The First Part of the Play called Wits Cabal.
The Actors Names.
Monsieur Heroick.
Monsieur Tranquillities Peace.
Monsieur Vain-glorious.
Monsieur Satyrical.
Monsieur Censure.
Monsieur Sensuality.
Monsieur Inquisitive.
Monsieur Busie.
Monsieur Frisk.
Liberty,
the Lady Pleasure’s Gentleman-usher.
Madamoiselle Ambition.
Madamoiselle Superbe.
Madamoiselle Pleasure.
Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.
Madamoiselle Faction.
Grave Temperance,
Governess to Madamoiselle
Pleasure.
Madamoiselle Portrait.
Mother Matron.
Wanton,
Excess,
Ease,
Idle,
Surfet,
waiting-maids to Madamoiselle
Pleasure.
Flattery,
Madamoiselle Superbe’s waiting-maid.
Servants and others.
The First Part of the Play called Wits Cabal.
Act I.
Scene 1.
Enter Madam Ambition alone.Ambition
I would my Parents had kept me up as birds in darkness,
when they are taught to sing Artificial Tunes, that my ears
only might have been imploy’d; and as those Teachers whistle
to birds several tunes, so would I have had Tutors to have read
to me several Authors, as the best Poets, the best Historians,
the best Philosophers, Moral and Natural, the best Grammarians, Arithmaticians,
Mathematicians, Logicians, and the like. Thus perchance I might have
spoke as eloquently upon every subject, as Birds sing sweetly several tunes;
but since my Education hath been so negligent, I wish I might do some noble
Action, such as might raise a monumental Fame on the dead Ashes of my
Fore-fathers, that my Name might live everlastingly.
Scene 2.
Enter Madamoiselle Superbe, and Flattery her Woman.Madam Superbe
I hate to be compared to an inferiour, or to have an
inferiour compared to me: wherefore if I were Jove,
I would damn
that creature that should compare me to any thing lesse than my self.
Flattery
Your Ladyship is like a Goddess, above all comparison: wherefore
I think there is none worthy to match in Mariage with you, unless there
were some Masculine Divine Creature on Earth to equal you, as surely
there is none.
Superbe
I shall not willingly marry, unless it were to have a command over
my Husband.
Flattery
But Husbands, Madam, command Wives.
Superbe
Not those that are Divine Creatures.
Flattery
Husbands, Madam, are Reprobates, and regard not Divinity,
nor worship Earthly Deities.
Superbe
Whilst they are Suters, they worship, and women command
their wooing servants.
Flattery
The truth is, all Suters do worship with an Idolatrous zeal, but
their zeals tire at length, as most zeals do, and men are content to be commanded,
whilest they are Courting servants, and do obey with an industriousous
Rrr1r
249
care, and with an humble and respectful Demeanor, a submissive and
awful Countenance, with an admiring and listning Ear, pleasing and applausing
Speech, insomuch as their Mistris might think they commanded not
only their Senses, but also their Souls; yet after they are maried, they become
from being servants, to be Masters, and they are so far from obeying,
as they command, and instead of an humble and respectful demeanour, and
an awful countenance, they will be haughty and surly, and their faces will
be cloathed in frowns, and instead of an admiring eye and a listning ear, they
will neither regard nor take notice of their Wives, unless it be to throw a
scornful glance, and instead of a pleasing and applausing speech,
they will
reprove, discommend, or threaten. Thus, although they serve as Slaves when
they are wooing Suters, yet they rule as Tyrants when they are
Husbands, as
all Slaves do that come to rule, prove Tyrants, like as the most fierce zealous
Supplicants oft-times prove Atheists, or Reprobates.
Superbe
Then I must never marry; for I cannot endure to be commanded,
but must be admired and adored.
Flattery
’Tis fit you should, being a Divine Creature, Madam.
and five Waiting-maids, namely, Wanton, Idle,
Ease, Excess, and Surfet.
Wanton
Women that love the Courtship of men, must change
themselves into as many several humours as Protheus shapes; as
sometimes gay and merry, sometimes grave and majestical, sometimes melancholy,
sometimes bashful and coy, sometimes free and confident, sometimes
patient, and sometimes cholerick, sometimes silent, and sometimes discoursive,
according as they find those humours they meet with.
Ease
Let me tell you, Wanton, they must love Courtship well,
that will
take such pains to transform themselves so often, to please, or rather to get
Lovers.
Temperance
You say well, Ease, but they rather lose than gain by the bargain;
for the charge of troubesome observance, is more than the profit they
receive therefrom.
Ease
Truly, Mistris Temperance, there
is no delight in pains-taking, ask
my Lady Pleasure.
Madam. Pleasure
No truly Ease; but a sweet civility, a modest behaviour
and countenance, and a pleasing speech, gains more Lovers than a metamorphos’d
humour.
Temperance
In truth a well-temper’d humour is easie to themselves, and
delightful to others.
Wanton
You speak for Lovers, but there is a difference betwixt Courtship
and Love; for dull Love is contented to be entertained only with plain
truth, and is constant to an honest heart, but sprightly Courtship delights in
extravagancies, lives in varieties, but dies in particulars or singularities.
Pleasure
True delight lives in true love.
Temperanc
And true Love lives in Temperance.
Ease
And Temperance lives in Ease.
Idle
And Ease lives in Idleness.
Wanton
And Idlenesse lives in Wantonnesse, and Wantonnesse lives in
Pleasure.
Pleasure
Let me tell you, Wanton, that Pleasure
doth not live in Wantonnesse
nor Idlenesse; for Pleasure lives in Peace, maintained by Plenty,
instructed by Prudence, protected by Justice, and governed by Grave
Temperance
here.
Scene 4.
Enter Monsieur Vain-glorious, and his Man.Vain-glorious
All the Ladies in the City are in love with me, and that
woman thinks her self happy that can receive a Courtship from me;
but I mean to marry none but Madamoiselle
Ambition, nor would I marry
her but for my particular ends, for she is rich.
Servant
She is so, if they be rich that have vast desires. But are you sure
you shall have her?
Vain-glorious
Yes, for her Friends and I am agreed, and I know she cannot
deny me; for what woman would not be proud to marry me?
Servant
’Tis said she is a Noble Lady.
Vain-glorious
Faith she will be but a trouble to me; but I will only keep her
for breed, and entertain my self, and lead my life with Madamoiselle Pleasure,
and she shall share of the riches that Madamoiselle Ambition brings.
Servant
Now you talk of riches Sir, what shall we do with the rich Cabinet
you bought? must that be carried to Madamoiselle Pleasure?
Vain-glorious
Yes, but I have other presents to send along with it, which I
will give order for.
Scene 5.
Enter Monsieur Sensuality, and Monsieur Censure.Sensuality
Live under these lawes? I will sooner live under the Turks.
Censure
What makes thee such an enemy to these lawes, Monsieur
Sensuality?
Sensuality
Why Monsieur Censure, I am fined a hundred pounds for kissing
a Mistris, and getting a child.
Censure
Indeed the Turks government is the only government for such
men as would have many Wives, Concubines, and Slaves.
Sensuality
Why, he is a slave that lives not under such government; for
what greater slavery is there than to be tyed to one woman? I am sure our
Fore-fathers, who were godly men, were not tyed to such slavery; they had
their
Rrr2r
251
their liberty as the Turks, and such like wise governments, as to have as many
Wives and Mistresses as they please, or at least as many as they can
maintain.
Censure
Although you may think that government wise, because it fits
your Appetite, yet well-tempred men, ’tis likely, will be of another opinion,
as to think the strict Canon-Laws of Europe are better
for the good of
Common-wealths, and every particular Family, by restraining one man to
one woman, than to let them have more, or as many as they will.
Sensuality
If well-temperd men be of that opinion, they are fools, which I
will soon prove them to be. As first for the Common-wealth, there is nothing
more disadvantagious; for those Commonwealths flourish with greatest
glory, that are fullest populated, by reason populated Kingdomes are
strongest, both for their own defence, and against Forein Enemies, as being
able to conquer others by Invasions, inlarging their Dominions with their
numbers, increasing their numbers with their numerous issues, begot and born
from their many Wives, Concubines, and Slaves: when by our niggardly
laws Kingdoms become uninhabited and barren for want of men to till and
manure the ground: And as for our Wars, they’d seem as private Challenges,
and our Armies as particular Duellers, being met with their Seconds
to decide their petty quarrels, and to shew their valour by the hazard
of their lives, and our Battels seem slight Skirmishes, or like a Company
or Rout that kill each other in an idle Fray. Thus in comparison of other Empires,
all Europe is but as one Kingdom, for numbers of men, and Martial
Forces, when by the Extent it may be accounted the fourth part of the
known World. And as for particular Families, want of children breeds
discontent, and not only destroys industry, but makes spoil and unthrifts;
for those that have no children, they care not what becomes of their goods,
lands, or livings, spending them through carelesness, or through riot: And
as for Women, it spoils them from being good wives; for being sole Mistrisses,
having no Co-partners, nor Sharers, neither of their Husbands,
children,
or estates, and being the only She that is served or attended, imbraced,
loved, or maintained, grows proud, imperious, insults and domineers, and
disputes with her Husband for preheminency, and the truth is, for the most
part, obtains it. Thus men become slaves to the distaff for quietness
sake, otherwise
there is such quarrels and brawleries, that his house and
home, that
should be his Couch of Easse, his Bed of Rest, his peaceable Haven, or
haven of Peace, is for the most part his couch of thorns, his bed of cares,
his hell of torments, or tormenting hell, and his whole Family are like a
tempestuous Sea, where Passions hurl into Factions, and rise in waves of
discontent: But when men have an absolute power over their wives, they
force them into quiet obedience; and where men have many Wives, Concubines,
and Slaves, the women are humbled into a submission, each woman
striving which should be most serviceable, and who can get most
love and
favour; and as for Basstards, they are as much the Fathers children, as those
that are got in Wedlock.
Censure
But it is likely that Concubines and slaves will be flase, and father
their children on those that never begot them.
Sensuality
Why so may Wives, and ’tis most probable they do so; but
as other Nations do allow many Wives, Concubines, and slaves, so they
give men power and rule to govern and restrain them; and the men are so
wise in other Nations, as they suffer no other men but themselves to come
Rrr2
near
Rrr2v
252
neer them, hardly to look at the outside of their
Seraglio’s, as that part of the
house they are lodged in.
Censure
Thou hast spoke so well, and hast made so learned a Speech for
many Wives, Concubines, and slaves, as I am converted, and will, if thou
wilt, travel into such Kingdomes as allow such numbers and varieties, that I
may be naturalliz’d to their liberties.
Scene 6.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and Monsieur Inquisitive.Inquisitive
What is the reason, Monsieur Satyrical, you do not marry?
Satyrical
The reason, Monsieur Inquisitive, is, that I cannot find a wife
fit for me.
Inquisitive
Why, there are women of all Ages, Births, Humours, Statures,
Shapes, Complexions, Features, Behaviours, and Wits. But what
think you of marrying the Lady
Nobilissimo?
Satyrical
She is a Lady that out-reaches my Ambition.
Inquisitive
What think you of the Lady Bellissimo?
Satyrical
She is a Lady for Admiration, and not for use.
Inquisitive
What think you of marying the Lady Piety?
Satyrical
She is a Lady to be pray’d unto as a Saint, not to be imbraced
as a wife.
Inquisitive
What think you of the Lady Modesty?
Satyrical
She is a Lady that will not only quench amorous love, but the
free matrimonial love.
Inquisitive
What do you think of the Lady Sage?
Satyrical
She is a Lady to rule as a Husband, and not to be ruled as a
Wife.
Inquisitive
What think you of the Lady Politick?
Satyrical
She is a Lady fitter for Counsel than for Mariage.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Ceremony?
Satyrical
She is a Lady fitter for a Princely Throne, than the Mariage-bed.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Poetical?
Satyrical
She is a Lady fitter for Contemplation than Fruition.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Humility?
Satyrical
She is a Lady sooner won than enjoy’d.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Sprightly?
Satyrical
She is a Lady that will disquiet my rest, being
fitter for dancing
than sleeping.
Inquisitive
What say to the Lady Prodigal?
Satyrical
She is a Lady I might feast with, but could not thrive with.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Vanity?
Satyrical
She is a Lady too various and extravagant for my humour.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Victoria?
Satyrical
She is a Lady I had rather hear of, than be inslaved by.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Innocent Youth?
Satyrical
She is a Lady that may please with imbracing, but not
with conversing;
she is fitter for love than for company, for Cupid than for Pallas, for sport than for counsel.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Wanton?
Satyrical
She is fitter for an hour than for an Age.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Poverty?
Satyrical
She is fitter for my Charity than my Family.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Ill-favoured?
Satyrical
She is a Lady fitter for a Nunnery than a Nursery; for
Beads,
than for Children.
Inquisitive
What say you to the Lady Weakly?
Satyrical
She is fitter for Death than for Life; for Heaven, than the
World.
Inquisitive
By your Answers I perceive you will not Marry.
Satyrical
Have I not reason, when I can finde such Answers from the
Sex?
Inquisitive
But the Gods have commanded Mariage?
Satyrical
But Saints doe choose a single life, and in case of Mariage, I
will sooner follow the Example of the Saints, than the commands of the
Gods.
Exeunt.
Scene 7.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, Superbe, Bon’ Esprit, Pleasure,Portrait, Faction, Grave Temperance, and Mother Matron
Grave Temperance
Ladies, what think you of good Husbands?
Portrait
I think well of good Husbands.
Bon’ Esprit
But it is a question whether good Husbands will think well
of us.
Faction
I think good Husbands may be in our thoughts, but not actually
in the World.
Ambition
I am of your opinion, they may be mention’d in our words,
but not found in our lives.
Pleasure
Faith we may hear of good husbands, and read of good wives,
but they are but Romances.
Portrait
You say right; for we may as soon finde an Heroick Lover,
and see all his impossible Actions out of a Romance Book, as a good Husbands;
but as for Wives, I will not declare my Opinion.
Bon’ Esprit
Nor I; but were there such men that would make good husbands,
it were as difficult to get them, as for a Romantick Lover to get his
Mistris out of an Inchanted Castle.
Pleasure
For my part I had rather die a Maid, than take the pains to get
a good Husband.
Superbe
I wonder our Sex should desire to Marry; for when we are unmaried,
we a sued and sought to, and not only Mistris of our selves, but
our Suters: But when we are maried, we are so far from being Mistrisses, as
we become slaves.
Pleasure
The truth is, there is no Act shews us, or rather proves us to
be so much fools as we are, as in marrying: for what greater folly can there
be, than to put our selves to that condition which will force us to sue to
power,
when before that voluntary slavery we were in a condition to use power,
and make men sue to us.
Ambition
We must confess, when we well consider, it is very strange, since
every Creature naturally desires and strives for preheminency, as to be
superiour,
and not inferiour; for all Creatures indeavour to command, and are
unwilling to obey; for it is not only Man, but even the Beasts of the Field,
the Birds of the Air, and the Fishes in the Sea; and not only Beasts, Birds,
and Fish, but the Elements those creatures inhabite in, strive for
superiority;
only Women, who seem to have the meanest souls of all the Creatures
Nature hath made; for women are so far from indeavouring to get power,
as they voluntarily give away what they have.
Portrait
Talk not of womens souls, for men say we have no souls, only
beautiful bodies.
Bon’ Esprit
But beautiful bodies are in a degree of souls, and in my Conscience
please men better than our souls could do.
Superbe
If any thing prove we have no souls, it is in letting men make
such fools of us.
Matron
Come, come Ladies, by Womens Actions they prove to have
more, or at least better souls than Men have; for the best parts of the Soul
are Love and Generosity, and Women have more of either than Men
have.
Grave Temperance
The truth is, that although Reason and Understanding
are the largest parts of the Soul, yet Love and Generosity are the delicatest
parts of the Soul.
Heroick
Goodmorrow young Ladies, you appear this morning like sweetsmelling
flowers, some as Roses, others as Lillies, others as Violets,
Pinks, and
Primroses, and your associating in a company together, is like as a Posie which
Love hath bound up into one Bucket, which is a fit Present for the Gods.
Bon’ Esprit
If you would have us presented to the Gods, we must die;
for we are never preferred to them but by Death: wherefore we must be given
to Death, before the Gods can have us; they may hear us whilest we
live, and we may hear of them, but partake of neither until we die.
Heroick
O that were pity, Ladies; for there is nothing more sad in Nature,
than when Death parts a witty Soul from a young beautiful Body, before
the one hath built Monuments of Memory, and the other gained Trophies
of Lovers: And as for the Gods, you will be as acceptable to them
when you are old, as when you are young.
Ambition
As nothing could make me so sad as untimely death of Youth,
Wit, and Beauty, so there is nothing could anger me more, as for Fortune to
frown upon Merit, or not to advance it according to its worth, or to bury it
in Oblivion, hindring the passage into Fames Palace.
Temperance
For my part, I believe Death will neither call nor come for
you before his natural time, if you do not send Surfet and Excess to call him
to take you away.
Pleasure
Indeed Mankind seem as if they were Deaths Factors; for they
do
Sss2r
255
do strive to ingross and destroy all other creatures, or at least as many
as they
can; and not only other creatures, but their own kinde, as in Wars; and
not only their own kinde, but themselves, in idle and unprofitable Adventures,
and gluttonous Excess, thus as I said, they are Deaths Factors, buying
sickness with health, hoping to gain pleasure, and to make delight their profit,
but they are cozen’d, for they only get Diseases, Pains, and Aches.
Matron
Pray Ladies mark how far you are gone from the Text of your
discourse, as from sweet-smelling flowers to stinking carrion, which are dead
carkasses; from a lively good-morrow, to a dead farewel; from mirth to
sadness.
Portrait
You say right, Mother Matron; wherefore pray leave off this
discourse,
for I hate to hear off death; for the thoughts of death affright me
so, as I can take no pleasure of life when he is in my mind.
Heroick
Why Ladies, the thought of death is more than death himself;
for thoughts are sensible or imaginable things, but Death himself is neither
sensible nor imaginable.
Portrait
Therefore I would not think of him; and when I am dead, I
am past thinking.
Superbe
Let us discourse of something that is more pleasing than
Death.
Heroick
Then by my consent, Ladies, your discourse shall be of Venus
and Cupid, which are Themes more delightful to
your Sex, and most contrary
to death; for Love is hot, and Death is cold; Love illuminates life, and
Death quenches life out.
Bon’ Esprit
Let me tell you Sir, Love is as apt to burn life out, as Death
is to quench it out, and I had rather die with cold, than be burnt with heat;
for cold kills with a dead numness, when heat kills with a raging madnesse.
Pleasure
But Lovers are tormented with fears and doubts, which cause
cold sweats, fainting of spirits, trembling of limbs; it breaks the sweet
repose
of sleep, disturbs the quiet peace of the mind, vades the colours of
beauty,
nips or lasts the blossome of youth, making Lovers look withered; before
Time hath made them old.
Heroick
It is a signe, Lady, you have been in love, you give so right a
Character of a Lover.
Pleasure
No, there requires not a self-experience to find out a Lovers
trouble, for the outward Actions will declare their inward grief and passion.
Superbe
Certainly she is in love; but conceals it, she keeps it as a Secret.
Pleasure
Love cannot be secret, the passion divulges it self.
Portrait
Confess, Are you not in love?
Faction
Nay she will never confess a Secret, unless you tell her one; for
those that tell no secrets, shall hear none.
Portrait
O yes, for a Secret is like a child in the womb; for though it
be concealed for a time, it will come out at last, only some comes out easier
than others, and some before their time.
Ambition
Nay whensoever a secret comes out, it’s untimely.
Faction
Secrets are like Coy Ducks, when one is flown out, it draws out
others, and returns with many.
Pleasure
Then like a Coy Duck I will try if I can draw all you after me.
Bon’ Esprit
She shall see she is like a Duck, which is like a Goose, and we
like her, for we will follow her.
Scene 8.
Enter Monsieur Tranquillities Peace, and his Man.Tranquill. Peace
Have you been at Monsieur Busie’s house, to tell him
I desire to speak with him?
SerPvant
Yes, I have been at his house.
Tranquill. Peace
And will he come?
