BARTHOLOMEW FAIR
A COMEDY
Acted in the Year, 1614
By the Lady Elizabeth's Servants
And then dedicated to King James,
of most Blessed Memorie
BY
BEN JONSON
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
JOHN LITTLEWIT, _a Proctor._
ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND BUSY, _Suitor to DAME PURECRAFT, a Banbury Man._
WINWIFE, _his rival, a Gentleman._
TOM QUARLOUS, _companion to WINWIFE, a Gamester._
BARTHOLOMEW COKES, _an Esquire of Harrow._
HUMPHREY WASPE, _his Man._
ADAM OVERDO, _a Justice of Peace._
LANTHORN LEATHERHEAD, _a Hobby-Horse Seller_ (_Toyman_).
EZECHIEL EDGWORTH, _a Cutpurse._
NIGHTINGALE, _a Ballad-Singer._
MOONCALF, _Tapster to URSULA._
DAN. JORDAN KNOCKEM, _a Horse-Courser, and a Ranger of Turnbull._
VAL. CUTTING, _a Roarer, or Bully._
CAPTAIN WHIT, _a Bawd._
TROUBLE-ALL, _a Madman._
BRISTLE, }
} _Watchmen._
HAGGISE, }
POCHER, _a Beadle._
FILCHER, }
} _Door-keepers to the Puppet-Show._
SHARKWELL, }
SOLOMON, _LITTLEWIT'S Man._
NORTHERN, _a Clothier_ (_a Northern Man_).
PUPPY, _a Wrestler_ (_a Western Man_).
WIN-THE-FIGHT LITTLEWIT.
DAME PURECRAFT, _her Mother, and a Widow._
DAME OVERDO.
GRACE WELLBORN, _Ward to JUSTICE OVERDO._
JOAN TRASH, _a Gingerbread-Woman._
URSULA, _a Pig-Woman._
ALICE, _Mistress o' the game._
Costard-Monger, Mousetrap-Man, Corn-Cutter, Watch, Porters,
Puppets, Passengers, Mob, Boys, _etc._
PROLOGUE.
TO THE KING'S MAJESTY.
Your Majesty is welcome to a Fair;
Such place, such men, such language, and such ware
You must expect: with these, the zealous noise
Of your land's faction, scandalised at toys,
As babies, hobby-horses, puppet-plays,
And such-like rage, whereof the petulant ways
Yourself have known, and have been vext with long.
These for your sport, without particular wrong,
Or just complaint of any private man,
Who of himself, or shall think well, or can,
The maker doth present: and hopes, to-night
To give you for a fairing, true delight.
THE INDUCTION.
THE STAGE.
_Enter the Stage-keeper._
STAGE. Gentlemen, have a little patience, they are e'en upon coming,
instantly. He that should begin the play, master Littlewit, the
proctor, has a stitch new fallen in his black silk stocking; 'twill be
drawn up ere you can tell twenty: he plays one o' the Arches that
dwells about the hospital, and he has a very pretty part. But for the
whole play, will you have the truth on't?--I am looking, lest the poet
hear me, or his man, master Brome, behind the arras--it is like to be
a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English. When't comes to the
Fair once, you were e'en as good go to Virginia, for any thing there
is of Smithfield. He has not hit the humours, he does not know them;
he has not conversed with the Bartholomew birds, as they say; he has
ne'er a sword and buckler-man in his Fair; nor a little Davy, to take
toll o' the bawds there, as in my time; nor a Kindheart, if any body's
teeth should chance to ache in his play; nor a juggler with a
well-educated ape, to come over the chain for a king of England, and
back again for the prince, and sit still on his arse for the pope and
the king of Spain. None of these fine sights! Nor has he the
canvas-cut in the night, for a hobby-horse man to creep into his
she-neighbour, and take his leap there. Nothing! No: an some writer
that I know had had but the penning o' this matter, he would have made
you such a jig-a-jog in the booths, you should have thought an
earthquake had been in the Fair! But these master poets, they will
have their own absurd courses; they will be informed of nothing. He
has (sir reverence) kick'd me three or four times about the
tiring-house, I thank him, for but offering to put in with my
experience. I'll be judged by you, gentlemen, now, but for one conceit
of mine: would not a fine pomp upon the stage have done well, for a
property now? and a punk set under upon her head, with her stern
upward, and have been soused by my witty young masters o' the Inns of
Court? What think you of this for a show, now? he will not hear o'
this! I am an ass! I! and yet I kept the stage in master Tarleton's
time, I thank my stars. Ho! an that man had lived to have played in
Bartholomew Fair, you should have seen him have come in, and have been
cozen'd in the cloth-quarter, so finely! and Adams, the rogue, have
leaped and capered upon him, and have dealt his vermin about, as
though they had cost him nothing! and then a substantial watch to have
stolen in upon them, and taken them away, with mistaking words, as the
fashion is in the stage-practice.
_Enter the Bookholder with a Scrivener._
BOOK. How now! what rare discourse are you fallen upon, ha? have you
found any familiars here, that you are so free! what's the business?
STAGE. Nothing, but the understanding gentlemen o' the ground here
ask'd my judgment.
BOOK. Your judgment, rascal! for what? sweeping the stage, or
gathering up the broken apples for the bears within? Away, rogue, it's
come to a fine degree in these spectacles, when such a youth as you
pretend to a judgment. [_Exit Stage-keeper._]--And yet he may, in the
most of this matter, i'faith: for the author has writ it just to his
meridian, and the scale of the grounded judgments here, his
play-fellows in wit.--Gentlemen, [_comes forward_] not for want of a
prologue, but by way of a new one, I am sent out to you here, with a
scrivener, and certain articles drawn out in haste between our author
and you; which if you please to hear, and as they appear reasonable,
to approve of; the play will follow presently.--Read, scribe; give me
the counterpane.
SCRIV. _Articles of agreement, indented, between the spectators or
hearers, at the Hope on the Bankside in the county of Surry, on the
one party; and the author of _Bartholomew Fair,_ in the said place and
county, on the other party: the one and thirtieth day of _October,
1614,_ and in the twelfth year of the reign of our sovereign lord
_JAMES,_ by the grace of God, king of England, France, and Ireland,
defender of the faith; and of Scotland the seven and fortieth._
Imprimis. _It is covenanted and agreed, by and between the parties
aforesaid, and the said spectators and hearers, as well the curious
and envious, as the favouring and judicious, as also the grounded
judgments and understandings, do for themselves severally covenant and
agree to remain in the places their money or friends have put them in,
with patience, for the space of two hours and an half, and somewhat
more. In which time the author promiseth to present them by us, with a
new sufficient play, called _Bartholomew Fair,_ merry, and as full of
noise, as sport: made to delight all, and to offend none; provided
they have either the wit or the honesty to think well of themselves._
_It is further agreed, that every person here have his or their
free-will of censure, to like or dislike at their own charge, the
author having now departed with his right: it shall be lawful for any
man to judge his sixpen'worth, his twelvepen'worth, so to his
eighteen-pence, two shillings, half a crown, to the value of his
place; provided always his place get not above his wit. And if he pay
for half a dozen, he may censure for all them too, so that he will
undertake that they shall be silent. He shall put in for censures
here, as they do for lots at the lottery: marry, if he drop but
six-pence at the door, and will censure a crown's-worth, it is thought
there is no conscience or justice in that._
_It is also agreed, that every man here exercise his own judgment,
and not censure by contagion, or upon trust, from another's voice or
face, that site by him, be he never so first in the commission of wit;
as also that he be fixed and settled in his censure that what he
approves or not approves to-day, he will do the same to-morrow; and if
to-morrow, the next day, and so the next week, if need be: and not to
be brought about by any that sits on the bench with him, though they
indite and arraign plays daily. He that will swear, _Jeronimo_ or
_Andronicus,_ are the best plays yet, shall, pass unexcepted at here,
as a man whose judgment shews it is constant, and hath stood still
these five and twenty or thirty years. Though it be an ignorance it is
a virtuous and staid ignorance; and next to truth, a confirmed error
does well; such a one the author knows where to find him._
_It is further covenanted, concluded, and agreed, That how great
soever the expectation be, no person here is to expect more than he
knows, or better ware than a fair will afford: neither to look back to
the sword and buckler age of Smithfield, but content himself with the
present. Instead of a little Davy to take toll o' the bawds, the
author doth promise a strutting horse-courser, with a leer drunkard,
two or three to attend him, in as good equipage as you would wish. And
then for Kindheart the tooth-drawer, a fine oily pig-woman with her
tapster, to bid you welcome, and a consort of roarers for musick. A
wise justice of peace meditant, instead of a juggler with an ape. A
civil cutpurse searchant. A sweet singer of new ballads allurant: and
as fresh an hypocrite, as ever was broached, rampant. If there be
never a servant-monster in the fair, who can help it, he says, nor a
nest of antiques? he is loth to make nature afraid in his plays, like
those that beget tales, tempests, and such-like drolleries, to mix his
head with other men's heels; let the concupiscence of jigs and dances
reign as strong as it will amongst you: yet if the puppets will please
any body, they shall be intreated to come in._
_In consideration of which, it is finally agreed, by the aforesaid
hearers and spectators, That they neither in themselves conceal, nor
suffer by them to be concealed, any state-decypherer, or politic
pick-lock of the scene so solemnly ridiculous, as to search out, who
was meant by the gingerbread-woman, who by the hobby-horse man, who by
the costard-monger, nay, who by their wares. Or that will pretend to
affirm on his own inspired ignorance, what Mirror of Magistrates is
meant by the justice, what great lady by the pig-woman, what concealed
statesman by the seller of mouse-traps, and so of the rest. But that
such person, or persons, so found, be left discovered to the mercy of
the author, as a forfeiture to the stage, and your laughter aforesaid.
As also such as shall so desperately, or ambitiously play the fool by
his place aforesaid, to challenge the author of scurrility, because
the language somewhere savours of Smithfield, the booth, and the
pigbroth, or of profaneness, because a madman cries, _God quit you,_
or _bless you!_ In witness whereof, as you have preposterously put to
your seals already, which is your money, you will now add the other
part of suffrage, your hands. The play shall presently begin. And
though the Fair be not kept in the same region that some here,
perhaps, would have it; yet think, that therein the author hath
observed a special decorum, the place being as dirty as Smithfield,
and as stinking every whit._
_Howsoever, he prays you to believe, his ware is still the same,
else you will make him justly suspect that he that is so loth to look
on a baby or an hobby-horse here, would be glad to take up a commodity
of them, at any laughter or loss in another place._
[Exeunt.
ACT I
SCENE I.--_A Room in LITTLEWIT'S House._
_Enter LITTLEWIT with a license in his hand._
LIT. A pretty conceit, and worth the finding! I have such luck to spin
out these fine things still, and, like a silk-worm, out of my self.
Here's master Bartholomew Cokes, of Harrow o' the Hill, in the county
of Middlesex, esquire, takes forth his license to marry mistress Grace
Wellborn, of the said place and county: and when does he take it
forth? to-day! the four and twentieth of August! Bartholomew-day!
Bartholomew upon Bartholomew! there's the device! who would have
marked such a leap-frog chance now! A very . . . less than ames-ace,
on two dice! Well, go thy ways, John Littlewit, proctor John
Littlewit: one of the pretty wits of Paul's, the Littlewit of London,
so thou art called, and something beside. When a quirk or a quiblin
does 'scape thee, and thou dost not watch and apprehend it, and bring
it afore the constable of conceit, (there now, I speak quib too,) let
them carry thee out o' the archdeacon's court into his kitchen, and
make a Jack of thee, instead of a John. There I am again la!--
_Enter MRS. LITTLEWIT._
Win, good-morrow, Win; ay, marry, Win, now you look finely indeed,
Win! this cap does convince! You'd not have worn it, Win, nor have had
it velvet, but a rough country beaver, with a copper band, like the
coney-skin woman of Budge-row; sweet Win, let me kiss it! And her fine
high shoes, like the Spanish lady! Good Win, go a little, I would fain
see thee pace, pretty Win; by this fine cap, I could never leave
kissing on't.
MRS. LIT. Come indeed la, you are such a fool still!
LIT. No, but half a one, Win, you are the t'other half: man and wife
make one fool, Win. Good! Is there the proctor, or doctor indeed, in
the diocese, that ever had the fortune to win him such a Win! There I
am again! I do feel conceits coming upon me, more than I am able to
turn tongue to. A pox o' these pretenders to wit! your Three Cranes,
Mitre and Mermaid men! not a corn of true salt, not a grain of right
mustard amongst them all. They may stand for places, or so, again the
next wit-fall, and pay two-pence in a quart more for their canary than
other men. But give me the man can start up a justice of wit out of
six shillings beer, and give the law to all the poets and poet-suckers
in town:--because they are the player's gossips! 'Slid! other men have
wives as fine as the players, and as well drest. Come hither, Win!
[_Kisses her._
_Enter WINWIFE._
WINW. Why, how now, master Littlewit! measuring of lips, or moulding
of kisses? which is it?
LIT. Troth, I am a little taken with my Win's dressing here: does it
not fine, master Winwife? How do you apprehend, sir? she would not
have worn this habit. I challenge all Cheapside to shew such another:
Moorfields, Pimlico-path, or the Exchange, in a summer evening, with a
lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let master Winwife kiss you. He
comes a wooing to our mother, Win, and may be our father perhaps, Win.
There's no harm in him, Win.
WINW. None in the earth, master Littlewit.
[_Kisses her._
LIT. I envy no man my delicates, sir.
WINW. Alas, you have the garden where they grow still! A wife here
with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft
velvet head, like a melicotton.
LIT. Good, i'faith! now dulness upon me, that I had not that before
him, that I should not light on't as well as he! velvet head!
WINW. But my taste, master Littlewit, tends to fruit of a later kind;
the sober matron, your wife's mother.
LIT. Ay, we know you are a suitor, sir; Win and I both wish you well:
By this license here, would you had her, that your two names were as
fast in it as here are a couple! Win would fain have a fine young
father-i'-law, with a feather; that her mother might hood it and chain
it with mistress Overdo. But you do not take the right course, master
Winwife.
WINW. No, master Littlewit, why?
LIT. You are not mad enough.
WINW. How! is madness a right course?
LIT. I say nothing, but I wink upon Win. You have a friend, one master
Quarlous, comes here sometimes.
WINW. Why, he makes no love to her, does he?
LIT. Not a tokenworth that ever I saw, I assure you: but--
WINW. What?
LIT. He is the more mad-cap of the two. You do not apprehend me.
MRS. LIT. You have a hot coal in your mouth, now, you cannot hold.
LIT. Let me out with it, dear Win.
MRS. LIT. I'll tell him myself.
LIT. Do, and take all the thanks, and much good do thy pretty heart,
Win.
MRS. LIT. Sir, my mother has had her nativity-water cast lately by the
cunning-men in Cow-lane, and they have told her her fortune, and do
ensure her, she shall never have happy hour, unless she marry within
this sen'night; and when it is, it must be a madman, they say.
LIT. Ay, but it must be a gentleman madman.
MRS. LIT. Yes, so the t'other man of Moorfields says.
WINW. But does she believe them?
LIT. Yes, and has been at Bedlam twice since every day, to inquire if
any gentleman be there, or to come there mad.
WINW. Why, this is a confederacy, a mere piece of practice upon her by
these impostors.
LIT. I tell her so; or else, say I, that they mean some young madcap
gentleman; for the devil can equivocate as well as a shop keeper: and
therefore would I advise you to be a little madder than master
Quarlous hereafter.
WINW. Where is she, stirring yet?
