THE MUSES Looking-Glasse.

By T. R.

London, Printed Anno Dom. 1643.

THE Muses Looking-Glasse,

Actus 1.

Scen. 1.

Enter Bird a Feather-man, and Mrs Flowrdew, wife to a Haberdasher of small Wares; the one having brought Feathers to the Play­house; the other Pins and Looking-glasses; two of the sanctified fraternity of Black-Fryers.
FLowrdew,
See brother how the wicked throng and crowd,
To works of Vanity! not a nook, or corner
In all this house of sin, this cave of filthynesse,
This den of spirituall theeves, but it is stufft,
Stuffed, and stufft full as is a cushion
With the lewd Reprobate.
Bird.
Sister, were there not before Innes,
Yes, I will say Innes, for my zeal bids me
Say filthy Innes, enough to harbour such
As travell'd to destruction the broad way;
[Page 2]But they build more and more, more shops of Satan.
Flowrd.
Iniquity aboundeth, though pure zeal
Teach, preach, huffe, puffe, and stnuffe at it, yet still,
Still it aboundeth. Had we seen a Church,
A new built Church erected North and South,
It had been something worth the wondring at.
Bird.

Good works are done.

Flowrd
I say no works are good,
Good works are meerly Popish, and Apocryphall.
Bird.
But th'bad abound, surround, yea and confound us.
No marvell now if Play-houses increase,
For they are all grown so obscene of late,
That one begets another.
Flowrd
Flat fornication!
I wonder any body takes delight
To hear them prattle.
Bird.
Nay, and I have heard
That in a—Tragedy I think they call it,
They make no more of killing one another,
Then you sell pins.
Flowrd.
Or you sell feathers brother,
But are they not hang'd for it?
Bird
Law grows partiall,
And findes it but Chance-medly: And their Comedies
Will abuse you, or me, or any body;
We cannot put our monies to increase
By lawfull usury, nor break in quiet,
Nor put off our false wares, nor keep our wives
Finer then others, but our ghosts must walk
Upon their stages.
Flowrd.
Is not this flat conjuring,
To make our ghosts to walk ere we be dead?
Bird.
Thats nothing Mistris Flowrdew, they will play
[Page 3]The knave, the fool, the divell, and all for money.
Flow.
Impiety! O that men indued with reason
Should have no more grace in them?
Bird.
Be there not other
Vocations as thriving, and more honest?
Baylies, Promooters, Iaylors, and Apparitors,
Beadles, and Martials men, the needfull instruments
Of the Republique; but to make themselves
Such Monsters? for they are monsters, th'are monsters,
Base, sinfull, shamelesse, ugly, vile deform'd
Pernitious monsters?
Flow.
I have heard our Vicar
Call Play-houses the Colledges of transgression▪
Wherein the seven deadly sins are studied.
Bird.
Why then the City will in time be made
An university of iniquity.
We dwell by Black-Fryers Colledge, where I wonder
How that prophane nest of pernitious Birds
Dare roost themselves there in the midst of us,
So many good and well disposed persons.
O Impudence?
Flow.
It was a zealous prayer
I heard a brother make, concerning Play-houses,
Bird.

For charity what is it?

Flow.
That the Globe,
Wherein (quoth he) reigns a whole world of vice,
Had been consum'd? The Phoenix burn't to Ashes.
The Fortune whipt for a blind whore: Black-Fryers
He wonders how it scap'd demolishing
I'th' time of reformation: Lastly he wish'd
The Bull might crosse the Thames to the Bear-Garden,
And there be soundly baited?
Bird.

A [...]ood prayer.

Flow.
[Page 4]
Indeed it something pricks my conscience▪
I come to sell 'em Pins and Looking-glasses.
Bird.
I have their custome too for all their Feathers▪
Tis fit that we which are sincere Professors
Should gain by Infidels.

Scen. 2.

Enter Roscius a Player.
Mr. Roscius

we hav' brought the things you spake for▪

Rosc.

Why tis well.

Flow.

Pray Sir what serve they for?

Rosc

We use them in our play.

Bird.

Are you a player?

Rosc.

I am Sir, what of that?

Bird.
And is it lawfull?
Good sister lets convert him. Will you use
So fond a calling?
Flow.

And so impious?

Bird.

So irreligious?

Flow.

So unwarrantable?

Bird.

Only to gain by vice?

Flow.

To live by sin?

Rosc.
My spleen is up: And live not you by sin▪
Take away vanity and you both may break.
What serves your lawfull trade of selling Pins,
But to joynt gew-gaws, and to knit together
Gorgets, strips; neck-cloths, laces, ribbands, ruffs▪
And many other such like toyes as these,
To make the Baby Pride a pretty Puppet?
And you sweet Featherman, whose ware though light,
Oreweighs your conscience, what serves your trade
But to plume folly, to give pride her wings,
[Page 5]To deck vain-glory? spoiling the Peacocks tail
T' adorn an Idiots Coxcomb: O dull ignorance!
How ill 'tis understood what we do mean
For good and honest! They abuse our Scene,
And say we live by vice: indeed tis true
As the Physitians by diseases do,
Only to cure them: They do live we see
Like Cooks by pamp'ring prodigality,
Which are our fond accusers. On the stage
We set an Usurer to tell this age
How ugly looks his soul: A prodigall
Is taught by us how far from liberall
His folly bears him: Boldly I dare say
There has been more by us in some one Play
Laugh't into wit and vertue, then hath been
By twenty tedious Lectures drawn from sin,
And foppish humours; Hence the cause doth rise
Men are not wonne by th'ears so well as eies.
First see what we present.
Flow▪
The sight is able
To unsanctifie our eyes, and make 'em carnall.
Rosc.

Will you condemn without examination?

Bird.
No sister, let us call up all our zeal,
And try the strength of this temptation:
Satan shall see we dare defie his Engines.
Flow.

I am content.

Ros [...].
Then take your places here, I will come to you
And moralize the plot.
Flow.
That moralizing
I do approve, it may be for instruction.

Scen. 3.

Enter a deformed fellow.
DEfor.

Roscius, I hear you have a new Play to day.

Rosc.
We want not you to play Mephostopbolis.
A pretty naturall vizard!
Defo [...].

What have you there?

Rosc.

A Looking-glasse, or two.

Defor.
What things are they?
Pray let me see them. Heaven, what fights are here?
I'ave seen a Divell. Looking-glasses call you them?
There is no Bafiliske but a Looking-glasse.
Ros [...].

Tis your own face you saw.

Defor.
My own? thou liest:
I'de not be such a Monster for the world.
Rosc.

Look in it now with me, what seest thou now▪

Defor.

An Angell and a divell.

Rosc.
Look on that
Thou caldst an Angell, mark it well, and tell me
Is it not like my face?
Defor.

As were the same.

Rosc.
Why so is that like thine. Dost thou not see,
Tis not the glasse but thy deformity
That makes this ugly shape; if they be fair
That view the Glasse, such the reflections are.
This serves the body: The soul sees her face
In Comedy, and has no other glasse.
Defor.
Nay then farewell, for I had rather see
Hell then a Looking-glasse or Comedy.
Exit Defor.
Rosc
And yet me thinks if'twere not for this Glasse,
Wherein the form of man beholds his grace,
[Page 7]We could not finde another way to see
How neer our shapes approach Divinity.
Ladies, let they who will your glasse deride,
And say it is an instrument of Pride:
I will commend you for it; there you see
If yee be fair, how truly fair ye be:
Where finding beauteous faces, I do know
You'l have the greater care to keep them so.
A heavenly vision in your beauty lyes,
Which nature hath denyed to your own eyes;
Were it not pitty you alone should be
Debarr'd of that others are blest to fee?
Then take your glasses, and your selves enjoy
The benefit of your selves; it is no toy,
Though ignorance at slight esteem hath set her,
That will preserve us good or make us better.
A Country slut, (for such she was, though here,
Ith' City may be some as well as there:)
Kept her hands clean, (for those being alwayes seen
Had told her else how sluttish she had been)
But had her face as nasty as the stall
Of a fishmonger, or a usurers Hall
Daub'd ore with dirt: One might hav dar'd to say
She was a true piece of Prometheus clay,
Not yet inform'd: And then her unkemb'd hair
Drest up with cobwebs, made her hag-like stare▪
One day within her pail (for Country Lasses
(Fair Ladies) have no other Looking-glasses:)
She spied her uglinesse, and fain she would
Have blusht if thorough so much dirt she could:
Asham'd, within that water, that I say
Which shew'd her filth, she washt her filth away.
So Comedies, as Poets do intend them,
[Page 8]Serve first to shew our falts, and then to mend them▪
Upon our stage two glasses oft there be,
The Comick Mirrour, and the Tragedy:
The Comick glasse is full of merry strife,
The low reflection of a County life.
Grave Tragedy void of such homely sports
Is the sad glasse of Cities and of Courts.
Ile shew you both, Thalia come and bring
Thy Buskin'd sister, that of Bloud doth sing.

Scen. 4.

Comedy, Tragedy, Mime, Satyre.
Comed

WHy do you stop? go on.

T'rag.
I charge him stay
My robe of state, Buskins, and Crown of gold
Claim a priority.
Com.
Your Crown of Gold
Is but the wreath of wealth; 'tis mine of Lawrell
Is vertues Diadem: This grew green and flourish'd
When nature pittying poor morality,
Hid thine within the bowels of the earth:
Men looking up to heaven found this thats mine,
Digging to finde our hell they li't on thine.
Trag.

I know you 'have tongue enough.

Com.
Besides, my Birth [...]right
Gives me the first possession.
Trag.

How, your Birth-right?

Com.
Yes sister, Birth right: and a Crown besides,
Put on before the Altar of Apollo
By his dear Priest Phenomoe, she that first
Full of her, God rag'd in Heroique numbers.
Trag.
How came it then the Magistrate decreed
[Page 9]A publique charge to [...]urnish out my Chorus,
When you were fain [...]t appear in raggs and tatters,
And at your own expences?
Come
My reward
Came after, my defer is went before yours,
Trag
Deserts? yes! what deserts▪ when like a gypsie
You took a poor and beggarly Pilgrimage
From village unto village; when I then
As a fit ceremony of Religion
In my full state con [...]ended at the Tomb
Of mighty [...]heseus
Co [...]e
I before [...]hat time
Did chaunt our Hymnes in praise of great Apol [...]o,
The sheepherd's Deitie, whom they reverence
Under the name of [...]om [...]us, in remembrance
How with them once he kept Admetus sheep.
And 'cause you urge my poverty, what were you?
Till Sophocl [...]s laid guilt upon your Buskins
You had no ornaments, no robes of state,
No rich and glorious Scene; your first Benefactors
Who were they, but the reeling Priests of Bacchus:
For which a Goat gave you reward and name?
Trag
But sis [...]er who were yours, I pray, but such
As chaunted forth religious, bawdy sonnets;
In honour of the fine chast god Priapus?
Come.

Let age alone, merit must plead out Title.

Trag.
And have you then the forehead to contend?
I stalk in Princes Courts, great Kings, and Emperours
From their close cabinets, and Councell Tables
Yeild me the fatall matter of my Scene.
Com [...].
Inferiour persons, and the lighter vanities,
(Of which this age I fear is grown too fruitfull,)
Yeild subjects various enough to move
[Page 10]Plentifull laughter.
Trag.
Laughter! a fit object
For Poetry to aym at.
Com.
Yes, Laughter is my object: 'tis a property
In man essentiall to his reason.
Trag.
So;
But I move horrour; and that frights the guilty
From his dear sins: he that sees Oedipus
Incestuous, shall behold him blind withall.
Who views Orestes as a Parricide,
Shall see him lash'd with Furies too; Th'Ambitious
Shall fear Prometheus Vultur; Daring gluttony
Stand frighted at the sight of Tantalus:
And every family great in sins as bloud
Shake at the memory of Pelops house.
Who will rely on Fortunes giddy smile
That hath seen Priam acted on the stage?
Com.
You move with fear, I work as much with shame▪
A thing more powerfull in a generous brest.
Who sees an eating Parafite abus'd;
A covetous Bawd laugh'd at; an ignorant Gull
Cheated; a glorious Souldier knockt, and baffl'd;
A crafty servant whipt; a niggard churl
Hoarding up dicing-monies for his sonne;
A spruce fantaftique Courtier, a mad roarer,
A jealous Tradesman, an over-weening Lady,
Or corrupt Lawyer rightly personated.
But (if he have a blush) will blush, and shame
As well to act those follies as to own them.
Trag.
The subject of my Scene is in the persons
Greater, as in the vices; Atheists, Tyrants,
O're-daring Favourites, Traitors, Parasites,
The Wolves and Cats of state, which in a language
[Page 11]High as the men, and lowd as are their crimes
I thunder forth with terrou [...] and amazement
Unto the gastly wondring Audience.
Satyre.
And as my Lady takes deserved place
Of thy light Mistris, so yeild thou to me,
Fantastique Mime.
Mime.

Fond Satyre why to thee?

Sat.
As the attendant of the nobler Dame;
And of my selfmore worthy?
Mime.

How! more worthy.

