ACT ISCENE I.—A Room inLITTLEWIT’SHouse.EnterLITTLEWITwith a license in his hand.Lit.A pretty conceit, and worth the finding! I have such luck to spin out these fine things still, and, like a silk-worm, out of my self. Here’s master Bartholomew Cokes, of Harrow o’ the Hill, in the county of Middlesex, esquire, takes forth his license to marry mistress Grace Wellborn, of the said place and county: and when does he take it forth? to-day! the four and twentieth of August! Bartholomew-day! Bartholomew upon Bartholomew! there’s the device! who would have marked such a leap-frog chance now! A very . . . less than ames-ace, on two dice! Well, go thy ways, John Littlewit, proctor John Littlewit: one of the pretty wits of Paul’s, the Littlewit of London, so thou art called, and something beside. When a quirk or a quiblin does ’scape thee, and thou dost not watch and apprehend it, and bring it afore the constable of conceit, (there now, I speak quib too,) let them carry thee out o’ the archdeacon’s court into his kitchen, and make a Jack of thee, instead of a John. There I am again la!—EnterMrs. LITTLEWIT.Win, good-morrow, Win; ay, marry, Win, now you look finely indeed, Win! this cap does convince! You’d not have worn it, Win, nor have had it velvet, but a rough country beaver, with a copper band, like the coney-skin woman of Budge-row; sweet Win, let me kiss it! And her fine high shoes, like the Spanish lady! Good Win, go a little, I would fain see thee pace, pretty Win; by this fine cap, I could never leave kissing on’t.Mrs. Lit.Come indeed la, you are such a fool still!Lit.No, but half a one, Win, you are the t’other half: man and wife make one fool, Win. Good! Is there the proctor, or doctor indeed, in the diocese, that ever had the fortune to win him such a Win! There I am again! I do feel conceits coming upon me, more than I am able to turn tongue to. A pox o’ these pretenders to wit! your Three Cranes, Mitre and Mermaid men! not a corn of true salt, not a grain of right mustard amongst them all. They may stand for places, or so, again the next wit-fall, and pay two-pence in a quart more for their canary than other men. But give me the man can start up a justice of wit out of six shillings beer, and give the law to all the poets and poet-suckers in town:—because they are the player’s gossips! ’Slid! other men have wives as fine as the players, and as well drest. Come hither, Win![Kisses her.EnterWINWIFE.Winw.Why, how now, master Littlewit! measuring of lips, or moulding of kisses? which is it?Lit.Troth, I am a little taken with my Win’s dressing here: does it not fine, master Winwife? How do you apprehend, sir? she would not have worn this habit. I challenge all Cheapside to shew such another: Moorfields, Pimlico-path, or the Exchange, in a summer evening, with a lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let master Winwife kiss you. He comes a wooing to our mother, Win, and may be our father perhaps, Win. There’s no harm in him, Win.Winw.None in the earth, master Littlewit.[Kisses her.Lit.I envy no man my delicates, sir.Winw.Alas, you have the garden where they grow still! A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head, like a melicotton.Lit.Good, i’faith! now dulness upon me, that I had not that before him, that I should not light on’t as well as he! velvet head!Winw.But my taste, master Littlewit, tends to fruit of a later kind; the sober matron, your wife’s mother.Lit.Ay, we know you are a suitor, sir; Win and I both wish you well: By this license here, would you had her, that your two names were as fast in it as here are a couple! Win would fain have a fine young father-i’-law, with a feather; that her mother might hood it and chain it with mistress Overdo. But you do not take the right course, master Winwife.Winw.No, master Littlewit, why?Lit.You are not mad enough.Winw.How! is madness a right course?Lit.I say nothing, but I wink upon Win. You have a friend, one master Quarlous, comes here sometimes.Winw.Why, he makes no love to her, does he?Lit.Not a tokenworth that ever I saw, I assure you: but—Winw.What?Lit.He is the more mad-cap of the two. You do not apprehend me.Mrs. Lit.You have a hot coal in your mouth, now, you cannot hold.Lit.Let me out with it, dear Win.Mrs. Lit.I’ll tell him myself.Lit.Do, and take all the thanks, and much good do thy pretty heart, Win.Mrs. Lit.Sir, my mother has had her nativity-water cast lately by the cunning-men in Cow-lane, and they have told her her fortune, and do ensure her, she shall never have happy hour, unless she marry within this sen’night; and when it is, it must be a madman, they say.Lit.Ay, but it must be a gentleman madman.Mrs. Lit.Yes, so the t’other man of Moorfields says.Winw.But does she believe them?Lit.Yes, and has been at Bedlam twice since every day, to inquire if any gentleman be there, or to come there mad.Winw.Why, this is a confederacy, a mere piece of practice upon her by these impostors.Lit.I tell her so; or else, say I, that they mean some young madcap gentleman; for the devil can equivocate as well as a shop keeper: and therefore would I advise you to be a little madder than master Quarlous hereafter.Winw.Where is she, stirring yet?Lit.Stirring! yes, and studying an old elder come from Banbury, a suitor that puts in here at meal tide, to praise the painful brethren, or pray that the sweet singers may be restored; says a grace as long as his breath lasts him! Some time the spirit is so strong with him, it gets quite out of him, and then my mother, or Win, are fain to fetch it again with malmsey or aqua cœlestis.Mrs. Lit.Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious life with him for his diet, and his clothes too! he breaks his buttons, and cracks seams at every saying he sobs out.Lit.He cannot abide my vocation, he says.Mrs. Lit.No; he told my mother, a proctor was a claw of the beast, and that she had little less than committed abomination in marrying me so as she has done.Lit.Every line, he says, that a proctor writes, when it comes to be read in the bishop’s court, is a long black hair, kemb’d out of the tail of Antichrist.Winw.When came this proselyte?Lit.Some three days since.EnterQUARLOUS.Quar.O sir, have you ta’en soil here? It’s well a man may reach you after three hours’ running yet! What an unmerciful companion art thou, to quit thy lodging at such ungentlemanly hours! none but a scattered covey of fidlers, or one of these rag-rakers in dunghills, or some marrow-bone man at most, would have been up when thou wert gone abroad, by all description. I pray thee what ailest thou, thou canst not sleep? hast thou thorns in thy eye-lids, or thistles in thy bed?Winw.I cannot tell: it seems you had neither in your feet, that took this pain to find me.Quar.No, an I had, all the lime hounds o’ the city should have drawn after you by the scent rather. Master John Littlewit! God save you, sir. ’Twas a hot night with some of us, last night, John: shall we pluck a hair of the same wolf to-day, proctor John?Lit.Do you remember, master Quarlous, what we discoursed on last night?Quar.Not I, John, nothing that I either discourse or do; at those times I forfeit all to forgetfulness.Lit.No! not concerning Win? look you, there she is, and drest, as I told you she should be: hark you, sir, [whispers him.] had you forgot?Quar.By this head I’ll beware how I keep you company, John,when I [am] drunk, an you have this dangerous memory: that’s certain.Lit.Why, sir?Quar.Why! we were all a little stained last night, sprinkled with a cup or two, and I agreed with proctor John here, to come and do somewhat with Win (I know not what ’twas) to-day; and he puts me in mind on’t now; he says he was coming to fetch me. Before truth, if you have that fearful quality, John, to remember when you are sober, John, what you promise drunk, John; I shall take heed of you, John. For this once I am content to wink at you. Where’s your wife? come hither, Win.[Kisses her.Mrs. Lit.Why, John! do you see this, John? look you! help me, John.Lit.O Win, fie, what do you mean, Win? be womanly, Win; make an outcry to your mother, Win! master Quarlous is an honest gentleman, and our worshipful good friend, Win; and he is master Winwife’s friend too: and master Winwife comes a suitor to your mother, Win; as I told you before, Win, and may perhaps be our father, Win: they’ll do you no harm, Win; they are both our worshipful good friends. Master Quarlous! you must know master Quarlous, Win; you must not quarrel with master Quarlous, Win.Quar.No, we’ll kiss again, and fall in.