SCENE I.--AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT.

Produced by Sue Asscher and Amy E. Zelmer

CYNTHIA'S REVELS

By Ben Johnson

Ben Jonson's Plays

With An Introduction By Prof. Felix E. Schelling

Volume One

Everyman's Library

Edited By Ernest Rhys

POETRY AND THE DRAMA

THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF BEN JONSON

VOLUME ONE

FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION: 1910

REPRINTED: 1915

INTRODUCTION

THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first

literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose,

satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time

affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben

Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to

us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.

Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to

the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of

Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England.

Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast

into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a

month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and

child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the

time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years

Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born.

But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His

mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was

for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the

attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at

Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations

of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in

veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,

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

and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His

Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either

university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted

into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no

degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by

their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as

a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of

William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and

raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly

bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden,

Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the

face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia

from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to

the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the

arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's

reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his

prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave,

combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.

In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he

married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.

He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest";

for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord

Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On

my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the

poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of

the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his

father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's

domestic life.

How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the

theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his

tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the

popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death

the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself.

Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the

exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law

of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's

Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed

down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's

men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying

back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is

not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same

year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed

the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the

company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in

collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger

Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of

some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon

mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it

appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and

that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one

time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish

Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy

circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres--

well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with

the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his

mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords

to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of

some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date

has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however,

is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies,

now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth,"

"King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of

these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August

1599 to June 1602.

Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for

a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn,

dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one

of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer],

for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson,

bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson

in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual

continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to

remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious

fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar

squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among

gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace

on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson

described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly

arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to

prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It

is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law

permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit

of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The

circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he

received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left

thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he

returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.

On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former

associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to

Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which

Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long

standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law,

narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in

His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the

company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play

himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or

not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by

Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with

Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in

the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's

works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's

name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well

first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that

particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was

generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in

the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of

characters.

"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it

Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time

was established once and for all. This could have been by no means

Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was

already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of

Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never

claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded

"Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be

described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It

combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the

"Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the

beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the

classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had

already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so

fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other

respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save

for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio

Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least

characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.

"Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer

of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making

play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells

little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to

follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his

life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this

comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are

conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and

he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with

them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and

Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when

we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time

definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English

poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed

in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent

ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed

that there was a professional way of doing things which might be

reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these

examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our

attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and

haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do

something different; and the first and most striking thing that he

evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.

As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote

his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a

bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which

"Some one peculiar quality

Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw

All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,

In their confluctions, all to run one way."

But continuing, Jonson is careful to add:

"But that a rook by wearing a pied feather,

The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,

A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot

On his French garters, should affect a humour!

O, it is more than most ridiculous."

Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage

personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable

simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and,

placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict

and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name

indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the

braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a

coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end

of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself.

But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of

"Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each

character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on

observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was

neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that

he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to

a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the

laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the

unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then,

but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate

and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be

tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few,

who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His

Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of

his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems

to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before

Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a

heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life,

viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent

species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy

merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in

which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's

Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the

rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"

all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains,

Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially

later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for

an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his

successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is,

degrade "the humour" into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of

manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play

called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous

Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The

Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His

Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies

in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled."

With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by

Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in

Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one

feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his

arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness,

especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His

Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson

contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the

theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of

plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the

manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature,

couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that

righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true

satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of

comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the

days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two

plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or

generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the

abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made

of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's

contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature

of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama.

Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and

Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in

English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again.

What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an

art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a

dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the

arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in

scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson

soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with

his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this

'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the

topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The

origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references,

apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a

satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John

Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of

Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been

discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright"

(reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice,

and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be

ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter

to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him,

and took his pistol from him, wrote his "Poetaster" on him; the

beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the

stage."*

[*footnote] The best account of this whole subject is to be

found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by

J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear.

See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892,

and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart

in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.

Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the

quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in

1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus

"represented on the stage"; although the personage in question,

Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and

contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary

portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages

actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone

was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described

as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the

"grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time"

(Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work

being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now

prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of

whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold

impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a

drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats

him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard)

with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone

['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it

conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that

the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of

"the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and

profane" Chester?

We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify

the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the

allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of

fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The

Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio

Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator

of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour"

there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of

the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men

held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better

entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems

almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire

through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels,"

Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as

Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire

once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again

and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his

way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama.

As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it

is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the

City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came

soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.

"Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600,

and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible

than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to

have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is

admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly

satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is

not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to

abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that

this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of

Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom

Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to

make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was

Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for

taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the

sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the

character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should

thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little

theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally

kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped

to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of

Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides

(impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal),

interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like

Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's

self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable,

and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the

yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny

attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect.

The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted,

once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only

avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own

account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report

that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of

"Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic

attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies

Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved

success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its

earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the

ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the

"Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus,

is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had

overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In

the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over

to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or

detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson]

or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the

most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca.

"His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant

blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most

complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a

walking dictionary of slang."

It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his

reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive

vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his

dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been

held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged

professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson,

he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the

story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he

hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by

"Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The

absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the

result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the

arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of

Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has

recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's

friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is

"Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought

and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the

palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence

his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to

appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to

the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in

"Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected

that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure

playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on

no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn

that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so

berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid

of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither."

Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less

part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is

a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating

1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a

character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them

all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a

pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill,

but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him

bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of

the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"?

Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought

by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his

friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in

"Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was

staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under

his direction as one of the leaders of that company.

The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised

as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to

him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to

new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and

myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that

Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius

Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three

years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only

following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of

a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and

the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different.

Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the

stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and

dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a

finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his

ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise

his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a

classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness,

and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius,

and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and

his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in

the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of

genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste

the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical

overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking

representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's

"Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A

passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which

Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to

the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen."

There is no evidence to determine the matter.

In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman

and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled

"Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his

"Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the

wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed.

Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar

scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life.

"Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in

a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due

entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a

passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to

his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but

the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had

influence at court.

With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and

successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques

than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary

variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque;

for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a

court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of

elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value

to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a

comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional

players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity

of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies

took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic

grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and

scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo

Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the

standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson

continued active in the service of the court in the writing of

masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King

Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his

life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a

constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court.

In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance,"

"Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more

will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and

inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque

of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is

discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as

in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary

popularity.

But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he

turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was

produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the

following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614,

represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness,

character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit

and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama.

"Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the

dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy

represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of

wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from

the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore

(the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little

raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a

virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to

whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for,

although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the

most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on

sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more

logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was

ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may

find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the

rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and

innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently

punishing them.

"The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious

construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a

heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take

to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in

the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The

Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction,

the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and

so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the

possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none

the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling

in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the

stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the

fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of

honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is

approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably

written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike

distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with

such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel

every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous

comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less

structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full

of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree

beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is

in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal

caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the

Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary

comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger,

loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in

"The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The

Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play

that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a

period of nearly ten years.

"Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the

success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three

comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist":

"Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known

No country's mirth is better than our own."

Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for

collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the

scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also,

converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to

Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old

Jewry."

In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards

caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing

from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any

generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben

Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly

born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men

knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate

detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the

exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even

wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness

of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran

to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world

better for the art that they practised in it.

In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his

plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective

edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been

attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in

a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned,

excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge,

"Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written

too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty

odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson

was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection

of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and

"Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate

with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees

and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his

plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to

have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example,

parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the

World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that

Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor.

In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of

the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did

not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with

degrees by both universities, though when and under what

circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly

escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day

averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand.

Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson.

From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced

nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his

wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as

by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's

theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and

"an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of

another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the

Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he

acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his

learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their

antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning.

Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books.

He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every

first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623,

his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically

described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even

now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in

fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect

to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him:

"[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned

plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their

snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he

fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a

monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in

him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself,

and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses

Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the

speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In

"Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises

it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the

situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno,

"Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The

Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening

scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the

stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it

thenceforward to all time current and his own.

The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a

peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of

literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the

careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could

only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And

yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who

does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me

only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"?

Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word

too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there

is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and

formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous

and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with

disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual

thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson

is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where

rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the

spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical

poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the

charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the

child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of

mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the

famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is

unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom

falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet

showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others,

a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was

no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved

as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had

written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes

the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James.

And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate

familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth

of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity,

Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland.

On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the

houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had

recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met

to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of

Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest

at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were

inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir

Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of

critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first

Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William

Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor

can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be

matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and

stately age.

But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his

folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from

inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness

continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court.

In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with

its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in

"Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an

old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of

cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which

an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget.

"Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that

Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and

"The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad

humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and

the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of

the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of

English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with

Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a

company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly

attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions,

affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations;

but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the

Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid,

"We such clusters had

As made us nobly wild, not mad,

And yet each verse of thine

Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles,

though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet

returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The

Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale

of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy.

None of these plays met with any marked success, although the

scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's

dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an

office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news

(wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for

satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although

as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her

bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile

them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours

Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to

caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more

than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon,

especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears

unworthily to have used his influence at court against the

broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was

bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as

Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not

fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even

commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court;

and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and

devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be

"sealed of the tribe of Ben."

Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which

he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in

its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all

the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The

Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617

and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called

"Underwoods," including some further entertainments; a translation

of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in

1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would

hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment

(less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall,"

and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic

spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly

interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit

of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now

spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or

Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of

his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of

the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a

commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which

their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy

translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many

passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the

authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not,

as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the

line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of

princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and

poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on

eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own

recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile

and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his

recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such

passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--

plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage

his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship.

Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of

his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity

and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form

or in the subtler graces of diction.

When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his

memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A

memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his

grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey:

"O rare Ben Jonson."

FELIX E. SCHELLING.

THE COLLEGE,

PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.

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

DRAMAS:

Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601;

The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609;

Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600;

Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601;

Poetaster, 4to, 1602;

Sejanus, 4to, 1605;

Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605;

Volpone, 4to, 1607;

Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616;

The Alchemist, 4to, 1612;

Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611;

Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631;

The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631;

The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631;

The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692;

The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640;

A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640;

The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641;

Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.

To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo,

and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and

in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.

POEMS:

Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640;

Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640;

G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640;

Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692.

Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works.

PROSE:

Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641;

The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of

Strangers, fol., 1640.

Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.

WORKS:

Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41);

fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729;

edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756;

by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846;

re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871;

in 9 volumes., 1875;

by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838;

by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by

C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.;

Nine Plays, 1904;

ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc;

Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal

Library), 1885;

Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905;

Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907;

Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.

SELECTIONS:

J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay,

(Canterbury Poets), 1886;

Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895;

Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901;

Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905;

Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books,

No. 4, 1906;

Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known

setting, Eragny Press, 1906.

LIFE:

See Memoirs affixed to Works;

J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;

Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden;

Shakespeare Society, 1842;

ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;

Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.

CYNTHIA'S REVELS:

OR, THE FOUNTAIN OF SELF-LOVE

TO THE SPECIAL FOUNTAIN OF MANNERS

THE COURT

THOU art a bountiful and brave spring, and waterest all the noble

plants of this island. In thee the whole kingdom dresseth itself,

and is ambitious to use thee as her glass. Beware then thou render

men's figures truly, and teach them no less to hate their

deformities, than to love their forms: for, to grace, there should

come reverence; and no man can call that lovely, which is not also

venerable. It is not powdering, perfuming, and every day smelling

of the tailor, that converteth to a beautiful object: but a mind

shining through any suit, which needs no false light, either of

riches or honours, to help it. Such shalt thou find some here,

even in the reign of Cynthia,--a Crites and an Arete. Now, under

thy Phoebus, it will be thy province to make more; except thou

desirest to have thy source mix with the spring of self-love, and

so wilt draw upon thee as welcome a discovery of thy days, as was

then made of her nights.

Thy servant, but not slave,

BEN JONSON.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

CYNTHIA.

ECHO.

MERCURY.

ARETE.

HESPERUS.

PHANTASTE.

CRITES.

ARGURION.

AMORPHUS.

PHILAUTIA.

ASOTUS.

MORIA.

HEDON.

COS.

ANAIDES.

GELAIA.

MORPHIDES.

PROSAITES.

MORUS.

CUPID.

MUTES.--PHRONESIS, THAUMA, TIME

SCENE,--GARGAPHIE

INDUCTION.

THE STAGE.

AFTER THE SECOND SOUNDING.

ENTER THREE OF THE CHILDREN, STRUGGLING.

1 CHILD. Pray you away; why, fellows! Gods so, what do you mean?

2 CHILD. Marry, that you shall not speak the prologue sir.

3 CHILD. Why, do you hope to speak it?

2 CHILD. Ay, and I think I have most right to it: I am sure I

studied it first.

3 CHILD. That's all one, if the author think I can speak it

better.

1 CHILD. I plead possession of the cloak: gentles, your suffrages,

I pray you.

[WITHIN.] Why children! are you not ashamed? come in there.

3 CHILD. Slid, I'll play nothing in the play: unless I speak it.

1 CHILD. Why, will you stand to most voices of the gentlemen? let

that decide it.

3 CHILD. O, no, sir gallant; you presume to have the start of us

there, and that makes you offer so prodigally.

1 CHILD. No, would I were whipped if I had any such thought; try

it by lots either.

2 CHILD. Faith, I dare tempt my fortune in a greater venture than

this.

3 CHILD. Well said, resolute Jack! I am content too; so we draw

first. Make the cuts.

1 CHILD. But will you not snatch my cloak while I am stooping?

3 CHILD. No, we scorn treachery.

2 CHILD. Which cut shall speak it?

3 CHILD. The shortest.

1 CHILD. Agreed: draw. [THEY DRAW CUTS.] The shortest is come

to the shortest. Fortune was not altogether blind in this. Now,

sir, I hope I shall go forward without your envy.

2 CHILD. A spite of all mischievous luck! I was once plucking at

the other.

3 CHILD. Stay Jack: 'slid I'll do somewhat now afore I go in,

though it be nothing but to revenge myself on the author; since I

speak not his prologue, I'll go tell all the argument of his play

afore-hand, and so stale his invention to the auditory, before it

come forth.

1 CHILD. O, do not so.

2 CHILD. By no means.

3 CHILD. [ADVANCING TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE.] First, the title

of his play is "Cynthia's Revels," as any man that hath hope to be

saved by his book can witness; the scene, Gargaphie, which I do

vehemently suspect for some fustian country; but let that vanish.

Here is the court of Cynthia whither he brings Cupid travelling on

foot, resolved to turn page. By the way Cupid meets with Mercury,

(as that's a thing to be noted); take any of our play-books without

a Cupid or a Mercury in it, and burn it for an heretic in poetry.

--[IN THESE AND THE SUBSEQUENT SPEECHES, AT EVERY BREAK, THE OTHER

TWO INTERRUPT, AND ENDEAVOUR TO STOP HIM.] Pray thee, let me

alone. Mercury, he in the nature of a conjurer, raises up Echo, who

weeps over her love, or daffodil, Narcissus, a little; sings;

curses the spring wherein the pretty foolish gentleman melted

himself away: and there's an end of her.--Now I am to inform

you, that Cupid and Mercury do both become pages. Cupid attends on

Philautia, or Self-love, a court lady: Mercury follows Hedon, the

Voluptuous, and a courtier; one that ranks himself even with

Anaides, or the Impudent, a gallant, and, that's my part; one that

keeps Laughter, Gelaia, the daughter of Folly, a wench in boy's

attire, to wait on him--These, in the court, meet with Amorphus,

or the deformed, a traveller that hath drunk of the fountain, and

there tells the wonders of the water. They presently dispatch away

their pages with bottles to fetch of it, and themselves go to visit

the ladies. But I should have told you--Look, these emmets put

me out here--that with this Amorphus, there comes along a

citizen's heir, Asotus, or the Prodigal, who, in imitation of the

traveller, who hath the Whetstone following him, entertains the

Beggar, to be his attendant.--Now, the nymphs who are mistresses

to these gallants, are Philautia, Self-love; Phantaste, a light

Wittiness; Argurion, Money; and their guardian, mother Moria; or

mistress Folly.

1 CHILD. Pray thee, no more.

3 CHILD. There Cupid strikes Money in love with the Prodigal,

makes her dote upon him, give him jewels, bracelets, carcanets,

etc. All which he most ingeniously departs withal to be made

known to the other ladies and gallants; and in the heat of this,

increases his train with the Fool to follow him, as well as the

Beggar--By this time, your Beggar begins to wait close, who is

returned with the rest of his fellow bottlemen.--There they all

drink, save Argurion, who is fallen into a sudden apoplexy--

1 CHILD. Stop his mouth.

3 CHILD. And then there's a retired scholar there, you would not

wish a thing to be better contemn'd of a society of gallants, than

it is; and he applies his service, good gentleman, to the Lady

Arete, or Virtue, a poor nymph of Cynthia's train, that's scarce

able to buy herself a gown; you shall see her play in a black robe

anon: a creature, that, I assure you, is no less scorn'd than

himself. Where am I now? at a stand!

2 CHILD. Come, leave at last, yet.

3 CHILD. O, the night is come ('twas somewhat dark, methought),

and Cynthia intends to come forth; that helps it a little yet. All

the courtiers must provide for revels; they conclude upon a masque,

the device of which is--What, will you ravish me?--that each of

these Vices, being to appear before Cynthia, would seem other than

indeed they are; and therefore assume the most neighbouring Virtues

as their masking habit--I'd cry a rape, but that you are

children.

2 CHILD. Come, we'll have no more of this anticipation; to give

them the inventory of their cates aforehand, were the discipline of

a tavern, and not fitting this presence.

1 CHILD. Tut, this was but to shew us the happiness of his memory.

I thought at first he would have plaid the ignorant critic with

everything along as he had gone; I expected some such device.

3 CHILD. O, you shall see me do that rarely; lend me thy cloak.

1 CHILD. Soft sir, you'll speak my prologue in it.

3 CHILD. No, would I might never stir then.

2 CHILD. Lend it him, lend it him:

1 CHILD. Well, you have sworn. [GIVES HIM THE CLOAK.]

3 CHILD. I have. Now, sir; suppose I am one of your genteel

auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with

much ado, and here I take my place and sit down: I have my three

sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thus I begin.

[AT THE BREAKS HE TAKES HIS TOBACCO.] By this light, I wonder that

any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here--

They do act like so many wrens or pismires--not the fifth part of

a good face amongst them all.--And then their music is abominable

--able to stretch a man's ears worse then ten--pillories and their

ditties--most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that

make them--poets. By this vapour, an 'twere not for tobacco--

I think--the very stench of 'em would poison me, I should not

dare to come in at their gates--A man were better visit fifteen

jails--or a dozen or two of hospitals--than once adventure to

come near them. How is't? well?

