A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
+Sale.+ Then remember
How you rate salads, Roseclap; one may buy
Gardens as cheap.
+Rose.+ Yes, Master Salewit, salads
Taken from Euclid, made in diagrams,
And to be eaten in figures.
+Quart.+ And we must pay for your inventions, sir?
+Rose.+ Or you are damn'd:
Good captain, you have sworn to pay this twelvemonth.
+Quart.+ Peace! you loud, bawling cur; do you disgrace me
Before these gallants? See if I don't kill you.
SCENE VI.
_Enter +Bright+, +Newcut+, +Timothy+, +Plotwell+._
+Bright.+ Save you, Captain Quartfield, and my brave wit,
My man of Helicon. Salute this gentleman,
He is a city wit.
+New.+ A corporation went to the bringing of him forth.
+Quart.+ I embrace him.
+Sale.+ And so do I.
+Tim.+ You are a poet, sir,
And can make verses, I hear?
+Sale.+ Sir, I am
A servant to the Muses.
+Tim.+ I have made
Some speeches, sir, in verse, which have been spoke
By a green Robin Goodfellow from Cheapside conduit,[216]
To my father's company, and mean this afternoon
To make an epithalamium upon my wedding.
A lady fell in love with me this morning:
Ask Master Francis here.
+Plot.+ Heart! you spoil all.
Did not I charge you to be silent?
+Tim.+ That's true;
I had forgot. You are a captain, sir?
+Quart.+ I have seen service, sir.
+Tim.+ Captain, I love
Men of the sword and buff; and if need were,
I can roar too, and hope to swear in time,
Do you see, captain?
+Plot.+ Nay, captain, we have brought you
A gentleman of valour, who has been
In Moorfields often: marry, it has been
To 'squire his sisters, and demolish custards
At Pimlico.[217] [_+Timothy+ walks aside._
+Quart.+ Afore me, Master Plotwell;
I never hop'd to see you in silk again.
+Sale.+ I look'd the next Lord Mayor's day to see you o' th' livery,
Or one o' th' bachelor whifflers.[218]
+Quart.+ What, is your uncle dead?
+Plot.+ He may in time: he's gone
To sea this morning, captain; and I am come
Into your order again. But hark you, captain,
What think you of a fish now?
+Quart.+ Mad wags, mad wags.
+Bright.+ By Heaven, it's true. Here we have brought one with us.
+New.+ Rich Seathrift's son: he'll make a rare sea-monster.
+Quart.+ And shall's be merry, i' faith?
+Bright.+ Salewit shall make a song upon him.
+New.+ And Roseclap's boy shall sing it.
+Sale.+ We have the properties of the last fish.[219]
+Quart.+ And if I
At dinner do not give him sea enough,
And afterwards, if I and Salewit do not
Show him much better than he that shows the Tombs,
Let me be turned into a sword-fish myself.
+Plot.+ A natural change for a captain! How now, Roseclap,
Pensive, and cursing the long vacation?
Thou look'st as if thou mean'st to break shortly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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