more favours, and with more security now than before.

Daw. Did she say so, i'faith?

Cler. Why, what do you think of me, sir John! ask sir Dauphine.

Daw. Nay, I believe you.-Good sir Dauphine, did she desire me to forgive her?

Daup. I assure you, sir John, she did.

Daw. Nay, then, I do with all my heart, and I'll be jovial.

Cler. Yes, for look you, sir, this was the injury to you. La-Foole intended this feast to honour her bridal day, and made you the property to invite the college ladies, and promise to bring her; and then at the time she would have appear'd, as his friend, to have given you the dor.* Whereas now, sir Dauphine has brought her to a feeling of it, with this kind of satisfaction, that you shall bring all the ladies to the place where she is, and he very jovial; and there, she will have a dinner, which shall be in your name: and so disappoint La-Foole, to make you good again, and, as it were, a saver in the main.

Daw. As I am a knight, I honour her; and forgive her heartily.

Čler. About it then presently. Truewit is gone before to confront the coaches, and to acquaint you with so much, if he meet you. Join with him, and 'tis well.

Enter sir AMOROUS LA-FOOLE.

See; here comes your antagonist; but take you no notice, but be very jovial.

La-F. Are the ladies come, sir John Daw, and your mistress? [Exit Daw.]-Sir Dauphine!

*To have given you the dor.] Sec vol. ii. p. 328.

you are exceeding welcome, and honest master Clerimont. Where's my cousin? did you see no collegiates, gentlemen ?

Daup. Collegiates! do you not hear, sir Amorous, how you are abused?

La-F. How, sir!

Cler. Will you speak so kindly to sir John Daw, that has done you such an affront?

La-F. Wherein, gentlemen? let me be a suitor to you to know, I beseech you.

Cler. Why, sir, his mistress is married to-day to sir Dauphine's uncle, your cousin's neighbour, and he has diverted all the ladies, and all your company thither, to frustrate your provision, and stick a disgrace upon you. He was here now to have enticed us away from you too: but we told him his own, I think.

La-F. Has sir John Daw wrong'd me so inhumanly?

Daup. He has done it, sir Amorous, most maliciously and treacherously: but, if you'll be ruled by us, you shall quit him, i'faith.

La-F. Good gentlemen, I'll make one, believe it. How, I pray?

Daup. Marry, sir, get me your pheasants, and your godwits, and your best meat, and dish it in silver dishes of your cousin's presently; and say nothing, but clap me a clean towel about you, like a sewer; and, bare-headed, march afore it with a good confidence, ('tis but over the way, hard by,) and we'll second you, where you shall set it on the board, and bid them welcome to't, which shall show 'tis yours, and disgrace his preparation utterly and for your cousin, whereas she should be troubled here at home with care of making and giving welcome, she shall transfer all that labour thither, and be a principal

guest herself; sit rank'd with the college-honours, and be honour'd, and have her health drunk as often, as bare, and as loud as the best of them. La-F. I'll go tell her presently. It shall be done, that's resolved.

[Exit. Cler. I thought he would not hear it out, but 'twould take him.

Daup. Well, there be guests and meat now; how shall we do for music?

Cler. The smell of the venison, going through the street, will invite one noise of fidlers or other. Daup. I would it would call the trumpeters

thither!

Cler. Faith, there is hope; they have intelligence of all feasts. There's good correspondence betwixt them and the London cooks: 'tis twenty to one but we have them.

Daup. Twill be a most solemn day for my uncle, and an excellent fit of mirth for us.

Cler. Ay, if we can hold up the emulation betwixt Foole and Daw, and never bring them to expostulate.

Daup. Tut, flatter them both, as Truewit says, and you may take their understandings in a purse-net.' They'll believe themselves to be

• One noise of fidlers or other.] This term, which occurs perpetually in our old dramatists, means a company or concert. In Jonson's days they sedulously attended taverns, ordinaries, &c. and seem to have been very importunate for admission to the guests. They usually consisted of three, and took their name from the leader of their little band. Thus we hear of "Mr. Sneak's noise," 66 Mr. Creak's noise," and, in Cartwright, of "Mr. Spindle's noise." These names are probably the invention of Shakspeare, and the rest; but they prove the existence of the custom. When this term went out of use, I cannot tell; but it was familiar in Dryden's time, who has it in his Wild Gallant, and elsewhere; "I hear him coming, and a whole noise of fidlers at his heels." Maiden Queen.

In a purse-nct.] A net, Johnson says, of which the month

just such men as we make them, neither more nor less. They have nothing, not the use of their senses, but by tradition.

Re-enter LA-FOOLE, like a sewer.

Cler. See! sir Amorous has his towel on already. Have you persuaded your cousin?

La-F. Yes, 'tis very feasible: she'll do any thing, she says, rather than the La-Fooles shall be disgraced.

8

Daup. She is a noble kinswoman. It will be such a pestling device, sir Amorous; it will pound all your enemy's practices to powder, and blow him up with his own mine, his own train. La-F. Nay, we'll give fire, I warrant you.

Cler. But you must carry it privately, without any noise, and take no notice by any means—~—

Re-enter captain OTTER.

Ott. Gentlemen, my princess says you shall have all her silver dishes, festinate: and she's gone to alter her tire a little, and go with

you

Cler. And yourself too, captain Otter?

is drawn together by a string. It is mentioned by Decker: "These two conies will we ferret into our purse-net." Honest IV hore.

It will be such a pestling device, &c.] Whalley has a por"Pestling is a colloquial corruption of tentous note here. pestilence, or pestilent, used by our old writers for a sign of the superlative degree." It is certain, as he says, that pestilent is frequently used as an augmentative; but if he had only read to the end of the line, before he undertook to comment on the beginning of it, he would have seen that pestling meant simply, pounding with a pestle. This over haste is a sore evil with the commentators.

Daup. By any means, sir.

Ott. Yes, sir, I do mean it: but I would entreat my cousin sir Amorous, and you, gentlemen, to be suitors to my princess, that I may carry my bull and my bear, as well as my horse.

Cler. That you shall do, captain Otter.

La-F. My cousin will never consent, gentlemen. Daup. She must consent, sir Amorous, to

reason.

La-F. Why, she says they are no decorum among ladies.

Ott. But they are decora, and that's better, sir. Cler. Ay, she must hear argument. Did not Pasiphae, who was a queen, love a bull? and was not Calisto, the mother of Arcas, turn'd into a bear, and made a star, mistress Ursula, in the heavens?

Ott. O lord! that I could have said as much! I will have these stories painted in the Beargarden, ex Ovidii metamorphosi.

Daup. Where is your princess, captain? pray be our leader.

Ott. That I shall, sir.

Cler. Make haste, good sir Amorous. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A room in Morose's House.

Enter MOROSE, EPICOENE, Parson, and CUT

BEARD.

Mor. Sir, there's an angel for yourself, and a brace of angels for your cold. Muse not at this manage of my bounty. It is fit we should thank fortune, double to nature, for any benefit she