1 CHILD. Excellent; give me my cloak.

3 CHILD. Stay; you shall see me do another now: but a more sober,

or better-gather'd gallant; that is, as it may be thought, some

friend, or well-wisher to the house: and here I enter.

1 CHILD. What? upon the stage too?

2 CHILD. Yes; and I step forth like one of the children, and ask

you. Would you have a stool sir?

3 CHILD. A stool, boy!

2 CHILD. Ay, sir, if you'll give me sixpence, I'll fetch you one.

3 CHILD. For what, I pray thee? what shall I do with it?

2 CHILD. O lord, sir! will you betray your ignorance so much?

why throne yourself in state on the stage, as other gentlemen use,

sir.

3 CHILD. Away, wag; what would'st thou make an implement of me?

'Slid, the boy takes me for a piece of perspective, I hold my life,

or some silk curtain, come to hang the stage here! Sir crack, I am

none of your fresh pictures, that use to beautify the decayed dead

arras in a public theatre.

2 CHILD. 'Tis a sign, sir, you put not that confidence in your

good clothes, and your better face, that a gentleman should do,

sir. But I pray you sir, let me be a suitor to you, that you will

quit our stage then, and take a place; the play is instantly to

begin.

3 CHILD. Most willingly, my good wag; but I would speak with your

author: where is he?

2 CHILD. Not this way, I assure you sir; we are not so officiously

befriended by him, as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to

prompt us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our

properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the music out of tune, and

sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would, if

he had such fine enghles as we. Well, 'tis but our hard fortune!

3 CHILD. Nay, crack, be not disheartened.

2 CHILD. Not I sir; but if you please to confer with our author, by

attorney, you may, sir; our proper self here, stands for him.

3 CHILD. Troth, I have no such serious affair to negotiate with

him; but what may very safely be turn'd upon thy trust. It is in

the general behalf of this fair society here that I am to speak;

at least the more judicious part of it: which seems much distasted

with the immodest and obscene writing of many in their plays.

Besides, they could wish your poets would leave to be promoters of

other men's jests, and to way-lay all the stale apothegms, or old

books they can hear of, in print or otherwise, to farce their

scenes withal. That they would not so penuriously glean wit from

every laundress or hackney-man; or derive their best grace, with

servile imitation, from common stages, or observation of the

company they converse with; as if their invention lived wholly

upon another man's trencher. Again, that feeding their friends

with nothing of their own, but what they have twice or thrice

cooked, they should not wantonly give out, how soon they had drest

it; nor how many coaches came to carry away the broken meat,

besides hobby-horses and foot-cloth nags.

2 CHILD. So, sir, this is all the reformation you seek?

3 CHILD. It is; do not you think it necessary to be practised, my

little wag?

2 CHILD. Yes, where any such ill-habited custom is received.

3 CHILD. O (I had almost forgot it too), they say, the umbrae, or

ghosts of some three or four plays departed a dozen years since,

have been seen walking on your stage here; take heed boy, if your

house be haunted with such hobgoblins, 'twill fright away all your

spectators quickly.

2 CHILD. Good, sir; but what will you say now, if a poet, untouch'd

with any breath of this disease, find the tokens upon you, that are

of the auditory? As some one civet-wit among you, that knows no

other learning, than the price of satin and velvets: nor other

perfection than the wearing of a neat suit; and yet will censure

as desperately as the most profess'd critic in the house, presuming

his clothes should bear him out in it. Another, whom it hath

pleased nature to furnish with more beard than brain, prunes his

mustaccio; lisps, and, with some score of affected oaths, swears

down all that sit about him; "That the old Hieronimo, as it was

first acted, was the only best, and judiciously penn'd play of

Europe". A third great-bellied juggler talks of twenty years

since, and when Monsieur was here, and would enforce all wits to be

of that fashion, because his doublet is still so. A fourth

miscalls all by the name of fustian, that his grounded capacity

cannot aspire to. A fifth only shakes his bottle head, and out of

his corky brain squeezeth out a pitiful learned face, and is

silent.

3 CHILD. By my faith, Jack, you have put me down: I would I knew

how to get off with any indifferent grace! here take your cloak,

and promise some satisfaction in your prologue, or, I'll be sworn

we have marr'd all.

2 CHILD. Tut, fear not, child, this will never distaste a true

sense: be not out, and good enough. I would thou hadst some sugar

candied to sweeten thy mouth.

THE THIRD SOUNDING.

PROLOGUE.

If gracious silence, sweet attention,

Quick sight, and quicker apprehension,

The lights of judgment's throne, shine any where,

Our doubtful author hopes this is their sphere;

And therefore opens he himself to those,

To other weaker beams his labours close,

As loth to prostitute their virgin-strain,

To every vulgar and adulterate brain.

In this alone, his Muse her sweetness hath,

She shuns the print of any beaten path;

And proves new ways to come to learned ears:

Pied ignorance she neither loves, nor fears.

Nor hunts she after popular applause,

Or foamy praise, that drops from common jaws

The garland that she wears, their hands must twine,

Who can both censure, understand, define

What merit is: then cast those piercing rays,

Round as a crown, instead of honour'd bays,

About his poesy; which, he knows, affords

Words, above action; matter, above words.

ACT I

SCENE I.--A GROVE AND FOUNTAIN.

ENTER CUPID, AND MERCURY WITH HIS CADUCEUS, ON DIFFERENT SIDES.

CUP. Who goes there?

MER. 'Tis I, blind archer.

CUP. Who, Mercury?

MER. Ay.

CUP. Farewell.

MER. Stay Cupid.

CUP. Not in your company, Hermes, except your hands were riveted at

your back.

MER. Why so, my little rover?

CUP. Because I know you have not a finger, but is as long as my

quiver, cousin Mercury, when you please to extend it.

MER. Whence derive you this speech, boy?

CUP. O! 'tis your best polity to be ignorant. You did never steal

Mars his sword out of the sheath, you! nor Neptune's trident! nor

Apollo's bow! no, not you! Alas, your palms, Jupiter knows, they

are as tender as the foot of a foundered nag, or a lady's face new

mercuried, they'll touch nothing.

MER. Go to, infant, you'll be daring still.

CUP. Daring! O Janus! what a word is there? why, my light

feather-heel'd coz, what are you any more than my uncle Jove's

pander? a lacquey that runs on errands for him, and can whisper a

light message to a loose wench with some round volubility? wait

mannerly at a table with a trencher, warble upon a crowd a little,

and fill out nectar when Ganymede's away? one that sweeps the god's

drinking-room every morning, and sets the cushions in order again,

which they threw one at another's head over night; can brush the

carpets, call the stools again to their places, play the crier of

the court with an audible voice, and take state of a president upon

you at wrestlings, pleadings, negociations, etc. Here's the

catalogue of your employments, now! O, no, I err; you have the

marshalling of all the ghosts too that pass the Stygian ferry, and

I suspect you for a share with the old sculler there, if the truth

were known; but let that scape. One other peculiar virtue you

possess, in lifting, or leiger-du-main, which few of the house of

heaven have else besides, I must confess. But, methinks, that

should not make you put that extreme distance 'twixt yourself and

others, that we should be said to "over-dare" in speaking to your

nimble deity. So Hercules might challenge priority of us both,

because he can throw the bar farther, or lift more join'd stools at

the arm's end, than we. If this might carry it, then we, who have

made the whole body of divinity tremble at the twang of our bow,

and enforc'd Saturnius himself to lay by his curled front, thunder,

and three-fork'd fires, and put on a masking suit, too light for a

reveller of eighteen to be seen in--

MER. How now! my dancing braggart in decimo sexto! charm your

skipping tongue, or I'll--

CUP. What! use the virtue of your snaky tip staff there upon us?

MER. No, boy, but the smart vigour of my palm about your ears.

You have forgot since I took your heels up into air, on the very

hour I was born, in sight of all the bench of deities, when the

silver roof of the Olympian palace rung again with applause of

the fact.

CUP. O no, I remember it freshly, and by a particular instance;

for my mother Venus, at the same time, but stoop'd to embrace you,

and, to speak by metaphor, you borrow'd a girdle of her's, as you

did Jove's sceptre while he was laughing; and would have done his

thunder too, but that 'twas too hot for your itching fingers.

MER. 'Tis well, sir.

CUP. I heard, you but look'd in at Vulcan's forge the other day,

and entreated a pair of his new tongs along with you for company:

'tis joy on you, i' faith, that you will keep your hook'd talons in

practice with any thing. 'Slight, now you are on earth, we shall

have you filch spoons and candlesticks rather than fail: pray Jove

the perfum'd courtiers keep their casting-bottles, pick-tooths, and

shittle-cocks from you, or our more ordinary gallants their

tobacco-boxes; for I am strangely jealous of your nails.

MER. Never trust me, Cupid, but you are turn'd a most acute

gallant of late! the edge of my wit is clean taken off with the

fine and subtile stroke of your thin-ground tongue; you fight with

too poignant a phrase, for me to deal with.

CUP. O Hermes, your craft cannot make me confident. I know my own

steel to be almost spent, and therefore entreat my peace with you,

in time: you are too cunning for me to encounter at length, and I

think it my safest ward to close.

