Ha, the Emperor. Now we shall see. Caesar: I ask you whether it is fair for the Retiarius, instead of making a fair throw of his net at me, to swish it along the ground and throw the dust in my eyes, and then catch me when I'm blinded. If the vestals had not turned up their thumbs I should have been a dead man. CAESAR (halting on the stair) There is nothing in the rules against it. SECUTOR (indignantly) Caesar: is it a dirty trick or is it not? CAESAR. It is a dusty one, my friend. (Obsequious laughter). Be on your guard next time. SECUTOR. Let HIM be on his guard. Next time I'll throw my sword at his heels and strangle him with his own net before he can hop off. (To Retiarius) You see if I don't. (He goes out past the gladiators, sulky and furious). CAESAR (to the chuckling Retiarius). These tricks are not wise, my friend. The audience likes to see a dead man in all his beauty and splendor. If you smudge his face and spoil his armor they will show their displeasure by not letting you kill him. And when your turn comes, they will remember it against you and turn their thumbs down. THE RETIARIUS. Perhaps that is why I did it, Caesar. He bet me ten sesterces that he would vanquish me. If I had had to kill him I should not have had the money. CAESAR (indulgent, laughing) You rogues: there is no end to your tricks. I'll dismiss you all and have elephants to fight. They fight fairly. (He goes up to his box, and knocks at it. It is opened from within by the Captain, who stands as on parade to let him pass). The Call Boy comes from the passage, followed by three attendants carrying respectively a bundle of swords, some helmets, and some breastplates and pieces of armor which they throw down in a heap. THE CALL BOY. By your leave, Caesar. Number eleven! Gladiators and Christians! Ferrovius springs up, ready for martyrdom. The other Christians take the summons as best they can, some joyful and brave, some patient and dignified, some tearful and helpless, some embracing one another with emotion. The Call Boy goes back into the passage. CAESAR (turning at the door of the box) The hour has come, Ferrovius. I shall go into my box and see you killed, since you scorn the Pretorian Guard. (He goes into the box. The Captain shuts the door, remaining inside with the Emperor. Metellus and the rest of the suite disperse to their seats. The Christians, led by Ferrovius, move towards the passage). LAVINIA (to Ferrovius) Farewell. THE EDITOR. Steady there. You Christians have got to fight. Here! arm yourselves. FERROVIUS (picking up a sword) I'll die sword in hand to show people that I could fight if it were my Master's will, and that I could kill the man who kills me if I chose. THE EDITOR. Put on that armor. FERROVIUS. No armor. THE EDITOR (bullying him) Do what you're told. Put on that armor. FERROVIUS (gripping the sword and looking dangerous) I said, No armor. THE EDITOR. And what am I to say when I am accused of sending a naked man in to fight my men in armor? FERROVIUS. Say your prayers, brother; and have no fear of the princes of this world. THE EDITOR. Tsha! You obstinate fool! (He bites his lips irresolutely, not knowing exactly what to do). ANDROCLES (to Ferrovius) Farewell, brother, till we meet in the sweet by-and-by. THE EDITOR (to Androcles) You are going too. Take a sword there; and put on any armor you can find to fit you. ANDROCLES. No, really: I can't fight: I never could. I can't bring myself to dislike anyone enough. I'm to be thrown to the lions with the lady. THE EDITOR. Then get out of the way and hold your noise. (Androcles steps aside with cheerful docility). Now then! Are you all ready there? A trumpet is heard from the arena. FERROVIUS (starting convulsively) Heaven give me strength! THE EDITOR. Aha! That frightens you, does it? FERROVIUS. Man: there is no terror like the terror of that sound to me. When I hear a trumpet or a drum or the clash of steel or the hum of the catapult as the great stone flies, fire runs through my veins: I feel my blood surge up hot behind my eyes: I must charge: I must strike: I must conquer: Caesar himself will not be safe in his imperial seat if once that spirit gets loose in me. Oh, brothers, pray! exhort me! remind me that if I raise my sword my honor falls and my Master is crucified afresh. ANDROCLES. Just keep thinking how cruelly you might hurt the poor gladiators. FERROVIUS. It does not hurt a man to kill him. LAVINIA. Nothing but faith can save you. FERROVIUS. Faith! Which faith? There are two faiths. There is our faith. And there is the warrior's faith, the faith in fighting, the faith that sees God in the sword. How if that faith should overwhelm me? LAVINIA. You will find your real faith in the hour of trial. FERROVIUS. That is what I fear. I know that I am a fighter. How can I feel sure that I am a Christian? ANDROCLES. Throw away the sword, brother. FERROVIUS. I cannot. It cleaves to my hand. I could as easily throw a woman I loved from my arms. (Starting) Who spoke that blasphemy? Not I. LAVINIA. I can't help you, friend. I can't tell you not to save your own life. Something wilful in me wants to see you fight your way into heaven. FERROVIUS. Ha! ANDROCLES. But if you are going to give up our faith, brother, why not do it without hurting anybody? Don't fight them. Burn the incense. FERROVIUS. Burn the incense! Never. LAVINIA. That is only pride, Ferrovius. FERROVIUS. ONLY pride! What is nobler than pride? (Conscience stricken) Oh, I'm steeped in sin. I'm proud of my pride. LAVINIA. They say we Christians are the proudest devils on earth--that only the weak are meek. Oh, I am worse than you. I ought to send you to death; and I am tempting you. ANDROCLES. Brother, brother: let THEM rage and kill: let US be brave and suffer. You must go as a lamb to the slaughter. FERROVIUS. Aye, aye: that is right. Not as a lamb is slain by the butcher; but as a butcher might let himself be slain by a (looking at the Editor) by a silly ram whose head he could fetch off in one twist. Before the Editor can retort, the Call Boy rushes up through the passage; and the Captain comes from the Emperor's box and descends the steps. THE CALL BOY. In with you: into the arena. The stage is waiting. THE CAPTAIN. The Emperor is waiting. (To the Editor) What are you dreaming of, man? Send your men in at once. THE EDITOR. Yes, Sir: it's these Christians hanging back. FERROVIUS (in a voice of thunder) Liar! THE EDITOR (not heeding him) March. (The gladiators told off to fight with the Christians march down the passage) Follow up there, you. THE CHRISTIAN MEN AND WOMEN (as they part) Be steadfast, brother. Farewell. Hold up the faith, brother. Farewell. Go to glory, dearest. Farewell. Remember: we are praying for you. Farewell. Be strong, brother. Farewell. Don't forget that the divine love and our love surround you. Farewell. Nothing can hurt you: remember that, brother. Farewell. Eternal glory, dearest. Farewell. THE EDITOR (out of patience) Shove them in, there. The remaining gladiators and the Call Boy make a movement towards them. FERROVIUS (interposing) Touch them, dogs; and we die here, and cheat the heathen of their spectacle. (To his fellow Christians) Brothers: the great moment has come. That passage is your hill to Calvary. Mount it bravely, but meekly; and remember! not a word of reproach, not a blow nor a struggle. Go. (They go out through the passage. He turns to Lavinia) Farewell. LAVINIA. You forget: I must follow before you are cold. FERROVIUS. It is true. Do not envy me because I pass before you to glory. (He goes through the passage). THE EDITOR (to the Call Boy) Sickening work, this. Why can't they all be thrown to the lions? It's not a man's job. (He throws himself moodily into his chair). The remaining gladiators go back to their former places indifferently. The Call Boy shrugs his shoulders and squats down at the entrance to the passage, near the Editor. Lavinia and the Christian women sit down again, wrung with grief, some weeping silently, some praying, some calm and steadfast. Androcles sits down at Lavinia's feet. The Captain stands on the stairs, watching her curiously. ANDROCLES. I'm glad I haven't to fight. That would really be an awful martyrdom. I AM lucky. LAVINIA (looking at him with a pang of remorse). Androcles: burn the incense: you'll be forgiven. Let my death atone for both. I feel as if I were killing you. ANDROCLES. Don't think of me, sister. Think of yourself. That will keep your heart up. The Captain laughs sardonically. LAVINIA (startled: she had forgotten his presence) Are you there, handsome Captain? Have you come to see me die? THE CAPTAIN (coming to her side) I am on duty with the Emperor, Lavinia. LAVINIA. Is it part of your duty to laugh at us? THE CAPTAIN. No: that is part of my private pleasure. Your friend here is a humorist. I laughed at his telling you to think of yourself to keep up your heart. I say, think of yourself and burn the incense. LAVINIA. He is not a humorist: he was right. You ought to know that, Captain: you have been face to face with death. THE CAPTAIN. Not with certain death, Lavinia. Only death in battle, which spares more men than death in bed. What you are facing is certain death. You have nothing left now but your faith in this craze of yours: this Christianity. Are your Christian fairy stories any truer than our stories about Jupiter and Diana, in which, I may tell you, I believe no more than the Emperor does, or any educated man in Rome? LAVINIA. Captain: all that seems nothing to me now. I'll not say that death is a terrible thing; but I will say that it is so real a thing that when it comes close, all the imaginary things--all the stories, as you call them--fade into mere dreams beside that inexorable reality. I know now that I am not dying for stories or dreams. Did you hear of the dreadful thing that happened here while we were waiting? THE CAPTAIN. I heard that one of your fellows bolted, and ran right into the jaws of the lion. I laughed. I still laugh. LAVINIA. Then you don't understand what that meant? THE CAPTAIN. It meant that the lion had a cur for his breakfast. LAVINIA. It meant more than that, Captain. It meant that a man cannot die for a story and a dream. None of us believed the stories and the dreams more devoutly than poor Spintho; but he could not face the great reality. What he would have called my faith has been oozing away minute by minute whilst I've been sitting here, with death coming nearer and nearer, with reality becoming realler and realler, with stories and dreams fading away into nothing. THE CAPTAIN. Are you then going to die for nothing? LAVINIA. Yes: that is the wonderful thing. It is since all the stories and dreams have gone that I have now no doubt at all that I must die for something greater than dreams or stories. THE CAPTAIN. But for what? LAVINIA. I don't know. If it were for anything small enough to know, it would be too small to die for. I think I'm going to die for God. Nothing else is real enough to die for. THE CAPTAIN. What is God? LAVINIA. When we know that, Captain, we shall be gods ourselves. THE CAPTAIN. Lavinia; come down to earth. Burn the incense and marry me. LAVINIA. Handsome Captain: would you marry me if I hauled down the flag in the day of battle and burnt the incense? Sons take after their mothers, you know. Do you want your son to be a coward? THE CAPTAIN (strongly moved). By great Diana, I think I would strangle you if you gave in now. LAVINIA (putting her hand on the head of Androcles) The hand of God is on us three, Captain. THE CAPTAIN. What nonsense it all is! And what a monstrous thing that you should die for such nonsense, and that I should look on helplessly when my whole soul cries out against it! Die then if you must; but at least I can cut the Emperor's throat and then my own when I see your blood. The Emperor throws open the door of his box angrily, and appears in wrath on the threshold. The Editor, the Call Boy, and the gladiators spring to their feet. THE EMPEROR. The Christians will not fight; and your curs cannot get their blood up to attack them. It's all that fellow with the blazing eyes. Send for the whip. (The Call Boy rushes out on the east side for the whip). If that will not move them, bring the hot irons. The man is like a mountain. (He returns angrily into the box and slams the door). The Call Boy returns with a man in a hideous Etruscan mask, carrying a whip. They both rush down the passage into the arena. LAVINIA (rising) Oh, that is unworthy. Can they not kill him without dishonoring him? ANDROCLES (scrambling to his feet and running into the middle of the space between the staircases) It's dreadful. Now I want to fight. I can't bear the sight of a whip. The only time I ever hit a man was when he lashed an old horse with a whip. It was terrible: I danced on his face when he was on the ground. He mustn't strike Ferrovius: I'll go into the arena and kill him first. (He makes a wild dash into the passage. As he does so a great clamor is heard from the arena, ending in wild applause. The gladiators listen and look inquiringly at one another). THE EDITOR. What's up now? LAVINIA (to the Captain) What has happened, do you think? THE CAPTAIN. What CAN happen? They are killing them, I suppose. ANDROCLES (running in through the passage, screaming with horror and hiding his eyes)!!! LAVINIA. Androcles, Androcles: what's the matter? ANDROCLES. Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me. Something too dreadful. Oh! (He crouches by her and hides his face in her robe, sobbing). THE CALL Boy (rushing through from the passage as before) Ropes and hooks there! Ropes and hooks. THE EDITOR. Well, need you excite yourself about it? (Another burst of applause). Two slaves in Etruscan masks, with ropes and drag hooks, hurry in. ONE OF THE SLAVES. How many dead? THE CALL Boy. Six. (The slave blows a whistle twice; and four more masked slaves rush through into the arena with the same apparatus) And the basket. Bring the baskets. (The slave whistles three times, and runs through the passage with his companion). THE CAPTAIN. Who are the baskets for? THE CALL Boy. For the whip. He's in pieces. They're all in pieces, more or less. (Lavinia hides her face). (Two more masked slaves come in with a basket and follow the others into the arena, as the Call Boy turns to the gladiators and exclaims, exhausted) Boys, he's killed the lot. THE EMPEROR (again bursting from his box, this time in an ecstasy of delight) Where is he? Magnificent! He shall have a laurel crown. Ferrovius, madly waving his bloodstained sword, rushes through the passage in despair, followed by his co-religionists, and by the menagerie keeper, who goes to the gladiators. The gladiators draw their swords nervously. FERROVIUS. Lost! lost forever! I have betrayed my Master. Cut off this right hand: it has offended. Ye have swords, my brethren: strike. LAVINIA. No, no. What have you done, Ferrovius? FERROVIUS. I know not; but there was blood behind my eyes; and there's blood on my sword. What does that mean? THE EMPEROR (enthusiastically, on the landing outside his box) What does it mean? It means that you are the greatest man in Rome. It means that you shall have a laurel crown of gold. Superb fighter, I could almost yield you my throne. It is a record for my reign: I shall live in history. Once, in Domitian's time, a Gaul slew three men in the arena and gained his freedom. But when before has one naked man slain six armed men of the bravest and best? The persecution shall cease: if Christians can fight like this, I shall have none but Christians to fight for me. (To the Gladiators) You are ordered to become Christians, you there: do you hear? RETIARIUS. It is all one to us, Caesar. Had I been there with my net, the story would have been different. THE CAPTAIN (suddenly seizing Lavinia by the wrist and dragging her up the steps to the Emperor) Caesar this woman is the sister of Ferrovius. If she is thrown to the lions he will fret. He will lose weight; get out of condition. THE EMPEROR. The lions? Nonsense! (To Lavinia) Madam: I am proud to have the honor of making your acquaintance. Your brother is the glory of Rome. LAVINIA. But my friends here. Must they die? THE EMPEROR. Die! Certainly not. There has never been the slightest idea of harming them. Ladies and gentlemen: you are all free. Pray go into the front of the house and enjoy the spectacle to which your brother has so splendidly contributed. Captain: oblige me by conducting them to the seats reserved for my personal friends. THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Caesar: I must have one Christian for the lion. The people have been promised it; and they will tear the decorations to bits if they are disappointed. THE EMPEROR. True, true: we must have somebody for the new lion. FERROVIUS. Throw me to him. Let the apostate perish. THE EMPEROR. No, no: you would tear him in pieces, my friend; and we cannot afford to throw away lions as if they were mere slaves. But we must have somebody. This is really extremely awkward. THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Why not that little Greek chap? He's not a Christian: he's a sorcerer. THE EMPEROR. The very thing: he will do very well. THE CALL Boy (issuing from the passage) Number twelve. The Christian for the new lion. ANDROCLES (rising, and pulling himself sadly together) Well, it was to be, after all. LAVINIA. I'll go in his place, Caesar. Ask the Captain whether they do not like best to see a woman torn to pieces. He told me so yesterday. THE EMPEROR. There is something in that: there is certainly something in that--if only I could feel sure that your brother would not fret. ANDROCLES. No: I should never have another happy hour. No: on the faith of a Christian and the honor of a tailor, I accept the lot that has fallen on me. If my wife turns up, give her my love and say that my wish was that she should be happy with her next, poor fellow! Caesar: go to your box and see how a tailor can die. Make way for number twelve there. (He marches out along the passage). The vast audience in the amphitheatre now sees the Emperor re-enter his box and take his place as Androcles, desperately frightened, but still marching with piteous devotion, emerges from the other end of the passage, and finds himself at the focus of thousands of eager eyes. The lion's cage, with a heavy portcullis grating, is on his left. The Emperor gives a signal. A gong sounds. Androcles shivers at the sound; then falls on his knees and prays. The grating rises with a clash. The lion bounds into the arena. He rushes round frisking in his freedom. He sees Androcles. He stops; rises stiffly by straightening his legs; stretches out his nose forward and his tail in a horizontal line behind, like a pointer, and utters an appalling roar. Androcles crouches and hides his face in his hands. The lion gathers himself for a spring, swishing his tail to and fro through the dust in an ecstasy of anticipation. Androcles throws up his hands in supplication to heaven. The lion checks at the sight of Androcles's face. He then steals towards him; smells him; arches his back; purrs like a motor car; finally rubs himself against Androcles, knocking him over. Androcles, supporting himself on his wrist, looks affrightedly at the lion. The lion limps on three paws, holding up the other as if it was wounded. A flash of recognition lights up the face of Androcles. He flaps his hand as if it had a thorn in it, and pretends to pull the thorn out and to hurt himself. The lion nods repeatedly. Androcles holds out his hands to the lion, who gives him both paws, which he shakes with enthusiasm. They embrace rapturously, finally waltz round the arena amid a sudden burst of deafening applause, and out through the passage, the Emperor watching them in breathless astonishment until they disappear, when he rushes from his box and descends the steps in frantic excitement. THE EMPEROR. My friends, an incredible! an amazing thing! has happened. I can no longer doubt the truth of Christianity. (The Christians press to him joyfully) This Christian sorcerer--(with a yell, he breaks off as he sees Androcles and the lion emerge from the passage, waltzing. He bolts wildly up the steps into his box, and slams the door. All, Christians and gladiators' alike, fly for their lives, the gladiators bolting into the arena, the others in all directions. The place is emptied with magical suddenness). ANDROCLES (naively) Now I wonder why they all run away from us like that. (The lion combining a series of yawns, purrs, and roars, achieves something very like a laugh). THE EMPEROR (standing on a chair inside his box and looking over the wall) Sorcerer: I command you to put that lion to death instantly. It is guilty of high treason. Your conduct is most disgra-- (the lion charges at him up the stairs) help! (He disappears. The lion rears against the box; looks over the partition at him, and roars. The Emperor darts out through the door and down to Androcles, pursued by the lion.) ANDROCLES. Don't run away, sir: he can't help springing if you run. (He seizes the Emperor and gets between him and the lion, who stops at once). Don't be afraid of him. THE EMPEROR. I am NOT afraid of him. (The lion crouches, growling. The Emperor clutches Androcles) Keep between us. ANDROCLES. Never be afraid of animals, your Worship: that's the great secret. He'll be as gentle as a lamb when he knows that you are his friend. Stand quite still; and smile; and let him smell you all over just to reassure him; for, you see, he's afraid of you; and he must examine you thoroughly before he gives you his confidence. (To the lion) Come now, Tommy; and speak nicely to the Emperor, the great, good Emperor who has power to have all our heads cut off if we don't behave very, VERY respectfully to him. The lion utters a fearful roar. The Emperor dashes madly up the steps, across the landing, and down again on the other side, with the lion in hot pursuit. Androcles rushes after the lion; overtakes him as he is descending; and throws himself on his back, trying to use his toes as a brake. Before he can stop him the lion gets hold of the trailing end of the Emperor's robe. ANDROCLES. Oh bad wicked Tommy, to chase the Emperor like that! Let go the Emperor's robe at once, sir: where's your manners? (The lion growls and worries the robe). Don't pull it away from him, your worship. He's only playing. Now I shall be really angry with you, Tommy, if you don't let go. (The lion growls again) I'll tell you what it is, sir: he thinks you and I are not friends. THE EMPEROR (trying to undo the clasp of his brooch) Friends! You infernal scoundrel (the lion growls) don't let him go. Curse this brooch! I can't get it loose. ANDROCLES. We mustn't let him lash himself into a rage. You must show him that you are my particular friend--if you will have the condescension. (He seizes the Emperor's hands, and shakes them cordially), Look, Tommy: the nice Emperor is the dearest friend Andy Wandy has in the whole world: he loves him like a brother. THE EMPEROR. You little brute, you damned filthy little dog of a Greek tailor: I'll have you burnt alive for daring to touch the divine person of the Emperor. (The lion roars). ANDROCLES. Oh don't talk like that, sir. He understands every word you say: all animals do: they take it from the tone of your voice. (The lion growls and lashes his tail). I think he's going to spring at your worship. If you wouldn't mind saying something affectionate. (The lion roars). THE EMPEROR (shaking Androcles' hands frantically) My dearest Mr. Androcles, my sweetest friend, my long lost brother, come to my arms. (He embraces Androcles). Oh, what an abominable smell of garlic! The lion lets go the robe and rolls over on his back, clasping his forepaws over one another coquettishly above his nose. ANDROCLES. There! You see, your worship, a child might play with him now. See! (He tickles the lion's belly. The lion wriggles ecstatically). Come and pet him. THE EMPEROR. I must conquer these unkingly terrors. Mind you don't go away from him, though. (He pats the lion's chest). ANDROCLES. Oh, sir, how few men would have the courage to do that-- THE EMPEROR. Yes: it takes a bit of nerve. Let us invite the Court in and frighten them. Is he safe, do you think? ANDROCLES. Quite safe now, sir. THE EMPEROR (majestically) What ho, there! All who are within hearing, return without fear. Caesar has tamed the lion. (All the fugitives steal cautiously in. The menagerie keeper comes from the passage with other keepers armed with iron bars and tridents). Take those things away. I have subdued the beast. (He places his foot on it). FERROVIUS (timidly approaching the Emperor and looking down with awe on the lion) It is strange that I, who fear no man, should fear a lion. THE CAPTAIN. Every man fears something, Ferrovius. THE EMPEROR. How about the Pretorian Guard now? FERROVIUS. In my youth I worshipped Mars, the God of War. I turned from him to serve the Christian god; but today the Christian god forsook me; and Mars overcame me and took back his own. The Christian god is not yet. He will come when Mars and I are dust; but meanwhile I must serve the gods that are, not the God that will be. Until then I accept service in the Guard, Caesar. THE EMPEROR. Very wisely said. All really sensible men agree that the prudent course is to be neither bigoted in our attachment to the old nor rash and unpractical in keeping an open mind for the new, but to make the best of both dispensations. THE CAPTAIN. What do you say, Lavinia? Will you too be prudent? LAVINIA (on the stair) No: I'll strive for the coming of the God who is not yet. THE CAPTAIN. May I come and argue with you occasionally? LAVINIA. Yes, handsome Captain: you may. (He kisses her hands). THE EMPEROR. And now, my friends, though I do not, as you see, fear this lion, yet the strain of his presence is considerable; for none of us can feel quite sure what he will do next. THE MENAGERIE KEEPER. Caesar: give us this Greek sorcerer to be a slave in the menagerie. He has a way with the beasts. ANDROCLES (distressed). Not if they are in cages. They should not be kept in cages. They must all be let out. THE EMPEROR. I give this sorcerer to be a slave to the first man who lays hands on him. (The menagerie keepers and the gladiators rush for Androcles. The lion starts up and faces them. They surge back). You see how magnanimous we Romans are, Androcles. We suffer you to go in peace. ANDROCLES. I thank your worship. I thank you all, ladies and gentlemen. Come, Tommy. Whilst we stand together, no cage for you: no slavery for me. (He goes out with the lion, everybody crowding away to give him as wide a berth as possible). In this play I have represented one of the Roman persecutions of the early Christians, not as the conflict of a false theology with a true, but as what all such persecutions essentially are: an attempt to suppress a propaganda that seemed to threaten the interests involved in the established law and order, organized and maintained in the name of religion and justice by politicians who are pure opportunist Have-and-Holders. People who are shown by their inner light the possibility of a better world based on the demand of the spirit for a nobler and more abundant life, not for themselves at the expense of others, but for everybody, are naturally dreaded and therefore hated by the Have-and-Holders, who keep always in reserve two sure weapons against them. The first is a persecution effected by the provocation, organization, and arming of that herd instinct which makes men abhor all departures from custom, and, by the most cruel punishments and the wildest calumnies, force eccentric people to behave and profess exactly as other people do. The second is by leading the herd to war, which immediately and infallibly makes them forget everything, even their most cherished and hardwon public liberties and private interests, in the irresistible surge of their pugnacity and the tense pre-occupation of their terror. There is no reason to believe that there was anything more in the Roman persecutions than this. The attitude of the Roman Emperor and the officers of his staff towards the opinions at issue were much the same as those of a modern British Home Secretary towards members of the lower middle classes when some pious policeman charges them with Bad Taste, technically called blasphemy: Bad Taste being a violation of Good Taste, which in such matters practically means Hypocrisy. The Home Secretary and the judges who try the case are usually far more sceptical and blasphemous than the poor men whom they persecute; and their professions of horror at the blunt utterance of their own opinions are revolting to those behind the scenes who have any genuine religious sensibility; but the thing is done because the governing classes, provided only the law against blasphemy is not applied to themselves, strongly approve of such persecution because it enables them to represent their own privileges as part of the religion of the country. Therefore my martyrs are the martyrs of all time, and my persecutors the persecutors of all time. My Emperor, who has no sense of the value of common people's lives, and amuses himself with killing as carelessly as with sparing, is the sort of monster you can make of any silly-clever gentleman by idolizing him. We are still so easily imposed on by such idols that one of the leading pastors of the Free Churches in London denounced my play on the ground that my persecuting Emperor is a very fine fellow, and the persecuted Christians ridiculous. From which I conclude that a popular pulpit may be as perilous to a man's soul as an imperial throne. All my articulate Christians, the reader will notice, have different enthusiasms, which they accept as the same religion only because it involves them in a common opposition to the official religion and consequently in a common doom. Androcles is a humanitarian naturalist, whose views surprise everybody. Lavinia, a clever and fearless freethinker, shocks the Pauline Ferrovius, who is comparatively stupid and conscience ridden. Spintho, the blackguardly debauchee, is presented as one of the typical Christians of that period on the authority of St. Augustine, who seems to have come to the conclusion at one period of his development that most Christians were what we call wrong uns. No doubt he was to some extent right: I have had occasion often to point out that revolutionary movements attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them. But the most striking aspect of the play at this moment is the terrible topicality given it by the war. We were at peace when I pointed out, by the mouth of Ferrovius, the path of an honest man who finds out, when the trumpet sounds, that he cannot follow Jesus. Many years earlier, in The Devil's Disciple, I touched the same theme even more definitely, and showed the minister throwing off his black coat for ever when he discovered, amid the thunder of the captains and the shouting, that he was a born fighter. Great numbers of our clergy have found themselves of late in the position of Ferrovius and Anthony Anderson. They have discovered that they hate not only their enemies but everyone who does not share their hatred, and that they want to fight and to force other people to fight. They have turned their churches into recruiting stations and their vestries into munition workshops. But it has never occurred to them to take off their black coats and say quite simply, "I find in the hour of trial that the Sermon on the Mount is tosh, and that I am not a Christian. I apologize for all the unpatriotic nonsense I have been preaching all these years. Have the goodness to give me a revolver and a commission in a regiment which has for its chaplain a priest of the god Mars: my God." Not a bit of it. They have stuck to their livings and served Mars in the name of Christ, to the scandal of all religious mankind. When the Archbishop of York behaved like a gentleman and the Head Master of Eton preached a Christian sermon, and were reviled by the rabble, the Martian parsons encouraged the rabble. For this they made no apologies or excuses, good or bad. They simple indulged their passions, just as they had always indulged their class prejudices and commercial interests, without troubling themselves for a moment as to whether they were Christians or not. They did not protest even when a body calling itself the Anti-German League (not having noticed, apparently, that it had been anticipated by the British Empire, the French Republic, and the Kingdoms of Italy, Japan, and Serbia) actually succeeded in closing a church at Forest Hill in which God was worshipped in the German language. One would have supposed that this grotesque outrage on the commonest decencies of religion would have provoked a remonstrance from even the worldliest bench of bishops. But no: apparently it seemed to the bishops as natural that the House of God should be looted when He allowed German to be spoken in it as that a baker's shop with a German name over the door should be pillaged. Their verdict was, in effect, "Serve God right, for creating the Germans!" The incident would have been impossible in a country where the Church was as powerful as the Church of England, had it had at the same time a spark of catholic as distinguished from tribal religion in it. As it is, the thing occurred; and as far as I have observed, the only people who gasped were the Freethinkers. Thus we see that even among men who make a profession of religion the great majority are as Martian as the majority of their congregations. The average clergyman is an official who makes his living by christening babies, marrying adults, conducting a ritual, and making the best he can (when he has any conscience about it) of a certain routine of school superintendence, district visiting, and organization of almsgiving, which does not necessarily touch Christianity at any point except the point of the tongue. The exceptional or religious clergyman may be an ardent Pauline salvationist, in which case his more cultivated parishioners dislike him, and say that he ought to have joined the Methodists. Or he may be an artist expressing religious emotion without intellectual definition by means of poetry, music, vestments and architecture, also producing religious ecstacy by physical expedients, such as fasts and vigils, in which case he is denounced as a Ritualist. Or he may be either a Unitarian Deist like Voltaire or Tom Paine, or the more modern sort of Anglican Theosophist to whom the Holy Ghost is the Elan Vital of Bergson, and the Father and Son are an expression of the fact that our functions and aspects are manifold, and that we are all sons and all either potential or actual parents, in which case he is strongly suspected by the straiter Salvationists of being little better than an Atheist. All these varieties, you see, excite remark. They may be very popular with their congregations; but they are regarded by the average man as the freaks of the Church. The Church, like the society of which it is an organ, is balanced and steadied by the great central Philistine mass above whom theology looms as a highly spoken of and doubtless most important thing, like Greek Tragedy, or classical music, or the higher mathematics, but who are very glad when church is over and they can go home to lunch or dinner, having in fact, for all practical purposes, no reasoned convictions at all, and being equally ready to persecute a poor Freethinker for saying that St. James was not infallible, and to send one of the Peculiar People to prison for being so very peculiar as to take St. James seriously. In short, a Christian martyr was thrown to the lions not because he was a Christian, but because he was a crank: that is, an unusual sort of person. And multitudes of people, quite as civilized and amiable as we, crowded to see the lions eat him just as they now crowd the lion-house in the Zoo at feeding-time, not because they really cared two-pence about Diana or Christ, or could have given you any intelligent or correct account of the things Diana and Christ stood against one another for, but simply because they wanted to see a curious and exciting spectacle. You, dear reader, have probably run to see a fire; and if somebody came in now and told you that a lion was chasing a man down the street you would rush to the window. And if anyone were to say that you were as cruel as the people who let the lion loose on the man, you would be justly indignant. Now that we may no longer see a man hanged, we assemble outside the jail to see the black flag run up. That is our duller method of enjoying ourselves in the old Roman spirit. And if the Government decided to throw persons of unpopular or eccentric views to the lions in the Albert Hall or the Earl's Court stadium tomorrow, can you doubt that all the seats would be crammed, mostly by people who could not give you the most superficial account of the views in question. Much less unlikely things have happened. It is true that if such a revival does take place soon, the martyrs will not be members of heretical religious sects: they will be Peculiars, Anti-Vivisectionists, Flat-Earth men, scoffers at the laboratories, or infidels who refuse to kneel down when a procession of doctors goes by. But the lions will hurt them just as much, and the spectators will enjoy themselves just as much, as the Roman lions and spectators used to do. It was currently reported in the Berlin newspapers that when Androcles was first performed in Berlin, the Crown Prince rose and left the house, unable to endure the (I hope) very clear and fair exposition of autocratic Imperialism given by the Roman captain to his Christian prisoners. No English Imperialist was intelligent and earnest enough to do the same in London. If the report is correct, I confirm the logic of the Crown Prince, and am glad to find myself so well understood. But I can assure him that the Empire which served for my model when I wrote Androcles was, as he is now finding to his cost, much nearer my home than the German one. 
4497	----	None 
3695	----	EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres -- well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title -- accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire -- as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy -- there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* [footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said -- though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality -- leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication -- plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works: -- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR TO THE NOBLEST NURSERIES OF HUMANITY AND LIBERTY IN THE KINGDOM THE INNS OF COURT I UNDERSTAND you, Gentlemen, not your houses: and a worthy succession of you, to all time, as being born the judges of these studies. When I wrote this poem, I had friendship with divers in your societies; who, as they were great names in learning, so they were no less examples of living. Of them, and then, that I say no more, it was not despised. Now that the printer, by a doubled charge, thinks it worthy a longer life than commonly the air of such things doth promise, I am careful to put it a servant to their pleasures, who are the inheritors of the first favour born it. Yet, I command it lie not in the way of your more noble and useful studies to the public: for so I shall suffer for it. But when the gown and cap is off, and the lord of liberty reigns, then, to take it in your hands, perhaps may make some bencher, tincted with humanity, read and not repent him. By your true honourer, BEN JONSON. DRAMATIS PERSONAE ASPER, the Presenter. MACILENTE. PUNTARVOLO, -- his Lady. -- Waiting Gent. -- Huntsman. -- Servingmen. -- Dog and Cat. CARLO BUFFONE. FASTIDIOUS BRISK, -- Cinedo, his Page. DELIRO, FALLACE, -- Fido, their Servant. -- Musicians. SAVIOLINA. SORDIDO. -- His Hind. FUNGOSO. -- Tailor, Haberdasher, Shoemaker SOGLIARDO. SHIFT. -- Rustics. NOTARY. CLOVE, ORANGE. -- A Groom. -- Drawers. -- Constable, and Officers. GREX. -- CORDATUS -- MITIS. THE CHARACTERS OF THE PERSONS ASPER, he is of an ingenious and free spirit, eager and constant in reproof, without fear controlling the world's abuses. One whom no servile hope of gain, or frosty apprehension of danger, can make to be a parasite, either to time, place, or opinion. MACILENTE, a man well parted, a sufficient scholar, and travail'd; who, wanting that place in the world's account which he thinks his merit capable of, falls into such an envious apoplexy, with which his judgment is so dazzled and distasted, that he grows violently impatient of any opposite happiness in another. PUNTARVOLO, a vain-glorious knight, over-englishing his travels, and wholly consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel. Of presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage of his own family. He deals upon returns, and strange performances, resolving, in despite of public derision, to stick to his own fashion, phrase, and gesture. CARLO BUFFONE, a public, scurrilous, and profane jester, that more swift than Circe, with absurd similes, will transform any person into deformity. A good feast-hound or banquet-beagle, that will scent you out a supper some three miles off, and swear to his patrons, damn him! he came in oars, when he was but wafted over in a sculler. A slave that hath an extraordinary gift in pleasing his palate, and will swill up more sack at a sitting than would make all the guard a posset. His religion is railing, and his discourse ribaldry. FASTIDIOUS BRISK, a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears tersely and with variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's familiarity: a good property to perfume the boot of a coach. He will borrow another man's horse to praise, and backs him as his own. Or, for a need, on foot can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the gingle of his spur, and the jerk of his wand. DELIRO, a good doting citizen, who, it is thought, might be of the common-council for his wealth; a fellow sincerely besotted on his own wife, and so wrapt with a conceit of her perfections, that he simply holds himself unworthy of her. And, in that hood-wink'd humour, lives more like a suitor than a husband; standing in as true dread of her displeasure, as when he first made love to her. He doth sacrifice two-pence in juniper to her every morning before she rises, and wakes her with villainous-out-of-tune music, which she out of her contempt (though not out of her judgment) is sure to dislike. FALLACE, Deliro's wife, and idol; a proud mincing peat, and as perverse as he is officious. She dotes as perfectly upon the courtier, as her husband doth on her, and only wants the face to be dishonest. SAVIOLINA, a court-lady, whose weightiest praise is a light wit, admired by herself, and one more, her servant Brisk. SORDIDO, a wretched hob-nailed chuff, whose recreation is reading of almanacks; and felicity, foul weather. One that never pray'd but for a lean dearth, and ever wept in a fat harvest. FUNGOSO, the son of Sordido, and a student; one that has revelled in his time, and follows the fashion afar off, like a spy. He makes it the whole bent of his endeavours to wring sufficient means from his wretched father, to put him in the courtiers' cut; at which he earnestly aims, but so unluckily, that he still lights short a suit. SOGLIARDO, an essential clown, brother to Sordido, yet so enamoured of the name of a gentleman, that he will have it, though he buys it. He comes up every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new motions. He is in his kingdom when in company where he may be well laughed at. SHIFT, a thread-bare shark; one that never was a soldier, yet lives upon lendings. His profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul's, and his warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oaths, till doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. He way-lays the reports of services, and cons them without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life before. He usurps upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never did, only to get him a name. His chief exercises are, taking the whiff, squiring a cockatrice, and making privy searches for imparters. CLOVE and ORANGE, an inseparable case of coxcombs, city born; the Gemini, or twins of foppery; that like a pair of wooden foils, are fit for nothing but to be practised upon. Being well flattered they'll lend money, and repent when they have done. Their glory is to invite players, and make suppers. And in company of better rank, to avoid the suspect of insufficiency, will inforce their ignorance most desperately, to set upon the understanding of any thing. Orange is the most humorous of the two, (whose small portion of juice being squeezed out,) Clove serves to stick him with commendations. CORDATUS, the author's friend; a man inly acquainted with the scope and drift of his plot; of a discreet and understanding judgment; and has the place of a moderator. MITIS, is a person of no action, and therefore we afford him no character. THE STAGE. After the second sounding. ENTER CORDATUS, ASPER, AND MITIS. COR. Nay, my dear Asper. MIT. Stay your mind. ASP. Away! Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake? To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips seal'd up? Not I: my soul Was never ground into such oily colours, To flatter vice, and daub iniquity: But, with an armed and resolved hand, I'll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth -- COR. Be not too bold. ASP. You trouble me -- and with a whip of steel, Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs. I fear no mood stamp'd in a private brow, When I am pleased t'unmask a public vice. I fear no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab, Should I detect their hateful luxuries: No broker's usurer's, or lawyer's gripe, Were I disposed to say, they are all corrupt. I fear no courtier's frown, should I applaud The easy flexure of his supple hams. Tut, these are so innate and popular, That drunken custom would not shame to laugh, In scorn, at him, that should but dare to tax 'em: And yet, not one of these, but knows his works, Knows what damnation is, the devil, and hell; Yet hourly they persist, grow rank in sin, Puffing their souls away in perjurous air, To cherish their extortion, pride, or lusts. MIT. Forbear, good Asper; be not like your name. ASP. O, but to such whose faces are all zeal, And, with the words of Hercules, invade Such crimes as these! that will not smell of sin, But seem as they were made of sanctity! Religion in their garments, and their hair Cut shorter than their eye-brows! when the conscience Is vaster than the ocean, and devours More wretches than the counters. MIT. Gentle Asper, Contain our spirits in more stricter bounds, And be not thus transported with the violence Of your strong thoughts. COX. Unless your breath had power, To melt the world, and mould it new again, It is in vain to spend it in these moods. ASP. [TURNING TO THE STAGE.] I not observed this thronged round till now! Gracious and kind spectators, you are welcome; Apollo and Muses feast your eyes With graceful objects, and may our Minerva Answer your hopes, unto their largest strain! Yet here mistake me not, judicious friends; I do not this, to beg your patience, Or servilely to fawn on your applause, Like some dry brain, despairing in his merit. Let me be censured by the austerest brow, Where I want art or judgment, tax me freely. Let envious censors, with their broadest eyes, Look through and through me, I pursue no favour; Only vouchsafe me your attentions, And I will give you music worth your ears. O, how I hate the monstrousness of time, Where every servile imitating spirit, Plagued with an itching leprosy of wit, In a mere halting fury, strives to fling His ulcerous body in the Thespian spring, And straight leaps forth a poet! but as lame As Vulcan, or the founder of Cripplegate. MIT. In faith this humour will come ill to some, You will be thought to be too peremptory. ASP. This humour? good! and why this humour, Mitis? Nay, do not turn, but answer. MIT. Answer, what? ASP. I will not stir your patience, pardon me, I urged it for some reasons, and the rather To give these ignorant well-spoken days Some taste of their abuse of this word humour. COR. O, do not let your purpose fall, good Asper; It cannot but arrive most acceptable, Chiefly to such as have the happiness Daily to see how the poor innocent word Is rack'd and tortured. MIT. Ay, I pray you proceed. ASP. Ha, what? what is't? COR. For the abuse of humour. ASP. O, I crave pardon, I had lost my thoughts. Why humour, as 'tis 'ens', we thus define it, To be a quality of air, or water, And in itself holds these two properties, Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration, Pour water on this floor, 'twill wet and run: Likewise the air, forced through a horn or trumpet, Flows instantly away, and leaves behind A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude, That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity, As wanting power to contain itself, Is humour. So in every human body, The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood, By reason that they flow continually In some one part, and are not continent, Receive the name of humours. Now thus far It may, by metaphor, apply itself Unto the general disposition: As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour But that a rook, by wearing a pyed feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tye, or the Switzer's knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous. COR. He speaks pure truth; now if an idiot Have but an apish or fantastic strain, It is his humour. ASP. Well, I will scourge those apes, And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror, As large as is the stage whereon we act; Where they shall see the time's deformity Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew, With constant courage, and contempt of fear. MIT. Asper, (I urge it as your friend,) take heed, The days are dangerous, full of exception, And men are grown impatient of reproof. ASP. Ha, ha! You might as well have told me, yond' is heaven, This earth, these men, and all had moved alike. -- Do not I know the time's condition? Yes, Mitis, and their souls; and who they be That either will or can except against me. None but a sort of fools, so sick in taste, That they contemn all physic of the mind, And like gall'd camels, kick at every touch. Good men, and virtuous spirits, that loath their vices, Will cherish my free labours, love my lines, And with the fervour of their shining grace Make my brain fruitful, to bring forth more objects, Worthy their serious and intentive eyes. But why enforce I this? as fainting? no. If any here chance to behold himself, Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong; For, if he shame to have his follies known, First he should shame to act 'em: my strict hand Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls, As lick up every idle vanity. COR. Why, this is right furor poeticus! Kind gentlemen, we hope your patience Will yet conceive the best, or entertain This supposition, that a madman speaks. ASP. What, are you ready there? Mitis, sit down, And my Cordatus. Sound ho! and begin. I leave you two, as censors, to sit here: Observe what I present, and liberally Speak your opinions upon every scene, As it shall pass the view of these spectators. Nay, now y'are tedious, sirs; for shame begin. And, Mitis, note me; if in all this front You can espy a gallant of this mark, Who, to be thought one of the judicious, Sits with his arms thus wreath'd, his hat pull'd here, Cries mew, and nods, then shakes his empty head, Will shew more several motions in his face Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh, And, now and then, breaks a dry biscuit jest, Which, that it may more easily be chew'd, He steeps in his own laughter. COR. Why, will that Make it be sooner swallowed? ASP. O, assure you. Or if it did not, yet as Horace sings, Mean cates are welcome still to hungry guests. COR. 'Tis true; but why should we observe them, Asper? ASP. O, I would know 'em; for in such assemblies They are more infectious than the pestilence: And therefore I would give them pills to purge, And make them fit for fair societies. How monstrous and detested is't to see A fellow that has neither art nor brain, Sit like an Aristarchus, or start ass, Taking men's lines with a tobacco face, In snuff still spitting, using his wry'd looks, In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn The good aspect of those that shall sit near him, From what they do behold! O, 'tis most vile. MIT. Nay, Asper. ASP. Peace, Mitis, I do know your thought; You'll say, your guests here will except at this: Pish! you are too timorous, and full of doubt. Then he, a patient, shall reject all physic, 'Cause the physician tells him, you are sick: Or, if I say, that he is vicious, You will not hear of virtue. Come, you are fond. Shall I be so extravagant, to think, That happy judgments, and composed spirits, Will challenge me for taxing such as these? I am ashamed. COR. Nay, but good, pardon us; We must not bear this peremptory sail, But use our best endeavours how to please. ASP. Why, therein I commend your careful thoughts, And I will mix with you in industry To please: but whom? attentive auditors, Such as will join their profit with their pleasure, And come to feed their understanding parts: For these I'll prodigally spread myself, And speak away my spirit into air; For these, I'll melt my brain into invention, Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears? But stay, I lose myself, and wrong their patience: If I dwell here, they'll not begin, I see. Friends, sit you still, and entertain this troop With some familiar and by-conference, I'll hast them sound. Now, gentlemen, I go To turn an actor, and a humorist, Where, ere I do resume my present person, We hope to make the circles of your eyes Flow with distilled laughter: if we fail, We must impute it to this only chance, Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance. [EXIT. COR. How do you like his spirit, Mitis? MIT. I should like it much better, if he were less confident. COR. Why, do you suspect his merit? MIT. No; but I fear this will procure him much envy. COR. O, that sets the stronger seal on his desert: if he had no enemies, I should esteem his fortunes most wretched at this instant. MIT. You have seen his play, Cordatus: pray you, how is it? COR. Faith, sir, I must refrain to judge; only this I can say of it, 'tis strange, and of a particular kind by itself, somewhat like 'Vetus Comoedia'; a work that hath bounteously pleased me; how it will answer the general expectation, I know not. MIT. Does he observe all the laws of comedy in it? COR. What laws mean you? MIT. Why, the equal division of it into acts and scenes, according to the Terentian manner; his true number of actors; the furnishing of the scene with Grex or Chorus, and that the whole argument fall within compass of a day's business. COR. O no, these are too nice observations. MIT. They are such as must be received, by your favour, or it cannot be authentic. COR. Troth, I can discern no such necessity. MIT. No! COR. No, I assure you, signior. If those laws you speak of had been delivered us 'ab initio', and in their present virtue and perfection, there had been some reason of obeying their powers; but 'tis extant, that that which we call 'Comoedia', was at first nothing but a simple and continued song, sung by one only person, till Susario invented a second; after him, Epicharmus a third; Phormus and Chionides devised to have four actors, with a prologue and chorus; to which Cratinus, long after, added a fifth and sixth: Eupolis, more; Aristophanes, more than they; every man in the dignity of his spirit and judgment supplied something. And, though that in him this kind of poem appeared absolute, and fully perfect, yet how is the face of it changed since, in Menander, Philemon, Cecilius, Plautus, and the rest! who have utterly excluded the chorus, altered the property of the persons, their names, and natures, and augmented it with all liberty, according to the elegancy and disposition of those times wherein they wrote. I see not then, but we should enjoy the same license, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention, as they did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us. MIT. Well, we will not dispute of this now; but what's his scene? COR. Marry, 'Insula Fortunata', sir. MIT. O, the Fortunate Island: mass, he has bound himself to a strict law there. COR. Why so? MIT. He cannot lightly alter the scene, without crossing the seas. COR. He needs not, having a whole island to run through, I think. MIT. No! how comes it then, that in some one play we see so many seas, countries, and kingdoms, passed over with such admirable dexterity? COR. O, that but shews how well the authors can travel in their vocation, and outrun the apprehension of their auditory. But, leaving this, I would they would begin at once: this protraction is able to sour the best-settled patience in the theatre. [THE THIRD SOUNDING. MIT. They have answered your wish, sir; they sound. COR. O, here comes the Prologue. [ENTER PROLOGUE. Now, sir, if you had staid a little longer, I meant to have spoke your prologue for you i'faith. PROL. Marry, with all my heart, sir, you shall do it yet, and I thank you. [GOING. COR. Nay, nay, stay, stay; hear you? PROL. You could not have studied to have done me a greater benefit at the instant; for I protest to you, I am unperfect, and, had I spoke it, I must of necessity have been out. COR. Why, but do you speak this seriously? PROL. Seriously! ay, wit's my help, do I; and esteem myself indebted to your kindness for it. COR. For what? PROL. Why, for undertaking the prologue for me. COR. How! did I undertake it for you? PROL. Did you! I appeal to all these gentlemen, whether you did or no. Come, come, it pleases you to cast a strange look on't now; but 'twill not serve. COR. 'Fore me, but it must serve; and therefore speak your prologue. PROL. An I do, let me die poisoned with some venomous hiss, and never live to look as high as the two-penny room again. [EXIT. MIT. He has put you to it, sir. COR. 'Sdeath, what a humorous fellow is this! Gentlemen, good faith I can speak no prologue, howsoever his weak wit has had the fortune to make this strong use of me here before you: but I protest -- [ENTER CARLO BUFFONE, FOLLOWED BY A BOY WITH WINE. CAR. Come, come, leave these fustian protestations; away, come, I cannot abide these grey-headed ceremonies. Boy, fetch me a glass quickly, I may bid these gentlemen welcome; give them a health here. [EXIT BOY.] I mar'le whose wit it was to put a prologue in yond' sackbut's mouth; they might well think he'd be out of tune, and yet you'd play upon him too. COR. Hang him, dull block! CAR. O, good words, good words; a well-timber'd fellow, he would have made a good column, an he had been thought on, when the house was a building -- [RE-ENTER BOY WITH GLASSES.. O, art thou come? Well said; give me, boy; fill so! Here's a cup of wine sparkles like a diamond. Gentlewomen (I am sworn to put them in first) and gentlemen, around, in place of a bad prologue, I drink this good draught to your health here, Canary, the very elixir and spirit of wine. [DRINKS.] This is that our poet calls Castalian liquor, when he comes abroad now and then, once in a fortnight, and makes a good meal among players, where he has 'caninum appetitum'; marry, at home he keeps a good philosophical diet, beans and butter-milk; an honest pure rogue, he will take you off three, four, five of these, one after another, and look villainously when he has done, like a one-headed Cerberus. -- He does not hear me, I hope. -- And then, when his belly is well ballaced, and his brain rigged a little, he snails away withal, as though he would work wonders when he comes home. He has made a play here, and he calls it, 'Every Man out of his Humour': but an he get me out of the humour he has put me in, I'll trust none of his tribe again while I live. Gentles, all I can say for him is, you are welcome. I could wish my bottle here amongst you; but there's an old rule, No pledging your own health. Marry, if any here be thirsty for it, their best way (that I know) is, sit still, seal up their lips, and drink so much of the play in at their ears. [EXIT. MIT. What may this fellow be, Cordatus? COR. Faith, if the time will suffer his description, I'll give it you. He is one, the author calls him Carlo Buffone, an impudent common jester, a violent railer, and an incomprehensible epicure; one whose company is desired of all men, but beloved of none; he will sooner lose his soul than a jest, and profane even the most holy things, to excite laughter: no honourable or reverend personage whatsoever can come within the reach of his eye, but is turned into all manner of variety, by his adulterate similes. MIT. You paint forth a monster. COR. He will prefer all countries before his native, and thinks he can never sufficiently, or with admiration enough, deliver his affectionate conceit of foreign atheistical policies. But stay -- [ENTER MACILENTE. Observe these: he'll appear himself anon. MIT. O, this is your envious man, Macilente, I think. COR. The same, sir. ACT I SCENE I. -- The Country. ENTER MACILENTE, WITH A BOOK. MACI. "Viri est, fortunae caecitatem facile ferre." 'Tis true; but, Stoic, where, in the vast world, Doth that man breathe, that can so much command His blood and his affection? Well, I see I strive in vain to cure my wounded soul; For every cordial that my thoughts apply Turns to a corsive and doth eat it farther. There is no taste in this philosophy; 'Tis like a potion that a man should drink, But turns his stomach with the sight of it. I am no such pill'd Cynick to believe, That beggary is the only happiness; Or with a number of these patient fools, To sing: "My mind to me a kingdom is," When the lank hungry belly barks for food, I look into the world, and there I meet With objects, that do strike my blood-shot eyes Into my brain: where, when I view myself, Having before observ'd this man is great, Mighty and fear'd; that lov'd and highly favour'd: A third thought wise and learn'd; a fourth rich, And therefore honour'd; a fifth rarely featur'd; A sixth admired for his nuptial fortunes: When I see these, I say, and view myself, I wish the organs of my sight were crack'd; And that the engine of my grief could cast Mine eyeballs, like two globes of wildfire, forth, To melt this unproportion'd frame of nature. Oh, they are thoughts that have transfix'd my heart, And often, in the strength of apprehension, Made my cold passion stand upon my face, Like drops of dew on a stiff cake of ice. COR. This alludes well to that of the poet, "Invidus suspirat, gemit, incutitque dentes, Sudat frigidus, intuens quod odit." MIT. O, peace, you break the scene. [ENTER SOGLIARDO AND CARLO BUFFONE. MACI. Soft, who be these? I'll lay me down awhile till they be past. [LIES DOWN. CAR. Signior, note this gallant, I pray you. MIT. What is he? CAR. A tame rook, you'll take him presently; list. SOG. Nay, look you, Carlo; this is my humour now! I have land and money, my friends left me well, and I will be a gentleman whatsoever it cost me. CAR. A most gentlemanlike resolution. SOG. Tut! an I take an humour of a thing once, I am like your tailor's needle, I go through: but, for my name, signior, how think you? will it not serve for a gentleman's name, when the signior is put to it, ha? CAR. Let me hear; how is it? SOG. Signior Insulso Sogliardo: methinks it sounds well. CAR. O excellent! tut! an all fitted to your name, you might very well stand for a gentleman: I know many Sogliardos gentlemen. SOG. Why, and for my wealth I might be a justice of peace. CAR. Ay, and a constable for your wit. SOG. All this is my lordship you see here, and those farms you came by. CAR. Good steps to gentility too, marry: but, Sogliardo, if you affect to be a gentleman indeed, you must observe all the rare qualities, humours, and compliments of a gentleman. SOG. I know it, signior, and if you please to instruct, I am not too good to learn, I'll assure you. CAR. Enough, sir. -- I'll make admirable use in the projection of my medicine upon this lump of copper here. [ASIDE] -- I'll bethink me for you, sir. SOG. Signior, I will both pay you, and pray you, and thank you, and think on you. COR. Is this not purely good? MACI. S'blood, why should such a prick-ear'd hind as this Be rich, ha? a fool! such a transparent gull That may be seen through! wherefore should he have land, Houses, and lordships? O, I could eat my entrails, And sink my soul into the earth with sorrow. CAR. First, to be an accomplished gentleman, that is, a gentleman of the time, you must give over housekeeping in the country, and live altogether in the city amongst gallants: where, at your first appearance, 'twere good you turn'd four or five hundred acres of your best land into two or three trunks of apparel -- you may do it without going to a conjurer -- and be sure you mix yourself still with such as flourish in the spring of the fashion, and are least popular; study their carriage and behaviour in all; learn to play at primero and passage, and ever (when you lose) have two or three peculiar oaths to swear by, that no man else swears: but, above all, protest in your play, and affirm, "Upon your credit, As you are a true gentleman", at every cast; you may do it with a safe conscience, I warrant you. SOG. O admirable rare! he cannot choose but be a gentleman that has these excellent gifts: more, more, I beseech you. CAR. You must endeavour to feed cleanly at your ordinary, sit melancholy, and pick your teeth when you cannot speak: and when you come to plays, be humorous, look with a good starch'd face, and ruffle your brow like a new boot, laugh at nothing but your own jests, or else as the noblemen laugh. That's a special grace you must observe. SAG. I warrant you, sir. CAR. Ay, and sit on the stage and flout, provided you have a good suit. SOG. O, I'll have a suit only for that, sir. CAR. You must talk much of your kindred and allies. SOG. Lies! no, signior, I shall not need to do so, I have kindred in the city to talk of: I have a niece is a merchant's wife; and a nephew, my brother Sordido's son, of the Inns of court. CAR. O, but you must pretend alliance with courtiers and great persons: and ever when you are to dine or sup in any strange presence, hire a fellow with a great chain, (though it be copper, it's no matter,) to bring you letters, feign'd from such a nobleman, or such a knight, or such a lady, "To their worshipful, right rare, and nobly qualified friend and kinsman, signior Insulso Sogliardo": give yourself style enough. And there, while you intend circumstances of news, or enquiry of their health, or so, one of your familiars whom you must carry about you still, breaks it up, as 'twere in a jest, and reads it publicly at the table: at which you must seem to take as unpardonable offence, as if he had torn your mistress's colours, or breath'd upon her picture, and pursue it with that hot grace, as if you would advance a challenge upon it presently. SOG. Stay, I do not like that humour of challenge, it may be accepted; but I'll tell you what's my humour now, I will do this: I will take occasion of sending one of my suits to the tailor's, to have the pocket repaired, or so; and there such a letter as you talk of, broke open and all shall be left; O, the tailor will presently give out what I am, upon the reading of it, worth twenty of your gallants. CAR. But then you must put on an extreme face of discontentment at your man's negligence. SOG. O, so I will, and beat him too: I'll have a man for the purpose. MAC. You may; you have land and crowns: O partial fate! CAR. Mass, well remember'd, you must keep your men gallant at the first, fine pied liveries laid with good gold lace; there's no loss in it, they may rip it off and pawn it when they lack victuals. SOG. By 'r Lady, that is chargeable, signior, 'twill bring a man in debt. CAR. Debt! why that's the more for your credit, sir: it's an excellent policy to owe much in these days, if you note it. SOG. As how, good signior? I would fain be a politician. CAR. O! look where you are indebted any great sum, your creditor observes you with no less regard, than if he were bound to you for some huge benefit, and will quake to give you the least cause of offence, lest he lose his money. I assure you, in these times, no man has his servant more obsequious and pliant, than gentlemen their creditors: to whom, if at any time you pay but a moiety, or a fourth part, it comes more acceptably than if you gave them a new-year's gift. SOG. I perceive you, sir: I will take up, and bring myself in credit, sure. CAR. Marry this, always beware you commerce not with bankrupts, or poor needy Ludgathians; they are impudent creatures, turbulent spirits, they care not what violent tragedies they stir, nor how they play fast and loose with a poor gentleman's fortunes, to get their own. Marry, these rich fellows that have the world, or the better part of it, sleeping in their counting-houses, they are ten times more placable, they; either fear, hope, or modesty, restrains them from offering any outrages: but this is nothing to your followers, you shall not run a penny more in arrearage for them, an you list, yourself. SOG. No! how should I keep 'em then? CAR. Keep 'em! 'sblood, let them keep themselves, they are no sheep, are they? what, you shall come in houses, where plate, apparel, jewels, and divers other pretty commodities lie negligently scattered, and I would have those Mercuries follow me, I trow, should remember they had not their fingers for nothing. SOG. That's not so good, methinks. CAR. Why, after you have kept them a fortnight, or so, and shew'd them enough to the world, you may turn them away, and keep no more but a boy, it's enough. SOG. Nay, my humour is not for boys, I'll keep men, an I keep any; and I'll give coats, that's my humour: but I lack a cullisen. CAR. Why, now you ride to the city, you may buy one; I'll bring you where you shall have your choice for money. SOG. Can you, sir? CAR. O, ay: you shall have one take measure of you, and make you a coat of arms to fit you, of what fashion you will. SOG. By word of mouth, I thank you, signior; I'll be once a little prodigal in a humour, i'faith, and have a most prodigious coat. MAC. Torment and death! break head and brain at once, To be deliver'd of your fighting issue. Who can endure to see blind Fortune dote thus? To be enamour'd on this dusty turf, This clod, a whoreson puck-fist! O G----! I could run wild with grief now, to behold The rankness of her bounties, that doth breed Such bulrushes; these mushroom gentlemen, That shoot up in a night to place and worship. CAR. [SEEING MACILENTE.] Let him alone; some stray, some stray. SOG. Nay, I will examine him before I go, sure. CAR. The lord of the soil has all wefts and strays here, has he not? SOG. Yes, sir. CAR. Faith then I pity the poor fellow, he's fallen into a fool's hands. [ASIDE. SOG. Sirrah, who gave you a commission to lie in my lordship? MAC. Your lordship! SOG. How! my lordship? do you know me, sir? MAC. I do know you, sir. CAR. He answers him like an echo. [ASIDE. SOG. Why, Who am I, sir? MAC. One of those that fortune favours. CAR. The periphrasis of a fool. I'll observe this better. [ASIDE. SOG. That fortune favours! how mean you that, friend? MAC. I mean simply: that you are one that lives not by your wits. SOG. By my wits! no sir, I scorn to live by my wits, I. I have better means, I tell thee, than to take such base courses, as to live by my wits. What, dost thou think I live by my wits? MAC. Methinks, jester, you should not relish this well. CAR. Ha! does he know me? MAC. Though yours be the worst use a man can put his wit to, of thousands, to prostitute it at every tavern and ordinary; yet, methinks, you should have turn'd your broadside at this, and have been ready with an apology, able to sink this hulk of ignorance into the bottom and depth of his contempt. CAR. Oh, 'tis Macilente! Signior, you are well encountered; how is it? O, we must not regard what he says, man, a trout, a shallow fool, he has no more brain than a butterfly, a mere stuft suit; he looks like a musty bottle new wicker'd, his head's the cork, light, light! [ASIDE TO MACILENTE.] -- I am glad to see you so well return'd, signior. MAC. You are! gramercy, good Janus. SOG. Is he one of your acquaintance? I love him the better for that. CAR. Od's precious, come away, man, what do you mean? an you knew him as I do, you'd shun him as you would do the plague. SOG. Why, sir? CAR. O, he's a black fellow, take heed of him. SOG. Is he a scholar, or a soldier? CAR. Both, both; a lean mongrel, he looks as if he were chop-fallen, with barking at other men's good fortunes: 'ware how you offend him; he carries oil and fire in his pen, will scald where it drops: his spirit is like powder, quick, violent; he'll blow a man up with a jest: I fear him worse than a rotten wall does the cannon; shake an hour after at the report. Away, come not near him. SOG. For God's sake let's be gone; an he be a scholar, you know I cannot abide him; I had as lieve see a cockatrice, specially as cockatrices go now. CAR. What, you'll stay, signior? this gentleman Sogliardo, and I, are to visit the knight Puntarvolo, and from thence to the city; we shall meet there. [EXIT WITH SOGLIARDO. MAC. Ay, when I cannot shun you, we will meet. 'Tis strange! of all the creatures I have seen, I envy not this Buffone, for indeed Neither his fortunes nor his parts deserve it: But I do hate him, as I hate the devil, Or that brass-visaged monster Barbarism. O, 'tis an open-throated, black-mouth'd cur, That bites at all, but eats on those that feed him. A slave, that to your face will, serpent-like, Creep on the ground, as he would eat the dust, And to your back will turn the tail, and sting More deadly than the scorpion: stay, who's this? Now, for my soul, another minion Of the old lady Chance's! I'll observe him. [ENTER SORDIDO WITH AN ALMANACK IN HIS HAND. SORD. O rare! good, good, good, good, good! I thank my stars, I thank my stars for it. MAC. Said I not true? doth not his passion speak Out of my divination? O my senses, Why lost you not your powers, and become Dull'd, if not deaded, with this spectacle? I know him, it is Sordido, the farmer, A boor, and brother to that swine was here. [ASIDE. SORD. Excellent, excellent, excellent! as I would wish, as I would wish. MAC. See how the strumpet fortune tickles him, And makes him swoon with laughter, O, O, O! SORD. Ha, ha, ha! I will not sow my grounds this year. Let me see, what harvest shall we have? "June, July?" MAC. What, is't a prognostication raps him so? SORD. "The 20, 21, 22 days, rain and wind." O good, good! "the 23, and 24, rain and some wind," good! "the 25, rain," good still! "26, 27, 28, wind and some rain"; would it had been rain and some wind! well, 'tis good, when it can be no better. "29, inclining to rain": inclining to rain! that's not so good now: "30, and 31, wind and no rain": no rain! 'slid, stay: this is worse and worse: What says he of St. Swithin's? turn back, look, "saint Swithin's: no rain!" MAC. O, here's a precious, dirty, damned rogue, That fats himself with expectation Of rotten weather, and unseason'd hours; And he is rich for it, an elder brother! His barns are full, his ricks and mows well trod, His garners crack with store! O, 'tis well; ha, ha, ha! A plague consume thee, and thy house! SORD. O here, "St. Swithin's, the 15 day, variable weather, for the most part rain", good! "for the most part rain": why, it should rain forty days after, now, more or less, it was a rule held, afore I was able to hold a plough, and yet here are two days no rain; ha! it makes me muse. We'll see how the next month begins, if that be better. "August 1, 2, 3, and 4, days, rainy and blustering:" this is well now: "5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, rainy, with some thunder;" Ay marry, this is excellent; the other was false printed sure: "the 10 and 11, great store of rain"; O good, good, good, good, good! "the 12, 13, and 14 days, rain"; good still: "15, and 16, rain"; good still: "17 and 18, rain", good still: "19 and 20", good still, good still, good still, good still, good still! "21, some rain"; some rain! well, we must be patient, and attend the heaven's pleasure, would it were more though: "the 22, 23, great tempests of rain, thunder and lightning". O good again, past expectation good! I thank my blessed angel; never, never Laid I [a] penny better out than this, To purchase this dear book: not dear for price, And yet of me as dearly prized as life, Since in it is contain'd the very life, Blood, strength, and sinews, of my happiness. Blest be the hour wherein I bought this book; His studies happy that composed the book, And the man fortunate that sold the book! Sleep with this charm, and be as true to me, As I am joy'd and confident in thee [PUTS IT UP. [ENTER A HIND, AND GIVES SORDIDO A PAPER TO READ. MAC. Ha, ha, ha! Is not this good? Is not pleasing this? Ha, ha, ha! God pardon me! ha, ha! Is't possible that such a spacious villain Should live, and not be plagued? or lies be hid Within the wrinkled bosom of the world, Where Heaven cannot see him? S'blood! methinks 'Tis rare, and strange, that he should breathe and walk, Feed with digestion, sleep, enjoy his health, And, like a boisterous whale swallowing the poor, Still swim in wealth and pleasure! is't not strange? Unless his house and skin were thunder proof, I wonder at it! Methinks, now, the hectic, Gout, leprosy, or some such loath'd disease, Might light upon him; of that fire from heaven Might fall upon his barns; or mice and rats Eat up his grain; or else that it might rot Within the hoary ricks, even as it stands: Methinks this might be well; and after all The devil might come and fetch him. Ay, 'tis true! Meantime he surfeits in prosperity, And thou, in envy of him, gnaw'st thyself: Peace, fool, get hence, and tell thy vexed spirit, Wealth in this age will scarcely look on merit. [RISES AND EXIT. SORD. Who brought this same, sirrah? HIND. Marry, sir, one of the justice's men; he says 'tis a precept, and all their hands be at it. SORD. Ay, and the prints of them stick in my flesh, Deeper than in their letters: they have sent me Pills wrapt in paper here, that, should I take them, Would poison all the sweetness of my book, And turn my honey into hemlock juice. But I am wiser than to serve their precepts, Or follow their prescriptions. Here's a device, To charge me bring my grain unto the markets: Ay, much! when I have neither barn nor garner, Nor earth to hid it in, I'll bring 't; till then, Each corn I send shall be as big as Paul's. O, but (say some) the poor are like to starve. Why, let 'em starve, what's that to me? are bees Bound to keep life in drones and idle moths? no: Why such are these that term themselves the poor, Only because they would be pitied, But are indeed a sort of lazy beggars, Licentious rogues, and sturdy vagabonds, Bred by the sloth of a fat plenteous year, Like snakes in heat of summer, out of dung; And this is all that these cheap times are good for: Whereas a wholesome and penurious dearth Purges the soil of such vile excrements, And kills the vipers up. HIND. O, but master, Take heed they hear you not. SORD. Why so? HIND. They will exclaim against you. SORD. Ay, their exclaims Move me as much, as thy breath moves a mountain. Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home Can be contented to applaud myself, To sit and clap my hands, and laugh, and leap, Knocking my head against my roof, with joy To see how plump my bags are, and my barns. Sirrah, go hie you home, and bid your fellows Get all their flails ready again I come. HIND. I will, sir. [EXIT. SORD. I'll instantly set all my hinds to thrashing Of a whole rick of corn, which I will hide Under the ground; and with the straw thereof I'll stuff the outsides of my other mows: That done, I'll have them empty all my garners, And in the friendly earth bury my store, That, when the searchers come, they may suppose All's spent, and that my fortunes were belied. And to lend more opinion to my want, And stop that many-mouthed vulgar dog, Which else would still be baying at my door, Each market-day I will be seen to buy Part of the purest wheat, as for my household; Where when it comes, it shall increase my heaps: 'Twill yield me treble gain at this dear time, Promised in this dear book: I have cast all. Till then I will not sell an ear, I'll hang first. O, I shall make my prices as I list; My house and I can feed on peas and barley. What though a world of wretches starve the while; He that will thrive must think no courses vile. [EXIT. COR. Now, signior, how approve you this? have the humourists exprest themselves truly or no? MIT. Yes, if it be well prosecuted, 'tis hitherto happy enough: but methinks Macilente went hence too soon; he might have been made to stay, and speak somewhat in reproof of Sordido's wretchedness now at the last. COR. O, no, that had been extremely improper; besides, he had continued the scene too long with him, as 'twas, being in no more action. MIT. You may inforce the length as a necessary reason; but for propriety, the scene wou'd very well have borne it, in my judgment. COR. O, worst of both; why, you mistake his humour utterly then. MIT. How do I mistake it? Is it not envy? COR. Yes, but you must understand, signior, he envies him not as he is a villain, a wolf in the commonwealth, but as he is rich and fortunate; for the true condition of envy is, 'dolor alienae felicitatis', to have our eyes continually fixed upon another man's prosperity that is, his chief happiness, and to grieve at that. Whereas, if we make his monstrous and abhorr'd actions our object, the grief we take then comes nearer the nature of hate than envy, as being bred out of a kind of contempt and loathing in ourselves. MIT. So you'll infer it had been hate, not envy in him, to reprehend the humour of Sordido? COR. Right, for what a man truly envies in another, he could always love and cherish in himself; but no man truly reprehends in another, what he loves in himself; therefore reprehension is out of his hate. And this distinction hath he himself made in a speech there, if you marked it, where he says, "I envy not this Buffone, but I hate him." Why might he not as well have hated Sordido as him? COR. No, sir, there was subject for his envy in Sordido, his wealth: so was there not in the other. He stood possest of no one eminent gift, but a most odious and fiend-like disposition, that would turn charity itself into hate, much more envy, for the present. MIT. You have satisfied me, sir. O, here comes the fool, and the jester again, methinks. COR. 'Twere pity they should be parted, sir. MIT. What bright-shining gallant's that with them? the knight they went to? COR. No, sir, this is one monsieur Fastidious Brisk, otherwise called the fresh Frenchified courtier. MIT. A humourist too? COR. As humorous as quicksilver; do but observe him; the scene is the country still, remember. ACT II SCENE I. -- THE COUNTRY; BEFORE PUNTARVOLO'S HOUSE. ENTER FASTIDIOUS BRISK, CINEDO, CARLO BUFFONE, AND SOGLIARDO. FAST. Cinedo, watch when the knight comes, and give us word. CIN. I will, sir. [EXIT. FAST. How lik'st thou my boy, Carlo? CAR. O, well, well. He looks like a colonel of the Pigmies horse, or one of these motions in a great antique clock; he would shew well upon a haberdasher's stall, at a corner shop, rarely. FAST. 'Sheart, what a damn'd witty rogue's this! How he confounds with his similes! CAR. Better with similes than smiles: and whither were you riding now, signior? FAST. Who, I? What a silly jest's that! Whither should I ride but to the court? CAR. O, pardon me, sir, twenty places more; your hot-house, or your whore-house -- FAST. By the virtue of my soul, this knight dwells in Elysium here. CAR. He's gone now, I thought he would fly out presently. These be our nimble-spirited catsos, that have their evasions at pleasure, will run over a bog like your wild Irish; no sooner started, but they'll leap from one thing to another, like a squirrel, heigh! dance and do tricks in their discourse, from fire to water, from water to air, from air to earth, as if their tongues did but e'en lick the four elements over, and away. FAST. Sirrah, Carlo, thou never saw'st my gray hobby yet, didst thou? CAR. No; have you such a one? FAST. The best in Europe, my good villain, thou'lt say when thou seest him. CAR. But when shall I see him? FAST. There was a nobleman in the court offered me a hundred pound for him, by this light: a fine little fiery slave, he runs like a -- oh, excellent, excellent! -- with the very sound of the spur. CAR. How! the sound of the spur? FAST. O, it's your only humour now extant, sir; a good gingle, a good gingle. CAR. S'blood! you shall see him turn morrice-dancer, he has got him bells, a good suit, and a hobby-horse. SIG. Signior, now you talk of a hobby-horse, I know where one is will not be given for a brace of angels. FAST. How is that, sir? SOG. Marry, sir, I am telling this gentleman of a hobby-horse; it was my father's indeed, and though I say it -- CAR. That should not say it -- on, on. SOG. He did dance in it, with as good humour and as good regard as any man of his degree whatsoever, being no gentleman: I have danc'd in it myself too. CAR. Not since the humour of gentility was upon you, did you? SOG. Yes, once; marry, that was but to shew what a gentleman might do in a humour. CAR. O, very good. MIT. Why, this fellow's discourse were nothing but for the word humour. COR. O bear with him; an he should lack matter and words too, 'twere pitiful. SOG. Nay, look you, sir, there's ne'er a gentleman in the country has the like humours, for the hobby-horse, as I have; I have the method for the threading of the needle and all, the -- CAR. How, the method? SOG. Ay, the leigerity for that, and the whighhie, and the daggers in the nose, and the travels of the egg from finger to finger, and all the humours incident to the quality. The horse hangs at home in my parlour. I'll keep it for a monument as long as I live, sure. CAR. Do so; and when you die, 'twill be an excellent trophy to hang over your tomb. SOG. Mass, and I'll have a tomb, now I think on't; 'tis but so much charges. CAR. Best build it in your lifetime then, your heirs may hap to forget it else. SOG. Nay, I mean so, I'll not trust to them. CAR. No, for heirs and executors are grown damnable careless, 'specially since the ghosts of testators left walking. -- How like you him, signior? FAST. 'Fore heavens, his humour arrides me exceedingly. CAR. Arrides you! FAST. Ay, pleases me: a pox on't! I am so haunted at the court, and at my lodging, with your refined choice spirits, that it makes me clean of another garb, another sheaf, I know not how! I cannot frame me to your harsh vulgar phrase, 'tis against my genius. Sog. Signior Carlo! [TAKES HIM ASIDE. COR. This is right to that of Horace, "Dum vitant stulti vitia, in contraria currunt"; so this gallant labouring to avoid popularity, falls into a habit of affectation, ten thousand times hatefuller than the former. CAR. [POINTING TO FASTIDIOUS.] Who, he? a gull, a fool, no salt in him i' the earth, man; he looks like a fresh salmon kept in a tub; he'll be spent shortly. His brain's lighter than his feather already, and his tongue more subject to lye, than that is to wag; he sleeps with a musk-cat every night, and walks all day hang'd in pomander chains for penance; he has his skin tann'd in civet, to make his complexion strong, and the sweetness of his youth lasting in the sense of his sweet lady; a good empty puff, he loves you well, signior. SOG. There shall be no love lost, sir, I'll assure you. FAST. [ADVANCING TO THEM.] Nay, Carlo, I am not happy in thy love, I see: pray thee suffer me to enjoy thy company a little, sweet mischief: by this air, I shall envy this gentleman's place in thy affections, if you be thus private, i'faith. ENTER CINEDO. How now! Is the knight arrived? CIN. No, sir, but 'tis guess'd he will arrive presently, by his fore-runners. FAST. His hounds! by Minerva, an excellent figure; a good boy. CAR. You should give him a French crown for it; the boy would find two better figures in that, and a good figure of your bounty beside. FAST. Tut, the boy wants no crowns. CAR. No crown; speak in the singular number, and we'll believe you. FAST. Nay, thou are so capriciously conceited now. Sirrah damnation, I have heard this knight Puntarvolo reported to be a gentleman of exceeding good humour, thou know'st him; prithee, how is his disposition? I never was so favoured of my stars, as to see him yet. Boy, do you look to the hobby? CIN. Ay, sir, the groom has set him up. [AS CINEDO IS GOING OUT, SOGLIARDO TAKES HIM ASIDE. FAST. 'Tis well: I rid out of my way of intent to visit him, and take knowledge of his -- Nay, good Wickedness, his humour, his humour. CAR. Why, he loves dogs, and hawks, and his wife well; he has a good riding face, and he can sit a great horse; he will taint a staff well at tile; when he is mounted he looks like the sign of the George, that's all I know; save, that instead of a dragon, he will brandish against a tree, and break his sword as confidently upon the knotty bark, as the other did upon the scales of the beast. FAST. O, but this is nothing to that's delivered of him. They say he has dialogues and discourses between his horse, himself, and his dog; and that he will court his own lady, as she were a stranger never encounter'd before. CAR. Ay, that he will, and make fresh love to her every morning; this gentleman has been a spectator of it, Signior Insulso. SOG. I am resolute to keep a page. -- Say you, sir? [LEAPS FROM WHISPERING WITH CINEDO. CAR. You have seen Signior Puntarvolo accost his lady? SOG. O, ay, sir. FAST. And how is the manner of it, prithee, good signior? SOG. Faith, sir, in very good sort; he has his humours for it, sir; at first, (suppose he were now to come from riding or hunting, or so,) he has his trumpet to sound, and then the waiting-gentlewoman she looks out, and then he speaks, and then she speaks, -- very pretty, i'faith, gentlemen. FAST. Why, but do you remember no particulars, signior? SOG. O, yes, sir, first, the gentlewoman, she looks out at the window. CAR. After the trumpet has summon'd a parle, not before? SOG. No, sir, not before; and then says he, -- ha, ha, ha, ha! CAR. What says he? be not rapt so. SOG. Says he, -- ha, ha, ha, ha! FAST. Nay, speak, speak. SOG. Ha, ha, ha! -- says he, God save you, says he; -- ha, ha! CAR. Was this the ridiculous motive to all this passion? SOG. Nay, that that comes after is, -- ha, ha, ha, ha! CAR. Doubtless he apprehends more than he utters, this fellow; or else -- [A CRY OF HOUNDS WITHIN. SOG. List, list, they are come from hunting; stand by, close under this terras, and you shall see it done better than I can show it. CAR. So it had need, 'twill scarce poise the observation else. SOG. Faith, I remember all, but the manner of it is quite out of my head. FAST. O, withdraw, withdraw, it cannot be but a most pleasing object. [THEY STAND ASIDE. ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FOLLOWED BY HIS HUNTSMAN LEADING A GREYHOUND. PUNT. Forester, give wind to thy horn. -- Enough; by this the sound hath touch'd the ears of the inclos'd: depart, leave the dog, and take with thee what thou has deserved, the horn and thanks. [EXIT HUNTSMAN. CAR. Ay, marry, there is some taste in this. FAST. Is't not good? SOG. Ah, peace; now above, now above! [A WAITING-GENTLEWOMAN APPEARS AT THE WINDOW. PUNT. Stay; mine eye hath, on the instant, through the bounty of the window, received the form of a nymph. I will step forward three paces; of the which, I will barely retire one; and, after some little flexure of the knee, with an erected grace salute her; one, two, and three! Sweet lady, God save you! GENT. [ABOVE.] No, forsooth; I am but the waiting-gentlewoman. CAR. He knew that before. PUNT. Pardon me: 'humanum est errare'. CAR. He learn'd that of his chaplain. PUNT. To the perfection of compliment (which is the dial of the thought, and guided by the sun of your beauties,) are required these three specials; the gnomon, the puntilios, and the superficies: the superficies is that we call place; the puntilios, circumstance; and the gnomon, ceremony; in either of which, for a stranger to err, 'tis easy and facile; and such am I. CAR. True, not knowing her horizon, he must needs err; which I fear he knows too well. PUNT. What call you the lord of the castle, sweet face? GENT. [ABOVE.] The lord of the castle is a knight, sir; signior Puntarvolo. PUNT. Puntarvolo! O -- CAR. Now must he ruminate. FAST. Does the wench know him all this while, then? CAR. O, do you know me, man? why, therein lies the syrup of the jest; it's a project, a designment of his own, a thing studied, and rehearst as ordinarily at his coming from hawking or hunting, as a jig after a play. SOG. Ay, e'en like your jig, sir. PUNT. 'Tis a most sumptuous and stately edifice! Of what years is the knight, fair damsel? GENT. Faith, much about your years, sir. PUNT. What complexion, or what stature bears he? GENT. Of your stature, and very near upon your complexion. PUNT. Mine is melancholy, -- CAR. So is the dog's, just. PUNT. And doth argue constancy, chiefly in love. What are his endowments? is he courteous? GENT. O, the most courteous knight in Christian land, sir. PUNT. Is he magnanimous? GENT. As the skin between your brows, sir. PUNT. Is he bountiful? CAR. 'Slud, he takes an inventory of his own good parts. GENT. Bountiful! ay, sir, I would you should know it; the poor are served at his gate, early and late, sir. PUNT. Is he learned? GENT. O, ay, sir, he can speak the French and Italian. PUNT. Then he has travelled? GENT. Ay, forsooth, he hath been beyond seas once or twice. CAR. As far as Paris, to fetch over a fashion, and come back again. PUNT. Is he religious? GENT. Religious! I know not what you call religious, but he goes to church, I am sure. FAST. 'Slid, methinks these answers should offend him. CAR. Tut, no; he knows they are excellent, and to her capacity that speaks them. PUNT. Would I might but see his face! CAR. She should let down a glass from the window at that word, and request him to look in't. PUNT. Doubtless the gentleman is most exact, and absolutely qualified; doth the castle contain him? GENT. No, sir, he is from home, but his lady is within. PUNT. His lady! what, is she fair, splendidious, and amiable? GENT. O, Lord, sir. PUNT. Prithee, dear nymph, intreat her beauties to shine on this side of the building. [EXIT WAITING-GENTLEWOMAN FROM THE WINDOW. CAR. That he may erect a new dial of compliment, with his gnomons and his puntilios. FAST. Nay, thou art such another cynic now, a man had need walk uprightly before thee. CAR. Heart, can any man walk more upright than he does? Look, look; as if he went in a frame, or had a suit of wainscot on: and the dog watching him, lest he should leap out on't. FAST. O, villain! CAR. Well, an e'er I meet him in the city, I'll have him jointed, I'll pawn him in Eastcheap, among the butchers, else. FAST. Peace; who be these, Carlo? ENTER SORDIDO AND FUNGOSO. SORD. Yonder's your godfather; do your duty to him, son. SOG. This, sir? a poor elder brother of mine, sir, a yeoman, may dispend some seven or eight hundred a year; that's his son, my nephew, there. PUNT. You are not ill come, neighbour Sordido, though I have not yet said, well-come; what, my godson is grown a great proficient by this. SORD. I hope he will grow great one day, sir. FAST. What does he study? the law? SOG. Ay, sir, he is a gentleman, though his father be but a yeoman. CAR. What call you your nephew, signior? SOG. Marry, his name is Fungoso. CAR. Fungoso! O, he look'd somewhat like a sponge in that pink'd yellow doublet, methought; well, make much of him; I see he was never born to ride upon a mule. GENT. [REAPPEARS AT THE WINDOW.] My lady will come presently, sir. SOG. O, now, now! PUNT. Stand by, retire yourselves a space; nay, pray you, forget not the use of your hat; the air is piercing. [SORDIDO AND FUNGOSO WITHDRAW. FAST. What! will not their presence prevail against the current of his humour? CAR. O, no; it's a mere flood, a torrent carries all afore it. [LADY PUNTARVOLO APPEARS AT THE WINDOW. PUNT. What more than heavenly pulchritude is this. What magazine, or treasury of bliss? Dazzle, you organs to my optic sense, To view a creature of such eminence: O, I am planet-struck, and in yon sphere A brighter star than Venus doth appear! FAST. How! in verse! CAR. An extacy, an extacy, man. LADY P. [ABOVE] is your desire to speak with me, sir knight? CAR. He will tell you that anon; neither his brain nor his body are yet moulded for an answer. PUNT. Most debonair, and luculent lady, I decline me as low as the basis of your altitude. COR. He makes congies to his wife in geometrical proportions. MIT. Is it possible there should be any such humorist? COR. Very easily possible, sir, you see there is. PUNT. I have scarce collected my spirits, but lately scattered in the administration of your form; to which, if the bounties of your mind be any way responsible, I doubt not but my desires shall find a smooth and secure passage. I am a poor knight-errant, lady, that hunting in the adjacent forest, was, by adventure, in the pursuit of a hart, brought to this place; which hart, dear madam, escaped by enchantment: the evening approaching myself and servant wearied, my suit is, to enter your fair castle and refresh me. LADY. Sir knight, albeit it be not usual with me, chiefly in the absence of a husband, to admit any entrance to strangers, yet in the true regard of those innated virtues, and fair parts, which so strive to express themselves, in you; I am resolved to entertain you to the best of my unworthy power; which I acknowledge to be nothing, valued with what so worthy a person may deserve. Please you but stay while I descend. [EXIT FROM THE WINDOW. PUNT. Most admired lady, you astonish me. [WALKS ASIDE WITH SORDIDO AND HIS SON. CAR. What! with speaking a speech of your own penning? FAST. Nay, look: prithee, peace. CAR. Pox on't! I am impatient of such foppery. FAST. O let us hear the rest. CAR. What! a tedious chapter of courtship, after sir Lancelot and queen Guenever? Away! I marle in what dull cold nook he found this lady out; that, being a woman, she was blest with no more copy of wit but to serve his humour thus. 'Slud, I think he feeds her with porridge, I: she could never have such a thick brain else. SOG. Why, is porridge so hurtful, signior? CAR. O, nothing under heaven more prejudicial to those ascending subtle powers, or doth sooner abate that which we call 'acumen ingenii', than your gross fare: Why, I'll make you an instance; your city-wives, but observe 'em, you have not more perfect true fools in the world bred than they are generally; and yet you see, by the fineness and delicacy of their diet, diving into the fat capons, drinking your rich wines, feeding on larks, sparrows, potato-pies, and such good unctuous meats, how their wits are refined and rarified; and sometimes a very quintessence of conceit flows from them, able to drown a weak apprehension. ENTER LADY PUNTARVOLO AND HER WAITING-WOMAN. FAST. Peace, here comes the lady.. LADY. Gad's me, here's company! turn in again. [EXIT WITH HER WOMAN. FAST. 'Slight, our presence has cut off the convoy of the jest. CAR. All the better, I am glad on't; for the issue was very perspicuous. Come let's discover, and salute the knight. [THEY COME FORWARD. PUNT. Stay; who be these that address themselves towards us? What Carlo! Now by the sincerity of my soul, welcome; welcome, gentlemen: and how dost thou, thou 'Grand Scourge', or 'Second Untruss of the time'? CAR. Faith, spending my metal in this reeling world (here and there), as the sway of my affection carries me, and perhaps stumble upon a yeoman-feuterer, as I do now; or one of fortune's mules, laden with treasure, and an empty cloak-bag, following him, gaping when a gab will untie. PUNT. Peace, you bandog, peace! What brisk Nymphadoro is that in the white virgin-boot there? CAR. Marry, sir, one that I must interest you to take a very particular knowledge of, and with more than ordinary respect; monsieur Fastidious. PUNT. Sir, I could wish, that for the time of your vouchsafed abiding here, and more real entertainment, this is my house stood on the Muses hill, and these my orchards were those of the Hesperides. FAST. I possess as much in your wish, sir, as if I were made lord of the Indies; and I pray you believe it. CAR. I have a better opinion of his faith, than to think it will be so corrupted. SOG. Come, brother, I'll bring you acquainted with gentlemen, and good fellows, such as shall do you more grace than -- SORD. Brother, I hunger not for such acquaintance: Do you take heed, lest -- [CARLO COMES TOWARD THEM. SOG. Husht! My brother, sir, for want of education, sir, somewhat nodding to the boor, the clown; but I request you in private, sir. FUNG. [LOOKING AT FASTIDIOUS BRISK.] By heaven, it is a very fine suit of clothes. [ASIDE. COR. Do you observe that signior? There's another humour has new-crack'd the shell. MIT. What! he is enamour'd of the fashion, is he? COR. O, you forestall the jest. FUNG. I marle what it might stand him in. [ASIDE. SOG. Nephew! FUNG. 'Fore me, it's an excellent suit, and as neatly becomes him. [ASIDE.] -- What said you, uncle? SOG. When saw you my niece? FUNG. Marry, yesternight I supp'd there. -- That kind of boot does very rare too. [ASIDE. SOG. And what news hear you? FUNG. The gilt spur and all! Would I were hang'd, but 'tis exceeding good. [ASIDE.] -- Say you, uncle? SOG. Your mind is carried away with somewhat else: I ask what news you hear? FUNG. Troth, we hear none. -- In good faith [LOOKING AT FASTIDIOUS BRISK] I was never so pleased with a fashion, days of my life. O an I might have but my wish, I'd ask no more of heaven now, but such a suit, such a hat, such a band, such a doublet, such a hose, such a boot, and such a -- [ASIDE. SOG. They say, there's a new motion of the city of Nineveh, with Jonas and the whale, to be seen at Fleet-bridge. You can tell, cousin? FUNG. Here's such a world of questions with him now! -- Yes, I think there be such a thing, I saw the picture. -- Would he would once be satisfied! Let me see, the doublet, say fifty shillings the doublet, and between three or four pound the hose; then boots, hat, and band: some ten or eleven pound will do it all, and suit me for the heavens! [ASIDE. SOG. I'll see all those devices an I come to London once. FUNG. Ods 'slid, an I could compass it, 'twere rare [ASIDE.] -- Hark you, uncle. SOG. What says my nephew? FUNG. Faith, uncle, I would have desired you to have made a motion for me to my father, in a thing that -- Walk aside, and I'll tell you, sir; no more but this: there's a parcel of law books (some twenty pounds worth) that lie in a place for a little more than half the money they cost; and I think, for some twelve pound, or twenty mark, I could go near to redeem them; there's Plowden, Dyar, Brooke, and Fitz-Herbert, divers such as I must have ere long; and you know, I were as good save five or six pound, as not, uncle. I pray you, move it for me. SOG. That I will: when would you have me do it? presently? FUNG. O, ay, I pray you, good uncle: [SOGLIARDO TAKES SORDIDO ASIDE.] -- send me good luck, Lord, an't be thy will, prosper it! O my stars, now, now, if it take now, I am made for ever. FAST. Shall I tell you, sir? by this air, I am the most beholden to that lord, of any gentleman living; he does use me the most honourably, and with the greatest respect, more indeed than can be utter'd with any opinion of truth. PUNT. Then have you the count Gratiato? FAST. As true noble a gentleman too as any breathes; I am exceedingly endear'd to his love: By this hand, I protest to you, signior, I speak it not gloriously, nor out of affectation, but there's he and the count Frugale, signior Illustre, signior Luculento, and a sort of 'em, that when I am at court, they do share me amongst them; happy is he can enjoy me most private. I do wish myself sometime an ubiquitary for their love, in good faith. CAR. There's ne'er a one of them but might lie a week on the rack, ere they could bring forth his name; and yet he pours them out as familiarly, as if he had seen them stand by the fire in the presence, or ta'en tobacco with them over the stage, in the lord's room. PUNT. Then you must of necessity know our court-star there, that planet of wit, madona Saviolina? FAST. O Lord, sir, my mistress. PUNT. Is she your mistress? FAST. Faith, here be some slight favours of hers, sir, that do speak it, she is; as this scarf, sir, or this ribbon in my ear, or so; this feather grew in her sweet fan sometimes, though now it be my poor fortune to wear it, as you see, sir: slight, slight, a foolish toy. PUNT. Well, she is the lady of a most exalted and ingenious spirit. FAST. Did you ever hear any woman speak like her? or enriched with a more plentiful discourse? CAR. O villainous! nothing but sound, sound, a mere echo; she speaks as she goes tired, in cobweb-lawn, light, thin; good enough to catch flies withal. PUNT. O manage your affections. FAST. Well, if thou be'st not plagued for this blasphemy one day -- PUNT. Come, regard not a jester: It is in the power of my purse to make him speak well or ill of me. FAST. Sir, I affirm it to you upon my credit and judgment, she has the most harmonious and musical strain of wit that ever tempted a true ear; and yet to see! -- a rude tongue would profane heaven, if it could. PUNT. I am not ignorant of it, sir. FAST. Oh, it flows from her like nectar, and she doth give it that sweet quick grace, and exornation in the composure that by this good air, as I am an honest man, would I might never stir, sir, but -- she does observe as pure a phrase, and use as choice figures in her ordinary conferences, as any be in the 'Arcadia'. CAR. Or rather in Green's works, whence she may steal with more security. SORD. Well, if ten pound will fetch 'em, you shall have it; but I'll part with no more. FUNG. I'll try what that will do, if you please. SORD. Do so; and when you have them, study hard. FUNG. Yes, sir. An I could study to get forty shillings more now! Well, I will put myself into the fashion, as far as this will go, presently. SORD. I wonder it rains not: the almanack says, we should have a store of rain to-day. [ASIDE. PUNT. Why, sir, to-morrow I will associate you to court myself, and from thence to the city about a business, a project I have; I will expose it to you sir; Carlo, I am sure has heard of it. CAR. What's that, sir? PUNT. I do intend, this year of jubilee coming on, to travel: and because I will not altogether go upon expense, I am determined to put forth some five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of myself, my wife, and my dog from the Turk's court in Constantinople. If all or either of us miscarry in the journey, 'tis gone: if we be successful, why, there will be five and twenty thousand pound to entertain time withal. Nay, go not, neighbour Sordido; stay to-night, and help to make our society the fuller. Gentlemen, frolic: Carlo! what! dull now? CAR. I was thinking on your project, sir, an you call it so. Is this the dog goes with you? PUNT. This is the dog, sir. CAR. He does not go barefoot, does he? PUNT. Away, you traitor, away! CAR. Nay, afore God, I speak simply; he may prick his foot with a thorn, and be as much as the whole venture is worth. Besides, for a dog that never travell'd before, it's a huge journey to Constantinople. I'll tell you now, an he were mine, I'd have some present conference with a physician, what antidotes were good to give him, preservatives against poison; for assure you, if once your money be out, there'll be divers attempts made against the life of the poor animal. PUNT. Thou art still dangerous. FAST. Is signior Deliro's wife your kinswoman? SOG. Ay, sir, she is my niece, my brother's daughter here, and my nephew's sister. SORD. Do you know her, sir? FAST. O Lord, sir! signior Deliro, her husband, is my merchant. FUNG. Ay, I have seen this gentleman there often. FAST. I cry you mercy, sir; let me crave your name, pray you. FUNG. Fungoso, sir. FAST. Good signior Fungoso, I shall request to know you better, sir. FUNG. I am her brother, sir. FAST. In fair time, sir. PUNT. Come, gentlemen, I will be your conduct. FAST. Nay, pray you sir; we shall meet at signior Deliro's often. SOG. You shall have me at the herald's office, sir, for some week or so at my first coming up. Come, Carlo. [EXEUNT. MIT. Methinks, Cordatus, he dwelt somewhat too long on this scene; it hung in the hand. COR. I see not where he could have insisted less, and to have made the humours perspicuous enough. MIT. True, as his subject lies; but he might have altered the shape of his argument, and explicated them better in single scenes. COR. That had been single indeed. Why, be they not the same persons in this, as they would have been in those? and is it not an object of more state, to behold the scene full, and relieved with variety of speakers to the end, than to see a vast empty stage, and the actors come in one by one, as if they were dropt down with a feather into the eye of the spectators? MIT. Nay, you are better traded with these things than I, and therefore I'll subscribe to your judgment; marry, you shall give me leave to make objections. COR. O, what else? it is the special intent of the author you should do so; for thereby others, that are present, may as well be satisfied, who haply would object the same you would do. MIT. So, sir; but when appears Macilente again? COR. Marry, he stays but till our silence give him leave: here he comes, and with him signior Deliro, a merchant at whose house he is come to sojourn: make your own observation now, only transfer your thoughts to the city, with the scene: where suppose they speak. SCENE II. A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE. ENTER DELIRO, MACILENTE, AND FIDO WITH FLOWERS AND PERFUMES. DELI. I'll tell you by and by, sir, -- Welcome good Macilente, to my house, To sojourn even for ever; if my best in cates, and every sort of good entreaty, May move you stay with me. [HE CENSETH: THE BOY STREWS FLOWERS. MACI. I thank you, sir. -- And yet the muffled Fates, had it pleased them, Might have supplied me from their own full store. Without this word, 'I thank you', to a fool. I see no reason why that dog call'd Chance, Should fawn upon this fellow more than me; I am a man, and I have limbs, flesh, blood, Bones, sinews, and a soul, as well as he: My parts are every way as good as his; If I said better, why, I did not lie. Nath'less, his wealth, but nodding on my wants, Must make me bow, and cry, 'I thank you, sir'. [ASIDE. DELI. Dispatch! take heed your mistress see you not. FIDO. I warrant you, sir, I'll steal by her softly. [EXIT. DELI. Nay, gentle friend, be merry; raise your looks Out of your bosom: I protest, by heaven, You are the man most welcome in the world. MACI. I thank you, sir. -- I know my cue, I think. [ASIDE. RE-ENTER FIDO, WITH MORE PERFUMES AND FLOWERS. FIDO. Where will you have them burn, sir? DELI. Here, good Fido. What, she did not see thee? FIDO. No, sir. DELI. That is well Strew, strew, good Fido, the freshest flowers; so! MACI. What means this, signior Deliro? all this censing? DELI. Cast in more frankincense, yet more; well said. -- O Macilente, I have such a wife! So passing fair! so passing-fair-unkind! But of such worth, and right to be unkind, Since no man can be worthy of her kindness -- MACI. What, can there not? DELI. No, that is as sure as death, No man alive. I do not say, is not, But cannot possibly be worth her kindness, Nay, it is certain, let me do her right. How, said I? do her right! as though I could, As though this dull, gross tongue of mine could utter The rare, the true, the pure, the infinite rights. That sit, as high as I can look, within her! MACI. This is such dotage as was never heard. DELI. Well, this must needs be granted. MACI. Granted, quoth you? DELI. Nay, Macilente, do not so discredit The goodness of your judgment to deny it. For I do speak the very least of her: And I would crave, and beg no more of Heaven, For all my fortunes here, but to be able To utter first in fit terms, what she is, And then the true joys I conceive in her. MACI. Is't possible she should deserve so well, As you pretend? DELI. Ay, and she knows so well Her own deserts, that, when I strive t'enjoy them, She weighs the things I do, with what she merits; And, seeing my worth out-weigh'd so in her graces, She is so solemn, so precise, so froward, That no observance I can do to her Can make her kind to me: if she find fault, I mend that fault; and then she says, I faulted, That I did mend it. Now, good friend, advise me, How I may temper this strange spleen in her. MACI. You are too amorous, too obsequious, And make her too assured she may command you. When women doubt most of their husbands' loves, They are most loving. Husbands must take heed They give no gluts of kindness to their wives, But use them like their horses; whom they feed But half a peck at once; and keep them so Still with an appetite to that they give them. He that desires to have a loving wife, Must bridle all the show of that desire: Be kind, not amorous; nor bewraying kindness, As if love wrought it, but considerate duty. Offer no love rites, but let wives still seek them, For when they come unsought, they seldom like them. DELI. Believe me, Macilente, this is gospel. O, that a man were his own man so much, To rule himself thus. I will strive, i'faith, To be more strange and careless; yet I hope I have now taken such a perfect course, To make her kind to me, and live contented, That I shall find my kindness well return'd, And have no need to fight with my affections. She late hath found much fault with every room Within my house; one was too big, she said, Another was not furnish'd to her mind, And so through all; all which, now, I have alter'd. Then here, she hath a place, on my back-side, Wherein she loves to walk; and that, she said, Had some ill smells about it: now, this walk Have I before she knows it, thus perfumed With herbs, and flowers; and laid in divers places, As 'twere on altars consecrate to her, Perfumed gloves, and delicate chains of amber, To keep the air in awe of her sweet nostrils: This have I done, and this I think will please her. Behold, she comes. ENTER FALLACE. FAL. Here's a sweet stink indeed! What, shall I ever be thus crost and plagued, And sick of husband? O, my head doth ache, As it would cleave asunder, with these savours! All my rooms alter'd, and but one poor walk That I delighted in, and that is made So fulsome with perfumes, that I am fear'd, My brain doth sweat so, I have caught the plague! DELI. Why, gentle wife, is now thy walk too sweet? Thou said'st of late, it had sour airs about it, And found'st much fault that I did not correct it. FAL. Why, an I did find fault, sir? DELI. Nay, dear wife, I know thou hast said thou has loved perfumes, No woman better. FAL. Ay, long since, perhaps; But now that sense is alter'd: you would have me, Like to a puddle, or a standing pool, To have no motion nor no spirit within me. No. I am like a pure and sprightly river, That moves for ever, and yet still the same; Or fire, that burns much wood, yet still one flame. DELI. But yesterday, I saw thee at our garden, Smelling on roses, and on purple flowers; And since, I hope, the humour of thy sense Is nothing changed. FAL. Why, those were growing flowers, And these within my walk are cut and strewed. DELI. But yet they have one scent. FAL. Ay! have they so? In your gross judgment. If you make no difference Betwixt the scent of growing flowers and cut ones, You have a sense to taste lamp oil, i'faith: And with such judgment have you changed the chambers, Leaving no room, that I can joy to be in, In all your house; and now my walk, and all, You smoke me from, as if I were a fox, And long, belike, to drive me quite away: Well, walk you there, and I'll walk where I list. DELI. What shall I do? O, I shall never please her. MACI. Out on thee, dotard! what star ruled his birth, That brought him such a Star? blind Fortune still Bestows her gifts on such as cannot use them: How long shall I live, ere I be so happy To have a wife of this exceeding form? [ASIDE. DELI. Away with 'em! would I had broke a joint When I devised this, that should so dislike her. Away, bear all away. [EXIT FIDO, WITH FLOWERS, ETC. FAL. Ay, do; for fear Aught that is there should like her. O, this man, How cunningly he can conceal himself, As though he loved, nay, honour'd and ador'd! -- DELI. Why, my sweet heart? FAL. Sweet heart! O, better still! And asking, why? wherefore? and looking strangely, As if he were as white as innocence! Alas, you're simple, you: you cannot change, Look pale at pleasure, and then red with wonder; No, no, not you! 'tis pity o' your naturals. I did but cast an amorous eye, e'en now, Upon a pair of gloves that somewhat liked me, And straight he noted it, and gave command All should be ta'en away. DELI. Be they my bane then! What, sirrah, Fido, bring in those gloves again You took from hence. FAL. 'Sbody, sir, but do not: Bring in no gloves to spite me; if you do -- DELI. Ay me, most wretched; how am I misconstrued! MACI. O, how she tempts my heart-strings with her eye, To knit them to her beauties, or to break! What mov'd the heavens, that they could not make Me such a woman! but a man, a beast, That hath no bliss like others? Would to heaven, In wreak of my misfortunes, I were turn'd To some fair water-nymph, that set upon The deepest whirl-pit of the rav'nous seas, My adamantine eyes might headlong hale This iron world to me, and drown it all. [ASIDE. COR. Behold, behold, the translated gallant. MIT. O, he is welcome. ENTER FUNGOSO, APPARELLED LIKE FASTIDIOUS BRISK. FUNG. Save you, brother and sister; save you, sir! I have commendations for you out o' the country. I wonder they take no knowledge of my suit: [ASIDE.] -- Mine uncle Sogliardo is in town. Sister methinks you are melancholy; why are you so sad? I think you took me for Master Fastidious Brisk, sister, did you not? FAL. Why should I take you for him? FUNG. Nay, nothing. -- I was lately in Master Fastidious's company, and methinks we are very like. DELI. You have a fair suit, brother, 'give you joy on't. FUNG. Faith, good enough to ride in, brother; I made it to ride in. FAL. O, now I see the cause of his idle demand was his new suit. DELI. Pray you, good brother, try if you can change her mood. FUNG. I warrant you, let me alone: I'll put her out of her dumps. Sister, how like you my suit! FAL. O, you are a gallant in print now, brother. FUNG. Faith, how like you the fashion? it is the last edition, I assure you. FAL. I cannot but like it to the desert. FUNG. Troth, sister, I was fain to borrow these spurs, I have left my gown in the gage for them, pray you lend me an angel. FAL. Now, beshrew my heart then. FUNG. Good truth, I'll pay you again at my next exhibition. I had but bare ten pound of my father, and it would not reach to put me wholly into the fashion. FAL. I care not. FUNG. I had spurs of mine own before, but they were not ginglers. Monsieur Fastidious will be here anon, sister. FAL. You jest! FUNG. Never lend me penny more while you live then; and that I'd be loth to say, in truth. FAL. When did you see him? FUNG. Yesterday; I came acquainted with him at Sir Puntarvolo's: nay, sweet sister. MACI. I fain would know of heaven now, why yond fool Should wear a suit of satin? he? that rook, That painted jay, with such a deal of outside: What is his inside, trow? ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Good heavens, give me patience, patience, patience. A number of these popinjays there are, Whom, if a man confer, and but examine Their inward merit, with such men as want; Lord, lord, what things they are! [ASIDE. FAL. [GIVES HIM MONEY.] Come, when will you pay me again, now? FUNG. O lord, sister! MACI. Here comes another. ENTER FASTIDIOUS BRISK, IN A NEW SUIT. FAST. Save you, signior Deliro! How dost thou, sweet lady? let me kiss thee. FUNG. How! a new suit? ah me! DELI. And how does master Fastidious Brisk? FAST. Faith, live in court, signior Deliro; in grace, I thank God, both of the noble masculine and feminine. I muse speak with you in private by and by. DELI. When you please, sir. FAL. Why look you so pale, brother? FUNG. 'Slid, all this money is cast away now. MACI. Ay, there's a newer edition come forth. FUNG. 'Tis but my hard fortune! well, I'll have my suit changed. I'll go fetch my tailor presently but first, I'll devise a letter to my father. Have you any pen and ink, sister? FAL. What would you do withal? FUNG. I would use it. 'Slight, an it had come but four days sooner, the fashion. [EXIT. FAST. There was a countess gave me her hand to kiss to-day, i' the presence: did me more good by that light than -- and yesternight sent her coach twice to my lodging, to intreat me accompany her, and my sweet mistress, with some two or three nameless ladies more: O, I have been graced by them beyond all aim of affection: this is her garter my dagger hangs in: and they do so commend and approve my apparel, with my judicious wearing of it, it's above wonder. FAL. Indeed, sir, 'tis a most excellent suit, and you do wear it as extraordinary. FAST. Why, I'll tell you now, in good faith, and by this chair, which, by the grace of God, I intend presently to sit in, I had three suits in one year made three great ladies in love with me: I had other three, undid three gentlemen in imitation: and other three gat three other gentlemen widows of three thousand pound a year. DELI. Is't possible? FAST. O, believe it, sir; your good face is the witch, and your apparel the spells, that bring all the pleasures of the world into their circle. FAL. Ah, the sweet grace of a courtier! MACI. Well, would my father had left me but a good face for my portion yet! though I had shared the unfortunate with that goes with it, I had not cared; I might have passed for somewhat in the world then. FAST. Why, assure you, signior, rich apparel has strange virtues: it makes him that hath it without means, esteemed for an excellent wit: he that enjoys it with means, puts the world in remembrance of his means: it helps the deformities of nature, and gives lustre to her beauties; makes continual holiday where it shines; sets the wits of ladies at work, that otherwise would be idle; furnisheth your two-shilling ordinary; takes possession of your stage at your new play; and enricheth your oars, as scorning to go with your scull. MACI. Pray you, sir, add this; it gives respect to your fools, makes many thieves, as many strumpets, and no fewer bankrupts. FAL. Out, out! unworthy to speak where he breatheth. FAST. What's he, signior? DELI. A friend of mine, sir. FAST. By heaven I wonder at you citizens, what kind of creatures you are! DELI. Why, sir? FAST. That you can consort yourselves with such poor seam-rent fellows. FAL. He says true. DELI. Sir, I will assure you, however you esteem of him, he's a man worthy of regard. FAST. Why, what has he in him of such virtue to be regarded, ha? DELI. Marry, he is a scholar, sir. FAST. Nothing else! DELI. And he is well travell'd. FAST. He should get him clothes; I would cherish those good parts of travel in him, and prefer him to some nobleman of good place. DELI. Sir, such a benefit should bine me to you for ever, in my friend's right; and I doubt not, but his desert shall more than answer my praise. FAST. Why, an he had good clothes, I'd carry him to court with me to-morrow. DELI. He shall not want for those, sir, if gold and the whole city will furnish him. FAST. You say well, sir: faith, signior Deliro, I am come to have you play the alchemist with me, and change the species of my land into that metal you talk of. DELI. With all my heart, sir; what sum will serve you? FAST. Faith, some three or four hundred. DELI. Troth, sir, I have promised to meet a gentleman this morning in Paul's, but upon my return I'll dispatch you. FAST. I'll accompany you thither. DELI. As you please, sir; but I go not thither directly. FAST. 'Tis no matter, I have no other designment in hand, and therefore as good go along. DELI. I were as good have a quartain fever follow me now, for I shall ne'er be rid of him. Bring me a cloak there, one. Still, upon his grace at court, I am sure to be visited; I was a beast to give him any hope. Well, would I were in, that I am out with him once, and -- Come, signior Macilente, I must confer with you, as we go. Nay, dear wife, I beseech thee, forsake these moods: look not like winter thus. Here, take my keys, open my counting-houses, spread all my wealth before thee, choose any object that delights thee: if thou wilt eat the spirit of gold, and drink dissolved pearl in wine, 'tis for thee. FAL. So, sir! DELI. Nay, my sweet wife. FAL. Good lord, how you are perfumed in your terms and all! pray you leave us. DELI. Come, gentlemen. FAST. Adieu, sweet lady. [EXEUNT ALL BUT FALLACE. FAL. Ay, ay! let thy words ever sound in mine ears, and thy graces disperse contentment through all my senses! O, how happy is that lady above other ladies, that enjoys so absolute a gentleman to her servant! "A countess gives him her hand to kiss": ah, foolish countess! he's a man worthy, if a woman may speak of a man's worth, to kiss the lips of an empress. RE-ENTER FUNGOSO, WITH HIS TAILOR. FUNG. What's master Fastidious gone, sister? FAL. Ay, brother. -- He has a face like a cherubin! [ASIDE. FUNG. 'Ods me, what luck's this? I have fetch'd my tailor and all: which way went he, sister, can you tell? FAL. Not I, in good faith -- and he has a body like an angel! [ASIDE. FUNG. How long is't since he went? FAL. Why, but e'en now; did you not meet him? -- and a tongue able to ravish any woman in the earth. [ASIDE. FUNG. O, for God's sake -- I'll please you for your pains, [TO HIS TAILOR.] -- But e'en now, say you? Come, good sir: 'slid, I had forgot it too: if any body ask for mine uncle Sogliardo, they shall have him at the herald's office yonder, by Paul's [EXIT WITH HIS TAILOR. FAL. Well, I will not altogether despair: I have heard of a citizen's wife has been beloved of a courtier; and why not I? heigh, ho! well, I will into my private chamber, lock the door to me, and think over all his good parts one after another. [EXIT. MIT. Well, I doubt, this last scene will endure some grievous torture. COR. How? you fear 'twill be rack'd by some hard construction? MIT. Do not you? COR. No, in good faith: unless mine eyes could light me beyond sense. I see no reason why this should be more liable to the rack than the rest: you'll say, perhaps, the city will not take it well that the merchant is made here to doat so perfectly upon his wife; and she again to be so 'Fastidiously' affected as she is. MIT. You have utter'd my thought, sir, indeed. COR. Why, by that proportion, the court might as well take offence at him we call the courtier, and with much more pretext, by how much the place transcends, and goes before in dignity and virtue: but can you imagine that any noble or true spirit in court, whose sinewy and altogether unaffected graces, very worthily express him a courtier, will make any exception at the opening of such as empty trunk as this Brisk is? or think his own worth impeached, by beholding his motley inside? MIT. No, sir, I do not. COR. No more, assure you, will any grave, wise citizen, or modest matron, take the object of this folly in Deliro and his wife; but rather apply it as the foil to their own virtues. For that were to affirm, that a man writing of Nero, should mean all emperors; or speaking of Machiavel, comprehend all statesmen; or in our Sordido, all farmers; and so of the rest: than which nothing can be uttered more malicious or absurd. Indeed there are a sort of these narrow-eyed decypherers, I confess, that will extort strange and abstruse meanings out of any subject, be it never so conspicuous and innocently delivered. But to such, where'er they sit concealed, let them know, the author defies them and their writing-tables; and hopes no sound or safe judgment will infect itself with their contagious comments, who, indeed, come here only to pervert and poison the sense of what they hear, and for nought else. ENTER CAVALIER SHIFT, WITH TWO SI-QUISSES (BILLS) IN HIS HAND. MIT. Stay, what new mute is this, that walks so suspiciously? COR. O, marry, this is one, for whose better illustration, we must desire you to presuppose the stage, the middle aisle in Paul's, and that, the west end of it. MIT. So, sir, and what follows? COR. Faith, a whole volume of humour, and worthy the unclasping. MIT. As how? What name do you give him first? COR. He hath shift of names, sir: some call him Apple-John, some signior Whiffe; marry, his main standing name is cavalier Shirt: the rest are but as clean shirts to his natures. MIT. And what makes he in Paul's now? COR. Troth, as you see, for the advancement of a 'si quis', or two; wherein he has so varied himself, that if any of 'em take, he may hull up and down in the humorous world a little longer. MIT. It seems then he bears a very changing sail? COR. O, as the wind, sir: here comes more. ACT III SCENE I. -- THE MIDDLE AISLE OF ST. PAUL'S. SHIFT. [COMING FORWARD.] This is rare, I have set up my bills without discovery. [ENTER ORANGE. ORANGE. What, signior Whiffe! what fortune has brought you into these west parts? SHIFT. Troth, signior, nothing but your rheum; I have been taking an ounce of tobacco hard by here, with a gentleman, and I am come to spit private in Paul's. 'Save you, sir. ORANGE. Adieu, good signior Whiffe. [PASSES ONWARD. [ENTER CLOVE. CLOVE. Master Apple-John! you are well met; when shall we sup together, and laugh, and be fat with those good wenches, ha? SHIFT. Faith, sir, I must now leave you, upon a few humours and occasions; but when you please, sir. [EXIT. CLOVE. Farewell, sweet Apple-John! I wonder there are no more store of gallants here. MIT. What be these two, signior? COR. Marry, a couple, sir, that are mere strangers to the whole scope of our play; only come to walk a turn or two in this scene of Paul's, by chance. ORANGE. Save you, good master Clove! CLOVE. Sweet master Orange. MIT. How! Clove and Orange? COR. Ay, and they are well met, for 'tis as dry an Orange as ever grew: nothing but salutation, and "O lord, sir!" and "It pleases you to say so, sir!" one that can laugh at a jest for company with a most plausible and extemporal grade; and some hour after in private ask you what it was. The other monsieur, Clove, is a more spiced youth; he will sit you a whole afternoon sometimes in a bookseller's shop, reading the Greek, Italian, and Spanish, when he understands not a word of either; if he had the tongues to his suits, he were an excellent linguist. CLOVE. Do you hear this reported for certainty? ORANGE. O lord, sir. [ENTER PUNTARVOLO AND CARLO, FOLLOWED BY TWO SERVING-MEN, ONE LEADING A DOG, THE OTHER BEARING A BAG. PUNT. Sirrah, take my cloak; and you, sir knave, follow me closer. If thou losest my dog, thou shalt die a dog's death; I will hang thee. CAR. Tut, fear him not, he's a good lean slave; he loves a dog well, I warrant him; I see by his looks, I: -- Mass, he's somewhat like him. 'Slud [TO THE SERVANT.] poison him, make him away with a crooked pin, or somewhat, man; thou may'st have more security of thy life; and -- So sir; what! you have not put out your whole venture yet, have you? PUNT. No, I do want yet some fifteen or sixteen hundred pounds; but my lady, my wife, is 'Out of her Humour', she does not now go. CAR. No! how then? PUNT. Marry, I am now enforced to give it out, upon the return of myself, my dog, and my cat. CAR. Your cat! where is she? PUNT. My squire has her there, in the bag; sirrah, look to her. How lik'st thou my change, Carlo? CAR. Oh, for the better, sir; your cat has nine lives, and your wife has but one. PUNT. Besides, she will never be sea-sick, which will save me so much in conserves. When saw you signior Sogliardo? CAR. I came from him but now; he is at the herald's office yonder; he requested me to go afore, and take up a man or two for him in Paul's, against his cognisance was ready. PUNT. What, has he purchased arms, then? CAR. Ay, and rare ones too; of as many colours as e'er you saw any fool's coat in your life. I'll go look among yond' bills, an I can fit him with legs to his arms. PUNT. With legs to his arms! Good! I will go with you, sir. [THEY GO TO READ THE BILLS. ENTER FASTIDIOUS, DELIRO, AND MACILENTE. FAST. Come, let's walk in Mediterraneo: I assure you, sir, I am not the least respected among ladies; but let that pass: do you know how to go into the presence, sir? MACI. Why, on my feet, sir. FAST. No, on your head, sir; for 'tis that must bear you out, I assure you; as thus, sir. You must first have an especial care so to wear your hat, that it oppress not confusedly this your predominant, or foretop; because, when you come at the presence-door, you may with once or twice stroking up your forehead, thus, enter with your predominant perfect; that is, standing up stiff. MACI. As if one were frighted? FAST. Ay, sir. MACI. Which, indeed, a true fear of your mistress should do, rather than gum-water, or whites of eggs; is't not so, sir? FAST. An ingenious observation. Give me leave to crave your name, sir? DELI. His name is Macilente, sir. FAST. Good signior Macilente, if this gentleman, signior Deliro, furnish you, as he says he will, with clothes, I will bring you, to-morrow by this time, into the presence of the most divine and acute lady in court; you shall see sweet silent rhetorick, and dumb eloquence speaking in her eye, but when she speaks herself, such an anatomy of wit, so sinewised and arterised, that 'tis the goodliest model of pleasure that ever was to behold. Oh! she strikes the world into admiration of her; O, O, O! I cannot express them, believe me. MACI. O, your only admiration is your silence, sir. PUNT. 'Fore God, Carlo, this is good! let's read them again. [READS THE BILL. "If there be any lady or gentlewoman of good carriage that is desirous to entertain to her private uses, a young, straight, and upright gentleman, of the age of five or six and twenty at the most; who can serve in the nature of a gentleman-usher, and hath little legs of purpose, and a black satin suit of his own, to go before her in; which suit, for the more sweetening, now lies in lavender; and can hide his face with her fan, if need require; or sit in the cold at the stair foot for her, as well as another gentleman: let her subscribe her name and place, and diligent respect shall be given." PUNT. This is above measure excellent, ha! CAR. No, this, this! here's a fine slave. [READS. "If this city, or the suburbs of the same, do afford any young gentleman of the first, second, or third head, more or less, whose friends are but lately deceased, and whose lands are but new come into his hands, that, to be as exactly qualified as the best of our ordinary gallants are, is affected to entertain the most gentleman-like use of tobacco; as first, to give it the most exquisite perfume; then, to know all the delicate sweet forms for the assumption of it; as also the rare corollary and practice of the Cuban ebolition, euripus and whiff, which he shall receive or take in here at London, and evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther, if it please him. If there be any such generous spirit, that is truly enamoured of these good faculties; may it please him, but by a note of his hand to specify the place or ordinary where he uses to eat and lie; and most sweet attendance, with tobacco and pipes of the best sort, shall be ministered. 'Stet, quaeso, candide Lector.'" PUNT. Why, this is without parallel, this. CAR. Well, I'll mark this fellow for Sogliardo's use presently. PUNT. Or rather, Sogliardo, for his use. CAR. Faith, either of them will serve, they are both good properties: I'll design the other a place too, that we may see him. PUNT. No better place than the Mitre, that we may be spectators with you, Carlo. Soft, behold who enters here: ENTER SOGLIARDO. Signior Sogliardo! save you. SOG. Save you, good sir Puntarvolo; your dog's in health, sir, I see: How now, Carlo? CAR. We have ta'en simple pains, to choose you out followers here. [SHOWS HIM THE BILLS. PUNT. Come hither, signior. CLOVE. Monsieur Orange, yon gallants observe us; prithee let's talk fustian a little, and gull them; make them believe we are great scholars. ORANGE. O lord, sir! CLOVE. Nay, prithee let us, believe me, -- you have an excellent habit in discourse. ORANGE. It pleases you to say so, sir. CLOVE. By this church, you have, la; nay, come, begin -- Aristotle, in his daemonologia, approves Scaliger for the best navigator in his time; and in his hypercritics, he reports him to be Heautontimorumenos: -- you understand the Greek, sir? ORANGE. O, good sir! MACI. For society's sake he does. O, here be a couple of fine tame parrots! CLOVE. Now, sir, whereas the ingenuity of the time and the soul's synderisis are but embrions in nature, added to the panch of Esquiline, and the inter-vallum of the zodiac, besides the ecliptic line being optic, and not mental, but by the contemplative and theoric part thereof, doth demonstrate to us the vegetable circumference, and the ventosity of the tropics, and whereas our intellectual, or mincing capreal (according to the metaphysicks) as you may read in Plato's Histriomastix -- You conceive me sir? ORANGE. O lord, sir! CLOVE. Then coming to the pretty animal, as reason long since is fled to animals, you know, or indeed for the more modelising, or enamelling, or rather diamondising of your subject, you shall perceive the hypothesis, or galaxia, (whereof the meteors long since had their initial inceptions and notions,) to be merely Pythagorical, mathematical, and aristocratical -- For, look you, sir, there is ever a kind of concinnity and species -- Let us turn to our former discourse, for they mark us not. FAST. Mass, yonder's the knight Puntarvolo. DELI. And my cousin Sogliardo, methinks. MACI. Ay, and his familiar that haunts him, the devil with the shining face. DELI. Let 'em alone, observe 'em not. [SOGLIARDO, PUNTARVOLO, AND CARLO, WALK TOGETHER. SOG. Nay, I will have him, I am resolute for that. By this parchment, gentlemen, I have been so toiled among the harrots yonder, you will not believe! they do speak in the strangest language, and give a man the hardest terms for his money, that ever you knew. CAR. But have you arms, have you arms? SOG. I'faith, I thank them; I can write myself gentleman now; here's my patent, it cost me thirty pound, by this breath. PUNT. A very fair coat, well charged, and full of armory. SOG. Nay, it has as much variety of colours in it, as you have seen a coat have; how like you the crest, sir? PUNT. I understand it not well, what is't? SOG. Marry, sir, it is your boar without a head, rampant. A boar without a head, that's very rare! CAR. Ay, and rampant too! troth, I commend the herald's wit, he has decyphered him well: a swine without a head, without brain, wit, anything indeed, ramping to gentility. You can blazon the rest, signior, can you not? SOG. O, ay, I have it in writing here of purpose; it cost me two shilling the tricking. CAR. Let's hear, let's hear. PUNT. It is the most vile, foolish, absurd, palpable, and ridiculous escutcheon that ever this eye survised. -- Save you, good monsieur Fastidious. [THEY SALUTE AS THEY MEET IN THE WALK. COR. Silence, good knight; on, on. SOG. [READS.] "Gyrony of eight pieces; azure and gules; between three plates, a chevron engrailed checquy, or, vert, and ermins; on a chief argent, between two ann'lets sable, a boar's head, proper." CAR. How's that! on a chief argent? SOG. [READS.] "On a chief argent, a boar's head proper, between two ann'lets sable." CAR. 'Slud, it's a hog's cheek and puddings in a pewter field, this. [HERE THEY SHIFT. FASTIDIOUS MIXES WITH PUNTARVOLO; CARLO AND SOGLIARDO; DELIRO AND MACILENTE; CLOVE AND ORANGE; FOUR COUPLE. SOG. How like you them, signior? PUNT. Let the word be, 'Not without mustard': your crest is very rare, sir. CAR. A frying-pan to the crest, had had no fellow. FAST. Intreat your poor friend to walk off a little, signior, I will salute the knight. CAR. Come, lap it up, lap it up. FAST. You are right well encounter'd, sir; how does your fair dog? PUNT. In reasonable state, sir; what citizen is that you were consorted with? A merchant of any worth? FAST. 'Tis signior Deliro, sir. PUNT. Is it he? -- Save you, sir! [THEY SALUTE. DELI. Good sir Puntarvolo! MACI. O what copy of fool would this place minister, to one endued with patience to observe it! CAR. Nay, look you, sir, now you are a gentleman, you must carry a more exalted presence, change your mood and habit to a more austere form; be exceeding proud, stand upon your gentility, and scorn every man; speak nothing humbly, never discourse under a nobleman, though you never saw him but riding to the star-chamber, it's all one. Love no man: trust no man: speak ill of no man to his face; nor well of any man behind his back. Salute fairly on the front, and wish them hanged upon the turn. Spread yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private. These be principles, think on them; I'll come to you again presently. [EXIT. PUNT. [TO HIS SERVANT.] Sirrah, keep close; yet not so close: thy breath will thaw my ruff. SOG. O, good cousin, I am a little busy, how does my niece? I am to walk with a knight, here. ENTER FUNGOSO WITH HIS TAILOR. FUNG. O, he is here; look you, sir, that's the gentleman. TAI. What, he in the blush-coloured satin? FUNG. Ay, he, sir; though his suit blush, he blushes not, look you, that's the suit, sir: I would have mine such a suit without difference, such stuff, such a wing, such a sleeve, such a skirt, belly and all; therefore, pray you observe it. Have you a pair of tables? FAST. Why, do you see, sir, they say I am fantastical; why, true, I know it, and I pursue my humour still, in contempt of this censorious age. 'Slight, an a man should do nothing but what a sort of stale judgments about him this town will approve in him, he were a sweet ass: I'd beg him, i'faith. I ne'er knew any more find fault with a fashion, than they that knew not how to put themselves into it. For mine own part, so I please mine own appetite, I am careless what the fusty world speaks of me. Puh! FUNG. Do you mark, how it hangs at the knee there? TAI. I warrant you, sir. FUNG. For God's sake do, not all; do you see the collar, sir? TAI. Fear nothing, it shall not differ in a stitch, sir. FUNG. Pray heaven it do not! you'll make these linings serve, and help me to a chapman for the outside, will you? TAI. I'll do my best, sir: you'll put it off presently. FUNG. Ay, go with me to my chamber you shall have it -- but make haste of it, for the love of a customer; for I'll sit in my old suit, or else lie a bed, and read the 'Arcadia' till you have done. [EXIT WITH HIS TAILOR. RE-ENTER CARLO. CAR. O, if ever you were struck with a jest, gallants, now, now, now, I do usher the most strange piece of military profession that ever was discovered in 'Insula Paulina'. FAST. Where? where? PUNT. What is he for a creature? CAR. A pimp, a pimp, that I have observed yonder, the rarest superficies of a humour; he comes every morning to empty his lungs in Paul's here; and offers up some five or six hecatombs of faces and sighs, and away again. Here he comes; nay, walk, walk, be not seen to note him, and we shall have excellent sport. ENTER SHIFT; AND WALKS BY, USING ACTION TO HIS RAPIER. PUNT. 'Slid, he vented a sigh e'en now, I thought he would have blown up the church. CAR. O, you shall have him give a number of those false fires ere he depart. FAST. See, now he is expostulating with his rapier: look, look! CAR. Did you ever in your days observe better passion over a hilt? PUNT. Except it were in the person of a cutlet's boy, or that the fellow were nothing but vapour, I should think it impossible. CAR. See again, he claps his sword o' the head, as who should say, well, go to. FAST. O violence! I wonder the blade can contain itself, being so provoked. CAR. "With that the moody squire thumpt his breast, And rear'd his eyen to heaven for revenge." SOG. Troth, an you be good gentlemen, let's make them friends, and take up the matter between his rapier and him. CAR. Nay, if you intend that, you must lay down the matter; for this rapier, it seems, is in the nature of a hanger-on, and the good gentleman would happily be rid of him. FAST. By my faith, and 'tis to be suspected; I'll ask him. MACI. O, here's rich stuff! for life's sake, let us go: A man would wish himself a senseless pillar, Rather than view these monstrous prodigies: "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se, Quam quod ridiculos homines facit --" [EXIT WITH DELIRO. FAST. Signior. SHIFT. At your service. FAST. Will you sell your rapier? CAR. He is turn'd wild upon the question; he looks as he had seen a serjeant. SHIFT. Sell my rapier! now fate bless me! PUNT. Amen. SHIFT. You ask'd me if I would sell my rapier, sir? FAST. I did indeed. SHIFT. Now, lord have mercy upon me! PUNT. Amen, I say still. SHIFT. 'Slid, sir, what should you behold in my face, sir, that should move you, as they say, sir, to ask me, sir, if I would sell my rapier? FAST. Nay, let me pray you sir, be not moved: I protest, I would rather have been silent, than any way offensive, had I known your nature. SHIFT. Sell my rapier? 'ods lid! -- Nay, sir, for mine own part, as I am a man that has serv'd in causes, or so, so I am not apt to injure any gentleman in the degree of falling foul, but -- sell my rapier! I will tell you, sir, I have served with this foolish rapier, where some of us dare not appear in haste; I name no man; but let that pass. Sell my rapier! -- death to my lungs! This rapier, sir, has travell'd by my side, sir, the best part of France, and the Low Country: I have seen Flushing, Brill, and the Hague, with this rapier, sir, in my Lord of Leicester's time; and by God's will, he that should offer to disrapier me now, I would -- Look you, sir, you presume to be a gentleman of sort, and so likewise your friends here; if you have any disposition to travel for the sight of service, or so, one, two, or all of you, I can lend you letters to divers officers and commanders in the Low Countries, that shall for my cause do you all the good offices, that shall pertain or belong to gentleman of your ---- [LOWERING HIS VOICE.] Please you to shew the bounty of your mind, sir, to impart some ten groats, or half a crown to our use, till our ability be of growth to return it, and we shall think oneself ---- 'Sblood! sell my rapier! SOG. I pray you, what said he, signior? he's a proper man. FAST. Marry, he tells me, if I please to shew the bounty of my mind, to impart some ten groats to his use, or so -- PUNT. Break his head, and give it him. CAR. I thought he had been playing o' the Jew's trump, I. SHIFT. My rapier! no, sir; my rapier is my guard, my defence, my revenue, my honour; -- if you cannot impart, be secret, I beseech you -- and I will maintain it, where there is a grain of dust, or a drop of water. [SIGHS.] Hard is the choice when the valiant must eat their arms, or clem. Sell my rapier! no, my dear, I will not be divorced from thee, yet; I have ever found thee true as steel, and -- You cannot impart, sir? -- Save you, gentlemen; -- nevertheless, if you have a fancy to it, sir -- FAST. Prithee away: Is signior Deliro departed? CAR. Have you seen a pimp outface his own wants better? SOG. I commend him that can dissemble them so well. PUNT. True, and having no better a cloak for it than he has neither. FAST. Od's precious, what mischievous luck is this! adieu, gentlemen. PUNT. Whither in such haste, monsieur Fastidious? FAST. After my merchant, signior Deliro, sir. [EXIT. CAR. O hinder him not, he may hap lose his title; a good flounder, i'faith. [ORANGE AND CLOVE CALL SHIFT ASIDE. CAR. How! signior Whiffe? ORANGE. What was the difference between that gallant that's gone and you, sir? SHIFT. No difference; he would have given me five pound for my rapier, and I refused it; that's all. CLOVE. O, was it no otherwise? we thought you had been upon some terms. SHIFT. No other than you saw, sir. CLOVE. Adieu, good master Apple-John. [EXIT WITH ORANGE. CAR. How! Whiffe, and Apple-John too? Heart, what will you say if this be the appendix or label to both you indentures? PUNT. It may be. CAR. Resolve us of it, Janus, thou that look'st every way; or thou, Hercules, that has travelled all countries. PUNT. Nay, Carlo, spend not time in invocations now, 'tis late. CAR. Signior, here's a gentleman desirous of your name, sir. SHIFT. Sir, my name is cavalier Shift: I am known sufficiently in this walk, sir. CAR. Shift! I heard your name varied even now, as I take it. SHIFT. True, sir, it pleases the world, as I am her excellent tobacconist, to give me the style of signior Whiffe; as I am a poor esquire about the town here, they call me master Apple-John. Variety of good names does well, sir. CAR. Ay, and good parts, to make those good names; out of which I imagine yon bills to be yours. SHIFT. Sir, if I should deny the manuscripts, I were worthy to be banish'd the middle aisle for ever. CAR. I take your word, sir: this gentleman has subscribed to them, and is most desirous to become your pupil. Marry, you must use expedition. Signior Insulso Sogliardo, this is the professor. SOG. In good time, sir: nay, good sir, house your head; do you profess these sleights in tobacco? SHIFT. I do more than profess, sir, and, if you please to be a practitioner, I will undertake in one fortnight to bring you, that you shall take it plausibly in any ordinary, theatre, or the Tilt-yard, if need be, in the most popular assembly that is. PUNT. But you cannot bring him to the whiffe so soon? SHIFT. Yes, as soon, sir; he shall receive the first, second, and third whiffe, if it please him, and, upon the receipt, take his horse, drink his three cups of canary, and expose one at Hounslow, a second at Stains, and a third at Bagshot. CAR. Baw-waw! SOG. You will not serve me, sir, will you? I'll give you more than countenance. SHIFT. Pardon me, sir, I do scorn to serve any man. CAR. Who! he serve? 'sblood, he keeps high men, and low men, he! he has a fair living at Fullam. SHIFT. But in the nature of a fellow, I'll be your follower, if you please. SOG. Sir, you shall stay, and dine with me, and if we can agree, we'll not part in haste: I am very bountiful to men of quality. Where shall we go, signior? PUNT. Your Mitre is your best house. SHIFT. I can make this dog take as many whiffes as I list, and he shall retain, or effume them, at my pleasure. PUNT. By your patience, follow me, fellows. SOG. Sir Puntarvolo! PUNT. Pardon me, my dog shall not eat in his company for a million. [EXIT WITH HIS SERVANTS. CAR. Nay, be not you amazed, signior Whiffe, whatever that stiff-necked gentleman says. SOG. No, for you do not know the humour of the dog, as we do: Where shall we dine, Carlo? I would fain go to one of these ordinaries, now I am a gentleman. CAR. So you may; were you never at any yet? SOG. No, faith; but they say there resorts your most choice gallants. CAR. True, and the fashion is, when any stranger comes in amongst 'em, they all stand up and stare at him, as he were some unknown beast, brought out of Africk; but that will be helped with a good adventurous face. You must be impudent enough, sit down, and use no respect: when anything's propounded above your capacity smile at it, make two or three faces, and 'tis excellent; they'll think you have travell'd; though you argue, a whole day, in silence thus, and discourse in nothing but laughter, 'twill pass. Only, now and then, give fire, discharge a good full oath, and offer a great wager; 'twill be admirable. SOG. I warrant you, I am resolute; come, good signior, there's a poor French crown for your ordinary. SHIFT. It comes well, for I had not so much as the least portcullis of coin before. MIT. I travail with another objection, signior, which I fear will be enforced against the author, ere I can be deliver'd of it. COR. What's that sir? MIT. That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature, as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love with the duke's son, and the son to love the lady's waiting maid; some such cross wooing, with a clown to their servingman, better than to be thus near, and familiarly allied to the time. COR. You say well, but I would fain hear one of these autumn-judgments define once, "Quid sit comoedia?" if he cannot, let him content himself with Cicero's definition, till he have strength to propose to himself a better, who would have a comedy to be 'imitatio vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis'; a thing throughout pleasant and ridiculous, and accommodated to the correction of manners: if the maker have fail'd in any particle of this, they may worthily tax him; but if not, why -- be you, that are for them, silent, as I will be for him; and give way to the actors. SCENE II. -- THE COUNTRY. ENTER SORDIDO, WITH A HALTER ABOUT HIS NECK. SORD. Nay, God's precious, if the weather and season be so respectless, that beggars shall live as well as their betters; and that my hunger and thirst for riches shall not make them hunger and thirst with poverty; that my sleep shall be broken, and their hearts not broken; that my coffers shall be full, and yet care; their's empty, and yet merry; -- 'tis time that a cross should bear flesh and blood, since flesh and blood cannot bear this cross. MIT. What, will he hang himself? COR. Faith, ay; it seems his prognostication has not kept touch with him, and that makes him despair. MIT. Beshrew me, he will be 'out of his humour' then indeed. SORD. Tut, these star-monger knaves, who would trust them? One says dark and rainy, when 'tis as clear as chrystal; another says, tempestuous blasts and storms, and 'twas as calm as a milk-bowl; here be sweet rascals for a man to credit his whole fortunes with! You sky-staring coxcombs you, you fat-brains, out upon you; you are good for nothing but to sweat night-caps, and make rug-gowns dear! you learned men, and have not a legion of devils 'a votre service! a votre service!' by heaven, I think I shall die a better scholar than they: but soft -- ENTER A HIND, WITH A LETTER. How now, sirrah? HIND. Here's a letter come from your son, sir. SORD. From my son, sir! what would my son, sir? some good news, no doubt. [READS. "Sweet and dear father, desiring you first to send me your blessing, which is more worth to me than gold or silver, I desire you likewise to be advertised, that this Shrove-tide, contrary to custom, we use always to have revels; which is indeed dancing, and makes an excellent shew in truth; especially if we gentlemen be well attired, which our seniors note, and think the better of our fathers, the better we are maintained, and that they shall know if they come up, and have anything to do in the law; therefore, good father, these are, for your own sake as well as mine, to re-desire you, that you let me not want that which is fit for the setting up of our name, in the honourable volume of gentility, that I may say to our calumniators, with Tully, 'Ego sum ortus domus meae, tu occasus tuae.' And thus, not doubting of your fatherly benevolence, I humbly ask your blessing, and pray God to bless you. Yours, if his own," [FUNGOSO.] How's this! "Yours, if his own!" Is he not my son, except he be his own son? belike this is some new kind of subscription the gallants use. Well! wherefore dost thou stay, knave? away; go. [EXIT HIND.] Here's a letter, indeed! revels? and benevolence? is this a weather to send benevolence? or is this a season to revel in? 'Slid, the devil and all takes part to vex me, I think! this letter would never have come now else, now, now, when the sun shines, and the air thus clear. Soul! If this hold, se shall shortly have an excellent crop of corn spring out of the high ways: the streets and houses of the town will be hid with the rankness of the fruits, that grow there in spite of good husbandry. Go to, I'll prevent the sight of it, come as quickly as it can, I will prevent the sight of it. I have this remedy, heaven. [CLAMBERS UP, AND SUSPENDS THE HALTER TO A TREE.] Stay; I'll try the pain thus a little. O, nothing, nothing. Well now! shall my son gain a benevolence by my death? or anybody be the better for my gold, or so forth? no; alive I kept it from them, and dead, my ghost shall walk about it, and preserve it. My son and daughter shall starve ere they touch it; I have hid it as deep as hell from the sight of heaven, and to it I go now. [FLINGS HIMSELF OFF. ENTER FIVE OR SIX RUSTICS, ONE AFTER ANOTHER. 1 RUST. Ah me, what pitiful sight is this! help, help, help! 2 RUST. How now! what's the matter? 1 RUST. O, here's a man has hang'd himself, help to get him again. 2 RUST. Hang'd himself! 'Slid, carry him afore a justice, 'tis chance-medley, o' my word. 3 RUST. How now, what's here to do? 4 RUST. How comes this? 2 RUST. One has executed himself, contrary to order of law, and by my consent he shall answer it. [THEY CUT HIM DOWN. 5 RUST. Would he were in case to answer it! 1 RUST. Stand by, he recovers, give him breath. SORD. Oh! 5 RUST. Mass, 'twas well you went the footway, neighbour. 1 RUST. Ay, an I had not cut the halter -- SORD. How! cut the halter! ah me, I am undone, I am undone! 2 RUST. Marry, if you had not been undone, you had been hang'd. I can tell you. SORD. You thread-bare, horse-bread-eating rascals, if you would needs have been meddling, could you not have untied it, but you must cut it; and in the midst too! ah me! 1 RUST. Out on me, 'tis the caterpillar Sordido! how curst are the poor, that the viper was blest with this good fortune! 2 RUST. Nay, how accurst art thou, that art cause to the curse of the poor? 3 RUST. Ay, and to save so wretched a caitiff? 4 RUST. Curst be thy fingers that loos'd him! 2 RUST. Some desperate fury possess thee, that thou may'st hang thyself too! 5 RUST. Never may'st thou be saved, that saved so damn'd a monster! SORD. What curses breathe these men! how have my deeds Made my looks differ from another man's, That they should thus detest and loath my life! Out on my wretched humour! it is that Makes me thus monstrous in true humane eyes. Pardon me, gentle friends, I'll make fair 'mends For my foul errors past, and twenty-fold Restore to all men, what with wrong I robb'd them: My barns and garners shall stand open still To all the poor that come, and my best grain Be made alms-bread, to feed half-famish'd mouths. Though hitherto amongst you I have lived, Like an unsavoury muck-hill to myself, Yet now my gather'd heaps being spread abroad, Shall turn to better and more fruitful uses. Bless then this man, curse him no more for the saving My life and soul together. O how deeply The bitter curses of the poor do pierce! I am by wonder changed; come in with me And witness my repentance: now I prove, No life is blest, that is not graced with love. [EXIT. 2 RUST. O miracle! see when a man has grace! 3 RUST. Had it not been pity so good a man should have been cast away? 2 RUST. Well, I'll get our clerk put his conversion in the 'Acts and Monuments'. 4 RUST. Do, for I warrant him he's a martyr. 2 RUST. O God, how he wept, if you mark'd it! did you see how the tears trill'd? 5 RUST. Yes, believe me, like master vicar's bowls upon the green, for all the world. 3 RUST. O neighbour, God's blessing o' your heart, neighbour, 'twas a good grateful deed. [EXEUNT. COR. How now, Mitis! what's that you consider so seriously? MIT. Troth, that which doth essentially please me, the warping condition of this green and soggy multitude; but in good faith, signior, your author hath largely outstript my expectation in this scene, I will liberally confess it. For when I saw Sordido so desperately intended, I thought I had had a hand of him, then. COR. What! you supposed he should have hung himself indeed? MIT. I did, and had framed my objection to it ready, which may yet be very fitly urged, and with some necessity; for though his purposed violence lost the effect, and extended not to death, yet the intent and horror of the object was more than the nature of a comedy will in any sort admit. COR. Ay! what think you of Plautus, in his comedy called 'Cistellaria'? there, where he brings in Alcesimarchus with a drum sword ready to kill himself, and as he is e'en fixing his breast upon it, to be restrained from his resolved outrage, by Silenium and the bawd? Is not his authority of power to give our scene approbation? MIT. Sir, I have this only evasion left me, to say, I think it be so indeed; your memory is happier than mine: but I wonder, what engine he will use to bring the rest out of their humours! COR. That will appear anon, never pre-occupy your imagination withal. Let your mind keep company with the scene still, which now removes itself from the country to the court. Here comes Macilente, and signior Brisk freshly suited; lose not yourself, for now the epitasis, or busy part of our subject, is an act. SCENE III. -- AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT ENTER MACILENTE, FASTIDIOUS, BOTH IN A NEW SUIT, AND CINEDO, WITH TOBACCO. FAST. Well, now signior Macilente, you are not only welcome to the court, but also to my mistress's withdrawing chamber -- Boy, get me some tobacco. I'll but go in, and shew I am here, and come to you presently, sir. [EXIT. MACI. What's that he said? by heaven, I mark'd him not: My thoughts and I were of another world. I was admiring mine own outside here, To think what privilege and palm it bears Here, in the court! be a man ne'er so vile, In wit, in judgment, manners, or what else; If he can purchase but a silken cover, He shall not only pass, but pass regarded: Whereas, let him be poor, and meanly clad, Though ne'er so richly parted, you shall have A fellow that knows nothing but his beef, Or how to rince his clammy guts in beer, Will take him by the shoulders, or the throat, And kick him down the stairs. Such is the state Of virtue in bad clothes! -- ha, ha, ha, ha! That raiment should be in such high request! How long should I be, ere I should put off To the lord chancellor's tomb, or the shrives' poste? By heav'n, I think, a thousand, thousand year. His gravity, his wisdom, and his faith To my dread sovereign, graces that survive him, These I could well endure to reverence, But not his tomb; no more than I'd commend The chapel organ for the gilt without, Or this base-viol, for the varnish'd face. RE-ENTER FASTIDIOUS. FAST. I fear I have made you stay somewhat long, sir; but is my tobacco ready, boy? CIN. Ay, sir. FAST. Give me; my mistress is upon coming, you shall see her presently, sir. [PUFFS.] You'll say you never accosted a more piercing wit. -- This tobacco is not dried, boy, or else the pipe is defective. -- Oh, your wits of Italy are nothing comparable to her: her brain's a very quiver of jests, and she does dart them abroad with that sweet, loose, and judicial aim, that you would -- here she comes, sir. [SAVIOLINA LOOKS IN, AND DRAWS BACK AGAIN. MACI. 'Twas time, his invention had been bogged else. SAV. [WITHIN.] Give me my fan there. MACI. How now, monsieur Brisk? FAST. A kind of affectionate reverence strikes me with a cold shivering, methinks. MACI. I like such tempers well, as stand before their mistresses with fear and trembling; and before their Maker, like impudent mountains! FAST. By this hand, I'd spend twenty pound my vaulting horse stood here now, she might see do but one trick. MACI. Why, does she love activity? CIN. Or, if you had but your long stockings on, to be dancing a galliard as she comes by. FAST. Ay, either. O, these stirring humours make ladies mad with desire; she comes. My good genius embolden me: boy, the pipe quickly. ENTER SAVIOLINA. MACI. What! will he give her music? FAST. A second good morrow to my fair mistress. SAV. Fair servant, I'll thank you a day hence, when the date of your salutation comes forth. FAST. How like you that answer? is't not admirable? MACI. I were a simple courtier, if I could not admire trifles, sir. FAST. [TALKS AND TAKES TOBACCO BETWEEN THE BREAKS.] Troth, sweet lady, I shall [PUFFS] -- be prepared to give you thanks for those thanks, and -- study more officious, and obsequious regards -- to your fair beauties. -- Mend the pipe, boy. MACI. I never knew tobacco taken as a parenthesis before. FAST. 'Fore God, sweet lady, believe it, I do honour the meanest rush in this chamber for your love. SAV. Ay, you need not tell me that, sir; I do think you do prize a rush before my love. MACI. Is this the wonder of nations! FAST. O, by this air, pardon me, I said 'for' your love, by this light: but it is the accustomed sharpness of your ingenuity, sweet mistress, to [TAKES DOWNTHE VIOL, AND PLAYS] -- mass, your viol's new strung, methinks. MACI. Ingenuity! I see his ignorance will not suffer him to slander her, which he had done notably, if he had said wit for ingenuity, as he meant it. FAST. By the soul of music, lady -- HUM, HUM. SAV. Would we might hear it once. FAST. I do more adore and admire your -- HUM, HUM -- predominant perfections, than -- HUM, HUM -- ever I shall have power and faculty to express -- HUM. SAV. Upon the viol de gambo, you mean? FAST. It's miserably out of tune, by this hand. SAV. Nay, rather by the fingers. MACI. It makes good harmony with her wit. FAST. Sweet lady, tune it. [SAVIOLINA TUNES THE VIOL.] -- Boy, some tobacco. MACI. Tobacco again! he does court his mistress with very exceeding good changes. FAST. Signior Macilente, you take none, sir? MACI. No, unless I had a mistress, signior, it were a great indecorum for me to take tobacco. FAST. How like you her wit? [TALKS AND TAKES TOBACCO BETWEEN AGAIN. MACI. Her ingenuity is excellent, sir. FAST. You see the subject of her sweet fingers there -- Oh, she tickles it so, that -- She makes it laugh most divinely; -- I'll tell you a good jest now, and yourself shall say it's a good one: I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think, a thousand times, and not so few, by heaven! -- MACI. Not unlike, sir; but how? to be cased up and hung by on the wall? FAST. O, no, sir, to be in use, I assure you; as your judicious eyes may testify. -- SAV. Here, servant, if you will play, come. FAST. Instantly, sweet lady. -- In good faith, here's most divine tobacco! SAV. Nay, I cannot stay to dance after your pipe. FAST. Good! Nay, dear lady, stay; by this sweet smoke, I think your wit be all fire. -- MACI. And he's the salamander belongs to it. SAV. Is your tobacco perfumed, servant, that you swear by the sweet smoke? FAST. Still more excellent! Before heaven, and these bright lights, I think -- you are made of ingenuity, I -- MACI. True, as your discourse is. O abominable! FAST. Will your ladyship take any? SAV. O peace, I pray you; I love not the breath of a woodcock's head. FAST. Meaning my head, lady? SAV. Not altogether so, sir; but, as it were fatal to their follies that think to grace themselves with taking tobacco, when they want better entertainment, you see your pipe bears the true form of a woodcock's head. FAST. O admirable simile! AV. 'Tis best leaving of you in admiration, sir. [EXIT. MACI. Are these the admired lady-wits, that having so good a plain song, can run no better division upon it? All her jests are of the stamp March was fifteen years ago. Is this the comet, monsieur Fastidious, that your gallants wonder at so? FAST. Heart of a gentleman, to neglect me afore the presence thus! Sweet sir, I beseech you be silent in my disgrace. By the muses, I was never in so vile a humour in my life, and her wit was at the flood too! Report it not for a million, good sir: let me be so far endeared to your love. [EXEUNT. MIT. What follows next, signior Cordatus? this gallant's humour is almost spent; methinks it ebbs apace, with this contrary breath of his mistress. COR. O, but it will flow again for all this, till there come a general drought of humour among our actors, and then I fear not but his will fall as low as any. See who presents himself here! MIT. What, in the old case? COR. Ay, faith, which makes it the more pitiful; you understand where the scene is? ACT IV SCENE I. -- A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE. ENTER FUNGOSO, FALLACE FOLLOWING HIM. FAL. Why are you so melancholy, brother? FUNG. I am not melancholy, I thank you, sister. FAL. Why are you not merry then? there are but two of us in all the world, and if we should not be comforts one to another, God help us! FUNG. Faith, I cannot tell, sister; but if a man had any true melancholy in him, it would make him melancholy to see his yeomanly father cut his neighbours' throats, to make his son a gentleman; and yet, when he has cut them, he will see his son's throat cut too, ere he make him a true gentleman indeed, before death cut his own throat. I must be the first head of our house, and yet he will not give me the head till I be made so. Is any man termed a gentleman, that is not always in the fashion? I would know but that. FAL. If you be melancholy for that, brother, I think I have as much cause to be melancholy as any one: for I'll be sworn, I live as little in the fashion as any woman in London. By the faith of a gentlewoman, beast that I am to say it! I have not one friend in the world besides my husband. When saw you master Fastidious Brisk, brother? FUNG. But a while since, sister, I think: I know not well in truth. By this hand I could fight with all my heart, methinks. FAL. Nay, good brother, be not resolute. FUNG. I sent him a letter, and he writes me no answer neither. FAL. Oh, sweet Fastidious Brisk! O fine courtier! thou are he makest me sigh, and say, how blessed is that woman that hath a courtier to her husband, and how miserable a dame she is, that hath neither husband, nor friend in the court! O sweet Fastidious! O fine courtier! How comely he bows him in his court'sy! how full he hits a woman between the lips when he kisses! how upright he sits at the table! how daintily he carves! how sweetly he talks, and tells news of this lord and of that lady! how cleanly he wipes his spoon at every spoonful of any whitemeat he eats! and what a neat case of pick-tooths he carries about him still! O sweet Fastidious! O fine courtier! ENTER DELIRO AT A DISTANCE, WITH MUSICIANS. DELI. See, yonder she is, gentlemen. Now, as ever you'll bear the name of musicians, touch your instruments sweetly; she has a delicate ear, I tell you: play not a false note, I beseech you. MUSI. Fear not, signior Deliro. DELI. O, begin, begin, some sprightly thing: lord, how my imagination labours with the success of it! [THEY STRIKE UP A LIVELY TUNE.] Well said, good i'faith! Heaven grant it please her. I'll not be seen, for then she'll be sure to dislike it. FAL. Hey -- da! this is excellent! I'll lay my life this is my husband's dotage. I thought so; nay, never play bo-peep with me; I know you do nothing but study how to anger me, sir. DELI. [COMING FORWARD.] Anger thee, sweet wife! why, didst thou not send for musicians at supper last night thyself? FAL. To supper, sir! now, come up to supper, I beseech you: as though there were no difference between supper-time, when folks should be merry, and this time when they should be melancholy. I would never take upon me to take a wife, if I had no more judgment to please her. DELI. Be pleased, sweet wife, and they shall have done; and would to fate my life were done, if I can never please thee! [EXEUNT MUSICIANS. ENTER MACILENTE. MACI. Save you lady; where is master Deliro? DELI. Here, master Macilente: you are welcome from court, sir; no doubt you have been graced exceedingly of master Brisk's mistress, and the rest of the ladies for his sake. MACI. Alas, the poor fantastic! he's scarce known To any lady there; and those that know him, Know him the simplest man of all they know: Deride, and play upon his amorous humours, Though he but apishly doth imitate The gallant'st courtiers, kissing ladies' pumps, Holding the cloth for them, praising their wits, And servilely observing every one May do them pleasure: fearful to be seen With any man, though he be ne'er so worthy, That's not in grace with some that are the greatest. Thus courtiers do, and these he counterfeits, But sets no such a sightly carriage Upon their vanities, as they themselves; And therefore they despise him: for indeed He's like the zany to a tumbler, That tries tricks after him, to make men laugh. FAL. Here's an unthankful spiteful wretch! the good gentleman vouchsafed to make him his companion, because my husband put him into a few rags, and now see how the unrude rascal backbites him! [ASIDE. DELI. Is he no more graced amongst them then, say you? MACI. Faith, like a pawn at chess: fills up a room, that's all. FAL. O monster of men! can the earth bear such an envious caitiff? [ASIDE. DELI. Well, I repent me I ever credited him so much: but now I see what he is, and that his masking vizor is off, I'll forbear him no longer. All his lands are mortgaged to me, and forfeited; besides, I have bonds of his in my hand, for the receipt of now fifty pounds now a hundred, now two hundred; still, as he has had a fan but wagged at him, he would be in a new suit. Well, I'll salute him by a serjeant, the next time I see him i'faith, I'll suit him. MACI. Why, you may soon see him sir, for he is to meet signior Puntarvolo at a notary's by the Exchange, presently; where he meant to take up, upon return. FAL. Now, out upon thee, Judas! canst thou not be content to backbite thy friend, but thou must betray him! Wilt thou seek the undoing of any man? and of such a man too? and will you, sir, get your living by the counsel of traitors? DELI. Dear wife, have patience. FAL. The house will fall, the ground will open and swallow us: I'll not bide here for all the gold and silver in heaven. [EXIT WITH FUNGOSO. DELI. O, good Macilente, let's follow and appease her, or the peace of my life is at an end. [EXIT. MACI. Now pease, and not peace, feed that life, whose head hangs so heavily over a woman's manger! [EXIT. SCENE II. -- ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER FALLACE AND FUNGOSO RUNNING; SHE CLAPS TO THE DOOR. FAL. Help me, brother! Ods body, an you come here I'll do myself a mischief. DELI. [WITHIN.] Nay, hear me, sweet wife; unless thou wilt have me go, I will not go. FAL. Tut, you shall never have that vantage of me, to say, you are undone by me. I'll not bid you stay, I. Brother, sweet brother, here's four angels, I'll give you towards your suit: for the love of gentry, and as ever you came of Christian creature, make haste to the water side, (you know where master Fastidious uses to land,) and give him warning of my husband's malicious intent; and tell him of that lean rascal's treachery. O heavens, how my flesh rises at him! Nay, sweet brother, make haste: you may say, I would have writ to him, but that the necessity of the time would not permit. He cannot choose but take it extraordinarily from me: and commend me to him, good brother; say, I sent you. [EXIT. FUNG. Let me see, these four angels, and then forty shillings more I can borrow on my gown in Fetter Lane. -- Well, I will go presently, say on my suit, pay as much money as I have, and swear myself into credit with my tailor for the rest. [EXIT. SCENE III. -- ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER DELIRO AND MACILENTE. DELI. O, on my soul you wrong her, Macilente. Though she be froward, yet I know she is honest. MACI. Well, then have I no judgment. Would any woman, but one that were wild in her affections, have broke out into that immodest and violent passion against her husband? or is't possible -- DELI. If you love me, forbear; all the arguments i' the world shall never wrest my heart to believe it. [EXEUNT. COR. How like you the deciphering of his dotage? MIT. O, strangely: an of the other's envy too, that labours so seriously to set debate betwixt a man and his wife. Stay, here comes the knight adventurer. COR. Ay, and his scrivener with him. SCENE IV. -- PUNTARVOLO'S LODGINGS. ENTER PUNTARVOLO, NOTARY, AND SERVANTS WITH THE DOG AND CAT. PUNT. I wonder monsieur Fastidious comes not! But, notary, if thou please to draw the indentures the while, I will give thee thy instructions. NOT. With all my heart, sir; and I'll fall in hand with them presently. PUNT. Well then, first the sum is to be understood. NOT. [WRITES.] Good, sir. PUNT. Next, our several appellations, and character of my dog and cat, must be known. Shew him the cat, sirrah. NOT. So, sir. PUNT. Then, that the intended bound is the Turk's court in Constantinople; the time limited for our return, a year; and that if either of us miscarry, the whole venture is lost. These are general, conceiv'st thou? or if either of us turn Turk. NOT. Ay, sir. PUNT. Now, for particulars: that I may make my travels by sea or land, to my best liking; and that hiring a coach for myself, it shall be lawful for my dog or cat, or both, to ride with me in the said coach. NOT. Very good, sir. PUNT. That I may choose to give my dog or cat, fish, for fear of bones; or any other nutriment that, by the judgment of the most authentical physicians where I travel, shall be thought dangerous. NOT. Well, sir. PUNT. That, after the receipt of his money, he shall neither, in his own person, nor any other, either by direct or indirect means, as magic, witchcraft, or other such exotic arts, attempt, practise, or complot any thing to the prejudice of me, my dog, or my cat: neither shall I use the help of any such sorceries or enchantments, as unctions to make our skins impenetrable, or to travel invisible by virtue of a powder, or a ring, or to hang any three-forked charm about my dog's neck, secretly conveyed into his collar; (understand you?) but that all be performed sincerely, without fraud or imposture. NOT. So, sir. PUNT. That, for testimony of the performance, myself am to bring thence a Turk's mustachio, my dog a Grecian hare's lips, and my cat the train or tail of a Thracian rat. NOT. [WRITES.] 'Tis done, sir. PUNT. 'Tis said, sir; not done, sir. But forward; that, upon my return, and landing on the Tower-wharf, with the aforesaid testimony, I am to receive five for one, according to the proportion of the sums put forth. NOT. Well, sir. PUNT. Provided, that if before our departure, or setting forth, either myself or these be visited with sickness, or any other casual event, so that the whole course of the adventure be hindered thereby, that then he is to return, and I am to receive the prenominated proportion upon fair and equal terms. NOT. Very good, sir; is this all? PUNT. It is all, sir; and dispatch them, good notary. NOT. As fast as is possible, sir. [EXIT. ENTER CARLO. PUNT. O Carlo! welcome: saw you monsieur Brisk? CAR. Not I: did he appoint you to meet here? PUNT. Ay, and I muse he should be so tardy; he is to take an hundred pounds of me in venture, if he maintain his promise. CAR. Is his hour past? PUNT. Not yet, but it comes on apace. CAR. Tut, be not jealous of him; he will sooner break all the commandments, than his hour; upon my life, in such a case trust him. PUNT. Methinks, Carlo, you look very smooth, ha! CAR. Why, I came but now from a hot-house; I must needs look smooth. PUNT. From a hot-house! CAR. Ay, do you make a wonder on't? why, it is your only physic. Let a man sweat once a week in a hot-house, and be well rubb'd, and froted, with a good plump juicy wench, and sweet linen, he shall ne'er have the pox. PUNT. What, the French pox? CAR. The French pox! out pox: we have them in as good a form as they, man; what? PUNT. Let me perish, but thou art a salt one! was your new-created gallant there with you, Sogliardo? CAR. O porpoise! hang him, no: he's a leiger at Horn's ordinary, yonder; his villainous Ganymede and he have been droning a tobacco-pipe there ever since yesterday noon. PUNT. Who? signior Tripartite, that would give my dog the whiffe? CAR. Ay, he. They have hired a chamber and all, private, to practise in, for the making of the patoun, the receipt reciprocal, and a number of other mysteries not yet extant. I brought some dozen or twenty gallants this morning to view them, as you'd do a piece of perspective, in at a key-hole; and there we might see Sogliardo sit in a chair, holding his snout up like a sow under an apple-tree, while the other open'd his nostrils with a poking-stick, to give the smoke a more free delivery. They had spit some three or fourscore ounces between 'em, afore we came away. PUNT. How! spit three or fourscore ounces? CAR. Ay, and preserv'd it in porrengers, as a barber does his blood, when he opens a vein. PUNT. Out, pagan! how dost thou open the vein of thy friend? CAR. Friend! is there any such foolish thing in the world, ha? 'slid I never relished it yet. PUNT. Thy humour is the more dangerous. CAR. No, not a whit, signior. Tut, a man must keep time in all; I can oil my tongue when I meet him next, and look with a good sleek forehead; 'twill take away all soil of suspicion, and that's enough: what Lynceus can see my heart? Pish, the title of a friend! it's a vain, idle thing, only venerable among fools; you shall not have one that has any opinion of wit affect it. ENTER DELIRO AND MACILENTE. DELI. Save you, good sir Puntarvolo. PUNT. Signior Deliro! welcome. DELI. Pray you, sir, did you see master Fastidious Brisk? I heard he was to meet your worship here. PUNT. You heard no figment, sir; I do expect him at every pulse of my watch. DELI. In good time, sir. CAR. There's a fellow now looks like one of the patricians of Sparta; marry, his wit's after ten i' the hundred: a good bloodhound, a close-mouthed dog, he follows the scent well; marry, he's at fault now, methinks. PUNT. I should wonder at that creature is free from the danger of thy tongue. CAR. O, I cannot abide these limbs of satin, or rather Satan indeed, that will walk, like the children of darkness, all day in a melancholy shop, with their pockets full of blanks, ready to swallow up as many poor unthrifts as come within the verge. PUNT. So! and what hast thou for him that is with him, now? CAR. O, d--n me! immortality! I'll not meddle with him; the pure element of fire, all spirit, extraction. PUNT. How, Carlo! ha, what is he, man? CAR. A scholar, Macilente; do you not know him? a rank, raw-boned anatomy, he walks up and down like a charged musket, no man dares encounter him: that's his rest there. PUNT. His rest! why, has he a forked head? CAR. Pardon me, that's to be suspended; you are too quick, too apprehensive. DELI. Troth, now I think on't, I'll defer it till some other time. MACI. Not by any means, signior, you shall not lose this opportunity, he will be here presently now. DELI. Yes, faith, Macilente, 'tis best. For, look you, sir, I shall so exceedingly offend my wife in't, that -- MACI. Your wife! now for shame lose these thoughts, and become the master of your own spirits. Should I, if I had a wife, suffer myself to be thus passionately carried to and fro with the stream of her humour, and neglect my deepest affairs, to serve her affections? 