A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 15Dodsley, Robert
General
A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 15
Dodsley, Robert
English drama
_Enter +Boy+._
+Boy.+ Sir, they are all
Come.
+Phil.+ Let 'em in.--Now, Mirida, manage
Your business well.
+Mir.+ Let me alone, I'll warrant ye.
_Enter +Ladies+ and +Nurse+._
+All Ladies.+ Ah! my poor dear, dear.
+All Nurses.+ Ah! my poor dear master! ah, child,
Cry for thy poor dad. [_Kiss the hearse._
+Phil.+ What a dog-kennel's here! how they howl! [_Aside._
+Mir.+ When
The passions of your grief are over, pray
Hear me speak, because it concerns you all.
+Phil.+ Pox of thy gravity, Mirida. [_Aside._
+Mir.+ Nay, hold your tongue; if
You set me once a laughing, I shall spoil
Your funeral. [_Aside._
_Enter +Pinguister+ and +Lean-man+._
So here comes my fat lover and my
Lean one! Welcome, gentlemen, I
Was afraid I shou'd not have had your company.
+Ping.+ Really, sweet lady, I have taken a purge
To-day (as I do constantly, for love
Of you) which has retarded me,
By reason of its operation, neither can
I say it has yet finished.
+Mir.+ Sir, please you
To sit down, and you,
Master Pinguister.
+Ping.+ Lady, I shall embrace your offer, and shall
Press your chair. By my heart, madam, this chair
Was fitter for a jackdaw than [for] me.
[_Sits down and breaks the chair._
Nay, they make such chairs now-a-days, that had I
A grudge to an upholsterer, I would
Desire no greater revenge than to sit
Down upon every chair in his shop.
+Mir.+ Truly,
Sir, I am sorry for your fall.
Ladies and gentlewomen, pray give your
Attention to my dear deceas'd cousin's
Will. Poor young man! he was kill'd yesterday
By a duel:
He liv'd but two hours after he was hurt,
Which time he made use of, to settle something
On all you here, his worthy friends.
+Omnes.+ A good young man.
+Mir.+ Imprimis, I bequeath my soul, as other
People use to do, and so my body.
Item, I give to Mistress Mary, for a reason that she knows,
£500. Item, £500 to Mistress Margaret, for a reason she knows.
Item, £500 to Mistress Sarah, for a reason she knows. Item,
£500 to Mistress Martha, for a reason she knows. Item, £500 to
Mistress Alice, for a reason she knows. Item, £500 to Mistress
Eleanor, for a reason she knows. And so to all the rest. Item,
To my nurses, I leave each of them £20 a year apiece for their
lives, besides their arrears due to them for nursing. These
sums [_speaks low_] of money and legacies I leave to be rais'd
and paid out of my manor of Constantinople, in which the Great
Turk is now tenant for life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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