A pretty conceit, and worth the finding! I ha’ such luck to spin out these fine things still, and, like a silkworm, out of myself. Here’s Master Barthol’mew Cokes, of Harrow o’th’ Hill, i’th’ County of Middlesex, Esquire, takes forth his licence to marry Mistress Grace Wellborn of the said place and county.

Come, indeed la, you are such a fool still!

No, but half a one, Win, you are the t’other half: man and wife make one fool, Win — Good! Is there the proctor, or doctor indeed, i’the diocese that ever had the fortune to win him such a Win! — There I am again! I do feel conceits coming upon me more than I am able to turn tongue to. A pox o’these pretenders to wit: your Three Cranes, Mitre, and Mermaid men! Not a corn of true salt nor a grain of right mustard amongst them all. They may stand for places or so again’ the next wit-fall, and pay twopence in a quart more for their canary than other men. But gi’ me the man can start up a Justice of Wit out of six-shillings beer and give the law to all the poets and poet-suckers i’ town. Because they are the players’ gossips! ’Slid, other men have wives as fine as the players, and as well dressed. Come hither, Win.

Why, how now, Master Littlewit! Measuring of lips, or moulding of kisses? Which is it?

Troth, I am a little taken with my Win’s dressing here! Does’t not fine, Master Winwife? How do you apprehend, sir? She would not ha’ worn this habit. I challenge all Cheapside to show such another — Moorfields, Pimlico Path, or the Exchange in a summer evening — with a lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let Master Winwife kiss you. He comes a-wooing to our mother, Win, and may be our father perhaps, Win. There’s no harm in him, Win.

None i’the earth, Master Littlewit.

I envy no man my delicates, sir.

Alas, you ha’ the garden where they grow still! A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head like a melocoton.

Good, i’faith! [Aside] ((Now dullness upon me, that I had not that before him, that I should not light on’t as well as he! Velvet head!))

But my taste, Master Littlewit, tends to fruit of a later kind: the sober matron, your wife’s mother.

Ay! we know you are a suitor, sir. Win and I both wish you well. By this licence here, would you had her, that your two names were as fast in it as here are a couple. Win would fain have a fine young father-i’-law with a feather, that her mother might hood it and chain it with Mistress Overdo. But you do not take the right course, Master Winwife.

No? Master Littlewit, why?

You are not mad enough.

How? Is madness a right course?

I say nothing, but I wink upon Win. You have a friend, one Master Quarlous, comes here sometimes?

Why? He makes no love to her, does he?

Not a tokenworth that ever I saw, I assure you. But —

What?

— he is the more madcap o’the two. You do not apprehend me.

You have a hot coal i’your mouth now, you cannot hold.

Let me out with it, dear Win.

I’ll tell him myself.

Do, and take all the thanks, and much good do thy pretty heart, Win.

Sir, my mother has had her nativity-water cast lately by the cunning-men in Cow Lane, and they ha’ told her her fortune, and do ensure her she shall never have happy hour unless she marry within this sennight, and when it is it must be a madman, they say.

Ay, but it must be a gentleman madman.

Yes, so the t’other man of Moorfields says.

But does she believe ’em?

Yes, and has been at Bedlam twice since, every day, to inquire if any

gentleman be there, or to come there, mad!

Why, this is a confederacy, a mere piece of practice upon her by these impostors!

I tell her so; or else say I that they mean some young madcap gentleman — for the devil can equivocate as well as a shopkeeper — and therefore would I advise you to be a little madder than Master Quarlous hereafter.

Where is she? Stirring yet?

Stirring! Yes, and studying an old elder come from Banbury, a suitor that puts in here at mealtide, to praise the painful Brethren, or pray that the sweet singers may be restored; says a grace as long as his breath lasts him! Sometime the spirit is so strong with him, it gets quite out of him, and then my mother or Win are fain to fetch it again with malmsey or aqua coelestis .

Yes indeed, we have such a tedious life with him for his diet, and his clothes, too: he breaks his buttons and cracks seams at every saying he sobs out.

He cannot abide my vocation, he says.

No, he told my mother a proctor was a claw of the Beast, and that she had little less than committed abomination, in marrying me so as she has done.

Every line (he says) that a proctor writes, when it comes to be read in the Bishop’s Court, is a long black hair, kembed out of the tail of Antichrist.

When came this ‘proselyte’?

Some three days since.

Oh, sir, ha’ you ta’en soil here? It’s well a man may reach you after three hours’ running, yet! What an unmerciful companion art thou, to quit thy lodging at such ungentlemanly hours! None but a scattered covey of fiddiers, or one of these rag-rakers in dunghills, or some marrowbone-man at most, would have been up when thou wert gone abroad, by all description. I pray thee, what ailest thou, thou canst not sleep? Hast thou thorns i’thy eyelids, or thistles i’thy bed?

I cannot tell: it seems you had neither i’your feet, that took this pain

No, an I had, all the lyme-hounds o’the city should have drawn after

Do you remember, Master Quarlous, what we discoursed on last night?

Not I, John; nothing that I either discourse or do at those times: I

No? Not concerning Win? Look you, there she is! and dressed as I told you she should be. Hark you, sir, had you forgot?

By this head, I’ll beware how I keep you company, John, when I drink, an you have this dangerous memory! That’s certain.

Why, sir?

Why?

We were all a little stained last night, sprinkled with a cup or two, and I agreed with Proctor John here to come and do somewhat with Win (I know not what ’twas) today; and he puts me in mind on’t now: he says he was coming to fetch me. Before truth, if you have that fearful quality, John, to remember when you are sober, John, what you promise drunk, John, I shall take heed of you, John. For this once, I am content to wink at you. Where’s your wife? Come hither, Win.

Why, John! Do you see this, John? Look you! Help me, John.

Oh, Win, fie, what do you mean, Win? Be womanly, Win. Make an outcry to your mother, Win! Master Quarlous is an honest gentleman, and our worshipful good friend, Win; and he is Master Winwife’s friend, too. And Master Winwife comes a suitor to your mother, Win, as I told you before, Win, and may, perhaps, be our father, Win. They’ll do you no harm, Win, they are both our worshipful good friends. Master Quarlous! You must know Master Quarlous, Win; you must not quarrel with Master Quarlous, Win.

No, we’ll kiss again, and fall in.

Yes, do, good Win.

I’faith, you are a fool, John.

A fool-John she calls me, do you mark that, gentlemen? Pretty Littlewit of velvet! A fool-John!

She may call you an apple-john, if you use this.

Pray thee, forbear, for my respect, somewhat.

Hoy-day! How respective you are become o’the sudden! I fear this

Alas, I am quite off that scent now.

How so?

Put off by a Brother of Banbury, one that, they say, is come here and governs all, already.

What do you call him? I knew divers of those Banburians when I was in Oxford.

Master Littlewit can tell us.

Sir! — Good Win, go in, and if Master Barthol’mew Cokes his man come for

What call you the reverend elder you told me of? Your Banbury man?

Rabbi Busy, sir. He is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir.

Oh, I know him! A baker, is he not?

He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see visions; he has given over his trade.

I remember that, too — out of a scruple he took, that (in spiced conscience) those cakes he made were served to bride-ales, maypoles, morrises, and such profane feasts and meetings. His Christen name is Zeal-of-the-land.

Yes, sir, Zeal-of-the-land Busy.

How, what a name’s there!

Oh, they have all such names, sir; he was witness for Win here — they will not be called godfathers — and named her Win-the-fight. You thought her name had been Winifred, did you not?

I did indeed.

He would ha’ thought himself a stark reprobate, if it had.

Ay, for there was a blue-starch-woman o’the name at the same time. A notable hypocritical vermin it is — I know him: one that stands upon his face more than his faith at all times; ever in seditious motion, and reproving for vainglory; of a most lunatic conscience and spleen, and affects the violence of singularity in all he does. (He has undone a grocer here, in Newgate Market, that broke with him, trusted him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he — that’s by the way.) By his profession, he will ever be i’the state of innocence, though, and childhood; derides all antiquity; defies any other learning than inspiration; and what discretion soever years should afford him, it is all prevented in his ‘original ignorance’. Ha’ not to do with him, for he is a fellow of a most arrogant and invincible dullness, I assure you. — Who is this?

By your leave, gentlemen, with all my heart to you, and God you good morrow — Master Littlewit, my business is to you. Is this licence ready?

Here, I ha’ it for you in my hand, Master Humphrey.

That’s well — nay, never open or read it to me; it’s labour in vain, you know. I am no clerk, I scorn to be saved by my book: i’faith, I’ll hang first. Fold it up o’your word and gi’ it me. What must you ha’ for’t?

We’ll talk of that anon, Master Humphrey.

Now or not at all, good Master Proctor: I am for no anons, I assure you.

Sweet Win, bid Solomon send me the little black box within in my study.

Ay, quickly, good mistress, I pray you, for I have both eggs o’the spit and iron i’the fire.

Why, you know the price, Master Numps.

I know? I know nothing, I. What tell you me of knowing, now I am in haste? Sir, I do not know, and I will not know, and I scorn to know, and yet — now I think on’t — I will and do know as well as another: you must have a mark for your thing here and eightpence for the box. I could ha’ saved twopence i’that, an I had bought it myself, but here’s fourteen shillings for you. Good Lord! how long your little wife stays! Pray God, Solomon, your clerk, be not looking i’the wrong box, Master Proctor.

Good, i’faith! No, I warrant you. Solomon is wiser than so, sir.

Fie, fie, fie, by your leave Master Littlewit, this is scurvy, idle, foolish and

Do you hear? — Jack Littlewit, what business does thy pretty head think this fellow may have, that he keeps such a coil with?

More than buying of gingerbread i’the Cloister here — for that we allow him — or a gilt pouch i’the Fair?

Master Quarlous, do not mistake him; he is his master’s both-hands, I assure you.

What, to pull on his boots a-mornings, or his stockings, does he?

Sir, if you have a mind to mock him, mock him softly, and look t’other

Pretty insect! Make much on him.

A plague o’this box, and the pox, too, and on him that made it and her that went for’t, and all that should ha’ sought it, sent it, or brought it! Do you see, sir?

Nay, good Master Wasp.

Good Master Hornet, turd i’your teeth, hold you your tongue. Do not I know you? Your father was a ’pothecary and sold clysters, more than he gave, I wusse. And turd i’your little wife’s teeth, too — here she comes — ’twill make her spit, as fine as she is, for all her velvet custard on her head, sir.

Oh, be civil, Master Numps!

Why, say I have a humour not to be civil, how then? Who shall compel me? You?

Here is the box now.

Why a pox o’your box, once again; let your little wife stale in it, an she will. Sir, I would have you to understand, and these gentlemen, too, if they please —

With all our hearts. Sir.

—that I have a charge. Gentlemen!

They do apprehend, sir.

Pardon me, sir, neither they nor you can apprehend me yet — you are an ass. I have a young master, he is now upon his making and marring; the whole care of his well-doing is now mine. His foolish schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and down the country with him to beg puddings and cake-bread of his tenants and almost spoiled him; he has learned nothing but to sing catches, and repeat ‘Rattle bladder rattle’ and ‘O Madge’. I dare not let him walk alone for fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing at supper, and in the sermon-times! If he meet but a carman i’the street, and I find him not talk to keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his tunes over at night in his sleep! He has a head full of bees! I am fain now (for this little time I am absent) to leave him in charge with a gentlewoman. ’Tis true, she is a justice of peace his wife, and a gentlewoman o’the hood, and his natural sister — but what may happen under a woman’s government, there’s the doubt. Gentlemen, you do not know him; he is another manner of piece than you think for! — but nineteen year old, and yet he is taller than either of you by the head, God bless him.

Well, methinks this is a fine fellow!

He has made his master a finer by this description, I should think.

Faith, much about one; it’s cross and pile, whether for a new farthing.

I’ll tell you, gentlemen —

Will’t please you drink, Master Wasp?

Why, I ha’ not talked so long to be dry, sir; you see no dust or cobwebs come out o’my mouth, do you? You’d ha’ me gone, would you?

No, but you were in haste e’en now, Master Numps.

What an I were? So I am still, and yet I will stay, too. Meddle you with your match, your Win there — she has as little wit as her husband, it seems; I have others to talk to.

She’s my match indeed, and as Littlewit as I. Good!

We ha’ been but a day and a half in town, gentlemen, ’tis true; and yesterday i’the afternoon we walked London, to show the city to the gentlewoman he shall marry, Mistress Grace; but afore I will endure such another half-day with him, I’ll be drawn with a good gib-cat through the great pond at home, as his uncle Hodge was! Why, we could not meet that heathen thing all day but stayed him: he would name you all the signs over as he went, aloud, and where he spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched — with all the little long-coats about him, male and female — no getting him away! I thought he would ha’ run mad o’the black boy in Bucklersbury that takes the scurvy, roguy tobacco there.

You say true, Master Numps: there’s such a one indeed.

It’s no matter whether there be or no. What’s that to you?

He will not allow of John’s reading at any hand.

Oh, Numps! are you here, Numps? Look where I am, Numps! and Mistress Grace, too! Nay, do not look angerly, Numps: my sister is here, and all. I do not come without her.

What the mischief! Do you come with her, or she with you?

We came all to seek you, Numps.

To seek me? Why, did you all think I was lost? Or run away with your fourteen shillings’ worth of small ware here? Or that I had changed it i’the Fair for hobby-horses? ’Sprecious — to seek me!

Nay, good Master Numps, do you show discretion, though he be exorbitant — as Master Overdo says — an’t be but for conservation of the peace.

Marry gip, Goody She-Justice, Mistress French Hood! Turd i’your teeth, and turd i’your French hood’s teeth, too, to do you service, do you see? Must you quote your Adam to me! You think you are Madam Regent still, Mistress Overdo, when I am in place? No such matter, I assure you: your reign is out when I am in, dame.

I am content to be in abeyance, sir, and be governed by you — so should he, too, if he did well. But ’twill be expected you should also govern your passions.

Will’t so, forsooth? Good Lord! how sharp you are! — with being at Bedlam

Nay, if you know not what belongs to your dignity, I do yet to mine.

Very well, then.

Is this the licence, Numps? For love’s sake, let me see’t. I never saw a licence.

Did you not so? Why, you shall not see’t, then.

An you love me, good Numps.

Sir, I love you, and yet I do not love you i’these fooleries. Set your heart at rest, there’s nothing in’t but hard words. And what would you see’t for?

I would see the length and the breadth on’t, that’s all — and I will see’t now, so I will.

You sha’ not see it, here.

Then I’ll see’t at home, and I’ll look upo’ the case here.

Why, do so.

— A man must give way to him a little in trifles, gentlemen. These are errors, diseases of youth, which he will mend when he comes to judgement and knowledge of matters. I pray you, conceive so, and I thank you. And I pray you, pardon him, and I thank you again.

Well, this dry-nurse, I say still, is a delicate man.

And I am for the cosset his charge! Did you ever see a fellow’s face more accuse him for an ass?

Accuse him? It confesses him one without accusing. What pity ’tis yonder wench should marry such a ‘cokes’!

’Tis true.

She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.

Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon all his behaviour and speeches!

Well, Numps, I am now for another piece of business more: the Fair, Numps, and then —

Bless me! Deliver me, help, hold me! The Fair!

Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am resolute Barthol’mew in this; I’ll make no suit on’t to you. ’Twas all the end of my journey, indeed, to show Mistress Grace my fair: I call’t my fair, because of Barthol’mew: you know my name is Barthol’mew, and Barthol’mew Fair.

That was mine afore, gentlemen — this morning. I had that, i’faith, upon his licence, believe me; there he comes after me.

Come, John, this ambitious wit of yours (I am afraid) will do you no good i’the end.

No? Why, sir?

You grow so insolent with it and overdoing, John, that if you look not to it and tie it up, it will bring you to some obscure place in time, and there ’twill leave you.

Do not trust it too much, John; be more sparing, and use it but now and then. A wit is a dangerous thing in this age; do not overbuy it.

Think you so, gentlemen? I’ll take heed on’t hereafter.

Yes, do, John.

A pretty little soul, this same Mistress Littlewit! Would I might marry her.

((So would I, or anybody else, so I might scape you.))

Numps, I will see it, Numps, ’tis decreed — never be melancholy for the matter.

Why, see it, sir, see it, do see it! Who hinders you? Why do you not go see it? ’Slid, see it.

The Fair, Numps, the Fair!

Would the Fair and all the drums and rattles in’t were i’your belly, for me: they are already i’your brain. He that had the means to travel your head now should meet finer sights than any are i’the Fair, and make a finer voyage on’t: to see it all hung with cockle-shells, pebbles, fine wheat-straws, and here and there a chicken’s feather and a cobweb.

Good faith, he looks, methinks, an you mark him, like one that were made to catch flies, with his Sir Cranion legs.

And his Numps to flap ’em away.

God be wi’ you, sir, there’s your bee in a box, and much good do’t you.

Why, ‘your friend and Barthol’mew’, an you be so contumacious.

What mean you, Numps?

I’ll not be guilty, I, gentlemen.

You will not let him go, brother, and lose him?

Who can hold that will away? I had rather lose him than the Fair, I wusse.

