Aso. By Jove, I will not depart withal, whosoever would give me a million.

Enter Cos and PROSAITES.

Cos. Save you, sweet bloods! does any of you want a creature, or a dependent ?

Cri. Beshrew me, a fine blunt slave!

Amo. A page of good timber! it will now be my grace to entertain him first, though I cashier him again in private.-How art thou call'd? Cos. Cos, sir, Cos.

Cri. Cos! how happily hath fortune furnish'd him with a whetstone?'

1

Amo. I do entertain you, Cos; conceal your quality till we be private; if your parts be

Cos! how happily hath fortune furnish'd him with a whetstone?] Cos is the Latin word for a whetstone; and the joke consists in the allusion of his name to his manners. A whetstone was a cant term of that age, to denote the faculty of lying, or any incitement to tell a lie. So in the Induction, the traveller is said to have the Whetstone following him. WHAL.

Whalley has said nothing of the origin of this "joke," as he calls it; nor can I pretend to advance any thing with certainty on the subject. It may have arisen from the story of the whetstone which was cut in two by the augur, Accius: though, why the simplest miracle in all Livy should have been singled out to typify lying, it is not easy to conjecture, Amidst the elegant amusements of our ancestors at wakes and fairs, such as jumping in a sack, grinning through a collar, &c. there was one of a most extraordinary and culpable nature, which was lying. The clown who told the most enormous and impossible falsehood, was rewarded for his perverse ingenuity with a whetstone, which, four or five centuries ago, might, perhaps, be somewhat more valuable than it is at present. Hence the familiar connection between the vice and the reward. A notorious liar was said to be lying for a whetstone; and it was no uncommon punishment for such a one to have a whetstone tied round his neck, or fastened on the outside of his garment, and to be thus publicly exposed. I could give many instances of this; but enough, perhaps, has been already said.

worthy of me, I will countenance you; if not, catechize you.-Gentles, shall we go?

Aso. Stay, sir; I'll but entertain this other fellow, and then--I have a great humour to taste of this water too, but I'll come again alone for that mark the place. What's your name, youth?

Pros. Prosaites, sir.

Aso. Prosaites! a very fine name; Crites, is it not?

Cri. Yes, and a very ancient one, sir, the Beggar.

If

Aso. Follow me, good Prosaites; let's talk.
[Exeunt all but Crites,
Cri. He will rank even with you, ere't be long,
you hold on your course. O, vanity,

How are thy painted beauties doted on,
By light and empty ideots! how pursued
With open and extended appetite!

How they do sweat, and run themselves from breath,

Raised on their toes, to catch thy airy forms,
Still turning giddy, till they reel like drunkards,
That buy the merry madness of one hour
With the long irksomeness of following time!
O how despised and base a thing is man,
If he not strive t'erect his grovelling thoughts
Above the strain of flesh! but how more cheap,
When, ev'n his best and understanding part,
The crown and strength of all his faculties,
Floats, like a dead drown'd body, on the stream
Of vulgar humour, mixt with common'st dregs!
I suffer for their guilt now, and my soul,
Like one that looks on ill-affected eyes,

Is hurt with mere intention on their follies."

2 Is hurt with mere intention on their follies.] Intention is

Why will I view them then, my sense might ask me?

Or is't a rarity, or some new object,

That strains my strict observance to this point?
O, would it were! therein I could afford
My spirit should draw a little near to theirs,
To gaze on novelties; so vice were one.

Tut, she is stale,3 rank, foul; and were it not
That those that woo her greet her with lock'd

eyes,

In spight of all th' impostures, paintings, drugs,
Which her bawd, Custom, dawbs her cheeks withal,
She would betray her loth'd and leprous face,
And fright the enamour'd dotards from them-
selves:

But such is the perverseness of our nature,
That if we once but fancy levity,

How antic and ridiculous soe'er

It suit with us, yet will our muffled thought
Choose rather not to see it, than avoid it:
And if we can but banish our own sense,
We act our mimic tricks with that free license,
That lust, that pleasure, that security,
As if we practised in a paste-board case,
And no one saw the motion, but the motion.*
Well, check thy passion, lest it grow too loud:
While fools are pitied, they wax fat and proud.

the act of fixed and earnest gazing on an object. In this sense the word occurs frequently in Jonson.

3 Tut, she is stale, &c.] This passage is well abridged by Pope : "Vice is a monster of so foul a mien,

"That, to be hated, needs but to be seen."

4 As if we practised in a pasteboard case,

And no one saw the motion, but the motion.] A simile taken from the management of puppets behind the curtain, with strings and wires: the cause of whose motion must be kept from the eyes of the spectators. The obscurity lies in the different

ACT II. SCENE I.

The Court.

Enter CUPID and MERCURY, disguised as pages.

Cup. Why, this was most unexpectedly followed, my divine delicate Mercury; by the beard of Jove, thou art a precious deity.

Mer. Nay, Cupid, leave to speak improperly; since we are turn'd cracks, let's study to be like cracks; practise their language and behaviours, and not with a dead imitation: Act freely, carelessly, and capriciously, as if our veins ran with quicksilver, and not utter a phrase, but what shall come forth steep'd in the very brine of conceit, and sparkle like salt in fire.

Cup. That's not every one's happiness, Hermes: Though you can presume upon the easiness and dexterity of your wit, you shall give me leave to be a little jealous of mine; and not desperately to hazard it after your capering humour.

Mer. Nay, then, Cupid, I think we must have

senses of the word motion; the first is taken in the common sense, the last signifies the puppet itself. WHAL.

Whalley seems pleased with this note, for, in the margin of his copy, he has directed it to stand: it is, however, incorrect. Jonson's meaning is simply this" As if we were without spectators, and none but the puppets saw the puppet-show." In the quarto Motion is in both places distinguished, by italics and capitals; this, perhaps, Whalley did not know; for he seems to have generally overlooked the first copies.

There is great force and beauty in this speech of Crites; and, indeed, the whole of this act is worthy of the author in his happiest moments.

you hood-wink'd again; for you are grown too provident since your eyes were at liberty.

Cup. Not so, Mercury, I am still blind Cupid to thee.

Mer. And what to the lady nymph you serve? Cup. Troth, page, boy, and sirrah: these are all my titles.

Mer. Then thou hast not altered thy name, with thy disguise?

Cup. O, no, that had been supererogation; you shall never hear your courtier call but by one of these three.

Mer. Faith, then both our fortunes are the

same.

Cup. Why, what parcel of man hast thou lighted on for a master?

Mer. Such a one as, before I begin to decipher him, I dare not affirm to be any thing less than a courtier. So much he is during this open' time of revels, and would be longer, but that his means are to leave him shortly after. His name is Hedon, a gallant wholly consecrated to his pleasures.

Cup. Hedon! he uses much to my lady's chamber, I think.

Mer. How is she call'd, and then I can shew thee?

Cup. Madam Philautia.

Mer. O ay, he affects her very particularly indeed. These are his graces. He doth (besides me) keep a barber and a monkey; he has a rich wrought waistcoat to entertain his visitants in, with a cap almost suitable. His curtains and bedding are thought to be his own; his bathingtub is not suspected.' He loves to have a fencer,

5 His bathing-tub is not suspected.] i. e. is supposed to be used