"We such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad,
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."
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.
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.
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.
(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.
J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;
Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden;
Shakespeare Society, 1842;
ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;
Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.
EPICOENE; OR, THE SILENT WOMAN
TO THE TRULY NOBLE BY ALL TITLES SIR FRANCIS STUART
Sir,
My hope is not so nourished by example, as it will conclude, this dumb piece should please you, because it hath pleased others before; but by trust, that when you have read it, you will find it worthy to have displeased none. This makes that I now number you, not only in the names of favour, but the names of justice to what I write; and do presently call you to the exercise of that noblest, and manliest virtue; as coveting rather to be freed in my fame, by the authority of a judge, than the credit of an undertaker. Read, therefore, I pray you, and censure. There is not a line, or syllable in it, changed from the simplicity of the first copy. And, when you shall consider, through the certain hatred of some, how much a man's innocency may be endangered by an uncertain accusation; you will, I doubt not, so begin to hate the iniquity of such natures, as I shall love the contumely done me, whose end was so honourable as to be wiped off by your sentence.
Your unprofitable, but true Lover,
BEN JONSON.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
MOROSE, a Gentleman that loves no noise.
SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE, a Knight, his Nephew.
NED CLERIMONT, a Gentleman, his Friend.
TRUEWIT, another Friend.
SIR JOHN DAW, a Knight.
SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE, a Knight also.
THOMAS OTTER, a Land and Sea Captain.
CUTBEARD, a Barber.
MUTE, one of MOROSE's Servants.
PARSON.
Page to CLERIMONT.
EPICOENE, supposed the Silent Woman.
LADY HAUGHTY, LADY CENTAURE, MISTRESS DOL MAVIS, Ladies Collegiates.
MISTRESS OTTER, the Captain's Wife, MISTRESS TRUSTY, LADY HAUGHTY'S Woman, Pretenders.
Pages, Servants, etc.
SCENE — LONDON.
PROLOGUE
Truth says, of old the art of making plays
Was to content the people; and their praise
Was to the poet money, wine, and bays.
But in this age, a sect of writers are,
That, only, for particular likings care,
And will taste nothing that is popular.
With such we mingle neither brains nor breasts;
Our wishes, like to those make public feasts,
Are not to please the cook's taste, but the guests'.
Yet, if those cunning palates hither come,
They shall find guests' entreaty, and good room;
And though all relish not, sure there will be some,
That, when they leave their seats, shall make them say,
Who wrote that piece, could so have wrote a play,
But that he knew this was the better way.
For, to present all custard, or all tart,
And have no other meats, to bear a part.
Or to want bread, and salt, were but course art.
The poet prays you then, with better thought
To sit; and, when his cates are all in brought,
Though there be none far-fet, there will dear-bought,
Be fit for ladies: some for lords, knights, 'squires;
Some for your waiting-wench, and city-wires;
Some for your men, and daughters of Whitefriars.
Nor is it, only, while you keep your seat
Here, that his feast will last; but you shall eat
A week at ord'naries, on his broken meat:
If his muse be true,
Who commends her to you.
Was to content the people; and their praise
Was to the poet money, wine, and bays.
But in this age, a sect of writers are,
That, only, for particular likings care,
And will taste nothing that is popular.
With such we mingle neither brains nor breasts;
Our wishes, like to those make public feasts,
Are not to please the cook's taste, but the guests'.
Yet, if those cunning palates hither come,
They shall find guests' entreaty, and good room;
And though all relish not, sure there will be some,
That, when they leave their seats, shall make them say,
Who wrote that piece, could so have wrote a play,
But that he knew this was the better way.
For, to present all custard, or all tart,
And have no other meats, to bear a part.
Or to want bread, and salt, were but course art.
The poet prays you then, with better thought
To sit; and, when his cates are all in brought,
Though there be none far-fet, there will dear-bought,
Be fit for ladies: some for lords, knights, 'squires;
Some for your waiting-wench, and city-wires;
Some for your men, and daughters of Whitefriars.
Nor is it, only, while you keep your seat
Here, that his feast will last; but you shall eat
A week at ord'naries, on his broken meat:
If his muse be true,
Who commends her to you.
ANOTHER.
The ends of all, who for the scene do write,
Are, or should be, to profit and delight.
And still't hath been the praise of all best times,
So persons were not touch'd, to tax the crimes.
Then, in this play, which we present to-night,
And make the object of your ear and sight,
On forfeit of yourselves, think nothing true:
Lest so you make the maker to judge you,
For he knows, poet never credit gain'd
By writing truths, but things (like truths) well feign'd.
If any yet will, with particular sleight
Of application, wrest what he doth write;
And that he meant, or him, or her, will say:
They make a libel, which he made a play.
Are, or should be, to profit and delight.
And still't hath been the praise of all best times,
So persons were not touch'd, to tax the crimes.
Then, in this play, which we present to-night,
And make the object of your ear and sight,
On forfeit of yourselves, think nothing true:
Lest so you make the maker to judge you,
For he knows, poet never credit gain'd
By writing truths, but things (like truths) well feign'd.
If any yet will, with particular sleight
Of application, wrest what he doth write;
And that he meant, or him, or her, will say:
They make a libel, which he made a play.
ACT 1.
SCENE 1.1.
A ROOM IN CLERIMONT'S HOUSE.
ENTER CLERIMONT, MAKING HIMSELF READY, FOLLOWED BY HIS PAGE.
CLER: Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy?
PAGE: Yes, sir.
CLER: Let me hear it.
PAGE: You shall, sir, but i'faith let nobody else.
CLER: Why, I pray?
PAGE: It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir;
besides me a perfect deal of ill-will at the mansion you wot of,
whose lady is the argument of it; where now I am the welcomest
thing under a man that comes there.
CLER: I think, and above a man too, if the truth were rack'd out
of you.
PAGE: No, faith, I'll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with
me, and throw me on the bed; and carry me in to my lady; and she
kisses me with her oil'd face; and puts a peruke on my head; and
asks me an I will wear her gown? and I say, no: and then she
hits me a blow o' the ear, and calls me Innocent! and lets me go.
CLER: No marvel if the door be kept shut against your master, when
the entrance is so easy to you—well sir, you shall go there no
more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady's rushes, a
fortnight hence. Sing, sir.
PAGE [SINGS]: Still to be neat, still to be drest—
[ENTER TRUEWIT.]
TRUE: Why, here's the man that can melt away his time and never
feels it! What between his mistress abroad, and his ingle at
home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle; he
thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well,
sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or
condemn'd to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin
then to think, and value every article of your time, esteem it
at the true rate, and give all for it.
CLER: Why what should a man do?
TRUE: Why, nothing; or that which, when it is done, is as idle.
Harken after the next horse-race or hunting-match; lay wagers,
praise Puppy, or Pepper-corn, White-foot, Franklin; swear upon
Whitemane's party; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you;
visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character
of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things
wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for
company.
CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come,
the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads
and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on
'em then; and we'll pray and fast.
TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our
want of ability will not let us employ in evil!
CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough.
TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to
effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because
it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock
ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery
indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the
matter still.
CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now—
TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain,
that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give
our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it
to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves?
CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such
tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill
spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and
ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity
alone, till thou mak'st sermons.
TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as
little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his
will, certainly. When were you at the college?
CLER: What college?