LIT. Stirring! yes, and studying an old elder come from Banbury, a
suitor that puts in here at meal tide, to praise the painful brethren,
or pray that the sweet singers may be restored; says a grace as long
as his breath lasts him! Some time the spirit is so strong with him,
it gets quite out of him, and then my mother, or Win, are fain to
fetch it again with malmsey or aqua coelestis.
MRS. LIT. Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious life with him for his
diet, and his clothes too! he breaks his buttons, and cracks seams at
every saying he sobs out.
LIT. He cannot abide my vocation, he says.
MRS. LIT. No; he told my mother, a proctor was a claw of the beast,
and that she had little less than committed abomination in marrying me
so as she has done.
LIT. Every line, he says, that a proctor writes, when it comes to be
read in the bishop's court, is a long black hair, kemb'd out of the
tail of Antichrist.
WINW. When came this proselyte?
LIT. Some three days since.
_Enter QUARLOUS._
QUAR. O sir, have you ta'en soil here? It's well a man may reach you
after three hours' running yet! What an unmerciful companion art thou,
to quit thy lodging at such ungentlemanly hours! none but a scattered
covey of fidlers, or one of these rag-rakers in dunghills, or some
marrow-bone man at most, would have been up when thou wert gone
abroad, by all description. I pray thee what ailest thou, thou canst
not sleep? hast thou thorns in thy eye-lids, or thistles in thy bed?
WINW. I cannot tell: it seems you had neither in your feet, that took
this pain to find me.
QUAR. No, an I had, all the lime hounds o' the city should have drawn
after you by the scent rather. Master John Littlewit! God save you,
sir. 'Twas a hot night with some of us, last night, John: shall we
pluck a hair of the same wolf to-day, proctor John?
LIT. Do you remember, master Quarlous, what we discoursed on last
night?
QUAR. Not I, John, nothing that I either discourse or do; at those
times I forfeit all to forgetfulness.
LIT. No! not concerning Win? look you, there she is, and drest, as I
told you she should be: hark you, sir, [_whispers him._] had you
forgot?
QUAR. By this head I'll beware how I keep you company, John, when I
[am] drunk, an you have this dangerous memory: that's certain.
LIT. Why, sir?
QUAR. Why! we were all a little stained last night, sprinkled with a
cup or two, and I agreed with proctor John here, to come and do
somewhat with Win (I know not what 'twas) to-day; and he puts me in
mind on't now; he says he was coming to fetch me. Before truth, if you
have that fearful quality, John, to remember when you are sober, John,
what you promise drunk, John; I shall take heed of you, John. For this
once I am content to wink at you. Where's your wife? come hither, Win.
[_Kisses her._
MRS. LIT. Why, John! do you see this, John? look you! help me, John.
LIT. O Win, fie, what do you mean, Win? be womanly, Win; make an
outcry to your mother, Win! master Quarlous is an honest gentleman,
and our worshipful good friend, Win; and he is master Winwife's friend
too: and master Winwife comes a suitor to your mother, Win; as I told
you before, Win, and may perhaps be our father, Win: they'll do you no
harm, Win; they are both our worshipful good friends. Master Quarlous!
you must know master Quarlous, Win; you must not quarrel with master
Quarlous, Win.
QUAR. No, we'll kiss again, and fall in.
[_Kisses her again._
LIT. Yes, do, good Win.
MRS. LIT. In faith you are a fool, John.
LIT. A fool-John, she calls me; do you mark that, gentlemen? pretty
Littlewit of velvet? a fool-John.
QUAR. She may call you an apple-John, if you use this. [_Aside._
[_Kisses her again._
WINW. Pray thee forbear, for my respect, somewhat.
QUAR. Hoy-day! how respective you are become o' the sudden? I fear
this family will turn you reformed too; pray you come about again.
Because she is in possibility to be your daughter-in-law, and may ask
you blessing hereafter, when she courts it to Totenham to eat cream!
Well, I will forbear, sir; but i'faith, would thou wouldst leave thy
exercise of widow-hunting once; this drawing after an old reverend
smock by the splay-foot! There cannot be an ancient tripe or trillibub
in the town, but thou art straight nosing it, and 'tis a fine
occupation thou'lt confine thyself to, when thou hast got one;
scrubbing a piece of buff, as if thou hadst the perpetuity of
Pannier-ally to stink in; or perhaps worse, currying a carcass that
thou hast bound thyself to alive. I'll be sworn, some of them that
thou art, or hast been suitor to, are so old, as no chaste or married
pleasure can ever become them; the honest instrument of procreation
has forty years since left to belong to them; thou must visit them as
thou wouldst do a tomb, with a torch or three handfuls of link,
flaming hot, and so thou may'st hap to make them feel thee and after
come to inherit according to thy inches. A sweet course for a man to
waste the brand of life for, to be still raking himself a fortune in
an old woman's embers! We shall have thee, after thou hast been but a
month married to one of them, look like the quartan ague and the black
jaundice met in a face, and walk as if thou hadst borrow'd legs of a
spinner, and voice of a cricket. I would endure to hear fifteen
sermons a week for her, and such coarse and loud ones, as some of them
must be! I would e'en desire of fate, I might dwell in a drum, and
take in my sustenance with an old broken tobacco-pipe and a straw.
Dost thou ever think to bring thine ears or stomach to the patience of
a dry grace as long as thy table-cloth; and droned out by thy son here
(that might be thy father) till all the meat on thy board has forgot
it was that day in the kitchen? or to brook the noise made in a
question of predestination, by the good labourers and painful eaters
assembled together, put to them by the matron your spouse; who
moderates with a cup of wine, ever and anon, and a sentence out of
Knox between? Or the perpetual spitting before and after a sober-drawn
exhortation of six hours, whose better part was the hum-ha-hum? or to
hear prayers, groaned out over thy iron chests, as if they were charms
to break them? And all this for the hope of two apostle-spoons, to
suffer! and a cup to eat a caudle in! for that will be thy legacy.
She'll have convey'd her state safe enough from thee, an she be a
right widow.
WINW. Alas, I am quite off that scent now.
QUAR. How so?
WINW. Put off by a brother of Banbury, one that, they say, is come
here, and governs all already.
QUAR. What do you call him? I knew divers of those Banburians when I
was in Oxford.
WINW. Master Littlewit can tell us.
LIT. Sir!--Good Win go in, and if master Bartholomew Cokes, his man,
come for the license, (the little old fellow,) let him speak with me.
[_Exit Mrs. Littlewit._]--What say you, gentlemen?
WINW. What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury
man?
LIT. Rabbi Busy, sir; he is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir.
QUAR. O, I know him! a baker, is he not?
LIT. He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see visions; he
has given over his trade.
QUAR. I remember that too; out of a scruple he took, that, in spiced
conscience, those cakes he made, were served to bridals, may-poles,
morrices, and such profane feasts and meetings. His christian-name is
Zeal-of-the-land.
LIT. Yes, sir; Zeal-of-the-land Busy.
WINW. How! what a name's there!
LIT. O they have all such names, sir; he was witness for Win
here,--they will not be call'd godfathers--and named her
Win-the-fight: you thought her name had been Winnifred, did you not?
WINW. I did indeed.
LIT. He would have thought himself a stark reprobate, if it had.
QUAR. Ay, for there was a blue-starch woman of the name at the same
time. A notable hypocritical vermin it is; I know him. One that stands
upon his face, more than his faith, at all times: ever in seditious
motion, and reproving for vainglory; of a most lunatic conscience and
spleen, and affects the violence of singularity in all he does: he has
undone a grocer here, in Newgate-market, that broke with him, trusted
him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he, that's by the way:--By his
profession he will ever be in the state of innocence though, and
childhood; derides all antiquity, defies any other learning than
inspiration; and what discretion soever years should afford him, it is
all prevented in his original ignorance: have not to do with him, for
he is a fellow of a most arrogant and invincible dulness, I assure
you.--Who is this?
_Re-enter MRS. LITTLEWIT with WASPE._
WASPE. By your leave, gentlemen, with all my heart to you; and God
give you good morrow!--master Littlewit, my business is to you: is
this license ready?
LIT. Here I have it for you in my hand, master Humphrey.
WASPE. That's well: nay, never open or read it to me, it's labour in
vain, you know. I am no clerk, I scorn to be saved by my book,
i'faith, I'll hang first; fold it up on your word, and give it me.
What must you have for it?
LIT. We'll talk of that anon, master Humphrey.
WASPE. Now, or not at all, good master Proctor; I am for no anons, I
assure you.
LIT. Sweet Win, bid Solomon send me the little black-box within in my
study.
WASPE. Ay, quickly, good mistress, I pray you; for I have both eggs on
the spit, and iron in the fire. [_Exit Mrs. Littlewit._]--Say what you
must have, good master Littlewit.
LIT. Why, you know the price, master Numps.
WASPE. I know! I know nothing, I: what tell you me of knowing? Now I
am in haste, sir, I do not know, and I will not know, and I scorn to
know, and yet, now I think on't, I will, and do know as well as
another; you must have a mark for your thing here, and eight-pence for
the box; I could have saved two-pence in that, an I had brought it
myself; but here's fourteen shillings for you. Good Lord, how long
your little wife stays! pray God, Solomon, your clerk, be not looking
in the wrong box, master proctor.
LIT. Good i'faith! no, I warrant you Solomon is wiser than so, sir.
WASPE. Fie, fie, fie, by your leave, master Littlewit, this is scurvy,
idle, foolish, and abominable, with all my heart; I do not like it.
[_Walks aside._
WINW. Do you hear! Jack Littlewit, what business does thy pretty head
think this fellow may have, that he keeps such a coil with?
QUAR. More than buying of gingerbread in the cloister here, for that
we allow him, or a gilt pouch in the fair?
LIT. Master Quarlous, do not mistake him; he is his master's
both-hands, I assure you.
QUAR. What! to pull on his boots a mornings, or his stockings, does
he?
LIT. Sir, if you have a mind to mock him, mock him softly, and look
t'other way: for if he apprehend you flout him once, he will fly at
you presently. A terrible testy old fellow, and his name is Waspe too.
QUAR. Pretty insect! make much on him.
WASPE. A plague o' this box, and the pox too, and on him that made it,
and her that went for't, and all that should have sought it, sent it,
or brought it! do you see, sir.
LIT. Nay, good master Waspe.
WASPE. Good master Hornet, turd in your teeth, hold you your tongue:
do not I know you? your father was a 'pothecary, and sold clysters,
more than he gave, I wusse: and turd in your little wife's teeth
too--here she comes--
_Re-enter MRS. LITTLEWIT, with the box._
'twill make her spit, as fine as she is, for all her velvet custard on
her head, sir.
LIT. O, be civil, master Numps.
WASPE. Why, say I have a humour not to be civil; how then? who shall
compel me, you?
LIT. Here is the box now.
WASPE. Why, a pox o' your box, once again! let your little wife stale
in it, an she will. Sir, I would have you to understand, and these
gentlemen too, if they please--
WINW. With all our hearts, sir.
WASPE. That I have a charge, gentlemen.
LIT. They do apprehend, sir.
WASPE. Pardon me, sir, neither they nor you can apprehend me yet. You
are an ass.--I have a young master, he is now upon his making and
marring; the whole care of his well-doing is now mine. His foolish
schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and down the county with
him to beg puddings and cake-bread of his tenants, and almost spoil'd
him; he has learn'd nothing but to sing catches, and repeat _Rattle
bladder, rattle!_ and _O Madge!_ I dare not let him walk alone, for
fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing at supper, and in
the sermon-times! If he meet but a carman in the street, and I find
him not talk to keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his
tunes over at night in his sleep! He has a head full of bees! I am
fain now, for this little time I am absent, to leave him in charge
with a gentlewoman: 'tis true she is a justice of peace his wife, and
a gentlewoman of the hood, and his natural sister; but what may happen
under a woman's government, there's the doubt. Gentlemen, you do not
know him; he is another manner of piece than you think for: but
nineteen years old, and yet he is taller than either of you by the
head, God bless him!
QUAR. Well, methinks this is a fine fellow.
WINW. He has made his master a finer by this description, I should
think.
QUAR. 'Faith, much about one, it is cross and pile, whether for a new
farthing.
WASPE. I'll tell you, gentlemen--
LIT. Will't please you drink, master Waspe?
WASPE. Why, I have not talk'd so long to be dry, sir. You see no dust
or cobwebs come out o' my mouth, do you? you'd have me gone, would
you?
LIT. No, but you were in haste e'en now, master Numps.
WASPE. What an I were! so I am still, and yet I will stay too; meddle
you with your match, your Win there, she has as little wit as her
husband, it seems: I have others to talk to.
LIT. She's my match indeed, and as _little wit_ as I, good!
WASPE. We have been but a day and a half in town, gentlemen, 'tis
true; and yesterday in the afternoon we walked London to shew the city
to the gentlewoman he shall marry, mistress Grace; but afore I will
endure such another half day with him, I'll be drawn with a good
gib-cat, through the great pond at home, as his uncle Hodge was. Why,
we could not meet that heathen thing all the day, but staid him; he
would name you all the signs over, as he went, aloud: and where he
spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched, with all the little
long coats about him, male and female; no getting him away! I thought
he would have run mad o' the black boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the
scurvy, roguy tobacco there.
LIT. You say true, master Numps; there's such a one indeed.
WASPE. It's no matter whether there be or no, what's that to you?
QUAR. He will not allow of John's reading at any hand.
_Enter COKES, MISTRESS OVERDO, and GRACE._
COKES. O Numps! are you here, Numps? look where I am, Numps, and
mistress Grace too! Nay, do not look angerly, Numps: my sister is here
and all, I do not come without her.
WASPE. What the mischief do you come with her; or she with you?
COKES. We came all to seek you, Numps.
WASPE. To seek me! why, did you all think I was lost, or run away with
your fourteen shillings' worth of small ware here? or that I had
changed it in the fair for hobby-horses? S'precious--to seek me!
MRS. OVER. Nay, good master Numps, do you shew discretion, though he
be exorbitant, as master Overdo says, and it be but for conservation
of the peace.
WASPE. Marry gip, goody She-justice, mistress Frenchhood! turd in your
teeth, and turd in your Frenchhood's teeth too, to do you service, do
you see! Must you quote your Adam to me! you think you are madam
Regent still, mistress Overdo, when I am in place; no such matter. I
assure you, your reign is out, when I am in, dame.
MRS. OVER. I am content to be in abeyance, sir, and be governed by
you; so should he too, if he did well; but 'twill be expected you
should also govern your passions.
WASPE. Will it so, forsooth! good Lord, how sharp you are, with being
at Bedlam yesterday! Whetstone has set an edge upon you, has he?
MRS. OVER. Nay, if you know not what belongs to your dignity, I do yet
to mine.
WASPE. Very well then.
COKES. Is this the license, Numps? for love's sake let me see't; I
never saw a license.
WASPE. Did you not so? why, you shall not see't then.
COKES. An you love me, good Numps.
WASPE. Sir, I love you, and yet I do not love you in these fooleries:
set your heart at rest, there's nothing in it but hard words;--and
what would you see it for?
COKES. I would see the length and the breadth on't, that's all; and I
will see it now, so I will.
WASPE. You shall not see it here.
COKES. Then I'll see it at home, and I'll look upon the case here.
WASPE. Why, do so; a man must give way to him a little in trifles,
gentlemen. These are errors, diseases of youth; which he will mend
when he comes to judgment and knowledge of matters. I pray you
conceive so, and I thank you: and I pray you pardon him, and I thank
you again.
QUAR. Well, this dry nurse, I say still, is a delicate man.
