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• A TRICK TO CATCH THE OLD ONE.
• THE FAMILY OF LOVE.
• YOUR FIVE GALLANTS.
• A MAD WORLD, MY MASTERS.
• THE ROARING GIRL.

3A Tricke to Catch the Old-one. As it hath beene often in Action, both at Paules, and the Black-Fryers. Presented before his Maiestie on New-yeares night last. Composde by T. M. At London Printed by G: E. and are to be sold by Henry Rockytt, at the long shop in the Poultrie vnder the Dyall. 1608. 4to. Second ed., 1616. 4to.

This drama (which Langbaine not undeservedly calls “excellent”) is reprinted in the 5th vol. of A Continuation of Dodsley’s Old Plays, 1816.

A Trick to catch the Old One was licensed by Sir George Bucke, 7th Oct. 1607: see Chalmers’s Suppl. Apol. p. 201.

• Witgood.
• Lucre, his uncle.
• Hoard.
• Onesiphorus Hoard, his brother.
• Limber,
  Kix,^[1]
  Lamprey,
  Spichcock,friends of Hoard.
• Dampit.
• Gulf.
• Freedom, son to Mistress Lucre.
• Moneylove.
• Host.
• Sir Launcelot.
• Creditors.
• Gentlemen.
• George.
• Drawer.
• Boy.
• Scrivener.
• Servants, &c.

• Courtesan.
• Mistress Lucre.
• Joyce, niece to Hoard.
• Lady Foxstone.
• Audrey, servant to Dampit.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Wit. All’s gone! still thou’rt a gentleman, that’s all; but a poor one, that’s nothing. What milk bring^[2] thy meadows forth now? where are thy goodly uplands, and thy down lands? all sunk into that little pit, lechery. Why should a gallant pay but two shillings for his ordinary^[3] that nourishes him, and twenty times two for his brothel^[4] that consumes him? But where’s Long-acre?^[5] in my uncle’s conscience, which is three years’ voyage about: he that sets out upon his conscience ne’er finds the way home again; he is either swallowed in the quicksands of law-quillets, or splits upon the piles of a præmunire; yet these old fox-brained 6and ox-browed uncles have still defences for their avarice, and apologies for their practices, and will thus greet our follies:

and that’s his uncle; ’tis a principle in usury. I dare not visit the city: there I should be too soon visited by that horrible plague, my debts; and by that means I lose a virgin’s love, her portion, and her virtues. Well, how should a man live now that has no living? hum,—why, are there not a million of men in the world that only sojourn upon their brain, and make their wits their mercers; and am I but one amongst that million, and cannot thrive upon’t? Any trick out of the compass of law^[6] now would come happily to me.

Cour. My love!

Wit. My loathing! hast thou been the secret consumption of my purse, and now comest to undo my last means, my wits? wilt leave no virtue in me, and yet thou ne’er the better?

Cour. I know I am your loathing now; farewell.

Wit. Stay, best invention, stay.

Cour. I that have been the secret consumption of your purse, shall I stay now to undo your last means, your wits? hence, courtesan, away!

Wit. I prithee, make me not mad at my own weapon: stay (a thing few women can do, I know that, and therefore they had need wear stays), be not contrary: dost love me? Fate^[9] has so cast it that all my means I must derive from thee.

Wit. So, so, so: thou shalt presently take the name and form upon thee of a rich country widow, four hundred a-year valiant,^[11] in woods, in bullocks, in barns, and in rye-stacks; we’ll to London, and to my covetous uncle.

Cour. I begin to applaud thee; our states being both desperate, they are soon resolute: but how for horses?

Wit. Mass, that’s true; the jest will be of some continuance. Let me see; horses now, a bots on ’em! Stay, I have acquaintance with a mad host, never yet bawd to thee; I have rinsed the whoreson’s gums in mull-sack many a time and often: put but a good tale into his ear now, so it come off cleanly, and there’s horse and man for us, I dare warrant thee.

Wit. Why, then, all’s furnished.^[12] I shall go nigh to catch that old fox mine uncle: though he make but some amends for my undoing, yet there’s some comfort in’t, he cannot otherwise choose (though it be but in hope to cozen me again) but supply any hasty want that I bring to town with me. The 9device well and cunningly carried, the name of a rich widow, and four hundred a-year in good earth, will so conjure up a kind of usurer’s love in him to me, that he will not only desire my presence,—which at first shall scarce be granted him, I’ll keep off a’ purpose,—but I shall find him so officious to deserve, so ready to supply! I know the state of an old man’s affection so well: if his nephew be poor indeed, why, he lets God alone with him; but if he be once rich, then he’ll be the first man that helps him.

Cour. ’Tis right the world; for, in these days, an old man’s love to his kindred is like his kindness to his wife, ’tis always done before he comes at it.

Wit. I owe thee for that jest. Begone: here’s all my wealth; prepare thyself, away. I’ll to mine host with all possible haste; and with the best art, and most profitable form, pour the sweet circumstance into his ear, which shall have the gift to turn all the wax to honey. [Exit Courtesan.]—How no[w]? O, the right worshipful seniors of our country!

Ones. H. Who’s that?

10Lim. O, the common rioter; take no note of him.

Lim. What was the quarrel, sir?

Ones. H. Faith, about a purchase, fetching over a young heir. Master Hoard, my brother, having wasted much time in beating the bargain, what did me old Lucre, but as his conscience moved him, knowing the poor gentleman, stept in between ’em, and cozened him himself.

Lim. And was this all, sir?

Ones. H. This was e’en it, sir; yet, for all this, I know no reason but the match might go forward betwixt his wife’s son and my niece: what though there be a dissension between the two old men, I see no reason it should put a difference between the two younger; ’tis as natural for old folks to fall out, as for young to fall in. A scholar comes a-wooing to my niece; well, he’s wise, but he’s poor: her son comes a-wooing to my niece; well, he’s a fool, but he’s rich.

Lim. Ay, marry, sir.

11Ones. H. Pray, now, is not a rich fool better than a poor philosopher?

Lim. One would think so, i’faith.

Ones. H. She now remains at London with my brother, her second uncle, to learn fashions, practise music; the voice between her lips, and the viol^[15] between her legs, she’ll be fit for a consort very speedily: a thousand good pound is her portion; if she marry, we’ll ride up and be merry.

Kix. A match, if it be a match. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Wit. Mine host!

Host. Young master Witgood!

Wit. I have been laying^[16] all the town for thee.

Host. Why, what’s the news, bully Had-land?

Wit. What geldings are in the house, of thine own? answer me to that first.

Host. Why, man, why?

Wit. Mark me what I say: I’ll tell thee such a tale in thine ear, that thou shalt trust me spite of thy teeth, furnish me with some money wille nille, and ride up with me thyself contra voluntatem et professionem.

Host. How? let me see this trick, and I’ll say thou hast more art than a conjurer.

Wit. Dost thou joy in my advancement?

12Host. Do I love sack and ginger?

Wit. Comes my prosperity desiredly to thee?

Host. Come forfeitures to a usurer, fees to an officer, punks to an host, and pigs to a parson desiredly? why, then, la.

Wit. Will the report of a widow of four hundred a-year, boy, make thee leap, and sing, and dance, and come to thy place again?

Host. Wilt thou command me now? I am thy spirit; conjure me into any shape.

Wit. I ha’ brought her from her friends, turned back the horses by a slight;^[17] not so much as one among her six men, goodly large yeomanly fellows, will she trust with this her purpose: by this light, all unmanned, regardless of her state, neglectful of vain-glorious ceremony, all for my love. O, ’tis a fine little voluble tongue, mine host, that wins a widow!

Host. No, ’tis a tongue with a great T, my boy, that wins a widow.

Wit. Now, sir, the case stands thus: good mine host, if thou lovest my happiness, assist me.

Host. Command all my beasts i’ th’ house.

Wit. Nay, that’s not all neither: prithee, take truce with thy joy, and listen to me. Thou knowest I have a wealthy uncle i’ th’ city, somewhat the wealthier by my follies: the report of this fortune, well and cunningly carried, might be a means to draw some goodness from the usuring rascal; for I have put her in hope already of some estate that I have either in land or money: now, if I be found true in neither, what may I expect but a sudden breach of our love, utter dissolution of the match, and confusion of my fortunes for ever?

13Host. Wilt thou but trust the managing of thy business with me?

Wit. With thee? why, will I desire to thrive in my purpose? will I hug four hundred a-year, I that know the misery of nothing? Will that man wish a rich widow, that has ne’er a hole to put his head in? With thee, mine host? why, believe it, sooner with thee than with a covey of counsellors.

Host. Thank you for your good report, i’faith, sir; and if I stand you not in stead, why then let an host come off hic et hæc hostis, a deadly enemy to dice, drink, and venery. Come, where’s this widow?

Wit. Hard at Park-end.

Host. I’ll be her serving-man for once.

Wit. Why, there we let off together: keep full time; my thoughts were striking then just the same number.

Host. I knew’t: shall we then see our merry days again?

SCENE III.

Enter^[19] Lucre and Hoard quarrelling; Lamprey, Spichcock, Freedom, and Moneylove, coming between to pacify them.

Lam. Nay, good master Lucre, and you, master Hoard, anger is the wind which you’re both too much troubled withal.

14Hoa. Shall my adversary thus daily affront^[20] me, ripping up the old wound of our malice, which three summers could not close up? into which wound the very sight of him drops scalding lead instead of balsamum.

Luc. Why, Hoard, Hoard, Hoard, Hoard, Hoard! may I not pass in the state of quietness to mine own house? answer me to that, before witness, and why? I’ll refer the cause to honest, even-minded gentlemen, or require the mere indifferences of the law to decide this matter. I got the purchase, true: was’t not any man’s case? yes: will a wise man stand as a bawd, whilst another wipes his nose^[21] of the bargain? no; I answer no in that case.

Lam. Nay, sweet master Lucre.

Hoa. Was it the part of a friend—no, rather of a Jew;—mark what I say—when I had beaten the bush to the last bird, or, as I may term it, the price to a pound, then, like a cunning usurer, to come in the evening of the bargain, and glean all my hopes in a minute? to enter, as it were, at the back door of the purchase? for thou ne’er camest the right way by it.

Luc. Hast thou the conscience to tell me so without any impeachment to thyself?

Hoa. Thou that canst defeat thy own nephew, Lucre, lap his lands into bonds, and take the extremity of thy kindred’s forfeitures, because he’s a rioter, a wastethrift, a brothel-master,^[22] and so 15forth; what may a stranger expect from thee but vulnera dilacerata, as the poet says, dilacerate dealing?

Luc. Upbraidest thou me with nephew? is all imputation laid upon me? what acquaintance have I with his follies? if he riot, ’tis he must want it; if he surfeit, ’tis he must feel it; if he drab it, ’tis he must lie by’t: what’s this to me?

Hoa. What’s all to thee? nothing, nothing; such is the gulf of thy desire and the wolf of thy conscience: but be assured, old Pecunius^[23] Lucre, if ever fortune so bless me, that I may be at leisure to vex thee, or any means so favour me, that I may have opportunity to mad thee, I will pursue it with that flame of hate, that spirit of malice, unrepressed wrath, that I will blast thy comforts.

Luc. Ha, ha, ha!

Lam. Nay, master Hoard, you’re a wise gentleman——

Hoa. I will so cross thee——

Luc. And I thee.

Hoa. So without mercy fret thee——

Luc. So monstrously oppose thee——

Hoa. Dost scoff at my just anger? O, that I had as much power as usury has over thee!

Luc. Then thou wouldst have as much power as the devil has over thee.

Hoa. Toad!

Luc. Aspic!

Hoa. Serpent!

Luc. Viper!

16Spi. Nay, gentlemen, then we must divide you perforce.

Lam. When the fire grows too unreasonable hot, there’s no better way than to take off the wood.

[Exeunt Lamprey and Spichcock, drawing off Lucre and Hoard different ways: manent^[24] Freedom and Moneylove.

Free. A word, good signior.

Mon. How now, what’s the news?

Free. ’Tis given me to understand that you are a rival of mine in the love of mistress Joyce, master Hoard’s niece: say me ay, say me no?

Mon. Yes, ’tis so.

Free. Then look to yourself, you cannot live long: I’m practising every morning; a month hence I’ll challenge you.

Mon. Give me your hand upon’t; there’s my pledge I’ll meet you. [Strikes him, and exit.

Free. O, O! what reason had you for that, sir, to strike before the month? you knew I was not ready for you, and that made you so crank:^[25] I am not such a coward to strike again, I warrant you. My ear has the law of her side, for it burns horribly. I will teach him to strike a naked face, the longest day of his life: ’slid, it shall cost me some money but I’ll bring this box into the chancery. [Exit.

Host. Fear you nothing, sir; I have lodged her in a house of credit, I warrant you.

Wit. Hast thou the writings?

Host. Firm, sir.

Wit. Prithee, stay, and behold two the most prodigious rascals that ever slipt into the shape of men; Dampit, sirrah, and young Gulf his fellow-caterpillar.

Host. Dampit? sure I have heard of that Dampit?

Wit. Heard of him? why, man, he that has lost both his ears may hear of him; a famous infamous trampler of time; his own phrase. Note him well: that Dampit, sirrah, he in the uneven beard and the serge cloak, is the most notorious, usuring, blasphemous, atheistical, brothel-vomiting rascal, that we have in these latter times now extant; whose first beginning was the stealing of a masty^[26] dog from a farmer’s house.

Host. He looked as if he would obey the commandment[s] well, when he began first with stealing.

Wit. True: the next town he came at, he set the dogs together by th’ ears.

Host. A sign he should follow the law, by my faith.

Wit. So it followed, indeed; and being destitute of all fortunes, staked his masty against a noble,^[27] and by great fortune his dog had the day: how he made it up ten shillings, I know not; but 18his own boast is, that he came to town but with ten shillings in his purse, and now is credibly worth ten thousand pound.

Host. How the devil came he by it?

Wit. How the devil came he not by it? If you put in the devil once, riches come with a vengeance: has been a trampler of the law,^[28] sir; and the devil has a care of his footmen. The rogue has spied me now; he nibbled me finely once, too:—a pox search you! [Aside.]—O, master Dampit!—the very loins of thee! [Aside.]—Cry you mercy, master Gulf; you walk so low, I promise you I saw you not, sir.

Wit. ’Twas a merry world when thou camest to town with ten shillings in thy purse.

19Dam. And now worth ten thousand pound, my boy. Report it; Harry Dampit, a trampler of time, say, he would be up in a morning, and be here with his serge gown, dashed up to the hams in a cause; have his feet stink about Westminster Hall, and come home again; see the galleons, the galleasses,^[29] the great armadas of the law; then there be hoys and petty vessels, oars and scullers of the time; there be picklocks of the time too; then would I be here; I would trample up and down like a mule: now to the judges, May it please your reverend honourable fatherhoods; then to my counsellor, May it please your worshipful patience; then to the examiner’s office, May it please your mastership’s gentleness; then to one of the clerks, May it please your worshipful lousiness,—for I find him scrubbing in his cod-piece; then to the hall again, then to the chamber again——

Wit. And when to the cellar again?

Dam. E’en when thou wilt again: tramplers of time, motions of Fleet Street, and visions of Holborn;^[30] here I have fees of one, there I have fees of another; my clients come about me, the fooliaminy and coxcombry of the country: I still trashed^[31] 20and trotted for other men’s causes; thus was poor Harry Dampit made rich by others’ laziness, who, though they would not follow their own suits, I made ’em follow me with their purses.

Wit. Didst thou so, old Harry?

Dam. Ay, and I soused ’em with bills of charges, i’faith; twenty pound a-year have I brought in for boat-hire, and I ne’er stept into boat in my life.

Wit. Tramplers of time!

Dam. Ay, tramplers of time, rascals of time, bull-beggars!^[32]

Wit. Ah, thou’rt a mad old Harry!—Kind master Gulf, I am bold to renew my acquaintance.

Gulf. I embrace it, sir. [Exeunt.

ACT II. SCENE I.

Luc. My adversary evermore twits me with my nephew, forsooth, my nephew: why may not a virtuous uncle have a dissolute nephew? What though he be a brotheller, a wastethrift, a common surfeiter, and, to conclude, a beggar, must sin in him call up shame in me? Since we have no part in their follies, why should we have part in their infamies? For my strict hand toward his mortgage, that I deny not: I confess I had an uncle’s pen’worth; let me see, half in half, true: I saw neither hope of his reclaiming, nor comfort in his being; and was it not then better bestowed upon 21his uncle than upon one of his aunts?—I need not say bawd, for every one knows what aunt stands for in the last translation.

Now, sir?

Ser. There’s a country serving-man, sir, attends to speak with your worship.

Luc. I’m at best leisure now; send him in to me.

Host. Bless your venerable worship.

Luc. Welcome, good fellow.

Host. He calls me thief^[33] at first sight, yet he little thinks I am an host. [Aside.

Luc. What’s thy business with me?

Host. Faith, sir, I am sent from my mistress, to any sufficient gentleman indeed, to ask advice upon a doubtful point: ’tis indifferent, sir, to whom I come, for I know none, nor did my mistress direct me to any particular man, for she’s as mere a stranger here as myself; only I found your worship within, and ’tis a thing I ever loved, sir, to be despatched as soon as I can.

Luc. A good, blunt honesty; I like him well. [Aside.]—What is thy mistress?

Host. Faith, a country gentlewoman, and a widow, sir. Yesterday was the first flight of us; but now she intends to stay till a little term business be ended.

Luc. Her name, I prithee?

Host. It runs there in the writings, sir, among her lands; widow Medler.

22Luc. Medler? mass, have I ne’er heard of that widow?

Host. Yes, I warrant you, have you, sir: not the rich widow in Staffordshire?

Luc. Cuds me, there ’tis indeed; thou hast put me into memory: there’s a widow indeed! ah, that I were a bachelor again!

Host. No doubt your worship might do much then; but she’s fairly promised to a bachelor already.

Luc. Ah, what is he, I prithee?

Host. A country gentleman too; one whom your worship knows not, I’m sure; has spent some few follies in his youth, but marriage, by my faith, begins to call him home: my mistress loves him, sir, and love covers faults, you know: one master Witgood, if ever you have heard of the gentleman.

Luc. Ha! Witgood, sayst thou?

Host. That’s his name indeed, sir; my mistress is like to bring him to a goodly seat yonder; four hundred a-year, by my faith.

Luc. But, I pray, take me with you.^[34]

Host. Ay, sir.

Luc. What countryman might this young Witgood be?

Host. A Leicestershire gentleman, sir.

Luc. My nephew, by th’ mass, my nephew! I’ll fetch out more of this, i’faith: a simple country fellow, I’ll work’t out of him. [Aside.]—And is that gentleman, sayst thou, presently to marry her?

Host. Faith, he brought her up to town, sir; has the best card in all the bunch for’t, her heart; and I know my mistress will be married ere she 23go down; nay, I’ll swear that, for she’s none of those widows that will go down first, and be married after; she hates that, I can tell you, sir.

Luc. By my faith, sir, she is like to have a proper gentleman, and a comely; I’ll give her that gift.

Host. Why, does your worship know him, sir?

Luc. I know him? does not all the world know him? can a man of such exquisite qualities be hid under a bushel?

Host. Then your worship may save me a labour, for I had charge given me to inquire after him.

Luc. Inquire of him? If I might counsel thee, thou shouldst ne’er trouble thyself further; inquire of him of no more but of me; I’ll fit thee. I grant he has been youthful; but is he not now reclaimed? mark you that, sir: has not your mistress, think you, been wanton in her youth? if men be wags, are there not women wagtails?

Host. No doubt, sir.

Luc. Does not he return wisest that comes home whipt with his own follies?

Host. Why, very true, sir.

Luc. The worst report you can hear of him, I can tell you, is that he has been a kind gentleman, a liberal, and a worthy: who but lusty Witgood, thrice-noble Witgood!

Host. Since your worship has so much knowledge in him, can you resolve^[35] me, sir, what his living might be? my duty binds me, sir, to have a care of my mistress’ estate; she has been ever a good mistress to me, though I say it: many wealthy suitors has she nonsuited for his sake; 24yet though her love be so fixed, a man cannot tell whether his non-performance may help to remove it, sir: he makes us believe he has lands and living.