You do not know the inconvenience, gentlemen, you persuade to, nor what trouble I have with him in these humours. If he go to the Fair, he will buy of everything to a baby there, and household-stuff for that, too. If a leg or an arm on him did not grow on, he would lose it i’the press. Pray heaven I bring him off with one stone! And then he is such a ravener after fruit! You will not believe what a coil I had t’other day to compound a business between a Cathern-pear-woman and him about snatching! ’Tis intolerable, gentlemen.

Oh! but you must not leave him now to these hazards, Numps.

Nay, he knows too well I will not leave him, and that makes him presume.

Well, sir, will you go now? If you have such an itch i’your feet to foot it to the Fair, why do you stop: am I your tarriers? Go, will you go? Sir, why do you not go?

Oh, Numps! have I brought you about? Come, Mistress Grace, and sister, I am resolute Bat, i’faith, still.

Truly, I have no such fancy to the Fair, nor ambition to see it: there’s none goes thither of any quality or fashion.

O Lord, sir! You shall pardon me, Mistress Grace, we are enough of ourselves

What a rogue in apprehension is this! To understand her language no better!

Ay, and offer to marry to her? Well, I will leave the chase of my widow for today, and directly to the Fair. These flies cannot this hot season but engender us excellent creeping sport.

A man that has but a spoonful of brain would think so. — Farewell, John.

Win, you see, ’tis in fashion to go to the Fair, Win. We must to the Fair, too, you and I, Win. I have an affair i’the Fair, Win, a puppet play of mine own making — say nothing! — that I writ for the motion-man, which you must see, Win.

I would I might, John, but my mother will never consent to such a ‘profane motion’, she will call it.

Tut, we’ll have a device, a dainty one: now, Wit, help at a pinch, good Wit, come, come, good Wit, an’t be thy will. I have it, Win, I have it, i’faith, and ’tis a fine one. Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, i’the Fair — do you see? — i’the heart o’the Fair, not at Pie Corner. Your mother will do anything, Win, to satisfy your longing, you know. Pray thee, long presently, and be sick o’the sudden, good Win. I’ll go in and tell her. Cut thy lace i’the meantime, and play the hypocrite, sweet Win.

No, I’ll not make me unready for it. I can be hypocrite enough, though I were never so strait-laced.

You say true, you have been bred i’the family, and brought up to’t. Our mother is a most elect hypocrite, and has maintained us all this seven year with it like gentlefolks.

Ay, let her alone, John, she is not a wise wilful widow for nothing, nor a sanctified sister for a song. And let me alone, too, I ha’ somewhat o’the mother in me, you shall see. Fetch her, fetch her.

Now the blaze of the beauteous discipline fright away this evil from our house! How now, Win-the-fight, child, how do you? Sweet child, speak to me.

Yes, forsooth.

Look up, sweet Win-the-fight, and suffer not the enemy to enter you at this door. Remember that your education has been with the purest. What polluted one was it that named first the unclean beast, pig, to you, child?

Uh, uh!

Not I, o’my sincerity, mother; she longed above three hours ere she would let me know it. Who was it, Win?

A profane black thing with a beard, John.

Oh, resist it, Win-the-fight, it is the Tempter, the wicked Tempter! You may know it by the fleshly motion of pig: be strong against it and its foul temptations in these assaults, whereby it broacheth flesh and blood, as it were, on the weaker side, and pray against its carnal provocations, good child, sweet child, pray.

Good mother, I pray you that she may eat some pig, and her bellyful, too. And do not you cast away your own child, and perhaps one of mine, with your tale of the Tempter. How do you, Win? Are you not sick?

Yes, a great deal, John — uh, uh!

What shall we do? Call our zealous Brother Busy hither, for his faithful fortification in this charge of the Adversary.

Ay, but i’the Fair, mother.

I mean i’the Fair, if it can be any way made, or found, lawful.

Presently, mother, as soon as he has cleansed his beard. I found him fast by the teeth i’the cold turkey pie i’the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right.

Slander not the Brethren, wicked one.

Here he is now, purified, mother.

Oh, Brother Busy! your help here to edify and raise us up in a scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease of women, called ‘A longing to eat pig’.

Ay, sir, a Barthol’mew pig, and in the Fair.

And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a widow of the Sanctified Assembly, or a widow’s daughter, may commit the act without offence to the weaker Sisters.

Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, or appetite, incident to women; and as it is carnal, and incident, it is natural, very natural. Now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is nourishing, and may be longed for, and so consequently eaten; it may be eaten, very exceeding well eaten. But in the Fair, and as a Barthol’mew pig, it cannot be eaten, for the very calling it a Barthol’mew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you make the Fair no better than one of the high places. This, I take it, is the state of the question: a high place.

Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, Master Busy. [Aside] I have a conceit left yet.

Good Brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you can.

Yes, sir, and as soon as you can, for it must be, sir: you see the danger my little wife is in, sir.

Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her miscarry or hazard her first fruits, if it might be otherwise.

Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction — subject — and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a foul face, but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shadowed, as it were; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in a booth, the tents of the wicked. The place is not much, not very much; we may be religious in midst of the profane, so it be eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness, not gorged in with gluttony or greediness — there’s the fear, for should she go there as taking pride in the place, or delight in the unclean dressing, to feed the vanity of the eye or the lust of the palate, it were not well, it were not fit, it were abominable, and not good.

Nay, I knew that afore, and told her on’t; but courage, Win, we’ll be humble enough; we’ll seek out the homeliest booth i’the Fair, that’s certain. Rather than fail, we’ll eat it o’the ground.

Ay, and I’ll go with you myself, Win-the-fight, and my Brother Zeal-of-the-land shall go with us, too, for our better consolation.

Uh, uh!

Ay, and Solomon, too, Win — the more the merrier.

((Win, we’ll leave.))

Rabbi Busy in a booth. — Solomon, my cloak!

Here, sir.

In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy. There may be a good use made of it, too, now I think on’t: by the public eating of swine’s flesh, to profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the Brethren stand taxed. I will therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly.

Good, i’faith, I will eat heartily too, because I will be no Jew: I could never away with that stiff-necked generation. And truly I hope my little one will be like me, that cries for pig so i’the mother’s belly.

Very likely, exceeding likely, very exceeding likely.

Well, in justice’ name, and the King’s, and for the commonwealth! Defy all the world, Adam Overdo, for a disguise, and all story; for thou hast fitted thyself, I swear. Fain would I meet the Lynceus now, that eagle’s eye, that piercing Epidaurian serpent (as my Quint. Horace calls him) that could discover a justice of peace — and lately of the Quorum — under this covering. They may have seen many a fool in the habit of a justice, but never till now a justice in the habit of a fool. Thus must we do, though, that wake for the public good, and thus hath the wise magistrate done in all ages. There is a doing of right out of wrong, if the way be found. Never shall I enough commend a worthy worshipful man, sometime a capital member of this city, for his high wisdom in this point, who would take you now the habit of a porter, now of a carman, now of the dog-killer in this month of August, and in the winter of a seller of tinderboxes. And what would he do in all these shapes? Marry, go you into every alehouse, and down into every cellar, measure the length of puddings, take the gauge of black-pots and cans, ay, and custards with a stick, and their circumference with a thread; weigh the loaves of bread on his middle finger; then would he send for ’em home, give the puddings to the poor, the bread to the hungry, the custards to his children; break the pots, and burn the cans himself: he would not trust his corrupt officers, he would do’t himself. Would all men in authority would follow this worthy precedent! For, alas, as we are public persons, what do we know? Nay, what can we know? We hear with other men’s ears; we see with other men’s eyes! A foolish constable or a sleepy watchman is all our information; he slanders a gentleman by the virtue of his place (as he calls it) and we by the vice of ours must believe him. As, a while agone, they made me — yea, me — to mistake an honest zealous pursuivant for a seminary, and a proper young bachelor of music for a bawd. This we are subject to that live in high place: all our intelligence is idle, and most of our intelligencers knaves — and, by your leave, ourselves thought little better, if not arrant fools, for believing ’em. I, Adam Overdo, am resolved, therefore, to spare spy-money hereafter, and make mine own discoveries. Many are the yearly enormities of this Fair, in whose Courts of Piepowders I have had the honour during the three days sometimes to sit as judge. But this is the special day for detection of those foresaid enormities. Here is my black book for the purpose, this

the cloud that hides me: under this covert I shall see and not be seen. On, Junius Brutus! And as I began, so I’ll end: in justice’ name, and the King’s, and for the commonwealth!

The Fair’s pest’lence dead, methinks; people come not abroad today, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, Sister Trash, Lady o’the Basket? Sit farther with your gingerbread-progeny there, and hinder not the prospect of my shop, or I’ll ha’ it proclaimed i’the Fair what stuff they are made on.

Why, what stuff are they made on, Brother Leatherhead? Nothing but what’s wholesome, I assure you.

Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and dead honey, you know.

Ay! Have I met with enormity so soon?

I shall mar your market, old Joan.

Mar my market, thou too proud pedlar? Do thy worst: I defy thee, ay, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I pay for my ground as well as thou dost, and thou wrong’st me, for all thou art parcel-poet, and an engineer. I’ll find a friend shall right me, and make a ballad of thee and thy cattle, all over. Are you puffed up with the pride of your wares? Your arsedine?

Go to, old Joan, I’ll talk with you anon, and take you down, too, afore Justice Overdo: he is the man must charm you; I’ll ha’ you i’the Piepowders.

Charm me? I’ll meet thee face to face afore his worship, when thou dar’st: and though I be a little crooked o’my body, I’ll be found as upright in my dealing as any woman in Smithfield, I. Charm me!

I am glad to hear my name is their terror yet: this is doing of justice.

What do you lack? What is’t you buy? What do you lack? Rattles, drums, halberds, horses, babies o’the best? Fiddles o’the finest?

Buy any pears, pears, fine, very fine pears!

Buy any gingerbread, gilt gingerbread!

Fie upon’t! Who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in roasting of pigs, that had any cooler vocation? Hell’s a kind of cold cellar to’t, a very fine vault, o’my conscience! What, Mooncalf!

Here, mistress.

How now, Urs’la? In a heat, in a heat?

My chair, you false faucet you; and my morning’s draught,

quickly: a bottle of ale to quench me, rascal.

Alas, good Urs. Was Zekiel here this morning?

Zekiel? What Zekiel?

Zekiel Edgworth, the civil cutpurse; you know him well enough: he that talks bawdy to you still — I call him my secretary.

He promised to be here this morning, I remember.

When he comes, bid him stay; I’ll be back again presently.

Best take your morning’s dew in your belly, Nightingale.

((This pig-woman do I know, and I will put her in for my second enormity; she hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these

two and twenty years, upon record i’the Piepowders.))

Fill again, you unlucky vermin.

Pray you, be not angry, mistress; I’ll ha’ it widened anon.

No, no, I shall e’en dwindle away to’t ere the Fair be done, you think, now you ha’ heated me? A poor vexed thing I am, I feel myself dropping already, as fast as I can; two stone a’ suet a day is my proportion; I can but hold life and soul together with this [Indicating her ale] — here’s to you, Nightingale —and a whiff of tobacco, at most. Where’s my pipe now? Not filled, thou arrant incubee?

Nay, Urs’la, thou’lt gall between the tongue and the teeth with fretting, now.

How can I hope that ever he’ll discharge his place of trust — tapster, a man of reckoning under me — that remembers nothing I say to him?

((This is the very womb and bed of enormity! Gross as herself! This must all down for enormity, all, every whit on’t.))

Look who’s there, sirrah! Five shillings a pig is my price, at least; if it be a sow-pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied wife, and long for’t, 90 sixpence more for that.

(( O tempora! O mores! I would not ha’ lost my discovery of this one grievance for my place and worship o’the Bench. How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity.))

By thy leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the Fair — oily as the king’s constable’s lamp, and shining as his shoeing-horn! — hath thy ale virtue, or thy beer strength, that the tongue of man may be tickled, and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see.

What new roarer is this?

MOONCALF

O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? ’Tis mad Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations. Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you? Welcome to the Fair. When shall we hear you again, to handle your matters, with your back again’ a booth, ha? I ha’ been one o’your little disciples, i’my days!

Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy aunt, here, that I may be eloquent

Why dost thou not fetch him drink, and offer him to sit?

Is’t ale or beer, Master Arthur?

Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best: the same thy dove drinketh and thou drawest on holy-days.

Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale: they say a fool’s handsel is lucky.

Bring both, child: ale for Arthur and beer for Bradley. Ale for thine aunt, boy.

What! My little lean Urs’la! My she-bear! Art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs, to grunt out another Barthol’mew Fair? Ha!

Yes, and to amble afoot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill.

Of Holborn, Urs’la, mean’st thou so? For what? For what, pretty Urs?

For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out o’the Fair.

Oh! good words, good words, Urs.

((Another special enormity: a cutpurse of the sword, the boot, an and the feather! Those are his marks.))

You are one of those horseleeches that gave out I was dead, in Turnbull Street, of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes!

No, ’twas better meat, Urs: cows’ udders, cows’ udders!

Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.

What? Thou’lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? Or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urs? Come, there’s no malice in these fat folks; I never fear thee, an I can scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let’s drink it out, good Urs, and no vapours!

((Dost thou hear, boy? — there’s for thy ale, and the remnant for thee — speak in the faith of a faucet now: is this goodly person before us here, this ‘vapours’, a knight of the knife?))

MOONCALF

What mean you by that, Master Arthur?

I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy: a cutpurse.

MOONCALF

O Lord, sir! Far from it. This is Master Dan Knockem: Jordan, the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-corser, sir.

Thy dainty dame, though, called him cutpurse.

MOONCALF

Like enough, sir, she’ll do forty such things in an hour (an you listen

((Here might I ha’ been deceived now, and ha’ put a fool’s blot upon myself, if I had not played an after-game o’ discretion.))

Alas, poor Urs, this’s an ill season for thee.

Hang yourself, hackney-man.

How? How? Urs, vapours! Motion breed vapours?

Vapours? Never tusk, nor twirl your dibble, good Jordan; I know what you’ll take, to a very drop. Though you be captain o’the roarers, and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks. You, angry? You are hungry: come, a pig’s head will stop your mouth and stay your stomach at all times.

Thou art such another mad merry Urs still! Troth, I do make conscience of vexing thee now, i’the dog days, this hot weather, for fear of foundering thee i’the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee, take thy chair again, and keep state; and let’s have a fresh bottle of ale and a pipe of tobacco — and no vapours. I’ll ha’ this belly o’thine taken up, and thy grass scoured, wench. Look! Here’s Ezekiel Edgworth, a fine boy of his inches as any is i’the Fair! Has still money in his purse, and will pay all, with a kind heart — and good vapours.

That I will, indeed, willingly, Master Knockem.

Fetch some ale and tobacco.

Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a flea!

Buy some gingerbread!

Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:

— What is’t you buy? —

Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your mart a little.

Oh, my secretary! What says my secretary?

((Child o’the bottles, what’s he, what’s he?))

MOONCALF

A civil young gentleman, Master Arthur, that keeps company with the roarers, and disburses all still. He has ever money in his purse; he pays for them, and they roar for him: one does good offices for another. They call him ‘the secretary’, but he serves nobody. A great friend of the ballad man’s: they are never asunder.

What pity ’tis, so civil a young man should haunt this debauched company! Here’s the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper penman, I see’t in his countenance; he has a good clerk’s look with him, and I warrant him a quick hand.

MOONCALF

A very quick hand, sir.

All the purses and purchase I give you today by conveyance, bring hither to Urs’la’s presently. Here we will meet at night in her lodge, and share. Look you choose good places for your standing i’the Fair when you sing, Nightingale.

Ay, near the fullest passages; and shift ’em often.

And i’your singing, you must use your hawk’s eye nimbly, and fly the purse to a mark still — where ’tis worn, and o’which side — that you may gi’ me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way i’the tune.

Enough, talk no more on’t: your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away. The Fair fills apace, company begins to come in, and I ha’ ne’er a pig ready yet.

Well said! Fill the cups, and light the tobacco: let’s give fire i’th’ works, and noble vapours.

And shall we ha’ smocks, Urs’la, and good whimsies, ha?

Come, you are i’your bawdy vein! — the best the Fair will afford, Zekiel, if bawd Whit keep his word.

Very passionate, mistress: one on ’em has wept out an eye.

No, boy, let my meditations alone.

MOONCALF

He’s studying for an oration, now.

((If I can, with this day’s travail and all my policy, but rescue this

Here Zekiel, here’s a health to Urs’la, and a kind vapour. Thou hast money i’thy purse still, and store! How dost thou come by it? Pray thee, vapour thy friends some, in a courteous vapour.

Half I have, Master Dan Knockem, is always at your service.

((Ha, sweet nature! What goshawk would prey upon such a lamb?))

Let’s see what ’tis, Zekiel! Count it.

Come, fill him to pledge me.

We are here before ’em, methinks.

All the better: we shall see ’em come in now.

LEATHERHEAD

What do you lack, gentlemen, what is’t you lack? A fine horse? A lion? A bull? A bear? A dog, or a cat? An excellent fine Barthol’mew-bird? Or an instrument? What is’t you lack?