WINW. And I am, for the cosset his charge: did you ever see a fellow's
face more accuse him for an ass?
QUAR. Accuse him! it confesses him one without accusing. What pity
'tis yonder wench should marry such a Cokes!
WINW. 'Tis true.
QUAR. She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.
WINW. Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon
all his behaviour and speeches!
COKES. Well, Numps, I am now for another piece of business more, the
Fair, Numps, and then--
WASPE. Bless me! deliver me! help, hold me! the Fair!
COKES. Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am
resolute Bartholomew in this; I'll make no suit on't to you; 'twas all
the end of my journey indeed, to shew mistress Grace my Fair. I call
it my Fair, because of Bartholomew: you know my name is Bartholomew,
and Bartholomew Fair.
LIT. That was mine afore, gentlemen; this morning. I had that,
i'faith, upon his license, believe me, there he comes after me.
QUAR. Come, John, this ambitious wit of yours, I am afraid, will do
you no good in the end.
LIT. No! why, sir?
QUAR. You grow so insolent with it, and over-doing, John, that if you
look not to it, and tie it up, it will bring you to some obscure place
in time, and there 'twill leave you.
WINW. Do not trust it too much, John, be more sparing, and use it but
now and then; a wit is a dangerous thing in this age; do not over-buy
it.
LIT. Think you so, gentlemen? I'll take heed on't hereafter.
MRS. LIT. Yes, do, John.
COKES. A pretty little soul, this same mistress Littlewit, would I
might marry her!
GRACE. So would I; or any body else, so I might 'scape you. [_Aside._
COKES. Numps, I will see it, Numps, 'tis decreed: never be melancholy
for the matter.
WASPE. Why, see it, sir, see it, do, see it: who hinders you? why do
you not go see it? 'slid see it.
COKES. The Fair, Numps, the Fair.
WASPE. Would the Fair, and all the drums and rattles in it, were in
your belly for me! they are already in your brain. He that had the
means to travel your head now, should meet finer sights than any are
in the Fair, and make a finer voyage on't; to see it all hung with
cockle shells, pebbles, fine wheat straws, and here and there a
chicken's feather, and a cobweb.
QUAR. Good faith, he looks, methinks, an you mark him, like one that
were made to catch flies, with his sir Cranion-legs.
WINW. And his Numps, to flap them away.
WASPE. God be wi' you, sir, there's your bee in a box, and much good
do't you.
[_Gives Cokes the box._
COKES. Why, your friend, and Bartholomew; an you be so contumacious.
QUAR. What mean you, Numps?
[_Takes Waspe aside as he is going out._
WASPE. I'll not be guilty, I, gentlemen.
MRS. OVER. You will not let him go, brother, and lose him?
COKES. Who can hold that will away? I had rather lose him than the
Fair, I wusse.
WASPE. You do not know the inconvenience, gentlemen, you persuade to,
nor what trouble I have with him in these humours. If he go to the
Fair, he will buy of every thing to a baby there; and household stuff
for that too. If a leg or an arm on him did not grow on, he would lose
it in the press. Pray heaven I bring him off with one stone! And then
he is such a ravener after fruit!--you will not believe what a coil I
had t'other day to compound a business between a Cather'nepear woman,
and him, about snatching: 'tis intolerable, gentlemen.
WINW. O, but you must not leave him now to these hazards, Numps.
WASPE. Nay, he knows too well I will not leave him, and that makes him
presume: Well, sir, will you go now? if you have such an itch in your
feet, to foot it to the Fair, why do you stop, am I [o'] your
tarriers? go, will you go, sir? why do you not go?
COKES. O Numps, have I brought you about? come, mistress Grace, and
sister, I am resolute Bat, i'faith, still.
GRACE. Truly, I have no such fancy to the Fair, nor ambition to see
it: there's none goes thither of any quality or fashion.
COKES. O Lord, sir! you shall pardon me, mistress Grace, we are enow
of ourselves to make it a fashion; and for qualities, let Numps alone,
he'll find qualities.
QUAR. What a rogue in apprehension is this, to understand her language
no better!
WINW. Ay, and offer to marry her! Well, I will leave the chase of my
widow for to-day, and directly to the Fair. These flies cannot, this
hot season, but engender us excellent creeping sport.
QUAR. A man that has but a spoonful of brain would think
so.--Farewell, John.
[_Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife._
LIT. Win, you see 'tis in fashion to go to the Fair, Win; we must to
the Fair too, you and I, Win. I have an affair in the Fair, Win, a
puppet-play of mine own making, say nothing, that I writ for the
motion-man, which you must see, Win.
MRS. LIT. I would I might, John; but my mother will never consent to
such a profane motion, she will call it.
LIT. Tut, we'll have a device, a dainty one: Now, Wit, help at a
pinch, good Wit, come, come, good Wit, an it be thy will! I have it,
Win, I have it i'faith, and 'tis a fine one. Win, long to eat of a
pig, sweet Win, in the Fair, do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not
at Pye-corner. Your mother will do any thing, Win, to satisfy your
longing, you know; pray thee long presently; and be sick o' the
sudden, good Win. I'll go in and tell her; cut thy lace in the mean
time, and play the hypocrite, sweet Win.
MRS. LIT. No, I'll not make me unready for it: I can be hypocrite
enough, though I were never so strait-laced.
LIT. You say true, you have been bred in the family, and brought up
to't. Our mother is a most elect hypocrite, and has maintained us all
this seven year with it, like gentlefolks.
MRS. LIT. Ay, let her alone, John, she is not a wise wilful widow for
nothing; nor a sanctified sister for a song. And let me alone too, I
have somewhat of the mother in me, you shall see: fetch her, fetch
her--[_Exit Littlewit._] Ah! ah!
[_Seems to swoon._
_Re-enter LITTLEWIT with DAME PURECRAFT._
PURE. Now, the blaze of the beauteous discipline, fright away this
evil from our house! how now, Win-the-fight, child! how do you? sweet
child, speak to me.
MRS. LIT. Yes, forsooth.
PURE. Look up, sweet Win-the-fight, and suffer not the enemy to enter
you at this door, remember that your education has been with the
purest: What polluted one was it, that named first the unclean beast,
pig, to you, child?
MRS. LIT. Uh, uh!
LIT. Not I, on my sincerity, mother! she longed above three hours ere
she would let me know it.--Who was it, Win?
MRS. LIT. A profane black thing with a beard, John.
PURE. O, resist it, Win-the-fight, it is the tempter, the wicked
tempter, you may know it by the fleshly motion of pig; be strong
against it, and its foul temptations, in these assaults, whereby it
broacheth flesh and blood, as it were on the weaker side; and pray
against its carnal provocations; good child, sweet child, pray.
LIT. Good mother, I pray you, that she may eat some pig, and her belly
full too; and do not you cast away your own child, and perhaps one of
mine, with your tale of the tempter. How do you do, Win, are you not
sick?
MRS. LIT. Yes, a great deal, John, uh, uh!
PURE. What shall we do? Call our zealous brother Busy hither, for his
faithful fortification in this charge of the adversary. [_Exit
Littlewit._] Child, my dear child, you shall eat pig; be comforted, my
sweet child.
MRS. LIT. Ay, but in the Fair, mother.
PURE. I mean in the Fair, if it can be any way made or found lawful.--
_Re-enter LITTLEWIT._
Where is our brother Busy? will he not come? Look up, child.
LIT. Presently, mother, as soon as he has cleansed his beard. I found
him fast by the teeth in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a
great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his
right.
PURE. Slander not the brethren, wicked one.
LIT. Here he is now, purified, mother.
_Enter ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND BUSY._
PURE. O brother Busy! your help here, to edify and raise us up in a
scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease
of women, called a longing to eat pig.
LIT. Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig; and in the Fair.
PURE. And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a
widow of the sanctified assembly, or a widow's daughter, may commit
the act without offence to the weaker sisters.
BUSY. Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal
disease, or appetite, incident to women; and as it is carnal and
incident, it is natural, very natural: now pig, it is a meat, and a
meat that is nourishing and may be longed for, and so consequently
eaten; it may be eaten; very exceeding well eaten; but in the Fair,
and as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten; for the very calling it
a Bartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you
make the Fair no better than one of the high-places. This, I take it,
is the state of the question: a high-place.
LIT. Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, master
Busy. I have a conceit left yet.
PURE. Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you
can.
LIT. Yes, sir, and as soon as you can; for it must be, sir: you see
the danger my little wife is in, sir.
PURE. Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her
miscarry, or hazard her firstfruits, if it might be otherwise.
BUSY. Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction,
subject, and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a
foul face; but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shadowed
as it were; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in a booth,
the tents of the wicked: the place is not much, not very much, we may
be religious in the midst of the profane, so it be eaten with a
reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness; not gorged in with
gluttony or greediness, there's the fear: for, should she go there, as
taking pride in the place, or delight in the unclean dressing, to feed
the vanity of the eye, or lust of the palate, it were not well, it
were not fit, it were abominable, and not good.
LIT. Nay, I knew that afore, and told her on't; but courage, Win,
we'll be humble enough, we'll seek out the homeliest booth in the
Fair, that's certain; rather than fail, we'll eat it on the ground.
PURE. Ay, and I'll go with you myself, Win-the-fight, and my brother
Zeal-of-the-land shall go with us too, for our better consolation.
MRS. LIT. Uh, uh!
LIT. Ay, and Solomon too, Win, the more the merrier. Win, we'll leave
Rabbi Busy in a booth. [_Aside to Mrs. Littlewit._]--Solomon! my
cloak.
_Enter SOLOMON with the cloak._
SOL. Here, sir.
BUSY. In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat
exceedingly, and prophesy; there may be a good use made of it too, now
I think on't: by the public eating of swine's flesh, to profess our
hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the brethren stand tax'd. I will
therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly.
LIT. Good, i'faith, I will eat heartily too, because I will be no Jew,
I could never away with that stiff-necked generation: and truly, I
hope my little one will be like me, that cries for pig so in the
mother's belly.
BUSY. Very likely, exceeding likely, very exceeding likely.
[_Exeunt._
ACT II
SCENE I--_The Fair._
A number of Booths, Stalls, etc., set out.
_LANTHORN LEATHERHEAD, JOAN TRASH, and others, sitting by their
wares._
_Enter JUSTICE OVERDO, at a distance, in disguise._
OVER. Well, in justice name, and the king's, and for the commonwealth!
defy all the world, Adam Overdo, for a disguise, and all story; for
thou hast fitted thyself, I swear. Fain would I meet the Linceus now,
that eagle's eye, that piercing Epidaurian serpent (as my Quintus
Horace calls him) that could discover a justice of peace (and lately
of the Quorum) under this covering. They may have seen many a fool in
the habit of a justice; but never till now, a justice in the habit of
a fool. Thus must we do though, that wake for the public good; and
thus hath the wise magistrate done in all ages. There is a doing of
right out of wrong, if the way be found. Never shall I enough commend
a worthy worshipful man, sometime a capital member of this city, for
his high wisdom in this point, who would take you now the habit of a
porter, now of a carman, now of the dog-killer, in this month of
August; and in the winter, of a seller of tinder-boxes. And what would
he do in all these shapes? marry, go you into every alehouse, and down
into every cellar; measure the length of puddings; take the gage of
black pots and cans, ay, and custards, with a stick; and their
circumference with a thread; weigh the loaves of bread on his middle
finger; then would he send for them home; give the puddings to the
poor, the bread to the hungry, the custards to his children; break the
pots, and burn the cans himself: he would not trust his corrupt
officers, he would do it himself. Would all men in authority would
follow this worthy precedent! for alas, as we are public persons, what
do we know? nay, what can we know? we hear with other men's ears, we
see with other men's eyes. A foolish constable or a sleepy watchman,
is all our information; he slanders a gentleman by the virtue of his
place, as he calls it, and we, by the vice of ours, must believe him.
As, a while agone, they made me, yea me, to mistake an honest zealous
pursuivant for a seminary; and a proper young bachelor of musick, for
a bawd. This we are subject to that live in high place; all our
intelligence is idle, and most of our intelligencers knaves; and, by
your leave, ourselves thought little better, if not arrant fools, for
believing them. I, Adam Overdo, am resolved therefore to spare
spy-money hereafter, and make mine own discoveries. Many are the
yearly enormities of this Fair, in whose courts of Pie-poudres I have
had the honour, during the three days, sometimes to sit as judge. But
this is the special day for detection of those foresaid enormities.
Here is my black book for the purpose; this the cloud that hides me;
under this covert I shall see and not be seen. On, Junius Brutus. And
as I began, so I'll end; in justice name, and the king's, and for the
commonwealth!
[_Advances to the booths, and stands aside._
LEATH. The Fair's pestilence dead methinks; people come not abroad
to-day, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, sister Trash, lady of the
basket? sit farther with your gingerbread progeny there, and hinder
not the prospect of my shop, or I'll have it proclaimed in the Fair,
what stuff they are made on.
TRASH. Why, what stuff are they made on, brother Leatherhead? nothing
but what's wholesome, I assure you.
LEATH. Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and dead honey,
you know.
OVER. Ay! have I met with enormity so soon? [_Aside._
LEATH. I shall mar your market, old Joan.
TRASH. Mar my market, thou too-proud pedlar! do thy worst, I defy
thee, I, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I pay for my ground, as well
as thou dost: an thou wrong'st me, for all thou art parcel-poet, and
an inginer, I'll find a friend shall right me, and make a ballad of
thee, and thy cattle all over. Are you puft up with the pride of your
wares? your arsedine?
LEATH. Go to, old Joan, I'll talk with you anon; and take you down
too, afore justice Overdo: he is the man must charm you, I'll have you
in the Pie-poudres.
TRASH. Charm me! I'll meet thee face to face, afore his worship, when
thou darest: and though I be a little crooked o' my body, I shall be
found as upright in my dealing as any woman in Smithfield, I; charm
me!
OVER. I am glad to hear my name is their terror yet, this is doing of
justice. [_Aside._]
[_A number of people pass over the stage._
LEATH. What do you lack? what is't you buy? what do you lack? rattles,
drums, halberts, horses, babies o' the best, fiddles of the finest?
_Enter COSTARD-MONGER, followed by NIGHTINGALE._
COST. Buy any pears, pears, fine, very fine pears!
TRASH. Buy any gingerbread, gilt gingerbread!
NIGHT. Hey, [_Sings._
_Now the Fair's a filling!
O, for a tune to startle
The birds o' the booths here billing,
Yearly with old saint Bartle!
The drunkards they are wading,
The punks and chapmen trading;_
Buy any ballads, new ballads?
_Enter URSULA, from her Booth._
URS. Fie upon't: who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in
roasting of pigs, that had any cooler vocation? hell's a kind of cold
cellar to't, a very fine vault, o' my conscience!--What, Mooncalf!
MOON. [_within._] Here, mistress.
NIGHT. How now, Ursula? in a heat, in a heat?
URS. My chair, you false faucet you; and my morning's draught,
quickly, a bottle of ale, to quench me, rascal. I am all fire and fat,
Nightingale, I shall e'en melt away to the first woman, a rib again, I
am afraid. I do water the ground in knots, as I go, like a great
garden pot; you may follow me by the SS. I make.
NIGHT. Alas, good Urse! was Zekiel here this morning?
URS. Zekiel? what Zekiel?
NIGHT. Zekiel Edgworth, the civil cutpurse, you know him well enough;
he that talks bawdy to you still: I call him my secretary.
URS. He promised to be here this morning, I remember.
NIGHT. When he comes, bid him stay: I'll be back again presently.
