part I

am.

TIM. And partly I will tell thee; this squirt-squib wherewith that pragmatical monopolist Nasutius Neapolitanus has here employed thee to obstruct our action shall be received and returned with as much scorn as it was sent us with spiteful impudence! Let him come if he like; he may trouble himself and his own impoverished patience, but we shall slight him on our stage, and tax him of frontless insolence.

HAX. You shall do well, sir.

TIM. Well or ill, sir, we will do it. Pray, tell me, brave spark, what Archias may this be who takes thus upon him to excise the revenues of our theatral pleasure to his purse? Be his monopolising brains of such extent as they have power to engross all inventions to his coffer, all our stage-action to his exchequer?

HAX. I would be loth to praise him too much, because your transcendent self prize[s] him so little; but his travels have highly improved his expression.

TIM. We know it, don, and he knows it too, to his advantage. But no man knows the issue of his travel better than Timon. It is true, he addressed his course for Malagasco; but for what end?--to learn hard words, school himself in the Utopian tongue; and, to close up all, he sticked not, Xerxes-like, to deface bridges in the ruins whereof, poor gentleman, he irreparably suffered.

HAX. To my knowledge, he speaks no more than authentic truth; for I myself, in my own proper person, got a snap by a Neapolitan ferret at the very same time; ever since which hot A†tnean service my legs have been taught to pace iambics, and jadishly to interfere upon any condition.

[_Aside._

TIM. Thus much for your despatch. Only this: be it your civility, valiant don, to present my service to his naked savages, monkeys, baboons, and marmosets, advising, withal, your master of the bear-yard, that he henceforth content his hydroptic thoughts with his own box-holders; and, lest he lose by his outlandish properties, be it his care to pick out some doxies of his own, lest those she-sharks whom he has employed upon that trading occasion abuse his confidence.

HAX. Your commands, sir, shall be observed with all punctuality.

TIM. Do so, brave don, lest I call you to account, and return your wages with a bastinado. But withal tell that cockspur, your magnificent MecA|nas, that he keep at home, and distemper not our stage with the fury of his visits, lest he be encountered by my little terriers, which will affright him more than all his Spanish gipsies.

HAX. Account me, invincible sir, your most serviceable slave upon all interests. Well, I have secured my crazy bulk as well from a basting as ever mortal did; and if ever I be put on such desperate adventures again, let this weak radish body of mine become stuck round with cloves, and be hung up for a gammon of Westphalia bacon to all uses and purposes.

[_Aside._

[_Exit._

TRIL. So, you have conjured down the spirit of one furious haxter!

## SCENE IV.

_Enter_ BOY.

TIM. And just so must all our tavern tarmagons be used, or they'll trepan you, as they did that old scarified friar, whose bitter experiences furnished with ability enough to discover their carriage and his feverish distemper.

BOY. Sir, all our boxes are already stored and seated with the choicest and eminentest damosellas that all Seville can afford. Besides, sir, all our galleries and ground-stands are long ago furnished. The groundlings within the yard grow infinitely unruly.

TIM. Go to, boy; this plebeian incivility must not precipitate the course of our action. How oft have they sounded?

BOY. They're upon the last sound; but our expectance of that great Count, whose desires are winged for us, foreflow our entry.

TIM. These comic presentments may properly resemble our comet apparitions, where their first darting begets impressions of an affectionate wonder or prophetic astonishment. The world, I must confess, is a ball racketed above the line and below into every hazard: but whimseys and careers challenge such influence over the judgment of our gallant refined wits; as their fancies must be humoured, and their humours tickled, or they leave our rooms discontented. So as the comedian's garden must find lettuce for all lips, or the disrelished poet must be untrussed, and paid home with a swingeing censure. This must be my fate; for I can expect no less from these satirical madams, whose ticklish resentment of their injured honour will make them kick before they be galled. But Timon is armed _cap-a-pie_ against all such feminine assailants. They shall find my scenes more modest than some of their actions have merited; and I must tell thee one thing by the way, my ingenious Trillo--that I never found more freedom in my sprightly genius, than in the very last night, when I set my period to this living fancy. But time and conveniences of the stage enjoin me to leave thee; make choice of thy place, and expect the sequel.

[Sidenote: _ExtremAc nocte nullam scA|nis feliciorem reperi._--Afran.]

TRIL. May your acts live to a succeeding age, And the Ladies Alimony enrich your stage.

[_Exeunt._

_After the third sound_--

PROLOGUE.

_Madams, you're welcome; though our poet show A severe brow, it is not meant to you. Your virtues, like your features, they are such, They neither can be priz'd nor prais'd too much: Lov'd and admir'd wheres'ever you are known, Scorning to mix Platonics with your own: Sit with a pleasing silence, and take view Of forms vermillion'd in another hue. Who make free traffic of their nuptial bed, As if they had of fancy surfeited: Who come not here to hear our comic scenes, But to complete imaginary dreams With realler conceptions. If you mind them, Their new loves stand before, old loves behind them: And from that prospect this_ impresa _read, Rich pearls show best when they are set in lead. Such be your blameless beauties, which comply With no complexion but a native dye, Apt for a spousal hug, and, like rich ore, Admit one choice impression and no more. Those faces only merit our esteem, Seem what they be, and be the same they seem. For they who beauty clothe with borrow'd airs, May well disclaim them, being none of theirs. Here shall you see Nature adorn'd with skill, And if this do not please, sure, nothing will._

## ACT II., SCENE 1.

_Enter two_ BOYS.

1ST BOY. Room, room for the ladies of the new dress.

2D BOY. Thou styles them rightly, Tim; for they have played the snakes, and put off their old slough. New brooms sweep clean. Frosty age and youth suit not well together. These _bona-robas_ must sate their appetites with fresh cates, or their sharp attractive stomachs will be quickly cloyed.

1ST BOY. True, Nick; hadst thou known their nightly quartering as well as I have done, thou wouldst hold them rare coy-ducks for retrieving new game, and storing their lobbies upon all adventures.

2D BOY. Why, Tim, art thou one of that covey?

1ST BOY. Let it suffice thee, wag, I know all their fagaries[111] to a hair. I have not played such a truant in my place as to become their pee-dee[112] during all the time of their restraint, and not to attain the principles of a puisne bolt: a faithful secret pimp deserves his constant pay.

2D BOY. But, in good sadness, resolve me: were these dainty Dabrides ever in restraint?

1ST BOY. As close cooped up, believe it, as any parachitoes ever were. Only they assumed to their pretended aggrievances to exclaim against their hard fortunes in being matched with such impotent and defective husbands; and now they have, by long flickering and strong favourites, got out o' th' cage, and wrought themselves into alimony.

2D BOY. Uds! so will their dainty fingers tug in alum-work?

1ST BOY. What an ignorant puppy thou art! This is no alum-work, but such a calcinated metal as it will run like quicksilver over all their husbands' domains, and in very short time make a quick despatch of all his Long-acre.

2D BOY. Trust me, Tim, these be mad-mettled girls, brave braches to breed on!

1ST BOY. What a wanton monkey is this? He's but newly bred, and he can talk of wenches breeding! Well, thou wilt grow a cock of th' game if thy pen-feathered youth mount to't. But silence, wag; the she-myrmidons are entering the stage, and I am pricked out for the chorus.

## SCENE II.

_Enter six Ladies fantastically habited, in a wanton and pleasant posture: passing over the stage, they are encountered by six amorous complimental Servants, every one singling forth his mistress for discourse._

2D BOY. What humorous tomboys be these?

1ST BOY. The only gallant Messalinas of our age. That love-spotted ermine is Madam Fricase, a woman of a rampant spirit; a confident pretender to language; and, for the Latin, she makes herself as familiar with the breach of Priscian's head as if it were her husband's.

2D BOY. Who is she, that looks like a mounted scaledrake?[113]

1ST BOY. That spitfire is Madam Caveare: one whose assiduate trading brought age upon her before her time. But art has taught her to supply furrowed deformities with ceruse boxes, and to repair a decayed complexion with an Italian fucus. This, with other fomentations, have so enlivened her, as they render her no less active than if she at last grass had but casten her colt's-tooth. The next in rank is that mincing madam Julippe, who would not bear a child for a world (though her endeavours be pregnant enough), for fear she should disfeature the comeliness of her body.

2D BOY. Yet she's a medlar.[114]

1ST BOY. A mellow one, and as ready to fall in autumn upon all occasions.

2D BOY. What may that gaudy gewgaw lady be, that throws such scornful looks upon our galleries?

1ST BOY. That's a brave martial Milanoise: Semiramis never had a more imperious spirit. She styles herself Madam Joculette; a jocund girl, on my word, and one that will not engage her honour, nor barter in a low commodity, for nothing. She was a tirewoman at first in the suburbs of Milan; but falling into an ebb of fortune, and hearing the quaint and various fancies of our country damosellas, she took upon her this adventure to improve her annual pension; which she has by the dexterity of her wit and incomparable curiosity of art highly enlarged, and by this unexpected means--for it happened, to give an addition to her future happiness, that one Sir Gregory Shapeless, a mundungo[115] monopolist, a paltry-penurious-pecking pinchgut, who had smoked himself into a mercenary title of knightship, set his affection upon her soon after her arrival here; whom thou may imagine, Nick, to be no sooner wooed than won. But scarcely were their marriage-sheets warm, till her dissembled fancy, having no other bait but lucre to feed it, grew cold, and the mundungo-knight became pitifully crest-fallen--more in love with the world than his Italian doxy. A divorce she sues, and so happily pursues, as by the solicitancy of her private ingles she became whole sharer in his trucking fortunes; since which time she pastures freely upon the common without fear of enclosure.

2D BOY. Why should she not? A barren ranging doe, having once leapt over her own pale, may encroach, though not with security, upon any other's liberty.

1ST BOY. That next her in rank, and as right as my leg in her career, is Madam Medler, a cunning civil trader, who with much simpering secrecy, as one that would seem sparing in discovery of her husband's debility, calls him[116] Sir Tristram Shorttool, a good, well-meaning man, and one that might content any woman under the equinoctial line, if Nature had measured her[117] right. Whereas his sufficiency has been elsewhere tried, which his many branches, sprung from other stocks, may sufficiently witness, being scions[118] of his own inoculating, and at his own proper charge for breeding. As for that lady with the inflamed face, Madam Tinder, her desires are so strong and enlarged, as that torrid zone, where she sometimes planted, could not accommodate her supplies. And let this serve thee, Nick, for a short character of these alimonial ladies.

2D BOY. Those Platonic servants of theirs are upon a strong debate with their amorous mistresses.

1ST BOY. But note, my precious wag, how infinitely they seem tickled with the accounts, which those ladies return them of their court proceedings.

[_They retire, and listen._

## SCENE III.

FLO. You overglad me, Madam Fricase, With your select discourse, closing so fairly With our expected wishes.

CAR. No conceit Struck more on fancy than the tale you told me; 'Tis so attractive, Madam Caveare. It acts delight without a passive object, And forms an embryo in the phantasy By love's mysterious spell. May Ida's court Ne'er see Caranto exercise his revels, If he neglect those ceremonial rites Which love and duty have oblig'd him to. May all the orbs make music in their motion, And smile on our enjoyment!

PAL. Fair Julippe, Your choice has crown'd me; nor shall track of time Raze out that imprese which[119] your free assent Has here engraven. Palisado's zeal Shall merit your affection, if endeavours May mount to such a pitch as they may cheer My hopes in retribution. Secrecy, Or what may most suit with a lady's honour, Shall in this breast keep constant sentry.[120]

SAL. If Salibrand fall short, may he be forc'd To sue his own divorce. Dear Joculette, May your estrangement from a loathed bed Complete your choice with a delightful change.

MOR. Balls, treats, rear-banquets, theatral receipts To solace tedious hours, shall entertain My mellow Medlar; and when evening pleasure Shall with enlivening vigour summon more Duly-reserved offices, which Love In her arrival, her desir'd repose, Shall pay his loyal tribute, only due To crowns and nuptial rites: or as pure times Make these divisions legal, to supply Defects by abler farmers, which defray'd, Proves man to be himself. I'll vow no more: Only give leave to your devoted servant, Whose purest victim is a constant heart, To make this tender good. Before I fail In acting your content, may youthful heat Disclaim its interest in me, and this spirit,

## Active and sprightly, lose his native strength--

Nay, thaw itself to atoms, and resolve To ophic powder, juice of cucumber, Or what may show most chilness in the blood.

TIL. Like brave Platonic, you profess much love, Which, you enamel with gilt promises; But my affection's conscious of no guilt,[121] Nor a rhetoric tincture. Some can speak, And call the heavens to record, when their fancy, Mere planet-struck, has fix'd their influence On various objects: this deludes poor wenches, And makes them melt like ceruse! Heav'ns forgive them! I'm none of that light leaven; nor, Florello, Caranto, Palisado, Salibrand, Nor you, Morisco. Moments of delight May prompt unmanag'd youths to damn'd protests And vows which they intend not: whereas, madams, Your choice has made you happy in your change. This shall my dear affianc'd Tinder find In her embraces; and in those conclude Stol'n waters be the sweetest.

ALL. Excellent; Thou shalt be styl'd th' Platonic Pythias.

FRI. Our faith is not confirm'd by oratory. If man, he cannot falsify his trust In offices of love; we leave our own For your enjoyment; were there piety In making love the anvil of your treason? No, no; we shall not entertain a thought, That may suggest suspicion, nor retain In our late-widow'd breasts a crime so foul As jealousy. Let our cornutos harbour That marrow-eating fury. Dear Florello, Hold my exchanged love complete in thee!

CAV. Hold same opinion of thy Caveare, My best Caranto.

JUL. Treasure like esteem In thy Julippe's choice, brave Palisado.

JOC. In Joculette, active Salibrand.

MED. Thy sprightliest revels, may they be reserv'd For thy endearA"d Medlar, my Morisco.

TIN. So may thy hopes be crownA"d in thy Tinder, My valiant Tilly; and rest thus resolv'd: That th' tender tinder of my tried affection Shall ne'er obscure its lustre, if neglect Extinguish not that heat.

TIL. May th' frigid zone Sooner contract my sinews!

MOR. And love's grove Become an hermit's cell!

SAL. And our revels A sullen stoic dream.

PAL. And this exchange A period to our joys.

CAR. And our protests Affrighting shadows.

FLO. Or (what's worst of all) May those contents, which you expect from us, Discover our defects, and make you wish Your nuptial beds untouch'd.

ALL. May all these fall, And crush us with their grandeur.

LADIES. Be it so, And if our levity disvalue vows, Or what may most oblige us: may like censure Impeach our perish'd honours.

[_They retire._

1ST BOY. So: the match Is clapp'd already up. They need no witness.

2D BOY. Trust me, they couple handsomely, as if they had been married after th' new fashion.

1ST BOY. These need no dispensation. Fancy can act it without more ado. A mad match soon shuffled up!

2D BOY. But what shuffling would there be, if any of these wanton gossips should cry out before their time?

1ST BOY. That cry, my dainty wag, would be soon stifled. There be many ways, as I have heard my old grannam say (who had been in her youth a Paracelsian doctor's leman), to impregnate a birth, and, by secret applications o' possems[122] and cordials, not only to facilitate, but expedite, their production.

2D BOY. And what of all this?

1ST BOY. Why then, Tim, the only safe way for these gamesome macquerellas[123] is to antedate their conception before their separation. This has been an approved receipt; and, upon a long consult, found so, and returned authentic. Joy or grief produce wondrous effects in humorous[124] ladies.

2D BOY. Thou art a cunning, sifting ningle for all rogueries.

## SCENE IV.

_Enter again the Ladies with their Platonic Confidants._

1ST BOY. What! so soon returned? upon my life, there's some amorous design on foot, either in displaying of the weakness of those rams'-heads whom they have deserted, or some pasquil of light mirth to ingratiate their late-entertained servants.

2D BOY. No drollery, for love sake: "Facetious fancies are the least profane."

1ST BOY. That's a precious strain of modesty, Nick: make much on't: let's fasten our attentions. They are moving.

[BOYS _retire again_.

FLO. Dear Madam Fricase, present those scenes, Those love-attractive scenes, your noble self With these long-injur'd ladies tend'red To your prudential senate.

FRI. Sure, Florello, You much mistake them; can you call them scenes Which just complaints exhibit? True, they might,-- They might have prov'd to us, and to our honours That lay at stake, and by spectators thought Highly engag'd, nay, desperately expos'd To a judicial sentence--a decree Of fatal consequence.

CAR. But pregnant wits, Stor'd with maturest judgment, polite tongues, Calm'd an approaching storm.

PAL. Nay, made you gracious Before those rigid consuls.

SAL. For my part, I never knew a good face spoil a cause, Though th' bench were ne'er so gravely ancient: Nor ripe in years.

MOR. Beauty's a taking bait, Which each fish nibbles at: this Appius felt, A reverend sage, whom furrowed brow, loose lip, Strait line of life, a rough distemper'd cough, Aged catarrhs, a shiver'd shell turn'd earth, Where nought appear'd that might partake of man, Save a weak breathing motion: yet could he Send forth light wand'ring eyes, and court Virginia With a dull admiration: so the bard Describes his daring-doting appetite, Which he pursu'd, yet thought none durst discover: "Appius had silent tongue, but speaking eyes; Yet who says Appius loves Virginia, lies."

TIL. Not I, I vow; let age attire itself, And in that garish habit fool his soul With fruitless wishes. What's all this to me? Pygmalion may with his incessant vows, Sweet'ned with fancy's incense, seek t'enliven Motionless marble; but such statues render Icy content. Imagination may Make th' image seem a Leda, yet the swan Retains her feature and her nature too. Let's leave these apprehensions; they suit better With shady than essential favourites. Good madams, second our desires; let's hear, How you were dealt withal.

FLO. Our instancy Begs so much favour.

CAR. It will cheer our spirits In the relation of your fair proceedings.

MOR. Where th' issue crown'd your suit with that success, No fates seem'd more propitious.

PAL. We must leave't; You know what longing means.

SAL. Come, who begins?

LADIES. Stay, gallants, wing not your too speedy course With such Pegasian quickness; our consent Should go along: our interests are concern'd To perfect your desires.

FLO. And we presume Your acquiescence will accomplish it. Our mutual loves close in that harmony That, though the airs of music still admit Their closure in divisions, our joint strings, So sweetly tun'd, may run their diapason Without a discord.

FRI. By which sense we gather, That we must prove your fiddlers?

FLO. You mistake me. We hold you instruments; your fancies, strings, To actuate our motion with that fulness Arion ne'er attain'd to.

LADIES. We must yield, Or they will storm us.

FRI. Yet let our conditions Bring them within our lists. Well, our surprise Must make you parties i' th' discovery.

ALL. For love's sake, how?

FRI. As thus: we stand at bar T' express our grievances: and you must set Grave censors or examinates to discuss The weight of our complaints.

ALL. Content; we'll do't.

LADIES. But do't exactly, or you spoil the plot.

CAR. 'Slid, doubt not, ladies, we have wit enough To frame intergotaries, so you make answer, And with your quickness do not puzzle us.

ALL. Advance, advance; let's mount, and play the consuls.

[_The Confidants ascend the higher seats, erected after the form of the Roman exedras, the Ladies, with petitions in their hands, standing at the bar._

1ST BOY. How will these dainty dottrels act their parts?

2D BOY. Rarely, no doubt; their audience makes them confident.

## SCENE V.

FLO. Now, fair ladies, what wind has blown you hither?

FRI. The storm of our insufferable wrongs Call unto you for justice.

CAR. And your beauties Enjoin our just assistance. Show your griefs.

1ST BOY. This is a caranto-man, with all my heart! must Beauty be his landskip on the seat of justice?

[_Aside._

2D BOY. Pray thee, give them line.

[_Aside._

FRI. Should I discover my misfortunes, consuls, They would enforce compassion, even in strangers, Who know not my extraction. My descent, Besides the fortunes I deriv'd from them Who gave me being, breeding, with whate'er Might complete youth, or give embellishment To Nature's curious workmanship, was known To shine more graceful in the eye of fame Than to remain obscure: yet see my fate-- My sad occurring fate!

FLO. Express it, madam.

FRI. I married, reverend consul, and in that Lost both my freedom, fortune, and myself. My former single sweet condition Clothes that remembrance in a sable weed, Resolves mine eyes to Niobe's, whose tears Might drop to marble, and erect an urn T' inhume my funeral spousals.

[_She feigns to weep, in resentment of her former estate._

CAR. Alas! poor lady.

1ST BOY. Pitiful senator, if he have not drunk some coffee to keep him waking, he will questionless fall asleep, or melt into tears, before he delivers his sentence.

[_Aside._

PAL. Whence sprung this spring of infelicity? Resolve us, madam.

FRI. From mine helpless match; A tender stripling, whose unmanly chin Had ne'er known razor, nor discover'd A youthful down: yet his minority Was by o'erpow'ring friends accounted fit To match with my maturer growth; but time Display'd their folly who enjoined me to't. And (my misfortune most) light was his brain, But weaker far his strength to satisfy Those lawful nuptial heats which breathe[125] in us An active fire. Now I appeal to you, Judicious consuls.

2D BOY. Hold there, madam, under favour; these brave senators you appeal to are more for execution than judgment.

[_Aside._

FRI. Could the patience Of Grisel, were she living, reap content In such enjoyments? Could she suffer youth, Quicken'd with blooming fancy, to expire, And quench her heat with such an useless snuff?

FLO. A match insufferable!

CAR. Opposing nature!

PAL. Nay, what in time would quite depopulate, And make the world a desert.

SAL. Higher wrongs Cannot inflicted be on womankind.

TIL. Nor aspersing more dishonour on that sex, That most endearA"d sex, to which we owe Ourselves and fortunes; for should their choice beauties Suffer a pillage by desertless hands, Forc'd to a loathed bed, and made a prey To seared age, or to unripen'd youth: How soon might these unparallel'd deities, By fixing their affections on strange faces And their more graceful posture, which they valued Above their churlish consorts, become strangers To their due spousal rites? How soon engage Their honour to th' embraces of a servant Of brave deportment, sprightly eyes, neat limbs: A virile presence and a countenance 'Twixt Ajax and Adonis; neither fierce Nor too effeminate, but mix'd 'twixt both: Neither too light to scorn, nor stern to loathe. 'Twas this brought Troy to ruin; for had Helen Espous'd where she had lov'd, poor Menelaus Had ne'er been branch'd, nor Troy reduc'd to flames; Nor Priam and his Hecuba [been] the grounds Of sad succeeding stories.

1ST BOY. A gallant consult, trust me; he has got by heart the ballad of "The Destruction of Troy" to a syllable.

[_Aside._

FLO. Honour'd colleague, You show yourself both learn'd and eloquent. Madam, be pleased to solace discontent With a retir'd repose. We have discuss'd And balanced the grandeur of your wrongs In a judicious scale, and shall apply Proper receipts to your aggrievances, When we have heard the rest.

1ST BOY. Receipts of their own application, I warrant thee.

[_Aside._

CAR. Madam Caveare, You here appear as a complainant too?

CAV. And none more justly: ne'er was woman match'd To such a stupid, sottish animal: One that's compos'd of nonsense, and so weak In masculine abilities, he ne'er read The "Wife of Bath's Tale," nor what thing might please A woman best; my curtain-lectures have No influence on him. I must confess He's simply honest; but what's that to me? He apprehends not what concerns a woman: Nor what may suit her quality in state And fit dimension.

CAR. A most unfitting husband!

CAV. It was my parents' caution, I remember; But 'twas my sad fate not t' observe[126] that lesson-- Never to fix my fancy on a person Who had no sage in's pate, lest progeny of fools Should make my race unhappy: this has made My thoughts mere strangers to his weak embraces; Nor shall I e'er affect him.

FLO. Madam, no law Would in the Spartan state enjoin a lady So nobly accomplished to confine Her fancy to such fury.

PAL. This objection Admits no long debate.

SAL. Her rich deserts, Adorn'd with such choice native faculties, And grac'd with art to make them more complete, In humane reason should exempt her youth From such a servile yoke.

MOR. In ancient times, When wisdom guarded senates, a decree, Confirmed by public vote, enacted was, That none should marry till he had observ'd Domestic discipline; and first to bear With a composed garb th' indignities Of a Xantippe, if his fortune were To cope with such a fury: and to calm Her passion with his patience. Now, grave colleagues, What comfort might this injur'd lady drain, In these punctilios which import her state, From this insensate sot?

TIL. Exchange his bed, And sue his patent for the _Fatuano_; And, to display him to his visitants In clearer colours, let this motto be Engraven on those walls, deep-ach'd with time, "Defective in his head-piece, here he lies, Object of scorn to all surveying eyes."

