ACT IISCENE I—The Fair.A number of Booths, Stalls, etc., set out.LANTHORNLEATHERHEAD, JOANTRASH,and others, sitting by their wares.EnterJustice OVERDO,at a distance, in disguise.Over.Well, in justice name, and the king’s, and for the commonwealth! defy all the world, Adam Overdo, for a disguise, and all story; for thou hast fitted thyself, I swear. Fain would I meet the Linceus now, that eagle’s eye, that piercing Epidaurian serpent (as my Quintus Horace calls him) that could discover a justice of peace (and lately of the Quorum) under this covering. They may have seen many a fool in the habit of a justice; but never till now, a justice in the habit of a fool. Thus must we do though, that wake for the public good; and thus hath the wise magistrate done in all ages. There is a doing of right out of wrong, if the way be found. Never shall I enough commend a worthy worshipful man, sometime a capital member of this city, for his high wisdom in this point, who would take you now the habit of a porter, now of a carman, now of the dog-killer, in this month of August; and in the winter, of a seller of tinder-boxes. And what would he do in all these shapes? marry, go you into every alehouse, and down into every cellar; measure the length of puddings; take the gage of black pots and cans, ay, and custards, with a stick; and their circumference with a thread; weigh the loaves of bread on his middle finger; then would he send for them home; give the puddings to the poor, the bread to the hungry, the custards to his children; break the pots, and burn the cans himself: he would not trust his corrupt officers, he would do it himself. Would all men in authority would follow this worthy precedent! for alas, as we are public persons, what do we know? nay, what can we know? we hear with other men’s ears, we see with other men’s eyes. A foolish constable or a sleepy watchman, is all our information; he slanders a gentleman by the virtue of his place, as he calls it, and we, by the vice of ours, must believe him. As, a while agone, they made me, yea me, to mistake an honest zealous pursuivant for a seminary; and a proper young bachelor of musick, for a bawd. This we are subject to that live in high place; all our intelligence is idle, and most of our intelligencers knaves; and, by your leave, ourselves thought little better, if not arrant fools, for believing them. I, Adam Overdo, am resolved therefore to spare spy-money hereafter, and make mine own discoveries. Many are the yearly enormities of this Fair, in whose courts of Pie-poudres I have had the honour, during the three days, sometimes to sit as judge. But this is thespecial day for detection of those foresaid enormities. Here is my black book for the purpose; this the cloud that hides me; under this covert I shall see and not be seen. On, Junius Brutus. And as I began, so I’ll end; in justice name, and the king’s, and for the commonwealth![Advances to the booths, and stands aside.Leath.The Fair’s pestilence dead methinks; people come not abroad to-day, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, sister Trash, lady of the basket? sit farther with your gingerbread progeny there, and hinder not the prospect of my shop, or I’ll have it proclaimed in the Fair, what stuff they are made on.Trash.Why, what stuff are they made on, brother Leatherhead? nothing but what’s wholesome, I assure you.Leath.Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and dead honey, you know.Over.Ay! have I met with enormity so soon? [Aside.Leath.I shall mar your market, old Joan.Trash.Mar my market, thou too-proud pedlar! do thy worst, I defy thee, I, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I pay for my ground, as well as thou dost: an thou wrong’st me, for all thou art parcel-poet, and an inginer, I’ll find a friend shall right me, and make a ballad of thee, and thy cattle all over. Are you puft up with the pride of your wares? your arsedine?Leath.Go to, old Joan, I’ll talk with you anon; and take you down too, afore justice Overdo: he is the man must charm you, I’ll have you in the Pie-poudres.Trash.Charm me! I’ll meet thee face to face, afore his worship, when thou darest: and though I be a little crooked o’ my body, I shall be found as upright in my dealing as any woman in Smithfield, I; charm me!Over.I am glad to hear my name is their terror yet, this is doing of justice. [Aside.][A number of people pass over the stage.Leath.What do you lack? what is’t you buy? what do you lack? rattles, drums, halberts, horses, babies o’ the best, fiddles of the finest?EnterCostard-monger,followed byNIGHTINGALE.Cost.Buy any pears, pears, fine, very fine pears!Trash.Buy any gingerbread, gilt gingerbread!Night.Hey, [Sings.Now the Fair’s a filling!O, for a tune to startleThe birds o’ the booths here billing,Yearly with old saint Bartle!The drunkards they are wading,The punks and chapmen trading;Who’d see the Fair without his lading?Buy any ballads, new ballads?EnterURSULA,from her Booth.Urs.Fie upon’t: who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in roasting of pigs, that had any cooler vocation? hell’s a kind of cold cellar to’t, a very fine vault, o’ my conscience!—What, Mooncalf!Moon.[within.] Here, mistress.Night.How now, Ursula? in a heat, in a heat?Urs.My chair, you false faucet you; and my morning’s draught, quickly, a bottle of ale, to quench me, rascal. I am all fire and fat, Nightingale, I shall e’en melt away to the first woman, a rib again, I am afraid. I do water the ground in knots, as I go, like a great garden pot; you may follow me by the SS. I make.Night.Alas, good Urse! was Zekiel here this morning?Urs.Zekiel? what Zekiel?Night.Zekiel Edgworth, the civil cutpurse, you know him well enough; he that talks bawdy to you still: I call him my secretary.Urs.He promised to be here this morning, I remember.Night.When he comes, bid him stay: I’ll be back again presently.Urs.Best take your morning dew in your belly, Nightingale.—EnterMOONCALF,with the Chair.Come, sir, set it here, did not I bid you should get a chair let out o’ the sides for me, that my hips might play? you’ll never think of any thing, till your dame be rump-gall’d; ’tis well, changeling: because it can take in your grasshopper’s thighs, you care for no more. Now, you look as you had been in the corner of the booth, fleaing your breech with a candle’s end, and set fire o’ the Fair. Fill, Stote, fill.Over.This pig-woman do I know, and I will put her in, for my second enormity; she hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two and twenty years upon record in the Pie-poudres. [Aside.Urs.Fill again, you unlucky vermin!Moon.’Pray you be not angry, mistress, I’ll have it widen’d anon.Urs.No, no, I shall e’en dwindle away to’t, ere the Fair be done, you think, now you have heated me: a poor vex’d thing I am, I feel myself dropping already as fast as I can; two stone o’ suet a day is my proportion. I can but hold life and soul together, with this, (here’s to you, Nightingale,) and a whiff of tobacco at most. Where’s my pipe now? not fill’d! thou arrant incubee.Night.Nay, Ursula, thou’lt gall between the tongue and the teeth, with fretting, now.Urs.How can I hope that ever he’ll discharge his place of trust, tapster, a man of reckoning under me, that remembers nothing I say to him? [Exit Nightingale.] but look to’t, sirrah, you were best. Three-pence a pipe-full, I will have made, of all my whole half-pound of tobacco, and a quarter of pound of colt’s-foot mixt withit too, to itch it out. I that have dealt so long in the fire, will not be to seek in smoke, now. Then six and twenty shillings a barrel I will advance on my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred on my bottle-ale; I have told you the ways how to raise it. Froth your cans well in the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o’ the buttock, sirrah, then skink out the first glass ever, and drink with all companies, though you be sure to be drunk; you’ll misreckon the better, and be less ashamed on’t. But your true trick, rascal, must be, to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans, in haste, before they be half drunk off, and never hear any body call, (if they should chance to mark you,) till you have brought fresh, and be able to forswear them. Give me a drink of ale.Over.This is the very womb and bed of enormity! gross as herself! this must all down for enormity, all, every whit on’t. [Aside.