MERCER

Perform this, help me to this great heir by lear ning, and you shall want no black cloaks, taffaties, silk grogerams, satins & velvets are mine, they shall be yours; perform what you have promised, & you shall make me a lover of Sciences, I will study the learned languages, & keep my shop-book in Latin. Let Art have her course. Look to my shop, & if there come ever a Schol ler in black, let him speak with me, we that are shop-kee pers in good trade, are so pestered, that we can scarce pick out and hour for our morning's meditation: & howsoever we are all accounted dull, and common jesting stocks, for your gallants; there are some of us, do not diserue it: for for my own partly, I do begin to be given to my book, I love a scholar with my heart; for questionless there are marvelous things to be done by Art: why sir, some of the ̄ will tell you what is become of horses, & silver spones, & will make wenches dance naked to their beds: I am yet unmarried, and because some of our neighbours are said to be Cuckolds, I will never marry without the consent of some of these scholars, that know what will continued ̄ e of it. Never to you sir, nor to any of your coat. Sir is there any thing to be done by Art, concerning the great heir we talked on? Betwixt three and four? she's brave in clothes; is she not? What shall she? It comes right, all things suit right with me, since I began to love scholars, you shall have it home with you, against she come: carry it to this Gentleman's house. Heaven prosper both our studies, what a dull slave was I, before I fell in love with this learning? not worthy to tread upon the earth, and what fresh Hope's it ath put into me? I do hope within this twelve month, to be able by Art, to serve the Court with silks, and not undo my self; to trust knights, and yet get in my money again; to keep my wife brave, and yet she keep no bo die else, so. Enter Count, and Lazarello. Your Lordship is most honorably welcome, in regard of your Nobility, but most especially in regard of your scholarship: did your Lordship come openly? Are you scholastical? You have no skill in the black Art? Shall I talk with you in private Sir? Will not your Lordship take a piece of Beef with me? The Gentleman is meditating. Not so Sir, you shall take a piece of Beef with me. By my faith, but you shall Sir; in regard of your love to learning, and your skill in the black Art. Why your desire is sufficient to me, you shall stay. Virtue and Grace are always paird together: but I will leave to stir your blood Sir, and now to our business. I apprehend you Sir, I will gather my self together, with my best phrases, and so I shall discourse in some sort takingly. The Muses favour me as my intents are virtuous; Sir you shall be my tutor, 'tis never to late Sir to love lear ning: when I can once speak true Latin — Marry I will then beggar all your Bawdy writers, and undertake at the peril of my own invention, all Pageants, poesies for Chimneys, Speeches for the Dukes entertainment, whensoever and whatsoever; nay I will build at mine own charge, and Hospital, to which shall retyer, all diseased opinions, all broken Poets, all Prose-men that are fallen from small sense, to mere let ters; and it shall be lawful, for a Lawyer, if he be a civil man, though a have undone others & himself by the lan guage; to retire to this poor life, and learn to be honest. Sir, I do know sufficiently their shop-books can not save them, there is a further end— I do confess it Sir, provided still they be canoni coll, and have some worthy hands set to um for probati on: but we forget our selves. All that love learning pray for my good success. Have I spoke thus much in the honour of learning? learned the names of the seven ̄ liberal Sciences, before my marriage; & since, have in hast written Epistles congratula ry, to the 9. Muses: & is she proved a whore & a Beggar? I will go home; good sir do not publish this, as lo ̄ g as it run's amo ̄ gst our selves; it's good honest mirth: you'll come ho ̄ e to supper; I mean to have all her friends & mine as ill as it goes. Art is just, and will make me a mends. The chief note of a Scholar you say, is to go verne his passion; wherefore I do take all patiently; in sign of which my most deer wife, I do kiss thee: make hast home after me, I shall be in my Study. Sir, I was harkening to you. There your books fail you Sir, in truth I wear no socks. A pretty wash I'll assure you. You are again beside your text; sir, they are a the best of wool, and they cleped jersey. Nine shillings, by my love to learning. Sure you are very honest, and yet ye have a kind of modest fear to show it: do not deny it, that face of yours, is a worthy learned modest face. And you as well encountered, what of this heir? hath your books been propitious? There is one thing entombed in that graven breast, that makes me equally admire it with your scholarship. This speech of yours, shows you to have some skill in the Science, wherefore in civility, I may not suffer you to depart empty.