TRUE: As if you knew not!
CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday.
TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation,
sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the
collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams,
that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the
wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or
up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most
masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day
gain to their college some new probationer.
CLER: Who is the president?
TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty.
CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man
can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has
painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here;
and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made
a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject.
PAGE. [SINGS.]
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd;
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Then all the adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing
before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a
delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every
hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If
she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good
legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often;
practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows;
paint, and profess it.
CLER: How? publicly?
TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many
things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady
should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor,
when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred
within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their
false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You
see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover
how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal.
How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people
suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude
stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should
Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and
finish'd.
CLER: Well said, my Truewit.
TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that
she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a
chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd
at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way.
CLER: O prodigy!
TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour
with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk
from the t'other side.
CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her.
TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you
please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie?
CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is
very melancholy, I hear.
TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of
formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps
on his head, buckled over his ears.
CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no
noise, man.
TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it
is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the
fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between
them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in.
CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot
endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one.
TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous.
CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the
parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice
once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the
rest were quit.
TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys.
CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of
him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one
night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him
down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him
flourishing with the air.
PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both
ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these
common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him
in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him.
He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without
action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the
dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did;
and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was
sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to
the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had
his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his
way at my request.
TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells?
CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every
Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of
the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a
room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close
shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away
a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd.
And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers
soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who
comes here!
[ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.]
DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb?
TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine
uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of.
DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my
sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that
predicament I am with him.
TRUE: How is that?
DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and
my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are
told of him.
TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose
deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee
what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed:
and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf,
and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he
cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son?
DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry.
TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will
venture on a wife?
CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick,
yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to
hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any
quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry
enough, he says.
TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none.
CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street
to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that
spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have
her.
TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business?
CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that
tells Dauphine all here.
TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and
love no noise!
CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the
knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a
barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of
his counsel.
TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench?
CLER: Yes, that they are.
TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither.
DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith.
TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir;
we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give
out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break
it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without
cause, to torment him.
DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall
never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy
of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent.
TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of
his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot.
Innocent!—I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent
still.
CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where
sir John Daw lies.
TRUE: You do not mean to confound me!
CLER: Why?
TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much?
CLER: I cannot tell.
TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him.
CLER: Why?
TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw!
and he teach her not to speak!—God be wi' you.
* I have some business too.
CLER: Will you not go thither, then?
TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears.
CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms.
TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance.
CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar.
TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that
pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of
books in him!
CLER: The world reports him to be very learned.
TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him.
CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him.
TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that:
would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman.
[EXIT HASTILY.]
CLER: This is very abrupt!
DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus.
CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow.
DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for
secrets.
CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been
well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily.
DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried,
it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I
am for you.
CLER: When were you there?
DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace
never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the
wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires
that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in
verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man
made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is
not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state.
CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water,
boy.
[EXIT PAGE.]
DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came
thither to him, sir La-Foole.
CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin.
DAUP: Do you know him?
CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once,
though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is
one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute
a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when
he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a
masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and
invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they
ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose:
or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the
Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents,
some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at.
He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber,
for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait.
DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much
finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot.
[RE-ENTER PAGE.]
CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole.
PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name.
CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life.
DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up.
CLER: Boy, marshal him.
PAGE: With a truncheon, sir?
CLER: Away, I beseech you.
[EXIT PAGE.]
I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to
dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his
fortunes: with a breath.
[ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.]
LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont!
CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your
presence.
LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging
as mine.
CLER: Not so, sir.
LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am
come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three
ladies, to dinner, to-day.
CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes?
LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company.
CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe
it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible
boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day.
LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested
with any man.
CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast?
LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir.
PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he?
LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had
command both by sea and by land.
PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium?
LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers
visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands
all at home.
CLER: Then she is captain Otter.
LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the
mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake.
PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex?
LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London.
CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.]
LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the
La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south—we are
as ancient a family as any is in Europe—but I myself am descended
lineally of the French La-Fooles—and, we do bear for our coat
yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four
colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been
solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house—but let that go,
antiquity is not respected now.—I had a brace of fat does sent me,
gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of
godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they
are good, and in good company:—there will be a great lady, or two,
my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis—and they come
o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that
honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither—and then, mistress
Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable
knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont—and we'll
be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.—I have been a mad wag
in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in
court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who
got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to
die.—I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in
the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in
it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went
down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let
new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land
here, upon ladies:—and now I can take up at my pleasure.
DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir?
CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd.
DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity!
LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any
thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to,
gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not
fail—Your servant.
[EXIT.]
DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall,
that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw.
CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this?
DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress
to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it.
CLER: Go.
[EXEUNT.]
A ROOM IN CLERIMONT'S HOUSE.
ENTER CLERIMONT, MAKING HIMSELF READY, FOLLOWED BY HIS PAGE.
CLER: Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy?
PAGE: Yes, sir.
CLER: Let me hear it.
PAGE: You shall, sir, but i'faith let nobody else.
CLER: Why, I pray?
PAGE: It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir;
besides me a perfect deal of ill-will at the mansion you wot of,
whose lady is the argument of it; where now I am the welcomest
thing under a man that comes there.
CLER: I think, and above a man too, if the truth were rack'd out
of you.
PAGE: No, faith, I'll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with
me, and throw me on the bed; and carry me in to my lady; and she
kisses me with her oil'd face; and puts a peruke on my head; and
asks me an I will wear her gown? and I say, no: and then she
hits me a blow o' the ear, and calls me Innocent! and lets me go.
CLER: No marvel if the door be kept shut against your master, when
the entrance is so easy to you—well sir, you shall go there no
more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady's rushes, a
fortnight hence. Sing, sir.
PAGE [SINGS]: Still to be neat, still to be drest—
[ENTER TRUEWIT.]
TRUE: Why, here's the man that can melt away his time and never
feels it! What between his mistress abroad, and his ingle at
home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle; he
thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well,
sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or
condemn'd to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin
then to think, and value every article of your time, esteem it
at the true rate, and give all for it.
CLER: Why what should a man do?
TRUE: Why, nothing; or that which, when it is done, is as idle.
Harken after the next horse-race or hunting-match; lay wagers,
praise Puppy, or Pepper-corn, White-foot, Franklin; swear upon
Whitemane's party; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you;
visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character
of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things
wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for
company.
CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come,
the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads
and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on
'em then; and we'll pray and fast.
TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our
want of ability will not let us employ in evil!
CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough.
TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to
effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because
it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock
ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery
indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the
matter still.
CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now—
TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain,
that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give
our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it
to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves?
CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such
tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill
spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and
ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity
alone, till thou mak'st sermons.
TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as
little of my kindness as I can. I'll do good to no man against his
will, certainly. When were you at the college?
CLER: What college?
TRUE: As if you knew not!
CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday.
TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation,
sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the
collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams,
that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the
wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or
up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most
masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day
gain to their college some new probationer.
CLER: Who is the president?
TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty.
CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there's no man
can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has
painted, and perfumed, and wash'd, and scour'd, but the boy here;
and him she wipes her oil'd lips upon, like a sponge. I have made
a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject.
PAGE. [SINGS.]
Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder'd, still perfum'd;
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art's hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Then all the adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing
before any beauty o' the world. O, a woman is then like a
delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every
hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If
she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good
legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often;
practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows;
paint, and profess it.
CLER: How? publicly?
TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many
things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady
should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor,
when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred
within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their
false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You
see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover
how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal.
How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people
suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude
stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should
Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and
finish'd.
CLER: Well said, my Truewit.
TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that
she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow into a
chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, snatch'd
at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way.
CLER: O prodigy!
TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour
with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk
from the t'other side.
CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her.
TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you
please, and pass to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie?
CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is
very melancholy, I hear.
TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of
formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps
on his head, buckled over his ears.
CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no
noise, man.
TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it
is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the
fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between
them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in.
CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot
endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one.
TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous.
CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the
parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice
once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the
rest were quit.
TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys.
CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of
him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one
night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him
down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him
flourishing with the air.
PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both
ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these
common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him
in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him.
He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without
action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the
dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did;
and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was
sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to
the multitude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had
his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his
way at my request.
TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells?
CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every
Saturday at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of
the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a
room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close
shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away
a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd.
And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers
soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who
comes here!
[ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.]
DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb?
TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine
uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of.
DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my
sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that
predicament I am with him.
TRUE: How is that?
DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and
my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are
told of him.
TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose
deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee
what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed:
and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf,
and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he
cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son?
DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry.
TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will
venture on a wife?
CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick,
yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to
hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any
quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry
enough, he says.
TRUE: But I trust to God he has found none.
CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street
to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that
spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have
her.
TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business?
CLER: Marry a barber; one Cutbeard; an honest fellow, one that
tells Dauphine all here.
TRUE: Why you oppress me with wonder: a woman, and a barber, and
love no noise!
CLER: Yes, faith. The fellow trims him silently, and has not the
knack with his sheers or his fingers: and that continence in a
barber he thinks so eminent a virtue, as it has made him chief of
his counsel.
TRUE: Is the barber to be seen, or the wench?
CLER: Yes, that they are.
TRUE: I prithee, Dauphine, let us go thither.
DAUP: I have some business now: I cannot, i'faith.
TRUE: You shall have no business shall make you neglect this, sir;
we'll make her talk, believe it; or, if she will not, we can give
out at least so much as shall interrupt the treaty; we will break
it. Thou art bound in conscience, when he suspects thee without
cause, to torment him.
DAUP: Not I, by any means. I will give no suffrage to't. He shall
never have that plea against me, that I opposed the least phant'sy
of his. Let it lie upon my stars to be guilty, I'll be innocent.
TRUE: Yes, and be poor, and beg; do, innocent: when some groom of
his has got him an heir, or this barber, if he himself cannot.
Innocent!—I prithee, Ned, where lies she? let him be innocent
still.
CLER: Why, right over against the barber's; in the house where
sir John Daw lies.
TRUE: You do not mean to confound me!
CLER: Why?
TRUE: Does he that would marry her know so much?
CLER: I cannot tell.
TRUE: 'Twere enough of imputation to her with him.
CLER: Why?
TRUE: The only talking sir in the town! Jack Daw!
and he teach her not to speak!—God be wi' you.
* I have some business too.
CLER: Will you not go thither, then?
TRUE: Not with the danger to meet Daw, for mine ears.
CLER: Why? I thought you two had been upon very good terms.
TRUE: Yes, of keeping distance.
CLER: They say, he is a very good scholar.
TRUE: Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that
pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of
books in him!
CLER: The world reports him to be very learned.
TRUE: I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him.
CLER: Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him.
TRUE: You may; there's none so desperately ignorant to deny that:
would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentleman.
[EXIT HASTILY.]
CLER: This is very abrupt!
DAUP: Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus.
CLER: Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow.
DAUP: I think no other: but this frank nature of his is not for
secrets.
CLER: Nay, then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been
well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily.
DAUP: I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried,
it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you will go thither, I
am for you.
CLER: When were you there?
DAUP: Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace
never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the
wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires
that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in
verses: which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man
made. Then rails at his fortunes, stamps, and mutines, why he is
not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state.
CLER: I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water,
boy.
[EXIT PAGE.]
DAUP: We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came
thither to him, sir La-Foole.
CLER: O, that's a precious mannikin.
DAUP: Do you know him?
CLER: Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once,
though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is
one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits. He will salute
a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when
he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a
masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and
invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they
ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose:
or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the
Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents,
some two or three hundred pounds' worth of toys, to be laugh'd at.
He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber,
for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait.
DAUP: Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much
finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot.
[RE-ENTER PAGE.]
CLER: Sir Amorous La-Foole.
PAGE: The gentleman is here below that owns that name.
CLER: 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life.
DAUP: Like enough: prithee, let's have him up.
CLER: Boy, marshal him.
PAGE: With a truncheon, sir?
CLER: Away, I beseech you.
[EXIT PAGE.]
I'll make him tell us his pedegree, now; and what meat he has to
dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his
fortunes: with a breath.
[ENTER SIR AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.]
LA-F: 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont!
CLER: Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your
presence.
LA-F: Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging
as mine.
CLER: Not so, sir.
LA-F: Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am
come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three
ladies, to dinner, to-day.
CLER: How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes?
LA-F: No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company.
CLER: O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe
it, sir, would breed you a quarrel once an hour, with the terrible
boys, if you should but keep them fellowship a day.
LA-F: It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested
with any man.
CLER: I believe it, sir; where hold you your feast?
LA-F: At Tom Otter's, sir.
PAGE: Tom Otter? what's he?
LA-F: Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had
command both by sea and by land.
PAGE: O, then he is animal amphibium?
LA-F: Ay, sir: his wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers
visited so often; that gave the rare entertainment. She commands
all at home.
CLER: Then she is captain Otter.
LA-F: You say very well, sir: she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the
mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake.
PAGE: Not of the La-Fooles of Essex?
LA-F: No, sir, the La-Fooles of London.
CLER: Now, he's in. [ASIDE.]
LA-F: They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the
La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south—we are
as ancient a family as any is in Europe—but I myself am descended
lineally of the French La-Fooles—and, we do bear for our coat
yellow, or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four
colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been
solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house—but let that go,
antiquity is not respected now.—I had a brace of fat does sent me,
gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of
godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they
are good, and in good company:—there will be a great lady, or two,
my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis—and they come
o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicoene, that
honest sir John Daw has promis'd to bring thither—and then, mistress
Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable
knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont—and we'll
be very merry, and have fidlers, and dance.—I have been a mad wag
in my time, and have spent some crowns since I was a page in
court, to my lord Lofty, and after, my lady's gentleman-usher, who
got me knighted in Ireland, since it pleased my elder brother to
die.—I had as fair a gold jerkin on that day, as any worn in
the island voyage, or at Cadiz, none dispraised; and I came over in
it hither, shew'd myself to my friends in court, and after went
down to my tenants in the country, and surveyed my lands, let
new leases, took their money, spent it in the eye o' the land
here, upon ladies:—and now I can take up at my pleasure.
DAUP: Can you take up ladies, sir?
CLER: O, let him breathe, he has not recover'd.
DAUP: Would I were your half in that commodity!