[Knocking within.Urs.Look who’s there, sirrah: five shillings a pig is my price, at least; if it be a sow pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied wife, and long for’t, sixpence more for that.Over.O tempora! O mores!I would not have lost my discovery of this one grievance, for my place, and worship o’ the bench. How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity. [Comes forward.]—By thy leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the Fair, oily as the king’s constable’s lamp, and shining as his shooing-horn! hath thy ale virtue, or thy beer strength, that the tongue of man may be tickled, and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see.Urs.What new roarer is this?Moon.O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? ’tis mad Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations.—Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you? welcome to the Fair! when shall we hear you again, to handle your matters, with your back against a booth, ha? I have been one of your little disciples, in my days.Over.Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy aunt, here; that I may be eloquent: but of thy best, lest it be bitter in my mouth, and my words fall foul on the Fair.Urs.Why dost thou not fetch him drink, and offer him to sit?Moon.Is it ale or beer, master Arthur?Over.Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove drinketh, and thou drawest on holydays.Urs.Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale: they say, a fool’s handsel is lucky.Over.Bring both, child. [Sits down in the booth.] Ale for Arthur, and Beer for Bradley. Ale for thine aunt, boy. [Exit Mooncalf.]—My disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the benefit of this, discover enough, and more: and yet get off with the reputation of what I would be: a certain middling thing, between a fool and a madman. [Aside.EnterKNOCKEM.Knock.What! my little lean Ursula! my she-bear! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs to grunt out another Bartholomew Fair? ha!Urs.Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill—Knock.Of Holbourn, Ursula, meanst thou so? for what, for what, pretty Urse?Urs.For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out o’ the Fair.Knock.O! good words, good words, Urse.Over.Another special enormity. A cut-purse of the sword, the boot, and the feather! those are his marks. [Aside.Re-enterMOONCALF,with the ale, etc.Urs.You are one of those horse-leaches that gave out I was dead, in Turnbull-street, of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes?Knock.No, ’twas better meat, Urse: cow’s udders, cow’s udders!Urs.Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.Knock.What! thou’lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urse? Come, there’s no malice in these fat folks, I never fear thee, an I can scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let’s drink it out, good Urse, and no vapours![Exit Ursula.Over.Dost thou hear, boy? There’s for thy ale, and the remnant for thee.—Speak in thy faith of a faucet, now; is this goodly person before us here, this vapours, a knight of the knife?Moon.What mean you by that, master Arthur?Over.I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy, a cut-purse.Moon.O Lord, sir! far from it. This is master Daniel Knockem Jordan: the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir.Over.Thy dainty dame, though, call’d him cut-purse.Moon.Like enough, sir; she’ll do forty such things in an hour (an you listen to her) for her recreation, if the toy take her in the greasy kerchief: it makes her fat, you see; she battens with it.Over.Here I might have been deceived now, and have put a fool’s blot upon myself, if I had not played an after game of discretion! [Aside.Re-enterURSULA,dropping.Knock.Alas, poor Urse! this is an ill season for thee.Urs.Hang yourself, hackney-man!Knock.How, how, Urse! vapours? motion breed vapours?Urs.Vapours! never tusk, nor twirl your dibble, good Jordan, I know what you’ll take to a very drop. Though you be captain of the roarers, and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks; you angry!you are hungry. Come, a pig’s head will stop your mouth, and stay your stomach at all times.Knock.Thou art such another mad, merry Urse, still! troth I do make conscience of vexing thee, now in the dog-days, this hot weather, for fear of foundering thee in the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and keep state; and let’s have a fresh bottle of ale, and a pipe of tobacco; and no vapours. I’ll have this belly o’ thine taken up, and thy grass scoured, wench.—EnterEDGWORTH.Look, here’s Ezekiel Edgworth; a fine boy of his inches, as any is in the Fair! has still money in his purse, and will pay all, with a kind heart, and good vapours.Edg.That I will indeed, willingly, master Knockem; fetch some ale and tobacco.[Exit Mooncalf.—People cross the stage.Leath.What do you lack, gentlemen? maid, see a fine hobby-horse for your young master; cost you but a token a-week his provender.Re-enterNIGHTINGALE,withCorn-cutter,andMousetrap-man.Corn.Have you any corns in your feet and toes?Mouse.Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a flea?Trash.Buy some gingerbread?Night.Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:Hear for your love, and buy for your money.A delicate ballad o’ the ferret and the coney.A preservative again’ the punk’s evil.Another of goose-green starch, and the devil.A dozen of divine points, and the godly garters:The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters.What is’t you buy?The windmill blown down by the witch’s fart.Or saint George, that, O! did break the dragon’s heart.Re-enterMOONCALF,with ale and tobacco.Edg.Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your mart a little.Night.O my secretary! what says my secretary?[They walk into the booth.Over.Child of the bottles, what’s he? what’s he?[Points to Edgworth.Moon.A civil young gentleman, master Arthur, that keeps company with the roarers, and disburses all still. He has ever money in his purse; he pays for them, and they roar for him; one does good offices for another. They call him the secretary, but he serves nobody. A great friend of the ballad-man’s, they are never asunder.Over.What pity ’tis, so civil a young man should haunt thisdebauched company? here’s the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper penman, I see’t in his countenance, he has a good clerk’s look with him, and I warrant him a quick hand.Moon.A very quick hand, sir.[Exit.Edg.[whispering with Nightingale and Ursula.] All the purses, and purchase, I give you to-day by conveyance, bring hither to Ursula’s presently. Here we will meet at night in her lodge, and share. Look you choose good places for your standing in the Fair, when you sing, Nightingale.Urs.Ay, near the fullest passages; and shift them often.Edg.And in your singing, you must use your hawk’s eye nimbly, and fly the purse to a mark still, where ’tis worn, and on which side; that you may give me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way in the tune.Urs.Enough, talk no more on’t: your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away: the Fair fills apace, company begins to come in, and I have ne’er a pig ready yet.Knock.Well said! fill the cups, and light the tobacco: let’s give fire in the works, and noble vapours.Edg.And shall we have smocks, Ursula, and good whimsies, ha!Urs.Come, you are in your bawdy vein!—the best the Fair will afford, Zekiel, if bawd Whit keep his word.—Re-enterMOONCALF.How do the pigs, Mooncalf?Moon.Very passionate, mistress, one of ’em has wept out an eye. Master Arthur o’ Bradley is melancholy here, nobody talks to him. Will you any tobacco, master Arthur?Over.No, boy; let my meditations alone.Moon.He’s studying for an oration, now.Over.If I can with this day’s travail, and all my policy, but rescue this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the strange woman, I will sit down at night, and say with my friend Ovid,Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,etc. [Aside.Knock.Here, Zekiel, here’s a health to Ursula, and a kind vapour; thou hast money in thy purse still, and store! how dost thou come by it? pray thee vapour thy friends some in a courteous vapour.Edg.Half I have, master Dan. Knockem, is always at your service.