The Alchemist

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Title: The Alchemist
Author: Ben Jonson
Release Date: May, 2003 [Etext #4081]
Posting Date: January 7, 2010
Language: English
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THE ALCHEMIST
By Ben Jonson
INTRODUCTION
The greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first
literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose,
satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time
affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben
Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to
us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.
Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to
the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of
Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England.
Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast
into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a
month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and
child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the
time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years
Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born.
But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His
mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was
for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the
attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at
Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations
of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in
veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,
"All that I am in arts, all that I know;"
and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His
Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either
university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted
into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no
degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by
their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as
a soldier, trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of
William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and
raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly
bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden,
Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the
face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken opima spolia
from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to
the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the
arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's
reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his
prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave,
combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings.
In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he
married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.
He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest";
for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord
Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's "Epigrams," "On
my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the
poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of
the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his
father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's
domestic life.
How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the
theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593, Marlowe made his
tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the
popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death
the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself.
Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the
exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law
of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in "Henslowe's
Diary," a species of theatrical account book which has been handed
down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's
men; for he borrowed 4 pounds of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying
back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is
not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same
year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed
the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the
company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in
collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger
Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of
some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon
mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it
appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and
that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one
time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish
Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy
circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres--well
known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with
the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his
mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords
to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of
some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date
has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however,
is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies,
now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth,"
"King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of
these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August
1599 to June 1602.
Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for
a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn,
dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one
of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer],
for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson,
bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson
in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual
continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to
remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious
fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar
squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among
gentlemen and the nobility; it was an impudent breach of the peace
on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson
described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly
arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to
prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It
is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law
permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit
of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The
circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he
received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left
thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he
returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later.
On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former
associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to
Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which
Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long
standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law,
narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in
His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the
company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play
himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or
not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by
Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with
Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in
the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's
works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's
name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well
first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that
particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was
generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in
the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of
characters.
"Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it
Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time
was established once and for all. This could have been by no means
Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was
already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of
Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never
claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded
"Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be
described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It
combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the
"Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the
beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the
classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had
already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so
fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other
respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save
for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio
Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least
characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.
"Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer
of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making
play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells
little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to
follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his
life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this
comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are
conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and
he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with
them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and
Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when
we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time
definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English
poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed
in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent
ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed
that there was a professional way of doing things which might be
reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these
examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our
attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and
haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do
something different; and the first and most striking thing that he
evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.
As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote
his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a
bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which
"Some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way."
But continuing, Jonson is careful to add:
"But that a rook by wearing a pied feather,
The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff,
A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot
On his French garters, should affect a humour!
O, it is more than most ridiculous."
Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage
personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable
simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and,
placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict
and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name
indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the
braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a
coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end
of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself.
But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of
"Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each
character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on
observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was
neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that
he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to
a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the
laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the
unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then,
but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate
and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be
tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few,
who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His
Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of
his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems
to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before
Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a
heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life,
viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent
species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy
merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in
which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's
Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the
rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor,"
all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains,
Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially
later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for
an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his
successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is,
degrade "the humour" into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of
manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play
called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous
Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The
Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His
Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies
in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled."
With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by
Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in
Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one
feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his
arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness,
especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His
Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson
contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the
theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of
plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the
manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature,
couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that
righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true
satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of
comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the
days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two
plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or
generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the
abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made
of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's
contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature
of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama.
Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and
Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in
English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again.
What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an
art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a
dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the
arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in
scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson
soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with
his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this
'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the
topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The
origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references,
apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a
satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John
Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of
Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been
discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright"
(reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice,
and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be
ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter
to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him,
and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the
beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the
stage."*
* The best account of this whole subject is to be
found in the edition of "Poetaster" and "Satiromastrix" by
J. H. Penniman in "Belles Lettres Series" shortly to appear.
See also his earlier work, "The War of the Theatres," 1892,
and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart
in "Notes and Queries," and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.
Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the
quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in
1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus
"represented on the stage"; although the personage in question,
Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and
contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary
portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages
actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone
was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described
as "a public, scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as "the
grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time."
(Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work
being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now
prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of
whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold
impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a
drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats
him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard)
with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone
['i.e.', jester] in "Every Man in His Humour" ['sic']." Is it
conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that
the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of
"the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and
profane" Chester?
We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify
the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the
allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of
fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The
Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio
Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator
of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour"
there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of
the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men
held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better
entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems
almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire
through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels,"
Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as
Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire
once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again
and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his
way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama.
As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it
is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the
City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came
soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.
"Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600,
and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible
than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to
have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is
admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly
satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is
not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to
abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that
this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of
Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom
Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to
make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was
Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for
taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the
sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the
character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should
thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little
theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally
kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped
to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of
Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides
(impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal),
interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like
Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's
self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable,
and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the
yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny
attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect.
The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted,
once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only
avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own
account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report
that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of
"Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic
attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies
Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved
success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its
earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the
ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the
"Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus,
is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had
overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In
the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over
to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or
detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson]
or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the
most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca.
"His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant
blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most
complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a
walking dictionary of slang."
It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his
reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive
vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his
dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been
held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged
professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson,
he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the
story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he
hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by
"Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The
absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the
result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the
arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of
Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has
recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's
friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is
"Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought
and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the
palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence
his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to
appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to
the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in
"Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected
that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure
playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on
no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn
that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so
berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid
of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither."
Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less
part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is
a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating
1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a
character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them
all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a
pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill,
but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him
bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of
the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"?
Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought
by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his
friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in
"Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was
staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under
his direction as one of the leaders of that company.
The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised
as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to
him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to
new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and
myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that
Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius
Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three
years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only
following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of
a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and
the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different.
Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the
stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and
dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a
finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his
ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise
his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a
classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness,
and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius,
and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and
his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in
the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of
genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste
the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical
overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking
representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's
"Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A
passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which
Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to
the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen."
There is no evidence to determine the matter.
In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman
and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled
"Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his
"Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the
wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed.
Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar
scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life.
"Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in
a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due
entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a
passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to
his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but
the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had
influence at court.
With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and
successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques
than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary
variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque;
for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a
court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of
elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value
to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a
comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional
players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity
of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies
took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic
grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and
scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo
Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the
standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson
continued active in the service of the court in the writing of
masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King
Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his
life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a
constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court.
In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance,"
"Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more
will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and
inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque
of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is
discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as
in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary
popularity.
But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he
turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was
produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the
following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614,
represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness,
character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit
and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama.
"Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the
dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy
represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of
wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from
the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore
(the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little
raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a
virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to
whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for,
although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the
most vicious, it involves no mortal catastrophe. But Jonson was on
sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more
logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was
ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may
find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the
rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and
innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently
punishing them.
"The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious
construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a
heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take
to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in
the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The
Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction,
the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and
so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the
possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none
the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling
in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the
stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the
fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of
honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is
approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably
written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike
distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with
such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel
every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous
comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less
structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full
of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree
beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is
in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal
caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the
Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary
comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger,
loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in
"The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The
Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play
that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a
period of nearly ten years.
"Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the
success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three
comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist":
"Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known
No country's mirth is better than our own."
Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for
collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the
scene of "Every Man in His Humour" from Florence to London also,
converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to
Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old
Jewry."
In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards
caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing
from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any
generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben
Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly
born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men
knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate
detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the
exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even
wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness
of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran
to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world
better for the art that they practised in it.
In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his
plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective
edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been
attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in
a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned,
excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge,
"Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written
too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty
odd "Epigrams," in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson
was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection
of lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and
"Entertainments." In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate
with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees
and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his
plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to
have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example,
parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the
World." We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that
Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor.
In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of
the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did
not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with
degrees by both universities, though when and under what
circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly
escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day
averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand.
Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson.
From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced
nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his
wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as
by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's
theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and
"an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of
another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the
Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he
acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his
learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their
antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning.
Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books.
He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him 20 pounds every
first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623,
his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically
described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even
now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in
fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect
to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him:
"[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned
plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their
snow....But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he
fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a
monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in
him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself,
and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses
Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the
speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In
"Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises
it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the
situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno,
"Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The
Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening
scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the
stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it
thenceforward to all time current and his own.
The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a
peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of
literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the
careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could
only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And
yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who
does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me
only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"?
Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word
too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there
is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and
formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous
and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with
disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual
thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson
is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where
rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the
spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical
poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the
charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the
child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of
mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the
famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is
unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom
falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet
showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others,
a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was
no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved
as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had
written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes
the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James.
And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate
familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth
of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity,
Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland.
On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the
houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had
recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met
to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of
Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest
at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were
inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir
Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of
critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first
Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William
Shakespeare, and what he hath left us," to mention only these. Nor
can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be
matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and
stately age.
But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his
folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from
inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness
continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court.
In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns the Iron Age with
its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in
"Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an
old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of
cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which
an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget.
"Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that
Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and
"The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad
humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and
the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of
the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of
English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with
Jonson's own judicious "Leges Convivales" in letters of gold, of a
company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly
attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions,
affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations;
but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the
Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid,
"We such clusters had
As made us nobly wild, not mad,
And yet each verse of thine
Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."
But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles,
though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet
returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The
Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale
of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy.
None of these plays met with any marked success, although the
scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's
dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an
office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news
(wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for
satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although
as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her
bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile
them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours
Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to
caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more
than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon,
especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears
unworthily to have used his influence at court against the
broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was
bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as
Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not
fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even
commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court;
and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and
devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be
"sealed of the tribe of Ben."
Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which
he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in
its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all
the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The
Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617
and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called
"Underwoods," including some further entertainments; a translation
of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in
1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would
hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment
(less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall,"
and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic
spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly
interesting "English Grammar" "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit
of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now
spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and "Timber, or
Discoveries" "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of
his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of
the times." The "Discoveries," as it is usually called, is a
commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which
their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy
translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many
passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the
authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not,
as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the
line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of
princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and
poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on
eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own
recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile
and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his
recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such
passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--plagiarism,
is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage
his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship.
Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of
his masques, and in the "Discoveries," is characterised by clarity
and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form
or in the subtler graces of diction.
When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his
memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A
memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his
grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey:
"O rare Ben Jonson."
FELIX E. SCHELLING.
THE COLLEGE,
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
The following is a complete list of his published works:--
DRAMAS:
Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601;
The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609;
Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600;
Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601;
Poetaster, 4to, 1602;
Sejanus, 4to, 1605;
Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605;
Volpone, 4to, 1607;
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616;
The Alchemist, 4to, 1612;
Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611;
Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631;
The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631;
The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631;
The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692;
The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640;
A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640;
The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641;
Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.
To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo,
and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and
in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.
POEMS:
Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640;
Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640;
G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640;
Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692.
Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works.
PROSE:
Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641;
The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of
Strangers, fol., 1640.
Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.
WORKS:
Fol., 1616, volume. 2, 1640 (1631-41);
fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729;
edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756;
by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 volumes., 1816, 1846;
re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 volumes., 1871;
in 9 volumes., 1875;
by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838;
by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by
C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.;
Nine Plays, 1904;
ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc;
Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal
Library), 1885;
Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905;
Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907;
Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890.
SELECTIONS:
J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay,
(Canterbury Poets), 1886;
Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895;
Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901;
Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905;
Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books,
No. 4, 1906;
Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known
setting, Eragny Press, 1906.
LIFE:
See Memoirs affixed to Works;
J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;
Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden;
Shakespeare Society, 1842;
ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906;
Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.
***
THE ALCHEMIST
TO THE LADY MOST DESERVING HER NAME AND BLOOD:
LADY MARY WROTH.
Madam,
In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the
greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal
of the sacrificers: else what could a handle of gums have done
in the sight of a hecatomb? or how might I appear at this altar,
except with those affections that no less love the light and
witness, than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what
I offer bear an acceptable odour, and hold the first strength,
it is your value of it, which remembers where, when, and to whom
it was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely
forth that thing so full of authority or example, but by
assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This, yet, safe in
your judgment (which is a Sidney's) is forbidden to speak more,
lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious faces of the time,
who, the more they paint, are the less themselves.
Your ladyship's true honourer,
BEN JONSON.
TO THE READER.
If thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I trust
thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender,
beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert
never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in this age, in
poetry, especially in plays: wherein, now the concupiscence of
dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature,
and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the
spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art?
When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and
presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all
diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when
they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with
their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and
sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice
of judgment. For they commend writers, as they do fencers or
wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with
a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows:
when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their
disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that
boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who
always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some
thing that is good, and great; but very seldom; and when it
comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks
out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and
vile about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness,
than a faint shadow. I speak not this, out of a hope to do good
to any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the
question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more
suffrages: because the most favour common errors. But I give
thee this warning, that there is a great difference between
those, that, to gain the opinion of copy, utter all they can,
however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean. For it
is only the disease of the unskilful, to think rude things
greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
SUBTLE, the Alchemist.
FACE, the Housekeeper.
DOL COMMON, their Colleague.
DAPPER, a Lawyer's Clerk.
DRUGGER, a Tobacco Man.
LOVEWIT, Master of the House.
SIR EPICURE MAMMON, a Knight.
PERTINAX SURLY, a Gamester.
TRIBULATION WHOLESOME, a Pastor of Amsterdam.
ANANIAS, a Deacon there.
KASTRIL, the angry Boy.
DAME PLIANT, his Sister, a Widow.
Neighbours.
Officers, Attendants, etc.
SCENE,--LONDON.
ARGUMENT.
T he sickness hot, a master quit, for fear,
H is house in town, and left one servant there;
E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know
A Cheater, and his punk; who now brought low,
L eaving their narrow practice, were become
C ozeners at large; and only wanting some
H ouse to set up, with him they here contract,
E ach for a share, and all begin to act.
M uch company they draw, and much abuse,
I n casting figures, telling fortunes, news,
S elling of flies, flat bawdry with the stone,
T ill it, and they, and all in fume are gone.
PROLOGUE.
Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours,
We wish away, both for your sakes and ours,
Judging spectators; and desire, in place,
To the author justice, to ourselves but grace.
Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known,
No country's mirth is better than our own:
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the stage;
And which have still been subject for the rage
Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve, but better men;
Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure
The vices that she breeds, above their cure.
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased,
But will with such fair correctives be pleased:
For here he doth not fear who can apply.
If there be any that will sit so nigh
Unto the stream, to look what it doth run,
They shall find things, they'd think or wish were done;
They are so natural follies, but so shewn,
As even the doers may see, and yet not own.
ACT 1. SCENE 1.1.
A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE.
ENTER FACE, IN A CAPTAIN'S UNIFORM, WITH HIS SWORD DRAWN, AND
SUBTLE WITH A VIAL, QUARRELLING, AND FOLLOWED BY DOL COMMON.
FACE. Believe 't, I will.
SUB. Thy worst. I fart at thee.
DOL. Have you your wits? why, gentlemen! for love--
FACE. Sirrah, I'll strip you--
SUB. What to do? lick figs
Out at my--
FACE. Rogue, rogue!--out of all your sleights.
DOL. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?
SUB. O, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks
With good strong water, an you come.
DOL. Will you have
The neighbours hear you? will you betray all?
Hark! I hear somebody.
FACE. Sirrah--
SUB. I shall mar
All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
FACE. You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave,
Dare you do this?
SUB. Yes, faith; yes, faith.
FACE. Why, who
Am I, my mungrel? who am I?
SUB. I'll tell you.,
Since you know not yourself.
FACE. Speak lower, rogue.
SUB. Yes, you were once (time's not long past) the good,
Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept
Your master's worship's house here in the Friars,
For the vacations--
FACE. Will you be so loud?
SUB. Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain.
FACE. By your means, doctor dog!
SUB. Within man's memory,
All this I speak of.
FACE. Why, I pray you, have I
Been countenanced by you, or you by me?
Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
SUB. I do not hear well.
FACE. Not of this, I think it.
But I shall put you in mind, sir;--at Pie-corner,
Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls,
Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
Piteously costive, with your pinch'd-horn-nose,
And your complexion of the Roman wash,
Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,
Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard.
SUB. I wish you could advance your voice a little.
FACE. When you went pinn'd up in the several rags
You had raked and pick'd from dunghills, before day;
Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes;
A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloke,
That scarce would cover your no buttocks--
SUB. So, sir!
FACE. When all your alchemy, and your algebra,
Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades,
Could not relieve your corps with so much linen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I gave you countenance, credit for your coals,
Your stills, your glasses, your materials;
Built you a furnace, drew you customers,
Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside,
A house to practise in--
SUB. Your master's house!
FACE. Where you have studied the more thriving skill
Of bawdry since.
SUB. Yes, in your master's house.
You and the rats here kept possession.
Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep
The buttery-hatch still lock'd, and save the chippings,
Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitae men,
The which, together with your Christmas vails
At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters,
Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks,
And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs,
Here, since your mistress' death hath broke up house.
FACE. You might talk softlier, rascal.
SUB. No, you scarab,
I'll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you
How to beware to tempt a Fury again,
That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
FACE. The place has made you valiant.
SUB. No, your clothes.--
Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung,
So poor, so wretched, when no living thing
Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse?
Rais'd thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots,
Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee
In the third region, call'd our state of grace?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopher's work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
For more than ordinary fellowships?
Giv'n thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?
Made thee a second in mine own great art?
And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel,
Do you fly out in the projection?
Would you be gone now?
DOL. Gentlemen, what mean you?
Will you mar all?
SUB. Slave, thou hadst had no name--
DOL. Will you undo yourselves with civil war?
SUB. Never been known, past equi clibanum,
The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars,
Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been lost
To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,
Had not I been.
DOL. Do you know who hears you, sovereign?
FACE. Sirrah--
DOL. Nay, general, I thought you were civil.
FACE. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.
SUB. And hang thyself, I care not.
FACE. Hang thee, collier,
And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will,
Since thou hast moved me--
DOL. O, this will o'erthrow all.
FACE. Write thee up bawd in Paul's, have all thy tricks
Of cozening with a hollow cole, dust, scrapings,
Searching for things lost, with a sieve and sheers,
Erecting figures in your rows of houses,
And taking in of shadows with a glass,
Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee,
Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey's.
DOL. Are you sound?
Have you your senses, masters?
FACE. I will have
A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,
Shall prove a true philosopher's stone to printers.
SUB. Away, you trencher-rascal!
FACE. Out, you dog-leech!
The vomit of all prisons--
DOL. Will you be
Your own destructions, gentlemen?
FACE. Still spew'd out
For lying too heavy on the basket.
SUB. Cheater!
FACE. Bawd!
SUB. Cow-herd!
FACE. Conjurer!
SUB. Cut-purse!
FACE. Witch!
DOL. O me!
We are ruin'd, lost! have you no more regard
To your reputations? where's your judgment? 'slight,
Have yet some care of me, of your republic--
FACE. Away, this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within
The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio
Of Harry the Eighth: ay, and perhaps thy neck
Within a noose, for laundring gold and barbing it.
DOL [SNATCHES FACE'S SWORD]. You'll bring your head within
a cockscomb, will you?
And you, sir, with your menstrue--
[DASHES SUBTLE'S VIAL OUT OF HIS HAND.]
Gather it up.--
'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.
I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,
For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
Have you together cozen'd all this while,
And all the world, and shall it now be said,
You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?
[TO FACE.]
You will accuse him! you will "bring him in
Within the statute!" Who shall take your word?
A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
So much as for a feather:
[TO SUBTLE.]
and you, too,
Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult,
And claim a primacy in the divisions!
You must be chief! as if you only had
The powder to project with, and the work
Were not begun out of equality?
The venture tripartite? all things in common?
Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs,
Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
And lose not the beginning of a term,
Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
And take my part, and quit you.
FACE. 'Tis his fault;
He ever murmurs, and objects his pains,
And says, the weight of all lies upon him.
SUB. Why, so it does.
DOL. How does it? do not we
Sustain our parts?
SUB. Yes, but they are not equal.
DOL. Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope
Ours may, to-morrow match it.
SUB. Ay, they MAY.
DOL. May, murmuring mastiff! ay, and do. Death on me!
Help me to throttle him.
[SEIZES SUB. BY THE THROAT.]
SUB. Dorothy! mistress Dorothy!
'Ods precious, I'll do any thing. What do you mean?
DOL. Because o' your fermentation and cibation?
SUB. Not I, by heaven--
DOL. Your Sol and Luna
[TO FACE.]
--help me.
SUB. Would I were hang'd then? I'll conform myself.
DOL. Will you, sir? do so then, and quickly: swear.
SUB. What should I swear?
DOL. To leave your faction, sir,
And labour kindly in the common work.
SUB. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside.
I only used those speeches as a spur
To him.
DOL. I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we?
FACE. 'Slid, prove to-day, who shall shark best.
SUB. Agreed.
DOL. Yes, and work close and friendly.
SUB. 'Slight, the knot
Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me.
[THEY SHAKE HANDS.]
DOL. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make
A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours,
That scarce have smiled twice since the king came in,
A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals,
Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride,
Or you t' have but a hole to thrust your heads in,
For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree.
And may don Provost ride a feasting long,
In his old velvet jerkin and stain'd scarfs,
My noble sovereign, and worthy general,
Ere we contribute a new crewel garter
To his most worsted worship.
SUB. Royal Dol!
Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself.
FACE. For which at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph,
And not be styled Dol Common, but Dol Proper,
Dol Singular: the longest cut at night,
Shall draw thee for his Doll Particular.
[BELL RINGS WITHOUT.]
SUB. Who's that? one rings. To the window, Dol:
[EXIT DOL.]
--pray heaven,
The master do not trouble us this quarter.
FACE. O, fear not him. While there dies one a week
O' the plague, he's safe, from thinking toward London.
Beside, he's busy at his hop-yards now;
I had a letter from him. If he do,
He'll send such word, for airing of the house,
As you shall have sufficient time to quit it:
Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter.
[RE-ENTER DOL.]
SUB. Who is it, Dol?
DOL. A fine young quodling.
FACE. O,
My lawyer's clerk, I lighted on last night,
In Holborn, at the Dagger. He would have
(I told you of him) a familiar,
To rifle with at horses, and win cups.
DOL. O, let him in.
SUB. Stay. Who shall do't?
FACE. Get you
Your robes on: I will meet him as going out.
DOL. And what shall I do?
FACE. Not be seen; away!
[EXIT DOL.]
Seem you very reserv'd.
SUB. Enough.
[EXIT.]
FACE [ALOUD AND RETIRING]. God be wi' you, sir,
I pray you let him know that I was here:
His name is Dapper. I would gladly have staid, but--
DAP [WITHIN]. Captain, I am here.
FACE. Who's that?--He's come, I think, doctor.
[ENTER DAPPER.]
Good faith, sir, I was going away.
DAP. In truth
I am very sorry, captain.
FACE. But I thought
Sure I should meet you.
DAP. Ay, I am very glad.
I had a scurvy writ or two to make,
And I had lent my watch last night to one
That dines to-day at the sheriff's, and so was robb'd
Of my past-time.
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE IN HIS VELVET CAP AND GOWN.]
Is this the cunning-man?
FACE. This is his worship.
DAP. Is he a doctor?
FACE. Yes.
DAP. And have you broke with him, captain?
FACE. Ay.
DAP. And how?
FACE. Faith, he does make the matter, sir, so dainty
I know not what to say.
DAP. Not so, good captain.
FACE. Would I were fairly rid of it, believe me.
DAP. Nay, now you grieve me, sir. Why should you wish so?
I dare assure you, I'll not be ungrateful.
FACE. I cannot think you will, sir. But the law
Is such a thing--and then he says, Read's matter
Falling so lately.
DAP. Read! he was an ass,
And dealt, sir, with a fool.
FACE. It was a clerk, sir.
DAP. A clerk!
FACE. Nay, hear me, sir. You know the law
Better, I think--
DAP. I should, sir, and the danger:
You know, I shewed the statute to you.
FACE. You did so.
DAP. And will I tell then! By this hand of flesh,
Would it might never write good court-hand more,
If I discover. What do you think of me,
That I am a chiaus?
FACE. What's that?
DAP. The Turk was here.
As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?
FACE. I'll tell the doctor so.
DAP. Do, good sweet captain.
FACE. Come, noble doctor, pray thee let's prevail;
This is the gentleman, and he is no chiaus.
SUB. Captain, I have return'd you all my answer.
I would do much, sir, for your love--But this
I neither may, nor can.
FACE. Tut, do not say so.
You deal now with a noble fellow, doctor,
One that will thank you richly; and he is no chiaus:
Let that, sir, move you.
SUB. Pray you, forbear--
FACE. He has
Four angels here.
SUB. You do me wrong, good sir.
FACE. Doctor, wherein? to tempt you with these spirits?
SUB. To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril.
Fore heaven, I scarce can think you are my friend,
That so would draw me to apparent danger.
FACE. I draw you! a horse draw you, and a halter,
You, and your flies together--
DAP. Nay, good captain.
FACE. That know no difference of men.
SUB. Good words, sir.
FACE. Good deeds, sir, doctor dogs-meat. 'Slight, I bring you
No cheating Clim o' the Cloughs or Claribels,
That look as big as five-and-fifty, and flush;
And spit out secrets like hot custard--
DAP. Captain!
FACE. Nor any melancholic under-scribe,
Shall tell the vicar; but a special gentle,
That is the heir to forty marks a year,
Consorts with the small poets of the time,
Is the sole hope of his old grandmother;
That knows the law, and writes you six fair hands,
Is a fine clerk, and has his cyphering perfect.
Will take his oath o' the Greek Testament,
If need be, in his pocket; and can court
His mistress out of Ovid.
DAP. Nay, dear captain--
FACE. Did you not tell me so?
DAP. Yes; but I'd have you
Use master doctor with some more respect.
FACE. Hang him, proud stag, with his broad velvet head!--
But for your sake, I'd choak, ere I would change
An article of breath with such a puckfist:
Come, let's be gone.
[GOING.]
SUB. Pray you let me speak with you.
DAP. His worship calls you, captain.
FACE. I am sorry
I e'er embark'd myself in such a business.
DAP. Nay, good sir; he did call you.
FACE. Will he take then?
SUB. First, hear me--
FACE. Not a syllable, 'less you take.
SUB. Pray you, sir--
FACE. Upon no terms but an assumpsit.
SUB. Your humour must be law.
[HE TAKES THE FOUR ANGELS.]
FACE. Why now, sir, talk.
Now I dare hear you with mine honour. Speak.
So may this gentleman too.
SUB. Why, sir--
[OFFERING TO WHISPER FACE.]
FACE. No whispering.
SUB. Fore heaven, you do not apprehend the loss
You do yourself in this.
FACE. Wherein? for what?
SUB. Marry, to be so importunate for one,
That, when he has it, will undo you all:
He'll win up all the money in the town.
FACE. How!