[Kisses her again.Lit.Yes, do, good Win.Mrs. Lit.In faith you are a fool, John.Lit.A fool-John, she calls me; do you mark that, gentlemen? pretty Littlewit of velvet? a fool-John.Quar.She may call you an apple-John, if you use this. [Aside.[Kisses her again.Winw.Pray thee forbear, for my respect, somewhat.Quar.Hoy-day! how respective you are become o’ the sudden? I fear this family will turn you reformed too; pray you come about again. Because she is in possibility to be your daughter-in-law, and may ask you blessing hereafter, when she courts it to Totenham to eat cream! Well, I will forbear, sir; but i’faith, would thou wouldst leave thy exercise of widow-hunting once; this drawing after an old reverend smock by the splay-foot! There cannot be an ancient tripe or trillibub in the town, but thou art straight nosing it, and ’tis a fine occupation thou’lt confine thyself to, when thou hast got one; scrubbing a piece of buff, as if thou hadst the perpetuity of Pannier-ally to stink in; or perhaps worse, currying a carcass that thou hast bound thyself to alive. I’ll be sworn, some of them that thou art, or hast been suitor to, are so old, as no chaste or married pleasure can ever become them; the honest instrument of procreation has forty years since left to belong to them; thou must visit them as thou wouldst do a tomb, with a torch or three handfuls of link, flaming hot, and so thou may’st hap to make them feel thee and after come to inherit according to thy inches. A sweet course for a man to waste the brand of life for, to be still raking himself a fortune in an old woman’s embers! We shall havethee, after thou hast been but a month married to one of them, look like the quartan ague and the black jaundice met in a face, and walk as if thou hadst borrow’d legs of a spinner, and voice of a cricket. I would endure to hear fifteen sermons a week for her, and such coarse and loud ones, as some of them must be! I would e’en desire of fate, I might dwell in a drum, and take in my sustenance with an old broken tobacco-pipe and a straw. Dost thou ever think to bring thine ears or stomach to the patience of a dry grace as long as thy table-cloth; and droned out by thy son here (that might be thy father) till all the meat on thy board has forgot it was that day in the kitchen? or to brook the noise made in a question of predestination, by the good labourers and painful eaters assembled together, put to them by the matron your spouse; who moderates with a cup of wine, ever and anon, and a sentence out of Knox between? Or the perpetual spitting before and after a sober-drawn exhortation of six hours, whose better part was the hum-ha-hum? or to hear prayers, groaned out over thy iron chests, as if they were charms to break them? And all this for the hope of two apostle-spoons, to suffer! and a cup to eat a caudle in! for that will be thy legacy. She’ll have convey’d her state safe enough from thee, an she be a right widow.Winw.Alas, I am quite off that scent now.Quar.How so?Winw.Put off by a brother of Banbury, one that, they say, is come here, and governs all already.Quar.What do you call him? I knew divers of those Banburians when I was in Oxford.Winw.Master Littlewit can tell us.Lit.Sir!—Good Win go in, and if master Bartholomew Cokes, his man, come for the license, (the little old fellow,) let him speak with me. [Exit Mrs. Littlewit.]—What say you, gentlemen?Winw.What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury man?Lit.Rabbi Busy, sir; he is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir.Quar.O, I know him! a baker, is he not?Lit.He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see visions; he has given over his trade.Quar.I remember that too; out of a scruple he took, that, in spiced conscience, those cakes he made, were served to bridals, may-poles, morrices, and such profane feasts and meetings. His christian-name is Zeal-of-the-land.Lit.Yes, sir; Zeal-of-the-land Busy.Winw.How! what a name’s there!Lit.O they have all such names, sir; he was witness for Win here,—they will not be call’d godfathers—and named her Win-the-fight: you thought her name had been Winnifred, did you not?Winw.I did indeed.Lit.He would have thought himself a stark reprobate, if it had.Quar.Ay, for there was a blue-starch woman of the name at the same time. A notable hypocritical vermin it is; I know him. One that stands upon his face, more than his faith, at all times: ever in seditious motion, and reproving for vainglory; of a most lunatic conscience and spleen, and affects the violence of singularity in all he does: he has undone a grocer here, in Newgate-market, that broke with him, trusted him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he, that’s by the way:—By his profession he will ever be in the state of innocence though, and childhood; derides all antiquity, defies any other learning than inspiration; and what discretion soever years should afford him, it is all prevented in his original ignorance: have not to do with him, for he is a fellow of a most arrogant and invincible dulness, I assure you.—Who is this?Re-enterMrs. LITTLEWITwithWASPE.Waspe.By your leave, gentlemen, with all my heart to you; and God give you good morrow!—master Littlewit, my business is to you: is this license ready?Lit.Here I have it for you in my hand, master Humphrey.Waspe.That’s well: nay, never open or read it to me, it’s labour in vain, you know. I am no clerk, I scorn to be saved by my book, i’faith, I’ll hang first; fold it up on your word, and give it me. What must you have for it?Lit.We’ll talk of that anon, master Humphrey.Waspe.Now, or not at all, good master Proctor; I am for no anons, I assure you.Lit.Sweet Win, bid Solomon send me the little black-box within in my study.Waspe.Ay, quickly, good mistress, I pray you; for I have both eggs on the spit, and iron in the fire. [Exit Mrs. Littlewit.]—Say what you must have, good master Littlewit.Lit.Why, you know the price, master Numps.Waspe.I know! I know nothing, I: what tell you me of knowing? Now I am in haste, sir, I do not know, and I will not know, and I scorn to know, and yet, now I think on’t, I will, and do know as well as another; you must have a mark for your thing here, and eight-pence for the box; I could have saved two-pence in that, an I had brought it myself; but here’s fourteen shillings for you. Good Lord, how long your little wife stays! pray God, Solomon, your clerk, be not looking in the wrong box, master proctor.Lit.Good i’faith! no, I warrant you Solomon is wiser than so, sir.Waspe.Fie, fie, fie, by your leave, master Littlewit, this is scurvy, idle, foolish, and abominable, with all my heart; I do not like it.[Walks aside.Winw.Do you hear! Jack Littlewit, what business does thy pretty head think this fellow may have, that he keeps such a coil with?Quar.More than buying of gingerbread in the cloister here, for that we allow him, or a gilt pouch in the fair?Lit.Master Quarlous, do not mistake him; he is his master’s both-hands, I assure you.Quar.What! to pull on his boots a mornings, or his stockings, does he?Lit.Sir, if you have a mind to mock him, mock him softly, and look t’other way: for if he apprehend you flout him once, he will fly at you presently. A terrible testy old fellow, and his name is Waspe too.Quar.Pretty insect! make much on him.Waspe.A plague o’ this box, and the pox too, and on him that made it, and her that went for’t, and all that should have sought it, sent it, or brought it! do you see, sir.Lit.Nay, good master Waspe.Waspe.Good master Hornet, turd in your teeth, hold you your tongue: do not I know you? your father was a ’pothecary, and sold clysters, more than he gave, I wusse: and turd in your little wife’s teeth too—here she comes—Re-enterMrs. LITTLEWIT,with the box.’twill make her spit, as fine as she is, for all her velvet custard on her head, sir.Lit.O, be civil, master Numps.Waspe.Why, say I have a humour not to be civil; how then? who shall compel me, you?Lit.Here is the box now.Waspe.Why, a pox o’ your box, once again! let your little wife stale in it, an she will. Sir, I would have you to understand, and these gentlemen too, if they please—Winw.With all our hearts, sir.Waspe.That I have a charge, gentlemen.Lit.They do apprehend, sir.Waspe.Pardon me, sir, neither they nor you can apprehend me yet. You are an ass.