_Herc._ Amazed! even lost in wond'ring! I rest full Of covetous expectation. I am left As on a rock, from whence I may discern The giddy sea of humour flow beneath, 590 Upon whose back the vainer bubbles float, And forthwith break. O mighty flattery! Thou easiest, common'st, and most grateful venom, That poisons courts and all societies, How grateful dost thou make me? Should one rail, And come to fear[204] a vice, beware leg-rings And the turn'd key on thee, when, if softer hand Suppling a sore that itches (which should smart)-- Free speech gains foes, base fawnings steal the heart. Swell, you imposthum'd members, till you burst, 600 Since 'tis in vain to hinder, on I'll thrust; And when in shame you fall, I'll laugh from hence, And cry, "So end all desperate impudence!" Another's court shall show me where and how Vice may be cured, for now beside myself, Possess'd with almost frenzy, from strong fervour I know I shall produce things mere divine: Without immoderate heat, no virtues shine. For I speak strong, tho' strange,--the dews that steep Our souls in deepest thoughts are fury and sleep. 610 [_Exit._ [161] The officer who set on the dishes and removed them at a banquet. [162] Ed. 3. "overflowing." The italicised words seem to be a quotation. [163] So the old eds.; but probably "Danae's" is a misprint for "the Danaides'." Later we have "Danau's tubbe." [164] "The hill ... that rise" (ll. 27-29). These lines are found only in the second 4to. [165] "Impudence"--omitted in eds. 1. and 3. [166] "Faunus"--omitted in eds. 1. and 3. [167] Possibly a corrupt abbreviation of Ital. _Vino di Montepulciano_. [168] So ed. 2.--Eds. 1. and 3. "to health [and _to'th health_] of thy chin." [169] See note, vol. i. p. 153. [170] Rich broths.--Cf. Middleton, iii. 285:--"Let gold, amber, and dissolved pearl be common ingrediences, and that you cannot compose a cullice without 'em." [171] _i.e._, parroquets?--Cf. _The Fox_, iii. 6: "The heads of _parrots_, tongues of nightingales, The brains of peacocks and of estriches, Shall be our food." [172] Eds. 1. and 3. "thy." [173] Wife.--See Middleton, iv. 62, vii. 212. [174] This must be a misprint.--Should we read "royal"? [175] "Who's this?"--omitted in eds. 1. and 3. [176] "Lord"--omitted in eds. 1. and 3. [177] _Richard III._, i. 1. l. 32: "Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous." [178] Cf. 1 _Henry IV._, ii. 4:--"For though _the camomile_ the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth the more it is wasted the sooner it wears." The comparison was very common. [179] See Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, lib. ix.