The throng and press of men? Must every place
Become a theatre, where I seek shelter,
And solitudes become markets, 'cause I'm there?
Good sir, I know your tricks; you would entrap:
This is your snare, not your request.
He's nois'd about for a deep-searching head.
I'll pawn my life 'tis a trick.
You do not do it handsomely. You think
Y' have met with fools, I warrant.
For fortunes, my intentions are most fair.
You do me wrong, to think that I'd wrong you.
I met with, what you now desire, a strange
New way of winning, but yet very sure.
Were not the danger great, I'd——
I will betray myself or you, whom I
Esteem above myself? I have as yet
One hundred left, some part of which——
These times require advice: if it should come
Unto the council's ear once, he might be
Sent into other kingdoms, to win up
Money for the relief o' th' state, and so
Be as it were an honest kind of exile.
Money to pay my ordinary: may I
At my last stake (when there is nothing else
To lose the game) throw ames-ace[170] thrice together!
I'll give you forty pound in hand——
Show you the virtue of't, though not the thing:
I love my country very well. Your high
And low men are but trifles;[171] your pois'd dye,
That's ballasted with quicksilver or gold,
Is gross to this——
Not worth that hand that guides it: toys fit only
For clerks to win poor costermongers' ware with.
Your hollowed thumb join'd with your wriggled box—
The slur and suchlike are not to be talk'd of;
They're open to the eye. For cards, you may
Without the help of any secret word
Or a false hand, without the cut or shuffle,
Or the pack'd trick, have what you will yourself;
There's none to contradict you.
But to instruct me, here is fourscore pound.
Command each term by art as much as will
Furnish a navy. Had you but five pound
Left you in all the world, I'd undertake
Within one fortnight you should see five thousand.
Not that I covet any of your dross,
But that the power of this art may be
More demonstrably evident, leave in
My hands all but some smaller sum to set,
Something to stake at first.
If you but seem to trust him. [Aside.
Down in your hands all but this little portion,
Which I reserve for a foundation.
Presume your lips are sealed up to silence,
Take that, which I did never yet discover:
So help you fortune, me philosophy.
(I must intreat your absence, Master Shape.) [Exit Shape.
I do presume you know the strength and power
That lies in fancy.
The little Ethiop infant would have been
Black in his cradle,[172] had he not been first
White in the mother's strong imagination.
'Tis thought the hairy child, that's shown about,
Came by the mother's thinking on the picture
Of Saint John Baptist in his camel's coat.
See we not beasts conceive, as they do fancy
The present colours plac'd before their eyes?
We owe pied colts unto the varied horse-cloth,
And the white partridge to the neighbouring snow.
Fancy can save or kill: it hath clos'd up
Wounds,[173] when the balsam could not; and without
The aid of salves, to think hath been a cure.
For witchcraft then, that's all done by the force
Of mere imagination. That which can
Alter the course of nature, I presume,
You'll grant shall bear more rule in petty hazards.
In the most simple; they being easiest won
To the most firm belief, who understand not
Why[174] 'tis they do believe. If they think 'twill
Be so, it will be so: they do command
And check the course of fortune: they may stop
Thunder, and make it stand, as if arrested
In its mid-journey. If that such a one
Shall think you'll win, you must win: 'tis a due,
That nature pays those men in recompense
Of her deficiency that, whate'er they think,
Shall come to pass. But now the hardest will be
To find out one that's capable of thinking.
To work this your design by: let me owe you
The whole and entire courtesy.
The powerfull'st that way I e'er found yet:
He will but think he shall be abus'd in such
A company, and he's abus'd: he will
Imagine only that he shall be cheated,
And he is cheated: all still comes to pass.
He's but one pin above a natural: but——
Shall have my farm outright now. What's a piece
Of dirty earth to me? a clod! a turf!
As doth deserve supplies, I'll do my best
To win him o'er awhile into your service.
But undervalue this great courtesy.
Sir, give me leave to think and worship. Stay:
First, will I beggar all the gentlemen
That do keep terms; then build with what I win.