—I have a young master, he is now upon his making and marring; the whole care of his well-doing is now mine. His foolish schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and down the county with him to beg puddings and cake-bread of his tenants, and almost spoil’d him; he has learn’d nothing but to sing catches, and repeatRattle bladder, rattle!andO Madge!I dare not let him walk alone, for fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing at supper, and in the sermon-times! If he meet but a carman in the street, and I find him not talk to keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his tunes over at night in his sleep! He has a head full of bees! I am fain now, for this little time I am absent, to leave him in charge with a gentlewoman: ’tis true she is a justice of peace his wife, and a gentlewoman of the hood, and his natural sister; but what may happen under a woman’s government, there’s the doubt. Gentlemen, you do not know him; he is another manner of piece than you think for: but nineteen years old, and yet he is taller than either of you by the head, God bless him!Quar.Well, methinks this is a fine fellow.Winw.He has made his master a finer by this description, I should think.Quar.’Faith, much about one, it is cross and pile, whether for a new farthing.Waspe.I’ll tell you, gentlemen—Lit.Will’t please you drink, master Waspe?Waspe.Why, I have not talk’d so long to be dry, sir. You see no dust or cobwebs come out o’ my mouth, do you? you’d have me gone, would you?Lit.No, but you were in haste e’en now, master Numps.Waspe.What an I were! so I am still, and yet I will stay too; meddle you with your match, your Win there, she has as little wit as her husband, it seems: I have others to talk to.Lit.She’s my match indeed, and aslittle witas I, good!Waspe.We have been but a day and a half in town, gentlemen, ’tis true; and yesterday in the afternoon we walked London to shew the city to the gentlewoman he shall marry, mistress Grace; but afore I will endure such another half day with him, I’ll be drawn with a good gib-cat, through the great pond at home, as his uncle Hodge was. Why, we could not meet that heathen thing all the day, but staid him; he would name you all the signs over, as he went, aloud: and where he spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched, with all the little long coats about him, male and female; no getting him away! I thought he would have run mad o’ the black boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the scurvy, roguy tobacco there.Lit.You say true, master Numps; there’s such a one indeed.Waspe.It’s no matter whether there be or no, what’s that to you?Quar.He will not allow of John’s reading at any hand.EnterCOKES, Mistress OVERDO,andGRACE.Cokes.O Numps! are you here, Numps? look where I am, Numps, and mistress Grace too! Nay, do not look angerly, Numps: my sister is here and all, I do not come without her.Waspe.What the mischief do you come with her; or she with you?Cokes.We came all to seek you, Numps.Waspe.To seek me! why, did you all think I was lost, or run away with your fourteen shillings’ worth of small ware here? or that I had changed it in the fair for hobby-horses? S’precious—to seek me!Mrs. Over.Nay, good master Numps, do you shew discretion, though he be exorbitant, as master Overdo says, and it be but for conservation of the peace.Waspe.Marry gip, goody She-justice, mistress Frenchhood! turd in your teeth, and turd in your Frenchhood’s teeth too, to do you service, do you see! Must you quote your Adam to me! you think you are madam Regent still, mistress Overdo, when I am in place;no such matter. I assure you, your reign is out, when I am in, dame.Mrs. Over.I am content to be in abeyance, sir, and be governed by you; so should he too, if he did well; but ’twill be expected you should also govern your passions.Waspe.Will it so, forsooth! good Lord, how sharp you are, with being at Bedlam yesterday! Whetstone has set an edge upon you, has he?Mrs. Over.Nay, if you know not what belongs to your dignity, I do yet to mine.Waspe.Very well then.Cokes.Is this the license, Numps? for love’s sake let me see’t; I never saw a license.Waspe.Did you not so? why, you shall not see’t then.Cokes.An you love me, good Numps.Waspe.Sir, I love you, and yet I do not love you in these fooleries: set your heart at rest, there’s nothing in it but hard words;—and what would you see it for?Cokes.I would see the length and the breadth on’t, that’s all; and I will see it now, so I will.Waspe.You shall not see it here.Cokes.Then I’ll see it at home, and I’ll look upon the case here.Waspe.Why, do so; a man must give way to him a little in trifles, gentlemen. These are errors, diseases of youth; which he will mend when he comes to judgment and knowledge of matters. I pray you conceive so, and I thank you: and I pray you pardon him, and I thank you again.Quar.Well, this dry nurse, I say still, is a delicate man.Winw.And I am, for the cosset his charge: did you ever see a fellow’s face more accuse him for an ass?Quar.Accuse him! it confesses him one without accusing. What pity ’tis yonder wench should marry such a Cokes!Winw.’Tis true.Quar.She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.Winw.Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon all his behaviour and speeches!Cokes.Well, Numps, I am now for another piece of business more, the Fair, Numps, and then—Waspe.Bless me! deliver me! help, hold me! the Fair!Cokes.Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am resolute Bartholomew in this; I’ll make no suit on’t to you; ’twas all the end of my journey indeed, to shew mistress Grace my Fair. I call it my Fair, because of Bartholomew: you know my name is Bartholomew, and Bartholomew Fair.Lit.That was mine afore, gentlemen; this morning. I had that, i’faith, upon his license, believe me, there he comes after me.Quar.Come, John, this ambitious wit of yours, I am afraid, will do you no good in the end.Lit.No! why, sir?Quar.You grow so insolent with it, and over-doing, John, that if you look not to it, and tie it up, it will bring you to some obscure place in time, and there ’twill leave you.Winw.Do not trust it too much, John, be more sparing, and use it but now and then; a wit is a dangerous thing in this age; do not over-buy it.Lit.Think you so, gentlemen? I’ll take heed on’t hereafter.Mrs. Lit.Yes, do, John.Cokes.A pretty little soul, this same mistress Littlewit, would I might marry her!Grace.So would I; or any body else, so I might ’scape you. [Aside.Cokes.Numps, I will see it, Numps, ’tis decreed: never be melancholy for the matter.Waspe.Why, see it, sir, see it, do, see it: who hinders you? why do you not go see it? ’slid see it.Cokes.The Fair, Numps, the Fair.Waspe.Would the Fair, and all the drums and rattles in it, were in your belly for me! they are already in your brain. He that had the means to travel your head now, should meet finer sights than any are in the Fair, and make a finer voyage on’t; to see it all hung with cockle shells, pebbles, fine wheat straws, and here and there a chicken’s feather, and a cobweb.Quar.Good faith, he looks, methinks, an you mark him, like one that were made to catch flies, with his sir Cranion-legs.Winw.And his Numps, to flap them away.Waspe.God be wi’ you, sir, there’s your bee in a box, and much good do’t you.[Gives Cokes the box.Cokes.Why, your friend, and Bartholomew; an you be so contumacious.Quar.What mean you, Numps?[Takes Waspe aside as he is going out.Waspe.I’ll not be guilty, I, gentlemen.Mrs. Over.You will not let him go, brother, and lose him?Cokes.Who can hold that will away? I had rather lose him than the Fair, I wusse.Waspe.You do not know the inconvenience, gentlemen, you persuade to, nor what trouble I have with him in these humours. If he go to the Fair, he will buy of every thing to a baby there; and household stuff for that too. If a leg or an arm on him did not grow on, he would lose it in the press. Pray heaven I bring him off with one stone! And then he is such a ravener after fruit!