'Slight, I would geld myself first. DELI. O, but signior, had you such a wife as mine is, you would -- MACI. Such a wife! Now hate me, sir, if ever I discern'd any wonder in your wife yet, with all the speculation I have: I have seen some that have been thought fairer than she, in my time; and I have seen those, have not been altogether so tall, esteem'd properer women; and I have seen less noses grow upon sweeter faces, that have done very well too, in my judgment. But in good faith, signior, for all this, the gentlewoman is a good, pretty, proud, hard-favour'd thing, marry not so peerlessly to be doted upon, I must confess: nay, be not angry. DELI. Well, sir, however you please to forget yourself, I have not deserv'd to be thus played upon; but henceforth, pray you forbear my house, for I can but faintly endure the savour of his breath, at my table, that shall thus jade me for my courtesies. MACI. Nay, then, signior, let me tell you, your wife is no proper woman, and by my life, I suspect her honesty, that's more, which you may likewise suspect, if you please, do you see? I'll urge you to nothing against your appetite, but if you please, you may suspect it. DELI. Good sir. [EXIT. MACI. Good, sir! now horn upon horn pursue thee, thou blind, egregious dotard! CAR. O, you shall hear him speak like envy. -- Signior Macilente, you saw monsieur Brisk lately: I heard you were with him at court. MACI. Ay, Buffone, I was with him. CAR. And how is he respected there? I know you'll deal ingenuously with us; is he made much of amongst the sweeter sort of gallants? MACI. Faith, ay; his civet and his casting-glass Have helpt him to a place amongst the rest: And there, his seniors give him good slight looks, After their garb, smile, and salute in French With some new compliment. CAR. What, is this all? MACI. Why say, that they should shew the frothy fool Such grace as they pretend comes from the heart, He had a mighty windfall out of doubt! Why, all their graces are not to do grace To virtue or desert; but to ride both With their gilt spurs quite breathless, from themselves. 'Tis now esteem'd precisianism in wit, And a disease in nature, to be kind Toward desert, to love or seek good names. Who feeds with a good name? who thrives with loving? Who can provide feast for his own desires, With serving others? -- ha, ha, ha! 'Tis folly, by our wisest worldlings proved, If not to gain by love, to be beloved. CAR. How like you him? is't not a good spiteful slave, ha? PUNT. Shrewd, shrewd. CAR. D--n me! I could eat his flesh now; divine sweet villain! MACI. Nay, prithee leave: What's he there? CAR. Who? this in the starched beard? it's the dull stiff knight Puntarvolo, man; he's to travel now presently: he has a good knotty wit; marry, he carries little on't out of the land with him. MACI. How then? CAR. He puts it forth in venture, as he does his money upon the return of a dog and cat. MACI. Is this he? CAR. Ay, this is he; a good tough gentleman: he looks like a shield of brawn at Shrove-tide, out of date, and ready to take his leave; or a dry pole of ling upon Easter-eve, that has furnish'd the table all Lent, as he has done the city this last vacation. MACI. Come, you'll never leave your stabbing similes: I shall have you aiming at me with 'em by and by; but -- CAR. O, renounce me then! pure, honest, good devil, I love thee above the love of women: I could e'en melt in admiration of thee, now. Ods so, look here, man; Sir Dagonet and his squire! ENTER SOGLIARDO AND SHIFT. SOG. Save you, my dear gallantos: nay, come, approach, good cavalier: prithee, sweet knight, know this gentleman, he's one that it pleases me to use as my good friend and companion; and therefore do him good offices: I beseech you, gentles, know him, I know him all over. PUNT. Sir, for signior Sogliardo's sake, let it suffice, I know you. SOG. Why, as I am a gentleman, I thank you, knight, and it shall suffice. Hark you, sir Puntarvolo, you'd little think it; he's as resolute a piece of flesh as any in the world. PUNT. Indeed, sir! SOG. Upon my gentility, sir: Carlo, a word with you; do you see that same fellow, there? CAR. What, cavalier Shirt? SOG. O, you know him; cry you mercy: before me, I think him the tallest man living within the walls of Europe. CAR. The walls of Europe! take heed what you say, signior, Europe's a huge thing within the walls. SOG. 'Tut, an 'twere as huge again, I'd justify what I speak. 'Slid, he swagger'd even now in a place where we were -- I never saw a man do it more resolute. CAR. Nay, indeed, swaggering is a good argument of resolution. Do you hear this, signior? MACI. Ay, to my grief. O, that such muddy flags, For every drunken flourish should achieve The name of manhood, whilst true perfect valour, Hating to shew itself, goes by despised! Heart! I do know now, in a fair just cause, I dare do more than he, a thousand times; Why should not they take knowledge of this, ha! And give my worth allowance before his? Because I cannot swagger. -- Now, the pox Light on your Pickt-hatch prowess! SOG. Why, I tell you, sir; he has been the only 'Bid-stand' that ever kept New-market, Salisbury-plain, Hockley i' the Hole, Gadshill, and all the high places of any request: he has had his mares and his geldings, he, have been worth forty, threescore, a hundred pound a horse, would ha' sprung you over the hedge and ditch like your greyhound: he has done five hundred robberies in his time, more or less, I assure you. PUNT. What, and scaped? SOG. Scaped! i'faith, ay: he has broken the gaol when he has been in irons and irons; and been out and in again; and out, and in; forty times, and not so few, he. MACI. A fit trumpet, to proclaim such a person. CAR. But can this be possible? SHIFT. Pardon me, my dear Orestes; causes have their quiddits, and 'tis ill jesting with bell-ropes. CAR. How! Pylades and Orestes? SOG. Ay, he is my Pylades, and I am his Orestes: how like you the conceit? CAR. O, 'tis an old stale interlude device; no, I'll give you names myself, look you; he shall be your Judas, and you shall be his elder-tree to hang on. MACI. Nay, rather let him be captain Pod, and this his motion: for he does nothing but shew him. CAR. Excellent: or thus; you shall be Holden, and he your camel. SHIFT. You do not mean to ride, gentlemen? PUNT. Faith, let me end it for you, gallants: you shall be his Countenance, and he your Resolution. SOG. Troth, that's pretty: how say you, cavalier, shall it be so? CAR. Ay, ay, most voices. SHIFT. Faith, I am easily yielding to any good impressions. SOG. Then give hands, good Resolution. CAR. Mass, he cannot say, good Countenance, now, properly, to him again. PUNT. Yes, by an irony. MACI. O, sir, the countenance of Resolution should, as he is, be altogether grim and unpleasant. ENTER FASTIDIOUS BRISK. FAST. Good hours make music with your mirth, gentlemen, and keep time to your humours! -- How now, Carlo? PUNT. Monsieur Brisk? many a long look have I extended for you, sir. FAST. Good faith, I must crave pardon: I was invited this morning, ere I was out of my bed, by a bevy of ladies, to a banquet: whence it was almost one of Hercules's labours for me to come away, but that the respect of my promise did so prevail with me. I know they'll take it very ill, especially one, that gave me this bracelet of her hair but over night, and this pearl another gave me from her forehead, marry she -- what! are the writings ready? PUNT. I will send my man to know. Sirrah, go you to the notary's, and learn if he be ready: leave the dog, sir. [EXIT SERVANT. FAST. And how does my rare qualified friend, Sogliardo? Oh, signior Macilente! by these eyes, I saw you not; I had saluted you sooner else, o' my troth. I hope, sir, I may presume upon you, that you will not divulge my late check, or disgrace, indeed, sir. MACI. You may, sir. CAR. He knows some notorious jest by this gull, that he hath him so obsequious. SOG. Monsieur Fastidious, do you see this fellow there? does he not look like a clown? would you think there were any thing in him? FAST. Any thing in him! beshrew me, ay; the fellow hath a good ingenious face. SOG. By this element he is as ingenious a tall man as ever swagger'd about London: he, and I, call Countenance and Resolution; but his name is cavalier Shift. PUNT. Cavalier, you knew signior Clog, that was hang'd for the robbery at Harrow on the hill? SOG. Knew him, sir! why, 'twas he gave all the directions for the action. PUNT. How! was it your project, sir? SHIFT. Pardon me, Countenance, you do me some wrong to make occasions public, which I imparted to you in private. SOG. God's will! here are none but friends, Resolution. SHIFT. That's all one; things of consequence must have their respects; where, how, and to whom. -- Yes, sir, he shewed himself a true Clog in the coherence of that affair, sir; for, if he had managed matters as they were corroborated to him, it had been better for him by a forty or fifty score of pounds, sir; and he himself might have lived, in despight of fates, to have fed on woodcocks, with the rest: but it was his heavy fortune to sink, poor Clog! and therefore talk no more of him. PUNT. Why, had he more aiders then? SOG. O lord, sir! ay, there were some present there, that were the Nine Worthies to him, i'faith. SHIFT. Ay, sir, I can satisfy you at more convenient conference: but, for mine own part, I have now reconciled myself to other courses, and profess a living out of my other qualities. SOG. Nay, he has left all now, I assure you, and is able to live like a gentleman, by his qualities. By this dog, he has the most rare gift in tobacco that ever you knew. CAR. He keeps more ado with this monster, than ever Banks did with his horse, or the fellow with the elephant. MACI. He will hang out his picture shortly, in a cloth, you shall see. SOG. O, he does manage a quarrel the best that ever you saw, for terms and circumstances. FAST. Good faith, signior, now you speak of a quarrel, I'll acquaint you with a difference that happened between a gallant and myself; sir Puntarvolo, you know him if I should name him signior Luculento. PUNT. Luculento! what inauspicious chance interposed itself to your two loves? FAST. Faith, sir, the same that sundered Agamemnon and great Thetis' son; but let the cause escape, sir: he sent me a challenge, mixt with some few braves, which I restored, and in fine we met. Now, indeed, sir, I must tell you, he did offer at first very desperately, but without judgment: for, look you, sir, I cast myself into this figure; now he comes violently on, and withal advancing his rapier to strike, I thought to have took his arm, for he had left his whole body to my election, and I was sure he could not recover his guard. Sir, I mist my purpose in his arm, rash'd his doublet-sleeve, ran him close by the left cheek, and through his hair. He again lights me here, -- I had on a gold cable hatband, then new come up, which I wore about a murey French hat I had, -- cuts my hatband, and yet it was massy goldsmith's work, cuts my brims, which by good fortune, being thick embroidered with gold twist and spangles, disappointed the force of the blow: nevertheless, it grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six purls of an Italian cut-work band I wore, cost me three pound in the Exchange but three days before. PUNT. This was a strange encounter. FAST. Nay, you shall hear, sir: with this we both fell out, and breath'd. Now, upon the second sign of his assault, I betook me to the former manner of my defence; he, on the other side, abandon'd his body to the same danger as before, and follows me still with blows: but I being loth to take the deadly advantage that lay before me of his left side, made a kind of stramazoun, ran him up to the hilts through the doublet, through the shirt, and yet miss'd the skin. He, making a reverse blow, -- falls upon my emboss'd girdle, I had thrown off the hangers a little before -- strikes off a skirt of a thick-laced satin doublet I had, lined with four taffatas, cuts off two panes embroidered with pearl, rends through the drawings-out of tissue, enters the linings, and skips the flesh. CAR. I wonder he speaks not of his wrought shirt. FAST. Here, in the opinion of mutual damage, we paused; but, ere I proceed, I must tell you, signior, that, in this last encounter, not having leisure to put off my silver spurs, one of the rowels catch'd hold of the ruffle of my boot, and, being Spanish leather, and subject to tear, overthrows me, rends me two pair of silk stockings, that I put on, being somewhat a raw morning, a peach colour and another, and strikes me some half inch deep into the side of the calf: he, seeing the blood come, presently takes horse, and away: I, having bound up my wound with a piece of my wrought shirt -- CAR. O! comes it in there? FAST. Rid after him, and, lighting at the court gate both together, embraced, and march'dhand in hand up into the presence. Was not this business well carried? MACI. Well! yes, and by this we can guess what apparel the gentleman wore. PUNT. 'Fore valour, it was a designment begun with much resolution, maintain'd with as much prowess, and ended with more humanity. -- RE-ENTER SERVANT. How now, what says the notary? SERV. He says, he is ready, sir; he stays but your worship's pleasure. PUNT. Come, we will go to him, monsieur. Gentlemen, shall we entreat you to be witnesses? SOG. You shall entreat me, sir. -- Come, Resolution. SHIFT. I follow you, good Countenance. CAR. Come, signior, come, come. [EXEUNT ALL BUT MACILENTE. MACI. O, that there should be fortune To clothe these men, so naked in desert! And that the just storm of a wretched life Beats them not ragged for their wretched souls, And, since as fruitless, even as black, as coals! [EXIT. MIT. Why, but signior, how comes it that Fungoso appeared not with his sister's intelligence to Brisk? COR. Marry, long of the evil angels that she gave him, who have indeed tempted the good simple youth to follow the tail of the fashion, and neglect the imposition of his friends. Behold, here he comes, very worshipfully attended, and with good variety. SCENE V. -- A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE ENTER FUNGOSO IN A NEW SUIT, FOLLOWED BY HIS TAILOR, SHOEMAKER, AND HABERDASHER. FUNG. Gramercy, good shoemaker, I'll put to strings myself.. [EXIT SHOEMAKER.] -- Now, sir, let me see, what must you have for this hat? HABE. Here's the bill, sir. FUNG. How does it become me, well? TAI. Excellent, sir, as ever you had any hat in your life. FUNG. Nay, you'll say so all. HABE. In faith, sir, the hat's as good as any man in this town can serve you, and will maintain fashion as long; never trust me for a groat else. FUNG. Does it apply well to my suit? TAI. Exceeding well, sir. FUNG. How lik'st thou my suit, haberdasher? HABE. By my troth, sir, 'tis very rarely well made; I never saw a suit sit better, I can tell on. TAI. Nay, we have no art to please our friends, we! FUNG. Here, haberdasher, tell this same. [GIVES HIM MONEY. HABE. Good faith, sir, it makes you have an excellent body. FUNG. Nay, believe me, I think I have as good a body in clothes as another. TAI. You lack points to bring your apparel together, sir. FUNG. I'll have points anon. How now! Is't right? HABE. Faith, sir, 'tis too little' but upon farther hopes -- Good morrow to you, sir. [EXIT. FUNG. Farewell, good haberdasher. Well now, master Snip, let me see your bill. MIT. Me thinks he discharges his followers too thick. COR. O, therein he saucily imitates some great man. I warrant you, though he turns off them, he keeps this tailor, in place of a page, to follow him still. FUNG. This bill is very reasonable, in faith: hark you, master Snip -- Troth, sir, I am not altogether so well furnished at this present, as I could wish I were; but -- if you'll do me the favour to take part in hand, you shall have all I have, by this hand. TAI. Sir -- FUNG. And but give me credit for the rest, till the beginning of the next term. TAI. O lord, sir -- FUNG. 'Fore God, and by this light, I'll pay you to the utmost, and acknowledge myself very deeply engaged to you by the courtesy. TAI. Why, how much have you there, sir? FUNG. Marry, I have here four angels, and fifteen shillings of white money: it's all I have, as I hope to be blest TAI. You will not fail me at the next term with the rest? FUNG. No, an I do, pray heaven I be hang'd. Let me never breathe again upon this mortal stage, as the philosopher calls it! By this air, and as I am a gentleman, I'll hold. COR. He were an iron-hearted fellow, in my judgment, that would not credit him upon this volley of oaths. TAI. Well, sir, I'll not stick with any gentleman for a trifle: you know what 'tis remains? FUNG. Ay, sir, and I give you thanks in good faith. O fate, how happy I am made in this good fortune! Well, now I'll go seek out monsieur Brisk. 'Ods so, I have forgot riband for my shoes, and points. 'Slid, what luck's this! how shall I do? Master Snip, pray let me reduct some two or three shillings for points and ribands: as I am an honest man, I have utterly disfurnished myself, in the default of memory; pray let me be beholding to you; it shall come home in the bill, believe me. TAI. Faith, sir, I can hardly depart with ready money; but I'll take up, and send you some by my boy presently. What coloured riband would you have? FUNG. What you shall think meet in your judgment, sir, to my suit. TAI. Well, I'll send you some presently. FUNG. And points too, sir? TAI. And points too, sir. FUNG. Good lord, how shall I study to deserve this kindness of you sir! Pray let your youth make haste, for I should have done a business an hour since, that I doubt I shall come too late. [EXIT TAILOR.] Now, in good faith, I am exceeding proud of my suit. COR. Do you observe the plunges that this poor gallant is put to, signior, to purchase the fashion? MIT. Ay, and to be still a fashion behind with the world, that's the sport. COR. Stay: O, here they come from seal'd and deliver'd. SCENE VI. -- PUNTARVOLO'S LODGINGS. ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK IN A NEW SUIT, AND SERVANTS WITH THE DOG. PUNT. Well, now my whole venture is forth, I will resolve to depart shortly. FAST. Faith, sir Puntarvolo, go to the court, and take leave of the ladies first. PUNT. I care not, if it be this afternoon's labour. Where is Carlo? FAST. Here he comes. ENTER CARLO, SOGLIARDO, SHIFT, AND MACILENTE. CAR. Faith, gallants, I am persuading this gentleman [POINTS TO SOGLIARDO] to turn courtier. He is a man of fair revenue, and his estate will bear the charge well. Besides, for his other gifts of the mind, or so, why they are as nature lent him them, pure, simple, without any artificial drug or mixture of these two threadbare beggarly qualities, learning and knowledge, and therefore the more accommodate and genuine. Now, for the life itself -- FAST. O, the most celestial, and full of wonder and delight, that can be imagined, signior, beyond thought and apprehension of pleasure! A man lives there in that divine rapture, that he will think himself i' the ninth heaven for the time, and lose all sense of mortality whatsoever, when he shall behold such glorious, and almost immortal beauties; hear such angelical and harmonious voices, discourse with such flowing and ambrosial spirits, whose wits are as sudden as lightning, and humorous as nectar; oh, it makes a man all quintessence and flame, and lifts him up, in a moment, to the very crystal crown of the sky, where, hovering in the strength of his imagination, he shall behold all the delights of the Hesperides, the Insulae Fortunatae, Adonis' Gardens, Tempe, or what else, confined within the amplest verge of poesy, to be mere umbrae, and imperfect figures, conferred with the most essential felicity of your court. MACI. Well, this ecomium was not extemporal, it came too perfectly off. CAR. Besides, sir, you shall never need to go to a hot-house, you shall sweat there with courting your mistress, or losing your money at primero, as well as in all the stoves in Sweden. Marry, this, sir, you must ever be sure to carry a good strong perfume about you, that your mistress's dog may smell you out amongst the rest; and, in making love to her, never fear to be out; for you may have a pipe of tobacco, or a bass viol shall hang o' the wall, of purpose, will put you in presently. The tricks your Resolution has taught you in tobacco, the whiffe, and those sleights, will stand you in very good ornament there. FAST. Ay, to some, perhaps; but, an he should come to my mistress with tobacco (this gentleman knows) she'd reply upon him, i'faith. O, by this bright sun, she has the most acute, ready, and facetious wit that -- tut, there's no spirit able to stand her. You can report it, signior, you have seen her. PUNT. Then can he report no less, out of his judgment, I assure him. MACI. Troth, I like her well enough, but she's too self-conceited, methinks. FAST. Ay, indeed, she's a little too self-conceited; an 'twere not for that humour, she were the most-to-be-admired lady in the world. PUNT. Indeed, it is a humour that takes from her other excellences. MACI. Why, it may easily be made to forsake her, in my thought. FAST. Easily, sir! then are all impossibilities easy. MACI. You conclude too quick upon me, signior. What will you say, if I make it so perspicuously appear now, that yourself shall confess nothing more possible? FAST. Marry, I will say, I will both applaud and admire you for it. PUNT. And I will second him in the admiration. MACI. Why, I'll show you, gentlemen. -- Carlo, come hither. [MACI., CAR., PUNT., AND FAST. WHISPER TOGETHER. SOG. Good faith, I have a great humour to the court. What thinks my Resolution? shall I adventure? SHIFT. Troth, Countenance, as you please; the place is a place of good reputation and capacity. SOG. O, my tricks in tobacco, as Carlo says, will show excellent there. SHIFT. Why, you may go with these gentlemen now, and see fashions; and after, as you shall see correspondence. SOG. You say true. You will go with me, Resolution? SHIFT. I will meet you, Countenance, about three or four o'clock; but, to say to go with you, I cannot; for, as I am Apple-John, I am to go before the cockatrice you saw this morning, and therefore pray, present me excused, good Countenance. SOG. Farewell, good Resolution, but fail not to meet. SHIFT. As I live. [EXIT. PUNT. Admirably excellent! MACI. If you can but persuade Sogliardo to court, there's all now. CAR. O, let me alone, that's my task. [GOES TO SOGLIARDO. FAST. Now, by wit, Macilente, it's above measure excellent; 'twill be the only court-exploit that ever proved courtier ingenious. PUNT. Upon my soul, it puts the lady quite out of her humour, and we shall laugh with judgment. CAR. Come, the gentleman was of himself resolved to go with you, afore I moved it. MACI. Why, then, gallants, you two and Carlo go afore to prepare the jest; Sogliardo and I will come some while after you. CAR. Pardon me, I am not for the court. PUNT. That's true; Carlo comes not at court, indeed. Well, you shall leave it to the faculty of monsieur Brisk, and myself; upon our lives, we will manage it happily. Carlo shall bespeak supper at the Mitre, against we come back: where we will meet and dimple our cheeks with laughter at the success. CAR. Ay, but will you promise to come? PUNT. Myself shall undertake for them; he that fails, let his reputation lie under the lash of thy tongue. CAR. Ods so, look who comes here! ENTER FUNGOSO. SOG. What, nephew! FUNG. Uncle, God save you; did you see a gentleman, one monsieur Brisk, a courtier? he goes in such a suit as I do. SOG. Here is the gentleman, nephew, but not in such a suit. FUNG. Another suit! SOG. How now, nephew? FAST. Would you speak with me, sir? CAR. Ay, when he has recovered himself, poor Poll! PUNT. Some rosa-solis. MACI. How now, signior? FUNG. I am not well, sir. MACI. Why, this it is to dog the fashion. CAR. Nay, come, gentlemen, remember your affairs; his disease is nothing but the flux of apparel. PUNT. Sirs, return to the lodging, keep the cat safe; I'll be the dog's guardian myself. [EXEUNT SERVANTS. SOG. Nephew, will you go to court with us? these gentlemen and I are for the court; nay, be not so melancholy. FUNG. 'Slid, I think no man in Christendom has that rascally fortune that I have. MACI. Faith, you suit is well enough, signior. FUNG. Nay, not for that, I protest; but I had an errand to monsieur Fastidious, and I have forgot it. MACI. Why, go along to court with us, and remember it; come, gentlemen, you three take one boat, and Sogliardo and I will take another; we shall be there instantly. FAST. Content: good sir, vouchsafe us your pleasance. PUNT. Farewell, Carlo: remember. CAR. I warrant you: would I had one of Kemp's shoes to throw after you. PUNT. Good fortune will close the eyes of our jest, fear not; and we shall frolick. [EXEUNT. MIT. This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on a sudden, methinks, than he was before: there's some portent in it, I believe. COR. O, he's a fellow of a strange nature. Now does he, in this calm of his humour, plot, and store up a world of malicious thoughts in his brain, till he is so full with them, that you shall see the very torrent of his envy break forth like a land-flood: and, against the course of all their affections, oppose itself so violently, that you will almost have wonder to think, how 'tis possible the current of their dispositions shall receive so quick and strong an alteration. MIT. Ay, marry, sir, this is that, on which my expectation has dwelt all this while; for I must tell you, signior, though I was loth to interrupt the scene, yet I made it a question in mine own private discourse, how he should properly call it "Every Man out of his Humour", when I saw all his actors so strongly pursue, and continue their humours? COR. Why, therein his art appears most full of lustre, and approacheth nearest the life; especially when in the flame and height of their humours, they are laid flat, it fills the eye better, and with more contentment. How tedious a sight were it to behold a proud exalted tree kept and cut down by degrees, when it might be fell'd in a moment! and to set the axe to it before it came to that pride and fulness, were, as not to have it grow. MIT. Well, I shall long till I see this fall, you talk of. COR. To help your longing, signior, let your imagination be swifter than a pair of oars: and by this, suppose Puntarvolo, Brisk, Fungoso, and the dog, arrived at the court-gate, and going up to the great chamber. Macilente and Sogliardo, we'll leave them on the water, till possibility and natural means may land them. Here come the gallants, now prepare your expectations. ACT V SCENE I. -- THE PALACE STAIRS. ENTER PUNTARVOLO, WITH HIS DOG, FOLLOWED BY FASTIDIOUS BRISK AND FUNGOSO. PUNT. Come, gentles, Signior, you are sufficiently instructed. FAST. Who, I, sir? PUNT. No, this gentleman. But stay, I take thought how to bestow my dog; he is no competent attendant for the presence. FAST. Mass, that's true, indeed, knight; you must not carry him into the presence. PUNT. I know it, and I, like a dull beast, forgot to bring one of my cormorants to attend me. FAST. Why, you were best leave him at the porter's lodge. PUNT. Not so; his worth is too well known amongst them, to be forth-coming. FAST. 'Slight, how will you do then? PUNT. I must leave him with one that is ignorant of his quality, if I will have him to be safe. And see! here comes one that will carry coals, ergo, will hold my dog. ENTER A GROOM, WITH A BASKET. My honest friend, may I commit the tuition of this dog to thy prudent care? GROOM. You may, if you please, sir. PUNT. Pray thee let me find thee here at my return; it shall not be long, till I will ease thee of thy employment, and please thee. Forth, gentles. FAST. Why, but will you leave him with so slight command, and infuse no more charge upon the fellow? PUNT. Charge! no; there were no policy in that; that were to let him know the value of the gem he holds, and so to tempt frail nature against her disposition. No, pray thee let thy honesty be sweet, as it shall be short. GROOM. Yes, sir. PUNT. But hark you, gallants, and chiefly monsieur Brisk: when we come in eye-shot, or presence of this lady, let not other matters carry us from our project; but, if we can, single her forth to some place -- FAST. I warrant you. PUNT. And be not too sudden, but let the device induce itself with good circumstance. On. FUNG. Is this the way? good truth, here be fine hangings. [EXEUNT PUNT., FAST., AND FUNGOSO. GROOM. Honesty! sweet, and short! Marry, it shall, sir, doubt you not; for even at this instant if one would give me twenty pounds, I would not deliver him; there's for the sweet: but now, if any man come offer me but two-pence, he shall have him; there's for the short now. 'Slid, what a mad humorous gentleman is this to leave his dog with me! I could run away with him now, an he were worth any thing. ENTER MACILENTE AND SOGLIARDO. MACI. Come on, signior, now prepare to court this all-witted lady, most naturally, and like yourself. SOG. Faith, an you say the word, I'll begin to her in tobacco. MACI. O, fie on't! no; you shall begin with, "How does my sweet lady", or, "Why are you so melancholy, madam?" though she be very merry, it's all one. Be sure to kiss your hand often enough; pray for her health, and tell her, how "More than most fair she is". Screw your face at one side thus, and protest: let her fleer, and look askance, and hide her teeth with her fan, when she laughs a fit, to bring her into more matter, that's nothing: you must talk forward, (though it be without sense, so it be without blushing,) 'tis most court-like and well. SOG. But shall I not use tobacco at all? MACI. O, by no means; 'twill but make your breath suspected, and that you use it only to confound the rankness of that. SOG. Nay, I'll be advised, sir, by my friends. MACI. Od's my life, see where sir Puntarvolo's dog is. GROOM. I would the gentleman would return for his follower here, I'll leave him to his fortunes else. MACI. 'Twere the only true jest in the world to poison him now; ha! by this hand I'll do it, if I could but get him of the fellow. [ASIDE.] Signior Sogliardo, walk aside, and think upon some device to entertain the lady with. SOG. So I do, sir. [WALKS OFF IN A MEDITATING POSTURE. MACI. How now, mine honest friend! whose dog-keeper art thou? GROOM. Dog-keeper, sir! I hope I scorn that, i'faith. MACI. Why, dost thou not keep a dog? GROOM. Sir, now I do, and now I do not: [THROWS OFF THE DOG.] I think this be sweet and short. Make me his dog-keeper! [EXIT. MACI. This is excellent, above expectation! nay, stay, sir; [SEIZING THE DOG.] you'd be travelling; but I'll give you a dram shall shorten your voyage, here. [GIVES HIM POISON.] So, sir, I'll be bold to take my leave of you. Now to the Turk's court in the devil's name, for you shall never go o' God's name. [KICKS HIM OUT.] -- Sogliardo, come. SOG. I have it i'faith now, will sting it. MACI. Take heed you leese it not signior, ere you come there; preserve it. [EXEUNT. COR. How like you this first exploit of his? MIT. O, a piece of true envy; but I expect the issue of the other device. COR. Here they come will make it appear. SCENE II. -- AN APARTMENT IN THE PALACE. ENTER SAVIOLINA, PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK, AND FUNGOSO. SAV. Why, I thought, sir Puntarvolo, you had been gone your voyage? PUNT. Dear and most amiable lady, your divine beauties do bind me to those offices, that I cannot depart when I would. SAV. 'Tis most court-like spoken, sir; but how might we do to have a sight of your dog and cat? FAST. His dog is in the court, lady. SAV. And not your cat? how dare you trust her behind you, sir. PUNT. Troth, madam, she hath sore eyes, and she doth keep her chamber; marry, I have left her under sufficient guard there are two of my followers to attend her. SAV. I'll give you some water for her eyes. When do you go, sir? PUNT. Certes, sweet lady, I know not. FAST. He doth stay the rather, madam, to present your acute judgment with so courtly and well parted a gentleman as yet your ladyship hath never seen. SAV. What is he, gentle monsieur Brisk? not that gentleman? [POINTS TO FUNGOSO. FAST. No, lady, this is a kinsman to justice Silence. PUNT. Pray, sir, give me leave to report him. He's a gentleman, lady, of that rare and admirable faculty, as, I protest, I know not his like in Europe; he is exceedingly valiant, an excellent scholar, and so exactly travelled, that he is able, in discourse, to deliver you a model of any prince's court in the world; speaks the languages with that purity of phrase, and facility of accent, that it breeds astonishment; his wit, the most exuberant, and, above wonder, pleasant, of all that ever entered the concave of this ear. FAST. 'Tis most true, lady; marry, he is no such excellent proper man. PUNT. His travels have changed his complexion, madam. SAV. O, sir Puntarvolo, you must think every man was not born to have my servant Brisk's feature. PUNT. But that which transcends all, lady; he doth so peerlessly imitate any manner of person for gesture, action, passion, or whatever -- FAST. Ay, especially a rustic or a clown, madam, that it is not possible for the sharpest-sighted wit in the world to discern any sparks of the gentleman in him, when he does it. SAV. O, monsieur Brisk, be not so tyrannous to confine all wits within the compass of your own; not find the sparks of a gentleman in him, if he be a gentleman! FUNG. No, in truth, sweet lady, I believe you cannot. SAV. Do you believe so? why, I can find sparks of a gentleman in you, sir. PUNT. Ay, he is a gentleman, madam, and a reveller. FUNG. Indeed, I think I have seen your ladyship at our revels. SAV. Like enough, sir; but would I might see this wonder you talk of; may one have a sight of him for any reasonable sum? PUNT. Yes, madam, he will arrive presently. SAV. What, and shall we see him clown it? FAST. I'faith, sweet lady, that you shall; see, here he comes. ENTER MACILENTE AND SOGLIARDO. PUNT. This is he! pray observe him, lady. SAV. Beshrew me, he clowns it properly indeed. PUNT. Nay, mark his courtship. SOG. How does my sweet lady? hot and moist? beautiful and lusty? ha! SAV. Beautiful, an it please you, sir, but not lusty. SOG. O ho, lady, it pleases you to say so, in truth: And how does my sweet lady? in health? 'Bonaroba, quaeso, que novelles? que novelles?' sweet creature! SAV. O excellent! why, gallants, is this he that cannot be deciphered? they were very blear-witted, i'faith, that could not discern the gentleman in him. PUNT. But you do, in earnest, lady? SAV. Do I sir! why, if you had any true court-judgment in the carriage of his eye, and that inward power that forms his countenance, you might perceive his counterfeiting as clear as the noon-day; alas -- nay, if you would have tried my wit, indeed, you should never have told me he was a gentleman, but presented him for a true clown indeed; and then have seen if I could have deciphered him. FAST. 'Fore God, her ladyship says true, knight: but does he not affect the clown most naturally, mistress? PUNT. O, she cannot but affirm that, out of the bounty of her judgment. SAV. Nay, out of doubt he does well, for a gentleman to imitate: but I warrant you, he becomes his natural carriage of the gentleman, much better than his clownery. FAST. 'Tis strange, in truth, her ladyship should see so far into him! PUNT. Ay, is it not? SAV. Faith, as easily as may be; not decipher him, quoth you! FUNG. Good sadness, I wonder at it MACI. Why, has she deciphered him, gentlemen? PUNT. O, most miraculously, and beyond admiration. MACI. Is it possible? FAST. She hath gather'd most infallible signs of the gentleman in him, that's certain. SAV. Why, gallants, let me laugh at you a little: was this your device, to try my judgment in a gentleman? MACI. Nay, lady, do not scorn us, though you have this gift of perspicacy above others. What if he should be no gentleman now, but a clown indeed, lady? PUNT. How think you of that? would not your ladyship be Out of your Humour? FAST. O, but she knows it is not so. SAV. What if he were not a man, ye may as well say? Nay, if your worships could gull me so, indeed, you were wiser than you are taken for. MACI. In good faith, lady, he is a very perfect clown, both by father and mother; that I'll assure you. SAV. O, sir, you are very pleasurable. MACI. Nay, do but look on his hand, and that shall resolve you; look you, lady, what a palm here is. SOG. Tut, that was with holding the plough. MACI. The plough! did you discern any such thing in him, madam? FAST. Faith no, she saw the gentleman as bright as noon-day, she; she deciphered him at first. MACI. Troth, I am sorry your ladyship's sight should be so suddenly struck. SAV. O, you are goodly beagles! FAST. What, is she gone? SOG. Nay, stay, sweet lady: 'que novelles? que novelles?' SAV. Out, you fool, you! [EXIT IN ANGER. FUNG. She's Out of her Humour, i'faith. FAST. Nay, let's follow it while 'tis hot, gentlemen. PUNT. Come, on mine honour we shall make her blush in the presence; my spleen is great with laughter. MACI. Your laughter will be a child of a feeble life, I believe, sir. [ASIDE.] -- Come, signior, your looks are too dejected, methinks; why mix you not mirth with the rest? FUNG. Od's will, this suit frets me at the soul. I'll have it alter'd to-morrow, sure. SCENE III. -- THE PALACE STAIRS. ENTER SHIFT. SHIFT. I am come to the court, to meet with my Countenance, Sogliardo; poor men must be glad of such countenance, when they can get no better. Well, need may insult upon a man, but it shall never make him despair of consequence. The world will say, 'tis base: tush, base! 'tis base to live under the earth, not base to live above it by any means. ENTER FASTIDIOUS, PUNTARVOLO, SOGLIARDO, FUNGOSO, AND MACILENTE. FAST. The poor lady is most miserably out of her humour, i'faith. PUNT. There was never so witty a jest broken, at the tilt of all the court wits christen'd. MACI. O, this applause taints it foully. SOG. I think I did my part in courting. -- O, Resolution! PUNT. Ay me, my dog! MACI. Where is he? FAST. 'Sprecious, go seek for the fellow, good signior [EXIT FUNGOSO. PUNT. Here, here I left him. MACI. Why, none was here when we came in now, but cavalier Shirt; enquire of him. FAST. Did you see sir Puntarvolo's dog here, cavalier, since you came? SHIFT. His dog, sir! he may look his dog, sir; I saw none of his dog, sir. MACI. Upon my life, he has stolen your dog, sir, and been hired to it by some that have ventured with you; you may guess by his peremptory answers. PUNT. Not unlike; for he hath been a notorious thief by his own confession. Sirrah, where is my dog? SHIFT. Charge me with your dog, sir! I have none of your dog, sir. PUNT. Villain, thou liest. SHIFT. Lie, sir! s'blood, -- you are but a man, sir. PUNT. Rogue and thief, restore him. SOG. Take heed, sir Puntarvolo, what you do; he'll bear no coals, I can tell you, o' my word. MACI. This is rare. SOG. It's marle he stabs you not: By this light, he hath stabbed forty, for forty times less matter, I can tell you of my knowledge. PUNT. I will make thee stoop, thou abject. SOG. Make him stoop, sir! Gentlemen, pacify him, or he'll be kill'd. MACI. Is he so tall a man? SOG. Tall a man! if you love his life, stand betwixt them. Make him stoop! PUNT. My dog, villain, or I will hang thee; thou hast confest robberies, and other felonious acts, to this gentleman, thy Countenance -- SOG. I'll bear no witness. PUNT. And without my dog, I will hang thee, for them. [SHIFT KNEELS. SOG. What! kneel to thine enemies! SHIFT. Pardon me, good sir; God is my witness, I never did robbery in all my life. RE-ENTER FUNGOSO. FUNG. O, sir Puntarvolo, your dog lies giving up the ghost in the wood-yard. MACI. Heart, is he not dead yet! [ASIDE. PUNT. O, my dog, born to disastrous fortune! pray you conduct me, sir. [EXIT WITH FUNGOSO. SOG. How! did you never do any robbery in your life? MACI. O, this is good! so he swore, sir. SOG. Ay, I heard him: and did you swear true, sir? SHIFT. Ay, as I hope to be forgiven, sir, I never robbed any man; I never stood by the highwayside, sir, but only said so, because I would get myself a name, and be counted a tall man. SOG. Now out, base viliaco! thou my Resolution! I thy Countenance! By this light, gentlemen, he hath confest to me the most inexorable company of robberies, and damn'd himself that he did 'em: you never heard the like. Out, scoundrel, out! follow me no more, I command thee; out of my sight, go, hence, speak not; I will not hear thee: away, camouccio! [EXIT SHIFT. MACI. O, how I do feed upon this now, and fat myself! here were a couple unexpectedly dishumour'd. Well, by this time, I hope, sir Puntarvolo and his dog are both out of humour to travel. [ASIDE.] -- Nay, gentlemen, why do you not seek out the knight, and comfort him? our supper at the Mitre must of necessity hold to-night, if you love your reputations. FAST. 'Fore God, I am so melancholy for his dog's disaster -- but I'll go. SOG. Faith, and I may go too, but I know I shall be so melancholy. MACI. Tush, melancholy! you must forget that now, and remember you lie at the mercy of a fury: Carlo will rack your sinews asunder, and rail you to dust, if you come not. [EXEUNT. MIT. O, then their fear of Carlo, belike, makes them hold their meeting. COR. Ay, here he comes; conceive him but to be enter'd the Mitre, and 'tis enough. SCENE IV. -- A ROOM AT THE MITRE. ENTER CARLO. CAR. Holla! where be these shot-sharks? ENTER DRAWER. DRAW. By and by; you are welcome, good master Buffone. CAR. Where's George? call me George hither, quickly. DRAW. What wine please you have, sir? I'll draw you that's neat, master Buffone. CAR. Away, neophite, do as I bid thee, bring my dear George to me: -- ENTER GEORGE. Mass, here he comes. GEORGE. Welcome, master Carlo. CAR. What, is supper ready, George? GEORGE. Ay, sir, almost: Will you have the cloth laid, master Carlo? CAR. O, what else? Are none of the gallants come yet? GEORGE. None yet, sir. CAR. Stay, take me with you, George; let me have a good fat loin of pork laid to the fire, presently. GEORGE. It shall, sir. CAR. And withal, hear you, draw me the biggest shaft you have out of the butt you wot of; away, you know my meaning, George; quick! GEORGE. Done, sir. [EXIT. CAR. I never hungered so much for anything in my life, as I do to know our gallants' success at court; now is that lean, bald-rib Macilente, that salt villain, plotting some mischievous device, and lies a soaking in their frothy humours like a dry crust, till he has drunk 'em all up: Could the pummice but hold up his eyes at other men's happiness, in any reasonable proportion, 'slid, the slave were to be loved next heaven, above honour, wealth, rich fare, apparel, wenches, all the delights of the belly and the groin, whatever. RE-ENTER GEORGE WITH TWO JUGS OF WINE. GEORGE. Here, master Carlo. CAR. Is it right, boy? GEORGE. Ay, sir, I assure you 'tis right. CAR. Well said, my dear George, depart: [EXIT GEORGE.] -- Come, my small gimblet, you in the false scabbard, away, so! [PUTS FORTH THE DRAWER, AND SHUTS THE DOOR.] Now to you, sir Burgomaster, let's taste of your bounty. MIT. What, will he deal upon such quantities of wine, alone? COR. You will perceive that, sir. CAR. [DRINKS.] Ay, marry, sir, here's purity; O, George -- I could bite off his nose for this now, sweet rogue, he has drawn nectar, the very soul of the grape! I'll wash my temples with some on't presently, and drink some half a score draughts; 'twill heat the brain, kindle my imagination, I shall talk nothing but crackers and fire-works to-night. So, sir! please you to be here, sir, and I here: so. [SETS THE TWO CUPS ASUNDER, DRINKS WITH THE ONE, AND PLEDGES WITH THE OTHER, SPEAKING FOR EACH OF THE CUPS, AND DRINKING ALTERNATELY. COR. This is worth the observation, signior. CAR. 1 CUP. Now, sir, here's to you; and I present you with so much of my love. 2 CUP. I take it kindly from you, sir. [DRINKS], and will return you the like proportion; but withal, sir, remembering the merry night we had at the countess's, you know where, sir. 1 CUP. By heaven, you put me in mind now of a very necessary office, which I will propose in your pledge, sir; the health of that honourable countess, and the sweet lady that sat by her, sir. 2 CUP. I do vail to it with reverence [DRINKS]. And now, signior, with these ladies, I'll be bold to mix the health of your divine mistress. 1 CUP. Do you know her, sir? 2 CUP. O lord, sir, ay; and in the respectful memory and mention of her, I could wish this wine were the most precious drug in the world. 1 CUP. Good faith, sir, you do honour me in't exceedingly. [DRINKS.] MIT. Whom should he personate in this, signior? COR. Faith, I know not, sir; observe, observe him. 2 CUP. If it were the basest filth, or mud that runs in the channel, I am bound to pledge it respectively, sir. [DRINKS.] And now, sir, here is a replenish'd bowl, which I will reciprocally turn upon you, to the health of the count Frugale. 1 CUP. The count Frugale's health, sir? I'll pledge it on my knees, by this light. [KNEELS. 2 CUP. Nay, do me right, sir. 1 CUP. So I do, in faith. 2 CUP. Good faith you do not; mine was fuller. 1 CUP. Why, believe me, it was not. 2 CUP. Believe me it was; and you do lie. 1 CUP. Lie, sir! 2 CUP. Ay, sir. 1 CUP. 'Swounds! you rascal! 2 CUP. O, come, stab if you have a mind to it. 1 CUP. Stab! dost thou think I dare not? CAR. [SPEAKS IN HIS OWN PERSON.] Nay, I beseech you, gentlemen, what means this? nay, look, for shame respect your reputations. [OVERTURNS WINE, POT, CUPS, AND ALL. ENTER MACILENTE. MACI. Why, how now, Carlo! what humour's this? CAR. O, my good mischief! art thou come? where are the rest, where are the rest? MACI. Faith, three of our ordnance are burst. CAR. Burst! how comes that? MACI. Faith, overcharged, overcharged. CAR. But did not the train hold? MACI. O, yes, and the poor lady is irrecoverably blown up. CAR. Why, but which of the munition is miscarried, ha? MACI. Imprimis, sir Puntarvolo; next, the Countenance and Resolution. CAR. How, how, for the love of wit? MACI. Troth, the Resolution is proved recreant; the Countenance hath changed his copy; and the passionate knight is shedding funeral tears over his departed dog. CAR. What! is his dog dead? MACI. Poison'd, 'tis thought; marry, how, or by whom, that's left for some cunning woman here o' the Bank-side to resolve. For my part, I know nothing more than that we are like to have an exceeding melancholy supper of it. CAR. 'Slife, and I had purposed to be extraordinarily merry, I had drunk off a good preparative of old sack here; but will they come, will they come? MACI. They will assuredly come; marry, Carlo, as thou lov'st me, run over 'em all freely to-night, and especially the knight; spare no sulphurous jest that may come out of that sweaty forge of thine; but ply them with all manner of shot, minion, saker, culverin, or anything, what thou wilt. CAR. I warrant thee, my dear case of petrionels; so I stand not in dread of thee, but that thou'lt second me. MACI. Why, my good German tapster, I will. CAR. What George! Lomtero, Lomtero, etc. [SINGS AND DANCES. RE-ENTER GEORGE. GEORGE. Did you call, master Carlo? CAR. More nectar, George: Lomtero, etc. GEORGE. Your meat's ready, sir, an your company were come. CAR. Is the loin pork enough? GEORGE. Ay, sir, it is enough. [EXIT. MACI. Pork! heart, what dost thou with such a greasy dish? I think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so like a glue-pot. CAR. True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it too, they would not, like ragged laths, rub out so many doublets as they do; but thou know'st not a good dish, thou. O, it's the only nourishing meat in the world. No marvel though that saucy, stubborn generation, the Jews, were forbidden it; for what would they have done, well pamper'd with fat pork, that durst murmur at their Maker out of garlick and onions? 'Slight! fed with it, the whoreson strummel-patch'd, goggle-eyed grumble-dories, would have gigantomachised -- RE-ENTER GEORGE WITH WINE. Well said, my sweet George, fill, fill. MIT. This savours too much of profanation. COR. O -- -- Servetur ad imum, Qualis ab incoepto processerit, et sibi constet. "The necessity of his vein compels a toleration, for; bar this, and dash him out of humour before his time." CAR. "'Tis an axiom in natural philosophy, what comes nearest the nature of that it feeds, converts quicker to nourishment, and doth sooner essentiate." Now nothing in flesh and entrails assimilates or resembles man more than a hog or swine. [DRINKS. MACI. True; and he, to requite their courtesy, oftentimes doffeth his own nature, and puts on theirs; as when he becomes as churlish as a hog, or as drunk as a sow; but to your conclusion. [DRINKS. CAR. Marry, I say, nothing resembling man more than a swine, it follows, nothing can be more nourishing; for indeed (but that it abhors from our nice nature) if we fed upon one another, we should shoot up a great deal faster, and thrive much better; I refer me to your usurous cannibals, or such like; but since it is so contrary, pork, pork, is your only feed. MACI. I take it, your devil be of the same diet; he would never have desired to have been incorporated into swine else. -- O, here comes the melancholy mess; upon 'em, Carlo, charge, charge! ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK, SOGLIARDO, AND FUNGOSO. CAR. 'Fore God, sir Puntarvolo, I am sorry for your heaviness: body o' me, a shrew'd mischance! why, had you no unicorn's horn, nor bezoar's stone about you, ha? PUNT. Sir, I would request you be silent. MACI. Nay, to him again. CAR. Take comfort, good knight, if your cat have recovered her catarrh, fear nothing; your dog's mischance may be holpen. FAST. Say how, sweet Carlo; for, so God mend me, the poor knight's moans draw me into fellowship of his misfortunes. But be not discouraged, good sir Puntarvolo, I am content your adventure shall be performed upon your cat. MACI. I believe you, musk-cod, I believe you; for rather than thou would'st make present repayment, thou would'st take it upon his own bare return from Calais [ASIDE. CAR. Nay, 'slife, he'd be content, so he were well rid out of his company, to pay him five for one, at his next meeting him in Paul's. [ASIDE TO MACILENTE.] -- But for your dog, sir Puntarvolo, if he be not out-right dead, there is a friend of mine, a quack-salver, shall put life in him again, that's certain. FUNG. O, no, that comes too late. MACI. 'Sprecious! knight, will you suffer this? PUNT. Drawer, get me a candle and hard wax presently. [EXIT GEORGE. SOG. Ay, and bring up supper; for I am so melancholy. CAR. O, signior, where's your Resolution? SOG. Resolution! hang him, rascal: O, Carlo, if you love me, do not mention him. CAR. Why, how so? SOG. O, the arrantest crocodile that ever Christian was acquainted with. By my gentry, I shall think the worse of tobacco while I live, for his sake: I did think him to be as tall a man -- MACI. Nay, Buffone, the knight, the knight [ASIDE TO CARLO. CAR. 'Slud, he looks like an image carved out of box, full of knots; his face is, for all the world, like a Dutch purse, with the mouth downward, his beard the tassels; and he walks -- let me see -- as melancholy as one o' the master's side in the Counter. -- Do you hear, sir Puntarvolo? PUNT. Sir, I do entreat you, no more, but enjoin you to silence, as you affect your peace. CAR. Nay, but dear knight, understand here are none but friends, and such as wish you well, I would have you do this now; flay me your dog presently (but in any case keep the head) and stuff his skin well with straw, as you see these dead monsters at Bartholomew fair. PUNT. I shall be sudden, I tell you. CAR. O, if you like not that, sir, get me somewhat a less dog, and clap into the skin; here's a slave about the town here, a Jew, one Yohan: or a fellow that makes perukes will glue it on artificially, it shall never be discern'd; besides, 'twill be so much the warmer for the hound to travel in, you know. MACI. Sir Puntarvolo, death, can you be so patient! CAR. Or thus, sir; you may have, as you come through Germany, a familiar for little or nothing, shall turn itself into the shape of your dog, or any thing, what you will, for certain hours -- [PUNTARVOLO STRIKES HIM] -- Ods my life, knight, what do you mean? you'll offer no violence, will you? hold, hold! RE-ENTER GEORGE, WITH WAX, AND A LIGHTED CANDLE. PUNT. 'Sdeath, you slave, you ban-dog, you! CAR. As you love wit, stay the enraged knight, gentlemen. PUNT. By my knighthood, he that stirs in his rescue, dies. -- Drawer, begone! [EXIT GEORGE. CAR. Murder, murder, murder! PUNT. Ay, are you howling, you wolf? -- Gentlemen, as you tender your lives, suffer no man to enter till my revenge be perfect. Sirrah, Buffone, lie down; make no exclamations, but down; down, you cur, or I will make thy blood flow on my rapier hilts. CAR. Sweet knight, hold in thy fury, and 'fore heaven I'll honour thee more than the Turk does Mahomet. PUNT. Down, I say! [CARLO LIES DOWN.] -- Who's there? [KNOCKING WITHIN. CONS. [WITHIN.] Here's the constable, open the doors. CAR. Good Macilente -- PUNT. Open no door; if the Adalantado of Spain were here he should not enter: one help me with the light, gentlemen; you knock in vain, sir officer. CAR. 'Et tu, Brute!' PUNT. Sirrah, close your lips, or I will drop it in thine eyes, by heaven. CAR. O! O! CONS. [WITHIN] Open the door, or I will break it open. MACI. Nay, good constable, have patience a little; you shall come in presently; we have almost done. [PUNTARVOLO SEALS UP CARLO'S LIPS. PUNT. So, now, are you Out of your Humour, sir? Shift, gentlemen [THEY ALL DRAW, AND RUN OUT, EXCEPT FUNGOSO, WHO CONCEALS HIMSELF BENEATH THE TABLE. ENTER CONSTABLE AND OFFICERS, AND SEIZE FASTIDIOUS AS HE IS RUSHING BY. CONS. Lay hold upon this gallant, and pursue the rest. FAST. Lay hold on me, sir, for what? CONS. Marry, for your riot here, sir, with the rest of your companions. FAST. My riot! master constable, take heed what you do. Carlo, did I offer any violence? CONS. O, sir, you see he is not in case to answer you, and that makes you so peremptory. RE-ENTER GEORGE AND DRAWER. FAST. Peremptory! 'Slife, I appeal to the drawers, if I did him any hard measure. GEORGE. They are all gone, there's none of them will be laid any hold on. CONS. Well, sir, you are like to answer till the rest can be found out. FAST. 'Slid, I appeal to George here. CONS. Tut, George was not here: away with him to the Counter, sirs. -- Come, sir, you were best get yourself drest somewhere. [EXEUNT CONST. AND OFFICERS, WITH FAST. AND CAR. GEORGE. Good lord, that master Carlo could not take heed, and knowing what a gentleman the knight is, if he be angry. DRAWER. A pox on 'em, they have left all the meat on our hands; would they were choaked with it for me! RE-ENTER MACILENTE. MACI. What, are they gone, sirs? GEORGE. O, here's master Macilente. MACI. [POINTING TO FUNGOSO.] Sirrah, George, do you see that concealment there, that napkin under the table? GEORGE. 'Ods so, signior Fungoso! MACI. He's good pawn for the reckoning; be sure you keep him here, and let him not go away till I come again, though he offer to discharge all; I'll return presently. GEORGE. Sirrah, we have a pawn for the reckoning. DRAW. What, of Macilente? GEORGE. No; look under the table. FUNG. [CREEPING OUT.] I hope all be quiet now; if I can get but forth of this street, I care not: masters, I pray you tell me, is the constable gone? GEORGE. What, master Fungoso! FUNG. Was't not a good device this same of me, sirs? GEORGE. Yes, faith; have you been here all this while? FUNG. O lord, ay; good sir, look an the coast be clear, I'd fain be going. GEORGE. All's clear, sir, but the reckoning; and that you must clear and pay before you go, I assure you. FUNG. I pay! 'Slight, I eat not a bit since I came into the house, yet. DRAW. Why, you may when you please, 'tis all ready below that was bespoken. FUNG. Bespoken! not by me, I hope? GEORGE. By you, sir! I know not that; but 'twas for you and your company, I am sure. FUNG. My company! 'Slid, I was an invited guest, so I was. DRAW. Faith we have nothing to do with that, sir: they are all gone but you, and we must be answered; that's the short and the long on't. FUNG. Nay, if you will grow to extremities, my masters, then would this pot, cup, and all were in my belly, if I have a cross about me. GEORGE. What, and have such apparel! do not say so, signior; that mightily discredits your clothes. FUNG. As I am an honest man, my tailor had all my money this morning, and yet I must be fain to alter my suit too. Good sirs, let me go, 'tis Friday night, and in good truth I have no stomach in the world to eat any thing. DRAW. That's no matter, so you pay, sir. FUNG. 'Slight, with what conscience can you ask me to pay that I never drank for? GEORGE. Yes, sir, I did see you drink once. FUNG. By this cup, which is silver, but you did not; you do me infinite wrong: I looked in the pot once, indeed, but I did not drink. DRAW. Well, sir, if you can satisfy our master, it shall be all one to us. WITHIN. George! GEORGE. By and by. [EXEUNT. COR. Lose not yourself now, signior SCENE V. -- A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE. ENTER MACILENTE AND DELIRO. MACI. Tut, sir, you did bear too hard a conceit of me in that; but I will not make my love to you most transparent, in spite of any dust of suspicion that may be raised to cloud it; and henceforth, since I see it is so against your humour, I will never labour to persuade you. DELI. Why, I thank you, signior; but what is that you tell me may concern my peace so much? MACI. Faith, sir, 'tist hus. Your wife's brother, signior Fungoso, being at supper to-night at a tavern, with a sort of gallants, there happened some division amongst them, and he is left in pawn for the reckoning. Now, if ever you look that time shall present you with an happy occasion to do your wife some gracious and acceptable service, take hold of this opportunity, and presently go and redeem him; for, being her brother, and his credit so amply engaged as now it is, when she shall hear, (as he cannot himself, but he must out of extremity report it,) that you came, and offered y ourself so kindly, and with that respect of his reputation; why, the benefit cannot but make her dote, and grow mad of your affections. DELI. Now, by heaven, Macilente, I acknowledge myself exceedingly indebted to you, by this kind tender of your love; and I am sorry to remember that I was ever so rude, to neglect a friend of your importance. -- Bring me shoes and a cloak here. -- I was going to bed, if you had not come. What tavern is it? MACI. The Mitre, sir. DELI. O! Why, Fido! my shoes. -- Good faith, it cannot but please her exceedingly. ENTER FALLACE. FAL. Come, I marle what piece of night-work you have in hand now, that you call for a cloak, and your shoes: What, is this your pander? DELI. O, sweet wife, speak lower, I would not he should hear thee for a world -- FAL. Hang him, rascal, I cannot abide him for his treachery, with his wild quick-set beard there. Whither go you now with him? DELI. No, whither with him, dear wife; I go alone to a place, from whence I will return instantly. -- Good Macilente, acquaint not her with it by any means, it may come so much the more accepted; frame some other answer. -- I'll come back immediately. [EXIT. FAL. Nay, an I be not worthy to know whither you go, stay till I take knowledge of your coming back. MACI. Hear you, mistress Deliro. FAL. So, sir, and what say you? MACI. Faith, lady, my intents will not deserve this slight respect, when you shall know them. FAL. Your intents! why, what may your intents be, for God's sake? MACI. Troth, the time allows no circumstance, lady, therefore know this was but a device to remove your husband hence, and bestow him securely, whilst, with more conveniency, I might report to you a misfortune that hath happened to monsieur Brisk -- Nay, comfort, sweet lady. This night, being at supper, a sort of young gallants committed a riot, for the which he only is apprehended and carried to the Counter, where, if your husband, and other creditors, should but have knowledge of him, the poor gentleman were undone for ever. FAL. Ah me! that he were. MACI. Now, therefore, if you can think upon any present means for his delivery, do not foreslow it. A bribe to the officer that committed him will do it. FAL. O lord, sir! he shall not want for a bribe; pray you, will you commend me to him, and say I'll visit him presently. MACI. No, lady, I shall do you better service, in protracting your husband's return, that you may go with more safety. FAL. Good truth, so you may; farewell, good sir. [EXIT MACI.] -- Lord, how a woman may be mistaken in a man! I would have sworn upon all the Testaments in the world he had not loved master Brisk. Bring me my keys there, maid. Alas, good gentleman, if all I have in this earthly world will pleasure him, it shall be at his service. [EXIT. MIT. How Macilente sweats in this business, if you mark him! COR. Ay, you shall see the true picture of spite, anon: here comes the pawn and his redeemer. SCENE VI. -- A ROOM AT THE MITRE. ENTER DELIRO, FUNGOSO, AND GEORGE. DELI. Come, brother, be not discouraged for this, man; what! FUNG. No, truly, I am not discouraged; but I protest to you, brother, I have done imitating any more gallants either in purse or apparel, but as shall become a gentleman, for good carriage, or so. DELI. You say well. -- This is all in the bill here, is it not? GEORGE. Ay, sir. DELI. There's your money, tell it: and, brother, I am glad I met with so good occasion to shew my love to you. FUNG. I will study to deserve it in good truth an I live. DELI. What, is it right? GEORGE. Ay, sir, and I thank you. FUNG. Let me have a capon's leg saved, now the reckoning is paid. GEORGE. You shall, sir [EXIT. ENTER MACILENTE. MACI. Where's signior Deliro? DELI. Here, Macilente. MACI. Hark you, sir, have you dispatch'd this same? DELI. Ay, marry have I. MACI. Well then, I can tell you news; Brisk is in the Counter. DELI. In the Counter! MACI. 'Tis true, sir, committed for the stir here to-night. Now would I have you send your brother home afore him, with the report of this your kindness done him, to his sister, which will so pleasingly possess her, and out of his mouth too, that in the meantime you may clap your action on Brisk, and your wife, being in so happy a mood, cannot entertain it ill, by any means. DELI. 'Tis very true, she cannot, indeed, I think. MACI. Think! why 'tis past thought; you shall never meet the like opportunity, I assure you. DELI. I will do it. -- Brother, pray you go home afore (this gentleman and I have some private business), and tell my sweet wife I'll come presently. FUNG. I will, brother. MACI. And, signior, acquaint your sister, how liberally, and out of his bounty, your brother has used you (do you see?), made you a man of good reckoning; redeem'd that you never were possest of, credit; gave you as gentlemanlike terms as might be; found no fault with your coming behind the fashion; nor nothing. FUNG. Nay, I am out of those humours now. MACI. Well, if you be out, keep your distance, and be not made a shot-clog any more. -- Come, signior, let's make haste. [EXEUNT. SCENE VII. -- THE COUNTER. ENTER FALLACE AND FASTIDIOUS BRISK. FAL. O, master Fastidious, what pity is it to see so sweet a man as you are, in so sour a place! [KISSES HIM. COR. As upon her lips, does she mean? MIT. O, this is to be imagined the Counter, belike. FAST. Troth, fair lady, 'tis first the pleasure of the fates, and next of the constable, to have it so: but I am patient, and indeed comforted the more in your kind visit. FAL. Nay, you shall be comforted in me more than this, if you please, sir. I sent you word by my brother, sir, that my husband laid to 'rest you this morning; I know now whether you received it or no. FAST. No, believe it, sweet creature, your brother gave me no such intelligence. FAL. O, the lord! FAST. But has your husband any such purpose? FAL. O, sweet master Brisk, yes: and therefore be presently discharged, for if he come with his actions upon you, Lord deliver you! you are in for one half-a-score year; he kept a poor man in Ludgate once twelve year for sixteen shillings. Where's your keeper? for love's sake call him, let him take a bribe, and despatch you. Lord, how my heart trembles! here are no spies, are there? FAST. No, sweet mistress. Why are you in this passion? FAL. O lord, master Fastidious, if you knew how I took up my husband to-day, when he said he would arrest you; and how I railed at him that persuaded him to it, the scholar there (who, on my conscience, loves you now), and what care I took to send you intelligence by my brother; and how I gave him four sovereigns for his pains: and now, how I came running out hither without man or boy with me, so soon as I heard on't; you'd say I were in a passion indeed. Your keeper, for God's sake! O, master Brisk, as 'tis in 'Euphues', 'Hard is the choice, when one is compelled either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking to live with shame'. FAST. Fair lady, I conceive you, and may this kiss assure you, that where adversity hath, as it were, contracted, prosperity shall not -- Od's me! your husband. ENTER DELIRO AND MACILENTE. FAL. O me! DELI. Ay! Is it thus? MACI. Why, how now, signior Deliro! has the wolf seen you, ha? Hath Gorgon's head made marble of you? DELI. Some planet strike me dead! MACI. Why, look you, sir, I told you, you might have suspected this long afore, had you pleased, and have saved this labour of admiration now, and passion, and such extremities as this frail lump of flesh is subject unto. Nay, why do you not doat now, signior? methinks you should say it were some enchantment, 'deceptio visus', or so, ha! If you could persuade yourself it were a dream now, 'twere excellent: faith, try what you can do, signior: it may be your imagination will be brought to it in time; there's nothing impossible. FAL. Sweet husband! DELI. Out, lascivious strumpet! [EXIT. MACI. What! did you see how ill that stale vein became him afore, of 'sweet wife', and 'dear heart'; and are you fallen just into the same now, with 'sweet husband'! Away, follow him, go, keep state: what! remember you are a woman, turn impudent; give him not the head, though you give him the horns. Away. And yet, methinks, you should take your leave of 'enfant perdu' here, your forlorn hope. [EXIT FAL.] -- How now, monsieur Brisk? what! Friday night, and in affliction too, and yet your pulpamenta, your delicate morsels! I perceive the affection of ladies and gentlewomen pursues you wheresoever you go, monsieur. FAST. Now, in good faith, and as I am gentle, there could not have come a thing in this world to have distracted me more, than the wrinkled fortunes of this poor dame. MACI. O yes, sir; I can tell you a think will distract you much better, believe it: Signior Deliro has entered three actions against you, three actions, monsieur! marry, one of them (I'll put you in comfort) is but three thousand, and the other two, some five thousand pound together: trifles, trifles. FAST. O, I am undone. MACI. Nay, not altogether so, sir; the knight must have his hundred pound repaid, that will help too; and then six score pounds for a diamond, you know where. These be things will weigh, monsieur, they will weigh. FAST. O heaven! MACI. What! do you sigh? this is to 'kiss the hand of a countess', to 'have her coach sent for you', to 'hang poniards in ladies' garters', to 'wear bracelets of their hair', and for every one of these great favours to 'give some slight jewel of five hundred crowns, or so'; why, 'tis nothing. Now, monsieur, you see the plague that treads on the heels o' your foppery: well, go your ways in, remove yourself to the two-penny ward quickly, to save charges, and there set up your rest to spend sir Puntarvolo's hundred pound for him. Away, good pomander, go! [EXIT FASTIDIOUS. Why here's a change! now is my soul at peace: I am as empty of all envy now, As they of merit to be envied at. My humour, like a flame, no longer lasts Than it hath stuff to feed it; and their folly Being now raked up in their repentant ashes, Affords no ampler subject to my spleen. I am so far from malicing their states, That I begin to pity them. It grieves me To think they have a being. I could wish They might turn wise upon it, and be saved now, So heaven were pleased; but let them vanish, vapours! -- Gentlemen, how like you it? has't not been tedious? COR. Nay, we have done censuring now. MIT. Yes, faith. MACI. How so? COR. Marry, because we'll imitate your actors, and be out of our humours. Besides, here are those round about you of more ability in censure than we, whose judgments can give it a more satisfying allowance; we'll refer you to them. [EXEUNT CORDATUS AND MITIS. MACI. [COMING FORWARD.] Ay, is it even so? -- Well, gentlemen, I should have gone in, and return'd to you as I was Asper at the first; but by reason the shift would have been somewhat long, and we are loth to draw your patience farther, we'll entreat you to imagine it. And now, that you may see I will be out of humour for company, I stand wholly to your kind approbation, and indeed am nothing so peremptory as I was in the beginning: marry, I will not do as Plautus in his 'Amphytrio', for all this, 'summi Jovis causa plaudite'; beg a plaudite for God's sake; but if you, out of the bounty of your good-liking, will bestow it, why, you may in time make lean Macilente as fat as sir John Falstaff. [EXIT. THE EPILOGUE AT THE PRESENTATION BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH BY MACILENTE. Never till now did object greet mine eyes With any light content: but in her graces All my malicious powers have lost their stings. Envy is fled from my soul at sight of her, And she hath chased all black thoughts from my bosom, Like as the sun doth darkness from the world, My stream of humour is run out of me, And as our city's torrent, bent t'infect The hallow'd bowels of the silver Thames, Is check'd by strength and clearness of the river, Till it hath spent itself even at the shore; So in the ample and unmeasured flood Of her perfections, are my passions drown'd; And I have now a spirit as sweet and clear As the more rarefied and subtle air: -- With which, and with a heart as pure as fire, Yet humble as the earth, do I implore [KNEELS. O heaven, that She, whose presence hath effected This change in me, may suffer most late change In her admired and happy government: May still this Island be call'd Fortunate, And rugged Treason tremble at the sound, When Fame shall speak it with an emphasis. Let foreign polity be dull as lead, And pale Invasion come with half a heart, When he but looks upon her blessed soil. The throat of War be stopt within her land, And turtle-footed Peace dance fairy rings About her court; where never may there come Suspect or danger, but all trust and safety. Let Flattery be dumb, and Envy blind In her dread presence; Death himself admire her; And may her virtues make him to forget The use of his inevitable hand. Fly from her, Age; sleep, Time, before her throne; Our strongest wall falls down, when she is gone. GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast ABRASE, smooth, blank ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly) ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of ACATER, caterer ACATES, cates ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii.4) ACCOST, draw near, approach ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with ACME, full maturity ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province ADJECTION, addition ADMIRATION, astonishment ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained ADSCRIVE, subscribe ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit ADVANCE, life ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence ADVERTISED, "be --," be it known to you ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you --?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move AFFECTED, disposed; beloved AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced AFFECTS, affections AFFRONT, "give the --," face AFFY, have confidence in; betroth AFTER, after the manner of AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie AIERY, nest, brood AIM, guess ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden") ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition ALMA-CANTARAS (astron.), parallels of altitude ALMAIN, name of a dance ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope ALONE, unequalled, without peer ALUDELS, subliming pots AMAZED, confused, perplexed AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458 AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities AMUSED, bewildered, amazed AN, if ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body ANDIRONS, fire-dogs ANGEL, gold coin worth 10s., stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare ANSWER, return hit in fencing ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon ANTIC, like a buffoon ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes APOZEM, decoction AFFERIL, peril APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander APPLY, attach APPREHEND, take into custody APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate APPROVE, prove, confirm APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly) APTITUDE, suitableness ARBOR, "make the --," cut up the game (Gifford) ARCHES, Court of Arches ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof ARRIDE, please ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights ARTICLE, item ARTIFICIALLY, artfully ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for ASSALTO (Ital.), assault ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field ASSOIL, solve ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat ATONE, reconcile ATTACH, attack, seize AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration AVOID, begone! get rid of AWAY WITH, endure AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum BABION, baboon BABY, doll BACK-SIDE, back premises BAFFLE, treat with contempt BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing BALARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid BALLACE, ballast BALLOO, game at ball BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating BANBURY, "brother of __," Puritan BANDOG, dog tied or chained up BANE, woe, ruin BANQUET, a light repast; dessert BARB, to clip gold BARBEL, fresh-water fish BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford) BARLEY-GREAK, game somewhat similar to base BASE, game of prisoner's base BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted" BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce BATOON, baton, stick BATTEN, feed, grow fat BAWSON, badger BEADSMAN, PRAYER-MAN, one engaged to pray for another BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes BEARWARD, bear leader BEDPHERE See Phere BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks of "laths"; a stick used in making a bed BEETLE, heavy mallet BEG, "I'd -- him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged") BELL-MAN, night watchman BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum BERLINA, pillory BESCUMBER, defile BESLAVE, beslabber BESOGNO, beggar BESPAWLE, bespatter BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary BEVER, drinking BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated BEWAY, reveal, make known BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison BID-STAND, highwayman BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap BILIVE (belive), with haste BILE, nothing, empty talk BILL, kind of pike BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick BIRDING, thieving BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot BLANK, originally a small French coin BLANK, white BLANKET, toss in a blanket BLAZE, outburst of violence BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding BLIN, "withouten --," without ceasing BLOW, puff up BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "-- order," "-- waiters" BLUSHET, blushing one BOB, jest, taunt BOB, beat, thump BODGE, measure BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair BOLT, roll (of material) BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub) BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) -- not always used in compliment BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk BOOKHOLDER, prompter BOOT, "to --," into the bargain; "no --," of no avail BORACHIO, bottle made of skin BORDELLO, brothel BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through BOTTLE (of han), bundle, truss BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel BOURD, jest BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford) BOW-POT, flower vase or pot BOYE, "terrible --," "angry --," roystering young bucks. (See Nares) BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls BRACH, bitch BRADAMANTE, a heroine in 'Orlando Furioso' BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads BRAKE, frame for confining a norse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford) BRANDISH, flourish of weapon BRASH, brace BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled) BRAVERIES, gallants BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of BREND, burn BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve BRISK, smartly dressed BRIZE, breese, gadfly BROAD-SEAL, state seal BROCK, badger (term of contempt) BROKE, transact business as a broker BROOK, endure, put up with BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar BRUIT, rumour BUCK, wash BUCKLE, bend BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture BUGLE, long-shaped bead BULLED, (?) boiled, swelled BULLIONS, trunk hose BULLY, term of familiar endearment BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog BURDEN, refrain, chorus BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor BURGULLION, braggadocio BURN, mark wooden measures (" --ing of cans") BURROUGH, pledge, security BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts BUTTER, NATHANIEL. ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham) BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence BUZZARD, simpleton BY AND BY, at once BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand CALIVER, light kind of musket CALLET, woman of ill repute CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford) CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares) CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave CAMUSED, flat CAN, knows CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late CANTER, sturdy beggar CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes" CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck CARE, take care; object CAROSH, coach, carriage CARPET, table-cover CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour CARWHITCHET, quip, pun CASAMATE, casemate, fortress CASE, a pair CASE, "in --," in condition CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat CAST, flight of hawks, couple CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate CAST, cashiered CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon CAT, structure used in sieges CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede" CATASTROPHE, conclusion CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer CATES, dainties, provisions CATSO, rogue, cheat CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful CENSURE, criticism; sentence CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead CESS, assess CHANGE, "hunt --," follow a fresh scent CHAPMAN, retail dealer CHARACTER, handwriting CHARGE, expense CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence CHARMING, exercising magic power CHARTEL, challenge CHEAP, bargain, market CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment CHECK AT, aim reproof at CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin CHEVEIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation CIMICI, bugs CINOPER, cinnabar CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares) CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular CITRONISE, turn citron colour CITTERN, kind of guitar CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress CIVIL, legal CLAP, clack, chatter CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble CLEM, starve CLICKET, latch CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance CLIMATE, country CLOSE, secret, private; secretive CLOSENESS, secrecy CLOTH, arras, hangings CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds COALS, "bear no --," submit to no affront COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms COAT-CARD, court-card COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring COB-SWAN, male swan COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye -- used as a term of reproach for a woman COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild COCKER, pamper COCKSCOMB, fool's cap COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues CODLING, softening by boiling COFFIN, raised crust of a pie COG, cheat, wheedle COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley) COKES, fool, gull COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts COLLECTION, composure; deduction COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh COLLY, blacken COLOUR, pretext COLOURS, "fear no --," no enemy (quibble) COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub COME ABOUT, charge, turn round COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616) COMMODITY, "current for --," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could COMMUNICATE, share COMPASS, "in --," within the range, sphere COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution COMPLIMENT, See Complement COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract COMPOSURE, composition COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion CONCEIT, apprehend CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea CONCEIVE, understand CONCENT, harmony, agreement CONCLUDE, infer, prove CONCOCT, assimilate, digest CONDEN'T, probably conducted CONDUCT, escort, conductor CONEY-CATCH, cheat CONFECT, sweetmeat CONFER, compare CONGIES, bows CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence CONSORT, company, concert CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently CONTEND, strive CONTINENT, holding together CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down CONVENT, assembly, meeting CONVERT, turn (oneself) CONVEY, transmit from one to another CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point" COPE-MAN, chapman COPESMATE, companion CORV (Lat. Copia), abundance, copiousness CORN ("powder - "), grain COROLLARY, finishing part or touch CORSIVE, corrosive CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as 'Coryat's Crudities' COSSET, pet lamb, pet COSTARD, head COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger COSTS, ribs COTE, hut COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy COTQUEAN, hussy COUNSEL, secret COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing COUNTER. See Compter COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play COUNTER, "hunt --," follow scent in reverse direction COUNTERFEIT, false coin COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's 'Court of James I.: "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle COURT-DOR, fool COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail COURTSHIP, courtliness COVETISE, avarice COWSHARD, cow dung COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool COY, shrink; disdain COYSTREL, low varlet COZEN, cheat CRACK, lively young rogue, wag CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word CRANCH, craunch CRANTON, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia") CRIMP, game at cards CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside CRISPED, with curled or waved hair CROP, gather, reap CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross CROSS AND FILE, heads and tails CROSSLET, crucible CROWD, fiddle CRUDITIES, undigested matter CRUMP, curl up CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross CRY ("he that cried Italian):, "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim(?); cry up CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation CUERPO, "in --," in undress CULLICE, broth CULLION, base fellow, coward CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants CULVERIN, kind of cannon CUNNING, skill CUNNING, skilful CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller CURE, care for CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious") CURST, shrewish, mischievous CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort CUSTARD, "quaking --," " -- politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning DAGGER (" -- frumety"), name of tavern DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song DAW, daunt DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside DEFALK, deduct, abate DEFEND, forbid DEGENEROUS, degenerate DEGREES, steps DELATE, accuse DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou DEPART, part with DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language DESERT, reward DESIGNMENT, design DESPERATE, rash, reckless DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against DETERMINE, terminate DETRACT, draw back, refuse DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet DEVISE, exact in every particular DEVISED, invented DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham) DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular DIGHT, dressed DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning DIMBLE, dingle, ravine DIMENSUM, stated allowance DISBASE, debase DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between DISCHARGE, settle for DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system DISCLAIM, renounce all part in DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display DISFAVOUR, disfigure DISPARGEMENT, legal term supplied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for DISPLAY, extend DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip DISPOSED, inclined to merriment DISPOSURE, disposal DISPRISE, depreciate DISPUNCT, not punctilious DISQUISITION, search DISSOLVED, enervated by grief DISTANCE, (?) proper measure DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence DISTASTE, render distasteful DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation DOG-BOLT, term of contempt DOLE, given in dole, charity DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces DOOM, verdict, sentence DOP, dip, low bow DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler DOR, (?) buzz; "give the --," make a fool of DOSSER, pannier, basket DOTES, endowments, qualities DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool DOUBLE, behave deceitfully DOXY, wench, mistress DRACHM, Greek silver coin DRESS, groom, curry DRESSING, coiffure DRIFT, intention DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot DUCKING, punishment for minor offences DUILL, grieve DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody DURINDANA, Orlando's sword DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed EAN, yean, bring forth young EASINESS, readiness EBOLITION, ebullition EDGE, sword EECH, eke EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent EKE, also, moreover E-LA, highest note in the scale EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves EMMET, ant ENGAGE, involve ENGHLE. See Ingle ENGHLE, cajole; fondle ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious ENGROSS, monopolise ENS, an existing thing, a substance ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds ENSURE, assure ENTERTAIN, take into service ENTREAT, plead ENTREATY, entertainment ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed ENVOY, denouement, conclusion ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium EPHEMERIDES, calendars EQUAL, just, impartial ERECTION, elevation in esteem ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac ERRANT, arrant ESSENTIATE, become assimilated ESTIMATION, esteem ESTRICH, ostrich ETHNIC, heathen EURIPUS, flux and reflux EVEN, just equable EVENT, fate, issue EVENT(ED), issue(d) EVERT, overturn EXACUATE, sharpen EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword EXEMPLIFY, make an example of EXEMPT, separate, exclude EXEQUIES, obsequies EXHALE, drag out EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate EXORNATION, ornament EXPECT, wait EXPLATE, terminate EXPLICATE, explain, unfold EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremediated EXTRACTION, essence EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose EXTRUDE, expel EYE, "in --," in view EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford) EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam FACE, appearance FACES ABOUT, military word of command FACINOROUS, extremely wicked FACKINGS, faith FACT, deed, act, crime FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling FAECES, dregs FAGIOLI, French beans FAIN, forced, necessitated FAITHFUL, believing FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil FALSIFY, feign (fencing term) FAME, report FAMILIAR, attendant spirit FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical FARCE, stuff FAR-FET. See Fet FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat FAUCET, tapster FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for --," in default of FAUTOR, partisan FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon FEAR(ED), affright(ed) FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action FEAT, elegant, trim FEE, "in --" by feudal obligation FEIZE, beat, belabour FELLOW, term of contempt FENNEL, emblem of flattery FERE, companion, fellow FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible FET, fetched FETCH, trick FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper FEWMETS, dung FICO, fig FIGGUM, (?) jugglery FIGMENT, fiction, invention FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "-- up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman FIT, pay one out, punish FITNESS, readiness FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford) FLAG, to fly low and waveringly FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.) FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon FLASKET, some kind of basket FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind FLAWN, custard FLEA, catch fleas FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate FLICKER-MOUSE, bat FLIGHT, light arrow FLITTER-MOUSE, bat FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously FLOWERS, pulverised substance FLY, familiar spirit FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage FOIST, cut-purse, sharper FOND(LY), foolish(ly) FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing FOPPERY, foolery FOR, "-- failing," for fear of failing FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from FORCE, "hunt at --," run the game down with dogs FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery FORESLOW, delay FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright FORGED, fabricated FORM, state formally FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional FORTHCOMING, produced when required FOUNDER, disable with over-riding FOURM, form, lair FOX, sword FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed FRAMFULL, peevish, sour-tempered FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford) FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers) FREQUENT, full FRICACE, rubbing FRICATRICE, woman of low character FRIPPERY, old clothes shop FROCK, smock-frock FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at least (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham) FRONTLESS, shameless FROTED, rubbed FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced FRUMP, flout, sneer FUCUS, dye FUGEAND, (?) figment: flighty, restless (N.E.D.) FULLAM, false dice FULMART, polecat FULSOME, foul, offensive FURIBUND, raging, furious GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley) GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time GAPE, be eager after GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant GARB, sheaf (Fr. Gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour BARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament GARDED, faced or trimmed GARNISH, fee GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.) GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings GEANCE, jaunt, errand GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair GELID, frozen GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river GENERAL, free, affable GENIUS, attendant spirit GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding GIB-CAT, tom-cat GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war GIGLOT, wanton GIMBLET, gimlet GING, gang GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe GLIDDER, glaze GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory GODWIT, bird of the snipe family GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver GOLL, hand GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit GOOD-Year, good luck GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd) GORCROW, carrion crow GORGET, neck armour GOSSIP, godfather GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool GRANNAM, grandam GRASS, (?) grease, fat GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome GRATIFY, give thanks to GRATITUDE, gratuity GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate GRAVITY, dignity GRAY, badger GRICE, cub GRIEF, grievance GRIPE, vulture, griffin GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of GROAT, fourpence GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household GROPE, handle, probe GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments") GUARD, caution, heed GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red GULL, simpleton, dupe GUST, taste HAB NAB, by, on, chance HABERGEON, coat of mail HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe HALL, "a --!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers HANDSEL, first money taken HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended HAP, fortune, luck HAPPILY, haply HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness HAPPY, rich HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.) HARROT, herald HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love" HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term) HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked HEAD, "first --," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man HEADBOROUGH, constable HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out HEARTEN, encourage HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns HECTIC, fever HEDGE IN, include HELM, upper part of a retort HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy" HOBBY, nag HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse HODDY-DODDY, fool HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford) HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent HOOD-WIND'D, blindfolded HORARY, hourly HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble) HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread HORSE-COURSES, horse-dealer HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which related his buffooneries and knavish tricks HUFF, hectoring, arrogance HUFF IT, swagger HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher HUM, beer and spirits mixed together HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both HUMOURS, manners HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry HURTLESS, harmless IDLE, useless, unprofitable ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed ILL-HABITED, unhealthy ILLUSTRATE, illuminate IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce IMPAIR, impairment IMPART, give money IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money IMPEACH, damage IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose IMPOSITION, duty imposed by IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control IMPRESS, money in advance IMPULSION, incitement IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice INCENSE, incite, stir up INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax INCH, "to their --es," according to their stature, capabilities INCH-PIN, sweet-bread INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection) INCUBEE, incubus INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical INDENT, enter into engagement INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic INDUCE, introduce INDUE, supply INEXORABLE, relentless INFANTED, born, produced INFLAME, augment charge INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented INGENUITY, ingenuousness INGENUOUS, generous INGINE. See Engin INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer) INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion INHABITABLE, uninhabitable INJURY, insult, affront IN-MATE, resident, indwelling INNATE, natural INNOCENT, simpleton INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry INQUISITION, inquiry INSTANT, immediate INSTRUMENT, legal document INSURE, assure INTEGRATE, complete, perfect INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with INTENDMENT, intention INTENT, intention, wish INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze INTENTIVE, attentive INTERESSED, implicated INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave INVINCIBLY, invisibly INWARD, intimate IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford) JACE, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent JACK, key of a virginal JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances JADE, befool JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious JERKING, lashing JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool JOLL, jowl JOLTHEAD, blockhead JUMP, agree, tally JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three KELL, cocoon KELLY, an alchemist KEMB, comb KEMIA, vessel for distillation KIBE, chap, sore KILDERKIN, small barrel KILL, kiln KIND, nature; species; "do one's --," act according to one's nature KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford) KIT, fiddle KNACK, snap, click KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist KNITTING CUP, marriage cup KNOCKING, striking, weighty KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canulus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened LABOURED, wrought with labour and care LADE, load(ed) LADING, load LAID, plotted LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier LAP, fold LAR, household god LARD, garnish LARGE, abundant LARUM, alarum, call to arms LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale LAW, "give --," give a start (term of chase) LAXATIVE, loose LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army LEASING, lying LEAVE, leave off, desist LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps leer horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left LEESE, lose LEGS, "make --," do obeisance LEIGEP, resident representative LEIGERITY, legerdemain LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram LENTER, slower LET, hinder LET, hindrance LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell) LEWD, ignorant LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth LIBERAL, ample LIEGER, ledger, register LIFT(ING), steal(ing) LIGHT, alight LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often LIKE, please LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound LIMMER, vile, worthless LIN, leave off Line, "by --," by rule LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon LIQUID, clear LIST, listen, hard; like, please LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow LOSE, give over, desist from; waste LOUTING, bowing, cringing LUCULENT, bright of beauty LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill LURCH, rob, cheat LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement MACK, unmeaning expletive MADGE_HOWLET or own, barn-owl MAIM, hurt, injury MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand") MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting MAKE, mate MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed) MALLANDERS, disease of horses MALT HORSE, dray horse MAMMET, puppet MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration MANGO, slave-dealer MANGONISE, polish up for sale MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls MANKIND, masculine, like a virago MANEIND, humanity MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.) MARCH PANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the --," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, making the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226) MARLE, marvel MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.) MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition Mass, abb. for master MAUND, beg MAUTHER, girl, maid MEAN, moderation MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one MEAT, "carry -- in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment MEATH, metheglin MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement MEET WITH, even with MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach MENSTRUE, solvent MERCAT, market MERD, excrement MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated MESS, party of four METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate MILE-END, training-ground of the city MINE-MEN, sappers MINION, form of cannon MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.) MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares) MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley MISCONCEIT, misconception MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, common-place MOMENT, force or influence of value MONTANTO, upward stroke MONTH'S MIND, violent desire MOORISH, like a moor or waste MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton MORRICe-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented MORTALITY, death MORT-MAL, old score, gangrene MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk MOTHER, Hysterica passio MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley) MOTION, suggest, propose MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool MOTTE, motto MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity MUCKINDER, handkerchief MULE, "born to ride on --," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally) MULLETS, small pincers MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence MUN, must MUREY, dark crimson red MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica MUSE, wonder MUSICAL, in harmony MUSS, mouse; scramble MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies" MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the --" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost NATIVE, natural NEAT, cattle NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty NEATLY, neatly finished NEATNESS, elegance NEIS, nose, scent NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist NEUFT, newt NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous NICENESS, fastidiousness NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the --" meaning uncertain NICE, suit, fit' hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s.8d. NOCENT, harmful NIL, not will NOISE, company of musicians NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia NONES, nonce NOTABLE, egregious NOTE, sign, token NOUGHT, "be --," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead NUMBER, rhythm NUPSON, oaf, simpleton OADE, wood OBARNI, preparation of mead OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose OBLATRANT, barking, railing OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious OBSERVE, show deference, respect OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition" OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares) OMINOUS, deadly, fatal ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis ONLY, pre-eminent, special OPEN, make public; expound OPPILATION, obstruction OPPONE, oppose OPPOSITE, antagonist OFFPRESS, suppress ORIGINOUS, native ORT, remnant, scrap OUT, "to be --." to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other OUTCRY, sale by auction OUTREGUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption OUTSPEAK, speak more than OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation PACKING PENNY, "give a --," dismiss, send packing PAD, highway PAD-HORSE, road-horse PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking PAINT, blush PALINODE, ode of recantation PALL, weaken, dim, make stale PALM, triumph PAN, skirt of dress or coat PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper PARAMENTOS, fine trappings PARANOMASIE, a play upon words PARANTORY, (?) peremptory PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article PARCEL, part, partly PARCEL-POET, poetaster PARERGA, subordinate matters PARGET, to paint or plaster the face PARLE, parley PARLOUS, clever, shrewd PART, apportion PARTAKE, participate in PARTED, endowed, talented PARTICULAR, individual person PARTIZAN, kind of halberd PARTRICH, partridge PARTS, qualities endowments PASH, dash, smash PASS, care, trouble oneself PASSADO, fending term: a thrust PASSAGE, game at dice PASSINGLY, exceedingly PASSION, effect caused by external agency PASSION, "in --," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go --," keep step with, accompany PAUCA VERBA, few words PAVIN, a stately dance PEACE, "with my master's --," by leave, favour PECULIAR, individual, single PEDANT, teacher of the languages PEEL, baker's shovel PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly) PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation PENCIL, small tuft of hair PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly) PERIMETER, circumference of a figure PERIOD, limit, end PERK, perk up PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford) PERSPICIL, optic glass PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure PERSUADE, inculcate, commend PERSWAY, mitigate PERTINACY, pertinacity PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury PETITIONARY, supplicatory PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gas carried by horsemen PETULANT, pert, insolent PHERE. See Fere PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water") PHRENETIC, madman PICARDIL, still upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley) PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals PIED, variegated PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer PILED, pilled, peeled, bald PILL'D, polled, fleeced PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person -- perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford) PINE, afflict, distress PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense PISMIRE, ant PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight PLAGUE, punishment, torment PLAIN, lament PLAIN SONG, simple melody PLAISE, plaice PLANET, "struck with a --," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences PLAUSIBLE, pleasing PLAUSIBLY, approvingly PLOT, plan PLY, apply oneself to POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular POINTE, tabbed laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.) POISE, weigh, balance POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs POLITIC, politician POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion POMMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups PONTIC, sour POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace POPULOUS, numerous PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot PORT, transport PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over £3 or f4 PORTCULLIS, "-- of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley) PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was... near seven feet high" (Whalley) POSSESS, inform, acquaint POST AND PAIR, a game at cards POSY, motto. (See Poesie) POTCH, poach POULT-FOOT, club-foot POUNCE, claw, talon PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot PRACTISE, plot, conspire PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling PRECEDENT, record of proceedings PRECEPT, warrant, summons PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness PREFER, recomment PRESENCE, presence chamber PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually PRESS, force into service PREST, ready PRETEND, assert, allege PREVENT, anticipate PRICE, worth, excellence PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "-- away," make off with speed PRIMERO, game of cards PRINCOX, pert boy PRINT, "in --," to the letter, exactly PRISTINATE, former PRIVATE, private interests PRIVATE, privy, intimate PROCLIVE, prone to PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural PRODIGY, monster PRODUCED, prolonged PROFESS, pretend PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular PROPERTIES, state necessaries PROPERTY, duty; tool PRORUMPED, burst out PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance -- hence, of common make PROVIDE, foresee PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.) PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow PUFF-WING, shoulder puff PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior PULCHRITUDE, beauty PUMP, shoe PUNGENT, piercing PUNTO, point, hit PURCEPT, precept, warrant PURE, fine, capital, excellent PURELY, perfectly, utterly PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness) PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.) PUT OFF, excuse, shift PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try QUACKSALVER, quack QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever QUAR, quarry QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey QUEAN, hussy, jade QUEASY, hazardous, delicate QUELL, kill, destroy QUEST, request; inquiry QUESTION, decision by force of arms QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip QUICK, the living QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety QUIRK, clever turn or trick QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses QUODLING, codling QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck QUOTE, take note, observe, write down RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell) RAKE UP, cover over RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away RAPT, enraptured RASCAL, young or inferior deer RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman RAVEN, devour REACH, understand REAL, regal REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor REDARGUE, confute REDUCE, bring back REED, rede, counsel, advice REEL, run riot REFEL, refute REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers REGIMENT, government REGRESSION, return REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.) RELIGION, "make -- of," make a point of, scruple of RELISH, savour REMNANT, scrap of quotation REMORA, species of fish RENDER, depict, exhibit, show REPAIR, reinstate REPETITION, recital, narration REREMOUSE, bat RESIANT, resident RESIDENCE, sediment RESOLUTION, judgment, decision RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative RESPECTIVELY, with reverence RESPECTLESS, regardless RESPIRE, exhale; inhale RESPONSIBLE, correspondent REST, musket-rest REST, "set up one's --," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero) REST, arrest RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness) RETIRE, cause to retire RETRICATO, fencing term RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing REVISE, reconsider a sentence RHEUM, spleen, caprice RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman RID, destroy, do away with RIFLING, raffling, dicing RING, "cracked within the --," coins so cracked were unfit for currency RISSE, risen, rose RIVELLED, wrinkled ROARER, swaggerer ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind ROCK, distaff RODOMONTADO, braggadocio ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor ROSES, rosettes ROUND, "gentlemen of the --," officers of inferior rank ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees ROUSE, carouse, bumper ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness) RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger RUG, coarse frieze RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour SACK, loose, flowing gown SADLY, seriously, with gravity SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness) SAFFI, bailiffs ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed SAKER, small piece of ordnance SALT, leap SALT, lascivious SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram SARABAND, a slow dance SATURNALS, began December 17 SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature SAY, sample SAY, assay, try SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease SCALLION, shalot, small onion SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford) SCAPE, escape SCARAB, beetle SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge SCONCE, head SCOPE, aim SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment) SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head SCOUR, purge SCOURSE, deal, swap SCRATCHES, disease of horses SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow SCRUPLE, doubt SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights SEALED, stamped as genuine SEAM-RENT, ragged SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging SEAR UP, close by searing, burning SEARCED, sifted SECRETARY, able to keep a secret SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace SECURE, confident SEELIE, happy, blest SEISIN, legal term: possession SELLARY, lewd person SEMBLABLY, similarly SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling SENSIBLY, perceptibly SENSIVE, sensitive SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material SERENE, harmful dew of evening SERICON, red tincture SERVANT, lover SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms SESTERCE, Roman copper coin SET, stake, wager SET UP, drill SETS, deep plaits of the ruff SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise SHIFT, fraud, dodge SHIFTER, cheat SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock SHOT, tavern reckoning SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss SHOT-SHARKS, drawers SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment SIGILLA, seal, mark SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true SIMPLES, herbs SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert SINGLE, weak, silly SINGLE-MONEY, small change SINGULAR, unique, supreme SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindlilng SKILL, "it -- a not," matters not SEINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster SKIRT, tail SLEEK, smooth SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.) SLICK, sleek, smooth 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard SLIPPERY, polished and shining SLOPS, large loose breeches SLOT, print of a stag's foot SLUR, put a slur on; chear (by sliding a die in some way) SMELT, gull, simpleton SNORLE, "perhaps snarl as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham) SNOTTERIE, filth SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in --," take offence at SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell) SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors SOD, seethe SOGGY, soaked, sodden SOIL, "take --," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety SOL, sou SOLDADOES, soldiers SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action SOOTH, flattery, cajolery SOOTHE, flatter, humour SOPHISTICATE, adulterate SORT, company, party; rank, degree SORT, suit, fit; select SOUSE, ear SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of 'shu'd': to shu is to scare a bird away." (See his Webster, p. 350) SOWTER, cobbler SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus SPAR, bar SPEAK, make known, proclaim SPECULATION, power of sight SPED, to have fared well, prospered SPEECE, species SPIGHT, anger, rancour SPINNER, spider SPINSTRY, lewd person SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood SPRUNT, spruce SPURGE, foam SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the --," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating STAIN, disparagement, disgrace STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse STALE, make cheap, common STALE, approach stealthily or under cover STALL, forestall STANDARD, suit STAPLE, market emporium STARK, downright STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford) STAY, gag STAY, await; detain STICKLER, second or umpire STIGMATISE, mark, brand STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly) STINKARD, stinking fellow STINT, stop STIPTIC, astringent STOCCATA, thrust in fencing STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish STOMACH, pride, valour STOMACH, resent STOOP, swoop down as a hawk STOP, fill, stuff STOPPLE, stopper STOTE, stoat, weasel STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow STRAIGHT, straightway STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597 STRIKE, balance (accounts) STRINGHALT, disease of horses STROKER, smoother, flatterer STROOK, p.p. of "strike" STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummed is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair" STUDIES, studious efforts STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device SUBURB, connected with loose living SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women SUCK, extract money from SUFFERANCE, suffering SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous SUPPLE, to make pliant SURBATE, make sore with walking SURCEASE, cease SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence SURVISE, peruse SUSCITABILITY, excitability SUSPECT, suspicion SUSPEND, suspect SUSPENDED, held over for the present SUTLER, victualler SWAD, clown, boor SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes SWINGE, beat TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds TABLE(S), "pair of --," tablets, note-book TABOR, small drum TABRET, tabor TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric TAINT, "-- a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner TAKE IN, capture, subdue TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency TALL, stout, brave TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester TARTAROUS, like a Tartar TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a --," get drunk TELL, count TELL-TROTH, truth-teller TEMPER, modify, soften TENDER, show regard, care for cherish; manifest TENT, "take --," take heed TERSE, swept and polished TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford) TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable THREAD, quality THREAVES, droves THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated THRIFTILY, carefully THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon TIGHTLY, promptly TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency TINK, tinkle TIPPET, "turn --," change behaviour or way of life TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal TIRE, head-dress TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume TOD, fox TOILED, worn out, harassed TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce TONNELS, nostrils TOP, "parish --," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument TOUSE, pull, read TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt TRACT, attraction TRAIN, allure, entice TRANSITORY, transmittable TRANSLATE, transform TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares) TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor TREEN, wooden TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning TRIG, a spruce, dandified man TRILL, trickle TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing TRIPOLY, "come from --," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford) TRITE, worn, shabby TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate) TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief TROLL, sing loudly TROMP, trump, deceive TROPE, figure of speech TROW, think, believe, wonder TROWLE, troll TROWSES, breeches, drawers TRUCHMAN, interpreter TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford) TRUNK, speaking-tube TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet TUBICINE, trumpeter TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet TUITION, guardianship TUMBLE, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches TURD, excrement TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.) TWIRE, peep, twinkle TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow UMBRE, brown dye UNBATED, unabated UNBORED, (?) excessively bored UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh UNCOUTH, strange, unusual UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for UNEQUAL, unjust UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at UNFEARED, unaffrighted UNHAPPILY, unfortunately UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly) UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry) UNQUIT, undischarged UNREADY, undressed UNRUDE, rude to an extreme UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread UNTIMELY, unseasonably UNVALUABLE, invaluable UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "-- Dutch," in the Dutch fashion UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest USQUEBAUGH, whisky USURE, usury UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale VAIL, bow, do homage VAILS, tips, gratuities VALL. See Vail VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace VAUT, vault VEER (naut.), pay out VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour VELLUTE, velvet VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent snuff up VENUE, bout (fencing term) VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner VERGE, "in the --," within a certain distance of the court VEX, agitate, torment VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford) VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms VINDICATE, avenge VIRGE, wand, rod VIRGINAL, old form of piano VIRTUE, valour VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily VIZARD, mask VOGUE, rumour, gossip VOICE, vote VOID, leave, quit VOLARY, cage, aviary VOLLEY, "at --," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis) VORLOFFE, furlough WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley) WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys" WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares) WARD, a famous pirate WARD, guard in fencing WATCHET, pale, sky blue WEAL, welfare WEED, garment WEFT, waif WEIGHTS, "to the gold --," to every minute particular WELKIN, sky WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel WELT, hem, border of fur WHER, whether WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?) WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the --," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings WHIMSY, whim, "humour" WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly WHIT, (?) a mere jot WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs WICKED, bad, clumsy WICKER, pliant, agile WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster) WINE, "I have the -- for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham) WINNY, "same as old word 'wonne', to stay, etc." (Whalley) WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller WISH, recommend WISS (WUSSE), "I --," certainly, of a truth WITHHOUT, beyond WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever WOOD, collection, lot WOODCOCK, term of contempt WOOLSACK ("-- pies"), name of tavern WORT, unfermented beer WOUNDY, great, extreme WREAK, revenge WROUGHT, wrought upon WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss) YEANLING, lamb, kid ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks 
3694	----	EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres -- well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title -- accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire -- as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy -- there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* [footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said -- though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality -- leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication -- plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works: -- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. BEN JONSON'S PLAYS EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR* ([*footnote] This is the "Italian Edition" of the comedy. The later, superior, and more familiar Anglicised version, will be a separate Project Gutenberg etext.) DRAMATIS PERSONAE LORENZO SENIOR. PROSPERO. THORELLO. GIULIANO. LORENZO JUNIOR. STEPHANO. DOCTOR CLEMENT. BOBADILLA. BIANCHA. HESPERIDA. PETO. MUSCO. COB. MATHEO. PISO. TIB. ACT I SCENE I. ENTER LORENZO DI PAZZI SENIOR, MUSCO. LOR. SE. Now trust me, here's a goodly day toward. Musco, call up my son Lorenzo; bid him rise; tell him, I have some business to employ him in. MUS. I will, sir, presently. LOR. SE. But hear you, sirrah; If he be at study disturb him not. MUS. Very good, sir. [EXIT MUSCO.] LOR. SE. How happy would I estimate myself, Could I by any means retire my son, From one vain course of study he affects! He is a scholar (if a man may trust The liberal voice of double-tongued report) Of dear account, in all our "Academies." Yet this position must not breed in me A fast opinion that he cannot err. Myself was once a "student," and indeed Fed with the self-same humour he is now, Dreaming on nought but idle "Poetry"; But since, Experience hath awaked my spirits, [ENTER STEPHANO] And reason taught them, how to comprehend The sovereign use of study. What, cousin Stephano! What news with you, that you are here so early? STEP. Nothing: but e'en come to see how you do, uncle. LOR. SE. That's kindly done; you are welcome, cousin. STEP. Ay, I know that sir, I would not have come else: how doth my cousin, uncle? LOR. SE. Oh, well, well, go in and see; I doubt he's scarce stirring yet. STEP. Uncle, afore I go in, can you tell me an he have e'er a book of the sciences of hawking and hunting? I would fain borrow it. LOR. SE. Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you? STEP. No, wusse; but I'll practise against next year; I have bought me a hawk, and bells and all; I lack nothing but a book to keep it by. LOR. SE. Oh, most ridiculous. STEP. Nay, look you now, you are angry, uncle, why, you know, an a man have not skill in hawking and hunting now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him; he is for no gentleman's company, and (by God's will) I scorn it, ay, so I do, to be a consort for every hum-drum; hang them scroyles, there's nothing in them in the world, what do you talk on it? a gentleman must shew himself like a gentleman. Uncle, I pray you be not angry, I know what I have to do, I trow, I am no novice. LOR. SE. Go to, you are a prodigal, and self-willed fool. Nay, never look at me, it's I that speak, Take't as you will, I'll not flatter you. What? have you not means enow to waste That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money on a Buzzard, And know not how to keep it when you have done? Oh, it's brave, this will make you a gentleman, Well, cousin, well, I see you are e'en past hope Of all reclaim; ay, so, now you are told on it, you look another way. STEP. What would you have me do, trow? LOR. What would I have you do? marry, Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive, That I would have you do, and not to spend Your crowns on every one that humours you: I would not have you to intrude yourself In every gentleman's society, Till their affections or your own dessert, Do worthily invite you to the place. For he that's so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation vile and cheap. Let not your carriage and behaviour taste Of affectation, lest while you pretend To make a blaze of gentry to the world A little puff of scorn extinguish it, And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, Whose property is only to offend. Cousin, lay by such superficial forms, And entertain a perfect real substance; Stand not so much on your gentility, But moderate your expenses (now at first) As you may keep the same proportion still: Bear a low sail. Soft, who's this comes here? [ENTER A SERVANT.] SER. Gentlemen, God save you. STEP. Welcome, good friend; we do not stand much upon our gentility, yet I can assure you mine uncle is a man of a thousand pound land a year; he hath but one son in the world; I am his next heir, as simple as I stand here, if my cousin die. I have a fair living of mine own too beside. SER. In good time, sir. STEP. In good time, sir! you do not flout me, do you? SER. Not I, sir. STEP. An you should, here be them can perceive it, and that quickly too. Go to; and they can give it again soundly, an need be. SER. Why, sir, let this satisfy you. Good faith, I had no such intent. STEP. By God, an I thought you had, sir, I would talk with you. SER. So you may, sir, and at your pleasure. STEP. And so I would, sir, an you were out of mine uncle's ground, I can tell you. LOR. SE. Why, how now, cousin, will this ne'er be left? STEP. Whoreson, base fellow, by God's lid, an 'twere not for shame, I would -- LOR. SE. What would you do? you peremptory ass, An you'll not be quiet, get you hence. You see, the gentleman contains himself In modest limits, giving no reply To your unseason'd rude comparatives; Yet you'll demean yourself without respect Either of duty or humanity. Go, get you in: 'fore God, I am asham'd [EXIT STEP.] Thou hast a kinsman's interest in me. SER. I pray you, sir, is this Pazzi house? LOR. SE. Yes, marry is it, sir. SER. I should enquire for a gentleman here, one Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi; do you know any such, sir, I pray you? LOR. SE. Yes, sir; or else I should forget myself. SER. I cry you mercy, sir, I was requested by a gentleman of Florence (having some occasion to ride this way) to deliver you this letter. LOR. SE. To me, sir? What do you mean? I pray you remember your court'sy. "To his dear and most selected friend, Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi." What might the gentleman's name be, sir, that sent it? Nay, pray you be covered. SER. Signior Prospero. LOR. SE. Signior Prospero? A young gentleman of the family of Strozzi, is he not? SER. Ay, sir, the same: Signior Thorello, the rich Florentine merchant married his sister. [ENTER MUSCO.] LOR. SE. You say very true. -- Musco. MUS. Sir. LOR. SE. Make this gentleman drink here. I pray you go in, sir, an't please you. [EXEUNT.] Now (without doubt) this letter's to my son. Well, all is one: I'll be so bold as read it, Be it but for the style's sake, and the phrase; Both which (I do presume) are excellent, And greatly varied from the vulgar form, If Prospero's invention gave them life. How now! what stuff is here? "Sir Lorenzo, I muse we cannot see thee at Florence: 'Sblood, I doubt, Apollo hath got thee to be his Ingle, that thou comest not abroad, to visit thine old friends: well, take heed of him; he may do somewhat for his household servants, or so; But for his Retainers, I am sure, I have known some of them, that have followed him, three, four, five years together, scorning the world with their bare heels, and at length been glad for a shift (though no clean shift) to lie a whole winter, in half a sheet cursing Charles' wain, and the rest of the stars intolerably. But (quis contra diuos?) well; Sir, sweet villain, come and see me; but spend one minute in my company, and 'tis enough: I think I have a world of good jests for thee: oh, sir, I can shew thee two of the most perfect, rare and absolute true Gulls, that ever thou saw'st, if thou wilt come. 'Sblood, invent some famous memorable lie, or other, to flap thy Father in the mouth withal: thou hast been father of a thousand, in thy days, thou could'st be no Poet else: any scurvy roguish excuse will serve; say thou com'st but to fetch wool for thine Ink-horn. And then, too, thy Father will say thy wits are a wool- gathering. But it's no matter; the worse, the better. Anything is good enough for the old man. Sir, how if thy Father should see this now? what would he think of me? Well, (how ever I write to thee) I reverence him in my soul, for the general good all Florence delivers of him. Lorenzo, I conjure thee (by what, let me see) by the depth of our love, by all the strange sights we have seen in our days, (ay, or nights either), to come to me to Florence this day. Go to, you shall come, and let your Muses go spin for once. If thou wilt not, 's hart, what's your god's name? Apollo? Ay, Apollo. If this melancholy rogue (Lorenzo here) do not come, grant, that he do turn Fool presently, and never hereafter be able to make a good jest, or a blank verse, but live in more penury of wit and invention, than either the Hall-Beadle, or Poet Nuntius." Well, it is the strangest letter that ever I read. Is this the man, my son so oft hath praised To be the happiest, and most precious wit That ever was familiar with Art? Now, by our Lady's blessed son, I swear, I rather think him most unfortunate In the possession of such holy gifts, Being the master of so loose a spirit. Why, what unhallowed ruffian would have writ With so profane a pen unto his friend? The modest paper e'en looks pale for grief, To feel her virgin-cheek defiled and stained With such a black and criminal inscription. Well, I had thought my son could not have strayed So far from judgment as to mart himself Thus cheaply in the open trade of scorn To jeering folly and fantastic humour. But now I see opinion is a fool, And hath abused my senses. -- Musco. [ENTER MUSCO.] MUS. Sir. LOR. SE. What, is the fellow gone that brought this letter? MUS. Yes sir, a pretty while since. LOR. SE. And where's Lorenzo? MUS. In his chamber, sir. LOR. SE. He spake not with the fellow, did he? MUS. No, sir, he saw him not. LOR. SE. Then, Musco, take this letter, and deliver it unto Lorenzo: but, sirrah, on your life take you no knowledge I have opened it. MUS. O Lord, sir, that were a jest indeed. [EXIT MUS.] LOR. SE. I am resolv'd I will not cross his journey, Nor will I practise any violent means To stay the hot and lusty course of youth. For youth restrained straight grows impatient, And, in condition, like an eager dog, Who, ne'er so little from his game withheld, Turns head and leaps up at his master's throat. Therefore I'll study, by some milder drift, To call my son unto a happier shrift. [EXIT.] ACT I. SCENE II. ENTER LORENZO JUNIOR, WITH MUSCO. MUS. Yes, sir, on my word he opened it, and read the contents. LOR. JU. It scarce contents me that he did so. But, Musco, didst thou observe his countenance in the reading of it, whether he were angry or pleased? MUS. Why, sir, I saw him not read it. LOR. JU. No? how knowest thou then that he opened it? MUS. Marry, sir, because he charg'd me on my life to tell nobody that he opened it, which, unless he had done, he would never fear to have it revealed. LOR. JU. That's true: well, Musco, hie thee in again, Lest thy protracted absence do lend light, [ENTER STEPHANO.] To dark suspicion: Musco, be assured I'll not forget this thy respective love. STEP. Oh, Musco, didst thou not see a fellow here in a what-sha-call-him doublet; he brought mine uncle a letter even now? MUS. Yes, sir, what of him? STEP. Where is he, canst thou tell? MUS. Why, he is gone. STEP. Gone? which way? when went he? how long since? MUS. It's almost half an hour ago since he rode hence. STEP. Whoreson scanderbag rogue; oh that I had a horse; by God's lid, I'd fetch him back again, with heave and ho. MUS. Why, you may have my master's bay gelding, an you will. STEP. But I have no boots, that's the spite on it. MUS. Then it's no boot to follow him. Let him go and hang, sir. STEP. Ay, by my troth; Musco, I pray thee help to truss me a little; nothing angers me, but I have waited such a while for him all unlac'd and untrussed yonder; and now to see he is gone the other way. MUS. Nay, I pray you stand still, sir. STEP. I will, I will: oh, how it vexes me. MUS. Tut, never vex yourself with the thought of such a base fellow as he. STEP. Nay, to see he stood upon points with me too. MUS. Like enough so; that was because he saw you had so few at your hose. STEP. What! Hast thou done? Godamercy, good Musco. MUS. I marle, sir, you wear such ill-favoured coarse stockings, having so good a leg as you have. STEP. Foh! the stockings be good enough for this time of the year; but I'll have a pair of silk, e'er it be long: I think my leg would shew well in a silk hose. MUS. Ay, afore God, would it, rarely well. STEP. In sadness I think it would: I have a reasonable good leg? MUS. You have an excellent good leg, sir: I pray you pardon me. I have a little haste in, sir. STEP. A thousand thanks, good Musco. [EXIT.] What, I hope he laughs not at me; an he do -- LOR. JU. Here is a style indeed, for a man's senses to leap over, e'er they come at it: why, it is able to break the shins of any old man's patience in the world. My father read this with patience? Then will I be made an Eunuch, and learn to sing Ballads. I do not deny, but my father may have as much patience as any other man; for he used to take physic, and oft taking physic makes a man a very patient creature. But, Signior Prospero, had your swaggering Epistle here arrived in my father's hands at such an hour of his patience, I mean, when he had taken physic, it is to be doubted whether I should have read "sweet villain here." But, what? My wise cousin; Nay then, I'll furnish our feast with one Gull more toward a mess; he writes to me of two, and here's one, that's three, i'faith. Oh for a fourth! now, Fortune, or never, Fortune! STEP. Oh, now I see who he laughed at: he laughed at somebody in that letter. By this good light, an he had laughed at me, I would have told mine uncle. LOR. JU. Cousin Stephano: good morrow, good cousin, how fare you? STEP. The better for your asking, I will assure you. I have been all about to seek you. Since I came I saw mine uncle; and i'faith how have you done this great while? Good Lord, by my troth, I am glad you are well, cousin. LOR. JU. And I am as glad of your coming, I protest to you, for I am sent for by a private gentleman, my most special dear friend, to come to him to Florence this morning, and you shall go with me, cousin, if it please you, not else, I will enjoin you no further than stands with your own consent, and the condition of a friend. STEP. Why, cousin, you shall command me an 'twere twice so far as Florence, to do you good; what, do you think I will not go with you? I protest -- LOR. JU. Nay, nay, you shall not protest STEP. By God, but I will, sir, by your leave I'll protest more to my friend than I'll speak of at this time. LOR. JU. You speak very well, sir. STEP. Nay, not so neither, but I speak to serve my turn. LOR. JU. Your turn? why, cousin, a gentleman of so fair sort as you are, of so true carriage, so special good parts; of so dear and choice estimation; one whose lowest condition bears the stamp of a great spirit; nay more, a man so graced, gilded, or rather, to use a more fit metaphor, tinfoiled by nature; not that you have a leaden constitution, coz, although perhaps a little inclining to that temper, and so the more apt to melt with pity, when you fall into the fire of rage, but for your lustre only, which reflects as bright to the world as an old ale-wife's pewter again a good time; and will you now, with nice modesty, hide such real ornaments as these, and shadow their glory as a milliner's wife doth her wrought stomacher, with a smoky lawn or a black cyprus? Come, come; for shame do not wrong the quality of your dessert in so poor a kind; but let the idea of what you are be portrayed in your aspect, that men may read in your looks: "Here within this place is to be seen the most admirable, rare, and accomplished work of nature!" Cousin, what think you of this? STEP. Marry, I do think of it, and I will be more melancholy and gentlemanlike than I have been, I do ensure you. LOR. JU. Why, this is well: now if I can but hold up this humour in him, as it is begun, Catso for Florence, match him an she can. Come, cousin. STEP. I'll follow you. LOR. JU. Follow me! you must go before! STEP. Must I? nay, then I pray you shew me, good cousin. [EXEUNT.] ACT I. SCENE III. ENTER SIGNIOR MATHEO, TO HIM COB. MAT. I think this be the house: what ho! COB. Who's there? oh, Signior Matheo. God give you good morrow, sir. MAT. What? Cob? how doest thou, good Cob? does thou inhabit here, Cob? COB. Ay, sir, I and my lineage have kept a poor house in our days. MAT. Thy lineage, Monsieur Cob! what lineage, what lineage? COB. Why, sir, an ancient lineage, and a princely: mine ancestry came from a king's loins, no worse man; and yet no man neither but Herring the king of fish, one of the monarchs of the world, I assure you. I do fetch my pedigree and name from the first red herring that was eaten in Adam and Eve's kitchen: his Cob was my great, great, mighty great grandfather. MAT. Why mighty? why mighty? COB. Oh, it's a mighty while ago, sir, and it was a mighty great Cob. MAT. How knowest thou that? COB. How know I? why, his ghost comes to me every night. MAT. Oh, unsavoury jest: the ghost of a herring Cob. COB. Ay, why not the ghost of a herring Cob, as well as the ghost of Rashero Bacono, they were both broiled on the coals? you are a scholar, upsolve me that now. MAT. Oh, rude ignorance! Cob, canst thou shew me of a gentleman, one Signior Bobadilla, where his lodging is? COB. Oh, my guest, sir, you mean? MAT. Thy guest, alas! ha, ha. COB. Why do you laugh, sir? do you not mean Signior Bobadilla? MAT. Cob, I pray thee advise thyself well: do not wrong the gentleman, and thyself too. I dare be sworn he scorns thy house; he! he lodge in such a base obscure place as thy house? Tut, I know his disposition so well, he would not lie in thy bed if thou'dst give it him. COB. I will not give it him. Mass, I thought somewhat was in it, we could not get him to bed all night. Well sir, though he lie not on my bed, he lies on my bench, an't please you to go up, sir, you shall find him with two cushions under his head, and his cloak wrapt about him, as though he had neither won nor lost, and yet I warrant he ne'er cast better in his life than he hath done to-night. MAT. Why, was he drunk? COB. Drunk, sir? you hear not me say so; perhaps he swallow'd a tavern token, or some such device, sir; I have nothing to do withal: I deal with water and not with wine. Give me my tankard there, ho! God be with you, sir; it's six o'clock: I should have carried two turns by this, what ho! my stopple, come. MAT. Lie in a water-bearer's house, a gentleman of his note? Well, I'll tell him my mind. [EXIT.] COB. What, Tib, shew this gentleman up to Signior Bobadilla: oh, an my house were the Brazen head now, faith it would e'en cry moe fools yet: you should have some now, would take him to be a gentleman at least; alas, God help the simple, his father's an honest man, a good fishmonger, and so forth: and now doth he creep and wriggle into acquaintance with all the brave gallants about the town, such as my guest is, (oh, my guest is a fine man!) and they flout him invincibly. He useth every day to a merchant's house, (where I serve water) one M. Thorello's; and here's the jest, he is in love with my master's sister, and calls her mistress: and there he sits a whole afternoon sometimes, reading of these same abominable, vile, (a pox on them, I cannot abide them!) rascally verses, Poetry, poetry, and speaking of Interludes, 'twill make a man burst to hear him: and the wenches, they do so jeer and tihe at him; well, should they do as much to me, I'd forswear them all, by the life of Pharaoh, there's an oath: how many water-bearers shall you hear swear such an oath? oh, I have a guest, (he teacheth me) he doth swear the best of any man christened. By Phoebus, By the life of Pharaoh, By the body of me, As I am gentleman, and a soldier: such dainty oaths; and withal he doth take this same filthy roguish tobacco, the finest and cleanliest; it would do a man good to see the fume come forth at his nostrils: well, he owes me forty shillings, (my wife lent him out of her purse; by sixpence a time,) besides his lodging; I would I had it: I shall have it, he saith, next Action. Helter skelter, hang sorrow, care will kill a cat, up-tails all, and a pox on the hangman. [EXIT.] [BOBADILLA DISCOVERS HIMSELF; ON A BENCH; TO HIM TIB.] BOB. Hostess, hostess. TIB. What say you, sir? BOB. A cup of your small beer, sweet hostess. TIB. Sir, there's a gentleman below would speak with you. BOB. A gentleman? (God's so) I am not within. TIB. My husband told him you were, sir. BOB. What a plague! what meant he? MAT. Signior Bobadilla. [MATHEO WITHIN.] BOB. Who's there? (take away the bason, good hostess) come up, sir. TIB. He would desire you to come up, sir; you come into a cleanly house here. MAT. God save you, sir, God save you. [ENTER MATHEO.] BOB. Signior Matheo, is't you, sir? please you sit down. MAT. I thank you, good Signior, you may see I am somewhat audacious. BOB. Not so, Signior, I was requested to supper yesternight by a sort of gallants, where you were wished for, and drunk to, I assure you. MAT. Vouchsafe me by whom, good Signior. BOB. Marry, by Signior Prospero, and others; why, hostess, a stool here for this gentleman. MAT. No haste, sir, it is very well. BOB. Body of me, it was so late ere we parted last night, I can scarce open mine eyes yet; I was but new risen as you came; how passes the day abroad, sir? you can tell. MAT. Faith, some half hour to seven: now trust me, you have an exceeding fine lodging here, very neat, and private. BOB. Ay, sir, sit down. I pray you, Signior Matheo, in any case possess no gentlemen of your acquaintance with notice of my lodging. MAT. Who? I, sir? no. BOB. Not that I need to care who know it, but in regard I would not be so popular and general as some be. MAT. True, Signior, I conceive you. BOB. For do you see, sir, by the heart of myself, (except it be to some peculiar and choice spirits, to whom I am extraordinarily engaged, as yourself, or so,) I could not extend thus far. MAT. O Lord, sir! I resolve so. BOB. What new book have you there? What? "Go by Hieronymo." MAT. Ay, did you ever see it acted? is't not well penned? BOB. Well penned: I would fain see all the Poets of our time pen such another play as that was; they'll prate and swagger, and keep a stir of art and devices, when (by God's so) they are the most shallow, pitiful fellows that live upon the face of the earth again. MAT. Indeed, here are a number of fine speeches in this book: "Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;" there's a conceit: Fountains fraught with tears. "Oh life, no life, but lively form of death;" is't not excellent? "Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs;" O God's me: "confused and filled with murder and misdeeds." Is't not simply the best that ever you heard? Ha, how do you like it? BOB. 'Tis good. MAT. "To thee, the purest object to my sense, The most refined essence heaven covers, Send I these lines, wherein I do commence The happy state of true deserving lovers. If they prove rough, unpolish'd, harsh, and rude, Haste made that waste; thus mildly I conclude." BOB. Nay, proceed, proceed, where's this? where's this? MAT. This, sir, a toy of mine own in my non-age: but when will you come and see my study? good faith, I can shew you some very good things I have done of late: that boot becomes your leg passing well, sir, methinks. BOB. So, so, it's a fashion gentlemen use. MAT. Mass, sir, and now you speak of the fashion, Signior Prospero's elder brother and I are fallen out exceedingly: this other day I happened to enter into some discourse of a hanger, which, I assure you, both for fashion and workmanship was most beautiful and gentlemanlike; yet he condemned it for the most pied and ridiculous that ever he saw. BOB. Signior Giuliano, was it not? the elder brother? MAT. Ay, sir, he. BOB. Hang him, rook! he! why, he has no more judgment than a malt-horse. By St. George, I hold him the most peremptory absurd clown (one a them) in Christendom: I protest to you (as I am a gentleman and a soldier) I ne'er talk'd with the like of him: he has not so much as a good word in his belly, all iron, iron, a good commodity for a smith to make hob-nails on. MAT. Ay, and he thinks to carry it away with his manhood still where he comes: he brags he will give me the bastinado, as I hear. BOB. How, the bastinado? how came he by that word, trow? MAT. Nay, indeed, he said cudgel me; I termed it so for the more grace. BOB. That may be, for I was sure it was none of his word: but when, when said he so? MAT. Faith, yesterday, they say, a young gallant, a friend of mine, told me so. BOB. By the life of Pharaoh, an't were my case now, I should send him a challenge presently: the bastinado! come hither, you shall challenge him; I'll shew you a trick or two, you shall kill him at pleasure, the first stoccado if you will, by this air. MAT. Indeed, you have absolute knowledge in the mystery, I have heard, sir. BOB. Of whom? of whom, I pray? MAT. Faith, I have heard it spoken of divers, that you have very rare skill, sir. BOB. By heaven, no, not I, no skill in the earth: some small science, know my time, distance, or so, I have profest it more for noblemen and gentlemen's use than mine own practise, I assure you. Hostess, lend us another bed-staff here quickly: look you, sir, exalt not your point above this state at any hand, and let your poniard maintain your defence thus: give it the gentleman. So, sir, come on, oh, twine your body more about, that you may come to a more sweet comely gentlemanlike guard; so indifferent. Hollow your body more, sir, thus: now stand fast on your left leg, note your distance, keep your due proportion of time: oh, you disorder your point most vilely. MAT. How is the bearing of it now, sir? BOB. Oh, out of measure ill, a well-experienced man would pass upon you at pleasure. MAT. How mean you pass upon me? BOB. Why, thus, sir: make a thrust at me; come in upon my time; control your point, and make a full career at the body: the best-practis'd gentlemen of the time term it the passado, a most desperate thrust, believe it. MAT. Well, come, sir. BOB. Why, you do not manage your weapons with that facility and grace that you should do, I have no spirit to play with you, your dearth of judgment makes you seem tedious. MAT. But one venue, sir. BOB. Fie! venue, most gross denomination as ever I heard: oh, the stoccado while you live, Signior, not that. Come, put on your cloak, and we'll go to some private place where you are acquainted, some tavern or so, and we'll send for one of these fencers, where he shall breathe you at my direction, and then I'll teach you that trick; you shall kill him with it at the first if you please: why, I'll learn you by the true judgment of the eye, hand, and foot, to control any man's point in the world; Should your adversary confront you with a pistol, 'twere nothing, you should (by the same rule) control the bullet, most certain, by Phoebus: unless it were hail-shot: what money have you about you, sir? MAT. Faith, I have not past two shillings, or so. BOB. 'Tis somewhat with the least, but come, when we have done, we'll call up Signior Prospero; perhaps we shall meet with Coridon his brother there. [EXEUNT.] ACT I. SCENE IV. ENTER THORELLO, GIULIANO, PISO. THO. Piso, come hither: there lies a note within, upon my desk; here, take my key: it's no matter neither, where's the boy? PIS. Within, sir, in the warehouse. THO. Let him tell over that Spanish gold, and weigh it, and do you see the delivery of those wares to Signior Bentivole: I'll be there myself at the receipt of the money anon. PIS. Very good, sir. [EXIT PISO.] THO. Brother, did you see that same fellow there? GIU. Ay, what of him? THO. He is e'en the honestest, faithful servant that is this day in Florence; (I speak a proud word now;) and one that I durst trust my life into his hands, I have so strong opinion of his love, if need were. GIU. God send me never such need: but you said you had somewhat to tell me, what is't? THO. Faith, brother, I am loath to utter it, As fearing to abuse your patience, But that I know your judgment more direct, Able to sway the nearest of affection. GIU. Come, come, what needs this circumstance? THO. I will not say what honour I ascribe Unto your friendship, nor in what dear state I hold your love; let my continued zeal, The constant and religious regard, That I have ever carried to your name, My carriage with your sister, all contest, How much I stand affected to your house. GIU. You are too tedious, come to the matter, come to the matter. THO. Then (without further ceremony) thus. My brother Prospero (I know not how) Of late is much declined from what he was, And greatly alter'd in his disposition. When he came first to lodge here in my house, Ne'er trust me, if I was not proud of him: Methought he bare himself with such observance, So true election and so fair a form: And (what was chief) it shew'd not borrow'd in him, But all he did became him as his own, And seem'd as perfect, proper, and innate, Unto the mind, as colour to the blood, But now, his course is so irregular, So loose affected, and deprived of grace, And he himself withal so far fallen off From his first place, that scarce no note remains, To tell men's judgments where he lately stood; He's grown a stranger to all due respect, Forgetful of his friends, and not content To stale himself in all societies, He makes my house as common as a Mart, A Theatre, a public receptacle For giddy humour, and diseased riot, And there, (as in a tavern, or a stews,) He, and his wild associates, spend their hours, In repetition of lascivious jests, Swear, leap, and dance, and revel night by night, Control my servants: and indeed what not? GIU. Faith, I know not what I should say to him: so God save me, I am e'en at my wits' end, I have told him enough, one would think, if that would serve: well, he knows what to trust to for me: let him spend, and spend, and domineer till his heart ache: an he get a penny more of me, I'll give him this ear. THO. Nay, good brother, have patience. GIU. 'Sblood, he mads me, I could eat my very flesh for anger: I marle you will not tell him of it, how he disquiets your house. THO. O, there are divers reasons to dissuade me, But would yourself vouchsafe to travail in it, (Though but with plain and easy circumstance,) It would both come much better to his sense, And savour less of grief and discontent. You are his elder brother, and that title Confirms and warrants your authority: Which (seconded by your aspect) will breed A kind of duty in him, and regard. Whereas, if I should intimate the least, It would but add contempt to his neglect, Heap worse on ill, rear a huge pile of hate, That in the building would come tottering down, And in her ruins bury all our love. Nay, more than this, brother; if I should speak, He would be ready in the heat of passion, To fill the ears of his familiars, With oft reporting to them, what disgrace And gross disparagement I had proposed him. And then would they straight back him in opinion, Make some loose comment upon every word, And out of their distracted phantasies, Contrive some slander, that should dwell with me. And what would that be, think you? marry, this, They would give out, (because my wife is fair, Myself but lately married, and my sister Here sojourning a virgin in my house,) That I were jealous: nay, as sure as death, Thus they would say: and how that I had wrong'd My brother purposely, thereby to find An apt pretext to banish them my house. GIU. Mass, perhaps so. THO. Brother, they would, believe it: so should I (Like one of these penurious quack-salvers) But try experiments upon myself, Open the gates unto mine own disgrace, Lend bare-ribb'd envy opportunity To stab my reputation, and good name. [ENTER BOBA. AND MAT.] MAT. I will speak to him. BOB. Speak to him? away, by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not, you shall not do him that grace: the time of day to you, gentlemen: is Signior Prospero stirring? GIU. How then? what should he do? BOB. Signior Thorello, is he within, sir? THO. He came not to his lodging to-night, sir, I assure you. GIU. Why, do you hear? you. BOB. This gentleman hath satisfied me, I'll talk to no Scavenger. GIU. How, Scavenger? stay, sir, stay. [EXEUNT.] THO. Nay, brother Giuliano. GIU. 'Sblood, stand you away, an you love me. THO. You shall not follow him now, I pray you, Good faith, you shall not. GIU. Ha! Scavenger! well, go to, I say little, but, by this good day, (God forgive me I should swear) if I put it up so, say I am the rankest -- that ever pist. 'Sblood, an I swallow this, I'll ne'er draw my sword in the sight of man again while I live; I'll sit in a barn with Madge-owlet first. Scavenger! 'Heart, and I'll go near to fill that huge tumbrel slop of yours with somewhat, as I have good luck, your Garagantua breech cannot carry it away so. THO. Oh, do not fret yourself thus, never think on't. GIU. These are my brother's consorts, these, these are his Comrades, his walking mates, he's a gallant, a Cavaliero too, right hangman cut. God let me not live, an I could not find in my heart to swinge the whole nest of them, one after another, and begin with him first, I am grieved it should be said he is my brother, and take these courses, well, he shall hear on't, and that tightly too, an I live, i'faith. THO. But, brother, let your apprehension (then) Run in an easy current, not transported With heady rashness, or devouring choler, And rather carry a persuading spirit, Whose powers will pierce more gently; and allure Th' imperfect thoughts you labour to reclaim, To a more sudden and resolved assent. GIU. Ay, ay, let me alone for that, I warrant you. [BELL RINGS.] THO. How now! oh, the bell rings to breakfast. Brother Giuliano, I pray you go in and bear my wife company: I'll but give order to my servants for the dispatch of some business, and come to you presently. [EXIT GIU., ENTER COB.] What, Cob! our maids will have you by the back (i'faith) For coming so late this morning. COB. Perhaps so, sir, take heed somebody have not them by the belly for walking so late in the evening. [EXIT.] THO. Now (in good faith) my mind is somewhat eased, Though not reposed in that security As I could wish; well, I must be content, Howe'er I set a face on't to the world, Would I had lost this finger at a vent, So Prospero had ne'er lodged in my house, Why't cannot be, where there is such resort Of wanton gallants, and young revellers, That any woman should be honest long. Is't like, that factious beauty will preserve The sovereign state of chastity unscarr'd, When such strong motives muster, and make head Against her single peace? no, no: beware When mutual pleasure sways the appetite, And spirits of one kind and quality, Do meet to parley in the pride of blood. Well, (to be plain) if I but thought the time Had answer'd their affections, all the world Should not persuade me, but I were a cuckold: Marry, I hope they have not got that start. For opportunity hath balk'd them yet, And shall do still, while I have eyes and ears To attend the imposition of my heart: My presence shall be as an iron bar, 'Twixt the conspiring motions of desire, Yea, every look or glance mine eye objects, Shall check occasion, as one doth his slave, When he forgets the limits of prescription. [ENTER BIANCHA WITH HESPERIDA.] BIA. Sister Hesperida, I pray you fetch down the rose-water above in the closet: Sweet-heart, will you come in to breakfast? THO. An she have overheard me now? [EXIT HESPERIDA.] BIA. I pray thee, (good Muss) we stay for you. THO. By Christ, I would not for a thousand crowns. BIA. What ail you, sweet-heart? are you not well? speak, good Muss. THO. Troth, my head aches extremely on a sudden. BIA. Oh Jesu! THO. How now! what! BIA. Good Lord, how it burns! Muss, keep you warm; good truth, it is this new disease, there's a number are troubled withall for God's sake, sweet-heart, come in out of the air. THO. How simple, and how subtle are her answers! A new disease, and many troubled with it. Why true, she heard me all the world to nothing. BIA. I pray thee, good sweet-heart, come in; the air will do you harm, in troth. THO. I'll come to you presently, it will away, I hope. BIA. Pray God it do. [EXIT.] THO. A new disease! I know not, new or old, But it may well be call'd poor mortals' Plague; For like a pestilence it doth infect The houses of the brain: first it begins Solely to work upon the phantasy, Filling her seat with such pestiferous air, As soon corrupts the judgment, and from thence, Sends like contagion to the memory, Still each of other catching the infection, Which as a searching vapour spreads itself Confusedly through every sensive part, Till not a thought or motion in the mind Be free from the black poison of suspect. Ah, but what error is it to know this, And want the free election of the soul In such extremes! well, I will once more strive (Even in despite of hell) myself to be, And shake this fever off that thus shakes me. [EXIT.] ACT II. SCENE I. ENTER MUSCO, DISGUISED LIKE A SOLDIER. MUS. 'Sblood, I cannot choose but laugh to see myself translated thus, from a poor creature to a creator; for now must I create an intolerable sort of lies, or else my profession loses his grace, and yet the lie to a man of my coat is as ominous as the Fico, oh, sir, it holds for good policy to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, that inwardly is most dear to us: So much for my borrowed shape. Well, the troth is, my master intends to follow his son dry-foot to Florence, this morning: now I, knowing of this conspiracy, and the rather to insinuate with my young master, (for so must we that are blue waiters, or men of service do, or else perhaps we may wear motley at the year's end, and who wears motley you know:) I have got me afore in this disguise, determining here to lie in ambuscado, and intercept him in the midway; if I can but get his cloak, his purse, his hat, nay, any thing so I can stay his journey, Rex Regum, I am made for ever, i'faith: well, now must I practise to get the true garb of one of these Lance-knights; my arm here, and my -- God's so, young master and his cousin. LOR. JU. So, sir, and how then? [ENTER LOR. JU. AND STEP.] STEP. God's foot, I have lost my purse, I think. LOR. JU. How? lost your purse? where? when had you it? STEP. I cannot tell, stay. MUS. 'Slid, I am afraid they will know me, would I could get by them. LOR. JU. What! have you it? STEP. No, I think I was bewitched, I. LOR. JU. Nay, do not weep, a pox on it, hang it, let it go. STEP. Oh, it's here; nay, an it had been lost, I had not cared but for a jet ring Marina sent me. LOR. JU. A jet ring! oh, the poesie, the poesie! STEP. Fine, i'faith: "Though fancy sleep, my love is deep": meaning that though I did not fancy her, yet she loved me dearly. LOR. JU. Most excellent. STEP. And then I sent her another, and my poesie was: "The deeper the sweeter, I'll be judged by Saint Peter." LOR. JU. How, by St. Peter? I do not conceive that. STEP. Marry, St. Peter to make up the metre. LOR JU. Well, you are beholding to that Saint, he help'd you at your need; thank him, thank him. MUS. I will venture, come what will: Gentlemen, please you change a few crowns for a very excellent good blade here; I am a poor gentleman, a soldier, one that (in the better state of my fortunes) scorned so mean a refuge, but now it's the humour of necessity to have it so: you seem to be, gentlemen, well affected to martial men, else I should rather die with silence, than live with shame: howe'er, vouchsafe to remember it is my want speaks, not myself: this condition agrees not with my spirit. LOR. JU. Where hast thou served? MUS. May it please you, Signior, in all the provinces of Bohemia, Hungaria, Dalmatia, Poland, where not? I have been a poor servitor by sea and land, any time this xiiij. years, and follow'd the fortunes of the best Commanders in Christendom. I was twice shot at the taking of Aleppo, once at the relief of Vienna; I have been at America in the galleys thrice, where I was most dangerously shot in the head, through both the thighs, and yet, being thus maim'd, I am void of maintenance, nothing left me but my scars, the noted marks of my resolution. STEP. How will you sell this rapier, friend? MUS. Faith, Signior, I refer it to your own judgment; you are a gentleman, give me what you please. STEP. True, I am a gentleman, I know that; but what though, I pray you say, what would you ask? MUS. I assure you the blade may become the side of the best prince in Europe. LOR. JU. Ay, with a velvet scabbard. STEP. Nay, an't be mine it shall have a velvet scabbard, that is flat, I'd not wear it as 'tis an you would give me an angel. MUS. At your pleasure, Signior, nay, it's a most pure Toledo. STEP. I had rather it were a Spaniard: but tell me, what shall I give you for it? an it had a silver hilt -- LOR. JU. Come, come, you shall not buy it; hold, there's a shilling, friend, take thy rapier. STEP. Why, but I will buy it now, because you say so: what, shall I go without a rapier? LOR. JU. You may buy one in the city. STEP. Tut, I'll buy this, so I will; tell me your lowest price. LOR. JU. You shall not, I say. STEP. By God's lid, but I will, though I give more than 'tis worth. LOR. JU. Come away, you are a fool. STEP. Friend, I'll have it for that word: follow me. MUS. At your service, Signior. [EXEUNT.] ACT II. SCENE II. ENTER LORENZO SENIOR. LOR. SE. My labouring spirit being late opprest With my son's folly, can embrace no rest Till it hath plotted by advice and skill, How to reduce him from affected will To reason's manage; which while I intend, My troubled soul begins to apprehend A farther secret, and to meditate Upon the difference of man's estate: Where is decipher'd to true judgment's eye A deep, conceal'd, and precious mystery. Yet can I not but worthily admire At nature's art: who (when she did inspire This heat of life) placed Reason (as a king) Here in the head, to have the marshalling Of our affections: and with sovereignty To sway the state of our weak empery. But as in divers commonwealths we see, The form of government to disagree: Even so in man, who searcheth soon shall find As much or more variety of mind. Some men's affections like a sullen wife, Is with her husband reason still at strife. Others (like proud arch-traitors that rebel Against their sovereign) practise to expel Their liege Lord Reason, and not shame to tread Upon his holy and anointed head. But as that land or nation best doth thrive, Which to smooth-fronted peace is most proclive, So doth that mind, whose fair affections ranged By reason's rules, stand constant and unchanged, Else, if the power of reason be not such, Why do we attribute to him so much? Or why are we obsequious to his law, If he want spirit our affects to awe? Oh no, I argue weakly, he is strong, Albeit my son have done him too much wrong. [ENTER MUSCO.] MUS. My master: nay, faith, have at you: I am flesh'd now I have sped so well: Gentleman, I beseech you respect the estate of a poor soldier; I am ashamed of this base course of life, (God's my comfort) but extremity provokes me to't; what remedy? LOR. SE. I have not for you now. MUS. By the faith I bear unto God, gentleman, it is no ordinary custom, but only to preserve manhood. I protest to you, a man I have been, a man I may be, by your sweet bounty. LOR. SE. I pray thee, good friend, be satisfied. MUS. Good Signior: by Jesu, you may do the part of a kind gentleman, in lending a poor soldier the price of two cans of beer, a matter of small value, the King of heaven shall pay you, and I shall rest thankful: sweet Signior -- LOR. SE. Nay, an you be so importunate -- MUS. O Lord, sir, need will have his course: I was not made to this vile use; well, the edge of the enemy could not have abated me so much: it's hard when a man hath served in his Prince's cause and be thus. Signior, let me derive a small piece of silver from you, it shall not be given in the course of time, by this good ground, I was fain to pawn my rapier last night for a poor supper, I am a Pagan else: sweet Signior -- LOR. SE. Believe me, I am rapt with admiration, To think a man of thy exterior presence Should (in the constitution of the mind) Be so degenerate, infirm, and base. Art thou a man? and sham'st thou not to beg? To practise such a servile kind of life? Why, were thy education ne'er so mean, Having thy limbs: a thousand fairer courses Offer themselves to thy election. Nay, there the wars might still supply thy wants, Or service of some virtuous gentleman, Or honest labour; nay, what can I name, But would become thee better than to beg? But men of your condition feed on sloth, As doth the Scarab on the dung she breeds in, Not caring how the temper of your spirits Is eaten with the rust of idleness. Now, afore God, whate'er he be that should Relieve a person of thy quality, While you insist in this loose desperate course, I would esteem the sin not thine, but his. MUS. Faith, Signior, I would gladly find some other course, if so. LOR. SE. Ay, you'd gladly find it, but you will not seek it. MUS. Alas, sir, where should a man seek? in the wars, there's no ascent by desert in these days, but -- and for service, would it were as soon purchased as wish'd for, (God's my comfort) I know what I would say. LOR. SE. What's thy name? MUS. Please you: Portensio. LOR. SE. Portensio? Say that a man should entertain thee now, Would thou be honest, humble, just, and true? MUS. Signior: by the place and honour of a soldier -- LOR. SE. Nay, nay, I like not these affected oaths; Speak plainly, man: what thinkst thou of my words? MUS. Nothing, Signior, but wish my fortunes were as happy as my service should be honest. LOR. SE. Well, follow me, I'll prove thee, if thy deeds Will carry a proportion to thy words. [EXIT LOR. SE.] MUS. Yes, sir, straight, I'll but garter my hose; oh, that my belly were hoop'd now, for I am ready to burst with laughing. 'Slid, was there ever seen a fox in years to betray himself thus? now shall I be possest of all his determinations, and consequently my young master; well, he is resolved to prove my honesty: faith, and I am resolved to prove his patience: oh, I shall abuse him intolerably: this small piece of service will bring him clean out of love with the soldier for ever. It's no matter, let the world think me a bad counterfeit, if I cannot give him the slip at an instant; why, this is better than to have stayed his journey by half: well, I'll follow him. Oh, how I long to be employed. [EXIT.] ACT II. SCENE III. ENTER PROSPERO, BOBADILLA, AND MATHEO. MAT. Yes, faith, sir, we were at your lodging to seek you too. PROS. Oh, I came not there to-night. BOB. Your brother delivered us as much. PROS. Who, Giuliano? BOB. Giuliano. Signior Prospero, I know not in what kind you value me, but let me tell you this: as sure as God, I do hold it so much out of mine honour and reputation, if I should but cast the least regard upon such a dunghill of flesh; I protest to you (as I have a soul to be saved) I ne'er saw any gentlemanlike part in him: an there were no more men living upon the face of the earth, I should not fancy him, by Phoebus. MAT. Troth, nor I, he is of a rustical cut, I know not how: he doth not carry himself like a gentleman. PROS. Oh, Signior Matheo, that's a grace peculiar but to a few; "quos aequus amavit Jupiter." MAT. I understand you, sir. [ENTER LOR. JU. AND STEP.] PROS. No question you do, sir: Lorenzo! now on my soul, welcome; how dost thou, sweet rascal? my Genius! 'Sblood, I shall love Apollo and the mad Thespian girls the better while I live for this; my dear villain, now I see there's some spirit in thee: Sirrah, these be they two I writ to thee of, nay, what a drowsy humour is this now? why dost thou not speak? LOR. JU. Oh, you are a fine gallant, you sent me a rare letter. PROS. Why, was't not rare? LOR. JU. Yes, I'll be sworn I was ne'er guilty of reading the like, match it in all Pliny's familiar Epistles, and I'll have my judgment burn'd in the ear for a rogue, make much of thy vein, for it is inimitable. But I marle what camel it was, that had the carriage of it? for doubtless he was no ordinary beast that brought it. PROS. Why? LOR. JU. Why, sayest thou? why, dost thou think that any reasonable creature, especially in the morning, (the sober time of the day too) would have ta'en my father for me? PROS. 'Sblood, you jest, I hope? LOR. JU. Indeed, the best use we can turn it to, is to make a jest on't now: but I'll assure you, my father had the proving of your copy some hour before I saw it. PROS. What a dull slave was this! But, sirrah, what said he to it, i'faith? LOR. JU. Nay, I know not what he said. But I have a shrewd guess what he thought. PRO. What? what? LOR. JU. Marry, that thou are a damn'd dissolute villain, And I some grain or two better, in keeping thee company. PROS. Tut, that thought is like the moon in the last quarter, 'twill change shortly: but, sirrah, I pray thee be acquainted with my two Zanies here, thou wilt take exceeding pleasure in them if thou hear'st them once, but what strange piece of silence is this? the sign of the dumb man? LOR. JU. Oh, sir, a kinsman of mine, one that may make our music the fuller, an he please, he hath his humour, sir. PROS. Oh, what is't? what is't? LOR. JU. Nay, I'll neither do thy judgment nor his folly that wrong, as to prepare thy apprehension: I'll leave him to the mercy of the time, if you can take him: so. PROS. Well, Signior Bobadilla, Signior Matheo: I pray you know this gentleman here, he is a friend of mine, and one that will well deserve your affection, I know not your name, Signior, but I shall be glad of any good occasion to be more familiar with you. STEP. My name is Signior Stephano, sir, I am this gentleman's cousin, sir, his father is mine uncle; sir, I am somewhat melancholy, but you shall command me, sir, in whatsoever is incident to a gentleman. BOB. Signior, I must tell you this, I am no general man, embrace it as a most high favour, for (by the host of Egypt) but that I conceive you to be a gentleman of some parts, I love few words: you have wit: imagine. STEP. Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy. MAT. O Lord, sir, it's your only best humour, sir, your true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit, sir: I am melancholy myself divers times, sir, and then do I no more but take your pen and paper presently, and write you your half score or your dozen of sonnets at a sitting. LOR. JU. Mass, then he utters them by the gross. STEP. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure. LOR. JU. I'faith, as well as in measure. MAT. Why, I pray you, Signior, make use of my study, it's at your service. STEP. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you, have you a close stool there? MAT. Faith, sir, I have some papers there, toys of mine own doing at idle hours, that you'll say there's some sparks of wit in them, when you shall see them. PROS. Would they were kindled once, and a good fire made, I might see self-love burn'd for her heresy. STEP. Cousin, is it well? am I melancholy enough? LOR. JU. Oh, ay, excellent. PROS. Signior Bobadilla, why muse you so? LOR. JU. He is melancholy too. BOB. Faith, sir, I was thinking of a most honourable piece of service was perform'd to-morrow, being St. Mark's day, shall be some ten years. LOR. JU. In what place was that service, I pray you, sir? BOB. Why, at the beleaguering of Ghibelletto, where, in less than two hours, seven hundred resolute gentlemen, as any were in Europe, lost their lives upon the breach: I'll tell you, gentlemen, it was the first, but the best leaguer that ever I beheld with these eyes, except the taking in of Tortosa last year by the Genoways, but that (of all other) was the most fatal and dangerous exploit that ever I was ranged in, since I first bore arms before the face of the enemy, as I am a gentleman and a soldier. STEP. So, I had as lief as an angel I could swear as well as that gentleman. LOR. JU. Then you were a servitor at both, it seems. BOB. O Lord, sir: by Phaeton, I was the first man that entered the breach, and had I not effected it with resolution, I had been slain if I had had a million of lives. LOR. JU. Indeed, sir? STEP. Nay, an you heard him discourse you would say so: how like you him? BOB. I assure you (upon my salvation) 'tis true, and yourself shall confess. PROS. You must bring him to the rack first. BOB. Observe me judicially, sweet Signior: they had planted me a demi-culverin just in the mouth of the breach; now, sir, (as we were to ascend), their master gunner (a man of no mean skill and courage, you must think,) confronts me with his linstock ready to give fire; I spying his intendment, discharged my petronel in his bosom, and with this instrument, my poor rapier, ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance, and put them pell-mell to the sword. PROS. To the sword? to the rapier, Signior. LOR. JU. Oh, it was a good figure observed, sir: but did you all this, Signior, without hurting your blade? BOB. Without any impeach on the earth: you shall perceive, sir, it is the most fortunate weapon that ever rid on a poor gentleman's thigh: shall I tell you, sir? you talk of Morglay, Excalibur, Durindana, or so: tut, I lend no credit to that is reported of them, I know the virtue of mine own, and therefore I dare the boldlier maintain it. STEP. I marle whether it be a Toledo or no? BOB. A most perfect Toledo, I assure you, Signior. STEP. I have a countryman of his here. MAT. Pray you let's see, sir: yes, faith, it is. BOB. This a Toledo? pish! STEP. Why do you pish, Signior? BOB. A Fleming, by Phoebus! I'll buy them for a guilder a piece, an I'll have a thousand of them. LOR. JU. How say you, cousin? I told you thus much. PROS. Where bought you it, Signior? STEP. Of a scurvy rogue soldier, a pox of God on him, he swore it was a Toledo. BOB. A provant rapier, no better. MAT. Mass, I think it be indeed. LOR. JU. Tut, now it's too late to look on it, put it up, put it up. STEP. Well, I will not put it up, but by God's foot, an ever I meet him -- PROS. Oh, it is past remedy now, sir, you must have patience. STEP. Whoreson, coney-catching rascal; oh, I could eat the very hilts for anger. LOR. JU. A sign you have a good ostrich stomach, cousin. STEP. A stomach? would I had him here, you should see an I had a stomach. PROS. It's better as 'tis: come, gentlemen, shall we go? LOR. JU. A miracle, cousin, look here, look here. [ENTER MUSCO.] STEP. Oh, God's lid, by your leave, do you know me, sir? MUS. Ay, sir, I know you by sight. STEP. You sold me a rapier, did you not? MUS. Yes, marry did I, sir. STEP. You said it was a Toledo, ha? MUS. True, I did so. STEP. But it is none. MUS. No, sir, I confess it, it is none. STEP. Gentlemen, bear witness, he has confest it. By God's lid, an you had not confest it -- LOR. JU. Oh, cousin, forbear, forbear. STEP. Nay, I have done, cousin. PROS. Why, you have done like a gentleman, he has confest it, what would you more? LOR. JU. Sirrah, how dost thou like him? PROS. Oh, it's a precious good fool, make much on him: I can compare him to nothing more happily than a barber's virginals; for every one may play upon him. MUS. Gentleman, shall I intreat a word with you? LOR. JU. With all my heart, sir, you have not another Toledo to sell, have you? MUS. You are pleasant, your name is Signior Lorenzo, as I take it? LOR. JU. You are in the right: 'Sblood, he means to catechise me, I think. MUS. No, sir, I leave that to the Curate, I am none of that coat. LOR. JU. And yet of as bare a coat; well, say, sir. MUS. Faith, Signior, I am but servant to God Mars extraordinary, and indeed (this brass varnish being washed off, and three or four other tricks sublated) I appear yours in reversion, after the decease of your good father, Musco. LOR. JU. Musco, 'sblood, what wind hath blown thee hither in this shape? MUS. Your easterly wind, sir, the same that blew your father hither. LOR. JU. My father? MUS. Nay, never start, it's true, he is come to town of purpose to seek you. LOR. JU. Sirrah Prospero, what shall we do, sirrah? my father is come to the city. PROS. Thy father: where is he? MUS. At a gentleman's house yonder by St. Anthony's, where he but stays my return; and then -- PROS. Who's this? Musco? MUS. The same, sir. PROS. Why, how com'st thou transmuted thus? MUS. Faith, a device, a device, nay, for the love of God, stand not here, gentlemen, house yourselves, and I'll tell you all. LOR. JU. But art thou sure he will stay thy return? MUS. Do I live, sir? what a question is that! PROS. Well, we'll prorogue his expectation a little: Musco, thou shalt go with us: Come on, gentlemen: nay, I pray thee, (good rascal) droop not, 'sheart, an our wits be so gouty, that one old plodding brain can outstrip us all. Lord, I beseech thee, may they lie and starve in some miserable spittle, where they may never see the face of any true spirit again, but be perpetually haunted with some church-yard hobgoblin in seculo seculorum. MUS. Amen, Amen. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE I. ENTER THORELLO, AND PISO. PIS. He will expect you, sir, within this half hour. THO. Why, what's a clock? PIS. New stricken ten. THO. Hath he the money ready, can you tell? PIS. Yes, sir, Baptista brought it yesternight. THO. Oh, that's well: fetch me my cloak. [EXIT PISO.] Stay, let me see; an hour to go and come, Ay, that will be the least: and then 'twill be An hour before I can dispatch with him; Or very near: well, I will say two hours; Two hours? ha! things never dreamt of yet May be contrived, ay, and effected too, In two hours' absence: well, I will not go. Two hours; no, fleering opportunity, I will not give your treachery that scope. Who will not judge him worthy to be robb'd, That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shews the felon where his treasure lies? Again, what earthy spirit but will attempt To taste the fruit of beauty's golden tree, When leaden sleep seals up the dragon's eyes? Oh, beauty is a project of some power, Chiefly when opportunity attends her: She will infuse true motion in a stone, Put glowing fire in an icy soul, Stuff peasants' bosoms with proud Caesar's spleen, Pour rich device into an empty brain: Bring youth to folly's gate: there train him in, And after all, extenuate his sin. Well, I will not go, I am resolved for that. Go, carry it again: yet stay: yet do too, I will defer it till some other time. [ENTER PISO.] PIS. Sir, Signior Platano will meet you there with the bond. THO. That's true: by Jesu, I had clean forgot it. I must go, what's a clock? PIS. Past ten, sir. THO. 