JOHN I have been meditating this half-hour On all the properties of a brave friendship, The mysteries that are in it, the noble uses, Its limits withal, and its nice boundaries. _Exempli gratia_, how far a man May lawfully forswear himself for his friend; What quantity of lies, some of them brave ones, He may lawfully incur in a friend's behalf; What oaths, blood-crimes, hereditary quarrels, Night brawls, fierce words, and duels in the morning, He need not stick at, to maintain his friend's honor, or his cause. LOVEL I think many men would die for their friends. JOHN Death! why 'tis nothing. We go to it for sport, To gain a name, or purse, or please a sullen humour, When one has worn his fortune's livery threadbare, Or his spleen'd mistress frowns. Husbands will venture on it, To cure the hot fits and cold shakings of jealousy. A friend, sir, must do more. LOVEL Can he do more than die? JOHN To serve a friend this he may do. Pray mark me. Having a law within (great spirits feel one) He cannot, ought not to be bound by any Positive laws or ord'nances extern, But may reject all these: by the law of friendship He may do so much, be they, indifferently, Penn'd statutes, or the land's unwritten usages, As public fame, civil compliances, Misnamed honor, trust in matter of secrets, All vows and promises, the feeble mind's religion, (Binding our morning knowledge to approve What last night's ignorance spake); The ties of blood withal, and prejudice of kin. Sir, these weak terrors Must never shake me. I know what belongs To a worthy friendship. Come, you shall have my confidence. LOVEL I hope you think me worthy. JOHN You will smile to hear now-- Sir Walter never has been out of the island. LOVEL You amaze me. JOHN That same report of his escape to France Was a fine tale, forg'd by myself--Ha! ha! I knew it would stagger him. LOVEL Pray, give me leave. Where has he dwelt, how liv'd, how lain conceal'd? Sure I may ask so much. JOHN From place to place, dwelling in no place long, My brother Simon still hath borne him company, ('Tis a brave youth, I envy him all his virtues.) Disguis'd in foreign garb, they pass for Frenchmen, Two Protestant exiles from the Limosin Newly arriv'd. Their dwelling's now at Nottingham, Where no soul knows them. LOVEL Can you assign any reason, why a gentleman of Sir Walter's known prudence should expose his person so lightly? JOHN I believe, a certain fondness, A child-like cleaving to the land that gave him birth, Chains him like fate. LOVEL I have known some exiles thus To linger out the term of the law's indulgence, To the hazard of being known.