2D BOY. So, poor scatterbrain, he has got his judgment already.

[_Aside._

CAR. Praxiteles could ne'er portray him better, Nor lodge his sconce more fitly. You may, madam, Conceive how sensibly we feel your wounds, And with what promptness we shall expedite Your long-expected cure.

PAL. Madam Julippe, You come next in rank; declare your griefs, And if our judgments hold them meriting Our just relief, we have compassionate hearts And powerful hands to vindicate your wrongs To th' utmost scruple.

JUL. If they weigh not heavy, Let me incur your censure. Patriots-- For I appeal to your judicious bosoms, Where serious justice has a residence Mix'd with a pious pity--I shall unravel The clue of my misfortunes in small threads, Thin-spun as is the subtle gossamer.[127] Deep wounds, like griefs, require contracted lines; Few words, long sighs: accents that want express. First give me leave one beamling to bestow On my obscur'd, once glorious, family.

ALL. Madam, proceed; Fame made it eminent.

JUL. But now contemptive--by marrying one Who bears the shape of man, and that is all: A base, white-liver'd coward, whose regard To his lost honour stamps him with that brand, That hateful stigma, which humanity Scorns as the basest complice.

PAL. Style it, madam.

JUL. Pusillanimity. That ranter breathes not, Who with his peek'd mouchatoes[128] may not brave him, Baffle, nay baste him out of his possessions. His fortunes he esteems not, so his person May be secur'd from beating.

ALL. Matchless coward!

JUL. Nor is this all. 'Has sought t' engage my bed, My nuptial bed and honour--nay, those sheets Where, I may safely vow, ne'er man lay in, Beside my husband.

2D BOY. Very like; but how many when he was not there?

[_Aside._

FLO. No misfortune worse, Nor humour hateful to a virile spirit, Whereof your noble family partakes, Than want of courage.

PAL. Tush, sir, that's not all. Her line, in time, might grow degenerate, And blanch the living memory of those From whence she came.

CAV. There's none who here appears Before you, conscript consuls, but can give Store of evincing instances of this: For matching with Sir Jasper Simpleton, An hairbrain'd puppy, most of all my brood Run like shell-headed lapwings in careers, Just as their own supposed father did, Simple Sir Jasper, whose small dose of sense Proportion'd their discretion--till a change Impregnated me more wisely.

FRI. So did I Suffer in my raw, puny Amadin; Though all my fears summ'd up their period, And in it crown'd my wishes for one boy (Who, while he lives, I think, will prove a boy), I had by my young stripling, who can trace His father's steps directly: all his games, Wherein his lineal youth takes sole delight Are yert-point, nine-pins, job-nut, or span-counter, Or riding cock-horse, which his dad admires, Smiling to see such horsemanship perform'd. Now I appeal to you, whose judgments are Maturely serious, if these tomboy tricks Might not perplex me, and enforce me too, To act what my affections prompt me do?

JOC. If one complain of the minority Of her thin-downy consort, and you, madam, Of his simplicity whom you have choos'd, And you, Julippe, of his cowardice Whom with averseness you have made your spouse, What grounds of discontent may I conceive, Unhappy Joculette, in my choice-- My nightly torture, whose embraces be Worse than those snaky windings unto me, Dipt in Medusa's charms.

CAR. Unbare your wound.

2D BOY. Nay, let that be the least of your fears; she'll do that to a hair.

[_Aside._

JOC. Know, then, judicious consuls, These arms are forc'd t' enwreathe a shapeless mass Of all deformity, a bear unlick'd: One whom Thersites, that disfigur'd Greek, So far excell'd in native lineaments, Proportion, feature, and complexion (All rare attractives to the eye of love), As amorous Narcissus in his prime Surpass'd the roughest sylvan that the woods E'er nurs'd or harbour'd. Yet enjoin'd am I To hug this centaur, who appears to me A prodigy in Nature.

ALL. 'Tis a fate Exacts compassion, and deserves redress.

FLO. Such a complete and exquisite beauty Accomplish'd in all parts!

CAR. Nay, qualifi'd With rarity of arts to make her sex With pious emulation to admire Her choice perfections----

PAL. And all these obscur'd, Soil'd, sullied, perish'd by th' immeriting touch Of a misshapen boor!

SAL. Such precious gems, Set in ignoble metals, cannot choose But much detract from th' native graceful lustre, Which they retain'd, by means of that base ore Impales their orient splendour.

MOR. This is nothing To th' injury her lineage may receive From his deformity.

TIL. I must confess That threat'neth much of danger: yet I read not That Vulcan's poult foot or his smutted look Black'ned with Lemnian sea-coal, brought the issue Begot by Venus, if he any got, To change their amorous physnomy.

MOR. He may thank Mars for that active courtesy, or it had Disfigur'd much his spurious progeny.

FLO. Well, madam, we compassionate your choice In your Sir Gregory Shapeless, and shall find A quick receipt to cure your discontent With a new-moulded and more pleasing feature Than your sad fate enjoys. Repose, till we Have run through all your griefs, and felt your pulses.

2D BOY. For shame's sake, no further, my dainty doctors.

[_Aside._

FLO. With th' symptoms or gradations as they stream In your desertless sufferings; paroxysms, Or what extremes may most surprise your fancies: In these our serious judgments shall supply Such sov'reign cordials as you shall not need No use nor application of more help Than what we shall prepare. Let this suffice: It rests in us to cure your maladies-- Excuse us, Madam Medler; these debates Have kept us from discovery of your wrongs.

MED. Than which none more depressive--would you judge Th' musician good that wants his instrument? Or any artisan, who goes to work Without provision of a proper tool, To manage that employment? Modesty Bids me conceal the rest: my secret wants Require an active tongue; but womanhood Enjoins me silence.

MOR. 'Las! I'm sensible Of her aggrievance, ere her dialect Can give it breath or accent.

MED. But you say-- And our experience has inform'd us, too-- In that essential truth, that we must first Disclose our wounds, if we expect a cure: Let your impartial judgments, then, give ear To a distressed lady's just complaint. In my first years, as now I am not old, My friends resolved to supply a portion, Which my descent (though good) could not afford, To match my youth unto a man of age, Whose nest was richly feather'd, stor'd of all But native vigour, which express'd itself As if all radical humour had been drench'd In a chill shady bed of cucumbers Before our nuptial night. Oft had I begg'd. With sighs and tears, that this unequal match Might be diverted; but it might not be. The fulness of his fortunes winged them To consummate the match: this pleased them, But me displeas'd, whom it concerned most.

FLO. The issue, madam?

MED. None; nor ever shall With that sear, suckless kex.

MOR. Never was lady So rarely beautifi'd, so highly wrong'd.

CAR. What flinty worldling[s] were those friends of yours To value fortunes more than your content!

PAL. To prostitute your honour to a clod Of mould'red earth!

SAL. And in an icy bed To starve your blooming comforts?

TIL. This exceeds All spousal suffering, which preceding times In our Italian stories ever read, Or in their sable annals register'd.

FLO. Much of Sir Tristram Shorttool (so I think Men call your husband) have I ofttimes heard, And his penurious humour. But your wrongs Were strangers to me, till your own relation Display'd their quality; which to allay, Nay, quite remove, transmit the care to us And our directions, to supply your wants. We should be just to all, but still retain A bosom-pity to the weaker sex. If we observ'd not this with tenderness, We should not merit this judicial seat, Whereto----

1ST BOY. These Dabrides rais'd you.

[_Aside._

TIL. Now, Madam Tinder, your aggrieves are last.

TIN. But not the least. What woman could endure In spousal rights to have a stranger share In her enjoyments? or remain depriv'd Of her propriety by losing those Appropriate dues which nature has ordain'd, And sacred rights approv'd? You see I'm young, And youth expects that tribute which our sex May challenge by descent.

ALL. Her plea is good.

TIN. Would you not, reverend consuls, hold it strange To see a savage, unconfined bull, When th' pasture's fruitful, and the milk-pail full, And all delights that might content a beast, Range here and there, and break into those grounds Which are less fertile, and where neither shade Affords him umbrage, nor smooth-running brooks Streams to allay his thirst: nay, where the grass, Too strow[129] for fodder, and too rank for pasture, Would generate more fatal maladies Than a whole college of state empirics Or country farriers had art to cure?

FLO. Such bullocks, madam, well deserve a baiting.

TIL. And beating too!

TIN. Yet this is my condition: For marrying one Sir Reuben Scattergood, A person in appearance like enough, And well-dispos'd for aught my watchful eyes Could long discover; but, his father dead, And his revenues by his death swol'n great, His nuptial bed he leaves, and entertains Such mercenary prostitutes as fancy-- His loose-exposed fancy--lur'd him to.

CAR. Injurious ribald!

PAL. Hateful libertine!

TIL. Had she been old, or crook'd, or any way Deform'd.

SAL. Or ill-condition'd.

MOR. Or averse, When he was active.

FLO. Or run retrograde To his just pleasures: these might have abridg'd And weaken'd his affection. But when beauty, Composed temper, and a graceful presence, Cloth'd both with majesty and a sweet smile Of such attractive quality, as the adamant Cannot more virtually enforce its object, Than these impressive motives of content: He merits not the title of a man, Much less the embraces of so choice a spouse, Who violates his faith, deceives her trust.

CAR. I am directly, sir, of your opinion.

PAL. So I.

MOR. And I.

ALL. So all of us concur, To make our judgments more unanimous.

TIN. And, to confirm't, may you be pleas'd to give Attention to a story I shall tell, As true as strange, to manifest th' affronts My patience has endur'd, and to what height His luxury ascended.

ALL. Madam, do; We shall lend ready ears to your discourse.

TIN. It chanc'd one day,--and ofttimes so it chanc'd, For doubtful thoughts have ever jealous eyes,-- That my suspicion had begot a fear That my neglectful husband had a kindness, And more than usual, unto my maid-- A proper maid, if so she might be call'd: Now, to possess myself whether those grounds Whereon I built might just inducements be Of my late-hatch'd fears, I made pretence, (What is it jealousy will not design?) To go from home. But this was no recede, But a retire: for in the ev'ning-time, When these two amorous pair expected least Such an unwelcome visit, I repair'd To a close arbour set with sycamores, The tamarisk, and sweet-breath'd eglantine, That local object which I fix'd upon, Not of myself, but by direction, Where I found out what I suspected long: Such wanton dalliance as the Lemnian smith Never discover'd more, when he prepar'd His artful net t' enwreath his Eriena Impal'd in Mars his arms.

ALL. Could you contain Your passion in such Aretine a posture?

TIN. With much reluctancy I did indeed, Curbing my temper, which was much enrag'd, With this too mild expression, "Fie, for shame! Minion, I'll have none of this work, not I." "You may, when it is offer'd you," said he.

1ST BOY. Ha, ha, ha! this was a bold-fac'd niggler;[130] trust me, wag.

[_Aside._

FLO. Was't not enough for him t' enjoy his pleasure, But he must jeer you too?

CAR. As if you were A stale to his light dalliance!

PAL. Or a scorn to his embraces! Was her servile beauty, Expos'd to sale, dishonour of her sex, To be compar'd to yours?

SAL. Whose native splendour, Without the help of art, which makes complexion By borrow'd colours much unlike itself: May challenge a prerogative i' th' rank Of our completest features.

MOR. It seems strange, How you could brook th' affront without revenge On that insulting prostitute.

TIL. No doubt She would take hold of opportunity By th' foretop, and repair her pressing wrongs By private satisfactions; which works best, When their revenge seems sleeping and at rest. This lady would not rate her worth so small, As to forego both use and principal.

2D BOY. No, reverend favourite, you will find this madam Spitfire of a keener metal than so. She's right tinder: no sooner touch than take.

[_Aside._

FLO. Ladies, we've heard your different complaints, Forcing our just compassion and resolves To tender your condition, and redress. What may the purport be of your petition, Relating to your grievances?

ALL-LADIES. A freedom From our disrelish'd beds.

ALL-PLATONICS. 'Tis granted you.

LADIES. With alimony to support our state In this division.

PLAT. Your suit is just; Should we oppose it, we might wrong ourselves.

1ST BOY. Very likely; for they mean to be made whole sharers both in their persons and personal estates. This is brave judicial brokage.

[_Aside._

FLO. Speak, fellow-colleagues, shall I limit them, What we in justice hold expedient For th' alimonal charge proportion'd them, And in what measure to supply their wants?

ALL. Do so, Florello; we shall second it.

FLO. Thus, I conceive, these ladies have resign'd Their title, property and interest, In whole and not in part, which they enjoy'd In their defective husbands. Were't not just In lieu o' th' whole, which they have here disclaim'd, That they should seize upon the moiety Of their revenues, whom they've here deserted As useless instruments unto the state?

PLAT. A just proportion.

LADIES. We submit to it.

2D BOY. And so ye may well, if your husbands will yield to't.

1ST BOY. These be nimble shavers, Nick, as well as sharers; they know how to cut large thongs out of other folks' leather.[131]

[_Aside._

FLO. This crowns our wishes, when with joint consent We close our votes, and render you content.

CAR. Dismount, dismount, let's exercise no more These purple seats; their stories stand too high For our ascent: only let's thus much know, Whether our parts were acted well or no.

[_They descend._

LADIES. Above expectance. Singular in all, But best in your conclusion.

FRI. You did well In your proportioning of our alimony, Moulded to th' moiety of their estates Whom we have justly left; but we had less Allotted us in more authentic courts.

PAL. That was not in our verge to regulate.

CAV. Nor skills it much; we have a competence Aspiring to exceedings; and in this More bless'd, because exempted from those bonds, Which our long servitude enchain'd us to.

FLO. Of consuls, then, which title we usurp'd To cheer your fancies, we shall now become Your servants, confidants, or favourites, Or how you please to style us. We are all Affianc'd yours: firm as the solid rock In your reserved councils, and what may Hold correspondence with your interests, But soft and malleable as liquid amber In its resolving temper, when delight Shall sport it in your bosom, and admit A sociable dalliance.

FRI. Your free discourse, Grounded on former proofs of constancy, Has so endear'd me, I am wholly yours.

CAV. Madam, we mean not you shall have it so: You've broke the ice, and we will trace your steps. Former experience has engaged me To fix on my Caranto.

JUL. Palisado shall Enjoy my love.

JOC. I for my Salibrand.

MED. Morisco mine.

TIN. Tinder shall Tilly's be.

TIL. Pure tender Tinder of affection, The new-blown bloom, that craves a native warmth To cherish its young growth, shall not receive More solace from those orient rays which shine On its fresh-springing beauty, than your choice Shall in my dear embraces.

TIN. I shall try you.

1ST BOY. Thus walks the poor gentlemen's revenues to raise these doxies' alimony: and thus runs their alimony to feed these youngsters' riot.

[_Aside._

PLA. Our joy's completed. Seal this joint conveyance With those ambrosiac signets of your lips.

[_They kiss._

"One house did hold, one house shall hold us twain; Once did we kiss, and we will kiss again."

2D BOY. How turtle-like they couple!

[_Aside._

## SCENE VI.

_Upon these Platonics' private parlance, dalliance, and embraces of the Ladies, Enter_ SIR AMADIN PUNY, SIR JASPER SIMPLETON, SIR ARTHUR HEARTLESS, SIR GREGORY SHAPELESS, SIR TRISTRAM SHORTTOOL, SIR REUBEN SCATTERGOOD, _in a melancholy, discontented mood, with their hats over their eyes_.

SIR AMA. Is this th' platonic law, all things in common?

SIR JAS. Must all forego their wives that are not wise?

SIR ART. Or be divorc'd, because we dare not fight?

SIR GRE. Or lose our mates, because we are not handsome?

SIR TRIS. Nay, 'cause we are not arm'd so well as others be, Forfeit our consort and our fortunes too?

SIR REU. Yes, that's the plague on't. Lose a light-heeled trull-- That in my judgment's nothing; but to lose all Or moiety of that all, or any part at all For a poor nifling[132] toy that's worse than nothing, 'Tis this that nettleth me! I must confess Tinder, that light-skirt, with impetuous heat Sometimes pursu'd me, till that quenchless fire Burst into flames of boundless jealousy, Which cross'd mine humour; for variety Relish'd my palate. Phoenix' brains be rare; But if our dishes had no other fare, They would offend the stomach, and so sate it, As grosser meats would give a better taste: Such was my surfeit to a marriage-bed; My fortunes I prefer before her beauty, Or what may most content the appetite. Money will purchase wenches; but this want-- This roguish thing called want--makes wanton thoughts Look much unlike themselves: 'tis this white metal Enliveneth spirits, knits our arteries Firm as Alcides. He that binds himself Apprentice to his wife merely for love, May he, pen-feathered widgeon, forfeit's freedom, With whatsoe'er is dearest to the vogue Of his affections. She were a rare piece That could engage me, or oblige me hers With all those ceremonial rites which Flamens use To Hymen's honour. Beauty, still say I, Will breed a surfeit, be it ne'er so choice Nor eye-attractive. I should choose a grave Before one mistress all mine interest have. O my alimony, alimony! this is the goad that only prickles me.

PLA. Those be your husbands, ladies;--how pitifully they look?

LADIES. Alas, poor cuckolds!

KNIGHTS. Ladies, we were sometimes your husbands.

[_These Platonics discover the Knights, and scornfully eye them._

LADIES. True, You were so: but your known defects have raz'd That style of wedlock, and enfranchis'd us From that tyrannic yoke. We're now our own; Nor shall our beds by you be henceforth known.

SIR AMA. What have I done?

FRI. Nothing, Sir Amadin. And that's sufficient to divide us two. Your puny years must grow in strength and sinews To prove you man, before you can partake In my enjoyments; the court has so decreed, And by resentment of that injury Your blooming youth, unripened for delight, Has done to me, your hapless virgin bride, Held fit to number me amongst these ladies, All different sufferers; and for supportance (As everything, you know, would gladly live) Allots us alimony.

FLO. So his score is paid.

[_Aside._

SIR JAS. Madam, look on Sir Jasper.

CAV. Honest simpleton, And so I will, just as the fowler is wont On a catch'd dottrel; till your wasted brain Rise to more growth, I from my widow'd bed Will rise untouch'd: these breasts shall never give Their nursing teats unto a brood of fools.

CAR. So, good Sir Jasper, you've your doom in folio.[133]

[_Aside._

SIR ART. Receive me, dear Julippe.

JUL. For what end? Have you stol'n from your colours? O, I hate A coward worser than a maidenhead Basely bestow'd. These Paphlagonian birds-- These heartless partridges--shall never nestle Under my feathers. Till your spirit revive, And look like man, disclaim your interest And injur'd title in Julippe.

PAL. So; He must first learn to fight, ere she to love.

[_Aside._

JOC. What would Sir Gregory?

SIR GRE. That you would love me.

JOC. No; you must cast your slough first: can you see Ought in yourself worth loving? Have you ever, Since our unhappy meeting, us'd a glass, And not been startled in the sad perusal Of your affrightful physnomy? Sir, hear me; And let me beg your patience, if you hear Aught may disrelish you. When th' camel shall Trans-shape himself into a nimble weasel, Or such-like active creature, and this bunch, Which Nemesis has on your shoulders pitch'd (This bunch of grapes, I mean) shall levell'd be,

[_She lays her hand upon his shoulders._

And brought into proportion by a press Equally squeezing, till it shall retain Adonis' feature, I shall value you, And hug you for my consort. But till then Excuse my strangeness.

SAL. So; his cause is heard: He must unshape himself to gain her love.

MED. Sir Tristram Shorttool, have you ought to do In this pursuit of fancy?

SIR TRIS. Something, madam.

MED. But to small[134] purpose. Sir Tristram, you have been A man of reading, and on winter nights You told me tales (for that was all[135] you did), What strange adventures and what gallant acts Redoubted knights did for their ladies' sakes; But what did you for Medler all the while? Did you e'er toss a pike or brandish blade For her dear sake? Go to, I shall conceal, And with a modest, bashful veil enshroud What sense bids me discover. Let me, sir, Advise you as a friend; for other styles, Relating to an husband, I shall never Henceforth resent them with a free comply: Love suits not well with your decrepit age; Let it be your chief care t' intend your health; Use caudles, cordials, julips, pectorals; Keep your feet warm; bind up your nape o' th' neck Close against chilling airs, that you may live An old man long; but take especial care You button on your nightcap.

MOR. After th' new fashion With his loave-ears[136] without it.

[_Aside._

MED. This is all-- Only your absence.

MOR. So good night, Sir Tristram.

[_Aside._

SIR REU. Sweet Madam Tinder.

[SIR REUBEN _offers to kiss her_.

TIN. Keep your distance, sir; I love not to be touch'd.

SIR REU. Are you so hot, My tender tinder?

TIN. No, sir; look to the clime Where you inhabit; there's the torrid zone.

TIL. Yea, there goes the hare[137] away!

[_Aside._

SIR REU. Can you not love?

TIN. Not one that loves so many.

SIR REU. 'Las, pretty peat!

[_Offers to touch her._

TIN. Pray, sir, hold off your hand; Truck with your low-pric'd traders; I must tell you Mine honour's higher rated.

SIR REU. Be it so; I wish you would disclaim your alimony With that indiff'rent touch as you do love, You should not need a dispensation, madam; It should be granted unpetitioned!

TIN. I'm confident it would; nor shall the coolness Of your affection bring me to an ebb Of favour with myself. Plant where you please, I'll henceforth scorn to hug my own disease.

TIL. So, Sir Reuben's despatched, and, like a ranger, may tappis[138] where he likes.

[_Aside._

SIR REU. But hark you, madam; what be these brave blades That thus accoutre you? Are they your Platonics, Hectors, or champion-haxters,[139] pimps or palliards, Or your choice cabinet-confidants?

TIN. You may exact accompt from them.

SIR REU. No, but I will not; Long since I've heard a proverb made me wise, And arm'd me cap-a-pie 'gainst such accounts: "Whos'e'er he be that tugs with dirty foes, He must be soil'd, admit he win or lose."

TIN. Shall I acquaint them with your adage, sir?

SIR REU. Do, if you please.

TIN. No, sir, I am too tender Of your endanger'd honour. Should a baffle Engage your fame, and I the instrument, It would disgust me.

SIR REU. You are wondrous kind; But, pray you, tell me, is this favourite, Or turnkey of your council, in the rank Of generous Hectors? I would be resolv'd, For it concerns me.

TIN. Pray, good sir, as how?

SIR REU. Since 'tis my fate, I would be branched nobly, Lest mine adulterate line degenerate, And raze the ancient splendour of mine house, As many noble families have done By mixing with inferior apple-squires, Grooms, pages, ushers, which in time begot Such middle wits in this our middle region, None could distinguish them from Corydons, Nor well discover whence they might derive Their prime descent, unless it were by th' crest Their footmen wore, or what their coach presented In its rear quarter. All your Sir Reuben begs Aims mainly at your honour's privilege, Which shielded, I'm secure; and it is this: "Let choice hands meddle with your tinder-box!"

TIN. Make that your least of fears. We'll keep our fame, Amidst this freedom, still unblemished.

KNIGHTS. So we have all receiv'd their final answers.

SIR REU. Now[140] do I mean to draw up my rejoinder. "He who will lose his wits or break his heart For such a wench as will not take his part, And will not shun what he may safely fly, May he a Bedlam or a beggar die!"

KNIGHTS. Farewell, inconstant ladies.

LADIES. Adieu, constant Acteons.

[_Exeunt omnes, the Ladies ushered in by their Confidants._

## ACT III., SCENE 1.

_Enter_ TWO CITIZENS.

1ST CIT. Is it for certain that the duke's voyage holds for Salamanca?

2D CIT. No doubt on't; his resolution is so firmly fixed no motion can decline it; and if we may credit Fame (which seldom errs in all, though it exceed in many), never was fleet more bravely rigged, better prepared, nor with more military strength furnished, nor more virile spirits accompanied, nor by more expert commanders at any time since the battle of Lepanto conducted.

1ST CIT. It was thought he would not personally have engaged himself in this adventure, but have deputed some experienced general for perfecting this grand design, and imposing a final period to an action of such high consequence.

2D CIT. 'Tis true: but those many aggrievances, aggravated with numerous petitions presented by our Seville merchants, wrought such strong effects upon the sweet, compassionate nature of the good duke, as endeared that[141] resentment, which he retained upon those merchants' relation, touching the infinitely surcharging losses which they had suffered through the hostile piracy of the Salamancans, as he made a solemn vow to engage himself in their quarrel, and either revenge the injuries and indignities they had sustained, or seal his just desires with the sacrifice of his dearest life.

1ST CIT. Were the merchant-losses great?

