I knew him one of the most dangerous heads
Living within the state, and so I held him.
Per. Indeed, sir?

Pol. While he liv'd, in action.
He has receiv'd weekly intelligence,

Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,
(For all parts of the world) in cabbages;
And those dispens'd again to ambassadors,
In oranges, musk-melons, apricots,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and such like: sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles.
Per. You make me wonder!

Pol. Sir, upon my knowledge.

Nay, I have observ'd him, at your public ordi

Per. I have heard,

He could not read, sir.

Pol. So 'twas given out,

(In polity) by those that did employ him;

But he could read, and had your languages,

And to't, as sound a noddle

Per. I have heard, sir,

Pol. Why, this it is, that spoils all our brave bloods,

Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants,
Fellows of out-side, and mere bark. You seem
To be a gentleman, of ingenious race-
I not profess it, but my fate hath been
To be, where I have been consulted with,
In this high kind, touching some great men's sons,
Persons of blood and honour-

Per, Who be these, sir?

SCENE II.

MOSCA, POLITIC, PEREGRINE, VOLPONE,
NANO, and GREGE.

Mos. Under that window, there't must be.
The same.

Pol. Fellows, to mount a bank! Did your in

structor

In the dear tongues, never discourse to you Of the Italian mountebanks?

Per. Yes, sir.

Pol. Why, here shall you see one.

Per. They are quack-salvers,

Fellows, that live by venting oils and drugs. Pol. Was that the character he gave you o them?

Per. As I remember.

Pol. Pity his ignorance,

They are the only knowing men of Europe! Great general scholars, excellent physicians,

were

A kind of subtle nation, near to China.

Pol. Ay, ay, your Mamuluchi. Faith, they had
Their hand in a French plot or two; but they
Were so extremely given to women, as
They made discovery of all: yet I
Had my advices here, on Wednesday last,
From one of their own coat, they were return'd,
Made their relation, as the fashion is,
And now stand fair for fresh employment.
Per. 'Hart!

This Sir Politic will be ignorant of nothing.
It seems, sir, you know all ?

Pol. Not all, sir But

I have some general notions; I do love
To note, and to observe: though I live out,
Free from the active torrent, yet I'd mark
The currents and the passages of things,
For mine own private use; and know the ebbs
And flows of state.

Per. Believe it, sir, I hold
Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes,
For casting me thus luckily upon you;
Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it,
May do me great assistance, in instruction
For my behaviour, and my bearing, which
Is yet so rude, and raw-

Pol. Why? came you forth
Empty of rules, for travel?

Per. Faith, I had

And cabinet-counsellors to the greatest princes! The only languaged men of all the world!

Per. And, I have heard, they are most lewd impostors ;

Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers Of great men's favours, than their own vile med❜cines;

Which they will utter, upon monstrous oaths: Selling that drug for two-pence, ere they part, Which they have valued at twelve crowns before. Pol. Sir, calumnies are answered best with si

lence:

Yourself shall judge. Who is it mounts, my friends?

Mos. Scoto of Mantua, sir,
Pol. Is't he? Nay, then,

I'll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold
Another man, that has been phant'sied to you.
I wonder yet that he should mount his bank
Here, in this nook, that has been wont t'appear
In face of the Piazza! Here he comes.
Volp. Mount, Zany.

Gre. Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow.
Pol. See how the people follow him! he's a

Volp. Most noble gent. and my worthy pa trons, it may seem strange, that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of

the Portico, to the Procuratia, should now (after eight months absence from this illustrious city of Venice) humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza.

Pol. Did not I, now, object the same?
Per. Peace, sir.

Volp. Let me tell you: I am not (as your Lombard proverb saith) cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate than I accustomed: look not for it. Nor that the calumnious reports of that impudent detractor, and shame to our profession, (Alessandro Buttone, I mean) who gave out, in public, I was condemned a' Sforzato to the gallies, for poisoning the cardinal Bembo's-cook, hath at all attached, much less dejected me. No, no, worthy gent. (to tell you true) I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground Ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement, as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccacio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turks' galleys, when indeed (were the truth known) they were the Christians' galleys, where, very temperately, they eat bread, and drank water, as a wholesome penance (enjoined them by their confessors) for base pilferies.

Pol. Note but his bearing, and contempt of these.