Luc. Who, young master Witgood? why, believe it, he has as goodly a fine living out yonder,—what do you call the place?

Host. Nay, I know not, i’faith.

Luc. Hum—see, like a beast, if I have not forgot the name—pooh! and out yonder again, goodly grown woods and fair meadows: pax^[36] on’t, I can ne’er hit of that place neither: he? why, he’s Witgood of Witgood Hall; he, an unknown thing!

Host. Is he so, sir? To see how rumour will alter! trust me, sir, we heard once he had no lands, but all lay mortgaged to an uncle he has in town here.

Luc. Push,^[37] ’tis a tale, ’tis a tale.

Host. I can assure you, sir, ’twas credibly reported to my mistress.

Luc. Why, do you think, i’faith, he was ever so simple to mortgage his lands to his uncle? or his uncle so unnatural to take the extremity of such a mortgage?

Host. That was my saying still, sir.

Luc. Pooh, ne’er think it.

Host. Yet that report goes current.

Luc. Nay, then you urge me: Cannot I tell that best that am his uncle?

Host. How, sir? what have I done!

25Luc. Why, how now! in a swoon, man?

Host. Is your worship his uncle, sir?

Luc. Can that be any harm to you, sir?

Host. I do beseech you, sir, do me the favour to conceal it: what a beast was I to utter so much! pray, sir, do me the kindness to keep it in; I shall have my coat pulled o’er my ears, an’t should be known; for the truth is, an’t please your worship, to prevent much rumour and many suitors, they intend to be married very suddenly and privately.

Luc. And dost thou think it stands with my judgment to do them injury? must I needs say the knowledge of this marriage comes from thee? am I a fool at fifty-four? do I lack subtlety now, that have got all my wealth by it? There’s a leash of angels^[38] for thee: come, let me woo thee speak where lie they?

Host. So I might have no anger, sir——

Luc. Passion of me, not a jot: prithee, come.

Host. I would not have it known, sir,^[39] it came by my means.

Luc. Why, am I a man of wisdom?

Host. I dare trust your worship, sir; but I’m a stranger to your house; and to avoid all intelligencers, I desire your worship’s ear.

Luc. This fellow’s worth a matter of trust. [Aside.]—Come, sir. [Host whispers to him.] Why, now thou’rt an honest lad.—Ah, sirrah, nephew!

Host. Please you, sir, now I have begun with your worship, when shall I attend for your advice upon that doubtful point? I must come warily now.

26Luc. Tut, fear thou nothing; To-morrow’s evening shall resolve the doubt.

Host. The time shall cause my attendance.

Luc. Fare thee well. [Exit Host.]—There’s more true honesty in such a country serving-man than in a hundred of our cloak companions:^[40] I may well call ’em companions, for since blue coats have been turned into cloaks,^[41] we can scarce know the man from the master.—George!

Geo. Anon, sir.

Luc. List hither: [whispers] keep the place secret: commend me to my nephew; I know no cause, tell him, but he might see his uncle.

Geo. I will, sir.

Luc. And, do you hear, sir? Take heed you use him with respect and duty.

Geo. Here’s a strange alteration; one day he must be turned out like a beggar, and now he must be called in like a knight. [Aside, and exit.

Luc. Ah, sirrah, that rich widow!—four hundred a-year! beside, I hear she lays claim to a title of a hundred more. This falls unhappily that he should bear a grudge to me now, being likely to prove so rich: what is’t, trow,^[42] that he makes me a stranger for? Hum,—I hope he has not so much wit to apprehend that I cozened him: he 27deceives me then. Good heaven, who would have thought it would ever have come to this pass! yet he’s a proper gentleman, i’faith, give him his due, marry, that’s his mortgage; but that I ne’er mean to give him: I’ll make him rich enough in words, if that be good; and if it come to a piece of money, I will not greatly stick for’t; there may be hope some of the widow’s lands, too, may one day fall upon me, if things be carried wisely.

Now, sir, where is he?

Geo. He desires your worship to hold him excused; he has such weighty business, it commands him wholly from all men.

Luc. Were those my nephew’s words?

Geo. Yes, indeed, sir.

Luc. When men grow rich, they grow proud too, I perceive that; he would not have sent me such an answer once within this twelvemonth: see what ’tis when a man’s come to his lands! [Aside.]—Return to him again, sir; tell him his uncle desires his company for an hour; I’ll trouble him but an hour, say; ’tis for his own good, tell him: and, do you hear, sir? put worship upon him: go to, do as I bid you; he’s like to be a gentleman of worship very shortly.

Geo. This is good sport, i’faith. [Aside, and exit.

Luc. Troth, he uses his uncle discourteously now: can he tell what I may do for him? goodness may come from me in a minute, that comes not in seven year again: he knows my humour; I am not so usually good; ’tis no small thing that draws kindness from me, he may know that and^[43] 28he will. The chief cause that invites me to do him most good, is the sudden astonishing of old Hoard, my adversary: how pale his malice will look at my nephew’s advancement! with what a dejected spirit he will behold his fortunes, whom but last day he proclaimed rioter, penurious makeshift, despised brothel-master!^[44] Ha, ha! ’twill do me more secret joy than my last purchase, more precious comfort than all these widow’s revenues.

Now, sir?

Geo. With much entreaty he’s at length come, sir.

Luc. O, nephew, let me salute you, sir! you’re welcome, nephew.

Wit. Uncle, I thank you.

29Wit. Will you but hear what I can say in my just excuse, sir?

Luc. Yes, faith, will I, and welcome.

Wit. You that know my danger i’ th’ city, sir, so well, how great my debts are, and how extreme my creditors, could not out of your pure judgment, sir, have wished us hither.

Luc. Mass, a firm reason indeed.

Wit. Else, my uncle’s house! why, ’t had been the only make-match.

Luc. Nay, and thy credit.

Wit. My credit? nay, my countenance: push,^[47] nay, I know, uncle, you would have wrought it so by your wit, you would have made her believe in time the whole house had been mine.

Luc. Ay, and most of the goods too.

Wit. La, you there! well, let ’em all prate what they will, there’s nothing like the bringing of a widow to one’s uncle’s house.

Luc. Nay, let nephews be ruled as they list, they shall find their uncle’s house the most natural place when all’s done.

Wit. There they may be bold.

Luc. Life, they may do any thing there, man, and fear neither beadle nor somner:^[48] an uncle’s house! a very Cole-Harbour.^[49] Sirrah, I’ll touch thee near now: hast thou so much interest in thy widow, that by a token thou couldst presently send for her?

Wit. Troth, I think I can, uncle.

Luc. Go to, let me see that.

Wit. Pray, command one of your men hither, uncle.

30Luc. George!

Geo. Here, sir.

Luc. Attend my nephew. [Witgood whispers to George, who then goes out.]—I love a’ life^[50] to prattle with a rich widow; ’tis pretty, methinks, when our tongues go together: and then to promise much and perform little; I love that sport a’ life, i’faith: yet I am in the mood now to do my nephew some good, if he take me handsomely. [Aside.]—What, have you despatched?

Wit. I ha’ sent, sir.

Luc. Yet I must condemn you of unkindness, nephew.

Wit. Heaven forbid, uncle!

Luc. Yes, faith, must I. Say your debts be many, your creditors importunate, yet the kindness of a thing is all, nephew: you might have sent me close word on’t, without the least danger or prejudice to your fortunes.

Wit. Troth, I confess it, uncle; I was to blame there; but, indeed, my intent was to have clapped it up suddenly, and so have broke forth like a joy to my friends, and a wonder to the world: beside, there’s a trifle of a forty pound matter toward the setting of me forth; my friends should ne’er have known on’t; I meant to make shift for that myself.

Luc. How, nephew? let me not hear such a word again, I beseech you: shall I be beholding^[51] to you?

Wit. To me? Alas, what do you mean, uncle?

31Luc. I charge you, upon my love, you trouble nobody but myself.

Wit. You’ve no reason for that, uncle.

Luc. Troth, I’ll ne’er be friends with you while you live, and^[52] you do.

Wit. Nay, and you say so, uncle, here’s my hand; I will not do’t.

Luc. Why, well said! there’s some hope in thee when thou wilt be ruled; I’ll make it up fifty, faith, because I see thee so reclaimed. Peace; here comes my wife with Sam, her t’other husband’s son.

Wit. Good aunt.

Free. Cousin Witgood, I rejoice in my salute; you’re most welcome to this noble city, governed with the sword in the scabbard.

Wit. And the wit in the pommel. [Aside.]—Good master Sam Freedom, I return the salute.

Luc. By the mass, she’s coming, wife; let me see now how thou wilt entertain her.

Mis. L. I hope I am not to learn, sir, to entertain a widow; ’tis not so long ago since I was one myself.

Wit. Uncle——

Luc. She’s come indeed.

Wit. My uncle was desirous to see you, widow, and I presumed to invite you.

Court. The presumption was nothing, master Witgood: is this your uncle, sir?

Luc. Marry am I, sweet widow; and his good uncle he shall find me; ay, by this smack that I 32give thee [kisses her], thou’rt welcome.—Wife, bid the widow welcome the same way again,

Free. I am a gentleman now too by my father’s occupation, and I see no reason but I may kiss a widow by my father’s copy: truly, I think the charter is not against it; surely these are the words, The son once a gentleman may revel it, though his father were a dauber; ’tis about the fifteenth page: I’ll to her.

Luc. You’re not very busy now; a word with thee, sweet widow.

Free. Coads-nigs! I was never so disgraced since the hour my mother whipt me.

Luc. Beside, I have no child of mine own to care for; she’s my second wife, old, past bearing: clap sure to him, widow; he’s like to be my heir, I can tell you.

Court. Is he so, sir?

Luc. He knows it already, and the knave’s proud on’t: jolly rich widows have been offered him here i’ th’ city, great merchants’ wives; and do you think he would once look upon ’em? forsooth, he’ll none: you are beholding^[53] to him i’ th’ country, then, ere we could be: nay, I’ll hold a wager, widow, if he were once known to be in town, he would be presently sought after; nay, and happy were they that could catch him first.

Court. I think so.

Luc. O, there would be such running to and fro, widow! he should not pass the streets for ’em: he’d be took up in one great house or other presently: faugh! they know he has it, and must 33have it. You see this house here, widow; this house and all comes to him; goodly rooms, ready furnished, ceiled with plaster of Paris, and all hung about^[54] with cloth of arras.—Nephew.

Wit. Sir.

Luc. Shew the widow your house; carry her into all the rooms, and bid her welcome.—You shall see, widow.—Nephew, strike all sure above and^[55] thou beest a good boy,—ah! [Aside to Witgood.

Wit. Alas, sir, I know not how she would take it!

Luc. The right way, I warrant t’ye: a pox, art an ass? would I were in thy stead! get you up, I am ashamed of you. [Exeunt Witgood and Courtesan]. So: let ’em agree as they will now: many a match has been struck up in my house a’ this fashion: let ’em try all manner of ways, still there’s nothing like an uncle’s house to strike the stroke in. I’ll hold my wife in talk a little.—Now, Jenny, your son there goes a-wooing to a poor gentlewoman but of a thousand [pound] portion: see my nephew, a lad of less hope, strikes at four hundred a-year in good rubbish.

Mis. L. Well, we must do as we may, sir.

Luc. I’ll have his money ready told for him again^[56] he come down: let me see, too;—by th’ mass, I must present the widow with some jewel, a good piece of^[57] plate, or such a device; ’twill hearten her on well: I have a very fair standing cup; and a good high standing cup will please a widow above all other pieces. [Exit.

Mis. L. Do you mock us with your nephew?—I have a plot in my head, son;—i’faith, husband, to cross you.

34Free. Is it a tragedy plot, or a comedy plot, good mother?

Mis. L. ’Tis a plot shall vex him. I charge you, of my blessing, son Sam, that you presently withdraw the action of your love from master Hoard’s niece.

Free. How, mother?

Mis. L. Nay, I have a plot in my head, i’faith. Here, take this chain of gold, and this fair diamond: dog me the widow home to her lodging, and at thy best opportunity fasten ’em both upon her. Nay, I have a reach: I can tell you thou art known what thou art, son, among the right worshipful, all the twelve companies.

Free. Truly, I thank ’em for it.

Mis. L. He? he’s a scab to thee: and so certify her thou hast two hundred a-year of thyself, beside thy good parts—a proper person and a lovely. If I were a widow, I could find in my heart to have thee myself, son; ay, from ’em all.

Free. Thank you for your good will, mother; but, indeed, I had rather have a stranger: and if I woo her not in that violent fashion, that I will make her be glad to take these gifts ere I leave her, let me never be called the heir of your body.

Mis. L. Nay, I know there’s enough in you, son, if you once come to put it forth.

Free. I’ll quickly make a bolt or a shaft on’t.^[58]

Mon. Faith, master Hoard, I have bestowed many months in the suit of your niece, such was the dear love I ever bore to her virtues: but since she hath so extremely denied me, I am to lay out for my fortunes elsewhere.

Hoa. Heaven forbid but you should, sir! I ever told you my niece stood otherwise affected.

Mon. I must confess you did, sir; yet, in regard of my great loss of time, and the zeal with which I sought your niece, shall I desire one favour of your worship?

Hoa. In regard of those two, ’tis hard but you shall, sir.

Mon. I shall rest grateful: ’tis not full three hours, sir, since the happy rumour of a rich country widow came to my hearing.

Hoa. How? a rich country widow?

Mon. Four hundred a-year landed.

Hoa. Yea?

Mon. Most firm, sir; and I have learnt her lodging: here my suit begins, sir; if I might but entreat your worship to be a countenance for me, and speak a good word (for your words will pass), I nothing doubt but I might set fair for the widow; nor shall your labour, sir, end altogether in thanks; two hundred angels^[59]——

Hoa. So, so: what suitors has she?

Mon. There lies the comfort, sir; the report of her is yet but a whisper; and only solicited by 36young riotous Witgood, nephew to your mortal adversary.

Hoa. Ha! art certain he’s her suitor?

Mon. Most certain, sir; and his uncle very industrious to beguile the widow, and make up the match.

Hoa. So: very good.

Mon. Now, sir, you know this young Witgood is a spendthrift, dissolute fellow.

Hoa. A very rascal.

Mon. A midnight surfeiter.

Hoa. The spume of a brothel-house.

Mon. True, sir: which being well told in your worship’s phrase, may both heave him out of her mind, and drive a fair way for me to the widow’s affections.

Hoa. Attend me about five.

Mon. With my best care, sir. [Exit.

Happy revenge, I hug thee! I have not only the means laid before me, extremely to cross my adversary, and confound the last hopes of his nephew, but thereby to enrich my state, augment my revenues, and build mine own fortunes greater: ha, ha!

First C. I am glad of this news.

37Sec. C. So are we, by my faith.

Third C. Young Witgood will be a gallant again now.

Hoa. Peace. [Listening.

First C. I promise you, master Cockpit, she’s a mighty rich widow.

Sec. C. Why, have you ever heard of her?

First C. Who? widow Medler? she lies open to much rumour.

Third C. Four hundred a-year, they say, in very good land.

First C. Nay, take’t of my word, if you believe that, you believe the least.

Sec. C. And to see how close he keeps it!

First C. O, sir, there’s policy in that, to prevent better suitors.

Third C. He owes me a hundred pound, and I protest I ne’er looked for a penny.

First C. He little dreams of our coming; he’ll wonder to see his creditors upon him. [Exeunt Creditors.

Wit. Why, alas, my creditors, could you find no other time to undo me but now? rather your malice appears in this than the justness of the debt.

First C. Master Witgood, I have forborne my money long.

Wit. I pray, speak low, sir: what do you mean?

Sec. C. We hear you are to be married suddenly to a rich country widow.

Wit. What can be kept so close but you creditors hear on’t! well, ’tis a lamentable state, that our chiefest afflictors should first hear of our fortunes. Why, this is no good course, i’faith, sirs: if ever you have hope to be satisfied, why do you seek to confound the means that should work it? there’s neither piety, no, nor policy in that. Shine favourably now: why, I may rise and spread again, to your great comforts.

Sec. C. Faith, we heard you brought up a rich widow, sir, and were suddenly to marry her.

Wit. Ay, why there it was: I knew ’twas so: but since you are so well resolved^[62] of my faith toward you, let me be so much favoured of you, I beseech you all——

All. O, it shall not need, i’faith, sir!——

40Wit. As to lie still awhile, and bury my debts in silence, till I be fully possessed of the widow; for the truth is—I may tell you as my friends—

All. O, O, O!——

Wit. I am to raise a little money in the city, toward the setting forth of myself, for mine own credit and your comfort; now, if my former debts should be divulged, all hope of my proceedings were quite extinguished.

First C. Do you hear, sir? I may deserve your custom hereafter; pray, let my money be accepted before a stranger’s: here’s forty pound I received as I came to you; if that may stand you in any stead, make use on’t. [Offers him money, which he at first declines.] Nay, pray, sir; ’tis at your service. [Aside to Witgood.

Wit. You do so ravish me with kindness, that I am^[63] constrain’d to play the maid, and take it.

Sec. C. I go.—Take no care, sir, for money to furnish you; within this hour I’ll send you sufficient. [Aside to Witgood.]—Come, master Cockpit, we both stay for you.

Third C. I ha’ lost a ring, i’faith; I’ll follow you presently: [exeunt First and Second Creditors]—but you shall find it, sir; I know your youth and expenses have disfurnished you of all jewels: 41there’s a ruby of twenty pound price, sir; bestow it upon your widow. [Offers him the ring, which he at first declines.]—What, man! ’twill call up her blood to you; beside, if I might so much work with you, I would not have you beholding^[64] to those bloodsuckers for any money.

Wit. Not I, believe it.

Third C. They’re a brace of cut-throats.

Wit. I know ’em.

Third C. Send a note of all your wants to my shop, and I’ll supply you instantly.

Wit. Say you so? why, here’s my hand then, no man living shall do’t but thyself.

Third C. Shall I carry it away from ’em both, then?

Wit. I’faith, shalt thou.

Third C. Troth, then, I thank you, sir.

Wit. Welcome, good master Cockpit. [Exit Third Creditor.]—Ha, ha, ha! why, is not this better now than lying a-bed? I perceive there’s nothing conjures up wit sooner than poverty, and nothing lays it down sooner than wealth and lechery: this has some savour yet. O that I had the mortgage from mine uncle as sure in possession as these trifles! I would forswear brothel at noonday, and muscadine and eggs at midnight.

Court. [within] Master Witgood, where are you?

Wit. Holla!

Court. Rich news!

Wit. Would ’twere all in plate!

Court. There’s some in chains and jewels: I am so haunted with suitors, master Witgood, I know not which to despatch first.

Wit. Wench, make up thy own fortunes now; do thyself a good turn once in thy days: he’s rich in money, movables, and lands; marry him: he’s an old doating fool, and that’s worth all; marry him: ’twould be a great comfort to me to see thee do well, i’faith; marry him: ’twould ease my conscience well to see thee well bestowed; I have a care of thee, i’faith.

Court. Thanks, sweet master Witgood.

Wit. I reach at farther happiness: first, I am sure it can be no harm to thee, and there may happen goodness to me by it: prosecute it well; let’s send up for our wits, now we require their best and most pregnant assistance.

Court. Step in, I think I hear ’em. [Exeunt.

Hoa. Art thou the widow’s man? by my faith, sh’as a company of proper men then.

Host. I am the worst of six, sir; good enough for blue coats.^[66]

Hoa. Hark hither: I hear say thou art in most credit with her.

Host. Not so, sir.

Hoa. Come, come, thou’rt modest: there’s a brace of royals;^[67] prithee, help me to th’ speech of her.

Host. I’ll do what I may, sir, always saving myself harmless.

Hoa. Go to, do’t, I say; thou shalt hear better from me.

Host. Is not this a better place than five mark a-year standing wages? Say a man had but three such clients in a day, methinks he might make a poor living on’t; beside, I was never brought up with so little honesty to refuse any man’s money; never: what gulls there are a’ this side the world! now know I the widow’s mind; none but my young master comes in her clutches: ha, ha, ha!

First G. We do, sir.

Sec. G. But, master Hoard, are you sure he is not i’ th’ house now?

