Mon. Yes, you must bleed; your father's blood must out. He was but a yeoman, was he? Hoyd. As rank a clown, none disprais'd, as any in Somersetshire. Mon. His foul rank blood of bacon and pease porridge must out of you to the last dram— Springe. Fear nothing, sir: your blood shall be taken out by degrees, and your veins replenished with pure blood still, as you lose the puddle. Hoyd. I was bewitch'd, I think, before I was begot, to have a clown to my father: yet my mother said she was a gentlewoman. Spr. Said! what will not women say? Mon. Be content, sir; here 's half a labour saved: you shall bleed but of one side: the mother vein shall not be pricked. [Aside; and exit. Old STRIKER, after a quarrelling bout with old TOUCHWOOD. Touchwood. I have put him into these fits forty times at least, and not without hope it will throttle him at last. Striker. Huh, huh, huh! so he's gone, the villain 's gone in hope that he has kill'd me, when my comfort is he has recover'd me. I was heartsick with a conceit, which lay so mingled with my phlegm, that I had perished if I had not broke it, and made me spit it out; hem, 'tis gone, and I'll home merrily. I would not that he should know the good he has done me for half my estate; nor would I be at peace with him to save it all. I would not lose his hatred for all the good neighbourhood of the parish. His malice works upon me, Past all the drugs and all the doctor' counsels, That e'er I cop'd with; he has been my vexation E'er since my wife died; if the rascal knew 't, THE ANTIPODES, A COMEDY : Nobleman. Directions to players. Are all in readiness; and I think all perfect, That threats the actor's life, in a whole play, If he can fribble through, and move delight Let me not see you act now, In your scholastic way, you brought to town with you, With see-saw, sack-a-down, like a sawyer; Like one o' th' dancing-masters of the beargarden; And when you have spoke, at end of every speech, But you, sir, are incorrigible, and Your parts your own free fancy; and sometimes With care and skill compos'd; and when you are To speak to your co-actors in the scene, You hold interlocutions with the audients. Player. That is a way, my lord, has been allow'd Ön elder stages to move mirth and laughter. Nobleman. Yes, in the days of Tarleton and Kemp, Before the stage was purged from barbarism, And brought to the perfection it now shines with. Then fools and jesters spent their wits, because The poets were wise enough to save their own For profitabler uses. A Doctor humours his patient, who is crazed with reading lying books of travels, by pretending that he himself has been a great traveller in his time. PEREGRINE, the patient. DOCTOR. LADY. Per. All the world over have you been? Doct. Over and under too. Per. In the Antipodes ? Doct. Yes, through and through : Nor isle nor angle in that nether world, |