A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
+Sue.+ Ay, you may see how you men can betray poor maids.
_Enter +Lieutenant+._
+Lieut.+ Do you hear, corporal? yonder's Serjeant Sliceman, and
the brave crew that supped with us, have called for three or
four gallons of wine, and are offering money.
+Tim.+ How! prythee, grannum, look to Dab: do you two but hold
them in talk, whilst I steal down and pay the reckoning.
+Lieut.+ Do't daintily: they'll stay all night.
+Tim.+ That's it I would have, man: we'll make them all drunk;
they'll never leave us else, and still as it comes to a crown,
I'll steal down and pay it in spite of their teeth. Remember,
therefore, that ye make them all drunk; but be sure you keep me
sober to pay the reckonings.
+Omnes.+ Agreed, agreed.
+Mis. Coote.+ O Jarvis, Jarvis, how I long till I see thee!
[_Exeunt._
_Enter +Moll Bloodhound+, and +Sim+ with a letter._
+Moll.+ There we must meet soon, and be married to-morrow
morning, Sim: is't not a mad brother?
+Sim.+ Yes, and I can tell you news of a mad lover.
+Moll.+ What is he, in the name of Cupid?
+Sim.+ Why, one Master Randalls, a Welshman: I have had such
a fit with him; he says he was wished[87] to a very wealthy
widow; but of you he has heard such histories, that he will
marry you, though he never saw you; and that the parboiled Ætna
of his bosom might be quenched by the consequent pastime in the
Prittish flames of his Prittish plood, he salutes you with that
love-letter.
+Moll.+ This is a mad lover, indeed; prythee, read it.
+Sim.+ Mass, h' has writ it in the Welsh-English; we had
been spoiled else for want of an interpreter. But thus he
begins:--_Mistress Maries_--
+Moll.+ He makes two Maries serve one mistress.
+Sim.+ Ever while you live, 'tis your first rule in Welsh
grammars--[88]
_That hur forsake widows, and take maids, was no great wonder,
for sentlemen ever love the first cut._
+Moll.+ But not o' th' coxcomb; he should have put in that.
+Sim.+ The coxcomb follows by consequence, mark else.
_I Randall Crack, of Carmarden, do love thee Mary Ploodhounds,
of Houndsditch, dwelling near Aldgate, and Pishop's-gate, just
as between hawk and buzzard._
+Moll.+ He makes an indifferent wooing.
+Sim.+ _And that hur loves Maries so monstrous, yet never
saw her, was because hur hear hur in all societies so fery
fillanously commended, but specially before one Master Pusy,
constables of hur parish, who made hurself half foxed by
swearing by the wines, that Maries would be monstrous good
marriages for Randalls._
+Moll.+ Master Busy, it seems, was not idle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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