First G. Come, you widows are ever most backward when you should do yourselves most good; but were it to marry a chin not worth a hair now, then you would be forward enough. Come, clap hands, a match.

Court. But, master Hoard, one thing I must 47remember you of, before these gentlemen, your friends: how shall I suddenly avoid the loathed soliciting of that perjured Witgood, and his tedious, dissembling uncle? who this very day hath appointed a meeting for the same purpose too; where, had not truth come forth, I had been undone, utterly undone!

Hoa. What think you of that, gentlemen?

First G. ’Twas well devised.

Hoa. Hark thee, widow: train out young Witgood single; hasten him thither with thee, somewhat before the hour; where, at the place appointed, these gentlemen and myself will wait the opportunity, when, by some slight^[73] removing him from thee, we’ll suddenly enter and surprise thee, carry thee away by boat to Cole-Harbour,^[74] have a priest ready, and there clap it up instantly. How likest it, widow?

Court. In that it pleaseth you, it likes^[75] me well.

Wit. O for more scope! I could laugh eternally! Give you joy, mistress Hoard, I promise your fortune was good, forsooth; you’ve fell upon wealth enough, and there’s young gentlemen enow can help you to the rest. Now it requires our wits: carry thyself but heedfully now, and we are both——

Host. Master Witgood, your uncle.

Wit. Cuds me! remove thyself awhile; I’ll serve for him.

Wit. The sooner the better, uncle. O, she’s mightily followed!

Luc. And yet so little rumoured!

Wit. Mightily: here comes one old gentleman, and he’ll make her a jointure of three hundred a-year, forsooth; another wealthy suitor will estate his son in his lifetime, and make him weigh down the widow; here a merchant’s son will possess her with no less than three goodly lordships at once, which were all pawns to his father.

Luc. Peace, nephew, let me hear no more of 49’em; it mads me. Thou shalt prevent^[78] ’em all. No words to the widow of my coming hither. Let me see—’tis now upon nine: before twelve, nephew, we will have the bargain struck, we will, faith, boy.

Wit. O, my precious uncle! [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Hoa. Niece, sweet niece, prithee, have a care to my house; I leave all to thy discretion. Be content to dream awhile; I’ll have a husband for thee shortly: put that care upon me, wench, for in choosing wives and husbands I am only fortunate; I have that gift given me.

[Reads] Dearer than sight, what the world reports of me, yet believe not; rumour will alter shortly: be 50thou constant; I am still the same that I was in love, and I hope to be the same in fortunes.

SCENE III.

Dra. You’re very welcome, gentlemen.—Dick, shew those gentlemen the Pomegranate there.

Hoa. Hist!

Dra. Up those stairs, gentlemen.

Hoa. Hist, drawer!

Dra. Anon, sir.

Hoa. Prithee, ask at the bar if a gentlewoman came not in lately.

Dra. William, at the bar, did you see any gentlewoman come in lately? Speak you ay, speak you no.

[Within.] No, none came in yet but mistress Florence.

Dra. He says none came in yet, sir, but one mistress Florence.

Hoa. What is that Florence? a widow?

Dra. Yes, a Dutch widow.^[81] 51Hoa. How?

Dra. That’s an English drab, sir: give your worship good morrow. [Exit.

Hoa. A merry knave, i’faith! I shall remember a Dutch widow the longest day of my life.

Sec. G. You shall pardon me for that, sir; master Hoard knows I took her at best ’vantage.

Hoa. What’s that, sweet gentlemen, what’s that?

Sec. G. He will needs bear me down, that his art only wrought with the widow most.

Hoa. O, you did both well, gentlemen, you did both well, I thank you.

First G. I was the first that moved her.

Hoa. You were, i’faith.

Sec. G. But it was I that took her at the bound.

Dra. You’re very welcome: please you to walk up stairs; cloth’s laid, sir.

Court. Up stairs? troth, I am very^[82] weary, master Witgood.

Wit. Rest yourself here awhile, widow; we’ll have a cup of muscadine in this little room.

52Dra. A cup of muscadine? You shall have the best, sir.

Wit. But, do you hear, sirrah?

Dra. Do you call? anon, sir.

Wit. What is there provided for dinner?

Dra. I cannot readily tell you, sir: if you please you may go into the kitchen and see yourself, sir; many gentlemen of worship do use to do it, I assure you, sir.

Host. A pretty familiar, prigging^[83] rascal; he has his part without book.

Wit. Against you are ready to drink to me, widow, I’ll be present to pledge you.

Court. Nay, I commend your care, ’tis done well of you. [Exit Witgood.]—’Las,^[84] what have I forgot!

Host. What, mistress?

Court. I slipt my wedding-ring off when I washed, and left it at my lodging: prithee, run; I shall be sad without it. [Exit Host.]—So, he’s gone. Boy.

Boy. Anon, forsooth.

Court. Come hither, sirrah; learn secretly if one master Hoard, an ancient gentleman, be about house.

Boy. I heard such a one named.

Court. Commend me to him.

Vin. If she be a Staffordshire gentlewoman, ’tis much if I know her not.

Wit. How now? boy! drawer!

Vin. Hie!

Boy. Do you call, sir?

Wit. Went the gentlewoman up that was here?

Boy. Up, sir? she went out, sir.

Wit. Out, sir?

Boy. Out, sir: one master Hoard, with a guard of gentlemen, carried her out at back door, a pretty while since, sir.

Wit. Hoard? death and darkness! Hoard?

Wit. Follow! inquire old Hoard, my uncle’s adversary.

SCENE IV.

Dam. When did I say my prayers? In anno 88, when the great armada was coming; and in anno 89,^[90] when the great thundering and lightning 56was, I prayed heartily then, i’faith, to overthrow Poovies’ new buildings; I kneeled by my great iron chest, I remember.

Aud. Master Dampit, one may hear you before they see you: you keep sweet hours, master Dampit; we were all a-bed three hours ago.

Dam. Audrey?

Aud. O, you’re a fine gentleman!

Dam. So I am, i’faith, and a fine scholar: do you use to go to bed so early, Audrey?

Aud. Call you this early, master Dampit?

Dam. Why, is’t not one of clock i’ th’ morning? is not that early enough? fetch me a glass of fresh beer.

Aud. Here, I have warmed your nightcap for you, master Dampit.

Dam. Draw it on then. I am very weak truly: I have not eaten so much as the bulk of an egg these three days.

Aud. You have drunk the more, master Dampit.

Dam. What’s that?

Aud. You mought, and^[91] you would, master Dampit.

Dam. I answer you, I cannot: hold your prating; you prate too much, and understand too little: are you answered? Give me a glass of beer.

57Aud. May I ask you how you do, master Dampit?

Dam. How do I? i’faith, naught.

Aud. I ne’er knew you do otherwise.

Dam. I eat not one pen’north of bread these two years.^[92] Give me a glass of fresh beer. I am not sick, nor I am not well.

Aud. Take this warm napkin about your neck, sir, whilst I help to make you unready.^[93]

Dam. How now, Audrey-prater, with your scurvy devices, what say you now?

Aud. What say I, master Dampit? I say nothing, but that you are very weak.

Dam. Faith, thou hast more cony-catching^[94] devices than all London.

Aud. Why, master Dampit, I never deceived you in all my life.

Dam. Why was that? because I never did trust thee.

Aud. I care not what you say, master Dampit.

Dam. Hold thy prating: I answer thee, thou art a beggar, a quean, and a bawd: are you answered?

Aud. Fie, master Dampit! a gentleman, and have such words?

Dam. Why, thou base drudge of infortunity, thou kitchen-stuff-drab of beggary, roguery, and cockscombry, thou cavernesed quean of foolery, knavery, and bawdreaminy, I’ll tell thee what, I will not give a louse for thy fortunes.

Aud. No, master Dampit? and there’s a gentleman comes a-wooing to me, and he doubts^[95] nothing but that you will get me from him.

58Dam. I? If I would either have thee or lie with thee for two thousand pound, would I might be damned! why, thou base, impudent quean of foolery, flattery, and coxcombry, are you answered?

Aud. Come, will you rise and go to bed, sir?

Damp. Rise, and go to bed too, Audrey? How does mistress Proserpine?

Aud. Fooh!

Dam. She’s as fine a philosopher of a stinkard’s wife, as any within the liberties. Faugh, faugh, Audrey!

Aud. How now, master Dampit?

Dam. Fie upon’t, what a choice of stinks here is! what hast thou done, Audrey? fie upon’t, here’s a choice of stinks indeed! Give me a glass of fresh beer, and then I will to bed.

Aud. It waits for you above, sir.

Dam. Foh! I think they burn horns in Barnard’s Inn. If ever I smelt such an abominable stink, usury forsake me. [Exit.

Aud. They be the stinking nails of his trampling feet, and he talks of burning of horns. [Exit.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Luc. My son-in-law, Sam Freedom, where’s my nephew?

Free. O man in lamentation,^[105] father.

Luc. How!

Free. He thumps his breast like a gallant dicer that has lost his doublet, and stands in’s shirt to do penance.

Luc. Alas, poor gentleman!

Free. I warrant you may hear him sigh in a still evening to your house at Highgate.

Luc. I prithee, send him in.

Free. Were it to do a greater matter, I will not stick with you, sir, in regard you married my mother. [Exit.

Luc. Sweet gentlemen, cheer him up; I will but fetch the mortgage and return to you instantly.

Sec. G. Why, how now,^[106] master Witgood? Fie! you a firm scholar, and an understanding gentleman, and give your best parts to passion?^[107]

Luc. Ay, that’s it mads me, spites me! I’ll spend my wealth ere he shall carry her so, because I know ’tis only to spite me. Ay, this is it. Here, nephew [giving a paper], before these kind gentlemen, I deliver in your mortgage, my promise to the widow; see, ’tis done: be wise, you’re once more master of your own. The widow shall perceive now you are not altogether such a beggar as the world reputes you; you can make shift to bring her to three hundred a-year, sir.

67Luc. You can all witness, gentlemen; and you, sir yeoman?

Host. My life for yours, sir, now, I know my mistress’s mind so^[112] well toward your nephew, let things be in preparation, and I’ll train her hither in most excellent fashion. Exit.

Luc. A good old boy!—Wife! Jenny!

Mis. L. What’s the news, sir?

Luc. The wedding-day’s at hand: prithee, sweet wife, express thy housewifery; thou’rt a fine cook, I know’t; thy first husband married thee out of an alderman’s kitchen; go to, he raised thee for raising of paste. What! here’s none but friends; most of our beginnings must be winked at.—Gentlemen, I invite you all to my nephew’s wedding against Thursday morning.

SCENE III.

First C. A’ my troth, she’s the wiser; she has made the happier choice: and I wonder of what stuff those widows’ hearts are made of, that will marry unfledged boys before comely thrum-chinned^[115] gentlemen.

Wit. My last joy was so great, it took away the 69sense of all future afflictions. What a day is here o’ercast! how soon a black tempest rises!

First C. O, we may speak with you now, sir! what’s become of your rich widow? I think you may cast your cap at the widow, may you not, sir?

Sec. C. He a rich widow? who, a prodigal, a daily rioter, and a nightly vomiter? he a widow of account? he a hole i’ th’ counter.^[117]

Wit. You do well, my masters, to tyrannise over misery, to afflict the afflicted: ’tis a custom you have here amongst you; I would wish you never leave it, and I hope you’ll do as I bid you.

First C. Come, come, sir, what say you extempore now to your bill of a hundred pound? a sweet debt for froating^[118] your doublets.

Sec. C. Here’s mine of forty.

Third C. Here’s mine of fifty.

Wit. Pray, sirs,—you’ll give me breath?

First C. No, sir, we’ll keep you out of breath still; then we shall be sure you will not run away from us.

Wit. Will you but hear me speak?

Sec. C. You shall pardon us for that, sir; we know you have too fair a tongue of your own; you overcame us too lately, a shame take you! we are like to lose all that for want of witnesses: we dealt in policy then; always when we strive to be most politic we prove most coxcombs: non plus ultra 70I perceive by us, we’re not ordained to thrive by wisdom, and therefore we must be content to be tradesmen.

Wit. Give me but reasonable time, and I protest I’ll make you ample satisfaction.

First C. Do you talk of reasonable time to us?

Wit. ’Tis true, beasts know no reasonable time.

Sec. C. We must have either money or carcass.

Wit. Alas, what good will my carcass do you?

Third C. O, ’tis a secret delight we have amongst us! we that are used to keep birds in cages, have the heart to keep men in prison, I warrant you.

Wit. I perceive I must crave a little more aid from my wits: do but make shift for me this once, and I’ll forswear ever to trouble you in the like fashion hereafter; I’ll have better employment for you, and^[119] I live. [Aside.]—You’ll give me leave, my masters, to make trial of my friends, and raise all means I can?

First C. That’s our desire,^[120] sir.

Host. Master Witgood.

Wit. O, art thou come?

Host. May I speak one word with you in private, sir?

Wit. No, by my faith, canst thou; I am in hell here, and the devils will not let me come to thee.

First C.^[121] Do you call us devils? you shall find us puritans.—Bear him away; let ’em talk as they go; we’ll not stand to hear ’em.—Ah, sir, am I a devil? I shall think the better of myself as long as I live: a devil, i’faith!

Hoa. What a sweet blessing hast thou, master Hoard, above a multitude! wilt thou never be thankful? how dost thou think to be blest another time? or dost thou count this the full measure of thy happiness? by my troth, I think thou dost: not only a wife large in possessions, but spacious in content; she’s rich, she’s young, she’s fair, she’s wise: when I wake, I think of her lands—that revives me; when I go to bed, I dream of her beauty—and that’s enough for me: she’s worth four hundred a-year in her very smock, if a man knew how to use it. But the journey will be all, in troth, into the country; to ride to her lands in state and order following; my brother, and other worshipful gentlemen, whose companies I ha’ sent down for already, to ride along with us in their goodly decorum beards, their broad velvet cassocks, and chains of gold twice or thrice double; against which time I’ll entertain some ten men of mine own into liveries, all of occupations or qualities; I will not keep an idle man about me: the sight of which will so vex my adversary Lucre—for we’ll pass by his door of purpose, make a little stand for [the] nonce,^[122] and have our horses curvet before the window—certainly he will never endure it, but run up and hang himself presently.

How now, sirrah, what news? any that offer their service to me yet?

72Ser. Yes, sir, there are some i’ th’ hall that wait for your worship’s liking, and desire to be entertained.

Hoa. Are they of occupation?

Ser. They are men fit for your worship, sir.

Hoa. Sayest so? send ’em all in. [Exit Servant.]—To see ten men ride after me in watchet^[123] liveries, with orange-tawny capes,^[124]—’twill cut his comb, i’faith.

How now? of what occupation are you, sir?

Tai. A tailor, an’t please your worship.

Hoa. A tailor? O, very good: you shall serve to make all the liveries.—What are you, sir?

Bar. A barber, sir.

Hoa. A barber? very needful: you shall shave all the house, and, if need require, stand for a reaper i’ th’ summer time.—You, sir?

Per. A perfumer.

Hoa. I smelt you before: perfumers, of all men, had need carry themselves uprightly; for if they were once knaves, they would be smelt out quickly.—To you, sir?

Fal. A falconer, an’t please your worship.

Hoa. Sa ho, sa ho, sa ho!—And you, sir?

Hunt. A huntsman, sir.

Hoa. There, boy, there, boy, there, boy! I am not so old but I have pleasant days to come. I promise you, my masters, I take such a good liking to you, that I entertain you all; I put you already into my countenance, and you shall be shortly in 73my livery; but especially you two, my jolly falconer and my bonny huntsman; we shall have most need of you at my wife’s manor-houses i’ th’ country; there’s goodly parks and champion^[125] grounds for you; we shall have all our sports within ourselves; all the gentlemen a’ th’ country shall be beholding^[126] to us and our pastimes.

Fal. And we’ll make your worship admire, sir.

Hoa. Sayest thou so? do but make me admire, and thou shalt want for nothing.—My tailor.

Tai. Anon, sir.

Hoa. Go presently in hand with the liveries.

Tai. I will, sir.

Hoa. My barber.

Bar. Here, sir.

Hoa. Make ’em all trim fellows, louse ’em well,—especially my huntsman,—and cut all their beards of the Polonian fashion.—My perfumer.

Per. Under your nose, sir.

Hoa. Cast a better savour upon the knaves, to take away the scent of my tailor’s feet, and my barber’s lotium-water.

Per. It shall be carefully performed, sir.

Hoa. But you, my falconer and huntsman, the welcomest men alive, i’faith!

Hunt. And we’ll shew you that, sir, shall deserve your worship’s favour.

Hoa. I prithee, shew me that.—Go, you knaves all, and wash your lungs i’ th’ buttery, go. [Exeunt Tailor, Barber, &c.]—By th’ mass, and well remembered! 74I’ll ask my wife that question.—Wife, mistress Jane Hoard!

Court. Sir, would you with me?

Hoa. I would but know, sweet wife, which might stand best to thy liking, to have the wedding dinner kept here or i’ th’ country?

Court. Hum:—faith, sir, ’twould like^[127] me better here; here you were married, here let all rites be ended.

Hoa. Could a marquesse^[128] give a better answer? Hoard, bear thy head aloft, thou’st a wife will advance it.

What haste comes here now? yea, a letter? some dreg of my adversary’s malice. Come hither; what’s the news?

Host. A thing that concerns my mistress, sir.

Hoa. Why then it concerns me, knave.

Host. Ay, and you, knave, too (cry your worship mercy): you are both like to come into trouble, I promise you, sir; a pre-contract.

Hoa. How? a pre-contract, sayest thou?

Host. I fear they have too much proof on’t, sir: old Lucre, he runs mad up and down, and will to law as fast as he can; young Witgood laid hold on by his creditors, he exclaims upon you a’ t’other side, says you have wrought his undoing by the injurious detaining of his contract.

Hoa. Body a’ me!

Court. Alas, his creditors so merciless! my state being yet uncertain, I deem it not unconscionable to further him. [Aside.

Host. True, sir.

Hoa. Wife, what says that letter? let me construe it.

Court. Curs’d be my rash and unadvised words!

Hoa. Wife——

Host. A pretty shift, i’faith! I commend a woman when she can make away a letter from her husband handsomely, and this was cleanly done, by my troth. [Aside.

Hoa. Where? how, dear wife?

Court. He is now caught by his creditors; the slave’s needy; his debts petty; he’ll rather bind himself to all inconveniences than rot in prison: by this only means you may get a release from him: ’tis not yet come to his uncle’s hearing; send speedily for the creditors; by this time he’s 76desperate; he’ll set his hand to any thing: take order for his debts, or discharge ’em quite: a pax^[129] on him, let’s be rid of a rascal!

Hoa. In the mean space I’ll have a release drawn.—Within there!

Ser. Sir?

Hoa. Sirrah, come take directions; go to my scrivener.

Hoa. Away, despatch, on my displeasure quickly.

Happy occasion! pray heaven he be in the right vein now to set his hand to’t, that nothing alter him; grant that all his follies may meet in him at once, to besot him enough! I pray for him, i’faith, and here he comes.

Wit. What would you with me now, my uncle’s spiteful adversary?

Hoa. Nay, I am friends.

Wit. Ay, when your mischief’s spent.

77Hoa. I heard, you were arrested.

Wit. Well, what then? you will pay none of my debts, I am sure.

Wit. You’re impudent; I’ll call up witnesses.

Hoa. Wife, you’re too bitter.— Master Witgood, and you, my masters, you shall hear a mild speech come from me now, and this it is: ’t has been my fortune, gentlemen, to have an extraordinary blessing poured upon me a’ late, and here she stands; I have wedded her, and bedded her, and yet she is little the worse: some foolish words she hath passed to you in the country, and some peevish^[132] debts you owe here in the city; set the hare’s head to the goose-giblet,^[133] release you her of her words, and I’ll release you of your debts, sir.

Wit. Would you so? I thank you for that, sir; I cannot blame you, i’faith.

Hoa. Why, are not debts better than words, sir?

Wit. Are not words promises, and are not promises debts, sir?

Hoa. He plays at back-racket with me. [Aside.

First C. Come hither, master Witgood, come hither; be ruled by fools once.

Sec. C. We are citizens, and know what belong[s] to’t.