LA-F.: No, sir, excuse me: I meant money, which can take up any
thing. I have another guest or two, to invite, and say as much to,
gentlemen. I will take my leave abruptly, in hope you will not
fail—Your servant.
[EXIT.]
DAUP: We will not fail you, sir precious La-Foole; but she shall,
that your ladies come to see, if I have credit afore sir Daw.
CLER: Did you ever hear such a wind-sucker, as this?
DAUP: Or, such a rook as the other! that will betray his mistress
to be seen! Come, 'tis time we prevented it.
CLER: Go.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 2.
SCENE 2.1.
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE.
MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by
this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine
ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my
own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is
it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I
apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have
taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me
not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed,
on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their
daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?—But with
your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise,
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good
state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard
the barber, to have him come to me?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your
leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your
head, or shrug.
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a
frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come?
Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two
fingers; if a quarter, one;
[MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.]
—Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key,
to come in without knocking?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and
bare?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be
effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is
admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited
on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the
war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges
and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite
art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the
princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend
them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter.
[A HORN WINDED WITHIN.]
—How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that?
look.
[EXIT MUTE.]
—[HORN AGAIN.]
—Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound,
devil can this be?
[RE-ENTER MUTE.]
MUTE: It is a post from the court—
MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too?
MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must
speak with you, pain of death—
MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent!
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.]
TRUE: By your leave, sir;—I am a stranger here:—Is your name
master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans
all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates
been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you
to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your
friends at court commend them to you, sir—
MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence?
TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir.
MOR: Whose knave are you?
TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir.
MOR: Fetch me my sword—
TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom;
and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you,
in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you
are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir?
MOR: How then, rude companion!
TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near,
wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low
fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a
delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver
height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a
shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a
beam in the said garret, with this halter
[HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]—
which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your
grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a
little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly,
as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to
follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to
find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many
masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange
sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived
in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might,
perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull
frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they
will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you,
sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife.
MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their
land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage?
begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I
done, that may deserve this?
TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage.
MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated
your mother, ravished your sisters—
TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had.
MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple,
for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do.
TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you
must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's
health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do
your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are
married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman
that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer
for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have
discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay,
suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that
you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet-
meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great
roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be
with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and
that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house
as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your
tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she
must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every
hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned,
there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too
little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak
Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages
too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the
silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters;
entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded
exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to,
and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who
for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to
sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your
pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade
you.
[MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.]
—Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat
you.
MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin!
TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how
she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall
lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her
complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she
does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the
same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must
keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend
must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she
will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign
to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her
she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all
the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming
spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a
new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver;
have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen,
ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers,
tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not
how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the
change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never
weighs what her pride costs, sir: so she may kiss a page, or a
smooth chin, that has the despair of a beard; be a stateswoman,
know all the news, what was done at Salisbury, what at the Bath,
what at court, what in progress; or, so she may censure poets, and
authors, and styles, and compare them, Daniel with Spenser, Jonson
with the t'other youth, and so forth: or be thought cunning in
controversies, or the very knots of divinity; and have often in
her mouth the state of the question: and then skip to the
mathematics, and demonstration: and answer in religion to one,
in state to another, in bawdry to a third.
MOR: O, O!
TRUE: All this is very true, sir. And then her going in disguise to
that conjurer, and this cunning woman: where the first question is,
how soon you shall die? next, if her present servant love her?
next, if she shall have a new servant? and how many? which of her
family would make the best bawd, male, or female? what precedence
she shall have by her next match? and sets down the answers, and
believes them above the scriptures. Nay, perhaps she will study the
art.
MOR: Gentle sir, have you done? have you had your pleasure of me?
I'll think of these things.
TRUE: Yes sir: and then comes reeking home of vapour and sweat,
with going a foot, and lies in a month of a new face, all oil and
birdlime; and rises in asses' milk, and is cleansed with a new
fucus: God be wi' you, sir. One thing more, which I had almost
forgot. This too, with whom you are to marry, may have made a
conveyance of her virginity afore hand, as your wise widows do of
their states, before they marry, in trust to some friend, sir: who
can tell? Or if she have not done it yet, she may do, upon the
wedding-day, or the night before, and antedate you cuckold. The
like has been heard of in nature. 'Tis no devised, impossible
thing, sir. God be wi' you: I'll be bold to leave this rope with
you, sir, for a remembrance. Farewell, Mute!
[EXIT.]
MOR: Come, have me to my chamber: but first shut the door.
[TRUEWIT WINDS THE HORN WITHOUT.]
O, shut the door, shut the door! is he come again?
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
CUT: 'tis I, sir, your barber.
MOR: O, Cutbeard, Cutbeard, Cutbeard! here has been a cut-throat
with me: help me in to my bed, and give me physic with thy counsel.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.2.
A ROOM IN SIR JOHN DAW'S HOUSE.
ENTER DAW, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE, AND EPICOENE.
DAW: Nay, an she will, let her refuse at her own charges: 'tis
nothing to me, gentlemen: but she will not be invited to the like
feasts or guests every day.
CLER: O, by no means, she may not refuse—to stay at home, if you
love your reputation: 'Slight, you are invited thither o' purpose
to be seen, and laughed at by the lady of the college, and her
shadows. This trumpeter hath proclaim'd you.
[ASIDE TO EPICOENE.]
DAUP: You shall not go; let him be laugh'd at in your stead, for
not bringing you: and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling
and talking loud, to satisfy the company.
[ASIDE TO EPICOENE.]
CLER: He will suspect us, talk aloud.—'Pray, mistress Epicoene,
let us see your verses; we have sir John Daw's leave: do not
conceal your servant's merit, and your own glories.
EPI: They'll prove my servant's glories, if you have his leave so
soon.
DAUP: His vain-glories, lady!
DAW: Shew them, shew them, mistress, I dare own them.
EPI: Judge you, what glories.
DAW: Nay, I'll read them myself too: an author must recite his
own works. It is a madrigal of Modesty.
Modest, and fair, for fair and good are near
Neighbours, howe'er.—
DAUP: Very good.
CLER: Ay, is't not?
DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone,
But two in one.
DAUP: Excellent!
CLER: That again, I pray, sir John.
DAUP: It has something in't like rare wit and sense.
CLER: Peace.
DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone,
But two in one.
Then, when I praise sweet modesty, I praise
Bright beauty's rays:
And having praised both beauty and modesty,
I have praised thee.
DAUP: Admirable!
CLER: How it chimes, and cries tink in the close, divinely!
DAUP: Ay, 'tis Seneca.
CLER: No, I think 'tis Plutarch.
DAW: The dor on Plutarch, and Seneca! I hate it: they are mine own
imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such
credit with gentlemen.
CLER: They are very grave authors.
DAW: Grave asses! mere essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's
all. A man would talk so, his whole age: I do utter as good things
every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of
them.
DAUP: Indeed, sir John!
CLER: He must needs; living among the wits and braveries too.
DAUP: Ay, and being president of them, as he is.
DAW: There's Aristotle, a mere common-place fellow; Plato, a
discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an
entire knot: sometimes worth the untying, very seldom.
CLER: What do you think of the poets, sir John?
DAW: Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious,
prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef. Virgil of
dunging of land, and bees. Horace, of I know not what.
CLER: I think so.