Next, I'll undo all gaming citizens,
And purchase upon that. The foreman shall
Want of his wonted opportunities;
Old Thomas shall keep home, I warrant him.
I will ascend to the groom-porters next,
Fly higher games, and make my mincing knights
Walk musing in their knotty freeze abroad;
For they shall have no home. There shall not be
That pleasure but I'll balk: I'll run o'er Nature;
And when I've ransack'd her, I'll weary art:
My means, I'm sure, will reach it. Let me see,
'Twill yearly be—by heaven, I know not what——
You shall ne'er know what angels, pieces, pounds,
Those names of want and beggary, mean: your tongue
Shall utter nought but millions; you shall measure,
Not count your moneys; your revenues shall
Be proud and insolent, and unruly;
They shall increase above your conquer'd spendings,
In spite of their excess. Your care shall be
Only to tame your riches, and to make them
Grow sober and obedient to your use.
Build a cathedral next in Banbury;[175]
Give organs to each parish in the kingdom;
And so root out th' unmusical elect.
I'll pay all soldiers, whom their captains won't;
Raise a new hospital for those maim'd people
That have been hurt in gaming: then build up
All colleges that ruin hath demolish'd,
Or interruption left unperfect.
Never be done, I think, unless you do it.
Provide the wealthiest gamesters: there's but one
That can do us wrong—discovery.
You have no enemy but frailty.
And silence are loud names compar'd with me.
Without resistance. Go, be close and happy. [Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
Andrew, Meanwell.
I could have never lost it else so strangely.
Your handsomeness will now appear the better.
But that he had a patch upon his cheek
And a black beard, I should have sworn 'twere he:
It was somebody in his clothes, I'm sure.
His cloak and suit too!
Pyes take him! doth he play for cloaks still? Surely
He hath a fly only to win good clothes.
Enter Shape.
The second time that he hath cheated me;
My very best suit that I had!
What, lost your cloak and suit? A jest, I vow;
I vow, a pretty jest. 'Odsnigs, I guess'd so;
I saw him have it on: it made him look as like you,
As like you—'tis a rogue, a mere decoy. [Aside.
me?
He hath his own clothes on. D' y' think that I
Would call him so when he is in your suit?
To quarrel? Speak, good tutor.
Of yours will be th' undoing of you, if
You use't no better.
Have broke a witty jest upon him, being
I've lost my cloak.
And then you know that is not lawful wit.
Enter Hearsay.
They have some business with you.
[Exit Shape.
SCENE V.
To them Sir Thomas Bitefig, Credulous.
Whither do you steal now? What! Where's your cloak?
Thou hast the readiest invention
To put off anything: thou hadst it from
Thy mother, I'll be sworn: 't ne'er came from me.
Should once perceive that he were given to gaming,
'Twould make him break the match off presently.
If you please to accept him.
Give me away for this: try me once more.
You'll make him an estate convenient.
He hath one fault: he's something covetous.
He hath a house, although he came of none.
His grandfather was a good livery-man,
Paid scot and lot, old Timothy Credulous
My father—though I say it, that should not.
'Tis a mere name, a sound.
Just like yourself: methinks he's noble
That's truly rich. Men may talk much of lines,
Of arms, of blood, of race, of pedigree:
Houses, descents and families; they are
But empty noise, God knows; the idle breath
Of that puff nothing, honour; formal words,
Fit for the tongues of men that ne'er knew yet
What stem, what gentry, nay, what virtue lies
In great revenues.
You may work on my daughter, and prevail
For that young stripling. 'Tis a foolish wench,
An unexperienc'd girl; she'd like to have been
Caught by Sir Robert Littleworth's son, if that
I had not banish'd him my house; a youth
Honest enough, I think, but that he's poor;
Born to more name than fortune.
For ever wooing. I have laid his father
Out of harm's way; there's picking meat for him,
And God knows where he's gone: he hath not been
Seen this long while; he's, sure, turn'd vagabond;
No sight of him since the arrest of his father.
