A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xiv Part 99

JOLLY. When did he oversee his drinking so?

CAPT. Gentlemen, still it is my fortune to make your wors.h.i.+ps merry.

WILD. As I live, captain, I subscribe, and am content to hold my wit as a tenant to thee; and to-night I'll invite you to supper, where it shall not be lawful to speak till thou hast victualled thy man-of-war.

CAPT. Shall's be merry? What shall we have?

WILD. Half a score dishes of meat; choose them yourself.

CAPT. Provide me then the chines fried, and the salmon calvered, a carp and black sauce, red deer in the blood, and an a.s.sembly of woodc.o.c.ks and jacksnipes, so fat you would think they had their winding-sheets on; and upon these, as their pages, let me have wait your Suss.e.x wheatear, with a feather in his cap; over all which let our countryman, General Chine of beef, command. I hate your French pottage, that looks as the cook-maid had more hand in it than the cook.

WILD. I'll promise you all this.

CARE. And let me alone to cook the fish.

CAPT. You cook it! no, no, I left an honest fellow in town, when I went into Italy, Signor Ricardo Ligones, one of the ancient house of the Armenian amba.s.sadors; if he be alive, he shall be our cook.

WILD. Is he excellent at it?

CAPT. Excellent! you shall try, you shall try. Why, I tell you, I saw him once dress a shoeing-horn and a joiner's ap.r.o.n, that the company left pheasant for it.

WILD. A shoeing-horn!

CAPT. Yes, a shoeing-horn. Marry, there was garlic in the sauce.

WILD. Is this all you would have?

CAPT. This, and a bird of paradise, to entertain the rest of the night, and let me alone to cook her.

WILD. A bird of paradise! What's that?

CAPT. A girl of fifteen, smooth as satin, white as her Sunday ap.r.o.n, plump, and of the first down. I'll take her with her guts in her belly, and warm her with a country-dance or two, then pluck her, and lay her dry betwixt a couple of sheets; there pour into her so much oil of wit as will make her turn to a man, and stick into her heart three corns of whole love, to make her taste of what she is doing; then, having strewed a man all over her, shut the door and leave us, we'll work ourselves into such a sauce as you can never surfeit on, so poignant, and yet no haut got.[238] Take heed of a haut got:[239] your onion and woman make the worst sauce. This shook together by an English cook (for your French seasoning spoils many a woman), and there's a dish for a king.

WILD. For the first part I'll undertake, Captain.

CAPT. But this for supper. No more of this now; this afternoon, as you are true to the petticoat, observe your instructions, and meet at Ned's house in the evening.

OMNES. We will not fail.

CAPT. I must write to Wanton, to know how things stand at home, and to acquaint her how we have thrived with the old lady to-day.

WILD. Whither will you go to write?

CAPT. To thy house, 'tis hard by; there's the Fleece.

JOLLY. Do; and in the meantime I'll go home and despatch a little business, and meet you.

WILD. Make haste, then.

JOLLY. Where shall I meet you?

WILD. Whither shall we go, till it be time to attend the design?

CARE. Let's go to court for an hour.

JOLLY. Do: I'll meet you at the queen's side.

WILD. No, prythee, we are the monsieurs new come over; and if we go fine, they will laugh at us, and think we believe ourselves so: if not, then they will abuse our clothes, and swear we went into France only to have our cloaks cut shorter.

CARE. Will you go see a play?

CAPT. Do, and thither I'll come to you, if it be none of our gentlemen poets, that excuse their writings with a prologue that professes they are no scholars.

JOLLY. On my word, this is held the best penned of the time, and he has writ a very good play: by this day, it was extremely applauded.

CAPT. Does he write plays by the day? Indeed, a man would ha'

judged him a labouring poet.

JOLLY. A labouring poet! By this hand, he's a knight. Upon my recommendation, venture to see it; hang me if you be not extremely well satisfied.

CARE. A knight, and writes plays! It may be, but 'tis strange to us; so they say there are other gentlemen poets without land or Latin; this was not ordinary; prythee, when was he knighted?

JOLLY. In the north, the last great knighting, when 'twas G.o.d's great mercy we were not all knights.

WILD. I'll swear they say, there are poets that have more men in liveries than books in their studies.

CAPT. And what think you, gentlemen, are not these things to start a man? I believe 'tis the first time you have found them lie at the sign of the page, footmen, and gilded coaches. They were wont to lodge at the thin cloak; they and their muses made up the family, and thence sent scenes to their patrons, like boys in at windows; and one would return with a doublet, another with a pair of breeches, a third with a little ready money, which, together with their credit with a company, in three terms you rarely saw a poet repaired.

JOLLY. This truth n.o.body denies.

WILD. Prythee, let us resolve what we shall do, lest we meet with some of them; for it seems they swarm, and I fear nothing like a dedication, though it be but of himself; for I must hear him say more than either I deserve or he believes. I hate that in a poet; they must be dull, or all upon all subjects; so that they can oblige none but their muse.

JOLLY. I perceive by this you will not see the play. What think you of going to Sim's[240] to bowls, till I come?

CARE. Yes, if you will go to see that comedy. But there is no reason we should pay for our coming in, and act too, like some whose interest in the timber robs them of their reason, and they run as if they had stolen a bias.[241]

WILD. Resolve what you will do; I am contented.

CARE. Let's go walk in Spring Garden.

WILD. I'll do it for company; but I had as lief be rid in the horse-market as walk in that fool's fair, where neither wit nor money is, nor sure to take up a wench. There's none but honest women.

CAPT. A pox on't, what should we do there? Let's go and cross the field to Pike's; her kitchen is cool, winter and summer.

CARE. I like that motion well; but we have no time, and I hate to do that business by half. After supper, if you will, we'll go and make a night on't.

CAPT. Well, I must go write: therefore resolve of somewhat. Shall I propose an indifferent place, where 'tis probable we shall all meet?

OMNES. Yes.