MARGARET Free liberty of Sherwood, And leave to take her lot with you in the forest.

SIR WALTER A scant pet.i.tion, Margaret, but take it, Seal'd with an old man's tears.-- Rise, daughter of Sir Rowland.

(_Addresses them both._)

O you most worthy, You constant followers of a man proscribed, Following poor misery in the throat of danger; Fast servitors to craz'd and penniless poverty, Serving poor poverty without hope of gain; Kind children of a sire unfortunate; Green clinging tendrils round a trunk decay'd, Which needs must bring on you timeless decay; Fair living forms to a dead carcase join'd;-- What shall I say?

Better the dead were gather'd to the dead, Than death and life in disproportion meet.-- Go, seek your fortunes, children.--

SIMON Why, whither should we go?

SIR WALTER _You_ to the Court, where now your brother John Commits a rape on Fortune.

SIMON Luck to John!

A light-heel'd strumpet, when the sport is done.

SIR WALTER _You_ to the sweet society of your equals, Where the world's fashion smiles on youth and beauty.

MARGARET Where young men's flatteries cozen young maids' beauty, There pride oft gets the vantage hand of duty, There sweet humility withers.

SIMON Mistress Margaret, How fared my brother John, when you left Devon?

MARGARET John was well, Sir.

SIMON 'Tis now nine months almost, Since I saw home. What new friends has John made?

Or keeps he his first love?--I did suspect Some foul disloyalty. Now do I know, John has prov'd false to her, for Margaret weeps.

It is a scurvy brother.

SIR WALTER Fie upon it.

All men are false, I think. The date of love Is out, expired, its stories all grown stale, O'erpast, forgotten, like an antique tale Of Hero and Leander.

SIMON I have known some men that are too general-contemplative for the narrow pa.s.sion. I am in some sort a _general_ lover.

MARGARET In the name of the boy G.o.d, who plays at hood-man-blind with the Muses, and cares not whom he catches: what is it _you_ love?

SIMON Simply, all things that live, From the crook'd worm to man's imperial form, And G.o.d-resembling likeness. The poor fly, That makes short holyday in the sun beam, And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird With little wings, yet greatly venturous In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element, That knows no touch of eloquence. What else?

Yon tall and elegant stag, Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns In the water, where he drinks.

MARGARET I myself love all these things, yet so as with a difference:-- for example, some animals better than others, some men rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the swift and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule.

Your humour goes to confound all qualities.

What sports do you use in the forest?--

SIMON Not many; some few, as thus:-- To see the sun to bed, and to arise, Like some hot amourist with glowing eyes, Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him, With all his fires and travelling glories round him.

Sometimes the moon on soft night clouds to rest, Like beauty nestling in a young man's breast, And all the winking stars, her handmaids, keep Admiring silence, while those lovers sleep.

Sometimes outstretcht, in very idleness, Nought doing, saying little, thinking less, To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air, Go eddying round; and small birds, how they fare, When mother Autumn fills their beaks with corn, Filch'd from the careless Amalthea's horn; And how the woods berries and worms provide Without their pains, when earth has nought beside To answer their small wants.

To view the graceful deer come tripping by, Then stop, and gaze, then turn, they know not why, Like bashful younkers in society.

To mark the structure of a plant or tree, And all fair things of earth, how fair they be.

MARGARET (_smiling_) And, afterwards them paint in simile.

SIR WALTER Mistress Margaret will have need of some refreshment.

Please you, we have some poor viands within.

MARGARET Indeed I stand in need of them.

SIR WALTER Under the shade of a thick-spreading tree, Upon the gra.s.s, no better carpeting, We'll eat our noon-tide meal; and, dinner done, One of us shall repair to Nottingham, To seek some safe night-lodging in the town, Where you may sleep, while here with us you dwell, By day, in the forest, expecting better times, And gentler habitations, n.o.ble Margaret.

SIMON _Allons_, young Frenchman--

MARGARET _Allons_, Sir Englishman. The time has been, I've studied love-lays in the English tongue, And been enamour'd of rare poesy: Which now I must unlearn. Henceforth, Sweet mother-tongue, old English speech, adieu; For Margaret has got new name and language new.

(_Exeunt._)

ACT THE THIRD

SCENE.--_An Apartment of State in Woodvil Hall--Cavaliers drinking._

JOHN WOODVIL, LOVEL, GRAY, _and four more._

JOHN More mirth, I beseech you, gentlemen--Mr. Gray, you are not merry.--

GRAY More wine, say I, and mirth shall ensue in course. What! we have not yet above three half-pints a man to answer for. Brevity is the soul of drinking, as of wit. Despatch, I say. More wine. (_Fills._)

FIRST GENTLEMAN I entreat you, let there be some order, some method, in our drinkings. I love to lose my reason with my eyes open, to commit the deed of drunkenness with forethought and deliberation. I love to feel the fumes of the liquor gathering here, like clouds.

SECOND GENTLEMAN And I am for plunging into madness at once. d.a.m.n order, and method, and steps, and degrees, that he speaks of. Let confusion have her legitimate work.

LOVEL I marvel why the poets, who, of all men, methinks, should possess the hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should affect to see such virtues in cold water.

GRAY Virtue in cold water! ha! ha! ha!--

JOHN Because your poet-born hath an internal wine, richer than lippara or canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth, unpressed in mortal wine-presses.

THIRD GENTLEMAN What may be the name of this wine?

JOHN It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated indifferently, wit, conceit, invention, inspiration, but its most royal and comprehensive name is _fancy_.

THIRD GENTLEMAN And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?

JOHN Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from the quality and neighbourhood of their n.o.ble relative, the brain, refuse to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.

THIRD GENTLEMAN But is your poet-born alway tipsy with this liquor?