2D CIT. In shipping infinite, and by accomptants of approved trust computed to many millions; for, besides vessels of lesser burthen in one sea-voyage being driven by contrary winds upon the coasts of Calabria, they lost at one time The Panther, Libbard,[142] Bugle, Antelope, caracts[143] of great and formidable sail, such as would have made their party good against all assailants, had they not been dispersed and weakened by violent tempests, besides the unexpected hurricane, which dashed all the endeavours of the best pilots that all their fleet afforded: yet, reduced to this strait and sad exigent, they found no islander so compassionate as to pity their deplorable condition, but rather such as were ready to add fresh affliction to their late suffering, by seizing on whatsoever remained estimable in their freeborn vessels, and exposing them, without the least remonstrance of humanity or civil hospitality, to the mercy of the winds. This it was which winged the duke to this expedition, choosing, as report goes, the Revenge for his ship-of-war, and that only man-of-war wherein he means to steer his course, return his errand, and requite his quarrel.

1ST CIT. The duke's a person of a gallant spirit.

2D CIT. I dare affirm it, sir, that the state of Seville was never with more prowess, prudence, nor martial policy at any time managed, which not only his prosperous exploits abroad (than which none were more successive[144]), but likewise his vigilant care and command at home, may sufficiently manifest. For his late declaration under his great seal has discovered the incomparable zeal he had of serving both court and city, in commanding all such useless and incommodious weeds as trepanners, tarpaulins, with all our abusively entitled Hectors, that they should by a peremptory day depart the city and line of communication in relation to the court: since which time they have resolved, for want of better supplies, to hazard the remainder of their broken fortunes upon a desperate adventure for Tunis.

1ST CIT. In such glorious designs, levelling at honour, they declare themselves really Hectors.

_Enter a_ MARINER.

2D CIT. What news, Segasto?

MAR. The duke's upon his march, and near approaching.

1ST CIT. How quick's his spirit to redress our wrongs!

[CITIZENS _stand aside_.[145]

## SCENE II.

_Trumpets and kettle-drums sounding, with other martial music usually observed in that country._

_Enter_ DUKE EUGENIO, _Officers, and Soldiers with colours displayed_.

DUKE. Thus far on our address![146] May prosperous gales Breathe on our sails: sails, on our just designs In vindicating of our country's fame, Too long impair'd by suffering injuries; Till which redress'd, our honour lies at stake, And we made aliens to our own estate. March on then bravely, that it may appear "Our courage can revenge as well as bear."

[_They march over the stage with trumpets, fifes, drums, and colours, and go out; manentibus civibus._

1ST CIT. This gallant resolve of the duke, pursued with such alacrity, can never be sufficiently admired; and to engage his person, too, in so perilous adventure!

2D CIT. And all this in vindication of the merchants' honour, and their interest.

1ST CIT. Trust me, he appears bravely.

2D CIT. His disposition from his youth foretold What's manhood would assay----whence comes this noise?

_Enter_ BOY.

BOY. Room for our bravoes, cadets! they march along in ranks and files; their pockets grow shallow; the taverns and ordinaries they vow to be infidels, so as they have enlisted themselves soldiers of fortune.

1ST CIT. These be those trepanners whom the duke Has proscribed, or I mistake it. Let us observe their posture.

## SCENE III.

_Enter_ CAPTAIN, TREPANNERS, TARPAULINS, _with other runagadoes, orderly marching, and in the rear_, BENHADAD, _a Quaker, with tobacco-pipes_.

1ST TRE. Rouse, buckets and tubs! Hey for Tunis and Argiers.[147]

CAPT. Keep your ranks, my comrades, and fight valiantly.

2D TRE. What else, captain? We cheated before for nothing, and now, having nothing, we mean to fight for something.

3D TRE. 'Slid, bullies, I think the duke has done us a pleasure.

1ST TRE. Pray thee, how, boy?

3D TRE. I'll tell thee the short and long on't. Before, if any of us had been so valiant (as few of us were) as to borrow money on the highway, we were sometimes forced to repay it at the gibbet: but the world is turned upside down; if we get it, we may keep it, and never answer for it.

1ST TRE. Hey, boy, art thou in that lock?[148] But, noble lance-presado,[149] let us have a sea-sonnet, before we launch forth in our adventure-frigate. They say the syrens love singing.

CAPT. Agreed, wags. But which shall we have?

1ST TRE. That old catch of Tunis and Argiers; good captain, it suits best with our voyage.

CAPT. To't then, my Hectors; and keep your _elas_[150] as you do your march. The syrens will not relish you, if you sing out o' tune.[151]

THE SEA-SONG.[152]

CAPT. _To Tunis and to Argiers, boys! Great is our want, small be our joys. Let's then some voyage take in hand To get us means by sea or land. Come, follow me, my boys, come follow me, And if thou die, I'll die with thee._

[_They join in the close._

_Hast thou a wife? I have one too, And children some, as well as thou; Yet who can see his brats to starve So long as he has strength to serve? Come, follow me, my cubs, come follow me, And if thou die, I'll die with thee._

[_He fixeth his eyes as upon objects in a landskip._

_Methinks, my boys, I see the store Of precious gems and golden ore; Arabian silks and sables pure Would make an haggard stoop to th' lure. Come, follow me, &c._

_No worthless mind e'er honour sought; Let's fight as if we feared nought. If bullets fly about our ears, Let's laugh at death, and banish fears. Come, follow me, &c._

_And if thou canst not live so stench,[153] But thou must needs enjoy thy wench, If thou, my boy, such pleasure crave, A dainty doxy thou shalt have. Come, follow me, &c._

_Courage, my sparks, my knights o' th' sun; Let Seville fame what we have done. We'd better ten times fight a foe Than once for all to Tyburn go. Come, follow me, &c._

_Come, let's away, mount, march away; This calm portends a prosperous day. When we return, it shall be said That by our voyage we are made. Come, follow me, &c._

_But if we ne'er again return, Enclose our ashes in an urn, And with them spice a wassal-cup, And to Good Fellows drink it up. Come, follow me, &c._

_Which health, when it is gone about, And stoutly set their foot unto't, No doubt they shall enrolled be I' th' Book of Fame, as well as we. Come, follow me, spruce sprigs, come follow me, And, if thou fall, I'll fall with thee._

_Enter a rank of_ TARPAULINS, _pressed for the same adventure, marching over the stage, and joining in the catch, an health-cup in the leader's hand_.

TAR. _When this grand health is gone about, Where you as stoutly stood unto't, Doubt not you shall recorded be I' th' Book of Fame, as well as we. March after me, &c._

_And when this bowl shall run so round Your legs can stand upon no ground, Fear not, brave blades,[154] but you shall be Sworn brothers made as well as we. March after me, &c._

_No other obsequies we crave, Nor quaint inscriptions on our grave; A simple shroud's a soldier's share, Which if he want he needs not care. March after me, &c._

_Such vails are all we wish at last, Which if we want, the care is past. This done, to think of us were just-- Who drink not get[155] as dry as dust. March after me, &c._

_While you act what we did before, Discharge with chalk[156] the hostess' score; And if the hussy[157] challenge more, Charm th' maundring gossip with your roar. March after me, we'll frolic be, And, if thou die, I'll die with thee._

## SCENE IV.

BENHADAD _furiously accosts them_.

BEN. I proclaim you all Edomites; dragooners of Dagon; ding-dongs of Dathan! A generation of vipers!

1ST TRE. No, father Benhadad, your gravity is mistaken grossly; we are rather a generation of pipers!

[_They smoke tobacco._

2D TRE. Go to, holy Benhadad; stand you to your calling as we to our arms. Thou art for converting the Great Turk, and we for lining our pockets with Tunis gold. Where if we get our design, hold to thy principles, but no further than thou canst maintain them, and we shall create thee our household chaplain.

_Enter_ MARINER.

MAR. To sea, to sea! the winds are prosperous.

CAPT. And may we prosper with them! So farewell Seville and her dainty doxies.

ALL. Ran-tan! hey for Tunis and Argiers!

[_Exeunt colours displayed, with fifes and drums._

1ST CIT. Such was the duke's care to remove those weeds, Whose fatal growth might choke maturer seeds.

2D CIT. Good governors wise gardeners imitate: These cheer their plants; those steer a planted state.

[_Exeunt._

TRIL. [_From the high gallery._] I cannot, gentlemen, contain myself.

TIM. Thy genius has surpass'd itself; Thy scene is richly various: prease on still; These galleries applaud thy comic skill.

[_He takes his seat again._

## SCENE V.

_Enter_ CONSTABLE _and_ WATCH, _in rug gowns, bills, and dark lanthorns_.

CON. Come along with your horns, my lads of metal. It was the duke's pleasure before his departure, that we should be appointed the sinks and sentinels of the city, and that none shall have ingress, egress, or regress but by our special authority and favour. But, harm watch, harm catch: for my part, since I crept into this office, I am woven into such a knot of good fellowship, as I can watch no more than a dormouse: nay, I am verily persuaded, if I hold constable long, the deputy of the ward will return me one of the Seven Sleepers. But let me advise you, my birds of the Capitol, that you walk not after my example: be it your care to watch, while I sleep. Many eyes are upon you; but my eyes grow heavy; my day's society bids me take a nap.

WATCH. But one word, good master, before you drop into your slumber: report goes, that there be spirits that patrol familiarly in this sentry; what shall we say to them, if they pass by?

CON. Bid them stand.[158]

WATCH. But what if they either cannot or will not?

CON. Let them then take themselves to their heels, and thank God you are so well rid of them.

WATCH. One word more, good constable, and then good night. Be these the spirits that allure our children with spice and trinkets to their schippers, and so convey them to th' Bermudas?[159]

CON. In no wise, neighbours; these spirits come from the low countries: and though at first sight very frightful, yet, appearing unarmed, they become less fearful.

1ST WATCH. Nay, if these pretty familiars come to our guard naked,[160] we shall prove hard enough for them.

2D WATCH. Well, neighbour Rugweed, let us not presume too far on our strength: these spirits be a dangerous kind of whifflers, and, like our Robin Goodfellows, will play their legerdemain tricks, scudding here and there in a trice, and nimbly snap you, when least suspected.

## SCENE VI.

_Enter_ GALLERIUS' GHOST.

From the Cinnerian depth here am I come Leaving an Erra Pater in my tomb, To take a view, which of my fellows be The thriving'st artists in astronomy. Rank one by one in astrologic row, And dying see, whom thou didst living know.

[_He makes his figure._

Mount, gainful Crinon; for to thee we give, As thou deserv'st, the sole prerogative: For thy divining lines have purchas'd more Than all our prime professors got before. Jason won much at Colchis; but thy gain Has lin'd thy shoulders in a Swedish chain. Rich divination! But what's knowledge worth, If people do not credit what's set forth?

[Sidenote: _Omnia temporibus cecinit Cassandra futuris. QuA| ventura suis--via unquam credita Teucris Melitus._]

This was Cassandra's loss, whom we allow And hold a prophetess as true as thou But not so well believ'd. Take heed, my blade, Thy late predictions cannot retrograde, And give thine erring notions such a check, As they unlink that chain which decks thy neck. Signs sometimes change their influence, we see: I wish the like event befall not thee. The golden number and saturnian line Have been propitious to thee all thy time: Thy says held oracles: thy observations For death, war, weather, held by foreign nations As positive maxims: yet one critical point Will throw this artful fabric out o' joint. Dog-days each year affords; if thou find none, Thy fortune's clearer far than any one. Let me then caution thee, divining Crinon, Lest thy own bosom prove thy treach'rous Sinon, Let not opinion make thy judgment err: "The ev'ning conquest crowns the conqueror." Hope of reward or one victorious field Is no firm ground for any one to build. May ill success clothe him with discontent, That balanceth the cause by the event. Next him ascend, Erigonus, whose art, Richly embellish'd with a loyal heart, Will not permit thy thoughts to stoop so low As to pretend more than thy notions know, Or can attain to. Thou hast ta'en content With as much freedom under strait restraint, As Pibrack in his paradox express'd, Inwardly cheer'd when outwardly distress'd. I have much mus'd, while thou convers'd with us Of the gradations o' th' Celestial House, Yet hadst none of thine own to shelter thee. This was an humour that transported me: To see a mind so large, and to discourse As if he had got Fortunatus' purse! This caus'd me think that we did greatly err In holding thee a mere astrologer, Though't be a sacred-secret speculation, And highly meriting our admiration: But rather some rare stoic, well content With his estate, however the world went. Yet when I saw thine artificial scheme Exactly drawn, as none of more esteem, I wonder'd much how such choice art could want, Unless the whole world were grown ignorant. I heard of late, what I did never dream, Thy farming life had drawn thee to a team, Preferring th' culture of an husbandman Before a needful astrologian, Who in this thankless age may pine and die, Before he profit by astronomy. For though I must confess an artist can Contrive things better than another man, Yet when the task is done, he finds his pains Nought[161] but to fill his belly with his brains. Is this the guerdon due to liberal arts, T' admire the head, and then to starve the parts? Timely prevention thou discreetly us'd, Before the fruits of knowledge were abus'd. "When learning has incurr'd a fearful damp, To save our oil 'tis good to quench our lamp." Rest, then, on thy enjoyments, and receive What may preserve a life, reserve a grave. This with convenience may supply thy store, And lodge thee with content: what wouldst thou more? While he who thirsts for gold, and does receive it, Pules like a baby when he's forc'd to leave it. For you, Liberius, I would have you look For your improvement on your table-book; Where you shall find how you bore once a name Both in the rank of fortune and of fame; But others, rising to a higher merit, Darken'd that splendour which you did inherit, Or those mistakes which caus'd you err so far, As your late years have proved canicular. To waste more paper I would never have you, For I'm resolv'd your book will never save you, Nor you from it receive a benefit. Suppress, then, pray thee, thy leaf-falling wit; Merlin's Collections will not serve thy turn, Retire, retire, and slumber in thine[162] urn. Dotage has chill'd thy brain: in silence sleep; "He's wise enough that can his credit keep." For you, Columba, and rare Peregrine, It is your fate to nestle in a clime Of disadvantage: Wisdom bids you build Where you may dwell, and sow in such a field, Where you may reap the harvest you have sown: "Arts unimprov'd are to no purpose shown." Those only may be truly said to know, Whose knowledge pays their country what they owe; And (with the bee) from labour never cease, Till they have stor'd their hives with sweet increase. Which thriving industry, infus'd by nature In such a small political a creature, Might by a native model render thee Conducts of science in astrology:

[Sidenote: _Saltibus hirsutis haud spatiantur apes._]

For she accounts it as a fruitless toil To browse on suckets in a barren soil. For you, Alatus, mount with airy wing, And to [your] scatter'd nest some feathers bring: Though popular esteem afford delight, It cannot satisfy the appetite. Fame is a painted meat, and cannot feed Nor sate the stomach when it stands in need. This was mine own condition; while I liv'd, I to the highest pitch of fame arriv'd; All the Rialto sounded with my praise, Yet silence shrouded this within few days; For after some few funeral tears were shed, My memory died, before tears went to bed. Yea, in my lifetime, when my state grew low, My fame found none she would conduct me to: And let this caution thee. Though thou swell great In men's conceit, this will not get thee meat. "The only means to raise friends, fame, and store, Is to make industry thy providor." For Atro-Lucus Serands, they be such I would not touch them, lest I should too much Impeach their branded fames: one word for all-- As their disgrace is great, their knowledge small: Let these demoniacs practise less in black, It will discolour all their almanac. But this was not my errand. I would know How ladies with their husbands suit below. Those frolic girls, I mean, and of none else, Who were induc'd by mine and Crinon's spells

[MEPHISTOPHILUS _appears and resolves him_.

To choose strange bedfellows. Pray, tell me how, Dear Mephistophilus, those wantons do.

MEPH. All out of joint: they've left their husbands' bed.

GAL. By this it seems they were not rightly wed; There was no justice in't: for if there had, Should they break loose, they would be judged mad. But now mine hour approacheth; I must pass Down to that vault where late I lodged was. Fix, Mephistophilus, this on that gate, That those who knew me may collect my fate.

[MEPHISTOPHILUS _having fixed this inscription on the portal of the gate, they descend_.

INSCRIPTION.

_The Astronomical Anatomy in a shadowed physnomy, recommended to posterity, dissected and presented in the empirical ghost of D. Nicholas Gallerius._----_Facilis descensus Averni._

_Enter_ WATCH _distraughtedly, letting fall their lanthorns_.

WATCH. Spirits, spirits, spirits!

_Enter_ CONSTABLE, _rubbing his eyes_.

CON. Where, where, where?

WATCH. Here, there, and everywhere; Now in the porter's lodge, then in the air!

CON. A _foutre_ for such ranging mawkins! I'll tell you, fellow-officers--for I have been since my weaning sufficiently schooled in the office of a constable--that we have no legislative power (do you mark me?) to commit any person, be he never so notorious a delinquent, if he fly or (as our falconers say) mount up into th' air. We are not bound to follow him, neither to attach nor commit him. And why? says the law. Because it is not in our power to catch him. But if he strut in the street, you may command him to come before me the Constable, as I am the representative body of the duke; or before yourselves, being the representative body of your Constable; and if the person so taken remain under safe custody, and he fly, if you overtake him by speed of foot, or by help of the bellman's mongrel, you may by the law of arms lay him by th' heels.

[_Dismiss the_ WATCH, _and exeunt_.

## SCENE VII.

_Enter_ SIR AMADIN PUNY, SIR JASPER SIMPLETON, SIR ARTHUR HEARTLESS, SIR GREGORY SHAPELESS, SIR TRISTRAM SHORTTOOL, SIR REUBEN SCATTERGOOD.

SIR REU. Doubt nothing, my fellow-knights of Hornsey; the plot is so neatly and nimbly laid as it cannot but hold stitch.

ALL. But be the favourites' suits got, Sir Reuben?

SIR REU. They are brought to our lodgings already. To try a conclusion, I have most fortunately made their pages our 'coys by the influence of a white powder, which has wrought so powerfully on their tender pulse, as they have engaged themselves ours back and edge. _Sunt munera vincula servis._

SIR TRIS. 'Tis true, but how shall we pursue this project, that we may act to purpose what your ingenuity has contrived?

SIR REU. Leave that to me; be it your care to follow my direction, and if I make not these haxters as hateful to our hussies as ever they were to us who were their husbands, set me up for a Jack-a-Lent or a Shrove-cock for every boy to throw at! The net is spread, and if they 'scape the noose, they must have more eyes than their own to discover it.

SIR AMA. Excellent, excellent! I long till I be at work.

SIR REU. It will admit no delay, Sir Amadin, I assure you. We have not overwatched this night to no purpose. This very morning by times we must be fitted with our properties, and with a scornful neglect pass by that rendezvous where our gamesome ladies expect their youthful Platonics.

SIR GRE. Revenge to me 's far sweeter than to live.

ALL. To't, to't; for love's sake, let us to't.

SIR REU. The plot is laid with such industrious skill, If this take not, I do not know what will.

[_Exeunt._

## ACT IV., SCENE 1.

_Enter_ MADAM FRICASE, MADAM CAVEARE, MADAM JULIPPE, MADAM JOCULETTE, MADAM MEDLAR, MADAM TINDER.

FRI. How tedious morns these be in our expectance Of what we tender most?

CAV. Credit me, madam, My marriage-day from th' rising sun to night Seem'd not so long, though it was long enough-- As the slow-running course of this morn's visit.

JUL. Desires cannot endure protractive hours; The poet has confirm'd our thoughts in this, Placing our action far below our wish: "Sooner quenched is love's fire With fruition than desire."

JOC. That poet surely was neither Mantuan, Lucian, nor Claudian.

MED. No, sister; nor AlcA|us, EubA|us, nor Apuleius; but some cold cucumber-spirit--Xenocrates, who never actually knew how to hug his mistress.

TIN. This is the hour and place.

FRI. It is so; and no doubt but our feathered favourites have overflown us.

## SCENE II.

_Enter_ VINTRESS _and_ DRAWERS.

VIN. What do you lack, my princely beauties?

CAV. What your sex cannot furnish us with, my dainty Dabrides. Did you entertain no gallants lately?

VIN. Not any, madam; but gallants are men of their words; they will stand to their tacking upon occasion: will you be pleased, noble ladies, in their absence to bestow yourselves in a room; or, to procreate yourselves, take a turn in the garden?

MED. 'Slid, does she hold us for Andalusian studs,[163] that can breed by the air, or procreate of ourselves?

FRI. Well, her meaning is good; we will accept her offer, and take a walk or a cheerful repose at our pleasure: and in it let each of us, for want of more real objects, entertain an imaginary apprehension of their absent lover.

[_Knocking within._

DRAW. Anon, anon, sir; quick, quick as Erebus, good Jeremy! Uds so, what a chattering they make? I verily think our old Tityre Tu's and Bugle Blews are come to town, they keep such a damnable quarter.

2D DRAW. They knock as they were madmen in the percullis. Quick, quick; more attendants in the _Unicorn_. There goes none to the _Antwerp_. The _Lion_ and the _Roebuck_[164] have not one drawer to attend them. Who goes into the Ladies' Garden?[165]

1ST DRAW. We shall have a brave term, if we stir not our stumps better.

[_Exeunt._

_The Ladies' Garden._--JULLIPPE, &c.

JUL. Th' Elysian groves so richly beautified, Deck'd with the tufted verdure: watered With crystal rills, and cloth'd above conceit In native diap'ry: may emblems be Of this delicious platform, where each sense May sate its quest with sweet satiety.

JOC. And th' edifying sense with melody.

[_Voices of nightingales._

Hark, how that ev'ning quire of nightingales

[Sidenote: _Dum Philomela canit, spinum sub pectore figit: Crimen ut incestus se meminisse dolet._]

Warble with shrillest notes, pricks at their breasts, Tereus' incestuous crime; as if't had been A fact inexpiable: wherein we doubt, What we should do, if [we] were put unto't. This is a garden, sure, of great frequent.

CAV. Lucullus nor the Roman Argentine Had ne'er the like: nor with completer beauties More gracefully embellish'd: it might be Styl'd the Spring Garden for variety Of all delights: balls, treats, and choice invites, Address'd for amorous parliance; and indeed To make the bargain up--you know my meaning.

FRI. Thou art a dang'rous beagle. What say you, ladies? In this perpetual spring-like sweet retire, To gratify her court'sy and conduct, Who tender'd these respects: let's have a frolic-- A jovial frolic, till the Platonics come. Whom we must chide, and with some discontent Tax for their slowness.

ALL. The motion's wondrous good; We all assent to't.

JOC. But in this assent Scatter such freedom as it may appear Our fortunes be our own: and that no eye Of jealousy or parsimonious thrift Can bound our humour. Let's call up the drawer.

[_They ring the bell._

_Enter_ DRAWER.

DRAW. Your pleasures, madams?

ALL. What hast within, boy?

DRAW. Cakes, creams, stewed prunes, olivets, tongues, tarts, and----

CAV. What else, you Jack-of-all-trades! Doth your mistress take us, you nitty-napry rascal, for her bordella's blouses?[166] Bring us here pistachio nuts, Strengthening oringo roots. Quince, peach, and preserv'd apricock, With the stones pendant to't.[167] With such incentive and salacious cates, As quicken hours, and sharpen appetite.

DRAW. You shall, you shall, madam;--on my life, these be the ladies of the New Dress; they'll never be satisfied.

[_Aside._

[_Exit._

CAV. Let us imagine ourselves now to be planted in the Sparagus Garden, where if we want anything, it is our own fault. A fair alimony needs no pawn; it will discharge a tavern-bill at any time.

## SCENE III.

_Enter again the_ VINTRESS _and_ DRAWER _with wine and fruit_.

VIN. How is it, noble ladies? Your honours shall want no rarities that our storehouse may afford you.

CAV. A glass of muscadella for me. Here, Madam Fricase, to Monsieur Florello!

[_Drinks._

FRI. This court'sy, madam, must not beget in you a forgetfulness of Caranto.

CAV. So nearly he's unbosomed, you need not fear it.

JUL. Nectarella for me. Here, princely Joculette, to your Salibrand!

[_Drinks._

JOC. Meantime, remember loyal Palisado.

JUL. No individual can be well forgot.

MED. Medea shall be mine. This, Madam Tinder, to your Tillyvally!

[_Drinks._

TIN. First to your own Morisco! So, this health's gone round.

FRI. Now when our throats are clear, let's join together In some choice musical air.

ALL. Agreed, agreed, What shall we have?

FRI. What may enliven love, And feather fancy with Icarian wings.

ALL. We must be mounting then. Your subject, madam?

FRI. _Le Drollere Amaranto._

ALL. Dainty airs, And lines to suit them: we shall follow you.

SONG, _in various Airs_.