SUB. Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester,
As they do crackers in a puppet-play.
If I do give him a familiar,
Give you him all you play for; never set him:
For he will have it.
FACE. You are mistaken, doctor.
Why he does ask one but for cups and horses,
A rifling fly; none of your great familiars.
DAP. Yes, captain, I would have it for all games.
SUB. I told you so.
FACE [TAKING DAP. ASIDE]. 'Slight, that is a new business!
I understood you, a tame bird, to fly
Twice in a term, or so, on Friday nights,
When you had left the office, for a nag
Of forty or fifty shillings.
DAP. Ay, 'tis true, sir;
But I do think now I shall leave the law,
And therefore--
FACE. Why, this changes quite the case.
Do you think that I dare move him?
DAP. If you please, sir;
All's one to him, I see.
FACE. What! for that money?
I cannot with my conscience; nor should you
Make the request, methinks.
DAP. No, sir, I mean
To add consideration.
FACE. Why then, sir,
I'll try.--
[GOES TO SUBTLE.]
Say that it were for all games, doctor.
SUB. I say then, not a mouth shall eat for him
At any ordinary, but on the score,
That is a gaming mouth, conceive me.
FACE. Indeed!
SUB. He'll draw you all the treasure of the realm,
If it be set him.
FACE. Speak you this from art?
SUB. Ay, sir, and reason too, the ground of art.
He is of the only best complexion,
The queen of Fairy loves.
FACE. What! is he?
SUB. Peace.
He'll overhear you. Sir, should she but see him--
FACE. What?
SUB. Do not you tell him.
FACE. Will he win at cards too?
SUB. The spirits of dead Holland, living Isaac,
You'd swear, were in him; such a vigorous luck
As cannot be resisted. 'Slight, he'll put
Six of your gallants to a cloke, indeed.
FACE. A strange success, that some man shall be born to.
SUB. He hears you, man--
DAP. Sir, I'll not be ingrateful.
FACE. Faith, I have confidence in his good nature:
You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful.
SUB. Why, as you please; my venture follows yours.
FACE. Troth, do it, doctor; think him trusty, and make him.
He may make us both happy in an hour;
Win some five thousand pound, and send us two on't.
DAP. Believe it, and I will, sir.
FACE. And you shall, sir.
[TAKES HIM ASIDE.]
You have heard all?
DAP. No, what was't? Nothing, I, sir.
FACE. Nothing!
DAP. A little, sir.
FACE. Well, a rare star
Reign'd at your birth.
DAP. At mine, sir! No.
FACE. The doctor
Swears that you are--
SUB. Nay, captain, you'll tell all now.
FACE. Allied to the queen of Fairy.
DAP. Who! that I am?
Believe it, no such matter--
FACE. Yes, and that
You were born with a cawl on your head.
DAP. Who says so?
FACE. Come,
You know it well enough, though you dissemble it.
DAP. I'fac, I do not; you are mistaken.
FACE. How!
Swear by your fac, and in a thing so known
Unto the doctor? How shall we, sir, trust you
In the other matter? can we ever think,
When you have won five or six thousand pound,
You'll send us shares in't, by this rate?
DAP. By Jove, sir,
I'll win ten thousand pound, and send you half.
I'fac's no oath.
SUB. No, no, he did but jest.
FACE. Go to. Go thank the doctor: he's your friend,
To take it so.
DAP. I thank his worship.
FACE. So!
Another angel.
DAP. Must I?
FACE. Must you! 'slight,
What else is thanks? will you be trivial?--Doctor,
[DAPPER GIVES HIM THE MONEY.]
When must he come for his familiar?
DAP. Shall I not have it with me?
SUB. O, good sir!
There must a world of ceremonies pass;
You must be bath'd and fumigated first:
Besides the queen of Fairy does not rise
Till it be noon.
FACE. Not, if she danced, to-night.
SUB. And she must bless it.
FACE. Did you never see
Her royal grace yet?
DAP. Whom?
FACE. Your aunt of Fairy?
SUB. Not since she kist him in the cradle, captain;
I can resolve you that.
FACE. Well, see her grace,
Whate'er it cost you, for a thing that I know.
It will be somewhat hard to compass; but
However, see her. You are made, believe it,
If you can see her. Her grace is a lone woman,
And very rich; and if she take a fancy,
She will do strange things. See her, at any hand.
'Slid, she may hap to leave you all she has:
It is the doctor's fear.
DAP. How will't be done, then?
FACE. Let me alone, take you no thought. Do you
But say to me, captain, I'll see her grace.
DAP. "Captain, I'll see her grace."
FACE. Enough.
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
SUB. Who's there?
Anon.
[ASIDE TO FACE.]
--Conduct him forth by the back way.--
Sir, against one o'clock prepare yourself;
Till when you must be fasting; only take
Three drops of vinegar in at your nose,
Two at your mouth, and one at either ear;
Then bathe your fingers' ends and wash your eyes,
To sharpen your five senses, and cry "hum"
Thrice, and then "buz" as often; and then come.
[EXIT.]
FACE. Can you remember this?
DAP. I warrant you.
FACE. Well then, away. It is but your bestowing
Some twenty nobles 'mong her grace's servants,
And put on a clean shirt: you do not know
What grace her grace may do you in clean linen.
[EXEUNT FACE AND DAPPER.]
SUB [WITHIN]. Come in! Good wives, I pray you forbear me now;
Troth I can do you no good till afternoon--
[RE-ENTERS, FOLLOWED BY DRUGGER.]
What is your name, say you? Abel Drugger?
DRUG. Yes, sir.
SUB. A seller of tobacco?
DRUG. Yes, sir.
SUB. Umph!
Free of the grocers?
DRUG. Ay, an't please you.
SUB. Well--
Your business, Abel?
DRUG. This, an't please your worship;
I am a young beginner, and am building
Of a new shop, an't like your worship, just
At corner of a street:--Here is the plot on't--
And I would know by art, sir, of your worship,
Which way I should make my door, by necromancy,
And where my shelves; and which should be for boxes,
And which for pots. I would be glad to thrive, sir:
And I was wish'd to your worship by a gentleman,
One captain Face, that says you know men's planets,
And their good angels, and their bad.
SUB. I do,
If I do see them--
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. What! my honest Abel?
Though art well met here.
DRUG. Troth, sir, I was speaking,
Just as your worship came here, of your worship:
I pray you speak for me to master doctor.
FACE. He shall do any thing.--Doctor, do you hear?
This is my friend, Abel, an honest fellow;
He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not
Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil,
Nor washes it in muscadel and grains,
Nor buries it in gravel, under ground,
Wrapp'd up in greasy leather, or piss'd clouts:
But keeps it in fine lily pots, that, open'd,
Smell like conserve of roses, or French beans.
He has his maple block, his silver tongs,
Winchester pipes, and fire of Juniper:
A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith.
SUB. He is a fortunate fellow, that I am sure on.
FACE. Already, sir, have you found it? Lo thee, Abel!
SUB. And in right way toward riches--
FACE. Sir!
SUB. This summer
He will be of the clothing of his company,
And next spring call'd to the scarlet; spend what he can.
FACE. What, and so little beard?
SUB. Sir, you must think,
He may have a receipt to make hair come:
But he'll be wise, preserve his youth, and fine for't;
His fortune looks for him another way.
FACE. 'Slid, doctor, how canst thou know this so soon?
I am amused at that!
SUB. By a rule, captain,
In metoposcopy, which I do work by;
A certain star in the forehead, which you see not.
Your chestnut or your olive-colour'd face
Does never fail: and your long ear doth promise.
I knew't by certain spots, too, in his teeth,
And on the nail of his mercurial finger.
FACE. Which finger's that?
SUB. His little finger. Look.
You were born upon a Wednesday?
DRUG. Yes, indeed, sir.
SUB. The thumb, in chiromancy, we give Venus;
The fore-finger, to Jove; the midst, to Saturn;
The ring, to Sol; the least, to Mercury,
Who was the lord, sir, of his horoscope,
His house of life being Libra; which fore-shew'd,
He should be a merchant, and should trade with balance.
FACE. Why, this is strange! Is it not, honest Nab?
SUB. There is a ship now, coming from Ormus,
That shall yield him such a commodity
Of drugs
[POINTING TO THE PLAN.]
--This is the west, and this the south?
DRUG. Yes, sir.
SUB. And those are your two sides?
DRUG. Ay, sir.
SUB. Make me your door, then, south; your broad side, west:
And on the east side of your shop, aloft,
Write Mathlai, Tarmiel, and Baraborat;
Upon the north part, Rael, Velel, Thiel.
They are the names of those mercurial spirits,
That do fright flies from boxes.
DRUG. Yes, sir.
SUB. And
Beneath your threshold, bury me a load-stone
To draw in gallants that wear spurs: the rest,
They'll seem to follow.
FACE. That's a secret, Nab!
SUB. And, on your stall, a puppet, with a vice
And a court-fucus to call city-dames:
You shall deal much with minerals.
DRUG. Sir, I have.
At home, already--
SUB. Ay, I know you have arsenic,
Vitriol, sal-tartar, argaile, alkali,
Cinoper: I know all.--This fellow, captain,
Will come, in time, to be a great distiller,
And give a say--I will not say directly,
But very fair--at the philosopher's stone.
FACE. Why, how now, Abel! is this true?
DRUG [ASIDE TO FACE]. Good captain,
What must I give?
FACE. Nay, I'll not counsel thee.
Thou hear'st what wealth (he says, spend what thou canst,)
Thou'rt like to come to.
DRUG. I would gi' him a crown.
FACE. A crown! and toward such a fortune? heart,
Thou shalt rather gi' him thy shop. No gold about thee?
DRUG. Yes, I have a portague, I have kept this half-year.
FACE. Out on thee, Nab! 'Slight, there was such an offer--
Shalt keep't no longer, I'll give't him for thee. Doctor,
Nab prays your worship to drink this, and swears
He will appear more grateful, as your skill
Does raise him in the world.
DRUG. I would entreat
Another favour of his worship.
FACE. What is't, Nab?
DRUG. But to look over, sir, my almanack,
And cross out my ill-days, that I may neither
Bargain, nor trust upon them.
FACE. That he shall, Nab:
Leave it, it shall be done, 'gainst afternoon.
SUB. And a direction for his shelves.
FACE. Now, Nab,
Art thou well pleased, Nab?
DRUG. 'Thank, sir, both your worships.
FACE. Away.
[EXIT DRUGGER.]
Why, now, you smoaky persecutor of nature!
Now do you see, that something's to be done,
Beside your beech-coal, and your corsive waters,
Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites?
You must have stuff brought home to you, to work on:
And yet you think, I am at no expense
In searching out these veins, then following them,
Then trying them out. 'Fore God, my intelligence
Costs me more money, than my share oft comes to,
In these rare works.
SUB. You are pleasant, sir.
[RE-ENTER DOL.]
--How now!
What says my dainty Dolkin?
DOL. Yonder fish-wife
Will not away. And there's your giantess,
The bawd of Lambeth.
SUB. Heart, I cannot speak with them.
DOL. Not afore night, I have told them in a voice,
Thorough the trunk, like one of your familiars.
But I have spied sir Epicure Mammon--
SUB. Where?
DOL. Coming along, at far end of the lane,
Slow of his feet, but earnest of his tongue
To one that's with him.
SUB. Face, go you and shift.
[EXIT FACE.]
Dol, you must presently make ready, too.
DOL. Why, what's the matter?
SUB. O, I did look for him
With the sun's rising: 'marvel he could sleep,
This is the day I am to perfect for him
The magisterium, our great work, the stone;
And yield it, made, into his hands: of which
He has, this month, talked as he were possess'd.
And now he's dealing pieces on't away.--
Methinks I see him entering ordinaries,
Dispensing for the pox, and plaguy houses,
Reaching his dose, walking Moorfields for lepers,
And offering citizens' wives pomander-bracelets,
As his preservative, made of the elixir;
Searching the spittal, to make old bawds young;
And the highways, for beggars, to make rich.
I see no end of his labours. He will make
Nature asham'd of her long sleep: when art,
Who's but a step-dame, shall do more than she,
In her best love to mankind, ever could:
If his dream lasts, he'll turn the age to gold.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 2. SCENE 2.1.
AN OUTER ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE.
ENTER SIR EPICURE MAMMON AND SURLY.
MAM. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore
In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru:
And there within, sir, are the golden mines,
Great Solomon's Ophir! he was sailing to't,
Three years, but we have reached it in ten months.
This is the day, wherein, to all my friends,
I will pronounce the happy word, BE RICH;
THIS DAY YOU SHALL BE SPECTATISSIMI.
You shall no more deal with the hollow dye,
Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping
The livery-punk for the young heir, that must
Seal, at all hours, in his shirt: no more,
If he deny, have him beaten to't, as he is
That brings him the commodity. No more
Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger
Of velvet entrails for a rude-spun cloke,
To be display'd at madam Augusta's, make
The sons of Sword and Hazard fall before
The golden calf, and on their knees, whole nights
Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets:
Or go a feasting after drum and ensign.
No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys,
And have your punks, and punketees, my Surly.
And unto thee I speak it first, BE RICH.
Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho!
FACE [WITHIN]. Sir, he'll come to you by and by.
MAM. That is his fire-drake,
His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals,
Till he firk nature up, in her own centre.
You are not faithful, sir. This night, I'll change
All that is metal, in my house, to gold:
And, early in the morning, will I send
To all the plumbers and the pewterers,
And by their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury
For all the copper.
SUR. What, and turn that too?
MAM. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall,
And make them perfect Indies! you admire now?
SUR. No, faith.
MAM. But when you see th' effects of the Great Medicine,
Of which one part projected on a hundred
Of Mercury, or Venus, or the moon,
Shall turn it to as many of the sun;
Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum:
You will believe me.
SUR. Yes, when I see't, I will.
But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I
Giving them no occasion, sure I'll have
A whore, shall piss them out next day.
MAM. Ha! why?
Do you think I fable with you? I assure you,
He that has once the flower of the sun,
The perfect ruby, which we call elixir,
Not only can do that, but, by its virtue,
Can confer honour, love, respect, long life;
Give safety, valour, yea, and victory,
To whom he will. In eight and twenty days,
I'll make an old man of fourscore, a child.
SUR. No doubt; he's that already.
MAM. Nay, I mean,
Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle,
To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters,
Young giants; as our philosophers have done,
The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood,
But taking, once a week, on a knife's point,
The quantity of a grain of mustard of it;
Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids.
SUR. The decay'd vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you,
That keep the fire alive, there.
MAM. 'Tis the secret
Of nature naturis'd 'gainst all infections,
Cures all diseases coming of all causes;
A month's grief in a day, a year's in twelve;
And, of what age soever, in a month:
Past all the doses of your drugging doctors.
I'll undertake, withal, to fright the plague
Out of the kingdom in three months.
SUR. And I'll
Be bound, the players shall sing your praises, then,
Without their poets.
MAM. Sir, I'll do't. Mean time,
I'll give away so much unto my man,
Shall serve the whole city, with preservative
Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate--
SUR. As he that built the Water-work, does with water?
MAM. You are incredulous.
SUR. Faith I have a humour,
I would not willingly be gull'd. Your stone
Cannot transmute me.
MAM. Pertinax, [my] Surly,
Will you believe antiquity? records?
I'll shew you a book where Moses and his sister,
And Solomon have written of the art;
Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam--
SUR. How!
MAM. Of the philosopher's stone, and in High Dutch.
SUR. Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?
MAM. He did;
Which proves it was the primitive tongue.
SUR. What paper?
MAM. On cedar board.
SUR. O that, indeed, they say,
Will last 'gainst worms.
MAM. 'Tis like your Irish wood,
'Gainst cob-webs. I have a piece of Jason's fleece, too,
Which was no other than a book of alchemy,
Writ in large sheep-skin, a good fat ram-vellum.
Such was Pythagoras' thigh, Pandora's tub,
And, all that fable of Medea's charms,
The manner of our work; the bulls, our furnace,
Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the dragon:
The dragon's teeth, mercury sublimate,
That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting;
And they are gathered into Jason's helm,
The alembic, and then sow'd in Mars his field,
And thence sublimed so often, till they're fixed.
Both this, the Hesperian garden, Cadmus' story,
Jove's shower, the boon of Midas, Argus' eyes,
Boccace his Demogorgon, thousands more,
All abstract riddles of our stone.
[ENTER FACE, AS A SERVANT.]
--How now!
Do we succeed? Is our day come? and holds it?
FACE. The evening will set red upon you, sir;
You have colour for it, crimson: the red ferment
Has done his office; three hours hence prepare you
To see projection.
MAM. Pertinax, my Surly.
Again I say to thee, aloud, Be rich.
This day, thou shalt have ingots; and to-morrow,
Give lords th' affront.--Is it, my Zephyrus, right?
Blushes the bolt's-head?
FACE. Like a wench with child, sir,
That were but now discover'd to her master.
MAM. Excellent witty Lungs!--my only care
Where to get stuff enough now, to project on;
This town will not half serve me.
FACE. No, sir! buy
The covering off o' churches.
MAM. That's true.
FACE. Yes.
Let them stand bare, as do their auditory;
Or cap them, new, with shingles.
MAM. No, good thatch:
Thatch will lie light upon the rafters, Lungs.--
Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace;
I will restore thee thy complexion, Puffe,
Lost in the embers; and repair this brain,
Hurt with the fume o' the metals.
FACE. I have blown, sir,
Hard for your worship; thrown by many a coal,
When 'twas not beech; weigh'd those I put in, just,
To keep your heat still even; these blear'd eyes
Have wak'd to read your several colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock's tail, the plumed swan.
MAM. And, lastly,
Thou hast descry'd the flower, the sanguis agni?
FACE. Yes, sir.
MAM. Where's master?
FACE. At his prayers, sir, he;
Good man, he's doing his devotions
For the success.
MAM. Lungs, I will set a period
To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master
Of my seraglio.
FACE. Good, sir.
MAM. But do you hear?
I'll geld you, Lungs.
FACE. Yes, sir.
MAM. For I do mean
To have a list of wives and concubines,
Equal with Solomon, who had the stone
Alike with me; and I will make me a back
With the elixir, that shall be as tough
As Hercules, to encounter fifty a night.--
Thou'rt sure thou saw'st it blood?
FACE. Both blood and spirit, sir.
MAM. I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft;
Down is too hard: and then, mine oval room
Fill'd with such pictures as Tiberius took
From Elephantis, and dull Aretine
But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses
Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse
And multiply the figures, as I walk
Naked between my succubae. My mists
I'll have of perfume, vapour'd 'bout the room,
To lose ourselves in; and my baths, like pits
To fall into; from whence we will come forth,
And roll us dry in gossamer and roses.--
Is it arrived at ruby?--Where I spy
A wealthy citizen, or [a] rich lawyer,
Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow
I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold.
FACE. And I shall carry it?
MAM. No. I'll have no bawds,
But fathers and mothers: they will do it best,
Best of all others. And my flatterers
Shall be the pure and gravest of divines,
That I can get for money. My mere fools,
Eloquent burgesses, and then my poets
The same that writ so subtly of the fart,
Whom I will entertain still for that subject.
The few that would give out themselves to be
Court and town-stallions, and, each-where, bely
Ladies who are known most innocent for them;
Those will I beg, to make me eunuchs of:
And they shall fan me with ten estrich tails
A-piece, made in a plume to gather wind.
We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the med'cine.
My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells,
Dishes of agat set in gold, and studded
With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies.
The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels,
Boil'd in the spirit of sol, and dissolv'd pearl,
Apicius' diet, 'gainst the epilepsy:
And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber,
Headed with diamond and carbuncle.
My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons,
Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have
The beards of barbels served, instead of sallads;
Oil'd mushrooms; and the swelling unctuous paps
Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,
Drest with an exquisite, and poignant sauce;
For which, I'll say unto my cook, "There's gold,
Go forth, and be a knight."
FACE. Sir, I'll go look
A little, how it heightens.
[EXIT.]
MAM. Do.--My shirts
I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light
As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment,
It shall be such as might provoke the Persian,
Were he to teach the world riot anew.
My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins, perfumed
With gums of paradise, and eastern air--
SUR. And do you think to have the stone with this?
MAM. No, I do think t' have all this with the stone.
SUR. Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,
A pious, holy, and religious man,
One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.
MAM. That makes it, sir; he is so: but I buy it;
My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch,
A notable, superstitious, good soul,
Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald,
With prayer and fasting for it: and, sir, let him
Do it alone, for me, still. Here he comes.
Not a profane word afore him: 'tis poison.--
[ENTER SUBTLE.]
Good morrow, father.
SUB. Gentle son, good morrow,
And to your friend there. What is he, is with you?
MAM. An heretic, that I did bring along,
In hope, sir, to convert him.
SUB. Son, I doubt
You are covetous, that thus you meet your time
In the just point: prevent your day at morning.
This argues something, worthy of a fear
Of importune and carnal appetite.
Take heed you do not cause the blessing leave you,
With your ungovern'd haste. I should be sorry
To see my labours, now even at perfection,
Got by long watching and large patience,
Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed them.
Which (heaven I call to witness, with your self,
To whom I have pour'd my thoughts) in all my ends,
Have look'd no way, but unto public good,
To pious uses, and dear charity
Now grown a prodigy with men. Wherein
If you, my son, should now prevaricate,
And, to your own particular lusts employ
So great and catholic a bliss, be sure
A curse will follow, yea, and overtake
Your subtle and most secret ways.
MAM. I know, sir;
You shall not need to fear me; I but come,
To have you confute this gentleman.
SUR. Who is,
Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief
Toward your stone; would not be gull'd.
SUB. Well, son,
All that I can convince him in, is this,
The WORK IS DONE, bright sol is in his robe.
We have a medicine of the triple soul,
The glorified spirit. Thanks be to heaven,
And make us worthy of it!--Ulen Spiegel!
FACE [WITHIN]. Anon, sir.
SUB. Look well to the register.
And let your heat still lessen by degrees,
To the aludels.
FACE [WITHIN]. Yes, sir.
SUB. Did you look
On the bolt's-head yet?
FACE [WITHIN]. Which? on D, sir?
SUB. Ay;
What's the complexion?
FACE [WITHIN]. Whitish.
SUB. Infuse vinegar,
To draw his volatile substance and his tincture:
And let the water in glass E be filter'd,
And put into the gripe's egg. Lute him well;
And leave him closed in balneo.
FACE [WITHIN]. I will, sir.
SUR. What a brave language here is! next to canting.
SUB. I have another work, you never saw, son,
That three days since past the philosopher's wheel,
In the lent heat of Athanor; and's become
Sulphur of Nature.
MAM. But 'tis for me?
SUB. What need you?
You have enough in that is perfect.
MAM. O but--
SUB. Why, this is covetise!
MAM. No, I assure you,
I shall employ it all in pious uses,
Founding of colleges and grammar schools,
Marrying young virgins, building hospitals,
And now and then a church.
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
SUB. How now!
FACE. Sir, please you,
Shall I not change the filter?
SUB. Marry, yes;
And bring me the complexion of glass B.
[EXIT FACE.]
MAM. Have you another?
SUB. Yes, son; were I assured--
Your piety were firm, we would not want
The means to glorify it: but I hope the best.--
I mean to tinct C in sand-heat to-morrow,
And give him imbibition.
MAM. Of white oil?
SUB. No, sir, of red. F is come over the helm too,
I thank my Maker, in S. Mary's bath,
And shews lac virginis. Blessed be heaven!
I sent you of his faeces there calcined:
Out of that calx, I have won the salt of mercury.
MAM. By pouring on your rectified water?
SUB. Yes, and reverberating in Athanor.
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
How now! what colour says it?
FACE. The ground black, sir.
MAM. That's your crow's head?
SUR. Your cock's-comb's, is it not?
SUB. No, 'tis not perfect. Would it were the crow!
That work wants something.
SUR [ASIDE]. O, I looked for this.
The hay's a pitching.
SUB. Are you sure you loosed them
In their own menstrue?
FACE. Yes, sir, and then married them,
And put them in a bolt's-head nipp'd to digestion,
According as you bade me, when I set
The liquor of Mars to circulation
In the same heat.
SUB. The process then was right.
FACE. Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake,
And what was saved was put into the pellican,
And sign'd with Hermes' seal.
SUB. I think 'twas so.
We should have a new amalgama.
SUR [ASIDE]. O, this ferret
Is rank as any pole-cat.
SUB. But I care not:
Let him e'en die; we have enough beside,
In embrion. H has his white shirt on?
FACE. Yes, sir,
He's ripe for inceration, he stands warm,
In his ash-fire. I would not you should let
Any die now, if I might counsel, sir,
For luck's sake to the rest: it is not good.
MAM. He says right.
SUR [ASIDE]. Ay, are you bolted?
FACE. Nay, I know't, sir,
I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces
Of fresh materials?
MAM. Is't no more?
FACE. No more, sir.
Of gold, t'amalgame with some six of mercury.
MAM. Away, here's money. What will serve?
FACE. Ask him, sir.
MAM. How much?
SUB. Give him nine pound:--you may give him ten.
SUR. Yes, twenty, and be cozen'd, do.
MAM. There 'tis.
[GIVES FACE THE MONEY.]
SUB. This needs not; but that you will have it so,
To see conclusions of all: for two
Of our inferior works are at fixation,
A third is in ascension. Go your ways.
Have you set the oil of luna in kemia?
FACE. Yes, sir.
SUB. And the philosopher's vinegar?
FACE. Ay.
[EXIT.]
SUR. We shall have a sallad!
MAM. When do you make projection?
SUB. Son, be not hasty, I exalt our med'cine,
By hanging him in balneo vaporoso,
And giving him solution; then congeal him;
And then dissolve him; then again congeal him;
For look, how oft I iterate the work,
So many times I add unto his virtue.
As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred,
After his second loose, he'll turn a thousand;
His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred:
After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces
Of any imperfect metal, into pure
Silver or gold, in all examinations,
As good as any of the natural mine.
Get you your stuff here against afternoon,
Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons.
MAM. Not those of iron?
SUB. Yes, you may bring them too:
We'll change all metals.
SUR. I believe you in that.
MAM. Then I may send my spits?
SUB. Yes, and your racks.
SUR. And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks?
Shall he not?
SUB. If he please.
SUR.--To be an ass.
SUB. How, sir!
MAM. This gentleman you must bear withal:
I told you he had no faith.
SUR. And little hope, sir;
But much less charity, should I gull myself.
SUB. Why, what have you observ'd, sir, in our art,
Seems so impossible?
SUR. But your whole work, no more.
That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,
As they do eggs in Egypt!
SUB. Sir, do you
Believe that eggs are hatch'd so?
SUR. If I should?
SUB. Why, I think that the greater miracle.
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.
SUR. That cannot be.
The egg's ordain'd by nature to that end,
And is a chicken in potentia.
SUB. The same we say of lead and other metals,
Which would be gold, if they had time.
MAM. And that
Our art doth further.
SUB. Ay, for 'twere absurb
To think that nature in the earth bred gold
Perfect in the instant: something went before.
There must be remote matter.
SUR. Ay, what is that?
