The archer Cimbeline, or old king Lud
Advance his falchion here again, ere you,
'Moogst so much smoke, diseases, law, and noise.
Thwack. What your town gets by me, let them
lay up

For their orphans, and record in their annals.
I come to borrow where I'll never lend,
And buy what I'll never pay for.

Y. Pal. Not your debts?

Thwack. No, sir, though to a poor Brownist's II widow;

Though she sigh all night, and have the next

morning

Nothing to drink but her own tears.

E. Pal. Nor shalt thou lend money to a sick friend,

Though the sad worm lie mortgaged in his bed For the hire of his sheets.

Y. Pal. These are resolves

That give me newer wonder than your clothes; Why in such shining trim, like men that come From rifled tents, loaden with victory?

E. Pal. Yes, brother, or like eager heirs new
dipp'd

In ink, that seal'd the day before in haste,
Lest parchment should grow dear. Know, youth,

we come

To be the business of all eyes, to take
The wall of our St George on his feast-day.
Thwack. Yes, and then embark at Dover, and
do

The like to St Dennis: all this, young sir,
Without charge too, I mean to us; we bring
A humorous odd philosophy to town,

That says, Pay nothing.

Y. Pal. Why, where have I lived?

I deny the major.
Thwack. Resist principles !

E. Pal. Good faith, though you should send me more epistles

Than young factors in their first voyage write Unto their short-haired friends; than absent lovers

Pen near their marriage week, to excuse the slow

Arrival of the licence and the ring;

Not one clipp'd penny should depart my reach. Y. Pal. This doctrine will not pass; how shall I live?

E. Pal. As we intend to do by our good wits. Y. Pal. How, brother, how?

E. Pal. Truth is a pleasant knowledge; Yet you shall have her cheap; Sir Morglay here, My kind disciple, and myself, have leased, Out all our rents and lands for pious uses.

Y. Pal. What, co-founders! give legacies ere death!

Pallatine the pious, and Saint Morglay!
Your names will sound but ill i'the calendar.
How long must this fierce raging zeal continue?
E. Pal. Till we subsist here no more by our

wit,

Then we'll renounce the town, and patiently Vouchsafe to re-asume our mother earth, Lead on our plows into their rugged walks | Again, grope our young heifers in the flank, And swagger in the wool which we shall borrow From our own flocks.

Thwack. But, ere we go, we may, From the vast treasure purchased by our wit, Leave here some monument to speak our fame. I have a strong mind to re-edify

The decays of Fleet-Ditch; from whence I hear The roaring vestals late are fled, through heat Of persecution.

Y. Pal. What a small star have I,

first

Receive a principle: Never hereafter,

sigh,

Live by our wits!

E. Pal. So live, that usurers

Will I disburse for you again; never.

Y. Pal. Brother mine, if that be your argu

ment,

A. 3. S. 2.

saint. S.

Three motley cocks of the right Derby strain,
Together with a foal of Beggibrigge.

Thwack. Sir, I will match my Lord Mayor's horse, make jockeys

Of his hench boys, 14 and run them through Cheapside.

E. Pal. What beauties, girls of feature, govern

now

I' the town? 'tis long since we did traffick here
In midnight whispers, when the dialect
Of love's loose wit is frighted into signs,
And secret laughter stifled into smiles;
When nothing's loud but the old nurse's cough,—
Who keeps the game up, ha; who misled now?
Thwack. Not sir, that if we wooe, we'll be at
charge

For looks; or if we marry make a jointure.
Entail land on women! entail a back,
And so much else of man as Nature did
Provide for the first wife.

E. Pal. I could keep thee,

Thy future pride, thy surfeits, and thy lust, (I mean, in such a garb as may become A Christian gentleman) with the sole tithe Of tribute I shall now receive from ladies. Thwack. Your brother and myself have seal'd to covenants;

The female youth of the town are his; but all
From forty to fourscore mine own: A widow,
You'll say, is a wise, solemn, wary creature:
Though she hath lived to the cunning of dispatch,
Closed up nine husbands' eyes, and have the
wealth

Of all their testaments; in one month, sir,
I will waste her to her first wedding-smock,
Her single ring, bodkin, and velvet muff.

Y. Pal. Your rents exposed at home for pious

uses,

Must expiate your behaviour here: tell me,
Is that the subtle plot you have on heaven?
Thwack. The worm of your worship's conscience
would appear
As big as a conger; but a good eye
May chance to find it slender as a grig.

