Part 10

_Enter a Soldier and a Scholar._ SCHO. Soldier, ta-ra-ra-ra-ra! how is’t? thou lookest as if thou hadst lost a field to-day. SOL. No, but I have lost a day i’ the field: if you take me a maunding[223] but where I am commanding, let ’em shew me the House of Correction. SCHO. Why, thou wert not maunding, wert thou? there’s martial danger in that, believe it. SOL. No, sir; but I was bold to shew myself to some of my old and familiar acquaintance, but being disguised with my wants, there’s nobody knew me. SCHO. Faith, and that’s the worst disguise a man can walk in; thou wert better have appeared drunk in good clothes, much better: there’s no superfluities shame a man,—as to be over-brave,[224] over-bold, over-swearing, over-lying, over-whoring; these add still to his repute: ’tis the poor indigence, the want, the lank deficiency,— as when a man cannot be brave, dares not be bold, is afraid to swear, wants maintenance for a lie, and money to give a whore a supper; this is _pauper cujus modicum non satis est_: nay, he shall never be rich with begging neither, which is another wonder, because many beggars are rich. SOL. O _canina facundia_! this dog-eloquence of thine will make thee somewhat one day, scholar: couldst thou turn but this prose into rhyme, there were a pitiful living to be picked out of it. SCHO. I could make ballads for a need. SOL. Very well, sir, and I’ll warrant thee thou shalt never want subject to write of: one hangs himself to-day, another drowns himself to-morrow, a sergeant stabbed next day; here a pettifogger a’ the pillory, a bawd in the cart’s nose, and a pander in the tail; _hic mulier_, _hæc vir_, fashions, fictions, felonies, fooleries;—a hundred havens has the balladmonger to traffic at, and new ones still daily discovered. SCHO. Prithee, soldier, no further this way; I participate more of Heraclitus than Democritus; I could rather weep the sins of the people than sing ’em. SOL. Shall I set thee down a course to live? SCHO. Faith, a coarse living, I think, must serve my turn; but why hast thou not found out thine own yet? SOL. Tush, that’s resolv’d on, beg; when there’s use for me I shall be brave again, hugg’d and belov’d: We are like winter-garments, in the height And [the] hot blood of summer, put off, thrown by For moths’ meat, never so much as thought on; Till the drum strikes up storms again, and then, Come, my well-linèd soldier, (with valour, Not valure,)[225] keep me warm; O, I love thee! We shall be trimm’d and very well brush’d then; If we be fac’d with fur ’tis tolerable, For we may pillage then and steal our prey, And not be hang’d for’t; when the least fingering In peaceful summer chokes us. A soldier, At the best, is even but the forlorn hope Unto his country, sent desperately out, And never more expected; if he come, Peace’s war, perhaps, the law, providently Has provided for him some house or lands, May be suspens’d in wrangling controversy, And he be hir’d to keep possession, For there may be swords drawn; he may become The abject second to some stinking baily: O, let him serve the pox first, and die a gentleman! Come, I know my ends, but would fain provide for thee; Canst thou make—— SCHO. What? I have no handicraft, man. SOL. Cuckolds, make cuckolds; ’tis a pretty trade In a peaceful city; ’tis women’s work, man, And they’re good paymasters. SCHO. I dare not; ’tis a work Of supererogation, and the church Forbids it. SOL. Prithee, what is Latin for A cuckold, scholar? I