SUB. Marry, we say--
MAM. Ay, now it heats: stand, father,
Pound him to dust.
SUB. It is, of the one part,
A humid exhalation, which we call
Material liquida, or the unctuous water;
On the other part, a certain crass and vicious
Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,
Do make the elementary matter of gold;
Which is not yet propria materia,
But common to all metals and all stones;
For, where it is forsaken of that moisture,
And hath more driness, it becomes a stone:
Where it retains more of the humid fatness,
It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.
Nor can this remote matter suddenly
Progress so from extreme unto extreme,
As to grow gold, and leap o'er all the means.
Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then
Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy
And oily water, mercury is engender'd;
Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one,
Which is the last, supplying the place of male,
The other of the female, in all metals.
Some do believe hermaphrodeity,
That both do act and suffer. But these two
Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive.
And even in gold they are; for we do find
Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them;
And can produce the species of each metal
More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth.
Beside, who doth not see in daily practice
Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps,
Out of the carcases and dung of creatures;
Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed?
And these are living creatures, far more perfect
And excellent than metals.
MAM. Well said, father!
Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He'll bray you in a mortar.
SUR. Pray you, sir, stay.
Rather than I'll be brayed, sir, I'll believe
That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game,
Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man
With charming.
SUB. Sir?
SUR. What else are all your terms,
Whereon no one of your writers 'grees with other?
Of your elixir, your lac virginis,
Your stone, your med'cine, and your chrysosperm,
Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,
Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia,
Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther;
Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,
And then your red man, and your white woman,
With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,
Of piss and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood,
Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,
Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,
And worlds of other strange ingredients,
Would burst a man to name?
SUB. And all these named,
Intending but one thing; which art our writers
Used to obscure their art.
MAM. Sir, so I told him--
Because the simple idiot should not learn it,
And make it vulgar.
SUB. Was not all the knowledge
Of the Aegyptians writ in mystic symbols?
Speak not the scriptures oft in parables?
Are not the choicest fables of the poets,
That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
Wrapp'd in perplexed allegories?
MAM. I urg'd that,
And clear'd to him, that Sisyphus was damn'd
To roll the ceaseless stone, only because
He would have made Ours common.
DOL [APPEARS AT THE DOOR].--
Who is this?
SUB. 'Sprecious!--What do you mean? go in, good lady,
Let me entreat you.
[DOL RETIRES.]
--Where's this varlet?
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Sir.
SUB. You very knave! do you use me thus?
FACE. Wherein, sir?
SUB. Go in and see, you traitor. Go!
[EXIT FACE.]
MAM. Who is it, sir?
SUB. Nothing, sir; nothing.
MAM. What's the matter, good sir?
I have not seen you thus distemper'd: who is't?
SUB. All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries;
But ours the most ignorant.--
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
What now?
FACE. 'Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.
SUB. Would she, sir! Follow me.
[EXIT.]
MAM [STOPPING HIM]. Stay, Lungs.
FACE. I dare not, sir.
MAM. Stay, man; what is she?
FACE. A lord's sister, sir.
MAM. How! pray thee, stay.
FACE. She's mad, sir, and sent hither--
He'll be mad too.--
MAM. I warrant thee.--
Why sent hither?
FACE. Sir, to be cured.
SUB [WITHIN]. Why, rascal!
FACE. Lo you!--Here, sir!
[EXIT.]
MAM. 'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.
SUR. Heart, this is a bawdy-house! I will be burnt else.
MAM. O, by this light, no: do not wrong him. He's
Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice.
No, he's a rare physician, do him right,
An excellent Paracelsian, and has done
Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all
With spirits, he; he will not hear a word
Of Galen; or his tedious recipes.--
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
How now, Lungs!
FACE. Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant
To have told your worship all. This must not hear.
MAM. No, he will not be "gull'd;" let him alone.
FACE. You are very right, sir, she is a most rare scholar,
And is gone mad with studying Broughton's works.
If you but name a word touching the Hebrew,
She falls into her fit, and will discourse
So learnedly of genealogies,
As you would run mad too, to hear her, sir.
MAM. How might one do t' have conference with her, Lungs?
FACE. O divers have run mad upon the conference:
I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste,
To fetch a vial.
SUR. Be not gull'd, sir Mammon.
MAM. Wherein? pray ye, be patient.
SUR. Yes, as you are,
And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.
MAM. You are too foul, believe it.--Come here, Ulen,
One word.
FACE. I dare not, in good faith.
[GOING.]
MAM. Stay, knave.
FACE. He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir.
MAM. Drink that.
[GIVES HIM MONEY.]
What is she when she's out of her fit?
FACE. O, the most affablest creature, sir! so merry!
So pleasant! she'll mount you up, like quicksilver,
Over the helm; and circulate like oil,
A very vegetal: discourse of state,
Of mathematics, bawdry, any thing--
MAM. Is she no way accessible? no means,
No trick to give a man a taste of her--wit--
Or so?
SUB [WITHIN]. Ulen!
FACE. I'll come to you again, sir.
[EXIT.]
MAM. Surly, I did not think one of your breeding
Would traduce personages of worth.
SUR. Sir Epicure,
Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gull'd:
I do not like your philosophical bawds.
Their stone is letchery enough to pay for,
Without this bait.
MAM. 'Heart, you abuse yourself.
I know the lady, and her friends, and means,
The original of this disaster. Her brother
Has told me all.
SUR. And yet you never saw her
Till now!
MAM. O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it,
One of the treacherousest memories, I do think,
Of all mankind.
SUR. What call you her brother?
MAM. My lord--
He will not have his name known, now I think on't.
SUR. A very treacherous memory!
MAM. On my faith--
SUR. Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it,
Till we meet next.
MAM. Nay, by this hand, 'tis true.
He's one I honour, and my noble friend;
And I respect his house.
SUR. Heart! can it be,
That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need,
A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus,
With his own oaths, and arguments, make hard means
To gull himself? An this be your elixir,
Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary,
Give me your honest trick yet at primero,
Or gleek; and take your lutum sapientis,
Your menstruum simplex! I'll have gold before you,
And with less danger of the quicksilver,
Or the hot sulphur.
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Here's one from Captain Face, sir,
[TO SURLY.]
Desires you meet him in the Temple-church,
Some half-hour hence, and upon earnest business.
Sir,
[WHISPERS MAMMON.]
if you please to quit us, now; and come
Again within two hours, you shall have
My master busy examining o' the works;
And I will steal you in, unto the party,
That you may see her converse.--Sir, shall I say,
You'll meet the captain's worship?
SUR. Sir, I will.--
[WALKS ASIDE.]
But, by attorney, and to a second purpose.
Now, I am sure it is a bawdy-house;
I'll swear it, were the marshal here to thank me:
The naming this commander doth confirm it.
Don Face! why, he's the most authentic dealer
In these commodities, the superintendant
To all the quainter traffickers in town!
He is the visitor, and does appoint,
Who lies with whom, and at what hour; what price;
Which gown, and in what smock; what fall; what tire.
Him will I prove, by a third person, to find
The subtleties of this dark labyrinth:
Which if I do discover, dear sir Mammon,
You'll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher,
To laugh: for you that are, 'tis thought, shall weep.
FACE. Sir, he does pray, you'll not forget.
SUR. I will not, sir.
Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.
[EXIT.]
MAM. I follow you, straight.
FACE. But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion.
This gentleman has a parlous head.
MAM. But wilt thou Ulen,
Be constant to thy promise?
FACE. As my life, sir.
MAM. And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me,
And say, I am a noble fellow?
FACE. O, what else, sir?
And that you'll make her royal with the stone,
An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam.
MAM. Wilt thou do this?
FACE. Will I, sir!
MAM. Lungs, my Lungs!
I love thee.
FACE. Send your stuff, sir, that my master
May busy himself about projection.
MAM. Thou hast witch'd me, rogue: take, go.
[GIVES HIM MONEY.]
FACE. Your jack, and all, sir.
MAM. Thou art a villain--I will send my jack,
And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear.
Away, thou dost not care for me.
FACE. Not I, sir!
MAM. Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel,
Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain
With the best lord's vermin of 'em all.
FACE. Away, sir.
MAM. A count, nay, a count palatine--
FACE. Good, sir, go.
MAM. Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster.
[EXIT.]
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE AND DOL.]
SUB. Has he bit? has he bit?
FACE. And swallowed, too, my Subtle.
I have given him line, and now he plays, i'faith.
SUB. And shall we twitch him?
FACE. Thorough both the gills.
A wench is a rare bait, with which a man
No sooner's taken, but he straight firks mad.
SUB. Dol, my Lord What'ts'hums sister, you must now
Bear yourself statelich.
DOL. O let me alone.
I'll not forget my race, I warrant you.
I'll keep my distance, laugh and talk aloud;
Have all the tricks of a proud scurvy lady,
And be as rude as her woman.
FACE. Well said, sanguine!
SUB. But will he send his andirons?
FACE. His jack too,
And's iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well,
I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.
SUB. O monsieur Caution, that WILL NOT BE GULL'D?
FACE. Ay,
If I can strike a fine hook into him, now!
The Temple-church, there I have cast mine angle.
Well, pray for me. I'll about it.
[KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
SUB. What, more gudgeons!
Dol, scout, scout!
[DOL GOES TO THE WINDOW.]
Stay, Face, you must go to the door,
'Pray God it be my anabaptist--Who is't, Dol?
DOL. I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman.
SUB. Ods so! 'tis he, he said he would send what call you him?
The sanctified elder, that should deal
For Mammon's jack and andirons. Let him in.
Stay, help me off, first, with my gown.
[EXIT FACE WITH THE GOWN.]
Away,
Madam, to your withdrawing chamber.
[EXIT DOL.]
Now,
In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.--
This fellow is sent from one negociates with me
About the stone too, for the holy brethren
Of Amsterdam, the exiled saints, that hope
To raise their discipline by it. I must use him
In some strange fashion, now, to make him admire me.--
[ENTER ANANIAS.]
[ALOUD.]
Where is my drudge?
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Sir!
SUB. Take away the recipient,
And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma.
Then pour it on the Sol, in the cucurbite,
And let them macerate together.
FACE. Yes, sir.
And save the ground?
SUB. No: terra damnata
Must not have entrance in the work.--Who are you?
ANA. A faithful brother, if it please you.
SUB. What's that?
A Lullianist? a Ripley? Filius artis?
Can you sublime and dulcify? calcine?
Know you the sapor pontic? sapor stiptic?
Or what is homogene, or heterogene?
ANA. I understand no heathen language, truly.
SUB. Heathen! you Knipper-doling? is Ars sacra,
Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica,
Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge,
A heathen language?
ANA. Heathen Greek, I take it.
SUB. How! heathen Greek?
ANA. All's heathen but the Hebrew.
SUB. Sirrah, my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him,
Like a philosopher: answer in the language.
Name the vexations, and the martyrisations
Of metals in the work.
FACE. Sir, putrefaction,
Solution, ablution, sublimation,
Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and
Fixation.
SUB. This is heathen Greek to you, now!--
And when comes vivification?
FACE. After mortification.
SUB. What's cohobation?
FACE. 'Tis the pouring on
Your aqua regis, and then drawing him off,
To the trine circle of the seven spheres.
SUB. What's the proper passion of metals?
FACE. Malleation.
SUB. What's your ultimum supplicium auri?
FACE. Antimonium.
SUB. This is heathen Greek to you!--And what's your mercury?
FACE. A very fugitive, he will be gone, sir.
SUB. How know you him?
FACE. By his viscosity,
His oleosity, and his suscitability.
SUB. How do you sublime him?
FACE. With the calce of egg-shells,
White marble, talc.
SUB. Your magisterium now,
What's that?
FACE. Shifting, sir, your elements,
Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist into hot,
Hot into dry.
SUB. This is heathen Greek to you still!
Your lapis philosophicus?
FACE. 'Tis a stone,
And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body:
Which if you do dissolve, it is dissolved;
If you coagulate, it is coagulated;
If you make it to fly, it flieth.
SUB. Enough.
[EXIT FACE.]
This is heathen Greek to you! What are you, sir?
ANA. Please you, a servant of the exiled brethren,
That deal with widows' and with orphans' goods,
And make a just account unto the saints:
A deacon.
SUB. O, you are sent from master Wholesome,
Your teacher?
ANA. From Tribulation Wholesome,
Our very zealous pastor.
SUB. Good! I have
Some orphans' goods to come here.
ANA. Of what kind, sir?
SUB. Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchen-ware,
Metals, that we must use our medicine on:
Wherein the brethren may have a pennyworth
For ready money.
ANA. Were the orphans' parents
Sincere professors?
SUB. Why do you ask?
ANA. Because
We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth,
Their utmost value.
SUB. 'Slid, you'd cozen else,
And if their parents were not of the faithful!--
I will not trust you, now I think on it,
'Till I have talked with your pastor. Have you brought money
To buy more coals?
ANA. No, surely.
SUB. No! how so?
ANA. The brethren bid me say unto you, sir,
Surely, they will not venture any more,
Till they may see projection.
SUB. How!
ANA. You have had,
For the instruments, as bricks, and lome, and glasses,
Already thirty pound; and for materials,
They say, some ninety more: and they have heard since,
That one at Heidelberg, made it of an egg,
And a small paper of pin-dust.
SUB. What's your name?
ANA. My name is Ananias.
SUB. Out, the varlet
That cozen'd the apostles! Hence, away!
Flee, mischief! had your holy consistory
No name to send me, of another sound,
Than wicked Ananias? send your elders
Hither to make atonement for you quickly,
And give me satisfaction; or out goes
The fire; and down th' alembics, and the furnace,
Piger Henricus, or what not. Thou wretch!
Both sericon and bufo shall be lost,
Tell them. All hope of rooting out the bishops,
Or the antichristian hierarchy, shall perish,
If they stay threescore minutes: the aqueity,
Terreity, and sulphureity
Shall run together again, and all be annull'd,
Thou wicked Ananias!
[EXIT ANANIAS.]
This will fetch 'em,
And make them haste towards their gulling more.
A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright
Those that are froward, to an appetite.
[RE-ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM, FOLLOWED BY DRUGGER.]
FACE. He is busy with his spirits, but we'll upon him.
SUB. How now! what mates, what Baiards have we here?
FACE. I told you, he would be furious.--Sir, here's Nab,
Has brought you another piece of gold to look on:
--We must appease him. Give it me,--and prays you,
You would devise--what is it, Nab?
DRUG. A sign, sir.
FACE. Ay, a good lucky one, a thriving sign, doctor.
SUB. I was devising now.
FACE. 'Slight, do not say so,
He will repent he gave you any more--
What say you to his constellation, doctor,
The Balance?
SUB. No, that way is stale, and common.
A townsman born in Taurus, gives the bull,
Or the bull's-head: in Aries, the ram,
A poor device! No, I will have his name
Form'd in some mystic character; whose radii,
Striking the senses of the passers by,
Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections,
That may result upon the party owns it:
As thus--
FACE. Nab!
SUB. He shall have "a bell," that's "Abel;"
And by it standing one whose name is "Dee,"
In a "rug" gown, there's "D," and "Rug," that's "drug:"
And right anenst him a dog snarling "er;"
There's "Drugger," Abel Drugger. That's his sign.
And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic!
FACE. Abel, thou art made.
DRUG. Sir, I do thank his worship.
FACE. Six o' thy legs more will not do it, Nab.
He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, doctor.
DRUG. Yes, sir;
I have another thing I would impart--
FACE. Out with it, Nab.
DRUG. Sir, there is lodged, hard by me,
A rich young widow--
FACE. Good! a bona roba?
DRUG. But nineteen, at the most.
FACE. Very good, Abel.
DRUG. Marry, she's not in fashion yet; she wears
A hood, but it stands a cop.
FACE. No matter, Abel.
DRUG. And I do now and then give her a fucus--
FACE. What! dost thou deal, Nab?
SUB. I did tell you, captain.
DRUG. And physic too, sometime, sir; for which she trusts me
With all her mind. She's come up here of purpose
To learn the fashion.
FACE. Good (his match too!)--On, Nab.
DRUG. And she does strangely long to know her fortune.
FACE. Ods lid, Nab, send her to the doctor, hither.
DRUG. Yes, I have spoke to her of his worship already;
But she's afraid it will be blown abroad,
And hurt her marriage.
FACE. Hurt it! 'tis the way
To heal it, if 'twere hurt; to make it more
Follow'd and sought: Nab, thou shalt tell her this.
She'll be more known, more talk'd of; and your widows
Are ne'er of any price till they be famous;
Their honour is their multitude of suitors.
Send her, it may be thy good fortune. What!
Thou dost not know.
DRUG. No, sir, she'll never marry
Under a knight: her brother has made a vow.
FACE. What! and dost thou despair, my little Nab,
Knowing what the doctor has set down for thee,
And seeing so many of the city dubb'd?
One glass o' thy water, with a madam I know,
Will have it done, Nab: what's her brother, a knight?
DRUG. No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir,
Scarce cold in his one and twenty, that does govern
His sister here; and is a man himself
Of some three thousand a year, and is come up
To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits,
And will go down again, and die in the country.
FACE. How! to quarrel?
DRUG. Yes, sir, to carry quarrels,
As gallants do; to manage them by line.
FACE. 'Slid, Nab, the doctor is the only man
In Christendom for him. He has made a table,
With mathematical demonstrations,
Touching the art of quarrels: he will give him
An instrument to quarrel by. Go, bring them both,
Him and his sister. And, for thee, with her
The doctor happ'ly may persuade. Go to:
'Shalt give his worship a new damask suit
Upon the premises.
SUB. O, good captain!
FACE. He shall;
He is the honestest fellow, doctor.--Stay not,
No offers; bring the damask, and the parties.
DRUG. I'll try my power, sir.
FACE. And thy will too, Nab.
SUB. 'Tis good tobacco, this! What is't an ounce?
FACE. He'll send you a pound, doctor.
SUB. O no.
FACE. He will do't.
It is the goodest soul!--Abel, about it.
Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone.
[EXIT ABEL.]
A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese,
And has the worms. That was the cause, indeed,
Why he came now: he dealt with me in private,
To get a med'cine for them.
SUB. And shall, sir. This works.
FACE. A wife, a wife for one on us, my dear Subtle!
We'll e'en draw lots, and he that fails, shall have
The more in goods, the other has in tail.
SUB. Rather the less: for she may be so light
She may want grains.
FACE. Ay, or be such a burden,
A man would scarce endure her for the whole.
SUB. Faith, best let's see her first, and then determine.
FACE. Content: but Dol must have no breath on't.
SUB. Mum.
Away you, to your Surly yonder, catch him.
FACE. 'Pray God I have not staid too long.
SUB. I fear it.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 3. SCENE 3.1.
THE LANE BEFORE LOVEWIT'S HOUSE.
ENTER TRIBULATION WHOLESOME AND ANANIAS.
TRI. These chastisements are common to the saints,
And such rebukes, we of the separation
Must bear with willing shoulders, as the trials
Sent forth to tempt our frailties.
ANA. In pure zeal,
I do not like the man; he is a heathen,
And speaks the language of Canaan, truly.
TRI. I think him a profane person indeed.
ANA. He bears
The visible mark of the beast in his forehead.
And for his stone, it is a work of darkness,
And with philosophy blinds the eyes of man.
TRI. Good brother, we must bend unto all means,
That may give furtherance to the holy cause.
ANA. Which his cannot: the sanctified cause
Should have a sanctified course.
TRI. Not always necessary:
The children of perdition are oft-times
Made instruments even of the greatest works:
Beside, we should give somewhat to man's nature,
The place he lives in, still about the fire,
And fume of metals, that intoxicate
The brain of man, and make him prone to passion.
Where have you greater atheists than your cooks?
Or more profane, or choleric, than your glass-men?
More antichristian than your bell-founders?
What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you,
Sathan, our common enemy, but his being
Perpetually about the fire, and boiling
Brimstone and arsenic? We must give, I say,
Unto the motives, and the stirrers up
Of humours in the blood. It may be so,
When as the work is done, the stone is made,
This heat of his may turn into a zeal,
And stand up for the beauteous discipline,
Against the menstruous cloth and rag of Rome.
We must await his calling, and the coming
Of the good spirit. You did fault, t' upbraid him
With the brethren's blessing of Heidelberg, weighing
What need we have to hasten on the work,
For the restoring of the silenced saints,
Which ne'er will be, but by the philosopher's stone.
And so a learned elder, one of Scotland,
Assured me; aurum potabile being
The only med'cine, for the civil magistrate,
T' incline him to a feeling of the cause;
And must be daily used in the disease.
ANA. I have not edified more, truly, by man;
Not since the beautiful light first shone on me:
And I am sad my zeal hath so offended.
TRI. Let us call on him then.
ANA. The motion's good,
And of the spirit; I will knock first.
[KNOCKS.]
Peace be within!
[THE DOOR IS OPENED, AND THEY ENTER.]
SCENE 3.2.
A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE.
ENTER SUBTLE, FOLLOWED BY TRIBULATION AND ANANIAS.
SUB. O, are you come? 'twas time. Your threescore minutes
Were at last thread, you see: and down had gone
Furnus acediae, turris circulatorius:
Lembec, bolt's-head, retort and pelican
Had all been cinders.--Wicked Ananias!
Art thou return'd? nay then, it goes down yet.
TRI. Sir, be appeased; he is come to humble
Himself in spirit, and to ask your patience,
If too much zeal hath carried him aside
From the due path.
SUB. Why, this doth qualify!
TRI. The brethren had no purpose, verily,
To give you the least grievance; but are ready
To lend their willing hands to any project
The spirit and you direct.
SUB. This qualifies more!
TRI. And for the orphans' goods, let them be valued,
Or what is needful else to the holy work,
It shall be numbered; here, by me, the saints,
Throw down their purse before you.
SUB. This qualifies most!
Why, thus it should be, now you understand.
Have I discours'd so unto you of our stone,
And of the good that it shall bring your cause?
Shew'd you (beside the main of hiring forces
Abroad, drawing the Hollanders, your friends,
From the Indies, to serve you, with all their fleet)
That even the med'cinal use shall make you a faction,
And party in the realm? As, put the case,
That some great man in state, he have the gout,
Why, you but send three drops of your elixir,
You help him straight: there you have made a friend.
Another has the palsy or the dropsy,
He takes of your incombustible stuff,
He's young again: there you have made a friend,
A lady that is past the feat of body,
Though not of mind, and hath her face decay'd
Beyond all cure of paintings, you restore,
With the oil of talc: there you have made a friend;
And all her friends. A lord that is a leper,
A knight that has the bone-ache, or a squire
That hath both these, you make them smooth and sound,
With a bare fricace of your med'cine: still
You increase your friends.
TRI. Ay, it is very pregnant.
SUB. And then the turning of this lawyer's pewter
To plate at Christmas.--
ANA. Christ-tide, I pray you.
SUB. Yet, Ananias!
ANA. I have done.
SUB. Or changing
His parcel gilt to massy gold. You cannot
But raise you friends. Withal, to be of power
To pay an army in the field, to buy
The king of France out of his realms, or Spain
Out of his Indies. What can you not do
Against lords spiritual or temporal,
That shall oppone you?
TRI. Verily, 'tis true.
We may be temporal lords ourselves, I take it.
SUB. You may be any thing, and leave off to make
Long-winded exercises; or suck up
Your "ha!" and "hum!" in a tune. I not deny,
But such as are not graced in a state,
May, for their ends, be adverse in religion,
And get a tune to call the flock together:
For, to say sooth, a tune does much with women,
And other phlegmatic people; it is your bell.
ANA. Bells are profane; a tune may be religious.
SUB. No warning with you! then farewell my patience.
'Slight, it shall down: I will not be thus tortured.
TRI. I pray you, sir.
SUB. All shall perish. I have spoken it.
TRI. Let me find grace, sir, in your eyes; the man
He stands corrected: neither did his zeal,
But as your self, allow a tune somewhere.
Which now, being tow'rd the stone, we shall not need.
SUB. No, nor your holy vizard, to win widows
To give you legacies; or make zealous wives
To rob their husbands for the common cause:
Nor take the start of bonds broke but one day,
And say, they were forfeited by providence.
Nor shall you need o'er night to eat huge meals,
To celebrate your next day's fast the better;
The whilst the brethren and the sisters humbled,
Abate the stiffness of the flesh. Nor cast
Before your hungry hearers scrupulous bones;
As whether a Christian may hawk or hunt,
Or whether matrons of the holy assembly
May lay their hair out, or wear doublets,
Or have that idol starch about their linen.
ANA. It is indeed an idol.
TRI. Mind him not, sir.
I do command thee, spirit of zeal, but trouble,
To peace within him! Pray you, sir, go on.
SUB. Nor shall you need to libel 'gainst the prelates,
And shorten so your ears against the hearing
Of the next wire-drawn grace. Nor of necessity
Rail against plays, to please the alderman
Whose daily custard you devour; nor lie
With zealous rage till you are hoarse. Not one
Of these so singular arts. Nor call yourselves
By names of Tribulation, Persecution,
Restraint, Long-patience, and such-like, affected
By the whole family or wood of you,
Only for glory, and to catch the ear
Of the disciple.
TRI. Truly, sir, they are
Ways that the godly brethren have invented,
For propagation of the glorious cause,
As very notable means, and whereby also
Themselves grow soon, and profitably, famous.
SUB. O, but the stone, all's idle to it! nothing!
The art of angels' nature's miracle,
The divine secret that doth fly in clouds
From east to west: and whose tradition
Is not from men, but spirits.
ANA. I hate traditions;
I do not trust them--
TRI. Peace!
ANA. They are popish all.
I will not peace: I will not--
TRI. Ananias!
ANA. Please the profane, to grieve the godly; I may not.
SUB. Well, Ananias, thou shalt overcome.
TRI. It is an ignorant zeal that haunts him, sir;
But truly, else, a very faithful brother,
A botcher, and a man, by revelation,
That hath a competent knowledge of the truth.
SUB. Has he a competent sum there in the bag
To buy the goods within? I am made guardian,
And must, for charity, and conscience sake,
Now see the most be made for my poor orphan;
Though I desire the brethren too good gainers:
There they are within. When you have view'd and bought 'em,
And ta'en the inventory of what they are,
They are ready for projection; there's no more
To do: cast on the med'cine, so much silver
As there is tin there, so much gold as brass,
I'll give't you in by weight.
TRI. But how long time,
Sir, must the saints expect yet?
SUB. Let me see,
How's the moon now? Eight, nine, ten days hence,
He will be silver potate; then three days
Before he citronise: Some fifteen days,
The magisterium will be perfected.
ANA. About the second day of the third week,
In the ninth month?
SUB. Yes, my good Ananias.
TRI. What will the orphan's goods arise to, think you?
SUB. Some hundred marks, as much as fill'd three cars,
Unladed now: you'll make six millions of them.--
But I must have more coals laid in.
TRI. How?
SUB. Another load,
And then we have finish'd. We must now increase
Our fire to ignis ardens; we are past
Fimus equinus, balnei, cineris,
And all those lenter heats. If the holy purse
Should with this draught fall low, and that the saints
Do need a present sum, I have a trick
To melt the pewter, you shall buy now, instantly,
And with a tincture make you as good Dutch dollars
As any are in Holland.