’Slid! Here’s Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!

Will you buy any comfortable bread, gentlemen?

And Ceres selling her daughter’s picture, in ginger-work!

That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for ’em! Do we look as if we would buy gingerbread, or hobby-horses?

Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better customers than come. And our very being here makes us fit to be demanded as well as others. Would Cokes would come! There were a true customer for ’em.

How much is’t? Thirty shillings? Who’s yonder! Ned Winwife, and Tom Quarlous, I think? Yes! Gi’ me it all, gi’ me it all. — Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! Will you take a pipe of tobacco with us?

((Do not discredit me now, Zekiel.))

((Do not see him! He is the roaring horse-corser; pray thee, let’s avoid him: turn down this way.))

’ Slud, I’ll see him, and roar with him, too, an he roared as loud as Neptune. Pray thee, go with me.

You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this.

Go to, then, come along: we ha’ nothing to do, man, but to see sights now.

Welcome, Master Quarlous, and Master Winwife! Will you take any

froth and smoke with us?

Yes, sir, but you’ll pardon us, if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore.

As what, sir?

To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.

A good vapour! Will you sit down, sir? This is old Urs’la’s mansion: how like you her bower? Here you may ha’ your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.

I had rather ha’ my punk cold, sir.

((There’s for me: punk! and pig!))

What, Mooncalf, you rogue!

By and by, the bottle is almost off, mistress. — Here, Master Arthur.

I’ll part you and your playfellow there i’the guarded coat, an you sunder not the sooner.

Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks. You do not talk, nor drink. Are you proud?

Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.

You do not except at the company, do you? Are you in vapours, sir?

MOONCALF

Nay, good Master Dan Knockem, respect my mistress’ bower, as you call it. For the honour of our booth, none o’your vapours here.

Why, you thin lean polecat, you: an they have a mind to be i’their vapours, must you hinder’em? What did you know, vermin, if they would ha’ lost a cloak, or such a trifle? Must you be drawing the air of pacification here, while I am tormented within i’the fire, you weasel?

Good mistress, ’twas in the behalf of your booth’s credit that I spoke.

Why? Would my booth ha’ broke, if they had fall’n out in’t? Sir? Or would their heat ha’ fir’d it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I’ll both baste and roast you, till your eyes drop out, like ’em. Leave the bottle behind you, and be cursed a while.

Body o’the Fair! What’s this? Mother o’the bawds?

No, she’s mother o’the pigs, sir, mother o’the pigs!

Mother o’the furies, I think, by her firebrand.

Nay, she is too fat to be a fury — sure, some walking sow of tallow!

An inspired vessel of kitchen-stuff!

She’ll make excellent gear for the coachmakers here in Smithfield, to anoint wheels and axle-trees with.

Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench o’the suburbs, do, because she’s juicy and wholesome. You must ha’ your thin pinched ware pent up i’the compass of a dog-collar — or ’twill not do — that looks like a long laced conger set upright, and a green feather like fennel i’the jowl on’t.

Well said, Urs, my good Urs, to ’em, Urs.

Is she your quagmire, Dan Knockem? Is this your bog?

((We shall have a quarrel presently.))

How? Bog? Quagmire? Foul vapours! Humph!

Yes, he that would venture for’t, I assure him, might sink into her and be drowned a week, ere any friend he had could find where he were.

And then he would be a fortnight weighing up again.

’Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter: they had need be a team of Dutchmen should draw him out.

Answer ’em, Urs, where’s thy Barthol’mew-wit now? Urs, thy Barthol’mew-wit?

Hang ’em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see ’em plagued one day — poxed they are already, I am sure — with lean playhouse poultry that has the bony rump sticking out like the ace of spades or the point of a partizan, that every rib of ’em is like the tooth of a saw, and will so grate ’em with their hips and shoulders as — take ’em altogether — they were as good lie with a hurdle.

Out upon her, how she drips! She’s able to give a man the sweating sickness with looking on her.

Marry, look off, with a patch o’your face, and a dozen i’your breech, though they be o’ scarlet, sir. I ha’ seen as fine outsides as either o’yours bring lousy linings to the broker’s ere now, twice a week!

Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool i’the Fair to be purchased? — one large enough, I mean. I know there is a pond of capacity for her.

For your mother, you rascal. Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you pannier-man’s bastard, you!

Ha, ha, ha!

Do you sneer, you dog’s-head, you trundle-tail! You look as you were begotten atop of a cart in harvest-time when the whelp was hot and eager. Go, snuff after your brother’s bitch, Mistress Commodity, that’s the livery you wear — ’twill be out at the elbows, shortly. It’s time you went to’t, for the t’other remnant.

Peace, Urs, peace, Urs.

((They’ll kill the poor whale, and make oil of her. ))

Pray thee, go in.

I’ll see ’em poxed first, and pilled, and double piled.

Let’s away, her language grows greasier than her pigs.

Does’t so, snotty nose? Good Lord! Are you snivelling? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn when the bald thresher, your sire, was scarce warm.

Pray thee, let’s go.

No, faith, I’ll stay the end of her now: I know she cannot last long; I find by her similes she wanes apace.

Does she so? I’ll set you gone. Gi’ me my pig-pan hither a little. I’ll scald you hence, an you will not go.

Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours! And very idle vapours! I assure you.

You are a very serious ass, we assure you.

Humph! Ass? And serious? Nay then, pardon me my vapour. I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: any man that does vapour me the ass, Master Quarlous —

What then, Master Jordan?

— I do vapour him the lie.

Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.

Nay, then, vapours upon vapours.

’Ware the pan, the pan, the pan, she comes with the pan, gentlemen!

Oh!

What’s the matter?

Goodly woman!

Mistress!

Curse of hell, that ever I saw these fiends. Oh! I ha’ scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg. I ha’ lost a limb in the service! Run for some cream and salad oil quickly. [To Mooncalf] Are you under-peering, you baboon? — Rip off my hose, an you be men, men, men.

Run you for some cream, good mother Joan: I’ll look to your basket.

Best sit up i’your chair, Urs’la. Help, gentlemen.

Be of good cheer, Urs, thou hast hindered me the currying of a couple of stallions here that abused the good race-bawd o’ Smithfield; ’twas time for ’em to go.

I’faith, when the pan came — they had made you run, else.

This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured.

Not a whit: these fellows were too fine to carry money.

Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out o’the air; take off her shoes; body o’me, she has the malanders, the scratches, the crown-scab, and the quitter-bone i’the t’other leg.

Oh! The pox, why do you put me in mind o’my leg thus, to make it prick and shoot? Would you ha’ me i’the Hospital afore my time?

Patience, Urs. Take a good heart, ’tis but a blister as big as a windgall. I’ll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey, and hog’s grease, ha’ thy pasterns well rolled, and thou shalt pace again by tomorrow. I’ll tend thy booth, and look to thy affairs the while; thou shalt sit i’thy chair, and give directions, and shine Ursa Major .

These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco: the foam of the one, and the fumes of the other!

Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed, I’ll hear some o’this!

Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, Mistress Grace.

’Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into doings presently.

Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale, for who knows, when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? Thirst not after it, youth, thirst not after it.

This is a brave fellow, Numps, let’s hear him.

’Sblood, how brave is he? In a guarded coat? You were best truck with him, e’en strip and truck presently; it will become you. Why will you hear him? Because he is an ass, and may be akin to the Cokeses?

Oh, good Numps!

Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed, tobacco —

Brave words!

— whose complexion is like the Indian’s that vents it!

Are they not brave words, sister?

And who can tell if, before the gathering and making up thereof, the alligator hath not pissed thereon?

Heart! Let ’em be brave words, as brave as they will! An they were all the brave words in a country, how then? Will you away yet? Ha’ you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away, I pray you, be not you accessary. If you do lose your licence, or somewhat else, sir, with listening to his fables, say Numps is a witch — with all my heart, do, say so.

Avoid, i’your satin doublet, Numps.

The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting, or burning, can any way persway or assuage.

Good, i’faith! is’t not, sister?

Hence it is, that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted, the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman’s booth here, and the whole body within black as her pan you saw e’en now without.

A fine similitude, that, sir! Did you see the pan?

Yes, sir.

Nay, the hole in the nose, here, of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril (if I may so call it) which makes that they can vent the tobacco out like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-luce, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! When the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is miserably, and most unconscionably, slandered.

Who would ha’ missed this, sister?

Not anybody, but Numps.

He does not understand.

((Nor you feel.))

What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in’t? The best music i’the Fair will not move a log.

In, to Urs’la, Nightingale, and carry her comfort: see it told. This fellow was sent to us by fortune for our first fairing.

But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair?

That’s to us, sister. Brave, i’faith!

Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield, and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling, and snarling, and now and then a hurt.

He hath something of Master Overdo, methinks, brother.

So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo — and ’tis when he speaks.

Look into any angle o’the town — the Straits or the Bermudas — where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time but with bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o’one side and his pupils o’the other, but the seconds are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! Forty in tobacco! And ten more in ale again! Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and (that being slavered) so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit!

Heart of a madman! Are you rooted here? Will you never away? What can any man find out in this bawling fellow to grow here for? He is a full handful higher sin’ he heard him. Will you fix here, and set up a booth? Sir?

I will conclude briefly —

Hold your peace, you roaring rascal, I’ll run my head i’your chaps else.

You were best build a booth and entertain him, make your will, an you

Stay, Numps, stay, set me down: I ha’ lost my purse, Numps. Oh, my purse! One o’my fine purses is gone.

Is’t indeed, brother?

Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue else! A plague of

Bless ’em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see! Now, as I am no infidel that I know of, I am glad on’t. Ay, I am — here’s my witness! — do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his fables, I? No, no, I am a dull malt-horse, I, I know nothing. Are you not justly served i’your conscience now? Speak, i’your conscience. Much good do you, with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again.

((This fellow is very charitable — would he had a purse too! But I must not be too bold all at a time.))

Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.

Not your best! Death! Why should it be your worst? Why should it be any, indeed, at all? Answer me to that, gi’ me a reason from you why it should be any?

Nor my gold, Numps — I ha’ that yet, look here else, sister.

Why so, there’s all the feeling he has!

I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.

Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this, that catch can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.

So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! Very good.

I would ha’ him come again now, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just where th’other was, and if we ha’ good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cutpurse nibbling.

((Faith, and he’ll try ere you be out o’the Fair.))

Come, Mistress Grace, prithee, be not melancholy for my mischance: sorrow wi’ not keep it, sweetheart.

I do not think on’t, sir.

’Twas but a little scurvy white money, hang it — it may hang the cutpurse one day. I ha’ gold left to gi’ thee a fairing yet, as hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that nobody here looked like a cutpurse, unless ’twere Numps.

How? I? I look like a cutpurse? Death! Your sister’s a cutpurse! and your mother and father, and all your kin were cutpurses! And here is a rogue is the bawd o’the cutpurses, whom I will beat to begin with.

Numps, Numps!

Good Master Humphrey!

You are the patrico, are you? The patriarch of the cutpurses? You share, sir, they say: let them share this with you. Are you i’your hot fit of preaching again? I’ll cool you!

Hold thy hand, child of wrath and heir of anger, make it not Childermas day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Barthol’mew, parent of the Massacre!

Murder, murder, murder!

Nay, ’tish all gone now! Dish ’tish, phen tou vilt not be phitin call, Master Offisher. Phat ish a man te better to lishen out noishes for tee, an tou art in an oder ’orld, being very shuffishient noishes, and gallantsh, too? One o’their brabblesh would have fed ush all dish fortnight. But tou art so bushy about beggarsh still, tou hast no leshure to intend shentlemen, an’t be.

Why, I told you, Davy Bristle.

Come, come, you told me a pudding, Toby Haggis, a matter of nothing— I am sure it came to nothing! You said, let’s go to Urs’la’s, indeed, but then you met the man with the monsters, and I could not get you from him. An old fool, not leave seeing yet?

Why, who would ha’ thought anybody would ha’ quarrelled so early, or that the ale o’the Fair would ha’ been up so soon?

Phy? Phat a’clock toest tou tink it ish, man?

I cannot tell.

Tou art a vishe vatchman, i’te meanteeme.

Why? Should the watch go by the clock, or the clock by the watch, I pray?

One should go by another, if they did well.

Tou art right now! Phen did’st tou ever know or hear of a shuffishient vatchman but he did tell the clock, phat bushiness soever he had?

Nay, that’s most true, a sufficient watchman knows what a’clock it is.

Shleeping or vaking! Ash well as te clock himshelf, or te jack dat shtrikes him!

Let’s inquire of Master Leatherhead or Joan Trash here. — Master Leatherhead, do you hear, Master Leatherhead?

If it be a Ledderhead, ’tish a very tick Ledderhead, tat sho mush noish vill not piersh him.

I have a little business now: good friends, do not trouble me.

Phat? Because o’ty wrought neetcap, and ty phelvet sherkin, man? Phy, I have sheen tee in ty ledder sherkin ere now, Mashter o’ de Hobby-horses, as bushy and as stately as tou sheem’st to be.

Why, what an you have, Captain Whit? He has his choice of jerkins, you may see by that, and his caps too, I assure you, when he pleases to be either sick or employed.

LEATHERHEAD

God-a-mercy Joan, answer for me.

WHIT

Away, be not sheen i’my company: here be shentlemen and men of vorship.

We had wonderful ill luck to miss this prologue o’the purse, but the best is, we shall have five acts of him ere night. He’ll be spectacle enough! I’ll answer for’t.

O Creesh! Duke Quarlous, how dosht tou? Tou dosht not know me, I fear? I am te vishesht man, but Justish Overdo, in all Barthol’mew Fair now. Gi’ me twelvepence from tee, I vill help tee to a vife vorth forty marks for’t, an’t be.

Away, rogue, pimp, away!

And she shall show tee as fine cut-’ork for’t in her shmock, too, as tou cansht vish, i’faith. Vilt tou have her, vorshipful Vinvife? I vill help tee to her here, be ant be, in te pig-quarter: gi’ me ty twel’pence from tee.

Why, there’s twel’pence: pray thee, wilt thou be gone?

Tou art a vorthy man and a vorshipful man still.

Get you gone, rascal.

WHIT

I do mean it, man. Prinsh Quarlous, if tou hasht need on me, tou shalt find me here, at Urs’la’s. I vill see phat ale and punk ish i’te pigshty for tee, bless ty good vorship.

Look who comes here! John Littlewit!

And his wife, and my widow, her mother: the whole family.

’Slight, you must gi’ ’em all fairings now!

Not I, I’ll not see ’em.

They are going a-feasting. What schoolmaster’s that, is with ’em?

That’s my rival, I believe, the baker!

So, walk on in the middle way, foreright; turn neither to the right hand nor to the left; let not your eyes be drawn aside with vanity nor your ear with noises.

Oh, I know him by that start!

What do you lack? What do you buy, pretty mistress? A fine hobby-horse, to make your son a tilter? A drum, to make him a soldier? A fiddle, to make him a reveller? What is’t you lack? Little dogs for your daughters? Or babies, male or female?

Look not toward them, hearken not: the place is Smithfield, or the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets; the wares are the wares of devils. And the whole Fair is the shop of Satan! They are hooks and baits, very baits, that are hung out on every side to catch you, and to hold you as it were by the gills and by the nostrils, as the fisher doth: therefore, you must not look nor turn toward them — The heathen man could stop his ears with wax against the harlot o’the sea: do you the like with your fingers against the bells of the Beast.

What flashes comes from him!

Oh, he has those of his oven! A notable hot baker ’twas, when he plied the peel. He is leading his flock into the Fair now.

Rather driving ’em to the pens, for he will let ’em look upon nothing.

Gentlewomen, the weather’s hot! Whither walk you? Have a care o’your fine velvet caps, the Fair is dusty. Take a sweet delicate booth, with boughs, here i’the way, and cool yourselves i’the shade — you and your friends.

A delicate show-pig, little mistress, with shweet sauce, and crackling, like de bay-leaf i’ de fire, la! Tou shalt ha’ de clean side o’ de table-clot and di glass vashed with phatersh of Dame Annessh Clear.

This’s fine, verily: ‘Here be the best pigs, and she does roast ’em as well as ever she did’, the pig’s head says.

Excellent, excellent, mistress, with fire o’ juniper and rosemary branches!

The oracle of the pig’s head, that, sir.

Son, were you not warned of the vanity of the eye? Have you forgot the wholesome admonition so soon?

Good mother, how shall we find a pig, if we do not look about for’t? Will it run off o’the spit into our mouths, think you, as in Lubberland, and cry, ‘Wee, wee’?

No, but your mother, religiously wise, conceiveth it may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which I think it doth, here in this place — huh! huh! — yes, it doth.

And it were a sin of obstinacy, great obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the good titillation of the famelic sense, which is the smell. Therefore be bold — huh! huh! huh! — follow the scent. Enter the tents of the unclean for once, and satisfy your wife’s frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your zealous mother, and my suffering self, will also be satisfied.

Come, Win, as good winny here as go farther and see nothing.

We scape so much of the other vanities by our early entering.

It is an edifying consideration.

((This is scurvy, that we must come into the Fair and not look on’t.))

Win, have patience, Win, I’ll tell you more anon.