[Pulls out his purse.Over.Ha, sweet nature! what goshawk would prey upon such a lamb? [Aside.Knock.Let’s see what ’tis, Zekiel; count it, come, fill him to pledge meEnterWINWIFEandQUARLOUS.Winw.We are here before them, methinks.Quar.All the better, we shall see them come in now.Leath.What do you lack, gentlemen, what is’t you lack? a fine horse? a lion? a bull? a bear? a dog? or a cat? an excellent fine Bartholomew-bird? or an instrument? what is’t you lack?Quar.’Slid! here’s Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!Trash.Will you buy any comfortable bread, gentlemen?Quar.And Ceres selling her daughter’s picture, in ginger-work.Winw.That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for them! do we look as if we would buy gingerbread, or hobby-horses?Quar.Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better customers than come: and our very being here makes us fit to be demanded, as well as others. Would Cokes would come! there were a true customer for them.Knock.[to Edgworth.] How much is’t? thirty shillings? Who’s yonder! Ned Winwife and Tom Quarlous, I think! yes: (give me it all, give it me all.)—Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! will you take a pipe of tobacco with us?—Do not discredit me now, Zekiel.[Edgworth gives him his purse.Winw.Do not see him: he is the roaring horse-courser, pray thee let’s avoid him: turn down this way.Quar.’Slud, I’ll see him, and roar with him too, an he roared as loud as Neptune; pray thee go with me.Winw.You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this.Quar.Go to then, come along; we have nothing to do, man, but to see sights now.[They advance to the booth.Knock.Welcome, master Quarlous, and master Winwife; will you take any froth and smoke with us?Quar.Yes, sir; but you’ll pardon us if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore.Knock.As what, sir?Quar.To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.Knock.A good vapour! will you sit down, sir? this is old Ursula’s mansion; how like you her bower? Here you may have your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.Quar.I had rather have my punk cold, sir.Over.There’s for me: punk! and pig! [Aside.Urs.[within.] What, Mooncalf, you rogue!Moon.By and by, the bottle is almost off, mistress; here, master Arthur.Urs.[within.] I’ll part you and your play-fellow there, in the garded coat, an you sunder not the sooner.Knock.Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks, you do not talk, nor drink; are you proud?Winw.Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.Knock.You do not except at the company, do you! are you in vapours, sir?Moon.Nay, good master Daniel Knockem, respect my mistress’sbower, as you call it; for the honour of our booth, none o’ your vapours here.EnterURSULAwith a fire-brand.Urs.Why, you thin, lean polecat you, an they have a mind to be in their vapours must you hinder ’em? What did you know, vermin, if they would have lost a cloke, or such trifle? must you be drawing the air of pacification here, while I am tormented within i’ the fire, you weasel? [Aside to Mooncalf.Moon.Good mistress, ’twas in behalf of your booth’s credit that I spoke.Urs.Why! would my booth have broke, if they had fallen out in’t, sir? or would their heat have fired it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs, and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I’ll both baste and roast you ’till your eyes drop out like them.—Leave the bottle behind you, and be curst awhile![Exit Mooncalf.Quar.Body o’ the Fair! what’s this? mother of the bawds?Knock.No, she’s mother of the pigs, sir, mother of the pigs.Winw.Mother of the furies, I think, by her fire-brand.Quar.Nay, she is too fat to be a fury, sure some walking sow of tallow!Winw.An inspired vessel of kitchen stuff!Quar.She’ll make excellent geer for the coach-makers here in Smithfield, to anoint wheels and axletrees with.[She drinks this while.Urs.Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench of the suburbs, do, because she’s juicy and wholesome; you must have your thin pinched ware, pent up in the compass of a dog-collar, (or ’twill not do) that looks like a long laced conger, set upright, and a green feather, like fennel in the joll on’t.Knock.Well said, Urse, my good Urse! to ’em, Urse!Quar.Is she your quagmire, Daniel Knockem? is this your bog?Night.We shall have a quarrel presently.Knock.How! bog! quagmire? foul vapours! humph!Quar.Yes, he that would venture for’t, I assure him, might sink into her and be drown’d a week ere any friend he had could find where he were.Winw.And then he would be a fortnight weighing up again.Quar.’Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter; they had need be a team of Dutchmen should draw him out.Knock.Answer ’em, Urse: where’s thy Bartholomew wit now, Urse, thy Bartholomew wit?Urs.Hang ’em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see them plagued one day (pox’d they are already, I am sure) with lean playhouse poultry, that has the bony rump, sticking out like the ace of spades, or the point of a partizan, that every rib of them is like the tooth of a saw; and will so grate them with their hips and shoulders, as (take ’em altogether) they were as good lie with a hurdle.Quar.Out upon her, how she drips! she’s able to give a man the sweating sickness with looking on her.Urs.Marry look off, with a patch on your face, and a dozen in your breech, though they be of scarlet, sir. I have seen as fine outsides as either of yours, bring lousy linings to the brokers, ere now, twice a week.Quar.Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool in the Fair, to be purchased; one large enough, I mean? I know there is a pond of capacity for her.Urs.For your mother, you rascal! Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you pannier-man’s bastard, you!Quar.Ha, ha, ha!Urs.Do you sneer, you dog’s-head, you trendle-tail! you look as you were begotten a top of a cart in harvest time, when the whelp was hot and eager. Go, snuff after your brother’s bitch, mistress Commodity; that’s the livery you wear, ’twill be out at the elbows shortly. It’s time you went to’t for the t’other remnant.Knock.Peace, Urse, peace, Urse;—they’ll kill the poor whale, and make oil of her. Pray thee, go in.Urs.I’ll see them pox’d first, and piled, and double piled.Winw.Let’s away, her language grows greasier than her pigs.Urs.Does it so, snotty-nose? good lord! are you snivelling? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn, when the bald thrasher, your sire, was scarce warm.Winw.Pray thee let’s go.Quar.No, faith; I’ll stay the end of her now; I know she cannot last long: I find by her smiles she wanes apace.Urs.Does she so? I’ll set you gone. Give me my pig-pan hither a little: I’ll scald you hence, an you will not go.[Exit.Knock.Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours, and very idle vapours, I assure you.Quar.You are a very serious ass, we assure you.Knock.Humph,ass!andserious!nay, then pardon me my vapour. I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: Any man that does vapour me the ass, master Quarlous—Quar.What then, master Jordan?Knock.I do vapour him the lie.Quar.Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.[Strikes him.Knock.Nay then, vapours upon vapours.[They fight.Re-enterURSULA,with the dripping-pan.Edg.Night.’Ware the pan, the pan, the pan! she comes with the pan, gentlemen! [Ursula falls with the pan.]—God bless the woman.Urs.Oh![Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife.Trash.[runs in.] What’s the matter?Over.Goodly woman!Moon.Mistress!Urs.Curse of hell! that ever I saw these fiends! oh! I have scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg! I have lost a limb in the service! run for some cream and sallad-oil, quickly. Are you under-peering, you baboon? rip off my hose, an you be men, men, men.Moon.Run you for some cream, good mother Joan. I’ll look to your basket.