Servant
Faith Sir the house is too unwieldy to stir, and Monsieur Busie is
too Active to stay at home: but the truth is, I went at four a clock this morning,
because I would be sure to find him and his servants, and their Master
was flown out of his nest an hour before: Then I told his servants I would
come about dinner-time, and they laugh’d, and ask’d me what time was
that? I said I supposed at the usual time, about Noon, or an hour before or
after, but they said their Master never kept any certain time of eating, being
full of business. Then I asked them what time that would be when he
would come home to bed: They answered, that his time of Resting was as
uncertain as his time of Eating. Then I pray’d them to tell me at what time
they thought I might find him at home: They said it was impossible for
them to guess, for that their Master did move from place to place, as swift
as thoughts move in the Mind. Then I pray’d them that they would tell him
when he came home, that you would desire to speak with him: They told
me they would, but they did verily believe he would forget to come to you,
by reason his head was so full of busie thoughts, or thoughts of business, as
there was no room more for a thought to stay in. So I went away in despair,
but coming home, I chanced to see him at a little distance, so I made all the
haste I could to overtake him, placing my Eyes fixedly upon him, because I
would not lose him; but his pace was so swift, and his several turnings in several
Lanes and Allyes were so many, as it was impossible for me to keep my
measure, pace, or sight, for like a Bird, he did not only fly our of my reach,
but out of my view; but by a second good fortune, I met him just at your
Gate, and I stopp’d his way until I had told him your Message, which was,
you would speak with him: He answered me, he could not possibly stay,
for his businesse called him another way. I told him, that if he did not
come and speak with you, or stay until you did come and speak with him,
his Law-sute, which was of great Importance, would be lost, for you could
not do him any further service to your Friends, that should help him, until he
had resolved you of some questions you were to ask him; besides that, you
wanted a Writing that he had. He told me that he was very much obliged
to you for your favour to him, but he could not possibly stay to speak with
you, for he had some businesse to do for two or three other men, and he must
of necessity go seek those men out whom the businesse concerned; so that I
could not perswade him by any means, although for his own good, to come
in, or to stay till you went to him.
Tranquill. Peace
Faith he is so busie, that he will neither do himself good
nor
Ttt1r
257
nor any other man; for he runs himself out of the Field of Business, being
over-busy, neither holding the Reins of Time, nor sitting steady in the Seat
of Judgment, nor stopping with the Bit of Discretion, nor taking the Advantages
of Opportunity; but totters with Inconstancy, and falls with Losse.
Thus his busy thoughts do tire his Mind, so that his life hath a sorry, sore,
and weary Journey.
Servant
I think he is a man that is full of Projects.
Tranquill. Peace
So full, as his head is stuff’d with them, and he begins
many designs, but never finisheth any one of them; for his designs are built
upon vain hopes, without a Foundation: But were his hopes solid with probability,
yet his inconstancy, and unsteady doubts, and over-cautious care,
would pull down, or ruine his designs before they were half built.
Scene 9.
Enter Bon’ Esprit, Portrait, Ambition, Superbe, Pleasure, Faction,Grave Temperance, Mother Matron. Enter Monsieur Sensuality.
Portrait
Monsieur Sensuality, let us examine you, What company have
you met withall, that hath caused you to break your Word with us,
when you had promised you would come, and carry us to a Play?
Pleasure
If he carry us all, he will carry a very heavy load.
Matron
Ladies should be heavy, and not light.
Portrait
But Monsieur Sensuality, pray
tell us where you have been, and
with whom.
Sensuality
Why I have beeen with as proper a Lady as any is in this
City.
Ambition
What do you mean by a proper Lady?
Bon’ Esprit
He means a prop’d Lady.
Sensuality
I mean a Tall, Proportionable Lady, which is a comely
sight.
Faction
Not to my Eyes; for I never see a tall big woman, but I think she
rather proceeds from the race of Titan than Jove, for she seems to be more
Body than Soul, more Earth than Flame.
Sensuality
For my part, I think there cannot be too much of a fair Lady;
and if I were to choose, I would choose her that had more body than
soul, for her soul would be uselesse to me, by reason souls cannot be
enjoy’d
as bodies are.
Ambition
Yes, in a spiritual conversation they may.
Sensuality
I hate an incorporeal Conversation.
Superbe
Why then you hate the Conversation of the Gods.
Sensuality
I love the Conversation and Society of fair young Ladies, such
as you are.
Portrait
That is not the Answer to my question.
Sensuality
Then let me tell you, Ladies, that most of our Sex do venture
Heaven for your sakes, and will sooner disobey the Gods than you.
Bon’ Esprit
So you make as if Women commanded Men against the
Gods.
Sensuality
No Lady, but we serve Women, when we should serve the
Gods, and pray to your Sex, when the Gods would have us pray to them.
Pleasure
The more wicked creatures are men.
Sensuality
No, the more tempting creatures are women.
Faction
So you will make us Devils at last; for the original of temptation
came from Pluto.
Sensuality
Temptation, Lady, was bred in Nature, born from Nature,
and inhabites with all your Sex, as with Natures self, whom I have heard is
a most beautiful Lady, and that is the reason, I suppose, she hath favoured
women more than men, being her self of the Effeminate Sex: And the truth
is, Nature hath been cruel to our Sex; for she hath not only made you so
beautiful, as to be admired and desired, but so cruel, as to despise,
reject and
scorn us, taking pleasure in our torments.
Portrait
If all Women were of my mind, we would torment you more
than we do.
Faction
We have tormented him enough with talking, therefore let us
leave him.
Sensuality
Nay Ladies, I will wait upon you.
Act II.
Scene 10.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and Monsieur Frisk.Frisk
Monsieur Satyrical, I can tell you sad News.
Satyrical
Let sadnesse sit upon the grave of Death, for I defie it.
Frisk
But that man is in danger that stands as a Centre in a Circumference,
from whence all the malignant passions shoot at him, as Suspition, Spight,
Envy, Hatred, Malice, and Revenge; and the more dangerous, by reason
their Arrows are poysoned with Effeminate Rage.
Satyrical
Let them shoot, for I am arm’d with Carelesnesse, and have a
Spell of Confidence, which will keep me safe. But who are they that are
mine Enemies?
Frisk
No less than a dozen Ladies
Satyrical
If I can attain to fight with them apart, hand to hand, I make
no question but to come off Conquerour; and if they assault me altogether,
yet I make no doubt but I shall so skirmish amongst them, as I shall be on equal
terms. But what makes the breach of peace betwixt me and the Ladies,
and such a breach as to proclame Open Wars?
Frisk
The Cause is just, if it be true as it is repotrted.
Satyrical
Why what is reported?
Frisk
It is reported you have divulged some secret favours those Ladies
have given you.
Satyrical
It were ungrateful to conceal a favour: for favours proceed from
generous and noble Souls, sweet and kind Natures.
Frisk
But Ladies favours are to be concealed and lock’d up in the Closet
of secrecie, being given with privacy, and promise not to divulge them; and
it seems by report you have broke your promise, for which they swear to be
revenged.
Satyrical
Faith all Women, especially Ladies, their natural humour is
like the Sea, which will be neither quiet it self, always ebbing and flowing,
nor let any thing be at rest on it: I know not what the Fishes are that are in
it, but for any thing I can perceive to the contrary, they live in a perpetual
motion: So doe Ladies; for their Passions and Affections ebb and flow
from object to object; for one while they flow with love, then ebb with hate,
sometimes they are rough with anger, and stormy with rage, then indifferent
calm with patience, but that is seldome: But in the Spring-tide of Beauty
they overflow all with pride, and their thoughts, like Fishes, are in a perpetual
motion, swimming from place to place, from company to company,
from one meeting to another, and are never at rest.
Frisk
Thou deserv’st to die the death of Orpheus.
Satyrical
’Tis likely I shall, by reason I am a Satyrical Poet, and Women
hate Satyre in Poetry, although not Wood or Forrest Satyrs; and the most
extravagant and maddest Actions that ever were done, were done or acted
by Women, and the truth is, Women are not only Batchelling some parts of
the year, but all their life-long, for they drink vanity, and are mad-drunk with
wantonnesse
Frisk
Let me tell you, that if I should be brought as a Witnesse, and
should declare the truth, there were no hopes of mercy for thee.
Satyrical
I grant it, if Women were to be my Judges.
Scene 11.
Enter Excess, Wanton, Idle, and Surfet.Excess
Where shall we go for pastime to day? for our Lady hath left us
to our own pleasures to day.
Idle
Let us go and swim in a Boat upon the River.
Wanton
That is but a watrish Recreation; besides; it is very dangerous,
for many have been drowned in their idel pastimes.
Surfet
If you will take my Counsel, let us go the the Lodge in the Park,
and drink Sullybubs.
Wanton
Yes, let us go, for the Lodge puts me into a good humour, and
Sullybubs make me merry.
Idle
You have reason, for it is a cheerly Cup, and a Cup of good fellowship,
for we may all eat and drink together.
Surfet
Yes by spoonfuls.
Excess
I love to be drunk by spoonfuls, for then I am drunk by degrees,
and not at one draught, as a pinte, or a quart at a draught, as men do; besides,
though it be allowable for the soberest noblest Women to be drunk
with Wine-caudles, Sullybubs, Sack-possets, and the like, so it be by spoonfuls,
yet it were abominable and most dishonourable for Women
to be
Ttt2
drunk
Ttt2v
260
drunk with plain Wine, and great draught, as men are; besides, in great
draughts there is not that pleasure of taste, as in a little at a time.
Idle
I believe that is the reason that Flemmings love to sip their Wine, because
they would have the pleasure of Taste.
Wanton
No question but they learn’d that of the Effeminate Sex, who
love to taste of every thing.
Surfet
I do believe it; for all women love spoon-meat.
Excess
’Tis true, and to drink in spoons.
Idle
Talk no more of eating and drinking, but eat and drink without talking,
and afterwards talk to digest irt.
Excess
And after it is digessted, let’s eat and drink again.
Wanton
So we shall do nothing but eat, drink, and talk.
Surfet
Women do nothing else all their life-long.
Wanton
By your favour but we do.
Excess
Come, come, let us go.
Scene 12.
Enter the Lady Ambition alone.Ambition
O that I might enjoy those pleasures which Poets fancy, living
in such delight as nature never knew; nor that all Poets did write of me,
not only to express their Wit, but my Worth, and that I might be praised by
all mankind, yet not vulgarly, as in a croud of others praises, but my praises
to be singularly inthron’d above the rest, and that all others commendations
might have no other light but what proceeds from the splendor of my Fame:
Also I wish that Nature had made me such a Beauty, as might have drawn
the Eyes of the whole World as a Loadstone to gaze at it, and the splendor
thereof might have inlighted every blind eye, and the beams therefrom
might have comforted every sad heart, and the pleasing Aspect therein
might have turned all passions into love; then would I have had Nature, Fortnune,
and the Fates, to have given me a free power of the whole
World, and
all that is therein, that I might have prest and squeezed ourt
the healing Balsomes,
and sovereign Juices, and restoring Simples into every sick wounded
and decayed body, and every disquieted or distemper’d mind: Likewise, that
I might have been able to have relieved those that were poor and necessitous,
with the hidden riches therein, and that by my power I might not only have
obliged every particular creature and person, according to their worth and
merit, but to have made so firm a peace amongst mankinde, as never to be
dissolved.
Scene 813.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and Monsieur Inquisitive.Inquisitive
I wonder you should be an Enemy to Women.
Satyrical
I am so far from being an Enemy to the Effeminate Sex, as I
am the best friend they have: for I do as a friend ought to do, which is, to
tell them the truth, when other men deceive them with flattery.
Inquisitive
But they complain, and say you exclame and rail against
them.
Satyrical
Their complaints proceed from their partial Self-love and Luxury:
for they love pleasing flattery, as they do Sweet-meats, and hate rigid
truth, as they do a bitter potion, although the one destroys their health, the
other prolongs their life.
Inquisitive
But they are so angry, as they all swear, and have made a vow
to be revenged on you.
Satyrical
Let them throw their spleens at me, I will stand their malice, or
dart forth Amorous glances, they will not pierce my heart: for Pallas is my
Shield, and Cupid hath no power.
Inquisitive
If they cannot wound you with their Eyes, they will sting you
with their Tongues, for Women are like Bees.
Satyrical
If they are like Bees, their stings lie not in their Tongues.
Scene 14.
Enter Mother Matron, Bon’ Esprit, Portrait, Faction,Ambition, Pleasure
Matron
I can tell you News, Ladies.
Portrait
What News Mother Matron?
Matron
Why there is a rich young Heir come to town.
Superbe
Some foolish Son of a miserable Father, who hath spared from
his back and belly, to make his Son vain and prodigal. But what shall we be
the better for this rich Heir?
Matron
Why marry if you can get him, you will be so much the better
as a rich Husband can make you.
Ambition
He will first be got by the Cheats in the Town, which Cheats
have more subtilty, and will be more industrious to get him, than the youngest
and beautifullest, and wittyest Lady of us all; so as there is no hopes of
gaining him, until he is so poor, as he is not worth the having.
Faction
But if he could be had whilest he were rich, it were no great victory;
for I dare say hi Mothers Landry-maid might be as soon a Conqueress,
as a great Lady: But if we could conquer and imprison Monsieur Satyrical
in Loves Fetters, that would be a Conquest worthy Fames Trumppet.
Pleasure
O that would be such an Exploit, as it would be an Honour to
our Sex.
Bon’ Esprit
There is nothing I desire more, than to be she that might infetter
him.
Portrait
I long to insnare him.
Ambition
So do I.
Bon’ Esprit
Faith I will lay an Ambuscado for him.
Matron
Fie Ladies, fie, I am asham’d to hear the Designs you have to
catch Monsieur Satyrical; such
Fair, Young, Noble Ladies to be so wanton,
as none will content you but a wilde, rough, rude Satyr.
Bon’ Esprit
If I were sure there were no other ways to get him, I would
become a Wood-nymph for his sake.
Matron
You have forgot the Nymph that was turned into a Bear.
Bon’ Esprit
O she was one of cruel Diana’s Nymphs; but I will be
none of her Order.
Matron
No, I dare swear you will not; for ’tis unlikely you should, when
you desire to imbrace a Satyr.
Bon’ Esprit
I do not desire to imbrace him, but to enamour him.
Matron
Well, Ladies, your Parents gave you to my Care and Charge;
but since you are so wilde, to talk of nothing but Nymphs, Woods, and Satyrs,
I will resigne up the Trust which was imposed on me, to your Parents
again; for I will not adventure my Reputation with such wanton
young Ladies.
Bon’ Esprit
Mother Matron, let me tell thee, thy Reputation is worn out
of thee, time has devoured it, and therefore thou hast no Reputation
to lose.
Scene 15.
Enter Monsieur Censure, and Monsieur Frisk.Frisk
Faith Tom. I have emptyed thy pockets.
Censure
Thou hasst pick’d my pockets with thy juggling Dice, for
which, if thou wert a woman, and in my power, I would be reveng’d for
my loss.
Frisk
Why, what would you do if I were a Woman?
Censure
I would condemn thee to a solitary silent life, which to a woman
is worse than Hell; for company and talking is their Heaven, and their
Tongues are more restless than the Sea, their Passions more stormy than the
Winds, and their Appetites more unsatiable and devouring than fire; they
are lighter than Air, more changing than the Moon.
Frisk
What makes thee thus rail at the Effeminate Sex?
Censure
Have I not reason, when Fortune is of the same gender?
Frisk
Faith Tom, I must tell.
Faction
What will you tell?
Frisk
Why I will tell you, Lady, he hath rail’d most horribly against
your Sex.
Faction
That is usual: for all those men which never received, nor hope to
receive any favour from our Sex, will rail against it.
Censure
Those men have no reason, Lady, to commend you, if they never
received neither profit nor pleasure from you; and those that have been
cruelly used by your Sex, may lawfully rail against it.
Faction
The Laws of Honour forbid it.
Censure
But the Laws of Nature allow it, and Nature is the most prevailing
law.
Faction
Natures law is for Men to love Women, and Women Men, but
in you and I there is not that Sympathy; for I dislike your Sex, as much as
you do ours, and could rail with as free a will against it. The truth is, that
although I do not hate men, yet I despise them; for all men appear to me
either Beast or Butter-flies, which are either sensual or vain: Indeed most
men are worse than beasts; for beasts are but according to their kind, when
men are degenerated by beastly Sensualies, from which they were made; for
as most men are worse than beasts, so you are worse than most men.
Censure
It is a favour, Lady, from your Sex, to rail against ours: for it is
a sign you have considered us, and that we live in your memory, although
with your ill opinions; yet it is better to live with Enemies, than not to be;
and of all men, I have received the greatest favour from the chiefest of your
Sex, which is your self, in that you have considered me most, though you
have found me worst, yet it proves you have thought of me.
Faction
If those thoughts and dispraises be favours, I will binde so many
together, until they become as thick and hard as steel, of which you may
make an Armour, to keep your Reputation from wounds of reproach.
Frisk
There Tom. she hath paid thee both for thy Railings and Complements.
Censure
She hath not payd me in current coyn.
Frisk
It will pass for digrace, I’ll warrent thee.
Scene 16.
Enter Madam Ambititon, Faction, Portrait, Bon’ Esprit,Pleasure.
Bon’ Esprit
There are but three things a gallant man requires, which is,
a Horse, a Sword, and a Mistris.
Ambition
Yet a gallant man wants Generosity; for the greatest honour
for a man, is to be generous; for Generosity comprises all Virtues, good
Qualities, and sweet Graces; for a generous man will never spare his life,
purse, nor labour, for the sake of just Right, plain Truth, Honest Poverty;
Distress, Misery, or the like; for a generous man hath a couragious, yet
compassionate Heart, a constant and noble Mind, a bountiful Hand, an active
and industrious Life; and he is one that joyes more to do good, than others
to receive good.
Pleasure
There are few or none that have such noble Souls, as to prefer anothers
good before their own.
Portrait
The truth is, men have more promising Tongues, than performing
deeds.
Faction
For all I can perceive, mans life is composed of nothing but deceit,
treachery, and rapine.
Bon’ Esprit
Indeed mans mind is like a Forest, and his thoughts, like wilde
beast, inhabit therein.
Ambition
Mans Mind is like a Sea, where his Thoughts, like Fishes, swim
therein, where some Thought are like huge Leviathans, others like great
Whales, but some are like Sprats, Shrimps, and Minnues.
Sensuality
What is like a Minnues?
Ambition
A mans Soul.
Sensuality
It is better have a soul, although no bigger than a Minnues, than
none at all, as Women have; but if they have, I dare swear it is no bigger
than a pins point.
Bon’ Esprit
Very like, which point pricks down thoughts into the
Brain, and Passions in the heart, and writes in the Brain witty Conceits, if
the point be sharp.
Sensuality
No, no, it serves onely to raise their brains with Vanity, to
ingrave their hearts wiht Falshood, and to scratch out their lives with Discontent.
Pleasure
We oftner scratch out mens lives than our own.
Sensuality
Nay, you oftner scratch out our honour than our lives.
Faction
For my part, I have an itch to be scratching.
Sensuality
I believe you, for you have a vexatious soul.
Faction
It hath cause to be vexatious, for the point of my soul is whetted
with Aqua Fortis against your
Sex.
Sensuality
I’m sure, Lady, your tongue is whetted with Aqua Fortis.
Faction
So is yours.
Sensuality
If it be, let us try which point is sharpest.
Faction
I will leave the Trial to Time and Occasion.
Scene 17.
Enter Madam Superbe, and an Antient Woman.Woman
Madam, I am an humble Suter to your Ladyship.
Superbe
What is your sute?
Woman
That you will be pleased to take a young Maiden into you service
of my preferring.
Superbe
In what place?
Woman
To wait and attend on your person.
Superbe
Let me tell you, that those servants that attend on my person, d
usually accompany me in all my Pastimes, Exercises, and sometimes in Conversation:versation
Xxx1r
265
Wherefore they must be such as are well born, well bred, well
behav’d, modest, and of sweet dispositions, virtuous, and of strict life,
otherwise
they are not for me; and I find them not so, I shall soon turn them
away.
Woman
Why Madam, even Diana her self, as severe and
strict as she was,
had some wanton Nymphs, that would commit errours; although they seemed
all sober and modest, and profess’d chastity, yet they would slip out of
the way and her presence sometimes.
Superbe
But she never failed to turn them out of her service, and some she
cruelly punished; so that what her serverity could not prevent, yet her
severity
did punish; for Diana’s practice was not to
watch her wanton Nymphs, nor
to hunt out their evil haunts, or lurking-places, to see their evil actions, but
her practice was to hunt the more modest and temperate creatures, which
were the beasts of the Fields and Forests: So, like as Diana, I shall not watch
my Maids, nor pardon their rude or dishonourable actions.
Woman
Pray Madam try this Maid, for she is very honourably born, and
well bred, but poor.
Superbe
I shall not refuse her for poverty: But as I will have some bound
for the truth and trust of my vulgar servants, so I will have some bound for
the behaviour, virtue, and modesty of my honourable servants, or else I will
not take them.
Act III.
Scene 18.
Enter Mother Matron, and meets Monsieur Frisk.Matron
Monsieur Frisk, you are well met, for I was
even now sending
a Footman for you.
Frisk
For what, good Mother Matron?
Matron
Marry to come to a company of young Ladies, who do half long
for you.
Frisk
They shall not lose their longing, if I can help them.
Matron
Now by my Troth, and that is spoke like a Gentleman; but let
me tell you, there is a great many of them.
Frisk
Why then there is the more choice.
Matron
But there no choosing amongst Ladies, you must take better
for worse.
Frisk
There is no worst amongst Ladies, they are all fair and good.
Matron
Yfaith I perceive now why the Ladies desire your company so
much as they do.
Frisk
Why my dear Mother Matron?
