as making him drunk, first with story, and then with wine, but all in kindness, and stripping him to his shirt; I left him in that cool vein, departed, sold your worship's warrant to these two, pawned his livery for that varlet's gown to serve it in; and thus have brought myself, by my activity, to your worship's consideration.

Clem. And I will consider thee in a cup of sack. Here's to thee; which having drank off, this is my sentence, pledge me. Thou hast done, or assisted to nothing, in my judgment, but deserves to be pardoned for the wit of the offence. Go into the next room; let Master Kitely into this whimsical business, and, if he does not forgive thee, he has less mirth in him than an honest man ought to have. How now, who are these?

Eater EDWARD KNO'WELL, WELL-BRED, and BRIDGET.

O, the young company. Welcome, welcome. Give you joy. Nay, Mrs Bridget, blush not! you are not so fresh a bride, but the news of it has come hither before you. Master Bridegroom, I have made your peace, give me your hand. So will I for the rest, ere you forsake my roof.

All. We are the more bound to your humanity, sir.

Clem. Only these two have so little of man in them, they are no part of my care.

Step. And what shall I do?

Ciem. Oh! I had lost a sheep, an' he had not bleated. Why, sir, you shall give Mr Downright his cloak; and I will entreat him to take it. A trencher and a napkin you shall have in the buttery, and keep Cob and his wife company there: whom I will entreat first to be reconciled; and you to endeavour with your wit to keep them so. Step. I will do my best.

Clem. Call Master Kitely, and his wife, there.

Enter KITELY and DAME KITELY. Did I not tell you there was a plot against you? Did I not smell it out, as a wise magistrate ought? Have not you traced, have you not found it, eh, Master Kitely?

Kite. I have-I confess my folly, and own I have deserved what I have suffered for it. The trial has been severe, but it is past. All I have to ask now, is, that, as my folly is cured, and my persecutors forgiven, my shame may be forgotten.

Clem. That will depend upon yourself, Master Kitely; do not you yourself create the food for mischief, and the mischievous will not prey upon you. But come, let a general reconciliation go round, and let all discontents be laid aside. You, Master Downright, put off your anger. You, Master Kno'well, your cares. And do you, Master Kitely, and your wife, put off your jealousies.

Kite. Sir, thus they go from me: kiss me, my

wife.

See, what a drove of horns fly in the air, Winged with my cleansed and my credulous breath;

Watch them, suspicious eyes, watch where they fall!

See, see, on heads, that think they have none at all.

O, what a plenteous world of this will come! When air rains horns, all may be sure of some.

Clem. 'Tis well, 'tis well. This night we will dedicate to friendship, love, and laughter. Master Bridegroom, take your bride, and lead every one a fellow. Here is my mistress, Brain-worm! to whom all my addresses of courtship shall have their reference: whose adventures this day, when our grandchildren shall hear to be made a fable, I doubt not but it shall find both spectators and applause. [Exeunt omnes.

BY

Now luck yet send us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
(According to the palates of the season)
Here is rhime, not empty of reason:
This we were bid to credit, from our poet,
Whose true scope, if you would know it,
In all his poems, still hath been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure;

And not as some (whose throats their envy ailing)

Cry hoarsely, all he writes is railing:
And when his plays come forth, think they can
flout them,

With saying he was a year about them.
To these there needs no lie, but this his creature,
Which was two months since no feature ;
And though he dares give them five lives to
mend it,

'Tis known five weeks fully pen'd it:
From his own hand, without a coadjutor,
Novice, journeyman, or tutor.

Yet, thus much I can give you as a token
Of his plays worth, no eggs are broken;
Nor quaking custards with fierce teeth affrighted,
Wherewith your rout are so delighted;
Nor hales he in a gull, old ends reciting,
To stop gaps in his loose writing;

With such a deal of monstrous and forc'd action,
As might make Bet'lem a faction;

Nor made he his play, for jests, stol'n from each table,

But makes jests to fit his fable.

And so presents quick comedy refined,
As best critics have designed;

The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.