Voip. These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in several scurtoccios, are able, very well, to kill their twenty a-week, and play; yet, these meagre, starved spirits, who have half stopped the organs of their minds with earthly oppilations, want not their favourers among your shrivelled, sallad-eating artizans; who are overjoyed, that they may their halfpenny-worth of physic, though it purge them into another world, 't makes no matter. Pol. Excellent! ha' you heard better language,

sir?

have

Volp. Well, let 'em go. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, know, that for this time, our bank, being thus removed from the clamours of the Canaglia, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell.

Pol. I told you, sir, his end.
Per. You did so, sir.

Volp. I protest, I, and my six servants, are not able to make of this precious liquor so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging, by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the terra-firma; worshipful merchants; ay, and senators too, who, ever since my arrival, have detained me to their uses, by their splendidous liberalities. And worthily: for, what avails your rich man to have his magazines stuffed with moscadelli, or of the purest grape, when his physicians prescribe him (on pain of death) to drink nothing but water, cocted with anniseeds? O, health! health! the blessing of the rich! the riches of the poor! who

can buy thee at too dear a rate, since there is no enjoying this world without thee! Be not, then, so sparing of your purses, honourable gentlemen, as to abridge the natural course of lifePer. You see his end? Pol. Ay, is't not good?

Volp. For, when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from your head into an arm, or shoulder, or any other part, take you a ducat, or your cecchine of gold, and apply to the place affected; see what good effect it can work. No, no, 'tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humours, that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes

Per. I would he had put in dry, too.
Pol. Pray you, observe.

Volp. To fortify the most indigest and crude stomach; ay, were it of one that, through extreme weakness, vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place, after the unction and fricace: for the vertigine in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears; a most sovereign and approved remedy : the mal-caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, stoppings of the liver, the stone, the strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaco passio; stops a disenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts, and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt. For this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels, this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect [Pointing to his bill and his glass]: and (in sum) both together may be termed an abstract of the theoric and practice in the Æsculapian art. Twill cost you eight crowns. And, Zan Fritada, pr'ythee sing a verse, extempore, in

honour of it.

Pol. How do you like him, sir?
Per. Most strangely, I!

Pol. Is not his language rare?
Per. But alchemy,

I never heard the like; or Broughton's books.

SONG.

Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,
(That to their books put med'cines all in}
But known this secret, they had never
(Of which they will be guilty ever)
Been murderers of so much paper,
Or wasted many a hurtless taper:
No Indian drug had e'er been famed
Tobacco, sassafras not named ;
Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir,
Nor Raymund Luliy's great clixir.
Ne had been known the Danish gonswart;
Or Paracelsus with his long sword.

Per. All this yet will not do; eight crowns is high.

Volp. No more!-Gentlemen, If I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this

my oil, sirnamed Oglio del Scoto; with the countless catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesaid, and many more diseases; the patents and privileges of all the princes and commonwealths of Christendom; or but the depositions of those that appeared on my part before the signiory of the Sanita, and most learned College of Physicians; where I was authorised, upon notice taken of the admirable virtues of my medicaments, and mine own excellency in matter of rare and unknown secrets, not only to disperse them publicly in this famous city, but in all the territories that happily joy under the government of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy. But may some other gallant fellow say, O, there be divers that make profession to have as good and as experimented receipts as yours: Indeed, very many have essayed, like apes, in imitation of that which is really and essentially in me, to make of this oil; bestowed great cost in furnaces, stills, alembecks, continual fires, and preparation of the ingredients, (as indeed there goes to it six hundred several simples, besides some quantity of human fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists,) but, when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: Ha, ha, ha!Poor wretches! I rather pity their folly and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money; for those may be recovered by industry; but to be a fool born is a disease incurable. For my self, I always from my youth have endeavoured to get the rarest secrets, and book them; either in exchange or for money: I spared nor cost, nor labour, where any thing was worthy to be learned. And, gentlemen! honourable gentlemen! I will undertake (by virtue of chemical art) out of the honourable hat that covers your head, to extract the four elements, that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. For, whilst others have been at the balloo, I have been at my book: And am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flow'ry plains of honour and reputation.

Pol. I do assure you, sir, that is his aim,
Volp. But, to our price.

Per. And that withal, Sir Pol.