Mooncalf, entertain within there! The best pig i’the booth, a pork-like pig! These are Banbury-bloods, o’the sincere stud, come a-pig-hunting. Whit, wait, Whit, look to your charge.

A pig prepare presently, let a pig be prepared to us.

’Slight, who be these?

Is this the good service, Jordan, you’d do me?

Why, Urs? Why, Urs? Thou’lt ha’ vapours i’thy leg again presently; pray thee, go in: ’t may turn to the scratches else.

Hang your vapours, they are stale, and stink like you. Are these the guests o’the game you promised to fill my pit withal today?

Ay, what ail they, Urs?

Ail they? They are all sippers, sippers o’the city: they look as they would not drink off two penn’orth of bottle-ale amongst ’em.

A body may read that i’their small printed ruffs.

Away, thou art a fool, Urs, and thy Mooncalf, too, i’your ignorant vapours now! Hence! Good guests, I say, right hypocrites, good gluttons. In, and set a couple o’ pigs o’the board, and half a dozen of the biggest bottles afore ’em, and call Whit.

Are you sure they are such?

O’the right breed, thou shalt try ’em by the teeth, Urs. Where’s this Whit?

Well said, brave Whit! In, and fear the ale out o’the bottles into the bellies of the Brethren and the Sisters. Drink to the Cause and pure vapours.

My roarer is turned tapster, methinks. Now were a fine time for thee, Winwife, to lay aboard thy widow — thou’lt never be master of a better season or place. She that will venture herself into the Fair, and a pig-box, will admit any assault, be assured of that.

I love not enterprises of that suddenness, though.

I’ll warrant thee then, no wife out o’the widows’ hundred. If I had but as much title to her as to have breathed once on that strait stomacher of hers, I would now assure myself to carry her yet, ere she went out of Smithfield. Or she should carry me, which were the fitter sight, I confess. But you are a modest undertaker, by circumstances and degrees. Come, ’tis disease in thee, not judgement — I should offer at all together. Look, here’s the poor fool again that was stung by the wasp erewhile.

I will make no more orations, shall draw on these tragical conclusions. And I begin now to think that, by a spice of collateral justice, Adam Overdo deserved this beating; for I, the said Adam, was one cause (a by-cause) why the purse was lost — and my wife’s brother’s purse, too — which they know not of yet. But I shall make very good mirth with it at supper — that will be the sport — and put my little friend Master Humphrey Wasp’s choler quite out of countenance: when, sitting at the upper end o’my table, as I use, and drinking to my brother Cokes and Mistress Alice Overdo, as I will, my wife, for their good affection to old Bradley, I deliver to ’em it was I that was cudgelled, and show ’em the marks. To see what bad events may peep out o’the tail of good purposes! The care I had of that civil young man I took fancy to this morning (and have not left it yet) drew me to that exhortation; which drew the company, indeed; which drew the cutpurse; which drew the money; which drew my brother Cokes his loss; which drew on Wasp’s anger; which drew on my beating — a pretty gradation! And they shall ha’ it i’their dish, i’faith, at night for fruit — I love to be merry at my table. I had thought once, at one special blow he ga’ me, to have revealed myself! But then (I thank thee, fortitude!) I remembered that a wise man (and who is ever so great a part o’the commonwealth in himself) for no particular disaster ought to abandon a public good design. The husbandman ought not, for one unthankful year, to forsake the plough; the shepherd ought not, for one scabbed sheep, to throw by his tar-box; the pilot ought not, for one leak i’the poop, to quit the helm; nor the alderman ought not, for one custard more at a meal, to give up his cloak; the constable ought not to break his staff and forswear the watch, for one roaring night; nor the piper o’the parish — ut parvis componere magna solebam — to put up his pipes, for one rainy Sunday. These are certain knocking conclusions: out of which I am resolved, come what come can, come beating, come imprisonment, come infamy, come banishment, nay, come the rack, come the hurdle — welcome all! — I will not discover who I am till my due time; and yet still, all shall be, as I said ever, in justice’ name, and the King’s, and for the commonwealth.

What does he talk to himself, and act so seriously? Poor fool!

No matter what. Here’s fresher argument: intend that.

Come, Mistress Grace, come, sister, here’s more fine sights yet, i’faith. God’s lid, where’s Numps?

LEATHERHEAD

What do you lack, gentlemen? What is’t you buy? Fine rattles? Drums? Babies? Little dogs? And birds for ladies? What do you lack?

Good honest Numps, keep afore: I am so afraid thou’lt lose somewhat — my heart was at my mouth when I missed thee.

You were best buy a whip i’your hand to drive me.

Nay, do not mistake, Numps, thou art so apt to mistake — I would but watch the goods. Look you now, the treble fiddle was e’en almost like to be lost!

Pray you, take heed you lose not yourself: your best way were e’en get up and ride for more surety. Buy a token’s worth of great pins to fasten yourself to my shoulder.

LEATHERHEAD

What do you lack, gentlemen? Fine purses, pouches, pin-cases, pipes? What is’t you lack? A pair o’ smiths to wake you i’the morning? Or a

Numps, here be finer things than any we ha’ bought, by odds! And more delicate horses, a great deal! Good Numps, stay, and come hither.

Will you scorse with him? You are in Smithfield, you may fit yourself with

No, but again’ I ha’ children, Numps, that’s all one.

Do, do, do, do: how many shall you have, think you? An I were as you, I’d buy for all my tenants, too: they are a kind o’ civil savages, that will part with their children for rattles, pipes, and knives. You were best buy a hatchet or two, and truck with ’em.

Good Numps, hold that little tongue o’thine, and save it a labour. I am resolute Bat, thou know’st.

A resolute fool, you are, I know, and a very sufficient coxcomb, with all my heart! Nay, you have it, sir, an you be angry: turd i’your teeth, twice (if I said it not once afore) and much good do you.

Alas! His care will go near to crack him; let’s in, and comfort him.

Would I had been set i’the ground, all but the head on me, and had my

How now, Numps! Almost tired i’your protectorship? Overparted? Overparted?

Why, I cannot tell, sir, it may be I am. Does’t grieve you?

No, I swear does’t not, Numps: to satisfy you.

Numps? ’Sblood, you are fine and familiar! How long ha’ we been acquainted, I pray you?

I think it may be remembered, Numps, that! ’Twas since morning, sure.

Why, I hope I know’t well enough, sir. I did not ask to be told.

No? Why then?

It’s no matter why. You see with your eyes now what I said to you today? You’ll believe me another time?

Are you removing the Fair, Numps?

A pretty question! and a very civil one! Yes, faith, I ha’ my lading, you see, or shall have anon: you may know whose beast I am by my burden. If the pannier-man’s jack were ever better known by his loins of mutton, I’ll be flayed and feed dogs for him, when his time comes.

How melancholy Mistress Grace is yonder! Pray thee, let’s go enter ourselves in ‘ grace’ with her.

Those six horses, friend, I’ll have —

How!

And the three Jews’ trumps; and half-a-dozen o’ birds, and that drum (I have one drum already) and your smiths — I like that device o’your smiths very pretty well. And four halberds — and (le’ me see) that fine painted great lady, and her three women for state, I’ll have.

No, the shop; buy the whole shop, it will be best, the shop, the shop!

LEATHERHEAD

If his worship please.

Yes, and keep it during the Fair, bob-chin.

Peace, Numps.

Friend, do not meddle with him, an you be wise, and would show your head above board; he will sting thorough your wrought nightcap, believe me. A set of these violins I would buy, too, for a delicate young noise I have i’the country that are every one a size less than another, just like your fiddles. I would fain have a fine young masque at my marriage, now I think on’t — but I do want such a number o’things. And Numps will not help me now, and I dare not speak to him.

Will your worship buy any gingerbread, very good bread, comfortable bread?

Gingerbread! Yes, let’s see.

There’s the t’other springe!

Is this well, Goody Joan? To interrupt my market, in the midst, and call away my customers? Can you answer this at the Piepowders?

Why, if his mastership have a mind to buy, I hope my ware lies as open as another’s: I may show my ware, as well as you yours.

Hold your peace; I’ll content you both: I’ll buy up his shop, and thy basket.

Will you, i’faith?

Why should you put him from it, friend?

Cry you mercy! You’d be sold too, would you? What’s the price on you, jerkin and all as you stand? Ha’ you any qualities?

Yes, Goodman Angry-man, you shall find he has qualities, if you cheapen him.

God’s so, you ha’ the selling of him! What are they? Will they be bought for love or money?

No, indeed, sir.

For what then? Victuals?

He scorns victuals, sir, he has bread and butter at home, thanks be to God! And yet he will do more for a good meal, if the toy take him i’the belly — marry then, they must not set him at lower end; if they do, he’ll go away, though he fast. But put him atop o’the table, where his place is, and he’ll do you forty fine things. He has not been sent for and sought out for nothing at your great city-suppers, to put down Coryate and Cokeley, and been laughed at for his labour; he’ll play you all the puppets i’the town over, and the players, every company, and his own company too: he spares nobody!

I’faith?

He was the first, sir, that ever baited the fellow i’the bear’s skin, an’t like your worship: no dog ever came near him since. And for fine motions!

Is he good at those, too? Can he set out a masque, trow?

O Lord, master! Sought to far and near for his inventions. And he engrosses all, he makes all the puppets i’the Fair.

Dost thou, in troth, old velvet jerkin? Give me thy hand.

Nay, sir, you shall see him in his new velvet jerkin, and a scarf, too, at night, when you hear him interpret Master Littlewit’s motion.

Speak no more, but shut up shop presently, friend. I’ll buy both it and thee, too, to carry down with me, and her hamper beside. Thy shop shall furnish out the masque and hers the banquet: I cannot go less to set out anything with credit. What’s the price, at a word, o’thy whole shop, case and all, as it stands?

LEATHERHEAD

Sir, it stands me in six-and-twenty shillings sevenpence halfpenny, besides three shillings for my ground.

Well, thirty shillings will do all, then! And what comes yours to?

Four shillings and eleven pence, sir, ground and all, an’t like your worship.

Yes, it does like my worship very well, poor woman. That’s five shillings more.

What a masque shall I furnish out for forty shillings — twenty pound Scotch — and a banquet of gingerbread! There’s a stately thing! Numps! Sister! And my wedding gloves too — that I never thought on afore! All my wedding gloves, gingerbread! Oh, me! What a device will there be, to make ’em eat their fingers’ ends! And delicate brooches for the bridemen, and all! And then I’ll ha’ this posy put to ’em: ‘For the best grace’, meaning Mistress Grace, my wedding posy.

I am beholden to you, sir, and to your Barthol’mew-wit.

You do not mean this, do you? Is this your first purchase?

Yes, faith, and I do not think, Numps, but thou’lt say it was the wisest act that ever I did in my wardship.

Like enough! I shall say anything, I!

((I cannot beget a project, with all my political brain, yet; my project is how to fetch off this proper young man from his debauched company. I have followed him all the Fair over, and still I find him with this songster. And I begin shrewdly to suspect their familiarity, and the young man of a terrible taint: poetry! — with which idle disease if he be infected, there’s no hope of him, in a state-course. Actum est of him for a commonwealth’s-man, if he go to’t in rhyme, once.))

((Yonder he is buying o’ gingerbread: set in quickly, before he part with too much on his money.))

Ballads! Hark, hark!

Pray thee, fellow, stay a little. — Good Numps, look to the goods. — What ballads hast thou? Let me see, let me see myself.

Why so! He’s flown to another lime-bush; there he will flutter as long more, till he ha’ ne’er a feather left. Is there a vexation like this, gentlemen? Will you believe me now? Hereafter shall I have credit with you?

Yes, faith, shalt thou, Numps, and thou art worthy on’t, for thou sweatest for’t.

((I never saw a young pimp-errant and his squire better matched.))

Faith, the sister comes after ’em well, too.

Nay, if you saw the Justice her husband, my guardian, you were fitted for the mess. He is such a wise one his way —

I wonder we see him not here.

Oh! He is too serious for this place, and yet better sport than the other

three, I assure you, gentlemen, where’er he is, though ’t be o’the Bench.

How dost thou call it? A Caveat against Cutpurses ! — a good jest, i’faith. I would fain see that demon, your cutpurse you talk of, that delicate-handed devil. They say he walks hereabout — I would see him walk now. Look you, sister, here, here, let him come, sister, and welcome.

Sir, this is a spell against ’em, spick-and-span new, and ’tis made as ’twere in mine own person, and I sing it in mine own defence. But ’twill cost a penny alone, if you buy it.

No matter for the price, thou dost not know me, I see — I am an odd Barthol’mew.

Has’t a fine picture, brother?

Oh, sister, do you remember the ballads o’er the nursery chimney at home o’my own pasting up: there be brave pictures!

Yet these will serve to pick the pictures out o’your pockets, you shall see.

So I heard ’em say. Pray thee, mind him not, fellow: he’ll have an oar in everything.

It was intended, sir, as if a purse should chance to be cut in my presence now, I may be blameless though — as by the sequel will more plainly appear.

We shall find that i’the matter. Pray thee, begin.

To the tune of Pagington’s Pound , sir.

It is a gentle admonition, you must know, sir, both to the purse-cutter and the purse-bearer.

Not a word more out o’the tune, an thou lov’st me: Fa, la la la, la la la, fa la la la. Come, when?

Ha, ha, this chimes! Good counsel at first dash.

Good!

Well said! He were to blame that would not, i’faith.

Good, i’faith, how say you, Numps? Is there any harm i’this?

The more coxcombs they that did it, I wusse.

God-a-mercy for that! Why should they be more free, indeed?

That again, good ballad-man, that again.

Is it possible?

I'faith?

Youth, youth, etc! Pray thee, stay a little, friend, yet. —

O’thy conscience, Numps, speak, is there any harm i’this?

To tell you true, ’tis too good for you, ’less you had grace to follow it.

((It doth discover enormity, I’ll mark it more: I ha’not liked a paltry piece of poetry so well a good while.))

Youth, youth, etc! Where’s this youth now? A man must call upon him for his own good, and yet he will not appear. Look here, here’s for him.

That was a fine fellow! I would have him now.

But where’s their cunning now, when they should use it? They are all chained now, I warrant you. Youth, youth, thou hadst better, etc. The rat-catcher’s charm! — are all fools and asses to this? A pox on ’em that they will not come! That a man should have such a desire to a thing, and want it.

Fore God, I’d give half the Fair, an ’twere mine, for a cutpurse for him, to save his longing.

Look you, sister, here, here, where is’t now? Which pocket is’t in, for a wager?

I beseech you leave your wagers, and let him end his matter, an’t may be.

Oh, are you edified, Numps?

((Indeed, he does interrupt him too much. There Numps spoke topurpose.))

Sister, I am an ass! I cannot keep my purse!

On, on, I pray thee, friend.

Will you see sport? Look, there’s a fellow gathers up to him, mark!

Good, i’faith! Oh, he has lighted on the wrong pocket.

He has it. ’Fore God, he is a brave fellow; pity he should be detected.

An excellent ballad! an excellent ballad!

Friend, let me ha’ the first, let me ha’ the first, I pray you.

Pardon me, sir: first come, first served. And I’ll buy the whole bundle, too.

That conveyance was better than all, did you see’t? He has given the purse to the ballad singer.

Has he?

Sir, I cry you mercy: I’ll not hinder the poor man’s profit. Pray you, mistake me not.

Sir, I take you for an honest gentleman, if that be mistaking. I met you today afore — Ha! humph! O God! My purse is gone, my purse, my purse, etc.

Come, do not make a stir and cry yourself an ass thorough the Fair afore your time.

Why, hast thou it, Numps? Good Numps, how came you by it? I mar’l!

I pray you, seek some other gamester to play the fool with; you may lose it time enough, for all your Fair-wit.

By this good hand, glove and all, I ha’ lost it already, if thou hast it not — feel else — and Mistress Grace’s handkerchief, too, out o’the t’other pocket.

Why, ’tis well, very well, exceeding pretty and well.

Are you sure you ha’ lost it, sir?

O God! Yes. As I am an honest man, I had it but e’en now, at ‘Youth, youth’.

I hope you suspect not me, sir.

Thee? That were a jest indeed! Dost thou think the gentleman is foolish? Where hadst thou hands, I pray thee? Away, ass, away!

((I shall be beaten again, if I be spied.))

Sir, I suspect an odd fellow yonder is stealing away.

Brother, it is the preaching fellow! You shall suspect him. He was at your t’other purse, you know!

Nay, stay, sir, and view the work you ha’ done. An you be beneficed at the gallows and preach there, thank your own handiwork.

Sir, you shall take no pride in your preferment; you shall be silenced quickly.

What do you mean, sweet buds of gentility?

To ha’ my pennyworths out on you, bud. No less than two purses a dayserve you? I thought you a simple fellow when my man Numps beat you i’the morning, and pitied you —

So did I, I’ll be sworn, brother; but now I see he is a lewd and pernicious enormity (as Master Overdo calls him).

((Mine own words turned upon me, like swords.))

Cannot a man’s purse be at quiet for you i’the master’s pocket, but you must entice it forth and debauch it?

