_Flam._ Your comfortable words are like honey; they relish well in your mouth that's whole, but in mine that's wounded they go down as if the sting of the bee were in them. O, they have wrought their purpose cunningly, as if they would not seem to do it of malice! In this a politician imitates the devil, as the devil imitates a cannon; wheresoever he comes to do mischief, he comes with his backside towards you. _Fr. Am._ The proofs are evident. _Flam._ Proof! 'twas corruption. O gold, what a god art thou! and O man, what a devil art thou to be tempted by that cursed mineral! Your diversivolent lawyer, mark him: knaves turn informers, as maggots turn to flies; you may catch gudgeons with either. A cardinal! I would he would hear me: there's nothing so holy but money will corrupt and putrify it, like victual under the line. You are happy in England, my lord: here they sell justice with those weights they press men to death with. O horrible salary! _Eng. Am._ Fie, fie, Flamineo! [_Exeunt_ Ambassadors. _Flam._ Bells ne'er ring well, till they are at their full pitch; and I hope yon cardinal shall never have the grace to pray well till he come to the scaffold. If they were racked now to know the confederacy,--but your noblemen are privileged from the rack; and well may, for a little thing would pull some of them a-pieces afore they came to their arraignment. Religion, O, how it is commedled[57] with policy! The first bloodshed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew! _Mar._ O, there are too many. _Flam._ You are deceived: there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough. _Mar._ How? _Flam._ I'll prove it; for if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benefices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms, whose best growth sprang from a dunghill, should not aspire to gentility. Farewell: let others live by begging; be thou one of them practise the art of Wolner[58] in England, to swallow all's given thee; and yet let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a saw-pit. I'll go hear the screech-owl. [_Exit._ _Lod._ [_Aside_]. This was Brachiano's pander and 'tis strange That, in such open and apparent guilt Of his adulterous sister, he dare utter So scandalous a passion. I must wind him. _Re-enter_ FLAMINEO. _Flam._ [_Aside_]. How dares this banished count return to Rome, His pardon not yet purchased! I have heard The deceased duchess gave him pension, And that he came along from Padua I' the train of the young prince. There's somewhat in't: Physicians, that cure poisons, still do work With counter-poisons. _Mar._ Mark this strange encounter.