URS. Best take your morning dew in your belly, Nightingale.--
_Enter MOONCALF, with the Chair._
Come, sir, set it here, did not I bid you should get a chair let out
o' the sides for me, that my hips might play? you'll never think of
any thing, till your dame be rump-gall'd; 'tis well, changeling:
because it can take in your grasshopper's thighs, you care for no
more. Now, you look as you had been in the corner of the booth,
fleaing your breech with a candle's end, and set fire o' the Fair.
Fill, Stote, fill.
OVER. This pig-woman do I know, and I will put her in, for my second
enormity; she hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time
these two and twenty years upon record in the Pie-poudres. [_Aside._
URS. Fill again, you unlucky vermin!
MOON. 'Pray you be not angry, mistress, I'll have it widen'd anon.
URS. No, no, I shall e'en dwindle away to't, ere the Fair be done, you
think, now you have heated me: a poor vex'd thing I am, I feel myself
dropping already as fast as I can; two stone o' suet a day is my
proportion. I can but hold life and soul together, with this, (here's
to you, Nightingale,) and a whiff of tobacco at most. Where's my pipe
now? not fill'd! thou arrant incubee.
NIGHT. Nay, Ursula, thou'lt gall between the tongue and the teeth,
with fretting, now.
URS. How can I hope that ever he'll discharge his place of trust,
tapster, a man of reckoning under me, that remembers nothing I say to
him? [_Exit Nightingale._] but look to't, sirrah, you were best.
Three-pence a pipe-full, I will have made, of all my whole half-pound
of tobacco, and a quarter of pound of colt's-foot mixt with it too, to
itch it out. I that have dealt so long in the fire, will not be to
seek in smoke, now. Then six and twenty shillings a barrel I will
advance on my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred on my bottle-ale; I
have told you the ways how to raise it. Froth your cans well in the
filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o' the buttock,
sirrah, then skink out the first glass ever, and drink with all
companies, though you be sure to be drunk; you'll misreckon the
better, and be less ashamed on't. But your true trick, rascal, must
be, to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans, in haste,
before they be half drunk off, and never hear any body call, (if they
should chance to mark you,) till you have brought fresh, and be able
to forswear them. Give me a drink of ale.
OVER. This is the very womb and bed of enormity! gross as herself!
this must all down for enormity, all, every whit on't. [_Aside._
[_Knocking within._
URS. Look who's there, sirrah: five shillings a pig is my price, at
least; if it be a sow pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied
wife, and long for't, sixpence more for that.
OVER. _O tempora! O mores!_ I would not have lost my discovery of this
one grievance, for my place, and worship o' the bench. How is the poor
subject abused here! Well, I will fall in with her, and with her
Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity. [_Comes forward._]--By thy
leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the Fair, oily as the king's
constable's lamp, and shining as his shooing-horn! hath thy ale
virtue, or thy beer strength, that the tongue of man may be tickled,
and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go
search and see.
URS. What new roarer is this?
MOON. O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? 'tis mad Arthur of
Bradley, that makes the orations.--Brave master, old Arthur of
Bradley, how do you? welcome to the Fair! when shall we hear you
again, to handle your matters, with your back against a booth, ha? I
have been one of your little disciples, in my days.
OVER. Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy aunt, here; that I may be
eloquent: but of thy best, lest it be bitter in my mouth, and my words
fall foul on the Fair.
URS. Why dost thou not fetch him drink, and offer him to sit?
MOON. Is it ale or beer, master Arthur?
OVER. Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove
drinketh, and thou drawest on holydays.
URS. Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale: they say, a fool's handsel is
lucky.
OVER. Bring both, child. [_Sits down in the booth._] Ale for Arthur,
and Beer for Bradley. Ale for thine aunt, boy. [_Exit Mooncalf._]--My
disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the
benefit of this, discover enough, and more: and yet get off with the
reputation of what I would be: a certain middling thing, between a
fool and a madman. [_Aside._
_Enter KNOCKEM._
KNOCK. What! my little lean Ursula! my she-bear! art thou alive yet,
with thy litter of pigs to grunt out another Bartholomew Fair? ha!
URS. Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you
groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill--
KNOCK. Of Holbourn, Ursula, meanst thou so? for what, for what, pretty
Urse?
URS. For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out
o' the Fair.
KNOCK. O! good words, good words, Urse.
OVER. Another special enormity. A cut-purse of the sword, the boot,
and the feather! those are his marks. [_Aside._
_Re-enter MOONCALF, with the ale, etc._
URS. You are one of those horse-leaches that gave out I was dead, in
Turnbull-street, of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes?
KNOCK. No, 'twas better meat, Urse: cow's udders, cow's udders!
URS. Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.
KNOCK. What! thou'lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt
thou? or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urse? Come, there's no malice in
these fat folks, I never fear thee, an I can scape thy lean Mooncalf
here. Let's drink it out, good Urse, and no vapours!
[_Exit Ursula._
OVER. Dost thou hear, boy? There's for thy ale, and the remnant for
thee.--Speak in thy faith of a faucet, now; is this goodly person
before us here, this vapours, a knight of the knife?
MOON. What mean you by that, master Arthur?
OVER. I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy, a
cut-purse.
MOON. O Lord, sir! far from it. This is master Daniel Knockem Jordan:
the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir.
OVER. Thy dainty dame, though, call'd him cut-purse.
MOON. Like enough, sir; she'll do forty such things in an hour (an you
listen to her) for her recreation, if the toy take her in the greasy
kerchief: it makes her fat, you see; she battens with it.
OVER. Here I might have been deceived now, and have put a fool's blot
upon myself, if I had not played an after game of discretion!
[_Aside._
_Re-enter URSULA, dropping._
KNOCK. Alas, poor Urse! this is an ill season for thee.
URS. Hang yourself, hackney-man!
KNOCK. How, how, Urse! vapours? motion breed vapours?
URS. Vapours! never tusk, nor twirl your dibble, good Jordan, I know
what you'll take to a very drop. Though you be captain of the roarers,
and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with
your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks; you angry! you are hungry. Come,
a pig's head will stop your mouth, and stay your stomach at all times.
KNOCK. Thou art such another mad, merry Urse, still! troth I do make
conscience of vexing thee, now in the dog-days, this hot weather, for
fear of foundering thee in the body, and melting down a pillar of the
Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and keep state; and let's have a
fresh bottle of ale, and a pipe of tobacco; and no vapours. I'll have
this belly o' thine taken up, and thy grass scoured, wench.--
_Enter EDGWORTH._
Look, here's Ezekiel Edgworth; a fine boy of his inches, as any is in
the Fair! has still money in his purse, and will pay all, with a kind
heart, and good vapours.
EDG. That I will indeed, willingly, master Knockem; fetch some ale and
tobacco.
[_Exit Mooncalf.--People cross the stage._
LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen? maid, see a fine hobby-horse for
your young master; cost you but a token a-week his provender.
_Re-enter NIGHTINGALE, with CORN-CUTTER, and MOUSETRAP-MAN._
CORN. Have you any corns in your feet and toes?
MOUSE. Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a flea?
TRASH. Buy some gingerbread?
NIGHT. Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:
_Hear for your love, and buy for your money.
A delicate ballad o' the ferret and the coney.
A preservative again' the punk's evil.
Another of goose-green starch, and the devil.
A dozen of divine points, and the godly garters:
The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters._
What is't you buy?
_The windmill blown down by the witch's fart.
Or saint George, that, O! did break the dragon's heart._
_Re-enter MOONCALF, with ale and tobacco._
EDG. Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your mart a little.
NIGHT. O my secretary! what says my secretary?
[_They walk into the booth._
OVER. Child of the bottles, what's he? what's he?
[_Points to Edgworth._
MOON. A civil young gentleman, master Arthur, that keeps company with
the roarers, and disburses all still. He has ever money in his purse;
he pays for them, and they roar for him; one does good offices for
another. They call him the secretary, but he serves nobody. A great
friend of the ballad-man's, they are never asunder.
OVER. What pity 'tis, so civil a young man should haunt this debauched
company? here's the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper
penman, I see't in his countenance, he has a good clerk's look with
him, and I warrant him a quick hand.
MOON. A very quick hand, sir.
[_Exit._
EDG. [_whispering with Nightingale and Ursula._] All the purses, and
purchase, I give you to-day by conveyance, bring hither to Ursula's
presently. Here we will meet at night in her lodge, and share. Look
you choose good places for your standing in the Fair, when you sing,
Nightingale.
URS. Ay, near the fullest passages; and shift them often.
EDG. And in your singing, you must use your hawk's eye nimbly, and fly
the purse to a mark still, where 'tis worn, and on which side; that
you may give me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way in
the tune.
URS. Enough, talk no more on't: your friendship, masters, is not now
to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and
away: the Fair fills apace, company begins to come in, and I have
ne'er a pig ready yet.
KNOCK. Well said! fill the cups, and light the tobacco: let's give
fire in the works, and noble vapours.
EDG. And shall we have smocks, Ursula, and good whimsies, ha!
URS. Come, you are in your bawdy vein!--the best the Fair will afford,
Zekiel, if bawd Whit keep his word.--
_Re-enter MOONCALF._
How do the pigs, Mooncalf?
MOON. Very passionate, mistress, one of 'em has wept out an eye.
Master Arthur o' Bradley is melancholy here, nobody talks to him. Will
you any tobacco, master Arthur?
OVER. No, boy; let my meditations alone.
MOON. He's studying for an oration, now.
OVER. If I can with this day's travail, and all my policy, but rescue
this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the strange
woman, I will sit down at night, and say with my friend Ovid,
_Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,_ etc. [_Aside._
KNOCK. Here, Zekiel, here's a health to Ursula, and a kind vapour;
thou hast money in thy purse still, and store! how dost thou come by
it? pray thee vapour thy friends some in a courteous vapour.
EDG. Half I have, master Dan. Knockem, is always at your service.
[_Pulls out his purse._
OVER. Ha, sweet nature! what goshawk would prey upon such a lamb?
[_Aside._
KNOCK. Let's see what 'tis, Zekiel; count it, come, fill him to pledge
me
_Enter WINWIFE and QUARLOUS._
WINW. We are here before them, methinks.
QUAR. All the better, we shall see them come in now.
LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen, what is't you lack? a fine horse?
a lion? a bull? a bear? a dog? or a cat? an excellent fine
Bartholomew-bird? or an instrument? what is't you lack?
QUAR. 'Slid! here's Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!
TRASH. Will you buy any comfortable bread, gentlemen?
QUAR. And Ceres selling her daughter's picture, in ginger-work.
WINW. That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for
them! do we look as if we would buy gingerbread, or hobby-horses?
QUAR. Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better
customers than come: and our very being here makes us fit to be
demanded, as well as others. Would Cokes would come! there were a true
customer for them.
KNOCK. [_to Edgworth._] How much is't? thirty shillings? Who's yonder!
Ned Winwife and Tom Quarlous, I think! yes: (give me it all, give it
me all.)--Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! will you take a pipe of
tobacco with us?--Do not discredit me now, Zekiel.
[_Edgworth gives him his purse._
WINW. Do not see him: he is the roaring horse-courser, pray thee let's
avoid him: turn down this way.
QUAR. 'Slud, I'll see him, and roar with him too, an he roared as loud
as Neptune; pray thee go with me.
WINW. You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please,
as this.
QUAR. Go to then, come along; we have nothing to do, man, but to see
sights now.
[_They advance to the booth._
KNOCK. Welcome, master Quarlous, and master Winwife; will you take any
froth and smoke with us?
QUAR. Yes, sir; but you'll pardon us if we knew not of so much
familiarity between us afore.
KNOCK. As what, sir?
QUAR. To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.
KNOCK. A good vapour! will you sit down, sir? this is old Ursula's
mansion; how like you her bower? Here you may have your punk and your
pig in state, sir, both piping hot.
QUAR. I had rather have my punk cold, sir.
OVER. There's for me: punk! and pig! [_Aside._
URS. [_within._] What, Mooncalf, you rogue!
MOON. By and by, the bottle is almost off, mistress; here, master
Arthur.
URS. [_within._] I'll part you and your play-fellow there, in the
garded coat, an you sunder not the sooner.
KNOCK. Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks, you do not talk, nor
drink; are you proud?
WINW. Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.
KNOCK. You do not except at the company, do you! are you in vapours,
sir?
MOON. Nay, good master Daniel Knockem, respect my mistress's bower, as
you call it; for the honour of our booth, none o' your vapours here.
_Enter URSULA with a fire-brand._
URS. Why, you thin, lean polecat you, an they have a mind to be in
their vapours must you hinder 'em? What did you know, vermin, if they
would have lost a cloke, or such trifle? must you be drawing the air
of pacification here, while I am tormented within i' the fire, you
weasel? [_Aside to Mooncalf._
MOON. Good mistress, 'twas in behalf of your booth's credit that I
spoke.
URS. Why! would my booth have broke, if they had fallen out in't, sir?
or would their heat have fired it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs,
and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I'll both baste and roast
you 'till your eyes drop out like them.--Leave the bottle behind you,
and be curst awhile!
[_Exit Mooncalf._
QUAR. Body o' the Fair! what's this? mother of the bawds?
KNOCK. No, she's mother of the pigs, sir, mother of the pigs.
WINW. Mother of the furies, I think, by her fire-brand.
QUAR. Nay, she is too fat to be a fury, sure some walking sow of
tallow!
WINW. An inspired vessel of kitchen stuff!
QUAR. She'll make excellent geer for the coach-makers here in
Smithfield, to anoint wheels and axletrees with.
[_She drinks this while._
URS. Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench of the suburbs,
do, because she's juicy and wholesome; you must have your thin pinched
ware, pent up in the compass of a dog-collar, (or 'twill not do) that
looks like a long laced conger, set upright, and a green feather, like
fennel in the joll on't.
KNOCK. Well said, Urse, my good Urse! to 'em, Urse!
QUAR. Is she your quagmire, Daniel Knockem? is this your bog?
NIGHT. We shall have a quarrel presently.
KNOCK. How! bog! quagmire? foul vapours! humph!
QUAR. Yes, he that would venture for't, I assure him, might sink into
her and be drown'd a week ere any friend he had could find where he
were.
WINW. And then he would be a fortnight weighing up again.
QUAR. 'Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter; they had need
be a team of Dutchmen should draw him out.
KNOCK. Answer 'em, Urse: where's thy Bartholomew wit now, Urse, thy
Bartholomew wit?
URS. Hang 'em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see them plagued one
day (pox'd they are already, I am sure) with lean playhouse poultry,
that has the bony rump, sticking out like the ace of spades, or the
point of a partizan, that every rib of them is like the tooth of a
saw; and will so grate them with their hips and shoulders, as (take
'em altogether) they were as good lie with a hurdle.
QUAR. Out upon her, how she drips! she's able to give a man the
sweating sickness with looking on her.
URS. Marry look off, with a patch on your face, and a dozen in your
breech, though they be of scarlet, sir. I have seen as fine outsides
as either of yours, bring lousy linings to the brokers, ere now, twice
a week.
QUAR. Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool in the Fair,
to be purchased; one large enough, I mean? I know there is a pond of
capacity for her.
URS. For your mother, you rascal! Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you
pimp, you pannier-man's bastard, you!
QUAR. Ha, ha, ha!
URS. Do you sneer, you dog's-head, you trendle-tail! you look as you
were begotten a top of a cart in harvest time, when the whelp was hot
and eager. Go, snuff after your brother's bitch, mistress Commodity;
that's the livery you wear, 'twill be out at the elbows shortly. It's
time you went to't for the t'other remnant.
