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Rom. Sure some dotage

Of living stately, richly, lends a cunning
To eloquence. How is this piece of goodness
Changed to ambition! oh, you are most miserable
In your desires! the female curse has caught you.
Cast. Fie! fie! how ill this suits.

Rom. A devil of pride

Ranges in airy thoughts to catch a star,
Whilst you grasp mole-hills.

Cast. Worse and worse, I vow.

Rom. But that some remnant of an honest sense Ebbs a full tide of blood to shame, all women Would prostitute all honour to the luxury Of ease and titles.

Cast. Romanello, know

You have forgot the nobleness of truth,
And fix'd on scandal now.

Rom. A dog, a parrot,

A monkey, a caroch, a garded lackey,
A waiting-woman with her lips seal'd up,
Are pretty toys to please my mistress Wanton!
So is a fiddle too; 'twill make it dance,

Or else be sick and whine.

Cast. This is uncivil;

1;

I am not, sir, your charge.

as synonimous; with a reference, perhaps, to the insinuation of the old proverb, that the latter is a necessary consequence of the former. In the next line, she seems to say-It (love) is rarely cherished by those, who, like Romanello, embrace a voluntary poverty. But this is all conjecture. The reader must decide whether the play on words has led the poet into this perplexed expression, or whether any part of it has been corrupted at the press.

Rom. My grief you are;

For all my services are lost and ruin'd.

Cast. So is my chief opinion of your worthiness, When such distractions tempt you; you would

prove

A cruel lord, who dare, being yet a servant,
As you profess, to bait my best respects

Of duty to your welfare; 'tis a madness
I have not oft observed. Possess your freedom,
You have no right in me; let this suffice;
I wish your joys much comfort.

Enter LIVIO, richly habited.

Liv. Sister! look ye,

How by a new creation of my tailor's,
I've shook off old mortality; the rags

Of home-spun gentry-prithee, sister, mark it—
Are cast by, and I now appear in fashion
Unto men, and received.-Observe me, sister,
The consequence concerns you.

Cast. True, good brother,

For my well-doing must consist in

yours.

Liv. Here's Romanello, a fine temper'd gallant, Of decent carriage, of indifferent means, Considering that his sister, new hoist up, From a lost merchant's warehouse, to the titles Of a great lord's bed, may supply his wants;Not sunk in his acquaintance, for a scholar Able enough, and one who may subsist Without the help of friends, provided always, He fly not upon wedlock without certainty

Of an advancement; else a bachelor
May thrive by observation, on a little.
A single life's no burden; but to draw
In yokes is chargeable, and will require
A double maintenance: why, I can live
Without a wife, and purchase.

Rom. Is't a mystery,

You've lately found out, Livio, or a cunning
Conceal'd till now, for wonder?

Liv. Pish! believe it,

Endeavours and an active brain are better

Than patrimonies left by parents.-Prove it.One thrives by cheating; shallow fools and unthrifts

Are game knaves only fly at: then a fellow Presumes on his hair, and that his back can toil For fodder from the city;-lies: another,

8

Reputed valiant, lives by the sword, and takes up Quarrels, or braves them, as the novice likes,

A single life's no burden.] For a the quarto reads, as single life's, &c. Another,

Reputed valiant, lives by the sword, &c.]

[blocks in formation]

"Your high offers

Taught by the Masters of Dependencies,

That, by compounding differencies 'tween others,
Supply their own necessities, with me

Will never carry it.”

66

These masters of dependencies," as they called themselves, were a set of low bullies and bravoes, who undertook to instruct such country novices, as aspired to the reputation of valour, in the fashionable mode of getting up a quarrel; and, if need were, submitted to be beaten by them. They are noticed with ridicule and contempt by most of our old dramatists.

To gild his reputation;-most improbable.

A world of desperate undertakings, possibly, Procures some hungry meals, some tavern surfeits,

Some frippery to hide nakedness; perhaps
The scambling' half a ducat now and then
To roar and noise it with the tattling hostess,
For a week's lodging; these are pretty shifts,
Souls bankrupt of their royalty submit to!
Give me a man, whose practice and experience,
Conceives not barely the philosopher's stone,
But indeed has it; one whose wit's his Indies:
The poor
is most ridiculous.

Rom. You are pleasant

In new discoveries of fortune; use them
With moderation, Livio.

Cast. Such wild language

Was wont to be a stranger to your custom;
However, brother, you are pleased to vent it,
I hope, for recreation.

Liv. Name and honour

What are they? a mere sound without support

ance,

A begging-Chastity, youth, beauty, handsome

ness,

Discourse, behaviour which might charm attention,
And curse the gazer's eyes into amazement,
Are nature's common bounties; so are diamonds

• The scambling half a ducat, &c.] Scambling appears to be used in this place for obtaining by impudent importunity, by false pretences, &c.; in a word, much in the sense of skelder, as we have it in Jonson, Decker, and others.

Uncut, so flowers unworn, so silk-worms' webs Unwrought, gold unrefined; then all those glories Are of esteem, when used and set at price:There's no dark sense in this.

Rom. I understand not

The drift on't, nor how meant, nor yet to whom. Cast. Pray, brother, be more plain.

Liv. First, Romanello,

This for your satisfaction: if you waste

More hours in courtship to this maid, my sister,
Weighing her competency with your own,
You go about to build without foundation;
So that care will prove void.

Rom. A sure acquittance,

If I must be discharged.

Liv. Next, Castamela,

To thee, my own loved sister, let me say,
I have not been so bountiful in shewing

To fame the treasure which this age hath open'd,
As thy true value merits.

Cast. You are merry.

Liv. My jealousy of thy fresh blooming years, Prompted a fear of husbanding too charily Thy growth to such perfection, as no flattery Of art can perish now.

Cast. Here's talk in riddles !1

Brother, the exposition?

1 Here's talk in riddles.] Here is, indeed; and, what is worse, no Edipus at hand to solve them. It would be mere presumption to alter the text; but if the reader, in the following line,

Prompted a fear of husbanding too charily,

be pleased to suppose care and so, in the place of fear and too, hè will catch, I believe, some glimpse of the poet's meaning.

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