'Heart, then will Prospero presently be here too, With one or other of his loose consorts. I am a Jew if I know what to say, What course to take, or which way to resolve. My brain (methinks) is like an hour-glass, And my imaginations like the sands Run dribbling forth to fill the mouth of time, Still changed with turning in the ventricle. What were I best to do? it shall be so. Nay, I dare build upon his secrecy. Piso. PIS. Sir. THO. Yet now I have bethought me too, I will not. Is Cob within? PIS. I think he be, sir. THO. But he'll prate too, there's no talk of him. No, there were no course upon the earth to this, If I durst trust him; tut, I were secure, But there's the question now, if he should prove, Rimarum plenus, then, 'sblood, I were rook'd. The state that he hath stood in till this present Doth promise no such change: what should I fear then? Well, come what will, I'll tempt my fortune once. Piso, thou mayest deceive me, but I think thou lovest me, Piso. PIS. Sir, if a servant's zeal and humble duty may be term'd love, you are possest of it. THO. I have a matter to impart to thee, but thou must be secret, Piso. PIS. Sir, for that -- THO. Nay, hear me, man; think I esteem thee well, To let thee in thus to my private thoughts; Piso, it is a thing sits nearer to my crest, Than thou art 'ware of; if thou should'st reveal it -- PIS. Reveal it, sir? THO. Nay, I do not think thou would'st, but if thou should'st -- PIS. Sir, then I were a villain: Disclaim in me for ever if I do. THO. He will not swear: he has some meaning, sure, Else (being urged so much) how should he choose, But lend an oath to all this protestation? He is no puritan, that I am certain of. What should I think of it? urge him again, And in some other form: I will do so. Well, Piso, thou has sworn not to disclose; ay, you did swear? PIS. Not yet, sir, but I will, so please you. THO. Nay, I dare take thy word. But if thou wilt swear, do as you think good, I am resolved without such circumstance. PIS. By my soul's safety, sir, I here protest, My tongue shall ne'er take knowledge of a word Deliver'd me in compass of your trust. THO. Enough, enough, these ceremonies need not, I know thy faith to be as firm as brass. Piso, come hither: nay, we must be close In managing these actions: So it is, (Now he has sworn I dare the safelier speak;) I have of late by divers observations -- But, whether his oath be lawful, yea, or no? ha! I will ask counsel ere I do proceed: Piso, it will be now too long to stay, We'll spy some fitter time soon, or to-morrow. PIS. At your pleasure, sir. THO. I pray you search the books 'gainst I return For the receipts 'twixt me and Platano. PIS. I will, sir. THO. And hear you: if my brother Prospero Chance to bring hither any gentlemen Ere I come back, let one straight bring me word. PIS. Very well, sir. THO. Forget it not, nor be not you out of the way. PIS. I will not, sir. THO. Or whether he come or no, if any other, Stranger or else: fail not to send me word. PIS. Yes, sir. THO. Have care, I pray you, and remember it. PIS. I warrant you, sir. THO. But, Piso, this is not the secret I told thee of. PIS. No, sir, I suppose so. THO. Nay, believe me, it is not. PIS. I do believe you, sir. THO. By heaven it is not, that's enough. Marry, I would not thou should'st utter it to any creature living, Yet I care not. Well, I must hence: Piso, conceive thus much, No ordinary person could have drawn So deep a secret from me; I mean not this, But that I have to tell thee: this is nothing, this. Piso, remember, silence, buried here: No greater hell than to be slave to fear. [EXIT THO.] PIS. Piso, remember, silence, buried here: When should this flow of passion (trow) take head? ha! Faith, I'll dream no longer of this running humour, For fear I sink, the violence of the stream Already hath transported me so far That I can feel no ground at all: but soft, [ENTER COB.] Oh, it's our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now. COB. Fasting days: what tell you me of your fasting days? would they were all on a light fire for me: they say the world shall be consumed with fire and brimstone in the latter day: but I would we had these ember weeks and these villainous Fridays burnt in the mean time, and then -- PIS. Why, how now, Cob! what moves thee to this choler, ha? COB. Collar, sir? 'swounds, I scorn your collar, I, sir, am no collier's horse, sir, never ride me with your collar, an you do, I'll shew you a jade's trick. PIS. Oh, you'll slip your head out of the collar: why, Cob, you mistake me. COB. Nay, I have my rheum, and I be angry as well as another, sir. PIE. Thy rheum? thy humour, man, thou mistakest. COB. Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant. PIS. Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by self-love and affectation, and fed by folly. COB. How? must it be fed? PIS. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why, didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase, "Feed my humour." COB. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not, be gone. Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too, an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on them all for me: by this light, one might have done God good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse. PIS. Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days? COB. Marry, that that will make any man out of love with them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know: First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more butter than all the days of the week beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed. PIS. Indeed, these are faults, Cob. COB. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in passion, and your maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz, [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these days of persecution would ne'er be known. I'll be hang'd an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in more fasting days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stockfish. PIS. 'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish else: here is Signior Matheo. [ENTER MATHEO, PROSPERO, LORENZO JUNIOR, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, MUSCO.] Now must I look out for a messenger to my master. [EXEUNT COB AND PISO.] ACT III. SCENE II. PROS. Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried. LOR. JU. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not? PROS. Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him? LOR. JU. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him. 'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing with an emphasis. Indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the rout. PROS. Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been such a gallant? LOR. JU. I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think the world cannot produce his rival. PROS. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle? MUS. Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker. PROS. That cannot be, if the proverb hold, a crafty knave needs no broker. MUS. True, sir, but I need a broker, ergo, no crafty knave. PROS. Well put off, well put off. LOR. JU. Tut, he has more of these shifts. MUS. And yet where I have one, the broker has ten, sir. [ENTER PIS.] PIS. Francisco, Martino, ne'er a one to be found now: what a spite's this? PROS. How now, Piso? is my brother within? PIS. No, sir, my master went forth e'en now, but Signior Giuliano is within. Cob, what, Cob! Is he gone too? PROS. Whither went thy master? Piso, canst thou tell? PIS. I know not, to Doctor Clement's, I think, sir. Cob. [EXIT PIS.] LOR. JU. Doctor Clement, what's he? I have heard much speech of him. PROS. Why, dost thou not know him? he is the Gonfaloniere of the state here, an excellent rare civilian, and a great scholar, but the only mad merry old fellow in Europe: I shewed him you the other day. LOR. JU. Oh, I remember him now; Good faith, and he hath a very strange presence, methinks, it shews as if he stood out of the rank from other men. I have heard many of his jests in Padua; they say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse. PROS. Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or any thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour. PIS. Gaspar, Martino, Cob: 'Sheart, where should they be, trow? [ENTER PISO.] BOB. Signior Thorello's man, I pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match. PIS. A pox on your match, no time but now to vouchsafe? Francisco, Cob. [EXIT.] BOB. Body of me: here's the remainder of seven pound, since yesterday was sevennight. It's your right Trinidado: did you never take any, signior? STEP. No, truly, sir; but I'll learn to take it now, since you commend it so. BOB. Signior, believe me (upon my relation) for what I tell you, the world shall not improve. I have been in the Indies, (where this herb grows) where neither myself nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only. Therefore it cannot be but 'tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence it should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound, your Balsamum, and your -- are all mere gulleries, and trash to it, especially your Trinidado: your Nicotian is good too: I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the exposing of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quack-salver. Only thus much; by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever the earth tendered to the use of man. LOR. JU. Oh, this speech would have done rare in an apothecary's mouth. [ENTER PISO AND COB.] PIS. Ay; close by Saint Anthony's: Doctor Clement's. COB. Oh, oh. BOB. Where's the match I gave thee? PIS. 'Sblood, would his match, and he, and pipe, and all, were at Sancto Domingo. [EXIT.] COB. By God's deins, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco; it's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight, one of them (they say) will ne'er escape it, he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present death, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end as many as use it; it's little better than rat's-bane. [EXIT PISO.] ALL. Oh, good Signior; hold, hold. BOB. You base cullion, you. PIS. Sir, here's your match; come, thou must needs be talking too. COB. Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you; well, it shall be a dear beating, an I live. BOB. Do you prate? LOR. JU. Nay, good Signior, will you regard the humour of a fool? Away, knave. PROS. Piso, get him away. [EXIT PISO AND COB.] BOB. A whoreson filthy slave, a turd, an excrement. Body of Caesar, but that I scorn to let forth so mean a spirit, I'd have stabb'd him to the earth. PROS. Marry, God forbid, sir. BOB. By this fair heaven, I would have done it. STEP. Oh, he swears admirably; (by this fair heaven!) Body of Caesar: I shall never do it, sure (upon my salvation). No, I have not the right grace. MAT. Signior, will you any? By this air, the most divine tobacco as ever I drunk. LOR. JU. I thank you, sir. STEP. Oh, this gentleman doth it rarely too, but nothing like the other. By this air, as I am a gentleman: By Phoebus. [EXIT BOB. AND MAT.] MUS. Master, glance, glance: Signior Prospero. STEP. As I have a soul to be saved, I do protest -- PROS. That you are a fool. LOR. JU. Cousin, will you any tobacco? STEP. Ay, sir: upon my salvation. LOR. JU. How now, cousin? STEP. I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier indeed. PROS. No, Signior, as I remember, you served on a great horse, last general muster. STEP. Ay, sir, that's true, cousin, may I swear as I am a soldier, by that? LOR. JU. Oh yes, that you may. STEP. Then as I am a gentleman, and a soldier, it is divine tobacco. PROS. But soft, where's Signior Matheo? gone? MUS. No, sir, they went in here. PROS. Oh, let's follow them: Signior Matheo is gone to salute his mistress, sirrah, now thou shalt hear some of his verses, for he never comes hither without some shreds of poetry: Come, Signior Stephano. Musco. STEP. Musco? where? Is this Musco? LOR. JU. Ay; but peace, cousin, no words of it at any hand. STEP. Not I, by this fair heaven, as I have a soul to be saved, by Phoebus. PROS. Oh rare! your cousin's discourse is simply suited, all in oaths. LOR. JU. Ay, he lacks nothing but a little light stuff, to draw them out withal, and he were rarely fitted to the time. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE III. ENTER THORELLO WITH COB. THO. Ha, how many are there, sayest thou? COB. Marry, sir, your brother, Signior Prospero. THO. Tut, beside him: what strangers are there, man? COB. Strangers? let me see, one, two; mass, I know not well, there's so many. THO. How? so many? COB. Ay, there's some five or six of them at the most. THO. A swarm, a swarm? Spite of the devil, how they sting my heart! How long hast thou been coming hither, Cob? COB. But a little while, sir. THO. Didst thou come running? COB. No, sir. THO. Tut, then I am familiar with thy haste. Ban to my fortunes: what meant I to marry? I that before was rank'd in such content, My mind attired in smooth silken peace, Being free master of mine own free thoughts, And now become a slave? what, never sigh, Be of good cheer, man: for thou art a cuckold, 'Tis done, 'tis done: nay, when such flowing store, Plenty itself falls in my wife's lap, The Cornucopiae will be mine, I know. But, Cob, What entertainment had they? I am sure My sister and my wife would bid them welcome, ha? COB. Like enough: yet I heard not a word of welcome. THO. No, their lips were seal'd with kisses, and the voice Drown'd in a flood of joy at their arrival, Had lost her motion, state, and faculty. Cob, which of them was't that first kiss'd my wife? (My sister, I should say,) my wife, alas, I fear not her: ha? who was it, say'st thou? COB. By my troth, sir, will you have the truth of it? THO. Oh ay, good Cob: I pray thee. COB. God's my judge, I saw nobody to be kiss'd, unless they would have kiss'd the post in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left them all, at their tobacco, with a pox. THO. How? were they not gone in then ere thou cam'st? COB. Oh no, sir. THO. Spite of the devil, what do I stay here then? Cob, follow me. [EXIT THO.] COB. Nay, soft and fair, I have eggs on the spit; I cannot go yet sir: now am I for some divers reasons hammering, hammering revenge: oh, for three or four gallons of vinegar, to sharpen my wits: Revenge, vinegar revenge, russet revenge; nay, an he had not lien in my house, 'twould never have grieved me; but being my guest, one that I'll be sworn my wife has lent him her smock off her back, while his own shirt has been at washing: pawned her neckerchers for clean bands for him: sold almost all my platters to buy him tobacco; and yet to see an ingratitude wretch strike his host; well, I hope to raise up an host of furies for't: here comes M. Doctor. [ENTER DOCTOR CLEMENT, LORENZO SENIOR, PETO.] CLEM. What's Signior Thorello gone? PET. Ay, sir. CLEM. Heart of me, what made him leave us so abruptly? How now, sirrah; what make you here? what would you have, ha? COB. An't please your worship, I am a poor neighbour of your worship's. CLEM. A neighbour of mine, knave? COB. Ay, sir, at the sign of the Water-tankard, hard by the Green Lattice: I have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years. CLEM. What, at the Green Lattice? COB. No sir: to the parish: marry, I have seldom scaped scot-free at the Lattice. CLEM. So: but what business hath my neighbour? COB. An't like your worship, I am come to crave the peace of your worship. CLEM. Of me, knave? peace of me, knave? did I e'er hurt thee? did I ever threaten thee? or wrong thee? ha? COB. No, God's my comfort, I mean your worship's warrant, for one that hath wrong'd me, sir: his arms are at too much liberty, I would fain have them bound to a treaty of peace, an I could by any means compass it. LOR. Why, dost thou go in danger of thy life for him? COB. No, sir; but I go in danger of my death every hour by his means; an I die within a twelve-month and a day, I may swear, by the laws of the land, that he kill'd me. CLEM. How? how, knave? swear he kill'd thee? what pretext? what colour hast thou for that? COB. Marry, sir, both black and blue, colour enough, I warrant you, I have it here to shew your worship. CLEM. What is he that gave you this, sirrah? COB. A gentleman in the city, sir. CLEM. A gentleman? what call you him? COB. Signior Bobadilla. CLEM. Good: But wherefore did he beat you, sirrah? how began the quarrel 'twixt you? ha: speak truly, knave, I advise you. COB. Marry, sir, because I spake against their vagrant tobacco, as I came by them: for nothing else. CLEM. Ha, you speak against tobacco? Peto, his name. PET. What's your name, sirrah? COB. Oliver Cob, sir, set Oliver Cob, sir. CLEM. Tell Oliver Cob he shall go to the jail. PET. Oliver Cob, master Doctor says you shall go to the jail. COB. Oh, I beseech your worship, for God's love, dear master Doctor. CLEM. Nay, God's precious! an such drunken knaves as you are come to dispute of tobacco once, I have done: away with him. COB. Oh, good master Doctor, sweet gentleman. LOR. SE. Sweet Oliver, would I could do thee any good; master Doctor, let me intreat, sir. CLEM. What? a tankard-bearer, a thread-bare rascal, a beggar, a slave that never drunk out of better than piss-pot metal in his life, and he to deprave and abuse the virtue of an herb so generally received in the courts of princes, the chambers of nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers: Peto, away with him, by God's passion, I say, go to. COB. Dear master Doctor. LOR. SE. Alas, poor Oliver. CLEM. Peto: ay: and make him a warrant, he shall not go, I but fear the knave. COB. O divine Doctor, thanks, noble Doctor, most dainty Doctor, delicious Doctor. [EXEUNT PETO WITH COB.] CLEM. Signior Lorenzo: God's pity, man, Be merry, be merry, leave these dumps. LOR. SE. Troth, would I could, sir: but enforced mirth (In my weak judgment) has no happy birth. The mind, being once a prisoner unto cares, The more it dreams on joy, the worse it fares. A smiling look is to a heavy soul As a gilt bias to a leaden bowl, Which (in itself) appears most vile, being spent To no true use; but only for ostent. CLEM. Nay, but, good Signior, hear me a word, hear me a word, your cares are nothing; they are like my cap, soon put on, and as soon put off. What? your son is old enough to govern himself; let him run his course, it's the only way to make him a staid man: if he were an unthrift, a ruffian, a drunkard, or a licentious liver, then you had reason: you had reason to take care: but being none of these, God's passion, an I had twice so many cares as you have, I'd drown them all in a cup of sack: come, come, I muse your parcel of a soldier returns not all this while. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE IV. ENTER GIULIANO, WITH BIANCHA. GIU. Well, sister, I tell you true: and you'll find it so in the end. BIA. Alas, brother, what would you have me to do? I cannot help it; you see, my brother Prospero he brings them in here, they are his friends. GIU. His friends? his friends? 'sblood, they do nothing but haunt him up and down like a sort of unlucky sprites, and tempt him to all manner of villainy that can be thought of; well, by this light, a little thing would make me play the devil with some of them; an't were not more for your husband's sake than any thing else, I'd make the house too hot for them; they should say and swear, hell were broken loose, ere they went. But by God's bread, 'tis nobody's fault but yours; for an you had done as you might have done, they should have been damn'd ere they should have come in, e'er a one of them. BIA. God's my life; did you ever hear the like? what a strange man is this! could I keep out all them, think you? I should put myself against half a dozen men, should I? Good faith, you'd mad the patient'st body in the world, to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason. [ENTER MATHEO WITH HESPERIDA, BOBADILLA, STEPHANO, LORENZO JUNIOR, PROSPERO, MUSCO.] HESP. Servant, (in troth) you are too prodigal of your wits' treasure, thus to pour it forth upon so mean a subject as my worth. MAT. You say well, you say well. GIU. Hoyday, here is stuff. LOR. JU. Oh now stand close; pray God she can get him to read it. PROS. Tut, fear not: I warrant thee he will do it of himself with much impudency. HES. Servant, what is that same, I pray you? MAT. Marry, an Elegy, an Elegy, an odd toy. GIU. Ay, to mock an ape withal. O Jesu. BIA. Sister, I pray you let's hear it. MAT. Mistress, I'll read it, if you please. HES. I pray you do, servant. GIU. Oh, here's no foppery. 'Sblood, it frets me to the gall to think on it. [EXIT.] PROS. Oh ay, it is his condition, peace: we are fairly rid of him. MAT. Faith, I did it in an humour: I know not how it is, but please you come near, signior: this gentleman hath judgment, he knows how to censure of a -- I pray you, sir, you can judge. STEP. Not I, sir: as I have a soul to be saved, as I am a gentleman. LOR. JU. Nay, it's well; so long as he doth not forswear himself. BOB. Signior, you abuse the excellency of your mistress and her fair sister. Fie, while you live avoid this prolixity. MAT. I shall, sir; well, incipere dulce. LOR. JU. How, incipere dulce? a sweet thing to be a fool indeed. PROS. What, do you take incipere in that sense? LOR. JU. You do not, you? 'Sblood, this was your villainy to gull him with a motte. PROS. Oh, the benchers' phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba. MAT. "Rare creature, let me speak without offence, Would God my rude words had the influence To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine, Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine." LOR. JU. 'Sheart, this is in Hero and Leander! PROS. Oh ay: peace, we shall have more of this. MAT. "Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff Is of behaviour boisterous and rough": How like you that, Signior? 'sblood, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it. MAT. But observe the catastrophe now, "And I in duty will exceed all other, As you in beauty do excel love's mother." LOR. JU. Well, I'll have him free of the brokers, for he utters nothing but stolen remnants. PROS. Nay, good critic, forbear. LOR. JU. A pox on him, hang him, filching rogue, steal from the dead? it's worse than sacrilege. PROS. Sister, what have you here? verses? I pray you let's see. BIA. Do you let them go so lightly, sister? HES. Yes, faith, when they come lightly. BIA. Ay, but if your servant should hear you, he would take it heavily. HES. No matter, he is able to bear. BIA. So are asses. HES. So is he. PROS. Signior Matheo, who made these verses? they are excellent good. MAT. O God, sir, it's your pleasure to say so, sir. Faith, I made them extempore this morning. PROS. How extempore? MAT. Ay, would I might be damn'd else; ask Signior Bobadilla. He saw me write them, at the -- (pox on it) the Mitre yonder. MUS. Well, an the Pope knew he cursed the Mitre it were enough to have him excommunicated all the taverns in the town. STEP. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses? LOR. JU. Oh, admirable, the best that ever I heard. STEP. By this fair heavens, they are admirable, The best that ever I heard. [ENTER GIULIANO.] GIU. I am vext I can hold never a bone of me still, 'Sblood, I think they mean to build a Tabernacle here, well? PROS. Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns your beauty with such encomiums and devices, you may see what it is to be the mistress of a wit that can make your perfections so transparent, that every blear eye may look through them, and see him drowned over head and ears in the deep well of desire. Sister Biancha, I marvel you get you not a servant that can rhyme and do tricks too. GIU. O monster! impudence itself! tricks! BIA. Tricks, brother? what tricks? HES. Nay, speak, I pray you, what tricks? BIA. Ay, never spare any body here: but say, what tricks? HES. Passion of my heart! do tricks? PROS. 'Sblood, here's a trick vied, and revied: why, you monkeys, you! what a cater-wauling do you keep! has he not given you rhymes, and verses, and tricks? GIU. Oh, see the devil! PROS. Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff so: come and cherish this tame poetical fury in your servant, you'll be begg'd else shortly for a concealment: go to, reward his muse, you cannot give him less than a shilling in conscience, for the book he had it out of cost him a teston at the least. How now gallants, Lorenzo, Signior Bobadilla! what, all sons of silence? no spirit. GIU. Come, you might practise your ruffian tricks somewhere else, and not here, I wiss: this is no tavern, nor no place for such exploits. PROS. 'Sheart, how now! GIU. Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, by God's bread, ay, and you and your companions mend yourselves when I have done. PROS. My companions? GIU. Ay, your companions, sir, so I say! 'Sblood, I am not afraid of you nor them neither, you must have your poets, and your cavaliers, and your fools follow you up and down the city, and here they must come to domineer and swagger? sirrah, you ballad-singer, and slops, your fellow there, get you out; get you out: or (by the will of God) I'll cut off your ears, go to. PROS. 'Sblood, stay, let's see what he dare do: cut off his ears; you are an ass, touch any man here, and by the Lord I'll run my rapier to the hilts in thee. GIU. Yea, that would I fain see, boy. BIA. O Jesu! Piso! Matheo! murder! HES. Help, help, Piso! [THEY ALL DRAW, ENTER PISO AND SOME MORE OF THE HOUSE TO PART THEM, THE WOMEN MAKE A GREAT CRY.] LOR. JU. Gentlemen, Prospero, forbear, I pray you. BOB. Well, sirrah, you Holofernes: by my hand, I will pink thy flesh full of holes with my rapier for this, I will, by this good heaven: nay, let him come, let him come, gentlemen, by the body of St. George, I'll not kill him. [THEY OFFER TO FIGHT AGAIN, AND ARE PARTED.] PIS. Hold, hold, forbear. GIU. You whoreson, bragging coistril. [ENTER THORELLO.] THO. Why, how now? what's the matter? what stir is here? Whence springs this quarrel? Piso, where is he? Put up your weapons, and put off this rage. My wife and sister, they are cause of this. What, Piso? where is this knave? PIS. Here, sir. PROS. Come, let's go: this is one of my brother's ancient humours, this. STEP. I am glad nobody was hurt by this ancient humour. [EXIT PROSPERO, LORENZO JU., MUSCO, STEPHANO, BOBADILLA, MATHEO.] THO. Why, how now, brother, who enforced this brawl? GIU. A sort of lewd rake-hells, that care neither for God nor the devil. And they must come here to read ballads and roguery, and trash. I'll mar the knot of them ere I sleep, perhaps; especially Signior Pithagoras, he that's all manner of shapes: and songs and sonnets, his fellow there. HES. Brother, indeed you are too violent, Too sudden in your courses, and you know My brother Prospero's temper will not bear Any reproof, chiefly in such a presence, Where every slight disgrace he should receive, Would wound him in opinion and respect. GIU. Respect? what talk you of respect 'mongst such As had neither spark of manhood nor good manners? By God I am ashamed to hear you: respect? [EXIT.] HES. Yes, there was one a civil gentleman, And very worthily demeaned himself. THO. Oh, that was some love of yours, sister. HES. A love of mine? i'faith, I would he were No other's love but mine. BIA. Indeed, he seem'd to be a gentleman of an exceeding fair disposition, and of very excellent good parts. [EXIT HESPERIDA, BIANCHA.] THO. Her love, by Jesu: my wife's minion, Fair disposition? excellent good parts? 'Sheart, these phrases are intolerable, Good parts? how should she know his parts? well, well, It is too plain, too clear: Piso, come hither. What, are they gone? PIS. Ay, sir, they went in. THO. Are any of the gallants within? PIS. No sir, they are all gone. THO. Art thou sure of it? PIS. Ay, sir, I can assure you. THO. Piso, what gentleman was that they praised so? PISO. One they call him Signior Lorenzo, a fair young gentleman, sir. THO. Ay, I thought so: my mind gave me as much: 'Sblood, I'll be hang'd if they have not hid him in the house, Some where, I'll go search, Piso, go with me, Be true to me and thou shalt find me bountiful. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE V. ENTER COB, TO HIM TIB. COB. What, Tib, Tib, I say. TIB. How now, what cuckold is that knocks so hard? Oh, husband, is't you? What's the news? COB. Nay, you have stunn'd me, i'faith; you have given me a knock on the forehead will stick by me: cuckold? 'Swounds, cuckold? TIB. Away, you fool, did I know it was you that knock'd? Come, come, you may call me as bad when you list. COB. May I? 'swounds, Tib, you are a whore. TIB. 'Sheart, you lie in your throat. COB. How, the lie? and in my throat too? do you long to be stabb'd, ha? TIB. Why, you are no soldier? COB. Mass, that's true, when was Bobadilla here? that rogue, that slave, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle him, i'faith. TIB. Why, what's the matter? COB. Oh, he hath basted me rarely, sumptuously: but I have it here will sauce him, oh, the doctor, the honestest old Trojan in all Italy, I do honour the very flea of his dog: a plague on him, he put me once in a villainous filthy fear: marry, it vanish'd away like the smoke of tobacco: but I was smok'd soundly first, I thank the devil, and his good angel my guest: well, wife, or Tib, (which you will) get you in, and lock the door, I charge you; let nobody into you, not Bobadilla himself, nor the devil in his likeness; you are a woman; you have flesh and blood enough in you; therefore be not tempted; keep the door shut upon all comers. TIB. I warrant you there shall nobody enter here without my consent. COB. Nor with your consent, sweet Tib, and so I leave you. TIB. It's more than you know, whether you leave me so. COB. How? TIB. Why, sweet. COB. Tut, sweet or sour, thou art a flower. Keep close thy door, I ask no more. [EXEUNT.] ACT III. SCENE VI. ENTER LORENZO JUN., PROSPERO, STEPHANO, MUSCO. LOR JU. Well, Musco, perform this business happily, And thou makest a conquest of my love for ever. PROS. I'faith, now let thy spirits put on their best habit, But at any hand remember thy message to my brother, For there's no other means to start him. MUS. I warrant you, sir, fear nothing; I have a nimble soul that hath waked all my imaginative forces by this time, and put them in true motion: what you have possest me withal, I'll discharge it amply, sir. Make no question. [EXIT MUSCO.] PROS. That's well said, Musco: faith, sirrah, how dost thou approve my wit in this device? LOR JU. Troth, well, howsoever; but excellent if it take. PROS. Take, man: why, it cannot choose but take, if the circumstances miscarry not, but tell me zealously: dost thou affect my sister Hesperida, as thou pretendest? LOR JU. Prospero, by Jesu. PROS. Come, do not protest, I believe thee: i'faith, she is a virgin of good ornament, and much modesty, unless I conceived very worthily of her, thou shouldest not have her. LOR JU. Nay, I think it a question whether I shall have her for all that. PROS. 'Sblood, thou shalt have her, by this light, thou shalt! LOR JU. Nay, do not swear. PROS. By St. Mark, thou shalt have her: I'll go fetch her presently, 'point but where to meet, and by this hand, I'll bring her! LOR JU. Hold, hold, what, all policy dead? no prevention of mischiefs stirring. PROS. Why, by -- what shall I swear by? thou shalt have her, by my soul. LOR. JU. I pray thee have patience, I am satisfied: Prospero, omit no offered occasion that may make my desires complete, I beseech thee. PROS. I warrant thee. [EXEUNT.] ACT IV. SCENE I. ENTER LORENZO SEN., PETO, MEETING MUSCO. PETO. Was your man a soldier, sir? LOR. SE. Ay, a knave, I took him up begging upon the way, This morning as I was coming to the city. Oh! here he is; come on, you make fair speed: Why, where in God's name have you been so long? MUS. Marry, (God's my comfort) where I thought I should have had little comfort of your worship's service. LOR. SE. How so? MUS. O God, sir! your coming to the city, and your entertainment of men, and your sending me to watch; indeed, all the circumstances are as open to your son as to yourself. LOR. SE. How should that be? Unless that villain Musco Have told him of the letter, and discovered All that I strictly charged him to conceal? 'tis so. MUS. I'faith, you have hit it: 'tis so indeed. LOR. SE. But how should he know thee to be my man? MUS. Nay, sir, I cannot tell; unless it were by the black art? is not your son a scholar, sir? LOR. SE. Yes; but I hope his soul is not allied To such a devilish practice: if it were, I had just cause to weep my part in him. And curse the time of his creation. But where didst thou find them, Portensio? MUS. Nay, sir, rather you should ask where they found me? for I'll be sworn I was going along in the street, thinking nothing, when (of a sudden) one calls, "Signior Lorenzo's man": another, he cries "soldier": and thus half a dozen of them, till they had got me within doors, where I no sooner came, but out flies their rapiers and all bent against my breast, they swore some two or three hundred oaths, and all to tell me I was but a dead man, if I did not confess where you were, and how I was employed, and about what; which, when they could not get out of me, (as God's my judge, they should have kill'd me first,) they lock'd me up into a room in the top of a house, where, by great miracle, (having a light heart) I slid down by a bottom of packthread into the street, and so scaped: but, master, thus much I can assure you, for I heard it while I was lock'd up: there were a great many merchants and rich citizens' wives with them at a banquet, and your son, Signior Lorenzo, has 'pointed one of them to meet anon at one Cob's house, a water-bearer's, that dwells by the wall: now there you shall be sure to take him: for fail he will not. LOR. SE. Nor will I fail to break this match, I doubt not; Well, go thou along with master Doctor's man, And stay there for me; at one Cob's house, say'st thou? [EXIT.] MUS. Ay, sir, there you shall have him: when can you tell? Much wench, or much son: 'sblood, when he has stay'd there three or four hours, travelling with the expectation of somewhat; and at the length be delivered of nothing: oh, the sport that I should then take to look on him if I durst; but now I mean to appear no more afore him in this shape: I have another trick to act yet; oh, that I were so happy as to light upon an ounce now of this Doctor's clerk: God save you, sir. PETO. I thank you, good sir. MUS. I have made you stay somewhat long, sir. PETO. Not a whit, sir, I pray you what, sir, do you mean? you have been lately in the wars, sir, it seems. MUS. Ay, marry have I, sir. PETO. Troth, sir, I would be glad to bestow a bottle of wine on you, if it please you to accept it. MUS. O Lord, sir. PETO. But to hear the manner of your services, and your devices in the wars, they say they be very strange, and not like those a man reads in the Roman histories. MUS. O God, no, sir, why, at any time when it please you, I shall be ready to discourse to you what I know: and more too somewhat. PETO. No better time than now, sir, we'll go to the Mermaid: there we shall have a cup of neat wine, I pray you, sir, let me request you. MUS. I'll follow you, sir, he is mine own, i'faith. [EXEUNT.] ENTER BOBADILLA, LORENZO JUN., MATHEO, STEPHANO. MAT. Signior, did you ever see the like clown of him where we were to-day: Signior Prospero's brother? I think the whole earth cannot shew his like, by Jesu. LOR. JU. We were now speaking of him, Signior Bobadillo tells me he is fallen foul of you too. MAT. Oh ay, sir, he threatened me with the bastinado. BOB. Ay, but I think I taught you a trick this morning for that. You shall kill him without all question, if you be so minded. MAT. Indeed, it is a most excellent trick. BOB. Oh, you do not give spirit enough to your motion; you are too dull, too tardy: oh, it must be done like lightning, hay! MAT. Oh, rare. BOB. Tut, 'tis nothing an't be not done in a -- LOR. JU. Signior, did you never play with any of our masters here? MAT. Oh, good sir. BOB. Nay, for a more instance of their preposterous humour, there came three or four of them to me, at a gentleman's house, where it was my chance to be resident at that time, to intreat my presence at their schools, and withal so much importuned me, that (I protest to you as I am a gentleman) I was ashamed of their rude demeanour out of all measure: well, I told them that to come to a public school they should pardon me, it was opposite to my humour, but if so they would attend me at my lodging, I protested to do them what right or favour I could, as I was a gentleman, etc. LOR. JU. So sir, then you tried their skill. BOB. Alas, soon tried: you shall hear, sir, within two or three days after they came, and by Jesu, good Signior, believe me, I graced them exceedingly, shewed them some two or three tricks of prevention hath got them since admirable credit, they cannot deny this; and yet now they hate me, and why? because I am excellent, and for no other reason on the earth. LOR. JU. This is strange and vile as ever I heard. BOB. I will tell you, sir, upon my first coming to the city, they assaulted me some three, four, five, six of them together, as I have walk'd alone in divers places of the city; as upon the Exchange, at my lodging, and at my ordinary, where I have driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me; yet all this lenity will not depress their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure: by my soul, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder: I am loth to bear any other but a bastinado for them, and yet I hold it good policy not to go disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may be suppressed with multitudes. LOR. JU. Ay, by Jesu, may you, sir, and (in my conceit) our whole nation should sustain the loss by it, if it were so. BOB. Alas, no: what's a peculiar man to a nation? not seen. LOR. JU. Ay, but your skill, sir. BOB. Indeed, that might be some loss, but who respects it? I will tell you, Signior, (in private) I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to the Duke (observe me) I would undertake (upon my head and life) for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of his subjects in general, but to save the one half, nay, three parts of his yearly charges, in holding wars generally against all his enemies; and how will I do it, think you? LOR. JU. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive. BOB. Marry, thus, I would select nineteen more to myself, throughout the land, gentlemen they should be of good spirit; strong and able constitution, I would choose them by an instinct, a trick that I have, and I would teach these nineteen the special tricks, as your punto, your reverso, your stoccato, your imbroccato, your passado, your montanto, till they could all play very near or altogether as well as myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong: we twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or thereabouts, and would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not in their honour refuse the combat: well, we would kill them: challenge twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill every man his twenty a day, that's twenty score; twenty score, that's two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a thousand: forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty, two hundred days kills them all, by computation, and this will I venture my life to perform: provided there be no treason practised upon us. LOR. JU. Why, are you so sure of your hand at all times? BOB. Tut, never mistrust, upon my soul. LOR. JU. Mass, I would not stand in Signior Giuliano's state, then, an you meet him, for the wealth of Florence. BOB. Why Signior, by Jesu, if he were here now, I would not draw my weapon on him, let this gentleman do his mind, but I will bastinado him (by heaven) an ever I meet him. [ENTER GIULIANO AND GOES OUT AGAIN.] MAT. Faith, and I'll have a fling at him. LOR. JU. Look, yonder he goes, I think. GIU. 'Sblood, what luck have I, I cannot meet with these bragging rascals. BOB. It's not he: is it? LOR. JU. Yes, faith, it is he. MAT. I'll be hang'd then if that were he. LOR. JU. Before God, it was he: you make me swear. STEP. Upon my salvation, it was he. BOB. Well, had I thought it had been he, he could not have gone so, but I cannot be induced to believe it was he yet. [ENTER GIU.] GIU. Oh, gallant, have I found you? draw to your tools; draw, or by God's will I'll thrash you. BOB. Signior, hear me. GIU. Draw your weapons then. BOB. Signior, I never thought it till now: body of St. George, I have a warrant of the peace served on me even now, as I came along, by a water-bearer, this gentleman saw it, Signior Matheo. GIU. The peace! 'Sblood, you will not draw? [MATHEO RUNS AWAY. HE BEATS HIM AND DISARMS HIM.] LOR. JU. Hold, Signior, hold, under thy favour forbear. GIU. Prate again as you like this, you whoreson cowardly rascal, you'll control the point, you? your consort he is gone; had he staid he had shared with you, in faith. [EXIT GIULIANO.] BOB. Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the peace, by Jesu. LOR. JU. Why, and though you were, sir, the law allows you to defend yourself; that's but a poor excuse. BOB. I cannot tell; I never sustained the like disgrace (by heaven); sure I was struck with a planet then, for I had no power to touch my weapon. [EXIT.] LOR. JU. Ay, like enough; I have heard of many that have been beaten under a planet; go, get you to the surgeon's, 'sblood, an these be your tricks, your passados, and your montantos, I'll none of them: O God, that this age should bring forth such creatures! come, cousin. STEP. Mass, I'll have this cloak. LOR. JU. God's will: it's Giuliano's. STEP. Nay, but 'tis mine now, another might have ta'en it up as well as I, I'll wear it, so I will. LOR. JU. How an he see it? he'll challenge it, assure yourself. STEP. Ay, but he shall not have it; I'll say I bought it. LOR. JU. Advise you, cousin, take heed he give not you as much. [EXEUNT.] ENTER THORELLO, PROSPERO, BIANCHA, HESPERIDA. THO. Now trust me, Prospero, you were much to blame, T' incense your brother and disturb the peace Of my poor house, for there be sentinels, That every minute watch to give alarms Of civil war, without adjection Of your assistance and occasion. PROS. No harm done, brother, I warrant you: since there is no harm done, anger costs a man nothing: and a tall man is never his own man till he be angry, to keep his valour in obscurity, is to keep himself as it were in a cloak-bag: what's a musician unless he play? what's a tall man unless he fight? for indeed, all this my brother stands upon absolutely, and that made me fall in with him so resolutely. BIA. Ay, but what harm might have come of it? PROS. Might? so might the good warm clothes your husband wears be poison'd for any thing he knows, or the wholesome wine he drunk even now at the table. THO. Now, God forbid: O me! now I remember, My wife drunk to me last; and changed the cup, And bade me wear this cursed suit to-day, See if God suffer murder undiscover'd! I feel me ill; give me some mithridate, Some mithridate and oil; good sister, fetch me, Oh, I am sick at heart: I burn, I burn; If you will save my life, go fetch it me. PROS. Oh, strange humour, my very breath hath poison'd him. HES. Good brother, be content, what do you mean? The strength of these extreme conceits will kill you. BIA. Beshrew your heart-blood, brother Prospero, For putting such a toy into his head. PROS. Is a fit simile a toy? will he be poison'd with a simile? Brother Thorello, what a strange and vain imagination is this? For shame be wiser, on my soul there's no such matter. THO. Am I not sick? how am I then not poison'd? Am I not poison'd? how am I then so sick? BIA. If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick. PROS. His jealousy is the poison he hath taken. [ENTER MUSCO LIKE THE DOCTOR'S MAN.] MUS. Signior Thorello, my master, Doctor Clement, salutes you, and desires to speak with you, with all speed possible. THO. No time but now? Well, I'll wait upon his worship, Piso, Cob, I'll seek them out, and set them sentinels till I return. Piso, Cob, Piso. [EXIT.] PROS. Musco, this is rare, but how got'st thou this apparel of the Doctor's man? MUS. Marry sir. My youth would needs bestow the wine on me to hear some martial discourse; where I so marshall'd him, that I made him monstrous drunk, and because too much heat was the cause of his distemper, I stript him stark naked as he lay along asleep, and borrowed his suit to deliver this counterfeit message in, leaving a rusty armour and an old brown bill to watch him till my return: which shall be when I have pawn'd his apparel, and spent the money perhaps. PROS. Well, thou art a mad knave, Musco, his absence will be a good subject for more mirth: I pray thee return to thy young master Lorenzo, and will him to meet me and Hesperida at the Friary presently: for here, tell him, the house is so stored with jealousy, that there is no room for love to stand upright in: but I'll use such means she shall come thither, and that I think will meet best with his desires: Hie thee, good Musco. MUS. I go, sir. [EXIT.] [ENTER THORELLO, TO HIM PISO.] THO. Ho, Piso, Cob, where are these villains, trow? Oh, art thou there? Piso, hark thee here: Mark what I say to thee, I must go forth; Be careful of thy promise, keep good watch, Note every gallant and observe him well, That enters in my absence to thy mistress; If she would shew him rooms, the jest is stale, Follow them, Piso, or else hang on him, And let him not go after, mark their looks; Note if she offer but to see his band, Or any other amorous toy about him, But praise his leg, or foot, or if she say, The day is hot, and bid him feel her hand, How hot it is, oh, that's a monstrous thing: Note me all this, sweet Piso; mark their sighs, And if they do but whisper, break them off, I'll bear thee out in it: wilt thou do this? Wilt thou be true, sweet Piso? PIS. Most true, sir. THO. Thanks, gentle Piso: where is Cob? now: Cob? [EXIT THORELLO.] BIA. He's ever calling for Cob, I wonder how he employs Cob so. PROS. Indeed, sister, to ask how he employs Cob is a necessary question for you that are his wife, and a thing not very easy for you to be satisfied in: but this I'll assure you, Cob's wife is an excellent bawd indeed, and oftentimes your husband haunts her house, marry, to what end I cannot altogether accuse him, imagine you what you think convenient: but I have known fair hides have foul hearts ere now, I can tell you. BIA. Never said you truer than that, brother! Piso, fetch your cloke, and go with me, I'll after him presently: I would to Christ I could take him there, i'faith. [EXEUNT PISO AND BIANCHA.] PROS. So let them go: this may make sport anon, now, my fair sister Hesperida: ah, that you knew how happy a thing it were to be fair and beautiful! HES. That toucheth not me, brother. PROS. That's true: that's even the fault of it, for indeed beauty stands a woman in no stead, unless it procure her touching: but, sister, whether it touch you or no, it touches your beauties, and I am sure they will abide the touch, as they do not, a plague of all ceruse, say I! and it touches me too in part, though not in thee. Well, there's a dear and respected friend of mine, sister, stands very strongly affected towards you, and hath vowed to inflame whole bonfires of zeal in his heart, in honour of your perfections. I have already engaged my promise to bring you where you shall hear him confirm much more than I am able to lay down for him: Signior Lorenzo is the man: what say you, sister; shall I intreat so much favour of you for my friend, as to direct and attend you to his meeting? upon my soul, he loves you extremely, approve it, sweet Hesperida, will you? HES. Faith, I had very little confidence in mine own constancy, if I durst not meet a man: but, brother Prospero, this motion of yours savours of an old knight adventurer's servant, methinks. PROS. What's that, sister? HES. Marry, of the squire. PROS. No matter, Hesperida, if it did, I would be such an one for my friend, but say, will you go? HES. Brother, I will, and bless my happy stars. [ENTER CLEMENT AND THORELLO.] CLEM. Why, what villainy is this? my man gone on a false message, and run away when he has done, why, what trick is there in it, trow! 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. THO. How! is my wife gone forth, where is she, sister! HES. She's gone abroad with Piso. THO. Abroad with Piso? Oh, that villain dors me, He hath discovered all unto my wife, Beast that I was to trust him: whither went she? HES. I know not, sir. PROS. I'll tell you, brother, whither I suspect she's gone. THO. Whither, for God's sake! PROS. To Cob's house, I believe: but keep my counsel. THO. I will, I will, to Cob's house! doth she haunt Cob's? She's gone a purpose now to cuckold me, With that lewd rascal, who to win her favour, Hath told her all. [EXIT.] CLEM. But did your mistress see my man bring him a message? PROS. That we did, master Doctor. CLEM. And whither went the knave? PROS. To the tavern, I think, sir. CLEM. What, did Thorello give him any thing to spend for the message he brought him? if he did I should commend my man's wit exceedingly if he would make himself drunk with the joy of it, farewell, lady, keep good rule, you two, I beseech you now: by God's --; marry, my man makes me laugh. [EXIT.] PROS. What a mad doctor is this! come, sister, let's away. [EXEUNT.] [ENTER MATHEO AND BOBADILLA.] MAT. I wonder, Signior, what they will say of my going away, ha? BOB. Why, what should they say? but as of a discreet gentleman. Quick, wary, respectful of natures, Fair lineaments, and that's all. MAT. Why so, but what can they say of your beating? BOB. A rude part, a touch with soft wood, a kind of gross battery used, laid on strongly: borne most patiently, and that's all. MAT. Ay, but would any man have offered it in Venice? BOB. Tut, I assure you no: you shall have there your Nobilis, your Gentilezza, come in bravely upon your reverse, stand you close, stand you firm, stand you fair, save your retricato with his left leg, come to the assaulto with the right, thrust with brave steel, defy your base wood. But wherefore do I awake this remembrance? I was bewitch'd, by Jesu: but I will be revenged. MAT. Do you hear, is't not best to get a warrant and have him arrested, and brought before Doctor Clement? BOB. It were not amiss, would we had it. [ENTER MUSCO.] MAT. Why, here comes his man, let's speak to him. BOB. Agreed, do you speak. MAT. God save you, sir. MUS. With all my heart, sir. MAT. Sir, there is one Giuliano hath abused this gentleman and me, and we determine to make our amends by law, now if you would do us the favour to procure us a warrant, for his arrest, of your master, you shall be well considered, I assure i'faith, sir. MUS. Sir, you know my service is my living, such favours as these gotten of my master is his only preferment, and therefore you must consider me as I may make benefit of my place. MAT. How is that? MUS. Faith, sir, the thing is extraordinary, and the gentleman may be of great account: yet be what he will, if you will lay me down five crowns in my hand, you shall have it, otherwise not. MAT. How shall we do, Signior? you have no money. BOB. Not a cross, by Jesu. MAT. Nor I, before God, but two pence, left of my two shillings in the morning for wine and cakes, let's give him some pawn. BOB. Pawn? we have none to the value of his demand. MAT. O Lord, man, I'll pawn this jewel in my ear, and you may pawn your silk stockings, and pull up your boots, they will ne'er be mist. BOB. Well, an there be no remedy, I'll step aside and put them off. MAT. Do you hear, sir? we have no store of money at this time, but you shall have good pawns, look you, sir, this jewel and this gentleman's silk stockings, because we would have it dispatch'd ere we went to our chambers. MUS. I am content, sir, I will get you the warrant presently. What's his name, say you, Giuliano? MAT. Ay, ay, Giuliano. MUS. What manner of man is he? MAT. A tall, big man, sir; he goes in a cloak most commonly of silk russet, laid about with russet lace. MUS. 'Tis very good, sir. MAT. Here, sir, here's my jewel. BOB. And here are stockings. MUS. Well, gentlemen, I'll procure this warrant presently, and appoint you a varlet of the city to serve it, if you'll be upon the Realto anon, the varlet shall meet you there. MAT. Very good, sir, I wish no better. [EXEUNT BOBA. AND MAT.] MUS. This is rare, now will I go pawn this cloak of the doctor's man's at the broker's for a varlet's suit, and be the varlet myself, and get either more pawns, or more money of Giuliano for my arrest. [EXIT.] ACT V. SCENE I. ENTER LORENZO SENIOR. LOR. SE. Oh, here it is, I am glad I have found it now. Ho! who is within here? [ENTER TIB.] TIB. I am within, sir, what's your pleasure? LOR. SE. To know who is within besides yourself. TIB. Why, sir, you are no constable, I hope? LOR. SE. Oh, fear you the constable? then I doubt not, You have some guests within deserve that fear; I'll fetch him straight. TIB. O' God's name, sir. LOR. SE. Go to, tell me is not the young Lorenzo here? TIB. Young Lorenzo, I saw none such, sir, of mine honesty. LOR. SE. Go to, your honesty flies too lightly from you: There's no way but fetch the constable. TIB. The constable, the man is mad, I think. [CLAPS TO THE DOOR.] [ENTER PISO AND BIANCHA.] PISO. Ho, who keeps house here? LOR. SE. Oh, this is the female copes-mate of my son. Now shall I meet him straight. BIA. Knock, Piso, pray thee. PIS. Ho, good wife. [ENTER TIB.] TIB. Why, what's the matter with you? BIA. Why, woman, grieves it you to ope your door? Belike you get something to keep it shut. TIB. What mean these questions, pray ye? BIA. So strange you make it! is not Thorello, my tried husband, here? LOR. SE. Her husband? TIB. I hope he needs not be tried here. BIA. No, dame: he doth it not for need but pleasure. TIB. Neither for need nor pleasure is he here. LOR. SE. This is but a device to balk me withal; Soft, who's this? [ENTER THORELLO.] BIA. Oh, sir, have I forestall'd your honest market? Found your close walks? you stand amazed now, do you? I'faith (I am glad) I have smoked you yet at last; What's your jewel, trow? In: come, let's see her; Fetch forth your housewife, dame; if she be fairer In any honest judgment than myself, I'll be content with it: but she is change, She feeds you fat; she soothes your appetite, And you are well: your wife, an honest woman, Is meat twice sod to you, sir; Oh, you treachour. LOR. SE. She cannot counterfeit this palpably. THO. Out on thee, more than strumpet's impudency, Steal'st thou thus to thy haunts? and have I taken Thy bawd and thee, and thy companion, This hoary-headed letcher, this old goat, Close at your villainy, and would'st thou 'scuse it, With this stale harlot's jest, accusing me? Oh, old incontinent, dost thou not shame, When all thy powers in chastity are spent, To have a mind so hot? and to entice And feed the enticements of a lustful woman? BIA. Out, I defy thee, I, dissembling wretch? THO. Defy me, strumpet? ask thy pander here, Can he deny it? or that wicked elder. LOR. SE. Why, hear you, Signior? THO. Tut, tut, never speak, Thy guilty conscience will discover thee. LOR. SE. What lunacy is this that haunts this man? [ENTER GIU.] GIU. Oh, sister, did you see my cloak? BIA. Not I, I see none. GIU. God's life, I have lost it then, saw you Hesperida? THO. Hesperida? Is she not at home? GIU. No, she is gone abroad, and nobody can tell me of it at home. [EXIT.] THO. O heaven! abroad? what light! a harlot too! Why? why? hark you, hath she, hath she not a brother? A brother's house to keep, to look unto? But she must fling abroad, my wife hath spoil'd her, She takes right after her, she does, she does, Well, you goody bawd and -- [ENTER COB.] That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy; And you, young apple squire, and old cuckold-maker, I'll have you every one before the Doctor, Nay, you shall answer it, I charge you go. LOR. SE. Marry, with all my heart, I'll go willingly: how have I wrong'd myself in coming here. BIA. Go with thee? I'll go with thee to thy shame, I warrant thee. COB. Why, what's the matter? what's here to do? THO. What, Cob, art thou here? oh, I am abused, And in thy house, was never man so wrong'd. COB. 'Slid, in my house? who wrong'd you in my house? THO. Marry, young lust in old, and old in young here, Thy wife's their bawd, here have I taken them. COB. Do you hear? did I not charge you keep your doors shut here, and do you let them lie open for all comers, do you scratch? [COB BEATS HIS WIFE.] LOR. SE. Friend, have patience; if she have done wrong in this, let her answer it afore the Magistrate. COB. Ay, come, you shall go afore the Doctor. TIB. Nay, I will go, I'll see an you may be allowed to beat your poor wife thus at every cuckoldly knave's pleasure, the devil and the pox take you all for me: why do you not go now? THO. A bitter quean, come, we'll have you tamed. [EXEUNT.] [ENTER MUSCO ALONE.] MUS. Well, of all my disguises yet, now am I most like myself, being in this varlet's suit, a man of my present profession never counterfeits till he lay hold upon a debtor, and says he rests him, for then he brings him to all manner of unrest. A kind of little kings we are, bearing the diminutive of a mace, made like a young artichoke, that always carries pepper and salt in itself, well, I know not what danger I undergo by this exploit, pray God I come well off. [ENTER BOBADILLA AND MATHEO.] MAT. See, I think yonder is the varlet. BOB. Let's go in quest of him. MAT. God save you, friend, are not you here by the appointment of Doctor Clement's man? MUS. Yes, an't please you, sir; he told me two gentlemen had will'd him to procure an arrest upon one Signior Giuliano by a warrant from his master, which I have about me. MAT. It is honestly done of you both; and see where he comes you must arrest; upon him, for God's sake, before he be 'ware. BOB. Bear back, Matheo! [ENTER STEPHANO.] MUS. Signior Giuliano, I arrest you, sir, in the Duke's name. STEP. Signior Giuliano! am I Signior Giuliano? I am one Signior Stephano, I tell you, and you do not well, by God's lid, to arrest me, I tell you truly; I am not in your master's books, I would you should well know; ay, and a plague of God on you for making me afraid thus. MUS. Why, how are you deceived, gentlemen? BOB. He wears such a cloak, and that deceived us, But see, here a comes, officer, this is he. [ENTER GIULIANO.] GIU. Why, how now, signior gull: are you a turn'd filcher of late? come, deliver my cloak. STEP. Your cloak, sir? I bought it even now in the market. MUS. Signior Giuliano, I must arrest you, sir. GIU. Arrest me, sir, at whose suit? MUS. At these two gentlemen's. GIU. I obey thee, varlet; but for these villains -- MUS. Keep the peace, I charge you, sir, in the Duke's name, sir. GIU. What's the matter, varlet? MUS. You must go before master Doctor Clement, sir, to answer what these gentlemen will object against you, hark you, sir, I will use you kindly. MAT. We'll be even with you, sir, come, Signior Bobadilla, we'll go before and prepare the Doctor: varlet, look to him. [EXEUNT BOBADILLA AND MATHEO.] BOB. The varlet is a tall man, by Jesu. GIU. Away, you rascals, Signior, I shall have my cloak. STEP. Your cloak? I say once again, I bought it, and I'll keep it. GIU. You will keep it? STEP. Ay, that I will. GIU. Varlet, stay, here's thy fee, arrest him. MUS. Signior Stephano, I arrest you. STEP. Arrest me! there, take your cloak: I'll none of it. GIU. Nay, that shall not serve your turn, varlet, bring him away, I'll go with thee now to the Doctor's, and carry him along. STEP. Why, is not here your cloak? what would you have? GIU. I care not for that. MUS. I pray you, sir. GIU. Never talk of it; I will have him answer it. MUS. Well, sir, then I'll leave you, I'll take this gentleman's word for his appearance, as I have done yours. GIU. Tut, I'll have no words taken, bring him along to answer it. MUS. Good sir, I pity the gentleman's case, here's your money again. GIU. God's bread, tell not me of my money, bring him away, I say. MUS. I warrant you, he will go with you of himself. GIU. Yet more ado? MUS. I have made a fair mash of it. STEP. Must I go? [EXEUNT.] ENTER DOCTOR CLEMENT, THORELLO, LORENZO SENIOR, BIANCHA, PISO, TIB, A SERVANT OR TWO OF THE DOCTOR'S. CLEM. Nay, but stay, stay, give me leave; my chair, sirrah; you, Signior Lorenzo, say you went thither to meet your son. LOR. SE. Ay, sir. CLEM. But who directed you thither? LOR. SE. That did my man, sir. CLEM. Where is he? LOR. SE. Nay, I know not now, I left him with your clerk, And appointed him to stay here for me. CLEM. About what time was this? LOR. SE. Marry, between one and two, as I take it. CLEM. So, what time came my man with the message to you, Signior Thorello? THO. After two, sir. CLEM. Very good, but, lady, how that you were at Cob's, ha? BIA. An't please you, sir, I'll tell you: my brother Prospero told me that Cob's house was a suspected place. CLEM. So it appears, methinks; but on. BIA. And that my husband used thither daily. CLEM. No matter, so he use himself well. BIA. True, sir, but you know what grows by such haunts oftentimes. CLEM. Ay, rank fruits of a jealous brain, lady: but did you find your husband there in that case, as you suspected? THO. I found her there, sir. CLEM. Did you so? that alters the case; who gave you knowledge of your wife's being there? THO. Marry, that did my brother Prospero. CLEM. How, Prospero first tell her, then tell you after? Where is Prospero? THO. Gone with my sister, sir, I know not whither. CLEM. Why, this is a mere trick, a device; you are gulled in this most grossly: alas, poor wench, wert thou beaten for this? how now, sirrah, what's the matter? [ENTER ONE OF THE DOCTOR'S MEN.] SER. Sir, there's a gentleman in the court without desires to speak with your worship. CLEM. A gentleman? what's he? SER. A soldier, sir, he sayeth. CLEM. A soldier? fetch me my armour, my sword, quickly; a soldier speak with me, why, when, knaves? -- come on, come on, hold my cap there, so; give me my gorget, my sword; stand by, I will end your matters anon; let the soldier enter, now, sir, what have you to say to me? [ENTER BOBADILLA AND MATHEO.] BOB. By your worship's favour. CLEM. Nay, keep out, sir, I know not your pretence, you send me word, sir, you are a soldier, why, sir, you shall be answered here, here be them have been amongst soldiers. Sir, your pleasure. BOB. Faith, sir, so it is: this gentleman and myself have been most violently wronged by one Signior Giuliano: a gallant of the city here; and for my own part, I protest, being a man in no sort given to this filthy humour of quarrelling, he hath assaulted me in the way of my peace, despoiled me of mine honour, disarmed me of my weapons, and beaten me in the open streets: when I not so much as once offered to resist him. CLEM. Oh, God's precious, is this the soldier? here, take my armour quickly, 'twill make him swoon, I fear; he is not fit to look on't that will put up a blow. [ENTER SERVANT.] MAT. An't please your worship, he was bound to the peace. CLEM. Why, an he were, sir, his hands were not bound, were they? SER. There is one of the varlets of the city has brought two gentlemen here upon arrest, sir. CLEM. Bid him come in, set by the picture. [ENTER MUSCO WITH GIULIANO AND STEPHANO.] Now, sir, what! Signior Giuliano? is't you that are arrested at signior freshwater's suit here? GIU. I'faith, master Doctor, and here's another brought at my suit. CLEM. What are you, sir? STEP. A gentleman, sir; oh, uncle? CLEM. Uncle? who, Lorenzo? LOR. SE. Ay, sir. STEP. God's my witness, my uncle, I am wrong'd here monstrously; he chargeth me with stealing of his cloak, and would I might never stir, if I did not find it in the street by chance. GIU. Oh, did you find it now? you said you bought it erewhile. STEP. And you said I stole it, nay, now my uncle is here I care not. CLEM. Well, let this breathe awhile; you that have cause to complain there, stand forth; had you a warrant for this arrest? BOB. Ay, an't please your worship. CLEM. Nay, do not speak in passion so, where had you it? BOB. Of your clerk, sir. CLEM. That's well, an my clerk can make warrants, and my hand not at them; where is the warrant? varlet, have you it? MUS. No, sir, your worship's man bid me do it for these gentlemen, and he would be my discharge. CLEM. Why, Signior Giuliano, are you such a novice to be arrested and never see the warrant? GIU. Why, sir, he did not arrest me. CLEM. No? how then? GIU. Marry, sir, he came to me and said he must arrest me, and he would use me kindly, and so forth. CLEM. Oh, God's pity, was it so, sir? he must arrest you. Give me my long sword there; help me off, so; come on, sir varlet, I must cut off your legs, sirrah; nay, stand up, I'll use you kindly; I must cut off your legs, I say. MUS. Oh, good sir, I beseech you, nay, good master Doctor. Oh, good sir. CLEM. I must do it; there is no remedy; I must cut off your legs, sirrah. I must cut off your ears, you rascal, I must do it; I must cut off your nose, I must cut off your head. MUS. Oh, for God's sake, good master Doctor. CLEM. Well, rise; how dost thou now? dost thou feel thyself well? hast thou no harm? MUS. No, I thank God, sir, and your good worship. CLEM. Why so? I said I must cut off thy legs, and I must cut off thy arms, and I must cut off thy head; but I did not do it so: you said you must arrest this gentleman, but you did not arrest him, you knave, you slave, you rogue, do you say you must arrest, sirrah? away with him to the jail, I'll teach you a trick for your must. MUS. Good master Doctor, I beseech you be good to me. CLEM. Marry o'God: away with him, I say. MUS. Nay, 'sblood, before I go to prison, I'll put on my old brazen face, and disclaim in my vocation: I'll discover, that's flat, an I be committed, it shall be for the committing of more villainies than this, hang me an I lose the least grain of my fame. CLEM. Why? when, knave? by God's marry, I'll clap thee by the heels too. MUS. Hold, hold, I pray you. CLEM. What's the matter? stay there. MUS. Faith, sir, afore I go to this house of bondage, I have a case to unfold to your worship: which (that it may appear more plain unto your worship's view) I do thus first of all uncase, and appear in mine own proper nature, servant to this gentleman: and known by the name of Musco. LOR. SE. Ha, Musco! STEP. Oh, uncle, Musco has been with my cousin and I all this day. CLEM. Did not I tell you there was some device? MUS. Nay, good master Doctor, since I have laid myself thus open to your worship, now stand strong for me, till the progress of my tale be ended, and then if my wit do not deserve your countenance, 'slight, throw it on a dog, and let me go hang myself. CLEM. Body of me, a merry knave, give me a bowl of sack. Signior Lorenzo, I bespeak your patience in particular, marry, your ears in general, here, knave, Doctor Clement drinks to thee. MUS. I pledge master Doctor an't were a sea to the bottom. CLEM. Fill his bowl for that, fill his bowl: so, now speak freely. MUS. Indeed, this is it will make a man speak freely. But to the point, know then that I, Musco, (being somewhat more trusted of my master than reason required, and knowing his intent to Florence,) did assume the habit of a poor soldier in wants, and minding by some means to intercept his journey in the midway, 'twixt the grange and the city, I encountered him, where begging of him in the most accomplished and true garb, (as they term it) contrary to all expectation, he reclaimed me from that bad course of life; entertained me into his service, employed me in his business, possest me with his secrets, which I no sooner had received, but (seeking my young master, and finding him at this gentleman's house) I revealed all most amply: this done, by the device of Signior Prospero and him together, I returned (as the raven did to the ark) to mine old master again, told him he should find his son in what manner he knows, at one Cob's house, where indeed he never meant to come; now my master, he to maintain the jest, went thither, and left me with your worship's clerk, who, being of a most fine supple disposition, (as most of your clerks are) proffers me the wine, which I had the grace to accept very easily, and to the tavern we went: there after much ceremony, I made him drunk in kindness, stript him to his shirt, and leaving him in that cool vein, departed, frolick, courtier-like, having obtained a suit: which suit fitting me exceedingly well, I put on, and usurping your man's phrase and action, carried a message to Signior Thorello in your name; which message was merely devised but to procure his absence, while Signior Prospero might make a conveyance of Hesperida to my master. CLEM. Stay, fill me the bowl again, here; 'twere pity of his life would not cherish such a spirit: I drink to thee, fill him wine, why, now do you perceive the trick of it? THO. Ay, ay, perceive well we were all abused. LOR. SE. Well, what remedy? CLEM. Where is Lorenzo and Prospero, canst thou tell? MUS. Ay, sir, they are at supper at the Mermaid, where I left your man. CLEM. Sirrah, go warn them hither presently before me, and if the hour of your fellow's resurrection be come, bring him too. But forward, forward, when thou has been at Thorello's. [EXIT SERVANT.] MUS. Marry, sir, coming along the street, these two gentlemen meet me, and very strongly supposing me to be your worship's scribe, entreated me to procure them a warrant for the arrest of Signior Giuliano, I promised them, upon some pair of silk stockings or a jewel, or so, to do it, and to get a varlet of the city to serve it, which varlet I appointed should meet them upon the Realto at such an hour, they no sooner gone, but I, in a mere hope of more gain by Signior Giuliano, went to one of Satan's old ingles, a broker, and there pawned your man's livery for a varlet's suit, which here, with myself, I offer unto your worship's consideration. CLEM. Well, give me thy hand; Proh. Superi ingenium magnum quis noscit Homerum. Illias aeternum si latuisset opus? I admire thee, I honour thee, and if thy master or any man here be angry with thee, I shall suspect his wit while I know him for it: do you hear, Signior Thorello, Signior Lorenzo, and the rest of my good friends, I pray you let me have peace when they come, I have sent for the two gallants and Hesperida, God's marry, I must have you, friends, how now? what noise is there? [ENTER SERVANT, THEN PETO.] SER. Sir, it is Peto is come home. CLEM. Peto, bring him hither, bring him hither, what, how now, signior drunkard, in arms against me, ha? your reason, your reason for this. PET. I beseech your worship to pardon me. CLEM. Well, sirrah, tell him I do pardon him. PET. Truly, sir, I did happen into bad company by chance, and they cast me in a sleep and stript me of all my clothes. CLEM. Tut, this is not to the purpose touching your armour, what might your armour signify? PET. Marry, sir, it hung in the room where they stript me, and I borrowed it of one of the drawers, now in the evening, to come home in, because I was loth to come through the street in my shirt. [ENTER LORENZO JUNIOR, PROSPERO, HESPERIDA.] CLEM. Well, disarm him, but it's no matter, let him stand by: who be these? oh, young gallants; welcome, welcome, and you, lady, nay, never scatter such amazed looks amongst us, Qui nil potest sperare desperet nihil. PROS. Faith, master Doctor, that's even I, my hopes are small, and my despair shall be as little. Brother, sister, brother, what, cloudy, cloudy? "and will no sunshine on these looks appear?" well, since there is such a tempest toward, I'll be the porpoise, I'll dance: wench, be of good cheer, thou hast a cloak for the rain yet, where is he? 'Sheart, how now, the picture of the prodigal, go to, I'll have the calf drest for you at my charges. LOR. SE. Well, son Lorenzo, this day's work of yours hath much deceived my hopes, troubled my peace, and stretch'd my patience further than became the spirit of duty. CLEM. Nay, God's pity, Signior Lorenzo, you shall urge it no more: come, since you are here, I'll have the disposing of all, but first, Signior Giuliano, at my request take your cloak again. GIU. Well, sir, I am content. CLEM. Stay, now let me see, oh signior snow-liver, I had almost forgotten him, and your Genius there, what, doth he suffer for a good conscience too? doth he bear his cross with patience? MUS. Nay, they have scarce one cross between them both to bear. CLEM. Why, dost thou know him? what is he? what is he? MUS. Marry, search his pocket, sir, and he'll shew you he is an author, sir. CLEM. Dic mihi musa virum: are you an author, sir? give me leave a little, come on, sir, I'll make verses with you now in honour of the gods and the goddesses for what you dare extempore; and now I begin. "Mount thee my Phlegon muse, and testify, How Saturn sitting in an ebon cloud, Disrobed his podex, white as ivory, And through the welkin thunder'd all aloud." There's for you, sir. PROS. Oh, he writes not in that height of style. CLEM. No: we'll come a step or two lower then. "From Catadupa and the banks of Nile, Where only breeds your monstrous crocodile, Now are we purposed for to fetch our style." PROS. Oh, too far-fetch'd for him still, master Doctor. CLEM. Ay, say you so? let's intreat a sight of his vein then. PROS. Signior, master Doctor desires to see a sight of your vein, nay, you must not deny him. CLEM. What, all this verse, body of me, he carries a whole realm; a commonwealth of paper in his hose, let's see some of his subjects. "Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty, Runs this poor river, charg'd with streams of zeal, Returning thee the tribute of my duty: Which here my youth, my plaints, my love reveal." Good! is this your own invention? MAT. No, sir, I translated that out of a book, called "Delia." CLEM. Oh, but I would see some of your own, some of your own. MAT. Sir, here's the beginning of a sonnet I made to my mistress. CLEM. That, that: who? to Madonna Hesperida, is she your mistress? PROS. It pleaseth him to call her so, sir. CLEM. "In summer time, when Phoebus' golden rays." You translated this too, did you not? PROS. No, this is invention; he found it in a ballad. MAT. Faith sir, I had most of the conceit of it out of a ballad indeed. CLEM. Conceit, fetch me a couple of torches, sirrah, I may see the conceit: quickly! it's very dark! GIU. Call you this poetry? LOR. JU. Poetry? nay, then call blasphemy, religion; Call devils, angels; and sin, piety: Let all things be preposterously transchanged. LOR. SE. Why, how now, son! what are you startled now? Hath the brize prick'd you, ha? go to; you see How abjectly your poetry is rank'd in general opinion. LOR. JU. Opinion, O God, let gross opinion sink and be damn'd As deep as Barathrum, If it may stand with your most wish'd content, I can refell opinion and approve The state of poesy, such as it is, Blessed, eternal, and most true divine: Indeed, if you will look on Poesy As she appears in many, poor and lame, Patch'd up in remnants and old worn rags, Half starved for want of her peculiar food: Sacred invention, then I must confirm Both your conceit and censure of her merit, But view her in her glorious ornaments, Attired in the majesty of art, Set high in spirit, with the precious taste Of sweet philosophy, and which is most, Crown'd with the rich traditions of a soul That hates to have her dignity profaned With any relish of an earthly thought: Oh, then how proud a presence doth she bear. Then is she like herself, fit to be seen Of none but grave and consecrated eyes: Nor is it any blemish to her fame, That such lean, ignorant, and blasted wits, Such brainless gulls, should utter their stol'n wares With such applauses in our vulgar ears: Or that their slubber'd lines have current pass From the fat judgments of the multitude, But that this barren and infected age Should set no difference 'twixt these empty spirits And a true poet: than which reverend name Nothing can more adorn humanity. [ENTER WITH TORCHES.] CLEM. Ay, Lorenzo, but election is now governed altogether by the influence of humour, which, instead of those holy flames that should direct and light the soul to eternity, hurls forth nothing but smoke and congested vapours, that stifle her up, and bereave her of all sight and motion. But she must have a store of hellebore given her to purge these gross obstructions: oh, that's well said, give me thy torch, come, lay this stuff together. So, give fire! there, see, see, how our poet's glory shines brighter and brighter, still, still it increaseth, oh, now it's at the highest, and now it declines as fast: you may see, gallants, "sic transit gloria mundi." Well now, my two signior outsides, stand forth, and lend me your large ears, to a sentence, to a sentence: first, you, Signior, shall this night to the cage, and so shall you, sir, from thence to-morrow morning, you, Signior, shall be carried to the market cross, and be there bound: and so shall you, sir, in a large motley coat, with a rod at your girdle; and you in an old suit of sackcloth, and the ashes of your papers (save the ashes, sirrah) shall mourn all day, and at night both together sing some ballad of repentance very piteously, which you shall make to the tune of "Who list to lead and a soldier's life." Sirrah bill-man, embrace you this torch, and light the gentlemen to their lodgings, and because we tender their safety, you shall watch them to-night, you are provided for the purpose, away, and look to your charge with an open eye, sirrah. BOB. Well, I am arm'd in soul against the worst of fortune. MAT. Faith, so should I be, an I had slept on it. PET. I am arm'd too, but I am not like to sleep on it. MUS. Oh, how this pleaseth me. [EXEUNT.] CLEM. Now, Signior Thorello, Giuliano, Prospero, Biancha. STEP. And not me, sir. CLEM. Yes, and you, sir: I had lost a sheep an he had not bleated, I must have you all friends: but first a word with you, young gallant, and you, lady. GIU. Well, brother Prospero, by this good light that shines here, I am loth to kindle fresh coals, but an you had come in my walk within these two hours I had given you that you should not have clawed off again in haste, by Jesus, I had done it, I am the arrant'st rogue that ever breathed else, but now beshrew my heart if I bear you any malice in the earth. PROS. Faith, I did it but to hold up a jest, and help my sister to a husband, but, brother Thorello, and sister, you have a spice of the jealous yet, both of you, (in your hose, I mean,) come, do not dwell upon your anger so much, let's all be smooth foreheaded once again. THOR. He plays upon my forehead, brother Giuliano, I pray you tell me one thing I shall ask you: is my forehead any thing rougher than it was wont to be? GIU. Rougher? your forehead is smooth enough, man. THO. Why should he then say, be smooth foreheaded, Unless he jested at the smoothness of it? And that may be, for horn is very smooth; So are my brows, by Jesu, smooth as horn! BIA. Brother, had he no haunt thither, in good faith? PROS. No, upon my soul. BIA. Nay, then, sweet-heart: nay, I pray thee, be not angry, good faith, I'll never suspect thee any more, nay, kiss me, sweet muss. THO. Tell me, Biancha, do not you play the woman with me. BIA. What's that, sweet-heart? THO. Dissemble. BIA. Dissemble? THO. Nay, do not turn away: but say i'faith was it not a match appointed 'twixt this old gentleman and you? BIA. A match? THO. Nay, if it were not, I do not care: do not weep, I pray thee, sweet Biancha, nay, so now! by Jesus, I am not jealous, but resolved I have the faithful'st wife in Italy. "For this I find, where jealousy is fed, Horns in the mind are worse than on the head. See what a drove of horns fly in the air, Wing'd with my cleansed and my credulous breath: Watch them, suspicious eyes, watch where they fall, See, see, on heads that think they have none at all. Oh, what a plenteous world of this will come, When air rains horns, all men be sure of some: CLEM. Why that's well, come then: what say you, are all agreed? doth none stand out? PROS. None but this gentleman: to whom in my own person I owe all duty and affection; but most seriously intreat pardon, for whatsoever hath past in these occurrants that might be contrary to his most desired content. LOR. SE. Faith sir, it is a virtue that pursues Any save rude and uncomposed spirits, To make a fair construction, and indeed Not to stand off, when such respective means Invite a general content in all. CLEM. Well, then I conjure you all here to put off all discontentment, first, you, Signior Lorenzo, your cares; you, and you, your jealousy; you, your anger, and you, your wit, sir; and for a peace-offering, here's one willing to be sacrificed upon this altar: say, do you approve my motion? PROS. We do, I'll be mouth for all. CLEM. Why, then I wish them all joy, and now, to make our evening happiness more full: this night you shall be all my guests: where we'll enjoy the very spirit of mirth, and carouse to the health of this heroic spirit, whom to honour the more I do invest in my own robes, desiring you two, Giuliano and Prospero, to be his supporters, the train to follow, myself will lead, ushered by my page here with this honourable verse -- "Claudite jam rivos pueri sat prata biberunt." GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be --," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you --?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the --," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the --," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of --," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd -- him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten --," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "-- order," "-- waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) -- not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to --," into the bargain; "no --," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible --," "angry --," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in --," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt --," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no --," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye -- used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no --," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for --," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in --," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder --"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt --," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in --," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking --," " -- politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER (" -- frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the --," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in --," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for --," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in --" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "-- up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "-- failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at --," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a --!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first --," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their --es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford). JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's --," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give --," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make --," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by --," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the --," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry -- in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on --," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the --" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the --," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be --," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be --," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a --," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in --," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go --," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's --," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person -- perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a --," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "-- of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "-- away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in --," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance -- hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make -- of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's --," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the --," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the --," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it --s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in --," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take --," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the --," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of --," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "-- a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a --," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take --," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn --," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish --," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from --," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "-- Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the --," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at --," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold --," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the --," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the -- for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I --," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("-- pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
4766	----	FIFTH SERIES PLAYS OF GALSWORTHY WINDOWS By John Galsworthy PERSONS OF THE PLAY GEOFFREY MARCH....... Freelance in Literature JOAN MARCH........... His Wife MARY MARCH........... Their Daughter JOHNNY MARCH......... Their Son COOK................. Their Cook MR BLY............... Their Window Cleaner FAITH BLY............ His Daughter BLUNTER.............. A Strange Young Man MR BARNADAS.......... In Plain Clothes The action passes in Geofrey March's House, Highgate-Spring-time. ACT I. Thursday morning. The dining-room-after breakfast. ACT II. Thursday, a fortnight later. The dining-room after lunch. ACT III. The same day. The dining-room-after dinner. ACT I The MARCH'S dining-room opens through French windows on one of those gardens which seem infinite, till they are seen to be coterminous with the side walls of the house, and finite at the far end, because only the thick screen of acacias and sumachs prevents another house from being seen. The French and other windows form practically all the outer wall of that dining-room, and between them and the screen of trees lies the difference between the characters of Mr and Mrs March, with dots and dashes of Mary and Johnny thrown in. For instance, it has been formalised by MRS MARCH but the grass has not been cut by MR MARCH, and daffodils have sprung up there, which MRS MARCH desires for the dining-room, but of which MR MARCH says: "For God's sake, Joan, let them grow." About half therefore are now in a bowl on the breakfast table, and the other half still in the grass, in the compromise essential to lasting domesticity. A hammock under the acacias shows that MARY lies there sometimes with her eyes on the gleam of sunlight that comes through: and a trail in the longish grass, bordered with cigarette ends, proves that JOHNNY tramps there with his eyes on the ground or the stars, according. But all this is by the way, because except for a yard or two of gravel terrace outside the windows, it is all painted on the backcloth. The MARCHES have been at breakfast, and the round table, covered with blue linen, is thick with remains, seven baskets full. The room is gifted with old oak furniture: there is a door, stage Left, Forward; a hearth, where a fire is burning, and a high fender on which one can sit, stage Right, Middle; and in the wall below the fireplace, a service hatch covered with a sliding shutter, for the passage of dishes into the adjoining pantry. Against the wall, stage Left, is an old oak dresser, and a small writing table across the Left Back corner. MRS MARCH still sits behind the coffee pot, making up her daily list on tablets with a little gold pencil fastened to her wrist. She is personable, forty-eight, trim, well-dressed, and more matter-of-fact than seems plausible. MR MARCH is sitting in an armchair, sideways to the windows, smoking his pipe and reading his newspaper, with little explosions to which no one pays any attention, because it is his daily habit. He is a fine-looking man of fifty odd, with red-grey moustaches and hair, both of which stiver partly by nature and partly because his hands often push them up. MARY and JOHNNY are close to the fireplace, stage Right. JOHNNY sits on the fender, smoking a cigarette and warming his back. He is a commonplace looking young man, with a decided jaw, tall, neat, soulful, who has been in the war and writes poetry. MARY is less ordinary; you cannot tell exactly what is the matter with her. She too is tall, a little absent, fair, and well-looking. She has a small china dog in her hand, taken from the mantelpiece, and faces the audience. As the curtain rises she is saying in her soft and pleasant voice: "Well, what is the matter with us all, Johnny?" JOHNNY. Stuck, as we were in the trenches--like china dogs. [He points to the ornament in her hand.] MR MARCH. [Into his newspaper] Damn these people! MARY. If there isn't an ideal left, Johnny, it's no good pretending one. JOHNNY. That's what I'm saying: Bankrupt! MARY. What do you want? MRS MARCH. [To herself] Mutton cutlets. Johnny, will you be in to lunch? [JOHNNY shakes his head] Mary? [MARY nods] Geof? MR MARCH. [Into his paper] Swine! MRS MARCH. That'll be three. [To herself] Spinach. JOHNNY. If you'd just missed being killed for three blooming years for no spiritual result whatever, you'd want something to bite on, Mary. MRS MARCH. [Jotting] Soap. JOHNNY. What price the little and weak, now? Freedom and self-determination, and all that? MARY. Forty to one--no takers. JOHNNY. It doesn't seem to worry you. MARY. Well, what's the good? JOHNNY. Oh, you're a looker on, Mary. MR MARCH. [To his newspaper] Of all Godforsaken time-servers! MARY is moved so lar as to turn and look over his shoulder a minute. JOHNNY. Who? MARY. Only the Old-Un. MR MARCH. This is absolutely Prussian! MRS MARCH. Soup, lobster, chicken salad. Go to Mrs Hunt's. MR MARCH. And this fellow hasn't the nous to see that if ever there were a moment when it would pay us to take risks, and be generous--My hat! He ought to be--knighted! [Resumes his paper.] JOHNNY. [Muttering] You see, even Dad can't suggest chivalry without talking of payment for it. That shows how we've sunk. MARY. [Contemptuously] Chivalry! Pouf! Chivalry was "off" even before the war, Johnny. Who wants chivalry? JOHNNY. Of all shallow-pated humbug--that sneering at chivalry's the worst. Civilisation--such as we've got--is built on it. MARY. [Airily] Then it's built on sand. [She sits beside him on the fender.] JOHNNY. Sneering and smartness! Pah! MARY. [Roused] I'll tell you what, Johnny, it's mucking about with chivalry that makes your poetry rotten. [JOHNNY seizes her arm and twists it] Shut up--that hurts. [JOHNNY twists it more] You brute! [JOHNNY lets her arm go.] JOHNNY. Ha! So you don't mind taking advantage of the fact that you can cheek me with impunity, because you're weaker. You've given the whole show away, Mary. Abolish chivalry and I'll make you sit up. MRS MARCH. What are you two quarrelling about? Will you bring home cigarettes, Johnny--not Bogdogunov's Mamelukes--something more Anglo-American. JOHNNY. All right! D'you want any more illustrations, Mary? MARY. Pig! [She has risen and stands rubbing her arm and recovering her placidity, which is considerable.] MRS MARCH. Geof, can you eat preserved peaches? MR MARCH. Hell! What a policy! Um? MRS MARCH. Can you eat preserved peaches? MR MARCH. Yes. [To his paper] Making the country stink in the eyes of the world! MARY. Nostrils, Dad, nostrils. MR MARCH wriggles, half hearing. JOHNNY. [Muttering] Shallow idiots! Thinking we can do without chivalry! MRS MARCH. I'm doing my best to get a parlourmaid, to-day, Mary, but these breakfast things won't clear themselves. MARY. I'll clear them, Mother. MRS MARCH. Good! [She gets up. At the door] Knitting silk. She goes out. JOHNNY. Mother hasn't an ounce of idealism. You might make her see stars, but never in the singular. MR MARCH. [To his paper] If God doesn't open the earth soon-- MARY. Is there anything special, Dad? MR MARCH. This sulphurous government. [He drops the paper] Give me a match, Mary. As soon as the paper is out of his hands he becomes a different--an affable man. MARY. [Giving him a match] D'you mind writing in here this morning, Dad? Your study hasn't been done. There's nobody but Cook. MR MARCH. [Lighting his pipe] Anywhere. He slews the armchair towards the fire. MARY. I'll get your things, then. She goes out. JOHNNY. [Still on the fender] What do you say, Dad? Is civilisation built on chivalry or on self-interest? MR MARCH. The question is considerable, Johnny. I should say it was built on contract, and jerry-built at that. JOHNNY. Yes; but why do we keep contracts when we can break them with advantage and impunity? MR MARCH. But do we keep them? JOHNNY. Well--say we do; otherwise you'll admit there isn't such a thing as civilisation at all. But why do we keep them? For instance, why don't we make Mary and Mother work for us like Kafir women? We could lick them into it. Why did we give women the vote? Why free slaves; why anything decent for the little and weak? MR MARCH. Well, you might say it was convenient for people living in communities. JOHNNY. I don't think it's convenient at all. I should like to make Mary sweat. Why not jungle law, if there's nothing in chivalry. MR MARCH. Chivalry is altruism, Johnny. Of course it's quite a question whether altruism isn't enlightened self-interest! JOHNNY. Oh! Damn! The lank and shirt-sleeved figure of MR BLY, with a pail of water and cloths, has entered, and stands near the window, Left. BLY. Beg pardon, Mr March; d'you mind me cleanin' the winders here? MR MARCH. Not a bit. JOHNNY. Bankrupt of ideals. That's it! MR BLY stares at him, and puts his pail down by the window. MARY has entered with her father's writing materials which she puts on a stool beside him. MARY. Here you are, Dad! I've filled up the ink pot. Do be careful! Come on, Johnny! She looks curiously at MR BLY, who has begun operations at the bottom of the left-hand window, and goes, followed by JOHNNY. MR MARCH. [Relighting his pipe and preparing his materials] What do you think of things, Mr Bly? BLY. Not much, sir. MR MARCH. Ah! [He looks up at MR BLY, struck by his large philosophical eyes and moth-eaten moustache] Nor I. BLY. I rather thought that, sir, from your writin's. MR MARCH. Oh! Do you read? BLY. I was at sea, once--formed the 'abit. MR MARCH. Read any of my novels? BLY. Not to say all through--I've read some of your articles in the Sunday papers, though. Make you think! MR MARCH. I'm at sea now--don't see dry land anywhere, Mr Bly. BLY. [With a smile] That's right. MR MARCH. D'you find that the general impression? BLY. No. People don't think. You 'ave to 'ave some cause for thought. MR MARCH. Cause enough in the papers. BLY. It's nearer 'ome with me. I've often thought I'd like a talk with you, sir. But I'm keepin' you. [He prepares to swab the pane.] MR MARCH. Not at all. I enjoy it. Anything to put off work. BLY. [Looking at MR MARCH, then giving a wipe at the window] What's drink to one is drought to another. I've seen two men take a drink out of the same can--one die of it and the other get off with a pain in his stomach. MR MARCH. You've seen a lot, I expect. BLY. Ah! I've been on the beach in my day. [He sponges at the window] It's given me a way o' lookin' at things that I don't find in other people. Look at the 'Ome Office. They got no philosophy. MR MARCH. [Pricking his ears] What? Have you had dealings with them? BLY. Over the reprieve that was got up for my daughter. But I'm keepin' you. He swabs at the window, but always at the same pane, so that he does not advance at all. MR MARCH. Reprieve? BLY. Ah! She was famous at eighteen. The Sunday Mercury was full of her, when she was in prison. MR MARCH. [Delicately] Dear me! I'd no idea. BLY. She's out now; been out a fortnight. I always say that fame's ephemereal. But she'll never settle to that weavin'. Her head got turned a bit. MR MARCH. I'm afraid I'm in the dark, Mr Bly. BLY. [Pausing--dipping his sponge in the pail and then standing with it in his hand] Why! Don't you remember the Bly case? They sentenced 'er to be 'anged by the neck until she was dead, for smotherin' her baby. She was only eighteen at the time of speakin'. MR MARCH. Oh! yes! An inhuman business! BLY. All! The jury recommended 'er to mercy. So they reduced it to Life. MR MARCH. Life! Sweet Heaven! BLY. That's what I said; so they give her two years. I don't hold with the Sunday Mercury, but it put that over. It's a misfortune to a girl to be good-lookin'. MR MARCH. [Rumpling his hair] No, no! Dash it all! Beauty's the only thing left worth living for. BLY. Well, I like to see green grass and a blue sky; but it's a mistake in a 'uman bein'. Look at any young chap that's good-lookin'--'e's doomed to the screen, or hair-dressin'. Same with the girls. My girl went into an 'airdresser's at seventeen and in six months she was in trouble. When I saw 'er with a rope round her neck, as you might say, I said to meself: "Bly," I said, "you're responsible for this. If she 'adn't been good-lookin'--it'd never 'eve 'appened." During this speech MARY has come in with a tray, to clear the breakfast, and stands unnoticed at the dining-table, arrested by the curious words of MR BLY. MR MARCH. Your wife might not have thought that you were wholly the cause, Mr Bly. BLY. Ah! My wife. She's passed on. But Faith--that's my girl's name--she never was like 'er mother; there's no 'eredity in 'er on that side. MR MARCH. What sort of girl is she? BLY. One for colour--likes a bit o' music--likes a dance, and a flower. MARY. [Interrupting softly] Dad, I was going to clear, but I'll come back later. MR MARCH. Come here and listen to this! Here's a story to get your blood up! How old was the baby, Mr Bly? BLY. Two days--'ardly worth mentionin'. They say she 'ad the 'ighstrikes after--an' when she comes to she says: "I've saved my baby's life." An' that's true enough when you come to think what that sort o' baby goes through as a rule; dragged up by somebody else's hand, or took away by the Law. What can a workin' girl do with a baby born under the rose, as they call it? Wonderful the difference money makes when it comes to bein' outside the Law. MR MARCH. Right you are, Mr Bly. God's on the side of the big battalions. BLY. Ah! Religion! [His eyes roll philosophically] Did you ever read 'Aigel? MR MARCH. Hegel, or Haekel? BLY. Yes; with an aitch. There's a balance abart 'im that I like. There's no doubt the Christian religion went too far. Turn the other cheek! What oh! An' this Anti-Christ, Neesha, what came in with the war--he went too far in the other direction. Neither of 'em practical men. You've got to strike a balance, and foller it. MR MARCH. Balance! Not much balance about us. We just run about and jump Jim Crow. BLY. [With a perfunctory wipe] That's right; we 'aven't got a faith these days. But what's the use of tellin' the Englishman to act like an angel. He ain't either an angel or a blond beast. He's between the two, an 'ermumphradite. Take my daughter----If I was a blond beast, I'd turn 'er out to starve; if I was an angel, I'd starve meself to learn her the piano. I don't do either. Why? Becos my instincts tells me not. MR MARCH. Yes, but my doubt is whether our instincts at this moment of the world's history are leading us up or down. BLY. What is up and what is down? Can you answer me that? Is it up or down to get so soft that you can't take care of yourself? MR MARCH. Down. BLY. Well, is it up or down to get so 'ard that you can't take care of others? MR MARCH. Down. BLY. Well, there you are! MARCH. Then our instincts are taking us down? BLY. Nao. They're strikin' a balance, unbeknownst, all the time. MR MARCH. You're a philosopher, Mr Bly. BLY. [Modestly] Well, I do a bit in that line, too. In my opinion Nature made the individual believe he's goin' to live after'e's dead just to keep 'im livin' while 'es alive--otherwise he'd 'a died out. MR MARCH. Quite a thought--quite a thought! BLY. But I go one better than Nature. Follow your instincts is my motto. MR MARCH. Excuse me, Mr Bly, I think Nature got hold of that before you. BLY. [Slightly chilled] Well, I'm keepin' you. MR MARCH. Not at all. You're a believer in conscience, or the little voice within. When my son was very small, his mother asked him once if he didn't hear a little voice within, telling him what was right. [MR MARCH touches his diaphragm] And he said "I often hear little voices in here, but they never say anything." [MR BLY cannot laugh, but he smiles] Mary, Johnny must have been awfully like the Government. BLY. As a matter of fact, I've got my daughter here--in obeyance. MR MARCH. Where? I didn't catch. BLY. In the kitchen. Your Cook told me you couldn't get hold of an 'ouse parlour-maid. So I thought it was just a chance--you bein' broadminded. MR MARCH. Oh! I see. What would your mother say, Mary? MARY. Mother would say: "Has she had experience?" BLY. I've told you about her experience. MR MARCH. Yes, but--as a parlour-maid. BLY. Well! She can do hair. [Observing the smile exchanged between MR MARCH and MARY] And she's quite handy with a plate. MR MARCH. [Tentatively] I'm a little afraid my wife would feel-- BLY. You see, in this weavin' shop--all the girls 'ave 'ad to be in trouble, otherwise they wouldn't take 'em. [Apologetically towards MARY] It's a kind of a disorderly 'ouse without the disorders. Excusin' the young lady's presence. MARY. Oh! You needn't mind me, Mr Bly. MR MARCH. And so you want her to come here? H'm! BLY. Well I remember when she was a little bit of a thing--no higher than my knee--[He holds out his hand.] MR MARCH. [Suddenly moved] My God! yes. They've all been that. [To MARY] Where's your mother? MARY. Gone to Mrs Hunt's. Suppose she's engaged one, Dad? MR MARCH. Well, it's only a month's wages. MARY. [Softly] She won't like it. MR MARCH. Well, let's see her, Mr Bly; let's see her, if you don't mind. BLY. Oh, I don't mind, sir, and she won't neither; she's used to bein' inspected by now. Why! she 'ad her bumps gone over just before she came out! MR MARCH. [Touched on the raw again] H'm! Too bad! Mary, go and fetch her. MARY, with a doubting smile, goes out. [Rising] You might give me the details of that trial, Mr Bly. I'll see if I can't write something that'll make people sit up. That's the way to send Youth to hell! How can a child who's had a rope round her neck--! BLY. [Who has been fumbling in his pocket, produces some yellow paper-cuttings clipped together] Here's her references--the whole literature of the case. And here's a letter from the chaplain in one of the prisons sayin' she took a lot of interest in him; a nice young man, I believe. [He suddenly brushes a tear out of his eye with the back of his hand] I never thought I could 'a felt like I did over her bein' in prison. Seemed a crool senseless thing--that pretty girl o' mine. All over a baby that hadn't got used to bein' alive. Tain't as if she'd been follerin' her instincts; why, she missed that baby something crool. MR MARCH. Of course, human life--even an infant's---- BLY. I know you've got to 'ave a close time for it. But when you come to think how they take 'uman life in Injia and Ireland, and all those other places, it seems 'ard to come down like a cartload o' bricks on a bit of a girl that's been carried away by a moment's abiration. MR MARCH. [Who is reading the cuttings] H'm! What hypocrites we are! BLY. Ah! And 'oo can tell 'oo's the father? She never give us his name. I think the better of 'er for that. MR MARCH. Shake hands, Mr Bly. So do I. [BLY wipes his hand, and MR MARCH shakes it] Loyalty's loyalty--especially when we men benefit by it. BLY. That's right, sir. MARY has returned with FAITH BLY, who stands demure and pretty on the far side of the table, her face an embodiment of the pathetic watchful prison faculty of adapting itself to whatever may be best for its owner at the moment. At this moment it is obviously best for her to look at the ground, and yet to take in the faces of MR MARCH and MARY without their taking her face in. A moment, for all, of considerable embarrassment. MR MARCH. [Suddenly] We'll, here we are! The remark attracts FAITH; she raises her eyes to his softly with a little smile, and drops them again. So you want to be our parlour-maid? FAITH. Yes, please. MR MARCH. Well, Faith can remove mountains; but--er--I don't know if she can clear tables. BLY. I've been tellin' Mr March and the young lady what you're capable of. Show 'em what you can do with a plate. FAITH takes the tray from the sideboard and begins to clear the table, mainly by the light of nature. After a glance, MR MARCH looks out of the window and drums his fingers on the uncleaned pane. MR BLY goes on with his cleaning. MARY, after watching from the hearth, goes up and touches her father's arm. MARY. [Between him and MR BLY who is bending over his bucket, softly] You're not watching, Dad. MR MARCH. It's too pointed. MARY. We've got to satisfy mother. MR MARCH. I can satisfy her better if I don't look. MARY. You're right. FAITH has paused a moment and is watching them. As MARY turns, she resumes her operations. MARY joins, and helps her finish clearing, while the two men converse. BLY. Fine weather, sir, for the time of year. MR MARCH. It is. The trees are growing. BLY. All! I wouldn't be surprised to see a change of Government before long. I've seen 'uge trees in Brazil without any roots--seen 'em come down with a crash. MR MARCH. Good image, Mr Bly. Hope you're right! BLY. Well, Governments! They're all the same--Butter when they're out of power, and blood when they're in. And Lord! 'ow they do abuse other Governments for doin' the things they do themselves. Excuse me, I'll want her dosseer back, sir, when you've done with it. MR MARCH. Yes, yes. [He turns, rubbing his hands at the cleared table] Well, that seems all right! And you can do hair? FAITH. Oh! Yes, I can do hair. [Again that little soft look, and smile so carefully adjusted.] MR MARCH. That's important, don't you think, Mary? [MARY, accustomed to candour, smiles dubiously.] [Brightly] Ah! And cleaning plate? What about that? FAITH. Of course, if I had the opportunity-- MARY. You haven't--so far? FAITH. Only tin things. MR MARCH. [Feeling a certain awkwardness] Well, I daresay we can find some for you. Can you--er--be firm on the telephone? FAITH. Tell them you're engaged when you're not? Oh! yes. MR MARCH. Excellent! Let's see, Mary, what else is there? MARY. Waiting, and house work. MR MARCH. Exactly. FAITH. I'm very quick. I--I'd like to come. [She looks down] I don't care for what I'm doing now. It makes you feel your position. MARY. Aren't they nice to you? FAITH. Oh! yes--kind; but-- [She looks up] it's against my instincts. MR MARCH. Oh! [Quizzically] You've got a disciple, Mr Bly. BLY. [Rolling his eyes at his daughter] Ah! but you mustn't 'ave instincts here, you know. You've got a chance, and you must come to stay, and do yourself credit. FAITH. [Adapting her face] Yes, I know, I'm very lucky. MR MARCH. [Deprecating thanks and moral precept] That's all right! Only, Mr Bly, I can't absolutely answer for Mrs March. She may think-- MARY. There is Mother; I heard the door. BLY. [Taking up his pail] I quite understand, sir; I've been a married man myself. It's very queer the way women look at things. I'll take her away now, and come back presently and do these other winders. You can talk it over by yourselves. But if you do see your way, sir, I shan't forget it in an 'urry. To 'ave the responsibility of her--really, it's dreadful. FAITH's face has grown sullen during this speech, but it clears up in another little soft look at MR MARCH, as she and MR BLY go out. MR MARCH. Well, Mary, have I done it? MARY. You have, Dad. MR MARCH. [Running his hands through his hair] Pathetic little figure! Such infernal inhumanity! MARY. How are you going to put it to mother? MR MARCH. Tell her the story, and pitch it strong. MARY. Mother's not impulsive. MR MARCH. We must tell her, or she'll think me mad. MARY. She'll do that, anyway, dear. MR MARCH. Here she is! Stand by! He runs his arm through MARY's, and they sit on the fender, at bay. MRS MARCH enters, Left. MR MARCH. Well, what luck? MRS MARCH. None. MR MARCH. [Unguardedly] Good! MRS MARCH. What? MRS MARCH. [Cheerfully] Well, the fact is, Mary and I have caught one for 'you; Mr Bly's daughter-- MRS MARCH. Are you out of your senses? Don't you know that she's the girl who-- MR MARCH. That's it. She wants a lift. MRS MARCH. Geof! MR MARCH. Well, don't we want a maid? MRS MARCH. [Ineffably] Ridiculous! MR MARCH. We tested her, didn't we, Mary? MRS MARCH. [Crossing to the bell, and ringing] You'll just send for Mr Bly and get rid of her again. MR MARCH. Joan, if we comfortable people can't put ourselves a little out of the way to give a helping hand-- MRS MARCH. To girls who smother their babies? MR MARCH. Joan, I revolt. I won't be a hypocrite and a Pharisee. MRS MARCH. Well, for goodness sake let me be one. MARY. [As the door opens]. Here's Cook! COOK stands--sixty, stout, and comfortable with a crumpled smile. COOK. Did you ring, ma'am? MR MARCH. We're in a moral difficulty, Cook, so naturally we come to you. COOK beams. MRS MARCH. [Impatiently] Nothing of the sort, Cook; it's a question of common sense. COOK. Yes, ma'am. MRS MARCH. That girl, Faith Bly, wants to come here as parlour-maid. Absurd! MARCH. You know her story, Cook? I want to give the poor girl a chance. Mrs March thinks it's taking chances. What do you say? COCK. Of course, it is a risk, sir; but there! you've got to take 'em to get maids nowadays. If it isn't in the past, it's in the future. I daresay I could learn 'er. MRS MARCH. It's not her work, Cook, it's her instincts. A girl who smothered a baby that she oughtn't to have had-- MR MARCH. [Remonstrant] If she hadn't had it how could she have smothered it? COOK. [Soothingly] Perhaps she's repented, ma'am. MRS MARCH. Of course she's repented. But did you ever know repentance change anybody, Cook? COOK. [Smiling] Well, generally it's a way of gettin' ready for the next. MRS MARCH. Exactly. MR MARCH. If we never get another chance because we repent-- COOK. I always think of Master Johnny, ma'am, and my jam; he used to repent so beautiful, dear little feller--such a conscience! I never could bear to lock it away. MRS MARCH. Cook, you're wandering. I'm surprised at your encouraging the idea; I really am. Cook plaits her hands. MR MARCH. Cook's been in the family longer than I have--haven't you, Cook? [COOK beams] She knows much more about a girl like that than we do. COOK. We had a girl like her, I remember, in your dear mother's time, Mr Geoffrey. MR MARCH. How did she turn out? COOK. Oh! She didn't. MRS MARCH. There! MR MARCH. Well, I can't bear behaving like everybody else. Don't you think we might give her a chance, Cook? COOK. My 'eart says yes, ma'am. MR MARCH. Ha! COOK. And my 'ead says no, sir. MRS MARCH. Yes! MR MARCH. Strike your balance, Cook. COOK involuntarily draws her joined hands sharply in upon her amplitude. Well?... I didn't catch the little voice within. COOK. Ask Master Johnny, sir; he's been in the war. MR MARCH. [To MARY] Get Johnny. MARY goes out. MRS MARCH. What on earth has the war to do with it? COOK. The things he tells me, ma'am, is too wonderful for words. He's 'ad to do with prisoners and generals, every sort of 'orror. MR MARCH. Cook's quite right. The war destroyed all our ideals and probably created the baby. MRS MARCH. It didn't smother it; or condemn the girl. MR MARCH. [Running his hands through his hair] The more I think of that--! [He turns away.] MRS MARCH. [Indicating her husband] You see, Cook, that's the mood in which I have to engage a parlour-maid. What am I to do with your master? COOK. It's an 'ealthy rage, ma'am. MRS MARCH. I'm tired of being the only sober person in this house. COOK. [Reproachfully] Oh! ma'am, I never touch a drop. MRS MARCH. I didn't mean anything of that sort. But they do break out so. COOK. Not Master Johnny. MRS MARCH. Johnny! He's the worst of all. His poetry is nothing but one long explosion. MR MARCH. [Coming from the window] I say We ought to have faith and jump. MRS MARCH. If we do have Faith, we shall jump. COOK. [Blankly] Of course, in the Bible they 'ad faith, and just look what it did to them! MR MARCH. I mean faith in human instincts, human nature, Cook. COOK. [Scandalised] Oh! no, sir, not human nature; I never let that get the upper hand. MR MARCH. You talk to Mr Bly. He's a remarkable man. COOK. I do, sir, every fortnight when he does the kitchen windows. MR MARCH. Well, doesn't he impress you? COOK. Ah! When he's got a drop o' stout in 'im--Oh! dear! [She smiles placidly.] JOHNNY has come in. MR MARCH. Well, Johnny, has Mary told you? MRS MARCH. [Looking at his face] Now, my dear boy, don't be hasty and foolish! JOHNNY. Of course you ought to take her, Mother. MRS MARCH. [Fixing him] Have you seen her, Johnny? JOHNNY. She's in the hall, poor little devil, waiting for her sentence. MRS MARCH. There are plenty of other chances, Johnny. Why on earth should we--? JOHNNY. Mother, it's just an instance. When something comes along that takes a bit of doing--Give it to the other chap! MR MARCH. Bravo, Johnny! MRS MARCH. [Drily] Let me see, which of us will have to put up with her shortcomings--Johnny or I? MARY. She looks quick, Mother. MRS MARCH. Girls pick up all sorts of things in prison. We can hardly expect her to be honest. You don't mind that, I suppose? JOHNNY. It's a chance to make something decent out of her. MRS MARCH. I can't understand this passion for vicarious heroism, Johnny. JOHNNY. Vicarious! MRS MARCH. Well, where do you come in? You'll make poems about the injustice of the Law. Your father will use her in a novel. She'll wear Mary's blouses, and everybody will be happy--except Cook and me. MR MARCH. Hang it all, Joan, you might be the Great Public itself! MRS MARCH. I am--get all the kicks and none of the ha'pence. JOHNNY. We'll all help you. MRS MARCH. For Heaven's sake--no, Johnny! MR MARCH. Well, make up your mind! MRS MARCH. It was made up long ago. JOHNNY. [Gloomily] The more I see of things the more disgusting they seem. I don't see what we're living for. All right. Chuck the girl out, and let's go rooting along with our noses in the dirt. MR MARCH. Steady, Johnny! JOHNNY. Well, Dad, there was one thing anyway we learned out there-- When a chap was in a hole--to pull him out, even at a risk. MRS MARCH. There are people who--the moment you pull them out--jump in again. MARY. We can't tell till we've tried, Mother. COOK. It's wonderful the difference good food'll make, ma'am. MRS MARCH. Well, you're all against me. Have it your own way, and when you regret it--remember me! MR MARCH. We will--we will! That's settled, then. Bring her in and tell her. We'll go on to the terrace. He goes out through the window, followed by JOHNNY. MARY. [Opening the door] Come in, please. FAITH enters and stands beside COOK, close to the door. MARY goes out. MRS MARCH. [Matter of fact in defeat as in victory] You want to come to us, I hear. FAITH. Yes. MRS MARCH. And you don't know much? FAITH. No. COOK. [Softly] Say ma'am, dearie. MRS MARCH. Cook is going to do her best for you. Are you going to do yours for us? FAITH. [With a quick look up] Yes--ma'am. MRS MARCH. Can you begin at once? FAITH. Yes. MRS MARCH. Well, then, Cook will show you where things are kept, and how to lay the table and that. Your wages will be thirty until we see where we are. Every other Sunday, and Thursday afternoon. What about dresses? FAITH. [Looking at her dress] I've only got this--I had it before, of course, it hasn't been worn. MRS MARCH. Very neat. But I meant for the house. You've no money, I suppose? FAITH. Only one pound thirteen, ma'am. MRS MARCH. We shall have to find you some dresses, then. Cook will take you to-morrow to Needham's. You needn't wear a cap unless you like. Well, I hope you'll get on. I'll leave you with Cook now. After one look at the girl, who is standing motionless, she goes out. FAITH. [With a jerk, as if coming out of plaster of Paris] She's never been in prison! COOK. [Comfortably] Well, my dear, we can't all of us go everywhere, 'owever 'ard we try! She is standing back to the dresser, and turns to it, opening the right-hand drawer. COOK. Now, 'ere's the wine. The master likes 'is glass. And 'ere's the spirits in the tantaliser 'tisn't ever kept locked, in case Master Johnny should bring a friend in. Have you noticed Master Johnny? [FAITH nods] Ah! He's a dear boy; and wonderful high-principled since he's been in the war. He'll come to me sometimes and say: "Cook, we're all going to the devil!" They think 'ighly of 'im as a poet. He spoke up for you beautiful. FAITH. Oh! He spoke up for me? COOK. Well, of course they had to talk you over. FAITH. I wonder if they think I've got feelings. COOK. [Regarding her moody, pretty face] Why! We all have feelin's! FAITH. Not below three hundred a year. COOK. [Scandalised] Dear, dear! Where were you educated? FAITH. I wasn't. COOK. Tt! Well--it's wonderful what a change there is in girls since my young days [Pulling out a drawer] Here's the napkins. You change the master's every day at least because of his moustache and the others every two days, but always clean ones Sundays. Did you keep Sundays in there? FAITH. [Smiling] Yes. Longer chapel. COOK. It'll be a nice change for you, here. They don't go to Church; they're agnosticals. [Patting her shoulder] How old are you? FAITH. Twenty. COOK. Think of that--and such a life! Now, dearie, I'm your friend. Let the present bury the past--as the sayin' is. Forget all about yourself, and you'll be a different girl in no time. FAITH. Do you want to be a different woman? COOK is taken flat aback by so sudden a revelation of the pharisaism of which she has not been conscious. COOK. Well! You are sharp! [Opening another dresser drawer] Here's the vinegar! And here's the sweets, and [rather anxiously] you mustn't eat them. FAITH. I wasn't in for theft. COOK. [Shocked at such rudimentary exposure of her natural misgivings] No, no! But girls have appetites. FAITH. They didn't get much chance where I've been. COOK. Ah! You must tell me all about it. Did you have adventures? FAITH. There isn't such a thing in a prison. COOK. You don't say! Why, in the books they're escapin' all the time. But books is books; I've always said so. How were the men? FAITH. Never saw a man--only a chaplain. COOK. Dear, dear! They must be quite fresh to you, then! How long was it? FAITH. Two years. COOK. And never a day out? What did you do all the time? Did they learn you anything? FAITH. Weaving. That's why I hate it. COOK. Tell me about your poor little baby. I'm sure you meant it for the best. FAITH. [Sardonically] Yes; I was afraid they'd make it a ward in Chancery. COOK. Oh! dear--what things do come into your head! Why! No one can take a baby from its mother. FAITH. Except the Law. COOK. Tt! Tt! Well! Here's the pickled onions. Miss Mary loves 'em! Now then, let me see you lay the cloth. She takes a tablecloth out, hands it to FAITH, and while the girl begins to unfold the cloth she crosses to the service shutter. And here's where we pass the dishes through into the pantry. The door is opened, and MRS MARCH'S voice says: "Cook--a minute!" [Preparing to go] Salt cellars one at each corner--four, and the peppers. [From the door] Now the decanters. Oh! you'll soon get on. [MRS MARCH "Cook!"] Yes, ma'am. She goes. FAITH, left alone, stands motionless, biting her pretty lip, her eyes mutinous. Hearing footsteps, she looks up. MR BLY, with his pail and cloths, appears outside. BLY. [Preparing to work, while FAITH prepares to set the salt cellars] So you've got it! You never know your luck. Up to-day and down to-morrow. I'll 'ave a glass over this to-night. What d'you get? FAITH. Thirty. BLY. It's not the market price, still, you're not the market article. Now, put a good heart into it and get to know your job; you'll find Cook full o' philosophy if you treat her right--she can make a dumplin' with anybody. But look 'ere; you confine yourself to the ladies! FAITH. I don't want your advice, father. BLY. I know parents are out of date; still, I've put up with a lot on your account, so gimme a bit of me own back. FAITH. I don't know whether I shall like this. I've been shut up so long. I want to see some life. BLY. Well, that's natural. But I want you to do well. I suppose you'll be comin' 'ome to fetch your things to-night? FAITH. Yes. BLY. I'll have a flower for you. What'd you like--daffydils? FAITH. No; one with a scent to it. BLY. I'll ask at Mrs Bean's round the corner. She'll pick 'em out from what's over. Never 'ad much nose for a flower meself. I often thought you'd like a flower when you was in prison. FAITH. [A little touched] Did you? Did you really? BLY. Ah! I suppose I've drunk more glasses over your bein' in there than over anything that ever 'appened to me. Why! I couldn't relish the war for it! And I suppose you 'ad none to relish. Well, it's over. So, put an 'eart into it. FAITH. I'll try. BLY. "There's compensation for everything," 'Aigel says. At least, if it wasn't 'Aigel it was one o' the others. I'll move on to the study now. Ah! He's got some winders there lookin' right over the country. And a wonderful lot o' books, if you feel inclined for a read one of these days. COOK'S Voice. Faith! FAITH sets down the salt cellar in her hand, puts her tongue out a very little, and goes out into the hall. MR BLY is gathering up his pail and cloths when MR MARCH enters at the window. MR MARCH. So it's fixed up, Mr Bly. BLY. [Raising himself] I'd like to shake your 'and, sir. [They shake hands] It's a great weight off my mind. MR MARCH. It's rather a weight on my wife's, I'm afraid. But we must hope for the best. The country wants rain, but--I doubt if we shall get it with this Government. BLY. Ah! We want the good old times-when you could depend on the seasons. The further you look back the more dependable the times get; 'ave you noticed that, sir? MR MARCH. [Suddenly] Suppose they'd hanged your daughter, Mr Bly. What would you have done? BLY. Well, to be quite frank, I should 'ave got drunk on it. MR MARCH. Public opinion's always in advance of the Law. I think your daughter's a most pathetic little figure. BLY. Her looks are against her. I never found a man that didn't. MR MARCH. [A little disconcerted] Well, we'll try and give her a good show here. BLY. [Taking up his pail] I'm greatly obliged; she'll appreciate anything you can do for her. [He moves to the door and pauses there to say] Fact is--her winders wants cleanin', she 'ad a dusty time in there. MR MARCH. I'm sure she had. MR BLY passes out, and MR MARCH busies himself in gathering up his writing things preparatory to seeking his study. While he is so engaged FAITH comes in. Glancing at him, she resumes her placing of the decanters, as JOHNNY enters by the window, and comes down to his father by the hearth. JOHNNY. [Privately] If you haven't begun your morning, Dad, you might just tell me what you think of these verses. He puts a sheet of notepaper before his father, who takes it and begins to con over the verses thereon, while JOHNNY looks carefully at his nails. MR MARCH. Er--I--I like the last line awfully, Johnny. JOHNNY. [Gloomily] What about the other eleven? MR MARCH. [Tentatively] Well--old man, I--er--think perhaps it'd be stronger if they were out. JOHNNY. Good God! He takes back the sheet of paper, clutches his brow, and crosses to the door. As he passes FAITH, she looks up at him with eyes full of expression. JOHNNY catches the look, jibs ever so little, and goes out. COOK'S VOICE. [Through the door, which is still ajar] Faith! FAITH puts the decanters on the table, and goes quickly out. MR MARCH. [Who has seen this little by-play--to himself--in a voice of dismay] Oh! oh! I wonder! CURTAIN. ACT II A fortnight later in the MARCH'S dining-room; a day of violent April showers. Lunch is over and the table littered with, remains-- twelve baskets full. MR MARCH and MARY have lingered. MR MARCH is standing by the hearth where a fire is burning, filling a fountain pen. MARY sits at the table opposite, pecking at a walnut. MR MARCH. [Examining his fingers] What it is to have an inky present! Suffer with me, Mary! MARY. "Weep ye no more, sad Fountains! Why need ye flow so fast?" MR MARCH. [Pocketing his pen] Coming with me to the British Museum? I want to have a look at the Assyrian reliefs. MARY. Dad, have you noticed Johnny? MR MARCH. I have. MARY. Then only Mother hasn't. MR MARCH. I've always found your mother extremely good at seeming not to notice things, Mary. MARY. Faith! She's got on very fast this fortnight. MR MARCH. The glad eye, Mary. I got it that first morning. MARY. You, Dad? MR MARCH. No, no! Johnny got it, and I got him getting it. MARY. What are you going to do about it? MR MARCH. What does one do with a glad eye that belongs to some one else? MARY. [Laughing] No. But, seriously, Dad, Johnny's not like you and me. Why not speak to Mr Bly? MR MARCH. Mr Bly's eyes are not glad. MARY. Dad! Do be serious! Johnny's capable of anything except a sense of humour. MR MARCH. The girl's past makes it impossible to say anything to her. MARY. Well, I warn you. Johnny's very queer just now; he's in the "lose the world to save your soul" mood. It really is too bad of that girl. After all, we did what most people wouldn't. MR MARCH. Come! Get your hat on, Mary, or we shan't make the Tube before the next shower. MARY. [Going to the door] Something must be done. MR MARCH. As you say, something--Ah! Mr Bly! MR BLY, in precisely the same case as a fortnight ago, with his pail and cloths, is coming in. BLY. Afternoon, sir! Shall I be disturbing you if I do the winders here? MR MARCH. Not at all. MR BLY crosses to the windows. MARY. [Pointing to MR BLY's back] Try! BLY. Showery, sir. MR MARCH. Ah! BLY. Very tryin' for winders. [Resting] My daughter givin' satisfaction, I hope? MR MARCH. [With difficulty] Er--in her work, I believe, coming on well. But the question is, Mr Bly, do--er--any of us ever really give satisfaction except to ourselves? BLY. [Taking it as an invitation to his philosophical vein] Ah! that's one as goes to the roots of 'uman nature. There's a lot of disposition in all of us. And what I always say is: One man's disposition is another man's indisposition. MR MARCH. By George! Just hits the mark. BLY. [Filling his sponge] Question is: How far are you to give rein to your disposition? When I was in Durban, Natal, I knew a man who had the biggest disposition I ever come across. 'E struck 'is wife, 'e smoked opium, 'e was a liar, 'e gave all the rein 'e could, and yet withal one of the pleasantest men I ever met. MR MARCH. Perhaps in giving rein he didn't strike you. BLY. [With a big wipe, following his thought] He said to me once: "Joe," he said, "if I was to hold meself in, I should be a devil." There's where you get it. Policemen, priests, prisoners. Cab'net Ministers, any one who leads an unnatural life, see how it twists 'em. You can't suppress a thing without it swellin' you up in another place. MR MARCH. And the moral of that is--? BLY. Follow your instincts. You see--if I'm not keepin' you--now that we ain't got no faith, as we were sayin' the other day, no Ten Commandments in black an' white--we've just got to be 'uman bein's-- raisin' Cain, and havin' feelin' hearts. What's the use of all these lofty ideas that you can't live up to? Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, Democracy--see what comes o' fightin' for 'em! 'Ere we are-wipin' out the lot. We thought they was fixed stars; they was only comets--hot air. No; trust 'uman nature, I say, and follow your instincts. MR MARCH. We were talking of your daughter--I--I-- BLY. There's a case in point. Her instincts was starved goin' on for three years, because, mind you, they kept her hangin' about in prison months before they tried her. I read your article, and I thought to meself after I'd finished: Which would I feel smallest--if I was--the Judge, the Jury, or the 'Ome Secretary? It was a treat, that article! They ought to abolish that in'uman "To be hanged by the neck until she is dead." It's my belief they only keep it because it's poetry; that and the wigs--they're hard up for a bit of beauty in the Courts of Law. Excuse my 'and, sir; I do thank you for that article. He extends his wiped hand, which MR MARCH shakes with the feeling that he is always shaking Mr. BLY's hand. MR MARCH. But, apropos of your daughter, Mr Bly. I suppose none of us ever change our natures. BLY. [Again responding to the appeal that he senses to his philosophical vein] Ah! but 'oo can see what our natures are? Why, I've known people that could see nothin' but theirselves and their own families, unless they was drunk. At my daughter's trial, I see right into the lawyers, judge and all. There she was, hub of the whole thing, and all they could see of her was 'ow far she affected 'em personally--one tryin' to get 'er guilty, the other tryin' to get 'er off, and the judge summin' 'er up cold-blooded. MR MARCH. But that's what they're paid for, Mr Bly. BLY. Ah! But which of 'em was thinkin' "'Ere's a little bit o' warm life on its own. 'Ere's a little dancin' creature. What's she feelin', wot's 'er complaint?"--impersonal-like. I like to see a man do a bit of speculatin', with his mind off of 'imself, for once. MR MARCH. "The man that hath not speculation in his soul." BLY. That's right, sir. When I see a mangy cat or a dog that's lost, or a fellow-creature down on his luck, I always try to put meself in his place. It's a weakness I've got. MR MARCH. [Warmly] A deuced good one. Shake-- He checks himself, but MR BLY has wiped his hand and extended it. While the shake is in progress MARY returns, and, having seen it to a safe conclusion, speaks. MARY. Coming, Dad? MR MARCH. Excuse me, Mr Bly, I must away. He goes towards the door, and BLY dips his sponge. MARY. [In a low voice] Well? MR MARCH. Mr Bly is like all the greater men I know--he can't listen. MARY. But you were shaking-- MR MARCH. Yes; it's a weakness we have--every three minutes. MARY. [Bubbling] Dad--Silly! MR MARCH. Very! As they go out MR BLY pauses in his labours to catch, as it were, a philosophical reflection. He resumes the wiping of a pane, while quietly, behind him, FAITH comes in with a tray. She is dressed now in lilac-coloured linen, without a cap, and looks prettier than ever. She puts the tray down on the sideboard with a clap that attracts her father's attention, and stands contemplating the debris on the table. BLY. Winders! There they are! Clean, dirty! All sorts--All round yer! Winders! FAITH. [With disgust] Food! BLY. Ah! Food and winders! That's life! FAITH. Eight times a day four times for them and four times for us. I hate food! She puts a chocolate into her mouth. BLY. 'Ave some philosophy. I might just as well hate me winders. FAITH. Well! She begins to clear. BLY. [Regarding her] Look 'ere, my girl! Don't you forget that there ain't many winders in London out o' which they look as philosophical as these here. Beggars can't be choosers. FAITH. [Sullenly] Oh! Don't go on at me! BLY. They spoiled your disposition in that place, I'm afraid. FAITH. Try it, and see what they do with yours. BLY. Well, I may come to it yet. FAITH. You'll get no windows to look out of there; a little bit of a thing with bars to it, and lucky if it's not thick glass. [Standing still and gazing past MR BLY] No sun, no trees, no faces--people don't pass in the sky, not even angels. BLY. Ah! But you shouldn't brood over it. I knew a man in Valpiraso that 'ad spent 'arf 'is life in prison-a jolly feller; I forget what 'e'd done, somethin' bloody. I want to see you like him. Aren't you happy here? FAITH. It's right enough, so long as I get out. BLY. This Mr March--he's like all these novel-writers--thinks 'e knows 'uman nature, but of course 'e don't. Still, I can talk to 'im--got an open mind, and hates the Gover'ment. That's the two great things. Mrs March, so far as I see, 'as got her head screwed on much tighter. FAITH. She has. BLY. What's the young man like? He's a long feller. FAITH. Johnny? [With a shrug and a little smile] Johnny. BLY. Well, that gives a very good idea of him. They say 'es a poet; does 'e leave 'em about? FAITH. I've seen one or two. BLY. What's their tone? FAITH. All about the condition of the world; and the moon. BLY. Ah! Depressin'. And the young lady? FAITH shrugs her shoulders. Um--'ts what I thought. She 'asn't moved much with the times. She thinks she 'as, but she 'asn't. Well, they seem a pleasant family. Leave you to yourself. 'Ow's Cook? FAITH. Not much company. BLY. More body than mind? Still, you get out, don't you? FAITH. [With a slow smile] Yes. [She gives a sudden little twirl, and puts her hands up to her hair before the mirror] My afternoon to-day. It's fine in the streets, after-being in there. BLY. Well! Don't follow your instincts too much, that's all! I must get on to the drawin' room now. There's a shower comin'. [Philosophically] It's 'ardly worth while to do these winders. You clean 'em, and they're dirty again in no time. It's like life. And people talk o' progress. What a sooperstition! Of course there ain't progress; it's a world-without-end affair. You've got to make up your mind to it, and not be discouraged. All this depression comes from 'avin' 'igh 'opes. 'Ave low 'opes, and you'll be all right. He takes up his pail and cloths and moves out through the windows. FAITH puts another chocolate into her mouth, and taking up a flower, twirls round with it held to her nose, and looks at herself in the glass over the hearth. She is still looking at herself when she sees in the mirror a reflection of JOHNNY, who has come in. Her face grows just a little scared, as if she had caught the eye of a warder peering through the peep-hole of her cell door, then brazens, and slowly sweetens as she turns round to him. JOHNNY. Sorry! [He has a pipe in his hand and wears a Norfolk jacket] Fond of flowers? FAITH. Yes. [She puts back the flower] Ever so! JOHNNY. Stick to it. Put it in your hair; it'll look jolly. How do you like it here? FAITH. It's quiet. JOHNNY. Ha! I wonder if you've got the feeling I have. We've both had hell, you know; I had three years of it, out there, and you've had three years of it here. The feeling that you can't catch up; can't live fast enough to get even. FAITH nods. Nothing's big enough; nothing's worth while enough--is it? FAITH. I don't know. I know I'd like to bite. She draws her lips back. JOHNNY. Ah! Tell me all about your beastly time; it'll do you good. You and I are different from anybody else in this house. We've lived they've just vegetated. Come on; tell me! FAITH, who up to now has looked on him as a young male, stares at him for the first time without sex in her eyes. FAITH. I can't. We didn't talk in there, you know. JOHNNY. Were you fond of the chap who--? FAITH. No. Yes. I suppose I was--once. JOHNNY. He must have been rather a swine. FAITH. He's dead. JOHNNY. Sorry! Oh, sorry! FAITH. I've forgotten all that. JOHNNY. Beastly things, babies; and absolutely unnecessary in the present state of the world. FAITH. [With a faint smile] My baby wasn't beastly; but I--I got upset. JOHNNY. Well, I should think so! FAITH. My friend in the manicure came and told me about hers when I was lying in the hospital. She couldn't have it with her, so it got neglected and died. JOHNNY. Um! I believe that's quite common. FAITH. And she told me about another girl--the Law took her baby from her. And after she was gone, I--got all worked up-- [She hesitates, then goes swiftly on] And I looked at mine; it was asleep just here, quite close. I just put out my arm like that, over its face--quite soft-- I didn't hurt it. I didn't really. [She suddenly swallows, and her lips quiver] I didn't feel anything under my arm. And--and a beast of a nurse came on me, and said "You've smothered your baby, you wretched girl!" I didn't want to kill it--I only wanted to save it from living. And when I looked at it, I went off screaming. JOHNNY. I nearly screamed when I saved my first German from living. I never felt the same again. They say the human race has got to go on, but I say they've first got to prove that the human race wants to. Would you rather be alive or dead? FAITH. Alive. JOHNNY. But would you have in prison? FAITH. I don't know. You can't tell anything in there. [With sudden vehemence] I wish I had my baby back, though. It was mine; and I--I don't like thinking about it. JOHNNY. I know. I hate to think about anything I've killed, really. At least, I should--but it's better not to think. FAITH. I could have killed that judge. JOHNNY. Did he come the heavy father? That's what I can't stand. When they jaw a chap and hang him afterwards. Or was he one of the joking ones? FAITH. I've sat in my cell and cried all night--night after night, I have. [With a little laugh] I cried all the softness out of me. JOHNNY. You never believed they were going to hang you, did you? FAITH. I didn't care if they did--not then. JOHNNY. [With a reflective grunt] You had a much worse time than I. You were lonely-- FAITH. Have you been in a prison, ever? JOHNNY. No, thank God! FAITH. It's awfully clean. JOHNNY. You bet. FAITH. And it's stone cold. It turns your heart. JOHNNY. Ah! Did you ever see a stalactite? FAITH. What's that? JOHNNY. In caves. The water drops like tears, and each drop has some sort of salt, and leaves it behind till there's just a long salt petrified drip hanging from the roof. FAITH. Ah! [Staring at him] I used to stand behind my door. I'd stand there sometimes I don't know how long. I'd listen and listen--the noises are all hollow in a prison. You'd think you'd get used to being shut up, but I never did. JOHNNY utters a deep grunt. It's awful the feeling you get here-so tight and chokey. People who are free don't know what it's like to be shut up. If I'd had a proper window even--When you can see things living, it makes you feel alive. JOHNNY. [Catching her arm] We'll make you feel alive again. FAITH stares at him; sex comes back to her eyes. She looks down. I bet you used to enjoy life, before. FAITH. [Clasping her hands] Oh! yes, I did. And I love getting out now. I've got a fr-- [She checks herself] The streets are beautiful, aren't they? Do you know Orleens Street? JOHNNY. [Doubtful] No-o.... Where? FAITH. At the corner out of the Regent. That's where we had our shop. I liked the hair-dressing. We had fun. Perhaps I've seen you before. Did you ever come in there? JOHNNY. No. FAITH. I'd go back there; only they wouldn't take me--I'm too conspicuous now. JOHNNY. I expect you're well out of that. FAITH. [With a sigh] But I did like it. I felt free. We had an hour off in the middle of the day; you could go where you liked; and then, after hours--I love the streets at night--all lighted. Olga--that's one of the other girls--and I used to walk about for hours. That's life! Fancy! I never saw a street for more than two years. Didn't you miss them in the war? JOHNNY. I missed grass and trees more--the trees! All burnt, and splintered. Gah! FAITH. Yes, I like trees too; anything beautiful, you know. I think the parks are lovely--but they might let you pick the flowers. But the lights are best, really--they make you feel happy. And music--I love an organ. There was one used to come and play outside the prison--before I was tried. It sounded so far away and lovely. If I could 'ave met the man that played that organ, I'd have kissed him. D'you think he did it on purpose? JOHNNY. He would have, if he'd been me. He says it unconsciously, but FAITH is instantly conscious of the implication. FAITH. He'd rather have had pennies, though. It's all earning; working and earning. I wish I were like the flowers. [She twirls the dower in her hand] Flowers don't work, and they don't get put in prison. JOHNNY. [Putting his arm round her] Never mind! Cheer up! You're only a kid. You'll have a good time yet. FAITH leans against him, as it were indifferently, clearly expecting him to kiss her, but he doesn't. FAITH. When I was a little girl I had a cake covered with sugar. I ate the sugar all off and then I didn't want the cake--not much. JOHNNY. [Suddenly, removing his arm] Gosh! If I could write a poem that would show everybody what was in the heart of everybody else--! FAITH. It'd be too long for the papers, wouldn't it? JOHNNY. It'd be too strong. FAITH. Besides, you don't know. Her eyelids go up. JOHNNY. [Staring at her] I could tell what's in you now. FAITH. What? JOHNNY. You feel like a flower that's been picked. FAITH's smile is enigmatic. FAITH. [Suddenly] Why do you go on about me so? JOHNNY. Because you're weak--little and weak. [Breaking out again] Damn it! We went into the war to save the little and weak; at least we said so; and look at us now! The bottom's out of all that. [Bitterly] There isn't a faith or an illusion left. Look here! I want to help you. FAITH. [Surprisingly] My baby was little and weak. JOHNNY. You never meant--You didn't do it for your own advantage. FAITH. It didn't know it was alive. [Suddenly] D'you think I'm pretty? JOHNNY. As pie. FAITH. Then you'd better keep away, hadn't you? JOHNNY. Why? FAITH. You might want a bite. JOHNNY. Oh! I can trust myself. FAITH. [Turning to the window, through which can be seen the darkening of a shower] It's raining. Father says windows never stay clean. They stand dose together, unaware that COOK has thrown up the service shutter, to see why the clearing takes so long. Her astounded head and shoulders pass into view just as FAITH suddenly puts up her face. JOHNNY'S lips hesitate, then move towards her forehead. But her face shifts, and they find themselves upon her lips. Once there, the emphasis cannot help but be considerable. COOK'S mouth falls open. COOK. Oh! She closes the shutter, vanishing. FAITH. What was that? JOHNNY. Nothing. [Breaking away] Look here! I didn't mean--I oughtn't to have--Please forget it! FAITH. [With a little smile] Didn't you like it? JOHNNY. Yes--that's just it. I didn't mean to It won't do. FAITH. Why not? JOHNNY. No, no! It's just the opposite of what--No, no! He goes to the door, wrenches it open and goes out. FAITH, still with that little half-mocking, half-contented smile, resumes the clearing of the table. She is interrupted by the entrance through the French windows of MR MARCH and MARY, struggling with one small wet umbrella. MARY. [Feeling his sleeve] Go and change, Dad. MR MARCH. Women's shoes! We could have made the Tube but for your shoes. MARY. It was your cold feet, not mine, dear. [Looking at FAITH and nudging him] Now! She goes towards the door, turns to look at FAITH still clearing the table, and goes out. MR MARCH. [In front of the hearth] Nasty spring weather, Faith. FAITH. [Still in the mood of the kiss] Yes, Sir. MR MARCH. [Sotto voce] "In the spring a young man's fancy." I--I wanted to say something to you in a friendly way. FAITH regards him as he struggles on. Because I feel very friendly towards you. FAITH. Yes. MR MARCH. So you won't take what I say in bad part? FAITH. No. MR MARCH. After what you've been through, any man with a sense of chivalry-- FAITH gives a little shrug. Yes, I know--but we don't all support the Government. FAITH. I don't know anything about the Government. MR MARCH. [Side-tracked on to his hobby] Ah I forgot. You saw no newspapers. But you ought to pick up the threads now. What paper does Cook take? FAITH. "COSY." MR MARCH. "Cosy"? I don't seem-- What are its politics? FAITH. It hasn't any--only funny bits, and fashions. It's full of corsets. MR MARCH. What does Cook want with corsets? FAITH. She likes to think she looks like that. MR MARCH. By George! Cook an idealist! Let's see!--er--I was speaking of chivalry. My son, you know--er--my son has got it. FAITH. Badly? MR MARCH. [Suddenly alive to the fact that she is playing with him] I started by being sorry for you. FAITH. Aren't you, any more? MR MARCH. Look here, my child! FAITH looks up at him. [Protectingly] We want to do our best for you. Now, don't spoil it by-- Well, you know! FAITH. [Suddenly] Suppose you'd been stuffed away in a hole for years! MR MARCH. [Side-tracked again] Just what your father said. The more I see of Mr Bly, the more wise I think him. FAITH. About other people. MR MARCH. What sort of bringing up did he give you? FAITH smiles wryly and shrugs her shoulders. MR MARCH. H'm! Here comes the sun again! FAITH. [Taking up the flower which is lying on the table] May I have this flower? MR MARCH. Of Course. You can always take what flowers you like--that is--if--er-- FAITH. If Mrs March isn't about? MR MARCH. I meant, if it doesn't spoil the look of the table. We must all be artists in our professions, mustn't we? FAITH. My profession was cutting hair. I would like to cut yours. MR MARCH'S hands instinctively go up to it. MR MARCH. You mightn't think it, but I'm talking to you seriously. FAITH. I was, too. MR MARCH. [Out of his depth] Well! I got wet; I must go and change. FAITH follows him with her eyes as he goes out, and resumes the clearing of the table. She has paused and is again smelling at the flower when she hears the door, and quickly resumes her work. It is MRS MARCH, who comes in and goes to the writing table, Left Back, without looking at FAITH. She sits there writing a cheque, while FAITH goes on clearing. MRS MARCH. [Suddenly, in an unruffled voice] I have made your cheque out for four pounds. It's rather more than the fortnight, and a month's notice. There'll be a cab for you in an hour's time. Can you be ready by then? FAITH. [Astonished] What for--ma'am? MRS MARCH. You don't suit. FAITH. Why? MRS MARCH. Do you wish for the reason? FAITH. [Breathless] Yes. MRS MARCH. Cook saw you just now. FAITH. [Blankly] Oh! I didn't mean her to. MRS MARCH. Obviously. FAITH. I--I-- MRS MARCH. Now go and pack up your things. FAITH. He asked me to be a friend to him. He said he was lonely here. MRS MARCH. Don't be ridiculous. Cook saw you kissing him with p--p-- FAITH. [Quickly] Not with pep. MRS MARCH. I was going to say "passion." Now, go quietly. FAITH. Where am I to go? MRS MARCH. You will have four pounds, and you can get another place. FAITH. How? MRS MARCH. That's hardly my affair. FAITH. [Tossing her head] All right! MRS MARCH. I'll speak to your father, if he isn't gone. FAITH. Why do you send me away--just for a kiss! What's a kiss? MRS MARCH. That will do. FAITH. [Desperately] He wanted to--to save me. MRS MARCH. You know perfectly well people can only save themselves. FAITH. I don't care for your son; I've got a young--[She checks herself] I--I'll leave your son alone, if he leaves me. MRS MARCH rings the bell on the table. [Desolately] Well? [She moves towards the door. Suddenly holding out the flower] Mr March gave me that flower; would you like it back? MRS MARCH. Don't be absurd! If you want more money till you get a place, let me know. FAITH. I won't trouble you. She goes out. MRS MARCH goes to the window and drums her fingers on the pane. COOK enters. MRS MARCH. Cook, if Mr Bly's still here, I want to see him. Oh! And it's three now. Have a cab at four o'clock. COOK. [Almost tearful] Oh, ma'am--anybody but Master Johnny, and I'd 'ave been a deaf an' dummy. Poor girl! She's not responsive, I daresay. Suppose I was to speak to Master Johnny? MRS MARCH. No, no, Cook! Where's Mr Bly? COOK. He's done his windows; he's just waiting for his money. MRS MARCH. Then get him; and take that tray. COOK. I remember the master kissin' me, when he was a boy. But then he never meant anything; so different from Master Johnny. Master Johnny takes things to 'eart. MRS MARCH. Just so, Cook. COOK. There's not an ounce of vice in 'im. It's all his goodness, dear little feller. MRS MARCH. That's the danger, with a girl like that. COOK. It's eatin' hearty all of a sudden that's made her poptious. But there, ma'am, try her again. Master Johnny'll be so cut up! MRS MARCH. No playing with fire, Cook. We were foolish to let her come. COOK. Oh! dear, he will be angry with me. If you hadn't been in the kitchen and heard me, ma'am, I'd ha' let it pass. MRS MARCH. That would have been very wrong of you. COOK. Ah! But I'd do a lot of wrong things for Master Johnny. There's always some one you'll go wrong for! MRS MARCH. Well, get Mr Bly; and take that tray, there's a good soul. COOK goes out with the tray; and while waiting, MRS MARCH finishes clearing the table. She has not quite finished when MR BLY enters. BLY. Your service, ma'am! MRS MARCH. [With embarrassment] I'm very sorry, Mr Bly, but circumstances over which I have no control-- BLY. [With deprecation] Ah! we all has them. The winders ought to be done once a week now the Spring's on 'em. MRS MARCH. No, no; it's your daughter-- BLY. [Deeply] Not been given' way to'er instincts, I do trust. MRS MARCH. Yes. I've just had to say good-bye to her. BLY. [Very blank] Nothing to do with property, I hope? MRS MARCH. No, no! Giddiness with my son. It's impossible; she really must learn. BLY. Oh! but 'oo's to learn 'er? Couldn't you learn your son instead? MRS MARCH. No. My son is very high-minded. BLY. [Dubiously] I see. How am I goin' to get over this? Shall I tell you what I think, ma'am? MRS MARCH. I'm afraid it'll be no good. BLY. That's it. Character's born, not made. You can clean yer winders and clean 'em, but that don't change the colour of the glass. My father would have given her a good hidin', but I shan't. Why not? Because my glass ain't as thick as his. I see through it; I see my girl's temptations, I see what she is--likes a bit o' life, likes a flower, an' a dance. She's a natural morganatic. MRS MARCH. A what? BLY. Nothin'll ever make her regular. Mr March'll understand how I feel. Poor girl! In the mud again. Well, we must keep smilin'. [His face is as long as his arm] The poor 'ave their troubles, there's no doubt. [He turns to go] There's nothin' can save her but money, so as she can do as she likes. Then she wouldn't want to do it. MRS MARCH. I'm very sorry, but there it is. BLY. And I thought she was goin' to be a success here. Fact is, you can't see anything till it 'appens. There's winders all round, but you can't see. Follow your instincts--it's the only way. MRS MARCH. It hasn't helped your daughter. BLY. I was speakin' philosophic! Well, I'll go 'ome now, and prepare meself for the worst. MRS MARCH. Has Cook given you your money? BLY. She 'as. He goes out gloomily and is nearly overthrown in the doorway by the violent entry of JOHNNY. JOHNNY. What's this, Mother? I won't have it--it's pre-war. MRS MARCH. [Indicating MR BLY] Johnny! JOHNNY waves BLY out of the room and doses the door. JOHNNY. I won't have her go. She's a pathetic little creature. MRS MARCH. [Unruffled] She's a minx. JOHNNY. Mother! MRS MARCH. Now, Johnny, be sensible. She's a very pretty girl, and this is my house. JOHNNY. Of course you think the worst. Trust anyone who wasn't in the war for that! MRS MARCH. I don't think either the better or the worse. Kisses are kisses! JOHNNY. Mother, you're like the papers--you put in all the vice and leave out all the virtue, and call that human nature. The kiss was an accident that I bitterly regret. MRS MARCH. Johnny, how can you? JOHNNY. Dash it! You know what I mean. I regret it with my--my conscience. It shan't occur again. MRS MARCH. Till next time. JOHNNY. Mother, you make me despair. You're so matter-of-fact, you never give one credit for a pure ideal. MRS MARCH. I know where ideals lead. JOHNNY. Where? MRS MARCH. Into the soup. And the purer they are, the hotter the soup. JOHNNY. And you married father! MRS MARCH. I did. JOHNNY. Well, that girl is not to be chucked out; won't have her on my chest. MRS MARCH. That's why she's going, Johnny. JOHNNY. She is not. Look at me! MRS MARCH looks at him from across the dining-table, for he has marched up to it, till they are staring at each other across the now cleared rosewood. MRS MARCH. How are you going to stop her? JOHNNY. Oh, I'll stop her right enough. If I stuck it out in Hell, I can stick it out in Highgate. MRS MARCH. Johnny, listen. I've watched this girl; and I don't watch what I want to see--like your father--I watch what is. She's not a hard case--yet; but she will be. JOHNNY. And why? Because all you matter-of-fact people make up your minds to it. What earthly chance has she had? MRS MARCH. She's a baggage. There are such things, you know, Johnny. JOHNNY. She's a little creature who went down in the scrum and has been kicked about ever since. MRS MARCH. I'll give her money, if you'll keep her at arm's length. JOHNNY. I call that revolting. What she wants is the human touch. MRS MARCH. I've not a doubt of it. JOHNNY rises in disgust. Johnny, what is the use of wrapping the thing up in catchwords? Human touch! A young man like you never saved a girl like her. It's as fantastic as--as Tolstoi's "Resurrection." JOHNNY. Tolstoi was the most truthful writer that ever lived. MRS MARCH. Tolstoi was a Russian--always proving that what isn't, is. JOHNNY. Russians are charitable, anyway, and see into other people's souls. MRS MARCH. That's why they're hopeless. JOHNNY. Well--for cynicism-- MRS MARCH. It's at least as important, Johnny, to see into ourselves as into other people. I've been trying to make your father understand that ever since we married. He'd be such a good writer if he did--he wouldn't write at all. JOHNNY. Father has imagination. MRS MARCH. And no business to meddle with practical affairs. You and he always ride in front of the hounds. Do you remember when the war broke out, how angry you were with me because I said we were fighting from a sense of self-preservation? Well, weren't we? JOHNNY. That's what I'm doing now, anyway. MRS MARCH. Saving this girl, to save yourself? JOHNNY. I must have something decent to do sometimes. There isn't an ideal left. MRS MARCH. If you knew how tired I am of the word, Johnny! JOHNNY. There are thousands who feel like me--that the bottom's out of everything. It sickens me that anything in the least generous should get sat on by all you people who haven't risked your lives. MRS MARCH. [With a smile] I risked mine when you were born, Johnny. You were always very difficult. JOHNNY. That girl's been telling me--I can see the whole thing. MRS MARCH. The fact that she suffered doesn't alter her nature; or the danger to you and us. JOHNNY. There is no danger--I told her I didn't mean it. MRS MARCH. And she smiled? Didn't she? JOHNNY. I--I don't know. MRS MARCH. If you were ordinary, Johnny, it would be the girl's look-out. But you're not, and I'm not going to have you in the trap she'll set for you. JOHNNY. You think she's a designing minx. I tell you she's got no more design in her than a rabbit. She's just at the mercy of anything. MRS MARCH. That's the trap. She'll play on your feelings, and you'll be caught. JOHNNY. I'm not a baby. MRS MARCH. You are--and she'll smother you. JOHNNY. How beastly women are to each other! MRS MARCH. We know ourselves, you see. The girl's father realises perfectly what she is. JOHNNY. Mr Bly is a dodderer. And she's got no mother. I'll bet you've never realised the life girls who get outed lead. I've seen them--I saw them in France. It gives one the horrors. MRS MARCH. I can imagine it. But no girl gets "outed," as you call it, unless she's predisposed that way. JOHNNY. That's all you know of the pressure of life. MRS MARCH. Excuse me, Johnny. I worked three years among factory girls, and I know how they manage to resist things when they've got stuff in them. JOHNNY. Yes, I know what you mean by stuff--good hard self-preservative instinct. Why should the wretched girl who hasn't got that be turned down? She wants protection all the more. MRS MARCH. I've offered to help with money till she gets a place. JOHNNY. And you know she won't take it. She's got that much stuff in her. This place is her only chance. I appeal to you, Mother--please tell her not to go. MRS MARCH. I shall not, Johnny. JOHNNY. [Turning abruptly] Then we know where we are. MRS MARCH. I know where you'll be before a week's over. JOHNNY. Where? MRS MARCH. In her arms. JOHNNY. [From the door, grimly] If I am, I'll have the right to be! MRS MARCH. Johnny! [But he is gone.] MRS MARCH follows to call him back, but is met by MARY. MARY. So you've tumbled, Mother? MRS MARCH. I should think I have! Johnny is making an idiot of himself about that girl. MARY. He's got the best intentions. MRS MARCH. It's all your father. What can one expect when your father carries on like a lunatic over his paper every morning? MARY. Father must have opinions of his own. MRS MARCH. He has only one: Whatever is, is wrong. MARY. He can't help being intellectual, Mother. MRS MARCH. If he would only learn that the value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it! MARY. Yes: I read that in "The Times" yesterday. Father's much safer than Johnny. Johnny isn't safe at all; he might make a sacrifice any day. What were they doing? MRS MARCH. Cook caught them kissing. MARY. How truly horrible! As she speaks MR MARCH comes in. MR MARCH. I met Johnny using the most poetic language. What's happened? MRS MARCH. He and that girl. Johnny's talking nonsense about wanting to save her. I've told her to pack up. MR MARCH. Isn't that rather coercive, Joan? MRS MARCH. Do you approve of Johnny getting entangled with this girl? MR MARCH. No. I was only saying to Mary-- MRS MARCH. Oh! You were! MR MARCH. But I can quite see why Johnny-- MRS MARCH. The Government, I suppose! MR MARCH. Certainly. MRS MARCH. Well, perhaps you'll get us out of the mess you've got us into. MR MARCH. Where's the girl? MRS MARCH. In her room-packing. MR MARCH. We must devise means-- MRS MARCH smiles. The first thing is to see into them--and find out exactly-- MRS MARCH. Heavens! Are you going to have them X-rayed? They haven't got chest trouble, Geof. MR MARCH. They may have heart trouble. It's no good being hasty, Joan. MRS MARCH. Oh! For a man that can't see an inch into human nature, give me a--psychological novelist! MR MARCH. [With dignity] Mary, go and see where Johnny is. MARY. Do you want him here? MR MARCH. Yes. MARY. [Dubiously] Well--if I can. She goes out. A silence, during which the MARCHES look at each other by those turns which characterise exasperated domesticity. MRS MARCH. If she doesn't go, Johnny must. Are you going to turn him out? MR MARCH. Of course not. We must reason with him. MRS MARCH. Reason with young people whose lips were glued together half an hour ago! Why ever did you force me to take this girl? MR MARCH. [Ruefully] One can't always resist a kindly impulse, Joan. What does Mr Bly say to it? MRS MARCH. Mr Bly? "Follow your instincts" and then complains of his daughter for following them. MR MARCH. The man's a philosopher. MRS MARCH. Before we know where we are, we shall be having Johnny married to that girl. MR MARCH. Nonsense! MRS MARCH. Oh, Geof! Whenever you're faced with reality, you say "Nonsense!" You know Johnny's got chivalry on the brain. MARY comes in. MARY. He's at the top of the servants' staircase; outside her room. He's sitting in an armchair, with its back to her door. MR MARCH. Good Lord! Direct action! MARY. He's got his pipe, a pound of chocolate, three volumes of "Monte Cristo," and his old concertina. He says it's better than the trenches. MR MARCH. My hat! Johnny's made a joke. This is serious. MARY. Nobody can get up, and she can't get down. He says he'll stay there till all's blue, and it's no use either of you coming unless mother caves in. MR MARCH. I wonder if Cook could do anything with him? MARY. She's tried. He told her to go to hell. MR MARCH. I Say! And what did Cook--? MARY. She's gone. MR MARCH. Tt! tt! This is very awkward. COOK enters through the door which MARY has left open. MR MARCH. Ah, Cook! You're back, then? What's to be done? MRS MARCH. [With a laugh] We must devise means! COOK. Oh, ma'am, it does remind me so of the tantrums he used to get into, dear little feller! Smiles with recollection. MRS MARCH. [Sharply] You're not to take him up anything to eat, Cook! COOK. Oh! But Master Johnny does get so hungry. It'll drive him wild, ma'am. Just a Snack now and then! MRS MARCH. No, Cook. Mind--that's flat! COOK. Aren't I to feed Faith, ma'am? MR MARCH. Gad! It wants it! MRS MARCH. Johnny must come down to earth. COOK. Ah! I remember how he used to fall down when he was little--he would go about with his head in the air. But he always picked himself up like a little man. MARY. Listen! They all listen. The distant sounds of a concertina being played with fury drift in through the open door. COOK. Don't it sound 'eavenly! The concertina utters a long wail. CURTAIN. ACT III The MARCH'S dining-room on the same evening at the end of a perfunctory dinner. MRS MARCH sits at the dining-table with her back to the windows, MARY opposite the hearth, and MR MARCH with his back to it. JOHNNY is not present. Silence and gloom. MR MARCH. We always seem to be eating. MRS MARCH. You've eaten nothing. MR MARCH. [Pouring himself out a liqueur glass of brandy but not drinking it] It's humiliating to think we can't exist without. [Relapses into gloom.] MRS MARCH. Mary, pass him the walnuts. MARY. I was thinking of taking them up to Johnny. MR MARCH. [Looking at his watch] He's been there six hours; even he can't live on faith. MRS MARCH. If Johnny wants to make a martyr of himself, I can't help it. MARY. How many days are you going to let him sit up there, Mother? MR MARCH. [Glancing at MRS MARCH] I never in my life knew anything so ridiculous. MRS MARCH. Give me a little glass of brandy, Geof. MR MARCH. Good! That's the first step towards seeing reason. He pours brandy into a liqueur glass from the decanter which stands between them. MRS MARCH puts the brandy to her lips and makes a little face, then swallows it down manfully. MARY gets up with the walnuts and goes. Silence. Gloom. MRS MARCH. Horrid stuff! MR MARCH. Haven't you begun to see that your policy's hopeless, Joan? Come! Tell the girl she can stay. If we make Johnny feel victorious--we can deal with him. It's just personal pride--the curse of this world. Both you and Johnny are as stubborn as mules. MRS MARCH. Human nature is stubborn, Geof. That's what you easy--going people never see. MR MARCH gets up, vexed, and goes to the fireplace. MR MARCH. [Turning] Well! This goes further than you think. It involves Johnny's affection and respect for you. MRS MARCH nervously refills the little brandy glass, and again empties it, with a grimacing shudder. MR MARCH. [Noticing] That's better! You'll begin to see things presently. MARY re-enters. MARY. He's been digging himself in. He's put a screen across the head of the stairs, and got Cook's blankets. He's going to sleep there. MRS MARCH. Did he take the walnuts? MARY. No; he passed them in to her. He says he's on hunger strike. But he's eaten all the chocolate and smoked himself sick. He's having the time of his life, mother. MR MARCH. There you are! MRS MARCH. Wait till this time to-morrow. MARY. Cook's been up again. He wouldn't let her pass. She'll have to sleep in the spare room. MR MARCH. I say! MARY. And he's got the books out of her room. MRS MARCH. D'you know what they are? "The Scarlet Pimpernel," "The Wide Wide World," and the Bible. MARY. Johnny likes romance. She crosses to the fire. MR MARCH. [In a low voice] Are you going to leave him up there with the girl and that inflammatory literature, all night? Where's your common sense, Joan? MRS MARCH starts up, presses her hand over her brow, and sits down again. She is stumped. [With consideration for her defeat] Have another tot! [He pours it out] Let Mary go up with a flag of truce, and ask them both to come down for a thorough discussion of the whole thing, on condition that they can go up again if we don't come to terms. MRS MARCH. Very well! I'm quite willing to meet him. I hate quarrelling with Johnny. MR MARCH. Good! I'll go myself. [He goes out.] MARY. Mother, this isn't a coal strike; don't discuss it for three hours and then at the end ask Johnny and the girl to do precisely what you're asking them to do now. MRS MARCH. Why should I? MARY. Because it's so usual. Do fix on half-way at once. MRS MARCH. There is no half-way. MARY. Well, for goodness sake think of a plan which will make you both look victorious. That's always done in the end. Why not let her stay, and make Johnny promise only to see her in the presence of a third party? MRS MARCH. Because she'd see him every day while he was looking for the third party. She'd help him look for it. MARY. [With a gurgle] Mother, I'd no idea you were so--French. MRS MARCH. It seems to me you none of you have any idea what I am. MARY. Well, do remember that there'll be no publicity to make either of you look small. You can have Peace with Honour, whatever you decide. [Listening] There they are! Now, Mother, don't be logical! It's so feminine. As the door opens, MRS MARCH nervously fortifies herself with the third little glass of brandy. She remains seated. MARY is on her right. MR MARCH leads into the room and stands next his daughter, then FAITH in hat and coat to the left of the table, and JOHNNY, pale but determined, last. Assembled thus, in a half fan, of which MRS MARCH is the apex, so to speak, they are all extremely embarrassed, and no wonder. Suddenly MARY gives a little gurgle. JOHNNY. You'd think it funnier if you'd just come out of prison and were going to be chucked out of your job, on to the world again. FAITH. I didn't want to come down here. If I'm to go I want to go at once. And if I'm not, it's my evening out, please. She moves towards the door. JOHNNY takes her by the shoulders. JOHNNY. Stand still, and leave it to me. [FAITH looks up at him, hypnotized by his determination] Now, mother, I've come down at your request to discuss this; are you ready to keep her? Otherwise up we go again. MR MARCH. That's not the way to go to work, Johnny. You mustn't ask people to eat their words raw--like that. JOHNNY. Well, I've had no dinner, but I'm not going to eat my words, I tell you plainly. MRS MARCH. Very well then; go up again. MARY. [Muttering] Mother--logic. MR MARCH. Great Scott! You two haven't the faintest idea of how to conduct a parley. We have--to--er--explore every path to--find a way to peace. MRS MARCH. [To FAITH] Have you thought of anything to do, if you leave here? FAITH. Yes. JOHNNY. What? FAITH. I shan't say. JOHNNY. Of course, she'll just chuck herself away. FAITH. No, I won't. I'll go to a place I know of, where they don't want references. JOHNNY. Exactly! MRS MARCH. [To FAITH] I want to ask you a question. Since you came out, is this the first young man who's kissed you? FAITH has hardly had time to start and manifest what may or may not be indignation when MR MARCH dashes his hands through his hair. MR MARCH. Joan, really! JOHNNY. [Grimly] Don't condescend to answer! MRS MARCH. I thought we'd met to get at the truth. MARY. But do they ever? FAITH. I will go out! JOHNNY. No! [And, as his back is against the door, she can't] I'll see that you're not insulted any more. MR MARCH. Johnny, I know you have the best intentions, but really the proper people to help the young are the old--like-- FAITH suddenly turns her eyes on him, and he goes on rather hurriedly --your mother. I'm sure that she and I will be ready to stand by Faith. FAITH. I don't want charity. MR MARCH. No, no! But I hope-- MRS MARCH. To devise means. MR MARCH. [Roused] Of course, if nobody will modify their attitude --Johnny, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, and [To MRS MARCH] so ought you, Joan. JOHNNY. [Suddenly] I'll modify mine. [To FAITH] Come here--close! [In a low voice to FAITH] Will you give me your word to stay here, if I make them keep you? FAITH. Why? JOHNNY. To stay here quietly for the next two years? FAITH. I don't know. JOHNNY. I can make them, if you'll promise. FAITH. You're just in a temper. JOHNNY. Promise! During this colloquy the MARCHES have been so profoundly uneasy that MRS MARCH has poured out another glass of brandy. MR MARCH. Johnny, the terms of the Armistice didn't include this sort of thing. It was to be all open and above-board. JOHNNY. Well, if you don't keep her, I shall clear out. At this bombshell MRS MARCH rises. MARY. Don't joke, Johnny! You'll do yourself an injury. JOHNNY. And if I go, I go for good. MR MARCH. Nonsense, Johnny! Don't carry a good thing too far! JOHNNY. I mean it. MRS MARCH. What will you live on? JOHNNY. Not poetry. MRS MARCH. What, then? JOHNNY. Emigrate or go into the Police. MR MARCH. Good Lord! [Going up to his wife--in a low voice] Let her stay till Johnny's in his right mind. FAITH. I don't want to stay. JOHNNY. You shall! MARY. Johnny, don't be a lunatic! COOK enters, flustered. COOK. Mr Bly, ma'am, come after his daughter. MR MARCH. He can have her--he can have her! COOK. Yes, sir. But, you see, he's--Well, there! He's cheerful. MR MARCH. Let him come and take his daughter away. But MR BLY has entered behind him. He has a fixed expression, and speaks with a too perfect accuracy. BLY. Did your two Cooks tell you I'm here? MR MARCH. If you want your daughter, you can take her. JOHNNY. Mr Bly, get out! BLY. [Ignoring him] I don't want any fuss with your two cooks. [Catching sight of MRS MARCH] I've prepared myself for this. MRS MARCH. So we see. BLY. I 'ad a bit o' trouble, but I kep' on till I see 'Aigel walkin' at me in the loo-lookin' glass. Then I knew I'd got me balance. They all regard MR BLY in a fascinated manner. FAITH. Father! You've been drinking. BLY. [Smiling] What do you think. MR MARCH. We have a certain sympathy with you, Mr Bly. BLY. [Gazing at his daughter] I don't want that one. I'll take the other. MARY. Don't repeat yourself, Mr Bly. BLY. [With a flash of muddled insight] Well! There's two of everybody; two of my daughter; an' two of the 'Ome Secretary; and two-two of Cook --an' I don't want either. [He waves COOK aside, and grasps at a void alongside FAITH] Come along! MR MARCH. [Going up to him] Very well, Mr Bly! See her home, carefully. Good-night! BLY. Shake hands! He extends his other hand; MR MARCH grasps it and turns him round towards the door. MR MARCH. Now, take her away! Cook, go and open the front door for Mr Bly and his daughter. BLY. Too many Cooks! MR MARCH. Now then, Mr Bly, take her along! BLY. [Making no attempt to acquire the real FAITH--to an apparition which he leads with his right hand] You're the one that died when my girl was 'ung. Will you go--first or shall--I? The apparition does not answer. MARY. Don't! It's horrible! FAITH. I did die. BLY. Prepare yourself. Then you'll see what you never saw before. He goes out with his apparition, shepherded by MR MARCH. MRS MARCH drinks off her fourth glass of brandy. A peculiar whistle is heard through the open door, and FAITH starts forward. JOHNNY. Stand still! FAITH. I--I must go. MARY. Johnny--let her! FAITH. There's a friend waiting for me. JOHNNY. Let her wait! You're not fit to go out to-night. MARY. Johnny! Really! You're not the girl's Friendly Society! JOHNNY. You none of you care a pin's head what becomes of her. Can't you see she's on the edge? The whistle is heard again, but fainter. FAITH. I'm not in prison now. JOHNNY. [Taking her by the arm] All right! I'll come with you. FAITH. [Recoiling] No. Voices are heard in the hall. MARY. Who's that with father? Johnny, for goodness' sake don't make us all ridiculous. MR MARCH'S voice is heard saying: "Your friend in here." He enters, followed by a reluctant young man in a dark suit, with dark hair and a pale square face, enlivened by strange, very living, dark, bull's eyes. MR MARCH. [To FAITH, who stands shrinking a little] I came on this--er --friend of yours outside; he's been waiting for you some time, he says. MRS MARCH. [To FAITH] You can go now. JOHNNY. [Suddenly, to the YOUNG MAN] Who are you? YOUNG M. Ask another! [To FAITH] Are you ready? JOHNNY. [Seeing red] No, she's not; and you'll just clear out. MR MARCH. Johnny! YOUNG M. What have you got to do with her? JOHNNY. Quit. YOUNG M. I'll quit with her, and not before. She's my girl. JOHNNY. Are you his girl? FAITH. Yes. MRS MARCH sits down again, and reaching out her left hand, mechanically draws to her the glass of brandy which her husband had poured out for himself and left undrunk. JOHNNY. Then why did you--[He is going to say: "Kiss me," but checks himself]--let me think you hadn't any friends? Who is this fellow? YOUNG M. A little more civility, please. JOHNNY. You look a blackguard, and I believe you are. MR MARCH. [With perfunctory authority] I really can't have this sort of thing in my house. Johnny, go upstairs; and you two, please go away. YOUNG M. [To JOHNNY] We know the sort of chap you are--takin' advantage of workin' girls. JOHNNY. That's a foul lie. Come into the garden and I'll prove it on your carcase. YOUNG M. All right! FAITH. No; he'll hurt you. He's been in the war. JOHNNY. [To the YOUNG MAN] You haven't, I'll bet. YOUNG M. I didn't come here to be slanged. JOHNNY. This poor girl is going to have a fair deal, and you're not going to give it her. I can see that with half an eye. YOUNG M. You'll see it with no eyes when I've done with you. JOHNNY. Come on, then. He goes up to the windows. MR MARCH. For God's sake, Johnny, stop this vulgar brawl! FAITH. [Suddenly] I'm not a "poor girl" and I won't be called one. I don't want any soft words. Why can't you let me be? [Pointing to JOHNNY] He talks wild. [JOHNNY clutches the edge of the writing-table] Thinks he can "rescue" me. I don't want to be rescued. I--[All the feeling of years rises to the surface now that the barrier has broken] --I want to be let alone. I've paid for everything I've done--a pound for every shilling's worth. And all because of one minute when I was half crazy. [Flashing round at MARY] Wait till you've had a baby you oughtn't to have had, and not a penny in your pocket! It's money--money--all money! YOUNG M. Sst! That'll do! FAITH. I'll have what I like now, not what you think's good for me. MR MARCH. God knows we don't want to-- FAITH. You mean very well, Mr March, but you're no good. MR MARCH. I knew it. FAITH. You were very kind to me. But you don't see; nobody sees. YOUNG M. There! That's enough! You're gettin' excited. You come away with me. FAITH's look at him is like the look of a dog at her master. JOHNNY. [From the background] I know you're a blackguard--I've seen your sort. FAITH. [Firing up] Don't call him names! I won't have it. I'll go with whom I choose! [Her eyes suddenly fix themselves on the YOUNG MAN'S face] And I'm going with him! COOK enters. MR MARCH. What now, Cook? COOK. A Mr Barnabas in the hall, sir. From the police. Everybody starts. MRS MARCH drinks off her fifth little glass of brandy, then sits again. MR MARCH. From the police? He goes out, followed by COOK. A moment's suspense. YOUNG M. Well, I can't wait any longer. I suppose we can go out the back way? He draws FAITH towards the windows. But JOHNNY stands there, barring the way. JOHNNY. No, you don't. FAITH. [Scared] Oh! Let me go--let him go! JOHNNY. You may go. [He takes her arm to pull her to the window] He can't. FAITH. [Freeing herself] No--no! Not if he doesn't. JOHNNY has an evident moment of hesitation, and before it is over MR MARCH comes in again, followed by a man in a neat suit of plain clothes. MR MARCH. I should like you to say that in front of her. P. C. MAN. Your service, ma'am. Afraid I'm intruding here. Fact is, I've been waiting for a chance to speak to this young woman quietly. It's rather public here, sir; but if you wish, of course, I'll mention it. [He waits for some word from some one; no one speaks, so he goes on almost apologetically] Well, now, you're in a good place here, and you ought to keep it. You don't want fresh trouble, I'm sure. FAITH. [Scared] What do you want with me? P. C. MAN. I don't want to frighten you; but we've had word passed that you're associating with the young man there. I observed him to-night again, waiting outside here and whistling. YOUNG M. What's the matter with whistling? P. C. MAN. [Eyeing him] I should keep quiet if I was you. As you know, sir [To MR MARCH] there's a law nowadays against soo-tenors. MR MARCH. Soo--? JOHNNY. I knew it. P. C. MAN. [Deprecating] I don't want to use any plain English--with ladies present-- YOUNG M. I don't know you. What are you after? Do you dare--? P. C. MAN. We cut the darin', 'tisn't necessary. We know all about you. FAITH. It's a lie! P. C. MAN. There, miss, don't let your feelings-- FAITH. [To the YOUNG MAN] It's a lie, isn't it? YOUNG M. A blankety lie. MR MARCH. [To BARNABAs] Have you actual proof? YOUNG M. Proof? It's his job to get chaps into a mess. P. C. MAN. [Sharply] None of your lip, now! At the new tone in his voice FAITH turns and visibly quails, like a dog that has been shown a whip. MR MARCH. Inexpressibly painful! YOUNG M. Ah! How would you like to be insulted in front of your girl? If you're a gentleman you'll tell him to leave the house. If he's got a warrant, let him produce it; if he hasn't, let him get out. P. C. MAN. [To MR MARCH] You'll understand, sir, that my object in speakin' to you to-night was for the good of the girl. Strictly, I've gone a bit out of my way. If my job was to get men into trouble, as he says, I'd only to wait till he's got hold of her. These fellows, you know, are as cunning as lynxes and as impudent as the devil. YOUNG M. Now, look here, if I get any more of this from you--I--I'll consult a lawyer. JOHNNY. Fellows like you-- MR MARCH. Johnny! P. C. MAN. Your son, sir? YOUNG M. Yes; and wants to be where I am. But my girl knows better; don't you? He gives FAITH a look which has a certain magnetism. P. C. MAN. If we could have the Court cleared of ladies, sir, we might speak a little plainer. MR MARCH. Joan! But MRS MARCH does not vary her smiling immobility; FAITH draws a little nearer to the YOUNG MAN. MARY turns to the fire. P. C. MAN. [With half a smile] I keep on forgettin' that women are men nowadays. Well! YOUNG M. When you've quite done joking, we'll go for our walk. MR MARCH. [To BARNABAS] I think you'd better tell her anything you know. P. C. MAN. [Eyeing FAITH and the YOUNG MAN] I'd rather not be more precise, sir, at this stage. YOUNG M. I should think not! Police spite! [To FAITH] You know what the Law is, once they get a down on you. P. C. MAN. [To MR MARCH] It's our business to keep an eye on all this sort of thing, sir, with girls who've just come out. JOHNNY. [Deeply] You've only to look at his face! YOUNG M. My face is as good as yours. FAITH lifts her eyes to his. P. C. MAN. [Taking in that look] Well, there it is! Sorry I wasted my time and yours, Sir! MR MARCH. [Distracted] My goodness! Now, Faith, consider! This is the turning-point. I've told you we'll stand by you. FAITH. [Flashing round] Leave me alone! I stick to my friends. Leave me alone, and leave him alone! What is it to you? P. C. MAN. [With sudden resolution] Now, look here! This man George Blunter was had up three years ago--for livin' on the earnings of a woman called Johnson. He was dismissed with a caution. We got him again last year over a woman called Lee--that time he did-- YOUNG M. Stop it! That's enough of your lip. I won't put up with this --not for any woman in the world. Not I! FAITH. [With a sway towards him] It's not--! YOUNG M. I'm off! Bong Swore la Companee! He tarns on his heel and walks out unhindered. P. C. MAN. [Deeply] A bad hat, that; if ever there was one. We'll be having him again before long. He looks at FAITH. They all look at FAITH. But her face is so strange, so tremulous, that they all turn their eyes away. FAITH. He--he said--he--! On the verge of an emotional outbreak, she saves herself by an effort. A painful silence. P. C. MAN. Well, sir--that's all. Good evening! He turns to the door, touching his forehead to MR MARCH, and goes. As the door closes, FAITH sinks into a chair, and burying her face in her hands, sobs silently. MRS MARCH sits motionless with a faint smile. JOHNNY stands at the window biting his nails. MARY crosses to FAITH. MARY. [Softly] Don't. You weren't really fond of him? FAITH bends her head. MARY. But how could you? He-- FAITH. I--I couldn't see inside him. MARY. Yes; but he looked--couldn't you see he looked--? FAITH. [Suddenly flinging up her head] If you'd been two years without a word, you'd believe anyone that said he liked you. MARY. Perhaps I should. FAITH. But I don't want him--he's a liar. I don't like liars. MARY. I'm awfully sorry. FAITH. [Looking at her] Yes--you keep off feeling--then you'll be happy! [Rising] Good-bye! MARY. Where are you going? FAITH. To my father. MARY. With him in that state? FAITH. He won't hurt me. MARY. You'd better stay. Mother, she can stay, can't she? MRS MARCH nods. FAITH. No! MARY. Why not? We're all sorry. Do! You'd better. FAITH. Father'll come over for my things tomorrow. MARY. What are you going to do? FAITH. [Proudly] I'll get on. JOHNNY. [From the window] Stop! All turn and look at him. He comes down. Will you come to me? FAITH stares at him. MRS MARCH continues to smile faintly. MARY. [With a horrified gesture] Johnny! JOHNNY. Will you? I'll play cricket if you do. MR MARCH. [Under his breath] Good God! He stares in suspense at FAITH, whose face is a curious blend of fascination and live feeling. JOHNNY. Well? FAITH. [Softly] Don't be silly! I've got no call on you. You don't care for me, and I don't for you. No! You go and put your head in ice. [She turns to the door] Good-bye, Mr March! I'm sorry I've been so much trouble. MR MARCH. Not at all, not at all! FAITH. Oh! Yes, I have. There's nothing to be done with a girl like me. She goes out. JOHNNY. [Taking up the decanter to pour himself out a glass of brandy] Empty! COOK. [Who has entered with a tray] Yes, my dearie, I'm sure you are. JOHNNY. [Staring at his father] A vision, Dad! Windows of Clubs--men sitting there; and that girl going by with rouge on her cheeks-- COOK. Oh! Master Johnny! JOHNNY. A blue night--the moon over the Park. And she stops and looks at it.--What has she wanted--the beautiful--something better than she's got--something that she'll never get! COOK. Oh! Master Johnny! She goes up to JOHNNY and touches his forehead. He comes to himself and hurries to the door, but suddenly MRS MARCH utters a little feathery laugh. She stands up, swaying slightly. There is something unusual and charming in her appearance, as if formality had dropped from her. MRS MARCH. [With a sort of delicate slow lack of perfect sobriety] I see--it--all. You--can't--help--unless--you--love! JOHNNY stops and looks round at her. MR MARCH. [Moving a little towards her] Joan! MRS MARCH. She--wants--to--be--loved. It's the way of the world. MARY. [Turning] Mother! MRS MARCH. You thought she wanted--to be saved. Silly! She--just-- wants--to--be--loved. Quite natural! MR MARCH. Joan, what's happened to you? MRS MARCH. [Smiling and nodding] See--people--as--they--are! Then you won't be--disappointed. Don't--have--ideals! Have--vision--just simple --vision! MR MARCH. Your mother's not well. MRS MARCH. [Passing her hand over her forehead] It's hot in here! MR MARCH. Mary! MARY throws open the French windows. MRS MARCH. [Delightfully] The room's full of GAS. Open the windows! Open! And let's walk--out--into the air! She turns and walks delicately out through the opened windows; JOHNNY and MARY follow her. The moonlight and the air flood in. COOK. [Coming to the table and taking up the empty decanter] My Holy Ma! MR MARCH. Is this the Millennium, Cook? COOK. Oh! Master Geoffrey--there isn't a millehennium. There's too much human nature. We must look things in the face. MR MARCH. Ah! Neither up--nor down--but straight in the face! Quite a thought, Cook! Quite a thought! CURTAIN. 
