FACETIÆ.

I.

Holding in Capite.

First Gent. 'Tis well known I am a Gentleman. My father was a man of 500l. a year, and he held something in capite too.

Second Gent. So does my Lord Something

Foolish Lord. Nay, by my troth, what I hold in capite is worth little or nothing.

the

II.

Fool's Experience.

Page. He that's first a scholar, and next in love, the year after is either an arrant fool or a madman. Master. How came your knavery by such experience? Page. As fools do by news: somebody told me so, and I believe it.

Softly, ye

III.

Modern Sybarite.

villains!—the rogues of chairmen

have trundled me over some damn'd nutshell or other, that gave me such a jerk, as has half murder'd me.

IV.

Spare diet of Spaniards.

Spaniard. The air being thin and rarified generally provides us good stomachs.

Englishman. Aye, and the earth little or nothing to satisfy 'em with; I think a cabbage is a jewel among you.

Span. Why, truly a good cabbage is respected. But our people are often very luxurious, they abound very often.

Eng. O no such matter, faith, Spaniard! 'death, if they get but a piece of beef, they shall hang all the bones out, and write underneath, Here hath been beef eaten, as if 'twere a miracle. And if they get but a lean hen, the feathers shall be spread before the door with greater pride than we our carpets at some princely solemnity.

V.

Foolish Form.

Servant (to my Lord Stately's Gentleman Usher.) Sir, here's your Lord's footman come to tell you, your Lord's hat is blown out of his hand.

Lord W. Why did not the footman take it up?
Usher. He durst not, my Lord; 'tis above him.
Lord W. Where? a'top of the chimney?
Usher. Above his office, my Lord.

Lord. W. How does this fool, for want of solid greatness, swell with empty ceremony, and fortify himself with outworks! That a man must dig thro' rubbish to English Friar.

come at an ass.

VI.

Cast Books.

Waiting Maid. I have a new Bible too; and when my Lady left her Practice of Piety, she gave it me.

Newcastle.

VII.

Good at Guessing.

Nay, good Mr. Constable, you are e'en the luckiest at

being wise that ever I knew.

Newcastle.

VIII.

Essays at Essays.

1. O eternal blockhead, did you never write Essays? 2. I did essay to write Essays, but I cannot say I wri Essays. Newcastle.

IX.

Hard Words.

Indiscerptibility, and Essential Spissitude: words which, though I am no competent judge of, for want of languages, yet I fancy strongly ought to mean nothing. Mrs. Behn.

X.

Scandals to Atheism.

a late learned Doctor; who, though himself no great assertor of a Deity, yet was observed to be continually persuading this sort of men [the rakehelly blockheaded Infidels about town] of the necessity and truth of our religion; and being asked how he came to bestir himself so much this way, made answer, that it was because their ignorance and indiscreet debauch made them a Scandal to the Profession of Atheism.

XI.

Excuse for being afraid in a Storm.

Behn

Master. Courage! why what dost thou call courage? Hector himself would not have exchang'd his ten years' siege for our ten days' storm at sea. A Storm a hundred thousand fighting men are nothing to it; cities sack'd by fire, nothing. 'Tis a resistless coward, that attacks a man at disadvantage; an unaccountable magic, that first conjures down a man's courage, and then plays the devil over him; and, in fine, it is a Storm !

Mate. Good lack, that it should be all these terrible things, and yet that we should outlive it!

Master. No god-a-mercy to our courages tho', I tell you that now; but like an angry wench, when it had huffed and bluster'd itself weary, it lay still again.

Behn.

XII.

Dutch Gallantry.

Mate. What, beat a woman, Sir?

Master. 'Psha, all's one for that; if I am provok'd, anger will have its effects upon whomsoe'er it light: so said Von Tromp, when he took his Mistress a cuff on the ear for finding fault with an ill-fashioned leg he made her. I liked his humour well. Behn.

XIII.

Dutchman.

sitting at home in the chimney corner, cursing the face of Duke de Alva upon the jugs, for laying an imposition on beer.

Behn.

XIV.

Rake at Church.

I shall know all, when I meet her in the chapel to morrow. I am resolved to venture thither, tho' I am afraid the dogs will bark me out again, and by that means let the congregation know how much I am a stranger to the place. Durfey.

XV.

Lying Traveller.

You do not believe me then? the devil take me, if

these home-bred fellows can be saved: they neither know nor believe half the creation.

Lacy.

XVI.

English Beau, contrasted with a French one.

a true-bred English Beau has indeed the powder, the essence, the toothpick, the snuff-box; and is as idle; but the fault is in the flesh-he has not the motion, and looks stiff under all this. Now a French Fop, like a Poet, is born so, and would be known without clothes; it is in his eyes, his nose, his fingers, his elbows, his heels. They dance when they walk, and sing when they speak. We have nothing in that perfection as abroad; and our cuckolds, as well as our grapes, are but half ripened. Burnaby.

XVII.

Fanciful Recipe, prescribed for sick Fancy.
The juice of a lemon that's civil at seasons,
Twelve dancing capers, ten lunatic reasons;
Two dying notes of an ancient swan;
Three sighs, a thousand years kept, if you can;
Some scrapings of Gyges's ring may pass,
With the skin of a shadow caught in a glass;
Six pennyworth of thoughts untold;

The jelly of a star, before it be cold;

One ounce of courtship from a country daughter;
A grain of wit, and a quart of laughter.-

Boil these on the fire of Zeal (with some beech-coals, lest the vessel burst).-If you can get these ingredients, I will compound them for you. Then, when the patient is perfectly recovered, she shall be married in rich cloth of rainbow laced with sunbeams.

Strode.