Sir, sir, keep your ‘debauch’ and your fine Barthol’mew-terms to yourself, and make as much on ’em as you please. But gi’ me this from you, i’the meantime: I beseech you, see if I can look to this.

Why, Numps?

Why? Because you are an ass, sir — there’s a reason the shortest way, an you will needs ha’ it. Now you ha’ got the trick of losing, you’d lose your breech, an ’twere loose. I know you, sir: come, deliver.

Alack, good Numps.

Nay, gentlemen, never pity me, I am not worth it. Lord send me at home once to Harrow o’the Hill again; if I travel any more, call me Coryate, with all my heart.

Stay, sir, I must have a word with you in private, do you hear?

With me, sir? What’s your pleasure, good sir?

Do not deny it: you are a cutpurse, sir. This gentleman here and I saw you — nor do we mean to detect you (though we can sufficiently inform ourselves toward the danger of concealing you), but you must do us a piece of service.

Good gentlemen, do not undo me; I am a civil young man, and but a beginner, indeed.

Sir, your beginning shall bring on your ending, for us. We are no catchpoles nor constables. That you are to undertake is this: you saw the old fellow with the black box here?

The little old governor, sir?

That same: I see you have flown him to a mark already. I would ha’ you get away that box from him, and bring it us.

Would you ha’ the box and all, sir? Or only that, that is in’t? I’ll get you that, and leave him the box to play with still — which will be the harder o’the two — because I would gain your worships’ good opinion of me.

He says well: ’tis the greater mastery, and ’twill make the more sport when ’tis missed.

Ay, and ’twill be the longer a-missing, to draw on the sport.

But look you do it now, sirrah, and keep your word, or —

Sir, if ever I break my word with a gentleman, may I never read word at my need. Where shall I find you?

Somewhere i’the Fair hereabouts. Dispatch it quickly.

Then you would not choose, sir, but love my guardian, Justice Overdo, who is answerable to that description in every hair of him.

So I have heard. But how came you, Mistress Wellborn, to be his ward, or have relation to him at first?

Faith, through a common calamity: he bought me, sir; and now he will marry me to his wife’s brother, this wise gentleman that you see, or else I must pay value o’my land.

’Slid, is there no device of disparagement, or so? Talk with some

crafty fellow, some picklock o’the law! Would I had studied a year longer

i’the Inns of Court, an’t had been but i’your case.

((Ay, Master Quarlous, are you proffering?))

You’d bring but little aid, sir.

((I’ll look to you, i’faith, gamester. — An unfortunate foolish tribe you are fall’n into, lady. I wonder you can endure ’em.))

Sir, they that cannot work their fetters off must wear ’em.

You see what care they have on you, to leave you thus.

Faith, the same they have of themselves, sir. I cannot greatly complain, if this were all the plea I had against ’em.

’Tis true! But will you please to withdraw with us a little, and make them think they have lost you. I hope our manners ha’ been such hitherto, and our language, as will give you no cause to doubt yourself in our company.

Sir, I will give myself no cause: I am so secure of mine own manners as I suspect not yours.

Look where John Littlewit comes.

Away, I’ll not be seen by him.

No, you were not best: he’d tell his mother, the widow.

Heart, what do you mean?

Cry you mercy, is the wind there? Must not the widow be named?

Do you hear, Win, Win?

What say you, John?

While they are paying the reckoning, Win, I’ll tell you a thing, Win: we shall never see any sights i’the Fair, Win, except you long still, Win. Good Win, sweet Win, long to see some hobby-horses, and some drums, and rattles, and dogs, and fine devices, Win: the bull with the five legs, Win, and the great hog. Now you ha’ begun with pig, you may long for anything, Win, and so for my motion, Win.

But we sha’ not eat o’the bull and the hog, John: how shall I long, then?

Oh, yes, Win! You may long to see as well as to taste, Win: how did the ’pothecary’s wife, Win, that longed to see the anatomy, Win? Or the lady, Win, that desired to spit i’the great lawyer’s mouth after an eloquent pleading? I assure you they longed, Win: good Win, go in, and long.

I think we are rid of our new customer, brother Leatherhead; we shall hear no more of him.

All the better: let’s pack up all, and be gone before he find us.

Stay a little, yonder comes a company: it may be we may take some more money.

Sir, I will take your counsel, and cut my hair, and leave vapours: I see

Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition, the rest were. For long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a banner, and the world is full of those banners, very full of banners. And bottle-ale is a drink of Satan’s, a diet-drink of Satan’s, devised to puff us up, and make us swell in this latter age of vanity, as the smoke of tobacco, to keep us in mist and error. But the fleshly woman (which you call Urs’la) is above all to be avoided, having the marks upon her of the three enemies of man: the World, as being in the Fair; the Devil, as being in the fire; and the Flesh, as being herself.

Brother Zeal-of-the-land, what shall we do? My daughter Win-the-fight is fall’n into her fit of longing again —

For more pig? There is no more, is there?

— to see some sights i’the Fair.

Sister, let her fly the impurity of the place swiftly, lest she partake of the pitch thereof. Thou art the seat of the Beast, O Smithfield, and I will leave thee. Idolatry peepeth out on every side of thee.

((An excellent right hypocrite! Now his belly is full, he falls a-railing and kicking, the jade. A very good vapour! I’ll in, and joy Urs’la with telling how her pig works: two and a half he ate to his share. And he has drunk a pailful. He eats with his eyes, as well as his teeth.))

What do you lack, gentlemen? What is’t you buy? Rattles, drums, babies —

Peace, with thy apocryphal wares, thou profane publican: thy bells, thy dragons, and thy Toby’s dogs. Thy hobby-horse is an idol, a very idol, a fierce and rank idol, and thou the Nebuchadnezzar, the proud Nebuchadnezzar of the Fair, that sett’st it up for children to fall down to and worship.

Cry you mercy, sir, will you buy a fiddle to fill up your noise?

Look, Win, do, look, a God’s name, and save your longing. Here be fine sights.

Ay, child. So you hate ’em, as our Brother Zeal does, you may look on ’em.

LEATHERHEAD

Or what do you say to a drum, sir?

It is the broken belly of the Beast, and thy bellows there are his lungs, and

And what’s my gingerbread, I pray you?

The provender that pricks him up. Hence with thy basket of popery, thy nest of images, and whole legend of ginger-work.

Sir, if you be not quiet the quicklier, I’ll ha’ you clapped fairly

The sin of the Fair provokes me, I cannot be silent.

Good Brother Zeal!

Sir, I’ll make you silent, believe it.

((I’d give a shilling you could, i’faith, friend.))

LEATHERHEAD

Sir, give me your shilling — I’ll give you my shop if I do not, and I’ll leave it in pawn with you i’the meantime.

A match, i’faith, but do it quickly then.

Hinder me not, woman. — I was moved in spirit, to be here this day in this Fair, this wicked and foul Fair — and fitter may it be called a Foul than a Fair — to protest against the abuses of it, the foul abuses of it, in regard of the afflicted Saints, that are troubled,very much troubled, exceedingly troubled, with the opening of the merchandise of Babylon again, and the peeping of popery upon the stalls, here, here, in the high places. See you not Goldilocks, the purple strumpet, there in her yellow gown and green sleeves? The profane pipes, the tinkling timbrels? A shop of relics!

Pray you, forbear: I am put in trust with ’em.

And this idolatrous grove of images, this flasket of idols! which I will pull down —

Oh, my ware, my ware, God bless it!

— in my zeal, and glory to be thus exercised.

Here he is: pray you, lay hold on his zeal — we cannot sell a whistle, for him, in tune. Stop his noise first!

Thou canst not: ’tis a sanctified noise. I will make a loud and most strong noise, till I have daunted the profane enemy. And for this Cause —

Sir, here’s no man afraid of you, or your Cause. You shall swear it i’the stocks, sir.

— I will thrust myself into the stocks, upon the pikes of the land.

Carry him away.

What do you mean, wicked men?

Let them alone; I fear them not.

Was not this shilling well ventured, Win, for our liberty? Now we may go play, and see over the Fair where we list ourselves. My mother is gone after him, and let her e’en go, and loose us.

Yes, John, but I know not what to do.

For what, Win?

For a thing I am ashamed to tell you, i’faith, and ’tis too far to go home.

I pray thee, be not ashamed, Win. Come, i’faith, thou shall not be ashamed. Is it anything about the hobby-horse-man? An’t be, speak freely.

Hang him, base bob-chin, I scorn him; no, I have very great what’sha’-call’um, John.

Oh! Is that all, Win? We’ll go back to Captain Jordan, to the pig-woman’s, Win. He’ll help us, or she with a dripping pan, or an old kettle, or something. The poor greasy soul loves you, Win, and, after, we’ll visit the Fair all over, Win, and see my puppet play, Win — you know it’s a fine matter, Win.

Let’s away: I counselled you to pack up afore, Joan.

A pox of his Bedlam purity. He has spoiled half my ware: but the best is, we lose nothing, if we miss our first merchant.

It shall be hard for him to find or know us when we are translated, Joan.

My masters, I do make no doubt but you are officers.

What then, sir?

And the King’s loving and obedient subjects.

Obedient, friend? Take heed what you speak, I advise you: Oliver Bristle advises you. His loving subjects, we grant you, but not his obedient, at this time, by your leave: we know ourselves a little better than so. We are to command, sir, and such as you are to be obedient. Here’s one of his obedient subjects

going to the stocks, and we’ll make you such another, if you talk.

You are all wise enough i’your places, I know.

If you know it, sir, why do you bring it in question?

I question nothing, pardon me. I do only hope you have warrant for what you do; and so, quit you, and so, multiply you. He goes away again.

What’s he? Bring him up to the stocks there. Why bring you him not up?

If you have Justice Overdo’s warrant, ’tis well: you are safe. That is the warrant of warrants. I’ll not give this button for any man’s warrant else.

Like enough, sir, but let me tell you: an you play away your buttons thus, you will want ’em ere night, for any store I see about you. You might keep ’em, and save pins, I wusse.

If you have Justice Overdo’s warrant, ‘tis well: you are safe. That is the warrant of warrants. I’ll not give this button for any man’s warrant else.

Like enough, sir, but let me tell you: and play away your buttons thus, you will want ‘em ere night, for any store I see about you. You might keep ‘em, and save pins, I wusse.

((What should he be that doth so esteem and advance my warrant? He seems a sober and discreet person! It is a comfort to a good conscience, to be followed with a good fame in his sufferings. The world will have a pretty taste by this how I can bear adversity; and it will beget a kind of reverence toward me hereafter, even from mine enemies, when they shall see I carry my calamity nobly, and that it doth neither break me nor bend me.))

Come, sir, here’s a place for you to preach in. Will you put in your leg?

That I will, cheerfully.

O’my conscience, a seminary! He kisses the stocks.

Well, my masters, I’ll leave him with you. Now I see him bestowed, I’ll go look for my goods, and Numps.

You may, sir, I warrant you.

((In the midst of this tumult, I will yet be the author of mine own rest, and, not minding their fury, sit in the stocks in that calm as shall be able to trouble a triumph.))

Do you assure me, upon your words? May I undertake for you, if I be asked the question, that you have this warrant?

What’s this fellow, for God’s sake?

Do but show me ‘Adam Overdo’, and I am satisfied. Goes out.

He is a fellow that is distracted, they say: one Troubleall. He was an officer in the Court of Pie-powders here last year, and put out on his place by

— upon which he took an idle conceit, and’s run mad upon’t. So that ever since he will do nothing but by Justice Overdo’s warrant: he will not eat a crust, nor drink a little, nor make him in his apparel ready. His wife — sir-reverence — cannot get him make his water or shift his shirt without his warrant.

((If this be true, this is my greatest disaster! How am I bound to satisfy this poor man, that is — of so good a nature to me — out of his wits, where there is no room left for dissembling!))

If you cannot show me ‘Adam Overdo’, I am in doubt of you: I am afraid you cannot answer it. Goes again.

Before me, neighbour Bristle, and now I think on’t better, Justice Overdo is a very parantory person.

Oh! are you advised of that? And a severe justicer, by your leave.

((Do I hear ill o’that side, too?))

BRISTLE

He will sit as upright o’the bench, an you mark him, as a candle i’the socket, and give light to the whole court in every business.

But he will burn blue, and swell like a boil — God bless us — an he be angry.

Ay, and he will be angry, too, when him list, that’s more: and when he is angry, be it right or wrong, he has the law on’s side, ever. Ay, mark that, too.

((I will be more tender hereafter. I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.))

Well, take him out o’the stocks again; we’ll go a sure way to work, we’ll ha’ the ace of hearts of our side, if we can.

Come, bring him away to his fellow there. — Master Busy, we shall rule your legs, I hope, though we cannot rule your tongue.

No, minister of darkness, no, thou canst not rule my tongue: my tongue it is mine own, and with it I will both knock and mock down your Barthol’mew-abominations, till you be made a hissing to the neighbour parishes round about.

And shall he not into the stocks, then?

No, mistress, we’ll have ’em both to Justice Overdo, and let him do over ’em as is fitting. Then I and my gossip Haggis and my beadle Poacher are discharged.

Oh, I thank you, blessed, honest men!

Nay, never thank us, but thank this madman that comes here: he put it in our heads.

Is he mad? — Now heaven increase his madness, and bless it, and thank it! — Sir, your poor handmaid thanks you.

Have you a warrant? An you have a warrant, show it.

Yes, I have a warrant out of the Word, to give thanks for removing any scorn intended to the Brethren.

It is Justice Overdo’s warrant that I look for. If you have not that, keep your word, I’ll keep mine. Quit ye, and multiply ye.

Come away, Nightingale, I pray thee.

Whither go you? Where’s your warrant?

Warrant? For what, sir?

For what you go about: you know how fit it is. An you have no warrant, bless you, I’ll pray for you, that’s all I can do.

What means he?

A madman that haunts the Fair — do you not know him? It’s marvel he has not more followers after his ragged heels.

Beshrew him, he startled me: I thought he had known of our plot. Guilt’s a terrible thing! — ha’ you prepared the costermonger?

Yes, and agreed for his basket of pears; he is at the corner here, ready. And your prize, he comes down sailing that way, all alone, without his protector: he is rid of him, it seems.

Ay, I know; I should ha’ followed his Protectorship for a feat I am to do upon him, but this offered itself so i’the way, I could not let it scape. Here he comes: whistle. Be this sport called ‘Dorring the Dotterel’.

Wh, wh, wh, wh, etc.

By this light, I cannot find my gingerbread-wife nor my hobby-horse-man in all the Fair now to ha’ my money again. And I do not know the way out on’t to go home for more. Do you hear, friend, you that whistle: what tune is that you whistle?

A new tune I am practising, sir.

Dost thou know where I dwell, I pray thee? — nay, on with thy tune, I ha’ no such haste for an answer. I’ll practise with thee.

Buy any pears, very fine pears, pears fine! Nightingale sets his foot afore him and he falls, with his basket.

God’s so! A muss, a muss, a muss, a muss!

Good gentleman, my ware, my ware, I am a poor man. Good sir, my ware.

Let me hold your sword, sir: it troubles you.

Do, and my cloak, an thou wilt; and my hat, too.

A delicate great boy! Methinks he out-scrambles ’em all. I cannot persuade myself but he goes to grammar school yet, and plays the truant today.

Would he had another purse to cut, Zekiel.

Purse? A man might cut out his kidneys, I think, and he never feel ’em, he is so earnest at the sport.

His soul is halfway out on’s body at the game.

Away, Nightingale: that way.

I think I am furnished for Cathern pears for one undermeal. Gi’ me my cloak.

Good gentleman, give me my ware.

Where’s the fellow I ga’ my cloak to? My cloak! And my hat! Ha! God’s lid, is he gone? Thieves, thieves, help me to cry, gentlemen! He runs out.

Away, costermonger, come to us to Urs’la’s.

Would I might lose my doublet and hose, too, as I am an honest man, and never stir, if I think there be anything but thieving and cozening i’this whole Fair. Barthol’mew Fair, quoth he: an ever any Barthol’mew had tha luck in’t that I have had, I’ll be martyred for him, and in Smithfield, too. I ha’paid for my pears, a rot on ’em: I’ll keep ’em no longer.

By whose warrant, sir, have you done all this?

Warrant? Thou art a wise fellow, indeed. As if a man need a warrant to lose anything with.

Yes, Justice Overdo’s warrant, a man may get and lose with, I’ll stand to’t.

Justice Overdo? Dost thou know him? I lie there: he is my brother-in-law, he married my sister. Pray thee, show me the way — dost thou know the house?

Sir, show me your warrant: I know nothing without a warrant,pardon me.

Why, I warrant thee, come along: thou shalt see I have wrought pillows there, and cambric sheets, and sweet-bags, too. Pray thee, guide me to the house.

Sir, I’ll tell you: go you thither yourself first, alone; tell your worshipful brother your mind; and but bring me three lines of his hand, or his clerk’s, with ‘Adam Overdo’ underneath; here I’ll stay you, I’ll obey you, and I’ll guide you presently.

’Slid, this is an ass; I ha’ found him. Pox upon me, what do I talking to such a dull fool? Farewell, you are a very coxcomb, do you hear?