All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth,
Only a little salt remaineth ;
Wherewith he'll rub your cheeks, 'till (red with
laughter)

They shall look fresh a week after.

SCENE I.

VOLPONE and MOSCA.

The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun
Peep through the horns of the celestial ram,
And I, to view thy splendour, dark’ning his :
That lying here amongst my other hoards,
Shewst like a flame by night; or like the day
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre. O, thou son of Sol,
(But brighter than thy father) let me kiss
With adoration thee, and every relic
Of sacred treasure in this blessed room.
Well did wise poets by thy glorious name
Title that age, which they would have the best,
Thou being the best of things, and far transcend-
ing

All stile of joy in children, parents, friends,
Or any other waking dream on earth.
Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe,
They should have given her twenty thousand
Cupids;

Such are thy beauties, and our loves! dear saint, Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues:

That canst do naught, and yet mak'st men do all things;

The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot, Is made worth Heav'n! Thou art virtue, fame, Honour, and all things else! Who can get thee, He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise

Mos. And what he will, sir. Riches are in fortune

A greater good, than wisdom is in nature.

Volp. True, my beloved Mosca. Yet, I glory More in the cunning purchase of my wealth, Than in the glad possession, since I gain

No common way: I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with plow-shares, I fat no beasts
To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,
Oil, corn, or men, to grind 'em into powder;
I blow no subtle glass, expose no ships
To threatnings of the furrow-faced sea;
I turn no monies in the public bank,
Nor usure private.

Mos. No, sir, nor devour

Soft prodigals. You shall ha' some will swallow
A melting heir, as glibly as your Dutch
Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for❜t;
Tear forth the fathers of poor families
Out of their beds, and coffin them alive,
In some kind clasping prison, where their bones
May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten :
But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses;
You loath the widow's or the orphan's tears
Should wash your pavements; or their piteous

cries

Ring in your roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.
Volp. Right, Mosca, I do loath it.
Mos. And besides, sir,

You are not like a thresher that doth stand
With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn,
And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain,
But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs;
Nor like the merchant, who hath fill'd his vaults
With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines,
Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar :
You will not lie in straw, whilst moths and worms
Feed on your sumptuous hangings and soft beds.
You know the use of riches, and dare give now
From that bright heap, to me, your poor observer,
Or to your dwarf, or your hermaphrodite,
Your eunuch, or what other household-trifle
Your pleasure allows maint'nance.-

Vol. Hold thee, Mosca,

Take, of my hand; thou strik'st on truth, in all :
And they are envious, term thee parasite.
Call forth my dwarf, my eunuch, and my fool,
And let 'em make me sport. What should I do,
But cocker up my genius, and live free
To all delights, my fortune calls me to?
I have no wife, no parent, child, ally,
To give my substance to; but whom I make,
Must be my heir: And this makes men observe

me.

This draws new clients daily to my house,
Women and men of ev'ry sex and age,
That bring me presents, send me plate, coin,
jewels,

With hope, that when I die, (which they expect
Each greedy minute) it shall then return
Tenfold upon them; whilst some, covetous
Above the rest, seek to engross me whole,
And counter-work the one unto the other,
Contend in gifts, as they would seem in love:
All which I suffer, playing with their hopes,
And am content to coin them into profit,
And look upon their kindness, and take more,
And look on that; still bearing them in hand,
Letting the cherry knock against their lips,
And draw it by their mouths, and back again.
How now!

From thence it filed forth, and made quick trans

migration

To godly-lockt Euphorbus, who was kill'd in good fashion,

At the siege of old Troy, by the cuckold of Sparta.
Hermorimus was next (I find it in my charta)
To whom it did pass, where no sooner it was
missing,

But with one Pyrrhus of Delos it learn'd to go a-fishing:

And thence did it enter the sophist of Greece.
From Pythagore she went into a beautiful piece,
Hight Aspasia, the Meretrix; and the next toss
of her

Was, again of a whore she became a philosopher,
Crates the Cynic: (as itself doth relate it)
Since kings, knights, and beggars, knaves, lords
and fools gat it,

Besides ox and ass, camel, mule, goat and brock,
In all which it hath spoke, as in the cobler's cock.
But I come not here to discourse of that matter,
Or his one, two or three, or his great oath, by
quater,

His musics, his trigon, his golden thigh,
Or his telling how elements shift; but I
Would ask, how of late, thou hast suffer'd trans-
lation,

And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation ?
And. Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you

Nan. But, from the moyle, into whom did'st thou pass?

