Passages from this character's speech that contain the most distinguishing words for Cluster 21 (gar, shillings, alii, yongrave, ogenes, nat…). Matches are highlighted.
will come. Like some at sea, (Yet dangerless of shipwreck more then they) Thou slumberest in a base lethargic swoon. Let others toil, thy journey's done as soon. Nature in all inferior things hath set A pitch or term, when they no more shall get Increase and offspring. Unrepaired houses Fallen to decay: old Cattle cease to breed.
Full speech
What's this? sharking, foxing, and a Pistol? Emblem of thief, cheater, murderer? Sure, this vile Eldern was not of my planting. I know him: 'Tis his brother, to whose trust I did infeoff my place. I leave your lordship too. I must about this mischief to prevent: I'll force you both your offices repent. Pull down that counterfeit, proud, arrogant, puff: Could your intrusion not content it self Usurp my office, but you must abuse The Kings deputed Judge? In case of Murder should we never judge By circumstanciall likelihoods and presumptions, No life could be secure. But late thy song was mercy, now all justice? Here's all the goodness of and Usurer. She saved his life, he would now hang her. Speak, woman, art thou guilty? This knot is hard to undo. Speak on your souls, which of these tongues speak truth. Pernicious Villains, hopeless to be good: That thus have strove to spill the guiltless blood. Widow, you are quit. Sir, wait you your doom. How? Speak; is this possible? Jailer, receive him to your custody, Till our joust censure give him punishment. Fox, I shall hunt you out. Proceed; the day hastens. Stand not upon your credit and good deeds. Your harvest would be small, if Like your seeds. If all that know thee stood about this place, And had free liberty to speak their thoughts, Round echoing curses would amaze thy soul, And with hells damned crew thy name enroule. But when the Widow, Orphan call for plagues On thy black life, thou highest unto thy bags; There dost applaud and hug thy wretched self: As solace against all woes lay in thy pelf. Thou hast no God but gold: that Deity Thou shouldst adore, and would still succour thee, Is quite rejected. And that Idol, money, Which bears away thy confidence and heart, When thou art plagued, aggravates thy smart. Thou art the Devils Executioner. His rankest plague on earth's and Usurer. Spirits in hell whip souls: extorting slaves Torment poor bodies so before their graves. Thou art a gulf, poor men's estates to drink. A quagmire; none pass over thee, but they sink. Unless Strepsiades-like, men could devise To pluck the Moon by Sorcery from the skies; Thy month and gain will come. Like some at sea, (Yet dangerless of shipwreck more then they) Thou slumberest in a base lethargic swoon. Let others toil, thy journey's done as soon. Nature in all inferior things hath set A pitch or term, when they no more shall get Increase and offspring. Unrepaired houses Fallen to decay: old Cattle cease to breed. And sappelesse trees deny more fruit or seed. The earth would heartless and infertile be, If it should never have a Jubilee. Only the Usurers money genders still: The longer, lustier: Age this does not kill. He lives to see his moneys moneys money, Even to a hundred generations reach. He, while his interest money in do's troule, Cares not to loose the principal, his Soul. He Like a cleanly Alchemist can soak And draw much silver, yet waste none in smoke. Thou lendest, Like water poured on seacoal fire, Or on a load of Lime a shower of rain. It seems to cool heat, but does more inflame. When all is done, And thou hast swelled thy heaps; to say no more, Thy coffer's only rich, and thou art poor. This common plague is on all Usurers shown: Th'haue much, yet are not Master's of their own. One day thy stintless mind shall have enough; When the divided pieces of thy self Shall in their several doomed mansions dwell: Enough of mould in graven, of fire in hell. But I spend breath in vain; come, let's proceed. How's this? Witty and joust. How say you? here produce The other two, your satisfaction's ready. Oh Sir, have I found you? Pull off that borrowed habit from his back. Oh that such foul deeds should be hid in black. Happy delusions! in such ways of ill, I wish men may be thus mistaken still. All Chronicles be filled with this; and let it Beas a wonder to all ears imparted. England had once and Usurer converted. Let mercy fallen on thy distressed soul. Now to the rest. Powerful truth! Murder will out, though by the Actors mouth.
Plot summary
Plot — The Honest Lawyer
Richard Vaster’s lands are mortgaged to Gripe the usurer for £300. Jealously believing himself to have been cuckolded, he sells his wife Florence to the bawd and innkeeper Marmaid, claiming her to be his sister. He then challenges Benjamin Gripe, the usurer’s son, to a duel, and pretends to be killed; the remorseful Benjamin is determined to make amends by looking after Vaster’s family. Valentine sets himself up as a phoney doctor and is asked to cure Gripe’s gout, which entails driving a large nail through the affected toe. While Gripe is inconvenienced by the nail, Valentine steals his purse and keys. Gripe also sends Benjamin to foreclose on Vaster’s mortgage; when Benjamin asks him to give the bereaved family a three-month respite, he is disinherited. Surprisingly, the nail does indeed drive out the gout. Curfew has passed himself off as the deputy Abbot of Newnham after the death of the real deputy, his brother, and he uses the abbey as a base for highway robbery. His first two victims are Valentine and the disguised Vaster, who both prove as rascally as he; the three of them end up going into partnership. They proceed to rob travellers: Vaster happily relieves Gripe of his money, but lets Benjamin off with an injunction to be good to the Vaster family. Whenever they leave anyone tied up on the road, Florence comes out of the nearby inn and releases them. She is proving a 1614 disappointment to Marmaid ~ all her clients seem to end up with a new moral outlook on prostitution — so the bawd allows Benjamin, the landlord, to take her away. He lodges her at his father’s house under an assumed name, Widow Sorrow. Valentine makes an affray at the inn, and is arrested. The justice before whom he is brought happens to be Gripe, who lets him off, because he has developed another medical complaint: inability to urinate. Valentine proposes using gunpowder to blow open the urinary tract, and again the treatment is surprisingly successful. Robert and Anne, Vaster’s son and daughter, are destitute, but nobody will give them any money, not even Bromley, Vaster’s former steward who owes everything to the family. Benjamin sends Robert to see ‘Widow Sorrow’, and falls in love with Anne. Robert soon identifies the widow as his mother, but suspects that her presence in the usurer’s household confirms his father’s suspicions of her adultery. When he threatens her with violence, Gripe has him committed to prison. The usurer attempts to seduce the widow, and gives her the…