_What shall we poor ladies do, Match'd to shallops without brains, Whose demains_[168] _are in grains, And their wits in madding veins, Stor'd with Neapolitan mains? Give us sprightly sprigs of manhood, None of these swads nor airy squibs, Who would fain do, but cannot._

[_They alter the air upon the close of every stanza._

_Poor ladies, how we dwindle? Who can spin without a spindle? Valour never learn'd to tremble, But in Cupid's dalliance nimble. Little good does that stud with a stallion, Fancies alien, weakly jointed, Meanly mann'd, worse appointed, Who would do, if he knew how, But, alas! he would, but cannot._

_Penelope, though she were chaste, Yet she bade her spouse make haste, Lest by his sojourning long She might chance to change her song, And do her Ulysses wrong; What then may we, who matched be With these haggards madly manned, Who would gladly do, but cannot?_

_Shall our youthful hopes decline; Fade and perish in their prime: And like forc'd Andromeda Estrang'd from fancy's law! Shall we wives and widows be, Bound unto a barren tree?_

_Ushers come and apple-squires To complete our free desires: Platonics there be store Fitly fram'd and train'd to man it. Bavin once set afire Will not so soon expire; Let's never stay with such as they, Who gladly would, but cannot._

_Shall we love, live, and feel no heat While our active pulses beat? Shall we hug none of our own, But such as drop from th' frigid zone? Let's rather suit old love adieu, And i' th' requests suit for some new Who have the heart to man it. Tell us not this nor tell us that; A kid is better than a cat, And though he show, we know not what, He cannot._

FRI. As I'm a virgin, ladies, bravely performed! Once more Frontiniac, and then a walk.

[_She drinks._

This wine wants flavour, sapour, odour, vigour; Taste it, dear madam, 'tis as pall and flat As a sear fly-flap.

DRAW. Our last year's vintage, madam, was but small.

CAV. It seems so by your measure: this would never Quicken the spirit nor inflame the blood.

[_One of the Ladies, looking out, discovers their deserted Knights attired like their favourites, with their cloaks over their faces._

LADY. They come, they come, they come!

ALL. Let's entertain them with a joint neglect.

## SCENE IV.

_As their husbands pass along, they take occasion of discourse one with another._

KNIGHTS. Let us pass by them with regardless scorn.

SIR REU. Pox on these overacting prostitutes! They sate mine appetite.

[_They interchange these expresses as they pass by their Ladies' room._

SIR TRIS. Fancy so fed Begets a surfeit, ere it gets to bed.

SIR GRE. Ere I Platonic turn or Confidant, Or an officious servant to a puss, Whose honour lies at stake, let me become A scorn to my relations.

SIR ART. Or when I Engage my person, like a profess'd bolt, To vindicate a mistress, who for sale Would set her soul at hazard, may my grave Be in the kennel, and the scavenger The penman of my epitaph!

SIR JAS. Or I Embrace a monkey for a mass of treasure.

SIR AMA. May never down seize on this downless chin, When I become an usher to her sin.

SIR REU. So, let them chaw of this. Our scene is done, We'll leave the rest to their digestion: We must return those Adamites their clothes To make their visits in, or they're lost men; But it were strange, should they recruit again.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE V.

FRI. How is it, ladies?

CAV. Sure, we're in a dream. Whence comes this strangeness?

JUL. From the too much freedom Of our affection: had we kept them still, At a discreeter distance, we had play'd The wiser falc'ners, and caus'd them stoop Unto our lure with eager appetite. Fruits offer'd are least valu'd: got by stealth Or by surprise, they're precious.

JOC. Shall we sleep With this affront?

MED. Our spirits were remiss, Should we not pay them home in their own coin.

TIN. Let Tinder lose her name, her family, And alimony (which she values most), If Tilly suffer not for this disgrace.

ALL. We vow the like: revenge may be excus'd, For love resolves to hate when 'tis abus'd.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE VI.

_The Favourites appear to their half-bodies in their shirts, in rooms above._

FLO. Why, you whoreson rogue! where's my suit? As I hope for mercy, I am half-persuaded that this slip-halter has pawned my clothes.

CAR. Nay, as our rooms be near, our fates are all alike. If my visit be admitted, I must present it naked.

JOC. When she sees her Salibrand so unmodiously accoutred, she will jeer him out of his periwig, and render him an Adamite cap-a-pie.

PAL. Never were servants without a dress less suitable to ladies of the New Dress.

SAL. We shall be held for salemen, or Knights of the White Livery, if we encounter them thus habited.

MOR. Nay, rather for Knights o' th' Post, who had forfeited their broked suits for want of swearing.

TIL. Nay, for tumblers, truckers, or scullermen: Plato, in all his Commonweal, had never such naked followers.

[_Their pages bring their clothes._

FLO. Now, you hemp-strings, had you no time to nim us, but when we were upon our visits?

PAGES. Your suits, sir, were not without employment. They were seam-rent, and stood in need of stitching.

ALL. Go to, rogues, you will never hang well together till you be stitched in a halter.

[_They attire themselves._

PAGES. Well, we got more clear gains by this shift than you will by your visit.

[_Aside._

CAR. We trench too much upon these ladies' patience: Better too late than never; let us haste To crown their longing hopes with our attendance: Delays in visits quicken our desires, And in their objects kindle secret fires.

[_They come down buttoning themselves._

[Sidenote: _Fastus in Antidotum frigoris, processit et urget Insolitos motus, lepidA|que Cupidinis A|stus, Vestibus amictus laceratis, alget et ardet._--Solin.]

FLO. 'Tis high meridian! we've lost the time Of our appointed treatment.[169]

CAR. Let's contrive Some neat evasion covertly disguis'd To bear the face of truth.

SAL. It would do well, Let's mould it as we go unto the garden.[170]

MOR. 'Twere vain to call; they're long ere this dismiss'd.[171]

PAL. And with incens'd spirits; which t' allay Were a receipt worth purchase.

TIL. Th' wound's so green, It must admit a cure. Our confidence Prepares us best admittance; go along.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE VII.

_Enter the_ ALIMONY LADIES _at the other door_.

FLO. How opportunely doth this season meet To give us freedom in our intercourse!

MOR. There is a secret influence, no doubt, Design'd to second us in our desires.

[_They go towards their Ladies._

FLO. Madam!

FRI. We were mad dames indeed, should we give freedom to such injurious favourites.

CAR. This is stormy language; I ever thought our late neglect would nettle them.

[_Aside._

FRI. You can affront us, sir, and with your wit Take a deep draught of Lethe and forget!

FLO. Forget! 'Slid, I did ne'er affront you.

FRI. No? Nor with a screw'd contemptuous look pass by us When we were at our treat? and with a scorn Not only slight us, but impeach our fame?

FLO. I call the heavens to witness, never I!

FRI. Perfidious wretch! this did I hear and see, And such records cannot deluded be. Your words, sir, are regist'red.

FLO. Pray, let's hear them.

FRI. You begun first with what your ulcerous flesh, If I be not deceiv'd, infected is.

[_The Favourites, as they appeared to their half-bodies in the preceding scene: so the deserted Knights become spectators of those public affronts done them by their Ladies: only presenting themselves, and so withdrawing._

HUS. Hah, hah, hah! how neatly be these widgeons catcht in their own springes!

TRILLO _from the gallery_.

Bravely continued, Timon, as I live; Each subtle strain deserves a laurel sprig.

FRI. "Pox on these overacting prostitutes They sate mine appetite."

CAR. What might I say, That should disrelish Madam Caveare?

CAV. You rant it bravely, sir. "Fancy so fed Begets a surfeit ere it gets to bed."

JUL. You, Palisado, stand more resolute; "Ere I Platonic turn or Confidant, Or an officious servant to a puss Whose honour lies at stake, let me become A scorn to my relations."

JOC. "Or when I" (Thus I deblazon you, base Salibrand) "Engage my person, like a profess'd bolt To vindicate a mistress, who for sale Would set her soul at hazard, may my grave Be in the kennel, and the scavenger The penman of my epitaph."

MED. "Or I" (Thus you renounce your Medlar, Don Morisco) "Embrace a monkey for a mass of treasure."

TIN. Nor would Sir Tilly be one hair behind In scornful dereliction of our sex. "May never down seize on his downless chin, When he becomes an usher to our sin."

FLO. The devil's a witch, and has impostur'd them.

ALL PLA. Do you believe all this!

LADIES. As we do you, Stains to true love and all society! Henceforth observe your distance, as you tender Fame, freedom, life: else we do vow revenge Shall dog you at the heels.

FLO. So, we are lost; We must go cast about for some new aA"rie: For these be fledg'd and flown.

CAR. By this prevention I'll hate a mistress of such rare invention.

PAL. It seems their spleens for picking quarrels sought, In pressing what we neither spake nor thought.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE VIII.

_Enter Two Seville Merchants._

1ST MER. Our Duke Eugenio is safe return'd, Laden with trophies, spoils, and victories.

2D MER. Those Hectors, too, who launched forth for Tunis, Have shown their valour, and enrich'd their fortunes, Which languish'd in despair before this voyage, Above expectance; rich rixdollars are Sown like Pactolus' sand: their pockets cramm'd With Indian ore.

1ST MER. What will not prowess do, Where hope of honour, promise of reward, Or country's fame--th' attractiv'st lure of all-- Give spirit to men's actions?

2D MER. This appears Instanc'd in them to life:[172] for by their hazard, Successfully completed, foreign sails Ne'er came so richly fraughted.

1ST MER. It were well The rest of our stout myrmidons, whose courage Stands for the wall, or in a tavern quarrel Or an highway's surprise, to raise a stock To feed their debauch'd visits, were so employ'd It would secure our commerce.

2D MER. This good duke Will regulate, no doubt, his state-affairs With that composure, as no fruitless weed Shall promise to itself long nourishment Within the coast of Seville. What means this?

[_A noise of clarions, surdons, fifes, plausulets, within._

MESSENGER. The Duke's approaching in triumphant state.

HERALD. Make clear the way; room for his excellence! Never did Seville show more like herself Nor beautifi'd with a more graceful presence Since her foundation.

## ACT V., SCENE 1.

_Enter_ DUKE, _trumpets and drums sounding, colours victoriously displayed. Field-Officers with Soldiers martially ordered in rank and file_.

HER. What a majesty Without all servile affectation His personating presence, cloth'd with state And princely posture, seems to represent!

ALL. Conquest and affability contend Which to his count'nance may pretend most right. His spirit's too evenly poised to be transported With the success of fortune. Let us hear him.

DUKE. Safely arriv'd, thanks to the pow'rs above, Here are we come: our enemies subdu'd, Our wrongs redress'd, our merchants satisfi'd: No foreign force t' oppose us. Thus has time Crown'd our addresses with triumphant palms, And by just war begot a thankful peace.

ALL. Long live Eugenio, Seville's governor!

DUKE. Our constant care shall gratify your love. Meantime, let these brave soldiers sharers be In our success: whom you and we're to hold Such joint assistants in our victories, As their redoubted prowess merits fame, And competent rewards to recompense Their noble service: for (believe it, friends) Never were hazards better seconded, Nor by their valour to a period Sooner reduced; so prosperous was our fight In dark'ning those who took away our light. And having now compos'd these broils abroad, We're to look homeward, and redress those wrongs Which nestle in the bosom of our state: So much more dang'rous, because connivance Has wrought them into habits. These, we fear, Pretend a privilege, because the face Of greatness gives them count'nance. But our laws Must be no spider-webs, to take small flies, And let the great ones 'scape. We have resolv'd "Greatness shall be no subterfuge to guilt." This must we act with speed, and closely too; For secrecy, wing'd with celerity, Be the two wheels which manage moral states And martial actions. After short repose, These we'll chastise; and by a due survey, As just complaints shall be exhibited, Measure our censure to the peccants' crime. Nor must we spin our time: we have design'd Our very next day for aggrievances Of court and city, where our absence might Admit, perchance, more freedom to offend. "The only way to salve a deep disease Is to give what may cure, not what may please. Wherein delays prove worst: artists apply Receipts, before distempers grow too high."

[_Exit, tubis et tympanis sonantibus; conspicuo aulicorum et stratiotum coetu comitante._

ALL. Under such guardians may we live and die.

[_Exeunt plebeii._

## SCENE II.

_Enter a Regiment of_ TREPANNERS _and_ TARPAULINS, _with drum and colours, gallantly marching in their victorious return and prosperous success from Tunis_.

1ST OFF. Sa-sa.

2D OFF. Ran-tan.

3D OFF. Tara-tantara. Thus far from the Isle of Canary. Is not this better, my boys, than trepanning an old drolling friar for a sequestered bond?--Hey boys, here be those Indian rats that cant and chirp in my pocket, as if after a long apprenticeship they sought to be made freemen.

[_He shakes his pocket._

But I must not yet enlarge them.

2D OFF. O ye pitiful simpletons, who spend your days in throwing cudgels at Jack-a-Lents or Shrove-cocks!

3D OFF. Nay, in making gooselings in embers: and starting as if they were planet-struck at the weak report of a pot-gun.

1ST OFF. My wish shall be for all that puisne pen-feathered aA"rie of buzzardism[173] and stanielry:[174] "_That such as they who love to stay to suck their mamma's teat, May live at home, but ne'er find one to give them clothes or meat._"

LANCEPRES. Come along, wags; let's in a frolic way march to our old friends in new suits, and reserve a screwed look for a threepenny ordinary.

2D OFF. Along, along! but utter not too much language, honest pockets, till a question be asked you.

[_He shakes his pocket._

ALL. Hey for a fee-farm rent in Tunis!

[_Exeunt capering._

## SCENE III.

_Enter two_ COUNTRY BOORS.

HUS. Content thee, content thee, Christabel.

WIFE. Yes, surely, that's a trim word; but when, trow you, had I it? As I am an honest woman, I have been this goodman Fumbler's wife so many years, and he never yet gave me content. 'Tis such a dry pilchard, he deserves nothing more than basting.

HUS. Fie, Christabel! fie, for shame! hold thy trattles; is it my fault if thou be barren?

WIFE. Barren, you cods-head! Lies the fault there, you island cur! Nay, all the parish will witness for me that I was not barren before I met with you. Barren, stitchel![175] that shall not serve thy turn. In plain terms, Jocelin, since thou cannot content me one way, thou shalt another.

HUS. What would my duck have?

WIFE. What, my drake, the law will give me.

HUS. Law!

WIFE. Yes, you wizard.[176] I have already fed a glib-tongued parrot, with a coif on his head, that will trounce you.

HUS. What have I done, my malmsey?

WIFE. Nay, your doing nothing, you dumpling, has brought you into this pickle. The short and the long on't is this, I will have ale-money.[177]

HUS. Ale-money! what means my chicken by that?

WIFE. I have been neither so long nor ill taught by my betters, but I know the meaning of ale-money well enough. My land'slady Joculette, God bless her! is matched to as handsome a frolic youngster as one can see on a summer's day; yet she dislikes him, and has recovered a good stock of ale-money. I love to follow the example of my betters. Set your heart at rest, Jocelin; I must and will have ale-money.

HUS. Thou shalt have anything, my coney Christabel, so thou wilt rest contented.

WIFE. Nay, husband, you know well that I am forced many nights to go to rest weakly contented. But, if I chance to trudge to court, I mean to lie all open; you shall hear. I intend not to lay leaves on my wounds. The duke, I hear, is a merciful man, and will not suffer any of his poor subjects to fall short of their due.

HUS. Well, girl, thou shalt find me ready to appear before his grace at any time.

WIFE. You'll have a gracious bargain on't then, doubtless. Trust me, Jocelin, you will distemper all our ladies at court, if you push at the gate with your ram-horns.

HUS. She's possessed, sure.

WIFE. No, not yet; but I mean shortly to be possessed of my ale-money. You shall play no more the sharking foist with me, you fumbling fiddler, you. I hope I have friends at court that will take course that I may have my whole due; and then _foutre_ for Jocelin!

[_Exit._

HUS. Well, the thought is ta'en. I see one must thank God for a shrew as well as for a sheep, though the sheep have more wool on his back, and affords a more savoury repast at the board. Hanging and wedding go by destiny, and I hold the former to be the happier destiny of the twain; yet he that will practise the art of swinging in a halter, either to please or cross a shrew's humour, let him hang like a puppy without hope of pity, and die intestate to make his wife heir on't, till some nimble younker become his successor, and, stumbling on his grave, laugh at the cuckoldly slave.

[_Exit._

## SCENE IV.

_Enter the cashiered_ CONFIDANTS, _in a discontented posture_.

FLO. Summoned to appear! for what? What have we done?

CAR. Incensed those humorous scornful ladies. Thence rose the ground, I durst wager my beaver on't; They ought us a spite, and their information has done't.

PAL. This falls pat on their resolves: for those disdainful wenches, in the heat of their passion, vowed jointly that revenge should kick up our heels.

SAL. Our heels are not so short, though theirs be. Should they pursue this information, it would dart highly on their dishonour.

MOR. Honour! what may that be in this age, but an airy title? These _bona-robas_ have not lost the art of ingratiating, nor deluding their servants. There be chimneys enough at court to convey their smoke. Beauty and confidence keep strong sentinels in love's army. They cannot want solicitors in a place of liberty.

TIL. Let them hold to't! Their complaints are but squibs in the air. Such whifflers are below my scorn, and beneath my spite. Let's bravely on: I should account his fate The worst of ills, that's foil'd by woman's hate.

FLO. Yet 'twas Alcides' heavy fate, and he Was stronger far than twenty such as we.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE V.

_Enter the_ ALIMONY LADIES.

FRI. Convened to court! Some masque or princely ball, I'll gage mine honour on't. We must be employed, sisters.

CAV. And usefully too, I hope.

JUL. I see well the court can do nothing without our city revellers. Trust me, I am with child till I get to't: but my desires are enlivened for a sight of my lord especially.

JOC. Or your special lord, madam. We smell your meaning. As I am virtuous, he deserves your smile, or whatsoever may most endear him. I have known none at any time court love with a more graceful nor accurate presence. He can be both seriously amorous and amorously serious.

MED. Surely, Lady Joculette, you set him at a rate far above th' market? you value him not as if you meant to sell.

JOC. No, nor buy neither. I have no property in such a rich pennyworth; for, if I had, I should wish----

MED. I know what, madam.

JOC. Good now! thy conceit?

MED. Shall I freely unbosom me?

ALL. Pray thee, madam; do, madam!

MED. You would wish that, his puny baker-legs had more Essex[178] growth in them, for else they would make ill butcher's ware!

JOC. Thou art a shrewd wench, trust me.

TIN. Well, ladies, I know a new-minted lord, that can act the Spanish Don, with a peaked beard and a starched look, to an hair.

FRI. O Madam Tinder, I guess where you are; but he wants a little of your spirit. He can cringe and caress better than he dare fight. A lady's honour might perish under such a feverish champion.

CAR. For love's sake, let's make haste. Nothing will be done till we come.

_Enter_ CHRISTABEL _with a crutch_.

CHRIS. Good madam landlady, take lame Christabel along with you; she means to have a bout for her ale-money.

JOC. We shall not want, then, for handsome attendance.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE VI.

_Enter_ GENTLEMAN-USHER.

G.-USHER. Give way! make present way for his excellence and his consuls.

_Enter_ DUKE EUGENIO _and his Consuls. After them the deserted_ KNIGHTS; _the_ PLATONIC CONFIDANTS; _the_ ALIMONY LADIES; _the_ TUNIS ENGAGERS.

DUKE. As we have view'd and clear'd our foreign coasts, We're now to prune those wild luxurious sprays, Which give impede unto this spreading vine, Our flow'ry Seville, whose succeeding fame, Acquir'd by civil[179] discipline, exacts Our care and yours, grave councillors of state. 'Tis not enough with balms to close the skin, And leave the wound t' exulcerate within; For he, whose care's to cure the core without And searcheth not the bottom, spoils the root. Let's first then look on vices, which put on The face of virtue; and where modesty (Merely dissembled) cloth'd with taking beauty, Arms itself strongly 'gainst all opposition. Nay, what retains ofttimes such influence On reverend scarlet, as it darks the light Of judgment; and makes elders fix their eyes On rare-light objects, which so strangely takes, As they make judges vice's advocates. But here's none such, I hope. Our state is free, And so our patriots and state-consuls be. Complaints inform us, and we wond'red much At th' first perusal, how a feminine nature, So sweetly pleasing, should be so deprav'd.

FRI. What means the duke?

[_Aside._

CAR. I relish not th' discourse.

[_Aside._

DUKE. Have we not here some ladies o'th' New Dress, So newly styl'd, and in their honour soil'd, Who have deserted whom they ought to love?

LADIES. Is this the court masque, and the ball we look'd for?

[_Aside._

DUKE. Be you those ladies?

CHRIS. I am one of them, forsooth.

LADIES. We are the same, so like your excellence. And now redress'd.

DUKE. We understand no less: Your alimonies signed by our court!

CHRIS. They have not signed mine, if't please your dukeship. Truly, I am a very impudent, lame woman, and my husband a feeble, weak-doing man. Your grace must needs grant me ale-money.

DUKE. See what examples, ladies, you have given To simple women! I shall here propose Two tenders to your choice: either receive (And with a conjugal endearment, too) Your late-deserted husbands, or prepare The remainder of your days to entertain A strict monastic life. Your sentence's pass'd: Choose which you please.

JOC. I never shall endure A cloister'd life, unless I had a friar; Sir Gregory Shapeless shall be my Platonic.

MED. Rather than none, I'll take Sir Tristram Shorttool.

JUL. I for Sir Arthur Heartless.

CAV. I must put on my nightgown for Sir Jasper Simpleton.

FRI. Sir Amadin Puny then must be my joy, Who will be still, I think, a puny boy.

TIN. Well, since we are to this condition grown, 'Tis better far to use our own than none. While I, of youthful favourites bereft, Will live with Scattergood, if aught be left.

SIR REU. Nay, madam, but it were not amiss if you knew first whether Scattergood will live with you, or no. Release your alimony, and I'll resign my right in your propriety;[180] and in my widowed life mourn in sack: lo, infinitely.[181]

DUKE. This juncto must be fix'd on firmer ground; Coolness of fancy acts not on the object Which it pretends to love. Join hearts to hands, And in this second contract reunite What was so long divided. Love's a cement Admits no other allay but itself To work upon th' affections. [_To the husbands._] Be it yours (For virile spirits should be so demean'd), With pleasing candour to remit what's pass'd, And with mild glosses to interpret thus In their defence still to the better sense; "Their frailties in your ladies wrought these failings, Which pious pity should commiserate, And seal it with indulgence. [_To the ladies._] Then intend Your office, madams: which is to redeem Your late-abused time: which may be deem'd Richly recover'd, being once redeem'd."

LADIES. May all our actions close with discontent When we oppose their humours.

KNIGHTS. Say and hold; And this act of oblivion shall be sign'd.

[_They salute, and take hands._

DUKE. This does content us highly; powers above Makes lovers' breach renewal of their love.[182]

CHRIS. And must Christabel, too, pack home to her husband without her ale-money?

DUKE. Or to thy death an aged prioress!

CHRIS. Nay, but by your good favour I'll meddle with none of your priorities; I'll rather go mumble a crust at home, and chuck my old Jocelin.

DUKE. Nor is this all; our sentence must extend Unto those ladies' favourites, whose hours, Strangely debauch'd, make spoil of women's honours.

LADIES. We hate them worse than hell.

FAVOURITES. Good your grace, we are reclaim'd.

DUKE. That's but an airy note. When practical, we'll hold it cordial. Meantime, we do adjudge you to the quarries; Where you shall toil, till a relation give Test of your reformation. Look on those Tunis-engagers, who were timely drawn From their trepanning course, and by their hazard, Secur'd through valour, rais'd their ruin'd fortunes Above expectance! When your work is done, We shall find like adventures[183] for your spirits To grapple with, and rear your blanch'd repute. Leave interceding, for we are resolv'd. Now, conscript consuls, whose direction gives Life to our laws, we cannot choose but wonder How your impartial judgments should submit (As if they had been biassed) to grant These alimonies to their loose demands. Sure, such decrees would not have relish'd well Your jealous palates, had you so been used. "Wives to desert your beds, impeach your fames, In public courts discover your defects, Nay, to belie your weakness, and recover For all these scandals alimonious wages To feed their boundless riot!"

CONSUL. They're annull'd; Our courts will not admit them.

DUKE. 'Tis well done, For gentlemen t' engage their state and fame, And beds of honour, were a juggling game. So we dismiss you. May the palms of peace Crown Seville's state with safety and increase. Whereto when our reluctant actions give The least impede, may we no longer live!