First C. Take hold of his offer: pax^[134] on her, let her go; if your debts were once discharged, I would help you to a widow myself worth ten of her.

79Third C. Mass, partner, and now you remember me on’t, there’s master Mulligrub’s sister newly fallen a widow.

First C. Cuds me, as pat as can be! there’s a widow left for you; ten thousand in money, beside plate, jewels, et cetera : I warrant it a match; we can do all in all with her; prithee, despatch; we’ll carry thee to her presently.

Wit. My uncle will ne’er endure me when he shall hear I set my hand to a release.

Sec. C. Hark, I’ll tell thee a trick for that: I have spent five hundred pound in suits in my time, I should be wise; thou’rt now a prisoner; make a release; take’t of my word, whatsoever a man makes as long as he is in durance, ’tis nothing in law, not thus much.

Wit. Say you so, sir?

Third C. I have paid for’t, I know’t.

Wit. Proceed then; I consent.

Third C. Why, well said.

Hoa. How now, my masters, what have you done with him?

First C. With much ado, sir, we have got him to consent.

Hoa. Ah—a—a! and what come^[135] his debts to now?

First C. Some eight score odd pounds, sir.

Hoa. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw! tell me the second time; give me a lighter sum; they are but desperate debts, you know; ne’er called in but upon such an accident; a poor, needy knave, he would starve and rot in prison: come, come, you shall have ten shillings in the pound, and the sum down roundly.

First C. You must make it a mark,^[136] sir.

80Hoa. Go to then, tell your money in the meantime; you shall find little less there. [Giving them money.]—Come, master Witgood, you are so unwilling to do yourself good now!

Welcome, honest scrivener.—Now you shall hear the release read.

Scri. [reads] Be it known to all men, by these presents, that I, Theodorus Witgood, gentleman, sole nephew to Pecunius Lucre, having unjustly made title and claim to one Jane Medler, late widow of Anthony Medler, and now wife to Walkadine Hoard, in consideration of a competent sum of money to discharge my debts, do for ever hereafter disclaim any title, right, estate, or interest in or to the said widow, late in the occupation of the said Anthony Medler, and now in the occupation of Walkadine Hoard; as also neither to lay claim by virtue of any former contract, grant, promise, or demise, to any of her manor[s], manor-houses, parks, groves, meadow-grounds, arable lands, barns, stacks, stables, dove-holes, and coney-burrows; together with all her cattle, money, plate, jewels, borders, chains, bracelets, furnitures, hangings, moveables or immoveables.^[137] In witness whereof, I the said Theodorus Witgood have interchangeably set to my hand and seal before these presents, the day and date above written.

Wit. What a precious fortune hast thou slipt here, like a beast as thou art!

81Hoa. O, as vain a thing as can be! you cannot commit a greater absurdity, sir. So, so; give me that hand now; before all these presents, I am friends for ever with thee.

Wit. Troth, and it were pity of my heart now, if I should bear you any grudge, i’faith.

Hoa. Content: I’ll send for thy uncle against the wedding dinner; we will be friends once again.

Wit. I hope to bring it to pass myself, sir.

Hoa. How now? is’t right, my masters?

First C. ’Tis something wanting, sir; yet it shall be sufficient.

Hoa. Why, well said; a good conscience makes a fine shew now-a-days. Come, my masters, you shall all taste of my wine ere you depart.

All the Cred. We follow you, sir.

Wit. I’ll try these fellows now. [Aside.]—A word, sir: what, will you carry me to that widow now?

First C. Why, do you think we were in earnest, i’faith? carry you to a rich widow? we should get much credit by that: a noted rioter! a contemptible prodigal! ’twas a trick we have amongst us to get in our money: fare you well, sir. [Exeunt Creditors.

Wit. Farewell, and be hanged, you short pig-haired, ram-headed rascals! he that believes in you shall ne’er be saved, I warrant him. By this new league I shall have some access^[138] unto my love.

Joyce. Master Witgood!

Wit. My life!

Joyce. Meet me presently; that note directs you [throws him a letter]: I would not be suspected: our happiness attends us: farewell.

Wit. A word’s enough. [Exeunt severally.

SCENE V.

Damp. Trahe , trahito , draw the curtain; give me a sip of sack more.

Lam. Look you; did not I tell you he lay like the devil in chains, when he was bound for a thousand year?^[139]

Spi. But I think^[140] the devil had no steel bed-staffs; he goes beyond him for that.

83Lam. Nay, do but mark the conceit of his drinking; one must wipe his mouth for him with a muckinder,^[141] do you see, sir?

Spi. Is this the sick trampler?^[142] why, he is only bed-rid with drinking.

Lam. True, sir. He spies us.

Dam. What, Sir Tristram? you come and see a weak man here, a very weak man.

Lam. If you be weak in body, you should be strong in prayer, sir.

Dam. O, I have prayed too much, poor man!

Lam. There’s a taste of his soul for you!

Spi. Faugh, loathsome!

Lam. I come to borrow a hundred pound of you, sir.

Dam. Alas, you come at an ill time! I cannot spare it, i’faith; I ha’ but two thousand i’ th’ house.

Aud. Ha, ha, ha!

Dam. Out, you gernative quean, the mullipood of villany, the spinner of concupiscency!

Sir L. Yea, gentlemen, are you here before us? how is he now?

Lam. Faith, the same man still: the tavern bitch has bit him i’ th’ head.^[143]

Sir L. We shall have the better sport with him: peace.—And how cheers master Dampit now?

Dam. O, my bosom Sir Launcelot, how cheer I! thy presence is restorative.

84Sir L. But I hear a great complaint of you, master Dampit, among gallants.

Dam. I am glad of that, i’faith: prithee, what?

Sir L. They say you are waxed proud a’ late, and if a friend visit you in the afternoon, you’ll scarce know him.

Dam. Fie, fie; proud? I cannot remember any such thing: sure I was drunk then.

Sir L. Think you so, sir?

Dam. There ’twas, i’faith; nothing but the pride of the sack; and so certify ’em.—Fetch sack, sirrah.

Boy. A vengeance sack you once!

Aud. Why, master Dampit, if you hold on as you begin, and lie a little longer, you need not take care how to dispose your wealth; you’ll make the vintner your heir.

Dam. Out, you babliaminy, you unfeathered, cremitoried quean, you cullisance of scabiosity!

Aud. Good words, master Dampit, to speak before a maid and a virgin!

Dam. Hang thy virginity upon the pole of carnality!

Aud. Sweet terms! my mistress shall know ’em.

Lam. Note but the misery of this usuring slave: here he lies, like a noisome dunghill, full of the poison of his drunken blasphemies; and they to whom he bequeaths all, grudge him the very meat that feeds him, the very pillow that eases him. Here may a usurer behold his end: what profits it to be a slave in this world, and a devil i’ th’ next?

Dam. Sir Launcelot, let me buss thee, Sir Launcelot; thou art the only friend that I honour and respect.

Sir L. I thank you for that, master Dampit.

85Dam. Farewell, my bosom Sir Launcelot.

Sir L. Gentlemen, and^[144] you love me, let me step behind you, and one of you fall a-talking of me to him.

Lam. Content.—Master Dampit——

Dam. So, sir.

Lam. Here came Sir Launcelot to see you e’en now.

Dam. Hang him, rascal!

Lam. Who? Sir Launcelot?

Dam. Pythagorical rascal!

Lam. Pythagorical?

Dam. Ay, he changes^[145] his cloak when he meets a sergeant.

Sir L. What a rogue’s this!

Lam. I wonder you can rail at him, sir; he comes in love to see you.

Dam. A louse for his love! his father was a comb-maker; I have no need of his crawling love: he comes to have longer day,^[146] the superlative rascal!

Sir L. ’Sfoot, I can no longer endure the rogue!—Master Dampit, I come to take my leave once again, sir.

Dam. Who? my dear and kind Sir Launcelot, 86the only gentleman of England? let me hug thee: farewell, and a thousand.^[147]

Lam. Compos’d of wrongs and slavish flatteries!

Sir L. Nay, gentlemen, he shall shew you more tricks yet; I’ll give you another taste of him.

Lam. Is’t possible?

Sir L. His memory is upon departing.

Dam. Another cup of sack!

Sir L. Mass, then ’twill be quite gone! Before he drink that, tell him there’s a country client come up, and here attends for his learned advice.

Lam. Enough.

Dam. One cup more, and then let the bell toll: I hope I shall be weak enough by that time.

Lam. Master Dampit——

Dam. Is the sack spouting?

Lam. ’Tis coming forward, sir. Here’s a country man, a client of yours, waits for your deep and profound advice, sir.

Dam. A coxcombry, where is he? let him approach: set me up a peg higher.

Lam. [to Sir Laun.] You must draw near, sir.

Dam. Now, good man fooliaminy, what say you to me now?

Sir L. Please your good worship, I am a poor man, sir——

Dam. What make you in my chamber then?

Sir L. I would entreat your worship’s device^[148] in a just and honest cause, sir.

87Dam. I meddle with no such matters; I refer ’em to master No-man’s office.

Sir L. I had but one house left me in all the world, sir, which was my father’s, my grandfather’s, my great-grandfather’s, and now a villain has unjustly wrung me out, and took possession on’t.

Dam. Has he such feats? Thy best course is to bring thy ejectione firmæ , and in seven year thou mayst shove him out by the law.

Sir L. Alas, an’t please your worship, I have small friends and less money!

Dam. Hoyday! this geer will fadge well:^[149] hast no money? why, then, my advice is, thou must set fire a’ th’ house, and so get him out.

Lam. That will break strife, indeed.

Sir L. I thank your worship for your hot counsel, sir.—Altering but my voice a little, you see he knew me not: you may observe by this, that a drunkard’s memory holds longer in the voice than in the person. But, gentlemen, shall I shew you a sight? Behold the little dive-dapper^[150] of damnation, Gulf the usurer, for his time worse than t’other.

Lam. What’s he comes with him?

Sir L. Why Hoard, that married lately the widow Medler.

Lam. O, I cry you mercy, sir.

Hoa. Now, gentlemen visitants, how does master Dampit?

Sir L. Faith, here he lies, e’en drawing in, sir, good canary as fast as he can, sir; a very weak creature truly, he is almost past memory.

88Hoa. Fie, master Dampit! you lie lazing a-bed here, and I come to invite you to my wedding-dinner: up, up, up!

Dam. Who’s this? master Hoard? who hast thou married, in the name of foolery?

Hoa. A rich widow.

Dam. A Dutch widow?^[151]

Hoa. A rich widow; one widow Medler.

Dam. Medler? she keeps open house.

Hoa. She did, I can tell you, in her t’other husband’s days; open house for all comers; horse and man was welcome, and room enough for ’em all.

Dam. There’s too much for thee then; thou mayst let out some to thy neighbours.

Gulf. What, hung alive in chains? O spectacle! bed-staffs of steel? O monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum! ^[152] O Dampit, Dampit, here’s a just judgment shewn upon usury, extortion, and trampling^[153] villany!

Sir L. This [is] excellent, thief rails upon the thief!

Gulf. Is this the end of cut-throat usury, brothel, and blasphemy? now mayst thou see what race a usurer runs.

Dam. Why, thou rogue of universality, do not I know thee? thy sound is like the cuckoo, the Welch ambassador:^[154] thou cowardly slave, that offers to fight with a sick man when his weapon’s 89down! rail upon me in my naked bed? why, thou great Lucifer’s little vicar! I am not so weak but I know a knave at first sight: thou inconscionable rascal! thou that goest upon Middlesex juries, and wilt make haste to give up thy verdict^[155] because thou wilt not lose thy dinner! Are you answered?

Gulf. An’t were not for shame—— [Draws his dagger.

Dam. Thou wouldst be hanged then.

Lam. Nay, you must exercise patience, master Gulf, always in a sick man’s chamber.

Sir L. He’ll quarrel with none, I warrant you, but those that are bed-rid.

Dam. Let him come, gentlemen, I am armed: reach my close-stool hither.

Sir L. Here will be a sweet fray anon; I’ll leave you, gentlemen.

Lam. Nay, we’ll along with you.—Master Gulf——

Gulf. Hang him, usuring rascal!

Sir L. Push,^[156] set your strength to his, your wit to his!

Aud. Pray, gentlemen, depart; his hour’s come upon him.—Sleep in my bosom, sleep.

90Gulf. A little thing would make me beat him now he’s asleep.

Sir L. Mass, then ’twill be a pitiful day when he wakes! I would be loath to see that day: come.

Gulf. You overrule me, gentlemen, i’faith. [Exeunt.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Luc. I shall have great joy there when he has borne away the widow!

Wit. Why, la, I thought where I should find you presently: uncle, a’ my troth, ’tis nothing so.

Luc. What’s nothing so, sir? is not he married to the widow?

Wit. No, by my troth, is he not, uncle.

Luc. How?

Wit. Will you have the truth on’t? he is married to a whore, i’faith.

Luc. I should laugh at that.

Wit. Uncle, let me perish in your favour if you find it not so; and that ’tis I that have married the honest woman.

Luc. Ha! I’d walk ten mile a’ foot to see that, i’faith.

Wit. And see’t you shall, or I’ll ne’er see you again.

Luc. A quean, i’faith? ha, ha, ha! [Exeunt.

Hoa. Pup, pup, pup, pup, I like not this wine: is there never a better tierce in the house?

Host. Yes, sir, there are as good tierce[s] in the house as any are in England.

Hoa. Desire your mistress, you knave, to taste ’em all over; she has better skill.

Host. Has she so? the better for her, and the worse for you. [Aside, and exit.

Hoa. Arthur!

Is the cupboard of plate set out?^[158]

Arth. All’s in order, sir. [Exit.

Hoa. I am in love with my liveries every time I think on ’em; they make a gallant shew, by my troth. Niece!

Joyce. Do you call, sir?

Hoa. Prithee, shew a little diligence, and overlook the knaves a little; they’ll filch and steal today, and send whole pasties home to their wives: and^[159] thou be’st a good niece, do not see me purloined.

Joyce. Fear it not, sir—I have cause: though the feast be prepared for you, yet it serves fit for my wedding-dinner too.^[160] [Aside, and exit.

Hoa. Master Lamprey and master Spichcock, two the most welcome gentlemen alive! your fathers and mine were all free a’ th’ fishmongers.

Lam. They were indeed, sir. You see bold guests, sir; soon entreated.

Hoa. And that’s best, sir.

How now, sirrah?

Ser. There’s a coach come to th’ door, sir. [Exit.

Hoa. My Lady Foxtone, a’ my life!—Mistress Jane Hoard! wife!—Mass, ’tis her ladyship indeed!

Madam, you are welcome to an unfurnished house, dearth of cheer, scarcity of attendance.

L. Fox. You are pleased to make the worst, sir.

Hoa. Wife!

L. Fox. Is this your bride?

Hoa. Yes, madam.—Salute my Lady Foxtone.

Court. Please you, madam, awhile to taste the air in the garden?

L. Fox. ’Twill please us well.

Lam. So we bachelors think, that are not troubled with them.

Ser. Your worship’s brother, with other ancient gentlemen,^[161] are newly alighted, sir. [Exit.

Hoa. Master Onesiphorus Hoard? why, now our company begins to come in.

My dear and kind brother, welcome, i’faith.

Ones. H. You see we are men at an hour, brother.

Hoa. Ay, I’ll say that for you, brother; you keep as good an hour to come to a feast as any gentleman in the shire.—What, old master Limber and master Kix! do we meet, i’faith, jolly gentlemen?

Lim. We hope you lack guess,^[162] sir?

Hoa. O, welcome, welcome! we lack still such guess as your worships.

Ones. H. Ah, sirrah brother, have you catched up widow Medler?

Hoa. From ’em all, brother; and I may tell you I had mighty enemies, those that stuck sore; old Lucre is a sore fox, I can tell you, brother.

Ones. H. Where is she? I’ll go seek her out: I long to have a smack at her lips.

Hoa. And most wishfully, brother, see where she comes.

Give her a smack^[163] now we may hear it all the house over. [Courtesan and Ones. H. start and turn away.

94Court. O heaven, I am betray’d! I know that face.

Hoa. Ha, ha, ha! why, how now? are you both ashamed?—Come, gentlemen, we’ll look another way.

Ones. H. Nay, brother, hark you: come, you’re disposed to be merry.

Hoa. Why do we meet else, man?

Ones. H. That’s another matter: I was ne’er so ’fraid in my life but that you had been in earnest.

Hoa. How mean you, brother?

Ones. H. You said she was your wife.

Hoa. Did I so? by my troth, and so she is.

Ones. H. By your troth, brother?

Hoa. What reason have I to dissemble with my friends, brother? if marriage can make her mine, she is mine. Why—— [Onesiphorus Hoard is about to retire. Ones. H. Troth, I am not well of a sudden: I must crave pardon, brother; I came to see you, but I cannot stay dinner, i’faith.

Hoa. I hope you will not serve me so, brother?

Lim. By your leave, master Hoard——

Hoa. What now? what now? pray, gentlemen:—you were wont to shew yourselves wise men.

Wit. Why, la, you are so hard a’ belief, uncle! by my troth, she’s a whore.

Luc. Then thou’rt a knave.

Wit. Negatur argumentum, uncle.

Luc. Probo tibi, nephew: he that knows a woman to be a quean must needs be a knave; thou sayst thou knowest her to be one; ergo , if she be a quean, thou’rt a knave.

Wit. Negatur sequela majoris, uncle; he that knows a woman to be a quean must needs be a knave; I deny that.

Hoa. Lucre and Witgood, you’re both villains; get you out of my house!

Luc. Why, didst not invite me to thy wedding-dinner?

Wit. And are not you and I sworn perpetual friends before witness, sir, and were both drunk upon’t?

She that tastes not sin before [twenty], twenty to one but she’ll taste it after: most of you old men are content to marry young virgins, and take that which follows; where,^[167] marrying one of us, you both save a sinner and are quit from a cuckold for ever:

Wit. Alas, sir, I was pricked in conscience to see her well bestowed, and where could I bestow her better than upon your pitiful worship? Excepting but myself, I dare swear she’s a virgin; and now, by marrying your niece, I have banished myself for ever from her: she’s mine aunt now, by my faith, and there’s no meddling with mine aunt, you know: a sin against my nuncle.^[168]

103The Familie of Love. Acted by the Children of his Maiesties Reuells.

At London Printed for John Helmes, and are to be sold in Saint Dunstans Churchyard in Fleetstreet. 1608. 4to.

Though there is undoubtedly but one edition of this drama, yet the copies differ slightly in several places; alterations having been introduced after part of the impression had been worked off: a circumstance which will surprise those persons only who have not been accustomed to collate the 4tos of old English plays.

The Family of Love was licensed by Sir George Bucke, 12th Oct. 1607: see Chalmers’s Suppl. Apol. p. 201.

Concerning the sect which gives the title to the play, the following notices will be perhaps more than sufficient.

In Brandt’s Hist. of the Reform. &c. in the Low Countries, we are told, under the year 1555: “That Family was suspected of being more addicted to carnal than to spiritual love. Henry Nicholas, a Westphalian, born at Munster, but who had lived a great while at Amsterdam, and some time likewise at Embden, was father of this Family. He appeared upon the stage about the year 1540, stiled himself the deified man, boasted of great matters, and seemed to exalt himself above the condition of a human creature. He was, as he pretended, greater than Moses and Christ, because Moses had taught mankind to hope, Christ to believe, but he to love; which last being of more worth than both the former, he was consequently greater than both those prophets.” vol. i. p. 105, ed. 1720.

According to some writers, however, the sect was not founded by Henry Nicholas, but by David George, an anabaptist of Delft; and indeed there seems reason to believe that the Family of Love grew out of the heresies of George, with whom Nicholas had been on intimate terms.

“As to his [Nicholas’s] pretensions,” observes Mosheim, “they were indeed visionary and chimerical; for he maintained that he had a commission from heaven to teach men that the essence of religion consisted in the feelings of divine love; that all other theological tenets, whether they related to objects of faith or modes of worship, were of no sort of moment; and consequently that it was a matter of the most 104perfect indifference what opinions Christians entertained concerning the divine nature, provided their hearts burned with the pure and sacred flame of piety and love. To this, his main doctrine, Nicholas may have probably added other odd fancies, as always is the case with those innovators who are endued with a warm and fruitful imagination: to come, however, at a true notion of the opinions of this enthusiast, it will be much easier to consult his own writings than to depend entirely upon the accounts and refutations of his adversaries.” Eccles. Hist. (by Maclaine), vol. iv. p. 484.

