Wit. Away, fall back, she comes.

Man. I leave you, sir,

The master of my chamber: I have business.

Wit. Mistress!

[Exit.

Mrs. Fitz. [advances to the window.] You make me paint, sir.1

Wit. They are fair colours,

Lady, and natural! I did receive

Some commands from you, lately, gentle lady,
But so perplex'd, and wrapt in the delivery,
As I may fear to have misinterpreted:
But must make suit still, to be near your grace.
Mrs. Fitz. Who is there with you, sir?
Wit. None but myself.

It falls out, lady, to be a dear friend's lodging;
Wherein there's some conspiracy of fortune
With your poor servant's blest affections.
Mrs. Fitz. Who was it sung?
Wit. He, lady, but he's gone,
Upon my entreaty of him, seeing you

Approach the window. Neither need you doubt him,

If he were here; he is too much a gentleman. Mrs. Fitz. Sir, if you judge me by this simple action,

And by the outward habit, and complexion
Of easiness it hath, to your design;

You may with justice say, I am a woman;
And a strange woman. But when you shall pleasé

You make me paint,] i. e. blush. This word is prettily applied by Emily in the Two Noble Kinsmen.

"Of all flowers

Methinks the rose is best :

It is the very emblem of a maid;

For when the west wind courts her gentily,
How modestly she blows and paints the sun
With her chaste blushes!"

To bring but that concurrence of my fortune
To memory, which to-day yourself did urge;
It may beget some favour like excuse,
Though none like reason.

Wit. No, my tuneful mistress?

Then surely love hath none, nor beauty any;
Nor nature, violenced in both these:

With all whose gentle tongues you speak, at once.
I thought I had enough remov'd already

That scruple from your breast, and left you all

reason;

When through my morning's perspective I shew'd

you

A man so above excuse, as he's the cause,
Why any thing is to be done upon him;
And nothing call'd an injury, misplaced.
I rather now had hope, to shew you how love
By his accesses grows more natural:

And what was done this morning with such force,
Was but devised to serve the present, then.
That since Love hath the honour to approach
These sister-swelling breasts; and touch this soft

2. These sister-swelling breasts.] This is an elegant and poetical rendering of the sororiantes mamma of the Latins, which Festus thus explains: "Sororiare puellarum mammæ dicuntur, cum primum tumescunt." Here (the margin says) he grows more familiar in his courtship. And again, Wittipol plays with her paps, kisses her hands, &c. This is, indeed, growing familiar! but, strange as it may appear, liberties very similar to these were, in the poet's time, permitted by ladies, who would have started at being told that they had forgone all pretensions to delicacy. I am half inclined to think that, when Hotspur tells his lady it is no time

"To toy with mammets, or to tilt with lips,"

he alludes to some such play with the paps, as Wittipol is engaged in. Mammet undoubtedly signifies a girl; but the Italians use both this word (mammette) and mammille for a bosom, and our old dramatists adopt terms of this kind from them without scruple. Italian was, in those days, the favourite language.

And rosy hand; he hath the skill to draw
Their nectar forth, with kissing; and could make
More wanton salts from this brave promontory,'
Down to this valley, than the nimble roe;
Could play the hopping sparrow 'bout these nets;
And sporting squirrel in these crisped groves;
Bury himself in every silk-worm's kell,
Is here unravell'd; run into the snare,
Which every hair is, cast into a curl,
To catch a Cupid flying! bathe himself
In milk and roses here, and dry him there;
Warm his cold hands, to play with this smooth,
round,

And well-torn'd chin, as with the billiard ball ;
Roll on these lips, the banks of love, and there
At once both plant and gather kisses. Lady,
Shall I, with what I have made to-day here, call
All sense to wonder, and all faith to sign
The mysteries revealed in your form?
And will Love pardon me the blasphemy
I utter'd, when I said, a glass could speak
This beauty, or that fools had power to judge it?

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her!

And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face;

As alone, there triumphs to the life,

All the gain, all the good, of the elements strifel

And could make

More wanton salts.] i. e. leapings, or boundings, from the Latin saltus. WHAL.

4 Well-torn'd.] i. e. rounded and polished as by the wheel.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touch'd it?
Have you mark'd but the fall of the snow,
Before the soil hath smutch'd it?
Have you felt the wool of the beaver?
Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud of the brier?
Or the nard in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O, so white! O, so soft! O, so sweet is she

FITZDOTTREL appears at his Wife's back.

Fitz. Is she so, sir? and I will keep her so, If I know how, or can: that wit of man Will do't, I'll go no farther. At this window She shall no more be buzz'd at. Take your leave:

on't.

If you be sweet meats, wedlock, or sweet flesh,
All's one I do not love this hum about you.
A fly-blown wife is not so proper; in!-
For you, you, sir, look to hear from me.

Wit. So I do, sir.

Fitz. No, but in other terms. There's no man offers

This to my wife, but pays for't.

Wit. That have I, sir.

Fitz. Nay then, I tell you, you are――

Wit. What am I, sir?

Fitz. Why, that I'll think on, when I have

cut your throat.

Wit. Go, you are an ass.

Fitz. I am resolv'd on't, sir."

5 I am resolv'd on't, sir.] Fitzdottrel and Wittipol are at cross purposes. The former uses resolv'd in the sense of determined; and the latter affects to take it in that of convinced, which was, then, no uncommon acceptation of the word.

Wit. I think you are.

Fitz. To call you to a reckoning.

Wit. Away, you broker's block, you property! Fitz. 'Slight, if you strike me, I will strike your mistress. [Strikes Mrs. Fitz. and leads her out. Wit. O! I could shoot mine eyes at him for that now,

Or leave my teeth in him, were they cuckold's bane,

Enough to kill him. What prodigious,

Blind, and most wicked change of fortune's this? I have no air of patience: all my veins

Swell, and my sinews start at th' iniquity of it. I shall break, break..

[Exit.

SCENE III.

Another Room in Fitzdottrel's House.

Enter PUG.

Pug. This for the malice of it,

And my revenge may pass ! but now my conscience

Tells me, I have profited the cause of hell
But little, in the breaking off their loves.
Which, if some other act of mine repair not,
I shall hear ill of in my account!

Enter FITZDOTTREL and his Wife.

Fitz. O, bird,

Could you do this? 'gainst me! and at this time

When I was so employ'd, wholly for you,

Drown'd in my care (more than the land, I swear,