Sat.
As one whose whip of steel can with a lash
Imprint the Characters of shame so deep,
Even in the brazen forehead of proud sin,
That not eternity shall wear it out.
When I but frown'd in my Lucilius brow,
Each conscious cheek grew red, and a cold trembling
Freez'd the chill soul; while every guilty brest
Stood fearfull of dissection, as afraid
To be anatomiz'd by that skilfull hand;
And have each artery, nerve, and vein of sin
By it laid open to the publike scorn.
I have untruss'd the proudest; greatest tyrants
Have quak'd below my powerfull whip, half dead
With expectation of the smarting jerk,
Whose wound no salve can cure: each blow doth leav [...]
A lasting scar, that with a poyson eats
Into the marrow of their fames and lives;
Th'eternall ulcer to their memories!
What can your Apish-fine gesticulations
My manlike-Monky Mime, vie down to this?
Mime.
When men through sins were grown unlike the Gods,
Apes grew to be like men; therefore I think
[Page 12]My Apish imitation, Brother Be adle,
Does as good service to reform l [...]ad manners
As your proud whip, with all his ferks, and jerks.
The S [...]artans when they strov [...] t'expresse the loath-somenesse
Of Drunkennesse to their child [...]en. brought a slave,
Some captive H [...]lo [...], overcharg'd with wine
Reeling in thus;—His eyes shot out with staring,
A fire in his nose, a burning rednesse
Blazing in either cheek, his hair upright,
His tongue and senses faltring, and his stomack
O'reburden'd ready to discharge her load
In each mans face he met. This made 'em see
And hate that sin of swine, and not of men.
Would I expresse a complementall youth,
That thinks himself a spruce and expert Courtier,
Bending his supple hammes, kissing his hands,
Honouring Shoostrings, scruing his writh'd face
To severall postures of affection,
Dancing an entertainment to his friend,
Who would not think it a ridiculous motion?
Yet such there be that very much please themselves
In such like Antique humours. To our own sins
We will be Moles, even to the grossest of 'em:
But in anothers life we can spy forth
The least of faults, with eyes as sharp as Eagles,
Or the E [...]idaurean serpent: Now in me,
Where self-love casts not her Egyptian mists,
They finde this mis-becoming foppishnesse,
And afterwards apply it to themselves:
This ( Satyre) is the use of Mimique Elves.
Trag.
Sister let's lay this poor contention by,
And friendly live together, if [...]ne womb
[Page 13]Could hold us both, why should we think this room
Too narrow to contain us? On this stage
Wee'l plead a tryall; and in one year contend
Which shall do best: that past, she then that shall
By the most sacred and impartiall judgement
Of our Apollo, best deserve the Bayes,
Shall hold th' entire possession of the place.
Come
I were unworthy if I should
Appeal from his tribunall; Be it so:
I doubt not but his censure runs with me;
Never may any thing that's sad and tragicall
Dare to approach his presence; let him be
So happy as to think no man is wretched,
Or that there is a thing call'd misery.
Trag.
Such is my prayer, that he may only see,
Not be the subject of a Tragedy!
Sister, a truce till then; that vice may bleed,
Let us joyn whips together.
Come.

Tis agreed.

Mime.
Let it be your office to prepare
The Masque which we intended:
Mime.

Tis my care.

Exeunt.
Flowr.
How did she say? a Masse? Brother fly hence▪
[...]ly hence, Idolatry will overtake us.
Rosci.
It was a Masque she spake of, a rude Dance
Presented by the seven deadly sins.
Bird.
Still 'tis a Masse, sister, away, I tell you
It is a Masse, a Masse of vile Idolatry.
Rosci
Tis but a simple Dance, brought in to shew
The native foulnesse and deformity
Of our dear sin, and what an ugly guest.
[Page 14]He entertains, admits him to his brest?

Song and Dance.

Say, in a Dance how shall we go,
That never could a measure know!
How shall we sing to please the Scene
That never yet could keep a mean?
Disorder is the Masque we bring,
And discords are the Tunes we sing.
No sound in our harsh ears can finde a place
But highest Trebles, or the lowest Base.
Flow.
See Brother, if mens hearts and consciences
Had not been sear'd, and cauterized, how could they
Affect these filthy harbingers of hell!
These Proctors of Belzebub, Lucifers Hinch-boyes!
Rosc.

I pray ye stirre your selves within a while.

Exeune.
Roscius Solus.
And here, unlesse your favourable mildnesse
With hope of mercy do encourage us,
Our Author bids us end: he dares not ventur [...]
Neither what's past, nor that which is to come
Upon his Country, 'tis so weak, and impotent
It cannot stand a tryall; nor dares hope
The benefit of his Clergy; But if rigour
Sit Iudge, must of necessity be condemn'd
To Vulcan or the Spunge: All he can plead
Is a desire of Pardon; for he brings you
[Page 15]No plot at all, but a meer Olla Podrida,
A medly of ill plac'd, and worse pen'd humours.
His desire was in single Scenes to shew
How Comedy presents each single vice
Ridiculous, whose number as their Character
He borrows from the man to whom he ows
All the poor skill he has, great Aristotle.
Now if you can endure to hear the rest,
Y'are welcome; if you cannot, do but tell
Your meaning by some sign, and all farewell▪
If you will stay resolve to pardon first;
Our Author will deserve it by offending.
Yet if he misse a Pardon, as in justice
You cannot grant it, though your mercy may,
Still he hath this left for a comfort to him,
That he picks forth a subject of his Rime
May lose perchance his credit, not his time.
Exit.
Finis Actus 1.

ACTVS 2.

SCENA 1.

Roscius. Bird. Flowrdew.
Rosc.

REceive your places. The first that wee present are the Extreames of a vertue necessary in our Conversation, call'd Comitas or Courtesie, which, as all other vertues, hath her deviations from the Mean. The one Colax, that to seeme over Courteous falls, into a ser­vile flattery; the other, (as fooles fall into the contraries which they shumic) is Discolus, who hating to be a sla­vish Parasite, growes into peevishnesse and impertinent distaste.

Flow.

I thought you taught two vices for one vertue.

Rosc.
[Page 16]

So does Philosophy, but the Actors enter▪

Colax. Dyscolus.
Colax.
How far they sin against humanity
That use you thus! Believe me 'tis a symptom
Of Barbarisme, and rudenesse, so to vex
A gentle, modest nature as yours is.
Dysco.

Why dost thou vex me then?

Colax.
I? Heaven defend!
My breeding has been better; I vex you!
You that I know so vertuous, just, and wife,
So pious and religious, so admir'd,
So lov'd of all?
Dys.
Wilt thou not leave me then
Eternall torture? could your cruelty finde
No back but mine that you thought broad enough
To bear the load of all these Epithites?
Pious? Religious? he takes me for a fool.
Vertuous? and just? Sir, did I ever cheat you,
Cozen, or gull you; that you call me just,
And vertuous? I am grown the common scoffe
Of all the world; the scoffe of all the world!
Colax.

The world is grown too vile then.

Dysc.
So art thou.
Heaven! I am turn' ridiculous!
Colax.
You rediculous?
But 'tis an impious Age; There was a time,
(And pitty 'tis so good a time had wings
To flye away,) when reverence was payd
To a gray head; 'twas held a sacriledge
Not expiable to deny respect
To one, Sir, of your years and gravity.
Dysc.
My years and gravity! Why, how old am I?
I am not rotten yet, or grown so rank
[Page 17]As I should smell oth'grave▪ O times and manners!
Well Colax, well; go on: ye may abuse me,
Poor dust and ashes, worms meat; years and gravity:
He takes me for a Careasse! what see you
So crazy in me? I have halfe my teeth▪
I see with spectacles, do I not? and can walk too
With th' benefit of my staffe, mark if I cannot!—
But you sir at your pleasure with years and gravity
Think me decrepit.
Colax.
How? Decrepit sir!
I see young roses bud within your cheeks;
And a quick active bloud run free and fresh
Thorough your veins.
Dysco.
I am turn'd boy again!
A very stripling school-boy! have I not
The Itch and kibes? am I not scabb'd and ma [...]gy
About the wrists and hams?
Colax.

Still Dyscolus?—

Dysc.
Dyscolus! and why Dyscolus? when were we
Grown so familiar? Dyscolus! by my name
Sure we are Pylades and Orestes! are we not?
Speak good Pylades.
Colax.
Nay worthy Sir
Pardon my error, 'twas without intent
Of an offence. Ile finde some other name
To call you by—
Dysc.
What do you mean to call me?
Foole? Asse? or Knave? my name is not so bad
As that I am asham'd on't.
Colax.
Still you take all worse than it was meant,
You are too jealous.
Dysco.
Iealous? I ha'not cause for't, my wifes honest;
Dost see my horns? Dost? if thou doest,
[Page 18]Write Cuckold in my forehead; do, write Cuckol [...]
With Aqua-fortis, do. Iealous! I am jealous;
Free of the Company! wife, I am jealous.
Col [...]x.

I mean suspitious.

Dysc.
How! suspitious?
For what? for treason, felony, or murder?
Carry me to the Iustice: bind me over
For a suspitious person: hang me too
For a suspitious p [...]rson! O, O, O,
Some courteous plague ceaze me, and free my soule
From this immortall torment! every thing
I meet with, is vexation, and this, this
Is the vexation of vexations,
The Hell of Hells, and Divell of all Divells.
Flow.

For pitty sake frer not the good old Gentlem [...]

Disc.
O! have I not yet torments great enough,
But you must adde to my a [...]fliction?
E [...]ernall s [...]lence ceaze you!
Co [...].
Sir we strive
To please you, but you still misconstrue us.
Disc.
I must be pl [...]as'd! a very babe, an infant!
I must be pleas'd! give me some pappe, or plums▪
Buy me a rattle, or a hobby-horse,
To s [...]ll me, do! be pleas'd? wouldst have me get
A Para [...]ite to be flatter'd?
Col
How? a Parasite?
A cogging, slatt'ring, slavish Parasite?
Things [...] abhorre and hate. Tis not the belly
Shall make my brains a captive. Flatterers!
Souls below reason will not stoop so low
As to give up their liberty; only flatterers
Move by anothers wheele. They have no passion [...]
Free to themselves. All their affections,
[Page 19]Qualities, humors, appetites, desires,
Nay wishes, vows and pray [...]rs, discourse and th [...]ughts
Are but anothers Bondman. Let me tugg
At the Turks Gallies; be etern [...]lly
Damn'd to a Qu [...]r [...]y. In this state my minde
Is free: A flatterer has nor soul nor body;
What shall I say? —No I applaud your temper,
That in a generous brav [...]nesse take distaste
At such whose servile nature strives to please you.
Tis royall in you Sir.
Dysc.

Ha! whats that?

Colax.

A feather stuck upon your cloak.

Dysc.
A feather!
And what have you to do with my feath [...]rs?
Why should you hinder me from t [...]lling th'world
I do not lye on flock-beds?
Colax.
Pray be pleas'd.
I brusht it off for m [...]er re [...]p [...]ct I bare to you.
Dysc.
Respect! a fine respect, Sir, is it not,
To make th [...] world beleeve I nou [...]ish vermine?
O death, death, death, if that our graves hatch worms
Without tongues to torment us, let 'um have
What teeth they will. I meet not here an object
But adds to my affliction! Sure I am not
A man; I could not then be so rediculous▪
My ears are ov [...]rgrown, I am an Asse;
It is my ears they gaze at. What strange Harty,
[...]en [...]re or Gorgon am I turn'd into?
What Circe wrought my M [...]t [...]morphosis?
[...]f I be a beast, she might have m [...]e me Lyon,
Or something not ridiculous! O [...],
[...]f I doe branch like thee, it is my fortune!
[...]hy looke they on me else? There is within
[Page 20]A glasse they say, that has strange qualities in it;
That shall resolve me. I will in to se [...]
Whether or no, I man or monster be.
Exit.

SCEN. 2.

To them Deilus. Aphobus.
Bird.

Who be these? They look like presumption, and D [...]spai [...]e.

Rosc.

And such they are. That is Aphobus, one th [...] out of an impious confidence fears nothing. The other Dcilus, that from an Atheisticall distrust, shakes at the motion of a reed. These are the extr [...]ams of Fortitude, th [...] Steers an even course between overmuch daring, and over­much fearing.

Flow.

Why stayes this reprobate Colax?

Rosc.
Any vice▪
Yeilds work for flattery.
Flow.

A good Doctrine, mark it.

Deil [...]s.
Is it possible? did you not fear it, say you
To me the meer relation is an ague.
Good Aphobus no more such terrible stories;
I would not for a world lye alone to night:
I shall have such strange dreams!
Apho.
What can there be
That I should fear? The Gods? If they be good,
Tis sin to fear them; if not good, no Goods;
And then let them fear me. Or are they Divells
That must af [...]right me?
Deilus.
Divells! where good Aphobus?
I thought there was some conjuring abroad,
Tis such a terrible wind! O here it is;
[Page 21]Now it is here again! O still, still, still.
Apho.

Whats the matter?

Deilus.
Still it followes me!
The thing in black, behind; soon as the Sun
But shines, it haunts me? Gentle spirit leave me!
Cannot you lay him Aphobus: what an ugly looks it has▪
With eyes as big as fawcers, nostrils wider
Then Barbers basons!
Apho.
Tis nothing Deilus
But your weak phancy, that from every object
Draws arguments of fear. This terrible black thing—
Deil.

Where is it Aphobus;

Ppho.

—Is but your shadow Deilus.

Deil.
And should we not fear shadowes?
Apho.

No! why should we?

Deil.
Who knows but they come learing after us
To steal away the substance? Watch him Aphobus.
Apho.

I nothing fear.

Colax.
I do commend your valour,
That fixes your great soul fast as a Center,
Not to be mov'd with dangers; let slight cock-boats
Be shaken with a wave, while you stand firm
Like an undaunted rock, whose constant hardnesse
Rebeats the fury of the raging sea,
Dashing it into froth. Base fear doth argue
A low degenerate soul.
Deil.

Now I fear every thing.

Colax.
Tis your discretion. Every thing has danger,
And therefore every thing is to be fear'd.
I do applaud this wisedom: Tis a symptome
Of wary providence. His too confident rashnesse
Argues a stupid ignorance in the soul,
A blind and senselesse judgement; give me fear
[Page 22]To man the fort, 'tis such a circumspec [...]
And wary Sentinell—
Flowrd.
Now shame rake thee for
A Luke warm formalist.
Colax.
—But daring valour
Vncapable of danger sleeps securly,
And leaves an open entrance to his enemies.
D [...]il.

What are they landed?

Apho.

Who?

Deil.
The enemies
That Colax talks of.
Apho.
If they be I care not;
Though they be Gyants all, and arm'd with thunder▪
Deil.

Why do you not fear thunder?

Apho.
Thunder? no!
No more than squibs and crackers.
Deil.
Squibs and crackers?
I hope there be none here! s'lid, squibs and crackers!
The meer Epitomies of the Gun powder Treason,
Faux in a lesser volume.
Apho.
Let fools gaze
At bearded stars, it is all one to me
As if they h [...]d been shav'd—thus, thus would I
Out beard a Meteour, for I might as well
Name it a prodigy when my candle blazes.
Deil.
Is there a Comet say you? Nay, I saw it,
It rea [...]h'd from Pauls to Charing, and portends
Some certain emminent danger to th'inhabitants
Twixt those two places: I'le go get a lodging
Out of its influence.
Colax.
Will that serve? —I fear
It threatens generall ruine to the Kingdom.
De [...]l.

I'le to some other Country.

Colax.
[Page 23]

There's danger to crosse the Seas.