MER. Well, for once, I'll suffer you to win upon me, wag; but use

not these strains too often, they'll stretch my patience. Whither

might you march, now?

CUP. Faith, to recover thy good thoughts, I'll discover my whole

project. The huntress and queen of these groves, Diana, in regard

of some black and envious slanders hourly breathed against her, for

her divine justice on Acteon, as she pretends, hath here in the

vale of Gargaphie, proclaim'd a solemn revels, which (her godhead

put off) she will descend to grace, with the full and royal expense

of one of her clearest moons: in which time it shall be lawful for

all sorts of ingenious persons to visit her palace, to court her

nymphs, to exercise all variety of generous and noble pastimes; as

well to intimate how far she treads such malicious imputations

beneath her, as also to shew how clear her beauties are from the

least wrinkle of austerity they may be charged with.

MER. But, what is all this to Cupid?

CUP. Here do I mean to put off the title of a god, and take the

habit of a page, in which disguise, during the interim of these

revels, I will get to follow some one of Diana's maids, where, if

my bow hold, and my shafts fly but with half the willingness and

aim they are directed, I doubt not but I shall really redeem the

minutes I have lost, by their so long and over nice proscription of

my deity from their court.

MER. Pursue it, divine Cupid, it will be rare.

CUP. But will Hermes second me?

MER. I am now to put in act an especial designment from my father

Jove; but, that perform'd, I am for any fresh action that offers

itself.

CUP. Well, then we part. [EXIT.]

MER. Farewell good wag.

Now to my charge.--Echo, fair Echo speak,

'Tis Mercury that calls thee; sorrowful nymph,

Salute me with thy repercussive voice,

That I may know what cavern of the earth,

Contains thy airy spirit, how, or where

I may direct my speech, that thou may'st hear.

ECHO. [BELOW] Here.

MER. So nigh!

ECHO. Ay.

MER. Know, gentle soul, then, I am sent from Jove,

Who, pitying the sad burthen of thy woes,

Still growing on thee, in thy want of words

To vent thy passion for Narcissus' death,

Commands, that now, after three thousand years,

Which have been exercised in Juno's spite,

Thou take a corporal figure and ascend,

Enrich'd with vocal and articulate power.

Make haste, sad nymph, thrice shall my winged rod

Strike the obsequious earth, to give thee way.

Arise, and speak thy sorrows, Echo, rise,

Here, by this fountain, where thy love did pine,

Whose memory lives fresh to vulgar fame,

Shrined in this yellow flower, that bears his name.

ECHO. [ASCENDS.] His name revives, and lifts me up from earth,

O, which way shall I first convert myself,

Or in what mood shall I essay to speak,

That, in a moment, I may be deliver'd

Of the prodigious grief I go withal?

See, see, the mourning fount, whose springs weep yet

Th' untimely fate of that too beauteous boy,

That trophy of self-love, and spoil of nature,

Who, now transform'd into this drooping flower,

Hangs the repentant head, back from the stream,

As if it wish'd, "Would I had never look'd

In such a flattering mirror!" O Narcissus,

Thou that wast once, and yet art, my Narcissus,

Had Echo but been private with thy thoughts,

She would have dropt away herself in tears,

Till she had all turn'd water; that in her,

As in a truer glass, thou might'st have gazed

And seen thy beauties by more kind reflection,

But self-love never yet could look on truth

But with blear'd beams; slick flattery and she

Are twin-born sisters, and so mix their eyes,

As if you sever one, the other dies.

Why did the gods give thee a heavenly form,

And earthly thoughts to make thee proud of it?

Why do I ask? 'Tis now the known disease

That beauty hath, to bear too deep a sense

Of her own self-conceived excellence.

O, hadst thou known the worth of heaven's rich gift,

Thou wouldst have turn'd it to a truer use,

And not with starv'd and covetous ignorance,

Pined in continual eyeing that bright gem,

The glance whereof to others had been more,

Than to thy famish'd mind the wide world's store:

So wretched is it to be merely rich!

Witness thy youth's dear sweets here spent untasted,

Like a fair taper, with his own flame wasted.

MER. Echo be brief, Saturnia is abroad,

And if she hear, she'll storm at Jove's high will.

CUP. I will, kind Mercury, be brief as time.

Vouchsafe me, I may do him these last rites,

But kiss his flower, and sing some mourning strain

Over his wat'ry hearse.

MER. Thou dost obtain;

I were no son to Jove, should I deny thee,

Begin, and more to grace thy cunning voice,

The humorous air shall mix her solemn tunes

With thy sad words: strike, music from the spheres,

And with your golden raptures swell our ears.

ECHO. [ACCOMPANIED]

Slow, slow, fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears:

Yet, slower, yet; O faintly, gentle springs:

List to the heavy part the music bears,

Woe weeps out her division, when she sings.

Droop herbs and flowers,

Fall grief and showers;

Our beauties are not ours;

O, I could still,

Like melting snow upon some craggy hill,

Drop, drop, drop, drop,

Since nature's pride is now a wither'd daffodil.--

MER. Now have you done?

ECHO. Done presently, good Hermes: bide a little;

Suffer my thirsty eye to gaze awhile,

But e'en to taste the place, and I am vanish'd.

MER. Forego thy use and liberty of tongue,

And thou mayst dwell on earth, and sport thee there.

ECHO. Here young Acteon fell, pursued, and torn

By Cynthia's wrath, more eager than his hounds;

And here--ah me, the place is fatal!--see

The weeping Niobe, translated hither

From Phrygian mountains; and by Phoebe rear'd,

As the proud trophy of her sharp revenge.

MER. Nay but hear--

ECHO. But here, O here, the fountain of self-love,

In which Latona, and her careless nymphs,

Regardless of my sorrows, bathe themselves

In hourly pleasures.

MER. Stint thy babbling tongue!

Fond Echo, thou profan'st the grace is done thee.

So idle worldlings merely made of voice,

Censure the powers above them. Come away,

Jove calls thee hence; and his will brooks no stay.

ECHO. O, stay: I have but one poor thought to clothe

In airy garments, and then, faith, I go.

Henceforth, thou treacherous and murdering spring,

Be ever call'd the FOUNTAIN OF SELF-LOVE:

And with thy water let this curse remain,

As an inseparate plague, that who but taste

A drop thereof, may, with the instant touch,

Grow dotingly enamour'd on themselves.

Now, Hermes, I have finish'd.

MER. Then thy speech

Must here forsake thee, Echo, and thy voice,

As it was wont, rebound but the last words.

Farewell.

ECHO. [RETIRING.] Well.

MER. Now, Cupid, I am for you, and your mirth,

To make me light before I leave the earth.

ENTER AMORPHUS, HASTILY.

AMO. Dear spark of beauty, make not so fast away:

ECHO. Away.

MER. Stay, let me observe this portent yet.

AMO. I am neither your Minotaur, nor your Centaur, nor your satyr,

nor your hyaena, nor your babion, but your mere traveller, believe

me.

ECHO. Leave me.

MER. I guess'd it should be some travelling motion pursued Echo

so.

AMO. Know you from whom you fly? or whence?

ECHO. Hence. [EXIT.]

AMO. This is somewhat above strange: A nymph of her feature and

lineament, to be so preposterously rude! well, I will but cool

myself at yon spring, and follow her.

MER. Nay, then, I am familiar with the issue: I will leave you

too. [EXIT.]

AMOR. I am a rhinoceros, if I had thought a creature of her

symmetry would have dared so improportionable and abrupt a

digression.--Liberal and divine fount, suffer my profane hand to

take of thy bounties. [TAKES UP SOME OF THE WATER.] By the purity

of my taste, here is most ambrosiac water; I will sup of it again.

By thy favour, sweet fount. See, the water, a more running,

subtile, and humorous nymph than she permits me to touch, and

handle her. What should I infer? if my behaviours had been of a

cheap or customary garb; my accent or phrase vulgar; my garments

trite; my countenance illiterate, or unpractised in the encounter

of a beautiful and brave attired piece; then I might, with some

change of colour, have suspected my faculties: But, knowing myself

an essence so sublimated and refined by travel; of so studied and

well exercised a gesture; so alone in fashion, able to render the

face of any statesman living; and to speak the mere extraction of

language, one that hath now made the sixth return upon venture; and

was your first that ever enrich'd his country with the true laws of

the duello; whose optics have drunk the spirit of beauty in some

eight score and eighteen prince's courts, where I have resided, and

been there fortunate in the amours of three hundred and forty and five

ladies, all nobly, if not princely descended; whose names I have in

catalogue: To conclude, in all so happy, as even admiration

herself doth seem to fasten her kisses upon me:--certes, I do

neither see, nor feel, nor taste, nor savour the least steam or

fume of a reason, that should invite this foolish, fastidious

nymph, so peevishly to abandon me. Well, let the memory of her

fleet into air; my thoughts and I am for this other element, water.

ENTER CRITES AND ASOTUS.

CRI. What, the well dieted Amorphus become a water-drinker! I see

he means not to write verses then.

ASO. No, Crites! why?

CRI. Because--

Nulla placere diu, nec vivere carmina possunt,

Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus.

AMO. What say you to your Helicon?

CRI. O, the Muses' well! that's ever excepted.

AMO. Sir, your Muses have no such water, I assure you; your

nectar, or the juice of your nepenthe, is nothing to it; 'tis above

your metheglin, believe it.

ASO. Metheglin; what's that, sir? may I be so audacious to

demand?