TRI. Can you so?
SUB. Ay, and shall 'bide the third examination.
ANA. It will be joyful tidings to the brethren.
SUB. But you must carry it secret.
TRI. Ay; but stay,
This act of coining, is it lawful?
ANA. Lawful!
We know no magistrate; or, if we did,
This is foreign coin.
SUB. It is no coining, sir.
It is but casting.
TRI. Ha! you distinguish well:
Casting of money may be lawful.
ANA. 'Tis, sir.
TRI. Truly, I take it so.
SUB. There is no scruple,
Sir, to be made of it; believe Ananias:
This case of conscience he is studied in.
TRI. I'll make a question of it to the brethren.
ANA. The brethren shall approve it lawful, doubt not.
Where shall it be done?
[KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
SUB. For that we'll talk anon.
There's some to speak with me. Go in, I pray you,
And view the parcels. That's the inventory.
I'll come to you straight.
[EXEUNT TRIB. AND ANA.]
Who is it?--Face! appear.
[ENTER FACE IN HIS UNIFORM.]
How now! good prize?
FACE. Good pox! yond' costive cheater
Never came on.
SUB. How then?
FACE. I have walk'd the round
Till now, and no such thing.
SUB. And have you quit him?
FACE. Quit him! an hell would quit him too, he were happy.
'Slight! would you have me stalk like a mill-jade,
All day, for one that will not yield us grains?
I know him of old.
SUB. O, but to have gull'd him,
Had been a mastery.
FACE. Let him go, black boy!
And turn thee, that some fresh news may possess thee.
A noble count, a don of Spain, my dear
Delicious compeer, and my party-bawd,
Who is come hither private for his conscience,
And brought munition with him, six great slops,
Bigger than three Dutch hoys, beside round trunks,
Furnished with pistolets, and pieces of eight,
Will straight be here, my rogue, to have thy bath,
(That is the colour,) and to make his battery
Upon our Dol, our castle, our cinque-port,
Our Dover pier, our what thou wilt. Where is she?
She must prepare perfumes, delicate linen,
The bath in chief, a banquet, and her wit,
For she must milk his epididimis.
Where is the doxy?
SUB. I'll send her to thee:
And but despatch my brace of little John Leydens,
And come again my self.
FACE. Are they within then?
SUB. Numbering the sum.
FACE. How much?
SUB. A hundred marks, boy.
[EXIT.]
FACE. Why, this is a lucky day. Ten pounds of Mammon!
Three of my clerk! A portague of my grocer!
This of the brethren! beside reversions,
And states to come in the widow, and my count!
My share to-day will not be bought for forty--
[ENTER DOL.]
DOL. What?
FACE. Pounds, dainty Dorothy! art thou so near?
DOL. Yes; say, lord general, how fares our camp?
FACE. As with the few that had entrench'd themselves
Safe, by their discipline, against a world, Dol,
And laugh'd within those trenches, and grew fat
With thinking on the booties, Dol, brought in
Daily by their small parties. This dear hour,
A doughty don is taken with my Dol;
And thou mayst make his ransom what thou wilt,
My Dousabel; he shall be brought here fetter'd
With thy fair looks, before he sees thee; and thrown
In a down-bed, as dark as any dungeon;
Where thou shalt keep him waking with thy drum;
Thy drum, my Dol, thy drum; till he be tame
As the poor black-birds were in the great frost,
Or bees are with a bason; and so hive him
In the swan-skin coverlid, and cambric sheets,
Till he work honey and wax, my little God's-gift.
DOL. What is he, general?
FACE. An adalantado,
A grandee, girl. Was not my Dapper here yet?
DOL. No.
FACE. Nor my Drugger?
DOL. Neither.
FACE. A pox on 'em,
They are so long a furnishing! such stinkards
Would not be seen upon these festival days.--
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE.]
How now! have you done?
SUB. Done. They are gone: the sum
Is here in bank, my Face. I would we knew
Another chapman now would buy 'em outright.
FACE. 'Slid, Nab shall do't against he have the widow,
To furnish household.
SUB. Excellent, well thought on:
Pray God he come!
FACE. I pray he keep away
Till our new business be o'erpast.
SUB. But, Face,
How cam'st thou by this secret don?
FACE. A spirit
Brought me th' intelligence in a paper here,
As I was conjuring yonder in my circle
For Surly; I have my flies abroad. Your bath
Is famous, Subtle, by my means. Sweet Dol,
You must go tune your virginal, no losing
O' the least time: and, do you hear? good action.
Firk, like a flounder; kiss, like a scallop, close;
And tickle him with thy mother tongue. His great
Verdugoship has not a jot of language;
So much the easier to be cozen'd, my Dolly.
He will come here in a hired coach, obscure,
And our own coachman, whom I have sent as guide,
No creature else.
[KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
Who's that?
[EXIT DOL.]
SUB. It is not he?
FACE. O no, not yet this hour.
[RE-ENTER DOL.]
SUB. Who is't?
DOL. Dapper,
Your clerk.
FACE. God's will then, queen of Fairy,
On with your tire;
[EXIT DOL.]
and, doctor, with your robes.
Let's dispatch him for God's sake.
SUB. 'Twill be long.
FACE. I warrant you, take but the cues I give you,
It shall be brief enough.
[GOES TO THE WINDOW.]
'Slight, here are more!
Abel, and I think the angry boy, the heir,
That fain would quarrel.
SUB. And the widow?
FACE. No,
Not that I see. Away!
[EXIT SUB.]
[ENTER DAPPER.]
O sir, you are welcome.
The doctor is within a moving for you;
I have had the most ado to win him to it!--
He swears you'll be the darling of the dice:
He never heard her highness dote till now.
Your aunt has given you the most gracious words
That can be thought on.
DAP. Shall I see her grace?
FACE. See her, and kiss her too.--
[ENTER ABEL, FOLLOWED BY KASTRIL.]
What, honest Nab!
Hast brought the damask?
NAB. No, sir; here's tobacco.
FACE. 'Tis well done, Nab; thou'lt bring the damask too?
DRUG. Yes: here's the gentleman, captain, master Kastril,
I have brought to see the doctor.
FACE. Where's the widow?
DRUG. Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come.
FACE. O, is it so? good time. Is your name Kastril, sir?
KAS. Ay, and the best of the Kastrils, I'd be sorry else,
By fifteen hundred a year. Where is the doctor?
My mad tobacco-boy, here, tells me of one
That can do things: has he any skill?
FACE. Wherein, sir?
KAS. To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly,
Upon fit terms.
FACE. It seems, sir, you are but young
About the town, that can make that a question.
KAS. Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech
Of the angry boys, and seen them take tobacco;
And in his shop; and I can take it too.
And I would fain be one of 'em, and go down
And practise in the country.
FACE. Sir, for the duello,
The doctor, I assure you, shall inform you,
To the least shadow of a hair; and shew you
An instrument he has of his own making,
Wherewith no sooner shall you make report
Of any quarrel, but he will take the height on't
Most instantly, and tell in what degree
Of safety it lies in, or mortality.
And how it may be borne, whether in a right line,
Or a half circle; or may else be cast
Into an angle blunt, if not acute:
And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules
To give and take the lie by.
KAS. How! to take it?
FACE. Yes, in oblique he'll shew you, or in circle;
But never in diameter. The whole town
Study his theorems, and dispute them ordinarily
At the eating academies.
KAS. But does he teach
Living by the wits too?
FACE. Anything whatever.
You cannot think that subtlety, but he reads it.
He made me a captain. I was a stark pimp,
Just of your standing, 'fore I met with him;
It is not two months since. I'll tell you his method:
First, he will enter you at some ordinary.
KAS. No, I'll not come there: you shall pardon me.
FACE. For why, sir?
KAS. There's gaming there, and tricks.
FACE. Why, would you be
A gallant, and not game?
KAS. Ay, 'twill spend a man.
FACE. Spend you! it will repair you when you are spent:
How do they live by their wits there, that have vented
Six times your fortunes?
KAS. What, three thousand a-year!
FACE. Ay, forty thousand.
KAS. Are there such?
FACE. Ay, sir,
And gallants yet. Here's a young gentleman
Is born to nothing,--
[POINTS TO DAPPER.]
forty marks a year,
Which I count nothing:--he is to be initiated,
And have a fly of the doctor. He will win you,
By unresistible luck, within this fortnight,
Enough to buy a barony. They will set him
Upmost, at the groom porter's, all the Christmas:
And for the whole year through, at every place,
Where there is play, present him with the chair;
The best attendance, the best drink; sometimes
Two glasses of Canary, and pay nothing;
The purest linen, and the sharpest knife,
The partridge next his trencher: and somewhere
The dainty bed, in private, with the dainty.
You shall have your ordinaries bid for him,
As play-houses for a poet; and the master
Pray him aloud to name what dish he affects,
Which must be butter'd shrimps: and those that drink
To no mouth else, will drink to his, as being
The goodly president mouth of all the board.
KAS. Do you not gull one?
FACE. 'Ods my life! do you think it?
You shall have a cast commander, (can but get
In credit with a glover, or a spurrier,
For some two pair of either's ware aforehand,)
Will, by most swift posts, dealing [but] with him,
Arrive at competent means to keep himself,
His punk and naked boy, in excellent fashion,
And be admired for't.
KAS. Will the doctor teach this?
FACE. He will do more, sir: when your land is gone,
As men of spirit hate to keep earth long,
In a vacation, when small money is stirring,
And ordinaries suspended till the term,
He'll shew a perspective, where on one side
You shall behold the faces and the persons
Of all sufficient young heirs in town,
Whose bonds are current for commodity;
On th' other side, the merchants' forms, and others,
That without help of any second broker,
Who would expect a share, will trust such parcels:
In the third square, the very street and sign
Where the commodity dwells, and does but wait
To be deliver'd, be it pepper, soap,
Hops, or tobacco, oatmeal, woad, or cheeses.
All which you may so handle, to enjoy
To your own use, and never stand obliged.
KAS. I'faith! is he such a fellow?
FACE. Why, Nab here knows him.
And then for making matches for rich widows,
Young gentlewomen, heirs, the fortunat'st man!
He's sent to, far and near, all over England,
To have his counsel, and to know their fortunes.
KAS. God's will, my suster shall see him.
FACE. I'll tell you, sir,
What he did tell me of Nab. It's a strange thing:--
By the way, you must eat no cheese, Nab, it breeds melancholy,
And that same melancholy breeds worms; but pass it:--
He told me, honest Nab here was ne'er at tavern
But once in's life!
DRUG. Truth, and no more I was not.
FACE. And then he was so sick--
DRUG. Could he tell you that too?
FACE. How should I know it?
DRUG. In troth we had been a shooting,
And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper,
That lay so heavy o' my stomach--
FACE. And he has no head
To bear any wine; for what with the noise of the fidlers,
And care of his shop, for he dares keep no servants--
DRUG. My head did so ach--
FACE. And he was fain to be brought home,
The doctor told me: and then a good old woman--
DRUG. Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea-coal-lane,--did cure me,
With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall;
Cost me but two-pence. I had another sickness
Was worse than that.
FACE. Ay, that was with the grief
Thou took'st for being cess'd at eighteen-pence,
For the water-work.
DRUG. In truth, and it was like
T' have cost me almost my life.
FACE. Thy hair went off?
DRUG. Yes, sir; 'twas done for spight.
FACE. Nay, so says the doctor.
KAS. Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my suster;
I'll see this learned boy before I go;
And so shall she.
FACE. Sir, he is busy now:
But if you have a sister to fetch hither,
Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner;
And he by that time will be free.
KAS. I go.
[EXIT.]
FACE. Drugger, she's thine: the damask!--
[EXIT ABEL.]
Subtle and I
Must wrestle for her.
[ASIDE.]
--Come on, master Dapper,
You see how I turn clients here away,
To give your cause dispatch; have you perform'd
The ceremonies were enjoin'd you?
DAP. Yes, of the vinegar,
And the clean shirt.
FACE. 'Tis well: that shirt may do you
More worship than you think. Your aunt's a-fire,
But that she will not shew it, t' have a sight of you.
Have you provided for her grace's servants?
DAP. Yes, here are six score Edward shillings.
FACE. Good!
DAP. And an old Harry's sovereign.
FACE. Very good!
DAP. And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat,
Just twenty nobles.
FACE. O, you are too just.
I would you had had the other noble in Maries.
DAP. I have some Philip and Maries.
FACE. Ay, those same
Are best of all: where are they? Hark, the doctor.
[ENTER SUBTLE, DISGUISED LIKE A PRIEST OF FAIRY,
WITH A STRIPE OF CLOTH.]
SUB [IN A FEIGNED VOICE]. Is yet her grace's cousin come?
FACE. He is come.
SUB. And is he fasting?
FACE. Yes.
SUB. And hath cried hum?
FACE. Thrice, you must answer.
DAP. Thrice.
SUB. And as oft buz?
FACE. If you have, say.
DAP. I have.
SUB. Then, to her cuz,
Hoping that he hath vinegar'd his senses,
As he was bid, the Fairy queen dispenses,
By me, this robe, the petticoat of fortune;
Which that he straight put on, she doth importune.
And though to fortune near be her petticoat,
Yet nearer is her smock, the queen doth note:
And therefore, ev'n of that a piece she hath sent
Which, being a child, to wrap him in was rent;
And prays him for a scarf he now will wear it,
With as much love as then her grace did tear it,
About his eyes,
[THEY BLIND HIM WITH THE RAG,]
to shew he is fortunate.
And, trusting unto her to make his state,
He'll throw away all worldly pelf about him;
Which that he will perform, she doth not doubt him.
FACE. She need not doubt him, sir. Alas, he has nothing,
But what he will part withal as willingly,
Upon her grace's word--throw away your purse--
As she would ask it;--handkerchiefs and all--
[HE THROWS AWAY, AS THEY BID HIM.]
She cannot bid that thing, but he'll obey.--
If you have a ring about you, cast it off,
Or a silver seal at your wrist; her grace will send
Her fairies here to search you, therefore deal
Directly with her highness: if they find
That you conceal a mite, you are undone.
DAP. Truly, there's all.
FACE. All what?
DAP. My money; truly.
FACE. Keep nothing that is transitory about you.
[ASIDE TO SUBTLE.]
Bid Dol play music.--
[DOL PLAYS ON THE CITTERN WITHIN.]
Look, the elves are come.
To pinch you, if you tell not truth. Advise you.
[THEY PINCH HIM.]
DAP. O! I have a paper with a spur-ryal in't.
FACE. Ti, ti.
They knew't, they say.
SUB. Ti, ti, ti, ti. He has more yet.
FACE. Ti, ti-ti-ti.
[ASIDE TO SUB.]
In the other pocket.
SUB. Titi, titi, titi, titi, titi.
They must pinch him or he will never confess, they say.
[THEY PINCH HIM AGAIN.]
DAP. O, O!
FACE. Nay, pray you, hold: he is her grace's nephew,
Ti, ti, ti? What care you? good faith, you shall care.--
Deal plainly, sir, and shame the fairies. Shew
You are innocent.
DAP. By this good light, I have nothing.
SUB. Ti, ti, ti, ti, to, ta. He does equivocate she says:
Ti, ti do ti, ti ti do, ti da;
and swears by the LIGHT when he is blinded.
DAP. By this good DARK, I have nothing but a half-crown
Of gold about my wrist, that my love gave me;
And a leaden heart I wore since she forsook me.
FACE. I thought 'twas something. And would you incur
Your aunt's displeasure for these trifles? Come,
I had rather you had thrown away twenty half-crowns.
[TAKES IT OFF.]
You may wear your leaden heart still.--
[ENTER DOL HASTILY.]
How now!
SUB. What news, Dol?
DOL. Yonder's your knight, sir Mammon.
FACE. 'Ods lid, we never thought of him till now!
Where is he?
DOL. Here hard by: he is at the door.
SUB. And you are not ready now! Dol, get his suit.
[EXIT DOL.]
He must not be sent back.
FACE. O, by no means.
What shall we do with this same puffin here,
Now he's on the spit?
SUB. Why, lay him back awhile,
With some device.
[RE-ENTER DOL, WITH FACE'S CLOTHES.]
--Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, Would her grace speak with me?
I come.--Help, Dol!
[KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
FACE [SPEAKS THROUGH THE KEYHOLE]. Who's there? sir Epicure,
My master's in the way. Please you to walk
Three or four turns, but till his back be turned,
And I am for you.--Quickly, Dol!
SUB. Her grace
Commends her kindly to you, master Dapper.
DAP. I long to see her grace.
SUB. She now is set
At dinner in her bed, and she has sent you
From her own private trencher, a dead mouse,
And a piece of gingerbread, to be merry withal,
And stay your stomach, lest you faint with fasting:
Yet if you could hold out till she saw you, she says,
It would be better for you.
FACE. Sir, he shall
Hold out, an 'twere this two hours, for her highness;
I can assure you that. We will not lose
All we have done.--
SUB. He must not see, nor speak
To any body, till then.
FACE. For that we'll put, sir,
A stay in's mouth.
SUB. Of what?
FACE. Of gingerbread.
Make you it fit. He that hath pleas'd her grace
Thus far, shall not now crincle for a little.--
Gape, sir, and let him fit you.
[THEY THRUST A GAG OF GINGERBREAD IN HIS MOUTH.]
SUB. Where shall we now
Bestow him?
DOL. In the privy.
SUB. Come along, sir,
I now must shew you Fortune's privy lodgings.
FACE. Are they perfumed, and his bath ready?
SUB. All:
Only the fumigation's somewhat strong.
FACE [SPEAKING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE].
Sir Epicure, I am yours, sir, by and by.
[EXEUNT WITH DAPPER.]
ACT 4. SCENE 4.1.
A ROOM IN LOVEWIT'S HOUSE.
ENTER FACE AND MAMMON.
FACE. O sir, you're come in the only finest time.--
MAM. Where's master?
FACE. Now preparing for projection, sir.
Your stuff will be all changed shortly.
MAM. Into gold?
FACE. To gold and silver, sir.
MAM. Silver I care not for.
FACE. Yes, sir, a little to give beggars.
MAM. Where's the lady?
FACE. At hand here. I have told her such brave things of you,
Touching your bounty, and your noble spirit--
MAM. Hast thou?
FACE. As she is almost in her fit to see you.
But, good sir, no divinity in your conference,
For fear of putting her in rage.--
MAM. I warrant thee.
FACE. Six men [sir] will not hold her down: and then,
If the old man should hear or see you--
MAM. Fear not.
FACE. The very house, sir, would run mad. You know it,
How scrupulous he is, and violent,
'Gainst the least act of sin. Physic, or mathematics,
Poetry, state, or bawdry, as I told you,
She will endure, and never startle; but
No word of controversy.
MAM. I am school'd, good Ulen.
FACE. And you must praise her house, remember that,
And her nobility.
MAM. Let me alone:
No herald, no, nor antiquary, Lungs,
Shall do it better. Go.
FACE [ASIDE]. Why, this is yet
A kind of modern happiness, to have
Dol Common for a great lady.
[EXIT.]
MAM. Now, Epicure,
Heighten thyself, talk to her all in gold;
Rain her as many showers as Jove did drops
Unto his Danae; shew the god a miser,
Compared with Mammon. What! the stone will do't.
She shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold;
Nay, we will concumbere gold: I will be puissant,
And mighty in my talk to her.--
[RE-ENTER FACE, WITH DOL RICHLY DRESSED.]
Here she comes.
FACE. To him, Dol, suckle him.--This is the noble knight,
I told your ladyship--
MAM. Madam, with your pardon,
I kiss your vesture.
DOL. Sir, I were uncivil
If I would suffer that; my lip to you, sir.
MAM. I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady.
DOL. My lord, my brother is, though I no lady, sir.
FACE [ASIDE]. Well said, my Guinea bird.
MAM. Right noble madam--
FACE [ASIDE]. O, we shall have most fierce idolatry.
MAM. 'Tis your prerogative.
DOL. Rather your courtesy.
MAM. Were there nought else to enlarge your virtues to me,
These answers speak your breeding and your blood.
DOL. Blood we boast none, sir, a poor baron's daughter.
MAM. Poor! and gat you? profane not. Had your father
Slept all the happy remnant of his life
After that act, lien but there still, and panted,
He had done enough to make himself, his issue,
And his posterity noble.
DOL. Sir, although
We may be said to want the gilt and trappings,
The dress of honour, yet we strive to keep
The seeds and the materials.
MAM. I do see
The old ingredient, virtue, was not lost,
Nor the drug money used to make your compound.
There is a strange nobility in your eye,
This lip, that chin! methinks you do resemble
One of the Austriac princes.
FACE. Very like!
[ASIDE.]
Her father was an Irish costermonger.
MAM. The house of Valois just had such a nose,
And such a forehead yet the Medici
Of Florence boast.
DOL. Troth, and I have been liken'd
To all these princes.
FACE [ASIDE]. I'll be sworn, I heard it.
MAM. I know not how! it is not any one,
But e'en the very choice of all their features.
FACE [ASIDE]. I'll in, and laugh.
[EXIT.]
MAM. A certain touch, or air,
That sparkles a divinity, beyond
An earthly beauty!
DOL. O, you play the courtier.
MAM. Good lady, give me leave--
DOL. In faith, I may not,
To mock me, sir.
MAM. To burn in this sweet flame;
The phoenix never knew a nobler death.
DOL. Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy
What you would build. This art, sir, in your words,
Calls your whole faith in question.
MAM. By my soul--
DOL. Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.
MAM. Nature
Never bestow'd upon mortality
A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature;
She play'd the step-dame in all faces else:
Sweet Madam, let me be particular--
DOL. Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance.
MAM. In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask
How your fair graces pass the hours? I see
You are lodged here, in the house of a rare man,
An excellent artist; but what's that to you?
DOL. Yes, sir; I study here the mathematics,
And distillation.
MAM. O, I cry your pardon.
He's a divine instructor! can extract
The souls of all things by his art; call all
The virtues, and the miracles of the sun,
Into a temperate furnace; teach dull nature
What her own forces are. A man, the emperor
Has courted above Kelly; sent his medals
And chains, to invite him.
DOL. Ay, and for his physic, sir--
MAM. Above the art of Aesculapius,
That drew the envy of the thunderer!
I know all this, and more.
DOL. Troth, I am taken, sir,
Whole with these studies, that contemplate nature.
MAM. It is a noble humour; but this form
Was not intended to so dark a use.
Had you been crooked, foul, of some coarse mould
A cloister had done well; but such a feature
That might stand up the glory of a kingdom,
To live recluse! is a mere soloecism,
Though in a nunnery. It must not be.
I muse, my lord your brother will permit it:
You should spend half my land first, were I he.
Does not this diamond better on my finger,
Than in the quarry?
DOL. Yes.
MAM. Why, you are like it.
You were created, lady, for the light.
Here, you shall wear it; take it, the first pledge
Of what I speak, to bind you to believe me.
DOL. In chains of adamant?
MAM. Yes, the strongest bands.
And take a secret too--here, by your side,
Doth stand this hour, the happiest man in Europe.
DOL. You are contended, sir!
MAM. Nay, in true being,
The envy of princes and the fear of states.
DOL. Say you so, sir Epicure?
MAM. Yes, and thou shalt prove it,
Daughter of honour. I have cast mine eye
Upon thy form, and I will rear this beauty
Above all styles.
DOL. You mean no treason, sir?
MAM. No, I will take away that jealousy.
I am the lord of the philosopher's stone,
And thou the lady.
DOL. How, sir! have you that?
MAM. I am the master of the mystery.
This day the good old wretch here o' the house
Has made it for us: now he's at projection.
Think therefore thy first wish now, let me hear it;
And it shall rain into thy lap, no shower,
But floods of gold, whole cataracts, a deluge,
To get a nation on thee.
DOL. You are pleased, sir,
To work on the ambition of our sex.
MAM. I am pleased the glory of her sex should know,
This nook, here, of the Friars is no climate
For her to live obscurely in, to learn
Physic and surgery, for the constable's wife
Of some odd hundred in Essex; but come forth,
And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink
The toils of empirics, and their boasted practice;
Tincture of pearl, and coral, gold, and amber;
Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it ask'd,
What miracle she is; set all the eyes
Of court a-fire, like a burning glass,
And work them into cinders, when the jewels
Of twenty states adorn thee, and the light
Strikes out the stars! that when thy name is mention'd,
Queens may look pale; and we but shewing our love,
Nero's Poppaea may be lost in story!
Thus will we have it.
DOL. I could well consent, sir.
But, in a monarchy, how will this be?
The prince will soon take notice, and both seize
You and your stone, it being a wealth unfit
For any private subject.
MAM. If he knew it.
DOL. Yourself do boast it, sir.
MAM. To thee, my life.
DOL. O, but beware, sir! You may come to end
The remnants of your days in a loth'd prison,
By speaking of it.
MAM. 'Tis no idle fear.
We'll therefore go withal, my girl, and live
In a free state, where we will eat our mullets,
Soused in high-country wines, sup pheasants' eggs,
And have our cockles boil'd in silver shells;
Our shrimps to swim again, as when they liv'd,
In a rare butter made of dolphins' milk,
Whose cream does look like opals; and with these
Delicate meats set ourselves high for pleasure,
And take us down again, and then renew
Our youth and strength with drinking the elixir,
And so enjoy a perpetuity
Of life and lust! And thou shalt have thy wardrobe
Richer than nature's, still to change thy self,
And vary oftener, for thy pride, than she,
Or art, her wise and almost-equal servant.
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Sir, you are too loud. I hear you every word
Into the laboratory. Some fitter place;
The garden, or great chamber above. How like you her?
MAM. Excellent! Lungs. There's for thee.
[GIVES HIM MONEY.]
FACE. But do you hear?
Good sir, beware, no mention of the rabbins.
MAM. We think not on 'em.
[EXEUNT MAM. AND DOL.]
FACE. O, it is well, sir.--Subtle!
[ENTER SUBTLE.]
Dost thou not laugh?
SUB. Yes; are they gone?
FACE. All's clear.
SUB. The widow is come.
FACE. And your quarrelling disciple?
SUB. Ay.
FACE. I must to my captainship again then.
SUB. Stay, bring them in first.
FACE. So I meant. What is she?
A bonnibel?
SUB. I know not.
FACE. We'll draw lots:
You'll stand to that?
SUB. What else?
FACE. O, for a suit,
To fall now like a curtain, flap!
SUB. To the door, man.
FACE. You'll have the first kiss, 'cause I am not ready.
[EXIT.]
SUB. Yes, and perhaps hit you through both the nostrils.
FACE [WITHIN]. Who would you speak with?
KAS [WITHIN]. Where's the captain?
FACE [WITHIN]. Gone, sir,
About some business.
KAS [WITHIN]. Gone!
FACE [WITHIN]. He'll return straight.
But master doctor, his lieutenant, is here.
[ENTER KASTRIL, FOLLOWED BY DAME PLIANT.]