Matron
Because you speak well of them behind their backs, and promise
them much to their faces; and I will assure you, they have a promisingXxx
mising
Xxx1v
266
faces as you can promise them; but great Promisers are not good.
Frisk
Will you say the Ladies faces are not good?
Matron
I say mens promises are not good. But you are very quick with
me, Monsieur Frisk, to take me
upon the hip so suddenly; but, beshrew me,
your sudden frisking Answer hath put me into a Passion, which hath perturbed
the sense of my Discourse. Lord, Lord, what power a villanous word
hath over the passions!
Frisk
If you please, Mother Matron, a kiss shall ask pardon for your villanous
word.
Matron
And now, by my troth, I have not been kiss’d by a young Gentleman
above this twenty years; but now I am in haste, and cannot stay to receive
your gift, wherefore I will refer it until another time.
Frisk
But I may forget to give it.
Matron
Never fear that, for I shall remember you of it, when time shall
serve: But come away, for the Ladies will be horrible angry I have stayd so
long, for they were all going to dance, for the Fiddles were tuned, Tables
and Stools removed, room made, and they in a dancing posture, only they
stay for you to Frisk them about.
Scene 19.
Enter Madam Superbe, and Flattery her Maid.Flattery
Madam, you behav’d your self more familiar to day, than your
Ladyship was wont to do.
Superbe
’Tis true, because those I convers’d with to day were but inferiour
persons, and I speak more familiar to such persons as are below my quality,
than those that are equal to me, to do them grace and favour; and if they
take it not so, I can onely say my Civility was ignorantly placed on foolish
and ignorant persons.
Scene 20.
Enter Bon’ Esprit, Portrait, Faction, Ambition.Portrait
Some say Poems are not good, unlesse they be gloriously Attired.
Faction
What do they mean by glorious Attire?
Ambition
Rhetorick.
Bon’ Esprit
Why gay words are not Wit, no more than a fair Face is a
good Soul; and it is Wit which makes Poems good, not words.
Ambition
Indeed Rhetorick is no part of the Body of Wit, no more than
of the Soul, only it is the outward garment, which is Taylors work.
Bon’ Esprit
Then it seems, as if the Grammarians, Logicians, and Rhetoricians,
are the Taylors for Oratory, who cut shapes, fit places, seam and
few
Xxx2r
267
few words together to make several Eloquent Garments, or Garments of Eloquence,
as Orations, Declarations, Expressions, and the like worditive
work, as they please, or at least according to the fashion.
Ambition
They are so.
Portrait
Why then those that say Verse is not good, unless gloriously Attyr’d,
do as much as to say a man is a fool that hath not a fine Suit of
Cloaths on, or, that a Curl’d Hair, sweetly powder’d, is a wise, or witty
Brain, powder’d with Fancies. This surely is an unpardonable mistake, or
rather an incurable madnesse, for there is neither Sense not Reason in
it.
Bon’ Esprit
It is not so much a madness, nor that we call Natural Fools,
but Amorous Fools, or Finical Fools, or such as are Opinionated Fools, or
Self-conceited Fools, or High-bound Fools.
Portrait
High-bound Fools? What doe you mean by High-bound
Fools?
Bon’ Esprit
Strong-lin’d Fools.
Faction
Those are Learned Fools.
Bon Esprit
No, they are Conceited Fools; for their strength of Wit lies
in a Conceit.
Ambition
Those, for the most part, their Wit is buried in Oblivion.
Faction
If there be any Wit to bury.
Sensuality
Who is so foolish to bury Wit?
Faction
You, in the rubbish of words.
Portrait
The only Grave to Wit is a foolish Ear.
Sensuality
Let me tell you, Ladies, that Wit is so far from lying in a
Grave, as it hardly settles any where; for it is so Agile, and flies so
swiftly,
and yet extends in breadth so far, as it spreads the wings of Fancy, not only
over all the World, and every particular thing in the World, but one Infinite
and Eternal Nature, and with the Bill of Conception picks a hole,
whereby the Eyes of Imagination spy out the dark Dungeons of Pluto, and
the glorious Mansions of Jove.
Portrait
Then Poems need not the garments of Rhetorick.
Sensuality
No more than a Fair Lady: And as for my part, I like Poems
as I like a Woman, best uncloathed, for then I am sure they cannot deceive
or delude me with false and feigned Shews.
Scene 21.
Enter Madamoiselle Pleasure, and Grave Temperance, andher Woman.
Temperance
Madam, will you please to go abroad, and take the cool refreshing
Air to day?
Pleasure
Yes, Temperance, if you will; but I had rather stay and entertain
Monsieur Serious Contemplations
company.
Temperance
Indeed Madam I will forbid his frequent Visits; for otherwise
you will bury your self in his melancholy Conversation.
Pleasure
Pray do not, for he is the greatest delight in life.
Temperance
And then he brings such a numerous Train of Fancies and Opinions,
as fills up your Head, which is the largest room in your bodily
house; insomuch, as none of your domestick Thoughts, which are the
Minds usefullest servants, can stir about your lifes ordinary
affairs.
Pleasure
Why Temperance, Fancies are pretty youths, which make harmless
and innocent sport, to pass the time away.
Temperance
We have so little time, as we shall not need to passe it idly
away.
Pleasure
As much as we complain of want of time, we have more than
we can tell well how to spend.
Temperance
Then pray forbid Monsieur Serious
Contemplation not to bring
his wilde, stubborn, and usless Opinions; for they make more disorder, and
louder noise, and greater Factions, than if all the Dogs and Bears, in the
Town were set together by the ears, and more mischief comes thereby, than
I can rectifie.
Pleasure
Now Liberty, you are a Fore-runner of Visitants.
Liberty
Yes Madam, for there are the five Sistres, the five Senses, come
to visit you.
Pleasure
They are the troublesomest Visitants that are; they are so extravagant,
so impertinent, so various, and so humoursome, as I know not how to
entertain them: But pray Liberty usher them into the Gallery
where my pictures
hang, drawn by the Rarest and most Famous Masters; and let the
Room be sweetly perfum’d, and bring a Banquet of the most delicious and
choisest Drinks and Meats, and let there be fine linnen Napkins, and spread
all the Floor over with downy Carpets, and set soft Cushions on the Couches,
and whilest they are there, let the Musick sound harmoniously, with soft
strokes, pleasing notes, and gentle strains: And Temperance, I desire you to
Order the rest of the Entertainment, and let Ease wait upon you: As for
you, Wanton and Surfet, I forbid you, as not to come into their Company.
Wanton
Always when my Lady makes a great Entertainment, we are
forbid to appear.
Surfet
Although my Lady forbids me, yet the Company never leaves until
they have found me out, so that I am still at the end of the Entertainment,
like an Epilogue to a Play.
Wanton
And I sometimes come in like a Chorus.
Scene 22.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, Bon’ Esprit, Portrait, Faction,Monsieur Heroick, Monsieur Frisk.
Portrait
O that I might have my wish!
Ambition
What would you wish?
Portrait
I would wish to be the only Beauty.
Heroick
And if I might have my wish, I would wish to conquer all the
World, and then to divide it to the Meritorious, and not to rule it my self:
for I desire not the Power, but the Fame.
Bon’ Esprit
And if I might have my wish, I would wish to be the Supremest
Wit in Nature.
Frisk
You three are sympathetical in Ambition; for one desires to incaptive
all Hearts with her Beauty; the other desires to conquer all the
World with his Valour; the third desires to confute all Mankinde with
her Wit.
Heroick
And what do you wish, Madamoiselle Ambition?
Ambition
I wish I were Destiny, to link you all three together.
Faction
Come leave your wishing, and let us go to see the Monster that
is to be seen.
Bon Esprit
The most mostrous Creature I imagine, is a headless Maid.
Frisk
What is that, a devirginated Maid?
Bon’ Esprit
Yes.
Ambition
When she is devirginated, she is no Maid.
Bon’ Esprit
O yes; for as a Wife is one that is maried, a Widow one
that hath been maried, so a Maid is one that was never maried, and a Virgin
is one that never knew man, and a headless Maid is one that hath lost her Virginity,
and yet was never maried.
Faction
If a devirginated Maid be a headless Monster, in the World there
are many headless Monsters.
Heroick
But the best of it is, Lady, their Monstrosity is invisible.
Bon’ Esprit
You say true; but they are not monstrous in Nature, but in
Vice, for they are transformed by their Crimes.
Ambition
So are Drunkards.
Bon’ Esprit
They are so; for all Curtezans and Drunkards are beasts: For
though a Drunkard is not a headless beast, yet he is a brainless
beast.
Portrait
But what Monster is that you would have us to see?
Faction
Why a woman with a Hogs face.
Bon’ Esprit
Then ’tis likely she hath a Sows disposition. But howsoever
let us go.
Scene 23.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and Monsieur Inquisitive.Inquisitive
One witty word, or saying from a fool, is, for the most
part
remembred, and often repeated, when from a Wit it would be hardly taken
notice of.
Satyrical
There is a reason for that: for wit is more remarkable from fools,
than those that have natural wits.
Matron
Monsieur Satyrical, I am come
with a Message from a company
of fair young Ladies; the Message is this: They desire that you would do
them the favour to come to them, to judge a Poem which they have made
amongst themselves.
Satyrical
Women make Poems? burn them, burn them; let them make
bone-lace, let them make bone-lace.
Inquisitive
You are an unjust Judge, to condemn their Poems to the fire,
before you have examin’d them.
Satyrical
The best tryal of a Ladies wit is the fire; besides, the fire will
supply that want of Poetical heat which should make Poems; which heat
womens brains cannot suffer.
Matron
You are mistaken Sir, and mis-inform’d: for we women have as
hot brains as any of the Masculine Sex of you all have.
Satyrical
I grant your Sex have an unnatural heat, which makes them
all mad.
Matron
I think the Ladies were mad when they sent me for you.
Satyrical
No doubt of it, and you are mad for coming.
Matron
Your words will make me mad before I go away, although I
came well-temper’d hither: beshrew me my very bones do quiver in my flesh
to hear you.
Satyrical
If thy bones quiver so much as to shake, they will soon powder
into dust: for Age hath almost dissolv’d thee into ashes already, and Time
hath eaten off thy flesh, as Crows do carrion.
Matron
Out upon thee Satyr, a beastly man you are by my Troth, and so
I will deliver you to the Ladies.
Satyrical
You shall not deliver me to the Ladies, I will deliver my self to
Death first.
Matron
Thou art so bad, Death will refuse thee: but I will do your Errand
I’ll warrant you, I’ll set a mark upon you that shall disgrace you.
Satyrical
Thou canst not set a fouler mark than thy self upon me, therefore
come not near me.
Matron
Worse and worse, worse and worse. O that I were so young
and fair, as my Beauty might get me a Champion to revenge my quarrel!
But I will go back to the Ladies, they are fair and young enough, as being in
the Spring of Beauty, although I am in my Autumnal years.
Satyrical
Thou are in the midst of the Winter of thine Age, and the
Snow of Time is fallen on thy head, and lies upon thy hair.
Matron
They that will not live untill they are old, the Proverb sayes,
They must be hang’d when they are young, and I hope it is your Destiny.
Scene 24.
Enter Liberty, and Wanton, and Surfet.Liberty
I am come to tell you, Wanton and Surfet,
that my Lady is gone
to receive the Visit of Monsieur
Tranquillities Peace, who is come to see
her, and old Matron Temperance is
gone to wait upon her; wherefore you
may go, for there is none left with the five Senses but
Excess.
them, but they behave themselves as mad-merry, dancing about
in Couples, as Hearing with Wantonness, Idle with Scent, and Excess
with Sight, and Surfet with Taste, and Touch dances alone by
herself, and when they have danced, they go out.
Exeunt.
Scene 25.
Enter Bon’ Esprit, Superbe, Faction, Portrait, Ambition.Faction
I wonder Mother Matron should stay so long.
Portrait
I cannot guess at the reason.
Bon’ Esprit
She might have deliver’d her Message twice in this time.
Ladies
Mother Matron, Welcome, welcome, welcome: What Newes?
what Newes?
Faction
What says Monsieur Satyrical?
Bon’ Esprit
Will he come?
Portrait
Or will he not come? pray speak.
Superbe
Are you dumb, Mother Matron?
Matron
Pray Ladies give me some time to temper my passion; for if a
house be set on fire, there is required some time to quench it.
Ambition
But some fires cannot be quenched.
Matron
Indeed my fire of Anger is something of the nature of the unquenchable
fire of Hell, which indeavours to afflict the Soul, as well as to
torment the Body.
Superbe
Jove bless us, Mother
Matron! Are you inflamed with Hellfire?
Matron
How should I be otherwise, when I have been tormented with
a Devil?
Ambition
Jupiter keep us! What have you done, and with whom have
you been?
Matron
Marry I have been with a cloven-tongu’d Satyr, who is worse, far
worse, than a cloven-footed Devil.
Bon’ Esprit
Is all this rage against Monsieur Satyrical?
Matron
Yes marry is it, and all too little, by reason it cannot hurt him.
Faction
How hath he offended you?
Matron
As he hath offended you all, railed against you, most horribly
railed against you: He says you are all mad, and hath condemned your Poems
to the fire, and your imployment to the making of bone-lace.
Bon’ Esprit
Why these saying of his do not offend me.
Ambition
Nor me.
Portrait
Nor me.
Superbe
Nor me.
Matron
But if he had said you had been old, and ill-favour’d, carrion for
Crows, dust and ashes for the grave, as he said to me, then you would have
been as angry as I.
Bon’ Esprit
No truly, I should have only laughed at it.
Faction
By your favour, I should have been as angry as Mother Matron,
if I had been as old as she; for I should have been concerned in the behalf
of my Age.
Matron
Marry come up, are you turned Lady Satyrical, to upbraid me
with my Age? Is this my reward for my jaunting and trotting up and down
with your idle Message to more idle persons, men that are meer Jackstraws,
flouting companions, railing detractors, such as are good for nothing
but to put people together by the ears?
Faction
By the Effects it proves so, for you and I are very neer falling out:
But I thought you would have given me thanks for what I said, as taking
your part, and not inveterates your spleen.
Matron
Can you expect I should give you thanks for calling me old? Can
the report of Age be acceptable to the Effeminate Sex? But Lady, let me
tell you, if you live you will be as old as I, and yet desire to be thought
young: For although you were threescore, yet you would be very angry, nay
in a furious rage, and take those to be your mortal Enemies that should
reckon you to be above one and twenty, for you will think your self as beautiful
as one of fifteen.
Faction
I do not think so, although I believe our Sex have good opinions of
themselves, even to the last gasp; yet not so partial, as to imagine
themselves
as one of fifteen at threescore.
Matron
It is proved by all Experience, that all Mankind is self-conceited,
especially the Effeminate Sex; and self-conceit doth cast a fair shadow on
a foul face, and fills up the wrinkles of Time with the paint of Imagination.
Portrait
But the Eyes must be blind with Age, or else they would see the
wrinkles Time hath made, in the despight of the paint of Imagination.
Superbe
By your favour, Self-conceit does cause the Eyes of Sense to be
like false glasses, that cast a youthful gloss, and a fair light, on a wither’d
skin: For though the deep lines in the face cannot be smoothed, yet the
lines, or species, in, or of the sight, may be drawn by self-conceit so small as
not to be perceived: And were it not for the Eyes of Self-conceit, and the
Paint of Imagination, as Mother Matron says, which preserves a good
Opinionnion
Zzz1r
273
of our selves, even to the time of our Death, wherein all remembrance
is buried, we should grow mad, as we grow old, for the losse of our Youth
and Beauty.
Matron
I by my faith you would grow mad, did not Conceit keep you in
your right wits.
Faction
The truth is, our Sex grow melancholy, when out Beauty decayes.
Portrait
I grow melancholy at the talking of it.
Ambition
Let us speak of some other subject that is more pleasing than
Age, Ruine, and Death.
Bon’ Esprit
Let us talk of Monsieur Satyrical again.
Matron
He is a worse subject to talk of than Death.
Bon’ Esprit
As bad as he is, you shall carry another Message to him.
Matron
I will sooner carry a Message to Pluto; for
in my Conscience he
will use me more civilly, and will send you a more respectful Answer than
Monsieur Satyrical.
Bon’ Esprit
Indeed I have heard that the Devil would flatter; but I never
heard that a Satyrical Poet would flatter.
Matron
But a Satyrical Poet will lye, and so will the Devil; and therefore
talk no more of them, but leave, them together.
Scene 26.
Enter Temperance, and Madamoiselle Pleasure.Pleasure.
O Temperance, I am discredited for ever, the Ladies the Senses
are all sick: What shall I do?
Temperance
You must send for some Doctors.
Pleasure
What Doctors shall I send for?
Temperance
Why Old Father Time, he hath
practised long, and hath
great Experience; then there is Rest and
Sleep, two very good & safe Doctors.
Pleasure
Send Ease presently to fetch them, bid her make haste.
melancholy: They all pass silently over the Stage. Enter Temperance, and Madamoiselle Pleasure.
Pleasure
Temperance, are the Doctors come?
Temperance
Yes, and gone again.
Pleasure
And what have they prescribed?
Temperance
Abstinence.
Pleasure
And will that cure them?
Temperance
They say it will prove a perfect cure: Probatum est.
Pleasure
The next act I do, shall be to turn away Wanton,
Idle, Excess, and
Surfet.
Temperance
You will hardly get them out of your Service, although you
should beat them out.
Act IV.
Scene 27.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, and her Waiting-woman.Woman
Madam, me thinks Monsieur
Vain-glorious is a very proper
man, and would be a fit Match for your Ladyship.
Ambition
Let me tell you, I will never marry a man whose Soul hath Vacuum;
but that man I would marry, should have a soul filled with Natures
best Extractions; his Head the Cabinet of Natures wisest Counsels, and curiousest
Fancies; his Heart the Treasury of Natures purest, currentest, and
Heroick Virtue: For if ever I marry, I will have a Husband that is able to
govern Kingdoms, to Marshal Armies, to Fight Battels, and Conquer Nations;
and not a self-conceited Fool, or fantastical Gallant, such as speaks
ranting
Words, wears flanting Cloaths, walks with a proud Garb, looks with a
disdainful Countenance, Courts Mistrisses, loves Flatteries, hates Superiors,
and scorns Inferiors, keeps a greater Retinue than his Revenue will maintain,
who like moths, eat through the cloth of his Estate, and he like another fly,
plays so long in his Vain-glorious Flame, until he is consumed therein, spending
with an open purse, and prodigal vanity, and yet receives with a covetous
hand: So Vanity flies and flutters about in the heat of Prosperity, and
dies in the Winter of Adversity. No, I will have a Husband, if ever I have
any, whose Minde is settled like the Centre, which can neither rise nor fall
with good or bad Fortune; and not a little Soul in a narrow Heart, and witless
Brain.
Scene 28.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and another Gentleman.Gentlem
Sir, I desire you will pardon me; but I am commanded to
bring you here a Challenge.
Satyrical
Are you the Second, Sir?
Gentlem
No Sir.
Satyrical
Are you a Pimp, Sir?
Gentlem
I scorn your base words, for I am a Gentleman.
Satyrical
Many a Gentleman scorns base words, but not base Actions.
Gentlem
I scorn both base words, and base Actions.
Satyrical
It doth not seem so by the Challenge you have brought.
Gentlem
Why, what is the Challenge?
Satyrical
The Challenge is from a Woman, and I will read it to you. He reads the Challenge. “Monsieur Satyrical, I Challenge you, and am resolv’d to fight, Not in the Field of Mars, as Champion Knight, Nor in the Court of Venus will I be, But to the Lifts of Mercury Challenge thee: Where all the Muses will Spectators sit, To Judge which is the great’st Victor of Wit. The Weapons which we fight with must be Words, For I a woman am, not us’d to Swords: Custome and Education leave us bare To Natures Arms, the Arms of Death we fear. Your Servant, Bon’ Esprit”
Satyrical
These two last Lines make you a Pimp, Sir.
Gentlem
I must be contented, for there is no Revenge to be taken against
Ladies: But Mother Matron had been a more properer Messenger than I for
this Challenge.
Satyrical
I shall send my Answer by a more inferiour person than you
are, and so shall take my leave for this time.
Gentlem
Your Servant.
Scene 29.
Enter Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit, Portrait, Faction, Ambition,Superbe.
Faction
All Poets and Musicians are mad, more or less: for Madness is
caused by a distemper of the Brain, like as the Pulse, which beats quicker
than the natural motion.
Bon’ Esprit
You mistake madness; for madness is not caused by the
quickness of motion, but by the irregularity of the motion: And as for Poetical
and Musical Motions, although they are quick, yet they keep Time, Tune
and Order, when those Motions that cause madness do not: But the quickmoving
brains of Poets are caused by their lively & elevated Spirits, which are
Active and Industrious, always creating for delight or profit, as Verses, Fancies,
Scenes, Sonnets, or inventing Arts: And if you account these Ingenious
and Divine Spirits to be mad, I shall desire to be mad too, as they are.
Faction
But some Spirits are so quick, that they out run all Invention.