Deil.
Is there no way, good Colax,
To crosse the Sea by Land? O the scituation!
The horrible scituation of an Island!
Colax.
You sir are far above such frivolous thoughts.
You fear not death.
Apho.

Not I.

Col.

Not sudden death.

Apho.

No more than sudden sleeps: Sir I dare dye.

Deil.
I dare not; Death to me is terrible:
I will not dye.
Apho.

How can you Sir prevent it?

Deil.

Why, I will kill my selfe.

Col.
A valiant course;
And the right way to prevent death indeed.
Your spirit is true Roman! —But yours greater
That fear not death, nor yet the manner o [...] it,
Should heaven fall—
Apho.

Why, then we should have Larks.

Deil.

I shall never eat Larks again while I breath.

Col.
Or should the earth yawn like a sepulchre,
And with an open throat swallow you quicke?
Apho.

T would save me the expences of a grave.

Deil.

I'had rather trouble my Executors by th'half [...]

Apho.

Cannons to me are pot-guns.

Deil.
Pot-guns to me
Are Cannons; the report will strike me dead.
Apho.

R Rapier's but a bodkin.

Deil.
And a bodkin,
It is a most dangerous weapon; since I read
Of Iulius Caesars death, I durst not venture
Into a Taylors shop [...]or fe [...]r of bodkins.
Apho.
O that the valiant Gyants should again
[Page 24]Rebell against the Gods, and besiege Heaven,
So I might be their leader.
Col.
Had Enc [...]ladu [...]
Been halfe so valiant, Iove had been his prisoner.
Apho.
Why should we think there be such things as dangers?
Scylla, Charybdis, Python are but fables.
Medcas Bull, and Dragon very tales.
Sea-Monsters, serpents, all Poeticall figment [...].
Nay Hell it selfe, and Achcron meer inventions,
Or were they true, as they are false, should I be
So timerous as to fear these Bug bear Harpyes,
Medusas, Centaeurs, Gorgons?
Deil.
O good Aphobus,
Leave conjuring, or take me into th'circle.
What shall I do good Colax?
Col.
Sir walke in,
There is, they say, a Looking-glasse, a strange on [...]
Of admirable vertues, that will render you
Free from inchantments.
Deil.
How! a Looking-glasse?
Dost think I can endure it? why there lyes
A man within' [...] in ambush to entrap m [...].
I did but lift my hand up, and he presently
Catcht at it,
Colax.
'Twas the shadow Sir of your selfe.
Trust me a meer reflexion.
Deil.

I will trust thee.

Exit.
Apho.

What Glasse is that?

Colax.
A trick to fright the Idiot
Out of his wits, a Gl [...]sse so full of d [...]ead,
Rendring unto the eye such horrid spectacle [...]
As would amaze even you. Sir I do thin [...]
[Page 25]Your optick nerves would shrink in the beholding:
This if your eye endure, I will confesse you
The Prince of Eagles.
Apho.
Look to it eyes, if ye refuse this sight,
My nayls shall damne you to eternall night.
Exit.
Col.
Seeing no hope of gain, I pack them hence,
'Tis gold gives flattery all her eloquence.

SCENE. 3.

Acolastus. Anaisthetus.
Rosci.

Temperance is the mediocrity of enjoying pleasures, when they are present, and a moderate desire of them being absent; And these are the extreams of that vertue. Acola­stus a voluptuous Epicure, that out of an immoderate, and untam'd desire seeks after all pleasures promiscuously, without respect of honest or lawfull. The other Anaisthe­tus a meer Anchorite that delights in nothing, not in those legitimate recreations allow'd of by God and nature.

Acolast.
O now for an eternity of eating!
Fool was he that wish'd but a Cranes short neck;
Give me one, nature, long as is a Caqle,
Or sounding-line, and all the way a palate
To taste my meat the longer. I would have
My se [...]ses feast together; Nature envied us
In giving single pleasures; let me have
My ears, eyes, palate, nose, and touch, at once
Injoy their h [...]ppinesse; lay me in a bed
Made of a summers cloud; to my embraces
Give me a Venus hardly yet fifteen,
[...]resh, plump, and active; she that Mars enjoy'd
Is grown too [...]tale: And then at the same instant
[Page 26]My touch is pleas'd, I would delight my sight
With pictures of Diana, and her Nymphs,
Naked, and bathing, drawn by some Apelles;
By them some of our fairest Virgins stand;
That I may see whether 'tis Art or Nature
Which heightens most my bloud and appetite.
Noe cease I here. Give me the seven Orbs
To charm my ears with their coelestiall lutes,
To which the Angels that do move those sphears
Shall sing some amorous ditty; nor yet here
Fix I my bounds; The sun himselfe shall fire
The Phoenix nest to make me a perfume,
While I do eat the Bird, and eternally
Quaffe of eternall Nectar. These single, are
But torments, but together, O together!
Each is a Paradice. Having got such objects
To please the senses, give me senses too
Fit to receive those objects: Give me therefore
An Eagls eye, a bloud-hounds curious smell,
A Stages quick he [...]ring, let my feeling be
As subtile as the spiders, and my taste
Sharp as a Squirrils: Then I'le read the Alcoran,
And what delights that promises in future
I'le practice in the present.
Bird.

Heathenish Glutton!

Flow.

Base belly-God, licentious Libertine!

Anai.
And I do think there is no pleasure at all
But in contemning pleasures; Happy Niobe
And blessed Daph [...]e, and all such as are
Turn'd stocks and sto [...]s▪ would I were Lawrell too,
Or marble, I, or any thing insensible.
It is a toyle for me to eat or drink,
Only for natures satisfaction;
[Page 27]Would I could live without it. To my car
Musick is but a mandrake. To my smell
Nard sents of rue, and wormwood; And I taste
Nectar with as much loathing, and distaste
As gall, or alloes, or my Doctors potion.
My eye can meet no object but I have it.
Acola.

Come brother Stoique be not so melancholy.

Anai.

Be not so foolish brother Epicure.

Aco.
Come wee'l go and see a Comedy, that will raise
Thy heavy spirits up.
Anai.
A Comedy?
Sure I delight much in those toyes; I can
With as much patience hear the Marriners
Chide in a storme.
Aco.

Then lets go drink a while.

Anai.
'Tis too much labour; Happy Tantalu [...]
That never drinks.
Aco.
A little Venery
Shall recreate thy soule.
Ana.
Yes like an itch,
For 'tis no better▪ I could wish an heire,
But that I cannot take the pains to get one.
Aco.
Why, marry, if your conscience be so tender▪
As not to do it otherwise; Then 'tis lawfull.
Ana.
True Matrimony's nothing else indeed
But fornication licens'd, lawfull Adultery.
O heavens! how all my senses are wide sluces
To let in discontent and miseries!
How happy are the moles that have no eyes!
How blest the Adders that have no ears!
They never see nor hear ought that afflicts them.
But happier they that have no sence at all;
That neither see, nor hear, taste, smell, nor fe [...]l.
[Page 28]Any thing to torment them: souls were given
To torture bodies, man has reason too
To adde unto the heap of his distractions.
I can see nothing without sense, and motion,
But I do wish my selfe transform'd into it.
Col.
Sir I commend this temperance; your arm'd soul
Is able to contemne these petty baits,
These flight temptations, which we tittle pleasures;
That are indeed but names; Heaven it selfe knows
No such like thing; the stars nor eat nor drink,
Nor lye with one another; and you imitate
Those glorious bodies, by which noble abstinence
You gain the names of moderate, chaste, and sober;
While this effeminate gets the infamous tearms
Of Glutton, Drunkard, and Adulterer;
Pleasures, that are not mans, as man is man,
But as his nature sympathies with beasts.
You shall be the third Cato. This grave look
And rigid eye-brow will become a Censor.
But I will fit you with an object Sir,
My noble Anaisthetus, that will please you.
It is a Looking-glasse, wherein at once
You may see all the dismall groves and caves,
The horrid vaults, dark cells, and barren deserts,
With what in hell it selfe can dismall be.
Anais.

That is indeed a prospect fit for me.

Exit.
Acol.
He cannot see a stock or stone, but presently
He wishes to be turn'd to one of those.
I have another humor, I cannot see
A fat voluptuous low with full delight
Wallow in dirt, but I do wish my selfe
Transform'd into that blessed Epicure.
Or when I view the hot salacious sparrow
[Page 29]Renew his pleasures with fresh appetite,
I wish my selfe that little bird of Love.
Colax.
It shews you a man of a soft moving clay▪
Not made of flint; Nature has been bountifull
To provide pleasures, and shall we be niggards
At plenteous boards? He's a discourteous guest
That will observe a dyet at a feast.
When nature thought the earth alone too little
To find us meat, and therefore stor'd the ayr
With winged creatures, not contented yet,
She made the water fruitfull to delight us.
Nay I believe the other Element too
Doth nurse some curious dainty for mans food;
If we would use the skill to each the Salamander▪
Did she do this to have us eat with temperance?
Or when she gave so many different Odors
Of spices, unguents, and all sorts of flowers,
She cry'd not—stop your noses: would she give us
So sweet a quire of wing'd Musitians
To have us dease? or when she plac'd us here,
Here in a Paradice, where such pleasing prospects,
So many ravishing colours entice the eye,
Was it to have us wink? when she bestow'd
So powerfull faces, such commanding beauties
On many glorious Nymphs, was it to say
Be chaste and continent? Not to enjoy
All pleasures, and at full, were to make nature
Guilty of that she ne're was guilty of,
A vanity in her works.
Acol.
A Learned Lecture!
Tis fit such grave and solid arguments
Have their reward—here—halfe of my estate
T'invent a pleasure never tasted yet,
[Page 30]That I may be the first shall make it stale.
Col.
Within Sir is a Glasse, that by reflexion
Doth shew the image of all sorts of pleasures
That ever yet were acted, more variety
Than Aretincs pictures.
Aco.
He see the Iewel;
For though to doe most moves my appetite,
I love to see, as well as act delight.
Exit.
Bird.
These are the things indeed the stage doth teach,
Dear heart, what a foule sink of sins run here!
Flow.

In sooth it is the common shore of lewdnesse.

SCEN. 4.

Asotus. Aneleutherus.
Rosc.

These are Aneleutherus an illiberall Niggardly u­surer, that will sell heaven to purchase [...]arth. That his sonne Asotus a profuse Prodigall, that will sell earth to buy Hell. The extreams of liberality which prescribes a medio­crity in the getting and spending of Riches.

Aneleu.

Com [...] boy, go with me to the Scriveners, go.

Asot.

I was in hope you would have sayd a Bawdy house.

Anel.

Thence to th' Exchange.

Asot.

No, to the Tav [...]rn Father.

Anel.

Be a good husband boy, follow my counsell.

Asot.
Your counsell? No dad, take you mine,
And be a good f [...]llow— shall we go and roare?
S'lid Father I shall never live to spend.
That you have got already—Pox of Atturneys,
Merchants, and Scriveners, I would hear you talke
Of Drawers, Punks, and Panders.
Anel.
[Page 31]
Prodigall child I [...]
Thou dost not know the sweets [...]f getting wealth.
Asot.
Nor you the pleasure that I fake in spending it,
To feed on Caveare, and eat Anchoveal
Anel.
Asotus, my deare sonne, talk not to me
Of your Anchoves, or your Caveare.
No, feed on Widdowes, have each meale an Orphan
Serv'd to your Table, or a glib [...]ery heire
With all his lands melted into a morgage.
The Gods themselve [...] feed not on such fine dainties,
Such fatting, thriving diet.
Asot.
Trust me Sir,
I am asham'd la—to call you Father,
Ne're trust me now. I'm come to be a Gentleman.
One of your havings, and thus cark and car [...]?
Come, I will send for a whole Coach or two
Of Bank-side Ladies, and we will [...] Joviall!
Shall the world say you pine and pinch for no [...]hing▪
Well doe your pleasure, keepe me [...] of mon [...]es▪
When you are dead, as dye I hopely [...] must,
He make a shift to spend one halfe at least
Ere you are coffin'd and the other halfe
Ere you are fully laid into your grave
Were not you better helpe away with some of it
But you will starve your selfe, that when y'are [...]
One—Have at all of mine may set it flying.
And I will have your Bones cut into Dice,
And make you guilty of the spending of it▪
Or I will get a very handsome bowle
Made of your skull, to drink't away in healths.
Anel.
That's not the way to thrive! No, sit and brood
On thy estate, as y [...] it is not hatch'd
Into maturity.
Asot.
[Page 32]
Marry I will brood upon it,
And hatch it into chicken, capons, [...]ens,
L [...] [...]s, thrushes, quailes, wood-cocks, [...]nites, & phesants,
The best that can be got for love or mony.
There is no life to drinking!
Anel.
O yes, yes;
Exaction, usury, and oppression.
Twenty i'th' hundred is a very Nectar.
And wilt thou, wastful lad, spend in a supper
What I with sweat and labour, care and industry
Have been an age a scraping up together,
No, no Asotus, trust gray-head experience;
As I have been an Oxe, a painfull Oxe,
A diligent, toyling, and laboriou [...] Oxe
To plow up Gold for thee; so I would have thee—
Asot.

Be a fine silly Asle to keep it.

Anel.

Be a good watchfull Dragon to preserve it.