3771	----	CYNTHIA'S REVELS By Ben Johnson Ben Jonson's Plays With An Introduction By Prof. Felix E. Schelling Volume One Everyman's Library Edited By Ernest Rhys POETRY AND THE DRAMA THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF BEN JONSON VOLUME ONE FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION: 1910 REPRINTED: 1915 INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres-- well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade "the humour" into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* [*footnote] The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the "grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods," including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages--which Jonson never intended for publication-- plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works:-- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. CYNTHIA'S REVELS: OR, THE FOUNTAIN OF SELF-LOVE TO THE SPECIAL FOUNTAIN OF MANNERS THE COURT THOU art a bountiful and brave spring, and waterest all the noble plants of this island. In thee the whole kingdom dresseth itself, and is ambitious to use thee as her glass. Beware then thou render men's figures truly, and teach them no less to hate their deformities, than to love their forms: for, to grace, there should come reverence; and no man can call that lovely, which is not also venerable. It is not powdering, perfuming, and every day smelling of the tailor, that converteth to a beautiful object: but a mind shining through any suit, which needs no false light, either of riches or honours, to help it. Such shalt thou find some here, even in the reign of Cynthia,--a Crites and an Arete. Now, under thy Phoebus, it will be thy province to make more; except thou desirest to have thy source mix with the spring of self-love, and so wilt draw upon thee as welcome a discovery of thy days, as was then made of her nights. Thy servant, but not slave, BEN JONSON. DRAMATIS PERSONAE. CYNTHIA. ECHO. MERCURY. ARETE. HESPERUS. PHANTASTE. CRITES. ARGURION. AMORPHUS. PHILAUTIA. ASOTUS. MORIA. HEDON. COS. ANAIDES. GELAIA. MORPHIDES. PROSAITES. MORUS. CUPID. MUTES.--PHRONESIS, THAUMA, TIME SCENE,--GARGAPHIE INDUCTION. THE STAGE. AFTER THE SECOND SOUNDING. ENTER THREE OF THE CHILDREN, STRUGGLING. 1 CHILD. Pray you away; why, fellows! Gods so, what do you mean? 2 CHILD. Marry, that you shall not speak the prologue sir. 3 CHILD. Why, do you hope to speak it? 2 CHILD. Ay, and I think I have most right to it: I am sure I studied it first. 3 CHILD. That's all one, if the author think I can speak it better. 1 CHILD. I plead possession of the cloak: gentles, your suffrages, I pray you. [WITHIN.] Why children! are you not ashamed? come in there. 3 CHILD. Slid, I'll play nothing in the play: unless I speak it. 1 CHILD. Why, will you stand to most voices of the gentlemen? let that decide it. 3 CHILD. O, no, sir gallant; you presume to have the start of us there, and that makes you offer so prodigally. 1 CHILD. No, would I were whipped if I had any such thought; try it by lots either. 2 CHILD. Faith, I dare tempt my fortune in a greater venture than this. 3 CHILD. Well said, resolute Jack! I am content too; so we draw first. Make the cuts. 1 CHILD. But will you not snatch my cloak while I am stooping? 3 CHILD. No, we scorn treachery. 2 CHILD. Which cut shall speak it? 3 CHILD. The shortest. 1 CHILD. Agreed: draw. [THEY DRAW CUTS.] The shortest is come to the shortest. Fortune was not altogether blind in this. Now, sir, I hope I shall go forward without your envy. 2 CHILD. A spite of all mischievous luck! I was once plucking at the other. 3 CHILD. Stay Jack: 'slid I'll do somewhat now afore I go in, though it be nothing but to revenge myself on the author; since I speak not his prologue, I'll go tell all the argument of his play afore-hand, and so stale his invention to the auditory, before it come forth. 1 CHILD. O, do not so. 2 CHILD. By no means. 3 CHILD. [ADVANCING TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE.] First, the title of his play is "Cynthia's Revels," as any man that hath hope to be saved by his book can witness; the scene, Gargaphie, which I do vehemently suspect for some fustian country; but let that vanish. Here is the court of Cynthia whither he brings Cupid travelling on foot, resolved to turn page. By the way Cupid meets with Mercury, (as that's a thing to be noted); take any of our play-books without a Cupid or a Mercury in it, and burn it for an heretic in poetry. --[IN THESE AND THE SUBSEQUENT SPEECHES, AT EVERY BREAK, THE OTHER TWO INTERRUPT, AND ENDEAVOUR TO STOP HIM.] Pray thee, let me alone. Mercury, he in the nature of a conjurer, raises up Echo, who weeps over her love, or daffodil, Narcissus, a little; sings; curses the spring wherein the pretty foolish gentleman melted himself away: and there's an end of her.--Now I am to inform you, that Cupid and Mercury do both become pages. Cupid attends on Philautia, or Self-love, a court lady: Mercury follows Hedon, the Voluptuous, and a courtier; one that ranks himself even with Anaides, or the Impudent, a gallant, and, that's my part; one that keeps Laughter, Gelaia, the daughter of Folly, a wench in boy's attire, to wait on him--These, in the court, meet with Amorphus, or the deformed, a traveller that hath drunk of the fountain, and there tells the wonders of the water. They presently dispatch away their pages with bottles to fetch of it, and themselves go to visit the ladies. But I should have told you--Look, these emmets put me out here--that with this Amorphus, there comes along a citizen's heir, Asotus, or the Prodigal, who, in imitation of the traveller, who hath the Whetstone following him, entertains the Beggar, to be his attendant.--Now, the nymphs who are mistresses to these gallants, are Philautia, Self-love; Phantaste, a light Wittiness; Argurion, Money; and their guardian, mother Moria; or mistress Folly. 1 CHILD. Pray thee, no more. 3 CHILD. There Cupid strikes Money in love with the Prodigal, makes her dote upon him, give him jewels, bracelets, carcanets, etc. All which he most ingeniously departs withal to be made known to the other ladies and gallants; and in the heat of this, increases his train with the Fool to follow him, as well as the Beggar--By this time, your Beggar begins to wait close, who is returned with the rest of his fellow bottlemen.--There they all drink, save Argurion, who is fallen into a sudden apoplexy-- 1 CHILD. Stop his mouth. 3 CHILD. And then there's a retired scholar there, you would not wish a thing to be better contemn'd of a society of gallants, than it is; and he applies his service, good gentleman, to the Lady Arete, or Virtue, a poor nymph of Cynthia's train, that's scarce able to buy herself a gown; you shall see her play in a black robe anon: a creature, that, I assure you, is no less scorn'd than himself. Where am I now? at a stand! 2 CHILD. Come, leave at last, yet. 3 CHILD. O, the night is come ('twas somewhat dark, methought), and Cynthia intends to come forth; that helps it a little yet. All the courtiers must provide for revels; they conclude upon a masque, the device of which is--What, will you ravish me?--that each of these Vices, being to appear before Cynthia, would seem other than indeed they are; and therefore assume the most neighbouring Virtues as their masking habit--I'd cry a rape, but that you are children. 2 CHILD. Come, we'll have no more of this anticipation; to give them the inventory of their cates aforehand, were the discipline of a tavern, and not fitting this presence. 1 CHILD. Tut, this was but to shew us the happiness of his memory. I thought at first he would have plaid the ignorant critic with everything along as he had gone; I expected some such device. 3 CHILD. O, you shall see me do that rarely; lend me thy cloak. 1 CHILD. Soft sir, you'll speak my prologue in it. 3 CHILD. No, would I might never stir then. 2 CHILD. Lend it him, lend it him: 1 CHILD. Well, you have sworn. [GIVES HIM THE CLOAK.] 3 CHILD. I have. Now, sir; suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much ado, and here I take my place and sit down: I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin. [AT THE BREAKS HE TAKES HIS TOBACCO.] By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here-- They do act like so many wrens or pismires--not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all.--And then their music is abominable --able to stretch a man's ears worse then ten--pillories and their ditties--most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them--poets. By this vapour, an 'twere not for tobacco-- I think--the very stench of 'em would poison me, I should not dare to come in at their gates--A man were better visit fifteen jails--or a dozen or two of hospitals--than once adventure to come near them. How is't? well? 1 CHILD. Excellent; give me my cloak. 3 CHILD. Stay; you shall see me do another now: but a more sober, or better-gather'd gallant; that is, as it may be thought, some friend, or well-wisher to the house: and here I enter. 1 CHILD. What? upon the stage too? 2 CHILD. Yes; and I step forth like one of the children, and ask you. Would you have a stool sir? 3 CHILD. A stool, boy! 2 CHILD. Ay, sir, if you'll give me sixpence, I'll fetch you one. 3 CHILD. For what, I pray thee? what shall I do with it? 2 CHILD. O lord, sir! will you betray your ignorance so much? why throne yourself in state on the stage, as other gentlemen use, sir. 3 CHILD. Away, wag; what would'st thou make an implement of me? 'Slid, the boy takes me for a piece of perspective, I hold my life, or some silk curtain, come to hang the stage here! Sir crack, I am none of your fresh pictures, that use to beautify the decayed dead arras in a public theatre. 2 CHILD. 'Tis a sign, sir, you put not that confidence in your good clothes, and your better face, that a gentleman should do, sir. But I pray you sir, let me be a suitor to you, that you will quit our stage then, and take a place; the play is instantly to begin. 3 CHILD. Most willingly, my good wag; but I would speak with your author: where is he? 2 CHILD. Not this way, I assure you sir; we are not so officiously befriended by him, as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the music out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would, if he had such fine enghles as we. Well, 'tis but our hard fortune! 3 CHILD. Nay, crack, be not disheartened. 2 CHILD. Not I sir; but if you please to confer with our author, by attorney, you may, sir; our proper self here, stands for him. 3 CHILD. Troth, I have no such serious affair to negotiate with him; but what may very safely be turn'd upon thy trust. It is in the general behalf of this fair society here that I am to speak; at least the more judicious part of it: which seems much distasted with the immodest and obscene writing of many in their plays. Besides, they could wish your poets would leave to be promoters of other men's jests, and to way-lay all the stale apothegms, or old books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their scenes withal. That they would not so penuriously glean wit from every laundress or hackney-man; or derive their best grace, with servile imitation, from common stages, or observation of the company they converse with; as if their invention lived wholly upon another man's trencher. Again, that feeding their friends with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice cooked, they should not wantonly give out, how soon they had drest it; nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat, besides hobby-horses and foot-cloth nags. 2 CHILD. So, sir, this is all the reformation you seek? 3 CHILD. It is; do not you think it necessary to be practised, my little wag? 2 CHILD. Yes, where any such ill-habited custom is received. 3 CHILD. O (I had almost forgot it too), they say, the umbrae, or ghosts of some three or four plays departed a dozen years since, have been seen walking on your stage here; take heed boy, if your house be haunted with such hobgoblins, 'twill fright away all your spectators quickly. 2 CHILD. Good, sir; but what will you say now, if a poet, untouch'd with any breath of this disease, find the tokens upon you, that are of the auditory? As some one civet-wit among you, that knows no other learning, than the price of satin and velvets: nor other perfection than the wearing of a neat suit; and yet will censure as desperately as the most profess'd critic in the house, presuming his clothes should bear him out in it. Another, whom it hath pleased nature to furnish with more beard than brain, prunes his mustaccio; lisps, and, with some score of affected oaths, swears down all that sit about him; "That the old Hieronimo, as it was first acted, was the only best, and judiciously penn'd play of Europe". A third great-bellied juggler talks of twenty years since, and when Monsieur was here, and would enforce all wits to be of that fashion, because his doublet is still so. A fourth miscalls all by the name of fustian, that his grounded capacity cannot aspire to. A fifth only shakes his bottle head, and out of his corky brain squeezeth out a pitiful learned face, and is silent. 3 CHILD. By my faith, Jack, you have put me down: I would I knew how to get off with any indifferent grace! here take your cloak, and promise some satisfaction in your prologue, or, I'll be sworn we have marr'd all. 2 CHILD. Tut, fear not, child, this will never distaste a true sense: be not out, and good enough. I would thou hadst some sugar candied to sweeten thy mouth. THE THIRD SOUNDING. PROLOGUE. If gracious silence, sweet attention, Quick sight, and quicker apprehension, The lights of judgment's throne, shine any where, Our doubtful author hopes this is their sphere; And therefore opens he himself to those, To other weaker beams his labours close, As loth to prostitute their virgin-strain, To every vulgar and adulterate brain. In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath, She shuns the print of any beaten path; And proves new ways to come to learned ears: Pied ignorance she neither loves, nor fears. Nor hunts she after popular applause, Or foamy praise, that drops from common jaws The garland that she wears, their hands must twine, Who can both censure, understand, define What merit is: then cast those piercing rays, Round as a crown, instead of honour'd bays, About his poesy; which, he knows, affords Words, above action; matter, above words. ACT I SCENE I.--A GROVE AND FOUNTAIN. ENTER CUPID, AND MERCURY WITH HIS CADUCEUS, ON DIFFERENT SIDES. CUP. Who goes there? MER. 'Tis I, blind archer. CUP. Who, Mercury? MER. Ay. CUP. Farewell. MER. Stay Cupid. CUP. Not in your company, Hermes, except your hands were riveted at your back. MER. Why so, my little rover? CUP. Because I know you have not a finger, but is as long as my quiver, cousin Mercury, when you please to extend it. MER. Whence derive you this speech, boy? CUP. O! 'tis your best polity to be ignorant. You did never steal Mars his sword out of the sheath, you! nor Neptune's trident! nor Apollo's bow! no, not you! Alas, your palms, Jupiter knows, they are as tender as the foot of a foundered nag, or a lady's face new mercuried, they'll touch nothing. MER. Go to, infant, you'll be daring still. CUP. Daring! O Janus! what a word is there? why, my light feather-heel'd coz, what are you any more than my uncle Jove's pander? a lacquey that runs on errands for him, and can whisper a light message to a loose wench with some round volubility? wait mannerly at a table with a trencher, warble upon a crowd a little, and fill out nectar when Ganymede's away? one that sweeps the god's drinking-room every morning, and sets the cushions in order again, which they threw one at another's head over night; can brush the carpets, call the stools again to their places, play the crier of the court with an audible voice, and take state of a president upon you at wrestlings, pleadings, negociations, etc. Here's the catalogue of your employments, now! O, no, I err; you have the marshalling of all the ghosts too that pass the Stygian ferry, and I suspect you for a share with the old sculler there, if the truth were known; but let that scape. One other peculiar virtue you possess, in lifting, or leiger-du-main, which few of the house of heaven have else besides, I must confess. But, methinks, that should not make you put that extreme distance 'twixt yourself and others, that we should be said to "over-dare" in speaking to your nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge priority of us both, because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow, and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder, and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a reveller of eighteen to be seen in-- MER. How now! my dancing braggart in decimo sexto! charm your skipping tongue, or I'll-- CUP. What! use the virtue of your snaky tip staff there upon us? MER. No, boy, but the smart vigour of my palm about your ears. You have forgot since I took your heels up into air, on the very hour I was born, in sight of all the bench of deities, when the silver roof of the Olympian palace rung again with applause of the fact. CUP. O no, I remember it freshly, and by a particular instance; for my mother Venus, at the same time, but stoop'd to embrace you, and, to speak by metaphor, you borrow'd a girdle of her's, as you did Jove's sceptre while he was laughing; and would have done his thunder too, but that 'twas too hot for your itching fingers. MER. 'Tis well, sir. CUP. I heard, you but look'd in at Vulcan's forge the other day, and entreated a pair of his new tongs along with you for company: 'tis joy on you, i' faith, that you will keep your hook'd talons in practice with any thing. 'Slight, now you are on earth, we shall have you filch spoons and candlesticks rather than fail: pray Jove the perfum'd courtiers keep their casting-bottles, pick-tooths, and shittle-cocks from you, or our more ordinary gallants their tobacco-boxes; for I am strangely jealous of your nails. MER. Never trust me, Cupid, but you are turn'd a most acute gallant of late! the edge of my wit is clean taken off with the fine and subtile stroke of your thin-ground tongue; you fight with too poignant a phrase, for me to deal with. CUP. O Hermes, your craft cannot make me confident. I know my own steel to be almost spent, and therefore entreat my peace with you, in time: you are too cunning for me to encounter at length, and I think it my safest ward to close. MER. Well, for once, I'll suffer you to win upon me, wag; but use not these strains too often, they'll stretch my patience. Whither might you march, now? CUP. Faith, to recover thy good thoughts, I'll discover my whole project. The huntress and queen of these groves, Diana, in regard of some black and envious slanders hourly breathed against her, for her divine justice on Acteon, as she pretends, hath here in the vale of Gargaphie, proclaim'd a solemn revels, which (her godhead put off) she will descend to grace, with the full and royal expense of one of her clearest moons: in which time it shall be lawful for all sorts of ingenious persons to visit her palace, to court her nymphs, to exercise all variety of generous and noble pastimes; as well to intimate how far she treads such malicious imputations beneath her, as also to shew how clear her beauties are from the least wrinkle of austerity they may be charged with. MER. But, what is all this to Cupid? CUP. Here do I mean to put off the title of a god, and take the habit of a page, in which disguise, during the interim of these revels, I will get to follow some one of Diana's maids, where, if my bow hold, and my shafts fly but with half the willingness and aim they are directed, I doubt not but I shall really redeem the minutes I have lost, by their so long and over nice proscription of my deity from their court. MER. Pursue it, divine Cupid, it will be rare. CUP. But will Hermes second me? MER. I am now to put in act an especial designment from my father Jove; but, that perform'd, I am for any fresh action that offers itself. CUP. Well, then we part. [EXIT.] MER. Farewell good wag. Now to my charge.--Echo, fair Echo speak, 'Tis Mercury that calls thee; sorrowful nymph, Salute me with thy repercussive voice, That I may know what cavern of the earth, Contains thy airy spirit, how, or where I may direct my speech, that thou may'st hear. ECHO. [BELOW] Here. MER. So nigh! ECHO. Ay. MER. Know, gentle soul, then, I am sent from Jove, Who, pitying the sad burthen of thy woes, Still growing on thee, in thy want of words To vent thy passion for Narcissus' death, Commands, that now, after three thousand years, Which have been exercised in Juno's spite, Thou take a corporal figure and ascend, Enrich'd with vocal and articulate power. Make haste, sad nymph, thrice shall my winged rod Strike the obsequious earth, to give thee way. Arise, and speak thy sorrows, Echo, rise, Here, by this fountain, where thy love did pine, Whose memory lives fresh to vulgar fame, Shrined in this yellow flower, that bears his name. ECHO. [ASCENDS.] His name revives, and lifts me up from earth, O, which way shall I first convert myself, Or in what mood shall I essay to speak, That, in a moment, I may be deliver'd Of the prodigious grief I go withal? See, see, the mourning fount, whose springs weep yet Th' untimely fate of that too beauteous boy, That trophy of self-love, and spoil of nature, Who, now transform'd into this drooping flower, Hangs the repentant head, back from the stream, As if it wish'd, "Would I had never look'd In such a flattering mirror!" O Narcissus, Thou that wast once, and yet art, my Narcissus, Had Echo but been private with thy thoughts, She would have dropt away herself in tears, Till she had all turn'd water; that in her, As in a truer glass, thou might'st have gazed And seen thy beauties by more kind reflection, But self-love never yet could look on truth But with blear'd beams; slick flattery and she Are twin-born sisters, and so mix their eyes, As if you sever one, the other dies. Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form, And earthly thoughts to make thee proud of it? Why do I ask? 'Tis now the known disease That beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense Of her own self-conceived excellence. O, hadst thou known the worth of heaven's rich gift, Thou wouldst have turn'd it to a truer use, And not with starv'd and covetous ignorance, Pined in continual eyeing that bright gem, The glance whereof to others had been more, Than to thy famish'd mind the wide world's store: So wretched is it to be merely rich! Witness thy youth's dear sweets here spent untasted, Like a fair taper, with his own flame wasted. MER. Echo be brief, Saturnia is abroad, And if she hear, she'll storm at Jove's high will. CUP. I will, kind Mercury, be brief as time. Vouchsafe me, I may do him these last rites, But kiss his flower, and sing some mourning strain Over his wat'ry hearse. MER. Thou dost obtain; I were no son to Jove, should I deny thee, Begin, and more to grace thy cunning voice, The humorous air shall mix her solemn tunes With thy sad words: strike, music from the spheres, And with your golden raptures swell our ears. ECHO. [ACCOMPANIED] Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears: Yet, slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs: List to the heavy part the music bears, Woe weeps out her division, when she sings. Droop herbs and flowers, Fall grief and showers; Our beauties are not ours; O, I could still, Like melting snow upon some craggy hill, Drop, drop, drop, drop, Since nature's pride is now a wither'd daffodil.-- MER. Now have you done? ECHO. Done presently, good Hermes: bide a little; Suffer my thirsty eye to gaze awhile, But e'en to taste the place, and I am vanish'd. MER. Forego thy use and liberty of tongue, And thou mayst dwell on earth, and sport thee there. ECHO. Here young Acteon fell, pursued, and torn By Cynthia's wrath, more eager than his hounds; And here--ah me, the place is fatal!--see The weeping Niobe, translated hither From Phrygian mountains; and by Phoebe rear'd, As the proud trophy of her sharp revenge. MER. Nay but hear-- ECHO. But here, O here, the fountain of self-love, In which Latona, and her careless nymphs, Regardless of my sorrows, bathe themselves In hourly pleasures. MER. Stint thy babbling tongue! Fond Echo, thou profan'st the grace is done thee. So idle worldlings merely made of voice, Censure the powers above them. Come away, Jove calls thee hence; and his will brooks no stay. ECHO. O, stay: I have but one poor thought to clothe In airy garments, and then, faith, I go. Henceforth, thou treacherous and murdering spring, Be ever call'd the FOUNTAIN OF SELF-LOVE: And with thy water let this curse remain, As an inseparate plague, that who but taste A drop thereof, may, with the instant touch, Grow dotingly enamour'd on themselves. Now, Hermes, I have finish'd. MER. Then thy speech Must here forsake thee, Echo, and thy voice, As it was wont, rebound but the last words. Farewell. ECHO. [RETIRING.] Well. MER. Now, Cupid, I am for you, and your mirth, To make me light before I leave the earth. ENTER AMORPHUS, HASTILY. AMO. Dear spark of beauty, make not so fast away: ECHO. Away. MER. Stay, let me observe this portent yet. AMO. I am neither your Minotaur, nor your Centaur, nor your satyr, nor your hyaena, nor your babion, but your mere traveller, believe me. ECHO. Leave me. MER. I guess'd it should be some travelling motion pursued Echo so. AMO. Know you from whom you fly? or whence? ECHO. Hence. [EXIT.] AMO. This is somewhat above strange: A nymph of her feature and lineament, to be so preposterously rude! well, I will but cool myself at yon spring, and follow her. MER. Nay, then, I am familiar with the issue: I will leave you too. [EXIT.] AMOR. I am a rhinoceros, if I had thought a creature of her symmetry would have dared so improportionable and abrupt a digression.--Liberal and divine fount, suffer my profane hand to take of thy bounties. [TAKES UP SOME OF THE WATER.] By the purity of my taste, here is most ambrosiac water; I will sup of it again. By thy favour, sweet fount. See, the water, a more running, subtile, and humorous nymph than she permits me to touch, and handle her. What should I infer? if my behaviours had been of a cheap or customary garb; my accent or phrase vulgar; my garments trite; my countenance illiterate, or unpractised in the encounter of a beautiful and brave attired piece; then I might, with some change of colour, have suspected my faculties: But, knowing myself an essence so sublimated and refined by travel; of so studied and well exercised a gesture; so alone in fashion, able to render the face of any statesman living; and to speak the mere extraction of language, one that hath now made the sixth return upon venture; and was your first that ever enrich'd his country with the true laws of the duello; whose optics have drunk the spirit of beauty in some eight score and eighteen prince's courts, where I have resided, and been there fortunate in the amours of three hundred and forty and five ladies, all nobly, if not princely descended; whose names I have in catalogue: To conclude, in all so happy, as even admiration herself doth seem to fasten her kisses upon me:--certes, I do neither see, nor feel, nor taste, nor savour the least steam or fume of a reason, that should invite this foolish, fastidious nymph, so peevishly to abandon me. Well, let the memory of her fleet into air; my thoughts and I am for this other element, water. ENTER CRITES AND ASOTUS. CRI. What, the well dieted Amorphus become a water-drinker! I see he means not to write verses then. ASO. No, Crites! why? CRI. Because-- Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt, Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus. AMO. What say you to your Helicon? CRI. O, the Muses' well! that's ever excepted. AMO. Sir, your Muses have no such water, I assure you; your nectar, or the juice of your nepenthe, is nothing to it; 'tis above your metheglin, believe it. ASO. Metheglin; what's that, sir? may I be so audacious to demand? AMO. A kind of Greek wine I have met with, sir, in my travels; it is the same that Demosthenes usually drunk, in the composure of all his exquisite and mellifluous orations. CRI. That's to be argued, Amorphus, if we may credit Lucian, who, in his "Encomio Demosthenis," affirms, he never drunk but water in any of his compositions. AMO. Lucian is absurd, he knew nothing: I will believe mine own travels before all the Lucians of Europe. He doth feed you with fittons, figments, and leasings. CRI. Indeed, I think, next a traveller, he does prettily well. AMO. I assure you it was wine, I have tasted it, and from the hand of an Italian antiquary, who derives it authentically from the duke of Ferrara's bottles. How name you the gentleman you are in rank there with, sir? CRI. 'Tis Asotus, son to the late deceased Philargyrus, the citizen. AMO. Was his father of any eminent place or means? CRI. He was to have been praetor next year. AMO. Ha! a pretty formal young gallant, in good sooth; pity he is not more genteelly propagated. Hark you, Crites, you may say to him what I am, if you please; though I affect not popularity, yet I would loth to stand out to any, whom you shall vouchsafe to call friend. CRI. Sir, I fear I may do wrong to your sufficiencies in the reporting them, by forgetting or misplacing some one: yourself can best inform him of yourself sir; except you had some catalogue or list of your faculties ready drawn, which you would request me to show him for you, and him to take notice of. AMO. This Crites is sour: [ASIDE.]--I will think, sir. CRI. Do so, sir.--O heaven! that anything in the likeness of man should suffer these rack'd extremities, for the uttering of his sophisticate good parts. [ASIDE.] ASO. Crites, I have a suit to you; but you must not deny me; pray you make this gentleman and I friends. CRI. Friends! why, is there any difference between you? ASO. No; I mean acquaintance, to know one another. CRI. O, now I apprehend you; your phrase was without me before. ASO. In good faith, he's a most excellent rare man, I warrant him. CRI. 'Slight, they are mutually enamour'd by this time. [ASIDE.] ASO. Will you, sweet Crites? CRI. Yes, yes. ASO. Nay, but when? you'll defer it now, and forget it. CRI. Why, is it a thing of such present necessity, that it requires so violent a dispatch! ASO. No, but would I might never stir, he's a most ravishing man! Good Crites, you shall endear me to you, in good faith; la! CRI. Well, your longing shall be satisfied, sir. ASO. And withal, you may tell him what my father was, and how well he left me, and that I am his heir. CRI. Leave it to me, I'll forget none of your dear graces, I warrant you. ASO. Nay, I know you can better marshal these affairs than I can --O gods! I'd give all the world, if I had it, for abundance of such acquaintance. CRI. What ridiculous circumstance might I devise now, to bestow this reciprocal brace of butterflies one upon another? [ASIDE.] AMO. Since I trod on this side the Alps, I was not so frozen in my invention. Let me see: to accost him with some choice remnant of Spanish, or Italian! that would indifferently express my languages now: marry, then, if he shall fall out to be ignorant, it were both hard, and harsh. How else? step into some ragioni del stato, and so make my induction! that were above him too; and out of his element I fear. Feign to have seen him in Venice or Padua! or some face near his in similitude! 'tis too pointed and open. No, it must be a more quaint and collateral device, as--stay: to frame some encomiastic speech upon this our metropolis, or the wise magistrates thereof, in which politic number, 'tis odds but his father fill'd up a room? descend into a particular admiration of their justice, for the due measuring of coals, burning of cans, and such like? as also their religion, in pulling down a superstitious cross, and advancing a Venus; or Priapus, in place of it? ha! 'twill do well. Or to talk of some hospital, whose walls record his father a benefactor? or of so many buckets bestow'd on his parish church in his lifetime, with his name at length, for want of arms, trickt upon them? any of these. Or to praise the cleanness of the street wherein he dwelt? or the provident painting of his posts, against he should have been praetor? or, leaving his parent, come to some special ornament about himself, as his rapier, or some other of his accountrements? I have it: thanks, gracious Minerva! ASO. Would I had but once spoke to him, and then--He comes to me! AMO. 'Tis a most curious and neatly wrought band this same, as I have seen, sir. ASO. O lord, sir. AMO. You forgive the humour of mine eye, in observing it. CRI. His eye waters after it, it seems. [ASIDE.] ASO. O lord, sir! there needs no such apology I assure you. CRI. I am anticipated; they'll make a solemn deed of gift of themselves, you shall see. [ASIDE.] AMO. Your riband too does most gracefully in troth. ASO. 'Tis the most genteel and received wear now, sir. AMO. Believe me, sir, I speak it not to humour you--I have not seen a young gentleman, generally, put on his clothes with more judgment. ASO. O, 'tis your pleasure to say so, sir. AMO. No, as I am virtuous, being altogether untravell'd, it strikes me into wonder. ASO. I do purpose to travel, sir, at spring. AMO. I think I shall affect you, sir. This last speech of yours hath begun to make you dear to me. ASO. O lord, sir! I would there were any thing in me, sir, that might appear worthy the least worthiness of your worth, sir. I protest, sir, I should endeavour to shew it, sir, with more than common regard sir. CRI. O, here's rare motley, sir. [ASIDE.] AMO. Both your desert, and your endeavours are plentiful, suspect them not: but your sweet disposition to travel, I assure you, hath made you another myself in mine eye, and struck me enamour'd on your beauties. ASO. I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir! and yet I would travel too. AMO. O, you should digress from yourself else: for, believe it, your travel is your only thing that rectifies, or, as the Italian says, "vi rendi pronto all' attioni," makes you fit for action. ASO. I think it be great charge though, sir. AMO. Charge! why 'tis nothing for a gentleman that goes private, as yourself, or so; my intelligence shall quit my charge at all time. Good faith, this hat hath possest mine eye exceedingly; 'tis so pretty and fantastic: what! is it a beaver? ASO. Ay, sir, I'll assure you 'tis a beaver, it cost me eight crowns but this morning. AMO. After your French account? ASO. Yes, sir. CRI. And so near his head! beshrew me, dangerous. [ASIDE.] AMO. A very pretty fashion, believe me, and a most novel kind of trim: your band is conceited too! ASO. Sir, it is all at your service. AMO. O, pardon me. ASO. I beseech you, sir, if you please to wear it, you shall do me a most infinite grace. CRI. 'Slight, will he be prais'd out of his clothes? ASO. By heaven, sir, I do not offer it you after the Italian manner; I would you should conceive so of me. AMO. Sir, I shall fear to appear rude in denying your courtesies, especially being invited by so proper a distinction: May I pray your name, sir? ASO. My name is Asotus, sir. AMO. I take your love, gentle Asotus, but let me win you to receive this, in exchange.--[THEY EXCHANGE BEAVERS.] CRI. Heart! they'll change doublets anon. [ASIDE.] AMO. And, from this time esteem yourself in the first rank of those few whom I profess to love. What make you in company of this scholar here? I will bring you known to gallants, as Anaides of the ordinary, Hedon the courtier, and others, whose society shall render you graced and respected: this is a trivial fellow, too mean, too cheap, too coarse for you to converse with. ASO. 'Slid, this is not worth a crown, and mine cost me eight but this morning. CRI. I looked when he would repent him, he has begun to be sad a good while. AMO. Sir, shall I say to you for that hat? Be not so sad, be not so sad: It is a relic I could not so easily have departed with, but as the hieroglyphic of my affection; you shall alter it to what form you please, it will take any block; I have received it varied on record to the three thousandth time, and not so few: It hath these virtues beside: your head shall not ache under it, nor your brain leave you, without license; It will preserve your complexion to eternity; for no beam of the sun, should you wear it under zona torrida, hath power to approach it by two ells. It is proof against thunder, and enchantment; and was given me by a great man in Russia, as an especial prized present; and constantly affirm'd to be the hat that accompanied the politic Ulysses in his tedious and ten years' travels. ASO. By Jove, I will not depart withal, whosoever would give me a million. ENTER COS AND PROSAITES. COS. Save you sweet bloods! does any of you want a creature, or a dependent? CRI. Beshrew me, a fine blunt slave! AMO. A page of good timber! it will now be my grace to entertain him first, though I cashier him again in private.--How art thou call'd? COS. Cos, sir, Cos. CRI. Cos! how happily hath fortune furnish'd him with a whetstone? AMO. I do entertain you, Cos; conceal your quality till we be private; if your parts be worthy of me, I will countenance you; if not, catechise you.--Gentles, shall we go? ASO. Stay, sir: I'll but entertain this other fellow, and then-- I have a great humour to taste of this water too, but I'll come again alone for that--mark the place.--What's your name, youth? PROS. Prosaites, sir. ASO. Prosaites! a very fine name; Crites, is it not? CRI. Yes, and a very ancient one, sir, the Beggar. ASO. Follow me, good Prosaites; let's talk. [EXEUNT ALL BUT CRITES.] CRI. He will rank even with you, ere't be long. If you hold on your course. O, vanity How are thy painted beauties doted on, By light and empty idiots! how pursued With open, and extended appetite! How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath, Raised on their toes, to catch thy airy forms, Still turning giddy, till they reel like drunkards, That buy the merry madness of one hour With the long irksomeness of following time! O, how despised and base a thing is man, If he not strive to erect his grovelling thoughts Above the strain of flesh? but how more cheap, When, ev'n his best and understanding part, The crown and strength of all his faculties, Floats, like a dead drown'd body, on the stream Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs! I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul, Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes, Is hurt with mere intention on their follies. Why will I view them then, my sense might ask me? Or is't a rarity, or some new object, That strains my strict observance to this point? O, would it were! therein I could afford My spirit should draw a little near to theirs, To gaze on novelties; so vice were one. Tut, she is stale, rank, foul; and were it not That those that woo her greet her with lock'd eyes, In spight of all th' impostures, paintings, drugs, Which her bawd, Custom, dawbs her cheeks withal, She would betray her loath'd and leprous face, And fright the enamour'd dotards from themselves: But such is the perverseness of our nature, That if we once but fancy levity, How antic and ridiculous soe'er It suit with us, yet will our muffled thought Choose rather not to see it, than avoid it: And if we can but banish our own sense, We act our mimic tricks with that free license, That lust, that pleasure, that security; As if we practised in a paste-board case, And no one saw the motion, but the motion. Well, check thy passion, lest it grow too loud: While fools are pitied, they wax fat, and proud. ACT II SCENE I.--THE COURT. ENTER CUPID AND MERCURY, DISGUISED AS PAGES. CUP. Why, this was most unexpectedly followed, my divine delicate Mercury, by the beard of Jove, thou art a precious deity. MER. Nay, Cupid, leave to speak improperly; since we are turn'd cracks, let's study to be like cracks; practise their language, and behaviours, and not with a dead imitation: Act freely, carelessly, and capriciously, as if our veins ran with quicksilver, and not utter a phrase, but what shall come forth steep'd in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire. CUP. That's not every one's happiness, Hermes: Though you can presume upon the easiness and dexterity of your wit, you shall give me leave to be a little jealous of mine; and not desperately to hazard it after your capering humour. MER. Nay, then, Cupid, I think we must have you hood-wink'd again; for you are grown too provident since your eyes were at liberty. CUP. Not so, Mercury, I am still blind Cupid to thee. MER. And what to the lady nymph you serve? CUP. Troth, page, boy, and sirrah: these are all my titles. MER. Then thou hast not altered thy name with thy disguise? CUP. O, no, that had been supererogation; you shall never hear your courtier call but by one of these three. MER. Faith, then both our fortunes are the same. CUP. Why, what parcel of man hast thou lighted on for a master? MER. Such a one as, before I begin to decipher him, I dare not affirm to be any thing less than a courtier. So much he is during this open time of revels, and would be longer, but that his means are to leave him shortly after. His name is Hedon, a gallant wholly consecrated to his pleasures. CUP. Hedon! he uses much to my lady's chamber, I think. MER. How is she call'd, and then I can shew thee? CUP. Madame Philautia. MER. O ay, he affects her very particularly indeed. These are his graces. He doth (besides me) keep a barber and a monkey; he has a rich wrought waistcoat to entertain his visitants in, with a cap almost suitable. His curtains and bedding are thought to be his own; his bathing-tub is not suspected. He loves to have a fencer, a pedant, and a musician seen in his lodging a-mornings. CUP. And not a poet? MER. Fie no: himself is a rhymer, and that's thought better than a poet. He is not lightly within to his mercer, no, though he come when he takes physic, which is commonly after his play. He beats a tailor very well, but a stocking-seller admirably: and so consequently any one he owes money to, that dares not resist him. He never makes general invitement, but against the publishing of a new suit; marry, then you shall have more drawn to his lodging, than come to the launching of some three ships; especially if he be furnish'd with supplies for the retiring of his old wardrobe from pawn: if not, he does hire a stock of apparel, and some forty or fifty pound in gold, for that forenoon to shew. He is thought a very necessary perfume for the presence, and for that only cause welcome thither: six milliners' shops afford you not the like scent. He courts ladies with how many great horse he hath rid that morning, or how oft he hath done the whole, or half the pommado in a seven-night before: and sometime ventures so far upon the virtue of his pomander, that he dares tell 'em, how many shirts he has sweat at tennis that week; but wisely conceals so many dozen of balls he is on the score. Here he comes, that is all this. ENTER HEDON, ANAIDES, AND GELAIA. HED. Boy! MER. Sir. HED. Are any of the ladies in the presence? MER. None yet, sir. HED. Give me some gold,--more. ANA. Is that thy boy, Hedon? HED. Ay, what think'st thou of him? ANA. I'd geld him; I warrant he has the philosopher's stone. HED. Well said, my good melancholy devil: sirrah, I have devised one or two of the prettiest oaths, this morning in my bed, as ever thou heard'st, to protest withal in the presence. ANA. Prithee, let's hear them. HED. Soft, thou'lt use them afore me. ANA. No, d--mn me then--I have more oaths than I know how to utter, by this air. HED. Faith, one is, "By the tip of your ear, sweet lady." Is it not pretty, and genteel? ANA. Yes, for the person 'tis applied to, a lady. It should be light, and-- HED. Nay, the other is better, exceeds it much: the invention is farther fet too. "By the white valley that lies between the alpine hills of your bosom, I protest.--" ANA. Well, you travell'd for that, Hedon. MER. Ay, in a map, where his eyes were but blind guides to his understanding, it seems. HED. And then I have a salutation will nick all, by this caper: hay! ANA. How is that? HED. You know I call madam Philautia, my Honour; and she calls me her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in the presence anon, I will come to her, and say, "Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented my sense with the lilies of your hand; but now I will taste the roses of your lip"; and, withal, kiss her: to which she cannot but blushing answer, "Nay now you are too ambitious." And then do I reply: "I cannot be too Ambitious of Honour, sweet lady." Will't not be good? ha? ha? ANA. O, assure your soul. HED. By heaven, I think 'twill be excellent: and a very politic achievement of a kiss. ANA. I have thought upon one for Moria of a sudden too, if it take. HED. What is't, my dear Invention? ANA. Marry, I will come to her, (and she always wears a muff, if you be remembered,) and I will tell her, "Madam your whole self cannot but be perfectly wise; for your hands have wit enough to keep themselves warm." HED. Now, before Jove, admirable! [GELAIA LAUGHS.] Look, thy page takes it too. By Phoebus, my sweet facetious rascal, I could eat water-gruel with thee a month for this jest, my dear rogue. ANA. O, Hercules 'tis your only dish; above all your potatoes or oyster-pies in the world. HED. I have ruminated upon a most rare wish too, and the prophecy to it; but I'll have some friend to be the prophet; as thus: I do wish myself one of my mistress's cioppini. Another demands, Why would he be one of his mistress's cioppini? a third answers, Because he would make her higher: a fourth shall say, That will make her proud: and a fifth shall conclude, Then do I prophesy pride will have a fall;--and he shall give it her. ANA. I will be your prophet. Gods so, it will be most exquisite; thou art a fine inventious rogue, sirrah. HED. Nay, and I have posies for rings, too, and riddles, that they dream not of. ANA. Tut, they'll do that, when they come to sleep on them, time enough: But were thy devices never in the presence yet, Hedon? HED. O, no, I disdain that. ANA. 'Twere good we went afore then, and brought them acquainted with the room where they shall act, lest the strangeness of it put them out of countenance, when they should come forth. [EXEUNT HEDON AND ANAIDES.] CUP. Is that a courtier, too. MER. Troth, no; he has two essential parts of the courtier, pride and ignorance; marry, the rest come somewhat after the ordinary gallant. 'Tis Impudence itself, Anaides; one that speaks all that comes in his cheeks, and will blush no more than a sackbut. He lightly occupies the jester's room at the table, and keeps laughter, Gelaia, a wench in page's attire, following him in place of a squire, whom he now and then tickles with some strange ridiculous stuff, utter'd as his land came to him, by chance. He will censure or discourse of any thing, but as absurdly as you would wish. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. He does naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace, or tissue: stabs any man that speaks more contemptibly of the scholar than he. He is a great proficient in all the illiberal sciences, as cheating, drinking, swaggering, whoring, and such like: never kneels but to pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-tobacco. He will blaspheme in his shirt. The oaths which he vomits at one supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing a twelvemonth. One other genuine quality he has which crowns all these, and that is this: to a friend in want, he will not depart with the weight of a soldered groat, lest the world might censure him prodigal, or report him a gull: marry, to his cockatrice or punquetto, half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles in a pair or two of months, why, they are nothing. CUP. I commend him, he is one of my clients. [THEY RETIRE TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE.] ENTER AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, AND COS. AMO. Come, sir. You are now within regard of the presence, and see, the privacy of this room how sweetly it offers itself to our retired intendments.--Page, cast a vigilant and enquiring eye about, that we be not rudely surprised by the approach of some ruder stranger. COS. I warrant you, sir. I'll tell you when the wolf enters, fear nothing. MER. O what a mass of benefit shall we possess, in being the invisible spectators of this strange show now to be acted! AMO. Plant yourself there, sir; and observe me. You shall now, as well be the ocular, as the ear-witness, how clearly I can refel that paradox, or rather pseudodox, of those, which hold the face to be the index of the mind, which, I assure you, is not so in any politic creature: for instance; I will now give you the particular and distinct face of every your most noted species of persons, as your merchant, your scholar, your soldier, your lawyer, courtier, etc., and each of these so truly, as you would swear, but that your eye shall see the variation of the lineament, it were my most proper and genuine aspect. First, for your merchant, or city-face, 'tis thus; a dull, plodding-face, still looking in a direct line, forward: there is no great matter in this face. Then have you your student's, or academic face; which is here an honest, simple, and methodical face; but somewhat more spread then the former. The third is your soldier's face, a menacing and astounding face, that looks broad and big: the grace of his face consisteth much in a beard. The anti-face to this, is your lawyer's face, a contracted, subtile, and intricate face, full of quirks and turnings, a labyrinthean face, now angularly, now circularly, every way aspected. Next is your statist's face, a serious, solemn, and supercilious face, full of formal and square gravity; the eye, for the most part, deeply and artificially shadow'd; there is great judgment required in the making of this face. But now, to come to your face of faces, or courtier's face; 'tis of three sorts, according to our subdivision of a courtier, elementary, practic, and theoric. Your courtier theoric, is he that hath arrived to his farthest, and doth now know the court rather by speculation than practice; and this is his face: a fastidious and oblique face; that looks as it went with a vice, and were screw'd thus. Your courtier practic, is he that is yet in his path, his course, his way, and hath not touch'd the punctilio or point of his hopes; his face is here: a most promising, open, smooth, and overflowing face, that seems as it would run and pour itself into you: somewhat a northerly face. Your courtier elementary, is one but newly enter'd, or as it were in the alphabet, or ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la of courtship. Note well this face, for it is this you must practise. ASO. I'll practise them all, if you please, sir. AMO. Ay, hereafter you may: and it will not be altogether an ungrateful study. For, let your soul be assured of this, in any rank or profession whatever, the more general or major part of opinion goes with the face and simply respects nothing else. Therefore, if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely, thoroughly, it is enough: but for the present you shall only apply yourself to this face of the elementary courtier, a light, revelling, and protesting face, now blushing, now smiling, which you may help much with a wanton wagging of your head, thus, (a feather will teach you,) or with kissing your finger that hath the ruby, or playing with some string of your band, which is a most quaint kind of melancholy besides: or, if among ladies, laughing loud, and crying up your own wit, though perhaps borrow'd, it is not amiss. Where is your page? call for your casting-bottle, and place your mirror in your hat, as I told you; so! Come, look not pale, observe me, set your face, and enter. MER. O, for some excellent painter, to have taken the copy of all these faces! [ASIDE.] ASO. Prosaites! AMO. Fie! I premonish you of that: in the court, boy, lacquey, or sirrah. COS. Master, lupus in--O, 'tis Prosaites. ENTER PROSAITES. ASO. Sirrah, prepare my casting-bottle; I think I must be enforced to purchase me another page; you see how at hand Cos waits here. [EXEUNT AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, COS, AND PROSAITES.] MER. So will he too in time. CUP. What's he Mercury? MER. A notable smelt. One that hath newly entertain'd the beggar to follow him, but cannot get him to wait near enough. 'Tis Asotus, the heir of Philargyrus; but first I'll give ye the other's character, which may make his the clearer. He that is with him is Amorphus, a traveller, one so made out of the mixture of shreds of forms, that himself is truly deform'd. He walks most commonly with a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth, he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are printed, his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is an Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimm'd, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. He is his own promoter in every place. The wife of the ordinary gives him his diet to maintain her table in discourse; which, indeed, is a mere tyranny over her other guests, for he will usurp all the talk: ten constables are not so tedious. He is no great shifter; once a year his apparel is ready to revolt. He doth use much to arbitrate quarrels, and fights himself, exceeding well, out at a window. He will lie cheaper than any beggar, and louder than most clocks; for which he is right properly accommodated to the Whetstone, his page. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him; sweats to imitate him in every thing to a hair, except a beard, which is not yet extant. He doth learn to make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli, and caviare, because he loves them; speaks as he speaks, looks, walks, goes so in clothes and fashion: is in all as if he were moulded of him. Marry, before they met, he had other very pretty sufficiencies, which yet he retains some light impression of; as frequenting a dancing school, and grievously torturing strangers with inquisition after his grace in his galliard. He buys a fresh acquaintance at any rate. His eyes and his raiment confer much together as he goes in the street. He treads nicely like the fellow that walks upon ropes, especially the first Sunday of his silk stockings; and when he is most neat and new, you shall strip him with commendations. CUP. Here comes another. [CRITES PASSES OVER THE STAGE.] MER. Ay, but one of another strain, Cupid; This fellow weighs somewhat. CUP. His name, Hermes? MER. Crites. A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one, in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without emulation of precedency; he is neither too fantastically melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, or too rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered; as it is clear Nature went about some full work, she did more than make a man when she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so truly learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will think and speak his thought both freely; but as distant from depraving another man's merit, as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis such, that he dares as little to offer any injury, as receive one. In sum, he hath a most ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and season'd wit, a straight judgment and a strong mind. Fortune could never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted with good deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he can be virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason to do either; and that commends all things to him. CUP. Not better than Mercury commends him. MER. O, Cupid, 'tis beyond my deity to give him his due praises: I could leave my place in heaven to live among mortals, so I were sure to be no other than he. CUP. 'Slight, I believe he is your minion, you seem to be so ravish'd with him. MER. He's one I would not have a wry thought darted against, willingly. CUP. No, but a straight shaft in his bosom I'll promise him, if I am Cytherea's son. MER. Shall we go, Cupid? CUP. Stay, and see the ladies now: they'll come presently. I'll help to paint them. MER. What lay colour upon colour! that affords but an ill blazon. CUP. Here comes metal to help it, the lady Argurion. [ARGURION PASSES OVER THE STAGE.] MER. Money, money. CUP. The same. A nymph of a most wandering and giddy disposition, humorous as the air, she'll run from gallant to gallant, as they sit at primero in the presence, most strangely, and seldom stays with any. She spreads as she goes. To-day you shall have her look as clear and fresh as the morning, and to-morrow as melancholic as midnight. She takes special pleasure in a close obscure lodging, and for that cause visits the city so often, where she has many secret true concealing favourites. When she comes abroad she's more loose and scattering than dust, and will fly from place to place, as she were wrapped with a whirlwind. Your young student, for the most part, she affects not, only salutes him, and away: a poet, nor a philosopher, she is hardly brought to take any notice of; no, though he be some part of an alchemist. She loves a player well, and a lawyer infinitely; but your fool above all. She can do much in court for the obtaining of any suit whatsoever, no door but flies open to her, her presence is above a charm. The worst in her is want of keeping state, and too much descending into inferior and base offices; she's for any coarse employment you will put upon her, as to be your procurer, or pander. MER. Peace, Cupid, here comes more work for you, another character or two. ENTER PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA. PHA. Stay sweet Philautia; I'll but change my fan, and go presently. MOR. Now, in very good serious, ladies, I will have this order revers'd, the presence must be better maintain'd from you: a quarter past eleven, and ne'er a nymph in prospective! Beshrew my hand, there must be a reform'd discipline. Is that your new ruff, sweet lady-bird? By my troth, 'tis most intricately rare. MER. Good Jove, what reverend gentlewoman in years might this be? CUP. 'Tis madam Moria, guardian of the nymphs; one that is not now to be persuaded of her wit; she will think herself wise against all the judgments that come. A lady made all of voice and air, talks any thing of any thing. She is like one of your ignorant poetasters of the time, who, when they have got acquainted with a strange word, never rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the whole fabric of their sense. MER. That was pretty and sharply noted, Cupid. CUP. She will tell you, Philosophy was a fine reveller, when she was young, and a gallant, and that then, though she say it, she was thought to be the dame Dido and Helen of the court: as also, what a sweet dog she had this time four years, and how it was called Fortune; and that, if the Fates had not cut his thread, he had been a dog to have given entertainment to any gallant in this kingdom; and unless she had whelp'd it herself, she could not have loved a thing better in this world. MER. O, I prithee no more; I am full of her. CUP. Yes, I must needs tell you she composes a sack-posset well; and would court a young page sweetly, but that her breath is against it. MER. Now, her breath or something more strong protect me from her! The other, the other, Cupid. CUP. O, that's my lady and mistress, madam Philautia. She admires not herself for any one particularity, but for all: she is fair, and she knows it; she has a pretty light wit too, and she knows it; she can dance, and she knows that too; play at shuttle-cock, and that too: no quality she has, but she shall take a very particular knowledge of, and most lady-like commend it to you. You shall have her at any time read you the history of herself, and very subtilely run over another lady's sufficiencies to come to her own. She has a good superficial judgment in painting; and would seem to have so in poetry. A most complete lady in the opinion of some three beside herself. PHI. Faith, how liked you my quip to Hedon, about the garter? Was't not witty? MOR. Exceeding witty and integrate: you did so aggravate the jest withal. PHI. And did I not dance movingly the last night? MOR. Movingly! out of measure, in troth, sweet charge. MER. A happy commendation, to dance out of measure! MOR. Save only you wanted the swim in the turn: O! when I was at fourteen-- PHI. Nay, that's mine own from any nymph in the court, I'm sure on't; therefore you mistake me in that, guardian: both the swim and the trip are properly mine; every body will affirm it that has any judgment in dancing, I assure you. PHA. Come now, Philautia, I am for you; shall we go? PHI. Ay, good Phantaste: What! have you changed your head-tire? PHA. Yes, faith; the other was so near the common, it had no extraordinary grace; besides, I had worn it almost a day, in good troth. PHI. I'll be sworn, this is most excellent for the device, and rare; 'tis after the Italian print we look'd on t'other night. PHA. 'Tis so: by this fan, I cannot abide any thing that savours the poor over-worn cut, that has any kindred with it; I must have variety, I: this mixing in fashion, I hate it worse than to burn juniper in my chamber, I protest. PHI. And yet we cannot have a new peculiar court-tire, but these retainers will have it; these suburb Sunday-waiters; these courtiers for high days; I know not what I should call 'em-- PHA. O, ay, they do most pitifully imitate; but I have a tire a coming, i'faith, shall-- MOR. In good certain, madam, it makes you look most heavenly; but, lay your hand on your heart, you never skinn'd a new beauty more prosperously in your life, nor more metaphysically: look good lady, sweet lady, look. PHI. 'Tis very clear and well, believe me. But if you had seen mine yesterday, when 'twas young, you would have--Who's your doctor, Phantaste? PHA. Nay, that's counsel, Philautia; you shall pardon me: yet I'll assure you he's the most dainty, sweet, absolute, rare man of the whole college. O! his very looks, his discourse, his behaviour, all he does is physic, I protest. PHI. For heaven's sake, his name, good dear Phantaste? PHA. No, no, no, no, no, no, believe me, not for a million of heavens: I will not make him cheap. Fie-- [EXEUNT PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.] CUP. There is a nymph too of a most curious and elaborate strain, light, all motion, an ubiquitary, she is every where, Phantaste-- MER. Her very name speaks her, let her pass. But are these, Cupid, the stars of Cynthia's court? Do these nymphs attend upon Diana? CUP. They are in her court, Mercury, but not as stars; these never come in the presence of Cynthia. The nymphs that make her train are the divine Arete, Time, Phronesis, Thauma, and others of that high sort. These are privately brought in by Moria in this licentious time, against her knowledge; and, like so many meteors, will vanish when she appears. ENTER PROSAITES SINGING, FOLLOWED BY GELAIA AND COS, WITH BOTTLES. Come follow me, my wags, and say, as I say, There's no riches but in rags, hey day, hey day: You that profess this art, come away, come away, And help to bear a part. Hey day, hey day, etc. [MERCURY AND CUPID COME FORWARD.] MER. What, those that were our fellow pages but now, so soon preferr'd to be yeomen of the bottles! The mystery, the mystery, good wags? CUP. Some diet-drink they have the guard of. PRO. No, sir, we are going in quest of a strange fountain, lately found out. CUP. By whom? COS. My master or the great discoverer, Amorphus. MER. Thou hast well entitled him, Cos, for he will discover all he knows. GEL. Ay, and a little more too, when the spirit is upon him. PRO. O, the good travelling gentleman yonder has caused such a drought in the presence, with reporting the wonders of this new water, that all the ladies and gallants lie languishing upon the rushes, like so many pounded cattle in the midst of harvest, sighing one to another, and gasping, as if each of them expected a cock from the fountain to be brought into his mouth; and without we return quickly, they are all, as a youth would say, no better then a few trouts cast ashore, or a dish of eels in a sand-bag. MER. Well then, you were best dispatch, and have a care of them. Come, Cupid, thou and I'll go peruse this dry wonder. [EXEUNT.] ACT III SCENE I.--AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT. ENTER AMORPHUS AND ASOTUS. AMO. Sir, let not this discountenance or disgallant you a whit; you must not sink under the first disaster. It is with your young grammatical courtier, as with your neophyte player, a thing usual to be daunted at the first presence or interview: you saw, there was Hedon, and Anaides, far more practised gallants than yourself, who were both out, to comfort you. It is no disgrace, no more than for your adventurous reveller to fall by some inauspicious chance in his galliard, or for some subtile politic to undertake the bastinado, that the state might think worthily of him, and respect him as a man well beaten to the world. What? hath your tailor provided the property we spake of at your chamber, or no? ASO. I think he has. AMO. Nay, I entreat you, be not so flat and melancholic. Erect your mind: you shall redeem this with the courtship I will teach you against the afternoon. Where eat you to-day? ASO. Where you please, sir; any where, I. AMO. Come, let us go and taste some light dinner, a dish of sliced caviare, or so; and after, you shall practise an hour at your lodging some few forms that I have recall'd. If you had but so far gathered your spirits to you, as to have taken up a rush when you were out, and wagg'd it thus, or cleansed your teeth with it; or but turn'd aside, and feign'd some business to whisper with your page, till you had recovered yourself, or but found some slight stain in your stocking, or any other pretty invention, so it had been sudden, you might have come off with a most clear and courtly grace. ASO. A poison of all! I think I was forespoke, I. AMO. No, I must tell you, you are not audacious enough; you must frequent ordinaries a month more, to initiate yourself: in which time, it will not be amiss, if, in private, you keep good your acquaintance with Crites, or some other of his poor coat; visit his lodging secretly and often; become an earnest suitor to hear some of his labours. ASO. O Jove! sir, I could never get him to read a line to me. AMO. You must then wisely mix yourself in rank with such as you know can; and, as your ears do meet with a new phrase, or an acute jest, take it in: a quick nimble memory will lift it away, and, at your next public meal, it is your own. ASO. But I shall never utter it perfectly, sir. AMO. No matter, let it come lame. In ordinary talk you shall play it away, as you do your light crowns at primero: it will pass. ASO. I shall attempt, sir. AMO. Do. It is your shifting age for wit, and, I assure you, men must be prudent. After this you may to court, and there fall in, first with the waiting-woman, then with the lady. Put case they do retain you there, as a fit property, to hire coaches some pair of months, or so; or to read them asleep in afternoons upon some pretty pamphlet, to breathe you; why, it shall in time embolden you to some farther achievement: in the interim, you may fashion yourself to be careless and impudent. ASO. How if they would have me to make verses? I heard Hedon spoke to for some. AMO. Why, you must prove the aptitude of your genius; if you find none, you must hearken out a vein, and buy; provided you pay for the silence as for the work, then you may securely call it your own. ASO. Yes, and I'll give out my acquaintance with all the best writers, to countenance me the more. AMO. Rather seem not to know them, it is your best. Ay, be wise, that you never so much as mention the name of one, nor remember it mentioned; but if they be offer'd to you in discourse, shake your light head, make between a sad and a smiling face, pity some, rail at all, and commend yourself: 'tis your only safe and unsuspected course. Come, you shall look back upon the court again to-day, and be restored to your colours: I do now partly aim at the cause of your repulse--which was ominous indeed--for as you enter at the door, there is opposed to you the frame of a wolf in the hangings, which, surprising your eye suddenly, gave a false alarm to the heart; and that was it called your blood out of your face, and so routed the whole rank of your spirits: I beseech you labour to forget it. And remember, as I inculcated to you before, for your comfort, Hedon and Anaides. [EXEUNT.] SCENE II.--ANOTHER APARTMENT IN THE SAME. ENTER HEDON AND ANAIDES. HEDON. Heart, was there ever so prosperous an invention thus unluckily perverted and spoiled, by a whoreson book-worm, a candle-waster? ANA. Nay, be not impatient, Hedon. HED. 'Slight, I would fain know his name. ANA. Hang him, poor grogan rascal! prithee think not of him: I'll send for him to my lodging, and have him blanketed when thou wilt, man. HED. Ods so, I would thou couldst. Look, here he comes. ENTER CRITES, AND WALKS IN A MUSING POSTURE AT THE BACK OF THE STAGE. Laugh at him, laugh at him; ha, ha, ha. ANA. Fough! he smells all lamp-oil with studying by candle-light. HED. How confidently he went by us, and carelessly! Never moved, nor stirred at any thing! Did you observe him? ANA. Ay, a pox on him, let him go, dormouse: he is in a dream now. He has no other time to sleep, but thus when he walks abroad to take the air. HED. 'Sprecious, this afflicts me more than all the rest, that we should so particularly direct our hate and contempt against him, and he to carry it thus without wound or passion! 'tis insufferable. ANA. 'Slid, my dear Envy, if thou but say'st the word now, I'll undo him eternally for thee. HED. How, sweet Anaides? ANA. Marry, half a score of us get him in, one night, and make him pawn his wit for a supper. HED. Away, thou hast such unseasonable jests! By this heaven, I wonder at nothing more than our gentlemen ushers, that will suffer a piece of serge or perpetuana to come into the presence: methinks they should, out of their experience, better distinguish the silken disposition of courtiers, than to let such terrible coarse rags mix with us, able to fret any smooth or gentle society to the threads with their rubbing devices. ANA. Unless 'twere Lent, Ember-weeks, or fasting days, when the place is most penuriously empty of all other good outsides. D--n me, if I should adventure on his company once more, without a suit of buff to defend my wit! he does nothing but stab, the slave! How mischievously he cross'd thy device of the prophecy, there? and Moria, she comes without her muff too, and there my invention was lost. HED. Well, I am resolved what I'll do. ANA. What, my good spiritous spark? HED. Marry, speak all the venom I can of him; and poison his reputation in every place where I come. ANA. 'Fore God, most courtly. HED. And if I chance to be present where any question is made of his sufficiencies, or of any thing he hath done private or public, I'll censure it slightly, and ridiculously. ANA. At any hand beware of that; so thou may'st draw thine own judgment in suspect. No, I'll instruct thee what thou shalt do, and by a safer means: approve any thing thou hearest of his, to the received opinion of it; but if it be extraordinary, give it from him to some other whom thou more particularly affect'st; that's the way to plague him, and he shall never come to defend himself. 'Slud, I'll give out all he does is dictated from other men, and swear it too, if thou'lt have me, and that I know the time and place where he stole it, though my soul be guilty of no such thing; and that I think, out of my heart, he hates such barren shifts: yet to do thee a pleasure and him a disgrace, I'll damn myself, or do any thing. HED. Gramercy, my dear devil; we'll put it seriously in practice, i'faith. [EXEUNT HEDON AND ANAIDES.] CRI. [COMING FORWARD.] Do, good Detraction, do, and I the while Shall shake thy spight off with a careless smile. Poor piteous gallants! what lean idle slights Their thoughts suggest to flatter their starv'd hopes! As if I knew not how to entertain These straw-devices; but, of force must yield To the weak stroke of their calumnious tongues. What should I care what every dor doth buz In credulous ears? It is a crown to me That the best judgments can report me wrong'd; Them liars; and their slanders impudent. Perhaps, upon the rumour of their speeches, Some grieved friend will whisper to me; Crites, Men speak ill of thee. So they be ill men, If they spake worse, 'twere better: for of such To be dispraised, is the most perfect praise. What can his censure hurt me, whom the world Hath censured vile before me! If good Chrestus, Euthus, or Phronimus, had spoke the words, They would have moved me, and I should have call'd My thoughts and actions to a strict account Upon the hearing: but when I remember, 'Tis Hedon and Anaides, alas, then I think but what they are, and am not stirr'd. The one a light voluptuous reveller, The other, a strange arrogating puff, Both impudent, and ignorant enough; That talk as they are wont, not as I merit; Traduce by custom, as most dogs do bark, Do nothing out of judgment, but disease, Speak ill, because they never could speak well. And who'd be angry with this race of creatures? What wise physician have we ever seen Moved with a frantic man? the same affects That he doth bear to his sick patient, Should a right mind carry to such as these; And I do count it a most rare revenge, That I can thus, with such a sweet neglect, Pluck from them all the pleasure of their malice; For that's the mark of all their enginous drifts, To wound my patience, howso'er they seem To aim at other objects; which if miss'd, Their envy's like an arrow shot upright, That, in the fall, endangers their own heads. ENTER ARETE. ARE. What, Crites! where have you drawn forth the day, You have not visited your jealous friends? CRI. Where I have seen, most honour'd Arete, The strangest pageant, fashion'd like a court, (At least I dreamt I saw it) so diffused, So painted, pied, and full of rainbow strains; As never yet, either by time, or place, Was made the food to my distasted sense; Nor can my weak imperfect memory Now render half the forms unto my tongue, That were convolved within this thrifty room. Here stalks me by a proud and spangled sir, That looks three handfuls higher then his foretop; Savours himself alone, is only kind And loving to himself; one that will speak More dark and doubtful than six oracles! Salutes a friend, as if he had a stitch; Is his own chronicle, and scarce can eat For regist'ring himself; is waited on By mimics, jesters, panders, parasites, And other such like prodigies of men. He past, appears some mincing marmoset Made all of clothes and face; his limbs so set As if they had some voluntary act Without man's motion, and must move just so In spight of their creation: one that weighs His breath between his teeth, and dares not smile Beyond a point, for fear t'unstarch his look; Hath travell'd to make legs, and seen the cringe Of several courts, and courtiers; knows the time Of giving titles, and of taking walls; Hath read court common-places; made them his: Studied the grammar of state, and all the rules Each formal usher in that politic school Can teach a man. A third comes, giving nods To his repenting creditors, protests To weeping suitors, takes the coming gold Of insolent and base ambition, That hourly rubs his dry and itchy palms; Which griped, like burning coals, he hurls away Into the laps of bawds, and buffoons' mouths. With him there meets some subtle Proteus, one Can change, and vary with all forms he sees; Be any thing but honest; serves the time; Hovers betwixt two factions, and explores The drifts of both; which, with cross face, he bears To the divided heads, and is received With mutual grace of either: one that dares Do deeds worthy the hurdle or the wheel, To be thought somebody; and is in sooth Such as the satirist points truly forth, That only to his crimes owes all his worth. ARE. You tell us wonders, Crites. CRI. This is nothing. There stands a neophite glazing of his face, Pruning his clothes, perfuming of his hair, Against his idol enters; and repeats, Like an unperfect prologue, at third music, His part of speeches, and confederate jests, In passion to himself. Another swears His scene of courtship over; bids, believe him, Twenty times ere they will; anon, doth seem As he would kiss away his hand in kindness; Then walks off melancholic, and stands wreath'd, As he were pinn'd up to the arras, thus. A third is most in action, swims, and frisks, Plays with his mistress's paps, salutes her pumps; Adores her hems, her skirts, her knots, her curls, Will spend his patrimony for a garter, Or the least feather in her bounteous fan. A fourth, he only comes in for a mute; Divides the act with a dumb show, and exit. Then must the ladies laugh, straight comes their scene, A sixth times worse confusion then the rest. Where you shall hear one talk of this man's eye, Another of his lip, a third, his nose, A fourth commend his leg, a fifth, his foot, A sixth, his hand, and every one a limb; That you would think the poor distorted gallant Must there expire. Then fall they in discourse Of tires, and fashions, how they must take place, Where they may kiss, and whom, when to sit down, And with what grace to rise; if they salute, What court'sy they must use; such cobweb stuff As would enforce the common'st sense abhor Th' Arachnean workers. ARE. Patience, gentle Crites. This knot of spiders will be soon dissolved, And all their webs swept out of Cynthia's court, When once her glorious deity appears, And but presents itself in her full light: 'Till when, go in, and spend your hours with us, Your honour'd friends. Time and Phronesis, In contemplation of our goddess' name. Think on some sweet and choice invention now, Worthy her serious and illustrious eyes, That from the merit of it we may take Desired occasion to prefer your worth, And make your service known to Cynthia. It is the pride of Arete to grace Her studious lovers; and, in scorn of time, Envy, and ignorance, to lift their state Above a vulgar height. True happiness Consists not in the multitude of friends, But in their worth, and choice. Nor would I have Virtue a popular regard pursue: Let them be good that love me, though but few. CRI. I kiss thy hands, divinest Arete, And vow myself to thee, and Cynthia. [EXEUNT.] SCENE III.--ANOTHER APARTMENT IN THE SAME. ENTER AMORPHUS, FOLLOWED BY ASOTUS AND HIS TAILOR. AMO. A little more forward: so, sir. Now go in, discloak yourself, and come forth. [EXIT ASOTUS.] Tailor; bestow thy absence upon us; and be not prodigal of this secret, but to a dear customer. [EXIT TAILOR.] RE-ENTER ASOTUS. 'Tis well enter'd sir. Stay, you come on too fast; your pace is too impetuous. Imagine this to be the palace of your pleasure, or place where your lady is pleased to be seen. First you present yourself, thus: and spying her, you fall off, and walk some two turns; in which time, it is to be supposed, your passion hath sufficiently whited your face, then, stifling a sigh or two, and closing your lips, with a trembling boldness, and bold terror, you advance yourself forward. Prove thus much, I pray you. ASO. Yes, sir;--pray Jove I can light on it! Here I come in, you say, and present myself? AMO. Good. ASO. And then I spy her, and walk off? AMO. Very good. ASO. Now, sir, I stifle, and advance forward? AMO. Trembling. ASO. Yes, sir, trembling; I shall do it better when I come to it. And what must I speak now? AMO. Marry, you shall say; "Dear Beauty", or "sweet Honour" (or by what other title you please to remember her), "methinks you are melancholy". This is, if she be alone now, and discompanied. ASO. Well, sir, I'll enter again; her title shall be, "My dear Lindabrides". AMO. Lindabrides! ASO. Ay, sir, the emperor Alicandroe's daughter, and the prince Meridian's sister, in "the Knight of the Sun"; she should have been married to him, but that the princess Claridiana-- AMO. O, you betray your reading. ASO. Nay, sir, I have read history, I am a little humanitian. Interrupt me not, good sir. "My dear Lindabrides,--my dear Lindabrides,--my dear Lindabrides, methinks you are melancholy". AMO. Ay, and take her by the rosy finger'd hand. ASO. Must I so: O!--"My dear Lindabrides, methinks you are melancholy". AMO. Or thus sir. "All variety of divine pleasures, choice sports, sweet music, rich fare, brave attire, soft beds, and silken thoughts, attend this dear beauty." ASO. Believe me, that's pretty. "All variety of divine pleasures, choice sports, sweet music, rich fare, brave attire, soft beds, and silken thoughts, attend this dear beauty." AMO. And then, offering to kiss her hand, if she shall coily recoil, and signify your repulse, you are to re-enforce yourself with, "More than most fair lady, Let not the rigour of your just disdain Thus coarsely censure of your servant's zeal." And withal, protest her to be the only and absolute unparallel'd creature you do adore, and admire, and respect, and reverence, in this court, corner of the world, or kingdom. ASO. This is hard, by my faith. I'll begin it all again. AMO. Do so, and I will act it for your lady. ASO. Will you vouchsafe, sir? "All variety of divine pleasures, choice sports, sweet music, rich fare, brave attire, soft beds, and silken thoughts, attend this dear beauty." AMO. So sir, pray you, away. ASO. "More than most fair lady, Let not the rigour of your just disdain Thus coarsely censure of your servant's zeal; I protest you are the only and absolute unapparell'd--" AMO. Unparallel'd. ASO. "Unparallel'd creature, I do adore, and admire, and respect, and reverence, in this corner of the world, or kingdom." AMO. This is, if she abide you. But now, put the case she should be passant when you enter, as thus: you are to frame your gait thereafter, and call upon her, "lady, nymph, sweet refuge, star of our court." Then, if she be guardant, here; you are to come on, and, laterally disposing yourself, swear by her blushing and well-coloured cheek, the bright dye of her hair, her ivory teeth, (though they be ebony,) or some such white and innocent oath, to induce you. If regardant, then maintain your station, brisk and irpe, show the supple motion of your pliant body, but in chief of your knee, and hand, which cannot but arride her proud humour exceedingly. ASO. I conceive you sir. I shall perform all these things in good time, I doubt not, they do so hit me. AMO. Well sir, I am your lady; make use of any of these beginnings, or some other out of your own invention; and prove how you can hold up, and follow it. Say, say. ASO. Yes sir. "My dear Lindabrides." AMO. No, you affect that Lindabrides too much; and let me tell you it is not so courtly. Your pedant should provide you some parcels of French, or some pretty commodity of Italian, to commence with, if you would be exotic and exquisite. ASO. Yes, sir, he was at my lodging t'other morning, I gave him a doublet. AMO. Double your benevolence, and give him the hose too; clothe you his body, he will help to apparel your mind. But now, see what your proper genius can perform alone, without adjection of any other Minerva. ASO. I comprehend you sir. AMO. I do stand you, sir; fall back to your first place. Good, passing well: very properly pursued. ASO. "Beautiful, ambiguous, and sufficient lady, what! are you all alone?" AMO. "We would be, sir, if you would leave us." ASO. "I am at your beauty's appointment, bright angel; but--" AMO "What but?" ASO. "No harm, more than most fair feature." AMO. That touch relish'd well. ASO. "But I protest--" AMO. "And why should you protest?" ASO. "For good will, dear esteem'd madam, and I hope your ladyship will so conceive of it: And will, in time, return from your disdain, And rue the suff'rance of our friendly pain." AMO. O, that piece was excellent! If you could pick out more of these play-particles, and, as occasion shall salute you, embroider or damask your discourse with them, persuade your soul, it would most judiciously commend you. Come, this was a well-discharged and auspicious bout. Prove the second. ASO. "Lady, I cannot ruffle it in red and yellow." AMO. "Why if you can revel it in white, sir, 'tis sufficient." ASO. "Say you so, sweet lady! Lan, tede, de, de, de, dant, dant, dant, dante. [SINGS AND DANCES.] No, in good faith, madam, whosever told your ladyship so, abused you; but I would be glad to meet your ladyship in a measure." AMO. "Me sir! Belike you measure me by yourself, then?" ASO. "Would I might, fair feature." AMO. "And what were you the better, if you might?" ASO. "The better it please you to ask, fair lady." AMO. Why, this was ravishing, and most acutely continued. Well, spend not your humour too much, you have now competently exercised your conceit: this, once or twice a day, will render you an accomplish'd, elaborate, and well-levell'd gallant. Convey in your courting-stock, we will in the heat of this go visit the nymphs' chamber. ACT IV SCENE I.--AN APARTMENT IN THE PALACE. ENTER PHANTASTE, PHILAUTIA, ARGURION, MORIA, AND CUPID. PHA. I would this water would arrive once, our travelling friend so commended to us. ARG. So would I, for he has left all us in travail with expectation of it. PHA. Pray Jove, I never rise from this couch, if ever I thirsted more for a thing in my whole time of being a courtier. PHI Nor I, I'll be sworn: the very mention of it sets my lips in a worse heat, than if he had sprinkled them with mercury. Reach me the glass, sirrah. CUP. Here, lady. MOR. They do not peel, sweet charge, do they? PHI. Yes, a little, guardian. MOR. O, 'tis an eminent good sign. Ever when my lips do so, I am sure to have some delicious good drink or other approaching. ARG. Marry, and this may be good for us ladies, for it seems 'tis far fet by their stay. MOR. My palate for yours, dear Honour, it shall prove most elegant I warrant you. O, I do fancy this gear that's long a coming, with an unmeasurable strain. PHA. Pray thee sit down, Philautia; that rebatu becomes thee singularly. PHI. Is it not quaint? PHA. Yes faith. Methinks, thy servant Hedon is nothing so obsequious to thee, as he was wont to be: I know not how, he is grown out of his garb a-late, he's warp'd. MOR. In trueness, and so methinks too; he is much converted. PHI. Tut; let him be what he will, 'tis an animal I dream not of. This tire, methinks, makes me look very ingeniously, quick, and spirited; I should be some Laura, or some Delia, methinks. MOR. As I am wise, fair Honours, that title she gave him, to be her Ambition, spoil'd him: before, he was the most propitious and observant young novice-- PHA. No, no, you are the whole heaven awry, guardian; 'tis the swaggering coach-horse Anaides draws with him there, has been the diverter of him. PHI. For Cupid's sake speak no more of him; would I might never dare to look in a mirror again, if I respect ever a marmoset of 'em all, otherwise than I would a feather, or my shuttle-cock, to make sport with now and then. PHA. Come sit down: troth, and you be good beauties, let's run over them all now: Which is the properest man amongst them? I say, the traveller, Amorphus. PHI. O, fie on him, he looks like a Venetian trumpeter in the battle of Lepanto, in the gallery yonder; and speaks to the tune of a country lady that comes ever in the rearward or train of a fashion. MOR. I should have judgment in a feature, sweet beauties. PHA. A body would think so, at these years. MOR. And I prefer another now, far before him, a million at least. PHA. Who might that be, guardian? MOR. Marry, fair charge, Anaides. PHA. Anaides! you talk'd of a tune, Philautia; there's one speaks in a key, like the opening of some justice's gate, or a postboy's horn, as if his voice feared an arrest for some ill words it should give, and were loth to come forth. PHI. Ay, and he has a very imperfect face. PHA. Like a sea-monster, that were to ravish Andromeda from the rock. PHI. His hands too great too, by at least a straw's breadth. PHA. Nay, he has a worse fault than that too. PHI. A long heel? PHA. That were a fault in a lady, rather than him: no, they say he puts off the calves of his legs, with his stockings, every night. PHI. Out upon him! Turn to another of the pictures, for love's sake. What says Argurion? Whom does she commend afore the rest? CUP. I hope I have instructed her sufficiently for an answer. [ASIDE.] MOR. Troth, I made the motion to her ladyship for one to-day, i'the presence, but it appear'd she was otherways furnished before: she would none. PHA. Who was that Argurion? MOR. Marry, the poor plain gentleman in the black there. PHA. Who, Crites? ARG. Ay, ay, he: a fellow that nobody so much as look'd upon, or regarded; and she would have had me done him particular grace. PHA. That was a true trick of yourself, Moria, to persuade Argurion to affect the scholar. ARG. Tut, but she shall be no chooser for me. In good faith, I like the citizen's son there, Asotus; methinks none of them all come near him. PHA. Not Hedon? ARG. Hedon! In troth no. Hedon's a pretty slight courtier, and he wears his clothes well, and sometimes in fashion; marry, his face is but indifferent, and he has no such excellent body. No, the other is a most delicate youth; a sweet face, a straight body, a well-proportion'd leg and foot, a white hand, a tender voice. PHI. How now, Argurion! PHA. O, you should have let her alone, she was bestowing a copy of him upon us. Such a nose were enough to make me love a man, now. PHI. And then his several colours he wears; wherein he flourisheth changeably, every day. PHA. O, but his short hair, and his narrow eyes! PHI. Why she doats more palpably upon him than ever his father did upon her. PHA. Believe me, the young gentleman deserves it. If she could doat more, 'twere not amiss. He is an exceeding proper youth, and would have made a most neat barber surgeon, if he had been put to it in time. PHI. Say you so? Methinks he looks like a tailor already. PHA. Ay, that had sayed on one of his customer's suits. His face is like a squeezed orange, or-- ARG. Well ladies, jest on: the best of you both would be glad of such a servant. MOR. Ay, I'll be sworn would they, though he be a little shame-faced. PHA. Shame-faced, Moria! out upon him. Your shame-faced servant is your only gull. MOR. Go to, beauties, make much of time, and place, and occasion, and opportunity, and favourites, and things that belong to them, for I'll ensure you they will all relinquish; they cannot endure above another year; I know it out of future experience; and therefore take exhibition, and warning: I was once a reveller myself, and though I speak it, as mine own trumpet, I was then esteem'd-- PHI. The very march-pane of the court, I warrant you. PHA. And all the gallants came about you like flies, did they not? MOR. Go to, they did somewhat; that's no matter now. PHA. Nay, good Moria, be not angry. Put case, that we four now had the grant from Juno, to wish ourselves into what happy estate we could, what would you wish to be, Moria? MOR. Who, I! let me see now. I would wish to be a wise woman, and know all the secrets of court, city, and country. I would know what were done behind the arras, what upon the stairs, what in the garden, what in the nymphs' chamber, what by barge, and what by coach. I would tell you which courtier were scabbed and which not; which lady had her own face to lie with her a-nights and which not; who put off their teeth with their clothes in court, who their hair, who their complexion; and in which box they put it. There should not a nymph, or a widow, be got with child in the verge, but I would guess, within one or two, who was the right father, and in what month it was gotten; with what words, and which way. I would tell you which madam loved a monsieur, which a player, which a page; who slept with her husband, who with her friend, who with her gentleman-usher, who with her horse-keeper, who with her monkey, and who with all; yes, and who jigg'd the cock too. PHA. Fie, you'd tell all, Moria! If I should wish now, it should be to have your tongue out. But what says Philautia? Who should she be? PHI. Troth, the very same I am. Only I would wish myself a little more command and sovereignty; that all the court were subject to my absolute beck, and all things in it depending on my look; as if there were no other heaven but in my smile, nor other hell but in my frown; that I might send for any man I list, and have his head cut off when I have done with him, or made an eunuch if he denied me; and if I saw a better face than mine own, I might have my doctor to poison it. What would you wish, Phantaste? PHA. Faith, I cannot readily tell you what: but methinks I should wish myself all manner of creatures. Now I would be an empress, and by and by a duchess; then a great lady of state, then one of your miscellany madams, then a waiting-woman, then your citizen's wife, then a coarse country gentlewoman, then a dairy-maid, then a shepherd's lass, then an empress again, or the queen of fairies: and thus I would prove the vicissitudes and whirl of pleasures about and again. As I were a shepherdess, I would be piped and sung to; as a dairy-wench, I would dance at maypoles, and make syllabubs; as a country gentlewoman, keep a good house, and come up to term to see motions; as a citizen's wife, to be troubled with a jealous husband, and put to my shifts; others' miseries should be my pleasures. As a waiting-woman, I would taste my lady's delights to her; as a miscellany madam, invent new tires, and go visit courtiers; as a great lady, lie a-bed, and have courtiers visit me; as a duchess, I would keep my state; and as an empress, I would do any thing. And, in all these shapes, I would ever be follow'd with the affections of all that see me. Marry, I myself would affect none; or if I did, it should not be heartily, but so as I might save myself in them still, and take pride in tormenting the poor wretches. Or, now I think on't, I would, for one year, wish myself one woman; but the richest, fairest, and delicatest in a kingdom, the very centre of wealth and beauty, wherein all lines of love should meet; and in that person I would prove all manner of suitors, of all humours, and of all complexions, and never have any two of a sort. I would see how love, by the power of his object, could work inwardly alike, in a choleric man and a sanguine, in a melancholic and a phlegmatic, in a fool and a wise man, in a clown and a courtier, in a valiant man and a coward; and how he could vary outward, by letting this gallant express himself in dumb gaze; another with sighing and rubbing his fingers; a third with play-ends and pitiful verses; a fourth, with stabbing himself, and drinking healths, or writing languishing letters in his blood; a fifth, in colour'd ribands and good clothes; with this lord to smile, and that lord to court, and the t'other lord to dote, and one lord to hang himself. And, then, I to have a book made of all this, which I would call the "Book of Humours," and every night read a little piece ere I slept, and laugh at it.--Here comes Hedon. ENTER HEDON, ANAIDES, AND MERCURY, WHO RETIRES WITH CUPID TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE, WHERE THEY CONVERSE TOGETHER. HED. Save you sweet and clear beauties! By the spirit that moves in me, you are all most pleasingly bestow'd, ladies. Only I can take it for no good omen, to find mine Honour so dejected. PHI. You need not fear, sir; I did of purpose humble myself against your coming, to decline the pride of my Ambition. HED. Fair Honour, Ambition dares not stoop; but if it be your sweet pleasure, I shall lose that title, I will, as I am Hedon, apply myself to your bounties. PHI. That were the next way to dis-title myself of honour. O, no, rather be still Ambitious, I pray you. HED. I will be any thing that you please, whilst it pleaseth you to be yourself, lady. Sweet Phantaste, dear Moria, most beautiful Argurion-- ANA. Farewell, Hedon. HED. Anaides, stay, whither go you? ANA. 'Slight, what should I do here? an you engross them all for your own use, 'tis time for me to seek out. HED. I engross them! Away, mischief; this is one of your extravagant jests now, because I began to salute them by their names. ANA. Faith, you might have spared us madam Prudence, the guardian there, though you had more covetously aim'd at the rest. HED. 'Sheart, take them all, man: what speak you to me of aiming or covetous? ANA. Ay, say you so! nay, then, have at them: Ladies, here's one hath distinguish'd you by your names already: It shall only become me to ask how you do. HED. Ods so, was this the design you travail'd with? PHA. Who answers the brazen head? it spoke to somebody. ANA. Lady Wisdom, do you interpret for these puppets? MOR. In truth, and sadness, honours, you are in great offence for this. Go to; the gentleman (I'll undertake with him) is a man of fair living, and able to maintain a lady in her two coaches a day, besides pages, monkeys, and paraquettoes, with such attendants as she shall think meet for her turn; and therefore there is more respect requirable, howso'er you seem to connive. Hark you, sir, let me discourse a syllable with you. I am to say to you, these ladies are not of that close and open behaviour as haply you may suspend; their carriage is well known to be such as it should be, both gentle and extraordinary. MER. O, here comes the other pair. ENTER AMORPHUS AND ASOTUS. AMO. That was your father's love, the nymph Argurion. I would have you direct all your courtship thither; if you could but endear yourself to her affection, you were eternally engallanted. ASO. In truth, sir! pray Phoebus I prove favoursome in her fair eyes. AMO. All divine mixture, and increase of beauty to this bright bevy of ladies; and to the male courtiers, compliment and courtesy. HED. In the behalf of the males, I gratify you, Amorphus. PHA. And I of the females. AMO. Succinctly return'd. I do vail to both your thanks, and kiss them; but primarily to yours, most ingenious, acute, and polite lady. PHI. Ods my life, how he does all-to-bequalify her! "ingenious, acute", and "polite!" as if there was not others in place as ingenious, acute, and polite as she. HED Yes, but you must know, lady, he cannot speak out of a dictionary method. PHA. Sit down, sweet Amorphus. When will this water come, think you? AMO. It cannot now be long, fair lady. CUP. Now observe, Mercury. ASO. How, most ambiguous beauty! love you? that I will, by this handkerchief. MER. 'Slid, he draws his oaths out of his pocket. ARG. But will you be constant? ASO. Constant, madam! I will not say for constantness; but by this purse, which I would be loth to swear by, unless it were embroidered, I protest, more than most fair lady, you are the only absolute, and unparallel'd creature, I do adore, and admire, and respect, and reverence in this court, corner of the world, or kingdom. Methinks you are melancholy. ARG. Does your heart speak all this? ASO. Say you? MER. O, he is groping for another oath. ASO. Now by this watch--I marle how forward the day is--I do unfeignedly avow myself--'slight, 'tis deeper than I took it, past five--yours entirely addicted, madam. ARG. I require no more, dearest Asotus; henceforth let me call you mine, and in remembrance of me, vouchsafe to wear this chain and this diamond. ASO. O lord, sweet lady! CUP. There are new oaths for him. What! doth Hermes taste no alteration in all this? MER. Yes, thou hast strook Argurion enamour'd on Asotus, methinks. CUP. Alas, no; I am nobody, I; I can do nothing in this disguise. MER. But thou hast not wounded any of the rest, Cupid. CUP. Not yet; it is enough that I have begun so prosperously. ARG. Nay, these are nothing to the gems I will hourly bestow upon thee; be but faithful and kind to me, and I will lade thee with my richest bounties: behold, here my bracelets from mine arms. ASO. Not so, good lady, by this diamond. ARG. Take 'em, wear 'em; my jewels, chain of pearl pendants, all I have. ASO. Nay then, by this pearl you make me a wanton. CUP. Shall not she answer for this, to maintain him thus in swearing? MER. O no, there is a way to wean him from this, the gentleman may be reclaim'd. CUP. Ay, if you had the airing of his apparel, coz, I think. ASO. Loving! 'twere pity an I should be living else, believe me. Save you, sir, save you, sweet lady, save you, monsieur Anaides, save you, dear madam. ANA. Dost thou know him that saluted thee, Hedon? HED. No, some idle Fungoso, that hath got above the cupboard since yesterday. ANA. 'Slud, I never saw him till this morning, and he salutes me as familiarly as if we had known together since the deluge, or the first year of Troy action. AMO. A most right-handed and auspicious encounter. Confine yourself to your fortunes. PHI. For sport's sake let's have some Riddles or Purposes, ho! PHA. No, faith, your Prophecies are best, the t'other are stale. PHI. Prophecies! we cannot all sit in at them; we shall make a confusion. No; what call'd you that we had in the forenoon? PHA. Substantives, and adjectives, is it not, Hedon? PHI. Ay that. Who begins? PHA. I have thought; speak your adjectives, sirs. PHI. But do not you change then. PHA. Not I. Who says? MOR. Odoriferous. PHI. Popular. ARG. Humble. ANA. White-liver'd. HED. Barbarous. AMO. Pythagorical. HED. Yours, signior. ASO. What must I do, sir? AMO. Give forth your adjective with the rest; as prosperous, good, fair, sweet, well-- HED. Anything that hath not been spoken. ASO. Yes, sir, well-spoken shall be mine. PHA. What, have you all done? ALL. Ay. PHA. Then the substantive is Breeches. Why "odoriferous" breeches, guardian? MOR. Odoriferous,--because odoriferous: that which contains most variety of savour and smell we say is most odoriferous; now breeches, I presume, are incident to that variety, and therefore odoriferous breeches. PHA. Well, we must take it howsoever. Who's next? Philautia? PHI. Popular. PHA. Why "popular" breeches? PHA. Marry, that is, when they are not content to be generally noted in court, but will press forth on common stages and brokers' stalls, to the public view of the world. PHA. Good. Why "humble" breeches, Argurion? ARG. Humble! because they use to be sat upon; besides, if you tie them not up, their property is to fall down about your heels. MER. She has worn the breeches, it seems, which have done so. PHA. But why "white-liver'd?" ANA. Why! are not their linings white? Besides, when they come in swaggering company, and will pocket up any thing, may they not properly be said to be white-liver'd? PHA. O yes, we must not deny it. And why "barbarous," Hedon? HED. Barbarous! because commonly, when you have worn your breeches sufficiently, you give them to your barber. AMO. That's good; but how "Pythagorical?" PHI. Ay, Amorphus, why Pythagorical breeches? AMO. O most kindly of all; 'tis a conceit of that fortune, I am bold to hug my brain for. PHA. How is it, exquisite Amorphus? AMO. O, I am rapt with it, 'tis so fit, so proper, so happy-- PHI. Nay, do not rack us thus. AMO. I never truly relish'd myself before. Give me your ears. Breeches Pythagorical, by reason of their transmigration into several shapes. MOR. Most rare, in sweet troth. Marry this young gentleman, for his well-spoken-- PHA. Ay, why "well-spoken" breeches? ASO. Well-spoken! Marry, well-spoken, because--whatsoever they speak is well-taken; and whatsoever is well-taken is well-spoken. MOR. Excellent! believe me. ASO. Not so, ladies, neither. HED. But why breeches, now? PHA. Breeches, "quasi" bear-riches; when a gallant bears all his riches in his breeches. AMO. Most fortunately etymologised. PHA. 'Nay, we have another sport afore this, of A thing done, and who did it, etc. PHI. Ay, good Phantaste, let's have that: distribute the places. PHA. Why, I imagine, A thing done; Hedon thinks, who did it; Moria, with what it was done; Anaides, where it was done; Argurion, when it was done; Amorphus, for what cause was it done; you, Philautia, what followed upon the doing of it; and this gentleman, who would have done it better. What? is it conceived about? ALL. Yes, yes. PHA. Then speak you, sir. "Who would have done it better?" ASO. How! does it begin at me? PHA. Yes, sir: this play is called the Crab, it goes backward. ASO. May I not name myself? PHI. If you please, sir, and dare abide the venture of it. ASO. Then I would have done it better, whatever it is. PHA. No doubt on't, sir: a good confidence. "What followed upon the act," Philautia? PHI. A few heat drops, and a month's mirth. PHA. "For what cause," Amorphus? AMO. For the delight of ladies. PHA. "When," Argurion? ARG. Last progress. PHA. "Where," Anaides? ANA. Why, in a pair of pain'd slops. PHA. "With what," Moria? MOR. With a glyster. PHA. "Who," Hedon? HED. A traveller. PHA. Then the thing done was, "An oration was made." Rehearse. An oration was made-- HED. By a traveller-- MOR. With a glyster-- ANA. In a pair of pain'd slops-- ARG. Last progress-- AMO. For the delight of ladies-- PHI. A few heat drops, and a month's mirth followed. PHA. And, this silent gentleman would have done it better. ASO. This was not so good, now. PHI. In good faith, these unhappy pages would be whipp'd for staying thus. MOR. Beshrew my hand and my heart else. AMO. I do wonder at their protraction. ANA. Pray Venus my whore have not discover'd herself to the rascally boys, and that be the cause of their stay. ASO. I must suit myself with another page: this idle Prosaites will never be brought to wait well. MOR. Sir, I have a kinsman I could willingly wish to your service, if you will deign to accept of him. ASO. And I shall be glad, most sweet lady, to embrace him: Where is he? MOR. I can fetch him, sir, but I would be loth to make you turn away your other page. ASO. You shall not most sufficient lady; I will keep both: pray you let's go see him. ARG. Whither goes my love? ASO. I'll return presently, I go but to see a page with this lady. [EXEUNT ASOTUS AND MORIA.] ANA. As sure as fate, 'tis so: she has opened all: a pox of all cockatrices! D--n me, if she have play'd loose with me, I'll cut her throat within a hair's breadth, so it may be heal'd again. MER. What, is he jealous of his hermaphrodite? CUP. O, ay, this will be excellent sport. PHI. Phantaste, Argurion! what, you are suddenly struck, methinks! For love's sake let's have some music till they come: Ambition, reach the lyra, I pray you. HED. Anything to which my Honour shall direct me. PHI. Come Amorphus, cheer up Phantaste. AMO. It shall be my pride, fair lady, to attempt all that is in my power. But here is an instrument that alone is able to infuse soul into the most melancholic and dull-disposed creature upon earth. O, let me kiss thy fair knees. Beauteous ears attend it. HED. Will you have "the Kiss" Honour? PHI. Ay, good Ambition. HEDON SINGS. O, that joy so soon should waste! Or so sweet a bliss As a kiss Might not for ever last! So sugar'd, so melting, so soft, so delicious, The dew that lies on roses, When the morn herself discloses, Is not so precious. O rather than I would it smother, Were I to taste such another; It should be my wishing That I might die with kissing. HED. I made this ditty, and the note to it, upon a kiss that my Honour gave me; how like you it, sir? AMO. A pretty air; in general, I like it well: but in particular, your long die-note did arride me most, but it was somewhat too long. I can show one almost of the same nature, but much before it, and not so long, in a composition of mine own. I think I have both the note and ditty about me. HED. Pray you, sir, see. AMO. Yes, there is the note; and all the parts, if I misthink not. I will read the ditty to your beauties here; but first I am to make you familiar with the occasion, which presents itself thus. Upon a time, going to take my leave of the emperor, and kiss his great hands, there being then present the kings of France and Arragon, the dukes of Savoy, Florence, Orleans, Bourbon, Brunswick, the Landgrave, Count Palatine; all which had severally feasted me; besides infinite more of inferior persons, as counts and others: it was my chance (the emperor detained by some exorbitant affair) to wait him the fifth part of an hour, or much near it. In which time, retiring myself into a bay-window, the beauteous lady Annabel, niece to the empress, and sister to the king of Arragon, who having never before eyed me, but only heard the common report of my virtue, learning, and travel, fell into that extremity of passion for my love, that she there immediately swooned: physicians were sent for, she had to her chamber, so to her bed; where, languishing some few days, after many times calling upon me, with my name in her lips, she expired. As that (I must mourningly say) is the only fault of my fortune, that, as it hath ever been my hap to be sued to, by all ladies and beauties, where I have come; so I never yet sojourn'd or rested in that place or part of the world, where some high-born, admirable, fair feature died not for my love. MER. O, the sweet power of travel!--Are you guilty of this, Cupid? CUP. No, Mercury; and that his page Cos knows, if he were here present to be sworn. PHI. But how doth this draw on the ditty, sir? MER. O, she is too quick with him; he hath not devised that yet. AMO. Marry, some hour before she departed, she bequeath'd to me this glove: which golden legacy, the emperor himself took care to send after me, in six coaches, cover'd all with black-velvet, attended by the state of his empire; all which he freely presented me with: and I reciprocally (out of the same bounty) gave to the lords that brought it: only reserving the gift of the deceased lady, upon which I composed this ode, and set it to my most affected instrument, the lyra. Thou more then most sweet glove, Unto my more sweet love, Suffer me to store with kisses This empty lodging, that now misses The pure rosy hand, that wear thee, Whiter than the kid that bare thee: Thou art soft, but that was softer; Cupid's self hath kiss'd it ofter Than e'er he did his mother's doves. Supposing her the queen of loves That was thy mistress, BEST OF GLOVES. MER. Blasphemy, blasphemy, Cupid! CUP. I'll revenge it time enough, Hermes. PHI. Good Amorphus, let's hear it sung. AMO. I care not to admit that, since it pleaseth Philautia to request it. HED. Here, sir. AMO. Nay, play it, I pray you; you do well, you do well. [HE SINGS IT.]--How like you it, sir? HED. Very well, in troth. AMO. But very well! O, you are a mere mammothrept in judgment, then. Why, do not observe how excellently the ditty is affected in every place? that I do not marry a word of short quantity to a long note? nor an ascending syllable to a descending tone? Besides, upon the word "best" there, you see how I do enter with an odd minum, and drive it through the brief; which no intelligent musician, I know, but will affirm to be very rare, extraordinary, and pleasing. MER. And yet not fit to lament the death of a lady, for all this. CUP. Tut, here be they will swallow anything. PHA. Pray you, let me have a copy of it, Amorphus. PHI. And me too; in troth I like it exceedingly. AMO. I have denied it to princes; nevertheless to you, the true female twins of perfection, I am won to depart withal. HED. I hope, I shall have my Honour's copy. PHA. You are Ambitious in that, Hedon. RE-ENTER ANAIDES. AMO. How now, Anaides! what is it hath conjured up this distemperature in the circle of your face? ANA. Why, what have you to do? A pox upon your filthy travelling face! hold your tongue. HED. Nay, dost hear, Mischief? ANA. Away, musk-cat! AMO. I say to thee thou art rude, debauch'd, impudent, coarse, unpolish'd, a frapler, and base. HED. Heart of my father, what a strange alteration has half a year's haunting of ordinaries wrought in this fellow! that came with a tufftaffata jerkin to town but the other day, and a pair of pennyless hose, and now he is turn'd Hercules, he wants but a club. ANA. Sir, you with the pencil on your chin; I will garter my hose with your guts, and that shall be all. [EXIT.] MER. 'Slid, what rare fireworks be here? flash, flash. PHA. What is the matter Hedon? can you tell? HED. Nothing, but that he lacks crowns, and thinks we'll lend him some to be friends. RE-ENTER ASOTUS AND MORIA, WITH MORUS. ASO. Come sweet lady, in good truth I'll have it, you shall not deny me. Morus, persuade your aunt I may have her picture, by any means. MORUS. Yea, sir: good aunt now, let him have it; he will use me the better; if you love me do, good aunt. MOR. Well, tell him he shall have it. MORUS. Master, you shall have it, she says. ASO. Shall I? thank her, good page. CUP. What, has he entertained the fool? MER. Ay, he'll wait close, you shall see, though the beggar hang off a while. MORUS. Aunt, my master thanks you. MOR. Call him hither. MORUS. Yes; master. MOR. Yes, in verity, and gave me this purse, and he has promised me a most fine dog; which he will have drawn with my picture, he says: and desires most vehemently to be known to your ladyships. PHA. Call him hither, 'tis good groping such a gull. MORUS. Master Asotus, master Asotus! ASO. For love's sake, let me go: you see I am call'd to the ladies. ARG. Wilt thou forsake me, then? ASO. Od so! what would you have me do? MOR. Come hither, master Asotus.--I do ensure your ladyships, he is a gentleman of a very worthy desert: and of a most bountiful nature.--You must shew and insinuate yourself responsible, and equivalent now to my commendment.--Good honours grace him. ASO. I protest, more then most fair ladies, "I do wish all variety of divine pleasures, choice sports, sweet music, rich fare, brave attire, soft beds, and silken thoughts, attend these fair beauties". Will it please your ladyship to wear this chain of pearl, and this diamond, for my sake? ARG. O! ASO. And you, madam, this jewel and pendants? ARG. O! PHA. We know not how to deserve these bounties, out of so slight merit, Asotus. PHI. No, in faith, but there's my glove for a favour. PHA. And soon after the revels, I will bestow a garter on you. ASO. O lord, ladies! it is more grace than ever I could have hoped, but that it pleaseth your ladyships to extend. I protest it is enough, that you but take knowledge of my--if your ladyships want embroidered gowns, tires of any fashion, rebatues, jewels, or carcanets, any thing whatsoever, if you vouchsafe to accept-- CUP. And for it they will help you to shoe-ties, and devices. ASO. I cannot utter myself, dear beauties, but; you can conceive-- ARG. O! PHA. Sir, we will acknowledge your service, doubt not-- henceforth, you shall be no more Asotus to us, but our goldfinch, and we your cages. ASO. O Venus! madams! how shall I deserve this? if I were but made acquainted with Hedon, now,--I'll try: pray you, away. [TO ARGURION.] MER. How he prays money to go away from him. ASO. Amorphus, a word with you; here's a watch I would bestow upon you, pray you make me known to that gallant. AMO. That I will, sir.--Monsieur Hedon, I must entreat you to exchange knowledge with this gentleman. HED. 'Tis a thing, next to the water, we expect, I thirst after, sir. Good monsieur Asotus. ASO. Good monsieur Hedon, I would be glad to be loved of men of your rank and spirit, I protest. Please you to accept this pair of bracelets, sir; they are not worth the bestowing-- MER. O Hercules, how the gentleman purchases, this must needs bring Argurion to a consumption. HED. Sir, I shall never stand in the merit of such bounty, I fear. ASO. O Venus, sir; your acquaintance shall be sufficient. And if at any time you need my bill, or my bond-- ARG. O! O! [SWOONS.] AMO. Help the lady there! MOR. Gods-dear, Argurion! madam, how do you? ARG. Sick. PHA. Have her forth, and give her air. ASO. I come again straight, ladies. [EXEUNT ASOTUS, MORUS, AND ARGURION.] MER. Well, I doubt all the physic he has will scarce recover her; she's too far spent. RE-ENTER ANAIDES WITH GELAIA, PROSAITES, AND COS, WITH THE BOTTLES. PHI. O here's the water come; fetch glasses, page. GEL. Heart of my body, here's a coil, indeed, with your jealous humours! nothing but whore and bitch, and all the villainous swaggering names you can think on! 'Slid, take your bottle, and put it in your guts for me, I'll see you pox'd ere I follow you any longer. ANA. Nay, good punk, sweet rascal; d--n me, if I am jealous now. GEL. That's true, indeed, pray let's go. MOR. What's the matter there? GEL. 'Slight, he has me upon interrogatories, (nay, my mother shall know how you use me,) where I have been? and why I should stay so long? and how is't possible? and withal calls me at his pleasure I know not how many cockatrices, and things. MOR. In truth and sadness, these are no good epitaphs Anaides, to bestow upon any gentlewoman; and I'll ensure you if I had known you would have dealt thus with my daughter, she should never have fancied you so deeply as she has done. Go to. ANA. Why, do you hear, mother Moria? heart! MOR. Nay, I pray you, sir, do not swear. ANA. Swear! why? 'sblood, I have sworn afore now, I hope. Both you and your daughter mistake me. I have not honour'd Arete, that is held the worthiest lady in the court, next to Cynthia, with half that observance and respect, as I have done her in private, howsoever outwardly I have carried myself careless, and negligent. Come, you are a foolish punk, and know not when you are well employed. Kiss me, come on; do it, I say. MOR. Nay, indeed, I must confess, she is apt to misprision. But I must have you leave it, minion. RE-ENTER ASOTUS. AMO. How now, Asotus! how does the lady? ASO. Faith, ill. I have left my page with her, at her lodging. HED. O, here's the rarest water that ever was tasted: fill him some. PRO. What! has my master a new page? MER. Yes, a kinsman of the lady Moria's: you must wait better now, or you are cashiered, Prosaites. ANA. Come, gallants; you must pardon my foolish humour; when I am angry, that any thing crosses me, I grow impatient straight. Here, I drink to you. PHI. O, that we had five or six bottles more of this liquor! PHA. Now I commend your judgment, Amorphus:-- [KNOCKING WITHIN.] Who's that knocks? look, page. [EXIT COS.] MOR. O, most delicious; a little of this would make Argurion well. PHA. O, no, give her no cold drink, by any means. ANA. 'Sblood, this water is the spirit of wine, I'll be hang'd else. RE-ENTER COS WITH ARETE. COS. Here's the lady Arete, madam. ARE. What, at your bever, gallants? MOR. Will't please your ladyship to drink? 'tis of the New Fountain water. ARE. Not I, Moria, I thank you.--Gallants, you are for this night free to your peculiar delights; Cynthia will have no sports: when she is pleased to come forth, you shall have knowledge. In the mean time, I could wish you did provide for solemn revels, and some unlooked for device of wit, to entertain her, against she should vouchsafe to grace your pastimes with her presence. AMO. What say you to a masque? HED. Nothing better, if the project were new and rare. ARE. Why, I'll send for Crites, and have his advice: be you ready in your endeavours: he shall discharge you of the inventive part. PHA. But will not your ladyship stay? ARE. Not now, Phantaste. [EXIT.] PHI. Let her go, I pray you, good lady Sobriety, I am glad we are rid of her. PHA. What a set face the gentlewoman has, as she were still going to a sacrifice! PHI. O, she is the extraction of a dozen of Puritans, for a look. MOR. Of all nymphs i' the court, I cannot away with her; 'tis the coarsest thing! PHI. I wonder how Cynthia can affect her so above the rest. Here be they are every way as fair as she, and a thought, fairer, I trow. PHA. Ay, and as ingenious and conceited as she. MOR. Ay, and as politic as she, for all she sets such a forehead on't. PHI. Would I were dead, if I would change to be Cynthia. PHA. Or I. MOR. Or I. AMO. And there's her minion, Crites: why his advice more than Amorphus? Have I not invention afore him? Learning to better that invention above him? and infanted with pleasant travel-- ANA. Death, what talk you of his learning? he understands no more than a schoolboy; I have put him down myself a thousand times, by this air, and yet I never talk'd with him but twice in my life: you never saw his like. I could never get him to argue with me but once; and then because I could not construe an author I quoted at first sight, he went away, and laughed at me. By Hercules, I scorn him, as I do the sodden nymph that was here even now; his mistress, Arete: and I love myself for nothing else. HED. I wonder the fellow does not hang himself, being thus scorn'd and contemn'd of us that are held the most accomplish'd society of gallants. MER. By yourselves, none else. HED. I protest, if I had no music in me, no courtship; that I were not a reveller and could dance, or had not those excellent qualities that give a man life and perfection, but a mere poor scholar as he is, I think I should make some desperate way with myself; whereas now,--would I might never breathe more, if I do know that creature in this kingdom with whom I would change. CUP. This is excellent! Well, I must alter all this soon. MER. Look you do, Cupid. The bottles have wrought, it seems. ASO. O, I am sorry the revels are crost. I should have tickled it soon. I did never appear till then. 'Slid, I am the neatliest-made gallant i' the company, and have the best presence; and my dancing --well, I know what our usher said to me last time I was at the school: Would I might have led Philautia in the measures, an it had been the gods' will! I am most worthy, I am sure. RE-ENTER MORUS. MORUS. Master, I can tell you news; the Lady kissed me yonder, and played with me, and says she loved you once as well as she does me, but that you cast her off. ASO. Peace, my most esteemed page. MORUS. Yes. ASO. What luck is this, that our revels are dash'd, now was I beginning to glister in the very highway of preferment. An Cynthia had but seen me dance a strain, or do but one trick, I had been kept in court, I should never have needed to look towards my friends again. AMO. Contain yourself, you were a fortunate young man, if you knew your own good; which I have now projected, and will presently multiply upon you. Beauties and valours, your vouchsafed applause to a motion. The humorous Cynthia hath, for this night, withdrawn the light of your delight. PHA. 'Tis true, Amorphus: what may we do to redeem it? AMO. Redeem that we cannot, but to create a new flame is in our power. Here is a gentleman, my scholar, whom, for some private reasons me specially moving, I am covetous to gratify with title of master in the noble and subtile science of courtship: for which grace, he shall this night, in court, and in the long gallery, hold his public act, by open challenge, to all masters of the mystery whatsoever, to play at the four choice and principal weapons thereof, viz., "the Bare Accost, the Better Regard, the Solemn Address," and "the Perfect Close." What say you? ALL. Excellent, excellent, Amorphus. AMO. Well, let us then take our time by the forehead: I will instantly have bills drawn, and advanced in every angle of the court.--Sir, betray not your too much joy.--Anaides, we must mix this gentleman with you in acquaintance, monsieur Asotus. ANA. I am easily entreated to grace any of your friends, Amorphus. ASO. Sir, and his friends shall likewise grace you, sir. Nay, I begin to know myself now. AMO. O, you must continue your bounties. ASO. Must I? Why, I'll give him this ruby on my finger. Do you hear sir? I do heartily wish your acquaintance, and I partly know myself worthy of it; please you, sir, to accept this poor ruby in a ring, sir. The poesy is of my own device, "Let this blush for me," sir. ANA. So it must for me too, for I am not asham'd to take it. MORUS. Sweet man! By my troth, master, I love you; will you love me too, for my aunt's sake? I'll wait well, you shall see. I'll still be here. Would I might never stir, but you are a fine man in these clothes; master, shall I have them when you have done with them? ASO. As for that, Morus, thou shalt see more hereafter; in the mean time, by this air, or by this feather, I'll do as much for thee, as any gallant shall do for his page, whatsoever, in this court, corner of the world, or kingdom. [EXEUNT ALL BUT THE PAGES.] MER. I wonder this gentleman should affect to keep a fool: methinks he makes sport enough with himself. CUP. Well, Prosaites, 'twere good you did wait closer. PRO. Ay, I'll look to it; 'tis time. COS. The revels would have been most sumptuous to-night, if they had gone forward. [EXIT.] MER. They must needs, when all the choicest singularities of the court were up in pantofles; ne'er a one of them but was able to make a whole show of itself. ASO. [WITHIN.] Sirrah, a torch, a torch! PRO. O, what a call is there! I will have a canzonet made, with nothing in it but sirrah; and the burthen shall be, I come. [EXIT.] MER. How now, Cupid, how do you like this change? CUP. Faith, the thread of my device is crack'd, I may go sleep till the revelling music awake me. MER. And then, too, Cupid, without you had prevented the fountain. Alas, poor god, that remembers not self-love to be proof against the violence of his quiver! Well, I have a plot against these prizers, for which I must presently find out Crites, and with his assistance pursue it to a high strain of laughter, or Mercury hath lost of his metal. [EXEUNT.] ACT V SCENE I.--THE SAME. ENTER MERCURY AND CRITES. MER. It is resolved on, Crites, you must do it. CRI. The grace divinest Mercury hath done me, In this vouchsafed discovery of himself, Binds my observance in the utmost term Of satisfaction to his godly will: Though I profess, without the affectation Of an enforced and form'd austerity, I could be willing to enjoy no place With so unequal natures. MER. We believe it. But for our sake, and to inflict just pains On their prodigious follies, aid us now: No man is presently made bad with ill. And good men, like the sea, should still maintain Their noble taste, in midst of all fresh humours That flow about them, to corrupt their streams, Bearing no season, much less salt of goodness. It is our purpose, Crites, to correct, And punish, with our laughter, this night's sport, Which our court-dors so heartily intend: And by that worthy scorn, to make them know How far beneath the dignity of man Their serious and most practised actions are. CRI. Ay, but though Mercury can warrant out His undertakings, and make all things good, Out of the powers of his divinity, Th' offence will be return'd with weight on me, That am a creature so despised and poor; When the whole court shall take itself abused By our ironical confederacy. MER. You are deceived. The better race in court, That have the true nobility call'd virtue, Will apprehend it, as a grateful right Done to their separate merit; and approve The fit rebuke of so ridiculous heads, Who, with their apish customs and forced garbs, Would bring the name of courtier in contempt, Did it not live unblemish'd in some few, Whom equal Jove hath loved, and Phoebus form'd Of better metal, and in better mould. CRI. Well, since my leader-on is Mercury, I shall not fear to follow. If I fall, My proper virtue shall be my relief, That follow'd such a cause, and such a chief. [EXEUNT.] SCENE II.--ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER ASOTUS AND AMORPHUS. ASO. No more, if you love me, good master; you are incompatible to live withal: send me for the ladies! AMO. Nay, but intend me. ASO. Fear me not; I warrant you, sir. AMO. Render not yourself a refractory on the sudden. I can allow, well, you should repute highly, heartily, and to the most, of your own endowments; it gives you forth to the world the more assured: but with reservation of an eye, to be always turn'd dutifully back upon your teacher. ASO. Nay, good sir, leave it to me. Trust me with trussing all the points of this action, I pray. 'Slid, I hope we shall find wit to perform the science as well as another. AMO. I confess you to be of an apted and docible humour. Yet there are certain punctilios, or (as I may more nakedly insinuate them) certain intrinsecate strokes and wards, to which your activity is not yet amounted, as your gentle dor in colours. For supposition, your mistress appears here in prize, ribanded with green and yellow; now, it is the part of every obsequious servant, to be sure to have daily about him copy and variety of colours, to be presently answerable to any hourly or half-hourly change in his mistress's revolution-- ASO. I know it, sir. AMO. Give leave, I pray you--which, if your antagonist, or player against you, shall ignorantly be without, and yourself can produce, you give him the dor. ASO. Ay, ay, sir. AMO. Or, if you can possess your opposite, that the green your mistress wears, is her rejoicing or exultation in his service; the yellow, suspicion of his truth, from her height of affection: and that he, greenly credulous, shall withdraw thus, in private, and from the abundance of his pocket (to displace her jealous conceit) steal into his hat the colour, whose blueness doth express trueness, she being not so, nor so affected; you give him the dor. ASO. Do not I know it, sir? AMO. Nay, good--swell not above your understanding. There is yet a third dor in colours. ASO. I know it too, I know it. AMO. Do you know it too? what is it? make good your knowledge. ASO. Why it is--no matter for that. AMO. Do it, on pain of the dor. ASO. Why; what is't, say you? AMO. Lo, you have given yourself the dor. But I will remonstrate to you the third dor, which is not, as the two former dors, indicative, but deliberative: as how? as thus. Your rival is, with a dutiful and serious care, lying in his bed, meditating how to observe his mistress, dispatcheth his lacquey to the chamber early, to know what her colours are for the day, with purpose to apply his wear that day accordingly: you lay wait before, preoccupy the chamber-maid, corrupt her to return false colours; he follows the fallacy, comes out accoutred to his believed instructions; your mistress smiles, and you give him the dor. ASO. Why, so I told you, sir, I knew it. AMO. Told me! It is a strange outrecuidance, your humour too much redoundeth. ASO. Why, sir, what, do you think you know more? AMO. I know that a cook may as soon and properly be said to smell well, as you to be wise. I know these are most clear and clean strokes. But then, you have your passages and imbrocatas in courtship; as the bitter bob in wit; the reverse in face or wry-mouth; and these more subtile and secure offenders. I will example unto you: Your opponent makes entry as you are engaged with your mistress. You seeing him, close in her ear with this whisper, "Here comes your baboon, disgrace him"; and withal stepping off, fall on his bosom, and turning to her, politely, aloud say, Lady, regard this noble gentleman, a man rarely parted, second to none in this court; and then, stooping over his shoulder, your hand on his breast, your mouth on his backside, you give him the reverse stroke, with this sanna, or stork's-bill, which makes up your wit's bob most bitter. ASO. Nay, for heaven's sake, teach me no more. I know all as well --'Slid, if I did not, why was I nominated? why did you choose me? why did the ladies prick out me? I am sure there were other gallants. But me of all the rest! By that light, and, as I am a courtier, would I might never stir, but 'tis strange. Would to the lord the ladies would come once! ENTER MORPHIDES. MORP. Signior, the gallants and ladies are at hand. Are you ready, sir? AMO. Instantly. Go, accomplish your attire: [EXIT ASOTUS.] Cousin Morphides, assist me to make good the door with your officious tyranny. CITIZEN. [WITHIN.] By your leave, my masters there, pray you let's come by. PAGES. [WITHIN.] You by! why should you come by more than we? CITIZEN'S WIFE. [WITHIN.] Why, sir! because he is my brother that plays the prizes. MORP. Your brother! CITIZEN. [WITHIN.] Ay, her brother, sir, and we must come in. TAILOR. [WITHIN.] Why, what are you? CITIZEN. [WITHIN.] I am her husband, sir. TAILOR. [WITHIN.] Then thrust forward your head. AMO. What tumult is there? MORP. Who's there? bear back there! Stand from the door! AMO. Enter none but the ladies and their hang-byes.-- ENTER PHANTASTE, PHILAUTIA, ARGURION, MORIA, HEDON, AND ANAIDES, INTRODUCING TWO LADIES. Welcome beauties, and your kind shadows. HED. This country lady, my friend, good signior Amorphus. ANA. And my cockatrice here. AMO. She is welcome. THE CITIZEN, AND HIS WIFE, PAGES, ETC., APPEAR AT THE DOOR. MORP. Knock those same pages there; and, goodman coxcomb the citizen, who would you speak withal? WIFE. My brother. AMO. With whom? your brother! MORP. Who is your brother? WIFE. Master Asotus. AMO. Master Asotus! is he your brother? he is taken up with great persons; he is not to know you to-night. RE-ENTER ASOTUS HASTILY. ASO. O Jove, master! an there come e'er a citizen gentlewoman in my name, let her have entrance, I pray you: it is my sister. WIFE. Brother! CIT. [THRUSTING IN.] Brother, master Asotus! ASO. Who's there? WIFE. 'Tis I, brother. ASO. Gods me, there she is! good master, intrude her. MORP. Make place! bear back there! ENTER CITIZEN'S WIFE. AMO. Knock that simple fellow there. WIFE. Nay, good sir, it is my husband. MORP. The simpler fellow he.--Away! back with your head, sir! [PUSHES THE CITIZEN BACK.] ASO. Brother, you must pardon your non-entry: husbands are not allow'd here, in truth. I'll come home soon with my sister: pray you meet us with a lantern, brother. Be merry, sister: I shall make you laugh anon. [EXIT.] PHA. Your prizer is not ready, Amorphus. AMO. Apprehend your places; he shall be soon, and at all points. ANA. Is there any body come to answer him? shall we have any sport? AMO. Sport of importance; howsoever, give me the gloves. HED. Gloves! why gloves, signior? PHI. What's the ceremony? AMO. [DISTRIBUTING GLOVES.] Beside their received fitness, at all prizes, they are here properly accommodate to the nuptials of my scholar's 'haviour to the lady Courtship. Please you apparel your hands. Madam Phantaste, madam Philautia, guardian, signior Hedon, signior Anaides, gentlemen all, ladies. ALL. Thanks, good Amorphus. AMO. I will now call forth my provost, and present him. [EXIT.] ANA. Heart! why should not we be masters as well as he? HED. That's true, and play our masters' prizes as well as the t'other? MOR. In sadness, for using your court-weapons, methinks you may. PHA. Nay, but why should not we ladies play our prizes, I pray? I see no reason but we should take them down at their own weapons. PHI. Troth, and so we may, if we handle them well. WIFE. Ay, indeed, forsooth, madam, if 'twere in the city, we would think foul scorn but we would, forsooth. PHA. Pray you, what should we call your name? WIFE. My name is Downfall. HED. Good mistress Downfall! I am sorry your husband could not get in. WIFE. 'Tis no matter for him, sir. ANA. No, no, she has the more liberty for herself. [A FLOURISH.] PHA. Peace, peace! they come. RE-ENTER AMORPHUS, INTRODUCING ASOTUS IN A FULL-DRESS SUIT. AMO. So, keep up your ruff; the tincture of your neck is not all so pure, but it will ask it. Maintain your sprig upright; your cloke on your half-shoulder falling; so: I will read your bill, advance it, and present you.--Silence! "Be it known to all that profess courtship, by these presents (from the white satin reveller, to the cloth of tissue and bodkin) that we, Ulysses-Polytropus-Amorphus, master of the noble and subtile science of courtship, do give leave and licence to our provost, Acolastus-Polypragmon-Asotus, to play his master's prize, against all masters whatsoever, in this subtile mystery, at these four, the choice and most cunning weapons of court-compliment, viz. the BARE ACCOST; the BETTER REGARD; the SOLEMN ADDRESS; and the PERFECT CLOSE. These are therefore to give notice to all comers, that he, the said Acolastus-Polypragmon-Asotus, is here present (by the help of his mercer, tailor, milliner, sempster, and so forth) at his designed hour, in this fair gallery, the present day of this present month, to perform and do his uttermost for the achievement and bearing away of the prizes, which are these: viz. For the Bare Accost, two wall-eyes in a face forced: for the Better Regard, a face favourably simpering, with a fan waving: for the Solemn Address, two lips wagging, and never a wise word: for the Perfect Close, a wring by the hand, with a banquet in a corner. And Phoebus save Cynthia!" Appeareth no man yet, to answer the prizer? no voice?--Music, give them their summons. [MUSIC.] PHA. The solemnity of this is excellent. AMO. Silence! Well, I perceive your name is their terror, and keepeth them back. ASO. I'faith, master, let's go; no body comes. 'Victus, victa, victum; victi, victae, victi--let's be retrograde. AMO. Stay. That were dispunct to the ladies. Rather ourself shall be your encounter. Take your state up to the wall; and, lady, [LEADING MORIA TO THE STATE.] may we implore you to stand forth, as first term or bound to our courtship. HED. 'Fore heaven, 'twill shew rarely. AMO. Sound a charge. [A CHARGE.] ANA. A pox on't! Your vulgar will count this fabulous and impudent now: by that candle, they'll never conceit it. [THEY ACT THEIR ACCOST SEVERALLY TO MORIA.] PHA. Excellent well! admirable! PHI. Peace! HED. Most fashionably, believe it. PHI. O, he is a well-spoken gentleman. PHA. Now the other. PHI. Very good. HED. For a scholar, Honour. ANA. O, 'tis too Dutch. He reels too much. [A FLOURISH.] HED. This weapon is done. AMO. No, we have our two bouts at every weapon; expect. CRI. [WITHIN.] Where be these gallants, and their brave prizer here? MORP. Who's there? bear back; keep the door. ENTER CRITES, INTRODUCING MERCURY FANTASTICALLY DRESSED. AMO. What are you, sir? CRI. By your license, grand-master.--Come forward, sir. [TO MERCURY.] ANA. Heart! who let in that rag there amongst us? Put him out, an impecunious creature. HED. Out with him. MORP. Come, sir. AMO. You must be retrograde. CRI. Soft, sir, I am truchman, and do flourish before this monsieur, or French-behaved gentleman, here; who is drawn hither by report of your chartels, advanced in court, to prove his fortune with your prizer, so he may have fair play shewn him, and the liberty to choose his stickler. AMO. Is he a master? CRI. That, sir, he has to shew here; and confirmed under the hands of the most skilful and cunning complimentaries alive: Please you read, sir. [GIVES HIM A CERTIFICATE.] AMO. What shall we do? ANA. Death! disgrace this fellow in the black stuff, whatever you do. AMO. Why, but he comes with the stranger. HED. That's no matter: he is our own countryman. ANA. Ay, and he is a scholar besides. You may disgrace him here with authority. AMO. Well, see these first. ASO. Now shall I be observed by yon scholar, till I sweat again; I would to Jove it were over. CRI. [TO MERCURY.] Sir, this is the wight of worth, that dares you to the encounter. A gentleman of so pleasing and ridiculous a carriage; as, even standing, carries meat in the mouth, you see; and, I assure you, although no bred courtling, yet a most particular man, of goodly havings, well-fashion'd 'haviour, and of as hardened and excellent a bark as the most naturally qualified amongst them, inform'd, reform'd, and transform'd, from his original citycism; by this elixir, or mere magazine of man. And, for your spectators, you behold them what they are: the most choice particulars in court: this tells tales well; this provides coaches; this repeats jests; this presents gifts; this holds up the arras; this takes down from horse; this protests by this light; this swears by that candle; this delighteth; this adoreth: yet all but three men. Then, for your ladies, the most proud, witty creatures, all things apprehending, nothing understanding, perpetually laughing, curious maintainers of fools, mercers, and minstrels, costly to be kept, miserably keeping, all disdaining but their painter and apothecary, 'twixt whom and them there is this reciprock commerce, their beauties maintain their painters, and their painters their beauties. MER. Sir, you have plaid the painter yourself, and limn'd them to the life. I desire to deserve before them. AMO. [RETURNING THE CERTIFICATE.] This is authentic. We must resolve to entertain the monsieur, howsoever we neglect him. HED. Come, let's all go together, and salute him. ANA. Content, and not look on the other. AMO. Well devised; and a most punishing disgrace. HED. On. AMO. Monsieur, we must not so much betray ourselves to discourtship, as to suffer you to be longer unsaluted: please you to use the state ordain'd for the opponent; in which nature, without envy, we receive you. HED. And embrace you. ANA. And commend us to you, sir. PHI. Believe it, he is a man of excellent silence. PHA. He keeps all his wit for action. ANA. This hath discountenanced our scholaris, most richly. HED. Out of all emphasis. The monsieur sees we regard him not. AMO. Hold on; make it known how bitter a thing it is not to be look'd on in court. HED. 'Slud, will he call him to him yet! Does not monsieur perceive our disgrace? ANA. Heart! he is a fool, I see. We have done ourselves wrong to grace him. HED. 'Slight, what an ass was I to embrace him! CRI. Illustrious and fearful judges-- HED. Turn away, turn away. CRI. It is the suit of the strange opponent (to whom you ought not to turn your tails, and whose noses I must follow) that he may have the justice, before he encounter his respected adversary, to see some light stroke of his play, commenced with some other. HED. Answer not him, but the stranger: we will not believe him. AMO. I will demand him, myself. CRI. O dreadful disgrace, if a man were so foolish to feel it. AMO. Is it your suit, monsieur, to see some prelude of my scholar? Now, sure the monsieur wants language-- HED. And take upon him to be one of the accomplished! 'Slight, that's a good jest; would we could take him with that nullity.-- "Non sapete voi parlar' Italiano?" ANA. 'Sfoot, the carp has no tongue. CRI. Signior, in courtship, you are to bid your abettors forbear, and satisfy the monsieur's request. AMO. Well, I will strike him more silent with admiration, and terrify his daring hither. He shall behold my own play with my scholar. Lady, with the touch of your white hand, let me reinstate you. [LEADS MORIA BACK TO THE STATE.] Provost, [TO ASOTUS.] begin to me at the "Bare Accost". [A CHARGE.] Now, for the honour of my discipline. HED. Signior Amorphus, reflect, reflect; what means he by that mouthed wave? CRI. He is in some distaste of your fellow disciple. MER. Signior, your scholar might have played well still, if he could have kept his seat longer; I have enough of him, now. He is a mere piece of glass, I see through him by this time. AMO. You come not to give us the scorn, monsieur? MER. Nor to be frighted with a face, signior. I have seen the lions. You must pardon me. I shall be loth to hazard a reputation with one that has not a reputation to lose. AMO. How! CRI. Meaning your pupil, sir. ANA. This is that black devil there. AMO. You do offer a strange affront, monsieur. CRI. Sir, he shall yield you all the honour of a competent adversary, if you please to undertake him. MER. I am prest for the encounter. AMO. Me! challenge me! ASO. What, my master, sir! 'Slight, monsieur, meddle with me, do you hear: but do not meddle with my master. MER. Peace, good squib, go out. CRI. And stink, he bids you. ASO. Master! AMO. Silence! I do accept him. Sit you down and observe. Me! he never profest a thing at more charges.--Prepare yourself sir. --Challenge me! I will prosecute what disgrace my hatred can dictate to me. CRI. How tender a traveller's spleen is! Comparison to men that deserve least, is ever most offensive. AMO. You are instructed in our chartel, and know our weapons? MER. I appear not without their notice, sir. ASO. But must I lose the prizes, master? AMO. I will win them for you; be patient.--Lady, [TO MORIA.] vouchsafe the tenure of this ensign.--Who shall be your stickler? MER. Behold him. [POINTS TO CRITES.] AMO. I would not wish you a weaker.--Sound, musics.--I provoke you at the Bare Accost. [A CHARGE.] PHA. Excellent comely! CRI. And worthily studied. This is the exalted foretop. HED. O, his leg was too much produced. ANA. And his hat was carried scurvily. PHI. Peace; let's see the monsieur's Accost: Rare! PHA. Sprightly and short. ANA. True, it is the French courteau: he lacks but to have his nose slit. HED. He does hop. He does bound too much. [A FLOURISH.] AMO. The second bout, to conclude this weapon. [A CHARGE.] PHA. Good, believe it! PHI. An excellent offer! CRI. This is called the solemn band-string. HED. Foh, that cringe was not put home. ANA. He makes a face like a stabb'd Lucrece. ASO. Well, he would needs take it upon him, but would I had done it for all this. He makes me sit still here, like a baboon as I am. CRI. Making villainous faces. PHI. See, the French prepares it richly. CRI. Ay, this is ycleped the Serious Trifle. ANA. 'Slud, 'tis the horse-start out o' the brown study. CRI. Rather the bird-eyed stroke, sir. Your observance is too blunt, sir. [A FLOURISH.] AMO. Judges, award the prize. Take breath, sir. This bout hath been laborious. ASO. And yet your critic, or your besongno, will think these things foppery, and easy, now! CRI. Or rather mere lunacy. For would any reasonable creature make these his serious studies and perfections, much less, only live to these ends? to be the false pleasure of a few, the true love of none, and the just laughter of all? HED. We must prefer the monsieur, we courtiers must be partial. ANA. Speak, guardian. Name the prize, at the Bare Accost. MOR. A pair of wall-eyes in a face forced. ANA. Give the monsieur. Amorphus hath lost his eyes. AMO. I! Is the palate of your judgment down? Gentles, I do appeal. ASO. Yes, master, to me: the judges be fools. ANA. How now, sir! tie up your tongue, mungrel. He cannot appeal. ASO. Say, you sir? ANA. Sit you still, sir. ASO. Why, so I do; do not I, I pray you? MER. Remercie, madame, and these honourable censors. AMO. Well, to the second weapon, the "Better Regard". I will encounter you better. Attempt. HED. Sweet Honour. PHI. What says my good Ambition? HED. Which take you at this next weapon? I lay a Discretion with you on Amorphus's head. PHI. Why, I take the French-behaved gentleman. HED. 'Tis done, a Discretion. CRI. A Discretion! A pretty court-wager! Would any discreet person hazard his wit so? PHA. I'll lay a Discretion with you, Anaides. ANA. Hang 'em, I'll not venture a doit of Discretion on either of their heads. CRI. No, he should venture all then. ANA. I like none of their plays. [A CHARGE.] HED. See, see! this is strange play! ANA. 'Tis too full of uncertain motion. He hobbles too much. CRI. 'Tis call'd your court-staggers, sir. HED. That same fellow talks so now he has a place! ANA. Hang him! neglect him. MER. "Your good ladyship's affectioned." WIFE. Ods so! they speak at this weapon, brother. ASO. They must do so, sister; how should it be the Better Regard, else? PHA. Methinks he did not this respectively enough. PHI. Why, the monsieur but dallies with him. HED. Dallies! 'Slight, see! he'll put him to't in earnest.-- Well done, Amorphus! ANA. That puff was good indeed. CRI. Ods me! this is desperate play: he hits himself o' the shins. HED. An he make this good through, he carries it, I warrant him. CRI. Indeed he displays his feet rarely. HED. See, see! he does the respective leer damnably well. AMO. "The true idolater of your beauties shall never pass their deities unadored: I rest your poor knight." HED. See, now the oblique leer, or the Janus: he satisfies all with that aspect most nobly. [A FLOURISH.] Cri. And most terribly he comes off; like your rodomontado. PHA. How like you this play, Anaides? ANA. Good play; but 'tis too rough and boisterous. AMO. I will second it with a stroke easier, wherein I will prove his language. [A CHARGE.] ANA. This is filthy, and grave, now. HED. O, 'tis cool and wary play. We must not disgrace our own camerade too much. AMO. "Signora, ho tanto obligo per le favore resciuto da lei; che veramente desidero con tutto il core, a remunerarla in parte: e sicurative, signora mea cara, che io sera sempre pronto a servirla, e honorarla. Bascio le mane de vo' signoria." CRI. The Venetian dop this. PHA. Most unexpectedly excellent! The French goes down certain. ASO. As buckets are put down into a well; Or as a school-boy-- CRI. Truss up your simile, jack-daw, and observe. HED. Now the monsieur is moved. ANA. Bo-peep! HED. O, most antick. CRI. The French quirk, this sir. ANA. Heart, he will over-run her. MER. "Madamoyselle, Je voudroy que pouvoy monstrer mon affection, mais je suis tant malhereuse, ci froid, ci layd, ci--Je ne scay qui de dire--excuse moi, Je suis tout vostre." [A FLOURISH.] PHI. O brave and spirited! he's a right Jovialist. PHA. No, no: Amorphus's gravity outweighs it. CRI. And yet your lady, or your feather, would outweigh both. ANA. What's the prize, lady, at this Better Regard? MOR. A face favourably simpering, and a fan waving. ANA. They have done doubtfully. Divide. Give the favourable face to the signior, and the light wave to the monsieur. AMO. You become the simper well, lady. MER. And the wag better. AMO. Now, to our "Solemn Address." Please the well-graced Philautia to relieve the lady sentinel; she hath stood long. PHI. With all my heart; come, guardian, resign your place. [MORIA COMES FROM THE STATE.] AMO. Monsieur, furnish yourself with what solemnity of ornament you think fit for this third weapon; at which you are to shew all the cunning of stroke your devotion can possibly devise. MER. Let me alone, sir. I'll sufficiently decipher your amorous solemnities.--Crites, have patience. See, if I hit not all their practic observance, with which they lime twigs to catch their fantastic lady-birds. CRI. Ay, but you should do more charitably to do it more openly, that they might discover themselves mock'd in these monstrous affections. [A CHARGE.] MER. Lackey, where's the tailor? ENTER TAILOR, BARBER, PERFUMER, MILLINER, JEWELLER, AND FEATHER-MAKER. TAI. Here, sir. HED. See, they have their tailor, barber, perfumer, milliner, jeweller, feather-maker, all in common! [THEY MAKE THEMSELVES READY ON THE STAGE.] ANA. Ay, this is pretty. AMO. Here is a hair too much, take it off. Where are thy mullets? MER. Is this pink of equal proportion to this cut, standing off this distance from it? TAI. That it is, sir. MER. Is it so, sir? You impudent poltroon, you slave, you list, you shreds, you--[BEATS THE TAILOR.] HED. Excellent! This was the best yet. ANA. Why, we must use our tailors thus: this is our true magnanimity. MER. Come, go to, put on; we must bear with you for the times' sake. AMO. Is the perfume rich in this jerkin? PER. Taste, smell; I assure you, sir, pure benjamin, the only spirited scent that ever awaked a Neapolitan nostril. You would wish yourself all nose for the love on't. I frotted a jerkin for a new-revenued gentleman yielded me three-score crowns but this morning, and the same titillation. AMO. I savour no sampsuchine in it. PER. I am a Nulli-fidian, if there be not three-thirds of a scruple more of sampsuchinum in this confection, than ever I put in any. I'll tell you all the ingredients, sir. AMO. You shall be simple to discover your simples. PER. Simple! why, sir? What reck I to whom I discover? I have it in musk, civet, amber, Phoenicobalanus, the decoction of turmerick, sesana, nard, spikenard, calamus odoratus, stacte, opobalsamum, amomum, storax, ladanum, aspalathum, opoponax, oenanthe. And what of all these now? what are you the better? Tut, it is the sorting, and the dividing, and the mixing, and the tempering, and the searching, and the decocting, that makes the fumigation and the suffumigation. AMO. Well, indue me with it. PER. I will, sir. HED. An excellent confection. CRI. And most worthy a true voluptuary, Jove! what a coil these musk-worms take to purchase another's delight? for themselves, who bear the odours, have ever the least sense of them. Yet I do like better the prodigality of jewels and clothes, whereof one passeth to a man's heirs; the other at least wears out time. This presently expires, and, without continual riot in reparation, is lost: which whoso strives to keep, it is one special argument to me, that, affecting to smell better than other men, he doth indeed smell far worse. MER. I know you will say, it sits well, sir. TAI. Good faith, if it do not, sir, let your mistress be judge. MER. By heaven, if my mistress do not like it, I'll make no more conscience to undo thee, than to undo an oyster. TAI. Believe it, there's ne'er a mistress in the world can mislike it. MER. No, not goodwife tailor, your mistress; that has only the judgment to heat your pressing-tool. But for a court-mistress that studies these decorums, and knows the proportion of every cut to a hair, knows why such a colour is cut upon such a colour, and when a satin is cut upon six taffataes, will look that we should dive into the depth of the cut--Give me my scarf. Shew some ribands, sirrah. Have you the feather? FEAT. Ay, sir. MER. Have you the jewel? JEW. Yes, sir. MER. What must I give for the hire on't? JEW. You shall give me six crowns, sir. MER. Six crowns! By heaven, 'twere a good deed to borrow it of thee to shew, and never let thee have it again. JEW. I hope your worship will not do so, sir. MER. By Jove, sir, there be such tricks stirring, I can tell you, and worthily too. Extorting knaves, that live by these court-decorums, and yet--What's your jewel worth, I pray? JEW. A hundred crowns, sir. MER. A hundred crowns, and six for the loan on't an hour! what's that in the hundred for the year? These impostors would not be hang'd! Your thief is not comparable to them, by Hercules. Well, put it in, and the feather; you will have it and you shall, and the pox give you good on't! AMO. Give me my confects, my moscadini, and place those colours in my hat. MER. These are Bolognian ribands, I warrant you. MIL. In truth, sir, if they be not right Granado silk-- MER. A pox on you, you'll all say so. MIL. You give me not a penny, sir. MER. Come, sir, perfume my devant; "May it ascend, like solemn sacrifice, Into the nostrils of the Queen of Love!" HED. Your French ceremonies are the best. ANA. Monsieur, signior, your Solemn Address is too long; the ladies long to have you come on. AMO. Soft, sir, our coming on is not so easily prepared. Signior Fig! PER. Ay, sir. AMO. Can you help my complexion, here? PER. O yes, sir, I have an excellent mineral fucus for the purpose. The gloves are right, sir; you shall bury them in a muck-hill, a draught, seven years, and take them out and wash them, they shall still retain their first scent, true Spanish. There's ambre in the umbre. MER. Your price, sweet Fig? PER. Give me what you will, sir; the signior pays me two crowns a pair; you shall give me your love, sir. MER. My love! with a pox to you, goodman Sassafras. PER. I come, sir. There's an excellent diapasm in a chain, too, if you like it. AMO. Stay, what are the ingredients to your fucus? PER. Nought but sublimate and crude mercury, sir, well prepared and dulcified, with the jaw-bones of a sow, burnt, beaten, and searced. AMO. I approve it. Lay it on. MER. I'll have your chain of pomander, sirrah; what's your price? PER. We'll agree, monsieur; I'll assure you it was both decocted and dried where no sun came, and kept in an onyx ever since it was balled. MER. Come, invert my mustachio, and we have done. AMO. 'Tis good. BAR. Hold still, I pray you, sir. PER. Nay, the fucus is exorbitant, sir. MER. Death, dost thou burn me, harlot! BAR. I beseech you, sir. MER. Beggar, varlet, poltroon. [BEATS HIM.] HED. Excellent, excellent! ANA. Your French beat is the most natural beat of the world. ASO. O that I had played at this weapon. [A CHARGE.] PHA. Peace, now they come on; the second part. AMO. "Madam, your beauties being so attractive, I muse you are left thus alone." PHI. "Better be alone, sir, than ill accompanied." AMO. "Nought can be ill, lady, that can come near your goodness." MER. "Sweet madam, on what part of you soever a man casts his eye, he meets with perfection; you are the lively image of Venus throughout; all the graces smile in your cheeks; your beauty nourishes as well as delights; you have a tongue steeped in honey, and a breath like a panther; your breasts and forehead are whiter than goats' milk, or May blossoms; a cloud is not so soft as your skin--" HED. Well strook, monsieur! He charges like a Frenchman indeed, thick and hotly. MER. "Your cheeks are Cupid's baths, wherein he uses to steep himself in milk and nectar: he does light all his torches at your eyes, and instructs you how to shoot and wound with their beams. Yet I love nothing in you more than your innocence; you retain so native a simplicity, so unblamed a behaviour! Methinks, with such a love, I should find no head, nor foot of my pleasure: you are the very spirit of a lady." ANA. Fair play, monsieur, you are too hot on the quarry; give your competitor audience. AMO. "Lady, how stirring soever the monsieur's tongue is, he will lie by your side more dull than your eunuch." ANA. A good stroke; that mouth was excellently put over. AMO. "You are fair, lady--" CRI. You offer foul, signior, to close; keep your distance; for all your bravo rampant here. AMO. "I say you are fair, lady, let your choice be fit, as you are fair." MER. "I say ladies do never believe they are fair, till some fool begins to doat upon them." PHI. You play too rough, gentlemen. AMO. "Your frenchified fool is your only fool, lady: I do yield to this honourable monsieur in all civil and humane courtesy." [A FLOURISH.] MER. Buz! ANA. Admirable. Give him the prize, give him the prize: that mouth again was most courtly hit, and rare. AMO. I knew I should pass upon him with the bitter bob. HED. O, but the reverse was singular. PHA. It was most subtile, Amorphus. ASO. If I had done't, it should have been better. MER. How heartily they applaud this, Crites! CRI. You suffer them too long. MER. I'll take off their edge instantly. ANA. Name the prize, at the "Solemn Address." PHI. Two lips wagging. CRI. And never a wise word, I take it. ANA. Give to Amorphus. And, upon him again; let him not draw free breath. AMO. Thanks, fair deliverer, and my honourable judges. Madam Phantaste, you are our worthy object at this next weapon. PHA. Most covetingly ready, Amorphus. [SHE TAKES THE STATE INSTEAD OF PHILAUTIA.] HED. Your monsieur is crest-fallen. ANA. So are most of them once a year. AMO. You will see, I shall now give him the gentle Dor presently, he forgetting to shift the colours, which are now changed with alteration of the mistress. At your last weapon, sir. "The Perfect Close." Set forward. [A CHARGE.] Intend your approach, monsieur. MER. 'Tis yours, signior. AMO. With your example, sir. MER. Not I, sir. AMO. It is your right. MER. By no possible means. AMO. You have the way. MER. As I am noble-- AMO. As I am virtuous-- MER. Pardon me, sir. AMO. I will die first. MER. You are a tyrant in courtesy. AMO. He is removed.--[STAYS MERCURY ON HIS MOVING.]--Judges, bear witness. MER. What of that, sir? AMO. You are removed, sir. MER. Well. AMO. I challenge you; you have received the Dor. Give me the prize. MER. Soft, sir. How, the Dor? AMO. The common mistress, you see, is changed. MER. Right, sir. AMO. And you have still in your hat the former colours. MER. You lie, sir, I have none: I have pulled them out. I meant to play discoloured. [A FLOURISH.] CRI. The Dor, the Dor, the Dor, the Dor, the Dor, the palpable Dor! ANA. Heart of my blood, Amorphus, what have you done? stuck a disgrace upon us all, and at your last weapon! ASO. I could have done no more. HED. By heaven, it was most unfortunate luck. ANA. Luck! by that candle, it was mere rashness, and oversight; would any man have ventured to play so open, and forsake his ward? D--n me, if he have not eternally undone himself in court, and discountenanced us that were his main countenance, by it. AMO. Forgive it now: it was the solecism of my stars. CRI. The wring by the hand, and the banquet, is ours. MER. O, here's a lady feels like a wench of the first year; you would think her hand did melt in your touch; and the bones of her fingers ran out at length when you prest 'em, they are so gently delicate! He that had the grace to print a kiss on these lips, should taste wine and rose-leaves. O, she kisses as close as a cockle. Let's take them down, as deep as our hearts, wench, till our very souls mix. Adieu, signior: good faith I shall drink to you at supper, sir. ANA. Stay, monsieur. Who awards you the prize? CRI. Why, his proper merit, sir; you see he has played down your grand garb-master, here. ANA. That's not in your logic to determine, sir: you are no courtier. This is none of your seven or nine beggarly sciences, but a certain mystery above them, wherein we that have skill must pronounce, and not such fresh men as you are. CRI. Indeed, I must declare myself to you no profest courtling; nor to have any excellent stroke at your subtile weapons; yet if you please, I dare venture a hit with you, or your fellow, sir Dagonet, here. ANA. With me! CRI. Yes, sir. ANA. Heart, I shall never have such a fortune to save myself in a fellow again, and your two reputations, gentlemen, as in this. I'll undertake him. HED. Do, and swinge him soundly, good Anaides. ANA. Let me alone; I'll play other manner of play, than has been seen yet. I would the prize lay on't. MER. It shall if you will, I forgive my right. ANA. Are you so confident! what's your weapon? CRI. At any, I, sir. MER. The Perfect Close, that's now the best. ANA. Content, I'll pay your scholarity. Who offers? CRI. Marry, that will I: I dare give you that advantage too. ANA. You dare! well, look to your liberal sconce. AMO. Make your play still, upon the answer, sir. ANA. Hold your peace, you are a hobby-horse. ASO. Sit by me, master. MER. Now, Crites, strike home. [A CHARGE.] CRI. You shall see me undo the assured swaggerer with a trick, instantly: I will play all his own play before him; court the wench in his garb, in his phrase, with his face; leave him not so much as a look, an eye, a stalk, or an imperfect oath, to express himself by, after me. [ASIDE TO MERCURY.] MER. Excellent, Crites. ANA. When begin you, sir? have you consulted? CRI. To your cost, sir. Which is the piece stands forth to be courted? O, are you she? [TO PHILAUTIA.] "Well, madam, or sweet lady, it is so, I do love you in some sort, do you conceive? and though I am no monsieur, nor no signior, and do want, as they say, logic and sophistry, and good words, to tell you why it is so; yet by this hand and by that candle it is so: and though I be no book-worm, nor one that deals by art, to give you rhetoric and causes, why it should be so, or make it good it is so? yet, d--n me, but I know it is so, and am assured it is so, and I and my sword shall make it appear it is so, and give you reason sufficient how it can be no otherwise but so--" HED. 'Slight, Anaides, you are mocked, and so we are all. MER. How now, signior! what, suffer yourself to be cozened of your courtship before your face? HED. This is plain confederacy to disgrace us: let's be gone, and plot some revenge. AMO. "When men disgraces share, The lesser is the care." CRI. Nay, stay, my dear Ambition, [TO HEDON.] I can do you over too. You that tell your mistress, her beauty is all composed of theft; her hair stole from Apollo's goldy-locks; her white and red, lilies and roses stolen out of paradise; her eyes two stars, pluck'd from the sky; her nose the gnomon of Love's dial, that tells you how the clock of your heart goes: and for her other parts, as you cannot reckon them, they are so many; so you cannot recount them, they are so manifest. Yours, if his own, unfortunate Hoyden, instead of Hedon. [A FLOURISH.] ASO. Sister, come away, I cannot endure them longer. [EXEUNT ALL BUT MERCURY AND CRITES.] MER. Go, Dors, and you, my madam Courting-stocks, Follow your scorned and derided mates; Tell to your guilty breasts, what mere gilt blocks You are, and how unworthy human states. CRI. Now, sacred God of Wit, if you can make Those, whom our sports tax in these apish graces, Kiss, like the fighting snakes, your peaceful rod, These times shall canonise you for a god. MER. Why, Crites, think you any noble spirit, Or any, worth the title of a man, Will be incensed to see the enchanted veils Of self-conceit, and servile flattery, Wrapt in so many folds by time and custom, Drawn from his wronged and bewitched eyes? Who sees not now their shape and nakedness, Is blinder than the son of earth, the mole; Crown'd with no more humanity, nor soul. CRI. Though they may see it, yet the huge estate Fancy, and form, and sensual pride have gotten, Will make them blush for anger, not for shame, And turn shewn nakedness to impudence. Humour is now the test we try things in: All power is just: nought that delights is sin. And yet the zeal of every knowing man Opprest with hills of tyranny, cast on virtue By the light fancies of fools, thus transported. Cannot but vent the Aetna of his fires, T'inflame best bosoms with much worthier love Than of these outward and effeminate shades; That these vain joys, in which their wills consume Such powers of wit and soul as are of force To raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men: And, for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actually To God's high figures, which they have in power; Which to neglect for a self-loving neatness, Is sacrilege of an unpardon'd greatness. MER. Then let the truth of these things strengthen thee, In thy exempt and only man-like course; Like it the more, the less it is respected: Though men fail, virtue is by gods protected.-- See, here comes Arete; I'll withdraw myself. [EXIT.] ENTER ARETE. ARE. Crites, you must provide straight for a masque, 'Tis Cynthia's pleasure. CRI. How, bright Arete! Why, 'twere a labour more for Hercules: Better and sooner durst I undertake To make the different seasons of the year, The winds, or elements, to sympathise, Than their unmeasurable vanity Dance truly in a measure. They agree! What though all concord's born of contraries; So many follies will confusion prove, And like a sort of jarring instruments, All out of tune; because, indeed, we see There is not that analogy 'twixt discords, As between things but merely opposite. ARE. There is your error: for as Hermes' wand Charms the disorders of tumultuous ghosts; And as the strife of Chaos then did cease, When better light than Nature's did arrive: So, what could never in itself agree, Forgetteth the eccentric property, And at her sight turns forth with regular, Whose sceptre guides the flowing ocean: And though it did not, yet the most of them Being either courtiers, or not wholly rude, Respect of majesty, the place, and presence, Will keep them within ring; especially When they are not presented as themselves, But masqued like others: for, in troth, not so To incorporate them, could be nothing else, Than like a state ungovern'd, without laws; Or body made of nothing but diseases: The one, through impotency, poor and wretched; The other, for the anarchy, absurd. CRI. But, lady, for the revellers themselves, It would be better, in my poor conceit, That others were employ'd; for such as are Unfit to be in Cynthia's court, can seem No less unfit to be in Cynthia's sports. ARE. That, Crites, is not purposed without Particular knowledge of the goddess' mind; Who holding true intelligence, what follies Had crept into her palace, she resolved Of sports and triumphs; under that pretext, To have them muster in their pomp and fulness, That so she might more strictly, and to root, Effect the reformation she intends. CRI. I now conceive her heavenly drift in all; And will apply my spirits to serve her will. O thou, the very power by which I am, And but for which it were in vain to be, Chief next Diana, virgin heavenly fair, Admired Arete, of them admired Whose souls are not enkindled by the sense, Disdain not my chaste fire, but feed the flame Devoted truly to thy gracious name. ARE. Leave to suspect us: Crites well shall find, As we are now most dear, we'll prove most kind. [WITHIN.] Arete! ARE. Hark, I am call'd. [EXIT.] CRI. I follow instantly. Phoebus Apollo, if with ancient rites, And due devotions, I have ever hung Elaborate Paeans on thy golden shrine, Or sung thy triumphs in a lofty strain, Fit for a theatre of gods to hear: And thou, the other son of mighty Jove, Cyllenian Mercury, sweet Maia's joy, If in the busy tumults of the mind My path thou ever hast illumined, For which thine altars I have oft perfumed, And deck'd thy statues with discolour'd flowers: Now thrive invention in this glorious court, That not of bounty only, but of right, Cynthia may grace, and give it life by sight. [EXIT.] SCENE III. ENTER HESPERUS, CYNTHIA, ARETE, TIME, PHRONESIS, AND THAUMA. MUSIC ACCOMPANIED. HESPERUS SINGS. Queen and huntress, chaste and fair, Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light, Goddess, excellently bright. Earth, let not thy envious shade Dare itself to interpose; Cynthia's shining orb was made Heav'n to clear, when day did close: Bless us then with wished sight, Goddess excellently bright. Lay thy bow of pearl apart, And thy crystal shining quiver; Give unto the flying hart Space to breathe, how short soever: Thou, that mak'st a day of night, Goddess excellently bright. CYN. When hath Diana, like an envious wretch, That glitters only to his soothed self, Denying to the world the precious use Of hoarded wealth, withheld her friendly aid? Monthly we spend our still-repaired shine, And not forbid our virgin-waxen torch To burn and blaze, while nutriment doth last: That once consumed, out of Jove's treasury A new we take, and stick it in our sphere, To give the mutinous kind of wanting men Their look'd-for light. Yet what is their desert? Bounty is wrong'd, interpreted as due; Mortals can challenge not a ray, by right, Yet do expect the whole of Cynthia's light. But if that deities withdrew their gifts For human follies, what could men deserve But death and darkness? It behoves the high, For their own sakes, to do things worthily. ARE. Most true, most sacred goddess; for the heavens Receive no good of all the good they do: Nor Jove, nor you, nor other heavenly Powers, Are fed with fumes, which do from incense rise, Or sacrifices reeking in their gore; Yet, for the care which you of mortals have, (Whose proper good it is that they be so;) You well are pleased with odours redolent: But ignorant is all the race of men, Which still complains, not knowing why, or when. CYN. Else, noble Arete, they would not blame, And tax, or for unjust, or for as proud, Thy Cynthia, in the things which are indeed The greatest glories in our starry crown; Such is our chastity, which safely scorns, Not love, for who more fervently doth love Immortal honour, and divine renown? But giddy Cupid, Venus' frantic son. Yet, Arete, if by this veiled light We but discover'd (what we not discern) Any the least of imputations stand Ready to sprinkle our unspotted fame With note of lightness, from these revels near: Not, for the empire of the universe, Should night, or court, this whatsoever shine, Or grace of ours, unhappily enjoy. Place and occasion are two privy thieves; And from poor innocent ladies often steal The best of things, an honourable name; To stay with follies, or where faults may be, Infers a crime, although the party free. ARE. How Cynthianly, that is, how worthily And like herself, the matchless Cynthia speaks! Infinite jealousies, infinite regards, Do watch about the true virginity: But Phoebe lives from all, not only fault, But as from thought, so from suspicion free. Thy presence broad-seals our delights for pure; What's done in Cynthia's sight, is done secure. CYN. That then so answer'd, dearest Arete, What th' argument, or of what sort our sports Are like to be this night, I not demand. Nothing which duty, and desire to please, Bears written in the forehead, comes amiss. But unto whose invention must we owe The complement of this night's furniture? ARE. Excellent goddess, to a man's, whose worth, Without hyperbole, I thus may praise; One at least studious of deserving well, And, to speak truth, indeed deserving well. Potential merit stands for actual, Where only opportunity doth want, Not will, nor power; both which in him abound, One whom the Muses and Minerva love; For whom should they, than Crites, more esteem, Whom Phoebus, though not Fortune, holdeth dear? And, which convinceth excellence in him, A principal admirer of yourself: Even through the ungentle injuries of Fate, And difficulties, which do virtue choke, Thus much of him appears. What other things Of farther note do lie unborn in him, Them I do leave for cherishment to shew, And for a goddess graciously to judge. CYN. We have already judged him, Arete, Nor are we ignorant how noble minds Suffer too much through those indignities Which times and vicious persons cast on them. Ourself have ever vowed to esteem As virtue for itself, so fortune, base; Who's first in worth, the same be first in place. Nor farther notice, Arete, we crave Then thine approval's sovereign warranty: Let 't be thy care to make us known to him; Cynthia shall brighten what the world made dim. [EXIT ARETE.] THE FIRST MASQUE. ENTER CUPID, DISGUISED AS ANTEROS, FOLLOWED BY STORGE, AGLAIA, EUPHANTASTE, AND APHELEIA. CUP. Clear pearl of heaven, and, not to be farther ambitious in titles, Cynthia! the fame of this illustrious night, among others, hath also drawn these four fair virgins from the palace of their queen Perfection, (a word which makes no sufficient difference betwixt her's and thine,) to visit thy imperial court: for she, their sovereign, not finding where to dwell among men, before her return to heaven, advised them wholly to consecrate themselves to thy celestial service, as in whose clear spirit (the proper element and sphere of virtue) they should behold not her alone, their ever-honoured mistress, but themselves (more truly themselves) to live enthronised. Herself would have commended them unto thy favour more particularly, but that she knows no commendation is more available with thee, than that of proper virtue. Nevertheless she willed them to present this crystal mound, a note of monarchy, and symbol of perfection, to thy more worthy deity; which, as here by me they most humbly do, so amongst the rarities thereof, that is the chief, to shew whatsoever the world hath excellent, howsoever remote and various. But your irradiate judgment will soon discover the secrets of this little crystal world. Themselves, to appear more plainly, because they know nothing more odious then false pretexts, have chosen to express their several qualities thus in several colours. The first, in citron colour, is natural affection, which, given us to procure our good, is sometime called Storge; and as every one is nearest to himself, so this handmaid of reason, allowable Self-love, as it is without harm, so are none without it: her place in the court of Perfection was to quicken minds in the pursuit of honour. Her device is a perpendicular level, upon a cube or square; the word, "se suo modulo"; alluding to that true measure of one's self, which as every one ought to make, so is it most conspicuous in thy divine example. The second, in green is Aglaia, delectable and pleasant conversation, whose property it is to move a kindly delight, and sometime not without laughter: her office to entertain assemblies, and keep societies together with fair familiarity. Her device, within a ring of clouds, a heart with shine about it; the word, 'curarum nubila pello': an allegory of Cynthia's light, which no less clears the sky then her fair mirth the heart. The third, in the discoloured mantle spangled all over, is Euphantaste, a well-conceited Wittiness, and employed in honouring the court with the riches of her pure invention. Her device, upon a Petasus, or Mercurial hat, a crescent; The word; "sic laus ingenii"; inferring that the praise and glory of wit doth ever increase, as doth thy growing moon. The fourth, in white, is Apheleia, a nymph as pure and simple as the soul, or as an abrase table, and is therefore called Simplicity; without folds, without plaits, without colour, without counterfeit; and (to speak plainly) plainness itself. Her device is no device. The word under her silver shield, "omnis abest fucus"; alluding to thy spotless self, who art as far from impurity as from mortality. Myself, celestial goddess, more fit for the court of Cynthia than the arbours of Cytherea, am called Anteros, or Love's enemy; the more welcome therefore to thy court, and the fitter to conduct this quaternion, who, as they are thy professed votaries, and for that cause adversaries to Love, yet thee, perpetual virgin, they both love, and vow to love eternally. RE-ENTER ARETE, WITH CRITES. CYN. Not without wonder, nor without delight Mine eyes have view'd, in contemplation's depth, This work of wit, divine and excellent: What shape, what substance, or what unknown power, In virgin's habit, crown'd with laurel leaves, And olive-branches woven in between, On sea-girt rocks, like to a goddess shines! O front! O face! O all celestial, sure, And more than mortal! Arete, behold Another Cynthia, and another queen, Whose glory, like a lasting plenilune, Seems ignorant of what it is to wane. Nor under heaven an object could be found More fit to please. Let Crites make approach. Bounty forbids to pall our thanks with stay, Or to defer our favour, after view: The time of grace is, when the cause is new. ARE. Lo, here the man, celestial Delia, Who (like a circle bounded in itself) Contains as much as man in fulness may. Lo, here the man; who not of usual earth, But of that nobler and more precious mould Which Phoebus' self doth temper, is composed; And who, though all were wanting to reward, Yet to himself he would not wanting be: Thy favours gain is his ambition's most, And labour's best; who (humble in his height) Stands fixed silent in thy glorious sight. CYN. With no less pleasure than we have beheld This precious crystal work of rarest wit, Our eye doth read thee, now instiled, our Crites; Whom learning, virtue, and our favour last, Exempteth from the gloomy multitude. With common eye the Supreme should not see: Henceforth be ours, the more thyself to be. CRI. Heaven's purest light, whose orb may be eclipsed, But not thy praise; divinest Cynthia! How much too narrow for so high a grace, Thine (save therein) the most unworthy Crites Doth find himself! for ever shine thy fame; Thine honours ever, as thy beauties do. In me they must, my dark world's chiefest lights, By whose propitious beams my powers are raised To hope some part of those most lofty points, Which blessed Arete hath pleased to name, As marks, to which my endeavour's steps should bend: Mine, as begun at thee, in thee must end. THE SECOND MASQUE. ENTER MERCURY AS A PAGE, INTRODUCING EUCOSMOS, EUPATHES, EUTOLMOS, AND EUCOLOS. MER. Sister of Phoebus, to whose bright orb we owe, that we not complain of his absence; these four brethren (for they are brethren, and sons of Eutaxia, a lady known, and highly beloved of your resplendent deity) not able to be absent, when Cynthia held a solemnity, officiously insinuate themselves into thy presence: for, as there are four cardinal virtues, upon which the whole frame of the court doth move, so are these the four cardinal properties, without which the body of compliment moveth not. With these four silver javelins, (which they bear in their hands) they support in princes' courts the state of the presence, as by office they are obliged: which, though here they may seem superfluous, yet, for honour's sake, they thus presume to visit thee, having also been employed in the palace of queen Perfection. And though to them that would make themselves gracious to a goddess, sacrifices were fitter than presents, or impresses, yet they both hope thy favour, and (in place of either) use several symbols, containing the titles of thy imperial dignity. First, the hithermost, in the changeable blue and green robe, is the commendably-fashioned gallant Eucosmos; whose courtly habit is the grace of the presence, and delight of the surveying eye; whom ladies understand by the names of Neat and Elegant. His symbol is, "divae virgini," in which he would express thy deity's principal glory, which hath ever been virginity. The second, in the rich accoutrement, and robe of purple, empaled with gold, is Eupathes; who entertains his mind with an harmless, but not incurious variety; all the objects of his senses are sumptuous, himself a gallant, that, without excess, can make use of superfluity, go richly in embroideries, jewels, and what not, without vanity, and fare delicately without gluttony; and therefore (not without cause) is universally thought to be of fine humour. His symbol is, "divae optimae"; an attribute to express thy goodness, in which thou so resemblest Jove thy father. The third, in the blush-coloured suit, is Eutolmos, as duly respecting others, as never neglecting himself; commonly known by the title of good Audacity; to courts and courtly assemblies a guest most acceptable. His symbol is, "divae viragini"; to express thy hardy courage in chase of savage beasts, which harbour in woods and wildernesses. The fourth, in watchet tinsel, is the kind and truly benefique Eucolos, who imparteth not without respect, but yet without difficulty, and hath the happiness to make every kindness seem double, by the timely and freely bestowing thereof. He is the chief of them, who by the vulgar are said to be of good nature. His symbol is, "divae maximae"; an adjunct to signify thy greatness, which in heaven, earth, and hell, is formidable. MUSIC. A DANCE BY THE TWO MASQUES JOINED, DURING WHICH CUPID AND MERCURY RETIRE TO THE SIDE OF THE STAGE. CUP. Is not that Amorphus, the traveller? MER. As though it were not! do you not see how his legs are in travail with a measure? CUP. Hedon, thy master is next. MER. What, will Cupid turn nomenclator, and cry them? CUP. No, faith, but I have a comedy toward, that would not be lost for a kingdom. MER. In good time, for Cupid will prove the comedy. CUP. Mercury, I am studying how to match them. MER. How to mismatch them were harder. CUP. They are the nymphs must do it; I shall sport myself with their passions above measure. MER. Those nymphs would be tamed a little indeed, but I fear thou has not arrows for the purpose. CUP. O yes, here be of all sorts, flights, rovers, and butt-shafts. But I can wound with a brandish, and never draw bow for the matter. MER. I cannot but believe it, my invisible archer, and yet methinks you are tedious. CUP. It behoves me to be somewhat circumspect, Mercury; for if Cynthia hear the twang of my bow, she'll go near to whip me with the string; therefore, to prevent that, I thus discharge a brandish upon--it makes no matter which of the couples. Phantaste and Amorphus, at you. [WAVES HIS ARROW AT THEM.] MER. Will the shaking of a shaft strike them into such a fever of affection? CUP. As well as the wink of an eye: but, I pray thee, hinder me not with thy prattle. MER. Jove forbid I hinder thee; Marry, all that I fear is Cynthia's presence, which, with the cold of her chastity, casteth such an antiperistasis about the place, that no heat of thine will tarry with the patient. CUP. It will tarry the rather, for the antiperistasis will keep it in. MER. I long to see the experiment. CUP. Why, their marrow boils already, or they are all turn'd eunuchs. MER. Nay, an't be so, I'll give over speaking, and be a spectator only. [THE FIRST DANCE ENDS.] AMO. Cynthia, by my bright soul, is a right exquisite and spendidious lady; yet Amorphus, I think, hath seen more fashions, I am sure more countries; but whether I have or not, what need we gaze on Cynthia, that have ourself to admire? PHA. O, excellent Cynthia! yet if Phantaste sat where she does, and had such attire on her head, (for attire can do much,) I say no more--but goddesses are goddesses, and Phantaste is as she is! I would the revels were done once, I might go to my school of glass again, and learn to do myself right after all this ruffling. [MUSIC; THEY BEGIN THE SECOND DANCE.] MER. How now Cupid? here's a wonderful change with your brandish! do you not hear how they dote? CUP. What prodigy is this? no word of love, no mention, no motion! MER. Not a word my little ignis fatue, not a word. CUP. Are my darts enchanted? is their vigour gone? is their virtue-- MER. What! Cupid turned jealous of himself? ha, ha, ha! CUP. Laughs Mercury? MER. Is Cupid angry? CUP. Hath he not cause, when his purpose is so deluded? MER. A rare comedy, it shall be entitled Cupid's? CUP. Do not scorn us Hermes. MER. Choler and Cupid are two fiery things; I scorn them not. But I see that come to pass which I presaged in the beginning. CUP. You cannot tell: perhaps the physic will not work so soon upon some as upon others. It may be the rest are not so resty. MER. "Ex ungue"; you know the old adage; as these so are the remainder. CUP. I'll try: this is the same shaft with which I wounded Argurion. [WAVES HIS ARROW AGAIN.] MER. Ay, but let me save you a labour, Cupid: there were certain bottles of water fetch'd, and drunk off since that time, by these gallants. CUP. Jove strike me into the earth! the Fountain of Self-love! MER. Nay faint not Cupid. CUP. I remember'd it not. MER. Faith, it was ominous to take the name of Anteros upon you; you know not what charm or enchantment lies in the word: you saw, I durst not venture upon any device in our presentment, but was content to be no other then a simple page. Your arrows' properties, (to keep decorum,) Cupid, are suited, it should seem, to the nature of him you personate. CUP. Indignity not to be borne! MER. Nay rather, an attempt to have been forborne. [THE SECOND DANCE ENDS.] CUP. How might I revenge myself on this insulting Mercury? there's Crites, his minion, he has not tasted of this water? [WAVES HIS ARROW AT CRITES.] It shall be so. Is Crites turn'd dotard on himself too? MER. That follows not, because the venom of your shafts cannot pierce him, Cupid. CUP. As though there were one antidote for these, and another for him? MER. As though there were not; or, as if one effect might not arise of diverse causes? What say you to Cynthia, Arete, Phronesis, Time, and others there? CUP. They are divine. MER. And Crites aspires to be so. [MUSIC; THEY BEGIN THE THIRD DANCE.] CUP. But that shall not serve him. MER. 'Tis like to do it, at this time. But Cupid is grown too covetous, that will not spare one of a multitude. CUP. One is more than a multitude. MER. Arete's favour makes any one shot-proof against thee, Cupid. I pray thee, light honey-bee, remember thou art not now in Adonis' garden, but in Cynthia's presence, where thorns lie in garrison about the roses. Soft, Cynthia speaks. CYN. Ladies and gallants of our court, to end, And give a timely period to our sports, Let us conclude them, with declining night; Our empire is but of the darker half. And if you judge it any recompence For your faire pains, t' have earn'd Diana's thanks, Diana grants them, and bestows their crown To gratify your acceptable zeal. For you are they, that not, as some have done, Do censure us, as too severe and sour, But as, more rightly, gracious to the good; Although we not deny, unto the proud, Or the profane, perhaps indeed austere: For so Actaeon, by presuming far, Did, to our grief, incur a fatal doom; And so, swoln Niobe, comparing more Than he presumed, was trophaeed into stone. But are we therefore judged too extreme? Seems it no crime to enter sacred bowers, And hallowed places, with impure aspect, Most lewdly to pollute? Seems it no crime To brave a deity? Let mortals learn To make religion of offending heaven. And not at all to censure powers divine. To men this argument should stand for firm, A goddess did it, therefore it was good: We are not cruel, nor delight in blood.-- But what have serious repetitions To do with revels, and the sports of court? We not intend to sour your late delights With harsh expostulation. Let it suffice That we take notice, and can take revenge Of these calumnious and lewd blasphemies. For we are no less Cynthia than we were, Nor is our power, but as ourself, the same: Though we have now put on no tire of shine, But mortal eyes undazzled may endure. Years are beneath the spheres, and time makes weak Things under heaven, not powers which govern heaven. And though ourself be in ourself secure, Yet let not mortals challenge to themselves Immunity from thence. Lo, this is all: Honour hath store of spleen, but wanteth gall. Once more we cast the slumber of our thanks On your ta'en toil, which here let take an end: And that we not mistake your several worths, Nor you our favour, from yourselves remove What makes you not yourselves, those clouds of masque Particular pains particular thanks do ask. [THE DANCERS UNMASK.] How! let me view you. Ha! are we contemn'd? Is there so little awe of our disdain, That any (under trust of their disguise) Should mix themselves with others of the court, And, without forehead, boldly press so far, As farther none? How apt is lenity To be abused! severity to be loath'd! And yet, how much more doth the seeming face Of neighbour virtues, and their borrow'd names, Add of lewd boldness to loose vanities! Who would have thought that Philautia durst Or have usurped noble Storge's name, Or with that theft have ventured on our eyes? Who would have thought, that all of them should hope So much of our connivence, as to come To grace themselves with titles not their own? Instead of med'cines, have we maladies? And such imposthumes as Phantaste is Grow in our palace? We must lance these sores, Or all will putrify. Nor are these all, For we suspect a farther fraud than this: Take off our veil, that shadows many depart, And shapes appear, beloved Arete--So, Another face of things presents itself, Than did of late. What! feather'd Cupid masqued, And masked like Anteros? And stay! more strange! Dear Mercury, our brother, like a page, To countenance the ambush of the boy! Nor endeth our discovery as yet: Gelaia, like a nymph, that, but erewhile, In male attire, did serve Anaides?-- Cupid came hither to find sport and game, Who heretofore hath been too conversant Among our train, but never felt revenge: And Mercury bare Cupid company. Cupid, we must confess, this time of mirth, Proclaim'd by us, gave opportunity To thy attempts, although no privilege: Tempt us no farther; we cannot endure Thy presence longer; vanish hence, away! [EXIT CUPID.] You Mercury, we must entreat to stay, And hear what we determine of the rest; For in this plot we well perceive your hand. But, (for we mean not a censorian task, And yet to lance these ulcers grown so ripe,) Dear Arete, and Crites, to you two We give the charge; impose what pains you please: Th' incurable cut off, the rest reform, Remembering ever what we first decreed, Since revels were proclaim'd, let now none bleed. ARE. How well Diana can distinguish times, And sort her censures, keeping to herself The doom of gods, leaving the rest to us! Come, cite them, Crites, first, and then proceed. CRI. First, Philautia, for she was the first, Then light Gelaia in Aglaia's name, Thirdly, Phantaste, and Moria next, Main Follies all, and of the female crew: Amorphus, or Eucosmos' counterfeit, Voluptuous Hedon ta'en for Eupathes, Brazen Anaides, and Asotus last, With his two pages, Morus, and Prosaites; And thou, the traveller's evil, Cos, approach, Impostors all, and male deformities-- ARE. Nay, forward, for I delegate my power. And will that at thy mercy they do stand, Whom they so oft, so plainly scorn'd before. 'Tis virtue which they want, and wanting it, Honour no garment to their backs can fit. Then, Crites, practise thy discretion. CRI. Adored Cynthia, and bright Arete, Another might seem fitter for this task, Than Crites far, but that you judge not so: For I (not to appear vindicative, Or mindful of contempts, which I contemn'd, As done of impotence) must be remiss: Who, as I was the author, in some sort, To work their knowledge into Cynthia's sight, So should be much severer to revenge The indignity hence issuing to her name: But there's not one of these who are unpain'd, Or by themselves unpunished; for vice Is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment. But we must forward, to define their doom. You are offenders, that must be confess'd; Do you confess it? ALL. We do. CRI. And that you merit sharp correction? ALL. Yes. CRI. Then we (reserving unto Delia's grace Her farther pleasure, and to Arete What Delia granteth) thus do sentence you: That from this place (for penance known of all, Since you have drunk so deeply of Self-love) You, two and two, singing a Palinode, March to your several homes by Niobe's stone, And offer up two tears a-piece thereon, That it may change the name, as you must change, And of a stone be called Weeping-cross: Because it standeth cross of Cynthia's way, One of whose names is sacred Trivia. And after penance thus perform'd you pass In like set order, not as Midas did, To wash his gold off into Tagus' stream; But to the Well of knowledge, Helicon; Where, purged of your present maladies, Which are not few, nor slender, you become Such as you fain would seem, and then return, Offering your service to great Cynthia. This is your sentence, if the goddess please To ratify it with her high consent; The scope of wise mirth unto fruit is bent. CYN. We do approve thy censure belov'd Crites; Which Mercury, thy true propitious friend, (A deity next Jove beloved of us,) Will undertake to see exactly done. And for this service of discovery, Perform'd by thee, in honour of our name, We vow to guerdon it with such due grace As shall become our bounty, and thy place. Princes that would their people should do well, Must at themselves begin, as at the head; For men, by their example, pattern out Their imitations, and regard of laws: A virtuous court, a world to virtue draws. [EXEUNT CYNTHIA AND HER NYMPHS, FOLLOWED BY ARETE AND CRITES:-- AMORPHUS, PHANTASTE, ETC., GO OFF THE STAGE IN PAIRS, SINGING THE FOLLOWING] PALINODE. AMO. From Spanish shrugs, French faces, smirks, irpes, and all affected humours, CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. PHA. From secret friends, sweet servants, loves, doves, and such fantastic humours, CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. AMO. From stabbing of arms, flap-dragons, healths, whiffs, and all such swaggering humours, CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. PHA. From waving fans, coy glances, glicks, cringes, and all such simpering humours, CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. AMO. From making love by attorney, courting of puppets, and paying for new acquaintance. CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. PHA. From perfumed dogs, monkies, sparrows, dildoes, and paraquettoes. CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. AMO. From wearing bracelets of hair, shoe-ties, gloves, garters, and rings with poesies. CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. PHA. From pargetting, painting, slicking, glazing, and renewing old rivelled faces. CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. AMO. From 'squiring to tilt yards, play-houses, pageants, and all such public places. CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. PHA. From entertaining one gallant to gull another, and making fools of either, CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. AMO. From belying ladies' favours, noblemen's countenance, coining counterfeit employments, vain-glorious taking to them other men's services, and all self-loving humours, CHORUS. Good Mercury defend us. MERCURY AND CRITES SING. Now each one dry his weeping eyes, And to the Well of Knowledge haste; Where, purged of your maladies, You may of sweeter waters taste: And, with refined voice, report The grace of Cynthia, and her court. [EXEUNT. THE EPILOGUE. Gentles, be't known to you, since I went in I am turn'd rhymer, and do thus begin. The author (jealous how your sense doth take His travails) hath enjoined me to make Some short and ceremonious epilogue; But if I yet know what, I am a rogue: He ties me to such laws as quite distract My thoughts, and would a year of time exact. I neither must be faint, remiss, nor sorry, Sour, serious, confident, nor peremptory: But betwixt these. Let's see; to lay the blame Upon the children's action, that were lame. To crave your favour, with a begging knee, Were to distrust the writer's faculty. To promise better at the next we bring, Prorogues disgrace, commends not any thing. Stiffly to stand on this, and proudly approve The play, might tax the maker of Self-love. I'll only speak what I have heard him say, "By--'tis good, and if you like't, you may." "Ecce rubet quidam, pallet, stupet, oscitat, odit Hoc volo: nunc nobis carmina nostra placent." GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be--," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you--?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the--," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the--," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of--," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd--him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten--," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "--order," "--waiters". BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) --not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to--," into the bargain; "no--," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible--," "angry--," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in--," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt--," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no--," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye--used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no--," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for--," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in--," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder--"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt--," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in--," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking--," "--politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER ("--frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the--," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in--," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for--," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in--" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "--up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "--failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at--," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a--!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love". HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first--," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their--es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford). JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's--," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give--," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make--," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by--," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the--," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry--in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on--," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies". MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the--" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the--," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be--," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be--," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a--," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in--," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go--," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's--," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person--perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a--," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "--of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "--away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in--," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance--hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make--of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's--," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the--," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the--," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it--s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in--," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take--," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the--," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike". STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair". STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of--," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "--a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a--," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take--," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn--," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish--," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from--," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "--Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the--," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at--," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys". WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold--," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the--," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour". WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the--for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I--," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("--pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
