That you, which are an honest man and worthy,
Should foster this suspicion: No man laughs,
No one can whisper, but thou apprehendest
His conference and his scorn reflect on thee:
For my part, they should scoff their thin wits out,
So I not heard them; beat me, not being there.
Leave, leave these fits to conscious men, to such
As are obnoxious to those foolish things
As they can gibe at,

Rom. Well, sir.

Char. Thou art known

Valiant without defect, rightly defined,
Which is as fearing to do injury,

As tender to endure it; not a brabbler,
A swearer-

Rom, Pish, pish! what needs this, my lord?
If I be known none such, how vainly you
Do cast away good counsel! I have loved you,
And yet must freely speak; so young a tutor
Fits not so old a soldier as I am :
And I must tell you, 'twas in your behalf
I grew enraged thus; yet had rather die
Than open the great cause a syllable further.
Char. In my behalf? Wherein hath Charalois
Unfitly so demeaned himself, to give
The least occasion to the loosest tongue

To throw aspersions on him? Or so weakly
Protected his own honour, as it should
Need a defence from any but himself?
They're fools that judge me by my outward seem-
ing.

Why should my gentleness beget abuse?
The lion is not angry that does sleep,
Nor every man a coward that can weep.
For God's sake, speak the cause.

Rom. Not for the world.

Oh! it will strike disease into your bones,
Beyond the cure of physick; drink your blood,
Rob you of all your rest, contract your sight,
Leave you no eyes but to see misery,

And of your own; nor speech, but to wish thus,
Would I had perished in the prison's jaws,
From whence I was redeemed! 'Twill wear you old,
Before you have experience in that art
That causes your affliction.

Char. Thou dost strike

A deathful coldness to my heart's high heat,
And shrink'st my liver like the calenture.
Declare this foe of mine and life's, that like
A man I may encounter and subdue it.
It shall not have one such effect in me
As thou denouncest: With a soldier's arm,
If it be strength, I'll meet it;

If a fault belonging to my mind, I'll cut it off
With mine own reason, as a scholar should.
Speak, though it make me monstrous,

Rom. I will die first,

Glewed, as if love had locked them; their words flow

And melt each other's, like two circling flames,
Where chastity, like a phoenix, methought, burned,
But left the world nor ashes nor an heir.-
Why stand you silent thus? What cold dull
phlegm,

As if you had no drop of choler mixed
In your whole constitution, thus prevails,
To fix you now thus stupid, hearing this?

Char. You did not see him on my couch within, Like George a-horseback, on her, nor a-bed? Rom. No.

Char, Ha! ha!

Rom. Laugh you! E'en so did your wife,

And her indulgent father.

Char. They were wise: Would'st have me be a fool?

Rom. No, but a man.

Char. There is no dram of manhood to sus

pect,

On such thin airy circumstance as this;
Mere compliment and courtship. Was this tale
The hideous monster which you so concealed?
Away, thou curious impertinent,

And idle searcher of such lean, nice, toys!
Go, thou seditious sower of debate!

Fly to such matches, where the bridegroom doubts
He holds not worth enough to countervail
The virtue and the beauty of his wife!

Thou buzzing drone, that 'bout my ears dost hum,

To strike thy rankling sting into my heart,
Whose venom, time nor medicine could assuage,
Thus do I put thee off, and, confident
In mine own innocency and desert,
Dare not conceive her so unreasonable,
To put Novall in balance against me;
An upstart, craned up to the height he has.
Hence, busy body! thou'rt no friend to me,
That must be kept to a wife's injury.

Rom. Is't possible?-Farewell, fine honest man!
Sweet-tempered lord, adieu! What apoplexy
Hath knit sense up? Is this Romont's reward?
Bear witness, the great spirit of thy father,
With what a healthful hope I did administer
This potion, that hath wrought so virulently!
I not accuse thy wife of act, but would
Prevent her precipice to thy dishonour,

| Which now thy tardy sluggishness will admit.
Would I had seen thee graved with thy great sire,
Ere live to have men's marginal fingers point
At Charalois, as a lamented story!
An emperor put away his wife for touching
Another man; but thou wouldst have thine
tasted,

And keep her, I think.-Phoh! I am a fire
To warm a dead man, that waste out myself.
Bleed-What a plague, a vengeance, is't to me,
If you will be a cuckold? Here I shew
A sword's point to thee, this side you may shun,
Or that, the peril; if you will run on,
I cannot help it.

Char. Didst thou never see me
Angry, Romont?

Rom. Yes, and pursue a foe Like lightning.

Char. Prithee, see me so no more.

I can be so again.-Put up thy sword:
And take thyself away, lest I draw nine.

Rom. Come, fright your foes with this, sir; Į am your friend, And dare stand by you thus.

