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Title: Every Man Out Of His Humour

Author: Ben Jonson

Release Date: January, 2003  [Etext #3695]
Posting Date: December 10, 2009

Language: English

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EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR

By Ben Jonson




INTRODUCTION

THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first
literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose,
satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time
affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben
Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to
us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.

Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to
the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of
Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England.
Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast
into prison and forfeited."  He entered the church, but died a
month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and
child in poverty.  Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the
time of his birth early in 1573.  He was thus nearly ten years
Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born.
But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage.  His
mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was
for a time apprenticed to the trade.  As a youth he attracted the
attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at
Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations
of his classical learning.  Jonson always held Camden in
veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,

"All that I am in arts, all that I know;"

and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His
Humour," to him.  It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either
university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted
into St. John's College, Cambridge."  He tells us that he took no
degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by
their favour, not his study."  When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as
a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of
William the Silent against the Spanish.  Jonson was a large and
raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly
bulky.  In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden,
Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the
face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia
from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to
the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the
arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his."  Jonson's
reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his
prowess lost nothing in the telling.  Obviously Jonson was brave,
combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.

In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless.  Soon after he
married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.
He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest";
for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord
Albany.  Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On
my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the
poet's family affections.  The daughter died in infancy, the son of
the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his
father whom he survived.  We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's
domestic life.

How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the
theatrical profession" we do not know.  In 1593, Marlowe made his
tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the
popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death
the year before.  Shakespeare already had the running to himself.
Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the
exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law
of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn.  From entries in "Henslowe's
Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed
down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's
men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying
back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is
not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same
year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed
the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the
company at Christmas next."  In the next August Jonson was in
collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger
Soon Cold."  All this points to an association with Henslowe of
some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon
mere promise.  From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it
appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and
that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one
time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish
Tragedy."  By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy
circumstances, had begun to receive recognition.  Francis Meres --
well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with
the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his
mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title -- accords
to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of
some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date
has come down to us.  That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however,
is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies,
now lost, in which he had a hand.  These are "Page of Plymouth,"
"King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback."  But all of
these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August
1599 to June 1602.

Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for
a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe.  In a letter to Alleyn,
dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one
of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer],
for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson,
bricklayer."  The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson
in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual
continuance at his trade up to this time.  It is fair to Jonson to
remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious
fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar
squabble.  Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among
gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace
on the part of a player.  This duel is the one which Jonson
described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly
arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted.  He was sent to
prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited."  It
is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law
permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit
of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed.  The
circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he
received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left
thumb.  While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he
returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.

On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former
associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to
Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which
Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder.  A tradition of long
standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law,
narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in
His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the
company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play
himself, and at once accepted it.  Whether this story is true or
not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by
Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with
Shakespeare taking a part.  The evidence of this is contained in
the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's
works, 1616.  But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's
name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well
first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that
particular part.  The order of a list of Elizabethan players was
generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in
the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of
characters.

"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it
Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time
was established once and for all.  This could have been by no means
Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was
already reputed one of "our best in tragedy."  Indeed, one of
Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never
claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded
"Every Man in His Humour" on the stage.  The former play may be
described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus.  (It
combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the
"Aulularia" of that dramatist).  But the pretty story of the
beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the
classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had
already popularised on the stage.  Jonson never again produced so
fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other
respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save
for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio
Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least
characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.

"Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer
of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making
play; and this view is not unjustified.  As to plot, it tells
little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to
follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his
life with the gallants of the time.  The real quality of this
comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are
conceived.  Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and
he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with
them in his plays.  This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and
Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when
we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time
definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English
poetry.  First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed
in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent
ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit.  Jonson believed
that there was a professional way of doing things which might be
reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these
examples for the most part among the ancients.  To confine our
attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and
haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do
something different; and the first and most striking thing that he
evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.

As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote
his own words as to "humour."  A humour, according to Jonson, was a
bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which

     "Some one peculiar quality
     Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
     All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
     In their confluctions, all to run one way."

But continuing, Jonson is careful to add:

     "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather,
     The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,
     A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot
     On his French garters, should affect a humour!
     O, it is more than most ridiculous."

Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage
personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable
simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and,
placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict
and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name
indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the
braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a
coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end
of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself.
But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of
"Every Man in His Humour."  The play is admirably written and each
character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on
observation of the men of the London of the day.  Jonson was
neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that
he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to
a slavish adherence to classical conditions.  He says as to the
laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the
unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then,
but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate
and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be
tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few,
who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us."  "Every Man in His
Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of
his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly.  Even the word "humour" seems
to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before
Jonson's use of it.  Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a
heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life,
viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent
species of comedy in the language.  None the less, Jonson's comedy
merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in
which comedy long continued to run.  To mention only Shakespeare's
Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the
rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"
all are conceived in the spirit of humours.  So are the captains,
Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially
later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for
an important personage.  It was not Jonson's fault that many of his
successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is,
degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of
manner, of dress, or cut of beard.  There was an anonymous play
called "Every Woman in Her Humour."  Chapman wrote "A Humourous
Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The
Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His
Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies
in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled."

With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by
Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in
Jonson's career.  Despite his many real virtues, if there is one
feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his
arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness,
especially under criticism or satire.  "Every Man Out of His
Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson
contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the
theatres as recent critics have named it.  This play as a fabric of
plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the
manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature,
couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that
righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true
satire -- as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of
comedy -- there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the
days of Aristophanes.  "Every Man in His Humour," like the two
plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or
generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the
abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made
of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's
contemporaries.  The method of personal attack by actual caricature
of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama.
Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and
Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in
English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again.
What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an
art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a
dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency.  With the
arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in
scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson
soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with
his fellow-authors.  The circumstances of the origin of this
'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the
topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer.  The
origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references,
apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a
satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John
Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of
Jonson's.  On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been
discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright"
(reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice,
and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be
ascertained with certainty.  Jonson's own statement of the matter
to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him,
and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the
beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the
stage."*

[footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found
in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by J. H. Penniman
in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear.  See also his earlier
work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892, and the excellent
contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in "Notes and Queries,"
and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.

Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the
quarrel are known.  "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in
1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus
"represented on the stage"; although the personage in question,
Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and
contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary
portrait of Jonson than a caricature.  As to the personages
actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone
was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described
as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the
grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time
(Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work
being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy").  Apparently we must now
prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of
whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold
impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a
drum in a room.  So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats
him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard)
with hard wax.  From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone
['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']."  Is it
conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that
the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of
"the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and
profane" Chester?

We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify
the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the
allusions in these forgotten quarrels.  We are on sounder ground of
fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity.  In "The
Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio
Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator
of romances and playwright as well.  In "Every Man in His Humour"
there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of
the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion.  These men
held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better
entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies.  It seems
almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire
through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels,"
Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as
Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire
once more.  Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again
and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his
way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama.
As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it
is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the
City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came
soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.

"Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600,
and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible
than "Every Man Out of His Humour."  Here personal satire seems to
have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is
admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly
satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is
not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to
abstractions, the action to allegory.  It adds to our wonder that
this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of
Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom
Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to
make plays.  Another of these precocious little actors was
Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for
taking the parts of old men.  Him Jonson immortalised in one of the
sweetest of his epitaphs.  An interesting sidelight is this on the
character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should
thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little
theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally
kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped
to the conning of their difficult parts.  To the caricature of
Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides
(impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal),
interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh.  Crites, like
Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's
self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable,
and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the
yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny
attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect.

The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted,
once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only
avowed contribution to the fray.  According to the author's own
account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that
his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of
"Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic
attack upon himself.  In this attempt to forestall his enemies
Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved
success.  While hardly more closely knit in structure than its
earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the
ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the
"Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus,
is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had
overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary.  In
the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over
to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or
detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson]
or any other eminent man transcending you in merit."  One of the
most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca.
"His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant
blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most
complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a
walking dictionary of slang."

It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his
reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive
vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his
dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception."  It has been
held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged
professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson,
he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the
story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus.  This he
hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by
"Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply.  The
absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the
result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the
arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of
Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has
recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's
friend, the poet Drayton.  Slight and hastily adapted as is
"Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought
and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the
palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence
his practice of "comical satire."  Though Jonson was cited to
appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to
the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in
"Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint.  It may be suspected
that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure
playing to the gallery.  The town was agog with the strife, and on
no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn
that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so
berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid
of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither."

Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less
part in the war of the theatres.  Among them the most important is
a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating
1601-02.  In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a
character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them
all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too.  O that Ben Jonson is a
pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill,
but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him
bewray his credit."  Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of
the stages?  And what could have been the nature of this "purge"?
Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought
by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his
friend, Jonson.  A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in
"Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was
staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under
his direction as one of the leaders of that company.

The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised
as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to
him as a dramatic satirist.  But Jonson now turned his talents to
new fields.  Plays on subjects derived from classical story and
myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that
Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius
Caesar" about 1600.  Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three
years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only
following in the elder dramatist's footsteps.  But Jonson's idea of
a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and
the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different.
Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the
stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and
dramatised with little taste or discrimination.  Shakespeare had a
finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his
ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise
his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a
classical antiquarian.  He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness,
and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius,
and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and
his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in
the margin when he came to print.  "Sejanus" is a tragedy of
genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste
the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical
overthrow.  Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking
representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's
"Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611.  A
passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which
Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to
the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen."
There is no evidence to determine the matter.

In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and
Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward
Hoe."  In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his
"Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the
wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed.
Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar
scholarly ideals.  The two continued friends throughout life.
"Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in
a demand for three issues in one year.  But this was not due
entirely to the merits of the play.  In its earliest version a
passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to
his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but
the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had
influence at court.

With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and
successful career as a writer of masques.  He wrote more masques
than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary
variety and poetic excellence.  Jonson did not invent the masque;
for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a
court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of
elaboration long before his time.  But Jonson gave dramatic value
to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a
comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional
players or dancers.  He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity
of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies
took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic
grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show.  On the mechanical and
scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo
Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the
standard of stage representation in the England of his day.  Jonson
continued active in the service of the court in the writing of
masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King
Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his
life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a
constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court.
In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance,"
"Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more
will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and
inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque
of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is
discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as
in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary
popularity.

But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he
turned to the amusement of King James.  In 1605 "Volpone" was
produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the
following year.  These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614,
represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness,
character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit
and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama.
"Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the
dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy
represented in the plays named above.  Its subject is a struggle of
wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from
the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore
(the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little
raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a
virtuous character in the play.  Question has been raised as to
whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for,
although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the
most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe.  But Jonson was on
sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more
logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was
ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may
find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the
rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and
innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently
punishing them.

"The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious
construction.  The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a
heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take
to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in
the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all.  In "The
Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction,
the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and
so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the
possibilities of life.  In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none
the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling
in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the
stupidity and wickedness of their victims.  We may object to the
fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of
honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is
approved in the end and rewarded.  The comedy is so admirably
written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike
distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with
such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel
every time it is read.  Lastly of this group comes the tremendous
comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less
structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full
of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree
beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own.  It is
in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal
caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the
Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary
comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger,
loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in
"The Gipsies Metamorphosed."  Another comedy of less merit is "The
Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616.  It was the failure of this play
that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a
period of nearly ten years.

"Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice.  Whether because of the
success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three
comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist":

"Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known
No country's mirth is better than our own."

Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for
collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the
scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also,
converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to
Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old
Jewry."

In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards
caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing
from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any
generation.  A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben
Jonson and Charles Dickens.  Both were men of the people, lowly
born and hardly bred.  Each knew the London of his time as few men
knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate
detail.  Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the
exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even
wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness
of heart, and when all has been said -- though the Elizabethan ran
to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality -- leaving the world
better for the art that they practised in it.

In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his
plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective
edition.  This was an unusual thing at the time and had been
attempted by no dramatist before Jonson.  This volume published, in
a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned,
excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge,
"Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written
too late.  It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty
odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson
was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of
lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and
"Entertainments."  In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate
with a pension of one hundred marks a year.  This, with his fees
and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his
plays must have formed the bulk of his income.  The poet appears to
have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example,
parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the
World."  We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that
Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor.
In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of
the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did
not live to enjoy its perquisites.  Jonson was honoured with
degrees by both universities, though when and under what
circumstances is not known.  It has been said that he narrowly
escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day
averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand.
Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson.

From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced
nothing for the stage.  But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his
wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as
by report, one of the most learned men of his time.  Jonson's
theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and
"an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of
another poet to his own use."  Accordingly Jonson read not only the
Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he
acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his
learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their
antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning.
Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books.
He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every
first day of the new year to buy new books."  Unhappily, in 1623,
his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically
described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan."  Yet even
now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in
fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson.  With respect
to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him:
"[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned
plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their
snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he
fears not to be taxed by any law.  He invades authors like a
monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in
him."  And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself,
and justly, on his originality.  In "Catiline," he not only uses
Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the
speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words.  In
"Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises
it effectively for his purposes.  The sophist Libanius suggests the
situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno,
"Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The
Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening
scene.  But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the
stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it
thenceforward to all time current and his own.

The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a
peculiar merit.  His theory demanded design and the perfection of
literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the
careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could
only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned.  And
yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language.  Who
does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair."  "Drink to me
only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"?
Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word
too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there
is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and
formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and
unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with
disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual
thought is on greater things.  It is for these reasons that Jonson
is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where
rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the
spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical
poetry.  There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the
charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the
child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of
mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the
famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse."  Jonson is
unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom
falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet
showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others,
a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard.  There was
no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved
as Ben Jonson.  The list of his friends, of those to whom he had
written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes
the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James.
And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate
familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth
of the laureate.  In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity,
Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland.
On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the
houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had
recommended him.  When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met
to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of
Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest
at Hawthornden.  Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were
inspired by friendship.  Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir
Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of
critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first
Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William
Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these.  Nor
can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be
matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and
stately age.

But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his
folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from
inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness
continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court.
In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with
its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in
"Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an
old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of
cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which
an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget.
"Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that
Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and
"The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad
humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable.  These, too, and
the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of
the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of
English literary Bohemia.  We hear of a room blazoned about with
Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a
company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly
attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions,
affections, and enmities.  And we hear, too, of valorous potations;
but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the
Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid,

     "We such clusters had
     As made us nobly wild, not mad,
     And yet each verse of thine
     Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles,
though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet
returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The
Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale
of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy.
None of these plays met with any marked success, although the
scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's
dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits.  Thus the idea of an
office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news
(wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for
satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although
as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her
bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile
them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours
Reconciled."  These last plays of the old dramatist revert to
caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more
than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon,
especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears
unworthily to have used his influence at court against the
broken-down old poet.  And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was
bedridden for months.  He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as
Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not
fulfilling its duties.  King Charles befriended him, and even
commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court;
and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and
devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be
"sealed of the tribe of Ben."

Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which
he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in
its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642.  It included all
the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The
Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617
and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called
"Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation
of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in
1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would
hardly have included himself.  These last comprise the fragment
(less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall,"
and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic
spirit, "The Sad Shepherd."  There is also the exceedingly
interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit
of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now
spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or
Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of
his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of
the times."  The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a
commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which
their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy
translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted.  Many
passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the
authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not,
as the accident of the moment prescribed.  At times he follows the
line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of
princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and
poets by recourse to Aristotle.  He finds a choice paragraph on
eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own
recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile
and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his
recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare.  To call such
passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication --
plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words.  To disparage
his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship.
Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of
his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity
and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form
or in the subtler graces of diction.

When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his
memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed.  A
memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his
grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey:

"O rare Ben Jonson."

FELIX E. SCHELLING.

THE COLLEGE,

PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.


The following is a complete list of his published works: --

DRAMAS:

     Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601;
     The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609;
     Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600;
     Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601;
     Poetaster, 4to, 1602;
     Sejanus, 4to, 1605;
     Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605;
     Volpone, 4to, 1607;
     Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616;
     The Alchemist, 4to, 1612;
     Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611;
     Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631;
     The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631;
     The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631;
     The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692;
     The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640;
     A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640;
     The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641;
     Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.

To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo,
and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and
in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.

POEMS:

Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640;
Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640;
G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640;
Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692.
Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works.

PROSE:

Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641;
The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of
Strangers, fol., 1640.

Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.

WORKS:

     Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41);
     fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729;
     edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756;
     by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846;
     re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871;
     in 9 volumes., 1875;
     by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838;
     by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by
     C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.;
     Nine Plays, 1904;
     ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc;
     Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal
     Library), 1885;
     Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905;
     Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907;
     Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.

SELECTIONS:

     J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay,
     (Canterbury Poets), 1886;
     Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895;
     Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901;
     Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905;
     Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books,
     No. 4, 1906;
     Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known
     setting, Eragny Press, 1906.

LIFE:

     See Memoirs affixed to Works;
     J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;
     Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden;
     Shakespeare Society, 1842;
     ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;
     Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.





EVERY MAN OUT OF HIS HUMOUR


TO THE NOBLEST NURSERIES OF HUMANITY AND LIBERTY IN THE KINGDOM

THE INNS OF COURT

I UNDERSTAND you, Gentlemen, not your houses:  and a worthy succession of
you, to all time, as being born the judges of these studies.  When I wrote
this poem, I had friendship with divers in your societies; who, as they
were great names in learning, so they were no less examples of living.  Of
them, and then, that I say no more, it was not despised.  Now that the
printer, by a doubled charge, thinks it worthy a longer life than commonly
the air of such things doth promise, I am careful to put it a servant to
their pleasures, who are the inheritors of the first favour born it.  Yet,
I command it lie not in the way of your more noble and useful studies to
the public:  for so I shall suffer for it.  But when the gown and cap is
off, and the lord of liberty reigns, then, to take it in your hands,
perhaps may make some bencher, tincted with humanity, read and not repent
him.

By your true honourer,

BEN JONSON.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE

    ASPER, the Presenter.
    MACILENTE.
    PUNTARVOLO, -- his Lady. -- Waiting Gent. -- Huntsman. --
               Servingmen. -- Dog and Cat.
    CARLO BUFFONE.
    FASTIDIOUS BRISK, -- Cinedo, his Page.
    DELIRO, FALLACE, -- Fido, their Servant. -- Musicians.
    SAVIOLINA.
    SORDIDO. -- His Hind.
    FUNGOSO. -- Tailor, Haberdasher, Shoemaker
    SOGLIARDO.
    SHIFT. -- Rustics.
    NOTARY.
    CLOVE, ORANGE. -- A Groom. -- Drawers. -- Constable, and Officers.
    GREX. -- CORDATUS -- MITIS.



THE CHARACTERS OF THE PERSONS

ASPER, he is of an ingenious and free spirit, eager and constant in
reproof, without fear controlling the world's abuses.  One whom no servile
hope of gain, or frosty apprehension of danger, can make to be a parasite,
either to time, place, or opinion.

MACILENTE, a man well parted, a sufficient scholar, and travail'd; who,
wanting that place in the world's account which he thinks his merit capable
of, falls into such an envious apoplexy, with which his judgment is so
dazzled and distasted, that he grows violently impatient of any opposite
happiness in another.

PUNTARVOLO, a vain-glorious knight, over-englishing his travels, and wholly
consecrated to singularity; the very Jacob's staff of compliment; a sir
that hath lived to see the revolution of time in most of his apparel.  Of
presence good enough, but so palpably affected to his own praise, that for
want of flatterers he commends himself, to the floutage of his own family.
He deals upon returns, and strange performances, resolving, in despite of
public derision, to stick to his own fashion, phrase, and gesture.

CARLO BUFFONE, a public, scurrilous, and profane jester, that more swift
than Circe, with absurd similes, will transform any person into deformity.
A good feast-hound or banquet-beagle, that will scent you out a supper some
three miles off, and swear to his patrons, damn him!  he came in oars, when
he was but wafted over in a sculler.  A slave that hath an extraordinary
gift in pleasing his palate, and will swill up more sack at a sitting than
would make all the guard a posset.  His religion is railing, and his
discourse ribaldry.

FASTIDIOUS BRISK, a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one that wears
clothes well, and in fashion; practiseth by his glass how to salute; speaks
good remnants, notwithstanding the base viol and tobacco; swears tersely
and with variety; cares not what lady's favour he belies, or great man's
familiarity:  a good property to perfume the boot of a coach.  He will
borrow another man's horse to praise, and backs him as his own.  Or, for a
need, on foot can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the
gingle of his spur, and the jerk of his wand.

DELIRO, a good doting citizen, who, it is thought, might be of the
common-council for his wealth; a fellow sincerely besotted on his own wife,
and so wrapt with a conceit of her perfections, that he simply holds
himself unworthy of her.  And, in that hood-wink'd humour, lives more like
a suitor than a husband; standing in as true dread of her displeasure, as
when he first made love to her.  He doth sacrifice two-pence in juniper to
her every morning before she rises, and wakes her with
villainous-out-of-tune music, which she out of her contempt (though not out
of her judgment) is sure to dislike.

FALLACE, Deliro's wife, and idol; a proud mincing peat, and as perverse as
he is officious.  She dotes as perfectly upon the courtier, as her husband
doth on her, and only wants the face to be dishonest.

SAVIOLINA, a court-lady, whose weightiest praise is a light wit, admired by
herself, and one more, her servant Brisk.

SORDIDO, a wretched hob-nailed chuff, whose recreation is reading of
almanacks; and felicity, foul weather.  One that never pray'd but for a
lean dearth, and ever wept in a fat harvest.

FUNGOSO, the son of Sordido, and a student; one that has revelled in his
time, and follows the fashion afar off, like a spy.  He makes it the whole
bent of his endeavours to wring sufficient means from his wretched father,
to put him in the courtiers' cut; at which he earnestly aims, but so
unluckily, that he still lights short a suit.

SOGLIARDO, an essential clown, brother to Sordido, yet so enamoured of the
name of a gentleman, that he will have it, though he buys it.  He comes up
every term to learn to take tobacco, and see new motions.  He is in his
kingdom when in company where he may be well laughed at.

SHIFT, a thread-bare shark; one that never was a soldier, yet lives upon
lendings.  His profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul's, and his
warehouse Picthatch.  Takes up single testons upon oaths, till doomsday.
Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat
bonds.  He way-lays the reports of services, and cons them without book,
damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the
diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and
victuals.  He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute
one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life before.  He
usurps upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never did, only to
get him a name.  His chief exercises are, taking the whiff, squiring a
cockatrice, and making privy searches for imparters.

CLOVE and ORANGE, an inseparable case of coxcombs, city born; the Gemini,
or twins of foppery; that like a pair of wooden foils, are fit for nothing
but to be practised upon.  Being well flattered they'll lend money, and
repent when they have done.  Their glory is to invite players, and make
suppers.  And in company of better rank, to avoid the suspect of
insufficiency, will inforce their ignorance most desperately, to set upon
the understanding of any thing.  Orange is the most humorous of the two,
(whose small portion of juice being squeezed out,) Clove serves to stick
him with commendations.

CORDATUS, the author's friend; a man inly acquainted with the scope and
drift of his plot; of a discreet and understanding judgment; and has the
place of a moderator.

MITIS, is a person of no action, and therefore we afford him no character.


   THE STAGE.  After the second sounding.

   ENTER CORDATUS, ASPER, AND MITIS.

   COR.  Nay, my dear Asper.

   MIT.  Stay your mind.

   ASP.  Away!
   Who is so patient of this impious world,
   That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue?
   Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense,
   That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake?
   To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin,
   Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads
   Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings,
   Ready to sink us down, and cover us.
   Who can behold such prodigies as these,
   And have his lips seal'd up?  Not I:  my soul
   Was never ground into such oily colours,
   To flatter vice, and daub iniquity:
   But, with an armed and resolved hand,
   I'll strip the ragged follies of the time
   Naked as at their birth --

   COR.  Be not too bold.

   ASP.  You trouble me -- and with a whip of steel,
   Print wounding lashes in their iron ribs.
   I fear no mood stamp'd in a private brow,
   When I am pleased t'unmask a public vice.
   I fear no strumpet's drugs, nor ruffian's stab,
   Should I detect their hateful luxuries:
   No broker's usurer's, or lawyer's gripe,
   Were I disposed to say, they are all corrupt.
   I fear no courtier's frown, should I applaud
   The easy flexure of his supple hams.
   Tut, these are so innate and popular,
   That drunken custom would not shame to laugh,
   In scorn, at him, that should but dare to tax 'em:
   And yet, not one of these, but knows his works,
   Knows what damnation is, the devil, and hell;
   Yet hourly they persist, grow rank in sin,
   Puffing their souls away in perjurous air,
   To cherish their extortion, pride, or lusts.

   MIT.  Forbear, good Asper; be not like your name.

   ASP.  O, but to such whose faces are all zeal,
   And, with the words of Hercules, invade
   Such crimes as these!  that will not smell of sin,
   But seem as they were made of sanctity!
   Religion in their garments, and their hair
   Cut shorter than their eye-brows!  when the conscience
   Is vaster than the ocean, and devours
   More wretches than the counters.

   MIT.  Gentle Asper,
   Contain our spirits in more stricter bounds,
   And be not thus transported with the violence
   Of your strong thoughts.

   COX.  Unless your breath had power,
   To melt the world, and mould it new again,
   It is in vain to spend it in these moods.

   ASP.  [TURNING TO THE STAGE.]
   I not observed this thronged round till now!
   Gracious and kind spectators, you are welcome;
   Apollo and Muses feast your eyes
   With graceful objects, and may our Minerva
   Answer your hopes, unto their largest strain!
   Yet here mistake me not, judicious friends;
   I do not this, to beg your patience,
   Or servilely to fawn on your applause,
   Like some dry brain, despairing in his merit.
   Let me be censured by the austerest brow,
   Where I want art or judgment, tax me freely.
   Let envious censors, with their broadest eyes,
   Look through and through me, I pursue no favour;
   Only vouchsafe me your attentions,
   And I will give you music worth your ears.
   O, how I hate the monstrousness of time,
   Where every servile imitating spirit,
   Plagued with an itching leprosy of wit,
   In a mere halting fury, strives to fling
   His ulcerous body in the Thespian spring,
   And straight leaps forth a poet!  but as lame
   As Vulcan, or the founder of Cripplegate.

   MIT.  In faith this humour will come ill to some,
   You will be thought to be too peremptory.

   ASP.  This humour?  good!  and why this humour, Mitis?
   Nay, do not turn, but answer.

   MIT.  Answer, what?

   ASP.  I will not stir your patience, pardon me,
   I urged it for some reasons, and the rather
   To give these ignorant well-spoken days
   Some taste of their abuse of this word humour.

   COR.  O, do not let your purpose fall, good Asper;
   It cannot but arrive most acceptable,
   Chiefly to such as have the happiness
   Daily to see how the poor innocent word
   Is rack'd and tortured.

   MIT.  Ay, I pray you proceed.

   ASP.  Ha, what?  what is't?

   COR.  For the abuse of humour.

   ASP.  O, I crave pardon, I had lost my thoughts.
   Why humour, as 'tis 'ens', we thus define it,
   To be a quality of air, or water,
   And in itself holds these two properties,
   Moisture and fluxure:  as, for demonstration,
   Pour water on this floor, 'twill wet and run:
   Likewise the air, forced through a horn or trumpet,
   Flows instantly away, and leaves behind
   A kind of dew; and hence we do conclude,
   That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity,
   As wanting power to contain itself,
   Is humour.  So in every human body,
   The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,
   By reason that they flow continually
   In some one part, and are not continent,
   Receive the name of humours.  Now thus far
   It may, by metaphor, apply itself
   Unto the general disposition:
   As when some one peculiar quality
   Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
   All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
   In their confluctions, all to run one way,
   This may be truly said to be a humour
   But that a rook, by wearing a pyed feather,
   The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,
   A yard of shoe-tye, or the Switzer's knot
   On his French garters, should affect a humour!
   O, it is more than most ridiculous.

   COR.  He speaks pure truth; now if an idiot
   Have but an apish or fantastic strain,
   It is his humour.

   ASP.  Well, I will scourge those apes,
   And to these courteous eyes oppose a mirror,
   As large as is the stage whereon we act;
   Where they shall see the time's deformity
   Anatomised in every nerve, and sinew,
   With constant courage, and contempt of fear.

   MIT.  Asper, (I urge it as your friend,) take heed,
   The days are dangerous, full of exception,
   And men are grown impatient of reproof.

   ASP.  Ha, ha!
   You might as well have told me, yond' is heaven,
   This earth, these men, and all had moved alike. --
   Do not I know the time's condition?
   Yes, Mitis, and their souls; and who they be
   That either will or can except against me.
   None but a sort of fools, so sick in taste,
   That they contemn all physic of the mind,
   And like gall'd camels, kick at every touch.
   Good men, and virtuous spirits, that loath their vices,
   Will cherish my free labours, love my lines,
   And with the fervour of their shining grace
   Make my brain fruitful, to bring forth more objects,
   Worthy their serious and intentive eyes.
   But why enforce I this?  as fainting?  no.
   If any here chance to behold himself,
   Let him not dare to challenge me of wrong;
   For, if he shame to have his follies known,
   First he should shame to act 'em:  my strict hand
   Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe
   Squeeze out the humour of such spongy souls,
   As lick up every idle vanity.

   COR.  Why, this is right furor poeticus!
   Kind gentlemen, we hope your patience
   Will yet conceive the best, or entertain
   This supposition, that a madman speaks.

   ASP.  What, are you ready there?  Mitis, sit down,
   And my Cordatus.  Sound ho!  and begin.
   I leave you two, as censors, to sit here:
   Observe what I present, and liberally
   Speak your opinions upon every scene,
   As it shall pass the view of these spectators.
   Nay, now y'are tedious, sirs; for shame begin.
   And, Mitis, note me; if in all this front
   You can espy a gallant of this mark,
   Who, to be thought one of the judicious,
   Sits with his arms thus wreath'd, his hat pull'd here,
   Cries mew, and nods, then shakes his empty head,
   Will shew more several motions in his face
   Than the new London, Rome, or Niniveh,
   And, now and then, breaks a dry biscuit jest,
   Which, that it may more easily be chew'd,
   He steeps in his own laughter.

   COR.  Why, will that
   Make it be sooner swallowed?

   ASP.  O, assure you.
   Or if it did not, yet as Horace sings,
   Mean cates are welcome still to hungry guests.

   COR.  'Tis true; but why should we observe them, Asper?

   ASP.  O, I would know 'em; for in such assemblies
   They are more infectious than the pestilence:
   And therefore I would give them pills to purge,
   And make them fit for fair societies.
   How monstrous and detested is't to see
   A fellow that has neither art nor brain,
   Sit like an Aristarchus, or start ass,
   Taking men's lines with a tobacco face,
   In snuff still spitting, using his wry'd looks,
   In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn
   The good aspect of those that shall sit near him,
   From what they do behold!  O, 'tis most vile.

   MIT.  Nay, Asper.

   ASP.  Peace, Mitis, I do know your thought;
   You'll say, your guests here will except at this:
   Pish!  you are too timorous, and full of doubt.
   Then he, a patient, shall reject all physic,
   'Cause the physician tells him, you are sick:
   Or, if I say, that he is vicious,
   You will not hear of virtue.  Come, you are fond.
   Shall I be so extravagant, to think,
   That happy judgments, and composed spirits,
   Will challenge me for taxing such as these?
   I am ashamed.

   COR.  Nay, but good, pardon us;
   We must not bear this peremptory sail,
   But use our best endeavours how to please.

   ASP.  Why, therein I commend your careful thoughts,
   And I will mix with you in industry
   To please:  but whom?  attentive auditors,
   Such as will join their profit with their pleasure,
   And come to feed their understanding parts:
   For these I'll prodigally spread myself,
   And speak away my spirit into air;
   For these, I'll melt my brain into invention,
   Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words
   As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears?
   But stay, I lose myself, and wrong their patience:
   If I dwell here, they'll not begin, I see.
   Friends, sit you still, and entertain this troop
   With some familiar and by-conference,
   I'll hast them sound.  Now, gentlemen, I go
   To turn an actor, and a humorist,
   Where, ere I do resume my present person,
   We hope to make the circles of your eyes
   Flow with distilled laughter:  if we fail,
   We must impute it to this only chance,
   Art hath an enemy call'd ignorance.
   [EXIT.

   COR.  How do you like his spirit, Mitis?

   MIT.  I should like it much better, if he were less confident.

   COR.  Why, do you suspect his merit?

   MIT.  No; but I fear this will procure him much envy.

   COR.  O, that sets the stronger seal on his desert:  if he had no enemies,
   I should esteem his fortunes most wretched at this instant.

   MIT.  You have seen his play, Cordatus:  pray you, how is it?

   COR.  Faith, sir, I must refrain to judge; only this I can say of it, 'tis
   strange, and of a particular kind by itself, somewhat like 'Vetus
   Comoedia'; a work that hath bounteously pleased me; how it will answer the
   general expectation, I know not.

   MIT.  Does he observe all the laws of comedy in it?

   COR.  What laws mean you?

   MIT.  Why, the equal division of it into acts and scenes, according to the
   Terentian manner; his true number of actors; the furnishing of the scene
   with Grex or Chorus, and that the whole argument fall within compass of a
   day's business.

   COR.  O no, these are too nice observations.

   MIT.  They are such as must be received, by your favour, or it cannot be
   authentic.

   COR.  Troth, I can discern no such necessity.

   MIT.  No!

   COR.  No, I assure you, signior.  If those laws you speak of had been
   delivered us 'ab initio', and in their present virtue and perfection, there
   had been some reason of obeying their powers; but 'tis extant, that that
   which we call 'Comoedia', was at first nothing but a simple and continued
   song, sung by one only person, till Susario invented a second; after him,
   Epicharmus a third; Phormus and Chionides devised to have four actors, with
   a prologue and chorus; to which Cratinus, long after, added a fifth and
   sixth:  Eupolis, more; Aristophanes, more than they; every man in the
   dignity of his spirit and judgment supplied something.  And, though that in
   him this kind of poem appeared absolute, and fully perfect, yet how is the
   face of it changed since, in Menander, Philemon, Cecilius, Plautus, and the
   rest!  who have utterly excluded the chorus, altered the property of the
   persons, their names, and natures, and augmented it with all liberty,
   according to the elegancy and disposition of those times wherein they
   wrote.  I see not then, but we should enjoy the same license, or free power
   to illustrate and heighten our invention, as they did; and not be tied to
   those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing
   but form, would thrust upon us.

   MIT.  Well, we will not dispute of this now; but what's his scene?

   COR.  Marry, 'Insula Fortunata', sir.

   MIT.  O, the Fortunate Island:  mass, he has bound himself to a strict law
   there.

   COR.  Why so?

   MIT.  He cannot lightly alter the scene, without crossing the seas.

   COR.  He needs not, having a whole island to run through, I think.

   MIT.  No!  how comes it then, that in some one play we see so many seas,
   countries, and kingdoms, passed over with such admirable dexterity?

   COR.  O, that but shews how well the authors can travel in their vocation,
   and outrun the apprehension of their auditory.  But, leaving this, I would
   they would begin at once:  this protraction is able to sour the
   best-settled patience in the theatre.
   [THE THIRD SOUNDING.

   MIT.  They have answered your wish, sir; they sound.

   COR.  O, here comes the Prologue.
   [ENTER PROLOGUE.
   Now, sir, if you had staid a little longer, I meant to have spoke your
   prologue for you i'faith.

   PROL.  Marry, with all my heart, sir, you shall do it yet, and I thank you.
   [GOING.

   COR.  Nay, nay, stay, stay; hear you?

   PROL.  You could not have studied to have done me a greater benefit at the
   instant; for I protest to you, I am unperfect, and, had I spoke it, I must
   of necessity have been out.

   COR.  Why, but do you speak this seriously?

   PROL.  Seriously!  ay, wit's my help, do I; and esteem myself indebted to
   your kindness for it.

   COR.  For what?

   PROL.  Why, for undertaking the prologue for me.

   COR.  How!  did I undertake it for you?

   PROL.  Did you!  I appeal to all these gentlemen, whether you did or no.
   Come, come, it pleases you to cast a strange look on't now; but 'twill not
   serve.

   COR.  'Fore me, but it must serve; and therefore speak your prologue.

   PROL.  An I do, let me die poisoned with some venomous hiss, and never live
   to look as high as the two-penny room again.
   [EXIT.