could never learn yet. SCHO. Faith, the Latins have no proper word for it That ever I read; _homo_, I take it, is the best, Because it is a common name to all men. SOL. You’re mad fellows you scholars; I’m persuaded, Were I a scholar now, I could not want. SCHO. Every man’s most capable of his own grief: A scholar said you? why, there are none now-a-days; Were you a scholar, you’d be a singular fellow. SOL. How, no scholars? what’s become of ’em all? SCHO. I’ll make it proof from your experience: A commander’s a commander, captain captain; But having no soldiers, where’s the command? Such are we, all doctors, no disciples now; Every man’s his own teacher, none learns of others. You have not heard of our mechanic rabbies, That shall dispute in their own tongues backward and forward With all the learnèd fathers of the Jews? SOL. Mechanic rabbies? what might those be? SCHO. I’ll shew you, sir— And they are men are daily to be seen— There’s rabbi Job a venerable silk-weaver, Jehu a throwster[226] dwelling i’ the Spitalfields, There’s rabbi Abimelech a learnèd cobbler, Rabbi Lazarus a superstichious[227] tailor; These shall hold up their shuttles, needles, awls, Against the gravest Levite of the land, And give no ground neither. SOL. That I believe; They have no ground for any thing they do. SCHO. You understand right; and these men, by practique, Have got the theory of all the arts At their fingers’ ends, and in that they’ll live; Howe’er they’ll die I know not, for they change daily. SOL. This is strange; how come they to attain this knowledge? SCHO. As boys learn arithmetic,—practice with counters, To reckon sums of silver; so, with their tools, They come to grammar, logic, rhetoric, And all the sciences; as, for example, The devout weaver sits within his loom, And thus he makes a learnèd syllogism,— His woof the major and his warp the minor, His shuttle then the brain and firm conclusion, Makes him a piece of stuff that Aristotle, Ramus, nor all the logicians can take a’ pieces. SOL. This has some likelihood. SCHO. So likewise, by His deep instructive and his mystic tools, The tailor comes to be rhetorical: First, on the spread velvet, satin, stuff, or cloth, He chalks out a circumferent periphrase,[228] That goes about the bush where the thief stands; Then comes his shears in shape of an eclipsis, And takes away the other’s[229] too long tail; By his needle he understands ironia, That with one eye looks two ways at once; Metonymia ever at his fingers’ ends; Some call his pickadill[230] synecdoche, But I think rather that should be his yard, Being but _pars pro toto_; and by metaphor All know the cellaridge under the shop-board He calls his hell, not that it is a place Of spirits’ abode, but that from that abyss Is no recovery or redemption To any owner’s hand, whatever falls. I could run further, were’t not tedious, And place the stiff-toed cobbler in his form: But let them mend themselves, for yet all’s naught, They now learn only never to be taught. SOL. Let them alone; how shall we learn to live? SCHO. Without book is most perfect, for with ’em We shall hardly: thou may’st keep a fence-school, ’Tis a noble science. SOL. I had rather be i’ the crown-office: Thou mayest keep school too, and do good service, To bring up children for the next age better. SCHO. ’Tis a poor living that’s pick’d out of boys’ buttocks. SOL. ’Tis somewhat better than the night-farmer yet. [_Music._ Hark, what sounds are these?