4081	----	THE ALCHEMIST By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION The greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres--well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade "the humour" into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* * The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as "the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time." (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods," including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works:-- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. *** THE ALCHEMIST TO THE LADY MOST DESERVING HER NAME AND BLOOD: LADY MARY WROTH. Madam, In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal of the sacrificers: else what could a handle of gums have done in the sight of a hecatomb? or how might I appear at this altar, except with those affections that no less love the light and witness, than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what I offer bear an acceptable odour, and hold the first strength, it is your value of it, which remembers where, when, and to whom it was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely forth that thing so full of authority or example, but by assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This, yet, safe in your judgment (which is a Sidney's) is forbidden to speak more, lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious faces of the time, who, the more they paint, are the less themselves. Your ladyship's true honourer, BEN JONSON. TO THE READER. If thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender, beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in this age, in poetry, especially in plays: wherein, now the concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers, as they do fencers or wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows: when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good, and great; but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness, than a faint shadow. I speak not this, out of a hope to do good to any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages: because the most favour common errors. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those, that, to gain the opinion of copy, utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskilful, to think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed. DRAMATIS PERSONAE. SUBTLE, the Alchemist. FACE, the Housekeeper. DOL COMMON, their Colleague. DAPPER, a Lawyer's Clerk. DRUGGER, a Tobacco Man. LOVEWIT, Master of the House. SIR EPICURE MAMMON, a Knight. PERTINAX SURLY, a Gamester. TRIBULATION WHOLESOME, a Pastor of Amsterdam. ANANIAS, a Deacon there. KASTRIL, the angry Boy. DAME PLIANT, his Sister, a Widow. Neighbours. Officers, Attendants, etc. SCENE,--LONDON. ARGUMENT. T he sickness hot, a master quit, for fear, H is house in town, and left one servant there; E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know A Cheater, and his punk; who now brought low, L eaving their narrow practice, were become C ozeners at large; and only wanting some H ouse to set up, with him they here contract, E ach for a share, and all begin to act. M uch company they draw, and much abuse, I n casting figures, telling fortunes, news, S elling of flies, flat bawdry with the stone, T ill it, and they, and all in fume are gone. PROLOGUE. Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours, We wish away, both for your sakes and ours, Judging spectators; and desire, in place, To the author justice, to ourselves but grace. Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known, No country's mirth is better than our own: No clime breeds better matter for your whore, Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more, Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage; And which have still been subject for the rage Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen Did never aim to grieve, but better men; Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure The vices that she breeds, above their cure. But when the wholesome remedies are sweet, And in their working gain and profit meet, He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased, But will with such fair correctives be pleased: For here he doth not fear who can apply. If there be any that will sit so nigh Unto the stream, to look what it doth run, They shall find things, they'd think or wish were done; They are so natural follies, but so shewn, As even the doers may see, and yet not own. ACT 1. SCENE 1.1. A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE. ENTER FACE, IN A CAPTAIN'S UNIFORM, WITH HIS SWORD DRAWN, AND SUBTLE WITH A VIAL, QUARRELLING, AND FOLLOWED BY DOL COMMON. FACE. Believe 't, I will. SUB. Thy worst. I fart at thee. DOL. Have you your wits? why, gentlemen! for love-- FACE. Sirrah, I'll strip you-- SUB. What to do? lick figs Out at my-- FACE. Rogue, rogue!--out of all your sleights. DOL. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen? SUB. O, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks With good strong water, an you come. DOL. Will you have The neighbours hear you? will you betray all? Hark! I hear somebody. FACE. Sirrah-- SUB. I shall mar All that the tailor has made, if you approach. FACE. You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave, Dare you do this? SUB. Yes, faith; yes, faith. FACE. Why, who Am I, my mungrel? who am I? SUB. I'll tell you., Since you know not yourself. FACE. Speak lower, rogue. SUB. Yes, you were once (time's not long past) the good, Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept Your master's worship's house here in the Friars, For the vacations-- FACE. Will you be so loud? SUB. Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain. FACE. By your means, doctor dog! SUB. Within man's memory, All this I speak of. FACE. Why, I pray you, have I Been countenanced by you, or you by me? Do but collect, sir, where I met you first. SUB. I do not hear well. FACE. Not of this, I think it. But I shall put you in mind, sir;--at Pie-corner, Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls, Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk Piteously costive, with your pinch'd-horn-nose, And your complexion of the Roman wash, Stuck full of black and melancholic worms, Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard. SUB. I wish you could advance your voice a little. FACE. When you went pinn'd up in the several rags You had raked and pick'd from dunghills, before day; Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes; A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloke, That scarce would cover your no buttocks-- SUB. So, sir! FACE. When all your alchemy, and your algebra, Your minerals, vegetals, and animals, Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades, Could not relieve your corps with so much linen Would make you tinder, but to see a fire; I gave you countenance, credit for your coals, Your stills, your glasses, your materials; Built you a furnace, drew you customers, Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside, A house to practise in-- SUB. Your master's house! FACE. Where you have studied the more thriving skill Of bawdry since. SUB. Yes, in your master's house. You and the rats here kept possession. Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep The buttery-hatch still lock'd, and save the chippings, Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitae men, The which, together with your Christmas vails At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters, Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks, And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs, Here, since your mistress' death hath broke up house. FACE. You might talk softlier, rascal. SUB. No, you scarab, I'll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you How to beware to tempt a Fury again, That carries tempest in his hand and voice. FACE. The place has made you valiant. SUB. No, your clothes.-- Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung, So poor, so wretched, when no living thing Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse? Rais'd thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots, Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee In the third region, call'd our state of grace? Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains Would twice have won me the philosopher's work? Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit For more than ordinary fellowships? Giv'n thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions, Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards, Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else? Made thee a second in mine own great art? And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel, Do you fly out in the projection? Would you be gone now? DOL. Gentlemen, what mean you? Will you mar all? SUB. Slave, thou hadst had no name-- DOL. Will you undo yourselves with civil war? SUB. Never been known, past equi clibanum, The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars, Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been lost To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters, Had not I been. DOL. Do you know who hears you, sovereign? FACE. Sirrah-- DOL. Nay, general, I thought you were civil. FACE. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud. SUB. And hang thyself, I care not. FACE. Hang thee, collier, And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will, Since thou hast moved me-- DOL. O, this will o'erthrow all. FACE. Write thee up bawd in Paul's, have all thy tricks Of cozening with a hollow cole, dust, scrapings, Searching for things lost, with a sieve and sheers, Erecting figures in your rows of houses, And taking in of shadows with a glass, Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee, Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey's. DOL. Are you sound? Have you your senses, masters? FACE. I will have A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures, Shall prove a true philosopher's stone to printers. SUB. Away, you trencher-rascal! FACE. Out, you dog-leech! The vomit of all prisons-- DOL. Will you be Your own destructions, gentlemen? FACE. Still spew'd out For lying too heavy on the basket. SUB. Cheater! FACE. Bawd! SUB. Cow-herd! FACE. Conjurer! SUB. Cut-purse! FACE. Witch! DOL. O me! We are ruin'd, lost! have you no more regard To your reputations? where's your judgment? 'slight, Have yet some care of me, of your republic-- FACE. Away, this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio Of Harry the Eighth: ay, and perhaps thy neck Within a noose, for laundring gold and barbing it. DOL [SNATCHES FACE'S SWORD]. You'll bring your head within a cockscomb, will you? And you, sir, with your menstrue-- [DASHES SUBTLE'S VIAL OUT OF HIS HAND.] Gather it up.-- 'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards, Leave off your barking, and grow one again, Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats. I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal, For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both. Have you together cozen'd all this while, And all the world, and shall it now be said, You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves? [TO FACE.] You will accuse him! you will "bring him in Within the statute!" Who shall take your word? A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain, Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust So much as for a feather: [TO SUBTLE.] and you, too, Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult, And claim a primacy in the divisions! You must be chief! as if you only had The powder to project with, and the work Were not begun out of equality? The venture tripartite? all things in common? Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs, Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly, And heartily, and lovingly, as you should, And lose not the beginning of a term, Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too, And take my part, and quit you. FACE. 'Tis his fault; He ever murmurs, and objects his pains, And says, the weight of all lies upon him. SUB. Why, so it does. DOL. How does it? do not we Sustain our parts? SUB. Yes, but they are not equal. DOL. Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope Ours may, to-morrow match it. SUB. Ay, they MAY. DOL. May, murmuring mastiff! ay, and do. Death on me! Help me to throttle him. [SEIZES SUB. BY THE THROAT.] SUB. Dorothy! mistress Dorothy! 'Ods precious, I'll do any thing. What do you mean? DOL. Because o' your fermentation and cibation? SUB. Not I, by heaven-- DOL. Your Sol and Luna [TO FACE.] --help me. SUB. Would I were hang'd then? I'll conform myself. DOL. Will you, sir? do so then, and quickly: swear. SUB. What should I swear? DOL. To leave your faction, sir, And labour kindly in the common work. SUB. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside. I only used those speeches as a spur To him. DOL. I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we? FACE. 'Slid, prove to-day, who shall shark best. SUB. Agreed. DOL. Yes, and work close and friendly. SUB. 'Slight, the knot Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me. [THEY SHAKE HANDS.] DOL. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours, That scarce have smiled twice since the king came in, A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals, Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride, Or you t' have but a hole to thrust your heads in, For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree. And may don Provost ride a feasting long, In his old velvet jerkin and stain'd scarfs, My noble sovereign, and worthy general, Ere we contribute a new crewel garter To his most worsted worship. SUB. Royal Dol! Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself. FACE. For which at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph, And not be styled Dol Common, but Dol Proper, Dol Singular: the longest cut at night, Shall draw thee for his Doll Particular. [BELL RINGS WITHOUT.] SUB. Who's that? one rings. To the window, Dol: [EXIT DOL.] --pray heaven, The master do not trouble us this quarter. FACE. O, fear not him. While there dies one a week O' the plague, he's safe, from thinking toward London. Beside, he's busy at his hop-yards now; I had a letter from him. If he do, He'll send such word, for airing of the house, As you shall have sufficient time to quit it: Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter. [RE-ENTER DOL.] SUB. Who is it, Dol? DOL. A fine young quodling. FACE. O, My lawyer's clerk, I lighted on last night, In Holborn, at the Dagger. He would have (I told you of him) a familiar, To rifle with at horses, and win cups. DOL. O, let him in. SUB. Stay. Who shall do't? FACE. Get you Your robes on: I will meet him as going out. DOL. And what shall I do? FACE. Not be seen; away! [EXIT DOL.] Seem you very reserv'd. SUB. Enough. [EXIT.] FACE [ALOUD AND RETIRING]. God be wi' you, sir, I pray you let him know that I was here: His name is Dapper. I would gladly have staid, but-- DAP [WITHIN]. Captain, I am here. FACE. Who's that?--He's come, I think, doctor. [ENTER DAPPER.] Good faith, sir, I was going away. DAP. In truth I am very sorry, captain. FACE. But I thought Sure I should meet you. DAP. Ay, I am very glad. I had a scurvy writ or two to make, And I had lent my watch last night to one That dines to-day at the sheriff's, and so was robb'd Of my past-time. [RE-ENTER SUBTLE IN HIS VELVET CAP AND GOWN.] Is this the cunning-man? FACE. This is his worship. DAP. Is he a doctor? FACE. Yes. DAP. And have you broke with him, captain? FACE. Ay. DAP. And how? FACE. Faith, he does make the matter, sir, so dainty I know not what to say. DAP. Not so, good captain. FACE. Would I were fairly rid of it, believe me. DAP. Nay, now you grieve me, sir. Why should you wish so? I dare assure you, I'll not be ungrateful. FACE. I cannot think you will, sir. But the law Is such a thing--and then he says, Read's matter Falling so lately. DAP. Read! he was an ass, And dealt, sir, with a fool. FACE. It was a clerk, sir. DAP. A clerk! FACE. Nay, hear me, sir. You know the law Better, I think-- DAP. I should, sir, and the danger: You know, I shewed the statute to you. FACE. You did so. DAP. And will I tell then! By this hand of flesh, Would it might never write good court-hand more, If I discover. What do you think of me, That I am a chiaus? FACE. What's that? DAP. The Turk was here. As one would say, do you think I am a Turk? FACE. I'll tell the doctor so. DAP. Do, good sweet captain. FACE. Come, noble doctor, pray thee let's prevail; This is the gentleman, and he is no chiaus. SUB. Captain, I have return'd you all my answer. I would do much, sir, for your love--But this I neither may, nor can. FACE. Tut, do not say so. You deal now with a noble fellow, doctor, One that will thank you richly; and he is no chiaus: Let that, sir, move you. SUB. Pray you, forbear-- FACE. He has Four angels here. SUB. You do me wrong, good sir. FACE. Doctor, wherein? to tempt you with these spirits? SUB. To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril. Fore heaven, I scarce can think you are my friend, That so would draw me to apparent danger. FACE. I draw you! a horse draw you, and a halter, You, and your flies together-- DAP. Nay, good captain. FACE. That know no difference of men. SUB. Good words, sir. FACE. Good deeds, sir, doctor dogs-meat. 'Slight, I bring you No cheating Clim o' the Cloughs or Claribels, That look as big as five-and-fifty, and flush; And spit out secrets like hot custard-- DAP. Captain! FACE. Nor any melancholic under-scribe, Shall tell the vicar; but a special gentle, That is the heir to forty marks a year, Consorts with the small poets of the time, Is the sole hope of his old grandmother; That knows the law, and writes you six fair hands, Is a fine clerk, and has his cyphering perfect. Will take his oath o' the Greek Testament, If need be, in his pocket; and can court His mistress out of Ovid. DAP. Nay, dear captain-- FACE. Did you not tell me so? DAP. Yes; but I'd have you Use master doctor with some more respect. FACE. Hang him, proud stag, with his broad velvet head!-- But for your sake, I'd choak, ere I would change An article of breath with such a puckfist: Come, let's be gone. [GOING.] SUB. Pray you let me speak with you. DAP. His worship calls you, captain. FACE. I am sorry I e'er embark'd myself in such a business. DAP. Nay, good sir; he did call you. FACE. Will he take then? SUB. First, hear me-- FACE. Not a syllable, 'less you take. SUB. Pray you, sir-- FACE. Upon no terms but an assumpsit. SUB. Your humour must be law. [HE TAKES THE FOUR ANGELS.] FACE. Why now, sir, talk. Now I dare hear you with mine honour. Speak. So may this gentleman too. SUB. Why, sir-- [OFFERING TO WHISPER FACE.] FACE. No whispering. SUB. Fore heaven, you do not apprehend the loss You do yourself in this. FACE. Wherein? for what? SUB. Marry, to be so importunate for one, That, when he has it, will undo you all: He'll win up all the money in the town. FACE. How! SUB. Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester, As they do crackers in a puppet-play. If I do give him a familiar, Give you him all you play for; never set him: For he will have it. FACE. You are mistaken, doctor. Why he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly; none of your great familiars. DAP. Yes, captain, I would have it for all games. SUB. I told you so. FACE [TAKING DAP. ASIDE]. 'Slight, that is a new business! I understood you, a tame bird, to fly Twice in a term, or so, on Friday nights, When you had left the office, for a nag Of forty or fifty shillings. DAP. Ay, 'tis true, sir; But I do think now I shall leave the law, And therefore-- FACE. Why, this changes quite the case. Do you think that I dare move him? DAP. If you please, sir; All's one to him, I see. FACE. What! for that money? I cannot with my conscience; nor should you Make the request, methinks. DAP. No, sir, I mean To add consideration. FACE. Why then, sir, I'll try.-- [GOES TO SUBTLE.] Say that it were for all games, doctor. SUB. I say then, not a mouth shall eat for him At any ordinary, but on the score, That is a gaming mouth, conceive me. FACE. Indeed! SUB. He'll draw you all the treasure of the realm, If it be set him. FACE. Speak you this from art? SUB. Ay, sir, and reason too, the ground of art. He is of the only best complexion, The queen of Fairy loves. FACE. What! is he? SUB. Peace. He'll overhear you. Sir, should she but see him-- FACE. What? SUB. Do not you tell him. FACE. Will he win at cards too? SUB. The spirits of dead Holland, living Isaac, You'd swear, were in him; such a vigorous luck As cannot be resisted. 'Slight, he'll put Six of your gallants to a cloke, indeed. FACE. A strange success, that some man shall be born to. SUB. He hears you, man-- DAP. Sir, I'll not be ingrateful. FACE. Faith, I have confidence in his good nature: You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful. SUB. Why, as you please; my venture follows yours. FACE. Troth, do it, doctor; think him trusty, and make him. He may make us both happy in an hour; Win some five thousand pound, and send us two on't. DAP. Believe it, and I will, sir. FACE. And you shall, sir. [TAKES HIM ASIDE.] You have heard all? DAP. No, what was't? Nothing, I, sir. FACE. Nothing! DAP. A little, sir. FACE. Well, a rare star Reign'd at your birth. DAP. At mine, sir! No. FACE. The doctor Swears that you are-- SUB. Nay, captain, you'll tell all now. FACE. Allied to the queen of Fairy. DAP. Who! that I am? Believe it, no such matter-- FACE. Yes, and that You were born with a cawl on your head. DAP. Who says so? FACE. Come, You know it well enough, though you dissemble it. DAP. I'fac, I do not; you are mistaken. FACE. How! Swear by your fac, and in a thing so known Unto the doctor? How shall we, sir, trust you In the other matter? can we ever think, When you have won five or six thousand pound, You'll send us shares in't, by this rate? DAP. By Jove, sir, I'll win ten thousand pound, and send you half. I'fac's no oath. SUB. No, no, he did but jest. FACE. Go to. Go thank the doctor: he's your friend, To take it so. DAP. I thank his worship. FACE. So! Another angel. DAP. Must I? FACE. Must you! 'slight, What else is thanks? will you be trivial?--Doctor, [DAPPER GIVES HIM THE MONEY.] When must he come for his familiar? DAP. Shall I not have it with me? SUB. O, good sir! There must a world of ceremonies pass; You must be bath'd and fumigated first: Besides the queen of Fairy does not rise Till it be noon. FACE. Not, if she danced, to-night. SUB. And she must bless it. FACE. Did you never see Her royal grace yet? DAP. Whom? FACE. Your aunt of Fairy? SUB. Not since she kist him in the cradle, captain; I can resolve you that. FACE. Well, see her grace, Whate'er it cost you, for a thing that I know. It will be somewhat hard to compass; but However, see her. You are made, believe it, If you can see her. Her grace is a lone woman, And very rich; and if she take a fancy, She will do strange things. See her, at any hand. 'Slid, she may hap to leave you all she has: It is the doctor's fear. DAP. How will't be done, then? FACE. Let me alone, take you no thought. Do you But say to me, captain, I'll see her grace. DAP. "Captain, I'll see her grace." FACE. Enough. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] SUB. Who's there? Anon. [ASIDE TO FACE.] --Conduct him forth by the back way.-- Sir, against one o'clock prepare yourself; Till when you must be fasting; only take Three drops of vinegar in at your nose, Two at your mouth, and one at either ear; Then bathe your fingers' ends and wash your eyes, To sharpen your five senses, and cry "hum" Thrice, and then "buz" as often; and then come. [EXIT.] FACE. Can you remember this? DAP. I warrant you. FACE. Well then, away. It is but your bestowing Some twenty nobles 'mong her grace's servants, And put on a clean shirt: you do not know What grace her grace may do you in clean linen. [EXEUNT FACE AND DAPPER.] SUB [WITHIN]. Come in! Good wives, I pray you forbear me now; Troth I can do you no good till afternoon-- [RE-ENTERS, FOLLOWED BY DRUGGER.] What is your name, say you? Abel Drugger? DRUG. Yes, sir. SUB. A seller of tobacco? DRUG. Yes, sir. SUB. Umph! Free of the grocers? DRUG. Ay, an't please you. SUB. Well-- Your business, Abel? DRUG. This, an't please your worship; I am a young beginner, and am building Of a new shop, an't like your worship, just At corner of a street:--Here is the plot on't-- And I would know by art, sir, of your worship, Which way I should make my door, by necromancy, And where my shelves; and which should be for boxes, And which for pots. I would be glad to thrive, sir: And I was wish'd to your worship by a gentleman, One captain Face, that says you know men's planets, And their good angels, and their bad. SUB. I do, If I do see them-- [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. What! my honest Abel? Though art well met here. DRUG. Troth, sir, I was speaking, Just as your worship came here, of your worship: I pray you speak for me to master doctor. FACE. He shall do any thing.--Doctor, do you hear? This is my friend, Abel, an honest fellow; He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil, Nor washes it in muscadel and grains, Nor buries it in gravel, under ground, Wrapp'd up in greasy leather, or piss'd clouts: But keeps it in fine lily pots, that, open'd, Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans. He has his maple block, his silver tongs, Winchester pipes, and fire of Juniper: A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith. SUB. He is a fortunate fellow, that I am sure on. FACE. Already, sir, have you found it? Lo thee, Abel! SUB. And in right way toward riches-- FACE. Sir! SUB. This summer He will be of the clothing of his company, And next spring call'd to the scarlet; spend what he can. FACE. What, and so little beard? SUB. Sir, you must think, He may have a receipt to make hair come: But he'll be wise, preserve his youth, and fine for't; His fortune looks for him another way. FACE. 'Slid, doctor, how canst thou know this so soon? I am amused at that! SUB. By a rule, captain, In metoposcopy, which I do work by; A certain star in the forehead, which you see not. Your chestnut or your olive-colour'd face Does never fail: and your long ear doth promise. I knew't by certain spots, too, in his teeth, And on the nail of his mercurial finger. FACE. Which finger's that? SUB. His little finger. Look. You were born upon a Wednesday? DRUG. Yes, indeed, sir. SUB. The thumb, in chiromancy, we give Venus; The fore-finger, to Jove; the midst, to Saturn; The ring, to Sol; the least, to Mercury, Who was the lord, sir, of his horoscope, His house of life being Libra; which fore-shew'd, He should be a merchant, and should trade with balance. FACE. Why, this is strange! Is it not, honest Nab? SUB. There is a ship now, coming from Ormus, That shall yield him such a commodity Of drugs [POINTING TO THE PLAN.] --This is the west, and this the south? DRUG. Yes, sir. SUB. And those are your two sides? DRUG. Ay, sir. SUB. Make me your door, then, south; your broad side, west: And on the east side of your shop, aloft, Write Mathlai, Tarmiel, and Baraborat; Upon the north part, Rael, Velel, Thiel. They are the names of those mercurial spirits, That do fright flies from boxes. DRUG. Yes, sir. SUB. And Beneath your threshold, bury me a load-stone To draw in gallants that wear spurs: the rest, They'll seem to follow. FACE. That's a secret, Nab! SUB. And, on your stall, a puppet, with a vice And a court-fucus to call city-dames: You shall deal much with minerals. DRUG. Sir, I have. At home, already-- SUB. Ay, I know you have arsenic, Vitriol, sal-tartar, argaile, alkali, Cinoper: I know all.--This fellow, captain, Will come, in time, to be a great distiller, And give a say--I will not say directly, But very fair--at the philosopher's stone. FACE. Why, how now, Abel! is this true? DRUG [ASIDE TO FACE]. Good captain, What must I give? FACE. Nay, I'll not counsel thee. Thou hear'st what wealth (he says, spend what thou canst,) Thou'rt like to come to. DRUG. I would gi' him a crown. FACE. A crown! and toward such a fortune? heart, Thou shalt rather gi' him thy shop. No gold about thee? DRUG. Yes, I have a portague, I have kept this half-year. FACE. Out on thee, Nab! 'Slight, there was such an offer-- Shalt keep't no longer, I'll give't him for thee. Doctor, Nab prays your worship to drink this, and swears He will appear more grateful, as your skill Does raise him in the world. DRUG. I would entreat Another favour of his worship. FACE. What is't, Nab? DRUG. But to look over, sir, my almanack, And cross out my ill-days, that I may neither Bargain, nor trust upon them. FACE. That he shall, Nab: Leave it, it shall be done, 'gainst afternoon. SUB. And a direction for his shelves. FACE. Now, Nab, Art thou well pleased, Nab? DRUG. 'Thank, sir, both your worships. FACE. Away. [EXIT DRUGGER.] Why, now, you smoaky persecutor of nature! Now do you see, that something's to be done, Beside your beech-coal, and your corsive waters, Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites? You must have stuff brought home to you, to work on: And yet you think, I am at no expense In searching out these veins, then following them, Then trying them out. 'Fore God, my intelligence Costs me more money, than my share oft comes to, In these rare works. SUB. You are pleasant, sir. [RE-ENTER DOL.] --How now! What says my dainty Dolkin? DOL. Yonder fish-wife Will not away. And there's your giantess, The bawd of Lambeth. SUB. Heart, I cannot speak with them. DOL. Not afore night, I have told them in a voice, Thorough the trunk, like one of your familiars. But I have spied sir Epicure Mammon-- SUB. Where? DOL. Coming along, at far end of the lane, Slow of his feet, but earnest of his tongue To one that's with him. SUB. Face, go you and shift. [EXIT FACE.] Dol, you must presently make ready, too. DOL. Why, what's the matter? SUB. O, I did look for him With the sun's rising: 'marvel he could sleep, This is the day I am to perfect for him The magisterium, our great work, the stone; And yield it, made, into his hands: of which He has, this month, talked as he were possess'd. And now he's dealing pieces on't away.-- Methinks I see him entering ordinaries, Dispensing for the pox, and plaguy houses, Reaching his dose, walking Moorfields for lepers, And offering citizens' wives pomander-bracelets, As his preservative, made of the elixir; Searching the spittal, to make old bawds young; And the highways, for beggars, to make rich. I see no end of his labours. He will make Nature asham'd of her long sleep: when art, Who's but a step-dame, shall do more than she, In her best love to mankind, ever could: If his dream lasts, he'll turn the age to gold. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. AN OUTER ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE. ENTER SIR EPICURE MAMMON AND SURLY. MAM. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru: And there within, sir, are the golden mines, Great Solomon's Ophir! he was sailing to't, Three years, but we have reached it in ten months. This is the day, wherein, to all my friends, I will pronounce the happy word, BE RICH; THIS DAY YOU SHALL BE SPECTATISSIMI. You shall no more deal with the hollow dye, Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping The livery-punk for the young heir, that must Seal, at all hours, in his shirt: no more, If he deny, have him beaten to't, as he is That brings him the commodity. No more Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger Of velvet entrails for a rude-spun cloke, To be display'd at madam Augusta's, make The sons of Sword and Hazard fall before The golden calf, and on their knees, whole nights Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets: Or go a feasting after drum and ensign. No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys, And have your punks, and punketees, my Surly. And unto thee I speak it first, BE RICH. Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho! FACE [WITHIN]. Sir, he'll come to you by and by. MAM. That is his fire-drake, His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals, Till he firk nature up, in her own centre. You are not faithful, sir. This night, I'll change All that is metal, in my house, to gold: And, early in the morning, will I send To all the plumbers and the pewterers, And by their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury For all the copper. SUR. What, and turn that too? MAM. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, And make them perfect Indies! you admire now? SUR. No, faith. MAM. But when you see th' effects of the Great Medicine, Of which one part projected on a hundred Of Mercury, or Venus, or the moon, Shall turn it to as many of the sun; Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum: You will believe me. SUR. Yes, when I see't, I will. But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I Giving them no occasion, sure I'll have A whore, shall piss them out next day. MAM. Ha! why? Do you think I fable with you? I assure you, He that has once the flower of the sun, The perfect ruby, which we call elixir, Not only can do that, but, by its virtue, Can confer honour, love, respect, long life; Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, To whom he will. In eight and twenty days, I'll make an old man of fourscore, a child. SUR. No doubt; he's that already. MAM. Nay, I mean, Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters, Young giants; as our philosophers have done, The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood, But taking, once a week, on a knife's point, The quantity of a grain of mustard of it; Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids. SUR. The decay'd vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you, That keep the fire alive, there. MAM. 'Tis the secret Of nature naturis'd 'gainst all infections, Cures all diseases coming of all causes; A month's grief in a day, a year's in twelve; And, of what age soever, in a month: Past all the doses of your drugging doctors. I'll undertake, withal, to fright the plague Out of the kingdom in three months. SUR. And I'll Be bound, the players shall sing your praises, then, Without their poets. MAM. Sir, I'll do't. Mean time, I'll give away so much unto my man, Shall serve the whole city, with preservative Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate-- SUR. As he that built the Water-work, does with water? MAM. You are incredulous. SUR. Faith I have a humour, I would not willingly be gull'd. Your stone Cannot transmute me. MAM. Pertinax, [my] Surly, Will you believe antiquity? records? I'll shew you a book where Moses and his sister, And Solomon have written of the art; Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam-- SUR. How! MAM. Of the philosopher's stone, and in High Dutch. SUR. Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch? MAM. He did; Which proves it was the primitive tongue. SUR. What paper? MAM. On cedar board. SUR. O that, indeed, they say, Will last 'gainst worms. MAM. 'Tis like your Irish wood, 'Gainst cob-webs. I have a piece of Jason's fleece, too, Which was no other than a book of alchemy, Writ in large sheep-skin, a good fat ram-vellum. Such was Pythagoras' thigh, Pandora's tub, And, all that fable of Medea's charms, The manner of our work; the bulls, our furnace, Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the dragon: The dragon's teeth, mercury sublimate, That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting; And they are gathered into Jason's helm, The alembic, and then sow'd in Mars his field, And thence sublimed so often, till they're fixed. Both this, the Hesperian garden, Cadmus' story, Jove's shower, the boon of Midas, Argus' eyes, Boccace his Demogorgon, thousands more, All abstract riddles of our stone. [ENTER FACE, AS A SERVANT.] --How now! Do we succeed? Is our day come? and holds it? FACE. The evening will set red upon you, sir; You have colour for it, crimson: the red ferment Has done his office; three hours hence prepare you To see projection. MAM. Pertinax, my Surly. Again I say to thee, aloud, Be rich. This day, thou shalt have ingots; and to-morrow, Give lords th' affront.--Is it, my Zephyrus, right? Blushes the bolt's-head? FACE. Like a wench with child, sir, That were but now discover'd to her master. MAM. Excellent witty Lungs!--my only care Where to get stuff enough now, to project on; This town will not half serve me. FACE. No, sir! buy The covering off o' churches. MAM. That's true. FACE. Yes. Let them stand bare, as do their auditory; Or cap them, new, with shingles. MAM. No, good thatch: Thatch will lie light upon the rafters, Lungs.-- Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace; I will restore thee thy complexion, Puffe, Lost in the embers; and repair this brain, Hurt with the fume o' the metals. FACE. I have blown, sir, Hard for your worship; thrown by many a coal, When 'twas not beech; weigh'd those I put in, just, To keep your heat still even; these blear'd eyes Have wak'd to read your several colours, sir, Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow, The peacock's tail, the plumed swan. MAM. And, lastly, Thou hast descry'd the flower, the sanguis agni? FACE. Yes, sir. MAM. Where's master? FACE. At his prayers, sir, he; Good man, he's doing his devotions For the success. MAM. Lungs, I will set a period To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master Of my seraglio. FACE. Good, sir. MAM. But do you hear? I'll geld you, Lungs. FACE. Yes, sir. MAM. For I do mean To have a list of wives and concubines, Equal with Solomon, who had the stone Alike with me; and I will make me a back With the elixir, that shall be as tough As Hercules, to encounter fifty a night.-- Thou'rt sure thou saw'st it blood? FACE. Both blood and spirit, sir. MAM. I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft; Down is too hard: and then, mine oval room Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took From Elephantis, and dull Aretine But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse And multiply the figures, as I walk Naked between my succubae. My mists I'll have of perfume, vapour'd 'bout the room, To lose ourselves in; and my baths, like pits To fall into; from whence we will come forth, And roll us dry in gossamer and roses.-- Is it arrived at ruby?--Where I spy A wealthy citizen, or [a] rich lawyer, Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold. FACE. And I shall carry it? MAM. No. I'll have no bawds, But fathers and mothers: they will do it best, Best of all others. And my flatterers Shall be the pure and gravest of divines, That I can get for money. My mere fools, Eloquent burgesses, and then my poets The same that writ so subtly of the fart, Whom I will entertain still for that subject. The few that would give out themselves to be Court and town-stallions, and, each-where, bely Ladies who are known most innocent for them; Those will I beg, to make me eunuchs of: And they shall fan me with ten estrich tails A-piece, made in a plume to gather wind. We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the med'cine. My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, Dishes of agat set in gold, and studded With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies. The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels, Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl, Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy: And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, Headed with diamond and carbuncle. My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have The beards of barbels served, instead of sallads; Oil'd mushrooms; and the swelling unctuous paps Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off, Drest with an exquisite, and poignant sauce; For which, I'll say unto my cook, "There's gold, Go forth, and be a knight." FACE. Sir, I'll go look A little, how it heightens. [EXIT.] MAM. Do.--My shirts I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment, It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, Were he to teach the world riot anew. My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins, perfumed With gums of paradise, and eastern air-- SUR. And do you think to have the stone with this? MAM. No, I do think t' have all this with the stone. SUR. Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi, A pious, holy, and religious man, One free from mortal sin, a very virgin. MAM. That makes it, sir; he is so: but I buy it; My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch, A notable, superstitious, good soul, Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald, With prayer and fasting for it: and, sir, let him Do it alone, for me, still. Here he comes. Not a profane word afore him: 'tis poison.-- [ENTER SUBTLE.] Good morrow, father. SUB. Gentle son, good morrow, And to your friend there. What is he, is with you? MAM. An heretic, that I did bring along, In hope, sir, to convert him. SUB. Son, I doubt You are covetous, that thus you meet your time In the just point: prevent your day at morning. This argues something, worthy of a fear Of importune and carnal appetite. Take heed you do not cause the blessing leave you, With your ungovern'd haste. I should be sorry To see my labours, now even at perfection, Got by long watching and large patience, Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed them. Which (heaven I call to witness, with your self, To whom I have pour'd my thoughts) in all my ends, Have look'd no way, but unto public good, To pious uses, and dear charity Now grown a prodigy with men. Wherein If you, my son, should now prevaricate, And, to your own particular lusts employ So great and catholic a bliss, be sure A curse will follow, yea, and overtake Your subtle and most secret ways. MAM. I know, sir; You shall not need to fear me; I but come, To have you confute this gentleman. SUR. Who is, Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief Toward your stone; would not be gull'd. SUB. Well, son, All that I can convince him in, is this, The WORK IS DONE, bright sol is in his robe. We have a medicine of the triple soul, The glorified spirit. Thanks be to heaven, And make us worthy of it!--Ulen Spiegel! FACE [WITHIN]. Anon, sir. SUB. Look well to the register. And let your heat still lessen by degrees, To the aludels. FACE [WITHIN]. Yes, sir. SUB. Did you look On the bolt's-head yet? FACE [WITHIN]. Which? on D, sir? SUB. Ay; What's the complexion? FACE [WITHIN]. Whitish. SUB. Infuse vinegar, To draw his volatile substance and his tincture: And let the water in glass E be filter'd, And put into the gripe's egg. Lute him well; And leave him closed in balneo. FACE [WITHIN]. I will, sir. SUR. What a brave language here is! next to canting. SUB. I have another work, you never saw, son, That three days since past the philosopher's wheel, In the lent heat of Athanor; and's become Sulphur of Nature. MAM. But 'tis for me? SUB. What need you? You have enough in that is perfect. MAM. O but-- SUB. Why, this is covetise! MAM. No, I assure you, I shall employ it all in pious uses, Founding of colleges and grammar schools, Marrying young virgins, building hospitals, And now and then a church. [RE-ENTER FACE.] SUB. How now! FACE. Sir, please you, Shall I not change the filter? SUB. Marry, yes; And bring me the complexion of glass B. [EXIT FACE.] MAM. Have you another? SUB. Yes, son; were I assured-- Your piety were firm, we would not want The means to glorify it: but I hope the best.-- I mean to tinct C in sand-heat to-morrow, And give him imbibition. MAM. Of white oil? SUB. No, sir, of red. F is come over the helm too, I thank my Maker, in S. Mary's bath, And shews lac virginis. Blessed be heaven! I sent you of his faeces there calcined: Out of that calx, I have won the salt of mercury. MAM. By pouring on your rectified water? SUB. Yes, and reverberating in Athanor. [RE-ENTER FACE.] How now! what colour says it? FACE. The ground black, sir. MAM. That's your crow's head? SUR. Your cock's-comb's, is it not? SUB. No, 'tis not perfect. Would it were the crow! That work wants something. SUR [ASIDE]. O, I looked for this. The hay's a pitching. SUB. Are you sure you loosed them In their own menstrue? FACE. Yes, sir, and then married them, And put them in a bolt's-head nipp'd to digestion, According as you bade me, when I set The liquor of Mars to circulation In the same heat. SUB. The process then was right. FACE. Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake, And what was saved was put into the pellican, And sign'd with Hermes' seal. SUB. I think 'twas so. We should have a new amalgama. SUR [ASIDE]. O, this ferret Is rank as any pole-cat. SUB. But I care not: Let him e'en die; we have enough beside, In embrion. H has his white shirt on? FACE. Yes, sir, He's ripe for inceration, he stands warm, In his ash-fire. I would not you should let Any die now, if I might counsel, sir, For luck's sake to the rest: it is not good. MAM. He says right. SUR [ASIDE]. Ay, are you bolted? FACE. Nay, I know't, sir, I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces Of fresh materials? MAM. Is't no more? FACE. No more, sir. Of gold, t'amalgame with some six of mercury. MAM. Away, here's money. What will serve? FACE. Ask him, sir. MAM. How much? SUB. Give him nine pound:--you may give him ten. SUR. Yes, twenty, and be cozen'd, do. MAM. There 'tis. [GIVES FACE THE MONEY.] SUB. This needs not; but that you will have it so, To see conclusions of all: for two Of our inferior works are at fixation, A third is in ascension. Go your ways. Have you set the oil of luna in kemia? FACE. Yes, sir. SUB. And the philosopher's vinegar? FACE. Ay. [EXIT.] SUR. We shall have a sallad! MAM. When do you make projection? SUB. Son, be not hasty, I exalt our med'cine, By hanging him in balneo vaporoso, And giving him solution; then congeal him; And then dissolve him; then again congeal him; For look, how oft I iterate the work, So many times I add unto his virtue. As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred, After his second loose, he'll turn a thousand; His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred: After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces Of any imperfect metal, into pure Silver or gold, in all examinations, As good as any of the natural mine. Get you your stuff here against afternoon, Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons. MAM. Not those of iron? SUB. Yes, you may bring them too: We'll change all metals. SUR. I believe you in that. MAM. Then I may send my spits? SUB. Yes, and your racks. SUR. And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks? Shall he not? SUB. If he please. SUR.--To be an ass. SUB. How, sir! MAM. This gentleman you must bear withal: I told you he had no faith. SUR. And little hope, sir; But much less charity, should I gull myself. SUB. Why, what have you observ'd, sir, in our art, Seems so impossible? SUR. But your whole work, no more. That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir, As they do eggs in Egypt! SUB. Sir, do you Believe that eggs are hatch'd so? SUR. If I should? SUB. Why, I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves. SUR. That cannot be. The egg's ordain'd by nature to that end, And is a chicken in potentia. SUB. The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold, if they had time. MAM. And that Our art doth further. SUB. Ay, for 'twere absurb To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter. SUR. Ay, what is that? SUB. Marry, we say-- MAM. Ay, now it heats: stand, father, Pound him to dust. SUB. It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call Material liquida, or the unctuous water; On the other part, a certain crass and vicious Portion of earth; both which, concorporate, Do make the elementary matter of gold; Which is not yet propria materia, But common to all metals and all stones; For, where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more driness, it becomes a stone: Where it retains more of the humid fatness, It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver, Who are the parents of all other metals. Nor can this remote matter suddenly Progress so from extreme unto extreme, As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the means. Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engender'd; Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one, Which is the last, supplying the place of male, The other of the female, in all metals. Some do believe hermaphrodeity, That both do act and suffer. But these two Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive. And even in gold they are; for we do find Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them; And can produce the species of each metal More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth. Beside, who doth not see in daily practice Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps, Out of the carcases and dung of creatures; Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed? And these are living creatures, far more perfect And excellent than metals. MAM. Well said, father! Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He'll bray you in a mortar. SUR. Pray you, sir, stay. Rather than I'll be brayed, sir, I'll believe That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game, Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man With charming. SUB. Sir? SUR. What else are all your terms, Whereon no one of your writers 'grees with other? Of your elixir, your lac virginis, Your stone, your med'cine, and your chrysosperm, Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury, Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood, Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia, Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther; Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop, Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit, And then your red man, and your white woman, With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials, Of piss and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood, Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay, Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass, And worlds of other strange ingredients, Would burst a man to name? SUB. And all these named, Intending but one thing; which art our writers Used to obscure their art. MAM. Sir, so I told him-- Because the simple idiot should not learn it, And make it vulgar. SUB. Was not all the knowledge Of the Aegyptians writ in mystic symbols? Speak not the scriptures oft in parables? Are not the choicest fables of the poets, That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom, Wrapp'd in perplexed allegories? MAM. I urg'd that, And clear'd to him, that Sisyphus was damn'd To roll the ceaseless stone, only because He would have made Ours common. DOL [APPEARS AT THE DOOR].-- Who is this? SUB. 'Sprecious!--What do you mean? go in, good lady, Let me entreat you. [DOL RETIRES.] --Where's this varlet? [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Sir. SUB. You very knave! do you use me thus? FACE. Wherein, sir? SUB. Go in and see, you traitor. Go! [EXIT FACE.] MAM. Who is it, sir? SUB. Nothing, sir; nothing. MAM. What's the matter, good sir? I have not seen you thus distemper'd: who is't? SUB. All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries; But ours the most ignorant.-- [RE-ENTER FACE.] What now? FACE. 'Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you. SUB. Would she, sir! Follow me. [EXIT.] MAM [STOPPING HIM]. Stay, Lungs. FACE. I dare not, sir. MAM. Stay, man; what is she? FACE. A lord's sister, sir. MAM. How! pray thee, stay. FACE. She's mad, sir, and sent hither-- He'll be mad too.-- MAM. I warrant thee.-- Why sent hither? FACE. Sir, to be cured. SUB [WITHIN]. Why, rascal! FACE. Lo you!--Here, sir! [EXIT.] MAM. 'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece. SUR. Heart, this is a bawdy-house! I will be burnt else. MAM. O, by this light, no: do not wrong him. He's Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice. No, he's a rare physician, do him right, An excellent Paracelsian, and has done Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all With spirits, he; he will not hear a word Of Galen; or his tedious recipes.-- [RE-ENTER FACE.] How now, Lungs! FACE. Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant To have told your worship all. This must not hear. MAM. No, he will not be "gull'd;" let him alone. FACE. You are very right, sir, she is a most rare scholar, And is gone mad with studying Broughton's works. If you but name a word touching the Hebrew, She falls into her fit, and will discourse So learnedly of genealogies, As you would run mad too, to hear her, sir. MAM. How might one do t' have conference with her, Lungs? FACE. O divers have run mad upon the conference: I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste, To fetch a vial. SUR. Be not gull'd, sir Mammon. MAM. Wherein? pray ye, be patient. SUR. Yes, as you are, And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores. MAM. You are too foul, believe it.--Come here, Ulen, One word. FACE. I dare not, in good faith. [GOING.] MAM. Stay, knave. FACE. He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir. MAM. Drink that. [GIVES HIM MONEY.] What is she when she's out of her fit? FACE. O, the most affablest creature, sir! so merry! So pleasant! she'll mount you up, like quicksilver, Over the helm; and circulate like oil, A very vegetal: discourse of state, Of mathematics, bawdry, any thing-- MAM. Is she no way accessible? no means, No trick to give a man a taste of her--wit-- Or so? SUB [WITHIN]. Ulen! FACE. I'll come to you again, sir. [EXIT.] MAM. Surly, I did not think one of your breeding Would traduce personages of worth. SUR. Sir Epicure, Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gull'd: I do not like your philosophical bawds. Their stone is letchery enough to pay for, Without this bait. MAM. 'Heart, you abuse yourself. I know the lady, and her friends, and means, The original of this disaster. Her brother Has told me all. SUR. And yet you never saw her Till now! MAM. O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it, One of the treacherousest memories, I do think, Of all mankind. SUR. What call you her brother? MAM. My lord-- He will not have his name known, now I think on't. SUR. A very treacherous memory! MAM. On my faith-- SUR. Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it, Till we meet next. MAM. Nay, by this hand, 'tis true. He's one I honour, and my noble friend; And I respect his house. SUR. Heart! can it be, That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need, A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus, With his own oaths, and arguments, make hard means To gull himself? An this be your elixir, Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary, Give me your honest trick yet at primero, Or gleek; and take your lutum sapientis, Your menstruum simplex! I'll have gold before you, And with less danger of the quicksilver, Or the hot sulphur. [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Here's one from Captain Face, sir, [TO SURLY.] Desires you meet him in the Temple-church, Some half-hour hence, and upon earnest business. Sir, [WHISPERS MAMMON.] if you please to quit us, now; and come Again within two hours, you shall have My master busy examining o' the works; And I will steal you in, unto the party, That you may see her converse.--Sir, shall I say, You'll meet the captain's worship? SUR. Sir, I will.-- [WALKS ASIDE.] But, by attorney, and to a second purpose. Now, I am sure it is a bawdy-house; I'll swear it, were the marshal here to thank me: The naming this commander doth confirm it. Don Face! why, he's the most authentic dealer In these commodities, the superintendant To all the quainter traffickers in town! He is the visitor, and does appoint, Who lies with whom, and at what hour; what price; Which gown, and in what smock; what fall; what tire. Him will I prove, by a third person, to find The subtleties of this dark labyrinth: Which if I do discover, dear sir Mammon, You'll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher, To laugh: for you that are, 'tis thought, shall weep. FACE. Sir, he does pray, you'll not forget. SUR. I will not, sir. Sir Epicure, I shall leave you. [EXIT.] MAM. I follow you, straight. FACE. But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion. This gentleman has a parlous head. MAM. But wilt thou Ulen, Be constant to thy promise? FACE. As my life, sir. MAM. And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me, And say, I am a noble fellow? FACE. O, what else, sir? And that you'll make her royal with the stone, An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam. MAM. Wilt thou do this? FACE. Will I, sir! MAM. Lungs, my Lungs! I love thee. FACE. Send your stuff, sir, that my master May busy himself about projection. MAM. Thou hast witch'd me, rogue: take, go. [GIVES HIM MONEY.] FACE. Your jack, and all, sir. MAM. Thou art a villain--I will send my jack, And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear. Away, thou dost not care for me. FACE. Not I, sir! MAM. Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel, Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain With the best lord's vermin of 'em all. FACE. Away, sir. MAM. A count, nay, a count palatine-- FACE. Good, sir, go. MAM. Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster. [EXIT.] [RE-ENTER SUBTLE AND DOL.] SUB. Has he bit? has he bit? FACE. And swallowed, too, my Subtle. I have given him line, and now he plays, i'faith. SUB. And shall we twitch him? FACE. Thorough both the gills. A wench is a rare bait, with which a man No sooner's taken, but he straight firks mad. SUB. Dol, my Lord What'ts'hums sister, you must now Bear yourself statelich. DOL. O let me alone. I'll not forget my race, I warrant you. I'll keep my distance, laugh and talk aloud; Have all the tricks of a proud scurvy lady, And be as rude as her woman. FACE. Well said, sanguine! SUB. But will he send his andirons? FACE. His jack too, And's iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well, I must not lose my wary gamester yonder. SUB. O monsieur Caution, that WILL NOT BE GULL'D? FACE. Ay, If I can strike a fine hook into him, now! The Temple-church, there I have cast mine angle. Well, pray for me. I'll about it. [KNOCKING WITHOUT.] SUB. What, more gudgeons! Dol, scout, scout! [DOL GOES TO THE WINDOW.] Stay, Face, you must go to the door, 'Pray God it be my anabaptist--Who is't, Dol? DOL. I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman. SUB. Ods so! 'tis he, he said he would send what call you him? The sanctified elder, that should deal For Mammon's jack and andirons. Let him in. Stay, help me off, first, with my gown. [EXIT FACE WITH THE GOWN.] Away, Madam, to your withdrawing chamber. [EXIT DOL.] Now, In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.-- This fellow is sent from one negociates with me About the stone too, for the holy brethren Of Amsterdam, the exiled saints, that hope To raise their discipline by it. I must use him In some strange fashion, now, to make him admire me.-- [ENTER ANANIAS.] [ALOUD.] Where is my drudge? [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Sir! SUB. Take away the recipient, And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma. Then pour it on the Sol, in the cucurbite, And let them macerate together. FACE. Yes, sir. And save the ground? SUB. No: terra damnata Must not have entrance in the work.--Who are you? ANA. A faithful brother, if it please you. SUB. What's that? A Lullianist? a Ripley? Filius artis? Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine? Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic? Or what is homogene, or heterogene? ANA. I understand no heathen language, truly. SUB. Heathen! you Knipper-doling? is Ars sacra, Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica, Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge, A heathen language? ANA. Heathen Greek, I take it. SUB. How! heathen Greek? ANA. All's heathen but the Hebrew. SUB. Sirrah, my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him, Like a philosopher: answer in the language. Name the vexations, and the martyrisations Of metals in the work. FACE. Sir, putrefaction, Solution, ablution, sublimation, Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and Fixation. SUB. This is heathen Greek to you, now!-- And when comes vivification? FACE. After mortification. SUB. What's cohobation? FACE. 'Tis the pouring on Your aqua regis, and then drawing him off, To the trine circle of the seven spheres. SUB. What's the proper passion of metals? FACE. Malleation. SUB. What's your ultimum supplicium auri? FACE. Antimonium. SUB. This is heathen Greek to you!--And what's your mercury? FACE. A very fugitive, he will be gone, sir. SUB. How know you him? FACE. By his viscosity, His oleosity, and his suscitability. SUB. How do you sublime him? FACE. With the calce of egg-shells, White marble, talc. SUB. Your magisterium now, What's that? FACE. Shifting, sir, your elements, Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist into hot, Hot into dry. SUB. This is heathen Greek to you still! Your lapis philosophicus? FACE. 'Tis a stone, And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body: Which if you do dissolve, it is dissolved; If you coagulate, it is coagulated; If you make it to fly, it flieth. SUB. Enough. [EXIT FACE.] This is heathen Greek to you! What are you, sir? ANA. Please you, a servant of the exiled brethren, That deal with widows' and with orphans' goods, And make a just account unto the saints: A deacon. SUB. O, you are sent from master Wholesome, Your teacher? ANA. From Tribulation Wholesome, Our very zealous pastor. SUB. Good! I have Some orphans' goods to come here. ANA. Of what kind, sir? SUB. Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchen-ware, Metals, that we must use our medicine on: Wherein the brethren may have a pennyworth For ready money. ANA. Were the orphans' parents Sincere professors? SUB. Why do you ask? ANA. Because We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth, Their utmost value. SUB. 'Slid, you'd cozen else, And if their parents were not of the faithful!-- I will not trust you, now I think on it, 'Till I have talked with your pastor. Have you brought money To buy more coals? ANA. No, surely. SUB. No! how so? ANA. The brethren bid me say unto you, sir, Surely, they will not venture any more, Till they may see projection. SUB. How! ANA. You have had, For the instruments, as bricks, and lome, and glasses, Already thirty pound; and for materials, They say, some ninety more: and they have heard since, That one at Heidelberg, made it of an egg, And a small paper of pin-dust. SUB. What's your name? ANA. My name is Ananias. SUB. Out, the varlet That cozen'd the apostles! Hence, away! Flee, mischief! had your holy consistory No name to send me, of another sound, Than wicked Ananias? send your elders Hither to make atonement for you quickly, And give me satisfaction; or out goes The fire; and down th' alembics, and the furnace, Piger Henricus, or what not. Thou wretch! Both sericon and bufo shall be lost, Tell them. All hope of rooting out the bishops, Or the antichristian hierarchy, shall perish, If they stay threescore minutes: the aqueity, Terreity, and sulphureity Shall run together again, and all be annull'd, Thou wicked Ananias! [EXIT ANANIAS.] This will fetch 'em, And make them haste towards their gulling more. A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright Those that are froward, to an appetite. [RE-ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM, FOLLOWED BY DRUGGER.] FACE. He is busy with his spirits, but we'll upon him. SUB. How now! what mates, what Baiards have we here? FACE. I told you, he would be furious.--Sir, here's Nab, Has brought you another piece of gold to look on: --We must appease him. Give it me,--and prays you, You would devise--what is it, Nab? DRUG. A sign, sir. FACE. Ay, a good lucky one, a thriving sign, doctor. SUB. I was devising now. FACE. 'Slight, do not say so, He will repent he gave you any more-- What say you to his constellation, doctor, The Balance? SUB. No, that way is stale, and common. A townsman born in Taurus, gives the bull, Or the bull's-head: in Aries, the ram, A poor device! No, I will have his name Form'd in some mystic character; whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections, That may result upon the party owns it: As thus-- FACE. Nab! SUB. He shall have "a bell," that's "Abel;" And by it standing one whose name is "Dee," In a "rug" gown, there's "D," and "Rug," that's "drug:" And right anenst him a dog snarling "er;" There's "Drugger," Abel Drugger. That's his sign. And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic! FACE. Abel, thou art made. DRUG. Sir, I do thank his worship. FACE. Six o' thy legs more will not do it, Nab. He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, doctor. DRUG. Yes, sir; I have another thing I would impart-- FACE. Out with it, Nab. DRUG. Sir, there is lodged, hard by me, A rich young widow-- FACE. Good! a bona roba? DRUG. But nineteen, at the most. FACE. Very good, Abel. DRUG. Marry, she's not in fashion yet; she wears A hood, but it stands a cop. FACE. No matter, Abel. DRUG. And I do now and then give her a fucus-- FACE. What! dost thou deal, Nab? SUB. I did tell you, captain. DRUG. And physic too, sometime, sir; for which she trusts me With all her mind. She's come up here of purpose To learn the fashion. FACE. Good (his match too!)--On, Nab. DRUG. And she does strangely long to know her fortune. FACE. Ods lid, Nab, send her to the doctor, hither. DRUG. Yes, I have spoke to her of his worship already; But she's afraid it will be blown abroad, And hurt her marriage. FACE. Hurt it! 'tis the way To heal it, if 'twere hurt; to make it more Follow'd and sought: Nab, thou shalt tell her this. She'll be more known, more talk'd of; and your widows Are ne'er of any price till they be famous; Their honour is their multitude of suitors. Send her, it may be thy good fortune. What! Thou dost not know. DRUG. No, sir, she'll never marry Under a knight: her brother has made a vow. FACE. What! and dost thou despair, my little Nab, Knowing what the doctor has set down for thee, And seeing so many of the city dubb'd? One glass o' thy water, with a madam I know, Will have it done, Nab: what's her brother, a knight? DRUG. No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir, Scarce cold in his one and twenty, that does govern His sister here; and is a man himself Of some three thousand a year, and is come up To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits, And will go down again, and die in the country. FACE. How! to quarrel? DRUG. Yes, sir, to carry quarrels, As gallants do; to manage them by line. FACE. 'Slid, Nab, the doctor is the only man In Christendom for him. He has made a table, With mathematical demonstrations, Touching the art of quarrels: he will give him An instrument to quarrel by. Go, bring them both, Him and his sister. And, for thee, with her The doctor happ'ly may persuade. Go to: 'Shalt give his worship a new damask suit Upon the premises. SUB. O, good captain! FACE. He shall; He is the honestest fellow, doctor.--Stay not, No offers; bring the damask, and the parties. DRUG. I'll try my power, sir. FACE. And thy will too, Nab. SUB. 'Tis good tobacco, this! What is't an ounce? FACE. He'll send you a pound, doctor. SUB. O no. FACE. He will do't. It is the goodest soul!--Abel, about it. Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone. [EXIT ABEL.] A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese, And has the worms. That was the cause, indeed, Why he came now: he dealt with me in private, To get a med'cine for them. SUB. And shall, sir. This works. FACE. A wife, a wife for one on us, my dear Subtle! We'll e'en draw lots, and he that fails, shall have The more in goods, the other has in tail. SUB. Rather the less: for she may be so light She may want grains. FACE. Ay, or be such a burden, A man would scarce endure her for the whole. SUB. Faith, best let's see her first, and then determine. FACE. Content: but Dol must have no breath on't. SUB. Mum. Away you, to your Surly yonder, catch him. FACE. 'Pray God I have not staid too long. SUB. I fear it. [EXEUNT.] ACT 3. SCENE 3.1. THE LANE BEFORE LOVEWIT'S HOUSE. ENTER TRIBULATION WHOLESOME AND ANANIAS. TRI. These chastisements are common to the saints, And such rebukes, we of the separation Must bear with willing shoulders, as the trials Sent forth to tempt our frailties. ANA. In pure zeal, I do not like the man; he is a heathen, And speaks the language of Canaan, truly. TRI. I think him a profane person indeed. ANA. He bears The visible mark of the beast in his forehead. And for his stone, it is a work of darkness, And with philosophy blinds the eyes of man. TRI. Good brother, we must bend unto all means, That may give furtherance to the holy cause. ANA. Which his cannot: the sanctified cause Should have a sanctified course. TRI. Not always necessary: The children of perdition are oft-times Made instruments even of the greatest works: Beside, we should give somewhat to man's nature, The place he lives in, still about the fire, And fume of metals, that intoxicate The brain of man, and make him prone to passion. Where have you greater atheists than your cooks? Or more profane, or choleric, than your glass-men? More antichristian than your bell-founders? What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you, Sathan, our common enemy, but his being Perpetually about the fire, and boiling Brimstone and arsenic? We must give, I say, Unto the motives, and the stirrers up Of humours in the blood. It may be so, When as the work is done, the stone is made, This heat of his may turn into a zeal, And stand up for the beauteous discipline, Against the menstruous cloth and rag of Rome. We must await his calling, and the coming Of the good spirit. You did fault, t' upbraid him With the brethren's blessing of Heidelberg, weighing What need we have to hasten on the work, For the restoring of the silenced saints, Which ne'er will be, but by the philosopher's stone. And so a learned elder, one of Scotland, Assured me; aurum potabile being The only med'cine, for the civil magistrate, T' incline him to a feeling of the cause; And must be daily used in the disease. ANA. I have not edified more, truly, by man; Not since the beautiful light first shone on me: And I am sad my zeal hath so offended. TRI. Let us call on him then. ANA. The motion's good, And of the spirit; I will knock first. [KNOCKS.] Peace be within! [THE DOOR IS OPENED, AND THEY ENTER.] SCENE 3.2. A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE. ENTER SUBTLE, FOLLOWED BY TRIBULATION AND ANANIAS. SUB. O, are you come? 'twas time. Your threescore minutes Were at last thread, you see: and down had gone Furnus acediae, turris circulatorius: Lembec, bolt's-head, retort and pelican Had all been cinders.--Wicked Ananias! Art thou return'd? nay then, it goes down yet. TRI. Sir, be appeased; he is come to humble Himself in spirit, and to ask your patience, If too much zeal hath carried him aside From the due path. SUB. Why, this doth qualify! TRI. The brethren had no purpose, verily, To give you the least grievance; but are ready To lend their willing hands to any project The spirit and you direct. SUB. This qualifies more! TRI. And for the orphans' goods, let them be valued, Or what is needful else to the holy work, It shall be numbered; here, by me, the saints, Throw down their purse before you. SUB. This qualifies most! Why, thus it should be, now you understand. Have I discours'd so unto you of our stone, And of the good that it shall bring your cause? Shew'd you (beside the main of hiring forces Abroad, drawing the Hollanders, your friends, From the Indies, to serve you, with all their fleet) That even the med'cinal use shall make you a faction, And party in the realm? As, put the case, That some great man in state, he have the gout, Why, you but send three drops of your elixir, You help him straight: there you have made a friend. Another has the palsy or the dropsy, He takes of your incombustible stuff, He's young again: there you have made a friend, A lady that is past the feat of body, Though not of mind, and hath her face decay'd Beyond all cure of paintings, you restore, With the oil of talc: there you have made a friend; And all her friends. A lord that is a leper, A knight that has the bone-ache, or a squire That hath both these, you make them smooth and sound, With a bare fricace of your med'cine: still You increase your friends. TRI. Ay, it is very pregnant. SUB. And then the turning of this lawyer's pewter To plate at Christmas.-- ANA. Christ-tide, I pray you. SUB. Yet, Ananias! ANA. I have done. SUB. Or changing His parcel gilt to massy gold. You cannot But raise you friends. Withal, to be of power To pay an army in the field, to buy The king of France out of his realms, or Spain Out of his Indies. What can you not do Against lords spiritual or temporal, That shall oppone you? TRI. Verily, 'tis true. We may be temporal lords ourselves, I take it. SUB. You may be any thing, and leave off to make Long-winded exercises; or suck up Your "ha!" and "hum!" in a tune. I not deny, But such as are not graced in a state, May, for their ends, be adverse in religion, And get a tune to call the flock together: For, to say sooth, a tune does much with women, And other phlegmatic people; it is your bell. ANA. Bells are profane; a tune may be religious. SUB. No warning with you! then farewell my patience. 'Slight, it shall down: I will not be thus tortured. TRI. I pray you, sir. SUB. All shall perish. I have spoken it. TRI. Let me find grace, sir, in your eyes; the man He stands corrected: neither did his zeal, But as your self, allow a tune somewhere. Which now, being tow'rd the stone, we shall not need. SUB. No, nor your holy vizard, to win widows To give you legacies; or make zealous wives To rob their husbands for the common cause: Nor take the start of bonds broke but one day, And say, they were forfeited by providence. Nor shall you need o'er night to eat huge meals, To celebrate your next day's fast the better; The whilst the brethren and the sisters humbled, Abate the stiffness of the flesh. Nor cast Before your hungry hearers scrupulous bones; As whether a Christian may hawk or hunt, Or whether matrons of the holy assembly May lay their hair out, or wear doublets, Or have that idol starch about their linen. ANA. It is indeed an idol. TRI. Mind him not, sir. I do command thee, spirit of zeal, but trouble, To peace within him! Pray you, sir, go on. SUB. Nor shall you need to libel 'gainst the prelates, And shorten so your ears against the hearing Of the next wire-drawn grace. Nor of necessity Rail against plays, to please the alderman Whose daily custard you devour; nor lie With zealous rage till you are hoarse. Not one Of these so singular arts. Nor call yourselves By names of Tribulation, Persecution, Restraint, Long-patience, and such-like, affected By the whole family or wood of you, Only for glory, and to catch the ear Of the disciple. TRI. Truly, sir, they are Ways that the godly brethren have invented, For propagation of the glorious cause, As very notable means, and whereby also Themselves grow soon, and profitably, famous. SUB. O, but the stone, all's idle to it! nothing! The art of angels' nature's miracle, The divine secret that doth fly in clouds From east to west: and whose tradition Is not from men, but spirits. ANA. I hate traditions; I do not trust them-- TRI. Peace! ANA. They are popish all. I will not peace: I will not-- TRI. Ananias! ANA. Please the profane, to grieve the godly; I may not. SUB. Well, Ananias, thou shalt overcome. TRI. It is an ignorant zeal that haunts him, sir; But truly, else, a very faithful brother, A botcher, and a man, by revelation, That hath a competent knowledge of the truth. SUB. Has he a competent sum there in the bag To buy the goods within? I am made guardian, And must, for charity, and conscience sake, Now see the most be made for my poor orphan; Though I desire the brethren too good gainers: There they are within. When you have view'd and bought 'em, And ta'en the inventory of what they are, They are ready for projection; there's no more To do: cast on the med'cine, so much silver As there is tin there, so much gold as brass, I'll give't you in by weight. TRI. But how long time, Sir, must the saints expect yet? SUB. Let me see, How's the moon now? Eight, nine, ten days hence, He will be silver potate; then three days Before he citronise: Some fifteen days, The magisterium will be perfected. ANA. About the second day of the third week, In the ninth month? SUB. Yes, my good Ananias. TRI. What will the orphan's goods arise to, think you? SUB. Some hundred marks, as much as fill'd three cars, Unladed now: you'll make six millions of them.-- But I must have more coals laid in. TRI. How? SUB. Another load, And then we have finish'd. We must now increase Our fire to ignis ardens; we are past Fimus equinus, balnei, cineris, And all those lenter heats. If the holy purse Should with this draught fall low, and that the saints Do need a present sum, I have a trick To melt the pewter, you shall buy now, instantly, And with a tincture make you as good Dutch dollars As any are in Holland. TRI. Can you so? SUB. Ay, and shall 'bide the third examination. ANA. It will be joyful tidings to the brethren. SUB. But you must carry it secret. TRI. Ay; but stay, This act of coining, is it lawful? ANA. Lawful! We know no magistrate; or, if we did, This is foreign coin. SUB. It is no coining, sir. It is but casting. TRI. Ha! you distinguish well: Casting of money may be lawful. ANA. 'Tis, sir. TRI. Truly, I take it so. SUB. There is no scruple, Sir, to be made of it; believe Ananias: This case of conscience he is studied in. TRI. I'll make a question of it to the brethren. ANA. The brethren shall approve it lawful, doubt not. Where shall it be done? [KNOCKING WITHOUT.] SUB. For that we'll talk anon. There's some to speak with me. Go in, I pray you, And view the parcels. That's the inventory. I'll come to you straight. [EXEUNT TRIB. AND ANA.] Who is it?--Face! appear. [ENTER FACE IN HIS UNIFORM.] How now! good prize? FACE. Good pox! yond' costive cheater Never came on. SUB. How then? FACE. I have walk'd the round Till now, and no such thing. SUB. And have you quit him? FACE. Quit him! an hell would quit him too, he were happy. 'Slight! would you have me stalk like a mill-jade, All day, for one that will not yield us grains? I know him of old. SUB. O, but to have gull'd him, Had been a mastery. FACE. Let him go, black boy! And turn thee, that some fresh news may possess thee. A noble count, a don of Spain, my dear Delicious compeer, and my party-bawd, Who is come hither private for his conscience, And brought munition with him, six great slops, Bigger than three Dutch hoys, beside round trunks, Furnished with pistolets, and pieces of eight, Will straight be here, my rogue, to have thy bath, (That is the colour,) and to make his battery Upon our Dol, our castle, our cinque-port, Our Dover pier, our what thou wilt. Where is she? She must prepare perfumes, delicate linen, The bath in chief, a banquet, and her wit, For she must milk his epididimis. Where is the doxy? SUB. I'll send her to thee: And but despatch my brace of little John Leydens, And come again my self. FACE. Are they within then? SUB. Numbering the sum. FACE. How much? SUB. A hundred marks, boy. [EXIT.] FACE. Why, this is a lucky day. Ten pounds of Mammon! Three of my clerk! A portague of my grocer! This of the brethren! beside reversions, And states to come in the widow, and my count! My share to-day will not be bought for forty-- [ENTER DOL.] DOL. What? FACE. Pounds, dainty Dorothy! art thou so near? DOL. Yes; say, lord general, how fares our camp? FACE. As with the few that had entrench'd themselves Safe, by their discipline, against a world, Dol, And laugh'd within those trenches, and grew fat With thinking on the booties, Dol, brought in Daily by their small parties. This dear hour, A doughty don is taken with my Dol; And thou mayst make his ransom what thou wilt, My Dousabel; he shall be brought here fetter'd With thy fair looks, before he sees thee; and thrown In a down-bed, as dark as any dungeon; Where thou shalt keep him waking with thy drum; Thy drum, my Dol, thy drum; till he be tame As the poor black-birds were in the great frost, Or bees are with a bason; and so hive him In the swan-skin coverlid, and cambric sheets, Till he work honey and wax, my little God's-gift. DOL. What is he, general? FACE. An adalantado, A grandee, girl. Was not my Dapper here yet? DOL. No. FACE. Nor my Drugger? DOL. Neither. FACE. A pox on 'em, They are so long a furnishing! such stinkards Would not be seen upon these festival days.-- [RE-ENTER SUBTLE.] How now! have you done? SUB. Done. They are gone: the sum Is here in bank, my Face. I would we knew Another chapman now would buy 'em outright. FACE. 'Slid, Nab shall do't against he have the widow, To furnish household. SUB. Excellent, well thought on: Pray God he come! FACE. I pray he keep away Till our new business be o'erpast. SUB. But, Face, How cam'st thou by this secret don? FACE. A spirit Brought me th' intelligence in a paper here, As I was conjuring yonder in my circle For Surly; I have my flies abroad. Your bath Is famous, Subtle, by my means. Sweet Dol, You must go tune your virginal, no losing O' the least time: and, do you hear? good action. Firk, like a flounder; kiss, like a scallop, close; And tickle him with thy mother tongue. His great Verdugoship has not a jot of language; So much the easier to be cozen'd, my Dolly. He will come here in a hired coach, obscure, And our own coachman, whom I have sent as guide, No creature else. [KNOCKING WITHOUT.] Who's that? [EXIT DOL.] SUB. It is not he? FACE. O no, not yet this hour. [RE-ENTER DOL.] SUB. Who is't? DOL. Dapper, Your clerk. FACE. God's will then, queen of Fairy, On with your tire; [EXIT DOL.] and, doctor, with your robes. Let's dispatch him for God's sake. SUB. 'Twill be long. FACE. I warrant you, take but the cues I give you, It shall be brief enough. [GOES TO THE WINDOW.] 'Slight, here are more! Abel, and I think the angry boy, the heir, That fain would quarrel. SUB. And the widow? FACE. No, Not that I see. Away! [EXIT SUB.] [ENTER DAPPER.] O sir, you are welcome. The doctor is within a moving for you; I have had the most ado to win him to it!-- He swears you'll be the darling of the dice: He never heard her highness dote till now. Your aunt has given you the most gracious words That can be thought on. DAP. Shall I see her grace? FACE. See her, and kiss her too.-- [ENTER ABEL, FOLLOWED BY KASTRIL.] What, honest Nab! Hast brought the damask? NAB. No, sir; here's tobacco. FACE. 'Tis well done, Nab; thou'lt bring the damask too? DRUG. Yes: here's the gentleman, captain, master Kastril, I have brought to see the doctor. FACE. Where's the widow? DRUG. Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come. FACE. O, is it so? good time. Is your name Kastril, sir? KAS. Ay, and the best of the Kastrils, I'd be sorry else, By fifteen hundred a year. Where is the doctor? My mad tobacco-boy, here, tells me of one That can do things: has he any skill? FACE. Wherein, sir? KAS. To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly, Upon fit terms. FACE. It seems, sir, you are but young About the town, that can make that a question. KAS. Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech Of the angry boys, and seen them take tobacco; And in his shop; and I can take it too. And I would fain be one of 'em, and go down And practise in the country. FACE. Sir, for the duello, The doctor, I assure you, shall inform you, To the least shadow of a hair; and shew you An instrument he has of his own making, Wherewith no sooner shall you make report Of any quarrel, but he will take the height on't Most instantly, and tell in what degree Of safety it lies in, or mortality. And how it may be borne, whether in a right line, Or a half circle; or may else be cast Into an angle blunt, if not acute: And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules To give and take the lie by. KAS. How! to take it? FACE. Yes, in oblique he'll shew you, or in circle; But never in diameter. The whole town Study his theorems, and dispute them ordinarily At the eating academies. KAS. But does he teach Living by the wits too? FACE. Anything whatever. You cannot think that subtlety, but he reads it. He made me a captain. I was a stark pimp, Just of your standing, 'fore I met with him; It is not two months since. I'll tell you his method: First, he will enter you at some ordinary. KAS. No, I'll not come there: you shall pardon me. FACE. For why, sir? KAS. There's gaming there, and tricks. FACE. Why, would you be A gallant, and not game? KAS. Ay, 'twill spend a man. FACE. Spend you! it will repair you when you are spent: How do they live by their wits there, that have vented Six times your fortunes? KAS. What, three thousand a-year! FACE. Ay, forty thousand. KAS. Are there such? FACE. Ay, sir, And gallants yet. Here's a young gentleman Is born to nothing,-- [POINTS TO DAPPER.] forty marks a year, Which I count nothing:--he is to be initiated, And have a fly of the doctor. He will win you, By unresistible luck, within this fortnight, Enough to buy a barony. They will set him Upmost, at the groom porter's, all the Christmas: And for the whole year through, at every place, Where there is play, present him with the chair; The best attendance, the best drink; sometimes Two glasses of Canary, and pay nothing; The purest linen, and the sharpest knife, The partridge next his trencher: and somewhere The dainty bed, in private, with the dainty. You shall have your ordinaries bid for him, As play-houses for a poet; and the master Pray him aloud to name what dish he affects, Which must be butter'd shrimps: and those that drink To no mouth else, will drink to his, as being The goodly president mouth of all the board. KAS. Do you not gull one? FACE. 'Ods my life! do you think it? You shall have a cast commander, (can but get In credit with a glover, or a spurrier, For some two pair of either's ware aforehand,) Will, by most swift posts, dealing [but] with him, Arrive at competent means to keep himself, His punk and naked boy, in excellent fashion, And be admired for't. KAS. Will the doctor teach this? FACE. He will do more, sir: when your land is gone, As men of spirit hate to keep earth long, In a vacation, when small money is stirring, And ordinaries suspended till the term, He'll shew a perspective, where on one side You shall behold the faces and the persons Of all sufficient young heirs in town, Whose bonds are current for commodity; On th' other side, the merchants' forms, and others, That without help of any second broker, Who would expect a share, will trust such parcels: In the third square, the very street and sign Where the commodity dwells, and does but wait To be deliver'd, be it pepper, soap, Hops, or tobacco, oatmeal, woad, or cheeses. All which you may so handle, to enjoy To your own use, and never stand obliged. KAS. I'faith! is he such a fellow? FACE. Why, Nab here knows him. And then for making matches for rich widows, Young gentlewomen, heirs, the fortunat'st man! He's sent to, far and near, all over England, To have his counsel, and to know their fortunes. KAS. God's will, my suster shall see him. FACE. I'll tell you, sir, What he did tell me of Nab. It's a strange thing:-- By the way, you must eat no cheese, Nab, it breeds melancholy, And that same melancholy breeds worms; but pass it:-- He told me, honest Nab here was ne'er at tavern But once in's life! DRUG. Truth, and no more I was not. FACE. And then he was so sick-- DRUG. Could he tell you that too? FACE. How should I know it? DRUG. In troth we had been a shooting, And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper, That lay so heavy o' my stomach-- FACE. And he has no head To bear any wine; for what with the noise of the fidlers, And care of his shop, for he dares keep no servants-- DRUG. My head did so ach-- FACE. And he was fain to be brought home, The doctor told me: and then a good old woman-- DRUG. Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea-coal-lane,--did cure me, With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall; Cost me but two-pence. I had another sickness Was worse than that. FACE. Ay, that was with the grief Thou took'st for being cess'd at eighteen-pence, For the water-work. DRUG. In truth, and it was like T' have cost me almost my life. FACE. Thy hair went off? DRUG. Yes, sir; 'twas done for spight. FACE. Nay, so says the doctor. KAS. Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my suster; I'll see this learned boy before I go; And so shall she. FACE. Sir, he is busy now: But if you have a sister to fetch hither, Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner; And he by that time will be free. KAS. I go. [EXIT.] FACE. Drugger, she's thine: the damask!-- [EXIT ABEL.] Subtle and I Must wrestle for her. [ASIDE.] --Come on, master Dapper, You see how I turn clients here away, To give your cause dispatch; have you perform'd The ceremonies were enjoin'd you? DAP. Yes, of the vinegar, And the clean shirt. FACE. 'Tis well: that shirt may do you More worship than you think. Your aunt's a-fire, But that she will not shew it, t' have a sight of you. Have you provided for her grace's servants? DAP. Yes, here are six score Edward shillings. FACE. Good! DAP. And an old Harry's sovereign. FACE. Very good! DAP. And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat, Just twenty nobles. FACE. O, you are too just. I would you had had the other noble in Maries. DAP. I have some Philip and Maries. FACE. Ay, those same Are best of all: where are they? Hark, the doctor. [ENTER SUBTLE, DISGUISED LIKE A PRIEST OF FAIRY, WITH A STRIPE OF CLOTH.] SUB [IN A FEIGNED VOICE]. Is yet her grace's cousin come? FACE. He is come. SUB. And is he fasting? FACE. Yes. SUB. And hath cried hum? FACE. Thrice, you must answer. DAP. Thrice. SUB. And as oft buz? FACE. If you have, say. DAP. I have. SUB. Then, to her cuz, Hoping that he hath vinegar'd his senses, As he was bid, the Fairy queen dispenses, By me, this robe, the petticoat of fortune; Which that he straight put on, she doth importune. And though to fortune near be her petticoat, Yet nearer is her smock, the queen doth note: And therefore, ev'n of that a piece she hath sent Which, being a child, to wrap him in was rent; And prays him for a scarf he now will wear it, With as much love as then her grace did tear it, About his eyes, [THEY BLIND HIM WITH THE RAG,] to shew he is fortunate. And, trusting unto her to make his state, He'll throw away all worldly pelf about him; Which that he will perform, she doth not doubt him. FACE. She need not doubt him, sir. Alas, he has nothing, But what he will part withal as willingly, Upon her grace's word--throw away your purse-- As she would ask it;--handkerchiefs and all-- [HE THROWS AWAY, AS THEY BID HIM.] She cannot bid that thing, but he'll obey.-- If you have a ring about you, cast it off, Or a silver seal at your wrist; her grace will send Her fairies here to search you, therefore deal Directly with her highness: if they find That you conceal a mite, you are undone. DAP. Truly, there's all. FACE. All what? DAP. My money; truly. FACE. Keep nothing that is transitory about you. [ASIDE TO SUBTLE.] Bid Dol play music.-- [DOL PLAYS ON THE CITTERN WITHIN.] Look, the elves are come. To pinch you, if you tell not truth. Advise you. [THEY PINCH HIM.] DAP. O! I have a paper with a spur-ryal in't. FACE. Ti, ti. They knew't, they say. SUB. Ti, ti, ti, ti. He has more yet. FACE. Ti, ti-ti-ti. [ASIDE TO SUB.] In the other pocket. SUB. Titi, titi, titi, titi, titi. They must pinch him or he will never confess, they say. [THEY PINCH HIM AGAIN.] DAP. O, O! FACE. Nay, pray you, hold: he is her grace's nephew, Ti, ti, ti? What care you? good faith, you shall care.-- Deal plainly, sir, and shame the fairies. Shew You are innocent. DAP. By this good light, I have nothing. SUB. Ti, ti, ti, ti, to, ta. He does equivocate she says: Ti, ti do ti, ti ti do, ti da; and swears by the LIGHT when he is blinded. DAP. By this good DARK, I have nothing but a half-crown Of gold about my wrist, that my love gave me; And a leaden heart I wore since she forsook me. FACE. I thought 'twas something. And would you incur Your aunt's displeasure for these trifles? Come, I had rather you had thrown away twenty half-crowns. [TAKES IT OFF.] You may wear your leaden heart still.-- [ENTER DOL HASTILY.] How now! SUB. What news, Dol? DOL. Yonder's your knight, sir Mammon. FACE. 'Ods lid, we never thought of him till now! Where is he? DOL. Here hard by: he is at the door. SUB. And you are not ready now! Dol, get his suit. [EXIT DOL.] He must not be sent back. FACE. O, by no means. What shall we do with this same puffin here, Now he's on the spit? SUB. Why, lay him back awhile, With some device. [RE-ENTER DOL, WITH FACE'S CLOTHES.] --Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, Would her grace speak with me? I come.--Help, Dol! [KNOCKING WITHOUT.] FACE [SPEAKS THROUGH THE KEYHOLE]. Who's there? sir Epicure, My master's in the way. Please you to walk Three or four turns, but till his back be turned, And I am for you.--Quickly, Dol! SUB. Her grace Commends her kindly to you, master Dapper. DAP. I long to see her grace. SUB. She now is set At dinner in her bed, and she has sent you From her own private trencher, a dead mouse, And a piece of gingerbread, to be merry withal, And stay your stomach, lest you faint with fasting: Yet if you could hold out till she saw you, she says, It would be better for you. FACE. Sir, he shall Hold out, an 'twere this two hours, for her highness; I can assure you that. We will not lose All we have done.-- SUB. He must not see, nor speak To any body, till then. FACE. For that we'll put, sir, A stay in's mouth. SUB. Of what? FACE. Of gingerbread. Make you it fit. He that hath pleas'd her grace Thus far, shall not now crincle for a little.-- Gape, sir, and let him fit you. [THEY THRUST A GAG OF GINGERBREAD IN HIS MOUTH.] SUB. Where shall we now Bestow him? DOL. In the privy. SUB. Come along, sir, I now must shew you Fortune's privy lodgings. FACE. Are they perfumed, and his bath ready? SUB. All: Only the fumigation's somewhat strong. FACE [SPEAKING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE]. Sir Epicure, I am yours, sir, by and by. [EXEUNT WITH DAPPER.] ACT 4. SCENE 4.1. A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE. ENTER FACE AND MAMMON. FACE. O sir, you're come in the only finest time.-- MAM. Where's master? FACE. Now preparing for projection, sir. Your stuff will be all changed shortly. MAM. Into gold? FACE. To gold and silver, sir. MAM. Silver I care not for. FACE. Yes, sir, a little to give beggars. MAM. Where's the lady? FACE. At hand here. I have told her such brave things of you, Touching your bounty, and your noble spirit-- MAM. Hast thou? FACE. As she is almost in her fit to see you. But, good sir, no divinity in your conference, For fear of putting her in rage.-- MAM. I warrant thee. FACE. Six men [sir] will not hold her down: and then, If the old man should hear or see you-- MAM. Fear not. FACE. The very house, sir, would run mad. You know it, How scrupulous he is, and violent, 'Gainst the least act of sin. Physic, or mathematics, Poetry, state, or bawdry, as I told you, She will endure, and never startle; but No word of controversy. MAM. I am school'd, good Ulen. FACE. And you must praise her house, remember that, And her nobility. MAM. Let me alone: No herald, no, nor antiquary, Lungs, Shall do it better. Go. FACE [ASIDE]. Why, this is yet A kind of modern happiness, to have Dol Common for a great lady. [EXIT.] MAM. Now, Epicure, Heighten thyself, talk to her all in gold; Rain her as many showers as Jove did drops Unto his Danae; shew the god a miser, Compared with Mammon. What! the stone will do't. She shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold; Nay, we will concumbere gold: I will be puissant, And mighty in my talk to her.-- [RE-ENTER FACE, WITH DOL RICHLY DRESSED.] Here she comes. FACE. To him, Dol, suckle him.--This is the noble knight, I told your ladyship-- MAM. Madam, with your pardon, I kiss your vesture. DOL. Sir, I were uncivil If I would suffer that; my lip to you, sir. MAM. I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady. DOL. My lord, my brother is, though I no lady, sir. FACE [ASIDE]. Well said, my Guinea bird. MAM. Right noble madam-- FACE [ASIDE]. O, we shall have most fierce idolatry. MAM. 'Tis your prerogative. DOL. Rather your courtesy. MAM. Were there nought else to enlarge your virtues to me, These answers speak your breeding and your blood. DOL. Blood we boast none, sir, a poor baron's daughter. MAM. Poor! and gat you? profane not. Had your father Slept all the happy remnant of his life After that act, lien but there still, and panted, He had done enough to make himself, his issue, And his posterity noble. DOL. Sir, although We may be said to want the gilt and trappings, The dress of honour, yet we strive to keep The seeds and the materials. MAM. I do see The old ingredient, virtue, was not lost, Nor the drug money used to make your compound. There is a strange nobility in your eye, This lip, that chin! methinks you do resemble One of the Austriac princes. FACE. Very like! [ASIDE.] Her father was an Irish costermonger. MAM. The house of Valois just had such a nose, And such a forehead yet the Medici Of Florence boast. DOL. Troth, and I have been liken'd To all these princes. FACE [ASIDE]. I'll be sworn, I heard it. MAM. I know not how! it is not any one, But e'en the very choice of all their features. FACE [ASIDE]. I'll in, and laugh. [EXIT.] MAM. A certain touch, or air, That sparkles a divinity, beyond An earthly beauty! DOL. O, you play the courtier. MAM. Good lady, give me leave-- DOL. In faith, I may not, To mock me, sir. MAM. To burn in this sweet flame; The phoenix never knew a nobler death. DOL. Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy What you would build. This art, sir, in your words, Calls your whole faith in question. MAM. By my soul-- DOL. Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir. MAM. Nature Never bestow'd upon mortality A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature; She play'd the step-dame in all faces else: Sweet Madam, let me be particular-- DOL. Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance. MAM. In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask How your fair graces pass the hours? I see You are lodged here, in the house of a rare man, An excellent artist; but what's that to you? DOL. Yes, sir; I study here the mathematics, And distillation. MAM. O, I cry your pardon. He's a divine instructor! can extract The souls of all things by his art; call all The virtues, and the miracles of the sun, Into a temperate furnace; teach dull nature What her own forces are. A man, the emperor Has courted above Kelly; sent his medals And chains, to invite him. DOL. Ay, and for his physic, sir-- MAM. Above the art of Aesculapius, That drew the envy of the thunderer! I know all this, and more. DOL. Troth, I am taken, sir, Whole with these studies, that contemplate nature. MAM. It is a noble humour; but this form Was not intended to so dark a use. Had you been crooked, foul, of some coarse mould A cloister had done well; but such a feature That might stand up the glory of a kingdom, To live recluse! is a mere soloecism, Though in a nunnery. It must not be. I muse, my lord your brother will permit it: You should spend half my land first, were I he. Does not this diamond better on my finger, Than in the quarry? DOL. Yes. MAM. Why, you are like it. You were created, lady, for the light. Here, you shall wear it; take it, the first pledge Of what I speak, to bind you to believe me. DOL. In chains of adamant? MAM. Yes, the strongest bands. And take a secret too--here, by your side, Doth stand this hour, the happiest man in Europe. DOL. You are contended, sir! MAM. Nay, in true being, The envy of princes and the fear of states. DOL. Say you so, sir Epicure? MAM. Yes, and thou shalt prove it, Daughter of honour. I have cast mine eye Upon thy form, and I will rear this beauty Above all styles. DOL. You mean no treason, sir? MAM. No, I will take away that jealousy. I am the lord of the philosopher's stone, And thou the lady. DOL. How, sir! have you that? MAM. I am the master of the mystery. This day the good old wretch here o' the house Has made it for us: now he's at projection. Think therefore thy first wish now, let me hear it; And it shall rain into thy lap, no shower, But floods of gold, whole cataracts, a deluge, To get a nation on thee. DOL. You are pleased, sir, To work on the ambition of our sex. MAM. I am pleased the glory of her sex should know, This nook, here, of the Friars is no climate For her to live obscurely in, to learn Physic and surgery, for the constable's wife Of some odd hundred in Essex; but come forth, And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink The toils of empirics, and their boasted practice; Tincture of pearl, and coral, gold, and amber; Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it ask'd, What miracle she is; set all the eyes Of court a-fire, like a burning glass, And work them into cinders, when the jewels Of twenty states adorn thee, and the light Strikes out the stars! that when thy name is mention'd, Queens may look pale; and we but shewing our love, Nero's Poppaea may be lost in story! Thus will we have it. DOL. I could well consent, sir. But, in a monarchy, how will this be? The prince will soon take notice, and both seize You and your stone, it being a wealth unfit For any private subject. MAM. If he knew it. DOL. Yourself do boast it, sir. MAM. To thee, my life. DOL. O, but beware, sir! You may come to end The remnants of your days in a loth'd prison, By speaking of it. MAM. 'Tis no idle fear. We'll therefore go withal, my girl, and live In a free state, where we will eat our mullets, Soused in high-country wines, sup pheasants' eggs, And have our cockles boil'd in silver shells; Our shrimps to swim again, as when they liv'd, In a rare butter made of dolphins' milk, Whose cream does look like opals; and with these Delicate meats set ourselves high for pleasure, And take us down again, and then renew Our youth and strength with drinking the elixir, And so enjoy a perpetuity Of life and lust! And thou shalt have thy wardrobe Richer than nature's, still to change thy self, And vary oftener, for thy pride, than she, Or art, her wise and almost-equal servant. [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Sir, you are too loud. I hear you every word Into the laboratory. Some fitter place; The garden, or great chamber above. How like you her? MAM. Excellent! Lungs. There's for thee. [GIVES HIM MONEY.] FACE. But do you hear? Good sir, beware, no mention of the rabbins. MAM. We think not on 'em. [EXEUNT MAM. AND DOL.] FACE. O, it is well, sir.--Subtle! [ENTER SUBTLE.] Dost thou not laugh? SUB. Yes; are they gone? FACE. All's clear. SUB. The widow is come. FACE. And your quarrelling disciple? SUB. Ay. FACE. I must to my captainship again then. SUB. Stay, bring them in first. FACE. So I meant. What is she? A bonnibel? SUB. I know not. FACE. We'll draw lots: You'll stand to that? SUB. What else? FACE. O, for a suit, To fall now like a curtain, flap! SUB. To the door, man. FACE. You'll have the first kiss, 'cause I am not ready. [EXIT.] SUB. Yes, and perhaps hit you through both the nostrils. FACE [WITHIN]. Who would you speak with? KAS [WITHIN]. Where's the captain? FACE [WITHIN]. Gone, sir, About some business. KAS [WITHIN]. Gone! FACE [WITHIN]. He'll return straight. But master doctor, his lieutenant, is here. [ENTER KASTRIL, FOLLOWED BY DAME PLIANT.] SUB. Come near, my worshipful boy, my terrae fili, That is, my boy of land; make thy approaches: Welcome; I know thy lusts, and thy desires, And I will serve and satisfy them. Begin, Charge me from thence, or thence, or in this line; Here is my centre: ground thy quarrel. KAS. You lie. SUB. How, child of wrath and anger! the loud lie? For what, my sudden boy? KAS. Nay, that look you to, I am afore-hand. SUB. O, this is no true grammar, And as ill logic! You must render causes, child, Your first and second intentions, know your canons And your divisions, moods, degrees, and differences, Your predicaments, substance, and accident, Series, extern and intern, with their causes, Efficient, material, formal, final, And have your elements perfect. KAS [ASIDE]. What is this? The angry tongue he talks in? SUB. That false precept, Of being afore-hand, has deceived a number, And made them enter quarrels, often-times, Before they were aware; and afterward, Against their wills. KAS. How must I do then, sir? SUB. I cry this lady mercy: she should first Have been saluted. [KISSES HER.] I do call you lady, Because you are to be one, ere't be long, My soft and buxom widow. KAS. Is she, i'faith? SUB. Yes, or my art is an egregious liar. KAS. How know you? SUB. By inspection on her forehead, And subtlety of her lip, which must be tasted Often to make a judgment. [KISSES HER AGAIN.] 'Slight, she melts Like a myrobolane:--here is yet a line, In rivo frontis, tells me he is no knight. DAME P. What is he then, sir? SUB. Let me see your hand. O, your linea fortunae makes it plain; And stella here in monte Veneris. But, most of all, junctura annularis. He is a soldier, or a man of art, lady, But shall have some great honour shortly. DAME P. Brother, He's a rare man, believe me! [RE-ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM.] KAS. Hold your peace. Here comes the t'other rare man.--'Save you, captain. FACE. Good master Kastril! Is this your sister? KAS. Ay, sir. Please you to kuss her, and be proud to know her. FACE. I shall be proud to know you, lady. [KISSES HER.] DAME P. Brother, He calls me lady too. KAS. Ay, peace: I heard it. [TAKES HER ASIDE.] FACE. The count is come. SUB. Where is he? FACE. At the door. SUB. Why, you must entertain him. FACE. What will you do With these the while? SUB. Why, have them up, and shew them Some fustian book, or the dark glass. FACE. 'Fore God, She is a delicate dab-chick! I must have her. [EXIT.] SUB. Must you! ay, if your fortune will, you must.-- Come, sir, the captain will come to us presently: I'll have you to my chamber of demonstrations, Where I will shew you both the grammar and logic, And rhetoric of quarrelling; my whole method Drawn out in tables; and my instrument, That hath the several scales upon't, shall make you Able to quarrel at a straw's-breadth by moon-light. And, lady, I'll have you look in a glass, Some half an hour, but to clear your eye-sight, Against you see your fortune; which is greater, Than I may judge upon the sudden, trust me. [EXIT, FOLLOWED BY KAST. AND DAME P.] [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Where are you, doctor? SUB [WITHIN]. I'll come to you presently. FACE. I will have this same widow, now I have seen her, On any composition. [RE-ENTER SUBTLE.] SUB. What do you say? FACE. Have you disposed of them? SUB. I have sent them up. FACE. Subtle, in troth, I needs must have this widow. SUB. Is that the matter? FACE. Nay, but hear me. SUB. Go to. If you rebel once, Dol shall know it all: Therefore be quiet, and obey your chance. FACE. Nay, thou art so violent now--Do but conceive, Thou art old, and canst not serve-- SUB. Who cannot? I? 'Slight, I will serve her with thee, for a-- FACE. Nay, But understand: I'll give you composition. SUB. I will not treat with thee; what! sell my fortune? 'Tis better than my birth-right. Do not murmur: Win her, and carry her. If you grumble, Dol Knows it directly. FACE. Well, sir, I am silent. Will you go help to fetch in Don in state? [EXIT.] SUB. I follow you, sir. We must keep Face in awe, Or he will over-look us like a tyrant. [RE-ENTER FACE, INTRODUCING SURLY DISGUISED AS A SPANIARD.] Brain of a tailor! who comes here? Don John! SUR. Senores, beso las manos a vuestras mercedes. SUB. Would you had stoop'd a little, and kist our anos! FACE. Peace, Subtle. SUB. Stab me; I shall never hold, man. He looks in that deep ruff like a head in a platter, Serv'd in by a short cloke upon two trestles. FACE. Or, what do you say to a collar of brawn, cut down Beneath the souse, and wriggled with a knife? SUB. 'Slud, he does look too fat to be a Spaniard. FACE. Perhaps some Fleming or some Hollander got him In d'Alva's time; count Egmont's bastard. SUB. Don, Your scurvy, yellow, Madrid face is welcome. SUR. Gratia. SUB. He speaks out of a fortification. Pray God he have no squibs in those deep sets. SUR. Por dios, senores, muy linda casa! SUB. What says he? FACE. Praises the house, I think; I know no more but's action. SUB. Yes, the casa, My precious Diego, will prove fair enough To cozen you in. Do you mark? you shall Be cozen'd, Diego. FACE. Cozen'd, do you see, My worthy Donzel, cozen'd. SUR. Entiendo. SUB. Do you intend it? so do we, dear Don. Have you brought pistolets, or portagues, My solemn Don?--Dost thou feel any? FACE [FEELS HIS POCKETS]. Full. SUB. You shall be emptied, Don, pumped and drawn Dry, as they say. FACE. Milked, in troth, sweet Don. SUB. See all the monsters; the great lion of all, Don. SUR. Con licencia, se puede ver a esta senora? SUB. What talks he now? FACE. Of the sennora. SUB. O, Don, This is the lioness, which you shall see Also, my Don. FACE. 'Slid, Subtle, how shall we do? SUB. For what? FACE. Why Dol's employ'd, you know. SUB. That's true. 'Fore heaven, I know not: he must stay, that's all. FACE. Stay! that he must not by no means. SUB. No! why? FACE. Unless you'll mar all. 'Slight, he will suspect it: And then he will not pay, not half so well. This is a travelled punk-master, and does know All the delays; a notable hot rascal, And looks already rampant. SUB. 'Sdeath, and Mammon Must not be troubled. FACE. Mammon! in no case. SUB. What shall we do then? FACE. Think: you must be sudden. SUR. Entiendo que la senora es tan hermosa, que codicio tan verla, como la bien aventuranza de mi vida. FACE. Mi vida! 'Slid, Subtle, he puts me in mind of the widow. What dost thou say to draw her to it, ha! And tell her 'tis her fortune? all our venture Now lies upon't. It is but one man more, Which of us chance to have her: and beside, There is no maidenhead to be fear'd or lost. What dost thou think on't, Subtle? SUB. Who? I? why-- FACE. The credit of our house too is engaged. SUB. You made me an offer for my share erewhile. What wilt thou give me, i'faith? FACE. O, by that light I'll not buy now: You know your doom to me. E'en take your lot, obey your chance, sir; win her, And wear her out, for me. SUB. 'Slight, I'll not work her then. FACE. It is the common cause; therefore bethink you. Dol else must know it, as you said. SUB. I care not. SUR. Senores, porque se tarda tanto? SUB. Faith, I am not fit, I am old. FACE. That's now no reason, sir. SUR. Puede ser de hazer burla de mi amor? FACE. You hear the Don too? by this air, I call, And loose the hinges: Dol! SUB. A plague of hell-- FACE. Will you then do? SUB. You are a terrible rogue! I'll think of this: will you, sir, call the widow? FACE. Yes, and I'll take her too with all her faults, Now I do think on't better. SUB. With all my heart, sir; Am I discharged o' the lot? FACE. As you please. SUB. Hands. [THEY TAKE HANDS.] FACE. Remember now, that upon any change, You never claim her. SUB. Much good joy, and health to you, sir, Marry a whore! fate, let me wed a witch first. SUR. Por estas honradas barbas-- SUB. He swears by his beard. Dispatch, and call the brother too. [EXIT FACE.] SUR. Tengo duda, senores, que no me hagan alguna traycion. SUB. How, issue on? yes, praesto, sennor. Please you Enthratha the chambrata, worthy don: Where if you please the fates, in your bathada, You shall be soked, and stroked, and tubb'd and rubb'd, And scrubb'd, and fubb'd, dear don, before you go. You shall in faith, my scurvy baboon don, Be curried, claw'd, and flaw'd, and taw'd, indeed. I will the heartlier go about it now, And make the widow a punk so much the sooner, To be revenged on this impetuous Face: The quickly doing of it is the grace. [EXEUNT SUB. AND SURLY.] SCENE 4.2. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER FACE, KASTRIL, AND DAME PLIANT. FACE. Come, lady: I knew the Doctor would not leave, Till he had found the very nick of her fortune. KAS. To be a countess, say you, a Spanish countess, sir? DAME P. Why, is that better than an English countess? FACE. Better! 'Slight, make you that a question, lady? KAS. Nay, she is a fool, captain, you must pardon her. FACE. Ask from your courtier, to your inns-of-court-man, To your mere milliner; they will tell you all, Your Spanish gennet is the best horse; your Spanish Stoup is the best garb; your Spanish beard Is the best cut; your Spanish ruffs are the best Wear; your Spanish pavin the best dance; Your Spanish titillation in a glove The best perfume: and for your Spanish pike, And Spanish blade, let your poor captain speak-- Here comes the doctor. [ENTER SUBTLE, WITH A PAPER.] SUB. My most honour'd lady, For so I am now to style you, having found By this my scheme, you are to undergo An honourable fortune, very shortly. What will you say now, if some-- FACE. I have told her all, sir, And her right worshipful brother here, that she shall be A countess; do not delay them, sir; a Spanish countess. SUB. Still, my scarce-worshipful captain, you can keep No secret! Well, since he has told you, madam, Do you forgive him, and I do. KAS. She shall do that, sir; I'll look to it, 'tis my charge. SUB. Well then: nought rests But that she fit her love now to her fortune. DAME P. Truly I shall never brook a Spaniard. SUB. No! DAME P. Never since eighty-eight could I abide them, And that was some three year afore I was born, in truth. SUB. Come, you must love him, or be miserable, Choose which you will. FACE. By this good rush, persuade her, She will cry strawberries else within this twelvemonth. SUB. Nay, shads and mackerel, which is worse. FACE. Indeed, sir! KAS. Od's lid, you shall love him, or I'll kick you. DAME P. Why, I'll do as you will have me, brother. KAS. Do, Or by this hand I'll maul you. FACE. Nay, good sir, Be not so fierce. SUB. No, my enraged child; She will be ruled. What, when she comes to taste The pleasures of a countess! to be courted-- FACE. And kiss'd, and ruffled! SUB. Ay, behind the hangings. FACE. And then come forth in pomp! SUB. And know her state! FACE. Of keeping all the idolaters of the chamber Barer to her, than at their prayers! SUB. Is serv'd Upon the knee! FACE. And has her pages, ushers, Footmen, and coaches-- SUB. Her six mares-- FACE. Nay, eight! SUB. To hurry her through London, to the Exchange, Bethlem, the china-houses-- FACE. Yes, and have The citizens gape at her, and praise her tires, And my lord's goose-turd bands, that ride with her! KAS. Most brave! By this hand, you are not my suster, If you refuse. DAME P. I will not refuse, brother. [ENTER SURLY.] SUR. Que es esto, senores, que no venga? Esta tardanza me mata! FACE. It is the count come: The doctor knew he would be here, by his art. SUB. En gallanta madama, Don! gallantissima! SUR. Por todos los dioses, la mas acabada hermosura, que he visto en mi vida! FACE. Is't not a gallant language that they speak? KAS. An admirable language! Is't not French? FACE. No, Spanish, sir. KAS. It goes like law-French, And that, they say, is the courtliest language. FACE. List, sir. SUR. El sol ha perdido su lumbre, con el esplandor que trae esta dama! Valgame dios! FACE. He admires your sister. KAS. Must not she make curt'sy? SUB. Ods will, she must go to him, man, and kiss him! It is the Spanish fashion, for the women To make first court. FACE. 'Tis true he tells you, sir: His art knows all. SUR. Porque no se acude? KAS. He speaks to her, I think. FACE. That he does, sir. SUR. Por el amor de dios, que es esto que se tarda? KAS. Nay, see: she will not understand him! gull, Noddy. DAME P. What say you, brother? KAS. Ass, my suster. Go kuss him, as the cunning man would have you; I'll thrust a pin in your buttocks else. FACE. O no, sir. SUR. Senora mia, mi persona esta muy indigna de allegar a tanta hermosura. FACE. Does he not use her bravely? KAS. Bravely, i'faith! FACE. Nay, he will use her better. KAS. Do you think so? SUR. Senora, si sera servida, entremonos. [EXIT WITH DAME PLIANT.] KAS. Where does he carry her? FACE. Into the garden, sir; Take you no thought: I must interpret for her. SUB. Give Dol the word. [ASIDE TO FACE, WHO GOES OUT.] --Come, my fierce child, advance, We'll to our quarrelling lesson again. KAS. Agreed. I love a Spanish boy with all my heart. SUB. Nay, and by this means, sir, you shall be brother To a great count. KAS. Ay, I knew that at first, This match will advance the house of the Kastrils. SUB. 'Pray God your sister prove but pliant! KAS. Why, Her name is so, by her other husband. SUB. How! KAS. The widow Pliant. Knew you not that? SUB. No, faith, sir; Yet, by erection of her figure, I guest it. Come, let's go practise. KAS. Yes, but do you think, doctor, I e'er shall quarrel well? SUB. I warrant you. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 4.3. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER DOL IN HER FIT OF RAVING, FOLLOWED BY MAMMON. DOL. "For after Alexander's death"-- MAM. Good lady-- DOL. "That Perdiccas and Antigonus, were slain, The two that stood, Seleuc', and Ptolomee"-- MAM. Madam-- DOL. "Made up the two legs, and the fourth beast, That was Gog-north, and Egypt-south: which after Was call'd Gog-iron-leg and South-iron-leg"-- MAM. Lady-- DOL. "And then Gog-horned. So was Egypt, too: Then Egypt-clay-leg, and Gog-clay-leg"-- MAM. Sweet madam-- DOL. "And last Gog-dust, and Egypt-dust, which fall In the last link of the fourth chain. And these Be stars in story, which none see, or look at"-- MAM. What shall I do? DOL. "For," as he says, "except We call the rabbins, and the heathen Greeks"-- MAM. Dear lady-- DOL. "To come from Salem, and from Athens, And teach the people of Great Britain"-- [ENTER FACE, HASTILY, IN HIS SERVANT'S DRESS.] FACE. What's the matter, sir? DOL. "To speak the tongue of Eber, and Javan"-- MAM. O, She's in her fit. DOL. "We shall know nothing"-- FACE. Death, sir, We are undone! DOL. "Where then a learned linguist Shall see the ancient used communion Of vowels and consonants"-- FACE. My master will hear! DOL. "A wisdom, which Pythagoras held most high"-- MAM. Sweet honourable lady! DOL. "To comprise All sounds of voices, in few marks of letters"-- FACE. Nay, you must never hope to lay her now. [THEY ALL SPEAK TOGETHER.] DOL. "And so we may arrive by Talmud skill, And profane Greek, to raise the building up Of Helen's house against the Ismaelite, King of Thogarma, and his habergions Brimstony, blue, and fiery; and the force Of king Abaddon, and the beast of Cittim: Which rabbi David Kimchi, Onkelos, And Aben Ezra do interpret Rome." FACE. How did you put her into't? MAM. Alas, I talk'd Of a fifth monarchy I would erect, With the philosopher's stone, by chance, and she Falls on the other four straight. FACE. Out of Broughton! I told you so. 'Slid, stop her mouth. MAM. Is't best? FACE. She'll never leave else. If the old man hear her, We are but faeces, ashes. SUB [WITHIN]. What's to do there? FACE. O, we are lost! Now she hears him, she is quiet. [ENTER SUBTLE, THEY RUN DIFFERENT WAYS.] MAM. Where shall I hide me! SUB. How! what sight is here? Close deeds of darkness, and that shun the light! Bring him again. Who is he? What, my son! O, I have lived too long. MAM. Nay, good, dear father, There was no unchaste purpose. SUB. Not? and flee me When I come in? MAM. That was my error. SUB. Error? Guilt, guilt, my son: give it the right name. No marvel, If I found check in our great work within, When such affairs as these were managing! MAM. Why, have you so? SUB. It has stood still this half hour: And all the rest of our less works gone back. Where is the instrument of wickedness, My lewd false drudge? MAM. Nay, good sir, blame not him; Believe me, 'twas against his will or knowledge: I saw her by chance. SUB. Will you commit more sin, To excuse a varlet? MAM. By my hope, 'tis true, sir. SUB. Nay, then I wonder less, if you, for whom The blessing was prepared, would so tempt heaven, And lose your fortunes. MAM. Why, sir? SUB. This will retard The work a month at least. MAM. Why, if it do, What remedy? But think it not, good father: Our purposes were honest. SUB. As they were, So the reward will prove. [A LOUD EXPLOSION WITHIN.] --How now! ah me! God, and all saints be good to us.-- [RE-ENTER FACE.] What's that? FACE. O, sir, we are defeated! all the works Are flown in fumo, every glass is burst; Furnace, and all rent down, as if a bolt Of thunder had been driven through the house. Retorts, receivers, pelicans, bolt-heads, All struck in shivers! [SUBTLE FALLS DOWN AS IN A SWOON.] Help, good sir! alas, Coldness and death invades him. Nay, sir Mammon, Do the fair offices of a man! you stand, As you were readier to depart than he. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] Who's there? my lord her brother is come. MAM. Ha, Lungs! FACE. His coach is at the door. Avoid his sight, For he's as furious as his sister's mad. MAM. Alas! FACE. My brain is quite undone with the fume, sir, I ne'er must hope to be mine own man again. MAM. Is all lost, Lungs? will nothing be preserv'd Of all our cost? FACE. Faith, very little, sir; A peck of coals or so, which is cold comfort, sir. MAM. O, my voluptuous mind! I am justly punish'd. FACE. And so am I, sir. MAM. Cast from all my hopes-- FACE. Nay, certainties, sir. MAM. By mine own base affections. SUB [SEEMING TO COME TO HIMSELF]. O, the curst fruits of vice and lust! MAM. Good father, It was my sin. Forgive it. SUB. Hangs my roof Over us still, and will not fall, O justice, Upon us, for this wicked man! FACE. Nay, look, sir, You grieve him now with staying in his sight: Good sir, the nobleman will come too, and take you, And that may breed a tragedy. MAM. I'll go. FACE. Ay, and repent at home, sir. It may be, For some good penance you may have it yet; A hundred pound to the box at Bethlem-- MAM. Yes. FACE. For the restoring such as--have their wits. MAM. I'll do't. FACE. I'll send one to you to receive it. MAM. Do. Is no projection left? FACE. All flown, or stinks, sir. MAM. Will nought be sav'd that's good for med'cine, think'st thou? FACE. I cannot tell, sir. There will be perhaps, Something about the scraping of the shards, Will cure the itch,--though not your itch of mind, sir. [ASIDE.] It shall be saved for you, and sent home. Good sir, This way, for fear the lord should meet you. [EXIT MAMMON.] SUB [RAISING HIS HEAD]. Face! FACE. Ay. SUB. Is he gone? FACE. Yes, and as heavily As all the gold he hoped for were in's blood. Let us be light though. SUB [LEAPING UP]. Ay, as balls, and bound And hit our heads against the roof for joy: There's so much of our care now cast away. FACE. Now to our don. SUB. Yes, your young widow by this time Is made a countess, Face; she has been in travail Of a young heir for you. FACE. Good sir. SUB. Off with your case, And greet her kindly, as a bridegroom should, After these common hazards. FACE. Very well, sir. Will you go fetch Don Diego off, the while? SUB. And fetch him over too, if you'll be pleased, sir: Would Dol were in her place, to pick his pockets now! FACE. Why, you can do't as well, if you would set to't. I pray you prove your virtue. SUB. For your sake sir. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 4.4. ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME. [ENTER SURLY AND DAME PLIANT.] SUR. Lady, you see into what hands you are fall'n; 'Mongst what a nest of villains! and how near Your honour was t' have catch'd a certain clap, Through your credulity, had I but been So punctually forward, as place, time, And other circumstances would have made a man; For you're a handsome woman: would you were wise too! I am a gentleman come here disguised, Only to find the knaveries of this citadel; And where I might have wrong'd your honour, and have not, I claim some interest in your love. You are, They say, a widow, rich: and I'm a batchelor, Worth nought: your fortunes may make me a man, As mine have preserv'd you a woman. Think upon it, And whether I have deserv'd you or no. DAME P. I will, sir. SUR. And for these household-rogues, let me alone To treat with them. [ENTER SUBTLE.] SUB. How doth my noble Diego, And my dear madam countess? hath the count Been courteous, lady? liberal, and open? Donzel, methinks you look melancholic, After your coitum, and scurvy: truly, I do not like the dulness of your eye; It hath a heavy cast, 'tis upsee Dutch, And says you are a lumpish whore-master. Be lighter, and I will make your pockets so. [ATTEMPTS TO PICK THEM.] SUR [THROWS OPEN HIS CLOAK]. Will you, don bawd and pickpurse? [STRIKES HIM DOWN.] how now! reel you? Stand up, sir, you shall find, since I am so heavy, I'll give you equal weight. SUB. Help! murder! SUR. No, sir, There's no such thing intended: a good cart, And a clean whip shall ease you of that fear. I am the Spanish don "that should be cozen'd, Do you see, cozen'd?" Where's your Captain Face, That parcel broker, and whole-bawd, all rascal! [ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM.] FACE. How, Surly! SUR. O, make your approach, good captain. I have found from whence your copper rings and spoons Come, now, wherewith you cheat abroad in taverns. 'Twas here you learned t' anoint your boot with brimstone, Then rub men's gold on't for a kind of touch, And say 'twas naught, when you had changed the colour, That you might have't for nothing. And this doctor, Your sooty, smoky-bearded compeer, he Will close you so much gold, in a bolt's-head, And, on a turn, convey in the stead another With sublimed mercury, that shall burst in the heat, And fly out all in fumo! Then weeps Mammon; Then swoons his worship. [FACE SLIPS OUT.] Or, he is the Faustus, That casteth figures and can conjure, cures Plagues, piles, and pox, by the ephemerides, And holds intelligence with all the bawds And midwives of three shires: while you send in-- Captain!--what! is he gone?--damsels with child, Wives that are barren, or the waiting-maid With the green sickness. [SEIZES SUBTLE AS HE IS RETIRING.] --Nay, sir, you must tarry, Though he be scaped; and answer by the ears, sir. [RE-ENTER FACE, WITH KASTRIL.] FACE. Why, now's the time, if ever you will quarrel Well, as they say, and be a true-born child: The doctor and your sister both are abused. KAS. Where is he? which is he? he is a slave, Whate'er he is, and the son of a whore.--Are you The man, sir, I would know? SUR. I should be loth, sir, To confess so much. KAS. Then you lie in your throat. SUR. How! FACE [TO KASTRIL]. A very errant rogue, sir, and a cheater, Employ'd here by another conjurer That does not love the doctor, and would cross him, If he knew how. SUR. Sir, you are abused. KAS. You lie: And 'tis no matter. FACE. Well said, sir! He is The impudent'st rascal-- SUR. You are indeed: Will you hear me, sir? FACE. By no means: bid him be gone. KAS. Begone, sir, quickly. SUR. This 's strange!--Lady, do you inform your brother. FACE. There is not such a foist in all the town, The doctor had him presently; and finds yet, The Spanish count will come here. [ASIDE.] --Bear up, Subtle. SUB. Yes, sir, he must appear within this hour. FACE. And yet this rogue would come in a disguise, By the temptation of another spirit, To trouble our art, though he could not hurt it! KAS. Ay, I know--Away, [TO HIS SISTER.] you talk like a foolish mauther. SUR. Sir, all is truth she says. FACE. Do not believe him, sir. He is the lying'st swabber! Come your ways, sir. SUR. You are valiant out of company! KAS. Yes, how then, sir? [ENTER DRUGGER, WITH A PIECE OF DAMASK.] FACE. Nay, here's an honest fellow, too, that knows him, And all his tricks. Make good what I say, Abel, This cheater would have cozen'd thee o' the widow.-- [ASIDE TO DRUG.] He owes this honest Drugger here, seven pound, He has had on him, in two-penny'orths of tobacco. DRUG. Yes, sir. And he has damn'd himself three terms to pay me. FACE. And what does he owe for lotium? DRUG. Thirty shillings, sir; And for six syringes. SUR. Hydra of villainy! FACE. Nay, sir, you must quarrel him out o' the house. KAS. I will: --Sir, if you get not out of doors, you lie; And you are a pimp. SUR. Why, this is madness, sir, Not valour in you; I must laugh at this. KAS. It is my humour: you are a pimp and a trig, And an Amadis de Gaul, or a Don Quixote. DRUG. Or a knight o' the curious coxcomb, do you see? [ENTER ANANIAS.] ANA. Peace to the household! KAS. I'll keep peace for no man. ANA. Casting of dollars is concluded lawful. KAS. Is he the constable? SUB. Peace, Ananias. FACE. No, sir. KAS. Then you are an otter, and a shad, a whit, A very tim. SUR. You'll hear me, sir? KAS. I will not. ANA. What is the motive? SUB. Zeal in the young gentleman, Against his Spanish slops. ANA. They are profane, Lewd, superstitious, and idolatrous breeches. SUR. New rascals! KAS. Will you begone, sir? ANA. Avoid, Sathan! Thou art not of the light: That ruff of pride About thy neck, betrays thee; and is the same With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven, Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts: Thou look'st like antichrist, in that lewd hat. SUR. I must give way. KAS. Be gone, sir. SUR. But I'll take A course with you-- ANA. Depart, proud Spanish fiend! SUR. Captain and doctor. ANA. Child of perdition! KAS. Hence, sir!-- [EXIT SURLY.] Did I not quarrel bravely? FACE. Yes, indeed, sir. KAS. Nay, an I give my mind to't, I shall do't. FACE. O, you must follow, sir, and threaten him tame: He'll turn again else. KAS. I'll re-turn him then. [EXIT.] [SUBTLE TAKES ANANIAS ASIDE.] FACE. Drugger, this rogue prevented us for thee: We had determin'd that thou should'st have come In a Spanish suit, and have carried her so; and he, A brokerly slave! goes, puts it on himself. Hast brought the damask? DRUG. Yes, sir. FACE. Thou must borrow A Spanish suit. Hast thou no credit with the players? DRUG. Yes, sir; did you never see me play the Fool? FACE. I know not, Nab:--Thou shalt, if I can help it.-- [ASIDE.] Hieronimo's old cloak, ruff, and hat will serve; I'll tell thee more when thou bring'st 'em. [EXIT DRUGGER.] ANA. Sir, I know The Spaniard hates the brethren, and hath spies Upon their actions: and that this was one I make no scruple.--But the holy synod Have been in prayer and meditation for it; And 'tis revealed no less to them than me, That casting of money is most lawful. SUB. True. But here I cannot do it: if the house Shou'd chance to be suspected, all would out, And we be locked up in the Tower for ever, To make gold there for the state, never come out; And then are you defeated. ANA. I will tell This to the elders and the weaker brethren, That the whole company of the separation May join in humble prayer again. SUB. And fasting. ANA. Yea, for some fitter place. The peace of mind Rest with these walls! [EXIT.] SUB. Thanks, courteous Ananias. FACE. What did he come for? SUB. About casting dollars, Presently out of hand. And so I told him, A Spanish minister came here to spy, Against the faithful-- FACE. I conceive. Come, Subtle, Thou art so down upon the least disaster! How wouldst thou ha' done, if I had not help't thee out? SUB. I thank thee, Face, for the angry boy, i'faith. FACE. Who would have look'd it should have been that rascal, Surly? he had dyed his beard and all. Well, sir. Here's damask come to make you a suit. SUB. Where's Drugger? FACE. He is gone to borrow me a Spanish habit; I'll be the count, now. SUB. But where's the widow? FACE. Within, with my lord's sister; madam Dol Is entertaining her. SUB. By your favour, Face, Now she is honest, I will stand again. FACE. You will not offer it. SUB. Why? FACE. Stand to your word, Or--here comes Dol, she knows-- SUB. You are tyrannous still. [ENTER DOL, HASTILY.] FACE. Strict for my right.--How now, Dol! Hast [thou] told her, The Spanish count will come? DOL. Yes; but another is come, You little look'd for! FACE. Who's that? DOL. Your master; The master of the house. SUB. How, Dol! FACE. She lies, This is some trick. Come, leave your quiblins, Dorothy. DOL. Look out, and see. [FACE GOES TO THE WINDOW.] SUB. Art thou in earnest? DOL. 'Slight, Forty of the neighbours are about him, talking. FACE. 'Tis he, by this good day. DOL. 'Twill prove ill day For some on us. FACE. We are undone, and taken. DOL. Lost, I'm afraid. SUB. You said he would not come, While there died one a week within the liberties. FACE. No: 'twas within the walls. SUB. Was't so! cry you mercy. I thought the liberties. What shall we do now, Face? FACE. Be silent: not a word, if he call or knock. I'll into mine old shape again and meet him, Of Jeremy, the butler. In the mean time, Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase, That we can carry in the two trunks. I'll keep him Off for to-day, if I cannot longer: and then At night, I'll ship you both away to Ratcliff, Where we will meet to-morrow, and there we'll share. Let Mammon's brass and pewter keep the cellar; We'll have another time for that. But, Dol, 'Prythee go heat a little water quickly; Subtle must shave me: all my captain's beard Must off, to make me appear smooth Jeremy. You'll do it? SUB. Yes, I'll shave you, as well as I can. FACE. And not cut my throat, but trim me? SUB. You shall see, sir. [EXEUNT.] ACT 5. SCENE 5.1. BEFORE LOVEWIT'S DOOR. ENTER LOVEWIT, WITH SEVERAL OF THE NEIGHBOURS. LOVE. Has there been such resort, say you? 1 NEI. Daily, sir. 2 NEI. And nightly, too. 3 NEI. Ay, some as brave as lords. 4 NEI. Ladies and gentlewomen. 5 NEI. Citizens' wives. 1 NEI. And knights. 6 NEI. In coaches. 2 NEI. Yes, and oyster women. 1 NEI. Beside other gallants. 3 NEI. Sailors' wives. 4 NEI. Tobacco men. 5 NEI. Another Pimlico! LOVE. What should my knave advance, To draw this company? he hung out no banners Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen, Or a huge lobster with six claws? 6 NEI. No, sir. 3 NEI. We had gone in then, sir. LOVE. He has no gift Of teaching in the nose that e'er I knew of. You saw no bills set up that promised cure Of agues, or the tooth-ach? 2 NEI. No such thing, sir! LOVE. Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets? 5 NEI. Neither, sir. LOVE. What device should he bring forth now? I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment: 'Pray God he have not kept such open house, That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding! I left him nothing else. If he have eat them, A plague o' the moth, say I! Sure he has got Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging! The friar and the nun; or the new motion Of the knight's courser covering the parson's mare; Or 't may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt Upon a table, or some dog to dance. When saw you him? 1 NEI. Who, sir, Jeremy? 2 NEI. Jeremy butler? We saw him not this month. LOVE. How! 4 NEI. Not these five weeks, sir. 6 NEI. These six weeks at the least. LOVE. You amaze me, neighbours! 5 NEI. Sure, if your worship know not where he is, He's slipt away. 6 NEI. Pray God, he be not made away. LOVE. Ha! it's no time to question, then. [KNOCKS AT THE DOOR.] 6 NEI. About Some three weeks since, I heard a doleful cry, As I sat up a mending my wife's stockings. LOVE. 'Tis strange that none will answer! Didst thou hear A cry, sayst thou? 6 NEI. Yes, sir, like unto a man That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak. 2 NEI. I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o'clock Next morning. LOVE. These be miracles, or you make them so! A man an hour strangled, and could not speak, And both you heard him cry? 3 NEI. Yes, downward, sir. Love, Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee. What trade art thou on? 3 NEI. A smith, an't please your worship. LOVE. A smith! then lend me thy help to get this door open. 3 NEI. That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools-- [EXIT.] 1 NEI. Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it. LOVE [KNOCKS AGAIN]. I will. [ENTER FACE, IN HIS BUTLER'S LIVERY.] FACE. What mean you, sir? 1, 2, 4 NEI. O, here's Jeremy! FACE. Good sir, come from the door. LOVE. Why, what's the matter? FACE. Yet farther, you are too near yet. LOVE. In the name of wonder, What means the fellow! FACE. The house, sir, has been visited. LOVE. What, with the plague? stand thou then farther. FACE. No, sir, I had it not. LOVE. Who had it then? I left None else but thee in the house. FACE. Yes, sir, my fellow, The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her A week before I spied it; but I got her Convey'd away in the night: and so I shut The house up for a month-- LOVE. How! FACE. Purposing then, sir, To have burnt rose-vinegar, treacle, and tar, And have made it sweet, that you shou'd ne'er have known it; Because I knew the news would but afflict you, sir. LOVE. Breathe less, and farther off! Why this is stranger: The neighbours tell me all here that the doors Have still been open-- FACE. How, sir! LOVE. Gallants, men and women, And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden, In days of Pimlico and Eye-bright. FACE. Sir, Their wisdoms will not say so. LOVE. To-day they speak Of coaches and gallants; one in a French hood Went in, they tell me; and another was seen In a velvet gown at the window: divers more Pass in and out. FACE. They did pass through the doors then, Or walls, I assure their eye-sights, and their spectacles; For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been, In this my pocket, now above twenty days: And for before, I kept the fort alone there. But that 'tis yet not deep in the afternoon, I should believe my neighbours had seen double Through the black pot, and made these apparitions! For, on my faith to your worship, for these three weeks And upwards the door has not been open'd. LOVE. Strange! 1 NEI. Good faith, I think I saw a coach. 2 NEI. And I too, I'd have been sworn. LOVE. Do you but think it now? And but one coach? 4 NEI. We cannot tell, sir: Jeremy Is a very honest fellow. FACE. Did you see me at all? 1 NEI. No; that we are sure on. 2 NEI. I'll be sworn o' that. LOVE. Fine rogues to have your testimonies built on! [RE-ENTER THIRD NEIGHBOUR, WITH HIS TOOLS.] 3 NEI. Is Jeremy come! 1 NEI. O yes; you may leave your tools; We were deceived, he says. 2 NEI. He has had the keys; And the door has been shut these three weeks. 3 NEI. Like enough. LOVE. Peace, and get hence, you changelings. [ENTER SURLY AND MAMMON.] FACE [ASIDE]. Surly come! And Mammon made acquainted! they'll tell all. How shall I beat them off? what shall I do? Nothing's more wretched than a guilty conscience. SUR. No, sir, he was a great physician. This, It was no bawdy-house, but a mere chancel! You knew the lord and his sister. MAM. Nay, good Surly.-- SUR. The happy word, BE RICH-- MAM. Play not the tyrant.-- SUR. "Should be to-day pronounced to all your friends." And where be your andirons now? and your brass pots, That should have been golden flagons, and great wedges? MAM. Let me but breathe. What, they have shut their doors, Methinks! SUR. Ay, now 'tis holiday with them. MAM. Rogues, [HE AND SURLY KNOCK.] Cozeners, impostors, bawds! FACE. What mean you, sir? MAM. To enter if we can. FACE. Another man's house! Here is the owner, sir: turn you to him, And speak your business. MAM. Are you, sir, the owner? LOVE. Yes, sir. MAM. And are those knaves within your cheaters! LOVE. What knaves, what cheaters? MAM. Subtle and his Lungs. FACE. The gentleman is distracted, sir! No lungs, Nor lights have been seen here these three weeks, sir, Within these doors, upon my word. SUR. Your word, Groom arrogant! FACE. Yes, sir, I am the housekeeper, And know the keys have not been out of my hands. SUR. This is a new Face. FACE. You do mistake the house, sir: What sign was't at? SUR. You rascal! this is one Of the confederacy. Come, let's get officers, And force the door. LOVE. 'Pray you stay, gentlemen. SUR. No, sir, we'll come with warrant. MAM. Ay, and then We shall have your doors open. [EXEUNT MAM. AND SUR.] LOVE. What means this? FACE. I cannot tell, sir. I NEI. These are two of the gallants That we do think we saw. FACE. Two of the fools! Your talk as idly as they. Good faith, sir, I think the moon has crazed 'em all.-- [ASIDE.] O me, [ENTER KASTRIL.] The angry boy come too! He'll make a noise, And ne'er away till he have betray'd us all. KAS [KNOCKING]. What rogues, bawds, slaves, you'll open the door, anon! Punk, cockatrice, my suster! By this light I'll fetch the marshal to you. You are a whore To keep your castle-- FACE. Who would you speak with, sir? KAS. The bawdy doctor, and the cozening captain, And puss my suster. LOVE. This is something, sure. FACE. Upon my trust, the doors were never open, sir. KAS. I have heard all their tricks told me twice over, By the fat knight and the lean gentleman. LOVE. Here comes another. [ENTER ANANIAS AND TRIBULATION.] FACE. Ananias too! And his pastor! TRI [BEATING AT THE DOOR]. The doors are shut against us. ANA. Come forth, you seed of sulphur, sons of fire! Your stench it is broke forth; abomination Is in the house. KAS. Ay, my suster's there. ANA. The place, It is become a cage of unclean birds. KAS. Yes, I will fetch the scavenger, and the constable. TRI. You shall do well. ANA. We'll join to weed them out. KAS. You will not come then, punk devise, my sister! ANA. Call her not sister; she's a harlot verily. KAS. I'll raise the street. LOVE. Good gentlemen, a word. ANA. Satan avoid, and hinder not our zeal! [EXEUNT ANA., TRIB., AND KAST.] LOVE. The world's turn'd Bethlem. FACE. These are all broke loose, Out of St. Katherine's, where they use to keep The better sort of mad-folks. 1 NEI. All these persons We saw go in and out here. 2 NEI. Yes, indeed, sir. 3 NEI. These were the parties. FACE. Peace, you drunkards! Sir, I wonder at it: please you to give me leave To touch the door, I'll try an the lock be chang'd. LOVE. It mazes me! FACE [GOES TO THE DOOR]. Good faith, sir, I believe There's no such thing: 'tis all deceptio visus.-- [ASIDE.] Would I could get him away. DAP [WITHIN]. Master captain! master doctor! LOVE. Who's that? FACE. Our clerk within, that I forgot! [ASIDE.] I know not, sir. DAP [WITHIN]. For God's sake, when will her grace be at leisure? FACE. Ha! Illusions, some spirit o' the air-- [ASIDE.] His gag is melted, And now he sets out the throat. DAP [WITHIN]. I am almost stifled-- FACE [ASIDE]. Would you were altogether. LOVE. 'Tis in the house. Ha! list. FACE. Believe it, sir, in the air. LOVE. Peace, you. DAP [WITHIN]. Mine aunt's grace does not use me well. SUB [WITHIN]. You fool, Peace, you'll mar all. FACE [SPEAKS THROUGH THE KEYHOLE, WHILE LOVEWIT ADVANCES TO THE DOOR UNOBSERVED]. Or you will else, you rogue. LOVE. O, is it so? Then you converse with spirits!-- Come, sir. No more of your tricks, good Jeremy. The truth, the shortest way. FACE. Dismiss this rabble, sir.-- [ASIDE.] What shall I do? I am catch'd. LOVE. Good neighbours, I thank you all. You may depart. [EXEUNT NEIGHBOURS.] --Come, sir, You know that I am an indulgent master; And therefore conceal nothing. What's your medicine, To draw so many several sorts of wild fowl? FACE. Sir, you were wont to affect mirth and wit-- But here's no place to talk on't in the street. Give me but leave to make the best of my fortune, And only pardon me the abuse of your house: It's all I beg. I'll help you to a widow, In recompence, that you shall give me thanks for, Will make you seven years younger, and a rich one. 'Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak: I have her within. You need not fear the house; It was not visited. LOVE. But by me, who came Sooner than you expected. FACE. It is true, sir. 'Pray you forgive me. LOVE. Well: let's see your widow. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 5.2. A ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER SUBTLE, LEADING IN DAPPER, WITH HIS EYES BOUND AS BEFORE. SUB. How! you have eaten your gag? DAP. Yes faith, it crumbled Away in my mouth. SUB. You have spoil'd all then. DAP. No! I hope my aunt of Fairy will forgive me. SUB. Your aunt's a gracious lady; but in troth You were to blame. DAP. The fume did overcome me, And I did do't to stay my stomach. 'Pray you So satisfy her grace. [ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM.] Here comes the captain. FACE. How now! is his mouth down? SUB. Ay, he has spoken! FACE. A pox, I heard him, and you too. --He's undone then.-- I have been fain to say, the house is haunted With spirits, to keep churl back. SUB. And hast thou done it? FACE. Sure, for this night. SUB. Why, then triumph and sing Of Face so famous, the precious king Of present wits. FACE. Did you not hear the coil About the door? SUB. Yes, and I dwindled with it. FACE. Show him his aunt, and let him be dispatch'd: I'll send her to you. [EXIT FACE.] SUB. Well, sir, your aunt her grace Will give you audience presently, on my suit, And the captain's word that you did not eat your gag In any contempt of her highness. [UNBINDS HIS EYES.] DAP. Not I, in troth, sir. [ENTER DOL, LIKE THE QUEEN OF FAIRY.] SUB. Here she is come. Down o' your knees and wriggle: She has a stately presence. [DAPPER KNEELS, AND SHUFFLES TOWARDS HER.] Good! Yet nearer, And bid, God save you! DAP. Madam! SUB. And your aunt. DAP. And my most gracious aunt, God save your grace. DOL. Nephew, we thought to have been angry with you; But that sweet face of yours hath turn'd the tide, And made it flow with joy, that ebb'd of love. Arise, and touch our velvet gown. SUB. The skirts, And kiss 'em. So! DOL. Let me now stroak that head. "Much, nephew, shalt thou win, much shalt thou spend, Much shalt thou give away, much shalt thou lend." SUB [ASIDE]. Ay, much! indeed.-- Why do you not thank her grace? DAP. I cannot speak for joy. SUB. See, the kind wretch! Your grace's kinsman right. DOL. Give me the bird. Here is your fly in a purse, about your neck, cousin; Wear it, and feed it about this day sev'n-night, On your right wrist-- SUB. Open a vein with a pin, And let it suck but once a week; till then, You must not look on't. DOL. No: and kinsman, Bear yourself worthy of the blood you come on. SUB. Her grace would have you eat no more Woolsack pies, Nor Dagger frumety. DOL. Nor break his fast In Heaven and Hell. SUB. She's with you every where! Nor play with costarmongers, at mum-chance, tray-trip, God make you rich; (when as your aunt has done it); But keep The gallant'st company, and the best games-- DAP. Yes, sir. SUB. Gleek and primero; and what you get, be true to us. DAP. By this hand, I will. SUB. You may bring's a thousand pound Before to-morrow night, if but three thousand Be stirring, an you will. DAP. I swear I will then. SUB. Your fly will learn you all games. FACE [WITHIN]. Have you done there? SUB. Your grace will command him no more duties? DOL. No: But come, and see me often. I may chance To leave him three or four hundred chests of treasure, And some twelve thousand acres of fairy land, If he game well and comely with good gamesters. SUB. There's a kind aunt! kiss her departing part.-- But you must sell your forty mark a year, now. DAP. Ay, sir, I mean. SUB. Or, give't away; pox on't! DAP. I'll give't mine aunt. I'll go and fetch the writings. [EXIT.] SUB. 'Tis well--away! [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Where's Subtle? SUB. Here: what news? FACE. Drugger is at the door, go take his suit, And bid him fetch a parson, presently; Say, he shall marry the widow. Thou shalt spend A hundred pound by the service! [EXIT SUBTLE.] Now, queen Dol, Have you pack'd up all? DOL. Yes. FACE. And how do you like The lady Pliant? DOL. A good dull innocent. [RE-ENTER SUBTLE.] SUB. Here's your Hieronimo's cloak and hat. FACE. Give me them. SUB. And the ruff too? FACE. Yes; I'll come to you presently. [EXIT.] SUB. Now he is gone about his project, Dol, I told you of, for the widow. DOL. 'Tis direct Against our articles. SUB. Well, we will fit him, wench. Hast thou gull'd her of her jewels or her bracelets? DOL. No; but I will do't. SUB. Soon at night, my Dolly, When we are shipp'd, and all our goods aboard, Eastward for Ratcliff, we will turn our course To Brainford, westward, if thou sayst the word, And take our leaves of this o'er-weening rascal, This peremptory Face. DOL. Content, I'm weary of him. SUB. Thou'st cause, when the slave will run a wiving, Dol, Against the instrument that was drawn between us. DOL. I'll pluck his bird as bare as I can. SUB. Yes, tell her, She must by any means address some present To the cunning man, make him amends for wronging His art with her suspicion; send a ring, Or chain of pearl; she will be tortured else Extremely in her sleep, say, and have strange things Come to her. Wilt thou? DOL. Yes. SUB. My fine flitter-mouse, My bird o' the night! we'll tickle it at the Pigeons, When we have all, and may unlock the trunks, And say, this's mine, and thine; and thine, and mine. [THEY KISS.] [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. What now! a billing? SUB. Yes, a little exalted In the good passage of our stock-affairs. FACE. Drugger has brought his parson; take him in, Subtle, And send Nab back again to wash his face. SUB. I will: and shave himself? [EXIT.] FACE. If you can get him. DOL. You are hot upon it, Face, whate'er it is! FACE. A trick that Dol shall spend ten pound a month by. [RE-ENTER SUBTLE.] Is he gone? SUB. The chaplain waits you in the hall, sir. FACE. I'll go bestow him. [EXIT.] DOL. He'll now marry her, instantly. SUB. He cannot yet, he is not ready. Dear Dol, Cozen her of all thou canst. To deceive him Is no deceit, but justice, that would break Such an inextricable tie as ours was. DOL. Let me alone to fit him. [RE-ENTER FACE.] FACE. Come, my venturers, You have pack'd up all? where be the trunks? bring forth. SUB. Here. FACE. Let us see them. Where's the money? SUB. Here, In this. FACE. Mammon's ten pound; eight score before: The brethren's money, this. Drugger's and Dapper's. What paper's that? DOL. The jewel of the waiting maid's, That stole it from her lady, to know certain-- FACE. If she should have precedence of her mistress? DOL. Yes. FACE. What box is that? SUB. The fish-wives' rings, I think, And the ale-wives' single money. Is't not, Dol? DOL. Yes; and the whistle that the sailor's wife Brought you to know an her husband were with Ward. FACE. We'll wet it to-morrow; and our silver-beakers And tavern cups. Where be the French petticoats, And girdles and hangers? SUB. Here, in the trunk, And the bolts of lawn. FACE. Is Drugger's damask there, And the tobacco? SUB. Yes. FACE. Give me the keys. DOL. Why you the keys? SUB. No matter, Dol; because We shall not open them before he comes. FACE. 'Tis true, you shall not open them, indeed; Nor have them forth, do you see? Not forth, Dol. DOL. No! FACE. No, my smock rampant. The right is, my master Knows all, has pardon'd me, and he will keep them; Doctor, 'tis true--you look--for all your figures: I sent for him, indeed. Wherefore, good partners, Both he and she be satisfied; for here Determines the indenture tripartite 'Twixt Subtle, Dol, and Face. All I can do Is to help you over the wall, o' the back-side, Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Dol. Here will be officers presently, bethink you Of some course suddenly to 'scape the dock: For thither you will come else. [LOUD KNOCKING.] Hark you, thunder. SUB. You are a precious fiend! OFFI [WITHOUT]. Open the door. FACE. Dol, I am sorry for thee i'faith; but hear'st thou? It shall go hard but I will place thee somewhere: Thou shalt have my letter to mistress Amo-- DOL. Hang you! FACE. Or madam Caesarean. DOL. Pox upon you, rogue, Would I had but time to beat thee! FACE. Subtle, Let's know where you set up next; I will send you A customer now and then, for old acquaintance: What new course have you? SUB. Rogue, I'll hang myself; That I may walk a greater devil than thou, And haunt thee in the flock-bed and the buttery. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 5.3. AN OUTER ROOM IN THE SAME. ENTER LOVEWIT IN THE SPANISH DRESS, WITH THE PARSON. LOUD KNOCKING AT THE DOOR. LOVE. What do you mean, my masters? MAM [WITHOUT]. Open your door, Cheaters, bawds, conjurers. OFFI [WITHOUT]. Or we will break it open. LOVE. What warrant have you? OFFI [WITHOUT]. Warrant enough, sir, doubt not, If you'll not open it. LOVE. Is there an officer, there? OFFI [WITHOUT]. Yes, two or three for failing. LOVE. Have but patience, And I will open it straight. [ENTER FACE, AS BUTLER.] FACE. Sir, have you done? Is it a marriage? perfect? LOVE. Yes, my brain. FACE. Off with your ruff and cloak then; be yourself, sir. SUR [WITHOUT]. Down with the door. KAS [WITHOUT]. 'Slight, ding it open. LOVE [OPENING THE DOOR]. Hold, Hold, gentlemen, what means this violence? [MAMMON, SURLY, KASTRIL, ANANIAS, TRIBULATION, AND OFFICERS, RUSH IN.] MAM. Where is this collier? SUR. And my captain Face? MAM. These day owls. SUR. That are birding in men's purses. MAM. Madam suppository. KAS. Doxy, my suster. ANA. Locusts Of the foul pit. TRI. Profane as Bel and the dragon. ANA. Worse than the grasshoppers, or the lice of Egypt. LOVE. Good gentlemen, hear me. Are you officers, And cannot stay this violence? 1 OFFI. Keep the peace. LOVE. Gentlemen, what is the matter? whom do you seek? MAM. The chemical cozener. SUR. And the captain pander. KAS. The nun my suster. MAM. Madam Rabbi. ANA. Scorpions, And caterpillars. LOVE. Fewer at once, I pray you. 2 OFFI. One after another, gentlemen, I charge you, By virtue of my staff. ANA. They are the vessels Of pride, lust, and the cart. LOVE. Good zeal, lie still A little while. TRI. Peace, deacon Ananias. LOVE. The house is mine here, and the doors are open; If there be any such persons as you seek for, Use your authority, search on o' God's name. I am but newly come to town, and finding This tumult 'bout my door, to tell you true, It somewhat mazed me; till my man, here, fearing My more displeasure, told me he had done Somewhat an insolent part, let out my house (Belike, presuming on my known aversion From any air o' the town while there was sickness,) To a doctor and a captain: who, what they are Or where they be, he knows not. MAM. Are they gone? LOVE. You may go in and search, sir. [MAMMON, ANA., AND TRIB. GO IN.] Here, I find The empty walls worse than I left them, smoak'd, A few crack'd pots, and glasses, and a furnace: The ceiling fill'd with poesies of the candle, And madam with a dildo writ o' the walls: Only one gentlewoman, I met here, That is within, that said she was a widow-- KAS. Ay, that's my suster; I'll go thump her. Where is she? [GOES IN.] LOVE. And should have married a Spanish count, but he, When he came to't, neglected her so grossly, That I, a widower, am gone through with her. SUR. How! have I lost her then? LOVE. Were you the don, sir? Good faith, now, she does blame you extremely, and says You swore, and told her you had taken the pains To dye your beard, and umber o'er your face, Borrowed a suit, and ruff, all for her love; And then did nothing. What an oversight, And want of putting forward, sir, was this! Well fare an old harquebuzier, yet, Could prime his powder, and give fire, and hit, All in a twinkling! [RE-ENTER MAMMON.] MAM. The whole nest are fled! LOVE. What sort of birds were they? MAM. A kind of choughs, Or thievish daws, sir, that have pick'd my purse Of eight score and ten pounds within these five weeks, Beside my first materials; and my goods, That lie in the cellar, which I am glad they have left, I may have home yet. LOVE. Think you so, sir? MAM. Ay. LOVE. By order of law, sir, but not otherwise. MAM. Not mine own stuff! LOVE. Sir, I can take no knowledge That they are yours, but by public means. If you can bring certificate that you were gull'd of them, Or any formal writ out of a court, That you did cozen your self, I will not hold them. MAM. I'll rather lose them. LOVE. That you shall not, sir, By me, in troth: upon these terms, they are yours. What! should they have been, sir, turn'd into gold, all? MAM. No, I cannot tell--It may be they should.--What then? LOVE. What a great loss in hope have you sustain'd! MAM. Not I, the commonwealth has. FACE. Ay, he would have built The city new; and made a ditch about it Of silver, should have run with cream from Hogsden; That every Sunday, in Moorfields, the younkers, And tits and tom-boys should have fed on, gratis. MAM. I will go mount a turnip-cart, and preach The end of the world, within these two months. Surly, What! in a dream? SUR. Must I needs cheat myself, With that same foolish vice of honesty! Come, let us go and hearken out the rogues: That Face I'll mark for mine, if e'er I meet him. FACE. If I can hear of him, sir, I'll bring you word, Unto your lodging; for in troth, they were strangers To me, I thought them honest as my self, sir. [EXEUNT MAM. AND SUR.] [RE-ENTER ANANIAS AND TRIBULATION.] TRI. 'Tis well, the saints shall not lose all yet. Go, And get some carts-- LOVE. For what, my zealous friends? ANA. To bear away the portion of the righteous Out of this den of thieves. LOVE. What is that portion? ANA. The goods sometimes the orphan's, that the brethren Bought with their silver pence. LOVE. What, those in the cellar, The knight sir Mammon claims? ANA. I do defy The wicked Mammon, so do all the brethren, Thou profane man! I ask thee with what conscience Thou canst advance that idol against us, That have the seal? were not the shillings number'd, That made the pounds; were not the pounds told out, Upon the second day of the fourth week, In the eighth month, upon the table dormant, The year of the last patience of the saints, Six hundred and ten? LOVE. Mine earnest vehement botcher, And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you: But if you get you not away the sooner, I shall confute you with a cudgel. ANA. Sir! TRI. Be patient, Ananias. ANA. I am strong, And will stand up, well girt, against an host That threaten Gad in exile. LOVE. I shall send you To Amsterdam, to your cellar. ANA. I will pray there, Against thy house: may dogs defile thy walls, And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy roof, This seat of falsehood, and this cave of cozenage! [EXEUNT ANA. AND TRIB.] [ENTER DRUGGER.] LOVE. Another too? DRUG. Not I, sir, I am no brother. LOVE [BEATS HIM]. Away, you Harry Nicholas! do you talk? [EXIT DRUG.] FACE. No, this was Abel Drugger. Good sir, go, [TO THE PARSON.] And satisfy him; tell him all is done: He staid too long a washing of his face. The doctor, he shall hear of him at West-chester; And of the captain, tell him, at Yarmouth, or Some good port-town else, lying for a wind. [EXIT PARSON.] If you can get off the angry child, now, sir-- [ENTER KASTRIL, DRAGGING IN HIS SISTER.] KAS. Come on, you ewe, you have match'd most sweetly, have you not? Did not I say, I would never have you tupp'd But by a dubb'd boy, to make you a lady-tom? 'Slight, you are a mammet! O, I could touse you, now. Death, mun' you marry, with a pox! LOVE. You lie, boy; As sound as you; and I'm aforehand with you. KAS. Anon! LOVE. Come, will you quarrel? I will feize you, sirrah; Why do you not buckle to your tools? KAS. Od's light, This is a fine old boy as e'er I saw! LOVE. What, do you change your copy now? proceed; Here stands my dove: stoop at her, if you dare. KAS. 'Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i'faith, An I should be hang'd for't! Suster, I protest, I honour thee for this match. LOVE. O, do you so, sir? KAS. Yes, an thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy, I'll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage, Than her own state. LOVE. Fill a pipe full, Jeremy. FACE. Yes; but go in and take it, sir. LOVE. We will-- I will be ruled by thee in any thing, Jeremy. KAS. 'Slight, thou art not hide-bound, thou art a jovy boy! Come, let us in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs. LOVE. Whiff in with your sister, brother boy. [EXEUNT KAS. AND DAME P.] That master That had received such happiness by a servant, In such a widow, and with so much wealth, Were very ungrateful, if he would not be A little indulgent to that servant's wit, And help his fortune, though with some small strain Of his own candour. [ADVANCING.] --"Therefore, gentlemen, And kind spectators, if I have outstript An old man's gravity, or strict canon, think What a young wife and a good brain may do; Stretch age's truth sometimes, and crack it too. Speak for thy self, knave." FACE. "So I will, sir." [ADVANCING TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE.] "Gentlemen, My part a little fell in this last scene, Yet 'twas decorum. And though I am clean Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Dol, Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all With whom I traded: yet I put my self On you, that are my country: and this pelf Which I have got, if you do quit me, rests To feast you often, and invite new guests." [EXEUNT.] ***** GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be--," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you--?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the--," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the--," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of--," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd--him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten--," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "--order," "--waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) --not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to--," into the bargain; "no--," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible--," "angry--," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in--," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt--," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no--," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye--used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no--," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for--," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in--," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder--"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt--," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in--," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking--," "--politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER ("--frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the--," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in--," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for--," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in--" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "--up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "--failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at--," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a--!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first--," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their--es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford). JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's--," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give--," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make--," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by--," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the--," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry--in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on--," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the--" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the--," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be--," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be--," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a--," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in--," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go--," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's--," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person--perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a--," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "--of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "--away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in--," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance--hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make--of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's--," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the--," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the--," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it--s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in--," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take--," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the--," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of--," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "--a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a--," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take--," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn--," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish--," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from--," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "--Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the--," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at--," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold--," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the--," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the--for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I--," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("--pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
