P. jun. And a dainty scholar!

[They are all struck with admiration. Alm. No, no great scholar, he writes like a gentleman.

Shun. Pox o' your scholar!
P. Ca. Pox o' your distinction!
As if a scholar were no gentleman.

With these, to write like a gentleman, will in time

Become all one, as to write like an ass.
These gentlemen? these rascals! I am sick
Of indignation at 'em.

P. jun. How do you like't, sir?
Fit. 'Tis excellent!

Alm. 'Twas excellently sung!
Fit. A dainty air!

P. jun. What says my Lick-finger?
Lic. I am telling mistress Band, and mis-
tress Statute,

[here! What a brave gentleman you are, and Wax, How much 'twere better, that my lady's grace

Would here take up, sir, and keep house with you.

P. jun. What say they?

Sta. We could consent, sir, willingly. Band. I, if we knew her grace had the least liking.

War. We must obey her grace's will and pleasure.

P. jun. I thank you, gentlewomen; ply 'em, Lickfinger.

Give mother Mortgage, there

Lic. Her dose of sack.

I have it for her, and her distance of Hum. Pec. Indeed therein, I must confess, dear cousin,

I am a most unfortunate princess.

Alm. And

You still will be so, when your grace may help it.

[The gallants are all about Pecunia. Mad. Who'd lie in a room with a closestool, and garlick,

And kennel with his dogs, that had a prince Like this young Penny-boy to sojourn with? Shun. He'll let you ha' your liberty-Alm. Go forth,

Whither you please, and to what company

Mad. Scatter yourself amongst usP. jun. Hope of Parnassus! Thy ivy shall not wither, nor thy bays, Thou shalt be had into her grace's cellar, And there know sack and claret, all December;

Thy vein is rich, and we must cherish it. Poets and bees swarm now-a-days; but yet There are not those good taverns, for the one sort,

As there are flow'ry fields to feed the other. Though bees be pleas'd with dew, ask little

Wax,

That brings the honey to her lady's hive: The poet must have wine; and he shall have

it.

P. Ca. Why sigh you, sir? 'cause he's at

P. sen. It breeds my unrest.
Lic. Will you take a cup,

And try if you can sleep?

P. sen. No, cogging Jack,

Thou and thy cups too, perish.

[He strikes the sack out of his hand. Shun. O, the sack!

Mad. The sack, the sack!

P. Ca. A madrigal on sack!

Pic. Or rather an elegy, for the sack is

gone. [and rave? Pec. Why do you this, sir? spill the wine, For Broker's sleeping?

P. sen. What through sleep and sack, My trust is wrong'd: but I am still awake, To wait upon your grace, please you to quit This strange lewd company, they are not for you.

[He would have Pecunia home, but she refuseth, and her train.

Pec. No, guardian, I do like him very

well.

P. sen. Your grace's pleasure be observ'd; but you

[me? Statute, and Band, and Wax, will go with Stat. Truly, we will not.

Ban. We will stay, and wait here [man. Upon her grace, and this your noble kinsP. sen. Noble! how noble! who hath made him noble?

P. jun. Why, my most noble money hath, or shall; [kept, My princess here: she, that had you but And treated kindly, would have made you noble, [for you, And wise too; nay, perhaps have done that An act of parliament could not, made you honest.

The truth is, uncle, that her grace dislikes Her entertainment, 'specially her lodging. Pec. Nay, say her jail. Never unfortu

nate princess

Was us'd so by a jailor. Ask my women: Band, you can tell, and Statute, how he has us'd me, [bolts

Kept me close prisoner, under twenty Stat. And forty padlocks

Ban. All malicious engines

A wicked smith could forge out of his iron; As locks and keys, shackles and manacles, To torture a great lady.

Is not far off; if 'twere, the sink is near,

Or a good jordan.

Mad. You have now no money.

Shun. But are a rascal.

P. sen. I am cheated, robb'd,

Jeer'd by confederacy.

Fit. No, you are kick'd, [and spurn him. And used kindly, as you should be. Shun. Spurn'd

From all commerce of men, who are a cur. [Kicks him out. Alm. A stinking dog in a doublet, with foul linen.

Mad. A snarling rascal, hence.
Shun. Out.

P. sen. Well, remember, [He exclaims.

Is rarely painted: I will have such a scroll, Whate'er it cost me.

Pec. Well, at better leisure

We'll take a view of it, and so reward you. P. jun. Kiss him, sweet princess, and stile him a cousin.

Pec. I will, if you will have it. Cousin
Pyed-mantle. [She kisseth.
P. jun. I love all men of virtue, frommy
princess,

Unto my beggar here, old Canter; on,
On to thy proof; whom prove you the next
Canter?

