Read Ebook: A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume 09 by Dodsley Robert Compiler Hazlitt William Carew Editor

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JUDICIO. Let all his faults sleep with his mournful chest, And then for ever with his ashes rest: His style was witty, though he had some gall, Something he might have mended; so may all: Yet this I say that, for a mother-wit, Few men have ever seen the like of it.

JUDICIO. As for these, they have some of them been the old hedge-stakes of the press; and some of them are, at this instant, the bots and glanders of the printing-house: fellows that stand only upon terms to serve the term, with their blotted papers, write, as men go to stool, for needs; and when they write, they write as a bear pisses, now and then drop a pamphlet.

non debet fieri phlebotomia in coitu Lunae. Here is a recipe.

PATIENT. A recipe?

PHILOMUSUS. Nos Galli? non curamus quantitatem syllabarum: let me hear how many stools you do make. Adieu, monsieur: adieu, good monsieur.--What, Jaques, il n'y a personne apres ici?

STUDIOSO. Non.

PHILOMUSUS. Then let us steal time for this borrowed shape, Recounting our unequal haps of late: Late did the ocean grasp us in his arms; Late did we live within a stranger air, Late did we see the cinders of great Rome: We thought that English fugitives there ate Gold for restorative, if gold were meat. Yet now we find by bought experience That, wheresoe'er we wander up and down On the round shoulders of this massy world, Or our ill-fortunes or the world's ill-eye Forespeak our good, procure our misery.

STUDIOSO. So oft the northern wind with frozen wings Hath beat the flowers that in our garden grew, Thrown down the stalks of our aspiring youth; So oft hath winter nipp'd our trees' fair rind, That now we seem nought but two bared boughs, Scorn'd by the basest bird that chirps in grove. Nor Rome, nor Rhemes, that wonted are to give A cardinal cap to discontented clerks, That have forsook the home-bred, thatched roofs, Yielded us any equal maintenance: And it's as good to starve 'mongst English swine, As in a foreign land to beg and pine.

PHILOMUSUS. I'll scorn the world, that scorneth me again.

STUDIOSO. I'll vex the world, that works me so much pain.

PHILOMUSUS. Thy lame revenging power the world well weens.

STUDIOSO. Flies have their spleen, each silly ant his teens.

PHILOMUSUS. We have the words, they the possession have.

STUDIOSO. We all are equal in our latest grave.

PHILOMUSUS. Soon then, O, soon may we both graved be.

STUDIOSO. Who wishes death doth wrong wise destiny.

PHILOMUSUS. It's wrong to force life-loathing men to breathe.

STUDIOSO. It's sin 'fore doomed day to wish thy death.

PHILOMUSUS. Too late our souls flit to their resting-place.

STUDIOSO. Why, man's whole life is but a breathing space.

PHILOMUSUS. A painful minute seems a tedious year.

STUDIOSO. A constant mind eternal woes will bear.

PHILOMUSUS. When shall our souls their wearied lodge forego?

STUDIOSO. When we have tired misery and woe.

STUDIOSO. It shall be so: see what a little vermin poverty altereth a whole milky disposition.

PHILOMUSUS. So then myself straight with revenge I'll sate.

STUDIOSO. Provoked patience grows intemperate.

ACTUS I, SCAENA 5.

JAQUES. How now, my little knave? Quelle nouvelle, monsieur?

RICHARDETTO. There's a fellow with a nightcap on his head, an urinal in his hand, would fain speak with Master Theodore.

JAQUES. Parle Fran?ois, mon petit gar?on.

RICHARDETTO. Ici un homme, avec le bonnet de nuit sur la tete, et un urinal en la main, que veut parler avec Maistre Theodore.

JAQUES. Fort bien.

THEODORE. Jaques, a bonne heure.

are you smouching Thaly on her tender lips? There, hoi! peasant, avaunt! Come, pretty short-nosed nymph. O sweet Thalia, I do kiss thy foot. What, Clio? O sweet Clio! Nay, prythee, do not weep, Melpomene. What, Urania, Polyhymnia, and Calliope! let me do reverence to your deities. Phoebus shows his flashing snout, You are sky-puppies; straight your light is out.

PHANTASMA. So ho, Furor! Nay, prythee, good Furor, in sober sadness--

FUROR. Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo.

PHANTASMA. Nay, sweet Furor,--ipsae te, Tityre, pinus--

FUROR. Ipsi te fontes, ipsa haec arbusta vocarunt. Who's that runs headlong on my quill's sharp point, That, wearied of his life and baser breath, Offers himself to an Iambic verse?

PHANTASMA. Si, quoties peccant homines, sua fulmina mittat Jupiter, exiguo tempore inermis erit.

FUROR. What slimy, bold, presumptuous groom is he, Dares with his rude, audacious, hardy chat Thus sever me from sky-bred contemplation?

FUROR. O Phantasma! what, my individual mate?

FUROR. Say, whence comest thou? sent from what deity? From great Apollo or sly Mercury?

FUROR. Ingenioso? He is a pretty inventor of slight prose; But there's no spirit in his grov'lling speech. Hang him, whose verse cannot outbelch the wind, That cannot beard and brave Dan Aeolus; That, when the cloud of his invention breaks, Cannot outcrack the scarecrow thunderbolt. Hang him, I say!

FUROR. Pass thee before, I'll come incontinent.

BURGESS. Truly, Master Doctor, we are all men.

THEODORE. This vater is intention of heat: are you not perturbed with an ache in your vace or in your occipit? I mean your headpiece. Let me feel the pulse of your little finger.

BURGESS. I'll assure you, Master Theodore, the pulse of my head beats exceedingly; and I think I have disturbed myself by studying the penal statutes.

BURGESS. And what is the exposition of that?

BURGESS. Good Master Doctor, use me gently; for, mark you, sir, there is a double consideration to be had of me: first, as I am a public magistrate; secondly, as I am a private butcher; and but for the worshipful credit of the place and office wherein I now stand and live, I would not hazard my worshipful apparel with a suppository or a glister: but for the countenancing of the place, I must go oftener to stool; for, as a great gentleman told me, of good experience, that it was the chief note of a magistrate not to go to the stool without a physician.

THEODORE. Ah, vous ?tes un gentilhomme, vraiment.--What, ho, Jaques! Jaques, donnez-vous un fort gentil purgation for Monsieur Burgess.

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