SUB. Come near, my worshipful boy, my terrae fili,
That is, my boy of land; make thy approaches:
Welcome; I know thy lusts, and thy desires,
And I will serve and satisfy them. Begin,
Charge me from thence, or thence, or in this line;
Here is my centre: ground thy quarrel.
KAS. You lie.
SUB. How, child of wrath and anger! the loud lie?
For what, my sudden boy?
KAS. Nay, that look you to,
I am afore-hand.
SUB. O, this is no true grammar,
And as ill logic! You must render causes, child,
Your first and second intentions, know your canons
And your divisions, moods, degrees, and differences,
Your predicaments, substance, and accident,
Series, extern and intern, with their causes,
Efficient, material, formal, final,
And have your elements perfect.
KAS [ASIDE]. What is this?
The angry tongue he talks in?
SUB. That false precept,
Of being afore-hand, has deceived a number,
And made them enter quarrels, often-times,
Before they were aware; and afterward,
Against their wills.
KAS. How must I do then, sir?
SUB. I cry this lady mercy: she should first
Have been saluted.
[KISSES HER.]
I do call you lady,
Because you are to be one, ere't be long,
My soft and buxom widow.
KAS. Is she, i'faith?
SUB. Yes, or my art is an egregious liar.
KAS. How know you?
SUB. By inspection on her forehead,
And subtlety of her lip, which must be tasted
Often to make a judgment.
[KISSES HER AGAIN.]
'Slight, she melts
Like a myrobolane:--here is yet a line,
In rivo frontis, tells me he is no knight.
DAME P. What is he then, sir?
SUB. Let me see your hand.
O, your linea fortunae makes it plain;
And stella here in monte Veneris.
But, most of all, junctura annularis.
He is a soldier, or a man of art, lady,
But shall have some great honour shortly.
DAME P. Brother,
He's a rare man, believe me!
[RE-ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM.]
KAS. Hold your peace.
Here comes the t'other rare man.--'Save you, captain.
FACE. Good master Kastril! Is this your sister?
KAS. Ay, sir.
Please you to kuss her, and be proud to know her.
FACE. I shall be proud to know you, lady.
[KISSES HER.]
DAME P. Brother,
He calls me lady too.
KAS. Ay, peace: I heard it.
[TAKES HER ASIDE.]
FACE. The count is come.
SUB. Where is he?
FACE. At the door.
SUB. Why, you must entertain him.
FACE. What will you do
With these the while?
SUB. Why, have them up, and shew them
Some fustian book, or the dark glass.
FACE. 'Fore God,
She is a delicate dab-chick! I must have her.
[EXIT.]
SUB. Must you! ay, if your fortune will, you must.--
Come, sir, the captain will come to us presently:
I'll have you to my chamber of demonstrations,
Where I will shew you both the grammar and logic,
And rhetoric of quarrelling; my whole method
Drawn out in tables; and my instrument,
That hath the several scales upon't, shall make you
Able to quarrel at a straw's-breadth by moon-light.
And, lady, I'll have you look in a glass,
Some half an hour, but to clear your eye-sight,
Against you see your fortune; which is greater,
Than I may judge upon the sudden, trust me.
[EXIT, FOLLOWED BY KAST. AND DAME P.]
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Where are you, doctor?
SUB [WITHIN]. I'll come to you presently.
FACE. I will have this same widow, now I have seen her,
On any composition.
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE.]
SUB. What do you say?
FACE. Have you disposed of them?
SUB. I have sent them up.
FACE. Subtle, in troth, I needs must have this widow.
SUB. Is that the matter?
FACE. Nay, but hear me.
SUB. Go to.
If you rebel once, Dol shall know it all:
Therefore be quiet, and obey your chance.
FACE. Nay, thou art so violent now--Do but conceive,
Thou art old, and canst not serve--
SUB. Who cannot? I?
'Slight, I will serve her with thee, for a--
FACE. Nay,
But understand: I'll give you composition.
SUB. I will not treat with thee; what! sell my fortune?
'Tis better than my birth-right. Do not murmur:
Win her, and carry her. If you grumble, Dol
Knows it directly.
FACE. Well, sir, I am silent.
Will you go help to fetch in Don in state?
[EXIT.]
SUB. I follow you, sir. We must keep Face in awe,
Or he will over-look us like a tyrant.
[RE-ENTER FACE, INTRODUCING SURLY DISGUISED AS A SPANIARD.]
Brain of a tailor! who comes here? Don John!
SUR. Senores, beso las manos a vuestras mercedes.
SUB. Would you had stoop'd a little, and kist our anos!
FACE. Peace, Subtle.
SUB. Stab me; I shall never hold, man.
He looks in that deep ruff like a head in a platter,
Serv'd in by a short cloke upon two trestles.
FACE. Or, what do you say to a collar of brawn, cut down
Beneath the souse, and wriggled with a knife?
SUB. 'Slud, he does look too fat to be a Spaniard.
FACE. Perhaps some Fleming or some Hollander got him
In d'Alva's time; count Egmont's bastard.
SUB. Don,
Your scurvy, yellow, Madrid face is welcome.
SUR. Gratia.
SUB. He speaks out of a fortification.
Pray God he have no squibs in those deep sets.
SUR. Por dios, senores, muy linda casa!
SUB. What says he?
FACE. Praises the house, I think;
I know no more but's action.
SUB. Yes, the casa,
My precious Diego, will prove fair enough
To cozen you in. Do you mark? you shall
Be cozen'd, Diego.
FACE. Cozen'd, do you see,
My worthy Donzel, cozen'd.
SUR. Entiendo.
SUB. Do you intend it? so do we, dear Don.
Have you brought pistolets, or portagues,
My solemn Don?--Dost thou feel any?
FACE [FEELS HIS POCKETS]. Full.
SUB. You shall be emptied, Don, pumped and drawn
Dry, as they say.
FACE. Milked, in troth, sweet Don.
SUB. See all the monsters; the great lion of all, Don.
SUR. Con licencia, se puede ver a esta senora?
SUB. What talks he now?
FACE. Of the sennora.
SUB. O, Don,
This is the lioness, which you shall see
Also, my Don.
FACE. 'Slid, Subtle, how shall we do?
SUB. For what?
FACE. Why Dol's employ'd, you know.
SUB. That's true.
'Fore heaven, I know not: he must stay, that's all.
FACE. Stay! that he must not by no means.
SUB. No! why?
FACE. Unless you'll mar all. 'Slight, he will suspect it:
And then he will not pay, not half so well.
This is a travelled punk-master, and does know
All the delays; a notable hot rascal,
And looks already rampant.
SUB. 'Sdeath, and Mammon
Must not be troubled.
FACE. Mammon! in no case.
SUB. What shall we do then?
FACE. Think: you must be sudden.
SUR. Entiendo que la senora es tan hermosa, que codicio tan
verla, como la bien aventuranza de mi vida.
FACE. Mi vida! 'Slid, Subtle, he puts me in mind of the widow.
What dost thou say to draw her to it, ha!
And tell her 'tis her fortune? all our venture
Now lies upon't. It is but one man more,
Which of us chance to have her: and beside,
There is no maidenhead to be fear'd or lost.
What dost thou think on't, Subtle?
SUB. Who? I? why--
FACE. The credit of our house too is engaged.
SUB. You made me an offer for my share erewhile.
What wilt thou give me, i'faith?
FACE. O, by that light
I'll not buy now: You know your doom to me.
E'en take your lot, obey your chance, sir; win her,
And wear her out, for me.
SUB. 'Slight, I'll not work her then.
FACE. It is the common cause; therefore bethink you.
Dol else must know it, as you said.
SUB. I care not.
SUR. Senores, porque se tarda tanto?
SUB. Faith, I am not fit, I am old.
FACE. That's now no reason, sir.
SUR. Puede ser de hazer burla de mi amor?
FACE. You hear the Don too? by this air, I call,
And loose the hinges: Dol!
SUB. A plague of hell--
FACE. Will you then do?
SUB. You are a terrible rogue!
I'll think of this: will you, sir, call the widow?
FACE. Yes, and I'll take her too with all her faults,
Now I do think on't better.
SUB. With all my heart, sir;
Am I discharged o' the lot?
FACE. As you please.
SUB. Hands.
[THEY TAKE HANDS.]
FACE. Remember now, that upon any change,
You never claim her.
SUB. Much good joy, and health to you, sir,
Marry a whore! fate, let me wed a witch first.
SUR. Por estas honradas barbas--
SUB. He swears by his beard.
Dispatch, and call the brother too.
[EXIT FACE.]
SUR. Tengo duda, senores, que no me hagan alguna traycion.
SUB. How, issue on? yes, praesto, sennor. Please you
Enthratha the chambrata, worthy don:
Where if you please the fates, in your bathada,
You shall be soked, and stroked, and tubb'd and rubb'd,
And scrubb'd, and fubb'd, dear don, before you go.
You shall in faith, my scurvy baboon don,
Be curried, claw'd, and flaw'd, and taw'd, indeed.
I will the heartlier go about it now,
And make the widow a punk so much the sooner,
To be revenged on this impetuous Face:
The quickly doing of it is the grace.
[EXEUNT SUB. AND SURLY.]
SCENE 4.2.
ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
ENTER FACE, KASTRIL, AND DAME PLIANT.
FACE. Come, lady: I knew the Doctor would not leave,
Till he had found the very nick of her fortune.
KAS. To be a countess, say you, a Spanish countess, sir?
DAME P. Why, is that better than an English countess?
FACE. Better! 'Slight, make you that a question, lady?
KAS. Nay, she is a fool, captain, you must pardon her.
FACE. Ask from your courtier, to your inns-of-court-man,
To your mere milliner; they will tell you all,
Your Spanish gennet is the best horse; your Spanish
Stoup is the best garb; your Spanish beard
Is the best cut; your Spanish ruffs are the best
Wear; your Spanish pavin the best dance;
Your Spanish titillation in a glove
The best perfume: and for your Spanish pike,
And Spanish blade, let your poor captain speak--
Here comes the doctor.
[ENTER SUBTLE, WITH A PAPER.]
SUB. My most honour'd lady,
For so I am now to style you, having found
By this my scheme, you are to undergo
An honourable fortune, very shortly.
What will you say now, if some--
FACE. I have told her all, sir,
And her right worshipful brother here, that she shall be
A countess; do not delay them, sir; a Spanish countess.
SUB. Still, my scarce-worshipful captain, you can keep
No secret! Well, since he has told you, madam,
Do you forgive him, and I do.
KAS. She shall do that, sir;
I'll look to it, 'tis my charge.
SUB. Well then: nought rests
But that she fit her love now to her fortune.
DAME P. Truly I shall never brook a Spaniard.
SUB. No!
DAME P. Never since eighty-eight could I abide them,
And that was some three year afore I was born, in truth.
SUB. Come, you must love him, or be miserable,
Choose which you will.
FACE. By this good rush, persuade her,
She will cry strawberries else within this twelvemonth.
SUB. Nay, shads and mackerel, which is worse.
FACE. Indeed, sir!
KAS. Od's lid, you shall love him, or I'll kick you.
DAME P. Why,
I'll do as you will have me, brother.
KAS. Do,
Or by this hand I'll maul you.
FACE. Nay, good sir,
Be not so fierce.
SUB. No, my enraged child;
She will be ruled. What, when she comes to taste
The pleasures of a countess! to be courted--
FACE. And kiss'd, and ruffled!
SUB. Ay, behind the hangings.
FACE. And then come forth in pomp!
SUB. And know her state!
FACE. Of keeping all the idolaters of the chamber
Barer to her, than at their prayers!
SUB. Is serv'd
Upon the knee!
FACE. And has her pages, ushers,
Footmen, and coaches--
SUB. Her six mares--
FACE. Nay, eight!
SUB. To hurry her through London, to the Exchange,
Bethlem, the china-houses--
FACE. Yes, and have
The citizens gape at her, and praise her tires,
And my lord's goose-turd bands, that ride with her!
KAS. Most brave! By this hand, you are not my suster,
If you refuse.
DAME P. I will not refuse, brother.
[ENTER SURLY.]
SUR. Que es esto, senores, que no venga?
Esta tardanza me mata!
FACE. It is the count come:
The doctor knew he would be here, by his art.
SUB. En gallanta madama, Don! gallantissima!
SUR. Por todos los dioses, la mas acabada hermosura, que he visto
en mi vida!
FACE. Is't not a gallant language that they speak?
KAS. An admirable language! Is't not French?
FACE. No, Spanish, sir.
KAS. It goes like law-French,
And that, they say, is the courtliest language.
FACE. List, sir.
SUR. El sol ha perdido su lumbre, con el esplandor que trae
esta dama! Valgame dios!
FACE. He admires your sister.
KAS. Must not she make curt'sy?
SUB. Ods will, she must go to him, man, and kiss him!
It is the Spanish fashion, for the women
To make first court.
FACE. 'Tis true he tells you, sir:
His art knows all.
SUR. Porque no se acude?
KAS. He speaks to her, I think.
FACE. That he does, sir.
SUR. Por el amor de dios, que es esto que se tarda?
KAS. Nay, see: she will not understand him! gull,
Noddy.
DAME P. What say you, brother?
KAS. Ass, my suster.
Go kuss him, as the cunning man would have you;
I'll thrust a pin in your buttocks else.
FACE. O no, sir.
SUR. Senora mia, mi persona esta muy indigna de allegar
a tanta hermosura.
FACE. Does he not use her bravely?
KAS. Bravely, i'faith!
FACE. Nay, he will use her better.
KAS. Do you think so?
SUR. Senora, si sera servida, entremonos.
[EXIT WITH DAME PLIANT.]
KAS. Where does he carry her?
FACE. Into the garden, sir;
Take you no thought: I must interpret for her.
SUB. Give Dol the word.
[ASIDE TO FACE, WHO GOES OUT.]
--Come, my fierce child, advance,
We'll to our quarrelling lesson again.
KAS. Agreed.
I love a Spanish boy with all my heart.
SUB. Nay, and by this means, sir, you shall be brother
To a great count.
KAS. Ay, I knew that at first,
This match will advance the house of the Kastrils.
SUB. 'Pray God your sister prove but pliant!
KAS. Why,
Her name is so, by her other husband.
SUB. How!
KAS. The widow Pliant. Knew you not that?
SUB. No, faith, sir;
Yet, by erection of her figure, I guest it.
Come, let's go practise.
KAS. Yes, but do you think, doctor,
I e'er shall quarrel well?
SUB. I warrant you.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 4.3.
ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
ENTER DOL IN HER FIT OF RAVING, FOLLOWED BY MAMMON.
DOL. "For after Alexander's death"--
MAM. Good lady--
DOL. "That Perdiccas and Antigonus, were slain,
The two that stood, Seleuc', and Ptolomee"--
MAM. Madam--
DOL. "Made up the two legs, and the fourth beast,
That was Gog-north, and Egypt-south: which after
Was call'd Gog-iron-leg and South-iron-leg"--
MAM. Lady--
DOL. "And then Gog-horned. So was Egypt, too:
Then Egypt-clay-leg, and Gog-clay-leg"--
MAM. Sweet madam--
DOL. "And last Gog-dust, and Egypt-dust, which fall
In the last link of the fourth chain. And these
Be stars in story, which none see, or look at"--
MAM. What shall I do?
DOL. "For," as he says, "except
We call the rabbins, and the heathen Greeks"--
MAM. Dear lady--
DOL. "To come from Salem, and from Athens,
And teach the people of Great Britain"--
[ENTER FACE, HASTILY, IN HIS SERVANT'S DRESS.]
FACE. What's the matter, sir?
DOL. "To speak the tongue of Eber, and Javan"--
MAM. O,
She's in her fit.
DOL. "We shall know nothing"--
FACE. Death, sir,
We are undone!
DOL. "Where then a learned linguist
Shall see the ancient used communion
Of vowels and consonants"--
FACE. My master will hear!
DOL. "A wisdom, which Pythagoras held most high"--
MAM. Sweet honourable lady!
DOL. "To comprise
All sounds of voices, in few marks of letters"--
FACE. Nay, you must never hope to lay her now.
[THEY ALL SPEAK TOGETHER.]
DOL. "And so we may arrive by Talmud skill,
And profane Greek, to raise the building up
Of Helen's house against the Ismaelite,
King of Thogarma, and his habergions
Brimstony, blue, and fiery; and the force
Of king Abaddon, and the beast of Cittim:
Which rabbi David Kimchi, Onkelos,
And Aben Ezra do interpret Rome."
FACE. How did you put her into't?
MAM. Alas, I talk'd
Of a fifth monarchy I would erect,
With the philosopher's stone, by chance, and she
Falls on the other four straight.
FACE. Out of Broughton!
I told you so. 'Slid, stop her mouth.
MAM. Is't best?
FACE. She'll never leave else. If the old man hear her,
We are but faeces, ashes.
SUB [WITHIN]. What's to do there?
FACE. O, we are lost! Now she hears him, she is quiet.
[ENTER SUBTLE, THEY RUN DIFFERENT WAYS.]
MAM. Where shall I hide me!
SUB. How! what sight is here?
Close deeds of darkness, and that shun the light!
Bring him again. Who is he? What, my son!
O, I have lived too long.
MAM. Nay, good, dear father,
There was no unchaste purpose.
SUB. Not? and flee me
When I come in?
MAM. That was my error.
SUB. Error?
Guilt, guilt, my son: give it the right name. No marvel,
If I found check in our great work within,
When such affairs as these were managing!
MAM. Why, have you so?
SUB. It has stood still this half hour:
And all the rest of our less works gone back.
Where is the instrument of wickedness,
My lewd false drudge?
MAM. Nay, good sir, blame not him;
Believe me, 'twas against his will or knowledge:
I saw her by chance.
SUB. Will you commit more sin,
To excuse a varlet?
MAM. By my hope, 'tis true, sir.
SUB. Nay, then I wonder less, if you, for whom
The blessing was prepared, would so tempt heaven,
And lose your fortunes.
MAM. Why, sir?
SUB. This will retard
The work a month at least.
MAM. Why, if it do,
What remedy? But think it not, good father:
Our purposes were honest.
SUB. As they were,
So the reward will prove.
[A LOUD EXPLOSION WITHIN.]
--How now! ah me!
God, and all saints be good to us.--
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
What's that?
FACE. O, sir, we are defeated! all the works
Are flown in fumo, every glass is burst;
Furnace, and all rent down, as if a bolt
Of thunder had been driven through the house.
Retorts, receivers, pelicans, bolt-heads,
All struck in shivers!
[SUBTLE FALLS DOWN AS IN A SWOON.]
Help, good sir! alas,
Coldness and death invades him. Nay, sir Mammon,
Do the fair offices of a man! you stand,
As you were readier to depart than he.
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
Who's there? my lord her brother is come.
MAM. Ha, Lungs!
FACE. His coach is at the door. Avoid his sight,
For he's as furious as his sister's mad.
MAM. Alas!
FACE. My brain is quite undone with the fume, sir,
I ne'er must hope to be mine own man again.
MAM. Is all lost, Lungs? will nothing be preserv'd
Of all our cost?
FACE. Faith, very little, sir;
A peck of coals or so, which is cold comfort, sir.
MAM. O, my voluptuous mind! I am justly punish'd.
FACE. And so am I, sir.
MAM. Cast from all my hopes--
FACE. Nay, certainties, sir.
MAM. By mine own base affections.
SUB [SEEMING TO COME TO HIMSELF].
O, the curst fruits of vice and lust!
MAM. Good father,
It was my sin. Forgive it.
SUB. Hangs my roof
Over us still, and will not fall, O justice,
Upon us, for this wicked man!
FACE. Nay, look, sir,
You grieve him now with staying in his sight:
Good sir, the nobleman will come too, and take you,
And that may breed a tragedy.
MAM. I'll go.
FACE. Ay, and repent at home, sir. It may be,
For some good penance you may have it yet;
A hundred pound to the box at Bethlem--
MAM. Yes.
FACE. For the restoring such as--have their wits.
MAM. I'll do't.
FACE. I'll send one to you to receive it.
MAM. Do.
Is no projection left?
FACE. All flown, or stinks, sir.
MAM. Will nought be sav'd that's good for med'cine,
think'st thou?
FACE. I cannot tell, sir. There will be perhaps,
Something about the scraping of the shards,
Will cure the itch,--though not your itch of mind, sir.
[ASIDE.]
It shall be saved for you, and sent home. Good sir,
This way, for fear the lord should meet you.
[EXIT MAMMON.]
SUB [RAISING HIS HEAD]. Face!
FACE. Ay.
SUB. Is he gone?
FACE. Yes, and as heavily
As all the gold he hoped for were in's blood.
Let us be light though.
SUB [LEAPING UP]. Ay, as balls, and bound
And hit our heads against the roof for joy:
There's so much of our care now cast away.
FACE. Now to our don.
SUB. Yes, your young widow by this time
Is made a countess, Face; she has been in travail
Of a young heir for you.
FACE. Good sir.
SUB. Off with your case,
And greet her kindly, as a bridegroom should,
After these common hazards.
FACE. Very well, sir.
Will you go fetch Don Diego off, the while?
SUB. And fetch him over too, if you'll be pleased, sir:
Would Dol were in her place, to pick his pockets now!
FACE. Why, you can do't as well, if you would set to't.
I pray you prove your virtue.
SUB. For your sake sir.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 4.4.
ANOTHER ROOM IN THE SAME.
[ENTER SURLY AND DAME PLIANT.]
SUR. Lady, you see into what hands you are fall'n;
'Mongst what a nest of villains! and how near
Your honour was t' have catch'd a certain clap,
Through your credulity, had I but been
So punctually forward, as place, time,
And other circumstances would have made a man;
For you're a handsome woman: would you were wise too!
I am a gentleman come here disguised,
Only to find the knaveries of this citadel;
And where I might have wrong'd your honour, and have not,
I claim some interest in your love. You are,
They say, a widow, rich: and I'm a batchelor,
Worth nought: your fortunes may make me a man,
As mine have preserv'd you a woman. Think upon it,
And whether I have deserv'd you or no.
DAME P. I will, sir.
SUR. And for these household-rogues, let me alone
To treat with them.
[ENTER SUBTLE.]
SUB. How doth my noble Diego,
And my dear madam countess? hath the count
Been courteous, lady? liberal, and open?
Donzel, methinks you look melancholic,
After your coitum, and scurvy: truly,
I do not like the dulness of your eye;
It hath a heavy cast, 'tis upsee Dutch,
And says you are a lumpish whore-master.
Be lighter, and I will make your pockets so.
[ATTEMPTS TO PICK THEM.]
SUR [THROWS OPEN HIS CLOAK]. Will you, don bawd and
pickpurse?
[STRIKES HIM DOWN.]
how now! reel you?
Stand up, sir, you shall find, since I am so heavy,
I'll give you equal weight.
SUB. Help! murder!
SUR. No, sir,
There's no such thing intended: a good cart,
And a clean whip shall ease you of that fear.
I am the Spanish don "that should be cozen'd,
Do you see, cozen'd?" Where's your Captain Face,
That parcel broker, and whole-bawd, all rascal!
[ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM.]
FACE. How, Surly!
SUR. O, make your approach, good captain.
I have found from whence your copper rings and spoons
Come, now, wherewith you cheat abroad in taverns.
'Twas here you learned t' anoint your boot with brimstone,
Then rub men's gold on't for a kind of touch,
And say 'twas naught, when you had changed the colour,
That you might have't for nothing. And this doctor,
Your sooty, smoky-bearded compeer, he
Will close you so much gold, in a bolt's-head,
And, on a turn, convey in the stead another
With sublimed mercury, that shall burst in the heat,
And fly out all in fumo! Then weeps Mammon;
Then swoons his worship.
[FACE SLIPS OUT.]
Or, he is the Faustus,
That casteth figures and can conjure, cures
Plagues, piles, and pox, by the ephemerides,
And holds intelligence with all the bawds
And midwives of three shires: while you send in--
Captain!--what! is he gone?--damsels with child,
Wives that are barren, or the waiting-maid
With the green sickness.
[SEIZES SUBTLE AS HE IS RETIRING.]
--Nay, sir, you must tarry,
Though he be scaped; and answer by the ears, sir.
[RE-ENTER FACE, WITH KASTRIL.]
FACE. Why, now's the time, if ever you will quarrel
Well, as they say, and be a true-born child:
The doctor and your sister both are abused.
KAS. Where is he? which is he? he is a slave,
Whate'er he is, and the son of a whore.--Are you
The man, sir, I would know?
SUR. I should be loth, sir,
To confess so much.
KAS. Then you lie in your throat.
SUR. How!
FACE [TO KASTRIL]. A very errant rogue, sir, and a cheater,
Employ'd here by another conjurer
That does not love the doctor, and would cross him,
If he knew how.
SUR. Sir, you are abused.
KAS. You lie:
And 'tis no matter.
FACE. Well said, sir! He is
The impudent'st rascal--
SUR. You are indeed: Will you hear me, sir?
FACE. By no means: bid him be gone.
KAS. Begone, sir, quickly.
SUR. This 's strange!--Lady, do you inform your brother.
FACE. There is not such a foist in all the town,
The doctor had him presently; and finds yet,
The Spanish count will come here.
[ASIDE.]
--Bear up, Subtle.
SUB. Yes, sir, he must appear within this hour.
FACE. And yet this rogue would come in a disguise,
By the temptation of another spirit,
To trouble our art, though he could not hurt it!
KAS. Ay,
I know--Away,
[TO HIS SISTER.]
you talk like a foolish mauther.
SUR. Sir, all is truth she says.
FACE. Do not believe him, sir.
He is the lying'st swabber! Come your ways, sir.
SUR. You are valiant out of company!
KAS. Yes, how then, sir?
[ENTER DRUGGER, WITH A PIECE OF DAMASK.]
FACE. Nay, here's an honest fellow, too, that knows him,
And all his tricks. Make good what I say, Abel,
This cheater would have cozen'd thee o' the widow.--
[ASIDE TO DRUG.]
He owes this honest Drugger here, seven pound,
He has had on him, in two-penny'orths of tobacco.
DRUG. Yes, sir.
And he has damn'd himself three terms to pay me.
FACE. And what does he owe for lotium?
DRUG. Thirty shillings, sir;
And for six syringes.
SUR. Hydra of villainy!
FACE. Nay, sir, you must quarrel him out o' the house.
KAS. I will:
--Sir, if you get not out of doors, you lie;
And you are a pimp.
SUR. Why, this is madness, sir,
Not valour in you; I must laugh at this.
KAS. It is my humour: you are a pimp and a trig,
And an Amadis de Gaul, or a Don Quixote.
DRUG. Or a knight o' the curious coxcomb, do you see?
[ENTER ANANIAS.]
ANA. Peace to the household!
KAS. I'll keep peace for no man.
ANA. Casting of dollars is concluded lawful.
KAS. Is he the constable?
SUB. Peace, Ananias.
FACE. No, sir.
KAS. Then you are an otter, and a shad, a whit,
A very tim.
SUR. You'll hear me, sir?
KAS. I will not.
ANA. What is the motive?
SUB. Zeal in the young gentleman,
Against his Spanish slops.
ANA. They are profane,
Lewd, superstitious, and idolatrous breeches.
SUR. New rascals!
KAS. Will you begone, sir?