AMO. A kind of Greek wine I have met with, sir, in my travels; it

is the same that Demosthenes usually drunk, in the composure of all

his exquisite and mellifluous orations.

CRI. That's to be argued, Amorphus, if we may credit Lucian, who,

in his "Encomio Demosthenis," affirms, he never drunk but water in

any of his compositions.

AMO. Lucian is absurd, he knew nothing: I will believe mine own

travels before all the Lucians of Europe. He doth feed you with

fittons, figments, and leasings.

CRI. Indeed, I think, next a traveller, he does prettily well.

AMO. I assure you it was wine, I have tasted it, and from the hand

of an Italian antiquary, who derives it authentically from the duke

of Ferrara's bottles. How name you the gentleman you are in rank

there with, sir?

CRI. 'Tis Asotus, son to the late deceased Philargyrus, the

citizen.

AMO. Was his father of any eminent place or means?

CRI. He was to have been praetor next year.

AMO. Ha! a pretty formal young gallant, in good sooth; pity he is

not more genteelly propagated. Hark you, Crites, you may say to

him what I am, if you please; though I affect not popularity, yet I

would loth to stand out to any, whom you shall vouchsafe to call

friend.

CRI. Sir, I fear I may do wrong to your sufficiencies in the

reporting them, by forgetting or misplacing some one: yourself can

best inform him of yourself sir; except you had some catalogue or

list of your faculties ready drawn, which you would request me to

show him for you, and him to take notice of.

AMO. This Crites is sour: [ASIDE.]--I will think, sir.

CRI. Do so, sir.--O heaven! that anything in the likeness of man

should suffer these rack'd extremities, for the uttering of his

sophisticate good parts. [ASIDE.]

ASO. Crites, I have a suit to you; but you must not deny me; pray

you make this gentleman and I friends.

CRI. Friends! why, is there any difference between you?

ASO. No; I mean acquaintance, to know one another.

CRI. O, now I apprehend you; your phrase was without me before.

ASO. In good faith, he's a most excellent rare man, I warrant

him.

CRI. 'Slight, they are mutually enamour'd by this time. [ASIDE.]

ASO. Will you, sweet Crites?

CRI. Yes, yes.

ASO. Nay, but when? you'll defer it now, and forget it.

CRI. Why, is it a thing of such present necessity, that it

requires so violent a dispatch!

ASO. No, but would I might never stir, he's a most ravishing man!

Good Crites, you shall endear me to you, in good faith; la!

CRI. Well, your longing shall be satisfied, sir.

ASO. And withal, you may tell him what my father was, and how well

he left me, and that I am his heir.

CRI. Leave it to me, I'll forget none of your dear graces, I

warrant you.

ASO. Nay, I know you can better marshal these affairs than I can

--O gods! I'd give all the world, if I had it, for abundance of

such acquaintance.

CRI. What ridiculous circumstance might I devise now, to bestow

this reciprocal brace of butterflies one upon another? [ASIDE.]

AMO. Since I trod on this side the Alps, I was not so frozen in my

invention. Let me see: to accost him with some choice remnant of

Spanish, or Italian! that would indifferently express my languages

now: marry, then, if he shall fall out to be ignorant, it were both

hard, and harsh. How else? step into some ragioni del stato, and

so make my induction! that were above him too; and out of his

element I fear. Feign to have seen him in Venice or Padua! or some

face near his in similitude! 'tis too pointed and open. No, it must

be a more quaint and collateral device, as--stay: to frame some

encomiastic speech upon this our metropolis, or the wise

magistrates thereof, in which politic number, 'tis odds but his

father fill'd up a room? descend into a particular admiration of

their justice, for the due measuring of coals, burning of cans, and

such like? as also their religion, in pulling down a superstitious

cross, and advancing a Venus; or Priapus, in place of it? ha!

'twill do well. Or to talk of some hospital, whose walls record

his father a benefactor? or of so many buckets bestow'd on his

parish church in his lifetime, with his name at length, for want of

arms, trickt upon them? any of these. Or to praise the cleanness

of the street wherein he dwelt? or the provident painting of his

posts, against he should have been praetor? or, leaving his parent,

come to some special ornament about himself, as his rapier, or some

other of his accountrements? I have it: thanks, gracious Minerva!

ASO. Would I had but once spoke to him, and then--He comes to

me!

AMO. 'Tis a most curious and neatly wrought band this same, as I

have seen, sir.

ASO. O lord, sir.

AMO. You forgive the humour of mine eye, in observing it.

CRI. His eye waters after it, it seems. [ASIDE.]

ASO. O lord, sir! there needs no such apology I assure you.

CRI. I am anticipated; they'll make a solemn deed of gift of

themselves, you shall see. [ASIDE.]

AMO. Your riband too does most gracefully in troth.

ASO. 'Tis the most genteel and received wear now, sir.

AMO. Believe me, sir, I speak it not to humour you--I have not

seen a young gentleman, generally, put on his clothes with more

judgment.

ASO. O, 'tis your pleasure to say so, sir.

AMO. No, as I am virtuous, being altogether untravell'd, it

strikes me into wonder.

ASO. I do purpose to travel, sir, at spring.

AMO. I think I shall affect you, sir. This last speech of yours

hath begun to make you dear to me.

ASO. O lord, sir! I would there were any thing in me, sir, that

might appear worthy the least worthiness of your worth, sir. I

protest, sir, I should endeavour to shew it, sir, with more than

common regard sir.

CRI. O, here's rare motley, sir. [ASIDE.]

AMO. Both your desert, and your endeavours are plentiful, suspect

them not: but your sweet disposition to travel, I assure you, hath

made you another myself in mine eye, and struck me enamour'd on

your beauties.

ASO. I would I were the fairest lady of France for your sake, sir!

and yet I would travel too.

AMO. O, you should digress from yourself else: for, believe it,

your travel is your only thing that rectifies, or, as the Italian

says, "vi rendi pronto all' attioni," makes you fit for action.

ASO. I think it be great charge though, sir.

AMO. Charge! why 'tis nothing for a gentleman that goes private,

as yourself, or so; my intelligence shall quit my charge at all

time. Good faith, this hat hath possest mine eye exceedingly; 'tis

so pretty and fantastic: what! is it a beaver?

ASO. Ay, sir, I'll assure you 'tis a beaver, it cost me eight

crowns but this morning.

AMO. After your French account?

ASO. Yes, sir.

CRI. And so near his head! beshrew me, dangerous. [ASIDE.]

AMO. A very pretty fashion, believe me, and a most novel kind of

trim: your band is conceited too!

ASO. Sir, it is all at your service.

AMO. O, pardon me.

ASO. I beseech you, sir, if you please to wear it, you shall do me

a most infinite grace.

CRI. 'Slight, will he be prais'd out of his clothes?

ASO. By heaven, sir, I do not offer it you after the Italian

manner; I would you should conceive so of me.

AMO. Sir, I shall fear to appear rude in denying your courtesies,

especially being invited by so proper a distinction: May I pray

your name, sir?

ASO. My name is Asotus, sir.

AMO. I take your love, gentle Asotus, but let me win you to

receive this, in exchange.--[THEY EXCHANGE BEAVERS.]

CRI. Heart! they'll change doublets anon. [ASIDE.]

AMO. And, from this time esteem yourself in the first rank of

those few whom I profess to love. What make you in company of this

scholar here? I will bring you known to gallants, as Anaides of

the ordinary, Hedon the courtier, and others, whose society shall

render you graced and respected: this is a trivial fellow, too

mean, too cheap, too coarse for you to converse with.

ASO. 'Slid, this is not worth a crown, and mine cost me eight but

this morning.

CRI. I looked when he would repent him, he has begun to be sad a

good while.

AMO. Sir, shall I say to you for that hat? Be not so sad, be not

so sad: It is a relic I could not so easily have departed with, but

as the hieroglyphic of my affection; you shall alter it to what

form you please, it will take any block; I have received it varied

on record to the three thousandth time, and not so few: It hath

these virtues beside: your head shall not ache under it, nor your

brain leave you, without license; It will preserve your complexion

to eternity; for no beam of the sun, should you wear it under zona

torrida, hath power to approach it by two ells. It is proof

against thunder, and enchantment; and was given me by a great man

in Russia, as an especial prized present; and constantly affirm'd

to be the hat that accompanied the politic Ulysses in his tedious

and ten years' travels.

ASO. By Jove, I will not depart withal, whosoever would give me a

million.

ENTER COS AND PROSAITES.

COS. Save you sweet bloods! does any of you want a creature, or a

dependent?

CRI. Beshrew me, a fine blunt slave!

AMO. A page of good timber! it will now be my grace to entertain

him first, though I cashier him again in private.--How art thou

call'd?

COS. Cos, sir, Cos.

CRI. Cos! how happily hath fortune furnish'd him with a whetstone?

AMO. I do entertain you, Cos; conceal your quality till we be

private; if your parts be worthy of me, I will countenance you; if

not, catechise you.--Gentles, shall we go?

ASO. Stay, sir: I'll but entertain this other fellow, and then--

I have a great humour to taste of this water too, but I'll come

again alone for that--mark the place.--What's your name, youth?

PROS. Prosaites, sir.

ASO. Prosaites! a very fine name; Crites, is it not?

CRI. Yes, and a very ancient one, sir, the Beggar.

ASO. Follow me, good Prosaites; let's talk.

[EXEUNT ALL BUT CRITES.]

CRI. He will rank even with you, ere't be long.

If you hold on your course. O, vanity

How are thy painted beauties doted on,

By light and empty idiots! how pursued

With open, and extended appetite!