PALLAS _descends_.

SCHO. Ha! there’s somewhat more; There is in sight a presence glorious,[231] A presence more than human. SOL. An amazing one! Scholar, if ever thou couldst conjure, speak now. SCHO. In name of all the deities, what art thou? Thy shine is more than sub-celestial, ’Tis at the least heavenly-angelical. PAL. A patroness unto ye both, ye ignorant And undeserving favourites of my fame.— You are a soldier? SOL. Since these arms could wield arms, I have profess’d it, brightest deity. PAL. To thee I am Bellona.—You are a scholar? SCHO. In that poor pilgrimage, since I could go, I hitherto have walk’d. PAL. To thee I am Minerva; Pallas to both, goddess of arts and arms, Of arms and arts, for neither have precedence, For he’s the complete man partakes of both, The soul of arts join’d with the flesh of valour, And he alone participates with me: Thou art no soldier unless a scholar, Nor thou a scholar unless a soldier. Ye’ve noble breedings both, worthy foundations, And will ye build up rotten battlements On such fair groundsels? that will ruin all. Lay wisdom on thy valour, on thy wisdom valour, For these are mutual co-incidents.— What seeks the soldier? SOL. My maintenance. PAL. Lay by thine arms and take the city then, There’s the full cup and cap of maintenance.— And your grief is want too? SCHO. I want all but grief. PAL. No, you want most what most you do profess: Where read you to be rich was happiest? He had no bay from Phœbus, nor from me, That ever wrote so, no Minerva in him; My priests have taught that poverty is safe, Sweet and secure, for nature gives man nothing At his birth; when life and earth are wedded, There’s neither basin held nor dowry given; At parting nor is any garner stor’d, Wardrobe or warehouse kept, for their return: Wherefore shall, then, man count his myriads Of gold and silver idols, since thrifty nature Will nothing lend but she will have’t again, And life and labour for her interest? My priests do teach,—seek thou thyself within, Make thy mind wealthy, thy conscience knowing,[232] And those shall keep thee company from hence. Or would you wish to emulate the gods, Live, as you may imagine, careless and free, With joys and pleasures crown’d, and those eternal? This were to far exceed ’em; for while earth lasts, The deities themselves abate their fulness, Troubled with cries of ne’er-contented man; Man then to seek and find it; all that hope Fled when Pandora’s fatal box flew ope. SOL. Lady divine,[233] there’s yet a competence Which we come short of. PAL. That may as well be caus’d From your own negligence as our slow blessings; But I’ll prefer you to a greater power, Even Jupiter himself,[234] father and king of gods, With whom I may well join in just complaint. These latter ages have despoil’d my fame; Minerva’s altars are all ruin’d now: I had a long-ador’d Palladium, Offerings and incense fuming on my shrine; Rome held me dear, and old Troy gave me worship, All Greece renown’d me, till the Ida-prize Join’d me with wrathful Juno to destroy ’em, For we are better ruin’d than profan’d: Now let the latter ages count the gains They got by wanton Venus’ sacrifice; But I’ll invoke great Jupiter. SCHO. Do, goddess, And re-erect the ruins of thy fame, For poesy can do it. PAL. Altitonant,[235] Imperial-crown’d, and thunder-armèd Jove, Unfold thy fiery veil, the flaming robe And superficies of thy better brightness; Descend from thine orbicular chariot, Listen the plaints of thy poor votaries! ’Tis Pallas calls, thy daughter, Jupiter, Ta’en from thee by the Lemnian Mulciber, A midwife-god to the delivery Of thy most sacred, fertile, teeming brain.—[_Music._ Hark! These sounds proclaim his willing sweet descent; If not full blessings, expect some content.

JUPITER _descends_.

JUP. What would our daughter? PAL. Just-judging Jove, Y-meditate[236] the suit of humble mortals, By whose large sceptre all their fates are sway’d, Adverse or auspicious. JUP. ’Tis more than Jupiter Can do to please ’em: unsatisfied man Has in his ends no end; not hell’s abyss Is deeper-gulf’d than greedy avarice; Ambition finds no mountain high enough For his aspiring foot to stand upon: One drinks out all his blessings into surfeits, Another throws ’em out as all were his, And the gods bound for prodigal supply: What is he lives content in any kind? That long-incensèd nature is now ready To turn all back into the fruitless chaos. PAL. These are two noble virtues, my dread sire, Both arts and arms, well-wishers unto Pallas. JUP. How can it be but they have both abus’d, And would, for their ills, make our justice guilty? Shew them their shames, Minerva; what the young world, In her unstable youth, did then produce; She should grow graver now, more sage, more wise, Know concord and the harmony of goodness; But if her old age strike with harsher notes, We may then think she is too old, and dotes. Strike, by white art, a theomantic power, Magic divine—not the devil’s horror, But the delicious music of the spheres— The thrice-three Worthies summon back to life; There let ’em see what arts and arms commixt— For they had both—did in the world’s broad face; Those that did propagate and beget their fames, And for posterity left lasting names. PAL. I shall, great Jupiter.