Char. Thou'rt not my friend;

Or being so, thou'rt mad; I must not buy
Thy friendship at this rate. Had I just cause,
Thou know'st I durst pursue such injury
Through fire, air, water, earth, nay, were they
all

Shuffled again to chaos; but there's none.
Thy skill, Romont, consists in camps, not courts.
Farewell, uncivil man! let's meet no more :
Here our long web of friendship I untwist.
Shall I go whine, walk pale, and lock my wife,
For nothing, from her birth's free liberty,
That opened mine to me? Yes; if I do,
The name of cuckold then dog me with scorn!
I am a Frenchman, no Italian born. [Erit.

Rom. A dull Dutch rather:-Fall and cool, my
blood!

Boil not in zeal of thy friend's hurt so high,
That is so low, and cold himself in it! woman,
How strong art thou! how easily beguiled!
How thou dost rack us by the very horns!
Now wealth, I see, change manners and the

man.

Something I must do, mine own wrath to assuage, And note my friendship to an after-age. [Erit.

SCENE I.-A Room in NoVALL'S House.

burnt me. Oh! fie upon it!-O lord! he has made me smell, for all the world, like a flax, or a red-headed woman's chamber: Powder, powder,

Aymer. Admirably, admirably; oh, sweet lord! assuredly it is pity the worms should eat thee.

Page. Here is a fine cell! a lord, a taylor, a perfumer, a barber, and a pair of monsieurs : Three to three, as little wit in the one, as honesty in the other. S'foot, I'll into the country again, learn to speak truth, drink ale, and converse with my father's tenants: here I hear nothing all day, but-upon my soul! as I am a gentleman, and an honest man!

Aymer. I vow and affirm, your taylor must needs be an expert geometrician; he has the longitude, latitude, altitude, profundity, every dimension of your body, so exquisitely-Here is a lace laid as directly, as if truth were a taylor. Page. That were a miracle.

Lilad. With a hair's breadth's error, there is a shoulder-piece cut, and the base of a pickadille in puncto.

Aymer. You are right, monsieur, his vestments sit as if they grew upon him; or art had wrought them on the same loom, as nature framed his lordship; as if your taylor were deeply read in astrology, and had taken measure of your honourable body, with a Jacob's staff, an ephimerides.

Tayl. I am bound to ye, gentlemen! Page. You are deceived; they will be bound to you: You must remember to trust thein none. Nov. jun. Nay, 'faith, thou art a reasonable, neat artificer, give the devil his due.

Page. Aye, if he would but cut the coat according to the cloth still.

Nov. jun. I now want only my mistress's approbation, who is, indeed, the most polite punctua queen of dressing in all Burgundy-pah! and makes all other young ladies appear as if they came from board last week out of the country. Is it not true, Liladam?

Lilad. True, my lord! as if any thing your lordship could say, could be otherwise than true. Not. jun. Nay, o' my soul, it is so; what fouler object in the world, than to see a young, fair, handsome beauty, unhandsomely dighted, and incongruently accoutered; or a hopeful chevalier, unmethodically appointed, in the external ornaments of nature? For, even as the index tells us the contents of stories, and directs to the particular chapters, even so does the outward habit and superficial order of garments (in man or woman,) give us a taste of the spirit, and demonstratively point (as it were a manual note from the margin) all the internal quality and habiliment of the soul; and there cannot be a more evident, palpable, gross manifestation of poor, degenerate, dunghilly blood and breeding, than arude, unpolished, disordered, and slovenly outside. Page. An admirable lecture! ah, all you gallants, that hope to be saved by your clothes, edify, edify!

Aymer. By the lard, sweet lard! thou deservest a pension of the state.

Page. O' the taylors; two such lords were able to spread taylors over the face of a whole kingdom.

Nov. jun. 'Pox o' this glass! It flatters.-I could find in my heart to break it.

Page. O, save the glass, my lord! and break their heads: They are the greater flatterers, I assure you.

Aymer. Flatters! detracts, impairs.-Yet, put it bye,

Lest thou, dear lord, Narcissus-like, should'st doat
Upon thyself, and die; and rob the world
Of Nature's copy, that she works form by.

Lilad. Oh, that I were the Infanta queen of
Europe!

Who, but thyself, sweet lord, should marry me? Nov. jun. I marry? Were there a queen of the

world, not I.

Wedlock? No, padlock; horse-lock; I wear spurs (He capers.

To keep it off my heels. Yet, my Aymer,
Like a free, wanton jennet in the meadows,
I look about, and neigh, take hedge and ditch,
Feed in my neighbour's pastures; pick my choice
Of all their fair-maned mares: But, married once,
A man is staked or poun'd, and cannot graze
Beyond his own hedge.

Enter PONTALIER and MALOTIN.
Pont. I have waited, sir,

Three hours to speak with you, and take it not well,

Such magpies are admitted, whilst I dance
Attendance.