Colax.
Sir, I over heard your wife instructions,
And wonder [...]t the gravity of your cou [...]sel!
This wild uubridled boy is not yet grown.
Acquainted with the world; he has not felt
The weight of need, that want is vertu's clog;
Of what necessity respect and value
Wealth is, how base and how contemptible.
Poverty makes us. Liberality
In some circumstances may be allow'd;
As when it ha's no end but honesty,
With a respect of person, quantity,
Quality, time, and place; but this profu [...]e,
Vaine, injudicious spending speaks him Idiot:
And yet the best of liberality
Is to be liberall to our selves; and thus
Your wisdome is most liberall, and knowes
[Page 33] [...]ow fond a thing it is for discreet men
To purchase with the losse of their estate
The name of one poo [...]e vertue, liberalitie,
And that too only from the mouth of beggers!
One of your judgement would not, I am sure,
Buy all the vertues at so deare a rate.
Nor are you, Sir, I dare presume, so fond
As for to weigh your gaines by the strict scale
Of equity, and justice, names invented
To keepe us beggers; I would counsell now
Your son to tread no steps but yours, for they
Will certainly direct him the broad way
That leads unto the place where Plenty dwels;
And shee shall give him honour.
Anel.
Your tongue is pow'rfull:
Pray read this Lecture to my son; I goe
To find my Scriv'ner who is gon, I heare,
To a strange Glasse wherein all things appeare.
Exit
Aset.
To see if it can shew him his lost eares.
Now to your Lecture.
Col.
And to such a one
As you will be a willing Pupill [...]o,
Think you I meant all that I told your Father?
No, 'twas to blind the eyes of the old Huncks.
I love a man like you that can make much
Of his blest Genius: Miracle of Charity!
That open hand becomes thee; Let thy Father
Scrape like the Dunghill cock the Dirt, and mire,
To find a precious Gemme for thee, the Chicken
Of the white Hen to weare. It is a wonder
How such a generous branch as you, could spring
From that old root of damned avarice!
For [...]very widdowes house the father swallowes,
[Page 34]The sonne should sp [...]w a Taverne. How are we
Richer then others not in having much,
But in bestowing;
And that shines glo [...]ious in you. The chuffs crownes
Imprison'd in his [...]usty chest methinks
J heare groan out, and [...]ong till they be thin▪
In hope to see the light again. Thou canst not
Stand in a flood of Nectar up to th' chin
And yet not dare to s [...]p it; nor canst suffer
The Golden Apples dangle at thy lips,
But thou wilt taste the fruit. 'T is generous this.
Asot.
Gramercy thou shalt be Doctor o' th' Chaire.
Here—'tis too li [...]e, but t'tis all my store,
I'le in to pumpe my Dad, and fetch thee more.
Exit.
Colax.

How like you now my art? is 't not a subtle ones

Flow.
Now out upon thee thou lewd reprobate!
Thou man of sin, and shame, that sowest cushions
Unto the elbowes of iniquity.
Colax.
I doe commend this zeale; you cannot be
Too fervent in a cause so full of goodnesse.
There is a generall frost hath ceas'd devotion.
And without such like ardent flames as these.
There is no hope to thaw it. The word, Puritane,
Tha [...] I doe glorifie, and esteem rev'rend,
As the most sanctified, pure, and [...]oly Sect
Of all Professours, is by the prophane
Us'd for a name of infamie, a by word, a slander.
That I sooth Vice I doe but flatter them,
As we give children plums to learn their prayers,
T [...]entice them to the truth, and by faire meanes
Work out their reformation.
Bird.
'Tis well done.
I hope heele become a brother, and make
[Page 35]A Separatist!
Flow.
You shall have the devotions.
Of all the Elders. But this foppishnesse
Is wearisome; J could at our Saint An [...]s,
Sleeping and all, sit twentie times as long.
Rosc.
Goe in with me to recreat your s [...]irits,
(As Musique theirs) with some, refreshing song,
Whose patience our rude Scene hath h [...]ld too long.
Exeunt.
Finis Actus 2.

ACTS 3

SCEN. 1.

Roscius, Bird, Flowrdew.
Bird.

J will no more of this abomination.

Rose.
The end crowns every action; stay till that.
Just Iudge will not Be prejudicate,
Flow.

Pray Sir continue still the moralizing

Rose.

The next [...]e present are the [...]treames of Magnifi­cence, who teaches a Decorum in great expences, as Libera­lity in the lesser: One is Banausus, out of a me [...]re ostentati­on vain-gloriously, exp [...]nsive; the other Micropre [...]es one in glorious works extreamly [...]ase an [...], [...]enur [...]ous.

Banausus. Microprepes.
Ban.
Being borne not for our selves but for our friends,
[...] country a [...] ou [...] glory; it is f [...]
We doe expre [...]e the Majesty o [...] our soules
In deeds of bou [...]y and magni [...]c [...]nce.
Micro.
The world i [...] [...]ull of va [...]y; and fond fooles
Pro [...]se [...]emselves a name fro [...] building Churches,
Or any thing that [...]ends to the Re-publique,
[...] the Re-priva [...] that I study for
Banau.
First therefore for the fame of my Re-publique,
I'le imitate a brave AEgyptian King,
And plant such store of onions, and of garlike,
As shall maintain [...] so many thousand workmen,
[Page 36]To th' building of a Pyramid at Saint Albons,
Upon whose to [...] I'le set a hand of brasse,
With a scrowle in't to shew the way to L [...]nd [...]n
For th'benefit o [...] Travellers.
Colax.
Excellent,
'Tis charity to direct the wandering Pilgrim.
Micro.
I am Ch [...]rch-warden, and we are this yeare
To build our steeple up▪ now to save charges
[...]'le get a high crown'd hat with five Low-bel [...]
To make a peale shall serve as well as [...]ow.
Colax.
'Tis wisely cast,
And like a carefull steward of the Church▪
Of which the Steeple is no part, at least.
No necessary.
Bird.
Verily 'tis true
They are but wicked Synagogues where those instr [...]ments
Of Superstition and Idolatry ring
Warning to sinne, and chime all into the Divell.
Banau.
And 'cause there be such swar [...]es of Heresies ri­sing▪
I'le have an Artist frame two wond [...]rous weatherco [...]h
Of Gold, to set on Pauls, and Gr [...]tam Steeple,
To shew to all the Kingdome what fashion next
The Wind of Humour [...]ither meane [...] to blow.
Micro.

A Wicker Chair [...], will fit them for a Pulpi [...].

Colax.

It is the Doctrine, Sir, that you respect.

Flow.
Insooth I'have h [...]ard as wholsome instruction [...]
From a zealous wicker chaire, as e're I did
From the carv'd Idoll of wainscot.
Banau.
Next, J intend to found an Hospitall
For the decay'd Pro [...]essors of the Suburbs,
[Page 37]With a Colledge of Physitians too at Che [...]sy
Only to study the cure of the French Pox;
That so the sinners may acknowledge m [...]
Their only benefactor, and repent.
Colax.

You have a care Sir of your countries, health

Micro.

Then J well s [...]ll the lead to thatch [...]he Chancell.

Ban.
J have a rare device to set Dutch windmills
Upon New-market Heath, and Salisbury Plain [...],
To draine the Fens.
Colax.

The Fens Sir [...]re not there.

Ban.

But who knowes but they may be?

Col.
Very right:
You aime at the prevention of a danger.
Micr.

A Porters frock shall s [...]rve me for a surplice.

Flow▪

[...]ndeed a Frock i [...] no [...] so C [...]re [...]nious.

[...]an.
But the great work in which J me [...]n to glory,
Js in the raising a Cathedrall Church:
Jt shall be at Hoggs-Nort [...]n, with a pair [...]
Of sta [...]ely Organs; more, then pity 'twere
[...]he Pigs should lose [...]heir skill for want of practice▪
Bird.

Organs fye on them for a Babylonian Bag-pipes▪

Micro.
Then for the painting, J be [...]thinke my selfe
That J have seen in Mother Red-caps Hall
In painted cloath the story of the Prodigall▪
Col.
And that will be for very good use and morall.
Sir, you are wise; what serve AEgyptian Pyramids▪
Ephesian Temples, Babylo [...]ian Towers,
Carian Colosses. Tr [...]ians water-works,
Domitians Amphitheaters, the vaine cost
Of ignorance [...]nd prodigalitie?
Rome flourish'd when her Capitoll was thatch'd,
And all her gods dwelt but in Cottages;
Since Parian marble and Corynthian bras [...]e
[Page 38]Enter'd her gaudie Temple, soon she fell,
To superstition, and from thence to ruine,
You see that in our Churches glorious Statues,
Rich Copes, and other ornam [...]nts of state
Draw [...] wandring eyes from their devo [...]ion.
Unto a wanton gazing, and that other
Rich edifices, and such gorgeous toyes
Doe more procl [...]ime our Countrie [...] wealth then safety,
And serve but like so many gilded b [...]its
T'entice a forreigne Foe to our invasion.
Goe in, there is a Glasse will shew you, Sir,
What sweet simplicitie our Grandsires us'd,
How in the age of Gold on Church was gilded.
Exit Micre.
Banau.
O I'have thought on't I will straight way build
A Free-schoole here in London, a free-Schoole
For th' education of young Gentlemen
To studie how to drinke, and take Tobacco▪
To sweare, to roare, to dice, to d [...], to quarrell:
Twill be the great Gymnasium of [...]e Realme,
The Frontifte [...]ium of great Bri [...]any
And for their better studie, I will f [...]nish them
With a large Library of Draper's books.
Col.
'Twill put downe Bodli [...]s, and the Vatican.
Royall Banausus! how many Spheares flye you
Above the earthly dull Microp [...]epes
I hope to live to see you build a S [...]ewes
Shall out-brave Venice, to rep [...]ire old Tiburne
And make it Ced [...] ▪ This magnificent course
Doth purchase you an immortali [...]e
In them you build your honour to remaine
The'example and the wonder of posteritie,
While other hide bound Churles doe grutch themselves
[Page 39]The Charges of a Tombe.
Ban.
But Ile have one
In which Ile lye embalm'd with Myrrhe and Cassia,
And richer unguents then th' AEgytian Kings.
And all that this my pretious Tombe may Furnish
The Land with Mummie.
Colax.
Yonder is a Glasse
Will shew you plots and modells of all monuments
Form'd the 'old way, you may invent a new,
'Twill make for your more glory.
Ban.

Colax, true.

Rosc.

These are the extreames of magnanimity Caunus, a fellow so highly conceited of his own parts, that he thinks no honour above him; the other Micropsychus, a base and low spirited fellow, that undervaluing his owne qualities dares not aspire to those dignities; that otherwise his me­rits are capable of.

SCEN. 2.

Caunus. Micropsychus.
Caun.

I wonder that I heare no newes from Court.

Colax.

All haile unto the honourable Caunus.

Caun.
The honourable Caunus? 'Tis decreed
I am a privie Councellour, our new honours
Cannot so alter us as that we can
Forget our Friends; walk with us our familiar.
Mic.
It puzles me to think what worth I have,
That they should put so great an honour on me.
Colax.
Sir, I doe know and see, and so do all
That have not wilfull blindnesse, what rare skill
Of wisdome, policy, judgment, and the rest
Of the state vertues sit within this brest,
As if it were their Parliament; but as yet
I am not, Sir, the happy Messenger
[Page 40]That tels you, you are cal'd unto the Helm;
Or that the Rudder of great Britany
Is put into your hands, that you may steere
Our floating Delos till she be arriv'd
At the the blest Port of happinesse, and surnam'd
The Fortunate Isle from you that are the fortunate.
Cau.
'Tis strange that I the best experienc'd
The skilfullest and the rarest of all Carpenters,
Should not be yet a Privie Councell our!
Surely the State wants eyes, or has drunk Opium
And sleeps, but when it wakes it cannot chuse
But meet the glorious beames of my deferes
Bright as the rising Sun, and say to England,
England, behold thy light!
Micro.
Make me a Constable!
Make me that am the simplest of my Neighbours
So great a Magistrate! so powerfull an Officer!
I blush at my unworthinesse a Constable!
The very Prince o'th' parish! you are one Sir
Of an abilitie to discharge it better,
Let me resigne to you
Cau.
How? I a Constable?
What might I be in your opinion Sir?
Micro.

A Carpenter of worship.

Cau.
Very well,
And yet you would make me a Constable.
I'le evidently demonstrate that of all men
Your Carpenters are best States-men; of all Carpenters
I being the best, am best of Statesmen too:
Imagine, Sir, the Common-wealth a Logge,
Or a rude block of wood, your Statesman comes,
(For by that word I mean a Carpenter)
And with the saw of Policie divides it
[Page 41]Into so many boards or severall orders,
Of Prince, Nobility, Gentry, and the other
Inf [...]riour boards call'd Vulgar fit for nothing but to make stiles, or planks to be trod over,
Or trampled on: This adds unto the Log
Call'd Common-wealth at least some small perfection;
But afterwards he plaines them, and so makes
The Common-wealth, that was before a board,
A pretty Wainscot; some he carves with Titles
Of Lord, or Knight, or Gentleman; some stand plaine▪
And serve us more for use then Ornament,
We call them Yeomen; (Boards now out of fashion.)
And lest the diproportion breake the frame,
He with the pegs of amity and concord,
As with the glew-pot of good Government
Ioynts'e m together, make an absolute edifice
Of the Re-publique, State-skill'd Machiavell
Was certainly a Carpenter; yet you thinke
A Constable a Gyant-Dignitie.
Micro.
Pray Heaven that [...]eares like I doe not melt
The waxen plumes of my ambition!
Or that from this bright Charîot of the Sun
I fall not headlong downe with Phaeton,
I have aspir'd so high: make me a Constable
That have not yet attain'd to the Greeke tongue!
Why 'tis his office for to keep the peace,
His Majesties peace: I am not fit to keep
His Majesties Hogs. much lesse his Peace, the best of all his Jewells▪ How dare I presume to charge a man in the Kings-Name I faint
Und [...]r the burthen of so great a place,
Whose weight might presse down Atlas: Magistrates
Are only Sump [...]er-Horses, Nay they threaten me
[Page 42]To make me warden of the Church.
Am I a Patriot? or have I abilitie
To present Knights-Re [...]usant, Clergy reelers,
Or Gentlemen Fornica [...]or [...]?
Col.
You have worth
Richly enamel'd with a modesty;
And though your lofty merit might sit crown'd
On Caucasus or the P [...]enean mountaines
You choose the humbler valley, and had [...]athe [...]
Grow a safe shrub below; then dare the Windes,
And be a Cedar, Si [...] you know there is not
Halfe so much honour in t [...]e Pilots place
As danger in the storme, Poore windy Titles
Of Dignitie, and Offic [...]s that puffe up
The bubble ride till it swell big and burst,
What are they but brave nothings? Toys call'd Honour
Make th [...]m on whom they ar [...] be [...]tow'd no better
Then glorious slaves, the servants of the Vulgar:
Men sweat at Helme, as much as at the Oare.
Ther [...] is a Glasse within shall shew you, [...]
The vanitie of these Silk wormes, that doe thinke
They toile [...] [...]se they [...]in so fine a thr [...]d.
Micro.
I'le see it. Honour is a babies ra [...]tle▪
And let blind Fo [...]une where she will bestow her;
Lay me o [...] earth, and I shall fall no lower.
Cau.