How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath,

Raised on their toes, to catch thy airy forms,

Still turning giddy, till they reel like drunkards,

That buy the merry madness of one hour

With the long irksomeness of following time!

O, how despised and base a thing is man,

If he not strive to erect his grovelling thoughts

Above the strain of flesh? but how more cheap,

When, ev'n his best and understanding part,

The crown and strength of all his faculties,

Floats, like a dead drown'd body, on the stream

Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs!

I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul,

Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,

Is hurt with mere intention on their follies.

Why will I view them then, my sense might ask me?

Or is't a rarity, or some new object,

That strains my strict observance to this point?

O, would it were! therein I could afford

My spirit should draw a little near to theirs,

To gaze on novelties; so vice were one.

Tut, she is stale, rank, foul; and were it not

That those that woo her greet her with lock'd eyes,

In spight of all th' impostures, paintings, drugs,

Which her bawd, Custom, dawbs her cheeks withal,

She would betray her loath'd and leprous face,

And fright the enamour'd dotards from themselves:

But such is the perverseness of our nature,

That if we once but fancy levity,

How antic and ridiculous soe'er

It suit with us, yet will our muffled thought

Choose rather not to see it, than avoid it:

And if we can but banish our own sense,

We act our mimic tricks with that free license,

That lust, that pleasure, that security;

As if we practised in a paste-board case,

And no one saw the motion, but the motion.

Well, check thy passion, lest it grow too loud:

While fools are pitied, they wax fat, and proud.

ACT II

SCENE I.--THE COURT.

ENTER CUPID AND MERCURY, DISGUISED AS PAGES.

CUP. Why, this was most unexpectedly followed, my divine delicate

Mercury, by the beard of Jove, thou art a precious deity.

MER. Nay, Cupid, leave to speak improperly; since we are turn'd

cracks, let's study to be like cracks; practise their language, and

behaviours, and not with a dead imitation: Act freely, carelessly,

and capriciously, as if our veins ran with quicksilver, and not

utter a phrase, but what shall come forth steep'd in the very brine

of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire.

CUP. That's not every one's happiness, Hermes: Though you can

presume upon the easiness and dexterity of your wit, you shall give

me leave to be a little jealous of mine; and not desperately to

hazard it after your capering humour.

MER. Nay, then, Cupid, I think we must have you hood-wink'd again;

for you are grown too provident since your eyes were at liberty.

CUP. Not so, Mercury, I am still blind Cupid to thee.

MER. And what to the lady nymph you serve?

CUP. Troth, page, boy, and sirrah: these are all my titles.

MER. Then thou hast not altered thy name with thy disguise?

CUP. O, no, that had been supererogation; you shall never hear

your courtier call but by one of these three.

MER. Faith, then both our fortunes are the same.

CUP. Why, what parcel of man hast thou lighted on for a master?

MER. Such a one as, before I begin to decipher him, I dare not

affirm to be any thing less than a courtier. So much he is during

this open time of revels, and would be longer, but that his means

are to leave him shortly after. His name is Hedon, a gallant

wholly consecrated to his pleasures.

CUP. Hedon! he uses much to my lady's chamber, I think.

MER. How is she call'd, and then I can shew thee?

CUP. Madame Philautia.

MER. O ay, he affects her very particularly indeed. These are his

graces. He doth (besides me) keep a barber and a monkey; he has a

rich wrought waistcoat to entertain his visitants in, with a cap

almost suitable. His curtains and bedding are thought to be his

own; his bathing-tub is not suspected. He loves to have a fencer,

a pedant, and a musician seen in his lodging a-mornings.

CUP. And not a poet?

MER. Fie no: himself is a rhymer, and that's thought better than

a poet. He is not lightly within to his mercer, no, though he come

when he takes physic, which is commonly after his play. He beats a

tailor very well, but a stocking-seller admirably: and so

consequently any one he owes money to, that dares not resist him.

He never makes general invitement, but against the publishing of a

new suit; marry, then you shall have more drawn to his lodging,

than come to the launching of some three ships; especially if he be

furnish'd with supplies for the retiring of his old wardrobe from

pawn: if not, he does hire a stock of apparel, and some forty or

fifty pound in gold, for that forenoon to shew. He is thought a

very necessary perfume for the presence, and for that only cause

welcome thither: six milliners' shops afford you not the like

scent. He courts ladies with how many great horse he hath rid that

morning, or how oft he hath done the whole, or half the pommado in a

seven-night before: and sometime ventures so far upon the virtue of

his pomander, that he dares tell 'em, how many shirts he has sweat

at tennis that week; but wisely conceals so many dozen of balls he

is on the score. Here he comes, that is all this.

ENTER HEDON, ANAIDES, AND GELAIA.

HED. Boy!

MER. Sir.

HED. Are any of the ladies in the presence?

MER. None yet, sir.

HED. Give me some gold,--more.

ANA. Is that thy boy, Hedon?

HED. Ay, what think'st thou of him?

ANA. I'd geld him; I warrant he has the philosopher's stone.

HED. Well said, my good melancholy devil: sirrah, I have devised

one or two of the prettiest oaths, this morning in my bed, as ever

thou heard'st, to protest withal in the presence.

ANA. Prithee, let's hear them.

HED. Soft, thou'lt use them afore me.

ANA. No, d--mn me then--I have more oaths than I know how to

utter, by this air.

HED. Faith, one is, "By the tip of your ear, sweet lady." Is it

not pretty, and genteel?

ANA. Yes, for the person 'tis applied to, a lady. It should be

light, and--

HED. Nay, the other is better, exceeds it much: the invention is

farther fet too. "By the white valley that lies between the alpine

hills of your bosom, I protest.--"

ANA. Well, you travell'd for that, Hedon.

MER. Ay, in a map, where his eyes were but blind guides to his

understanding, it seems.

HED. And then I have a salutation will nick all, by this caper:

hay!

ANA. How is that?

HED. You know I call madam Philautia, my Honour; and she calls me

her Ambition. Now, when I meet her in the presence anon, I will

come to her, and say, "Sweet Honour, I have hitherto contented my

sense with the lilies of your hand; but now I will taste the roses

of your lip"; and, withal, kiss her: to which she cannot but

blushing answer, "Nay now you are too ambitious." And then do I

reply: "I cannot be too Ambitious of Honour, sweet lady." Will't

not be good? ha? ha?

ANA. O, assure your soul.

HED. By heaven, I think 'twill be excellent: and a very politic

achievement of a kiss.

ANA. I have thought upon one for Moria of a sudden too, if it take.

HED. What is't, my dear Invention?

ANA. Marry, I will come to her, (and she always wears a muff, if

you be remembered,) and I will tell her, "Madam your whole self

cannot but be perfectly wise; for your hands have wit enough to

keep themselves warm."

HED. Now, before Jove, admirable! [GELAIA LAUGHS.] Look, thy page

takes it too. By Phoebus, my sweet facetious rascal, I could eat

water-gruel with thee a month for this jest, my dear rogue.

ANA. O, Hercules 'tis your only dish; above all your potatoes or

oyster-pies in the world.

HED. I have ruminated upon a most rare wish too, and the prophecy

to it; but I'll have some friend to be the prophet; as thus: I do

wish myself one of my mistress's cioppini. Another demands, Why

would he be one of his mistress's cioppini? a third answers,

Because he would make her higher: a fourth shall say, That will

make her proud: and a fifth shall conclude, Then do I prophesy

pride will have a fall;--and he shall give it her.

ANA. I will be your prophet. Gods so, it will be most exquisite;

thou art a fine inventious rogue, sirrah.

HED. Nay, and I have posies for rings, too, and riddles, that they

dream not of.

ANA. Tut, they'll do that, when they come to sleep on them, time

enough: But were thy devices never in the presence yet, Hedon?

HED. O, no, I disdain that.

ANA. 'Twere good we went afore then, and brought them acquainted

with the room where they shall act, lest the strangeness of it put

them out of countenance, when they should come forth.

[EXEUNT HEDON AND ANAIDES.]

CUP. Is that a courtier, too.

MER. Troth, no; he has two essential parts of the courtier, pride

and ignorance; marry, the rest come somewhat after the ordinary

gallant. 'Tis Impudence itself, Anaides; one that speaks all that

comes in his cheeks, and will blush no more than a sackbut. He

lightly occupies the jester's room at the table, and keeps

laughter, Gelaia, a wench in page's attire, following him in place

of a squire, whom he now and then tickles with some strange

ridiculous stuff, utter'd as his land came to him, by chance. He

will censure or discourse of any thing, but as absurdly as you

would wish. His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is

beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt. He does

naturally admire his wit that wears gold lace, or tissue: stabs

any man that speaks more contemptibly of the scholar than he. He

is a great proficient in all the illiberal sciences, as cheating,

drinking, swaggering, whoring, and such like: never kneels but to

pledge healths, nor prays but for a pipe of pudding-tobacco. He

will blaspheme in his shirt. The oaths which he vomits at one

supper would maintain a town of garrison in good swearing a

twelvemonth. One other genuine quality he has which crowns all

these, and that is this: to a friend in want, he will not depart

with the weight of a soldered groat, lest the world might censure

him prodigal, or report him a gull: marry, to his cockatrice or

punquetto, half a dozen taffata gowns or satin kirtles in a pair or

two of months, why, they are nothing.

CUP. I commend him, he is one of my clients.

[THEY RETIRE TO THE BACK OF THE STAGE.]