DAW: And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the
tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal,
Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest—
CLER: What a sack full of their names he has got!
DAUP: And how he pours them out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus!
CLER: Was not the character right of him?
DAUP: As could be made, i'faith.
DAW: And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured.
DAUP: Why, whom do you account for authors, sir John Daw?
DAW: Syntagma juris civilis; Corpus juris civilis; Corpus juris
canonici; the king of Spain's bible—
DAUP: Is the king of Spain's bible an author?
CLER: Yes, and Syntagma.
DAUP: What was that Syntagma, sir?
DAW: A civil lawyer, a Spaniard.
DAUP: Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman.
CLER: Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew 'em: they were very corpulent
authors.
DAW: And, then there's Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: the other
are not to be received, within the thought of a scholar.
DAUP: 'Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady,—
in titles. [ASIDE.]
CLER: I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a
counsellor!
DAUP: He is one extraordinary.
CLER: Nay, but in ordinary: to say truth, the state wants such.
DAUP: Why that will follow.
CLER: I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a
servant.
DAW: 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence
too.
DAUP: In verse, sir John?
CLER: What else?
DAUP: Why? how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so
slight all the old poets?
DAW: Why? every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of
the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets
that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it.
DAUP: Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John?
CLER: No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? he
did not make them to that end, I hope.
DAUP: And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family
not ashamed.
CLER: Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution:
he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you
think he will? Your verses, good sir John, and no poems.
DAW: Silence in woman, is like speech in man,
Deny't who can.
DAUP: Not I, believe it: your reason, sir.
DAW: Nor, is't a tale,
That female vice should be a virtue male,
Or masculine vice a female virtue be:
You shall it see
Prov'd with increase;
I know to speak, and she to hold her peace.
Do you conceive me, gentlemen?
DAUP: No, faith; how mean you "with increase," sir John?
DAW: Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of
mankind; and she says nothing, but "consentire videtur": and in
time is gravida.
DAUP: Then this is a ballad of procreation?
CLER: A madrigal of procreation; you mistake.
EPI: 'Pray give me my verses again, servant.
DAW: If you'll ask them aloud, you shall.
[WALKS ASIDE WITH THE PAPERS.]
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH HIS HORN.]
CLER: See, here's Truewit again!—Where hast thou been, in the
name of madness! thus accoutred with thy horn?
TRUE: Where the sound of it might have pierced your sense with
gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down
and worship me: I have forbid the bans, lad: I have been with thy
virtuous uncle, and have broke the match.
DAUP: You have not, I hope.
TRUE: Yes faith; if thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me:
this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in,
but by faining to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none,
but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or
what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a
wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in
the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have
put him off o' that scent for ever.—Why do you not applaud and
adore me, sirs? why stand you mute? are you stupid? You are not
worthy of the benefit.
DAUP: Did not I tell you? Mischief!—
CLER: I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else.
TRUE: Why so?
CLER: 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak
thing, that ever man did to his friend.
DAUP: Friend! if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to
inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater.
TRUE: Wherein, for Gods-sake? Gentlemen, come to yourselves again.
DAUP: But I presaged thus much afore to you.
CLER: Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't. Slight,
what moved you to be thus impertinent?
TRUE: My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my
courtesy; off with this visor. Have good turns done you, and thank
'em this way!
DAUP: 'Fore heav'n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted
for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a
minute: Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged
here by me o' purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath profest
this obstinate silence for my sake; being my entire friend, and
one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him,
would have made me very ample conditions: where now, all my hopes
are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident.
CLER: Thus 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do
services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch
possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a
greater trespass to friendship or humanity.
DAUP: Faith, you may forgive it best: 'twas your cause principally.
CLER: I know it, would it had not.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now, Cutbeard! what news?
CUT: The best, the happiest that ever was, sir. There has been a
mad gentleman with your uncle, this morning,
[SEEING TRUEWIT.]
—I think this be the gentleman—that has almost talk'd him out
of his wits, with threatening him from marriage—
DAUP: On, I prithee.
CUT: And your uncle, sir, he thinks 'twas done by your procurement;
therefore he will see the party you wot of presently: and if he
like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I
have told him, he swears he will marry her, to-day, instantly,
and not defer it a minute longer.
DAUP: Excellent! beyond our expectation!
TRUE: Beyond our expectation! By this light, I knew it would be
thus.
DAUP: Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me.
TRUE: No, I was ignorantly officious, impertinent: this was the
absurd, weak part.
CLER: Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune?
TRUE: Fortune! mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in't. I saw
it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false
to me in these things. Shew me how it could be otherwise.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, contend not, 'tis well now.
TRUE: Alas, I let him go on with inconsiderate, and rash, and what
he pleas'd.
CLER: Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou
wert, by the event!
TRUE: Event! by this light, thou shalt never persuade me, but I
foresaw it as well as the stars themselves.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, 'tis well now. Do you two entertain sir John
Daw with discourse, while I send her away with instructions.
TRUE: I will be acquainted with her first, by your favour.
CLER: Master True-wit, lady, a friend of ours.
TRUE: I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate
this rare virtue of your silence.
[EXEUNT DAUP., EPI., AND CUTBEARD.]
CLER: Faith, an you had come sooner, you should have seen and
heard her well celebrated in sir John Daw's madrigals.
TRUE [ADVANCES TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, God save you! when saw you
La-Foole?
DAW: Not since last night, master Truewit.
TRUE: That's a miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable.
DAW: He is gone to invite his guests.
TRUE: 'Odso! 'tis true! What a false memory have I towards that
man! I am one: I met him even now, upon that he calls his delicate
fine black horse, rid into a foam, with posting from place to
place, and person to person, to give them the cue—
CLER: Lest they should forget?
TRUE: Yes: There was never poor captain took more pains at a
muster to shew men, than he, at this meal, to shew friends.
DAW: It is his quarter-feast, sir.
CLER: What! do you say so, sir John?
TRUE: Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has,
to the talent of his wit: Where's his mistress, to hear and applaud
him? is she gone?
DAW: Is mistress Epicoene gone?
CLER: Gone afore, with sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place.
TRUE: Gone afore! that were a manifest injury; a disgrace and a
half: to refuse him at such a festival-time as this, being a
bravery, and a wit too!
CLER: Tut, he'll swallow it like cream: he's better read in Jure
civili, than to esteem any thing a disgrace, is offer'd him from
a mistress.
DAW: Nay, let her e'en go; she shall sit alone, and be dumb in her
chamber a week together, for John Daw, I warrant her. Does she
refuse me?
CLER: No, sir, do not take it so to heart; she does not refuse you,
but a little neglects you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame,
to put it into his head, that she does refuse him.
TRUE: Sir, she does refuse him palpably, however you mince it. An I
were as he, I would swear to speak ne'er a word to her to-day
for't.
DAW: By this light, no more I will not.
TRUE: Nor to any body else, sir.
DAW: Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen.
CLER: It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if
you could have drawn him to it. [ASIDE.]
DAW: I'll be very melancholY, i'faith.
CLER: As a dog, if I were as you, sir John.
TRUE: Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this
day, in troth, they should not unwind me.
DAW: By this pick-tooth, so I will.
CLER: 'Tis well done: He begins already to be angry with his teeth.
DAW: Will you go, gentlemen?
CLER: Nay, you must walk alone, if you be right melancholy, sir
John.
