SCENE IV.

_Enter_ WHOREBANG, BOTS,[103] TEARCHAPS, SPILLBLOOD, _and_ DRAWER: _several patches on their faces_.

TEAR. Damn me, we will have more wine, sirrah, or we'll down into the cellar, and drown thee in a butt of Malmsey, and hew all the hogsheads in pieces.

WHORE. Hang him, rogue! shall he die as honourable as the Duke of Clarence? by this flesh, let's have wine, or I will cut thy head off, and have it roasted and eaten in Pie Corner next Bartholomew-tide.

DRAWER. Gentlemen, I beseech you consider where you are--Turnbull Street--a civil place: do not disturb a number of poor gentlewomen. Master Whorebang, Master Bots, Master Tearchaps, and Master Spillblood, the watch are abroad.

SPILL. The watch! why, you rogue, are not we kings of Turnbull?

DRAWER. Yes, marry are ye, sir: for my part, if you'll be quiet, I'll have a sign made of ye, and it shall be called the four kings of Turnbull.

BOTS. Will you fetch us wine?

WHORE. And a whore, sirrah?

DRAWER. Why, what d'ye think of me? am I an infidel, a Turk, a pagan, a Saracen? I have been at Bess Turnup's, and she swears all the gentlewomen went to see a play at the Fortune,[104] and are not come in yet, and she believes they sup with the players.

TEAR. Damn me, we must kill all those rogues: we shall never keep a whore honest for them.

BOTS. Go your ways, sirrah. We'll have but a gallon apiece, and an ounce of tobacco.

DRAWER. I beseech you, let it be but pottles.[105]

SPILL. 'Sheart! you rogue. [_Exit_ DRAWER.

_Enter_ WELLTRIED _and_ LORD FEESIMPLE.

WHORE. Master Welltried! welcome as my soul.

_Enter_ DRAWER, _with wine, plate and tobacco_.

BOTS. Noble lad, how dost thou?

SPILL. As welcome as the tobacco and the wine, boy.

TEAR. Damn me, thou art.

FEE. Bless me (save you, gentlemen), they have not one face among 'em! I could wish myself well from them: from them: I would I had put out something upon my return; I had as lief be at Barmuthoes.[106]

WELL. Pray, welcome this gentleman.

SPILL. Is he valiant? [_Aside._

WELL. Faith, he's a little faulty that way; somewhat of a bashful and backward nature, yet I have brought him amongst you, because he hath a great desire to be fleshed.

[_Aside._

FEE. Yes, faith, sir, I have a great desire to be fleshed; now Master Welltried said he would bring me to the only fleshmongers in the town.

WELL. Sir, he cannot endure the sight of steel. [_Aside._

WHORE. Not steel? zounds! [_Claps his sword over the table._

FEE. Now I am going! [_Faints._

BOTS. Here's to you, sir. I'll fetch you again with a cup of sack.

FEE. I pledge you, sir, and begin to you in a cup of claret.

WELL. Hark you, my lord: what will you say if I make you beat all these out of the room?

[_Aside._

FEE. What will I say? why, I say it is impossible; 'tis not in mortal man.

[_Aside._]

WELL. Well, drink apace: if any brave you, outbrave him; I'll second you. They are a company of cowards, believe me.

[_Aside._]

FEE. By this light, I would they were else: if I thought so, I would be upon the jack[107] of one of 'em instantly, that same little Damn me. But, Master Welltried, if they be not very valiant, or dare not fight, how came they by such cuts and gashes, and such broken faces? [_Aside._]

WELL. Why, their whores strike 'em with cans and glasses, and quart-pots: if they have nothing by 'em, they strike 'em with the pox, and you know that will lay one's nose as flat as a basket-hilt dagger.

[_Aside._]

FEE. Well, let me alone. [_Aside._]

TEAR. This bully dares not drink.

FEE. Dare I not, sir?

WELL. Well said; speak to him, man.

FEE. You had best try me, sir.

SPILL. We four will drink four healths to four of the seven deadly sins, pride, drunkenness, wrath, and lechery.

FEE. I'll pledge 'em, and I thank you; I know 'em all. Here's one.

WHORE. Which of the sins?

FEE. By my troth, even to pride.

WELL. Why, well said; and in this do not you only pledge your mistress's health, but all the women's in the world.

FEE. So: now this little cup to wrath, because he and I are strangers.

TEAR. Brave boy! damn me, he shall be a roarer.

FEE. Damn me, I will be a roarer, or't shall cost me a fall.

BOTS. The next place that falls, pray, let him have it.

FEE. Well, I have two of my healths to drink yet--lechery and drunkenness, which even shall go together.

WELL. Why, how now, my lord, a moralist?

BOTS. Damn me, art thou a lord? what virtues hast thou?

FEE. Virtues? enough to keep e'er a damn-me company in England: methinks you should think it virtue enough to be a lord.

WHORE. Will not you pledge these healths, Master Welltried? we'll have no observers.

WELL. Why, Monsieur Whorebang? I am no playmaker[108], and, for pledging your healths, I love none of the four you drank to so well.

SPILL. Zounds! you shall pledge me this.

WELL. Shall I?

FEE. What's the matter? dost hear, Master Welltried, use thine own discretion; if thou wilt not pledge him, say so, and let me see if e'er a damn-me of 'em all will force thee.

