Carries his sword and buckler, waits on's trencher,
Fills him his wine, tobacco; whets his knife,
Lackeys his letters, does what service else
He would employ his man in. Being ask'd
Why he is so irregular in courtship,

His answer is, that since great ladies use
Gentlemen-ushers, to go bare before them,
He knows no reason, but he may reduce
The courtiers to have women wait on them;
And he begins the fashion: he is laughed at
Most complimentally.-Thou'lt burst to see him.

Rhe. Agelastus, so surnamed for his gravity,' was a very wise fellow, kept his countenance all days of his life as demurely as a judge that pronounceth sentence of death on a poor rogue, for stealing as much bacon as would serve at a meal with a calf's head. Yet he smiled once, and never but once;-thou art no scholar?

Pel. I have read pamphlets dedicated to me.-Dost call him Agelastus? Why did he laugh?

Rhe. To see an ass eat thistles, puppy-go, study to be a singular coxcomb. Cuculus is an ordinary ape; but thou art an ape of an ape.

2

Pel. Thou hast a patent to abuse thy friends.

Agelastus, so surnamed for his gravity, &c.] Thus Jonson, in the New Inn:

"The Roman alderman,

Old master Gross, surnamed 'Ayéλasos,

Was never seen to laugh, but at an ass.'

The story is in Pliny, who tells it of Crassus, the grandfather of the unfortunate Crassus, who fell the victim of his rapacity in Parthia.

Enter CUCULUS followed by GRILLA, both fantastically dressed.

Look, look he comes! observe him seriously.
Cuc. Reach me my sword and buckler.
Gril. They are here, forsooth.

Cuc. How now, minx, how now! where is your duty, your distance? Let me have service methodically tendered; you are now one of us. Your curtsy. [GRILLA curtsies.] Good! remember that you are to practise courtship.' Was thy father a piper, say'st thou ?

Gril. A sounder of some such wind-instrument, forsooth.

Cuc. Was he so?-hold up thy head. Be thou musical to me, and I will marry thee to a dancer; one that shall ride on his footcloth, and maintain. thee in thy muff and hood.

Gril. That will be fine indeed.
Cuc. Thou art yet but simple,
Gril. Do you think so?

Cuc. I have a brain; I have a head-piece: o'my conscience, if I take pains with thee, I should raise thy understanding, girl, to the height of a nurse, or a court-midwife at least; I will make thee big in time, wench.

Gril. E'en do your pleasure with me, sir.

3 Courtship.] The behaviour necessary to be observed at court; the manners of a courtier. Steevens. Thus the word is used in the opposite page-" So irregular in courtship."

Gril. A sounder of sume such wind-instrument, forsooth.] Grilla's answer is meant to intimate that her father was a sow-gelder.

Pel. (coming forward) Noble, accomplished Cuculus !

Rhe. Give me thy fist, innocent.

Cuc. 'Would 'twere in thy belly! there 'tis. Pel. That's well; he's an honest blade, though he be blunt.

Cuc. Who cares! We can be as blunt as he, for his life.

Rhe. Cuculus, there is, within a mile or two, a sow-pig hath suck'd a brach,' and now hunts the deer, the hare, nay, most unnaturally, the wild boar, as well as any hound in Cyprus.

Cuc, Monstrous sow-pig! is't true?

Pel. I'll be at charge of a banquet on thee for a sight of her.

Rhe. Every thing takes after the dam that gave it suck. Where hadst thou thy milk?

Cuc. I? Why, my nurse's husband was a most excellent maker of shittlecocks.

Pel, My nurse was a woman-surgeon.
Rhe. And who gave thee pap, mouse?

Gril. I never suck'd, that I remember.

Rhe. La now! a shittlecock maker; all thy brains are stuck with cork and feather, Cuculus. This learned courtier takes after the nurse too; a she-surgeon; which is, in effect, a mere matcher of

66

See Mass.

Brach.] The kennel term for a bitch-hound. vol. i. p. 210. The late Sir Harry Mildmay had a sow-pig," that would apparently do all that Cuculus thinks so monstrous, without having sucked a brach for the matter.

Woman-surgeon.] i. e. as he explains himself in the next speech, a dealer in paints and cosmetics for the ladies.

colours. Go, learn to paint and daub compliments, 'tis the next step to run into a new suit. My lady Periwinkle here, never suck'd: suck thy master, and bring forth moon-calves, fop, do! This is good philosophy, sirs; make use on't.

Gril. Bless us, what a strange creature this is! Cuc. A gull, an arrant gull by proclamation..

CORAX passes over the Stage.

Pel. Corax, the prince's chief physician! What business speeds his haste?-Are all things well, sir?

Cor. Yes, yes, yes.

Rhe. Phew! you may wheel about man; we know you are proud of your slovenry and practice; 'tis your virtue. The prince's melancholy fit, I presume, holds still.

Cor. So do thy knavery and desperate beggary. Cuc. Aha! here's one will tickle the ban-dog. Rhe. You must not go yet.

Cor. I'll stay in spite of thy teeth. There lies my gravity. [Throws off his gown.] Do what thou dar'st; I stand thee.

Rhe. Mountebanks, empirics, quack-salvers, mineralists, wizards, alchemists, cast apothecaries,

1 There lies my gravity, (throws off his gown.)] Thus Prospero, when he throws off his mantle, exclaims,

"Lie there, my art."

And Fuller tells us that the great Lord Burleigh, when he put off his gown at night, used to say,

"Lie there, Lord Treasurer."

old wives and barbers, are all suppositors to the right worshipful doctor, as I take it. Some of you are the head of your art, and the horns toobut they come by nature. Thou livest single for no other end, but that thou fearest to be a cuckold.

Cor. Have at thee! Thou affectest railing only for thy health; thy miseries are so thick and lasting, that thou hast not one poor denier to bestow on opening a vein: wherefore, to avoid a pleurisy, thou'lt be sure to prate thyself once a month into a whipping, and bleed in the breech instead of the arm.

Rhe. Have at thee again!

Cor. Come!

Cuc. There, there, there! O brave doctor!
Pel. Let them alone.

Rhe. Thou art in thy religion an atheist, in thy condition a cur, in thy diet an epicure, in thy lust a goat, in thy sleep a hog; thou tak'st upon thee the habit of a grave physician, but art indeed an impostorous empiric. Physicians are the coblers, rather the botchers, of men's bodies; as the one patches our tattered clothes, so the other solders our diseased flesh.-Come on!

Physicians are the coblers, rather the botchers, of men's bodies.] I have omitted the word (bodies,) which seems to have slipped in before coblers. This is not, I suspect, the only error: but 'tis to little purpose to waste time on what, after all, will scarcely be thought worth mending. In the opening of this speech, the poet uses condition, like all the writers of his time, for disposition, nature, &c.