[_Music, and this Song as an invocation to the Nine Muses, who, in the time, are discovered, with the Nine Worthies, on the upper-stage:[237] toward the conclusion they descend, each Worthy led by a Muse, the most proper and pertinent to the person of the Worthy, as_ TERPSICHORE _with_ DAVID, URANIA _with_ JOSHUA, _&c._

_The First Song._

_Muses, usher in those states,[238] And amongst ’em choose your mates; There wants not one, nor one to spare, For thrice three both your numbers are: Learning’s mistress fair Calliope, Loud Euterpe, sweet Terpsichore, Soft Thalia, sad Melpomene, Pleasant Clio, large Erato, High aspiring-ey’d Urania, Honey-lingued[239] Polyhymnia, Leave awhile your Thespian springs, And usher in those more than kings; We call them Worthies, ’tis their due, Though long time dead, still live by you._

[_Enter at the three several doors the Nine Worthies, three after three, whom, as they enter_, PALLAS _describes_.

PAL. These three were Hebrews; This noble duke[240] was he at whose command Hyperion rein’d his fiery coursers in, And fixèd stood over Mount Gilboa; This Mattathias’ son,[241] the Maccabee, Under whose arm no less than worthies fell; This the most sweet and sacred psalmograph:[242] These, of another sort, of much less knowledge, Little less valour, a Macedonian born,[243] Whom afterwards the world could scarcely bear For his great weight in conquest; this Troy’s best soldier,[244] This Rome’s first Cæsar: these three, of latter times, And to the present more familiar, Great Charles of France[245] and the brave Bulloin duke;[246] And this is Britain’s glory,[247] king’d thirteen times.— Ye’ve fair aspècts: more to express Jove’s power, Shew you have motion for a jovial hour. [_The Nine Worthies dance,[248] and then exeunt._ JUP. Were not these precedents for all future ages? SCHO. But none attains their glories, king of stars; These are the fames are follow’d and pursu’d, But never overtaken. JUP. The fate’s below, The god’s arms are not shorten’d, nor do we shine With fainter influence: who conquers now Makes it his tyrant’s prize, and not his honour’s, Abusing all the blessings of the gods; Learnings and arts are theories, no practiques, To understand is all they study to; Men strive to know too much, too little do. SOL. Plaints are not ours alone, great Jupiter;

_Enter_ TIME.