Lilad. Magpies! What do ye take me for? Pont. A long thing, with a most unpromising face.

Aymer. I'll never ask him what he takes me

for.

Malot. Do not, sir,
For he'll go near to tell you.

Pont. Art not thou a barber-surgeon?
Barb, Yes, sirrah; why?

Pont. My lord is sorely troubled with two scabs.

Lilad. Aymer. Humph

Pont. I prythee, cure him of them.
Nov. jun. Pish! no more;

Thy gall sure is overflown: These are my council,
And we were now in serious discourse.

Pont. Of perfume and apparel! Can you rise, And spend five hours in dressing-talk with these? Nov. jun. Thou'dst have me be a dog: Up, stretch, and shake, And ready for all day.

Pont. Sir, would you be More curious in preserving of your honour Trim, it were more manly. I am come to wake Your reputation from this lethargy You let it sleep in; to persuade, importune, Nay, to provoke you, sir, to call to account This colonel Romont, for the foul wrong, Which, like a burden, he hath laid on you, And, like a drunken porter, you sleep under. 'Tis all the town talks; and, believe it, sir, If your tough sense persist thus, you are undone, Utterly lost; you will be scorned and baffled By every lacquey: season now your youth

So long as he continues in the bounds
Prescribed by friendship; but, when he usurps
Too far on what is proper to myself,
And puts the habit of a governor on,
I must and will preserve my liberty.

But speak of something else; this is a theme
I take no pleasure in. What's this Aymer?
Whose voice for song, and excellent knowledge in
The chiefest parts of music, you bestow
Such praises on?

Beaum. He is a gentleman,

(For so his quality speaks him) well received Among our greatest gallants; but yet holds

His main dependence from the young lord Novall.

Some tricks and crotchets he has in his head,
As all musicians have, and more of him
I dare not author But, when you have heard him,
I may presume your lordship so will like him,
That you'll hereafter be a friend to music.

Char. I never was an enemy to it, Beaumont; Nor yet do I subscribe to the opinion

Of those old captains, that thought nothing musical,

But cries of yielding enemies, neighing of horses, Clashing of armour, loud shouts, drums and trumpets:

Nor, on the other side, in favour of it,
Affirm the world was made by musical discord,
Or that the happiness of our life consists
In a well-varied note upon the lute:

I love it to the worth of it, and no farther.-
But let us see this wonder.

Beaum. He prevents my calling of him.

Enter AYMER, speaking to one within. Aymer. Let the coach be brought To the back gate, and serve the banquet up— My good lod Charalois! I think my house Much honoured in your presence.

Char. To have means

To know you better, sir, has brought me hither, A willing visitant; and you'll crown my welcome

In making me a witness to your skill,
Which, crediting from others, I admire.
Aymer. Had I been one hour sooner made ac
quainted

With your intent, my lord, you should have found

me

Better provided: Now, such as it is,
Pray you grace with your acceptance.
Beaum. You are modest.
Aymer. Begin the last new air.

[To Musicians within.

Char. Shall we not see them?

Aymer. This little distance from the instru

ments

Will to your ears convey the harmony With more delight.

Char. I'll not contend.

Aymer. You are tedious. (To the Musicians. By this means shall with one banquet please Two companies, those within, and these gulls here. [Music and a song.

Citizens' Song of the Courtier.
Courtier, if thou needs wilt wive,
From this lesson learn to thrive ;
If thou match a lady, that
Passes thee in birth and state,
Let her curious garments be
Twice above thine own degree;
This will draw great eyes upon her,
Get her servants, and thee honour.

Beaumel. within. Ha! ha ha!

Char. How's this! It is my lady's laugh, most certain.

When I first pleased her, in this merry language. She gave me thanks. [Aside.

Beaum. How like you this?

Char. 'Tis rare

Yet I may be deceived, and should be sorry,
Upon uncertain suppositions, rashly

To write myself in the black list of those

I have declaimed against, and to Romont. [Aside. Aymer. I would he were well off!—Perhaps your lordship

Likes not these sad tunes? I have a new song, Set to a lighter note, may please you better; 'Tis called The Happy Husband.

Char. Pray you sing it.

Courtier's Song of the Citizens.
Poor citizen, if thou wilt be
A happy husband, learn of me
To set thy wife first in thy shop;
A fair wife, a kind wife, a sweet wife, sets a
poor man up.

What though thy shelves be ne'er so bare,
A woman still is current ware;

Each man will cheapen, foe and friend;
But whilst thou art at t'other end,
Whate'er thou seest, or what dost hear,
Fool, have no eye to, nor an ear;
And after supper, for her sake,
When thou hast fed, snort though thou wake:
What though the gallants call thee Mome!