THOROWGOOD

Pox upon him, is not her name Clare, niece to Alderman Covets Attend your charge friend, Valentine, Sir Timothy. You're well encountered, may I inquire the affair Which happily has brought you up toth' City? But for thee: my noble man of merit, thou art welcome, Weel be as kind to one another boy, And witty as brisque poets in their wine, Weel court the black browd beauty's of the time, And have by them the height of our desires: with ease accompli shed You sir, you've reason, One that live on Onions and Corn-sallets. Nay no Herald Can better blaze your pedigree. I've herd Your father my most worthy knight, was one That died a knave to leave you so. To change this ancient garment to a new one Of a more spruce edition. Who's that? my doughty Imp of spur and sword, Some fair Dulcina de Tob so. I do commend thee my deer Done, and will Be thy assistant, go and see thy horse dressed, And then approach my chamber. Do you, Valentine, know The Lady he intends to Court. O she'll make And excellent Ass of him: she has a wit More sharp and piercing than a Wasps sting, she speaks All fire; each word is able to burn up A thousand such poor Mushrooms: had her mother Not been held honest, I should have believed She'd been some Courtiers By-blow, or that some Quick Poet God her. Rare, passed expression, singular, her eyes The very spheres of love, her cheeks his throne, Her lips his paradise, and then her mind Js far more excellent than her shape. When didst thou know me otherwise: yet now In sober sadness friend, couldst thou affect A woman, as there's few of them worth loving, Thou canst not make a nobler choice: I'll bring thee On to the skirmish, but if thou retreat, Beatrice back by the hight Artillery of her wit, Which will play fast upon thee: mayest thou live To be enamoured on some stale Hay, or Matron Of fourscore, that may congeal thee to a frost Sooner than forty winter's: or be wed To and insatiate Chambermaid. This fool shall serve both her and us for sport: Lets to our task; and if our project hit, I'll swear all fortune is comprised in wit. Exeunt. My appellation or pronomen, as (It is termed by the Latins ) is hight Jeremy, But my Cognomen, as the English gather, Is called Holdfast. The Nominals, the Thomists, all the sects Of old and modern Schoolmen, do oblige me, To pay to that Sir Geoffrey fillial duty. My business is of procreation, or as The Civil Lawyers learnedly do paraphrase, Is of concomitance, Cohabitation, Or what you please to term it. One at once sir, 'Twill satisfy; the Canon does prohibit Us Polygamy. Fair types, nay Orbs of beauty, J salute you, Each in his proper altitude. Most rubicund, stelliferous splendant Ladies, The ocular faculties, by which the beams Of love are darted into every soul, Or humane essence, have into my breast Conveyed this Ladies lustre: and J can Admire no other object; therefore beauty Your pardon, if J only do address In terms Scholastic, and in Metaphors My phrase to her. You're full of Candor; Jf you will love me Lady isle approach your ears, Not in a garb Domestic, or terms vulgar, But hourly change my language, court you now, In the Chaldean, or Arabic tongues, Expound the Talmud to you, and the Rabbines, Then read the Dialect of the Alanits, Or Ezion Gebor, which the people use Five leagues beyond the Sunrising, in stead Of pages to attend you, I will bring Sects of Philosophers and quaint Logicians, Weel Procreate by learned art, and I Will generate new brood's of Scholars on you, Which shall defend opinions far more various Then all the Sectaries of Amsterdam Have ever vented. Do but love, I'll call the Muses from the sacred hill To Enucleat your beauty: I my self (After in loftier numbers I have sung Your famed Encomiums) will convert to poet, And for your sake I'll write the city annals, In famous Meeter which shall far surpass Sir Guy of Warwick's history: or John Stows upon The custard with the four and twenty Nooks At my Lord Majors feast. Whose brave show hereafter Shall be no more set forth with stalking pageants, Nor children ride for angels nor loud actors Pronounce bold speeches, I will teach his Heneh boys Sergeants and trumpeters to act and save The city all that charges: Nay I'll make a new Found engine; which without fire shall keep his Whitebroath warm till his return from Westminster Nor shall the Aldermen's daughters, who have Dreamed at least six nights before of guilded Marchpane, forfeit their serious longing: I'll have Horses with their Saint Georges on them, that shall gallop Into their handkerchiefs. The cross And standard in Cheapeside I will convert To Hercules pillars: and the little conduit That weeps in lamentation for the Church, Removed that did lean on, it shall be still Like the great tun at Heidleberge sild with wine, And always running, that the prentices Shall not on Sundays needs to frequent Taverns, And forfeit their indentures. The great conduit Shall be a magezin of sack, and Smithfield A Romish