SPILL. Puff! will your lordship take any tobacco? you lord with the white face.

BOTS. Heart! he cannot put it through his nose.

FEE. Faith, you have ne'er a nose to put it through; d'ye hear I blow your face, sirrah.

TEAR. You'll pledge me, sir?

WELL. Indeed, I will not.

FEE. Damn me, he shall not then.[109]

TEAR. Lord, use your own words, _damn me_ is mine; I am known by it all the town o'er, d'ye hear?

FEE. It is as free for me as you, d'ye hear, Patch?[110]

TEAR. I have paid more for't.

WELL. Nay, I'll bear him witness in a truth: his soul lies for't,[111] my lord.

SPILL. Welltried, you are grown proud since you got good clothes and have followed your lord.

[_Strikes, and they scuffle._

WHORE. I have known you lousy, Welltried.

WELL. Roarer, you lie. [_Draw and fight; throw pots and stools._

DRAWER. O Jesu!

ALL SWAGGERERS. Zounds! cleave or be cleft: pell-mell: slash arms and legs.

FEE. Heart! let me alone with 'em.

[_Break off, and exeunt all the_ SWAGGERERS.

WELL. Why, now thou art a worthy wight, indeed, a Lord of Lorn.[112]

FEE. I am a madman: look, is not that one of their heads?

WELL. Fie! no, my lord.

FEE. Damn me, but 'tis; I would not wish you to cross me a'purpose: if you have anything to say to me, so--I am ready.

WELL. O brave lord! many a roarer thus is made by wine. Come, it is one of their heads, my lord.

FEE. Why so, then, I will have my humour. If you love me, let's go break windows somewhere.

WELL. Drawer, take your plate. For the reckoning there's some of their cloaks: I will be no shot-log to such.

DRAWER. God's blessing o' your heart for thus ridding the house of them.

[_Exeunt._

FOOTNOTES:

[97] [Old copy, _wants, and_.]

[98] [Old copy, _no_.]

[99] Both the old copies read, _that carries a double sense_, but it is clearly a misprint.

[100] The Widow means that Master Pert walks as if he were made of _wires_, and _gins_ were usually composed of wire.

[101] So in "The Fatal Dowry," Liladam exclaims, "Uds light! my lord, one of the purls of your band is, without all discipline, fallen out of his rank," act ii. sc. 2. These little phrases may assist in tracing the authorship of different parts of a play by distinct authors.

[102] [Old copy, _his_.]

[103] [This name, given to one of the _roarers_, is a corruption of _pox_. We often meet with the form in the old plays.]

[104] The _Fortune_ Theatre [in Golden Lane] was built in 1599 by Edward Allen, the founder of Dulwich College, at an expense of £520, and in the Prologue of Middleton and Dekker's "Roaring Girl" it is called "a _vast_ theatre." It was eighty feet square, and was consumed by fire in 1621.

[105] A pottle was half a gallon.

[106] He means that he wishes he had _insured_ his return, as he would as willingly be at the Bermudas, or (as it was then called) "The Isle of Devils." In a note on "the still vexed Barmoothes" ("Tempest," act i. sc. 2), it is shown that _the Bermudas_ was a cant name for the privileged resort of such characters as Whorebang and his companions.

The notions entertained by our ancestors of the Bermudas is distinctly shown in the following extract from Middleton's "Anything for a Quiet Life," 1662, act v.; [Dyce's edit., iv. 499.] _Chamlet_ is troubled with a shrewish wife, and is determined to leave England and go somewhere else. He says--

"The place I speak of has been kept with thunder, With frightful lightnings' amazing noises; But now (the enchantment broke) 'tis the land of peace, Where hogs and tobacco yield fair increase. . . Gentlemen, fare you well, I am for the Bermudas."

[107] "The _jack_, properly, is a coat of mail, but it here means a buff _jacket_ or _jerkin_ worn by soldiers or pretended soldiers."

[108] These words have reference, perhaps, to Middleton and Rowley's curious old comedy of manners, "A Faire Quarrel," 1617 and 1622. The second edition contains "new additions of Mr Chaugh, and Trimtram's _roaring_." These two persons, empty pretenders to courage, set up a sort of academy for instruction in the art and mystery of _roaring_ or bullying, and much of the piece is written in ridicule of it and its riotous professors. Whorebang calls these playmakers _observers_, as if suspecting that Welltried and Feesimple came among them for the purpose of making notes for a play. In Webster and Rowley's "Cure for a Cuckold," 1661, act iv. sc. 1, there is another allusion to the "Faire Quarrel," where Compass uses the words _Tweak_ and _Bronstrops_, adding, "I learnt that name in a play." Chaugh and Trimtram, in the "Faire Quarrel," undertake also to give lessons in the _cant_ and _slang_ of the time. In other respects, excepting as a picture of the manners of the day, that play possesses little to recommend it.

[109] In both the old copies this remark is erroneously given to Tearchaps.

[110] _Patch_ and _fool_ are synonymous in old writers. Feesimple alludes also to the patch on the face of Tearchaps.

[111] That is, his soul _lies in pawn_ for employing the oath.

[112] [The hero of an early heroic ballad so called. See Hazlitt, in _v_.]