TRUE: Yes, sir, we'll dog you, we'll follow you afar off.
[EXIT DAW.]
CLER: Was there ever such a two yards of knighthood measured out by
time, to be sold to laughter?
TRUE: A mere talking mole, hang him! no mushroom was ever so fresh.
A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be.
CLER: Let's follow him: but first, let's go to Dauphine, he's
hovering about the house to hear what news.
TRUE: Content.
[EXEUNT.]
A ROOM IN MOROSE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOROSE, WITH A TUBE IN HIS HAND, FOLLOWED BY MUTE.
MOR: Cannot I, yet, find out a more compendious method, than by
this trunk, to save my servants the labour of speech, and mine
ears the discord of sounds? Let me see: all discourses but my
own afflict me, they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome. Is
it not possible, that thou should'st answer me by signs, and I
apprehend thee, fellow? Speak not, though I question you. You have
taken the ring off from the street door, as I bade you? answer me
not by speech, but by silence; unless it be otherwise
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—very good. And you have fastened on a thick quilt, or flock-bed,
on the outside of the door; that if they knock with their
daggers, or with brick-bats, they can make no noise?—But with
your leg, your answer, unless it be otherwise,
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Very good. This is not only fit modesty in a servant, but good
state and discretion in a master. And you have been with Cutbeard
the barber, to have him come to me?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Good. And, he will come presently? Answer me not but with your
leg, unless it be otherwise: if it be otherwise, shake your
head, or shrug.
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—So! Your Italian and Spaniard are wise in these: and it is a
frugal and comely gravity. How long will it be ere Cutbeard come?
Stay, if an hour, hold up your whole hand, if half an hour, two
fingers; if a quarter, one;
[MUTE HOLDS UP A FINGER BENT.]
—Good: half a quarter? 'tis well. And have you given him a key,
to come in without knocking?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—good. And is the lock oil'd, and the hinges, to-day?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—good. And the quilting of the stairs no where worn out, and
bare?
[MUTE MAKES A LEG.]
—Very good. I see, by much doctrine, and impulsion, it may be
effected: stand by. The Turk, in this divine discipline, is
admirable, exceeding all the potentates of the earth; still waited
on by mutes; and all his commands so executed; yea, even in the
war, as I have heard, and in his marches, most of his charges
and directions given by signs, and with silence: an exquisite
art! and I am heartily ashamed, and angry oftentimes, that the
princes of Christendom should suffer a barbarian to transcend
them in so high a point of felicity. I will practise it hereafter.
[A HORN WINDED WITHIN.]
—How now? oh! oh! what villain, what prodigy of mankind is that?
look.
[EXIT MUTE.]
—[HORN AGAIN.]
—Oh! cut his throat, cut his throat! what murderer, hell-hound,
devil can this be?
[RE-ENTER MUTE.]
MUTE: It is a post from the court—
MOR: Out rogue! and must thou blow thy horn too?
MUTE: Alas, it is a post from the court, sir, that says, he must
speak with you, pain of death—
MOR: Pain of thy life, be silent!
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH A POST-HORN, AND A HALTER IN HIS HAND.]
TRUE: By your leave, sir;—I am a stranger here:—Is your name
master Morose? is your name master Morose? Fishes! Pythagoreans
all! This is strange. What say you, sir? nothing? Has Harpocrates
been here with his club, among you? Well sir, I will believe you
to be the man at this time: I will venture upon you, sir. Your
friends at court commend them to you, sir—
MOR: O men! O manners! was there ever such an impudence?
TRUE: And are extremely solicitous for you, sir.
MOR: Whose knave are you?
TRUE: Mine own knave, and your compeer, sir.
MOR: Fetch me my sword—
TRUE: You shall taste the one half of my dagger, if you do, groom;
and you, the other, if you stir, sir: Be patient, I charge you,
in the king's name, and hear me without insurrection. They say, you
are to marry; to marry! do you mark, sir?
MOR: How then, rude companion!
TRUE: Marry, your friends do wonder, sir, the Thames being so near,
wherein you may drown, so handsomely; or London-bridge, at a low
fall, with a fine leap, to hurry you down the stream; or, such a
delicate steeple, in the town as Bow, to vault from; or, a braver
height, as Paul's; Or, if you affected to do it nearer home, and a
shorter way, an excellent garret-window into the street; or, a
beam in the said garret, with this halter
[HE SHEWS HIM A HALTER.]—
which they have sent, and desire, that you would sooner commit your
grave head to this knot, than to the wedlock noose; or, take a
little sublimate, and go out of the world like a rat; or a fly,
as one said, with a straw in your arse: any way, rather than to
follow this goblin Matrimony. Alas, sir, do you ever think to
find a chaste wife in these times? now? when there are so many
masques, plays, Puritan preachings, mad folks, and other strange
sights to be seen daily, private and public? If you had lived
in king Ethelred's time, sir, or Edward the Confessor, you might,
perhaps, have found one in some cold country hamlet, then, a dull
frosty wench, would have been contented with one man: now, they
will as soon be pleased with one leg, or one eye. I'll tell you,
sir, the monstrous hazards you shall run with a wife.
MOR: Good sir, have I ever cozen'd any friends of yours of their
land? bought their possessions? taken forfeit of their mortgage?
begg'd a reversion from them? bastarded their issue? What have I
done, that may deserve this?
TRUE: Nothing, sir, that I know, but your itch of marriage.
MOR: Why? if I had made an assassinate upon your father, vitiated
your mother, ravished your sisters—
TRUE: I would kill you, sir, I would kill you, if you had.
MOR: Why, you do more in this, sir: it were a vengeance centuple,
for all facinorous acts that could be named, to do that you do.
TRUE: Alas, sir, I am but a messenger: I but tell you, what you
must hear. It seems your friends are careful after your soul's
health, sir, and would have you know the danger: (but you may do
your pleasure for all them, I persuade not, sir.) If, after you are
married, your wife do run away with a vaulter, or the Frenchman
that walks upon ropes, or him that dances the jig, or a fencer
for his skill at his weapon; why it is not their fault, they have
discharged their consciences; when you know what may happen. Nay,
suffer valiantly, sir, for I must tell you all the perils that
you are obnoxious to. If she be fair, young and vegetous, no sweet-
meats ever drew more flies; all the yellow doublets and great
roses in the town will be there. If foul and crooked, she'll be
with them, and buy those doublets and roses, sir. If rich, and
that you marry her dowry, not her, she'll reign in your house
as imperious as a widow. If noble, all her kindred will be your
tyrants. If fruitful, as proud as May, and humorous as April; she
must have her doctors, her midwives, her nurses, her longings every
hour; though it be for the dearest morsel of man. If learned,
there was never such a parrot; all your patrimony will be too
little for the guests that must be invited to hear her speak
Latin and Greek; and you must lie with her in those languages
too, if you will please her. If precise, you must feast all the
silenced brethren, once in three days; salute the sisters;
entertain the whole family, or wood of them; and hear long-winded
exercises, singings and catechisings, which you are not given to,
and yet must give for: to please the zealous matron your wife, who
for the holy cause, will cozen you, over and above. You begin to
sweat, sir! but this is not half, i'faith: you may do your
pleasure, notwithstanding, as I said before: I come not to persuade
you.
[MUTE IS STEALING AWAY.]
—Upon my faith, master servingman, if you do stir, I will beat
you.