Cirque or Grecian Hippodrom, My Lord Majors gennet shall not die without And Elegy, nor any citizen break, But have a doleful ditty writ upon him. help me to laugh good wenches, I have tal ed Thy Uncle Clare into so free and humour, That he's resolved straight to take forth the licence, And marry us ith' morning. Prithee good wit no more, we've overcome All foreign enemies, and 'tis unfit To war among our selves. Life they'll persuade me out of my self, Clare, Grace, know you not me, not Thorowgood. What should these wenches mean, the ive and shears Cannot resolve this mystery; they know me Better then I can know my self: 'twas she Advised me to this habit to deceive Her uncle's prying eyes, and why then Should they abuse me thus? the rest were made But fools in Quarto, but I find my self And ass in Folio: I'll away, and if I quit them not with and abuse as fine, I'll say there is no quickening spirit in wine. Exit. You may endeavour With the large talon of your masculine wit To exceed their female sharpness you shall find, Though you firm and stiff in your defence, These city lasses able to take down Your most courageous fury: pray endeavour't. Yes, who never Had mooted in the hall or seen the revels Kept in the house at Christmas. With what speed Can be convenient, sir Timothy Shall be our instrument. A revenge Upon these peevish wenches, one of them Loves me entirely, nay has vowed me a marriage, And did advice me to assume this shape, To cheat her uncle. Thy face I must confess, Is full of choice allurements, see there maid, How fares it with your witty mistress, My gallant type of beauty, is the stomach, Come down, I him sure you are furnished With some excuse or lamentable epistle, To reconcile me to them. She not know me neither? Heel declare it. See they are parting. The business Valentine. You'll please to pardon Our rude intention sir, we have some business. This gentleman and my self, Come to inform you that this spark my Cousin, Is son and heir to sir Geoffrey Holdfast, And since I hear you have disposed your daughter To that good knight, I in his father's name, Desire your niece should be his wife. The very same sir. Valentine, Would, would, would. And how is't bully, hast not found these girls Of a hight appetite, how often would? Nothing sir, But to inform you what strange things your niece, And daughter and, nay never blush he has Performed it better then your uncle's foreman. I know he has. Do you think sir, my Cousin shall mix with such Stale beware that keep their gamesters in their chambers. Keep them. they I serve to set up some twice Broken Merchant, or undone Linen-draper, come away Valentine, thou hast made a brave discovery. Farewell, My witty virgins, you are pay now. Exeunt. Come, your rage Is useless now: he has done better for you, Than I by the circumstance perceive you had Intended for your selves: what would you've done With two such Marchpane husbands? I believe, For all you set a good face on the matter, It your own plot. Cousin Holdfast, a good day attend Thy learned piamater: prithee tell me How do the Cabalists and ancient Rabbis And thou agree? will they be sociable, And drink their morning's draught of Helicon With thee: have they instructed you to prove yet That the world runs on wheels? or that the sea May be drunk off by a shoal of Whale's? such things You know there are in nature. Peace you bookworm, Fit only to devour more paper then A thousand grand tobacco men or a legion Of boys in pellets to their eldern guns. Dost think to live this life still? you're not now Amongst your eves at Cambridge, but in London, Come up to see your mistress beauteous Clare, The glory of the city: go and court her, As does become a gentleman of carriage, Without your Tropes and figures Inkehorne terms, Fit only for a Mountebanke or Pedant, Or all your Physics Metaphysics and Meteors, (Tomes larger far and more replete with lies, Then Surius, Gallo-Belgcus, or the welsh Barred Geoffrey Monmouth ) sh l be straightway made Pitiful Martyrs. Thy self and errant idiot, that's the fittest Thought for thy brain more dull then a fat Burghers, Or reverend country justices, whose wit Lies in his spruce clerks standish, thou Wertenberg begotten Surely ith' wane oth' Moon, when nature's tools Were at lame Vulcan's forge a sharpening, thou art so lumpish. He says truth: beside your study has attained already, Learning enough to inform your mind the knowledge Of arts fit for a gentleman, Wertenberg not better For you my sprightful senior to advance Your beaver with a hatband of the last Edition in the Court, among the noblest Youths of our nation, then to walk Like Faustus, Or some high Germane conjurer, in a cap Fit for a Costermonger, to wear your pearl Or cut work, band then this small ip of linning That's proper only for TO om Thum: or some of queen Mabs gen tlemen-ushers. Oh far before her, cousin thou shalt read Are jus Politics; and Ou ds Art, Shall be new read, thee and we