ANA. Avoid, Sathan!
Thou art not of the light: That ruff of pride
About thy neck, betrays thee; and is the same
With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven,
Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts:
Thou look'st like antichrist, in that lewd hat.
SUR. I must give way.
KAS. Be gone, sir.
SUR. But I'll take
A course with you--
ANA. Depart, proud Spanish fiend!
SUR. Captain and doctor.
ANA. Child of perdition!
KAS. Hence, sir!--
[EXIT SURLY.]
Did I not quarrel bravely?
FACE. Yes, indeed, sir.
KAS. Nay, an I give my mind to't, I shall do't.
FACE. O, you must follow, sir, and threaten him tame:
He'll turn again else.
KAS. I'll re-turn him then.
[EXIT.]
[SUBTLE TAKES ANANIAS ASIDE.]
FACE. Drugger, this rogue prevented us for thee:
We had determin'd that thou should'st have come
In a Spanish suit, and have carried her so; and he,
A brokerly slave! goes, puts it on himself.
Hast brought the damask?
DRUG. Yes, sir.
FACE. Thou must borrow
A Spanish suit. Hast thou no credit with the players?
DRUG. Yes, sir; did you never see me play the Fool?
FACE. I know not, Nab:--Thou shalt, if I can help it.--
[ASIDE.]
Hieronimo's old cloak, ruff, and hat will serve;
I'll tell thee more when thou bring'st 'em.
[EXIT DRUGGER.]
ANA. Sir, I know
The Spaniard hates the brethren, and hath spies
Upon their actions: and that this was one
I make no scruple.--But the holy synod
Have been in prayer and meditation for it;
And 'tis revealed no less to them than me,
That casting of money is most lawful.
SUB. True.
But here I cannot do it: if the house
Shou'd chance to be suspected, all would out,
And we be locked up in the Tower for ever,
To make gold there for the state, never come out;
And then are you defeated.
ANA. I will tell
This to the elders and the weaker brethren,
That the whole company of the separation
May join in humble prayer again.
SUB. And fasting.
ANA. Yea, for some fitter place. The peace of mind
Rest with these walls!
[EXIT.]
SUB. Thanks, courteous Ananias.
FACE. What did he come for?
SUB. About casting dollars,
Presently out of hand. And so I told him,
A Spanish minister came here to spy,
Against the faithful--
FACE. I conceive. Come, Subtle,
Thou art so down upon the least disaster!
How wouldst thou ha' done, if I had not help't thee out?
SUB. I thank thee, Face, for the angry boy, i'faith.
FACE. Who would have look'd it should have been that rascal,
Surly? he had dyed his beard and all. Well, sir.
Here's damask come to make you a suit.
SUB. Where's Drugger?
FACE. He is gone to borrow me a Spanish habit;
I'll be the count, now.
SUB. But where's the widow?
FACE. Within, with my lord's sister; madam Dol
Is entertaining her.
SUB. By your favour, Face,
Now she is honest, I will stand again.
FACE. You will not offer it.
SUB. Why?
FACE. Stand to your word,
Or--here comes Dol, she knows--
SUB. You are tyrannous still.
[ENTER DOL, HASTILY.]
FACE. Strict for my right.--How now, Dol!
Hast [thou] told her,
The Spanish count will come?
DOL. Yes; but another is come,
You little look'd for!
FACE. Who's that?
DOL. Your master;
The master of the house.
SUB. How, Dol!
FACE. She lies,
This is some trick. Come, leave your quiblins, Dorothy.
DOL. Look out, and see.
[FACE GOES TO THE WINDOW.]
SUB. Art thou in earnest?
DOL. 'Slight,
Forty of the neighbours are about him, talking.
FACE. 'Tis he, by this good day.
DOL. 'Twill prove ill day
For some on us.
FACE. We are undone, and taken.
DOL. Lost, I'm afraid.
SUB. You said he would not come,
While there died one a week within the liberties.
FACE. No: 'twas within the walls.
SUB. Was't so! cry you mercy.
I thought the liberties. What shall we do now, Face?
FACE. Be silent: not a word, if he call or knock.
I'll into mine old shape again and meet him,
Of Jeremy, the butler. In the mean time,
Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase,
That we can carry in the two trunks. I'll keep him
Off for to-day, if I cannot longer: and then
At night, I'll ship you both away to Ratcliff,
Where we will meet to-morrow, and there we'll share.
Let Mammon's brass and pewter keep the cellar;
We'll have another time for that. But, Dol,
'Prythee go heat a little water quickly;
Subtle must shave me: all my captain's beard
Must off, to make me appear smooth Jeremy.
You'll do it?
SUB. Yes, I'll shave you, as well as I can.
FACE. And not cut my throat, but trim me?
SUB. You shall see, sir.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 5. SCENE 5.1.
BEFORE LOVEWIT'S DOOR.
ENTER LOVEWIT, WITH SEVERAL OF THE NEIGHBOURS.
LOVE. Has there been such resort, say you?
1 NEI. Daily, sir.
2 NEI. And nightly, too.
3 NEI. Ay, some as brave as lords.
4 NEI. Ladies and gentlewomen.
5 NEI. Citizens' wives.
1 NEI. And knights.
6 NEI. In coaches.
2 NEI. Yes, and oyster women.
1 NEI. Beside other gallants.
3 NEI. Sailors' wives.
4 NEI. Tobacco men.
5 NEI. Another Pimlico!
LOVE. What should my knave advance,
To draw this company? he hung out no banners
Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen,
Or a huge lobster with six claws?
6 NEI. No, sir.
3 NEI. We had gone in then, sir.
LOVE. He has no gift
Of teaching in the nose that e'er I knew of.
You saw no bills set up that promised cure
Of agues, or the tooth-ach?
2 NEI. No such thing, sir!
LOVE. Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets?
5 NEI. Neither, sir.
LOVE. What device should he bring forth now?
I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment:
'Pray God he have not kept such open house,
That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding!
I left him nothing else. If he have eat them,
A plague o' the moth, say I! Sure he has got
Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging!
The friar and the nun; or the new motion
Of the knight's courser covering the parson's mare;
Or 't may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt
Upon a table, or some dog to dance.
When saw you him?
1 NEI. Who, sir, Jeremy?
2 NEI. Jeremy butler?
We saw him not this month.
LOVE. How!
4 NEI. Not these five weeks, sir.
6 NEI. These six weeks at the least.
LOVE. You amaze me, neighbours!
5 NEI. Sure, if your worship know not where he is,
He's slipt away.
6 NEI. Pray God, he be not made away.
LOVE. Ha! it's no time to question, then.
[KNOCKS AT THE DOOR.]
6 NEI. About
Some three weeks since, I heard a doleful cry,
As I sat up a mending my wife's stockings.
LOVE. 'Tis strange that none will answer! Didst thou hear
A cry, sayst thou?
6 NEI. Yes, sir, like unto a man
That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak.
2 NEI. I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o'clock
Next morning.
LOVE. These be miracles, or you make them so!
A man an hour strangled, and could not speak,
And both you heard him cry?
3 NEI. Yes, downward, sir.
Love, Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee.
What trade art thou on?
3 NEI. A smith, an't please your worship.
LOVE. A smith! then lend me thy help to get this door open.
3 NEI. That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools--
[EXIT.]
1 NEI. Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it.
LOVE [KNOCKS AGAIN]. I will.
[ENTER FACE, IN HIS BUTLER'S LIVERY.]
FACE. What mean you, sir?
1, 2, 4 NEI. O, here's Jeremy!
FACE. Good sir, come from the door.
LOVE. Why, what's the matter?
FACE. Yet farther, you are too near yet.
LOVE. In the name of wonder,
What means the fellow!
FACE. The house, sir, has been visited.
LOVE. What, with the plague? stand thou then farther.
FACE. No, sir,
I had it not.
LOVE. Who had it then? I left
None else but thee in the house.
FACE. Yes, sir, my fellow,
The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her
A week before I spied it; but I got her
Convey'd away in the night: and so I shut
The house up for a month--
LOVE. How!
FACE. Purposing then, sir,
To have burnt rose-vinegar, treacle, and tar,
And have made it sweet, that you shou'd ne'er have known it;
Because I knew the news would but afflict you, sir.
LOVE. Breathe less, and farther off! Why this is stranger:
The neighbours tell me all here that the doors
Have still been open--
FACE. How, sir!
LOVE. Gallants, men and women,
And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here
In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden,
In days of Pimlico and Eye-bright.
FACE. Sir,
Their wisdoms will not say so.
LOVE. To-day they speak
Of coaches and gallants; one in a French hood
Went in, they tell me; and another was seen
In a velvet gown at the window: divers more
Pass in and out.
FACE. They did pass through the doors then,
Or walls, I assure their eye-sights, and their spectacles;
For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been,
In this my pocket, now above twenty days:
And for before, I kept the fort alone there.
But that 'tis yet not deep in the afternoon,
I should believe my neighbours had seen double
Through the black pot, and made these apparitions!
For, on my faith to your worship, for these three weeks
And upwards the door has not been open'd.
LOVE. Strange!
1 NEI. Good faith, I think I saw a coach.
2 NEI. And I too,
I'd have been sworn.
LOVE. Do you but think it now?
And but one coach?
4 NEI. We cannot tell, sir: Jeremy
Is a very honest fellow.
FACE. Did you see me at all?
1 NEI. No; that we are sure on.
2 NEI. I'll be sworn o' that.
LOVE. Fine rogues to have your testimonies built on!
[RE-ENTER THIRD NEIGHBOUR, WITH HIS TOOLS.]
3 NEI. Is Jeremy come!
1 NEI. O yes; you may leave your tools;
We were deceived, he says.
2 NEI. He has had the keys;
And the door has been shut these three weeks.
3 NEI. Like enough.
LOVE. Peace, and get hence, you changelings.
[ENTER SURLY AND MAMMON.]
FACE [ASIDE]. Surly come!
And Mammon made acquainted! they'll tell all.
How shall I beat them off? what shall I do?
Nothing's more wretched than a guilty conscience.
SUR. No, sir, he was a great physician. This,
It was no bawdy-house, but a mere chancel!
You knew the lord and his sister.
MAM. Nay, good Surly.--
SUR. The happy word, BE RICH--
MAM. Play not the tyrant.--
SUR. "Should be to-day pronounced to all your friends."
And where be your andirons now? and your brass pots,
That should have been golden flagons, and great wedges?
MAM. Let me but breathe. What, they have shut their doors,
Methinks!
SUR. Ay, now 'tis holiday with them.
MAM. Rogues,
[HE AND SURLY KNOCK.]
Cozeners, impostors, bawds!
FACE. What mean you, sir?
MAM. To enter if we can.
FACE. Another man's house!
Here is the owner, sir: turn you to him,
And speak your business.
MAM. Are you, sir, the owner?
LOVE. Yes, sir.
MAM. And are those knaves within your cheaters!
LOVE. What knaves, what cheaters?
MAM. Subtle and his Lungs.
FACE. The gentleman is distracted, sir! No lungs,
Nor lights have been seen here these three weeks, sir,
Within these doors, upon my word.
SUR. Your word,
Groom arrogant!
FACE. Yes, sir, I am the housekeeper,
And know the keys have not been out of my hands.
SUR. This is a new Face.
FACE. You do mistake the house, sir:
What sign was't at?
SUR. You rascal! this is one
Of the confederacy. Come, let's get officers,
And force the door.
LOVE. 'Pray you stay, gentlemen.
SUR. No, sir, we'll come with warrant.
MAM. Ay, and then
We shall have your doors open.
[EXEUNT MAM. AND SUR.]
LOVE. What means this?
FACE. I cannot tell, sir.
I NEI. These are two of the gallants
That we do think we saw.
FACE. Two of the fools!
Your talk as idly as they. Good faith, sir,
I think the moon has crazed 'em all.--
[ASIDE.]
O me,
[ENTER KASTRIL.]
The angry boy come too! He'll make a noise,
And ne'er away till he have betray'd us all.
KAS [KNOCKING]. What rogues, bawds, slaves,
you'll open the door, anon!
Punk, cockatrice, my suster! By this light
I'll fetch the marshal to you. You are a whore
To keep your castle--
FACE. Who would you speak with, sir?
KAS. The bawdy doctor, and the cozening captain,
And puss my suster.
LOVE. This is something, sure.
FACE. Upon my trust, the doors were never open, sir.
KAS. I have heard all their tricks told me twice over,
By the fat knight and the lean gentleman.
LOVE. Here comes another.
[ENTER ANANIAS AND TRIBULATION.]
FACE. Ananias too!
And his pastor!
TRI [BEATING AT THE DOOR]. The doors are shut against us.
ANA. Come forth, you seed of sulphur, sons of fire!
Your stench it is broke forth; abomination
Is in the house.
KAS. Ay, my suster's there.
ANA. The place,
It is become a cage of unclean birds.
KAS. Yes, I will fetch the scavenger, and the constable.
TRI. You shall do well.
ANA. We'll join to weed them out.
KAS. You will not come then, punk devise, my sister!
ANA. Call her not sister; she's a harlot verily.
KAS. I'll raise the street.
LOVE. Good gentlemen, a word.
ANA. Satan avoid, and hinder not our zeal!
[EXEUNT ANA., TRIB., AND KAST.]
LOVE. The world's turn'd Bethlem.
FACE. These are all broke loose,
Out of St. Katherine's, where they use to keep
The better sort of mad-folks.
1 NEI. All these persons
We saw go in and out here.
2 NEI. Yes, indeed, sir.
3 NEI. These were the parties.
FACE. Peace, you drunkards! Sir,
I wonder at it: please you to give me leave
To touch the door, I'll try an the lock be chang'd.
LOVE. It mazes me!
FACE [GOES TO THE DOOR]. Good faith, sir, I believe
There's no such thing: 'tis all deceptio visus.--
[ASIDE.]
Would I could get him away.
DAP [WITHIN]. Master captain! master doctor!
LOVE. Who's that?
FACE. Our clerk within, that I forgot!
[ASIDE.]
I know not, sir.
DAP [WITHIN]. For God's sake, when will her grace be at leisure?
FACE. Ha!
Illusions, some spirit o' the air--
[ASIDE.]
His gag is melted,
And now he sets out the throat.
DAP [WITHIN]. I am almost stifled--
FACE [ASIDE]. Would you were altogether.
LOVE. 'Tis in the house.
Ha! list.
FACE. Believe it, sir, in the air.
LOVE. Peace, you.
DAP [WITHIN]. Mine aunt's grace does not use me well.
SUB [WITHIN]. You fool,
Peace, you'll mar all.
FACE [SPEAKS THROUGH THE KEYHOLE,
WHILE LOVEWIT ADVANCES TO THE DOOR UNOBSERVED].
Or you will else, you rogue.
LOVE. O, is it so? Then you converse with spirits!--
Come, sir. No more of your tricks, good Jeremy.
The truth, the shortest way.
FACE. Dismiss this rabble, sir.--
[ASIDE.]
What shall I do? I am catch'd.
LOVE. Good neighbours,
I thank you all. You may depart.
[EXEUNT NEIGHBOURS.]
--Come, sir,
You know that I am an indulgent master;
And therefore conceal nothing. What's your medicine,
To draw so many several sorts of wild fowl?
FACE. Sir, you were wont to affect mirth and wit--
But here's no place to talk on't in the street.
Give me but leave to make the best of my fortune,
And only pardon me the abuse of your house:
It's all I beg. I'll help you to a widow,
In recompence, that you shall give me thanks for,
Will make you seven years younger, and a rich one.
'Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak:
I have her within. You need not fear the house;
It was not visited.
LOVE. But by me, who came
Sooner than you expected.
FACE. It is true, sir.
'Pray you forgive me.
LOVE. Well: let's see your widow.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 5.2.
A ROOM IN THE SAME.
ENTER SUBTLE, LEADING IN DAPPER, WITH HIS EYES BOUND AS BEFORE.
SUB. How! you have eaten your gag?
DAP. Yes faith, it crumbled
Away in my mouth.
SUB. You have spoil'd all then.
DAP. No!
I hope my aunt of Fairy will forgive me.
SUB. Your aunt's a gracious lady; but in troth
You were to blame.
DAP. The fume did overcome me,
And I did do't to stay my stomach. 'Pray you
So satisfy her grace.
[ENTER FACE, IN HIS UNIFORM.]
Here comes the captain.
FACE. How now! is his mouth down?
SUB. Ay, he has spoken!
FACE. A pox, I heard him, and you too.
--He's undone then.--
I have been fain to say, the house is haunted
With spirits, to keep churl back.
SUB. And hast thou done it?
FACE. Sure, for this night.
SUB. Why, then triumph and sing
Of Face so famous, the precious king
Of present wits.
FACE. Did you not hear the coil
About the door?
SUB. Yes, and I dwindled with it.
FACE. Show him his aunt, and let him be dispatch'd:
I'll send her to you.
[EXIT FACE.]
SUB. Well, sir, your aunt her grace
Will give you audience presently, on my suit,
And the captain's word that you did not eat your gag
In any contempt of her highness.
[UNBINDS HIS EYES.]
DAP. Not I, in troth, sir.
[ENTER DOL, LIKE THE QUEEN OF FAIRY.]
SUB. Here she is come. Down o' your knees and wriggle:
She has a stately presence.
[DAPPER KNEELS, AND SHUFFLES TOWARDS HER.]
Good! Yet nearer,
And bid, God save you!
DAP. Madam!
SUB. And your aunt.
DAP. And my most gracious aunt, God save your grace.
DOL. Nephew, we thought to have been angry with you;
But that sweet face of yours hath turn'd the tide,
And made it flow with joy, that ebb'd of love.
Arise, and touch our velvet gown.
SUB. The skirts,
And kiss 'em. So!
DOL. Let me now stroak that head.
"Much, nephew, shalt thou win, much shalt thou spend,
Much shalt thou give away, much shalt thou lend."
SUB [ASIDE]. Ay, much! indeed.--
Why do you not thank her grace?
DAP. I cannot speak for joy.
SUB. See, the kind wretch!
Your grace's kinsman right.
DOL. Give me the bird.
Here is your fly in a purse, about your neck, cousin;
Wear it, and feed it about this day sev'n-night,
On your right wrist--
SUB. Open a vein with a pin,
And let it suck but once a week; till then,
You must not look on't.
DOL. No: and kinsman,
Bear yourself worthy of the blood you come on.
SUB. Her grace would have you eat no more Woolsack pies,
Nor Dagger frumety.
DOL. Nor break his fast
In Heaven and Hell.
SUB. She's with you every where!
Nor play with costarmongers, at mum-chance, tray-trip,
God make you rich; (when as your aunt has done it);
But keep
The gallant'st company, and the best games--
DAP. Yes, sir.
SUB. Gleek and primero; and what you get, be true to us.
DAP. By this hand, I will.
SUB. You may bring's a thousand pound
Before to-morrow night, if but three thousand
Be stirring, an you will.
DAP. I swear I will then.
SUB. Your fly will learn you all games.
FACE [WITHIN]. Have you done there?
SUB. Your grace will command him no more duties?
DOL. No:
But come, and see me often. I may chance
To leave him three or four hundred chests of treasure,
And some twelve thousand acres of fairy land,
If he game well and comely with good gamesters.
SUB. There's a kind aunt! kiss her departing part.--
But you must sell your forty mark a year, now.
DAP. Ay, sir, I mean.
SUB. Or, give't away; pox on't!
DAP. I'll give't mine aunt. I'll go and fetch the writings.
[EXIT.]
SUB. 'Tis well--away!
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Where's Subtle?
SUB. Here: what news?
FACE. Drugger is at the door, go take his suit,
And bid him fetch a parson, presently;
Say, he shall marry the widow. Thou shalt spend
A hundred pound by the service!
[EXIT SUBTLE.]
Now, queen Dol,
Have you pack'd up all?
DOL. Yes.
FACE. And how do you like
The lady Pliant?
DOL. A good dull innocent.
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE.]
SUB. Here's your Hieronimo's cloak and hat.
FACE. Give me them.
SUB. And the ruff too?
FACE. Yes; I'll come to you presently.
[EXIT.]
SUB. Now he is gone about his project, Dol,
I told you of, for the widow.
DOL. 'Tis direct
Against our articles.
SUB. Well, we will fit him, wench.
Hast thou gull'd her of her jewels or her bracelets?
DOL. No; but I will do't.
SUB. Soon at night, my Dolly,
When we are shipp'd, and all our goods aboard,
Eastward for Ratcliff, we will turn our course
To Brainford, westward, if thou sayst the word,
And take our leaves of this o'er-weening rascal,
This peremptory Face.
DOL. Content, I'm weary of him.
SUB. Thou'st cause, when the slave will run a wiving, Dol,
Against the instrument that was drawn between us.
DOL. I'll pluck his bird as bare as I can.
SUB. Yes, tell her,
She must by any means address some present
To the cunning man, make him amends for wronging
His art with her suspicion; send a ring,
Or chain of pearl; she will be tortured else
Extremely in her sleep, say, and have strange things
Come to her. Wilt thou?
DOL. Yes.
SUB. My fine flitter-mouse,
My bird o' the night! we'll tickle it at the Pigeons,
When we have all, and may unlock the trunks,
And say, this's mine, and thine; and thine, and mine.
[THEY KISS.]
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. What now! a billing?
SUB. Yes, a little exalted
In the good passage of our stock-affairs.
FACE. Drugger has brought his parson; take him in, Subtle,
And send Nab back again to wash his face.
SUB. I will: and shave himself?
[EXIT.]
FACE. If you can get him.
DOL. You are hot upon it, Face, whate'er it is!
FACE. A trick that Dol shall spend ten pound a month by.
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE.]
Is he gone?
SUB. The chaplain waits you in the hall, sir.
FACE. I'll go bestow him.
[EXIT.]
DOL. He'll now marry her, instantly.
SUB. He cannot yet, he is not ready. Dear Dol,
Cozen her of all thou canst. To deceive him
Is no deceit, but justice, that would break
Such an inextricable tie as ours was.
DOL. Let me alone to fit him.
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Come, my venturers,
You have pack'd up all? where be the trunks? bring forth.
SUB. Here.
FACE. Let us see them. Where's the money?
SUB. Here,
In this.
FACE. Mammon's ten pound; eight score before:
The brethren's money, this. Drugger's and Dapper's.
What paper's that?
DOL. The jewel of the waiting maid's,
That stole it from her lady, to know certain--
FACE. If she should have precedence of her mistress?
DOL. Yes.
FACE. What box is that?
SUB. The fish-wives' rings, I think,
And the ale-wives' single money. Is't not, Dol?
DOL. Yes; and the whistle that the sailor's wife
Brought you to know an her husband were with Ward.
FACE. We'll wet it to-morrow; and our silver-beakers
And tavern cups. Where be the French petticoats,
And girdles and hangers?
SUB. Here, in the trunk,
And the bolts of lawn.
FACE. Is Drugger's damask there,
And the tobacco?
SUB. Yes.
FACE. Give me the keys.
DOL. Why you the keys?
SUB. No matter, Dol; because
We shall not open them before he comes.
FACE. 'Tis true, you shall not open them, indeed;
Nor have them forth, do you see? Not forth, Dol.
DOL. No!
FACE. No, my smock rampant. The right is, my master
Knows all, has pardon'd me, and he will keep them;
Doctor, 'tis true--you look--for all your figures:
I sent for him, indeed. Wherefore, good partners,
Both he and she be satisfied; for here
Determines the indenture tripartite
'Twixt Subtle, Dol, and Face. All I can do
Is to help you over the wall, o' the back-side,
Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Dol.
Here will be officers presently, bethink you
Of some course suddenly to 'scape the dock:
For thither you will come else.
[LOUD KNOCKING.]
Hark you, thunder.
SUB. You are a precious fiend!
OFFI [WITHOUT]. Open the door.
FACE. Dol, I am sorry for thee i'faith; but hear'st thou?
It shall go hard but I will place thee somewhere:
Thou shalt have my letter to mistress Amo--
DOL. Hang you!
FACE. Or madam Caesarean.
DOL. Pox upon you, rogue,
Would I had but time to beat thee!
FACE. Subtle,
Let's know where you set up next; I will send you
A customer now and then, for old acquaintance:
What new course have you?
SUB. Rogue, I'll hang myself;
That I may walk a greater devil than thou,
And haunt thee in the flock-bed and the buttery.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 5.3.
AN OUTER ROOM IN THE SAME.
ENTER LOVEWIT IN THE SPANISH DRESS, WITH THE PARSON.
LOUD KNOCKING AT THE DOOR.
LOVE. What do you mean, my masters?
MAM [WITHOUT]. Open your door,
Cheaters, bawds, conjurers.
OFFI [WITHOUT]. Or we will break it open.
LOVE. What warrant have you?
OFFI [WITHOUT]. Warrant enough, sir, doubt not,
If you'll not open it.
LOVE. Is there an officer, there?
OFFI [WITHOUT]. Yes, two or three for failing.
LOVE. Have but patience,
And I will open it straight.
[ENTER FACE, AS BUTLER.]
FACE. Sir, have you done?
Is it a marriage? perfect?
LOVE. Yes, my brain.
FACE. Off with your ruff and cloak then; be yourself, sir.
SUR [WITHOUT]. Down with the door.
KAS [WITHOUT]. 'Slight, ding it open.
LOVE [OPENING THE DOOR]. Hold,
Hold, gentlemen, what means this violence?
[MAMMON, SURLY, KASTRIL, ANANIAS, TRIBULATION,
AND OFFICERS, RUSH IN.]
MAM. Where is this collier?
SUR. And my captain Face?
MAM. These day owls.
SUR. That are birding in men's purses.
MAM. Madam suppository.
KAS. Doxy, my suster.
ANA. Locusts
Of the foul pit.
TRI. Profane as Bel and the dragon.
ANA. Worse than the grasshoppers, or the lice of Egypt.
LOVE. Good gentlemen, hear me. Are you officers,
And cannot stay this violence?
1 OFFI. Keep the peace.
LOVE. Gentlemen, what is the matter? whom do you seek?
MAM. The chemical cozener.
SUR. And the captain pander.
KAS. The nun my suster.
MAM. Madam Rabbi.
ANA. Scorpions,
And caterpillars.
LOVE. Fewer at once, I pray you.
2 OFFI. One after another, gentlemen, I charge you,
By virtue of my staff.
ANA. They are the vessels
Of pride, lust, and the cart.
LOVE. Good zeal, lie still
A little while.
TRI. Peace, deacon Ananias.
LOVE. The house is mine here, and the doors are open;
If there be any such persons as you seek for,
Use your authority, search on o' God's name.
I am but newly come to town, and finding
This tumult 'bout my door, to tell you true,
It somewhat mazed me; till my man, here, fearing
My more displeasure, told me he had done
Somewhat an insolent part, let out my house
(Belike, presuming on my known aversion
From any air o' the town while there was sickness,)
To a doctor and a captain: who, what they are
Or where they be, he knows not.
MAM. Are they gone?
LOVE. You may go in and search, sir.
[MAMMON, ANA., AND TRIB. GO IN.]
