SEXTON

What's the matter with out there? The last of tailors, Sir, that never take measure of you, while you have hope to wear a new suit. As worms do: —by the dead. Faith, Sir, but few: they Like poor travellers Take up their inn by chance: but some there be. No such matter. Never fear it. This was a captains skull, one that carried a storm in his count nance, and a tempest in his tongue. The great bugbear of the city, that threw drawers down the stairs as familiarly as quart pots; and had a pension from the Barbour-chirurgeons for break king of pates. A fellow that had ruined the noses of more bawds and panders, then the disease belonging to the trade. —And yet I remember when he went to burial, another corpse took the wall of him, and the bandog never grumbled. This was a poetical noddle. Oh the sweet lines, choice language, eloquent figures, beside the jests, half jests, quarter jests, and quibbles that have come out o'these chaps that yawn so! He has not now so much as a new-coyn'd-complement to pro cure him a supper. The best friend he has may walk by him now, and yet have never a jeer put upon him. His mistress had a little dog deceased the other day, and all the wit in this noddle could not pump out and Elegy to bewail it. He has been my tenant this seven years, and in all that while I never herd him rail against the times, or complain of the neglect of learning. Melpomene and the rest of the Muses have a good time on't that he is dead: for while he lived, he never left calling upon they. He was buried (as most of the tribe) at the charge of the parish, and is happier dead then alive: for he has now as much money as the best in the company,—and yet has left off the poetical way of begging, called Borrowing. Alas! Sir, you have posed him: he cannot speak to give you and answer, though his mouth be always open. A man may safely converse with him now, and never fear stifling in a crowd of verses. And now a Play of his may be freely censured, without a libel upon the audience. The boys may be bold to cry it down. Death is a blunt villain, Madam: he makes no distincti on betwixt Jone and my Lady. This was the prime Madam in Thebes, the general mistress, the only adored beauty. Little would you think there were a couple of stars in these two au gur-holes: or that this pit had been arched over with a handsome nose, that had been at the charges to maintain half a dozen of see verall silver arches to uphold the bridge. It had been a mighty fa vour once, to have kissed these lips that grin so. This mouth out of all the Madams boxes cannot now be furnished with a set of teeth. She was the coyest overcurious dame in all the city: her chambermaids misplacing of a hair, was as much as her place came to. —O! if that Lady now could but behold this physiognomy of hers in a lookingglass, what a monster would she imagine her self! Will all her perrukes, tires and dresses, with her chargeable teeth, with her ceruse and pomatum, and the be nefit of her painter and doctor, make this idol up again? Paint Ladies while you live, and plaster fair, But when the house is fallen it's passed repair. Profit's my religion. STaphyla, why Staphyla: I hope she has taken her last sleep. Why when, Staphyla? A prize, my rogue, a prize. Why, thou knowest I rob no where but on the high way to heaven, such as are upon their last journey thither. Thou and I have been land-pyrats this six and thirty years, and have pillaged our share of Charon's passengers. Here are a couple of found sleepers, and perchance their clothes will fit us. Then will I walk Like a Lord, and thou shalt be my Madam, Staphyla. I forbid the banes. Pardon me, Sir; I seriously vow Henceforth to rob no creature but the living. Tush, dreams are idle things. There is no felony warrant able but ours, for it is grounded on rules of charity. Is it fitting the dead should be clothed, and the living go naked? Beside, what is it to them whither they lie in sheets or no? Did you ever hear of any that caught cold in his coffin? Moreover, there is safety and security in these attempts: What inhabitant of the grave that had his house broke open, accused the thief of Burr glary? Look here: This is a Lawyers skull. There was a tongue in't once, a damnable eloquent tongue, that would almost have persuaded any man to the gallows. This was a turbulent busy fellow, till death gave him his Quietus est. And yet I ven tur to rob him of his gown, and the rest of his habillements, to the very buckrum-bag, not leaving him so much as a poor halfpenny to pay for his wafrage: and yet the good man never re pined at it. Had he been alive, and were to have pleaded against me, how would he have thundered it? —Behold (most grave Judges) a fact of that horror and height in sin, so abominable, so detestable in the eyes of heaven and earth, that never any but this days cause presented to the admiration of your ears. I can not speak it without trembling, it's so new, so unused, so unheard of a villainy! But that I know your Lordship's confident of the honesty of your poor Orator, I should not hope by all my reasons, grounds, testimonies, arguments, and persuasions to gain your belief. This man, said I man? this monster rather: but monster is too easy a name: this devil, this incarnate devil, would ving lost all honesty, and abjured the profession of virtue, Robbed, (a sin in the Actium.) But who? The dead. What needs I aggravate the fault? the naming the Actium is sufficient to con demne him. I say, he robbed the dead. The dead! Had he robbed the living, it had been more pardonable: but to rob the dead of their clothes, the poor impotent dead, that can neither carded, nor spin, nor make new ones, Oh it's most audacious and intolerable! —Now you have well spoke, why do you not after all this Rhetoric, put your hand behind you, to receive some more in structions backward? Now a man may clap you o'th' cox comb with his spade, and never stand in fear of and Actium of battery. Bright as the sun! Come, we must strip you Gallants, the worms care not for having the dishes served up to their table covered. Oh, Oh, Oh!