Bon’ Esprit
Those are neither the spirits of Poets nor Musicians; not but
that Poets and Musicians may be mad as other men, but their madness is not
Zzz2
caused
Zzz2v
278276
caused by the Poetical and Harmonical spirits, but some other defects of the
brain, or distemper of the spirits; but there are many mad, that are so far
from Poetical Fancies, or Musical skill, or Inventions, as they can neither
conceive the one, or learn the other, or understand either; but Musick and
Poetry have oft-times cured madness, and certainly are the best and most excellent
Physicians for that disease: For though madness is but one and the
same disease, as madness, yet the Causes and Effects are divers.
Superbe
A Feaver in the Brain causeth madness.
Bon’ Esprit
It rather causeth madness to have
outragious Effects; but a
cold brain may be mad: But it is neither heat nor cold that causeth madness,
but the irregularity of the Spirits.
Ambition
But heat and cold may cause the irregularity of the Spirits: for
as cold Livers make the Veins like standing ponds, which putrifies the blood
for want of motion; so very cold Brains may be like Snow or Ice, to obstruct
or bind the Spirits, hindring the regular motions.
Bon’ Esprit
You say right, and that is a stupid madness: And as a hot
Liver may boyl and inflame the blood, so hot Brains may inflame the Spirits,
causing Combustious Motions, as Thundring, which is a raging madnesse.
Censure
Who is raging-mad?
Faction
A despairing Lover.
Censure
Hang him in his Mistris Frowns, or strangle him in the Cords of
her Cruelty.
Superbe
Would you be served so?
Censure
Yes, when I am a mad Lover: For I had rather die than be in
love with a hard-hearted Mistris; for of the two I had rather imbrace death
than Court her, in which Courtship I should be Transform’d, or Metamorphos’d
into many several things: As I should be a River of Lovers Tears,
a Ventidock of Lovers Sighs, an Aquaduct of Lovers Griefs, and a Chilling
grotto of Lovers Fears; and rather than I would endure these Transformations,
I would be well contented to be annihilated.
Ambition
O Fie, had you rather be nothing than a Lover?
Censure
I had rather be nothing, than a thing worse than nothing.
Faction
Well, I hope to see you a desperate Lover at one time or other.
Censure
I hope not, for I have no cause to fear: for my Mind cannot be
perswaded by my Fancy, or forced by my Appetites, not betrayed by my
Senses; for Reason governs my brain, Temperance rules my Appetites,
Prudence guards my Senses, and Fortitude keeps the possession and Fort of
my Heart.
Faction
Love will unthrone Reason, corrupt Temperance, bribe Prudence,
and beat Fortitude out of the Fort of your Heart.
Censure
For fear of that I will leave you, Ladies.
Matron
News, News, Monsieur Satyrical
hath vouchsaf’d to return you
an Answer to your Challenge.
Bon’ Esprit
Who brought it?
Matron
A scrubbed fellow in a thred-bare cloak, the rest of the Ladies
say. Read it, read it, Madamoiselle Bon’
Esprit.
Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.[Speaker label not present in original source]
“Lady, you Challeng’d me in Arms to fight, Appoint the place, the best time is at night For Natural Duellers; yet I submit, And shall obey to what hour you think fit: I am content my Health for to engage, And venture Life to satisfie your rage. I am no Coward, I am not afraid To fight a Duel with a young fair Maid, Although old Mother Matron she should be Your Second, for to Judge what she doth see.”
Matron
He makes me the scurvy burthen of his more scurvy Verse, and
scurrilous Answer: But I hope this Answer of his to your Challenge, will
inveterate your spleen as much as his upbraiding my Age did mine.
Bon’ Esprit
I have not such reason to be so concern’d as you are; for I am
honest, though you are old.
Matron
May the Infamy of Vice wither the Blossoms of Youth, as Age
doth the Flowers of Beauty, that there may be an equal return of Reproach.
Bon’ Esprit
Indeed there is some Reciprocalness in Vice and Age.
Matron
No, Vice and Youth are Reciprocal.
Ambition
But I see no Reciprocalnesse betwixt Love and Monsieur Satyrical.
Bon’ Esprit
I make no doubt but to bring Monsieur
Satyrical into Cupid’s
snare.
Faction
You may sooner bring your self into Vulcan’s Net.
Bon’ Esprit
Well, mark the end and success.
Superbe
Nay, rather we shall mark the endless folly.
Scene 30.
Enter Madamoiselle Pleasure, and Monsieur Vain-glorious.Vain-glorious
Lady Pleasure, you are the
swetst young Lady in the
World, and the only delight in life.
Pleasure
O Sir, you give a Wooers sentence, and self-love hath bribed
your Judgment: for most speak partially, according to their Affections, and
not according to Truth.
Vain-glor
Truth is a prating, preaching, tatling, twatling Gossip, and tells
many times that which would be better conceal’d.
Pleasure
Truth is the Eye of Knowledge, which brings men out of Ignorance:
It is the Scale of Justice, the Sword of Execution, the Reward of Merit:
It is the Bond of Proporiety, and the Seal of Honesty.
Vain-glor
Truth is a Tyrant, condemning more than she saves.
Pleasure
She condemns none but Fools, Knaves, Cowards, Irreligious,
Licentious, and Vain-glorious persons, to be unworthy, base, false, and
wicked.
Vain-glorious
She condemns Pleasure; for truly there is no such thing as
Pleasure.
Scene 31.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical alone.Satyrical
I must marry, or bury succession in my Grave; but it’s dangerous,
very dangerous. O Nature, Nature, hadst thou no other way to
Create a man, unless thou mad’st a woman! But if thou wert forc’d by the
Fates to make that Sex, yet thou hadst liberty to make her a constant
Mind; but thou are inconstant thy self, as being of female kind: But since
I must marry, Discretion shall make the Choise, which will choose Virtue
before Wealth, Wit before Beauty, Breeding before Birth; if she hath
Virtue, she will be Chaste; if she hath Wit, she will be Conversable; if
she hath good Breeding, she will be modest and well-behav’d. But where is
that woman that is virtously Chaste, wittily Conversable, and Modestly
behav’d? If any woman be thus, as I would have her, it is Madamoiselle
Bon’ Esprit, she seems to have a Noble Soul by her Honourable Actions,
which women, for the most part, are so far from, as they seem, for the most
part, to have no souls at all, by their mean and petty actions: Also she hath
a Supernatural Wit, I mean supernatural, as being a woman; and her Wit
is not only Ingenious, but Judicious, by which she will set a value on subjects
of Merit and Worth, and despise those that are base; when fools know not
how to prize the best, but chuse that is bad, not knowing what is good, so
walk in Errours ways, which leads unto dishonour; but she, having Wit
and Honour, knows the benefit of Honesty so well, as she will be Chaste for
her own sake, were it not for her Husbands. But I most satyrically have translated
he sweet and harmless mirth, which was presented in her Elevated
Verse into a wanton Interpretation. Diana, thou
Goddess of Chastity, pardon
me? But stay thoughts, whither wander you? let me examine you before
you pass any farther, as whether or no you are not led by the bow-string
of Cupid, or the girdle of Venus, into the foul paths of vain desires, and deluding
beauty, to the labyrinth of destruction, there to be kept and incaptivated
by the intanglements and subtill windings, and turnings, and various passages
of Amorous Love? But a strict Examination requires Time, and a just
Judge
Aaaa2r
279
Judge decides not a Cause without Debate; therefore I will have another
Contemplation of Consideration, before I address my Sute, or make known
my Desires.
Scene 32.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, and Monsieur Vain glorious.Vain-glor
Madam, why should you refuse me?
Ambition
Because I cannot love.
Vain-glor
Not love me? why I am Valiant, Wise, Witty, Honest, Generous,
and Handsome: And where will you find a man where all these Excellencies
do meet in one?
Ambition
Now you have bragg’d of your self, I will plainly prove to you,
that you are neither perfectly Valiant, nor Wise, nor Witty, nor Generous,
nor truly Honest.
Vain-glor
You cannot.
Ambition
I can: And first for Valour. Have you gone to the Wars,
and fought? why, millions do the like, and a poor Common Souldier will
venture for sixpence on that which a vain Cavalier will hardly do to gain an
immortal Fame: Or peradventure you have fought Duels, why every Drunkard
will do as much, who in their drink they not reason to consider Valour,
which is only to fight for the sake of Honour; but most commonly Duels are
fought through Anger, or Fear, or Scorn, or Revenge, or the like, which is
not true valour, buty they fight rather like beast than men, as with Force, Fury,
or Appetite, caused by natural Antipathies, or through the heat of the
blood, or desires or dislikes of the Senses: whereas true Valour is just, temperate,
patient, prudent, and is the Heroick part, or Virtue of the Soul:
And to be valiant, is to fight for the right of Truth, and the defence of Innocency,
without Partiality, Covetousness, or Ambition: Also to prove your
self Valiant, have you received misfortunes with patience, and suffred torments
with fortitude? Have you forgiven your Enemies, or spared a bloody
Execution for humanities sake, or releas’d rich prisoners without Ransome,
and poor without slavery? Have you heard your self slanderd with
Patience, justify’d your wrongs with Temperance, fought your Enemies
without Anger, maintained your Honour without Vain-glory, then you are
Valiant.
And for Wisedome, what do you call Wisedome? to speak
Hebrew,
Greek, and Latine, and not understand them? or to understand them, and
cannot speak them? Or to cite dead Authors? Or to repeat their Learned
Opinions? Or to make Sophisterian Disputes? Or to speak Latine Sentences?
Or to tell stories out of Histories? Or to write several Hands? Or to
spell with true Orthography? Or to talk of the Sciences, but study none? Or
to talk Morality, but practice none? This you may call Learned, but not
Wisedome. But to be Wise, Have you settled a Kingdome in peace, and
put it in order, when it was imbrovled with with Civil Wars, or insnared with
confused and intangled Laws? Or have you appeased a mutinous and halfstarv’d
Army? Have you led an Army with Order, pitchd a Field with Art,
Aaaa2
fought
Aaaa2v
280
fought a Battel with Prudence, or have made a safe and honourable Retreat?
Or have you so provident, as to relieve Famine with fore-stor’d provisions?
Or to prevent missfortunes with fore-sight? Or have you distinguished
a Cause clearly, or given an upright Judgment? Or have you delivered
judicious Counsel, and given seasonable and suitable Admonitions? Have you
composed a Common-wealth, or made profitable Laws to uphold a Common-wealth?
Have you defended a Common-wealth from Enemies, or
purged a Common-wealth from Factions? Have you made Officers worthy
of Imployments, Magistrates, able to Govern, Souldiers skilful to Command?
Have you fitly matched men and business, and offices with men?
Have you imploy’d the idle, and given light to the ignorant? Have you discharged
a Common-wealth of Superfluity, or superfluous Commodities,
and brought in those which are more useful, such as they have wanted?
Have you Manured a barren Country, or inrich’d a poor Kingdome? Have
you made honest Associats, faithful Agreements, and safe Traffiques?
Then you may think your self Wise, and be silent; for the Actions will
proclame it.
Also what do you call Wit? Imitating Extravagancies like a
Jackanapes,
or a Buffoon, to extort the Countenance with making wry faces? Or with
much laughter to shew the teeth, which perchance are all rotten in the head?
Or foolishly to divulge the infirmities of particular persons in an open Assembly?
Or putting Innocency or Youth out of Countenance? Or to disturb
the Serious with idle Sports? Or disorder the Wise with foolish and
rude Jests? Or do you call Wit affected Dresses, affected Garbs, affected
Countenances, or vain-straind Complements, or uselesse Words, or senslesse
Speeches, or crosse Answers, or impertinent Questions? But for your Wit,
Hath your Fame flown beyond Euripides,
Homer, or Ovid,
your Descriptions
beyond Horace, or your Verse beyond
Virgil? Have you Oratory to equal
the Orartors of Athens,
Lacedemonians, or Rome? or have your devised
any Ingenious Inventions, or produced any profitable Arts, or found out any
new Sciences? They you are Witty.
Likewise what do you call Honesty? to live luxuriously
to your self, not
medling, nor intermingling your self and home-Affairs with the publick Affairs
of the World? To keep open House at Christmass? To give your scraps
to the poor? To pay Wages duly, Debts justly, Taxes quietly? To Kisse
your Maids privatly? And although all this is good and commendable, but
the kissing of your Maids, yet it is not enough to make a perfect honest man.
But to be perfectly honest, Have you temperd your unsatiable Appetite with
Abstinency, moderated your violated passions with Reason, governed your
unruly actions with Prudence? Have you not exacted unjustly, judged partially,
accused falsly, betrayed treacherously, kept wrongfully, took forcibly?
but have you advanced Virtues, defended the Innocent? Have you witnessed
for Truth, pleaded for Right, and stood for the defenceless? Then you are
perfectly Honest.
Also what do you call Generosity? To give a present to
a lewd Mistris?
To bribe a corrupted Judge? Or fee a subtil Lawyer? Or feast the vain
Courtiers? Or maintain Sycophants and Flatterers? Or Bail a just Arrest?
Or to be bound for the Deboist? Or to give Ladies Collations? Or to lend
or give idle drunken fellows money? Or to give when you think to
hear of
it again? This is Prodigality, not Generosity. But to be Generous, Have
you set your prisoner free, Ransomed the Captives, or bought off the chains
of
Bbbb1r
281
of the Gally-slaves? Have you maintained young Orphans, or helped poor
Widows? Have you cheered the Aged, nourished the Hungry, succoured
the Infirm, relieved the Distressed, comforted the Sorrowful, and guided
the Ignorant? Or have you upholden an Antient Family from sinking? Then
you are Generous.
As for your Person, the more Handsome and Beautiful you are, the more
Effeminate you seem. But to conclude, That man that hath a narrow Heart,
and a mean Soul, that only seeks his own delights, which all vain-glorious
persons do, I will not marry: For Noble Ambition hath a heart, whose
veins with bounty flow, and wears her life only for Honours use and Virtues
need.
Act V.
Scene 33.
Enter Grave Temperance, Superbe, Bon’ Esprit, Faction,Portrait.
Temperance
There is no behaviour so inconvenient, or so unfitting a woman,
especially a young beautiful Lady, as to be familiar: for that gives
way and liberty for men to be rude and uncivil.
Portrait
Why how would you have a young Lady to behave her self?
Temperance
Modestly, reservedly, and civilly, which behaviour will keep
men in order, and at a distance.
Superbe
To seem very modest, is to appear simple; to be much reserved
is to be formal, which is only fit for State Ladies; to be very civil, is to be
too humble, and appears mean, and only fit for Country wives.
Temperance
No Lady, for those that give no respect, will receive none;
but those that are civil to others, others will be civil to them; for they will
be ashamed to be rude to those that are civil: And as for Gravity, it puts
Boldness out of countenance, and Modesty quenches unlawful desires, converting
the beholders to Purity, Love, and Esteem.
Faction
There is no behaviour like to the French Mode, to be careless
and free, to discourse in Raillery.
Temperance
To be careless, is to be rude; to be fcree, is to be wanton; to
raillery, is to reproach under the protection of wit, it is a reproachful Wit,
and a wit of Reproach.
Bon’ Esprit
All wit is commendable.
Temperance
No Lady, a Jesters wit is not fit for a grave Judge, or a great
Prince, he may keep a Fool, or make a Fool to make him merry, and to
laugh at their Jests and Gestures, but not to be a Buffoon or Jester himself.
Bon’ Esprit
Let me advise and counsel you, Temperance, which is, to condemnBbbb
demn
Bbbb1v
282
no kind of Wit, but especially a Mode-Wit, lest you should be accounted
a foolish Judge.
Temperance
Let me tell you, they will be the greatest Fools that judge
the Judge.
Scene 34.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical alone.Satyrical
I am resolv’d, yet being a Criminal, how to address my Sute,
I am in doubt: To ask pardon for my faults, were to make my faults
seem greater than they are; to excuse them, were to make my judgment
seem weaker than I think it is; to justifie them, were to condemn her. Well,
I will neither ask pardon, nor make excuse, nor yet justifie them; but in plain
language declare my pure Affections, honest Desires, and honourable Requests;
if she believes the first, approves the third, and consents to the second,
I hope to be happy, if not I must be content: for it is a folly to mourn,
when it brings no remedy.
Scene 35.
Enter Bon’ Esprit, Portrait, Faction, Ambition, Superbe,Mother Matron,.
Faction
The Lady Variety, now she is a
Widow, she tricks and dresses up
her self in her Mourning, and is more fond of the company of men, than
we that are Maids.
Bon’ Esprit
’Tis a sign she knows by Experience that the Masculine Sex
are better, and more pleasurable company than any of her own Sex, which
Maids do not know, by reason they are for the most part restrain’d.
Portrait
Why should you find fault with Widows, when maried Wives
indeavour by all the Arts they can to get the company of men, and do strive
by inticements to allure them to Courtships, as much as Widows or Maids
to lawful and honest Mariage?
Ambition
One would think that maried women, by their neglect and disrespect
to they Husbands, they loved not the company of men.
Superbe
They may love the company of men, though not the company
of one man, as their Husbands.
Matron
Come, come, Ladies, Maids are always spiteful to Maried
Women, because they be preferred in Mariage before them, and are jealous
of Widows, for fear that they should get their Servants and Suters from
them.
Faction
I should sooner be jealous of a Widow, than spightful to a Maried
Wife: for most Wives are in a condition to be pity’d rather than envy’d;vy’d;
Bbbb2r
283
but Widows have such a magnetick power, as one Widow will draw
away the Servants and Suters from a dozen Maids.
Bon’ Esprit
Indeed Widows are very prevalent; for a poor widow shall
have more Suters, and better Choice, than a rich Maid, and an ill-favour’d
Widow, than a handsome Maid, and old Widow, than a young Virgin.
Ambition
I wonder at it.
Faction
Why should you wonder at it? since they know the humours,
weaknesses, and strengths of men, better than Maids do, by which they
know how to work and draw them to their bent and design.
Bon’ Esprit
No, that’s not the Cause.
Faction
What’s the Cause then?
Bon’ Esprit
Why men think Widows wiser than Maids, as being more
known and experienc’d.
Portrait
Indeed they have more knowledge than Maids, or else they have
very ill luck.
Ambition
Why, Maids are more desirous to marry Widowers than
Batchelours.
Superbe
What is the reason of that?
Bon’ Esprit
I know not, except it be the former reason.
Faction
No, no, it is because it is said that Widowers love their second
wives better than the first.
Portrait
And what their third wife?
Faction
I suppose Love increaseth with the number.
Ambition
But women, ’tis said, love their first husbands better than the
second.
Superbe
That’s only an excuse to marry a third, and so a fourth Husband.
Bon’ Esprit
Indeed Death and Hymen are great friends to Widows and
Widowers: for if once a woman buries her husband, or a man his wife,
they never leave marying and burying, until they have had five or six husbands
and wives.
Faction
If it were always so, I would I had been maried, and had buried
my husband; O what a Gossipping life should I have had! Gossipping at
my husbands Funerals; and Gossipping at my Maried Nuptials, besides the
pleasure of being woo’d.
Bon’ Esprit
But you would have more trouble and vexation in the time
between your Mariage-day and your Husbands Death, than pleasure betwixt
your Husbands Death and Mariage-day.
Faction
O no: for I suppose if Death be a friend, he will take away every
Husband as soon as that time is past they call Hony-moneth.
Inquisitive
Ladies, I will tell you News.
Portrait
What News?
Inquisitive
The young Widow, the Lady Variety, hath the Small Pox.
Faction
That’s no Newes; for all sorts of Diseases are too frequent to
be News: If they were, it would be happy for all animal creatures, if diseases
were strangers.
Inquisitive
But it is News that she should have them.
Faction
It is in respect of a new face, or otherwise not: for all mankind
Bbbb2
in
Bbbb2v
284
in these parts of the World have that disease at one time or other, if they
live to’t.
Inquisitive
Truly I pity her.
Ambition
I hope she is not in such a condition to be pitied: for pity is
a kin to scorn, as near as Cousin-germans, for reproach and shame are brother
and sister, and scorn is the son of reproach, and pity is the daughter of
shame:
But although the Small Pox may set marks of deformity, they set none of
dishonour; they only mark the Body, not the Soul; and that is only to be
accounted shame, and to be asham’d of, as the infirmities of the Soul, for
which they may be pitied.
Inquisitive
That deserves scorn.
Ambition
Baseness only deserves scorn, and not infirmities, loss, or misfortunes;
but there is a difference betwixt infirmities, losse, misfortunes,
baseness, and wickedness. Infirmities proceed directly from Nature, Losse
from Possession, Misfortunes from Interpositions, Baseness from that
creature
called Man, and Wickedness from Devils: The first is caused by the carelesness
of Nature, the second by the lack of Power, the third by the necessity
of Fate, the fourth by the corruption of Man, the last by the perswasion
and temptation of the Devil. The first, second, and third are not to
be avoided, the fourth not to be practised, the fifth not to be followed nor
fostered. The first is to be pitied, the second to be grieved for, the third to
be lamented for, the fourth to be scorned, and the fifth to be hated and abhorred.
