[_Exit._ _Rhod._ Farewell the true map of a gull: by heaven he shall to th’ court! ’tis the perfect model of an impudent upstart; the compound of a poet and a lawyer; he shall sure to th’ court. _Mug._ Nay, for God’s sake, let’s have no fools at court. _Rhod._ He shall to ‘t, that’s certain. The Duke had a purpose to dispatch some one or other to the French king, to entreat him to send for the body of his niece, which the melancholy Earl of St. Anne, her husband, hath kept so long unburied, as meaning one grave should entomb himself and her together. _Mug._ A very worthy subject for an embassage, as D’Olive is for an embassador agent; and ’tis as suitable to his brain, as his parcel-gilt beaver to his fool’s head. _Rhod._ Well, it shall go hard, but he shall be employed. Oh, ’tis a most accomplished ass; the mongrel of a gull, and a villain: the very essence of his soul is pure villainy; the substance of his brain, foolery: one that believes nothing from the stars upward; a pagan in belief, an epicure beyond belief; prodigious in lust; prodigal in wasteful expense; in necessary, most penurious. His wit is to admire and imitate; his grace is to censure and detract; he shall to th’ court, i’ faith he shall thither: I will shape such employment for him, as that he himself shall have no less contentment, in making mirth to the whole court, than the Duke and the whole court shall have pleasure in enjoying his presence. A knave, if he be rich, is fit to make an officer, as a fool, if he be a knave, is fit to make an intelligencer. [_Exeunt._’ His May-Day is not so good. All Fools, The Widow’s Tears, and Eastward Hoe, are comedies of great merit, (particularly the last). The first is borrowed a good deal from Terence, and the character of Valerio, an accomplished rake, who passes with his father for a person of the greatest economy and rusticity of manners, is an excellent idea, executed with spirit. Eastward Hoe was written in conjunction with Ben Jonson and Marston; and for his share in it, on account of some allusions to the Scotch, just after the accession of James I. our author, with his friends, had nearly lost his ears. Such were the notions of poetical justice in those days! The behaviour of Ben Jonson’s mother on this occasion is remarkable. ‘On his release from prison, he gave an entertainment to his friends, among whom were Camden and Selden. In the midst of the entertainment, his mother, more an antique Roman than a Briton, drank to him, and shewed him a paper of poison, which she intended to have given him in his liquor, having first taken a portion of it herself, if the sentence for his punishment had been executed.’ This play contains the first idea of Hogarth’s Idle and Industrious Apprentices.