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With their gilt spurs quite breathless, from themselves.

'Tis now esteem'd precisianism in wit,' And a disease in nature, to be kind

Toward desert, to love or seek good names. Who feeds with a good name? who thrives with loving?

Who can provide feast for his own desires,
With serving others?-ha, ha, ha!

'Tis folly, by our wisest worldlings proved,
If not to gain by love, to be beloved.

Car. How like you him? is't not a good spiteful slave, ha?

Punt. Shrewd, shrewd.

Car. D-n me! I could eat his flesh now; divine, sweet villain!

Maci. Nay, prithee leave: What's he there? Car. Who? this in the starched beard? it's the dull stiff knight Puntarvolo, man; he's to travel now presently: he has a good knotty wit; he carries little on't out of the land with

marry, him.

Maci. How then?

Car. He puts it forth in venture, as he does his money upon the return of a dog and cat. Maci. Is this he?

Car. Ay, this is he; a good tough gentleman:

7 'Tis now esteem'd precisianism in wit,] i. e. Puritanism, the Puritans in this age being called the precise. WHAL.

8 Car. Who? this in the starched beard?] The precise and formal gallants of the day (such as Puntarvolo is described to be) had their beard stiffened with starch: thus Taylor, the water-poet, no ill chronicler of the fashions.

"Some seem as they were starched, stiff, and fine,
"Like to the bristles of an angry swine."

In a preceding passage, Puntarvolo desires the boy not to stand too near him, lest his breath should thaw his ruff.

he looks like a shield of brawn at Shrove-tide, out of date, and ready to take his leave; or a dry pole of ling upon Easter-eve, that has furnish'd the table all Lent, as he has done the city this last vacation.

Maci. Come, you'll never leave your stabbing similes I shall have you aiming at me with 'em by and by; but

Car. O, renounce me then! pure, honest, good devil, I love thee above the love of women: I could e'en melt in admiration of thee, now. Ods so, look here, man; sir Dagonet and his squire !'

Enter SOGLIARDO and SHIFT.

Sog. Save you, my dear gallantos: nay, come, approach, good cavalier: prithee, sweet knight, know this gentleman, he's one that it pleases me to use as my good friend and companion; and therefore do him good offices: I beseech you, gentles, know him, I know him all over.

Punt. Sir, for signior Sogliardo's sake, let it suffice, I know you.

Sog. Why, as I am a gentleman, I thank you, knight, and it shall suffice. Hark you, sir Puntarvolo, you'd little think it; he's as resolute a piece of flesh as any in the world.

Punt. Indeed, sir!

Sog. Upon my gentility, sir: Carlo, a word with you; do you see that same fellow, there?

9 Sir Dagonet and his squire.] Sir Dagonet is a considerable personage in Morte Arthur. He was the squire, or, as the old romance calls him, the fool of good king Arthur, and seems to be introduced like a Shrove-tide cock, for the sake of being buffeted and abused by every one.

Cor. What, cavalier Shift?

Sog. O, you know him; cry you mercy: before me, I think him the tallest man living1 within the walls of Europe.

Car. The walls of Europe! take heed what you say, signior, Europe's a huge thing within the walls.

Sog. Tut, an 'twere as huge again, I'd justify what I speak. 'Slid, he swagger'd even now in a place where we were-I never saw a man do it more resolute.

Car. Nay, indeed, swaggering is a good argument of resolution. Do you hear this, signior? Maci. Ay, to my grief. O, that such muddy flags,

For every drunken flourish, should achieve
The name of manhood; whilst true perfect va-

lour,

Hating to shew itself, goes by despised!
Heart! I do know now, in a fair just cause,
I dare do more than he, a thousand times:
Why should not they take knowledge of this, ha!
And give my worth allowance before his?
Because I cannot swagger.-Now, the
Light on your Pickt-hatch prowess!

pox

Sog. Why, I tell you, sir; he has been the only Bid-stand that ever kept Newmarket, Salisbury-plain, Hockley 'i the Hole, Gads-hill, and all the high places of any request: he has had

I think him the tallest man living, &c.] i. e. the stoutest, the bravest: the ambiguity of this word must apologize for its being noticed a second time.

Why, I tell you, sir, he has been the only Bid-stand! A cant term for a highwayman. Thus, in the Parson's Wedding, "If you dare do this, I shall sing a song of one that bade-stand, and made a carrier pay dear for a little ground-rent upon his majesty's highway." A. I. S. 1.

his mares and his geldings, he, have been worth forty, threescore, a hundred pound a horse, would ha' sprung you over hedge and ditch like your greyhound: he has done five hundred robberies in his time, more or less, I assure you. Punt. What, and scaped?

Sog. Scaped! i' faith, ay: he has broken the gaol when he has been in irons and irons; and been out, and in again; and out, and in; forty times, and not so few, he.

Maci. A fit trumpet, to proclaim such a person. Car. But can this be possible?

Shift. Why, 'tis nothing, sir, when a man gives his affections to it.

Sog. Good Pylades, discourse a robbery or two, to satisfy these gentlemen of thy worth.

Shift. Pardon me, my dear Orestes: causes have their quiddits, and 'tis ill jesting with bellropes.

Car. How! Pylades and Orestes?

Sog. Ay, he is my Pylades, and I am his Orestes: how like you the conceit?

Car. O, 'tis an old stale interlude device: no, I'll give you names myself, look you; he shall be your Judas, and you shall be his elder-tree' to hang on.

Maci. Nay, rather let him be captain Pod, and this his motion; for he does nothing but shew him.

3 And you shall be his elder tree,] It was the tradition, that Judas hung himself on an elder-tree: thus, in Nixon's Strange Foot-post: "Our gardens will prosper the better, when they have in them not one of these elders, whereupon so many covetous Judasses hang themselves."

+ Let him be captain Pod, and this his motion;] The celebrated owner of a puppet-shew. He is often mentioned in Jonson.

WHAL.

Car. Excellent: or thus; you shall be Holden, and he your camel.*

Shift. You do not mean to ride, gentlemen? Punt. Faith, let me end it for you, gallants: you shall be his Countenance, and he your Resolution.

Sog. Troth, that's pretty: how say you, cavalier, shall it be so?

Car. Ay, ay, most voices.

Shift. Faith, I am easily yielding to any good impressions.

Sog. Then give hands, good Resolution. Car. Mass, he cannot say, good Countenance, now, properly, to him again.

Punt. Yes, by an irony.

Maci. O, sir, the countenance of Resolution should, as he is, be altogether grim and unplea

sant.

Enter FASTIDIOUS BRISK.

Fast. Good hours make music with your mirth, gentlemen, and keep time to your humours! -How now, Carlo?

Punt. Monsieur Brisk! many a long look have I extended for you, sir.

You shall be Holden, and he your camel.] This seems to be no bad compliment to cavaliero Shift, for Holden's camel was a beast of parts. He is mentioned by Taylor, and in very good company:

"That for ingenuous study down can put
"Old Holden's camel, or fine Banks his cut."
Cast over the Water, p. 159.

Our camels now stalk along the streets with exemplary gravity; but they appear to have intermitted their " ingenuous studies" of late, which have been zealously taken up by bears and pigs; with more advantage, it is to be feared, (as indeed has been sometimes said of students with two legs,) to others than to themselves.

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