I think I am: if Justice Overdo sign to it, I am, and so we are all; he’ll quit us all, multiply us all.

Gentlemen, this is no way that you take: you do but breed one another trouble and offence, and give me no contentment at all. I am no she that affects to be quarrelled for, or have my name or fortune made the question of men’s swords.

’Slood, we love you.

If you both love me, as you pretend, your own reason will tell you but one can enjoy me; and to that point, there leads a directer line than by my infamy, which must follow if you fight. ’Tis true (I have professed it to you ingenuously) that rather than to be yoked with this bridegroom is appointed me, I would take up any husband, almost upon any trust — though subtlety would say to me (I know) he is a fool, and has an estate, and I might govern him, and enjoy a friend beside. But these are not my aims: I must have a husband I can love, or I cannot live with him. I shall ill make one of these politic wives!

Why, if you can like either of us, lady, say which is he, and the other shall swear instantly to desist.

Content, I accord to that willingly.

Sure you think me a woman of an extreme levity, gentlemen, or a strange fancy, that (meeting you by chance in such a place as this, both at one instant and not yet of two hours’ acquaintance, neither of you deserving afore the other of me) I should so forsake my modesty (though I might affect one more particularly) as to say: This is he, and name him.

Why, wherefore should you not? What should hinder you?

If you would not give it to my modesty, allow it yet to my wit: give me so much of woman and cunning as not to betray myself impertinently. How can I judge of you so far as to a choice, without knowing you more? You are both equal and alike to me yet, and so indifferently affected by me as each of you might be the man, if the other were away. For you are reasonable creatures, you have understanding and discourse. And if fate send me an understanding husband, I have no fear at all but mine own manners shall make him a good one.

Would I were put forth to making for you then.

It may be you are: you know not what’s toward you. Will you consent to a motion of mine, gentlemen?

Whatever it be, we’ll presume reasonableness, coming from you.

And fitness, too.

I saw one of you buy a pair of tables e’en now.

Yes, here they be, and maiden ones too, unwritten in.

The fitter for what they may be employed in. You shall write either of you here a word, or a name, what you like best — but of two or three syllables at most; and the next person that comes this way — because destiny has a high hand in business of this nature — I’ll demand which of the two words he or she doth approve; and according to that sentence, fix my resolution and affection, without change.

Agreed, my word is conceived already.

And mine shall not be long creating after.

But you shall promise, gentlemen, not to be curious to know which of you it is, is taken; but give me leave to conceal that till you have brought me either home, or where I may safely tender myself —

Why, that’s but equal.

We are pleased.

— because I will bind both your endeavours to work together friendly and jointly, each to the other’s fortune, and have myself fitted with some means to make him that is forsaken a part of amends.

These conditions are very courteous. Well, my word is out of the Arcadia then: ‘Argalus’.

And mine out of the play: ‘Palamon’.

Have you any warrant for this, gentlemen?

Ha!

There must be a warrant had, believe it.

For what?

For whatsoever it is, anything indeed, no matter what.

’Slight, here’s a fine ragged prophet, dropped down i’the nick!

Heaven quit you, gentlemen.

Nay, stay a little. Good lady, put him to the question.

You are content, then?

QUARLOUS, WINWIFE

Yes, yes.

Sir, here are two names written —

Is ‘ Justice Overdo’ one?

How, sir? I pray you, read ’em to yourself — it is for a wager between these gentlemen — and with a stroke or any difference, mark which you approve best.

They may be both worshipful names for aught I know, mistress, but ‘Adam Overdo’ had been worth three of ’em, I assure you, in this place — that’s in plain English.

This man amazes me! — I pray you, like one of ’em, sir.

I do like him there that has the best warrant. Mistress, to save your longing — and multiply him — it may be this.

Is’t done, lady?

Ay, and strangely as ever I saw! What fellow is this, trow?

No matter what, a fortune-teller we ha’ made him. Which is’t, which is’t?

Nay, did you not promise not to inquire?

’Slid, I forgot that, pray you, pardon me.

How now, lime-twig? Hast thou touched?

Not yet, sir: except you would go with me and see’t, it’s not worth speaking on. The act is nothing without a witness. Yonder he is, your man with the box fall’n into the finest company, and so transported with vapours: they ha’ got in a northern clothier, and one Puppy, a western man that’s come to wrestle before my Lord Mayor anon, and Captain Whit, and one Val Cutting that helps Captain Jordan to roar, a circling boy — with whom your Numps is so taken that you may strip him of his clothes, if you will. I’ll undertake to geld him for you, if you had but a surgeon ready to sear him. And Mistress Justice there is the goodest woman! She does so love ’em all over, in terms of justice, and the style of authority, with her hood upright — that I beseech you come away, gentlemen, and see’t!

’Slight, I would not lose it for the Fair. What’ll you do, Ned?

Why, stay here about for you. Mistress Wellborn must not be seen.

Do so, and find out a priest i’the meantime. I’ll bring the licence.— Lead, which way is’t?

Here, sir, you are o’the backside o’the booth already: you may hear the noise.

((Whit, bid Val Cutting continue the vapours for a lift, Whit, for a lift.))

I’ll ne mare, I’ll ne mare, the eale’s too meeghty.

How now, my Galloway-nag, the staggers? Ha! Whit, gi’ him a slit i’the forehead. Cheer up, man — a needle, and thread to stitch his ears! I’d cure him now an I had it, with a little butter and garlic, long pepper and grains. Where’s my horn? I’ll gi’ him a mash presently shall take away this dizziness.

Why, where are you, zurs? Do you vlinch, and leave us i’the zuds, now?

I’ll ne mare, I’s e’en as vull as a paiper’s bag, by my troth, I.

Do my northern cloth zhrink i’the wetting? Ha?

Why, well said, old flea-bitten. Thou’lt never tire, I see.

No, sir, but he may tire, if it please him.

Who told dee sho, that he vuld never teer, man?

No matter who told him so, so long as he knows.

Nay, I know nothing, sir, pardon me there.

They are at it still, sir: this they call vapours.

He shall not pardon dee, captain, dou shalt not be pardoned. Pre’de, shweet heart, do not pardon him.

’Slight, I’ll pardon him, an I list, whosoever says nay to’t.

Where’s Numps? I miss him.

Why, I say nay to’t.

Oh, there he is!

To what do you say nay, sir? Here they continue their game of

To anything, whatsoever it is, so vapours, which is nonsense: every long as I do not like it. man to oppose the last man that

Pardon me, little man, dou musht like it spoke, whether it concerned a little. him or no.

No, he must not like it at all, sir: there you are i’the wrong.

I tink I be: he musht not like it, indeed.

Nay, then he both must and will like it, sir, for all you.

If he have reason, he may like it, sir.

By no meansh, captain, upon reason, he may like nothing upon reason.

I have no reason, nor I will hear of no reason, nor I will look for no reason, and he is an ass that either knows any, or looks for’t, from me.

Yes, in some sense you may have reason, sir.

Ay, in some sense, I care not if I grant you.

Pardon me, thou ougsht to grant him nothing, in no shensh, if dou do love dyshelf, angry man.

Why then, I do grant him nothing, and I have no sense.

’Tis true, thou hast no sense indeed.

’Slid, but I have sense, now I think on’t better, and I will grant him anything, do you see?

He is i’the right, and does utter a sufficient vapour.

Nay, it is no sufficient vapour, neither, I deny that.

Then it is a sweet vapour.

It may be a sweet vapour.

Nay, it is no sweet vapour neither, sir: it stinks, and I’ll stand to’t.

Yes, I tink it dosh shtink, captain. All vapour dosh shtink.

Nay, then it does not stink, sir, and it shall not stink.

By your leave, it may, sir.

Ay, by my leave, it may stink, I know that.

Pardon me, thou knowesht nothing: it cannot, by thy leave, angry man.

How can it not?

Nay, never question him, for he is i’the right.

Yesh, I am i’ de right, I confesh it; so ish de little man, too.

I’ll have nothing confessed that concerns me. I am not i’the right, nor never was i’the right, nor never will be i’the right, while I am in my right mind.

Mind? Why, here’s no man minds you, sir, nor anything else.

Vriend, will you mind this that we do?

Call you this vapours? This is such belching of quarrel as I never heard. Will you mind your business, sir?

You shall see, sir.

I’ll ne maire, my waimb warks too mickle with this auready.

Will you take that, Master Wasp, that nobody should mind you?

Why? What ha’ you to do? Is’t any matter to you?

No, but methinks you should not be unminded, though.

Nor I wu’ not be, now I think on’t. Do you hear, new acquaintance, does no man mind me, say you?

Yes, sir, every man here minds you, but how?

Nay, I care as little how, as you do. That was not my question.

No, noting was ty question. Tou art a learned man, and I am a valiant man, i’faith, la: tou shalt speak for me, and I vill fight for tee.

Fight for him, Whit? A gross vapour, he can fight for himself.

It may be I can, but it may be I wu’ not. How then?

Why, then you may choose.

Why, and I’ll choose whether I’ll choose or no.

I think you may, and ’tis true; and I allow it for a resolute vapour.

Nay, then, I do think you do not think, and it is no resolute vapour.

Yes, in some sort he may allow you.

In no sort, sir, pardon me, I can allow him nothing. You mistake the vapour.

He mistakes nothing, sir, in no sort.

Yes, I pre dee now, let him mistake.

A turd i’your teeth, never ‘pre dee’ me, for I will have nothing mistaken.

Turd, ha, turd? a noisome vapour — strike, Whit.

Why, gentlemen, why, gentlemen, I charge you upon my authority, conserve the peace! In the King’s name, and my husband’s, put up your weapons! I shall be driven to commit you myself else.

Ha, ha, ha.

Why do you laugh, sir?

Sir, you’ll allow me my Christian liberty. I may laugh, I hope.

In some sort you may, and in some sort you may not, sir.

Nay in some sort, sir, he may neither laugh nor hope in this company.

Yes, then he may both laugh and hope in any sort, an’t please him.

Faith, and I will then, for it doth please me exceedingly.

No exceeding neither, sir.

No, that vapour is too lofty.

Gentlemen, I do not play well at your game of vapours, I am not very good at it, but —

Do you hear, sir? I would speak with you in circle?

In circle, sir? What would you with me in circle?

Can you lend me a piece, a Jacobus, in circle?

’Slid, your circle will prove more costly than your vapours, then. Sir, no, I lend you none.

Your beard’s not well turned up, sir.

How, rascal? Are you playing with my beard? I’ll break circle with you.

Gentlemen, gentlemen!

Gather up, Whit, gather up, Whit, good vapours.

What mean you? Are you rebels? Gentlemen! Shall I send out a sergeant-at-arms or a Writ o’ Rebellion against you? I’ll commit you, upon my womanhood, for a riot, upon my justicehood, if you persist.

Upon your justicehood? Marry, shite o’your hood! You’ll commit? Spoke like a true justice of peace’s wife, indeed, and a fine female lawyer! Turd i’your teeth for a fee now.

Why, Numps, in Master Overdo’s name, I charge you.

Good Mistress Underdo, hold your tongue.

Alas! poor Numps.

Alas! And why ‘alas’ from you, I beseech you? Or why ‘poor Numps’, Goody Rich? Am I come to be pitied by your tuftaffeta now? Why, mistress, I knew Adam the clerk, your husband, when he was Adam scrivener and writ for twopence a sheet, as high as he bears his head now, or you your hood, dame.

We be men, and no infidels. What is the matter here, and the noises? Can you tell?

Heart, what ha’ you to do? Cannot a man quarrel in quietness, but he must be put out on’t by you? What are you?

Why, we be His Majesty’s watch, sir.

Watch? ’Sblood, you are a sweet watch, indeed. A body would think, an you watched well a-nights, you should be contented to sleep at this time a-day. Get you to your fleas and your flock-beds, you rogues, your kennels, and lie down close.

Down? Yes, we will down, I warrant you: down with him in His Majesty’s name, down, down with him, and carry him away to the pigeon-holes.

I thank you, honest friends, in the behalf o’the crown and the peace, and in Master Overdo’s name, for suppressing enormities.

Stay, Bristle, here ish anoder brash o’ drunkards, but very quiet, special drunkards, will pay dee five shillings very well. Take ’em to dee, in de graish o’ God: one of ’em does change cloth for ale in the Fair here; te toder ish a strong man, a mighty man, my Lord Mayor’s man, and a wrestler. He has wreshled so long with the bottle here, that the man with the beard hash almosht streeke up hish heelsh.

BRISTLE

’Slid, the clerk o’the market has been to cry him all the Fair over here, for my lord’s service.

Tere he ish, pre de taik him hensh, and make ty best on him.

How now, woman o’ shilke, vat ailsh ty shweet faish? Art tou melancholy?

A little distempered with these enormities. Shall I intreat a courtesy of you, captain?

Entreat a hundred, velvet voman, I vill do it, shpeak out.

I cannot with modesty speak it out, but —

I vill do it, and more, and more, for dee. — [Loudly] What, Urs’la, an’t be, bitch, an’t be, bawd, an’t be!

How now, rascal? What roar you for, old pimp?

((Here, put up de cloaks, Ursh, de purchase. — Pre dee now, shweet Ursh, help dis good brave voman to a jordan, an’t be.))

’Slid, call your Captain Jordan to her, can you not?

Nay, pre dee leave dy consheits, and bring the velvet woman to de —

I bring her, hang her! Heart, must I find a common pot for every punk i’your purlieus?

Oh, good voordsh, Ursh: it ish a guest o’ velvet, i’fait, la.

Let her sell her hood, and buy a sponge, with a pox to her. My vessel is employed, sir. I have but one, and ’tis the bottom of an old bottle. An honest proctor and his wife are at it within. If she’ll stay her time, so.

As soon ash tou cansht, shwet Ursh.

How now, Whit? Close vapours, stealing your leaps? Covering in corners, ha?

No, fait, captain, dough tou beesht a vishe man, dy vit is a mile hence, now. I vas procuring a shmall courtesy for a woman of fashion here.

Yes, captain, though I am justice of peace’s wife, I do love men of war and the sons of the sword, when they come before my husband.

Say’st thou so, filly? Thou shalt have a leap presently; I’ll horse thee myself, else.

Come, will you bring her in now, and let her take her turn?

Gramercy, good Ursh, I tank dee.

Master Overdo shall thank her.

Good Gammer Urs, Win and I are exceedingly beholden to you, and to Captain Jordan, and Captain Whit. — Win, I’ll be bold to leave you i’this good company, Win, for half an hour or so, Win, while I go and see how my matter goes forward, and if the puppets be perfect. And then I’ll come and fetch you, Win.

Will you leave me alone with two men, John?

Ay, they are honest gentlemen, Win — Captain Jordan and Captain Whit— they’ll use you very civilly, Win. God b’w’you, Win.

((What’s her husband gone?))

On his false gallop, Urs, away.

An you be right Barthol’mew-birds, now show yourselves so: we are undone for want of fowl i’the Fair here. Here will be Zekiel Edgworth, and three or four gallants with him, at night, and I ha’ neither plover nor quail for ’em. Persuade this between you two to become a bird o’the game, while I work the velvet woman within (as you call her).

I conceive thee, Urs! Go thy ways.

Yes, by my fait and trot, it is, captain. De honesht woman’s life is a scurvy dull life, indeed, la.

How, sir? Is an honest woman’s life a scurvy life?

Yes, fait, shweetheart, believe him: de leefe of a bondwoman! But if dou vilt harken to me, I vill make tee a free woman, and a lady; dou shalt live like a lady, as te captain saish.

Ay, and be honest too sometimes: have her wires and her tires, her green gowns, and velvet petticoats.

Ay, and ride to Ware and Romford i’ dy coash, shee de players, be in love vit ’em; sup vit gallantsh, be drunk, and cost de noting.

Brave vapours!

And lie by twenty on ’em, if dou pleash, shweetheart.

What, and be honest still? That were fine sport.

’Tish common, shweetheart, tou mayst do it, by my hand. It shall be justified to ty husband’s faish now: tou shalt be as honesht as the skin between his hornsh, la!

Yes, and wear a dressing, top and topgallant, to compare with e’er a husband on ’em all for a foretop: it is the vapour of spirit in the wife to cuckold nowadays, as it is the vapour of fashion in the husband not to suspect. Your prying cat-eyed citizen is an abominable vapour.

Lord, what a fool have I been!

Mend then, and do everyting like a lady hereafter: never know ty husband from another man.

Nor any one man from another, but i’the dark.

Ay, and then it ish no dishgrash to know any man.

Help, help, here!

How now? What vapour’s there?

Oh, you are a sweet ranger, and look well to your walks! Yonder is your punk of Turnbull, Ramping Alice, has fall’n upon the poor gentlewoman within, and pulled her hood over her ears and her hair through it.

Help, help, i’the King’s name!

A mischief on you, they are such as you are that undo us, and take our trade from us, with your tuftaffeta haunches!

How now, Alice!

The poor common whores can ha’ no traffic for the privy rich ones: your caps and hoods of velvet call away our customers, and lick the fat from us.

Peace, you foul ramping jade, you —

’Od’s foot, you bawd in grease, are you talking?

Why, Alice, I say!

Thou sow of Smithfield, thou!