[_Exeunt omnes. Trumpets sounding._

EPILOGUE

_You see our Ladies now are vanished, And gone, perchance, unto their husbands' bed, Convinc'd of guilt; where if they cannot tame Their loose desires, but still retain the name Of Alimony Ladies, you shall hear, They will not forfeit what they hold so dear-- Prohibited delights; and in that stain With blushless dalliance visit you again. Nor shall we build on these our confidence Who give less reins to reason than to sense: Yet for redemption of their husbands' lands, Seal our acquittance with your graceful hands._

_Naviter incumbens calamo, sine merce laboro; Merce carens vates nomine verus ero._

_HA|c thalami socias alimonia fecit iniquas; "Haud aries uni sufficit unus ovi."_--Arnold.

FINIS.

* * * * *

THE PARSON'S WEDDING.

_EDITION._

_The Parson's Wedding, A Comedy. The Scene London. Written at Basil in Switzerland: by Thomas Killigrew. Dedicated to the Lady Vrsvla Bartv [Bertie] Widow. London: Printed by J. M. for Henry Herringman...._ 1663.

This forms part of the collected edition of the works in folio, mentioned presently.

[PREFACE TO THE FORMER EDITION.]

THOMAS KILLIGREW, one of the sons of Sir Robert Killigrew, Chamberlain to the Queen, was born at Hanworth, in the county of Middlesex, in the month of February 1611.[184] Although his writings are not wanting in those requisites which confer reputation on an author, yet [we are permitted to conclude that it was chiefly to his conversational and social qualities, that Killigrew owed his ascendancy at Charles II.'s court--first abroad, and afterwards in England. Hence Sir John Denham was probably led to write those lines--

"Had Cowley ne'er spoke, Killigrew ne'er writ, Combin'd in one, they'd made a matchless wit."

But, as we know, for at least two generations the Killigrews were all men and women of genius, and were as remarkable, too, for their physical as for their intellectual graces. Killigrew] seems to have been early intended for the court; and to qualify him for rising there, every circumstance of his education appears to have been adapted. In the year 1635, while upon his travels, he chanced to be at London, and an eyewitness of the celebrated imposture of exorcising the devil out of several nuns belonging to a convent in that town. Of this transaction he wrote a very minute and accurate account,[185] still in MS. in the Pepysian Library at Magdalen College, Cambridge. He was appointed page-of-honour to King Charles I., and faithfully adhered to his cause until the death of his master, after which he attended his son in his exile, to whom he was highly acceptable, on account of his social and convivial qualifications. He married Mrs Cicilia Crofts, one of the maids-of-honour to Queen Henrietta. With this lady he had a dispute on the subject of jealousy, at which Thomas Carew was present, and wrote a poem, introduced into the masque of "Coelum Britannicum," and afterwards a copy of verses on their nuptials, printed in his works.[186]

[It appears from the original documents still preserved, that Killigrew was with Prince Charles at Paris in April 1647, and obtained from him a licence to travel, dated April 23. In 1649 he had a grant from James, Duke of York, of the office of Gentleman of the Bed-chamber; and from 1649 to 1652 he was engaged in diplomatic negotiations at Vienna and Florence. His papers, as well as those which he addressed to the Republic of Venice, are extant. Speaking of his mission to Venice], "Although," says Lord Clarendon,[187] "the king was much dissuaded from it, but afterwards his majesty was prevailed upon, only to gratify him (Killigrew) that in that capacity he might borrow money of English merchants for his own subsistence; which he did, and nothing to the honour of his master, but was at last compelled to leave the Republic for his vicious behaviour, of which the Venetian ambassador complained to the king, when he came afterwards to Paris." On his return from Venice, Sir John Denham wrote a copy of verses, printed in his works,[188] bantering the foibles of his friend Killigrew who, from his account, was as little sensible to the inconveniences of exile as his royal master. [But the curious preface to Killigrew's Plays where, under the thin veil of levity, so strong a vein of seriousness seems to be perceptible, tells a different story, perhaps. He wishes the public as much leisure to read his plays as he had to write them--a banishment of twenty years. One of the documents connected with the Killigrews which have come down to us, shows that in 1660 Thomas received the freedom of the city of Maastricht, in Holland. This was perhaps a parting compliment, when he prepared to return to England with his royal companion in exile. At the Restoration] he was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber, and became so great a favourite with his majesty, that he was admitted into his company on terms of the most unrestrained familiarity, and at times when audience was refused to the first ministers, and even on the most important occasions. It does not appear that he availed himself of his interest with the king, either to amass a fortune, or to advance himself in the state. We do not find that he obtained any other preferment than the post of Master of the Revels, which he held with that of Groom of the Bed-chamber. Oldys [very foolishly and absurdly] says he was king's jester at the same time; but although he might, and certainly did entertain his majesty in that capacity, it can scarce be imagined to have been in consequence of any appointment of that kind. He died at Whitehall on the 19th of March 1682,[189] having in 1664 published a collected edition of his plays, viz.:--

1. The Prisoners: a Tragi-Comedy. Written at London, and acted at the Phoenix in Drury Lane.

2. Claracilla: a Tragi-Comedy. Written in Rome, and acted at the Phoenix in Drury Lane. [Dedicated to his dear sister, the Lady Shannon.][190]

3. The Princess; or, Love at First Sight: a Tragi-Comedy. Written in Naples. [Dedicated to his dear Niece, the Lady Anne Wentworth, wife to the Lord Lovelace.]

4. The Parson's Wedding.

5. The Pilgrim: a Tragedy. Written in Paris.

6. The First Part of Cicilia and Clorinda; or, Love in Arms: a Tragi-Comedy. Written in Turin.

7. The Second Part of Cicilia and Clorinda; or, Love in Arms: a Tragi-Comedy. Written in Florence.

8. Thomaso; or the Wanderer: a Comedy. Written in Madrid.

9. The Second Part of Thomaso; or, The Wanderer. Written in Madrid.

10. The First Part of Bellamira, her Dream; or, The Love of Shadows: a Tragi-Comedy. Written in Venice.

11. The Second Part of Bellamira, her Dream; or, The Love of Shadows: a Tragi-Comedy. Written in Venice.

Thomas Killigrew had two brothers, both dramatic writers, viz., Sir William Killigrew,[191] author of Ormasdes, Pandora, Selindra, and The Siege of Urbin;[192] and Dr Henry Killigrew, a clergyman, author of a play called The Conspiracy, printed in 4^o, 1638, and afterwards altered, and printed in folio, 1653, under the title of Pallantus and Eudora.

Dr Henry Killigrew was father to Mrs Ann Killigrew, a young lady celebrated for her wit, beauty, and virtue, and who was the writer of several poems, very highly esteemed by Dryden.

_DRAMATIS PERSONA†._

MASTER CARELESS, _a gentleman and a wit_. MASTER WILD, _a gentleman, nephew to the Widow_. MASTER JOLLY, _a humorous gentleman, and a courtier_. CAPTAIN, _a leading wit, full of designs_. PARSON, _a wit also, but overreached by the Captain and his Wanton_. MASTER CONSTANT, } _two dull suitors to the lady Widow and_ MASTER SAD, } _Mistress Pleasant_. CROP, _the Brownist, a scrivener_. LADY WILD, _a rich (and somewhat youthful) widow_. MISTRESS PLEASANT, _a handsome young gentlewoman, of a good fortune_. MISTRESS SECRET, _her (indifferent honest) woman_. LADY LOVEALL, _an old stallion-hunting widow_. FAITHFUL, _her (errant honest) woman_. MISTRESS WANTON, _the Captain's livery punk, married to the Parson by confederacy_.

_Bawds_, _Servants_, _Drawers_, _Fiddlers_.

THE PARSON'S WEDDING.[193]

## ACT I., SCENE 1.

_Enter the_ CAPTAIN _in choler, and_ WANTON.

CAPT. No more; I'll sooner be reconciled to want or sickness than that rascal: a thing that my charity made sociable; one that when I smiled would fawn upon me, and wag his stern, like starved dogs; so nasty, the company cried foh! upon him, he stunk so of poverty, ale, and bawdry. So poor and despicable, when I relieved him, he could not avow his calling for want of a cassock, but stood at corners of streets and whispered gentlemen in the ear as they passed, and so delivered his wants like a message; which being done, the rogue vanished, and would dive at Westminster like a dabchick, and rise again at Temple-gate. The ingenuity of the rascal, his wit being snuffed by want, burnt clear then, and furnished him with a bawdy jest or two, to take the company; but now the rogue shall find he has lost a patron.

WAN. As I live, if I had thought you would have been in such a fury, you should never have known it.

CAPT. Treacherous rogue! he has always railed against thee to me, as a danger his friendship ought to give me warning of, and nightly cried, Yet look back, and hunt not, with good-nature and the beauties of thy youth, that false woman; but hear thy friend, that speaks from sad experience.

WAN. Did he say this?

CAPT. Yes, and swears ye are as unsatiate as the sea, as covetous, and as ungrateful: that you have your tempests too, and calms more dangerous than it.

WAN. Was the slave so eloquent in his malice?

CAPT. Yes, faith, and urged you (for your part) were never

## particular, and seldom sound.

WAN. Not sound! why, he offered to marry me, and swore he thought I was chaste, I was so particular; and proved it, that consent was full marriage by the first institution, and those that love and lie together, and tell, have fulfilled all ceremonies now.

CAPT. Did he offer to marry thee?

WAN. Yes, yes.

CAPT. If ever then I deserved from thee, or if thou be'st dear to thyself, as thou hast anything thou hop'st shall be safe or sound about thee, I conjure thee, take my counsel: marry him, to afflict him.

WAN. Marry him?

CAPT. If I have any power, I shall prevail. Thou know'st he has a fat benefice, and leave me to plague him till he give it me to be rid of thee.

WAN. Will you not keep me then?

CAPT. I keep thee! prythee, wilt thou keep me? I know not why men are such fools to pay: we bring as much to the sport as women. Keep thee! I'd marry thee as soon; why, _that's wedding sin_: no, no keeping, I: that you are not your own, is all that prefers you before wives.

WAN. I hope this is not real.

CAPT. Art thou such a stranger to my humour? why, I tell thee I should hate thee if I could call thee mine, for I loathe all women within my knowledge; and 'tis six to four, if I knew thy sign, I'd come there no more. A strange mistress makes every night a new; and these are your pleasing sins. I had as lief be good, as sin by course.

WAN. Then I am miserable.

CAPT. Not so, if you'll be instructed, and let me pass like a stranger when you meet me.

WAN. But have you these humours?

CAPT. Yes, faith; yet, if you will observe them, though you marry him, I may perchance be your friend: but you must be sure to be coy; for to me the hunting is more pleasant than the quarry.[194]

WAN. But, if I observe this, will you be my friend hereafter?

CAPT. Firm as the day. Hark, I hear him [_The_ PARSON _calls within_.]; I knew he would follow me. I gave him a small touch that wakened his guilt. Resolve to endear yourself to him, which you may easily do by taking his part when I have vexed him. No dispute; resolve it, or, as I live, here I disclaim thee for ever.

WAN. 'Tis well; something I'll do.

[_Exit_ WANTON.

CAPT. Open the door, I say, and let me in: your favourite and his tithes shall come no more here.

_Enter_ PARSON.

PAR. Yes, but he shall; 'tis not you, nor your braced drum, shall fright me hence, who can command the souls of men. I have read divine Seneca: thou know'st nothing but the earthly part, and canst cry to that, Faces about.[195]

CAPT. Thou read Seneca! thou steal'st his cover to clothe thee, naked and wicked, that for money wouldst sell the share of the Twelve, and art allowed by all that know thee fitter to have been Judas than Judas was, for treachery.

PAR. Rail, do rail, my illiterate captain, that can only abuse by memory; and should I live till thou couldst read my sentence, I should never die.

CAPT. No, ungrateful, live till I destroy thee; and, thankless wretch, did all my care of thee deserve nothing but thy malice and treacherous speaking darkly still? with thy fine, _No, not he_, when any malicious discourse was made of me; and by thy false faint, _No, faith; confess_, in thy denials, whilst thy smiling excuses stood a greater and more dangerous evidence against me than my enemies' affidavits could have done.

PAR. I'll lie for never a lean soldier of you all.

CAPT. I have for thee, slave, when I have been wondered at for keeping company with such a face: but they were such as knew thee not; all which thy looks deceived, as they did me: they are so simple, they'd cosen a jury, and a judge that had wit would swear thou liedst, should thou confess what I know to be true, and award Bedlam for thee; 'tis so strange and so new a thing to find so much Rogue lodge at the sign of the Fool.

PAR. Leave this injurious language, or I'll lay off my cassock; for nothing shall privilege your bragger's tongue to abuse me, a gentleman, and a soldier ancienter than thyself.

CAPT. Yes, thou wert so: and now I think on't, I'll recount the cause which, it may be, thou hast forgot, through thy variety of sins. It was a hue-and-cry that followed thee a scholar, and found thee a soldier.

PAR. Thou liest: thou and Scandal have but one tongue; hers dwells with thy coward's teeth.

CAPT. O, do you rage? nay, I'll put the cause in print too: I am but a scurvy poet, yet I'll make a ballad shall tell how like a faithful disciple you followed your poor whore till her martyrdom in the suburbs.

PAR. I'll be revenged for this scandal.

CAPT. Then shall succeed thy flight from the university, disguised into captain, only the outside was worse buff, and the inside more atheist than they; furnished with an insolent faith, uncharitable heart, envious as old women, cruel and bloody as cowards: thus armed at all points, thou went'st out, threatening God, and trembling at men.

PAR. I'll be revenged, thou poor man of war, I'll be revenged.

_Enter_ WANTON.

WAN. And why so bitter? Whose house is this? Who dares tell this story?

CAPT. Why, sweet, hath he not treacherously broke into our cabinet, and would have stol'n thee thence? by these hilts, I'll hang him; and then I can conclude my ballad with _take warning, all Christian people, by the same_: I will, you lean slave; I'll prosecute thee, till thou art fain to hide in a servitor's gown again, and live upon crumbs with the robin redbreasts that haunt the hall (your old messmates). Do you snarl? I'll do't, I will, and put thee to fight with the dogs for the bones that but smell of meat--those that your hungry students have polished with their teeth.

WAN. If you do this, good captain, lieutenant, and company (for all your command, I think, is within your reach)--I say, if you dare do this, I shall sing a song of one that bad stand,[196] and made a carrier pay a dear rent for a little ground upon his majesty's highway.

CAPT. How now, Mistress Wanton! what's this? what's this?

PAR. This! 'tis matter for a jury; I'll swear, and positively. I'll hang thee, I'll do't, by this hand: let me alone to swear the jury out of doubt.

CAPT. But you are in jest, Mistress Wanton, and will confess (I hope) this is no truth.

WAN. Yes, sir, as great a truth as that you are in your unpaid-for scarlet. Fool! didst think I'd quit such a friend and his staid fortune, to rely upon thy dead pay and hopes of a second covenant?

CAPT. His fortune! what is't? th' advowson of Tyburn deanery?

PAR. No, nor rents brought in by long staff-speeches, that ask alms with frowns, till thy looks and speech have laid violent hands upon men's charity.

WAN. Let him alone; I'll warrant, he'll never be indicted of drawing anything but his tongue against a man.

CAPT. Very good.

PAR. Dear Mistress Wanton, you have won my heart, and I shall live to doat upon you for abusing this impetuous captain. Will you listen to my old suit? will you marry me, and vex him? say, dare you do't without more dispute?

CAPT. 'Twas a good question; she that dares marry thee, dares do anything: she may as safely lie with the great bell upon her, and his clapper is less dangerous than thine.

WAN. Why, I pray?

CAPT. What a miserable condition wilt thou come to? his wife cannot be an honest woman; and if thou shouldst turn honest, would it not vex thee to be chaste and poxed[197]--a saint without a nose? what calendar will admit thee by[198] an incurable slave that's made of rogue's flesh? consider that.

WAN. Why, that's something yet; thou hast nothing but a few scars and a little old fame to trust to; and that scarce thatches your head.

CAPT. Nay, then I see thou art base, and this plot not accident. And now I do not grudge him thee; go together, 'tis pity to part you, whore and parson, as consonant----

WAN. As whore and captain.

CAPT. Take her, I'll warrant her a breeder. I'll prophesy she shall lie with thy whole congregation, and bring an heir to thy parish; one that thou may'st enclose the common by his title, and recover it by common law.

PAR. That's more than thy dear dam could do for thee, thou son of a thousand fathers, all poor soldiers: rogues that ought mischiefs, no midwives, for their birth. But I cry thee mercy, my patron has an estate of old iron by his side, with the farm of old ladies he scrapes a dirty living from.

WAN. He earn from an old lady: hang him, he's only wicked in his desires; and for adultery he cannot be condemned, though he should have the vanity to betray himself. God forgive me for belying him so often as I have done; the weak-chined slave hired me once to say I was with child by him.

CAPT. This is pretty. Farewell; and may the next pig thou farrow'st have a promising face, without the dad's fool or gallows in't, that all may swear, at first sight, that's a bastard; and it shall go hard, but I'll have it called mine. I have the way; 'tis but praising thee, and swearing thou art honest before I am asked: you taught me the trick.

PAR. Next levy I'll preach against thee, and tell them what a piece you are. Your drum and borrowed scarf shall not prevail; nor shall you win with charms, half-ell long (hight ferret riband) the youth of our parish, as you have done.[199]

CAPT. No, lose no time: prythee, study and learn to preach, and leave railing against the surplice, now thou hast preached thyself into linen. Adieu, Abigail! adieu, heir-apparent to Sir Oliver Mar-text! to church, go; I'll send a beadle shall sing your epithalamium.

PAR. Adieu, my captain of a tame band. I'll tell your old lady how you abused her breath, and swore you earned your money harder than those that dig in the mines for't. [_Exit_ CAPTAIN.] A fart fill thy sail, captain of a galley foist.[200] He's gone: come, sweet, let's to church immediately, that I may go and take my revenge: I'll make him wear thin breeches.

WAN. But if you should be such a man as he says you are, what would my friends say when they hear I have cast myself away?

PAR. He says! hang him, lean, mercenary, provand[201] rogue: I knew his beginning, when he made the stocks lousy, and swarmed so with vermin, we were afraid he would have brought that curse upon the country. He says! but what matters what he says? a rogue by sire and dam! his father was a broad, fat pedlar, a what-do-you-lack, sir? that haunted good houses, and stole more than he bought: his dam was a gipsy, a pilfering, canting Sybil in her youth, and she suffered in her old age for a witch. Poor Stromwell, the rogue was a perpetual burthen to her, she carried him longer at her back than in her belly; he dwelt there, till she lost him one night in the great frost upon our common, and there he was found in the morning candied in ice--a pox of their charity that thawed him! You might smell a rogue then in the bud: he is now run away from his wife.

WAN. His wife?

PAR. Yes, his wife; why, do you not know he's married according to the rogues' liturgy? a left-handed bridegroom. I saw him take the ring from a tinker's dowager.

WAN. Is this possible?

PAR. Yes, most possible, and you shall see how I'll be revenged on him: I will immediately go seek the ordinance against reformadoes.

WAN. What ordinance?

PAR. Why, they do so swarm about the town, and are so destructive to trade and all civil government, that the state has declared no person shall keep above two colonels and four captains (of what trade soever) in his family; for now the war is done, broken breech, woodmonger, ragman, butcher, and linkboy (comrades that made up the ragged regiment in this holy war), think to return and be admitted to serve out their times again.

WAN. Your ordinance will not touch the captain, for he is a known soldier.

PAR. He a captain! an apocryphal modern one, that went convoy once to Brentford with those troops that conducted the contribution-puddings in the late holy war, when the city ran mad after their russet Levites, apron-rogues with horn hands. Hang him, he's but the sign of a soldier; and I hope to see him hanged for that commission, when the king comes to his place again.

WAN. You abuse him now he's gone; but----

PAR. Why, dost thou think I fear him? No, wench, I know him too well for a cowardly slave, that dares as soon eat his fox,[202] as draw it in earnest: the slave's noted to make a conscience of nothing but fighting.

WAN. Well, if you be not a good man and a kind husband----

PAR. Thou knowest the proverb, as happy as the parson's wife during her husband's life.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE II.

_Enter_ MISTRESS PLEASANT, WIDOW WILD, _her aunt, and_ SECRET, _her woman, above in the music-room, as dressing her: a glass, a table, and she in her night-clothes_.

PLEA. Secret, give me the glass, and see who knocks.

WID. Niece, what, shut the door? as I live, this music was meant to you: I know my nephew's voice.

PLEA. Yes, but you think his friend's has more music in't.

WID. No, faith, I can laugh with him, or so, but he comes no nearer than my lace.

PLEA. You do well to keep your smock betwixt.

WID. Faith, wench, so wilt thou, and thou be'st wise, from him and all of them; and, be ruled by me, we'll abuse all the sex, till they put a true value upon us.

PLEA. But dare you forbid the travelled gentlemen, and abuse them and your servant, and swear, with me, not to marry in a twelvemonth, though a lord bait the hook, and hang out the sign of a court Cupid, whipped by a country widow? then I believe we may have mirth cheaper than at the price of ourselves, and some sport with the wits that went to lose themselves in France.

WID. Come, no dissembling, lest I tell your servant, when he returns, how much you're taken with the last new fashion.

SEC. Madam, 'tis almost noon; will you not dress yourself to-day?

WID. She speaks as if we were boarders; prythee, wench, is not the dinner our own I sure, my cook shall lay by my own roast till my stomach be up!

PLEA. But there may be company, and they will say we take too long time to trim. Secret, give me the flowers my servant sent me: he sware 'twas the first the wench made of the kind.

WID. But when he shall hear you had music sent you to-day, 'twill make him appear in his old clothes.

PLEA. Marry, I would he would take exception, he should not want ill-usage to rid me of his trouble. As I live, custom has made me so acquainted with him, that I now begin to think him not so displeasing as at first; and if he fall out with me, I must with him, to secure myself. Sure, aunt, he must find sense and reason absent; for when a question knocks at his head, the answer tells that there is nobody at home. I asked him th' other day if he did not find a blemish in his understanding, and he sware a great oath, not he. I told him 'twas very strange, for fool was so visible an eyesore, that neither birth nor fortune could reconcile to me.

WID. Faith, methinks his humour is good, and his purse will buy good company; and I can laugh, and be merry with him sometimes.

PLEA. Why, pray, aunt, take him to yourself, and see how merry we will be. I can laugh at anybody's fool but mine own.

WID. By my troth, but that I have married one fool already, you should not have him. Consider, he asks no portion, and yet will make a great jointure. A fool with these conveniences, a kind, loving fool, and one that you may govern, makes no ill husband, niece. There are other arguments, too, to bid a fool welcome, which you will find without teaching. Think of it, niece: you may lay out your affection to purchase some dear wit or judgment of the city, and repent at leisure a good bargain in this fool.

PLEA. Faith, aunt, fools are cheap in the butchery and dear in the kitchen; they are such unsavoury, insipid things, that there goes more charge to the sauce than the fool is worth, ere a woman can confidently serve him, either to her bed or board. Then, if he be a loving fool, he troubles all the world a-days, and me all night.

SEC. Friendship-love, madam, has a remedy for that.

PLEA. See if the air of this place has not inclined Secret to be a bawd already! No, Secret, you get no gowns that way, upon my word. If I marry, it shall be a gentleman that has wit and honour, though he has nothing but a sword by his side: such a one naked is better than a fool with all his trappings, bells, and baubles.

WID. Why, as I live, he's a handsome fellow, and merry: mine is such a sad soul, and tells me stories of lovers that died in despair, and of the lamentable end of their mistresses (according to the ballad), and thinks to win me by example.

PLEA. Faith, mine talks of nothing but how long he has loved me; and those that know me not think I am old, and still finds new causes (as he calls them) for his love. I asked him the other day, if I changed so fast, or no.

WID. But what think'st thou, Secret? my nephew dances well, and has a handsome house in the Piazza.

PLEA. Your nephew! not I, as I live; he looks as if he would be wooed. I'll warrant you, he'll never begin with a woman, till he has lost the opinion of himself; but since you are so courteous, I'll speak to his friend, and let him know how you suffer for him.

WID. Him! marry, God bless all good women from him. Why, he talks as if the dairymaid and all her cows could not serve his turn. Then they wear such bawdy breeches, 'twould startle an honest woman to come in their company, for fear they should break, and put her to count from the fall of them; for I'll warrant the year of the Lord would sooner out of her head than such a sight.

PLEA. I am not such an enemy now to his humour as to your nephew's. He rails against our sex, and thinks, by beating down the price of a woman, to make us despair of merchants; but if I had his heartstrings tied on a true-lover's knot, I would so firk him, till he found physic in a rope.

