Bound to keep life in drones and idle moths? no:
Why such are these that term themselves the poor,
Only because they would be pitied,

But are indeed a sort of lazy beggars,
Licentious rogues, and sturdy vagabonds,
Bred by the sloth of a fat plenteous year,

Like snakes in heat of summer, out of dung ;

And this is all that these cheap times are good for:
Whereas a wholesome and penurious dearth

Purges the soil of such vile excrements,

And kills the vipers up.3

Hind. O, but master,

Take heed they hear you not.

Sord. Why so?

Hind. They will exclaim against you.

Sord. Ay, their exclaims

inverse

satiric purgation

4

Move me as much, as thy breath moves a mountain.
Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home
Can be contented to applaud myself,

To sit and clap my hands, and laugh, and leap,
Knocking my head against my roof, with joy
To see how plump my bags are, and my barns.
Sirrah, go hie you home, and bid your fellows
Get all their flails ready again I come.

Hind. I will, sir.

[Exit.

Sord. I'll instantly set all my hinds to thrashing
Of a whole rick of corn, which I will hide
Under the ground; and with the straw thereof
I'll stuff the outsides of my other mows:

That done, I'll have them empty all my garners,
And in the friendly earth bury my store,

That, when the searchers come, they may suppose

3 And kills the vipers up.] See vol. i. p. 115.

A Poor worms, they hiss at me, whilst I at home, &c.] Taken from Horace, but heightened and improved :

Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo

Ipse domi.

All's spent, and that my fortunes were belied.
And to lend more opinion to my want,
And stop that many-mouthed vulgar dog,
Which else would still be baying at my door,
Each market-day I will be seen to buy

Part of the purest wheat, as for my household;
Where when it comes, it shall increase my heaps :
'Twill yield me treble gain at this dear time,
Promised in this dear book: I have cast all.
Till then I will not sell an ear, I'll hang first.
O, I shall make my prices as I list;
My house and I can feed on peas and barley.
What though a world of wretches starve the while;
He that will thrive must think no courses vile.

[Exit. Cor. Now, signior, how approve you this? have the humourists exprest themselves truly or no?

Mit. Yes, if it be well prosecuted, 'tis hitherto happy enough: but methinks Macilente went hence too soon; he might have been made to stay, and speak somewhat in reproof of Sordido's wretchedness now at the last.

Cor. O, no, that had been extremely improper; besides, he had continued the scene too long with him, as 'twas, being in no more action.

Mit. You may inforce the length as a necessary reason; but for propriety, the scene would very well have borne it, in my judgment.

Cor. O, worst of both; why, you mistake his humour utterly then.

Mit. How do I mistake it? Is it not Envy?

Cor. Yes, but you must understand, signior, he envies him not as he is a villain, a wolf in the commonwealth, but as he is rich and fortunate; for the true condition of envy is, dolor alienæ felicitatis, to have our eyes continually fixed upon another man's prosperity, that is, his chief happiness, and to grieve at that. Whereas, if we make his monstrous and abhorr'd actions our ob

ject, the grief we take then comes nearer the nature of hate than envy, as being bred out of a kind of contempt and loathing in ourselves.

Mit. So you'll infer it had been hate, not envy in him, to reprehend the humour of Sordido?

Cor. Right, for what a man truly envies in another, he could always love and cherish in himself; but no man truly reprehends in another, what he loves in himself; therefore reprehension is out of his hate. And this distinction hath he himself made in a speech there, if you marked it, where he says, I envy not this Buffone, but I hate him.

Mit. Stay, sir: I envy not this Buffone, but I hate him. Why might he not as well have hated Sordido as him?

Cor. No, sir, there was subject for his envy in Sor dido, his wealth: so was there not in the other. He stood possest of no one eminent gift, but a most odious and fiend-like disposition, that would turn charity itself into hate, much more envy, for the present.

Mit. You have satisfied me, sir. O, here comes the fool, and the jester again, methinks.

Cor. 'Twere pity they should be parted, sir.

Mit. What bright-shining gallant's that with them? the knight they went to?

Cor. No, sir, this is one monsieur Fastidious Brisk, otherwise called the fresh Frenchified courtier. Mit. A humourist too?

Cor. As humourous as quicksilver; do but observe him; the scene is the country still, remember.

ACT II.

SCENE I. The Country; before PUNTARVOLO'S House.

Enter FASTIDIOUS BRISK, CINEDO, CARLO Buffone, and SOGLIARDO.

5

Car. O, well, well. He looks like a colonel of the Pigmies horse, or one of these motions in a great antique clock; he would shew well upon a haberdasher's stall, at a corner shop, rarely.

Fast. 'Sheart, what a damn'd witty rogue's this! How he confounds with his similes!

Car. Better with similes than smiles and whither were you riding now, signior?

5

or one of these motions in a great antique clock.] A puppet, in this age, was called a motion: it here means one of those small figures in the face of a large clock, which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum. We have them in clocks of the present day. WHAL

There is an allusion to these figures in the Ordinary:

"For my good toothless countess, let us try

To win that old emerit thing, that like

An image in a German clock, doth move,

Not walk; I mean that rotten antiquary."

Fast. Who, I? What a silly jest's that! Whither should I ride but to the court?

Car. O, pardon me, sir, twenty places more; your hot-house, or your whore-house

Fast. By the virtue of my soul, this knight dwells in Elisium here.

7

Car. He's gone now, I thought he would fly out presently. These be our nimble-spirited catsos, that have their evasions at pleasure, will run over a bog like your wild Irish; no sooner started, but they'll leap from one thing to another, like a squirrel, heigh! dance and do tricks in their discourse, from fire to water, from water to air, from air to earth, as if their tongues did but e'en lick the four elements over, and away.

Fast. Sirrah, Carlo, thou never saw'st my gray hobby yet, didst thou?

Car. No; have you such a one?

Fast. The best in Europe, my good villain, thou❜lt say when thou seest him.

Car. But when shall I see him?

Fast. There was a nobleman in the court offered me a hundred pound for him, by this light: a fine little fiery slave, he runs like a-oh, excellent, excellent!—with the very sound of the spur.

6 your hot-house, or your whore-house.] An unusual fit of reserve has visited the quarto, which omits the last word; little, however, is gained by it, on the score of decorum, for, as Jonson observes in his epigrams, the terms were "synonima.”

7 These be our nimble-spirited catsos, &c.] Carlo applies this opprobrious term to the travelled and affected coxcombs of the day, whose vapid follies he ridicules with great pleasantry. With respect to the word itself, on which the commentators on our old plays dilate with a gravity truly laughable, it is a petty oath, a cant exclamation, generally expressive, among the Italian populace, who have it constantly in their mouth, of defiance, or contempt. Jonson points his satire at the use of it, which was very prevalent when he wrote.