KNOCK. Peace, Urse, peace, Urse;--they'll kill the poor whale, and
make oil of her. Pray thee, go in.
URS. I'll see them pox'd first, and piled, and double piled.
WINW. Let's away, her language grows greasier than her pigs.
URS. Does it so, snotty-nose? good lord! are you snivelling? You were
engendered on a she-beggar in a barn, when the bald thrasher, your
sire, was scarce warm.
WINW. Pray thee let's go.
QUAR. No, faith; I'll stay the end of her now; I know she cannot last
long: I find by her smiles she wanes apace.
URS. Does she so? I'll set you gone. Give me my pig-pan hither a
little: I'll scald you hence, an you will not go.
[_Exit._
KNOCK. Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours, and very idle
vapours, I assure you.
QUAR. You are a very serious ass, we assure you.
KNOCK. Humph, _ass!_ and _serious!_ nay, then pardon me my vapour. I
have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: Any man that does vapour me the ass,
master Quarlous--
QUAR. What then, master Jordan?
KNOCK. I do vapour him the lie.
QUAR. Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.
[_Strikes him._
KNOCK. Nay then, vapours upon vapours.
[_They fight._
_Re-enter URSULA, with the dripping-pan._
EDG. NIGHT. 'Ware the pan, the pan, the pan! she comes with the pan,
gentlemen! [_Ursula falls with the pan._]--God bless the woman.
URS. Oh!
[_Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife._
TRASH. [_runs in._] What's the matter?
OVER. Goodly woman!
MOON. Mistress!
URS. Curse of hell! that ever I saw these fiends! oh! I have scalded
my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg! I have lost a limb in the service! run
for some cream and sallad-oil, quickly. Are you under-peering, you
baboon? rip off my hose, an you be men, men, men.
MOON. Run you for some cream, good mother Joan. I'll look to your
basket.
[_Exit Trash._
LEATH. Best sit up in your chair, Ursula. Help, gentlemen.
KNOCK. Be of good cheer, Urse; thou hast hindered me the currying of a
couple of stallions here, that abused the good race-bawd of
Smithfield; 'twas time for them to go.
NIGHT. I' faith, when the pan came,--they had made you run else. This
had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured. [_Aside to
Edgworth._
EDG. Not a whit, these fellows were too fine to carry money.
KNOCK. Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out of the air:
take off her shoes. Body o' me! she has the mallanders, the scratches,
the crown scab, and the quitter bone in the t'other leg.
URS. Oh, the pox! why do you put me in mind of my leg thus, to make it
prick and shoot? Would you have me in the hospital afore my time?
KNOCK. Patience, Urse, take a good heart, 'tis but a blister as big as
a windgall. I'll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey
and hog's grease, have thy pasterns well roll'd, and thou shalt pace
again by to-morrow. I'll tend thy booth, and look to thy affairs the
while: thou shalt sit in thy chair, and give directions, and shine
Ursa major.
[_Exeunt Knockem and Mooncalf, with Ursula in her chair._
OVER. These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! the foam of the
one, and the fumes of the other! Stay, young man, and despise not the
wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee.
EDG. Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed I'll hear some of this!
_Enter COKES, with his box, WASPE, Mistress OVERDO, and GRACE._
COKES. Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair,
mistress Grace.
EDG. 'Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into
goings presently.
OVER. Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows when he
openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a
spider, yea, a newt been found there? thirst not after it, youth;
thirst not after it.
COKES. This is a brave fellow, Numps, let's hear him.
WASPE. 'Sblood! how brave is he? in a garded coat! You were best truck
with him; e'en strip, and truck presently, it will become you. Why
will you hear him? because he is an ass, and may be a-kin to the
Cokeses?
COKES. O, good Numps.
OVER. Neither do thou lust after that tawney weed tobacco.
COKES. Brave words!
OVER. Whose complexion is like the Indian's that vents it.
COKES. Are they not brave words, sister?
OVER. And who can tell, if before the gathering and making up thereof,
the Alligarta hath not piss'd thereon?
WASPE. 'Heart! let 'em be brave words, as brave as they will! an they
were all the brave words in a country, how then? Will you away yet,
have you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away; I pray you, be
not you accessary. If you do lose your license, or somewhat else, sir,
with listening to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart,
do, say so.
COKES. Avoid in your satin doublet, Numps.
OVER. The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers
affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of
it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way persway or assuage.
COKES. Good, i'faith! is it not, sister?
OVER. Hence it is that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted, the
liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman's
booth here, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e'en
now, without.
COKES. A fine similitude that, sir! did you see the pan?
EDG. Yes, sir.
OVER. Nay, the hole in the nose here of some tobacco-takers, or the
third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the
tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is
caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox,
having nothing to do there, is miserably and most unconscionably
slandered.
COKES. Who would have missed this, sister?
MRS. OVER. Not any body but Numps.
COKES. He does not understand.
EDG. [_picks Cokes's pocket of his purse._] Nor you feel. [_Aside._
COKES. What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but
a basket-hilt, and an old fox in't? the best musick in the Fair will
not move a log.
EDG. [_gives the purse aside to Nightingale._] In, to Ursula,
Nightingale, and carry her comfort: see it told. This fellow was sent
to us by Fortune, for our first fairing.
[_Exit Nightingale._
OVER. But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the
Fair?
COKES. That's to us, sister. Brave, i'faith!
OVER. Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what
malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering,
it causeth snuffling and snarling, and now and then a hurt.
MRS. OVER. He hath something of master Overdo, methinks, brother.
COKES. So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo: and 'tis
when he speaks.
OVER. Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas,
where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the
time, but with bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o' one side,
and his pupils o' the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and
tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty
pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale
again. Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and, that being slaver'd,
so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit!
and still the bottle-ale slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh.
WASPE. Heart of a madman! are you rooted here? will you never away?
what can any man find out in this bawling fellow, to grow here for? He
is a full handful higher sin' he heard him. Will you fix here, and set
up a booth, sir?
OVER. I will conclude briefly--
WASPE. Hold your peace, you roaring rascal, I'll run my head in your
chaps else. You were best build a booth, and entertain him; make your
will, an you say the word, and him your heir! heart, I never knew one
taken with a mouth of a peck afore. By this light, I'll carry you away
on my back, an you will not come.
[_He gets Cokes up on pick-back._
COKES. Stay, Numps, stay, set me down: I have lost my purse, Numps. O
my purse! One of my fine purses is gone!
MRS. OVER. Is it indeed, brother?
COKES. Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue else! a
plague of all roguy damn'd cut-purses for me.
[_Examines his pockets._
WASPE. Bless 'em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see!
now, as I am no infidel, that I know of, I am glad on't. Ay, I am,
(here's my witness,) do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his
fables, I! no, no, I am a dull malt horse, I, I know nothing. Are you
not justly served, in your conscience, now, speak in your conscience?
Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it,
with all my heart again.
EDG. This fellow is very charitable, would he had a purse too! but I
must not be too bold all at a time. [_Aside._
COKES. Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.
WASPE. Not your best! death! why should it be your worst? why should
it be any, indeed, at all? answer me to that, give me a reason from
you, why it should be any?
COKES. Nor my gold, Numps; I have that yet, look here else, sister.
[_Shews the other purse._
WASPE. Why so, there's all the feeling he has!
MRS. OVER. I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.
COKES. Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this that catch
can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.
WASPE. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! very good.
COKES. I would have him come again now, and but offer at it. Sister,
will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just where the
other was, and if we have good luck, you shall see a delicate fine
trap to catch the cut-purse nibbling.
EDG. Faith, and he'll try ere you be out o' the Fair. [_Aside._
COKES. Come, mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my
mischance; sorrow will not keep it, sweet-heart.
GRACE. I do not think on't, sir.
COKES. 'Twas but a little scurvy white money, hang it! it may hang the
cut-purse one day. I have gold left to give thee a fairing yet, as
hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that no body here look'd
like a cut-purse, unless 'twere Numps.
WASPE. How! I, I look like a cut-purse? death! your sister's a
cut-purse! and your mother and father, and all your kin were
cut-purses! and here is a rogue is the bawd o' the cut-purses, whom I
will beat to begin with.
[_They speak all together; and Waspe beats Overdo._
OVER. Hold thy hand, child of wrath, and heir of anger, make it not
Childermass day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Bartholomew,
parent of the massacre.
COKES. Numps, Numps!
MRS. OVER. Good master Humphrey!
WASPE. You are the Patrico, are you? the patriarch of the cut-purses?
You share, sir, they say; let them share this with you. Are you in
your hot fit of preaching again? I'll cool you.
OVER. Murther, murther, murther!
[_Exeunt._
ACT III
SCENE I.--_The Fair._
_LANTHORN LEATHERHEAD, JOAN TRASH, and others, sitting by their wares,
as before._
_Enter WHIT, HAGGISE, and BRISTLE._
WHIT. Nay, tish all gone, now! dish tish, phen tou wilt not be phitin
call, master offisher, phat ish a man te better to lishen out noyshes
for tee, and ton art in an oder orld, being very shuffishient noyshes
and gallantsh too? one o' their brabblesh would have fed ush all dish
fortnight, but tou art so bushy about beggersh still, tou hast no
leshure to intend shentlemen, and't be.
HAG. Why, I told you, Davy Bristle.
BRI. Come, come, you told me a pudding, Toby Haggise; a matter of
nothing; I am sure it came to nothing. You said, let's go to Ursula's,
indeed; but then you met the man with the monsters, and I could not
get you from him. An old fool, not leave seeing yet!
HAG. Why, who would have thought any body would have quarrell'd so
early; or that the ale o' the fair would have been up so soon?
WHIT. Phy, phat a clock toest tou tink it ish, man?
HAG. I cannot tell.
WHIT. Tou art a vish vatchman, i' te mean teem.
HAG. Why, should the watch go by the clock, or the clock by the watch,
I pray?
BRI. One should go by another, if they did well.
WHIT. Tou art right now! phen didst tou ever know or hear of a
shuffishient vatchment, but he did tell the clock, phat bushiness
soever he had?
BRI. Nay, that's most true, a sufficient watchman knows what a clock
it is.
WHIT. Shleeping or vaking: ash well as te clock himshelf, or te Jack
dat shtrikes him.
BRI. Let's enquire of master Leatherhead, or Joan Trash here.--Master
Leatherhead, do you hear, master Leatherhead?
WHIT. If it be a Ledderhead, tish a very tick Ledderhead, tat sho mush
noish vill not piersh him.
LEATH. I have a little business now, good friends, do not trouble me.
WHIT. Phat, because o' ty wrought neet-cap, and ty phelvet sherkin,
man? phy! I have sheene tee in ty ledder sherkin, ere now, mashter o'
de hobby-horses, as bushy and stately as tou sheemest to be.
TRASH. Why, what an you have, captain Whit? he has his choice of
jerkins, you may see by that, and his caps too, I assure you, when he
pleases to be either sick or employed.
LEATH. God-a-mercy, Joan, answer for me.
WHIT. Away, be not sheen in my company, here be shentlemen, and men of
vorship.
[_Exeunt Haggise and Bristle._
_Enter QUARLOUS and WINWIFE._
QUAR. We had wonderful ill luck, to miss this prologue o' the purse:
but the best is, we shall have five acts of him ere night: he'll be
spectacle enough, I'll answer for't.
WHIT. O creesh, duke Quarlous, how dosht tou? tou dosht not know me, I
fear: I am te vishesht man, but justish Overdo, in all Bartholomew
Fair now. Give me twelve-pence from tee, I vill help tee to a vife
vorth forty marks for't, and't be.
QUAR. Away, rogue; pimp, away.
WHIT. And she shall shew tee as fine cut orke for't in her shmock too
as tou cansht vish i'faith; vilt tou have her, vorshipful Vinvife? I
vill help tee to her here, be an't be, into pig-quarter, gi' me ty
twelve-pence from tee.
WINW. Why, there's twelve-pence, pray thee wilt thou begone?
WHIT. Tou art a vorthy man, and a vorshipful man still.
QUAR. Get you gone, rascal.
WHIT. I do mean it, man. Prinsh Quarlous, if tou hasht need on me, tou
shalt find me here at Ursla's, I vill see phat ale and punque ish i'
te pigsty for tee, bless ty good vorship.
[_Exit._
QUAR. Look! who comes here: John Littlewit!
WINW. And his wife, and my widow, her mother: the whole family.
QUAR. 'Slight, you must give them all fairings now.
WINW. Not I, I'll not see them.
QUAR. They are going a feasting. What schoolmaster's that is with 'em?
WINW. That's my rival, I believe, the baker.
_Enter RABBI BUSY, DAME PURECRAFT, JOHN LITTLEWIT, and MRS.
LITTLEWIT._
BUSY. So, walk on in the middle way, fore-right, turn neither to the
right hand nor to the left; let not your eyes be drawn aside with
vanity, nor your ear with noises.
QUAR. O, I know him by that start.
LEATH. What do you lack, what do you buy, mistress? a fine
hobby-horse, to make your son a tilter? a drum to make him a soldier?
a fiddle to make him a reveller? what is't you lack? little dogs for
your daughters? or babies, male or female?
BUSY. Look not toward them, hearken not; the place is Smithfield, or
the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets, the wares
are the wares of devils, and the whole Fair is the shop of Satan: they
are hooks and baits, very baits, that are hung out on every side, to
catch you, and to hold you, as it were, by the gills, and by the
nostrils, as the fisher doth; therefore you must not look nor turn
toward them.--The heathen man could stop his ears with wax against the
harlot of the sea; do you the like with your fingers against the bells
of the beast.
WINW. What flashes come from him!
QUAR. O, he has those of his oven; a notable hot baker, 'twas when he
plied the peel; he is leading his flock into the Fair now.
WINW. Rather driving them to the pens: for he will let them look upon
nothing.
_Enter KNOCKEM and WHIT from URSULA'S booth._
KNOCK. Gentlewomen, the weather's hot; whither walk you? have a care
of your fine velvet caps, the Fair is dusty. Take a sweet delicate
booth, with boughs, here in the way, and cool yourselves in the shade;
you and your friends. The best pig and bottle-ale in the Fair, sir.
Old Ursula is cook, there you may read; [_points to the sign, a pig's
head, with a large writing under it._] the pig's head speaks it. Poor
soul, she has had a string-halt, the maryhinchco; but she's prettily
amended.
WHIT. A delicate show-pig, little mistress, with shweet sauce, and
crackling, like de bay-leaf i' de fire, la! tou shalt ha' de clean
side o' de table-clot, and di glass vash'd with phatersh of dame
Annesh Cleare.
LIT. [_gazing at the inscription._] This is fine verily. _Here be the
best pigs, and she does roast them as well as ever she did_, the pig's
head says.
KNOCK. Excellent, excellent, mistress; with fire o' juniper and
rosemary branches! the oracle of the pig's head, that, sir.
PURE. Son, were you not warn'd of the vanity of the eye? have you
forgot the wholesome admonition so soon?
LIT. Good mother, how shall we find a pig, if we do not look about
for't: will it run off o' the spit, into our mouths, think you, as in
Lubberland, and cry, _wee, wee!_
BUSY. No, but your mother, religiously-wise, conceiveth it may offer
itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which I think
it doth here in this place--huh, huh--yes, it doth. [_He scents after
it like a hound._] And it were a sin of obstinacy, great obstinacy,
high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the good titillation
of the famelic sense, which is the smell. Therefore be bold--huh, huh,
huh--follow the scent: enter the tents of the unclean, for once, and
satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your
zealous mother, and my suffering self, will also be satisfied.
LIT. Come, Win, as good winny here as go farther, and see nothing.