Thus ‘we may grieve for the loss of her Beauty, but not pity her,
having no natural defect in the Soul, which is the Understanding, and the
Rational part.
Inquisitive
But Sickness is a natural defect.
Ambition
No, Sickness is no more a natural defect, than Time, or Death,
Life, or Growth: for they are only Natural Effects, but not Natural Defects.
Scene 36.
Enter Madamoiselle Pleasure, Wanton, Surfet, Idle, Exess, her Maids: They all weep.All speak
Pray turn us not onut of your Service for one fault.
Pleasure
Why you are the ground wherein all Mischief is sown,
and whereon all Vice grows; besides, you are the only Bawds for Adultery.
Wanton
No indeed, the chief Bawds to Adultery, are publick Meetings
of all kinds, either Divine, Customary, Triumphant, or Recreative: Also
Bravery, whether Ceremonious Gallantry, or Magnificency: Likewise
Beauty, Wit, Diligence, Observance, and rich Presents; besides Jealousie
and Covetousness.
Pleasure
No, Wanton, it is your glancing Eyes, simpering Countenance,
and toyish Tricks.
Wanton
Truly Madam, Idle and I are fitter to make Wenches than Bawds,
’tis
Cccc1r
285
’tis your Ladyship that is the Lady of Pleasure, which perswades more to
Adultery than we poor harmless creatures.
Pleasure
Go get you out of my house, for I will not keep such bold rude
Wenches as you are.
Temperance
Pray Madam pardon them for this time.
Scene 37.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, Superbe, Faction, Pleasure, Portrait,Monsieur Heroick, Monsieur Tranquillities Peace, Monsieur
Frisk, Monsieur Censure, Monsieur Inquisitive.
Pleasure
How shall we pass our time to day?
Tranquill. Peace
For us men we cannot pass our time better, or more
pleasanter, than in the company of fair young Ladies.
Ambition
To avoid tedious Complements and Discourses to particular
ears, or the confusion of many Tongues speaking at once, let us sit and
discourse
in Dialogues.
Heroick
Agreed; but shall we discourse in Rhime or in Prose?
Superbe
In Rhimes by any means: for Rhimes many times hide an obscure
that Nonsence that would be discover’d in Prose.
Vain-glor
Then it seems Rhime is a Veil to cover the face of Nonsense.
Superbe
They are so: for one can never discover an ill Poem, until the
Rhimes be dissolved into Prose, which shews whether there be Sense, Reason,
Wit, or Fancy in them.
Ambition
But to be turned into Prose, the Poems will lose the Elegance
of the Style, and the Eloquence of the Language.
Faction
Why, if a man should lose his Hat and Feather; and be stript of
a fine and gay Suit of Cloaths, he would neither have the less brain nor blood,
nor soul, nor body, beauty nor shape; and though gay and glorious Apparel
may allure the Eyes of a young Lady, or a Novice Gentleman, or may
draw the ignorant vulgar to Admiration, and so to an Esteem and Respect;
yet those that have clear Understandings, solid Judgments, quick Wits, and
knowing Wisedoms, will be so far from admiring the man for the sake of
his gay Cloaths, or esteeming him for his glorious Attire, as they will be apt
to condemn him as a vain man.
Inquisitive
Then you reject the cloathing of Poems in fine Language.
Faction
No; but I despise those Poems that have nothing but Language
and Rhimes.
Frisk
Then it is a folly to write in Verse, if Rhymes be not accounted
of.
Pleasure
Verse is to be accounted of for the sake of Numbers, which is
harmonious; yet neither Harmonious Numbers, nor Chyming Rhymes,
nor Gay Rhetorick, is Reason, Wit, nor Fancy, which is the Ground, Body,
or Soul of a good Poem.
Censure
Yet no Poem is esteem’d, but condemn’d, that is not in gay and
new-fashion’d cloathing.
Ambition
Then Chaucers Poems, which are in plain and
old-fashion’d
Cccc
gar-
Cccc1v
286
garments, which is Language, is to be despised, and his Wit condemned;
but certainly Chaucers Witty Poems, and Lively Descriptions, in despight
of their Old Language, as they have lasted in great Esteem and Admiration
these three hundred years, so they may do Eternally amongst the Wise in
every Age.
Heroick
Gentlemen, leave off your Disputes, for the Ladies will be too
hard for us: for they are always Conquerors in peace and war, both in the
Schools and in the Fields, in the City and in the Court.
Portrait
Pray leave off this particular Dispute, and let us discourse in general.
Tranquill. Peace
Agreed.
Superbe
Begin.
Inquisitive
Who shall begin?
Faction
I will begin; for a womans Tongue hath priviledge and preheminency
in the first place.
Faction
Old brains are like to barren ground,
Censure
Or like a wilderness forlorn,
Portrait
Or like crack’d bells that have no sound,
Tranquill. Peace
Or like a child Abortive born:
Ambition
For Time the fire of Wit puts out,
Heroick
And fills the brain with vapour cold,
Superbe
And quenches Fancy without doubt,
Vain-glor
For Wit is feeble when ’tis old.
Portrait
Wit neither fails, weakens, decays, nor dies,
Inquisitive
Though bred and born, as other creatures are,
Faction
Only the Brain, the Womb wherein it lies:
Censure
But when ’tis born, Fame nurses it with care,
Frisk
And to Eternity doth it prefer.
Pleasure
Wit makes the brain sick when it breeding is,
Tranquill
And painful throws before, and at its birth;
Ambition
But when ’tis born, if good, a Comfort ’tis.
Heroick
The Parent Poetry creates with mirth,
Superbe
He joys to see his Issue fairly spring,
Vain-glor
And hopes with time in numbers may increase,
Portrait
And being multiply’d may honours bring,
Frisk
As a posterity that never cease.
Faction
Wit, the Issue, and Off-spring of the Soul,
Censure
From which the Nature sublimely is Divine,
Pleasure
Dimensions hath, and parts, yet in the whole,
Tranquill
United is, of breaches there’s no sign.
Ambition
Wit, like the Soul is, which no body hath,
Heroick
No latitude, yet hath a perfect form,
Superbe
Yet flies all sev’ral ways, yet keeps a path,
Vain-glor
A path of Sense, which never turns therefrom.
Portrait
But wondrous strange, and monstrous is Wit,
Inquisitive
That all contrarities in it do dwell:
Faction
For it all Shapes, Imployments, Humours fit,
Censure
Like Beasts, Men, Gods, or terrible Devils in Hell.
Temperance
O fie, O fie, this discourse is like dancing the Hay, or dancing
a Scotch Gig, which will put you out of breath strait.
Faction
You would have us discourse in the measure of a Spanish Pavin.
Temperance
No, but the measure of a French Galliard would do very well.
Censure
For my part, Lady, I like Gigs best, and therefore, if you please,
begin another Gig.
Faction
The Spring is drest in buds and blossoms sweet:
Censure
The Summer laughs until her Cheeks look red.
Pleasure
The plenteous Autumn warm under our feet.
Tranquill. Peace
The Winter shaking cold, is almost dead.
All speak
Go on with the twelve Moneths.
Ambition
Fierce furious March comes in with bended brows,
Heroick
Commanding storms and tempests to arise,
Superbe
Beating the trees and cloud, as if it meant
Vain-glory
To make them subject to his tyrannies.
Portrait
Then follows April, weeping for her buds,
Frisk
For fear rude March had all her young destroy’d;
Faction
But when she thought her tears might rise to floods,
Censure
With Sun-beams dry’d her Eyes, his heat her joy’d.
Pleasure
Then wanton May came full of Amorous Sports,
Tranquill. Peace
Decking her self with gawdy Colours gay,
Ambition
And entertaining Lovers of all sorts,
Heroick
In pleasure she doth pass her time away.
Superbe
Then enters June with fair and full fat face,
Vain-glor
Her Eyes are bright and clear as the Noon-Sun,
Portrait
And in her carriage hath a Majestick grace,
Inquisitive
In Equinoctial pace she walks, not run.
Faction
But July’s sultry hot, Ambitious proud,
Censure
And in a fiery Chariot she doth ride,
Pleasure
When angry is, she thundring speaks aloud,
Tranquill. Peace
Shoots Lightning through the clouds on every side.
Sensuality
Jove bless us! what Designs have you Ladies and
Gentlemen
that you sit so gravely together in Councel.
Portrait
Our chief Design is Wit.
Sensuality
A witty Design: But really, what are you doing?
Temperance
They are idly Rhyming.
Sensuality
Hang idle Rhyming, give me Reason.
Ambition
Although our Rhymes are not good, yet they are not foul, by
reason they are made on fair and pure Subjects.
Sensuality
Why, what are the Subjects they are made on?
Portrait
They are made of the several Seasons and Moneths of the Year.
Sensuality
By your favour, Lady, there be some of the Seasons and Months
very foul.
Pleasure
But we have Rhym’d of none but the fair Months as yet.
Sensuality
Then let me advise you to stop your Poetical Vein: for if you
go farther, you will meet with foul weather and rain.
They all speak
Out, out of our company.
Faction
Do you come her to rail at our Rhymes, and yet Rhyme your
self, and worse than any of the company?
Sensuality
I only Rhyme to make my self Free of the Company, though
not of the Wits.
Inquisitive
So you will call us fools by and by.
Sensuality
No faith, your Rhymes have named you already, and so prevented
me.
Portrait
Why this is worse and worse.
Faction
Let us seek a revenge.
Ambition
What revenge shall we take?
Pleasure
We will tye him to an Asses head.
Superbe
No, we will tye him to a Foxes tail.
Sensuality
Ladies tye me to what you please, so you do not tye me to a
Horn.
Faction
Yes, to Altheas Horn, the Horn of plenty.
Sensuality
’Tis a sign Althea is a Woman, that she gives
her gifts in a
Horn; but I had rather starve, than receive plenty in such a thing.
Portrait
Let us transform him as Acteon did.
Faction
And follow him as his hounds did.
Temperance
Young Ladies, be no so wilde and fierce, to be the hounds
your selves to follow in pursuit.
Portrait
No, no, we will be as Diana, that transformed him.
Temperance
Then you must be liable to the same Censure, which is, to be
thought cruel.
Superbe
The more Cruel our Sex is, the more Chaste we are thought
to be.
Finis.
Epilogue
“Our Auth’ress bid me tell you She thought fit For to divide this Fair Cabal of Wit. For one Play ’twas too long, which was her sorrow, The other half, if come, you’l see to morrow. You’l thank her then, dividing it to make You rise with Appetites, no Surfets take. Wit’s Surfet’s dangerous: Take the Fruition Of new-born Fancies without Repetition. But hold your hands, as you are men to day, And as our Friends to morrow Clap our Play.”The Marquiss of Newcasstle
writ this Epilogue.
The Actors Names.
Monsieur Heroick.
Monsieur Tranquillitious Peace.
Monsieur Vain-glorious.
Monsieur Satyrical.
Monsieur Censure.
Monsieur Sensuality.
Monsieur Inquisitive.
Monsieur Busie.
Monsieur Frisk.
Liberty, the Lady Pleasure’s Gentleman-Usher.
Madamoiselle Ambition.
Madamoiselle Superbe.
Madamoiselle Pleasure.
Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.
Madamoiselle Faction.
Grave Temperance, Governess to Madamoiselle
Pleasure.
Madamoiselle Portrait.
Mother Matron.
Wanton,
Excess,
Ease,
Idle,
Surfet,
waiting-maids to Madamoiselle
Pleasure.
Flattery, Madamoiselle Superbe’s waiting-maid.
Servants and others.
The Second Part of the Play called Wits Cabal.
Act I.
Scene 1.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, Faction, Pleasure, Superbe,Portrait, and Mother Matron enters as meeting them.
Matron
O Ladies, there is the rarest Beauty come to the
City, out of the Countrey, that ever was seen, she surpasseth
Hellen of
Troy, or Æneas Mother Queen Venus.
Pleasure
If she surpasseth their Appetites, as you say
she doth their Beauties, she may chance to fire this City
with flames of Love, or cause a War to destroy it.
Portrait
Have you seen her, Mother Matron?
Matron
No, but a friend of mine hath seen her.
Faction
Perchance your friend’s a fool, and knows not how to judge.
Matron
Indeed my friend’s a woman, and women have none of the best
judgments.
Ambition
But there is more probability that she hath a surpassing beauty
if a woman praise her, than if a man had praised her: for men have a partial
love to the Effeminate Sex, which multiplies their beauties to their sight,
and makes a candle in the night seem like a Blazing Star.
Matron
In truth and Love is dark: for ’tis said he is blind.
Portrait
But Envy is quick-sighted, and therefore I am afraid the Lady
you speak of is surpassing, since those of her own Sex can find no
blemish or
imperfection to cloud her from a praise.
Busie
Ladies, I am come to give you intelligence of a rare Beauty that is
come to this City.
Ambition
Her Fame hath out-run your Intelligence, Sir; but have you
seen her?
Busie
No Lady, not I.
Inquisitive
Ladies, there is a rare Beauty come to this Town to increase
the number of your Cabal.
Superbe
Our Cabal is of Wit, not of Beauty.
Inquisitive
It’s a Cabal of both, Lady.
Faction
Have you seen her?
Inquisitive
No Lady, but I have heard of her Beauty.
Sensuality
Ladies, there is such a Beauty come to Town, that now or never
you will be out-shin’d.
Portrait
Jupiter bless us, and grant that she may not
ingross to her self all
Mankind, and so leave all the rest of her Sex destitute and forlorn!
Sensuality
It is to be hoped she will humble you, as to bring you to be
more complyant to us men than you have been.
Ambition
Have you seen her, Monsieur Sensuality?
Sensuality
No not I.
Ambition
Why then she is a Miracle, that every one hears of, but no body
seeth.
Faction
May she continue a Miracle still: for I had rather that she should
only be heard of, than be visibly seen.
Sensuality
But I will do my indeavour to see her.
Busie
So will I.
Pleasure
I long to see her as much as the men do.
Ambition
So do I.
Faction
And I.
Superbe
And I.
Portrait
And I.
Ambition
But how shall we compass the sight of her?
Portrait
Faith let’s go to a Play, I’ll warrant you she’ll be there.
Pleasure
If she be, we shall only see her Mask, not her Face: for at the
common Play-houses all the Effeminate Sex sit mask’d and muffl’d.
Portrait
Why then let us go to that Church which is most frequented, as
where some Famous Preachers preach; and certainly, if she be such a Beauty;
she will be there: Besides, there our Sex sit to the full View, to Attract
the Eyes of the Gods.
Matron
No, no, Lady, they sit to the full View, to tempt the Appetites
of men: for they think not on the Gods, nor care the Gods should think
of them.
Pleasure
Fie, fie, Mother Matron, you will make Women damnable creatures,
if they could be made so by your Description: But Women go to
Church to present their prayers of Request, and praises of Thanksgiving, and
not to shew themselves to men, nor to tempt their Appetites, as you
say.
Matron
Come, come, Ladies, search your own Consciences, and you will
find I have spoke the truth: for if you only went to present your prayers to
the Gods, you would go as humble petitioners, or sorrowful penitents, cloathed
in sackcloth, and ashes on your head; and not attir’d in gold and silver,
painted, patch’d, and curl’d, unless you think the Gods are like to men,
to be delighted and enamour’d with Vanity, Beauty, and Bravery: for you
make the Church a Masking-room, rather than a place of Devotion.
Portrait
No, we rather strive to make it like Heaven, which is glorious
and splendrous; and the Heavenly Society is said to be beautiful.
Matron
Yes, such a Heaven, where Maskers are instead of Saints.
Faction
Why, Angels are describ’d by Painters to have fine-colour’d
wings,
Eeee1r
293
wings, and by Preachers, to hold fine gold branches in their hands, and the
Heavens are described to us to be most gloriously adorn’d, with Diamonds,
Rubies, Pearl, Emeralds, Gold, and Crystal, which shews the Gods delight
in braveries: Wherefore we, to delight the Gods, make our selves fine
and gay.
Matron
No, no, Ladies, you strive not to delight the Gods, but to be Ador’d
and Worship’d as Goddesses by the Masculine Sex, whom you would
have to be your Saints.
Superbe
I know not whether we desire to be Goddesses, or not, but I
am sure, if women be as irreligious as you make them to be, they will prove
Devils.
Faction
And Mother Matron here will prove the chief She Devil amongst
our Sex.
Matron
No, no, Lady, I’m devout, for I say my prayers every night and
every morning.
Ambition
May be so you do, and all the time your are saying your prayers,
you are thinking of your snarl’d Periwig, or how you shall trim up your old
Gown that was given you by some of our Cabal.
Matron
Faith I must confess I have had some such thoughts when I have
been at my prayers, God forgive me for’t.
Portrait
And for all you exclame against young Beauties, for there is your
spight now your beauty is gone; yet I have observed, that when you are at
Church, you will cast your eyes about, and mope and mew, and simpering,
bridlddle in your Chin, in hopes to catch some beardless boy; and when you
look up on the Preachers face, if he be a young Lecturer, it is not out of
Attention, of what he preaches, but in hopes to perswade him to marry you,
as thinking he would imagine you would make a good Vertuous Religious
woman, fit to make a Parsons Wife.
Matron
No faith, I will never be a Parsons Wife: for Preachers are given
so much to Contemplation, as they seldom speak but in the pulpit; but
if they do, it will be of subjects I understand not, as of such subjects as they
have read out of dead Authors.
Superbe
Why then you will have the more liberty to speak your self, if
your Husband speak but seldom.
Matron
That’s true; but those which love to speak much, are like drunkards,
which is, they love company: for Questions and Answers are like
drinking and pledging, and Arguing is like drinking Healths, and quarrels
and friendships, and friendships and quarrels proceed from the one as often as
from the other.
Faction
Then it seems you are both kind and quarrelsome, both in your
talk and drink: for you speak very experienc’d of both.
Matron
So much experience I have, living long in the World, as to know
that drink makes one talk, and talking makes one dry.
Pleasure
Well, leaving this dry discourse, Mother Matron, you must find
out some way or means whereby we may be acquainted with the rare Beauty
which every one talks of,.
Matron
I will do my indeavour, and imploy the wisedom of my brain to
compass it.
soon after.
Maid
Madam, there is Monsieur Satyrical come to visit you.
Bon’ Esprit
Cupid and Venus possess him, and Pallas guard me
Conduct him hither.
Bon’ Esprit
Monsieur Satyrical, you appear like a Comet to our Sex.
Satyrical
If all your Sex had been like you, I should have been as conversant
as one of the Planets.
Bon’ Esprit
I hope you have not that Influence on our Sex, as the Planets
have on Earthly Creatures.
Satyrical
I wish I had, for then I might cast such an Influence of Love, as
might cause you to love me.
Bon’ Esprit
But you are like the Planet of Saturn, and not of
Venus: for
you frown, when Venus smiles.
Satyrical
I shall not do so when you smile.
Bon’ Esprit
You will when I quarrel with you.
Satyrical
I hope you will not quarrel with me; but if you do, I will receive
your anger, as subjects receive the punishments of Laws, obediently,
although it ruins me.
Bon’ Esprit
I will make you Judge of the Cause, as of the Laws. Have
I not reason to quarrel with you, when I Challeng’d you to an Honourable
Fight, and you return’d my Challenge back with scorn and slight?
Satyrical
Whatsoever my Answer was, I confess I am conquer’d, and
yield my self your prisoner, to dispose of me as you please: But if you will,
take a Ransome of current Love, which I have brought you in the Chest of
my Heart, wherein it is so fast lock’d, that nothing but your Acceptance can
open it.
Bon’ Esprit
If it be capable of being taken forth, I may leave your heart
empty.
Satyrical
Your Virtue will still furnish it with more,
Your pure Chastity increase the store.
Bon’ Esprit
Your Wit is very apt to take your part,
To keep your own, yet strives to steal my heart:
But if you do not use it nobly well,
I will complain to Gods, the truth will tell.
Satyrical
May I be curs’d, my Wit be quenched out,
If I give you a cause my Love to doubt,
Or I your Virtues highly not admire,
Preferring them before a loose desire,
May all the Gods their vengeance on me cast,
And may their punishments for ever last.
Bon’ Esprit
I was in jest at first; but since I find
Your Love so honest, and your words so kind,
I cannot doubt, not yet my self deny
The union Friendship in firm bonds to tye
Of everlasting love; and if I break,
May Gods be deaf when I in pray’rs do speak.
Satyrical
Madam, the Poetical Duel hath ended in Friendship, and if you
please, in Mariage.
Bon’ Esprit
I consent; but do not prize me the less for being soon won:
for I loved you before you asked my Love; and being ask’d, I could not deny
you.
Satyrical
I value your love as Saints do Heaven, and prize it as highly as
Gods their power; and for my crimes committed against you and your Sex,
I offer up my heart on the Altar of Repentance, as a sacrifice to you my
Goddess for an Atonement of your Anger.
Bon’ Esprit
I accept of thy Offering, and shall receive it as a Trophy of
my Victory.