Andrew, address yourself to good Sir Thomas.
Thou can'st not compliment, but in caparisons.
But that I can't, my losses do so vex me.
To-morrow I shall have one—give me leave
Barely to say I am your servant, sir——
In hose and doublet.
To idle spendings, and so cross the match.
I will invite him as to myself.
As be a guest to-morrow here, we shall
Study hereafter to deserve the favour.
Yet to accept your courtesy, good friends,
I'll break my wonted custom.
With a free heart.
I do assure you, I'd not venture hither. [Exeunt.
FOOTNOTES:
[137] i.e., Prize [or acquisition.]—Collier.
[138] March-pane was a confection made of pistachio nuts, almonds, sugar, &c., formerly in high esteem, and a constant article in the deserts of our ancestors. See the notes of Dr Gray, Mr Hawkins, and Mr Steevens, to "Romeo and Juliet," act i. sc. 5.
[139] This is called a St Stephen's pudding: it used formerly to be provided at St John's College, Cambridge, uniformly on St Stephen's day.—Pegge.
[140] See [Suckling's Works, by Hazlitt, ii. 33.]
[141] Or, caveare. Giles Fletcher, in his "Russe Commonwealth," 1591, p. 11, says: "In Russia they have divers kinds of fish, very good and delicate: as the Bellouga or Bellougina, of four or five elnes long; the Ostrina or Sturgeon, but not so thicke nor long. These four kinds of fish breed in the Volgha, and are catched in great plenty, and served thence into the whole realme for a great food. Of the roes of these foure kinds, they make very great store of Icary, or caveary."
The introduction of these foreign delicacies is ridiculed by several writers of the times; as Ben Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels," act iii. sc. 1: "Come; let us go and taste some light dinner, a dish of sliced caviare, or so."
And in Marston's "What you Will," act ii. sc. 1—
A button'd frizado sute; scarce eate good meate,
Anchovies, caviare, but hee's satired,
And term'd phantasticall."
[142] The malacoton is one of the late peaches. So in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair"—
—Steevens.
[143] Olived is a term of cookery. In Murrell's "New Book of Cookery," [1630,] is a receipt to make an olive-pie to be eaten hot. Olives are collops of any meat.—Steevens.
[144] Cartwright has fetched most of his antiquated terms from Chaucer. I have therefore given the explanation of them from Mr Tyrwhitt's excellent glossary on that author.
[145] [For God's sake.]
[146] Snub, reprove.—T.
[147] Think, suppose.—T.
[148] A prater.—T.
[149] Fr. Goliardus, or Goliardensis, Lat. "This jovial sect seems to have been so called from Golias, the [representative] name of a man of wit, toward the end of the 12th century, [under which pass] "Apocalypsis Goliæ" and other pieces, in burlesque Latin rhymes, some of which have been falsely attributed to Walter Mapes. In several authors of the 13th century, quoted by Du Cange, the Goliardi are classed with the joculatores or buffones."—T. [See "Poems of Walter Mapes," edit. Wright, p. ix. et seq.]
[150] Left.—T.
[151] So in Chaucer's "Reve's Prologue," v. 3880—
On this last line Mr Tyrwhitt observes: "There is so great a resemblance between this line and the following in 'Gray's Elegy,' [edit. Mitford, i. 106]—
that I should certainly have considered the latter as an imitation, if Mr Gray himself had not referred us to the 169 (170) sonnet of Petrarch, as his original 'Ch'i veggio nel pensier,' &c.
[152] Surely.—T.
[153] Very ill.—T.
[154] Uncertain.—T.
[155] Unspotted.—T.
[156] Wantonness.—T.
[157] Jargon, chattering.—T.
[158] Spotted.—T.
[159] Call, name.—T.
[160] A nurse.—T.
[161] [Might.]
[162] Is she called.—T.
[163] Dreamed.—T.
[164] Tremble or quake.—T.
[165] Dream.—T.
[166] Combeth.—T.
