* * * * * The principal Actors were, _Joseph Taylor._ _Robert Benfield._ _Thomas Polard._ _George Birch._ _John Lowin._ _John Underwood._ _Richard Sharpe._ _John Thomson._ _Actus Primus. Scena Prima._ _Enter_ Leon, _and_ Mallfort. _Mal._ And as I told you, Sir. _Leon._ I understand you, _Clarinda_'s still perverse. _Mal._ She's worse, obdurate, Flinty, relentless, my love-passions jeer'd at, My Presents scorn'd. _Leon._ 'Tis strange a waiting-woman, In her condition apt to yield, should hold out, A man of your place, reverend Beard and shape, Besieging her. _Mal._ You might add too my wealth, Which she contemns, five hundred Crowns _per annum_, For which I have ventur'd hard, my Conscience knows it, Not thought upon, though offer'd for a Joynture; This Chain which my Lords Pesants worship, flouted; My solemn hums and ha's, the servants quake at, No Rhetorick with her; every hour she hangs out Some new Flag of defiance to torment me; Last Lent, my Lady call'd me her _Poor John_, But now I am grown a walking _Skeleton_, You may see through, and through me. _Leon._ Indeed you are much faln away. _Mal._ I am a kind of nothing, As she hath made me; Love's a terrible Clyster, And if some Cordial of her favours help not, I shall like an _Italian_, dye backward, And breathe my last the wrong way. _Leon._ As I live, you have my pity; but this is cold comfort, And in a friend lip-physick; and now I think on't, I should do more, and will, so you deny not Your self the means of comfort. _Mal._ I'll be hang'd first; one dram of't I beseech you. _Leon._ You are not jealous of any mans access to her? _Mal._ I would not receive the _Dor_, but as a bosome friend You shall direct me, still provided that I understand who is the man, and what His purpose, that pleads for me. _Leon._ By all means: First, for the undertaker, I am he; The means that I will practise, thus-- _Mal._ Pray you forward. _Leon._ You know your Lady, chaste _Calista_ loves her. _Mal._ Too well, that makes her proud. _Leon._ Nay, give me leave, This beauteous Lady, I may stile her so, (Being the paragon of _France_ for feature) Is not alone contented in her self To seem, and be good, but desires to make All such as have dependance on her, like her; For this _Clarinda_'s liberty is restrain'd; And though her kinsman, the gate's shut against me; Now if you please to make your self the door, For my conveyance to her, though you run The hazard of a check for't, 'tis no matter. _Mal._ It being for mine own ends. _Leon._ I'll give it o'r, If that you make the least doubt otherwise: Study upon't: good morrow.