the lady of the college, and her shadows. trumpeter hath proclaim'd you. This [Aside to EPI. Daup. You shall not go; let him be laugh'd at in your stead, for not bringing you: and put him to his extemporal faculty of fooling and talking loud, to satisfy the company. [Aside to EPI. Cler. He will suspect us; talk aloud. 'Pray, mistress Epicone, let's see your verses; we have sir John Daw's leave; do not conceal your servant's merit, and your own glories. Epi. They'll prove my servant's glories, if you have his leave so soon. Daup. His vain-glories, lady! Daw. Shew them, shew them, mistress; I dare own them. Epi. Judge you, what glories. Daw. Nay, I'll read them myself too: an author must recite his own works. It is a madrigal of Modesty. Modest and Fair, for fair and good are near Neighbours, howe'er. Daw. No noble virtue ever was alone, Daup. Excellent! But two in one. Cler. That again, I pray, sir John. Daup. It has something in't like rare wit and sense. Cler. Peace. Daw. No noble virtue ever was alone, But two in one. Then, when I praise sweet modesty, I praise Bright beauty's rays: And having praised both beauty and modesty, I have praised thee. A Daup. Admirable ! Cler. How it chimes, and cries tink in the close, divinely! Daup. Ay, 'tis Seneca. Cler. No, I think 'tis Plutarch. Daw. The dor on Plutarch and Seneca ! I hate it: they are mine own imaginations, by that light. I wonder those fellows have such credit with gentlemen. Cler. They are very grave authors. Daw. Grave asses! mere essayists: a few loose sentences, and that's all. A man would talk so, his whole age: I do utter as good things every hour, if they were collected and observed, as either of them. Daup. Indeed, sir John ! Cler. He must needs; living among the wits and braveries too. Daup. Ay, and being president of them, as he is. Daw. There's Aristotle, a mere common-place fellow; Plato, a discourser; Thucydides and Livy, tedious and dry; Tacitus, an entire knot: sometimes worth the untying, very seldom. Cler. What do you think of the poets, sir John ? Daw. Not worthy to be named for authors. Homer, an old tedious, prolix ass, talks of curriers, and chines of beef; Virgil of dunging of land, and bees; Horace, of I know not what. Cler. I think so. Daw. And so, Pindarus, Lycophron, Anacreon, Catullus, Seneca the tragedian, Lucan, Propertius, Tibullus, Martial, Juvenal, Ausonius, Statius, Politian, Valerius Flaccus, and the rest Cler. What a sack full of their names he has got ! Daup. And how he pours them out! Politian with Valerius Flaccus ! Cler. Was not the character right of him I Daup. As could be made, i'faith. Daw. And Persius, a crabbed coxcomb, not to be endured. Daup. Why, whom do you account for authors, sir John Daw! Daw. Syntagma juris civilis; Corpus juris civilis ; Corpus juris canonici; the king of Spain's bible Daup. Is the king of Spain's bible an author! Daup. What was that Syntagma, sir! Daup. Sure, Corpus was a Dutchman. Cler. Ay, both the Corpuses, I knew 'em: they were very corpulent authors. Daw. And then there's Vatablus, Pomponatius, Symancha: the other are not to be received, within the thought of a scholar. Daup. 'Fore God, you have a simple learned servant, lady, in titles. [Aside. Cler. I wonder that he is not called to the helm, and made a counsellor. Daup. He is one extraordinary. Cler. Nay, but in ordinary: to say truth, the state wants such. Daup. Why that will follow. Cler. I muse a mistress can be so silent to the dotes of such a servant. Daw. 'Tis her virtue, sir. I have written somewhat of her silence too. Daup. In verse, sir John ? Cler. What else? Daup. Why, how can you justify your own being of a poet, that so slight all the old poets? Daw. Why, every man that writes in verse is not a poet; you have of the wits that write verses, and yet are no poets: they are poets that live by it, the poor fellows that live by it. Daup. Why, would not you live by your verses, sir John ? Cler. No, 'twere pity he should. A knight live by his verses! he did not make them to that end, I hope. Daup. And yet the noble Sidney lives by his, and the noble family not ashamed. Cler. Ay, he profest himself; but sir John Daw has more caution: he'll not hinder his own rising in the state so much. Do you think he will Your verses, good sir John, and no poems. Daup. Not I, believe it: your reason, sir. Daw. Nor is't a tale, That female vice should be a virtue male, You shall it see Prov'd with increase; I know to speak, and she to hold her peace. Do you conceive me, gentlemen! Daup. No, faith; how mean you with increase, sir John Daw. Why, with increase is, when I court her for the common cause of mankind, and she says nothing, but consentire videtur; and in time is gravida. Daup. Then this is a ballad of procreation? [Walks aside with the papers. Enter TRUEWIT with his horn. Cler. See, here's Truewit again!-Where hast thou been, in the name of madness, thus accoutred with thy horn? True. Where the sound of it might have pierced your senses with gladness, had you been in ear-reach of it. Dauphine, fall down and worship me; I have forbid the banns, lads: I have been with thy virtuous uncle, and have broke the match. Daup. You have not, I hope. True. Yes, faith; an thou shouldst hope otherwise, I should repent me: this horn got me entrance; kiss it. I had no other way to get in, but by feigning to be a post; but when I got in once, I proved none, but rather the contrary, turn'd him into a post, or a stone, or what is stiffer, with thundering into him the incommodities of a wife, and the miseries of marriage. If ever Gorgon were seen in the shape of a woman, he hath seen her in my description: I have put him off o' that scent for ever.-Why do you not applaud and adore me, sirs why stand you mute! are you stupid? You are not worthy of the benefit. Daup. Did not I tell you! Mischief!— Cler. I would you had placed this benefit somewhere else. True. Why so? Cler. 'Slight, you have done the most inconsiderate, rash, weak thing, that ever man did to his friend. Daup. Friend if the most malicious enemy I have, had studied to inflict an injury upon me, it could not be a greater. True. Wherein, for God's sake! Gentlemen, come to yourselves again. Daup. But I presaged thus much afore to you. Cler. Would my lips had been solder'd when I spake on't! Slight, what moved you to be thus impertinent? True. My masters, do not put on this strange face to |