Satyrical
I am your slave.
Scene 3.
Enter Superbe, Ambition, Faction, Pleasure, and Portrait.Ambition
It is said that Women are the greatest Conquerors, because
they conquer conquering men, and make them become slaves: For it
is said, that Women have conquer’d the wisest man, as Solomon, the wittiest
man, as David, the strongest man, as
Sampson, the fairest man, as Paris of
Troy, the valiantest man, as Achilles, the subtilest man, as Ulysses, the powerfullest
men, as Alexander and Cæsar.
Faction
By your favour, Women never made a Conquest of the two latter,
and therefore cannot be said to be absolute Conquerors: for none are
absolute Conquerors but those that conquer power, that is, those that get
absolute dominion over all the World, which Alexander and Cæsar are said to
have done by their Valour and Conduct; and never any Woman or Women
conquer’d those men, as to get them to yield up their power for a womans
sake, which shews they were not rul’d by women, although they lov’d
women; by which it is to be proved; that women never made an absolute
Conquest of men, because they could never conquer absolutely those two absolute
Conquerors and Masters of the World.
Pleasure
But Livia Conquer’d Augustus Cæsar, and Ruled his Power;
and he was as absolute a Master of the Worlds Power, as Julius Cæsar and
Alexander.
Faction
He was rather to be said the Possessor of the Worlds power, than
the absolute Conqueror of the Worlds power.
Superbe
It is as good to be a Conqueress of the possessor of power, as to
conquer the Conqueror of power.
Ambition
It is as good for the Benefit, but not so much for the Honour
of it.
Portrait
But Alexander nor Cæsar lived not so long a time, as to be Conquer’d
by women; for women must have time and opportunity for to gain
the Condquest in, as well as men have.
Faction
If Alexander and Cæsar must have been old before they
possibly
could have been conquer’d, it proves that women do rather conquer Age,
than power weakens the strength; and the truth is, women conquer nothing
but the vices, weaknesses, and defects of men: As they can conquer
an unexperienc’d Youth, and doting Age, ignorant Breeding, effeminate
Natures, wavering Minds, facile Dispositions, soft Passions, wanton Thoughts,
unruly Appetites, and the luxurious Lives of men; but they cannot conquer
mens fix’d Resolutions, their heroick Valours, their high Ambitions, their
magnificent Generosities, their glorious Honours, or their conquering or
over-ruling Powers: Nor can women conquer their moral Vertues, as their
Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance. But put the case a man had
the power of the whole World, and could quit that power for the enjoyment
of any particular women, or women, yet he quits not that power for
the womans sake, but for his minds-sake, his pleasure-sake, as to satisfie his
Fancy, Passion, or Appetites: And what Conpquest soever Women make
on Men, if any Conquest they do make, is more by the favour of Nature,
than the Gods.
Ambition
Well, I wish I may be the Conqueress of one man, let the favour
proceed from which it will.
Scene 4.
Enter Ease, Wanton, and Idle.Ease
There hath been such a Skirmish, or rather a Battel.
Idle
How, and betwixt whom?
Ease
Why, betwixt Grave Temperance and Mother Matron.
Idle
What was the cause of their falling out.
Ease
Why Mother Matron had a spic’d pot of Ale in her hand, so
she set
it to her mouth, and drank a hearty draught of it, and finding it very good
and refreshing, drank another draught: By my faith, said she, this is a cheerly
cup indeed, and a comfortable drink, and with that drank another draught,
and so long-winded she was, as she drank up all the Ale therein: Whereupon,
Grave Temperance rebuked her for drinking so much, saying, that
though a little, as one draught, or so, might refresh the Spirits, yet a great
quantity would make her drunk: Whereupon Mother Matron, who could
not then suffer a reproof, in anger she flung the pot, which was still in her
hand, at Grave Temperance’s head.
Idle
It was a sign she had drank all the good liquor out, or otherwise she
would not have thrown the pot away.
Ease
It was a sign she was drunk, or else she would not have done so
outragious and act, as to have broke Grave Temperances head.
Matron
Reprove me! teach me! Have not I liv’d long enough in the
World to be able to govern myself, but Temperance must govern me? Am
I a Child? am I a Novice, that I must be governed by
Temperance? No,
no,
Ffff1r
297
no, let her go to the Nunneries, and let her be the Lady Prioress to govern Nuns,
for yfaith she shall not Prior me.
Idle
Not Frier you, do you say?
Matron
No nor Nunn me neither: for I will be neither Fryerd, nor
Nunn’d.
Ease
Why what will you be?
Matron
Why what should I be, but as I am, a wise, sober, and discreet
Governess to a company of young Ladies? Ladies that love the World
better than Heaven, and hate a Nunnery worse than Death; and by my
Faith they have reason, for liberty is the joy of life, and the World is the
place of sensual pleasures, and sensual pleasures are substantial, and in being,
when the pleasures afteer death are uncertain; but if they were certain, yet
I had rather have a draught of Ale in this World, than a draught of Nectar
in the next.
Idle
This Ale hath heat her into a Poetical height.
Matron
What do you say, into a pots head?
Idle
No, I say your head is a pot, filled with the fume of Ale.
Matron
What have you to do with my head?
Ease
What has you to do with Grave Temperances head?
Matron
I would Temperances grave head were in your throat, and then
there would be two fools heads one within another.
Idle
Come, let’s leave her, or she will talk her self into a fit of madnesse.
Matron
A couple of Gill-flirts, to heat me thus.
Scene 5.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.Satyrical
Dear Mistris, have you freely pardon’d and forgiven me my
faults?
Bon’ Esprit
Yes.
Satyrical
But will you not reprove me for them hereafter?
Bon’ Esprit
In a pardon all faults ought to be forgiven, if not forgotten,
and no repetitions ought to be made of the same: for a clear pardon, and a
free forgiveness, blots out all offences, or should do so. But you imagine
your offences greater than they are, and by your doubts, I to be of less good
nature than I am.
Satyrical
There are none that have offended what they love, but fears, and
hopes, and doubts, fight Duels in their Minds.
Bon’ Esprit
Banish those doubts, and let the hopes remain to build a confident
belief to keep out jelousie, otherwise it will take possession, and
destroy,
at least disturb affection.
Satyrical
Not my affection to you.
Scene 6.
Enter Superbe, Ambition, and Portrait.Faction
For Heavens sake let’s go see Mother Matron: for ’tis said
she’s
mad-drunk.
Ambition
If she be mad-drunk, she’s rather to be shunn’d than sought
after.
Superbe
Why, do not we give money to see mad people in Bedlam? and
we may see her for nothing.
Ambition
Those people are not madly drunk, nor drunkly mad: for they,
poor creatures, drink nothing but water.
Portrait
Perchance if they did drink strong drink, it might make them soberly
in their right wits.
Matron
Where is Monsieur Frisk? O that Monsieur Frisk were here!
Faction
What would you have with Monsieur Frisk?
Matron
I would challenge Monsieur Frisk.
Ambition
What, to fight?
Matron
Yes, in Cupids Wars.
Portrait
By Venus I swear, thou hast been Cashier’d
from Cupids Wars
this thirty years.
Matron
Come, come, Ladies, for all your frumps, you are forced to make
me General, to lead up the Train, and Generalissimo, to set the Battalia, so
that though I am too old to be a common Souldier, I am young enough to
be a Commander.
Superbe
Thou art at this time but a drunken Commander.
Matron
If I am drunk, I am but as a Commander ought to be, or as a
Commander usually is.
Ambition
Pray do not accuse Mother Matron: for though her Brain may
be a little disturb’d, yet her Reason is sober, and governs her Tongue orderly.
Matron
O sweet Monsieur Frisk!
Faction
If her Reason governs her Tongue, I do not perceive it governs
her Humour.
Faction
Her Humour, say you, you mean her Appetites.
Act II.
Scene 7.
Enter Madamoiselle Pleasure, and Monsieur TranquillitousPeace.
Pleasure
Passions are begot betwixt the Soul and the Body, the Reason
and the Sense; and the Habitation of the Passions is the Heart, which
is in the midst of man, as betwixt the Rational part; the Head, and the Sensual
Part.
Tranquill
What part is that, Madam?
Pleasure
The bestial part.
Tranquill
What part is the bestial part? for I cannot perceive but beasts
and men are alike in most parts.
Pleasure
I am not a Lectural Reader of parts.
Tranquill
One would think you were by your former Discourse.
Pleasure
Why, I may mention parts, without Preaching on parts.
Tranquill
But if Women would Preach of the parts of the Body, and
leave Preaching of the Spirit and Soul, it would be better for themselves;
their Husbands, Friends, and Neighbours, than it is: And if men would do the
like, it would be better for themselves, their wives, and neighbours: But
they preach altogether of the Soul, and yet know not what the Soul is.
Pleasure
How would you have them preach of the Body?
Tranquill
First, as for themselves, if they would consider: for they must
consider before they Preach, which is, to Teach. If they would consider, I
say, how frail the parts of Mankind are, how tender and weak ever part of
the body is, how apt they are to sickness & diseases, how they are
subject more
to pain than to pleasure, how difficult it is to keep the body from harm, how
soon the body withers, decays, and dies: If Mankind did consider this of the
body, they would study what was the guard, and the preservation of every part
of the body; in which study they would find Temperance the only preservation
of parts, and life of pleasure: for in Excess pleasure dies, and pains
possess the body. Thus we can destroy the body sooner by Excess, and preserve
it longer by Temperance, than otherwise it would be.
Secondly, for those that are maried, temperance keeps both
man and wife
chaste, patient, and healthful, because gluttony, debauchery, and intemperate
anger, hurts the body, and destroys the body. Thus temperance keeps the
peace of Wedlock: for a Wife being patient, the Husband lives peaceably,
being chaste, he lives honourably, being healthful, he lives comfortably; and
the Husband, being temperate, he will neither be a Glutton, a Dunkard,
an Adulterer, nor Gamester: for gaming hurts the body, with vexing at the
losses, and sitting still, which hinders the Exercise of the body, or keeping
unseasonable hours, which is pernicious to the health of the Body, as to the
quiet of the Mind, and waste of their Estates. Thus a man and wife lives
free from jealousies and fear of poverty.
Ffff2
Thirdly,
Ffff2v
300
Thirdly, for their Neighbours: If they be temperate, they will neither be
covetous, quarrelsome, not envious, which will keep them from doing injury
or wrong, and will cause them to be friendly and kind: for if they covet not
their neighbours goods, they will not strive to possess their neighbours right;
if they be not envious, they will be sociable, and helpful to each other, as
good neighbours ought to be: thus they will not vex each other with Lawsutes,
and quarrelling Disputes, nor Adulteries, and the like: And if men live
peaceably, it is good for the Common-wealth, as being free from faction
and tumult: Besides, Peace and Love are the ground whereon all the Commands
of the Gods are built on.
Pleasure
You may preach temperance, but few will follow your Doctrine.
Tranquill
Yes, Pleasure will: for without temperance there can be no lasting
pleasure.
Scene 8.
Enter Idle and Ease.Ease
Yonder’s Mother Matron so metamorphos’d, as at first I did not
know her.
Idle
How metamorphos’d is she?
Ease
Most strangely attir’d for her Age, and as strangely behav’d.
Idle
How, for Jupiters sake?
Ease
Why she hath a green Sattin gown on, but it is of an ill-chosen
green, for it is of the colour of goos-dung, and an Orange-yellow Feather on
her head.
Idle
I hope she is not jealous.
Ease
Then is she beset with many several colour’d Ribbons, as Hair colour,
Watchet, Blush-colour, and White.
Idle
What, to express her Despair, Constancy, Modesty, and Innocence?
Ease
I think she may despair, but for her constancy, I doubt it, and for
modesty, I dare swear she never had any; but if she had, it was so long
since,
as she hath quite forgot it; as for her innocence, I will leave it to the Examination
or Accusation of her own Conscience.
Idle
But how is her behaviour?
Ease
Why she simpers, and draws the deep lines in her face into closes,
and her wrinckles are the quick-set hedges; then she turns her Eyes aside in
coy glances, and her Body is in a perpetual motion, turning and winding,
and wreathing about, from object to object, and her Gate is jetting, and
sometimes towards a dancing pace; besides, she is toying and playing with
every thing, like a Girl of fifteen, and now and then she will sing quavering,
as a Note or two betwixt a word or two, after the French and Courtly
Mode.
Idle
Surely she is mad.
Wanton
Who’s mad?
Idle
Mother Matron.
Wanton
No otherwise than all Amorous Lovers use to be.
Idle
Why is she an Amorous Lover?
Wanton
Yes, a most desperate one.
Ease
Who is she so amourously affected with?
Wanton
With Monsieur Frisk.
Idle
Why he is not above one and twenty years of Age.
Wanton
That’s the reason she’s in love with him: for it is his youth, and
his dancing, she amourously affects him for, for she swears that the very first
time she saw him dance, Cupid did wound her,
and shot his golden Arrows
from the heels of Monsieur
Frisk.
Ease
Why she is threescore and ten, at least.
Wanton
That’s all one: for Cupid wounds Age as well as youth.
Ease
But I had thought that an old womans heart had been so hard Love
could not have enter’d.
Wanton
Old Mother Matron prove it otherwise: for her Heart is as
tender as the youngest Heart of us all.
Idle
While I am young I will be a Lover, because I will not be a Fool
when I am old.
Ease
That’s the way to be a Fool whilst you are young, and a Lover when
you are old.
Wanton
No, that is to be a Curtezan whilst she is young, and a Bawd
when she is old.
Idle
Nay faith, when I can no longer traffique for my self, I will never
trade for any other.
Wanton
Covetousness will tempt your reverent Age.
Scene 9.
Enter Ambition, Pleasure, Faction, Portrait, Bon’ Esprit, Superbe,Wanton, Ease, Excess.
Pleasure
How shall we entertain our time?
Portrait
Let us sit and chuse Husbands.
Bon’ Esprit
What, in the Ashes?
Portrait
No, in our Speeches.
Faction
Content.
Ambition
Begin; but let your Maids, Lady Pleasure, sit and chuse Husbands
with us.
Pleasure
If I were to chuse a Husband, I would chuse a man that was
honourably born, nobly bred, wisely taught, civilly behav’d; also I would
have him to speak rationally, wittily, and eloquently; to act prudently, valiantly,
justly, and temperately; to live freely, magnificently, and peaceably. I
Gggg
would
Gggg1v
302
would have him honourably born, because I would not have him a Boor by
Nature, which is surly, rude, grumbling, and miserable: I would have him
nobly bred, because I would not have him a Shark, a Cheat, or a Sycophant:
I would have him wisely taught, because I would not have him an ignorant
fool, nor a pedantical fool: I would have him civilly-behav’d, to please my
Eyes: I would have him to speak rational, witty, and eloquent, to please
my Ears: I would have him valiant, to defend his Country, to guard his
Family, and to maintain his Honour: I would have him prudent, to foresee
missfortunes, and to provide for the future, that I may never want for the present:
I would have him temperate, lest Excess should ruine his Fortune,
Health, or Esteem: I would have him just, because others should be just to
him; to live freely, as not to be inslaved; to live magnificently, for to be
respected; to live peaceably, to avoid brawleries. And such a man as this,
will be kind to his Wife, loving to his Children, bountiful to his Servants,
courteous to his Friends, civil to Strangers, faithful to his Trust, and just to
his Promise.
Superbe
If I were to choose a Husband, I would choose a man that were
Rich, honour’d with Titles, and were Powerful. I would have him Rich,
because I would have him live plentifully, to feed luxuriously, to be adorn’d
gloriously: I would have him to have Titles of Honour, because I would
take place of my Neighbours, to have the chief place at a Feast, and to have
the first and choisest meats offer’d me: I would have him Powerful, to oppose
my Opposers, to insult over my Enemies, and to neglect my Friends;
which, if I be poor and helpless, they will do me: Thus I shall be honour’d
by my Superiours, crouch’d to by Inferiours, flatter’d by Sycophants, brag’d
of by my Friends, obey’d by my Servants, respected by my Acquaintance,
envy’d by my Neighbours, sought to by my Enemies. Thus I might advance
my Friends, punish my Enemies, tread down my Superiours, inslave
my Inferiours, insult over my Foes, and inthrone my self.
Ambition
If I were to choose a Husband, I would choose a man whom
all other men are slaves to, and he mine. And what can I desire more than
to be absolute?
Bon’ Esprit
If I were to choose, I would choose a man for a Husband
that were an honest and plain-dealing man, patient and wise, that I might
neither be deceiv’d by his falshood, nor troubl’d with his quarrels, nor vex’d
with his follies.
Faction
If I were to choose a Husband, I would choose a subtil crafty
Knave, that can cheat an honest Fool, with which cheats I can entertain my
time, like those that go to see Juglers play tricks.
Wanton
If I were to choose a Husband, I would choose a man that were
blind, deaf, and dumb, that he might neither trouble me with his impertinent
Questions, nor see my indiscreet Actions, nor hear my foolish Discourses:
Thus I may say what I will, and never be crost, do what I will, and never
be hinder’d, go where I will, and never be watch’d, come when I will,
and never be examin’d, entertain whom I will, and never be rebuk’d. Thus
I may Govern as I will, Spend as I will, Spare as I will, without Controlment.
Portrait
If I were to choose a Husband, I would choose a man that were
industrious, thrifty, and thriving: for the pleasure is not so much to enjoy, as
getting, like those that are hungry, have more pleasure in eating their meat,
than when their stomacks are full.
Excess
If I were to choose a Husband, I would choose a man that were
a busie Fool, which would continually bring me fresh, although false News:
for his busie mind, which fills his Head with Projects, which Projects will
feed my excessive Ambition, with his high Designs, although improbable,
and set my thoughts at work with his several Atchievments, although there
is no leading-path therein: But howsoever, this will furnish my Imagination,
imploy my Thoughts, please my Curiosity, and entertain my time with
Varieties, wherein, and wherewith, I may pass my life with fine Phantasms,
or like a fine Dream.
Pleasure
It is a sign you love sleep excessively well, so as you would have
your life pass as a dream
Excess
Why, Madam, sleeping is the lifes Elizium, and our dreams the
pastime therein, and our beds are our living graves, to the greatest part of our
life, and most are best pleased therein: for it gives rest to our wearied and
tired limbs, it revives the weak and fainting spirits, it eases the sick and
pained,
it pacifies the grieved, it humours the melancholy, it cherishes age, it nourishes
youth, it begets warmth, it cools heat, it restores health, it prolongs
life, and keeps the mind in peace.
Ease
I will not choose, but wish and pray, which is, if ever I
marry, I
pray Jove that I may out-live my Husband.
Bon’ Esprit
O fie, Women pray that their Husbands may out-live them.
Ease
If they do, in my Conscience they dissemble, but howsoever I will
never pray so: for I perceive when men are Widowers, they more hasty
to marry again than Batchellors are, and the last love blots out the first, and
I should be sorry to be blotted out.
Ambition
But if men do marry after they have buried their first Wife,
yet perchance they will not love their second Wife so well as the first.
Ease
I know not that, but yet to the outward view I perceive a man seems
to forget his first Wife in the presence of his second Wife.
Faction
By your favour, a second Wife puts a Husband in remembrance
of his first Wife, either for goodness or badness.
Ease
For my part, I would not be kept in remembrance by one in my
room; but howsoever, I shall love my self better than I’m sure I shall love
my Husband, and therefore I desire to live long: for I had rather live and
have him in remembrance, than die and so forget him; and I had rather remember
than be remember’d.
Pleasure
O Temperance; I heard say that you have seen the rare Beauty,
Madamoiselle la Belle.
Portrait
And is she so handsome as she is reported to be?
Temperance
Truly she is a pretty young Lady.
Faction
Is she only a pretty Lady?
Bon’ Esprit
Why she is young, and those that are very young, are only
pretty; but those that are at full growth are beautiful and handsome, and
those in their Autumnal years are Lovely, and those that are old are illfavour’d.
Temperance
No, no, those Women that have been once handsom, never
grow ill-favour’d.
Pleasure
Well, setting aside old women, what say you to the young Lady?
Temperance
I say she is handsomer at a distance than neer-hand.
Superbe
That’s well, for then her praises will be only at a distance.
Temperance
No by’r Lady, she hath Beauty enough to be praised to her
face.
Portrait
I had rather appear handsomer at a distance than at a near view,
than seem worse at a distance, and handsomer at a near view.
Ambition
Why so?
Portrait
By reason there is no Woman but is seen more by strangers than
acquaintance; besides, whole streets of people view Ladies as they passe
through in their Coaches, when perchance not above half a dozen neighbours
and acquaintance see them near hand.
Faction
So you may have many Admirers, but few Lovers.
Portrait
Faith the rarest Beauties that ever were, the more they were
known and seen, the less Esteem’d and Admir’d they were: for an unacquainted
face appears, or at least pleaseth better, although but an indifferent
Beauty, than a common face, although it excels with Beauty.
Pleasure
Did you not hear Madamoiselle la Belle speak?
Temperance
No faith, she may be dumb for any thing I know.
