well!" and fell to a laughing again, and then my Lord

followed gaily, with a "Go to, Frances! Go to!"

"Well, fir, will this hold? this Comedy, or 'What you

Will-Eh?"

"O'tis naught!"

"A flight thing!"

"See, now, two roystering carpet Knights and a light Wench difporting themselves on a brainless Steward—an affectioned ass, whofe only wit is to think all that look on him must love him."

See! there's the notable

"Belike 'tis fome fatire, fir. trick o' fingularity in fome one, aped to a miracle I warrant ye! Why elfe doth he fmile so? wear yellow stockings, crofs garters, and fo forth? "Tis more than meets the I'll wager! 'Tis a dull jeft hath no fecret fenfe in't!"

eye,

"There's a qualification of fat Sir John o' the History

in that beastly, cajolling knave!"

"Only more groffness, lefs wit-eh ?”

"So! and that fickly gentleman, with the confufed mind and nonfenfical talk: grant he have no taking disease!"

"Oh, fir! they be all o' that hue in Illyria."

"What, art a Traveller, fir?"

A Traveller.

“I have moved from home, fair fir.”

"Ah!"

"Haft seen Illyria ?"

"Cannot fay, fir; but ha' been far and near."

"To Jerufalem, fir?"

"Nay, good fir."

"The Indies ?"

17

"Indeed, no!—you are tedious-I stayed in Calys!" "An univerfal traveller! An the Players get fight o' you, they'll clap you into fome fit part, I warrant."

"I think, fir, this be not fit recreation for fo goodly a company."

""Tis my mind, too; only I bend to their judgments who have more understanding.”

"It feemeth a fond conceit to make the Clown the fole wife one of the fort, and yet no issue of his folly!"

"His finging, sweet fir-you will allow his breath?” "Indeed, 'tis pretty and difpofed enough. But 'tis naught to the matter."

"As for the graver parts, I take it they be of the Italian fashion, dashed a bit with our Euphues' vein. Your

fancy fick Duke i' th' dumpes: your breeched Virgin with

VOL. III.

C

her Epicæne courage and her trembling rapier: your mannerly Countess of the dolours; they be idle, or at best little worth."

"True, fir! Have with you! 'Tis not the love humours of the gentles, but the free venting of that very gracious and excellent fooling that will carry it, maugre the action o' th' piece."

"I fear, neighbours, you'll be for the tongs and the bones anon, with your unlettered judgments."

“Well, fir, there was no thought o' pleasing you when we went to school! An' the tongs ha' no more music than your blank verse, I take it there be less pith in a profy dialogue than in our marrowbones!"

"Go to, firrah! you grow fcurrilous."

"For my part, fir, I'd liefer ha' the Dancing to Song that's promised."

" "Tis a new device I have not yet seen. Childish, belike?" ""Tis very grand, I affure you, fir; very stately and pleafant. For the Quires be placed aloft, and are accompanied with some broken music: the Ditty excellently fitted to the device."

"You make me curious. May there be acting in 't?”

"Nay, fir, that is a novel pastime, they fay from Venice:

-the other 's from Holland or Danemark; of a rougher

or more Allmayne kind.”

"They act and fing their parts in Italy?"

Truly, fair fir! The voices be in dialogue: strong and manly—a base and perhaps a mean, or tenor-no treble allowed. Then, for the Ditty, 'tis high and tragical: not nice and dainty. There be feveral Quires placed over against one another, taking the voice Anthem-wife."

"You make me admire! Shall we have fuch to-night?" "I think not, fir. The Comedy will peise the time. A dance or fong after the Banquet, and then to bed."

"For my part, let the fongs be loud and cheerful. Rounds and catches! Three-men fongs all, with a

bearing chorus. None o' your chirpings and pulings and maidenly treble pipes! Let the music likewise be sharp and noify, and well placed."

"Ah, fir! I bethink me you will chufe the Mafque tomorrow and the Revels, 'fore these nice philofophies and fubtleties of our Shakspeare.”

"The Mafque for me! the Masque! only the Mafque ! Perfians and Meffopotamians, Mufcovites and Cretans,

Clowns, Soldiers, and Mariners! Fools, Satyrs, Baboons! Wild Men of Inde, Anticks, Beafts, Sprites, Witches, Ethiopes, Pigmies, Turquets, Nymphs, Rustics, Cupids, moving Statues! oh, they be fine! And for an Ante-mask, comical Angels, amiable Giants, pious Devils, and hideous Fairies, an Amazon Pope or a Republican Empe

"Well, fir, you shall be satisfied with monsters, my word for 't."

"Master Jonson, is he great at a device?"

"Of an ingenious turn, fir."

"I apprehend his poetic imagination is, as it were, cramped and difqualified by his abfolute truth."

"Indeed, and fapient, fir!"

"He wrestleth, as one may fay, one while with Art then with Nature. A Hercules 'twixt the two ferpents."

"You are of one mind with my Lord Keeper, fir, who, faying the Poets were all liars in that they feigned, refused Will Shakspeare fome trifle favour."

"Ha! was it fo?"

"Truly, fair fir! But I hold 'tis very pregnant a Poet in his particular feigning shall so touch general nature as to