’cause we would make known, A room in Lovewit’s house. Believ’t, I will. Thy worst. I fart at thee. Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen! For love— Sirrah, I’ll strip you— What to do? Lick figs Rogue, rogue!—out of all your sleights. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen? O, let the wild sheep loose. I’ll gum your silks Will you have Sirrah— I shall mar You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave, Yes, faith; yes, faith. Why, who I’ll tell you, Speak lower, rogue. Yes, you were once (time’s not long past) the good, Will you be so loud? Since, by my means, translated Suburb-Captain. By your means, Doctor Dog! Within man’s memory, Why, I pray you, have I I do not hear well. Not of this, I think it. I wish you could advance your voice a little. When you went pinned up in the several rags So, sir! When all your alchemy, and your algebra, Your master’s house! Where you have studied the more thriving skill Yes, in your master’s house. You might talk softlier, rascal. No, you scarab, The place has made you valiant. No, your clothes.— Gentlemen, what mean you? Slave, thou hadst had no name— Will you undo yourselves with civil war? Never been known, past equi clibanum, Do you know who hears you, Sovereign? Sirrah— Nay, General, I thought you were civil. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud. And hang thyself, I care not. Hang thee, collier, O, this will o’erthrow all. Write thee up bawd in Paul’s, have all thy tricks Are you sound? I will have Away, you trencher-rascal! Out, you dog-leech! Will you be Still spewed out
No country’s mirth is better than our own:
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now called humours, feed the stage;
And which have still been subject for the rage
Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve, but better men;
Howe’er the age he lives in doth endure
The vices that she breeds, above their cure.
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased,
But will with such fair correctives be pleased:
For here he doth not fear who can apply.
If there be any that will sit so nigh
Unto the stream, to look what it doth run,
They shall find things, they’d think or wish were done;
They are so natural follies, but so shown,
As even the doers may see, and yet not own.
Act I
Scene I
Face
Subtle
Dol Common
Face
Subtle
Out at my—
Face
Dol Common
Subtle
With good strong water, an you come.
Dol Common
The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all?
Hark! I hear somebody.
Face
Subtle
All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
Face
Dare you do this?
Subtle
Face
Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?
Subtle
Since you know not yourself.
Face
Subtle
Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept
Your master’s worship’s house here in the Friars,
For the vacations—
Face
Subtle
Face
Subtle
All this I speak of.
Face
Been countenanced by you, or you by me?
Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
Subtle
Face
But I shall put you in mind, sir;—at Pie-corner,
Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks’ stalls,
Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
Piteously costive, with your pinched-horn-nose,
And your complexion of the Roman wash,
Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,
Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard.
Subtle
Face
You had raked and picked from dunghills, before day;
Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes;
A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloak,
That scarce would cover your no buttocks—
Subtle
Face
Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades,
Could not relieve your corps with so much linen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I gave you countenance, credit for your coals,
Your stills, your glasses, your materials;
Built you a furnace, drew you customers,
Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside,
A house to practise in—
Subtle
Face
Of bawdry since.
Subtle
You and the rats here kept possession.
Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep
The buttery-hatch still locked, and save the chippings,
Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitae men,
The which, together with your Christmas vails
At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters,
Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks,
And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs,
Here, since your mistress’ death hath broke up house.
Face
Subtle
I’ll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you
How to beware to tempt a Fury again,
That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
Face
Subtle
Thou vermin, have I ta’en thee out of dung,
So poor, so wretched, when no living thing
Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse?
Raised thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots,
Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fixed thee
In the third region, called our state of grace?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopher’s work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
For more than ordinary fellowships?
Given thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?
Made thee a second in mine own great art?
And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel,
Do you fly out in the projection?
Would you be gone now?
Dol Common
Will you mar all?
Subtle
Dol Common
Subtle
The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars,
Or an alehouse darker than deaf John’s; been lost
To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,
Had not I been.
Dol Common
Face
Dol Common
Face
Subtle
Face
And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will,
Since thou hast moved me—
Dol Common
Face
Of cozening with a hollow coal, dust, scrapings,
Searching for things lost, with a sieve and sheers,
Erecting figures in your rows of houses,
And taking in of shadows with a glass,
Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee,
Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey’s.
Dol Common
Have you your senses, masters?
Face
A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,
Shall prove a true philosopher’s stone to printers.
Subtle
Face
The vomit of all prisons—
Dol Common
Your own destructions, gentlemen?
Face
For lying too heavy on the