Bon’ Esprit
How is she behav’d?
Temperance
After the Country Mode.
Ambition
What manner of Woman is her Mother?
Temperance
A Country Lady.
Faction
Faith if Madamoiselle la Belle
hath neither Wit nor Behaviour,
her Beauty will be dim’d for the want of either: for Wit and Behaviour
are the Polishers of Beauty, otherwise Beauty is but like a Diamond unfil’d,
or unpolish’d, or like gold untry’d, or unrefin’d.
Temperance
Nay Ladies, she may have a great Wit for all that I know:
for she did not express either simplicity or ignorance, whilst I was in her
company she spake not one word.
Superbe
Let us examine no more, but let us go see her, and then discourse
with her.
Scene 10.
Enter Mother Matrons Maid, and Monsieur Frisk.Frisk
Pretty Maid, would you speak with me?
Maid
Yes, and if’t please your Worship.
Frisk
From whom come you?
Maid
From my Mistris.
Frisk
Who is you Mistris?
Maid
Mother Matron.
Frisk
What Message hath Mother Matron sent to me?
Maid
She hath sent your Worship a Letter, and desires your Worship
to send her an Answer.
Frisk
Go and stay within, and I will give you an Answer.
Frisk
This Letter is concerning some of the young Ladies that are in
Love with me.
He kisseth the Letter,
Blessed Letter, that art the Messenger of Love, the Presenter of Youth,
Beauty and Wit, and the Inviter to Pleasure.
He opens the Letter, and reads it aloud, as to himself.
that you would wait upon the Ladies, and proffer so kindly, as to proffer me a
kiss, meeting you in the Lane called Loves Folly. O that Lane, that fortunate or
unfortunate Lane! for as my wishes succeed, the Lane proves good or bad: for since
that time of meeting, I have loved you, or rather, I may say, I have been in Love
with you, or rather, I may say, I have Fancy’d you beyond all other young Gentlemen,
and I hope you will return the like to me: For though I am not in my blooming
Beauty, yet I am not quite decay’d, but there remains some fresh colour, wherewith
a young Gentleman may take delight; and let me tell you, the Autumn is more pleasant
than the Spring, for the Spring is raw and cold, the Autumn is warm and comfortable:
wherefore let me perswade you, sweet Monsieur Frisk, to chuse the Autumnal
fruits, and reject the Springing buds, which are incipid and tasteless: Ripe
fruits are better than green, and Winter-fruits more lasting than the fruits of the
Summer: Staid Gravity is more happy to live with, than wilde Inconstancy; the
wisedome of Age is more profitable than the follies of Youth; not that I say I’m old,
nor pray think me not so, but that I am as wise as Age can make me, and Wisedome
is not a portion that is given to every one, yet what wisedome I have, I will impart
to you, sweet Monsieur Frisk, you shall be the Receiver, the Treasurer, and the Disposer;
also with my wisdome I give my heart, with my heart I give you my person,
which wisedome, heart, and person, is not to be despised: for by my wisedome you
will receive Counsel, with my heart Love, and with my person that Beauty Time hath
left me, who like a cheating knave, hath rob’d me of some, but yet there is enough
left, dear Monsieur Frisk, to delight your view: for although I am not like Hellen
of Greece, yet I am like Hellen, when she was Hellen of Troy, for then, by my
faith, she was in her Autumnal years, as I am, which was about fifty, or by’r Lady,
somewhat more, and then she was as dear to her Paris, witness Troy, and as much desired
of her of…witness the Greeks, as when she was but fifteen. Wherefore, dear
Frisk, let me be thy Hellen, and be thou my Paris, and let our Loves be as bright as
the fire of Troy, but not so consuming; but if thou deny’st me, I shall consume in
mine own flames, and be buried in mine own ashes, which will fly in the face of thy
cruelty, to revenge me thy Languishing Lover, namely
Mother Matron.”
Frisk
A pox of her luxurious Appetite, to be Amorous at fourscore, one
might have thought, nay sworn, that Cupids fire had been put out with Times
Extinguisher; but I perceive by Mother Matron, that time hath no power over
that Appetite, but I am sorry time hath made her such a creature, as not
to be capable of curses, for she is her self a curse beyond all I could give her;
but if she were capable, I would bury her under a mountain of curses, for
Hhhh
raising
Hhhh1v
306
raising up my hopes to the height of young beautiful Ladies by the outside of
the Letter, and then frustrating my expectation by the inside, causing me to
fall from the bower of bliss, into the grave of life, the habitation of death,
from a young Beauty, to an old doting Woman: Oh, I will tear this letter
that hath deceived me; but stay, I will keep this letter to make sport amongst
the young Ladies, which sport may perchance insinuate me into some
favour with the young Ladies: for as idle and ridiculous pastime, or means
as this is, hath got many times good success amongst Ladies: wherefore I
will, for their sport-sake, jestingly Court Mother Matron, and in the mean
time of the Progress, write her a letter.
Act III.
Scene 11.
Enter Madamoiselle Ambition, and Monsieur Inquisitive.Inquisitive
I hear, Madamoiselle Ambition,
you are to marry Monsieur
Vain-glorious.
Ambition
No, for I am too honest to marry one man, and love, admire, and
esteem another man beyond him; but when I marry, I will marry such a
one as I prize, honour, love, and admire above all other men, or else I will
never marry.
Inquisitive
What man could you esteeem, honour, and love most?
Ambition
He that I thought had the noblest Soul, and had done the most
worthyest Action.
Inquisitive
But put the case that man that were as you would have him,
were so ingag’d as you could not enjoy him in lawful mariage?
Ambition
I could lawfully enjoy him, although I could not lawfully marry
him.
Inquisitive
As how?
Ambition
As in Contemplation, for I could enjoy his Soul no otherwise,
if I were maried to him: for if I were maried, I could but contemplate of
his Merits, please my self with the thoughts of his Virtues, honour his generous
Nature, and praise his Heroick Actions: And these I can do as much,
although I should live at a distance from him, nor never be his Wife: for the
mariage of Bodies, is no enjoyment of Souls.
Inquisitive
This would only be an opinion of delight, but no true enjoyment
of pleasure: for though an Opinion may affright the Soul, yet the Opinion
cannot pleasure the Body. But say an Opinion could delight the Soul
without the Senses, yet the pleasures of the Senses are to be preferred before
the delight of the Soul: for the truth is, that the spirits of life take more delight
in sensual pleasures, than in the Souls imagination: for life lives in the
Senses, not in the Soul: for were there no Senses, there would be no
Life.
Ambition
By your favour, there is life in the Soul, when Death hath extinguish’d
the Senses.
Inquisitive
That’s more than you know, you believe it only upon report;
but who hath had the trial or experience of the truth of it? So that the report
is upon an unknown ground, and your belief is built upon an unsure
Foundation.
Ambition
What belief is for my advantage, I will strive and indeavour to
strengthen it, on what foundation soever it’s built upon.
Scene 12.
Enter Monsieur Frisk, and Mother Matrons Maid.Frisk
You will pardon me, pretty Maid, for causing you to stay so long,
for an Answer of your Mistris’s Letter.
Maid
There requires no pardon Sir, for I have been very well entertain’d
by your man, I thank him.
Frisk
I perceive my man hath had better fortune than his Master, for he
hath had youth to entertain; but I hope if you receive the mans entertainment
so thankfully, you will not refuse the Masters.
Maid
My Mistris would be jealous of your Worship, if you should entertain
me.
Frisk
Why, doth your Mistris love me so much?
Maid
So much, as she cannot sleep quietly for dreaming of you; nor lets
me sleep: for she wakes me every night to tell me her dreams.
Frisk
What dreams she?
Maid
One dream was, she dream’d that she was Diana,
and you Acteon.
Frisk
What, to set horns on my head?
Maid
No, my Mistris said, that she in her dream did more as a Godess
ought to have done, than Diana did: for she was
generous in her dream,
and not cruel, for instead of horning you, she invited you into her Bath.
Frisk
I hope you were one of her Nymphs.
Maid
Another time she dream’d you were Mercury, and
she Herce; and
another, that she was Venus, and you Adonis; but the last night she awaked
out of a fearful dream.
Frisk
What dream was that?
Maid
She dream’t that she was Queen Dido, and you the Prince Æneas,
and when you were ship’d and gone away, she stab’d her self.
Frisk
If she were Dido, I should prove Æneas.
Maid
On my Conscience she fetch’d as many sighs when she awak’d, and
made as many pitious complaints and lamentations, as if her dream had
been true, and she really had been Queen Dido,
insomuch as I was afraid that
she would have killed herself indeed, and was running forth the Chamber to
call in company to hinder her, but that she commanded me to stay, saying,
that it was but the passion of her dream, for she hoped that you would
prove a more constant and faithful Lover, than to leave her to despair.
Frisk
The next time she is in the same passion, tell her I will be like
Hhhh2
Æneas,
Hhhh2v
308
Æneas, meet her in Hell: In the mean time carry her this Letter.
Maid
Lord, Lord, she will be a joy’d woman, to receive a letter from
you, and I shall be a welcome Messenger unto her, and the letter will be
worth a new gown to me.
Frisk
I wish it may be a gown of price to thee.
Scene 13.
Enter Monsieur Satyrical, and Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.Bon’ Esprit
How shall I pacifie my companions, or qualifie their spleens?
who will be in a furious rage, when they perceive and know my real
love to you: for they made me as their hook to the line of their Angle, and
hope to catch you like a Gudgion.
Satyrical
All that Angle do not catch; yet you have drawn me forth of
the salt Satyrical Sea.
Bon’ Esprit
But their desire is, that you should lie gasping on the shore
of Love.
Satyrical
Would they be so cruel, as not to throw me into a fresh
River?
Bon’ Esprit
No: for they joy in the thought of your torments, and their
general prayers are to Cupid, imploring him to wound you with a goldenheaded
Arrow, and she you love, with an Arrow headed with lead: As for
their particular prayers, they are after this manner.
One prays you may sigh your self into Air, and the Air so infectious, as it
may plague all the Satyrical of your Sex.
Another prayeth you may weep tears of Vitriol, and that the sharpness
of those tears may corode your soul.
Another prays that your passion of love may be so hot, as it may torment
you, as Hell-fire doth the damned; but Mother Matron, beside saying Amen
to all their prayers, makes her prayers thus, That she for whose sake you
must endure all these torments, may be the oldest, and most ill-favour’d deform’d
woman that ever Nature, Accident, and Time made.
Satyrical
She would have me in Love with her self, it seems by her
prayer.
Bon’ Esprit
If she did hear you, she would die for want of Revenge.
Satyrical
But Mistris, what prayer made you for me?
Bon’ Esprit
Not a cursing prayer: for though Mother Matron would have
carried me up to the top of the Hell of Rage, and instead of a prayer for you,
there to have made me curses against you, yet she could neither force me up the
one, nor perswade me to the other: for I told her I would give a blessing
instead of a curse, and for fear of that, she left persisting.
Satyrical
I perceive I had been in danger, had not you sav’d me, and like
a merciful Godess kept me from their fury; but I’m afraid, that for my sake
they will curse you now.
Bon’ Esprit
No doubt of it; but the best of’t is, that their cursing prayers,
or prayers of cutrses, go no farther than their lips.
Satyrical
For all their furious rage, self-conceit perswades me, that if I
had
Iiii1r
309
had addrest my self as a Suter to any one of them, they would have been
more merciful than to have deny’d my sute.
Bon’ Esprit
I can think no otherwise: for I shall judge them by my
self.
Satyrical
Pray let’s go, and invite them to our Wedding.
Bon’ Esprit
By no means: for they will take that as ill, as if you did indieed
invite them to a poyson’d Banquet: But if I may advise, it is not to tell
them our Design, but let them find it out themselves.
Satyrical
I shall agree to your Counsel.
Scene 14.
Enter Mother Matron, and her Maid.Matron
Come, come, I have watch’d and long’d for your Return above
two hours, I may say above two years, for so the time did seem
to me. O Venus, thou Fair and Amorous Godess,
send me a comfortable
Answer, if’t be thy will!
Maid
I have brought you a Letter from Monsieur
Frisk; but for my part
I know not what comfort he hath sent you.
Matron
O Cupid, O Cupid, be my friend! She opens the Letter and reads it aloud.
“The Letter. Amourous Mother Matron; Thhough Time hath made you fit for Heaven, having worn out your body, a substancefor Love to work upon, converting or translating it all into Soul, an incorporeal
shadow, which none but the Gods can imploy to any use; yet since you Esteem
and Love me as a God, to resign up that incorporality, I can do no less than return
you thanks, although I never did merit such a gift: But my sins, I confess are
many, and deserve great punishments, yet I hope the Gods will be more merciful, than
to leave me void of reason, or to suffer Nature to make me to have extravagant appetites,
or Heaven to leave me to extravagant appetites; but howsoever, as occasions
fall out, I shall shew reverence to your Motherly Gravitie, and in the mean
time rest Your Admirer, Frisk.”
Matron
I know not by this Letter whether he will be my Lover, or not;
yet I will kiss it for his sake.
She kisses the Letter:
O sweet Letter, thou happy Paper, that hast receiv’d the pressure of this
hand! What did he say when he gave you this letter to bring me?
Maid
He talk’d of Pluto, and of Hell.
Matron
How, of Hell!
Maid
Yes, but it was concerning Æneas and Dido.
Matron
I hope he will not make me such an Example as Queen Dido,
nor himself so false a Lover as Æneas; but if he should, I will cry out, O
thou my cruel Æneas hast slain
me!
Scene 15.
Enter Superbe, Portrait, Faction, and Pleasure.Faction
Now I have seen Madamoiselle la
Belle, I perceive Fame gives
more praise than Nature Beauty.
Superbe
To some she doth.
Portrait
Nay faith, for the most part, to all.
Sensuality
O Ladies, there is the greatest loss befallen me, that ever befell
man!
Portrait
What loss?
Sensuality
Why Madamoiselle la Belle is gone.
Pleasure
How gone? Is she maried, or dead?
Sensuality
Faith she’s as bad as dead to me, and worse than if she were
maried: for if she were a Wife, there would be some hopes; but her careful
Father hath carry’d her away into the Country, being jealous of the much
company that came to visit her.
Faction
It seems he knew she was apt to be catch’d, that he durst not
trust her: But how came you to receive a greater loss than the rest of the
Masculine Visiters?
Sensuality
Because I had greater hopes than I perceive the rest had.
Portrait
Why, had you a design to get her for a Wife?
Sensuality
No faith, mine was a better design, which was to get her for
a Mistris.
Superbe
But it was likely she would never have been your Mistris.
Sensuality
It was likely she would have been my Mistris: for she was fair
and foolish, kind and toyish, and had an inviting Eye.
Pleasure
Why you may follow her into the Country.
Sensuality
No, the City is so well stored, as I shall not need to put my
self to that trouble, as to journey after her.
Scene 16.
Enter Mother Matron alone.Matron
O Love! thou tormenter of soft hearts, or a melter of hard
ones, soften the hard heart of Monsieur
Frisk, and ease my soft and
tender heart, inflame his spirits to love, and refresh mine with his kindness:
O Venus, perswade thy Son in my behalf, and
consider me by thy self!
Ha, ho!
Scene 17.
Enter Temperance, Faction, Portrait, Pleasure, Ambition,and Superbe.
Temperance
I would never have an extraordinary Beauty seen but once;
and that should be in a publick Assembly.
Pleasure
It is a sign, Temperance, your beauty is past: for would you have
an extraordinary Beauty to be buried in oblivion?
Temperance
No: for I would have all the World see, if it could be
shewn to the whole World; but I would have it shewn but once, and no
more.
Superbe
Why so?
Temperance
Because what is common, is never highly priz’d, but rather
despis’d, or at least neglected by continuance: for that which is at first
admir’d
as a wonder, when it comes to be as a domestick, is not regarded: for
it is an old saying, That the greatest wonder lasts but nine days.
Portrait
But there is such a sympathy betwixt beauty and sight, that as
long as beauty doth last, sight will take delight to look thereon; and the Design,
End, or Fruition of Beauty, is to be gaz’d upon: for from the sight
it receives Praise, Love, and Desire, and by reflection sets all hearts on
fire.
Faction
O that I had such a Beauty as would burn every Masculine heart
into cinders!
Temperance
Why are you so cruel, Lady, to wish such a wish to the Masculine
Sex?
Faction
My wish proceeds out of love to my self, and mercy to men.
First, out of love to my self: for as I am a woman, I naturally desire Beauty,
and there is no woman that had not rather have beauty, although attended
with an unfortunate life, than be ill-favour’d, to enjoy prosperity.
The last wish is out of mercy to men: for their hearts are
so false and foul,
as no way but burning can purifie them.
Ambition
That were the way to try their constancy.
Temperance
For my part, if it were in my power to choose, I would rather
have Wit than Beauty: for Wit pleaseth the Ear, both longer and more,
than Beauty pleaseth the Sight, and the sound of the one, spreads farther
Iiii2
than
Iiii2v
312
than the sight of the other: Besides, Wit recreates the Mind, and entertains
the Reason, Beauty only the Sense, and but one sense, as the sight, when Wit
is a companion not only to the sense of Hearing, but the soul of
Understanding;
and it is not only a delightful Companion, but a subtil Observer, an
ingenious Inventer, an excellent Artificer, a politick Counsellour, a powerful
Commander, a prudent Ruler, and a divine Creator; it observes all natures
works; it invents all useful Arts, it frames all Common-wealths, it guides the
Senses, rules the Appeties, commands the Passions, counsels the Thoughts,
regulates
the Opinions, creates the Conceptions, Imaginations, and Fancies;
it builds Potieetical Castles, and makes Gardens of Rhetorick, and
makes the
found Harmonical, playing with words, as on musical Instruments: Besides,
Wit continues to old Age, when Beauty vades in a year or two.
Superbe
Come, come, Temperance, if you were young, you would prefer
Beauty before a Wit, by which you might get more pleasure by the one,
than profit by the other: But all our Sex, when they grow in years, desire
to be thought Wits, when they can no longer be thought Beauties, which
makes them dispute for Wit, and dispraise Beauty, by undervaluing it.
Pleasure
Madmoiselle Bon’ Esprit, you
are welcom: for we long to hear
the success of your design, since we have heard that Monsieur Satyrical hath
been to visit you, hath he not?
Bon’ Esprit
Yes.
Ambition
But have you catch’d him?
Bon’ Esprit
Sure enough.
Portrait
Then strangle him with Cupids bow-string.
Faction
Hang him, that’s not punishment enough.
Superbe
No; but when he’s a confirm’d Lover, report he’s mad.
Ambition
We shall not need to report that: for when he is a confirm’d
Lover, he will do such ridiculous actions, and behave himself so
extravagantly
vain, and so constrainly foolish, and speak such non-sense, in
striving to
speak beyond the power of words, insomuch as all that hear and see him,
will swear he’s mad.
Pleasure
They will swear nothing but the truth; for all Lovers are mad,
more or less. But Madamoiselle Bon’
Esprit, are you sure you have him in Cupids
snare?
Bon’ Esprit
I do verily believe I have him in Loves bonds.
Portrait
O how I joy, to think how we shall triumph!
Superbe
What shall our Triumphant-Chariot be?
Faction
Scorns, scorns, set on the wheels of laughter, drawn by a company
of lame, sore, scurvy words.
Bon’ Esprit
Will you have your Triumphant-Chariot drawn by a company
of foolish words? that will be as bad, and as much disgrace, as leanjaded
horses in a brave gilded Coach.
Pleasure
No, no, sprightly jets were better.
Bon’ Esprit
They may chance to run you out of the field of Civility, at
least out of the right ways of Wit.
Ambition
Let them run where they will, so they carry his reproach with
them.
Bon’ Esprit
Will you carry this reproach along with you, and leave him
behind you?
Faction
We will carry his reproach about the World.
Bon’ Esprit
While you bear the burthen, he will rest at home in ease and
peace in his mind.
Faction
Good Lord; what makes you thus to contradict our Designs?
Bon’ Esprit
I do not contradict your Designs, but shew you the Errour of
your Conduct.
Pleasure
Why then conduct us better.
Bon’ Esprit
So I shall, if you will give me leave: for I shall conduct you
through the fair ways of peace, and not through the foul ways of malice,
which are myery and deep with revenge, in which you may stick, or be
thrown in disgrace; but I will carry you through the sweet Meadows of
good Nature, wherein runs clear Rivulets of Charity, in which you may
bathe your selves under the fruitful trees of good works, and take the fresh
Air of Applause, and be cool’d with the soft winds of Praise. Thus wash’d,
cleans’d, and refresh’d, you will be fit to enter into the Palace of Fame.
Faction
Heyday, where will your Tongue carry us?
Bon’ Esprit
As high as it can, even to the House of Fame, which stands
on the highest pinacle of Heaven.
Ambition
Let me examine you, Are you not carry’d by love to the top
of Parnassus Hill?
Superbe
By Jupiter, she that went to catch Love, is catch’d by Love her
self.
Portrait
Venus forbid: for that would be such a disgrace, as we shall be
never able to pull off, or rub out.