Colax, what newes

Col.
The Persian Emperour
Is desp [...]tely sicke.
Cau.
Heaven take his so [...]le
When I am the g [...]and Sophie ( [...]s tis lik [...]ly
I may be) Colax thou art made for ever,
Col.

The i [...] [...]ke they say prepares again for Poland.

Cau.

And [...] no Easham yet? Sultan repent it!

Col.
[Page 43]

The State of Venice too is in distraction.

Cau.
And can that State be so supinely negligent,
As not to know whom they may choose their Duke?
Col.
Our Merchants doe report th' inhabitants there
Are now in consultation for the setling
The Crowne upon a more deserving head
Then his that beares it.
Cau.
Then my fortunes rise
On confident wings, and all my hopes fly certaine.
Colax.
Be bold, thou seest the Prester-Iohn.
Well England, of all Countries in the world
Most blind to thy own good. Other Nations
Woo me to take the bridle in my hands
With gifts and presents; had I liv'd in Rome who durst with Caunus stand a candidate?
I might have choice of AEdils, Consul, Tribune,
Or the perpetuall Dictators place.
I could discharge 'em all, I know my merits
Are large, and boundlesse: A Caesar might be hewed
Out of a Carpenter, if a skillfull workman.
But undertooke it.
Colax.
Tis a worthy confidence.
Let Birds of night and shame, with their Owles eyes
Not dare to gaze upon the Sun of Honour;
They are no Presidents for Eagles: Bats,
Like dull Microsychus; things of earth, and lead,
May love a private safety; men in whom
Promotheus has spent much of his stolne fire.
Mount upwards like a flame, and court bright honour
Hedg'd in with thousand dangers! Wh [...]ts man
VVithout desert, and what's desert to him
That does not know he ha [...] it? Is he rich
Th [...]t holds within his house some buried Ch [...]sts
[Page 44]Of Gold, or Pearle, and knows not where to look them, ▪
What was the Load-stone, till the use was found,
But a foule doatard on a Fouler Mistresse?
I praise your Argus eyes, that not alone
Shoot their beames forwards, but reflect and turne
Back on themselves, and finde an object there
More worthy their intentive contemplation:
You are at home no stranger, but are grown
Acquainced with you vertues, and can tell
What use the Pearle is of, which Dunghill cockes
Scrape into dirt againe. This searching judgement
Was not intended to work wood, but me [...].
Honour attends you. I shall live to see
A Diadem crown that head. There is within
A glaffe that will acquaint you with all places
Of Dignity, Authority and renown,
The State, and carriage of them: Choose the be [...]t,
Such as deserve you, and refuse the rest.
Cau.
I go, that want no worth to merit honour;
'Tis honour that wants worth to merit me,
Fortune, thou arbitresse of humane things
Thy credit is at stake: if I but rise,
The worlds opinion will conceive th'hast eyes.
Exit,

SCEN. 3.

Orgylus. Aorgus.
Rosc.

These are the extreames of meeknesse. Orgylus an [...]gry quarrelsome man mov'd with the least shadow, or ap­ [...]earance of injury. The other in desect, Aorgus, a fellow [...] patient, or rather insensible of wrong, that he is not ca­ [...]ble of the grossest abuse.

[...]g.
Perswade me not, he has awak'd a furie
[...]at carries steele about him. Dags, and Pistolls!
[Page 45]To bite his thumbe at me
Aor.
Why should not any man
Bite his own thumb?
Org.
At me 'weare I a sword
To see men bite their thumbs!—Rapiers and Daggers—
He is the sonne of a whore.
Aor.
That hurts not you.
Had he bit yours, it had been some pretence
T'have mov'd this anger; he may bite his ow [...]
And eat it too.
Org.
Musets, an Cannons!—eat it?
If he dare eat it in contempt of me,
He shall eat something else too that rides here;
Iletry his Estridge stomack.
Aor.

Sir, be patient

Srg.

You lye in your throat, and I will not.

Aor.
To what purposeis this impertinent madness [...]?
Pray be milder.
Org.

Your Mother was a whore, and I will not put it up.

Aor.

Why should so slight a toy thus trouble you?

Org.

Your Father wa [...] hang'd, and I will be reveng'd.

Aor.
When reason doth in equall balance poize
The nature of two injuries, yours to me
Lyes heavie, vvhen that other [...]vould not turne
An even scale; and yet it moves not me;
My anger is not up.
Org.
But I will raise it;
You are a foole!
Aor.
I know it, and shall I
Be angry for a truth?
Org.
You are besides
An arrant Knave!
Aor.

[...]o are my better [...], Sir.

Org.
[Page 46]
I cannot move him—O my spleen—it rises,
For very anger I could eat my knuckles.
Aor.

You may, or bite your thumb, all's one to me:

Org.

You are a horned beast, a very Cucko [...]d,

Aor.
'Tis my Wives fault, not mine, I have no reason
Then to be angry for anothers sin.
Org.
And I did graft your hornes, you might have come
And found us glewd together like two Goats,
And stood a witnesse to your transformation.
Aor.
Why if I had, I am so far from anger
I would have e'ne falne downe upon my knees,
And desir'd heaven to have forgiven you both.
Org.
Your children are all Bastards, not one of them
Upon my Knowledge, of your owne begetting.
Aor.
Why then I am the more beholding to them
That they will call me father▪ it was lust
Perchance, that did beget them▪ but I am s [...]re
'Tis charity to keep the Infants.
Org.
Not yet stirre'd?
'Tis done of meere contempt, he will not now
Be angry, to expresse his scorne of me.
'Tis above patience this, insufferable.
Proclaim me coward, if I put up this!
Dotard you, will be angery, will you not;
Aor.
To see how strange a course fond wrath doth [...]
You will be angry 'cause I am not so.
Org.
I can endure no longer, if your spleen
Lye in your breech, thus I will kickt it up—
Aor.

Alpha. Beta. Gamma. Delta, Epsiton, Zeta, Eta. The­ta. Iota. Kappa. Lambda, Mu. Nu. Xi. O [...]icron. Pi. Ro. Sigm [...] Tau. Vpsilon. Phi. Chi. Psi. Omega.

Org.

How? What contempt is this;

Aor.
An antidote
[Page 47]Against the poyson, Anger: 'twas prescrib'd
A Roman Emperour, that on every injury
Repeated the Greek Alphabet, that being done
His anger too was over. This good rule
I learn'd from him, and Practise.
Org.
Not yet angry?
Still will you vex me? I will practice too, ( Kicks againe)
Aor.

Aleph, Beth, Gimel.

Org.
What new Alphabet
Is this?
Aor.
The Hebrew Alphabet, that I use
A second remedy.
Org.
O my Torment still?
Are not your Buttocks angry with my toes?
Aor.
For ought I feel your toes have more occasion
For to be angry with my buttocks.
Org.
Well,
I'le try your Physick for the third assault;
And exercise the patience of your nose.
Aor.

A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R. S. T. V. W. X. Y. Z.

Org.

Are you not angry now?

Aor.
Now sir? why now?
Now have you done.
Org.
O 'tis a meer plot this,
To jeer my tamenesse: will no sence of wrong
Waken the Lethargy of a cowards soule?
Will not this rowse her from her dead sleep, nor this▪
Aor.
Why should I Sir be angry if I suffer
An injury? it is not guilt of mine;
No, let it trouble them, that doe the wrong;
Nothing but peace approaches innocence▪
Org.
A bitternesse o'reflows me; my eyes flame,
[Page 48]My blood boyles in me, all my faculties
Of soule and body move in a disorder,
His patience hath so tortur'd me: Sirrah villain
I wil! dissect thee with my rapiers point;
Rip up each vein, and [...]inew of my storque,
Anatomize him, searching every entraile,
To see if nature, when she made this asse,
This suffering asse, did not forget to give him
Some gall.
Cola.
Put it up good Orgylus,
Let him not glory in so brave a death,
As by your hand, it stands not with your honour
To stain your rapier in a cowards blood.
The Lesbian Lions in their noble rage
Will prey on Bulls, or mate the Unicorne;
But trouble not the painted butterfly,
Ants crawle securely by him.
Orgy.
'Tis intolerable!
Would thou wert worth the killing.
Colax.
A good wish,
Savouring as well discretion, as bold valour:
Thinke not of such a baffl'd asle as this.
More stone, then man▪ Meedusa's head has turn'd him.
There is in ants a choler, every flye
Carries a spleen: poore worms being trampled on
Turn [...]ayle, as bidding battayle to the feet
Of their oppressors. A dead palsy sure
Hath struck a desperate numnesse though his soule.
Till it be grown insensible: Meer stupidity
Hath seiz'd him: Your more manly soule I find
Is capable of wrong, and like a flint
Throwes forth a fire into the strikers eyes.
You beare about you valours wherstone, anger;
[Page 49]Which sets an edge upon the sword, and makes it
Cut with a spirit; you conceive fond patience
Is an injustice to our selves, the suffering
One injury invites a second that,
Calls on a third, till wrong [...] doe multiply
And reputation bleed. How bravely anger
Becomes that martiall Brow, A glasse within
Will shew you sir when your great spleen doth rise
How fury darts a lightning from your eyes.
Org.
Learn anger sir against you meet me ne [...],
Never was man like me with patience vext.
Exit.
Aor.
I am so farre from anger in my selfe,
That 'tis my griefe I can make others so.
Colax.
It proves a sweetnesse in your disposition,
A gentle winning carriage—deare Aorgus,
O give me leave to open wide my brest,
And let so rare a friend unto my soule;
Enter, and take possession; such a man
As has no gall, no bitternesse, no exceptions;
Whom nature meant a Dove, will keep alive
The flame of amity, where all discourse
Flows innocent, and each free jest is taken.
He's a good friend will pardon his friends errors;
But he's a better, takes no notice of them.
How like a beast with rude and savage rage
Breath'd the distemper'd soule of Orgylus?
The pronenesse of this passion is the Nurse
That fosters all confusion, ruines states,
Depopulares Cities, layes great Kingdomes waste;
'Tis that affection of the mind that wants
The strongest bridle, give it reins it runs
A desperate course, and draggs down reason with it.
It is the whirlewind of the soule, the storm
[Page 50]And tempest of the mind, that raises up
The billowes of disturbed passions
To shipwrak Iudgement, O—a soule like yours
Constant in patience! Let the Northern wind meet
The South at Sea, and Zephyrus breath opposite
To Eurus; let the two and thirty sonnes
Of Eolus break forth at once, to plow
The Ocean, and dispeople all the woods;
Yet here could be a calme; it is not danger
Can make this cheek grow pale, nor injury
Call blood into it. There's a Glasse within
Will let you see your selfe, and tell you now
How sweet a tamenesse dwells upon your brow.
Aor.
Colax, I must believe, and therefore goe;
Who is distrustfull will be angry too.

SCEN. 4.

Alazon. Eiron
Rosc.

The next are the extreames of Truth, Alazon one that arrogates that to himselfe which is not his; and Eiron, one that out of an itch to be thought modest dissembles his qualities; the one erring in defending a falshood, the other offending in denying a truth.

Alaz.

I hear you're wondrous valiant?

Eir.
I! alas
Who told you I was valiant
Alaz.

The world speaks it.

Eir.

She is deceiv'd, but does she speak truly?

Alaz.
I am indeed the Hector of the age;
But shee calls you Achilles.
Eir.
I Achilles!
[Page 51]No, I am not Achilles: I confesse
I am no coward. That the world should think
That I am an Achilles yet the world may
Call me what she please.
Alaz.
Next to my valour,
(Which but for yours could never hope a second)
Yours is reported.
Eir.
I may have my share;
But the last valour show'd in Christendome
Was in Lepanto.
Alazon.
He might be thought so sir [...] by them [...] knew him not;
But I have found him a poore, [...]af [...]l'd snake [...])
Sir I have writ him and proclaim'd him cowar [...]
On every post i'th' City.
Eiron.

Who?

Alaz.
Lepanto,
The valour sir that you so much renown.
Eir.
Lepanto was no man sir, but the place
Made famous by the so much mention'd battaile
Batwixt the Turks and Christians.
Al [...]z.
Cry you mercy!
Then the Lepanto that I meant it seems,
Was but Lepanto's name-sake. I can
Find that you are well skill'd in history.
Eir.
Not a whit, A novice, I! I could perchance
Discourse from Adam downward, but what's that
To History? All that I know is only
Th'originall, continuance, height, and alteration
Of every Common wealth. I have read nothing.
But Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus, Suetonius, Appian, Dion, Iuniu [...], Paterculus,
With Flo [...], Iustine, Salust, and some few
More of the Latine: For the modern, I
[Page 52]Have all without book Gallo-Belgicus,
Philip De-Comine, Machiavele, Guic [...]iardine,
The Turkish and AEgyptian Histories,
With those of Spaine, France, and the Netherlands.
For England, Polydore Virgill, Cambden, Speed,
And a matter of forty more; nothing
Alas to one that's read in Histories.
In the Greek I have a smack or so, at
Xenophon, Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Stowes Chronicle.
Alaz.
Believe me sir, and that
Stowes' Chronicle is very good Greek; you little
Think who writ it! Doe you not see him? are
You blind? I am the man.
Eir.
Then I must number
You with my best Authors in my Library.
Alaz.
Sir the rest too are mine, but that I venture 'em
With other names, to shunne the opinion
Of arrogance; so the subtle Cardinall
Calls one book Bellarmine, 'nother Tostatus,
Yet one mans labour both. You talk of numbering;
You cannot choose but heare how lowd fame speaks
Of my experience in Arithmetique:
She sayes you too grow neare perfection.
Eir.
Farre from it I; some in-sight, but no more.
I count the Starres, can give the Totall summe,
How many sands there bei'th' sea, but these
Are [...]ifles to the expert, that have studied
Pen keth-ma [...]s president. Sir, J have no skill
In any thing, if J have any, 'tis
In languages, but yet in sooth I speak
Only my mother Tongue; I have nor gain'd
The Hebrew, Chaldee, Synack, or Arabick;
[Page 53]Nor know the Greek with all her Dialects.
Scaliger and Tom Choriate both excell me.
I have no skill in French, Italian, Spanish,
Turkish, AEgyptian, Chi [...]a, Persian Tongues.
Indeed the Latine, I was whipt into;
But Ruscian, Sclavonian, and Dalmatian
With Saxon, Danish, and Albanian speech,
That of the Cossaches, and Hungarian too,
With Biscays, and the prime of languages,
Dutch, Welch, and Irish are too hard for me
To be familiar in: and yet some thinke
(But thought is free) that J doe speake all these
As J were borne in each; but they may erre
That think so; 'Tis not every Judgment sits
In the infallible chaire. To confesse truth
All Europ, Asia, and Africa too;
But in America, and the new found world
J very much feare there be some languages
That would goe neer to puzzle me.
Alaz.
Very likely.
You have a prety pittance in the Tongues,
But Eiron, I am now more generall;
I can speak all alike, there is no stronger
Of so remote a nation heares me talk
But confidently calls me Country-man.
The witty world giving my worth her due
Surnames me the Confusion: I but want
An Oratour like you to speake my prayse.
Eir.
Am I an Oratour Alazon? no;
Though it hath pleas'd the wiser few to say
Demosthenes was not, so eloquent;
But friends will flatter, and I am not bound
To believe all Hyperboles: something sir
[Page 54]Percha [...]ce I have, but 'tis no [...] worth the naming,
Especially Alazon in your presence
Alaz.

