The British Drama: Tragedies. 2 v

Believe it, wicked one, I will. Hear, heaven!
But, hearing, pardon me: if these fruits grow
Upon the tree of marriage, let me shun it,
As a forbidden sweet. An heir and rich,
Young, beautiful; yet add to this, a wife,
And I will rather chuse a spital sinner,
Carted an age before, though three parts rotten,
And take it for a blessing, rather than
Be fettered to the hellish slavery

Of such an impudence.

Enter BEAUMONT with writings.

Beaum. Colonel! good fortune

To meet you thus: you look sad, but I will tell

you

Something that shall remove it. O how happy
Is my lord Charalois in his fair bride!

Rom. A happy man indeed! pray you in
what?

Beaum. I dare swear, you would think so good a lady

A dower suflicient.

Rom. No doubt. But on.

For what I must deliver, whispered only,
You will with too much grief receive.

Enter BEAUMELLE and BELLAPERT.
Beaumel. See, wench!

Upon my life as I forespake, he's now
Preferring his complaint: But be thou perfect,
And we will fit him.

Bella. Fear not me, pox on him!

A captain turned informer against kissing?
Would he were hanged up in his rusty armour!
But, if our fresh wits cannot turn the plots
Of such a mouldy murrion on itself,

Rich clothes, choice fare, and a true friend at a call,
Forsake us.

Roch. This in my daughter? Do not wrong her.
Bella. Now begin.

The game's afoot, and we in distance.

Beaumel. Tis thy fault, foolish girl! pin on my
veil,

I will not wear those jewels. Am I not
Already matched beyond my hopes? Yet still

Beaum. So fair, so chaste, so virtuous: indeed You prune and set me forth, as if I were

All that is excellent.

Rom. Women have no cunning to gull the
world!

Beaum. Yet to all these, my lord,
Her father gives the full addition of
All he does now possess in Burgundy:
These writings to confirm it are new sealed,
And I most fortunate to present him with them;
I must go seek him out; can you direct me?
Rom. You will find him breaking a young horse.
Beaum. I thank you. [Erit Beaumont.
Rom. I must do something worthy Charalois'
friendship.

If she were well inclined, to keep her so
Deserved not thanks: and yet, to stay a woman,
Spurred headlong by hot lust to her own ruin,
Is harder than to prop a falling tower
With a deceiving reed.

Enter ROCH FORT.

Roch. Some one seek for me,

As soon as he returns.

Rom. Her father! ha!

How if I break this to him? Sure it cannot
Meet with an ill construction. His wisdom,
Made powerful by the authority of a father,
Will warrant and give priviledge to his counsels.
It shall be so-my lord!

Roch. Your friend, Romont:
Would you aught with me?

Rom. I stand so engaged

To your so many favours, that I hold it

A breach in thankfulness, should I not discover,

Again to please a suitor.
Bella. 'Tis the course
That our great ladies take.
Rom. A weak excuse!

Beaumel. Those that are better scen, in what

concerns

[Aside.

A lady's honour and fair fame, condemn it.
You wait well: in your absence, my lord's friend,
The understanding, grave and wise Romont-
Rom. Must I be still her sport?
Beaumel. Reproved me for it;
And he has travelled to bring home a judgment,
Not to be contradicted. You will say
My father, that owes more to years than he,
Has brought me up to music, language, court-
ship,

And I must use them. True, but not to offend,
Or render me suspected.

Roch. Does your fine story begin from this?
Beaumel. I thought a parting kiss

From young Noval! would have displeased no

Than heretofore it hath done; but I find

I must restrain such favours now; look, therefore,
As you are careful to continue mine,
That I no more be visited. I'll endure
The strictest course of life that jealousy
Can think secure enough, ere my behaviour
Shall call my fame in question.

Rom. Ten dissemblers

Are in this subtle devil. You believe this?

Roch. So far, that if you trouble me again With a report like this, I shall not only

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 reflects 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

Enter NovALL jun. MALOTIN, LILADAM, AY- As they can gibe at.
MER, and PONTALIER.

O, you're welcome.

Use any means to vex him,

And then with welcome follow me.

Nov. jun. You are tired

[Exit Beaumel.

