Cler. Why, I thought you two had been upon very good terms.

True. Yes, of keeping distance.

Cler. They say, he is a very good scholar. True. Ay, and he says it first. A pox on him, a fellow that pretends only to learning, buys titles, and nothing else of books in him!

Cler. The world reports him to be very learned. True. I am sorry the world should so conspire to belie him.

Cler. Good faith, I have heard very good things come from him.

True. You may; there's none so desperately ignorant, to deny that: would they were his own! God be wi' you, gentlemen. [Exit hastily. Cler. This is very abrupt!

Daup. Come, you are a strange open man, to tell every thing thus.

Cler. Why, believe it, Dauphine, Truewit's a very honest fellow.

Daup. I think no other: but this frank nature

of his is not for secrets.

Cler. Nay then, you are mistaken, Dauphine: I know where he has been well trusted, and discharged the trust very truly, and heartily.

Daup. I contend not, Ned; but with the fewer a business is carried, it is ever the safer. Now we are alone, if you'll go thither, I am for you. Cler. When were you there?

Daup. Last night: and such a Decameron of sport fallen out! Boccace never thought of the like. Daw does nothing but court her; and the wrong way. He would lie with her, and praises her modesty; desires that she would talk and be free, and commends her silence in verses; which he reads, and swears are the best that ever man made. Then rails at his fortunes,

stamps, and mutines, why he is not made a counsellor, and call'd to affairs of state.

Cler. I prithee let's go. I would fain partake this. Some water, boy.

--

[Exit Page. Daup. We are invited to dinner together, he and I, by one that came thither to him, sir La-Foole. Cler. O, that's a precious mannikin! Daup. Do you know him?

Cler. Ay, and he will know you too, if e'er he saw you but once, though you should meet him at church in the midst of prayers. He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits." He will salute a judge upon the bench, and a bishop in the pulpit, a lawyer when he is pleading at the bar, and a lady when she is dancing in a masque, and put her out. He does give plays, and suppers, and invites his guests to them, aloud, out of his window, as they ride by in coaches. He has a lodging in the Strand for the purpose or to watch when ladies are gone to the china-houses, or the Exchange, that he may meet them by chance, and give them presents, some two or three hundred pounds worth of toys, to be laugh'd at. He is never without a spare banquet, or sweet-meats in his chamber, for their women to alight at, and come up to for a bait.

Daup, Excellent! he was a fine youth last night; but now he is much finer! what is his Christian name? I have forgot.

2 He is one of the braveries, though he be none of the wits.] This alludes to Truewit's description of the collegiate ladies, p. 346" they give entertainment to all the wits and bra. veries of the time." Braveries were the beaus of the age; men distinguished by the splendor and fashion of their apparel. The Exchange mentioned just below, was the New Exchange, built in 1608. "It had rows of shops (Pennant says) over the walk, filled chiefly with milliners, sempstresses, &c. This was a place of fashionable resort." See Massinger, Vol. IV. p. 50.

Re-enter PAGE.

Cler. Sir Amorous La-Foole.

Page. The gentleman is here below that owns that name.

Cler. 'Heart, he's come to invite me to dinner, I hold my life.

Daup. Like enough: prithee, let's have him
Cler. Boy, marshal him.

Page. With a truncheon, sir?

up.

Cler. Away, I beseech you. [Exit Page.]—I'll make him tell us his pedigree now; and what meat he has to dinner; and who are his guests; and the whole course of his fortunes; with a breath.

Enter sir AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.

La-F. 'Save, dear sir Dauphine! honoured master Clerimont!

Cler. Sir Amorous! you have very much honested my lodging with your presence.

La-F. Good faith, it is a fine lodging: almost as delicate a lodging as mine.

Cler. Not so, sir.

La F. Excuse me, sir, if it were in the Strand, I assure you. I am come, master Clerimont, to entreat you to wait upon two or three ladies, to dinner, to-day.

Cler. How, sir! wait upon them? did you ever see me carry dishes?

La-F. No, sir, dispense with me; I meant, to bear them company.

Cler. O, that I will, sir: the doubtfulness of your phrase, believe it, sir, would breed you a

quarrel once an hour, with the terrible boys,' if you should but keep them fellowship a day. La-F. It should be extremely against my will, sir, if I contested with any man.

Cler. I believe it, sir: Where hold you your feast?

La-F. At Tom Otter's, sir.

Daup. Tom Otter! what's he?

La-F. Captain Otter, sir; he is a kind of gamester, but he has had command both by sea and by land.

Daup. O, then he is animal amphibium?

La-F. Ay, sir: his wife was the rich chinawoman, that the courtiers visited so often ;* that gave the rare entertainment. She commands all at home.

3 The terrible boys,] These terrible boys are mentioned in the Alchemist, A. III. S. 3.

"Kast. Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech "Of the angry boys, and seen 'em take tobacco."

A citation from Wilson's Life of King James will make the allusion still more manifest: "The king minding his sports, many riotous demeanours crept into the kingdom; divers sects of vicious persons, going under the title of roaring boys, bravadoes, roysters, &c. commit many insolencies; the streets swarm, night and day, with bloody quarrels, private duels fomented," &c. UPTON.

These pestilent miscreants continued, under various names, to disturb the peace of the capital, down to the accession of the present royal family.

+ His wife was the rich china-woman, that the courtiers visited so often ;] In Jonson's days, the trade with the East had not been long opened; and the china, and laquered ware which we derived either directly or through the medium of the Dutch, from China, and the Japanese islands, were objects of very general curiosity in both sexes. Enough remains in our old dramatists to shew that advantage was taken of this, to convert the places of exhibition (almost always private houses) into a kind of bagnios, of which the owners were the most convenient

Cler. Then she is captain Otter.

La-F. You say very well, sir; she is my kinswoman, a La-Foole by the mother-side, and will invite any great ladies for my sake.

Daup. Not of the La-Fooles of Essex?

La-F. No, sir; the La-Fooles of London.
Cler. Now, he's in.

[Aside.

La-F. They all come out of our house, the La-Fooles of the north, the La-Fooles of the west, the La-Fooles of the east and south-we are as ancient a family as any is in Europe-but I myself am descended lineally of the French La-Fooles-and, we do bear for our coat yellow,' or or, checker'd azure, and gules, and some three or four colours more, which is a very noted coat, and has, sometimes, been solemnly worn by divers nobility of our house-but let that go, antiquity is not respected now.-I had a brace of fat does sent me, gentlemen, and half a dozen of pheasants, a dozen or two of godwits, and some other fowl, which I would have eaten, while they are good, and in good company:there will be a great lady or two, my lady Haughty, my lady Centaure, mistress Dol Mavis-and they come o' purpose to see the silent gentlewoman, mistress Epicone, that honest sir John Daw has promised to bring thither-and then, mistress Trusty, my lady's woman, will be there too, and this honourable knight, sir Dauphine, with yourself, master Clerimont-and we'll be very merry,

of procuresses. If we may trust the poets and essayists of queen Anne's days, matters were not much mended when they wrote; as no place of assignation is more frequently mentioned than a "china-house."

5 And we do bear for our coat yellow, &c.] This is a humorous allusion to the parti-coloured dress of the domestic fool of our ancestors, which is still retained on the stage.