ENTER AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, AND COS.

AMO. Come, sir. You are now within regard of the presence, and

see, the privacy of this room how sweetly it offers itself to our

retired intendments.--Page, cast a vigilant and enquiring eye

about, that we be not rudely surprised by the approach of some

ruder stranger.

COS. I warrant you, sir. I'll tell you when the wolf enters, fear

nothing.

MER. O what a mass of benefit shall we possess, in being the

invisible spectators of this strange show now to be acted!

AMO. Plant yourself there, sir; and observe me. You shall now, as

well be the ocular, as the ear-witness, how clearly I can refel

that paradox, or rather pseudodox, of those, which hold the face to

be the index of the mind, which, I assure you, is not so in any

politic creature: for instance; I will now give you the particular

and distinct face of every your most noted species of persons, as

your merchant, your scholar, your soldier, your lawyer, courtier,

etc., and each of these so truly, as you would swear, but that your

eye shall see the variation of the lineament, it were my most

proper and genuine aspect. First, for your merchant, or city-face,

'tis thus; a dull, plodding-face, still looking in a direct line,

forward: there is no great matter in this face. Then have you

your student's, or academic face; which is here an honest, simple,

and methodical face; but somewhat more spread then the former. The

third is your soldier's face, a menacing and astounding face, that

looks broad and big: the grace of his face consisteth much in a

beard. The anti-face to this, is your lawyer's face, a contracted,

subtile, and intricate face, full of quirks and turnings, a

labyrinthean face, now angularly, now circularly, every way

aspected. Next is your statist's face, a serious, solemn, and

supercilious face, full of formal and square gravity; the eye, for

the most part, deeply and artificially shadow'd; there is great

judgment required in the making of this face. But now, to come to

your face of faces, or courtier's face; 'tis of three sorts,

according to our subdivision of a courtier, elementary, practic,

and theoric. Your courtier theoric, is he that hath arrived to his

farthest, and doth now know the court rather by speculation than

practice; and this is his face: a fastidious and oblique face; that

looks as it went with a vice, and were screw'd thus. Your courtier

practic, is he that is yet in his path, his course, his way, and

hath not touch'd the punctilio or point of his hopes; his face is

here: a most promising, open, smooth, and overflowing face, that

seems as it would run and pour itself into you: somewhat a

northerly face. Your courtier elementary, is one but newly

enter'd, or as it were in the alphabet, or ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la of

courtship. Note well this face, for it is this you must practise.

ASO. I'll practise them all, if you please, sir.

AMO. Ay, hereafter you may: and it will not be altogether an

ungrateful study. For, let your soul be assured of this, in any

rank or profession whatever, the more general or major part of

opinion goes with the face and simply respects nothing else.

Therefore, if that can be made exactly, curiously, exquisitely,

thoroughly, it is enough: but for the present you shall only apply

yourself to this face of the elementary courtier, a light,

revelling, and protesting face, now blushing, now smiling, which

you may help much with a wanton wagging of your head, thus, (a

feather will teach you,) or with kissing your finger that hath the

ruby, or playing with some string of your band, which is a most

quaint kind of melancholy besides: or, if among ladies, laughing

loud, and crying up your own wit, though perhaps borrow'd, it is

not amiss. Where is your page? call for your casting-bottle, and

place your mirror in your hat, as I told you; so! Come, look not

pale, observe me, set your face, and enter.

MER. O, for some excellent painter, to have taken the copy of all

these faces! [ASIDE.]

ASO. Prosaites!

AMO. Fie! I premonish you of that: in the court, boy, lacquey, or

sirrah.

COS. Master, lupus in--O, 'tis Prosaites.

ENTER PROSAITES.

ASO. Sirrah, prepare my casting-bottle; I think I must be

enforced to purchase me another page; you see how at hand Cos waits

here.

[EXEUNT AMORPHUS, ASOTUS, COS, AND PROSAITES.]

MER. So will he too in time.

CUP. What's he Mercury?

MER. A notable smelt. One that hath newly entertain'd the beggar

to follow him, but cannot get him to wait near enough. 'Tis

Asotus, the heir of Philargyrus; but first I'll give ye the other's

character, which may make his the clearer. He that is with him is

Amorphus, a traveller, one so made out of the mixture of shreds of

forms, that himself is truly deform'd. He walks most commonly with

a clove or pick-tooth in his mouth, he is the very mint of

compliment, all his behaviours are printed, his face is another

volume of essays, and his beard is an Aristarchus. He speaks all

cream skimm'd, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. He

is his own promoter in every place. The wife of the ordinary gives

him his diet to maintain her table in discourse; which, indeed, is

a mere tyranny over her other guests, for he will usurp all the

talk: ten constables are not so tedious. He is no great shifter;

once a year his apparel is ready to revolt. He doth use much to

arbitrate quarrels, and fights himself, exceeding well, out at a

window. He will lie cheaper than any beggar, and louder than most

clocks; for which he is right properly accommodated to the

Whetstone, his page. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most

of these tricks after him; sweats to imitate him in every thing to

a hair, except a beard, which is not yet extant. He doth learn to

make strange sauces, to eat anchovies, maccaroni, bovoli, fagioli,

and caviare, because he loves them; speaks as he speaks, looks,

walks, goes so in clothes and fashion: is in all as if he were

moulded of him. Marry, before they met, he had other very pretty

sufficiencies, which yet he retains some light impression of; as

frequenting a dancing school, and grievously torturing strangers

with inquisition after his grace in his galliard. He buys a fresh

acquaintance at any rate. His eyes and his raiment confer much

together as he goes in the street. He treads nicely like the

fellow that walks upon ropes, especially the first Sunday of his

silk stockings; and when he is most neat and new, you shall strip

him with commendations.

CUP. Here comes another. [CRITES PASSES OVER THE STAGE.]

MER. Ay, but one of another strain, Cupid; This fellow weighs

somewhat.

CUP. His name, Hermes?

MER. Crites. A creature of a most perfect and divine temper: one,

in whom the humours and elements are peaceably met, without

emulation of precedency; he is neither too fantastically

melancholy, too slowly phlegmatic, too lightly sanguine, or too

rashly choleric; but in all so composed and ordered; as it is clear

Nature went about some full work, she did more than make a man when

she made him. His discourse is like his behaviour, uncommon, but

not unpleasing; he is prodigal of neither. He strives rather to be

that which men call judicious, than to be thought so; and is so

truly learned, that he affects not to shew it. He will think and

speak his thought both freely; but as distant from depraving

another man's merit, as proclaiming his own. For his valour, 'tis

such, that he dares as little to offer any injury, as receive one.

In sum, he hath a most ingenuous and sweet spirit, a sharp and

season'd wit, a straight judgment and a strong mind. Fortune

could never break him, nor make him less. He counts it his

pleasure to despise pleasures, and is more delighted with good

deeds than goods. It is a competency to him that he can be

virtuous. He doth neither covet nor fear; he hath too much reason

to do either; and that commends all things to him.

CUP. Not better than Mercury commends him.

MER. O, Cupid, 'tis beyond my deity to give him his due praises:

I could leave my place in heaven to live among mortals, so I were

sure to be no other than he.

CUP. 'Slight, I believe he is your minion, you seem to be so

ravish'd with him.

MER. He's one I would not have a wry thought darted against,

willingly.

CUP. No, but a straight shaft in his bosom I'll promise him, if I

am Cytherea's son.

MER. Shall we go, Cupid?

CUP. Stay, and see the ladies now: they'll come presently. I'll

help to paint them.

MER. What lay colour upon colour! that affords but an ill blazon.

CUP. Here comes metal to help it, the lady Argurion.

[ARGURION PASSES OVER THE STAGE.]

MER. Money, money.

CUP. The same. A nymph of a most wandering and giddy disposition,

humorous as the air, she'll run from gallant to gallant, as they

sit at primero in the presence, most strangely, and seldom stays

with any. She spreads as she goes. To-day you shall have her look

as clear and fresh as the morning, and to-morrow as melancholic as

midnight. She takes special pleasure in a close obscure lodging,

and for that cause visits the city so often, where she has many

secret true concealing favourites. When she comes abroad she's

more loose and scattering than dust, and will fly from place to

place, as she were wrapped with a whirlwind. Your young student,

for the most part, she affects not, only salutes him, and away: a

poet, nor a philosopher, she is hardly brought to take any notice

of; no, though he be some part of an alchemist. She loves a player

well, and a lawyer infinitely; but your fool above all. She can do

much in court for the obtaining of any suit whatsoever, no door

but flies open to her, her presence is above a charm. The worst in

her is want of keeping state, and too much descending into inferior

and base offices; she's for any coarse employment you will put upon

her, as to be your procurer, or pander.

MER. Peace, Cupid, here comes more work for you, another character

or two.

ENTER PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.

PHA. Stay sweet Philautia; I'll but change my fan, and go

presently.

MOR. Now, in very good serious, ladies, I will have this order

revers'd, the presence must be better maintain'd from you: a

quarter past eleven, and ne'er a nymph in prospective! Beshrew my

hand, there must be a reform'd discipline. Is that your new ruff,

sweet lady-bird? By my troth, 'tis most intricately rare.

MER. Good Jove, what reverend gentlewoman in years might this be?

CUP. 'Tis madam Moria, guardian of the nymphs; one that is not now

to be persuaded of her wit; she will think herself wise against all

the judgments that come. A lady made all of voice and air, talks

any thing of any thing. She is like one of your ignorant poetasters

of the time, who, when they have got acquainted with a strange

word, never rest till they have wrung it in, though it loosen the

whole fabric of their sense.

