is compelled either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking to live with shame.

Fast. Fair lady, I conceive you, and may this kiss assure you, that where adversity hath, as it were, contracted, prosperity shall not-Od's me! your

husband.

Enter DELIRO and MACILENTE.

Fal. O me!

Deli. Ay! Is it thus ?

Maci. Why, how now, signior Deliro! has the wolf seen you,3 ha? Hath Gorgon's head made marble of you?

Deli. Some planet strike me dead!

Maci. Why, look you, sir, I told you, you might have suspected this long afore, had you pleased, and have saved this labour of admiration now, and passion, and such extremities as this frail lump of flesh is subject unto. Nay, why do you not dote now, signior? methinks you should say it were some enchantment, deceptio visus, or so, ha! If you could persuade your self it were a dream now, 'twere excellent : faith, try what you can do, signior; it may be your imagination will be brought to it in time; there's nothing impossible.

Fall Sweet husband! >

Deli. Out, lascivious strumpet!

[Exit.

Maci. What! did you see how ill that stale vein became him afore, of sweet wife, and dear heart; and are you fallen just into the same now, with sweet husband! Away, follow him, go, keep state: what! remember you are a woman, turn impudent; give him

3 Why, how now,-has the wolf seen you?] It was anciently supposed that if a wolf saw any one before he was seen, that person was deprived of speech. Hence Virgil,

-vox quoque Marin

Jam fugit ipsa; lupi Mærin videre priores. Ec. IX.

not the head, though you give him the horns. Away. And yet, methinks, you should take your leave of enfant perdu here, your forlorn hope. [Exit FAL.]-How now, monsieur Brisk? what! Friday night, and in affliction too, and yet your pulpamenta,5 your delicate morsels! I perceive, the affection of ladies and gentlewomen pursues you wheresoever you go, monsieur.

Fast. Now, in good faith, and as I am gentle, there could not have come a thing in this world to have distracted me more, than the wrinkled fortunes of this poor dame.

Maci. O yes, sir; I can tell you a thing will distract you much better, believe it: Signior Deliro has entered three actions against you, three actions, monsieur! marry, one of them (Ill put you in comfort) is but three thousand, and the other two, some five thousand pound together: trifles, trifles!

Fast. O, I am undone.

Maci. Nay, not altogether so, sir; the knight must have his hundred pound repaid, that will help too; and then six score pounds for a diamond, you know where. These be things will weigh, monsieur, they will weigh.

Fast. O heaven!

Maci. What! do you sigh? this it is to kiss the hand of a countess, to have her coach sent for you, to hang poniards in ladies garters, to wear bracelets of

▲ And yet, methinks, you should take your leave of enfant perdu here, your forlorn hope.] These are military terms, and denote a body of men, placed even in the cannon's mouth, or sent out upon any desperate service. WHAL.

5 And yet your pulpamenta,] i. e., as Jonson well explains it, your delicacies, your nice bits. Whalley says that the allusion is to Terence,

Lepus tute es, et pulpamentum quæris? Eun. A. iii. S. 1.

Was he aware of the sense of this passage? In any case, it does not apply to Fastidious and Fallace.

their hair, and for every one of these great favours to give some slight jewel of five hundred crowns, or so; why, 'tis nothing. Now, monsieur, you see the plague that treads on the heels o' your foppery well, go your ways in, remove yourself to the two-penny ward quickly, to save charges, and there set up your rest to spend sir Puntarvolo's hundred pound for him. Away, good pomander, go!

[Exit FASTIDIOUS. Why, here's a change! now is my soul at peace : I am as empty of all envy now,

As they of merit to be envied at.

My humour, like a flame, no longer lasts
Than it hath stuff to feed it; and their folly
Being now raked up in their repentant ashes,
Affords no ampler subject to my spleen.
I am so far from malicing their states,
That I begin to pity them. It grieves me
To think they have a being I could wish

They might turn wise upon it, and be saved now,
So heaven were pleased; but let them vanish,
vapours

Gentlemen, how like you it? has't not been tedious?"

6 Remove yourself to the two-penny ward to save charges.] Fastidious was now in the master's ward (see p. 181.) The Counter had four compartments, or "sides," the knight's ward, the master's ward, the two-penny ward, and the hole; and it was not uncommon for the debtors, as their means wasted, to descend gradually from the first to the last. The rooms in the knight's ward seem to have been expensive: the hole was a mere dungeon, and only tenanted by the poorest prisoners. See Massinger, vol. iv. p. 7, and, for a fuller account, Fenner's Compter's Commonwealth.

7 After this line there follow, in the quarto, several others, which concluded the play: as they are not without merit, I shall subjoin them:

And now with Asper's tongue, though not his shape,
Kind patrons of our sports, you that can judge,
And with discerning thoughts measure the space

Cor. Nay, we have done censuring now.
Mit. Yes, faith.

Maci. How so?

Cor Marry, because we'll imitate your actors, and be out of our humours. Besides, here are those round about you of more ability in censure than we, whose judgments can give it a more satisfying allowance; we'll refer you to them. [Exeunt CORDATUS and MITIS.

Maci. [coming forward.] Ay, is it even so ?— Well, gentlemen, I should have gone in, and return'd to you as I was Asper at the first; but by

Of our strange Muse in this her maze of humour;
You, whose fine notions do confine the forms
And nature of sweet poesy to you,

I tender solemn, and most duteous thanks,
For your stretch'd patience and attentive grace.
We know, and we are pleased to know so much,
The cates that you have tasted were not season'd
For every vulgar palate, but prepared
To banquet pure and apprehensive ears:
Let then their voices speak for our desert;
Be their applause the trumpet to proclaim
Defiance to rebelling ignorance:

And the green spirits of some tainted few,
That, spight of pity, do betray themselves
To scorn and laughter; and, like guilty children,
Publish their infancy, before their time,
By their own fond exception: such as these
We pawn 'em to your censure, till time, wit,
Or observation, set some stronger seal
Of judgment on their judgments; and entreat
The happier spirits in this fair-fitted Globe,
(So many as have sweet minds in their breasts,
And are too wise to think themselves are tax'd
In any general figure, or too virtuous

To need that wisdom's imputation :)

That with their bounteous hands they would confirm
This, as their pleasure's patent: which so sign'd,
Our leaven'd spent endeavours shall renew
Their beauties, with the spring, to smiles on you.

reason the shift would have been somewhat long, and we are loth to draw your patience farther, we'll intreat you to imagine it. And now, that you may see I will be out of humour for company, I stand wholly to your kind approbation, and indeed am nothing so peremptory as I was in the beginning: marry, I will not do as Plautus in his Amphytrio, for all this, summi Jovis causâ, plaudite; beg a plaudite for God's sake; but if you, out of the bounty of your good liking, will bestow it, why, you may in time make lean Macilente as fat as sir John Falstaff. [Exit.