MIRTH

How now Gossip! how doe's the Play please you? I, she is a proper piece! that such creatures can broke for. Or a begging scholar in black, or one of these beggarly Poets, gossip, that would hang upon a young heir Like a horseleech. I, these were tolerable Beggars, Beggars of fashion! you shall see some such anon! But they have no Fool in this Play, I am afraid, gossip. I remember it gossip, I went with you, by the same token, M rs . Trouble Truth dissuaded us, and told us, he was a profane Poet, and all his Plays had Devils in them. That he kept school upon the Stage, could conjure there, above the School of Westminster, and Doctor Lamb too: not a Play he made, but had a Devil in it. And that he would learn us all to make our husbands Cuckolds at Plays: by another token, that a young married wife i'the company, said, she could find in her heart to steal thither, and see a little o'the vanity through her masque, and come practice at home. Nay, Gossip, I name no body. It may be 'twas my self. As fine a gentleman of his inches, as ever I saw trusted to the Stage or any where else: and loved the common wealth, as well as ere a Pa triot of them all: he would carry away the Vice on his back, quick to Hell, in every Play where he came, and reform abuses. But there was one Smug, a Smith, would have made a horse laugh, and broke his halter, as they say. 'Twas his partly, Gossip, he was to be drunk, by his partly. I fear we are all such, and we were old enough: But we are not all old enough to make one witch. How Like you the Vice i'the Play. That was the old way, Gossip, when Iniquity came in Like Hokos Pokos, in a Jugglers jerkin, with false skirts Like the Knave of Clubs! but now they are attired Like men and women of the time, the Vices, male and female! Prodigality Like a young heir, and his Mi stress Money (whose favours he scatters Like counters) prank't up Like a prime Lady, the Infanta of the Mines. By whom is it so thought? or where lies the abuse? Take heed, it lie not in the vice of your interpretation: what have Aurelia, Claram, Pecuniam to do with any person? do they any more, but express the property of Money, which is the daughter of earth, and drawn out of the Mines? Is there nothing to be called Infanta, but what is subject to exception? Why not the Infanta of the Beggars? or Infanta o'the Gipsies? as well as King of Beggars, and King of Gipsies? That's but one Gossips opinion, and my Gossip Tatle's too! but what says Expectation, here, she sits sullen and silent. Or the butterbox, Buz, the Emissary. In Silver -street, the Region of money, a good seat for a Usurer. I, or humanity. Either would appear in this Peny-boy, and he were rightly distilled. But how Like you the news? you are gone from that. I, my Gossip Tatle knew what fine slips grew in Gardiners-lane; who kissed the Butchers wife with the Cowes-breath; what matches were made in the bowling-Alley, and what bettes won and lost; how much grieft went to the Mill and what beside: who conjured in Tutle-fields, and how many? when they never came there. And which Boy road upon Doctor Lamb, in the likeness of a roaring Lion, that run away with him in his teeth, and ha not devoured him yet. But very communicative, and liberal, and began to be magnificent, if the churl his father would have let him alone. With wine, gossips, as he meant to do, and then to de fraud his purposes? And lie so, in wait for a piece of wit, Like a Mousetrap? It was a plain piece of political incest, and worthy to be brought afore the high Commission of wit. Suppose we were to censure him, you are the youngest voice, Gossip Tatle, begin. Faith I would have him flat disinherited, by a decree of Court, bound to make restitution of the Lady Pecuniam, and the use of her body to his son. And dedicated to the sustaining of the Staple! Banckruptly, indeed! To scorn, of Mirth? Three or four: old Covetousness, the sordid Peny-boy, the Money-bawd, who is a flesh-bawd too, they say. Then it is worth nothing, mere pot- butter, fit to be spent in suppositories, or greasing coach-wheels, stale stinking butter, and such I fear it is, by the being barrelled up so long. Or to the time of year, in Lent, delicate Almond butter! I have a sweet tooth yet, and I will hope the best; and fit down as quiet, and calm as butter; look as smooth, and soft as butter; be merry, and melt Like but ter; laugh and be fat Like butter: so butter answer my expectation, and be not mad butter; If it be: It shall both July and December see. I say no more, But— Dixi. Y Ou hunt upon a wrong scent still, and think The air of things will carry them, but it must Be reason and proportion, not fine sounds, My cousin Cymbal, must get you this Lady. You have entertained a petty-fogger here, Picklock, with trust of and Emissartes place, And he is, all, for the young Prodigal, You see he has left us. I wonder they would suffer it, a foolish old fornicating Father, to ravish away his sons Mistress. A mourniuall of protests; or a gleek at least! Faith, and he herd you Censure, he would go near to stick the Asses ears to your high dressing, and perhaps to all ours for harkening to you. A beggarly Jack it is, I warrant him, and a kin to the Poet.