MER. That was pretty and sharply noted, Cupid.

CUP. She will tell you, Philosophy was a fine reveller, when she

was young, and a gallant, and that then, though she say it, she was

thought to be the dame Dido and Helen of the court: as also, what

a sweet dog she had this time four years, and how it was called

Fortune; and that, if the Fates had not cut his thread, he had been

a dog to have given entertainment to any gallant in this kingdom;

and unless she had whelp'd it herself, she could not have loved a

thing better in this world.

MER. O, I prithee no more; I am full of her.

CUP. Yes, I must needs tell you she composes a sack-posset well;

and would court a young page sweetly, but that her breath is

against it.

MER. Now, her breath or something more strong protect me from her!

The other, the other, Cupid.

CUP. O, that's my lady and mistress, madam Philautia. She admires

not herself for any one particularity, but for all: she is fair,

and she knows it; she has a pretty light wit too, and she knows it;

she can dance, and she knows that too; play at shuttle-cock, and

that too: no quality she has, but she shall take a very particular

knowledge of, and most lady-like commend it to you. You shall have

her at any time read you the history of herself, and very subtilely

run over another lady's sufficiencies to come to her own. She has

a good superficial judgment in painting; and would seem to have so

in poetry. A most complete lady in the opinion of some three

beside herself.

PHI. Faith, how liked you my quip to Hedon, about the garter?

Was't not witty?

MOR. Exceeding witty and integrate: you did so aggravate the jest

withal.

PHI. And did I not dance movingly the last night?

MOR. Movingly! out of measure, in troth, sweet charge.

MER. A happy commendation, to dance out of measure!

MOR. Save only you wanted the swim in the turn: O! when I was at

fourteen--

PHI. Nay, that's mine own from any nymph in the court, I'm sure

on't; therefore you mistake me in that, guardian: both the swim and

the trip are properly mine; every body will affirm it that has any

judgment in dancing, I assure you.

PHA. Come now, Philautia, I am for you; shall we go?

PHI. Ay, good Phantaste: What! have you changed your head-tire?

PHA. Yes, faith; the other was so near the common, it had no

extraordinary grace; besides, I had worn it almost a day, in good

troth.

PHI. I'll be sworn, this is most excellent for the device, and

rare; 'tis after the Italian print we look'd on t'other night.

PHA. 'Tis so: by this fan, I cannot abide any thing that savours

the poor over-worn cut, that has any kindred with it; I must have

variety, I: this mixing in fashion, I hate it worse than to burn

juniper in my chamber, I protest.

PHI. And yet we cannot have a new peculiar court-tire, but these

retainers will have it; these suburb Sunday-waiters; these

courtiers for high days; I know not what I should call 'em--

PHA. O, ay, they do most pitifully imitate; but I have a tire a

coming, i'faith, shall--

MOR. In good certain, madam, it makes you look most heavenly; but,

lay your hand on your heart, you never skinn'd a new beauty more

prosperously in your life, nor more metaphysically: look good lady,

sweet lady, look.

PHI. 'Tis very clear and well, believe me. But if you had seen

mine yesterday, when 'twas young, you would have--Who's your

doctor, Phantaste?

PHA. Nay, that's counsel, Philautia; you shall pardon me: yet I'll

assure you he's the most dainty, sweet, absolute, rare man of the

whole college. O! his very looks, his discourse, his behaviour, all

he does is physic, I protest.

PHI. For heaven's sake, his name, good dear Phantaste?

PHA. No, no, no, no, no, no, believe me, not for a million of

heavens: I will not make him cheap. Fie--

[EXEUNT PHANTASTE, MORIA, AND PHILAUTIA.]

CUP. There is a nymph too of a most curious and elaborate strain,

light, all motion, an ubiquitary, she is every where, Phantaste--

MER. Her very name speaks her, let her pass. But are these,

Cupid, the stars of Cynthia's court? Do these nymphs attend upon

Diana?

CUP. They are in her court, Mercury, but not as stars; these never

come in the presence of Cynthia. The nymphs that make her train

are the divine Arete, Time, Phronesis, Thauma, and others of that

high sort. These are privately brought in by Moria in this

licentious time, against her knowledge; and, like so many meteors,

will vanish when she appears.

ENTER PROSAITES SINGING, FOLLOWED BY GELAIA AND COS, WITH BOTTLES.

Come follow me, my wags, and say, as I say,

There's no riches but in rags, hey day, hey day:

You that profess this art, come away, come away,

And help to bear a part. Hey day, hey day, etc.

[MERCURY AND CUPID COME FORWARD.]

MER. What, those that were our fellow pages but now, so soon

preferr'd to be yeomen of the bottles! The mystery, the mystery,

good wags?

CUP. Some diet-drink they have the guard of.

PRO. No, sir, we are going in quest of a strange fountain, lately

found out.

CUP. By whom?

COS. My master or the great discoverer, Amorphus.

MER. Thou hast well entitled him, Cos, for he will discover all he

knows.

GEL. Ay, and a little more too, when the spirit is upon him.

PRO. O, the good travelling gentleman yonder has caused such a

drought in the presence, with reporting the wonders of this new

water, that all the ladies and gallants lie languishing upon the

rushes, like so many pounded cattle in the midst of harvest,

sighing one to another, and gasping, as if each of them expected a

cock from the fountain to be brought into his mouth; and without

we return quickly, they are all, as a youth would say, no better

then a few trouts cast ashore, or a dish of eels in a sand-bag.

MER. Well then, you were best dispatch, and have a care of them.

Come, Cupid, thou and I'll go peruse this dry wonder. [EXEUNT.]

ACT III

SCENE I.--AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT.

ENTER AMORPHUS AND ASOTUS.

AMO. Sir, let not this discountenance or disgallant you a whit;

you must not sink under the first disaster. It is with your young

grammatical courtier, as with your neophyte player, a thing usual

to be daunted at the first presence or interview: you saw, there

was Hedon, and Anaides, far more practised gallants than yourself,

who were both out, to comfort you. It is no disgrace, no more than

for your adventurous reveller to fall by some inauspicious chance

in his galliard, or for some subtile politic to undertake the

bastinado, that the state might think worthily of him, and respect

him as a man well beaten to the world. What? hath your tailor

provided the property we spake of at your chamber, or no?

ASO. I think he has.

AMO. Nay, I entreat you, be not so flat and melancholic. Erect

your mind: you shall redeem this with the courtship I will teach

you against the afternoon. Where eat you to-day?

ASO. Where you please, sir; any where, I.

AMO. Come, let us go and taste some light dinner, a dish of sliced

caviare, or so; and after, you shall practise an hour at your

lodging some few forms that I have recall'd. If you had but so far

gathered your spirits to you, as to have taken up a rush when you

were out, and wagg'd it thus, or cleansed your teeth with it; or

but turn'd aside, and feign'd some business to whisper with your

page, till you had recovered yourself, or but found some slight

stain in your stocking, or any other pretty invention, so it had

been sudden, you might have come off with a most clear and courtly

grace.

ASO. A poison of all! I think I was forespoke, I.

AMO. No, I must tell you, you are not audacious enough; you must

frequent ordinaries a month more, to initiate yourself: in which

time, it will not be amiss, if, in private, you keep good your

acquaintance with Crites, or some other of his poor coat; visit his

lodging secretly and often; become an earnest suitor to hear some

of his labours.

ASO. O Jove! sir, I could never get him to read a line to me.

AMO. You must then wisely mix yourself in rank with such as you

know can; and, as your ears do meet with a new phrase, or an acute

jest, take it in: a quick nimble memory will lift it away, and, at

your next public meal, it is your own.

ASO. But I shall never utter it perfectly, sir.

AMO. No matter, let it come lame. In ordinary talk you shall play

it away, as you do your light crowns at primero: it will pass.

ASO. I shall attempt, sir.

AMO. Do. It is your shifting age for wit, and, I assure you, men

must be prudent. After this you may to court, and there fall in,

first with the waiting-woman, then with the lady. Put case they do

retain you there, as a fit property, to hire coaches some pair of

months, or so; or to read them asleep in afternoons upon some

pretty pamphlet, to breathe you; why, it shall in time embolden you

to some farther achievement: in the interim, you may fashion

yourself to be careless and impudent.

ASO. How if they would have me to make verses? I heard Hedon

spoke to for some.

AMO. Why, you must prove the aptitude of your genius; if you find

none, you must hearken out a vein, and buy; provided you pay for

the silence as for the work, then you may securely call it your

own.

ASO. Yes, and I'll give out my acquaintance with all the best

writers, to countenance me the more.

AMO. Rather seem not to know them, it is your best. Ay, be wise,

that you never so much as mention the name of one, nor remember it

mentioned; but if they be offer'd to you in discourse, shake your

light head, make between a sad and a smiling face, pity some, rail

at all, and commend yourself: 'tis your only safe and unsuspected

course. Come, you shall look back upon the court again to-day, and

be restored to your colours: I do now partly aim at the cause of

your repulse--which was ominous indeed--for as you enter at the

door, there is opposed to you the frame of a wolf in the hangings,

which, surprising your eye suddenly, gave a false alarm to the

heart; and that was it called your blood out of your face, and so

routed the whole rank of your spirits: I beseech you labour to

forget it. And remember, as I inculcated to you before, for your

comfort, Hedon and Anaides. [EXEUNT.]