BUSY. We scape so much of the other vanities, by our early entering.
PURE. It is an edifying consideration.
MRS. LIT. This is scurvy, that we must come into the Fair, and not
look on't.
LIT. Win, have patience, Win, I'll tell you more anon.
[_Exeunt, into the booth, Littlewit, Mrs. Littlewit, Busy, and
Purecraft._
KNOCK. Mooncalf, entertain within there, the best pig in the booth, a
pork-like pig. These are Banbury-bloods, o' the sincere stud, come a
pig-hunting. Whit, wait, Whit, look to your charge.
[_Exit Whit._
BUSY. [_within._] A pig prepare presently, let a pig be prepared to
us.
_Enter MOONCALF and URSULA._
MOON. 'Slight, who be these?
URS. Is this the good service, Jordan, you'd do me?
KNOCK. Why, Urse, why, Urse? thou'lt have vapours i' thy leg again
presently, pray thee go in, it may turn to the scratches else.
URS. Hang your vapours, they are stale, and stink like you! Are these
the guests o' the game you promised to fill my pit withal to-day?
KNOCK. Ay, what ail they, Urse?
URS. Ail they! they are all sippers, sippers o' the city; they look as
they would not drink off two pen'orth of bottle-ale amongst 'em.
MOON. A body may read that in their small printed ruffs.
KNOCK. Away, thou art a fool, Urse, and thy Mooncalf too: in your
ignorant vapours now! hence! good guests, I say, right hypocrites,
good gluttons. In, and set a couple o' pigs on the board, and half a
dozen of the biggest bottles afore 'em, and call Whit. [_Exit
Mooncalf._] I do not love to hear innocents abused; fine ambling
hypocrites! and a stone puritan with a sorrel head and beard! good
mouth'd gluttons; two to a pig, away.
URS. Are you sure they are such?
KNOCK. O' the right breed, thou shalt try 'em by the teeth, Urse;
where's this Whit?
_Re-enter WHIT._
WHIT. _Behold, man, and see,
What a worthy man am ee!
With the fury of my sword,
And the shaking of my beard,
I will make ten thousand men afeard._
KNOCK. Well said, brave Whit! in, and _fear_ the ale out o' the
bottles into the bellies of the brethren, and . . . the sisters drink
to the cause, and pure vapours.
[_Exeunt Knockem, Whit, and Ursula._
QUAR. My roarer is turn'd tapster, methinks. Now were a fine time for
thee, Winwife, to lay aboard thy widow, thou'lt never be master of a
better season or place; she that will venture herself into the Fair
and a pig-box, will admit any assault, be assured of that.
WINW. I love not enterprises of that suddenness though.
QUAR. I'll warrant thee, then, no wife out of the widow's hundred: if
I had but as much title to her, as to have breathed once on that
straight stomacher of hers, I would now assure myself to carry her,
yet, ere she went out of Smithfield; or she should carry me, which
were the fitter sight, I confess. But you are a modest undertaker, by
circumstances and degrees; come, 'tis disease in thee, not judgment; I
should offer at all together.--
_Enter OVERDO._
Look, here's the poor fool again, that was stung by the Waspe
erewhile.
OVER. I will make no more orations, shall draw on these tragical
conclusions. And I begin now to think, that by a spice of collateral
justice, Adam Overdo deserved this beating; for I, the said Adam, was
one cause (a by-cause) why the purse was lost; and my wife's brother's
purse too, which they know not of yet. But I shall make very good
mirth with it at supper, that will be the sport, and put my little
friend, master Humphrey Waspe's choler quite out of countenance: when,
sitting at the upper end of my table, as I use, and drinking to my
brother Cokes, and mistress Alice Overdo, as I will, my wife, for
their good affection to old Bradley, I deliver to them, it was I that
was cudgeled, and shew them the marks. To see what bad events may peep
out o' the tail of good purposes! the care I had of that civil young
man I took fancy to this morning, (and have not left it yet,) drew me
to that exhortation, which drew the company indeed; which drew the
cut-purse; which drew the money; which drew my brother Cokes his loss;
which drew on Waspe's anger; which drew on my beating: a pretty
gradation! and they shall have it in their dish, i'faith, at night for
fruit; I love to be merry at my table. I had thought once, at one
special blow he gave me, to have revealed myself; but then (I thank
thee, fortitude) I remembered that a wise man, and who is ever so
great a part of the commonwealth in himself, for no particular
disaster ought to abandon a public good design. The husbandman ought
not, for one unthankful year, to forsake the plough; the shepherd
ought not, for one scabbed sheep, to throw by his tar-box; the pilot
ought not, for one leak in the poop, to quit the helm; nor the
alderman ought not, for one custard more at a meal, to give up his
cloke; the constable ought not to break his staff, and forswear the
watch, for one roaring night; nor the piper of the parish, _ut parvis
componere magna solebam_, to put up his pipes for one rainy Sunday.
These are certain knocking conclusions; out of which, I am resolved,
come what come can, come beating, come imprisonment, come infamy, come
banishment, nay, come the rack, come the hurdle, (welcome all,) I will
not discover who I am, till my due time; and yet still, all shall be,
as I said ever, in justice name, and the king's, and for the
commonwealth.
[_Exit Overdo._
WINW. What does he talk to himself, and act so seriously, poor fool!
QUAR. No matter what. Here's fresher argument, intend that.
_Enter COKES, Mistress OVERDO, and GRACE WELLBORN, followed by WASPE,
loaded with toys._
COKES. Come, mistress Grace, come, sister, here's more fine sights
yet, i'faith. Od's 'lid, where's Numps?
LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen? what is't you buy? fine rattles,
drums, babies, little dogs, and birds for ladies? what do you lack?
COKES. Good honest Numps, keep afore, I am so afraid thou'lt lose
somewhat; my heart was at my mouth, when I mist thee.
WASPE. You were best buy a whip in your hand to drive me.
COKES. Nay, do not mistake, Numps; thou art so apt to mistake! I would
but watch the goods. Look you now, the treble fiddle was e'en almost
like to be lost.
WASPE. Pray you take heed you lose not yourself; your best way were
e'en get up and ride for more surety. Buy a token's worth of great
pins, to fasten yourself to my shoulder.
LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen? fine purses, pouches, pincases,
pipes? what is't you lack? a pair o' smiths to wake you in the
morning? or a fine whistling bird?
COKES. Numps, here be finer things than any we have bought by odds!
and more delicate horses, a great deal; good Numps, stay, and come
hither.
WASPE. Will you scourse with him? you are in Smithfield, you may fit
yourself with a fine easy-going street-nag, for your saddle, again
Michaelmas term, do: has he ne'er a little odd cart for you to make a
caroch on, in the country, with four pied hobby-horses? Why the
measles should you stand here, with your train, cheapning of dogs,
birds, and babies? you have no children to bestow them on, have you?
COKES. No, but again I have children, Numps, that's all one.
WASPE. Do, do, do, do; how many shall you have, think you? an I were
as you, I'd buy for all my tenants too, they are a kind of civil
savages, that will part with their children for rattles, pipes, and
knives. You were best buy a hatchet or two, and truck with 'em.
COKES. Good Numps, hold that little tongue o' thine, and save it a
labour. I am resolute Bat, thou know'st.
WASPE. A resolute fool you are, I know, and a very sufficient coxcomb;
with all my heart;--nay, you have it, sir, an you be angry, turd in
your teeth, twice; if I said it not once afore, and much good do you.
WINW. Was there ever such a self-affliction, and so impertinent?
QUAR. Alas, his care will go near to crack him; let's in and comfort
him.
[_They come forward._
WASPE. Would I had been set in the ground, all but the head on me, and
had my brains bowled at, or threshed out, when first I underwent this
plague of a charge!
QUAR. How now, Numps! almost tired in your protectorship? overparted,
overparted?
WASPE. Why, I cannot tell, sir, it may be I am; does it grieve you?
QUAR. No, I swear does't not, Numps; to satisfy you.
WASPE. Numps! 'sblood, you are fine and familiar: how long have we
been acquainted, I pray you?
QUAR. I think it may be remembered, Numps, that; 'twas since morning,
sure.
WASPE. Why, I hope I know't well enough, sir; I did not ask to be
told.
QUAR. No! why, then?
WASPE. It's no matter why; you see with your eyes now, what I said to
you to-day: you'll believe me another time?
QUAR. Are you removing the Fair, Numps?
WASPE. A pretty question, and a civil one! yes faith, I have my
lading, you see, or shall have anon; you may know whose beast I am by
my burden. If the pannier-man's jack were ever better known by his
loins of mutton, I'll be flayed, and feed dogs for him when his time
comes.
WINW. How melancholic mistress Grace is yonder! pray thee let's go
enter ourselves in grace with her.
COKES. Those six horses, friend, I'll have--
WASPE. How!
COKES. And the three Jew's-trumps; and half a dozen o' birds, and that
drum, (I have one drum already) and your smiths; I like that device of
your smiths, very pretty well; and four halberts--and, let me see,
that fine painted great lady, and her three women for state, I'll
have.
WASPE. No, the shop; buy the whole shop, it will be best, the shop,
the shop!
LEATH. If his worship please.
WASPE. Yes, and keep it during the Fair, Bobchin.
COKES. Peace, Numps.--Friend, do not meddle with him, an you be wise,
and would shew your head above board; he will sting thorough your
wrought night-cap, believe me. A set of these violins I would buy too,
for a delicate young noise I have in the country, that are every one a
size less than another, just like your fiddles. I would fain have a
fine young masque at my marriage, now I think on't: But I do want such
a number of things!--And Numps will not help me now, and I dare not
speak to him.
TRASH. Will your worship buy any gingerbread, very good bread,
comfortable bread?
COKES. Gingerbread! yes, let's see.
[_Runs to her shop._
WASPE. There's the t'other springe.
LEATH. Is this well, goody Joan, to interrupt my market in the midst,
and call away my customers? can you answer this at the Pie-poudres?
TRASH. Why, if his mastership has a mind to buy, I hope my ware lies
as open as another's; I may shew my ware as well as you yours.
COKES. Hold your peace; I'll content you both: I'll buy up his shop,
and thy basket.
WASPE. Will you, i'faith?
LEATH. Why should you put him from it, friend?
WASPE. Cry you mercy! you'd be sold too, would you? what's the price
on you, jerkin and all, as you stand? have you any qualities?
TRASH. Yes, good man, angry-man, you shall find he has qualities if
you cheapen him.
WASPE. Od's so, you have the selling of him! What are they, will they
be bought for love or money?
TRASH. No indeed, sir.
WASPE. For what then, victuals?
TRASH. He scorns victuals, sir; he has bread and butter at home,
thanks be to God! and yet he will do more for a good meal, if the toy
take him in the belly; marry then they must not set him at lower ends,
if they do, he'll go away, though he fast; but put him a-top o' the
table, where his place is, and he'll do you forty fine things. He has
not been sent for, and sought out for nothing, at your great
city-suppers, to put down Coriat and Cokely, and been laughed at for
his labour; he'll play you all the puppets in the town over, and the
players, every company, and his own company too; he spares nobody.
COKES. I'faith?
TRASH. He was the first, sir, that ever baited the fellow in the
bear's skin, an't like your worship: no dog ever came near him since.
And for fine motions!
COKES. Is he good at those too? can he set out a masque, trow?
TRASH. O lord, master! sought to far and near for his inventions; and
he engrosses all, he makes all the puppets in the Fair.
COKES. Dost thou, in troth, old velvet jerkin? give me thy hand.
TRASH. Nay, sir, you shall see him in his velvet jerkin, and a scarf
too at night, when you hear him interpret master Littlewit's motion.
COKES. Speak no more, but shut up shop presently, friend, I'll buy
both it and thee too, to carry down with me; and her hamper beside.
Thy shop shall furnish out the masque, and her's the banquet: I cannot
go less, to set out any thing with credit. What's the price, at a
word, of thy whole shop, case and all as it stands?
LEATH. Sir, it stands me in six and twenty shillings seven-pence
halfpenny, besides three shillings for my ground.
COKES. Well, thirty shillings will do all, then! and what comes yours
to?
TRASH. Four shillings and eleven-pence, sir, ground and all, an't like
your worship.
COKES. Yes, it does like my worship very well, poor woman; that's five
shillings more: what a masque shall I furnish out, for forty
shillings, twenty pound Scotch, and a banquet of gingerbread! there's
a stately thing! Numps? sister?--and my wedding gloves too! that I
never thought on afore! All my wedding gloves gingerbread? O me! what
a device will there be, to make 'em eat their fingers' ends! and
delicate brooches for the bridemen and all! and then I'll have this
poesie put to them, _For the best grace_, meaning mistress Grace, my
wedding poesie.
GRACE. I am beholden to you, sir, and to your Bartholomew wit.
WASPE. You do not mean this, do you? Is this your first purchase?
COKES. Yes, faith: and I do not think, Numps, but thou'lt say, it was
the wisest act that ever I did in my wardship.
WASPE. Like enough! I shall say any thing, I!
_Enter EDGWORTH, NIGHTINGALE and People, followed, at a distance, by
OVERDO._
OVER. I cannot beget a project, with all my political brain yet: my
project is how to fetch off this proper young man from his debauched
company. I have followed him all the Fair over, and still I find him
with this songster, and I begin shrewdly to suspect their familiarity;
and the young man of a terrible taint, poetry! with which idle disease
if he be infected, there's no hope of him, in a state-course. _Actum
est_ of him for a commonwealth's-man, if he go to't in rhyme once.
[_Aside._
EDG. [_to Nightingale._] Yonder he is buying of gingerbread; set in
quickly, before he part with too much of his money.
NIGHT. [advancing and singing.] _My masters, and friends, and good
people, draw near--_
COKES. [_runs to the ballad-man._] Ballads! hark! hark! pray thee,
fellow, stay a little; good Numps, look to the goods. What ballads
hast thou? let me see, let me see myself.
WASPE. Why so! he's flown to another lime-bush, there he will flutter
as long more; till he have ne'er a feather left. Is there a vexation
like this, gentlemen? will you believe me now, hereafter, shall I have
credit with you?
QUAR. Yes, faith shalt thou, Numps, and thou art worthy on't, for thou
sweatest for't. I never saw a young pimp-errant and his squire better
match'd.
WINW. Faith, the sister comes after them well too.
GRACE. Nay, if you saw the justice her husband, my guardian, you were
fitted for the mess, he is such a wise one his way--
WINW. I wonder we see him not here.
GRACE. O! he is too serious for this place, and yet better sport then
than the other three, I assure you, gentlemen, wherever he is, though
it be on the bench.
COKES. How dost thou call it? _A caveat against cut-purses!_ a good
jest, i'faith, I would fain see that demon, your cut-purse you talk
of, that delicate-handed devil; they say he walks hereabout; I would
see him walk now. Look you, sister, here, here [_he shews his purse
boastingly_], let him come, sister, and welcome. Ballad-man, does any
cut-purses haunt hereabout? pray thee raise me one or two; begin, and
shew me one.
NIGHT. Sir, this is a spell against them, spick and span new; and 'tis
made as 'twere in mine own person, and I sing it in mine own defence.
But 'twill cost a penny alone, if you buy it.
COKES. No matter for the price; thou dost not know me, I see, I am an
odd Bartholomew.
MRS. OVER. Has it a fine picture, brother?
COKES. O, sister, do you remember the ballads over the nursery chimney
at home o' my own pasting up? there be brave pictures, other manner of
pictures than these, friend.
WASPE. Yet these will serve to pick the pictures out of your pockets,
you shall see.
