Spa. Gross and ridiculous!-look ye-point blank, I dare not swear that this same mountebanking new-come foist is at least a procurer in the business, if not a pretender himself;-but I think what I think.

Sec. He, Troylo, Livio, the page, that holecreeping page, all horn me, sirrah. I'll forgive thee from my heart; dost not thou drive a trade too in my bottom?

Spa. A likely matter! 'las, I am metamorphosed, I; be patient, you'll mar all else.

Laughing within. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Sec. Now, now, now, now the game's rampant, rampant!

Spa. Leave your wild figaries, and learn to be a tame antick, or I'll observe no longer.

Within. Ha, ha, ha, ha!

Enter TROYLO, CASTAMELA, FLORIA, CLARELLA, SILVIA, MOROSA, and ROMANELLO, disguised, as PRAGNIOLI.

Sil. You are extremely busy, signor.

Flo. Courtly,

Without a fellow.

Clar. Have a stabbing wit.

Cast. But are you always, when you press on ladies

Of mild and easy nature, so much satire,

So tart and keen as we do taste you now?
It argues a lean brain.

Rom. Gip to your beauties!

VOL. II.

You would be fair, forsooth! you would be mon

sters;

Fair women are such;-monsters to be seen

Are rare, and so are they.

Troy. Bear with him, ladies.

Mor. He is a foul-mouth'd man.

Sec. Whore, bitch-fox, treddle!--[Aside to MOR.] -fa la la la!

Mor. How's that, my cat-a-mountain?

Spa. Hold her there, boy.

Clar. Were you e'er in love, fine signor?

Rom. Yes, for sport's sake,

But soon forgot it; he that rides a gallop
Is quickly weary. I esteem of love
As of a man in some huge place; it puzzles
Reason, distracts the freedom of the soul,
Renders a wise man fool, and a fool wise-
In's own conceit, not else; it yields effects

Of pleasure, travail; bitter, sweet; war, peace;
Thorns, roses; prayers, curses; longings, surfeits,
Despair, and then a rope. Oh, my trim lover!-
Yes, I have loved a score at once.

Spa. Out, stallion! as I am a man and no man, the baboon lies, I dare swear, abominably.

Sec. Inhumanly;-keep your bow close, vixen." [Pinches MOR.

5 Treddle!] That part of the loom on which the foot presses: vulgarly, a common creature, a street-walker.

6 Keep your bow close, vixen.] This is taken from ancient Pistol's injunction to his disconsolate spouse at parting; and with her

it might have been safely left.

Mor. Beshrew your fingers, if you be in earnest! You pinch too hard; go to, I'll pare your nails for't.

Spa. She means your horns; there's a bob for you!

Clar. Spruce signor, if a man may love so many, Why may not a fair lady have like privilege Of several servants?

Troy. Answer that; the reason Holds the same weight.

Mor. Marry, and so it does, Though he would spit his gall out.

Spa. Mark that, Secco.

Sil. D'ye pump for a reply?

Rom. The learned differ

In that point; grand and famous scholars often
Have argued pro and con, and left it doubtful;
Volumes have been writ on't. If then great clerks
Suspend their resolutions, 'tis a modesty
For me to silence mine.

Flo. Dull and phlegmatic!

Clar. Yet women sure, in such a case, are ever More secret than men are.

Sil. Yea, and talk less.

Rom. That is a truth much fabled, never found. You secret! when your dresses blab your vanities? Carnation for your points? there's a gross babbler; Tawney? hey ho! the pretty heart is wounded: A knot of willow ribbons? she's forsaken. Another rides the cock-horse, green and azure,

Wince and cry wee-hee like a colt unbroken: But desperate black put them in mind of fish-days; When Lent spurs on devotion, there's a famine: Yet love and judgment may help all this pudder; Where are they? not in females.

Flo. In all sorts

Of men, no doubt!

Sil. Else they were sots to choose.

Clar. To swear and flatter, sometimes lie, for profit.

Rom. Not so, forsooth: should love and judg

ment meet,

The old, the fool, the ugly, and deform'd,
Could never be beloved; for example,

Behold these two, this madam and this shaver.
Mor. I do defy thee; am I old or ugly?

Sec. Tricks, knacks, devices! now it trouls about.

Rom. Troul let it, stripling; thou hast yet firm footing,

And need'st not fear the cuckold's livery,

There's good philosophy for't: take this for com

fort;

No horned beasts have teeth in either gums;

But thou art tooth'd on both sides, though she fail in't.

Mor. He is not jealous, sirrah.

Rom. That's his fortune;

Women indeed more jealous are than men,

But men have more cause.

Spa. There he rubb'd your forehead; "Twas a tough blow.

Sec. It smarts.

Mor. Pox on him! let him

Put's fingers into any gums of mine,

He shall find I have teeth about me, sound ones. Sec. You are a scurvy fellow, and I am made a cokes, an ass; and this same filthy crone's a flirt. Whoop, do me no harm, good—woman." [Exit. Spa. Now, now he's in! I must not leave him so.

Troy. Morosa, what means this?
Mor. I know not, I;

[Exit.

He pinch'd me, call'd me names, most filthy names. Will you part hence, sir? [To Roм.] I will set ye

packing.

[Exit.

Clar. You were indeed too broad, too violent.

Flo. Here's nothing meant but mirth.

Sil. The gentleman

Hath been a little pleasant.

Clar. Somewhat bitter

Against our sex.

Cast. For which I promise him, He ne'er proves choice of mine. Rom. Not I your choice?

Whoop, do me no harm, good man! is the burden of an old song; it is quoted by the clown in Winter's Tale, and is mentioned in several other places. Ritson says, that the tune of the old ballad is still preserved in a collection of "Ayres for the Lute and Basse Violl, by W. Caroline, 1610."