“Not content,” says Fuller, “to confine his errours to his own country, over he [Nicholas] comes into England, and in the later end of the reign of Edward the Sixth joyned himself to the Dutch congregation in London, where he seduced a number of artificers and silly women,” &c. Church Hist. b. ix. p. 112, ed. 1655.

“The twelfe of June [1575], stood at Paules Crosse fiue persons Englishmen, of the sect termed the Familie of Loue, who there confessed themselues vtterlie to detest as well the author of that sect H. N. as all his damnable errors and heresies.” Holinshed’s Chron. vol. iv. p. 328, ed. 1808.

Towards the end of 1580, the sect was increasing so rapidly in England, that the government took active measures for its suppression. “The queenes maiestie being informed that in sundrie places of this realme, certeine persons secretlie taught damnable heresies, contrarie to diuers principall articles of our beleefe and christian faith, who to colour their sect named themselues the Familie of Loue, and then as manie as were allowed by them to be of that familie to be elect and saued, and all others, of what church soeuer they be, to be reiected and damned. And for that vpon conuenting of some of them before the bishops and ordinaries, it was found that the ground of their sect is mainteined by certeine lewd, hereticall, and seditious books, first made in the Dutch toong, and lastlie translated into English, and printed beyond the seas, and secretlie brought ouer into the realme, the author whereof they name H. N. &c. And considering also it is found, that those sectaries held opinion, that they may before anie magistrat or ecclesiasticall or temporall, or anie other person, noi being professed to be of their sect, by oth or otherwise denie anie thing for their aduantage: so as though manie of them are well knowne to be teachers and spreaders abroad of these dangerous and damnable sects; yet by their owne confession they cannot be condemned. Therefore hir maiestie being verie sorie to see so great an euill, by malice of the 105diuell to be brought into this hir realme, and by hir bishops and ordinaries she vnderstandeth it verie requisit, not onelie to haue those dangerous heretiks and sectaries to be seueralie punished; but that also other meanes be vsed by hir maiesties roiall authoritie, which is giuen hir of God to defend Christs church, to root them out from further infecting of hir realme: she hath thought meet and conuenient, and so by hir proclamation commandeth, that all hir officers and ministers temporall shall in all their seuerall vocations assist the bishops of hir realme, and all other person, to search out all persons dulie suspected to be either teachers or professors of the foresaid damnable sects, and by all good meanes to proceed seuerelie against them, being found culpable, by order of the lawes ecclesiasticall or temporall: and that all search be made in all places suspected, for the books and writings mainteining the said heresies and sects, and them to destroie and burne, &c: as more at large may appeere by the said proclamation, giuen at Richmond the third of October, and proclamed at London on the nineteenth daie of the same moneth [1580].” Holinshed’s Chron. vol. iv. p. 432, ed. 1808. See also Camdeni Annales, p. 318, ed. 1639.

A list of Nicholas’s numerous writings may be found in Lowndes’s Bibliographer’s Manual. One of them is in verse: An Enterlude of Myndes: witnessing the Mans Fall from God and Christ. Set forth by H. N. and by him newly perused and amended. Translated out of Base-Almayne into English. n. d.: see an account of, and extracts from it, in Sir E. Brydges’s Restituta, vol. iv. p. 140, sqq. Nicholas is mentioned in the last scene of The Alchemist,—B. Jonson’s Works, vol. iv. p. 187, ed. Giff.

“The Family of Love (or Lust rather),” says Fuller, “at this time [1604] presented a tedious Petition to King James, so that it is questionable whether his majesty ever graced it with his perusall, wherein they endeavoured to cleare themselves from some misrepresentations, and by fawning expression to insinuate themselves into his majesty’s good opinion.” Church Hist. b. x. p. 29, ed. 1655. Having given the document in question, which is too long for insertion here, Fuller proceeds: “I finde not what effect this their Petition produced; whether it was slighted, and the Petitioners looked upon as inconsiderable, or beheld as a few frantick folk out of their wits, which consideration alone often melted their adversaries anger into pity unto them. The main design driven on in the Petition is to separate themselves from the Puritans (as persons odious to King James), that they might 106not fare the worse for their vicinity unto them; though these Familists could not be so desirous to leave them as the others were glad to be left by them. For if their opinions were so senselesse, and the lives of these Familists so sensuall as is reported, no purity at all belonged unto them.” p. 32. From the Petition just mentioned, we find that “divers” of the Familists had been lately thrown into prison.

The sect was attacked, at different times, by various writers: among others by John Rogers, in The Displaying of an horrible Secte of grosse & wicked Heretiques, naming themselues the Family of Loue, with the liues of their Authours, & what doctrine they teach in corners. Newly set foorth by J. R. &c. London, 1579. 12mo.

In The Lady of Pleasure, act i. sc. 1, Shirley has the following passage:

I have quoted the lines only for the sake of correcting a mistake of the last editor of Beaumont and Fletcher. In a note on The Widow, Weber remarks, that Middleton “wrote a play entitled The Family of Love, but it seems that he was reprehended for not displaying these sectaries in their true colours. Thus Shirley in The Lady of Pleasure:

What stupidity! not to perceive that the “Play on’t” was the drama called The Ball, written by Shirley and Chapman!

Too soon and too late this work is published: too soon, in that it was in the press before I had notice of it, by which means some faults may escape in the printing; too late, for that it was not published when the general voice of the people had sealed it for good, and the newness of it made it much more desired than at this time; for plays in this city are like wenches new fallen to the trade, only desired of your neatest gallants whiles they’re fresh; when they grow stale they must be vented by termers^[175] and country chapmen. I know not how this labour will please: sure I am it passed the censure of the stage with a general applause. Now, whether vox populi be vox Dei or no, that I leave to be tried by the acute judgment of the famous six wits of the city.—Farewell.

• Glister, a doctor of physic.
• Purge, a jealous apothecary.
• Dryfat, a merchant, a brother of the Family.
• Gerardine, a lover [of Maria].
• Lipsalve,
  Gudgeon,two gallants that only pursue city lechery.
• Club, an apprentice [to Purge].
• Vial, a servant to Glister.
• Shrimp,
  Periwinkle,pages to the gallants.
• [Apprentice and Servants].

• Mistress Glister.
• Mistress Purge, an elder in the Family.
• Maria, niece to Glister.

ACT I. SCENE I.

Gli. Tricks and shows! Protestations with men are like tears with women, forgot ere the cheek be dry. Gerardine is a gentleman; his lands be in statutes: ’a^[178] is not for thee, nor thou for him: ’a is a gallant, and young thoughts be most unconstant.

Mar. Yet young vines yield most wine.

Mis. G. But old vines the best. Believe not these great-breeched^[179] gallants; they love for profit, not for affection: if ’a brings thee to a fool’s paradise, ’a will forsake thee.

Gli. Which fortune God send my enemy! Love is a cold heat,^[180] a bitter sweet, a pleasure full of pain, a huge loss, and no gain. Why shouldest thou love him only?

Gli. Tut, love is an idle fantasy, bred by desire, nursed by delight, an humour that begins his dominion in Leo the lion, the sign of the heart; and ends in Aries the ram, the sign of the head: his power is to stir the blood,—pricks up the flesh, fills all the body with a libidinous humour, and is indeed the overture^[183] of all ladies: which to prevent, I have banished Gerardine, your dearly beloved, my house; and as for you, since I am your guardian by my brother’s last will, I will sequester you from all other rooms in my house save this gallery and your upper chamber, till, in discretion, I shall find it convenient to enlarge you.

Mis. G. Believe me, Maria, I have known the natures of divers of these gallants. If they possess the unlimited love of us women in never so ample manner, without the society of the body, 113I know how soon their love vadeth:^[184] young men’s love is like ivy; it must have somewhat to cleave to, or it never prospers. Love is like fasting-days, but the body is like flesh-days; and ’tis our English gallants’ fashion to prefer a morsel of flesh before all the fasting-days in the whole year.

Gli. The news with you, Vial?

Vial. And it like^[185] your worship, here’s Club, master Purge the ’pothecary’s ’prentice, come to invite you, my mistress, and mistress Maria, to supper, and to see master Gerardine’s will sealed.

Gli. Tell Club my wife and myself will be there, but Maria shall not come. [Exit Vial.]—There must be your sweetheart’s parting feast. Now ’a perceives no access to my house, ’a will to sea; a good riddance: if ’a returns not, you, forsooth, are his heir; that’s not much amiss. Yet there may be tricks: I will not be overreached. Come, to your chamber; where, till my return, you shall be in safe custody.

Lip. Now, by the horns of Cupid’s bow, which hath been the bane to many a tall^[187] citizen, I think there be no finer fools under heaven than we men when we are lovers. How thou goest crying up and down, with thy arms across, for a wife! which hadst thou, she’d cross both arms, head, and heart. Dost not yet know the old saying,—a wife brings but two good days, that is her wedding-day, and death-day?

Gud. Believe him, Gerardine, ’a speaks now gospel: a man may take more wife with one hand than he’s able to put away with ten, Gerardine. A wife is such a cross, that all married men would most gladly be rid of.

Lip. Didst ever see the true picture of a lover? I can give thee the hieroglyphic; and this it is: a man standing naked, a wench tickling him on the left side with a feather, and pricking him under the right side with a needle. The allegory, as I take, is this: that at the first we are so overjoyed with obtaining a wife, that we conceit no heaven 115like to the first night’s lodging; and that’s the signification of the left side, for wives always in the night take the left-side place: but, sir, now come to the needle on the right side,—that’s the daytime, wherein she commands; then, sir, she has a certain thing called tongue, ten times more sharp than a needle, and that, at the least displeasure, a man must have shot quite through him.

Gud. Gramercies, Lipsalve, my neat courtier!—But, sirrah Gerardine, be thyself, sociable and free: leave not thy native soil for a giglot,^[189] a wench who in her wit is proud——

Lip. In her smile deceitful——

Gud. In her hate revengeable——

Lip. And in nothing but her death acceptable. I’ll tell thee, there’s no creature more desirous of an honest name, and worse keeps it, than a woman. Dost hear? follow this song; and if ever thou forsake thy country for a wagtail, let me be whipt to death with ladies’ hairlaces.

Ger. Let’s hear that worthy song, gentle master Lipsalve.

Lip. Observe:

How dost thou like this, man?

Gud. Tut, man, every one knows their worth when they are at a rack-rent: in the term-time they bear as great a price as wheat when transportations are.

Ger. Peace: let’s draw near the window, and listen if we may hear her.

Lip. She’d move within thy orb and thou in hers? blood, she talk[s] bawdy to herself.—Gudgeon, stand close.

Mar. I knew it: he that, to get up to a fair woman, will stick to vow and swear, may be accounted no man. But tell me,

Ger. O perfection of women!

Lip. A plague^[198] of such perfection!

Ger. How she wooes! by negatives shews——

Gud. Thee what to do, under colour of dissuasion.^[199]

Ger. She’s truly virtuous!

Lip. Tut, man, outward apparance^[200] is no authentic instance^[201] of the inward desires: women have sharp falcon’s eyes, and can soar aloft; but keep them, like falcons, from flesh, and they soon stoop to a gaudy lure.

Ger. Why, then, Huguenot women are admirable angels.

Gud. But angels^[202] make them admirable devils.

120Lip. Women’s smiles are more of custom than of courtesy: women are creatures; their hearts and they are full of holes, apt to receive, but not retain affection. Thou wilt to-morrow, thou sayest, begone: if thou wilt know the worst of a country,^[203] marry before thou goest; for if thou canst endure a curst wife, never care what company thou comest in.

Ger. Come, merry gallants, will you associate me to my cousin Purge’s the ’pothecary’s, and take part of my parting feast^[204] to-night?

Gud. O, his wife is of the Family of Love: I’ll thither; perhaps I may prove of the fraternity in time: we’ll thither, that’s flat. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Mis. P. What, Club, Club! Is Club within there?

Club. Mistress?

Mis. P. I pray, what said master doctor Glister? will ’a come?

Club. ’A sent word ’a would, for ’a was but to carry a diet to one of his patients—what call you her? she that paints a day-times, and looks fair and fresh on the outside, but in the night-time is filthier than the inside of Bocardo,^[205] and is indeed far more unsavoury [to those] that know her, forsooth.

121Mis. P. Went ’a to her?

Club. ’A had a receipt for the grincomes^[206] in his hand, and ’a said ’a would take that in his way.

Mis. P. ’Tis well: and what guest[s] besides him and his wife will be here at supper?

Club. The first in my account is master Gerardine your cousin, master doctor Glister and his wife, master Dryfat the merchant, master Lipsalve the courtier, master Gudgeon the gallant, and their pages,—these, I take, will be your full number.

Mis. P. Then belike my room shall be stuffed with courtiers and gallants to-night. Of all men I love not these gallants; they’ll prate much, but do little: they are people most uncertain; they use great words, but little sense; great beards, but little wit; great breeches,^[207] but no money.

Club. That was the last thing they swore away.

Mis. P. Belike they cannot fetch it again with swearing, for if they could, there’s not a page of theirs but would be as rich as a monarch.

Club. There’s nothing, mistress, that is sworn out of date that returns. Their first oath in times past was by the mass; and that they have sworn quite away: then came they to their faith, as, by my faith, ’tis so; that in a short time was sworn away too, for no man believes now more than ’a sees: then they swore by their honesties; and that, mistress, you know, is sworn quite away: after their honesty^[208] was gone, then came they to their 122gentility, and swore as they were gentlemen; and their gentility they swore away so fast, that they had almost sworn away all the ancient gentry out of the land; which, indeed, are scarce missed, for that yeomen and farmers’ sons, with the help of a few Welchmen, have undertook to supply their places: then^[209] at the last they came to silver, and their oath was by the cross of this silver; and swore so fast upon that, that now they have scarce left them a cross^[210] for to swear by.

Mis. P. And what do they swear by, now their money is gone?

Club. Why, by (     ),^[211] and God refuse them.

Mis. P. And can they not as well say, men refuse them, as God refuse them?

Club. No, mistress; for men, especially citizens and rich men, have refused their^[212] bonds and protestations already.

Mis. P. ’Tis well: see how supper goes forward, and that my shoes be very well blacked against I go to the Family. [Exit Club.]—Now, sweet chick, where hast thou been? In troth, la, I am not well: I had thought to have spent the morning at the Family, but now I am resolved to take pills, and therefore, I pray thee, desire doctor Glister that ’a would minister to me in the morning.

And now, sweet duck, know I have been for my cousin Gerardine’s will, and have it: ’a has given thee a legacy, but the total is Maria’s.

Master doctor, your wife, and master Dryfat, are most welcome: now, were my cousin Gerardine and master Lipsalve here, our number were complete.

Gli. Is this frantic will done? will master Gerardine to sea? Let me tell you, I am no whit sorry; let such as will be headstrong bite on the bridle.

Pur. ’Tis here, master doctor; all his worth is Maria’s, and locked in a trunk, which by to-morrow[’s] sun shall be delivered to your custody.

Dry. Methinks ’twere a reasonable match to bestow your niece on master Gerardine: ’a is a most hopeful gentleman, and his revenue such, that having your niece’s portion to clear it of all incumbrances, ’twill maintain them both in a very worthy degree.

Gli. Tut, you are master Dryfat the merchant; your skill is greater in cony-skins^[213] and woolpacks than in gentlemen. His lands be in statutes: you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have gotten up the trade, for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but his land[s] be engaged in twenty statutes staple.^[214]

And how go the squares?^[215]

Pur. Your stay, gentlemen, does wrong to a great many of good stomachs: your suppers expect you.

Gud. And we our suppers.

Gli. And from what good exercise come you three?

Ger. From a play, where we saw most excellent Sampson^[216] excel the whole world in gate-carrying.

Dry. Was it performed by the youths?^[217]

Lip. By youths? Why, I tell thee we saw Sampson, and I hope ’tis not for youths to play 125Sampson. Believe it, we saw Sampson bear the town-gates on his neck from the lower to the upper stage,^[218] with that life and admirable accord, that it shall never be equalled, unless the whole new livery of porters set [to] their shoulders.

Mis. P. Fie, fie, ’tis pity young gentlemen can bestow their time no better: this playing is not lawful, for I cannot find that either plays or players were allowed in the prime church of Ephesus by the elders.

Dry. Aha, I think she tickled you there!

Pur. Cousin Gerardine, shall the will be read before supper?

Ger. Before supper, I beseech you.

Lip. Ay, ay, before supper,—for when these women’s bellies be full, their tongues^[219] will be soon at rest. [Aside.

Dry. Well, master doctor, pity the state of a poor gentleman: it is in you to stay his journey, and make him and yourself happy in his choice.

Gli. Hold you content.—Shall this will be read?

Pur. It shall.—Read you, good master Lipsalve.

Lip. Command silence then.

Gud. Silence!

Lip. [reads] In the name of God, amen. Know all men by these presents,^[220] that I Gerardine, being strong of body, and perfect in sense——

Dry. That’s false; there’s no lover in his perfect sense.

Gud. Peace, Dryfat.

126Lip. [reads] Do give and grant to Maria Glister, daughter of John Glister, and niece to doctor Glister, physician, all my leases, lands, chattels, goods, and moveables whatsoever. This is stark naught: you cannot give away your moveables, for mistress doctor and mistress Purge claim both shares in your moveables by reason of their legacies.

Dry. That’s true, for their legacies must go out of your moveables.

Lip. I[’ll] put it in—all my moveables, these following legacies being paid.

Ger. Do so, good master Lipsalve.

Lip. [after writing] ’Tis done.

Mis. P. I pray, read only the legacies, for supper stays.

Lip. Well, the legacies: [reads] First, I give to my cousin, mistress Purge, a fair large standing—what’s this?—O, cup,—a fair large standing cup, with a close stool.

Dry. ’Tis not so, ’tis not so.

Lip. I cry you mercy; a close cover ’tis. [Reads] To mistress doctor I give a fair bodkin of gold, with two orient pearls attending the same: all which are in my trunk to be delivered to the keeping of Maria. In witness, &c.—Is this your will?

Ger. ’Tis.

Lip. To it with your hand and seal.

Mis. P. How is it, chick? I must have the standing cup, and mistress Glister the bodkin?

Pur. Right, sweet duck.

Ger. I pray, gentlemen, put to your hands.

Dry. Come, your fists, gentlemen, your fists.

Ger. [while the witnesses sign the will.] Mistress Glister, I have found you always more flexible to understand the estate of a poor gentleman than 127your husband was willing: therefore I have thought it a point of charity to reveal the wrongs you sustain^[221] by your husband’s looseness. Let me tell you in private that the doctor cuckolds Purge oftener than he visits one of his patients: what ’a spares from you ’a spends lavishly on her. These ’pothecaries are a kind of panders: look to it: if ’a keep Maria long close, it is for some lascivious end of his own.

Mis. G. She is his niece.

Ger. Tut, these doctors have tricks. Your niceness is such that you can endure no polluted shoes^[222] in your house: take heed lest ’a make you a bawd before your time; look to it.

Lip. Come, our hands are testimonies to thy follies. Shall’s now to supper? We’ll have a health go round to thy voyage.

Gud. Ay, and to all that forswear marriage, and can be content with other men’s wives.

Ger. Of which consort^[223] you two are grounds; one touches the bass, and the other tickles the minikin.^[224]

Pur. The grey-eyed morning braves me to my face, and calls me sluggard: ’tis time for tradesmen to be in their shops; for he that tends well his shop, and hath an alluring wife with a graceful what d’ye lack?^[225] shall be sure to have good doings, and good doings is that that crowns so many citizens with the horns of abundance. My wife, by ordinary course, should this morning have been at the Family, but now her soft pillow hath given her counsel to keep her bed: master doctor should indeed minister to her; to whose pills she is so much accustomed, that now her body looks for them as duly as the moon shakes off the old and borrows new horns. I smile to myself to hear our knights and gallants say how they gull us citizens, when, indeed, we gull them, or rather they gull themselves. Here they come in term-time, hire chambers, and perhaps kiss our wives: well, what lose I by that? God’s blessing on’s heart, I say still, that makes much of my wife! for they were very hard-favoured that none could find in’s heart to love but ourselves: drugs would be dog-cheap, but for my private well-practised doctor and such customers. Tut, jealousy is a hell; and they that will thrive must utter their wares as they can, and wink at small faults. [Exit.