will refine Thy Academic wit with bowls of wine. Speak Like the son of Phœbus and my cousin. Fell thy Dictionary. They are out of fashion. Unless it be to a bound. What in that reverend shape? the gentlemen That I converse with, will believe thee some Itinerant Scholar, have thee whipped by the statute. Still them terms? study to forget them, I'll send my Man to you with a new suit of mine I never wore yet, Be sure to put it on right, you mere Scholars Know no degree of garment above Serge, Or Satanisco: tie your band-strings neatly And do not eat the buttons off, put not Your Cuffs both on one hand; 'twill tax your judgement Of new inventing fashions when accoustred, Come to my chamber, and I'll furnish you With language fit to accost your mistress. How I could laugh now, were my spleen large enough: a Hundred such lame stupid Idiots were enough, if married, To precise Burghers daughters to replenish The city with a raze of fools, and root The stock of knaves quite out of it, he loves books: Not that he has a scruple more of learning Then will suffice him to say grace, but Like Some piteous cowards, who are oft thought valiant For keeping store of weapons in their chambers, He loves to be esteemed a doctor by His volumes: but I shall fit his scholarship: whose these? Alderman Covets, Formal, byth' proportion: Ent. Formal and Clare. That rib of men flesh should be Clare, dost hear My honest Cadis garters: who for care And close attendance on thy charge deserves To be grand porter to the great Turks Seraglia : how hight that veiled damsel? I shall be forced to hear him blaze her pedigree, Idem Beatrice him, but that clubs and paring shovels oth' city Would be so busy abou my ears: they spoil My hearing two months after Gentle Lady Pardon my error if I do mistake, are not you mistress Clare ? Yes, my girl: good Formal use thy motion to convey Thy ears a little farther off, there's money To buy thee a new pair of garters: Clare Thou shalt no more behold me in the garb And noble ornament I used to wear, my fashion shall be altered. Oh by all means girl thou shalt behold this comely hat transformed To frugal brim, and steeple crown, this band Of fair extent changed to a modern cut, Narrower then a precisians: all this gay And gawdy silk I will convert to Serge Of limber length: Like some spruce student (newly Exalted for saying grace well, to be fellow Oth' College he had studied) I will Salute thy reverend Uncle's spectacles, And without fear of his gold chain, isle woe thee In metaphors and tropes Scholastic till The doting Senator with a liberal hand give Thee his dainty darling to become my spouse inseparable. True girl true, farewell Clare, I kiss thy white hand: Sir resume your charge, I have done my errand: let not your old Sir Amiar Know of this conference, if you do, that twist Of spinners thread, on which your life depends Exe. Clare. & Formal. Shall be shorn off Like a horse mane. Farewell. May I know it? is't not to purchase a Monopoly For Salt and Herrings? for state business, Unless it be to see the great new ship, Or Lincoln's Inn fields built: I'm sure you none here. You are a Gipsy, but does thy uncles hu our hold of wed ding His daughter to sir Timothy. Yes, by my means, scarce otherwise wilt thou have her Speak but a syllable, it shall be performed As sure as if Done Hymen, in his robes Had ratified the contract. Their bloods Are always ith' Dogdayes: but good Valentine Be serious, did their maid bring news of love From either of them? You'll practice our design I hope. Pray be you Sir Timothy, know his entrance: 'Tis such another madcap my Scene is. He comes not with a warrant. You're very welcome Sir, my Cousin speaks you A Citizen of rank. That you're witty, Or as he says a spark. Would trust me For forty else of Holland? And continue Ith' state of wisdom still; and humble Constable? 'Tis granted sir: Come gentlemen, and our Is ou extent of time: good Mr. Constable It shall be yours. Cousin J have some business Concerns your knowledge, as we pass along J shall inform you. Exeunt. And this cloak of tinder comely for a ballad-seller, Life sir, you are born here to and ample fortune, Your father absent knows not how you've altered Your disposition: I must reclaim it, Thou shalt with me and court the beauteous Clare Reserved for thee, a purpose ith' mean time, Our chief companions, shall be wits more pure, Then your quick sophisters, or lie logicians, We'll talk of the bright beauty's of the age, Girls whose each look deserves to be a theme For all the nimble poets, two days practice In our brave arts will teach thee to forget Philosophy as fruitless and abjure All other Ethics, but what's used amongst us, as most erroneous And pray right witty, and right honoured sir, What may your business seem to be ith' city. Are you come up to learn new fashions? Is this the venerable Man, to whom This goodly Mansion is impropriate: I should negotiate with his reverence About authentic business.