Y. Pal. Amazement knows no ease, but in demands:

Pray tell me, gentlemen, to all this vast
Designment (which so strikes my ear) deduct
You nought from your revenue, nought that may,
Like fuel, feed the flame of your expence?
E. Pal. Brother, not so much as will find a Jew
Bacon to his eggs: these gay tempting weeds,
These eastern stones of cunning foil, bespoke

You'll work the ladies, and weak gentry here,
By your fine gilded pills, a faith that is
Not old may guess without distrust. But, sirs,
The city (take't on my experiment)
Will not be gulled.

Thwack. Not gulled! they dare not be
So impudent: I say they shall be gulled;
And trust, and break, and pawn their charter too.
Y. Pal. Is it lawful, brother, for me to laugh,
That have no money?

E. Pal. Yes, sir, at yourself.

Y. Pal. Two that have tasted Nature's kind

Of his heart, and what his brains do weigh.
But Engine, madam, is your bumble creature.
Amp. I have bounty, Engine;

And thou shalt largely taste it, when the next
Fair sun is set, for then my wardship ends-
[Knocking within.

That speaks command, or haste; open the door.

Enter LUCY.

Lucy! weeping, my wench? melting thine eyes, As they had trespassed against light, and thou Would'st give them darkness for a punishment! Lucy. Undone, madam, without all hope, but what

Your pity will vouchsafe to minister.

Amp. Hast thou been struck by infamy! or

comest

A mourner from the funeral of love?

Lucy. I am the mourner, and the mourned; dead to

Myself, but left not rich enough to buy a grave:
My cruel aunt hath banished me her roof,
Exposed me to the night, the winds, and what
The raging elements on wanderers lay,
Left naked as first infancy or truth.

Gin. I could ne'er endure that old, moist-eyed lady;

Methought she prayed too oft.
Amp. A mere receipt

To make her long-winded, which our devout
Physicians now prescribe to defer death.-
But, Lucy, can she urge no cause for this
Strange wrath, that you would willingly conceal?
Lucy. Suspicions of my chastity, which heaven
Must needs resist as false; though she accused
Me even in dream, where thoughts commit 16 by
chance,
Not appetite.

Amp. What ground had her suspect? *7

15 Mine-The 4to reads nine; the folio, my.

17 Suspect-i. e, suspicion.

VOL. I.

20

He gathered fondness where he planted love,
Was fallen unto such want, as eager blood
And youth could not endure, and keep the laws
Inviolate; I, to prevent my fear,

Sold all my jewels, and my trifling wealth,
Bestowed them on him; and she thinks a more
Unholy consequence attends the gift.

Amp. This, Luce, is such apostacy in wit, As nature must degrade herself in woman to Forgive. Shall love put thee to charge? couldst thou

Permit thy lover to become thy pensioner?

Eng. Her sense will now be tickled till it ache. Amp. Thy feature and thy wit are wealth enough To keep thee high in all those vanities, That wild ambition, or expensive pride, Perform in youth; but thou invert'st their use: Thy lover, like the foolish adamant The steel, thou fiercely dost allure, and draw To spend thy virtue, not to get by it.

Lucy. This doctrine, madam, is but new to me. Amp. How have I lived, think'st thou? e'en by my wits.

My guardian's contribution gave us gowns,
But cut from the curtains of a carrier's bed;
Jewels were wore, but such as potters' wives
Bake in the furnace for their daughters' wrists;
My woman's smocks so coarse, as they were spun
O'the tackling of a ship.

Gin. A coat of mail,

Quilted with wire, was soft sarsnet to them.

Amp. Our diet scarce so much as is prescribed
To mortify; two eggs of emmets poached,
A single bird, no bigger than a bee,
Made up a feast.

Gin. He had starved me, but that
The green-sickness took away my stomach.

Amp. Thy disease, Ginet, made thee in love
with mortar,

And thou eat'st him up two foot of an old wall.
Eng. A privilege my master only gave
Unto her teeth; none else o'the house durst do't.
Amp. When, Lucy, I perceived this straitened
life,

Nature, my steward, I did call t' account,
And took from her exchequer so much wit
As has maintained me since. I led my fine
Trim-bearded males in a small subtle string
Of my soft hair; made them to offer up
And bow, and laughed at the idolatry.

Gin. A jewel for a kiss, and that half ravished.
Lucy. I feel I am inclined t'endeavour in
A calling: Madam, I'd be glad to live.

Eng. Madam, you are

Not far from the possession of your wish;
There is no language heard, no business now
In town, but what proclaims the arrival here,
This morn, of the elder Pallatine, brother
To him you named, and with him such an old
Imperial buskin knight, as the isle ne'er saw.
Amp. What's their design?

Eng. They will immure themselves
With diamonds, with all refulgent stones
That merit price: ask them who pays? why, ladies.
They'll feast with rich Provençal wines; wha
pays?