Your modesty Eiron speaks but truth in this.

Colax.
I need not flatter these, they'le do't themse [...]ves,
And crosse the Proverb that was wont to say.
One Mule doth scrub another, here each Asse
Hath learn'd to claw himselfe.
Alaz.
I doe surpasse
All Ora [...]ours. How like you my Orations?
Those against Ca [...]iline, I account them best,
Except my Philippick [...]; all acknowledge me
Above the three great Oratours of Rome ▪
Eir.

What three, Alazon?

Ala.
Marcus, Tuttius,
And Cicero, the best of all the three.
Eir.

Why those three names are all the selfe-same mans

Alaz.
Then all is one. Were those three names three men,
I should excell them all. And then for Poetry
Eir.

There is no Poetry but Homers I [...]iads▪

Alaz.
A lasse 'twas writ ith nonage of my Muses,
You understand th' Italian?
Eir.
A little, sir,
I have read Tasso.
Ala.

And Torquato t [...]?

Eir.

They're still the same▪

Ala.
J find you very skilfull
Eiron, I erre only to found your judgement.
You are a Poet too?
Eir.
The world may thinke so,
But 'tis deceiv'd and I am for [...]y for't.
But I will tell you sir some excellent verses
Made by a friend of mine; I have not read
[Page 55]A better Epigram of a Neoterique.
Ala.

Pray do my eyes the favour, sir, to let me learne 'um.

Eir.
Strange sights there late were seene, that did affright
The multitude; the Moone was seene by night,
And Sun appear'd by day— is it not good?
Ala.

Excellent good! proceed.

Eir.
Without [...]e [...]o [...]se
Each starre and planet kept their wonted course.
What here could fright them? ( mark the answer now)
O sir aske not that;
The Vulga [...] [...]now not why they feare, nor what.
But in their humours too inconstant be,
Nothing seemes strange to them but constancy▪
Has not my friend approv'd himselfe a Poet?
Alaz.
The verses sir are excellent, but your friend
Approves himselfe a thiefe.
Eir.

Why good Alazon?

Alaz.
A Plag [...]ary, I mean, the verses sir
Were stolne.
Eir.

From whom?

Alaz.

From me, believ't I made 'um.

Eir.
They are alasse unworthy sir your owning,
Such trifles as my muse had stumbled on
This morning.
Alaz.
Nay, they may be yours: I told you
That you come neare me sir. Yours they may bee.
Good wits may jump: but let me tell you, Eiron,
Your friend must steale them, if hee have them.
Col.
What pretty Gulls are these? Ile take u [...] off.
Alazon, You are learned.
Alaz.

I know that.

Col.

And vertuous.

Alaz.
[Page 56]

Tis confess'd.

Col.

A good Historian.

Alaz.

Who dares deny it?

Col.

A rare [...]rithmetician▪

Alaz.

I' have heard it often.

Col.
I commend your care
That know your vertues, why should modesty [...] neighbours
Stop good mens mouths from their own praise ? our
Are envious, and will rather blast [...]ur memories
With infamy, then immorralize our names;
When same hath taken cold, and lost her voice,
We must be our owne trumpers; carefull men
Will have an Inventorie of their goods,
And why not of their vertues? should you say
You were not wife, it were a sinne to truth.
Let Eirons modesty tell bashfull lies,
To cloake and masque his parts; he's a foole for't.
Twas heavenly counsell bid us know our selves.
You may be confident, chaunt your own encomiums.
Ring out a Panegyrique to your selfe;
And your s [...]lfe write the learned Commentary
Of your own actions.
Ala.

So I have

Co.

VVhere is it?

Ala.

Tis stolne.

Co.
I know th [...] thiefe, they call him C [...]sar.
Goe in good sir, there is within a Glasse
That will present you with the Felons face.
Exit Alaz.
Eiron, You heare the newes?
Eir.

No [...] I, what is it?

Co.

That you are held the only man of Art.

Eir.

Is't currant Colax?

Col.
Currant as the ayre
[Page 57]Every man breathes it for certaintie
Eir.
This is the first time I heard on't in truth.
Can it be certaine? so much charity left
In mens opinion?
Co.
You call it charity
Which is their dutie: Vertue sir, like yours
Commands [...]ens praises. Emptinesse and folly,
Such as Alazon is, use their own Tongues,
While reall worth hears her own praise, not speaks it.
Other mens mouthes become your trumpeters,
And winged fame proclaimes you lowdly forth
From East to West, till either pole admire you.
Selfe praise is bragging, and begets the envie
Of them that heare it, while each man therein
Seems undervalued: You are wisely silent
In your own worth, and therefore 'twere a sin
For others to be so: The fish would lose
Their being mute, ere such a modest worth
Should want a speaker: yet sir I would have you
Know your owne vertues, be acquainted with them.
Eir.

Why good sir bring me but acquainted with them.

Col.
There is a glasse within shewes you your selfe
By a reflection; goe and speake 'em there.
Eir.

I should be glad to see 'em any where.

Exit. Eir.
Rosc.
Retire your selves againe, for these are sights
Made to revive, not burden with delights.
Exeunt omnes.
Finis Actus 3.

ACTUS 4.

SCENA 1.

Flowrdew, Bird, Roscious:
Bird.
My indignation boyleth like a pot,
An over heated pot, still, still it boyleth;
[Page 58]It boyleth, and it bubleth with disdaine.
Flow.
My Spirit within me too sumeth, I say
Fumeth, and steemeth up, and runneth ore
With holy wrath, at these delights of flesh.
Rosc.

The Actors begge your silence— The next vertue whose extreames we would [...]resent, wants a name both in the Greek [...] and Latine.

Bird.

Wants it a name? 'tis an unchristian vertue.

Rosc.

But they describe i [...] such a modestie as directs us in the pursuite, and refusall of the meanet honours, and so [...] ­swers to Magnanimity, as Liberality to Magnificence: But here, that humour of the persons, being a [...]eady foresta [...]'d; and no pride n [...]w so much practis'd, or countenanc'd as that of apparell, let mee present you Philotimia, an over­curious Lady, t [...]o [...]at in her attire; and for Aphilotimus, Luparius a [...]asty sordid sloven.

Flow.

Pride is a vanity worthy the correction.

Philotimia▪ Luparus. Col [...]x.
Phil.
Wh [...] m [...]le dr [...]st me to day? O patience! (maids)
Who would be troubled with these mop-ey'd Chambe [...] ▪
Ther's a whole haire on this side more then t'other,
I am no Lady else! come on you sloven.
Was ever Christian Madam so tormented
To wed a swine as I am? make you ready.
Lup [...] ▪
I would the Taylor had bin hang'd for mee.
That first invented cloath [...]s— O nature, nature!
More cruell unto man then all thy creatures!
Calves come into the world with doublets on;
And Oxen have no breeches to put off.
The Lamb is borne with her Freez-coat about her:
Hogs goe to bed in rest, and are not troubled
With pulling on their Hole and shoos [...] i [...] morning
With gartring, girdling, trussing, but [...]oning,
[Page 59]And a thousand torments th [...]t afflict humanitie.
Phi.
To see her negligence! she hath made this cheek
By much too pale, and hath forgot to whiren
The naturall rednesse of my nose, she knowesnot
What 'tis wants dealbation. O fine memory!
If she has not set me in the selfe-same teeeh
That I wore yesterday, I am a Jew.
Does she think that I can eat twice with the same,
Or that my mouth stands as the Vulgar does?
What? are you snoring there, youle rise you sluggard,
And make you ready?
Lupa.
Rise, and make you ready?
Two works of that, your happy birds make one;
They when th [...]y rise are ready. Blessed birds!
They, fortunate creatures! sleep in their own clothes,
And rise with all their feather-beds about them.
Would nakednesse were come again in fashion;
I had some hope then when the brests went bare
Their bodies too would have come to 't in time
Phi.
Beshrew her for't, this wrinkle is not fill'd.
Youl goe and wash—you are a pretty husband!
Lupa.
Our Sow ne're was [...]' yet she has a face
Me thinks as cleanly, Madam, as yours is,
If you durst weare you owne.
Co.
Madam Superbia,
You're st [...]dying the Ladies Library,
The Looking-glasse; 'tis Well! so great a beautie
Must have her ornaments. Nature adorns
The Peacocks taile with stars; 'tis she attires
The Bird of Paradise in all her plumes;
She decks the fields with various flowres; 'tis she
Spangled the Heavens with all those glorious lights;
She spotted th' Exmin's skin; and arm'd the fi [...]h
[Page 60]In silver male. But man she sent forth naked
Not that he should remain so, but that he
Indued with reason should adorn himselfe
With every one of these. The silke worm is
Only mans spinster, else we might suspect
That she esteem'd the painted Butterfly
Above her master-peece. You are the Image
Of that bright godesse, therefore w [...]are the Jewels
Of all the East; let the red sea be ransack'd
To m [...]ke you glitter, look on Luparus
Your husband there, and see how in a sloven
All the best characters of Divinitie,
Not yet worne out in man, are lost and buried.
Philo.

I see it to my griefe, pray counsell him.

Col.
This vanitie in your nice Ladies humors
Of being so curious in her toyes, and dresses,
Makes me suspitious of her honestie.
'These Cobweb-lawnes catch Spiders Sir, believe it;
You know that clothes doe not commend the man,
But 'tis the living; though this age preferre
A cloake of Plufh, before a brain of art.
You understand what misery 'tis to have
No worth but that we owe the Draper for;
No doubt you spend the time your Lady loses
In tricking up her body, to cloth the soule.
Lup.
To cloth the soule? must the soule too be cloth'd?
I protest sir, I had rather have no soule
Then be tormented with the clothing of it.
Rosc.

To these enter the extreames of modesty, a neere kins-woman of the vertues, Anaiskyntia or Impudence, a bawd, and Kataplectus an over-bashfull Schollar: where our Author hopes the women will pardon him, if of 4. & 20 vices, be presents but two ( pride and impudence) of their sexe.

SCENE. 2

Anaiskyntia. Kataplectus.
Philo.
Here comes Anaiskyntia too;—O fates▪
Acolastus, and Asotus have sent for me,
And my breath not perfum'd yet! Kat. O sweet mother▪
Are the Gentlemen there already?
Anais.
Come away,
Are you not asham'd to be so bashfull? well
If I had thought of this in time, I would
As soone have seene you fairly hang'd as sent you
To 'th Universitie.
Phil.

What gentleman is that?

Anais.
A shamefast Scholar, Madam: looke upon her,
Speake to her, or you lose your exhibition
—Youle speake I hope, weare not away your buttons.
Kata.

What should I say?

Anais.
Why tell her you are glad
To see her Ladiship in health, nay out with i [...]
Katap— Gaudeo'te bene valere—
Phil.
A pretty Proficient!
What standing is he of i'th Universitie?
Anais.

He dares not answer to that question, Madam—

Philo.

How long have you bin in the Academy?

Katap..

Profecto D [...]—Dom na sum Bac—Bac—Baccha­laureus Artium.

Phil.

What pitty 'tis he is not impudent!

Anais.
Nay all my cost I see is spent in vaine;
I having as your Ladiship knowes full well,
Good practice in the Suburbs; and by reason
That our Mortality there is very subject
To an infection of the French Disease,
I brought my Nephew up i'th' Universitie,
[Page 62]Hoping he might (having attain'd some knowledge)
Save me the charge of keeping a Physitian;
But all in vaine: he is so bashfull, Madam,
He dares not looke upon a womans water.
Colax.
Sweet Gentleman proceed in bashfulnesse,
'Tis vertues best preserver—
Kata.

Rectè dicis, sic inquit Aristoteles.

Col.
That being gone,
The rest soone follow, and a swarme of vice
Enter the soule; no colour but a blush▪
Becomes a young mans cheek: pure shamefastnesse
Is porter to the lips, and eares, that nothing
Might enter, or come out of man, but what
Is good, and modest: Nature strives to hide
The parts of shame, let her, the best of guides,
Katap.

Natura dux optima.

Colax.

Teach us to doe so too in our discourse.

Katap.

Gratias tibi ago.

Philo.

Inu [...]e him to speake bawdy.

Anais▪
A very good way▪ Kataplectus here's a Lady,
Would heare you speake obscenely.
Katap.

Obscenum est, quod intra scenom agi non oport [...]

Anais.
Off goes your Velvet cap! did I maintaine you
To have you disobedient? you'l be perswaded?
Katap.

Liberis operam dare.

Anais.

What's that in english?

Katap.

To doe an endeavour for children.

Anais.

Some more of this, it may be something one day [...]

Katap.

Communis est omnium animantium conjunction [...] appetitus procreandi causâ.

Phil.

Construe me that.

Katap.

