Lufc. Gods a' me? what'll you do? Why young mafter, you are not Castalian mad, lunatick, frantick, desperate? ha!

Ovid. What ail'ft thou, Lufcus?

Lufc. God be with you, fir, I'll leave you to your poetical fancies, and furies. I'll not be guilty, I. Ovid. Be not, good ignorance: I'm glad th'art gone: For thus alone, our ear fhall better judge

The hafty errors of our morning muse.

[Reads an elegy ending with

My name fhall live, and my best part afpire.

SCENE II.

Ovid fenior, Ovid junior, Lufcus, Tucca, Lupus, Pyrgus.

Ovid fe. Your name fhall live indeed, fir; you fay true but how infamoufly, how fcorn'd and contemn'd in the eyes and ears of the best and graveft Romans, that you think not on you never so much as dream of that. Are these the fruits of all my tra

vail and expences? Is this the scope and aim of thy ftudies? Are these the hopeful courfes, wherewith I have fo long flattered my expectation from thee? Verfes? Poetry? Ovid, whom I thought to fee the pleader, become Ovid the play-maker ?

:

Ovid ju. No, fir.

Ovid fe. Yes, fir; I hear of a tragedy of yours coming forth for the common players there, 'call'd Medea. By my houshold-gods, if I come to the acting of it, I'll add one tragic part more than is yet expected to it; believe me when I promise it. What? fhall I have my fon a stager now? an enghle for players? a gull? a rook? a fhot-clog? to make fuppers, and be laugh'd at? Publius, I will fet thee on the funeral pile first.

Ovid ju. Sir, I beseech you to have patience.

Lup. Indeed, Marcus Ovid, thefe players are an idle generation, and do much harm in a state, corrupt young gentry very much, I know it; I have not been a tribune thus long and observ'd nothing; befides, they will rob us, us, that are magiftrates, of our re-spect, bring us upon their stages, and make us ridi

culous

culous to the plebeians; they will play you or me, the wisest men they can come by still, only to bring us in contempt with the vulgar, and make us cheap.

Tuc. Th'art in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed, the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kifs his mistress's flippers in quiet for 'em; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling fuit to make his punk a fupper. An honeft decay'd commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be feen in a bawdy-house, but he fhall be ftrait in one of their wormwood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they are i'the ftatute, the rascals; they are blazon'd there; there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees; they need no other heralds, I wifs.

Ovid fe. Methinks, if nothing else, yet this alone, the very reading of the public edicts, should fright thee from commerce with them, and give thee diftafte enough of their actions. But this betrays what a ftudent

R 2

ftudent you are, this argues your proficiency in the

Law.

Qvid ju. They wrong me, fir, and do abuse

more,

That blow your ears with these untrue reports.

I am not known unto the open ftage,

Nor do I traffick in their theatres.

Indeed, I do acknowledge, at request

Of some meer friends, and honourable Romans,

I have begun a poem of that nature.

you

Ovid fe. You have, fir, a poem? and where is't? That's the Law you study.

Ovid ju. Cornelius Gallus borrowed it to read.

revenues now.

Ovid. fe. Cornelius Gallus; There's another gallant too hath drunk of the fame poison, and Tibullus and Propertius. But these are gentlemen of means and Thou art a younger brother, and hast nothing but thy bare exhibition; which I protest shall be bare indeed, if thou forfake not thefe unprofitable by-courses, and that timely too. Name me a profest poet, that his poetry did ever afford him so much as a competency. I, your god of poets there (whom all of

you

you admire and reverence so much) Homer, he whole worm-eaten statue must not be fpewed againft, but with hallow'd lips and groveling adoration, what was he? what was he?

Tuc. Marry, I'll tell thee, old fwaggerer; he was a poor, blind, rhyming rascal, that liv'd obscurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and scarce ever made a good meal in his fleep, the whorefon hungry beggar.

Ovid fe. He fays well: Nay, I know this nettles you now; but answer me, is't not true? You'll tell me his name shall live; and that (now being dead) his works have eternis'd him, and made him divine; but could this divinity feed him while he liv'd? could his name feaft him?

Tuc. Or purchase him a fenator's revenue? could it? Ovid fe. I, or give him place in the commonwealth? worship, or attendants? make him be carried in his litter?

Tuc. Thou fpeakest sentences, old Bias.

Lup. All this the Law will do, young fir, if you'll

follow it.