SHIFT, a thread-bare shark; one that never was a soldier, yet lives upon lendings. His profession is skeldring and odling, his bank Paul's, and his warehouse Picthatch. Takes up single testons upon oaths, till doomsday. Falls under executions of three shillings, and enters into five-groat bonds. He way-lays the reports of services, and cons them without book, damning himself he came new from them, when all the while he was taking the diet in the bawdy-house, or lay pawned in his chamber for rent and victuals. He is of that admirable and happy memory, that he will salute one for an old acquaintance that he never saw in his life before. He usurps upon cheats, quarrels, and robberies, which he never did, only to get him a name. His chief exercises are, taking the whiff, squiring a cockatrice, and making privy searches for imparters. CLOVE and ORANGE, an inseparable case of coxcombs, city born; the Gemini, or twins of foppery; that like a pair of wooden foils, are fit for nothing but to be practised upon. Being well flattered they'll lend money, and repent when they have done. Their glory is to invite players, and make suppers. And in company of better rank, to avoid the suspect of insufficiency, will inforce their ignorance most desperately, to set upon the understanding of any thing. Orange is the most humorous of the two, (whose small portion of juice being squeezed out,) Clove serves to stick him with commendations. CORDATUS, the author's friend; a man inly acquainted with the scope and drift of his plot; of a discreet and understanding judgment; and has the place of a moderator. MITIS, is a person of no action, and therefore we afford him no character. THE STAGE. After the second sounding. ENTER CORDATUS, ASPER, AND MITIS. COR. Nay, my dear Asper. MIT. Stay your mind. ASP. Away! Who is so patient of this impious world, That he can check his spirit, or rein his tongue? Or who hath such a dead unfeeling sense, That heaven's horrid thunders cannot wake? To see the earth crack'd with the weight of sin, Hell gaping under us, and o'er our heads Black, ravenous ruin, with her sail-stretch'd wings, Ready to sink us down, and cover us. Who can behold such prodigies as these, And have his lips seal'd up? Not I: my soul Was never ground into such oily colours, To flatter vice, and daub iniquity: But, with an armed and resolved hand, I'll strip the ragged follies of the time Naked as at their birth -- COR. Be not too bold.