[167] Pick as a hawk does his feathers.—T.
[168] Worthy.—T.
[169] Named.—T.
[170] ["Both aces, the lowest throw upon the dice."—Dyce's "Shakespeare Glossary," 1868.]
[171] High men and low men are false dice. See Florio's "Dictionary," 1598, v. Pise. These terms so very oft occur in our ancient dramatic writers, that to quote examples would be endless.
[172] The epithet black does not agree with Sir Kenelm Digby's "Discourse touching the Cure of Wounds by the Power of Sympathy," 4th edition, 1664, p. 104: "I told her sundry stories upon this subject; as that of the Queen of Ethiopia, who was delivered of a white boy; which was attributed to a picture of the Blessed Virgin, which she had always near the tester of her bed, whereunto she bore great devotion. I urged another, of a woman who was brought to bed of a child all hairy, because of a portrait of St John the Baptist in the wilderness, where he wore a coat of camel's hair."
Perhaps the original reading is the true one, and the corruption lies in the former line. I would read—
The little Ethiop infant would have been
Black in his cradle, had he not been first
White in the mother's strong imagination."
The compositor's eye might have caught had not from the following line—a very common accident. Without this emendation we have too much of not and had not in the course of three verses.—Steevens's note (altered.) [Cartwright and Digby probably derived the story of the Ethiop mother and her white offspring from a common source; but Digby's work was not published till several years after Cartwright's death.]
[173] See Sir Kenelm Digby's "Discourse," p. 6.
[174] [Old copy, who. Mr Collier's correction.]
[175] From Bishop Corbet's "Iter Boreale," this town appears to have been inhabited chiefly by Puritans. Mr Dodd, mentioned in act iv. sc. 3, was minister there.
ACT III, SCENE I.
Brenning[178] in fire of little Cupido.
I no where hoart yfeel but on mine head.
Huh, huh, huh, so; ycapred very wele.
I am thine leek, thou Chaucer eloquent;
Mine head is white, but, O, mine taile is green.
This is the palyes, where mine lady wendeth.
Saint Francis[179] and Saint Benedight,
Blesse this house from wicked wight;
From the night-mare and the goblin,
That is hight Good-fellow Robin;
Keep it from all evil spirits,
Fairies, weazels, rats, and ferrets:
From curfew-time
To the next prime.
Come forth, mine duck, mine bride, mine honeycomb;
Come forth, mine cinnamon.
Enter Mistress Potluck.
So fresh thou art, and therewith so lycand.[180]
I cannot boast of that slight-fading gift
You men call beauty; all my handsomeness
Is my good-breeding and my honesty.
I could plant red where you now yellow see;
But painting shows an harlot.
I'd have him know't, I scorn to be his harlot.
I never yet did take press-money to
Serve under any one.
Werme kiss! Thine lips ytaste like marrow-milk;
Me-thinketh that fresh butter runneth on them.
I grant well now, I do enduren woe,
As sharp as doth the Tityus in hell,
Whose stomach fowls do tyren[182] ever more,
That highten vultures, as do tellen clerks.
What 'tis you said. Now see the fortune on't;
We do know one another's souls already;
The other must needs follow. Where's your dwelling?
Wights clepen Robert Moth; now Aldersgate[183]
Is hoten so from one that Aldrich hight;
Or else of elders, that is, ancient men;
Or else of aldern-trees, which growden there;
Or else, as heralds say, from Aluredus:
But whencesoe'er this yate[184] ycalled is,
There dwelleth Robert Moth, thine paramour.
Can be to you?
From whence comes We'nsday, that is, Woden'sday,
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep,
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre; I'll be as faithful to thee,
As Chaunticleer to Madam Partelot.[185]
As true a heart as ever widow gave.
Give to thee, Joan Potluck, my bigg'st cramp-ring:[187]
Under my foot to hell, above my head to heaven;
And to witnesse[188] that this is sooth,
I bite thy red lip with my tooth.
I hope they will be join'd hereafter.
[Exit Potluck.