MOR: O, what is my sin! what is my sin!
TRUE: Then, if you love your wife, or rather dote on her, sir: O, how
she'll torture you! and take pleasure in your torments! you shall
lie with her but when she lists; she will not hurt her beauty, her
complexion; or it must be for that jewel, or that pearl, when she
does: every half hour's pleasure must be bought anew: and with the
same pain and charge you woo'd her at first. Then you must
keep what servants she please; what company she will; that friend
must not visit you without her license; and him she loves most, she
will seem to hate eagerliest, to decline your jealousy; or, feign
to be jealous of you first; and for that cause go live with her
she-friend, or cousin at the college, that can instruct her in all
the mysteries of writing letters, corrupting servants, taming
spies; where she must have that rich gown for such a great day; a
new one for the next; a richer for the third; be served in silver;
have the chamber fill'd with a succession of grooms, footmen,
ushers, and other messengers; besides embroiderers, jewellers,
tire-women, sempsters, feathermen, perfumers; whilst she feels not
how the land drops away; nor the acres melt; nor foresees the
change, when the mercer has your woods for her velvets; never
weighs what her pride costs, sir: so she may kiss a page, or a
smooth chin, that has the despair of a beard; be a stateswoman,
know all the news, what was done at Salisbury, what at the Bath,
what at court, what in progress; or, so she may censure poets, and
authors, and styles, and compare them, Daniel with Spenser, Jonson
with the t'other youth, and so forth: or be thought cunning in
controversies, or the very knots of divinity; and have often in
her mouth the state of the question: and then skip to the
mathematics, and demonstration: and answer in religion to one,
in state to another, in bawdry to a third.
MOR: O, O!
TRUE: All this is very true, sir. And then her going in disguise to
that conjurer, and this cunning woman: where the first question is,
how soon you shall die? next, if her present servant love her?
next, if she shall have a new servant? and how many? which of her
family would make the best bawd, male, or female? what precedence
she shall have by her next match? and sets down the answers, and
believes them above the scriptures. Nay, perhaps she will study the
art.
MOR: Gentle sir, have you done? have you had your pleasure of me?
I'll think of these things.
TRUE: Yes sir: and then comes reeking home of vapour and sweat,
with going a foot, and lies in a month of a new face, all oil and
birdlime; and rises in asses' milk, and is cleansed with a new
fucus: God be wi' you, sir. One thing more, which I had almost
forgot. This too, with whom you are to marry, may have made a
conveyance of her virginity afore hand, as your wise widows do of
their states, before they marry, in trust to some friend, sir: who
can tell? Or if she have not done it yet, she may do, upon the
wedding-day, or the night before, and antedate you cuckold. The
like has been heard of in nature. 'Tis no devised, impossible
thing, sir. God be wi' you: I'll be bold to leave this rope with
you, sir, for a remembrance. Farewell, Mute!
[EXIT.]
MOR: Come, have me to my chamber: but first shut the door.
[TRUEWIT WINDS THE HORN WITHOUT.]
O, shut the door, shut the door! is he come again?
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
CUT: 'tis I, sir, your barber.
MOR: O, Cutbeard, Cutbeard, Cutbeard! here has been a cut-throat
with me: help me in to my bed, and give me physic with thy counsel.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.2.
A ROOM IN SIR JOHN DAW'S HOUSE.
ENTER DAW, CLERIMONT, DAUPHINE, AND EPICOENE.
DAW: Nay, an she will, let her refuse at her own charges: 'tis
nothing to me, gentlemen: but she will not be invited to the like
feasts or guests every day.
CLER: O, by no means, she may not refuse—to stay at home, if you
love your reputation: 'Slight, you are invited thither o' purpose
to be seen, and laughed at by the lady of the college, and her
shadows. This trumpeter hath proclaim'd you.
[ASIDE TO EPICOENE.]
DAUP: You shall not go; let him be laugh'd at in your stead, for
not bringing you: and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling
and talking loud, to satisfy the company.
[ASIDE TO EPICOENE.]
CLER: He will suspect us, talk aloud.—'Pray, mistress Epicoene,
let us see your verses; we have sir John Daw's leave: do not
conceal your servant's merit, and your own glories.
EPI: They'll prove my servant's glories, if you have his leave so
soon.
DAUP: His vain-glories, lady!
DAW: Shew them, shew them, mistress, I dare own them.
EPI: Judge you, what glories.
DAW: Nay, I'll read them myself too: an author must recite his
own works. It is a madrigal of Modesty.
Modest, and fair, for fair and good are near
Neighbours, howe'er.—
DAUP: Very good.
CLER: Ay, is't not?
DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone,
But two in one.
DAUP: Excellent!
CLER: That again, I pray, sir John.
DAUP: It has something in't like rare wit and sense.
CLER: Peace.
DAW: No noble virtue ever was alone,
But two in one.
Then, when I praise sweet modesty, I praise
Bright beauty's rays:
And having praised both beauty and modesty,
I have praised thee.
DAUP: Admirable!
CLER: How it chimes, and cries tink in the close, divinely!
DAUP: Ay, 'tis Seneca.
CLER: No, I think 'tis Plutarch.
DAW: The dor on Plutarch, and Seneca! I hate it: they are mine own
imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such
credit with gentlemen.
CLER: They are very grave authors.
DAW: Grave asses! mere essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's
all. A man would talk so, his whole age: I do utter as good things
every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of
them.
DAUP: Indeed, sir John!
CLER: He must needs; living among the wits and braveries too.
DAUP: Ay, and being president of them, as he is.
DAW: There's Aristotle, a mere common-place fellow; Plato, a
discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an
entire knot: sometimes worth the untying, very seldom.
CLER: What do you think of the poets, sir John?
DAW: Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious,
prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef. Virgil of
dunging of land, and bees. Horace, of I know not what.
CLER: I think so.
DAW: And so Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the
tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal,
Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest—
CLER: What a sack full of their names he has got!
DAUP: And how he pours them out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus!
CLER: Was not the character right of him?
DAUP: As could be made, i'faith.
DAW: And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured.
DAUP: Why, whom do you account for authors, sir John Daw?
DAW: Syntagma juris civilis; Corpus juris civilis; Corpus juris
canonici; the king of Spain's bible—
DAUP: Is the king of Spain's bible an author?
CLER: Yes, and Syntagma.
DAUP: What was that Syntagma, sir?
DAW: A civil lawyer, a Spaniard.
DAUP: Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman.
CLER: Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew 'em: they were very corpulent
authors.
DAW: And, then there's Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: the other
are not to be received, within the thought of a scholar.
DAUP: 'Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady,—
in titles. [ASIDE.]
CLER: I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a
counsellor!
DAUP: He is one extraordinary.
CLER: Nay, but in ordinary: to say truth, the state wants such.
DAUP: Why that will follow.
CLER: I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a
servant.
DAW: 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence
too.
DAUP: In verse, sir John?
CLER: What else?
DAUP: Why? how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so
slight all the old poets?
DAW: Why? every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of
the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets
that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it.
DAUP: Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John?
CLER: No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses? he
did not make them to that end, I hope.
DAUP: And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family
not ashamed.
CLER: Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution:
he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you
think he will? Your verses, good sir John, and no poems.
DAW: Silence in woman, is like speech in man,
Deny't who can.
DAUP: Not I, believe it: your reason, sir.