37195	----	Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net THE BEAUX STRATAGEM; A COMEDY, IN FIVE ACTS; BY GEORGE FARQUHAR, ESQ. AS PERFORMED AT THE THEATRES ROYAL, DRURY LANE AND COVENT GARDEN. PRINTED UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF THE MANAGERS FROM THE PROMPT BOOK. WITH REMARKS BY MRS. INCHBALD. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER ROW. SAVAGE AND EASINGWOOD, PRINTERS, LONDON. REMARKS. It is an honour to the morality of the present age, that this most entertaining comedy is but seldom performed; and never, except some new pantomime, or other gaudy spectacle, be added, as an afterpiece, for the attraction of an audience. The well drawn characters, happy incidents, and excellent dialogue, in "The Beaux Stratagem," are but poor atonement for that unrestrained contempt of principle which pervades every scene. Plays of this kind are far more mischievous than those, which preserve less appearance of delicacy. Every auditor and reader shrinks from those crimes, which are recommended in unseemly language, and from libertinism united with coarse manners; but in adorning vice with wit, and audacious rakes with the vivacity and elegance of men of fashion, youth, at least, will be decoyed into the snare of admiration. Charmed with the spirit of Archer and Aimwell, the reader may not, perhaps, immediately perceive, that those two fine gentlemen are but arrant impostors; and that the lively, though pitiable Mrs. Sullen, is no other than a deliberate violator of her marriage vow. Highly delighted with every character, he will not, perhaps, at first observe, that all the wise and witty persons of this comedy are knaves, and all the honest people fools. It is said, that this play was written in six weeks--it is more surprising still, that it was written by a dying man! Farquhar was a gentleman of elegant person and bewitching address, who, having experienced the vicissitudes of life, as a man of fashion, an actor, a captain in the army, an author, a lover, and a husband; and having encountered bitter disappointment in some of his adventures--though amply gratified by others--He, at the age of twenty-nine, sunk into a dejection of spirits and decline of health; and in this state, he wrote the present drama.--It had only been acted a night or two, when the author, in the midst of those honours, which he derived from its brilliant reception--died. As a proof that Farquhar was perfectly sensible of his dangerous state, and that he regained cheerfulness as his end approached, the following anecdote is told:-- The famed actress, Mrs. Oldfield, performed the part of Mrs. Sullen, when the comedy was first produced; and being highly interested in its success, from the esteem she bore the author; when it drew near the last rehearsal, she desired Wilkes, the actor, to go to him, and represent--that she advised him to make some alteration in the catastrophe of the piece; for that she was apprehensive, the free manner in which he had bestowed the hand of Mrs. Sullen upon Archer, without first procuring a divorce from her husband, would offend great part of the audience. "Oh," replied Farquhar, gaily, when this message was delivered to him, "tell her, I wish she was married to me instead of Sullen; for then, without the trouble of a divorce, I would give her my bond, that she should be a widow within a few days." In this allusion he was prophetic;--and the apparent joy, with which he expected his dissolution, may be accounted for on the supposition--that the profligate characters, which he has pourtrayed in "The Beaux Stratagem," were such as he had uniformly met with in the world;--and he was rejoiced to leave them all behind. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. DRURY LANE. COVENT GARDEN. AIMWELL _Mr. Holland._ _Mr. Brunton._ SIR CHARLES FREEMAN _Mr. Bartley._ _Mr. Claremont._ ARCHER _Mr. Elliston._ _Mr. Lewis._ SULLEN _Mr. Powell._ _Mr. Murray._ FOIGARD _Mr. Johnstone._ _Mr. Rock._ BONIFACE _Mr. Palmer._ _Mr. Davenport._ GIBBET _Mr. Wewitzer._ _Mr. Emery._ HOUNSLOW _Mr. Maddocks._ _Mr. Atkins._ BAGSHOT _Mr. Webb._ _Mr. Abbot._ SCRUB _Mr. Bannister._ _Mr. Munden._ LADY BOUNTIFUL _Mrs. Sparks._ _Mrs. Emery._ MRS. SULLEN _Mrs. Jordan._ _Mrs. Glover._ DORINDA _Miss Mellon._ _Miss Brunton._ CHERRY _Miss De Camp._ _Mrs. Martyr._ GIPSEY _Mrs. Scott._ _Mrs. Beverly._ _SCENE,--Litchfield._ THE BEAUX STRATAGEM. ACT THE FIRST. SCENE I. _An Inn._ _Enter_ BONIFACE, _running.--Bar Bell rings._ _Bon._ Chamberlain! Maid! Cherry! Daughter Cherry! All asleep? all dead? _Enter_ CHERRY, _running_. _Cher._ Here! here! Why d'ye bawl so, father? d'ye think we have no ears? _Bon._ You deserve to have none, you young minx:--The company of the Warrington coach has stood in the hall this hour, and nobody to show them to their chambers. _Cher._ And let them wait, father;--there's neither red coat in the coach, nor footman behind it. _Bon._ But they threaten to go to another inn to-night. _Cher._ That they dare not, for fear the coachman should overturn them to-morrow--[_Ringing._] Coming! coming!--Here's the London coach arrived. _Enter several_ PEOPLE _with Trunks, Bandboxes, and other Luggage, and cross the Stage_. _Bon._ Welcome ladies. _Cher._ Very welcome, gentlemen----Chamberlain, show the lion and the rose. [_Exit with the_ COMPANY. _Enter_ AIMWELL, _in a Riding Habit_, ARCHER _as Footman, carrying a Portmanteau_. _Bon._ This way, this way, gentlemen. _Aim._ Set down the things; go to the stable, and see my horses well rubbed. _Arch._ I shall, sir. [_Exit._ _Aim._ You're my landlord, I suppose? _Bon._ Yes, sir, I'm old Will Boniface, pretty well known upon this road, as the saying is. _Aim._ O, Mr. Boniface, your servant. _Bon._ O, sir,----what will your honour please to drink, as the saying is? _Aim._ I have heard your town of Litchfield much famed for ale, I think: I'll taste that. _Bon._ Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy, and will be just fourteen years old the fifth day of next March. _Aim._ You are very exact, I find, in the age of your ale. _Bon._ As punctual, sir, as I am in the age of my children: I'll show you such ale----Here, tapster, broach number 1792, as the saying is:----Sir, you shall taste my Anno Domini----I have lived in Litchfield, man and boy, above eight and fifty years, and I believe have not consumed eight and fifty ounces of meat. _Aim._ At a meal, you mean, if one may guess your sense by your bulk. _Bon._ Not in my life, sir; I have fed purely upon ale: I have eat my ale, drank my ale, and I always sleep upon ale. _Enter_ TAPSTER, _with a Tankard_. Now, sir, you shall see: your worship's health: ha! delicious, delicious----fancy it Burgundy, only fancy it, and 'tis worth ten shillings a quart. _Aim._ [_Drinks._] 'Tis confounded strong. _Bon._ Strong! it must be so; or how would we be strong that drink it? _Aim._ And have you lived so long upon this ale, landlord? _Bon._ Eight and fifty years, upon my credit, sir; but it killed my wife, poor woman, as the saying is. _Aim._ How came that to pass? _Bon._ I don't know how, sir; she would not let the ale take its natural course, sir: she was for qualifying it every now and then with a dram, as the saying is, and an honest gentleman, that came this way from Ireland, made her a present of a dozen bottles of Usquebaugh----but the poor woman was never well after; but, however, I was obliged to the gentleman, you know. _Aim._ Why, was it the Usquebaugh that killed her? _Bon._ My Lady Bountiful said so--she, good lady, did what could be done; she cured her of three tympanies, but the fourth carried her off; but she's happy, and I'm contented, as the saying is. _Aim._ Who's that Lady Bountiful, you mentioned? _Bon._ 'Ods my life, sir, we'll drink her health. [_Drinks._] My Lady Bountiful is one of the best of women: her last husband, Sir Charles Bountiful, left her worth a thousand pounds a year; and I believe she lays out one half on't in charitable uses, for the good of her neighbours: she cures all disorders incidental to men, women and children; in short, she has cured more people in and about Litchfield within ten years, than the doctors have killed in twenty, and that's a bold word. _Aim._ Has the lady been any other way useful in her generation? _Bon._ Yes, sir, she has a daughter by Sir Charles, the finest woman in all our country, and the greatest fortune: she has a son too by her first husband, 'Squire Sullen, who married a fine lady from London t'other day; if you please, sir, we'll drink his health. _Aim._ What sort of a man is he? _Bon._ Why, sir, the man's well enough; says little, thinks less, and does--nothing at all, 'faith: but he's a man of great estate, and values nobody. _Aim._ A sportsman, I suppose? _Bon._ Yes, sir, he's a man of pleasure; he plays at whist, and smokes his pipe eight-and-forty hours together sometimes. _Aim._ A fine sportsman truly! and married, you say? _Bon._ Ay, and to a curious woman, sir--but he's a---- He wants it here, sir. [_Pointing to his Forehead._ _Aim._ He has it there, you mean. _Bon._ That's none of my business; he's my landlord, and so a man, you know, would not----but I'cod he's no better than--sir, my humble service to you. [_Drinks._] Though I value not a farthing what he can do to me; I pay him his rent at quarter day; I have a good running trade; I have but one daughter, and I can give her--but no matter for that. _Aim._ You are very happy, Mr. Boniface; pray what other company have you in town? _Bon._ A power of fine ladies; and then we have the French Officers. _Aim._ O that's right, you have a good many of those gentlemen: pray how do you like their company? _Bon._ So well, as the saying is, that I could wish we had as many more of them; they are full of money, and pay double for every thing they have; they know, sir, that we paid good round taxes for the taking of them, and so they are willing to reimburse us a little; one of them lodges in my house. _Enter_ ARCHER. _Arch._ Landlord, there are some French Gentlemen below, that ask for you. _Bon._ I'll wait on them----Does your master stay long in town, as the saying is? [_To_ ARCHER. _Arch._ I can't tell, as the saying is. _Bon._ Come from London? _Arch._ No! _Bon._ Going to London, mayhap? _Arch._ No! _Bon._ An odd fellow this; [_Bar Bell rings._] I beg your worship's pardon, I'll wait on you in half a minute. [_Exit._ _Aim._ The coast's clear, I see--Now, my dear Archer, welcome to Litchfield! _Arch._ I thank thee, my dear brother in iniquity. _Aim._ Iniquity! pr'ythee, leave canting; you need not change your style with your dress. _Arch._ Don't mistake me, Aimwell, for 'tis still my maxim, that there's no scandal like rags, nor any crimes so shameful as poverty. Men must not be poor; idleness is the root of all evil; the world's wide enough, let them bustle; fortune has taken the weak under her protection, but men of sense are left to their industry. _Aim._ Upon which topic we proceed, and, I think, luckily hitherto: would not any man swear now, that I am a man of quality, and you my servant, when, if our intrinsic value were known---- _Arch._ Come, come, we are the men of intrinsic value, who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves, whose worth is independent of accidents in life, or revolutions in government: we have heads to get money, and hearts to spend it. _Aim._ As to our hearts, I grant ye, they are as willing tits as any within twenty degrees; but I can have no great opinion of our heads, from the service they have done us hitherto, unless it be that they brought us from London hither to Litchfield, made me a lord, and you my servant. _Arch._ That's more than you could expect already, but what money have we left? _Aim._ But two hundred pounds. _Arch._ And our horses, clothes, rings, &c. Why we have very good fortunes now for moderate people; and let me tell you, that this two hundred pounds, with the experience that we are now masters of, is a better estate than the ten thousand we have spent----Our friends indeed began to suspect that our pockets were low, but we came off with flying colours, showed no signs of want either in word or deed. _Aim._ Ay, and our going to Brussels was a good pretence enough for our sudden disappearing; and, I warrant you, our friends imagine, that we are gone a volunteering. _Arch._ Why 'faith if this project fails, it must e'en come to that. I am for venturing one of the hundreds, if you will, upon this knight errantry; but in the case it should fail, we'll reserve the other to carry us to some counterscarp, where we may die as we lived, in a blaze. _Aim._ With all my heart, and we have lived justly, Archer; we can't say that we have spent our fortunes, but that we have enjoyed them. _Arch._ Right; so much pleasure for so much money; we have had our pennyworths; and had I millions, I would go to the same market again. O London, London! well, we have had our share, and let us be thankful: past pleasures, for aught I know, are best; such we are sure of; those to come may disappoint us, but you command for the day, and so I submit:--At Nottingham, you know, I am to be master. _Aim._ And at Lincoln, I again. _Arch._ Then, at Norwich, I mount, which, I think, shall be our last stage; for, if we fail there, we'll embark for Holland, bid adieu to Venus, and welcome Mars. _Aim._ A match-- _Enter_ BONIFACE. Mum. _Bon._ What will your worship please to have for supper? _Aim._ What have you got? _Bon._ Sir, we have a delicate piece of beef in the pot, and a pig at the fire. _Aim._ Good supper meat, I must confess----I can't eat beef, landlord. _Arch._ And I hate pig. _Aim._ Hold your prating, sirrah! do you know who you are? [_Aside._ _Bon._ Please to bespeak something else; I have every thing in the house. _Aim._ Have you any veal? _Bon._ Veal, sir! we had a delicate loin of veal on Wednesday last. _Aim._ Have you got any fish, or wild fowl? _Bon._ As for fish, truly, sir, we are an inland town, and indifferently provided with fish, that's the truth on't; but then for wild fowl!--We have a delicate couple of rabbits. _Aim._ Get me the rabbits fricasseed. _Bon._ Fricasseed! Lard, sir, they'll eat much better smothered with onions. _Arch._ Pshaw! Rot your onions. _Aim._ Again, sirrah;----Well, landlord, what you please; but hold, I have a small charge of money, and your house is so full of strangers, that I believe it may be safer in your custody than mine; for when this fellow of mine gets drunk, he minds nothing--Here, sirrah, reach me the strong box. _Arch._ Yes, sir,----this will give us reputation. [_Aside.--Brings the Box._ _Aim._ Here, landlord, the locks are sealed down, both for your security and mine; it holds somewhat above two hundred pounds; if you doubt it, I'll count it to you after supper: But be sure you lay it where I may have it at a minute's warning: for my affairs are a little dubious at present; perhaps I may be gone in half an hour, perhaps I may be your guest till the best part of that be spent; and pray order your ostler to keep my horses ready saddled: But one thing above the rest I must beg, that you would let this fellow have none of your Anno Domini, as you call it;--for he's the most insufferable sot----Here, sirrah, light me to my chamber. _Arch._ Yes, sir! [_Exit, lighted by_ ARCHER. _Bon._ Cherry, daughter Cherry. _Enter_ CHERRY. _Cher._ D'ye call, father? _Bon._ Ay, child, you must lay by this box for the gentleman, 'tis full of money. _Cher._ Money! all that money! why sure, father, the gentleman comes to be chosen parliament man. Who is he? _Bon._ I don't know what to make of him; he talks of keeping his horses ready saddled, and of going, perhaps, at a minute's warning; or of staying, perhaps, till the best part of this be spent. _Cher._ Ay! ten to one, father, he's a highwayman. _Bon._ A highwayman! upon my life, girl, you have hit it, and this box is some new purchased booty.--Now, could we find him out, the money were ours. _Cher._ He don't belong to our gang. _Bon._ What horses have they? _Cher._ The master rides upon a black. _Bon._ A black! ten to one the man upon the black mare: and since he don't belong to our fraternity, we may betray him with a safe conscience: I don't think it lawful to harbour any rogues but my own. Lookye, child, as the saying is, we must go cunningly to work; proofs we must have; the gentleman's servant loves drink; I'll ply him that way, and ten to one he loves a wench; you must work him t'other way. _Cher._ Father, would you have me give my secret for his? _Bon._ Consider, child, there's two hundred pound, to boot. [_Ringing without._] Coming, coming--child, mind your business. [_Exit_ BONIFACE. _Cher._ What a rogue is my father! My father! I deny it----My mother was a good, generous, free-hearted woman, and I can't tell how far her goodnature might have extended for the good of her children. This landlord of mine, for I think I can call him no more, would betray his guest, and debauch his daughter into the bargain,----by a footman too! _Enter_ ARCHER. _Arch._ What footman, pray, mistress, is so happy as to be the subject of your contemplation? _Cher._ Whoever he is, friend, he'll be but little the better for't. _Arch._ I hope so, for, I'm sure, you did not think of me. _Cher._ Suppose I had? _Arch._ Why then you're but even with me; for the minute I came in, I was considering in what manner I should make love to you. _Cher._ Love to me, friend! _Arch._ Yes, child. _Cher._ Child! manners; if you kept a little more distance, friend, it would become you much better. _Arch._ Distance! good night, saucebox. [_Going._ _Cher._ A pretty fellow; I like his pride.--Sir--pray, sir--you see, sir. [ARCHER _returns_.] I have the credit to be entrusted with your master's fortune here, which sets me a degree above his footman; I hope, sir, you an't affronted. _Arch._ Let me look you full in the face, and I'll tell you whether you can affront me or no.----'Sdeath, child, you have a pair of delicate eyes, and you don't know what to do with them. _Cher._ Why, sir, don't I see every body! _Arch._ Ay, but if some women had them, they would kill every body.----Pr'ythee instruct me; I would fain make love to you, but I don't know what to say. _Cher._ Why, did you never make love to any body before? _Arch._ Never to a person of your figure, I can assure you, madam; my addresses have been always confined to people within my own sphere, I never aspired so high before. [ARCHER _sings_. _But you look so bright, And are dress'd so tight, That a man would swear you're right, As arm was e'er laid over._ _Cher._ Will you give me that song, sir? _Arch._ Ay, my dear, take it while it is warm. [_Kisses her._] Death and fire! her lips are honeycombs. _Cher._ And I wish there had been a swarm of bees too, to have stung you for your impudence. _Arch._ There's a swarm of Cupids, my little Venus, that has done the business much better. _Cher._ This fellow is misbegotten, as well as I. [_Aside._] What's your name, sir? _Arch._ Name! egad, I have forgot it. [_Aside._] Oh, Martin. _Cher._ Where were you born? _Arch._ In St. Martin's parish. _Cher._ What was your father? _Arch._ Of--of--St. Martin's parish. _Cher._ Then, friend, goodnight. _Arch._ I hope not. _Cher._ You may depend upon't. _Arch._ Upon what? _Cher._ That you're very impudent. _Arch._ That you're very handsome. _Cher._ That you're a footman. _Arch._ That you're an angel. _Cher._ I shall be rude. _Arch._ So shall I. _Cher._ Let go my hand. _Arch._ Give me a kiss. [_Kisses her._ _Boniface._ [_Calls without._] Cherry, Cherry! _Cher._ I'm----My father calls; you plaguy devil, how durst you stop my breath so?--Offer to follow me one step, if you dare. [_Exit._ _Arch._ A fair challenge, by this light; this is a pretty fair opening of an adventure; but we are knight-errants, and so fortune be our guide! [_Exit._ ACT THE SECOND. SCENE I. _A Gallery in_ LADY BOUNTIFUL'S _House_. MRS. SULLEN _and_ DORINDA _meeting_. _Dor._ 'Morrow, my dear sister; are you for church this morning? _Mrs. Sul._ Any where to pray; for Heaven alone can help me: but I think, Dorinda, there's no form of prayer in the Liturgy against bad husbands. _Dor._ But there's a form of law at Doctors' Commons; and I swear, sister Sullen, rather than see you thus continually discontented, I would advise you to apply to that: for besides the part that I bear in your vexatious broils, as being sister to the husband, and friend to the wife, your examples give me such an impression of matrimony, that I shall be apt to condemn my person to a long vacation all its life--But supposing, madam, that you brought it to a case of separation, what can you urge against your husband? my brother is, first, the most constant man alive. _Mrs. Sul._ The most constant husband, I grant ye. _Dor._ He never sleeps from you. _Mrs. Sul._ No, he always sleeps with me. _Dor._ He allows you a maintenance suitable to your quality. _Mrs. Sul._ A maintenance! do you take me, madam, for an hospital child, that I must sit down and bless my benefactors, for meat, drink, and clothes? As I take it, madam, I brought your brother ten thousand pounds, out of which I might expect some pretty things, called pleasures. _Dor._ You share in all the pleasures that the country affords. _Mrs. Sul._ Country pleasures! racks and torments! dost think, child, that my limbs were made for leaping of ditches, and clambering over stiles; or that my parents, wisely foreseeing my future happiness in country pleasures, had early instructed me in the rural accomplishments of drinking fat ale, playing at whist, and smoaking tobacco with my husband; and stilling rosemary water, with the good old gentlewoman my mother-in-law? _Dor._ I'm sorry, madam, that it is not more in our power to divert you; I could wish, indeed, that our entertainments were a little more polite, or your taste a little less refined; but pray, madam, how came the poets and philosophers, that laboured so much in hunting after pleasure, to place it at last in a country life? _Mrs. Sul._ Because they wanted money, child, to find out the pleasures of the town: Did you ever hear of a poet or philosopher worth ten thousand pounds? if you can show me such a man, I'll lay you fifty pounds you'll find him somewhere within the weekly bills. Not that I disapprove rural pleasures, as the poets have painted them in their landscapes; every Phyllis has her Corydon, every murmuring stream, and every flowery mead give fresh alarms to love----Besides, you'll find, their couples were never married:----But yonder, I see my Corydon, and a sweet swain it is, Heaven knows--Come, Dorinda, don't be angry, he's my husband, and your brother, and between both, is he not a sad brute? _Dor._ I have nothing to say to your part of him; you're the best judge. _Mrs. Sul._ O sister, sister! if ever you marry, beware of a sullen, silent sot, one that's always musing, but never thinks--There's some diversion in a talking blockhead; and since a woman must wear chains, I would have the pleasure of hearing 'em rattle a little.--Now you shall see; but take this by the way; he came home this morning, at his usual hour of four, waked me out of a sweet dream of something else, by tumbling over the tea-table, which he broke all to pieces; after his man and he has rolled about the room like sick passengers in a storm, he comes flounce into bed, dead as a salmon into a fishmonger's basket; his feet cold as ice, his breath hot as a furnace, and his hands and his face as greasy as his flannel night-cap----Oh matrimony! matrimony!----He tosses up the clothes with a barbarous swing over his shoulders, disorders the whole economy of my bed, and my whole night's comfort is the tuneable serenade of that wakeful nightingale, his nose.----O the pleasure of counting the melancholy clock by a snoring husband!----But now, sister, you shall see how handsomely, being a well-bred man, he will beg my pardon. _Enter_ SULLEN. _Sul._ My head aches consumedly. _Mrs. Sul._ Will you be pleased, my dear, to drink tea with us this morning? it may do your head good. _Sul._ No. _Dor._ Coffee, brother? _Sul._ Pshaw? _Mrs. Sul._ Will you please to dress, and go to church with me? the air may help you. _Sul._ Scrub! _Enter_ SCRUB. _Scrub._ Sir! _Sul._ What day o'the week is this? _Scrub._ Sunday, an't please your worship. _Sul._ Sunday! bring me a dram; and, d'ye hear, set out the venison pasty, and a tankard of strong beer upon the hall table, I'll go to breakfast. [_Going._ _Dor._ Stay, stay, brother, you shan't get off so; you were very naught last night, and must make your wife reparation: come, come, brother, won't you ask pardon? _Sul._ For what? _Dor._ For being drunk last night. _Sul._ I can afford it, can't I? _Mrs. Sul._ But I can't, sir. _Sul._ Then you may let it alone. _Mrs. Sul._ But I must tell you, sir, that this is not to be borne. _Sul._ I'm glad on't. _Mrs. Sul._ What is the reason, sir, that you use me thus inhumanly? _Sul._ Scrub! _Scrub._ Sir! _Sul._ Get things ready to shave my head. [_Exit._ _Mrs. Sul._ Have a care of coming near his temples, Scrub, for fear you meet something there that may turn the edge of your razor. [_Exit_ SCRUB.] Inveterate stupidity! did you ever know so hard, so obstinate a spleen as his? O sister, sister! I shall never have good of the beast till I get him to town; London, dear London, is the place for managing and breaking a husband. _Dor._ And has not a husband the same opportunities there for humbling a wife? _Mrs. Sul._ No, no, child; 'tis a standing maxim in conjugal discipline, that when a man would enslave his wife, he hurries her into the country; and when a lady would be arbitrary with her husband, she wheedles her booby up to town----A man dare not play the tyrant in London, because there are so many examples to encourage the subject to rebel, O Dorinda, Dorinda! a fine woman may do any thing in London: On my conscience, she may raise an army of forty thousand men. _Dor._ I fancy, sister, you have a mind to be trying your power that way here in Litchfield; you have drawn the French Count to your colours already. _Mrs. Sul._ The French are a people that can't live without their gallantries. _Dor._ And some English that I know, sister, are not averse to such amusements. _Mrs. Sul._ Well, sister, since the truth must out, it may do as well now as hereafter; I think, one way to rouse my lethargic, sottish, husband, is to give him a rival; security begets negligence in all people, and men must be alarmed to make them alert in their duty; women are like pictures, of no value in the hands of a fool, till he hears men of sense bid high for the purchase. _Dor._ This might do, sister, if my brother's understanding were to be convinced into a passion for you; but, I believe, there's a natural aversion on his side; and I fancy, sister, that you don't come much behind him, if you dealt fairly. _Mrs. Sul._ I own it; we are united contradictions, fire and water. But I could be contented, with a great many other wives, to humour the censorious vulgar, and give the world an appearance of living well with my husband, could I bring him but to dissemble a little kindness, to keep me in countenance. _Dor._ But how do you know, sister, but that instead of rousing your husband by this artifice to a counterfeit kindness, he should awake in a real fury? _Mrs. Sul._ Let him:--If I can't entice him to the one, I would provoke him to the other. _Dor._ But how must I behave myself between ye? _Mrs. Sul._ You must assist me. _Dor._ What, against my own brother! _Mrs. Sul._ He is but your half brother, and I'm your entire friend: If I go a step beyond the bounds of honour, leave me; till then, I expect you should go along with me in every thing; while I trust my honour in your hands, you may trust your brother's in mine--The Count is to dine here to-day. _Dor._ 'Tis a strange thing, sister, that I can't like that man. _Mrs. Sul._ You like nothing; your time is not come; love and death have their fatalities, and strike home one time or other:--You'll pay for all one day, I warrant ye--But come, my lady's tea is ready, and 'tis almost church time. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _The Inn._ _Enter_ AIMWELL, _dressed, and_ ARCHER. _Aim._ And was she the daughter of the house? _Arch._ The Landlord is so blind as to think so; but, I dare swear, she has better blood in her veins. _Aim._ Why dost think so? _Arch._ Because the baggage has a pert _je-ne-sçai-quoi_; she reads plays, keeps a monkey, and is troubled with vapours. _Aim._ By which discoveries, I guess that you know more of her. _Arch._ Not yet, 'faith: the lady gives herself airs, forsooth; nothing under a gentleman. _Aim._ Let me take her in hand. _Arch._ Say one word more o'that, and I'll declare myself, spoil your sport there, and every where else: lookye, Aimwell, every man in his own sphere. _Aim._ Right; and therefore you must pimp for your master. _Arch._ In the usual forms, good sir, after I have served myself.--But to our business--You are so well dressed, Tom, and make so handsome a figure, that I fancy you may do execution in a country church; the exterior part strikes first, and you're in the right to make that impression favourable. _Aim._ There's something in that which may turn to advantage: the appearance of a stranger in a country church draws as many gazers as a blazing star; no sooner he comes into the cathedral, but a train of whispers runs buzzing round the congregation in a moment:--Who is he? whence comes he? do you know him?--Then I, sir, tip the verger half a crown; he pockets the simony, and inducts me into the best pew in the church; I pull out my snuff-box, turn myself round, bow to the Bishop or the Dean, if he be the commanding officer; single out a beauty, rivet both my eyes to hers, set my nose a-bleeding by the strength of imagination, and show the whole church my concern, by my endeavouring to hide it: after the sermon, the whole town gives me to her for a lover; and, by persuading the lady that I am dying for her, the tables are turned, and she, in good earnest, falls in love with me. _Arch._ There's nothing in this, Tom, without a precedent; but, instead of riveting your eyes to a beauty, try to fix them upon a fortune; that's our business at present. _Aim._ Pshaw! no woman can be a beauty without a fortune.--Let me alone for a marksman. _Arch._ Tom! _Aim._ Ay! _Arch._ When were you at church before, pray? _Aim._ Um--I was there at the coronation. _Arch._ And how can you expect a blessing by going to church now? _Aim._ Blessing? nay, Frank, I ask but for a wife! [_Exit._ _Arch._ Truly, the man is not very unreasonable in his demands. [_Exit, at the opposite Door._ _Enter_ BONIFACE _and_ CHERRY. _Bon._ Well, daughter, as the saying is, have you brought Martin to confess? _Cher._ Pray, father, don't put me upon getting any thing out of a man; I'm but young, you know, father, and don't understand wheedling. _Bon._ Young! why, you jade, as the saying is, can any woman wheedle that is not young? Your mother was useless at five and twenty! Would you make your mother a whore, and me a cuckold, as the saying is? I tell you, silence confesses it, and his master spends his money so freely, and is so much a gentleman every manner of way, that he must be a highwayman. _Enter_ GIBBET, _in a Cloak_. _Gib._ Landlord! Landlord! is the coast clear? _Bon._ O, Mr. Gibbet, what's the news? _Gib._ No matter; ask no questions; all fair and honourable. Here, my dear Cherry. [_Gives her a Bag._] Two hundred sterling pounds, as good as ever hanged or saved a rogue; lay them by with the rest. And here--three wedding, or mourning rings--'tis much the same, you know----Here, two silver hilted swords; I took those from fellows that never show any part of their swords but the hilts: here is a diamond necklace, which the lady hid in the privatest part in the coach, but I found it out: this gold watch I took from a pawnbroker's wife; it was left in her hands by a person of quality; there's the arms upon the case. _Cher._ But who had you the money from? _Gib._ Ah! poor woman! I pitied her--from a poor lady, just eloped from her husband; she had made up her cargo, and was bound for Ireland, as hard as she could drive: she told me of her husband's barbarous usage, and so, faith, I left her half a crown. But I had almost forgot, my dear Cherry; I have a present for you. _Cher._ What is't? _Gib._ A pot of ceruse, my child, that I took out of a lady's under petticoat pocket. _Cher._ What, Mr. Gibbet, do you think, that I paint? _Gib._ Why, you jade, your betters do; I am sure, the lady that I took it from had a coronet upon her handkerchief.----Here, take my cloak, and go, secure the premises. _Cher._ I will secure them. [_Exit._ _Bon._ But, harkye, where's Hounslow and Bagshot? _Gib._ They'll be here to-night. _Bon._ D'ye know of any other gentlemen o' the pad on this road? _Gib._ No. _Bon._ I fancy, that I have two that lodge in the house just now. _Gib._ The devil! how d'ye smoak them? _Bon._ Why, the one is gone to church. _Gib._ To church! that's suspicious, I must confess. _Bon._ And the other is now in his master's chamber: he pretends to be a servant to the other; we'll call him out, and pump him a little. _Gib._ With all my heart. _Bon._ Mr. Martin! Mr. Martin! _Enter_ ARCHER, _brushing a Hat, and singing_. _Gib._ The roads are consumed deep; I'm as dirty as Old Brentford at Christmas.----A good pretty fellow--Who's servant are you, friend? _Arch._ My master's. _Gib._ Really! _Arch._ Really. _Gib._ That's much--The fellow has been at the bar, by his evasions:--But pray, sir, what is your master's name? Arch. _Tall, all, dall._ [Sings, and brushes the Hat.] This is the most obstinate spot---- _Gib._ I ask you his name? _Arch._ Name, sir,--_Tall, all, dall_--I never asked him his name in my life. _Tall, all, dall._ _Bon._ What think you now? _Gib._ Plain, plain; he talks now as if he were before a judge: but pray, friend, which way does your master travel? _Arch._ On horseback. _Gib._ Very well again; an old offender--Right; but, I mean, does he go upwards or downwards? _Arch._ Downwards, I fear, sir! _Tall, all._ _Gib._ I'm afraid thy fate will be a contrary way. _Bon._ Ha! ha! ha! Mr. Martin, you're very arch--This gentleman is only travelling towards Chester, and would be glad of your company, that's all--Come, Captain, you'll stay to-night, I suppose; I'll show you a chamber----Come, Captain. _Gib._ Farewell, friend----[_Exeunt_ GIBBET _and_ BONIFACE. _Arch._ Captain, your servant----Captain! a pretty fellow! 'Sdeath, I wonder that the officers of the army don't conspire to beat all scoundrels in red but their own. _Enter_ CHERRY. _Cher._ Gone, and Martin here! I hope he did not listen: I would have the merit of the discovery all my own, because I would oblige him to love me. [_Aside._]--Mr. Martin, who was that man with my father? _Arch._ Some recruiting sergeant, or whipped out trooper, I suppose. _Cher._ All's safe, I find. [_Aside._ _Arch._ Come, my dear, have you conned over the catechism I taught you last night? _Cher._ Come, question me. _Arch._ What is love? _Cher._ Love is I know not what, it comes I know not how, and goes I know not when. _Arch._ Very well, an apt scholar. [_Chucks her under the Chin._] Where does love enter? _Cher._ Into the eyes. _Arch._ And where go out? _Cher._ I won't tell you. _Arch._ What are the objects of that passion? _Cher._ Youth, beauty, and clean linen. _Arch._ The reason? _Cher._ The two first are fashionable in nature, and the third at court. _Arch._ That's my dear--What are the signs and tokens of that passion? _Cher._ A stealing look, a stammering tongue, words improbable, designs impossible, and actions impracticable. _Arch._ That's my good child, kiss me.----What must a lover do to obtain his mistress? _Cher._ He must adore the person that disdains him, he must bribe the chambermaid that betrays him, and court the footman that laughs at him!----He must, he must---- _Arch._ Nay, child, I must whip you if you don't mind your lesson; he must treat his---- _Cher._ O! ay, he must treat his enemies with respect, his friends with indifference, and all the world with contempt; he must suffer much, and fear more; he must desire much, and hope little; in short, he must embrace his ruin, and throw himself away. _Arch._ Had ever man so hopeful a pupil as mine? Come, my dear, why is love called a riddle? _Cher._ Because, being blind, he leads those that see; and, though a child, he governs a man. _Arch._ Mighty well--And why is love pictured blind? _Cher._ Because the painters, out of their weakness, or privilege of their art, chose to hide those eyes they could not draw. _Arch._ That's my dear little scholar, kiss me again.--And why should love, that's a child, govern a man? _Cher._ Because that a child is the end of love. _Arch._ And so ends love's catechism----And now, my dear, we'll go in, and make my master's bed. _Cher._ Hold, hold, Mr. Martin----You have taken a great deal of pains to instruct me, and what d'ye think I have learned by it? _Arch._ What? _Cher._ That your discourse and your habit are contradictions, and it would be nonsense in me to believe you a footman any longer. _Arch._ 'Oons, what a witch it is! _Cher._ Depend upon this, sir, nothing in that garb shall ever tempt me; for, though I was born to servitude, I hate it:--Own your condition, swear you love me, and then---- _Arch._ And then we shall go make my master's bed? _Cher._ Yes. _Arch._ You must know, then, that I am born a gentleman, my education was liberal; but I went to London a younger brother, fell into the hands of sharpers, who stripped me of my money; my friends disowned me, and now my necessity brings me to what you see. _Cher._ Then take my hand--promise to marry me before you sleep, and I'll make you master of two thousand pounds. _Arch._ How! _Cher._ Two thousand pounds, that I have this minute in my own custody; so throw off your livery this instant, and I'll go find a parson. _Arch._ What said you? A parson! _Cher._ What! do you scruple? _Arch._ Scruple! No, no, but--two thousand pounds, you say? _Cher._ And better. _Arch._ 'Sdeath, what shall I do?--But harkye, child, what need you make me master of yourself and money, when you may have the same pleasure out of me, and still keep your fortune in your own hands? _Cher._ Then you won't marry me? _Arch._ I would marry you, but---- _Cher._ O, sweet sir, I'm your humble servant; you're fairly caught: Would you persuade me that any gentleman, who could bear the scandal of wearing a livery, would refuse two thousand pounds, let the condition be what it would?--No, no, sir; but I hope you'll pardon the freedom I have taken, since it was only to inform myself of the respect that I ought to pay you. [_Going._ _Arch._ Fairly bit, by Jupiter!--Hold, hold! And have you actually two thousand pounds? _Cher._ Sir, I have my secrets as well as you--when you please to be more open, I shall be more free; and, be assured, that I have discoveries that will match yours, be they what they will.--In the mean while, be satisfied that no discovery I make shall ever hurt you; but beware of my father----[_Exit._ _Arch._ So--we're like to have as many adventures in our inn, as Don Quixotte had in his--Let me see--two thousand pounds! if the wench would promise to die when the money were spent, egad, one would marry her; but the fortune may go off in a year or two, and the wife may live--Lord knows how long! then an innkeeper's daughter; ay, that's the devil--there my pride brings me off. For whatsoe'er the sages charge on pride, The angels' fall, and twenty faults beside, On earth, I'm sure, 'mong us of mortal calling, Pride saves man oft, and woman too, from falling. [_Exit._ ACT THE THIRD. SCENE I. LADY BOUNTIFUL'S _House_. _Enter_ MRS. SULLEN _and_ DORINDA. _Mrs. Sul._ Ha! ha! ha! my dear sister, let me embrace thee: now we are friends indeed; for I shall have a secret of yours, as a pledge for mine. _Dor._ But do you think that I am so weak as to fall in love with a fellow at first sight? _Mrs. Sul._ Pshaw! now you spoil all; why should not we be as free in our friendships as the men? I warrant you, the gentleman has got to his confidant already, has avowed his passion, toasted your health, and called you ten thousand angels. _Dor._ Your hand, sister, I an't well. _Mrs. Sul._ So--come, child, up with it--hem a little--so--now, tell me, don't you like the gentleman that we saw at church just now? _Dor._ The man's well enough. _Mrs. Sul._ Well enough! Is he not a demigod, a Narcissus, a star, the man i'the moon? _Dor._ O, sister, I'm extremely ill. _Mrs. Sul._ Come, unbosom yourself--the man is perfectly a pretty fellow; I saw him when he first came into church. _Dor._ I saw him too, sister, and with an air that shone, methought, like rays about his person. _Mrs. Sul._ Well said, up with it. _Dor._ No forward coquette behaviour, no airs to set himself off, no studied looks nor artful posture,--but nature did it all. _Mrs. Sul._ Better and better----One touch more; come-- _Dor._ But, then his looks--Did you observe his eyes? _Mrs. Sul._ Yes, yes, I did--his eyes; well, what of his eyes? _Dor._ Sprightly, but not wandering; they seemed to view, but never gazed on any thing but me--and then his looks so humble were, and yet so noble, that they aimed to tell me, that he could with pride die at my feet, though he scorned slavery any where else. _Mrs. Sul._ The physic works purely--How d'ye find yourself now, my dear? _Dor._ Hem! much better, my dear.--O, here comes our Mercury.-- _Enter_ SCRUB. Well, Scrub, what news of the gentleman? _Scrub._ Madam, I have brought you a whole packet of news. _Dor._ Open it quickly; come. _Scrub._ In the first place, I inquired who the gentleman was? They told me he was a stranger. Secondly, I asked, what the gentleman was? They answered and said, that they never saw him before. Thirdly, I inquired, what countryman he was? They replied, 'twas more than they knew. Fourthly, I demanded, whence he came? Their answer was, they could not tell. And, fifthly, I asked, whither he went? And they replied, they knew nothing of the matter.--And this is all I could learn. _Mrs. Sul._ But what do the people say? can't they guess! _Scrub._ Why, some think he's a spy; some guess he's a mountebank; some say one thing, some another;--but, for my own part, I believe he's a jesuit. _Dor._ A jesuit! Why a jesuit? _Scrub._ Because he keeps his horses always ready saddled, and his footman talks French! _Mrs. Sul._ His footman! _Scrub._ Ay; he and the Count's footman were jabbering French, like two intriguing ducks in a mill-pond: and, I believe, they talked of me, for they laughed consumedly. _Dor._ What sort of livery has the footman? _Scrub._ Livery! lord, madam, I took him for a captain, he's so bedizened with lace: and then he has a silver-headed cane dangling at his knuckles--he carries his hands in his pockets, and walks just so--[_Walks in a French Air._] and has fine long hair, tied up in a bag.----Lord, madam, he's clear another sort of man than I. _Mrs. Sul._ That may easily be--But what shall we do now, sister? _Dor._ I have it----This fellow has a world of simplicity, and some cunning, the first hides the latter by abundance----Scrub. _Scrub._ Madam. _Dor._ We have a great mind to know who this gentleman is, only for our satisfaction. _Scrub._ Yes, madam, it would be a satisfaction, no doubt. _Dor._ You must go and get acquainted with his footman, and invite him hither to drink a bottle of your ale, because you are butler to-day. _Scrub._ Yes, madam, I am butler every Sunday. _Mrs. Sul._ O brave sister! o'my conscience, you understand the mathematics already--'Tis the best plot in the world;--your mother, you know, will be gone to church, my spouse will be got to the alehouse, with his scoundrels, and the house will be our own--so we drop in by accident, and ask the fellow some questions ourselves. In the country, you know, any stranger is company, and we are glad to take up with the butler in a country dance, and happy if he'll do us the favour. _Scrub._ Oh, madam! you wrong me: I never refused your ladyship the favour in my life. _Enter_ GIPSEY. _Gip._ Ladies, dinner's upon table. _Dor._ Scrub, we'll excuse your waiting--Go where we ordered you. _Scrub._ I shall. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _The Inn._ _Enter_ AIMWELL _and_ ARCHER. _Arch._ Well, Tom, I find you are a marksman. _Aim._ A marksman! who so blind could be as not discern a swan among the ravens? _Arch._ Well, but harkye, Aimwell---- _Aim._ Aimwell! call me Oroondates, Cesario, Amadis, all that romance can in a lover paint, and then I'll answer. O, Archer, I read her thousands in her looks! she looked like Ceres in her harvest; corn, wine, and oil, milk and honey; gardens, groves, and purling streams, played on her plenteous face. _Arch._ Her face!--her pocket, you mean. The corn, wine, and oil, lies there. In short, she has twenty thousand pounds, that's the English on't. _Aim._ Her eyes---- _Arch._ Are demicannons, to be sure; so I won't stand their battery. [_Going._ _Aim._ Pray excuse me; my passion must have vent. _Arch._ Passion! what a plague, d'ye think these romantic airs will do your business? Were my temper as extravagant as yours, my adventures have something more romantic by half. _Aim._ Your adventures! _Arch._ Yes-- The nymph, that with her twice ten hundred pounds, With brazen engine hot, and coif clear starch'd, Can fire the guest in warming of the bed-- There's a touch of sublime Milton for you, and the subject, but an innkeeper's daughter. I can play with a girl, as an angler does with his fish; he keeps it at the end of his line, runs it up the stream, and down the stream, till at last, he brings it to hand, tickles the trout, and so whips it into his basket. _Enter_ BONIFACE. _Bon._ Mr. Martin, as the saying is--yonder's an honest fellow below, my Lady Bountiful's butler, who begs the honour, that you would go home with him, and see his cellar. _Arch._ Do my _baissemains_ to the gentleman, and tell him, I will do myself the honour to wait on him immediately, as the saying is. _Bon._ I shall do your worship's commands, as the saying is. [_Exit, bowing obsequiously._ _Aim._ What do I hear? soft Orpheus play, and fair Toftida sing. _Arch._ Pshaw! damn your raptures; I tell you, here's a pump going to be put into the vessel, and the ship will get into harbour, my life on't. You say, there's another lady very handsome there? _Aim._ Yes, faith. _Arch._ I'm in love with her already. _Aim._ Can't you give me a bill upon Cherry in the mean time. _Arch._ No, no, friend; all her corn, wine, and oil, is ingrossed to my market--And, once more, I warn you, to keep your anchorage clear of mine; for if you fall foul on me, by this light, you shall go to the bottom.--What! make prize of my little frigate, while I am upon the cruize for you! [_Exit._ _Enter_ BONIFACE. _Aim._ Well, well, I won't--Landlord, have you any tolerable company in the house? I don't care for dining alone. _Bon._ Yes, sir, there's a captain below, as the saying is, that arrived about an hour ago. _Aim._ Gentlemen of his coat are welcome every where;--will you make him a compliment from me, and tell him, I should be glad of his company. _Bon._ Who shall I tell him, sir, would---- _Aim._ Ha! that stroke was well thrown in----I'm only a traveller, like himself, and would be glad of his company, that's all. _Bon._ I obey your commands, as the saying is. [_Exit._ _Enter_ ARCHER. _Arch._ 'Sdeath! I had forgot--what title will you give yourself? _Aim._ My brother's, to be sure: he would never give me any thing else, so I'll make bold with his honour this bout. You know the rest of your cue. _Arch._ Ay, ay. [_Exit._ _Enter_ GIBBET. _Gib._ Sir, I'm yours. _Aim._ 'Tis more than I deserve, sir; for I don't know you. _Gib._ I don't wonder at that, sir, for you never saw me before----I hope. [_Aside._ _Aim._ And pray, sir, how came I by the honour of seeing you now? _Gib._ Sir, I scorn to intrude upon any gentleman--but my landlord-- _Aim._ O, sir, I ask your pardon; you are the captain he told me of? _Gib._ At your service, sir. _Aim._ What regiment, may I be so bold? _Gib._ A marching regiment, sir; an old corps. _Aim._ Very old, if your coat be regimental. [_Aside._] You have served abroad, sir? _Gib._ Yes, sir, in the plantations; 'twas my lot to be sent into the worst service; I would have quitted it indeed, but a man of honour, you know----Besides, 'twas for the good of my country, that I should be abroad----Any thing for the good of one's country.--I'm a Roman for that. _Aim._ One of the first, I'll lay my life. [_Aside._] You found the West Indies very hot, sir? _Gib._ Ay, sir, too hot for me. _Aim._ Pray sir, han't I seen your face at Will's coffeehouse? _Gib._ Yes, sir, and at White's too. _Aim._ And where is your company now, captain? _Gib._ They a'nt come yet. _Aim._ Why, d'ye expect them here? _Gib._ They'll be here to-night, sir. _Aim._ Which way do they march? _Gib._ Across the country.----The devil's in't, if I han't said enough to encourage him to declare--but I'm afraid he's not right--I must tack about. [_Aside._ _Aim._ Is your company to quarter at Litchfield? _Gib._ In this house, sir. _Aim._ What! all? _Gib._ My company's but thin--Ha! ha! ha! we are but three;--ha! ha! ha! _Aim._ You are merry, sir. _Gib._ Ay, sir, you must excuse me, sir, I understand the world, especially the art of travelling: I don't care, sir, for answering questions directly upon the road--for I generally ride with a charge about me. _Aim._ Three or four, I believe. [_Aside._ _Gib._ I am credibly informed, that there are highwaymen upon this quarter--not, sir, that I could suspect a gentleman of your figure--But, truly, sir, I have got such a way of evasion upon the road, that I don't care for speaking truth to any man. _Aim._ Your caution may be necessary--Then, I presume, you are no captain. _Gib._ Not I, sir; captain is a good travelling name, and so I take it. It stops a great many foolish inquiries, that are generally made about gentlemen that travel;--it gives a man an air of something, and makes the drawers obedient.--And, thus far, I am a captain, and no farther. _Aim._ And, pray, sir, what is your true profession? _Gib._ O, sir, you must excuse me--upon my word, sir, I don't think it safe to tell ye. _Aim._ Ha! ha! ha! upon my word, I commend you.-- _Enter_ BONIFACE. Well, Mr. Boniface, what's the news? _Bon._ There's another gentleman below, as the saying is, that, hearing you were but two, would be glad to make the third man, if you'd give him leave. _Aim._ What is he? _Bon._ A clergyman, as the saying is. _Aim._ A clergyman!--is he really a clergyman? or is it only his travelling name, as my friend the captain has it. _Bon._ O, sir, he's a priest, and chaplain to the French officers in town. _Aim._ Is he a Frenchman? _Bon._ Yes, sir; born at Brussels. _Gib._ A Frenchman, and a priest! I won't be seen in his company, sir;--I have a value for my reputation, sir. _Aim._ Nay, but, captain, since we are by ourselves--Can he speak English, landlord? _Bon._ Very well, sir; you may know him, as the saying is, to be a foreigner by his accent, and that's all. _Aim._ Then he has been in England before? _Bon._ Never, sir, but he's a master of languages, as the saying is--he talks Latin; it does me good to hear him talk Latin. _Aim._ Then you understand Latin, Mr. Boniface? _Bon._ Not I, sir, as the saying is;--but he talks it so very fast, that I'm sure it must be good. _Aim._ Pray desire him to walk up. _Bon._ Here he is, as the saying is. _Enter_ FOIGARD. _Foig._ Save you, gentlemens bote. _Aim._ A Frenchman!--Sir, your most humble servant. _Foig._ Och, dear joy, I am your most faithful shervant; and yours alsho. _Gib._ Doctor, you talk very good English, but you have a mighty twang of the foreigner. _Foig._ My English is very well for the vords; but ve foreigners, you know, cannot bring our tongues about the pronunciation so soon. _Aim._ A foreigner! A downright teague, by this light. [_Aside._] Were you born in France, doctor? _Foig._ I was educated in France, but I was borned at Brussels; I am a subject of the King of Spain, joy. _Gib._ What King of Spain, sir? speak. _Foig._ Upon my shoul, joy, I cannot tell you as yet. _Aim._ Nay, captain, that was too hard upon the doctor; he's a stranger. _Foig._ O, let him alone, dear joy, I am of a nation that is not easily put out of countenance. _Aim._ Come, gentlemen, I'll end the dispute----Here, landlord, is dinner ready? _Bon._ Upon the table, as the saying is. _Aim._ Gentlemen--pray--that door---- _Foig._ No, no, fait, the captain must lead. _Aim._ No, doctor, the church is our guide. _Gib._ Ay, ay, so it is. [_Exeunt_, FOIGARD _foremost_. SCENE III. _A Gallery in_ LADY BOUNTIFUL'S _House_. _Enter_ ARCHER _and_ SCRUB, _singing, and hugging one another_; SCRUB _with a Tankard in his Hand_--GIPSEY _listening at a Distance_. Scrub. _Tal, all, dal_----Come, my dear boy, let us have that song once more. _Arch._ No, no, we shall disturb the family----But will you be sure to keep the secret? _Scrub._ Pho! upon my honour, as I'm a gentleman. _Arch._ 'Tis enough----You must know then, that my master is the Lord Viscount Aimwell: he fought a duel t'other day in London, wounded his man so dangerously, that he thinks fit to withdraw, till he hears whether the gentleman's wounds be mortal or not. He never was in this part of England before, so he chose to retire to this place, that's all. _Gip._ And, that's enough for me. [_Exit._ _Scrub._ And where were you, when your master fought? _Arch._ We never know of our master's quarrels. _Scrub._ No! if our masters in the country here receive a challenge, the first thing they do, is to tell their wives; the wife tells the servants, the servants alarm the tenants, and in half an hour, you shall have the whole country up in arms. _Arch._ To hinder two men from doing what they have no mind for.--But, if you should chance to talk now of this business---- _Scrub._ Talk! Ah, sir, had I not learned the knack of holding my tongue, I had never lived so long in a great family. _Arch._ Ay, ay, to be sure, there are secrets in all families. _Scrub._ Secrets, O lud!----But I'll say no more--Come, sit down, we'll make an end of our tankard:--Here---- _Arch._ With all my heart; who knows but you and I may come to be better acquainted, eh?----Here's your ladies' health--You have three, I think, and to be sure there must be secrets among them? _Scrub._ Secrets! ah, friend, friend! I wish I had a friend. _Arch._ Am not I your friend? Come, you and I will be sworn brothers. _Scrub._ Shall we? _Arch._ From this minute--Give me a kiss----and now, brother Scrub---- _Scrub._ And now, brother Martin, I will tell you a secret, that will make your hair stand on end.--You must know, that I am consumedly in love. _Arch._ That's a terrible secret, that's the truth on't. _Scrub._ That jade, Gipsey, that was with us just now in the cellar, is the arrantest whore that ever wore a petticoat, and I'm dying for love of her. _Arch._ Ha! ha! ha!--are you in love with her person or her virtue, brother Scrub? _Scrub._ I should like virtue best, because it is more durable than beauty; for virtue holds good with some women long and many a day after they have lost it. _Arch._ In the country, I grant ye, where no woman's virtue is lost, till a bastard be found. _Scrub._ Ay, could I bring her to a bastard, I should have her all to myself; but I dare not put it upon that lay, for fear of being sent for a soldier.--Pray, brother, how do you gentlemen in London like that same pressing act? _Arch._ Very ill, brother Scrub;----'Tis the worst that ever was made for us;--formerly I remembered the good days when we could dun our masters for our wages, and if they refused to pay us, we could have a warrant to carry them before a justice: but now if we talk of eating, they have a warrant for us and carry us before three justices. _Scrub._ And to be sure we go, if we talk of eating; for the justices won't give their own servants a bad example. Now this is my misfortune--I dare not speak in the house, while that jade, Gipsey, dings about like a fury----once I had the better end of the staff. _Arch._ And how comes the change now? _Scrub._ Why, the mother of all this mischief is a priest. _Arch._ A priest! _Scrub._ Ay, a damn'd son of a whore of Babylon, that came over hither to say grace to the French officers, and eat up our provisions--There's not a day goes over his head without a dinner or supper in this house. _Arch._ How came he so familiar in the family? _Scrub._ Because he speaks English as if he had lived here all his life, and tells lies as if he had been a traveller from his cradle. _Arch._ And this priest, I'm afraid, has converted the affection of your Gipsey. _Scrub._ Converted! ay, and perverted, my dear friend--for, I'm afraid he has made her a whore, and a papist--but this is not all; there's the French count and Mrs. Sullen, they're in the confederacy, and for some private ends of their own too, to be sure. _Arch._ A very hopeful family yours, brother Scrub; I suppose the maiden lady has her lover too? _Scrub._ Not that I know--She's the best of them, that's the truth on't: but they take care to prevent my curiosity, by giving me so much business, that I'm a perfect slave--What d'ye think is my place in this family? _Arch._ Butler, I suppose. _Scrub._ Ah, lord help you--I'll tell you--Of a Monday I drive the coach, of a Tuesday I drive the plough, on Wednesday I follow the hounds, a Thursday I dun the tenants, on Friday I go to market, on Saturday I draw warrants, and a Sunday I draw beer. _Arch._ Ha! ha! ha! if variety be a pleasure in life, you have enough on't, my dear brother----but what ladies are those? _Scrub._ Ours, ours; that upon the right hand is Mrs. Sullen, and the other Mrs. Dorinda----don't mind them, sit still, man---- _Enter_ MRS. SULLEN _and_ DORINDA. _Mrs. Sul._ I have heard my brother talk of Lord Aimwell, but they say that his brother is the finer gentleman. _Dor._ That's impossible, sister. _Mrs. Sul._ He's vastly rich, and very close, they say. _Dor._ No matter for that; if I can creep into his heart, I'll open his breast, I warrant him: I have heard say, that people may be guessed at by the behaviour of their servants; I could wish we might talk to that fellow. _Mrs. Sul._ So do I; for I think he's a very pretty fellow; come this way, I'll throw out a lure for him presently. [_They walk towards the opposite Side of the Stage_; MRS. SULLEN _drops her Fan_, ARCHER _runs, takes it up, and gives it to her_. _Arch._ Corn, wine, and oil, indeed----but, I think the wife has the greatest plenty of flesh and blood; she should be my choice--Ay, ay, say you so--madam--your ladyship's fan. _Mrs. Sul._ O, sir, I thank you--What a handsome bow the fellow made! _Dor._ Bow! why I have known several footmen come down from London, set up here for dancing masters, and carry off the best fortunes in the country. _Arch._ [_Aside._] That project, for aught I know, had been better than ours----Brother Scrub, why don't you introduce me? _Scrub._ Ladies, this is the strange gentleman's servant, that you saw at church to-day: I understood he came from London, and so I invited him to the cellar, that he might show me the newest flourish in whetting my knives. _Dor._ And I hope you have made much of him. _Arch._ Oh, yes, madam, but the strength of your ladyship's liquor is a little too potent for the constitution of your humble servant. _Mrs. Sul._ What, then you don't usually drink ale? _Arch._ No, madam, my constant drink is tea, or a little wine and water; 'tis prescribed me by the physician, for a remedy against the spleen-- _Scrub._ O la! O la!--A footman have the spleen! _Mrs. Sul._ I thought that distemper had been only proper to people of quality. _Arch._ Madam, like all other fashions, it wears out, and so descends to their servants; though in a great many of us, I believe it proceeds from some melancholy particles in the blood, occasioned by the stagnation of wages. _Dor._ How affectedly the fellow talks----How long, pray, have you served your present master? _Arch._ Not long; my life has been mostly spent in the service of the ladies. _Mrs. Sul._ And pray, which service do you like best? _Arch._ Madam, the ladies pay best; the honour of serving them is sufficient wages; there is a charm in their looks, that delivers a pleasure with their commands, and gives our duty the wings of inclination. _Mrs. Sul._ That flight was above the pitch of a livery; and, sir, would not you be satisfied to serve a lady again? _Arch._ As groom of the chambers, madam, but not as a footman. _Mrs. Sul._ I suppose you served as footman before? _Arch._ For that reason I would not serve in that post again; for my memory is too weak for the load of messages that the ladies lay upon their servants in London: my Lady Howd'ye, the last mistress I served, called me up one morning, and told me, Martin, go to my Lady Allnight, with my humble service; tell her, I was to wait on her ladyship yesterday, and left word with Mrs. Rebecca, that the preliminaries of the affair she knows of, are stopped till we know the concurrence of the person that I know of; for which there are circumstances wanting which we shall accommodate at the old place; but that in the mean time there is a person about her ladyship, that, from several hints and surmises, was accessary at a certain time to the disappointments that naturally attend things, that to her knowledge are of more importance---- _Mrs. Sul._ } Ha! ha! where are you going, sir? _Dor._ } _Arch._ Why, I han't half done----The whole howd'ye was about half an hour long; so I happened to misplace two syllables, and, was turned off, and rendered incapable---- _Dor._ The pleasantest fellow, sister, I ever saw.--But, friend, if your master be married,----I presume you still serve a lady. _Arch._ No, madam, I take care never to come into a married family; the commands of the master and mistress are always so contrary, that 'tis impossible to please both. _Dor._ There's a main point gained----My lord is not married, I find. [_Aside._ _Mrs. Sul._ But I wonder, friend, that in so many good services, you had not a better provision made for you. _Arch._ I don't know how, madam----I am very well as I am---- _Mrs. Sul._ Something for a pair of gloves. [_Offering him Money._ _Arch._ I humbly beg leave to be excused; my master, madam, pays me, nor dare I take money from any other hand, without injuring his honour, and disobeying his commands. _Scrub._ Brother Martin, brother Martin. _Arch._ What do you say, brother Scrub? _Scrub._ Take the money, and give it to me. [_Exeunt_ ARCHER _and_ SCRUB. _Dor._ This is surprising: did you ever see so pretty a well-bred fellow? _Mrs. Sul._ The devil take him, for wearing that livery. _Dor._ I fancy, sister, he may be some gentleman, a friend of my lord's, that his lordship has pitched upon for his courage, fidelity, and discretion, to bear him company in this dress, and who, ten to one, was his second. _Mrs. Sul._ It is so, it must be so, and it shall be so--for I like him. _Dor._ What! better than the count? _Mrs. Sul._ The count happened to be the most agreeable man upon the place; and so I chose him to serve me in my design upon my husband----But I should like this fellow better in a design upon myself. _Dor._ But now, sister, for an interview with this lord and this gentleman; how shall we bring that about? _Mrs. Sul._ Patience! you country ladies give no quarter.--Lookye, Dorinda, if my Lord Aimwell loves you or deserves you, he'll find a way to see you, and there we must leave it----My business comes now upon the tapis,----Have you prepared your brother? _Dor._ Yes, yes. _Mrs. Sul._ And how did he relish it? _Dor._ He said little, mumbled something to himself, and promised to be guided by me: but here he comes.-- _Enter_ SULLEN. _Sul._ What singing was that I heard just now? _Mrs. Sul._ The singing in your head, my dear, you complained of it all day. _Sul._ You're impertinent. _Mrs. Sul._ I was ever so, since I became one flesh with you. _Sul._ One flesh! rather two carcases joined unnaturally together. _Mrs. Sul._ Or rather a living soul coupled to a dead body. _Dor._ So, this is fine encouragement for me! _Sul._ Yes, my wife shows you what you must do! _Mrs. Sul._ And my husband shows you what you must suffer. _Sul._ 'Sdeath, why can't you be silent? _Mrs. Sul._ 'Sdeath, why can't you talk? _Sul._ Do you talk to any purpose? _Mrs. Sul._ Do you think to any purpose? _Sul._ Sister, harkye--[_Whispers._] I shan't be home till it be late. [_Exit._ _Mrs. Sul._ What did he whisper to ye? _Dor._ That he would go round the back way, come into the closet, and listen, as I directed him.--But let me beg once more, dear sister, to drop this project; for, as I told you before, instead of awaking him to kindness, you may provoke him to rage; and then who knows how far his brutality may carry him? _Mrs. Sul._ I'm provided to receive him, I warrant you; away! [_Exeunt._ ACT THE FOURTH. SCENE I. _A Gallery in_ LADY BOUNTIFUL'S _House_. _Enter_ LADY BOUNTIFUL _and_ MRS. SULLEN, DORINDA _meeting them_. _Dor._ News, dear sister, news, news! _Enter_ ARCHER, _running_. _Arch._ Where, where is my Lady Bountiful?----Pray which is the old lady of you three? _Lady B._ I am. _Arch._ O madam, the fame of your ladyship's charity, goodness, benevolence, skill, and ability, have drawn me hither, to implore your ladyship's help in behalf of my unfortunate master, who is at this moment breathing his last. _Lady B._ Your master! where is he? _Arch._ At your gate, madam: drawn by the appearance of your handsome house, to view it nearer, and walking up the avenue, within five paces of the courtyard, he was taken ill of a sudden, with a sort of I know not what: but down he fell, and there he lies. _Lady B._ Here, Scrub, Gipsey. _Enter_ SCRUB _and_ GIPSEY. All run, get my easy-chair down stairs, put the gentleman in it, and bring him in quickly, quickly. _Arch._ Heaven will reward your ladyship for this charitable act. _Lady B._ Is your master used to these fits? _Arch._ O yes, madam, frequently--I have known him have five or six of a night. _Lady B._ What's his name? _Arch._ Lord, madam, he's dying; a minute's care or neglect may save or destroy his life. _Lady B._ Ah, poor gentleman! come, friend, show me the way; I'll see him brought in myself. [_Exit with_ ARCHER. _Dor._ Oh, sister, my heart flutters about strangely; I can hardly forbear running to his assistance. _Mrs. Sul._ And I'll lay my life he deserves your assistance more than he wants it: did not I tell you that my lord would find a way to come at you? Love's his distemper, and you must be the physician; put on all your charms, summon all your fire into your eyes, plant the whole artillery of your looks against his breast, and down with him. _Dor._ O, sister, I'm but a young gunner, I shall be afraid to shoot, for fear the piece should recoil, and hurt myself. _Mrs. Sul._ Never fear, you shall see me shoot before you, if you will. _Dor._ No, no, dear sister, you have missed your mark so unfortunately, that I shan't care for being instructed by you. _Enter_ AIMWELL, _in a Chair, carried by_ ARCHER _and_ SCRUB; LADY BOUNTIFUL, GIPSEY. AIMWELL _counterfeiting a Swoon_. _Lady B._ Here, here, let's see--the hartshorn drops--Gipsey, a glass of fair water, his fit's very strong.--Bless me, how his hands are clenched! _Arch._ For shame, ladies, what d'ye do? why don't you help us?--Pray, madam, [_To_ DORINDA.] take his hand, and open it, if you can, whilst I hold his head. [DORINDA _takes his Hand_. _Dor._ Poor gentleman--Oh--he has got my hand within his, and squeezes it unmercifully---- _Lady B._ 'Tis the violence of his convulsion, child. _Arch._ Oh, madam, he's perfectly possessed in these cases--he'll bite you, if you don't have a care. _Dor._ Oh, my hand, my hand! _Lady B._ What's the matter with the foolish girl? I have got this hand open you see with a great deal of ease. _Arch._ Ay, but, madam, your daughter's hand is somewhat warmer than your ladyship's, and the heat of it draws the force of the spirits that way. _Mrs. Sul._ I find, friend, you are very learned in these sort of fits. _Arch._ 'Tis no wonder, madam, for I'm often troubled with them myself; I find myself extremely ill at this minute. [_Looking hard at_ MRS. SULLEN. _Mrs. Sul._ [_Aside._] I fancy I could find a way to cure you. _Lady B._ His fit holds him very long. _Arch._ Longer than usual, madam.---- _Lady B._ Where did his illness take him first, pray! _Arch._ To-day, at church, madam. _Lady B._ In what manner was he taken? _Arch._ Very strangely, my lady. He was of a sudden touched with something in his eyes, which at the first he only felt, but could not tell whether 'twas pain or pleasure. _Lady B._ Wind, nothing but wind.----Your master should never go without a bottle to smell to----Oh!----he recovers----the lavender water----some feathers to burn under his nose--Hungary water to rub his temples----Oh, he comes to himself. Hem a little, sir, hem----Gipsey, bring the cordial water. [AIMWELL _seems to awake in amaze_. _Dor._ How do you, sir? _Aim._ Where am I? [_Rising._ Sure I have passed the gulf of silent death, And now am landed on the Elysian shore. Behold the goddess of those happy plains, Fair Proserpine--let me adore thy bright divinity. [_Kneels to_ DORINDA, _and kisses her Hand_. _Mrs. Sul._ So, so, so; I knew where the fit would end. _Aim._ Eurydice, perhaps---- How could thy Orpheus keep his word, And not look back upon thee; No treasure but thyself could sure have brib'd him To look one minute off thee. _Lady B._ Delirious, poor gentleman. _Arch._ Very delirious, madam, very delirious. _Aim._ Martin's voice, I think. _Arch._ Yes, my lord--How does your lordship? _Lady B._ Lord! did you mind that, girls? _Aim._ Where am I? _Arch._ In very good hands, sir--You were taken just now with one of your old fits, under the trees, just by this good lady's house; her ladyship had you taken in, and has miraculously brought you to yourself, as you see---- _Aim._ I am so confounded with shame, madam, that I can now only beg pardon----And refer my acknowledgments for your ladyship's care till an opportunity offers of making some amends--I dare be no longer troublesome--Martin, give two guineas to the servants. [_Going._ _Dor._ Sir, you may catch cold by going so soon into the air; you don't look, sir, as if you were perfectly recovered. [ARCHER _talks to_ LADY BOUNTIFUL _in dumb Show_. _Aim._ That I shall never be, madam: my present illness is so rooted, that I must expect to carry it to my grave. _Lady B._ Come, sir, your servant has been telling me that you are apt to relapse, if you go into the air--Your good manners shan't get the better of ours--You shall sit down again, sir:--Come, sir, we don't mind ceremonies in the country--Here, Gipsey, bring the cordial water.--Here, sir, my service t'ye----You shall taste my water; 'tis a cordial, I can assure you, and of my own making. _Scrub._ Yes, my lady makes very good water. _Lady B._ Drink it off, sir: [AIMWELL _drinks_.] And how d'ye find yourself now, sir? _Aim._ Somewhat better----though very faint still. _Lady B._ Ay, ay, people are always faint after these fits. Come, girls, you shall show the gentleman the house; 'tis but an old family building, sir; but you had better walk about, and cool by degrees, than venture immediately into the air----You'll find some tolerable pictures--Dorinda, show the gentleman the way. I must go to the poor woman below. [_Exit._ _Dor._ This way, sir. _Aim._ Ladies, shall I beg leave for my servant to wait on you, for he understands pictures very well. _Mrs. Sul._ Sir, we understand originals, as well as he does pictures, so he may come along. [_Exeunt_ DORINDA _and_ AIMWELL, MRS. SULLEN _and_ ARCHER--SCRUB _sits down_. _Enter_ FOIGARD. _Foig._ 'Save you, master Scrub. _Scrub._ Sir, I won't be saved your way----I hate a priest, I abhor the French, and I defy the devil--Sir, I'm a bold Briton, and will spill the last drop of my blood to keep out popery and slavery. _Foig._ Master Scrub, you would put me down in politics, and so I would be speaking with Mrs. Gipsey. _Scrub._ Good Mr. Priest, you can't speak with her; she's sick, sir; she's gone abroad, sir; she's--dead two months ago, sir. _Enter_ GIPSEY. _Gip._ How now, impudence! How dare you talk so saucily to the doctor? Pray, sir, don't take it ill; for the common people of England are not so civil to strangers, as---- _Scrub._ You lie, you lie:--'tis the common people, such as you are, that are civilest to strangers. _Gip._ Sirrah, I have a good mind to--Get you out, I say! _Scrub._ I won't! _Gip._ You won't, sauce-box!--Pray, doctor, what is the captain's name that came to your inn last night? _Scrub._ The captain! ah, the devil, there she hampers me again;--the captain has me on one side, and the priest on t'other:--So between the gown and the sword, I have a fine time on't. _Gip._ What, sirrah, won't you march? _Scrub._ No, my dear, I won't march--but I'll walk:--And I'll make bold to listen a little too. [_Goes behind the Side Scene, and listens._ _Gip._ Indeed, doctor, the count has been barbarously treated, that's the truth on't. _Foig._ Ah, Mrs. Gipsey, upon my shoul, now, gra, his complainings would mollify the marrow in your bones, and move the bowels of your commiseration; he veeps, and he dances, and he fistles, and he swears, and he laughs, and he stamps, and he sings: in conclusion, joy, he's afflicted, _à la François_, and a stranger, would not know whider to cry or to laugh with him. _Gip._ What would you have me do, doctor? _Foig._ Nothing, joy, but only hide the count in Mrs. Sullen's closet, when it is dark. _Gip._ Nothing! Is that nothing? it would be both a sin and a shame, doctor. _Foig._ Here is twenty Louis d'ors, joy, for your shame; and I will give you an absolution for the shin. _Gip._ But won't that money look like a bribe? _Foig._ Dat is according as you shall take it--If you receive the money before hand, 'twill be _logicè_, a bribe; but if you stay till afterwards, 'twill be only a gratification. _Gip._ Well, doctor, I'll take it _logicè_----But what must I do with my conscience, sir? _Foig._ Leave dat wid me, joy; I am your priest, gra; and your conscience is under my hands. _Gip._ But should I put the count into the closet-- _Foig._ Vell, is dere any shin for a man's being in a closhet? one may go to prayers in a closhet. _Gip._ But if the lady should come into her chamber and go to bed? _Foig._ Vel, and is dere any shin in going to bed, joy? _Gip._ Ah, but if the parties should meet, doctor? _Foig._ Vel den----the parties must be responsible.--Do you begone after putting the count in the closhet; and leave the shins wid themselves--I will come with the count to instruct you in your chamber. _Gip._ Well, doctor, your religion is so pure, that I'm resolved to die a martyr to't----Here's the key of the garden door; come in the back way, when 'tis late--I'll be ready to receive you; but don't so much as whisper, only take hold of my hand; I'll lead you, and do you lead the count, and follow me. [_Exeunt._ _Enter_ SCRUB. _Scrub._ What witchcraft now have these two imps of the devil been a-hatching here?--There's twenty Louis d'ors! I heard that, and saw the purse: but I must give room to my betters. [_Exit._ _Enter_ AIMWELL, _leading_ DORINDA, _and making love in dumb Show_; MRS. SULLEN, _and_ ARCHER. _Mrs. Sul._ Pray, sir, [_To_ ARCHER.] how d'ye like that piece? _Arch._ O, 'tis Leda--You find, madam, how Jupiter came disguised to make love-- _Mrs. Sul._ Pray, sir, what head is that in the corner, there? _Arch._ O, madam, 'tis poor Ovid in his exile. _Mrs. Sul._ What was he banished for? _Arch._ His ambitious love, madam. [_Bowing._] His misfortune touches me. _Mrs. Sul._ Was he successful in his amours? _Arch._ There he has left us in the dark--He was too much a gentleman to tell. _Mrs. Sul._ If he were secret, I pity him. _Arch._ And if he were successful I envy him. _Mrs. Sul._ How d'ye like that Venus over the chimney? _Arch._ Venus! I protest, madam, I took it for your picture: but now I look again, 'tis not handsome enough. _Mrs. Sul._ Oh, what a charm is flattery! if you would see my picture, there it is, over that cabinet--How d'ye like it? _Arch._ I must admire any thing, madam, that has the least resemblance of you----But methinks, madam,--[_He looks at the Picture and_ MRS. SULLEN _Three or Four Times, by Turns_.] Pray, madam, who drew it? _Mrs. Sul._ A famous hand, sir. [_Exeunt_ AIMWELL _and_ DORINDA. _Arch._ A famous hand, madam! Your eyes, indeed, are featured there; but where's the sparkling moisture, shining fluid, in which they swim? The picture, indeed, has your dimples, but where's the swarm of killing Cupids, that should ambush there? The lips too are figured out; but where's the carnation dew, the pouting ripeness that tempts the taste in the original? _Mrs. Sul._ Had it been my lot to have matched with such a man! [_Aside._ _Arch._ Your breasts too; presumptuous man! what! paint heaven! Apropos, madam, in the very next picture is Salmoneus, that was struck dead with lightning, for offering to imitate Jove's thunder; I hope you served the painter so, madam. _Mrs. Sul._ Had my eyes the power of thunder, they should employ their lightning better. _Arch._ There's the finest bed in that room, madam; I suppose 'tis your ladyship's bedchamber? _Mrs. Sul._ And what then, sir? _Arch._ I think the quilt is the richest that ever I saw----I can't at this distance, madam, distinguish the figures of the embroidery: will you give me leave, madam? _Mrs. Sul._ The devil take his impudence--Sure, if I gave him an opportunity, he durst not offer it--I have a great mind to try.--[_Going. --Returns._] 'Sdeath, what am I doing?--And alone too;----Sister, sister! [_Exit._ _Arch._ I'll follow her close---- For where a Frenchman durst attempt to storm, A Briton, sure may well the work perform. [_Going._ _Enter_ SCRUB. _Scrub._ Martin, brother Martin! _Arch._ O brother Scrub, I beg your pardon, I was not a-going: here's a guinea my master ordered you. _Scrub._ A guinea! hi, hi, hi, a guinea! eh----by this light it is a guinea; but I suppose you expect one and twenty shillings in change. _Arch._ Not at all; I have another for Gipsey. _Scrub._ A guinea for her! Fire and faggot for the witch.----Sir, give me that guinea, and I'll discover a plot. _Arch._ A plot? _Scrub._ Ay, sir, a plot, a horrid plot--First, it must be a plot, because there's a woman in't: secondly, it must be a plot, because there's a priest in't: thirdly, it must be a plot, because there's French gold in't: and fourthly, it must be a plot, because I don't know what to make on't. _Arch._ Nor any body else, I'm afraid, brother Scrub. _Scrub._ Truly I'm afraid so too; for where there's a priest and a woman, there's always a mystery and a riddle--This, I know, that here has been the doctor with a temptation in one hand, and an absolution in the other, and Gipsey has sold herself to the devil; I saw the price paid down, my eyes shall take their oath on't. _Arch._ And is all this bustle about Gipsey? _Scrub._ That's not all; I could hear but a word here and there; but I remember they mentioned a count, a closet, a back door, and a key. _Arch._ The count! did you hear nothing of Mrs. Sullen? _Scrub._ I did hear some word that sounded that way: but whether it was Sullen or Dorinda I could not distinguish. _Arch._ You have told this matter to nobody, brother? _Scrub._ Told! no, sir, I thank you for that; I'm resolved never to speak one word, _pro_ nor _con_, till we have a peace. _Arch._ You are i'the right, brother Scrub; here's a treaty a-foot between the count and the lady.--The priest and the chambermaid are plenipotentiaries----It shall go hard, but I'll find a way to be included in the treaty. Where's the doctor now? _Scrub._ He and Gipsey are this moment devouring my lady's marmalade in the closet. _Aim._ [_From without._] Martin, Martin! _Arch._ I come, sir, I come. _Scrub._ But you forget the other guinea, brother Martin. _Arch._ Here, I give it with all my heart. [_Exit_ ARCHER. _Scrub._ And I take it with all my soul. I'cod, I'll spoil your plotting, Mrs. Gipsey; and if you should set the captain upon me, these two guineas will buy me off. [_Exit_ SCRUB. _Enter_ MRS. SULLEN _and_ DORINDA, _meeting_. _Mrs. Sul._ Well, sister. _Dor._ And well, sister. _Mrs. Sul._ What's become of my lord? _Dor._ What's become of his servant? _Mrs. Sul._ Servant! he's a prettier fellow and a finer gentleman by fifty degrees than his master. _Dor._ O' my conscience, I fancy you could beg that fellow at the gallows' foot. _Mrs. Sul._ O' my conscience, I could, provided I could put a friend of yours in his room. _Dor._ You desired me, sister, to leave you, when you transgressed the bounds of honour. _Mrs. Sul._ Thou dear censorious country girl--What dost mean? You can't think of the man without the bedfellow, I find. _Dor._ I don't find any thing unnatural in that thought. _Mrs. Sul._ How a little love and conversation improve a woman! Why, child, you begin to live--you never spoke before. _Dor._ Because I was never spoke to before: my lord has told me, that I have more wit and beauty than any of my sex; and truly I begin to think the man is sincere. _Mrs. Sul._ You are in the right, Dorinda; pride is the life of a woman, and flattery is our daily bread--But I'll lay you a guinea that I had finer things said to me than you had. _Dor._ Done----What did your fellow say to ye? _Mrs. Sul._ My fellow took the picture of Venus for mine. _Dor._ But my lover took me for Venus herself. _Mrs. Sul._ Common cant! had my spark called me a Venus directly, I should have believed him a footman in good earnest. _Dor._ But my lover was upon his knees to me. _Mrs. Sul._ And mine was upon his tiptoes to me. _Dor._ Mine vowed to die for me. _Mrs. Sul._ Mine swore to die with me. _Dor._ Mine kissed my hand ten thousand times. _Mrs. Sul._ Mine has all that pleasure to come. _Dor._ Mine spoke the softest moving things. _Mrs. Sul._ Ay, ay, mine had his moving things too. _Dor._ Mine offered marriage. _Mrs. Sul._ O lard! d'ye call that a moving thing? _Dor._ The sharpest arrow in his quiver, my dear sister; Why, my twenty thousand pounds may lie brooding here this seven years, and hatch nothing at last but some illnatured clown, like yours;--Whereas, if I marry my Lord Aimwell, there will be title, place, and precedence, the park, the play, and the drawing-room, splendour, equipage, noise, and flambeaux--Hey, my Lady Aimwell's servants there--lights, lights to the stairs--My Lady Aimwell's coach, put forward--stand by; make room for her ladyship----Are not these things moving? What! melancholy of a sudden? _Mrs. Sul._ Happy, happy sister! your angel has been watchful for your happiness, whilst mine has slept, regardless of his charge----Long smiling years of circling joys for you, but not one hour for me! [_Weeps._ _Dor._ Come, my dear, we'll talk of something else. _Mrs. Sul._ O, Dorinda, I own myself a woman, full of my sex, a gentle, generous soul--easy and yielding to soft desires; a spacious heart, where love and all his train might lodge; and must the fair apartment of my breast be made a stable for a brute to lie in? _Dor._ Meaning your husband, I suppose. _Mrs. Sul._ Husband!--Even husband is too soft a name for him.--But, come, I expect my brother here to-night or to-morrow; he was abroad when my father married me: perhaps he'll find a way to make me easy. _Dor._ Will you promise not to make yourself uneasy in the mean time with my lord's friend? _Mrs. Sul._ You mistake me, sister--It happens with us as among the men, the greatest talkers are the greatest cowards; and there's a reason for it; those spirits evaporate in prattle, which might do more mischief if they took another course----Though, to confess the truth, I do love that fellow;--and if I met him dressed as he should be,----Lookye, sister, I have no supernatural gifts;----I can't swear I could resist the temptation----though I can safely promise to avoid it; and that's as much as the best of us can do. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _The Inn._ _Enter_ AIMWELL _and_ ARCHER _laughing_. _Arch._ And the awkward kindness of the good motherly old gentlewoman---- _Aim._ And the coming easiness of the young one--'Sdeath, 'tis pity to deceive her. _Arch._ Nay, if you adhere to those principles, stop where you are. _Aim._ I can't stop; for I love her to distraction. _Arch._ 'Sdeath, if you love her a hair's breadth beyond discretion, you must go no farther. _Aim._ Well, well, any thing to deliver us from sauntering away our idle evenings at White's, Tom's, or Will's--But now---- _Arch._ Ay, now is the time to prevent all this--Strike while the iron is hot--The priest is the luckiest part of our adventure; he shall marry you, and pimp for me. But here comes the doctor; I shall be ready. [_Exit._ _Enter_ FOIGARD. _Foig._ Shave you, noble friend. _Aim._ O sir, your servant; Pray, doctor, may I crave your name? _Foig._ Fat naam is upon me? My naam is Foigard, joy. _Aim._ Foigard! a very good name for a clergyman; Pray, Doctor Foigard, were you ever in Ireland? _Foig._ Ireland! No, joy:--Fat sort of plaace is dat shame Ireland? Dey say de people are catched dere when dey are young. _Aim._ And some of them here, when they are old;--as for example--[_Takes_ FOIGARD _by the Shoulder_.] Sir, I arrest you as a traitor against the government; you are a subject of England, and this morning showed me a commission, by which you served as chaplain in the French army: This is death by our law, and your reverence must hang for't. _Foig._ Upon my shoul, noble friend, dis is strange news you tell me, Fader Foigard a subject of England--de son of a Burgomaster of Brussels a subject of England, Ubooboo-- _Aim._ The son of a bog trotter in Ireland: sir, your tongue will condemn you before any bench in the kingdom. _Foig._ And is my tongue all your evidensh, joy? _Aim._ That's enough. _Foig._ No, no, joy, for I will never spaake de English no more. _Aim._ Sir, I have other evidence.--Here, Martin, you know this fellow. _Enter_ ARCHER. _Aim._ [_In a Brogue._] Shave you, my dear cussen, how does your health? _Foig._ Ah! upon my shoul dere is my countryman and his brogue will hang mine. [_Aside._] _Mynhere, ick wet neat wat hey zacht, ick univirston ewe, neat, sacrament._ _Aim._ Altering your language won't do, sir, this fellow knows your person, and will swear to your face. _Foig._ Faash! fey, is dere brogue upon my faash too? _Arch._ Upon my shalvation dere ish, joy,----But, Cussen Mackshane, vill you not put a remembrance upon me? _Foig._ Mackshane! by St. Patrick, dat is my naam shure enough. [_Aside._ _Aim._ I fancy, Archer, you have it. _Foig._ The devil hang you, joy----By fat acquaintance are you my cussen? _Arch._ O, de devil hang your shelf, joy; you know we were little boys togeder upon de school, and your foster moder's son was married upon my nurse's chister, joy, and so we are Irish cussens. _Foig._ De devil taake de relation! Vel, joy, and fat school was it? _Arch._ I think it vas--aay--'Twas Tipperary. _Foig._ Now, upon my shoul, joy, it was Kilkenny. _Aim._ That's enough for us--self confession--Come, sir, we must deliver you into the hands of the next magistrate. _Arch._ He sends you to gaol, you are tried next assizes, and away you go swing into purgatory. _Foig._ And is it sho wid you cussen? _Arch._ It will be sho wid you, cussen, if you don't immediately confess the secret between you and Mrs. Gipsey--Lookye, sir, the gallows or the secret, take your choice. _Foig._ The gallows! upon my shoul I hate that shame gallows, for it is a diseash dat is fatal to our family.--Vel den, there is nothing, shentlemens, but Mrs. Sullen would spaak wid the count in her chamber at midnight, and dere is no harm, joy, for I am to conduct the count to the plaash myself. _Arch._ As I guessed.----Have you communicated the matter to the count? _Foig._ I have not sheen him since. _Arch._ Right again; why then, doctor;--you shall conduct me to the lady instead of the count. _Foig._ Fat, my cussen to the lady! upon my shoul, gra, dat's too much upon the brogue. _Arch._ Come, come, doctor, consider we have got a rope about your neck, and if you offer to squeak, we'll stop your windpipe, most certainly; we shall have another job for you in a day or two, I hope. _Aim._ Here's company coming this way; let's into my chamber, and there concert our affairs further. _Arch._ Come, my dear cussen, come along. _Foig._ Arra, the devil taake our relashion. [_Exeunt._ _Enter_ BONIFACE, HOUNSLOW, _and_ BAGSHOT, _at one Door_, GIBBET _at the opposite_. _Gib._ Well, gentlemen, 'tis a fine night for our enterprize. _Houns._ Dark as hell. _Bag._ And blows like the devil: our landlord here has shown us the window where we must break in, and tells us the plate stands in the wainscot cupboard in the parlour. _Bon._ Ay, ay, Mr. Bagshot, as the saying is, knives and forks, cups and cans, tumblers and tankards.--There's one tankard, as the saying is, that's near upon as big as me: it was a present to the 'squire from his godmother, and smells of nutmeg and toast, like an East India ship. _Houns._ Then you say we must divide at the stair-head. _Bon._ Yes, Mr. Hounslow, as the saying is----at one end of the gallery lies my Lady Bountiful and her daughter, and at the other, Mrs. Sullen--as for the 'squire.---- _Gib._ He's safe enough; I have fairly entered him, and he's more than half seas over already--But such a parcel of scoundrels are got about him there, that, egad, I was ashamed to be seen in their company. _Bon._ 'Tis now twelve, as the saying is--gentlemen, you must set out at one. _Gib._ Hounslow, do you and Bagshot see our arms fixed, and I'll come to you presently. _Houns. and Bag._ We will. [_Exeunt_ HOUNSLOW _and_ BAGSHOT. _Gib._ Well, my dear Bonny, you assure me that Scrub is a coward. _Bon._ A chicken, as the saying is--you'll have no creature to deal with but the ladies. _Gib._ And I can assure you, friend, there's a great deal of address and good manners in robbing a lady: I am the most a gentleman that way that ever travelled the road.--But, my dear Bonny, this prize will be a galleon, a Vigo business----I warrant you, we shall bring off three or four thousand pounds. _Bon._ In plate, jewels, and money, as the saying is, you may. _Gib._ Why, then, Tyburn, I defy thee: I'll get up to town, sell off my horse and arms, buy myself some pretty employment in the law, and be as snug and as honest as e'er a long gown of them all. _Bon._ And what think you, then, of my daughter Cherry for a wife? _Gib._ Lookye, my dear Bonny, _Cherry is the goddess I adore_, as the song goes; but it is a maxim, that man and wife should never have it in their power to hang one another; for, if they should, the Lord have mercy upon them both. [_Exeunt._ ACT THE FIFTH. SCENE I. _The Inn._ _Knocking without._ _Enter_ BONIFACE. _Bon._ Coming, coming--a coach and six foaming horses at this time o'night! some great man, as the saying is, for he scorns to travel with other people. _Enter_ SIR CHARLES FREEMAN. _Sir C._ What, fellow! a public house, and abed when other people sleep? _Bon._ Sir, I an't abed, as the saying is. _Sir C._ I see that, as the saying is! Is Mr. Sullen's family abed, think ye? _Bon._ All but the 'squire himself, sir, as the saying is; he's in the house. _Sir C._ What company has he? _Bon._ Why, sir, there's the constable, Mr. Gage, the exciseman, the hunch-backed barber, and two or three other gentlemen. _Sir C._ I find my sister's letters gave me the true picture of her spouse. _Enter_ SULLEN, _drunk_. _Bon._ Sir, here's the 'squire. _Sul._ The puppies left me asleep----sir. _Sir C._ Well, sir. _Sul._ Sir, I am an unfortunate man--I have three thousand pounds a year, and I can't get a man to drink a cup of ale with me. _Sir C._ That's very hard. _Sul._ Ay, sir,--and unless you have pity upon me, and smoke one pipe with me, I must e'en go home to my wife, and I had rather go to the devil by half. _Sir C._ But I presume, sir, you won't see your wife to-night, she'll be gone to bed----you don't use to lie with your wife in that pickle. _Sul._ What! not lie with my wife! Why, sir, do you take me for an atheist, or a rake? _Sir C._ If you hate her, sir, I think you had better lie from her. _Sul._ I think so too, friend----but I am a justice of peace, and must do nothing against the law. _Sir C._ Law! as I take it, Mr. Justice, nobody observes law for law's sake, only for the good of those for whom it was made. _Sul._ But if the law orders me to send you to gaol, you must lie there, my friend. _Sir C._ Not unless I commit a crime to deserve it. _Sul._ A crime! oons, an't I married? _Sir C._ Nay, sir, if you call marriage a crime, you must disown it for a law. _Sul._ Eh!--I must be acquainted with you, sir,--but, sir, I should be very glad to know the truth of this matter. _Sir C._ Truth, sir, is a profound sea, and few there be that dare wade deep enough to find out the bottom on't. Besides, sir, I am afraid the line of your understanding mayn't be long enough. _Sul._ Lookye, sir, I have nothing to say to your sea of truth; but if a good parcel of land can entitle a man to a little truth, I have as much as any he in the county. _Bon._ I never heard your worship, as the saying is, talk so much before. _Sul._ Because I never met with a man that I liked before. _Bon._ Pray, sir, as the saying is, let me ask you one question: are not man and wife one flesh? _Sir C._ You and your wife, Mr. Guts, may be one flesh, because you are nothing else----but rational creatures have minds that must be united. _Sul._ Minds! _Sir C._ Ay, minds, sir; don't you think that the mind takes place of the body? _Sul._ In some people. _Sir C._ Then the interest of the master must be consulted before that of his servant. _Sul._ Sir, you shall dine with me to-morrow----Oons, I always thought that we were naturally one. _Sir C._ Sir, I know that my two hands are naturally one, because they love one another, kiss one another, help one another in all the actions of life; but I could not say so much if they were always at cuffs. _Sul._ Then 'tis plain that we are two. _Sir C._ Why don't you part with her, sir? _Sul._ Will you take her, sir? _Sir C._ With all my heart. _Sul._ You shall have her to-morrow morning, and a venison pasty into the bargain. _Sir C._ You'll let me have her fortune too? _Sul._ Fortune! why, sir, I have no quarrel to her fortune----I only hate the woman, sir, and none but the woman shall go. _Sir C._ But her fortune, sir---- _Sul._ Can you play at whist, sir? _Sir C._ No, truly, sir. _Sul._ Not at all-fours? _Sir C._ Neither. _Sul._ Oons! where was this man bred? [_Aside._] Burn me, sir, I can't go home; 'tis but two o'clock. _Sir C._ For half an hour, sir, if you please--but you must consider 'tis late. _Sul._ Late! that is the reason I can't go to bed--Come, sir----[_Exeunt._ _Enter_ CHERRY; _she runs across the Stage, and knocks at_ AIMWELL'S _Chamber Door_. _Enter_ AIMWELL. _Aim._ What's the matter? you tremble, child; you are frighted! _Cher._ No wonder, sir--but, in short, sir, this very minute a gang of rogues are gone to rob my Lady Bountiful's house. _Aim._ How! _Cher._ I dogged them to the very door, and left them breaking in. _Aim._ Have you alarmed any body else with the news? _Cher._ No, no, sir; I wanted to have discovered the whole plot, and twenty other things, to your man, Martin; but I have searched the whole house, and can't find him; where is he? _Aim._ No matter, child; will you guide me immediately to the house? _Cher._ With all my heart, sir: my Lady Bountiful is my godmother, and I love Mrs. Dorinda so well-- _Aim._ Dorinda! the name inspires me! the glory and the danger shall be all my own----Come, my life, let me but get my sword. [_Exeunt._ SCENE II. _A Bedchamber in_ LADY BOUNTIFUL'S _House_. MRS. SULLEN _and_ DORINDA _discovered; a Table and Lights_. _Dor._ 'Tis very late, sister; no news of your spouse yet? _Mrs. Sul._ No; I'm condemned to be alone till towards four, and then, perhaps, I may be executed with his company. _Dor._ Well, my dear, I'll leave you to your rest; you'll go directly to bed, I suppose. _Mrs. Sul._ I don't know what to do; heigho! _Dor._ That's a desiring sigh, sister. _Mrs. Sul._ This is a languishing hour, sister. _Dor._ And might prove a critical minute, if the pretty fellow were here. _Mrs. Sul._ Here? what, in my bedchamber, at two o'clock i'th' morning, I undressed, the family asleep, my hated husband abroad, and my lovely fellow at my feet!----O, gad, sister! _Dor._ Thoughts are free, sister, and them I allow you--So, my dear, good night. [_Exit._ _Mrs. Sul._ A good rest to my dear Dorinda----Thoughts free! are they so? why, then, suppose him here, dressed like a youthful, gay, and burning bridegroom, [ARCHER _steals out of the Closet_.] with tongue enchanting, eyes bewitching, knees imploring [_Turns a little on one Side, and sees_ ARCHER _in the Posture she describes_.]--Ah! [_Shrieks, and runs to the other Side of the Stage._]. Have my thoughts raised a spirit? What are you, sir? a man, or a devil? _Arch._ A man, a man, madam. [_Rising._ _Mrs. Sul._ How shall I be sure of it? _Arch._ Madam, I'll give you demonstration this minute. [_Takes her Hand._ _Mrs. Sul._ What, sir! do you intend to be rude? _Arch._ Yes, madam, if you please. _Mrs. Sul._ In the name of wonder, whence came ye? _Arch._ From the skies, madam--I'm a Jupiter in love, and you shall be my Alcmena. _Mrs. Sul._ How came you in? _Arch._ I flew in at the window, madam; your cousin Cupid lent me his wings, and your sister Venus opened the casement. _Mrs. Sul._ I'm struck dumb with admiration. _Arch._ And I with wonder. [_Looks passionately at her._ _Mrs. Sul._ What will become of me? _Arch._ How beautiful she looks!----the teeming jolly spring smiles in her blooming face, and when she was conceived, her mother smelt to roses, looked on lilies---- Lilies unfold their white, their fragrant charms, When the warm sun thus darts into their arms. [_Runs to her._ _Mrs. Sul._ Ah! [_Shrieks._ _Arch._ Oons, madam, what do you mean? you'll raise the house. _Mrs. Sul._ Sir, I'll wake the dead, before I bear this. What! approach me with the freedoms of a keeper! I'm glad on't; your impudence has cured me. _Arch._ If this be impudence, [_Kneels._] I leave to your partial self; no panting pilgrim, after a tedious, painful, voyage, e'er bowed before his saint with more devotion. _Mrs. Sul._ Now, now, I'm ruined if he kneels. [_Aside._] Rise, thou prostrate engineer; not all thy undermining skill shall reach my heart. Rise, and know that I am a woman, without my sex; I can love to all the tenderness of wishes, sighs, and tears--But go no farther--Still, to convince you that I'm more than woman, I can speak my frailty, confess my weakness even for----But---- _Arch._ For me! [_Going to lay hold on her._ _Mrs. Sul._ Hold, sir; build not upon that--for my most mortal hatred follows, if you disobey what I command you now--leave me this minute--If he denies, I'm lost. [_Aside._ _Arch._ Then you'll promise---- _Mrs. Sul._ Any thing another time. _Arch._ When shall I come? _Mrs. Sul._ To-morrow--when you will. _Arch._ Your lips must seal the promise. _Mrs. Sul._ Pshaw! _Arch._ They must, they must. [_Kisses her._] Raptures and paradise! and why not now, my angel? The time, the place, silence, and secrecy, all conspire--And the now conscious stars have pre-ordained this moment for my happiness. [_Takes her in his Arms._ _Mrs. Sul._ You will not, cannot, sure. _Arch._ If the sun rides fast, and disappoints not mortals of to-morrow's dawn, this night shall crown my joys. _Mrs. Sul._ My sex's pride assist me. _Arch._ My sex's strength help me. _Mrs. Sul._ You shall kill me first. _Arch._ I'll die with you. [_Carrying her off._ _Mrs. Sul._ Thieves! thieves! murder!---- _Enter_ SCRUB, _in his Breeches, and one Shoe_. _Scrub._ Thieves! thieves! murder! popery! _Arch._ Ha! [_Draws, and offers to stab_ SCRUB. [Illustration: BEAUX STRATAGEM SCRUB: O PRAY SIR SPARE ALL I HAVE AND TAKE MY LIFE. ACT V SCENE III] _Scrub._ [_Kneeling._] O pray, sir, spare all I have, and take my life. _Mrs. Sul._ [_Holding_ ARCHER'S _Hand_.] What does the fellow mean? _Scrub._ O, madam, down upon your knees, your marrowbones----he's one of them. _Arch._ Of whom? _Scrub._ One of the rogues----I beg your pardon, one of the honest gentlemen, that just now are broke into the house. _Arch._ How! _Mrs. Sul._ I hope you did not come to rob me? _Arch._ Indeed I did, madam, but I would have taken nothing but what you might very well have spared; but your crying, Thieves, has waked this dreaming fool, and so he takes them for granted. _Scrub._ Granted! 'tis granted, sir; take all we have. _Mrs. Sul._ The fellow looks as if he were broke out of Bedlam. _Scrub._ Oons, madam, they're broke into the house with fire and sword; I saw them, heard them, they'll be here this minute. _Arch._ What! thieves! _Scrub._ Under favour, sir, I think so. _Mrs. Sul._ What shall we do, sir? _Arch._ Madam, I wish your ladyship a good night. _Mrs. Sul._ Will you leave me? _Arch._ Leave you! lord, madam, did not you command me to begone just now, upon pain of your immortal hatred. _Mrs. Sul._ Nay, but pray, sir---- [_Takes hold of him._ _Arch._ Ha! ha! ha! now comes my turn to be ravished--You see now, madam, you must use men one way or other; but take this by the way, good madam, that none but a fool will give you the benefit of his courage, unless you'll take his love along with it--How are they armed, friend? _Scrub._ With sword and pistol, sir. [_He gets under the Table._ _Arch._ Hush!----I see a dark lanthorn coming through the gallery----Madam, be assured I will protect you, or lose my life. _Mrs. Sul._ Your life! no, sir, they can rob me of nothing that I value half so much; therefore now, sir, let me entreat you to begone. _Arch._ No, madam, I'll consult my own safety, for the sake of yours; I'll work by stratagem: have you courage enough to stand the appearance of them? _Mrs. Sul._ Yes, yes; since I have escaped your hands, I can face any thing. _Arch._ Come hither, brother Scrub; don't you know me? _Scrub._ Eh! my dear brother, let me kiss thee! [_Kisses_ ARCHER. _Arch._ This way----Here---- [ARCHER _and_ SCRUB _hide_. _Enter_ GIBBET, _with a dark Lanthorn in one Hand, and a Pistol in the other_. _Gib._ Ay, ay, this is the chamber, and the lady alone. _Mrs. Sul._ Who are you, sir? What would you have? D'ye come to rob me? _Gib._ Rob you! alack a day, madam, I'm only a younger brother, madam; and so, madam, if you make a noise, I'll shoot you through the head: but don't be afraid, madam. [_Laying his Lanthorn and Pistol upon the Table._] These rings, madam; don't be concerned, madam; I have a profound respect for you, madam; your keys, madam; don't be frighted, madam; I'm the most of a gentleman. [_Searching her Pockets._] This necklace, madam; I never was rude to any lady! I have a veneration--for this necklace. [_Here_ ARCHER, _having come round, and seized the Pistol, takes_ GIBBET _by the Collar, trips up his Heels, and claps the Pistol to his Breast_. _Arch._ Hold, profane villain, and take the reward of thy sacrilege. _Gib._ Oh! pray, sir, don't kill me; I an't prepared. _Arch._ How many is there of them, Scrub? _Scrub._ Five and forty, sir. _Arch._ Then I must kill the villain, to have him out of the way. _Gib._ Hold! hold! sir; we are but three, upon my honour. _Arch._ Scrub, will you undertake to secure him? _Scrub._ Not I, sir; kill him, kill him! _Arch._ Run to Gipsey's chamber; there you'll find the doctor; bring him hither presently. [_Exit_ SCRUB, _running_.] Come, rogue, if you have a short prayer, say it. _Gib._ Sir, I have no prayer at all; the government has provided a chaplain to say prayers for us on these occasions. _Mrs. Sul._ Pray, sir, don't kill him: You fright me as much as him. _Arch._ The dog shall die, madam, for being the occasion of my disappointment.--Sirrah, this moment is your last. _Gib._ Sir, I'll give you two hundred pounds to spare my life. _Arch._ Have you no more, rascal? _Gib._ Yes, sir, I can command four hundred; but I must reserve two of them to save my life at the sessions. _Enter_ SCRUB _and_ FOIGARD. _Arch._ Here, doctor: I suppose Scrub and you, between you, may manage him:----Lay hold of him. [FOIGARD _lays hold of_ GIBBET. _Gib._ What! turned over to the priest already----Lookye, doctor, you come before your time; I an't condemned yet, I thank ye. _Foig._ Come, my dear joy, I vil secure your body and your shoul too; I will make you a good catholic, and give you an absolution. _Gib._ Absolution! Can you procure me a pardon, doctor? _Foig._ No, joy.---- _Gib._ Then you and your absolution may go to the devil. _Arch._ Convey him into the cellar, there bind him:--Take the pistol, and if he offers to resist, shoot him through the head,--and come back to us with all the speed you can. _Scrub._ Ay, ay; come, doctor, do you hold him fast, and I'll guard him. [_Exeunt_ SCRUB, GIBBET, _and_ FOIGARD. _Mrs. Sul._ But how came the doctor? _Arch._ In short, madam----[_Shrieking without._] 'Sdeath! the rogues are at work with the other ladies:--I'm vexed I parted with the pistol; but I must fly to their assistance--Will you stay here, madam, or venture yourself with me? _Mrs. Sul._ Oh, with you, dear sir, with you. [_Takes him by the Arm, and exeunt._ SCENE III. _Another Apartment._ _Enter_ HOUNSLOW _and_ BAGSHOT, _with Swords drawn, dragging in_ LADY BOUNTIFUL _and_ DORINDA. _Houns._ Come, come, your jewels, mistress. _Bag._ Your keys, your keys, old gentlewoman. _Enter_ AIMWELL. _Aim._ Turn this way, villains; I durst engage an army in such a cause. [_He engages them both._ _Enter_ ARCHER _and_ MRS. SULLEN. _Arch._ Hold! hold! my lord; every man his bird, pray. [_They engage Man to Man; the Rogues are thrown down, and disarmed._ _Arch._ Shall we kill the rogues? _Aim._ No, no; we'll bind them. _Arch._ Ay, ay; here, madam, lend me your garter. [_To_ MRS. SULLEN, _who stands by him_. _Mrs. Sul._ The devil's in this fellow; he fights, loves, and banters all in a breath: here's a rope, that the rogues brought with them, I suppose. _Arch._ Right, right, the rogue's destiny, a rope to hang himself----Come, my lord,----this is but a scandalous sort of an office, [_Binding the_ ROGUES _together_.] if our adventure should end in this sort of hangmanwork; but I hope there is something in prospect that-- _Enter_ SCRUB. Well, Scrub, have you secured your Tartar? _Scrub._ Yes, sir, I left the priest and him disputing about religion. _Aim._ And pray carry these gentlemen to reap the benefit of the controversy. [_Delivers the_ PRISONERS _to_ SCRUB, _who leads them out_. _Mrs. Sul._ Pray, sister, how came my lord here? _Dor._ And pray, how came the gentleman here? _Mrs. Sul._ I'll tell you the greatest piece of villainy--[_They talk in dumb Show._ _Aim._ I fancy, Archer, you have been more successful in your adventure than the housebreakers. _Arch._ No matter for my adventure, yours is the principal----Press her this minute to marry you,--now while she's hurried between the palpitation of her fear, and the joy of her deliverance, now while the tide of her spirits are at high-flood:----throw yourself at her feet, speak some romantic nonsense or other;--confound her senses, bear down her reason, and away with her:--The priest is now in the cellar, and dare not refuse to do the work. _Aim._ But how shall I get off without being observed? _Arch._ You a lover, and not find a way to get off!--Let me see. _Aim._ You bleed, Archer. _Arch._ 'Sdeath, I'm glad on't; this wound will do the business--I'll amuse the old lady and Mrs. Sullen about dressing my wound, while you carry off Dorinda. _Lady B._ Gentlemen, could we understand how you would be gratified for the services---- _Arch._ Come, come, my lady, this is no time for compliments; I'm wounded, madam. _Lady B. and Mrs. Sul._ How! wounded! _Dor._ I hope, sir, you have received no hurt? _Aim._ None but what you may cure---- [_Makes love in dumb Show._ _Lady B._ Let me see your arm, sir--I must have some powder sugar, to stop the blood----O me! an ugly gash; upon my word, sir, you must go into bed. _Arch._ Ay, my lady, a bed would do very well----Madam, [_To_ MRS. SULLEN.] will you do me the favour to conduct me to a chamber? _Lady B._ Do, do, daughter,----while I get the lint, and the probe, and plaister ready. [_Runs out one Way_; AIMWELL _carries off_ DORINDA _another_. _Arch._ Come, madam, why don't you obey your mother's commands? _Mrs. Sul._ How can you, after what is past, have the confidence to ask me? _Arch._ And if you go to that, how can you, after what is past, have the confidence to deny me?----Was not this blood shed in your defence, and my life exposed for your protection?--Lookye, madam, I'm none of your romantic fools, that fight giants and monsters for nothing; my valour is downright Swiss; I am a soldier of fortune, and must be paid. _Mrs. Sul._ 'Tis ungenerous in you, sir, to upbraid me with your services. _Arch._ 'Tis ungenerous in you, madam, not to reward them. _Mrs. Sul._ How! at the expense of my honour! _Arch._ Honour! Can honour consist with ingratitude? If you would deal like a woman of honour, do like a man of honour: d'ye think I would deny you in such a case? _Enter_ GIPSEY. _Gip._ Madam, my lady ordered me to tell you, that your brother is below at the gate. _Mrs. Sul._ My brother! Heavens be praised:--Sir, he shall thank you for your services; he has it in his power. _Arch._ Who is your brother, madam? _Mrs. Sul._ Sir Charles Freeman:----You'll excuse me, sir; I must go and receive him. [_Exit._ _Arch._ Sir Charles Freeman! 'Sdeath and hell!----My old acquaintance. Now, unless Aimwell has made good use of his time, all our fair machine goes souse into the sea, like an Eddistone. [_Exit._ SCENE IV. _The Gallery in the same House._ _Enter_ AIMWELL _and_ DORINDA. _Dor._ Well, well, my lord, you have conquered:--your late generous action will, I hope, plead for my easy yielding; though, I must own, your lordship had a friend in the fort before. _Aim._ The sweets of Hybla dwell upon her tongue--Here, doctor!---- _Enter_ FOIGARD, _with a Book_. _Foig._ Are you prepared bote? _Dor._ I'm ready. But first, my lord, one word--I have a frightful example of a hasty marriage in my own family; when I reflect upon't, it shocks me.--Pray, my lord, consider a little---- _Aim._ Consider! Do you doubt my honour, or my love? _Dor._ Neither--I do believe you equally just as brave; and were your whole sex drawn out for me to chuse, I should not cast a look upon the multitude, if you were absent.--But, my lord, I'm a woman; colours, concealments, may hide a thousand faults in me--therefore, know me better first; I hardly dare affirm, I know myself in any thing, except my love. _Aim._ Such goodness who could injure! I find myself unequal to the task of villain; she has gained my soul, and made it honest like her own--I cannot hurt her. [_Aside._] Doctor, retire. [_Exit_ FOIGARD.] Madam, behold your lover, and your proselyte, and judge of my passion by my conversion.--I'm all a lie, nor dare I give a fiction to your arms;--I am all a counterfeit, except my passion. _Dor._ Forbid it, Heaven!--A counterfeit! _Aim._ I am no lord, but a poor, needy man, come with a mean, a scandalous design, to prey upon your fortune:--But the beauties of your mind and person, have so won me from myself, that, like a trusty servant, I prefer the interest of my mistress to my own. _Dor._ Pray, sir, who are you? _Aim._ Brother to the man, whose title I usurped, but stranger to his honour or his fortune. _Dor._ Matchless honesty!--Once I was proud, sir, of your wealth and title, but now am prouder that you want it: now I can show, that my love was justly levelled, and had no aim but love.--Doctor, come in. _Enter_ FOIGARD, _at one Door_, GIPSEY _at another, who whispers_ DORINDA. Your pardon, sir; we shan't want you now, sir. You must excuse me--I'll wait on you presently. [_Exit with_ GIPSEY. _Foig._ Upon my shoul, now, dis is foolish. [_Exit._ _Aim._ Gone! and bid the priest depart--It has an ominous look! _Enter_ ARCHER. _Arch._ Courage, Tom----Shall I wish you joy? _Aim._ No. _Arch._ Oons, man! what ha' you been doing? _Aim._ O Archer, my honesty, I fear, has ruined me. _Arch._ How! _Aim._ I have discovered myself. _Arch._ Discovered! and without my consent?--What! have I embarked my small remains in the same bottom with yours, and you dispose of all without my partnership? _Aim._ O, Archer, I own my fault. _Arch._ After conviction--'tis then too late for pardon.--You may remember, Mr. Aimwell, that you proposed this folly--As you begun, so end it--Henceforth, I'll hunt my fortune single--so farewell. _Aim._ Stay, my dear Archer, but a minute. _Arch._ Stay! What, to be despised, exposed, and laughed at?--No, I would sooner change conditions with the worst of the rogues we just now bound, than bear one scornful smile from the proud knight, that once I treated as my equal. _Aim._ What knight? _Arch._ Sir Charles Freeman, brother to the lady that I had almost----But, no matter for that, 'tis a cursed night's work, and so I leave you to make the best on't. _Aim._ Freeman!--One word, Archer--Still I have hopes; methought, she received my confession with pleasure. _Arch._ 'Sdeath! who doubts it? _Aim._ She consented after to the match; and still I dare believe she will be just. _Arch._ To herself, I warrant her; as you should have been. _Aim._ By all my hopes, she comes! and smiling comes. _Enter_ DORINDA, _gaily_. _Dor._ Come, my dear lord, I fly with impatience to your arms.--The minutes of my absence was a tedious year.--Where's this priest? _Enter_ FOIGARD. _Arch._ Oons! a brave girl! _Dor._ I suppose, my lord, this gentleman is privy to our affairs? _Arch._ Yes, yes, madam, I'm to be your father. _Dor._ Come, priest, do your office. _Arch._ Make haste, make haste! couple them any way. [_Takes_ AIMWELL'S _Hand_.] Come, madam, I'm to give you---- _Dor._ My mind's altered--I won't. _Arch._ Eh! _Aim._ I'm confounded! _Foig._ Upon my shoul, and so is myshelf! _Arch._ What's the matter now, madam? _Dor._ Lookye, sir, one generous action deserves another.--This gentleman's honour obliged him to hide nothing from me; my justice engages me to conceal nothing from him. In short, sir, you are the person that you thought you counterfeited; you are the true Lord Viscount Aimwell, and I wish your lordship joy.--Now, priest, you may begone;--if my lord is now pleased with the match, let his lordship marry me in the face of the world. _Aim._ Archer, what does she mean? _Dor._ Here's a witness for my truth. _Enter_ SIR CHARLES, _and_ MRS. SULLEN. _Sir C._ My dear Lord Aimwell, I wish you joy! _Aim._ Of what? _Sir C._ Of your honour and estate. Your brother died the day before I left London; and all your friends have writ after you to Brussels: among the rest, I did myself the honour. _Arch._ Harkye, sir knight, don't you banter now? _Sir C._ 'Tis truth, upon my honour. _Aim._ Thanks to the pregnant stars, that formed this accident. _Arch._ Thanks to the womb of time, that brought it forth--away with it. _Aim._ Thanks to my guardian angel, that led me to the prize. [_Taking_ DORINDA'S _Hand_. _Arch._ And double thanks to the noble Sir Charles Freeman.--My lord, I wish you joy. My lady, I wish you joy.--Egad, Sir Charles, you're the honestest fellow living.--'Sdeath! I'm grown strangely airy upon this matter.----My lord, how d'ye?----A word, my lord: Don't you remember something of a previous agreement, that entitles me to the moiety of this lady's fortune, which, I think, will amount to ten thousand pounds? _Aim._ Not a penny, Archer: you would have cut my throat just now, because I would not deceive this lady. _Arch._ Ay, and I'll cut your throat still, if you should deceive her now. _Aim._ That's what I expect; and to end the dispute, the lady's fortune is twenty thousand pounds, we'll divide stakes; take the twenty thousand pounds, or the lady. _Dor._ How! is your lordship so indifferent? _Arch._ No, no, no, madam! his lordship knows very well, that I'll take the money; I leave you to his lordship, and so we are both provided for. _Enter_ FOIGARD. _Foig._ Arra fait, de people do say, you be all robbed, joy. _Aim._ The ladies have been in some danger, sir, as you saw. _Foig._ Upon my shoul, our inn be rob too. _Aim._ Our inn! By whom? _Foig._ Upon my shalvation, our landlord has robbed himself, and run away wid da money. _Arch._ Robbed himself! _Foig._ Ay, fait! and me too, of a hundred pounds. _Arch._ Robbed you of a hundred pounds! _Foig._ Yes, fait, honey, that I did owe to him. _Aim._ Our money's gone, Frank! _Arch._ Rot the money! my wench is gone. _Sir C._ This good company meets opportunely in favour of a design I have in behalf of my unfortunate sister: I intend to part her from her husband. Gentlemen, will you assist me? _Arch._ Assist you!--'Sdeath! who would not? _Foig._ Ay, upon my shoul, we'll all ashist. _Enter_ SULLEN. _Sul._ What's all this?----They tell me, spouse, that you had like to have been robbed. _Mrs. Sul._ Truly, spouse, I was pretty near it--had not these two gentlemen interposed. _Sul._ How came these gentlemen here? _Mrs. Sul._ That's his way of returning thanks, you must know. _Foig._ Ay, but upon my conshience, de question be apropos, for all dat. _Sir C._ You promised, last night, sir, that you would deliver your lady to me this morning. _Sul._ Humph! _Arch._ Humph! what do you mean by humph?--Sir, you shall deliver her----In short, sir, we have saved you and your family, and if you are not civil, we'll unbind the rogues, join with them, and set fire to your house.--What does the man mean? Not part with his wife! _Foig._ Arra, not part wid your wife! Upon my shoul, de man dosh not understand common shivility. _Mrs. Sul._ Hold, gentlemen, all things here must move by consent: compulsion would spoil us. Let my dear and I talk the matter over, and you shall judge it between us. _Sul._ Let me know, first, who are to be our judges.--Pray, sir, who are you? _Sir C._ I am Sir Charles Freeman, come to take away your wife. _Sul._ And you, good sir? _Aim._ Thomas, Viscount Aimwell, come to take away your sister. _Sul._ And you, pray, sir? _Arch._ Francis Archer, Esq. come---- _Sul._ To take away my mother, I hope.--Gentlemen, you are heartily welcome: I never met with three more obliging people since I was born.--And now, my dear, if you please, you shall have the first word. _Arch._ And the last, for five pounds. [_Aside._ _Mrs. Sul._ Spouse. _Sul._ Rib. _Mrs. Sul._ How long have you been married? _Sul._ By the almanack, fourteen months--but, by my account, fourteen years. _Mrs. Sul._ 'Tis thereabout, by my reckoning. _Foig._ Upon my conshience, dere accounts vil agree. _Sir C._ What are the bars to your mutual contentment? _Mrs. Sul._ In the first place, I can't drink ale with him. _Sul._ Nor can I drink tea with her. _Mrs. Sul._ I can't hunt with you. _Sul._ Nor can I dance with you. _Mrs. Sul._ I hate cocking and racing. _Sul._ And I abhor ombre and picquet. _Mrs. Sul._ Your silence is intolerable. _Sul._ Your prating is worse. _Mrs. Sul._ Is there, on earth, a thing we can agree in? _Sul._ Yes--to part. _Mrs. Sul._ With all my heart. _Sul._ Your hand. _Mrs. Sul._ Here. _Sul._ These hands joined us; these shall part us--Away! _Mrs. Sul._ East. _Sul._ West. _Mrs. Sul._ North. _Sul._ South: as far as the poles asunder. _Foig._ Upon my shoul, a very pretty sheremony! _Sir C._ Now, Mr. Sullen, there wants only my sister's fortune to make us easy. _Sul._ Sir Charles, you love your sister, and I love her fortune; every one to his fancy. _Arch._ Then you won't refund? _Sul._ Not a stiver. _Arch._ What is her portion? _Sir C._ Ten thousand pounds, sir. _Arch._ I'll pay it: my lord, I thank him, has enabled me; and, if the lady pleases, she shall go home with me. This night's adventure has proved strangely lucky to us all--For Captain Gibbet, in his walk, has made bold, Mr. Sullen, with your study and scrutoire, and has taken out all the writings of your estate, all the articles of marriage with your lady, bills, bonds, leases, receipts, to an infinite value; I took them from him, and will deliver them to Sir Charles. _Sul._ How! my writings! my head aches consumedly.--Well, gentlemen, you shall have her fortune, but I can't talk. If you have a mind, Sir Charles, to be merry, and celebrate my sister's wedding and my divorce, you may command my house. But my head aches consumedly;--Scrub, bring me a dram. _Foig._ And put a sup in the top for myself. [_Exeunt_ FOIGARD _and_ SULLEN. _Arch._ 'Twould be hard to guess which of these parties is the better pleased, the couple joined, or the couple parted; the one rejoicing in hopes of an untasted happiness, and the other in their deliverance from an experienced misery. Both happy in their several states, we find: Those parted by consent, and those conjoin'd. Consent, if mutual, saves the lawyer's fee; Consent is law enough to set you free. [_Exeunt Omnes._ THE END. TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE Contemporary spellings have been retained. Hyphenation is inconsistent throughout. Two changes were made to the text. Act 2: end of Scene 1, Mrs. Sullen's penultimate speech: "her" was changed to "here" in the sentence: The Count is to dine here tonight. In Act 3, Scene 2: The words "Yes, faith", spoken by a non-existent character called "Alon", were assigned to Aimwell in keeping with the dialogue sequence. 
5333	----	EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR (The Anglicized Edition) By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know:" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken 'opima spolia' from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's 'Epigrams', "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593 Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in 'Henslowe's Diary', a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres--well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an imprudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the 'dramatis personae', that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of 'Poetaster' and 'Satiromastrix' by J. H. Penniman in 'Belles Lettres Series' shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, 'The War of the Theatres', 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in 'Notes and Queries', and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as "the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "An immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare'scompany once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its 'dramatis personae', from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no moral catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humou r" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd 'Epigrams', in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten 'Masques' and 'Entertainments'. In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's 'History of the World'. We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow. ... But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similtude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us." to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matchedin stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns from the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious 'Leges Convivales' in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among the newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods, including some further entertainments"; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting 'English Grammar' "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and 'Timber, or discoveries' "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The 'Discoveries', as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passage of Jonson's 'Discoveries' are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the 'Discoveries', is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works:-- DRAMAS. -- Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS. -- Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE. -- Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS. -- Fol., 1616, vol. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 vols., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 vols., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 vols., 1871; in 9 vols., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS. -- J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE. -- See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOUR TO THE MOST LEARNED, AND MY HONOURED FRIEND MASTER CAMDEN CLARENCIEUX SIR,--There are, no doubt, a supercilious race in the world, who will esteem all office, done you in this kind, an injury; so solemn a vice it is with them to use the authority of their ignorance, to the crying down of Poetry, or the professors: but my gratitude must not leave to correct their error; since I am none of those that can suffer the benefits conferred upon my youth to perish with my age. It is a frail memory that remember s but present things: and, had the favour of the times so conspired with my disposition, as it could have brought forth other, or better, you had had the same proportion, and number of the fruits, the first. Now I pray you to accept this; such wherein neither the confession of my manners shall make you blush; nor of my studies, repent you to have been the instructor: and for the profession of my thankfulness, I am sure it will, with good men, find either praise or excuse. Your true lover, BEN JONSON. DRAMATIS PERSONAE KNOWELL, an old Gentleman: OLIVER COB, a Water-bearer. EDWARD KNOWELL, his Son. JUSTICE CLEMENT, an old merry BRAINWORM, the Father's Man Magistrate. GEORGE DOWNRIGHT, a plain Squire. ROGER FORMAL, his Clerk. WELLBRED, his Half-Brother. Wellbred's Servant KITELY, a merchant. DAME KITELY, KITELY'S Wife. CAPTAIN BOBADILL, a Paul's Man. MRS. BRIDGET his Sister. MASTER STEPHEN, a Country Gull. TIB Cob's Wife MASTER MATHEW, the Town Gull. THOMAS CASH, KITELY'S Cashier. Servants, etc. SCENE,---LONDON PROLOGUE. Though need make many poets, and some such As art and nature have not better'd much; Yet ours for want hath not so loved the stage, As he dare serve the ill customs of the age, Or purchase your delight at such a rate, As, for it, he himself must justly hate: To make a child now swaddled, to proceed Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and weed, Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords, And help of some few foot and half-foot words, Fight over York and Lancaster's king jars, And in the tyring-house bring wounds to scars. He rather prays you will be pleas'd to see One such to-day, as other plays should be; Where neither chorus wafts you o'er the seas, Nor creaking throne comes down the boys to please; Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard The gentlewomen; nor roll'd bullet heard To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth come; But deeds, and language, such as men do use, And persons, such as comedy would choose, When she would shew an image of the times, And sport with human follies, not with crimes. Except we make them such, by loving still Our popular errors, when we know they're ill. I mean such errors as you'll all confess, By laughing at them, they deserve no less: Which when you heartily do, there's hope left then, You, that have so grac'd monsters, may like men. ACT I SCENE I.---A Street. Enter KNOWELL, at the door of his house. Know. A goodly day toward, and a fresh morning.--Brainworm! Enter Brainworm. Call up your young master: bid him rise, sir. Tell him, I have some business to employ him. Brai. I will, sir, presently. Know. But hear you, sirrah, If he be at his book, disturb him not. Brai. Very good, sir. Know. How happy yet should I esteem myself, Could I, by any practice, wean the boy From one vain course of study he affects. He is a scholar, if a man may trust The liberal voice of fame in her report, Of good account in both our Universities, Either of which hath favoured him with graces: But their indulgence must not spring in me A fond opinion that he cannot err. Myself was once a student, and indeed, Fed with the self-same humour he is now, Dreaming on nought but idle poetry, That fruitless and unprofitable art, Good unto none, but least to the professors; Which then I thought the mistress of all knowledge: But since, time and the truth have waked my judgment. And reason taught me better to distinguish T he vain from the useful learnings. Enter Master STEPHEN. Cousin Stephen, What news with you, that you are here so early? Step. Nothing, but e'en come to see how you do, unclo. Know. That's kindly done; you are welcome, coz. Step. Ay, I know that, sir; I would not have come else. How does my cousin Edward, uncle? Know. O, well, coz; go in and see; I doubt he be scarce stirring yet. Step. Uncle, afore I go in, can you tell me, an he have e'er a book of the science of hawking and hunting; I would fain borrow it. Know. Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you? Step. No, wusse; but I'll practise against next year, uncle. I have bought me a hawk, and a hood, and bells and all; I lack nothing but a book to keep it by. Know. Oh, most ridiculous! Step. Nay, look you now, you are angry, uncle:--Why, you know an a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him: they are more studied than the Greek, or the Latin. He is for no gallant's company without them; and by gadslid I scorn it, I, so I do, to be a consort for every humdrum: hang them, scroyles! there's nothing in them i' the world. What do you talk on it? Because I dwell at Hogsden, I shall keep company with none but the archers of Finsbury, or the citizens that come a ducking to Islington ponds! A fine jest, i' faith! 'Slid, a gentleman mun shew himself like a gentleman. Uncle, I pray you be not angry; I know what I have to do, I trow. I am no novice. Know. You are a prodigal, absurd coxcomb, go to! Nay, never look at me, 'tis I that speak; Take't as you will, sir, I'll not flatter you. Have you not yet found means enow to waste That which your friends have left you, but you must Go cast away your money on a buzzard, And know not how to keep it, when you have done? O, it is comely! this will make you a gentleman! Well, cousin, well, I see you are e'en past hope Of all reclaim:---ay, so; now you are told on't, You look another way. Step. What would you ha' me do? Know. What would I have you do? I'll tell you, kinsman; Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive; That would I have you do: and not to spend Your coin on every bauble that you fancy, Or every foolish brain that humours you. I would not have you to invade each place, Nor thrust yourself on all societies, Till men's affections, or your own desert, Should worthily invite you to your rank. He that is so respectless in his courses, Oft sells his reputation at cheap market. Nor would I, you should melt away yourself In flashing bravery, lest, while you affect To make a blaze of gentry to the world, A little puff of scorn extinguish it; And you be left like an unsavoury snuff, Whose property is only to offend. I'd have you sober, and contain yourself, Not that your sail be bigger than your boat; But moderate your expenses now, at first, As you may keep the same proportion still: Nor stand so much on your gentility, Which is an airy and mere borrow'd thing, From dead men's dust and bones; and none of yours, Except you make, or hold it. Enter a Servant. Who comes here? Serv. Save you, gentlemen! Step. Nay, we do not stand much on our gentility, friend; yet you are welcome: and I assure you mine uncle here is a man of a thousand a year, Middlesex land. He has but one son in all the world, I am his next heir, at the common law, master Stephen, as simple as I stand here, if my cousin die, as there's hope he will: I have a pretty living O' mine own too, beside, hard by here. Serv. In good time, sir. Step. In good time, sir! why, and in very good time, sir! You do not flout, friend, do you? Servo Not I, sir. Step. Not you, sir! you were best not, sir; an you should; here be them can perceive it, and that quickly too; go to: and they can give it again soundly too, an need be. Servo Why, sir, let this satisfy you; good faith, I had no such intent. Step. Sir, an I thought you had, I would talk with you, and that presently. Serv. Good master Stephen, so you may, sir, at your pleasure. Step. And so I would, sir, good my saucy companion! an you were out O' mine uncle's ground, I can tell you; though I do not stand upon my gentility neither, in't. Know. Cousin, cousin, will this ne'er be left? Step. Whoreson, basefellow! a mechanical serving-man! By this cudgel, an 'twere not for shame, I would-- Know. What would you do, you peremptory gull? If you cannot be quiet, get you hence. You see the honest man demeans himself Modestly tow'rds you, giving no reply To your unseason'd, quarrelling, rude fashion; And still you huff it, with a kind of carriage As void of wit, as of humanity. Go, get you in; 'fore heaven, I am ashamed Thou hast a kinsman's interest in me. [Exit Master Stephen. Serv. I pray, sir, is this master Knowell's house? Know. Yes, marry is it, sir. Serv. I should inquire for a gentleman here, one master Edward Knowell; do you know any such, sir, I pray you? Know. I should forget myself else, sir. Serv. Are you the gentleman? cry you mercy, sir: I was required by a gentleman in the city, as I rode out at this end O' the town, to deliver you this letter, sir. Know. To me, sir! What do you mean? pray you remember your court'sy. [Reads.] To his most selected friend, master Edward Knowell. What might the gentleman's name be, sir, that sent it? Nay, pray you be covered. Serv. One master Wellbred, sir. Know. Master Wellbred! a young gentleman, is he not? Serv. The same, sir; master Kitely married his sister; the rich merchant in the Old Jewry. Know. You say very true.---Brainworm! [Enter Brainworm. Brai. Sir. Know. Make this honest friend drink here: pray you, go in. [Exeunt Brainworm and Servant. This letter is directed to my son; Yet I am Edward Knowell too, and may, With the safe conscience of good manners, use The fellow's error to my satisfaction. Well, I will break it ope (old men are curious), Be it but for the style's sake and the phrase; To see if both do answer my son's praises, Who is almost grown the idolater Of this young Wellbred. What have we here? What's this? [Reads] Why, Ned, I beseech thee, hast thou forsworn all thy friends in the Old Jewry? or dost thou think us all Jews that inhabit there? yet, if thou dost, come over, and but see our frippery; change an old shirt for a whole smock with us: do not conceive that antipathy between us and Hogsden, as was between Jews and hogs-flesh. Leave thy vigilant father alone, to number over his green apricots, evening and morning, on the north-west wall: an I had been his son, I had saved him the labour long since, if taking in all the young wenches that pass by at the back-door, and codling every kernel of the fruit for them, would have served, But, pr'ythee, come over to me quickly this morning; I have such a present for thee!--our Turkey company never sent the like to the Grand Signior. One is a rhymer, sir, of your own batch, your own leaven; but doth think himself poet-major of the town, willing to be shewn, and worthy to be seen. The other--I will not venture his description with you, till you come, because I would have you make hither with an appetite. If the worst of 'em be not worth your journey draw your bill of charges, as unconscionable as any Guildhall verdict will give it you, and you shall be allowed your viaticum. From the Windmill. From the Bordello it might come as well, The Spittle, or Pict-hatch. Is this the man My son hath sung so, for the happiest wit, The choicest brain, the times have sent us forth! I know not what he may be in the arts, Nor what in schools; but, surely, for his manners, I judge him a profane and dissolute wretch; Worse by possession of such great good gifts, Being the master of so loose a spirit. Why, what unhallowed ruffian would have writ In such a scurrilous manner to a friend! Why should he think I tell my apricots, Or play the Hesperian dragon with my fruit, To watch it? Well, my son, I had thought you Had had more judgment to have made election Of your companions, than t' have ta'en on trust Such petulant, jeering gamesters, that can spare No argument or subject from their jest. But I perceive affection makes a fool Of any man too much the father.---Brainworm! Enter BRAINWORM. Brai. Sir. Know. Is the fellow gone that brought this letter? Brai. Yea, sir, a pretty while since. Know. And where is your young master? Brai. In his chamber, sir. Know. He spake not with the fellow, did he? Brai. No, sir, he saw him not. Know. Take you this letter, and deliver it my son; but with no notice that I have opened it, on your life. Brai. O Lord, sir! that were a jest indeed. [Exit. Know. I am resolved I will not stop his journey, Nor practise any violent means to stay The unbridled course of youth in him; for that Restrain'd, grows more impatient; and in kind Like to the eager, but the generous greyhound, Who ne'er so little from his game withheld, Turns head, and leaps up at his holder's throat. There is a way of winning more by love, And urging of tho modesty, than fear: Force works on servile natures, not the free. He that's compell'd to goodness may be good, But 'tis but for that fit; where others, drawn By softness and example, get a habit. Then, if they stray, but warn them, and the same They should for virtue have done, they'll do for shame. [Exit. SCENE II.-A Room in KNOWELL.'S House. Enter E. KNOWELL, with a letter in his hand, followed by BRAINWORM. E. Know. Did he open it, say'st thou? Brai. Yes, O' my word, sir, and read the contents. E. Know. That scarce contents me. What countenance, prithee, made he in the reading of it? was he angry, or pleased? Brai. Nay, sir, I saw him not read it, nor open it, I assure your worship. E. Know. No! how know'st thou then that he did either? Brai. Marry, sir, because he charged me, on my life, to tell nobody that he open'd it; which, unless he had done, he would never fear to have it revealed. E. Know. That's true: well, I thank thee, Brainworm. Enter STEPHEN. Step. O, Brainworm, didst thou not see a fellow here in what-sha-call-him doublet? he brought mine uncle a letter e'en now. Brai. Yes, master Stephen; what of him? Step. O, I have such a mind to beat him--where is he, canst thou tell? Brai. Faith, he is not of that mind: he is gone, master Stephen. Step. Gone! which way? when went he? how long since? Brai. He is rid hence; he took horse at the street-door. Step. And I staid in the fields! Whoreson scanderbag rogue! O that I had but a horse to fetch him back again! Brai. Why, you may have my master's gelding, to save your longing, sir. Step. But I have no boots, that's the spite on't. Brai. Why, a fine wisp of hay, roll'd hard, master Stephen. Step. No, faith, it's no boot to follow him now: let him e'en go and hang. Prithee, help to truss me a little: he does so vex me-- Brai. You'll be worse vexed when you are trussed, master Stephen. Best keep unbraced, and walk yourself till you be cold; your choler may founder you else. Step. By my faith, and so I will, now thou tell'st me on't: how dost thou like my leg, Brainworm? Brai. A very good leg, master Stephen; but the woollen stocking does not commend it so well. Step. Foh! the stockings be good enough, now summer is coming on, for the dust: I'll have a pair of silk against winter, that I go to dwell in the town. I think my leg would shew in a silk hose-- Brai. Believe me, master Stephen, rarely well. Step. In sadness, I think it would: I have a reasonable good leg. Brai. You have an excellent good leg, master Stephen; but I can not stay to praise it longer now, and I am very sorry for it. [Exit. Step. Another time will serve, Brainworm. Gramercy for this. E. Know. Ha, ha, ha. Step. 'Slid, I hope he laughs not at me; an he do-- E. Know. Here was a letter indeed, to be intercepted by a man's father, and do him good with him! He cannot but think most virtuously, both of me, and the sender, sure, that make the careful costermonger of him in our familiar epistles. Well, if he read this with patience I'll be gelt, and troll ballads for master John Trundle yonder, the rest of my mortality. It is true, and likely, my father may have as much patience as another man, for he takes much physic; and oft taking physic makes a man very patient. But would your packet, master Wellbred, had arrived at him in such a minute of his patience! then we had known the end of it, which now is doubtful, and threatens--[Sees Master Stephen.] What, my wise cousin! nay, then I'll furnish our feast with one gull more toward the mess. He writes to me of a brace, and here's one, that's three: oh, for a fourth, Fortune, if ever thou' It use thine eyes, I entreat thee-- Step. Oh, now I see who he laughed at: he laughed at somebody in that letter. By this good light, an he had laughed at me-- E. Know. How now, cousin Stephen, melancholy? Step. Yes, a little: I thought you had laughed at me, cousin. E. Know. Why, what an I had, coz? what would you have done? Step. By this light, I would have told mine uncle. E. Know. Nay, if you would have told your uncle, I did laugh at you, coz. Step. Did you, indeed? E. Know. Yes, indeed. Step. Why then E. Know. What then? Step. I am satisfied; it is sufficient. E. Know. Why, be so, gentle coz: and, I pray you, let me entreat a courtesy of you. I am sent for this morning by a friend in the Old Jewry, to come to him; it is but crossing over the fields to Moorgate: Will you bear me company? I protest it is not to draw you into bond or any plot against the state, coz. Step. Sir, that's all one an it were; you shall command me twice so far as Moorgate, to do you good in such a matter. Do you think I would leave you? I protest-- E. Know. No, no, you shall not protest, coz. Step. By my fackings, but I will, by your leave:--I'll protest more to my friend, than I'll speak of at this time. E. Know. You speak very well, coz. Step. Nay, not so neither, you shall pardon me: but I speak to serve my turn. E. Know. Your turn, coz! do you know what you say? A gentleman of your sorts, parts, carriage, and estimation, to talk of your turn in this company, and to me alone, like a tankard-bearer at a conduit! fie! A wight that, hitherto, his every step hath left the stamp of a great foot behind him, as every word the savour of a strong spirit, and he! this man! so graced, gilded, or, to use a more fit metaphor, so tenfold by nature, as not ten housewives' pewter, again a good time, shews more bright to the world than he! and he! (as I said last, so I say again, and still shall say it) this man! to conceal such real ornaments as these, and shadow their glory, as a milliner's wife does her wrought stomacher, with a smoaky lawn, or a black cyprus! O, coz! it cannot be answered; go not about it: Drake's old ship at Deptford may sooner circle the world again. Come, wrong not the quality of your desert, with looking downward, coz; but hold up your head, so: and let the idea of what you are be portrayed in your face, that men may read in your physnomy, here within this place is to be seen the true, rare, and accomplished monster, or miracle of nature, which is all one. What think you of this, coz? Step. Why, I do think of it: and I will be more proud, and melancholy, and gentlemanlike, than I have been, I'll insure you. E. Know. Why, that's resolute, master Stephen!--Now, if I can but hold him up to his height, as it is happily begun, it will do well for a suburb humour: we may hap have a match with the city, and play him for forty pound.--Come, coz. Step. I'll follow you. E. Know. Follow me! you must go before. Step. Nay, an I must, I will. Pray you shew me, good cousin. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-The Lane before Cob's House. Enter Master MATHEW: Mat. I think this be the house: what ho! Enter COB. Cob. Who's there? O, master Mathew! give your worship good morrow. Mat. What, Cob! how dost thou, good Cob? dost thou inhabit here, Cob? Cob. Ay, sir, I and my lineage have kept a poor house here, in Our days. Mat. Thy lineage, monsieur Cob! what lineage, what lineage? Cob. Why, sir, an ancient lineage, and a princely. Mine ance'try came from a king's belly, no worse man; and yet no man either, by your worship's leave, I did lie in that, but herring, the king of fish (from his belly I proceed), one of the monarchs of the world, I assure you. The first red herring that was broiled in Adam and Eve's kitchen, do I fetch my pedigree from, by the harrot's book. His cob was my great, great, mighty great grandfather. Mat. Why mighty, why mighty, I pray thee? Cob. O, it was a mighty while ago, sir, and a mighty great cob. Mat. How know'st thou that? Cob. How know I! why, I smell his ghost ever and anon. Mat. Smell a ghost! O unsavoury jest! and the ghost of a herring cob? Cob. Ay, sir: With favour of your worship's nose, master Mathew, why not the ghost of a herring cob, as well as the ghost of Rasher Bacon? Mat. Roger Bacon, thou would'st say. Cob. I say Rasher Bacon. They were both broiled on the coals; and a man may smell broiled meat, I hope! you are a scholar, upsolve me that now. Mat. O raw ignorance!--Cob, canst thou shew me of a gentleman, one captain Bobadill, where his lodging is? Cob. O, my guest, sir, you mean. Mat. Thy guest! alas, ha, ha, ha! Cob. Why do you laugh, sir? do you not mean captain Bobadill? Mat. Cob, pray thee advise thyself well; do not wrong the gentleman, and thyself too. I dare be sworn, he scorns thy house; he! he lodge in such a base obscure place as thy house! Tut, I know his disposition so well, he would not lie in thy bed if thou'dst give it him. Cob. I will not give it him though, sir. Mass, I thought somewhat was in it, we could not get him to bed all night: Well, sir, though he lie not on my bed, he lies on my bench: an't please you to go up, sir, you shall find him with two cushions under his head, and his cloak wrapped about him, as though he had neither won nor lost, and yet, I warrant, he ne'er cast better in his life, than he has done to-night. Mat. Why, was he drunk? Cob. Drunk, sir! you hear not me say so: perhaps he swallowed a tavern-token, or some such device, sir, I have nothing to do withal. I deal with water and not with wine--Give me my tankard there, ho!--God be wi' you, sir. It's six o'clock: I should have carried two turns by this. What ho! my stopple! come. Enter Tib with a water-tankard. Mat. Lie in a water-bearer's house! a gentleman of his havings! Well, I'll tell him my mind. Cob. What, Tib; shew this gentleman up to the captain.[Exit Tib with Master Mathew.] Oh, an my house were the Brazen-head now! faith it would e'en speak Moe fools yet. You should have some now would take this master Mathew to be a gentleman, at the least. His father's an honest man, a worshipful fishmonger, and so forth; and now does he creep and wriggle into acquaintance with all the brave gallants about the town, such as my guest is (O, my guest is a fine man!), and they flout him invincibly. He useth every day to a merchant's house where I serve water, one master Kitely's, in the Old Jewry; and here's the jest, he is in love with my master's sister, Mrs. Bridget, and calls her mistress; and there he will sit you a whole afternoon sometimes, reading of these same abominable, vile (a pox on 'em! I cannot abide them), rascally verses, poetrie, poetrie, and speaking of interludes; 'twill make a man burst to hear him. And the wenches, they do so jeer, and ti-he at him--Well, should they do so much to me, I'd forswear them all, by the foot of Pharaoh! There's an oath! How many water-bearers shall you hear swear such an oath? O, I have a guest--he teaches me-he does swear the legiblest of any man christened: By St. George! the foot of Pharaoh! the body of me! as I am a gentleman and a soldier! such dainty oaths! and withal he does take this same filthy roguish tobacco, the finest and cleanliest! it would do a man good to see the fumes come forth at's tonnels.--Well, he owes me forty shillings, my wife lent him out of her purse, by sixpence at a time, besides his lodging: I would I had it! I shall have it, he says, the next action. Helterskelter, hang sorrow, care'll kill a cat, up-tails all, and a louse for the hangman. [Exit. SCENE IV.-A Room in COB'S House. BOBADILL discoved lying on a bench. Bob. Hostess, hostess! Enter TIB. Tib. What say you, sir? Bob. A cup of thy small beer, sweet hostess. Tib. Sir, there's a gentleman below would speak with you. Bob. A gentleman! 'odso, I am not within. Tib. My husband told him you were, sir. Bob. What a plague-what meant he? Mat. [below.] Captain Bobadill! Bob. Who's there!-Take away the bason, good hostess;--Come up, sir. Tib. He would desire you to come up, cleanly house, here! Enter MATHEW. Mat. Save you, sir; save you, captain! Bob. Gentle master Mathew! Is it you, sir? down. Mat. Thank you, good captain; you may see I am somewhat audacious. Bob. Not so, sir. I was requested to supper last night by a sort of gallants, where you were wished for, and drunk to, I assure you. Mat. Vouchsafe me, by whom, good captain? Bob. Marry, by young Wellbred, and others.--Why, hostess, stool here for this gentleman. Mat. No haste, sir, 'tis very well. Bob. Body O' me! it was so late ere we parted last night, I can scarce open my eyes yet; I was but new risen, as you came; how passes the day abroad, sir? you can tell. Mat. Faith, some half hour to seven; Now, trust me, you have an exceeding fine lodging here, very neat, and private. Bob. Ay, sir: sit down, I pray you. Master Mathew, in any case possess no gentlemen of our acquaintance with notice of my lodging. Mat. Who? I, sir; no. Bob. Not that I need to care who know it, for the cabin is convenient; but in regard I would not be too popular, and generally visited, as some are. Mat. True, captain, I conceive you. Bob. For, do you see, sir, by the heart of valour in me, except it be to some peculiar and choice spirits, to whom I am extraordinarily engaged, as yourself, or so, I could not extend thus far. Mat. O Lord, sir! I resolve so. Bob. I confess I love a cleanly and quiet privacy, above all the tumult and roar of fortune. What new book have you there? What! Go by, Hieronymo? Mat. Ay: did you ever see it acted? Is't not well penned? [While Master Mathew reads, Bobadill makes himself ready. Bob. Well penned! I would fain see all the poets of these times pen such another play as that was: they'll prate and swagger, and keep a stir of art and devices, when, as I am a gentleman, read 'em, they are the most shallow, pitiful, barren fellows, that live upon the: face of the earth again. Mat. Indeed here are a number of fine speeches in this book. O eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears! there's a conceit! fountains fraught with tears! O life, no life, but lively form of death! another. O world, no world, but mass of public wrongs! a third. Confused and fill'd with murder and misdeeds! a fourth. O, the muses! Is't not excellent? Is't not simply the best that ever you heard, captain? Ha! how do you like it? Bob. 'Tis good. Mat. To thee, the purest object to my sense, The most refined essence heaven covers, Send I these lines, wherein I do commence The happy state of turtle-billing lovers. If they prove rough, unpolish'd, harsh, and rude, Haste made the waste: thus mildly I conclude. Bob. Nay, proceed, proceed. Where's this? Mat. This, sir! a toy of mine own, in my non-age; the infancy of my muses. But when will you come and see my study? good faith, I can shew you some very good things I have done of late.--That boot becomes your leg passing well, captain, methinks. Bob. So, so; it's the fashion gentlemen now use. Mat. Troth, captain, and now you speak of the fashion, master Wellbred's elder brother and I are fallen out exceedingly: This other day, I happened to enter into some discourse of a hanger, which, I assure you, both for fashion and workmanship, was most peremptory beautiful and gentlemanlike: yet he condemned, and cried it down for the most pied and ridiculous that ever he saw. Bob. Squire Downright, the half brother, was't not? Mat. Ay, sir, he. Bob. Hang him, rook! he! why he-has no more judgment than a malt horse: By St. George, I wonder you'd lose a thought upon such an animal; the most peremptory absurd clown of Christendom, this day, he is holden. I protest to you, as I am a gentleman and a soldier, I ne'er changed with his like. By his discourse, he should eat nothing but hay; he was born for the manger, pannier, or pack-saddle. He has not so much as a good phrase in his belly, but all old iron and rusty proverbs: a good commodity for some smith to make hob-nails of. Mat. Ay, and he thinks to carry it away with his manhood still, where he comes: he brags he will give me the bastinado, as I hear. Bob. How! he the bastinado! how came he by that word, trow? Mat. Nay, indeed, he said cudgel me; I termed it so, for my more grace. Bob. That may be: for I was sure it was none of his word; but when, when said he so? Mat. Faith, yesterday, they say; a young gallant, a friend of mine, told me so. Bob. By the foot of Pharaoh, an 'twere my case now, I should send him a chartel presently. The bastinado! a most proper and sufficient dependence, warranted by the great Caranza. Come hither, you shall chartel him; I'll shew you a trick or two you shall kill him with at pleasure; the first stoccata, if you will, by this air. Mat. Indeed, you have absolute knowledge in the mystery, I have heard, sir. Bob. Of whom, of whom, have you heard it, I beseech you? Mat. Troth, I have heard it spoken of divers, that you have very rare, and un-in-one-breath-utterable skill, sir. Bob. By heaven, no, not I; no skill in the earth; some small rudiments in the science, as to know my time, distance, or so. I have professed it more for noblemen and gentlemen's use, than mine own practice, I assure you.--Hostess, accommodate us with another bed-staff here quickly. Lend us another bed-staff--the woman does not understand the words of action.--Look you, sir: exalt not your point above this state, at any hand, and let your poniard maintain your defence, thus:--give it the gentleman, and leave us. [Exit Tib.] So, sir. Come on: O, twine your body more about, that you may fall to a more sweet, comely, gentlemanlike guard; so! indifferent: hollow your body more, sir, thus: now, stand fast O' your left leg, note your distance, keep your due proportion of time--oh, you disorder your point most i rregularly. Mat. How is the bearing of it now, sir? Bob. O, out of measure ill: a well-experienced hand would pass upon you at pleasure. Mat. How mean you, sir, pass upon me? Bob. Why, thus, sir,--make a thrust at me--[Master Mathew pushes at Bobadill] come in upon the answer, control your point, and make a full career at the body: The best-practised gallants of the time name it the passado; a most desperate thrust, believe it. Mat. Well, come, sir. Bob. Why, you do not manage your weapon with any facility or grace to invite me. I have no spirit to play with you; your dearth of judgment renders you tedious. Mat. But one venue, sir. Bob. Venue! fie; the most gross denomination as ever I heard: O, the stoccata, while you live, sir; note that.--Come, put on your cloke, and we'll go to some private place where you are acquainted; some tavern, or so--and have a bit. I'll send for one of these fencers, and he shall breathe you, by my direction; and then I will teach you your trick: you shall kill him with it at the first, if you please. Why, I will learn you, by the true judgment of the eye, hand, and foot, to control any enemy's point in the world. Should your adversary confront you with a pistol, 'twere nothing, by this hand! you should, by the same rule, control his bullet, in a line, except it were hail shot, and spread. What money have you about you, master Mathew? Mat. Faith, I have not past a two shilling or so. Bob. 'Tis somewhat with the least; but come; we will have a bunch of radish and salt to taste our wine, and a pipe of tobacco to close the orifice of the stomach: and then we'll call upon young Wellbred: perhaps we shall meet the Corydon his brother there, and put him to the question. ACT II SCENE I.-The Old Jewry. A Hall in KITELY'S House. Enter KITELY, CASH, and DOWNRIGHT. Kit. Thomas, come hither. There lies a note within upon my desk; Here take my key: it is no matter neither.--- Where is the boy? Cash. Within, sir, in the warehouse. Kit. Let him tell over straight that Spanish gold, And weigh it, with the pieces of eight. Do you See the delivery of those silver stuffs To Master Lucar: tell him, if he will, He shall have the grograns, at the rate I told him, And I. will meet him on the Exchange anon. Cash. Good, sir. [Exit. Kit. Do you see that fellow, brother Downright? Dow. Ay, what of him? Kit. He is a jewel, brother. I took him of a child up at my door, And christen'd him, gave him mine own name, Thomas: Since bred him at the Hospital; where proving A toward imp, I call'd him home, and taught him So much, as I have made him my cashier, And giv'n him, who had none, a surname, Cash: And find him in his place so full of faith, That I durst trust my life into his hands. Dow. So would not I in any bastard's, brother, As it is like he is, although I knew Myself his father. But you said you had somewhat To tell me, gentle brother: what is't, what is't? Kit. Faith, I am very loath to utter it, As fearing it may hurt your patience: But that I know your judgment is of strength, Against the nearness of affection--- Dow. What need this circumstance? pray you, be direct. Kit. I will not say how much I do ascribe Unto your friendship, nor in what regard I hold your love; but let my past behaviour, And usage of your sister, [both] confirm How well I have been affected to your--- Dow. You are too tedious; come to the matter, the matter. Kit. Then, without further ceremony, thus. My brother Wellbred, sir, I know not how, Of late is much declined in what he was, And greatly alter'd in his disposition. When he came first to lodge here in my house, Ne'er trust me if I were not proud of him: Methought he bare himself in such a fashion, So full of man, and sweetness in his carriage, And what was chief, it shew'd not borrow'd in him, But all he did became him as his own, And seem'd as perfect, proper, and possest, As breath with life, or colour with the blood. But now, his course is so irregular, So loose, affected, and deprived of grace, And he himself withal so far fallen off From that first place, as scarce no note remains, To tell men's judgments where he lately stood. He's grown a stranger to all due respect, Forgetful of his friends; and not content To stale himself in all societies, He makes my house here common as a mart, A theatre, a public receptacle For giddy humour, and deceased riot; And here, as in a tavern or a stews, He and his wild associates spend their hours, In repetition of lascivious jests, Swear, leap, drink, dance, and revel night by night, Control my servants; and, indeed, what not? Dow. 'Sdeins, I know not what I should say to him, in the whole world! He values me at a crack'd three-farthings, for aught I see. It will never out of the flesh that's bred in the bone. I have told him enough, one would think, if that would serve; but counsel to him is as good as a shoulder of mutton to a sick horse. Well! he knows what to trust to, for George: let him spend, and spend, and domineer, till his heart ake; an he think to be relieved by me, when he is got into one O' your city pounds, the counters, he has the wrong sow by the ear, i'faith; and claps his dish at the wrong man's door: I'll lay my hand on my halfpenny, ere I part with it to fetch him out, I'll assure him.' Kit. Nay, good brother, let it not trouble you thus. Dow. 'Sdeath! he mads me; I could eat my very spur leathers for anger! But, why are you so tame? why do you not speak to him, and tell him how he disquiets your house? Kit. O, there are divers reasons to dissuade me. But, would yourself vouchsafe to travail in it (Though but with plain and easy circumstance), It would both come much better to his sense, And savour less of stomach, or of passion. You are his elder brother, and that title Both gives and warrants your authority, Which, by your presence seconded, must breed A kind of duty in him, and regard: Whereas, if I should intimate the least, It would but add contempt to his neglect, Heap worse on ill, make up a pile of hatred, That in the rearing would come tottering down, And in the ruin bury all our love. Nay, more than this, brother; if I should speak, He would be ready, from his heat of humour, And overflowing of the vapour in him, To blow the ears of his familiars With the false breath of telling what disgraces, And low disparagement's, I had put upon him. Whilst they, sir, to relieve him in the fable, Make their loose comments upon every word, Gesture, or look, I use; mock me all over, From my flat cap unto my shining shoes; And, out of their impetuous rioting phant'sies, Beget some slander that shall dwell with me. And what would that be, think you? marry, this: They would give out, because my wife is fair, Myself but lately married; and my sister '. Here sojourning a virgin in my house, That I were jealous I---nay, as sure as death, That they would say: and, how that I had quarrell'd, My brother purposely, thereby to find An apt pretext to banish them my house. Dow. Mass, perhaps so; they're like enough to do it. Kit. Brother, they would, believe it; so should I, Like one of these penurious quack-salvers, But set the bills up to mine own disgrace, And try experiments upon myself; Lend scorn and envy opportunity To stab my reputation and good name-- Enter Master MATHEW struggling with BOBADILL. Mat. I will speak to him. Bob. Speak to him! away! By the foot of Pharaoh, you shall not! you shall not do him that grace.--The time of day to you, gentleman O' the house. Is master Wellbred stirring? Dow. How then? what should he do? Bob. Gentleman of the house, it is to you: is he within, sir? Kit. He came not to his lodging to-night, sir, I assure you. Dow. Why, do you hear? you! Bob. The gentleman citizen hath satisfied me; I'll talk to no scavenger. [Exeunt Bob. and Mat. Dow. How! scavenger! stay, sir, stay! Kit. Nay, brother Downright. Dow. 'Heart! stand you away, an you love me. Kit. You shall not follow him now, I pray you, brother, good faith you shall not; I will overrule you. Dow. Ha! scavenger! well, go to, I say little: but, by this good day (God forgive me I should swear), if I put it up so, say I am the rankest cow that ever pist. 'Sdeins, an I swallow this, I'll ne'er draw my sword in the sight of Fleet-street again while I live; I'll sit in a barn with madge-howlet, and catch mice first. Scavenger! heart!--and I'll go near to fill that huge tumbrel-slop of yours with somewhat, an I have good luck: your Garagantua breech cannot carry it away so. Kit. Oh, do not fret yourself thus: never think on't. Dow. These are my brother's consorts, these! these are his camerades, his walking mates! he's a gallant, cavaliero too, right hangman cut! Let me not live, an I could not find in my heart to swinge the whole gang of 'em, one after another, and begin with him first. I am grieved it should be said he is my brother, and take these courses: Well, as he brews, so shall he drink, for George, again. Yet he shall hear on't, and that tightly too, an I live, i'faith. Kit. But, brother, let your reprehension, then, Run in an easy current, not o'er high Carried with rashness, or devouring choler; But rather use the soft persuading way, Whose powers will work more gently, and compose The imperfect thoughts you labour to reclaim; More winning, than enforcing the consent. Dow. Ay, ay, let me alone for that, I warrant you. Kit. How now! [Bell rings.] Oh, the bell rings to breakfast. Brother, I pray you go in, and bear my wife company till I come; I'll but give order for some despatch of business to my servants. [Exit Downright. Enter COB, with his tankard. Kit. What, Cob! our maids will have you by the back, i'faith, for coming so late this morning. Cob. Perhaps so, sir; take heed somebody have not them by the belly, for walking so late in the evening. [Exit. Kit. Well; yet my troubled spirit's somewhat eased, Though not reposed in that security As I could wish: but I must be content, Howe'er I set a face on't to the world. Would I had lost this finger at a venture, So Wellbred had ne'er lodged within my house. Why't cannot be, where there is such resort Of wanton gallants, and young revellers, That any woman should be honest long. Is't like, that factious beauty will preserve The public weal of chastity unshaken, When such strong motives muster, and make head Against her single peace? No, no: beware. When mutual appetite doth meet to treat, And spirits of one kind and quality Come once to parley in the pride of blood, It is no slow conspiracy that follows. Well, to be plain, if I but thought the time Had answer'd their affections, all the world Should not persuade me but I were a cuckold. Marry, I hope they have not got that start; For opportunity hath balk'd them yet, And shall do still, while I have eyes and ears To attend the impositions of my heart. My presence shall be as an iron bar, 'Twixt the conspiring motions of desire: Yea, every look or glance mine eye ejects Shall check occasion, as one doth his slave, When he forgets the limits of prescription. Enter Dame KITELY and BRIDGET. Dame K. Sister Bridget, pray you fetch down the rose-water, above in the closet.--- [Exit Bridget. Sweet-heart, will you come in to breakfast? Kit. An she have overheard me now!--- Dame K. I pray thee, good muss, we stay for you. Kit. By heaven, I would not for a thousand angels. Dame K. What ail you, sweet-heart? are you not well? speak, good muss. Kit. Troth my head akes extremely on a sudden. Dame K. [putting her hand to his forehead.] O, the Lord! Kit. How now! What? Dame K. Alas, how it burns! Muss, keep you warm; good truth it is this new disease. There's a number are troubled withal. For love's sake, sweetheart, come in, out of the air. Kit. How simple, and how subtle are her answers! A new disease, and many troubled with it? Why true; she heard me, all the world to nothing. Dame K. I pray thee, good sweet-heart, come in; the air will do you harm, in troth. Kit. The air! she has me in the wind.--Sweet-heart, I'll come to you presently; 'twill away, I hope. Dame K. Pray Heaven it do. [Exit. Kit. A new disease! I. know not, new or old, But it may well be call'd poor mortals' plague; For, like a pestilence, it doth infect The houses of the brain. First it begins Solely to work upon the phantasy, Filling her seat with such pestiferous air, As soon corrupts the judgment; and from thence, Sends like contagion to the memory: Still each to other giving the infection. Which as a subtle vapour spreads itself Confusedly through every sensive part, Till not a thought or motion in the mind Be free from the black poison of suspect. Ah! but what misery is it to know this? Or, knowing it, to want the mind's erection In such extremes? Well, I will once more strive, In spite of this black cloud, myself to be, And shake the fever off that thus shakes me. [Exit. SCENE II.---Moorfields. Enter BRAINWORM disguised like a maimed Soldier. Brai. 'Slid, I cannot choose but laugh to see myself translated thus, from a poor creature to a creator; for now must I create an intolerable sort of lies, or my present profession loses the grace: and yet the lie, to a man of my coat, is as ominous a fruit as the fico. O, sir, it holds for good polity ever, to have that outwardly in vilest estimation, that inwardly is most dear to us: so much for my borrowed shape. Well, the troth is, my old master intends to follow my young master, dry-foot, over Moorfields to London, this morning; now, I knowing of this hunting-match, or rather conspiracy, and to insinuate with my young master (for so must we that are blue waiters, and men of hope and service do, or perhaps we may wear motley at the year's end, and who wears motley, you know), have got me afore in this disguise, determining here to lie in ambuscado, and intercept him in the mid-way. If I can but get his cloke, his purse, and his hat, nay, any thing to cut him off, that is, to stay his journey, Veni, vidi, vici, I may say with captain Caesar, I am made for ever, i'faith. Well, now I must practise to get the true garb of one of these lance-knights, my arm here, and my--Odso! my young master, and his cousin, master Stephen, as I am true counterfeit man of war, and no soldier! Enter E. KNOWELL and STEPHEN. E. Know. So, sir! and how then, coz? Step. 'Sfoot! I have lost my purse, I think. E. Know. How! lost your purse? where? when had you it? Step. I cannot tell; stay. Brai. 'Slid, I am afraid they will know me: would I could get by them! E. Know. What, have you it? Step. No; I think I was bewitched, I-- [Cries. E. Know. Nay, do not weep the loss: hang it, let it go. Step. Oh, it's here: No, an it had been lost, I had not cared, but for a jet ring mistress Mary sent me. E. Know. A jet ring! O the poesie, the poesie? Step. Fine, i'faith. Though Fancy sleep, My love is deep. Meaning, that though I did not fancy her, yet she loved me dearly. E. Know. Most excellent! Step. And then I sent her another, and my poesie was, The deeper the sweeter, I'll be judg'd by St. Peter. E. Know. How, by St. Peter? I do not conceive that. Step. Marry, St. Peter, to make up the metre. E. Know. Well, there the saint was your good patron, he help'd you at your need; thank him, thank him. Brai. I cannot take leave on 'em so; I will venture, come what will. [Comes forward.] Gentlemen, please you change a few crowns for a very excellent blade here? I am a poor gentleman, a soldier, one that, in the better state of my fortunes, scorned so mean a refuge; but now it is the humour of necessity to have it so. You seem to be gentlemen well affected to martial men, else I should rather die with silence, than live with shame: however, vouchsafe to remember it is my want speaks, not myself; this condition agrees not with my spirit-- E. Know. Where hast thou served? Brai. May it please you, sir, in all the late wars of Bohemia, Hungary, Dalmatia, Poland, where not, sir? I have been a poor servitor by sea and land any time this fourteen years, and followed the fortunes of the best commanders in Christendom. I was twice, shot at the taking of Aleppo, once at the relief of Vienna; I have been at Marseilles, Naples, and the Adriatic gulf, a gentleman-slave in the gallies, thrice; where I was most dangerously shot in the head, through both the thighs; and yet, being thus maimed, I am void of maintenance, nothing left me but my scars, the noted marks of my resolution. Step. How will you sell this rapier, friend? Brai. Generous sir, I refer it to your own judgment; you are a gentleman, give me what you please. Step. True, I am a gentleman, I know that, friend; but what though! I pray you say, what would you ask? Brai. I assure you, the blade may become the side or thigh of the best prince in Europe. E. Know. Ay, with a velvet scabbard, I think. Step. Nay, an't be mine, it shall have a velvet scapbard, coz, that's flat; I'd not wear it, as it is, an you would give me an angel, Brai. At your worship's pleasure, sir; nay, 'tis a most pure Toledo. Step. I had rather it were a Spaniard. But tell me, what shall I give you for it? An it had a silver hilt E. Know. Come, come, you shall not buy it: hold, there's a shilling, fellow; take thy rapier. Step. Why, but I will buy it now, because you say so; and there's another shilling, fellow; I scorn to be out-bidden. What, shall I walk with a cudgel, like Higginbottom, and may have a rapier for money. E. Know. You may buy one in the city. Step. Tut! I'll buy this i' the field, so I will: I have a mind to't, because 'tis a field rapier. Tell me your lowest price. E. Know. You shall not buy it, I. say. Step. By this money, but I will, though I give more than 'tis worth. E. Know. Come away, you are a fool. Step. Friend, I am a fool, that's granted; but I'll have it, for that word's sake. Follow me for your money. Brai. At your service, sir. [Exeunt. SCENE III.---Another Part of Moorfields. Enter KNOWELL. Know. I cannot lose the thought yet of this letter, Sent to my son; nor leave t' admire the change Of manners, and the breeding of our youth Within the kingdom, since myself was one--- When I was young, he lived not in the stews Durst have conceived a scorn, and utter'd it, On a gray head; age was authority Against a buffoon, and a man had then A certain reverence paid unto his years, That had none due unto his life: so much The sanctity of some prevail'd for others. But now we all are fallen; youth, from their fear, And age, from that which bred it, good example. Nay, would ourselves were not the first, even parents, That did destroy the hopes in our own children; Or they not learn'd our vices in their cradles, And suck'd in our ill customs with their milk; Ere all their teeth be born, or they can speak, We make their palates cunning; the first words We form their tongues with, are licentious jests: Can it call whore? cry bastard? O, then, kiss it! A witty child! can't swear? the father's darling! Give it two plums. Nay, rather than't shall learn No bawdy song, the mother herself will teach it!--- But this is in the infancy, the days Of the long coat; when it puts on the breeches, It will put off all this: Ay, it is like, When it is gone into the bone already! No, no; this dye goes deeper than the coat, Or shirt, or skin; it stains into the liver, And heart, in some; and, rather than it should not, Note what we fathers do! look how we live! What mistresses we keep! at what expense, In our sons' eyes! where they may handle our gifts, Hear our lascivious courtships, see our dalliance, Taste of the same provoking meats with us, To ruin of our states! Nay, when our own Portion is fled, to prey on the remainder, We call them into fellowship of vice; Bait 'em with the young chamber-maid, to seal, And teach 'em all bad ways to buy affliction. This is one path: but there are millions more, In which we spoil our own, with leading them. Well, I thank heaven, I never yet was he That travell'd with my son, before sixteen, To shew him the Venetian courtezans; Nor read the grammar of cheating I had made, To my sharp boy, at twelve; repeating still The rule, Get money; still, get money, boy; No matter by what means; money will do More, boy, than my lord's letter. Neither have I Drest snails or mushrooms curiously before him, Perfumed my sauces, and taught him how to make them; Preceding still, with my gray gluttony, At all the ord'naries, and only fear'd His palate should degenerate, not his manners. These are the trade of fathers now; however, My son, I hope, hath met within my threshold None of these household precedents, which are strong, And swift, to rape youth to their precipice. But let the house at home be ne'er so clean Swept, or kept sweet from filth, nay dust and cobwebs, If he will live abroad with his companions, In dung and leystals, it is worth a fear; Nor is the danger of conversing less Than all that I have mention'd of example. Enter BRAIN WORM, disguised as before. Brai. My master! nay, faith, have at you; I am flesh'd now, I have sped so well. [Aside.] Worshipful sir, I beseech you, respect the estate of a poor soldier; lam ashamed of this base course of life,--God's my comfort--but extremity provokes me to't: what remedy? Know. I have not for you, now. Brai. By the faith I bear unto truth, gentleman, it is no ordinary custom in me, but only to preserve manhood. I protest to you, a man I have been: a man I may be, by your sweet bounty. Know. Pray thee, good friend, be satisfied. Brai. Good sir, by that hand, you may do the part of a kind gentleman, in lending a poor soldier the price of two cans of beer, a matter of small value: the king of heaven shall pay you, and I shall rest thankful: Sweet worship-- Know. Nay, an you be so importunate Brai. Oh, tender sir! need will have its course: I was not made to this vile use. Well, the edge of the enemy could not have abated me so much: it's hard when a man hath served in his prince's cause, and be thus. [Weeps.] Honourable worship, let me derive a small piece of silver from you, it shall not be given in the course of time. By this good ground, I was fain to pawn my rapier last night for a poor supper; I had suck'd the hilts long before, am a pagan else: Sweet honour-- Know. Believe me, I am taken with some wonder, To think a fellow of thy outward presence, Should, in the frame and fashion of his mind, Be so degenerate, and sordid-base. Art thou a man? and sham'st thou not to beg, To practise such a servile kind of life? Why, were thy education ne'er so mean, Having thy limbs, a thousand fairer courses Offer themselves to thy election. Either the wars might still supply thy wants, Or service of some virtuous gentleman, Or honest labour; nay, what can I name, But would become thee better than to beg: But men of thy condition feed on sloth, As cloth the beetle on the dung she breeds in; Nor caring how the metal of your minds Is eaten with the rust of idleness. Now, afore me, whate'er he be, that should Relieve a person of thy quality, While thou insist'st in this loose desperate course, I would esteem the sin not thine, but his. Brai. Faith, sir, I would gladly find some other course, if so--- Know. Ay, You'd gladly find it, but you will not seek it. Brai. Alas, sir, where should a man seek? in the wars; there's no ascent by desert in these days; but--and for service, would it were as soon purchased, as wished for! the air's my comfort.--- [Sighs.]---l know what I would say. Know. What's thy name? Brai. Please you, Fitz-Sword, sir. Know. Fitz-Sword! Say that a man should entertain thee now, Wouldst thou be honest, humble, just, and true? Brai. Sir, by the place and honour of a soldier--- Know. Nay, nay, I like not these affected oaths; speak plainly, man, what think'st thou of my words? Brai. Nothing, sir, but wish my fortunes were as happy as my service should be honest. Know. Well, follow me; I'll prove thee, if thy deeds Will carry a proportion to thy words. [Exit. Brai. Yes, sir, straight; I'll but garter my hose. Oh that my belly were hoop'd now, for I am ready to burst with laughing! never was bottle or bagpipe fuller. 'Slid, was there ever seen a fox in years to betray himself thus! now shall I be possest of all his counsels; and, by that conduit, my young master. Well, he is resolved to prove my honesty; faith, and I'm resolved to prove his patience: Oh, I shall abuse him intolerably. This small piece of service will bring him clean out of love with the soldier for ever. He will never come within the sign of it, the sight of a cassock, or a musket-rest again. He will hate the musters at Mile-end for it, to his dying day. It's no matter, let the world think me a bad counterfeit, if I cannot give him the slip at an instant: why, this is better than to have staid his journey: well, I'll follow him. Oh, how I long to be employed! [Exit. ACT III SCENE I.-The Old Jewry. A Room in the Windmill Tavern. Enter Master MATHEW, WELLBRED, and BOBADILL. Mat. Yes, faith, sir, we were at your lodging to seek you too. Wel; Oh, I came not there to-night. Bob. Your brother delivered us as much. Wel. Who, my brother Downright? Bob. He. Mr. Wellbred, I know not in what kind you hold me; but let me say to you this: as sure as honour, I esteem it So much out of the sunshine of reputation, to throw the least beam of regard upon such a-- Wel. Sir, I must hear no ill words of my brother. Bob. I protest to you, as I have a thing to be saved about me, I never saw any gentlemanlike part-- Wel. Good captain, faces about to some other discourse. Bob. With your leave, sir, an there were no more men living upon th' face of the earth, I should not fancy him, by St. George! Mat. Troth, nor I; he is of a rustical cut, I know not how: he doth not carry himself like a gentleman of fashion. Wel. Oh, master Mathew, that's a grace peculiar but to a few, quos aequus amavit Jupiter. Mat. I understand you, sir. Wel. No question, you do,--or do you not, sir. Enter E. KNOWELL and Master STEPHEN. Ned Knowell! by my soul, welcome: how dost thou, sweet spirit, my genius? 'Slid, I shall love Apollo and the mad Thespian girls the better, while I live, for this, my dear Fury; now, I see there's some love in thee. Sirrah, these be the two I writ to thee of: nay, what a drowsy humour is this now! why dost thou not speak? E. Know. Oh, you are a fine gallant; you sent me a rare letter. Wel. Why, was't not rare? E. Know. Yes, I'll be sworn, I was ne'er guilty of reading the like; match it in all Pliny, or Symmachus's epistles, and I'll have my judgment burn'd in the ear for a rogue: make much of thy vein, for it is inimitable. But I marle what camel it was, that had the carriage of it; for, doubtless, he was no ordinary beast that brought it. Wel. Why? E. Know. Why, say'st thou! why, dost thou think that any reasonable creature, especially in the morning, the sober time of the day too, could have mistaken my father for me? Wel. 'Slid, you jest, I hope. E. Know. Indeed, the best use we can turn it to, is to make a jest on't; now: but I'll assure you, my father had the full view of your flourishing style some hour before I saw it. Wel. What a dull slave was this! but, sirrah, what said he to it, i'faith? E. Know. Nay, I know not what he said; but I have a shrewd guess what he thought. Wel. What, what? E. Know. Marry, that thou art some strange, dissolute young fellow, and I--a grain or two better, for keeping thee company. Wel. Tut! that thought is like the moon in her last quarter, 'twill change shortly: but, sirrah, I pray thee be acquainted with my two hang-by's here; thou wilt take exceeding pleasure in them if thou hear'st 'em once go; my wind-instruments; I'll wind them up--But what strange piece of silence is this, the sign of the Dumb Man? E. Know. Oh, sir, a kinsman of mine, one that may make your music the fuller, an he please; he has his humour, sir. Wel. Oh, what is't, what is't? E. Know. Nay, I'll neither do your judgment nor his folly that wrong, as to prepare your apprehension: I'll leave him to the mercy of your search; if you can take him, so! Wel. Well, captain Bobadill, master Mathew, pray you know this gentleman here; he is a friend of mine, and one that will deserve your affection. I know not your name, sir, [to Stephen.] but I shall be glad of any occasion to render me more familiar to you. Step. My name is master Stephen, sir; I am this gentleman's own cousin, sir; his father is mine uncle, sir: I am somewhat melancholy, but you shall command me, sir, in whatsoever is incident to a gentleman. Bob. Sir, I must tell you this, I am no general man; but for master Wellbred's sake, (you may embrace it at what height of favour you please,) I do communicate with you, and conceive you to be a gentleman of some parts; I love few words. E. Know. And I fewer, sir; I have scarce enough to thank you. Mat. But are you, indeed, sir, so given to it? Step. Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy. Mat. Oh, it's your only fine humour, sir: your true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, diver times, sir, and then do I no more but take pen and paper, presently, and overflow you half a score, or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting. E. Know. Sure he utters them then by the gross. [Aside. Step. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure. E. Know. I'faith, better than in measure, I'll undertake. Mat. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study, it's at your service. Step. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold I warrant you; have you a stool there to be melancholy upon? Mat. That I have, sir, and some papers there of mine own doing, at idle hours, that you'll say there's some sparks of wit in 'em, when you see them, Wel. Would the sparks would kindle once, and become a fire amongst them! I might see self-love burnt for her heresy. [Aside. Step. Cousin, is it well? am I melancholy enough? E. Know, Oh ay, excellent. Wel. Captain Bobadill, why muse you so? E. Know. He is melancholy too. Bob. Faith, sir, I was thinking of a most honourable piece of service, was performed to-morrow, being St. Mark's day, shall be some ten years now. E. Know. In what place, captain? Bob. Why, at the beleaguering of Strigonium, where, in less than two hours, seven hundred resolute gentlemen, as any were in Europe, lost their lives upon the breach. I'll tell you, gentlemen, it was the first, but the best leaguer that ever I beheld with these eyes, except the taking in of--what do you call it?--last year, by the Genoways; but that, of all other, was the most fatal and dangerous exploit that ever I was ranged in, since I first bore arms before the face of the enemy, as I am a gentleman and a soldier! Step. So! I had as lief as an angel I could swear as well as that gentleman. E. Know. Then, you were a servitor at both, it seems; at Strigonium, and what do you call't? Bob. O lord, sir! By St. George, I was the first man that entered the breach; and had I not effected it with resolution, I had been slain if I had had a million of lives. E. Know. 'Twas pity you had not ten; a cat's and your own, i'faith. But, was it possible? Mat. Pray you mark this discourse, sir. Step. So I do. Bob. I assure' you, upon my reputation, 'tis true, and you shall confess. E. Know. You must bring me to the rack, first. [Aside. Bob. Observe me judicially, sweet sir; they had planted me three demi-culverins just in the mouth of the breach; now, sir, as we were to give on, their master-gunner (a man of no mean skill and mark, you must think,) confronts me with his linstock, ready to give fire; I, spying his intendment, discharged my petronel in his bosom, and with these single arms, my poor rapier, ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance, and put them pell-mell, to the sword. Wel. To the sword! To the rapier, captain. E. Know. Oh, it was a good figure observed, sir: but did you all this, captain, without hurting your blade? Bob. Without any impeach O' the earth: you shall perceive, sir. [Shews his rapier.] It is the most fortunate weapon that ever rid on poor gentleman's thigh. Shall I tell you, sir? You talk of Morglay, Excalibur, Durindana, or so; tut! I lend no credit to that is fabled of 'em: I know the virtue of mine own, and therefore I dare the boldlier maintain it. Step. I marle whether it be a Toledo or no. Bob. A most perfect Toledo, I assure you, sir. Step. I have a countryman of his here. Mat. Pray you, let's see, sir; yes, faith, it is. Bob. This a Toledo! Pish! Step. Why do you pish, captain? Bob. A Fleming, by heaven! I'll buy them for a guilder a-piece. An I would have a thousand of them. E. Know. How say you, cousin? I told you thus much. Wel. Where bought you it, master Stephen? Step. Of a scurvy rogue soldier: a hundred of lice go with him! He swore it was a Toledo. Bob. A poor provant rapier, no better. Mat. Mass, I think it be indeed, now I look on't better. E. Know. Nay, the longer you look on't, the worse. Put it up, put it up. Step. Well, I will put it up; but by--I have forgot the captain's oath, I thought to have sword! by it,--an e'er I meet him-- Wel. O, it is past help now, sir; you must have patience. Step. Whoreson, coney-hatching rascal! I could eat the very hilts for anger. E. Know. A sign of good digestion; you have an ostrich stomach, Cousin. Step. A stomach! would I had him here, you should see an I had a stomach. Wel. It's better as it is.--Come, gentlemen, shall we go? Enter BRAINWORM, disguised as before. E. Know. A miracle, cousin; look here, look here! Step. Oh--'Od's lid. By your leave, do you know me, sir? Brai. Ay, sir, I know you by sight. Step. You sold me a rapier, did you not? Brai. Yes, marry did I, sir. Step. You said it was a Toledo, ha? Brai. True, I did so. Step. But it is none. Brai. No, sir, I confess it; it is none. Step. Do you confess it? Gentlemen, bear witness, he has confest it:--'Od's will, an you had not confest it.=== E. Know. Oh, cousin, forbear, forbear! Step. Nay, I have done, cousin. Wel. Why, you have done like a gentleman; he has confest it, what would you more? Step. Yet, by his leave, he is a rascal, under his favour, do you see. E. Know. Ay, by his leave, he is, and under favour: a pretty piece of civility! Sirrah, how dost thou like him? Wel. Oh, it's a most precious fool, make much on him: I can compare him to nothing more happily than a drum; for every one may play upon him. E. Know. No, no, a child's whistle were far the fitter. Brai. Shall I intreat a word with you? E. Know. With me, sir? you have not another Toledo to sell, have you? Brai. You are conceited, sir: Your name is Master Knowell, as I take it? E. Know. You are in the right; you mean not to proceed in the catechism, do you? Brai. No, sir; I am none of that coat. E. Know. Of as bare a coat, though: well, say, sir. Brai. [taking E. Know. aside.] Faith, sir, I am but servant to the drum extraordinary, and indeed, this smoky varnish being washed off, and three or four patches removed, I appear your worship's in reversion, after the decease of your good father, Brainworm. E. Know. Brainworm'! 'Slight, what breath of a conjurer hath blown thee hither in this shape? Brai. The breath of your letter, sir, this morning; the same that blew you to the Windmill, and your father after you. E. Know. My father! Brai. Nay, never start, 'tis true; he has followed you over the fields by the foot, as you would do a hare in the snow. E. Know. Sirrah Wellbred, what shall we do, sirrah? my father is come over after me. Wel. Thy father! Where is he? Brai. At justice Clement's house, in Coleman-street, where he but stays my return; and then-- Wel. Who's this? Brainworm! Brai. The same, sir. Wel. Why how, in the name of wit, com'st thou transmuted thus? Brai. Faith, a device, a device; nay, for the love of reason, gentlemen, and avoiding the danger, stand not here; withdraw, and I'll tell you all. Wel. But art thou sure he will stay thy return? Brai. Do I live, sir? what a question is that! Wel. We'll prorogue his expectation, then, a little: Brainworm, thou shalt go with us.--Come on, gentlemen.==-Nay, I pray thee, sweet Ned, droop not; 'heart, an our wits be so wretchedly dull, that one old plodding brain can outstrip us all, would we were e'en prest to make porters of, and serve out the remnant of our days in Thames-street, or at Custom-house key, in a civil war against the carmen! Brai. Amen, amen, amen, say I. [Exeunt. SCENE II---The Old Jewry. KITELY'S Warehouse. Enter KITELY and CASH. Kit. What says he, Thomas? did you speak with him? Cash. He will expect you, sir, within this half hour. Kit. Has he the money ready, can you tell? Cash. Yes, sir, the money was brought in last night. Kit. O, that is well; fetch me my cloak, my cloak!--- [Exit Cash. Stay, let me see, an hour to go and come; Ay, that will be the least; and then 'twill be An hour before I can dispatch with him, Or very near; well, I will say two hours. Two hours! ha! things never dreamt of yet, May be contrived, ay, and effected too, In two hours' absence; well, I will not go. Two hours! No, fleering Opportunity, I will not give your subtilty that scope. Who will not judge him worthy to be robb'd, That sets his doors wide open to a thief, And shews the felon where his treasure lies? Again, what earthly spirit but will attempt To taste the fruit of beauty's golden tree, When leaden sleep seals up the dragon's eyes? I will not go. Business, go by for once. No, beauty, no; you are of too good caract, To be left so, without a guard, or open, Your lustre, too, 'll inflame at any distance, Draw courtship to you, as a jet doth straws; Put motion in a stone, strike fire from ice, Nay, make a porter leap you with his burden. You must be then kept up, close, and well watch'd, For, give you opportunity, no quick-sand Devours or swallows swifter! He that lends His wife, if she be fair, or time or place, Compels her to be false. I will not go! The dangers are too many;---and then the dressing Is a most main attractive! Our great heads Within this city never were in safety Since our wives wore these little caps: I'll change 'em; I'll change 'em straight in mine: mine shall no more Wear three-piled acorns, to make my horns ake. Nor will I go; I am resolved for that. Re-enter CASH with a cloak. Carry in my cloak again. Yet stay. Yet do, too: I will defer going, on all occasions. Cash. Sir, Snare, your scrivener, will be there with the bonds. Kit. That's true: fool on me! I had clean forgot it; I must go. What's a clock? Cash. Exchange-time, sir. Kit. 'Heart, then will Wellbred presently be here too, With one or other of his loose consorts. I am a knave, if I know what to say, What course to take, or which way to resolve. My brain, methinks, is like an hour-glass, Wherein my imaginations run like sands, Filling up time; but then are turn'd and turn'd: So that I know not what to stay upon, And less, to put in act.---It shall be so. Nay, I dare build upon his secrecy, He knows not to deceive me.---Thomas! Cash. Sir. Kit. Yet now I have bethought me too, I will not.--- Thomas, is Cob within? Cash. I think he be, sir. Kit. But he'll prate too, there is no speech of him. No, there were no man on the earth to Thomas, If I durst trust him; there is all the doubt. But should he have a clink in him, I were gone. Lost in my fame for ever, talk for th' Exchange! The manner he hath stood with, till this present, Doth promise no such change: what should I fear then? Well, come what will, I'll tempt my fortune once. Thomas---you may deceive me, but, I hope--- Your love to me is more--- Cash. Sir, if a servant's Duty, with faith, may be call'd love, you are More than in hope, you are possess'd of it. Kit. I thank you heartily, Thomas: give me your hand: With all my heart, good Thomas. I have, Thomas, A secret to impart unto you---but, When once you have it, I must seal your lips up; So far I tell you, Thomas. Cash. Sir, for that--- Kit. Nay, hear me out. Think I esteem you, Thomas, When I will let you in thus to my private. It is a thing sits nearer to my crest, Than thou art 'ware of, Thomas; if thou should'st Reveal it, but--- Cash. How, I reveal it? Kit. Nay, I do not think thou would'st; but if thou should'st, 'Twere a great weakness. Cash. A great treachery: Give it no other name. Kit. Thou wilt not do't, then? Cash. Sir, if I do, mankind disclaim me ever! Kit. He will not swear, he has some reservation, Some conceal'd purpose, and close meaning sure; Else, being urg'd so much, how should he choose But lend an oath to all this protestation? He's no precisian, that I'm certain of, Nor rigid Roman Catholic: he'll play At fayles, and tick-tack; I have heard him swear. What should I think of it? urge him again, And by some other way! I will do so. Well, Thomas, thou hast sworn not to disclose:--- Yes, you did swear? Cash. Not yet, sir, but I will, Please you--- Kit. No, Thomas, I dare take thy word, But, if thou wilt swear, do as thou think'st; good; I am resolv'd without It; at thy pleasure. Cash. By my soul's safety then, sir, I protest, My tongue shall ne'er take knowledge of a word Deliver'd me in nature of your trust. Kit. It is too much; these ceremonies need not: I know thy faith to be as firm as rock. Thomas, come hither, near; we cannot be Too private in this business. So it is,--- Now he has sworn, I dare the safelier venture. [Aside. I have of late, by divers observations--- But whether his oath can bind him, yea, or no, Being not taken lawfully? ha! say you? I will ask council ere I do proceed:---- [Aside. Thomas, it will be now too long to stay, I'll spy some fitter time soon, or to-morrow. Cash. Sir, at your pleasure. Kit. I will think:-and, Thomas, I pray you search the books 'gainst my return, For the receipts 'twixt me and Traps. Cash. I will, sir. Kit. And hear you, if your mistress's brother, Wellbred, Chance to bring hither any gentleman, Ere I come back, let one straight bring me word. Cash. Very well, sir. Kit. To the Exchange, do you hear? Or here in Coleman-street, to justice Clement's. Forget it not, nor be not out of the way. Cash. I will not, sir. Kit. I pray you have a care on't. Or, whether he come or no, if any other, Stranger, or else; fail not to send me word. Cash. I shall not, sir. Kit. Be it your special business Now to remember it. Cash. Sir, I warrant you. Kit. But, Thomas, this is not the secret, Thomas, I told you of. Cash. No, sir; I do suppose it. Kit. Believe me, it is not. Cash. Sir, I do believe you. Kit. By heaven it is not, that's enough: but, Thomas, I would not you should utter it, do you see, To any creature living; yet I care not. Well, I must hence. Thomas, conceive thus much; It was a trial of you, when I meant So deep a secret to you, I mean not this, But that I have to tell you; this is nothing, this. But, Thomas, keep this from my wife, I charge you, Lock'd up in silence, midnight, buried here.--- No greater hell than to be slave to fear. [Exit. Cash. Lock'd up in silence, midnight, buried here! Whence should this flood of passion, trow, take head? ha! Best dream no longer of this running humour, For fear I sink; the violence of the stream Already hath transported me so far, That I can feel no ground at all: but soft--- Oh, 'tis our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now. Enter COB, hastily. Cob. Fasting-days! what tell you me of fasting days? 'Slid, would they were all on a light fire for me! they say the whole world shall be consumed with fire one day, but would I had these Ember-weeks and villanous Fridays burnt in the mean time, and then-- Cash. Why, how now, Cob? what moves thee to this choler, ha? Cob. Collar, master Thomas! I scorn your collar, I, sir; I am none O' your cart-horse, though I carry and draw water. An you offer to ride me with your collar or halter either, I may hap shew you a jade's trick, sir. Cash. O, you'll slip your head out of the collar? why, goodman Cob, you mistake me. Cob. Nay, I have my rheum, and I can be angry as well as another, sir. Cash. Thy rheum, Cob! thy humour, thy humour--thou misstak'st. Cob. Humour! mack, I think it be so indeed; what is that humour? some rare thing, I warrant. Cash. Marry I'll tell thee, Cob: it is a gentlemanlike monster, bred in the special gallantry of our time, by affectation; and fed by folly. Cob. How! must it be fed? Cash. Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed: didst thou never hear that? it's a common phrase, feed my humour. Cob. I'll none on it: humour, avaunt! I know you not, be gone! let who will make hungry meals for your monstership, it shall not be I. Feed you, quoth he! 'slid, I have much ado to feed myself; especially on these lean rascally days too; an't had been any other day but a fasting-day--a plague on them all for me! By this light, one might have done the commonwealth good service, and have drown'd them all in the flood, two or three hundred thousand years ago. O, I do stomach them hugely. I have a maw now, and 'twere for sir Bevis his horse, against them. Cash. I pray thee, good Cob, what makes thee so out of love with fasting days? Cob. Marry, that which will make any man out of love with 'em, I think; their bad conditions, an you will needs know. First they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for they raven up more butter than all the days of the week beside; next, they stink of fish and leek-porridge miserably; thirdly, they'll keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him supperless to bed. Cash. Indeed, these are faults, Cob. Cob. Nay, an this were all, 'twere something; but they are the only known enemies to my generation. A fasting-day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to wrack; poor cobs! they smoak for it, they are made martyrs O' the gridiron, they melt in passion: and your maids to know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal, and eat my own flesh and blood. My princely coz, [pulls out a red herring] fear nothing; I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made as rich as king Cophetua. O that I had room for my tears, I could weep salt-water enough now to preserve the lives of ten thousand thousand of my kin! But I may curse none but these filthy almanacks; for an't were not for them, these days of persecution would never be known. I'll be hang'd an some fish-monger's son do not make of 'em, and puts in more fasting-days than he should do, because he would utter his father's dried stock--fish and stinking conger. Cash. 'Slight peace! thou'lt be beaten like a stock-fish else: here's master Mathew. Enter WELLIBRED, E. KNOWELL, BRAINWORM, MATHEW, BOBADILL, and STEPHEN. Now must I look out for a messenger to my master. [Exit with Cob. Wel, Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried! E. Know. Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well, did it not? Wel. Yes, faith; but was it possible thou shouldst not know him? I forgive master Stephen, for he is stupidity itself. E. Know. 'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd patten with one of the seven wise masters for knowing him. He had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor infantry, your decayed; ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round; such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your provost and his half-dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney-pace to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a shove-groat shilling. Into the likeness of one of these reformados had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as, varying the accent, swearing with an emphasis, indeed, all with so special and exquisite a grace, that, hadst thou seen him, thou wouldst have sworn he might have been sergeant-major, if not lieutenant-colonel to the regiment. Wel. Why, Brainworm, who would have thought thou hadst been such an artificer? E. Know. An artificer! an architect. Except a man had studied begging all his life time, and been a weaver of language from his infancy for the cloathing of it, I never saw his rival. Wel. Where got'st thou this coat, I marle? Brai. Of a Hounsditch man, sir, one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker. Wel. That cannot be, if the proverb hold; for 'A crafty knave needs no broker.' Brai. True, sir; but I did need a broker, ergo-- Wel. Well put off:--no crafty knave, you'll say. E. Know. Tut, he has more of these shifts. Brai. And yet, where I have one the broker has ten, sir. Reenter CASH Cash. Francis! Martin! ne'er a one to be found now? what a spite's this! Wel. How now, Thomas? Is my brother Kitely within? Cash. No, sir, my master went forth e'en now; but master Downright is within.--Cob! what, Cob! Is he gone too? Wel. Whither went your master, Thomas, canst thou tell? Cash. I know not: to justice Clement's, I think, sir--Cob! [Exit E. Know. Justice Clement! what's he? Wel. Why, dost thou not know him? He is a city-magistrate, a justice here, an excellent good lawyer, and a great scholar; but the only mad, merry old fellow in Europe. I shewed him you the other day. E. Know. Oh, is that he? I remember him now. Good faith, and he is a very strange presence methinks; it shews as if he stood out of the rank from other men: I have heard many of his jests in the University. They say he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse. Wel. Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or serving of God; any thing, indeed, if it come in the way of his humour. Re-enter CASH. Cash. Gasper! Martin! Cob! 'Heart, where should they be trow? Bob. Master Kitely's man, pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match. [Exit. Cash. Fire on your match! no time but now to vouchsafe?--Francis! Cob! Bob. Body O' me! here's the remainder of seven pound since yesterday was seven-night. 'Tis your right Trinidado: did you never take any master Stephen? Step. No, truly, sir; but I'll learn to take it now, since you commend it so. Bob. Sir, believe me, upon my relation for what I tell you, the world shall not reprove. I have been in the Indies, where this herb grows, where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen more of my knowledge, have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only: therefore, it cannot be, but 'tis most divine. Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind; so, it makes an antidote, that, had you taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should expel it, and clarify you, with as much ease as I speak. And for your green wound,--your Balsamum and your St. John's wort, are all mere gulleries and trash to it, especially your Trinidado: your Nicotian is good too. I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the expulsion of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quack-salver. Only thus much; by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it before any prince in Europe, to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man. E. Know. This speech would have done decently in a tobacco-trader's mouth. Re-enter CASH with COB. Cash. At justice Clement's he is, in the middle of Coleman-street. Cob. Oh, oh! Bob. Where's the match I gave thee, master Kitely's man? Cash. Would his match and he, and pipe and all, were at Sancto Domingo! I had forgot it. [Exit. Cob. 'Od's me, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them, they say, will never scape it; he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco pipe: why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane or rosaker. [Bobadill beats him. All. Oh, good captain, hold, hold! Bob. You base cullion, you! Re-enter CASH. Cash. Sir, here's your match. Come, thou must needs be talking too, thou'rt well enough served. Cob. Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you: well, it shall be a dear beating, an I live. Bob. Do you prate, do you murmur? E. Know. Nay, good captain, will you regard the humour of a fool? Away, knave. Wel. Thomas, get him away. [Exit Cash with Cob. Bob. A whoreson filthy slave, a dung-worm, an excrement! Body O' Caesar, but that I scorn to let forth so mean a spirit, I'd have stabb'd him to the earth. Wel. Marry, the law forbid, sir! Bob. By Pharaoh's foot, I would have done it. Step. Oh, he swears most admirably! By Pharaoh's foot! Body O' Caesar!--I shall never do it, sure. Upon mine honour, and by St. George!--No, I have not the right grace. Mat. Master Stephen, will you any? By this air, the most divine tobacco that ever I drunk. [Practises at the post. As I am a gentleman! By-- [Exeunt Bob. and Mat. Step. None, I thank you, sir. O, this gentleman does it rarely, too: but nothing like the other. By this air! Brai. [pointing to Master Stephen.] Master, glance, glance! master Wellbred! Step. As I have somewhat to be saved, I protest-- Wel. You are a fool; it needs no affidavit. E. Know. Cousin, will you any tobacco? Step. I, sir! Upon my reputation-- E. Know. How now, cousin! Step. I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier, indeed-- Wel. No, master Stephen! As I remember, your name is entered in the artillery-garden. Step. Ay, sir, that's true. Cousin, may I swear, as I am a soldier, by that? E. Know. O yes, that you may; it is all you have for your money. Step. Then, as I am a gentleman, and a soldier, it is "divine tobacco!" Wel. But soft, where's master Mathew! Gone? Brai. No, sir; they went in here. Wel. O let's follow them: master Mathew is gone to salute his mistress in verse; we shall have the happiness to hear some of his poetry now; he never comes unfinished.--Brainworm! Step. Brainworm! Where? Is this Brainworm? E. Know. Ay, cousin; no words of it, upon your gentility. Step. Not I, body of me! By this air! St. George! and the foot of Pharaoh! Wel. Rare! Your cousin's discourse is simply drawn out with oaths. E. Know. 'Tis larded with them; a kind of French dressing, if you love it. [Exeunt. SCENE III-Coleman-Street. A Room in Justice CLEMENT'S House. Enter KITELY and COB. Kit. Ha! how many are there, say'st thou? Cob. Marry, sir, your brother, master Wellbred-- Kit. Tut, beside him: what strangers are there, man? Cob. Strangers? let me see, one, two; mass; I know not well,-- there are so many. Kit. How! so many? Cob. Ay, there's some five or six of them at the most. Kit. A swarm, a swarm! Spite of the devil...how they sting my head With forked stings, thus wide and large! But, Cob, How long hast thou been coming hither, Cob? Cob. A little while, sir. Kit. Didst thou come running? Cob. No, sir. Kit. Nay, then I am familiar with thy haste. Bane to my fortunes! what meant I to marry? I, that before was rank'd in such content, My mind at rest too, in so soft a peace, Being free master of mine own free thoughts, And now become a slave? What! never sigh; Be of good cheer, man; for thou art a cuckold: 'Tis done, 'tis done! Nay, when such flowing-store, Plenty itself, falls into my wife's lap, The cornucopiae will be mine, I know.--But, Cob, What entertainment had they? I am sure My sister and my wife would bid them welcome: ha? Cob. Like enough, sir; yet I heard not a word of it. Kit. No; Their lips were seal'd with kisses, and the voice, Drown'd in a flood of joy at their arrival, Had lost her motion, state and faculty.-- Cob, Which of them was it that first kiss'd my wife, My sister, I should say?--My wife, alas! I fear not her: ha! who was it say'st thou? Cob. By my troth, sir, will you have the truth of it? Kit. Oh, ay, good Cob, I pray thee heartily. Cob. Then I am a vagabond, and fitter for Bridewell than your worship's company, if I saw any body to be kiss'd, unless they would have kiss'd the post in the middle of the warehouse; for there I left them all at their tobacco, with a pox! Kit. How! were they not gone in then ere thou cam'st? Cob. O no, sir. Kit. Spite of the devil! what do I stay here then? Cob, follow me. [Exit. Cob. Nay, soft and fair; I have eggs on the spit; I cannot go yet, sir. Now am I, for some five and fifty reasons, hammering, hammering revenge: oh for three or four gallons of vinegar, to sharpen my wits! Revenge, vinegar revenge, vinegar and mustard revenge! Nay, an he had not lien in my house, 'twould never have grieved me; but being my guest, one that, I'll be sworn, my wife has lent him her smock off her back, while his own shirt has been at washing; pawned her neck-kerchers for clean bands for him; sold almost all my platters, to buy him tobacco; and he to turn monster of ingratitude, and strike his lawful host! Well, I hope to raise up an host of fury for't: here comes justice Clement. Enter Justice CLEMENT, KNOWELL, and FORMAL. Clem. What's master Kitely gone, Roger? Form. Ay, sir. Clem. 'Heart O' me! what made him leave us so abruptly?--How now, sirrah! what make you here? what would you have, ha? Cob. An't please your worship, I am a poor neighbour of your worship's-- Clem. A poor neighbour of mine! Why, speak, poor neighbour. Cob. I dwell, sir, at the sign of the Water-tankard, hard by the Green Lattice: I have paid scot and lot there any time this eighteen years. Clem. To the Green Lattice? Cob. No, sir, to the parish: Marry, I have seldom scaped scot-free at the Lattice. Clem. O, well; what business has my poor neighbour with me? Cob. An't like your worship, I am come to crave the peace of your worship. Clem. Of me, knave! Peace of me, knave! Did I ever hurt thee, or threaten thee, or wrong thee, ha? Cob. No, sir; but your worship's warrant for one that has wrong'd me, sir: his arms are at too much liberty, I would fain have them bound to a treaty of peace, an my credit could compass it with your worship. Clem. Thou goest far enough about for't, I am sure. Kno. Why, dost thou go in danger of thy life for him, friend? Cob. No, sir; but I go in danger of my death every hour, by his means; an I die within a twelve-month and a day, I may swear by the law of the land that he killed me. Clem. How, how, knave, swear he killed thee, and by the law? What pretence, what colour hast thou for that? Cob. Marry, an't please your worship, both black and blue; colour enough, I warrant you. I have it here to shew your worship. Clem. What is he that gave you this, sirrah? Cob. A gentleman and a soldier, he says, he is, of the city here. Clem. A soldier of the city! What call you him? Cob. Captain Bobadill. Clem. Bobadill! and why did he bob and beat you, sirrah? How began the quarrel betwixt you, ha? speak truly, knave, I advise you. Cob. Marry, indeed, an't please your worship, only because I spake against their vagrant tobacco, as I came by them when they were taking on't; for nothing else. Clem. Ha! you speak against tobacco? Formal, his name. Form. What's your name, sirrah? Cob. Oliver, sir, Oliver Cob, sir. Clem. Tell Oliver Cob he shall go to the jail, Formal. Form. Oliver Cob, my master, justice Clement, says you shall go to the jail. Cob. O, I beseech your worship, for God's sake, dear master justice! Clem. 'Sprecious! an such drunkards and tankards as you are, come to dispute of tobacco once, I have done: away with him! Cob, O, good master justice! Sweet old gentleman! [To Knowell. Know. "Sweet Oliver," would I could do thee any good!--justice Clement, let me intreat you, sir. Clem. What! a thread-bare rascal, a beggar, a slave that never drunk out of better than piss-pot metal in his life! and he to deprave and abuse the virtue of an herb so generally received in the courts of princes, the chambers of nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers!--Roger, away with him! 'Od's precious--I say, go to. Cob. Dear master justice, let me be beaten again, I have deserved it: but not the prison, I beseech you. Know. Alas, poor Oliver! Clem. Roger, make him a warrant:--he shall not go, but I fear the knave. Form. Do not stink, sweet Oliver, you shall not go; my master will give you a warrant. Cob. O, the Lord maintain his worship, his worthy worship! Clem. Away, dispatch him. [Exeunt Formal and Cob;] How now, master Knowell, in dumps, in dumps! Come, this becomes not. Know. Sir, would I could not feel my cares. Clem. Your cares are nothing: they are like my cap, soon put on, and as soon put off. What! your son is old enough to govern himself: let him run his course, it's the only way to make him a staid man. If he were an unthrift, a ruffian, a drunkard, or a licentious liver, then you had reason; you had reason to take care: but, being none of these, mirth's my witness, an I had twice so many cares as you have, I'd drown them all in a cup of sack. Come, come, let's try it: I muse your parcel of a soldier returns not all this while. [Exeunt. ACT IV SCENE I---A Room in KITELY'S House. Enter DOWNRIGTIT and Dame KITELY. Dow. Well, sister, I tell you true; and you'll find it so in the end. Dame K. Alas, brother, what would you have me to do? I cannot help it; you see my brother brings them in here; they are his friends. Dow. His friends! his fiends. 