All creatures have a naturall desire, or appe [...]ret [...] to be joyned together in the lawfull bonds of Matrimony [Page] that they may have sons and daughters▪

Anais.
Your Landresse has bestow'd her time but ill.
Why could not this have been in proper tearmes?
If you should catechize my head, and say,
What is your name, would it not say, a head?
So would my skin conf [...]sse it selfe a skin;
Nor any part about me be asham'd
Of his owne name, although I catechiz'd
All over. Come good Nephew, let not me
Have any member of my body nicknam'd
Col.
Our Stoique, the gravest of Philosophers,
Is just of your opinion, and thus argues;
Is any thing obscene, the filthinesle
Is either grounded in the things themselves,
Or in the words that signifie those things;
Not in the things, that would make nature guilty,
Who creates nothing filthy and unclean,
But chast, and honest; if not in the things,
How in the words, the s [...]owes of those things
To manure grounds, is a chast honest terme;
Another word that signifies the same,
Unlawfull: every man endures to heare,
He got a child; speak plainer and he blushes,
Yet means the same. The Stoique thus disputes,
That would have men to breath as freely down'ward,
As they doe upward.
Anais.
I commend him Madam,
Unto your Ladyships service, he may mend
With counsell; let him be your Gentleman-usher;
Madam, you may in time bring down his legs
To the just size, now overgrowne with playing
Too much at foot-ball▪
Philo.
So he will prove a Stoique;
[Page 64]I long to have a Stoique strut before me:
Here kisse my hand. Come what is that in Latin?
Katap.

Deosculor manum.

Philo.

My lip;—nay sir you must if I command you.

Katap.

Osculor te, vel osculor a te.

Philo.

His breath smells strong.

Anais.

'Tis but of Logick, Madam.

Philo.
He will come to it one day—you shall go with me
To see an exquisite glasse to dresse me by.
Nay goe! you must goe first; you are too mannerly.
It is the office of your place, so—on—
Exeunt.
Colax.
Slow Luparus rise, or you'l be metamorphos'd;
Acteon's fate is immiment.
Lup.

Where's my wife?

Colax.

Shee's gone with a young Snip, and an old b [...]wd.

Lup.
Then I am cuckolded; If I be, my comfort is
She 'has put me on a cap, that will not trouble me
With pulling off, yet Madam [...] prevent you.
Exit.
Rose.

The next are the extreames of justice.

SCEN. 3.

Enter Iustice Nimis Iustice Nihil. Plus and Minus their Clarks.
Nim.

Plus!

Plus.

What sayes your worship?

Nim.
Have my tenant [...]
That hold their lease of lust here in the suburbs.
By copy-hold from me, their Lord in chiefe, paid their rent-charge?
Plus.
They have, and't please your worship;
J, Receiver generall gave'em my acquittance.
Parum.
Sir I resigne my Pen, and, ink-horn to you; shall forget my hand, if I stay here.
I have not made a Mitimus since I serv'd you,
[Page 65]Were I a reverend Justice as you are,
I would not sit a Cipher on the Bench,
But doe as Justice Nimis does, and be
The Dominus-fac-totum of the Sessions.
Nihil.
But I will be a Dominus-fac-misericordiam
Instead of your Totums: People shall not wish
To see my spurs fil'd off, i [...]t do's me good
To take a mercifull nap upon the Bench,
Where I so sweetly dream of being pittiful
I wake the better for it.
Nim.
The yearly value
Of my faire mannor of Clerken-well, is pounds
So many—besides New-years capons, the Lordship
Of Turnball so—which with my Pick ha [...]ch grange
And Shoreditch farm, and other premises
Adjoyning—very good, a pretty maintenance
To keep a Iustice of Peac [...], and Coram too;
Besides the fines I take of young beginners,
With harriots of all such as due, quatenus whores,
And ruin'd bawds, with all Amercements due
To such as hunt in Purly, this is something,
With mine own Game reserv'd
Plus.
Besides a pretty pittance too for me,
That am your worships Bayly.
Parum.
Wil't please your worship sit, to heare the Ca­talogue
Of such offenders, as are brought before you?
Nihil.
It does not please me, Sir, to heare of any
That doe offend; I would the world were innocent.
Yet to expresse my mercy you may read them.
Par.

First here is one accus'd for Cutting a purse

Nihil.
Accus'd? is that enough? if it be guilt
To be accus'd, who shall be innocent?
[Page 66]Discharge him Parum.
Parum.
Here's another brought
For the same fact, ta'ne in the very Action.
Nihil.
Alas it was for need, bid him take warning,
And so discharge him too; Tis the first time.
Nimis.

Plus, say, what hopes of gain brings this dayes sinne?

Plus.
Anaiskyntia Sir was at doore
Brought by the Constable.
Nimis.

Set the Constable by the heels. he's at certain with us.

Plus.

Then there's Intemperance the bawd.

Nim.

A tenant too.

Plus.

With the young Lady, Madam Incontinence.

Nim.
Search o're my Doomes-day book; is not she Plus
One of my last Compounders?
Plus.
I remember it.
Then there is jumping Iude, Heroique Doll,
With bouncing Nan, and Cis, your worship's sinner.
Nim.

All Subsidy women, goe free'em all.

Parum.
Sir, here's a known offender: one that has
Been stockt, and whipt innumerable times,
Has suffer'd Bridewell often; not a Jayle
But hee' [...] familiar with, burnt in the hand,
Forehead, and shoulder; both his eares cut off,
With his nose slir, what shall I doe with him?
Nihl.
So often punsh▪ d▪nay, if no correction
Wil serve his turn; e'en let him run his course.
Plus

Here's Mistresse Frailty too, the waiting-woman.

Nim.

For what offence?

Plus.

A sinne of weaknesse too

Nim.

Let her be strongly whipt.

Plus.
[Page 67]
An't please your worship
She has a noble mans letter.
Nim.
Tell her, Plus, she must
Have the Kings Picture too.
Plus.
Besides
Sh'has promis'd me J should examine her
Above i'th garret.
Nim.

What'ts all that to me?

Plus.

And she entreats your worship to accept—

Nim.
Nay, if she can intreat in English, Plus,
Say she is injur'd.
Par.
Sir here's Snip the Taylor.
Charg'd with a riot.
Nihil, Parum, let him goe,
He is our Neighbour.
Parum.

Then there is a stranger for quarrelling.

Nihil.
A stranger! O 'tis pity
To hurt a stranger, we may be all strangers,
And would be glad to find some mercy, Parum.
Plus.
Sir here's a Gentlewoman of S. Ioanes is
Charg'd with dishonesty,
Nim.
With dishonesty?
Severity will amend per, and yet Plus
Aske her a question, if she will be honest?
Plus

And here's a coblers wife brought for a scold.

Nim.
Tell her of cooking-stooles, tel her there be
Oyster queanes, with Orange women,
Carts and coaches store, to make a noyse,
Yet if she can speak English,
We may suppose her silent,
Par.
Her's a Batchelour
And a Citizens wife for flat Adultery,
What will you doe with them?
Nih.
[Page 68]
A Citizens wife!
Perchance her husband is grown impotent,
And who can blame her then?
Par.

Yet I hope you'l bind o're the Batchelour.

Nih.
No enquire
First if he have no wife, for if the Batchelour
Have not a wife of his own, 'twas but frailty;
And Justice counts it veniall.
Plus.
Her's one Adicus,
And Sophron, that doe mutually accuse
Each other of flat selony!
Nim.

Of the two which is the richer?

Plus.

Adicus is the richer.

Nim.

Then Sophron is the thiefe.

Plus.
Here is withall
P [...]nourgus come with one call'd Prodote [...]
Lay treason Sir to one anothers charge
Panourgus is the richer.
Nim.

Hees the Traytour then.

Plus.

How Sir? the richer?

Nim.
Thou art ign [...]rant Plus;
We must doe some injustice for our credit,
Not all for gain.
Plus.
Eutr [...]peles complains Sir,
[...]omolochus has abus'd him.
Nim.

Send Eutrapeles to th' Jaile.

Plus.

It is Eutrapeles that complains Sir.

Nim.
Tell him we are pleas'd to think 'twas he of­fended.
will must be law: wert not for Summum Ius,
How could the land subsist?
Colax.
I, or the Iustices
Maintaine themselves—goe on—The Land wants such
[Page 69]As dare with rigor execute her Lawes:
Her festred members must be lane' [...] and tented
He's a bad Surgeon, that for pitty spares
The part corrupted, 'til the Grangrene spread
And all the body perish; he that's mercifull
Unto the bad, is cruell to the good.
The Pillory must cure the eares disease;
The stocks the foots offences; let the back
Beare her own sin, and her rank blood purge forth
By the Phlebotomy of a whipping post:
And yet th [...] secret, & purse-punishment
Is held the wiser course; because at once
It helps the vertuous & corrects the vitious
Let not the sword of Iustice sleep, and rust
Within her Velvet sheath; preserve her edge,
And keep it sharp with cutting, Use must whet her
Tame mercy is the brest that suckles vice,
Till Hydra-like she multiply her heads.
Tread you on sin, squeeze out the Serpents brains,
All you can find [...] for some have lurking holes
Where they lye hid. But there's within a glasse
Will shew you every close offenders face,
Nim.
Come Plus let'ts goe in to find out th [...]se conceale­ments;
We will grow rich, and purchase honour thus—
I meane to be a Baron of Summum Ius.
Exit. Ni. Plus.
Parum.
You are the strangest man, you will ackn [...]w­ledge
None for offenders, here's one apprehended
For murther.
Nihil.

How!

Par.

He kill'd a man last night.

Nih.

How cam't to passe?

Par.
[Page 70]

Upon a falling out.

Nih.

They shall be friends, I'le reconcile 'em, Parum.

Par.

One of them is dead.

Nih.

is he not buried yet?

Par.

No Sir.

Nih.

Why then I say they shall shake hands.

Col.
As you have done
With Cl [...]mency, most Reverend Iustice Nihil;
A gentle mildnesse thrones it selfe within you,
Your worship would have justice use her ballance
More then her sword; nor can you endure to dye
The robe sh [...] weares, deep scarlet, in the blood
Of poore offenders: How many men hath [...]igour
By her too hasty, and severe proceedings
Prevented from amen [...]ment, that perchance
Might have turn'd honest and have prov'd good Chri­stians
Should Iove not spare his thunder, but as often
Discharge at us, as we dart sins at him,
Earth would want men, and [...]he himselfe want arms,
And yet tire Vulcan, and P [...]racmon too.
You imitate the Godsland he sins lesse
Strikes not at all, then he strikes once amisse.
I would not have justice too falcon-eyed;
Sometimes a wilfull-blindnesse much becomes her;
As when upon the bench she sleeps and winks
At the transgressions of Mortality:
In which most mercifull posture I have seen
Your pitifull Wor [...]hip snorting out pardons
To the despairing sinner, there's within
A mirrour sir like you! go [...] see your face
How like Astreas 'tis in her own Glasse
Par▪
[Page 71]
And I'le petition Justice Nimi's Clerke
To admit me for his under Officer.
Exeunt.

SCEN. 4.

Agroicus.
Rosc.

This is Agroicus, a rustique clownish fellow, whose discourse is all Country; a [...] extreame of urbanity, whereby you may observe there is a vertue in jesting.

Agro.

They talke of wittie discourse and fine conceits, and I ken not what a deale of prittle prattle, would make a Cat pisse to heare 'em. Cannot they be content with their Grandams English? They think they talke learned­ly, when I had rather heare our brindled curre howle, or Sow grunt. They must bee breaking of jests with a mur­rain, when I had as live heare 'em breake wind Sir reve­rence. My zonne Dick is a pretty bookish Schollar of his ago, God blesse him; hee can write and read, and makes bonds and bills, and hoblig [...]tions God save all. But by'r Lady, if I wotted it would make him such a Jacksawce, as to have more wit then his vore-vath [...]rs, hee should have learn'd nothing for old Agroicus, but to keepe a tally. There is a new trade lately come up to be a vocation, I wis not what; they call 'em—Boets, a new name for beg­gars I thinke, since the statute against Gypsies. I would not have my zonne Dick one of those Boets for the best Pig in my stye by the mackins: Boets? Heav'n shield him, and zend him to be a good Varmer; if he can cry [...]y, ho, gee, hut, gee, ho, it is better I trow then bring a Boet. Boets? I had rather zee him remitted to the Jayle, and have his twelve God-vathers, good men and true contemn him to the Gallowes, and there see him vairely persecut­ed. There is a Bom [...]lchus one of the Boets, now a bots ake all the red-nose tribe of 'em for Agroicus! he does [Page 72] so abuse his betters! well 'twas a good world, when I virst held the plow!

Col.
They car'd not then so much for speaking well
As to mean honest; and in you still lives
The good simplicity of the former times:
When to doe well was Rhetorique, not to talke.
The tongue-disease of Court spreads her infections
Through the whole Kingdome; flattery, that was wont
To be confin'd within the verge, is now
Grown Epidemicall, for all our thoughts
Are borne betweene our lips: The heart is made
A stranger to the tongue; as if it us'd
A language that she never understood.
What is it to be witty in these dayes,
But to be bawdy, or prophane? at least
A busie? Wit is grown a petulant waspe,
And stings she knowes not whom, not where, nor why;
Spues Vinegar, and gall on all she meets
Without distinction, buyes laughter with the losse
Of reputation, Father, Kinsman, Friend;
Hunts Ord'naries only to deliver
The idle Timpanies of a windy brain;
That beates and throbs above the paine of child-bed,
Till every care she meetes be made a Midwife
To her light Ba [...]ard issue; how many times
Bomolochus sides, and shoulders ake, and groan!
H [...]'s so witty—here he comes—away—
Agro.

His wit is dangerous, and I dare not stay.

Exit.

SCEN. 5.

Bomolochus.
Rosc.

This is the other extreame of urbanity; Bomolochus a fellow conceited of his own wit, though indeed it bee no­thing but the [...]ase dregs of scandall, and a lump of most vile and loathsome scurrility.

Bird.
[Page 73]
I, this is he we lookt for all the while!
Scurrility, here she hat [...] her impious throne,
Here lyes her heathenish dominion,
I [...] this most impious cell of corruption;
For 'tis a Purgatory, a meer Lymbo,
Where the black Devill and his dam Scurrili [...]y
Doe rule the rost, foule Princes of the aire▪
Scurrility! That is he that throweth scandals,
Soweth, and throweth scandalls, as 'twere durt
Even in the Face of holinesse, and devotion.
His presence is cont [...]gious, like a dragon
He belches poyson forth, poyson of the pit,
Brimstone, hellish and sulphureous poyson;
I will not stay, but fly as farre as zeal.
Can hurry me—the roofe will fall and brain me,
If I endure to heare his blasphemies,
His gracelesse blasphemies.
Rosc.
He shall vent none here;
But stay, and see how justly we have us'd him,
Flow.

Stay brother, I doe find the spirit grow strong.

