Cynthia's Revels Part 26

CRI. The French quirk, this sir.

ANA. Heart, he will over-run her.

MER. "Madamoyselle, Je voudroy que pouvoy monstrer mon affection, mais je suis tant malhereuse, ci froid, ci layd, ci--Je ne scay qui de dire--excuse moi, Je suis tout vostre." [A FLOURISH.]

PHI. O brave and spirited! he's a right Jovialist.

PHA. No, no: Amorphus's gravity outweighs it.

CRI. And yet your lady, or your feather, would outweigh both.

ANA. What's the prize, lady, at this Better Regard?

MOR. A face favourably simpering, and a fan waving.

ANA. They have done doubtfully. Divide. Give the favourable face to the signior, and the light wave to the monsieur.

AMO. You become the simper well, lady.

MER. And the wag better.

AMO. Now, to our "Solemn Address." Please the well-graced Philautia to relieve the lady sentinel; she hath stood long.

PHI. With all my heart; come, guardian, resign your place.

[MORIA COMES FROM THE STATE.]

AMO. Monsieur, furnish yourself with what solemnity of ornament you think fit for this third weapon; at which you are to shew all the cunning of stroke your devotion can possibly devise.

MER. Let me alone, sir. I'll sufficiently decipher your amorous solemnities.--Crites, have patience. See, if I hit not all their practic observance, with which they lime twigs to catch their fantastic lady-birds.

CRI. Ay, but you should do more charitably to do it more openly, that they might discover themselves mock'd in these monstrous affections. [A CHARGE.]

MER. Lackey, where's the tailor?

ENTER TAILOR, BARBER, PERFUMER, MILLINER, JEWELLER, AND FEATHER-MAKER.

TAI. Here, sir.

HED. See, they have their tailor, barber, perfumer, milliner, jeweller, feather-maker, all in common!

[THEY MAKE THEMSELVES READY ON THE STAGE.]

ANA. Ay, this is pretty.

AMO. Here is a hair too much, take it off. Where are thy mullets?

MER. Is this pink of equal proportion to this cut, standing off this distance from it?

TAI. That it is, sir.

MER. Is it so, sir? You impudent poltroon, you slave, you list, you shreds, you--[BEATS THE TAILOR.]

HED. Excellent! This was the best yet.

ANA. Why, we must use our tailors thus: this is our true magnanimity.

MER. Come, go to, put on; we must bear with you for the times'

sake.

AMO. Is the perfume rich in this jerkin?

PER. Taste, smell; I a.s.sure you, sir, pure benjamin, the only spirited scent that ever awaked a Neapolitan nostril. You would wish yourself all nose for the love on't. I frotted a jerkin for a new-revenued gentleman yielded me three-score crowns but this morning, and the same t.i.tillation.

AMO. I savour no sampsuchine in it.

PER. I am a Nulli-fidian, if there be not three-thirds of a scruple more of sampsuchinum in this confection, than ever I put in any. I'll tell you all the ingredients, sir.

AMO. You shall be simple to discover your simples.

PER. Simple! why, sir? What reck I to whom I discover? I have it in musk, civet, amber, Phoenicobala.n.u.s, the decoction of turmerick, sesana, nard, spikenard, calamus odoratus, stacte, opobalsamum, amomum, storax, ladanum, aspalathum, opoponax, oenanthe. And what of all these now? what are you the better?

Tut, it is the sorting, and the dividing, and the mixing, and the tempering, and the searching, and the decocting, that makes the fumigation and the suffumigation.

AMO. Well, indue me with it.

PER. I will, sir.

HED. An excellent confection.

CRI. And most worthy a true voluptuary, Jove! what a coil these musk-worms take to purchase another's delight? for themselves, who bear the odours, have ever the least sense of them. Yet I do like better the prodigality of jewels and clothes, whereof one pa.s.seth to a man's heirs; the other at least wears out time. This presently expires, and, without continual riot in reparation, is lost: which whoso strives to keep, it is one special argument to me, that, affecting to smell better than other men, he doth indeed smell far worse.

MER. I know you will say, it sits well, sir.

TAI. Good faith, if it do not, sir, let your mistress be judge.

MER. By heaven, if my mistress do not like it, I'll make no more conscience to undo thee, than to undo an oyster.

TAI. Believe it, there's ne'er a mistress in the world can mislike it.

MER. No, not goodwife tailor, your mistress; that has only the judgment to heat your pressing-tool. But for a court-mistress that studies these decorums, and knows the proportion of every cut to a hair, knows why such a colour is cut upon such a colour, and when a satin is cut upon six taffataes, will look that we should dive into the depth of the cut--Give me my scarf. Shew some ribands, sirrah. Have you the feather?

FEAT. Ay, sir.

MER. Have you the jewel?

JEW. Yes, sir.

MER. What must I give for the hire on't?