Win, good-morrow, Win; ay, marry, Win, now you look finely indeed,
Win! this cap does convince! You'd not have worn it, Win, nor have had
it velvet, but a rough country beaver, with a copper band, like the
coney-skin woman of Budge-row; sweet Win, let me kiss it! And her fine
high shoes, like the Spanish lady! Good Win, go a little, I would fain
see thee pace, pretty Win; by this fine cap, I could never leave
kissing on't.
MRS. LIT. Come indeed la, you are such a fool still!
LIT. No, but half a one, Win, you are the t'other half: man and wife
make one fool, Win. Good! Is there the proctor, or doctor indeed, in
the diocese, that ever had the fortune to win him such a Win! There I
am again! I do feel conceits coming upon me, more than I am able to
turn tongue to. A pox o' these pretenders to wit! your Three Cranes,
Mitre and Mermaid men! not a corn of true salt, not a grain of right
mustard amongst them all. They may stand for places, or so, again the
next wit-fall, and pay two-pence in a quart more for their canary than
other men. But give me the man can start up a justice of wit out of
six shillings beer, and give the law to all the poets and poet-suckers
in town:--because they are the player's gossips! 'Slid! other men have
wives as fine as the players, and as well drest. Come hither, Win!
[_Kisses her._
_Enter WINWIFE._
WINW. Why, how now, master Littlewit! measuring of lips, or moulding
of kisses? which is it?
LIT. Troth, I am a little taken with my Win's dressing here: does it
not fine, master Winwife? How do you apprehend, sir? she would not
have worn this habit. I challenge all Cheapside to shew such another:
Moorfields, Pimlico-path, or the Exchange, in a summer evening, with a
lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let master Winwife kiss you. He
comes a wooing to our mother, Win, and may be our father perhaps, Win.
There's no harm in him, Win.
WINW. None in the earth, master Littlewit.
[_Kisses her._
LIT. I envy no man my delicates, sir.
WINW. Alas, you have the garden where they grow still! A wife here
with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft
velvet head, like a melicotton.
LIT. Good, i'faith! now dulness upon me, that I had not that before
him, that I should not light on't as well as he! velvet head!
WINW. But my taste, master Littlewit, tends to fruit of a later kind;
the sober matron, your wife's mother.
LIT. Ay, we know you are a suitor, sir; Win and I both wish you well:
By this license here, would you had her, that your two names were as
fast in it as here are a couple! Win would fain have a fine young
father-i'-law, with a feather; that her mother might hood it and chain
it with mistress Overdo. But you do not take the right course, master
Winwife.
WINW. No, master Littlewit, why?
LIT. You are not mad enough.
WINW. How! is madness a right course?
LIT. I say nothing, but I wink upon Win. You have a friend, one master
Quarlous, comes here sometimes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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