[Exit Trash.Leath.Best sit up in your chair, Ursula. Help, gentlemen.Knock.Be of good cheer, Urse; thou hast hindered me the currying of a couple of stallions here, that abused the good race-bawd of Smithfield; ’twas time for them to go.Night.I’ faith, when the pan came,—they had made you run else. This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured. [Aside to Edgworth.Edg.Not a whit, these fellows were too fine to carry money.Knock.Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out of the air: take off her shoes. Body o’ me! she has the mallanders, the scratches, the crown scab, and the quitter bone in the t’other leg.Urs.Oh, the pox! why do you put me in mind of my leg thus, to make it prick and shoot? Would you have me in the hospital afore my time?Knock.Patience, Urse, take a good heart, ’tis but a blister as big as a windgall. I’ll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey and hog’s grease, have thy pasterns well roll’d, and thou shalt pace again by to-morrow. I’ll tend thy booth, and look to thy affairs the while: thou shalt sit in thy chair, and give directions, and shine Ursa major.[Exeunt Knockem and Mooncalf, with Ursula in her chair.Over.These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! the foam of the one, and the fumes of the other! Stay, young man, and despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee.Edg.Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed I’ll hear some of this!EnterCOKES,with his box, WASPE, Mistress OVERDO,andGRACE.Cokes.Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, mistress Grace.Edg.’Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into goings presently.Over.Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? thirst not after it, youth; thirst not after it.Cokes.This is a brave fellow, Numps, let’s hear him.Waspe.’Sblood! how brave is he? in a garded coat! You were best truck with him; e’en strip, and truck presently, it will become you. Why will you hear him? because he is an ass, and may be a-kin to the Cokeses?Cokes.O, good Numps.Over.Neither do thou lust after that tawney weed tobacco.Cokes.Brave words!Over.Whose complexion is like the Indian’s that vents it.Cokes.Are they not brave words, sister?Over.And who can tell, if before the gathering and making up thereof, the Alligarta hath not piss’d thereon?Waspe.’Heart! let ’em be brave words, as brave as they will! an they were all the brave words in a country, how then? Will you away yet, have you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away; I pray you, be not you accessary. If you do lose your license, or somewhat else, sir, with listening to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart, do, say so.Cokes.Avoid in your satin doublet, Numps.Over.The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way persway or assuage.Cokes.Good, i’faith! is it not, sister?Over.Hence it is that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted, the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman’s booth here, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e’en now, without.Cokes.A fine similitude that, sir! did you see the pan?Edg.Yes, sir.Over.Nay, the hole in the nose here of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is miserably and most unconscionably slandered.Cokes.Who would have missed this, sister?Mrs. Over.Not any body but Numps.Cokes.He does not understand.Edg.[picks Cokes’s pocket of his purse.] Nor you feel. [Aside.Cokes.What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in’t? the best musick in the Fair will not move a log.Edg.[gives the purse aside to Nightingale.] In, to Ursula, Nightingale, and carry her comfort: see it told. This fellow was sent to us by Fortune, for our first fairing.[Exit Nightingale.Over.But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair?Cokes.That’s to us, sister. Brave, i’faith!Over.Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling and snarling, and now and then a hurt.Mrs. Over.He hath something of master Overdo, methinks, brother.Cokes.So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo: and ’tis when he speaks.Over.Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o’ one side, and his pupils o’ the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale again. Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and, that being slaver’d, so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit! and still the bottle-ale slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh.Waspe.Heart of a madman! are you rooted here? will you never away? what can any man find out in this bawling fellow, to grow here for? He is a full handful higher sin’ he heard him. Will you fix here, and set up a booth, sir?Over.I will conclude briefly—Waspe.Hold your peace, you roaring rascal, I’ll run my head in your chaps else. You were best build a booth, and entertain him; make your will, an you say the word, and him your heir! heart, I never knew one taken with a mouth of a peck afore. By this light, I’ll carry you away on my back, an you will not come.[He gets Cokes up on pick-back.Cokes.Stay, Numps, stay, set me down: I have lost my purse, Numps. O my purse! One of my fine purses is gone!Mrs. Over.Is it indeed, brother?Cokes.Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue else! a plague of all roguy damn’d cut-purses for me.[Examines his pockets.Waspe.Bless ’em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see! now, as I am no infidel, that I know of, I am glad on’t. Ay, I am, (here’s my witness,) do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his fables, I! no, no, I am a dull malt horse, I, I know nothing. Are you not justly served, in your conscience, now, speak in your conscience? Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again.Edg.This fellow is very charitable, would he had a purse too! but I must not be too bold all at a time. [Aside.Cokes.Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.Waspe.Not your best! death! why should it be your worst? why should it be any, indeed, at all? answer me to that, give me a reason from you, why it should be any?Cokes.Nor my gold, Numps; I have that yet, look here else, sister.[Shews the other purse.Waspe.Why so, there’s all the feeling he has!Mrs. Over.I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.Cokes.Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this that catch can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.Waspe.So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! very good.Cokes.I would have him come again now, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just wherethe other was, and if we have good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cut-purse nibbling.Edg.Faith, and he’ll try ere you be out o’ the Fair. [Aside.Cokes.Come, mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my mischance; sorrow will not keep it, sweet-heart.Grace.I do not think on’t, sir.Cokes.’Twas but a little scurvy white money, hang it! it may hang the cut-purse one day. I have gold left to give thee a fairing yet, as hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that no body here look’d like a cut-purse, unless ’twere Numps.Waspe.How! I, I look like a cut-purse? death! your sister’s a cut-purse! and your mother and father, and all your kin were cut-purses! and here is a rogue is the bawd o’ the cut-purses, whom I will beat to begin with.[They speak all together; and Waspe beats Overdo.Over.Hold thy hand, child of wrath, and heir of anger, make it not Childermass day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Bartholomew, parent of the massacre.Cokes.Numps, Numps!Mrs. Over.Good master Humphrey!Waspe.You are the Patrico, are you? the patriarch of the cut-purses? You share, sir, they say; let them share this with you. Are you in your hot fit of preaching again? I’ll cool you.[Beats him again.Over.Murther, murther, murther![Exeunt.
SCENE I—The Fair.
A number of Booths, Stalls, etc., set out.
LANTHORNLEATHERHEAD, JOANTRASH,and others, sitting by their wares.
EnterJustice OVERDO,at a distance, in disguise.