   MIT.  He has put you to it, sir.

   COR.  'Sdeath, what a humorous fellow is this!  Gentlemen, good faith I can
   speak no prologue, howsoever his weak wit has had the fortune to make this
   strong use of me here before you:  but I protest --

   [ENTER CARLO BUFFONE, FOLLOWED BY A BOY WITH WINE.
   CAR.  Come, come, leave these fustian protestations; away, come, I cannot
   abide these grey-headed ceremonies.  Boy, fetch me a glass quickly, I may
   bid these gentlemen welcome; give them a health here.  [EXIT BOY.]  I
   mar'le whose wit it was to put a prologue in yond' sackbut's mouth; they
   might well think he'd be out of tune, and yet you'd play upon him too.

   COR.  Hang him, dull block!

   CAR.  O, good words, good words; a well-timber'd fellow, he would have made
   a good column, an he had been thought on, when the house was a building --
   [RE-ENTER BOY WITH GLASSES..
   O, art thou come?  Well said; give me, boy; fill so!  Here's a cup of wine
   sparkles like a diamond.  Gentlewomen (I am sworn to put them in first) and
   gentlemen, around, in place of a bad prologue, I drink this good draught to
   your health here, Canary, the very elixir and spirit of wine.  [DRINKS.]
   This is that our poet calls Castalian liquor, when he comes abroad now and
   then, once in a fortnight, and makes a good meal among players, where he
   has 'caninum appetitum'; marry, at home he keeps a good philosophical diet,
   beans and butter-milk; an honest pure rogue, he will take you off three,
   four, five of these, one after another, and look villainously when he has
   done, like a one-headed Cerberus. -- He does not hear me, I hope. -- And
   then, when his belly is well ballaced, and his brain rigged a little, he
   snails away withal, as though he would work wonders when he comes home.  He
   has made a play here, and he calls it, 'Every Man out of his Humour':  but
   an he get me out of the humour he has put me in, I'll trust none of his
   tribe again while I live.  Gentles, all I can say for him is, you are
   welcome.  I could wish my bottle here amongst you; but there's an old rule,
   No pledging your own health.  Marry, if any here be thirsty for it, their
   best way (that I know) is, sit still, seal up their lips, and drink so much
   of the play in at their ears.
   [EXIT.

   MIT.  What may this fellow be, Cordatus?

   COR.  Faith, if the time will suffer his description, I'll give it you.  He
   is one, the author calls him Carlo Buffone, an impudent common jester, a
   violent railer, and an incomprehensible epicure; one whose company is
   desired of all men, but beloved of none; he will sooner lose his soul than
   a jest, and profane even the most holy things, to excite laughter:  no
   honourable or reverend personage whatsoever can come within the reach of
   his eye, but is turned into all manner of variety, by his adulterate
   similes.

   MIT.  You paint forth a monster.

   COR.  He will prefer all countries before his native, and thinks he can
   never sufficiently, or with admiration enough, deliver his affectionate
   conceit of foreign atheistical policies.  But stay --
   [ENTER MACILENTE.
   Observe these:  he'll appear himself anon.

   MIT.  O, this is your envious man, Macilente, I think.

   COR.  The same, sir.




ACT I

   SCENE I. -- The Country.

   ENTER MACILENTE, WITH A BOOK.

   MACI.  "Viri est, fortunae caecitatem facile ferre."
   'Tis true; but, Stoic, where, in the vast world,
   Doth that man breathe, that can so much command
   His blood and his affection?  Well, I see
   I strive in vain to cure my wounded soul;
   For every cordial that my thoughts apply
   Turns to a corsive and doth eat it farther.
   There is no taste in this philosophy;
   'Tis like a potion that a man should drink,
   But turns his stomach with the sight of it.
   I am no such pill'd Cynick to believe,
   That beggary is the only happiness;
   Or with a number of these patient fools,
   To sing:  "My mind to me a kingdom is,"
   When the lank hungry belly barks for food,
   I look into the world, and there I meet
   With objects, that do strike my blood-shot eyes
   Into my brain:  where, when I view myself,
   Having before observ'd this man is great,
   Mighty and fear'd; that lov'd and highly favour'd:
   A third thought wise and learn'd; a fourth rich,
   And therefore honour'd; a fifth rarely featur'd;
   A sixth admired for his nuptial fortunes:
   When I see these, I say, and view myself,
   I wish the organs of my sight were crack'd;
   And that the engine of my grief could cast
   Mine eyeballs, like two globes of wildfire, forth,
   To melt this unproportion'd frame of nature.
   Oh, they are thoughts that have transfix'd my heart,
   And often, in the strength of apprehension,
   Made my cold passion stand upon my face,
   Like drops of dew on a stiff cake of ice.

   COR.  This alludes well to that of the poet,
   "Invidus suspirat, gemit, incutitque dentes,
   Sudat frigidus, intuens quod odit."

   MIT.  O, peace, you break the scene.

   [ENTER SOGLIARDO AND CARLO BUFFONE.

   MACI.  Soft, who be these?
   I'll lay me down awhile till they be past.
   [LIES DOWN.

   CAR.  Signior, note this gallant, I pray you.

   MIT.  What is he?

   CAR.  A tame rook, you'll take him presently; list.

   SOG.  Nay, look you, Carlo; this is my humour now!  I have land and money,
   my friends left me well, and I will be a gentleman whatsoever it cost me.

   CAR.  A most gentlemanlike resolution.

   SOG.  Tut!  an I take an humour of a thing once, I am like your tailor's
   needle, I go through:  but, for my name, signior, how think you?  will it
   not serve for a gentleman's name, when the signior is put to it, ha?

   CAR.  Let me hear; how is it?

   SOG.  Signior Insulso Sogliardo:  methinks it sounds well.

   CAR.  O excellent!  tut!  an all fitted to your name, you might very well
   stand for a gentleman:  I know many Sogliardos gentlemen.

   SOG.  Why, and for my wealth I might be a justice of peace.

   CAR.  Ay, and a constable for your wit.

   SOG.  All this is my lordship you see here, and those farms you came by.

   CAR.  Good steps to gentility too, marry:  but, Sogliardo, if you affect to
   be a gentleman indeed, you must observe all the rare qualities, humours,
   and compliments of a gentleman.

   SOG.  I know it, signior, and if you please to instruct, I am not too good
   to learn, I'll assure you.

   CAR.  Enough, sir. -- I'll make admirable use in the projection of my
   medicine upon this lump of copper here.  [ASIDE] -- I'll bethink me for
   you, sir.

   SOG.  Signior, I will both pay you, and pray you, and thank you, and think
   on you.

   COR.  Is this not purely good?

   MACI.  S'blood, why should such a prick-ear'd hind as this
   Be rich, ha?  a fool!  such a transparent gull
   That may be seen through!  wherefore should he have land,
   Houses, and lordships?  O, I could eat my entrails,
   And sink my soul into the earth with sorrow.

   CAR.  First, to be an accomplished gentleman, that is, a gentleman of the
   time, you must give over housekeeping in the country, and live altogether
   in the city amongst gallants:  where, at your first appearance, 'twere good
   you turn'd four or five hundred acres of your best land into two or three
   trunks of apparel -- you may do it without going to a conjurer -- and be
   sure you mix yourself still with such as flourish in the spring of the
   fashion, and are least popular; study their carriage and behaviour in all;
   learn to play at primero and passage, and ever (when you lose) have two or
   three peculiar oaths to swear by, that no man else swears:  but, above all,
   protest in your play, and affirm, "Upon your credit, As you are a true
   gentleman", at every cast; you may do it with a safe conscience, I warrant you.

   SOG.  O admirable rare!  he cannot choose but be a gentleman that has these
   excellent gifts:  more, more, I beseech you.

   CAR.  You must endeavour to feed cleanly at your ordinary, sit melancholy,
   and pick your teeth when you cannot speak:  and
   when you come to plays, be humorous, look with a good starch'd face, and
   ruffle your brow like a new boot, laugh at nothing but your own jests, or
   else as the noblemen laugh.  That's a special grace you must observe.

   SAG.  I warrant you, sir.

   CAR.  Ay, and sit on the stage and flout, provided you have a good suit.

   SOG.  O, I'll have a suit only for that, sir.

   CAR.  You must talk much of your kindred and allies.

   SOG.  Lies!  no, signior, I shall not need to do so, I have kindred in the
   city to talk of:  I have a niece is a merchant's wife; and a nephew, my
   brother Sordido's son, of the Inns of court.

   CAR.  O, but you must pretend alliance with courtiers and great persons:
   and ever when you are to dine or sup in any strange presence, hire a fellow
   with a great chain, (though it be copper, it's no matter,) to bring you
   letters, feign'd from such a nobleman, or such a knight, or such a lady,
   "To their worshipful, right rare, and nobly qualified friend and kinsman,
   signior Insulso Sogliardo":  give yourself style enough.  And there, while
   you intend circumstances of news, or enquiry of their health, or so, one of
   your familiars whom you must carry about you still, breaks it up, as 'twere
   in a jest, and reads it publicly at the table:  at which you must seem to
   take as unpardonable offence, as if he had torn your mistress's colours, or
   breath'd upon her picture, and pursue it with that hot grace, as if you
   would advance a challenge upon it presently.

   SOG.  Stay, I do not like that humour of challenge, it may be accepted; but
   I'll tell you what's my humour now, I will do this:  I will take occasion
   of sending one of my suits to the tailor's, to have the pocket repaired, or
   so; and there such a letter as you talk of, broke open and all shall be
   left; O, the tailor will presently give out what I am, upon the reading of
   it, worth twenty of your gallants.

   CAR.  But then you must put on an extreme face of discontentment at your
   man's negligence.

   SOG.  O, so I will, and beat him too:  I'll have a man for the purpose.

   MAC.  You may; you have land and crowns:  O partial fate!

   CAR.  Mass, well remember'd, you must keep your men gallant at the first,
   fine pied liveries laid with good gold lace; there's no loss in it, they
   may rip it off and pawn it when they lack victuals.

   SOG.  By 'r Lady, that is chargeable, signior, 'twill bring a man in debt.

   CAR.  Debt!  why that's the more for your credit, sir:  it's an excellent
   policy to owe much in these days, if you note it.

   SOG.  As how, good signior?  I would fain be a politician.

   CAR.  O!  look where you are indebted any great sum, your creditor observes
   you with no less regard, than if he were bound to you for some huge
   benefit, and will quake to give you the least cause of offence, lest he
   lose his money.  I assure you, in these
   times, no man has his servant more obsequious and pliant, than gentlemen
   their creditors:  to whom, if at any time you pay but a moiety, or a fourth
   part, it comes more acceptably than if you gave them a new-year's gift.

   SOG.  I perceive you, sir:  I will take up, and bring myself in credit, sure.

   CAR.  Marry this, always beware you commerce not with bankrupts, or poor
   needy Ludgathians; they are impudent creatures, turbulent spirits, they
   care not what violent tragedies they stir, nor how they play fast and loose
   with a poor gentleman's fortunes, to get their own.  Marry, these rich
   fellows that have the world, or the better part of it, sleeping in their
   counting-houses, they are ten times more placable, they; either fear, hope,
   or modesty, restrains them from offering any outrages:  but this is nothing
   to your followers, you shall not run a penny more in arrearage for them, an
   you list, yourself.

   SOG.  No!  how should I keep 'em then?

   CAR.  Keep 'em!  'sblood, let them keep themselves, they are no sheep, are
   they?  what, you shall come in houses, where plate, apparel, jewels, and
   divers other pretty commodities lie negligently scattered, and I would have
   those Mercuries follow me, I trow, should remember they had not their
   fingers for nothing.

   SOG.  That's not so good, methinks.

   CAR.  Why, after you have kept them a fortnight, or so, and shew'd them
   enough to the world, you may turn them away, and keep no more but a boy,
   it's enough.

   SOG.  Nay, my humour is not for boys, I'll keep men, an I keep any; and
   I'll give coats, that's my humour:  but I lack a cullisen.

   CAR.  Why, now you ride to the city, you may buy one; I'll bring you where
   you shall have your choice for money.

   SOG.  Can you, sir?

   CAR.  O, ay:  you shall have one take measure of you, and make you a coat
   of arms to fit you, of what fashion you will.

   SOG.  By word of mouth, I thank you, signior; I'll be once a little
   prodigal in a humour, i'faith, and have a most prodigious coat.

   MAC.  Torment and death!  break head and brain at once,
   To be deliver'd of your fighting issue.
   Who can endure to see blind Fortune dote thus?
   To be enamour'd on this dusty turf,
   This clod, a whoreson puck-fist!  O G----!
   I could run wild with grief now, to behold
   The rankness of her bounties, that doth breed
   Such bulrushes; these mushroom gentlemen,
   That shoot up in a night to place and worship.

   CAR.  [SEEING MACILENTE.]  Let him alone; some stray, some stray.

   SOG.  Nay, I will examine him before I go, sure.

   CAR.  The lord of the soil has all wefts and strays here, has he not?

   SOG.  Yes, sir.

   CAR.  Faith then I pity the poor fellow, he's fallen into a fool's hands.
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  Sirrah, who gave you a commission to lie in my lordship?

   MAC.  Your lordship!

   SOG.  How!  my lordship?  do you know me, sir?

   MAC.  I do know you, sir.

   CAR.  He answers him like an echo.
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  Why, Who am I, sir?

   MAC.  One of those that fortune favours.

   CAR.  The periphrasis of a fool.  I'll observe this better.
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  That fortune favours!  how mean you that, friend?

   MAC.  I mean simply:  that you are one that lives not by your wits.

   SOG.  By my wits!  no sir, I scorn to live by my wits, I.  I have better
   means, I tell thee, than to take such base courses, as to live by my wits.
   What, dost thou think I live by my wits?

   MAC.  Methinks, jester, you should not relish this well.

   CAR.  Ha!  does he know me?

   MAC.  Though yours be the worst use a man can put his wit to, of thousands,
   to prostitute it at every tavern and ordinary; yet, methinks, you should
   have turn'd your broadside at this, and have been ready with an apology,
   able to sink this hulk of ignorance into the bottom and depth of his
   contempt.

   CAR.  Oh, 'tis Macilente!  Signior, you are well encountered; how is it?
   O, we must not regard what he says, man, a trout, a shallow fool, he has no
   more brain than a butterfly, a mere stuft suit; he looks like a musty
   bottle new wicker'd, his head's the cork, light, light!  [ASIDE TO
   MACILENTE.] -- I am glad to see you so well return'd, signior.

   MAC.  You are!  gramercy, good Janus.

   SOG.  Is he one of your acquaintance?  I love him the better for that.

   CAR.  Od's precious, come away, man, what do you mean?  an you knew him as
   I do, you'd shun him as you would do the plague.

   SOG.  Why, sir?

   CAR.  O, he's a black fellow, take heed of him.

   SOG.  Is he a scholar, or a soldier?

   CAR.  Both, both; a lean mongrel, he looks as if he were chop-fallen, with
   barking at other men's good fortunes:  'ware how you offend him; he carries
   oil and fire in his pen, will scald where it drops:  his spirit is like
   powder, quick, violent; he'll blow a man up with a jest:  I fear him worse
   than a rotten wall does the cannon; shake an hour after at the report.
   Away, come not near him.

   SOG.  For God's sake let's be gone; an he be a scholar, you know I cannot
   abide him; I had as lieve see a cockatrice, specially as cockatrices go now.

   CAR.  What, you'll stay, signior?  this gentleman Sogliardo, and I, are to
   visit the knight Puntarvolo, and from thence to the city; we shall meet there.
   [EXIT WITH SOGLIARDO.

   MAC.  Ay, when I cannot shun you, we will meet.
   'Tis strange!  of all the creatures I have seen,
   I envy not this Buffone, for indeed
   Neither his fortunes nor his parts deserve it:
   But I do hate him, as I hate the devil,
   Or that brass-visaged monster Barbarism.
   O, 'tis an open-throated, black-mouth'd cur,
   That bites at all, but eats on those that feed him.
   A slave, that to your face will, serpent-like,
   Creep on the ground, as he would eat the dust,
   And to your back will turn the tail, and sting
   More deadly than the scorpion:  stay, who's this?
   Now, for my soul, another minion
   Of the old lady Chance's!  I'll observe him.

   [ENTER SORDIDO WITH AN ALMANACK IN HIS HAND.
   SORD.  O rare!  good, good, good, good, good!
   I thank my stars, I thank my stars for it.

   MAC.  Said I not true?  doth not his passion speak
   Out of my divination?  O my senses,
   Why lost you not your powers, and become
   Dull'd, if not deaded, with this spectacle?
   I know him, it is Sordido, the farmer,
   A boor, and brother to that swine was here.
   [ASIDE.

   SORD.  Excellent, excellent, excellent!  as I would wish, as I would wish.

   MAC.  See how the strumpet fortune tickles him,
   And makes him swoon with laughter, O, O, O!

   SORD.  Ha, ha, ha!  I will not sow my grounds this year.  Let me see, what
   harvest shall we have?  "June, July?"

   MAC.  What, is't a prognostication raps him so?

   SORD.  "The 20, 21, 22 days, rain and wind."  O good, good!  "the 23, and
   24, rain and some wind," good!  "the 25, rain," good still!  "26, 27, 28,
   wind and some rain"; would it had been rain and some wind!  well, 'tis
   good, when it can be no better.  "29, inclining to rain":  inclining to
   rain!  that's not so good now:  "30, and 31, wind and no rain":  no rain!
   'slid, stay:  this is worse and worse:  What says he of St. Swithin's?
   turn back, look, "saint Swithin's:  no rain!"

   MAC.  O, here's a precious, dirty, damned rogue,
   That fats himself with expectation
   Of rotten weather, and unseason'd hours;
   And he is rich for it, an elder brother!
   His barns are full, his ricks and mows well trod,
   His garners crack with store!  O, 'tis well; ha, ha, ha!
   A plague consume thee, and thy house!

   SORD.  O here, "St. Swithin's, the 15 day, variable weather, for the most
   part rain", good!  "for the most part rain":  why, it should rain forty
   days after, now, more or less, it was a rule held, afore I was able to hold
   a plough, and yet here are two days no rain; ha!  it makes me muse.  We'll
   see how the next month begins, if that be better.  "August 1, 2, 3, and 4,
   days, rainy and blustering:"  this is well now:  "5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, rainy,
   with some thunder;"  Ay marry, this is excellent; the other was false
   printed sure:  "the 10 and 11, great store of rain"; O good, good, good,
   good, good!  "the 12, 13, and 14 days, rain"; good still:  "15, and 16,
   rain"; good still:  "17 and 18, rain", good still:  "19 and 20", good
   still, good still, good still, good still, good still!  "21, some rain";
   some rain!  well, we must be patient, and attend the heaven's pleasure,
   would it were more though:  "the 22, 23, great tempests of rain, thunder
   and lightning".
   O good again, past expectation good!
   I thank my blessed angel; never, never
   Laid I [a] penny better out than this,
   To purchase this dear book:  not dear for price,
    And yet of me as dearly prized as life,
   Since in it is contain'd the very life,
   Blood, strength, and sinews, of my happiness.
   Blest be the hour wherein I bought this book;
   His studies happy that composed the book,
   And the man fortunate that sold the book!
   Sleep with this charm, and be as true to me,
   As I am joy'd and confident in thee
   [PUTS IT UP.

   [ENTER A HIND, AND GIVES SORDIDO A PAPER TO READ.
   MAC.  Ha, ha, ha!
   Is not this good?  Is not pleasing this?
   Ha, ha, ha!  God pardon me!  ha, ha!
   Is't possible that such a spacious villain
   Should live, and not be plagued?  or lies be hid
   Within the wrinkled bosom of the world,
   Where Heaven cannot see him?  S'blood!  methinks
   'Tis rare, and strange, that he should breathe and walk,
   Feed with digestion, sleep, enjoy his health,
   And, like a boisterous whale swallowing the poor,
   Still swim in wealth and pleasure!  is't not strange?
   Unless his house and skin were thunder proof,
   I wonder at it!  Methinks, now, the hectic,
   Gout, leprosy, or some such loath'd disease,
   Might light upon him; of that fire from heaven
   Might fall upon his barns; or mice and rats
   Eat up his grain; or else that it might rot
   Within the hoary ricks, even as it stands:
   Methinks this might be well; and after all
   The devil might come and fetch him.  Ay, 'tis true!
   Meantime he surfeits in prosperity,
   And thou, in envy of him, gnaw'st thyself:
   Peace, fool, get hence, and tell thy vexed spirit,
   Wealth in this age will scarcely look on merit.
   [RISES AND EXIT.

   SORD.  Who brought this same, sirrah?

   HIND.  Marry, sir, one of the justice's men; he says 'tis a precept, and
   all their hands be at it.

   SORD.  Ay, and the prints of them stick in my flesh,
   Deeper than in their letters:  they have sent me
   Pills wrapt in paper here, that, should I take them,
   Would poison all the sweetness of my book,
   And turn my honey into hemlock juice.
   But I am wiser than to serve their precepts,
   Or follow their prescriptions.  Here's a device,
   To charge me bring my grain unto the markets:
   Ay, much!  when I have neither barn nor garner,
   Nor earth to hid it in, I'll bring 't; till then,
   Each corn I send shall be as big as Paul's.
   O, but (say some) the poor are like to starve.
   Why, let 'em starve, what's that to me?  are bees
   Bound to keep life in drones and idle moths?  no:
   Why such are these that term themselves the poor,
   Only because they would be pitied,
   But are indeed a sort of lazy beggars,
   Licentious rogues, and sturdy vagabonds,
   Bred by the sloth of a fat plenteous year,
   Like snakes in heat of summer, out of dung;
   And this is all that these cheap times are good for:
   Whereas a wholesome and penurious dearth
   Purges the soil of such vile excrements,
   And kills the vipers up.

   HIND.  O, but master,
   Take heed they hear you not.

   SORD.  Why so?

   HIND.  They will exclaim against you.

   SORD.  Ay, their exclaims
   Move me as much, as thy breath moves a mountain.
   Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home
   Can be contented to applaud myself,
   To sit and clap my hands, and laugh, and leap,
   Knocking my head against my roof, with joy
   To see how plump my bags are, and my barns.
   Sirrah, go hie you home, and bid your fellows
   Get all their flails ready again I come.

   HIND.  I will, sir.
   [EXIT.

   SORD.  I'll instantly set all my hinds to thrashing
   Of a whole rick of corn, which I will hide
   Under the ground; and with the straw thereof
   I'll stuff the outsides of my other mows:
   That done, I'll have them empty all my garners,
   And in the friendly earth bury my store,
   That, when the searchers come, they may suppose
   All's spent, and that my fortunes were belied.
   And to lend more opinion to my want,
   And stop that many-mouthed vulgar dog,
   Which else would still be baying at my door,
   Each market-day I will be seen to buy
   Part of the purest wheat, as for my household;
   Where when it comes, it shall increase my heaps:
   'Twill yield me treble gain at this dear time,
   Promised in this dear book:  I have cast all.
   Till then I will not sell an ear, I'll hang first.
   O, I shall make my prices as I list;
   My house and I can feed on peas and barley.
   What though a world of wretches starve the while;
   He that will thrive must think no courses vile.
   [EXIT.

   COR.  Now, signior, how approve you this?  have the humourists exprest
   themselves truly or no?

   MIT.  Yes, if it be well prosecuted, 'tis hitherto happy enough:  but
   methinks Macilente went hence too soon; he might have been made to stay,
   and speak somewhat in reproof of Sordido's wretchedness now at the last.

   COR.  O, no, that had been extremely improper; besides, he had continued
   the scene too long with him, as 'twas, being in no more action.

   MIT.  You may inforce the length as a necessary reason; but for propriety,
   the scene wou'd very well have borne it, in my judgment.

   COR.  O, worst of both; why, you mistake his humour utterly then.

   MIT.  How do I mistake it?  Is it not envy?

   COR.  Yes, but you must understand, signior, he envies him not as he is a
   villain, a wolf in the commonwealth, but as he is rich and fortunate; for
   the true condition of envy is, 'dolor alienae felicitatis', to have our
   eyes continually fixed upon another man's prosperity that is, his chief
   happiness, and to grieve at that.  Whereas, if we make his monstrous and
   abhorr'd actions our object, the grief we take then comes nearer the nature
   of hate than envy, as being bred out of a kind of contempt and loathing in
   ourselves.

   MIT.  So you'll infer it had been hate, not envy in him, to reprehend the
   humour of Sordido?

   COR.  Right, for what a man truly envies in another, he could always love
   and cherish in himself; but no man truly reprehends in another, what he
   loves in himself; therefore reprehension is out of his hate.  And this
   distinction hath he himself made in a speech there, if you marked it, where
   he says, "I envy not this Buffone, but I hate him."  Why might he not as
   well have hated Sordido as him?

   COR.  No, sir, there was subject for his envy in Sordido, his wealth:  so
   was there not in the other.  He stood possest of no one eminent gift, but a
   most odious and fiend-like disposition, that would turn charity itself into
   hate, much more envy, for the present.

   MIT.  You have satisfied me, sir.  O, here comes the fool, and the jester
   again, methinks.

   COR.  'Twere pity they should be parted, sir.

   MIT.  What bright-shining gallant's that with them?  the knight they went to?

   COR.  No, sir, this is one monsieur Fastidious Brisk, otherwise called the
   fresh Frenchified courtier.

   MIT.  A humourist too?

   COR.  As humorous as quicksilver; do but observe him; the scene is the
   country still, remember.




ACT II

   SCENE I. -- THE COUNTRY; BEFORE PUNTARVOLO'S HOUSE.

   ENTER FASTIDIOUS BRISK, CINEDO, CARLO BUFFONE, AND SOGLIARDO.

   FAST.  Cinedo, watch when the knight comes, and give us word.

   CIN.  I will, sir.
   [EXIT.

   FAST.  How lik'st thou my boy, Carlo?

   CAR.  O, well, well.  He looks like a colonel of the Pigmies horse, or one
   of these motions in a great antique clock; he would shew well upon a
   haberdasher's stall, at a corner shop, rarely.

   FAST.  'Sheart, what a damn'd witty rogue's this!  How he confounds with
   his similes!

   CAR.  Better with similes than smiles:  and whither were you riding now,
   signior?

   FAST.  Who, I?  What a silly jest's that!  Whither should I ride but to the
   court?

   CAR.  O, pardon me, sir, twenty places more; your hot-house, or your
   whore-house --

   FAST.  By the virtue of my soul, this knight dwells in Elysium here.

   CAR.  He's gone now, I thought he would fly out presently.  These be our
   nimble-spirited catsos, that have their evasions at pleasure, will run over
   a bog like your wild Irish; no sooner started, but they'll leap from one
   thing to another, like a squirrel, heigh!  dance and do tricks in their
   discourse, from fire to water, from water to air, from air to earth, as if
   their tongues did but e'en lick the four elements over, and away.

   FAST.  Sirrah, Carlo, thou never saw'st my gray hobby yet, didst thou?

   CAR.  No; have you such a one?

   FAST.  The best in Europe, my good villain, thou'lt say when thou seest him.

   CAR.  But when shall I see him?

   FAST.  There was a nobleman in the court offered me a hundred pound for
   him, by this light:  a fine little fiery slave, he runs like a -- oh,
   excellent, excellent! -- with the very sound of the spur.

   CAR.  How!  the sound of the spur?

   FAST.  O, it's your only humour now extant, sir; a good gingle, a good gingle.

   CAR.  S'blood!  you shall see him turn morrice-dancer, he has got him
   bells, a good suit, and a hobby-horse.

   SIG.  Signior, now you talk of a hobby-horse, I know where one is will not
   be given for a brace of angels.

   FAST.  How is that, sir?

   SOG.  Marry, sir, I am telling this gentleman of a hobby-horse; it was my
   father's indeed, and though I say it --

   CAR.  That should not say it -- on, on.

   SOG.  He did dance in it, with as good humour and as good regard as any man
   of his degree whatsoever, being no gentleman:  I have danc'd in it myself
   too.

   CAR.  Not since the humour of gentility was upon you, did you?

   SOG.  Yes, once; marry, that was but to shew what a gentleman might do in a
   humour.

   CAR.  O, very good.

   MIT.  Why, this fellow's discourse were nothing but for the word humour.

   COR.  O bear with him; an he should lack matter and words too, 'twere pitiful.

   SOG.  Nay, look you, sir, there's ne'er a gentleman in the country has the
   like humours, for the hobby-horse, as I have; I have the method for the
   threading of the needle and all, the --

   CAR.  How, the method?

   SOG.  Ay, the leigerity for that, and the whighhie, and the daggers in the
   nose, and the travels of the egg from finger to finger, and all the humours
   incident to the quality.  The horse hangs at home in my parlour.  I'll keep
   it for a monument as long as I live, sure.

   CAR.  Do so; and when you die, 'twill be an excellent trophy to hang over
   your tomb.

   SOG.  Mass, and I'll have a tomb, now I think on't; 'tis but so much charges.

   CAR.  Best build it in your lifetime then, your heirs may hap to forget it
   else.

   SOG.  Nay, I mean so, I'll not trust to them.

   CAR.  No, for heirs and executors are grown damnable careless, 'specially
   since the ghosts of testators left walking. -- How like you him, signior?

   FAST.  'Fore heavens, his humour arrides me exceedingly.

   CAR.  Arrides you!

   FAST.  Ay, pleases me:  a pox on't!  I am so haunted at the court, and at
   my lodging, with your refined choice spirits, that it makes me clean of
   another garb, another sheaf, I know not how!  I cannot frame me to your
   harsh vulgar phrase, 'tis against my genius.

   Sog.  Signior Carlo!
   [TAKES HIM ASIDE.

   COR.  This is right to that of Horace, "Dum vitant stulti vitia, in
   contraria currunt"; so this gallant labouring to avoid popularity, falls
   into a habit of affectation, ten thousand times hatefuller than the former.

   CAR.  [POINTING TO FASTIDIOUS.]  Who, he?  a gull, a fool, no salt in him
   i' the earth, man; he looks like a fresh salmon kept in a tub; he'll be
   spent shortly.  His brain's lighter than his feather already, and his
   tongue more subject to lye, than that is to wag; he sleeps with a musk-cat
   every night, and walks all day hang'd in pomander chains for penance; he
   has his skin tann'd in civet, to make his complexion strong, and the
   sweetness of his youth lasting in the sense of his sweet lady; a good empty
   puff, he loves you well, signior.

   SOG.  There shall be no love lost, sir, I'll assure you.

   FAST.  [ADVANCING TO THEM.]  Nay, Carlo, I am not happy in thy love, I see:
   pray thee suffer me to enjoy thy company a little, sweet mischief:  by this
   air, I shall envy this gentleman's place in thy affections, if you be thus
   private, i'faith.
   ENTER CINEDO.
   How now!  Is the knight arrived?

   CIN.  No, sir, but 'tis guess'd he will arrive presently, by his fore-runners.

   FAST.  His hounds!  by Minerva, an excellent figure; a good boy.

   CAR.  You should give him a French crown for it; the boy would find two
   better figures in that, and a good figure of your bounty beside.

   FAST.  Tut, the boy wants no crowns.

   CAR.  No crown; speak in the singular number, and we'll believe you.

   FAST.  Nay, thou are so capriciously conceited now.  Sirrah damnation, I
   have heard this knight Puntarvolo reported to be a gentleman of exceeding
   good humour, thou know'st him; prithee, how is his disposition?  I never
   was so favoured of my stars, as to see him yet.  Boy, do you look to the
   hobby?

   CIN.  Ay, sir, the groom has set him up.
   [AS CINEDO IS GOING OUT, SOGLIARDO TAKES HIM ASIDE.

   FAST.  'Tis well:  I rid out of my way of intent to visit him, and take
   knowledge of his --  Nay, good Wickedness, his humour, his humour.

   CAR.  Why, he loves dogs, and hawks, and his wife well; he has a good
   riding face, and he can sit a great horse; he will taint a staff well at
   tile; when he is mounted he looks like the sign of the George, that's all I
   know; save, that instead of a dragon, he will brandish against a tree, and
   break his sword as confidently upon the knotty bark, as the other did upon
   the scales of the beast.

   FAST.  O, but this is nothing to that's delivered of him.  They say he has
   dialogues and discourses between his horse, himself, and his dog; and that
   he will court his own lady, as she were a stranger never encounter'd before.

   CAR.  Ay, that he will, and make fresh love to her every morning; this
   gentleman has been a spectator of it, Signior Insulso.

   SOG.  I am resolute to keep a page. -- Say you, sir?
   [LEAPS FROM WHISPERING WITH CINEDO.

   CAR.  You have seen Signior Puntarvolo accost his lady?

   SOG.  O, ay, sir.

   FAST.  And how is the manner of it, prithee, good signior?

   SOG.  Faith, sir, in very good sort; he has his humours for it, sir;
   at first, (suppose he were now to come from riding or hunting, or so,) he
   has his trumpet to sound, and then the waiting-gentlewoman she looks out,
   and then he speaks, and then she speaks, -- very pretty, i'faith, gentlemen.

   FAST.  Why, but do you remember no particulars, signior?

   SOG.  O, yes, sir, first, the gentlewoman, she looks out at the window.

   CAR.  After the trumpet has summon'd a parle, not before?

   SOG.  No, sir, not before; and then says he, -- ha, ha, ha, ha!

   CAR.  What says he?  be not rapt so.

   SOG.  Says he, -- ha, ha, ha, ha!

   FAST.  Nay, speak, speak.

   SOG.  Ha, ha, ha! -- says he, God save you, says he; -- ha, ha!

   CAR.  Was this the ridiculous motive to all this passion?

   SOG.  Nay, that that comes after is, -- ha, ha, ha, ha!

   CAR.  Doubtless he apprehends more than he utters, this fellow; or else --
   [A CRY OF HOUNDS WITHIN.

   SOG.  List, list, they are come from hunting; stand by, close under this
   terras, and you shall see it done better than I can show it.

   CAR.  So it had need, 'twill scarce poise the observation else.

   SOG.  Faith, I remember all, but the manner of it is quite out of my head.

   FAST.  O, withdraw, withdraw, it cannot be but a most pleasing object.
   [THEY STAND ASIDE.

   ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FOLLOWED BY HIS HUNTSMAN LEADING A GREYHOUND.
   PUNT.  Forester, give wind to thy horn. -- Enough; by this the sound hath
   touch'd the ears of the inclos'd:  depart, leave the dog, and take with
   thee what thou has deserved, the horn and thanks.
   [EXIT HUNTSMAN.

   CAR.  Ay, marry, there is some taste in this.

   FAST.  Is't not good?

   SOG.  Ah, peace; now above, now above!
   [A WAITING-GENTLEWOMAN APPEARS AT THE WINDOW.

   PUNT.  Stay; mine eye hath, on the instant, through the bounty of the
   window, received the form of a nymph.  I will step forward three paces; of
   the which, I will barely retire one; and, after some little flexure of the
   knee, with an erected grace salute her; one, two, and three!  Sweet lady,
   God save you!

   GENT.  [ABOVE.]  No, forsooth; I am but the waiting-gentlewoman.

   CAR.  He knew that before.

   PUNT.  Pardon me:  'humanum est errare'.

   CAR.  He learn'd that of his chaplain.

   PUNT.  To the perfection of compliment (which is the dial of the thought,
   and guided by the sun of your beauties,) are required these three specials;
   the gnomon, the puntilios, and the superficies:  the superficies is that we
   call place; the puntilios, circumstance; and the gnomon, ceremony; in
   either of which, for a stranger to err, 'tis easy and facile; and such am I.

   CAR.  True, not knowing her horizon, he must needs err; which I fear he
   knows too well.

   PUNT.  What call you the lord of the castle, sweet face?

   GENT.  [ABOVE.]  The lord of the castle is a knight, sir; signior Puntarvolo.

   PUNT.  Puntarvolo!  O --

   CAR.  Now must he ruminate.

   FAST.  Does the wench know him all this while, then?

   CAR.  O, do you know me, man?  why, therein lies the syrup of the jest;
   it's a project, a designment of his own, a thing studied, and rehearst as
   ordinarily at his coming from hawking or hunting, as a jig after a play.

   SOG.  Ay, e'en like your jig, sir.

   PUNT.  'Tis a most sumptuous and stately edifice!  Of what years is the
   knight, fair damsel?

   GENT.  Faith, much about your years, sir.

   PUNT.  What complexion, or what stature bears he?

   GENT.  Of your stature, and very near upon your complexion.

   PUNT.  Mine is melancholy, --

   CAR.  So is the dog's, just.