See, Time himself comes weeping. TIME. Who has more cause? Who more wrong’d than Time? Time passes all men With a regardless eye at best; the worst Expect him with a greedy appetite; The landed lord looks for his quarter-day, The big-bellied usurer for his teeming gold, That brings him forth the child of interest, He that, beyond the bounds of heaven’s large blessing, Hath made a fruitless creature to increase, Dull earthen minerals to propagate; These only do expect and entertain me, But being come, they bend their plodding heads, And while they count their bags they let me pass, Yet instant wish me come about again: Would Time deserve their thanks, or Jove their praise, He must turn time only to quarter-days. O, but my wrongs they are innumerable! The lawyer drives me off from term to term, Bids me—and I do’t—bring forth my Alethe, My poor child Truth, he sees and will not see her; What I could manifest in one clear day, He still delays a cloudy jubilee: The prodigal wastes and makes me sick with surfeits; The drunkard, strong in wine, trips up my heels, And sets me topsy-turvy on my head, Waking my silent passage in the night With revels, noise, and thunder-clapping oaths, And snorting on my bright meridian; And when they think I pass too slowly by, They have a new-found vapour to expel me, They smoke me out: ask ’em but why they do’t, And he that worst can speak yet this can say, I take this whiff to drive the time away. O, but the worst of all, women do hate me! I cannot set impression on their cheeks With all my circular hours, days, months, and years, But ’tis wip’d off with gloss and pencilry; Nothing so hateful as gray hairs and time, Rather no hair at all. ’Tis sin’s autumn now For those fair trees that were more fairer cropt, Or they fall of themselves, or will be lopt: Even Time itself, to number all his griefs, Would waste himself unto his ending date. How many would eternity wish here, And that the sun, and time, and age, might stand, And leave their annual distinction,— That nature were bed-rid, all motion sleep! Time having then such foes, has cause to weep.— Redress it, Jupiter. [_Exit._ JUP. I tell thee, glorious daughter, and you, things Shut up in wretchedness, the world knew once His age of happiness, blessèd times own’d him, Till those two ugly ills, Deceit and Pride, Made it a perish’d substance. Pride brought in Forgetfulness of goodness, merit, virtue, And plac’d ridiculous officers in life, Vain-glory, fashion, humour, and such toys, That shame to be produc’d; The frenzy of apparel, that’s run mad, And knows not where to settle: masculine painting, And the five Starches, mocking the five senses, All in their different and ridiculous colours; Which, for their apish and fantastic follies, I summon to make odious, and will fit ’em With flames of their own colours. [_Music striking up a light fantastic air, the Five Starches, White, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Red, all properly habited to express their affected colours,[249] come dancing in; and after a ridiculous strain, White Starch challenging precedency, standing upon her right by antiquity, out of her just anger presents their pride to them._ WHITE S. What, no respect amongst you? must I wake you In your forgetful duties? jet[250] before me! Take place of me?—You, rude, presumptuous gossip, Pray, who am I! not I the primitive Starch? You, blue-ey’d frokin,[251] looks like fire and brimstone;— You, caudle-colour, much of the complexion Of high Shrove-Tuesday batter,[252] yellow-hammer;— And you, my tanzy-face, that shews like pride Serv’d up in sorrel-sops, green-sickness baggage;— And last, thou Red Starch, that wear’st all thy blushes Under thy cheeks, looks like a strangled moon-calf, With all thy blood settled about thy neck, The ensign of thy shame, if thou hadst any,— Know I’m Starch Protestant, thou Starch Puritan With the blue nostril, whose tongue lies i’ thy nose. BLUE S. Wicked interpretation! YEL. S. I ha’ known A white-fac’d hypocrite, lady sanctity— A yellow ne’er came near her—and sh’as been A citizen’s wife too, starch’d like innocence, But the devil’s pranks not uglier; in her mind Wears yellow, hugs it, if her husband’s trade Could bear it, there’s the spite; but since she cannot Wear her own linen yellow, yet she shews Her love to’t, and makes him wear yellow hose.[253] I am as stiff i’ my opinion As any Starch amongst you. GREEN S. I as you. RED S. And I as any. BLUE S. I scorn to come behind. YEL. S. Then conclude thus: When all men’s several censures, all the arguments The world can bring upon us, are applied, The sin’s not i’ the colour, but the pride. THE OTHER STARCHES. Oracle Yellow! [_The Starches dance, and exeunt._ JUP. These are the youngest daughters of Deceit, With which the precious time of life’s beguil’d, Fool’d, and abus’d; I’ll shew you straight their father, His shapes, his labours, that has vex’d the world From age to age, And tost it from his first and simple state To the foul centre where it now abides: Look back but into times, here shall be shewn How many strange removes the world has known.

[_Loud music sounding_, JUPITER _leaves his state;[254] and to shew the strange removes of the world, places the orb whose figure it bears in the midst of the stage; to which_ SIMPLICITY, _by order of time having first access, enters_. PAL. Who’s this, great Jupiter? JUP. Simplicity, He that had first possession; one that stumbled Upon the world and never minded it. SIM. Hah, hah! I’ll go see how the world looks since I stept aside from’t; there’s such heaving and shoving about it, such toiling and moiling;—now I stumbled upon’t when I least thought on’t. [_Takes up the orb._] Uds me! ’tis altered of one side since I left it: hah, there’s a milkmaid got with child since, methinks; what, and a shepherd forsworn himself? here’s a foul corner: by this light, Subtlety has laid an egg too, and will go nigh to hatch a lawyer; this was well foreseen, I’ll mar the fashion on’t; so, the egg’s broke, and ’t has a yolk as black as buckram. What’s here a’ this side? O, a dainty world! here’s one a-sealing with his tooth, and, poor man, he has but one in all; I was afraid he would have left it upon the paper, he was so honestly earnest. Here are the reapers singing, I’ll lay mine ear to ’em.

_Enter_ DECEIT, _like a ranger_.