Page images
PDF
EPUB

1. We hear you are

To marry an old citizen. 2. Then furely
You were not deaf. 1. And do you mean his age,
Which hath feen all the kingdom bury'd thrice;
To whom the heat of Auguft is December;
Who, were he but in Italy, would fave

The charge of marble vaults, and cool the air
Better than ventiducts: fhall he freeze between
Your melting arms? do but confider, he
But marries you as he would do his furrs,
To keep him warm? 1. But he is rich, fir. 2. Then
In wedding him you wed more infirmities
Than ever Galen wrote of; he has pains
That put the doctors to new experiments:
Half his diseases in the city bill

Kill hundreds weekly. A lone hofpital
Were but enough for him. Befides,

He has a cough that nightly drowns the Bellman ;
Calls up his family; all his neighbours rife
And go by it, as by the chimes and clock.
Not four loam walls, nor faw-duft put between,
Can dead it. 2. Yet he is ftill rich. 1. If this
Cannot affright you, but that you will needs
Be blind to wholefome council, and will marry
One, who by the courfe of nature, ought t'have been
Rotten before the queen's time, and in justice
Should now have been fome threefcore years a ghost,
Let pity move you.

I'd rather

Main's City Match.

Lie with an ancient tomb, or embrace

An ancestor than you. Do you think I'll come
Between your winding fheets? for what? to hear you
Depart all night, and fetch your laft groan? and
In the morning find a deluge on the floor,
Your entrails floating, and half my husband fpit
Upon the arras? 2. 1 am married.. Then

For

For your abilities, fhould twelve good women
Sit on these rev'rend locks, and on your heat,
And natural appetite, they would just find you
As youthful as a coffin, and as hot

As th' fultry winter that froze o'er the thames:
They fay the hard time did begin from you.
Your humours came froft from you, and your nose
Had ificles in June.

71

Main's City Match.

Husbands are us❜d, as properties in scenes,
To keep the inward motions undiscover❜d.

HYPOCRIT E.
At length they chaunft to meet upon the way
An aged fire, in long black weeds yclad;
His feet all bare, his beard all hoary gray,
And by his belt his book he hanging had ;
Sober he feem'd, and very fagely fad;
And to the ground his eyes were lowly bent,
Simple in fhew, and void of malice bad;
And all the way he prayed, as he went,

Orgula.

And often knock'd his breaft, as one that did repent.
Spenfer's Fairy Queen.

No man's condition is fo bafe as his ;
None more accurs'd than he: for man efteems
Him hateful, 'cause he seems not what he is :
God hates him, 'cause he is not what he seems.
What grief is abfent, or what mischief can
Be added to the hate of God and man!

Quarles.

ID LENESS.

TH

IDLENESS.

HE firft, that all the reft did guide,
Was fluggish idleness, the nurfe of fin;
Upon a flothfull afs he chofe to ride,
Array'd in habit black, and amis thin,
Like to an holy monk, the service to begin.
And in his hand his portress still he bare,

That much was worn, but therein little read:
For of devotion he had little care,

Still drown'd in fleep, and most of his days dead;
Scarce could he once uphold his heavy head,
To looken whether it were night or day.
May seem the wain was very evil led,
When fuch an one had guiding of the way,
That knew not, whether right he went, or else aftray..

From worldly cares himself he did efloin,
And greatly fhunned manly exercise ;
For ev'ry work he challenged effoin,
For contemplation fake: yet otherwise,
His life he led in lawless riotise;
By which he grew to grievous malady:
For in his luftlefs limbs through evil guife
A fhaking fever reign'd continually :
Such one was idleness, firft of this company.

Spenfer's Fairy Queen.
Who doth to floth his younger days engage,
For fond delight, he clips the wings of fame;
For floth, the canker worm of honour's badge,
Fame's feather'd wings doth fret; burying the name
Of virtues worth in duft of dunghill shame,
Whom action out of duft to light doth bring,
And makes her mount to heav'n with golden wing,

Mirror for Magiftrates.

Thofe

Those wounds heal ill, that men do give themselves:
Omiffion to do what is necessary
Seals commiffion to a blank of danger;
And danger, like an ague, fubtly taints
Ev'n then, when we fit idly in the fun.

Shakespear's Troilus and Creffida.
What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to fleep and feed? a beaft, no more.
Sure, he that made us with fuch large difcourfe,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reafon

To ruft in us unus'd.

Shakespear's Hamlet.

If you will needs fay, I am an old man,

You should give me reft: I would to God, my
Name were not so terrible to th'enemy
As it is! I were better to be eaten

To death with a rust, than to be scour'd

To nothing with perpetual motion.

Shakespear's Second Part of Henry IV.

Secure and idle fpirits never thrive,

When moft the gods for their advancement strive.

See the iffue of your floth;

Chapman's Cafar and Pompey.

Of floth comes pleasure, of pleasure comes riot,
Of riot comes whoring, of whoring comes fpending,
Of spending comes want, of want comes theft,
And of theft comes hanging.

Chapman, Johnfon and Marfion's Eastward Hoe. When that he dies, that liv'd a fhade,

His fleep's continu'd then, not made.

If we should do nothing,

Killegrew's Confpiracy.

Of that must neceffary come ill: I'll

Prove it too; of doing nothing comes idleness,
Of, idleness comes no goodness, of no

Goodness neceflary comes ill: Therefore

VOL. II.

E

If

If we do nothing, of neceffity

We must do ill.

Alexander Brome's Cunning Lovers.

An idle life a fad condition breeds,

Who fits when he should travel, never speeds.

JEALOUS r.

I. Is he not jealous?

Watkyns.

2. Who, he? I think the fun, where he was born, Drew all fuch humours from him.

Shakespear's Othello.
I think, my wife is honeft; and think she is not ;
I think, that thou art juft; and think, thou art not;
I'll have fome proof. Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's vifage, is now begrim'd and black

As my own face. If there be cords, or knives,
Poifon, or fire, or fuffocating ftreams,

I'll not endure it,

1. Had it pleas'd heav'n

would, I were fatisfy'd!

To try with me affliction, had he rain'd

All kind of fores and fhames on my bare head,
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
Giv'n to captivity, me and my hopes;
I fhould have found in fome place of my foul
A drop of patience. But, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the hand of fcorn
To point his flow and moving finger at-
Yet I could bear that too,—well, very well.
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life,
The fountain, from the which my current runs,
Or elfe dries up; to be discarded thence;
Or keep it as a ciftern, for foul toads

Ibid.

To knot and gender in: Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rofe-lip'd cherubin ; .
Ay, there look grim as hell.

2. I hope, my noble lord esteems me honeft.

« PreviousContinue »