   PUNT.  And doth argue constancy, chiefly in love.  What are his endowments?
   is he courteous?

   GENT.  O, the most courteous knight in Christian land, sir.

   PUNT.  Is he magnanimous?

   GENT.  As the skin between your brows, sir.

   PUNT.  Is he bountiful?

   CAR.  'Slud, he takes an inventory of his own good parts.

   GENT.  Bountiful!  ay, sir, I would you should know it; the poor are served
   at his gate, early and late, sir.

   PUNT.  Is he learned?

   GENT.  O, ay, sir, he can speak the French and Italian.

   PUNT.  Then he has travelled?

   GENT.  Ay, forsooth, he hath been beyond seas once or twice.

   CAR.  As far as Paris, to fetch over a fashion, and come back again.

   PUNT.  Is he religious?

   GENT.  Religious!  I know not what you call religious, but he goes to
   church, I am sure.

   FAST.  'Slid, methinks these answers should offend him.

   CAR.  Tut, no; he knows they are excellent, and to her capacity that speaks
   them.

   PUNT.  Would I might but see his face!

   CAR.  She should let down a glass from the window at that word, and request
   him to look in't.

   PUNT.  Doubtless the gentleman is most exact, and absolutely qualified;
   doth the castle contain him?

   GENT.  No, sir, he is from home, but his lady is within.

   PUNT.  His lady!  what, is she fair, splendidious, and amiable?

   GENT.  O, Lord, sir.

   PUNT.  Prithee, dear nymph, intreat her beauties to shine on this side of
   the building.
   [EXIT WAITING-GENTLEWOMAN FROM THE WINDOW.

   CAR.  That he may erect a new dial of compliment, with his gnomons and his
   puntilios.

   FAST.  Nay, thou art such another cynic now, a man had need walk uprightly
   before thee.

   CAR.  Heart, can any man walk more upright than he does?  Look, look; as if
   he went in a frame, or had a suit of wainscot on:  and the dog watching
   him, lest he should leap out on't.

   FAST.  O, villain!

   CAR.  Well, an e'er I meet him in the city, I'll have him jointed, I'll
   pawn him in Eastcheap, among the butchers, else.

   FAST.  Peace; who be these, Carlo?

   ENTER SORDIDO AND FUNGOSO.

   SORD.  Yonder's your godfather; do your duty to him, son.

   SOG.  This, sir?  a poor elder brother of mine, sir, a yeoman, may dispend
   some seven or eight hundred a year; that's his son, my nephew, there.

   PUNT.  You are not ill come, neighbour Sordido, though I have not yet said,
   well-come; what, my godson is grown a great proficient by this.

   SORD.  I hope he will grow great one day, sir.

   FAST.  What does he study?  the law?

   SOG.  Ay, sir, he is a gentleman, though his father be but a yeoman.

   CAR.  What call you your nephew, signior?

   SOG.  Marry, his name is Fungoso.

   CAR.  Fungoso!  O, he look'd somewhat like a sponge in that pink'd yellow
   doublet, methought; well, make much of him; I see he was never born to ride
   upon a mule.

   GENT.  [REAPPEARS AT THE WINDOW.]  My lady will come presently, sir.

   SOG.  O, now, now!

   PUNT.  Stand by, retire yourselves a space; nay, pray you, forget not the
   use of your hat; the air is piercing.
   [SORDIDO AND FUNGOSO WITHDRAW.

   FAST.  What!  will not their presence prevail against the current of his
   humour?

   CAR.  O, no; it's a mere flood, a torrent carries all afore it.

   [LADY PUNTARVOLO APPEARS AT THE WINDOW.
   PUNT.  What more than heavenly pulchritude is this.
   What magazine, or treasury of bliss?
   Dazzle, you organs to my optic sense,
   To view a creature of such eminence:
   O, I am planet-struck, and in yon sphere
   A brighter star than Venus doth appear!

   FAST.  How!  in verse!

   CAR.  An extacy, an extacy, man.

   LADY P. [ABOVE] is your desire to speak with me, sir knight?

   CAR.  He will tell you that anon; neither his brain nor his body are yet
   moulded for an answer.

   PUNT.  Most debonair, and luculent lady, I decline me as low as the basis
   of your altitude.

   COR.  He makes congies to his wife in geometrical proportions.

   MIT.  Is it possible there should be any such humorist?

   COR.  Very easily possible, sir, you see there is.

   PUNT.  I have scarce collected my spirits, but lately scattered in the
   administration of your form; to which, if the bounties of your mind be any
   way responsible, I doubt not but my desires shall find a smooth and secure
   passage.  I am a poor knight-errant, lady, that hunting in the adjacent
   forest, was, by adventure, in the pursuit of a hart, brought to this place;
   which hart, dear madam, escaped by enchantment:  the evening approaching
   myself and servant wearied, my suit is, to enter your fair castle and
   refresh me.

   LADY.  Sir knight, albeit it be not usual with me, chiefly in the absence
   of a husband, to admit any entrance to strangers, yet in the true regard of
   those innated virtues, and fair parts, which so strive to express
   themselves, in you; I am resolved to entertain you to the best of my
   unworthy power; which I acknowledge to be nothing, valued with what so
   worthy a person may deserve.  Please you but stay while I descend.
   [EXIT FROM THE WINDOW.

   PUNT.  Most admired lady, you astonish me.
   [WALKS ASIDE WITH SORDIDO AND HIS SON.

   CAR.  What!  with speaking a speech of your own penning?

   FAST.  Nay, look:  prithee, peace.

   CAR.  Pox on't!  I am impatient of such foppery.

   FAST.  O let us hear the rest.

   CAR.  What!  a tedious chapter of courtship, after sir Lancelot and queen
   Guenever?  Away!  I marle in what dull cold nook he found this lady out;
   that, being a woman, she was blest with no more copy of wit but to serve
   his humour thus.  'Slud, I think he feeds her with porridge, I:  she could
   never have such a thick brain else.

   SOG.  Why, is porridge so hurtful, signior?

   CAR.  O, nothing under heaven more prejudicial to those ascending subtle
   powers, or doth sooner abate that which we call 'acumen ingenii', than your
   gross fare:  Why, I'll make you an instance; your city-wives, but observe
   'em, you have not more perfect true fools in the world bred than they are
   generally; and yet you see, by the fineness and delicacy of their diet,
   diving into the fat capons, drinking your rich wines, feeding on larks,
   sparrows, potato-pies, and such good unctuous meats, how their wits are
   refined and rarified; and sometimes a very quintessence of conceit flows
   from them, able to drown a weak apprehension.

   ENTER LADY PUNTARVOLO AND HER WAITING-WOMAN.
   FAST.  Peace, here comes the lady..

   LADY. Gad's me, here's company!  turn in again.
   [EXIT WITH HER WOMAN.

   FAST.  'Slight, our presence has cut off the convoy of the jest.

   CAR.  All the better, I am glad on't; for the issue was very perspicuous.
   Come let's discover, and salute the knight.
   [THEY COME FORWARD.

   PUNT.  Stay; who be these that address themselves towards us?  What Carlo!
   Now by the sincerity of my soul, welcome; welcome, gentlemen:  and how dost
   thou, thou 'Grand Scourge', or 'Second Untruss of the time'?

   CAR.  Faith, spending my metal in this reeling world (here and there), as
   the sway of my affection carries me, and perhaps stumble upon a
   yeoman-feuterer, as I do now; or one of fortune's mules, laden with
   treasure, and an empty cloak-bag, following him, gaping when a gab will
   untie.

   PUNT.  Peace, you bandog, peace!  What brisk Nymphadoro is that in the
   white virgin-boot there?

   CAR.  Marry, sir, one that I must interest you to take a very particular
   knowledge of, and with more than ordinary respect; monsieur Fastidious.

   PUNT.  Sir, I could wish, that for the time of your vouchsafed abiding
   here, and more real entertainment, this is my house stood on the Muses
   hill, and these my orchards were those of the Hesperides.

   FAST.  I possess as much in your wish, sir, as if I were made lord of the
   Indies; and I pray you believe it.

   CAR.  I have a better opinion of his faith, than to think it will be so
   corrupted.

   SOG.  Come, brother, I'll bring you acquainted with gentlemen, and good
   fellows, such as shall do you more grace than --

   SORD.  Brother, I hunger not for such acquaintance:  Do you take heed, lest --
   [CARLO COMES TOWARD THEM.

   SOG.  Husht!  My brother, sir, for want of education, sir, somewhat nodding
   to the boor, the clown; but I request you in private, sir.

   FUNG.  [LOOKING AT FASTIDIOUS BRISK.]  By heaven, it is a very fine suit of
   clothes.
   [ASIDE.

   COR.  Do you observe that signior?  There's another humour has new-crack'd
   the shell.

   MIT.  What!  he is enamour'd of the fashion, is he?

   COR.  O, you forestall the jest.

   FUNG.  I marle what it might stand him in.
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  Nephew!

   FUNG.  'Fore me, it's an excellent suit, and as neatly becomes him.
   [ASIDE.] -- What said you, uncle?

   SOG.  When saw you my niece?

   FUNG.  Marry, yesternight I supp'd there. -- That kind of boot does very
   rare too.
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  And what news hear you?

   FUNG.  The gilt spur and all!  Would I were hang'd, but 'tis exceeding
   good.  [ASIDE.] -- Say you, uncle?

   SOG.  Your mind is carried away with somewhat else:  I ask what news you hear?

   FUNG.  Troth, we hear none. -- In good faith [LOOKING AT FASTIDIOUS BRISK]
   I was never so pleased with a fashion, days of my life.  O an I might have
   but my wish, I'd ask no more of heaven now, but such a suit, such a hat,
   such a band, such a doublet, such a hose, such a boot, and such a --
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  They say, there's a new motion of the city of Nineveh, with Jonas and
   the whale, to be seen at Fleet-bridge.  You can tell, cousin?

   FUNG.  Here's such a world of questions with him now! -- Yes, I think there
   be such a thing, I saw the picture. -- Would he would once be satisfied!
   Let me see, the doublet, say fifty shillings the doublet, and between three
   or four pound the hose; then boots, hat, and band:  some ten or eleven
   pound will do it all, and suit me for the heavens!
   [ASIDE.

   SOG.  I'll see all those devices an I come to London once.

   FUNG.  Ods 'slid, an I could compass it, 'twere rare [ASIDE.] -- Hark you,
   uncle.

   SOG.  What says my nephew?

   FUNG.  Faith, uncle, I would have desired you to have made a motion for me
   to my father, in a thing that -- Walk aside, and I'll tell you, sir; no
   more but this:  there's a parcel of law books (some twenty pounds worth)
   that lie in a place for a little more than half the money they cost; and I
   think, for some twelve pound, or twenty mark, I could go near to redeem
   them; there's Plowden, Dyar, Brooke, and Fitz-Herbert, divers such as I
   must have ere long; and you know, I were as good save five or six pound, as
   not, uncle.  I pray you, move it for me.

   SOG.  That I will:  when would you have me do it?  presently?

   FUNG.  O, ay, I pray you, good uncle:  [SOGLIARDO TAKES SORDIDO ASIDE.] --
   send me good luck, Lord, an't be thy will, prosper it!  O my stars, now,
   now, if it take now, I am made for ever.

   FAST.  Shall I tell you, sir?  by this air, I am the most beholden to that
   lord, of any gentleman living; he does use me the most honourably, and with
   the greatest respect, more indeed than can be utter'd with any opinion of
   truth.

   PUNT.  Then have you the count Gratiato?

   FAST.  As true noble a gentleman too as any breathes; I am exceedingly
   endear'd to his love:  By this hand, I protest to you, signior, I speak it
   not gloriously, nor out of affectation, but there's he and the count
   Frugale, signior Illustre, signior Luculento, and a sort of 'em, that when
   I am at court, they do share me amongst them; happy is he can enjoy me most
   private.  I do wish myself sometime an ubiquitary for their love, in good
   faith.

   CAR.  There's ne'er a one of them but might lie a week on the rack, ere
   they could bring forth his name; and yet he pours them out as familiarly,
   as if he had seen them stand by the fire in the presence, or ta'en tobacco
   with them over the stage, in the lord's room.

   PUNT.  Then you must of necessity know our court-star there, that planet of
   wit, madona Saviolina?

   FAST.  O Lord, sir, my mistress.

   PUNT.  Is she your mistress?

   FAST.  Faith, here be some slight favours of hers, sir, that do speak it,
   she is; as this scarf, sir, or this ribbon in my ear, or so; this feather
   grew in her sweet fan sometimes, though now it be my poor fortune to wear
   it, as you see, sir:  slight, slight, a foolish toy.

   PUNT.  Well, she is the lady of a most exalted and ingenious spirit.

   FAST.  Did you ever hear any woman speak like her?  or enriched with a more
   plentiful discourse?

   CAR.  O villainous!  nothing but sound, sound, a mere echo; she speaks as
   she goes tired, in cobweb-lawn, light, thin; good enough to catch flies
   withal.

   PUNT.  O manage your affections.

   FAST.  Well, if thou be'st not plagued for this blasphemy one day --

   PUNT.  Come, regard not a jester:  It is in the power of my purse to make
   him speak well or ill of me.

   FAST.  Sir, I affirm it to you upon my credit and judgment, she has the
   most harmonious and musical strain of wit that ever tempted a true ear; and
   yet to see! -- a rude tongue would profane heaven, if it could.

   PUNT.  I am not ignorant of it, sir.

   FAST.  Oh, it flows from her like nectar, and she doth give it that sweet
   quick grace, and exornation in the composure that by this good air, as I am
   an honest man, would I might never stir, sir, but -- she does observe as
   pure a phrase, and use as choice figures in her ordinary conferences, as
   any be in the 'Arcadia'.

   CAR.  Or rather in Green's works, whence she may steal with more security.

   SORD.  Well, if ten pound will fetch 'em, you shall have it; but I'll part
   with no more.

   FUNG.  I'll try what that will do, if you please.

   SORD.  Do so; and when you have them, study hard.

   FUNG.  Yes, sir.  An I could study to get forty shillings more now!  Well,
   I will put myself into the fashion, as far as this will go, presently.

   SORD.  I wonder it rains not:  the almanack says, we should have a store of
   rain to-day.
   [ASIDE.

   PUNT.  Why, sir, to-morrow I will associate you to court myself, and from
   thence to the city about a business, a project I have; I will expose it to
   you sir; Carlo, I am sure has heard of it.

   CAR.  What's that, sir?

   PUNT.  I do intend, this year of jubilee coming on, to travel:  and because
   I will not altogether go upon expense, I am determined to put forth some
   five thousand pound, to be paid me five for one, upon the return of myself,
   my wife, and my dog from the Turk's court in Constantinople.  If all or
   either of us miscarry in the journey, 'tis gone:  if we be successful, why,
   there will be five and twenty thousand pound to entertain time withal.
   Nay, go not, neighbour Sordido; stay to-night, and help to make our society
   the fuller.  Gentlemen, frolic:  Carlo!  what!  dull now?

   CAR.  I was thinking on your project, sir, an you call it so.  Is this the
   dog goes with you?

   PUNT.  This is the dog, sir.

   CAR.  He does not go barefoot, does he?

   PUNT.  Away, you traitor, away!

   CAR.  Nay, afore God, I speak simply; he may prick his foot with a thorn,
   and be as much as the whole venture is worth.  Besides, for a dog that
   never travell'd before, it's a huge journey to Constantinople.  I'll tell
   you now, an he were mine, I'd have some present conference with a
   physician, what antidotes were good to give him, preservatives against
   poison; for assure you, if once your money be out, there'll be divers
   attempts made against the life of the poor animal.

   PUNT.  Thou art still dangerous.

   FAST.  Is signior Deliro's wife your kinswoman?

   SOG.  Ay, sir, she is my niece, my brother's daughter here, and my nephew's
   sister.

   SORD.  Do you know her, sir?

   FAST.  O Lord, sir!  signior Deliro, her husband, is my merchant.

   FUNG.  Ay, I have seen this gentleman there often.

   FAST.  I cry you mercy, sir; let me crave your name, pray you.

   FUNG.  Fungoso, sir.

   FAST.  Good signior Fungoso, I shall request to know you better, sir.

   FUNG.  I am her brother, sir.

   FAST.  In fair time, sir.

   PUNT.  Come, gentlemen, I will be your conduct.

   FAST.  Nay, pray you sir; we shall meet at signior Deliro's often.

   SOG.  You shall have me at the herald's office, sir, for some week or so at
   my first coming up.  Come, Carlo.
   [EXEUNT.

   MIT.  Methinks, Cordatus, he dwelt somewhat too long on this scene; it hung
   in the hand.

   COR.  I see not where he could have insisted less, and to have made the
   humours perspicuous enough.

   MIT.  True, as his subject lies; but he might have altered the shape of his
   argument, and explicated them better in single scenes.

   COR.  That had been single indeed.  Why, be they not the same persons in
   this, as they would have been in those?  and is it not an object of more
   state, to behold the scene full, and relieved with variety of speakers to
   the end, than to see a vast empty stage, and the actors come in one by one,
   as if they were dropt down with a feather into the eye of the spectators?

   MIT.  Nay, you are better traded with these things than I, and therefore
   I'll subscribe to your judgment; marry, you shall give me leave to make
   objections.

   COR.  O, what else?  it is the special intent of the author you should do
   so; for thereby others, that are present, may as well be satisfied, who
   haply would object the same you would do.

   MIT.  So, sir; but when appears Macilente again?

   COR.  Marry, he stays but till our silence give him leave:  here he comes,
   and with him signior Deliro, a merchant at whose house he is come to
   sojourn:  make your own observation now, only transfer your thoughts to the
   city, with  the scene:  where suppose they speak.


   SCENE II.  A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE.

   ENTER DELIRO, MACILENTE, AND FIDO WITH FLOWERS AND PERFUMES.

   DELI.  I'll tell you by and by, sir, --
   Welcome good Macilente, to my house,
   To sojourn even for ever; if my best
   in cates, and every sort of good entreaty,
   May move you stay with me.
   [HE CENSETH: THE BOY STREWS FLOWERS.

   MACI.  I thank you, sir. --
   And yet the muffled Fates, had it pleased them,
   Might have supplied me from their own full store.
   Without this word, 'I thank you', to a fool.
   I see no reason why that dog call'd Chance,
   Should fawn upon this fellow more than me;
   I am a man, and I have limbs, flesh, blood,
   Bones, sinews, and a soul, as well as he:
   My parts are every way as good as his;
   If I said better, why, I did not lie.
   Nath'less, his wealth, but nodding on my wants,
   Must make me bow, and cry, 'I thank you, sir'.
   [ASIDE.

   DELI.  Dispatch!  take heed your mistress see you not.

   FIDO.  I warrant you, sir, I'll steal by her softly.
   [EXIT.

   DELI.  Nay, gentle friend, be merry; raise your looks
   Out of your bosom:  I protest, by heaven,
   You are the man most welcome in the world.

   MACI.  I thank you, sir. -- I know my cue, I think.
   [ASIDE.

   RE-ENTER FIDO, WITH MORE PERFUMES AND FLOWERS.
   FIDO.  Where will you have them burn, sir?

   DELI.  Here, good Fido.
   What, she did not see thee?

   FIDO.  No, sir.

   DELI.  That is well
   Strew, strew, good Fido, the freshest flowers; so!

   MACI.  What means this, signior Deliro?  all this censing?

   DELI.  Cast in more frankincense, yet more; well said. --
   O Macilente, I have such a wife!
   So passing fair!  so passing-fair-unkind!
   But of such worth, and right to be unkind,
   Since no man can be worthy of her kindness --

   MACI.  What, can there not?

   DELI.  No, that is as sure as death,
   No man alive.  I do not say, is not,
   But cannot possibly be worth her kindness,
   Nay, it is certain, let me do her right.
   How, said I?  do her right!  as though I could,
   As though this dull, gross tongue of mine could utter
   The rare, the true, the pure, the infinite rights.
   That sit, as high as I can look, within her!

   MACI.  This is such dotage as was never heard.

   DELI.  Well, this must needs be granted.

   MACI.  Granted, quoth you?

   DELI.  Nay, Macilente, do not so discredit
   The goodness of your judgment to deny it.
   For I do speak the very least of her:
   And I would crave, and beg no more of Heaven,
   For all my fortunes here, but to be able
   To utter first in fit terms, what she is,
   And then the true joys I conceive in her.

   MACI.  Is't possible she should deserve so well,
   As you pretend?

   DELI.  Ay, and she knows so well
   Her own deserts, that, when I strive t'enjoy them,
   She weighs the things I do, with what she merits;
   And, seeing my worth out-weigh'd so in her graces,
   She is so solemn, so precise, so froward,
   That no observance I can do to her
   Can make her kind to me:  if she find fault,
   I mend that fault; and then she says, I faulted,
   That I did mend it.  Now, good friend, advise me,
   How I may temper this strange spleen in her.

   MACI.  You are too amorous, too obsequious,
   And make her too assured she may command you.
   When women doubt most of their husbands' loves,
   They are most loving.  Husbands must take heed
   They give no gluts of kindness to their wives,
   But use them like their horses; whom they feed
   But half a peck at once; and keep them so
   Still with an appetite to that they give them.
   He that desires to have a loving wife,
   Must bridle all the show of that desire:
   Be kind, not amorous; nor bewraying kindness,
   As if love wrought it, but considerate duty.
   Offer no love rites, but let wives still seek them,
   For when they come unsought, they seldom like them.

   DELI.  Believe me, Macilente, this is gospel.
   O, that a man were his own man so much,
   To rule himself thus.  I will strive, i'faith,
   To be more strange and careless; yet I hope
   I have now taken such a perfect course,
   To make her kind to me, and live contented,
   That I shall find my kindness well return'd,
   And have no need to fight with my affections.
   She late hath found much fault with every room
   Within my house; one was too big, she said,
   Another was not furnish'd to her mind,
   And so through all; all which, now, I have alter'd.
   Then here, she hath a place, on my back-side,
   Wherein she loves to walk; and that, she said,
   Had some ill smells about it:  now, this walk
   Have I before she knows it, thus perfumed
   With herbs, and flowers; and laid in divers places,
   As 'twere on altars consecrate to her,
   Perfumed gloves, and delicate chains of amber,
   To keep the air in awe of her sweet nostrils:
   This have I done, and this I think will please her.
   Behold, she comes.

   ENTER FALLACE.
   FAL.  Here's a sweet stink indeed!
   What, shall I ever be thus crost and plagued,
   And sick of husband?  O, my head doth ache,
   As it would cleave asunder, with these savours!
   All my rooms alter'd, and but one poor walk
   That I delighted in, and that is made
   So fulsome with perfumes, that I am fear'd,
   My brain doth sweat so, I have caught the plague!

   DELI.  Why, gentle wife, is now thy walk too sweet?
   Thou said'st of late, it had sour airs about it,
   And found'st much fault that I did not correct it.

   FAL.  Why, an I did find fault, sir?

   DELI.  Nay, dear wife,
   I know thou hast said thou has loved perfumes,
   No woman better.

   FAL.  Ay, long since, perhaps;
   But now that sense is alter'd:  you would have me,
   Like to a puddle, or a standing pool,
   To have no motion nor no spirit within me.
   No. I am like a pure and sprightly river,
   That moves for ever, and yet still the same;
   Or fire, that burns much wood, yet still one flame.

   DELI.  But yesterday, I saw thee at our garden,
   Smelling on roses, and on purple flowers;
   And since, I hope, the humour of thy sense
   Is nothing changed.

   FAL.  Why, those were growing flowers,
   And these within my walk are cut and strewed.

   DELI.  But yet they have one scent.

   FAL.  Ay!  have they so?
   In your gross judgment.  If you make no difference
   Betwixt the scent of growing flowers and cut ones,
   You have a sense to taste lamp oil, i'faith:
   And with such judgment have you changed the chambers,
   Leaving no room, that I can joy to be in,
   In all your house; and now my walk, and all,
   You smoke me from, as if I were a fox,
   And long, belike, to drive me quite away:
   Well, walk you there, and I'll walk where I list.

   DELI.  What shall I do?  O, I shall never please her.

   MACI.  Out on thee, dotard!  what star ruled his birth,
   That brought him such a Star?  blind Fortune still
   Bestows her gifts on such as cannot use them:
   How long shall I live, ere I be so happy
   To have a wife of this exceeding form?
   [ASIDE.

   DELI.  Away with 'em!  would I had broke a joint
   When I devised this, that should so dislike her.
   Away, bear all away.
   [EXIT FIDO, WITH FLOWERS, ETC.

   FAL.  Ay, do; for fear
   Aught that is there should like her.  O, this man,
   How cunningly he can conceal himself,
   As though he loved, nay, honour'd and ador'd! --

   DELI.  Why, my sweet heart?

   FAL.  Sweet heart!  O, better still!
   And asking, why?  wherefore?  and looking strangely,
   As if he were as white as innocence!
   Alas, you're simple, you:  you cannot change,
   Look pale at pleasure, and then red with wonder;
   No, no, not you!  'tis pity o' your naturals.
   I did but cast an amorous eye, e'en now,
   Upon a pair of gloves that somewhat liked me,
   And straight he noted it, and gave command
   All should be ta'en away.

   DELI.  Be they my bane then!
   What, sirrah, Fido, bring in those gloves again
   You took from hence.

   FAL.  'Sbody, sir, but do not:
   Bring in no gloves to spite me; if you do --
   DELI.  Ay me, most wretched; how am I misconstrued!

   MACI.  O, how she tempts my heart-strings with her eye,
   To knit them to her beauties, or to break!
   What mov'd the heavens, that they could not make
   Me such a woman!  but a man, a beast,
   That hath no bliss like others?  Would to heaven,
   In wreak of my misfortunes, I were turn'd
   To some fair water-nymph, that set upon
   The deepest whirl-pit of the rav'nous seas,
   My adamantine eyes might headlong hale
   This iron world to me, and drown it all.

   [ASIDE.
   COR.  Behold, behold, the translated gallant.

   MIT.  O, he is welcome.

   ENTER FUNGOSO, APPARELLED LIKE FASTIDIOUS BRISK.
   FUNG.  Save you, brother and sister; save you, sir!  I have commendations
   for you out o' the country.  I wonder they take no knowledge of my suit:
   [ASIDE.] -- Mine uncle Sogliardo is in town.  Sister methinks you are
   melancholy; why are you so sad?  I think you took me for Master Fastidious
   Brisk, sister, did you not?

   FAL.  Why should I take you for him?

   FUNG.  Nay, nothing. -- I was lately in Master Fastidious's company, and
   methinks we are very like.

   DELI.  You have a fair suit, brother, 'give you joy on't.

   FUNG.  Faith, good enough to ride in, brother; I made it to ride in.

   FAL.  O, now I see the cause of his idle demand was his new suit.

   DELI.  Pray you, good brother, try if you can change her mood.

   FUNG.  I warrant you, let me alone:  I'll put her out of her dumps.
   Sister, how like you my suit!

   FAL.  O, you are a gallant in print now, brother.

   FUNG.  Faith, how like you the fashion?  it is the last edition, I assure you.

   FAL.  I cannot but like it to the desert.

   FUNG.  Troth, sister, I was fain to borrow these spurs, I have left my gown
   in the gage for them, pray you lend me an angel.

   FAL.  Now, beshrew my heart then.

   FUNG.  Good truth, I'll pay you again at my next exhibition.  I had but
   bare ten pound of my father, and it would not reach to put me wholly into
   the fashion.

   FAL.  I care not.

   FUNG.  I had spurs of mine own before, but they were not ginglers.
   Monsieur Fastidious will be here anon, sister.

   FAL.  You jest!

   FUNG.  Never lend me penny more while you live then; and that I'd be loth
   to say, in truth.

   FAL.  When did you see him?

   FUNG.  Yesterday; I came acquainted with him at Sir Puntarvolo's:  nay,
   sweet sister.

   MACI.  I fain would know of heaven now, why yond fool
   Should wear a suit of satin?  he?  that rook,
   That painted jay, with such a deal of outside:
   What is his inside, trow?  ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
   Good heavens, give me patience, patience, patience.
   A number of these popinjays there are,
   Whom, if a man confer, and but examine
   Their inward merit, with such men as want;
   Lord, lord, what things they are!
   [ASIDE.

   FAL.  [GIVES HIM MONEY.]  Come, when will you pay me again, now?

   FUNG.  O lord, sister!

   MACI.  Here comes another.

   ENTER FASTIDIOUS BRISK, IN A NEW SUIT.
   FAST.  Save you, signior Deliro!  How dost thou, sweet lady?  let me kiss thee.

   FUNG.  How!  a new suit?  ah me!

   DELI.  And how does master Fastidious Brisk?

   FAST.  Faith, live in court, signior Deliro; in grace, I thank God, both of
   the noble masculine and feminine.  I muse speak with you in private by and
   by.

   DELI.  When you please, sir.

   FAL.  Why look you so pale, brother?

   FUNG.  'Slid, all this money is cast away now.

   MACI.  Ay, there's a newer edition come forth.

   FUNG.  'Tis but my hard fortune!  well, I'll have my suit changed.  I'll go
   fetch my tailor presently but first, I'll devise a letter to my father.
   Have you any pen and ink, sister?

   FAL.  What would you do withal?

   FUNG.  I would use it.  'Slight, an it had come but four days sooner, the
   fashion.
   [EXIT.

   FAST.  There was a countess gave me her hand to kiss to-day, i' the
   presence:  did me more good by that light than -- and yesternight sent her
   coach twice to my lodging, to intreat me accompany her, and my sweet
   mistress, with some two or three nameless ladies more:  O, I have been
   graced by them beyond all aim of affection:  this is her garter my dagger
   hangs in:  and they do so commend and approve my apparel, with my judicious
   wearing of it, it's above wonder.

   FAL.  Indeed, sir, 'tis a most excellent suit, and you do wear it as
   extraordinary.

   FAST.  Why, I'll tell you now, in good faith, and by this chair, which, by
   the grace of God, I intend presently to sit in, I had three suits in one
   year made three great ladies in love with me:  I had other three, undid
   three gentlemen in imitation:  and other three gat three other gentlemen
   widows of three thousand pound a year.

   DELI.  Is't possible?

   FAST.  O, believe it, sir; your good face is the witch, and your apparel
   the spells, that bring all the pleasures of the world into their circle.

   FAL.  Ah, the sweet grace of a courtier!

   MACI.  Well, would my father had left me but a good face for my portion
   yet!  though I had shared the unfortunate with that goes with it, I had not
   cared; I might have passed for somewhat in the world then.

   FAST.  Why, assure you, signior, rich apparel has strange virtues:  it
   makes him that hath it without means, esteemed for an excellent wit:  he
   that enjoys it with means, puts the world in remembrance of his means:  it
   helps the deformities of nature, and gives lustre to her beauties; makes
   continual holiday where it shines; sets the wits of ladies at work, that
   otherwise would be idle; furnisheth your two-shilling ordinary; takes
   possession of your stage at your new play; and enricheth your oars, as
   scorning to go with your scull.

   MACI.  Pray you, sir, add this; it gives respect to your fools, makes many
   thieves, as many strumpets, and no fewer bankrupts.

   FAL.  Out, out!  unworthy to speak where he breatheth.

   FAST.  What's he, signior?

   DELI.  A friend of mine, sir.

   FAST.  By heaven I wonder at you citizens, what kind of creatures you are!

   DELI.  Why, sir?

   FAST.  That you can consort yourselves with such poor seam-rent fellows.

   FAL.  He says true.

   DELI.  Sir, I will assure you, however you esteem of him, he's a man worthy
   of regard.

   FAST.  Why, what has he in him of such virtue to be regarded, ha?

   DELI.  Marry, he is a scholar, sir.

   FAST.  Nothing else!

   DELI.  And he is well travell'd.

   FAST.  He should get him clothes; I would cherish those good parts of
   travel in him, and prefer him to some nobleman of good place.

   DELI.  Sir, such a benefit should bine me to you for ever, in my friend's
   right; and I doubt not, but his desert shall more than answer my praise.

   FAST.  Why, an he had good clothes, I'd carry him to court with me to-morrow.

   DELI.  He shall not want for those, sir, if gold and the whole city will
   furnish him.

   FAST.  You say well, sir:  faith, signior Deliro, I am come to have you
   play the alchemist with me, and change the species of my land into that
   metal you talk of.

   DELI.  With all my heart, sir; what sum will serve you?

   FAST.  Faith, some three or four hundred.

   DELI.  Troth, sir, I have promised to meet a gentleman this morning in
   Paul's, but upon my return I'll dispatch you.

   FAST.  I'll accompany you thither.

   DELI.  As you please, sir; but I go not thither directly.

   FAST.  'Tis no matter, I have no other designment in hand, and therefore as
   good go along.

   DELI.  I were as good have a quartain fever follow me now, for I shall
   ne'er be rid of him.  Bring me a cloak there, one.  Still, upon his grace
   at court, I am sure to be visited; I was a beast to give him any hope.
   Well, would I were in, that I am out with him once, and -- Come, signior
   Macilente, I must confer with you, as we go.  Nay, dear wife, I beseech
   thee, forsake these moods:  look not like winter thus.  Here, take my keys,
   open my counting-houses, spread all my wealth before thee, choose any
   object that delights thee:  if thou wilt eat the spirit of gold, and drink
   dissolved pearl in wine, 'tis for thee.

   FAL.  So, sir!

   DELI.  Nay, my sweet wife.

   FAL.  Good lord, how you are perfumed in your terms and all!  pray you
   leave us.

   DELI.  Come, gentlemen.

   FAST.  Adieu, sweet lady.
   [EXEUNT ALL BUT FALLACE.

   FAL.  Ay, ay!  let thy words ever sound in mine ears, and thy graces
   disperse contentment through all my senses!  O, how happy is that lady
   above other ladies, that enjoys so absolute a gentleman to her servant!  "A
   countess gives him her hand to kiss":  ah, foolish countess!  he's a man
   worthy, if a woman may speak of a man's worth, to kiss the lips of an
   empress.

   RE-ENTER FUNGOSO, WITH HIS TAILOR.
   FUNG.  What's master Fastidious gone, sister?

   FAL.  Ay, brother. -- He has a face like a cherubin!
   [ASIDE.

   FUNG.  'Ods me, what luck's this?  I have fetch'd my tailor and all:  which
   way went he, sister, can you tell?

   FAL.  Not I, in good faith -- and he has a body like an angel!
   [ASIDE.

   FUNG.  How long is't since he went?

   FAL.  Why, but e'en now; did you not meet him? -- and a tongue able to
   ravish any woman in the earth.
   [ASIDE.

   FUNG.  O, for God's sake -- I'll please you for your pains, [TO HIS
   TAILOR.] -- But e'en now, say you?  Come, good sir:  'slid, I had forgot it
   too:  if any body ask for mine uncle Sogliardo, they shall have him at the
   herald's office yonder, by Paul's
   [EXIT WITH HIS TAILOR.

   FAL.  Well, I will not altogether despair:  I have heard of a citizen's
   wife has been beloved of a courtier; and why not I?  heigh, ho!  well, I
   will into my private chamber, lock the door to me, and think over all his
   good parts one after another.
   [EXIT.

   MIT.  Well, I doubt, this last scene will endure some grievous torture.

   COR.  How?  you fear 'twill be rack'd by some hard construction?

   MIT.  Do not you?

   COR.  No, in good faith:  unless mine eyes could light me beyond sense.  I
   see no reason why this should be more liable to the rack than the rest:
   you'll say, perhaps, the city will not take it well that the merchant is
   made here to doat so perfectly upon his wife; and she again to be so
   'Fastidiously' affected as she is.

   MIT.  You have utter'd my thought, sir, indeed.

   COR.  Why, by that proportion, the court might as well take offence at him
   we call the courtier, and with much more pretext, by how much the place
   transcends, and goes before in dignity and virtue:  but can you imagine
   that any noble or true spirit in court, whose sinewy and altogether
   unaffected graces, very worthily express him a courtier, will make any
   exception at the opening of such as empty trunk as this Brisk is?  or think
   his own worth impeached, by beholding his motley inside?

   MIT.  No, sir, I do not.

   COR.  No more, assure you, will any grave, wise citizen, or modest matron,
   take the object of this folly in Deliro and his wife; but rather apply it
   as the foil to their own virtues.  For that were to affirm, that a man
   writing of Nero, should mean all emperors; or speaking of Machiavel,
   comprehend all statesmen; or in our Sordido, all farmers; and so of the
   rest:  than which nothing can be uttered more malicious or absurd.  Indeed
   there are a sort of these narrow-eyed decypherers, I confess, that will
   extort strange and abstruse meanings out of any subject, be it never so
   conspicuous and innocently delivered.  But to such, where'er they sit
   concealed, let them know, the author defies them and their writing-tables;
   and hopes no sound or safe judgment will infect itself with their
   contagious comments, who, indeed, come here only to pervert and poison the
   sense of what they hear, and for nought else.