COKES. So I heard them say! Pray thee mind him not, fellow; he'll have
an oar in every thing.
NIGHT. It was intended, sir, as if a purse should chance to be cut in
my presence, now, I may be blameless though; as by the sequel will
more plainly appear.
COKES. We shall find that in the matter: pray thee begin.
NIGHT. To the tune of Paggington's pound, sir.
COKES. [sings.] _Fa, la la la, la la la, fa, la la la!_ Nay, I'll put
thee in tune and all; mine own country dance! Pray thee begin.
NIGHT. It is a gentle admonition, you must know, sir, both to the
purse-cutter and the purse-bearer.
COKES. Not a word more out of the tune, an thou lov'st me; _Fa, la la
la, la la la, fa, la la la._ Come, when?
NIGHT. [sings.] _My masters, and friends, and good people, draw near,
And look to your purses, for that I do say;_
COKES. Ha, ha, this chimes! Good counsel at first dash.
NIGHT. _And tho' little money in them you do bear,
It costs more to get, than to lose in a day._
COKES. Good!
NIGHT. _You oft have been told,
Both the young and the old,
And bidden beware of the cut-purse so bold;_
COKES. Well said! he were to blame that would not, i'faith.
NIGHT. _Then if you take heed not, free me from the curse,
Who both give you warning, for, and the cut-purse.
Youth, youth, thou had'st better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse._
COKES. Good, i'faith; how say you, Numps, is there any harm in this?
NIGHT. _It hath been upbraided to men of my trade,
That oftentimes we are the cause of this crime;_
COKES. The more coxcombs they that did it, I wusse.
NIGHT. _Alack and for pity, why should it be said?
As if they regarded or places or time!
Examples have been
Of some that were seen
In Westminster-hall, yea the pleaders between;
Then why should the judges be free from this curse,
More than my poor self, for cutting the purse?_
COKES. God a mercy for that! why should they be more free indeed?
NIGHT. _Youth, youth, thou had'st better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse._
COKES. That again, good ballad-man, that again. [_He sings the burden
with him._] O rare! I would fain rub mine elbow now, but I dare not
pull out my hand.--On, I pray thee; he that made this ballad shall be
poet to my masque.
NIGHT. _At Worc'ster, 'tis known well, and even in the jail,
A knight of good worship did there shew his face,
Against the foul sinners, in zeal for to rail,
And lost _ipso facto_ his purse in the place._
COKES. Is it possible?
NIGHT. _Nay, once from the seat
Of judgment so great,
A judge there did lose a fair pouch of velvéte._
COKES. I'faith?
NIGHT. _O Lord for thy mercy, how wicked or worse,
Are those that so venture their necks for a purse!
Youth, youth, thou had'st better been starv'd by thy nurse,
Than lived to be hanged for cutting a purse._
COKES. [sings after him.] _Youth, youth, etc._--Pray thee, stay a
little, friend. Yet o' thy conscience, Numps, speak, is there any harm
in this?
WASPE. To tell you true, 'tis too good for you, less you had grace to
follow it.
OVER. It doth discover enormity, I'll mark it more: I have not liked a
paltry piece of poetry so well a good while. [_Aside._
COKES. _Youth, youth, etc.;_ where's this youth now? a man must call
upon him for his own good, and yet he will not appear. Look here,
here's for him; [_shews his purse._] handy dandy, which hand will he
have? On, I pray thee, with the rest; I do hear of him, but I cannot
see him, this master youth, the cut-purse.
NIGHT. _At plays, and at sermons, and at the sessions,
'Tis daily their practice such booty to make.
Yea under the gallows at executions,
They stick not the stare-abouts' purses to take.
Nay one without grace,
At a [far] better place,
At court, and in Christmas, before the king's face._
COKES. That was a fine fellow! I would have him now.
NIGHT. _Alack then for pity must I bear the curse,
That only belongs to the cunning cut-purse?_
COKES. But where's their cunning now, when they should use it? they
are all chain'd now, I warrant you. [_Sings._] _Youth, youth, thou
had'st better_--The rat-catchers' charms are all fools and asses to
this: a pox on them, that they will not come! that a man should have
such a desire to a thing, and want it!
QUAR. 'Fore God I'd give half the Fair, an 'twere mine, for a
cut-purse for him, to save his longing.
COKES. Look you, sister [_shews his purse again_], here, here, where
is't now? which pocket is't in, for a wager?
WASPE. I beseech you leave your wagers, and let him end his matter,
an't may be.
COKES. O, are you edified, Numps!
OVER. Indeed he does interrupt him too much: there Numps spoke to
purpose. [_Aside._
COKES. Sister, I am an ass, I cannot keep my purse! [_Shews it again,
and puts it up._]--On, on, I pray thee, friend.
NIGHT. _Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starv'd by thy nurse,
Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse._
[_As Nightingale sings, Edgworth gets up to Cokes, and tickles him in
the ear with a straw twice to draw his hand out of his pocket._
WINW. Will you see sport? look, there's a fellow gathers up to him,
mark.
QUAR. Good, i'faith! O he has lighted on the wrong pocket.
WINW. He has it! 'fore God, he is a brave fellow: pity he should be
detected.
NIGHT. _But O, you vile nation of cut-purses all,
Relent and repent, and amend and be sound,
And know that you ought not, by honest men's fall,
Advance your own fortunes, to die above ground;
And though you go gay
In silks, as you may,
It is not the highway to heaven (as they say).
Repent then, repent you, for better, for worse,
And kiss not the gallows for cutting a purse.
Youth, youth, thou had'st better been starv'd by thy nurse,
Than live to be hang'd for cutting a purse._
ALL. An excellent ballad! an excellent ballad!
EDG. Friend, let me have the first, let me have the first, I pray you.
[_As Nightingale reaches out the ballad, Edgworth slips the purse into
his hand._
COKES. Pardon me, sir; first come first serv'd; and I'll buy the whole
bundle too.
WINW. That conveyance was better than all, did you see't? he has given
the purse to the ballad-singer.
QUAR. Has he?
EDG. Sir, I cry you mercy, I'll not hinder the poor man's profit; pray
you, mistake me not.
COKES. Sir, I take you for an honest gentleman, if that be mistaking;
I met you to-day afore: ha! humph! O Lord! my purse is gone, my purse,
my purse, my purse!
WASPE. Come do not make a stir, and cry yourself an ass thorough the
Fair afore your time.
COKES. Why, hast thou it, Numps? good Numps, how came you by it, I
marle?
WASPE. I pray you seek some other gamester to play the fool with; you
may lose it time enough, for all your Fair wit.
COKES. By this good hand, glove and all, I have lost it already if
thou hast it not; feel else, and mistress Grace's handkerchief too,
out of the t'other pocket.
WASPE. Why, 'tis well, very well, exceeding pretty and well.
EDG. Are you sure you have lost it, sir?
COKES. O Lord! yes; as I am an honest man, I had it but e'en now, at
_Youth, youth._
NIGHT. I hope you suspect not me, sir?
EDG. Thee! that were a jest indeed! dost thou think the gentleman is
foolish? where hadst thou hands, I pray thee? Away, ass, away!
[_Exit Nightingale._
OVER. I shall be beaten again, if I be spied. [_Aside, retiring._
EDG. Sir, I suspect an odd fellow, yonder, is stealing away.
MRS. OVER. Brother, it is the preaching fellow: you shall suspect him.
He was at your t'other purse, you know! [_Seizes Overdo._]--Nay, stay,
sir, and view the work you have done; an you be beneficed at the
gallows, and preach there, thank your own handy-work.
COKES. Sir, you shall take no pride in your preferment, you shall be
silenced quickly.
[_They seize Overdo._
OVER. What do you mean, sweet buds of gentility?
COKES. To have my pennyworths out on you, bud. No less than two purses
a day serve you! I thought you a simple fellow, when my man Numps beat
you in the morning, and pitied you.
MRS. OVER. So did I. I'll be sworn, brother; but now I see he is a
lewd and pernicious enormity, as master Overdo calls him.
OVER. Mine own words turn'd upon me like swords! [_Aside._
COKES. Cannot a man's purse be at quiet for you in the master's
pocket, but you must entice it forth, and debauch it!
[_Overdo is carried off._
WASPE. Sir, sir, keep your debauch, and your fine Bartholomew terms to
yourself, and make as much on 'em as you please. But give me this from
you in the mean time; I beseech you, see if I can look to this.
COKES. Why, Numps?
WASPE. Why! because you are an ass, sir, there's a reason the shortest
way, an you will needs have it: now you have got the trick of losing,
you'd lose your breech an 'twere loose. I know you, sir, come, deliver
[_takes the box from him_], you'll go and crack the vermin you breed
now, will you? 'tis very fine; will you have the truth on't? they are
such retchless flies as you are, that blow cut-purses abroad in every
corner; your foolish having of money makes them. An there were no
wiser than I, sir, the trade should lie open for you, sir, it should,
i'faith, sir. I would teach your wit to come to your head, sir, as
well as your land to come into your hand, I assure you, sir.
WINW. Alack, good Numps!
WASPE. Nay, gentlemen, never pity me. I am not worth it: Lord send me
at home once to Harrow o' the Hill, again, if I travel any more, call
me Coriat with all my heart.
[_Exeunt Waspe, Cokes, and Mrs. Overdo, followed by Edgworth._
QUAR. [_stops Edgworth._] Stay, sir, I must have a word with you in
private. Do you hear?
EDG. With me, sir! what's your pleasure, good sir?
QUAR. Do not deny it, you are a cut-purse, sir, this gentleman here
and I saw you: nor do we mean to detect you, though we can
sufficiently inform ourselves toward the danger of concealing you; but
you must do us a piece of service.
EDG. Good gentlemen, do not undo me; I am a civil young man, and but a
beginner indeed.
QUAR. Sir, your beginning shall bring on your ending for us: we are no
catchpoles nor constables. That you are to undertake is this: you saw
the old fellow with the black box here?
EDG. The little old governor, sir?
QUAR. That same: I see you have flown him to a mark already. I would
have you get away that box from him, and bring it us.
EDG. Wou'd you have the box and all, sir, or only that that is in't?
I'll get you that, and leave him the box to play with still, which
will be the harder of the two, because I would gain your worship's
good opinion of me.
WINW. He says well, 'tis the greater mastery, and 'twill make the more
sport when 'tis mist.
EDG. Ay, and 'twill be the longer a missing, to draw on the sport.
QUAR. But look you do it now, sirrah, and keep your word, or--
EDG. Sir, if ever I break my word with a gentleman, may I never read
word at my need. Where shall I find you?
QUAR. Somewhere i' the Fair, hereabouts: dispatch it quickly. [_Exit
Edgworth._] I would fain see the careful fool deluded! Of all beasts,
I love the serious ass; he that takes pains to be one, and plays the
fool with the greatest diligence that can be.
GRACE. Then you would not choose, sir, but love my guardian, justice
Overdo, who is answerable to that description in every hair of him.
QUAR. So I have heard. But how came you, mistress Wellborn, to be his
ward, or have relation to him at first?
GRACE. Faith, through a common calamity, he bought me, sir; and now he
will marry me to his wife's brother, this wise gentleman that you see;
or else I must pay value o' my land.
QUAR. 'Slid, is there no device of disparagement, or so? talk with
some crafty fellow, some picklock of the law: would I had studied a
year longer in the Inns of court, an't had been but in your case.
WINW. Ay, master Quarlous, are you proffering! [_Aside._
GRACE. You'd bring but little aid, sir.
WINW. I'll look to you, in faith, gamester. [_Aside._]--An unfortunate
foolish tribe you are fallen into, lady, I wonder you can endure them.
GRACE. Sir, they that cannot work their fetters off must wear them.
WINW. You see what care they have on you, to leave you thus.
GRACE. Faith, the same they have of themselves, sir. I cannot greatly
complain, if this were all the plea I had against them.
WINW. 'Tis true: but will you please to withdraw with us a little, and
make them think they have lost you. I hope our manners have been such
hitherto, and our language, as will give you no cause to doubt
yourself in our company.
GRACE. Sir, I will give myself no cause; I am so secure of mine own
manners, as I suspect not yours.
QUAR. Look where John Littlewit comes.
WINW. Away, I'll not be seen by him.
QUAR. No, you were not best, he'd tell his mother, the widow.
WINW. Heart! what do you mean?
QUAR. Cry you mercy, is the wind there? must not the widow be named?
[_Exeunt._
_Enter LITTLEWIT from URSULA'S booth, followed by MRS. LITTLEWIT._
LIT. Do you hear, Win, Win?
MRS. LIT. What say you, John?
LIT. While they are paying the reckoning, Win, I'll tell you a thing,
Win; we shall never see any sights in the Fair, Win, except you long
still, Win: good Win, sweet Win, long to see some hobby-horses, and
some drums, and rattles, and dogs, and fine devices, Win. The bull
with the five legs, Win; and the great hog. Now you have begun with
pig, you may long for any thing, Win, and so for my motion, Win.
MRS. LIT. But we shall not eat of the bull and the hog, John; how
shall I long then?
LIT. O yes, Win: you may long to see, as well as to taste, Win: how
did the pothecary's wife, Win, that longed to see the anatomy, Win? or
the lady, Win, that desired to spit in the great lawyer's mouth, after
an eloquent pleading? I assure you, they longed, Win; good Win, go in,
and long.
[_Exeunt Littlewit and Mrs. Littlewit._
TRASH. I think we are rid of our new customer, brother Leatherhead, we
shall hear no more of him.
LEATH. All the better; let's pack up all and begone, before he find
us.
TRASH. Stay a little, yonder comes a company; it may be we may take
some more money.
_Enter KNOCKEM and BUSY._
KNOCK. Sir, I will take your counsel, and cut my hair, and leave
vapours: I see that tobacco, and bottle-ale, and pig, and Whit, and
very Ursla herself, is all vanity.
BUSY. Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition, the rest were:
for long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a banner; and the world is
full of those banners, very full of banners. And bottle-ale is a drink
of Satan's, a diet-drink of Satan's, devised to puff us up, and make
us swell in this latter age of vanity; as the smoke of tobacco, to
keep us in mist and error: but the fleshly woman, which you call
Ursla, is above all to be avoided, having the marks upon her of the
three enemies of man; the world, as being in the Fair; the devil, as
being in the fire; and the flesh, as being herself.
_Enter DAME PURECRAFT._
PURE. Brother Zeal-of-the-land! what shall we do? my daughter
Win-the-fight is fallen into her fit of longing again.
BUSY. For more pig! there is no more, is there?
PURE. To see some sights in the Fair.
BUSY. Sister, let her fly the impurity of the place swiftly, lest she
partake of the pitch thereof. Thou art the seat of the beast, O
Smithfield, and I will leave thee! Idolatry peepeth out on every side
of thee.
[_Goes forward._
KNOCK. An excellent right hypocrite! now his belly is full, he falls a
railing and kicking, the jade. A very good vapour! I'll in, and joy
Ursla, with telling how her pig works; two and a half he eat to his
share; and he has drunk a pailful. He eats with his eyes, as well as
his teeth.
[_Exit._
LEATH. What do you lack, gentlemen? what is't you buy? rattles, drums,
babies--
BUSY. Peace, with thy apocryphal wares, thou profane publican; thy
bells, thy dragons, and thy Tobie's dogs. Thy hobby-horse is an idol,
a very idol, a fierce and rank idol; and thou, the Nebuchadnezzar, the
proud Nebuchadnezzar of the Fair, that sett'st it up, for children to
fall down to, and worship.
LEATH. Cry you mercy, sir; will you buy a fiddle to fill up your
noise?