DAW: Nor, is't a tale,
That female vice should be a virtue male,
Or masculine vice a female virtue be:
You shall it see
Prov'd with increase;
I know to speak, and she to hold her peace.
Do you conceive me, gentlemen?
DAUP: No, faith; how mean you "with increase," sir John?
DAW: Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of
mankind; and she says nothing, but "consentire videtur": and in
time is gravida.
DAUP: Then this is a ballad of procreation?
CLER: A madrigal of procreation; you mistake.
EPI: 'Pray give me my verses again, servant.
DAW: If you'll ask them aloud, you shall.
[WALKS ASIDE WITH THE PAPERS.]
[ENTER TRUEWIT WITH HIS HORN.]
CLER: See, here's Truewit again!—Where hast thou been, in the
name of madness! thus accoutred with thy horn?
TRUE: Where the sound of it might have pierced your sense with
gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down
and worship me: I have forbid the bans, lad: I have been with thy
virtuous uncle, and have broke the match.
DAUP: You have not, I hope.
TRUE: Yes faith; if thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me:
this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in,
but by faining to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none,
but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or
what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a
wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in
the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have
put him off o' that scent for ever.—Why do you not applaud and
adore me, sirs? why stand you mute? are you stupid? You are not
worthy of the benefit.
DAUP: Did not I tell you? Mischief!—
CLER: I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else.
TRUE: Why so?
CLER: 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak
thing, that ever man did to his friend.
DAUP: Friend! if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to
inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater.
TRUE: Wherein, for Gods-sake? Gentlemen, come to yourselves again.
DAUP: But I presaged thus much afore to you.
CLER: Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't. Slight,
what moved you to be thus impertinent?
TRUE: My masters, do not put on this strange face to pay my
courtesy; off with this visor. Have good turns done you, and thank
'em this way!
DAUP: 'Fore heav'n, you have undone me. That which I have plotted
for, and been maturing now these four months, you have blasted in a
minute: Now I am lost, I may speak. This gentlewoman was lodged
here by me o' purpose, and, to be put upon my uncle, hath profest
this obstinate silence for my sake; being my entire friend, and
one that for the requital of such a fortune as to marry him,
would have made me very ample conditions: where now, all my hopes
are utterly miscarried by this unlucky accident.
CLER: Thus 'tis when a man will be ignorantly officious, do
services, and not know his why; I wonder what courteous itch
possest you. You never did absurder part in your life, nor a
greater trespass to friendship or humanity.
DAUP: Faith, you may forgive it best: 'twas your cause principally.
CLER: I know it, would it had not.
[ENTER CUTBEARD.]
DAUP: How now, Cutbeard! what news?
CUT: The best, the happiest that ever was, sir. There has been a
mad gentleman with your uncle, this morning,
[SEEING TRUEWIT.]
—I think this be the gentleman—that has almost talk'd him out
of his wits, with threatening him from marriage—
DAUP: On, I prithee.
CUT: And your uncle, sir, he thinks 'twas done by your procurement;
therefore he will see the party you wot of presently: and if he
like her, he says, and that she be so inclining to dumb as I
have told him, he swears he will marry her, to-day, instantly,
and not defer it a minute longer.
DAUP: Excellent! beyond our expectation!
TRUE: Beyond our expectation! By this light, I knew it would be
thus.
DAUP: Nay, sweet Truewit, forgive me.
TRUE: No, I was ignorantly officious, impertinent: this was the
absurd, weak part.
CLER: Wilt thou ascribe that to merit now, was mere fortune?
TRUE: Fortune! mere providence. Fortune had not a finger in't. I saw
it must necessarily in nature fall out so: my genius is never false
to me in these things. Shew me how it could be otherwise.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, contend not, 'tis well now.
TRUE: Alas, I let him go on with inconsiderate, and rash, and what
he pleas'd.
CLER: Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou
wert, by the event!
TRUE: Event! by this light, thou shalt never persuade me, but I
foresaw it as well as the stars themselves.
DAUP: Nay, gentlemen, 'tis well now. Do you two entertain sir John
Daw with discourse, while I send her away with instructions.
TRUE: I will be acquainted with her first, by your favour.
CLER: Master True-wit, lady, a friend of ours.
TRUE: I am sorry I have not known you sooner, lady, to celebrate
this rare virtue of your silence.
[EXEUNT DAUP., EPI., AND CUTBEARD.]
CLER: Faith, an you had come sooner, you should have seen and
heard her well celebrated in sir John Daw's madrigals.
TRUE [ADVANCES TO DAW.]: Jack Daw, God save you! when saw you
La-Foole?
DAW: Not since last night, master Truewit.
TRUE: That's a miracle! I thought you two had been inseparable.
DAW: He is gone to invite his guests.
TRUE: 'Odso! 'tis true! What a false memory have I towards that
man! I am one: I met him even now, upon that he calls his delicate
fine black horse, rid into a foam, with posting from place to
place, and person to person, to give them the cue—
CLER: Lest they should forget?
TRUE: Yes: There was never poor captain took more pains at a
muster to shew men, than he, at this meal, to shew friends.
DAW: It is his quarter-feast, sir.
CLER: What! do you say so, sir John?
TRUE: Nay, Jack Daw will not be out, at the best friends he has,
to the talent of his wit: Where's his mistress, to hear and applaud
him? is she gone?
DAW: Is mistress Epicoene gone?
CLER: Gone afore, with sir Dauphine, I warrant, to the place.
TRUE: Gone afore! that were a manifest injury; a disgrace and a
half: to refuse him at such a festival-time as this, being a
bravery, and a wit too!
CLER: Tut, he'll swallow it like cream: he's better read in Jure
civili, than to esteem any thing a disgrace, is offer'd him from
a mistress.
DAW: Nay, let her e'en go; she shall sit alone, and be dumb in her
chamber a week together, for John Daw, I warrant her. Does she
refuse me?
CLER: No, sir, do not take it so to heart; she does not refuse you,
but a little neglects you. Good faith, Truewit, you were to blame,
to put it into his head, that she does refuse him.
TRUE: Sir, she does refuse him palpably, however you mince it. An I
were as he, I would swear to speak ne'er a word to her to-day
for't.
DAW: By this light, no more I will not.
TRUE: Nor to any body else, sir.
DAW: Nay, I will not say so, gentlemen.
CLER: It had been an excellent happy condition for the company, if
you could have drawn him to it. [ASIDE.]
DAW: I'll be very melancholY, i'faith.
CLER: As a dog, if I were as you, sir John.
TRUE: Or a snail, or a hog-louse: I would roll myself up for this
day, in troth, they should not unwind me.
DAW: By this pick-tooth, so I will.
CLER: 'Tis well done: He begins already to be angry with his teeth.
DAW: Will you go, gentlemen?
CLER: Nay, you must walk alone, if you be right melancholy, sir
John.
TRUE: Yes, sir, we'll dog you, we'll follow you afar off.
[EXIT DAW.]
CLER: Was there ever such a two yards of knighthood measured out by
time, to be sold to laughter?
TRUE: A mere talking mole, hang him! no mushroom was ever so fresh.
A fellow so utterly nothing, as he knows not what he would be.
CLER: Let's follow him: but first, let's go to Dauphine, he's
hovering about the house to hear what news.
TRUE: Content.
[EXEUNT.]