—you will not believe what a coil I had t’other day to compound a business between a Cather’nepear woman, and him, about snatching: ’tis intolerable, gentlemen.Winw.O, but you must not leave him now to these hazards, Numps.Waspe.Nay, he knows too well I will not leave him, and that makes him presume: Well, sir, will you go now? if you have suchan itch in your feet, to foot it to the Fair, why do you stop, am I [o’] your tarriers? go, will you go, sir? why do you not go?Cokes.O Numps, have I brought you about? come, mistress Grace, and sister, I am resolute Bat, i’faith, still.Grace.Truly, I have no such fancy to the Fair, nor ambition to see it: there’s none goes thither of any quality or fashion.Cokes.O Lord, sir! you shall pardon me, mistress Grace, we are enow of ourselves to make it a fashion; and for qualities, let Numps alone, he’ll find qualities.Quar.What a rogue in apprehension is this, to understand her language no better!Winw.Ay, and offer to marry her! Well, I will leave the chase of my widow for to-day, and directly to the Fair. These flies cannot, this hot season, but engender us excellent creeping sport.Quar.A man that has but a spoonful of brain would think so.—Farewell, John.[Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife.Lit.Win, you see ’tis in fashion to go to the Fair, Win; we must to the Fair too, you and I, Win. I have an affair in the Fair, Win, a puppet-play of mine own making, say nothing, that I writ for the motion-man, which you must see, Win.Mrs. Lit.I would I might, John; but my mother will never consent to such a profane motion, she will call it.Lit.Tut, we’ll have a device, a dainty one: Now, Wit, help at a pinch, good Wit, come, come, good Wit, an it be thy will! I have it, Win, I have it i’faith, and ’tis a fine one. Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair, do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pye-corner. Your mother will do any thing, Win, to satisfy your longing, you know; pray thee long presently; and be sick o’ the sudden, good Win. I’ll go in and tell her; cut thy lace in the mean time, and play the hypocrite, sweet Win.Mrs. Lit.No, I’ll not make me unready for it: I can be hypocrite enough, though I were never so strait-laced.Lit.You say true, you have been bred in the family, and brought up to’t. Our mother is a most elect hypocrite, and has maintained us all this seven year with it, like gentlefolks.Mrs. Lit.Ay, let her alone, John, she is not a wise wilful widow for nothing; nor a sanctified sister for a song. And let me alone too, I have somewhat of the mother in me, you shall see: fetch her, fetch her—[Exit Littlewit.] Ah! ah![Seems to swoon.Re-enterLITTLEWITwithDame PURECRAFT.Pure.Now, the blaze of the beauteous discipline, fright away this evil from our house! how now, Win-the-fight, child! how do you? sweet child, speak to me.Mrs. Lit.Yes, forsooth.Pure.Look up, sweet Win-the-fight, and suffer not the enemy to enter you at this door, remember that your education has been with the purest: What polluted one was it, that named first the unclean beast, pig, to you, child?Mrs. Lit.Uh, uh!Lit.Not I, on my sincerity, mother! she longed above three hours ere she would let me know it.—Who was it, Win?Mrs. Lit.A profane black thing with a beard, John.Pure.O, resist it, Win-the-fight, it is the tempter, the wicked tempter, you may know it by the fleshly motion of pig; be strong against it, and its foul temptations, in these assaults, whereby it broacheth flesh and blood, as it were on the weaker side; and pray against its carnal provocations; good child, sweet child, pray.Lit.Good mother, I pray you, that she may eat some pig, and her belly full too; and do not you cast away your own child, and perhaps one of mine, with your tale of the tempter. How do you do, Win, are you not sick?Mrs. Lit.Yes, a great deal, John, uh, uh!Pure.What shall we do? Call our zealous brother Busy hither, for his faithful fortification in this charge of the adversary. [Exit Littlewit.] Child, my dear child, you shall eat pig; be comforted, my sweet child.Mrs. Lit.Ay, but in the Fair, mother.Pure.I mean in the Fair, if it can be any way made or found lawful.—Re-enterLITTLEWIT.Where is our brother Busy? will he not come? Look up, child.Lit.Presently, mother, as soon as he has cleansed his beard. I found him fast by the teeth in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right.Pure.Slander not the brethren, wicked one.Lit.Here he is now, purified, mother.EnterZEAL-OF-THE-LANDBUSY.Pure.O brother Busy! your help here, to edify and raise us up in a scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease of women, called a longing to eat pig.Lit.Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig; and in the Fair.Pure.And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a widow of the sanctified assembly, or a widow’s daughter, may commit the act without offence to the weaker sisters.Busy.Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, or appetite, incident to women; and as it is carnal and incident, it is natural, very natural: now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is nourishing and may be longed for, and so consequently eaten; it may be eaten; very exceeding well eaten; but in the Fair, and as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten; for the very calling it a Bartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you make the Fair no better than one of the high-places. This, I take it, is the state of the question: a high-place.Lit.Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, master Busy. I have a conceit left yet.Pure.Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you can.Lit.Yes, sir, and as soon as you can; for it must be, sir: you see the danger my little wife is in, sir.Pure.Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her miscarry, or hazard her firstfruits, if it might be otherwise.Busy.Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction, subject, and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a foul face; but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shadowed as it were; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in a booth, the tents of the wicked: the place is not much, not very much, we may be religious in the midst of the profane, so it be eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness; not gorged in with gluttony or greediness, there’s the fear: for, should she go there, as taking pride in the place, or delight in the unclean dressing, to feed the vanity of the eye, or lust of the palate, it were not well, it were not fit, it were abominable, and not good.Lit.Nay, I knew that afore, and told her on’t; but courage, Win, we’ll be humble enough, we’ll seek out the homeliest booth in the Fair, that’s certain; rather than fail, we’ll eat it on the ground.Pure.Ay, and I’ll go with you myself, Win-the-fight, and my brother Zeal-of-the-land shall go with us too, for our better consolation.Mrs. Lit.Uh, uh!Lit.Ay, and Solomon too, Win, the more the merrier. Win, we’ll leave Rabbi Busy in a booth. [Aside to Mrs. Littlewit.]—Solomon! my cloak.EnterSOLOMONwith the cloak.Sol.Here, sir.Busy.In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy; there may be a good use made of it too, now I think on’t: by the public eating of swine’s flesh, to profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the brethren stand tax’d. I will therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly.Lit.Good, i’faith, I will eat heartily too, because I will be no Jew, I could never away with that stiff-necked generation: and truly, I hope my little one will be like me, that cries for pig so in the mother’s belly.Busy.Very likely, exceeding likely, very exceeding likely.[Exeunt.
SCENE I.—A Room inLITTLEWIT’SHouse.
EnterLITTLEWITwith a license in his hand.
Lit.A pretty conceit, and worth the finding! I have such luck to spin out these fine things still, and, like a silk-worm, out of my self. Here’s master Bartholomew Cokes, of Harrow o’ the Hill, in the county of Middlesex, esquire, takes forth his license to marry mistress Grace Wellborn, of the said place and county: and when does he take it forth? to-day! the four and twentieth of August! Bartholomew-day! Bartholomew upon Bartholomew! there’s the device! who would have marked such a leap-frog chance now! A very . . . less than ames-ace, on two dice! Well, go thy ways, John Littlewit, proctor John Littlewit: one of the pretty wits of Paul’s, the Littlewit of London, so thou art called, and something beside. When a quirk or a quiblin does ’scape thee, and thou dost not watch and apprehend it, and bring it afore the constable of conceit, (there now, I speak quib too,) let them carry thee out o’ the archdeacon’s court into his kitchen, and make a Jack of thee, instead of a John. There I am again la!—
EnterMrs. LITTLEWIT.