   ENTER CAVALIER SHIFT, WITH TWO SI-QUISSES (BILLS) IN HIS HAND.
   MIT.  Stay, what new mute is this, that walks so suspiciously?

   COR.  O, marry, this is one, for whose better illustration, we must desire
   you to presuppose the stage, the middle aisle in Paul's, and that, the west
   end of it.

   MIT.  So, sir, and what follows?

   COR.  Faith, a whole volume of humour, and worthy the unclasping.

   MIT.  As how?  What name do you give him first?

   COR.  He hath shift of names, sir:  some call him Apple-John, some signior
   Whiffe; marry, his main standing name is cavalier Shirt:  the rest are but
   as clean shirts to his natures.

   MIT.  And what makes he in Paul's now?

   COR.  Troth, as you see, for the advancement of a 'si quis', or two;
   wherein he has so varied himself, that if any of 'em take, he may hull up
   and down in the humorous world a little longer.

   MIT.  It seems then he bears a very changing sail?

   COR.  O, as the wind, sir:  here comes more.




ACT III

   SCENE I. -- THE MIDDLE AISLE OF ST. PAUL'S.

   SHIFT. [COMING FORWARD.]  This is rare, I have set up my bills without
   discovery.

   [ENTER ORANGE.
   ORANGE.  What, signior Whiffe!  what fortune has brought you into these
   west parts?

   SHIFT.  Troth, signior, nothing but your rheum; I have been taking an ounce
   of tobacco hard by here, with a gentleman, and I am come to spit private in
   Paul's.  'Save you, sir.

   ORANGE.  Adieu, good signior Whiffe.
   [PASSES ONWARD.

   [ENTER CLOVE.
   CLOVE.  Master Apple-John!  you are well met; when shall we sup together,
   and laugh, and be fat with those good wenches, ha?

   SHIFT.  Faith, sir, I must now leave you, upon a few humours and occasions;
   but when you please, sir.
   [EXIT.

   CLOVE.  Farewell, sweet Apple-John!  I wonder there are no more store of
   gallants here.

   MIT.  What be these two, signior?

   COR.  Marry, a couple, sir, that are mere strangers to the whole scope of
   our play; only come to walk a turn or two in this scene of Paul's, by
   chance.

   ORANGE.  Save you, good master Clove!

   CLOVE.  Sweet master Orange.

   MIT.  How!  Clove and Orange?

   COR.  Ay, and they are well met, for 'tis as dry an Orange as ever grew:
   nothing but salutation, and "O lord, sir!" and "It pleases you to say so,
   sir!"  one that can laugh at a jest for company with a most plausible and
   extemporal grade; and some hour after in private ask you what it was.  The
   other monsieur, Clove, is a more spiced youth; he will sit you a whole
   afternoon sometimes in a bookseller's shop, reading the Greek, Italian, and
   Spanish, when he understands not a word of either; if he had the tongues to
   his suits, he were an excellent linguist.

   CLOVE.  Do you hear this reported for certainty?

   ORANGE.  O lord, sir.

   [ENTER PUNTARVOLO AND CARLO, FOLLOWED BY TWO SERVING-MEN, ONE LEADING A
   DOG, THE OTHER BEARING A BAG.

   PUNT.  Sirrah, take my cloak; and you, sir knave, follow me closer.  If
   thou losest my dog, thou shalt die a dog's death; I will hang thee.

   CAR.  Tut, fear him not, he's a good lean slave; he loves a dog well, I
   warrant him; I see by his looks, I: -- Mass, he's somewhat like him.  'Slud
   [TO THE SERVANT.] poison him, make him away with a crooked pin, or
   somewhat, man; thou may'st have more security of thy life; and -- So sir;
   what!  you have not put out your whole venture yet, have you?

   PUNT.  No, I do want yet some fifteen or sixteen hundred pounds; but my
   lady, my wife, is 'Out of her Humour', she does not now go.

   CAR.  No!  how then?

   PUNT.  Marry, I am now enforced to give it out, upon the return of myself,
   my dog, and my cat.

   CAR.  Your cat!  where is she?

   PUNT.  My squire has her there, in the bag; sirrah, look to her.  How
   lik'st thou my change, Carlo?

   CAR.  Oh, for the better, sir; your cat has nine lives, and your wife has
   but one.

   PUNT.  Besides, she will never be sea-sick, which will save me so much in
   conserves.  When saw you signior Sogliardo?

   CAR.  I came from him but now; he is at the herald's office yonder; he
   requested me to go afore, and take up a man or two for him in Paul's,
   against his cognisance was ready.

   PUNT.  What, has he purchased arms, then?

   CAR.  Ay, and rare ones too; of as many colours as e'er you saw any fool's
   coat in your life.  I'll go look among yond' bills, an I can fit him with
   legs to his arms.

   PUNT.  With legs to his arms!  Good!  I will go with you, sir.
   [THEY GO TO READ THE BILLS.

   ENTER FASTIDIOUS, DELIRO, AND MACILENTE.
   FAST.  Come, let's walk in Mediterraneo:  I assure you, sir, I am not the
   least respected among ladies; but let that pass:  do you know how to go
   into the presence, sir?

   MACI.  Why, on my feet, sir.

   FAST.  No, on your head, sir; for 'tis that must bear you out, I assure
   you; as thus, sir.  You must first have an especial care so to wear your
   hat, that it oppress not confusedly this your predominant, or foretop;
   because, when you come at the presence-door, you may with once or twice
   stroking up your forehead, thus, enter with your predominant perfect; that
   is, standing up stiff.

   MACI.  As if one were frighted?

   FAST.  Ay, sir.

   MACI.  Which, indeed, a true fear of your mistress should do, rather than
   gum-water, or whites of eggs; is't not so, sir?

   FAST.  An ingenious observation.  Give me leave to crave your name, sir?

   DELI.  His name is Macilente, sir.

   FAST.  Good signior Macilente, if this gentleman, signior Deliro, furnish
   you, as he says he will, with clothes, I will bring you, to-morrow by this
   time, into the presence of the most divine and acute lady in court; you
   shall see sweet silent rhetorick, and dumb eloquence speaking in her eye,
   but when she speaks herself, such an anatomy of wit, so sinewised and
   arterised, that 'tis the goodliest model of pleasure that ever was to
   behold.  Oh!  she strikes the world into admiration of her; O, O, O!  I
   cannot express them, believe me.

   MACI.  O, your only admiration is your silence, sir.

   PUNT.  'Fore God, Carlo, this is good!  let's read them again.
   [READS THE BILL.
   "If there be any lady or gentlewoman of good carriage that is desirous to
   entertain to her private uses, a young, straight, and upright gentleman, of
   the age of five or six and twenty at the most; who can serve in the nature
   of a gentleman-usher, and hath little legs of purpose, and a black satin
   suit of his own, to go before her in; which suit, for the more sweetening,
   now lies in lavender; and can hide his face with her fan, if need require;
   or sit in the cold at the stair foot for her, as well as another gentleman:
   let her subscribe her name and place, and diligent respect shall be given."

   PUNT.  This is above measure excellent, ha!

   CAR.  No, this, this!  here's a fine slave.
   [READS.
   "If this city, or the suburbs of the same, do afford any young gentleman of
   the first, second, or third head, more or less, whose friends are but
   lately deceased, and whose lands are but new come into his hands, that, to
   be as exactly qualified as the best of our ordinary gallants are, is
   affected to entertain the most gentleman-like use of tobacco; as first, to
   give it the most exquisite perfume; then, to know all the delicate sweet
   forms for the assumption of it; as also the rare corollary and practice of
   the Cuban ebolition, euripus and whiff, which he shall receive or take in
   here at London, and evaporate at Uxbridge, or farther, if it please him.
   If there be any such generous spirit, that is truly enamoured of these good
   faculties; may it please him, but by a note of his hand to specify the
   place or ordinary where he uses to eat and lie; and most sweet attendance,
   with tobacco and pipes of the best sort, shall be ministered.  'Stet,
   quaeso, candide Lector.'"

   PUNT.  Why, this is without parallel, this.

   CAR.  Well, I'll mark this fellow for Sogliardo's use presently.

   PUNT.  Or rather, Sogliardo, for his use.

   CAR.  Faith, either of them will serve, they are both good properties:
   I'll design the other a place too, that we may see him.

   PUNT.  No better place than the Mitre, that we may be spectators with you,
   Carlo.  Soft, behold who enters here:
   ENTER SOGLIARDO.
   Signior Sogliardo!  save you.

   SOG.  Save you, good sir Puntarvolo; your dog's in health, sir, I see:  How
   now, Carlo?

   CAR.  We have ta'en simple pains, to choose you out followers here.
   [SHOWS HIM THE BILLS.

   PUNT.  Come hither, signior.

   CLOVE.  Monsieur Orange, yon gallants observe us; prithee let's talk
   fustian a little, and gull them; make them believe we are great scholars.

   ORANGE.  O lord, sir!

   CLOVE.  Nay, prithee let us, believe me, -- you have an excellent habit in
   discourse.

   ORANGE.  It pleases you to say so, sir.

   CLOVE.  By this church, you have, la; nay, come, begin -- Aristotle, in his
   daemonologia, approves Scaliger for the best navigator in his time; and in
   his hypercritics, he reports him to be Heautontimorumenos: -- you
   understand the Greek, sir?

   ORANGE.  O, good sir!

   MACI.  For society's sake he does.  O, here be a couple of fine tame parrots!

   CLOVE.  Now, sir, whereas the ingenuity of the time and the soul's
   synderisis are but embrions in nature, added to the panch of Esquiline, and
   the inter-vallum of the zodiac, besides the ecliptic line being optic, and
   not mental, but by the contemplative and theoric part thereof, doth
   demonstrate to us the vegetable circumference, and the ventosity of the
   tropics, and whereas our intellectual, or mincing capreal (according to the
   metaphysicks) as you may read in Plato's Histriomastix -- You conceive me
   sir?

   ORANGE.  O lord, sir!

   CLOVE.  Then coming to the pretty animal, as reason long since is fled to
   animals, you know, or indeed for the more modelising, or enamelling, or
   rather diamondising of your subject, you shall perceive the hypothesis, or
   galaxia, (whereof the meteors long since had their initial inceptions and
   notions,) to be merely Pythagorical, mathematical, and aristocratical --
   For, look you, sir, there is ever a kind of concinnity and species -- Let
   us turn to our former discourse, for they mark us not.

   FAST.  Mass, yonder's the knight Puntarvolo.

   DELI.  And my cousin Sogliardo, methinks.

   MACI.  Ay, and his familiar that haunts him, the devil with the shining face.

   DELI.  Let 'em alone, observe 'em not.
   [SOGLIARDO, PUNTARVOLO, AND CARLO, WALK TOGETHER.

   SOG.  Nay, I will have him, I am resolute for that.  By this parchment,
   gentlemen, I have been so toiled among the harrots yonder, you will not
   believe!  they do speak in the strangest language, and give a man the
   hardest terms for his money, that ever you knew.

   CAR.  But have you arms, have you arms?

   SOG.  I'faith, I thank them; I can write myself gentleman now; here's my
   patent, it cost me thirty pound, by this breath.

   PUNT.  A very fair coat, well charged, and full of armory.

   SOG.  Nay, it has as much variety of colours in it, as you have seen a coat
   have; how like you the crest, sir?

   PUNT.  I understand it not well, what is't?

   SOG.  Marry, sir, it is your boar without a head, rampant.  A boar without
   a head, that's very rare!

   CAR.  Ay, and rampant too!  troth, I commend the herald's wit, he has
   decyphered him well:  a swine without a head, without brain, wit, anything
   indeed, ramping to gentility.  You can blazon the rest, signior, can you
   not?

   SOG.  O, ay, I have it in writing here of purpose; it cost me two shilling
   the tricking.

   CAR.  Let's hear, let's hear.

   PUNT.  It is the most vile, foolish, absurd, palpable, and ridiculous
   escutcheon that ever this eye survised. -- Save you, good monsieur
   Fastidious.
   [THEY SALUTE AS THEY MEET IN THE WALK.

   COR.  Silence, good knight; on, on.

   SOG.  [READS.]  "Gyrony of eight pieces; azure and gules; between three
   plates, a chevron engrailed checquy, or, vert, and ermins; on a chief
   argent, between two ann'lets sable, a boar's head, proper."

   CAR.  How's that!  on a chief argent?

   SOG.  [READS.] "On a chief argent, a boar's head proper, between two
   ann'lets sable."

   CAR.  'Slud, it's a hog's cheek and puddings in a pewter field, this.
   [HERE THEY SHIFT.  FASTIDIOUS MIXES WITH PUNTARVOLO; CARLO AND SOGLIARDO;
   DELIRO AND MACILENTE; CLOVE AND ORANGE; FOUR COUPLE.

   SOG.  How like you them, signior?

   PUNT.  Let the word be, 'Not without mustard': your crest is very rare, sir.

   CAR.  A frying-pan to the crest, had had no fellow.

   FAST.  Intreat your poor friend to walk off a little, signior, I will
   salute the knight.

   CAR.  Come, lap it up, lap it up.

   FAST.  You are right well encounter'd, sir; how does your fair dog?

   PUNT.  In reasonable state, sir; what citizen is that you were consorted
   with?  A merchant of any worth?

   FAST.  'Tis signior Deliro, sir.

   PUNT.  Is it he? -- Save you, sir!
   [THEY SALUTE.

   DELI.  Good sir Puntarvolo!

   MACI.  O what copy of fool would this place minister, to one endued with
   patience to observe it!

   CAR.  Nay, look you, sir, now you are a gentleman, you must carry a more
   exalted presence, change your mood and habit to a more austere form; be
   exceeding proud, stand upon your gentility, and scorn every man; speak
   nothing humbly, never discourse under a nobleman, though you never saw him
   but riding to the star-chamber, it's all one.  Love no man:  trust no man:
   speak ill of no man to his face; nor well of any man behind his back.
   Salute fairly on the front, and wish them hanged upon the turn.  Spread
   yourself upon his bosom publicly, whose heart you would eat in private.
   These be principles, think on them; I'll come to you again presently.
   [EXIT.

   PUNT. [TO HIS SERVANT.]  Sirrah, keep close; yet not so close:  thy breath
   will thaw my ruff.

   SOG.  O, good cousin, I am a little busy, how does my niece?  I am to walk
   with a knight, here.

   ENTER FUNGOSO WITH HIS TAILOR.
   FUNG.  O, he is here; look you, sir, that's the gentleman.

   TAI.  What, he in the blush-coloured satin?

   FUNG.  Ay, he, sir; though his suit blush, he blushes not, look you, that's
   the suit, sir:  I would have mine such a suit without difference, such
   stuff, such a wing, such a sleeve, such a skirt, belly and all; therefore,
   pray you observe it.  Have you a pair of tables?

   FAST.  Why, do you see, sir, they say I am fantastical; why, true, I know
   it, and I pursue my humour still, in contempt of this censorious age.
   'Slight, an a man should do nothing but what a sort of stale judgments
   about him this town will approve in him, he were a sweet ass:  I'd beg him,
   i'faith.  I ne'er knew any more find fault with a fashion, than they that
   knew not how to put themselves into it.  For mine own part, so I please
   mine own appetite, I am careless what the fusty world speaks of me.  Puh!

   FUNG.  Do you mark, how it hangs at the knee there?

   TAI.  I warrant you, sir.

   FUNG.  For God's sake do, not all; do you see the collar, sir?

   TAI.  Fear nothing, it shall not differ in a stitch, sir.

   FUNG.  Pray heaven it do not!  you'll make these linings serve, and help me
   to a chapman for the outside, will you?

   TAI.  I'll do my best, sir:  you'll put it off presently.

   FUNG.  Ay, go with me to my chamber you shall have it -- but make haste of
   it, for the love of a customer; for I'll sit in my old suit, or else lie a
   bed, and read the 'Arcadia' till you have done.
   [EXIT WITH HIS TAILOR.

   RE-ENTER CARLO.
   CAR.  O, if ever you were struck with a jest, gallants, now, now, now, I do
   usher the most strange piece of military profession that ever was
   discovered in 'Insula Paulina'.

   FAST.  Where?  where?

   PUNT.  What is he for a creature?

   CAR.  A pimp, a pimp, that I have observed yonder, the rarest superficies
   of a humour; he comes every morning to empty his lungs in Paul's here; and
   offers up some five or six hecatombs of faces and sighs, and away again.
   Here he comes; nay, walk, walk, be not seen to note him, and we shall have
   excellent sport.

   ENTER SHIFT; AND WALKS BY, USING ACTION TO HIS RAPIER.
   PUNT.  'Slid, he vented a sigh e'en now, I thought he would have blown up
   the church.

   CAR.  O, you shall have him give a number of those false fires ere he depart.

   FAST.  See, now he is expostulating with his rapier:  look, look!

   CAR.  Did you ever in your days observe better passion over a hilt?

   PUNT.  Except it were in the person of a cutlet's boy, or that the fellow
   were nothing but vapour, I should think it impossible.

   CAR.  See again, he claps his sword o' the head, as who should say, well,
   go to.

   FAST.  O violence!  I wonder the blade can contain itself, being so provoked.

   CAR.  "With that the moody squire thumpt his breast,
   And rear'd his eyen to heaven for revenge."

   SOG.  Troth, an you be good gentlemen, let's make them friends, and take up
   the matter between his rapier and him.

   CAR.  Nay, if you intend that, you must lay down the matter; for this
   rapier, it seems, is in the nature of a hanger-on, and the good gentleman
   would happily be rid of him.

   FAST.  By my faith, and 'tis to be suspected; I'll ask him.

   MACI.  O, here's rich stuff!  for life's sake, let us go:
   A man would wish himself a senseless pillar,
   Rather than view these monstrous prodigies:
   "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,
   Quam quod ridiculos homines facit --"
   [EXIT WITH DELIRO.

   FAST.  Signior.

   SHIFT.  At your service.

   FAST.  Will you sell your rapier?

   CAR.  He is turn'd wild upon the question; he looks as he had seen a serjeant.

   SHIFT.  Sell my rapier!  now fate bless me!

   PUNT.  Amen.

   SHIFT.  You ask'd me if I would sell my rapier, sir?

   FAST.  I did indeed.

   SHIFT.  Now, lord have mercy upon me!

   PUNT.  Amen, I say still.

   SHIFT.  'Slid, sir, what should you behold in my face, sir, that should
   move you, as they say, sir, to ask me, sir, if I would sell my rapier?

   FAST.  Nay, let me pray you sir, be not moved:  I protest, I would rather
   have been silent, than any way offensive, had I known your nature.

   SHIFT.  Sell my rapier?  'ods lid! -- Nay, sir, for mine own part, as I am
   a man that has serv'd in causes, or so, so I am not apt to injure any
   gentleman in the degree of falling foul, but -- sell my rapier!  I will
   tell you, sir, I have served with this foolish rapier, where some of us
   dare not appear in haste; I name no man; but let that pass.  Sell my
   rapier! -- death to my lungs!  This rapier, sir, has travell'd by my side,
   sir, the best part of France, and the Low Country:  I have seen Flushing,
   Brill, and the Hague, with this rapier, sir, in my Lord of Leicester's
   time; and by God's will, he that should offer to disrapier me now, I would
   -- Look you, sir, you presume to be a gentleman of sort, and so likewise
   your friends here; if you have any disposition to travel for the sight of
   service, or so, one, two, or all of you, I can lend you letters to divers
   officers and commanders in the Low Countries, that shall for my cause do
   you all the good offices, that shall pertain or belong to gentleman of your
   ---- [LOWERING HIS VOICE.]  Please you to shew the bounty of your mind,
   sir, to impart some ten groats, or half a crown to our use, till our
   ability be of growth to return it, and we shall think oneself ---- 'Sblood!
   sell my rapier!

   SOG.  I pray you, what said he, signior?  he's a proper man.

   FAST.  Marry, he tells me, if I please to shew the bounty of my mind, to
   impart some ten groats to his use, or so --

   PUNT.  Break his head, and give it him.

   CAR.  I thought he had been playing o' the Jew's trump, I.

   SHIFT.  My rapier!  no, sir; my rapier is my guard, my defence, my revenue,
   my honour; -- if you cannot impart, be secret, I beseech you -- and I will
   maintain it, where there is a grain of dust, or a drop of water.  [SIGHS.]
   Hard is the choice when the valiant must eat their arms, or clem.  Sell my
   rapier!  no, my dear, I will not be divorced from thee, yet; I have ever
   found thee true as steel, and -- You cannot impart, sir? -- Save you,
   gentlemen; -- nevertheless, if you have a fancy to it, sir --

   FAST.  Prithee away:  Is signior Deliro departed?

   CAR.  Have you seen a pimp outface his own wants better?

   SOG.  I commend him that can dissemble them so well.

   PUNT.  True, and having no better a cloak for it than he has neither.

   FAST.  Od's precious, what mischievous luck is this!  adieu, gentlemen.

   PUNT.  Whither in such haste, monsieur Fastidious?

   FAST.  After my merchant, signior Deliro, sir.
   [EXIT.

   CAR.  O hinder him not, he may hap lose his title; a good flounder, i'faith.
   [ORANGE AND CLOVE CALL SHIFT ASIDE.

   CAR.  How!  signior Whiffe?

   ORANGE.  What was the difference between that gallant that's gone and you, sir?

   SHIFT.  No difference; he would have given me five pound for my rapier, and
   I refused it; that's all.

   CLOVE.  O, was it no otherwise?  we thought you had been upon some terms.

   SHIFT.  No other than you saw, sir.

   CLOVE.  Adieu, good master Apple-John.
   [EXIT WITH ORANGE.

   CAR.  How!  Whiffe, and Apple-John too?  Heart, what will you say if this
   be the appendix or label to both you indentures?

   PUNT.  It may be.

   CAR.  Resolve us of it, Janus, thou that look'st every way; or thou,
   Hercules, that has travelled all countries.

   PUNT.  Nay, Carlo, spend not time in invocations now, 'tis late.

   CAR.  Signior, here's a gentleman desirous of your name, sir.

   SHIFT.  Sir, my name is cavalier Shift:  I am known sufficiently in this
   walk, sir.

   CAR.  Shift!  I heard your name varied even now, as I take it.

   SHIFT.  True, sir, it pleases the world, as I am her excellent tobacconist,
   to give me the style of signior Whiffe; as I am a poor esquire about the
   town here, they call me master Apple-John.  Variety of good names does
   well, sir.

   CAR.  Ay, and good parts, to make those good names; out of which I imagine
   yon bills to be yours.

   SHIFT.  Sir, if I should deny the manuscripts, I were worthy to be banish'd
   the middle aisle for ever.

   CAR.  I take your word, sir:  this gentleman has subscribed to them, and is
   most desirous to become your pupil.  Marry, you must use expedition.
   Signior Insulso Sogliardo, this is the professor.

   SOG.  In good time, sir:  nay, good sir, house your head; do you profess
   these sleights in tobacco?

   SHIFT.  I do more than profess, sir, and, if you please to be a
   practitioner, I will undertake in one fortnight to bring you, that you
   shall take it plausibly in any ordinary, theatre, or the Tilt-yard, if need
   be, in the most popular assembly that is.

   PUNT.  But you cannot bring him to the whiffe so soon?

   SHIFT.  Yes, as soon, sir; he shall receive the first, second, and third
   whiffe, if it please him, and, upon the receipt, take his horse, drink his
   three cups of canary, and expose one at Hounslow, a second at Stains, and a
   third at Bagshot.

   CAR.  Baw-waw!

   SOG.  You will not serve me, sir, will you?  I'll give you more than
   countenance.

   SHIFT.  Pardon me, sir, I do scorn to serve any man.

   CAR.  Who!  he serve?  'sblood, he keeps high men, and low men, he!  he has
   a fair living at Fullam.

   SHIFT.  But in the nature of a fellow, I'll be your follower, if you please.

   SOG.  Sir, you shall stay, and dine with me, and if we can agree, we'll not
   part in haste:  I am very bountiful to men of quality.  Where shall we go,
   signior?

   PUNT.  Your Mitre is your best house.

   SHIFT.  I can make this dog take as many whiffes as I list, and he shall
   retain, or effume them, at my pleasure.

   PUNT.  By your patience, follow me, fellows.

   SOG.  Sir Puntarvolo!

   PUNT.  Pardon me, my dog shall not eat in his company for a million.
   [EXIT WITH HIS SERVANTS.

   CAR.  Nay, be not you amazed, signior Whiffe, whatever that stiff-necked
   gentleman says.

   SOG.  No, for you do not know the humour of the dog, as we do:  Where shall
   we dine, Carlo?  I would fain go to one of these ordinaries, now I am a
   gentleman.

   CAR.  So you may; were you never at any yet?

   SOG.  No, faith; but they say there resorts your most choice gallants.

   CAR.  True, and the fashion is, when any stranger comes in amongst 'em,
   they all stand up and stare at him, as he were some unknown beast, brought
   out of Africk; but that will be helped with a good adventurous face.  You
   must be impudent enough, sit down, and use no respect:  when anything's
   propounded above your capacity smile at it, make two or three faces, and
   'tis excellent; they'll think you have travell'd; though you argue, a whole
   day, in silence thus, and discourse in nothing but laughter, 'twill pass.
   Only, now and then, give fire, discharge a good full oath, and offer a
   great wager; 'twill be admirable.

   SOG.  I warrant you, I am resolute; come, good signior, there's a poor
   French crown for your ordinary.

   SHIFT.  It comes well, for I had not so much as the least portcullis of
   coin before.

   MIT.  I travail with another objection, signior, which I fear will be
   enforced against the author, ere I can be deliver'd of it.

   COR.  What's that sir?

   MIT.  That the argument of his comedy might have been of some other nature,
   as of a duke to be in love with a countess, and that countess to be in love
   with the duke's son, and the son to love the lady's waiting maid; some such
   cross wooing, with a clown to their servingman, better than to be thus
   near, and familiarly allied to the time.

   COR.  You say well, but I would fain hear one of these autumn-judgments
   define once, "Quid sit comoedia?" if he cannot, let him content himself
   with Cicero's definition, till he have strength to propose to himself a
   better, who would have a comedy to be 'imitatio vitae, speculum
   consuetudinis, imago veritatis'; a thing throughout pleasant and
   ridiculous, and accommodated to the correction of manners:  if the maker
   have fail'd in any particle of this, they may worthily tax him; but if not,
   why -- be you, that are for them, silent, as I will be for him; and give
   way to the actors.


   SCENE II. -- THE COUNTRY.

   ENTER SORDIDO, WITH A HALTER ABOUT HIS NECK.

   SORD.  Nay, God's precious, if the weather and season be so respectless,
   that beggars shall live as well as their betters; and that my hunger and
   thirst for riches shall not make them hunger and thirst with poverty; that
   my sleep shall be broken, and their hearts not broken; that my coffers
   shall be full, and yet care; their's empty, and yet merry; -- 'tis time
   that a cross should bear flesh and blood, since flesh and blood cannot bear
   this cross.

   MIT.  What, will he hang himself?

   COR.  Faith, ay; it seems his prognostication has not kept touch with him,
   and that makes him despair.

   MIT.  Beshrew me, he will be 'out of his humour' then indeed.

   SORD.  Tut, these star-monger knaves, who would trust them?  One says dark
   and rainy, when 'tis as clear as chrystal; another says, tempestuous blasts
   and storms, and 'twas as calm as a milk-bowl; here be sweet rascals for a
   man to credit his whole fortunes with!  You sky-staring coxcombs you, you
   fat-brains, out upon you; you are good for nothing but to sweat night-caps,
   and make rug-gowns dear!  you learned men, and have not a legion of devils
   'a votre service!  a votre service!'  by heaven, I think I shall die a
   better scholar than they:  but soft --
   ENTER A HIND, WITH A LETTER.
   How now, sirrah?

   HIND.  Here's a letter come from your son, sir.

   SORD.  From my son, sir!  what would my son, sir?  some good news, no doubt.
   [READS.
   "Sweet and dear father, desiring you first to send me your blessing, which
   is more worth to me than gold or silver, I desire you likewise to be
   advertised, that this Shrove-tide, contrary to custom, we use always to
   have revels; which is indeed dancing, and makes an excellent shew in truth;
   especially if we gentlemen be well attired, which our seniors note, and
   think the better of our fathers, the better we are maintained, and that
   they shall know if they come up, and have anything to do in the law;
   therefore, good father, these are, for your own sake as well as mine, to
   re-desire you, that you let me not want that which is fit for the setting
   up of our name, in the honourable volume of gentility, that I may say to
   our calumniators, with Tully, 'Ego sum ortus domus meae, tu occasus tuae.'
   And thus, not doubting of your fatherly benevolence, I humbly ask your
   blessing, and pray God to bless you.
   Yours, if his own," [FUNGOSO.]
   How's this!  "Yours, if his own!"  Is he not my son, except he be his own
   son?  belike this is some new kind of subscription the gallants use.  Well!
   wherefore dost thou stay, knave?  away; go.
   [EXIT HIND.]
   Here's a letter, indeed!  revels?  and benevolence?  is this a weather to
   send benevolence?  or is this a season to revel in?  'Slid, the devil and
   all takes part to vex me, I think!  this letter would never have come now
   else, now, now, when the sun shines, and the air thus clear.  Soul!  If
   this hold, se shall shortly have an excellent crop of corn spring out of
   the high ways:  the streets and houses of the town will be hid with the
   rankness of the fruits, that grow there in spite of good husbandry.  Go to,
   I'll prevent the sight of it, come as quickly as it can, I will prevent the
   sight of it.  I have this remedy, heaven.
   [CLAMBERS UP, AND SUSPENDS THE HALTER TO A TREE.]
   Stay; I'll try the pain thus a little.  O, nothing, nothing.  Well now!
   shall my son gain a benevolence by my death?  or anybody be the better for
   my gold, or so forth?  no; alive I kept it from them, and dead, my ghost
   shall walk about it, and preserve it.  My son and daughter shall starve ere
   they touch it; I have hid it as deep as hell from the sight of heaven, and
   to it I go now.
   [FLINGS HIMSELF OFF.

   ENTER FIVE OR SIX RUSTICS, ONE AFTER ANOTHER.

   1 RUST.  Ah me, what pitiful sight is this!  help, help, help!

   2 RUST.  How now!  what's the matter?

   1 RUST.  O, here's a man has hang'd himself, help to get him again.

   2 RUST.  Hang'd himself!  'Slid, carry him afore a justice, 'tis
   chance-medley, o' my word.

   3 RUST.  How now, what's here to do?

   4 RUST.  How comes this?

   2 RUST.  One has executed himself, contrary to order of law, and by my
   consent he shall answer it.
   [THEY CUT HIM DOWN.

   5 RUST.  Would he were in case to answer it!

   1 RUST.  Stand by, he recovers, give him breath.

   SORD.  Oh!

   5 RUST.  Mass, 'twas well you went the footway, neighbour.

   1 RUST.  Ay, an I had not cut the halter --

   SORD.  How!  cut the halter!  ah me, I am undone, I am undone!

   2 RUST.  Marry, if you had not been undone, you had been hang'd.  I can
   tell you.

   SORD.  You thread-bare, horse-bread-eating rascals, if you would needs have
   been meddling, could you not have untied it, but you must cut it; and in
   the midst too!  ah me!

   1 RUST.  Out on me, 'tis the caterpillar Sordido!  how curst are the poor,
   that the viper was blest with this good fortune!

   2 RUST.  Nay, how accurst art thou, that art cause to the curse of the poor?

   3 RUST.  Ay, and to save so wretched a caitiff?

   4 RUST.  Curst be thy fingers that loos'd him!

   2 RUST.  Some desperate fury possess thee, that thou may'st hang thyself too!

   5 RUST.  Never may'st thou be saved, that saved so damn'd a monster!

   SORD.  What curses breathe these men!  how have my deeds
   Made my looks differ from another man's,
   That they should thus detest and loath my life!
   Out on my wretched humour!  it is that
   Makes me thus monstrous in true humane eyes.
   Pardon me, gentle friends, I'll make fair 'mends
   For my foul errors past, and twenty-fold
   Restore to all men, what with wrong I robb'd them:
   My barns and garners shall stand open still
   To all the poor that come, and my best grain
   Be made alms-bread, to feed half-famish'd mouths.
   Though hitherto amongst you I have lived,
   Like an unsavoury muck-hill to myself,
   Yet now my gather'd heaps being spread abroad,
   Shall turn to better and more fruitful uses.
   Bless then this man, curse him no more for the saving
   My life and soul together.  O how deeply
   The bitter curses of the poor do pierce!
   I am by wonder changed; come in with me
   And witness my repentance:  now I prove,
   No life is blest, that is not graced with love.
   [EXIT.

   2 RUST.  O miracle!  see when a man has grace!

   3 RUST.  Had it not been pity so good a man should have been cast away?

   2 RUST.  Well, I'll get our clerk put his conversion in the 'Acts and
   Monuments'.

   4 RUST.  Do, for I warrant him he's a martyr.

   2 RUST.  O God, how he wept, if you mark'd it!  did you see how the tears
   trill'd?

   5 RUST.  Yes, believe me, like master vicar's bowls upon the green, for all
   the world.

   3 RUST.  O neighbour, God's blessing o' your heart, neighbour, 'twas a good
   grateful deed.
   [EXEUNT.

   COR.  How now, Mitis!  what's that you consider so seriously?

   MIT.  Troth, that which doth essentially please me, the warping condition
   of this green and soggy multitude; but in good faith, signior, your author
   hath largely outstript my expectation in this scene, I will liberally
   confess it.  For when I saw Sordido so desperately intended, I thought I
   had had a hand of him, then.

   COR.  What!  you supposed he should have hung himself indeed?

   MIT.  I did, and had framed my objection to  it ready, which may yet be
   very fitly urged, and with some necessity; for though his purposed violence
   lost the effect, and extended not to death, yet the intent and horror of
   the object was more than the nature of a comedy will in any sort admit.

   COR.  Ay!  what think you of Plautus, in his comedy called 'Cistellaria'?
   there, where he brings in Alcesimarchus with a drum sword ready to kill
   himself, and as he is e'en fixing his breast upon it, to be restrained from
   his resolved outrage, by Silenium and the bawd?  Is not his authority of
   power to give our scene approbation?

   MIT.  Sir, I have this only evasion left me, to say, I think it be so
   indeed; your memory is happier than mine:  but I wonder, what engine he
   will use to bring the rest out of their humours!

   COR.  That will appear anon, never pre-occupy your imagination withal.  Let
   your mind keep company with the scene still, which now removes itself from
   the country to the court.  Here comes Macilente, and signior Brisk freshly
   suited; lose not yourself, for now the epitasis, or busy part of our
   subject, is an act.


   SCENE III. -- AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT

   ENTER MACILENTE, FASTIDIOUS, BOTH IN A NEW SUIT, AND CINEDO, WITH TOBACCO.

   FAST.  Well, now signior Macilente, you are not only welcome to the court,
   but also to my mistress's withdrawing chamber -- Boy, get me some tobacco.
   I'll but go in, and shew I am here, and come to you presently, sir.
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  What's that he said?  by heaven, I mark'd him not:
   My thoughts and I were of another world.
   I was admiring mine own outside here,
   To think what privilege and palm it bears
   Here, in the court!  be a man ne'er so vile,
   In wit, in judgment, manners, or what else;
   If he can purchase but a silken cover,
   He shall not only pass, but pass regarded:
   Whereas, let him be poor, and meanly clad,
   Though ne'er so richly parted, you shall have
   A fellow that knows nothing but his beef,
   Or how to rince his clammy guts in beer,
   Will take him by the shoulders, or the throat,
   And kick him down the stairs.  Such is the state
   Of virtue in bad clothes! -- ha, ha, ha, ha!
   That raiment should be in such high request!
   How long should I be, ere I should put off
   To the lord chancellor's tomb, or the shrives' poste?
   By heav'n, I think, a thousand, thousand year.
   His gravity, his wisdom, and his faith
   To my dread sovereign, graces that survive him,
   These I could well endure to reverence,
   But not his tomb; no more than I'd commend
   The chapel organ for the gilt without,
   Or this base-viol, for the varnish'd face.