Gli. The tedious night is past, and the jocund morn looks more lively and fresh than an old gentlewoman’s glazed face in a new periwig. By this time my humorous lover is at Gravesend; and I go with more joy to fetch his trunk than ever the valiant Trojans did to draw in the Grecian jade: his goods shall into the walls of my Troy, and be offered to a face more lovely^[226] than ever was that thrice-ravished Helen[’s]; yet with such caution that no danger shall happen to me. [Exit.

SCENE III.

Gud. Master Lipsalve, welcome within ken: we two are so nearly linked, that if thou beest absent but one two hours, thy acquaintance grows almost mouldy in my memory.

Lip. And thine^[227] fly-blown in mine: how dost thou do?

Shr. Fellow page, I think our acquaintance runs low too; but if it run not o’ the lees, let’s set it a-tilt, and give ’em some dregs to their mouldy, fly-blown compliments.

Per. No, rather let’s pierce the rundlets of our 130running heads, and give ’em a neat cup of wagship to put down their courtship.

Shr. Courtship? cartship! for the tongues of complimenters run on wheels: but mark ’em; they ha’ not done yet.

Gud. And, i’faith, how is’t? methinks thou hast been a long vagrant.

Lip. The rogation^[228] hath been long indeed: therefore we may salute as ceremoniously as lawyers when they meet after a long vacation, who, to renew the discontinued state tale, they stretch it out with such length, that whilst they greet before, their clients kiss them behind.

Shr. If his nose were put i’ the remainder of that state tale, he would say ’twere an unsavoury one.

Per. I wonder why many men gird^[229] so at the law.

Gud. But what news now? how stands the state of things at Brussels?

Lip. Faith, weak and limber, weak and limber: nothing but pride and double-dealing: virtue is vice’s lackey; beggars suck like horse-leeches at the heart of bounty, and leave him^[230] so tired and spur-galled that he can be no longer ridden with honesty.

Shr. I’ll tell thee, because they themselves have neither law nor conscience.

Gud. Well fare the city yet! there virtue rides a cockhorse, cherished and kept warm in good sables and fox-fur, and with the breath of his 131nostrils drives pride and covetousness before him, like’s own shadow: beggars have whipping cheer: bounty obliges^[231] men to’t; and liberality gives money for scrips and scrolls, sealed with strong arms and heraldry to outlive mortality: love there will see the last man born, never give over while there’s an arrow i’ th’ quiver.

Lip. Now we talk of love, I do know, not far hence, so good a subject for that humour, that if she would wear but the standing collar and her things in fashion, our ladies in the court were but brown sugar-candy, as gross as grocery to her.

Gud. She is not so sweet as a ’pothecary’s shop, is she?

Lip. A plague on you! ha’ you so good a scent?—For my life, he’s my rival. [Aside.

Gud. Her name begins with mistress Purge, does it not?

Lip. True, the only comet of the city.

Gud. Ay, if she would let her ruffs stream out a little wider: but I am sure she is ominous to me; she makes civil wars and insurrections in the state of my stomach: I had thought to have bound myself from love, but her purging comfits make^[232] me loose-bodied still.

Lip. What, has she ministered to thee then?

Gud. Faith, some lectuary^[233] or so.

Lip. Ay, I fear she takes too much of that lectuary to stoop to love; it keeps her body soluble from sin: she is not troubled with carnal crudities nor the binding of the flesh.

132Gud. Thou hast sounded her then, belike.

Lip. Not I, I am too shallow to sound her; she’s out of my element: if I shew passion and discourse of love to her, she tells me I am wide from the right scope; she says she has another object, and aims at a better love than mine.

Gud. O, that’s her husband.

Lip. No, no; she speaks pure devotion: she’s impenetrable; no gold or oratory, no virtue in herbs nor no physic will make her love.

Gud. More is the pity, I say, that fair women should prove saints before age had made them crooked.—’Tis my luck to be crossed still, but I must not give over the chase. [Aside.

Lip. Come hither, boy, while I think on’t.

Gud. Faith, friend Lipsalve, I perceive you would fain play with my love. A pure creature ’tis, for whom I have sought every angle^[234] of my brain; but either she scorns courtiers, as most of them do, because they are given to boast of their doings, or else she’s exceeding strait-laced: therefore to prevent^[235] this smell-smock, I’ll to my friend doctor Glister, a man exquisite in th’ art magic, who hath told me of many rare experiments available in this case. [Aside.]—Farewell, friend Lipsalve.

Lip. Adieu, honest Gregory: frequent my lodging; I have a viol de gambo and good tobacco. [Exeunt Gudgeon and Periwinkle.]—Thou wilt do this feat, boy?

Shr. Else knock my head and my pate together.

Lip. Away then: bid him bring his measure with him. [Exit Shrimp.]— Gerardine is travelled, 133and I must needs be cast into his mould. My flesh grows proud; and Maria’s a sweet wench, &c.^[236] But yet I must not let fall my suit with mistress Purge, lest, sede vacante, my friend Gudgeon join issue:

SCENE IV.

Mis. G. I pray,^[238] let’s have no polluted feet nor rheumatic chaps enter the house; I shall have my floor look more greasy shortly than one of your inn-of-court dining-tables.—And now to you, good niece, I bend my speech. Let me tell you plainly, you are a fool to be love-sick for any man longer than he is in your company: are you so ignorant in the rules of courtship, to think any one man to bear all the prick and praise?^[239] I tell thee, be he never so proper, there is another to second him.

Mis. G. No marvel^[242] sure you should regard these men with such reverend opinion: there’s few good faces and fewer graces in any of them: if one among a multitude have a good pair of legs, he never leaves riding the ring till he has quite marred the proportion: nay, some, as I have heard, wanting lineaments to their liking and calf to support themselves, are fain to use art, and supply themselves with quilted calves, which oftentimes, in revelling, fall about their ankles; and for their behaviour, wit, and discourse, except some few that are travelled, it is as imperfectious and silly as your scholars new come from the university. By this light, I think we lose part of our happiness, when we make these weathercocks our equals.

Vial.^[246] Here’s Club, forsooth, and his fellow ’prentice have brought master Gerardine’s trunk.

Mis. G. Let them come in if their feet be clean. [Exit Vial.]—So, then, your best-beloved is gone; fair weather after him! all thy passions^[247], go with him! recomfort thyself, wench, in a better choice: his love to thee would have been of no longer continuance than the untrussing of his hose;^[248] then why shouldst thou pine for such a one?

Mis. G. Honest Club, welcome: is this master Gerardine’s trunk? he is gone then?

Club. Ay, indeed, mistress Glister, he is departed this transitory city, but his whole substance is here enclosed; which, by command, we here 136deliver to your custody, to the use of mistress Maria, according to the tenour of the premises.

Mis. G. Place it here, my honest Club: well done: and how does thy mistress? was she at the Family to-day? [Club spits.] Spit not, good Club, I cannot abide it.

Club. Not to-day, forsooth; she hath overcharged herself and her memory: she means to use a moderation, and take no more than she can make use of.

Mis. G. And, I prithee, Club, what kind of creatures are these Familists? thou art conversant with them.

Club. What are they? with reverence be it spoken, they are the most accomplished creatures under heaven; in them is all perfection.

Mis. G. As how, good Club?

Club. Omitting their outward graces, I’ll shew you only one instance, which includes all other; they love their neighbours better than themselves.

Mis. G. Not than themselves, Club.

Club. Yes, better than themselves; for they love them better than their husbands, and husband and wife are all one; therefore, better than themselves.

Mis. G. This is logic: but tell me, doth she not endeavour to bring my doctor of her side and fraternity?

Club. Let him resolve^[249] that himself, for here he comes.

Gli. O, hast thou brought the trunk, honest Club? I commend thy honest care: here’s for thy pains. [Giving money.

Club. I thank you, master doctor; you are free 137and liberal still: you’ll command me nothing back?

Gli. Nothing but commendations: farewell. [Exeunt Club and Apprentice.]—Your sweetheart Gerardine is by this time cold of his hope to enjoy thee: he’s gone; and a more equal and able husband shall my care ere long provide thee.—What clients have been here in my absence, wife?

Mis. G. Faith, mouse,^[250] none that I know more than an old woman that had lost her cat, and came to you for a spell in the recovery.

Gli. I think egregious ignorance will go near to save this age; their blindness takes me for a conjuror: yesterday a justice of peace salutes me with proffer of a brace of angels^[251] to help him to his footcloth,^[252] some three days before stolen, and was fain to use his man’s cloak instead on’t.

Vial. Here’s a gentleman craves speech with you, sir.

Gli. Go in, sweet wife, and give my niece good counsel.

—His name?

Vial. He will not tell it me.

Gli. His countenance?

Vial. I can see nothing but his eyes: the rest of him is so wrapt in cloak that it suffers no view.

Gli. Admit him. [Exit Vial.]—What should he be for a man?^[253]

What, master Lipsalve, is’t you? why thus obscured? what discontent overshadows you?

Lip. A discontent indeed, master doctor, which to shake off I must have you extend your art to the utmost bounds. You physicians are as good as false doors behind hangings to ladies’ necessary uses: you know the very hour in which they have neither will to deny nor wit to mistrust: faith now, by the way, when are women most apt?

Gli. Shall I unbutton myself unto you? after the receipt of a purgation, for then are their pores most open: but what creature of a courtier is it hath drawn your head into the woodcock’s noose?

Lip. A courtier? nay, by this flesh, I am clean fallen out with them; they have nothing proportionable.

Gli. O, I perceive, then, ’tis some city star that attracts your aspect.

Lip. He knows by his art. [Aside.]—In plain terms, a certain ’pothecary’s wife.

Gli. Upon my life, mistress^[254] Purge: I smell you, sir.

Lip. You may smell a man after a purgation: indeed, sir, ’tis she. Now, for that fame hath bruited^[255] you to be a man expert in necromancy, I would endear^[256] myself to you for ever, would you vouchsafe to let one of your spirits bring mistress Purge into some convenient place, where I might enjoy her: I have heard of the like: can you perform this?

139Gli. With much facility, I assure you: but you must understand that the apparition of a spirit is dreadful, and withal covetous, and with no small sum of gold hired to such feats.

Vial. Sir, here’s another gentleman, muffled too, that desires present conference with you.

Gli. Walk you into that room: I will bethink myself for your good, and instantly resolve^[257] you. [Exit Lipsalve.]—Let the gentleman come in. [Exit Vial.]—Lipsalve in love with my vessel of ease? come to me to help him to a morsel most affected by mine own palate? No more but so: I have shaped it; the conceit tickles me.

Sir, as a stranger I welcome you—what, master Gudgeon, have I caught you? I thought it was a gallant that walked muffled: come, let me behold you at full; here are no sergeants, man.

Gud. Master doctor, this my obscure coming requires an action more obscure; and, in brief, this ’tis. Sir, you are held a man far seen in nature’s secrets; I know you can effect many things almost impossible: know, then, I love mistress Purge, and opportunity favours me not, nor indeed is she so tractable as I expected: if either by medicine or your art magical you can work her to my will, I have a poor gallant’s reward, sir.

Gli. That’s just nothing. [Aside.]—But how, sir, would you have me to procure you access to mistress Purge? you never knew a physician a bawd.

140Gud. Why, by conjuration, I tell you, wherein you are said to be as well practised as in physic: here’s the best part of my present store to effect it.

Gli. Not a penny for myself; but my spirits, indeed, they must be feed.^[258] Walk you by here, while I think upon a spell. [Gudgeon retires.]—What mystery should this be? Lipsalve and Gudgeon both in love with mistress Purge, and come to me to help ’em by art magic? ’Tis some gullery sure; yet, if my invention hold, I’ll fit them.—Who’s within there?

Fetch me, in all haste, two good whips; I think you may have them not far hence. [Exit Servant.]—It shall be so. [Aside.]—Now, tell me, master Gudgeon, does no man know of your love to mistress Purge?

Gud. Not a man, by my gentry.

Gli. Then, sir, know I’ll effect it; but understand withal the apparition will be most horrid if it appear in his proper form, and will so amaze and dull your senses, that your appetite will be lost and weak, though mistress Purge should attend it naked. Now, sir, could you name a friend with whom you are most conversant, in his likeness should the spirit appear.

Gud. Of all men living my conversation is most frequent with Lipsalve the courtier.

Gli. ’Tis enough: I’ll to my spirit. [Gudgeon retires, and Glister writes a few words.]—Are these whips come there?

Ser. Ready here, sir. [Exit.

Gli. So, lie thou^[260] there. My noble gallants, I’ll so firk you! [Aside.]—Sir, my spirit agrees in Lipsalve’s shape: to-morrow, ’twixt the hours of four and five, shall mistress Purge be rapt with a whirlwind into Lipsalve’s chamber: that’s the fittest place, for, by the break of day, Lipsalve shall be mounted and forsake the city for three days; so my spirit resolves^[261] me. Now, sir, by my art, at that very hour shall his chamber-door fly open; into which boldly enter in this sort accoutred; put me on a pure clean shirt, leave off your doublet (for spirits endure nothing polluted), take me this whip in your hand, and, being entered, you shall see the spirit in Lipsalve’s shape, in the self-same form that you appear; speak these words here ready written [giving a paper], take three bold steps forward, then whip him soundly, who straight vanisheth, and leaves mistress Purge to your will.

Gud. Ay, but shall your spirit come armed with a whip too?

Gli. He shall, but have no power to strike.

Gud. Is this infallible? have you seen the proof?

Gli. Probatum, upon my word; I have seen the experience: if it fail, say I am a fool, and no magician.

Gud. Master doctor, I would you had some suit at court; by the faith of a courtier, I would beg it for you. Fare you well, sir: I shall report of you as I find your charm.

142Gli. And no otherwise, sir: let me understand how you thrive. [Exit Gudgeon.]—Ha, ha, ha! Now to my friend Lipsalve: I must possess him with the same circumstance; wherein I am assured to get perpetual laughter in their follies and my revenge. [Exit.

ACT III. SCENE I.

147But who comes here?^[272] Monstrum horrendum! my nostrils have the rank scent of knavery. Maria, let’s remove ourselves to the window, and observe this piece of man’s flesh. [Scene closes.

SCENE II.

Lip. Now, mistress Maria, ward yourself: if my strong hope fail not, I shall be with you to bring——

Shr. To bring what, sir? some more o’ your kind?

Lip. Faith, boy, that’s mine aim.

Shr. I’ll be sworn, sir, you have a good loose;^[273] you let fly at ’em a-pace.

Lip. I have shot fair and far off; but now I hope to hit the mark indeed.

148Shr. God save it!

Lip. But where’s the sign?

Shr. Why, there.

Lip. That’s a special thing to be observed.

Shr. I have heard talk of the Gemini: methinks, that should be a star favourable to your proceeding.

Lip. The Gemini? O, I apprehend thee: that’s because I am so like Gerardine; ha, is’t not so, boy?

Shr. As if you were spit out on’s mouth, sir; you must needs be like him, for you are both cut out of a piece. But, lord, sir, how you hunt this chase of love! are you not weary?

Lip. Indefatigable, boy, indefatigable.

Shr. Fatigable, quoth you? you may call it leanable well enough, for I am sure it is able to make a man lean.

Lip. ’Tis my vocation, boy; we must never be weary of well-doing: love’s as proper to a courtier as preciseness to a puritan.

Shr. Love, subaudi lust; a punk in this place subintelligitur. [Aside.

Lip. Boy, I have spied my saint.

Shr. Then down on your knees.

Shr. In your t’other hose?—She talked of a ladder of ropes: if she would let it down, for my life, he would hang himself in’t. [Aside.]—In your t’other hose? why, those hose are in lavender:^[279] besides, they have never a codpiece; but, indeed, there needs no ivy where the wine is good: in your t’other hose?

Lip. O boy, I am abused, gulled, disgraced! my credit’s cracked.

151Shr. You know that’s nothing new for a^[280] courtier.

Lip. O, I shall run beside myself!

Shr. No, sir, that’s my office; I’ll run by your side.

Lip. My brain is out of temper! what shall I do?

Shr. Take her counsel, sir; get a cullis^[281] to your capacity, a restorative to your reason, and a warming-pan to your wit: he comes, he comes!

Lip. Follow close, boy; let him not see us.

Gli. What, more flutterers^[282] about my carrion? more battery to my walls? shall I never be rid of these petronel-flashes?^[283] As for my friend Gerardine, the wind of my rage has blown him to discover countries; and let the sea purge his love away and him together,—I care not. Young wenches now are all o’ the hoigh: we that are guardians must respect more besides titles, gold lace, person, or parts; we must have lordships and manors elsewhere as well as in the man: wealth commands all; and wealth I’ll have, or else my minion shall lead apes in hell. I must after this gallant too: I’ll know his rendezvous, and what company he keeps. [Exit.

SCENE III.

Mis. P. Fie, fie, Club, go a’ t’other side the way, thou collowest^[287] me and my ruff; thou wilt make me an unclean member i’ the congregation.

Club. If you be unclean, mistress, you may pure yourself; you have my master’s ware at your commandment: but what am I then, that does all the drudgery in your house?

Mis. P. Thou’rt born to’t: why, boy, I can shew thy indentures; thou givest no other milk: we know how to use all i’ their kind.

Club. You’re my better in bark and rine,^[288] but in pith and substance I may compare with you: you’re above me in flesh, mistress, and there’s 153your boast; but in my t’other part we are all one before God.

Mis. P. All one with me? dost thou swear too? why then, up and ride!

Dry. Whither away, mistress Purge?

Mis. P. To the Family, master Dryfat, to our exercise.^[289]

Dry. What, by night?

Mis. P. O Lord, ay, sir, with the candles out too: we fructify best i’ th’ dark: the glance of the eye is a great matter; it leads us to other objects besides the right.

Dry. Indeed I think we perform those functions best when we are not thrall to the fetters of the body.

Mis. P. The fetters of the body? what call you them?

Dry. The organs of the body, as some term them.

Mis. P. Organs? fie, fie, they have a most abominable squeaking sound in mine ears; they edify not a whit; I detest ’em: I hope my body has no organs.^[290]

Dry. To speak more familiarly, mistress Purge, they are the senses, the sight, hearing, smelling, taste, and feeling.

Mis. P. Ay, marry—marry, said I? Lord, what a word’s that in my mouth!—you speak now, master Dryfat; but yet let me tell you where you 154err too: this feeling I will prove to be neither organ nor fetter; it is a thing—a sense did you call it?

Dry. Ay, a sense.

Mis. P. Why, then, a sense let it be,—I say it is that we cannot be without; for, as I take it, it is a part belonging to understanding: understanding, you know, lifteth up the mind from earth: if the mind be lift up, you know, the body goes with it: also it descends into the conscience, and there tickles us with our works and doings: so that we make singular use of feeling.

Dry. And not of the rest?

Mis. P. Not at that time; therefore we hold it not amiss to put out the candles, for the soul sees best i’ th’ dark.

Dry. You come to me now, mistress Purge.

Mis. P. Nay, I will come to you else, master Dryfat: these senses, as you term them, are of much efficacy in carnal mixtures; that is, when we crowd and thrust a man and a woman together.

Pur. What, so close at it? I thought this was one end of your exercise:^[291] byrlady,^[292] I think there is small profit in this. I’ll wink no more; for I am now tickled with a conceit that it is a scurvy thing to be a cuckold. [Aside.

Dry. I commend this zeal in you, mistress Purge; I desire much to be of your society.

Mis. P. Do you indeed? blessing on your heart! are you upright in your dealings?

Dry. Yes, I do love to stand to any thing I do, though I lose by it: in truth, I deal but too truly for this world. You shall hear how far I am 155entered in the right way already. First, I live in charity, and give small alms to such as be not of the right sect; I take under twenty i’ th’ hundred, nor no forfeiture of bonds unless the law tell my conscience I may do’t; I set no pot on a’ Sundays, but feed on cold meat drest a’ Saturdays; I keep no holydays nor fasts, but eat most flesh o’ Fridays of all days i’ the week; I do use to say inspired graces, able to starve a wicked man with length; I have Aminadabs and Abrahams to my godsons, and I chide them when they ask me blessing; and I do hate the red letter^[293] more than I follow the written verity.

