Love-rit, Officers, Mammon, Surly, Face, Lov. What do you mean, my masters? Of. Or we'll break it open. Of. Warrant enough, sir, doubt not, Lov. is there an officer, there? Is it a marriage? perfect? Fuc. Off with your ruff and cloke then; Sur. Down with the door. Kas. 'Slight, ding it open. Hold, gentlemen, what means this violence? Sur. And my captain Face? Sur. That are birding in men's purses. Kas. Doxy, my suster. Ana. Locusts Of the foul pit. Tri. Prophane as Bel and the dragon. Ana. Worse than the grashoppers, or the lice of Egypt. Lov. Good gentlemen, hear me. Are you officers, And cannot stay this violence! Lov. Gentlemen, what is the matter? whom do you seek? I am but newly come to town, and finding This tumult 'bout my door (to tell you true) It somewhat 'maz'd me; 'till my man, here, (fearing My more displeasure) told me he had done Somewhat an insolent part, let out my house (Belike, presuming on my known aversion From any air o' the town, while there was sickness) [are, To a doctor, and a captain: who, what they Or where they be, he knows not. Mam. Are they gone? [They enter. Lov. You may go in and search, sir. Here I find [smok'd, The empty walls worse than I left 'em, A few crack'd pots, and glasses, and a for • Thou shalt ha' my letter to Mrs. Amo. Dol. Hang you Fac. Or madam CÆSAREAN.] The names of two bawds in our poet's time : the last seems to be mentioned in his epigrams; "And madam Casar, great Proserpina, "Is now from home." The Voyage. She is called madam Augusta at the beginning of this play; the 4to calls her madam Imperial. ''Slight, DING it open.] Break it open. Ding is used in the Scotch poets in the same sense; and, as Mr. Upton also says, it is yet so used in the West of England. Borrow'd a suit, and ruff, all for her love; And then did nothing. What an oversight, And want of putting forward, sir, was this! Well-fare an old harquebuzier, yet, [hit, Could prime his powder, and give fire, and All in a twinkling. Mam. The whole nest are fled! Lov. What sort of birds were they? [Manmon comes forth. Mam. A kind of choughs, [purse Or thievish daws, sir, that have pick'd my Of eight-score and ten pounds, within these five weeks, Beside my first materials; and my goods, That lie is the cellar, which I am glad they ha' left, I may have home yet. Lov. Think you, so, sir? [wise. Lov. For what, my zealous friends? Out of this den of thieves. Ana. The goods sometimes the orphans, that the brethren Bought with their silver pence. Lov. What, those i' the cellar, The knight sir Mammon claims? Ana. I do defy The wicked Maimon, so do all the brethren. [conscience Thou prophane man, I ask thee with what Thou canst advance that idol against us, That have the seal? were not the shillings numbred, [told out, That made the pounds? were not the pounds Upon the second day of the fourth week, In the eighth month, upon the table dormant, The year of the last patience of the saints, Six hundred and ten? Lov. Mine earnest vehement botcher, And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you. But if you get you not away the sooner, I shall confute you with a cudgel. Ana. Sir. Tri. Be patient, Ananias. Ana. I am strong, And will stand up, well girt, against an host, That threaten Gad in exile. Against thy house: may dogs defile thy walis, And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy [coz'nage. roof, This seat of falsehood, and this cave of Lov. Another too? Dru. Not I sir, I am no brother. [Drugger enters, and he beats him away. Lov. Away, you Harry Nicholas, do you talk? 10 Fac. No, this was Abel Drugger. Good sir, go, [To the parson. And satisfy him; tell him all is done: He staid too long a-washing of his face. The doctor, he shall hear of him at West chester; And of the captain, tell him, at Yarmouth, or Some good port-town else, lying for a wind. If you can get off the angry child, now, sirKas. Come on, you ewe, you have match'd most sweetly, ha' you not? [To his sister. you tupt tom? Did not I say, I would never ha' But by a dubb'd boy, to make you a lady[you, now. 'Slight, you are a mammet! O, I could touse Death, mun' you marry with a pox? Lov. You lie, boy; This fellow was a horrid enthusiast, and See STRYPE's Annals of Queen Elizabeth, Come let's in, I pr'ythee, and take our whiffs. Lov. Whiff in with your sister, brother Of his own candour. Therefore, gentlemen, do: Stretch age's truth sometimes, and crack it Speak for thyself, knave. Fac. So I will, sir. Gentlemen, My part a little fell in this last scene, Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Dol, "I will FEIZE you, sirrah,] I'll drive you: the word is common in our old authors, and, as Mr. Upton adds, still used in the West of England.-DI. GREY. 12 My part a little fell in this last scene, Yet 'twas DECORUM.] i. e. suitable to the decorum of character. The catastrophe of the play is well managed, and the discovery of the whole not injudiciously contrived. Our poet could not help telling his audience he thought so too. 'Dost thou not feel me, Rome? not yet? is night So heavy on thee, and my weight so light?] The poet opens his play with the ghost of Sylla: this is an imitation of Seneca's Thyestes, in which the ghost of Tantalus appears, attended by the furies. Perhaps this first scene ought rather to be considered as a prologue. There are other instances in the antient dramatic writers, where these shadowy beings are introduced in the beginning of a play. The prologue to the Aulutaria of Plautus is spoke by the god Lar; and, what is exactly to our purpose, in the Hecuba of Euripides, the ghost of Polydorus is the first speaker in the tragedy. Behold I come, sent from the Stygian sound, As a dire vapour, that had cleft the ground.] This is from Seneca: -Mittor, ut dirus vapor Tellure rupta, vel gravem populis luem Sparsura pestis. Thyest. ver. 87. |