English drama -- 17th century; English drama -- Early modern and Elizabethan, 1500-1600
_Bos._ Let me see: you have a reasonable good face for't already, and
your night-cap expresses your ears sufficient largely. I would have you
learn to twirl the strings of your band with a good grace, and in a
set speech, at the end of every sentence, to hum three or four times,
or blow your nose till it smart again, to recover your memory. When
you come to be a president in criminal causes, if you smile upon a
prisoner, hang him; but if you frown upon him and threaten him, let him
be sure to scape the gallows.
_Cast._ I would be a very merry president.
_Bos._ Do not sup o' nights; 'twill beget you an admirable wit.
_Cast._ Rather it would make me have a good stomach to quarrel; for
they say, your roaring boys[113] eat meat seldom, and that makes them
so valiant. But how shall I know whether the people take me for an
eminent fellow?
_Bos._ I will teach a trick to know it: give out you lie a-dying, and
if you hear the common people curse you, be sure you are taken for one
of the prime night-caps.[114]
_Enter an_ Old Lady.
You come from painting now.
_Old Lady._ From what?
_Bos._ Why, from your scurvy face-physic. To behold thee not painted
inclines somewhat near a miracle; these in thy face here were deep ruts
and foul sloughs the last progress.[115] There was a lady in France
that, having had the small-pox, flayed the skin off her face to make it
more level; and whereas before she looked like a nutmeg-grater, after
she resembled an abortive hedgehog.
_Old Lady._ Do you call this painting?
_Bos._ No, no, but you call it careening of an old morphewed[116] lady,
to make her disembogue again: there's rough-cast phrase to your plastic.
_Old Lady._ It seems you are well acquainted with my closet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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