Pur. Here’s clergy!^[294] [Aside.

Mis. P. These are the rudiments indeed, master Dryfat.

Dry. Nay, I can tell you I am, or will be, of the right stamp.

Pur. A pox o’ your stamp! [Aside.

Mis. P. Then learn the word for your admittance, and you will be much made on by the congregation.

Dry. Ay, the word, good mistress Purge?

Mis. P. A Brother in the Family.

Dry. Enough, I have my lesson.

Pur. So have I mine. A Brother in the Family! I must be a Familist to-day: I’ll follow this gear^[295] while ’tis on foot, i’faith. [Aside.

Mis. P. Then shore up your eyes, and lead the way to the goodliest people that ever turned up the white o’ th’ eye.—Give me my book, Club, put out thy link, and come behind us.

[Within]. Who’s there?

Dry. Two Brothers and a Sister in the Family.^[296]

[Mistress Purge, Dryfat, and Club, enter the House: then Purge knocks at the door.

[Within]. Who’s there?

Pur. A Familiar Brother.

[Within]. Here’s no room for you nor your familiarity.

Pur. How? no room for me nor my familiarity? why, what’s the difference between a Familiar Brother and a Brother in the Family? O, I know! I made ellipsis of in in this place, where it should have been expressed, so that the want of in put me clean out; or, let me see,—may it not be some mystery drawn from arithmetic? for my life, these Familists love no substraction, take nothing away, but put in and add as much as you will; and after addition follows multiplication of a most Pharasit-hypocritical crew. Well, for my part I like not this Family, nor, indeed, some kind of private lecturing that women use. Look too’t, you that have such gadders to your wives! self-willed they are as children, and, i’faith, capable of not much more than they, peevish^[297] by custom, naturally fools. I remember a pretty wooden sentence in a preamble 157to an exercise,^[298] where the reader prayed that men of his coat might grow up like cedars to make good wainscot in the House of Sincerity: would not this wainscot phrase be writ in brass, to publish him that spake it for an animal? Why, such wooden pellets out of earthen trunks^[299] do strike these females into admiration, hit^[300] ’em home; sometimes, perhaps, in at one ear and out at t’other, and then they depart, in opinion wiser than their neighbours, fraught with matter able to take down and mortify their husbands. Well, I’ll home now, and bring the true word next time. I shall expect my wife anon, red-hot with zeal, and big with melting tears; and this night do I expect, as her manner is, she will weep me a whole chamber-pot full. Loquor lapides? do I cast pills abroad? ’Tis no matter what I say; I talk like a ’pothecary, as I am: I have only purged myself of a little choler and passion, and am now armed with a patient resolution. But how? to put my horns in my pocket? no:

Lip. Fortune, devil’s turd i’ thy teeth! I’ll turn no more o’ thy wheel: art is above thy might. What though my project with mistress Maria failed? more ways to the wood than one; there’s variety in love. It is believed I am out of town; my door is open: the hour is at hand; all things squared by the doctor’s rule; and now I look for the spirit to bring me warm comfort to clothe my nakedness, and that is mistress Purge, the cordial of a Familist; and come quickly, good spirit, or else my teeth will chatter for thee. [Scene shuts.

SCENE V.^[301]

ᚨGud. O the naked pastimes of love, the scourge of dulness, the purifier of uncleanness, and the hot-house of humanity! I have taken physic of master Purge any time this twelvemonths to purge my humour upon’s wife, and I have ever found her so fugitive, from exercise^[302] to exercise, and from Family to Family, that I could never yet open the close-stool of my mind to her; so that I may 159well say with Ovid, Hei mihi,^[303] quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis! Now am I driven to prove the violent virtue of conjuration: if it hit, and that I yerk my Familist out of the spirit, I’ll hang up my scourge-stick for a trophy, and emparadize my thoughts: though the doctor go to the devil, ’tis no matter. Ha, let me see: Lipsalve’s door open, and himself out of town? Excellent doctor, soothsaying doctor, oraculous doctor!

SCENE VI.

Gli. I have taken up this standing to see my gallants play at barriers^[304] with scourge-sticks, for the honour of my punk:

and in good time I see my brave spirits shining in bright armour, nakedly burning in the hell-fire of lechery, and ready for the hot encounter: sound trumpets, the combatants are mounted! [Aside.

Gud. The apparition! mistress Purge peers through him; I see her.

Lip. The spirit appears! but he might have come sooner: I am numbed with cold, a shivering ague hath taken away my courage.

Gli. They are afraid one of another: look, how they tremble! the flesh and the devil strengthen ’em! ha, ha, ha! [Aside.

160Gud. Has ’a no cloven feet? what a laxative fever shakes me!

Lip. Will ’a not carry me with him to hell? well, I must venture.—Clogmathos.

Gud. My cue.—Clogmathathos.

Lip. My cue.—Garrazin.

Gud. Garragas.

Lip. Garrazinos.

Gud. Ton tetuphon.

Lip. Tes tetuphes.

Both. With a whirly twinos.

Lip. Hold,^[305] hold, hold!

Gud. Gogs nowns, gogs blood!

Lip. A pox, a plague, the devil take you!

Gud. Truce, truce, I smart, I smart.

Gli. Ha, ha, ha! O, for one of the hoops of my Cornelius’ tub!^[306] I must needs be gone, I shall burst myself with laughing else.

Gud. What art thou? with the name of Jove I conjure thee!

Lip. With any name, saving the whip; I’ll no more of that conjuration, a plague on’t!

Gud. Speak, art not a spirit in the likeness of my friend Lipsalve, that should transform thyself to mistress Purge?

Lip. How, a spirit? I hope spirits have no flesh 161and blood; and I am sure thou hast drawn blood out of my flesh with the spirit of thy whip.

Gud. Then shall we prove to be honest gulls, and the doctor an arrant knave.

Lip. A plague upon him for a Glister! he has given our loves a suppositor^[307] with a recumbentibus. I’ll tell thee, sirrah,——

Gud. Tell not me, let me prevent thee; the wind shall not take the breath of our gross abuse: we feel the gullery, therefore let us swear by our naked truths, and by the hilts of these our blades, our flesh-tamers, to be revenged upon that paraperopandentical doctor, that pocky doctor.

Lip. Agreed: we’ll cuckold him, that he shall not be able to put his head in at’s doors; and make his precise, puritanical, and peculiar punk, his ’pothecary’s drug there, a known cockatrice^[308] to the world.

Gud. If report catch this knavery, we have lost our reputations for ever: wherefore let’s be secret.

SCENE VII.

ACT IV. SCENE I.

Gud. Come, boys, our clothes,^[315] boys: and what is the most current news, Periwinkle?

164Per. Faith, sir, fortune hath favoured us with no news but what the pedlar brought from Norfolk.

Lip. Is there nothing stirring at court, Shrimp?

Shr. Faith, there is, sir, but nothing new.

Lip. Good wag, faith! thou smellest somewhat of a courtier, though thy mother was a citizen’s wife.—Off with that filthy great band, nay, quick; on with your robe of sanctity, nay, suddenly, man.

Gud. And why must we shift ourselves into this demure habit, if impossible to be of the Family and keep our own fashion?

Lip. Tut, man, the name of a gallant is more hateful to them than the sight of a corner-cap. Hadst thou heard the protestations the wife of a bellows-mender made but yesternight against gallants, thou hadst for ever abjured crimson breeches. She swore that all gallants were persons inferior to bellows-menders, for the trade of bellows-making was very aerial and high; and what were men and women but bellows, for they take wind in at one place and do evaporate at another;—evaporate was her very phrase.

Gud. Methinks, her phrase flew with somewhat too strong a vapour.

Lip. Nay, she proves farther, that all men receive their being chiefly from bellows, without which the fire burns not; without fire the pot seethes not; the pot not seething, powdered beef is not to be eaten; of which, she then averred our nation was a great devourer, and without which they could neither fight for their country abroad, nor get children at home; for, said she, powdered beef is a great joiner of nerves together.

Gud. What answer madest thou?

Lip. Marry, that I thought a bawd was a greater 165joiner of nerves together than powdered beef: with that she protested that a bawd was an instrument of the devil, and as she had proved that bellows-makers were of God’s trade, so bawds were of the devil’s trade; for (and thereupon she blew her nose) the devil and bawds did both live by the sins of the people.

Gud. No more: mistress Purge is at hand.

Lip. Vanish, boys, away. [Exeunt Shrimp and Periwinkle.]— Make haste: before Jove, she’ll be with us ere we can be provided for her. [They retire.

Mis. P. Advance your link, Club. At what time wert thou bound, Club? at Guttide,^[316] Hollantide,^[317] or Candletide?

Club. I was bound, indeed, about midsummer.

Mis. P. And when hath thy ’prenticeship end? at Michaeltide next?

Club. So I take it.

Mis. P. They say, Club, you fall very heavy on such you love not: you never learnt that of me.

Club. Indeed, mistress, I must confess my falling is rustic, gross, and butcher-like: marry, yours is a pretty, foolish, light, courtlike^[318] falling: yet, believe me, my master smells somewhat too gross of the purgation; he wants tutoring.

Mis. P. And why, I pray?

Club. My master being set last night in his shop, comes master doctor Glister, as his manner is, squirting in suddenly; and after some conference, 166tells my master that, by his own knowledge, you were young with child: to which my master replied, Why, master doctor, will you put me to more charges yet?

Mis. P. Thou art a fool: in that my husband spake as wisely as if the master of his company had spoke. He knows doctors have receipts for women, which make^[319] them most apt to conceive; and he promising ’a had ministered the same lately to me, thereupon spake it. Lead on with your link.

Lip. Art ready?

Gud. Ready.

Lip. Then speak pitifully, look scurvily, and dissemble cunningly, and we shall quickly prove two of the Fraternity. [Advancing with Gudgeon.]—Benediction and sanctity, love and charity fall on mistress Purge, sister of the Family!

Mis. P. And what, I pray, be you two?

Lip.^[320] Two newly converted from the rags of Christianity to become good members in the house of the Family.

Mis. P. Who, I pray, converted you?

Gud. Master^[321] Dryfat, the merchant.

Mis. P. And from what sins hath he converted you?

Lip. From two very notorious crimes; the first was from eating fish on Fridays, and the second from speaking reverently of the clergy: but ’a resolved^[322] us your talent in edifying young men went far beyond his.

Mis. P. A talent I have therein, I must confess, nor am I very nice^[323] at fit times to shew it: for your better instructions, therefore, you must never hereafter frequent taverns nor tap-houses, no masques nor mummeries, no pastimes nor playhouses.

Gud. Must we have no recreation?

Mis. P. Yes, on the days which profane lips call holydays, you may take your spaniel and spend some hours at the ducking-pond.

Lip. What are we bound unto during the time we remain in the Family?

Mis. P. During the light of the candle you are to be very attentive; which being extinguished, how to behave yourselves I will deliver in private.

Pur. ’Tis now come to a whisper. What young Familists be these? i’faith, I’ll make one; I’ll trip you, wife: I scent your footing, wife.

Lip. We shall with much diligence observe it.

Pur. I fear I shall have small cause to thank that diligence: but do your worst;

They are going: follow, Purge, close, close and softly, like a horsekeeper in a lady’s matted chamber at midnight. [Aside.

[Within]. Who knocks?

Mis. P. Brethren, and a Sister in the Family.

[Within]. Enter in peace.

Pur. Brethren, and a Sister! that’s the word. How beastly was I mistaken last day! I should have said, A Brother in the Family, and I said, A Familiar Brother; for which I and my family were thrust out of doors: but, as Titus Silus of Holborn Bridge most learnedly was wont to say, qd——^[329] [Knocks.

Within]. Who’s there?

Pur. A Brother in the Family.

[Within]. Enter, and welcome.

SCENE II.

And see, in most wished occasion, Dryfat the merchant presents himself.

Sir, in the best of hours met: my thoughts had marked you out for a man most apt to do them the fairest of offices.

Dry. What! art thou a Welsh carrier or a northern landlord, thou’rt so saucy?

Ger. Is’t possible, sir, my disguise should so much fool your knowledge? How? a northern landlord? can you think I get my living by a bell and a clack-dish?^[334]

Dry. By a bell and a clack-dish? how’s that?

Ger. Why, by begging, sir. Know you me now?

170Dry. Master Gerardine, disguised and ashore! nay, then I smell a rat.

Ger. Master Dryfat, shall I repose some trust in you? will you lay by awhile your city’s precise humour? will you not deceive me?

Dry. If I deceive your trust, the general plague seize me! that is, may I die a cuckold.

Ger. And I say thou shalt die a true citizen, if thou conceal it: and thus in brief. It stands with thy knowledge how seriously I have and do still affect Maria: now, sir, I have so wrought it, that if thou couldst procure me a fellow that could serve instead of a crier, I myself would play Placket the paritor,^[335] and summon doctor Glister and Maria to appear at thy house: and as I play^[336] the paritor, so wouldst thou but assume the shape of a proctor, I should have the wench, thou the credit, and the whole city occasion of discourse this nine days.

Dry. How’s this, how’s this? I should procure a fellow to play the crier,^[337] and I myself should play the proctor? but upon what occasion should they be summoned?

Ger. Upon an accusation that doctor Glister should get Maria, his niece, with child, and have bastards in the country, which I have a trick to make probable.

Dry. And now I recall it to memory, I heard 171somewhat to that effect last night in master Beardbush the barber’s shop: but how will this sort? who shall accuse him?

Ger. Refer that to me, I say, be that my care: all shall end in merriment, and no disgrace touch either of their reputations.

Dry. Then take both word and hand, ’tis done: Club, mistress Purge’s ’prentice, shall be the crier.^[338]

Ger. O my most precious Dryfat! may none of thy daughters prove vessels with foul bungholes, or none of thy sons hogsheads, but all true and honourable Dryfats like thyself!

Dry. Well, master Gerardine, I hope to see you a Familist before I die.

Ger. That’s most likely, for I hold most of their principles already: I never rail nor calumniate any man but in love and charity; I never cozen any man for any ill will I bear him, but in love and charity to myself; I never make my neighbour a cuckold for any hate or malice I bear him, but in love and charity to his wife.

Dry. And may those principles fructify in your weak members! I’ll be gone, and with most quick dexterity provide you a crier: to-morrow at my house, said you, they should appear?

Ger. Be that the time, most honoured Dryfat: but be this known to none, most loved sir, save Club, or to some other whom your judgment shall select as a fit person for our project.

172Dry. Thus enough: time out of sight.^[339] [Exit.

Ger. Maria, thou art mine: earth’s perfection^[340] and nature’s glory, woman! of what an excellency if her thoughts and acts were squared and levelled with the first celsitude^[341] of her creation!

SCENE III.

Mar. Good aunt, quiet yourself: ground not upon dreams; you know they are ever contrary.

Mis. G. Minion, minion, coin no excuses: I 173grant dreams are deceitful, but a true judgment grounded upon knowledge never fails. What? have not I observed the rising and falling of the blood, the coming and going of the countenance, your qualms, your unlacings, your longings? most evident tokens; besides, a more certain sign than all these, too; you know’t, I need not speak it: nay, I am as skilful in that point as my husband; I can tell you, Aristotle speaks English enough to tell me these secrets. Body of me, so narrowly looked to, and yet fly out! Well, I see maids will ha’t in spite of laws or locks that restrain ’em; they will open, do men what they can.

Mis. G. Bear your own? ay, marry, there it goes! What must you bear?

Mar. My sins, forsooth.

Mis. G. Your sins, forsooth? Confess to me, and go not about the bush: you have been doing, that’s flat; you have caught a clap, that’s round; and answer me roundly to the point, or else I’ll square.^[346] Come, whose act is’t? I cannot devise unless it be my husband’s, for none else had access to thee: I am sure time has turned his bald side to thee, and I do but wonder how thou tookst opportunity: speak, tell me.

Mis. G. Will you not bolt? I must ha’t out on you, and will.

Ger. By your leave, mistress——

Mis. G. Passion of my heart, what art thou?

Ger. No ghost, forsooth, though I appear in white.

Mis. G. No, but a saucy knave, I perceive by your manners.

Ger. None of that livery neither: I am of the bearing trade, forsooth; you may see by my smock,—frock, I would say: I am, if it please you, of the spick and span new-set-up company of porters. Here’s my breastplate; and besides our own arms, we have the arms of the city to help us in our burdens—ecce signum! here’s the cross and the sword of justice in good pewter, I can tell you, which goes as current with us as better metal.

Mis. G. What’s your name, sir?

Ger. Nicholas Nebulo: there’s but a straw’s-breadth between that and the arms; ’tis in the backside of the cross here, and well known in the city for an ancient name and an honest, an’t like your worship.

Mis. G.^[347] You are none of the twelve, are you?

Ger. No, forsooth, but one of the twenty-four——

Mis. G. Orders of knaves:^[348] I thought so. Sirrah, 175you’re a rascal, to come thus bluntly into my house with your dirty startups:^[349] get you without doors, like a filthy fellow as you are; a place more fit for you.

Ger. O, good words, mistress! I may be warden of my company for aught you know; and for my bluntness, we have a clause in our charter to warrant that; for as we bear, so likewise we may be borne with, and have free egress and regress where our business lies.

Mis. G. And what’s your business here?

Ger. I have a letter, an’t please you, to master doctor.

Mis. G. From whence? [Taking the letter.

Ger. That I cannot shew your worship; but I had it of Curtal the carrier, whose lawful deputy I am.

Mis. G. Leave your scraping, sirrah. Fie, how rank the knave smells of grease and taps-droppings! [Gerardine coughs and spits.] What, are you rheumatic too, with a vengeance!

Ger. Yes, indeed, mistress; though I be but a poor man, I have a spice of the gentleman in me: master doctor could smell it quickly, because he’s a gentleman himself: I must to the diet, and that is tobacco at the ale-house; I use n’other physic for it.

Mis. G. Did ever such a peasant defile my floor, or breathe so near me!—I’faith, sirrah, you would be bummed for your roguery, if you were well served.

Ger. I am bummed well enough already, mistress; look here else: sir-reverence^[350] in your worship, 176master doctor’s lips are not made of better stuff.

Mis. G. What an impudent rogue is this!—Sirrah, begone, I say; I would be rid o’ you.

Ger. Be rid o’ me? I shall gallop then: you mistake me, forsooth; I am a foot post, I do not use to ride.

Mis. G. I think the rascal be humorous or drunk. Well, I will read the letter, and send him packing, or else he will spew or do worse before me: fie on him, I think he will infect me with some filthy disease.

Ger. Or else I lose mine aim. [Aside.

Mis. G. What’s here? [Reads] Your poor nurse, Thomasine Tweedles!^[351] for my life now shall I find out my husband’s knavery I have so long suspected.

Ger. She begins to nibble; ’twill take, i’faith.

Mis. G. ’Tis so: rats-bane! I ha’t: it racks 177on, it torments me! here ’tis: [reads] Woe worth the time that ever I gave suck to a child that came in at the window, God knows how!—Villanous lecher!—yet, if you did but see how like the pert^[352] little red-headed knave is to his father—damnable doctor! a bastard in the country, and another towards^[353] here! I am out of doubt this is his work.—You are an arrant strumpet!—Incest, fornication, abomination in my own house! intolerable! O for long nails to scratch out his eyes!

Ger. Or the breeches, to fight with him.

Mis. G. Out of my sight, quean! thou shalt to Bridewell.—O, I shall be mad with rage!

Ger. Then you shall go to Bedlam.

Mis. G. Hence, you slave!

Ger. I must have a penny; you must pay me for my pains.

This storm once past, fair weather ever after! [Exit.

Mis. G. Was ever woman so moved!—but you shall be talked withal: and for mine old fornicator, he shall ha’t as hot as coals, i’faith: here’s stuff indeed! Come, minx, come: there’s law for you both: have I found your knavery? If I wink at this, let me be stone blind, or stoned to death: bear this, and bear all! [Exeunt.

Gud. Upon my life, we are bewitched. The greasy rascal that first seized mistress Purge, by the last reflection of the light, appeared to my sight not much unlike her husband.