Thou tripe of Turnbull!

Cat-a-mountain vapours! Ha!

You know where you were tawed lately: both lashed and slashed you were in Bridewell.

Ay, by the same token, you rid that week, and broke out the bottom o’the cart, night-tub.

Why, lion face! Ha! Do you know who I am? Shall I tear ruff, slit waistcoat, make rags of petticoat? Ha! Go to, vanish, for fear of vapours. Whit, a kick, Whit, in the parting vapour.

Yes, fait, dey shall all both be ladies, and write ‘Madam’. I vill do’t myself for dem: ‘Do’ is the vord, and D is the middle letter of ‘Madam’: D D. Put ’em together and make deeds, without which all words are alike, la.

’Tis true, Urs’la. Take ’em in, open thy wardrobe, and fit ’em to their calling. Green gowns, crimson petticoats, green women! My Lord Mayor’s green women! Guests o’the game, true bred. I’ll provide you a coach to take the air in.

But do you think you can get one?

Oh, they are as common as wheelbarrows where there are great dunghills. Every pettifogger’s wife has ’em, for first he buys a coach that he may marry, and then he marries that he may be made cuckold in’t: for if their wives ride not to their cuckolding, they do ’em no credit. Hide and be hidden; ride and be ridden, says the vapour of experience.

By what warrant does it say so?

Ha! Mad child o’the Piepowders, art thou there? —

I may not drink without a warrant, captain.

’Slood, thou’ll not stale without a warrant, shortly. Whit, give me pen, ink, and paper: I’ll draw him a warrant presently.

It must be Justice Overdo’s!

I know, man. Fetch the drink, Whit.

I pre dee now, be very brief, captain, for de new ladies stay for dee.

Oh, as brief as can be. Here ’tis already: ‘Adam Overdo’.

Why, now I’ll pledge you, captain.

Drink it off. I’ll come to thee anon, again.

Well, sir. You are now discharged; beware of being spied hereafter.

Sir, will it please you enter in here at Urs’la’s, and take part of a silken gown, a velvet petticoat, or a wrought smock? I am promised such, and I can spare any gentleman a moiety.

Keep it for your companions in beastliness; I am none of ’em, sir. If I had not already forgiven you a greater trespass, or thought you yet worth my beating, I would instruct your manners to whom you made your offers. But go your ways, talk not to me: the hangman is only fit to discourse with you; the hand of beadle is too merciful a punishment for your trade of life.

Sir, you are a Welsh cuckold, and a prating runt, and no constable.

You say very well. Come put in his leg in the middle roundel, and let him hole there.

You stink of leeks, metheglin, and cheese. You rogue!

Why, what is that to you, if you sit sweetly in the stocks in the meantime? If you have a mind to stink, too, your breeches sit close enough to your bum. Sit you merry, sir.

How now, Numps?

It is no matter, how. Pray you, look off.

Nay, I’ll not offend you, Numps. I thought you had sat there to be seen.

And to be sold, did you not? Pray you, mind your business, an you have any.

Cry you mercy, Numps. Does your leg lie high enough?

How now, neighbour Haggis, what says Justice Overdo’s Worship to the other offenders?

Why, he says just nothing. What should he say? Or where should he say? He is not to be found, man. He ha’ not been seen i’the Fair here all this livelong day, never since seven a’clock i’the morning. His clerks know not what to think on’t. There is no Court of Piepowders yet. — Here they be returned.

What shall be done with ’em, then, in your discretion?

I think we were best put ’em in the stocks, in discretion (there they will be safe, in discretion) for the valour of an hour, or such a thing, till his worship come.

It is but a hole matter if we do, neighbour Haggis.

Come, sir, here is company for you.

Heave up the stocks.

((I shall put a trick upon your Welsh diligence, perhaps.

Put in your leg, sir.

What, Rabbi Busy! Is he come?

I do obey thee: the lion may roar, but he cannot bite. I am glad to be thus separated from the heathen of the land, and put apart in the stocks for the holy Cause.

What are you, sir?

One that rejoiceth in his affliction, and sitteth here to prophesy the destruction of fairs and May-games, wakes, and Whitsun ales, and doth sigh and groan for the reformation of these abuses.

And do you sigh and groan, too, or rejoice in your affliction?

I do not feel it, I do not think of it, it is a thing without me.

Adam, thou art above these batteries, these contumelies. In te manca ruit fortuna , as thy friend Horace says; thou art one quem neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent. And therefore, as another friend of thine says (I think it be thy friend Persius) Non te quaesiveris extra.

What’s here? A Stoic i’the stocks? The fool is turned philosopher!

Friend, I will leave to communicate my spirit with you if I hear any more of those superstitious relics, those lists of Latin, the very rags of Rome and patches of popery.

Nay, an you begin to quarrel, gentlemen, I’ll leave you. I ha’ paid for quarrelling too lately: look you, a device, but shifting in a hand for a foot. God b’w’you.

Wilt thou then leave thy brethren in tribulation?

For this once, sir.

Thou art a halting neutral — stay him there, stop him! — that will not endure the heat of persecution!

How now, what’s the matter?

He is fled, he is fled, and dares not sit it out.

BRISTLE

What, has he made an escape, which way? Follow, neighbour Haggis!

Oh, me! In the stocks! Have the wicked prevailed?

Peace, religious sister, it is my calling, comfort yourself, an extraordinary calling, and done for my better standing, my surer standing, hereafter.

By whose warrant, by whose warrant, this?

Oh, here’s my man dropped in I looked for!

Ha!

Oh, good sir, they have set the faithful here to be wondered at, and provided holes for the holy of the land.

Had they warrant for it? Showed they Justice Overdo’s hand? If they had no warrant, they shall answer it.

Sure, you did not lock the stocks sufficiently, neighbour Toby!

No! See if you can lock ’em better.

They are very sufficiently locked, and truly, yet something is in the matter.

True, your warrant is the matter that is in question. By what warrant?

Madman, hold your peace: I will put you in his room else, in the very same hole, do you see?

((How! Is he a madman?))

Show me Justice Overdo’s warrant, I obey you.

You are a mad fool. Hold your tongue.

In Justice Overdo’s name, I drink to you, and here’s my warrant.

((Alas, poor wretch! How it earns my heart for him!))

((If he be mad, it is in vain to question him. I’ll try, though. —Friend, there was a gentlewoman showed you two names, some hour since: ‘Argalus’ and ‘Palamon’, to mark in a book. Which of ’em was it you marked?))

I mark no name but ‘Adam Overdo’: that is the name of names.

He only is the sufficient magistrate, and that name I reverence: show it me.

((This fellow’s mad indeed; I am further off now than afore.))

((I shall not breathe in peace till I have made him some amends.))

Well, I will make another use of him, is come in my head: I have a

nest of beards in my trunk, one something like his.

This mad fool has made me that I know not whether I have locked the

stocks or no. I think I locked ’em.

Take Adam Overdo in your mind, and fear nothing.

’Slid, madness itself, hold thy peace, and take that.

Strikest thou without a warrant? Take thou that. The madman fights with ’em, and they leave open the stocks.

We are delivered by miracle! Fellow in fetters, let us not refuse the means; this madness was of the spirit. The malice of the enemy hath mocked itself.

Mad do they call him! The world is mad in error, but he is mad in truth. I love him o’the sudden — the cunning man said all true — and shall love him more and more. How well it becomes a man to be mad in truth! Oh, that I might be his yoke-fellow and be mad with him, what a many should we draw to madness in truth with us!

How now! All scaped? Where’s the woman? It is witchcraft! Her velvet hat is a witch, o’my conscience, or my key — t’ one! The madman was a devil, and I am an ass; so bless me, my place, and mine office.

Well, luck and Saint Barthol’mew! Out with the sign of our invention, in the name of wit, and do you beat the drum the while! All the foul i’the Fair, I mean all the dirt in Smithfield — that’s one of Master Littlewit’s carwitchets now — will be thrown at our banner today, if the matter does not please the people. Oh, the motions, that I Lantern Leatherhead have given light to i’my time, since my master Pod died! Jerusalem Pod was a master of motions was a stately thing; and so was Nineveh , and before him.

I warrant you, sir.

An there come any gentlefolks, take twopence apiece, Sharkwell.

I warrant you, sir — threepence, an we can.

This later disguise I have borrowed of a porter shall carry me out to all my great and good ends, which, however interrupted, were never destroyed in me. Neither is the hour of my severity yet come to reveal myself, wherein cloudlike I will break out in rain and hail, lightning and thunder, upon the head of enormity. Two main works I have to prosecute first: one is to invent some satisfaction for the poor, kind wretch who is out of his wits for my sake, and yonder I see him coming. I will walk aside, and project for it.

I wonder where Tom Quarlous is, that he returns not. It may be he is struck in here to seek us.

See, here’s our madman again.

((I have made myself as like him as his gown and cap will give me leave.))

Sir, I love you, and would be glad to be mad with you in truth.

((How! My widow in love with a madman?))

Verily, I can be as mad in spirit as you.

By whose warrant? Leave your canting.

Gentlewoman, have I found you? — save ye, quit ye, and multiply ye.

What would you with it, sir?

Mark it again, and again, at your service.

Here it is, sir: this was it you marked.

‘Palamon’! Fare you well, fare you well.

How, Palamon!

Yes, faith, he has discovered it to you now, and therefore ’twere vain to disguise it longer. I am yours, sir, by the benefit of your fortune.

And you have him, mistress, believe it, that shall never give you cause to repent her benefit, but make you rather to think that in this choice she had both her eyes.

I desire to put it to no danger of protestation.

((‘Palamon’ the word, and Winwife the man!))

Good sir, vouchsafe a yoke-fellow in your madness, shun not one of the sanctified sisters that would draw with you in truth.

Away, you are a herd of hypocritical, proud ignorants, rather wild than mad, fitter for woods and the society of beasts than houses and the congregation of men. You are the second part of the society of canters, outlaws to order and discipline and the only privileged church-robbers of Christendom. Let me alone.

((‘Palamon’ the word, and Winwife the man!))

((I must uncover myself unto him or I shall never enjoy him, for all the cunning men’s promises. — Good sir, hear me: I am worth six thousand pound; my love to you is become my rack. I’ll tell you all, and the truth, since you hate the hypocrisy of the parti-coloured Brotherhood. These seven years I have been a wilful holy widow only to draw feasts and gifts from my entangled suitors; I am also by office an assisting Sister of the Deacons, and a devourer, instead of a distributer, of the alms. I am a special maker of marriages for our decayed Brethren with our rich widows, for a third part of their wealth when they are married, for the relief of the poor elect: as also our poor handsome young virgins with our wealthy bachelors or widowers, to make them steal from their husbands, when I have confirmed them in the faith and got all put into their custodies. And if I ha’ not my bargain, they may sooner turn a scolding drab into a silent minister than make me leave

Stand aside, I’ll answer you presently.

Why should not I marry this six thousand pound, now I think on’t? And a good trade too, that she has beside, ha? The t’other wench, Winwife is sure of; there’s no expectation for me there! Here I may make myself some saver yet, if she continue mad — there’s the question. It is money that I want: why should I not marry the money, when ’tis offered me? I have a licence and all:it is but razing out one name and putting in another. There’s no playing with a man’s fortune! I am resolved! I were truly mad, an I would not!

Well, come your ways, follow me; an you will be mad, I’ll show you a warrant!

Most zealously, it is that I zealously desire.

Sir, let me speak with you.

By whose warrant?

The warrant that you tender and respect so, Justice Overdo’s! I am the man, friend Troubleall, though thus disguised (as the careful magistrate ought) for the good of the republic in the Fair, and the weeding out of enormity. Do you want a house or meat, or drink, or clothes? Speak whatsoever it is, it shall be supplied you. What want you?

Nothing but your warrant.

My warrant? For what?

To be gone, sir.

Nay, I pray thee, stay. I am serious, and have not many words, nor much time to exchange with thee. Think what may do thee good.

Your hand and seal will do me a great deal of good — nothing else in the whole Fair that I know.

If it were to any end, thou shouldst have it willingly.

Why, it will satisfy me — that’s end enough — to look on. An you will not gi’ it me, let me go.

Alas! Thou shalt ha’ it presently; I’ll but step into the scrivener’s hereby, and bring it. Do not go away.

((Why, this madman’s shape will prove a very fortunate one, I think! Can a ragged robe produce these effects? If this be the wise Justice, and he bring me his hand, I shall go near to make some use on’t. He is come already!))

Look thee! Here is my hand and seal, ‘Adam Overdo’. If there be anything to be written above in the paper that thou want’st now or at any time hereafter, think on’t. It is my deed: I deliver it so. Can your friend write?

Her hand for a witness, and all is well.

With all my heart.

((Why should not I ha’ the conscience to make this a bond of a thousand pound now, or what I would else?))

Look you, there it is; and I deliver it as my deed again.

Let us now proceed in madness.

Well, my conscience is much eased; I ha’ done my part. Though it doth him no good, yet Adam hath offered satisfaction! The sting is removed from hence. Poor man, he is much altered with his affliction, it has brought him low! Now for my other work, reducing the young man I have followed so long in love, from the brink of his bane to the centre of safety. Here, or in some such like vain place, I shall be sure to find him. I will wait the good time.

How now? What’s here to do? Friend, art thou the master of the monuments?

’Tis a motion, an’t please your worship.

A motion, what’s that?

‘The Ancient Modern History of Hero and Leander , otherwise called The Touchstone of True Love , with as true a trial of friendship between Damon and Pythias, two faithful friends o’the Bankside.’ Pretty, i’faith — what’s the meaning on’t? Is’t an interlude? Or what is’t?

Yes, sir. Please you come near; we’ll take your money within.

Back with these children; they do so follow me up and down.

By your leave, friend.

You must pay, sir, an you go in.

Who, I? I perceive thou know’st not me. Call the master o’the motion.

What, do you not know the author, fellow Filcher? You must take no money of him; he must come in gratis. Master Littlewit is a voluntary: he is the author.

Peace, speak not too loud: I would not have any notice taken that I am the author till we see how it passes.

Master Littlewit, how dost thou?

Master Cokes! You are exceeding well met. What, in your doublet and hose,without a cloak or a hat?

I would I might never stir, as I am an honest man, and by that fire: I have lost all i’the Fair, and all my acquaintance too. Did’st thou meet anybody that I know, Master Littlewit? My man Numps, or my sister Overdo, or Mistress Grace? Pray thee, Master Littlewit, lend me some money to see the interlude here. I’ll pay thee again, as I am a gentleman. If thou’lt but carry me home, I have money enough there.

Oh, sir, you shall command it. What, will a crown serve you?

I think it will. What do we pay for coming in, fellows?

Twopence, sir.

Twopence? There’s twelvepence, friend. Nay, I am a gallant, as simple as I look now, if you see me with my man about me, and my artillery again.

Your man was i’the stocks e’en now, sir.

Who, Numps?

Yes, faith.

For what, i’faith? I am glad o’that — remember to tell me on’t anon; I have enough now! What manner of matter is this, Master Littlewit? What kind of actors ha’ you? Are they good actors?

Pretty youths, sir: all children, both old and young. Here’s the master of ’em —

Call me not Leatherhead, but Lantern.

— Master Lantern, that gives light to the business.

In good time, sir, I would fain see ’em; I would be glad to drink with the young company. Which is the tiring house?

LANTERN

Troth, sir, our tiring house is somewhat little: we are but beginners yet; pray, pardon us. You cannot go upright in’t.

No? Not now my hat is off? What would you have done with me, if you had had me feather and all, as I was once today? Ha’ you none of your pretty, impudent boys now, to bring stools, fill tobacco, fetch ale, and beg money, as they have at other houses? Let me see some o’your actors.

Show him ’em, show him ’em, Master Lantern: this is a gentleman that is a favourer of the quality.

((Ay, the favouring of this licentious quality is the consumption of many a young gentleman — a pernicious enormity.))

What, do they live in baskets?

They do lie in a basket, sir; they are o’the small players.

These be ‘players minors’, indeed. Do you call these players?

They are actors, sir, and as good as any, none dispraised, for dumbshows — indeed, I am the mouth of ’em all!

Thy mouth will hold ’em all. I think one tailor would go near to beat all this company with a hand bound behind him.

Ay, and eat ’em all, too, an they were in cake-bread.

I thank you for that, Master Littlewit, a good jest! Which is your Burbage now?

What mean you by that, sir?

Good, i’faith! you are even with me, sir.

LANTERN

This is he that acts young Leander, sir. He is extremely beloved of the womenkind: they do so affect his action, the green gamesters that come here. And this is lovely Hero; this with the beard, Damon; and this, pretty Pythias; this is the ghost of King Dionysius in the habit of a scrivener, as you shall see anon, at large.

Well, they are a civil company; I like ’em for that. They offer not to fleer nor jeer nor break jests, as the great players do. And then, there goes not so much charge to the feasting of ’em, or making ’em drunk, as to the other, by reason of their littleness. Do they use to play perfect? Are they never flustered?

No, sir. I thank my industry and policy for it; they are as well governed a company, though I say it — And here is young Leander: is as proper an actor of his inches, and shakes his head like an ostler.