Over.Well, in justice name, and the king’s, and for the commonwealth! defy all the world, Adam Overdo, for a disguise, and all story; for thou hast fitted thyself, I swear. Fain would I meet the Linceus now, that eagle’s eye, that piercing Epidaurian serpent (as my Quintus Horace calls him) that could discover a justice of peace (and lately of the Quorum) under this covering. They may have seen many a fool in the habit of a justice; but never till now, a justice in the habit of a fool. Thus must we do though, that wake for the public good; and thus hath the wise magistrate done in all ages. There is a doing of right out of wrong, if the way be found. Never shall I enough commend a worthy worshipful man, sometime a capital member of this city, for his high wisdom in this point, who would take you now the habit of a porter, now of a carman, now of the dog-killer, in this month of August; and in the winter, of a seller of tinder-boxes. And what would he do in all these shapes? marry, go you into every alehouse, and down into every cellar; measure the length of puddings; take the gage of black pots and cans, ay, and custards, with a stick; and their circumference with a thread; weigh the loaves of bread on his middle finger; then would he send for them home; give the puddings to the poor, the bread to the hungry, the custards to his children; break the pots, and burn the cans himself: he would not trust his corrupt officers, he would do it himself. Would all men in authority would follow this worthy precedent! for alas, as we are public persons, what do we know? nay, what can we know? we hear with other men’s ears, we see with other men’s eyes. A foolish constable or a sleepy watchman, is all our information; he slanders a gentleman by the virtue of his place, as he calls it, and we, by the vice of ours, must believe him. As, a while agone, they made me, yea me, to mistake an honest zealous pursuivant for a seminary; and a proper young bachelor of musick, for a bawd. This we are subject to that live in high place; all our intelligence is idle, and most of our intelligencers knaves; and, by your leave, ourselves thought little better, if not arrant fools, for believing them. I, Adam Overdo, am resolved therefore to spare spy-money hereafter, and make mine own discoveries. Many are the yearly enormities of this Fair, in whose courts of Pie-poudres I have had the honour, during the three days, sometimes to sit as judge. But this is thespecial day for detection of those foresaid enormities. Here is my black book for the purpose; this the cloud that hides me; under this covert I shall see and not be seen. On, Junius Brutus. And as I began, so I’ll end; in justice name, and the king’s, and for the commonwealth!
[Advances to the booths, and stands aside.
Leath.The Fair’s pestilence dead methinks; people come not abroad to-day, whatever the matter is. Do you hear, sister Trash, lady of the basket? sit farther with your gingerbread progeny there, and hinder not the prospect of my shop, or I’ll have it proclaimed in the Fair, what stuff they are made on.
Trash.Why, what stuff are they made on, brother Leatherhead? nothing but what’s wholesome, I assure you.
Leath.Yes, stale bread, rotten eggs, musty ginger, and dead honey, you know.
Over.Ay! have I met with enormity so soon? [Aside.
Leath.I shall mar your market, old Joan.
Trash.Mar my market, thou too-proud pedlar! do thy worst, I defy thee, I, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I pay for my ground, as well as thou dost: an thou wrong’st me, for all thou art parcel-poet, and an inginer, I’ll find a friend shall right me, and make a ballad of thee, and thy cattle all over. Are you puft up with the pride of your wares? your arsedine?
Leath.Go to, old Joan, I’ll talk with you anon; and take you down too, afore justice Overdo: he is the man must charm you, I’ll have you in the Pie-poudres.
Trash.Charm me! I’ll meet thee face to face, afore his worship, when thou darest: and though I be a little crooked o’ my body, I shall be found as upright in my dealing as any woman in Smithfield, I; charm me!
Over.I am glad to hear my name is their terror yet, this is doing of justice. [Aside.]
[A number of people pass over the stage.
Leath.What do you lack? what is’t you buy? what do you lack? rattles, drums, halberts, horses, babies o’ the best, fiddles of the finest?
EnterCostard-monger,followed byNIGHTINGALE.
Cost.Buy any pears, pears, fine, very fine pears!
Trash.Buy any gingerbread, gilt gingerbread!
Night.Hey, [Sings.
Now the Fair’s a filling!O, for a tune to startleThe birds o’ the booths here billing,Yearly with old saint Bartle!The drunkards they are wading,The punks and chapmen trading;Who’d see the Fair without his lading?
Now the Fair’s a filling!
O, for a tune to startle
The birds o’ the booths here billing,
Yearly with old saint Bartle!
The drunkards they are wading,
The punks and chapmen trading;
Who’d see the Fair without his lading?
Buy any ballads, new ballads?
EnterURSULA,from her Booth.
Urs.Fie upon’t: who would wear out their youth and prime thus, in roasting of pigs, that had any cooler vocation? hell’s a kind of cold cellar to’t, a very fine vault, o’ my conscience!—What, Mooncalf!
Moon.[within.] Here, mistress.
Night.How now, Ursula? in a heat, in a heat?
Urs.My chair, you false faucet you; and my morning’s draught, quickly, a bottle of ale, to quench me, rascal. I am all fire and fat, Nightingale, I shall e’en melt away to the first woman, a rib again, I am afraid. I do water the ground in knots, as I go, like a great garden pot; you may follow me by the SS. I make.
Night.Alas, good Urse! was Zekiel here this morning?
Urs.Zekiel? what Zekiel?
Night.Zekiel Edgworth, the civil cutpurse, you know him well enough; he that talks bawdy to you still: I call him my secretary.
Urs.He promised to be here this morning, I remember.
Night.When he comes, bid him stay: I’ll be back again presently.
Urs.Best take your morning dew in your belly, Nightingale.—
EnterMOONCALF,with the Chair.
Come, sir, set it here, did not I bid you should get a chair let out o’ the sides for me, that my hips might play? you’ll never think of any thing, till your dame be rump-gall’d; ’tis well, changeling: because it can take in your grasshopper’s thighs, you care for no more. Now, you look as you had been in the corner of the booth, fleaing your breech with a candle’s end, and set fire o’ the Fair. Fill, Stote, fill.
Over.This pig-woman do I know, and I will put her in, for my second enormity; she hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two and twenty years upon record in the Pie-poudres. [Aside.
Urs.Fill again, you unlucky vermin!
Moon.’Pray you be not angry, mistress, I’ll have it widen’d anon.
Urs.No, no, I shall e’en dwindle away to’t, ere the Fair be done, you think, now you have heated me: a poor vex’d thing I am, I feel myself dropping already as fast as I can; two stone o’ suet a day is my proportion. I can but hold life and soul together, with this, (here’s to you, Nightingale,) and a whiff of tobacco at most. Where’s my pipe now? not fill’d! thou arrant incubee.
Night.Nay, Ursula, thou’lt gall between the tongue and the teeth, with fretting, now.
Urs.How can I hope that ever he’ll discharge his place of trust, tapster, a man of reckoning under me, that remembers nothing I say to him? [Exit Nightingale.] but look to’t, sirrah, you were best. Three-pence a pipe-full, I will have made, of all my whole half-pound of tobacco, and a quarter of pound of colt’s-foot mixt withit too, to itch it out. I that have dealt so long in the fire, will not be to seek in smoke, now. Then six and twenty shillings a barrel I will advance on my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred on my bottle-ale; I have told you the ways how to raise it. Froth your cans well in the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o’ the buttock, sirrah, then skink out the first glass ever, and drink with all companies, though you be sure to be drunk; you’ll misreckon the better, and be less ashamed on’t. But your true trick, rascal, must be, to be ever busy, and mistake away the bottles and cans, in haste, before they be half drunk off, and never hear any body call, (if they should chance to mark you,) till you have brought fresh, and be able to forswear them. Give me a drink of ale.