Volp. You all know, honourable gentlemen! I never valued this ampulla or vial at less than eight crowns; but, for this time, I am content to be deprived of it for six; six crowns is the price; and less in courtesy I know you cannot offer me: Take it, or leave it; howsoever, both it and I am at your service. I ask you not, as the value of the thing, for then I should demand of you a thousand crowns; so the Cardinals Montalto, Fernese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my gossip, with divers other princes, have given me; but I despise money: Only to shew my affection to you, honourable gentlemen! and your illustrious state here, I have neglected the messages of these princes, mine own offices, framed my journey hither, only to present you with the fruits of my travels! Tune your voices once

more to the touch of your instruments, and give the honourable assembly some delightful recrea tion !

Per. What monstrous and most painful cir

cumstance

Is here, to get some three or four gazettes! Some threepence i' the whole, for that 'twill

come to.

SONG.

You that would last long, list to my song,
Make no more coil, but buy of this oil.
Would you be ever fair and young?
Stout of teeth, and strong of tongue?
Tart of palate, quick of ear?
Sharp of sight, of nostril clear?
Moist of hand, and light of foot?
Or (I will come nearer to't)
Would you live free from all diseases?
Do the act your mistress pleases?
Yea, fright all aches from your bones?
Here's a med'cine for the nonce.

Volp. Well, I am in a humour, at this time, to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains: To the rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore now mark: I asked you six crowns, and six crowns at other times you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one, nor half a ducat; no, nor a muccinigo: Six-pence it will cost you, or six hundred pound-expect no lower price; for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine, that I will have only a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you, to show I am not contemned by you. Therefore now toss your handkerchiefs chearfully, chearfully! and be advertised, that the first heroic spirit that deigns to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something besides, shall please it better than if I had presented it with a double pistolet.

Per. Will you be that heroic spark, sir Pol? O see! the window has prevented you.

[CELIA at the window throws down her handkerchief.

Volp. Lady, I kiss your bounty; and, for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, I will return you, over and, above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature, shall make you for ever enamour'd on that minute, wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despis'd, an object. Here is a powder conceal'd in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man, which some call life, to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world were but as an enpire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse, to the purchase of it. I will only tell you, it is the powder

that made Venus a goddess, given her by Apol lo, that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, coloured her hair; from her, derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost: till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court of France, but much sophisticated, wherewith the ladies there now colour their hair. The rest, at this present, remains with me, extracted to a quintessence: So that, wherever it but touches, in youth, it perpetually preserves; in age, restores the complexion; seats your teeth, did they dance like virginal jacks, firm as a wall; makes them white as ivory, that were black as

SCENE III.

CORVINO, POLITIC, and PEREGRINE.

Cor. 'Spite o' the devil, and my shame! come down here;

Come down: No house but mine to make your scene?

Signior Flaminio, will you down, sir? down?
What, is my wife your Franciscina, sir?
No windows on the whole piazza here,
To make your properties, but mine, but mine?
'Heart! ere to-morrow I shall be new christen'd,
And called the Pantalone di Besogniosi
About the town!

Per. What should this mean, sir Pol?

Pol. Some trick of state, believe it. I will
home.

Per. It may be some design on you.
Pol. I know not.-I'll stand upon my guard.
Per. 'Tis your best, sir.

Pol. This three weeks, all my advices, all my
letters,

They have been intercepted.

Per. Indeed, sir?

Best have a care.

Pol. Nay, so I will.

Per. This knight,

I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night.

ever.

But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,
Hath shot himself into me, like a flame;
Where, now, he flings about his burning heat,
As in a furnace, some ambitious fire,
Whose vent is stopt. The fight is all within me.
I cannot live except thou help me, Mosca ;
My liver melts, and I, without the hope
Of some soft air, from her refreshing breath,
Am but a heap of cinders.

Mos. 'Las, good sir,
Would you had never seen her!

CORVINO, CELIA, and SERVITORE. Corv. Death of mine honour, with the city's fool?

A juggling, tooth-drawing, prating mountebank;
And at a public window? where, whilst he
With his strain'd action, and his dole of faces,
To his drug-lecture draws your itching ears,
A crew of old, unmarried, noted lechers,
Stood leering up, like satyrs; and you smile
Most graciously! and fan your favours forth,
To give your hot spectators satisfaction:
What, was your mountebank their call, their
whistle?