But do you play it according to the printed book? I have read that.

By no means, sir.

No? How then?

A better way, sir — that is too learned and poetical for our audience: what do they know what Hellespont is, ‘guilty of true love’s blood’? Or what Abydos is, or ‘the other, Sestos hight’?

Thou’rt i’the right: I do not know myself.

No, I have entreated Master Littlewit to take a little pains to reduce it to a more familiar strain for our people.

How, I pray thee, good Master Littlewit?

It pleases him to make a matter of it, sir. But there is no such matter, I assure you. I have only made it a little easy and modern for the times, sir, that’s all: as, for the Hellespont I imagine our Thames here; and then Leander, I make a dyer’s son about Puddle Wharf and Hero a wench o’the Bankside, who, going over one morning to Old Fish Street, Leander spies her land at Trig Stairs, and falls in love with her. Now do I introduce Cupid, having metamorphosed himself into a drawer, and he strikes Hero in love, with a pint of sherry — and other pretty passages there are o’the friendship that will delight you, sir, and

I’ll be sworn they shall: I am in love with the actors already, and I’ll be allied to them presently — they respect gentlemen, these fellows. Hero shall be my fairing: but which of my fairings? — le’ me see — i’faith, my fiddle! And Leander my fiddlestick. Then Damon my drum, and Pythias my pipe, and the ghost of Dionysius my hobby-horse. All fitted.

Look, yonder’s your Cokes gotten in among his playfellows; I thought we could not miss him at such a spectacle.

Let him alone. He is so busy, he will never spy us. Cokes is handling the puppets.

LANTERN

Nay, good sir.

I warrant thee, I will not hurt her, fellow. What, dost think me uncivil? I pray thee, be not jealous: I am toward a wife.

Well, good Master Lantern, make ready to begin, that I may fetch my wife; and look you be perfect: you undo me else i’my reputation.

I warrant you, sir, do not you breed too great an expectation of it among your friends: that’s the only hurter of these things.

No, no, no.

I’ll stay here, and see; pray thee, let me see.

How diligent and troublesome he is!

The place becomes him, methinks.

((My ward, Mistress Grace, in the company of a stranger! I doubt

I shall be compelled to discover myself before my time!))

Twopence apiece, gentlemen: an excellent motion!

Shall we have fine fireworks and good vapours?

Yes, captain, and waterworks, too.

I pree dee, take a care o’ dy shmall lady there, Edgworth; I will look to dish tall lady myself.

Welcome, gentlemen, welcome, gentlemen!

Predee, mashter o’ de monshtersh, help a very sick lady here to a chair to shit in.

Presently, sir.

Good fait now, Urs’la’s ale and aqua-vitae ish to blame for’t; shit down, shweetheart, shit down, and shleep a little.

Madam, you are very welcome hither.

Yes, and you shall see very good vapours.

Here is my care come!

I like to see him in so good

company; and yet I wonder that persons of such fashion should resort hither!

This is a very private house, madam.

Will it please your ladyship sit, madam?

Yes, goodman.

((They do so all-to-be-madam me, I think they think me a very lady!))

What else, madam?

Must I put off my mask to him?

Oh, by no means.

How should my husband know me, then?

Husband? An idle vapour: he must not know you, nor you him —

there’s the true vapour.

((Yea, I will observe more of this. [To Whit] Is this a lady, friend?))

Ay, and dat is anoder lady, shweetheart; if dou hasht a mind to ’em, give me twelvepence from tee, and dou shalt have eder-oder on ’em!

Ay!

Is not this a finer life, lady, than to be clogged with a husband?

Yes, a great deal. When will they begin, trow, in the name o’the motion?

By and by, madam: they stay but for company.

Do you hear, puppet-master, these are tedious vapours! When begin you?

We stay but for Master Littlewit, the author, who is gone for his wife; and we begin presently.

((That’s I, that’s I.))

That was you, lady, but now you are no such poor thing.

Hang the author’s wife, a running vapour! Here be ladies will stay for ne’er a Delia o’ ’em all.

But hear me now, here ish one o’ de ladish ashleep. Stay till she but vake, man.

How now, friends? What’s here to do?

Twopence apiece, sir: the best motion in the Fair.

I believe you lie. If you do, I’ll have my money again, and beat you.

Numps is come!

Did you see a master of mine come in here: a tall young squire of Harrow o’the Hill, Master Barthol’mew Cokes?

I think there be such a one within.

Look he be: you were best — but it is very likely. I wonder I found him not at all the rest. I ha’ been at the eagle, and the black wolf, and the bull with the five legs and two pizzles — he was a calf at Uxbridge Fair two years agone — and at the dogs that dance the morris, and the hare o’the taber, and missed him at all these! Sure this must needs be some fine sight that holds him so, if it have him.

Come, come, are you ready now?

Presently, sir.

((Hoyday, he’s at work in his doublet and hose.))

Do you hear, sir? Are you employed, that you are bare-headed and so busy?

Hold your peace, Numps: you ha’ been i’the stocks, I hear.

Does he know that? Nay, then the date of my authority is out;

I must think no longer to reign; my government is at an end. He that will correct another must want fault in himself.

Sententious Numps! I never heard so much from him before.

Sure, Master Littlewit will not come. Please you take your place, sir; we’ll begin.

I pray thee, do: mine ears long to be at it, and my eyes, too. — Oh, Numps, i’the stocks, Numps? Where’s your sword, Numps?

I pray you, intend your game, sir; let me alone.

A great deal of love and care he expresses.

Alas! Would you have him to express more than he has? That were tyranny.

Peace, ho; now, now.

LANTERN

LANTERN

What was that, fellow? Pray thee, tell me: I scarce understand ’em.

Leander does ask, sir, what fairest of fairs,

Was the fare that he landed but now at Trig Stairs?

Most admirable good, is’t not?

He says he is no pander. ’Tis a fine language; I understand it now.

‘Harm watch, harm catch’, he says — very good, i’faith. The sculler had

like to ha’ knocked you, sirrah.

Yes, but that his fare called him away.

He said ‘knave i’your face’, friend.

Ay, sir, I heard him. But there’s no talking to these watermen: they will ha’ the last word.

God’s my life! I am not allied to the sculler yet: he shall be ‘Dauphin my boy’. But my fiddlestick does fiddle in and out too much. I pray thee, speak to him on’t: tell him I would have him tarry in my sight more.

I pray you, be content; you’ll have enough on him, sir.

Sack? You said but e’en now it should be sherry.

‘Sherry, sherry, sherry’! By my troth he makes me merry. I must have a name for Cupid, too. Let me see — thou mightst help me now, an thou wouldest, Numps, at a dead lift, but thou art dreaming o’the stocks still! Do not think on’t, I have forgot it: ’tis but a nine days’ wonder, man; let it not trouble thee.

I would the stocks were about your neck, sir, condition I hung by the heels in them, till the wonder were off from you, with all my heart.

Well said, resolute Numps. — But hark you, friend, where is the friendship all this while between my drum, Damon, and my pipe, Pythias?

You shall see by and by, sir.

You think my hobby-horse is forgotten, too; no, I’ll see ’em all enact before I go; I shall not know which to love best, else.

This gallant has interrupting vapours, troublesome vapours. Whit, puff with him.

No, I pre dee, captain, let him alone. He is a child, i’faith, la.

‘Whoremasterly slave, you’? Very friendly and familiar, that.

Damon says Pythias has lain with her himself; he’ll prove’t in this place.

‘And you are a pimp again’, he says.

‘And a scab again’, he says.

Ho! well acted my drum, well acted my pipe, well acted still!

Well acted, with all my heart.

Ay, both your hands, for my sake! For you ha’ both done well.

Gramercy to you both, my pipe and my drum.

How is’t, friend? Ha’ they hurt thee?

Oh, no!

Well, we have seen’t, and thou hast felt it, whatsoever thou sayest. What’s next? What’s next?

Excellently well said, fiddle: she’ll ever be his goose, so he’ll be her gander —was’t not so?

Yes, sir, but mark his answer now.

Brave! He will swim o’er the Thames and tread his goose tonight, he says.

Ay, peace, sir: they’ll be angry if they hear you eavesdropping, now

they are setting their match.

LANTERN

‘Westphalian’, you should say.

These be fine vapours!

By this good day, they fight bravely! Do they not, Numps?

Yes, they lacked but you to be their second, all this while.

Down with Dagon, down with Dagon! ’Tis I, will no longer endure your profanations.

What mean you, sir?

I will remove Dagon there, I say, that idol, that heathenish idol, that remains (as I may say) a beam, a very beam: not a beam of the sun, nor a beam of the moon, nor a beam of a balance, neither a house beam, nor a weaver’s beam, but a beam in the eye, in the eye of the Brethren; a very great beam, an exceeding great beam; such as are your stage-players, rhymers, and morris dancers, who have walked hand in hand in contempt of the Brethren and the Cause; and been borne out by instruments of no mean countenance.

Sir, I present nothing but what is licensed by authority.

Thou art all licence, even licentiousness itself, Shimei!

I have the Master of Revels’ hand for’t, sir.

The Master of Rebels’ hand thou hast: Satan’s! Hold thy peace: thy scurrility shut up thy mouth. Thy profession is damnable, and in pleading for it thou dost plead for Baal. I have long opened my mouth wide and gaped, I have gaped as the oyster for the tide after thy destruction, but cannot compass it by suit or dispute, so that I look for a bickering ere long, and then a battle.

Good Banbury-vapours.

Friend, you’d have an ill match on’t, if you bicker with him here. Though he be no man o’the fist, he has friends that will go to cuffs for him. Numps, will not you take our side?

Sir, it shall not need. In my mind, he offers him a fairer course: to end it by disputation! Hast thou nothing to say for thyself in defence of thy quality?

Faith, sir, I am not well studied in these controversies between the hypocrites and us. But here’s one of my motion, Puppet Dionysius, shall undertake him, and I’ll venture the cause on’t.

Who? My hobby-horse? Will he dispute with him?

Yes, sir, and make a hobby-ass of him, I hope.

That’s excellent! Indeed he looks like the best scholar of ’em all. — Come, sir, you must be as good as your word now.

I will not fear to make my spirit and gifts known! Assist me, zeal, fill me, fill me, that is, make me full!

What a desperate, profane wretch is this! Is there any ignorance or impudence like his, to call his zeal to fill him against a puppet?

I know no fitter match than a puppet to commit with an hypocrite!

First, I say unto thee, idol, thou hast no calling.

The Motion says you lie: he is called Dionysius i’the matter, and to that calling he answers.

I mean no vocation, idol, no present lawful calling.

The motion asketh if yours be a lawful calling?

Yes, mine is of the spirit.

He says, then idol is a lawful calling! For you called him idol, and your calling is of the spirit.

Well disputed, hobby-horse!

Take not part with the wicked, young gallant. He neigheth and hinnyeth; all is but hinnying sophistry. I call him idol again. Yet I say, his calling, his profession, is profane: it is profane, idol.

It is not profane, he says.

It is profane.

It is profane.

Well said, confute him with ‘not’ still. — You cannot bear him down with your base noise, sir.

Nor he me, with his treble creaking, though he creak like the chariot wheels of Satan. I am zealous for the Cause —

As a dog for a bone.

And I say, it is profane, as being the page of Pride and the waiting-woman of Vanity.

Good.

— or feather-makers i’the Friars, that are o’your faction of faith? Are not they with their perukes and their puffs, their fans and their huffs, as much pages of Pride and waiters upon Vanity? What say you? What say you? What say you?

I will not answer for them.

Because you cannot, because you cannot. Is a bugle-maker a lawful calling? Or the confect-makers, such you have there? Or your French fashioner? You’d have all the sin within yourselves, would you not? Would you not?

No, Dagon.

What then, Dagonet? Is a puppet worse than these?

Yes, and my main argument against you is that you are an abomination:

You lie, you lie, you lie abominably.

Good, by my troth, he has given him the lie thrice.

It is your old stale argument against the players, but it will not hold against the puppets, for we have neither male nor female amongst us. And that thou mayst see if thou wilt, like a malicious purblind zeal as thou art!

By my faith, there he has answered you, friend — by plain

demonstration.

Nay, I’ll prove against ere a rabbin of ’em all that my standing is as lawful as his; that I speak by inspiration as well as he; that I have as little to do with learning as he; and do scorn her helps as much as he.

I am confuted; the Cause hath failed me.

Then be converted, be converted.

Be converted, I pray you, and let the play go on!

Let it go on. For I am changed, and will become a beholder with you!

That’s brave, i’faith: thou hast carried it away, hobby-horse! On with the play!

Stay, now do I forbid, I — Adam Overdo! Sit still, I charge you.

What, my brother-i’-law!

My wise guardian!

Justice Overdo!

It is time to take enormity by the forehead, and brand it; for I have discovered enough.

Nay, come, mistress bride. You must do as I do now. You must be mad with me, in truth.

I have here Justice Overdo for it.

Peace, good Troubleall; come hither, and you shall trouble none. I

will take the charge of you, and your friend, too.

((Now, mercy upon me.))

((Would we were away, Whit: these are dangerous vapours! Best fall off with our birds, for fear o’the cage.))

Stay, is not my name your terror?

Yesh, faith, man, and it ish for tat we would be gone, man.

O gentlemen! Did you not see a wife of mine? I ha’ lost my little wife, as I shall be trusted — my little pretty Win. I left her at the great woman’s house in trust yonder, the pig-woman’s, with Captain Jordan and Captain Whit — very good men — and I cannot hear of her. Poor fool, I fear she’s stepped aside. — Mother, did you not see Win?

If this grave matron be your mother, sir, stand by her, et digito compesce labellum ; I may perhaps spring a wife for you anon. — Brother Barthol’mew, I am sadly sorry to see you so lightly given and such a disciple of enormity, with your grave governor, Humphrey. But stand you both there in the middle place; I will reprehend you in your course. — Mistress Grace, let me rescue you out of the hands of the stranger.

Pardon me, sir, I am a kinsman of hers.

Are you so? Of what name, sir?

Winwife, sir.

Master Winwife? I hope you have won no wife of her, sir. If you have, I will examine the possibility of it at fit leisure. Now, to my enormities: look upon me, O London! and see me, O Smithfield: the Example of Justice and Mirror of Magistrates, the true top of formality and scourge of enormity. Hearken unto my labours, and but observe my discoveries; and compare Hercules with me, if thou dar’st, of old, or Columbus, Magellan, or our countryman Drake, of later times. Stand forth, you weeds of enormity, and spread.

First, Rabbi Busy, thou superlunatical hypocrite;

next, thou other extremity, thou profane professor of puppetry, little better than poetry;

then thou strong debaucher and seducer of youth: witness this easy and honest young man;

Oh, my wife, my wife, my wife!

Is she your wife? Redde te Harpocratem!

By your leave, stand by, my masters, be uncovered!

Oh, stay him, stay him! Help to cry, Nightingale: my pan, my pan!

What’s the matter?

He has stol’n Gammer Urs’la’s pan.

Yes, and I fear no man but Justice Overdo.

Urs’la? Where is she?

Oh, the sow of enormity,

this! Welcome, stand you there; you, songster, there.

An please your worship, I am in no fault: a gentleman stripped him in my booth, and borrowed his gown and his hat, and

he ran away with my goods here for it.

Then this is the true madman, and

you are the enormity!

You are i’the right: I am mad but from the gown outward.

Stand you there.

Where you please, sir.

Oh, lend me a basin, I am sick, I am sick! Where’s Master Overdo? Bridget, call hither my Adam.

How?

Dy very own wife, i’fait, worshipful Adam.

Will not my Adam come at me? Shall I see him no more then?

Sir, why do you not go on with the enormity? Are you oppressed with it? I’ll help you. Hark you, sir, i’your ear: your ‘innocent young man’ you have ta’en such care of all this day is a cutpurse, that hath got all your brother Cokes his things, and helped you to your beating and the stocks. If you have a mind to hang him now, and show him your magistrate’s wit, you may — but I should think it were better recovering the goods, and to save your estimation in pardoning him. I thank you, sir, for the gift of your ward, Mistress Grace: [He shows the deed.] look you, here is your hand and seal, by the way. Master Winwife, give you joy, you are ‘Palamon’, you are possessed o’the gentlewoman, but she must pay me value: here’s warrant for it. And honest madman, there’s thy gown and cap again; I thank thee for my wife.

Nay, I can be mad, sweetheart, when I please, still: never fear me. And careful Numps, where’s he? I thank him for my licence.

How!

’Tis true, Numps.

I’ll be hanged then.

Look i’your box, Numps.

How now, Numps, ha’ you lost it? I warrant, ’twas when thou wert i’the stocks. Why dost not speak?

I will never speak while I live again, for aught I know.

Nay, Humphrey, if I be patient, you must be so, too. This pleasant conceited gentleman hath wrought upon my judgement, and prevailed. I pray you, take care of your sick friend, Mistress Alice. And my good friends all —

And no ‘enormities’.

— I invite you home with me to my house to supper. I will have none fear to go along, for my intents are ad correctionem, non ad destructionem; ad aedificandum, non ad diruendum. So, lead on.

Yes, and bring the actors along: we’ll ha’ the rest o’the play at home!