   RE-ENTER FASTIDIOUS.
   FAST.  I fear I have made you stay somewhat long, sir; but is my tobacco
   ready, boy?

   CIN.  Ay, sir.

   FAST.  Give me; my mistress is upon coming, you shall see her presently,
   sir.  [PUFFS.]  You'll say you never accosted a more piercing wit. -- This
   tobacco is not dried, boy, or else the pipe is defective. -- Oh, your wits
   of Italy are nothing comparable to her:  her brain's a very quiver of
   jests, and she does dart them abroad with that sweet, loose, and judicial
   aim, that you would -- here she comes, sir.
   [SAVIOLINA LOOKS IN, AND DRAWS BACK AGAIN.

   MACI.  'Twas time, his invention had been bogged else.

   SAV.  [WITHIN.]  Give me my fan there.

   MACI.  How now, monsieur Brisk?

   FAST.  A kind of affectionate reverence strikes me with a cold shivering,
   methinks.

   MACI.  I like such tempers well, as stand before their mistresses with fear
   and trembling; and before their Maker, like impudent mountains!

   FAST.  By this hand, I'd spend twenty pound my vaulting horse stood here
   now, she might see do but one trick.

   MACI.  Why, does she love activity?

   CIN.  Or, if you had but your long stockings on, to be dancing a galliard
   as she comes by.

   FAST.  Ay, either.  O, these stirring humours make ladies mad with desire;
   she comes.  My good genius embolden me:  boy, the pipe quickly.

   ENTER SAVIOLINA.
   MACI.  What!  will he give her music?

   FAST.  A second good morrow to my fair mistress.

   SAV.  Fair servant, I'll thank you a day hence, when the date of your
   salutation comes forth.

   FAST.  How like you that answer?  is't not admirable?

   MACI.  I were a simple courtier, if I could not admire trifles, sir.

   FAST.  [TALKS AND TAKES TOBACCO BETWEEN THE BREAKS.]  Troth, sweet lady, I
   shall [PUFFS] -- be prepared to give you thanks for those thanks, and --
   study more officious, and obsequious regards -- to your fair beauties. --
   Mend the pipe, boy.

   MACI.  I never knew tobacco taken as a parenthesis before.

   FAST.  'Fore God, sweet lady, believe it, I do honour the meanest rush in
   this chamber for your love.

   SAV.  Ay, you need not tell me that, sir; I do think you do prize a rush
   before my love.

   MACI.  Is this the wonder of nations!

   FAST.  O, by this air, pardon me, I said 'for' your love, by this light:
   but it is the accustomed sharpness of your ingenuity, sweet mistress, to
   [TAKES DOWNTHE VIOL, AND PLAYS] -- mass, your viol's new strung, methinks.

   MACI.  Ingenuity!  I see his ignorance will not suffer him to slander her,
   which he had done notably, if he had said wit for ingenuity, as he meant it.

   FAST.  By the soul of music, lady -- HUM, HUM.

   SAV.  Would we might hear it once.

   FAST.  I do more adore and admire your -- HUM, HUM -- predominant
   perfections, than -- HUM, HUM -- ever I shall have power and faculty to
   express -- HUM.

   SAV.  Upon the viol de gambo, you mean?

   FAST.  It's miserably out of tune, by this hand.

   SAV.  Nay, rather by the fingers.

   MACI.  It makes good harmony with her wit.

   FAST.  Sweet lady, tune it.  [SAVIOLINA TUNES THE VIOL.] -- Boy, some tobacco.

   MACI.  Tobacco again!  he does court his mistress with very exceeding good
   changes.

   FAST.  Signior Macilente, you take none, sir?

   MACI.  No, unless I had a mistress, signior, it were a great indecorum for
   me to take tobacco.

   FAST.  How like you her wit?
   [TALKS AND TAKES TOBACCO BETWEEN AGAIN.

   MACI.  Her ingenuity is excellent, sir.

   FAST.  You see the subject of her sweet fingers there -- Oh, she tickles it
   so, that -- She makes it laugh most divinely; -- I'll tell you a good jest
   now, and yourself shall say it's a good one:  I have wished myself to be
   that instrument, I think, a thousand times, and not so few, by heaven! --

   MACI.  Not unlike, sir; but how?  to be cased up and hung by on the wall?

   FAST.  O, no, sir, to be in use, I assure you; as your judicious eyes may
   testify. --

   SAV.  Here, servant, if you will play, come.

   FAST.  Instantly, sweet lady. -- In good faith, here's most divine tobacco!

   SAV.  Nay, I cannot stay to dance after your pipe.

   FAST.  Good!  Nay, dear lady, stay; by this sweet smoke, I think your wit
   be all fire. --

   MACI.  And he's the salamander belongs to it.

   SAV.  Is your tobacco perfumed, servant, that you swear by the sweet smoke?

   FAST.  Still more excellent!  Before heaven, and these bright lights, I
   think -- you are made of ingenuity, I --

   MACI.  True, as your discourse is.  O abominable!

   FAST.  Will your ladyship take any?

   SAV.  O peace, I pray you; I love not the breath of a woodcock's head.

   FAST.  Meaning my head, lady?

   SAV.  Not altogether so, sir; but, as it were fatal to their follies that
   think to grace themselves with taking tobacco, when they want better
   entertainment, you see your pipe bears the true form of a woodcock's head.

   FAST.  O admirable simile!

   AV.  'Tis best leaving of you in admiration, sir.
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  Are these the admired lady-wits, that having so good a plain song,
   can run no better division upon it?  All her jests are of the stamp March
   was fifteen years ago.  Is this the comet, monsieur Fastidious, that your
   gallants wonder at so?

   FAST.  Heart of a gentleman, to neglect me afore the presence thus!  Sweet
   sir, I beseech you be silent in my disgrace.  By the muses, I was never in
   so vile a humour in my life, and her wit was at the flood too!  Report it
   not for a million, good sir:  let me be so far endeared to your love.
   [EXEUNT.

   MIT.  What follows next, signior Cordatus?  this gallant's humour is almost
   spent; methinks it ebbs apace, with this contrary breath of his mistress.

   COR.  O, but it will flow again for all this, till there come a general
   drought of humour among our actors, and then I fear not but his will fall
   as low as any.  See who presents himself here!

   MIT.  What, in the old case?

   COR.  Ay, faith, which makes it the more pitiful; you understand where the
   scene is?




ACT IV

   SCENE I. -- A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE.

   ENTER FUNGOSO, FALLACE FOLLOWING HIM.

   FAL.  Why are you so melancholy, brother?

   FUNG.  I am not melancholy, I thank you, sister.

   FAL.  Why are you not merry then?  there are but two of us in all the
   world, and if we should not be comforts one to another, God help us!

   FUNG.  Faith, I cannot tell, sister; but if a man had any true melancholy
   in him, it would make him melancholy to see his yeomanly father cut his
   neighbours' throats, to make his son a gentleman; and yet, when he has cut
   them, he will see his son's throat cut too, ere he make him a true
   gentleman indeed, before death cut his own throat.  I must be the first
   head of our house, and yet he will not give me the head till I be made so.
   Is any man termed a gentleman, that is not always in the fashion?  I would
   know but that.

   FAL.  If you be melancholy for that, brother, I think I have as much cause
   to be melancholy as any one:  for I'll be sworn, I live as little in the
   fashion as any woman in London.  By the faith of a gentlewoman, beast that
   I am to say it!  I have not one friend in the world besides my husband.
   When saw you master Fastidious Brisk, brother?

   FUNG.  But a while since, sister, I think:  I know not well in truth.  By
   this hand I could fight with all my heart, methinks.

   FAL.  Nay, good brother, be not resolute.

   FUNG.  I sent him a letter, and he writes me no answer neither.

   FAL.  Oh, sweet Fastidious Brisk!  O fine courtier!  thou are he makest me
   sigh, and say, how blessed is that woman that hath a courtier to her
   husband, and how miserable a dame she is, that hath neither husband, nor
   friend in the court!  O sweet Fastidious!  O fine courtier!  How comely he
   bows him in his court'sy!  how full he hits a woman between the lips when
   he kisses!  how upright he sits at the table!  how daintily he carves!  how
   sweetly he talks, and tells news of this lord and of that lady!  how
   cleanly he wipes his spoon at every spoonful of any whitemeat he eats!  and
   what a neat case of pick-tooths he carries about him still!  O sweet
   Fastidious!  O fine courtier!

   ENTER DELIRO AT A DISTANCE, WITH MUSICIANS.
   DELI.  See, yonder she is, gentlemen.  Now, as ever you'll bear the name of
   musicians, touch your instruments sweetly; she has a delicate ear, I tell
   you:  play not a false note, I beseech you.

   MUSI.  Fear not, signior Deliro.

   DELI.  O, begin, begin, some sprightly thing:  lord, how my imagination
   labours with the success of it!  [THEY STRIKE UP A LIVELY TUNE.]  Well
   said, good i'faith!  Heaven grant it please her.  I'll not be seen, for
   then she'll be sure to dislike it.

   FAL.  Hey -- da!  this is excellent!  I'll lay my life this is my husband's
   dotage.  I thought so; nay, never play bo-peep with me; I know you do
   nothing but study how to anger me, sir.

   DELI.  [COMING FORWARD.]  Anger thee, sweet wife!  why, didst thou not send
   for musicians at supper last night thyself?

   FAL.  To supper, sir!  now, come up to supper, I beseech you:  as though
   there were no difference between supper-time, when folks should be merry,
   and this time when they should be melancholy.  I would never take upon me
   to take a wife, if I had no more judgment to please her.

   DELI.  Be pleased, sweet wife, and they shall have done; and would to fate
   my life were done, if I can never please thee!
   [EXEUNT MUSICIANS.

   ENTER MACILENTE.
   MACI.  Save you lady; where is master Deliro?

   DELI.  Here, master Macilente:  you are welcome from court, sir; no doubt
   you have been graced exceedingly of master Brisk's mistress, and the rest
   of the ladies for his sake.

   MACI.  Alas, the poor fantastic!  he's scarce known
   To any lady there; and those that know him,
   Know him the simplest man of all they know:
   Deride, and play upon his amorous humours,
   Though he but apishly doth imitate
   The gallant'st courtiers, kissing ladies' pumps,
   Holding the cloth for them, praising their wits,
   And servilely observing every one
   May do them pleasure:  fearful to be seen
   With any man, though he be ne'er so worthy,
   That's not in grace with some that are the greatest.
   Thus courtiers do, and these he counterfeits,
   But sets no such a sightly carriage
   Upon their vanities, as they themselves;
   And therefore they despise him:  for indeed
   He's like the zany to a tumbler,
   That tries tricks after him, to make men laugh.

   FAL.  Here's an unthankful spiteful wretch!  the good gentleman vouchsafed
   to make him his companion, because my husband put him into a few rags, and
   now see how the unrude rascal backbites him!
   [ASIDE.

   DELI.  Is he no more graced amongst them then, say you?

   MACI.  Faith, like a pawn at chess:  fills up a room, that's all.

   FAL.  O monster of men!  can the earth bear such an envious caitiff?
   [ASIDE.

   DELI.  Well, I repent me I ever credited him so much:  but now I see what
   he is, and that his masking vizor is off, I'll forbear him no longer.  All
   his lands are mortgaged to me, and forfeited; besides, I have bonds of his
   in my hand, for the receipt of now fifty pounds now a hundred, now two
   hundred; still, as he has had a fan but wagged at him, he would be in a new
   suit.  Well, I'll salute him by a serjeant, the next time I see him
   i'faith, I'll suit him.

   MACI.  Why, you may soon see him sir, for he is to meet signior Puntarvolo
   at a notary's by the Exchange, presently; where he meant to take up, upon
   return.

   FAL.  Now, out upon thee, Judas!  canst thou not be content to backbite thy
   friend, but thou must betray him!  Wilt thou seek the undoing of any man?
   and of such a man too?  and will you, sir, get your living by the counsel
   of traitors?

   DELI.  Dear wife, have patience.

   FAL.  The house will fall, the ground will open and swallow us:  I'll not
   bide here for all the gold and silver in heaven.
   [EXIT WITH FUNGOSO.

   DELI.  O, good Macilente, let's follow and appease her, or the peace of my
   life is at an end.
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  Now pease, and not peace, feed that life, whose head hangs so
   heavily over a woman's manger!
   [EXIT.


   SCENE II. -- ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
   ENTER FALLACE AND FUNGOSO RUNNING; SHE CLAPS TO THE DOOR.

   FAL.  Help me, brother!  Ods body, an you come here I'll do myself a mischief.

   DELI.  [WITHIN.]  Nay, hear me, sweet wife; unless thou wilt have me go, I
   will not go.

   FAL.  Tut, you shall never have that vantage of me, to say, you are undone
   by me.  I'll not bid you stay, I.  Brother, sweet brother, here's four
   angels, I'll give you towards your suit:  for the love of gentry, and as
   ever you came of Christian creature, make haste to the water side, (you
   know where master Fastidious uses to land,) and give him warning of my
   husband's malicious intent; and tell him of that lean rascal's treachery.
   O heavens, how my flesh rises at him!  Nay, sweet brother, make haste:  you
   may say, I would have writ to him, but that the necessity of the time would
   not permit.  He cannot choose but take it extraordinarily from me:  and
   commend me to him, good brother; say, I sent you.
   [EXIT.

   FUNG.  Let me see, these four angels, and then forty shillings more I can
   borrow on my gown in Fetter Lane. -- Well, I will go presently, say on my
   suit, pay as much money as I have, and swear myself into credit with my
   tailor for the rest.
   [EXIT.


   SCENE III. -- ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.

   ENTER DELIRO AND MACILENTE.

   DELI.  O, on my soul you wrong her, Macilente.  Though she be froward, yet
   I know she is honest.

   MACI.  Well, then have I no judgment.  Would any woman, but one that were
   wild in her affections, have broke out into that immodest and violent
   passion against her husband?  or is't possible --

   DELI.  If you love me, forbear; all the arguments i' the world shall never
   wrest my heart to believe it.
   [EXEUNT.

   COR.  How like you the deciphering of his dotage?

   MIT.  O, strangely:  an of the other's envy too, that labours so seriously
   to set debate betwixt a man and his wife.  Stay, here comes the knight
   adventurer.

   COR.  Ay, and his scrivener with him.


   SCENE IV. -- PUNTARVOLO'S LODGINGS.

   ENTER PUNTARVOLO, NOTARY, AND SERVANTS WITH THE DOG AND CAT.

   PUNT.  I wonder monsieur Fastidious comes not!  But, notary, if thou please
   to draw the indentures the while, I will give thee thy instructions.

   NOT.  With all my heart, sir; and I'll fall in hand with them presently.

   PUNT.  Well then, first the sum is to be understood.

   NOT.  [WRITES.]  Good, sir.

   PUNT.  Next, our several appellations, and character of my dog and cat,
   must be known.  Shew him the cat, sirrah.

   NOT.  So, sir.

   PUNT.  Then, that the intended bound is the Turk's court in Constantinople;
   the time limited for our return, a year; and that if either of us miscarry,
   the whole venture is lost.  These are general, conceiv'st thou?  or if
   either of us turn Turk.

   NOT.  Ay, sir.

   PUNT.  Now, for particulars:  that I may make my travels by sea or land, to
   my best liking; and that hiring a coach for myself, it shall be lawful for
   my dog or cat, or both, to ride with me in the said coach.

   NOT.  Very good, sir.

   PUNT.  That I may choose to give my dog or cat, fish, for fear of bones; or
   any other nutriment that, by the judgment of the most authentical
   physicians where I travel, shall be thought dangerous.

   NOT.  Well, sir.

   PUNT.  That, after the receipt of his money, he shall neither, in his own
   person, nor any other, either by direct or indirect means, as magic,
   witchcraft, or other such exotic arts, attempt, practise, or complot any
   thing to the prejudice of me, my dog, or my cat:  neither shall I use the
   help of any such sorceries or enchantments, as unctions to make our skins
   impenetrable, or to travel invisible by virtue of a powder, or a ring, or
   to hang any three-forked charm about my dog's neck, secretly conveyed into
   his collar; (understand you?) but that all be performed sincerely, without
   fraud or imposture.

   NOT.  So, sir.

   PUNT.  That, for testimony of the performance, myself am to bring thence a
   Turk's mustachio, my dog a Grecian hare's lips, and my cat the train or
   tail of a Thracian rat.

   NOT.  [WRITES.]  'Tis done, sir.

   PUNT.  'Tis said, sir; not done, sir.  But forward; that, upon my return,
   and landing on the Tower-wharf, with the aforesaid testimony, I am to
   receive five for one, according to the proportion of the sums put forth.

   NOT.  Well, sir.

   PUNT.  Provided, that if before our departure, or setting forth, either
   myself or these be visited with sickness, or any other casual event, so
   that the whole course of the adventure be hindered thereby, that then he is
   to return, and I am to receive the prenominated proportion upon fair and
   equal terms.

   NOT.  Very good, sir; is this all?

   PUNT.  It is all, sir; and dispatch them, good notary.

   NOT.  As fast as is possible, sir.
   [EXIT.

   ENTER CARLO.
   PUNT.  O Carlo!  welcome:  saw you monsieur Brisk?

   CAR.  Not I:  did he appoint you to meet here?

   PUNT.  Ay, and I muse he should be so tardy; he is to take an hundred
   pounds of me in venture, if he maintain his promise.

   CAR.  Is his hour past?

   PUNT.  Not yet, but it comes on apace.

   CAR.  Tut, be not jealous of him; he will sooner break all the
   commandments, than his hour; upon my life, in such a case trust him.

   PUNT.  Methinks, Carlo, you look very smooth, ha!

   CAR.  Why, I came but now from a hot-house; I must needs look smooth.

   PUNT.  From a hot-house!

   CAR.  Ay, do you make a wonder on't?  why, it is your only physic.  Let a
   man sweat once a week in a hot-house, and be well rubb'd, and froted, with
   a good plump juicy wench, and sweet linen, he shall ne'er have the pox.

   PUNT.  What, the French pox?

   CAR.  The French pox!  out pox:  we have them in as good a form as they,
   man; what?

   PUNT.  Let me perish, but thou art a salt one!  was your new-created
   gallant there with you, Sogliardo?

   CAR.  O porpoise!  hang him, no:  he's a leiger at Horn's ordinary, yonder;
   his villainous Ganymede and he have been droning a tobacco-pipe there ever
   since yesterday noon.

   PUNT.  Who?  signior Tripartite, that would give my dog the whiffe?

   CAR.  Ay, he.  They have hired a chamber and all, private, to practise in,
   for the making of the patoun, the receipt reciprocal, and a number of other
   mysteries not yet extant.  I brought some dozen or twenty gallants this
   morning to view them, as you'd do a piece of perspective, in at a key-hole;
   and there we might see Sogliardo sit in a chair, holding his snout up like
   a sow under an apple-tree, while the other open'd his nostrils with a
   poking-stick, to give the smoke a more free delivery.  They had spit some
   three or fourscore ounces between 'em, afore we came away.

   PUNT.  How!  spit three or fourscore ounces?

   CAR.  Ay, and preserv'd it in porrengers, as a barber does his blood, when
   he opens a vein.

   PUNT.  Out, pagan!  how dost thou open the vein of thy friend?

   CAR.  Friend!  is there any such foolish thing in the world, ha?  'slid I
   never relished it yet.

   PUNT.  Thy humour is the more dangerous.

   CAR.  No, not a whit, signior.  Tut, a man must keep time in all; I can oil
   my tongue when I meet him next, and look with a good sleek forehead; 'twill
   take away all soil of suspicion, and that's enough:  what Lynceus can see
   my heart?  Pish, the title of a friend!  it's a vain, idle thing, only
   venerable among fools; you shall not have one that has any opinion of wit
   affect it.

   ENTER DELIRO AND MACILENTE.
   DELI.  Save you, good sir Puntarvolo.

   PUNT.  Signior Deliro!  welcome.

   DELI.  Pray you, sir, did you see master Fastidious Brisk?  I heard he was
   to meet your worship here.

   PUNT.  You heard no figment, sir; I do expect him at every pulse of my watch.

   DELI.  In good time, sir.

   CAR.  There's a fellow now looks like one of the patricians of Sparta;
   marry, his wit's after ten i' the hundred:  a good bloodhound, a
   close-mouthed dog, he follows the scent well; marry, he's at fault now,
   methinks.

   PUNT.  I should wonder at that creature is free from the danger of thy tongue.

   CAR.  O, I cannot abide these limbs of satin, or rather Satan indeed, that
   will walk, like the children of darkness, all day in a melancholy shop,
   with their pockets full of blanks, ready to swallow up as many poor
   unthrifts as come within the verge.

   PUNT.  So!  and what hast thou for him that is with him, now?

   CAR.  O, d--n me!  immortality!  I'll not meddle with him; the pure element
   of fire, all spirit, extraction.

   PUNT.  How, Carlo!  ha, what is he, man?

   CAR.  A scholar, Macilente; do you not know him?  a rank, raw-boned
   anatomy, he walks up and down like a charged musket, no man dares encounter
   him:  that's his rest there.

   PUNT.  His rest!  why, has he a forked head?

   CAR.  Pardon me, that's to be suspended; you are too quick, too apprehensive.

   DELI.  Troth, now I think on't, I'll defer it till some other time.

   MACI.  Not by any means, signior, you shall not lose this opportunity, he
   will be here presently now.

   DELI.  Yes, faith, Macilente, 'tis best.  For, look you, sir, I shall so
   exceedingly offend my wife in't, that --

   MACI.  Your wife!  now for shame lose these thoughts, and become the master
   of your own spirits.  Should I, if I had a wife, suffer myself to be thus
   passionately carried to and fro with the stream of her humour, and neglect
   my deepest affairs, to serve her affections?  'Slight, I would geld myself
   first.

   DELI.  O, but signior, had you such a wife as mine is, you would --

   MACI.  Such a wife!  Now hate me, sir, if ever I discern'd any wonder in
   your wife yet, with all the speculation I have:  I have seen some that have
   been thought fairer than she, in my time; and I have seen those, have not
   been altogether so tall, esteem'd properer women; and I have seen less
   noses grow upon sweeter faces, that have done very well too, in my
   judgment.  But in good faith, signior, for all this, the gentlewoman is a
   good, pretty, proud, hard-favour'd thing, marry not so peerlessly to be
   doted upon, I must confess:  nay, be not angry.

   DELI.  Well, sir, however you please to forget yourself, I have not
   deserv'd to be thus played upon; but henceforth, pray you forbear my house,
   for I can but faintly endure the savour of his breath, at my table, that
   shall thus jade me for my courtesies.

   MACI.  Nay, then, signior, let me tell you, your wife is no proper woman,
   and by my life, I suspect her honesty, that's more, which you may likewise
   suspect, if you please, do you see?  I'll urge you to nothing against your
   appetite, but if you please, you may suspect it.

   DELI.  Good sir.
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  Good, sir!  now horn upon horn pursue thee, thou blind, egregious
   dotard!

   CAR.  O, you shall hear him speak like envy. -- Signior Macilente, you saw
   monsieur Brisk lately:  I heard you were with him at court.

   MACI.  Ay, Buffone, I was with him.

   CAR.  And how is he respected there?  I know you'll deal ingenuously with
   us; is he made much of amongst the sweeter sort of gallants?

   MACI.  Faith, ay; his civet and his casting-glass
   Have helpt him to a place amongst the rest:
   And there, his seniors give him good slight looks,
   After their garb, smile, and salute in French
   With some new compliment.

   CAR.  What, is this all?

   MACI.  Why say, that they should shew the frothy fool
   Such grace as they pretend comes from the heart,
   He had a mighty windfall out of doubt!
   Why, all their graces are not to do grace
   To virtue or desert; but to ride both
   With their gilt spurs quite breathless, from themselves.
   'Tis now esteem'd precisianism in wit,
   And a disease in nature, to be kind
   Toward desert, to love or seek good names.
   Who feeds with a good name?  who thrives with loving?
   Who can provide feast for his own desires,
   With serving others? -- ha, ha, ha!
   'Tis folly, by our wisest worldlings proved,
   If not to gain by love, to be beloved.

   CAR.  How like you him?  is't not a good spiteful slave, ha?

   PUNT.  Shrewd, shrewd.

   CAR.  D--n me!  I could eat his flesh now; divine sweet villain!

   MACI.  Nay, prithee leave:  What's he there?

   CAR.  Who?  this in the starched beard?  it's the dull stiff knight
   Puntarvolo, man; he's to travel now presently:  he has a good knotty wit;
   marry, he carries little on't out of the land with him.

   MACI.  How then?

   CAR.  He puts it forth in venture, as he does his money upon the return of
   a dog and cat.

   MACI.  Is this he?

   CAR.  Ay, this is he; a good tough gentleman:  he looks like a shield of
   brawn at Shrove-tide, out of date, and ready to take his leave; or a dry
   pole of ling upon Easter-eve, that has furnish'd the table all Lent, as he
   has done the city this last vacation.

   MACI.  Come, you'll never leave your stabbing similes:  I shall have you
   aiming at me with 'em by and by; but --

   CAR.  O, renounce me then!  pure, honest, good devil, I love thee above the
   love of women:  I could e'en melt in admiration of thee, now.  Ods so, look
   here, man; Sir Dagonet and his squire!

   ENTER SOGLIARDO AND SHIFT.
   SOG.  Save you, my dear gallantos:  nay, come, approach, good cavalier:
   prithee, sweet knight, know this gentleman, he's one that it pleases me to
   use as my good friend and companion; and therefore do him good offices:  I
   beseech you, gentles, know him, I know him all over.

   PUNT.  Sir, for signior Sogliardo's sake, let it suffice, I know you.

   SOG.  Why, as I am a gentleman, I thank you, knight, and it shall suffice.
   Hark you, sir Puntarvolo, you'd little think it; he's as resolute a piece
   of flesh as any in the world.

   PUNT.  Indeed, sir!

   SOG.  Upon my gentility, sir:  Carlo, a word with you; do you see that same
   fellow, there?

   CAR.  What, cavalier Shirt?

   SOG.  O, you know him; cry you mercy:  before me, I think him the tallest
   man living within the walls of Europe.

   CAR.  The walls of Europe!  take heed what you say, signior, Europe's a
   huge thing within the walls.

   SOG.  'Tut, an 'twere as huge again, I'd justify what I speak.  'Slid, he
   swagger'd even now in a place where we were -- I never saw a man do it more
   resolute.

   CAR.  Nay, indeed, swaggering is a good argument of resolution.  Do you
   hear this, signior?

   MACI.  Ay, to my grief.  O, that such muddy flags,
   For every drunken flourish should achieve
   The name of manhood, whilst true perfect valour,
   Hating to shew itself, goes by despised!
   Heart!  I do know now, in a fair just cause,
   I dare do more than he, a thousand times;
   Why should not they take knowledge of this, ha!
   And give my worth allowance before his?
   Because I cannot swagger. -- Now, the pox
   Light on your Pickt-hatch prowess!

   SOG.  Why, I tell you, sir; he has been the only 'Bid-stand' that ever kept
   New-market, Salisbury-plain, Hockley i' the Hole, Gadshill, and all the
   high places of any request:  he has had his mares and his geldings, he,
   have been worth forty, threescore, a hundred pound a horse, would ha'
   sprung you over the hedge and ditch like your greyhound:  he has done five
   hundred robberies in his time, more or less, I assure you.

   PUNT.  What, and scaped?

   SOG.  Scaped!  i'faith, ay:  he has broken the gaol when he has been in
   irons and irons; and been out and in again; and out, and in; forty times,
   and not so few, he.

   MACI.  A fit trumpet, to proclaim such a person.

   CAR.  But can this be possible?

   SHIFT.  Pardon me, my dear Orestes; causes have their quiddits, and 'tis
   ill jesting with bell-ropes.

   CAR.  How!  Pylades and Orestes?

   SOG.  Ay, he is my Pylades, and I am his Orestes:  how like you the conceit?

   CAR.  O, 'tis an old stale interlude device; no, I'll give you names
   myself, look you; he shall be your Judas, and you shall be his elder-tree
   to hang on.

   MACI.  Nay, rather let him be captain Pod, and this his motion:  for he
   does nothing but shew him.

   CAR.  Excellent:  or thus; you shall be Holden, and he your camel.

   SHIFT.  You do not mean to ride, gentlemen?

   PUNT.  Faith, let me end it for you, gallants:  you shall be his
   Countenance, and he your Resolution.

   SOG.  Troth, that's pretty:  how say you, cavalier, shall it be so?

   CAR.  Ay, ay, most voices.

   SHIFT.  Faith, I am easily yielding to any good impressions.

   SOG.  Then give hands, good Resolution.

   CAR.  Mass, he cannot say, good Countenance, now, properly, to him again.

   PUNT.  Yes, by an irony.

   MACI.  O, sir, the countenance of Resolution should, as he is, be
   altogether grim and unpleasant.

   ENTER FASTIDIOUS BRISK.
   FAST.  Good hours make music with your mirth, gentlemen, and keep time to
   your humours! -- How now, Carlo?

   PUNT.  Monsieur Brisk?  many a long look have I extended for you, sir.

   FAST.  Good faith, I must crave pardon:  I was invited this morning, ere I
   was out of my bed, by a bevy of ladies, to a banquet:  whence it was almost
   one of Hercules's labours for me to come away,
   but that the respect of my promise did so prevail with me.  I know they'll
   take it very ill, especially one, that gave me this bracelet of her hair
   but over night, and this pearl another gave me from her forehead, marry she
   -- what!  are the writings ready?

   PUNT.  I will send my man to know.  Sirrah, go you to the notary's, and
   learn if he be ready:  leave the dog, sir.
   [EXIT SERVANT.

   FAST.  And how does my rare qualified friend, Sogliardo?  Oh, signior
   Macilente!  by these eyes, I saw you not; I had saluted you sooner else, o'
   my troth.  I hope, sir, I may presume upon you, that you will not divulge
   my late check, or disgrace, indeed, sir.

   MACI.  You may, sir.

   CAR.  He knows some notorious jest by this gull, that he hath him so
   obsequious.

   SOG.  Monsieur Fastidious, do you see this fellow there?  does he not look
   like a clown?  would you think there were any thing in him?

   FAST.  Any thing in him!  beshrew me, ay; the fellow hath a good ingenious
   face.

   SOG.  By this element he is as ingenious a tall man as ever swagger'd about
   London:  he, and I, call Countenance and Resolution; but his name is
   cavalier Shift.

   PUNT.  Cavalier, you knew signior Clog, that was hang'd for the robbery at
   Harrow on the hill?

   SOG.  Knew him, sir!  why, 'twas he gave all the directions for the action.

   PUNT.  How!  was it your project, sir?

   SHIFT.  Pardon me, Countenance, you do me some wrong to make occasions
   public, which I imparted to you in private.

   SOG.  God's will!  here are none but friends, Resolution.

   SHIFT.  That's all one; things of consequence must have their respects;
   where, how, and to whom. -- Yes, sir, he shewed himself a true Clog in the
   coherence of that affair, sir; for, if he had managed matters as they were
   corroborated to him, it had been better for him by a forty or fifty score
   of pounds, sir; and he himself might have lived, in despight of fates, to
   have fed on woodcocks, with the rest:  but it was his heavy fortune to
   sink, poor Clog!  and therefore talk no more of him.

   PUNT.  Why, had he more aiders then?

   SOG.  O lord, sir!  ay, there were some present there, that were the Nine
   Worthies to him, i'faith.

   SHIFT.  Ay, sir, I can satisfy you at more convenient conference:  but, for
   mine own part, I have now reconciled myself to other courses, and profess a
   living out of my other qualities.

   SOG.  Nay, he has left all now, I assure you, and is able to live like a
   gentleman, by his qualities.  By this dog, he has the most rare gift in
   tobacco that ever you knew.

   CAR.  He keeps more ado with this monster, than ever Banks did with his
   horse, or the fellow with the elephant.

   MACI.  He will hang out his picture shortly, in a cloth, you shall see.

   SOG.  O, he does manage a quarrel the best that ever you saw, for terms and
   circumstances.

   FAST.  Good faith, signior, now you speak of a quarrel, I'll acquaint you
   with a difference that happened between a gallant and myself; sir
   Puntarvolo, you know him if I should name him signior Luculento.

   PUNT.  Luculento!  what inauspicious chance interposed itself to your two
   loves?

   FAST.  Faith, sir, the same that sundered Agamemnon and great Thetis' son;
   but let the cause escape, sir:  he sent me a challenge, mixt with some few
   braves, which I restored, and in fine we met.  Now, indeed, sir, I must
   tell you, he did offer at first very desperately, but without judgment:
   for, look you, sir, I cast myself into this figure; now he comes violently
   on, and withal advancing his rapier to strike, I thought to have took his
   arm, for he had left his whole body to my election, and I was sure he could
   not recover his guard.  Sir, I mist my purpose in his arm, rash'd his
   doublet-sleeve, ran him close by the left cheek, and through his hair.  He
   again lights me here, -- I had on a gold cable hatband, then new come up,
   which I wore about a murey French hat I had, -- cuts my hatband, and yet it
   was massy goldsmith's work, cuts my brims, which by good fortune, being
   thick embroidered with gold twist and spangles, disappointed the force of
   the blow:  nevertheless, it grazed on my shoulder, takes me away six purls
   of an Italian cut-work band I wore, cost me three pound in the Exchange but
   three days before.

   PUNT.  This was a strange encounter.

   FAST.  Nay, you shall hear, sir:  with this we both fell out, and breath'd.
   Now, upon the second sign of his assault, I betook me to the former manner
   of my defence; he, on the other side, abandon'd his body to the same danger
   as before, and follows me still with blows:  but I being loth to take the
   deadly advantage that lay before me of his left side, made a kind of
   stramazoun, ran him up to the hilts through the doublet, through the shirt,
   and yet miss'd the skin.  He, making a reverse blow, -- falls upon my
   emboss'd girdle, I had thrown off the hangers a little before -- strikes
   off a skirt of a thick-laced satin doublet I had, lined with four taffatas,
   cuts off two panes embroidered with pearl, rends through the drawings-out
   of tissue, enters the linings, and skips the flesh.

   CAR.  I wonder he speaks not of his wrought shirt.

   FAST.  Here, in the opinion of mutual damage, we paused; but, ere I
   proceed, I must tell you, signior, that, in this last encounter, not having
   leisure to put off my silver spurs, one of the rowels catch'd hold of the
   ruffle of my boot, and, being Spanish leather, and subject to tear,
   overthrows me, rends me two pair of silk stockings,  that I put on, being
   somewhat a raw morning, a peach colour and another, and strikes me some
   half inch deep into the side of the calf:  he, seeing the blood come,
   presently takes horse, and away:  I, having bound up my wound with a piece
   of my wrought shirt --

   CAR.  O!  comes it in there?

   FAST.  Rid after him, and, lighting at the court gate both together,
   embraced, and march'dhand in hand up into the presence.  Was not this
   business well carried?

   MACI.  Well!  yes, and by this we can guess what apparel the gentleman wore.

   PUNT.  'Fore valour, it was a designment begun with much resolution,
   maintain'd with as much prowess, and ended with more humanity. --
   RE-ENTER SERVANT.
   How now, what says the notary?

   SERV.  He says, he is ready, sir; he stays but your worship's pleasure.

   PUNT.  Come, we will go to him, monsieur.  Gentlemen, shall we entreat you
   to be witnesses?

   SOG.  You shall entreat me, sir. -- Come, Resolution.

   SHIFT.  I follow you, good Countenance.

   CAR.  Come, signior, come, come.
   [EXEUNT ALL BUT MACILENTE.

   MACI.  O, that there should be fortune
   To clothe these men, so naked in desert!
   And that the just storm of a wretched life
   Beats them not ragged for their wretched souls,
   And, since as fruitless, even as black, as coals!
   [EXIT.

   MIT.  Why, but signior, how comes it that Fungoso appeared not with his
   sister's intelligence to Brisk?

   COR.  Marry, long of the evil angels that she gave him, who have indeed
   tempted the good simple youth to follow the tail of the fashion, and
   neglect the imposition of his friends.  Behold, here he comes, very
   worshipfully attended, and with good variety.


   SCENE V. -- A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE

   ENTER FUNGOSO IN A NEW SUIT, FOLLOWED BY HIS TAILOR, SHOEMAKER, AND
   HABERDASHER.

   FUNG.  Gramercy, good shoemaker, I'll put to strings myself..
   [EXIT SHOEMAKER.] -- Now, sir, let me see, what must you have for this hat?