Col.
Haile sacred wit!—Earth breeds not B [...]yes enough
To crown thy spatious merit.
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Col.
Cratinus, Eupolis, Aristophanes,
Or whatsoever other wit did give
Old Comedies the reins, and let her loose
To stigmatize what brow she pleas'd with slander
Of people, Prince, Nobility—All must yeeld
To this triumphant brain.
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Col.
They say you'l lose a friend before a jest,
Tis true, there's not a jest that comes from you,
That is the true Minerva of this brain,
[Page 74]But is of greater value then a world
Of friends, were every payre of men we meet
A Pylades and Orestes.
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Col.
Some say you will abuse your Father too,
Rather than lose the opinion of your wit;
Who would not that has such a wit as yours?
'Twere better twentie Parents were expos'd
To scorn and la [...]ghter, then the simplest thought
Or least conceit of yours, should dye abortive,
Or perish a brain Embrio.
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Col.
How's this? that tongue growne sile [...]t that Syrens
S [...]ood still to admire?
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Col.
Twere better that the spheares should lose their harmony,
And all the Chorister [...] of the wood grow hoarse:
What Wolfe hath spied you first!
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Col.
Sure H [...]mes envying that there was on earth
An eloquence more than his, has struck you dumb!
Malitious deity!
Bomo.

Oh—Oh—Oh—

Cola.
Goe in sir, there's a Glasse that will restore
T [...]at tongue, whose sweetnesse Angels might adore.
Bomo.

Oh—oh—oh—oh—oh—oh—oh—

Rosc.
Thus Sir you see how we have put a gagge
In the licentious mouth of base scurrility;
He shall not Ibis-like purge upward here,
T'infect the place with pestilentiall breath;
We'le keep him tongue-tide; you, and all, I promise
By Phaebus and his daughters, whose chast zones
Were never yet by impure hands unti [...]d;
[Page 75]Our language shall flow chaste, nothing sounds here
That can give just offence to a strict eare.
Bird.

This gagg hath wrought my good opinion of you.

Flow.

I begin to think 'em lawfull recreations.

Colax.
Now there's none left here, whereon to practice,
I'le flatter my deare selfe—O that my skill
Had but a body, that I might embrace it!
Kisse it, and hug it, and beget a brood,
Another brood of pretty skills upon it!
Were I divided I would hate all beauties,
And grow enamour'd with my other halfe!
Selfe-love, Narciss [...]us, had not beene a faul [...],
Hadst thou, instead of such a beauteous face,
Had but a brain like mine: I can gild vice,
And praise it into Alchymie, till it goe
For perfect gold, and cozen almost the touchstone,
I can perswade a toad into an Oxe,
Till swell'd too big with my Hyperboles
She burst asunder, and 'tis ver [...]u [...]s name
Lends me a maske to scandalize her selfe.
Vice, if it be no more, can nothing doe:
That art is great makes vertue guilty too.
I have such strange varieties of colours,
Such shifts of shapes, blew P [...]oteus sure begot me
On a Cameleon, and I change so quick
That I suspect my mother did conceive me,
As they say Mares doe, on some wind or other.
I'le peep to see how many fooles I made
Wi [...]h a report of a miraculous glasse.
—Heaven blesse me, I am ruin'd! O my brain
Witty to my undoing! I have jested
My selfe to an [...]ternall misery,
I see lean hunger with her meager face
[Page 76]Ride Post to overtake me, I doe prophesie
A Lent immortall; Phaebus I could curse
Thee and thy brittle gifts; Pandora's box
Compar'd with this might be esteem'd a blessing.
The Glasse which I conceiv'd a fabulous humour,
Is to the height of wonder prov'd a truth,
The two extreames of every ver [...]u [...] there
Beholding how they either did exceed,
Or want of just proportion, joy [...]d together,
And are reduc'd into a perfect Mean:
As when the skilfull and deep learn'd Physitian
Does take too different poysons, one thats cold,
The other in the same degree of heate,
And blends them both to make an Antidote;
Or as the Lutanist takes Flats and sharp [...],
And out of those so dissonant notes, does strike
A ravishing Harmony. Now there is no vice
Tis a hard world for Colax: what shift now?
Dyscolus doth expect me—since this age
Is growne too wise to entertaine a Parasite,
Ile to the Glasse, and there turn vertuous too,
Still strive to please, though not to flatter you.
Bird.
There is good use indeed-la to be made
From their Conversion.
Flow.
Very good insooth—la
And edifying.
Rosc.
Give your eyes some respite.
You know already what our Vices be,
In the next Act you shall our vertues see.
Exeunt.

ACTUS 5.

SCEN. 1.

Roscius, Flowrdew. Bird.
Flow.
Now verily I find the devour Bee
May suck the hony of good Doctrine thence,
[Page 77]And beare it to the hive of her pure family,
Whence the prophane and irreligious spider
Gathers her impious Venome! I have pick'd
Out of the Garden of this play a good
And wholesome salad of instruction!
What doe you next present?
Rosc.

The severall vertues.

Bird.

I hope there be no Cardinall Vertues there!

Rosc.

There be not.

Bird.
Then I'le stay, I hate a vertue
That will be made a Cardinall: Cardinall-vertues,
Next to Pope-vertues are most impious.
Bishop-vertues are unwarrantable
I hate a vertue in a Morris dance.
I will allow of none but Deacon-vertues,
Or Elder-vertues.
Rosc.

Those are Morall-vertues.

Bird.

Are they lay-vertues?

Rosc.

Yes!

Bird.
Then they are lawfull,
Vertues in Orders are unsanctified.
Rosc.
We doe present them royall, as they are
In all their state, in a full dance.
Bird.
What dance?
No wanton Jig I hope, no dance is lawfull
But Prinkum Prankum!
Flow.
Will vertues dance?
O vile, absurd, Maypole—Maid-Marrian vertue!
Rosc.

Dancing is lawfull, &c.

Flourish. Enter Mediocritie.
Flow.

Who's this?

Rosc.

It is the Mother of vertues.

Flow.
[Page 78]

Mother of Pearl [...] I think she is so gawdy,

Rosc.

It is the golde [...] Mediocritie.

Flow.

She looketh like the Idoll of Cheap-side▪

Mediocritie.
Med.
I am that even course that must be kept
To shun two dangerous gulfes; the middle tract
'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis; the small Isthmus
That suffers not th' AEgean tide to meet
The violent rage of the Ionian wave.
I am a bridge o're an impetuous sea;
Free, and safe passage to the wary step:
But he whose wantonnesse, or folly dares
Decline to either side, falls desperate
Into a certaine ruine,—Dwell with me,
Whose mansion is not plac'd so neere the Sun,
As to complaine of's neighbourhood, and be scorch'd
With his directer beames: nor so remote
From his bright ra [...]es as to be situate
Under the Icy Pole of the cold Beare;
But in a temperate zone: 'tis I am she,
I am the golden Mediocritie:
The labour of whose wombe are all the vertues,
And every passion too commendable:
Sisters so like themselves, as if they were
All but one birth; no difference to distinguish them
But a respect they beare to severall objects:
[...]lse had their names been on [...] as are their features▪
So when eleven faire Virgins of a bloud,
All Sisters, and alike grown ripe of yeares,
Match into severall houses, from each family,
Each makes a name distinct, and all are different:
They are not of complexion red or pale,
But a sweet mixture of th [...] flesh and bloud▪
[Page 79]As if both roses were confounded there.
Their stature neither Dwarfe nor Gyantish,
But in a comely well dispos'd proportion▪
And all so like th [...]ir Mot [...]er, that indeed
They are all mine▪ and I am each of them.
When in the midst of dangers I stand up
A wary confidence betwi [...]t feare and daring▪
Not so ungodly bold, as not to be
Fearfull of heaven's just anger when she speaks
In prodigies, and tremble at the hazard
Of my Religion, shake to see my Country
Thr [...]at [...]ed with fire and sword, by a stark coward
To any thing may blast my reputation:
But I can scorne the worst of poverty,
Sicknesse, Captivity, Banishment, Grim death,
If she dare meet me in the bed of honour;
Where, with my countries cause upon my sword
Not edg'd with hope or anger, nor made bold
With civill blood, or customary danger▪
Nor the fooles whetstone, in experience;
I can throw valour as a lightning from me,
And then I am the Amazon fortitude!
Give me the moderate cup of lawfull pleasures,
And I am Temperance Take me wealths just st [...]ward,
And call me: Liberality; with one hand
I'le gather riches home, and with the other
Rightly distibute e'm, and there observe
The persons, quantity, quality, time & place:
And if in great expences J be set
Chiefe Arbitresse, I can in glorious work [...],
As raising Temples, Statues, Altars, Shrines,
Vestures, and ornaments to Religion, be
Neither too thrifty nor too prodigall.
[Page 80]And to my country the like meane observe,
In building Ships, and Bulwarks, Castles, wals,
Conduits, Theaters, and what else may serve her
For use or ornament: and at home be royall
In buildings, Gardens, costly furniture,
In entertainments free and hospitable,
With a respect to my estate, and meanes,
And then I may be nam'd Magnificence;
As Magnanimity, when I wisely aime
At greatest honours, if I may deserve'm,
Not for ambition, but for my countries good,
And in that vertue all the rest doe dwell.
In lesser dignities I want a name;
And when [...] am not over patient,
To put up such grosse wrongs as call me coward,
But can be angry, yet in that observe
What cause hath mov'd my anger, and with whom▪
Look that it be not suddaine, nor too thirsty
Of a revenge, nor violent, nor greater
Then the off [...]nce, know my time when, where
I must be angry, and how long remain so;
Then, then you may firname me Mansuetude.
When in my carriage and discourse I keep
The meane that neither f [...]atters nor offends,
I am that vertue the well nurtur'd Court
Gives name and should doe being— Courtesy.
Twixt fly dissembling and proud arrogance
I am the Vertue Time calls daughter, Truth.
Give me my sword and ballance rightly swayd,
And Iustice is the Title I deserve.
When on thi [...] stage I come with innocent wit,
And j [...]sts that have more of the salt then gall.
That move the laughter and delight of all▪
[Page 81]Without the griefe of one; free, chaste conceits,
Not scurril, bafe, obscene, illiberall,
Or contumelious slandyrs, I am then
The vertue they have term'd, V [...]banity:
To whom if your least, countenance may appeare
She vowes to make her constant dwelling here.
My daughters now are come.
The Song.

SCEN. 2▪

The Masque, wherein all the Vertues dance together.
Medi [...]c.
You have seen all my daughters, Gentlemen▪
Chuse you wives hence; you that are Batchelours
Can find no better; and the maried too
May wed'em, yet not wrong their former wives▪
Two may have the same wife, and the same man
May wed two Vertues, yet no Bigamie;
He that weds most is chastest▪ These are all
The daughters of my wombe; I have five more,
The happy issue of my intellect
And thence syrnam'd the intellectuall Vertues
They now attend not on their Mothers traine,
We hope they Act in each [...]pectator [...] [...]raine.
I have a Neece besides a beauteous one
My daughters deare companion—lovely Friendship
A [...] Royall nymph; her we present not too,
It is a vertue we expect from you.
Exit cum Cho [...]o cantantium.

SCEN. 3.

Bird.

O Sister what a glorious traine they be

Flow.
They s [...]em to me the Family of love,
But is there such a Glasse, good Roscius?
Rosc.
There is! sent hither by the great Apollo
Who in the worlds l [...]r [...]ght eye and ev [...]ry day
[...]et in this Car of light, sur vaies the earth
[Page 82]From East to Wests who finding every plac [...]
Fruitfull in nothingbut fantastique follies▪
And most ridiculous humours, as he i [...]
The God of Physick, thought it apper [...]ain'd
To him to find a cure to purge the eart [...]
Of ignorance and sin, two grand diseases,
And now grown Epidemicall: many Receits
He thought upon, as to have planted H [...]llebore
In every Garden—But none pleas'd like this.
He takes out water from the Muses spring,
And sends it to the North, there to be freez'd
Into a Christall—That being done, he make [...],
A Mirrour with it: and instills thi [...] vertue,
That it should by reflection shew each man
All his deformities both of soule and body,
And cure'em both—
Flow.
Good Brother lets goe see it!
Saints may want something of perfection.
Rosc.
The Glasse is but of one daies continuance
For Pluto, thinking if it should cur [...] all,
His Kingdome would grow empty (for ti 's [...]in
That peoples hell) went to the fatès and bid'em
Spin it too short a thread; (for every thing
As well as man is measur'd by their spindle.)
They, as they must obey, gave it a thread
No longer then the Beasts of Hyppanis
That in one day is spun, drawn out, and cut.
But Phaebus to require the black Gods envy,
Will, when the Glas [...]e is broke, transfuse her vertue
To live in Com [...]edie—If you meane to see it,
Make haste—
Flow.

We will goe post to reformation.

Exeunt.
Rosc.
Nor is the Glasse of so short li [...]e I feare
[Page 83]As this poore labour—our distrustfull Author
Think [...] the same Sun that rose upon her cradle
Will hardly set before her funerall:
Your gratious and kind acceptance may
Keepe her alive from death, or when shee's dead;
Raise her again, and spin her a new thread.

SCEN. 4.

Enter Flowrdew and Bird.
Flow.
This ignorance even makes Religion sin,
Sets zeale upon the rack, and stretches her
Beyond her length—Most blessed Looking-glasse
That didst instruct my blinded eyes to day,
I might have gone to hell the Narrow way!
Bird.
Hereafter I will visit Comoedies▪
And see them oft, they are good exercises!—
I'le teach devotion now a milder temper,
No [...] that it shall lose any of her heat
Or Purity▪ but henceforth shall be such
Exeunt.
As shall burn bright, although not blaze so much.

EPILOGVS. Roscius solus.

Y' Have seen The Muses Looking-Glasse, Ladies faire,
And Gentle youths; and others too who ere
Have fill'd this Orbe: it is the end we mean [...]
Your selves unto your selves still to present
[Page]A souldier; shall himselfe in Hector see,
Grave Councellours, Nestor, view themselves in thee
When Lucrece Part shall on our Stage appeare,
Every chast Ladie sees her shadow there.
Nay come who will, for our indifferent G [...]asses
Will shew both sooles, and knaves, and all their fates,
To vex and cure them: But we need not feare,
We doe not doubt but each one now that's here,
That has a faire soule and a Beauteous face,
Will visit oft the Muses Looking-Glasse.
FINIS.

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.