ACT II. SCENE I. A Room in FITZDOTTREL'S House. Enter FITZDOTTREL, ENGINE, and MEERCRAFT, followed by TRAINS with a bag, and three or four Attendants. Meercraft. IR, money is a whore, a bawd, a drudge; again With aqua vita, out of an old hogshead! While there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer, I'll never want her! Coin her out of cobwebs, Ι Say, let the thousand pound but be had ready, creature Of flesh and blood, the man, the prince indeed, As I would help him to. Fitz. How talks he? millions! Meer. [to 2 Attendant.]—I'll give you an account of this to-morrow. [Exit 2 Atten. Yes, I will take no less, and do it too; If they were myriads and without the Devil, By direct means, it shall be good in law. Eng. Sir. Meer. [to 3 Atten.] Tell master Woodcock, I'll not fail to meet him Upon the Exchange at night; pray him to have The writings there, and we'll dispatch it. [Exit 3 Atten.]-Sir, You are a gentleman of a good presence, A handsome man; I have consider'd you I have a project to make you a duke now. You shall not avoid it. But you must hearken, then. You do not know master Fitzdottrel. Fitz. He does not know me indeed; I thank you, Engine, For rectifying him. Meer. Good! Why, Engine, then I'll tell it you. (I see you have credit here, And, that you can keep counsel, I'll not question.) In a most feasible business. It shall cost him Eng. Good, sir. Meer. Except he please, but's countenance, The thing is for recovery of drown'd land.] This was the age of projects and monopolies; and the prevailing humour is not un Whereof the crown's to have a moiety, seasonably ridiculed by the poet. "Tis probable, that a design of draining the fens was then talked of: and experience has since shewn, that the project was not wholly impracticable. WHAL. Thus Randolph : "I have a rare device to set Dutch windmills Upon Newmarket Heath and Salisbury Plain, But this was, as Whalley says, the age of projectors; and it is to the praise of the dramatic poets, that they spared no efforts to guard the public against them. Had not the scandalous rapacity of the courtiers found an interest in encouraging those daring depredators on the weak and wealthy, the united force of wit and satire must have driven them out of countenance. Our poet, who never loses sight of verisimilitude, is somewhat modest in his catalogue of projects; but his contemporaries wanton in their exposure of those pernicious follies. The Court Beggar of Brome is solely directed against them; and in that extraordinary drama, The Antipodes, they are attacked with no inconsiderable degree of humour. One example may be given: its pleasantry must apologize for its length. "As for your project For putting down the infinite use of jacks, For the rest; Meer. Yes, which will arise To eighteen millions, seven the first year: 9 Not at the skirts; as some have done, and lost By the next winter. Tut, they never went Eng. A gallant tract Of land it is! Meer. 'Twill yield a pound an acre : We must let cheap ever at first. But, sir, This looks too large for you, I see. Come hither, We'll have a less. Here's a plain fellow, [points to Has his black bag of papers there, in buckram, 9 I'll begin at the pan, Not at the skirts; as some have done, and lost All that they wrought, &c.] Pan is not easily distinguished from skirt. Both words seem to refer to the outer parts, or extremities. Perhaps Meercraft means-on a broader scale, on a more extended front. The remainder of the speech apparently alludes to some well-known disaster of the time. Many schemes were set on foot about this period, not only for draining the fens of Lincolnshire, but for gaining land from the sea in various places; of these not a few failed; but the attempts were not wholly lost to the community, since they taught later adventurers to avoid the errors of the original projectors. The boldness of the plans for draining the fens, seems to have startled the public more than all the others exhibited to their consideration: hence the perpetual allusions to it in our old dramatists. One has just been mentioned; another is now before me: "Our projector Will undertake the making of bay-salt, Drying of fennes and marshes, like the Dutchmen." Holland's Leaguer, A. i. S. 5. Give me out one by chance. [TRAINS gives him a paper out of the bag.] "Project four: Dogs' skins." Twelve thousand pound! the very worst at first. Meer. 'Tis a toy, a trifle! Fitz. Trifle! twelve thousand pound for dogs' skins? Meer. Yes, But, by my way of dressing, you must know, sir, Of improved ware, like your borachio Of Spain,' sir, I can fetch nine thousand for't- Meer. Yes; how heard you that? Eng. Sir, I do know you can. Meer. Within this hour; And reserve half my secret. Pluck another; See if thou hast a happier hand; [TRAINS draws out another.] I thought so. The very next worse to it!" Bottle-ale." Yet this is two and twenty thousand. Prithee Fitz. Good; stay, friend By bottle-ale two and twenty thousand pound? Meer. Yes, sir, it's cast to penny-halfpenny farthing. On the back-side, there you may see it, read, 1 like your borachio Of Spain.] "Borachio (says Minshieu) is a bottle commonly of a pigges skin, with the hair inward, dressed inwardly with rozen, to keep wine or liquor sweet: "-Wines preserved in these bottles contract a peculiar flavour, and are then said to taste of the borachio. 2 I will not bate a Harrington of the sum.] In 1613, a patent was granted to John Stanhope, lord Harrington, Treasurer of the Chambers, for the coinage of royal farthing tokens, of which he |