as never was offered to poor bride before: upon her marriage-day to have her husband conspire against her, and a couple of mercenary companions to be brought in for form's sake, to persuade a separation! If you had blood or virtue in you, gentlemen, you would not suffer such earwigs about a husband, or scorpions to creep between man and wife. Mor. O the variety and changes of my torment! Hau. Let them be cudgell'd out of doors by our grooms. Cen. I'll lend you my footman. Mav. We'll have our men blanket them in the hall. Mrs. Ott. As there was one at our house, madam, for peeping in at the door. Daw. Content, i'faith. True. Stay, ladies and gentlemen; you'll hear before you proceed? Mato. I'd have the bridegroom blanketted too. Cen. Begin with him first. Hau. Yes, by my troth. Mor. O mankind generation! La-F. He is as fine a gentleman of his inches, madam, as any is about the town, and wears as good colors when he lists. True. Be brief, sir, and confess your infirmity: she'll be a-fire to be quit of you, if she but hear that named once, you shall not entreat her to stay she'll fly you like one that had the marks upon him. Mor. Ladies, I must crave all your pardons True. Silence, ladies. Mor. For a wrong I have done to your whole sex, in marrying this fair and virtuous gentle Mor. O let me worship and adore you, gen- | five hundred during life, and assure the rest tlemen! Epi. I am undone. [Weeps. Mor. Yes, to my hand, I thank these knights. Master parson, let me thank you otherwise. [Gives him money. Cen. And have they confess'd? Mav. Now out upon them, informers! True. You see what creatures you may bestow your favors on, madams. Hau. I would except against them as beaten knights, wench, and not good witnesses in law. Mrs. Ott. Poor gentlewoman, how she takes it! Hau. Be comforted, Morose, I love you the better for't. Cen. So do I, I protest. upon me after; to which I have often, by myself and friends, tendered you a writing to sign, which you would never consent or incline to. If you please but to effect it now — Mor. Thou shalt have it, nephew: I will do it, and more. Daup. If I quit you not presently, and for ever, of this cumber, you shall have power instantly, afore all these, to revoke your act, and I will become whose slave you will give me to, for ever. Mor. Where is the writing? I will seal to it, that, or to a blank, and write thine own conditions. Epi. O me, most unfortunate, wretched gen Cut. But, gentlemen, you have not known tlewoman! her since matrimonium? Daw. Not to-day, master doctor. Cut. Why, then I say, for any act before, the matrimonium is good and perfect; uniess the worshipful bridegroom did precisely, before witness, demand, if she were virgo ante nuptias. Epi. No, that he did not, I assure you, master doctor. Hau. Will sir Dauphine do this? Epi. Good sir, have some compassion on me. Mor. O, my nephew knows you, belike; away, crocodile! Cen. He does it not sure without good ground. Daup. Here, sir. [Gives him the parchments. Mor. Come, nephew, give me the pen; I will subscribe to any thing, and seal to what thou wilt, for my deliverance. Thou art my restorer. Cut. If he cannot prove that, it is ratum con- Here, I deliver it thee as my deed. If there be jugium, notwithstanding the premisses; and a word in it lacking, or writ with false orthograthey do no way impedire. And this is my sen-phy, I protest before [heaven] I will not take tence, this I pronounce. Ott. I am of master doctor's resolution too, sir; if you made not that demand ante nuptias. Mor. O my heart! wilt thou break? wilt thou break? this is worst of all worst worsts that hell could have devised! Marry a whore, and so much noise! man. Daup. Come, I see now plain confederacy in this doctor and this parson, to abuse a gentleYou study his affliction. I pray be gone, companions. And, gentlemen, I begin to suspect you for having parts with them. Sir, will it please you hear me? Mor. O do not talk to me; take not from me the pleasure of dying in silence, nephew. Daup. Sir, I must speak to you. I have been long your poor despised kinsman, and many a hard thought has strengthened you against me: but now it shall appear if either I love you or your peace, and prefer them to all the world beside. I will not be long or grievous to you, sir. If I free you of this unhappy match absolutely, and instantly, after all this trouble, and almost in your despair, now Mor. It cannot be. Daup. Sir, that you be never troubled with a murmur of it more, what shall I hope for, or deserve of you? Mor. O, what thou wilt, nephew! thou shalt deserve me, and have me. Daup. Shall I have your favor perfect to me, and love hereafter ? Mor. That, and any thing beside. Make thine own conditions. My whole estate is thine; manage it, I will become thy ward. Daup. Nay, sir, I will not be so unreasonable. Epi. Will sir Dauphine be mine enemy too? Daup. You know I have been long a suitor to you, uncle, that out of your estate, which is fifteen hundred a-year, you would allow me but the advantage. [Returns the writings. Daup. Then here is your release, sir. [takes off EPICENE's peruke and other disguises.] You have married a boy, a gentleman's son, that I have brought up this half year at my great charges, and for this composition, which I have now made with you. What say you, master doctor? This is justum impedimentum, I hope, error personæ ? Ott. Yes, sir, in primo gradu. Daup. I thank you, good doctor Cutbeard, and Daup. Yes, mistress Epicone. True. Well, Dauphine, you have lurch'd your friends of the better half of the garland, by concealing this part of the plot: but much good do it thee, thou deserv'st it, lad. And, Clerimont. for thy unexpected bringing these two to confession, wear my part of it freely. Nay, sir Daw and sir La-Foole, you see the gentlewoman that has done you the favors! we are all thankful to you, and so should the woman-kind here, specially for lying on her, though not with her! you meant so, I am sure. But that we have stuck it upon you to-day, in your own imagined persons, and so lately, this Amazon, the champion of the sex, should beat you now thriftily, for the common slanders which ladies receive from such cuckoos as you are. You are they that, when no merit or fortune can make you hope to enjoy their bodies, will yet lie with their reputations, and make their fame suffer. Away, you common moths of these, and all ladies' honors. Go, travel to make legs and faces, and come home with some new matter to be laugh'd at; you deserve to live in an air as corrupted as that wherewith you feed rumor. [Exeunt Daw and LA-FOOLE.]