ACT II. SCENE I.

A Room in Fitzdottrel's House.

Enter FITZDOTTREL, ENGINE, and MEERCRAFT, followed by TRAINS with a bag, and three or four Attendants.

Meer. Sir, money is a whore, a bawd, a drudge; Fit to run out on errands: let her go. Via, pecunia! when she's run and gone, And fled, and dead; then will I fetch her again With aqua vite, out of an old hogshead! While there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer, I'll never want her! Coin her out of cobwebs, Dust, but I'll have her! raise wool upon egg

shells,

Sir, and make grass grow out of marrow-bones, To make her come.-Commend me to your [To 1 Attendant.

mistress.

Say, let the thousand pound but be had ready, And it is done. [Exit 1 Atten.]-I would but see the creature

Of flesh and blood, the man, the prince indeed, That could employ so many millions

As I would help him to.

Fitz. How talks he? millions!

Meer. [to 2 Attendant.] I'll give you an account

of this to-morrow.

[Exit 2 Atten.

Yes, I will take no less, and do it too;

If they were myriads: and without the Devil, By direct means, it shall be good in law."

Eng. Sir.

Meer. [to 3 Atten.] Tell master Woodcock, I'll not fail to meet him

Upon the Exchange at night; pray him to

have

The writings there, and we'll dispatch it. [Exit 3 Atten.]-Sir,

You are a gentleman of a good presence,
A handsome man; I have consider'd you
As a fit stock to graft honours upon:

I have a project to make you a duke now.
That you must be one, within so many months
As I set down, out of true reasons of state,

You shall not avoid it. But you must hearken, then.

Eng. Hearken! why, sir, do you doubt his ears? Alas!

You do not know master Fitzdottrel.

Fitz. He does not know me indeed; I thank you, Engine,

For rectifying him.

Meer. Good! Why, Engine, then

I'll tell it you. (I see you have credit here,
And, that you can keep counsel, I'll not question.)
He shall but be an undertaker with me,

In a most feasible business. It shall cost him
Nothing.

Eng. Good, sir.

Meer. Except he please, but's countenance, (That I will have) to appear in't, to great men, For which I'll make him one. He shall not draw A string of's purse. I'll drive his patent for him. We'll take in citizens, commoners, and aldermen, To bear the charge, and blow them off again, Like so many dead flies, when it is carried. The thing is for recovery of drown'd land,'

2 The thing is for recovery of drown'd land,] This was the age of projects and monopolies; and the prevailing humour is not unseasonably ridiculed by the poet. 'Tis probable, that a design

Whereof the crown's to have a moiety,
If it be owner; else the crown and owners
To share that moiety, and the recoverers
To enjoy the t'other moiety for their charge.
Eng. Thoroughout England?
Meer. Yes, which will arise

of draining the fens was then talked of: and experience has since shewn, that the project was not wholly impracticable.

WHAL.

Thus Randolph:

"I have a rare device to set Dutch windmills
Upon Newmarket Heath and Salisbury Plain,
To drain the fens!" Muses' Looking-glass.

But this was, as Whalley says, the age of projectors; and it is to the praise of the dramatic poets, that they spared no efforts to guard the public against them. Had not the scandalous rapacity of the courtiers found an interest in encouraging those daring depredators on the weak and wealthy, the united force of wit and satire must have driven them out of countenance. Our poet, who never loses sight of verisimilitude, is somewhat modest in his catalogue of projects; but his contemporaries wanton in their exposure of those pernicious follies. The Court Beggar of Brome is solely directed against them; and in that extraordinary drama, The Antipodes, they are attacked with no inconsiderable degree of humour. One example may be given: its pleasantry must apologize for its length.

"As for your project
For putting down the infinite use of jacks,
Whereby the education of young children.
In turning spits, is greatly hindered,
It may be look'd into; and so may yours,
Against the multiplicity of watches,
Whereby much neighbourly familiarity,
By asking "What d'ye guess it is o'clock?"
Is lost, when every puny clerk can carry
The time o' the day in's breeches. For the rest;
This, for the increase of wool; that is to say,
By flaying of live horses, and new-covering them
With sheepskins, I do like exceedingly:
And this, for keeping of tame owls in cities,
To kill up rats and mice, whereby all cats
May be destroyed, as an especial means

To stop the growth of witchcraft." A. IV. S. 1.

To eighteen millions, seven the first year:
I have computed all, and made my survey
Unto my acre: I'll begin at the pan,

Not at the skirts; as some have done, and lost All that they wrought,3 their timber-work, their trench,

Their banks, all borne away, or else fill'd up,
By the next winter. Tut, they never went
The way I'll have it all.

Eng. A gallant tract

Of land it is!

Meer. Twill yield a pound an acre : We must let cheap ever at first. But, sir,

This looks too large for you, I see. Come hither, We'll have a less. Here's a plain fellow, [points to Trains] you see him,

Has his black bag of papers there, in buckram, Will not be sold for the earldom of Pancridge: draw,

Give me out one by chance. [Trains gives him a paper out of the bag.] “Project four: Dogs'

skins."

Twelve thousand pound! the very worst at first. Fitz. Pray you let's see it, sir.

3

Meer. 'Tis a toy, a trifle!

Fitz. Trifle! twelve thousand pound for dogs' skins?

I'll begin at the pan,

Not at the skirts; as some have done, and lost

All that they wrought, &c.] Pan is not easily distinguished from skirt. Both words seem to refer to the outer parts, or extremities. Perhaps Meercraft means-on a broader scale, on a more extended front. The remainder of the speech apparently alludes to some well-kuown disaster of the time. Many schemes were set on foot about this period, not only for draining the fens of Lincolnshire, but for gaining land from the sea in various places ; of these not a few failed; but the attempts were not wholly lost to the community, since they taught later adventurers to avoid the errors of the original projectors.

The boldness of the plans for draining the fens, seems to have

Meer. Yes,

But, by my way of dressing, you must know, sir, And med'cining the leather to a height

Of improved ware, like your borachio

Of Spain, sir, I can fetch nine thousand for't-
Eng. Of the king's glover?

Meer. Yes; how heard you that?
Eng. Sir, I do know you can.

Meer. Within this hour;

And reserve half my secret. Pluck another;
See if thou hast a happier hand; [Trains draws
out another.] I thought so.

The very next worse to it! "Bottle-ale."
Yet this is two and twenty thousand. Prithee
Pull out another, two or three.

Fitz. Good; stay, friend—

By bottle-ale two and twenty thousand pound? Meer. Yes, sir, it's cast to penny-halfpenny farthing.

On the back-side, there you may see it, read,
I will not bate a Harrington of the sum.'

startled the public more than all the others exhibited to their con sideration: hence the perpetual allusions to it in our old dramatists. One has just been mentioned; another is now before me: "Our projector

4

Will undertake the making of bay-salt,

For a penny a bushel, to serve all the state;
Another dreames of building water-workes,

Drying of fennes and marshes, like the Dutchmen."
Holland's Leaguer, A. I. S. 5.

like your borachio

Of Spain,]" Borachio (says Minskieu) is a bottle commonly of a pigges skin, with the hair inward, dressed inwardly with rozen, to keep wine or liquor sweet: Wines preserved in these bottles contract a peculiar flavour, and are then said to taste of the borachio.

5 I will not bate a Harrington of the sum.] In 1613, a patent was granted to John Stanhope, lord Harrington, Treasurer of the Chambers, for the coinage of royal farthing tokens, of which he seems to have availed himself with sufficient liberality. Some