Win, good-morrow, Win; ay, marry, Win, now you look finely indeed, Win! this cap does convince! You’d not have worn it, Win, nor have had it velvet, but a rough country beaver, with a copper band, like the coney-skin woman of Budge-row; sweet Win, let me kiss it! And her fine high shoes, like the Spanish lady! Good Win, go a little, I would fain see thee pace, pretty Win; by this fine cap, I could never leave kissing on’t.
Mrs. Lit.Come indeed la, you are such a fool still!
Lit.No, but half a one, Win, you are the t’other half: man and wife make one fool, Win. Good! Is there the proctor, or doctor indeed, in the diocese, that ever had the fortune to win him such a Win! There I am again! I do feel conceits coming upon me, more than I am able to turn tongue to. A pox o’ these pretenders to wit! your Three Cranes, Mitre and Mermaid men! not a corn of true salt, not a grain of right mustard amongst them all. They may stand for places, or so, again the next wit-fall, and pay two-pence in a quart more for their canary than other men. But give me the man can start up a justice of wit out of six shillings beer, and give the law to all the poets and poet-suckers in town:—because they are the player’s gossips! ’Slid! other men have wives as fine as the players, and as well drest. Come hither, Win!
[Kisses her.
EnterWINWIFE.
Winw.Why, how now, master Littlewit! measuring of lips, or moulding of kisses? which is it?
Lit.Troth, I am a little taken with my Win’s dressing here: does it not fine, master Winwife? How do you apprehend, sir? she would not have worn this habit. I challenge all Cheapside to shew such another: Moorfields, Pimlico-path, or the Exchange, in a summer evening, with a lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let master Winwife kiss you. He comes a wooing to our mother, Win, and may be our father perhaps, Win. There’s no harm in him, Win.
Winw.None in the earth, master Littlewit.
[Kisses her.
Lit.I envy no man my delicates, sir.
Winw.Alas, you have the garden where they grow still! A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head, like a melicotton.
Lit.Good, i’faith! now dulness upon me, that I had not that before him, that I should not light on’t as well as he! velvet head!
Winw.But my taste, master Littlewit, tends to fruit of a later kind; the sober matron, your wife’s mother.
Lit.Ay, we know you are a suitor, sir; Win and I both wish you well: By this license here, would you had her, that your two names were as fast in it as here are a couple! Win would fain have a fine young father-i’-law, with a feather; that her mother might hood it and chain it with mistress Overdo. But you do not take the right course, master Winwife.
Winw.No, master Littlewit, why?
Lit.You are not mad enough.
Winw.How! is madness a right course?
Lit.I say nothing, but I wink upon Win. You have a friend, one master Quarlous, comes here sometimes.
Winw.Why, he makes no love to her, does he?
Lit.Not a tokenworth that ever I saw, I assure you: but—
Winw.What?
Lit.He is the more mad-cap of the two. You do not apprehend me.
Mrs. Lit.You have a hot coal in your mouth, now, you cannot hold.
Lit.Let me out with it, dear Win.
Mrs. Lit.I’ll tell him myself.
Lit.Do, and take all the thanks, and much good do thy pretty heart, Win.
Mrs. Lit.Sir, my mother has had her nativity-water cast lately by the cunning-men in Cow-lane, and they have told her her fortune, and do ensure her, she shall never have happy hour, unless she marry within this sen’night; and when it is, it must be a madman, they say.
Lit.Ay, but it must be a gentleman madman.
Mrs. Lit.Yes, so the t’other man of Moorfields says.
Winw.But does she believe them?
Lit.Yes, and has been at Bedlam twice since every day, to inquire if any gentleman be there, or to come there mad.
Winw.Why, this is a confederacy, a mere piece of practice upon her by these impostors.
Lit.I tell her so; or else, say I, that they mean some young madcap gentleman; for the devil can equivocate as well as a shop keeper: and therefore would I advise you to be a little madder than master Quarlous hereafter.
Winw.Where is she, stirring yet?
Lit.Stirring! yes, and studying an old elder come from Banbury, a suitor that puts in here at meal tide, to praise the painful brethren, or pray that the sweet singers may be restored; says a grace as long as his breath lasts him! Some time the spirit is so strong with him, it gets quite out of him, and then my mother, or Win, are fain to fetch it again with malmsey or aqua cœlestis.
Mrs. Lit.Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious life with him for his diet, and his clothes too! he breaks his buttons, and cracks seams at every saying he sobs out.
Lit.He cannot abide my vocation, he says.
Mrs. Lit.No; he told my mother, a proctor was a claw of the beast, and that she had little less than committed abomination in marrying me so as she has done.
Lit.Every line, he says, that a proctor writes, when it comes to be read in the bishop’s court, is a long black hair, kemb’d out of the tail of Antichrist.
Winw.When came this proselyte?
Lit.Some three days since.
EnterQUARLOUS.
Quar.O sir, have you ta’en soil here? It’s well a man may reach you after three hours’ running yet! What an unmerciful companion art thou, to quit thy lodging at such ungentlemanly hours! none but a scattered covey of fidlers, or one of these rag-rakers in dunghills, or some marrow-bone man at most, would have been up when thou wert gone abroad, by all description. I pray thee what ailest thou, thou canst not sleep? hast thou thorns in thy eye-lids, or thistles in thy bed?
Winw.I cannot tell: it seems you had neither in your feet, that took this pain to find me.
Quar.No, an I had, all the lime hounds o’ the city should have drawn after you by the scent rather. Master John Littlewit! God save you, sir. ’Twas a hot night with some of us, last night, John: shall we pluck a hair of the same wolf to-day, proctor John?
Lit.Do you remember, master Quarlous, what we discoursed on last night?
Quar.Not I, John, nothing that I either discourse or do; at those times I forfeit all to forgetfulness.
Lit.No! not concerning Win? look you, there she is, and drest, as I told you she should be: hark you, sir, [whispers him.] had you forgot?
Quar.By this head I’ll beware how I keep you company, John,when I [am] drunk, an you have this dangerous memory: that’s certain.
Lit.Why, sir?
Quar.Why! we were all a little stained last night, sprinkled with a cup or two, and I agreed with proctor John here, to come and do somewhat with Win (I know not what ’twas) to-day; and he puts me in mind on’t now; he says he was coming to fetch me. Before truth, if you have that fearful quality, John, to remember when you are sober, John, what you promise drunk, John; I shall take heed of you, John. For this once I am content to wink at you. Where’s your wife? come hither, Win.
[Kisses her.
Mrs. Lit.Why, John! do you see this, John? look you! help me, John.
Lit.O Win, fie, what do you mean, Win? be womanly, Win; make an outcry to your mother, Win! master Quarlous is an honest gentleman, and our worshipful good friend, Win; and he is master Winwife’s friend too: and master Winwife comes a suitor to your mother, Win; as I told you before, Win, and may perhaps be our father, Win: they’ll do you no harm, Win; they are both our worshipful good friends. Master Quarlous! you must know master Quarlous, Win; you must not quarrel with master Quarlous, Win.
Quar.No, we’ll kiss again, and fall in.
[Kisses her again.
Lit.Yes, do, good Win.
Mrs. Lit.In faith you are a fool, John.
Lit.A fool-John, she calls me; do you mark that, gentlemen? pretty Littlewit of velvet? a fool-John.
Quar.She may call you an apple-John, if you use this. [Aside.
