DELI. I will do it. -- Brother, pray you go home afore (this gentleman and I have some private business), and tell my sweet wife I'll come presently.

FUNG. I will, brother.

MACI. And, signior, acquaint your sister, how liberally, and out of his bounty, your brother has used you (do you see?), made you a man of good reckoning; redeem'd that you never were possest of, credit; gave you as gentlemanlike terms as might be; found no fault with your coming behind the fashion; nor nothing.

FUNG. Nay, I am out of those humours now.

MACI. Well, if you be out, keep your distance, and be not made a shot-clog any more. -- Come, signior, let's make haste.

[EXEUNT.

SCENE VII. -- THE COUNTER.

ENTER FALLACE AND FASTIDIOUS BRISK.

FAL. O, master Fastidious, what pity is it to see so sweet a man as you are, in so sour a place!

[KISSES HIM.

COR. As upon her lips, does she mean?

MIT. O, this is to be imagined the Counter, belike.

FAST. Troth, fair lady, 'tis first the pleasure of the fates, and next of the constable, to have it so: but I am patient, and indeed comforted the more in your kind visit.

FAL. Nay, you shall be comforted in me more than this, if you please, sir.

I sent you word by my brother, sir, that my husband laid to 'rest you this morning; I know now whether you received it or no.

FAST. No, believe it, sweet creature, your brother gave me no such intelligence.

FAL. O, the lord!

FAST. But has your husband any such purpose?

FAL. O, sweet master Brisk, yes: and therefore be presently discharged, for if he come with his actions upon you, Lord deliver you! you are in for one half-a-score year; he kept a poor man in Ludgate once twelve year for sixteen shillings. Where's your keeper? for love's sake call him, let him take a bribe, and despatch you. Lord, how my heart trembles! here are no spies, are there?

FAST. No, sweet mistress. Why are you in this pa.s.sion?

FAL. O lord, master Fastidious, if you knew how I took up my husband to-day, when he said he would arrest you; and how I railed at him that persuaded him to it, the scholar there (who, on my conscience, loves you now), and what care I took to send you intelligence by my brother; and how I gave him four sovereigns for his pains: and now, how I came running out hither without man or boy with me, so soon as I heard on't; you'd say I were in a pa.s.sion indeed. Your keeper, for G.o.d's sake! O, master Brisk, as 'tis in 'Euphues', 'Hard is the choice, when one 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 a.s.sure 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, 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 pa.s.sion, and such extremities as this frail lump of flesh is subject unto.

Nay, why do you not doat now, signior? methinks you should say it were some enchantment, 'deceptio visus', or so, ha! If you could persuade yourself 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.

FAL. 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 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, 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 think will distract you much better, believe it: Signior Deliro has entered three actions against you, three actions, monsieur! marry, one of them (I'll 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 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 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?

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 reason the shift would have been somewhat long, and we are loth to draw your patience farther, we'll entreat 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 causa plaudite'; beg a plaudite for G.o.d'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.

THE EPILOGUE

AT THE PRESENTATION BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH

BY MACILENTE.