Bon’ Esprit
What you cannot rub out, or pull off, you must be content to
wear with patience.
Pleasure
I suspect her.
Ambition
I confess I doubt her.
Superbe
I fear your doubts.
Faction
I am confident we have lost her, striving to catch him.
Portrait
Let us follow her, and examine her.
Scene 18.
Enter Monsieur Sensuality, and Monsieur Censure.Sensuality
I hear that thou intend’st to be a marry’d man shortly.
Censure
Yes faith, I am going to put my neck into the nooze.
Sensuality
Nay, if you nooze it, hang it; for the nooze of mariage is ten
times worse than the halter of death.
Censure
I am not of your Opinion.
Sensuality
Why then thou art not of a wise opinion: for in Death there
is no trouble, and in Mariage no quiet.
Censure
A single life is melancholy, being solitary.
Sensuality
So I perceive rather than you’l want company, thou wilt associate
thy self with cares and vexations.
Censure
No, I will associate my self with Wife and Children.
Sensuality
Well, let me tell you, if that thou marriest, a hundred to one
but thou wilt be a Cuckold.
Censure
I hope not.
Sensuality
How canst thou have hopes, when that the Gods are Cuckolds?
wherefore ’tis impossible mortal men should escape.
Censure
All the Gods are not so, it is but only limping Vulcan that
is one
Sensuality
Pardon me: for if their divine Wives make them not Cuckolds,
yet their humane Wives do.
Censure
But the Gods marry not humane creatures.
Sensuality
But humane creatures marry the Gods, and that is all one: for
in all Religions there are Nuns are the Gods humane wives; and did not
Cataline Cuckold the Gods, when he lay with a
Vestal Nun? And many
more are mentioned in Story, and you may well believe all are not Recorded.
Censure
Well, if the Gods be Cuckolds, I may have the less cause to
murmur, if I should be one: for it is an honour to be like the Gods.
Sensuality
Well, I wish as thy friend, that thou mayst flourish in
that
Honour.
Act IV.
Scene 19.
Enter Ambition, Faction, Pleasure, Portrait, Superbe, Temperance,as following Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.
Pleasure
We do not like your dark Answers: for Truth is clear.
Ambition
Confess, have you deceived us, or not?
Bon’ Esprit
I have not deceived you: for you did instruct me to draw him
to Love, and to be in love as a Lover, and I have discharged your trust,
and have brought your designs to pass.
Faction
But our designs were not that he should be beloved of you, but
hated of all our Sex.
Bon’ Esprit
Why then you did spread your designs beyond your reach:
for do you think you have the power of Fate, to rule, govern, aned disposse of
the passions of Mankind as you please, when alas you are so powerless, as
you cannot rule, govern, and dispose of your own passions, and so ignorant,
that you know not your own destinies, nor how, nor to what your passions
will lead you to: Besides, you injoyn’d not my passions, you did not forbid
me to love him, but only imploy’d my Wit to make him a Lover, and
so I have.
Portrait
And you have prov’d your self a Fool, in becoming a Lover.
Bon’ Esprit
Losers may have leave to speak any thing, and therefore I will
not quarrel with you.
Superbe
We are not losers by the loss of you.
Faction
But we are, for with the loss of her, we have lost our sweet revenge:
for by her we thought to have catch’d him like a Woodcock in a
Net, and then to have cut off his wings of Fancy, and to have pull’d out his
feathers of Pride, or else to have intic’d him like a fool with a rattle, and then
to have toss’d him on Satyrical Tongues, as in a blanket of shame: But
now, instead of a blanket of shame, he will lie in the Arms of Beauty, and
instead of being toss’d with satyrical tongues, he will be flatter’d with
kisses,
for which we may curse the Fates.
Pleasure
But it is strange to me, that she can love such a railing ill-natur’d
man as Monsieur
Satyrical.
Ambition
I wonder she doth not blush at her choise! Are you not out of
countenance, to be in love with such a man, that is the worst of men?
Portrait
Confess, do not you repent?
Bon’ Esprit
So far am I from repenting, as I love him so well, as he seems
to me to be such a person, as to be so much above the rest of Mankind, as he
ought to be ador’d, worship’d, kneel’d down and pray’d to, as to a Deity;
and the beginning of those prayers offer’d to him should be, O thou worthyest,
meritoriousest, and best of men!
Faction
She’s mad, she’s stark mad: wherefore let us binde her with
chains, and whip her with cords, to bring her to her wits again.
Bon’ Esprit
Oh Sir, you are a person born to relieve the distressed, and
comfort the afflicted: for you are come in a timely hour, to release me from
a company of Furies that threaten me.
Satyrical
These Ladies appear too fair to be the daughters of Night, who
are said to be the Furies. But Ladies, I hope you will pardon me for taking
away so pleasing a companion from you as my Mistris is; but by her I shall
be made Master of a world of happiness, and I shall not only enjoy a world,
but a Heavenly Paradise, wherein all Goodness, Virtues, Beauties, and sweet
Graces are planted: And what man would not challenge or claim Heaven,
if Heaven could be gain’d by claiming; wherefore I challenge and claim this
Lady, as being mine to enjoy.
Faction
If you had challen’d or claim’d any other Lady, in my conscience
you would have been refused.
Satyrical
I desire no more than what I have.
Portrait
I could cry with anger.
Temperance
Ladies, take my cousel, which is, to be friends with Madam
Bon’ Esprit, and Monsieur Satyrical, otherwise they will
laugh at you to
see what fools they have made you.
Pleasure
She gives us good advice; wherefore let us follow it, and be
friends.
Faction
I may be seemingly friends, but never really friends.
Temperance
Why seeming friendship passes and traffiques as well in the
world, as those that are real.
Superbe
You say well: wherefore let us seem to be friends.
Scene 20.
Enter Monsieur Frisk, and Mother Matrons Maid.Frisk
My fair Maid, what Message have you brought me now?
Maid
My Mistris remembers her loving love unto you, and bids me
tell you, that she takes it wondrous unkindly that you shew’d the young Ladies
the Letter, and that she heard you mock’d and jeer’d at her.
Frisk
Tell her I did but as all Lovers use to do, vaunt of their Mistis’s
love, and boast of their Mistris’s favours.
Maid
She doth not like your boasting; but howsoever, to shew and express
her constant love and affectionate heart, she hath sent you two hundred
pounds to buy you a Nag.
Frisk
I accept of the Present, and tell her I will ride the Nag for her
sake.
Maid
My Mistris will be a joy’d Woman, to hear that you will ride for
her sake.
Frisk
But is thy Mistris rich?
Maid
Yes by my truth is she; for she hath store of bags in her Chests.
Frisk
But are they full of gold and silver?
Maid
Yes: for I have seen her tell the money in the bags, bag after
bag.
Frisk
Is it all her own?
Maid
Yes certainly it is all her own.
Frisk
How came she to be so rich?
Maid
Why the young Ladies Parents give her money or moneys worth
to Govern and Educate their Daughters, and the young Ladies bribe her to
keep their counsels, and see her to be their Agent, and their Courtly Servants
present her with rich gifts to prefer their Sutes, and to speak in their behalfs
to the young Ladies; and thus she gains on every side, and takes gifts on
both hands, and she being miserable and sparing, must needs be rich; but
now she is become a Lover, she begins to grow prodigal, as all Lovers are;
but if she had a million, she says, nay swears, she could bestow it all on
her
beloved, which beloved is your Worship.
Frisk
I could be well content to marry her wealth, and lie with her Maid,
but I would not be troubled with the Mistris.
Maid
My Mistris, I believe, will be a very fond Wife.
Frisk
And that fondness is the second obstacle I stick at: for first to be old,
and then to be fond, will be a double misery, as being an intolerable trouble,
and a nauseous vexation; for there is nothing more hateful, than an amorous
fond old woman: But if thou wilt be fond of me, I shall like it well; and if
any thing could perswade me to marry thy Mistris, next to her wealth, will
be in hopes of thy kindness. What say you, will you be kind?
Maid
I shall not be undutiful: when you are my Master, I shall deny no
service I can do your Worship.
Frisk
That’s well promis’d: In the mean time remember me to thy Mistris,
and thank her for her for her Present, and tell her, the more such
Presents she
sends, the welcomer they shall be.
Scene 21.
Enter Monsieur Sensuality, and Madamoiselle Portrait.Sensuality.
Madamoiselle, you may do a charitable Act.
Portrait
As how?
Sensuality
As to marry me.
Portrait
If it be a Charity to you, it would be none to my self, but the
contrary: I should prove cruel to my self, in making my life unhappy.
Sensuality
Yet it will be a meritorious Act: for what is more meritorious
than to save a soul?
Portrait
So I shall rob Pluto of his due and just right.
Sensuality
He will never miss his loss; for on my Conscience he is not so
good an Arithmetician, as he could count and number the Millions of souls
he hath in Hell, or those he hath right to; nay, if he had
the skill of Utlick,
he could not number them, for they surmount all Accounts.
Portrait
But the torments he puts souls to will find them out.
Sensuality
It is a question whether souls are capable of torments; but
howsoever; to put it out of question, pray marry me: for I am become of a
sudden very consentious.
Portrait
But there will be another question, which is, Whether Mariage
will save you, or not?
Sensuality
O yes: for the Purgatory of Mariage doth purifie Souls, and
make them fit for Heaven.
Portrait
But I fear, that if I should marry you, I should do like those that
strive to save a drowning man; so I, indeavouring to save you, should lose
my self.
Sensuality
There is no Honourable Act, without some danger to the
Actor.
Portrait
But all wise Actions have security?
Sensuality
There is no security in Nature.
Portrait
I will consider, although after a wise consideration I do a foolish
action, as most considerers do.
Act V.
Scene 22.
Enter Monsieur Heroick, and Madamoiselle Ambition.Heroick
Madam, I hear I live in your good Opinion.
Ambition
Your merits do.
Heroick
I hope if you do esteem my merits, if I have merits to be esteem’d,
you will not despise my Person, nor deny my Sute.
Ambition
I esteem of your person for your mertis sake, and those that
have merits, and are worthy, will make no ignoble Sute: wherefore I may
grant it before I know it.
Heroick
My Sute is, to accept of me for your Husband.
Ambition
I shall not deny to be your Wife.
Bon’ Esprit, Temperance, Matron, Wanton, Excess, Ease, Tranquillitous
Peace, Vain-glorious, Censure, Satyrical, Frisk, Sensuality, Busie,
Inquisitive, Liberty.
Tranquill
Well met, Monsieur Heroical, and Madamoiselle Ambition.
Inquisitive
Now we are all met, how shall we pass the time away?
Pleasure
Nay rather, how shall we recreate our time?
Vain-glor
Let us sit and declare what we love or hate.
All speak
Agreed,
Superbe
Shall we declare our love or our hate first?
Censure
Our love first.
Heroick
Nay faith let love close up our discourse.
Ambition
Then let hate be the Gentleman-Usher.
Bon’ Esprit
She will usher you into foul ways.
Sensuality
Let her usher us into as foul ways as she will, we will follow
her.
All speak
Begin, begin.
Superbe
I hate poverty: for that dejects the Spirits, and oppresseth the
Life.
Satyrical
I hate falshood: for that deceives my Reason, and blind-folds
my Senses.
Bon’ Esprit
I hate a fool, because he obstructs my Understanding, and
sets my Brain on the Rack.
Tranquill
I hate noise, because it disturbs my thoughts, hurts my hearing,
and buries sense, reason, and auricular words.
Pleasure
I hate sickness, because it is a friend to Death.
Vain-glor
I hate vain follies, because they bring neither content, pleasure,
nor profit.
Ambition
I hate a Court, because it puts Modesty out of countenance,
Patience out of humour, and Merit out of favour.
Heroick
I hate a slavish Peace, because there is no imployment for noble
active spirits
Excess
I hate truth, because it tells me my faults.
Busie
I hate truth, because it hinders my search thereof.
Ease
I hate motion, because therein there is no rest.
Inquisitive
I hate rest, because it makes no Inquiries.
Temperance
I hate life, because therein is more pain and trouble than pleasure
or peace.
Liberty
I hate restraint, because it inslaves life.
Wanton
I hate a Nunnery, because it doth not only restrain, but bar out
Sex from the sight of men.
Temperance
Thou lovest men well, that their sight delights thee.
Censure
I hate light, because it discovers Lovers.
Faction
I hate darkness, because it conceals Adulteries.
Sensuality
I hate a chaste Beauty, because she quenches my hopes, and
inflames my desires.
Portrait
I hate Madamoiselle la Belle,
because Monsieur Sensuality did
like her.
Frisk
I hate Age: for that vades Beauty, and banishes Lovers.
Matron
No more of Age and Hate, take Love without Beauty.
Bon’ Esprit
Mother Matron would have you take her.
Frisk
Nay faith we will leave Mother Matron, and begin with Love.
Inquisitive
I love plenty: for in plenty lives happiness.
Wanton
I love freedom: for in freedom lives pleasure.
Temperance
By your favour, Plenty may want happiness, and Freedom
pleasure.
Sensuality
I love to go to Church.
Temperance
What, to hear a Sermon?
Sensuality
No, to meet a Mistris.
Temperance
Out upon thee thou Reprobate, would you make a Church
a Bawdy-house?
Sensuality
No, I would make that place where Beauties were, a Church,
and the fairest should be the Godess I would pray to.
Temperance
There are not any that are fair will hear you.
Sensuality
And those that are foul I will not pray to.
Censure
Follow Love: for that makes all things fair and pleasing.
Ease
I love silence: for in silence my life lives easily, my thoughts freely,
and my mind harmoniously.
Temperance
Sometimes the thoughts disturb the mind, and so the life,
more than noise disturbs the thoughts.
Vain-glor
I love Honour: for in Honour lives Respect.
Portrait
I love Beauty: for in Beauty lives admiration.
Heroick
I love Fame: for in Fame lives the memory of the best of my
Actions.
Ambition
I love power: for in power lives Adorations.
Satyrical
I love Wit: for that delights my self, and recreates my friends.
Bon’ Esprit
I love Eloquence: for that delights my Ear.
Temperance
But Eloquence will deceive your Judgment, delude your
Understanding, and flatter your Passions with insinuating perswassions,
and
will draw you into an Erroneous Belief, and by that unto unjust actions.
Sensuality
I love Madamoiselle Portrait.
Portrait
I love Monsieur Sensuality.
Heroick
I love Madamoiselle Ambition.
Ambition
I love Monsieur Heroick.
Satyrical
I love Madamoiselle Bon’ Esprit.
Bon’ Esprit
I love Monsieur Satyrical.
Vain-glor
I love Madamoiselle Superbe.
Superbe
I love Monsieur Vain-glorious.
Tranquill
I love Madamoiselle Pleasure.
Pleasure
I love Monsieur Tranquillitous Peace.
Censure
I love Madamoiselle Faction.
Faction
I love Monsieur Censure.
Busie
I love ma filia Excess.
Excess
I love Monsieur Busie.
Liberty
I love ma filia Wanton.
Wanton
I love Monsieur Liberty.
Ease
I love a single life: for in Mariage lives too much trouble to live
in Ease.
Temperance
I love to continue a Widow: for Temperance is banish’d
from most places and persons.
Matron
I love Monsieur Frisk; but Monsieur Frisk loves not me.
Censure
Faith I’ll perswade him to love, if not thy person, yet thy wealth;
for thou art rich, and he hath hardly enough means to bear up his Gentility:
Besides, one Maid and one Widow is enough, more would be too much.
Faction
And one Batchelour.
Censure
Who’s that?
Faction
Monsieur Inquisitive.
Censure
Faith ’tis fit and proper he should live a Batchelour: for an Inquisitive
Husband would not be good, neither for his own sake, nor his
Wifes.
Temperance
But Gentlemen and Ladies, although you all say you love
such a Lady, and such a Lady loves such a Gentleman, yet you do not say
you will marry each other.
Faction
You may be sure, if we do publickly profess love, we intend to
marry: for though we may love and not marry, or marry and not love, yet not
profess it in an open Assembly; for Love without Mariage lives incognito.
Tranquill
But mariage without love is visible enough: for it lies to the
view of all their neighbours knowledge.
Temperance
Well, noble Gentlemen, and vertuous Ladies, if you resolve
all to marry, I would advise you to marry all in one day.
Bon’ Esprit
O Madam Temperance, you are sick.
Temperance
Why?
Superbe
By reason healthful temperance never gives such surfetting counsel:
for there are as many of us as might be marying a year, and keeping their
Festivals, and you would have all marry’d in one day.
Ambition
Madam Temperance means, she would
have a whole year as one
Wedding-day
Heroick
And one Wedding-day to the Bride and Bridegroom, is as one
whole year.
Satyrical
Not to every Bride and Bridegroom: for on my Conscience
Monsieur Frisk, if he should
marry Mother Matron, will think his Wedding
day but a minute long.
Faction
But Mother Matron will think the day an Age.
Portrait
You speak so loud, she’l hear you.
Faction
O no, for the most part she is deaf: for she many times
stops
wool into her ears to keep out the cold.
Scene 23.
Enter two Gentlemen1 Gentleem
I hear that Wits Cabal is removing out of Cupids Court into
Hymens prison, and there to be bound in bond of
Matrimony.
2 Gent
Faith I pity the Cabal, and condemn their Wit, by
reason it did
not keep them out of slavery.
1 Gentle
Wit is both a Pander and a Traitor: for Wit is a Pimp in Cupids
Court, and betrays his Court to Hymens Prison.
2 Gentlem
There are no prisoners look so dejectedly as Hymens prisoners.
1 Gentle
There is great reason for it: for they are almost starv’d for want
of variety, and they have less liverty than other prisoners have.
Scene 24.
Enter two other Gentlemen.I Gent
You hear of the great Mariages that are concluded on, and
they are to be dispatch’d out of hand.
2 Gent
Hear of them (say you) I must stop my Ears, and shut my Eyes,
if I did not both hear and see their preparations: for all the Tradesmen are
so busily imploy’d, as if they were never to sell or work more after these
Mariages.
1 Gent
What Tradesmen are those?
2 Gent
Why Taylors, Shoomakers, Hosiers, Seamstresses, Feather-men,
Periwig-makers, Perfumers, Clothiers, Linnengers, Silk-men, Mercers, Milleners,
Haberdashers, Cutlers, Spurriers, Sadlers, Coach-makers, Upholsterers,
besides Confectioners, Cooks, Bakers, Brewers, Butchers, Poulterers,
and twenty more I cannot think of.
1 Gent
They will kill and destroy so many creatures for their Feasts, that
they will make a massacre.
2 Gent
A Famine I think:
1 Gent
But there will be great dancings at the Court they say: for there
will be Masks, Plays, Balls, and such braveries as never was.
2 Gent
These publick Weddings, and such publick Revellings, put the
Gentry to more charges, than many times they are able to spare; which if
it were not for Revelling, there would be no need of such vain ann idle Expences.
1 Gent
I mean to be at some charges, as to make me a new Suit or two
of Cloaths.
2 Gent
Faith I will spare my purse, and stay at home.
Scene 25.
Enter the several Couples, Heroick and Ambition, TranquillitousPeace and Pleasure, Satyrical and Bon’ Esprit, Vain-glorious and
Superbe, Censure and Faction, Sensuality and Portrait, Busie
and Excess, Liberty and Wanton, Frisk and Mother Matron.
Vainglor
Where will you keep your Wedding-Feast?
Heroick
We will keep ours at the Court.
Censure
So will we.
Vain-glor
And so will we.
Busie
And so will we.
Tranquill
If you please, Mistris, we will keep ours in the Country.
Pleasure
I approve of it.
Satyrical
If my Mistris agree, we will keep ours at the Play-house, and
feast and dance upon the Stage.
Bon’ Esprit
I agree and approve of your Choice.
Censure
An Ordinary, or Tavern, is a more commodious place for the
Society of the Wits: for I am sure all the Wits will meet there.
Satyrical
But if an Ordinary, or Tavern, be more commodious, yet they
are not so publick places as the Theaters of Players; so that Wits may be
merrier and freer in a Tavern, but not so divulged as on a Stage in a PlayHouse.
Heroick
The truth is, an Ordinary or Tavern is a more proper place for
Monsieur Sensuality and his
Mistris to keep their Wedding-Feast, than for
Monsieur Satyrical and his
Mistris.
Sensuality
By your favour, the most proper place for us is the Court.
Busie
I think that an Hospitable Gentlemans House in the Country, is
most proper for Monsieur
Sensuality to keep his Wedding-Feast in.
Superbe
That is a more proper place for Liberty and Wanton.
Faction
Nay, by your favour, another House (which shall be nameless,
for fear of offending) is fitter for them.
Matron
My Honey sweet Love, where shall we keep our Wedding-
Feast?
Frisk
For your sake, my Sugar-sweeting, we will keep it in Bedlam,
and
Monsieur Busie and his Bride
shall keep us company.
Matron
Thou art a very wag, my Love.
Tranquil
W’ are all agreed.
Sensuality
Pray Jove we speed.
Finis.