[Kisses her again.
Winw.Pray thee forbear, for my respect, somewhat.
Quar.Hoy-day! how respective you are become o’ the sudden? I fear this family will turn you reformed too; pray you come about again. Because she is in possibility to be your daughter-in-law, and may ask you blessing hereafter, when she courts it to Totenham to eat cream! Well, I will forbear, sir; but i’faith, would thou wouldst leave thy exercise of widow-hunting once; this drawing after an old reverend smock by the splay-foot! There cannot be an ancient tripe or trillibub in the town, but thou art straight nosing it, and ’tis a fine occupation thou’lt confine thyself to, when thou hast got one; scrubbing a piece of buff, as if thou hadst the perpetuity of Pannier-ally to stink in; or perhaps worse, currying a carcass that thou hast bound thyself to alive. I’ll be sworn, some of them that thou art, or hast been suitor to, are so old, as no chaste or married pleasure can ever become them; the honest instrument of procreation has forty years since left to belong to them; thou must visit them as thou wouldst do a tomb, with a torch or three handfuls of link, flaming hot, and so thou may’st hap to make them feel thee and after come to inherit according to thy inches. A sweet course for a man to waste the brand of life for, to be still raking himself a fortune in an old woman’s embers! We shall havethee, after thou hast been but a month married to one of them, look like the quartan ague and the black jaundice met in a face, and walk as if thou hadst borrow’d legs of a spinner, and voice of a cricket. I would endure to hear fifteen sermons a week for her, and such coarse and loud ones, as some of them must be! I would e’en desire of fate, I might dwell in a drum, and take in my sustenance with an old broken tobacco-pipe and a straw. Dost thou ever think to bring thine ears or stomach to the patience of a dry grace as long as thy table-cloth; and droned out by thy son here (that might be thy father) till all the meat on thy board has forgot it was that day in the kitchen? or to brook the noise made in a question of predestination, by the good labourers and painful eaters assembled together, put to them by the matron your spouse; who moderates with a cup of wine, ever and anon, and a sentence out of Knox between? Or the perpetual spitting before and after a sober-drawn exhortation of six hours, whose better part was the hum-ha-hum? or to hear prayers, groaned out over thy iron chests, as if they were charms to break them? And all this for the hope of two apostle-spoons, to suffer! and a cup to eat a caudle in! for that will be thy legacy. She’ll have convey’d her state safe enough from thee, an she be a right widow.
Winw.Alas, I am quite off that scent now.
Quar.How so?
Winw.Put off by a brother of Banbury, one that, they say, is come here, and governs all already.
Quar.What do you call him? I knew divers of those Banburians when I was in Oxford.
Winw.Master Littlewit can tell us.
Lit.Sir!—Good Win go in, and if master Bartholomew Cokes, his man, come for the license, (the little old fellow,) let him speak with me. [Exit Mrs. Littlewit.]—What say you, gentlemen?
Winw.What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury man?
Lit.Rabbi Busy, sir; he is more than an elder, he is a prophet, sir.
Quar.O, I know him! a baker, is he not?
Lit.He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see visions; he has given over his trade.
Quar.I remember that too; out of a scruple he took, that, in spiced conscience, those cakes he made, were served to bridals, may-poles, morrices, and such profane feasts and meetings. His christian-name is Zeal-of-the-land.
Lit.Yes, sir; Zeal-of-the-land Busy.
Winw.How! what a name’s there!
Lit.O they have all such names, sir; he was witness for Win here,—they will not be call’d godfathers—and named her Win-the-fight: you thought her name had been Winnifred, did you not?
Winw.I did indeed.
Lit.He would have thought himself a stark reprobate, if it had.
Quar.Ay, for there was a blue-starch woman of the name at the same time. A notable hypocritical vermin it is; I know him. One that stands upon his face, more than his faith, at all times: ever in seditious motion, and reproving for vainglory; of a most lunatic conscience and spleen, and affects the violence of singularity in all he does: he has undone a grocer here, in Newgate-market, that broke with him, trusted him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he, that’s by the way:—By his profession he will ever be in the state of innocence though, and childhood; derides all antiquity, defies any other learning than inspiration; and what discretion soever years should afford him, it is all prevented in his original ignorance: have not to do with him, for he is a fellow of a most arrogant and invincible dulness, I assure you.—Who is this?
Re-enterMrs. LITTLEWITwithWASPE.
Waspe.By your leave, gentlemen, with all my heart to you; and God give you good morrow!—master Littlewit, my business is to you: is this license ready?
Lit.Here I have it for you in my hand, master Humphrey.
Waspe.That’s well: nay, never open or read it to me, it’s labour in vain, you know. I am no clerk, I scorn to be saved by my book, i’faith, I’ll hang first; fold it up on your word, and give it me. What must you have for it?
Lit.We’ll talk of that anon, master Humphrey.
Waspe.Now, or not at all, good master Proctor; I am for no anons, I assure you.
Lit.Sweet Win, bid Solomon send me the little black-box within in my study.
Waspe.Ay, quickly, good mistress, I pray you; for I have both eggs on the spit, and iron in the fire. [Exit Mrs. Littlewit.]—Say what you must have, good master Littlewit.
Lit.Why, you know the price, master Numps.
Waspe.I know! I know nothing, I: what tell you me of knowing? Now I am in haste, sir, I do not know, and I will not know, and I scorn to know, and yet, now I think on’t, I will, and do know as well as another; you must have a mark for your thing here, and eight-pence for the box; I could have saved two-pence in that, an I had brought it myself; but here’s fourteen shillings for you. Good Lord, how long your little wife stays! pray God, Solomon, your clerk, be not looking in the wrong box, master proctor.
Lit.Good i’faith! no, I warrant you Solomon is wiser than so, sir.
Waspe.Fie, fie, fie, by your leave, master Littlewit, this is scurvy, idle, foolish, and abominable, with all my heart; I do not like it.
[Walks aside.
Winw.Do you hear! Jack Littlewit, what business does thy pretty head think this fellow may have, that he keeps such a coil with?
Quar.More than buying of gingerbread in the cloister here, for that we allow him, or a gilt pouch in the fair?
Lit.Master Quarlous, do not mistake him; he is his master’s both-hands, I assure you.
Quar.What! to pull on his boots a mornings, or his stockings, does he?
Lit.Sir, if you have a mind to mock him, mock him softly, and look t’other way: for if he apprehend you flout him once, he will fly at you presently. A terrible testy old fellow, and his name is Waspe too.
Quar.Pretty insect! make much on him.
Waspe.A plague o’ this box, and the pox too, and on him that made it, and her that went for’t, and all that should have sought it, sent it, or brought it! do you see, sir.
Lit.Nay, good master Waspe.
Waspe.Good master Hornet, turd in your teeth, hold you your tongue: do not I know you? your father was a ’pothecary, and sold clysters, more than he gave, I wusse: and turd in your little wife’s teeth too—here she comes—
Re-enterMrs. LITTLEWIT,with the box.
’twill make her spit, as fine as she is, for all her velvet custard on her head, sir.
Lit.O, be civil, master Numps.
Waspe.Why, say I have a humour not to be civil; how then? who shall compel me, you?
Lit.Here is the box now.
Waspe.Why, a pox o’ your box, once again! let your little wife stale in it, an she will. Sir, I would have you to understand, and these gentlemen too, if they please—
Winw.With all our hearts, sir.
Waspe.That I have a charge, gentlemen.
Lit.They do apprehend, sir.