   HABE.  Here's the bill, sir.

   FUNG.  How does it become me, well?

   TAI.  Excellent, sir, as ever you had any hat in your life.

   FUNG.  Nay, you'll say so all.

   HABE.  In faith, sir, the hat's as good as any man in this town can serve
   you, and will maintain fashion as long; never trust me for a groat else.

   FUNG.  Does it apply well to my suit?

   TAI.  Exceeding well, sir.

   FUNG.  How lik'st thou my suit, haberdasher?

   HABE.  By my troth, sir, 'tis very rarely well made; I never saw a suit sit
   better, I can tell on.

   TAI.  Nay, we have no art to please our friends, we!

   FUNG.  Here, haberdasher, tell this same.
   [GIVES HIM MONEY.

   HABE.  Good faith, sir, it makes you have an excellent body.

   FUNG.  Nay, believe me, I think I have as good a body in clothes as another.

   TAI.  You lack points to bring your apparel together, sir.

   FUNG.  I'll have points anon.  How now!  Is't right?

   HABE.  Faith, sir, 'tis too little' but upon farther hopes -- Good morrow
   to you, sir.
   [EXIT.

   FUNG.  Farewell, good haberdasher.  Well now, master Snip, let me see your
   bill.

   MIT.  Me thinks he discharges his followers too thick.

   COR.  O, therein he saucily imitates some great man.  I warrant you, though
   he turns off them, he keeps this tailor, in place of a page, to follow him
   still.

   FUNG.  This bill is very reasonable, in faith:  hark you, master Snip --
   Troth, sir, I am not altogether so well furnished at this present, as I
   could wish I were; but -- if you'll do me the favour to take part in hand,
   you shall have all I have, by this hand.

   TAI.  Sir --

   FUNG.  And but give me credit for the rest, till the beginning of the next
   term.

   TAI.  O lord, sir --

   FUNG.  'Fore God, and by this light, I'll pay you to the utmost, and
   acknowledge myself very deeply engaged to you by the courtesy.

   TAI.  Why, how much have you there, sir?

   FUNG.  Marry, I have here four angels, and fifteen shillings of white
   money:  it's all I have, as I hope to be blest

   TAI.  You will not fail me at the next term with the rest?

   FUNG.  No, an I do, pray heaven I be hang'd.  Let me never breathe again
   upon this mortal stage, as the philosopher calls it!  By this air, and as I
   am a gentleman, I'll hold.

   COR.  He were an iron-hearted fellow, in my judgment, that would not credit
   him upon this volley of oaths.

   TAI.  Well, sir, I'll not stick with any gentleman for a trifle:  you know
   what 'tis remains?

   FUNG.  Ay, sir, and I give you thanks in good faith.  O fate, how happy I
   am made in this good fortune!  Well, now I'll go seek out monsieur Brisk.
   'Ods so, I have forgot riband for my shoes, and points.  'Slid, what luck's
   this!  how shall I do?  Master Snip, pray let me reduct some two or three
   shillings for points and ribands:  as I am an honest man, I have utterly
   disfurnished myself, in the default of memory; pray let me be beholding to
   you; it shall come home in the bill, believe me.

   TAI.  Faith, sir, I can hardly depart with ready money; but I'll take up,
   and send you some by my boy presently.  What coloured riband would you have?

   FUNG.  What you shall think meet in your judgment, sir, to my suit.

   TAI.  Well, I'll send you some presently.

   FUNG.  And points too, sir?

   TAI.  And points too, sir.

   FUNG.  Good lord, how shall I study to deserve this kindness of you sir!
   Pray let your youth make haste, for I should have done a business an hour
   since, that I doubt I shall come too late.
   [EXIT TAILOR.]
   Now, in good faith, I am exceeding proud of my suit.

   COR.  Do you observe the plunges that this poor gallant is put to, signior,
   to purchase the fashion?

   MIT.  Ay, and to be still a fashion behind with the world, that's the sport.

   COR.  Stay:  O, here they come from seal'd and deliver'd.


   SCENE VI. -- PUNTARVOLO'S LODGINGS.

   ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK IN A NEW SUIT, AND SERVANTS WITH THE DOG.

   PUNT.  Well, now my whole venture is forth, I will resolve to depart shortly.

   FAST.  Faith, sir Puntarvolo, go to the court, and take leave of the ladies
   first.

   PUNT.  I care not, if it be this afternoon's labour.  Where is Carlo?

   FAST.  Here he comes.

   ENTER CARLO, SOGLIARDO, SHIFT, AND MACILENTE.

   CAR.  Faith, gallants, I am persuading this gentleman [POINTS TO SOGLIARDO]
   to turn courtier.  He is a man of fair revenue, and his estate will bear
   the charge well.  Besides, for his other gifts of the mind, or so, why they
   are as nature lent him them, pure, simple, without any artificial drug or
   mixture of these two threadbare beggarly qualities, learning and knowledge,
   and therefore the more accommodate and genuine.  Now, for the life itself --

   FAST.  O, the most celestial, and full of wonder and delight, that can be
   imagined, signior, beyond thought and apprehension of pleasure!  A man
   lives there in that divine rapture, that he will think himself i' the ninth
   heaven for the time, and lose all sense of mortality whatsoever, when he
   shall behold such glorious, and almost immortal beauties; hear such
   angelical and harmonious voices, discourse with such flowing and ambrosial
   spirits, whose wits are as sudden as lightning, and humorous as nectar; oh,
   it makes a man all quintessence and flame, and lifts him up, in a moment,
   to the very crystal crown of the sky, where, hovering in the strength of
   his imagination, he shall behold all the delights of the Hesperides, the
   Insulae Fortunatae, Adonis' Gardens, Tempe, or what else, confined within
   the amplest verge of poesy, to be mere umbrae, and imperfect figures,
   conferred with the most essential felicity of your court.

   MACI.  Well, this ecomium was not extemporal, it came too perfectly off.

   CAR.  Besides, sir, you shall never need to go to a hot-house, you shall
   sweat there with courting your mistress, or losing your money at primero,
   as well as in all the stoves in Sweden.  Marry, this, sir, you must ever be
   sure to carry a good strong perfume about you, that your mistress's dog may
   smell you out amongst the rest; and, in making love to her, never fear to
   be out; for you may have a pipe of tobacco, or a bass viol shall hang o'
   the wall, of purpose, will put you in presently.  The tricks your
   Resolution has taught you in tobacco, the whiffe, and those sleights, will
   stand you in very good ornament there.

   FAST.  Ay, to some, perhaps; but, an he should come to my mistress with
   tobacco (this gentleman knows) she'd reply upon him, i'faith.  O, by this
   bright sun, she has the most acute, ready, and facetious wit that -- tut,
   there's no spirit able to stand her.  You can report it, signior, you have
   seen her.

   PUNT.  Then can he report no less, out of his judgment, I assure him.

   MACI.  Troth, I like her well enough, but she's too self-conceited, methinks.

   FAST.  Ay, indeed, she's a little too self-conceited; an 'twere not for
   that humour, she were the most-to-be-admired lady in the world.

   PUNT.  Indeed, it is a humour that takes from her other excellences.

   MACI.  Why, it may easily be made to forsake her, in my thought.

   FAST.  Easily, sir!  then are all impossibilities easy.

   MACI.  You conclude too quick upon me, signior.  What will you say, if I
   make it so perspicuously appear now, that yourself shall confess nothing
   more possible?

   FAST.  Marry, I will say, I will both applaud and admire you for it.

   PUNT.  And I will second him in the admiration.

   MACI.  Why, I'll show you, gentlemen. -- Carlo, come hither.
   [MACI., CAR., PUNT., AND FAST. WHISPER TOGETHER.

   SOG.  Good faith, I have a great humour to the court.  What thinks my
   Resolution?  shall I adventure?

   SHIFT.  Troth, Countenance, as you please; the place is a place of good
   reputation and capacity.

   SOG.  O, my tricks in tobacco, as Carlo says, will show excellent there.

   SHIFT.  Why, you may go with these gentlemen now, and see fashions; and
   after, as you shall see correspondence.

   SOG.  You say true.  You will go with me, Resolution?

   SHIFT.  I will meet you, Countenance, about three or four o'clock; but, to
   say to go with you, I cannot; for, as I am Apple-John, I am to go before
   the cockatrice you saw this morning, and therefore pray, present me
   excused, good Countenance.

   SOG.  Farewell, good Resolution, but fail not to meet.

   SHIFT.  As I live.
   [EXIT.

   PUNT.  Admirably excellent!

   MACI.  If you can but persuade Sogliardo to court, there's all now.

   CAR.  O, let me alone, that's my task.
   [GOES TO SOGLIARDO.

   FAST.  Now, by wit, Macilente, it's above measure excellent; 'twill be the
   only court-exploit that ever proved courtier ingenious.

   PUNT.  Upon my soul, it puts the lady quite out of her humour, and we shall
   laugh with judgment.

   CAR.  Come, the gentleman was of himself resolved to go with you, afore I
   moved it.

   MACI.  Why, then, gallants, you two and Carlo go afore to prepare the jest;
   Sogliardo and I will come some while after you.

   CAR.  Pardon me, I am not for the court.

   PUNT.  That's true; Carlo comes not at court, indeed.  Well, you shall
   leave it to the faculty of monsieur Brisk, and myself; upon our lives, we
   will manage it happily.  Carlo shall bespeak supper at the Mitre, against
   we come back:  where we will meet and dimple our cheeks with laughter at
   the success.

   CAR.  Ay, but will you promise to come?

   PUNT.  Myself shall undertake for them; he that fails, let his reputation
   lie under the lash of thy tongue.

   CAR.  Ods so, look who comes here!

   ENTER FUNGOSO.

   SOG.  What, nephew!

   FUNG.  Uncle, God save you; did you see a gentleman, one monsieur Brisk, a
   courtier?  he goes in such a suit as I do.

   SOG.  Here is the gentleman, nephew, but not in such a suit.

   FUNG.  Another suit!

   SOG.  How now, nephew?

   FAST.  Would you speak with me, sir?

   CAR.  Ay, when he has recovered himself, poor Poll!

   PUNT.  Some rosa-solis.

   MACI.  How now, signior?

   FUNG.  I am not well, sir.

   MACI.  Why, this it is to dog the fashion.

   CAR.  Nay, come, gentlemen, remember your affairs; his disease is nothing
   but the flux of apparel.

   PUNT.  Sirs, return to the lodging, keep the cat safe; I'll be the dog's
   guardian myself.
   [EXEUNT SERVANTS.

   SOG.  Nephew, will you go to court with us?  these gentlemen and I are for
   the court; nay, be not so melancholy.

   FUNG.  'Slid, I think no man in Christendom has that rascally fortune that
   I have.

   MACI.  Faith, you suit is well enough, signior.

   FUNG.  Nay, not for that, I protest; but I had an errand to monsieur
   Fastidious, and I have forgot it.

   MACI.  Why, go along to court with us, and remember it; come, gentlemen,
   you three take one boat, and Sogliardo and I will take another; we shall be
   there instantly.

   FAST.  Content:  good sir, vouchsafe us your pleasance.

   PUNT.  Farewell, Carlo:  remember.

   CAR.  I warrant you:  would I had one of Kemp's shoes to throw after you.

   PUNT.  Good fortune will close the eyes of our jest, fear not; and we shall
   frolick.
   [EXEUNT.

   MIT.  This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on a sudden,
   methinks, than he was before:  there's some portent in it, I believe.

   COR.  O, he's a fellow of a strange nature.  Now does he, in this calm of
   his humour, plot, and store up a world of malicious thoughts in his brain,
   till he is so full with them, that you shall see the very torrent of his
   envy break forth like a land-flood:  and, against the course of all their
   affections, oppose itself so violently, that you will almost have wonder to
   think, how 'tis possible the current of their dispositions shall receive so
   quick and strong an alteration.

   MIT.  Ay, marry, sir, this is that, on which my expectation has dwelt all
   this while; for I must tell you, signior, though I was loth to interrupt
   the scene, yet I made it a question in mine own private discourse, how he
   should properly call it "Every Man out of his Humour", when I saw all his
   actors so strongly pursue, and continue their humours?

   COR.  Why, therein his art appears most full of lustre, and approacheth
   nearest the life; especially when in the flame and height of their humours,
   they are laid flat, it fills the eye better, and with more contentment.
   How tedious a sight were it to behold a proud exalted tree kept and cut
   down by degrees, when it might be fell'd in a moment!  and to set the axe
   to it before it came to that pride and fulness, were, as not to have it
   grow.

   MIT.  Well, I shall long till I see this fall, you talk of.

   COR.  To help your longing, signior, let your imagination be swifter than a
   pair of oars:  and by this, suppose Puntarvolo, Brisk, Fungoso, and the
   dog, arrived at the court-gate, and going up to the great chamber.
   Macilente and Sogliardo, we'll leave them on the water, till possibility
   and natural means may land them.  Here come the gallants, now prepare your
   expectations.




ACT V

   SCENE I. -- THE PALACE STAIRS.

   ENTER PUNTARVOLO, WITH HIS DOG, FOLLOWED BY FASTIDIOUS
   BRISK AND FUNGOSO.

   PUNT.  Come, gentles, Signior, you are sufficiently instructed.

   FAST.  Who, I, sir?

   PUNT.  No, this gentleman.  But stay, I take thought how to bestow my dog;
   he is no competent attendant for the presence.

   FAST.  Mass, that's true, indeed, knight; you must not carry him into the
   presence.

   PUNT.  I know it, and I, like a dull beast, forgot to bring one of my
   cormorants to attend me.

   FAST.  Why, you were best leave him at the porter's lodge.

   PUNT.  Not so; his worth is too well known amongst them, to be forth-coming.

   FAST.  'Slight, how will you do then?

   PUNT.  I must leave him with one that is ignorant of his quality, if I will
   have him to be safe.  And see!  here comes one that will carry coals, ergo,
   will hold my dog.
   ENTER A GROOM, WITH A BASKET.
   My honest friend, may I commit the tuition of this dog to thy prudent care?

   GROOM.  You may, if you please, sir.

   PUNT.  Pray thee let me find thee here at my return; it shall not be long,
   till I will ease thee of thy employment, and please thee.  Forth, gentles.

   FAST.  Why, but will you leave him with so slight command, and infuse no
   more charge upon the fellow?

   PUNT.  Charge!  no; there were no policy in that; that were to let him know
   the value of the gem he holds, and so to tempt frail nature against her
   disposition.  No, pray thee let thy honesty be sweet, as it shall be short.

   GROOM.  Yes, sir.

   PUNT.  But hark you, gallants, and chiefly monsieur Brisk:  when we come in
   eye-shot, or presence of this lady, let not other matters carry us from our
   project; but, if we can, single her forth to some place --

   FAST.  I warrant you.

   PUNT.  And be not too sudden, but let the device induce itself with good
   circumstance.  On.

   FUNG.  Is this the way?  good truth, here be fine hangings.
   [EXEUNT PUNT., FAST., AND FUNGOSO.

   GROOM.  Honesty!  sweet, and short!  Marry, it shall, sir, doubt you not;
   for even at this instant if one would give me twenty pounds, I would not
   deliver him; there's for the sweet:  but now, if any man come offer me but
   two-pence, he shall have him; there's for the short now.  'Slid, what a mad
   humorous gentleman is this to leave his dog with me!  I could run away with
   him now, an he were worth any thing.

   ENTER MACILENTE AND SOGLIARDO.
   MACI.  Come on, signior, now prepare to court this all-witted lady, most
   naturally, and like yourself.

   SOG.  Faith, an you say the word, I'll begin to her in tobacco.

   MACI.  O, fie on't!  no; you shall begin with, "How does my sweet lady",
   or, "Why are you so melancholy, madam?" though she be very merry, it's all
   one.  Be sure to kiss your hand often enough; pray for her health, and tell
   her, how "More than most fair she is".  Screw your face at one side thus,
   and protest:  let her fleer, and look askance, and hide her teeth with her
   fan, when she laughs a fit, to bring her into more matter, that's nothing:
   you must talk forward, (though it be without sense, so it be without
   blushing,) 'tis most court-like and well.

   SOG.  But shall I not use tobacco at all?

   MACI.  O, by no means; 'twill but make your breath suspected, and that you
   use it only to confound the rankness of that.

   SOG.  Nay, I'll be advised, sir, by my friends.

   MACI.  Od's my life, see where sir Puntarvolo's dog is.

   GROOM.  I would the gentleman would return for his follower here, I'll
   leave him to his fortunes else.

   MACI.  'Twere the only true jest in the world to poison him now; ha!  by
   this hand I'll do it, if I could but get him of the fellow.  [ASIDE.]
   Signior Sogliardo, walk aside, and think upon some device to entertain the
   lady with.

   SOG.  So I do, sir.
   [WALKS OFF IN A MEDITATING POSTURE.

   MACI.  How now, mine honest friend!  whose dog-keeper art thou?

   GROOM.  Dog-keeper, sir!  I hope I scorn that, i'faith.

   MACI.  Why, dost thou not keep a dog?

   GROOM.  Sir, now I do, and now I do not:  [THROWS OFF THE DOG.]  I think
   this be sweet and short.  Make me his dog-keeper!
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  This is excellent, above expectation!  nay, stay, sir; [SEIZING THE
   DOG.] you'd be travelling; but I'll give you a dram shall shorten your
   voyage, here.  [GIVES HIM POISON.]  So, sir, I'll be bold to take my leave
   of you.  Now to the Turk's court in the devil's name, for you shall never
   go o' God's name. [KICKS HIM OUT.] -- Sogliardo, come.

   SOG.  I have it i'faith now, will sting it.

   MACI.  Take heed you leese it not signior, ere you come there; preserve it.
   [EXEUNT.

   COR.  How like you this first exploit of his?

   MIT.  O, a piece of true envy; but I expect the issue of the other device.

   COR.  Here they come will make it appear.


   SCENE II. -- AN APARTMENT IN THE PALACE.

   ENTER SAVIOLINA, PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK, AND FUNGOSO.

   SAV.  Why, I thought, sir Puntarvolo, you had been gone your voyage?

   PUNT.  Dear and most amiable lady, your divine beauties do bind me to those
   offices, that I cannot depart when I would.

   SAV.  'Tis most court-like spoken, sir; but how might we do to have a sight
   of your dog and cat?

   FAST.  His dog is in the court, lady.

   SAV.  And not your cat?  how dare you trust her behind you, sir.

   PUNT.  Troth, madam, she hath sore eyes, and she doth keep her chamber;
   marry, I have left her under sufficient guard there are two of my followers
   to attend her.

   SAV.  I'll give you some water for her eyes.  When do you go, sir?

   PUNT.  Certes, sweet lady, I know not.

   FAST.  He doth stay the rather, madam, to present your acute judgment with
   so courtly and well parted a gentleman as yet your ladyship hath never seen.

   SAV.  What is he, gentle monsieur Brisk?  not that gentleman?
   [POINTS TO FUNGOSO.

   FAST.  No, lady, this is a kinsman to justice Silence.

   PUNT.  Pray, sir, give me leave to report him.  He's a gentleman, lady, of
   that rare and admirable faculty, as, I protest, I know not his like in
   Europe; he is exceedingly valiant, an excellent scholar, and so exactly
   travelled, that he is able, in discourse, to deliver you a model of any
   prince's court in the world; speaks the languages with that purity of
   phrase, and facility of accent, that it breeds astonishment; his wit, the
   most exuberant, and, above wonder, pleasant, of all that ever entered the
   concave of this ear.

   FAST.  'Tis most true, lady; marry, he is no such excellent proper man.

   PUNT.  His travels have changed his complexion, madam.

   SAV.  O, sir Puntarvolo, you must think every man was not born to have my
   servant Brisk's feature.

   PUNT.  But that which transcends all, lady; he doth so peerlessly imitate
   any manner of person for gesture, action, passion, or whatever --

   FAST.  Ay, especially a rustic or a clown, madam, that it is not possible
   for the sharpest-sighted wit in the world to discern any sparks of the
   gentleman in him, when he does it.

   SAV.  O, monsieur Brisk, be not so tyrannous to confine all wits within the
   compass of your own; not find the sparks of a gentleman in him, if he be a
   gentleman!

   FUNG.  No, in truth, sweet lady, I believe you cannot.

   SAV.  Do you believe so?  why, I can find sparks of a gentleman in you, sir.

   PUNT.  Ay, he is a gentleman, madam, and a reveller.

   FUNG.  Indeed, I think I have seen your ladyship at our revels.

   SAV.  Like enough, sir; but would I might see this wonder you talk of; may
   one have a sight of him for any reasonable sum?

   PUNT.  Yes, madam, he will arrive presently.

   SAV.  What, and shall we see him clown it?

   FAST.  I'faith, sweet lady, that you shall; see, here he comes.

   ENTER MACILENTE AND SOGLIARDO.
   PUNT.  This is he!  pray observe him, lady.

   SAV.  Beshrew me, he clowns it properly indeed.

   PUNT.  Nay, mark his courtship.

   SOG.  How does my sweet lady?  hot and moist?  beautiful and lusty?  ha!

   SAV.  Beautiful, an it please you, sir, but not lusty.

   SOG.  O ho, lady, it pleases you to say so, in truth:  And how does my
   sweet lady?  in health?  'Bonaroba, quaeso, que novelles?  que novelles?'
   sweet creature!

   SAV.  O excellent!  why, gallants, is this he that cannot be deciphered?
   they were very blear-witted, i'faith, that could not discern the gentleman
   in him.

   PUNT.  But you do, in earnest, lady?

   SAV.  Do I sir!  why, if you had any true court-judgment in the carriage of
   his eye, and that inward power that forms his countenance, you might
   perceive his counterfeiting as clear as the noon-day; alas -- nay, if you
   would have tried my wit, indeed, you should never have told me he was a
   gentleman, but presented him for a true clown indeed; and then have seen if
   I could have deciphered him.

   FAST.  'Fore God, her ladyship says true, knight:  but does he not affect
   the clown most naturally, mistress?

   PUNT.  O, she cannot but affirm that, out of the bounty of her judgment.

   SAV.  Nay, out of doubt he does well, for a gentleman to imitate:  but I
   warrant you, he becomes his natural carriage of the gentleman, much better
   than his clownery.

   FAST.  'Tis strange, in truth, her ladyship should see so far into him!

   PUNT.  Ay, is it not?

   SAV.  Faith, as easily as may be; not decipher him, quoth you!

   FUNG.  Good sadness, I wonder at it

   MACI.  Why, has she deciphered him, gentlemen?

   PUNT.  O, most miraculously, and beyond admiration.

   MACI.  Is it possible?

   FAST.  She hath gather'd most infallible signs of the gentleman in him,
   that's certain.

   SAV.  Why, gallants, let me laugh at you a little:  was this your device,
   to try my judgment in a gentleman?

   MACI.  Nay, lady, do not scorn us, though you have this gift of perspicacy
   above others.  What if he should be no gentleman now, but a clown indeed,
   lady?

   PUNT.  How think you of that?  would not your ladyship be Out of your Humour?

   FAST.  O, but she knows it is not so.

   SAV.  What if he were not a man, ye may as well say?  Nay, if your worships
   could gull me so, indeed, you were wiser than you are taken for.

   MACI.  In good faith, lady, he is a very perfect clown, both by father and
   mother; that I'll assure you.

   SAV.  O, sir, you are very pleasurable.

   MACI.  Nay, do but look on his hand, and that shall resolve you; look you,
   lady, what a palm here is.

   SOG.  Tut, that was with holding the plough.

   MACI.  The plough!  did you discern any such thing in him, madam?

   FAST.  Faith no, she saw the gentleman as bright as noon-day, she; she
   deciphered him at first.

   MACI.  Troth, I am sorry your ladyship's sight should be so suddenly struck.

   SAV.  O, you are goodly beagles!

   FAST.  What, is she gone?

   SOG.  Nay, stay, sweet lady:  'que novelles?  que novelles?'

   SAV.  Out, you fool, you!
   [EXIT IN ANGER.

   FUNG.  She's Out of her Humour, i'faith.

   FAST.  Nay, let's follow it while 'tis hot, gentlemen.

   PUNT.  Come, on mine honour we shall make her blush in the presence; my
   spleen is great with laughter.

   MACI.  Your laughter will be a child of a feeble life, I believe, sir.
   [ASIDE.] -- Come, signior, your looks are too dejected, methinks; why mix
   you not mirth with the rest?

   FUNG.  Od's will, this suit frets me at the soul.  I'll have it alter'd
   to-morrow, sure.


   SCENE III. -- THE PALACE STAIRS.

   ENTER SHIFT.

   SHIFT.  I am come to the court, to meet with my Countenance, Sogliardo;
   poor men must be glad of such countenance, when they can get no better.
   Well, need may insult upon a man, but it shall never make him despair of
   consequence.  The world will say, 'tis base:  tush, base!  'tis base to
   live under the earth, not base to live above it by any means.

   ENTER FASTIDIOUS, PUNTARVOLO, SOGLIARDO, FUNGOSO, AND MACILENTE.
   FAST.  The poor lady is most miserably out of her humour, i'faith.

   PUNT.  There was never so witty a jest broken, at the tilt of all the court
   wits christen'd.

   MACI.  O, this applause taints it foully.

   SOG.  I think I did my part in courting. -- O, Resolution!

   PUNT.  Ay me, my dog!

   MACI.  Where is he?

   FAST.  'Sprecious, go seek for the fellow, good signior
   [EXIT FUNGOSO.

   PUNT.  Here, here I left him.

   MACI.  Why, none was here when we came in now, but cavalier Shirt; enquire
   of him.

   FAST.  Did you see sir Puntarvolo's dog here, cavalier, since you came?

   SHIFT.  His dog, sir!  he may look his dog, sir; I saw none of his dog, sir.

   MACI.  Upon my life, he has stolen your dog, sir, and been hired to it by
   some that have ventured with you; you may guess by his peremptory answers.

   PUNT.  Not unlike; for he hath been a notorious thief by his own
   confession.  Sirrah, where is my dog?

   SHIFT.  Charge me with your dog, sir!  I have none of your dog, sir.

   PUNT.  Villain, thou liest.

   SHIFT.  Lie, sir!  s'blood, -- you are but a man, sir.

   PUNT.  Rogue and thief, restore him.

   SOG.  Take heed, sir Puntarvolo, what you do; he'll bear no coals, I can
   tell you, o' my word.

   MACI.  This is rare.

   SOG.  It's marle he stabs you not:  By this light, he hath stabbed forty,
   for forty times less matter, I can tell you of my knowledge.

   PUNT.  I will make thee stoop, thou abject.

   SOG.  Make him stoop, sir!  Gentlemen, pacify him, or he'll be kill'd.

   MACI.  Is he so tall a man?

   SOG.  Tall a man!  if you love his life, stand betwixt them.  Make him stoop!

   PUNT.  My dog, villain, or I will hang thee; thou hast confest robberies,
   and other felonious acts, to this gentleman, thy Countenance --

   SOG.  I'll bear no witness.

   PUNT.  And without my dog, I will hang thee, for them.
   [SHIFT KNEELS.

   SOG.  What!  kneel to thine enemies!

   SHIFT.  Pardon me, good sir; God is my witness, I never did robbery in all
   my life.

   RE-ENTER FUNGOSO.
   FUNG.  O, sir Puntarvolo, your dog lies giving up the ghost in the wood-yard.

   MACI.  Heart, is he not dead yet!
   [ASIDE.

   PUNT.  O, my dog, born to disastrous fortune!  pray you conduct me, sir.
   [EXIT WITH FUNGOSO.

   SOG.  How!  did you never do any robbery in your life?

   MACI.  O, this is good!  so he swore, sir.

   SOG.  Ay, I heard him:  and did you swear true, sir?

   SHIFT.  Ay, as I hope to be forgiven, sir, I never robbed any man; I never
   stood by the highwayside, sir, but only said so, because I would get myself
   a name, and be counted a tall man.

   SOG.  Now out, base viliaco!  thou my Resolution!  I thy Countenance!  By
   this light, gentlemen, he hath confest to me the most inexorable company of
   robberies, and damn'd himself that he did 'em:  you never heard the like.
   Out, scoundrel, out!  follow me no more, I command thee; out of my sight,
   go, hence, speak not; I will not hear thee:  away, camouccio!
   [EXIT SHIFT.

   MACI.  O, how I do feed upon this now, and fat myself!  here were a couple
   unexpectedly dishumour'd.  Well, by this time, I hope, sir Puntarvolo and
   his dog are both out of humour to travel.  [ASIDE.] -- Nay, gentlemen, why
   do you not seek out the knight, and comfort him?  our supper at the Mitre
   must of necessity hold to-night, if you love your reputations.

   FAST.  'Fore God, I am so melancholy for his dog's disaster -- but I'll go.

   SOG.  Faith, and I may go too, but I know I shall be so melancholy.

   MACI.  Tush, melancholy!  you must forget that now, and remember you lie at
   the mercy of a fury:  Carlo will rack your sinews asunder, and rail you to
   dust, if you come not.
   [EXEUNT.

   MIT.  O, then their fear of Carlo, belike, makes them hold their meeting.

   COR.  Ay, here he comes; conceive him but to be enter'd the Mitre, and 'tis
   enough.


   SCENE IV. -- A ROOM AT THE MITRE.

   ENTER CARLO.
   CAR.  Holla!  where be these shot-sharks?

   ENTER DRAWER.

   DRAW.  By and by; you are welcome, good master Buffone.

   CAR.  Where's George?  call me George hither, quickly.

   DRAW.  What wine please you have, sir?  I'll draw you that's neat, master
   Buffone.

   CAR.  Away, neophite, do as I bid thee, bring my dear George to me: --
   ENTER GEORGE.
   Mass, here he comes.

   GEORGE.  Welcome, master Carlo.

   CAR.  What, is supper ready, George?

   GEORGE.  Ay, sir, almost:  Will you have the cloth laid, master Carlo?

   CAR.  O, what else?  Are none of the gallants come yet?

   GEORGE.  None yet, sir.

   CAR.  Stay, take me with you, George; let me have a good fat loin of pork
   laid to the fire, presently.

   GEORGE.  It shall, sir.

   CAR.  And withal, hear you, draw me the biggest shaft you have out of the
   butt you wot of; away, you know my meaning, George; quick!

   GEORGE.  Done, sir.
   [EXIT.

   CAR.  I never hungered so much for anything in my life, as I do to know our
   gallants' success at court; now is that lean, bald-rib Macilente, that salt
   villain, plotting some mischievous device, and lies a soaking in their
   frothy humours like a dry crust, till he has drunk 'em all up:  Could the
   pummice but hold up his eyes at other men's happiness, in any reasonable
   proportion, 'slid, the slave were to be loved next heaven, above honour,
   wealth, rich fare, apparel, wenches, all the delights of the belly and the
   groin, whatever.

   RE-ENTER GEORGE WITH TWO JUGS OF WINE.
   GEORGE.  Here, master Carlo.

   CAR.  Is it right, boy?

   GEORGE.  Ay, sir, I assure you 'tis right.

   CAR.  Well said, my dear George, depart:  [EXIT GEORGE.] -- Come, my small
   gimblet, you in the false scabbard, away, so!  [PUTS FORTH THE DRAWER, AND
   SHUTS THE DOOR.]  Now to you, sir Burgomaster, let's taste of your bounty.

   MIT.  What, will he deal upon such quantities of wine, alone?

   COR.  You will perceive that, sir.

   CAR.  [DRINKS.]  Ay, marry, sir, here's purity; O, George -- I could bite
   off his nose for this now, sweet rogue, he has drawn nectar, the very soul
   of the grape!  I'll wash my temples with some on't presently, and drink
   some half a score draughts; 'twill heat the brain, kindle my imagination, I
   shall talk nothing but crackers and fire-works to-night.  So, sir!  please
   you to be here, sir, and I here:  so.
   [SETS THE TWO CUPS ASUNDER, DRINKS WITH THE ONE, AND PLEDGES WITH THE
   OTHER, SPEAKING FOR EACH OF THE CUPS, AND DRINKING ALTERNATELY.

   COR.  This is worth the observation, signior.

   CAR.  1 CUP.  Now, sir, here's to you; and I present you with so much of my
   love.

   2 CUP.  I take it kindly from you, sir.  [DRINKS], and will return you the
   like proportion; but withal, sir, remembering the merry night we had at the
   countess's, you know where, sir.

   1 CUP.  By heaven, you put me in mind now of a very necessary office, which
   I will propose in your pledge, sir; the health of that honourable countess,
   and the sweet lady that sat by her, sir.

   2 CUP.  I do vail to it with reverence [DRINKS].  And now, signior, with
   these ladies, I'll be bold to mix the health of your divine mistress.

   1 CUP.  Do you know her, sir?

   2 CUP.  O lord, sir, ay; and in the respectful memory and mention of her, I
   could wish this wine were the most precious drug in the world.

   1 CUP.  Good faith, sir, you do honour me in't exceedingly.  [DRINKS.]

   MIT.  Whom should he personate in this, signior?

   COR.  Faith, I know not, sir; observe, observe him.

   2 CUP.  If it were the basest filth, or mud that runs in the channel, I am
   bound to pledge it respectively, sir.  [DRINKS.]  And now, sir, here is a
   replenish'd bowl, which I will reciprocally turn upon you, to the health of
   the count Frugale.

   1 CUP.  The count Frugale's health, sir?  I'll pledge it on my knees, by
   this light.
   [KNEELS.

   2 CUP.  Nay, do me right, sir.

   1 CUP.  So I do, in faith.

   2 CUP.  Good faith you do not; mine was fuller.

   1 CUP.  Why, believe me, it was not.

   2 CUP.  Believe me it was; and you do lie.

   1 CUP.  Lie, sir!

   2 CUP.  Ay, sir.

   1 CUP.  'Swounds!  you rascal!

   2 CUP.  O, come, stab if you have a mind to it.

   1 CUP.  Stab!  dost thou think I dare not?

   CAR.  [SPEAKS IN HIS OWN PERSON.]  Nay, I beseech you, gentlemen, what
   means this?  nay, look, for shame respect your reputations.
   [OVERTURNS WINE, POT, CUPS, AND ALL.

   ENTER MACILENTE.
   MACI.  Why, how now, Carlo!  what humour's this?

   CAR.  O, my good mischief!  art thou come?  where are the rest, where are
   the rest?

   MACI.  Faith, three of our ordnance are burst.

   CAR.  Burst!  how comes that?

   MACI.  Faith, overcharged, overcharged.

   CAR.  But did not the train hold?

   MACI.  O, yes, and the poor lady is irrecoverably blown up.

   CAR.  Why, but which of the munition is miscarried, ha?

   MACI.  Imprimis, sir Puntarvolo; next, the Countenance and Resolution.

   CAR.  How, how, for the love of wit?

   MACI.  Troth, the Resolution is proved recreant; the Countenance hath
   changed his copy; and the passionate knight is shedding funeral tears over
   his departed dog.

   CAR.  What!  is his dog dead?

   MACI.  Poison'd, 'tis thought; marry, how, or by whom, that's left for some
   cunning woman here o' the Bank-side to resolve.  For my part, I know
   nothing more than that we are like to have an exceeding melancholy supper
   of it.

   CAR.  'Slife, and I had purposed to be extraordinarily merry, I had drunk
   off a good preparative of old sack here; but will they come, will they come?

   MACI.  They will assuredly come; marry, Carlo, as thou lov'st me, run over
   'em all freely to-night, and especially the knight; spare no sulphurous
   jest that may come out of that sweaty forge of thine; but ply them with all
   manner of shot, minion, saker, culverin, or anything, what thou wilt.

   CAR.  I warrant thee, my dear case of petrionels; so I stand not in dread
   of thee, but that thou'lt second me.

   MACI.  Why, my good German tapster, I will.

   CAR.  What George!  Lomtero, Lomtero, etc.
   [SINGS AND DANCES.

   RE-ENTER GEORGE.
   GEORGE.  Did you call, master Carlo?

   CAR.  More nectar, George:  Lomtero, etc.

   GEORGE.  Your meat's ready, sir, an your company were come.

   CAR.  Is the loin pork enough?

   GEORGE.  Ay, sir, it is enough.
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  Pork!  heart, what dost thou with such a greasy dish?  I think thou
   dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so like a glue-pot.