'Slud! they do nothing but haunt him up and down like a sort of unlucky spirits, and tempt him to all manner of villainy that can be thought of. Well, by this light, a little thing would make me play the devil with some of them: an 'twere not more for your husband's sake than anything else, I'd make the house too hot for the best on 'em; they should say, and swear, hell were broken loose, ere they went hence. But, by God's will, 'tis nobody's fault but yours; for an you had done as you might have done, they should have been parboiled, and baked too, every mother's son, ere they should have come in, e'er a one of them. Dame K. God's my life! did you ever hear the like? what a strange man is this! Could I keep out all them, think you? I should put myself against half a dozen men, should I? Good faith, you'd mad the patien'st body in the world; to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason. Enter Mistress BRIDGET, Master MATHEW, and BOBADILL; followed, at a distance, by WELLBRED, E. KNOWELL, STEPHEN, and BRAINWORM. Brid. Servant, in troth you are too prodigal Of your wit's treasure, thus fu pour it forth Upon so mean a subject as my worth. Mat. You say well, mistress, and I mean as well. Dow. Hoy-day, here is stuff! Wel. O, now stand close; pray Heaven, she can get him to read! he should do it of his own natural impudency. Brid. Servant, what is this same, I pray you? Mat. Marry, an elegy, an elegy, an odd toy-- Dow. To mock an ape withal! O, I could sew up his mouth, now. Dame K. Sister, I pray you let's hear it. Dow. Are you rhyme-given too? Mat. Mistress, I'll read it if you please. Brid. Pray you do, servant. Dow. O, here's no foppery! Death! I can endure the stocks better. [Exit. E. Know. What ails thy brother? can he not hold his water at reading of a ballad? Wel. O, no; a rhyme fu him is worse than cheese, or a bag-pipe; but mark; you lose the protestation. Mat. Faith, I did it in a humour; I know not how it is; but please you come near, sir. This gentleman has judgment, he knows how to censure of a--pray you, sir, you can judge? Step. Not I, sir; upon my reputation, and by the foot of Pharaoh! Wel. O, chide your cousin for swearing. E. Know. Not I, so long as he does not forswear himself. Bob. Master Mathew, you abuse the expectation of your dear mistress, and her fair sister: fie! while you live avoid this prolixity. Mat. I shall, sir, well; incipere dulce. E. Know. How, insipere duke! a sweet thing to be a fool, indeed! Wel. What, do you take incipere in: that sense? E. Know. You do not, you! This was your villainy, to gull him with a motte. Wel. O, the benchers' phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba! Mat. Rare creature, let me speak without offence, Would God my rude words had the influence To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine, Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine. E. Know. This is Hero and Leander. Wel. O, ay: peace, we shall have more of this. Mat. Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff Is of behaviour boisterous and rough. Wel. How like you that, sir? [Master Stephen shakes his head. E. Know. 'Slight, he shakes his head like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it. Mat. But observe the catastrophe, now: And I in duty will exceed all other, As you in beauty do excel Love's mother. E. Know. Well, I'll have him free of the wit-brokers, for he utters nothing but stolen remnants. Wel. O, forgive it him. E. Know. A filching rogue, hang him!---and from the dead! it's worse than sacrilege. WELLBRED, E. KNOWELL, and Master STEPHEN, come forward. Wel. Sister, what have you here, verses? pray you let's see: who made these verses? they are excellent good. Mat. O, Master Wellbred, 'tis your disposition to say so, sir. They were good in the morning: I made them ex tempore this morning. Wel. How! ex tempore? Mat. Ay, would I might be hanged else; ask Captain Bobadill: he saw me write them, at the--pox on it!--the Star, yonder. Brai. Can he find in his heart to curse the stars so? E. Know. Faith, his are even with him; they have curst him enough already. Step. Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses? E. Know. O, admirable! the best that ever I heard, coz. Step. Body O' Caesar, they are admirable! the best that I ever heard, as I am a soldier! Re-enter DOWNRIGHT. Dow. I am vext, I can hold ne'er a bone of me still: 'Heart, I think they mean to build and breed here. Wet. Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns your beauty with such encomiums and devices; you may see what it is to be the mistress of a wit, that can make your perfections so transparent, that every blear eye may look through them, and see him drowned over head and ears in the deep well of desire: Sister Kitely. I marvel you get you not a servant that can rhyme, and do tricks too. Dow. O monster! impudence itself! tricks! Dame K. Tricks, brother! what tricks? Brid. Nay, speak, I pray you what tricks? Dame K. Ay, never spare any body here; but say, what tricks. Brid. Passion of my heart, do tricks! Wel. 'Slight, here's a trick vied and revied! Why, you monkeys, you, what a cater-wauling do you keep! has he not given you rhymes and verses and tricks? Dow. O, the fiend! Wel. Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff so, come, and cherish this tame poetical fury in your servant; you'll be begg'd else shortly for a concealment: go to, reward his muse. You cannot give him less than a shilling in conscience, for the book he had it out of cost him a teston at least. How now, gallants! Master Mathew! Captain! what, all sons of silence, no spirit? Dow. Come, you might practise your ruffian tricks somewhere else, and not here, I wuss; this is no tavern or drinking-school, to vent your exploits in. Wel. How now; whose cow has calved? Dow. Marry, that has mine, sir. Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter; I'll tell you of it, I, sir; you and your companions mend yourselves when I have done. Wel. My companions! Dow. Yes, sir, your companions, so I say; I am not afraid of you, nor them neither; your hang-byes here. You must have your poets and your potlings, your soldados and foolados to follow you up and down the city; and here they must come to domineer and swagger. Sirrah, you ballad-singer, and slops your fellow there, get you out, get you home; or by this steel, I'll cut off your ears, and that presently. Wel. 'Slight, stay, let's see what he dare do; cut off his ears! cut a whetstone. You are an ass, do you see; touch any man here, and by this hand I'll run my rapier to the hilts in you. Dow. Yea, that would I fain see, boy. [They all draw. Dame K. O Jesu! murder! Thomas! Gasper! Brid. Help, help! Thomas! Enter CASH and some of the house to part them. E. Know. Gentlemen, forbear, I pray' you. Bob. Well, sirrah, you Holofernes; by my hand, I will pink your flesh full of holes with my rapier for this; I will, by this good heaven! nay, let him come, let him come, gentlemen; by the body of St. George, I'll not kill him. [Offer to fight again, and are parted. Gash. Hold, hold, good gentlemen. Dow. You whoreson, bragging coystril! Enter KITELY. Kit. Why, how now! what's the matter, what's the stir here? Whence springs the quarrel? Thomas! where is he? Put up your weapons, and put off this rage: My wife and sister, they are the cause of this. What, Thomas! where is the knave? Gash. Here, sir. Wel. Come, let's go: this is one of my brother's ancient humours, this. Step. I am glad nobody was hurt by his ancient humour. [Exeunt Wellbred, Stephen, E. Knowell, Bobadill, and Brainworm. Kit. Why, how now, brother, who enforced this brawl? Dow. A sort of lewd rake-hells, that care neither for God nor the devil And they must come here to read ballads, and roguery, and trash! I'll mar the knot of 'em ere I sleep, perhaps; especially Bob there, he that's all manner of shapes: and songs and sonnets, his fellow. Brid. Brother, indeed you are too violent, Too sudden in your humour: and you know My brother Wellbred's temper will not bear Any reproof, chiefly in such a presence, Where every slight disgrace he should receive Might wound him in opinion and respect. Dow. Respect! what talk you of respect among such, as have no spark of manhood, nor good manners? 'Sdeins, I am ashamed to hear you'! respect! [Exit. Brid. Yes, there was one a civil gentleman, And very worthily demeaned himself. Kit. O, that was some love of yours, sister. Brid. A love of mine! I would it were no worse, brother; You'd pay my portion sooner than you think for. Dame K. Indeed he seem'd to be a gentleman of a very exceeding fair disposition, and of excellent good parts. [Exeunt Dame Kitely and Bridget. Kit. Her love, by heaven! my wife's minion. Fair disposition! excellent good parts! Death! these phrases are intolerable. Good parts! how should she know his parts? His parts! Well, well, well, well, well, well; It is too plain, too clear: Thomas, come hither. What, are they gone? Cash. Ay, sir, they went in. My mistress and your sister-- Kit. Are any of the gallants within? Cash. No, sir, they are all gone. Kit. Art thou sure of it---? Cash. I can assure you, sir. Kit. What gentleman was that they praised so, Thomas? Cash. One, they call him Master Knowell, a handsome young gentleman, sir. Kit. Ay, I thought so; my mind gave me as much: I'll die, but they have hid him in the house, Somewhere, I'll go and search; go with me, Thomas: Be true to me, and thou shalt find me a master. [Exeunt. SCENE II.---The Lane before COB'S House. Enter COB Cob. [knocks at the door.] What, Tib! Tib, I say! Tib. [within.] How now, what cuckold is that knocks so hard? Enter Tib. O, husband! is it you? What's the news? Cob. Nay, you have stunn'd me, i'faith; you have, given me a knock O' the forehead will stick by me. Cuckold! 'Slid, cuckold! Tib. Away, you fool! did I know it was you that knocked? Come, come, you may call me as bad when you list. Cob. May I? Tib, you are a whore. Tib. You lie in your throat, husband. Cob. How, the lie! and in my throat tool do you long to be stabb'd, ha? Tib. Why, you are no soldier, I hope. Cob. O, must you be stabbed by a soldier? Mass, that's true! when was Bobadill here, your captain? that rogue, that foist, that fencing Burgullion? I'll tickle him, i'faith. Tib. Why, what's the matter, trow? Cob. O, he has basted me rarely, sumptuously! but I have it here in black and white, [pulls out the warrant.] for his black and blue shall pay him. O, the justice, the honestest old brave Trojan in London; I do honour the very flea of his dog. A plague on him, though, he put me once in a villanous filthy fear; marry, it vanished away like the smoke of tobacco; but I was smoked soundly first. I thank the devil, and his good angel, my guest. Well, wife, or Tib, which you will, get you in, and lock the door; I charge you let nobody in to you, wife; nobody in to you; those are my words: not Captain Bob himself, nor the fiend in his likeness. You are a woman, you have flesh and blood enough in you to be tempted; therefore keep the door shut upon all comers. Tib. I warrant you, there shall nobody enter here without my consent. Cob. Nor with your consent, sweet Tib; and so I leave you. Tib. It's more than you know, whether you leave me so. Cob. How? Tib. Why, sweet. Cob. Tut, sweet or sour, thou art a flower. Keep close thy door, I ask no more. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-A Room in the Windmill Tavern. Enter E. KNOWELL, WELLBRED, STEPHEN, and BRAINWORM, disguised as before. E. Know. Well, Brainworm, perform this business happily, and thou makest a purchase of my love for ever. Wel. I'faith, now let thy spirits use their best faculties: but, at any hand, remember the message to my brother; for there's no other means to start him. Brai. I warrant you, sir; fear nothing; I have a nimble soul has waked all forces of my phant'sie by this time, and put them in true motion. What you have possest me withal, I'll discharge it amply, sir; make it no question. [Exit. Wel. Forth, and prosper, Brainworm. Faith, Ned, how dost thou approve of my abilities in this device? E. Know. Troth, well, howsoever; but it will come excellent if it take. Wel. Take, man! why it cannot choose but take, if the circumstances miscarry not: but, tell me ingenuously, dost thou affect my sister Bridget as thou pretend'st? E. Know. Friend, am I worth belief? Wel. Come, do not protest. In faith, she is a maid of good ornament, and much modesty; and, except I conceived very worthily of her, thou should'st not have her. E. Know. Nay, that I am afraid, will be a question yet, whether I shall have her, or no. Wel. 'Slid, thou shalt have her; by this light thou shalt. E. Know. Nay, do not swear. Wel. By this hand thou shalt have her; I'll go fetch her presently. 'Point but where to meet, and as I am an honest man I'll bring her. E. Know. Hold, hold, be temperate. Wel. Why, by--what shall I swear by? thou shalt have her, as I am-- E. Know. Praythee, be at peace, I am satisfied; and do believe thou wilt omit no offered occasion to make my desires complete. Wel. Thou shalt see, and know, I will not. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-The Old Jewry. Enter FORMAL and KNOWELL. Form. Was your man a soldier, sir? Know. Ay, a knave I took him begging O' the way, this morning, As I came over Moorfields. Enter BRAINWORM. disguised as before. O, here he is!---you've made fair speed, believe me, Where, in the name of sloth, could you be thus? Brai. Marry, peace be my comfort, where I thought I should have had little comfort of your worship's service. Know. How so? Brai. O, sir, your coming to the city, your entertainment of me, and your sending me to watch---indeed all the circumstances either of your charge, or my employment, are as open to your son, as to yourself. Know. How should that be, unless that villain, Brainworm, Have told him of the letter, and discover'd All that I strictly charg'd him to conceal? 'Tis so. Brai. I am partly O' the faith, 'tis so, indeed. Know. But, how should he know thee to be my man? Brai. Nay, sir, I cannot tell; unless it be by the black art. Is not your son a scholar, sir? Know. Yes, but I hope his soul is not allied Unto such hellish practice: if it were, I had just cause to weep my part in him, And curse the time of his creation. But, where didst thou find them, Fitz-Sword? Brai. You should rather ask where they found me, sir; for I'll be sworn, I was going along in the street, thinking nothing, when, of a sudden, a voice calls, Mr. Knowell's man! another cries, Soldier! and thus half a dozen of them, till they had call'd me within a house, where I no sooner came, but they seem'd men, and out flew all their rapiers at my bosom, with some three or four score oaths to accompany them; and all to tell me, I was but a dead man, if I did not confess where you were, and how I was employed, and about what; which when they could not get out of me, (as, I protest, they must have dissected, and made an anatomy of me first, and so I told them,) they lock'd me up into a room in the top of a high house, whence by great miracle (having a light heart) I slid down by a bottom of packthread into the street, and so 'scaped. But, sir, thus much I can assure you, for I heard it while I was lock'd up, there were a great many rich merchants and brave citizens' wives with them at a feast; and your son, master Edward, withdrew with one of them, and has 'pointed to meet her anon at one Cob's house a water-bearer that dwells by the Wall. Now, there your worship shall be sure to take him, for there he preys, and fail he will not. Know. Nor will I fail to break his match, I doubt not. Go thoualong with justice Clement's man, And stay there for me. At one Cob's house, say'st thou? Brai. Ay, sir, there you shall have him. [Exit Knowell.] Yes-- invisible! Much wench, or much son! 'Slight, when he has staid there three or four hours, travailing with the expectation of wonders, and at length be deliver'd of air! O the sport that I should then take to look on him, if I durst! But now, I mean to appear no more afore him in this shape: I have another trick to act yet. O that I were so happy as to light on a nupson now of this justice's novice!--Sir, I make you stay somewhat long. Form. Not a whit, sir. Pray you what do you mean, sir? Brai. I was putting up some papers. Form. You have been lately in the wars, sir, it seems. Brai. Marry have I, sir, to my loss, and expense of all, almost. Form. Troth, sir, I would be glad to bestow a bottle of wine on you, if it please you to accept it-- Brai, O, sir Form. But to hear the manner of your services, and your devices in the wars; they say they be very strange, and not like those a man reads in the Roman histories, or sees at Mile-end. Brai. No, I assure you, sir; why at any time when it please you, I shall be ready to discourse to you all I know;--and more too somewhat. [Aside. Form. No better time than now, sir; we'll go to the Windmill: there we shall have a cup of neat grist, we call it. I pray you, sir, let me request you to the Windmill. Brai. I'll follow you, sir;--and make grist of you, if I have good luck. [Aside.] [Exeunt. SCENE V.-Moorfields. Enter MATHEW, E. KNOWELL, BOBADILL, and STEPHEN. Mat. Sir, did your eyes ever taste the like clown of him where we were to-day, Mr. Wellbred's half-brother? I think the whole earth cannot shew his parallel, by this daylight. E. Know. We were now speaking of him: captain Bobadill tells me he is fallen foul of you too. Mat. O, ay, sir, he threatened me with the bastinado. Bob. Ay, but I think, I taught you prevention this morning, for that: You shall kill him beyond question; if you be so generously minded. Mat. Indeed, it is a most excellent trick. [Fences. Bob: O, you do not give spirit enough to your motion, you are too tardy, too heavy! O, it must be done like lightning, hay! [Practises at a post with his cudgel. Mat. Rare, captain! Bob. Tut! 'tis nothing, an't be not done in a--punto. E. Know. Captain, did you ever prove yourself upon any of our masters of defence here? Mat. O good sir! yes, I hope he has. Bob. I will tell you, sir. Upon my first coming to the city, after my long travel for knowledge, in that mystery only, there came three or four of them to me, at a gentleman's house, where it was my chance to be resident at that time, to intreat my presence at their schools: and withal so much importuned me, that I protest to you, as I am a gentleman, I was ashamed of their rude demeanour out of all measure: Well, I told them that to come to a public school, they should pardon me, it was opposite, in diameter, to my humour; but if so be they would give their attendance at my lodging, I protested to do them what right or favour I could, as I was a gentleman, and so forth. E. Know. So, sir! then you tried their skill? Bob. Alas, soon tried: you shall hear, sir. Within two or three days after, they came; and, by honesty, fair sir, believe me, I graced them exceedingly, shewed them some two or three tricks of prevention have purchased them since a credit to admiration: they cannot deny this; and yet now they hate me, and why? because I am excellent; and for no other vile reason on the earth. E. Know. This is strange and barbarous, as ever I heard. Bob. Nay, for a more instance of their preposterous natures; but note; sir. They have assaulted me some three, four, five, six of them together, as I have walked alone in divers skirts it'll town, as Turnbull, Whitechapel, Shoreditch, which were then my quarters; and since, upon the Exchange, at my lodging, and at my ordinary: where I have driven them afore me the whole length of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying to hurt them, believe me. Yet all this lenity will not overcome their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure. By myself, I could have slain them all, but I delight not in murder. I am loth to bear any other than this bastinado for them: yet I hold it good polity not to go disarmed, for though I be skilful, I may be oppressed with multitudes. E. Know. Ay, believe me, may you, sir: and in my conceit, our whole nation should sustain the loss by it, if it were so. Bob. Alas, no? what's a peculiar man to a nation? not seen. E. Know. O, but your skill, sir. Bob. Indeed, that might be some loss; but who respects it? I will tell you, sir, by the way of private, and under seal; I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to her majesty and the lords,--observe me,--I would undertake, upon this poor head and life, for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of her subjects in general; but to save the one half, nay, three parts of her yearly charge in holding war, and against what enemy soever. And how would I do it, think you? E. Know. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive. Bob. Why thus, sir. I would select nineteen more, to myself. throughout the land; gentlemen they should be of good spirit, strong and able constitution; I would choose them by an instinct, a character that I have: and I would teach these nineteen the special rules, as your punto, your reverso, your stoccata, your imbroccato, your passada, your montanto; till they could all play very near, or altogether as well as myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong, we twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or thereabouts; and we would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not in their honour refuse us: Well, we would kill them; challenge twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill every man his twenty a day, that's twenty score; twenty score that's two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a thousand: forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty, two hundred days kills them all up by computation. And this will I venture my poor gentlemanlike carcase to perform, provided there be no treason practised upon us, by fair and discreet manhood; that is, civilly by the sword. E. Know. Why, are you so sure of your hand, captain, at all times? Bob. Tut! never miss thrust, upon my reputation with you. E. Know. I would not stand in Downright's state then, an you meet him, for the wealth of anyone street in London. Bob. Why, sir, you mistake me: if he were here now, by this welkin, I would not draw my weapon on him. Let this gentleman do his mind: but I will bastinado him, by the bright sun, wherever I meet him. Mat. Faith, and I'll have a fling at him, at my distance. E. Know. 'Od's, so, look where he is! yonder he goes. [Downright crosses the stage. Dow. What peevish luck have I, I cannot meet with these bragging rascals? Bob. It is not he, is it? E. Know. Yes, faith, it is he. Mat. I'll be hang'd then if that were he. E. Know. Sir, keep your hanging good for some greater matter, for I assure you that were he. Step. Upon my reputation, it was he. Bob. Had I thought it had been he, he must not have gone so: but I can hardly be induced to believe it was he yet. E. Know. That I think, sir. Re-enter DOWNRIGHT. But see, he is come again. Dow. O, Pharaoh's foot, have I found you? Come, draw to your tools; draw, gipsy, or I'll thrash you. Bob. Gentleman of valour, I do believe in thee; hear me-- Dow. Draw your weapon then. Bob. Tall man, I never thought on it till now--Body of me, I had a warrant of the peace served on me, even now as I came along, by a water-bearer; this gentleman saw it, Master Mathew. Dow. 'Sdeath! you will not draw then? [Disarms and beats him. Mathew runs away. Bob. Hold, hold! under thy favour forbear! Dow. Prate again, as you like this, you whoreson foist you! You'll control the point, you! Your consort is gone; had he staid he had shared with you, sir. [Exit. Bob. Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the peace, by this good day. E. Know. No, faith, it's an ill day, captain, never reckon it other: but, say you were bound to the peace, the law allows you to defend yourself: that will prove but a poor excuse. Bob. I cannot tell, sir; I desire good construction in fair sort. I never sustain'd the like disgrace, by heaven! sure I was struck with a planet thence, for I had no power to touch my weapon. E. Know. Ay, like enough; I have heard of many that have been beaten under a planet: go, get you to a surgeon. 'Slid! an these be your tricks, your passadoes, and your montantos, I'll none of them. [Exit Bobadill.] O, manners! that this age should bring forth such creatures! that nature should be at leisure to make them! Come, coz. Step. Mass, I'll have this cloak. E. Know. 'Od's will, 'tis Downright's. Step. Nay, it's mine now, another might have ta'en it up as well: I'll wear it, so I will. E. Know. How an he see it? he'll challenge it, assure yourself. Step. Ay, but he shall not have it: I'll say I bought it. E. Know. Take heed you buy it not too dear, coz. [Exeunt. SCENE IV.-A Room in KITELY'S House. Enter KITELY, WELLBRED, Dame KITELY, and BRIDGET, Kit. Now, trust me, brother, you were much to blame, T' incense his anger, and disturb the peace Of my poor house, where there are sentinels That every minute watch to give alarms Of civil war, without adjection Of your assistance or occasion. Wel. No harm done, brother, I warrant you: since there is no harm done, anger costs a man nothing; and a tall man is never his own man till he be angry. To keep his valour in obscurity, is to keep himself as it were in a cloak bag. What's a musician, unless he play? What's a tall man unless he fight? For, indeed, all this my wise brother stands upon absolutely; and that made me fall in with him so resolutely. Dame K. Ay, but what harm might have come of it, brother? Wel. Might, sister? so might the good warm clothes your husband wears be poisoned, for any thing he knows: or the wholesome wine he drank, even now at the table. Kit. Now, God forbid! O me! now I remember My wife drank to me last, and changed the cup, And bade me wear this cursed suit to-day. See, if Heaven suffer murder undiscover'd! I feel me ill; give me some mithridate, Some mithridate and oil, good sister, fetch me: O, I am Sick at heart, I burn. I burn. If you will save my life, go fetch it me. Wel. O strange humour! my very breath has poison'd him. Brid. Good brother be content, what do you mean? The strength of these extreme conceits will kill you. Dame K. Beshrew your heart, blood, brother Wellbred, now, For putting such a toy into his head! Wel. Is a fit simile a toy? will he be poison'd with a simile? Brother Kitely, what a strange and idle imagination is this! For shame, be wiser. O' my soul there's no such matter. Kit. Am I not sick? how am I then not poison'd? Am I not poison'd? how am I then so sick? Dame K. If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick. Wel. His jealousy is the poison he has taken. Enter BRAINWORM, disguised in FORMAL'S clothes. Brai. Master Kitely, my master, justice Clement salutes you; and desires to speak with you with all possible speed. Kit. No time but now, when I think I am sick, very sick! well, I will wait upon his worship. Thomas! Cob! I must seek them out, and set them sentinels till I return. Thomas! Cob! Thomas! [Exit. Wel. This is perfectly rare, Brainworm; [takes him aside.] but how got'st thou this apparel of the justice's man? Brai. Marry, sir, my proper fine pen-man would needs bestow the grist on me, at the Windmill, to hear some martial discourse; where I so marshall'd him, that I made him drunk with admiration; and, because too much heat was the cause of his distemper, I stript him stark naked as he lay along asleep, and borrowed his suit to deliver this counterfeit message in, leaving a rusty armour, and an old brown bill to watch him till my return; which shall be, when I have pawn'd his apparel, and spent the better part O' the money, perhaps. Wel. Well, thou art a successful merry knave, Brainworm: his absence will be a good subject for more mirth. I pray thee return to thy young master, and will him to meet me and my sister Bridget at the Tower instantly; for here, tell him the house is so stored with jealousy, there is no room for love to stand up'right in. We must get our fortunes committed to some larger prison, say; and than the Tower, I know no better air, nor where the liberty of the house may do us more present service. Away. Exit Brai. Re-enter KITELY, talking aside to CASH. Kit. Come hither, Thomas. Now my secret's ripe, And thou shalt have it: lay to both thine ears. Hark what I say to thee. I must go forth, Thomas; Be careful of thy promise, keep good watch, Note every gallant, and observe him well, That enters in my absence to thy mistress: If she would shew him rooms, the jest is stale, Follow them, Thomas, or else hang on him, And let him not go after; mark their looks; Note if she offer but to see his band, Or any other amorous toy about him; But praise his leg, or foot: or if she say The day is hot, and bid him feel her hand, How hot it is; O, that's a monstrous thing! Note me all this, good Thomas, mark their sighs, And if they do but whisper, break 'em off: I'll bear thee out in it. Wilt thou do this? Wilt thou be true, my Thomas? Cash. As truth's self, sir. Kit. Why, I believe thee: Where is Cob, now? Cob! [Exit. Dame K. He's ever calling for Cob: I wonder how he employs Cob so. Wel. Indeed, sister, to ask how he employs Cob, is a necessary question for you that are his wife, and a thing not very easy for you to be satisfied in; but this I'll assure you, Cob's wife is an excellent bawd, sister, and oftentimes your husband haunts her house; marry, to what end? I cannot altogether accuse him; imagine you what you think convenient: but I have known fair hides have foul hearts ere now, sister. Dame K. Never said you truer than that, brother, so much I can tell you for your learning. Thomas, fetch your cloak and go with me. [Exit Gash.] I'll after him presently: I would to fortune I could take him there, i'faith, I'd return him his own, I warrant him! [Exit. Wel. So, let 'em go; this may make sport anon. Now, my fair sister-in-law, that you knew but how happy a thing it were to be fair and beautiful. Brid. That touches not me, brother. Wel. That's true; that's even the fault of it; for indeed, beauty stands a woman in no stead, unless it procure her touching.--But, sister, whether it touch you or no. It touches your beauties; and I am sure they will abide the touch; an they do not, a plague of all ceruse, say I! and it touches me too in part, though not in the--Well, there's a dear and respected friend of mine, sister, stands very strongly and worthily affected toward you, and hath vowed to inflame whole bonfires of zeal at his heart, in honour of your perfections. I have already engaged my promise to bring you where you shall hear him confirm much more. Ned Knowell is the man, sister: there's no exception against the party. You are ripe for a husband; and a minute's loss to such all occasion, is a great trespass in a wise beauty. What say you, sister? On 'my soul he loves you; will you give him the meeting? Brid. Faith, I had very little confidence in mine own constancy, brother, if I durst not meet a man; but this motion of yours savours of an old knight adventurer's servant a little too much, methinks. Wel. What' s that, sister? Brid. Marry, of the squire. Wel. No matter if it did, I would be such an one for my friend. But see, who is return'd to hinder us! Reenter KITELY. Kit. What villainy is this? call'd out on a false message! This was some plot; I was not sent for.---Bridget, Where is your sister? Brid. I think she be gone forth, sir. Kit. How! is my wife gone forth? whither, for God's sake? Brid. She's gone abroad with Thomas. Kit. Abroad with Thomas! Oh, that villain dors me: Beast that I was, to trust him! whither, I pray you, Went she? Brid. I know not, sir. Wel. I'll tell you, brother, Whither I suspect she's gone; Kit. Whither, good brother? Wel. To Cob's house, I believe: but, keep my counsel. Kit. I will, I will: to Cob's house! doth she haunt Cob's? She's gone a purpose now to cuckold me, With that lewd rascal, who, to win her favour, Hath told her all. [Exit. Wel. Come, he is once more gone, Sister, let's lose no time; the affair is worth it. [Exeunt. SCENE VII.---A Street. Enter MATHEW and BOBADILL. Mat. I wonder, captain, what they will say of my going away, ha? Bob. Why, what should they say; but as of a discreet gentleman; quick, wary, respectful of nature's fair lineaments? and that's all. Mat. Why so! but what can they say of your beating? Bob. A rude part, a touch with soft wood, a kind of gross battery used, laid on strongly, borne most patiently; and that's all. Mat. Ay, but would any man have offered it in Venice, as you say? Bob. Tut! I assure you, no: you shall have there your nobilis, your gentilezza, come in bravely upon your reverse, stand you close, stand you firm, stand you fair, save your retricato with his left leg, come to the assalto with the right, thrust with brave steel, defy your base wood! But wherefore do I awake this remembrance? I was fascinated, by Jupiter; fascinated, but I will be unwitch'd and revenged by law. Mat. Do you hear? is it not best to get a warrant, and have him arrested and brought before justice Clement? Bob. It were not amiss; would we had it! Enter BRAINWORM disguised as FORMAL. Mat. Why, here comes his man; let's speak to him. Bob. Agreed, do you speak, Mat. Save you, sir. Brai. With all my heart, sir. Mat. Sir, there is one Downright hath abused this gentleman and myself, and we determine to make our amends by law: now, if you would do us the favour to procure a warrant to bring him afore your master, you shall be well considered, I assure you, sir. Brai. Sir, you know my service is my living; such favours as these gotten of my master is his only preferment, and therefore you must consider me as I may make benefit of my place. Mat. How is that, Sir? Brai. Faith, sir, the thing is extraordinary, and the gentleman may be of great account; yet, be he what he will, if you will lay me down a brace of angels in my hand you shall have it, otherwise not. Mat. How shall we do, captain? he asks a brace of angels, you have no money? Bob. Not a cross, by fortune. Mat. Nor I, as I am a gentleman, but twopence left of my two shillings in the morning for wine and radish: let's find him some pawn. Bob. Pawn! we have none to the value of his demand. Mat. O, yes; I'll pawn this jewel in my ear, and you may pawn your silk stockings, and pull up your boots, they will ne'er be mist: it must be done now. Bob. Well, an there be no remedy, I'll step aside and pull them off. [Withdraws. Mat. Do you hear, sir? we have no store of money at this time, but you shall have good pawns; look you, sir, this jewel, and that gentleman's silk stockings; because we would have it dispatch'd ere we went to our chambers. Brai. I am content, sir; I will get you the What's his name, say you? Downright? Mat. Ay, ay, George Downright. Brai. What manner of man is he? Mat. A tall big man, sir; he goes in a cloak most commonly of silk-russet, laid about with russet lace. Brai. 'Tis very good, sir. Mat. Here, Sir, here's my jewel. Bob. [returning.] And here are my stockings. Brai. Well, gentlemen, I'll procure you this warrant presently; but who will you have to serve it? Mat. That's true, captain: that must be considered. Bob. Body O' me, I know not; 'tis service of danger. Brai. Why, you were best get one O' the varlets of the city, a serjeant: I'll appoint you one, if you please. Mat. Will you, sir? why, we can wish no better. Bob. We'll leave it to you, sir. [Exeunt Bob. and Mat. Brai. This is rare! Now will I go and pawn this cloak of the justice's man's at the broker's, for a varlet's suit, and be the varlet myself; and get either more pawns, or more money of Downright, for the arrest. [Exit. SCENE VIII.-The Lane before COB'S House. Enter KNOWELL. Know. Oh, here it is; I am glad I have found it now; Ho! who is within here? Tib. [within.] I am within, sir; what's your pleasure? Know. To know who is within beside yourself. Tib. Why, sir, you are no constable, I hope? Know. O, fear you the constable? then I doubt not, You have some guests within deserve that fear; I'll fetch him straight. Enter TIB. Tib. O' God's name, sir! Know. Go to: come tell me, is not young Knowell here? Tib. Young Knowell! I know none such, sir, o' mine honesty. Know. Your honesty, dame! it flies too lightly from you. There is no way but fetch the constable. Tib. The constable! the man is mad, I think. [Exit, and claps to the door. Enter Dame KITELY and CASH. Cash. Ho! who keeps house here? Know. O, this is the female copesmate of my son: Now shall I meet him straight. Dame K. Knock, Thomas, hard. Cash. Ho, goodwife! Re-enter TIB. Tib. Why, what's the matter with you? Dame K. Why, woman, grieves it you to ope your door? Belike you get something to keep it shut. Tib. What mean these questions, pray ye? Dame K. So strange you make it! is not my husband here? Know. Her husband! Dame K. My tried husband, master Kitely? Tib. I hope he needs not to be tried here. Dame K. No, dame, he does it not for need, but pleasure. Tib. Neither for need nor pleasure is he here. Know. This is but a device to balk me withal: Enter KITELY, muffled in his cloak. Soft, who is this? 'tis not my son disguised? Dame K. [spies her husband, and runs to him.] O, sir, have I fore-stall'd your honest market, Found your close walks? You stand amazed now, do you? I'faith, I am glad I have smok'd you yet at last. What is your jewel, trow? In, come, let's see her; Fetch forth your housewife, dame; if she be fairer, In any honest judgment, than myself, I'll be content with it: but she is change, She feeds you fat, she soothes your appetite, And you are well! Your wife, an honest woman, Is meat twice sod to you, sir! O, you treachour! Know. She cannot counterfeit thus palpably. Kit. Out on thy more than strumpet impudence! Steal'st thou thus to thy haunts? and have I taken Thy bawd and thee, and thy companion, This hoary-headed letcher, this old goat, Close at your villainy, and would'st thou 'scuse it With this stale harlot's jest, accusing me? O, old incontinent, [to Knowell.] dost thou not shame, When all thy powers in chastity are spent, To have a mind so hot? and to entice, And feed the enticements of a lustful woman? Dame K. Out, I defy thee, I, dissembling wretch! Kit. Defy me, strumpet! Ask thy pander here, Can he deny it; or that wicked elder? Know. Why, hear you, sir. Kit. Tut, tut, tut; never speak: Thy guilty conscience will discover thee. Know. What lunacy is this, that haunts this man? Kit. Well, good wife bawd, Cob's wife, and you, That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy; And you, young apple-squire, and old cuckold-maker; I'll have you every one before a justice: Nay, you shall answer it, I charge you go. Know. Marry, with all my heart, sir, I go willingly; Though I do taste this as a trick put on me, To punish my impertinent search, and justly, And half forgive my son for the device. Kit. Come, will you go? Dame K. Go! to thy shame believe it. Enter Cob. Cob. Why, what's the matter here, 'what's here to do? Kit. O; Cob, art thou come? I have been abused, And in thy house; was never man so wrong'd! Cob. 'Slid, in my house, my master Kitely! who wrongs you in my house? ' Kit. Marry, young lust in old, and old in young here: Thy wife's their bawd, here have I taken them. Cob. How, bawd! is my house come to that? Am I preferr'd thither? Did I not charge you to keep your doors shut, Isbel? and---you let them lie open for all comers! [Beats his wife. Know. Friend, know some cause, before thou beat'st thy wife. This is madness in thee. Cob. Why, is there no cause? Kit. Yes, I'll shew cause before the justice, Cob: Come, let her go with me. Cob. Nay, she shall go. Tib. Nay, I will go. I'll see an you may be allowed to make a bundle of hemp of your right and lawful wife thus, at every cuckoldy knave's pleasure. Why do you not go? Kit. A bitter quean! Come, we will have you tamed. [Exeunt. SCENE IX.---A Street. Enter BRAINWORM, disguised as a City Serjeant. Brai. Well, of all my disguises yet, now am I most like myself, being in this serjeant's gown. A man of my present profession never counterfeits, till he lays hold upon a debtor, and says, he rests him; for then he brings him to all manner of unrest. A kind of little kings we are, bearing the diminutive of a mace, made like a young artichoke, that always carries pepper and salt in itself. Well, I know not what danger I undergo by this exploit; pray Heaven I come well off! Enter MATHEW and BOBADILL. Mat. See, I think, yonder is the varlet, by his gown. Bob. Let's go in quest of him. Mat. 'Save you, friend! 'are not you here by appointment of justice Clement's man? Brai. Yes, an't please you, sir; he told me, two gentlemen had will'd him to procure a warrant from his master, which I have about me, to be served on one Downright. Mat. It is honestly done of you both; and see where the party comes you must arrest; serve it upon him quickly afore he be aware. Bob. Bear back, master Mathew. Enter STEPHEN in DOWNRIGHT'S cloak. Brai. Master Downright, I arrest you in the queen's name, and must carry you afore a justice by virtue of this warrant: Step. Me, friend! I am no Downright, I; I am master Stephen; You do not well to arrest me, I tell you, truly; I am in nobody's bonds nor books, I would you should know it. A plague on you heartily, for making me thus afraid afore my time! Brai. Why, now you are deceived, gentlemen. Bob. He wears such a cloak, and that deceived us: but see, here a' comes indeed; this is he; officer. Enter DOWNRIGHT. Dow. Why how now, signior gull! are you turn'd filcher of late! Come, deliver my cloak. Step. Your cloak, sir! I bought it even now, in open market. Brai. Master Downright, I have a warrant I must serve upon you, procured by these two gentlemen. Dow. These gentlemen! these rascals! [Offers to beat them. Brai. Keep the peace, I charge you in her majesty's name. Dow. I obey thee. What must I do, officer? Brai. Go before master justice Clement; to answer that they can object against you, sir: I will use you kindly, sir. Mat. Come, let's before, and make the justice, captain. Bob. The varlet's a tall man, afore heaven! [Exeunt Bob. and Mat. Dow. Gull, you'll give me my cloak. Step. Sir, I bought it, and I'll keep it. Dow. You will? Step. Ay, that I will. Dow. Officer, there's thy fee, arrest him. Brai. Master Stephen I must arrest you. Step. Arrest me! I scorn it. There, take your cloak, I'll none on't. Dow. Nay, that shall not serve your turn now, sir. Officer, I'll go with thee to the justice's; bring him along. Step. Why, is not here your cloak? what would you have? Dow. I'll have you answer it, sir. Brai. Sir, I'll take your word, and this gentleman's too, for his appearance. Dow. I'll have no words taken: bring him along. Brai. Sir, I may choose to do that, I may take bail. Dow. 'Tis true, you may take bail, and choose at another time: but you shall not now, varlet: bring him along, or I'll swinge you. Brai. Sir, I pity the gentleman's case: here's your money again. Dow. 'Sdeins, tell not me of my money; bring him away, I say. Brai. I warrant you he will go with you of himself, sir. Dow. Yet more ado? Brai. I have made a fair mash on't; Aside. Step. Must I go? Brai. I know no remedy, master Stephen. Dow. Come along afore me here; I do not love your hanging look behind. Step. Why, sir, I hope you cannot hang me for it: can he, fellow? Brai. I think not, sir; it is but a whipping matter, sure. [Exeunt. ACT V SCENE I.-Coleman Street. A Hall in Justice CLEMENT'S House. Enter CLEMENT, KNOWELL, KITELY, Dame K., TIB., CASH, COB, and Servants. Step. Why then let him do his worst, I am resolute. Clem. Nay, but stay, stay, give me leave: my chair, sirrah. You, master Knowell, say you went thither to meet your son? Know. Ay, sir. Clem. But who directed you thither? Know. That did mine own man, sir. Clem. Where is he? Know. Nay, I know not now; I left him with your clerk, and appointed him to stay here for me. Clem. My clerk! about what time was this? Know. Marry, between one and two, as I take it. Clem. And what time came my man with the false message to you, master Kitely? Kit. After two, sir. Clem. Very good: but, mistress Kitely, how chance that you were at Cob's, ha? Dame K. An't please you, sir, I'll tell you: my brother Wellbred told me, that Cob's house was a suspected place-- Clem. So it appears, methinks: but on. Dame K. And that my husband used thither daily. Clem. No matter, so he used himself well, mistress. Dame K. True, sir: but you know what grows by such haunts oftentimes. Clem. I see rank fruits of a jealous brain, mistress Kitely: but did you find your husband there, in that case as you suspected? Kit. I found her there, sir. Clem. Did you, so! that alters the case. Who gave you knowledge of your wife's being there? Kit. Marry, that did my brother Wellbred. Clem. How, Wellbred first tell her; then tell you after! Where is Wellbred? Kit. Gone with my sister, sir, I know not whither. Clem. Why this is a mere trick, a device; you are gull'd in this most grossly all. Alas, poor wench! wert thou beaten for this? Tib. Yell, most pitifully, an't please you. Cob. And worthily, I hope, if it shall prove so. Clem. Ay, that's like, and a piece of a sentence.-- Enter a Servant. How now, sir! what's the matter? Serv. Sir, there's a gentleman in the court without, desires to speak with your worship. Clem. A gentleman! what is he? Serv. A soldier, sir, he says. Clem. A soldier! take down my armour, my sword quickly. A soldier speak with me! Why, when, knaves? Come on, come on; [arms himself] hold my cap there, so; give me my gorget, my sword: stand by, I will end your matters anon.--Let the soldier enter. [Exit Servant. Enter BOBADILL, followed by MATHEW. Now, sir, what have you to say to me? Bob. By your worship's favour-- Clem. Nay, keep out, sir; I know not your pretence. You send me word, sir, you are a soldier: why, sir, you shall be answer'd here: here be them that have been amongst soldiers. Sir, your pleasure. Bob. Faith, sir, so it is, this gentleman and myself have been most uncivilly wrong'd and beaten by one Downright, a coarse fellow, about the town here; and for mine own part, I protest, being a man in no sort given to this filthy humour of quarrelling, he hath assaulted me in the way of my peace, despoiled me of mine honour, disarmed me of my weapons, and rudely laid me along in the open streets, when I not so much as once offered to resist him. Clem. O, God's precious! is this the soldier? Here, take my armour off quickly, 'twill make him swoon, I fear; he is not fit to look on't, that will put up a blow. Mat. An't please your worship, he was bound to the peace. Clem. Why, an he were, sir, his hands were not bound, were they? Re-enter Servant. Serv. There's one of the varlets of the city, sir, has brought two gentlemen here; one, upon your worship's warrant. Clem. My warrant! Serv. Yes, sir; the officer says, procured by these two. Clem. Bid him come in. [Exit Servant.] Set by this picture. Enter DOWNRIGHT, STEPHEN, and BRAINWORM, disguised as before. What, Master Downright! are you brought in at Mr. Freshwater's suit here? Dow. I'faith, sir, and here's another brought at my suit. Clem. What are you, sir? Step. A gentleman, sir. O, uncle! Clem. Uncle! who, Master Knowell? Know. Ay, sir; this is a wise kinsman of mine. Step. God's my witness, uncle, I am wrong'd here monstrously, he charges me with stealing of his cloak, and would I might never stir, if I did not find it in the street by chance. Dow. O, did you find it now? You said you bought it erestwhile. Step. And you said, I stole it: nay, now my uncle is here, I'll do well enough with you. Clem. Well, let this breathe awhile. You that have cause to complain there, stand forth: Had you my warrant for this gentleman's apprehension? Bob. Ay, an't please your worship. Clem. Nay, do not speak in passion so: where had you it? Bob. Of your clerk, sir. Clem. That's well! an my clerk can make warrants, and my hand not at them! Where is the warrant-officer, have you it? Brai. No, sir; your worship's man, Master Formal, bid me do it for these gentlemen, and he would be my discharge. Clem. Why, Master Downright, are you such a novice, to be ser'ved and never see the warrant? Dow. Sir, he did not serve it on me. Clem. No! how then? Dow. Marry, sir, he came to me, and said he must serve it, and he would use me kindly, and so-- Clem. O, God's pity, was it so, sir? He must serve it! Give me my long sword there, and help me off. So, come on, sir varlet, I must cut off your legs, sirrah; [Brainworm kneels.] nay, stand up, I'll use you kindly, I must cut off your legs, I say. [Flourishes over him with his long sword. Brai. O, good sir, I beseech you; nay, good master justice! Clem. I must do it, there is no remedy; I must cut off your legs, sirrrah, I must cut off your ears, you rascal, I must do it: I must cut off your nose, I must cut off your head. Brai. O, good your worship! Clem. Well, rise; how dost thou do now? dost thou feel thyself well? hast thou no harm? Brai. No, I thank your good worship, sir. Clem. Why so! I said I must cut off thy legs, and I must cut off thy arms, and I must cut off thy head; but I did not do it: so you said you must serve this gentleman with my warrant, but you did not serve him. You knave, you slave, you rogue, do you say you must, sirrah! away with him to the jail; I'll teach you a trick for your must, sir. Brai. Good sir, I beseech you, be good to me. Clem. Tell him he shall to the jail; away with him, I say. Brai. Nay, sir, if you will commit me, it shall be for committing more than this: I will not lose by my travail any grain of my fame, certain. [Throws off his serjeant's gown. Clem. How is this? Know. My man Brainworm! Step. O, yes, uncle; Brainworm has been with my cousin Edward and I all this day. Clem. I told you all there was some device. Brai. Nay, excellent justice, since I have laid myself thus open to you, now stand strong for me; both with your sword and your balance. Clem. Body O' me, a merry knave! give me a bowl of sack: if he belong to you, Master Knowell, I bespeak your patience. Brai. That is it I have most need of; Sir, if you'll pardon me, only, I'll glory in all the rest of my exploits. Know. Sir, you know I love not to have my favours come hard from me. You have your pardon, though I suspect you shrewdly for being of counsel with my son against me. Brai. Yes, faith, I have, sir, though you retain'd me doubly this morning for yourself: first as Brainworm; after, as Fitz-Sword. I was your reform'd soldier, sir. 'Twas I sent you to Cob's upon the errand without end. Know. Is it possible? or that thou should'st disguise thy language so as I should not know thee? Brai. O, sir, this has been the day of my metamorphosis. It is not that shape alone that I have run through to-day. I brought this gentleman, master Kitely, a message too, in the form of master Justice's man here, to draw him out O' the way, as well as your worship, while master Wellbred might make a conveyance of mistress Bridget to my young master. Kit. How! My sister stolen away? Know. My son is not married, I hope. Brai. Faith, Sir, they are both as sure as love, a priest, and three thousand pound, which is her portion, can make them; and by this time are ready to bespeak their wedding-supper at the Windmill, except some friend here prevent them, and invite them home. Clem. Marry, that will I; I thank thee for putting me in mind on't. Sirrah, go you and fetch them hither upon my warrant. [Exit Servant.] Neither's friends have cause to be sorry, if I know the young couple aright. Here, I drink to thee for thy good news. But I pray thee, what hast thou done with my man, Formal? Brai. Faith, sir, after some ceremony past, as making him drunk, first with story, and then with wine, (but all in kindness,) and stripping him to his shirt, I left him in that cool vein; departed, sold your worship's warrant to these two, pawn'd his livery for that varlet's gown, to serve it in; and thus have brought myself by my activity to your worship's consideration. Clem. And I will consider thee in another cup of sack. Here's to thee, which having drunk off this my sentence: Pledge me. Thou hast done, or assisted to nothing, in my judgment, but deserves to be pardon'd for the wit of the offence. If thy master, or any man here, be angry with thee, I shall suspect his ingine, while I know him, for't. How now, what noise is that? Enter Servant. Serv. Sir, it is Roger is come home. Clem. Bring him in, bring him in. Enter FORMAL in a suit of armour. What! drunk? in arms against me? your reason, your reason for this? Form. I beseech your worship to pardon me; I happened into ill company by chance, that cast me into a sleep, and stript me of all my clothes. Clem. Well, tell him I am Justice Clement, and do pardon him: but what is this to your armour? what may that signify? Form. An't please you, sir, it hung up in the room where I was stript; and I borrow'd it of one of the drawers to come home in, because I was loth to do penance through the street in my shirt. Clem. Well, stand by a while. Enter E. KNOWELL, WELLBRED, and BRIDGET. Who be these? O, the young company; welcome, welcome! Give you joy. Nay, mistress Bridget, blush not; you are not so fresh a bride, but the news of it is come hither afore you. Master bridegroom, I have made your peace, give me your hand: so will I for all the rest ere you forsake my roof. E. Know. We are the more bound to your humanity, sir. Clem. Only these two have so little of man in them, they are no part of my care. Wel. Yes, sir, let me pray you for this gentleman, he belongs to my sister the bride. Clem. In what place, sir? Wel. Of her delight, sir, below the stairs, and in public: her poet, sir. Clem. A poet! I will challenge him myself presently at extempore. Mount up thy Phlegon, Muse, and testify, How Saturn, sitting in an ebon cloud, Disrobed his podex, white as ivory, And through the welkin thunder'd all aloud. Wel. He is not for extempore, sir: he is all for the pocket muse; please you command a sight of it. Clem. Yes, yes, search him for a taste of his vein. [They search Mathew's pockets. Wel. You must not deny the queen's justice, sir, under a writ of rebellion. Clem. What! all this verse? body O' me, he carries a whole realm, a commonwealth of paper in his hose: let us see some of his subjects. [Reads. Unto the boundless ocean of thy face, Runs this poor river, charg'd with streams of eyes. How! this is stolen. E. Know. A parody! a parody! with a kind of miraculous gift, to make it absurder than it was. Clem. Is all the rest of this batch? bring me a torch; lay it together, and give fire. Cleanse the air. [Sets the papers on fire.] Here was enough to have infected the whole city, if it had not been taken in time. See, see, how our poet's glory shines! brighter and brighter! still it increases! O, now it is at the highest; and now it declines as fast. You may see, sic transit gloria mundi! Know. There's an emblem for you, son, and your studies. Clem. Nay, no speech or act of mine be drawn against such as profess it worthily. They are not born every year, as an alderman. There goes more to the making of a good poet, than a sheriff. Master Kitely, you look upon me!--though I live in the city here, amongst you, I will do more reverence to him, when I meet him, than I will to the mayor out of his year. But these paper-pedlars! these ink-dabblers! they cannot expect reprehension or reproach; they have it with the fact, E. Know. Sir, you have saved me the labour of a defence. Clem. It shall be discourse for supper between your father and me, if he dare undertake me. But to dispatch away these, you sign O' the soldier, and picture of the poet, (but both so false, I will not have you hanged out at my door till midnight,) while we are at supper, you two shall penitently fast it out in my court without; and, if you will, you may pray there that we may be so merry within as to forgive or forget you when we come out. Here's a third, because we tender your safety, shall watch you, he is provided for the purpose. Look to your charge, sir. Step. And what shall I do? Clem. O! I had lost a sheep an he had not bleated: why, sir, you shall give master Downright his cloak; and I will intreat him to take it. A trencher and a napkin you shall have in the buttery, and keep Cob and his wife company here; whom I will intreat first to be reconciled; and you to endeavour with your wit to keep them so. Step. I'll do my best. Cob. Why, now I see thou art honest, Tib, I receive thee as my dear and mortal wife again. Tib. And I you, as my loving and obedient husband. Clem. Good compliment! It will be their bridal night too. They are married anew. Come, I conjure the rest to put off all discontent. You, master Downright, your anger; you, master Knowell, your cares; Master Kitely and his wife, their jealousy. For, I must tell you both, while that is fed, Horns in the mind are worse than on the head. Kit. Sir, thus they go from me; kiss me, sweetheart. See what a drove of horns fly in the air, Wing'd with my cleansed and my credulous breath! Watch' em suspicious eyes, watch where they fall. See, see! on heads that think they have none at all! O, what a plenteous world of this will come! When air rains horns, all may be sure of some! I have learn'd so much verse out of a jealous man's part in a play. Clem. 'Tis well, 'tis well! This night we'll dedicate to friendship, love, and laughter. Master bridegroom, take your bride and lead; every one a fellow. Here is my mistress, Brainworm! to whom all my addresses of courtship shall have their reference: whose adventures this day, when our grandchildren shall hear to be made a fable, I doubt not but it shall find both spectators and applause. [Exeunt. GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be--," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you--?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the--," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the--," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of--," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd--him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten--," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "--order," "--waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) --not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to--," into the bargain; "no--," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible--," "angry--," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in--," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt--," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no--," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye--used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no--," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for--," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in--," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder--"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt--," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in--," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking--," "--politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER ("--frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the--," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in--," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for--," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in--" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "--up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "--failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at--," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a--!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first--," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their--es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford)." JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's--," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give--," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make--," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by--," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the--," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy" = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry--in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on--," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the--" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the--," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be--," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be--," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a--," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in--," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go--," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's--," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person--perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a--," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "--of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "--away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in--," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance--hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make--of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's--," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the--," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the--," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it--s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in--," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take--," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the--," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of--," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "--a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a--," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take--," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn--," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish--," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from--," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "--Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the--," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at--," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold--," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the--," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the--for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I--," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("--pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
4011	----	EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres -- well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title -- accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire -- as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy -- there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* [footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said -- though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality -- leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication -- plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works: -- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN TO THE TRULY NOBLE BY ALL TITLES SIR FRANCIS STUART Sir, My hope is not so nourished by example, as it will conclude, this dumb piece should please you, because it hath pleased others before; but by trust, that when you have read it, you will find it worthy to have displeased none. This makes that I now number you, not only in the names of favour, but the names of justice to what I write; and do presently call you to the exercise of that noblest, and manliest virtue; as coveting rather to be freed in my fame, by the authority of a judge, than the credit of an undertaker. Read, therefore, I pray you, and censure. There is not a line, or syllable in it, changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certain hatred of some, how much a man's innocency may be endangered by an uncertain accusation; you will, I doubt not, so begin to hate the iniquity of such natures, as I shall love the contumely done me, whose end was so honourable as to be wiped off by your sentence. Your unprofitable, but true Lover, BEN JONSON. DRAMATIS PERSONAE: MOROSE, a Gentleman that loves no noise. SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE, a Knight, his Nephew. NED CLERIMONT, a Gentleman, his Friend. TRUEWIT, another Friend. SIR JOHN DAW, a Knight. SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE, a Knight also. THOMAS OTTER, a Land and Sea Captain. CUTBEARD, a Barber. MUTE, one of MOROSE's Servants. PARSON. Page to CLERIMONT. EPICOENE, supposed the Silent Woman. LADY HAUGHTY, LADY CENTAURE, MISTRESS DOL MAVIS, Ladies Collegiates. MISTRESS OTTER, the Captain's Wife, MISTRESS TRUSTY, LADY HAUGHTY'S Woman, Pretenders. Pages, Servants, etc. SCENE -- LONDON. PROLOGUE Truth says, of old the art of making plays Was to content the people; and their praise Was to the poet money, wine, and bays. But in this age, a sect of writers are, That, only, for particular likings care, And will taste nothing that is popular. With such we mingle neither brains nor breasts; Our wishes, like to those make public feasts, Are not to please the cook's taste, but the guests'. Yet, if those cunning palates hither come, They shall find guests' entreaty, and good room; And though all relish not, sure there will be some, That, when they leave their seats, shall make them say, Who wrote that piece, could so have wrote a play, But that he knew this was the better way. For, to present all custard, or all tart, And have no other meats, to bear a part. Or to want bread, and salt, were but course art. The poet prays you then, with better thought To sit; and, when his cates are all in brought, Though there be none far-fet, there will dear-bought, Be fit for ladies: some for lords, knights, 'squires; Some for your waiting-wench, and city-wires; Some for your men, and daughters of Whitefriars. Nor is it, only, while you keep your seat Here, that his feast will last; but you shall eat A week at ord'naries, on his broken meat: If his muse be true, Who commends her to you. ANOTHER. The ends of all, who for the scene do write, Are, or should be, to profit and delight. And still't hath been the praise of all best times, So persons were not touch'd, to tax the crimes. Then, in this play, which we present to-night, And make the object of your ear and sight, On forfeit of yourselves, think nothing true: Lest so you make the maker to judge you, For he knows, poet never credit gain'd By writing truths, but things (like truths) well feign'd. If any yet will, with particular sleight Of application, wrest what he doth write; And that he meant, or him, or her, will say: They make a libel, which he made a play. ACT 1. SCENE 1.1. A ROOM IN CLERIMONT'S HOUSE. ENTER CLERIMONT, MAKING HIMSELF READY, FOLLOWED BY HIS PAGE. CLER: Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy? PAGE: Yes, sir. CLER: Let me hear it. PAGE: You shall, sir, but i'faith let nobody else. CLER: Why, I pray? PAGE: It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir; besides me a perfect deal of ill-will at the mansion you wot of, whose lady is the argument of it; where now I am the welcomest thing under a man that comes there. CLER: I think, and above a man too, if the truth were rack'd out of you. PAGE: No, faith, I'll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with me, and throw me on the bed; and carry me in to my lady; and she kisses me with her oil'd face; and puts a peruke on my head; and asks me an I will wear her gown? and I say, no: and then she hits me a blow o' the ear, and calls me Innocent! and lets me go. CLER: No marvel if the door be kept shut against your master, when the entrance is so easy to you--well sir, you shall go there no more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady's rushes, a fortnight hence. Sing, sir. PAGE [SINGS]: Still to be neat, still to be drest-- [ENTER TRUEWIT.] TRUE: Why, here's the man that can melt away his time and never feels it! What between his mistress abroad, and his ingle at home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle; he thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well, sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or condemn'd to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin then to think, and value every article of your time, esteem it at the true rate, and give all for it. CLER: Why what should a man do? TRUE: Why, nothing; or that which, when it is done, is as idle. Harken after the next horse-race or hunting-match; lay wagers, praise Puppy, or Pepper-corn, White-foot, Franklin; swear upon Whitemane's party; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you; visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company. CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; and we'll pray and fast. TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil! CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough. TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still. CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now-- TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons. TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college? CLER: What college? TRUE: As if you knew not! CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday. TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day gain to their college some new probationer. CLER: Who is the president? TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty. CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject. PAGE. [SINGS.] Still to be neat, still to be drest, As you were going to a feast; Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd; Lady, it is to be presumed, Though art's hid causes are not found, All is not sweet, all is not sound. Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free: Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Then all the adulteries of art; They strike mine eyes, but not my heart. TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows; paint, and profess it. CLER: How? publicly? TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor, when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and finish'd. CLER: Well said, my Truewit. TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way. CLER: O prodigy! TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side. CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her. TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie? CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear. TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears. CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man. TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in. CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one. TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous. CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit. TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys. CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flourishing with the air. PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him. He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request. TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells? CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd. And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here! [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.] DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb? TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of. DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him. TRUE: How is that? DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him. TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son? DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry. TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife? CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says. TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none. CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her. TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business? CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that tells Dauphine all here. TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and love no noise! CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of his counsel. TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench? CLER: Yes, that they are. TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither. DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith. TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir; we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without cause, to torment him. DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent. TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot. Innocent!--I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent still. CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where sir John Daw lies. TRUE: You do not mean to confound me! CLER: Why? TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much? CLER: I cannot tell. TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him. CLER: Why? TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw! and he teach her not to speak!--God be wi' you. * I have some business too. CLER: Will you not go thither, then? TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears. CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms. TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance. CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar. TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him! CLER: The world reports him to be very learned. TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him. CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him. TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman. [EXIT HASTILY.] CLER: This is very abrupt! DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus. CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow. DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for secrets. CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily. DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I am for you. CLER: When were you there? DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state. CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy. [EXIT PAGE.] DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin. DAUP: Do you know him? CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose: or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait. DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot. [RE-ENTER PAGE.] CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole. PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name. CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life. DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up. CLER: Boy, marshal him. PAGE: With a truncheon, sir? CLER: Away, I beseech you. [EXIT PAGE.] I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes: with a breath. [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.] LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont! CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence. LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine. CLER: Not so, sir. LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day. CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes? LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company. CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day. LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man. CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast? LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir. PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he? LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land. PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium? LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home. CLER: Then she is captain Otter. LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake. PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex? LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London. CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.] LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south--we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe--but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles--and, we do bear for our coat yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house--but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.--I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:--there will be a great lady, or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis--and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither--and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont--and we'll be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.--I have been a mad wag in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to die.--I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land here, upon ladies:--and now I can take up at my pleasure. DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir? CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd. DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity! LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to, gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not fail--Your servant. [EXIT.] DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall, that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw. CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this? DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it. CLER: Go. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE. MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed, on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?--But with your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise, [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard the barber, to have him come to me? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your head, or shrug. [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come? Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two fingers; if a quarter, one; [MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.] --Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key, to come in without knocking? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and bare? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter. [A HORN WINDED WITHIN.] --How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that? look. [EXIT MUTE.] --[HORN AGAIN.] --Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound, devil can this be? [RE-ENTER MUTE.] MUTE: It is a post from the court-- MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too? MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must speak with you, pain of death-- MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent! [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.] TRUE: By your leave, sir;--I am a stranger here:--Is your name master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your friends at court commend them to you, sir-- MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence? TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir. MOR: Whose knave are you? TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir. MOR: Fetch me my sword-- TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom; and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you, in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir? MOR: How then, rude companion! TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near, wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a beam in the said garret, with this halter [HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]-- which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly, as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might, perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you, sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife. MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage? begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I done, that may deserve this? TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage. MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated your mother, ravished your sisters-- TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had. MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple, for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do. TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay, suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet- meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned, there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters; entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to, and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade you. [MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.] --Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat you. MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin! TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver; have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen, ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never weighs what her pride costs, sir: so she may kiss a page, or a smooth chin, that has the despair of a beard; be a stateswoman, know all the news, what was done at Salisbury, what at the Bath, what at court, what in progress; or, so she may censure poets, and authors, and styles, and compare them, Daniel with Spenser, Jonson with the t'other youth, and so forth: or be thought cunning in controversies, or the very knots of divinity; and have often in her mouth the state of the question: and then skip to the mathematics, and demonstration: and answer in religion to one, in state to another, in bawdry to a third. MOR: O, O! TRUE: All this is very true, sir. And then her going in disguise to that conjurer, and this cunning woman: where the first question is, how soon you shall die? next, if her present servant love her? next, if she shall have a new servant? and how many? which of her family would make the best bawd, male, or female? what precedence she shall have by her next match? and sets down the answers, and believes them above the scriptures. Nay, perhaps she will study the art. MOR: Gentle sir, have you done? have you had your pleasure of me? I'll think of these things. TRUE: Yes sir: and then comes reeking home of vapour and sweat, with going a foot, and lies in a month of a new face, all oil and birdlime; and rises in asses' milk, and is cleansed with a new fucus: God be wi' you, sir. One thing more, which I had almost forgot. This too, with whom you are to marry, may have made a conveyance of her virginity afore hand, as your wise widows do of their states, before they marry, in trust to some friend, sir: who can tell? Or if she have not done it yet, she may do, upon the wedding-day, or the night before, and antedate you cuckold. The like has been heard of in nature. 'Tis no devised, impossible thing, sir. God be wi' you: I'll be bold to leave this rope with you, sir, for a remembrance. Farewell, Mute! [EXIT.] MOR: Come, have me to my chamber: but first shut the door. [TRUEWIT WINDS THE HORN WITHOUT.] O, shut the door, shut the door! is he come again? [ENTER CUTBEARD.] CUT: 'tis I, sir, your barber. MOR: O, Cutbeard, Cutbeard, Cutbeard! here has been a cut-throat with me: help me in to my bed, and give me physic with thy counsel. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 2.2. A ROOM IN SIR JOHN DAW'S HOUSE. ENTER DAW, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE, AND EPICOENE. DAW: Nay, an she will, let her refuse at her own charges: 'tis nothing to me, gentlemen: but she will not be invited to the like feasts or guests every day. CLER: O, by no means, she may not refuse--to stay at home, if you love your reputation: 'Slight, you are invited thither o' purpose to be seen, and laughed at by the lady of the college, and her shadows. This trumpeter hath proclaim'd you. [ASIDE TO EPICOENE.] DAUP: You shall not go; let him be laugh'd at in your stead, for not bringing you: and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling and talking loud, to satisfy the company. [ASIDE TO EPICOENE.] CLER: He will suspect us, talk aloud.--'Pray, mistress Epicoene, let us see your verses; we have sir John Daw's leave: do not conceal your servant's merit, and your own glories. EPI: They'll prove my servant's glories, if you have his leave so soon. DAUP: His vain-glories, lady! DAW: Shew them, shew them, mistress, I dare own them. EPI: Judge you, what glories. DAW: Nay, I'll read them myself too: an author must recite his own works. It is a madrigal of Modesty. Modest, and fair, for fair and good are near Neighbours, howe'er.-- DAUP: Very good. CLER: Ay, is't not? DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone, But two in one. DAUP: Excellent! CLER: That again, I pray, sir John. DAUP: It has something in't like rare wit and sense. CLER: Peace. DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone, But two in one. Then, when I praise sweet modesty, I praise Bright beauty's rays: And having praised both beauty and modesty, I have praised thee. DAUP: Admirable! CLER: How it chimes, and cries tink in the close, divinely! DAUP: Ay, 'tis Seneca. CLER: No, I think 'tis Plutarch. DAW: The dor on Plutarch, and Seneca! I hate it: they are mine own imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such credit with gentlemen. CLER: They are very grave authors. DAW: Grave asses! mere essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's all. A man would talk so, his whole age: I do utter as good things every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of them. DAUP: Indeed, sir John! CLER: He must needs; living among the wits and braveries too. DAUP: Ay, and being president of them, as he is. DAW: There's Aristotle, a mere common-place fellow; Plato, a discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an entire knot: sometimes worth the untying, very seldom. CLER: What do you think of the poets, sir John? DAW: Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious, prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef. Virgil of dunging of land, and bees. Horace, of I know not what. CLER: I think so. DAW: And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal, Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest-- CLER: What a sack full of their names he has got! DAUP: And how he pours them out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus! CLER: Was not the character right of him? DAUP: As could be made, i'faith. DAW: And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured. DAUP: Why, whom do you account for authors, sir John Daw? DAW: Syntagma juris civilis; Corpus juris civilis; Corpus juris canonici; the king of Spain's bible-- DAUP: Is the king of Spain's bible an author? CLER: Yes, and Syntagma. DAUP: What was that Syntagma, sir? DAW: A civil lawyer, a Spaniard. DAUP: Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman. CLER: Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew 'em: they were very corpulent authors. DAW: And, then there's Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: the other are not to be received, within the thought of a scholar. DAUP: 'Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady,-- in titles. [ASIDE.] CLER: I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a counsellor! DAUP: He is one extraordinary. CLER: Nay, but in ordinary: to say truth, the state wants such. DAUP: Why that will follow. CLER: I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a servant. DAW: 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence too. DAUP: In verse, sir John? CLER: What else? DAUP: Why? how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so slight all the old poets? DAW: Why? every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it. DAUP: Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John? CLER: No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? he did not make them to that end, I hope. DAUP: And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family not ashamed. CLER: Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution: he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you think he will? Your verses, good sir John, and no poems. DAW: Silence in woman, is like speech in man, Deny't who can. DAUP: Not I, believe it: your reason, sir. DAW: Nor, is't a tale, That female vice should be a virtue male, Or masculine vice a female virtue be: You shall it see Prov'd with increase; I know to speak, and she to hold her peace. Do you conceive me, gentlemen? DAUP: No, faith; how mean you "with increase," sir John? DAW: Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of mankind; and she says nothing, but "consentire videtur": and in time is gravida. DAUP: Then this is a ballad of procreation? CLER: A madrigal of procreation; you mistake. EPI: 'Pray give me my verses again, servant. DAW: If you'll ask them aloud, you shall. [WALKS ASIDE WITH THE PAPERS.] [ENTER TRUEWIT WITH HIS HORN.] CLER: See, here's Truewit again!--Where hast thou been, in the name of madness! thus accoutred with thy horn? TRUE: Where the sound of it might have pierced your sense with gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down and worship me: I have forbid the bans, lad: I have been with thy virtuous uncle, and have broke the match. DAUP: You have not, I hope. TRUE: Yes faith; if thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me: this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in, but by faining to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none, but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have put him off o' that scent for ever.--Why do you not applaud and adore me, sirs? why stand you mute? are you stupid? You are not worthy of the benefit. DAUP: Did not I tell you? Mischief!-- CLER: I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else. TRUE: Why so? CLER: 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak thing, that ever man did to his friend. DAUP: Friend! if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater. TRUE: Wherein, for Gods-sake? Gentlemen, come to yourselves again. DAUP: But I presaged thus much afore to you. CLER: Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't. Slight, what moved you to be thus impertinent? TRUE: My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my courtesy; off with this visor. Have good turns done you, and thank 'em this way! DAUP: 'Fore heav'n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a minute: Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged here by me o' purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath profest this obstinate silence for my sake; being my entire friend, and one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him, would have made me very ample conditions: where now, all my hopes are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident. CLER: Thus 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a greater trespass to friendship or humanity. DAUP: Faith, you may forgive it best: 'twas your cause principally. CLER: I know it, would it had not. [ENTER CUTBEARD.] DAUP: How now, Cutbeard! what news? CUT: The best, the happiest that ever was, sir. There has been a mad gentleman with your uncle, this morning, [SEEING TRUEWIT.] --I think this be the gentleman--that has almost talk'd him out of his wits, with threatening him from marriage-- DAUP: On, I prithee. CUT: And your uncle, sir, he thinks 'twas done by your procurement; therefore he will see the party you wot of presently: and if he like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I have told him, he swears he will marry her, to-day, instantly, and not defer it a minute longer. DAUP: Excellent! beyond our expectation! TRUE: Beyond our expectation! By this light, I knew it would be thus. DAUP: Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me. TRUE: No, I was ignorantly officious, impertinent: this was the absurd, weak part. CLER: Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune? TRUE: Fortune! mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in't. I saw it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false to me in these things. Shew me how it could be otherwise. DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, contend not, 'tis well now. TRUE: Alas, I let him go on with inconsiderate, and rash, and what he pleas'd. CLER: Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou wert, by the event! TRUE: Event! by this light, thou shalt never persuade me, but I foresaw it as well as the stars themselves. DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, 'tis well now. Do you two entertain sir John Daw with discourse, while I send her away with instructions. TRUE: I will be acquainted with her first, by your favour. CLER: Master True-wit, lady, a friend of ours. TRUE: I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate this rare virtue of your silence. [EXEUNT DAUP., EPI., AND CUTBEARD.] CLER: Faith, an you had come sooner, you should have seen and heard her well celebrated in sir John Daw's madrigals. TRUE [ADVANCES TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, God save you! when saw you La-Foole? DAW: Not since last night, master Truewit. TRUE: That's a miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable. DAW: He is gone to invite his guests. TRUE: 'Odso! 'tis true! What a false memory have I towards that man! I am one: I met him even now, upon that he calls his delicate fine black horse, rid into a foam, with posting from place to place, and person to person, to give them the cue-- CLER: Lest they should forget? TRUE: Yes: There was never poor captain took more pains at a muster to shew men, than he, at this meal, to shew friends. DAW: It is his quarter-feast, sir. CLER: What! do you say so, sir John? TRUE: Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has, to the talent of his wit: Where's his mistress, to hear and applaud him? is she gone? DAW: Is mistress Epicoene gone? CLER: Gone afore, with sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place. TRUE: Gone afore! that were a manifest injury; a disgrace and a half: to refuse him at such a festival-time as this, being a bravery, and a wit too! CLER: Tut, he'll swallow it like cream: he's better read in Jure civili, than to esteem any thing a disgrace, is offer'd him from a mistress. DAW: Nay, let her e'en go; she shall sit alone, and be dumb in her chamber a week together, for John Daw, I warrant her. Does she refuse me? CLER: No, sir, do not take it so to heart; she does not refuse you, but a little neglects you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame, to put it into his head, that she does refuse him. TRUE: Sir, she does refuse him palpably, however you mince it. An I were as he, I would swear to speak ne'er a word to her to-day for't. DAW: By this light, no more I will not. TRUE: Nor to any body else, sir. DAW: Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen. CLER: It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if you could have drawn him to it. [ASIDE.] DAW: I'll be very melancholY, i'faith. CLER: As a dog, if I were as you, sir John. TRUE: Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this day, in troth, they should not unwind me. DAW: By this pick-tooth, so I will. CLER: 'Tis well done: He begins already to be angry with his teeth. DAW: Will you go, gentlemen? CLER: Nay, you must walk alone, if you be right melancholy, sir John. TRUE: Yes, sir, we'll dog you, we'll follow you afar off. [EXIT DAW.] CLER: Was there ever such a two yards of knighthood measured out by time, to be sold to laughter? TRUE: A mere talking mole, hang him! no mushroom was ever so fresh. A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be. CLER: Let's follow him: but first, let's go to Dauphine, he's hovering about the house to hear what news. TRUE: Content. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 2.3. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE AND MUTE, FOLLOWED BY CUTBEARD WITH EPICOENE. MOR: Welcome Cutbeard! draw near with your fair charge: and in her ear softly entreat her to unmasthey. [EPI. TAKES OFF HER MASK.] --So! Is the door shut? [MUTE MAKES A LEG.] --Enough. Now, Cutbeard, with the same discipline I use to my family, I will question you. As I conceive, Cutbeard, this gentlewoman is she you have provided, and brought, in hope she will fit me in the place and person of a wife? Answer me not, but with your leg, unless it be otherwise: [CUT. MAKES A LEG.] --Very well done, Cutbeard. I conceive, besides, Cutbeard, you have been pre-acquainted with her birth, education, and qualities, or else you would not prefer her to my acceptance, in the weighty consequence of marriage. [CUT. MAKES A LEG.] --This I conceive, Cutbeard. Answer me not but with your leg, unless it be otherwise. [CUT. BOWS AGAIN.] --Very well done, Cutbeard. Give aside now a little, and leave me to examine her condition, and aptitude to my affection. [HE GOES ABOUT HER, AND VIEWS HER.] --She is exceeding fair, and of a special good favour; a sweet composition or harmony of limbs: her temper of beauty has the true height of my blood. The knave hath exceedingly well fitted me without: I will now try her within. Come near, fair gentlewoman: let not my behaviour seem rude, though unto you, being rare, it may haply appear strange. [EPICOENE CURTSIES.] --Nay, lady, you may speak, though Cutbeard and my man, might not; for, of all sounds, only the sweet voice of a fair lady has the just length of mine ears. I beseech you, say, lady; out of the first fire of meeting eyes, they say, love is stricken: do you feel any such motion suddenly shot into you, from any part you see in me? ha, lady? [EPICOENE CURTSIES.] --Alas, lady, these answers by silent curtsies from you are too courtless and simple. I have ever had my breeding in court: and she that shall be my wife, must be accomplished with courtly and audacious ornaments. Can you speak, lady? EPI: [softly.] Judge you, forsooth. MOR: What say you, lady? speak out, I beseech you. EPI: Judge you, forsooth. MOR: On my judgment, a divine softness! But can you naturally, lady, as I enjoin these by doctrine and industry, refer yourself to the search of my judgment, and, not taking pleasure in your tongue, which is a woman's chiefest pleasure, think it plausible to answer me by silent gestures, so long as my speeches jump right with what you conceive? [EPI. CURTSIES.] --Excellent! divine! if it were possible she should hold out thus! Peace, Cutbeard, thou art made for ever, as thou hast made me, if this felicity have lasting: but I will try her further. Dear lady, I am courtly, I tell you, and I must have mine ears banqueted with pleasant and witty conferences, pretty girls, scoffs, and dalliance in her that I mean to choose for my bed-phere. The ladies in court think it a most desperate impair to their quickness of wit, and good carriage, if they cannot give occasion for a man to court 'em; and when an amorous discourse is set on foot, minister as good matter to continue it, as himself: And do you alone so much differ from all them, that what they, with so much circumstance, affect and toil for, to seem learn'd, to seem judicious, to seem sharp and conceited, you can bury in yourself with silence, and rather trust your graces to the fair conscience of virtue, than to the world's or your own proclamation? EPI [SOFTLY]: I should be sorry else. MOR: What say you lady? good lady, speak out. EPI: I should be sorry else. MOR: That sorrow doth fill me with gladness. O Morose, thou art happy above mankind! pray that thou mayest contain thyself. I will only put her to it once more, and it shall be with the utmost touch and test of their sex. But hear me, fair lady; I do also love to see her whom I shall choose for my heifer, to be the first and principal in all fashions; precede all the dames at court by a fortnight; have council of tailors, lineners, lace-women, embroiderers, and sit with them sometimes twice a day upon French intelligences; and then come forth varied like nature, or oftener than she, and better by the help of art, her emulous servant. This do I affect: and how will you be able, lady, with this frugality of speech, to give the manifold but necessary instructions, for that bodice, these sleeves, those skirts, this cut, that stitch, this embroidery, that lace, this wire, those knots, that ruff, those roses, this girdle, that fanne, the t'other scarf, these gloves? Ha! what say you, lady? EPI [SOFTLY]: I'll leave it to you, sir. MOR: How, lady? pray you rise a note. EPI: I leave it to wisdom and you, sir. MOR: Admirable creature! I will trouble you no more: I will not sin against so sweet a simplicity. Let me now be bold to print on those divine lips the seal of being mine.--Cutbeard, I give thee the lease of thy house free: thank me not but with thy leg [CUTBEARD SHAKES HIS HEAD.] --I know what thou wouldst say, she's poor, and her friends deceased. She has brought a wealthy dowry in her silence, Cutbeard; and in respect of her poverty, Cutbeard, I shall have her more loving and obedient, Cutbeard. Go thy ways, and get me a minister presently, with a soft low voice, to marry us; and pray him he will not be impertinent, but brief as he can; away: softly, [EXIT CUTBEARD.] --Sirrah, conduct your mistress into the dining-room, your now mistress. [EXIT MUTE, FOLLOWED BY EPI.] --O my felicity! how I shall be revenged on mine insolent kinsman, and his plots to fright me from marrying! This night I will get an heir, and thrust him out of my blood, like a stranger; he would be knighted, forsooth, and thought by that means to reign over me; his title must do it: No, kinsman, I will now make you bring me the tenth lord's and the sixteenth lady's letter, kinsman; and it shall do you no good, kinsman. Your knighthood itself shall come on its knees, and it shall be rejected; it shall be sued for its fees to execution, and not be redeem'd; it shall cheat at the twelvepenny ordinary, it knighthood, for its diet, all the term- time, and tell tales for it in the vacation to the hostess; or it knighthood shall do worse, take sanctuary in Cole-harbour, and fast. It shall fright all its friends with borrowing letters; and when one of the fourscore hath brought it knighthood ten shillings, it knighthood shall go to the Cranes, or the Bear at the Bridge-foot, and be drunk in fear: it shall not have money to discharge one tavern-reckoning, to invite the old creditors to forbear it knighthood, or the new, that should be, to trust it knighthood. It shall be the tenth name in the bond to take up the commodity of pipkins and stone jugs: and the part thereof shall not furnish it knighthood forth for the attempting of a baker's widow, a brown baker's widow. It shall give it knighthood's name, for a stallion, to all gamesome citizens' wives, and be refused; when the master of a dancing school, or how do you call him, the worst reveller in the town is taken: it shall want clothes, and by reason of that, wit, to fool to lawyers. It shall not have hope to repair itself by Constantinople, Ireland, or Virginia; but the best and last fortune to it knighthood shall be to make Dol Tear-Sheet, or Kate Common a lady: and so it knighthood may eat. [EXIT.] SCENE 2.4. A LANE, NEAR MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER TRUEWIT, DAUPHINE,AND CLERIMONT. TRUE: Are you sure he is not gone by? DAUP: No, I staid in the shop ever since. CLER: But he may take the other end of the lane. DAUP: No, I told him I would be here at this end: I appointed him hither. TRUE: What a barbarian it is to stay then! DAUP: Yonder he comes. CLER: And his charge left behind him, which is a very good sign, Dauphine. [ENTER CUTBEARD.] DAUP: How now Cutbeard! succeeds it, or no? CUT: Past imagination, sir, omnia secunda; you could not have pray'd to have had it so well. Saltat senex, as it is in the proverb; he does triumph in his felicity, admires the party! he has given me the lease of my house too! and I am now going for a silent minister to marry them, and away. TRUE: 'Slight, get one of the silenced ministers, a zealous brother would torment him purely. CUT: Cum privilegio, sir. DAUP: O, by no means, let's do nothing to hinder it now: when it is done and finished, I am for you, for any device of vexation. CUT: And that shall be within this half hour, upon my dexterity, gentlemen. Contrive what you can in the mean time, bonis avibus. [EXIT.] CLER: How the slave doth Latin it! TRUE: It would be made a jest to posterity, sirs, this day's mirth, if ye will. CLER: Beshrew his heart that will not, I pronounce. DAUP: And for my part. What is it? TRUE: To translate all La-Foole's company, and his feast thither, to-day, to celebrate this bride-ale. DAUP: Ay marry; but how will't be done? TRUE: I'll undertake the directing of all the lady-guests thither, and then the meat must follow. CLER: For God's sake, let's effect it: it will be an excellent comedy of affliction, so many several noises. DAUP: But are they not at the other place already, think you? TRUE: I'll warrant you for the college-honours: one of their faces has not the priming colour laid on yet, nor the other her smock sleek'd. CLER: O, but they'll rise earlier then ordinary, to a feast. TRUE: Best go see, and assure ourselves. CLER: Who knows the house? TRUE: I will lead you: Were you never there yet? DAUP: Not I. CLER: Nor I. TRUE: Where have you lived then? not know Tom Otter! CLER: No: for God's sake, what is he? TRUE: An excellent animal, equal with your Daw or La-Foole, if not transcendant; and does Latin it as much as your barber: He is his wife's subject, he calls her princess, and at such times as these follows her up and down the house like a page, with his hat off, partly for heat, partly for reverence. At this instant he is marshalling of his bull, bear, and horse. DAUP: What be those, in the name of Sphynx? TRUE: Why, sir, he has been a great man at the Bear-garden in his time; and from that subtle sport, has ta'en the witty denomination of his chief carousing cups. One he calls his bull, another his bear, another his horse. And then he has his lesser glasses, that he calls his deer and his ape; and several degrees of them too; and never is well, nor thinks any entertainment perfect, till these be brought out, and set on the cupboard. CLER: For God's love!--we should miss this, if we should not go. TRUE: Nay, he has a thousand things as good, that will speak him all day. He will rail on his wife, with certain common places, behind her back; and to her face-- DAUP: No more of him. Let's go see him, I petition you. [EXEUNT.] ACT 3. SCENE 3.1. A ROOM IN OTTER'S HOUSE. ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER WITH HIS CUPS, AND MISTRESS OTTER. OTT: Nay, good princess, hear me pauca verba. MRS. OTT: By that light, I'll have you chain'd up, with your bull-dogs, and bear-dogs, if you be not civil the sooner. I will send you to kennel, i'faith. You were best bait me with your bull, bear, and horse! Never a time that the courtiers or collegiates come to the house, but you make it a Shrove-tuesday! I would have you get your Whitsuntide velvet cap, and your staff in your hand, to entertain them: yes, in troth, do. OTT: Not so, princess, neither; but under correction, sweet princess, give me leave.--These things I am known to the courtiers by: It is reported to them for my humour, and they receive it so, and do expect it. Tom Otter's bull, bear, and horse is known all over England, in rerum natura. MRS. OTT: 'Fore me, I will na-ture them over to Paris-garden, and na-ture you thither too, if you pronounce them again. Is a bear a fit beast, or a bull, to mix in society with great ladies? think in your discretion, in any good policy. OTT: The horse then, good princess. MRS. OTT: Well, I am contented for the horse: they love to be well horsed, I know. I love it myself. OTT: And it is a delicate fine horse this. Poetarum Pegasus. Under correction, princess, Jupiter did turn himself into a--taurus, or bull, under correction, good princess. [ENTER TRUEWIT, CLERIMONT, AND DAUPHINE, BEHIND.] MRS. OTT: By my integrity, I will send you over to the Bank-side, I will commit you to the master of the Garden, if I hear but a syllable more. Must my house or my roof be polluted with the scent of bears and bulls, when it is perfumed for great ladies? Is this according to the instrument, when I married you? that I would be princess, and reign in mine own house: and you would be my subject, and obey me? What did you bring me, should make you thus peremptory? do I allow you your half-crown a day, to spend where you will, among your gamsters, to vex and torment me at such times as these? Who gives you your maintenance, I pray you? who allows you your horse-meat and man's meat? your three suits of apparel a year? your four pair of stockings, one silk, three worsted? your clean linen, your bands and cuffs, when I can get you to wear them?--'tis marle you have them on now.--Who graces you with courtiers or great personages, to speak to you out of their coaches, and come home to your house? Were you ever so much as look'd upon by a lord or a lady, before I married you, but on the Easter or Whitsun-holidays? and then out at the banquetting-house window, when Ned Whiting or George Stone were at the stake? TRUE: For Gods sake, let's go stave her off him. MRS. OTT: Answer me to that. And did not I take you up from thence, in an old greasy buff-doublet, with points, and green velvet sleeves, out at the elbows? you forget this. TRUE: She'll worry him, if we help not in time. [THEY COME FORWARD.] MRS. OTT: O, here are some of the gallants! Go to, behave yourself distinctly, and with good morality: or, I protest, I will take away your exhibition. TRUE: By your leave, fair mistress Otter, I will be bold to enter these gentlemen in your acquaintance. MRS. OTT: It shall not be obnoxious, or difficil, sir. TRUE: How does my noble captain? is the bull, bear, and horse in rerum natura still? OTT: Sir, sic visum superis. MRS. OTT: I would you would but intimate them, do. Go your ways in, and get toasts and butter made for the woodcocks. That's a fit province for you. [DRIVES HIM OFF.] CLER: Alas, what a tyranny is this poor fellow married to! TRUE: O, but the sport will be anon, when we get him loose. DAUP: Dares he ever speak? TRUE: No Anabaptist ever rail'd with the like license: but mark her language in the mean time, I beseech you. MRS. OTT: Gentlemen, you are very aptly come. My cousin, sir Amorous, will be here briefly. TRUE: In good time lady. Was not sir John Daw here, to ask for him, and the company? MRS. OTT: I cannot assure you, master Truewit. Here was a very melancholy knight in a ruff, that demanded my subject for somebody, a gentleman, I think. CLER: Ay, that was he, lady. MRS. OTT: But he departed straight, I can resolve you. DAUP: What an excellent choice phrase this lady expresses in. TRUE: O, sir, she is the only authentical courtier, that is not naturally bred one, in the city. MRS. OTT: You have taken that report upon trust, gentlemen. TRUE: No, I assure you, the court governs it so, lady, in your behalf. MRS. OTT: I am the servant of the court and courtiers, sir. TRUE: They are rather your idolaters. MRS. OTT: Not so, sir. [ENTER CUTBEARD.] DAUP: How now, Cutbeard? any cross? CUT: O, no, sir, omnia bene. 'Twas never better on the hinges; all's sure. I have so pleased him with a curate, that he's gone to't almost with the delight he hopes for soon. DAUP: What is he for a vicar? CUT: One that has catch'd a cold, sir, and can scarce be heard six inches off; as if he spoke out of a bulrush that were not pick'd, or his throat were full of pith: a fine quick fellow, and an excellent barber of prayers. I came to tell you, sir, that you might omnem movere lapidem, as they say, be ready with your vexation. DAUP: Gramercy, honest Cutbeard! be thereabouts with thy key, to let us in. CUT: I will not fail you, sir: ad manum. [EXIT.] TRUE: Well, I'll go watch my coaches. CLER: Do; and we'll send Daw to you, if you meet him not. [EXIT TRUEWIT.] MRS. OTT: Is master Truewit gone? DAUP: Yes, lady, there is some unfortunate business fallen out. MRS. OTT: So I adjudged by the physiognomy of the fellow that came in; and I had a dream last night too of a new pageant, and my lady mayoress, which is always very ominous to me. I told it my lady Haughty t'other day; when her honour came hither to see some China stuffs: and she expounded it out of Artemidorus, and I have found it since very true. It has done me many affronts. CLER: Your dream, lady? MRS. OTT: Yes, sir, any thing I do but dream of the city. It stain'd me a damasque table-cloth, cost me eighteen pound, at one time; and burnt me a black satin gown, as I stood by the fire, at my lady Centaure's chamber in the college, another time. A third time, at the lord's masque, it dropt all my wire and my ruff with wax candle, that I could not go up to the banquet. A fourth time, as I was taking coach to go to Ware, to meet a friend, it dash'd me a new suit all over (a crimson satin doublet, and black velvet skirts) with a brewer's horse, that I was fain to go in and shift me, and kept my chamber a leash of days for the anguish of it. DAUP: These were dire mischances, lady. CLER: I would not dwell in the city, an 'twere so fatal to me. MRS. OTT: Yes sir, but I do take advice of my doctor to dream of it as little as I can. DAUP: You do well, mistress Otter. MRS. OTT: Will it please you to enter the house farther, gentlemen? DAUP: And your favour, lady: but we stay to speak with a knight, sir John Daw, who is here come. We shall follow you, lady. MRS. OTT: At your own time, sir. It is my cousin sir Amorous his feast-- DAUP: I know it, lady. MRS. OTT: And mine together. But it is for his honour, and therefore I take no name of it, more than of the place. DAUP: You are a bounteous kinswoman. MRS. OTT: Your servant, sir. [EXIT.] CLER [COMING FORWARD WITH DAW.]: Why, do not you know it, sir John Daw? DAW: No, I am a rook if I do. CLER: I'll tell you then, she's married by this time. And, whereas you were put in the head, that she was gone with sir Dauphine, I assure you, sir Dauphine has been the noblest, honestest friend to you, that ever gentleman of your quality could boast of. He has discover'd the whole plot, and made your mistress so acknowledging, and indeed so ashamed of her injury to you, that she desires you to forgive her, and but grace her wedding with your presence to-day--She is to be married to a very good fortune, she says, his uncle, old Morose: and she will'd me in private to tell you, that she shall be able to do you more favours, and with more security now, than before. DAW: Did she say so, i'faith? CLER: Why, what do you think of me, sir John? ask sir Dauphine. DAUP: Nay, I believe you.--Good sir Dauphine, did she desire me to forgive her? CLER: I assure you, sir John, she did. DAW: Nay, then, I do with all my heart, and I'll be jovial. CLER: Yes, for look you, sir, this was the injury to you. La-Foole intended this feast to honour her bridal day, and made you the property to invite the college ladies, and promise to bring her: and then at the time she should have appear'd, as his friend, to have given you the dor. Whereas now, Sir Dauphine has brought her to a feeling of it, with this kind of satisfaction, that you shall bring all the ladies to the place where she is, and be very jovial; and there, she will have a dinner, which shall be in your name: and so disappoint La-Foole, to make you good again, and, as it were, a saver in the main. DAW: As I am a knight, I honour her; and forgive her heartily. CLER: About it then presently. Truewit is gone before to confront the coaches, and to acquaint you with so much, if he meet you. Join with him, and 'tis well.-- [ENTER SIR AMOROUS LAFOOLE.] See; here comes your antagonist, but take you no notice, but be very jovial. LA-F: Are the ladies come, sir John Daw, and your mistress? [EXIT DAW.] --Sir Dauphine! you are exceeding welcome, and honest master Clerimont. Where's my cousin? did you see no collegiates, gentlemen? DAUP: Collegiates! do you not hear, sir Amorous, how you are abus'd? LA-F: How, sir! CLER: Will you speak so kindly to sir John Daw, that has done you such an affront? LA-F: Wherein, gentlemen? let me be a suitor to you to know, I beseech you! CLER: Why, sir, his mistress is married to-day to sir Dauphine's uncle, your cousin's neighbour, and he has diverted all the ladies, and all your company thither, to frustrate your provision, and stick a disgrace upon you. He was here now to have enticed us away from you too: but we told him his own, I think. LA-F: Has sir John Daw wrong'd me so inhumanly? DAUP: He has done it, sir Amorous, most maliciously and treacherously: but, if youll be ruled by us, you shall quit him, i'faith. LA-F: Good gentlemen, I'll make one, believe it. How, I pray? DAUP: Marry sir, get me your pheasants, and your godwits, and your best meat, and dish it in silver dishes of your cousin's presently, and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you, like a sewer; and bare-headed, march afore it with a good confidence, ('tis but over the way, hard by,) and we'll second you, where you shall set it on the board, and bid them welcome to't, which shall shew 'tis yours, and disgrace his preparation utterly: and, for your cousin, whereas she should be troubled here at home with care of making and giving welcome, she shall transfer all that labour thither, and be a principal guest herself, sit rank'd with the college-honours, and be honour'd, and have her health drunk as often, as bare and as loud as the best of them. LA-F: I'll go tell her presently. It shall be done, that's resolved. [EXIT.] CLER: I thought he would not hear it out, but 'twould take him. DAUP: Well, there be guests and meat now; how shall we do for music? CLER: The smell of the venison, going through the street, will invite one noise of fiddlers or other. DAUP: I would it would call the trumpeters hither! CLER: Faith, there is hope: they have intelligence of all feasts. There's good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them. DAUP: 'Twill be a most solemn day for my uncle, and an excellent fit of mirth for us. CLER: Ay, if we can hold up the emulation betwixt Foole and Daw, and never bring them to expostulate. DAUP: Tut, flatter them both, as Truewit says, and you may take their understandings in a purse-net. They'll believe themselves to be just such men as we make them, neither more nor less. They have nothing, not the use of their senses, but by tradition. [RE-ENTER LA-FOOLE, LIKE A SEWER.] CLER: See! sir Amorous has his towel on already. Have you persuaded your cousin? LA-F: Yes, 'tis very feasible: she'll do any thing she says, rather than the La-Fooles shall be disgraced. DAUP: She is a noble kinswoman. It will be such a pestling device, sir Amorous; it will pound all your enemy's practices to powder, and blow him up with his own mine, his own train. LA-F: Nay, we'll give fire, I warrant you. CLER: But you must carry it privately, without any noise, and take no notice by any means-- [RE-ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.] OTT: Gentlemen, my princess says you shall have all her silver dishes, festinate: and she's gone to alter her tire a little, and go with you-- CLER: And yourself too, captain Otter? DAUP: By any means, sir. OTT: Yes, sir, I do mean it: but I would entreat my cousin sir Amorous, and you, gentlemen, to be suitors to my princess, that I may carry my bull and my bear, as well as my horse. CLER: That you shall do, captain Otter. LA-F: My cousin will never consent, gentlemen. DAUP: She must consent, sir Amorous, to reason. LA-F: Why, she says they are no decorum among ladies. OTT: But they are decora, and that's better, sir. CLER: Ay, she must hear argument. Did not Pasiphae, who was a queen, love a bull? and was not Calisto, the mother of Arcas, turn'd into a bear, and made a star, mistress Ursula, in the heavens? OTT: O lord! that I could have said as much! I will have these stories painted in the Bear-garden, ex Ovidii metamorphosi. DAUP: Where is your princess, captain? pray, be our leader. OTT: That I shall, sir. CLER: Make haste, good sir Amorous. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 3.2. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOROSE, EPICOENE, PARSON, AND CUTBEARD. MOR: Sir, there is an angel for yourself, and a brace of angels for your cold. Muse not at this manage of my bounty. It is fit we should thank fortune, double to nature, for any benefit she confers upon us; besides, it is your imperfection, but my solace. PAR [SPEAKS AS HAVING A COLD.] I thank your worship; so is it mine, now. MOR: What says he, Cutbeard? CUT: He says, praesto, sir, whensoever your worship needs him, he can be ready with the like. He got this cold with sitting up late, and singing catches with cloth-workers. MOR: No more. I thank him. PAR: God keep your worship, and give you much joy with your fair spouse.--[COUGHS.] uh! uh! uh! MOR: O, O! stay Cutbeard! let him give me five shillings of my money back. As it is bounty to reward benefits, so is it equity to mulct injuries. I will have it. What says he? CUT: He cannot change it, sir. MOR: It must be changed. CUT [ASIDE TO PARSON.]: Cough again. MOR: What says he? CUT: He will cough out the rest, sir. PAR: Uh, uh, uh! MOR: Away, away with him! stop his mouth! away! I forgive it.-- [EXIT CUT. THRUSTING OUT THE PAR.] EPI: Fie, master Morose, that you will use this violence to a man of the church. MOR: How! EPI: It does not become your gravity, or breeding, as you pretend, in court, to have offer'd this outrage on a waterman, or any more boisterous creature, much less on a man of his civil coat. MOR: You can speak then! EPI: Yes, sir. MOR: Speak out, I mean. EPI: Ay, sir. Why, did you think you had married a statue, or a motion, only? one of the French puppets, with the eyes turn'd with a wire? or some innocent out of the hospital, that would stand with her hands thus, and a plaise mouth, and look upon you? MOR: O immodesty! a manifest woman! What, Cutbeard! EPI: Nay, never quarrel with Cutbeard, sir; it is too late now. I confess it doth bate somewhat of the modesty I had, when I writ simply maid: but I hope, I shall make it a stock still competent to the estate and dignity of your wife. MOR: She can talk! EPI: Yes, indeed, sir. [ENTER MUTE.] MOR: What sirrah! None of my knaves there? where is this impostor, Cutbeard? [MUTE MAKES SIGNS.] EPI: Speak to him, fellow, speak to him! I'll have none of this coacted, unnatural dumbness in my house, in a family where I govern. [EXIT MUTE.] MOR: She is my regent already! I have married a Penthesilea, a Semiramis, sold my liberty to a distaff. [ENTER TRUEWIT.] TRUE: Where's master Morose? MOR: Is he come again! Lord have mercy upon me! TRUE: I wish you all joy, mistress Epicoene, with your grave and honourable match. EPI: I return you the thanks, master Truewit, so friendly a wish deserves. MOR: She has acquaintance, too! TRUE: God save you, sir, and give you all contentment in your fair choice, here! Before, I was the bird of night to you, the owl; but now I am the messenger of peace, a dove, and bring you the glad wishes of many friends to the celebration of this good hour. MOR: What hour, sir? TRUE: Your marriage hour, sir. I commend your resolution, that, notwithstanding all the dangers I laid afore you, in the voice of a night-crow, would yet go on, and be yourself. It shews you are a man constant to your own ends, and upright to your purposes, that would not be put off with left-handed cries. MOR: How should you arrive at the knowledge of so much! TRUE: Why, did you ever hope, sir, committing the secrecy of it to a barber, that less then the whole town should know it? you might as well have told it the conduit, or the bake-house, or the infantry that follow the court, and with more security. Could your gravity forget so old and noted a remnant, as lippis et tonsoribus notum? Well, sir, forgive it yourself now, the fault, and be communicable with your friends. Here will be three or four fashionable ladies from the college to visit you presently, and their train of minions and followers. MOR: Bar my doors! bar my doors! Where are all my eaters? my mouths now?-- [ENTER SERVANTS.] Bar up my doors, you varlets! EPI: He is a varlet that stirs to such an office. Let them stand open. I would see him that dares move his eyes toward it. Shall I have a barricado made against my friends, to be barr'd of any pleasure they can bring in to me with their honourable visitation? [EXEUNT SER.] MOR: O Amazonian impudence! TRUE: Nay, faith, in this, sir, she speaks but reason: and, methinks, is more continent than you. Would you go to bed so presently, sir, afore noon? a man of your head and hair should owe more to that reverend ceremony, and not mount the marriage-bed like a town-bull, or a mountain-goat; but stay the due season; and ascend it then with religion and fear. Those delights are to be steeped in the humour and silence of the night; and give the day to other open pleasures, and jollities of feasting, of music, of revels, of discourse: we'll have all, sir, that may make your Hymen high and happy. MOR: O, my torment, my torment! TRUE: Nay, if you endure the first half hour, sir, so tediously, and with this irksomness; what comfort or hope can this fair gentlewoman make to herself hereafter, in the consideration of so many years as are to come-- MOR: Of my affliction. Good sir, depart, and let her do it alone. TRUE: I have done, sir. MOR: That cursed barber. TRUE: Yes, faith, a cursed wretch indeed, sir. MOR: I have married his cittern, that's common to all men. Some plague above the plague-- TRUE: All Egypt's ten plagues. MOR: Revenge me on him! TRUE: 'Tis very well, sir. If you laid on a curse or two more, I'll assure you he'll bear them. As, that he may get the pox with seeking to cure it, sir; or, that while he is curling another man's hair, his own may drop off; or, for burning some male-bawd's lock, he may have his brain beat out with the curling-iron. MOR: No, let the wretch live wretched. May he get the itch, and his shop so lousy, as no man dare come at him, nor he come at no man! TRUE: Ay, and if he would swallow all his balls for pills, let not them purge him. MOR: Let his warming pan be ever cold. TRUE: A perpetual frost underneath it, sir. MOR: Let him never hope to see fire again. TRUE: But in hell, sir. MOR: His chairs be always empty, his scissors rust, and his combs mould in their cases. TRUE: Very dreadful that! And may he lose the invention, sir, of carving lanterns in paper. MOR: Let there be no bawd carted that year, to employ a bason of his: but let him be glad to eat his sponge for bread. TRUE: And drink lotium to it, and much good do him. MOR: Or, for want of bread-- TRUE: Eat ear-wax, sir. I'll help you. Or, draw his own teeth, and add them to the lute-string. MOR: No, beat the old ones to powder, and make bread of them. TRUE: Yes, make meal of the mill-stones. MOR: May all the botches and burns that he has cured on others break out upon him. TRUE: And he now forget the cure of them in himself, sir: or, if he do remember it, let him have scraped all his linen into lint for't, and have not a rag left him to set up with. MOR: Let him never set up again, but have the gout in his hands for ever! Now, no more, sir. TRUE: O, that last was too high set; you might go less with him, i'faith, and be revenged enough: as, that he be never able to new-paint his pole-- MOR: Good sir, no more, I forgot myself. TRUE: Or, want credit to take up with a comb-maker-- MOR: No more, sir. TRUE: Or, having broken his glass in a former despair, fall now into a much greater, of ever getting another-- MOR: I beseech you, no more. TRUE: Or, that he never be trusted with trimming of any but chimney-sweepers-- MOR: Sir-- TRUE: Or, may he cut a collier's throat with his razor, by chance-medley, and yet be hanged for't. MOR: I will forgive him, rather than hear any more. I beseech you, sir. [ENTER DAW, INTRODUCING LADY HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, AND TRUSTY.] DAW: This way, madam. MOR: O, the sea breaks in upon me! another flood! an inundation! I shall be overwhelmed with noise. It beats already at my shores. I feel an earthquake in my self for't. DAW: 'Give you joy, mistress. MOR: Has she servants too! DAW: I have brought some ladies here to see and know you. My lady Haughty-- [AS HE PRESENTS THEM SEVERALLY, EPI. KISSES THEM.] this my lady Centaure--mistress Dol Mavis--mistress Trusty, my lady Haughty's woman. Where's your husband? let's see him: can he endure no noise? let me come to him. MOR: What nomenclator is this! TRUE: Sir John Daw, sir, your wife's servant, this. MOR: A Daw, and her servant! O, 'tis decreed, 'tis decreed of me, an she have such servants. TRUE: Nay sir, you must kiss the ladies; you must not go away, now: they come toward you to seek you out. HAU: I'faith, master Morose, would you steal a marriage thus, in the midst of so many friends, and not acquaint us? Well, I'll kiss you, notwithstanding the justice of my quarrel: you shall give me leave, mistress, to use a becoming familiarity with your husband. EPI: Your ladyship does me an honour in it, to let me know he is so worthy your favour: as you have done both him and me grace to visit so unprepared a pair to entertain you. MOR: Compliment! compliment! EPI: But I must lay the burden of that upon my servant here. HAU: It shall not need, mistress Morose, we will all bear, rather than one shall be opprest. MOR: I know it: and you will teach her the faculty, if she be to learn it. [WALKS ASIDE WHILE THE REST TALK APART.] HAU: Is this the silent woman? CEN: Nay, she has found her tongue since she was married, master Truewit says. HAU: O, master Truewit! 'save you. What kind of creature is your bride here? she speaks, methinks! TRUE: Yes, madam, believe it, she is a gentlewoman of very absolute behaviour, and of a good race. HAU: And Jack Daw told us she could not speak! TRUE: So it was carried in plot, madam, to put her upon this old fellow, by sir Dauphine, his nephew, and one or two more of us: but she is a woman of an excellent assurance, and an extraordinary happy wit and tongue. You shall see her make rare sport with Daw ere night. HAU: And he brought us to laugh at her! TRUE: That falls out often, madam, that he that thinks himself the master-wit, is the master-fool. I assure your ladyship, ye cannot laugh at her. HAU: No, we'll have her to the college: An she have wit, she shall be one of us, shall she not Centaure? we'll make her a collegiate. CEN: Yes faith, madam, and mistress Mavis and she will set up a side. TRUE: Believe it, madam, and mistress Mavis she will sustain her part. MAV: I'll tell you that, when I have talk'd with her, and tried her. HAU: Use her very civilly, Mavis. MAV: So I will, madam. [WHISPERS HER.] MOR: Blessed minute! that they would whisper thus ever! [ASIDE.] TRUE: In the mean time, madam, would but your ladyship help to vex him a little: you know his disease, talk to him about the wedding ceremonies, or call for your gloves, or-- HAU: Let me alone. Centaure, help me. Master bridegroom, where are you? MOR: O, it was too miraculously good to last! [ASIDE.] HAU: We see no ensigns of a wedding here; no character of a bride-ale: where be our scarves and our gloves? I pray you, give them us. Let us know your bride's colours, and yours at least. CEN: Alas, madam, he has provided none. MOR: Had I known your ladyship's painter, I would. HAU: He has given it you, Centaure, i'faith. But do you hear, master Morose? a jest will not absolve you in this manner. You that have suck'd the milk of the court, and from thence have been brought up to the very strong meats and wine, of it; been a courtier from the biggen to the night-cap, as we may say, and you to offend in such a high point of ceremony as this, and let your nuptials want all marks of solemnity! How much plate have you lost to-day, (if you had but regarded your profit,) what gifts, what friends, through your mere rusticity! MOR: Madam-- HAU: Pardon me, sir, I must insinuate your errors to you; no gloves? no garters? no scarves? no epithalamium? no masque? DAW: Yes, madam, I'll make an epithalamium, I promise my mistress; I have begun it already: will you ladyship hear it? HAU: Ay, good Jack Daw. MOR: Will it please your ladyship command a chamber, and be private with your friend? you shall have your choice of rooms to retire to after: my whole house is yours. I know it hath been your ladyship's errand into the city at other times, however now you have been unhappily diverted upon me: but I shall be loth to break any honourable custom of your ladyship's. And therefore, good madam-- EPI: Come, you are a rude bridegroom, to entertain ladies of honour in this fashion. CEN: He is a rude groom indeed. TRUE: By that light you deserve to be grafted, and have your horns reach from one side of the island, to the other. Do not mistake me, sir; I but speak this to give the ladies some heart again, not for any malice to you. MOR: Is this your bravo, ladies? TRUE: As God [shall] help me, if you utter such another word, I'll take mistress bride in, and begin to you in a very sad cup; do you see? Go to, know your friends, and such as love you. [ENTER CLERIMONT, FOLLOWED BY A NUMBER OF MUSICIANS.] CLER: By your leave, ladies. Do you want any music? I have brought you variety of noises. Play, sirs, all of you. [ASIDE TO THE MUSICIANS, WHO STRIKE UP ALL TOGETHER.] MOR: O, a plot, a plot, a plot, a plot, upon me! this day I shall be their anvil to work on, they will grate me asunder. 'Tis worse then the noise of a saw. CLER: No, they are hair, rosin, and guts. I can give you the receipt. TRUE: Peace, boys! CLER: Play! I say. TRUE: Peace, rascals! You see who's your friend now, sir: take courage, put on a martyr's resolution. Mock down all their attemptings with patience: 'tis but a day, and I would suffer heroically. Should an ass exceed me in fortitude? no. You betray your infirmity with your hanging dull ears, and make them insult: bear up bravely, and constantly. [LA-FOOLE PASSES OVER THE STAGE AS A SEWER, FOLLOWED BY SERVANTS CARRYING DISHES, AND MISTRESS OTTER.] --Look you here, sir, what honour is done you unexpected, by your nephew; a wedding-dinner come, and a knight-sewer before it, for the more reputation: and fine mistress Otter, your neighbour, in the rump, or tail of it. MOR: Is that Gorgon, that Medusa come! hide me, hide me. TRUE: I warrant you, sir, she will not transform you. Look upon her with a good courage. Pray you entertain her, and conduct your guests in. No!--Mistress bride, will you entreat in the ladies? your bride-groom is so shame-faced, here. EPI: Will it please your ladyship, madam? HAU: With the benefit of your company, mistress. EPI: Servant, pray you perform your duties. DAW: And glad to be commanded, mistress. CEN: How like you her wit, Mavis? MAV: Very prettily, absolutely well. MRS. OTT: 'Tis my place. MAV: You shall pardon me, mistress Otter. MRS. OTT: Why, I am a collegiate. MAV: But not in ordinary. MRS. OTT: But I am. MAV: We'll dispute that within. [EXEUNT LADIES.] CLER: Would this had lasted a little longer. TRUE: And that they had sent for the heralds. [ENTER CAPTAIN OTTER.] --Captain Otter! what news? OTT: I have brought my bull, bear, and horse, in private, and yonder are the trumpeters without, and the drum, gentlemen. [THE DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND WITHIN.] MOR: O, O, O! OTT: And we will have a rouse in each of them, anon, for bold Britons, i'faith. [THEY SOUND AGAIN.] MOR: O, O, O! [EXIT HASTILY.] OMNES: Follow, follow, follow! ACT 4. SCENE 4.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER TRUEWIT AND CLERIMONT. TRUE: Was there ever poor bridegroom so tormented? or man, indeed? CLER: I have not read of the like in the chronicles of the land. TRUE: Sure, he cannot but go to a place of rest, after all this purgatory. CLER: He may presume it, I think. TRUE: The spitting, the coughing, the laughter, the neezing, the farting, dancing, noise of the music, and her masculine and loud commanding, and urging the whole family, makes him think he has married a fury. CLER: And she carries it up bravely. TRUE: Ay, she takes any occasion to speak: that is the height on't. CLER: And how soberly Dauphine labours to satisfy him, that it was none of his plot! TRUE: And has almost brought him to the faith, in the article. Here he comes. [ENTER SIR DAUPHINE.] --Where is he now? what's become of him, Dauphine? DAUP: O, hold me up a little, I shall go away in the jest else. He has got on his whole nest of night-caps, and lock'd himself up in the top of the house, as high as ever he can climb from the noise. I peep'd in at a cranny, and saw him sitting over a cross-beam of the roof, like him on the sadler's horse in Fleet-street, upright: and he will sleep there. CLER: But where are your collegiates? DAUP: Withdrawn with the bride in private. TRUE: O, they are instructing her in the college-grammar. If she have grace with them, she knows all their secrets instantly. CLER: Methinks the lady Haughty looks well to-day, for all my dispraise of her in the morning. I think, I shall come about to thee again, Truewit. TRUE: Believe it, I told you right. Women ought to repair the losses time and years have made in their features, with dressings. And an intelligent woman, if she know by herself the least defect, will be most curious to hide it: and it becomes her. If she be short, let her sit much, lest, when she stands, she be thought to sit. If she have an ill foot, let her wear her gown the longer, and her shoe the thinner. If a fat hand, and scald nails, let her carve the less, and act in gloves. If a sour breath, let her never discourse fasting, and always talk at her distance. If she have black and rugged teeth, let her offer the less at laughter, especially if she laugh wide and open. CLER: O, you shall have some women, when they laugh, you would think they brayed, it is so rude, and-- TRUE: Ay, and others, that will stalk in their gait like an estrich, and take huge strides. I cannot endure such a sight. I love measure in the feet, and number in the voice: they are gentlenesses, that oftentimes draw no less than the face. DAUP: How camest thou to study these creatures so exactly? I would thou would'st make me a proficient. TRUE: Yes, but you must leave to live in your chamber, then, a month together upon Amadis de Gaul, or Don Quixote, as you are wont; and come abroad where the matter is frequent, to court, to tiltings, public shows and feasts, to plays, and church sometimes: thither they come to shew their new tires too, to see, and to be seen. In these places a man shall find whom to love, whom to play with, whom to touch once, whom to hold ever. The variety arrests his judgment. A wench to please a man comes not down dropping from the ceiling, as he lies on his back droning a tobacco pipe. He must go where she is. DAUP: Yes, and be never the nearer. TRUE: Out, heretic! That diffidence makes thee worthy it should be so. CLER: He says true to you, Dauphine. DAUP: Why? TRUE: A man should not doubt to overcome any woman. Think he can vanquish them, and he shall: for though they deny, their desire is to be tempted. Penelope herself cannot hold out long. Ostend, you saw, was taken at last. You must persever, and hold to your purpose. They would solicit us, but that they are afraid. Howsoever, they wish in their hearts we should solicit them. Praise them, flatter them, you shall never want eloquence or trust: even the chastest delight to feel themselves that way rubb'd. With praises you must mix kisses too: if they take them, they'll take more--though they strive, they would be overcome. CLER: O, but a man must beware of force. TRUE: It is to them an acceptable violence, and has oft-times the place of the greatest courtesy. She that might have been forced, and you let her go free without touching, though then she seem to thank you, will ever hate you after; and glad in the face, is assuredly sad at the heart. CLER: But all women are not to be taken all ways. TRUE: 'Tis true; no more than all birds, or all fishes. If you appear learned to an ignorant wench, or jocund to a sad, or witty to a foolish, why she presently begins to mistrust herself. You must approach them in their own height, their own line: for the contrary makes many, that fear to commit themselves to noble and worthy fellows, run into the embraces of a rascal. If she love wit, give verses, though you borrow them of a friend, or buy them, to have good. If valour, talk of your sword, and be frequent in the mention of quarrels, though you be staunch in fighting. If activity, be seen on your barbary often, or leaping over stools, for the credit of your back. If she love good clothes or dressing, have your learned council about you every morning, your French tailor, barber, linener, etc. Let your powder, your glass, and your comb be your dearest acquaintance. Take more care for the ornament of your head, than the safety: and wish the commonwealth rather troubled, than a hair about you. That will take her. Then, if she be covetous and craving, do you promise any thing, and perform sparingly; so shall you keep her in appetite still. Seem as you would give, but be like a barren field, that yields little, or unlucky dice to foolish and hoping gamesters. Let your gifts be slight and dainty, rather than precious. Let cunning be above cost. Give cherries at time of year, or apricots; and say they were sent you out of the country, though you bought them in Cheapside. Admire her tires: like her in all fashions; compare her in every habit to some deity; invent excellent dreams to flatter her, and riddles; or, if she be a great one, perform always the second parts to her: like what she likes, praise whom she praises, and fail not to make the household and servants yours, yea the whole family, and salute them by their names: ('tis but light cost if you can purchase them so,) and make her physician your pensioner, and her chief woman. Nor will it be out of your gain to make love to her too, so she follow, not usher her lady's pleasure. All blabbing is taken away, when she comes to be a part of the crime. DAUP: On what courtly lap hast thou late slept, to come forth so sudden and absolute a courtling? TRUE: Good faith, I should rather question you, that are so harkening after these mysteries. I begin to suspect your diligence, Dauphine. Speak, art thou in love in earnest? DAUP: Yes, by my troth am I: 'twere ill dissembling before thee. TRUE: With which of them, I prithee? DAUP: With all the collegiates. CLER: Out on thee! We'll keep you at home, believe it, in the stable, if you be such a stallion. TRUE: No; I like him well. Men should love wisely, and all women; some one for the face, and let her please the eye; another for the skin, and let her please the touch; a third for the voice, and let her please the ear; and where the objects mix, let the senses so too. Thou would'st think it strange, if I should make them all in love with thee afore night! DAUP: I would say, thou had'st the best philtre in the world, and couldst do more than madam Medea, or doctor Foreman. TRUE: If I do not, let me play the mountebank for my meat, while I live, and the bawd for my drink. DAUP: So be it, I say. [ENTER OTTER, WITH HIS THREE CUPS, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE.] OTT: O Lord, gentlemen, how my knights and I have mist you here! CLER: Why, captain, what service? what service? OTT: To see me bring up my bull, bear, and horse to fight. DAW: Yes, faith, the captain says we shall be his dogs to bait them. DAUP: A good employment. TRUE: Come on, let's see a course, then. LA-F: I am afraid my cousin will be offended, if she come. OTT: Be afraid of nothing. Gentlemen, I have placed the drum and the trumpets, and one to give them the sign when you are ready. Here's my bull for myself, and my bear for sir John Daw, and my horse for sir Amorous. Now set your foot to mine, and yours to his, and-- LA-F: Pray God my cousin come not. OTT: Saint George, and saint Andrew, fear no cousins. Come, sound, sound. [DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND.] Et rauco strepuerunt cornua cantu. [THEY DRINK.] TRUE: Well said, captain, i'faith: well fought at the bull. CLER: Well held at the bear. TRUE: Low, low! captain. DAUP: O, the horse has kick'd off his dog already. LA-F: I cannot drink it, as I am a knight. TRUE: Ods so! off with his spurs, somebody. LA-F: It goes against my conscience. My cousin will be angry with it. DAW: I have done mine. TRUE: You fought high and fair, sir John. CLER: At the head. DAUP: Like an excellent bear-dog. CLER: You take no notice of the business, I hope? DAW: Not a word, sir; you see we are jovial. OTT: Sir Amorous, you must not equivocate. It must be pull'd down, for all my cousin. CLER: 'Sfoot, if you take not your drink, they will think you are discontented with something: you'll betray all, if you take the least notice. LA-F: Not I; I'll both drink and talk then. OTT: You must pull the horse on his knees, sir Amorous: fear no cousins. Jacta est alea. TRUE: O, now he's in his vein, and bold. The least hint given him of his wife now, will make him rail desperately. CLER: Speak to him of her. TRUE: Do you, and I will fetch her to the hearing of it. [EXIT.] DAUP: Captain He-Otter, your She-Otter is coming, your wife. OTT: Wife! buz! titivilitium! There's no such thing in nature. I confess, gentlemen, I have a cook, a laundress, a house-drudge, that serves my necessary turns, and goes under that title: but he's an ass that will be so uxorious to tie his affections to one circle. Come, the name dulls appetite. Here, replenish again: another bout. [FILLS THE CUPS AGAIN.] Wives are nasty sluttish animalls. DAUP: O, captain. OTT: As ever the earth bare, tribus verbis. Where's master Truewit? DAW: He's slipt aside, sir. CLER: But you must drink, and be jovial. DAW: Yes, give it me. LA-F: And me too. DAW: Let's be jovial. LA-F: As jovial as you will. OTT: Agreed. Now you shall have the bear, cousin, and sir John Daw the horse, and I will have the bull still. Sound, Tritons of the Thames. [DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND AGAIN.] Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero-- MOR [ABOVE]: Villains, murderers, sons of the earth, and traitors, what do you there? CLER: O, now the trumpets have waked him, we shall have his company. OTT: A wife is a scurvy clogdogdo, an unlucky thing, a very foresaid bear-whelp, without any good fashion or breeding: mala bestia. [RE-ENTER TRUEWIT BEHIND, WITH MISTRESS OTTER.] DAUP: Why did you marry one then, captain? OTT: A pox!--I married with six thousand pound, I. I was in love with that. I have not kissed my Fury these forty weeks. CLER: The more to blame you, captain. TRUE: Nay, mistress Otter, hear him a little first. OTT: She has a breath worse than my grandmother's, profecto. MRS. OTT: O treacherous liar! kiss me, sweet master Truewit, and prove him a slandering knave. TRUE: I will rather believe you, lady. OTT: And she has a peruke that's like a pound of hemp, made up in shoe-threads. MRS. OTT: O viper, mandrake! OTT: A most vile face! and yet she spends me forty pound a year in mercury and hogs-bones. All her teeth were made in the Black-Friars, both her eyebrows in the Strand, and her hair in Silver-street. Every part of the town owns a piece of her. MRS. OTT [COMES FORWARD.]: I cannot hold. OTT: She takes herself asunder still when she goes to bed, into some twenty boxes; and about next day noon is put together again, like a great German clock: and so comes forth, and rings a tedious larum to the whole house, and then is quiet again for an hour, but for her quarters. Have you done me right, gentlemen? MRS. OTT [FALLS UPON HIM, AND BEATS HIM.]: No, sir, I will do you right with my quarters, with my quarters. OTT: O, hold, good princess. TRUE: Sound, sound! [DRUM AND TRUMPETS SOUND.] CLER: A battle, a battle! MRS. OTT: You notorious stinkardly bearward, does my breath smell? OTT: Under correction, dear princess: look to my bear, and my horse, gentlemen. MRS. OTT: Do I want teeth, and eyebrows, thou bull-dog? TRUE: Sound, sound still. [THEY SOUND AGAIN.] OTT: No, I protest, under correction-- MRS. OTT: Ay, now you are under correction, you protest: but you did not protest before correction, sir. Thou Judas, to offer to betray thy princess! I will make thee an example-- [BEATS HIM.] [ENTER MOROSE WITH HIS LONG SWORD.] MOR: I will have no such examples in my house, lady Otter. MRS. OTT: Ah!-- [MRS. OTTER, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE RUN OFF.] OTT: Mistress Mary Ambree, your examples are dangerous. Rogues, hell-hounds, Stentors! out of my doors, you sons of noise and tumult, begot on an ill May-day, or when the galley-foist is afloat to Westminster! [DRIVES OUT THE MUSICIANS.] A trumpeter could not be conceived but then! DAUP: What ails you, sir? MOR: They have rent my roof, walls, and all my windows asunder, with their brazen throats. [EXIT.] TRUE: Best follow him, Dauphine. DAUP: So I will. [EXIT.] CLER: Where's Daw and La-Foole? OTT: They are both run away, sir. Good gentlemen, help to pacify my princess, and speak to the great ladies for me. Now must I go lie with the bears this fortnight, and keep out of the way, till my peace be made, for this scandal she has taken. Did you not see my bull-head, gentlemen? CLER: Is't not on, captain? TRUE: No; but he may make a new one, by that is on. OTT: O, here it is. An you come over, gentlemen, and ask for Tom Otter, we'll go down to Ratcliff, and have a course i'faith, for all these disasters. There is bona spes left. TRUE: Away, captain, get off while you are well. [EXIT OTTER.] CLER: I am glad we are rid of him. TRUE: You had never been, unless we had put his wife upon him. His humour is as tedious at last, as it was ridiculous at first. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 4.2. A LONG OPEN GALLERY IN THE SAME. ENTER LADY HAUGHTY, MISTRESS OTTER, MAVIS, DAW, LAFOOLE, CENTAURE, AND EPICOENE. HAU: We wonder'd why you shriek'd so, mistress Otter? MRS. OTT: O lord, madam, he came down with a huge long naked weapon in both his hands, and look'd so dreadfully! sure he's beside himself. HAU: Why, what made you there, mistress Otter? MRS. OTT: Alas, mistress Mavis, I was chastising my subject, and thought nothing of him. DAW: Faith, mistress, you must do so too: learn to chastise. Mistress Otter corrects her husband so, he dares not speak but under correction. LA-F: And with his hat off to her: 'twould do you good to see. HAU: In sadness, 'tis good and mature counsel: practise it, Morose. I'll call you Morose still now, as I call Centaure and Mavis; we four will be all one. CEN: And you will come to the college, and live with us? HAU: Make him give milk and honey. MAV: Look how you manage him at first, you shall have him ever after. CEN: Let him allow you your coach, and four horses, your woman, your chamber-maid, your page, your gentleman-usher, your French cook, and four grooms. HAU: And go with us to Bedlam, to the china-houses, and to the Exchange. CEN: It will open the gate to your fame. HAU: Here's Centaure has immortalised herself, with taming of her wild male. MAV: Ay, she has done the miracle of the kingdom. [ENTER CLERIMONT AND TRUEWIT.] EPI: But, ladies, do you count it lawful to have such plurality of servants, and do them all graces? HAU: Why not? why should women deny their favours to men? are they the poorer or the worse? DAW: Is the Thames the less for the dyer's water, mistress? LA-F: Or a torch for lighting many torches? TRUE: Well said, La-Foole; what a new one he has got! CEN: They are empty losses women fear in this kind. HAU: Besides, ladies should be mindful of the approach of age, and let no time want his due use. The best of our days pass first. MAV: We are rivers, that cannot be call'd back, madam: she that now excludes her lovers, may live to lie a forsaken beldame, in a frozen bed. CEN: 'Tis true, Mavis: and who will wait on us to coach then? or write, or tell us the news then, make anagrams of our names, and invite us to the Cockpit, and kiss our hands all the play-time, and draw their weapons for our honours? HAU: Not one. DAW: Nay, my mistress is not altogether unintelligent of these things; here be in presence have tasted of her favours. CLER: What a neighing hobby-horse is this! EPI: But not with intent to boast them again, servant. And have you those excellent receipts, madam, to keep yourselves from bearing of children? HAU: O yes, Morose: how should we maintain our youth and beauty else? Many births of a woman make her old, as many crops make the earth barren. [ENTER MOROSE AND DAUPHINE.] MOR: O my cursed angel, that instructed me to this fate! DAUP: Why, sir? MOR: That I should be seduced by so foolish a devil as a barber will make! DAUP: I would I had been worthy, sir, to have partaken your counsel; you should never have trusted it to such a minister. MOR: Would I could redeem it with the loss of an eye, nephew, a hand, or any other member. DAUP: Marry, God forbid, sir, that you should geld yourself, to anger your wife. MOR: So it would rid me of her! and, that I did supererogatory penance in a belfry, at Westminster-hall, in the Cock-pit, at the fall of a stag; the Tower-wharf (what place is there else?)-- London-bridge, Paris-garden, Billinsgate, when the noises are at their height, and loudest. Nay, I would sit out a play, that were nothing but fights at sea, drum, trumpet, and target. DAUP: I hope there shall be no such need, sir. Take patience, good uncle. This is but a day, and 'tis well worn too now. MOR: O, 'twill be so for ever, nephew, I foresee it, for ever. Strife and tumult are the dowry that comes with a wife. TRUE: I told you so, sir, and you would not believe me. MOR: Alas, do not rub those wounds, master Truewit, to blood again: 'twas my negligence. Add not affliction to affliction. I have perceived the effect of it, too late, in madam Otter. EPI: How do you, sir? MOR: Did you ever hear a more unnecessary question? as if she did not see! Why, I do as you see, empress, empress. EPI: You are not well, sir; you look very ill; something has distemper'd you. MOR: O horrible, monstrous impertinencies! would not one of these have served, do you think, sir? would not one of these have served? TRUE: Yes, sir, but these are but notes of female kindness, sir; certain tokens that she has a voice, sir. MOR: O, is it so? Come, an't be no otherwise--What say you? EPI: How do you feel yourself, sir? MOR: Again that! TRUE: Nay, look you, sir: you would be friends with your wife upon unconscionable terms; her silence-- EPI: They say you are run mad, sir. MOR: Not for love, I assure you, of you; do you see? EPI: O lord, gentlemen! lay hold on him, for God's sake. What shall I do? who's his physician, can you tell, that knows the state of his body best, that I might send for him? Good sir, speak; I'll send for one of my doctors else. MOR: What, to poison me, that I might die intestate, and leave you possest of all? EPI: Lord, how idly he talks, and how his eyes sparkle! he looks green about the temples! do you see what blue spots he has? TRUE: Ay, 'tis melancholy. EPI: Gentlemen, for Heaven's sake, counsel me. Ladies;--servant, you have read Pliny and Paracelsus; ne'er a word now to comfort a poor gentlewoman? Ay me, what fortune had I, to marry a distracted man! DAW: I will tell you, mistress-- TRUE: How rarely she holds it up! [ASIDE TO CLER.] MOR: What mean you, gentlemen? EPI: What will you tell me, servant? DAW: The disease in Greek is called mania, in Latin insania, furor, vel ecstasis melancholica, that is, egressio, when a man ex melancholico evadit fanaticus. MOR: Shall I have a lecture read upon me alive? DAW: But he may be but phreneticus yet, mistress? and phrenetis is only delirium, or so. EPI: Ay, that is for the disease, servant: but what is this to the cure? we are sure enough of the disease. MOR: Let me go. TRUE: Why, we'll entreat her to hold her peace, sir. MOR: O no, labour not to stop her. She is like a conduit-pipe, that will gush out with more force when she opens again. HAU: I will tell you, Morose, you must talk divinity to him altogether, or moral philosophy. LA-F: Ay, and there's an excellent book of moral philosophy, madam, of Raynard the fox, and all the beasts, called Doni's Philosophy. CEN: There is, indeed, sir Amorous La-Foole. MOR: O misery! LA-F: I have read it, my lady Centaure, all over, to my cousin, here. MRS. OTT: Ay, and 'tis a very good book as any is, of the moderns. DAW: Tut, he must have Seneca read to him, and Plutarch, and the ancients; the moderns are not for this disease. CLER: Why, you discommended them too, to-day, sir John. DAW: Ay, in some cases: but in these they are best, and Aristotle's ethics. MAV: Say you so sir John? I think you are decived: you took it upon trust. HAU: Where's Trusty, my woman? I'll end this difference. I prithee, Otter, call her. Her father and mother were both mad, when they put her to me. MOR: I think so. Nay, gentlemen, I am tame. This is but an exercise, I know, a marriage ceremony, which I must endure. HAU: And one of them, I know not which, was cur'd with the Sick Man's Salve; and the other with Green's Groat's-worth of Wit. TRUE: A very cheap cure, madam. [ENTER TRUSTY.] HAU: Ay, 'tis very feasible. MRS. OTT: My lady call'd for you, mistress Trusty: you must decide a controversy. HAU: O, Trusty, which was it you said, your father, or your mother, that was cured with the Sick Man's Salve? TRUS: My mother, madam, with the Salve. TRUE: Then it was the sick woman's salve? TRUS: And my father with the Groat's-worth of Wit. But there was other means used: we had a preacher that would preach folk asleep still; and so they were prescribed to go to church, by an old woman that was their physician, thrice a week-- EPI: To sleep? TRUS: Yes, forsooth: and every night they read themselves asleep on those books. EPI: Good faith, it stands with great reason. I would I knew where to procure those books. MOR: Oh! LA-F: I can help you with one of them, mistress Morose, the Groat's-worth of Wit. EPI: But I shall disfurnish you, sir Amorous: can you spare it? LA-F: O, yes, for a week, or so; I'll read it myself to him. EPI: No, I must do that, sir: that must be my office. MOR: Oh, oh! EPI: Sure he would do well enough, if he could sleep. MOR: No, I should do well enough, if you could sleep. Have I no friend that will make her drunk? or give her a little laudanum? or opium? TRUE: Why, sir, she talks ten times worse in her sleep. MOR: How! CLER: Do you not know that, sir? never ceases all night. TRUE: And snores like a porpoise. MOR: O, redeem me, fate; redeem me, fate! For how many causes may a man be divorced, nephew? DAUP: I know not, truly, sir. TRUE: Some divine must resolve you in that, sir, or canon-lawyer. MOR: I will not rest, I will not think of any other hope or comfort, till I know. [EXIT WITH DAUPHINE.] CLER: Alas, poor man! TRUE: You'll make him mad indeed, ladies, if you pursue this. HAU: No, we'll let him breathe now, a quarter of an hour or so. CLER: By my faith, a large truce! HAU: Is that his keeper, that is gone with him? DAW: It is his nephew, madam. LA-F: Sir Dauphine Eugenie. HAU: He looks like a very pitiful knight-- DAW: As can be. This marriage has put him out of all. LA-F: He has not a penny in his purse, madam. DAW: He is ready to cry all this day. LA-F: A very shark; he set me in the nick t'other night at Primero. TRUE: How these swabbers talk! CLER: Ay, Otter's wine has swell'd their humours above a spring-tide. HAU: Good Morose, let us go in again. I like your couches exceeding well; we will go lie and talk there. [EXEUNT HAU., CEN., MAV., TRUS., LA-FOOLE, AND DAW.] EPI [FOLLOWING THEM.]: I wait on you, madam. TRUE [STOPPING HER.]: 'Slight, I will have them as silent as signs, and their post too, ere I have done. Do you hear, lady-bride? I pray thee now, as thou art a noble wench, continue this discourse of Dauphine within; but praise him exceedingly: magnify him with all the height of affection thou canst;--I have some purpose in't: and but beat off these two rooks, Jack Daw and his fellow, with any discontentment, hither, and I'll honour thee for ever. EPI: I was about it here. It angered me to the soul, to hear them begin to talk so malepert. TRUE: Pray thee perform it, and thou winn'st me an idolater to thee everlasting. EPI: Will you go in and hear me do't? TRUE: No, I'll stay here. Drive them out of your company, 'tis all I ask; which cannot be any way better done, than by extolling Dauphine, whom they have so slighted. EPI: I warrant you; you shall expect one of them presently. [EXIT.] CLER: What a cast of kestrils are these, to hawk after ladies, thus! TRUE: Ay, and strike at such an eagle as Dauphine. CLER: He will be mad when we tell him. Here he comes. [RE-ENTER DAUPHINE.] CLER: O sir, you are welcome. TRUE: Where's thine uncle? DAUP: Run out of doors in his night-caps, to talk with a casuist about his divorce. It works admirably. TRUE: Thou wouldst have said so, if thou hadst been here! The ladies have laugh'd at thee most comically, since thou went'st, Dauphine. CLER: And ask'd, if thou wert thine uncle's keeper. TRUE: And the brace of baboons answer'd, Yes; and said thou wert a pitiful poor fellow, and didst live upon posts: and hadst nothing but three suits of apparel, and some few benevolences that lords gave thee to fool to them, and swagger. DAUP: Let me not live, I will beat them: I'll bind them both to grand-madam's bed-posts, and have them baited with monkies. TRUE: Thou shalt not need, they shall be beaten to thy hand, Dauphine. I have an execution to serve upon them, I warrant thee, shall serve; trust my plot. DAUP: Ay, you have many plots! so you had one to make all the wenches in love with me. TRUE: Why, if I do not yet afore night, as near as 'tis; and that they do not every one invite thee, and be ready to scratch for thee, take the mortgage of my wit. CLER: 'Fore God, I'll be his witness thou shalt have it, Dauphine: thou shalt be his fool for ever, if thou doest not. TRUE: Agreed. Perhaps 'twill be the better estate. Do you observe this gallery, or rather lobby, indeed? Here are a couple of studies, at each end one: here will I act such a tragi-comedy between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, Daw and La-Foole--which of them comes out first, will I seize on:--you two shall be the chorus behind the arras, and whip out between the acts and speak--If I do not make them keep the peace for this remnant of the day, if not of the year, I have failed once--I hear Daw coming: hide, [THEY WITHDRAW] and do not laugh, for God's sake. [RE-ENTER DAW.] DAW: Which is the way into the garden trow? TRUE: O, Jack Daw! I am glad I have met with you. In good faith, I must have this matter go no further between you. I must have it taken up. DAW: What matter, sir? between whom? TRUE: Come, you disguise it: sir Amorous and you. If you love me, Jack, you shall make use of your philosophy now, for this once, and deliver me your sword. This is not the wedding the Centaurs were at, though there be a she one here. [TAKES HIS SWORD.] The bride has entreated me I will see no blood shed at her bridal, you saw her whisper me erewhile. DAW: As I hope to finish Tacitus, I intend no murder. TRUE: Do you not wait for sir Amorous? DAW: Not I, by my knighthood. TRUE: And your scholarship too? DAW: And my scholarship too. TRUE: Go to, then I return you your sword, and ask you mercy; but put it not up, for you will be assaulted. I understood that you had apprehended it, and walked here to brave him: and that you had held your life contemptible, in regard of your honour. DAW: No, no; no such thing, I assure you. He and I parted now, as good friends as could be. TRUE: Trust not you to that visor. I saw him since dinner with another face: I have known many men in my time vex'd with losses, with deaths, and with abuses; but so offended a wight as sir Amorous, did I never see, or read of. For taking away his guests, sir, to-day, that's the cause: and he declares it behind your back with such threatenings and contempts--He said to Dauphine, you were the arrant'st ass-- DAW: Ay, he may say his pleasure. TRUE: And swears you are so protested a coward, that he knows you will never do him any manly or single right, and therefore he will take his course. DAW: I'll give him any satisfaction, sir--but fighting. TRUE: Ay, sir: but who knows what satisfaction he'll take? blood he thirsts for, and blood he will have: and whereabouts on you he will have it, who knows but himself? DAW: I pray you, master Truewit, be you a mediator. TRUE: Well, sir, conceal yourself then in this study till I return. [PUTS HIM INTO THE STUDY.] Nay, you must be content to be lock'd in: for, for mine own reputation, I would not have you seen to receive a public disgrace, while I have the matter in managing. Ods so, here he comes; keep your breath close, that he do not hear you sigh. In good faith, sir Amorous, he is not this way; I pray you be merciful, do not murder him; he is a Christian, as good as you: you are arm'd as if you sought revenge on all his race. Good Dauphine, get him away from this place. I never knew a man's choler so high, but he would speak to his friends, he would hear reason.--Jack Daw, Jack! asleep! DAW [within]: Is he gone, master Truewit? TRUE: Ay; did you hear him? DAW: O lord! yes. TRUE: What a quick ear fear has! DAW [COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET.]: But is he so arm'd, as you say? TRUE: Arm'd? did you ever see a fellow set out to take possession? DAW: Ay, sir. TRUE: That may give you some light to conceive of him: but 'tis nothing to the principal. Some false brother in the house has furnish'd him strangely; or, if it were out of the house, it was Tom Otter. DAW: Indeed he's a captain, and his wife is his kinswoman. TRUE: He has got some body's old two-hand sword, to mow you off at the knees; and that sword hath spawn'd such a dagger!--But then he is so hung with pikes, halberds, petronels, calivers and muskets, that he looks like a justice of peace's hall: a man of two thousand a-year, is not cess'd at so many weapons as he has on. There was never fencer challenged at so many several foils. You would think he meant to murder all Saint Pulchre parish. If he could but victual himself for half a year in his breeches, he is sufficiently arm'd to over-run a country. DAW: Good lord! what means he, sir? I pray you, master Truewit, be you a mediator. TRUE: Well, I 'll try if he will be appeased with a leg or an arm; if not you must die once. DAW: I would be loth to lose my right arm, for writing madrigals. TRUE: Why, if he will be satisfied with a thumb or a little finger, all's one to me. You must think, I will do my best. [SHUTS HIM UP AGAIN.] DAW: Good sir, do. [CLERIMONT AND DAUPHINE COME FORWARD.] CLER: What hast thou done? TRUE: He will let me do nothing, he does all afore; he offers his left arm. CLER: His left wing for a Jack Daw. DAUP: Take it, by all means. TRUE: How! maim a man for ever, for a jest? What a conscience hast thou! DAUP: 'Tis no loss to him; he has no employment for his arms, but to eat spoon-meat. Beside, as good maim his body as his reputation. TRUE: He is a scholar, and a wit, and yet he does not think so. But he loses no reputation with us; for we all resolved him an ass before. To your places again. CLER: I pray thee, let me be in at the other a little. TRUE: Look, you'll spoil all: these be ever your tricks. CLER: No, but I could hit of some things that thou wilt miss, and thou wilt say are good ones. TRUE: I warrant you. I pray forbear, I will leave it off, else. DAUP: Come away, Clerimont. [DAUP. AND CLER. WITHDRAW AS BEFORE.] [ENTER LA-FOOLE.] TRUE: Sir Amorous! LA-F: Master Truewit. TRUE: Whither were you going? LA-F: Down into the court to make water. TRUE: By no means, sir; you shall rather tempt your breeches. LA-F: Why, sir? TRUE: Enter here, if you love your life. [OPENING THE DOOR OF THE OTHER STUDY.] LA-F: Why? why? TRUE: Question till you throat be cut, do: dally till the enraged soul find you. LA-F: Who is that? TRUE: Daw it is: will you in? LA-F: Ay, ay, I will in: what's the matter? TRUE: Nay, if he had been cool enough to tell us that, there had been some hope to atone you, but he seems so implacably enraged! LA-F: 'Slight, let him rage! I'll hide myself. TRUE: Do, good sir. But what have you done to him within, that should provoke him thus? You have broke some jest upon him, afore the ladies. LA-F: Not I, never in my life, broke jest upon any man. The bride was praising sir Dauphine, and he went away in snuff, and I followed him, unless he took offence at me in his drink erewhile, that I would not pledge all the horse full. TRUE: By my faith, and that may be, you remember well: but he walks the round up and down, through every room o' the house, with a towel in his hand, crying, Where's La-Foole? Who saw La-Foole? and when Dauphine and I demanded the cause, we can force no answer from him, but--O revenge, how sweet art thou! I will strangle him in this towel--which leads us to conjecture that the main cause of his fury is, for bringing your meat to-day, with a towel about you, to his discredit. LA-F: Like enough. Why, if he be angry for that, I'll stay here till his anger be blown over. TRUE: A good becoming resolution, sir; if you can put it on o' the sudden. LA-F: Yes, I can put it on: or, I'll away into the country presently. TRUE: How will you get out of the house, sir? he knows you are in the house, and he will watch you this se'ennight, but he'll have you. He'll outwait a serjeant for you. LA-F: Why, then I'll stay here. TRUE: You must think how to victual yourself in time then. LA-F: Why, sweet master Truewit, will you entreat my cousin Otter to send me a cold venison pasty, a bottle or two of wine, and a chamber-pot? TRUE: A stool were better, sir, of sir Ajax his invention. LA-F: Ay, that will be better, indeed; and a pallet to lie on. TRUE: O, I would not advise you to sleep by any means. LA-F: Would you not, sir? why, then I will not. TRUE: Yet, there's another fear-- LA-F: Is there! what is't? TRUE: No, he cannot break open this door with his foot, sure. LA-F: I'll set my back against it, sir. I have a good back. TRUE: But then if he should batter. LA-F: Batter! if he dare, I'll have an action of battery against him. TRUE: Cast you the worst. He has sent for powder already, and what he will do with it, no man knows: perhaps blow up the corner of the house where he suspects you are. Here he comes; in quickly. [THRUSTS IN LA-FOOLE AND SHUTS THE DOOR.] I protest, sir John Daw, he is not this way: what will you do? before God, you shall hang no petard here. I'll die rather. Will you not take my word? I never knew one but would be satisfied.-- Sir Amorous, [SPEAKS THROUGH THE KEY-HOLE,] there's no standing out: He has made a petard of an old brass pot, to force your door. Think upon some satisfaction, or terms to offer him. LA-F [WITHIN.]: Sir, I will give him any satisfaction: I dare give any terms. TRUE: You'll leave it to me, then? LA-F: Ay, sir. I'll stand to any conditions. TRUE [BECKONING FORWARD CLERIMONT AND DAUPHINE.]: How now, what think you, sirs? were't not a difficult thing to determine which of these two fear'd most. CLER: Yes, but this fears the bravest: the other a whiniling dastard, Jack Daw! But La-Foole, a brave heroic coward! and is afraid in a great look and a stout accent; I like him rarely. TRUE: Had it not been pity these two should have been concealed? CLER: Shall I make a motion? TRUE: Briefly: For I must strike while 'tis hot. CLER: Shall I go fetch the ladies to the catastrophe? TRUE: Umph! ay, by my troth. DAUP: By no mortal means. Let them continue in the state of ignorance, and err still; think them wits and fine fellows, as they have done. 'Twere sin to reform them. TRUE: Well, I will have them fetch'd, now I think on't, for a private purpose of mine: do, Clerimont, fetch them, and discourse to them all that's past, and bring them into the gallery here. DAUP: This is thy extreme vanity, now: thou think'st thou wert undone, if every jest thou mak'st were not publish'd. TRUE: Thou shalt see how unjust thou art presently. Clerimont, say it was Dauphine's plot. [EXIT CLERIMONT.] Trust me not, if the whole drift be not for thy good. There is a carpet in the next room, put it on, with this scarf over thy face, and a cushion on thy head, and be ready when I call Amorous. Away! [EXIT DAUP.] John Daw! [GOES TO DAW'S CLOSET AND BRINGS HIM OUT.] DAW: What good news, sir? TRUE: Faith, I have followed and argued with him hard for you. I told him you were a knight, and a scholar, and that you knew fortitude did consist magis patiendo quam faciendo, magis ferendo quam feriendo. DAW: It doth so indeed, sir. TRUE: And that you would suffer, I told him: so at first he demanded by my troth, in my conceit, too much. DAW: What was it, sir. TRUE: Your upper lip, and six of your fore-teeth. DAW: 'Twas unreasonable. TRUE: Nay, I told him plainly, you could not spare them all. So after long argument pro et con as you know, I brought him down to your two butter-teeth, and them he would have. DAW: O, did you so? Why, he shall have them. TRUE: But he shall not, sir, by your leave. The conclusion is this, sir: because you shall be very good friends hereafter, and this never to be remembered or upbraided; besides, that he may not boast he has done any such thing to you in his own person: he is to come here in disguise, give you five kicks in private, sir, take your sword from you, and lock you up in that study during pleasure: which will be but a little while, we'll get it released presently. DAW: Five kicks! he shall have six, sir, to be friends. TRUE: Believe me, you shall not over-shoot yourself, to send him that word by me. DAW: Deliver it, sir: he shall have it with all my heart, to be friends. TRUE: Friends! Nay, an he should not be so, and heartily too, upon these terms, he shall have me to enemy while I live. Come, sir, bear it bravely. DAW: O lord, sir, 'tis nothing. TRUE: True: what's six kicks to a man that reads Seneca? DAW: I have had a hundred, sir. TRUE: Sir Amorous! [RE-ENTER DAUPHINE, DISGUISED.] No speaking one to another, or rehearsing old matters. DAW [AS DAUPHINE KICKS HIM.]: One, two, three, four, five. I protest, sir Amorous, you shall have six. TRUE: Nay, I told you, you should not talk. Come give him six, an he will needs. [DAUPHINE KICKS HIM AGAIN.] --Your sword. [TAKES HIS SWORD.] Now return to your safe custody: you shall presently meet afore the ladies, and be the dearest friends one to another. [PUTS DAW INTO THE STUDY.] --Give me the scarf now, thou shalt beat the other bare-faced. Stand by: [DAUPHINE RETIRES, AND TRUEWIT GOES TO THE OTHER CLOSET, AND RELEASES LA-FOOLE.] --Sir Amorous! LA-F: What's here? A sword? TRUE: I cannot help it, without I should take the quarrel upon myself. Here he has sent you his sword-- LA-F: I will receive none on't. TRUE: And he wills you to fasten it against a wall, and break your head in some few several places against the hilts. LA-F: I will not: tell him roundly. I cannot endure to shed my own blood. TRUE: Will you not? LA-F: No. I'll beat it against a fair flat wall, if that will satisfy him: if not, he shall beat it himself, for Amorous. TRUE: Why, this is strange starting off, when a man undertakes for you! I offer'd him another condition; will you stand to that? LA-F: Ay, what is't. TRUE: That you will be beaten in private. LA-F: Yes, I am content, at the blunt. [ENTER, ABOVE, HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY.] TRUE: Then you must submit yourself to be hoodwinked in this scarf, and be led to him, where he will take your sword from you, and make you bear a blow over the mouth, gules, and tweaks by the nose, sans nombre. LA-F: I am content. But why must I be blinded? TRUE: That's for your good, sir: because, if he should grow insolent upon this, and publish it hereafter to your disgrace, (which I hope he will not do,) you might swear safely, and protest, he never beat you, to your knowledge. LA-F: O, I conceive. TRUE: I do not doubt but you will be perfect good friends upon't, and not dare to utter an ill thought one of another in future. LA-F: Not I, as God help me, of him. TRUE: Nor he of you, sir. If he should [BLINDS HIS EYES.] --Come, sir. [LEADS HIM FORWARD.] --All hid, sir John. [ENTER DAUPHINE, AND TWEAKS HIM BY THE NOSE.] LA-F: O, sir John, sir John! Oh, o--o--o--o--o--Oh-- TRUE: Good, sir John, leave tweaking, you'll blow his nose off. 'Tis sir John's pleasure, you should retire into the study. [PUTS HIM UP AGAIN.] --Why, now you are friends. All bitterness between you, I hope, is buried; you shall come forth by and by, Damon and Pythias upon't, and embrace with all the rankness of friendship that can be. I trust, we shall have them tamer in their language hereafter. Dauphine, I worship thee.--Gods will the ladies have surprised us! [ENTER HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, EPICOENE, AND TRUSTY, BEHIND.] HAU: Centaure, how our judgments were imposed on by these adulterate knights! Nay, madam, Mavis was more deceived than we, 'twas her commendation utter'd them in the college. MAV: I commended but their wits, madam, and their braveries. I never look'd toward their valours. HAU: Sir Dauphine is valiant, and a wit too, it seems. MAV: And a bravery too. HAU: Was this his project? MRS. OTT: So master Clerimont intimates, madam. HAU: Good Morose, when you come to the college, will you bring him with you? he seems a very perfect gentleman. EPI: He is so, madam, believe it. CEN: But when will you come, Morose? EPI: Three or four days hence, madam, when I have got me a coach and horses. HAU: No, to-morrow, good Morose; Centaure shall send you her coach. MAV: Yes faith, do, and bring sir Dauphine with you. HAU: She has promised that, Mavis. MAV: He is a very worthy gentleman in his exteriors, madam. HAU: Ay, he shews he is judicial in his clothes. CEN: And yet not so superlatively neat as some, madam, that have their faces set in a brake. HAU: Ay, and have every hair in form! MAV: That wear purer linen then ourselves, and profess more neatness than the French hermaphrodite! EPI: Ay, ladies, they, what they tell one of us, have told a thousand; and are the only thieves of our fame: that think to take us with that perfume, or with that lace, and laugh at us unconscionably when they have done. HAU: But, sir Dauphine's carelessness becomes him. CEN: I could love a man for such a nose. MAV: Or such a leg! CEN: He has an exceeding good eye, madam. MAV: And a very good lock. CEN: Good Morose, bring him to my chamber first. MRS. OTT: Please your honours to meet at my house, madam. TRUE: See how they eye thee, man! they are taken, I warrant thee. [HAUGHTY COMES FORWARD.] HAU: You have unbraced our brace of knights here, master Truewit. TRUE: Not I, madam; it was sir Dauphine's ingine: who, if he have disfurnish'd your ladyship of any guard or service by it, is able to make the place good again, in himself. HAU: There is no suspicion of that, sir. CEN: God so, Mavis, Haughty is kissing. MAV: Let us go too, and take part. [THEY COME FORWARD.] HAU: But I am glad of the fortune (beside the discovery of two such empty caskets) to gain the knowledge of so rich a mine of virtue as sir Dauphine. CEN: We would be all glad to style him of our friendship, and see him at the college. MAV: He cannot mix with a sweeter society, I'll prophesy; and I hope he himself will think so. DAUP: I should be rude to imagine otherwise, lady. TRUE: Did not I tell thee, Dauphine? Why, all their actions are governed by crude opinion, without reason or cause; they know not why they do any thing: but, as they are inform'd, believe, judge, praise, condemn, love, hate, and in emulation one of another, do all these things alike. Only they have a natural inclination sways them generally to the worst, when they are left to themselves. But pursue it, now thou hast them. HAU: Shall we go in again, Morose? EPI: Yes, madam. CEN: We'll entreat sir Dauphine's company. TRUE: Stay, good madam, the interview of the two friends, Pylades and Orestes: I'll fetch them out to you straight. HAU: Will you, master Truewit? DAUP: Ay, but noble ladies, do not confess in your countenance, or outward bearing to them, any discovery of their follies, that we may see how they will bear up again, with what assurance and erection. HAU: We will not, sir Dauphine. CEN. MAV: Upon our honours, sir Dauphine. TRUE [GOES TO THE FIRST CLOSET.]: Sir Amorous, sir Amorous! The ladies are here. LA-F [WITHIN.]: Are they? TRUE: Yes; but slip out by and by, as their backs are turn'd, and meet sir John here, as by chance, when I call you. [goes to the other.] --Jack Daw. DAW: What say you, sir? TRUE: Whip out behind me suddenly, and no anger in your looks to your adversary. Now, now! [LA-FOOLE AND DAW SLIP OUT OF THEIR RESPECTIVE CLOSETS, AND SALUTE EACH OTHER.] LA-F: Noble sir John Daw, where have you been? DAW: To seek you, sir Amorous. LA-F: Me! I honour you. DAW: I prevent you, sir. CLER: They have forgot their rapiers. TRUE: O, they meet in peace, man. DAUP: Where's your sword, sir John? CLER: And yours, sir Amorous? DAW: Mine! my boy had it forth to mend the handle, e'en now. LA-F: And my gold handle was broke too, and my boy had it forth. DAUP: Indeed, sir!--How their excuses meet! CLER: What a consent there is in the handles! TRUE: Nay, there is so in the points too, I warrant you. [ENTER MOROSE, WITH THE TWO SWORDS, DRAWN IN HIS HANDS.] MRS. OTT: O me! madam, he comes again, the madman! Away! [LADIES, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE, RUN OFF.] MOR: What make these naked weapons here, gentlemen? TRUE: O sir! here hath like to have been murder since you went; a couple of knights fallen out about the bride's favours! We were fain to take away their weapons; your house had been begg'd by this time else. MOR: For what? CLER: For manslaughter, sir, as being accessary. MOR: And for her favours? TRUE: Ay, sir, heretofore, not present--Clerimont, carry them their swords, now. They have done all the hurt they will do. [EXIT CLER. WITH THE TWO SWORDS.] DAUP: Have you spoke with the lawyer, sir? MOR: O, no! there is such a noise in the court, that they have frighted me home with more violence then I went! such speaking and counter-speaking, with their several voices of citations, appellations, allegations, certificates, attachments, intergatories, references, convictions, and afflictions indeed, among the doctors and proctors, that the noise here is silence to't! a kind of calm midnight! TRUE: Why, sir, if you would be resolved indeed, I can bring you hither a very sufficient lawyer, and a learned divine, that shall enquire into every least scruple for you. MOR: Can you, master Truewit? TRUE: Yes, and are very sober, grave persons, that will dispatch it in a chamber, with a whisper or two. MOR: Good sir, shall I hope this benefit from you, and trust myself into your hands? TRUE: Alas, sir! your nephew and I have been ashamed and oft-times mad, since you went, to think how you are abused. Go in, good sir, and lock yourself up till we call you; we'll tell you more anon, sir. MOR: Do your pleasure with me gentlemen; I believe in you: and that deserves no delusion. [EXIT.] TRUE: You shall find none, sir: but heap'd, heap'd plenty of vexation. DAUP: What wilt thou do now, Wit? TRUE: Recover me hither Otter and the barber, if you can, by any means, presently. DAUP: Why? to what purpose? TRUE: O, I'll make the deepest divine, and gravest lawyer, out of them two for him-- DAUP: Thou canst not, man; these are waking dreams. TRUE: Do not fear me. Clap but a civil gown with a welt on the one; and a canonical cloak with sleeves on the other: and give them a few terms in their mouths, if there come not forth as able a doctor, and complete a parson, for this turn, as may be wish'd, trust not my election: and, I hope, without wronging the dignity of either profession, since they are but persons put on, and for mirth's sake, to torment him. The barber smatters Latin, I remember. DAUP: Yes, and Otter too. TRUE: Well then, if I make them not wrangle out this case to his no comfort, let me be thought a Jack Daw or La-Foole or anything worse. Go you to your ladies, but first send for them. DAUP: I will. [EXEUNT.] ACT 5. SCENE 5.1. A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE. ENTER LA-FOOLE, CLERIMONT, AND DAW. LA-F: Where had you our swords, master Clerimont? CLER: Why, Dauphine took them from the madman. LA-F: And he took them from our boys, I warrant you. CLER: Very like, sir. LA-F: Thank you, good master Clerimont. Sir John Daw and I are both beholden to you. CLER: Would I knew how to make you so, gentlemen! DAW: Sir Amorous and I are your servants, sir. [ENTER MAVIS.] MAV: Gentlemen, have any of you a pen and ink? I would fain write out a riddle in Italian, for sir Dauphine, to translate. CLER: Not I, in troth lady; I am no scrivener. DAW: I can furnish you, I think, lady. [EXEUNT DAW AND MAVIS.] CLER: He has it in the haft of a knife, I believe. LA-F: No, he has his box of instruments. CLER: Like a surgeon! LA-F: For the mathematics: his square, his compasses, his brass pens, and black-lead, to draw maps of every place and person where he comes. CLER: How, maps of persons! LA-F: Yes, sir, of Nomentack when he was here, and of the Prince of Moldavia, and of his mistress, mistress Epicoene. [RE-ENTER DAW.] CLER: Away! he hath not found out her latitude, I hope. LA-F: You are a pleasant gentleman, sir. CLER: Faith, now we are in private, let's wanton it a little, and talk waggishly.--Sir John, I am telling sir Amorous here, that you two govern the ladies wherever you come; you carry the feminine gender afore you. DAW: They shall rather carry us afore them, if they will, sir. CLER: Nay, I believe that they do, withal--but that you are the prime men in their affections, and direct all their actions-- DAW: Not I: sir Amorous is. LA-F: I protest, sir John is. DAW: As I hope to rise in the state, sir Amorous, you have the person. LA-F: Sir John, you have the person, and the discourse too. DAW: Not I, sir. I have no discourse--and then you have activity beside. LA-F: I protest, sir John, you come as high from Tripoly as I do, every whit: and lift as many join'd stools, and leap over them, if you would use it. CLER: Well, agree on't together knights; for between you, you divide the kingdom or commonwealth of ladies' affections: I see it, and can perceive a little how they observe you, and fear you, indeed. You could tell strange stories, my masters, if you would, I know. DAW: Faith, we have seen somewhat, sir. LA-F: That we have--velvet petticoats, and wrought smocks, or so. DAW: Ay, and-- CLER: Nay, out with it, sir John: do not envy your friend the pleasure of hearing, when you have had the delight of tasting. DAW: Why--a--do you speak, sir Amorous. LA-F: No, do you, sir John Daw. DAW: I'faith, you shall. LA-F: I'faith, you shall. DAW: Why, we have been-- LA-F: In the great bed at Ware together in our time. On, sir John. DAW: Nay, do you, sir Amorous. CLER: And these ladies with you, knights? LA-F: No, excuse us, sir. DAW: We must not wound reputation. LA-F: No matter--they were these, or others. Our bath cost us fifteen pound when we came home. CLER: Do you hear, sir John? You shall tell me but one thing truly, as you love me. DAW: If I can, I will, sir. CLER: You lay in the same house with the bride, here? DAW: Yes, and conversed with her hourly, sir. CLER: And what humour is she of? Is she coming, and open, free? DAW: O, exceeding open, sir. I was her servant, and sir Amorous was to be. CLER: Come, you have both had favours from her: I know, and have heard so much. DAW: O no, sir. LA-F: You shall excuse us, sir: we must not wound reputation. CLER: Tut, she is married now, and you cannot hurt her with any report; and therefore speak plainly: how many times, i'faith? which of you led first? ha! LA-F: Sir John had her maidenhead, indeed. DAW: O, it pleases him to say so, sir, but sir Amorous knows what is what, as well. CLER: Dost thou i'faith, Amorous? LA-F: In a manner, sir. CLER: Why, I commend you lads. Little knows don Bridegroom of this. Nor shall he, for me. DAW: Hang him, mad ox! CLER: Speak softly: here comes his nephew, with the lady Haughty. He'll get the ladies from you, sirs, if you look not to him in time. LA-F: Why, if he do, we'll fetch them home again, I warrant you. [EXIT WITH DAW. CLER. WALKS ASIDE.] [ENTER DAUPHINE AND HAUGHTY.] HAU: I assure you, sir Dauphine, it is the price and estimation of your virtue only, that hath embark'd me to this adventure; and I could not but make out to tell you so; nor can I repent me of the act, since it is always an argument of some virtue in our selves, that we love and affect it so in others. DAUP: Your ladyship sets too high a price on my weakness. HAU: Sir, I can distinguish gems from pebbles-- DAUP [ASIDE.]: Are you so skilful in stones? HAU: And howsover I may suffer in such a judgment as yours, by admitting equality of rank or society with Centaure or Mavis-- DAUP: You do not, madam; I perceive they are your mere foils. HAU: Then, are you a friend to truth, sir; it makes me love you the more. It is not the outward, but the inward man that I affect. They are not apprehensive of an eminent perfection, but love flat, and dully. CEN [within.]: Where are you, my lady Haughty? HAU: I come presently, Centaure.--My chamber, sir, my page shall shew you; and Trusty, my woman, shall be ever awake for you: you need not fear to communicate any thing with her, for she is a Fidelia. I pray you wear this jewel for my sake, sir Dauphine.-- [ENTER CENTAURE.] Where is Mavis, Centaure? CEN: Within, madam, a writing. I'll follow you presently: [EXIT HAU.] I'll but speak a word with sir Dauphine. DAUP: With me, madam? CEN: Good sir Dauphine, do not trust Haughty, nor make any credit to her, whatever you do besides. Sir Dauphine, I give you this caution, she is a perfect courtier, and loves nobody but for her uses: and for her uses she loves all. Besides, her physicians give her out to be none o' the clearest, whether she pay them or no, heaven knows: and she's above fifty too, and pargets! See her in a forenoon. Here comes Mavis, a worse face then she! you would not like this, by candle-light. [RE-ENTER MAVIS.] If you'll come to my chamber one o' these mornings early, or late in an evening, I will tell you more. Where's Haughty, Mavis? MAV: Within, Centaure. CEN: What have you, there? MAV: An Italian riddle for sir Dauphine,--you shall not see it i'faith, Centaure.-- [EXIT CEN.] Good sir Dauphine, solve it for me. I'll call for it anon. [EXIT.] CLER [COMING FORWARD.]: How now, Dauphine! how dost thou quit thyself of these females? DAUP: 'Slight, they haunt me like fairies, and give me jewels here; I cannot be rid of them. CLER: O, you must not tell though. DAUP: Mass, I forgot that: I was never so assaulted. One loves for virtue, and bribes me with this; [SHEWS THE JEWEL.] --another loves me with caution, and so would possess me; a third brings me a riddle here: and all are jealous: and rail each at other. CLER: A riddle! pray let me see it. [READS.] Sir Dauphine, I chose this way of intimation for privacy. The ladies here, I know, have both hope and purpose to make a collegiate and servant of you. If I might be so honoured, as to appear at any end of so noble a work, I would enter into a fame of taking physic to-morrow, and continue it four or five days, or longer, for your visitation. Mavis. By my faith, a subtle one! Call you this a riddle? what's their plain dealing, trow? DAUP: We lack Truewit to tell us that. CLER: We lack him for somewhat else too: his knights reformadoes are wound up as high and insolent as ever they were. DAUP: You jest. CLER: No drunkards, either with wine or vanity, ever confess'd such stories of themselves. I would not give a fly's leg, in balance against all the womens' reputations here, if they could be but thought to speak truth: and for the bride, they have made their affidavit against her directly-- DAUP: What, that they have lain with her? CLER: Yes; and tell times and circumstances, with the cause why, and the place where. I had almost brought them to affirm that they had done it to-day. DAUP: Not both of them? CLER: Yes, faith: with a sooth or two more I had effected it. They would have set it down under their hands. DAUP: Why, they will be our sport, I see, still, whether we will or no. [ENTER TRUEWIT.] TRUE: O, are you here? Come, Dauphine; go call your uncle presently: I have fitted my divine, and my canonist, dyed their beards and all. The knaves do not know themselves, they are so exalted and altered. Preferment changes any man. Thou shalt keep one door and I another, and then Clerimont in the midst, that he may have no means of escape from their cavilling, when they grow hot once again. And then the women, as I have given the bride her instructions, to break in upon him in the l'enuoy. O, 'twill be full and twanging! Away! fetch him. [EXIT DAUPHINE.] [ENTER OTTER DISGUISED AS A DIVINE, AND CUTBEARD AS A CANON LAWYER.] Come, master doctor, and master parson, look to your parts now, and discharge them bravely: you are well set forth, perform it as well. If you chance to be out, do not confess it with standing still, or humming, or gaping one at another: but go on, and talk aloud and eagerly; use vehement action, and only remember your terms, and you are safe. Let the matter go where it will: you have many will do so. But at first be very solemn, and grave like your garments, though you loose your selves after, and skip out like a brace of jugglers on a table. Here he comes: set your faces, and look superciliously, while I present you. [RE-ENTER DAUPHINE WITH MOROSE.] MOR: Are these the two learned men? TRUE: Yes, sir; please you salute them. MOR: Salute them! I had rather do any thing, than wear out time so unfruitfully, sir. I wonder how these common forms, as God save you, and You are welcome, are come to be a habit in our lives: or, I am glad to see you! when I cannot see what the profit can be of these words, so long as it is no whit better with him whose affairs are sad and grievous, that he hears this salutation. TRUE: 'Tis true, sir; we'll go to the matter then.--Gentlemen, master doctor, and master parson, I have acquainted you sufficiently with the business for which you are come hither; and you are not now to inform yourselves in the state of the question, I know. This is the gentleman who expects your resolution, and therefore, when you please, begin. OTT: Please you, master doctor. CUT: Please you, good master parson. OTT: I would hear the canon-law speak first. CUT: It must give place to positive divinity, sir. MOR: Nay, good gentlemen, do not throw me into circumstances. Let your comforts arrive quickly at me, those that are. Be swift in affording me my peace, if so I shall hope any. I love not your disputations, or your court-tumults. And that it be not strange to you, I will tell you: My father, in my education, was wont to advise me, that I should always collect and contain my mind, not suffering it to flow loosely; that I should look to what things were necessary to the carriage of my life, and what not; embracing the one and eschewing the other: in short, that I should endear myself to rest, and avoid turmoil: which now is grown to be another nature to me. So that I come not to your public pleadings, or your places of noise; not that I neglect those things that make for the dignity of the commonwealth: but for the mere avoiding of clamours and impertinencies of orators, that know not how to be silent. And for the cause of noise, am I now a suitor to you. You do not know in what a misery I have been exercised this day, what a torrent of evil! my very house turns round with the tumult! I dwell in a windmill: The perpetual motion is here, and not at Eltham. TRUE: Well, good master doctor, will you break the ice? master parson will wade after. CUT: Sir, though unworthy, and the weaker, I will presume. OTT: 'Tis no presumption, domine doctor. MOR: Yet again! CUT: Your question is, For how many causes a man may have divortium legitimum, a lawful divorce? First, you must understand the nature of the word, divorce, a divertendo-- MOR: No excursions upon words, good doctor, to the question briefly. CUT: I answer then, the canon-law affords divorce but in a few cases; and the principal is in the common case, the adulterous case: But there are duodecim impedimenta, twelve impediments, as we call them, all which do not dirimere contractum, but irritum reddere matrimonium, as we say in the canon-law, not take away the bond, but cause a nullity therein. MOR: I understood you before: good sir, avoid your impertinency of translation. OTT: He cannot open this too much, sir, by your favour. MOR: Yet more! TRUE: O, you must give the learned men leave, sir.--To your impediments, master Doctor. CUT: The first is impedimentum erroris. OTT: Of which there are several species. CUT: Ay, as error personae. OTT: If you contract yourself to one person, thinking her another. CUT: Then, error fortunae. OTT: If she be a begger, and you thought her rich. CUT: Then, error qualitatis. OTT: If she prove stubborn or head-strong, that you thought obedient. MOR: How! is that, sir, a lawful impediment? One at once, I pray you gentlemen. OTT: Ay, ante copulam, but not post copulam, sir. CUT: Master Parson says right. Nec post nuptiarum benedictionem. It doth indeed but irrita reddere sponsalia, annul the contract: after marriage it is of no obstancy. TRUE: Alas, sir, what a hope are we fallen from by this time! CUT: The next is conditio: if you thought her free born, and she prove a bond-woman, there is impediment of estate and condition. OTT: Ay, but, master doctor, those servitudes are sublatae now, among us Christians. CUT: By your favour, master parson-- OTT: You shall give me leave, master doctor. MOR: Nay, gentlemen, quarrel not in that question; it concerns not my case: pass to the third. CUT: Well then, the third is votum: if either party have made a vow of chastity. But that practice, as master parson said of the other, is taken away among us, thanks be to discipline. The fourth is cognatio: if the persons be of kin within the degrees. OTT: Ay: do you know what the degrees are, sir? MOR: No, nor I care not, sir: they offer me no comfort in the question, I am sure. CUT: But there is a branch of this impediment may, which is cognatio spiritualis: if you were her godfather, sir, then the marriage is incestuous. OTT: That comment is absurd and superstitious, master doctor: I cannot endure it. Are we not all brothers and sisters, and as much akin in that, as godfathers and god-daughters? MOR: O me! to end the controversy, I never was a godfather, I never was a godfather in my life, sir. Pass to the next. CUT: The fifth is crimen adulterii; the known case. The sixth, cultus disparitas, difference of religion: have you ever examined her, what religion she is of? MOR: No, I would rather she were of none, than be put to the trouble of it! OTT: You may have it done for you, sir. MOR: By no means, good sir; on to the rest: shall you ever come to an end, think you? TRUE: Yes, he has done half, sir. On, to the rest.--Be patient, and expect, sir. CUT: The seventh is, vis: if it were upon compulsion or force. MOR: O no, it was too voluntary, mine; too voluntary. CUT: The eight is, ordo; if ever she have taken holy orders. OTT: That's supersitious too. MOR: No matter, master parson: Would she would go into a nunnery yet. CUT: The ninth is, ligamen; if you were bound, sir, to any other before. MOR: I thrust myself too soon into these fetters. CUT: The tenth is, publica honestas: which is inchoata quaedam affinitas. OTT: Ay, or affinitas orta ex sponsalibus; and is but leve impedimentum. MOR: I feel no air of comfort blowing to me, in all this. CUT: The eleventh is, affinitas ex fornicatione. OTT: Which is no less vera affinitas, than the other, master doctor. CUT: True, quae oritur ex legitimo matrimonio. OTT: You say right, venerable doctor: and, nascitur ex eo, quod per conjugium duae personae efficiuntur una caro-- MOR: Hey-day, now they begin! CUT: I conceive you, master parson: ita per fornicationem aeque est verus pater, qui sic generat-- OTT: Et vere filius qui sic generatur-- MOR: What's all this to me? CLER: Now it grows warm. CUT: The twelfth, and last is, si forte coire nequibis. OTT: Ay, that is impedimentum gravissimum: it doth utterly annul, and annihilate, that. If you have manifestam frigiditatem, you are well, sir. TRUE: Why, there is comfort come at length, sir. Confess yourself but a man unable, and she will sue to be divorced first. OTT: Ay, or if there be morbus perpetuus, et insanabilis; as paralysis, elephantiasis, or so-- DAUP: O, but frigiditas is the fairer way, gentlemen. OTT: You say troth, sir, and as it is in the canon, master doctor-- CUT: I conceive you, sir. CLER: Before he speaks! OTT: That a boy, or child, under years, is not fit for marriage, because he cannot reddere debitum. So your omnipotentes-- TRUE [ASIDE TO OTT.]: Your impotentes, you whoreson lobster! OTT: Your impotentes, I should say, are minime apti ad contrahenda matrimonium. TRUE: Matrimonium! we shall have most unmatrimonial Latin with you: matrimonia, and be hang'd. DAUP: You put them out, man. CUT: But then there will arise a doubt, master parson, in our case, post matrimonium: that frigiditate praeditus--do you conceive me, sir? OTT: Very well, sir. CUT: Who cannot uti uxore pro uxore, may habere eam pro sorore. OTT: Absurd, absurd, absurd, and merely apostatical! CUT: You shall pardon me, master parson, I can prove it. OTT: You can prove a will, master doctor, you can prove nothing else. Does not the verse of your own canon say, Haec socianda vetant connubia, facta retractant? CUT: I grant you; but how do they retractare, master parson? MOR: O, this was it I feared. OTT: In aeternum, sir. CUT: That's false in divinity, by your favour. OTT: 'Tis false in humanity to say so. Is he not prorsus inutilis ad thorum? Can he praestare fidem datam? I would fain know. CUT: Yes; how if he do convalere? OTT: He cannot convalere, it is impossible. TRUE: Nay, good sir, attend the learned men, they will think you neglect them else. CUT: Or, if he do simulare himself frigidum, odio uxoris, or so? OTT: I say, he is adulter manifestus then. DAUP: They dispute it very learnedly, i'faith. OTT: And prostitutor uxoris; and this is positive. MOR: Good sir, let me escape. TRUE: You will not do me that wrong, sir? OTT: And, therefore, if he be manifeste frigidus, sir-- CUT: Ay, if he be manifeste frigidus, I grant you-- OTT: Why, that was my conclusion. CUT: And mine too. TRUE: Nay, hear the conclusion, sir. OTT: Then, frigiditatis causa-- CUT: Yes, causa frigiditatis-- MOR: O, mine ears! OTT: She may have libellum divortii against you. CUT: Ay, divortii libellum she will sure have. MOR: Good echoes, forbear. OTT: If you confess it. CUT: Which I would do, sir-- MOR: I will do any thing. OTT: And clear myself in foro conscientiae-- CUT: Because you want indeed-- MOR: Yet more? OTT: Exercendi potestate. [EPICOENE RUSHES IN, FOLLOWED BY HAUGHTY, CENTAURE, MAVIS, MISTRESS OTTER, DAW, AND LA-FOOLE.] EPI: I will not endure it any longer. Ladies, I beseech you, help me. This is such a wrong as never was offered to poor bride before: upon her marriage day, to have her husband conspire against her, and a couple of mercenary companions to be brought in for form's sake, to persuade a separation! If you had blood or virtue in you, gentlemen, you would not suffer such ear-wigs about a husband, or scorpions to creep between man and wife. MOR: O the variety and changes of my torment! HAU: Let them be cudgell'd out of doors, by our grooms. CEN: I'll lend you my foot-man. MAV: We'll have our men blanket them in the hall. MRS. OTT: As there was one at our house, madam, for peeping in at the door. DAW: Content, i'faith. TRUE: Stay, ladies and gentlemen; you'll hear, before you proceed? MAV: I'd have the bridegroom blanketted too. CEN: Begin with him first. HAU: Yes, by my troth. MOR: O mankind generation! DAUP: Ladies, for my sake forbear. HAU: Yes, for sir Dauphine's sake. CEN: He shall command us. LA-F: He is as fine a gentleman of his inches, madam, as any is about the town, and wears as good colours when he lists. TRUE: Be brief, sir, and confess your infirmity, she'll be a-fire to be quit of you, if she but hear that named once, you shall not entreat her to stay: she'll fly you like one that had the marks upon him. MOR: Ladies, I must crave all your pardons-- TRUE: Silence, ladies. MOR: For a wrong I have done to your whole sex, in marrying this fair, and virtuous gentlewoman-- CLER: Hear him, good ladies. MOR: Being guilty of an infirmity, which, before I conferred with these learned men, I thought I might have concealed-- TRUE: But now being better informed in his conscience by them, he is to declare it, and give satisfaction, by asking your public forgiveness. MOR: I am no man, ladies. ALL: How! MOR: Utterly unabled in nature, by reason of frigidity, to perform the duties, or any the least office of a husband. MAV: Now out upon him, prodigious creature! CEN: Bridegroom uncarnate! HAU: And would you offer it to a young gentlewoman? MRS. OTT: A lady of her longings? EPI: Tut, a device, a device, this, it smells rankly, ladies. A mere comment of his own. TRUE: Why, if you suspect that, ladies, you may have him search'd-- DAW: As the custom is, by a jury of physicians. LA-F: Yes faith, 'twill be brave. MOR: O me, must I undergo that? MRS. OTT: No, let women search him, madam: we can do it ourselves. MOR: Out on me! worse. EPI: No, ladies, you shall not need, I will take him with all his faults. MOR: Worst of all! CLER: Why then, 'tis no divorce, doctor, if she consent not? CUT: No, if the man be frigidus, it is de parte uxoris, that we grant libellum divortii, in the law. OTT: Ay, it is the same in theology. MOR: Worse, worse than worst! TRUE: Nay, sir, be not utterly disheartened; we have yet a small relic of hope left, as near as our comfort is blown out. Clerimont, produce your brace of knights. What was that, master parson, you told me in errore qualitatis, e'en now?-- [ASIDE.] Dauphine, whisper the bride, that she carry it as if she were guilty, and ashamed. OTT: Marry, sir, in errore qualitatis (which master doctor did forbear to urge,) if she be found corrupta, that is, vitiated or broken up, that was pro virgine desponsa, espoused for a maid-- MOR: What then, sir? OTT: It doth dirimere contractum, and irritum reddere too. TRUE: If this be true, we are happy again, sir, once more. Here are an honourable brace of knights, that shall affirm so much. DAW: Pardon us, good master Clerimont. LA-F: You shall excuse us, master Clerimont. CLER: Nay, you must make it good now, knights, there is no remedy; I'll eat no words for you, nor no men: you know you spoke it to me. DAW: Is this gentleman-like, sir? TRUE [ASIDE TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, he's worse then sir Amorous; fiercer a great deal. [ASIDE TO LA-FOOLE.]--Sir Amorous, beware, there be ten Daws in this Clerimont. LA-F: I'll confess it, sir. DAW: Will you, sir Amorous, will you wound reputation? LA-F: I am resolved. TRUE: So should you be too, Jack Daw: what should keep you off? she's but a woman, and in disgrace: he'll be glad on't. DAW: Will he? I thought he would have been angry. CLER: You will dispatch, knights, it must be done, i'faith. TRUE: Why, an it must, it shall, sir, they say: they'll ne'er go back. [ASIDE TO THEM.] --Do not tempt his patience. DAW: It is true indeed, sir? LA-F: Yes, I assure you, sir. MOR: What is true gentlemen? what do you assure me? DAW: That we have known your bride, sir-- LA-F: In good fashion. She was our mistress, or so-- CLER: Nay, you must be plain, knights, as you were to me. OTT: Ay, the question is, if you have carnaliter, or no? LA-F: Carnaliter! what else, sir? OTT: It is enough: a plain nullity. EPI: I am undone, I am undone! MOR: O, let me worship and adore you, gentlemen! EPI [WEEPS.]: I am undone! MOR: Yes, to my hand, I thank these knights. Master parson, let me thank you otherwise. [GIVES HIM MONEY.] HAU: And have they confess'd? MAV: Now out upon them, informers! TRUE: You see what creatures you may bestow your favours on, madams. HAU: I would except against them as beaten knights, wench, and not good witnesses in law. MRS. OTT: Poor gentlewoman, how she takes it! HAU: Be comforted, Morose, I love you the better for't. CEN: so do I, I protest. CUT: But, gentlemen, you have not known her since matrimonium? DAW: Not to-day, master doctor. LA-F: No, sir, not to-day. CUT: Why, then I say, for any act before, the matrimonium is good and perfect: unless the worshipful bridegroom did precisely, before witness, demand, if she were virgo ante nuptias. EPI: No, that he did not, I assure you, master doctor. CUT: If he cannot prove that, it is ratum conjugium, notwithstanding the premisses. And they do no way impedire. And this is my sentence, this I pronounce. OTT: I am of master doctor's resolution too, sir: if you made not that demand, ante nuptias. MOR: O my heart! wilt thou break? wilt thou break? this is worst of all worst worsts that hell could have devised! Marry a whore, and so much noise! DAUP: Come, I see now plain confederacy in this doctor and this parson, to abuse a gentleman. You study his affliction. I pray be gone companions.--And, gentlemen, I begin to suspect you for having parts with them.--Sir, will it please you hear me? MOR: O do not talk to me, take not from me the pleasure of dying in silence, nephew. DAUP: Sir, I must speak to you. I have been long your poor despised kinsman, and many a hard thought has strengthened you against me: but now it shall appear if either I love you or your peace, and prefer them to all the world beside. I will not be long or grievous to you, sir. If I free you of this unhappy match absolutely, and instantly, after all this trouble, and almost in your despair, now-- MOR: It cannot be. DAUP: Sir, that you be never troubled with a murmur of it more, what shall I hope for, or deserve of you? MOR: O, what thou wilt, nephew! thou shalt deserve me, and have me. DAUP: Shall I have your favour perfect to me, and love hereafter? MOR: That, and any thing beside. Make thine own conditions. My whole estate is thine; manage it, I will become thy ward. DAUP: Nay, sir, I will not be so unreasonable. EPI: Will sir Dauphine be mine enemy too? DAUP: You know I have been long a suitor to you, uncle, that out of your estate, which is fifteen hundred a-year, you would allow me but five hundred during life, and assure the rest upon me after: to which I have often, by myself and friends tendered you a writing to sign, which you would never consent or incline to. If you please but to effect it now-- MOR: Thou shalt have it, nephew: I will do it, and more. DAUP: If I quit you not presently, and for ever of this cumber, you shall have power instantly, afore all these, to revoke your act, and I will become whose slave you will give me to, for ever. MOR: Where is the writing? I will seal to it, that, or to a blank, and write thine own conditions. EPI: O me, most unfortunate, wretched gentlewoman! HAU: Will sir Dauphine do this? EPI: Good sir, have some compassion on me. MOR: O, my nephew knows you, belike; away, crocodile! HAU: He does it not sure without good ground. DAUP: Here, sir. [GIVES HIM THE PARCHMENTS.] MOR: Come, nephew, give me the pen. I will subscribe to any thing, and seal to what thou wilt, for my deliverance. Thou art my restorer. Here, I deliver it thee as my deed. If there be a word in it lacking, or writ with false orthography, I protest before [heaven] I will not take the advantage. [RETURNS THE WRITINGS.] DAUP: Then here is your release, sir. [TAKES OFF EPICOENE'S PERUKE AND OTHER DISGUISES.] You have married a boy, a gentleman's son, that I have brought up this half year at my great charges, and for this composition, which I have now made with you.--What say you, master doctor? This is justum impedimentum, I hope, error personae? OTT: Yes sir, in primo gradu. CUT: In primo gradu. DAUP: I thank you, good doctor Cutbeard, and parson Otter. [PULLS THEIR FALSE BEARDS AND GOWNS OFF.] You are beholden to them, sir, that have taken this pains for you; and my friend, master Truewit, who enabled them for the business. Now you may go in and rest; be as private as you will, sir. [EXIT MOROSE.] I'll not trouble you, till you trouble me with your funeral, which I care not how soon it come. --Cutbeard, I'll make your lease good. "Thank me not, but with your leg, Cutbeard." And Tom Otter, your princess shall be reconciled to you.--How now, gentlemen, do you look at me? CLER: A boy! DAUP: Yes, mistress Epicoene. TRUE: Well, Dauphine, you have lurch'd your friends of the better half of the garland, by concealing this part of the plot: but much good do it thee, thou deserv'st it, lad. And, Clerimont, for thy unexpected bringing these two to confession, wear my part of it freely. Nay, sir Daw, and sir La-Foole, you see the gentlewoman that has done you the favours! we are all thankful to you, and so should the woman-kind here, specially for lying on her, though not with her! you meant so, I am sure? But that we have stuck it upon you to-day, in your own imagined persons, and so lately, this Amazon, the champion of the sex, should beat you now thriftily, for the common slanders which ladies receive from such cuckoos as you are. You are they that, when no merit or fortune can make you hope to enjoy their bodies, will yet lie with their reputations, and make their fame suffer. Away, you common moths of these, and all ladies' honours. Go, travel to make legs and faces, and come home with some new matter to be laugh'd at: you deserve to live in an air as corrupted as that wherewith you feed rumour. [EXEUNT DAW AND LA-FOOLE.] Madams, you are mute, upon this new metamorphosis! But here stands she that has vindicated your fames. Take heed of such insectae hereafter. And let it not trouble you, that you have discovered any mysteries to this young gentleman: he is almost of years, and will make a good visitant within this twelvemonth. In the mean time, we'll all undertake for his secrecy, that can speak so well of his silence. [COMING FORWARD.] --Spectators, if you like this comedy, rise cheerfully, and now Morose is gone in, clap your hands. It may be, that noise will cure him, at least please him. [EXEUNT.] GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be --," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you --?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the --," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the --," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of --," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd -- him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten --," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "-- order," "-- waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) -- not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to --," into the bargain; "no --," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible --," "angry --," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in --," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt --," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no --," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye -- used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no --," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for --," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in --," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder --"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt --," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in --," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking --," " -- politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER (" -- frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the --," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in --," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for --," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in --" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "-- up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "-- failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at --," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a --!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first --," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their --es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford). JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's --," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give --," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make --," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by --," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the --," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry -- in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on --," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the --" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the --," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be --," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be --," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a --," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in --," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go --," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's --," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person -- perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a --," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "-- of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "-- away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in --," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance -- hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make -- of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's --," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the --," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the --," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it --s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in --," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take --," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the --," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of --," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "-- a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a --," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take --," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn --," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish --," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from --," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "-- Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the --," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at --," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold --," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the --," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the -- for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I --," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("-- pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