_Re-enter LITTLEWIT and his Wife._
LIT. Look, Win, do, look a God's name, and save your longing. Here be
fine sights.
PURE. Ay, child, so you hate them, as our brother Zeal does, you may
look on them.
LEATH. Or what do you say to a drum, sir?
BUSY. It is the broken belly of the beast, and thy bellows there are
his lungs, and these pipes are his throat, those feathers are of his
tail, and thy rattles the gnashing of his teeth.
TRASH. And what's my gingerbread, I pray you?
BUSY. The provender that pricks him up. Hence with thy basket of
popery, thy nest of images, and whole legend of ginger-work.
LEATH. Sir, if you be not quiet the quicklier, I'll have you clapp'd
fairly by the heels, for disturbing the Fair.
BUSY. The sin of the Fair provokes me, I cannot be silent.
PURE. Good brother Zeal!
LEATH. Sir, I'll make you silent, believe it.
LIT. I'd give a shilling you could, i'faith, friend. [_Aside to
Leatherhead._
LEATH. Sir, give me your shilling, I'll give you my shop, if I do not;
and I'll leave it in pawn with you in the mean time.
LIT. A match, i'faith; but do it quickly then.
[_Exit Leatherhead._
BUSY. [_to Mrs. Purecraft._] Hinder me not, woman I was moved in
spirit, to be here this day, in this Fair, this wicked and foul Fair;
and fitter may it be called a Foul than a Fair; to protest against the
abuses of it, the foul abuses of it, in regard of the afflicted
saints, that are troubled, very much troubled, exceedingly troubled,
with the opening of the merchandise of Babylon again, and the peeping
of popery upon the stalls here, here, in the high places. See you not
Goldylocks, the purple strumpet there, in her yellow gown and green
sleeves? the profane pipes, the tinkling timbrels? a shop of relicks!
[_Attempts to seize the toys._
LIT. Pray you forbear, I am put in trust with them.
BUSY. And this idolatrous grove of images, this flasket of idols,
which I will pull down--
[_Overthrows the gingerbread basket._
TRASH. O my ware, my ware! God bless it!
BUSY. In my zeal and glory to be thus exercised.
_Re-enter LEATHERHEAD, with BRISTLE, HAGGISE, and other Officers._
LEATH. Here he is, pray you lay hold on his zeal; we cannot sell a
whistle for him in tune. Stop his noise first.
BUSY. Thou canst not; 'tis a sanctified noise: I will make a loud and
most strong noise, till I have daunted the profane enemy. And for this
cause--
LEATH. Sir, here's no man afraid of you, or your cause. You shall
swear it in the stocks, sir.
BUSY. I will thrust myself into the stocks, upon the pikes of the
land.
[_They seize him._
LEATH. Carry him away.
PURE. What do you mean, wicked men?
BUSY. Let them alone, I fear them not.
[_Exeunt Officers with Busy, followed by Dame Purecraft._
LIT. Was not this shilling well ventured, Win, for our liberty? now we
may go play, and see over the Fair, where we list ourselves: my mother
is gone after him, and let her e'en go, and lose us.
MRS. LIT. Yes, John; but I know not what to do.
LIT. For what, Win?
MRS. LIT. For a thing I am ashamed to tell you, i'faith; and 'tis too
far to go home.
LIT. I pray thee be not ashamed, Win. Come, i'faith, thou shalt not be
ashamed: is it any thing about the hobby-horse man? an't be, speak
freely.
MRS. LIT. Hang him, base Bobchin, I scorn him; no, I have very great
what sha' call 'um, John.
[_Whispers him._
LIT. O, is that all, Win? we'll go back to captain Jordan, to the
pig-woman's, Win, he'll help us, or she, with a dripping-pan, or an
old kettle, or something. The poor greasy soul loves you, Win; and
after we'll visit the Fair all over, Win, and see my puppet-play, Win;
you know it's a fine matter, Win.
[_Exeunt Littlewit and Mrs. Littlewit._
LEATH. Let's away; I counsell'd you to pack up afore, Joan.
TRASH. A pox of his Bedlam purity! He has spoiled half my ware; but
the best is, we lose nothing if we miss our first merchant.
LEATH. It shall be hard for him to find or know us, when we are
translated, Joan.
[_Exeunt._
ACT IV
SCENE I.--_The Fair._
Booths, Stalls, a pair of Stocks, etc.
_Enter COKES, BRISTLE, HAGGISE, and POCHER, with OVERDO, followed by
TROUBLEALL._
TRO. My masters, I do make no doubt, but you are officers.
BRI. What then, sir?
TRO. And the king's loving and obedient subjects.
BRI. Obedient, friend! take heed what you speak, I advise you; Oliver
Bristle advises you. His loving subjects, we grant you; but not his
obedient, at this time, by your leave; we know ourselves a little
better than so; we are to command, sir, and such as you are to be
obedient. Here's one of his obedient subjects going to the stocks; and
we'll make you such another, if you talk.
TRO. You are all wise enough in your places, I know.
BRI. If you know it, sir, why do you bring it in question?
TRO. I question nothing, pardon me. I do only hope you have warrant
for what you do, and so quit you, and so multiply you.
[_Exit._
HAG. What is he?--Bring him up to the stocks there. Why bring you him
not up?
[_Overdo is brought forward._
_Re-enter TROUBLEALL._
TRO. If you have justice Overdo's warrant, 'tis well; you are safe:
that is the warrant of warrants. I'll not give this button for any
man's warrant else.
BRI. Like enough, sir; but let me tell you, an you play away your
buttons thus, you will want them ere night, for any store I see about
you; you might keep them, and save pins, I wuss.
[_Exit Troubleall._
OVER. What should he be, that doth so esteem and advance my warrant?
he seems a sober and discreet person: It is a comfort to a good
conscience to be followed with a good fame in his sufferings. The
world will have a pretty taste by this, how I can bear adversity; and
it will beget a kind of reverence towards me hereafter, even from mine
enemies, when they shall see, I carry my calamity nobly, and that it
doth neither break me, nor bend me. [_Aside._
HAG. Come, sir, here's a place for you to preach in. Will you put in
your leg?
OVER. That I will, cheerfully.
[_They put him in the stocks._
BRI. O' my conscience, a seminary! he kisses the stocks.
COKES. Well, my masters, I'll leave him with you; now I see him
bestowed, I'll go look for my goods, and Numps.
HAG. You may, sir, I warrant you; where's the t'other bawler? fetch
him too, you shall find them both fast enough.
[_Exit Cokes._
OVER. In the midst of this tumult, I will yet be the author of mine
own rest, and not minding their fury, sit in the stocks in that calm
as shall be able to trouble a triumph. [_Aside._
_Re-enter TROUBLEALL._
TRO. Do you assure me upon your words? May I undertake for you, if I
be asked the question, that you have this warrant?
HAG. What's this fellow, for God's sake?
TRO. Do but shew me Adam Overdo, and I am satisfied.
[_Exit._
BRI. He is a fellow that is distracted, they say; one Troubleall: he
was an officer in the court of Pie-poudres here last year, and put out
of his place by justice Overdo.
OVER. Ha! [_Aside._
BRI. Upon which he took an idle conceit, and is run mad upon't: so
that ever since he will do nothing but by justice Overdo's warrant; he
will not eat a crust, nor drink a little, nor make him in his apparel
ready. His wife, sir-reverence, cannot get him make his water, or
shift his shirt, without his warrant.
OVER. If this be true, this is my greatest disaster. How am I bound to
satisfy this poor man, that is of so good a nature to me, out of his
wits! where there is no room left for dissembling. [_Aside._
_Re-enter TROUBLEALL._
TRO. If you cannot shew me Adam Overdo, I am in doubt of you; I am
afraid you cannot answer it.
[_Exit._
HAG. Before me, neighbour Bristle,--and now I think on't
better,--justice Overdo is a very parantory person.
BRI. O, are you advised of that! and a severe justicer, by your leave.
OVER. Do I hear ill o' that side too? [_Aside._
BRI. He will sit as upright on the bench, an you mark him, as a candle
in the socket, and give light to the whole court in every business.
HAG. But he will burn blue, and swell like a boil, God bless us, an he
be angry.
BRI. Ay, and he will be angry too, when he lists, that's more; and
when he is angry, be it right or wrong, he has the law on's side ever;
I mark that too.
OVER. I will be more tender hereafter. I see compassion may become a
justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a
virtue. [_Aside._
HAG. Well, take him out o' the stocks again; we'll go a sure way to
work, we'll have the ace of hearts of our side, if we can.
[_They take Overdo out._
_Enter POCHER, and Officers with BUSY, followed by DAME PURECRAFT._
POCH. Come, bring him away to his fellow there.--Master Busy, we shall
rule your legs, I hope, though we cannot rule your tongue.
BUSY. No, minister of darkness, no; thou canst not rule my tongue; my
tongue it is mine own, and with it I will both knock and mock down
your Bartholomew abominations, till you be made a hissing to the
neighbouring parishes round about.
HAG. Let him alone, we have devised better upon't.
PURE. And shall he not into the stocks then?
BRI. No, mistress, we'll have them both to justice Overdo, and let him
do over 'em as is fitting: then I, and my gossip Haggise, and my
beadle Pocher, are discharged.
PURE. O, I thank you, blessed honest men!
BRI. Nay, never thank us; but thank this madman that comes here! he
put it in our heads.
_Re-enter TROUBLEALL._
PURE. Is he mad? now heaven increase his madness, and bless it, and
thank it.--Sir, your poor handmaid thanks you.
TRO. Have you a warrant? an you have a warrant, shew it.
PURE. Yes, I have a warrant out of the word, to give thanks for
removing any scorn intended to the brethren.
[_Exeunt all but Troubleall._
TRO. It is justice Overdo's warrant that I look for; if you have not
that, keep your word, I'll keep mine. Quit ye, and multiply ye.
_Enter EDGWORTH and NIGHTINGALE._
EDG. Come away, Nightingale, I pray thee.
TRO. Whither go you? where's your warrant?
EDG. Warrant! for what, sir?
TRO. For what you go about, you know how fit it is; an you have no
warrant, bless you, I'll pray for you, that's all I can do.
[_Exit._
EDG. What means he?
NIGHT. A madman that haunts the Fair; do you not know him? It's marvel
he has not more followers after his ragged heels.
EDG. Beshrew him, he startled me: I thought he had known of our plot.
Guilt's a terrible thing. Have you prepared the costard-monger?
NIGHT. Yes, and agreed for his basket of pears; he is at the corner
here, ready. And your prize, he comes down sailing that way all alone,
without his protector; he is rid of him, it seems.
EDG. Ay, I know; I should have followed his protectorship, for a feat
I am to do upon him: but this offered itself so in the way, I could
not let scape: here he comes, whistle; be this sport call'd Dorring
the Dotterel.
_Re-enter COKES._
NIGHT. Wh, wh, wh, wh, etc.
[_Whistles._
COKES. By this light, I cannot find my gingerbread wife, nor my
hobby-horse man, in all the Fair now, to have my money again: and I do
not know the way out on't, to go home for more. Do you hear, friend,
you that whistle? what tune is that you whistle?
NIGHT. A new tune I am practising, sir.
COKES. Dost thou know where I dwell, I pray thee? nay, on with thy
tune; I have no such haste for an answer: I'll practise with thee.
_Enter COSTARD-MONGER, with a basket of Pears._
COS. Buy any pears, very fine pears, pears fine!
[_Nightingale sets his foot afore him, and he falls with his basket._
COKES. Ods so! a muss, a muss, a muss, a muss!
[_Falls a scrambling for the pears._
COS. Good gentlemen, my ware, my ware; I am a poor man. Good sir, my
ware.
NIGHT. Let me hold your sword, sir, it troubles you.
COKES. Do, and my cloke an thou wilt, and my hat too.
EDG. A delicate great boy! methinks he out-scrambles them all. I
cannot persuade myself, but he goes to grammar-school yet, and plays
the truant to-day.
NIGHT. Would he had another purse to cut, Zekiel.
EDG. Purse! a man might cut out his kidneys, I think, and he never
feel 'em, he is so earnest at the sport.
NIGHT. His soul is half way out on's body at the game.
EDG. Away, Nightingale; that way.
[_Nightingale runs off with his sword, cloke, and hat._
COKES. I think I am furnish'd for cather'ne pears, for one under-meal:
Give me my cloke.
COS. Good gentleman, give me my ware.
COKES. Where's the fellow I gave my cloke to? my cloke and my hat; ha!
ods 'lid, is he gone? thieves, thieves! help me to cry, gentlemen.
[_Exit hastily._
EDG. Away, costard-monger, come to us to Ursula's.
[_Exit Costard-Monger._]
Talk of him to have a soul! 'heart, if he have any more than a thing
given him instead of salt, only to keep him from stinking, I'll be
hang'd afore my time, presently: where should it be, trow? in his
blood? he has not so much toward it in his whole body as will maintain
a good flea! and if he take this course, he will not have so much land
left as to rear a calf, within this twelvemonth. Was there ever green
plover so pull'd! that his little overseer had been here now, and been
but tall enough to see him steal pears, in exchange for his beaver-hat
and his cloke thus! I must go find him out next, for his black box,
and his patent, it seems, he has of his place; which I think the
gentleman would have a reversion of, that spoke to me for it so
earnestly.
[_Exit._
_Re-enter COKES._
COKES. Would I might lose my doublet, and hose, too, as I am an honest
man, and never stir, if I think there be any thing but thieving and
cozening in this whole Fair. Bartholomew Fair, quoth he! an ever any
Bartholomew had that luck in't that I have had, I'll be martyr'd for
him, and in Smithfield too. I have paid for my pears, a rot on 'em!
I'll keep them no longer; [_throws away his pears._] you were
choke-pears to me: I had been better have gone to mum-chance for you,
I wuss. Methinks the Fair should not have used me thus, an 'twere but
for my name's-sake; I would not have used a dog o' the name so. O,
Numps will triumph now!--
_Enter TROUBLEALL._
Friend, do you know who I am, or where I lie? I do not myself, I'll be
sworn. Do but carry me home, and I'll please thee; I have money enough
there. I have lost myself, and my cloke, and my hat, and my fine
sword, and my sister, and Numps, and mistress Grace, a gentlewoman
that I should have married, and a cut-work handkerchief she gave me,
and two purses, to-day; and my bargain of hobby-horses and
gingerbread, which grieves me worst of all.
TRO. By whose warrant, sir, have you done all this?
COKES. Warrant! thou art a wise fellow indeed: as if a man need a
warrant to lose any thing with.
TRO. Yes, justice Overdo's warrant, a man may get and lose with, I'll
stand to't.
COKES. Justice Overdo! dost thou know him? I lie there, he is my
brother-in-law, he married my sister: pray thee shew me the way; dost
thou know the house?
TRO. Sir, shew me your warrant: I know nothing without a warrant,
pardon me.
COKES. Why, I warrant thee; come along: thou shalt see I have wrought
pillows there, and cambric sheets, and sweet bags too. Pray thee guide
me to the house.
TRO. Sir, I'll tell you; go you thither yourself first alone, tell
your worshipful brother your mind, and but bring me three lines of his
hand, or his clerk's, with Adam Overdo underneath, (here I'll stay
you,) I'll obey you, and I'll guide you presently.
COKES. 'Slid, this is an ass, I have found him: pox upon me, what do I
talking to such a dull fool! farewell! you are a very coxcomb, do you
hear?
TRO. I think I am; if justice Overdo sign to it, I am, and so we are
all: he'll quit us all, multiply us all.
[_Exeunt._