Here, I find
The empty walls worse than I left them, smoak'd,
A few crack'd pots, and glasses, and a furnace:
The ceiling fill'd with poesies of the candle,
And madam with a dildo writ o' the walls:
Only one gentlewoman, I met here,
That is within, that said she was a widow--
KAS. Ay, that's my suster; I'll go thump her. Where is she?
[GOES IN.]
LOVE. And should have married a Spanish count, but he,
When he came to't, neglected her so grossly,
That I, a widower, am gone through with her.
SUR. How! have I lost her then?
LOVE. Were you the don, sir?
Good faith, now, she does blame you extremely, and says
You swore, and told her you had taken the pains
To dye your beard, and umber o'er your face,
Borrowed a suit, and ruff, all for her love;
And then did nothing. What an oversight,
And want of putting forward, sir, was this!
Well fare an old harquebuzier, yet,
Could prime his powder, and give fire, and hit,
All in a twinkling!
[RE-ENTER MAMMON.]
MAM. The whole nest are fled!
LOVE. What sort of birds were they?
MAM. A kind of choughs,
Or thievish daws, sir, that have pick'd my purse
Of eight score and ten pounds within these five weeks,
Beside my first materials; and my goods,
That lie in the cellar, which I am glad they have left,
I may have home yet.
LOVE. Think you so, sir?
MAM. Ay.
LOVE. By order of law, sir, but not otherwise.
MAM. Not mine own stuff!
LOVE. Sir, I can take no knowledge
That they are yours, but by public means.
If you can bring certificate that you were gull'd of them,
Or any formal writ out of a court,
That you did cozen your self, I will not hold them.
MAM. I'll rather lose them.
LOVE. That you shall not, sir,
By me, in troth: upon these terms, they are yours.
What! should they have been, sir, turn'd into gold, all?
MAM. No,
I cannot tell--It may be they should.--What then?
LOVE. What a great loss in hope have you sustain'd!
MAM. Not I, the commonwealth has.
FACE. Ay, he would have built
The city new; and made a ditch about it
Of silver, should have run with cream from Hogsden;
That every Sunday, in Moorfields, the younkers,
And tits and tom-boys should have fed on, gratis.
MAM. I will go mount a turnip-cart, and preach
The end of the world, within these two months. Surly,
What! in a dream?
SUR. Must I needs cheat myself,
With that same foolish vice of honesty!
Come, let us go and hearken out the rogues:
That Face I'll mark for mine, if e'er I meet him.
FACE. If I can hear of him, sir, I'll bring you word,
Unto your lodging; for in troth, they were strangers
To me, I thought them honest as my self, sir.
[EXEUNT MAM. AND SUR.]
[RE-ENTER ANANIAS AND TRIBULATION.]
TRI. 'Tis well, the saints shall not lose all yet. Go,
And get some carts--
LOVE. For what, my zealous friends?
ANA. To bear away the portion of the righteous
Out of this den of thieves.
LOVE. What is that portion?
ANA. The goods sometimes the orphan's, that the brethren
Bought with their silver pence.
LOVE. What, those in the cellar,
The knight sir Mammon claims?
ANA. I do defy
The wicked Mammon, so do all the brethren,
Thou profane man! I ask thee with what conscience
Thou canst advance that idol against us,
That have the seal? were not the shillings number'd,
That made the pounds; were not the pounds told out,
Upon the second day of the fourth week,
In the eighth month, upon the table dormant,
The year of the last patience of the saints,
Six hundred and ten?
LOVE. Mine earnest vehement botcher,
And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you:
But if you get you not away the sooner,
I shall confute you with a cudgel.
ANA. Sir!
TRI. Be patient, Ananias.
ANA. I am strong,
And will stand up, well girt, against an host
That threaten Gad in exile.
LOVE. I shall send you
To Amsterdam, to your cellar.
ANA. I will pray there,
Against thy house: may dogs defile thy walls,
And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy roof,
This seat of falsehood, and this cave of cozenage!
[EXEUNT ANA. AND TRIB.]
[ENTER DRUGGER.]
LOVE. Another too?
DRUG. Not I, sir, I am no brother.
LOVE [BEATS HIM]. Away, you Harry Nicholas! do you talk?
[EXIT DRUG.]
FACE. No, this was Abel Drugger. Good sir, go,
[TO THE PARSON.]
And satisfy him; tell him all is done:
He staid too long a washing of his face.
The doctor, he shall hear of him at West-chester;
And of the captain, tell him, at Yarmouth, or
Some good port-town else, lying for a wind.
[EXIT PARSON.]
If you can get off the angry child, now, sir--
[ENTER KASTRIL, DRAGGING IN HIS SISTER.]
KAS. Come on, you ewe, you have match'd most sweetly,
have you not?
Did not I say, I would never have you tupp'd
But by a dubb'd boy, to make you a lady-tom?
'Slight, you are a mammet! O, I could touse you, now.
Death, mun' you marry, with a pox!
LOVE. You lie, boy;
As sound as you; and I'm aforehand with you.
KAS. Anon!
LOVE. Come, will you quarrel? I will feize you, sirrah;
Why do you not buckle to your tools?
KAS. Od's light,
This is a fine old boy as e'er I saw!
LOVE. What, do you change your copy now? proceed;
Here stands my dove: stoop at her, if you dare.
KAS. 'Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i'faith,
An I should be hang'd for't! Suster, I protest,
I honour thee for this match.
LOVE. O, do you so, sir?
KAS. Yes, an thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy,
I'll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage,
Than her own state.
LOVE. Fill a pipe full, Jeremy.
FACE. Yes; but go in and take it, sir.
LOVE. We will--
I will be ruled by thee in any thing, Jeremy.
KAS. 'Slight, thou art not hide-bound, thou art a jovy boy!
Come, let us in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs.
LOVE. Whiff in with your sister, brother boy.
[EXEUNT KAS. AND DAME P.]
That master
That had received such happiness by a servant,
In such a widow, and with so much wealth,
Were very ungrateful, if he would not be
A little indulgent to that servant's wit,
And help his fortune, though with some small strain
Of his own candour.
[ADVANCING.]
--"Therefore, gentlemen,
And kind spectators, if I have outstript
An old man's gravity, or strict canon, think
What a young wife and a good brain may do;
Stretch age's truth sometimes, and crack it too.
Speak for thy self, knave."
FACE. "So I will, sir."
[ADVANCING TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE.]
"Gentlemen,
My part a little fell in this last scene,
Yet 'twas decorum. And though I am clean
Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Dol,
Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all
With whom I traded: yet I put my self
On you, that are my country: and this pelf
Which I have got, if you do quit me, rests
To feast you often, and invite new guests."
[EXEUNT.]
*****
GLOSSARY
ABATE, cast down, subdue.
ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance.
ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast.
ABRASE, smooth, blank.
ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly).
ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse.
ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of.
ACATER, caterer.
ACATES, cates.
ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive.
ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable
one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2,
iii. 4).
ACCOST, draw near, approach.
ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with.
ACME, full maturity.
ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province.
ADJECTION, addition.
ADMIRATION, astonishment.
ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at.
ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained.
ADSCRIVE, subscribe.
ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit.
ADVANCE, lift.
ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence.
ADVERTISED, "be--," be it known to you.
ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence.
ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate.
ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you--?" have you found that out?
AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move.
AFFECTED, disposed; beloved.
AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced.
AFFECTS, affections.
AFFRONT, "give the--," face.
AFFY, have confidence in; betroth.
AFTER, after the manner of.
AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of.
AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon.
AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie.
AIERY, nest, brood.
AIM, guess.
ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek.
ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden").
ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition.
ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude.
ALMAIN, name of a dance.
ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope.
ALONE, unequalled, without peer.
ALUDELS, subliming pots.
AMAZED, confused, perplexed.
AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris.
AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the
siege of Ghent, 1458.
AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice.
AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities.
AMUSED, bewildered, amazed.
AN, if.
ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body.
ANDIRONS, fire-dogs.
ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the
figure of the archangel Michael.
ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare.
ANSWER, return hit in fencing.
ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon.
ANTIC, like a buffoon.
ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality
it opposes.
APOZEM, decoction.
APPERIL, peril.
APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander.
APPLY, attach.
APPREHEND, take into custody.
APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate.
APPROVE, prove, confirm.
APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline.
APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly).
APTITUDE, suitableness.
ARBOR, "make the--," cut up the game (Gifford).
ARCHES, Court of Arches.
ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I.
ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks.
ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver.
ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question;
token, proof.
ARRIDE, please.
ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of
gold-leaf.
ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who
assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights.
ARTICLE, item.
ARTIFICIALLY, artfully.
ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation.
ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for.
ASSALTO (Italian), assault.
ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a
ceremony of the hunting-field.
ASSOIL, solve.
ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of.
ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a
constant heat.
ATONE, reconcile.
ATTACH, attack, seize.
AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence.
AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine.
AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration.
AVOID, begone! get rid of.
AWAY WITH, endure.
AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum.
BABION, baboon.
BABY, doll.
BACK-SIDE, back premises.
BAFFLE, treat with contempt.
BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing.
BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance.
BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc.
BALE (of dice), pair.
BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid.
BALLACE, ballast.
BALLOO, game at ball.
BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water
in which other vessels are stood for heating.
BANBURY, "brother of--," Puritan.
BANDOG, dog tied or chained up.
BANE, woe, ruin.
BANQUET, a light repast; dessert.
BARB, to clip gold.
BARBEL, fresh-water fish.
BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state
and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford).
BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base.
BASE, game of prisoner's base.
BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or
lower.
BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye.
BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners.
BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when
bad characters were "carted."
BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce.
BATOON, baton, stick.
BATTEN, feed, grow fat.
BAWSON, badger.
BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another.
BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy.
BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes.
BEARWARD, bear leader.
BEDPHERE. See Phere.
BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for
supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or
"laths"; a stick used in making a bed.
BEETLE, heavy mallet.
BEG, "I'd--him," the custody of minors and idiots was
begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown
("your house had been begged").
BELL-MAN, night watchman.
BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum.
BERLINA, pillory.
BESCUMBER, defile.
BESLAVE, beslabber.
BESOGNO, beggar.
BESPAWLE, bespatter.
BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary.
BEVER, drinking.
BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated.
BEWRAY, reveal, make known.
BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle.
BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a
supposed antidote to poison.
BID-STAND, highwayman.
BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap.
BILIVE (belive), with haste.
BILK, nothing, empty talk.
BILL, kind of pike.
BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick.
BIRDING, thieving.
BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot.
BLANK, originally a small French coin.
BLANK, white.
BLANKET, toss in a blanket.
BLAZE, outburst of violence.
BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad.
BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to
good birth and breeding.
BLIN, "withouten--," without ceasing.
BLOW, puff up.
BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "--order,"
"--waiters."
BLUSHET, blushing one.
BOB, jest, taunt.
BOB, beat, thump.
BODGE, measure.
BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long
pin with which the women fastened up their hair.
BOLT, roll (of material).
BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub).
BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation.
BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches.
BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson)
--not always used in compliment.
BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk.
BOOKHOLDER, prompter.
BOOT, "to--," into the bargain; "no--," of no avail.
BORACHIO, bottle made of skin.
BORDELLO, brothel.
BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through.
BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss.
BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel.
BOURD, jest.
BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner
(Gifford).
BOW-POT, flower vase or pot.
BOYS, "terrible--," "angry--," roystering young bucks.
(See Nares).
BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls.
BRACH, bitch.
BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso."
BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in
ballads.
BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being
shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap.
BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting
from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford).
BRANDISH, flourish of weapon.
BRASH, brace.
BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech.
BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled).
BRAVERIES, gallants.
BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel.
BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer.
BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon.
BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise.
BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of.
BREND, burn.
BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast.
BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve.
BRISK, smartly dressed.
BRIZE, breese, gadfly.
BROAD-SEAL, state seal.
BROCK, badger (term of contempt).
BROKE, transact business as a broker.
BROOK, endure, put up with.
BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar.
BRUIT, rumour.
BUCK, wash.
BUCKLE, bend.
BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military
and serjeants' coats, etc.
BUFO, black tincture.
BUGLE, long-shaped bead.
BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled.
BULLIONS, trunk hose.
BULLY, term of familiar endearment.
BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog.
BURDEN, refrain, chorus.
BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor.
BURGULLION, braggadocio.
BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans").
BURROUGH, pledge, security.
BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg.
BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts.
BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general
news. (See Cunningham).
BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where
provisions and liquors were stored.
BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards
could be bought.
BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence.
BUZZARD, simpleton.
BY AND BY, at once.
BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary
importance; at the side.
BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard.
CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand.
CALIVER, light kind of musket.
CALLET, woman of ill repute.
CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or
serjeants-at-law (Gifford).
CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares).
CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave.
CAMUSED, flat.
CAN, knows.
CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property.
CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late.
CANTER, sturdy beggar.
CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state
borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term.
CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction,
impression.
CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes."
CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.;
value, worth.
CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling.
CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck.
CARE, take care; object.
CAROSH, coach, carriage.
CARPET, table-cover.
CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour.
CARWHITCHET, quip, pun.
CASAMATE, casemate, fortress.
CASE, a pair.
CASE, "in--," in condition.
CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat.
CAST, flight of hawks, couple.
CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate.
CAST, cashiered.
CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume.
CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon.
CAT, structure used in sieges.
CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede."
CATASTROPHE, conclusion.
CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer.
CATES, dainties, provisions.
CATSO, rogue, cheat.
CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful.
CENSURE, criticism; sentence.
CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom.
CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead.
CESS, assess.
CHANGE, "hunt--," follow a fresh scent.
CHAPMAN, retail dealer.
CHARACTER, handwriting.
CHARGE, expense.
CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence.
CHARMING, exercising magic power.
CHARTEL, challenge.
CHEAP, bargain, market.
CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment.
CHECK AT, aim reproof at.
CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin.
CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable.
CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler.
CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day.
CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail.
CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy.
CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold.
CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste
of evaporation.
CIMICI, bugs.
CINOPER, cinnabar.
CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe.
CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way
drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares).
CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush;
ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition;
detail, particular.
CITRONISE, turn citron colour.
CITTERN, kind of guitar.
CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires
for hair and dress.
CIVIL, legal.
CLAP, clack, chatter.
CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar.
CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a
movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show
that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their
approach.
CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance.
CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble.
CLEM, starve.
CLICKET, latch.
CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance.
CLIMATE, country.
CLOSE, secret, private; secretive.
CLOSENESS, secrecy.
CLOTH, arras, hangings.
CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye.
CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper.
COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds.
COALS, "bear no--," submit to no affront.
COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms.
COAT-CARD, court-card.
COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring.
COB-SWAN, male swan.
COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to
be derived from turning on the tap that all might
drink to the full of the flowing liquor.
COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a
cock's egg and to kill by its eye--used as a term
of reproach for a woman.
COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild.
COCKER, pamper.
COCKSCOMB, fool's cap.
COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's
gizzard, and to possess particular virtues.
CODLING, softening by boiling.
COFFIN, raised crust of a pie.
COG, cheat, wheedle.
COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado.
COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley).
COKES, fool, gull.
COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly
affected towards.
COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts.
COLLECTION, composure; deduction.
COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh.
COLLY, blacken.
COLOUR, pretext.
COLOURS, "fear no--," no enemy (quibble).
COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub.
COME ABOUT, charge, turn round.
COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread.
COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant.
COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie
or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616).
COMMODITY, "current for--," allusion to practice of
money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of
the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the
latter had to make money if he could.
COMMUNICATE, share.
COMPASS, "in--," within the range, sphere.
COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything
required for the perfecting or carrying out of
a person or affair; accomplishment.
COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution.
COMPLIMENT, See Complement.
COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments.
COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract.
COMPOSURE, composition.
COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison.
CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property
had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries;
Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the
courtiers begged for it.
CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion.
CONCEIT, apprehend.
CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived;
possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well
conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed
of an idea.
CONCEIVE, understand.
CONCENT, harmony, agreement.
CONCLUDE, infer, prove.
CONCOCT, assimilate, digest.
CONDEN'T, probably conducted.
CONDUCT, escort, conductor.
CONEY-CATCH, cheat.
CONFECT, sweetmeat.
CONFER, compare.
CONGIES, bows.
CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence.
CONSORT, company, concert.
CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence.
CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful.
CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently.
CONTEND, strive.
CONTINENT, holding together.
CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down.
CONVENT, assembly, meeting.
CONVERT, turn (oneself).
CONVEY, transmit from one to another.
CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict.
COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may
have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and
others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point."
COPE-MAN, chapman.
COPESMATE, companion.
COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness.
CORN ("powder--"), grain.
COROLLARY, finishing part or touch.
CORSIVE, corrosive.
CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc.
CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's
Crudities."
COSSET, pet lamb, pet.
COSTARD, head.
COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger.
COSTS, ribs.
COTE, hut.
COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by
actors in Greek tragedy.
COTQUEAN, hussy.
COUNSEL, secret.
COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing.
COUNTER. See Compter.
COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play.
COUNTER, "hunt--," follow scent in reverse direction.
COUNTERFEIT, false coin.
COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture.
COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point.
COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D.
quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The
king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish,
that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as
part of his reversion," but this does not sound like
short allowance or small receptacle.
COURT-DOR, fool.
COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail.
COURTSHIP, courtliness.
COVETISE, avarice.
COWSHARD, cow dung.
COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool.
COY, shrink; disdain.
COYSTREL, low varlet.
COZEN, cheat.
CRACK, lively young rogue, wag.
CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief.
CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find
rhymes for a given word.
CRANCH, craunch.
CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a
fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's
"Nimphidia").
CRIMP, game at cards.
CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside.
CRISPED, with curled or waved hair.
CROP, gather, reap.
CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.)
CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped
with a cross.
CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails.
CROSSLET, crucible.
CROWD, fiddle.
CRUDITIES, undigested matter.
CRUMP, curl up.
CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross.
CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical
cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up.
CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc.
CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation.
CUERPO, "in--," in undress.
CULLICE, broth.
CULLION, base fellow, coward.
CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants.
CULVERIN, kind of cannon.
CUNNING, skill.
CUNNING, skilful.
CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller.
CURE, care for.
CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate,
elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious").
CURST, shrewish, mischievous.
CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort.
CUSTARD, "quaking--," "--politic," reference to
a large custard which formed part of a city feast
and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped
into it, and other like tricks were played. (See
"All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.)
CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work.
CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being
a transparent material, and when black used for mourning.
DAGGER ("--frumety"), name of tavern.
DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale.
DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song.
DAW, daunt.
DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency.
DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly.
DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside.
DEFALK, deduct, abate.
DEFEND, forbid.
DEGENEROUS, degenerate.
DEGREES, steps.
DELATE, accuse.
DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds.
DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth
part of a sou.
DEPART, part with.
DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language.
DESERT, reward.
DESIGNMENT, design.
DESPERATE, rash, reckless.
DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against.
DETERMINE, terminate.
DETRACT, draw back, refuse.
DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires,
etc., puppet.
DEVISE, exact in every particular.
DEVISED, invented.
DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls
of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.)
DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham).
DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular.
DIGHT, dressed.
DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning.
DIMBLE, dingle, ravine.
DIMENSUM, stated allowance.
DISBASE, debase.
DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between.
DISCHARGE, settle for.
DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system.
DISCLAIM, renounce all part in.
DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty.
DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy.
DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display.
DISFAVOUR, disfigure.
DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness
in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case
of wards.
DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for.
DISPLAY, extend.
DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip.
DISPOSED, inclined to merriment.
DISPOSURE, disposal.
DISPRISE, depreciate.
DISPUNCT, not punctilious.
DISQUISITION, search.
DISSOLVED, enervated by grief.
DISTANCE, (?) proper measure.
DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence.
DISTASTE, render distasteful.
DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour.
DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation.
DOG-BOLT, term of contempt.
DOLE, given in dole, charity.
DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces.
DOOM, verdict, sentence.
DOP, dip, low bow.
DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler.
DOR, (?) buzz; "give the--," make a fool of.
DOSSER, pannier, basket.
DOTES, endowments, qualities.
DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool.
DOUBLE, behave deceitfully.
DOXY, wench, mistress.
DRACHM, Greek silver coin.
DRESS, groom, curry.
DRESSING, coiffure.
DRIFT, intention.
DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot.
DUCKING, punishment for minor offences.
DUILL, grieve.
DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody.
DURINDANA, Orlando's sword.
DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed.
EAN, yean, bring forth young.
EASINESS, readiness.
EBOLITION, ebullition.
EDGE, sword.
EECH, eke.
EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent.
EKE, also, moreover.
E-LA, highest note in the scale.
EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand.
ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves.
EMMET, ant.
ENGAGE, involve.
ENGHLE. See Ingle.
ENGHLE, cajole; fondle.
ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit.
ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter.
ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious.
ENGROSS, monopolise.
ENS, an existing thing, a substance.
ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds.
ENSURE, assure.
ENTERTAIN, take into service.
ENTREAT, plead.
ENTREATY, entertainment.
ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed.
ENVOY, denouement, conclusion.
ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium.
EPHEMERIDES, calendars.
EQUAL, just, impartial.
ERECTION, elevation in esteem.
ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly
used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac.
ERRANT, arrant.
ESSENTIATE, become assimilated.
ESTIMATION, esteem.
ESTRICH, ostrich.
ETHNIC, heathen.
EURIPUS, flux and reflux.
EVEN, just equable.
EVENT, fate, issue.
EVENT(ED), issue(d).
EVERT, overturn.
EXACUATE, sharpen.
EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel.
EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword.
EXEMPLIFY, make an example of.
EXEMPT, separate, exclude.
EXEQUIES, obsequies.
EXHALE, drag out.
EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money.
EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law,
inordinate.
EXORNATION, ornament.
EXPECT, wait.
EXPIATE, terminate.
EXPLICATE, explain, unfold.
EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated.
EXTRACTION, essence.
EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose.
EXTRUDE, expel.
EYE, "in--," in view.
EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of
this name was infused, or a person who sold the same
(Gifford).
EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam.
FACE, appearance.
FACES ABOUT, military word of command.
FACINOROUS, extremely wicked.
FACKINGS, faith.
FACT, deed, act, crime.
FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling.
FAECES, dregs.
FAGIOLI, French beans.
FAIN, forced, necessitated.
FAITHFUL, believing.
FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil.
FALSIFY, feign (fencing term).
FAME, report.
FAMILIAR, attendant spirit.
FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical.
FARCE, stuff.
FAR-FET. See Fet.
FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat.
FAUCET, tapster.
FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for--," in default of.
FAUTOR, partisan.
FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon.
FEAR(ED), affright(ed).
FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action.
FEAT, elegant, trim.
FEE, "in--" by feudal obligation.
FEIZE, beat, belabour.
FELLOW, term of contempt.
FENNEL, emblem of flattery.
FERE, companion, fellow.
FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible.
FET, fetched.
FETCH, trick.
FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper.
FEWMETS, dung.
FICO, fig.
FIGGUM, (?) jugglery.
FIGMENT, fiction, invention.
FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "--up,"
stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like
a madman.
FIT, pay one out, punish.
FITNESS, readiness.
FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention.
FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at
primero" (Gifford).
FLAG, to fly low and waveringly.
FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr.
flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.).
FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon.
FLASKET, some kind of basket.
FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind.
FLAWN, custard.
FLEA, catch fleas.
FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively.
FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite
it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate.
FLICKER-MOUSE, bat.
FLIGHT, light arrow.
FLITTER-MOUSE, bat.
FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously.
FLOWERS, pulverised substance.
FLY, familiar spirit.
FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which
sets anything off to advantage.
FOIST, cut-purse, sharper.
FOND(LY), foolish(ly).
FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which
hung down on either side a horse to the ground.
FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing.
FOPPERY, foolery.
FOR, "--failing," for fear of failing.
FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from.
FORCE, "hunt at--," run the game down with dogs.
FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery.
FORESLOW, delay.
FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell.
FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion
required to be worn upright.
FORGED, fabricated.
FORM, state formally.
FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional.
FORTHCOMING, produced when required.
FOUNDER, disable with over-riding.
FOURM, form, lair.
FOX, sword.
FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins
were packed.
FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered.
FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler.
FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he
rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat
of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford).
FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers).
FREQUENT, full.
FRICACE, rubbing.
FRICATRICE, woman of low character.
FRIPPERY, old clothes shop.
FROCK, smock-frock.
FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast
(N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham).
FRONTLESS, shameless.
FROTED, rubbed.
FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced.
FRUMP, flout, sneer.
FUCUS, dye.
FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.).
FULLAM, false dice.
FULMART, polecat.
FULSOME, foul, offensive.
FURIBUND, raging, furious.
GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day,
when he was sworn into his office at Westminster
(Whalley).
GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time.
GAPE, be eager after.
GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant.
GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour.
GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other
ornament.
GARDED, faced or trimmed.
GARNISH, fee.
GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in
Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom
of dividing a deceased man's property equally among
his sons (N.E.D.).
GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings.
GEANCE, jaunt, errand.
GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair.
GELID, frozen.
GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals
were thrown into the river.
GENERAL, free, affable.
GENIUS, attendant spirit.
GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry,
good breeding.
GIB-CAT, tom-cat.
GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war.
GIGLOT, wanton.
GIMBLET, gimlet.
GING, gang.
GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl.
GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio;
side glance.
GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe.
GLIDDER, glaze.
GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory.
GODWIT, bird of the snipe family.
GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver.
GOLL, hand.
GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc.
GOOD, sound in credit.
GOOD-YEAR, good luck.
GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd).
GORCROW, carrion crow.
GORGET, neck armour.
GOSSIP, godfather.
GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like
a fool.
GRANNAM, grandam.
GRASS, (?) grease, fat.
GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome.
GRATIFY, give thanks to.
GRATITUDE, gratuity.
GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate.
GRAVITY, dignity.
GRAY, badger.
GRICE, cub.
GRIEF, grievance.
GRIPE, vulture, griffin.
GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of.
GROAT, fourpence.
GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of
coarse silk.
GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household.
GROPE, handle, probe.
GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments").
GUARD, caution, heed.
GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only.
GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d.
GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red.
GULL, simpleton, dupe.
GUST, taste.
HAB NAB, by, on, chance.
HABERGEON, coat of mail.
HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild.
HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe.
HALL, "a--!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers.
HANDSEL, first money taken.
HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the
sword was suspended.
HAP, fortune, luck.
HAPPILY, haply.
HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness.
HAPPY, rich.
HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter.
HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured.
HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured
with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of
silence.
HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the
coinage of tokens (q.v.).
HARROT, herald.
HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the
"Family of Love."
HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc.
HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term).
HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person.
HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked.
HEAD, "first--," young deer with antlers first
sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man.
HEADBOROUGH, constable.
HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out.
HEARTEN, encourage.
HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns.
HECTIC, fever.
HEDGE IN, include.
HELM, upper part of a retort.
HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron.
HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy."
HOBBY, nag.
HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material,
fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who
imitated the movements of a skittish horse.
HODDY-DODDY, fool.
HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient
term for leveret? Gifford).
HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists.
HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent.
HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded.
HORARY, hourly.
HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble).
HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn
shield on the thumb.
HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread.
HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer.
HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital.
HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German
tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks.
HUFF, hectoring, arrogance.
HUFF IT, swagger.
HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher.
HUM, beer and spirits mixed together.
HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar.
HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist.
HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time
of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both.
HUMOURS, manners.
HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the
dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a
monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine
with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry.
HURTLESS, harmless.
IDLE, useless, unprofitable.
ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed.
ILL-HABITED, unhealthy.
ILLUSTRATE, illuminate.
IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping.
IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce.
IMPAIR, impairment.
IMPART, give money.
IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part
with his money.
IMPEACH, damage.
IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies.
IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose.
IMPOSITION, duty imposed by.
IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control.
IMPRESS, money in advance.
IMPULSION, incitement.
IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons
with four dice.
INCENSE, incite, stir up.
INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing
a substance to softness of wax.
INCH, "to their--es," according to their stature,
capabilities.
INCH-PIN, sweet-bread.
INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity.
INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection).
INCUBEE, incubus.
INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare.
INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical.
INDENT, enter into engagement.
INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable.
INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic.
INDUCE, introduce.
INDUE, supply.
INEXORABLE, relentless.
INFANTED, born, produced.
INFLAME, augment charge.
INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous;
intelligent, talented.
INGENUITY, ingenuousness.
INGENUOUS, generous.
INGINE. See Engin.
INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer).
INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion.
INHABITABLE, uninhabitable.
INJURY, insult, affront.
IN-MATE, resident, indwelling.
INNATE, natural.
INNOCENT, simpleton.
INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry.
INQUISITION, inquiry.
INSTANT, immediate.
INSTRUMENT, legal document.
INSURE, assure.
INTEGRATE, complete, perfect.
INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news.
INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be
occupied with.
INTENDMENT, intention.
INTENT, intention, wish.
INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze.
INTENTIVE, attentive.
INTERESSED, implicated.
INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave.
INVINCIBLY, invisibly.
INWARD, intimate.
IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion
of the body: (Gifford).
JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes
the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent.
JACK, key of a virginal.
JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and
distances.
JADE, befool.
JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious.
JERKING, lashing.
JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp.
JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or
light comic act introduced at the end or during an
interlude of a play.
JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool.
JOLL, jowl.
JOLTHEAD, blockhead.
JUMP, agree, tally.
JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until
he was forty-three.
KELL, cocoon.
KELLY, an alchemist.
KEMB, comb.
KEMIA, vessel for distillation.
KIBE, chap, sore.
KILDERKIN, small barrel.
KILL, kiln.
KIND, nature; species; "do one's--," act according
to one's nature.
KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat.
KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression,
employed when what the speaker is just about to say is
anticipated by another" (Gifford).
KIT, fiddle.
KNACK, snap, click.
KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist.
KNITTING CUP, marriage cup.
KNOCKING, striking, weighty.
KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa
canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design.
KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened.
LABOURED, wrought with labour and care.
LADE, load(ed).
LADING, load.
LAID, plotted.
LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier.
LAP, fold.
LAR, household god.
LARD, garnish.
LARGE, abundant.
LARUM, alarum, call to arms.
LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of
various colours.
LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly
to extract some of it.
LAVE, ladle, bale.
LAW, "give--," give a start (term of chase).
LAXATIVE, loose.
LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board.
LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army.
LEASING, lying.
LEAVE, leave off, desist.
LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse,
a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning
uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell);
according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a
led horse; leeward, left.
LEESE, lose.
LEGS, "make--," do obeisance.
LEIGER, resident representative.
LEIGERITY, legerdemain.
LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram.
LENTER, slower.
LET, hinder.
LET, hindrance.
LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted
another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy
riot (Halliwell).
LEWD, ignorant.
LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth.
LIBERAL, ample.
LIEGER, ledger, register.
LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft.
LIGHT, alight.
LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often.
LIKE, please.
LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing.
LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound.
LIMMER, vile, worthless.
LIN, leave off.
Line, "by--," by rule.
LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked
head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon.
LIQUID, clear.
LIST, listen, hark; like, please.
LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc.
LOGGET, small log, stick.
LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow.
LOSE, give over, desist from; waste.
LOUTING, bowing, cringing.
LUCULENT, bright of beauty.
LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill.
LURCH, rob, cheat.
LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement.
MACK, unmeaning expletive.
MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl.
MAIM, hurt, injury.
MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic
term for "hand").
MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to
procure his release.
MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting.
MAKE, mate.
MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed).
MALLANDERS, disease of horses.
MALT HORSE, dray horse.
MAMMET, puppet.
MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child.
MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses);
handling, administration.
MANGO, slave-dealer.
MANGONISE, polish up for sale.
MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls.
MANKIND, masculine, like a virago.
MANKIND, humanity.
MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.).
MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc.
MARK, "fly to the--," "generally said of a goshawk
when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes
stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from
view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her"
(Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226).
MARLE, marvel.
MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer.
MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name.
MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy =
St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.).
MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily.
MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt.
MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text
according to Hebrew tradition.
MASS, abb. for master.
MAUND, beg.
MAUTHER, girl, maid.
MEAN, moderation.
MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one.
MEAT, "carry--in one's mouth," be a source of money
or entertainment.
MEATH, metheglin.
MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar.
MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general
resort for business and amusement.
MEET WITH, even with.
MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach.
MENSTRUE, solvent.
MERCAT, market.
MERD, excrement.
MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated.
MESS, party of four.
METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient
was honey.
METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy.
MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between.
MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate.
MILE-END, training-ground of the city.
MINE-MEN, sappers.
MINION, form of cannon.
MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.).
MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous
articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various
kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares).
MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley.
MISCONCEIT, misconception.
MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding.
MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake.
MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison.
MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence.
MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace.
MOMENT, force or influence of value.
MONTANTO, upward stroke.
MONTH'S MIND, violent desire.
MOORISH, like a moor or waste.
MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton.
MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which
certain personages were represented.
MORTALITY, death.
MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene.
MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk.
MOTHER, Hysterica passio.
MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show;
"one of the small figures on the face of a large
clock which was moved by the vibration of the
pendulum" (Whalley).
MOTION, suggest, propose.
MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence
used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool.
MOTTE, motto.
MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand;
a quartette.
MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain.
MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity.
MUCKINDER, handkerchief.
MULE, "born to ride on--," judges or serjeants-at-law
formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster
(Whally).
MULLETS, small pincers.
MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence.
MUN, must.
MUREY, dark crimson red.
MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica.
MUSE, wonder.
MUSICAL, in harmony.
MUSS, mouse; scramble.
MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought
from the Indies."
MYSTERY, art, trade, profession.
NAIL, "to the--" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the
very utmost.
NATIVE, natural.
NEAT, cattle.
NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty.
NEATLY, neatly finished.
NEATNESS, elegance.
NEIS, nose, scent.
NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist.
NEUFT, newt.
NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person.
NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous.
NICENESS, fastidiousness.
NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the--,"
meaning uncertain.
NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc.,
exactly hit on, hit off.
NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d.
NOCENT, harmful.
NIL, not will.
NOISE, company of musicians.
NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia.
NONES, nonce.
NOTABLE, egregious.
NOTE, sign, token.
NOUGHT, "be--," go to the devil, be hanged, etc.
NOWT-HEAD, blockhead.
NUMBER, rhythm.
NUPSON, oaf, simpleton.
OADE, woad.
OBARNI, preparation of mead.
OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose.
OBLATRANT, barking, railing.
OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive.
OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service.
OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious.
OBSERVE, show deference, respect.
OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another.
OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition."
OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous.
OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied.
ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and
cheating" (Nares).
OMINOUS, deadly, fatal.
ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional
emphasis.
ONLY, pre-eminent, special.
OPEN, make public; expound.
OPPILATION, obstruction.
OPPONE, oppose.
OPPOSITE, antagonist.
OPPRESS, suppress.
ORIGINOUS, native.
ORT, remnant, scrap.
OUT, "to be--," to have forgotten one's part;
not at one with each other.
OUTCRY, sale by auction.
OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption.
OUTSPEAK, speak more than.
OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play.
OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass.
OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier
when about to make a proclamation.
PACKING PENNY, "give a--," dismiss, send packing.
PAD, highway.
PAD-HORSE, road-horse.
PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips
of different colour and material.
PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking.
PAINT, blush.
PALINODE, ode of recantation.
PALL, weaken, dim, make stale.
PALM, triumph.
PAN, skirt of dress or coat.
PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle.
PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers.
PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of
court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc.
PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper.
PARAMENTOS, fine trappings.
PARANOMASIE, a play upon words.
PARANTORY, (?) peremptory.
PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article.
PARCEL, part, partly.
PARCEL-POET, poetaster.
PARERGA, subordinate matters.
PARGET, to paint or plaster the face.
PARLE, parley.
PARLOUS, clever, shrewd.
PART, apportion.
PARTAKE, participate in.
PARTED, endowed, talented.
PARTICULAR, individual person.
PARTIZAN, kind of halberd.
PARTRICH, partridge.
PARTS, qualities, endowments.
PASH, dash, smash.
PASS, care, trouble oneself.
PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust.
PASSAGE, game at dice.
PASSINGLY, exceedingly.
PASSION, effect caused by external agency.
PASSION, "in--," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically.
PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the
"moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?)
variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco.
PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling
beggars or gipsies.
PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go--," keep step with,
accompany.
PAUCA VERBA, few words.
PAVIN, a stately dance.
PEACE, "with my master's--," by leave, favour.
PECULIAR, individual, single.
PEDANT, teacher of the languages.
PEEL, baker's shovel.
PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice.
PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly).
PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for
continuous distillation.
PENCIL, small tuft of hair.
PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service.
PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter,
absolute(ly).
PERIMETER, circumference of a figure.
PERIOD, limit, end.
PERK, perk up.
PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff
now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants
and other city officers" (Gifford).
PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device
which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a
particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an
optical illusion.
PERSPICIL, optic glass.
PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure.
PERSUADE, inculcate, commend.
PERSWAY, mitigate.
PERTINACY, pertinacity.
PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle.
PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury.
PETITIONARY, supplicatory.
PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen.
PETULANT, pert, insolent.
PHERE. See Fere.
PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water").
PHRENETIC, madman.
PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat
(Whalley).
PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London.
PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin
worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s.
PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight
reals.
PIED, variegated.
PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held
at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and
buyers.
PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather
jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer.
PILED, pilled, peeled, bald.
PILL'D, polled, fleeced.
PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person--perhaps
master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford).
PINE, afflict, distress.
PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for
ornament.
PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense.
PISMIRE, ant.
PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s.
PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight.
PLAGUE, punishment, torment.
PLAIN, lament.
PLAIN SONG, simple melody.
PLAISE, plaice.
PLANET, "struck with a--," planets were supposed to
have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences.
PLAUSIBLE, pleasing.
PLAUSIBLY, approvingly.
PLOT, plan.
PLY, apply oneself to.
POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring.
POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular.
POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches
to the doublet.
POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's
points (q.v.).
POISE, weigh, balance.
POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs.
POLITIC, politician.
POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political.
POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer.
POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion.
POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the
person to prevent infection, or for foppery.
POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups.
PONTIC, sour.
POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace.
POPULOUS, numerous.
PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot.
PORT, transport.
PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4
pounds.
PORTCULLIS, "--of coin," some old coins have a
portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley).
PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen.
PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening.
PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's
porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley).
POSSESS, inform, acquaint.
POST AND PAIR, a game at cards.
POSY, motto. (See Poesie).
POTCH, poach.
POULT-FOOT, club-foot.
POUNCE, claw, talon.
PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot.
PRACTISE, plot, conspire.
PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent.
PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling.
PRECEDENT, record of proceedings.
PRECEPT, warrant, summons.
PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness.
PREFER, recommend.
PRESENCE, presence chamber.
PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the
present time; actually.
PRESS, force into service.
PREST, ready.
PRETEND, assert, allege.
PREVENT, anticipate.
PRICE, worth, excellence.
PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and
other languages.
PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track;
"--away," make off with speed.
PRIMERO, game of cards.
PRINCOX, pert boy.
PRINT, "in--," to the letter, exactly.
PRISTINATE, former.
PRIVATE, private interests.
PRIVATE, privy, intimate.
PROCLIVE, prone to.
PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural.
PRODIGY, monster.
PRODUCED, prolonged.
PROFESS, pretend.
PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection"
into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or
silver.
PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly.
PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular.
PROPERTIES, stage necessaries.
PROPERTY, duty; tool.
PRORUMPED, burst out.
PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time);
formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange;
fig. failure of personal credit, etc.
PROVANT, soldier's allowance--hence, of common make.
PROVIDE, foresee.
PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence.
PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.).
PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow.
PUFF-WING, shoulder puff.
PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior.
PULCHRITUDE, beauty.
PUMP, shoe.
PUNGENT, piercing.
PUNTO, point, hit.
PURCEPT, precept, warrant.
PURE, fine, capital, excellent.
PURELY, perfectly, utterly.
PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff.
PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together
with a string.
PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted
seminaries; warrant officer.
PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness).
PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.).
PUT OFF, excuse, shift.
PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try.
QUACKSALVER, quack.
QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever.
QUAR, quarry.
QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey.
QUEAN, hussy, jade.
QUEASY, hazardous, delicate.
QUELL, kill, destroy.
QUEST, request; inquiry.
QUESTION, decision by force of arms.
QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry.
QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip.
QUICK, the living.
QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety.
QUIRK, clever turn or trick.
QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake,
leave.
QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses.
QUODLING, codling.
QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck.
QUOTE, take note, observe, write down.
RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell).
RAKE UP, cover over.
RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc.
RAPT, carry away.
RAPT, enraptured.
RASCAL, young or inferior deer.
RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a
boar with its tusk.
RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman.
RAVEN, devour.
REACH, understand.
REAL, regal.
REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar.
RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor.
REDARGUE, confute.
REDUCE, bring back.
REED, rede, counsel, advice.
REEL, run riot.
REFEL, refute.
REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers.
REGIMENT, government.
REGRESSION, return.
REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.).
RELIGION, "make--of," make a point of, scruple of.
RELISH, savour.
REMNANT, scrap of quotation.
REMORA, species of fish.
RENDER, depict, exhibit, show.
REPAIR, reinstate.
REPETITION, recital, narration.
REREMOUSE, bat.
RESIANT, resident.
RESIDENCE, sediment.
RESOLUTION, judgment, decision.
RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind;
dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set
at ease.
RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative.
RESPECTIVELY, with reverence.
RESPECTLESS, regardless.
RESPIRE, exhale; inhale.
RESPONSIBLE, correspondent.
REST, musket-rest.
REST, "set up one's--," venture one's all, one's
last stake (from game of primero).
REST, arrest.
RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive.
RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness).
RETIRE, cause to retire.
RETRICATO, fencing term.
RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung.
RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of
which so much money is received.
REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat.
REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing.
REVISE, reconsider a sentence.
RHEUM, spleen, caprice.
RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman.
RID, destroy, do away with.
RIFLING, raffling, dicing.
RING, "cracked within the--," coins so cracked were
unfit for currency.
RISSE, risen, rose.
RIVELLED, wrinkled.
ROARER, swaggerer.
ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind.
ROCK, distaff.
RODOMONTADO, braggadocio.
ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond.
RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house"
(Nares); roundel.
ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe.
ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane.
ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor.
ROSES, rosettes.
ROUND, "gentlemen of the--," officers of inferior rank.
ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching
almost or quite to the knees.
ROUSE, carouse, bumper.
ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at
uncertain distance.
ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly.
RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness).
RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger.
RUG, coarse frieze.
RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug.
RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were
then strewn.
RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes.
RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour.
SACK, loose, flowing gown.
SADLY, seriously, with gravity.
SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness).
SAFFI, bailiffs.
ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals
were executed.
SAKER, small piece of ordnance.
SALT, leap.
SALT, lascivious.
SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram.
SARABAND, a slow dance.
SATURNALS, began December 17.
SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence.
SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton.
SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt.
SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature.
SAY, sample.
SAY, assay, try.
SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease.
SCALLION, shalot, small onion.
SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to
Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief
of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His
romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford).
SCAPE, escape.
SCARAB, beetle.
SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge.
SCONCE, head.
SCOPE, aim.
SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish
assessment).
SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head.
SCOUR, purge.
SCOURSE, deal, swap.
SCRATCHES, disease of horses.
SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow.
SCRUPLE, doubt.
SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights.
SEALED, stamped as genuine.
SEAM-RENT, ragged.
SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging.
SEAR UP, close by searing, burning.
SEARCED, sifted.
SECRETARY, able to keep a secret.
SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace.
SECURE, confident.
SEELIE, happy, blest.
SEISIN, legal term: possession.
SELLARY, lewd person.
SEMBLABLY, similarly.
SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary.
SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling.
SENSIBLY, perceptibly.
SENSIVE, sensitive.
SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material.
SERENE, harmful dew of evening.
SERICON, red tincture.
SERVANT, lover.
SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms.
SESTERCE, Roman copper coin.
SET, stake, wager.
SET UP, drill.
SETS, deep plaits of the ruff.
SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought
water for the hands of the guests.
SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise.
SHIFT, fraud, dodge.
SHIFTER, cheat.
SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock.
SHOT, tavern reckoning.
SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot
(reckoning) for the rest.
SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay.
SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps
somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss.
SHOT-SHARKS, drawers.
SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst.
SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree.
SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for
proclamations, or to indicate his residence.
SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment.
SIGILLA, seal, mark.
SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or
Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc.
SILLY, simple, harmless.
SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true.
SIMPLES, herbs.
SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag
is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert.
SINGLE, weak, silly.
SINGLE-MONEY, small change.
SINGULAR, unique, supreme.
SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement.
SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling.
SKILL, "it--s not," matters not.
SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster.
SKIRT, tail.
SLEEK, smooth.
SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.).
SLICK, sleek, smooth.
'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths.
SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick.
SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard.
SLIPPERY, polished and shining.
SLOPS, large loose breeches.
SLOT, print of a stag's foot.
SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way).
SMELT, gull, simpleton.
SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham).
SNOTTERIE, filth.
SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in--," take offence at.
SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff,
or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell).
SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors.
SOD, seethe.
SOGGY, soaked, sodden.
SOIL, "take--," said of a hunted stag when he takes
to the water for safety.
SOL, sou.
SOLDADOES, soldiers.
SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action.
SOOTH, flattery, cajolery.
SOOTHE, flatter, humour.
SOPHISTICATE, adulterate.
SORT, company, party; rank, degree.
SORT, suit, fit; select.
SOUSE, ear.
SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which
Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd":
to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster,"
page 350).
SOWTER, cobbler.
SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus.
SPAR, bar.
SPEAK, make known, proclaim.
SPECULATION, power of sight.
SPED, to have fared well, prospered.
SPEECE, species.
SPIGHT, anger, rancour.
SPINNER, spider.
SPINSTRY, lewd person.
SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house.
SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions.
SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood.
SPRUNT, spruce.
SPURGE, foam.
SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s.
SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the--," exactly.
STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating.
STAIN, disparagement, disgrace.
STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse.
STALE, make cheap, common.
STALK, approach stealthily or under cover.
STALL, forestall.
STANDARD, suit.
STAPLE, market, emporium.
STARK, downright.
STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape.
STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate.
STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used
by Pliny (Gifford).
STAY, gag.
STAY, await; detain.
STICKLER, second or umpire.
STIGMATISE, mark, brand.
STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly).
STINKARD, stinking fellow.
STINT, stop.
STIPTIC, astringent.
STOCCATA, thrust in fencing.
STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish.
STOMACH, pride, valour.
STOMACH, resent.
STOOP, swoop down as a hawk.
STOP, fill, stuff.
STOPPLE, stopper.
STOTE, stoat, weasel.
STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow.
STRAIGHT, straightway.
STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed
to the thrust.
STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar.
STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour.
STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts
in the Strand.
STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in
1597.
STRIKE, balance (accounts).
STRINGHALT, disease of horses.
STROKER, smoother, flatterer.
STROOK, p.p. of "strike."
STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts.
as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair."
STUDIES, studious efforts.
STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax
tablets.
SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft.
SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device.
SUBURB, connected with loose living.
SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women.
SUCK, extract money from.
SUFFERANCE, suffering.
SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage.
SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when
it was empty.
SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous.
SUPPLE, to make pliant.
SURBATE, make sore with walking.
SURCEASE, cease.
SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence.
SURVISE, peruse.
SUSCITABILITY, excitability.
SUSPECT, suspicion.
SUSPEND, suspect.
SUSPENDED, held over for the present.
SUTLER, victualler.
SWAD, clown, boor.
SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes.
SWINGE, beat.
TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights
and heralds.
TABLE(S), "pair of--," tablets, note-book.
TABOR, small drum.
TABRET, tabor.
TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric.
TAINT, "--a staff," break a lance at tilting in an
unscientific or dishonourable manner.
TAKE IN, capture, subdue.
TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you.
TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow.
TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency.
TALL, stout, brave.
TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the
conduits.
TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester.
TARTAROUS, like a Tartar.
TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a--," get drunk.
TELL, count.
TELL-TROTH, truth-teller.
TEMPER, modify, soften.
TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest.
TENT, "take--," take heed.
TERSE, swept and polished.
TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one
particular district or division of a country" (Gifford).
TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d.
THIRDBOROUGH, constable.
THREAD, quality.
THREAVES, droves.
THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth.
THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated.
THRIFTILY, carefully.
THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from.
THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of
being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress.
TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe.
TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon.
TIGHTLY, promptly.
TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity.
TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable.
TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed
by alchemists to be transfusible into material things;
an imparted characteristic or tendency.
TINK, tinkle.
TIPPET, "turn--," change behaviour or way of life.
TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal.
TIRE, head-dress.
TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey.
TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume.
TOD, fox.
TOILED, worn out, harassed.
TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small
coin, when this was scarce.
TONNELS, nostrils.
TOP, "parish--," large top kept in villages for
amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people
were out of work.
TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument.
TOUSE, pull, rend.
TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present,
at hand.
TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt.
TRACT, attraction.
TRAIN, allure, entice.
TRANSITORY, transmittable.
TRANSLATE, transform.
TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing
a three) (Nares).
TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor.
TREEN, wooden.
TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food.
TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed.
TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of
coat of arms, etc., without blazoning.
TRIG, a spruce, dandified man.
TRILL, trickle.
TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing.
TRIPOLY, "come from--," able to perform feats of agility,
a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word
(Gifford).
TRITE, worn, shabby.
TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate).
TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief.
TROLL, sing loudly.
TROMP, trump, deceive.
TROPE, figure of speech.
TROW, think, believe, wonder.
TROWLE, troll.
TROWSES, breeches, drawers.
TRUCHMAN, interpreter.
TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer.
TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along.
TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for
carts or coaches (Gifford).
TRUNK, speaking-tube.
TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches
to the doublet.
TUBICINE, trumpeter.
TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the
trumpet.
TUITION, guardianship.
TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the
mode of his hunting.
TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches.
TURD, excrement.
TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.).
TWIRE, peep, twinkle.
TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery.
TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room.
ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass.
UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow.
UMBRE, brown dye.
UNBATED, unabated.
UNBORED, (?) excessively bored.
UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh.
UNCOUTH, strange, unusual.
UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the
House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his
Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for.
UNEQUAL, unjust.
UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at.
UNFEARED, unaffrighted.
UNHAPPILY, unfortunately.
UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison.
UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly).
UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry).
UNQUIT, undischarged.
UNREADY, undressed.
UNRUDE, rude to an extreme.
UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe.
UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the
eyelids together with fine thread.
UNTIMELY, unseasonably.
UNVALUABLE, invaluable.
UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach.
UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "--Dutch,"
in the Dutch fashion.
UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song.
URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator.
URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog.
USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the
practical application of doctrine.
USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest.
USQUEBAUGH, whisky.
USURE, usury.
UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale.
VAIL, bow, do homage.
VAILS, tips, gratuities.
VALL. See Vail.
VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag.
VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour,"
in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed
by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging),
hector(ing), etc.
VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace.
VAUT, vault.
VEER (naut.), pay out.
VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour.
VELLUTE, velvet.
VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82,
"custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie.
VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up.
VENUE, bout (fencing term).
VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner.
VERGE, "in the--," within a certain distance of the court.
VEX, agitate, torment.
VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of
machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford).
VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover
it with a larger one.
VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms.
VINDICATE, avenge.
VIRGE, wand, rod.
VIRGINAL, old form of piano.
VIRTUE, valour.
VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily.
VIZARD, mask.
VOGUE, rumour, gossip.
VOICE, vote.
VOID, leave, quit.
VOLARY, cage, aviary.
VOLLEY, "at--," "o' the volee," at random (from a
term of tennis).
VORLOFFE, furlough.
WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his
friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley).
WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical
watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys."
WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares).
WARD, a famous pirate.
WARD, guard in fencing.
WATCHET, pale, sky blue.
WEAL, welfare.
WEED, garment.
WEFT, waif.
WEIGHTS, "to the gold--," to every minute particular.
WELKIN, sky.
WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech.
WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel.
WELT, hem, border of fur.
WHER, whether.
WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?).
WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the--," inhaling the
tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment.
WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings.
WHIMSY, whim, "humour."
WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly.
WHIT, (?) a mere jot.
WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs.
WICKED, bad, clumsy.
WICKER, pliant, agile.
WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster).
WINE, "I have the--for you," Prov.: I have the
perquisites (of the office) which you are to share
(Cunningham).
WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley).
WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller.
WISH, recommend.
WISS (WUSSE), "I--," certainly, of a truth.
WITHOUT, beyond.
WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever.
WOOD, collection, lot.
WOODCOCK, term of contempt.
WOOLSACK ("--pies"), name of tavern.
WORT, unfermented beer.
WOUNDY, great, extreme.
WREAK, revenge.
WROUGHT, wrought upon.
WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss).
YEANLING, lamb, kid.
ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief
fool and mimicked his tricks.
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