SEC. He's a scurvy-tongued fellow, I am sure of that; and if I could have got a staff, I had marked him.

WID. What did he do to thee, Secret?

PLEA. Why, he swore he had a better opinion of her than to think she had her maidenhead; but if she were that fool, and had preserved the toy, he swore he would not take the pains of fetching it, to have it. I confess, I would fain be revenged on them, because they are so blown up with opinion of their wit.

WID. As I live, my nephew travels still: the sober, honest Ned Wild will not be at home this month.

PLEA. What say you? will you abuse them and all the rest, and stand to my first proposition?

WID. Yes, faith, if it be but to bury my servant Sad; for he cannot last above another fall. And how, think you, will your servant take it?

PLEA. Mine! O, God help me, mine's a healthy fool. I would he were subject to pine, and take things unkindly: there were some hope to be rid of him; for I'll undertake to use him as ill as anybody.

WID. As I live, I am easily resolved: for if I would marry, I know neither who nor what humour to choose.

SEC. By my troth, madam, you are hard to please, else the courtier might have served turn.

WID. Serve turn! Prythee, what haste, Secret, that I should put myself to bed with one I might make a shift with? When I marry, thou shalt cry, _Ay marry, madam, this is a husband!_ without blushing, wench, and none of your so-so husbands. Yet he might have[203] overcome my aversion, I confess.

PLEA. Overcome! I think so: he might have won a city his way; for when he saw you were resolved he should not eat with you, he would set himself down as if he meant to besiege us, and had vowed never to rise till he had taken us in; and because our sex forbad force, he meant to do it by famine. Yet you may stay, and miss a better market; for, hang me, I am of Secret's opinion, he had but two faults--a handsome fellow, and too soon denied.

WID. 'Tis true, he was a handsome fellow, and a civil, that I shall report him; for as soon as it was given him to understand I desired he would come no more, I never saw him since, but by chance.

PLEA. Why did you forbid him?

WID. There were divers exceptions; but that which angered me then was, he came with the king's letters patents, as if he had been to take up a wife for his majesty's use.

PLEA. Alas! was that all? Why, 'tis their way at court, a common course among them. And was it not one the king had a great care of? When my mother was alive, I had such a packet from the court: directed unto me: I bid them pay the post, and make the fellow drink; which he took as ill as I could wish, and has been ever since such a friendly enemy----

WID. Nay, as I live, she was for the captain too: his scarf and feather won her heart.

SEC. Truly, madam, never flatter yourself; for the gentleman did not like you so well as to put you to the trouble of saying no.

PLEA. Lord, how I hated and dreaded that scarf and buff-coat!

SEC. Why, Mistress Pleasant, a captain is an honourable charge.

WID. Prythee, Secret, name them no more. Colonel and captain, commissioner, free-quarters, ordnance and contribution. When Buff utters these words, I tremble and dread the sound: it frights me still when I do but think on them. Cud's body, they're twigs of the old rod, wench, that whipped us so lately.

PLEA. Ay, ay, and they were happy days, wench, when the captain was a lean poor humble thing, and the soldier tame, and durst not come within the city for fear of a constable and a whipping-post. They know the penal statutes give no quarter. Then Buff was out of countenance, and skulked from alehouse to alehouse, and the city had no militia but the sheriff's men. In those merry days, a bailiff trod the streets with terror, when all the chains in the city were rusty but Master Sheriff's; when the people knew no evil but the constable and his watch. Now every committee has as much power and as little manners, and examines with as much ignorance, impertinence, and authority, as a constable in the king's key.

[_People talking without._

WID. See who's that so loud?

SEC. The men you talked of, newly come to town.

[_Exeunt omnes._

## SCENE III.

_Enter_ JACK CONSTANT, WILL SAD, JOLLY, _and a_ FOOTMAN: _they comb their heads and talk_.[204]

JOLLY. Remember our covenants, get them that can all friends; and be sure to despatch the plot to carry them into the country, lest the brace of newcome monsieurs get them.

CON. Those flesh-flies! I'll warrant thee from them: yet 'twas foolishly done of me to put on this gravity. I shall break out, and return to myself, if you put me to a winter's wooing.

SAD. A little patience does it, and I am content to suffer anything, till they're out of town. Secret says they think my pale face proceeds from my love.

JOLLY. Does she? That shall be one hint to advance your designs and my revenge: for so she be cosened, I care not who does it, for scorning me, who (by this hand) lov'd her parlously.

FOOT. Sir, what shall I do with the horses?

SAD. Carry them to Brumsted's.

FOOT. What shall I do with your worship's?

JOLLY. Mine? Take him, hamstring him, kill him, anything to make away with him; lest, having such a conveniency, I be betrayed to another journey into the country. Gentlemen, you are all welcome to my country house. Charing Cross, I am glad to see thee, with all my heart.

CON. What! not reconciled to the country yet?

SAD. He was not long enough there to see the pleasure of it.

JOLLY. Pleasure! what is't called? walking, or hawking, or shooting at butts?

CON. You found other pleasures, or else the story of the meadow is no gospel.

JOLLY. Yes, a pox upon the necessity! Here I could as soon have taken the cow as such a milk-maid.

SAD. The wine and meat's good, and the company.

JOLLY. When, at a Tuesday meeting, the country comes into a match at two-shillings rubbers, where they conclude at dinner what shall be done this parliament, railing against the court and Pope, after the old Elizabeth-way of preaching, till they are drunk with zeal; and then the old knight of the shire from the board's end, in his coronation breeches, vies clinches with a silenced minister--a rogue that railed against the reformation, merely to be eased of the trouble of preaching.

CON. Nay, as I live, now you are to blame, and wrong him. The man's a very able man.

JOLLY. You'll be able to say so one day, upon your wife's report. I would he were gelt, and all that hold his opinion: by this good day, they get more souls than they save.

SAD. And what think you of the knight's son? I hope he's a fine gentleman, when his green suit and his blue stockings are on; and the welcomest thing to Mistress Abigail, but Tib and Tom in the stock.[205]

JOLLY. Who, Master Jeffrey? Hobbinol the second! By this life, 'tis a very veal, and he licks his nose like one of them. By his discourse you'd guess he had eaten nothing but hay. I wonder he doth not go on all four too, and hold up his leg when he stales. He talks of nothing but the stable. The cobbler's blackbird at the corner has more discourse. He has not so much as the family jest which these Corydons use to inherit. I posed him in Booker's prophecies,[206] till he confessed he had not mastered his almanac yet.

CON. But what was that you whispered to him in the hall?

JOLLY. Why, the butler and I, by the intercession of Marchbeer, had newly reconciled him to his dad's old codpiece corslet in the hall, which, when his zeal was up, he would needs throw down, because it hung upon a cross.

CON. But what think you of my neighbour? I hope her charity takes you.

JOLLY. Yes, and her old waiting-woman's devotion: she sighed in the pew behind me. A Dutch skipper belches not so loud or so sour. My lady's miserable sinner with the white eyes, she does so squeeze out her prayers, and so wring out, _Have mercy upon us_. I warrant her she has a waiting-woman's sting in her conscience. She looks like a dirty-souled bawd.

CON. Who? is this my Lady Freedom's woman that he describes?

JOLLY. The same, the independent lady. I have promised to send her a cripple or two by the next carrier. Her subject-husband would needs show me his house one morning. I never visited such an hospital: it stank like Bedlam, and all the servants were carrying poultices, juleps, and glisters, and several remedies for all diseases but his. The man sighed to see his estate crumbling away. I counselled him either to give or take an ounce of ratsbane, to cure his mind.

CON. She is my cousin; but he made such a complaint to me, I thought he had married the company of Surgeons' Hall: for his directions to me for several things for his wife's use were fitter for an apothecary's shop than a lady's closet.

JOLLY. I advised him to settle no jointure but her old stills and a box of instruments upon her. She hates a man with all his limbs: a wooden leg, a crutch, and _fistula in ano_, wins her heart. Her gentleman-usher broke his leg last dogdays merely to have the honour to have her set it. A foul, rank rogue! and so full of salt humours, that he posed a whole college of old women with a gangrene, which spoiled the jest, and his ambling before my lady, by applying a handsaw to his gart'ring-place; and now the rogue wears booted bed-staves, and destroys all the young ashes to make him legs.

SAD. I never saw such a nasty affection: she would ha' done well in the incurable--a handmaid to have waited on the cripples.

JOLLY. She converses with naked men, and handles all their members, though never so ill affected, and calls the fornication charity. All her discourse to me was flat bawdry, which I could not chide, but spoke as flat as she, till she rebuked me, calling mine beastliness, and hers natural philosophy. By this day, if I were to marry, I would as soon have chosen a drawn whore out of mine own hospital, and cure the sins of her youth, as marry a she-chirurgeon--one that, for her sins in her first husband's days, cures all the crimes of her sex in my time. I would have him call her Chiron, the Centaur's own daughter: a chirurgeon by sire and dam, Apollo's own colt. She's red-haired too, like that bonny beast with the golden mane and flaming tail.

SAD. You had a long discourse with her, Jolly: what was't about?

JOLLY. I was advising her to be divorced, and marry the man in the almanac: 'twould be fine pastime for her to lick him whole.

SAD. By this day, I never saw such a mule as her husband is, to bear with her madness. The house is a good house, and well furnished.

JOLLY. Yes; but 'tis such a sight to see great French beds full of found children, sons of bachelors, priests' heirs, Bridewell orphans: there they lie by dozens in a bed, like sucking rabbits in a dish, or a row of pins; and then they keep a whole dairy of milch-whores to suckle them.

SAD. She is successful; and that spoils her, and makes her deaf to counsel. I bad him poison two or three, to disgrace her; for the vanity and pride of their remedies make those women more diligent than their charity.

JOLLY. I asked him why he married her; and he confessed, if he had been sound, he had never had her.

CON. He confessed she cured him of three claps before he married her.

JOLLY. Yes, and I believe some other member (though then ill-affected) pleaded more than his tongue; and the rogue is like to find her business still, for he flies at all. My God, I owe thee thanks for many things; but 'tis not the least I am not her husband nor a country gentleman, whither, I believe, you cannot easily seduce me again, unless you can persuade London to stand in the country. To Hyde Park, or so, I may venture upon your Lady-fair days, when the filly foals of fifteen come kicking in, with their manes and tails tied up in ribands, to see their eyes roll and neigh, when the spring makes their blood prick them: so far I am with you, by the way of a country gentleman and a beer-drinker.

SAD. For all this dislike, Master Jolly, your greatest acquaintance lies amongst country gentlemen.

JOLLY. Ay, at London: there your country gentlemen are good company; where to be seen with them is a kind of credit. I come to a mercer's shop in your coach: _Boy, call your master_: he comes bare; I whisper him, _Do you know the Constants and the Sads of Norfolk_? _Yes, yes_, he replies, and strokes his beard. _They are good men_, cry I. _Yes, yes. No more; cut me off three suits of satin._ He does it, and in the delivery whispers, _Will these be bound? Pish! drive on, coachman; speak with me to-morrow._

CON. And what then?

JOLLY. What then? why, come again next day.

SAD. And what if the country gentleman will not be bound?

JOLLY. Then he must fight.

SAD. I would I had known that, before I had signed your bond: I would have set my sword sooner than my seal to it.

JOLLY. Why, if thou repent, there's no harm done: fight rather than pay it.

SAD. Why, do you think I dare not fight?

JOLLY. Yes, but I think thou hast more wit than to fight with me; for if I kill thee, 'tis a fortune to me, and others will sign in fear: and if thou shouldst kill me, anybody that knows us would swear 'twere very strange, and cry, There's God's just judgment now upon that lewd youth, and thou procur'st his hangman's place at the rate of thy estate.

CON. By this hand, he is in the right; and, for mine, I meant to pay when I signed. Hang it, never put good fellows to say, _Prythee, give me a hundred pounds._

SAD. 'Tis true, 'tis a good janty[207] way of begging; yet, for being killed if I refuse it--would there were no more danger in the widow's unkindness than in your fighting, I would not mistrust my design.

JOLLY. Why, ay, there's a point now in nicety of honour. I should kill you for her, for you know I pretended first; and it may be, if I had writ sad lines to her, and hid myself in my cloak, and haunted her coach--it may be in time she would have sought me. Not I, by this hand, I'll not trouble myself for a wench; and married widows are but customary authorised wenches.

CON. Being of that opinion, how canst thou think of marrying one?

JOLLY. Why, faith, I know not: I thought to rest me, for I was run out of breath with pleasure, and grew so acquainted with sin, I would have been good, for variety: in these thoughts 'twas my fortune to meet with this widow--handsome, and of a clear fame.

CON. Didst love her?

JOLLY. Yes, faith: I had love, but not to the disease that makes men sick; and I could have loved her still, but that I was angry to have her refuse me for a fault I told her of myself; so I went no more.

SAD. Did she forbid you but once?

JOLLY. Faith, I think I slipped a fair opportunity: a handsome wench and three thousand pounds _per annum_ in certainty, besides the possibility of being saved.

CON. Which now you think desperate?

[WIDOW _and_ PLEASANT _looking out at a window_.

PLEA. That is you: cross or pile, will you have him yet, or no?

WID. Peace! observe them.

JOLLY. Faith, no, I do not despair; but I cannot resolve.

_Enter_ WILD, CARELESS, _and the_ CAPTAIN, _going in haste; he comes in at the middle door_.

WID. Who are those?

CARE. Captain, whither in such haste? What, defeated? Call you this a retreat, or a flight from your friends?

PLEA. Your nephew, and his governor, and his friend! Here will be a scene! Sit close, and we may know the secret of their hearts.

WID. They have not met since they returned: I shall love this bay-window.[208]

CAPT. Prythee, let me go: there's mischief a-broiling; and if thou shak'st me once more, thou wilt jumble a lie together I have been hammering this hour.

CARE. A pox upon you! a-studying lies?

CAPT. Why, then they are no lies, but something in the praise of an old lady's beauty: what do you call that?

JOLLY. Who are those?

[_They spy each other._

SAD. Is't not the captain and my friend?

[JOLLY _salutes them; then he goes to the_ CAPTAIN _to embrace him: the_ CAPTAIN _stands in a French posture_,[209] _and slides from his old way of embracing._

JOLLY. Ned Wild! Tom Careless! what ail'st thou? dost thou scorn my embraces?

CAPT. I see you have never been abroad, else you would know how to put a value upon those, whose careful observation brought home the most exquisite garb and courtship that Paris could sell us.

JOLLY. A pox on this fooling, and leave off ceremony!

CAPT. Why, then, agreed: off with our masks, and let's embrace like the old knot.

[_They embrace._

JOLLY. Faith, say where have you spent these three years' time?--in our neighbour France? or have you ventured o'er the Alps, to see the seat of the CA|sars?

SAD. And can tell us ignorant (doomed to walk upon our own land), how large a seat the goddess fixed her flying Trojans in.

CON. Yes, yes, and have seen and drunk (perhaps) of Tiber's famous stream.

JOLLY. And have been where. A†neas buried his trumpeter and his nurse. Tom looks as if he had sucked the one, and had a battle sounded by the other, for joy to see our nation ambitious not to be understood or known, when they come home.

CAPT. So, now I'm welcome home: this is freedom, and these are friends, and with these I can be merry; for, gentlemen, you must give me leave to be free too.

JOLLY. So you will spare us miserable men, condemned to London and the company of a Michaelmas term, and never travelled those countries that set mountains on fire a-purpose to light us to our lodging.

WILD. Why, this is better than to stay at home, and lie by hearsay, wearing out yourselves and fortunes like your clothes, to see her that hates you for being so fine; then appearing at a play, dressed like some part of it, while the company admire the mercer's and the tailor's work, and swear they have done their parts to make you fine gentlemen.

CARE. Then leap out of your coach, and throw your cloak over your shoulder, the casting-nets to catch a widow, while we have seen the world, and learned her customs.

CAPT. Yes, sir, and returned perfect monsieurs.

SAD. Yes, even to their diseases. I confess my ignorance; I cannot amble, nor ride like St George at Waltham.[210]

JOLLY. Yet, upon my conscience, he may be as welcome with a trot as the other with his pace. And faith, Jack (to be a little free), tell me, dost thou not think thou hadst been as well to pass here, with that English nose thou carriedst hence, as with the French tongue thou hast brought home?

[_The_ CAPTAIN _has a patch over his nose_.

CAPT. It is an accident, and to a soldier 'tis but a scar. 'Tis true, such a sign upon Master Jolly's face had been as ill as a _red cross_, and _Lord have mercy upon us_,[211] at his lodging-door, to have kept women out of court.

JOLLY. For aught you know of the court.

CAPT. I know the court, and thee, and thy use, and how you serve but as the handsomest movables; a kind of implement above-stairs, and look much like one of the old court-servants in the hangings.

WILD. But that they move and look fresher, and your apparel more modern.

CARE. Yes, faith, their office is the same, to adorn the room, and be gazed on. Alas! he's sad: courage, man, these riding-clothes will serve thee at the latter day.

CAPT. Which is one of their grievances; for nothing troubles them more than to think they must appear in a foul winding-sheet, and come undressed.

JOLLY. Gentlemen, I am glad to find you know the court: we know a traveller too, especially when he is thus changed and exchanged, as your worships, both in purse and person, and have brought home foreign visages and inscriptions.

CON. Why, that's their perfection: their ambition to have it said: There go those that have profitably observed the vices of other countries, and made them their own; and the faults of several nations, at their return, are their parts.

JOLLY. Why, there's Jack Careless--he carried out as good staple-manners as any was in Suffolk, and now he is returned with a shrug, and a trick to stand crooked, like a scurvy bow unbent; and looks as if he would maintain oil and salads against a chine of beef. I knew a great beast of this kind; it haunted the court much, and would scarcely allow us (fully reduced to civility) for serving up mutton in whole joints.

CON. What, silent?

SAD. Faith, the captain is in a study.

JOLLY. Do, do, con the rivers and towns perfectly, captain: thou may'st become intelligencer to the people, and lie thy two sheets a week in Corrantos too.

CON. And could you not make friends at court to get their pictures cut ugly, in the corner of a map, like the old navigators?

JOLLY. We'll see, we'll see.

_Enter_ WIDOW _and_ PLEASANT _above_.

WID. I'll interrupt them. Servant, you're welcome to town. How now, nephew? what, dumb? where are all our travelled tongues?

JOLLY. Servant![212] who doth she mean? by this hand, I disclaim the title!

PLEA. Captain, Secret has taken notes, and desires you would instruct her in what concerns a waiting-woman and an old lady.

CAPT. Very good! yet this shall not save your dinner.

WID. Nay, while you are in this humour, I'll not sell your companies; and though Master Jolly be incensed, I hope he will do me the favour to dine with me.

JOLLY. Faith, lady, you mistake me if you think I am afraid of a widow; for I would have the world know I dare meet her anywhere, but at bed.

[_Exit_ JOLLY.

WILD. No more, aunt, we'll come: and if you will give us good meat, we'll bring good humours and good stomachs.

[WIDOW _shuts the curtain_.

CARE. By this day, I'll not dine there: they take a pleasure to raise a spirit that they will not lay. I'll to Banks's.

CAPT. A pox forbid it! you shall not break company, now you know what we are to do after dinner.

CARE. I will consent, upon condition you forbid the spiritual nonsense the age calls Platonic love.

CAPT. I must away too; but I'll be there at dinner. You will join in a plot after dinner?

WILD. Anything, good, bad, or indifferent, for a friend and mirth.

[_Exeunt all but the_ CAPTAIN.

CAPT. I must go and prevent the rogue's mischief with the old lady.

[_Exit_ CAPTAIN.

## ACT II., SCENE 1.

_Enter_ JOLLY _and the old lady_ LOVEALL.

LOVE. Away, unworthy, false, ungrateful! with what brow dar'st thou come again into my sight, knowing how unworthy you have been, and how false to love?

JOLLY. No, 'tis you are unworthy, and deserve not those truths of love I have paid here; else you would not believe every report that envy brings, and condemn, without hearing me, whom you have so often tried and found faithful.

LOVE. Yes, till I, too credulous, had pity on your tears; till I had mercy, you durst not be false.

JOLLY. Nor am not yet.

LOVE. What dost thou call false? Is there a treachery beyond what thou hast done? When I had given my fame, my fortune, myself, and my husband's honour, all in one obligation, a sacrifice to that passion which thou seem'dst to labour with despair of, to tell and brag of a conquest o'er a woman, fooled by her passion, and lost in her love to thee? unworthy----

[_She turns away her head._

JOLLY. By this day, 'tis as false as he that said it. Hang him, son of a bachelor! a slave that, envying my fortune in such a happiness as your love and chaste embraces, took this way to ruin it. Come, dry your eyes, and let the guilty weep: if I were guilty, I durst as soon approach a constable drunk, as come here. You know I am your slave.

LOVE. You swore so, and honour made me leave to triumph over your miseries.

JOLLY. Do you repent that I am happy? if you do, command my death.

LOVE. Nay, never weep, or sit sadly: I am friends, so you will only talk and discourse; for 'tis your company I only covet.

JOLLY. No, you cannot forgive, because you have injur'd me: 'tis right woman's justice, accuse first; and harder to reconcile when they are guilty than when they are innocent; or else you would not turn from me thus.

LOVE. You know your youth hath a strong power over me: turn those bewitching eyes away; I cannot see them with safety of mine honour.

JOLLY. Come, you shall not hide your face: there's a charm in it against those that come burnt with unchaste fires; for let but your eyes or nose drop upon his heart, it would burn it up, or quench it straight.

LOVE. No cogging, you have injured me; and now, though my love plead, I must be deaf; my honour bids me; for you will not fear again to prove unworthy, when you find I am so easy to forgive. Why, you will not be uncivil?

[JOLLY _kisses her, and she shoves him away with her mouth_.

JOLLY. So, the storm is laid! I must have those pearls. She shoved me away with her mouth! I'll to her again.

[_Aside._]

LOVE. Where are you? what do you take me for? why, you will not be uncivil?

[_Still as he offers to touch her, she starts as if he plucked up her coats._

JOLLY. Uncivil! by thy chaste self I cannot, chick: thou hast such a terror, such a guard in those eyes, I dare not approach thee, nor can I gaze upon so much fire. Prythee, sirrah, let me hide me from their power here.

LOVE. You presume upon the weakness of our sex. What shall I say or do, tyrant love?

JOLLY. There's a charm in those pearls! pull them off: if they have a frost in them, let me wear them, and then we are both safe.

LOVE. I would you had taken them sooner! I had then been innocent, and might with whiteness have worn my love, which I shall ne'er outlive.

JOLLY. Dear, do not too fast pour in my joys, lest I too soon reach my heaven.

LOVE. Begone, then, lest we prove (having gained that height) this sad truth in love, _The first minute after noon is night._

JOLLY. Part now? the gods forbid! take from me first this load of joys you have thrown upon me, for 'tis a burthen harder to bear than sadness. I was not born till now; this my first night, in which I reap true bliss.

LOVE. No, no, I would it had been your first night, then your falsehood had not given argument for these tears; and I hate myself to think I should be such a foolish fly thus again to approach your dangerous flame.

JOLLY. Come, divert these thoughts. I'll go see your closet.

LOVE. No, no, I swear you shall not.

JOLLY. You know I am going out of town for two days.

LOVE. When you return, I'll show it you; you will forget me else when you are gone, and at court.

JOLLY. Can your love endure delays; or shall business thee from thence remove? These were your own arguments. Come, you shall show it me.

LOVE. Nay, then I perceive what unworthy way your love would find. Ye gods, are all men false?

JOLLY. As I live, you shall. Stay: come, you ought to make me amends for slandering of me. Hang me, if ever I told; and he that reports it is the damnedst rogue in a country. Come, I say----

[_He pulls her bodkin, that is tied in a piece of black bobbin._

LOVE. Ah! as I live, I will not, I have sworn. Do not pull me: I will not be damned, I have sworn.

[_He pulls her, and says this._

JOLLY. As I live I'll break your bodkin then. A weeping tyrant! Come, by this good day, you shall be merciful.

LOVE. Why, you will not be uncivil! You will not force me, will you? As I live, I will not.

JOLLY. Nay, an' you be wilful, I can be stubborn too.

[_He pulls still._

LOVE. Hang me, I'll call aloud. Why, Nan! Nay, you may force me; but, as I live, I'll do nothing.

[_Exeunt ambo._

## SCENE II.

_Enter_ CAPTAIN.

