A Select Collection of Old English Plays Part 97

WID. Fie, captain, I am ashamed to hear you talk thus: marry, and then you'll have a better opinion of women.

CAPT. Marry! yes, this knowledge will invite me: it is a good encouragement, is it not, think you? What is your opinion? Were not these marriages made in heaven? By this good day, all the world is mad, and makes haste to be fooled, but we four: and I hope there's none of us believes there has any marriages been made in heaven since Adam.

JOLLY. By my faith, 'tis thought the devil gave the ring there too.

WID. Nephew, I'll swear I'll be gone.

CAPT. Hold her, Ned [_He points at_ SAD], she goes not yet; there's a fourth kind of women that concerns her more than all the rest--_ecce signum_! She is one of those who, clothed in purple, triumph over their dead husbands; these will be catched at first sight, and at first sight must be caught. 'Tis a bird that must be shot flying, for they never sit. If a man delay, they cool, and fall into considerations of jointure and friends'

opinion; in which time, if she hears thou keep'st a wench, thou hadst better be a beggar in her opinion; for then her pride, it may be, would betray her to the vanity of setting up a proper man (as they call it); but for a wencher no argument prevails with your widow; for she believes they have spent too much that way to be able to pay her due benevolence.

WID. As I live, I'll be gone, if you speak one word more of this uncivil subject.

JOLLY. Captain, let me kiss thy cheek for that, widow. You understand this, widow? I say no more. Here, captain, here's to thee! As it goes down, a pox of care!

WID. Jesus! Master Jolly, have you no observations of the court, that are so affected with this of the town.

CON. Faith, they say, there's good sport there sometimes.

PLEA. Master Jolly is afraid to let us partake of his knowledge.

JOLLY. No, faith, madam.

CAPT. By this drink, if he stay till I have eaten a few more, I'll describe it.

JOLLY. What should I say? 'Tis certain the court is the bravest place in the kingdom for sport, if it were well looked to, and the game preserved fair; but, as 'tis, a man may sooner make a set in the Strand; and it will never be better whilst your divine lovers[225] inhabit there.

CARE. Let the king make me master of the game.[226]

CAPT. And admit us laity-lovers.

JOLLY. I would he would; for, as 'tis, there's no hopes amongst the ladies: besides, 'tis such an example to see a king and queen good husband and wife, that to be kind will grow out of fas.h.i.+on.

CAPT. Nay, that's not all; for the women grow malicious because they are not courted: nay, they bred all the last mischiefs, and called the king's chast.i.ty a neglect of them.

JOLLY. Thou art in the right. An Edward or a Harry, with seven queens in buckram, that haught[227] among the men, and stroked the women, are the monarchs they wish to bow to; they love no tame princes, but lions in the forest!

CAPT. Why, and those were properly called the fathers of their people, that were indeed akin to their n.o.bility: now they wear out their youth and beauty, without hope of a monumental ballad, or trophy of a libel that shall hereafter point at such a lord, and cry, that is the royal son of such a one!

JOLLY. And these were the ways that made them powerful at home: for the city is a kind of tame beast; you may lead her by the horns any whither, if you but tickle them in the ear sometimes.

Queen Bess, of famous memory, had the trick on't; and I have heard them say, in eighty-eight, ere I was born, as well as I can remember, she rode to Tilbury on that bonny beast, the mayor.

CAPT. I would I might counsel him, I'd so reform the court.

CARE. Never too soon; for now, when a stranger comes in, and spies a covey of beauties would make a falconer unhood, before he can draw his leash, he is warned that's a marked partridge; and that and every he has by their example a particular she.

WILD. By this light, the six fair maids stand like the working-days in the almanac; one with A scored upon her breast, that is as much as to say, I belong to such a lord; the next with B, for an elder brother; C, for such a knight; D, possessed with melancholy, and at her breast you may knock an hour ere you get an answer, and then she'll tell you there's no lodging there; she has a constant fellow-courtier that has taken up all her heart to his own use: in short, all are disposed of but the good mother, and she comes in like the Sabbath at the week's end; and I warrant her to make any one rest that comes at her.

CARE. Ay, marry, if she were like the Jews' Sabbath, it were somewhat; but this looks like a broken commandment, that has had more work done upon her than all the week besides.

