The poet prays you then, with better thought
To sit; and, when his cates are all in brought,
Though there be none far-fet, there will dear-bought,

Be fit for ladies: some for lords, knights, 'squires;
Some for your waiting-wench, and city-wires ;*
Some for your men, and daughters of White-friars.

Nor is it, only, while you keep your seat
Here, that his feast will last; but you shall eat
A week at ordinaries, on his broken meat :
If his muse be true,

Who commends her to you.

ANOTHER.

The ends of all, who for the scene do write,
Are, or should be, to profit and delight.
And still't hath been the praise of all best times,
So persons were not touch'd, to tax the crimes.
Then, in this play, which we present to-night,
And make the object of your ear and sight,
On forfeit of yourselves, think nothing true:
Lest so you make the maker to judge you.
For he knows, poet never credit gain'd

By writing truths, but things, like truths, well feign'd.
If any yet will, with particular sleight
Of application, wrest what he doth write;
And that he meant, or him, or her, will say:
They make a libel, which he made a play.

City-wires;] This term, which seems to designate the matrons of the city in opposition to the "White-friar's nation," (see p. 275,) is new to me. In the stiff and formal dresses of those days, wire indeed was much used; but I know not that it was peculiar to the city dames. Perhaps I have missed the

sense.

Occasioned by some persons impertinent exceptions."

ACT I. SCENE I.

A Room in Clerimont's House.

Enter CLERIMONT making himself ready, followed by his Page.

Cler. Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy?

Page. Yes, sir.

Cler. Let me hear it.

Page. You shall, sir; but i'faith let nobody else.

Cler. Why, I pray?

Page. It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir; besides me a perfect deal of ill-will at the mansion you wot of, whose lady is the argument of it; where now I am the welcomest thing under a man that comes there.

Cler. I think; and above a man too, if the truth were rack'd out of you.

Page. No, faith, I'll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with me, and throw me on the bed, and carry me in to my lady; and she kisses me with her oil'd face, and puts a peruke on my head; and asks me an I will wear her gown? and I say no: and then she hits me a blow o' the ear, and calls me Innocent!3 and lets me go.

Cler. No marvel if the door be kept shut

This marginal note of the author confirms what is said in the Dedication :-that some particular person was supposed to be aimed at in one of the characters. As the opinion was unfounded, it is needless to pursue the enquiry.

3 And calls me Innocent!j i. e. fool, or simpleton. See A. III

against your master, when the entrance is so easy to you——well, sir, you shall go there no more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady's rushes, a fortnight hence. Sing, sir. [Page sings. Still to be neat, still to be drest

Enter TRUEWIT.

True. Why, here's the man that can melt away his time, and never feels it! What between his mistress abroad and his ingle* at home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle; he thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well, sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute," or condemn'd to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin then to think, and value every article of

4 And his ingle at home,] This word is invariably confounded by the commentators with enghle, though perfectly distinct in its meaning. Enghle, as I have already observed, Vol. II. p. 429, is either a gull, a simpleton, or a bait to decoy this description of persons: whereas engle or ingle is a familiar, a bosom friend. It is loosely used also by our old writers in an opprobrious sense, for catamite, &c. I know not whence it crept into our language. If it be the Spanish word ingle, (a groin,) its acceptation in the latter sense is accounted for: but it is more probably corrupted from ignicule, a little fire; whence, perhaps, it came to signify a chimney-companion, an inmate of the same house. Ingle is still used for fire in many parts of the country.

5 Well, sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute,] There had been no plague in London since the dreadful one of 1603-4 but as Jonson usually brings up his action as closely as possible to the period of writing, it is not unlikely that he alludes to a dangerous contagious distemper which broke out in 1607, and of which some remains might still linger about the city when Epicane was produced. Of this disease, which seems to have escaped the notice of our historians, the following account occurs in a book called the City Remembrancer: "In 1607 was a pestilential distemper at London; and the "time so sickly in general, that sailors did not escape at great "distance from land: as may be seen in some diaries in Pur"chas's Pilgrim." Vol. I. p. 266.

your time, esteem it at the true rate, and give all for it.

Cler. Why what should a man do?

True. Why, nothing; or that which, when 'tis done, is as idle. Hearken after the next horserace, or hunting-match, lay wagers, praise Puppy, or Peppercorn, White-foot, Franklin; swear upon Whitemane's party; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you; visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for company.

Cler. Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come, the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on 'em then; then we'll pray and fast.

True. Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil!

Cler. Why, then 'tis time enough.

True. Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time,' because it is an

Puppy, or Peppercorn, White-foot, Franklin ;] Horses of the time, as Jonson tells us. Three of them are mentioned in Ignoramus; but a much more copious list may be found in Shirley's Hyde-Parke. Whitemane was a very noted racer. In some MS. memoirs of sir H. Fynes, the following passage occurs, "Alsoe in these my trobles with my wife, I was forced to give my lord of Holdernes my grey running horse called Whitmayne for a gratuity, for which I might have had £100.”

7 0, Clerimont, this time, &c.] There is something uncommonly striking in this part of the dialogue. Truewit assumes a lofty tone of morality, and his language is solemn and impressive. Jonson's mind was deeply imbued with a sense of what the comic Muse might fitly inculcate in her "higher mood ;” and he has interspersed in all his works, maxims and sentences

incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter

still.

Cler. Nay, thou'lt not leave now—

True. See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves? Cler. Foh! thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shows so vilely with thee! 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk to me of pins, and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st

sermons.

True. Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn'd to lose as little of my kindness as I can; I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college?

Cler. What college?

True. As if you knew not!

Cler. No, faith, I came but from court yesterday.

True. Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the wits, and braveries of the

of singular importance in the economy of human life. Much of his contempt for the "hocus-pocus" tricks of the stage, which has been unjustly attributed to personal enmity, clearly originated from the strong dislike of what he conceived to be a violation of its dignity and decorum.