Fast. [Talks and takes tobacco between the breaks.] Troth, sweet lady, I shall [puffs.] be prepared to give you thanks for those thanks, study more officious, and obsequious to your fair beauties.-Mend the

and

regards pipe, boy.

Maci. I never knew tobacco taken as a parenthesis before.

Fast. 'Fore God, sweet lady, believe it, I do honour the meanest rush in this chamber for your love.2

Sav. Ay, you need not tell me that, sir; I do think you do prize a rush before my love.

Maci. Is this the wonder of nations!

Fast. O, by this air, pardon me, I said for your love, by this light; but it is the accustomed sharpness of your ingenuity, sweet mistress, to [takes down the viol, and plays.] mass your

viol's new strung, methinks.

2 I do honour the meanest rush in this chamber for your love.] Before carpets came into use, the floors of chambers, and the stage itself, were strewed with rushes. So in the Widow's Tears: “Their honours are upon coming, and the room not ready! "Rushes and seats instantly." A. III. S. 1.

Again, in the Coxcomb:

take care my house be handsome, "And the new stools set out, and boughs, and rushes.” A. IV.

WHAL.

My predecessor might have added, that from the indelicate and filthy habits of our forefathers, carpets would have been a grievous nuisance; whereas rushes, which concealed the impurities with which they were charged, were, at convenient times, gathered up and thrown into the streets, where they only bred a general plague, instead of a particular one.

3 Takes down the viol,] It appears, from numerous passages in our old plays, that a viol de gambo (a bass-viol, as Jonson calls it, in a subsequent passage) was an indispensible piece of furniture in every fashionable house, where it hung up in the best chamber, much as the guitar does in Spain, and the violin in Italy, to be played on at will, and to fill up the void of con

Maci. Ingenuity! I see his ignorance will not suffer him to slander her, which he had done most notably, if he had said wit for ingenuity, as he meant it.

Fast. By the soul of music, lady-hum, hum.
Sav. Would we might hear it once.

Fast. I do more adore and admire your-hum, hum-predominant perfections, than-hum, hum -ever I shall have power and faculty to express -hum.

Sav. Upon the viol de gambo, you mean?

Fast. It's miserably out of tune, by this hand.
Sav. Nay, rather by the fingers.

Maci. It makes good harmony with her wit. Fast. Sweet lady, tune it. [Saviolina tunes the viol.]-Boy, some tobacco.

Maci. Tobacco again! he does court his mistress with very exceeding good changes.

Fast. Signior Macilente, you take none, sir? Maci. No, unless I had a mistress, signior, it were a great indecorum for me to take tobacco. Fast. How like you her wit?

[Talks and takes tobacco between again. Maci. Her ingenuity is excellent, sir.

Fast. You see the subject of her sweet fingers there--Oh, she tickles it so, that--She makes it laugh most divinely ;——I'll tell you a good jest now, and yourself shall say it's a good one:

;

versation. Whoever pretended to fashion, affected an acquaintance with this instrument; and it is well known that sir Andrew Aguecheek could play upon it, as he spoke the languages, "word for word, without book."

4

if he had said wit for ingenuity,] Ingenuity has a two-fold signification: derived from ingenuous, it means openness, candour, or fairness; from ingenious, it implies wit, invention, genius. In this last sense it is here to be understood; but Macilente plays upon the double meaning. Ingenious and ingenuous were often used for each other. WHAL.

I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think, a thousand times, and not so few, by heaven!

Maci. Not unlike, sir; but how? to be cased up and hung by on the wall?

Fast. O, no, sir, to be in use, I assure you; as your judicious eyes may testify.

Sav. Here, servant, if you will play, come.
Fast. Instantly,,sweet lady..

faith, here's most divine tobacco!

-In good

Sav. Nay, I cannot stay to dance after your

pipe.

Fast. Good! Nay, dear lady, stay; by this sweet smoke, I think your wit be all fire.

Maci. And he's the salamander belongs to it." Sav. Is your tobacco perfumed, servant, that you swear by the sweet smoke?

Fast. Still more excellent! Before heaven, and these bright lights, I think made of ingenuity, I.

you are

Maci. True, as your discourse is. O abominable !

Fast. Will your ladyship take any?

Sav. O peace, I pray you; I love not the breath of a woodcock's head.

Fast. Meaning my head, lady? 6

5 Maci. And he's the salamander belongs to it.] In the quarto it is—that lives by it. It seems scarcely worth the pains of altering, or, indeed, of noticing.

Fast. Meaning my head, lady?] To account for the captious question of Fastidious, it should be observed that woodcock was a cant term for a fool. From the following drawing of an ancient tobacco-pipe, which was in the possession of Mr. Reed, it appears that Saviolina was not far from the truth, when she compared it to "the true form of a woodcock's head,

Sav. Not altogether so, sir; but, as it were fatal to their follies that think to grace themselves with taking tobacco, when they want better entertainment, you see your pipe bears the true form of a woodcock's head.

Fast. O admirable simile!

Sav. 'Tis best leaving of you in admiration,

sir. [Exit. Maci. Are these the admired lady-wits, that having so good a plain song, can run no better division upon it? All her jests are of the stamp March was fifteen years ago. Is this the comet, monsieur Fastidious, that your gallants wonder at so?

Fast. Heart of a gentleman, to neglect me afore the presence thus! Sweet sir, I beseech you be silent in my disgrace. By the muses, I was never in so vile a humour in my life, and her wit was at the flood too! Report it not for a million, good sir; let me be so far endeared to your love. [Exeunt.

Mit. What follows next, signior Cordatus? this gallant's humour is almost spent; methinks it ebbs upace, with this contrary breath of his mistress.

Cor. O, but it will flow again for all this, till there come a general drought of humour among all our actors, and then I fear not but his will fall as low as any. See who presents himself here!

Mit. What, in the old case?

Cor. Ay, faith, which makes it the more pitiful; you understand where the scene is?

ACT IV. SCENE I.

A Room in Deliro's House.

Enter FUNGOSO, FALLACE following him.

Fal. Why are you so melancholy, brother? Fung. I am not melancholy, I thank you

sister.

Fal. Why are you not merry then? there are but two of us in all the world, and if we should not be comforts one to another, God help us!

Fung. Faith, I cannot tell, sister, but if a man had any true melancholy in him, it would make him melancholy to see his yeomanly father cut his neighbours' throats, to make his son a gentleman; and yet, when he has cut them, he will see his son's throat cut too, ere he make him a true gentleman indeed, before death cut his own throat. I must be the first head of our house, and yet he will not give me the head till I be made so. Is any man termed a gentleman, that is not always in the fashion? I would know but that.

Fal. If you be melancholy for that, brother, I think I have as much cause to be melancholy as any one for I'll be sworn, I live as little in the fashion as any woman in London. By the faith of a gentlewoman, beast that I am to say it! I have not one friend in the world besides my husband. When saw you master Fastidious Brisk, brother?

Fung. But a while since, sister, I think: I know not well in truth. By this hand I could fight with all my heart, methinks.