And. Into a very strange beast, by some writers call'd an ass;

By others, a precise, pure, illuminate brother, Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another:

And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie, Betwixt every spoonful of a nativity-pie.

Nan. Now quit thee, for heav'n, of that profane nation;

And gently report thy next transmigration.
And. To the same that I am.

Nan. A creature of delight?

And (what is more than a fool) an hermaphrodite? Now pri'thee, sweet soul, in all thy variation, Which body would'st thou choose, to keep up thy

station?

And. Troth, this I am in, even here would I tarry.

13

Nan. 'Cause here the delight of each sex thou can'st vary?

And. Alas! those pleasures be stale, and for-
saken;

No, 'tis your fool wherewith I am so taken,
The only one creature that I can call blessed :
For all other forms I have proved most distressed.
Nan. Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras
still.

This learned opinion we celebrate will,
Fellow eunuch (as behoves us) with all our wit
and art,

To dignify that, whereof ourselves are so great and special a part.

Vol. Now, very, very pretty: Mosca, this
Was thy invention?

Mos. If it please my patron, not else.
Vol. It doth, good Mosca.

Mos. Then it was, sir.

SONG.

Fools, they are the only nation
Worth men's envy, or admiration ;
Free from care, or sorrow-taking,
Selves and others merry-making:
All they speak, or do, is sterling.
Your fool he is your great man's darling,
And your lady's sport and pleasure;
Tongue and bauble are his treasure.
Ev'n his face begetteth laughter,
And he speaks truth free from slaughter;
He's the grace of ev'ry feast,
And sometimes the chiefest guest:
Hath his trencher, and his stool,
When wit waits upon the fool.
O, who would not be

He, he, he?

'Tis signior Voltore, the advocate,

I know him by his knock.

Volp. Fetch me my gown,

What thoughts he has (without) now, as he walks,
That this might be the last gift he should give;
That this would fetch you; if you died to-day,
And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow:
What large return would come of all his ventures;
How he should worshipped be, and reverenced;
Ride, with his furs and foot-cloaths; waited on
By herds of fools and clients; have clear way
Made for his moyle, as lettered as himself;
Be called the great and learned advocate:
And then concludes, there's naught impossible.
Volp. Yes, to be learned, Mosca.
Mos. O, no: rich

Implies it. Hood an ass with reverend purple,
So you can hide his two ambitious ears,
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.

Volp. My caps, my caps, good Mosca: fetch him in.

Mos. Stay, sir, your ointment for your eyes. Volp. That's true;

Dispatch, dispatch: I long to have possession Of my new present.

Mos. That, and thousands more,

I hope to see you lord of.

Volp. Thanks, kind Mosca.

Mos. And that, when I am lost in blended dust, An hundred such as I am, in successionVolp. Nay, that were too much, Mosca. Mos. You shall live,

Still, to delude these harpies.

Volp. Loving Mosca,

'Tis well; my pillow, now, and let him enter. Now, my feigned cough, my phthisic, and my gout. My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs,

Help, with your forced functions, this my posture, Wherein, these three years, I have milked their hopes.

He comes, I hear him, uh, uh, uh, uh, O.

SCENE III.

MOSCA, VOLTORE, and VOLPONE. Mos. You still are, what you were, sir. Only

you

(Of all the rest) are he, commands his love:

With early visitation, and kind notes
Of your good meaning to him, which I know
Cannot but come most grateful. Patron, sir,
Here's signior Voltore is come▬▬▬▬

Volp. What say you?

Mos. Sir, signior Voltore is come this morning, To visit you.

Volp. I thank him.

Mos. And hath brought

A piece of antique plate, bought of St Mark, With which he here presents you.

Volp. He is welcome.

Pray him to come more often.