what a student you are, this argues your proficiency in the law! Ovid ju. They wrong me, sir, and do abuse you more, That blow your ears with these untrue reports. I am not known unto the open stage, Nor do I traffic in their theatres : Indeed, I do acknowledge, at request 5 Of some near friends, and honourable Romans, Ovid se. You have, sir, a poem! and where is it? That's the law you study. Ovid ju. Cornelius Gallus borrowed it to read. 6 Ovid se. Cornelius Gallus! there's another gallant too hath drunk of the same poison, and Tibullus and Propertius. But these are gentlemen of means and revenues now. Thou art a younger brother, and hast nothing but thy bare exhibition; which I protest shall be bare indeed, if thou forsake not these unprofitable by-courses, and that timely too. Name me a profest poet, that his poetry did ever afford him so much as a competency. Ay, your god of poets there, whom all of you admire and reverence so much, Homer, he whose worm-eaten statue must not be spewed against, but with hallow'd lips and groveling adoration, what was he? what was he? Tuc. Marry, I'll tell thee, old swaggerer; he was a poor blind, rhyming rascal, that lived obscurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and scarce 5 Of some near friends.] Whalley, who took for his text the paltry edition of the booksellers, gave meer friends; an expression not bad in itself, but without authority. This very corruption has been frequently produced by the commentators, as ascertaining the ancient sense of the word mere. It is seldom safe to trust a copy of a copy; they should have turned to the quarto and folio editions. 6 Thy bare exhibition,] i. e. stipend, or annual allowance from his father. This word has been already noticed. ever made a good meal in his sleep, the whoreson hungry beggar. Ovid se. He says well :-nay, I know this nettles you now; but answer me, is it not true? You'll tell me his name shall live; and that now being dead his works have eternized him, and made him divine: but could this divinity feed him while he lived? could his name feast him? Tuc. Or purchase him a senator's revenue, could it? Ovid se. Ay, or give him place in the commonwealth? worship, or attendants? make him be carried in his litter? Tuc. Thou speakest sentences, old Bias.' Lup. All this the law will do, young sir, if you'll follow it. Ovid se. If he be mine, he shall follow and observe what I will apt him to, or I profess here openly and utterly to disclaim him. Ovid ju. Sir, let me crave you will forego these moods: I will be any thing, or study any thing; I'll prove the unfashion'd body of the law Pure elegance, and make her rugged'st strains Ovid se. Propertius' elegies? good. Lup. Nay, you take him too quickly, Marcus. Ovid se. Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of poetry; he is bewitch'd with it. Lup. Come, do not misprize him. Ovid se. Misprize! ay, marry, I would have him use some such words now; they have some touch, some taste of the law. He should make himself a style out of these, and let his Propertius' elegies go by. 7 Thou speakest sentences, old Bias.] Bias was one of the seven sages of Greece. Immortality was cheaply purchased in his days, for, to speak tenderly, there is "no great matter" in such of his "" sentences as have come down to us. What follows, as far as "Well, the day grows old," is not in the quarto. Lup. Indeed, young Publius, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law; we have no other planet reigns, and in that sphere you may sit and sing with angels. Why, the law makes a man happy, without respecting any other merit; a simple scholar, or none at all, may be a lawyer. 9 Tuc. He tells thee true, my noble neophyte; my little grammaticaster, he does : it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know not what supposed sufficiencies; if thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough. Lup. Three books will furnish you. Tuc. And the less art the better: besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience; 1 8 He that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law, &c.] These and what follow, are probably the passages which gave offence to the professors of the law. Jonson's old antagonist thus alludes to them, "Thou hast entered actions of assault and battery against a company of honourable and worshipful fathers of the law, thou wrangling rascal: law is one of the pillars of the land.” Satiromastix. 9 Why, the law makes a man happy, &c.] i. e. rich; a Latinism; there is something too pedantical in this :-it is, however, more excusable than the carelessness of our modern translators, who sometimes anglicise the word (beatus) literally, to the utter destruction of the sense. An instance just occurs to me. Cat. Car. x. This is rendered, 66 Ego, ut puellæ “I answer'd, that the slut, I own, Might take me for a lucky one," &c. It should be, for a wealthy one. 1 Thy chevril conscience,] i. e. stretching: the allusion is to kid's leather, which is yielding and pliable: thus Shakspeare: Of "The capacity your soft chevril conscience would receive, If you might please to stretch it.” Henry VIII. A. ii. S. 3. WHAL. to do right or wrong at thy pleasure, my pretty Alcibiades. Lup. Ay, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to observe him, and stand bare. Tuc. True, and he to carry himself proud and stately, and have the law on his side for't, old boy. Ovid se. Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. Publius, if thou wilt hold my favour, abandon these idle, fruitless studies, that so bewitch thee. Send Janus home his back-face again, and look only forward to the law: intend that. I will allow thee what shall suit thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy society with the best; and under these conditions I leave thee. My blessings light upon thee, if thou respect them; if not, mine eyes may drop for thee, but thine own heart will ache for itself; and so farewell! What, are my horses come? Lus. Yes, sir, they are at the gate without. Ovid se. That's well.-Asinius Lupus, a word. Captain, I shall take my leave of you? Tuc. No, my little old boy, dispatch with Cothurnus there: I'll attend thee, İ— Lus. To borrow some ten drachms: I know his project. [A side. Övid se. Sir, you shall make me beholding to you. Now, captain Tucca, what say you? Tuc. Why, what should I say, or what can I say, my flower o' the order? Should I say thou art rich, or that thou art honourable, or wise, or valiant, or learned, or liberal? why, thou art all these, and thou knowest it, my noble Lucullus, thou knowest it. Come, be not ashamed of thy virtues, old stump: honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat2 at all 2 Honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat.] The fashion of wearing some kind of ornament in the front of the hat is noticed times. Thou art the man of war's Mecenas, old boy. Why shouldst not thou be graced then by them, as well as he is by his poets? Enter Pyrgus and whispers Tucca. How now, my carrier, what news? Lus. The boy has stayed within for his cue this half hour. [Aside. Tuc. Come, do not whisper to me, but speak it out: what it is no treason against the state I hope, is it? Lus. Yes, against the state of my master's purse. [Aside, and exit. Pyr. [aloud.] Sir, Agrippa desires you to forbear him till the next week; his mules are not yet come up. Tuc. His mules! now the bots, the spavin, and the glanders, and some dozen diseases more, light on him and his mules! What, have they the yellows, his mules, that they come no faster? or are they foundered, ha? his mules have the staggers belike, have they? Pyr. O no, sir:-then your tongue might be suspected for one of his mules. [Aside. Tuc. He owes me almost a talent, and he thinks to bear it away with his mules, does he? Sirrah, you nut-cracker, go your ways to him again, and tell him I must have money, I: I cannot eat stones and turfs, say. What, will he clem me and my followers ?3 ask him an he will clem me; do, go. He would have by all our old poets. These brooches were sometimes of great value, and formed of jewels set in gold or silver, (see Massinger, vol. iv. p. 213,) and sometimes of copper, lead, &c., nay, so universal was the mode, that to accommodate the poor, it was found necessary to form them, like the boss of the Romans, of yet ruder materials, pasteboard and leather. The last is mentioned by Decker, "Thou shalt wear her glove in thy worshipful hat, like to a leather brooch." Satiromastix. 3 What, will he clem me and my followers?] i. e. starve. It has occurred already, p. 103, “Hard is the choice, when the valiant |