Nature hath these vicissitudes. She makes
No man a state of perpetuity, sir.

Fitz. You are in the right. Let's in then, and
conclude.-

Re-enter PUG.

In my sight again! I'll talk with you anon.
[Exeunt Fitz. Meer. and Engine.
Pug. Sure he will geld me if I stay, or worse,
Pluck out my tongue, one of the two. This fool,
There is no trusting of him; and to quit him,
Were a contempt against my chief past pardon.
It was a shrewd disheartening this, at first!
Who would have thought a woman so well har-
ness'd,

Or rather well caparison'd, indeed,

That wears such petticoats, and lace to her smocks,

Broad seaming laces (as I see them hang there)
And garters which are lost, if she can shew them,"
Could have done this? Hell! why is she so
brave?

It cannot be to please duke Dottrel, sure,
Nor the dull pictures in her gallery,
Nor her own dear reflection in her glass;
Yet that may be: I have known many of them
Begin their pleasure, but none end it there :
(That I consider, as I go along with it)
They may, for want of better company,

7 And garters which are lost if she can shew them.] So the old copies read: but the sense seems to require the addition of not, which might be dropt at the press. "Garters of fourscore pound a pair," are mentioned by Satan in the first scene, and we may be pretty confident that some mode of displaying them was in use. Pug could see the lace of his lady's smock, and it is probable that the embroidered extremities of her garters were permitted to hang, as he says, quite as low as that.

Or that they think the better, spend an hour,
Two, three, or four, discoursing with their shadow;
But sure they have a farther speculation.
No woman drest with so much care and study,
Doth dress herself in vain. I'll vex this problem
A little more, before I leave it sure.

SCENE II.

[Exit.

Manly's Chambers in Lincoln's Inn, opposite Fitzdottrel's House.

Enter WITTIPOL and MANLY.

Wit. This was a fortune happy above thought, That this should prove thy chamber; which I fear'd

Would be my greatest trouble! this must be
The very window, and that the room.
Man. It is.

I now remember, I have often seen there
A woman, but I never mark'd her much.
Wit. Where was your soul, friend?
Man. Faith, but now and then
Awake unto those objects.

Wit. You pretend so.

Let me not live, if I am not in love

More with her wit, for this direction now,

Than with her form, though I have praised that

prettily,

Since I saw her and you to-day. Read those:

[Gives him the copy of a song.

They'll go unto the air you love so well.

Try them unto the note, may be the music Will call her sooner; light, she's here! sing. quickly.

Mrs. FITZDOTTREL appears at a window of her house fronting that of Manly's Chambers.

Mrs. Fitz. Either he understood him not; or else,

The fellow was not faithful in delivery
Of what I bade. And, I am justly pay'd,
That might have made my profit of his service,
But by mistaking, have drawn on his envy,'
And done the worse defeat upon myself.

[Manly sings. How! music? then he may be there: and is sure.

Enter PUG behind.

Pug. O is it so? is there the interview! Have I drawn to you, at last, my cunning lady? The Devil is an ass! fool'd off, and beaten !

Nay, made an instrument, and could not scent it!
Well, since you have shewn the malice of a woman,
No less than her true wit and learning, mistress,
I'll try, if little Pug have the malignity
To recompense it, and so save his danger.
'Tis not the pain, but the discredit of it,
The Devil should not keep a body entire.

[Aside and exit.

This scene, the margin of the old copy tells us, is "acted at two windows as out of two contiguous buildings." Whoever has noticed the narrow streets or rather lanes of our ancestors, and observed how story projected beyond story, till the windows of the upper rooms almost touched on different sides, will easily conceive the feasibility of every thing which takes place between Wittipol and his mistress, though they make their appearance in different houses.

But by mistaking, have drawn on his envy.] i. e. ill-will, displeasure. As this sense of the word is altogether obsolete, it seems just necessary to notice it.

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.

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

him,

doubt

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 please

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!"

VOL. V.

F

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 Is hew'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

* 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.