   CAR.  True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs
   with it too, they would not, like ragged laths, rub out so many doublets as
   they do; but thou know'st not a good dish, thou.  O, it's the only
   nourishing meat in the world.  No marvel though that saucy, stubborn
   generation, the Jews, were forbidden it; for what would they have done,
   well pamper'd with fat pork, that durst murmur at their Maker out of
   garlick and onions?  'Slight!  fed with it, the whoreson strummel-patch'd,
   goggle-eyed grumble-dories, would have gigantomachised --
   RE-ENTER GEORGE WITH WINE.
   Well said, my sweet George, fill, fill.

   MIT.  This savours too much of profanation.

   COR.  O -- -- Servetur ad imum,
   Qualis ab incoepto processerit, et sibi constet.
   "The necessity of his vein compels a toleration, for; bar this, and dash
   him out of humour before his time."

   CAR.  "'Tis an axiom in natural philosophy, what comes nearest the nature
   of that it feeds, converts quicker to nourishment, and doth sooner
   essentiate."  Now nothing in flesh and entrails assimilates or resembles
   man more than a hog or swine.
   [DRINKS.

   MACI.  True; and he, to requite their courtesy, oftentimes doffeth his own
   nature, and puts on theirs; as when he becomes as churlish as a hog, or as
   drunk as a sow; but to your conclusion.
   [DRINKS.

   CAR.  Marry, I say, nothing resembling man more than a swine, it follows,
   nothing can be more nourishing; for indeed (but that it abhors from our
   nice nature) if we fed upon one another, we should shoot up a great deal
   faster, and thrive much better; I refer me to your usurous cannibals, or
   such like; but since it is so contrary, pork, pork, is your only feed.

   MACI.  I take it, your devil be of the same diet; he would never have
   desired to have been incorporated into swine else. -- O, here comes the
   melancholy mess; upon 'em, Carlo, charge, charge!

   ENTER PUNTARVOLO, FASTIDIOUS BRISK, SOGLIARDO, AND FUNGOSO.
   CAR.  'Fore God, sir Puntarvolo, I am sorry for your heaviness:  body o'
   me, a shrew'd mischance!  why, had you no unicorn's horn, nor bezoar's
   stone about you, ha?

   PUNT.  Sir, I would request you be silent.

   MACI.  Nay, to him again.

   CAR.  Take comfort, good knight, if your cat have recovered her catarrh,
   fear nothing; your dog's mischance may be holpen.

   FAST.  Say how, sweet Carlo; for, so God mend me, the poor knight's moans
   draw me into fellowship of his misfortunes.  But be not discouraged, good
   sir Puntarvolo, I am content your adventure shall be performed upon your
   cat.

   MACI.  I believe you, musk-cod, I believe you; for rather than thou
   would'st make present repayment, thou would'st take it upon his own bare
   return from Calais
   [ASIDE.

   CAR.  Nay, 'slife, he'd be content, so he were well rid out of his company,
   to pay him five for one, at his next meeting him in Paul's.  [ASIDE TO
   MACILENTE.] -- But for your dog, sir Puntarvolo, if he be not out-right
   dead, there is a friend of mine, a quack-salver, shall put life in him
   again, that's certain.

   FUNG.  O, no, that comes too late.

   MACI.  'Sprecious!  knight, will you suffer this?

   PUNT.  Drawer, get me a candle and hard wax presently.
   [EXIT GEORGE.

   SOG.  Ay, and bring up supper; for I am so melancholy.

   CAR.  O, signior, where's your Resolution?

   SOG.  Resolution!  hang him, rascal:  O, Carlo, if you love me, do not
   mention him.

   CAR.  Why, how so?

   SOG.  O, the arrantest crocodile that ever Christian was acquainted with.
   By my gentry, I shall think the worse of tobacco while I live, for his
   sake:  I did think him to be as tall a man --

   MACI.  Nay, Buffone, the knight, the knight
   [ASIDE TO CARLO.

   CAR.  'Slud, he looks like an image carved out of box, full of knots; his
   face is, for all the world, like a Dutch purse, with the mouth downward,
   his beard the tassels; and he walks -- let me see -- as melancholy as one
   o' the master's side in the Counter. -- Do you hear, sir Puntarvolo?

   PUNT.  Sir, I do entreat you, no more, but enjoin you to silence, as you
   affect your peace.

   CAR.  Nay, but dear knight, understand here are none but friends, and such
   as wish you well, I would have you do this now; flay me your dog presently
   (but in any case keep the head) and stuff his skin well with straw, as you
   see these dead monsters at Bartholomew fair.

   PUNT.  I shall be sudden, I tell you.

   CAR.  O, if you like not that, sir, get me somewhat a less dog, and clap
   into the skin; here's a slave about the town here, a Jew, one Yohan:  or a
   fellow that makes perukes will glue it on artificially, it shall never be
   discern'd; besides, 'twill be so much the warmer for the hound to travel
   in, you know.

   MACI.  Sir Puntarvolo, death, can you be so patient!

   CAR.  Or thus, sir; you may have, as you come through Germany, a familiar
   for little or nothing, shall turn itself into the shape of your dog, or any
   thing, what you will, for certain hours -- [PUNTARVOLO STRIKES HIM] -- Ods
   my life, knight, what do you mean?  you'll offer no violence, will you?
   hold, hold!

   RE-ENTER GEORGE, WITH WAX, AND A LIGHTED CANDLE.
   PUNT.  'Sdeath, you slave, you ban-dog, you!

   CAR.  As you love wit, stay the enraged knight, gentlemen.

   PUNT.  By my knighthood, he that stirs in his rescue, dies. -- Drawer, begone!
   [EXIT GEORGE.

   CAR.  Murder, murder, murder!

   PUNT.  Ay, are you howling, you wolf? -- Gentlemen, as you tender your
   lives, suffer no man to enter till my revenge be perfect.  Sirrah, Buffone,
   lie down; make no exclamations, but down; down, you cur, or I will make thy
   blood flow on my rapier hilts.

   CAR.  Sweet knight, hold in thy fury, and 'fore heaven I'll honour thee
   more than the Turk does Mahomet.

   PUNT.  Down, I say!  [CARLO LIES DOWN.] -- Who's there?
   [KNOCKING WITHIN.

   CONS.  [WITHIN.]  Here's the constable, open the doors.

   CAR.  Good Macilente --

   PUNT.  Open no door; if the Adalantado of Spain were here he should not
   enter:  one help me with the light, gentlemen; you knock in vain, sir
   officer.

   CAR.  'Et tu, Brute!'

   PUNT.  Sirrah, close your lips, or I will drop it in thine eyes, by heaven.

   CAR.  O!  O!

   CONS.  [WITHIN]  Open the door, or I will break it open.

   MACI.  Nay, good constable, have patience a little; you shall come in
   presently; we have almost done.
   [PUNTARVOLO SEALS UP CARLO'S LIPS.

   PUNT.  So, now, are you Out of your Humour, sir?  Shift, gentlemen
   [THEY ALL DRAW, AND RUN OUT, EXCEPT FUNGOSO, WHO CONCEALS HIMSELF BENEATH
   THE TABLE.

   ENTER CONSTABLE AND OFFICERS, AND SEIZE FASTIDIOUS AS HE IS RUSHING BY.
   CONS.  Lay hold upon this gallant, and pursue the rest.

   FAST.  Lay hold on me, sir, for what?

   CONS.  Marry, for your riot here, sir, with the rest of your companions.

   FAST.  My riot!  master constable, take heed what you do.  Carlo, did I
   offer any violence?

   CONS.  O, sir, you see he is not in case to answer you, and that makes you
   so peremptory.

   RE-ENTER GEORGE AND DRAWER.
   FAST.  Peremptory!   'Slife, I appeal to the drawers, if I did him any hard
   measure.

   GEORGE.  They are all gone, there's none of them will be laid any hold on.

   CONS.  Well, sir, you are like to answer till the rest can be found out.

   FAST.  'Slid, I appeal to George here.

   CONS.  Tut, George was not here:  away with him to the Counter, sirs. --
   Come, sir, you were best get yourself drest somewhere.
   [EXEUNT CONST. AND OFFICERS, WITH FAST. AND CAR.

   GEORGE.  Good lord, that master Carlo could not take heed, and knowing what
   a gentleman the knight is, if he be angry.

   DRAWER.  A pox on 'em, they have left all the meat on our hands; would they
   were choaked with it for me!

   RE-ENTER MACILENTE.
   MACI.  What, are they gone, sirs?

   GEORGE.  O, here's master Macilente.

   MACI.  [POINTING TO FUNGOSO.]  Sirrah, George, do you see that concealment
   there, that napkin under the table?

   GEORGE.  'Ods so, signior Fungoso!

   MACI.  He's good pawn for the reckoning; be sure you keep him here, and let
   him not go away till I come again, though he offer to discharge all; I'll
   return presently.

   GEORGE.  Sirrah, we have a pawn for the reckoning.

   DRAW.  What, of Macilente?

   GEORGE.  No; look under the table.

   FUNG.  [CREEPING OUT.]  I hope all be quiet now; if I can get but forth of
   this street, I care not:  masters, I pray you tell me, is the constable
   gone?

   GEORGE.  What, master Fungoso!

   FUNG.  Was't not a good device this same of me, sirs?

   GEORGE.  Yes, faith; have you been here all this while?

   FUNG.  O lord, ay; good sir, look an the coast be clear, I'd fain be going.

   GEORGE.  All's clear, sir, but the reckoning; and that you must clear and
   pay before you go, I assure you.

   FUNG.  I pay!  'Slight, I eat not a bit since I came into the house, yet.

   DRAW.  Why, you may when you please, 'tis all ready below that was bespoken.

   FUNG.  Bespoken!  not by me, I hope?

   GEORGE.  By you, sir!  I know not that; but 'twas for you and your company,
   I am sure.

   FUNG.  My company!  'Slid, I was an invited guest, so I was.

   DRAW.  Faith we have nothing to do with that, sir:  they are all gone but
   you, and we must be answered; that's the short and the long on't.

   FUNG.  Nay, if you will grow to extremities, my masters, then would this
   pot, cup, and all were in my belly, if I have a cross about me.

   GEORGE.  What, and have such apparel!  do not say so, signior; that
   mightily discredits your clothes.

   FUNG.  As I am an honest man, my tailor had all my money this morning, and
   yet I must be fain to alter my suit too.  Good sirs, let me go, 'tis Friday
   night, and in good truth I have no stomach in the world to eat any thing.

   DRAW.  That's no matter, so you pay, sir.

   FUNG.  'Slight, with what conscience can you ask me to pay that I never
   drank for?

   GEORGE.  Yes, sir, I did see you drink once.

   FUNG.  By this cup, which is silver, but you did not; you do me infinite
   wrong:  I looked in the pot once, indeed, but I did not drink.

   DRAW.  Well, sir, if you can satisfy our master, it shall be all one to us.

   WITHIN.  George!

   GEORGE.  By and by.
   [EXEUNT.

   COR.  Lose not yourself now, signior


   SCENE V. -- A ROOM IN DELIRO'S HOUSE.

   ENTER MACILENTE AND DELIRO.

   MACI.  Tut, sir, you did bear too hard a conceit of me in that; but I will
   not make my love to you most transparent, in spite of any dust of suspicion
   that may be raised to cloud it; and henceforth, since I see it is so
   against your humour, I will never labour to persuade you.

   DELI.  Why, I thank you, signior; but what is that you tell me may concern
   my peace so much?

   MACI.  Faith, sir, 'tist hus.  Your wife's brother, signior Fungoso, being
   at supper to-night at a tavern, with a sort of gallants, there happened
   some division amongst them, and he is left in pawn for the reckoning.  Now,
   if ever you look that time shall present you with an happy occasion to do
   your wife some gracious and acceptable service, take hold of this
   opportunity, and presently go and redeem him; for, being her brother, and
   his credit so amply engaged as now it is, when she shall hear, (as he
   cannot himself, but he must out of extremity report it,) that you came, and
   offered y ourself so kindly, and with that respect of his reputation; why, the
   benefit cannot but make her dote, and grow mad of your affections.

   DELI.  Now, by heaven, Macilente, I acknowledge myself exceedingly indebted
   to you, by this kind tender of your love; and I am sorry to remember that I
   was ever so rude, to neglect a friend of your importance. -- Bring me shoes
   and a cloak here. -- I was going to bed, if you had not come.  What tavern
   is it?

   MACI.  The Mitre, sir.

   DELI.  O!  Why, Fido!  my shoes. -- Good faith, it cannot but please her
   exceedingly.

   ENTER FALLACE.
   FAL.  Come, I marle what piece of night-work you have in hand now, that you
   call for a cloak, and your shoes:  What, is this your pander?

   DELI.  O, sweet wife, speak lower, I would not he should hear thee for a
   world --

   FAL.  Hang him, rascal, I cannot abide him for his treachery, with his wild
   quick-set beard there.  Whither go you now with him?

   DELI.  No, whither with him, dear wife; I go alone to a place, from whence
   I will return instantly. -- Good Macilente, acquaint not her with it by any
   means, it may come so much the more accepted; frame some other answer. --
   I'll come back immediately.
   [EXIT.

   FAL.  Nay, an I be not worthy to know whither you go, stay till I take
   knowledge of your coming back.

   MACI.  Hear you, mistress Deliro.

   FAL.  So, sir, and what say you?

   MACI.  Faith, lady, my intents will not deserve this slight respect, when
   you shall know them.

   FAL.  Your intents!  why, what may your intents be, for God's sake?

   MACI.  Troth, the time allows no circumstance, lady, therefore know this
   was but a device to remove your husband hence, and bestow him securely,
   whilst, with more conveniency, I might report to you a misfortune that hath
   happened to monsieur Brisk -- Nay, comfort, sweet lady.  This night, being
   at supper, a sort of young gallants committed a riot, for the which he only
   is apprehended and carried to the Counter, where, if your husband, and
   other creditors, should but have knowledge of him, the poor gentleman were
   undone for ever.

   FAL.  Ah me!  that he were.

   MACI.  Now, therefore, if you can think upon any present means for his
   delivery, do not foreslow it.  A bribe to the officer that committed him
   will do it.

   FAL.  O lord, sir!  he shall not want for a bribe; pray you, will you
   commend me to him, and say I'll visit him presently.

   MACI.  No, lady, I shall do you better service, in protracting your
   husband's return, that you may go with more safety.

   FAL.  Good truth, so you may; farewell, good sir.  [EXIT MACI.] -- Lord,
   how a woman may be mistaken in a man!  I would have sworn upon all the
   Testaments in the world he had not loved master Brisk.  Bring me my keys
   there, maid.  Alas, good gentleman, if all I have in this earthly world
   will pleasure him, it shall be at his service.
   [EXIT.

   MIT.  How Macilente sweats in this business, if you mark him!

   COR.  Ay, you shall see the true picture of spite, anon:  here comes the
   pawn and his redeemer.


   SCENE VI. -- A ROOM AT THE MITRE.

   ENTER DELIRO, FUNGOSO, AND GEORGE.

   DELI.  Come, brother, be not discouraged for this, man; what!

   FUNG.  No, truly, I am not discouraged; but I protest to you, brother, I
   have done imitating any more gallants either in purse or apparel, but as
   shall become a gentleman, for good carriage, or so.

   DELI.  You say well. -- This is all in the bill here, is it not?

   GEORGE.  Ay, sir.

   DELI.  There's your money, tell it:  and, brother, I am glad I met with so
   good occasion to shew my love to you.

   FUNG.  I will study to deserve it in good truth an I live.

   DELI.  What, is it right?

   GEORGE.  Ay, sir, and I thank you.

   FUNG.  Let me have a capon's leg saved, now the reckoning is paid.

   GEORGE.  You shall, sir
   [EXIT.

   ENTER MACILENTE.
   MACI.  Where's signior Deliro?

   DELI.  Here, Macilente.

   MACI.  Hark you, sir, have you dispatch'd this same?

   DELI.  Ay, marry have I.

   MACI.  Well then, I can tell you news; Brisk is in the Counter.

   DELI.  In the Counter!

   MACI.  'Tis true, sir, committed for the stir here to-night.  Now would I
   have you send your brother home afore him, with the report of this your
   kindness done him, to his sister, which will so pleasingly possess her, and
   out of his mouth too, that in the meantime you may clap your action on
   Brisk, and your wife, being in so happy a mood, cannot entertain it ill, by
   any means.

   DELI.  'Tis very true, she cannot, indeed, I think.

   MACI.  Think!  why 'tis past thought; you shall never meet the like
   opportunity, I assure you.

   DELI.  I will do it. -- Brother, pray you go home afore (this gentleman and
   I have some private business), and tell my sweet wife I'll come presently.

   FUNG.  I will, brother.

   MACI.  And, signior, acquaint your sister, how liberally, and out of his
   bounty, your brother has used you (do you see?), made you a man of good
   reckoning; redeem'd that you never were possest of, credit; gave you as
   gentlemanlike terms as might be; found no fault with your coming behind the
   fashion; nor nothing.

   FUNG.  Nay, I am out of those humours now.

   MACI.  Well, if you be out, keep your distance, and be not made a shot-clog
   any more. -- Come, signior, let's make haste.
   [EXEUNT.


   SCENE VII. -- THE COUNTER.

   ENTER FALLACE AND FASTIDIOUS BRISK.

   FAL.  O, master Fastidious, what pity is it to see so sweet a man as you
   are, in so sour a place!
   [KISSES HIM.

   COR.  As upon her lips, does she mean?

   MIT.  O, this is to be imagined the Counter, belike.

   FAST.  Troth, fair lady, 'tis first the pleasure of the fates, and next of
   the constable, to have it so:  but I am patient, and indeed comforted the
   more in your kind visit.

   FAL.  Nay, you shall be comforted in me more than this, if you please, sir.
   I sent you word by my brother, sir, that my husband laid to 'rest you this
   morning; I know now whether you received it or no.

   FAST.  No, believe it, sweet creature, your brother gave me no such
   intelligence.

   FAL.  O, the lord!

   FAST.  But has your husband any such purpose?

   FAL.  O, sweet master Brisk, yes:  and therefore be presently discharged,
   for if he come with his actions upon you, Lord deliver you!  you are in for
   one half-a-score year; he kept a poor man in Ludgate once twelve year for
   sixteen shillings.  Where's your keeper?  for love's sake call him, let him
   take a bribe, and despatch you.  Lord, how my heart trembles!  here are no
   spies, are there?

   FAST.  No, sweet mistress.  Why are you in this passion?

   FAL.  O lord, master Fastidious, if you knew how I took up my husband
   to-day, when he said he would arrest you; and how I railed at him that
   persuaded him to it, the scholar there (who, on my conscience, loves you
   now), and what care I took to send you intelligence by my brother; and how
   I gave him four sovereigns for his pains:  and now, how I came running out
   hither without man or boy with me, so soon as I heard on't; you'd say I
   were in a passion indeed.  Your keeper, for God's sake!  O, master Brisk,
   as 'tis in 'Euphues', 'Hard is the choice, when one is compelled either by
   silence to die with grief, or by speaking to live with shame'.

   FAST.  Fair lady, I conceive you, and may this kiss assure you, that where
   adversity hath, as it were, contracted, prosperity shall not -- Od's me!
   your husband.

   ENTER DELIRO AND MACILENTE.
   FAL.  O me!

   DELI.  Ay!  Is it thus?

   MACI.  Why, how now, signior Deliro!  has the wolf seen you, ha?  Hath
   Gorgon's head made marble of you?

   DELI.  Some planet strike me dead!

   MACI.  Why, look you, sir, I told you, you might have suspected this long
   afore, had you pleased, and have saved this labour of admiration now, and
   passion, and such extremities as this frail lump of flesh is subject unto.
   Nay, why do you not doat now, signior?  methinks you should say it were
   some enchantment, 'deceptio visus', or so, ha!  If you could persuade
   yourself it were a dream now, 'twere excellent:  faith, try what you can
   do, signior:  it may be your imagination will be brought to it in time;
   there's nothing impossible.

   FAL.  Sweet husband!

   DELI.  Out, lascivious strumpet!
   [EXIT.

   MACI.  What!  did you see how ill that stale vein became him afore, of
   'sweet wife', and 'dear heart'; and are you fallen just into the same now,
   with 'sweet husband'!  Away, follow him, go, keep state:  what!  remember
   you are a woman, turn impudent; give him not the head, though you give him
   the horns.  Away.  And yet, methinks, you should take your leave of 'enfant
   perdu' here, your forlorn hope. [EXIT FAL.] -- How now, monsieur Brisk?
   what!  Friday night, and in affliction too, and yet your pulpamenta, your
   delicate morsels!  I perceive the affection of ladies and gentlewomen
   pursues you wheresoever you go, monsieur.

   FAST.  Now, in good faith, and as I am gentle, there could not have come a
   thing in this world to have distracted me more, than the wrinkled fortunes
   of this poor dame.

   MACI.  O yes, sir; I can tell you a think will distract you much better,
   believe it:  Signior Deliro has entered three actions against you, three
   actions, monsieur!  marry, one of them (I'll put you in comfort) is but
   three thousand, and the other two, some five thousand pound together:
   trifles, trifles.

   FAST.  O, I am undone.

   MACI.  Nay, not altogether so, sir; the knight must have his hundred pound
   repaid, that will help too; and then six score pounds for a diamond, you
   know where.  These be things will weigh, monsieur, they will weigh.

   FAST.  O heaven!

   MACI.  What!  do you sigh?  this is to 'kiss the hand of a countess', to
   'have her coach sent for you', to 'hang poniards in ladies' garters', to
   'wear bracelets of their hair', and for every one of these great favours to
   'give some slight jewel of five hundred crowns, or so'; why, 'tis nothing.
   Now, monsieur, you see the plague that treads on the heels o' your foppery:
   well, go your ways in, remove yourself to the two-penny ward quickly, to
   save charges, and there set up your rest to spend sir Puntarvolo's hundred
   pound for him.  Away, good pomander, go!
   [EXIT FASTIDIOUS.
   Why here's a change!  now is my soul at peace:
   I am as empty of all envy now,
   As they of merit to be envied at.
   My humour, like a flame, no longer lasts
   Than it hath stuff to feed it; and their folly
   Being now raked up in their repentant ashes,
   Affords no ampler subject to my spleen.
   I am so far from malicing their states,
   That I begin to pity them.  It grieves me
   To think they have a being.  I could wish
   They might turn wise upon it, and be saved now,
   So heaven were pleased; but let them vanish, vapours! --
   Gentlemen, how like you it?  has't not been tedious?

   COR.  Nay, we have done censuring now.

   MIT.  Yes, faith.

   MACI.  How so?

   COR.  Marry, because we'll imitate your actors, and be out of our humours.
   Besides, here are those round about you of more ability in censure than we,
   whose judgments can give it a more satisfying allowance; we'll refer you to
   them.
   [EXEUNT CORDATUS AND MITIS.

   MACI.  [COMING FORWARD.]  Ay, is it even so? -- Well, gentlemen, I should
   have gone in, and return'd to you as I was Asper at the first; but by
   reason the shift would have been somewhat long, and we are loth to draw
   your patience farther, we'll entreat you to imagine it.  And now, that you
   may see I will be out of humour for company, I stand wholly to your kind
   approbation, and indeed am nothing so peremptory as I was in the beginning:
   marry, I will not do as Plautus in his 'Amphytrio', for all this, 'summi
   Jovis causa plaudite'; beg a plaudite for God's sake; but if you, out of
   the bounty of your good-liking, will bestow it, why, you may in time make
   lean Macilente as fat as sir John Falstaff.
   [EXIT.


   THE EPILOGUE

   AT THE
   PRESENTATION BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH

   BY MACILENTE.

   Never till now did object greet mine eyes
   With any light content:  but in her graces
   All my malicious powers have lost their stings.
   Envy is fled from my soul at sight of her,
   And she hath chased all black thoughts from my bosom,
   Like as the sun doth darkness from the world,
   My stream of humour is run out of me,
   And as our city's torrent, bent t'infect
   The hallow'd bowels of the silver Thames,
   Is check'd by strength and clearness of the river,
   Till it hath spent itself even at the shore;
   So in the ample and unmeasured flood
   Of her perfections, are my passions drown'd;
   And I have now a spirit as sweet and clear
   As the more rarefied and subtle air: --
   With which, and with a heart as pure as fire,
   Yet humble as the earth, do I implore
   [KNEELS.
   O heaven, that She, whose presence hath effected
   This change in me, may suffer most late change
   In her admired and happy government:
   May still this Island be call'd Fortunate,
   And rugged Treason tremble at the sound,
   When Fame shall speak it with an emphasis.
   Let foreign polity be dull as lead,
   And pale Invasion come with half a heart,
   When he but looks upon her blessed soil.
   The throat of War be stopt within her land,
   And turtle-footed Peace dance fairy rings
   About her court; where never may there come
   Suspect or danger, but all trust and safety.
   Let Flattery be dumb, and Envy blind
   In her dread presence; Death himself admire her;
   And may her virtues make him to forget
   The use of his inevitable hand.
   Fly from her, Age; sleep, Time, before her throne;
   Our strongest wall falls down, when she is gone.




GLOSSARY

   ABATE, cast down, subdue
   ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance
   ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast
   ABRASE, smooth, blank
   ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly)
   ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse
   ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of
   ACATER, caterer
   ACATES, cates
   ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive
   ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting.  (The word was a fashionable one and used on
   all occasions.  See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii.4)
   ACCOST, draw near, approach
   ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with
   ACME, full maturity
   ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province
   ADJECTION, addition
   ADMIRATION, astonishment
   ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at
   ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained
   ADSCRIVE, subscribe
   ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit
   ADVANCE, life
   ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence
   ADVERTISED, "be --," be it known to you
   ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence
   ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate
   ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you --?" have you found that out?
   AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move
   AFFECTED, disposed; beloved
   AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced
   AFFECTS, affections
   AFFRONT, "give the --," face
   AFFY, have confidence in; betroth
   AFTER, after the manner of
   AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of
   AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon
   AGNOMINATION.  See Paranomasie
   AIERY, nest, brood
   AIM, guess
   ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek
   ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden")
   ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition
   ALMA-CANTARAS (astron.), parallels of altitude
   ALMAIN, name of a dance
   ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope
   ALONE, unequalled, without peer
   ALUDELS, subliming pots
   AMAZED, confused, perplexed
   AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris
   AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458
   AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice
   AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities
   AMUSED, bewildered, amazed
   AN, if
   ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body
   ANDIRONS, fire-dogs
   ANGEL, gold coin worth 10s., stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael
   ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare
   ANSWER, return hit in fencing
   ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon
   ANTIC, like a buffoon
   ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes
   APOZEM, decoction
   AFFERIL, peril
   APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander
   APPLY, attach
   APPREHEND, take into custody
   APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate
   APPROVE, prove, confirm
   APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline
   APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly)
   APTITUDE, suitableness
   ARBOR, "make the --," cut up the game (Gifford)
   ARCHES, Court of Arches
   ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I.
   ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks
   ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver
   ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof
   ARRIDE, please
   ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf
   ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms,
   etc., of Arthur's knights
   ARTICLE, item
   ARTIFICIALLY, artfully
   ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation
   ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for
   ASSALTO (Ital.), assault
   ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the
   hunting-field
   ASSOIL, solve
   ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of
   ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat
   ATONE, reconcile
   ATTACH, attack, seize
   AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence
   AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine
   AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration
   AVOID, begone! get rid of
   AWAY WITH, endure
   AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum

   BABION, baboon
   BABY, doll
   BACK-SIDE, back premises
   BAFFLE, treat with contempt
   BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing
   BALARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance
   BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc.
   BALE (of dice), pair
   BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid
   BALLACE, ballast
   BALLOO, game at ball
   BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels
   are stood for heating
   BANBURY, "brother of __," Puritan
   BANDOG, dog tied or chained up
   BANE, woe, ruin
   BANQUET, a light repast; dessert
   BARB, to clip gold
   BARBEL, fresh-water fish
   BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for
   the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford)
   BARLEY-GREAK, game somewhat similar to base
   BASE, game of prisoner's base
   BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower
   BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye
   BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners
   BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters
   were "carted"
   BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce
   BATOON, baton, stick
   BATTEN, feed, grow fat
   BAWSON, badger
   BEADSMAN, PRAYER-MAN, one engaged to pray for another
   BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy
   BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes
   BEARWARD, bear leader
   BEDPHERE See Phere
   BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the
   bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks of "laths"; a stick used in making
   a bed
   BEETLE, heavy mallet
   BEG, "I'd -- him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for;
   likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged")
   BELL-MAN, night watchman
   BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum
   BERLINA, pillory
   BESCUMBER, defile
   BESLAVE, beslabber
   BESOGNO, beggar
   BESPAWLE, bespatter
   BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary
   BEVER, drinking
   BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated
   BEWAY, reveal, make known
   BEZANT, heraldic term:  small gold circle
   BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison
   BID-STAND, highwayman
   BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap
   BILIVE (belive), with haste
   BILE, nothing, empty talk
   BILL, kind of pike
   BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick
   BIRDING, thieving
   BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot
   BLANK, originally a small French coin
   BLANK, white
   BLANKET, toss in a blanket
   BLAZE, outburst of violence
   BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad
   BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding
   BLIN, "withouten --," without ceasing
   BLOW, puff up
   BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "-- order," "-- waiters"
   BLUSHET, blushing one
   BOB, jest, taunt
   BOB, beat, thump
   BODGE, measure
   BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the
   women fastened up their hair
   BOLT, roll (of material)
   BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub)
   BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation.
   BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches
   BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench"  (Johnson) -- not always
   used in compliment
   BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk
   BOOKHOLDER, prompter
   BOOT, "to --," into the bargain; "no --," of no avail
   BORACHIO, bottle made of skin
   BORDELLO, brothel
   BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through
   BOTTLE (of han), bundle, truss
   BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel
   BOURD, jest
   BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford)
   BOW-POT, flower vase or pot
   BOYE, "terrible --," "angry --," roystering young bucks.  (See Nares)
   BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls
   BRACH, bitch
   BRADAMANTE, a heroine in 'Orlando Furioso'
   BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads
   BRAKE, frame for confining a norse's feet while being shod, or strong curb
   or bridle; trap
   BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of
   the gown" (Gifford)
   BRANDISH, flourish of weapon
   BRASH, brace
   BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech
   BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled)
   BRAVERIES, gallants
   BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel
   BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer
   BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon
   BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise
   BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of
   BREND, burn
   BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast
   BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve
   BRISK, smartly dressed
   BRIZE, breese, gadfly
   BROAD-SEAL, state seal
   BROCK, badger (term of contempt)
   BROKE, transact business as a broker
   BROOK, endure, put up with
   BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar
   BRUIT, rumour
   BUCK, wash
   BUCKLE, bend
   BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats,
   etc.
   BUFO, black tincture
   BUGLE, long-shaped bead
   BULLED, (?) boiled, swelled
   BULLIONS, trunk hose
   BULLY, term of familiar endearment
   BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog
   BURDEN, refrain, chorus
   BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor
   BURGULLION, braggadocio
   BURN, mark wooden measures (" --ing of cans")
   BURROUGH, pledge, security
   BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg
   BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts
   BUTTER, NATHANIEL.  ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news.  (See
   Cunningham)
   BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and
   liquors were stored
   BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought
   BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence
   BUZZARD, simpleton
   BY AND BY, at once
   BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at
   the side
   BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard

   CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand
   CALIVER, light kind of musket
   CALLET, woman of ill repute
   CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford)
   CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled.  (See Nares)
   CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave
   CAMUSED, flat
   CAN, knows
   CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property
   CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late
   CANTER, sturdy beggar
   CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings
   at their coronation; also an heraldic term
   CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression
   CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes"
   CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth
   CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling
   CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck
   CARE, take care; object
   CAROSH, coach, carriage
   CARPET, table-cover
   CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour
   CARWHITCHET, quip, pun
   CASAMATE, casemate, fortress
   CASE, a pair
   CASE, "in --,"  in condition
   CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat
   CAST, flight of hawks, couple
   CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate
   CAST, cashiered
   CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume
   CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon
   CAT, structure used in sieges
   CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede"
   CATASTROPHE, conclusion
   CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer
   CATES, dainties, provisions
   CATSO, rogue, cheat
   CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful
   CENSURE, criticism; sentence
   CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom
   CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead
   CESS, assess
   CHANGE, "hunt --," follow a fresh scent
   CHAPMAN, retail dealer
   CHARACTER, handwriting
   CHARGE, expense
   CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence
   CHARMING, exercising magic power
   CHARTEL, challenge
   CHEAP, bargain, market
   CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment
   CHECK AT, aim reproof at
   CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin
   CHEVEIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable
   CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler
   CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day
   CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail
   CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy
   CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold
   CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation
   CIMICI, bugs
   CINOPER, cinnabar
   CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe
   CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a
   snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares)
   CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything
   pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular
   CITRONISE, turn citron colour
   CITTERN, kind of guitar
   CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress
   CIVIL, legal
   CLAP, clack, chatter
   CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar
   CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was
   carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to
   give sound of their approach
   CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance
   CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble
   CLEM, starve
   CLICKET, latch
   CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance
   CLIMATE, country
   CLOSE, secret, private; secretive
   CLOSENESS, secrecy
   CLOTH, arras, hangings
   CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye
   CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper
   COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds
   COALS, "bear no --," submit to no affront
   COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms
   COAT-CARD, court-card
   COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring
   COB-SWAN, male swan
   COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning
   on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor
   COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill
   by its eye -- used as a term of reproach for a woman
   COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild
   COCKER, pamper
   COCKSCOMB, fool's cap
   COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess
   particular virtues
   CODLING, softening by boiling
   COFFIN, raised crust of a pie
   COG, cheat, wheedle
   COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado
   COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley)
   COKES, fool, gull
   COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards
   COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts
   COLLECTION, composure; deduction
   COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh
   COLLY, blacken
   COLOUR, pretext
   COLOURS, "fear no --," no enemy (quibble)
   COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub
   COME ABOUT, charge, turn round
   COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread
   COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant
   COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale"
   (Bullokar, 1616)

   COMMODITY, "current for --," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who
   forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless
   goods on which the latter had to make money if he could
   COMMUNICATE, share
   COMPASS, "in --," within the range, sphere
   COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting
   or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment
   COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution
   COMPLIMENT, See Complement
   COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments
   COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract
   COMPOSURE, composition
   COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison
   CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the
   dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it
   out, and the courtiers begged for it
   CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion
   CONCEIT, apprehend
   CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of
   intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to
   joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea
   CONCEIVE, understand
   CONCENT, harmony, agreement
   CONCLUDE, infer, prove
   CONCOCT, assimilate, digest
   CONDEN'T, probably conducted
   CONDUCT, escort, conductor
   CONEY-CATCH, cheat
   CONFECT, sweetmeat
   CONFER, compare
   CONGIES, bows
   CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence
   CONSORT, company, concert
   CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence
   CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful
   CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently
   CONTEND, strive
   CONTINENT, holding together
   CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down
   CONVENT, assembly, meeting
   CONVERT, turn (oneself)
   CONVEY, transmit from one to another
   CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict
   COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or
   other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a
   point"
   COPE-MAN, chapman
   COPESMATE, companion
   CORV (Lat. Copia), abundance, copiousness
   CORN ("powder - "), grain
   COROLLARY, finishing part or touch
   CORSIVE, corrosive
   CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc.
   CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as 'Coryat's Crudities'
   COSSET, pet lamb, pet
   COSTARD, head
   COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger
   COSTS, ribs
   COTE, hut
   COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy
   COTQUEAN, hussy
   COUNSEL, secret
   COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing
   COUNTER.  See Compter
   COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play
   COUNTER, "hunt --," follow scent in reverse direction
   COUNTERFEIT, false coin
   COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture
   COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point
   COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp.
   Goodman's 'Court of James I.: "The king...caused his carver to cut him out
   a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part
   of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small
   receptacle
   COURT-DOR, fool
   COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail
   COURTSHIP, courtliness
   COVETISE, avarice
   COWSHARD, cow dung
   COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool
   COY, shrink; disdain
   COYSTREL, low varlet
   COZEN, cheat
   CRACK, lively young rogue, wag
   CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief
   CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word
   CRANCH, craunch
   CRANTON, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers
   to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia")
   CRIMP, game at cards
   CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside
   CRISPED, with curled or waved hair
   CROP, gather, reap
   CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring.  (See N.E.D.)
   CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross
   CROSS AND FILE, heads and tails
   CROSSLET, crucible
   CROWD, fiddle
   CRUDITIES, undigested matter
   CRUMP, curl up
   CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross
   CRY ("he that cried Italian):, "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or
   declaim(?); cry up
   CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc.
   CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation
   CUERPO, "in --," in undress
   CULLICE, broth
   CULLION, base fellow, coward
   CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants
   CULVERIN, kind of cannon
   CUNNING, skill
   CUNNING, skilful
   CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller
   CURE, care for
   CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly)
   (hence "in curious")
   CURST, shrewish, mischievous
   CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort
   CUSTARD, "quaking --," " -- politic," reference to a large custard which
   formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool
   jumped into it, and other like tricks were played.  (See "All's Well, etc."
   ii. 5, 40)
   CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work
   CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent
   material, and when black used for mourning