Waspe.Pardon me, sir, neither they nor you can apprehend me yet. You are an ass.—I have a young master, he is now upon his making and marring; the whole care of his well-doing is now mine. His foolish schoolmasters have done nothing but run up and down the county with him to beg puddings and cake-bread of his tenants, and almost spoil’d him; he has learn’d nothing but to sing catches, and repeatRattle bladder, rattle!andO Madge!I dare not let him walk alone, for fear of learning of vile tunes, which he will sing at supper, and in the sermon-times! If he meet but a carman in the street, and I find him not talk to keep him off on him, he will whistle him and all his tunes over at night in his sleep! He has a head full of bees! I am fain now, for this little time I am absent, to leave him in charge with a gentlewoman: ’tis true she is a justice of peace his wife, and a gentlewoman of the hood, and his natural sister; but what may happen under a woman’s government, there’s the doubt. Gentlemen, you do not know him; he is another manner of piece than you think for: but nineteen years old, and yet he is taller than either of you by the head, God bless him!
Quar.Well, methinks this is a fine fellow.
Winw.He has made his master a finer by this description, I should think.
Quar.’Faith, much about one, it is cross and pile, whether for a new farthing.
Waspe.I’ll tell you, gentlemen—
Lit.Will’t please you drink, master Waspe?
Waspe.Why, I have not talk’d so long to be dry, sir. You see no dust or cobwebs come out o’ my mouth, do you? you’d have me gone, would you?
Lit.No, but you were in haste e’en now, master Numps.
Waspe.What an I were! so I am still, and yet I will stay too; meddle you with your match, your Win there, she has as little wit as her husband, it seems: I have others to talk to.
Lit.She’s my match indeed, and aslittle witas I, good!
Waspe.We have been but a day and a half in town, gentlemen, ’tis true; and yesterday in the afternoon we walked London to shew the city to the gentlewoman he shall marry, mistress Grace; but afore I will endure such another half day with him, I’ll be drawn with a good gib-cat, through the great pond at home, as his uncle Hodge was. Why, we could not meet that heathen thing all the day, but staid him; he would name you all the signs over, as he went, aloud: and where he spied a parrot or a monkey, there he was pitched, with all the little long coats about him, male and female; no getting him away! I thought he would have run mad o’ the black boy in Bucklersbury, that takes the scurvy, roguy tobacco there.
Lit.You say true, master Numps; there’s such a one indeed.
Waspe.It’s no matter whether there be or no, what’s that to you?
Quar.He will not allow of John’s reading at any hand.
EnterCOKES, Mistress OVERDO,andGRACE.
Cokes.O Numps! are you here, Numps? look where I am, Numps, and mistress Grace too! Nay, do not look angerly, Numps: my sister is here and all, I do not come without her.
Waspe.What the mischief do you come with her; or she with you?
Cokes.We came all to seek you, Numps.
Waspe.To seek me! why, did you all think I was lost, or run away with your fourteen shillings’ worth of small ware here? or that I had changed it in the fair for hobby-horses? S’precious—to seek me!
Mrs. Over.Nay, good master Numps, do you shew discretion, though he be exorbitant, as master Overdo says, and it be but for conservation of the peace.
Waspe.Marry gip, goody She-justice, mistress Frenchhood! turd in your teeth, and turd in your Frenchhood’s teeth too, to do you service, do you see! Must you quote your Adam to me! you think you are madam Regent still, mistress Overdo, when I am in place;no such matter. I assure you, your reign is out, when I am in, dame.
Mrs. Over.I am content to be in abeyance, sir, and be governed by you; so should he too, if he did well; but ’twill be expected you should also govern your passions.
Waspe.Will it so, forsooth! good Lord, how sharp you are, with being at Bedlam yesterday! Whetstone has set an edge upon you, has he?
Mrs. Over.Nay, if you know not what belongs to your dignity, I do yet to mine.
Waspe.Very well then.
Cokes.Is this the license, Numps? for love’s sake let me see’t; I never saw a license.
Waspe.Did you not so? why, you shall not see’t then.
Cokes.An you love me, good Numps.
Waspe.Sir, I love you, and yet I do not love you in these fooleries: set your heart at rest, there’s nothing in it but hard words;—and what would you see it for?
Cokes.I would see the length and the breadth on’t, that’s all; and I will see it now, so I will.
Waspe.You shall not see it here.
Cokes.Then I’ll see it at home, and I’ll look upon the case here.
Waspe.Why, do so; a man must give way to him a little in trifles, gentlemen. These are errors, diseases of youth; which he will mend when he comes to judgment and knowledge of matters. I pray you conceive so, and I thank you: and I pray you pardon him, and I thank you again.
Quar.Well, this dry nurse, I say still, is a delicate man.
Winw.And I am, for the cosset his charge: did you ever see a fellow’s face more accuse him for an ass?
Quar.Accuse him! it confesses him one without accusing. What pity ’tis yonder wench should marry such a Cokes!
Winw.’Tis true.
Quar.She seems to be discreet, and as sober as she is handsome.
Winw.Ay, and if you mark her, what a restrained scorn she casts upon all his behaviour and speeches!
Cokes.Well, Numps, I am now for another piece of business more, the Fair, Numps, and then—
Waspe.Bless me! deliver me! help, hold me! the Fair!
Cokes.Nay, never fidge up and down, Numps, and vex itself. I am resolute Bartholomew in this; I’ll make no suit on’t to you; ’twas all the end of my journey indeed, to shew mistress Grace my Fair. I call it my Fair, because of Bartholomew: you know my name is Bartholomew, and Bartholomew Fair.
Lit.That was mine afore, gentlemen; this morning. I had that, i’faith, upon his license, believe me, there he comes after me.
Quar.Come, John, this ambitious wit of yours, I am afraid, will do you no good in the end.
Lit.No! why, sir?
Quar.You grow so insolent with it, and over-doing, John, that if you look not to it, and tie it up, it will bring you to some obscure place in time, and there ’twill leave you.
Winw.Do not trust it too much, John, be more sparing, and use it but now and then; a wit is a dangerous thing in this age; do not over-buy it.
Lit.Think you so, gentlemen? I’ll take heed on’t hereafter.
Mrs. Lit.Yes, do, John.
Cokes.A pretty little soul, this same mistress Littlewit, would I might marry her!
Grace.So would I; or any body else, so I might ’scape you. [Aside.
Cokes.Numps, I will see it, Numps, ’tis decreed: never be melancholy for the matter.
Waspe.Why, see it, sir, see it, do, see it: who hinders you? why do you not go see it? ’slid see it.
Cokes.The Fair, Numps, the Fair.
Waspe.Would the Fair, and all the drums and rattles in it, were in your belly for me! they are already in your brain. He that had the means to travel your head now, should meet finer sights than any are in the Fair, and make a finer voyage on’t; to see it all hung with cockle shells, pebbles, fine wheat straws, and here and there a chicken’s feather, and a cobweb.
Quar.Good faith, he looks, methinks, an you mark him, like one that were made to catch flies, with his sir Cranion-legs.
Winw.And his Numps, to flap them away.
Waspe.God be wi’ you, sir, there’s your bee in a box, and much good do’t you.
[Gives Cokes the box.
Cokes.Why, your friend, and Bartholomew; an you be so contumacious.
Quar.What mean you, Numps?
[Takes Waspe aside as he is going out.
Waspe.I’ll not be guilty, I, gentlemen.
Mrs. Over.You will not let him go, brother, and lose him?
Cokes.Who can hold that will away? I had rather lose him than the Fair, I wusse.
Waspe.You do not know the inconvenience, gentlemen, you persuade to, nor what trouble I have with him in these humours. If he go to the Fair, he will buy of every thing to a baby there; and household stuff for that too. If a leg or an arm on him did not grow on, he would lose it in the press. Pray heaven I bring him off with one stone! And then he is such a ravener after fruit!—you will not believe what a coil I had t’other day to compound a business between a Cather’nepear woman, and him, about snatching: ’tis intolerable, gentlemen.