Over.This is the very womb and bed of enormity! gross as herself! this must all down for enormity, all, every whit on’t. [Aside.
[Knocking within.
Urs.Look who’s there, sirrah: five shillings a pig is my price, at least; if it be a sow pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied wife, and long for’t, sixpence more for that.
Over.O tempora! O mores!I would not have lost my discovery of this one grievance, for my place, and worship o’ the bench. How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity. [Comes forward.]—By thy leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the Fair, oily as the king’s constable’s lamp, and shining as his shooing-horn! hath thy ale virtue, or thy beer strength, that the tongue of man may be tickled, and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see.
Urs.What new roarer is this?
Moon.O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? ’tis mad Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations.—Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you? welcome to the Fair! when shall we hear you again, to handle your matters, with your back against a booth, ha? I have been one of your little disciples, in my days.
Over.Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy aunt, here; that I may be eloquent: but of thy best, lest it be bitter in my mouth, and my words fall foul on the Fair.
Urs.Why dost thou not fetch him drink, and offer him to sit?
Moon.Is it ale or beer, master Arthur?
Over.Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove drinketh, and thou drawest on holydays.
Urs.Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale: they say, a fool’s handsel is lucky.
Over.Bring both, child. [Sits down in the booth.] Ale for Arthur, and Beer for Bradley. Ale for thine aunt, boy. [Exit Mooncalf.]—My disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the benefit of this, discover enough, and more: and yet get off with the reputation of what I would be: a certain middling thing, between a fool and a madman. [Aside.
EnterKNOCKEM.
Knock.What! my little lean Ursula! my she-bear! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs to grunt out another Bartholomew Fair? ha!
Urs.Yes, and to amble a foot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill—
Knock.Of Holbourn, Ursula, meanst thou so? for what, for what, pretty Urse?
Urs.For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out o’ the Fair.
Knock.O! good words, good words, Urse.
Over.Another special enormity. A cut-purse of the sword, the boot, and the feather! those are his marks. [Aside.
Re-enterMOONCALF,with the ale, etc.
Urs.You are one of those horse-leaches that gave out I was dead, in Turnbull-street, of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes?
Knock.No, ’twas better meat, Urse: cow’s udders, cow’s udders!
Urs.Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.
Knock.What! thou’lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urse? Come, there’s no malice in these fat folks, I never fear thee, an I can scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let’s drink it out, good Urse, and no vapours!
[Exit Ursula.
Over.Dost thou hear, boy? There’s for thy ale, and the remnant for thee.—Speak in thy faith of a faucet, now; is this goodly person before us here, this vapours, a knight of the knife?
Moon.What mean you by that, master Arthur?
Over.I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy, a cut-purse.
Moon.O Lord, sir! far from it. This is master Daniel Knockem Jordan: the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir.
Over.Thy dainty dame, though, call’d him cut-purse.
Moon.Like enough, sir; she’ll do forty such things in an hour (an you listen to her) for her recreation, if the toy take her in the greasy kerchief: it makes her fat, you see; she battens with it.
Over.Here I might have been deceived now, and have put a fool’s blot upon myself, if I had not played an after game of discretion! [Aside.
Re-enterURSULA,dropping.
Knock.Alas, poor Urse! this is an ill season for thee.
Urs.Hang yourself, hackney-man!
Knock.How, how, Urse! vapours? motion breed vapours?
Urs.Vapours! never tusk, nor twirl your dibble, good Jordan, I know what you’ll take to a very drop. Though you be captain of the roarers, and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks; you angry!you are hungry. Come, a pig’s head will stop your mouth, and stay your stomach at all times.
Knock.Thou art such another mad, merry Urse, still! troth I do make conscience of vexing thee, now in the dog-days, this hot weather, for fear of foundering thee in the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and keep state; and let’s have a fresh bottle of ale, and a pipe of tobacco; and no vapours. I’ll have this belly o’ thine taken up, and thy grass scoured, wench.—
EnterEDGWORTH.
Look, here’s Ezekiel Edgworth; a fine boy of his inches, as any is in the Fair! has still money in his purse, and will pay all, with a kind heart, and good vapours.
Edg.That I will indeed, willingly, master Knockem; fetch some ale and tobacco.
[Exit Mooncalf.—People cross the stage.
Leath.What do you lack, gentlemen? maid, see a fine hobby-horse for your young master; cost you but a token a-week his provender.
Re-enterNIGHTINGALE,withCorn-cutter,andMousetrap-man.
Corn.Have you any corns in your feet and toes?
Mouse.Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a flea?
Trash.Buy some gingerbread?
Night.Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:
Hear for your love, and buy for your money.A delicate ballad o’ the ferret and the coney.A preservative again’ the punk’s evil.Another of goose-green starch, and the devil.A dozen of divine points, and the godly garters:The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters.
Hear for your love, and buy for your money.
A delicate ballad o’ the ferret and the coney.
A preservative again’ the punk’s evil.
Another of goose-green starch, and the devil.
A dozen of divine points, and the godly garters:
The fairing of good counsel, of an ell and three-quarters.
What is’t you buy?
The windmill blown down by the witch’s fart.Or saint George, that, O! did break the dragon’s heart.
The windmill blown down by the witch’s fart.
Or saint George, that, O! did break the dragon’s heart.
Re-enterMOONCALF,with ale and tobacco.
Edg.Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your mart a little.
Night.O my secretary! what says my secretary?
[They walk into the booth.
Over.Child of the bottles, what’s he? what’s he?
[Points to Edgworth.
Moon.A civil young gentleman, master Arthur, that keeps company with the roarers, and disburses all still. He has ever money in his purse; he pays for them, and they roar for him; one does good offices for another. They call him the secretary, but he serves nobody. A great friend of the ballad-man’s, they are never asunder.
Over.What pity ’tis, so civil a young man should haunt thisdebauched company? here’s the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper penman, I see’t in his countenance, he has a good clerk’s look with him, and I warrant him a quick hand.
Moon.A very quick hand, sir.
[Exit.
Edg.[whispering with Nightingale and Ursula.] All the purses, and purchase, I give you to-day by conveyance, bring hither to Ursula’s presently. Here we will meet at night in her lodge, and share. Look you choose good places for your standing in the Fair, when you sing, Nightingale.
Urs.Ay, near the fullest passages; and shift them often.
Edg.And in your singing, you must use your hawk’s eye nimbly, and fly the purse to a mark still, where ’tis worn, and on which side; that you may give me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way in the tune.
Urs.Enough, talk no more on’t: your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away: the Fair fills apace, company begins to come in, and I have ne’er a pig ready yet.
Knock.Well said! fill the cups, and light the tobacco: let’s give fire in the works, and noble vapours.
Edg.And shall we have smocks, Ursula, and good whimsies, ha!
Urs.Come, you are in your bawdy vein!—the best the Fair will afford, Zekiel, if bawd Whit keep his word.—
Re-enterMOONCALF.
How do the pigs, Mooncalf?
Moon.Very passionate, mistress, one of ’em has wept out an eye. Master Arthur o’ Bradley is melancholy here, nobody talks to him. Will you any tobacco, master Arthur?
Over.No, boy; let my meditations alone.
Moon.He’s studying for an oration, now.
Over.If I can with this day’s travail, and all my policy, but rescue this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the strange woman, I will sit down at night, and say with my friend Ovid,
Jamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,etc. [Aside.
Knock.Here, Zekiel, here’s a health to Ursula, and a kind vapour; thou hast money in thy purse still, and store! how dost thou come by it? pray thee vapour thy friends some in a courteous vapour.
Edg.Half I have, master Dan. Knockem, is always at your service.
[Pulls out his purse.
Over.Ha, sweet nature! what goshawk would prey upon such a lamb? [Aside.
Knock.Let’s see what ’tis, Zekiel; count it, come, fill him to pledge me
EnterWINWIFEandQUARLOUS.
Winw.We are here before them, methinks.
Quar.All the better, we shall see them come in now.
Leath.What do you lack, gentlemen, what is’t you lack? a fine horse? a lion? a bull? a bear? a dog? or a cat? an excellent fine Bartholomew-bird? or an instrument? what is’t you lack?
Quar.’Slid! here’s Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!
Trash.Will you buy any comfortable bread, gentlemen?
Quar.And Ceres selling her daughter’s picture, in ginger-work.
Winw.That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for them! do we look as if we would buy gingerbread, or hobby-horses?
Quar.Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better customers than come: and our very being here makes us fit to be demanded, as well as others. Would Cokes would come! there were a true customer for them.
Knock.[to Edgworth.] How much is’t? thirty shillings? Who’s yonder! Ned Winwife and Tom Quarlous, I think! yes: (give me it all, give it me all.)—Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! will you take a pipe of tobacco with us?—Do not discredit me now, Zekiel.
[Edgworth gives him his purse.
Winw.Do not see him: he is the roaring horse-courser, pray thee let’s avoid him: turn down this way.
Quar.’Slud, I’ll see him, and roar with him too, an he roared as loud as Neptune; pray thee go with me.
Winw.You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this.
Quar.Go to then, come along; we have nothing to do, man, but to see sights now.
[They advance to the booth.
Knock.Welcome, master Quarlous, and master Winwife; will you take any froth and smoke with us?
Quar.Yes, sir; but you’ll pardon us if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore.
Knock.As what, sir?
Quar.To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.
Knock.A good vapour! will you sit down, sir? this is old Ursula’s mansion; how like you her bower? Here you may have your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.
Quar.I had rather have my punk cold, sir.
Over.There’s for me: punk! and pig! [Aside.
Urs.[within.] What, Mooncalf, you rogue!
Moon.By and by, the bottle is almost off, mistress; here, master Arthur.
Urs.[within.] I’ll part you and your play-fellow there, in the garded coat, an you sunder not the sooner.
Knock.Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks, you do not talk, nor drink; are you proud?
Winw.Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.
Knock.You do not except at the company, do you! are you in vapours, sir?
Moon.Nay, good master Daniel Knockem, respect my mistress’sbower, as you call it; for the honour of our booth, none o’ your vapours here.
EnterURSULAwith a fire-brand.
Urs.Why, you thin, lean polecat you, an they have a mind to be in their vapours must you hinder ’em? What did you know, vermin, if they would have lost a cloke, or such trifle? must you be drawing the air of pacification here, while I am tormented within i’ the fire, you weasel? [Aside to Mooncalf.
Moon.Good mistress, ’twas in behalf of your booth’s credit that I spoke.
Urs.Why! would my booth have broke, if they had fallen out in’t, sir? or would their heat have fired it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs, and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I’ll both baste and roast you ’till your eyes drop out like them.—Leave the bottle behind you, and be curst awhile!
[Exit Mooncalf.
Quar.Body o’ the Fair! what’s this? mother of the bawds?
Knock.No, she’s mother of the pigs, sir, mother of the pigs.
Winw.Mother of the furies, I think, by her fire-brand.
Quar.Nay, she is too fat to be a fury, sure some walking sow of tallow!
Winw.An inspired vessel of kitchen stuff!
Quar.She’ll make excellent geer for the coach-makers here in Smithfield, to anoint wheels and axletrees with.
[She drinks this while.
Urs.Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench of the suburbs, do, because she’s juicy and wholesome; you must have your thin pinched ware, pent up in the compass of a dog-collar, (or ’twill not do) that looks like a long laced conger, set upright, and a green feather, like fennel in the joll on’t.
Knock.Well said, Urse, my good Urse! to ’em, Urse!
Quar.Is she your quagmire, Daniel Knockem? is this your bog?
Night.We shall have a quarrel presently.
Knock.How! bog! quagmire? foul vapours! humph!
Quar.Yes, he that would venture for’t, I assure him, might sink into her and be drown’d a week ere any friend he had could find where he were.
Winw.And then he would be a fortnight weighing up again.
Quar.’Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter; they had need be a team of Dutchmen should draw him out.
Knock.Answer ’em, Urse: where’s thy Bartholomew wit now, Urse, thy Bartholomew wit?
Urs.Hang ’em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see them plagued one day (pox’d they are already, I am sure) with lean playhouse poultry, that has the bony rump, sticking out like the ace of spades, or the point of a partizan, that every rib of them is like the tooth of a saw; and will so grate them with their hips and shoulders, as (take ’em altogether) they were as good lie with a hurdle.
Quar.Out upon her, how she drips! she’s able to give a man the sweating sickness with looking on her.
Urs.Marry look off, with a patch on your face, and a dozen in your breech, though they be of scarlet, sir. I have seen as fine outsides as either of yours, bring lousy linings to the brokers, ere now, twice a week.
Quar.Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool in the Fair, to be purchased; one large enough, I mean? I know there is a pond of capacity for her.
Urs.For your mother, you rascal! Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you pannier-man’s bastard, you!
Quar.Ha, ha, ha!
Urs.Do you sneer, you dog’s-head, you trendle-tail! you look as you were begotten a top of a cart in harvest time, when the whelp was hot and eager. Go, snuff after your brother’s bitch, mistress Commodity; that’s the livery you wear, ’twill be out at the elbows shortly. It’s time you went to’t for the t’other remnant.
Knock.Peace, Urse, peace, Urse;—they’ll kill the poor whale, and make oil of her. Pray thee, go in.
Urs.I’ll see them pox’d first, and piled, and double piled.
Winw.Let’s away, her language grows greasier than her pigs.
Urs.Does it so, snotty-nose? good lord! are you snivelling? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn, when the bald thrasher, your sire, was scarce warm.
Winw.Pray thee let’s go.
Quar.No, faith; I’ll stay the end of her now; I know she cannot last long: I find by her smiles she wanes apace.
Urs.Does she so? I’ll set you gone. Give me my pig-pan hither a little: I’ll scald you hence, an you will not go.
[Exit.
Knock.Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours, and very idle vapours, I assure you.
Quar.You are a very serious ass, we assure you.
Knock.Humph,ass!andserious!nay, then pardon me my vapour. I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: Any man that does vapour me the ass, master Quarlous—
Quar.What then, master Jordan?
Knock.I do vapour him the lie.
Quar.Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.
[Strikes him.
Knock.Nay then, vapours upon vapours.
[They fight.
Re-enterURSULA,with the dripping-pan.
Edg.Night.’Ware the pan, the pan, the pan! she comes with the pan, gentlemen! [Ursula falls with the pan.]—God bless the woman.
Urs.Oh!
[Exeunt Quarlous and Winwife.
Trash.[runs in.] What’s the matter?
Over.Goodly woman!
Moon.Mistress!
Urs.Curse of hell! that ever I saw these fiends! oh! I have scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg! I have lost a limb in the service! run for some cream and sallad-oil, quickly. Are you under-peering, you baboon? rip off my hose, an you be men, men, men.
Moon.Run you for some cream, good mother Joan. I’ll look to your basket.
[Exit Trash.
Leath.Best sit up in your chair, Ursula. Help, gentlemen.
Knock.Be of good cheer, Urse; thou hast hindered me the currying of a couple of stallions here, that abused the good race-bawd of Smithfield; ’twas time for them to go.
Night.I’ faith, when the pan came,—they had made you run else. This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured. [Aside to Edgworth.
Edg.Not a whit, these fellows were too fine to carry money.
Knock.Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out of the air: take off her shoes. Body o’ me! she has the mallanders, the scratches, the crown scab, and the quitter bone in the t’other leg.
Urs.Oh, the pox! why do you put me in mind of my leg thus, to make it prick and shoot? Would you have me in the hospital afore my time?
Knock.Patience, Urse, take a good heart, ’tis but a blister as big as a windgall. I’ll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey and hog’s grease, have thy pasterns well roll’d, and thou shalt pace again by to-morrow. I’ll tend thy booth, and look to thy affairs the while: thou shalt sit in thy chair, and give directions, and shine Ursa major.
[Exeunt Knockem and Mooncalf, with Ursula in her chair.
Over.These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! the foam of the one, and the fumes of the other! Stay, young man, and despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee.
Edg.Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed I’ll hear some of this!
EnterCOKES,with his box, WASPE, Mistress OVERDO,andGRACE.
Cokes.Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, mistress Grace.
Edg.’Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into goings presently.
Over.Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? thirst not after it, youth; thirst not after it.
Cokes.This is a brave fellow, Numps, let’s hear him.
Waspe.’Sblood! how brave is he? in a garded coat! You were best truck with him; e’en strip, and truck presently, it will become you. Why will you hear him? because he is an ass, and may be a-kin to the Cokeses?
Cokes.O, good Numps.
Over.Neither do thou lust after that tawney weed tobacco.
Cokes.Brave words!
Over.Whose complexion is like the Indian’s that vents it.
Cokes.Are they not brave words, sister?
Over.And who can tell, if before the gathering and making up thereof, the Alligarta hath not piss’d thereon?
Waspe.’Heart! let ’em be brave words, as brave as they will! an they were all the brave words in a country, how then? Will you away yet, have you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away; I pray you, be not you accessary. If you do lose your license, or somewhat else, sir, with listening to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart, do, say so.
Cokes.Avoid in your satin doublet, Numps.
Over.The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way persway or assuage.
Cokes.Good, i’faith! is it not, sister?
Over.Hence it is that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted, the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman’s booth here, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e’en now, without.
Cokes.A fine similitude that, sir! did you see the pan?
Edg.Yes, sir.
Over.Nay, the hole in the nose here of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril, if I may so call it, which makes that they can vent the tobacco out, like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lis, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is miserably and most unconscionably slandered.
Cokes.Who would have missed this, sister?
Mrs. Over.Not any body but Numps.
Cokes.He does not understand.
Edg.[picks Cokes’s pocket of his purse.] Nor you feel. [Aside.
Cokes.What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt, and an old fox in’t? the best musick in the Fair will not move a log.
Edg.[gives the purse aside to Nightingale.] In, to Ursula, Nightingale, and carry her comfort: see it told. This fellow was sent to us by Fortune, for our first fairing.
[Exit Nightingale.
Over.But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair?
Cokes.That’s to us, sister. Brave, i’faith!
Over.Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling and snarling, and now and then a hurt.
Mrs. Over.He hath something of master Overdo, methinks, brother.
Cokes.So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo: and ’tis when he speaks.
Over.Look into any angle of the town, the Streights, or the Bermudas, where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time, but with bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o’ one side, and his pupils o’ the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads, and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale again. Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and, that being slaver’d, so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit! and still the bottle-ale slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh.
Waspe.Heart of a madman! are you rooted here? will you never away? what can any man find out in this bawling fellow, to grow here for? He is a full handful higher sin’ he heard him. Will you fix here, and set up a booth, sir?
Over.I will conclude briefly—
Waspe.Hold your peace, you roaring rascal, I’ll run my head in your chaps else. You were best build a booth, and entertain him; make your will, an you say the word, and him your heir! heart, I never knew one taken with a mouth of a peck afore. By this light, I’ll carry you away on my back, an you will not come.
[He gets Cokes up on pick-back.
Cokes.Stay, Numps, stay, set me down: I have lost my purse, Numps. O my purse! One of my fine purses is gone!
Mrs. Over.Is it indeed, brother?
Cokes.Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue else! a plague of all roguy damn’d cut-purses for me.
[Examines his pockets.
Waspe.Bless ’em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see! now, as I am no infidel, that I know of, I am glad on’t. Ay, I am, (here’s my witness,) do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his fables, I! no, no, I am a dull malt horse, I, I know nothing. Are you not justly served, in your conscience, now, speak in your conscience? Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again.
Edg.This fellow is very charitable, would he had a purse too! but I must not be too bold all at a time. [Aside.
Cokes.Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.
Waspe.Not your best! death! why should it be your worst? why should it be any, indeed, at all? answer me to that, give me a reason from you, why it should be any?
Cokes.Nor my gold, Numps; I have that yet, look here else, sister.
[Shews the other purse.
Waspe.Why so, there’s all the feeling he has!
Mrs. Over.I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.
Cokes.Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this that catch can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.
Waspe.So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! very good.
Cokes.I would have him come again now, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just wherethe other was, and if we have good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cut-purse nibbling.
Edg.Faith, and he’ll try ere you be out o’ the Fair. [Aside.
Cokes.Come, mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my mischance; sorrow will not keep it, sweet-heart.
Grace.I do not think on’t, sir.
Cokes.’Twas but a little scurvy white money, hang it! it may hang the cut-purse one day. I have gold left to give thee a fairing yet, as hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that no body here look’d like a cut-purse, unless ’twere Numps.
Waspe.How! I, I look like a cut-purse? death! your sister’s a cut-purse! and your mother and father, and all your kin were cut-purses! and here is a rogue is the bawd o’ the cut-purses, whom I will beat to begin with.
[They speak all together; and Waspe beats Overdo.
Over.Hold thy hand, child of wrath, and heir of anger, make it not Childermass day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Bartholomew, parent of the massacre.
Cokes.Numps, Numps!
Mrs. Over.Good master Humphrey!
Waspe.You are the Patrico, are you? the patriarch of the cut-purses? You share, sir, they say; let them share this with you. Are you in your hot fit of preaching again? I’ll cool you.
[Beats him again.
Over.Murther, murther, murther!
[Exeunt.