Or were you enamour'd on his copper rings;
His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in't?
Or his embroider'd suit, with the cope-stitch
Made of a hearse-cloth? or his old tilt-feather?
Or his starch'd beard? Well, you shall have him;

Thou'dst tremble to imagine, that the murder
Of father, mother, brother, all thy race,
Should follow, as the subject of my justice!
Cel. Good sir, have patience.

Cort. What couldst thou propose
Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath,
And stung with my dishonour, I should strike
This steel into thee, with as many stabs
As thou wert gaz'd upon with goatish eyes?
Cel. Alas, sir, be appeas'd! I could not think
My being at the window should more, now,
Move your impatience, than at other times.

Cort. No! not to seek and entertain a parley With a known knave, before a multitude?" You were an actor with your handkerchief, Which he most sweetly kiss'd in the receipt, And might, no doubt, return it with a letter, And 'point the place where you might meet: Your sisters,

Your mothers, or your aunts, might serve the turn.

Cel. Why, dear sir, when do I make these ex-
cuses?

Or ever stir abroad, but to the church?
And that so seldom-

Corc. Well, it shall be less;
And thy restraint before was liberty,

To what I now decree: and therefore mark me,
First, I will have this bawdy light damm'd up;
And, till't be done, some two or three yards off
I'll chalk a line, o'er which, if thou but chance
To set thy desperate foot, more hell, more hor-
ror,

More wild remorseless rage, shall seize on thee,
Than on a conjurer, that had heedless left
His circle's safety, ere his devil was laid.
Then here's a lock, which I will hang upon thee;
And, now I think on't, I will keep thee back-
wards;

Thy lodging shall be backwards; thy walks backwards;

Thy prospect all be backwards; and no pleasure That thou shalt know but backwards: Nay, since you force

My honest nature, know, it is your own
Being too open makes me use you thus.
Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils
In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air
Of rank and sweaty passengers- -One knocks.
[Knock within.

Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;
Not look toward the window: if thou dost-
Nay, stay, hear this; let me not prosper, whore!
But I will make thee an anatomy,
Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture

Away! [Er. CEL.] Who's there? Ser. 'Tis Signior Mosca, sir.

guess your news!

Mos. I fear you cannot, sir. Corv. Is't not his death? Mos. Rather the contrary. Corv. Not his recovery? Mos. Yes, sir.

Corv. I am curs'd,

I am bewitch'd; my crosses meet to vex me.
How, how, how, how?

Mos. Why, sir, with Scoto's oil!
Corbaccio and Voltore brought of it,
Whilst I was busy in an inner room-

Corv. Death! That damn'd mountebank!-
but, for the law,

Now I could kill the rascal:-It cannot be
His oil should have that virtue. Ha' not I
Known him, a common rogue, come fidling in
To th' Osteria with a tumbling whore;
And, when he has done all his forc'd tricks, been
glad

Of a poor spoonful of dead wine with flies in't?
It cannot be. All his ingredients

Are a sheep's gall, a roasted bitch's marrow,
Some few sod earwigs, pounded caterpillars,
A little capon's grease, and fasting spittle:
I know 'em to a dram.

Mos. I know not, sir;

But some on't, there they pour'd into his ears, Some in his nostrils, and recover'd him; Applying but the fricase.

Corv. Pox o' that fricase!

Mos. And since, to seem the more officious,
And flatt'ring of his health, there, they have had
At extreme fees, the College of Physicians,
Consulting on him, how they might restore him;
Where one would have a cataplasm of spices,
Another, a flay'd ape clapp'd to his breast;
A third would ha' it a dog, a fourth an oil,
With wild cat's skin: At last, they all resolv'd,
That, to preserve him, was no other means
But some young woman must be straight sought
out,

Lusty, and full of juice, to sleep by him;
And, to this service, most unhappily,
And most unwillingly, am I now employ'd,
Which here I thought to pre-acquaint you with
For your advice, since it concerns you most;
Because I would not do that thing might cross
Your ends, on whom I have my whole depen
dence, sir:

Yet, if I do it not, they may debate
My slackness to my patron, work me out
Of his opinion; and there, all your hopes,
Ventures, or whatsoever, are all frustrate.