Ladies. They'll shine in various habit, like
Eternal bridegrooms of the day; ask them
Who pays? Ladies. Lie with those ladies too,
And pay them, but with issue male, that shall
Inherit nothing but their wit, and do
The like to ladies when they grow to age.

Lucy. My ears received a taste of them be

Eng. Though miracles are ceased, This, madam, is in the power of thought and time. Amp. I would kiss thee, Engine, but for an odd Nice humour in my lips; they blister at Inferior breath. This ring, and all my hopes Are thine: dear Engine, now project, and live. Gin. I'd lose my wedding to behold these dagonets.19

Amp. My guardian's out o' town. Let us triumph

Like Cæsar till to-morrow night; thou know'st
I'm then no more o' the family. I would,
Like a departing lamp, before I leave
You in the dark, spread in a glorious blaze.
Eng. Madam, command the keys, the house,

and me.

元

ས་

Amp. Spoke like the bold Cophetua's 20 son. Let us contrive within to tempt them hither.—

Follow, my Luce, restore thyself to fame

[Exeunt ENGINE, AMPLE, GINET. Young PALLATINE beckons Lucy from between the Hangings as she is going.

Y. Pal. Luce! Luce!

Lucy. Death on my eyes! how came you hither?

Y. Pal. I'm, Luce, a kind of peremptory fly, Shift houses still to follow the sun-beams; I must needs play in the flames of thy beauty— Lucy. You've used me with a Christian care; have you not?

Y. Pal. Come, I know all. I have been at thy aunt's house.

And there committed more disorder than
A storm in a ship, or a cannon bullet
Shot through a kitchen among shelves of pewter.
Lucy. This madness is not true, I hope.
Y. Pal. Yes, faith;

Witness a shower of malmsey lees, dropped from
Thy aunt's own urinal on this new morion.
Lucy. Why, you have seen her then?

Y. Pal. Yes, and she looks like the old slut of
Babylon

Thou hast read of. I told her she must die,
And her beloved velvet hood be sold

To some Dutch brewer of Ratcliffe, to make
His yaw frow slippers.

Luy. Speak low. I am deprived
By thy rash wine of all atonement, now,
Unto her after legacies or love.

Y. Pal. My Luce, be magnified; I am all plot,
All stratagem; my brother is in town:
My Lady Ample's fame hath caught him, girl;
I'm told he means an instant visit hither.
Lucy. What happiness from this?
Y. Pal. As he departs

From hence, I have laid two instruments, Meager And Pert, that shall encounter his long ears With tales less true than those of Troy; they shall Endanger him, maugre his active wits,

And mount thee, little Luce, that thou may'st reach

To dandle Fate; to soothe them till they give
U's leave to inake or alter destinies.

Lucy. You are too loud; whisper your plots
within.
[Exeunt.

Enter ENGINE, Elder PALLATINE, and THWACK.
Eng. You call and govern, gentlemen, as if

Your business were above your haste; but know You where you are?

E. Pal. Sir Tyrant Thrift dwells here: The Lady Ample is his ward; she is Within, and we must see her: No excuses; She is not old enough to be lock'd up To sey new perukes, or purge for rheum. Thwack. Tell her, that a young devout knight, made grey

22

By a charm, (to avoid temptation in others,)
Would speak with her.

Eng. I shall deliver you both.

These tygers hunt their prey with a strange nostril. Come unseut for so aptly to our wish!

[Exit. E. Pal. But this, Sir Morglay, will not do; in troth

You break our covenants.

Thwack. Why, hear me plead.

E. Pal. From forty to fourscore, the written law
Runs so; this lady's in her nonage yet,
And you to press into my company,
Where visitations are decreed mine own,
Argues a heat that my rebukes must cool.
Thwack. What should I do? wouldst have me
keep my chamber,

And mend dark lanterns? invent steel mattocks,
Or weigh gunpowder? solitude leads me
To nothing less than treason; I shall conspire
To dig and blow up all, rather than sit still.

E. Pal. Follow your task; you see how early I
Have found this young inheritrix; go seek
The aged out; bones unto bones, like cards
Ill packed; shuffle yourselves together, till
You each dislike the game.

Thwack. 'Tis the cause I

Come for; a withered midwife, or a nurse
Who draws her lips together, like an eye
That gives the cautionary wink, are those
I would find here, so they be rich and fat.

Enter GINET.

Gin. My lady understands your haste, and she Herself consults now in affairs of haste; But yet will hastily approach to see

You, gentlemen, and then in haste return. [Exit. E. Pal. What's this, the superscription of a packet?

Thwack. Now does my blood wamble. You! sucket-eater! 23

[Offers to follow her, PALLATINE stays him.

2