-Madams, you are mute, upon this new metamorphosis! But here stands she that | has vindicated your fames. Take heed of such insectæ hereafter. And let it not trouble you, that you have discovered any mysteries to this young gentleman: he is almost of years, and will make a good visitant within this twelvemonth. In the mean time, we'll all undertake for his secrecy, that can speak so well of his silence. [Coming forward.]- Spectators, if you like this comedy, rise cheerfully, and now Morose is gone in, clap your hands. It may be, that noise will cure him, at least please him. [Exeunt. THE ALCHEMIST. TO THE LADY MOST DESERVING HER NAME AND BLOOD, LADY MARY WROTH. MADAM,In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal of the sacrifices: else what could a handful of gums have done in the sight of a hecatomb? or how might I appear at this altar, except with those affections that no less love the light and witness, than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what I offer bear an acceptable odor, and hold the first strength, it is your value of it, which remembers where, when, and to whom it was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely forth that thing so full of authority or example, but by assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This, yet, safe in your judgment (which is a SIDNEY's) is forbidden to speak more, lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious faces of the time, who, the more they paint, are the less themselves. Your ladyship's true honorer, BEN JONSON. TO THE READER. If thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender, beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in this age, in poetry, especially in plays: wherein, now the concupiscence of dances and of antics s0 reigneth, as to run away from nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers, as they do fencers or wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good, and great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness, than a faint shadow. I speak not this, out of a hope to do good to any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages: because the most favor common errors. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those, that, to gain the opinion of copy, utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskilful, to think rude things greater than polished; cr scattered more numerous than composed. DRAMATIS PERSONE. The sickness hot, a master quit, for fear, A Cheater, and his punk; who now brought low, PROLOGUE. Fortune, that favors fools, these two short hours, We wish away, both for your sakes and ours, Judging spectators; and desire, in place, To the author justice, to ourselves but grace. Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known, No country's mirth is better than our own: No clime breeds better matter for your whore, Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more, Whose manners, now call'd humors, feed the stage; And which have still been subject for the rage Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen Did never aim to grieve, but better men ; Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure The vices that she breeds, above their cure. But when the wholesome remedies are sweet, And in their working gain and profit meet, He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased, But will with such fair correctives be pleased: For here he doth not fear who can apply. If there be any that will sit so nigh Unto the stream, to look what it doth run, They shall find things, they'd think or wish were They are so natural follies, but so shown, [done; As even the doers may see, and yet not own. ACT I, SCENE 1.- A Room in LOVEWIT'S House. Enter FACE, in a captain's uniform, with his sword drawn, and SUBTLE with a vial, quarrelling, and followed by DoL COMMON. Face. Believe't, I will. Sub. Thy worst. I fart at thee. Dol. Have you your wits? why, gentlemen! for love Face. Sirrah, I'll strip you Sub. What to do? lick figs Out at my Face. Rogue, rogue! - out of all your sleights. Dol. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen? Sub. O, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks With good strong water, an you come. Dol. Will you have Face. Will you be so loud? Sub. Since, by my means, translated suburb. Face. By your means, doctor dog! All this I speak of. Face. Why, I pray you, have I Been countenanced by you, or you by me? Face. Not of this, I think it. But I shall put you in mind, sir; - - at Pie-corner, Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls, Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk Pitcously costive, with your pinch'd-horn-nose, And your complexion of the Roman wash, Stuck full of black and melancholic worms, Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard. Sub. I wish you could advance your voice a little. Face. When you went pinn'd up in the several rags You had raked and pick'd from dunghills, before day; Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes; Face. When all your alchemy, and your algebra, Your minerals, vegetals, and animals, Would make you tinder, but to see a fire; Sub. Your master's house! Face. Where you have studied the more thrivOf bawdry since. [ing skill Sub. Yes, in your master's house. You and the rats here kept possession, Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep The buttery-hatch still lock'd, and save the chippings, Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitæ men, The which, together with your Christmas vails At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters, Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks, And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs, Herc, since your mistress' death hath broke up house. Face. You might talk softlier, rascal. Sub. No, you scarab, I'll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung, Raised thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots, |