4039	----	VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION The greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know;" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres--well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade "the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* * The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the "grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow... a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages... that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and "Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow.... But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works:-- DRAMAS: Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS: Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE: Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS: Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871; in 9 volumes., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS: J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE: See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. VOLPONE; OR, THE FOX By Ben Jonson TO THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST EQUAL SISTERS, THE TWO FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES, FOR THEIR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE SHEWN TO HIS POEM IN THE PRESENTATION, BEN JONSON, THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGER, DEDICATES BOTH IT AND HIMSELF. Never, most equal Sisters, had any man a wit so presently excellent, as that it could raise itself; but there must come both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers to it. If this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily prove it, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these accidents; and, having acquired them, to preserve that part of reputation most tenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is also defended. Hence is it, that I now render myself grateful, and am studious to justify the bounty of your act; to which, though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an age wherein poetry and the professors of it hear so ill on all sides, there will a reason be looked for in the subject. It is certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, that the too much license of poetasters in this time, hath much deformed their mistress; that, every day, their manifold and manifest ignorance doth stick unnatural reproaches upon her: but for their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest injustice, either to let the learned suffer, or so divine a skill (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean hands) to fall under the least contempt. For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man's being the good poet, without first being a good man. He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength; that comes forth the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human, a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business of mankind: this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ignorance to exercise their railing rhetoric upon. But it will here be hastily answered, that the writers of these days are other things; that not only their manners, but their natures, are inverted, and nothing remaining with them of the dignity of poet, but the abused name, which every scribe usurps; that now, especially in dramatic, or, as they term it, stage-poetry, nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sorry I dare not, because in some men's abortive features (and would they had never boasted the light) it is over-true; but that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell, is a most uncharitable thought, and, uttered, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene: and, howsoever I cannot escape from some, the imputation of sharpness, but that they will say, I have taken a pride, or lust, to be bitter, and not my youngest infant but hath come into the world with all his teeth; I would ask of these supercilious politics, what nation, society, or general order or state, I have provoked? What public person? Whether I have not in all these preserved their dignity, as mine own person, safe? My works are read, allowed, (I speak of those that are intirely mine,) look into them, what broad reproofs have I used? where have I been particular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease? But it is not rumour can make men guilty, much less entitle me to other men's crimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ or carried, but may be made obnoxious to construction; marry, whilst I bear mine innocence about me, I fear it not. Application is now grown a trade with many; and there are that profess to have a key for the decyphering of every thing: but let wise and noble persons take heed how they be too credulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be over-familiar with their fames, who cunningly, and often, utter their own virulent malice, under other men's simplest meanings. As for those that will (by faults which charity hath raked up, or common honesty concealed) make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival, for me! I choose rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire rather to see fools and devils, and those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold the wounds of private men, of princes and nations: for, as Horace makes Trebatius speak among these, "Sibi quisque timet, quanquam est intactus, et odit." And men may justly impute such rages, if continued, to the writer, as his sports. The increase of which lust in liberty, together with the present trade of the stage, in all their miscelline interludes, what learned or liberal soul doth not already abhor? where nothing but the filth of the time is uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked metaphors, with brothelry, able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy, to turn the blood of a Christian to water. I cannot but be serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame, and the reputation of divers honest and learned are the question; when a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men subject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs. This it is that hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore, and by all my actions, to stand off from them; which may most appear in this my latest work, which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction and amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of living. And though my catastrophe may, in the strict rigour of comic law, meet with censure, as turning back to my promise; I desire the learned and charitable critic, to have so much faith in me, to think it was done of industry: for, with what ease I could have varied it nearer his scale (but that I fear to boast my own faculty) I could here insert. But my special aim being to put the snaffle in their mouths, that cry out, We never punish vice in our interludes, etc., I took the more liberty; though not without some lines of example, drawn even in the ancients themselves, the goings out of whose comedies are not always joyful, but oft times the bawds, the servants, the rivals, yea, and the masters are mulcted; and fitly, it being the office of a comic poet to imitate justice, and instruct to life, as well as purity of language, or stir up gentle affections; to which I shall take the occasion elsewhere to speak. For the present, most reverenced Sisters, as I have cared to be thankful for your affections past, and here made the understanding acquainted with some ground of your favours; let me not despair their continuance, to the maturing of some worthier fruits; wherein, if my muses be true to me, I shall raise the despised head of poetry again, and stripping her out of those rotten and base rags wherewith the times have adulterated her form, restore her to her primitive habit, feature, and majesty, and render her worthy to be embraced and kist of all the great and master-spirits of our world. As for the vile and slothful, who never affected an act worthy of celebration, or are so inward with their own vicious natures, as they worthily fear her, and think it an high point of policy to keep her in contempt, with their declamatory and windy invectives; she shall out of just rage incite her servants (who are genus irritabile) to spout ink in their faces, that shall eat farther than their marrow into their fames; and not Cinnamus the barber, with his art, shall be able to take out the brands; but they shall live, and be read, till the wretches die, as things worst deserving of themselves in chief, and then of all mankind. From my House in the Black-Friars, this 11th day of February, 1607. DRAMATIS PERSONAE VOLPONE, a Magnifico. MOSCA, his Parasite. VOLTORE, an Advocate. CORBACCIO, an old Gentleman. CORVINO, a Merchant. BONARIO, son to Corbaccio. SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE, a Knight. PEREGRINE, a Gentleman Traveller. NANO, a Dwarf. CASTRONE, an Eunuch. ANDROGYNO, an Hermaphrodite. GREGE (or Mob). COMMANDADORI, Officers of Justice. MERCATORI, three Merchants. AVOCATORI, four Magistrates. NOTARIO, the Register. LADY WOULD-BE, Sir Politick's Wife. CELIA, Corvino's Wife. SERVITORI, Servants, two Waiting-women, etc. SCENE: VENICE. THE ARGUMENT. V olpone, childless, rich, feigns sick, despairs, O ffers his state to hopes of several heirs, L ies languishing: his parasite receives P resents of all, assures, deludes; then weaves O ther cross plots, which ope themselves, are told. N ew tricks for safety are sought; they thrive: when bold, E ach tempts the other again, and all are sold. PROLOGUE. Now, luck yet sends us, and a little wit Will serve to make our play hit; (According to the palates of the season) Here is rhime, not empty of reason. This we were bid to credit from our poet, Whose true scope, if you would know it, In all his poems still hath been this measure, To mix profit with your pleasure; And not as some, whose throats their envy failing, Cry hoarsely, All he writes is railing: And when his plays come forth, think they can flout them, With saying, he was a year about them. To this there needs no lie, but this his creature, Which was two months since no feature; And though he dares give them five lives to mend it, 'Tis known, five weeks fully penn'd it, From his own hand, without a co-adjutor, Novice, journey-man, or tutor. Yet thus much I can give you as a token Of his play's worth, no eggs are broken, Nor quaking custards with fierce teeth affrighted, Wherewith your rout are so delighted; Nor hales he in a gull old ends reciting, To stop gaps in his loose writing; With such a deal of monstrous and forced action, As might make Bethlem a faction: Nor made he his play for jests stolen from each table, But makes jests to fit his fable; And so presents quick comedy refined, As best critics have designed; The laws of time, place, persons he observeth, From no needful rule he swerveth. All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth, Only a little salt remaineth, Wherewith he'll rub your cheeks, till red, with laughter, They shall look fresh a week after. ACT 1. SCENE 1.1. A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE. ENTER VOLPONE AND MOSCA. VOLP: Good morning to the day; and next, my gold: Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint. [MOSCA WITHDRAWS THE CURTAIN, AND DISCOVERS PILES OF GOLD, PLATE, JEWELS, ETC.] Hail the world's soul, and mine! more glad than is The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram, Am I, to view thy splendour darkening his; That lying here, amongst my other hoards, Shew'st like a flame by night; or like the day Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled Unto the centre. O thou son of Sol, But brighter than thy father, let me kiss, With adoration, thee, and every relick Of sacred treasure, in this blessed room. Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name, Title that age which they would have the best; Thou being the best of things: and far transcending All style of joy, in children, parents, friends, Or any other waking dream on earth: Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe, They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids; Such are thy beauties and our loves! Dear saint, Riches, the dumb God, that giv'st all men tongues; That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things; The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame, Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee, He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise,-- MOS: And what he will, sir. Riches are in fortune A greater good than wisdom is in nature. VOLP: True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory More in the cunning purchase of my wealth, Than in the glad possession; since I gain No common way; I use no trade, no venture; I wound no earth with plough-shares; fat no beasts, To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron, Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder: I blow no subtle glass; expose no ships To threat'nings of the furrow-faced sea; I turn no monies in the public bank, Nor usure private. MOS: No sir, nor devour Soft prodigals. You shall have some will swallow A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it; Tear forth the fathers of poor families Out of their beds, and coffin them alive In some kind clasping prison, where their bones May be forth-coming, when the flesh is rotten: But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses; You lothe the widdow's or the orphan's tears Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries Ring in your roofs, and beat the air for vengeance. VOLP: Right, Mosca; I do lothe it. MOS: And besides, sir, You are not like a thresher that doth stand With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn, And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain, But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs; Nor like the merchant, who hath fill'd his vaults With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines, Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar: You will not lie in straw, whilst moths and worms Feed on your sumptuous hangings and soft beds; You know the use of riches, and dare give now From that bright heap, to me, your poor observer, Or to your dwarf, or your hermaphrodite, Your eunuch, or what other household-trifle Your pleasure allows maintenance. VOLP: Hold thee, Mosca, [GIVES HIM MONEY.] Take of my hand; thou strik'st on truth in all, And they are envious term thee parasite. Call forth my dwarf, my eunuch, and my fool, And let them make me sport. [EXIT MOS.] What should I do, But cocker up my genius, and live free To all delights my fortune calls me to? I have no wife, no parent, child, ally, To give my substance to; but whom I make Must be my heir: and this makes men observe me: This draws new clients daily, to my house, Women and men of every sex and age, That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels, With hope that when I die (which they expect Each greedy minute) it shall then return Ten-fold upon them; whilst some, covetous Above the rest, seek to engross me whole, And counter-work the one unto the other, Contend in gifts, as they would seem in love: All which I suffer, playing with their hopes, And am content to coin them into profit, To look upon their kindness, and take more, And look on that; still bearing them in hand, Letting the cherry knock against their lips, And draw it by their mouths, and back again.-- How now! [RE-ENTER MOSCA WITH NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.] NAN: Now, room for fresh gamesters, who do will you to know, They do bring you neither play, nor university show; And therefore do entreat you, that whatsoever they rehearse, May not fare a whit the worse, for the false pace of the verse. If you wonder at this, you will wonder more ere we pass, For know, here is inclosed the soul of Pythagoras, That juggler divine, as hereafter shall follow; Which soul, fast and loose, sir, came first from Apollo, And was breath'd into Aethalides; Mercurius his son, Where it had the gift to remember all that ever was done. From thence it fled forth, and made quick transmigration To goldy-lock'd Euphorbus, who was killed in good fashion, At the siege of old Troy, by the cuckold of Sparta. Hermotimus was next (I find it in my charta) To whom it did pass, where no sooner it was missing But with one Pyrrhus of Delos it learn'd to go a fishing; And thence did it enter the sophist of Greece. From Pythagore, she went into a beautiful piece, Hight Aspasia, the meretrix; and the next toss of her Was again of a whore, she became a philosopher, Crates the cynick, as it self doth relate it: Since kings, knights, and beggars, knaves, lords and fools gat it, Besides, ox and ass, camel, mule, goat, and brock, In all which it hath spoke, as in the cobler's cock. But I come not here to discourse of that matter, Or his one, two, or three, or his greath oath, BY QUATER! His musics, his trigon, his golden thigh, Or his telling how elements shift, but I Would ask, how of late thou best suffered translation, And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation. AND: Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you see, Counting all old doctrine heresy. NAN: But not on thine own forbid meats hast thou ventured? AND: On fish, when first a Carthusian I enter'd. NAN: Why, then thy dogmatical silence hath left thee? AND: Of that an obstreperous lawyer bereft me. NAN: O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee! For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee? AND: A good dull mule. NAN: And how! by that means Thou wert brought to allow of the eating of beans? AND: Yes. NAN: But from the mule into whom didst thou pass? AND: Into a very strange beast, by some writers call'd an ass; By others, a precise, pure, illuminate brother, Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another; And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie, Betwixt every spoonful of a nativity pie. NAN: Now quit thee, for heaven, of that profane nation; And gently report thy next transmigration. AND: To the same that I am. NAN: A creature of delight, And, what is more than a fool, an hermaphrodite! Now, prithee, sweet soul, in all thy variation, Which body would'st thou choose, to keep up thy station? AND: Troth, this I am in: even here would I tarry. NAN: 'Cause here the delight of each sex thou canst vary? AND: Alas, those pleasures be stale and forsaken; No, 'tis your fool wherewith I am so taken, The only one creature that I can call blessed: For all other forms I have proved most distressed. NAN: Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still. This learned opinion we celebrate will, Fellow eunuch, as behoves us, with all our wit and art, To dignify that whereof ourselves are so great and special a part. VOLP: Now, very, very pretty! Mosca, this Was thy invention? MOS: If it please my patron, Not else. VOLP: It doth, good Mosca. MOS: Then it was, sir. NANO AND CASTRONE [SING.]: Fools, they are the only nation Worth men's envy, or admiration: Free from care or sorrow-taking, Selves and others merry making: All they speak or do is sterling. Your fool he is your great man's darling, And your ladies' sport and pleasure; Tongue and bauble are his treasure. E'en his face begetteth laughter, And he speaks truth free from slaughter; He's the grace of every feast, And sometimes the chiefest guest; Hath his trencher and his stool, When wit waits upon the fool: O, who would not be He, he, he? [KNOCKING WITHOUT.] VOLP: Who's that? Away! [EXEUNT NANO AND CASTRONE.] Look, Mosca. Fool, begone! [EXIT ANDROGYNO.] MOS: 'Tis Signior Voltore, the advocate; I know him by his knock. VOLP: Fetch me my gown, My furs and night-caps; say, my couch is changing, And let him entertain himself awhile Without i' the gallery. [EXIT MOSCA.] Now, now, my clients Begin their visitation! Vulture, kite, Raven, and gorcrow, all my birds of prey, That think me turning carcase, now they come; I am not for them yet-- [RE-ENTER MOSCA, WITH THE GOWN, ETC.] How now! the news? MOS: A piece of plate, sir. VOLP: Of what bigness? MOS: Huge, Massy, and antique, with your name inscribed, And arms engraven. VOLP: Good! and not a fox Stretch'd on the earth, with fine delusive sleights, Mocking a gaping crow? ha, Mosca? MOS: Sharp, sir. VOLP: Give me my furs. [PUTS ON HIS SICK DRESS.] Why dost thou laugh so, man? MOS: I cannot choose, sir, when I apprehend What thoughts he has without now, as he walks: That this might be the last gift he should give; That this would fetch you; if you died to-day, And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow; What large return would come of all his ventures; How he should worship'd be, and reverenced; Ride with his furs, and foot-cloths; waited on By herds of fools, and clients; have clear way Made for his mule, as letter'd as himself; Be call'd the great and learned advocate: And then concludes, there's nought impossible. VOLP: Yes, to be learned, Mosca. MOS: O no: rich Implies it. Hood an ass with reverend purple, So you can hide his two ambitious ears, And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor. VOLP: My caps, my caps, good Mosca. Fetch him in. MOS: Stay, sir, your ointment for your eyes. VOLP: That's true; Dispatch, dispatch: I long to have possession Of my new present. MOS: That, and thousands more, I hope, to see you lord of. VOLP: Thanks, kind Mosca. MOS: And that, when I am lost in blended dust, And hundred such as I am, in succession-- VOLP: Nay, that were too much, Mosca. MOS: You shall live, Still, to delude these harpies. VOLP: Loving Mosca! 'Tis well: my pillow now, and let him enter. [EXIT MOSCA.] Now, my fain'd cough, my pthisic, and my gout, My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs, Help, with your forced functions, this my posture, Wherein, this three year, I have milk'd their hopes. He comes; I hear him--Uh! [COUGHING.] uh! uh! uh! O-- [RE-ENTER MOSCA, INTRODUCING VOLTORE, WITH A PIECE OF PLATE.] MOS: You still are what you were, sir. Only you, Of all the rest, are he commands his love, And you do wisely to preserve it thus, With early visitation, and kind notes Of your good meaning to him, which, I know, Cannot but come most grateful. Patron! sir! Here's signior Voltore is come-- VOLP [FAINTLY.]: What say you? MOS: Sir, signior Voltore is come this morning To visit you. VOLP: I thank him. MOS: And hath brought A piece of antique plate, bought of St Mark, With which he here presents you. VOLP: He is welcome. Pray him to come more often. MOS: Yes. VOLT: What says he? MOS: He thanks you, and desires you see him often. VOLP: Mosca. MOS: My patron! VOLP: Bring him near, where is he? I long to feel his hand. MOS: The plate is here, sir. VOLT: How fare you, sir? VOLP: I thank you, signior Voltore; Where is the plate? mine eyes are bad. VOLT [PUTTING IT INTO HIS HANDS.]: I'm sorry, To see you still thus weak. MOS [ASIDE.]: That he's not weaker. VOLP: You are too munificent. VOLT: No sir; would to heaven, I could as well give health to you, as that plate! VOLP: You give, sir, what you can: I thank you. Your love Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswer'd: I pray you see me often. VOLT: Yes, I shall sir. VOLP: Be not far from me. MOS: Do you observe that, sir? VOLP: Hearken unto me still; it will concern you. MOS: You are a happy man, sir; know your good. VOLP: I cannot now last long-- MOS: You are his heir, sir. VOLT: Am I? VOLP: I feel me going; Uh! uh! uh! uh! I'm sailing to my port, Uh! uh! uh! uh! And I am glad I am so near my haven. MOS: Alas, kind gentleman! Well, we must all go-- VOLT: But, Mosca-- MOS: Age will conquer. VOLT: 'Pray thee hear me: Am I inscribed his heir for certain? MOS: Are you! I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe To write me in your family. All my hopes Depend upon your worship: I am lost, Except the rising sun do shine on me. VOLT: It shall both shine, and warm thee, Mosca. MOS: Sir, I am a man, that hath not done your love All the worst offices: here I wear your keys, See all your coffers and your caskets lock'd, Keep the poor inventory of your jewels, Your plate and monies; am your steward, sir. Husband your goods here. VOLT: But am I sole heir? MOS: Without a partner, sir; confirm'd this morning: The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry Upon the parchment. VOLT: Happy, happy, me! By what good chance, sweet Mosca? MOS: Your desert, sir; I know no second cause. VOLT: Thy modesty Is not to know it; well, we shall requite it. MOS: He ever liked your course sir; that first took him. I oft have heard him say, how he admired Men of your large profession, that could speak To every cause, and things mere contraries, Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law; That, with most quick agility, could turn, And [re-] return; [could] make knots, and undo them; Give forked counsel; take provoking gold On either hand, and put it up: these men, He knew, would thrive with their humility. And, for his part, he thought he should be blest To have his heir of such a suffering spirit, So wise, so grave, of so perplex'd a tongue, And loud withal, that would not wag, nor scarce Lie still, without a fee; when every word Your worship but lets fall, is a chequin!-- [LOUD KNOCKING WITHOUT.] Who's that? one knocks; I would not have you seen, sir. And yet--pretend you came, and went in haste: I'll fashion an excuse.--and, gentle sir, When you do come to swim in golden lard, Up to the arms in honey, that your chin Is born up stiff, with fatness of the flood, Think on your vassal; but remember me: I have not been your worst of clients. VOLT: Mosca!-- MOS: When will you have your inventory brought, sir? Or see a coppy of the will?--Anon!-- I will bring them to you, sir. Away, be gone, Put business in your face. [EXIT VOLTORE.] VOLP [SPRINGING UP.]: Excellent Mosca! Come hither, let me kiss thee. MOS: Keep you still, sir. Here is Corbaccio. VOLP: Set the plate away: The vulture's gone, and the old raven's come! MOS: Betake you to your silence, and your sleep: Stand there and multiply. [PUTTING THE PLATE TO THE REST.] Now, shall we see A wretch who is indeed more impotent Than this can feign to be; yet hopes to hop Over his grave.-- [ENTER CORBACCIO.] Signior Corbaccio! You're very welcome, sir. CORB: How does your patron? MOS: Troth, as he did, sir; no amends. CORB: What! mends he? MOS: No, sir: he's rather worse. CORB: That's well. Where is he? MOS: Upon his couch sir, newly fall'n asleep. CORB: Does he sleep well? MOS: No wink, sir, all this night. Nor yesterday; but slumbers. CORB: Good! he should take Some counsel of physicians: I have brought him An opiate here, from mine own doctor. MOS: He will not hear of drugs. CORB: Why? I myself Stood by while it was made; saw all the ingredients: And know, it cannot but most gently work: My life for his, 'tis but to make him sleep. VOLP [ASIDE.]: Ay, his last sleep, if he would take it. MOS: Sir, He has no faith in physic. CORB: 'Say you? 'say you? MOS: He has no faith in physic: he does think Most of your doctors are the greater danger, And worse disease, to escape. I often have Heard him protest, that your physician Should never be his heir. CORB: Not I his heir? MOS: Not your physician, sir. CORB: O, no, no, no, I do not mean it. MOS: No, sir, nor their fees He cannot brook: he says, they flay a man, Before they kill him. CORB: Right, I do conceive you. MOS: And then they do it by experiment; For which the law not only doth absolve them, But gives them great reward: and he is loth To hire his death, so. CORB: It is true, they kill, With as much license as a judge. MOS: Nay, more; For he but kills, sir, where the law condemns, And these can kill him too. CORB: Ay, or me; Or any man. How does his apoplex? Is that strong on him still? MOS: Most violent. His speech is broken, and his eyes are set, His face drawn longer than 'twas wont-- CORB: How! how! Stronger then he was wont? MOS: No, sir: his face Drawn longer than 'twas wont. CORB: O, good! MOS: His mouth Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang. CORB: Good. MOS: A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints, And makes the colour of his flesh like lead. CORB: 'Tis good. MOS: His pulse beats slow, and dull. CORB: Good symptoms, still. MOS: And from his brain-- CORB: I conceive you; good. MOS: Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum, Forth the resolved corners of his eyes. CORB: Is't possible? yet I am better, ha! How does he, with the swimming of his head? B: O, sir, 'tis past the scotomy; he now Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort: You hardly can perceive him, that he breathes. CORB: Excellent, excellent! sure I shall outlast him: This makes me young again, a score of years. MOS: I was a coming for you, sir. CORB: Has he made his will? What has he given me? MOS: No, sir. CORB: Nothing! ha? MOS: He has not made his will, sir. CORB: Oh, oh, oh! But what did Voltore, the Lawyer, here? MOS: He smelt a carcase, sir, when he but heard My master was about his testament; As I did urge him to it for your good-- CORB: He came unto him, did he? I thought so. MOS: Yes, and presented him this piece of plate. CORB: To be his heir? MOS: I do not know, sir. CORB: True: I know it too. MOS [ASIDE.]: By your own scale, sir. CORB: Well, I shall prevent him, yet. See, Mosca, look, Here, I have brought a bag of bright chequines, Will quite weigh down his plate. MOS [TAKING THE BAG.]: Yea, marry, sir. This is true physic, this your sacred medicine, No talk of opiates, to this great elixir! CORB: 'Tis aurum palpabile, if not potabile. MOS: It shall be minister'd to him, in his bowl. CORB: Ay, do, do, do. MOS: Most blessed cordial! This will recover him. CORB: Yes, do, do, do. MOS: I think it were not best, sir. CORB: What? MOS: To recover him. CORB: O, no, no, no; by no means. MOS: Why, sir, this Will work some strange effect, if he but feel it. CORB: 'Tis true, therefore forbear; I'll take my venture: Give me it again. MOS: At no hand; pardon me: You shall not do yourself that wrong, sir. I Will so advise you, you shall have it all. CORB: How? MOS: All, sir; 'tis your right, your own; no man Can claim a part: 'tis yours, without a rival, Decreed by destiny. CORB: How, how, good Mosca? MOS: I'll tell you sir. This fit he shall recover. CORB: I do conceive you. MOS: And, on first advantage Of his gain'd sense, will I re-importune him Unto the making of his testament: And shew him this. [POINTING TO THE MONEY.] CORB: Good, good. MOS: 'Tis better yet, If you will hear, sir. CORB: Yes, with all my heart. MOS: Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed; There, frame a will; whereto you shall inscribe My master your sole heir. CORB: And disinherit My son! MOS: O, sir, the better: for that colour Shall make it much more taking. CORB: O, but colour? MOS: This will sir, you shall send it unto me. Now, when I come to inforce, as I will do, Your cares, your watchings, and your many prayers, Your more than many gifts, your this day's present, And last, produce your will; where, without thought, Or least regard, unto your proper issue, A son so brave, and highly meriting, The stream of your diverted love hath thrown you Upon my master, and made him your heir: He cannot be so stupid, or stone-dead, But out of conscience, and mere gratitude-- CORB: He must pronounce me his? MOS: 'Tis true. CORB: This plot Did I think on before. MOS: I do believe it. CORB: Do you not believe it? MOS: Yes, sir. CORB: Mine own project. MOS: Which, when he hath done, sir. CORB: Publish'd me his heir? MOS: And you so certain to survive him-- CORB: Ay. MOS: Being so lusty a man-- CORB: 'Tis true. MOS: Yes, sir-- CORB: I thought on that too. See, how he should be The very organ to express my thoughts! MOS: You have not only done yourself a good-- CORB: But multiplied it on my son. MOS: 'Tis right, sir. CORB: Still, my invention. MOS: 'Las, sir! heaven knows, It hath been all my study, all my care, (I e'en grow gray withal,) how to work things-- CORB: I do conceive, sweet Mosca. MOS: You are he, For whom I labour here. CORB: Ay, do, do, do: I'll straight about it. [GOING.] MOS: Rook go with you, raven! CORB: I know thee honest. MOS [ASIDE.]: You do lie, sir! CORB: And-- MOS: Your knowledge is no better than your ears, sir. CORB: I do not doubt, to be a father to thee. MOS: Nor I to gull my brother of his blessing. CORB: I may have my youth restored to me, why not? MOS: Your worship is a precious ass! CORB: What say'st thou? MOS: I do desire your worship to make haste, sir. CORB: 'Tis done, 'tis done, I go. [EXIT.] VOLP [LEAPING FROM HIS COUCH.]: O, I shall burst! Let out my sides, let out my sides-- MOS: Contain Your flux of laughter, sir: you know this hope Is such a bait, it covers any hook. VOLP: O, but thy working, and thy placing it! I cannot hold; good rascal, let me kiss thee: I never knew thee in so rare a humour. MOS: Alas sir, I but do as I am taught; Follow your grave instructions; give them words; Pour oil into their ears, and send them hence. VOLP: 'Tis true, 'tis true. What a rare punishment Is avarice to itself! MOS: Ay, with our help, sir. VOLP: So many cares, so many maladies, So many fears attending on old age, Yea, death so often call'd on, as no wish Can be more frequent with them, their limbs faint, Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing, going, All dead before them; yea, their very teeth, Their instruments of eating, failing them: Yet this is reckon'd life! nay, here was one; Is now gone home, that wishes to live longer! Feels not his gout, nor palsy; feigns himself Younger by scores of years, flatters his age With confident belying it, hopes he may, With charms, like Aeson, have his youth restored: And with these thoughts so battens, as if fate Would be as easily cheated on, as he, And all turns air! [KNOCKING WITHIN.] Who's that there, now? a third? MOS: Close, to your couch again; I hear his voice: It is Corvino, our spruce merchant. VOLP [LIES DOWN AS BEFORE.]: Dead. MOS: Another bout, sir, with your eyes. [ANOINTING THEM.] --Who's there? [ENTER CORVINO.] Signior Corvino! come most wish'd for! O, How happy were you, if you knew it, now! CORV: Why? what? wherein? MOS: The tardy hour is come, sir. CORV: He is not dead? MOS: Not dead, sir, but as good; He knows no man. CORV: How shall I do then? MOS: Why, sir? CORV: I have brought him here a pearl. MOS: Perhaps he has So much remembrance left, as to know you, sir: He still calls on you; nothing but your name Is in his mouth: Is your pearl orient, sir? CORV: Venice was never owner of the like. VOLP [FAINTLY.]: Signior Corvino. MOS: Hark. VOLP: Signior Corvino! MOS: He calls you; step and give it him.--He's here, sir, And he has brought you a rich pearl. CORV: How do you, sir? Tell him, it doubles the twelfth caract. MOS: Sir, He cannot understand, his hearing's gone; And yet it comforts him to see you-- CORV: Say, I have a diamond for him, too. MOS: Best shew it, sir; Put it into his hand; 'tis only there He apprehends: he has his feeling, yet. See how he grasps it! CORV: 'Las, good gentleman! How pitiful the sight is! MOS: Tut! forget, sir. The weeping of an heir should still be laughter Under a visor. CORV: Why, am I his heir? MOS: Sir, I am sworn, I may not shew the will, Till he be dead; but, here has been Corbaccio, Here has been Voltore, here were others too, I cannot number 'em, they were so many; All gaping here for legacies: but I, Taking the vantage of his naming you, "Signior Corvino, Signior Corvino," took Paper, and pen, and ink, and there I asked him, Whom he would have his heir? "Corvino." Who Should be executor? "Corvino." And, To any question he was silent too, I still interpreted the nods he made, Through weakness, for consent: and sent home th' others, Nothing bequeath'd them, but to cry and curse. CORV: O, my dear Mosca! [THEY EMBRACE.] Does he not perceive us? MOS: No more than a blind harper. He knows no man, No face of friend, nor name of any servant, Who 'twas that fed him last, or gave him drink: Not those he hath begotten, or brought up, Can he remember. CORV: Has he children? MOS: Bastards, Some dozen, or more, that he begot on beggars, Gipsies, and Jews, and black-moors, when he was drunk. Knew you not that, sir? 'tis the common fable. The dwarf, the fool, the eunuch, are all his; He's the true father of his family, In all, save me:--but he has giv'n them nothing. CORV: That's well, that's well. Art sure he does not hear us? MOS: Sure, sir! why, look you, credit your own sense. [SHOUTS IN VOL.'S EAR.] The pox approach, and add to your diseases, If it would send you hence the sooner, sir, For your incontinence, it hath deserv'd it Thoroughly, and thoroughly, and the plague to boot!-- You may come near, sir.--Would you would once close Those filthy eyes of yours, that flow with slime, Like two frog-pits; and those same hanging cheeks, Cover'd with hide, instead of skin--Nay help, sir-- That look like frozen dish-clouts, set on end! CORV [ALOUD.]: Or like an old smoked wall, on which the rain Ran down in streaks! MOS: Excellent! sir, speak out: You may be louder yet: A culverin Discharged in his ear would hardly bore it. CORV: His nose is like a common sewer, still running. MOS: 'Tis good! And what his mouth? CORV: A very draught. MOS: O, stop it up-- CORV: By no means. MOS: 'Pray you, let me. Faith I could stifle him, rarely with a pillow, As well as any woman that should keep him. CORV: Do as you will: but I'll begone. MOS: Be so: It is your presence makes him last so long. CORV: I pray you, use no violence. MOS: No, sir! why? Why should you be thus scrupulous, pray you, sir? CORV: Nay, at your discretion. MOS: Well, good sir, begone. CORV: I will not trouble him now, to take my pearl. MOS: Puh! nor your diamond. What a needless care Is this afflicts you? Is not all here yours? Am not I here, whom you have made your creature? That owe my being to you? CORV: Grateful Mosca! Thou art my friend, my fellow, my companion, My partner, and shalt share in all my fortunes. MOS: Excepting one. CORV: What's that? MOS: Your gallant wife, sir,-- [EXIT CORV.] Now is he gone: we had no other means To shoot him hence, but this. VOLP: My divine Mosca! Thou hast to-day outgone thyself. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] --Who's there? I will be troubled with no more. Prepare Me music, dances, banquets, all delights; The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures, Than will Volpone. [EXIT MOS.] Let me see; a pearl! A diamond! plate! chequines! Good morning's purchase, Why, this is better than rob churches, yet; Or fat, by eating, once a month, a man. [RE-ENTER MOSCA.] Who is't? MOS: The beauteous lady Would-be, sir. Wife to the English knight, Sir Politick Would-be, (This is the style, sir, is directed me,) Hath sent to know how you have slept to-night, And if you would be visited? VOLP: Not now: Some three hours hence-- MOS: I told the squire so much. VOLP: When I am high with mirth and wine; then, then: 'Fore heaven, I wonder at the desperate valour Of the bold English, that they dare let loose Their wives to all encounters! MOS: Sir, this knight Had not his name for nothing, he is politick, And knows, howe'er his wife affect strange airs, She hath not yet the face to be dishonest: But had she signior Corvino's wife's face-- VOLP: Has she so rare a face? MOS: O, sir, the wonder, The blazing star of Italy! a wench Of the first year! a beauty ripe as harvest! Whose skin is whiter than a swan all over, Than silver, snow, or lilies! a soft lip, Would tempt you to eternity of kissing! And flesh that melteth in the touch to blood! Bright as your gold, and lovely as your gold! VOLP: Why had not I known this before? MOS: Alas, sir, Myself but yesterday discover'd it. VOLP: How might I see her? MOS: O, not possible; She's kept as warily as is your gold; Never does come abroad, never takes air, But at a window. All her looks are sweet, As the first grapes or cherries, and are watch'd As near as they are. VOLP: I must see her. MOS: Sir, There is a guard of spies ten thick upon her, All his whole household; each of which is set Upon his fellow, and have all their charge, When he goes out, when he comes in, examined. VOLP: I will go see her, though but at her window. MOS: In some disguise, then. VOLP: That is true; I must Maintain mine own shape still the same: we'll think. [EXEUNT.] ACT 2. SCENE 2.1. ST. MARK'S PLACE; A RETIRED CORNER BEFORE CORVINO'S HOUSE. ENTER SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE, AND PEREGRINE. SIR P: Sir, to a wise man, all the world's his soil: It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe, That must bound me, if my fates call me forth. Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire Of seeing countries, shifting a religion, Nor any disaffection to the state Where I was bred, and unto which I owe My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less, That idle, antique, stale, gray-headed project Of knowing men's minds, and manners, with Ulysses! But a peculiar humour of my wife's Laid for this height of Venice, to observe, To quote, to learn the language, and so forth-- I hope you travel, sir, with license? PER: Yes. SIR P: I dare the safelier converse--How long, sir, Since you left England? PER: Seven weeks. SIR P: So lately! You have not been with my lord ambassador? PER: Not yet, sir. SIR P: Pray you, what news, sir, vents our climate? I heard last night a most strange thing reported By some of my lord's followers, and I long To hear how 'twill be seconded. PER: What was't, sir? SIR P: Marry, sir, of a raven that should build In a ship royal of the king's. PER [ASIDE.]: This fellow, Does he gull me, trow? or is gull'd? --Your name, sir. SIR P: My name is Politick Would-be. PER [ASIDE.]: O, that speaks him. --A knight, sir? SIR P: A poor knight, sir. PER: Your lady Lies here in Venice, for intelligence Of tires, and fashions, and behaviour, Among the courtezans? the fine lady Would-be? SIR P: Yes, sir; the spider and the bee, ofttimes, Suck from one flower. PER: Good Sir Politick, I cry you mercy; I have heard much of you: 'Tis true, sir, of your raven. SIR P: On your knowledge? PER: Yes, and your lion's whelping, in the Tower. SIR P: Another whelp! PER: Another, sir. SIR P: Now heaven! What prodigies be these? The fires at Berwick! And the new star! these things concurring, strange, And full of omen! Saw you those meteors? PER: I did, sir. SIR P: Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me, Were there three porpoises seen above the bridge, As they give out? PER: Six, and a sturgeon, sir. SIR P: I am astonish'd. PER: Nay, sir, be not so; I'll tell you a greater prodigy than these. SIR P: What should these things portend? PER: The very day (Let me be sure) that I put forth from London, There was a whale discover'd in the river, As high as Woolwich, that had waited there, Few know how many months, for the subversion Of the Stode fleet. SIR P: Is't possible? believe it, 'Twas either sent from Spain, or the archdukes: Spinola's whale, upon my life, my credit! Will they not leave these projects? Worthy sir, Some other news. PER: Faith, Stone the fool is dead; And they do lack a tavern fool extremely. SIR P: Is Mass Stone dead? PER: He's dead sir; why, I hope You thought him not immortal? [ASIDE.] --O, this knight, Were he well known, would be a precious thing To fit our English stage: he that should write But such a fellow, should be thought to feign Extremely, if not maliciously. SIR P: Stone dead! PER: Dead.--Lord! how deeply sir, you apprehend it? He was no kinsman to you? SIR P: That I know of. Well! that same fellow was an unknown fool. PER: And yet you knew him, it seems? SIR P: I did so. Sir, I knew him one of the most dangerous heads Living within the state, and so I held him. PER: Indeed, sir? SIR P: While he lived, in action. He has received weekly intelligence, Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries, For all parts of the world, in cabbages; And those dispensed again to ambassadors, In oranges, musk-melons, apricocks, Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like: sometimes In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles. PER: You make me wonder. SIR P: Sir, upon my knowledge. Nay, I've observed him, at your public ordinary, Take his advertisement from a traveller A conceal'd statesman, in a trencher of meat; And instantly, before the meal was done, Convey an answer in a tooth-pick. PER: Strange! How could this be, sir? SIR P: Why, the meat was cut So like his character, and so laid, as he Must easily read the cipher. PER: I have heard, He could not read, sir. SIR P: So 'twas given out, In policy, by those that did employ him: But he could read, and had your languages, And to't, as sound a noddle-- PER: I have heard, sir, That your baboons were spies, and that they were A kind of subtle nation near to China: SIR P: Ay, ay, your Mamuluchi. Faith, they had Their hand in a French plot or two; but they Were so extremely given to women, as They made discovery of all: yet I Had my advices here, on Wednesday last. From one of their own coat, they were return'd, Made their relations, as the fashion is, And now stand fair for fresh employment. PER: 'Heart! [ASIDE.] This sir Pol will be ignorant of nothing. --It seems, sir, you know all? SIR P: Not all sir, but I have some general notions. I do love To note and to observe: though I live out, Free from the active torrent, yet I'd mark The currents and the passages of things, For mine own private use; and know the ebbs, And flows of state. PER: Believe it, sir, I hold Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes, For casting me thus luckily upon you, Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it, May do me great assistance, in instruction For my behaviour, and my bearing, which Is yet so rude and raw. SIR P: Why, came you forth Empty of rules, for travel? PER: Faith, I had Some common ones, from out that vulgar grammar, Which he that cried Italian to me, taught me. SIR P: Why this it is, that spoils all our brave bloods, Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants, Fellows of outside, and mere bark. You seem To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race:-- I not profess it, but my fate hath been To be, where I have been consulted with, In this high kind, touching some great men's sons, Persons of blood, and honour.-- [ENTER MOSCA AND NANO DISGUISED, FOLLOWED BY PERSONS WITH MATERIALS FOR ERECTING A STAGE.] PER: Who be these, sir? MOS: Under that window, there 't must be. The same. SIR P: Fellows, to mount a bank. Did your instructor In the dear tongues, never discourse to you Of the Italian mountebanks? PER: Yes, sir. SIR P: Why, Here shall you see one. PER: They are quacksalvers; Fellows, that live by venting oils and drugs. SIR P: Was that the character he gave you of them? PER: As I remember. SIR P: Pity his ignorance. They are the only knowing men of Europe! Great general scholars, excellent physicians, Most admired statesmen, profest favourites, And cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes; The only languaged men of all the world! PER: And, I have heard, they are most lewd impostors; Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers Of great men's favours, than their own vile med'cines; Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths: Selling that drug for two-pence, ere they part, Which they have valued at twelve crowns before. SIR P: Sir, calumnies are answer'd best with silence. Yourself shall judge.--Who is it mounts, my friends? MOS: Scoto of Mantua, sir. SIR P: Is't he? Nay, then I'll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold Another man than has been phant'sied to you. I wonder yet, that he should mount his bank, Here in this nook, that has been wont t'appear In face of the Piazza!--Here, he comes. [ENTER VOLPONE, DISGUISED AS A MOUNTEBANK DOCTOR, AND FOLLOWED BY A CROWD OF PEOPLE.] VOLP [TO NANO.]: Mount zany. MOB: Follow, follow, follow, follow! SIR P: See how the people follow him! he's a man May write ten thousand crowns in bank here. Note, [VOLPONE MOUNTS THE STAGE.] Mark but his gesture:--I do use to observe The state he keeps in getting up. PER: 'Tis worth it, sir. VOLP: Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons! It may seem strange, that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia, should now, after eight months' absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza. SIR P: Did not I now object the same? PER: Peace, sir. VOLP: Let me tell you: I am not, as your Lombard proverb saith, cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate, than I accustomed: look not for it. Nor that the calumnious reports of that impudent detractor, and shame to our profession, (Alessandro Buttone, I mean,) who gave out, in public, I was condemn'd a sforzato to the galleys, for poisoning the cardinal Bembo's--cook, hath at all attached, much less dejected me. No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement, as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccacio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turks' galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christians' galleys, where very temperately they eat bread, and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, enjoined them by their confessors, for base pilferies. SIR P: Note but his bearing, and contempt of these. VOLP: These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in several scartoccios, are able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet, these meagre, starved spirits, who have half stopt the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their favourers among your shrivell'd sallad-eating artizans, who are overjoyed that they may have their half-pe'rth of physic; though it purge them into another world, it makes no matter. SIR P: Excellent! have you heard better language, sir? VOLP: Well, let them go. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, know, that for this time, our bank, being thus removed from the clamours of the canaglia, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell. SIR P: I told you, sir, his end. PER: You did so, sir. VOLP: I protest, I, and my six servants, are not able to make of this precious liquor, so fast as it is fetch'd away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the Terra-firma; worshipful merchants; ay, and senators too: who, ever since my arrival, have detained me to their uses, by their splendidous liberalities. And worthily; for, what avails your rich man to have his magazines stuft with moscadelli, or of the purest grape, when his physicians prescribe him, on pain of death, to drink nothing but water cocted with aniseeds? O health! health! the blessing of the rich, the riches of the poor! who can buy thee at too dear a rate, since there is no enjoying this world without thee? Be not then so sparing of your purses, honourable gentlemen, as to abridge the natural course of life-- PER: You see his end. SIR P: Ay, is't not good? VOLP: For, when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part; take you a ducat, or your chequin of gold, and apply to the place affected: see what good effect it can work. No, no, 'tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humours, that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes-- PER: I would he had put in dry too. SIR P: 'Pray you, observe. VOLP: To fortify the most indigest and crude stomach, ay, were it of one, that, through extreme weakness, vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place, after the unction and fricace;--for the vertigine in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears; a most sovereign and approved remedy. The mal caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, stopping of the liver, the stone, the strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio; stops a disenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts: and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt. [POINTING TO HIS BILL AND HIS VIAL.] For, this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels, this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect; and, in sum, both together may be termed an abstract of the theorick and practick in the Aesculapian art. 'Twill cost you eight crowns. And,--Zan Fritada, prithee sing a verse extempore in honour of it. SIR P: How do you like him, sir? PER: Most strangely, I! SIR P: Is not his language rare? PER: But alchemy, I never heard the like: or Broughton's books. NANO [SINGS.]: Had old Hippocrates, or Galen, That to their books put med'cines all in, But known this secret, they had never (Of which they will be guilty ever) Been murderers of so much paper, Or wasted many a hurtless taper; No Indian drug had e'er been famed, Tabacco, sassafras not named; Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir, Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir. Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart, Or Paracelsus, with his long-sword. PER: All this, yet, will not do, eight crowns is high. VOLP: No more.--Gentlemen, if I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oil, surnamed Oglio del Scoto; with the countless catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesaid, and many more diseases; the pattents and privileges of all the princes and commonwealths of Christendom; or but the depositions of those that appeared on my part, before the signiory of the Sanita and most learned College of Physicians; where I was authorised, upon notice taken of the admirable virtues of my medicaments, and mine own excellency in matter of rare and unknown secrets, not only to disperse them publicly in this famous city, but in all the territories, that happily joy under the government of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy. But may some other gallant fellow say, O, there be divers that make profession to have as good, and as experimented receipts as yours: indeed, very many have assayed, like apes, in imitation of that, which is really and essentially in me, to make of this oil; bestowed great cost in furnaces, stills, alembecks, continual fires, and preparation of the ingredients, (as indeed there goes to it six hundred several simples, besides some quantity of human fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists,) but, when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: ha, ha, ha! Poor wretches! I rather pity their folly and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money; for these may be recovered by industry: but to be a fool born, is a disease incurable. For myself, I always from my youth have endeavoured to get the rarest secrets, and book them, either in exchange, or for money; I spared nor cost nor labour, where any thing was worthy to be learned. And gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, I will undertake, by virtue of chemical art, out of the honourable hat that covers your head, to extract the four elements; that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. For, whilst others have been at the Balloo, I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation. SIR P: I do assure you, sir, that is his aim. VOLP: But, to our price-- PER: And that withal, sir Pol. VOLP: You all know, honourable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns, but for this time, I am content, to be deprived of it for six; six crowns is the price; and less, in courtesy I know you cannot offer me; take it, or leave it, howsoever, both it and I am at your service. I ask you not as the value of the thing, for then I should demand of you a thousand crowns, so the cardinals Montalto, Fernese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my gossip, with divers other princes, have given me; but I despise money. Only to shew my affection to you, honourable gentlemen, and your illustrious State here, I have neglected the messages of these princes, mine own offices, framed my journey hither, only to present you with the fruits of my travels.--Tune your voices once more to the touch of your instruments, and give the honourable assembly some delightful recreation. PER: What monstrous and most painful circumstance Is here, to get some three or four gazettes, Some three-pence in the whole! for that 'twill come to. NANO [SINGS.]: You that would last long, list to my song, Make no more coil, but buy of this oil. Would you be ever fair and young? Stout of teeth, and strong of tongue? Tart of palate? quick of ear? Sharp of sight? of nostril clear? Moist of hand? and light of foot? Or, I will come nearer to't, Would you live free from all diseases? Do the act your mistress pleases; Yet fright all aches from your bones? Here's a med'cine, for the nones. VOLP: Well, I am in a humour at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains; to the rich, in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore now mark: I ask'd you six crowns, and six crowns, at other times, you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one; nor half a ducat; no, nor a moccinigo. Sixpence it will cost you, or six hundred pound-- expect no lower price, for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine, that I will have, only, a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you, to shew I am not contemn'd by you. Therefore, now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised, that the first heroic spirit that deignes to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something, beside, shall please it better, than if I had presented it with a double pistolet. PER: Will you be that heroic spark, sir Pol? [CELIA AT A WINDOW ABOVE, THROWS DOWN HER HANDKERCHIEF.] O see! the window has prevented you. VOLP: Lady, I kiss your bounty; and for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature, shall make you for ever enamour'd on that minute, wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despised, an object. Here is a powder conceal'd in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? why, the whole world is but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it. I will only tell you; it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo,) that kept her perpetually young, clear'd her wrinkles, firm'd her gums, fill'd her skin, colour'd her hair; from her deriv'd to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost: till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court of France, (but much sophisticated,) wherewith the ladies there, now, colour their hair. The rest, at this present, remains with me; extracted to a quintessence: so that, whereever it but touches, in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion; seats your teeth, did they dance like virginal jacks, firm as a wall; makes them white as ivory, that were black, as-- [ENTER CORVINO.] COR: Spight o' the devil, and my shame! come down here; Come down;--No house but mine to make your scene? Signior Flaminio, will you down, sir? down? What, is my wife your Franciscina, sir? No windows on the whole Piazza, here, To make your properties, but mine? but mine? [BEATS AWAY VOLPONE, NANO, ETC.] Heart! ere to-morrow, I shall be new-christen'd, And call'd the Pantalone di Besogniosi, About the town. PER: What should this mean, sir Pol? SIR P: Some trick of state, believe it. I will home. PER: It may be some design on you: SIR P: I know not. I'll stand upon my guard. PER: It is your best, sir. SIR P: This three weeks, all my advices, all my letters, They have been intercepted. PER: Indeed, sir! Best have a care. SIR P: Nay, so I will. PER: This knight, I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 2.2. A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE. ENTER VOLPONE AND MOSCA. VOLP: O, I am wounded! MOS: Where, sir? VOLP: Not without; Those blows were nothing: I could bear them ever. But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes, Hath shot himself into me like a flame; Where, now, he flings about his burning heat, As in a furnace an ambitious fire, Whose vent is stopt. The fight is all within me. I cannot live, except thou help me, Mosca; My liver melts, and I, without the hope Of some soft air, from her refreshing breath, Am but a heap of cinders. MOS: 'Las, good sir, Would you had never seen her! VOLP: Nay, would thou Had'st never told me of her! MOS: Sir 'tis true; I do confess I was unfortunate, And you unhappy: but I'm bound in conscience, No less than duty, to effect my best To your release of torment, and I will, sir. VOLP: Dear Mosca, shall I hope? MOS: Sir, more than dear, I will not bid you to dispair of aught Within a human compass. VOLP: O, there spoke My better angel. Mosca, take my keys, Gold, plate, and jewels, all's at thy devotion; Employ them how thou wilt; nay, coin me too: So thou, in this, but crown my longings, Mosca. MOS: Use but your patience. VOLP: So I have. MOS: I doubt not To bring success to your desires. VOLP: Nay, then, I not repent me of my late disguise. MOS: If you can horn him, sir, you need not. VOLP: True: Besides, I never meant him for my heir.-- Is not the colour of my beard and eyebrows, To make me known? MOS: No jot. VOLP: I did it well. MOS: So well, would I could follow you in mine, With half the happiness! [ASIDE.] --and yet I would Escape your Epilogue. VOLP: But were they gull'd With a belief that I was Scoto? MOS: Sir, Scoto himself could hardly have distinguish'd! I have not time to flatter you now; we'll part; And as I prosper, so applaud my art. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 2.3. A ROOM IN CORVINO'S HOUSE. ENTER CORVINO, WITH HIS SWORD IN HIS HAND, DRAGGING IN CELIA. CORV: Death of mine honour, with the city's fool! A juggling, tooth-drawing, prating mountebank! And at a public window! where, whilst he, With his strain'd action, and his dole of faces, To his drug-lecture draws your itching ears, A crew of old, unmarried, noted letchers, Stood leering up like satyrs; and you smile Most graciously, and fan your favours forth, To give your hot spectators satisfaction! What; was your mountebank their call? their whistle? Or were you enamour'd on his copper rings, His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in't, Or his embroider'd suit, with the cope-stitch, Made of a herse-cloth? or his old tilt-feather? Or his starch'd beard? Well; you shall have him, yes! He shall come home, and minister unto you The fricace for the mother. Or, let me see, I think you'd rather mount; would you not mount? Why, if you'll mount, you may; yes truly, you may: And so you may be seen, down to the foot. Get you a cittern, lady Vanity, And be a dealer with the virtuous man; Make one: I'll but protest myself a cuckold, And save your dowry. I'm a Dutchman, I! For, if you thought me an Italian, You would be damn'd, ere you did this, you whore! Thou'dst tremble, to imagine, that the murder Of father, mother, brother, all thy race, Should follow, as the subject of my justice. CEL: Good sir, have pacience. CORV: What couldst thou propose Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath And stung with my dishonour, I should strike This steel into thee, with as many stabs, As thou wert gaz'd upon with goatish eyes? CEL: Alas, sir, be appeas'd! I could not think My being at the window should more now Move your impatience, than at other times. CORV: No! not to seek and entertain a parley With a known knave, before a multitude! You were an actor with your handkerchief; Which he most sweetly kist in the receipt, And might, no doubt, return it with a letter, And point the place where you might meet: your sister's, Your mother's, or your aunt's might serve the turn. CEL: Why, dear sir, when do I make these excuses, Or ever stir abroad, but to the church? And that so seldom-- CORV: Well, it shall be less; And thy restraint before was liberty, To what I now decree: and therefore mark me. First, I will have this bawdy light damm'd up; And till't be done, some two or three yards off, I'll chalk a line: o'er which if thou but chance To set thy desperate foot; more hell, more horror More wild remorseless rage shall seize on thee, Than on a conjurer, that had heedless left His circle's safety ere his devil was laid. Then here's a lock which I will hang upon thee; And, now I think on't, I will keep thee backwards; Thy lodging shall be backwards; thy walks backwards; Thy prospect, all be backwards; and no pleasure, That thou shalt know but backwards: nay, since you force My honest nature, know, it is your own, Being too open, makes me use you thus: Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air Of rank and sweaty passengers. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] --One knocks. Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life; Nor look toward the window: if thou dost-- Nay, stay, hear this--let me not prosper, whore, But I will make thee an anatomy, Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture Upon thee to the city, and in public. Away! [EXIT CELIA.] [ENTER SERVANT.] Who's there? SERV: 'Tis signior Mosca, sir. CORV: Let him come in. [EXIT SERVANT.] His master's dead: There's yet Some good to help the bad.-- [ENTER MOSCA.] My Mosca, welcome! I guess your news. MOS: I fear you cannot, sir. CORV: Is't not his death? MOS: Rather the contrary. CORV: Not his recovery? MOS: Yes, sir, CORV: I am curs'd, I am bewitch'd, my crosses meet to vex me. How? how? how? how? MOS: Why, sir, with Scoto's oil; Corbaccio and Voltore brought of it, Whilst I was busy in an inner room-- CORV: Death! that damn'd mountebank; but for the law Now, I could kill the rascal: it cannot be, His oil should have that virtue. Have not I Known him a common rogue, come fidling in To the osteria, with a tumbling whore, And, when he has done all his forced tricks, been glad Of a poor spoonful of dead wine, with flies in't? It cannot be. All his ingredients Are a sheep's gall, a roasted bitch's marrow, Some few sod earwigs pounded caterpillars, A little capon's grease, and fasting spittle: I know them to a dram. MOS: I know not, sir, But some on't, there, they pour'd into his ears, Some in his nostrils, and recover'd him; Applying but the fricace. CORV: Pox o' that fricace. MOS: And since, to seem the more officious And flatt'ring of his health, there, they have had, At extreme fees, the college of physicians Consulting on him, how they might restore him; Where one would have a cataplasm of spices, Another a flay'd ape clapp'd to his breast, A third would have it a dog, a fourth an oil, With wild cats' skins: at last, they all resolved That, to preserve him, was no other means, But some young woman must be straight sought out, Lusty, and full of juice, to sleep by him; And to this service, most unhappily, And most unwillingly, am I now employ'd, Which here I thought to pre-acquaint you with, For your advice, since it concerns you most; Because, I would not do that thing might cross Your ends, on whom I have my whole dependance, sir: Yet, if I do it not, they may delate My slackness to my patron, work me out Of his opinion; and there all your hopes, Ventures, or whatsoever, are all frustrate! I do but tell you, sir. Besides, they are all Now striving, who shall first present him; therefore-- I could entreat you, briefly conclude somewhat; Prevent them if you can. CORV: Death to my hopes, This is my villainous fortune! Best to hire Some common courtezan. MOS: Ay, I thought on that, sir; But they are all so subtle, full of art-- And age again doting and flexible, So as--I cannot tell--we may, perchance, Light on a quean may cheat us all. CORV: 'Tis true. MOS: No, no: it must be one that has no tricks, sir, Some simple thing, a creature made unto it; Some wench you may command. Have you no kinswoman? Odso--Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir. One o' the doctors offer'd there his daughter. CORV: How! MOS: Yes, signior Lupo, the physician. CORV: His daughter! MOS: And a virgin, sir. Why? alas, He knows the state of's body, what it is; That nought can warm his blood sir, but a fever; Nor any incantation raise his spirit: A long forgetfulness hath seized that part. Besides sir, who shall know it? some one or two-- CORV: I prithee give me leave. [WALKS ASIDE.] If any man But I had had this luck--The thing in't self, I know, is nothing--Wherefore should not I As well command my blood and my affections, As this dull doctor? In the point of honour, The cases are all one of wife and daughter. MOS [ASIDE.]: I hear him coming. CORV: She shall do't: 'tis done. Slight! if this doctor, who is not engaged, Unless 't be for his counsel, which is nothing, Offer his daughter, what should I, that am So deeply in? I will prevent him: Wretch! Covetous wretch!--Mosca, I have determined. MOS: How, sir? CORV: We'll make all sure. The party you wot of Shall be mine own wife, Mosca. MOS: Sir, the thing, But that I would not seem to counsel you, I should have motion'd to you, at the first: And make your count, you have cut all their throats. Why! 'tis directly taking a possession! And in his next fit, we may let him go. 'Tis but to pull the pillow from his head, And he is throttled: it had been done before, But for your scrupulous doubts. CORV: Ay, a plague on't, My conscience fools my wit! Well, I'll be brief, And so be thou, lest they should be before us: Go home, prepare him, tell him with what zeal And willingness I do it; swear it was On the first hearing, as thou mayst do, truly, Mine own free motion. MOS: Sir, I warrant you, I'll so possess him with it, that the rest Of his starv'd clients shall be banish'd all; And only you received. But come not, sir, Until I send, for I have something else To ripen for your good, you must not know't. CORV: But do not you forget to send now. MOS: Fear not. [EXIT.] CORV: Where are you, wife? my Celia? wife? [RE-ENTER CELIA.] --What, blubbering? Come, dry those tears. I think thou thought'st me in earnest; Ha! by this light I talk'd so but to try thee: Methinks the lightness of the occasion Should have confirm'd thee. Come, I am not jealous. CEL: No! CORV: Faith I am not I, nor never was; It is a poor unprofitable humour. Do not I know, if women have a will, They'll do 'gainst all the watches of the world, And that the feircest spies are tamed with gold? Tut, I am confident in thee, thou shalt see't; And see I'll give thee cause too, to believe it. Come kiss me. Go, and make thee ready, straight, In all thy best attire, thy choicest jewels, Put them all on, and, with them, thy best looks: We are invited to a solemn feast, At old Volpone's, where it shall appear How far I am free from jealousy or fear. [exeunt.] ACT 3. SCENE 3.1. A STREET. ENTER MOSCA. MOS: I fear, I shall begin to grow in love With my dear self, and my most prosperous parts, They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel A whimsy in my blood: I know not how, Success hath made me wanton. I could skip Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake, I am so limber. O! your parasite Is a most precious thing, dropt from above, Not bred 'mongst clods, and clodpoles, here on earth. I muse, the mystery was not made a science, It is so liberally profest! almost All the wise world is little else, in nature, But parasites, or sub-parasites.--And yet, I mean not those that have your bare town-art, To know who's fit to feed them; have no house, No family, no care, and therefore mould Tales for men's ears, to bait that sense; or get Kitchen-invention, and some stale receipts To please the belly, and the groin; nor those, With their court dog-tricks, that can fawn and fleer, Make their revenue out of legs and faces, Echo my lord, and lick away a moth: But your fine elegant rascal, that can rise, And stoop, almost together, like an arrow; Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star; Turn short as doth a swallow; and be here, And there, and here, and yonder, all at once; Present to any humour, all occasion; And change a visor, swifter than a thought! This is the creature had the art born with him; Toils not to learn it, but doth practise it Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks Are the true parasites, others but their zanis. [ENTER BONARIO.] MOS: Who's this? Bonario, old Corbaccio's son? The person I was bound to seek.--Fair sir, You are happily met. BON: That cannot be by thee. MOS: Why, sir? BON: Nay, pray thee know thy way, and leave me: I would be loth to interchange discourse With such a mate as thou art MOS: Courteous sir, Scorn not my poverty. BON: Not I, by heaven; But thou shalt give me leave to hate thy baseness. MOS: Baseness! BON: Ay; answer me, is not thy sloth Sufficient argument? thy flattery? Thy means of feeding? MOS: Heaven be good to me! These imputations are too common, sir, And easily stuck on virtue when she's poor. You are unequal to me, and however, Your sentence may be righteous, yet you are not That, ere you know me, thus proceed in censure: St. Mark bear witness 'gainst you, 'tis inhuman. [WEEPS.] BON [ASIDE.]: What! does he weep? the sign is soft and good; I do repent me that I was so harsh. MOS: 'Tis true, that, sway'd by strong necessity, I am enforced to eat my careful bread With too much obsequy; 'tis true, beside, That I am fain to spin mine own poor raiment Out of my mere observance, being not born To a free fortune: but that I have done Base offices, in rending friends asunder, Dividing families, betraying counsels, Whispering false lies, or mining men with praises, Train'd their credulity with perjuries, Corrupted chastity, or am in love With mine own tender ease, but would not rather Prove the most rugged, and laborious course, That might redeem my present estimation, Let me here perish, in all hope of goodness. BON [ASIDE.]: This cannot be a personated passion.-- I was to blame, so to mistake thy nature; Prithee, forgive me: and speak out thy business. MOS: Sir, it concerns you; and though I may seem, At first to make a main offence in manners, And in my gratitude unto my master; Yet, for the pure love, which I bear all right, And hatred of the wrong, I must reveal it. This very hour your father is in purpose To disinherit you-- BON: How! MOS: And thrust you forth, As a mere stranger to his blood; 'tis true, sir: The work no way engageth me, but, as I claim an interest in the general state Of goodness and true virtue, which I hear To abound in you: and, for which mere respect, Without a second aim, sir, I have done it. BON: This tale hath lost thee much of the late trust Thou hadst with me; it is impossible: I know not how to lend it any thought, My father should be so unnatural. MOS: It is a confidence that well becomes Your piety; and form'd, no doubt, it is From your own simple innocence: which makes Your wrong more monstrous, and abhorr'd. But, sir, I now will tell you more. This very minute, It is, or will be doing; and, if you Shall be but pleas'd to go with me, I'll bring you, I dare not say where you shall see, but where Your ear shall be a witness of the deed; Hear yourself written bastard; and profest The common issue of the earth. BON: I am amazed! MOS: Sir, if I do it not, draw your just sword, And score your vengeance on my front and face; Mark me your villain: you have too much wrong, And I do suffer for you, sir. My heart Weeps blood in anguish-- BON: Lead; I follow thee. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 3.2. A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE. ENTER VOLPONE. VOLP: Mosca stays long, methinks. Bring forth your sports, And help to make the wretched time more sweet. [ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.] NAN: Dwarf, fool, and eunuch, well met here we be. A question it were now, whether of us three, Being all the known delicates of a rich man, In pleasing him, claim the precedency can? CAS: I claim for myself. AND: And so doth the fool. NAN: 'Tis foolish indeed: let me set you both to school. First for your dwarf, he's little and witty, And every thing, as it is little, is pretty; Else why do men say to a creature of my shape, So soon as they see him, It's a pretty little ape? And why a pretty ape, but for pleasing imitation Of greater men's actions, in a ridiculous fashion? Beside, this feat body of mine doth not crave Half the meat, drink, and cloth, one of your bulks will have. Admit your fool's face be the mother of laughter, Yet, for his brain, it must always come after: And though that do feed him, 'tis a pitiful case, His body is beholding to such a bad face. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] VOLP: Who's there? my couch; away! look! Nano, see: [EXE. AND. AND CAS.] Give me my caps, first--go, enquire. [EXIT NANO.] --Now, Cupid Send it be Mosca, and with fair return! NAN [WITHIN.]: It is the beauteous madam-- VOLP: Would-be?--is it? NAN: The same. VOLP: Now torment on me! Squire her in; For she will enter, or dwell here for ever: Nay, quickly. [RETIRES TO HIS COUCH.] --That my fit were past! I fear A second hell too, that my lothing this Will quite expel my appetite to the other: Would she were taking now her tedious leave. Lord, how it threats me what I am to suffer! [RE-ENTER NANO, WITH LADY POLITICK WOULD-BE.] LADY P: I thank you, good sir. 'Pray you signify Unto your patron, I am here.--This band Shews not my neck enough.--I trouble you, sir; Let me request you, bid one of my women Come hither to me.--In good faith, I, am drest Most favorably, to-day! It is no matter: 'Tis well enough.-- [ENTER 1 WAITING-WOMAN.] Look, see, these petulant things, How they have done this! VOLP [ASIDE.]: I do feel the fever Entering in at mine ears; O, for a charm, To fright it hence. LADY P: Come nearer: Is this curl In his right place, or this? Why is this higher Then all the rest? You have not wash'd your eyes, yet! Or do they not stand even in your head? Where is your fellow? call her. [EXIT 1 WOMAN.] NAN: Now, St. Mark Deliver us! anon, she will beat her women, Because her nose is red. [RE-ENTER 1 WITH 2 WOMAN.] LADY P: I pray you, view This tire, forsooth; are all things apt, or no? 1 WOM: One hair a little, here, sticks out, forsooth. LADY P: Does't so, forsooth? and where was your dear sight, When it did so, forsooth! What now! bird-eyed? And you too? 'Pray you, both approach and mend it. Now, by that light, I muse you are not ashamed! I, that have preach'd these things so oft unto you, Read you the principles, argued all the grounds, Disputed every fitness, every grace, Call'd you to counsel of so frequent dressings-- NAN [ASIDE.]: More carefully than of your fame or honour. LADY P: Made you acquainted, what an ample dowry The knowledge of these things would be unto you, Able, alone, to get you noble husbands At your return: and you thus to neglect it! Besides you seeing what a curious nation The Italians are, what will they say of me? "The English lady cannot dress herself." Here's a fine imputation to our country: Well, go your ways, and stay, in the next room. This fucus was too course too, it's no matter.-- Good-sir, you will give them entertainment? [EXEUNT NANO AND WAITING-WOMEN.] VOLP: The storm comes toward me. LADY P [GOES TO THE COUCH.]: How does my Volpone? VOLP: Troubled with noise, I cannot sleep; I dreamt That a strange fury enter'd, now, my house, And, with the dreadful tempest of her breath, Did cleave my roof asunder. LADY P: Believe me, and I Had the most fearful dream, could I remember't-- VOLP [ASIDE.]: Out on my fate! I have given her the occasion How to torment me: she will tell me hers. LADY P: Me thought, the golden mediocrity, Polite and delicate-- VOLP: O, if you do love me, No more; I sweat, and suffer, at the mention Of any dream: feel, how I tremble yet. LADY P: Alas, good soul! the passion of the heart. Seed-pearl were good now, boil'd with syrup of apples, Tincture of gold, and coral, citron-pills, Your elicampane root, myrobalanes-- VOLP [ASIDE.]: Ah me, I have ta'en a grass-hopper by the wing! LADY P: Burnt silk, and amber: you have muscadel Good in the house-- VOLP: You will not drink, and part? LADY P: No, fear not that. I doubt, we shall not get Some English saffron, half a dram would serve; Your sixteen cloves, a little musk, dried mints, Bugloss, and barley-meal-- VOLP [ASIDE.]: She's in again! Before I fain'd diseases, now I have one. LADY P: And these applied with a right scarlet cloth. VOLP [ASIDE.]: Another flood of words! a very torrent! LADY P: Shall I, sir, make you a poultice? VOLP: No, no, no; I am very well: you need prescribe no more. LADY P: I have a little studied physic; but now, I'm all for music, save, in the forenoons, An hour or two for painting. I would have A lady, indeed, to have all, letters, and arts, Be able to discourse, to write, to paint, But principal, as Plato holds, your music, And, so does wise Pythagoras, I take it, Is your true rapture: when there is concent In face, in voice, and clothes: and is, indeed, Our sex's chiefest ornament. VOLP: The poet As old in time as Plato, and as knowing, Says that your highest female grace is silence. LADY P: Which of your poets? Petrarch, or Tasso, or Dante? Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine? Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all. VOLP [ASIDE.]: Is every thing a cause to my distruction? LADY P: I think I have two or three of them about me. VOLP [ASIDE.]: The sun, the sea will sooner both stand still, Then her eternal tongue; nothing can 'scape it. LADY P: Here's pastor Fido-- VOLP [ASIDE.]: Profess obstinate silence, That's now my safest. LADY P: All our English writers, I mean such as are happy in the Italian, Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly: Almost as much, as from Montagnie; He has so modern and facile a vein, Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear! Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he, In days of sonetting, trusted them with much: Dante is hard, and few can understand him. But, for a desperate wit, there's Aretine; Only, his pictures are a little obscene-- You mark me not. VOLP: Alas, my mind is perturb'd. LADY P: Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves, Make use of our philosophy-- VOLP: Oh me! LADY P: And as we find our passions do rebel, Encounter them with reason, or divert them, By giving scope unto some other humour Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies, There's nothing more doth overwhelm the judgment, And cloud the understanding, than too much Settling and fixing, and, as 'twere, subsiding Upon one object. For the incorporating Of these same outward things, into that part, Which we call mental, leaves some certain faeces That stop the organs, and as Plato says, Assassinate our Knowledge. VOLP [ASIDE.]: Now, the spirit Of patience help me! LADY P: Come, in faith, I must Visit you more a days; and make you well: Laugh and be lusty. VOLP [ASIDE.]: My good angel save me! LADY P: There was but one sole man in all the world, With whom I e'er could sympathise; and he Would lie you, often, three, four hours together To hear me speak; and be sometimes so rapt, As he would answer me quite from the purpose, Like you, and you are like him, just. I'll discourse, An't be but only, sir, to bring you asleep, How we did spend our time and loves together, For some six years. VOLP: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh! LADY P: For we were coaetanei, and brought up-- VOLP: Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me! [ENTER MOSCA.] MOS: God save you, madam! LADY P: Good sir. VOLP: Mosca? welcome, Welcome to my redemption. MOS: Why, sir? VOLP: Oh, Rid me of this my torture, quickly, there; My madam, with the everlasting voice: The bells, in time of pestilence, ne'er made Like noise, or were in that perpetual motion! The Cock-pit comes not near it. All my house, But now, steam'd like a bath with her thick breath. A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce Another woman, such a hail of words She has let fall. For hell's sake, rid her hence. MOS: Has she presented? VOLP: O, I do not care; I'll take her absence, upon any price, With any loss. MOS: Madam-- LADY P: I have brought your patron A toy, a cap here, of mine own work. MOS: 'Tis well. I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight, Where you would little think it.-- LADY P: Where? MOS: Marry, Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend, Rowing upon the water in a gondole, With the most cunning courtezan of Venice. LADY P: Is't true? MOS: Pursue them, and believe your eyes; Leave me, to make your gift. [EXIT LADY P. HASTILY.] --I knew 'twould take: For, lightly, they, that use themselves most license, Are still most jealous. VOLP: Mosca, hearty thanks, For thy quick fiction, and delivery of me. Now to my hopes, what say'st thou? [RE-ENTER LADY P. WOULD-BE.] LADY P: But do you hear, sir?-- VOLP: Again! I fear a paroxysm. LADY P: Which way Row'd they together? MOS: Toward the Rialto. LADY P: I pray you lend me your dwarf. MOS: I pray you, take him.-- [EXIT LADY P.] Your hopes, sir, are like happy blossoms, fair, And promise timely fruit, if you will stay But the maturing; keep you at your couch, Corbaccio will arrive straight, with the Will; When he is gone, I'll tell you more. [EXIT.] VOLP: My blood, My spirits are return'd; I am alive: And like your wanton gamester, at primero, Whose thought had whisper'd to him, not go less, Methinks I lie, and draw--for an encounter. [THE SCENE CLOSES UPON VOLPONE.] SCENE 3.3 THE PASSAGE LEADING TO VOLPONE'S CHAMBER. ENTER MOSCA AND BONARIO. MOS: Sir, here conceal'd, [SHEWS HIM A CLOSET.] you may here all. But, pray you, Have patience, sir; [KNOCKING WITHIN.] --the same's your father knocks: I am compell'd to leave you. [EXIT.] BON: Do so.--Yet, Cannot my thought imagine this a truth. [GOES INTO THE CLOSET.] SCENE 3.4. ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME. ENTER MOSCA AND CORVINO, CELIA FOLLOWING. MOS: Death on me! you are come too soon, what meant you? Did not I say, I would send? CORV: Yes, but I fear'd You might forget it, and then they prevent us. MOS [ASIDE.]: Prevent! did e'er man haste so, for his horns? A courtier would not ply it so, for a place. --Well, now there's no helping it, stay here; I'll presently return. [EXIT.] CORV: Where are you, Celia? You know not wherefore I have brought you hither? CEL: Not well, except you told me. CORV: Now, I will: Hark hither. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 3.5. A CLOSET OPENING INTO A GALLERY. ENTER MOSCA AND BONARIO. MOS: Sir, your father hath sent word, It will be half an hour ere he come; And therefore, if you please to walk the while Into that gallery--at the upper end, There are some books to entertain the time: And I'll take care no man shall come unto you, sir. BON: Yes, I will stay there. [ASIDE.]--I do doubt this fellow. [EXIT.] MOS [LOOKING AFTER HIM.]: There; he is far enough; he can hear nothing: And, for his father, I can keep him off. [EXIT.] SCENE 3.6. VOLPONE'S CHAMBER.--VOLPONE ON HIS COUCH. MOSCA SITTING BY HIM. ENTER CORVINO, FORCING IN CELIA. CORV: Nay, now, there is no starting back, and therefore, Resolve upon it: I have so decreed. It must be done. Nor would I move't, afore, Because I would avoid all shifts and tricks, That might deny me. CEL: Sir, let me beseech you, Affect not these strange trials; if you doubt My chastity, why, lock me up for ever: Make me the heir of darkness. Let me live, Where I may please your fears, if not your trust. CORV: Believe it, I have no such humour, I. All that I speak I mean; yet I'm not mad; Nor horn-mad, see you? Go to, shew yourself Obedient, and a wife. CEL: O heaven! CORV: I say it, Do so. CEL: Was this the train? CORV: I've told you reasons; What the physicians have set down; how much It may concern me; what my engagements are; My means; and the necessity of those means, For my recovery: wherefore, if you be Loyal, and mine, be won, respect my venture. CEL: Before your honour? CORV: Honour! tut, a breath: There's no such thing, in nature: a mere term Invented to awe fools. What is my gold The worse, for touching, clothes for being look'd on? Why, this is no more. An old decrepit wretch, That has no sense, no sinew; takes his meat With others' fingers; only knows to gape, When you do scald his gums; a voice; a shadow; And, what can this man hurt you? CEL [ASIDE.]: Lord! what spirit Is this hath enter'd him? CORV: And for your fame, That's such a jig; as if I would go tell it, Cry it on the Piazza! who shall know it, But he that cannot speak it, and this fellow, Whose lips are in my pocket? save yourself, (If you'll proclaim't, you may,) I know no other, Shall come to know it. CEL: Are heaven and saints then nothing? Will they be blind or stupid? CORV: How! CEL: Good sir, Be jealous still, emulate them; and think What hate they burn with toward every sin. CORV: I grant you: if I thought it were a sin, I would not urge you. Should I offer this To some young Frenchman, or hot Tuscan blood That had read Aretine, conn'd all his prints, Knew every quirk within lust's labyrinth, And were professed critic in lechery; And I would look upon him, and applaud him, This were a sin: but here, 'tis contrary, A pious work, mere charity for physic, And honest polity, to assure mine own. CEL: O heaven! canst thou suffer such a change? VOLP: Thou art mine honour, Mosca, and my pride, My joy, my tickling, my delight! Go bring them. MOS [ADVANCING.]: Please you draw near, sir. CORV: Come on, what-- You will not be rebellious? by that light-- MOS: Sir, Signior Corvino, here, is come to see you. VOLP: Oh! MOS: And hearing of the consultation had, So lately, for your health, is come to offer, Or rather, sir, to prostitute-- CORV: Thanks, sweet Mosca. MOS: Freely, unask'd, or unintreated-- CORV: Well. MOS: As the true fervent instance of his love, His own most fair and proper wife; the beauty, Only of price in Venice-- CORV: 'Tis well urged. MOS: To be your comfortress, and to preserve you. VOLP: Alas, I am past, already! Pray you, thank him For his good care and promptness; but for that, 'Tis a vain labour e'en to fight 'gainst heaven; Applying fire to stone-- [COUGHING.] uh, uh, uh, uh! Making a dead leaf grow again. I take His wishes gently, though; and you may tell him, What I have done for him: marry, my state is hopeless. Will him to pray for me; and to use his fortune With reverence, when he comes to't. MOS: Do you hear, sir? Go to him with your wife. CORV: Heart of my father! Wilt thou persist thus? come, I pray thee, come. Thou seest 'tis nothing, Celia. By this hand, I shall grow violent. Come, do't, I say. CEL: Sir, kill me, rather: I will take down poison, Eat burning coals, do any thing.-- CORV: Be damn'd! Heart, I'll drag thee hence, home, by the hair; Cry thee a strumpet through the streets; rip up Thy mouth unto thine ears; and slit thy nose, Like a raw rotchet!--Do not tempt me; come, Yield, I am loth--Death! I will buy some slave Whom I will kill, and bind thee to him, alive; And at my window hang you forth: devising Some monstrous crime, which I, in capital letters, Will eat into thy flesh with aquafortis, And burning corsives, on this stubborn breast. Now, by the blood thou hast incensed, I'll do it! CEL: Sir, what you please, you may, I am your martyr. CORV: Be not thus obstinate, I have not deserved it: Think who it is intreats you. 'Prithee, sweet;-- Good faith, thou shalt have jewels, gowns, attires, What thou wilt think, and ask. Do but go kiss him. Or touch him, but, for my sake.--At my suit.-- This once.--No! not! I shall remember this. Will you disgrace me thus? Do you thirst my undoing? MOS: Nay, gentle lady, be advised. CORV: No, no. She has watch'd her time. Ods precious, this is scurvy, 'Tis very scurvy: and you are-- MOS: Nay, good, sir. CORV: An arrant Locust, by heaven, a locust! Whore, crocodile, that hast thy tears prepared, Expecting how thou'lt bid them flow-- MOS: Nay, 'Pray you, sir! She will consider. CEL: Would my life would serve To satisfy-- CORV: S'death! if she would but speak to him, And save my reputation, it were somewhat; But spightfully to affect my utter ruin! MOS: Ay, now you have put your fortune in her hands. Why i'faith, it is her modesty, I must quit her. If you were absent, she would be more coming; I know it: and dare undertake for her. What woman can before her husband? 'pray you, Let us depart, and leave her here. CORV: Sweet Celia, Thou may'st redeem all, yet; I'll say no more: If not, esteem yourself as lost,--Nay, stay there. [SHUTS THE DOOR, AND EXIT WITH MOSCA.] CEL: O God, and his good angels! whither, whither, Is shame fled human breasts? that with such ease, Men dare put off your honours, and their own? Is that, which ever was a cause of life, Now placed beneath the basest circumstance, And modesty an exile made, for money? VOLP: Ay, in Corvino, and such earth-fed minds, [LEAPING FROM HIS COUCH.] That never tasted the true heaven of love. Assure thee, Celia, he that would sell thee, Only for hope of gain, and that uncertain, He would have sold his part of Paradise For ready money, had he met a cope-man. Why art thou mazed to see me thus revived? Rather applaud thy beauty's miracle; 'Tis thy great work: that hath, not now alone, But sundry times raised me, in several shapes, And, but this morning, like a mountebank; To see thee at thy window: ay, before I would have left my practice, for thy love, In varying figures, I would have contended With the blue Proteus, or the horned flood. Now art thou welcome. CEL: Sir! VOLP: Nay, fly me not. Nor let thy false imagination That I was bed-rid, make thee think I am so: Thou shalt not find it. I am, now, as fresh, As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight, As when, in that so celebrated scene, At recitation of our comedy, For entertainment of the great Valois, I acted young Antinous; and attracted The eyes and ears of all the ladies present, To admire each graceful gesture, note, and footing. [SINGS.] Come, my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love, Time will not be ours for ever, He, at length, our good will sever; Spend not then his gifts in vain; Suns, that set, may rise again: But if once we loose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night. Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys. Cannot we delude the eyes Of a few poor household spies? Or his easier ears beguile, Thus remooved by our wile?-- 'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal: But the sweet thefts to reveal; To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been. CEL: Some serene blast me, or dire lightning strike This my offending face! VOLP: Why droops my Celia? Thou hast, in place of a base husband, found A worthy lover: use thy fortune well, With secrecy and pleasure. See, behold, What thou art queen of; not in expectation, As I feed others: but possess'd, and crown'd. See, here, a rope of pearl; and each, more orient Than that the brave Egyptian queen caroused: Dissolve and drink them. See, a carbuncle, May put out both the eyes of our St Mark; A diamond, would have bought Lollia Paulina, When she came in like star-light, hid with jewels, That were the spoils of provinces; take these, And wear, and lose them: yet remains an ear-ring To purchase them again, and this whole state. A gem but worth a private patrimony, Is nothing: we will eat such at a meal. The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales, The brains of peacocks, and of estriches, Shall be our food: and, could we get the phoenix, Though nature lost her kind, she were our dish. CEL: Good sir, these things might move a mind affected With such delights; but I, whose innocence Is all I can think wealthy, or worth th' enjoying, And which, once lost, I have nought to lose beyond it, Cannot be taken with these sensual baits: If you have conscience-- VOLP: 'Tis the beggar's virtue, If thou hast wisdom, hear me, Celia. Thy baths shall be the juice of July-flowers, Spirit of roses, and of violets, The milk of unicorns, and panthers' breath Gather'd in bags, and mixt with Cretan wines. Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber; Which we will take, until my roof whirl round With the vertigo: and my dwarf shall dance, My eunuch sing, my fool make up the antic. Whilst we, in changed shapes, act Ovid's tales, Thou, like Europa now, and I like Jove, Then I like Mars, and thou like Erycine: So, of the rest, till we have quite run through, And wearied all the fables of the gods. Then will I have thee in more modern forms, Attired like some sprightly dame of France, Brave Tuscan lady, or proud Spanish beauty; Sometimes, unto the Persian sophy's wife; Or the grand signior's mistress; and, for change, To one of our most artful courtezans, Or some quick Negro, or cold Russian; And I will meet thee in as many shapes: Where we may so transfuse our wandering souls, Out at our lips, and score up sums of pleasures, [SINGS.] That the curious shall not know How to tell them as they flow; And the envious, when they find What there number is, be pined. CEL: If you have ears that will be pierc'd--or eyes That can be open'd--a heart that may be touch'd-- Or any part that yet sounds man about you-- If you have touch of holy saints--or heaven-- Do me the grace to let me 'scape--if not, Be bountiful and kill me. You do know, I am a creature, hither ill betray'd, By one, whose shame I would forget it were: If you will deign me neither of these graces, Yet feed your wrath, sir, rather than your lust, (It is a vice comes nearer manliness,) And punish that unhappy crime of nature, Which you miscall my beauty; flay my face, Or poison it with ointments, for seducing Your blood to this rebellion. Rub these hands, With what may cause an eating leprosy, E'en to my bones and marrow: any thing, That may disfavour me, save in my honour-- And I will kneel to you, pray for you, pay down A thousand hourly vows, sir, for your health; Report, and think you virtuous-- VOLP: Think me cold, Frosen and impotent, and so report me? That I had Nestor's hernia, thou wouldst think. I do degenerate, and abuse my nation, To play with opportunity thus long; I should have done the act, and then have parley'd. Yield, or I'll force thee. [SEIZES HER.] CEL: O! just God! VOLP: In vain-- BON [RUSHING IN]: Forbear, foul ravisher, libidinous swine! Free the forced lady, or thou diest, impostor. But that I'm loth to snatch thy punishment Out of the hand of justice, thou shouldst, yet, Be made the timely sacrifice of vengeance, Before this altar, and this dross, thy idol.-- Lady, let's quit the place, it is the den Of villany; fear nought, you have a guard: And he, ere long, shall meet his just reward. [EXEUNT BON. AND CEL.] VOLP: Fall on me, roof, and bury me in ruin! Become my grave, that wert my shelter! O! I am unmask'd, unspirited, undone, Betray'd to beggary, to infamy-- [ENTER MOSCA, WOUNDED AND BLEEDING.] MOS: Where shall I run, most wretched shame of men, To beat out my unlucky brains? VOLP: Here, here. What! dost thou bleed? MOS: O that his well-driv'n sword Had been so courteous to have cleft me down Unto the navel; ere I lived to see My life, my hopes, my spirits, my patron, all Thus desperately engaged, by my error! VOLP: Woe on thy fortune! MOS: And my follies, sir. VOLP: Thou hast made me miserable. MOS: And myself, sir. Who would have thought he would have harken'd, so? VOLP: What shall we do? MOS: I know not; if my heart Could expiate the mischance, I'd pluck it out. Will you be pleased to hang me? or cut my throat? And I'll requite you, sir. Let us die like Romans, Since we have lived like Grecians. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] VOLP: Hark! who's there? I hear some footing; officers, the saffi, Come to apprehend us! I do feel the brand Hissing already at my forehead; now, Mine ears are boring. MOS: To your couch, sir, you, Make that place good, however. [VOLPONE LIES DOWN, AS BEFORE.] --Guilty men Suspect what they deserve still. [ENTER CORBACCIO.] Signior Corbaccio! CORB: Why, how now, Mosca? MOS: O, undone, amazed, sir. Your son, I know not by what accident, Acquainted with your purpose to my patron, Touching your Will, and making him your heir, Enter'd our house with violence, his sword drawn Sought for you, call'd you wretch, unnatural, Vow'd he would kill you. CORB: Me! MOS: Yes, and my patron. CORB: This act shall disinherit him indeed; Here is the Will. MOS: 'Tis well, sir. CORB: Right and well: Be you as careful now for me. [ENTER VOLTORE, BEHIND.] MOS: My life, sir, Is not more tender'd; I am only yours. CORB: How does he? will he die shortly, think'st thou? MOS: I fear He'll outlast May. CORB: To-day? MOS: No, last out May, sir. CORB: Could'st thou not give him a dram? MOS: O, by no means, sir. CORB: Nay, I'll not bid you. VOLT [COMING FORWARD.]: This is a knave, I see. MOS [SEEING VOLTORE.]: How! signior Voltore! [ASIDE.] did he hear me? VOLT: Parasite! MOS: Who's that?--O, sir, most timely welcome-- VOLT: Scarce, To the discovery of your tricks, I fear. You are his, ONLY? and mine, also? are you not? MOS: Who? I, sir? VOLT: You, sir. What device is this About a Will? MOS: A plot for you, sir. VOLT: Come, Put not your foists upon me; I shall scent them. MOS: Did you not hear it? VOLT: Yes, I hear Corbaccio Hath made your patron there his heir. MOS: 'Tis true, By my device, drawn to it by my plot, With hope-- VOLT: Your patron should reciprocate? And you have promised? MOS: For your good, I did, sir. Nay, more, I told his son, brought, hid him here, Where he might hear his father pass the deed: Being persuaded to it by this thought, sir, That the unnaturalness, first, of the act, And then his father's oft disclaiming in him, (Which I did mean t'help on,) would sure enrage him To do some violence upon his parent, On which the law should take sufficient hold, And you be stated in a double hope: Truth be my comfort, and my conscience, My only aim was to dig you a fortune Out of these two old rotten sepulchres-- VOLT: I cry thee mercy, Mosca. MOS: Worth your patience, And your great merit, sir. And see the change! VOLT: Why, what success? MOS: Most happless! you must help, sir. Whilst we expected the old raven, in comes Corvino's wife, sent hither by her husband-- VOLT: What, with a present? MOS: No, sir, on visitation; (I'll tell you how anon;) and staying long, The youth he grows impatient, rushes forth, Seizeth the lady, wounds me, makes her swear (Or he would murder her, that was his vow) To affirm my patron to have done her rape: Which how unlike it is, you see! and hence, With that pretext he's gone, to accuse his father, Defame my patron, defeat you-- VOLT: Where is her husband? Let him be sent for straight. MOS: Sir, I'll go fetch him. VOLT: Bring him to the Scrutineo. MOS: Sir, I will. VOLT: This must be stopt. MOS: O you do nobly, sir. Alas, 'twas labor'd all, sir, for your good; Nor was there want of counsel in the plot: But fortune can, at any time, o'erthrow The projects of a hundred learned clerks, sir. CORB [LISTENING]: What's that? VOLT: Will't please you, sir, to go along? [EXIT CORBACCIO, FOLLOWED BY VOLTORE.] MOS: Patron, go in, and pray for our success. VOLP [RISING FROM HIS COUCH.]: Need makes devotion: heaven your labour bless! [EXEUNT.] ACT 4. SCENE 4.1. A STREET. [ENTER SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE AND PEREGRINE.] SIR P: I told you, sir, it was a plot: you see What observation is! You mention'd me, For some instructions: I will tell you, sir, (Since we are met here in this height of Venice,) Some few perticulars I have set down, Only for this meridian, fit to be known Of your crude traveller, and they are these. I will not touch, sir, at your phrase, or clothes, For they are old. PER: Sir, I have better. SIR P: Pardon, I meant, as they are themes. PER: O, sir, proceed: I'll slander you no more of wit, good sir. SIR P: First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious, Very reserv'd, and lock'd; not tell a secret On any terms, not to your father; scarce A fable, but with caution; make sure choice Both of your company, and discourse; beware You never speak a truth-- PER: How! SIR P: Not to strangers, For those be they you must converse with, most; Others I would not know, sir, but at distance, So as I still might be a saver in them: You shall have tricks else past upon you hourly. And then, for your religion, profess none, But wonder at the diversity, of all: And, for your part, protest, were there no other But simply the laws o' the land, you could content you, Nic. Machiavel, and Monsieur Bodin, both Were of this mind. Then must you learn the use And handling of your silver fork at meals; The metal of your glass; (these are main matters With your Italian;) and to know the hour When you must eat your melons, and your figs. PER: Is that a point of state too? SIR P: Here it is, For your Venetian, if he see a man Preposterous in the least, he has him straight; He has; he strips him. I'll acquaint you, sir, I now have lived here, 'tis some fourteen months Within the first week of my landing here, All took me for a citizen of Venice: I knew the forms, so well-- PER [ASIDE.]: And nothing else. SIR P: I had read Contarene, took me a house, Dealt with my Jews to furnish it with moveables-- Well, if I could but find one man, one man To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would-- PER: What, what, sir? SIR P: Make him rich; make him a fortune: He should not think again. I would command it. PER: As how? SIR P: With certain projects that I have; Which I may not discover. PER [ASIDE.]: If I had But one to wager with, I would lay odds now, He tells me instantly. SIR P: One is, and that I care not greatly who knows, to serve the state Of Venice with red herrings for three years, And at a certain rate, from Rotterdam, Where I have correspendence. There's a letter, Sent me from one of the states, and to that purpose: He cannot write his name, but that's his mark. PER: He's a chandler? SIR P: No, a cheesemonger. There are some others too with whom I treat About the same negociation; And I will undertake it: for, 'tis thus. I'll do't with ease, I have cast it all: Your hoy Carries but three men in her, and a boy; And she shall make me three returns a year: So, if there come but one of three, I save, If two, I can defalk:--but this is now, If my main project fail. PER: Then you have others? SIR P: I should be loth to draw the subtle air Of such a place, without my thousand aims. I'll not dissemble, sir: where'er I come, I love to be considerative; and 'tis true, I have at my free hours thought upon Some certain goods unto the state of Venice, Which I do call "my Cautions;" and, sir, which I mean, in hope of pension, to propound To the Great Council, then unto the Forty, So to the Ten. My means are made already-- PER: By whom? SIR P: Sir, one that, though his place be obscure, Yet he can sway, and they will hear him. He's A commandador. PER: What! a common serjeant? SIR P: Sir, such as they are, put it in their mouths, What they should say, sometimes; as well as greater: I think I have my notes to shew you-- [SEARCHING HIS POCKETS.] PER: Good sir. SIR P: But you shall swear unto me, on your gentry, Not to anticipate-- PER: I, sir! SIR P: Nor reveal A circumstance--My paper is not with me. PER: O, but you can remember, sir. SIR P: My first is Concerning tinder-boxes. You must know, No family is here, without its box. Now, sir, it being so portable a thing, Put case, that you or I were ill affected Unto the state, sir; with it in our pockets, Might not I go into the Arsenal, Or you, come out again, and none the wiser? PER: Except yourself, sir. SIR P: Go to, then. I therefore Advertise to the state, how fit it were, That none but such as were known patriots, Sound lovers of their country, should be suffer'd To enjoy them in their houses; and even those Seal'd at some office, and at such a bigness As might not lurk in pockets. PER: Admirable! SIR P: My next is, how to enquire, and be resolv'd, By present demonstration, whether a ship, Newly arrived from Soria, or from Any suspected part of all the Levant, Be guilty of the plague: and where they use To lie out forty, fifty days, sometimes, About the Lazaretto, for their trial; I'll save that charge and loss unto the merchant, And in an hour clear the doubt. PER: Indeed, sir! SIR P: Or--I will lose my labour. PER: 'My faith, that's much. SIR P: Nay, sir, conceive me. It will cost me in onions, Some thirty livres-- PER: Which is one pound sterling. SIR P: Beside my water-works: for this I do, sir. First, I bring in your ship 'twixt two brick walls; But those the state shall venture: On the one I strain me a fair tarpauling, and in that I stick my onions, cut in halves: the other Is full of loop-holes, out at which I thrust The noses of my bellows; and those bellows I keep, with water-works, in perpetual motion, Which is the easiest matter of a hundred. Now, sir, your onion, which doth naturally Attract the infection, and your bellows blowing The air upon him, will show, instantly, By his changed colour, if there be contagion; Or else remain as fair as at the first. --Now it is known, 'tis nothing. PER: You are right, sir. SIR P: I would I had my note. PER: 'Faith, so would I: But you have done well for once, sir. SIR P: Were I false, Or would be made so, I could shew you reasons How I could sell this state now, to the Turk; Spite of their galleys, or their-- [EXAMINING HIS PAPERS.] PER: Pray you, sir Pol. SIR P: I have them not about me. PER: That I fear'd. They are there, sir. SIR P: No. This is my diary, Wherein I note my actions of the day. PER: Pray you let's see, sir. What is here? [READS.] "Notandum, A rat had gnawn my spur-leathers; notwithstanding, I put on new, and did go forth: but first I threw three beans over the threshold. Item, I went and bought two tooth-picks, whereof one I burst immediatly, in a discourse With a Dutch merchant, 'bout ragion del stato. From him I went and paid a moccinigo, For piecing my silk stockings; by the way I cheapen'd sprats; and at St. Mark's I urined." 'Faith, these are politic notes! SIR P: Sir, I do slip No action of my life, but thus I quote it. PER: Believe me, it is wise! SIR P: Nay, sir, read forth. [ENTER, AT A DISTANCE, LADY POLITICK-WOULD BE, NANO, AND TWO WAITING-WOMEN.] LADY P: Where should this loose knight be, trow? sure he's housed. NAN: Why, then he's fast. LADY P: Ay, he plays both with me. I pray you, stay. This heat will do more harm To my complexion, than his heart is worth; (I do not care to hinder, but to take him.) [RUBBING HER CHEEKS.] How it comes off! 1 WOM: My master's yonder. LADY P: Where? 1 WOM: With a young gentleman. LADY P: That same's the party; In man's apparel! 'Pray you, sir, jog my knight: I'll be tender to his reputation, However he demerit. SIR P [SEEING HER]: My lady! PER: Where? SIR P: 'Tis she indeed, sir; you shall know her. She is, Were she not mine, a lady of that merit, For fashion and behaviour; and, for beauty I durst compare-- PER: It seems you are not jealous, That dare commend her. SIR P: Nay, and for discourse-- PER: Being your wife, she cannot miss that. SIR P [INTRODUCING PER.]: Madam, Here is a gentleman, pray you, use him fairly; He seems a youth, but he is-- LADY P: None. SIR P: Yes, one Has put his face as soon into the world-- LADY P: You mean, as early? but to-day? SIR P: How's this? LADY P: Why, in this habit, sir; you apprehend me:-- Well, master Would-be, this doth not become you; I had thought the odour, sir, of your good name, Had been more precious to you; that you would not Have done this dire massacre on your honour; One of your gravity and rank besides! But knights, I see, care little for the oath They make to ladies; chiefly, their own ladies. SIR P: Now by my spurs, the symbol of my knighthood,-- PER [ASIDE.]: Lord, how his brain is humbled for an oath! SIR P: I reach you not. LADY P: Right, sir, your policy May bear it through, thus. [TO PER.] sir, a word with you. I would be loth to contest publicly With any gentlewoman, or to seem Froward, or violent, as the courtier says; It comes too near rusticity in a lady, Which I would shun by all means: and however I may deserve from master Would-be, yet T'have one fair gentlewoman thus be made The unkind instrument to wrong another, And one she knows not, ay, and to persever; In my poor judgment, is not warranted From being a solecism in our sex, If not in manners. PER: How is this! SIR P: Sweet madam, Come nearer to your aim. LADY P: Marry, and will, sir. Since you provoke me with your impudence, And laughter of your light land-syren here, Your Sporus, your hermaphrodite-- PER: What's here? Poetic fury, and historic storms? SIR P: The gentleman, believe it, is of worth, And of our nation. LADY P: Ay, your White-friars nation. Come, I blush for you, master Would-be, I; And am asham'd you should have no more forehead, Than thus to be the patron, or St. George, To a lewd harlot, a base fricatrice, A female devil, in a male outside. SIR P: Nay, And you be such a one, I must bid adieu To your delights. The case appears too liquid. [EXIT.] LADY P: Ay, you may carry't clear, with your state-face!-- But for your carnival concupiscence, Who here is fled for liberty of conscience, From furious persecution of the marshal, Her will I dis'ple. PER: This is fine, i'faith! And do you use this often? Is this part Of your wit's exercise, 'gainst you have occasion? Madam-- LADY P: Go to, sir. PER: Do you hear me, lady? Why, if your knight have set you to beg shirts, Or to invite me home, you might have done it A nearer way, by far: LADY P: This cannot work you Out of my snare. PER: Why, am I in it, then? Indeed your husband told me you were fair, And so you are; only your nose inclines, That side that's next the sun, to the queen-apple. LADY P: This cannot be endur'd by any patience. [ENTER MOSCA.] MOS: What is the matter, madam? LADY P: If the Senate Right not my quest in this; I'll protest them To all the world, no aristocracy. MOS: What is the injury, lady? LADY P: Why, the callet You told me of, here I have ta'en disguised. MOS: Who? this! what means your ladyship? the creature I mention'd to you is apprehended now, Before the senate; you shall see her-- LADY P: Where? MOS: I'll bring you to her. This young gentleman, I saw him land this morning at the port. LADY P: Is't possible! how has my judgment wander'd? Sir, I must, blushing, say to you, I have err'd; And plead your pardon. PER: What, more changes yet! LADY P: I hope you have not the malice to remember A gentlewoman's passion. If you stay In Venice here, please you to use me, sir-- MOS: Will you go, madam? LADY P: 'Pray you, sir, use me. In faith, The more you see me, the more I shall conceive You have forgot our quarrel. [EXEUNT LADY WOULD-BE, MOSCA, NANO, AND WAITING-WOMEN.] PER: This is rare! Sir Politick Would-be? no; sir Politick Bawd. To bring me thus acquainted with his wife! Well, wise sir Pol, since you have practised thus Upon my freshman-ship, I'll try your salt-head, What proof it is against a counter-plot. [EXIT.] SCENE 4.2. THE SCRUTINEO, OR SENATE-HOUSE. ENTER VOLTORE, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, AND MOSCA. VOLT: Well, now you know the carriage of the business, Your constancy is all that is required Unto the safety of it. MOS: Is the lie Safely convey'd amongst us? is that sure? Knows every man his burden? CORV: Yes. MOS: Then shrink not. CORV: But knows the advocate the truth? MOS: O, sir, By no means; I devised a formal tale, That salv'd your reputation. But be valiant, sir. CORV: I fear no one but him, that this his pleading Should make him stand for a co-heir-- MOS: Co-halter! Hang him; we will but use his tongue, his noise, As we do croakers here. CORV: Ay, what shall he do? MOS: When we have done, you mean? CORV: Yes. MOS: Why, we'll think: Sell him for mummia; he's half dust already. [TO VOLTORE.] Do not you smile, to see this buffalo, How he does sport it with his head? [ASIDE.] --I should, If all were well and past. [TO CORBACCIO.] --Sir, only you Are he that shall enjoy the crop of all, And these not know for whom they toil. CORB: Ay, peace. MOS [TURNING TO CORVINO.]: But you shall eat it. Much! [ASIDE.] [TO VOLTORE.] --Worshipful sir, Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue, Or the French Hercules, and make your language As conquering as his club, to beat along, As with a tempest, flat, our adversaries; But much more yours, sir. VOLT: Here they come, have done. MOS: I have another witness, if you need, sir, I can produce. VOLT: Who is it? MOS: Sir, I have her. [ENTER AVOCATORI AND TAKE THEIR SEATS, BONARIO, CELIA, NOTARIO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, AND OTHER OFFICERS OF JUSTICE.] 1 AVOC: The like of this the senate never heard of. 2 AVOC: 'Twill come most strange to them when we report it. 4 AVOC: The gentlewoman has been ever held Of unreproved name. 3 AVOC: So has the youth. 4 AVOC: The more unnatural part that of his father. 2 AVOC: More of the husband. 1 AVOC: I not know to give His act a name, it is so monstrous! 4 AVOC: But the impostor, he's a thing created To exceed example! 1 AVOC: And all after-times! 2 AVOC: I never heard a true voluptuary Discribed, but him. 3 AVOC: Appear yet those were cited? NOT: All, but the old magnifico, Volpone. 1 AVOC: Why is not he here? MOS: Please your fatherhoods, Here is his advocate: himself's so weak, So feeble-- 4 AVOC: What are you? BON: His parasite, His knave, his pandar--I beseech the court, He may be forced to come, that your grave eyes May bear strong witness of his strange impostures. VOLT: Upon my faith and credit with your virtues, He is not able to endure the air. 2 AVOC: Bring him, however. 3 AVOC: We will see him. 4 AVOC: Fetch him. VOLT: Your fatherhoods fit pleasures be obey'd; [EXEUNT OFFICERS.] But sure, the sight will rather move your pities, Than indignation. May it please the court, In the mean time, he may be heard in me; I know this place most void of prejudice, And therefore crave it, since we have no reason To fear our truth should hurt our cause. 3 AVOC: Speak free. VOLT: Then know, most honour'd fathers, I must now Discover to your strangely abused ears, The most prodigious and most frontless piece Of solid impudence, and treachery, That ever vicious nature yet brought forth To shame the state of Venice. This lewd woman, That wants no artificial looks or tears To help the vizor she has now put on, Hath long been known a close adulteress, To that lascivious youth there; not suspected, I say, but known, and taken in the act With him; and by this man, the easy husband, Pardon'd: whose timeless bounty makes him now Stand here, the most unhappy, innocent person, That ever man's own goodness made accused. For these not knowing how to owe a gift Of that dear grace, but with their shame; being placed So above all powers of their gratitude, Began to hate the benefit; and, in place Of thanks, devise to extirpe the memory Of such an act: wherein I pray your fatherhoods To observe the malice, yea, the rage of creatures Discover'd in their evils; and what heart Such take, even from their crimes:--but that anon Will more appear.--This gentleman, the father, Hearing of this foul fact, with many others, Which daily struck at his too tender ears, And grieved in nothing more than that he could not Preserve himself a parent, (his son's ills Growing to that strange flood,) at last decreed To disinherit him. 1 AVOC: These be strange turns! 2 AVOC: The young man's fame was ever fair and honest. VOLT: So much more full of danger is his vice, That can beguile so under shade of virtue. But, as I said, my honour'd sires, his father Having this settled purpose, by what means To him betray'd, we know not, and this day Appointed for the deed; that parricide, I cannot style him better, by confederacy Preparing this his paramour to be there, Enter'd Volpone's house, (who was the man, Your fatherhoods must understand, design'd For the inheritance,) there sought his father:-- But with what purpose sought he him, my lords? I tremble to pronounce it, that a son Unto a father, and to such a father, Should have so foul, felonious intent! It was to murder him: when being prevented By his more happy absence, what then did he? Not check his wicked thoughts; no, now new deeds, (Mischief doth ever end where it begins) An act of horror, fathers! he dragg'd forth The aged gentleman that had there lain bed-rid Three years and more, out of his innocent couch, Naked upon the floor, there left him; wounded His servant in the face: and, with this strumpet The stale to his forged practice, who was glad To be so active,--(I shall here desire Your fatherhoods to note but my collections, As most remarkable,--) thought at once to stop His father's ends; discredit his free choice In the old gentleman, redeem themselves, By laying infamy upon this man, To whom, with blushing, they should owe their lives. 1 AVOC: What proofs have you of this? BON: Most honoured fathers, I humbly crave there be no credit given To this man's mercenary tongue. 2 AVOC: Forbear. BON: His soul moves in his fee. 3 AVOC: O, sir. BON: This fellow, For six sols more, would plead against his Maker. 1 AVOC: You do forget yourself. VOLT: Nay, nay, grave fathers, Let him have scope: can any man imagine That he will spare his accuser, that would not Have spared his parent? 1 AVOC: Well, produce your proofs. CEL: I would I could forget I were a creature. VOLT: Signior Corbaccio. [CORBACCIO COMES FORWARD.] 1 AVOC: What is he? VOLT: The father. 2 AVOC: Has he had an oath? NOT: Yes. CORB: What must I do now? NOT: Your testimony's craved. CORB: Speak to the knave? I'll have my mouth first stopt with earth; my heart Abhors his knowledge: I disclaim in him. 1 AVOC: But for what cause? CORB: The mere portent of nature! He is an utter stranger to my loins. BON: Have they made you to this? CORB: I will not hear thee, Monster of men, swine, goat, wolf, parricide! Speak not, thou viper. BON: Sir, I will sit down, And rather wish my innocence should suffer, Then I resist the authority of a father. VOLT: Signior Corvino! [CORVINO COMES FORWARD.] 2 AVOC: This is strange. 1 AVOC: Who's this? NOT: The husband. 4 AVOC: Is he sworn? NOT: He is. 3 AVOC: Speak, then. CORV: This woman, please your fatherhoods, is a whore, Of most hot exercise, more than a partrich, Upon record-- 1 AVOC: No more. CORV: Neighs like a jennet. NOT: Preserve the honour of the court. CORV: I shall, And modesty of your most reverend ears. And yet I hope that I may say, these eyes Have seen her glued unto that piece of cedar, That fine well-timber'd gallant; and that here The letters may be read, through the horn, That make the story perfect. MOS: Excellent! sir. CORV [ASIDE TO MOSCA.]: There's no shame in this now, is there? MOS: None. CORV: Or if I said, I hoped that she were onward To her damnation, if there be a hell Greater than whore and woman; a good catholic May make the doubt. 3 AVOC: His grief hath made him frantic. 1 AVOC: Remove him hence. 2 AVOC: Look to the woman. [CELIA SWOONS.] CORV: Rare! Prettily feign'd, again! 4 AVOC: Stand from about her. 1 AVOC: Give her the air. 3 AVOC [TO MOSCA.]: What can you say? MOS: My wound, May it please your wisdoms, speaks for me, received In aid of my good patron, when he mist His sought-for father, when that well-taught dame Had her cue given her, to cry out, A rape! BON: O most laid impudence! Fathers-- 3 AVOC: Sir, be silent; You had your hearing free, so must they theirs. 2 AVOC: I do begin to doubt the imposture here. 4 AVOC: This woman has too many moods. VOLT: Grave fathers, She is a creature of a most profest And prostituted lewdness. CORV: Most impetuous, Unsatisfied, grave fathers! VOLT: May her feignings Not take your wisdoms: but this day she baited A stranger, a grave knight, with her loose eyes, And more lascivious kisses. This man saw them Together on the water in a gondola. MOS: Here is the lady herself, that saw them too; Without; who then had in the open streets Pursued them, but for saving her knight's honour. 1 AVOC: Produce that lady. 2 AVOC: Let her come. [EXIT MOSCA.] 4 AVOC: These things, They strike with wonder! 3 AVOC: I am turn'd a stone. [RE-ENTER MOSCA WITH LADY WOULD-BE.] MOS: Be resolute, madam. LADY P: Ay, this same is she. [POINTING TO CELIA.] Out, thou chameleon harlot! now thine eyes Vie tears with the hyaena. Dar'st thou look Upon my wronged face?--I cry your pardons, I fear I have forgettingly transgrest Against the dignity of the court-- 2 AVOC: No, madam. LADY P: And been exorbitant-- 2 AVOC: You have not, lady. 4 AVOC: These proofs are strong. LADY P: Surely, I had no purpose To scandalise your honours, or my sex's. 3 AVOC: We do believe it. LADY P: Surely, you may believe it. 2 AVOC: Madam, we do. LADY P: Indeed, you may; my breeding Is not so coarse-- 1 AVOC: We know it. LADY P: To offend With pertinacy-- 3 AVOC: Lady-- LADY P: Such a presence! No surely. 1 AVOC: We well think it. LADY P: You may think it. 1 AVOC: Let her o'ercome. What witnesses have you To make good your report? BON: Our consciences. CEL: And heaven, that never fails the innocent. 4 AVOC: These are no testimonies. BON: Not in your courts, Where multitude, and clamour overcomes. 1 AVOC: Nay, then you do wax insolent. [RE-ENTER OFFICERS, BEARING VOLPONE ON A COUCH.] VOLT: Here, here, The testimony comes, that will convince, And put to utter dumbness their bold tongues: See here, grave fathers, here's the ravisher, The rider on men's wives, the great impostor, The grand voluptuary! Do you not think These limbs should affect venery? or these eyes Covet a concubine? pray you mark these hands; Are they not fit to stroke a lady's breasts?-- Perhaps he doth dissemble! BON: So he does. VOLT: Would you have him tortured? BON: I would have him proved. VOLT: Best try him then with goads, or burning irons; Put him to the strappado: I have heard The rack hath cured the gout; 'faith, give it him, And help him of a malady; be courteous. I'll undertake, before these honour'd fathers, He shall have yet as many left diseases, As she has known adulterers, or thou strumpets.-- O, my most equal hearers, if these deeds, Acts of this bold and most exorbitant strain, May pass with sufferance; what one citizen But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame, To him that dares traduce him? which of you Are safe, my honour'd fathers? I would ask, With leave of your grave fatherhoods, if their plot Have any face or colour like to truth? Or if, unto the dullest nostril here, It smell not rank, and most abhorred slander? I crave your care of this good gentleman, Whose life is much endanger'd by their fable; And as for them, I will conclude with this, That vicious persons, when they're hot and flesh'd In impious acts, their constancy abounds: Damn'd deeds are done with greatest confidence. 1 AVOC: Take them to custody, and sever them. 2 AVOC: 'Tis pity two such prodigies should live. 1 AVOC: Let the old gentleman be return'd with care; [EXEUNT OFFICERS WITH VOLPONE.] I'm sorry our credulity hath wrong'd him. 4 AVOC: These are two creatures! 3 AVOC: I've an earthquake in me. 2 AVOC: Their shame, even in their cradles, fled their faces. 4 AVOC [TO VOLT.]: You have done a worthy service to the state, sir, In their discovery. 1 AVOC: You shall hear, ere night, What punishment the court decrees upon them. [EXEUNT AVOCAT., NOT., AND OFFICERS WITH BONARIO AND CELIA.] VOLT: We thank your fatherhoods.--How like you it? MOS: Rare. I'd have your tongue, sir, tipt with gold for this; I'd have you be the heir to the whole city; The earth I'd have want men, ere you want living: They're bound to erect your statue in St. Mark's. Signior Corvino, I would have you go And shew yourself, that you have conquer'd. CORV: Yes. MOS: It was much better that you should profess Yourself a cuckold thus, than that the other Should have been prov'd. CORV: Nay, I consider'd that: Now it is her fault: MOS: Then it had been yours. CORV: True; I do doubt this advocate still. MOS: I'faith, You need not, I dare ease you of that care. CORV: I trust thee, Mosca. [EXIT.] MOS: As your own soul, sir. CORB: Mosca! MOS: Now for your business, sir. CORB: How! have you business? MOS: Yes, your's, sir. CORB: O, none else? MOS: None else, not I. CORB: Be careful, then. MOS: Rest you with both your eyes, sir. CORB: Dispatch it. MOS: Instantly. CORB: And look that all, Whatever, be put in, jewels, plate, moneys, Household stuff, bedding, curtains. MOS: Curtain-rings, sir. Only the advocate's fee must be deducted. CORB: I'll pay him now; you'll be too prodigal. MOS: Sir, I must tender it. CORB: Two chequines is well? MOS: No, six, sir. CORB: 'Tis too much. MOS: He talk'd a great while; You must consider that, sir. CORB: Well, there's three-- MOS: I'll give it him. CORB: Do so, and there's for thee. [EXIT.] MOS [ASIDE.]: Bountiful bones! What horrid strange offence Did he commit 'gainst nature, in his youth, Worthy this age? [TO VOLT.]--You see, sir, how I work Unto your ends; take you no notice. VOLT: No, I'll leave you. [EXIT.] MOS: All is yours, the devil and all: Good advocate!--Madam, I'll bring you home. LADY P: No, I'll go see your patron. MOS: That you shall not: I'll tell you why. My purpose is to urge My patron to reform his Will; and for The zeal you have shewn to-day, whereas before You were but third or fourth, you shall be now Put in the first; which would appear as begg'd, If you were present. Therefore-- LADY P: You shall sway me. [EXEUNT.] ACT 5. SCENE 5.1 A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE. ENTER VOLPONE. VOLP: Well, I am here, and all this brunt is past. I ne'er was in dislike with my disguise Till this fled moment; here 'twas good, in private; But in your public,--cave whilst I breathe. 'Fore God, my left leg began to have the cramp, And I apprehended straight some power had struck me With a dead palsy: Well! I must be merry, And shake it off. A many of these fears Would put me into some villanous disease, Should they come thick upon me: I'll prevent 'em. Give me a bowl of lusty wine, to fright This humour from my heart. [DRINKS.] Hum, hum, hum! 'Tis almost gone already; I shall conquer. Any device, now, of rare ingenious knavery, That would possess me with a violent laughter, Would make me up again. [DRINKS AGAIN.] So, so, so, so! This heat is life; 'tis blood by this time:--Mosca! [ENTER MOSCA.] MOS: How now, sir? does the day look clear again? Are we recover'd, and wrought out of error, Into our way, to see our path before us? Is our trade free once more? VOLP: Exquisite Mosca! MOS: Was it not carried learnedly? VOLP: And stoutly: Good wits are greatest in extremities. MOS: It were a folly beyond thought, to trust Any grand act unto a cowardly spirit: You are not taken with it enough, methinks? VOLP: O, more than if I had enjoy'd the wench: The pleasure of all woman-kind's not like it. MOS: Why now you speak, sir. We must here be fix'd; Here we must rest; this is our master-piece; We cannot think to go beyond this. VOLP: True. Thou hast play'd thy prize, my precious Mosca. MOS: Nay, sir, To gull the court-- VOLP: And quite divert the torrent Upon the innocent. MOS: Yes, and to make So rare a music out of discords-- VOLP: Right. That yet to me's the strangest, how thou hast borne it! That these, being so divided 'mongst themselves, Should not scent somewhat, or in me or thee, Or doubt their own side. MOS: True, they will not see't. Too much light blinds them, I think. Each of them Is so possest and stuft with his own hopes, That any thing unto the contrary, Never so true, or never so apparent, Never so palpable, they will resist it-- VOLP: Like a temptation of the devil. MOS: Right, sir. Merchants may talk of trade, and your great signiors Of land that yields well; but if Italy Have any glebe more fruitful than these fellows, I am deceiv'd. Did not your advocate rare? VOLP: O--"My most honour'd fathers, my grave fathers, Under correction of your fatherhoods, What face of truth is here? If these strange deeds May pass, most honour'd fathers"--I had much ado To forbear laughing. MOS: It seem'd to me, you sweat, sir. VOLP: In troth, I did a little. MOS: But confess, sir, Were you not daunted? VOLP: In good faith, I was A little in a mist, but not dejected; Never, but still my self. MOS: I think it, sir. Now, so truth help me, I must needs say this, sir, And out of conscience for your advocate: He has taken pains, in faith, sir, and deserv'd, In my poor judgment, I speak it under favour, Not to contrary you, sir, very richly-- Well--to be cozen'd. VOLP: Troth, and I think so too, By that I heard him, in the latter end. MOS: O, but before, sir: had you heard him first Draw it to certain heads, then aggravate, Then use his vehement figures--I look'd still When he would shift a shirt: and, doing this Out of pure love, no hope of gain-- VOLP: 'Tis right. I cannot answer him, Mosca, as I would, Not yet; but for thy sake, at thy entreaty, I will begin, even now--to vex them all, This very instant. MOS: Good sir. VOLP: Call the dwarf And eunuch forth. MOS: Castrone, Nano! [ENTER CASTRONE AND NANO.] NANO: Here. VOLP: Shall we have a jig now? MOS: What you please, sir. VOLP: Go, Straight give out about the streets, you two, That I am dead; do it with constancy, Sadly, do you hear? impute it to the grief Of this late slander. [EXEUNT CAST. AND NANO.] MOS: What do you mean, sir? VOLP: O, I shall have instantly my Vulture, Crow, Raven, come flying hither, on the news, To peck for carrion, my she-wolfe, and all, Greedy, and full of expectation-- MOS: And then to have it ravish'd from their mouths! VOLP: 'Tis true. I will have thee put on a gown, And take upon thee, as thou wert mine heir: Shew them a will; Open that chest, and reach Forth one of those that has the blanks; I'll straight Put in thy name. MOS [GIVES HIM A PAPER.]: It will be rare, sir. VOLP: Ay, When they ev'n gape, and find themselves deluded-- MOS: Yes. VOLP: And thou use them scurvily! Dispatch, get on thy gown. MOS [PUTTING ON A GOWN.]: But, what, sir, if they ask After the body? VOLP: Say, it was corrupted. MOS: I'll say it stunk, sir; and was fain to have it Coffin'd up instantly, and sent away. VOLP: Any thing; what thou wilt. Hold, here's my will. Get thee a cap, a count-book, pen and ink, Papers afore thee; sit as thou wert taking An inventory of parcels: I'll get up Behind the curtain, on a stool, and hearken; Sometime peep over, see how they do look, With what degrees their blood doth leave their faces, O, 'twill afford me a rare meal of laughter! MOS [PUTTING ON A CAP, AND SETTING OUT THE TABLE, ETC.]: Your advocate will turn stark dull upon it. VOLP: It will take off his oratory's edge. MOS: But your clarissimo, old round-back, he Will crump you like a hog-louse, with the touch. VOLP: And what Corvino? MOS: O, sir, look for him, To-morrow morning, with a rope and dagger, To visit all the streets; he must run mad. My lady too, that came into the court, To bear false witness for your worship-- VOLP: Yes, And kist me 'fore the fathers; when my face Flow'd all with oils. MOS: And sweat, sir. Why, your gold Is such another med'cine, it dries up All those offensive savours: it transforms The most deformed, and restores them lovely, As 'twere the strange poetical girdle. Jove Could not invent t' himself a shroud more subtle To pass Acrisius' guards. It is the thing Makes all the world her grace, her youth, her beauty. VOLP: I think she loves me. MOS: Who? the lady, sir? She's jealous of you. VOLP: Dost thou say so? [KNOCKING WITHIN.] MOS: Hark, There's some already. VOLP: Look. MOS: It is the Vulture: He has the quickest scent. VOLP: I'll to my place, Thou to thy posture. [GOES BEHIND THE CURTAIN.] MOS: I am set. VOLP: But, Mosca, Play the artificer now, torture them rarely. [ENTER VOLTORE.] VOLT: How now, my Mosca? MOS [WRITING.]: "Turkey carpets, nine"-- VOLT: Taking an inventory! that is well. MOS: "Two suits of bedding, tissue"-- VOLT: Where's the Will? Let me read that the while. [ENTER SERVANTS, WITH CORBACCIO IN A CHAIR.] CORB: So, set me down: And get you home. [EXEUNT SERVANTS.] VOLT: Is he come now, to trouble us! MOS: "Of cloth of gold, two more"-- CORB: Is it done, Mosca? MOS: "Of several velvets, eight"-- VOLT: I like his care. CORB: Dost thou not hear? [ENTER CORVINO.] CORB: Ha! is the hour come, Mosca? VOLP [PEEPING OVER THE CURTAIN.]: Ay, now, they muster. CORV: What does the advocate here, Or this Corbaccio? CORB: What do these here? [ENTER LADY POL. WOULD-BE.] LADY P: Mosca! Is his thread spun? MOS: "Eight chests of linen"-- VOLP: O, My fine dame Would-be, too! CORV: Mosca, the Will, That I may shew it these, and rid them hence. MOS: "Six chests of diaper, four of damask."--There. [GIVES THEM THE WILL CARELESSLY, OVER HIS SHOULDER.] CORB: Is that the will? MOS: "Down-beds, and bolsters"-- VOLP: Rare! Be busy still. Now they begin to flutter: They never think of me. Look, see, see, see! How their swift eyes run over the long deed, Unto the name, and to the legacies, What is bequeath'd them there-- MOS: "Ten suits of hangings"-- VOLP: Ay, in their garters, Mosca. Now their hopes Are at the gasp. VOLT: Mosca the heir? CORB: What's that? VOLP: My advocate is dumb; look to my merchant, He has heard of some strange storm, a ship is lost, He faints; my lady will swoon. Old glazen eyes, He hath not reach'd his despair yet. CORB [TAKES THE WILL.]: All these Are out of hope: I am sure, the man. CORV: But, Mosca-- MOS: "Two cabinets." CORV: Is this in earnest? MOS: "One Of ebony"-- CORV: Or do you but delude me? MOS: The other, mother of pearl--I am very busy. Good faith, it is a fortune thrown upon me-- "Item, one salt of agate"--not my seeking. LADY P: Do you hear, sir? MOS: "A perfum'd box"--'Pray you forbear, You see I'm troubled--"made of an onyx"-- LADY P: How! MOS: To-morrow or next day, I shall be at leisure To talk with you all. CORV: Is this my large hope's issue? LADY P: Sir, I must have a fairer answer. MOS: Madam! Marry, and shall: 'pray you, fairly quit my house. Nay, raise no tempest with your looks; but hark you, Remember what your ladyship offer'd me, To put you in an heir; go to, think on it: And what you said e'en your best madams did For maintenance, and why not you? Enough. Go home, and use the poor sir Pol, your knight, well, For fear I tell some riddles; go, be melancholy. [EXIT LADY WOULD-BE.] VOLP: O, my fine devil! CORV: Mosca, 'pray you a word. MOS: Lord! will you not take your dispatch hence yet? Methinks, of all, you should have been the example. Why should you stay here? with what thought? what promise? Hear you; do not you know, I know you an ass, And that you would most fain have been a wittol, If fortune would have let you? that you are A declared cuckold, on good terms? This pearl, You'll say, was yours? right: this diamond? I'll not deny't, but thank you. Much here else? It may be so. Why, think that these good works May help to hide your bad. I'll not betray you; Although you be but extraordinary, And have it only in title, it sufficeth: Go home, be melancholy too, or mad. [EXIT CORVINO.] VOLP: Rare Mosca! how his villany becomes him! VOLT: Certain he doth delude all these for me. CORB: Mosca the heir! VOLP: O, his four eyes have found it. CORB: I am cozen'd, cheated, by a parasite slave; Harlot, thou hast gull'd me. MOS: Yes, sir. Stop your mouth, Or I shall draw the only tooth is left. Are not you he, that filthy covetous wretch, With the three legs, that, here, in hope of prey, Have, any time this three years, snuff'd about, With your most grovelling nose; and would have hired Me to the poisoning of my patron, sir? Are not you he that have to-day in court Profess'd the disinheriting of your son? Perjured yourself? Go home, and die, and stink. If you but croak a syllable, all comes out: Away, and call your porters! [exit corbaccio.] Go, go, stink. VOLP: Excellent varlet! VOLT: Now, my faithful Mosca, I find thy constancy. MOS: Sir! VOLT: Sincere. MOS [WRITING.]: "A table Of porphyry"--I marle, you'll be thus troublesome. VOLP: Nay, leave off now, they are gone. MOS: Why? who are you? What! who did send for you? O, cry you mercy, Reverend sir! Good faith, I am grieved for you, That any chance of mine should thus defeat Your (I must needs say) most deserving travails: But I protest, sir, it was cast upon me, And I could almost wish to be without it, But that the will o' the dead must be observ'd, Marry, my joy is that you need it not, You have a gift, sir, (thank your education,) Will never let you want, while there are men, And malice, to breed causes. Would I had But half the like, for all my fortune, sir! If I have any suits, as I do hope, Things being so easy and direct, I shall not, I will make bold with your obstreperous aid, Conceive me,--for your fee, sir. In mean time, You that have so much law, I know have the conscience, Not to be covetous of what is mine. Good sir, I thank you for my plate; 'twill help To set up a young man. Good faith, you look As you were costive; best go home and purge, sir. [EXIT VOLTORE.] VOLP [COMES FROM BEHIND THE CURTAIN.]: Bid him eat lettuce well. My witty mischief, Let me embrace thee. O that I could now Transform thee to a Venus!--Mosca, go, Straight take my habit of clarissimo, And walk the streets; be seen, torment them more: We must pursue, as well as plot. Who would Have lost this feast? MOS: I doubt it will lose them. VOLP: O, my recovery shall recover all. That I could now but think on some disguise To meet them in, and ask them questions: How I would vex them still at every turn! MOS: Sir, I can fit you. VOLP: Canst thou? MOS: Yes, I know One o' the commandadori, sir, so like you; Him will I straight make drunk, and bring you his habit. VOLP: A rare disguise, and answering thy brain! O, I will be a sharp disease unto them. MOS: Sir, you must look for curses-- VOLP: Till they burst; The Fox fares ever best when he is curst. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 5.2. A HALL IN SIR POLITICK'S HOUSE. ENTER PEREGRINE DISGUISED, AND THREE MERCHANTS. PER: Am I enough disguised? 1 MER: I warrant you. PER: All my ambition is to fright him only. 2 MER: If you could ship him away, 'twere excellent. 3 MER: To Zant, or to Aleppo? PER: Yes, and have his Adventures put i' the Book of Voyages. And his gull'd story register'd for truth. Well, gentlemen, when I am in a while, And that you think us warm in our discourse, Know your approaches. 1 MER: Trust it to our care. [EXEUNT MERCHANTS.] [ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.] PER: Save you, fair lady! Is sir Pol within? WOM: I do not know, sir. PER: Pray you say unto him, Here is a merchant, upon earnest business, Desires to speak with him. WOM: I will see, sir. [EXIT.] PER: Pray you.-- I see the family is all female here. [RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.] WOM: He says, sir, he has weighty affairs of state, That now require him whole; some other time You may possess him. PER: Pray you say again, If those require him whole, these will exact him, Whereof I bring him tidings. [EXIT WOMAN.] --What might be His grave affair of state now! how to make Bolognian sausages here in Venice, sparing One o' the ingredients? [RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.] WOM: Sir, he says, he knows By your word "tidings," that you are no statesman, And therefore wills you stay. PER: Sweet, pray you return him; I have not read so many proclamations, And studied them for words, as he has done-- But--here he deigns to come. [EXIT WOMAN.] [ENTER SIR POLITICK.] SIR P: Sir, I must crave Your courteous pardon. There hath chanced to-day, Unkind disaster 'twixt my lady and me; And I was penning my apology, To give her satisfaction, as you came now. PER: Sir, I am grieved I bring you worse disaster: The gentleman you met at the port to-day, That told you, he was newly arrived-- SIR P: Ay, was A fugitive punk? PER: No, sir, a spy set on you; And he has made relation to the senate, That you profest to him to have a plot To sell the State of Venice to the Turk. SIR P: O me! PER: For which, warrants are sign'd by this time, To apprehend you, and to search your study For papers-- SIR P: Alas, sir, I have none, but notes Drawn out of play-books-- PER: All the better, sir. SIR P: And some essays. What shall I do? PER: Sir, best Convey yourself into a sugar-chest; Or, if you could lie round, a frail were rare: And I could send you aboard. SIR P: Sir, I but talk'd so, For discourse sake merely. [KNOCKING WITHIN.] PER: Hark! they are there. SIR P: I am a wretch, a wretch! PER: What will you do, sir? Have you ne'er a currant-butt to leap into? They'll put you to the rack, you must be sudden. SIR P: Sir, I have an ingine-- 3 MER [WITHIN.]: Sir Politick Would-be? 2 MER [WITHIN.]: Where is he? SIR P: That I have thought upon before time. PER: What is it? SIR P: I shall ne'er endure the torture. Marry, it is, sir, of a tortoise-shell, Fitted for these extremities: pray you, sir, help me. Here I've a place, sir, to put back my legs, Please you to lay it on, sir, [LIES DOWN WHILE PEREGRINE PLACES THE SHELL UPON HIM.] --with this cap, And my black gloves. I'll lie, sir, like a tortoise, 'Till they are gone. PER: And call you this an ingine? SIR P: Mine own device--Good sir, bid my wife's women To burn my papers. [EXIT PEREGRINE.] [THE THREE MERCHANTS RUSH IN.] 1 MER: Where is he hid? 3 MER: We must, And will sure find him. 2 MER: Which is his study? [RE-ENTER PEREGRINE.] 1 MER: What Are you, sir? PER: I am a merchant, that came here To look upon this tortoise. 3 MER: How! 1 MER: St. Mark! What beast is this! PER: It is a fish. 2 MER: Come out here! PER: Nay, you may strike him, sir, and tread upon him; He'll bear a cart. 1 MER: What, to run over him? PER: Yes, sir. 3 MER: Let's jump upon him. 2 MER: Can he not go? PER: He creeps, sir. 1 MER: Let's see him creep. PER: No, good sir, you will hurt him. 2 MER: Heart, I will see him creep, or prick his guts. 3 MER: Come out here! PER: Pray you, sir! [ASIDE TO SIR POLITICK.] --Creep a little. 1 MER: Forth. 2 MER: Yet farther. PER: Good sir!--Creep. 2 MER: We'll see his legs. [THEY PULL OFF THE SHELL AND DISCOVER HIM.] 3 MER: Ods so, he has garters! 1 MER: Ay, and gloves! 2 MER: Is this Your fearful tortoise? PER [DISCOVERING HIMSELF.]: Now, sir Pol, we are even; For your next project I shall be prepared: I am sorry for the funeral of your notes, sir. 1 MER: 'Twere a rare motion to be seen in Fleet-street. 2 MER: Ay, in the Term. 1 MER: Or Smithfield, in the fair. 3 MER: Methinks 'tis but a melancholy sight. PER: Farewell, most politic tortoise! [EXEUNT PER. AND MERCHANTS.] [RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.] SIR P: Where's my lady? Knows she of this? WOM: I know not, sir. SIR P: Enquire.-- O, I shall be the fable of all feasts, The freight of the gazetti; ship-boy's tale; And, which is worst, even talk for ordinaries. WOM: My lady's come most melancholy home, And says, sir, she will straight to sea, for physic. SIR P: And I to shun this place and clime for ever; Creeping with house on back: and think it well, To shrink my poor head in my politic shell. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 5.3. A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE. ENTER MOSCA IN THE HABIT OF A CLARISSIMO; AND VOLPONE IN THAT OF A COMMANDADORE. VOLP: Am I then like him? MOS: O, sir, you are he; No man can sever you. VOLP: Good. MOS: But what am I? VOLP: 'Fore heaven, a brave clarissimo, thou becom'st it! Pity thou wert not born one. MOS [ASIDE.]: If I hold My made one, 'twill be well. VOLP: I'll go and see What news first at the court. [EXIT.] MOS: Do so. My Fox Is out of his hole, and ere he shall re-enter, I'll make him languish in his borrow'd case, Except he come to composition with me.-- Androgyno, Castrone, Nano! [ENTER ANDROGYNO, CASTRONE AND NANO.] ALL: Here. MOS: Go, recreate yourselves abroad; go sport.-- [EXEUNT.] So, now I have the keys, and am possest. Since he will needs be dead afore his time, I'll bury him, or gain by him: I am his heir, And so will keep me, till he share at least. To cozen him of all, were but a cheat Well placed; no man would construe it a sin: Let his sport pay for it, this is call'd the Fox-trap. [EXIT.] SCENE 5.4 A STREET. ENTER CORBACCIO AND CORVINO. CORB: They say, the court is set. CORV: We must maintain Our first tale good, for both our reputations. CORB: Why, mine's no tale: my son would there have kill'd me. CORV: That's true, I had forgot:-- [ASIDE.]--mine is, I am sure. But for your Will, sir. CORB: Ay, I'll come upon him For that hereafter; now his patron's dead. [ENTER VOLPONE.] VOLP: Signior Corvino! and Corbaccio! sir, Much joy unto you. CORV: Of what? VOLP: The sudden good, Dropt down upon you-- CORB: Where? VOLP: And, none knows how, From old Volpone, sir. CORB: Out, arrant knave! VOLP: Let not your too much wealth, sir, make you furious. CORB: Away, thou varlet! VOLP: Why, sir? CORB: Dost thou mock me? VOLP: You mock the world, sir; did you not change Wills? CORB: Out, harlot! VOLP: O! belike you are the man, Signior Corvino? 'faith, you carry it well; You grow not mad withal: I love your spirit: You are not over-leaven'd with your fortune. You should have some would swell now, like a wine-fat, With such an autumn--Did he give you all, sir? CORB: Avoid, you rascal! VOLP: Troth, your wife has shewn Herself a very woman; but you are well, You need not care, you have a good estate, To bear it out sir, better by this chance: Except Corbaccio have a share. CORV: Hence, varlet. VOLP: You will not be acknown, sir; why, 'tis wise. Thus do all gamesters, at all games, dissemble: No man will seem to win. [exeunt corvino and corbaccio.] --Here comes my vulture, Heaving his beak up in the air, and snuffing. [ENTER VOLTORE.] VOLT: Outstript thus, by a parasite! a slave, Would run on errands, and make legs for crumbs? Well, what I'll do-- VOLP: The court stays for your worship. I e'en rejoice, sir, at your worship's happiness, And that it fell into so learned hands, That understand the fingering-- VOLT: What do you mean? VOLP: I mean to be a suitor to your worship, For the small tenement, out of reparations, That, to the end of your long row of houses, By the Piscaria: it was, in Volpone's time, Your predecessor, ere he grew diseased, A handsome, pretty, custom'd bawdy-house, As any was in Venice, none dispraised; But fell with him; his body and that house Decay'd, together. VOLT: Come sir, leave your prating. VOLP: Why, if your worship give me but your hand, That I may have the refusal, I have done. 'Tis a mere toy to you, sir; candle-rents; As your learn'd worship knows-- VOLT: What do I know? VOLP: Marry, no end of your wealth, sir, God decrease it! VOLT: Mistaking knave! what, mockst thou my misfortune? [EXIT.] VOLP: His blessing on your heart, sir; would 'twere more!-- Now to my first again, at the next corner. [EXIT.] SCENE 5.5. ANOTHER PART OF THE STREET. ENTER CORBACCIO AND CORVINO;-- MOSCA PASSES OVER THE STAGE, BEFORE THEM. CORB: See, in our habit! see the impudent varlet! CORV: That I could shoot mine eyes at him like gun-stones. [ENTER VOLPONE.] VOLP: But is this true, sir, of the parasite? CORB: Again, to afflict us! monster! VOLP: In good faith, sir, I'm heartily grieved, a beard of your grave length Should be so over-reach'd. I never brook'd That parasite's hair; methought his nose should cozen: There still was somewhat in his look, did promise The bane of a clarissimo. CORB: Knave-- VOLP: Methinks Yet you, that are so traded in the world, A witty merchant, the fine bird, Corvino, That have such moral emblems on your name, Should not have sung your shame; and dropt your cheese, To let the Fox laugh at your emptiness. CORV: Sirrah, you think the privilege of the place, And your red saucy cap, that seems to me Nail'd to your jolt-head with those two chequines, Can warrant your abuses; come you hither: You shall perceive, sir, I dare beat you; approach. VOLP: No haste, sir, I do know your valour well, Since you durst publish what you are, sir. CORV: Tarry, I'd speak with you. VOLP: Sir, sir, another time-- CORV: Nay, now. VOLP: O lord, sir! I were a wise man, Would stand the fury of a distracted cuckold. [AS HE IS RUNNING OFF, RE-ENTER MOSCA.] CORB: What, come again! VOLP: Upon 'em, Mosca; save me. CORB: The air's infected where he breathes. CORV: Let's fly him. [EXEUNT CORV. AND CORB.] VOLP: Excellent basilisk! turn upon the vulture. [ENTER VOLTORE.] VOLT: Well, flesh-fly, it is summer with you now; Your winter will come on. MOS: Good advocate, Prithee not rail, nor threaten out of place thus; Thou'lt make a solecism, as madam says. Get you a biggin more, your brain breaks loose. [EXIT.] VOLT: Well, sir. VOLP: Would you have me beat the insolent slave, Throw dirt upon his first good clothes? VOLT: This same Is doubtless some familiar. VOLP: Sir, the court, In troth, stays for you. I am mad, a mule That never read Justinian, should get up, And ride an advocate. Had you no quirk To avoid gullage, sir, by such a creature? I hope you do but jest; he has not done it: 'Tis but confederacy, to blind the rest. You are the heir. VOLT: A strange, officious, Troublesome knave! thou dost torment me. VOLP: I know-- It cannot be, sir, that you should be cozen'd; 'Tis not within the wit of man to do it; You are so wise, so prudent; and 'tis fit That wealth and wisdom still should go together. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 5.6. THE SCRUTINEO OR SENATE-HOUSE. ENTER AVOCATORI, NOTARIO, BONARIO, CELIA, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, ETC. 1 AVOC: Are all the parties here? NOT: All but the advocate. 2 AVOC: And here he comes. [ENTER VOLTORE AND VOLPONE.] 1 AVOC: Then bring them forth to sentence. VOLT: O, my most honour'd fathers, let your mercy Once win upon your justice, to forgive-- I am distracted-- VOLP [ASIDE.]: What will he do now? VOLT: O, I know not which to address myself to first; Whether your fatherhoods, or these innocents-- CORV [ASIDE.]: Will he betray himself? VOLT: Whom equally I have abused, out of most covetous ends-- CORV: The man is mad! CORB: What's that? CORV: He is possest. VOLT: For which, now struck in conscience, here, I prostate Myself at your offended feet, for pardon. 1, 2 AVOC: Arise. CEL: O heaven, how just thou art! VOLP [ASIDE.]: I am caught In mine own noose-- CORV [TO CORBACCIO.]: Be constant, sir: nought now Can help, but impudence. 1 AVOC: Speak forward. COM: Silence! VOLT: It is not passion in me, reverend fathers, But only conscience, conscience, my good sires, That makes me now tell trueth. That parasite, That knave, hath been the instrument of all. 1 AVOC: Where is that knave? fetch him. VOLP: I go. [EXIT.] CORV: Grave fathers, This man's distracted; he confest it now: For, hoping to be old Volpone's heir, Who now is dead-- 3 AVOC: How? 2 AVOC: Is Volpone dead? CORV: Dead since, grave fathers-- BON: O sure vengeance! 1 AVOC: Stay, Then he was no deceiver? VOLT: O no, none: The parasite, grave fathers. CORV: He does speak Out of mere envy, 'cause the servant's made The thing he gaped for: please your fatherhoods, This is the truth, though I'll not justify The other, but he may be some-deal faulty. VOLT: Ay, to your hopes, as well as mine, Corvino: But I'll use modesty. Pleaseth your wisdoms, To view these certain notes, and but confer them; As I hope favour, they shall speak clear truth. CORV: The devil has enter'd him! BON: Or bides in you. 4 AVOC: We have done ill, by a public officer, To send for him, if he be heir. 2 AVOC: For whom? 4 AVOC: Him that they call the parasite. 3 AVOC: 'Tis true, He is a man of great estate, now left. 4 AVOC: Go you, and learn his name, and say, the court Entreats his presence here, but to the clearing Of some few doubts. [EXIT NOTARY.] 2 AVOC: This same's a labyrinth! 1 AVOC: Stand you unto your first report? CORV: My state, My life, my fame-- BON: Where is it? CORV: Are at the stake 1 AVOC: Is yours so too? CORB: The advocate's a knave, And has a forked tongue-- 2 AVOC: Speak to the point. CORB: So is the parasite too. 1 AVOC: This is confusion. VOLT: I do beseech your fatherhoods, read but those-- [GIVING THEM THE PAPERS.] CORV: And credit nothing the false spirit hath writ: It cannot be, but he's possest grave fathers. [THE SCENE CLOSES.] SCENE 5.7. A STREET. ENTER VOLPONE. VOLP: To make a snare for mine own neck! and run My head into it, wilfully! with laughter! When I had newly 'scaped, was free, and clear, Out of mere wantonness! O, the dull devil Was in this brain of mine, when I devised it, And Mosca gave it second; he must now Help to sear up this vein, or we bleed dead.-- [ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.] How now! who let you loose? whither go you now? What, to buy gingerbread? or to drown kitlings? NAN: Sir, master Mosca call'd us out of doors, And bid us all go play, and took the keys. AND: Yes. VOLP: Did master Mosca take the keys? why so! I'm farther in. These are my fine conceits! I must be merry, with a mischief to me! What a vile wretch was I, that could not bear My fortune soberly? I must have my crotchets, And my conundrums! Well, go you, and seek him: His meaning may be truer than my fear. Bid him, he straight come to me to the court; Thither will I, and, if't be possible, Unscrew my advocate, upon new hopes: When I provoked him, then I lost myself. [EXEUNT.] SCENE 5.8. THE SCRUTINEO, OR SENATE-HOUSE. AVOCATORI, BONARIO, CELIA, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, ETC., AS BEFORE. 1 AVOC: These things can ne'er be reconciled. He, here, [SHEWING THE PAPERS.] Professeth, that the gentleman was wrong'd, And that the gentlewoman was brought thither, Forced by her husband, and there left. VOLT: Most true. CEL: How ready is heaven to those that pray! 1 AVOC: But that Volpone would have ravish'd her, he holds Utterly false; knowing his impotence. CORV: Grave fathers, he's possest; again, I say, Possest: nay, if there be possession, and Obsession, he has both. 3 AVOC: Here comes our officer. [ENTER VOLPONE.] VOLP: The parasite will straight be here, grave fathers. 4 AVOC: You might invent some other name, sir varlet. 3 AVOC: Did not the notary meet him? VOLP: Not that I know. 4 AVOC: His coming will clear all. 2 AVOC: Yet, it is misty. VOLT: May't please your fatherhoods-- VOLP [whispers volt.]: Sir, the parasite Will'd me to tell you, that his master lives; That you are still the man; your hopes the same; And this was only a jest-- VOLT: How? VOLP: Sir, to try If you were firm, and how you stood affected. VOLT: Art sure he lives? VOLP: Do I live, sir? VOLT: O me! I was too violent. VOLP: Sir, you may redeem it, They said, you were possest; fall down, and seem so: I'll help to make it good. [voltore falls.] --God bless the man!-- Stop your wind hard, and swell: See, see, see, see! He vomits crooked pins! his eyes are set, Like a dead hare's hung in a poulter's shop! His mouth's running away! Do you see, signior? Now it is in his belly! CORV: Ay, the devil! VOLP: Now in his throat. CORV: Ay, I perceive it plain. VOLP: 'Twill out, 'twill out! stand clear. See, where it flies, In shape of a blue toad, with a bat's wings! Do you not see it, sir? CORB: What? I think I do. CORV: 'Tis too manifest. VOLP: Look! he comes to himself! VOLT: Where am I? VOLP: Take good heart, the worst is past, sir. You are dispossest. 1 AVOC: What accident is this! 2 AVOC: Sudden, and full of wonder! 3 AVOC: If he were Possest, as it appears, all this is nothing. CORV: He has been often subject to these fits. 1 AVOC: Shew him that writing:--do you know it, sir? VOLP [WHISPERS VOLT.]: Deny it, sir, forswear it; know it not. VOLT: Yes, I do know it well, it is my hand; But all that it contains is false. BON: O practice! 2 AVOC: What maze is this! 1 AVOC: Is he not guilty then, Whom you there name the parasite? VOLT: Grave fathers, No more than his good patron, old Volpone. 4 AVOC: Why, he is dead. VOLT: O no, my honour'd fathers, He lives-- 1 AVOC: How! lives? VOLT: Lives. 2 AVOC: This is subtler yet! 3 AVOC: You said he was dead. VOLT: Never. 3 AVOC: You said so. CORV: I heard so. 4 AVOC: Here comes the gentleman; make him way. [ENTER MOSCA.] 3 AVOC: A stool. 4 AVOC [ASIDE.]: A proper man; and, were Volpone dead, A fit match for my daughter. 3 AVOC: Give him way. VOLP [ASIDE TO MOSCA.]: Mosca, I was almost lost, the advocate Had betrayed all; but now it is recovered; All's on the hinge again--Say, I am living. MOS: What busy knave is this!--Most reverend fathers, I sooner had attended your grave pleasures, But that my order for the funeral Of my dear patron, did require me-- VOLP [ASIDE.]: Mosca! MOS: Whom I intend to bury like a gentleman. VOLP [ASIDE.]: Ay, quick, and cozen me of all. 2 AVOC: Still stranger! More intricate! 1 AVOC: And come about again! 4 AVOC [ASIDE.]: It is a match, my daughter is bestow'd. MOS [ASIDE TO VOLP.]: Will you give me half? VOLP: First, I'll be hang'd. MOS: I know, Your voice is good, cry not so loud. 1 AVOC: Demand The advocate.--Sir, did not you affirm, Volpone was alive? VOLP: Yes, and he is; This gentleman told me so. [ASIDE TO VOLP.] --Thou shalt have half.-- MOS: Whose drunkard is this same? speak, some that know him: I never saw his face. [ASIDE TO VOLP.] --I cannot now Afford it you so cheap. VOLP: No! 1 AVOC: What say you? VOLT: The officer told me. VOLP: I did, grave fathers, And will maintain he lives, with mine own life. And that this creature [POINTS TO MOSCA.] told me. [ASIDE.] --I was born, With all good stars my enemies. MOS: Most grave fathers, If such an insolence as this must pass Upon me, I am silent: 'twas not this For which you sent, I hope. 2 AVOC: Take him away. VOLP: Mosca! 3 AVOC: Let him be whipt. VOLP: Wilt thou betray me? Cozen me? 3 AVOC: And taught to bear himself Toward a person of his rank. 4 AVOC: Away. [THE OFFICERS SEIZE VOLPONE.] MOS: I humbly thank your fatherhoods. VOLP [ASIDE.]: Soft, soft: Whipt! And lose all that I have! If I confess, It cannot be much more. 4 AVOC: Sir, are you married? VOLP: They will be allied anon; I must be resolute: The Fox shall here uncase. [THROWS OFF HIS DISGUISE.] MOS: Patron! VOLP: Nay, now, My ruins shall not come alone; your match I'll hinder sure: my substance shall not glue you, Nor screw you into a family. MOS: Why, patron! VOLP: I am Volpone, and this is my knave; [POINTING TO MOSCA.] This [TO VOLT.], his own knave; This [TO CORB.], avarice's fool; This [TO CORV.], a chimera of wittol, fool, and knave: And, reverend fathers, since we all can hope Nought but a sentence, let's not now dispair it. You hear me brief. CORV: May it please your fatherhoods-- COM: Silence. 1 AVOC: The knot is now undone by miracle. 2 AVOC: Nothing can be more clear. 3 AVOC: Or can more prove These innocent. 1 AVOC: Give them their liberty. BON: Heaven could not long let such gross crimes be hid. 2 AVOC: If this be held the high-way to get riches, May I be poor! 3 AVOC: This is not the gain, but torment. 1 AVOC: These possess wealth, as sick men possess fevers, Which trulier may be said to possess them. 2 AVOC: Disrobe that parasite. CORV, MOS: Most honour'd fathers!-- 1 AVOC: Can you plead aught to stay the course of justice? If you can, speak. CORV, VOLT: We beg favour, CEL: And mercy. 1 AVOC: You hurt your innocence, suing for the guilty. Stand forth; and first the parasite: You appear T'have been the chiefest minister, if not plotter, In all these lewd impostures; and now, lastly, Have with your impudence abused the court, And habit of a gentleman of Venice, Being a fellow of no birth or blood: For which our sentence is, first, thou be whipt; Then live perpetual prisoner in our gallies. VOLT: I thank you for him. MOS: Bane to thy wolvish nature! 1 AVOC: Deliver him to the saffi. [MOSCA IS CARRIED OUT.] --Thou, Volpone, By blood and rank a gentleman, canst not fall Under like censure; but our judgment on thee Is, that thy substance all be straight confiscate To the hospital of the Incurabili: And, since the most was gotten by imposture, By feigning lame, gout, palsy, and such diseases, Thou art to lie in prison, cramp'd with irons, Till thou be'st sick, and lame indeed.--Remove him. [HE IS TAKEN FROM THE BAR.] VOLP: This is call'd mortifying of a Fox. 1 AVOC: Thou, Voltore, to take away the scandal Thou hast given all worthy men of thy profession, Art banish'd from their fellowship, and our state. Corbaccio!--bring him near--We here possess Thy son of all thy state, and confine thee To the monastery of San Spirito; Where, since thou knewest not how to live well here, Thou shalt be learn'd to die well. CORB: Ah! what said he? AND: You shall know anon, sir. 1 AVOC: Thou, Corvino, shalt Be straight embark'd from thine own house, and row'd Round about Venice, through the grand canale, Wearing a cap, with fair long asses' ears, Instead of horns; and so to mount, a paper Pinn'd on thy breast, to the Berlina-- CORV: Yes, And have mine eyes beat out with stinking fish, Bruised fruit and rotten eggs--'Tis well. I am glad I shall not see my shame yet. 1 AVOC: And to expiate Thy wrongs done to thy wife, thou art to send her Home to her father, with her dowry trebled: And these are all your judgments. ALL: Honour'd fathers.-- 1 AVOC: Which may not be revoked. Now you begin, When crimes are done, and past, and to be punish'd, To think what your crimes are: away with them. Let all that see these vices thus rewarded, Take heart and love to study 'em! Mischiefs feed Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed. [EXEUNT.] [VOLPONE COMES FORWARD.] VOLPONE: The seasoning of a play, is the applause. Now, though the Fox be punish'd by the laws, He yet doth hope, there is no suffering due, For any fact which he hath done 'gainst you; If there be, censure him; here he doubtful stands: If not, fare jovially, and clap your hands. [EXIT.] GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be--," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you--?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the--," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the--," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of--," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd--him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten--," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "--order," "--waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) --not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to--," into the bargain; "no--," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible--," "angry--," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in--," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt--," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no--," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye--used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no--," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for--," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in--," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder--"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt--," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king... caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in--," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking--," "--politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER ("--frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the--," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in--," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for--," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in--" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "--up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "--failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at--," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to... cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a--!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first--," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their--es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford)." JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's--," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give--," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make--," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game... in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by--," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the--," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy" = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry--in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on--," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the--" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the--," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be--," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be--," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a--," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in--," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco... for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go--," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's--," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person--perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a--," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "--of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was... near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "--away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in--," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance--hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make--of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's--," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the--," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the--," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it--s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in--," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take--," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the--," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of--," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "--a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a--," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take--," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn--," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish--," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from--," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "--Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the--," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at--," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold--," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the--," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the--for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I--," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("--pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks.