A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 09
English drama
SIR RADERIC.
Signior Immerito, you remember my caution for the tithes, and my promise
for farming my tithes at such a rate?
IMMERITO.
Ay, and please your worship, sir.
SIR RADERIC.
You must put in security for the performance of it, in such sort as I
and Master Recorder shall like of.
IMMERITO.
I will, an't please your worship.
SIR RADERIC.
And because I will be sure that I have conferred this kindness upon a
sufficient man, I have desired Master Recorder to take examination of
you.
PAGE.
My master, it seems, takes him for a thief; but he hath small reason for
it. As for learning, it's plain he never stole any; and for the living,
he knows himself how he comes by it; for let him but eat a mess of
furmenty this seven year, and yet he shall never be able to recover
himself. Alas, poor sheep, that hath fallen into the hands of such a
fox! [_Aside_.
SIR RADERIC.
Good Master Recorder, take your place by me, and make trial of his
gifts: is the clerk there to record his examination? O, the page shall
serve the turn.
PAGE.
Trial of his gifts! never had any gifts a better trial: why, Immerito's
gifts have appeared in as many colours as the rainbow; first, to Master
Amoretto, in colour of the satin suit he wears: to my lady, in the
similitude of a loose gown: to my master, in the likeness of a silver
basin and ewer: to us pages, in the semblance of new suits and points.
So Master Amoretto plays the gull in a piece of a parsonage; my master
adorns his cupboard with a piece of a parsonage; my mistress, upon good
days, puts on a piece of a parsonage; and we pages play at blowpoint for
a piece of a parsonage: I think here's trial enough for one man's gifts.
[_Aside_.
RECORDER.
Forasmuch as nature hath done her part in making you a handsome likely
man--
PAGE.
He is a handsome young man indeed, and hath a proper gelded parsonage.[93]
[_Aside_.
RECORDER.
In the next place, some art is requisite for the perfection of nature:
for the trial whereof, at the request of my worshipful friend, I will in
some sort propound questions fit to be resolved by one of your
profession. Say, what is a person that was never at the university?
IMMERITO.
A person that was never in the university is a living creature that can
eat a tithe-pig.
RECORDER.
Very well answered; but you should have added--and must be officious to
his patron. Write down that answer to show his learning in logic.
SIR RADERIC.
Yea, boy, write that down. Very learnedly, in good faith. I pray now,
let me ask you one question that I remember: whether is the masculine
gender or the feminine more worthy?
IMMERITO.
The feminine, sir.
SIR RADERIC.
The right answer, the right answer. In good faith, I have been of that
mind always. Write, boy, that to show he is a grammarian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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