Enter Dame PURECRAFT.

Pure. O me, in the stocks! have the wicked prevail'd? Busy. Peace, religious sister, it is my calling, comfort yourself; an extraordinary calling, and done for my better standing, my surer standing, hereafter.

SCENE V.

[Rabbi Busy, unexpectedly delivered from the stocks, blunders into a booth where Mr. Littlewit's Interlude of Hero and Leander is being played. On this occasion also he displays his zeal, which is subdued by arguments.]

Rabbi Busy rushes in.

Busy. Down with Dagon! down with Dagon ! 'tis I, I will no longer endure your profanations.

Leath. What mean you, sir?

Busy. I will remove Dagon there, I say, that idol, that heathenish idol, that remains, as I may say, a beam, a very beam,-not a beam of the sun, nor a beam of the moon, nor the beam of a balance, neither a house-beam, nor a weaver's beam, but a beam in the eye, in the eye of the brethren; a very great beam, an exceeding great beam; such as are your stage-players, rimers, and morrice-dancers, who have walked hand in hand, in contempt of the brethren, and the cause; and been born out by instruments of no mean countenance.

Leath. Sir, I present nothing but what is licensed by authority.

Busy. Thou art all license, even licentiousness itself, Shimei !

Leath. I have the master of the revels' hand for't, sir. Busy. The master of the rebels' hand thou hast. Satan's! hold thy peace, thy scurrility, shut up thy mouth, thy profession is damnable, and in pleading for

it thou dost plead for Baal. I have long opened my mouth wide, and gaped; I have gaped as the oyster for the tide, after thy destruction: but cannot compass it by suit or dispute; so that I look for a bickering, ere long, and then a battle.

Knock. Good Banbury vapours!

Cokes. Friend, you'd have an ill match on't, if you bicker with him here; though he be no man of the fist, he has friends that will to cuffs for him. Numps, will

not you take our side?

Edg. Sir, it shall not need; in my mind he offers him a fairer course, to end it by disputation: hast thou nothing to say for thyself, in defence of thy quality?

Leath. Faith, sir, I am not well-studied in these controversies, between the hypocrites and us. But here's one of my motion, puppet Dionysius, shall undertake him, and I'll venture the cause on't.

Cokes. Who, my hobby-horse! will he dispute with him?

Leath. Yes, sir, and make a hobby-ass of him, I hope. Cokes. That's excellent! indeed he looks like the best scholar of them all. Come, sir, you must be as good as our word now.

Busy. I will not fear to make my spirit and gifts known: assist me zeal, fill me, fill me, that is, make me full !

Winw. What a desperate, profane wretch is this! is there any ignorance or impudence like his, to call his zeal to fill him against a puppet?

Quar. I know no fitter match than a puppet to commit with an hypocrite! [calling. Busy. First, I say unto thee, idol, thou hast no Dion. You lie, I am call'd Dionysius.

Leath. The motion says, you lie, he is call'd Dionysius in the matter, and to that calling he answers.

Busy. I mean no vocation, idol, no present lawful calling.

Dion. Is yours a lawful calling?

Leath. The motion asketh, if yours be a lawful calling. Busy. Yes, mine is of the spirit.

Dion. Then idol is a lawful calling.

Leath. He says, then idol is a lawful calling; for you call'd him idol, and your calling is of the spirit. Cokes. Well disputed, hobby-horse.

Busy. Take not part with the wicked, young gallant: he neigheth and hinnieth; all is but hinnying sophistry. I call him idol again; yet, I say, his calling, his profession is profane, it is profane, idol.

Dion. It is not profane.

Leath. It is not profane, he says.

Busy. It is profane.

Dion. It is not profane.

Busy. It is profane.

Dion. It is not profane.

Leath. Well said, confute him with Not, still. You cannot bear him down with your base noise, sir.

Busy. Nor he me, with his treble creeking, though he creek like the chariot wheels of Satan; I am zealous for the cause

Leath. As a dog for a bone.

Busy. And I say, it is profane, as being the page of Pride, and the waiting-woman of Vanity.

Dion. Yea! what say you to your tire-women, then? Leath. Good.

Dion. Or feather-makers in the Friers, that are of your faction of faith? are not they with their perukes, and their puffs, their fans, and their huffs, as much pages of Pride, and waiters upon Vanity? What say you, what say you, what say you?

Busy. I will not answer for them.

Is a

Dion. Because you cannot, because you cannot. bugle-maker a lawful calling? or the confect-makers? such you have there; or your French fashioner? you would have all the sin within yourselves, would you not, would you not?

Busy. No, Dagon.

Dion. What then, Dagonet? is a puppet worse than these?

Busy. Yes, and my main argument against you is, that you are an abomination; for the male, among you, putteth on the apparel of the female, and the female of the male.

Dion. You lie, you lie, you lie abominably.

Cokes. Good, by my troth, he has given him the lie thrice.

Dion. It is your old stale argument against the players, but it will not hold against the puppets; for we have neither male nor female amongst us. And that thou may'st see, if thou wilt, like a malicious purblind zeal as [Takes up his garment. Edg. By my faith, there he has answer'd you, friend, a plain demonstration.

thou art.

Dion. Nay, I'll prove, against e'er a Rabbin of them all, that my standing is as lawful as his; that I speak by inspiration, as well as he; that I have as little to do with learning as he; and do scorn her helps as much as he. Busy. I am confuted, the cause hath failed me. Dion. Then be converted, be converted.

Leath. Be converted, I pray you, and let the play go on !

Busy. Let it go on; for I am changed, and will become a beholder with you.