P. Ca. The doctor here, I will proceed with the learned.

you

When he discourseth of dissection,
Or any point of anatomy; that he tells
Of vena cava, and of vena porta,
The meseraicks, and the mesenterium:
What does he else but cant? or if he run
To his judicial astrology,

[Sextile, And trowl the Trine, the Quartile, and the Platick aspect, and Partile, with his Hyleg, Or Alchochoden, Cuspes, and Horoscope; Does not he cant? who here does understand him?

Alm. This is no Canter, though! P. Ca. Or when my muster-master Talks of his tacticks, and his ranks and files, His bringers-up, his leaders-on, and cries, "Faces about to the right-hand, the left," Now, as you were;" then tells you doubts,

66

of re

Of cats, and cortines; doth not he cant?
P.jun. Yes, faith.

P. Ca. My egg-chin'd laureat here, when
he comes forth

With dimeters, and trimeters, tetrameters,
Pentameters, hexameters, catalecticks,
His hyper and his brachy-catalecticks,
His pyrrhicks, epitrites, and choriambicks;
What is all this, but canting?
Mad. A rare fellow !

Shun. Some begging scholar!
Fit. A decay'd doctor, at least!

P. jun. Nay, I do cherish virtue, though
in rags.

P. Ca. And you, mas courtier. P. jun. Now he treats of you, Stand forth to him fair.

P. Ca. With all your fly-blown projects, And looks out of the politicks, your shut faces,

And reserv'd questions and answers, that you game with; as,

Is't a clear business? will it manage well? My name must not be us'd else. Here

'twill dash.

Your business has receiv'd a taint, give off, I may not prostitute myself. Tut, tut, That little dust I can blow off at pleasure. Here's no such mountain, yet, i' the whole work!

And INDEED

But a light purse may level. I will tide
This affair for you; give it freight, and pas-
sage:
[canting,
And such mint-phrase, as 'tis the worst of
By how much it affects the sense it has not.
Fit. This is some other than he seems!
P. jun. How like you him?
Fit. This cannot be a Canter!
P. jun. But he is, sir,

And shall be still, and so shall you be too:
We'll all be Canters. Now I think of it,
A noble whimsie's come into my brain!
I'll build a college, I and my Pecunia,
And call it Canter's college: sounds it well?
[Canter's college begun to be erected.
Alm. Excellent!

P. jun. And here stands my father rector, And you professors, you shall all profess Something, and live there, with her grace and ine,

Your founders: I'll endow't with lands and means,

And Lick-finger shall be my master-cook.
What, is he gone?

P. Ca. And a professor.
P. jun. Yes.

P. Ca. And read Apicius de re culinariá To your brave doxy and you !

P. jun. You, cousin Fitton, Shall (as a courtier) read the politicks; Doctor Almanack he shall read Astrology; Shunfield shall read the military arts.

P. Ca. As carving and assaulting the cold custard.

we

Pic. And make 'em too, sir? [lands, Keep all your courts, be steward o' your Let all your leases, keep your evidences : But first, I must procure and pass your mortmain,

You must have licence from above, sir.
P. jun. Fear not,
Pecunia's friends shall do it.

P. Ca. But I shall stop it.

[Here his father discovers himself. Your worship's loving and obedient father, Your painful steward, and lost officer! Who have done this, to try how you would

A glyster, and bewray'd the Ephemerides.
Do I despise a learn'd physician,
In calling him a quacksalver? or blast
The ever-living garland, always green,
Of a good poet, when I say his wreath
Is piec'd and patch'd of dirty wither'd
flowers?

Away, I am impatient of these ulcers,
(That I not call you worse.) There is no
[abhor

sore

Or plague but you to infect the times. I Your very scent. Come, lady, since my prodigal

Knew not to entertain you to your worth, I'll see if I have learn'd how to receive you With more respect to you, and your fair train here.

Farewell, my beggar in velvet, for to-day; To-morrow you may put on that grave robe,

[He points him to his patch'd cloke thrown

off. [lege, And enter your great work of Canter's colYour work, and worthy of a chronicle.

The fourth INTERMEAN after the fourth Act. Tattle. "WHY, this was the worst of all, "the catastrophe!"

66

Cen. "The matter began to be good but now; and he has spoil'd it all with his beggar there!"

Mirth. "A beggarly Jack it is, I warrant "him, and a-kin to the poet."

Tat. "Like enough, for he had the chief"est part in his play, if you mark it."

Exp. "Absurdity on him, for a huge overgrown play-maker! Why should he "make him live again, when they and we "all thought him dead? if he had left him "to his rags, there had been an end of "him."

Tat. "I, but set a beggar on horse-back, "he'll never lin till he be a gallop"."

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