With your grave exhortations, colonel!
Lilad. How is it? Faith, your lordship may do
well

To help him to some church-preferment: 'Tis
Now the fashion for men of all conditions,
However they have lived, to end that way.
Aymer. That face would do well in a surplice.
Rom. Rogues, be silent-or-
Pont. S'death! will you suffer this?

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

Rom. And you, the master rogue, the coward 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 defence from any but himself?
They're fools that judge me by my outward
seeming;

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 shrinkest 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'll die first.

Farewell! continue merry, and high heaven
Keep your wife chaste.

Char. Hum!-Stay, and take this wolf

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. Ha 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 suspect,
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 bridgroom 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;

Out of my breast, that thou hast lodged there, or Thus do I put thee off, and, confident
For ever lose me.

Rom. Lose not, sir, yourself,
And I will venture-so the door is fast.

[Locks the door.
Now, noble Charalois, collect yourself;
Summon your spirits; muster all your strength
That can belong to man; sift passion
From every vein, and, whatsoe'er ensues,
Upbraid not me hereafter, as the cause of
Jealousy, discontent, slaughter and ruin :
Make me not parent to sin :-You will know
This secret that I burn with?

Char. Devil on't,

What should it be? Romont, I hear
My wife's continuance of chastity.
Rom. There was no hurt in that.
Char. Why, do you know

A likelihood or possibility unto the contrary?
Rom. I know it not, but doubt it; these the
grounds.

The servant of your wife now, young Novall,
The son unto your father's enemy,
(Which aggravates my presumption the more)
I have been warned of, touching her; nay, seen
them

Tie heart to heart, one in another's arms,
Multiplying kisses, as if they meant
To pose arithmetic, or whose eyes would
Be first burnt out with gazing on the other's.
I saw their months engender, and their palms
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.

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. I'st 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 thing
tasted,

And keep her, I think. Phoh! I am a fire
To warm a dead man, that waste out myself.
Blood!-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 ming

Rom. Come, fright your foes with this, sir; I| For nothing, from her birth's free liberty,

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 knowest I durst pursue such injury
Through fire, air, water, earth, nay, were they all
Shurled again to chaos; but there's none.
Thy skill, Romnont, 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

SCENE I.

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. [Exit.

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.

ACT IV.

Enter NovALL jun. as newly dressed, a Taylor, Barber, Perfumer, LILADAM, AYMER, and Page. Nov. jun. Mend this a little: Pox! thou hast burnt me. Oh! fie upon it!-O lard! he has made me smell, for all the world, like a flax, or a red-headed woman's chamber: Powder, powder, powder.

Perf. Oh, sweet lord!

[Novall sits in a chair, barber orders his hair, perfumer gives powder, tailor sets clothes. Page. That's his perfumer. Tayl. Oh, dear lord! Page. That's his taylor.

Nov. jun. Monsieur Liladam! Aymer! how allow you the model of these clothes?

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 ephime

rides.

Tayl. I am bound to ye, gentlemen!

Page. You are deceived; they will be bound to you: You must remember to trust them 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 punctual 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.

Nov. 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 a rude, 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 great flatterers, I assure you.

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

Lest thou, dear lord, Narcissus-like, should doat
Upon thyself, and die; and rob the world
Of Nature's copy, that she works forms 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; yes, 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 pounded, 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 wouldst 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, 'twere 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-talk; and, believe, 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
With one brave thing, and it shall keep the odour
Even to your death, beyond; and on your tomb,
Scent like sweet oils and frankincense: Sir! this
life,

dare not;

Do not mistake me, coz: I'm very valiant; But valour shall not make me such an ass. What use is there of valour now-a-days? 'Tis sure, or to be killed, or to be hanged. Fight thou as thy mind moves thee; 'tis thy trade: Thou hast nothing else to do. Fight with Romont?

No, I'll not fight under a lord.

Pont. Farewell, sir! I pity you.

Such loving lords walk their dead honour's graves, For no companions fit, but fools and knaves. Come, Malotin. [Exeunt Pontalier and Malotin. Enter ROMONT.

Lilad. 'Sfoot, Colbrand, the low giant! Aymer. He has brought a battle in his face; let's go.

Page. Colbrand, do you call him? He'll make some of you smoke, I believe. Rom. By your leave, sirs! Aymer. Are you a concert? Rom. Do you take me for

A fidler? you are deceived: Look. I'll pay you.

[Kicks him. Page. It seems he knows you one, he bumfid

dles you so.

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