CAPT. And what think you--is not this finely carried? you, that are about the king, counsel him, if he will have his sport fair, he must let the game be free, as it has been in former ages. Then a stranger that has wit, good means, and handsome clothes, no sooner enters the privy chamber, and beats about with three graceful legs,[228] but he springs a mistress that danced as well as he, sung better: as free as fair. Those at first sight could speak, for wit is always acquainted: these fools must be akin, ere they can speak. And now friends make the bargain, and they go to bed, ere they know why.

JOLLY. Faith, he's in the right: you shall have a buzzard now hover and beat after a pretty wench, till she is so weary of him she's forced to take her bed for covert, and find less danger in being trussed than in flying.

CAPT. And what becomes of all this pudder?[229] after he has made them sport for one night, to see him touze the quarry, he carries her into the country; and there they two fly at one another till they are weary.

CARE. And all this mischief comes of love and constancy. We shall never see better days till there be an act of parliament against it, enjoining husbands not to till their wives, but change and lay them fallow.

JOLLY. A pox, the women will never consent to it: they'll be tilled to death first.

WILD. Gentlemen, you are very bold with the s.e.x.

CAPT. Faith, madam, it is our care of them. Why, you see they are married at fourteen, yield a crop and a half, and then die: 'tis merely their love that destroys 'em; for if they get a good husbandman, the poor things yield their very hearts.

PLEA. And do you blame their loves, gentlemen?

JOLLY. No, not their love, but their discretion; let them love, and do, a G.o.d's name, but let them do with discretion.

WILD. But how will you amend this?

JOLLY. Instead of two beds and a physician, I'd have the state prescribe two wives and a mistress.

WILD. Ho! it will never be granted: the state is made up of old men, and they find work enough with one.

JOLLY. We will pet.i.tion the lower house; there are young men, and (if it were but to be factious) would pa.s.s it, if they thought the upper house would cross it; besides, they ought to do it.

Death! they provide against cutting down old trees, and preserving highways and post-horses, and let pretty wenches run to decay.

CARE. Why may it not come within the statute of depopulation? As I live, the state ought to take care of those pretty creatures.

Be you judge, madam: is't not a sad sight to see a rich young beauty, with all her innocence and blossoms on, subject to some rough rude fellow, that ploughs her, and esteems and uses her as a chattel, till she is so lean, a man may find as good gra.s.s upon the common, where it may be she'll sit coughing with sunk eyes, so weak that a boy (with a dog) that can but whistle, may keep a score of them?

WID. You are strangely charitable to our s.e.x on a sudden!

CAPT. I know not what they are; but, for my part, I'll be a traitor, ere I'll look on and see beauty go thus to wreck. It is enough custom has made us suffer them to be enclosed. I am sure they were created common, and for the use of man, and not intended to be subject to jealousy and choler, or to be bought or sold, or let for term of lives or years, as they are now, or else sold at outcries:[230] _Oh yes! who'll give most, take her._

WID. Why do not some of you excellent men marry, and mend all these errors by your good example?

JOLLY. Because we want fortunes to buy rich wives or keep poor ones, and be loth to get beggars or wh.o.r.es, as well as I love 'em.

PLEA. Why, are all their children so that have no fortune, think you?

JOLLY. No, not all: I have heard of Whittington and his Cat,[231]

and others, that have made fortunes by strange means, but I scarce believe my son would rise from _Hop, a halfpenny and a lamb's-skin_;[232] and the wenches, commonly having more wit and beauty than money, foreseeing small portions, grow sad and read romances, till their wit spy some unfortunate merit like their own, without money too; and they two sigh after one another till they grow mysterious in colours, and become a proverb for their constancy: and when their love has worn out the cause, marry in the end a new couple; then, grown ashamed of the knowledge they so long hunted, at length part by consent, and vanish into Abigail and governor.

WID. Well, gentlemen, excuse me for this one time; and if ever I invite you to dinner again, punish me with such another discourse. In the meantime, let's go in and dine; meat stays for us.

CAPT.[233] Faith, madam, we were resolved to be merry: we have not met these three years till to-day, and at the Bear we meant to have dined; and since your ladys.h.i.+p would have our company, you must pardon our humour. Here, Master[234] Sad, here's the widow's health to you.

[_Exeunt omnes._