   DAGGER (" -- frumety"), name of tavern
   DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale
   DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song
   DAW, daunt
   DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency
   DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly
   DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside
   DEFALK, deduct, abate
   DEFEND, forbid
   DEGENEROUS, degenerate
   DEGREES, steps
   DELATE, accuse
   DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds
   DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou
   DEPART, part with
   DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language
   DESERT, reward
   DESIGNMENT, design
   DESPERATE, rash, reckless
   DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against
   DETERMINE, terminate
   DETRACT, draw back, refuse
   DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet
   DEVISE, exact in every particular
   DEVISED, invented
   DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste.  (See
   Pomander)
   DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham)
   DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular
   DIGHT, dressed
   DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning
   DIMBLE, dingle, ravine
   DIMENSUM, stated allowance
   DISBASE, debase
   DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between
   DISCHARGE, settle for
   DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system
   DISCLAIM, renounce all part in
   DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty
   DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy
   DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display
   DISFAVOUR, disfigure
   DISPARGEMENT, legal term supplied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage
   arranged for in the case of wards
   DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for
   DISPLAY, extend
   DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip
   DISPOSED, inclined to merriment
   DISPOSURE, disposal
   DISPRISE, depreciate
   DISPUNCT, not punctilious
   DISQUISITION, search
   DISSOLVED, enervated by grief
   DISTANCE, (?) proper measure
   DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence
   DISTASTE, render distasteful
   DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour
   DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation
   DOG-BOLT, term of contempt
   DOLE, given in dole, charity
   DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces
   DOOM, verdict, sentence
   DOP, dip, low bow
   DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler
   DOR, (?) buzz; "give the --," make a fool of
   DOSSER, pannier, basket
   DOTES, endowments, qualities
   DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool
   DOUBLE, behave deceitfully
   DOXY, wench, mistress
   DRACHM, Greek silver coin
   DRESS, groom, curry
   DRESSING, coiffure
   DRIFT, intention
   DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot
   DUCKING, punishment for minor offences
   DUILL, grieve
   DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody
   DURINDANA, Orlando's sword
   DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed

   EAN, yean, bring forth young
   EASINESS, readiness
   EBOLITION, ebullition
   EDGE, sword
   EECH, eke
   EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent
   EKE, also, moreover
   E-LA, highest note in the scale
   EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand
   ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves
   EMMET, ant
   ENGAGE, involve
   ENGHLE.  See Ingle
   ENGHLE, cajole; fondle
   ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit
   ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter
   ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious
   ENGROSS, monopolise
   ENS, an existing thing, a substance
   ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds
   ENSURE, assure
   ENTERTAIN, take into service
   ENTREAT, plead
   ENTREATY, entertainment
   ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed
   ENVOY, denouement, conclusion
   ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium
   EPHEMERIDES, calendars
   EQUAL, just, impartial
   ERECTION, elevation in esteem
   ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and
   aphrodisiac
   ERRANT, arrant
   ESSENTIATE, become assimilated
   ESTIMATION, esteem
   ESTRICH, ostrich
   ETHNIC, heathen
   EURIPUS, flux and reflux
   EVEN, just equable
   EVENT, fate, issue
   EVENT(ED), issue(d)
   EVERT, overturn
   EXACUATE, sharpen
   EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel
   EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword
   EXEMPLIFY, make an example of
   EXEMPT, separate, exclude
   EXEQUIES, obsequies
   EXHALE, drag out
   EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money
   EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate
   EXORNATION, ornament
   EXPECT, wait
   EXPLATE, terminate
   EXPLICATE, explain, unfold
   EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremediated
   EXTRACTION, essence
   EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose
   EXTRUDE, expel
   EYE, "in --," in view
   EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or
   a person who sold the same (Gifford)
   EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam

   FACE, appearance
   FACES ABOUT, military word of command
   FACINOROUS, extremely wicked
   FACKINGS, faith
   FACT, deed, act, crime
   FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling
   FAECES, dregs
   FAGIOLI, French beans
   FAIN, forced, necessitated
   FAITHFUL, believing
   FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil
   FALSIFY, feign (fencing term)
   FAME, report
   FAMILIAR, attendant spirit
   FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical
   FARCE, stuff
   FAR-FET.  See Fet
   FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat
   FAUCET, tapster
   FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for --," in default of
   FAUTOR, partisan
   FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon
   FEAR(ED), affright(ed)
   FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action
   FEAT, elegant, trim
   FEE, "in --" by feudal obligation
   FEIZE, beat, belabour
   FELLOW, term of contempt
   FENNEL, emblem of flattery
   FERE, companion, fellow
   FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible
   FET, fetched
   FETCH, trick
   FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper
   FEWMETS, dung
   FICO, fig
   FIGGUM, (?) jugglery
   FIGMENT, fiction, invention
   FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "-- up," stir up, rouse; "firks
   mad," suddenly behaves like a madman
   FIT, pay one out, punish
   FITNESS, readiness
   FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention
   FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford)
   FLAG, to fly low and waveringly
   FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck
   (?).  (See N.E.D.)
   FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon
   FLASKET, some kind of basket
   FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind
   FLAWN, custard
   FLEA, catch fleas
   FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively
   FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in
   blood-shed; satiate
   FLICKER-MOUSE, bat
   FLIGHT, light arrow
   FLITTER-MOUSE, bat
   FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously
   FLOWERS, pulverised substance
   FLY, familiar spirit
   FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage
   FOIST, cut-purse, sharper
   FOND(LY), foolish(ly)
   FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a
   horse to the ground
   FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing
   FOPPERY, foolery
   FOR, "-- failing," for fear of failing
   FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from
   FORCE, "hunt at --," run the game down with dogs
   FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery
   FORESLOW, delay
   FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell
   FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright
   FORGED, fabricated
   FORM, state formally
   FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional
   FORTHCOMING, produced when required
   FOUNDER, disable with over-riding
   FOURM, form, lair
   FOX, sword
   FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed
   FRAMFULL, peevish, sour-tempered
   FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler
   FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree
   to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford)
   FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers)
   FREQUENT, full
   FRICACE, rubbing
   FRICATRICE, woman of low character
   FRIPPERY, old clothes shop
   FROCK, smock-frock
   FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at least (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped
   round sweetmeats (Cunningham)
   FRONTLESS, shameless
   FROTED, rubbed
   FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced
   FRUMP, flout, sneer
   FUCUS, dye
   FUGEAND, (?) figment:  flighty, restless (N.E.D.)
   FULLAM, false dice
   FULMART, polecat
   FULSOME, foul, offensive
   FURIBUND, raging, furious

   GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into
   his office at Westminster (Whalley)
   GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time
   GAPE, be eager after
   GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant
   GARB, sheaf (Fr. Gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour
   BARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament
   GARDED, faced or trimmed
   GARNISH, fee
   GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th
   century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property
   equally among his sons (N.E.D.)
   GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings
   GEANCE, jaunt, errand
   GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair
   GELID, frozen
   GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river
   GENERAL, free, affable
   GENIUS, attendant spirit
   GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding
   GIB-CAT, tom-cat
   GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war
   GIGLOT, wanton
   GIMBLET, gimlet
   GING, gang
   GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl
   GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance
   GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe
   GLIDDER, glaze
   GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory
   GODWIT, bird of the snipe family
   GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver
   GOLL, hand
   GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc.
   GOOD, sound in credit
   GOOD-Year, good luck
   GOOSE-TURD, colour of.  (See Turd)
   GORCROW, carrion crow
   GORGET, neck armour
   GOSSIP, godfather
   GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool
   GRANNAM, grandam
   GRASS, (?) grease, fat
   GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome
   GRATIFY, give thanks to
   GRATITUDE, gratuity
   GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate
   GRAVITY, dignity
   GRAY, badger
   GRICE, cub
   GRIEF, grievance
   GRIPE, vulture, griffin
   GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of
   GROAT, fourpence
   GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk
   GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household
   GROPE, handle, probe
   GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments")
   GUARD, caution, heed
   GUARDANT, heraldic term:  turning the head only
   GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d.
   GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red
   GULL, simpleton, dupe
   GUST, taste

   HAB NAB, by, on, chance
   HABERGEON, coat of mail
   HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild
   HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe
   HALL, "a --!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers
   HANDSEL, first money taken
   HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended
   HAP, fortune, luck
   HAPPILY, haply
   HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness
   HAPPY, rich
   HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter
   HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured
   HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing
   to his mouth, indicative of silence
   HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.)
   HARROT, herald
   HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love"
   HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc.
   HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term)
   HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person
   HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked
   HEAD, "first --," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a
   newly-ennobled man
   HEADBOROUGH, constable
   HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out
   HEARTEN, encourage
   HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns
   HECTIC, fever
   HEDGE IN, include
   HELM, upper part of a retort
   HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron
   HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy"
   HOBBY, nag
   HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the
   waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse
   HODDY-DODDY, fool
   HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret?
   Gifford)
   HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists
   HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent
   HOOD-WIND'D, blindfolded
   HORARY, hourly
   HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble)
   HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb
   HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread
   HORSE-COURSES, horse-dealer
   HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital
   HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which related
   his buffooneries and knavish tricks
   HUFF, hectoring, arrogance
   HUFF IT, swagger
   HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher
   HUM, beer and spirits mixed together
   HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar
   HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist
   HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben
   Jonson, and ridiculed by both
   HUMOURS, manners
   HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part
   of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence
   "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry
   HURTLESS, harmless

   IDLE, useless, unprofitable
   ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed
   ILL-HABITED, unhealthy
   ILLUSTRATE, illuminate
   IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping
   IMBROCATA, fencing term:  a thrust in tierce
   IMPAIR, impairment
   IMPART, give money
   IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money
   IMPEACH, damage
   IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies
   IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose
   IMPOSITION, duty imposed by
   IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control
   IMPRESS, money in advance
   IMPULSION, incitement
   IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice
   INCENSE, incite, stir up
   INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness
   of wax
   INCH, "to their --es," according to their stature, capabilities
   INCH-PIN, sweet-bread
   INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity
   INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection)
   INCUBEE, incubus
   INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare
   INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical
   INDENT, enter into engagement
   INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable
   INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic
   INDUCE, introduce
   INDUE, supply
   INEXORABLE, relentless
   INFANTED, born, produced
   INFLAME, augment charge
   INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented
   INGENUITY, ingenuousness
   INGENUOUS, generous
   INGINE.  See Engin
   INGINER, engineer.  (See Enginer)
   INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion
   INHABITABLE, uninhabitable
   INJURY, insult, affront
   IN-MATE, resident, indwelling
   INNATE, natural
   INNOCENT, simpleton
   INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry
   INQUISITION, inquiry
   INSTANT, immediate
   INSTRUMENT, legal document
   INSURE, assure
   INTEGRATE, complete, perfect
   INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news
   INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with
   INTENDMENT, intention
   INTENT, intention, wish
   INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze
   INTENTIVE, attentive
   INTERESSED, implicated
   INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave
   INVINCIBLY, invisibly
   INWARD, intimate
   IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford)

   JACE, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour;
   Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent
   JACK, key of a virginal
   JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances
   JADE, befool
   JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious
   JERKING, lashing
   JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp
   JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act
   introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play
   JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool
   JOLL, jowl
   JOLTHEAD, blockhead
   JUMP, agree, tally
   JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three

   KELL, cocoon
   KELLY, an alchemist
   KEMB, comb
   KEMIA, vessel for distillation
   KIBE, chap, sore
   KILDERKIN, small barrel
   KILL, kiln
   KIND, nature; species; "do one's --," act according to one's nature
   KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat
   KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what
   the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford)
   KIT, fiddle
   KNACK, snap, click
   KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist
   KNITTING CUP, marriage cup
   KNOCKING, striking, weighty
   KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canulus);
   flower-bed laid out in fanciful design
   KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened

   LABOURED, wrought with labour and care
   LADE, load(ed)
   LADING, load
   LAID, plotted
   LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier
   LAP, fold
   LAR, household god
   LARD, garnish
   LARGE, abundant
   LARUM, alarum, call to arms
   LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours
   LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it.
   LAVE, ladle, bale
   LAW, "give --,"  give a start (term of chase)
   LAXATIVE, loose
   LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board
   LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army
   LEASING, lying
   LEAVE, leave off, desist
   LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps leer horse without a rider; leer is
   an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell);
   according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward,
   left

   LEESE, lose
   LEGS, "make --," do obeisance
   LEIGEP, resident representative
   LEIGERITY, legerdemain
   LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram
   LENTER, slower
   LET, hinder
   LET, hindrance
   LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat.
   Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell)
   LEWD, ignorant
   LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth
   LIBERAL, ample
   LIEGER, ledger, register
   LIFT(ING), steal(ing)
   LIGHT, alight
   LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often
   LIKE, please
   LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing
   LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound
   LIMMER, vile, worthless
   LIN, leave off
   Line, "by --," by rule
   LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted
   match for firing cannon
   LIQUID, clear
   LIST, listen, hard; like, please
   LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc.
   LOGGET, small log, stick
   LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow
   LOSE, give over, desist from; waste
   LOUTING, bowing, cringing
   LUCULENT, bright of beauty
   LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill
   LURCH, rob, cheat
   LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement

   MACK, unmeaning expletive
   MADGE_HOWLET or own, barn-owl
   MAIM, hurt, injury
   MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand")
   MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release
   MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting
   MAKE, mate
   MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed)
   MALLANDERS, disease of horses
   MALT HORSE, dray horse
   MAMMET, puppet
   MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child
   MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration
   MANGO, slave-dealer
   MANGONISE, polish up for sale
   MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls
   MANKIND, masculine, like a virago
   MANEIND, humanity
   MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.)
   MARCH PANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc.
   MARK, "fly to the --," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a
   covey of partridges, she takes stand, making the spot where they
   disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her"
   (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226)
   MARLE, marvel
   MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer
   MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name
   MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy = St. Mary of Egypt,
   (N.E.D.)
   MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily
   MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt
   MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew
   tradition
   Mass, abb. for master
   MAUND, beg
   MAUTHER, girl, maid
   MEAN, moderation
   MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one
   MEAT, "carry -- in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment
   MEATH, metheglin
   MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar
   MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and
   amusement
   MEET WITH, even with
   MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach
   MENSTRUE, solvent
   MERCAT, market
   MERD, excrement
   MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated
   MESS, party of four
   METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey
   METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy
   MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between
   MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate
   MILE-END, training-ground of the city
   MINE-MEN, sappers
   MINION, form of cannon
   MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.)
   MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in
   trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New
   Exchange" (Nares)
   MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley
   MISCONCEIT, misconception
   MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding
   MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake
   MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison
   MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence
   MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, common-place
   MOMENT, force or influence of value
   MONTANTO, upward stroke
   MONTH'S MIND, violent desire
   MOORISH, like a moor or waste
   MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton
   MORRICe-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were
   represented
   MORTALITY, death
   MORT-MAL, old score, gangrene
   MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk
   MOTHER, Hysterica passio
   MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures
   on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the
   pendulum" (Whalley)
   MOTION, suggest, propose
   MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining
   to, or like, a fool
   MOTTE, motto
   MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette
   MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain
   MUCH!  expressive of irony and incredulity
   MUCKINDER, handkerchief
   MULE, "born to ride on --," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on
   mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally)
   MULLETS, small pincers
   MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence
   MUN, must
   MUREY, dark crimson red
   MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica
   MUSE, wonder
   MUSICAL, in harmony
   MUSS, mouse; scramble
   MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies"
   MYSTERY, art, trade, profession.

   NAIL, "to the --" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost
   NATIVE, natural
   NEAT, cattle
   NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty
   NEATLY, neatly finished
   NEATNESS, elegance
   NEIS, nose, scent
   NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist
   NEUFT, newt
   NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person
   NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous
   NICENESS, fastidiousness
   NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the --" meaning uncertain
   NICE, suit, fit' hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off
   NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s.8d.
   NOCENT, harmful
   NIL, not will
   NOISE, company of musicians
   NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia
   NONES, nonce
   NOTABLE, egregious
   NOTE, sign, token
   NOUGHT, "be --," go to the devil, be hanged, etc.
   NOWT-HEAD, blockhead
   NUMBER, rhythm
   NUPSON, oaf, simpleton

   OADE, wood
   OBARNI, preparation of mead
   OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose
   OBLATRANT, barking, railing
   OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive
   OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service
   OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious
   OBSERVE, show deference, respect
   OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another
   OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition"
   OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous
   OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied
   ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares)
   OMINOUS, deadly, fatal
   ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis
   ONLY, pre-eminent, special
   OPEN, make public; expound
   OPPILATION, obstruction
   OPPONE, oppose
   OPPOSITE, antagonist
   OFFPRESS, suppress
   ORIGINOUS, native
   ORT, remnant, scrap
   OUT, "to be --." to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other
   OUTCRY, sale by auction
   OUTREGUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption
   OUTSPEAK, speak more than
   OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play
   OWLSPIEGEL.  See Howleglass
   OYEZ!  (O YES!), hear ye!  call of the public crier when about to make a
   proclamation

   PACKING PENNY, "give a --," dismiss, send packing
   PAD, highway
   PAD-HORSE, road-horse
   PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and
   material
   PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking
   PAINT, blush
   PALINODE, ode of recantation
   PALL, weaken, dim, make stale
   PALM, triumph
   PAN, skirt of dress or coat
   PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle
   PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers
   PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in
   provisions, set the table, etc.
   PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper
   PARAMENTOS, fine trappings
   PARANOMASIE, a play upon words
   PARANTORY, (?) peremptory
   PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article
   PARCEL, part, partly
   PARCEL-POET, poetaster
   PARERGA, subordinate matters
   PARGET, to paint or plaster the face
   PARLE, parley
   PARLOUS, clever, shrewd
   PART, apportion
   PARTAKE, participate in
   PARTED, endowed, talented
   PARTICULAR, individual person
   PARTIZAN, kind of halberd
   PARTRICH, partridge
   PARTS, qualities endowments
   PASH, dash, smash
   PASS, care, trouble oneself
   PASSADO, fending term:  a thrust
   PASSAGE, game at dice
   PASSINGLY, exceedingly
   PASSION, effect caused by external agency
   PASSION, "in --," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically
   PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the
   tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American
   name of tobacco
   PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies
   PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go --," keep step with, accompany
   PAUCA VERBA, few words
   PAVIN, a stately dance
   PEACE, "with my master's --," by leave, favour
   PECULIAR, individual, single
   PEDANT, teacher of the languages
   PEEL, baker's shovel
   PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice
   PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly)
   PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation
   PENCIL, small tuft of hair
   PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service
   PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly)
   PERIMETER, circumference of a figure
   PERIOD, limit, end
   PERK, perk up
   PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called
   everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers"
   (Gifford)
   PERSPICIL, optic glass
   PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure
   PERSUADE, inculcate, commend
   PERSWAY, mitigate
   PERTINACY, pertinacity
   PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle
   PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury
   PETITIONARY, supplicatory
   PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gas carried by horsemen
   PETULANT, pert, insolent
   PHERE.  See Fere
   PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water")
   PHRENETIC, madman
   PICARDIL, still upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley)
   PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London
   PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time
   20s. or 22s.
   PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals
   PIED, variegated
   PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to
   administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers
   PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did
   the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer
   PILED, pilled, peeled, bald
   PILL'D, polled, fleeced
   PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person -- perhaps master of a house
   famous for a particular ale" (Gifford)
   PINE, afflict, distress
   PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament
   PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense
   PISMIRE, ant
   PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s.
   PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight
   PLAGUE, punishment, torment
   PLAIN, lament
   PLAIN SONG, simple melody
   PLAISE, plaice
   PLANET, "struck with a --," planets were supposed to have powers of
   blasting or exercising secret influences
   PLAUSIBLE, pleasing
   PLAUSIBLY, approvingly
   PLOT, plan
   PLY, apply oneself to
   POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring
   POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular
   POINTE, tabbed laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet
   POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.)
   POISE, weigh, balance
   POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs
   POLITIC, politician
   POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political
   POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer
   POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion
   POMMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent
   infection, or for foppery
   POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups
   PONTIC, sour
   POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace
   POPULOUS, numerous
   PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot
   PORT, transport
   PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over L3 or f4
   PORTCULLIS, "-- of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their
   reverse (Whalley)
   PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen
   PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening
   PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who
   was... near seven feet high" (Whalley)
   POSSESS, inform, acquaint
   POST AND PAIR, a game at cards
   POSY, motto.  (See Poesie)
   POTCH, poach
   POULT-FOOT, club-foot
   POUNCE, claw, talon
   PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot
   PRACTISE, plot, conspire
   PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent
   PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling
   PRECEDENT, record of proceedings
   PRECEPT, warrant, summons
   PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness
   PREFER, recomment
   PRESENCE, presence chamber
   PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually
   PRESS, force into service
   PREST, ready
   PRETEND, assert, allege
   PREVENT, anticipate
   PRICE, worth, excellence
   PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages
   PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "-- away," make off with
   speed
   PRIMERO, game of cards
   PRINCOX, pert boy
   PRINT, "in --," to the letter, exactly
   PRISTINATE, former
   PRIVATE, private interests
   PRIVATE, privy, intimate
   PROCLIVE, prone to
   PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural
   PRODIGY, monster
   PRODUCED, prolonged
   PROFESS, pretend
   PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to
   turn the melted metal into gold or silver
   PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly
   PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular
   PROPERTIES, state necessaries
   PROPERTY, duty; tool
   PRORUMPED, burst out
   PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare
   non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit,
   etc.
   PROVANT, soldier's allowance -- hence, of common make
   PROVIDE, foresee
   PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence
   PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.)
   PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow
   PUFF-WING, shoulder puff
   PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior
   PULCHRITUDE, beauty
   PUMP, shoe
   PUNGENT, piercing
   PUNTO, point, hit
   PURCEPT, precept, warrant
   PURE, fine, capital, excellent
   PURELY, perfectly, utterly
   PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff
   PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string
   PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant
   officer
   PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness)
   PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.)
   PUT OFF, excuse, shift
   PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try

   QUACKSALVER, quack
   QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever
   QUAR, quarry
   QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey
   QUEAN, hussy, jade
   QUEASY, hazardous, delicate
   QUELL, kill, destroy
   QUEST, request; inquiry
   QUESTION, decision by force of arms
   QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry
   QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip
   QUICK, the living
   QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety
   QUIRK, clever turn or trick
   QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave
   QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses
   QUODLING, codling
   QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck
   QUOTE, take note, observe, write down

   RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell)
   RAKE UP, cover over
   RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc.
   RAPT, carry away
   RAPT, enraptured
   RASCAL, young or inferior deer
   RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk
   RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman
   RAVEN, devour
   REACH, understand
   REAL, regal
   REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar
   RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor
   REDARGUE, confute
   REDUCE, bring back
   REED, rede, counsel, advice
   REEL, run riot
   REFEL, refute
   REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers
   REGIMENT, government
   REGRESSION, return
   REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.)
   RELIGION, "make -- of," make a point of, scruple of
   RELISH, savour
   REMNANT, scrap of quotation
   REMORA, species of fish
   RENDER, depict, exhibit, show
   REPAIR, reinstate
   REPETITION, recital, narration
   REREMOUSE, bat
   RESIANT, resident
   RESIDENCE, sediment
   RESOLUTION, judgment, decision
   RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a
   decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease
   RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative
   RESPECTIVELY, with reverence
   RESPECTLESS, regardless
   RESPIRE, exhale; inhale
   RESPONSIBLE, correspondent
   REST, musket-rest
   REST, "set up one's --," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of
   primero)
   REST, arrest
   RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive
   RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness)
   RETIRE, cause to retire
   RETRICATO, fencing term
   RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung
   RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money
   is received
   REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat
   REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing
   REVISE, reconsider a sentence
   RHEUM, spleen, caprice
   RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman
   RID, destroy, do away with
   RIFLING, raffling, dicing
   RING, "cracked within the --," coins so cracked were unfit for currency
   RISSE, risen, rose
   RIVELLED, wrinkled
   ROARER, swaggerer
   ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind
   ROCK, distaff
   RODOMONTADO, braggadocio
   ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond
   RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel
   ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe
   ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane
   ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor
   ROSES, rosettes
   ROUND, "gentlemen of the --," officers of inferior rank
   ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to
   the knees
   ROUSE, carouse, bumper
   ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance
   ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly
   RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness)
   RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger
   RUG, coarse frieze
   RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug
   RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn
   RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes
   RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour

   SACK, loose, flowing gown
   SADLY, seriously, with gravity
   SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness)
   SAFFI, bailiffs
   ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed
   SAKER, small piece of ordnance
   SALT, leap
   SALT, lascivious
   SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram
   SARABAND, a slow dance
   SATURNALS, began December 17
   SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence
   SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton
   SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt
   SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature
   SAY, sample
   SAY, assay, try
   SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease
   SCALLION, shalot, small onion
   SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave
   to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars.
   His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford)
   SCAPE, escape
   SCARAB, beetle
   SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge
   SCONCE, head
   SCOPE, aim
   SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment)
   SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head
   SCOUR, purge
   SCOURSE, deal, swap
   SCRATCHES, disease of horses
   SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow
   SCRUPLE, doubt
   SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights
   SEALED, stamped as genuine
   SEAM-RENT, ragged
   SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging
   SEAR UP, close by searing, burning
   SEARCED, sifted
   SECRETARY, able to keep a secret
   SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace
   SECURE, confident
   SEELIE, happy, blest
   SEISIN, legal term:  possession
   SELLARY, lewd person
   SEMBLABLY, similarly
   SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary
   SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling
   SENSIBLY, perceptibly
   SENSIVE, sensitive
   SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material
   SERENE, harmful dew of evening
   SERICON, red tincture
   SERVANT, lover
   SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms
   SESTERCE, Roman copper coin
   SET, stake, wager
   SET UP, drill
   SETS, deep plaits of the ruff
   SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of
   the guests
   SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise
   SHIFT, fraud, dodge
   SHIFTER, cheat
   SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock
   SHOT, tavern reckoning
   SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest
   SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay
   SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature
   of pitch and toss
   SHOT-SHARKS, drawers
   SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst
   SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree
   SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to
   indicate his residence
   SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment
   SIGILLA, seal, mark
   SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had
   been silenced, deprived, etc.
   SILLY, simple, harmless
   SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true
   SIMPLES, herbs
   SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from
   the herd, or forced to break covert
   SINGLE, weak, silly
   SINGLE-MONEY, small change
   SINGULAR, unique, supreme
   SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement
   SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindlilng
   SKILL, "it -- a not," matters not
   SEINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster
   SKIRT, tail
   SLEEK, smooth
   SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.)
   SLICK, sleek, smooth
   'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths
   SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick
   SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard
   SLIPPERY, polished and shining
   SLOPS, large loose breeches
   SLOT, print of a stag's foot
   SLUR, put a slur on; chear (by sliding a die in some way)
   SMELT, gull, simpleton
   SNORLE, "perhaps snarl as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham)
   SNOTTERIE, filth
   SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in --," take offence at
   SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for
   placing snuffers in (Halliwell)
   SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors
   SOD, seethe
   SOGGY, soaked, sodden
   SOIL, "take --," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety
   SOL, sou
   SOLDADOES, soldiers
   SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action
   SOOTH, flattery, cajolery
   SOOTHE, flatter, humour
   SOPHISTICATE, adulterate
   SORT, company, party; rank, degree
   SORT, suit, fit; select
   SOUSE, ear
   SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a
   variety of the spelling of 'shu'd': to shu is to scare a bird away."  (See
   his Webster, p. 350)
   SOWTER, cobbler
   SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus
   SPAR, bar
   SPEAK, make known, proclaim
   SPECULATION, power of sight
   SPED, to have fared well, prospered
   SPEECE, species
   SPIGHT, anger, rancour
   SPINNER, spider
   SPINSTRY, lewd person
   SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house
   SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions
   SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood
   SPRUNT, spruce
   SPURGE, foam
   SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s.
   SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the --," exactly.
   STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating
   STAIN, disparagement, disgrace
   STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse
   STALE, make cheap, common
   STALE, approach stealthily or under cover
   STALL, forestall
   STANDARD, suit
   STAPLE, market emporium
   STARK, downright
   STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape
   STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate
   STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford)
   STAY, gag
   STAY, await; detain
   STICKLER, second or umpire
   STIGMATISE, mark, brand
   STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly)
   STINKARD, stinking fellow
   STINT, stop
   STIPTIC, astringent
   STOCCATA, thrust in fencing
   STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish
   STOMACH, pride, valour
   STOMACH, resent
   STOOP, swoop down as a hawk
   STOP, fill, stuff
   STOPPLE, stopper
   STOTE, stoat, weasel
   STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow
   STRAIGHT, straightway
   STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust
   STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar
   STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour
   STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand
   STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597
   STRIKE, balance (accounts)
   STRINGHALT, disease of horses
   STROKER, smoother, flatterer
   STROOK, p.p. of "strike"
   STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummed is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose
   and dishevelled head of hair"
   STUDIES, studious efforts
   STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets
   SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft
   SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device
   SUBURB, connected with loose living
   SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women
   SUCK, extract money from
   SUFFERANCE, suffering
   SUMMED, term of falconry:  with full-grown plumage
   SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty
   SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous
   SUPPLE, to make pliant
   SURBATE, make sore with walking
   SURCEASE, cease
   SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence
   SURVISE, peruse
   SUSCITABILITY, excitability
   SUSPECT, suspicion
   SUSPEND, suspect
   SUSPENDED, held over for the present
   SUTLER, victualler
   SWAD, clown, boor
   SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes
   SWINGE, beat

   TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds
   TABLE(S), "pair of --," tablets, note-book
   TABOR, small drum
   TABRET, tabor
   TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric
   TAINT, "-- a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or
   dishonourable manner
   TAKE IN, capture, subdue
   TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you
   TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow
   TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency
   TALL, stout, brave
   TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits
   TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester
   TARTAROUS, like a Tartar
   TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a --," get drunk
   TELL, count
   TELL-TROTH, truth-teller
   TEMPER, modify, soften
   TENDER, show regard, care for cherish; manifest
   TENT, "take --," take heed
   TERSE, swept and polished
   TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or
   division of a country" (Gifford)
   TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d.
   THIRDBOROUGH, constable
   THREAD, quality
   THREAVES, droves
   THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth
   THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated
   THRIFTILY, carefully
   THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from
   THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about
   in various ornaments or parts of dress
   TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe
   TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon
   TIGHTLY, promptly
   TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity
   TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable
   TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be
   transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency
   TINK, tinkle
   TIPPET, "turn --," change behaviour or way of life
   TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal
   TIRE, head-dress
   TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey
   TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume
   TOD, fox
   TOILED, worn out, harassed
   TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was
   scarce
   TONNELS, nostrils
   TOP, "parish --," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in
   frosty weather when people were out of work
   TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument
   TOUSE, pull, read
   TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand
   TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt
   TRACT, attraction
   TRAIN, allure, entice
   TRANSITORY, transmittable
   TRANSLATE, transform
   TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares)
   TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor
   TREEN, wooden
   TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food
   TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed
   TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry:  to draw outline of coat of arms, etc.,
   without blazoning
   TRIG, a spruce, dandified man
   TRILL, trickle
   TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing
   TRIPOLY, "come from --," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest
   nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford)
   TRITE, worn, shabby
   TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate)
   TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief
   TROLL, sing loudly
   TROMP, trump, deceive
   TROPE, figure of speech
   TROW, think, believe, wonder
   TROWLE, troll
   TROWSES, breeches, drawers
   TRUCHMAN, interpreter
   TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer
   TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along
   TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford)
   TRUNK, speaking-tube
   TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet
   TUBICINE, trumpeter
   TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet
   TUITION, guardianship
   TUMBLE, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting
   TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches
   TURD, excrement
   TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.)
   TWIRE, peep, twinkle
   TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery
   TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room

   ULENSPIEGEL.  See Howleglass
   UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow
   UMBRE, brown dye
   UNBATED, unabated
   UNBORED, (?) excessively bored
   UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh
   UNCOUTH, strange, unusual
   UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to
   carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes
   surety for
   UNEQUAL, unjust
   UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at
   UNFEARED, unaffrighted
   UNHAPPILY, unfortunately
   UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison
   UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly)
   UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry)
   UNQUIT, undischarged
   UNREADY, undressed
   UNRUDE, rude to an extreme
   UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe
   UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with
   fine thread
   UNTIMELY, unseasonably
   UNVALUABLE, invaluable
   UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach
   UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "-- Dutch," in the Dutch fashion
   UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song
   URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator
   URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog
   USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical
   application of doctrine
   USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest
   USQUEBAUGH, whisky
   USURE, usury
   UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale

   VAIL, bow, do homage
   VAILS, tips, gratuities
   VALL.  See Vail
   VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag
   VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses,
   often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition,
   whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc.
   VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace
   VAUT, vault
   VEER (naut.), pay out
   VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour
   VELLUTE, velvet
   VELVET CUSTARD.  Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin,"
   coffin being the raised crust over a pie
   VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent snuff up
   VENUE, bout (fencing term)
   VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner
   VERGE, "in the --," within a certain distance of the court
   VEX, agitate, torment
   VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a
   puppet (Gifford)
   VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one.

   VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms
   VINDICATE, avenge
   VIRGE, wand, rod
   VIRGINAL, old form of piano
   VIRTUE, valour
   VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily
   VIZARD, mask
   VOGUE, rumour, gossip
   VOICE, vote
   VOID, leave, quit
   VOLARY, cage, aviary
   VOLLEY, "at --," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis)
   VORLOFFE, furlough

   WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the
   'Apollo' room (Whalley)
   WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or
   old form of "hautboys"
   WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares)
   WARD, a famous pirate
   WARD, guard in fencing
   WATCHET, pale, sky blue
   WEAL, welfare
   WEED, garment
   WEFT, waif
   WEIGHTS, "to the gold --," to every minute particular
   WELKIN, sky
   WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech
   WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel
   WELT, hem, border of fur
   WHER, whether
   WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?)
   WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the --," inhaling the tobacco smoke or
   some such accomplishment
   WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings
   WHIMSY, whim, "humour"
   WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly
   WHIT, (?) a mere jot
   WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs
   WICKED, bad, clumsy
   WICKER, pliant, agile
   WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster)
   WINE, "I have the -- for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the
   office) which you are to share (Cunningham)
   WINNY, "same as old word 'wonne', to stay, etc." (Whalley)
   WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller
   WISH, recommend
   WISS (WUSSE), "I --," certainly, of a truth
   WITHHOUT, beyond
   WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever
   WOOD, collection, lot
   WOODCOCK, term of contempt
   WOOLSACK ("-- pies"), name of tavern
   WORT, unfermented beer
   WOUNDY, great, extreme
   WREAK, revenge
   WROUGHT, wrought upon
   WUSSE, interjection.  (See Wiss)

   YEANLING, lamb, kid

   ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his
   tricks






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