[Communications respecting the ceremony referred to in the preceding
letter will be very acceptable, and are therefore solicited.--EDITOR.]
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. XXXIV.
[From the “Antipodes,” further extracts: see No. XX]
_A Doctor humours his patient, who is crazed with reading lying books of
travels, by pretending that he himself has been a great traveller in his
time._
_Peregrine, the patient._ _Doctor._ _Lady._
_Peregrine._ All the world over have you been?
_Doctor._ Over and under too.
_Per._ In the Antipodes?
_Doct._ Yes, through and through.
Nor isle nor angle in the other world
But I have made discovery of. Do you
Think, Sir, to the Antipodes such a journey?
_Per._ I think there’s none beyond it, and that Mandevil
Was the only man came near it.
_Doct._ Mandevil went far.
_Per._ Beyond all English legs that I can read of.
_Doct._ What think you, Sir, of Drake, our famous countryman?
_Per._ Drake was a Didapper to Mandevil.
Candish and Hawkins, Frobisher, all our voyagers
Went short of Mandevil: but had he reach’d
To this place--here--yes here--this wilderness;
And seen the trees of the sun and moon, that _speak_,
And told King Alexander of his death;
He then
Had left a passage ope for travellers,
That now is kept and guarded by wild beasts;
Dragons and serpents, elephants white and blue;
Unicorns and lions, of many colours;
And monsters more, as numberless as nameless.
_Doct._ Stay there--
_Per._ Read here else: can you read?
Is it not true?
_Doct._ No truer, than I have seen it
You hear me not deny that all is true,
That Mandevil delivers of his travels;
Yet I myself may be as well believed.
_Per._ Since you speak reverently of him, say on.
_Doct._ Of Europe I’ll not speak, ’tis too near home;
Who’s not familiar with the Spanish garb,
Th’ Italian cringe, French shrug, and German hug?
Nor will I trouble you with my observations
Fetch’d from Arabia, Paphlagonia,
Mesopotamia, Mauritania,
Syria, Thessalia, Persia, India;
All still is too near home: tho’ I have touch’d
The clouds upon the Pyrenean mountains;
And been on Paphos hill, where I have kiss’d
The image of bright Venus; all is still
Too near home to be boasted. They sound
In a far traveller’s ear,
Like the reports of those, that beggingly
Have put out on returns from Edinburgh,
Paris, or Venice; or perhaps Madrid,
Whither a Millaner may with half a nose
Smell out his way; and is not near so difficult,
As for some man in debt, and unprotected,
To walk from Charing Cross to the Old Exchange.
No, I will pitch no neare than the Antipodes;
That which is furthest distant; foot to foot
Against our region.
_Lady._ What, with their heels upwards?
Bless us, how ’scape they breaking of their necks?
_Doct._ They walk upon firm earth, as we do here;
And have the firmament over their heads,
As we have here.
_Lady._ And yet just under us!
Where is Hell then? if they, whose feet are toward us
At the lower part of the world, have Heaven too
Beyond their heads, where’s Hell?
_Doct._ You may find that
Without enquiry.
_Scene, at the Antipodes._
_N.B._ In the Antipodes, every thing goes contrary to our manners:
wives rule their husbands; servants govern their masters; old men go
to school again, &c.
_Son._ _Servant._ _Gentleman, and Lady, natives._ _English Traveller._
_Servant (to his young Master.)_ How well you saw
Your father to school to day, knowing how apt
He is to play the truant!
_Son._ But is he not
Yet gone to school?
_Servant._ Stand by, and you shall see.
_Enter three old men with satchels._
_All three._ (_singing_) Domine, domine, duster:
Three knaves in a cluster.
_Son._ O this is gallant pastime. Nay, come on.
Is this your school? was that your lesson, ha?
_1st old man._ Pray now, good son, indeed, indeed--
_Son._ Indeed
You shall to school. Away with him; and take
Their wagships with him, the whole cluster of ’em.
_2d old man._ You sha’nt send us now, so you sha’nt--
_3d old man._ We be none of your father, so we be’nt--
_Son._ Away with ’em, I say; and tell their school mistress
What truants they are, and bid her pay ’em soundly.
_All three._ Oh, oh, oh!
_Lady._ Alas! will nobody beg pardon for
The poor old boys?
_English Traveller._ Do men of such fair years here go to school?
_Gentleman._ They would die dunces else.
These were great scholars in their youth; but when
Age grows upon men here, their learning wastes.
And so decays, that if they live until
Threescore, their sons send them to school again;
They’d die as speechless else as new-born children.
_English Traveller._ Tis a wise nation; and the piety
Of the young men most rare and commendable.
Yet give me, as a stranger, leave to beg
Their liberty this day.
_Son._ Tis granted.
Hold up your heads, and thank the gentleman,
Like scholars, with your heels now.
_All three. Gratias, gratias, gratias._ (_exeunt singing._)
* * * * *
[From the “Asparagus Garden,” a Comedy, by the same Author, 1634.]
_Private Conference._
_Father-in-Law._ You’ll not assault me in my own house, nor urge me
beyond my patience with your borrowing attempts.
_Spendthrift Knight._ I have not used the word of loan or
borrowing;
Only some private conference I requested.
_Fath._ Private conference! a new-coined word for borrowing of money.
I tell you, your very face, your countenance, tho’ it be glossed with
knighthood, looks so borrowingly, that the best words you give me are
as dreadful as Stand and Deliver.--Your riotousness abroad, and her
long night-watchings at home, shortened my daughter’s days, and cast
her into her grave; and ’twas not long before all her estate was
buried too.
_Spend._ I wish my life might have excused
Her’s far more precious; never had a man
A juster cause to mourn.
_Fath._ Nor mourn’d more justly, it is your only wearing; you have
just none other; nor have had any means to purchase better any time
these seven years, I take it; by which means you have got the name of
the Mourning Knight.
_Timothy Hoyden, the Yeoman’s Son, desires to be made a Gentleman. He
consults with his friends._
_Moneylack._ Well, Sir, we will take the speediest course with
you.
_Hoyd._ But must I bleed?
_Mon._ Yes, you must bleed; your father’s blood must out.
He was but a Yeoman, was he?
_Hoyd._ As rank a Clown (none dispraised) as any in Somersetshire.
_Mon._ His foul rank blood of bacon and pease porritch
Must out of you to the last dram--
_Springe._ Fear nothing, Sir. Your blood shall be taken out by
degrees; and your veins replenished with pure blood still, as you lose
the puddle.
_Hoyd._ I was bewitch’d, I think, before I was begot, to have a Clown
to my father. Yet my mother said she was a Gentlewoman.
_Spr._ Said! what will not women say?
_Mon._ Be content, Sir; here’s half a labour saved: you shall bleed
but of one side. The Mother vein shall not be pricked.
_Old Striker, after a quarrelling bout with old Touchwood._
_Touchwood._ I have put him into these fits this forty years, and hope
to choke him at last, (_aside; and exit._)
_Striker._ Huh, huh, huh! so he is gone, the villain’s gone in hopes
that he has killed me, when my comfort is he has recovered me. I was
heart-sick with a conceit, which lay so mingled with my flegm, that I
had perished if I had not broke it, and made me spit it out; hem, he
is gone, and I’ll home merrily. I would not he should know the good he
has done me for half my estate; nor would I be at peace with him to
save it all. I would not lose his hatred for all the good
neighbourhood of the parish.
His malice works upon me
Past all the drugs and all the Doctors’ counsels,
That e’er I coped with; he has been my vexation
E’er since my wife died; if the rascal knew it,
He would be friends, and I were instantly
But a dead man; I could not get another
To anger me so handsomely.