Lip. The court’s gall, the city’s plague, and Europa’s sea-form^[356] be his perpetual crest, what-e’er ’a was! To lose mistress Purge for lack of dexterity, is a disgrace insalveable: the like opportunity will never present itself.

Gud. ’Twas an egregious grief, I must confess, to see a knave slip betwixt us both and take occasion by the foretop: but since these projects have had so star-cross events, let’s lay some plot how to 179revenge our late disgrace on the doctor by making him cuckold.

Lip. Agreed: but what melancholy sir, with acrostic^[357] arms, now comes from the Family?

Gud. Purge the ’pothecary: I prithee, let’s step aside and hear the issue of this discontent.

Pur. O the misery of married men’s estate!

Lip. ’A begins very pitifully. [Aside.

Pur. O women, what are many of you!

Lip. Why, disease[s] to bachelors, and plagues to married men. [Aside.

Pur. O marriage, the rage of all our miseries! my wife is a dissembling strumpet.

Gud. So is many a man’s besides yours; and what of that?

Pur. I would have a law, that all such which pray little should instantly be married; for then would they pray continually, if it were but to be rid of their wives.

Lip. This is a charitable request, and surely would pass the Lower-house. [Aside.

Pur. Surely if affliction can bring a man to heaven, I cannot see how any married man can be damned: I have made myself a plain cuckold.

Gud. A pile^[358] on ye, won’t you! had you not been so manable,^[359] here are some would have saved you that labour. [Aside.

Pur. What shall I do in this extremity? had I but witness of the fact, I would make her answer 180it before authority. This is my wedding-ring; ’tis it, I know it by the posy: this I took from her finger in the dark, and she was therewith very well pleased: were not this, trow,^[360] a sufficient testimony? she knows not that it was myself got so near her: I will take counsel. Well, little know bachelors the miseries they undergo when they prostrate themselves to women.

Lip. [coming forward with Gudgeon] O most true, master Purge! little knows a man what elements ’a is to pass, when ’a puts his head under a woman’s girdle. Your passion,^[361] master Purge, is overheard, and, plain tale to tell, we were eye-witnesses of your wife’s treachery, and if need be, will be ready to depose as much.

Pur. What, master Lipsalve and master Gudgeon, are you disguised testimonies?

Gud. Why, now ’a speaks like himself: get me a paritor^[362] for her straight.

Lip. Conceal the ring, my little Purge; let not thy wife know thou hast it, until she comes to her trial.

Pur. Your advices are very pithy; therefore in private let me disclose my intent.

Gud. Off,^[363] boys!

Shr. What dost thou think of thy master? is ’a 181not a rare gull?

Per. I think ’a will swallow and pocket more disgraces than large-conscienced lawyer fees in a Michaelmas term. Thy master, my honest Shrimp,^[364] comes not much short of a fool too, but that ’a is a courtier.

Shr. Draw somewhat near, and overhear their conference.

Ger. This shape of the crier must Club to-morrow assume. Are you fitted for Poppin the proctor?

Dry. Excellent, and have spent some study in the mystical cases of venery: I can describe how often a man may lie with another man’s wife before ’a come to the white sheet.

Ger. How long is that?

Dry. Why, till ’a be taken tardy:—how long all womenkind may, by the statute, profess and swear they are maids.

Ger. And how long is that?

Dry. Why, till their bellies be so big that it cannot be no longer concealed: but come forward towards Glister’s.

Lip. It must be so; let the sumner^[365] tickle her: you shall bring in these allegations, and let us alone to swear them.—[Advancing with Purge and Gudgeon.] Who’s this? master Dryfat? opportunely met, sir: and whither so fast? the news, the news?

Dry. Faith, gentlemen, I think to relate for news what I hear of doctor Glister would come stale to your hearings.

182Lip. O, the getting of his niece with child: tut, that’s apparently known to all the company.—But, in the name of Jupiter, what art thou, or from whence camest thou?

Ger. Why, sir, I come from compassing the corners of the land.

Gud. Of what trade, in the name of Pluto?

Ger. Of the devil’s trade; for I live, as he does, by the sins of the people; in brief, sir, I am Placket the paritor.^[366]

Lip. As the devil would!—We have, my noble paritor, instant employment for thee; a grey groat is to be purchased without sneaking, my little sumner: where’s thy quorum nomina, my honest Placket?

Ger. Sir, according to the old ballad,

Her name, sir, her name?

Gud. Is’t no more but so?

Pur. I have most right to her name.—Her name, master Placket, is my wife, mistress Purge, sir: to what place dost thou belong?

Ger. To the commissioners which sit to-morrow at master Dryfat’s upon the crimes of doctor Glister and others.

Lip. Sits there a commission, Dryfat? now, for the love of lechery, let’s have mistress Purge summoned thither.

Ger. She makes my quorum nomina reasonable full: my grant, sir, and she shall appear there upon a crime of concupiscence: is not that your meaning?

Pur. Yes, my honest paritor: here’s thy fee.

Gud. And see how happily it succeeds! mistress Purge is new come from the Family. Let us step aside, while Placket the paritor gives her a summons.

Lip. Content.—To her, Placket; but see, for the bribery of twelvepence, you strike her not out of your quorum nomina.

Ger. Fear not, sir.

Mis. P. Forward apace, Club.

Ger. Your name I take to be mistress Purge, fair gentlewoman?

Mis. P. I am mistress Purge, Purge’s wife the ’pothecary: what of that?

Dry. Now you shall see him tickle her with a quorum nomina. [Aside.

Ger. I cite you, by virtue of my quorum nomina, to make your personal appearance by eight of the clock in the morrow morning, before certain commissioners at master Dryfat’s house, to answer to an accusation of a crime of concupiscence.

Mis. P. To answer a crime of concupiscence? what’s that, I pray?

Ger. Why, ’tis to answer a venereal crime, for having carnal copulation with others besides your husband.

Mis. P. What are you, I pray?

Ger. By name Placket, by trade a paritor.

Mis. P. And must I answer, say you, to a venereal crime? I tell thee, Placket the paritor, I am able to answer thee or any man else in any venereal crime they’ll put me to; and so tell your commissioners.

184Ger. If you fail your appearance, the penalty must fall heavy.

Mis. P. If it fall never so heavy, I am able to bear it:—and so set forward, Club. [Exit with Club.

Lip. [coming forward with the others] Excellent, i’faith!—After your wife, Purge.—Read, Placket, thy quorum nomina, my noble groat-monger.

Ger. Silence! The first that marcheth in this fair rank is Thrum^[367] the feltmaker, for getting his maid with child, and sending his ’prentice to Bridewell for the fact; Whip the beadle, for letting a punk escape for a night’s lodging and bribe of ten groats; Bat the bellman, for lying with a wench in a tailor’s stall at midnight, when ’a should be performing his office; and Tipple^[368] the tapster, for deflowering a virgin in his cellar; doctor Glister, his wife, Maria, mistress Purge: these be the complete number.

Lip. Now dissolve, and each to his occasion till to-morrow morning. [Exeunt severally.

ACT V. SCENE I.

Mis. G. This was your colour^[369] to keep her close; but what cloak ha’ you for her’s and your own shame? What, your own niece, your brother’s daughter, besides your bastard in the country!

185Gli. Wife, range not too far, I would advise you; come home in time: vex me not beyond sufferance; the two-edged sword of thy tongue hath drawn blood o’ me. Patience, I say: thou art all this while in an error.

Mis. G. No, thou hast been all this while in an urinal; thou hast gone out of thy compass in women’s waters: you’re a conjuror, forsooth, and can rouse your spirits into circles. Ah, you old fornicator, that ever I saw that red beard of thine! now could I rail against thy complexion: I think, in my conscience, the traces and caparison of Venus’ coach are made o’ red hairs; which may be a true emblem that no flaxen stuff or tanned white leather draws love like ’em: I think thou manuredest thy chin with the droppings of eggs and muskadine before it bristled. A shame take thee and thy loadstone! But ’tis no matter; master Placket the paritor^[370] has cited you, and you shall answer it.

Gli. O the raging jealousy of a woman! Do you hear, wife? I will shew myself a man of sense, and answer you with silence; or like a man of wisdom, speak in brief: I say you are a scold, and beware the cucking-stool.^[371]

Mis. G. I say you are a ninnihammer, and beware the cuckoo; for as sure as I have ware, I’ll traffic with the next merchant venturer: and in good time here come^[372] gallants of the right trade.

Lip. All alone, mistress Glister? meditating who shall be your next child’s father?

Gud. Indeed, methinks, that should be one end of her thought, an’t be but to cry quittance with her husband, of whose abuse the town rings.

Gli. Flax and fire, flax and fire! here are fellows come in the nick, to light their matches at my tinder.

Lip. He tells you true, mistress Glister: the doctor hath made you ordinary in our ordinaries; satires whet their tooths, and steep rods in piss, epigrams lie in poetry’s pickle, and we shall have rhyme out of all reason against you.

Gud. Ere long he will take up his station at a stationer’s, where we shall see him do penance in a sheet at least.

Mis. G. O, I am nettled! my patience is so provoked, that I must doff my modesty: what shall I do? if ye be honest gentlemen, counsel me in my revenge, teach me what to do, make my case your own.

Lip. Why, you are in the common road of revenge: take which hand you will, you cannot go out o’ your way; ’tis as soon taken as time by his forepart.

Gud. Faith, since he has strook with the sword, strike you with the scabbard; in plain terms, cuckold him: you may as easily do’t as lie down o’ your bed.

Gli. This gear cottens,^[373] i’faith. [Aside.

Mis. G. I apprehend you, gentlemen. Lord, 187how much better are two heads than one to make one large head!

Lip. You say true, mistress Glister: there’s help required in grafting; and how happily we come to tender our service! Let our pretence be to take physic of the doctor; and that he may with as much ease minister to us as we to you, we’ll take a lodging in his house.

Gud. How say you to this? is the colour^[374] good? does’t like^[375] you?

Mis. G. Passing well: the colour is so good, that you shall wear my favour out o’ the same piece.

Lip. Excellent, excellent!—Now shall we be revenged for the whipping.—Mistress Glister, let me be your first man.

Gud. Nay, soft, sir, I plied her as soon as you.

Gli. I should have an oar in her boat too by right. Aside.

Lip. How ill-advised were you to marry one with a red beard!

Mis. G. O master Lipsalve, I am not the first that has fallen under that ensign! there’s no complexion more attractive in this time for women than gold and red beards: such men are all liver.^[376]

Gud. Ay, but small heart, and less honesty.

Lip. Yes, they are honest too in some kind, for they’ll beg before they’ll steal.

Gud. That’s true; for, for one that holds up his hand at the sessions, you shall have ten come into the bawdy court.

Gli. Was ever beard so back-bitten? this were enough to make red beards turn medley, and dash ’em clean out of countenance; but I hope, like 188mine, they fear no colours. And^[377] you were ten courtiers, I’ll front you: I must give you physic, with a pox! well, if I pepper ye not, call me doctor Doddipoll.^[378] [Aside.]—Master Lipsalve and master Gudgeon, you are heartily welcome; I am very glad to see you well.

Lip. O master doctor, your salutation is very suspicious!

Gli. Why, master Lipsalve?

Lip. It can scarce be hearty, for physicians are rather glad to see men ill than well.

Gli. Not so, sir; you must distinguish of men; though this I know, virtue is not the end of all science, which commonly keeps the professor poor; some study questuary^[379] and gainful arts, and every one would thrive in’s calling: but, i’faith, gentlemen, what wind drives you hither?

Gud. The wind-colic, master doctor, or some such disease.

Gli. But not the stone-colic?

Lip. O no, sir, we have no obstructions in those parts; we are loose enough there.

Gli. If you were troubled with that, my wife can tell you of an excellent remedy.

Gud. We need it not, we need it not: but indeed, master doctor, for some private infirmities (which our waters shall make known to you), we desire to take some physic of you for a few days; and to that end we would take a lodging in your house during the time.

Lip. Shall we entreat your favour?

189Gli. No entreaty, gentlemen; you shall command me to search the very profundity of my skill for you.—Have them in, wife, and shew them their lodging.—I will think upon another receipt, and follow you immediately.

Gud. And, i’faith, we shall requite your pains to the full.

Gli. To the fool, you mean: I know you ha’ the horn of plenty for me, which you would derive unto me from the liberality of your bawdies,^[380] not your minds. Here are lords that, having learned the O P Q of courtship, travel up and down among citizens’ wives, to shew their learning and bringing up; as if the city were not already a good proficient in the court horn-book: yes, I warrant, they have heads as capable as other men; ay, and some of them can wisely say with the philosopher, that in knowing all, they know nothing. Well, because I am of the livery, and pay scot and lot amongst you, do but observe how I’ll fetch over my gallants for your sakes. They say I am of the right hair; and, indeed, they may stand to’t, and hold the position good, saving with my wife.—Soft; are they not at pro and contra already? I know they are hot-spurs, and I must have an eye to the main. They have been whipt already for lechery, and yet the pride of the flesh pricks ’em.

Mar. They are here in the house, so handled by 192mine uncle, that they are the pitifullest patients that ever you beheld.

Ger. No matter, he serves them in their kind: they were infamous in the court, and now are grown as notorious in the city: they may happily prove particles in our sport, and fit subjects for laughter.

Time calls me hence: adieu; prepare to meet.

Mar. I shall outstrip the nimblest in my feet.

SCENE III.

Dry. Come, Club, come, there’s a merry fray towards;^[390] we shall see the death of melancholy; wherein thou and I must call a grand jury of jests together, and pass upon them with the club law.

Club. Now, as I am O the crier, and yet but a young club, I have not yet practised that law: you have a whole dryfat on’t; I pray you, instruct me.

Dry. Why, ’tis a law enacted, by the common council of statute-caps,^[391] to qualify the rage of the time, to follow, to call back, and sometimes to encounter gentlemen when they run in arrearages; I tell thee, there’s no averment against our book-cases. ’Tis the law called make-peace: it makes 193them even when they are at odds; it shews ’em a flat case as plain as a pack-staff, that is, knocks ’em down without circumstance.

Club. Ay, marry, I like that law well; ’tis studied with the turning of a hand: there’s no quiddits nor pedlar’s French^[392] in’t; there needs no book for th’ exposition o’ th’ terms; ’tis as easily learned as the felling of wood and getting of children; all is but laying on load the downright blow.

Dry. Ay, and by the way of exhortation it prints this moral sentence on their costards,^[393] in capital letters, Agree, for the law is costly.

Club. Good, good: but all this while there’s no doctor thought on; we must have one to arbitrate.

Dry. Why, master Gerardine, man, has his name for the purpose: he shall be called doctor Stickler: lupus est in fabula, here he comes.

Ger. How now, lads? does our conceit cotten?^[394] ha’ you summoned your wits from woolgathering? are you fraught with matter for this merriment?

Dry. Full, full: we are in labour, man, and we shall die without midwifery.

Club. We are ravished with delight, like the wench that was got with child against her stomach. O, but^[395] if we could wrest this smock-law now in hand to our club-law, it were excellent!

Dry. Easily, easily: all shall be called the club-law.

Ger. As how?

194Dry. Why, thus. Club is the crier; I am Poppin^[396] the proctor; and you Stickler the doctor: he calls them to appear; I must be of their counsel, and you must attone them.^[397] We may know their cases and be in their elements, mark you me, but they cannot be in ours. Tut, none knows our secrets: we can speak fustian above their understanding, and make asses’ ears attentive. I’ll play Ambidexter,^[398] tell ’em ’tis a plain case, and put ’em down with the club-law; so that, as Club said well e’en now, our knavery is as near allied as felling of wood and getting of children.

Ger. Excellent, excellent! By this they are at hand: let’s bear these things like ourselves: I’ll withdraw and put on my habiliments, and then enter for the doctor.

Dry. Do so: they come, they come. [Exit Gerardine.

Welcome, master doctor Glister and master Purge: there’s a commission to be sat upon this day, to 195open a passage for imprisoned truth, concerning acts yet in tenebris.

Gli. True; I am brought hither by the malice of my wife.

Pur. And I have a just appeal against my wife.

Gli. Master Poppin^[399]—so I think you are called—I understand you have the law at your fingers’ ends.

Dry. I can box cases, and scold and scratch it out amongst them.

Gli. Indeed, fame reports you to be a good trumpeter of causes: I must retain you, sir, to sound mine.

Dry. My sackbut shall do it most pathetically: tell me, in brief, the nature of your case.

Gli. Faith, sir, a scandalous letter devised to wrong my reputation, about a bastard in the country which should be mine.

Dry. About a bastard in the country which should be yours? hum,—’tis very like you then, it should seem.

Gli. O no, sir! understand me, only fathered upon me.

Dry. Only fathered upon you cum nemini^[400] obtrudi potest: I understand you, and like you well too, you do not flatter yourself in your own case, no, ’tis not good: well, what more?

Gli. And about my niece, got with child in my own house.

196Dry. Byrlady,^[401] burdens of some weight, which you make light of! you deny?

Gli. What else, sir? I have reason.

Dry. I know it well, I take you for no beast: believe me, master doctor, denial and reason are two main grounds; stand upon them, and you cannot err.—Your case, master Purge?

Pur. First take your fee, master Poppin,^[402] that you may have the more feeling, and urge it home when you come to’t. [Gives money.] Mine is a discovery of my wife’s iniquity at the Family of Love.

Dry. Otherwise called the House of Venery, where they hunger and thirst for’t.

Pur. True, sir: you have heard of the Hole in the Wall, where they assemble together in the daytime, like so many bees under a hive?

Dry. Come home crura thymo plena, and lodge among hornets, is’t not so?

Pur. I cannot tell, sir; but, for my part, I am much noted as I go.

Dry. No doubt of that, sir; your wife can furnish you with notes out of her cotations.^[403]

Club. Ay, and give him a two-tagged point^[404] to tie ’em together.

Dry. But how came you to detect her?

Pur. Why, thus, sir: getting the word, I dogged her to the Family, where, closing with her, I whispered so pleasing a tale in her ear, that I got from her her wedding-ring; and here ’tis.

Dry. Well, out of that ring we will wring matter that shall carry meat i’ th’ mouth. But what witness 197or proof can you produce to make good your wife’s iniquity and your own cuckoldry?

Pur. Master Lipsalve and master Gudgeon, who were her companions at that same time.

Dry. Very good.—Are they cited in the quorum nomina?

Club. They will be here, sir.

Gli. If they be, they will bewray^[405] all.

Dry. So much the better; ’twill savour well for master Purge.

Pur. You understand my case now?

Gli. And mine too, sir?

Dry. I do, I do: they are as different as a doctor and a dunce, a man and a beast: here’s the compendium; yours, master doctor, stands upon the negative; and yours, master Purge, upon the affirmative: pauca sapienti, I ha’t, I ha’t.

Pur. Mine is very current, sir; I can shew you good guilt.

Dry. Ay, marry, there spoke an angel;^[406] gilt’s^[407] current, indeed: let me feel’t, let me feel’t.

Pur. I mean, my wife’s guilt.

Gli. Master Poppin, you shall have innocence to speak for me.

Dry. Tut, innocence is a fool, I care not for’s company; I can speak enough without him.

Gli. Then, I hope, you will be as good to us as the five-finger at maw.^[408]

198Dry. No, rather as Hercules, to lip-labour ’em with the club-law: tut, let me alone.

Mis. G. O, are you here, sir? I have brought you a full barn to glut your greedy appetite: if you have any maw, feed here till you choke again. Now shall I see the whole carcass of your knavery ript up: if thou hast any grace, now will thy red beard turn white upon’t.

Dry. There’s some difference between these two tempers.

Gli. I would give a hundred pounds my wife had so gentle a spirit. [Aside.

Pur. My wife must needs be gentle, for she can bear double. [Aside.

Dry. Here comes master doctor: now rig up your vessels, every one to his tackling.

Fie, how I sweat! I think Vulcan ne’er toiled so at his anvil as I have done, and all to make maid’s water to slake Cupid’s fire, and to turn his shafts from the feather-bed to the bed-post, from the heart to the heel.—

Come, master Poppin, shall we to this gear?^[409]

199Dry. Reverend doctor, we have stayed your coming.—Crier, cry silence.