In that which is but gentry's ornament; Which, being meanly done, becomes them well; 190 But when with dear time's loss they do excell, How ill they do things well! To dance and sing, To vault, to fence, and fairly trot[602] a ring With good grace, meanly done, O what repute They do beget! But being absolute, It argues too much time, too much regard Employ'd in that which might be better spar'd Than substance should be lost. If one should sue For Lesbia's love, having two days to woo, And not one more, and should employ those twain 200 The favour of her waiting-wench to gain, Were he not mad? Your apprehension, Your wits are quick in application. Gallants, Methinks your souls should grudge and inly scorn To be made slaves[603] to humours that are born In slime of filthy sensuality. That part not subject to mortality (Boundless, discursive apprehension Giving it wings to act his function), 210 Methinks should murmur when you stop his course, And soil his beauties in some beastly source Of brutish pleasures; but it is so poor, So weak, so hunger-bitten, evermore Kept from his food, meagre for want of meat, Scorn'd and rejected, thrust from out his seat, Upbraid[604] by capons' grease, consumèd quite By eating stews, that waste the better sprite, Snibb'd[605] by his baser parts, that now poor soul (Thus peasanted to each lewd thought's control) 220 Hath lost all heart, bearing all injuries, The utmost spite and rank'st indignities, With forcèd willingness; taking great joy, If you will deign his faculties employ But in the mean'st ingenious quality. (How proud he'll be of any dignity!) Put it to music, dancing, fencing-school, Lord, how I laugh to hear the pretty fool, How it will prate! His tongue shall never lie, But still discourse of his spruce quality, 230 Egging his master to proceed from this, And get the substance of celestial bliss. His lord straight calls his parliament of sense; But still the sensual have pre-eminence. The poor soul's better part so feeble is, So cold and dead is his Synderesis, "That shadows, by odd chance, sometimes are got; But O the substance is respected not!" Here ends my rage. Though angry brow was bent, Yet I have sung in sporting merriment. 240 [584] _i.e._ "Melancholy, get you to hell!" [585] Seemingly a term for some sliding dance-movement. [586] "Intellectual ... mincing capreal."--These words are ridiculed by Ben Jonson in _Every Man out of his Humour_, iii. 1. See Introduction, vol. i. [587] Sir John Davies' excellent poem. [588] "A hall, a hall!"--The cry raised when an open space was wanted for the dancers.