Winw.O, but you must not leave him now to these hazards, Numps.
Waspe.Nay, he knows too well I will not leave him, and that makes him presume: Well, sir, will you go now? if you have suchan itch in your feet, to foot it to the Fair, why do you stop, am I [o’] your tarriers? go, will you go, sir? why do you not go?
Cokes.O Numps, have I brought you about? come, mistress Grace, and sister, I am resolute Bat, i’faith, still.
Grace.Truly, I have no such fancy to the Fair, nor ambition to see it: there’s none goes thither of any quality or fashion.
Cokes.O Lord, sir! you shall pardon me, mistress Grace, we are enow of ourselves to make it a fashion; and for qualities, let Numps alone, he’ll find qualities.
Quar.What a rogue in apprehension is this, to understand her language no better!
Winw.Ay, and offer to marry her! Well, I will leave the chase of my widow for to-day, and directly to the Fair. These flies cannot, this hot season, but engender us excellent creeping sport.
Quar.A man that has but a spoonful of brain would think so.—Farewell, John.
[Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife.
Lit.Win, you see ’tis in fashion to go to the Fair, Win; we must to the Fair too, you and I, Win. I have an affair in the Fair, Win, a puppet-play of mine own making, say nothing, that I writ for the motion-man, which you must see, Win.
Mrs. Lit.I would I might, John; but my mother will never consent to such a profane motion, she will call it.
Lit.Tut, we’ll have a device, a dainty one: Now, Wit, help at a pinch, good Wit, come, come, good Wit, an it be thy will! I have it, Win, I have it i’faith, and ’tis a fine one. Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair, do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pye-corner. Your mother will do any thing, Win, to satisfy your longing, you know; pray thee long presently; and be sick o’ the sudden, good Win. I’ll go in and tell her; cut thy lace in the mean time, and play the hypocrite, sweet Win.
Mrs. Lit.No, I’ll not make me unready for it: I can be hypocrite enough, though I were never so strait-laced.
Lit.You say true, you have been bred in the family, and brought up to’t. Our mother is a most elect hypocrite, and has maintained us all this seven year with it, like gentlefolks.
Mrs. Lit.Ay, let her alone, John, she is not a wise wilful widow for nothing; nor a sanctified sister for a song. And let me alone too, I have somewhat of the mother in me, you shall see: fetch her, fetch her—[Exit Littlewit.] Ah! ah!
[Seems to swoon.
Re-enterLITTLEWITwithDame PURECRAFT.
Pure.Now, the blaze of the beauteous discipline, fright away this evil from our house! how now, Win-the-fight, child! how do you? sweet child, speak to me.
Mrs. Lit.Yes, forsooth.
Pure.Look up, sweet Win-the-fight, and suffer not the enemy to enter you at this door, remember that your education has been with the purest: What polluted one was it, that named first the unclean beast, pig, to you, child?
Mrs. Lit.Uh, uh!
Lit.Not I, on my sincerity, mother! she longed above three hours ere she would let me know it.—Who was it, Win?
Mrs. Lit.A profane black thing with a beard, John.
Pure.O, resist it, Win-the-fight, it is the tempter, the wicked tempter, you may know it by the fleshly motion of pig; be strong against it, and its foul temptations, in these assaults, whereby it broacheth flesh and blood, as it were on the weaker side; and pray against its carnal provocations; good child, sweet child, pray.
Lit.Good mother, I pray you, that she may eat some pig, and her belly full too; and do not you cast away your own child, and perhaps one of mine, with your tale of the tempter. How do you do, Win, are you not sick?
Mrs. Lit.Yes, a great deal, John, uh, uh!
Pure.What shall we do? Call our zealous brother Busy hither, for his faithful fortification in this charge of the adversary. [Exit Littlewit.] Child, my dear child, you shall eat pig; be comforted, my sweet child.
Mrs. Lit.Ay, but in the Fair, mother.
Pure.I mean in the Fair, if it can be any way made or found lawful.—
Re-enterLITTLEWIT.
Where is our brother Busy? will he not come? Look up, child.
Lit.Presently, mother, as soon as he has cleansed his beard. I found him fast by the teeth in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a glass of malmsey on his right.
Pure.Slander not the brethren, wicked one.
Lit.Here he is now, purified, mother.
EnterZEAL-OF-THE-LANDBUSY.
Pure.O brother Busy! your help here, to edify and raise us up in a scruple: my daughter Win-the-fight is visited with a natural disease of women, called a longing to eat pig.
Lit.Ay, sir, a Bartholomew pig; and in the Fair.
Pure.And I would be satisfied from you, religiously-wise, whether a widow of the sanctified assembly, or a widow’s daughter, may commit the act without offence to the weaker sisters.
Busy.Verily, for the disease of longing, it is a disease, a carnal disease, or appetite, incident to women; and as it is carnal and incident, it is natural, very natural: now pig, it is a meat, and a meat that is nourishing and may be longed for, and so consequently eaten; it may be eaten; very exceeding well eaten; but in the Fair, and as a Bartholomew pig, it cannot be eaten; for the very calling it a Bartholomew pig, and to eat it so, is a spice of idolatry, and you make the Fair no better than one of the high-places. This, I take it, is the state of the question: a high-place.
Lit.Ay, but in state of necessity, place should give place, master Busy. I have a conceit left yet.
Pure.Good brother Zeal-of-the-land, think to make it as lawful as you can.
Lit.Yes, sir, and as soon as you can; for it must be, sir: you see the danger my little wife is in, sir.
Pure.Truly, I do love my child dearly, and I would not have her miscarry, or hazard her firstfruits, if it might be otherwise.
Busy.Surely, it may be otherwise, but it is subject to construction, subject, and hath a face of offence with the weak, a great face, a foul face; but that face may have a veil put over it, and be shadowed as it were; it may be eaten, and in the Fair, I take it, in a booth, the tents of the wicked: the place is not much, not very much, we may be religious in the midst of the profane, so it be eaten with a reformed mouth, with sobriety and humbleness; not gorged in with gluttony or greediness, there’s the fear: for, should she go there, as taking pride in the place, or delight in the unclean dressing, to feed the vanity of the eye, or lust of the palate, it were not well, it were not fit, it were abominable, and not good.
Lit.Nay, I knew that afore, and told her on’t; but courage, Win, we’ll be humble enough, we’ll seek out the homeliest booth in the Fair, that’s certain; rather than fail, we’ll eat it on the ground.
Pure.Ay, and I’ll go with you myself, Win-the-fight, and my brother Zeal-of-the-land shall go with us too, for our better consolation.
Mrs. Lit.Uh, uh!
Lit.Ay, and Solomon too, Win, the more the merrier. Win, we’ll leave Rabbi Busy in a booth. [Aside to Mrs. Littlewit.]—Solomon! my cloak.
EnterSOLOMONwith the cloak.
Sol.Here, sir.
Busy.In the way of comfort to the weak, I will go and eat. I will eat exceedingly, and prophesy; there may be a good use made of it too, now I think on’t: by the public eating of swine’s flesh, to profess our hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the brethren stand tax’d. I will therefore eat, yea, I will eat exceedingly.
Lit.Good, i’faith, I will eat heartily too, because I will be no Jew, I could never away with that stiff-necked generation: and truly, I hope my little one will be like me, that cries for pig so in the mother’s belly.
Busy.Very likely, exceeding likely, very exceeding likely.
[Exeunt.