CAPT. A pox upon you, are you earthed? The rogue has got her necklace of pearl; but I hope he will leave the rope to hang me in. How the pox came they so great? I must have some trick to break his neck, else the young rogue will work me out. 'Tis an excellent old lady, but I dare not call her so: yet would she were young enough to bear, we might do some good for our heirs, by leaving such a charitable brood behind. She's a woman after the first kind; 'tis but going into her, and you may know her. Then she'll oblige so readily, and gives with greater thanks than others receive; takes it so kindly to be courted. I am now to oblige her (as she calls it) by professing young Wild's love, and desiring an assurance she's sensible of his sufferings; which though it be false and beyond my commission, yet the hopes of such a new young thing, that has the vogue of the town for handsomest, 'twill so tickle her age, and so blow up her vanity, to have it said he is in love with her, and so endear her to me for being the means, that the parson's malice will be able to take no root. She comes: I must not be seen.

_Enter_ LOVEALL _and_ JOLLY.

LOVE. Give me that letter; I'll swear you shall not read it.

JOLLY. Take it; I'll away. What time shall I call you? in the evening? There's a play at court to-night.

LOVE. I would willingly be there, but your ladies are so censorious and malicious to us young ladies in the town, especially to me, because the wits are pleased to afford me a visit or so: I could be content else to be seen at court. Pray, what humour is the queen of? The captain of her guard I know.

JOLLY. The queen! Who's that knocks at the back-door?

[_The_ CAPTAIN _knocks_.

LOVE. Smoothe my band; I know not. Go down that way, and look you be not false; if you should be false, I'll swear I should spoil myself with weeping.

JOLLY. Farewell! In the evening I'll call you.

[_Exit_ JOLLY.

LOVE. Who's there? Captain, where have you been all this while? I might sit alone, I see, for you, if I could not find conversation in books.

[_She takes a book in her hand, and sits down._

CAPT. Faith, madam, friends newly come to town engaged me; and my stay was civility rather than desire. What book's that?

LOVE. I'll swear he was a witch that writ it; for he speaks my thoughts, as if he had been within me: the original, they say, was French.

CAPT. O, I know it; 'tis the _Accomplished Woman_:[213] yourself he means by this, while you are yourself.

LOVE. Indeed, I confess, I am a great friend to conversation, if we could have it without suspicion; but the world's so apt to judge, that 'tis a prejudice to our honour now to salute a man.

CAPT. Innocence, madam, is above opinion, and your fame's too great to be shook with whispers.

LOVE. You are ever civil, and therefore welcome. Pray, what news is there now in town? for I am reclused here. Unless it be yours, I receive no visits; and I'll swear, I charged the wench to-day not to let you in: I wonder she let you come.

CAPT. Faith, madam, if it had been my own business, I should not have ventured so boldly; but the necessity that forces me to come concerns my friend, against whom if your mercy be now bounded with those strict ties of honour and cold thoughts which I have ever found guard your heart, my friend, a young and handsome man, is lost, is lost in his prime, and falls like early blossoms. But methinks you should not prove the envious frost to destroy this young man, this delicate young man, that has whole bundles of boys in his breeches: yet if you be cruel, he and they die, as useless as open-arses[214] gathered green.

[_She must be earnest in her looks all the time he speaks, desirous to know who he speaks of._

LOVE. Good captain, out with the particular. What way can my charity assist him? You know by experience I cannot be cruel: remember how I fetched you out of a swoon, and laid you in my own bed.

CAPT. That act preserved a life that has always been laboured in your service, and, I dare say, your charity here will find as fruitful a gratitude.

LOVE. But I hope he will not be so uncivil as you were: I'll swear I could have hanged you for that rape, if I would have followed the law; but I forgave you upon condition you would do so again. But what's this young man you speak of?

CAPT. Such is my love to you and him, that I cannot prefer mine own particular before your content, else I'd have poisoned him, ere I'd have brought him to your house.

LOVE. Why, I pray?

CAPT. Because he's young, handsome, and of sound parts: that I am sure will ruin me here.

LOVE. His love may make all these beauties; else I have an honour will defend me against him, were he as handsome as young Wild.

CAPT. Why, ay, there it is: that one word has removed all my fears and jealousies with a despair; for that's the man whose love, life, and fortune lies at your feet; and, if you were single, by lawful means he would hope to reach what now he despairs of.

LOVE. Let him not despair; love is a powerful pleader, and youth and beauty will assist him; and if his love be noble, I can meet it, for there's none that sacrifices more to friendship-love than I.

CAPT. My friend's interest makes me rejoice at this. Dare you trust me to say this to him, though it be not usual! Pray, speak: nay, you are so long still a-resolving to be kind! Remember, charity is as great a virtue as chastity, and greater, if we will hear nature plead: for the one may make many maids, the other can but preserve one. But I know you will be persuaded; let it be my importunity that prevailed. Shall I bring him hither one evening?

LOVE. Why do you plead thus? Pray, be silent, and when you see him, tell him he has a seat here, and I----

[_She turns away._

CAPT. Out with it; what is't? Shall he call you mistress, and his Platonic?

LOVE. Away, away! Me?

CAPT. No niceness; is't a match?

LOVE. Lord, would I were as worthy as willing (pray tell him so): he shall find me one of the humblest mistresses that ever he was pleased to honour with his affections.

CAPT. Dare you write this to him, and honour me with bearing it? I confess I am such a friend to friendship-love too, that I would even bring him on my back to a midnight's meeting.

LOVE. If you will stay here, I'll go in and write it.

[_She's going out, he calls her._

CAPT. Madam, I forgot to ask your ladyship one question.

LOVE. What was't?

CAPT. There happened a business last night betwixt Master Wild and one Jolly, a courtier, that brags extremely of your favour. I swear, if it had not been for friends that interposed themselves, there had been mischief, for Master Wild was extreme zealous in your cause.

LOVE. Such a rascal I know. Villain, to bring my name upon the stage, for a subject of his quarrels! I'll have him cudgelled.

CAPT. And I'll answer he deserved it; for the quarrel ended in a bet of a buck-hunting-nag, that some time to-day he would bring a necklace and chain of pearl of yours (not stol'n, but freely given) to witness his power.

LOVE. Did the vain rascal promise that?

CAPT. Yes, but we laugh'd at it.

LOVE. So you might; and as I live, if the necklace were come from stringing, I'd send them both to Master Wild, to wear as a favour, to assure him I am his, and to put the vain slave out of countenance.

CAPT. Ay, marry, such a timely favour were worth a dozen letters, to assure him of your love, and remove all the doubts the other's discourse may put into his head: and, faith, I'd send him the chain now, and in my letter promise him the necklace: he'll deserve such a favour.

LOVE. I'll go in and fetch it immediately: will you favour me to deliver it?

CAPT. I'll wait upon your ladyship.

LOVE. I'll swear you shall not go in: you know I foreswore being alone with you.

[_She goes, and he follows her; she turns, and bids him stay._

CAPT. Hang me, I'll go in. Does my message deserve to wait an answer at the door.

LOVE. Ay, but you'll be naught.

CAPT. O, ne'er trust me if I break.

LOVE. If you break, some such forfeit you'll lose. Well, come in for once.

CAPT. You are so suspicious.

LOVE. I'll swear I have reason for't: you are such another man.

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE III.

_Enter_ WANTON _and_ BAWD.

WAN. Is he gone?

BAWD. Yes, he's gone to the old lady's, high with mischief.

WAN. Fare him well, easy fool: how the trout strove to be tickled! And how does this ring become me, ha! They are fine kind of things, these wedding-rings.

[_She plays with the wedding-ring upon her finger._

BAWD. Besides the good custom of putting so much gold in 'em,[215] they bring such conveniences along.

WAN. Why, ay; now I have but one to please, and if I please him, who dares offend me? and that wife's a fool that cannot make her husband one.

BAWD. Nay, I am absolutely of opinion it was fit for you to marry. But whether he be a good husband or no----

WAN. A pox of a good husband! give me a wise one; they only make the secure cuckolds, the cuckold in grain: for dye a husband that has wit but with an opinion thou art honest, and see who dares wash the colour out. Now your fool changes with every drop, doats with confidence in the morning, and at night jealous even to murder, and his love (Lord help us!) fades like my gredaline petticoat.[216]

BAWD. This is a new doctrine.

WAN. 'Tis a truth, wench, I have gained from my own observations, and the paradox will be maintained. Take wise men for cuckolds, and fools to make them: for your wise man draws eyes and suspicion with his visit, and begets jealous thoughts in the husband, that his wife may be overcome with his parts; when the fool is welcome to both, pleaseth both; laughs with the one, and lies with the other, and all without suspicion. I tell thee, a fool that has money is the man. The wits and the we's, which is a distinct parreal of wit bound by itself, and to be sold at Wit-hall, or at the sign of the King's-head in the butchery: these wise things will make twenty jealous, ere one man a cuckold, when the family of fools will head a parish, ere they are suspected.

BAWD. Well, I see one may live and learn: and if he be but as good at it now you are his own, as he was when he was your friend's friend (as they call it), you have got one of the best hiders of such a business in the town. Lord, how he would sister you at a play!

WAN. Faith, 'tis as he is used at first; if he gets the bridle in's teeth, he'll ride to the devil; but if thou be'st true, we'll make him amble ere we have done. The plot is here, and if it thrive I'll alter the proverb, _The parson gets the children_, to, _The parson fathers them_.

BAWD. Anything that may get rule: I love to wear the breeches.

WAN. So do we all, wench. Empire 'tis all our aim; and I'll put my ranting Roger in a cage but I'll tame him. He loves already, which is an excellent ring in a fool's nose, and thou shalt hear him sing--

_Happy only is that family that shows A cock that's silent, and a hen that crows._

BAWD. Do this, I'll serve you for nothing: the impetuous slave had wont to taunt me for beating of my husband, and would sing that song in mockery of me.

WAN. In revenge of which, thou (if thou wilt be faithful) shalt make him sing,

_Happy is that family that shows A cock that's silent, and a hen that crows._

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE IV.

_Enter_ PARSON, LOVEALL, _and_ FAITHFUL.

LOVE. Go, you are a naughty man. Do you come hither to rail against an honest gentleman? I have heard how you fell out: you may be ashamed on't, a man of your coat.

PAR. What! to speak truth, and perform my duty? The world cries out you are a scabbed sheep, and I am come to tar you; that is, give you notice how your fame suffers i' th' opinion of the world.

LOVE. My fame, sirrah! 'Tis purer than thy doctrine. Get thee out of my house.

FAITH. You uncivil fellow, you come hither to tell my lady of her faults, as if her own Levite could not discern 'em?

LOVE. My own Levite! I hope he's better bred than to tell me of my faults.

FAITH. He finds work enough to correct his dearly-beloved sinners.

PAR. And the right worshipful my lady and yourself, they mend at leisure.

LOVE. You are a saucy fellow, sirrah, to call me sinner in my own house. Get you gone with your _Madam, I hear_, and _Madam, I could advise, but I am loth to speak: take heed; the world talks_;--and thus with dark sentences put my innocence into a fright, with _You know what you know, good Mistress Faithful_: so do I, and the world shall know, too, thou hast married a whore.

PAR. Madam, a whore?

FAITH. No, sir, 'tis not so well as a madam-whore; 'tis a poor whore, a captain's cast whore.

LOVE. Now bless me, marry a whore! I wonder any man can endure those things. What kind of creatures are they?

PAR. They're like ladies, but that they are handsomer; and though you take a privilege to injure me, yet I would advise your woman to tie up her tongue, and not abuse my wife.

LOVE. Fie! art thou not ashamed to call a whore wife? Lord bless us, what will not these men do when God leaves them? but for a man of your coat to cast himself away upon a whore! Come, wench, let's go and leave him! I'll swear[217] 'tis strange the state doth not provide to have all whores hanged or drowned.

FAITH. Ay, and 'tis time they look into it; for they begin to spread so, that a man can scarce find an honest woman in a country. They say they're voted down now; 'twas moved by that charitable member that got an order to have it but five miles to Croydon, for ease of the market-women.

LOVE. Ay, ay, 'tis a blessed parliament.

[_Exeunt_ LOVEALL _and_ FAITHFUL.

PAR. That I have played the fool is visible. This comes of rashness. Something I must do to set this right, or else she'll hate, and he'll laugh at me. I must not lose him and my revenge too. Something that's mischief I am resolved to do.

[_Exit_ PARSON.

## SCENE V.

_Enter_ WILD _and_ CARELESS.

WILD. Now is the parson's wife so contemptible?

CARE. No; but I'm so full of that resolution to dislike the sex, that I will allow none honest, none handsome. I tell thee, we must beat down the price with ourselves; court none of them, but let their maidenheads and their faces lie upon their hands, till they're weary of the commodity: then they'll haunt us to find proper chapmen to deal for their ware.

WILD. I like this, but 'twill be long adoing, and it may be, ere they be forced to sell, our bank will be exhausted, and we shall not be able to purchase.

CARE. Ay, but we'll keep a credit, and at three six months thou and the captain shall be my factors.

WILD. You had best have a partner, else such an undertaking would break a better back than yours.

CARE. No partners in such commodities: your factor that takes up maidenheads, 'tis upon his own account still.

WILD. But what course will you take to purchase this trade with women?

CARE. I am resolved to put on their own silence and modesty, answer _forsooth_, swear nothing but _God's nigs_, and hold arguments of their own cold tenets, as if I believed there were no true love below the line, then sigh when 'tis proper, and with forced studies betray the enemy who, seeing my eye fixed on her, her vanity thinks I am lost in admiration, calls and shakes me, ere I wake out of my design, and being collected, answer out of purpose, _Love, divinest? yes, who is it that is mortal and does not? or which amongst all the senate of the gods can gaze upon those eyes, and carry thence the power he brought?_ This will start her.

WILD. Yes, and make her think thee mad.

CARE. Why, that's my design; for then I start too, and rub my eyes as if I waked: then sigh and strangle a yawn, till I have wrung it into tears, with which I rise as if o'ercome with grief; then kiss her hands, and let fall those witnesses of faith and love, bribed for my design. This takes; for who would suspect such a devil as craft and youth to live together?

WILD. But what kind of women do you think this will take?

CARE. All kind of women. Those that think themselves handsome, it being probable, conclude it real; and those that are handsome in their opinion, that small number will believe it, because it agrees with their wishes.

WILD. And when you are gone, it may be they sigh, and their love breaks out into paper, and what then?

CARE. What then? why then I'll laugh, and show thee their letters, and teach the world how easy 'tis to win any woman.

WILD. This is the way: and be sure to dislike all but her you design for: be scarce civil to any of the sex besides.

CARE. That's my meaning; but to her that I mean my prey, all her slave: she shall be my deity, and her opinion my religion.

WILD. And while you sad it once to one, I'll talk freer than a privileged fool, and swear as unreasonably as losing gamesters, and abuse thee for thinking to reclaim a woman by thy love: call them all bowls thrown, that will run where they will run, and lovers like fools run after them, crying, _rub_ and _fly_ for me. I believe none fair, nor handsome, nor honest, but the kind.

CARE. We must make the captain of our plot, lest he betray us. This will gain us some revenge upon the lovers to whom I grudge the wenches, not that I believe they're worth half the cost they pay for them. And we may talk; but 'tis not our opinion can make them happier or more miserable.

_Enter_ JOLLY.

WILD. Jolly! Will, where hast thou been? We had such sport with the parson of our town: he's married this morning to Wanton.

JOLLY. Who? the captain's wench? he's in a good humour then. As you love mirth, let's find him: I have news to blow his rage with, and 'twill be mirth to us to see him divided betwixt the several causes of his anger, and lose himself in his rage, while he disputes which is the greater. Your opinion, gentlemen: is this or his wench the greater loss?

CARE. What hast thou there? pearl![218] they're false, I hope.

[_Here he pulls out the pearl._

JOLLY. Why do you hope so?

CARE. Because I am thy friend, and would be loth to have thee hanged for stealing.

JOLLY. I will not swear they are honestly come by: but I'll be sworn there's neither force nor theft in't.

WILD. Prythee, speak out of riddles: here's none but your friends.

JOLLY. Faith, take it. You have heard the captain brag of an old lady, which he thinks he keeps close in a box; but I know where hangs a key can let a friend in, or so. From her, my brace of worthies, whose wits are dulled with plenty this morning, with three good words and four good deeds I earned this toy.

CARE. The mirth yet we will all share. I am in pain till we find him, that we may vex his wit, that he presumes so much on.

WILD. Let's go, let's go. I will desire him to let me see his wench: I will not understand him if he says she's gone.

CARE. I'll beg of him, for old acquaintance' sake, to let me see his old lady.

JOLLY. Hark! I hear his voice.----

CAPT. [_Within._] Which way?

CARE. The game plays itself. Begin with him, Ned, while we talk as if we were busy: we'll take our cue.

WILD. When I put off my hat.

_Enter_ CAPTAIN.

CAPT. 'Sblood, I thought you had been sunk: I have been hunting you these four hours. Death! you might ha' left word where you went, and not put me to hunt like Tom Fool. 'Tis well you are at London, where you know the way home.

WILD. Why in choler? We have been all this while searching you. Come, this is put on to divert me from claiming your promise. I must see the wench.

CAPT. You cannot, adad: adad, you cannot.

WILD. I did not think you would have refused such a kindness.

CARE. What's that?

WILD. Nothing, a toy. He refuses to show me his wench!

CARE. The devil he does! What! have we been thus long comrades, and had all things in common, and must we now come to have common wenches particular? I say, thou shalt see her, and lie with her too, if thou wilt.

JOLLY. What! in thy dumps, brother? Call to thy aid two-edged wit. The captain sad! 'tis prophetic: I'd as lieve[219] have dreamt of pearl, or the loss of my teeth: yet if he be musty, I'll warrant thee, Ned, I'll help thee to a bout. I know his cloak, his long cloak that hides her: I am acquainted with the parson: he shall befriend thee.

CAPT. 'Tis very well, gentlemen; but none of you have seen her yet?

WILD. Yes, but we have, by thyself--by thy anger, which is now bigger than thou. By chance we crossed her coming from church, leading in her hand the parson, to whom she swore she was this day married.

JOLLY. And our friendships were now guiding us to find thee out, to comfort thee after the treachery of thy Levite.

CARE. Come, bear it like a man; there are more wenches. What hast thou spied?

[_He gives no answer, but peeps under_ Jolly's _hat_.

WILD. His pearl, I believe.

CAPT. Gentlemen, I see you are merry: I'll leave you. I must go a little way to inquire about a business.

WILD. H' has got a sore eye, I think.

CAPT. I will only ask one question, and return.

CARE. No, faith, stay, and be satisfied.

JOLLY. Do, good brother; for I believe there is no question that you now would ask, but here's an oracle can resolve you.

CAPT. Are those pearl true?

JOLLY. Yes.

CAPT. And did not you steal them?

JOLLY. No.

CARE. Nor he did not buy them with ready money, but took them upon mortgage of himself to an old lady.

JOLLY. Dwelling at the sign of the Buck in Broad Street. Are you satisfied, or must I play the oracle still?

CAPT. No, no; I am satisfied.

JOLLY. Like jealous men that take their wives at it, are you not?

CAPT. Well, very well: 'tis visible I am abused on all hands. But, gentlemen, why all against me?

CARE. To let you see your wit's mortal, and not proof against all.

WILD. The parson hath shot it through with a jest.

CAPT. Gentlemen, which of you, faith, had a hand in that?

JOLLY. Faith, none; only a general joy to find the captain overreached.

CAPT. But, do you go sharers in the profit as well as in the jest?

JOLLY. No, faith, the toy's mine own.

CAPT. They are very fine, and you may afford a good pennyworth. Will you sell them?

JOLLY. Sell them! ay, where's a chapman?

CAPT. Here; I'll purchase them.

JOLLY. Thou! no, no, I have barred thee, bye and main,[220] for I am resolved not to fight for them: that excludes thy purchase by the sword; and thy wench has proved such a loss, in thy last adventure of wit, that I'm afraid it will spoil thy credit that way too.

CAPT. Gentlemen, as a friend, let me have the refusal: set your price.

WILD. He's serious.

CARE. Leave fooling.

JOLLY. Why, if thou couldst buy them, what wouldst thou do with them?

CAPT. They're very fair ones; let me see them: methinks they should match very well with these?

JOLLY. These! which?

OMNES. Which?

CARE. They are true.

CAPT. Yes, but not earned with a pair of stol'n verses, of, _I was not born till now, This my first night, And so forsooth_; nor given as a charm against lust.

CARE. What means all this?

JOLLY. What! why, 'tis truth, and it means to shame the devil. By this good day, he repeats the same words with which I gathered these pearls.

WILD. Why, then, we have two to laugh at.

CARE. And all friends hereafter. Let's fool all together.

CAPT. Gentlemen with the fine wits, and my very good friends, do you, or you, or he, think I'll keep you company to make you laugh, but that I draw my honey from you too?

CARE. Come, come, the captain's in the right.

CAPT. Yes, yes, the captain knows it, and dares tell you your wit, your fortune, and his face, are but my ploughs; and I would have my fine monsieur know, who, in spite of my counsel, will be finer than his mistress, and appears before her so curiously built, she dares not play with him for fear of spoiling him: and to let him know the truth I speak, to his fair hands I present this letter, but withal give him to understand the contents belong to me.

[_He reads the letter._

WILD. The pearl are sent to me.

CAPT. I deny that, unless you prove you sent me: for the letter begins, "Sir, this noble gentleman, the bearer, whom you are pleased to make the messenger of your love," and so forth. And now you should do well to inquire for that noble gentleman, and take an account of him how he has laid out your love; and it may be, he'll return you pearl for it. And now, gentlemen, I dare propose a peace, at least a cessation of wit (but what is defensive) till such time as the plot which is now in my head be effected, in which you have all your shares.

WILD. So she knows I have not the pearl, I am content.

CAPT. She'll quickly find that, when she sees you come not to-night according to my appointment, and hears I have sold the pearl.

JOLLY. Here then ceaseth our offensive war.

CAPT. I'll give you counsel worth two ropes of pearl.

CARE. But the wench--how came the parson to get her?

CAPT. Faith, 'tis hard to say which laboured most, he or I, to make that match; but the knave did well. There it is, if you assist, I mean to lay the scene of your mirth to-night; for I am not yet fully revenged upon the rogue: for that I know him miserable, is nothing, till he believe so too. Wanton and I have laid the plot.

JOLLY. Do you hold correspondence?

CAPT. Correspondence! I tell thee, the plots we laid to draw him on would make a comedy.

_Enter a_ SERVANT.

SER. Sir, the ladies stay dinner.

JOLLY. And as we go, I'll tell you all the story, and after dinner be free from all engagements, as we promised thee; and, follow but our[221] directions, I'll warrant you mirth and a pretty wench.

OMNES. Agreed; anything that breeds mirth is welcome.

JOLLY. Not a word at the widow's: let them go on quietly, and steal their wedding too.

CAPT. I heard a bird sing, as if it were concluded amongst the couples.

WILD. They have been long about: my coz is a girl deserves more haste to her bed. He has arrived there by carrier's journeys.

CARE. But that I hate wooing, by this good day, I like your aunt so well and her humour, she should scarce be thrown away upon pale-face, that has sighed her into a wedding-ring, and will but double her jointure.

CAPT. Why, ay, thus it should be. Pray let us make them the seat of the war all dinner, and continue united and true among ourselves; then we may defy all foreign danger.

Jolly. And with full bowls let us crown this peace, and sing, _Wit without war no mirth doth bring._

[_Exeunt._

## SCENE VI.

_Enter_ PARSON _and_ WANTON.

WAN. Was she deaf to your report?

PAR. Yes, yes.

[_The_ PARSON _walks troubled up and down_.

WAN. And Ugly, her Abigail, she had her say too?

PAR. Yes, yes.

WAN. And do you walk here, biting your nails? do you think I'll be satisfied with such a way of righting me?

PAR. What wouldst have me do?

WAN. Have you no gall? be abused and laughed at by a dull captain, that a strict muster would turn fool! You had wit, and could rail when I offended you; and none so sudden, none so terrible, none so sure in his revenge, when I displease you.

PAR. Something I'll do.

WAN. Do it, then, or I shall curse that e'er I saw you. Death! let the sign of my lady, an out-of-fashion whore, that has paid for sin ever since yellow starch[222] and wheel fardingales were cried down, let her abuse me, and say nothing: if this passes----

PAR. As Christ bless me, but I did, sweet heart; and if it were not church livings are mortal, and they are always hitting me in the teeth with a man of my[223] coat, she should find I am no churchman within, nor Master Parson but in my coat. Come to dinner, and after dinner I'll do something.

WAN. I shall do something will vex somebody.

_Enter_ BAWD.

BAWD. Will you please to come to dinner? the company stays.

PAR. Come, let's go in.

WAN. No, I must walk a little to digest this breakfast; the guests else will wonder to see I am troubled.

PAR. Come, let this day pass in mirth, spite of mischief, for luck's sake.

[_Exit_ PARSON.

WAN. I'll follow you, and do what I can to be merry.

BAWD. Why, he stands already.

WAN. Peace, let me alone: I'll make him jostle like the miller's mare, and stand like the dun cow, till thou may'st milk him.

BAWD. Pray break him of his miserableness; it is one of the chief exceptions I have against him. He reared a puppy once, till it was ten days old, with three hap'worth of milk, and then with his own dagger slew it, and made me dress it: blessed myself to see him eat it, and he bid me beg the litter, and swore it was sweeter and wholesomer than sucking rabbits or London pigs, which he called Bellmen's issue.

PAR. [_Within._] Why, sweet heart!

WAN. Hark! he calls me. We must humour him a little, he'll rebel else.

## SCENE VII.

_Enter (at the windows) the_ WIDOW _and_ MASTER CARELESS, MISTRESS PLEASANT _and_ MASTER WILD, CAPTAIN, MASTER SAD, CONSTANT, JOLLY, SECRET: _a table and knives ready for oysters_.

WID. You're welcome all, but especially Master Jolly. No reply with, _I thank your ladyship_.

PLEA. I beseech you, sir, let us never be better acquainted?

[_She speaks to_ MASTER JOLLY.

JOLLY. I shall endeavour, lady, and fail in nothing that is in my power to disoblige you; for there is none more ambitious of your ill opinion than I.

PLEA. I rejoice at it; for the less love, the better welcome still.

WID. And as ever you had an ounce of love for the widow, be not friends among yourselves.

WILD. Aunt, though we were at strife when we were alone, yet now we unite like a politic state against the common enemy.

PLEA. The common enemy! what is that?

WILD. Women, and lovers in general.

WID. Nay, then we have a party, niece: claim quickly, now is the time, according to the proverb, keep a thing seven years, and then if thou hast no use on't, throw't away.

PLEA. Agreed, let's challenge our servants: by the love they have professed, they cannot in honour refuse to join with us. And see where they come!

_Enter_ SAD _and_ CONSTANT, _and meet_ SECRET; _she whispers this to_ SAD.

SEC. Sir, 'tis done.

SAD. Be secret and grave, I'll warrant our design will take as we can wish.

CON. Sweet Mistress Pleasant!

WID. Servant Sad.

SAD. Madam.

WID. We are threatened to have a war waged against us: will you not second us?

SAD. With these youths we'll do enough, madam.

WID. I'll swear my servant gave hit for hit this morning, as if he had been a master in the noble science of wit.

PLEA. Mine laid about him with spick and span[224] new arguments, not like the same man: his old sayings and precedents laid by.

WID. Thus armed, then, we'll stand and defy them.

WILD. Where's your points? sure, aunt, this should be your wedding-day, for you have taken the man for better for worse.

WID. No, nephew, this will not prove the day, that we shall either give or take a ring.

CARE. Hang me, if I know you can go back again with your honour.

WILD. Or in justice refuse him liberty that has served out his time: either marry him, or provide for him, for he is maimed in your service.

WID. Why, servant Sad, you'll arm? my nephew has thrown the first dart at you.

CAPT. Hast hit, hast hit?

WILD. No, captain; 'twas too wide.

CAPT. Too wide! marry, he's an ill marksman that shoots wider than a widow.

JOLLY. We are both in one hole, captain; but I was loth to venture my opinion, lest her ladyship should think I was angry, for I have a good mind to fall upon the widow.

PLEA. You're a constant man, Master Jolly; you have been in that mind this twelvemonth's day.

CON. You are in the right, madam; she has it to show under his hand, but she will not come in the list with him again: she threw him the last year.

WID. Come, shall we eat oysters? Who's there? Call for some wine. Master Jolly, you are not warm yet. Pray, be free, you are at home.

JOLLY. Your ladyship is merry.

WID. You do not take it ill to have me assure you, you are at home here?

WILD. Such another invitation (though in jest) will take away Master Sad's stomach.

[_Oysters not brought in yet._

SAD. No, faith, Ned, though she should take him, it will not take away my stomach: my love is so fixed, I may wish my wishes, but she shall never want them to wait upon hers.

PLEA. A traitor! bind him! has pulled down a side. Profess your love thus public?

JOLLY. Ay, by my faith, continue, Master Sad, [to] give it out you love; and call it a new love, a love never seen before; we'll all come to it as your friends.

SAD. Gentlemen, still I love: and if she to whom I thus sacrifice will not reward it, yet the worst malice can say is, I was unfortunate; and misfortune, not falsehood, made me so.

JOLLY. In what chapter shall we find this written, and what verse? you should preach with a method, Master Sad.

WID. Gentlemen, if ever he spoke so much dangerous sense before (either of love or reason), hang me.

SAD. Madam, my love is no news, where you are: know, your scorn has made it public; and though it could gain no return from you, yet others have esteemed me for the faith and constancy I have paid here.

PLEA. Did not I foretell you of his love? I foresaw this danger. Shall I never live to see wit and love dwell together?

CAPT. I am but a poor soldier, and yet never reached to the honour of being a lover; yet from my own observations, Master Sad, take a truth: 'tis a folly to believe any woman loves a man for being constant to another; they dissemble their hearts only, and hate a man in love worse than a wencher.

JOLLY. And they have reason; for if they have the grace to be kind, he that loves the sex may be theirs.

CARE. When your constant lover, if a woman have a mind to him, and be blessed with so much grace to discover it, he, out of the noble mistake of honour hates her for it, and tells it perchance, and preaches reason to her passion, and cries: Miserable beauty, to be so unfortunate as to inhabit in so much frailty!

CAPT. This counsel makes her hate him more than she loved before. These are troubles those that love are subject to; while we look on and laugh, to see both thus slaved, while we are free.

CARE. My prayers still shall be, Lord deliver me from love.

CAPT. 'Tis plague, pestilence, famine, sword, and sometimes sudden death.

SAD. Yet I love, I must love, I will love, and I do love.

CAPT. In the present tense.

WID. No more of this argument, for love's sake.

CAPT. By any means, madam, give him leave to love: and you are resolved to walk tied up in your own arms, with your love as visible in your face as your mistress's colours in your hat; that any porter at Charing Cross may take you like a letter at the carrier's, and having read the superscription, deliver Master Sad to the fair hands of Mistress or My Lady Such-a-one, lying at the sign of the Hard Heart.

PLEA. And she, if she has wit (as I believe she hath), will scarce pay the post for the packet.

WID. Treason! how now, niece? join with the enemy?

[_They give the_ CAPTAIN _wine_.

CAPT. A health, Ned: what shall I call it?

CARE. To Master Sad! he needs it that avows himself a lover.

SAD. Gentlemen, you have the advantage, the time, the place, the company; but we may meet when your wits shall not have such advantage as my love.

PLEA. No more of love, I am so sick on't.

CON. By your pardon, mistress, I must not leave love thus unguarded: I vow myself his follower.

JOLLY. Much good may love do him. Give me a glass of wine here. Will, let them keep company with the blind boy. Give us his mother, and let them preach again: Hear that will, he has good luck persuades me 'tis an ugly sin to lie with a handsome woman.

CAPT. A pox upon your nurse; she frighted me so, when I was young, with stories of the devil, I was almost fourteen ere I could prevail with reasons to unbind my reason, it was so slaved to faith and conscience. She made me believe wine was an evil spirit, and fornication, like the whore of Babylon, a fine face, but a dragon under her petticoats, and that made me have a mind to peep under all I met since.

WID. Fie, fie! for shame, do not talk so: are you not ashamed to glory in sin, as if variety of women were none?

JOLLY. Madam, we do not glory in fornication; and yet I thank God, I cannot live without a woman.

CAPT. Why, does your ladyship think it a sin to lie with variety of handsome women? If it be, would I were the wicked'st man in the company.

PLEA. You have been marked for an indifferent sinner that way, captain.

CAPT. Who, I? no, faith, I was a fool; but, and I were to begin again, I would not do as I have done. I kept one, but if ever I keep another, hang me; nor would I advise any friend of mine to do it.

JOLLY. Why, I am sure 'tis a provident and safe way: a man may always be provided and sound.

PLEA. Fie upon this discourse!

CAPT. Those considerations betrayed me: a pox! it is a dull sin to travel, like a carrier's horse, always one road.

WID. Fie, captain! repent for shame, and marry.

CAPT. Your ladyship would have said, marry and repent: no, though it be not the greatest pleasure, yet it is better than marrying; for when I am weary of her, my inconstancy is termed virtue, and I shall be said to turn to grace. Beware of women for better, for worse; for our wicked nature, when her sport is lawful, cloys straight: therefore, rather than marry, keep a wench.

JOLLY. Faith, he's in the right; for 'tis the same thing in number and kind, and then the sport is quickened, and made poignant with sin.

CAPT. Yet 'tis a fault, faith, and I'll persuade all my friends from it; especially here, where any innovation is dangerous. 'Twas the newness of the sin that made me suffer in the opinion of my friends, and I was condemned by all sorts of people; not that I sinned, but that I sinned no more.

CARE. Why, ay, hadst thou been wicked in fashion, and privily lain with everybody, their guilt would have made them protect thee: so that to be more wicked is to be innocent, at least safe. A wicked world, Lord help us!

CAPT. But being particular to her, and not in love, nor subject to it: taking an antidote every morning, before I venture into those infectious places where love and beauty dwell; this enraged the maiden beauties of the time, who thought it a prejudice to their beauties to see me careless, and securely pass by their conquering eyes, my name being found amongst none of those that decked their triumphs. But from this 'tis easy to be safe; for their pride will not let them love, nor my leisure me. Then the old ladies that pay for their pleasures,--they, upon the news, beheld me with their natural frowns, despairing when their money could not prevail; and hated me when they heard that I for my pleasure would pay as large as they.

JOLLY. Gentlemen, take warning: a fee from every man; for by this day, there's strange counsel in this confession.

WILD. Captain, you forgot to pledge Master Careless! Here, will you not drink a cup of wine? Who's there? Bring the oysters.

CAPT. Yes, madam, if you please.

WILD. Proceed, captain.

PLEA. Fie, Master Wild! are you not ashamed to encourage him to this filthy discourse?

CAPT. A glass of wine then, and I'll drink to all the new-married wives that grieve to think at what rate their fathers purchase a little husband. These, when they lie thirsting for the thing they paid so dear for----

_Enter a_ SERVANT _with oysters_.

CARE. These, methinks, should be thy friends, and point thee out as a man for them.

CAPT. Yes, till the faithful nurse cries; Alas, madam! he keeps such a one, he has enough at home. Then she swells with envy and rage against us both; calls my mistress ugly, common, unsafe, and me a weak secure fool.

JOLLY. These are strange truths, madam.

WID. Ay, ay; but those oysters are a better jest.

CAPT. But she's abused that will let such reason tame her desire, and a fool in love's-school; else she would not be ignorant that variety is such a friend to love, that he which rises a sunk coward from the lady's bed, would find new fires at her maid's: nor ever yet did the man want fire, if the woman would bring the fuel.

PLEA. For God's sake, leave this discourse.

WID. The captain has a mind we should eat no oysters.

WILD. Aunt, we came to be merry, and we will be merry, and you shall stay it out. Proceed, captain.

WID. Fie, captain, I am ashamed to hear you talk thus: marry, and then you'll have a better opinion of women.

CAPT. Marry! yes, this knowledge will invite me: it is a good encouragement, is it not, think you? What is your opinion? Were not these marriages made in heaven? By this good day, all the world is mad, and makes haste to be fooled, but we four: and I hope there's none of us believes there has any marriages been made in heaven since Adam.

JOLLY. By my faith, 'tis thought the devil gave the ring there too.

WID. Nephew, I'll swear I'll be gone.

CAPT. Hold her, Ned [_He points at_ SAD], she goes not yet; there's a fourth kind of women that concerns her more than all the rest--_ecce signum_! She is one of those who, clothed in purple, triumph over their dead husbands; these will be catched at first sight, and at first sight must be caught. 'Tis a bird that must be shot flying, for they never sit. If a man delay, they cool, and fall into considerations of jointure and friends' opinion; in which time, if she hears thou keep'st a wench, thou hadst better be a beggar in her opinion; for then her pride, it may be, would betray her to the vanity of setting up a proper man (as they call it); but for a wencher no argument prevails with your widow; for she believes they have spent too much that way to be able to pay her due benevolence.

WID. As I live, I'll be gone, if you speak one word more of this uncivil subject.

JOLLY. Captain, let me kiss thy cheek for that, widow. You understand this, widow? I say no more. Here, captain, here's to thee! As it goes down, a pox of care!

WID. Jesus! Master Jolly, have you no observations of the court, that are so affected with this of the town.

CON. Faith, they say, there's good sport there sometimes.

PLEA. Master Jolly is afraid to let us partake of his knowledge.

JOLLY. No, faith, madam.

CAPT. By this drink, if he stay till I have eaten a few more, I'll describe it.

JOLLY. What should I say? 'Tis certain the court is the bravest place in the kingdom for sport, if it were well looked to, and the game preserved fair; but, as 'tis, a man may sooner make a set in the Strand; and it will never be better whilst your divine lovers[225] inhabit there.

CARE. Let the king make me master of the game.[226]

CAPT. And admit us laity-lovers.

JOLLY. I would he would; for, as 'tis, there's no hopes amongst the ladies: besides, 'tis such an example to see a king and queen good husband and wife, that to be kind will grow out of fashion.

CAPT. Nay, that's not all; for the women grow malicious because they are not courted: nay, they bred all the last mischiefs, and called the king's chastity a neglect of them.

JOLLY. Thou art in the right. An Edward or a Harry, with seven queens in buckram, that haught[227] among the men, and stroked the women, are the monarchs they wish to bow to; they love no tame princes, but lions in the forest!

CAPT. Why, and those were properly called the fathers of their people, that were indeed akin to their nobility: now they wear out their youth and beauty, without hope of a monumental ballad, or trophy of a libel that shall hereafter point at such a lord, and cry, that is the royal son of such a one!

JOLLY. And these were the ways that made them powerful at home: for the city is a kind of tame beast; you may lead her by the horns any whither, if you but tickle them in the ear sometimes. Queen Bess, of famous memory, had the trick on't; and I have heard them say, in eighty-eight, ere I was born, as well as I can remember, she rode to Tilbury on that bonny beast, the mayor.

CAPT. I would I might counsel him, I'd so reform the court.

CARE. Never too soon; for now, when a stranger comes in, and spies a covey of beauties would make a falconer unhood, before he can draw his leash, he is warned that's a marked partridge; and that and every he has by their example a particular she.

WILD. By this light, the six fair maids stand like the working-days in the almanac; one with A scored upon her breast, that is as much as to say, I belong to such a lord; the next with B, for an elder brother; C, for such a knight; D, possessed with melancholy, and at her breast you may knock an hour ere you get an answer, and then she'll tell you there's no lodging there; she has a constant fellow-courtier that has taken up all her heart to his own use: in short, all are disposed of but the good mother, and she comes in like the Sabbath at the week's end; and I warrant her to make any one rest that comes at her.

CARE. Ay, marry, if she were like the Jews' Sabbath, it were somewhat; but this looks like a broken commandment, that has had more work done upon her than all the week besides.

CAPT. And what think you--is not this finely carried? you, that are about the king, counsel him, if he will have his sport fair, he must let the game be free, as it has been in former ages. Then a stranger that has wit, good means, and handsome clothes, no sooner enters the privy chamber, and beats about with three graceful legs,[228] but he springs a mistress that danced as well as he, sung better: as free as fair. Those at first sight could speak, for wit is always acquainted: these fools must be akin, ere they can speak. And now friends make the bargain, and they go to bed, ere they know why.

JOLLY. Faith, he's in the right: you shall have a buzzard now hover and beat after a pretty wench, till she is so weary of him she's forced to take her bed for covert, and find less danger in being trussed than in flying.

CAPT. And what becomes of all this pudder?[229] after he has made them sport for one night, to see him touze the quarry, he carries her into the country; and there they two fly at one another till they are weary.

CARE. And all this mischief comes of love and constancy. We shall never see better days till there be an act of parliament against it, enjoining husbands not to till their wives, but change and lay them fallow.

JOLLY. A pox, the women will never consent to it: they'll be tilled to death first.

WILD. Gentlemen, you are very bold with the sex.

CAPT. Faith, madam, it is our care of them. Why, you see they are married at fourteen, yield a crop and a half, and then die: 'tis merely their love that destroys 'em; for if they get a good husbandman, the poor things yield their very hearts.

PLEA. And do you blame their loves, gentlemen?

JOLLY. No, not their love, but their discretion; let them love, and do, a God's name, but let them do with discretion.

WILD. But how will you amend this?

JOLLY. Instead of two beds and a physician, I'd have the state prescribe two wives and a mistress.

WILD. Ho! it will never be granted: the state is made up of old men, and they find work enough with one.

JOLLY. We will petition the lower house; there are young men, and (if it were but to be factious) would pass it, if they thought the upper house would cross it; besides, they ought to do it. Death! they provide against cutting down old trees, and preserving highways and post-horses, and let pretty wenches run to decay.

CARE. Why may it not come within the statute of depopulation? As I live, the state ought to take care of those pretty creatures. Be you judge, madam: is't not a sad sight to see a rich young beauty, with all her innocence and blossoms on, subject to some rough rude fellow, that ploughs her, and esteems and uses her as a chattel, till she is so lean, a man may find as good grass upon the common, where it may be she'll sit coughing with sunk eyes, so weak that a boy (with a dog) that can but whistle, may keep a score of them?

WID. You are strangely charitable to our sex on a sudden!

CAPT. I know not what they are; but, for my part, I'll be a traitor, ere I'll look on and see beauty go thus to wreck. It is enough custom has made us suffer them to be enclosed. I am sure they were created common, and for the use of man, and not intended to be subject to jealousy and choler, or to be bought or sold, or let for term of lives or years, as they are now, or else sold at outcries:[230] _Oh yes! who'll give most, take her._

WID. Why do not some of you excellent men marry, and mend all these errors by your good example?

JOLLY. Because we want fortunes to buy rich wives or keep poor ones, and be loth to get beggars or whores, as well as I love 'em.

PLEA. Why, are all their children so that have no fortune, think you?

JOLLY. No, not all: I have heard of Whittington and his Cat,[231] and others, that have made fortunes by strange means, but I scarce believe my son would rise from _Hop, a halfpenny and a lamb's-skin_;[232] and the wenches, commonly having more wit and beauty than money, foreseeing small portions, grow sad and read romances, till their wit spy some unfortunate merit like their own, without money too; and they two sigh after one another till they grow mysterious in colours, and become a proverb for their constancy: and when their love has worn out the cause, marry in the end a new couple; then, grown ashamed of the knowledge they so long hunted, at length part by consent, and vanish into Abigail and governor.

WID. Well, gentlemen, excuse me for this one time; and if ever I invite you to dinner again, punish me with such another discourse. In the meantime, let's go in and dine; meat stays for us.

CAPT.[233] Faith, madam, we were resolved to be merry: we have not met these three years till to-day, and at the Bear we meant to have dined; and since your ladyship would have our company, you must pardon our humour. Here, Master[234] Sad, here's the widow's health to you.

[_Exeunt omnes._

## ACT III., SCENE 1.

_Enter all from dinner._

WID. Nephew, how do you dispose of yourself this afternoon?

WILD. We have a design we must pursue, which will rid you of all this troublesome company; and we'll make no excuse, because you peeped into our privacies to-day.

CARE. Your humble servant, ladies; gentlemen, we'll leave you to pursue your fortunes.

[_Exit_ CARELESS.

JOLLY. Farewell, widow: may'st thou live unmarried till thou run'st away with thyself.

[_Exit_ JOLLY.

CAPT. No, no, when that day comes, command the humblest of your servants.

[_Exit_ CAPTAIN.

WILD. Farewell, aunt: sweet Mistress Pleasant, I wish you good fortune.

[_Exit_ WILD.

WID. Farewell, farewell, gentlemen. Niece, now, if we could be rid of these troublesome lovers too, we would go see a play.

[_Aside._

PLEA. Rid of them! why, they are but now in season. As I live, I would do as little to give mine content as any she in town, and yet I do not grudge him the happiness of carrying me to a play.

WID. Ay, but the world will talk, because they pretend; and then we shall be sure to meet my nephew there and his wild company, and they will laugh to see us together.

PLEA. Who will you have, Tim the butler or Formal your gentleman-usher? I would take Philip, the foreman of the shop, as soon.

WID. Let's mask ourselves, and take Secret, and go alone by water.

PLEA. Yes, and follow her, like one of my aunts of the suburbs.[235] It is a good way to know what you may yield in a market; for, I'll undertake, there are those that shall bid for you before the play will be done.

SEC. As I live, madam, Mistress Pleasant is in the right; I had such a kindness offered me once, and I came to a price with him in knavery; and hang me, if the rogue was not putting the earnest of his affection into my hand.

WID. Let's go to the Glass-House[236] then.

PLEA. I'll go to a play with my servant, and so shall you. Hang opinion! and we'll go to the Glass-House afterwards: it is too hot to sup early.

SEC. Pray, madam, go: they say 'tis a fine play, and a knight writ it.

PLEA. Pray, let Secret prevail; I'll propose it to the lovers. In the meantime, go you, and bid the coachman make ready the coach.

[SECRET _whispers_ SAD, 'Twill take.

SEC. Alas, madam! he's sick, poor fellow, and gone to bed; he could not wait at dinner.

WID. Sick?

PLEA. Why, see how all things work for the young men, either their coach or afoot! Master Constant, what think you of seeing a play this afternoon? Is it not too hot to venture this infectious time?

CON. Fie! madam, there's no danger: the bill decreased twenty last week.[237]

SAD. I swear, they say 'tis a very good play to-day.

WID. Shall we go, niece?

PLEA. Faith, 'tis hot, and there's nobody but we.

SAD. Does that hinder? Pray, madam, grudge us not the favour of venturing yourself in our company.

WID. Come, leave this ceremony. I'll go in, and put on my mask. Secret shall bring yours.

PLEA. No, I'll go, and put it on within.

[_Exeunt omnes._

## SCENE II.

_Enter_ WILD, CARELESS, CAPTAIN, _and_ JOLLY.

CARE. By this day, you have nettled the widow.

WILD. The captain neglected his dinner for his mirth, as if he had forgot to eat.

JOLLY. When did he oversee his drinking so?

CAPT. Gentlemen, still it is my fortune to make your worships merry.

WILD. As I live, captain, I subscribe, and am content to hold my wit as a tenant to thee; and to-night I'll invite you to supper, where it shall not be lawful to speak till thou hast victualled thy man-of-war.

CAPT. Shall's be merry? What shall we have?

WILD. Half a score dishes of meat; choose them yourself.

CAPT. Provide me then the chines fried, and the salmon calvered, a carp and black sauce, red deer in the blood, and an assembly of woodcocks and jacksnipes, so fat you would think they had their winding-sheets on; and upon these, as their pages, let me have wait your Sussex wheatear, with a feather in his cap; over all which let our countryman, General Chine of beef, command. I hate your French pottage, that looks as the cook-maid had more hand in it than the cook.

WILD. I'll promise you all this.

CARE. And let me alone to cook the fish.

CAPT. You cook it! no, no, I left an honest fellow in town, when I went into Italy, Signor Ricardo Ligones, one of the ancient house of the Armenian ambassadors; if he be alive, he shall be our cook.

WILD. Is he excellent at it?

CAPT. Excellent! you shall try, you shall try. Why, I tell you, I saw him once dress a shoeing-horn and a joiner's apron, that the company left pheasant for it.

WILD. A shoeing-horn!

CAPT. Yes, a shoeing-horn. Marry, there was garlic in the sauce.

WILD. Is this all you would have?

CAPT. This, and a bird of paradise, to entertain the rest of the night, and let me alone to cook her.

WILD. A bird of paradise! What's that?

CAPT. A girl of fifteen, smooth as satin, white as her Sunday apron, plump, and of the first down. I'll take her with her guts in her belly, and warm her with a country-dance or two, then pluck her, and lay her dry betwixt a couple of sheets; there pour into her so much oil of wit as will make her turn to a man, and stick into her heart three corns of whole love, to make her taste of what she is doing; then, having strewed a man all over her, shut the door and leave us, we'll work ourselves into such a sauce as you can never surfeit on, so poignant, and yet no haut goA"t.[238] Take heed of a haut goA"t:[239] your onion and woman make the worst sauce. This shook together by an English cook (for your French seasoning spoils many a woman), and there's a dish for a king.

WILD. For the first