SCENE VII.

_Enter (at the windows) the_ WIDOW _and_ MASTER CARELESS, MISTRESS PLEASANT _and_ MASTER WILD, CAPTAIN, MASTER SAD, CONSTANT, JOLLY, SECRET: _a table and knives ready for oysters_.

WID. You're welcome all, but especially Master Jolly. No reply with, _I thank your ladyship_.

PLEA. I beseech you, sir, let us never be better acquainted?

[_She speaks to_ MASTER JOLLY.

JOLLY. I shall endeavour, lady, and fail in nothing that is in my power to disoblige you; for there is none more ambitious of your ill opinion than I.

PLEA. I rejoice at it; for the less love, the better welcome still.

WID. And as ever you had an ounce of love for the widow, be not friends among yourselves.

WILD. Aunt, though we were at strife when we were alone, yet now we unite like a politic state against the common enemy.

PLEA. The common enemy! what is that?

WILD. Women, and lovers in general.

WID. Nay, then we have a party, niece: claim quickly, now is the time, according to the proverb, keep a thing seven years, and then if thou hast no use on't, throw't away.

PLEA. Agreed, let's challenge our servants: by the love they have professed, they cannot in honour refuse to join with us. And see where they come!

_Enter_ SAD _and_ CONSTANT, _and meet_ SECRET; _she whispers this to_ SAD.

SEC. Sir, 'tis done.

SAD. Be secret and grave, I'll warrant our design will take as we can wish.

CON. Sweet Mistress Pleasant!

WID. Servant Sad.

SAD. Madam.

WID. We are threatened to have a war waged against us: will you not second us?

SAD. With these youths we'll do enough, madam.

WID. I'll swear my servant gave hit for hit this morning, as if he had been a master in the noble science of wit.

PLEA. Mine laid about him with spick and span[224] new arguments, not like the same man: his old sayings and precedents laid by.

WID. Thus armed, then, we'll stand and defy them.

WILD. Where's your points? sure, aunt, this should be your wedding-day, for you have taken the man for better for worse.

WID. No, nephew, this will not prove the day, that we shall either give or take a ring.

CARE. Hang me, if I know you can go back again with your honour.

WILD. Or in justice refuse him liberty that has served out his time: either marry him, or provide for him, for he is maimed in your service.

WID. Why, servant Sad, you'll arm? my nephew has thrown the first dart at you.

CAPT. Hast hit, hast hit?

WILD. No, captain; 'twas too wide.

CAPT. Too wide! marry, he's an ill marksman that shoots wider than a widow.

JOLLY. We are both in one hole, captain; but I was loth to venture my opinion, lest her ladyship should think I was angry, for I have a good mind to fall upon the widow.

PLEA. You're a constant man, Master Jolly; you have been in that mind this twelvemonth's day.

CON. You are in the right, madam; she has it to show under his hand, but she will not come in the list with him again: she threw him the last year.

WID. Come, shall we eat oysters? Who's there? Call for some wine. Master Jolly, you are not warm yet. Pray, be free, you are at home.

JOLLY. Your ladyship is merry.

WID. You do not take it ill to have me assure you, you are at home here?

WILD. Such another invitation (though in jest) will take away Master Sad's stomach.

[_Oysters not brought in yet._

SAD. No, faith, Ned, though she should take him, it will not take away my stomach: my love is so fixed, I may wish my wishes, but she shall never want them to wait upon hers.

PLEA. A traitor! bind him! has pulled down a side. Profess your love thus public?

JOLLY. Ay, by my faith, continue, Master Sad, [to] give it out you love; and call it a new love, a love never seen before; we'll all come to it as your friends.

SAD. Gentlemen, still I love: and if she to whom I thus sacrifice will not reward it, yet the worst malice can say is, I was unfortunate; and misfortune, not falsehood, made me so.

JOLLY. In what chapter shall we find this written, and what verse? you should preach with a method, Master Sad.

WID. Gentlemen, if ever he spoke so much dangerous sense before (either of love or reason), hang me.

SAD. Madam, my love is no news, where you are: know, your scorn has made it public; and though it could gain no return from you, yet others have esteemed me for the faith and constancy I have paid here.

PLEA. Did not I foretell you of his love? I foresaw this danger. Shall I never live to see wit and love dwell together?

CAPT. I am but a poor soldier, and yet never reached to the honour of being a lover; yet from my own observations, Master Sad, take a truth: 'tis a folly to believe any woman loves a man for being constant to another; they dissemble their hearts only, and hate a man in love worse than a wencher.

JOLLY. And they have reason; for if they have the grace to be kind, he that loves the sex may be theirs.

CARE. When your constant lover, if a woman have a mind to him, and be blessed with so much grace to discover it, he, out of the noble mistake of honour hates her for it, and tells it perchance, and preaches reason to her passion, and cries: Miserable beauty, to be so unfortunate as to inhabit in so much frailty!

CAPT. This counsel makes her hate him more than she loved before. These are troubles those that love are subject to; while we look on and laugh, to see both thus slaved, while we are free.

CARE. My prayers still shall be, Lord deliver me from love.

CAPT. 'Tis plague, pestilence, famine, sword, and sometimes sudden death.

SAD. Yet I love, I must love, I will love, and I do love.

CAPT. In the present tense.

WID. No more of this argument, for love's sake.

CAPT. By any means, madam, give him leave to love: and you are resolved to walk tied up in your own arms, with your love as visible in your face as your mistress's colours in your hat; that any porter at Charing Cross may take you like a letter at the carrier's, and having read the superscription, deliver Master Sad to the fair hands of Mistress or My Lady Such-a-one, lying at the sign of the Hard Heart.

PLEA. And she, if she has wit (as I believe she hath), will scarce pay the post for the packet.

WID. Treason! how now, niece? join with the enemy?

[_They give the_ CAPTAIN _wine_.

CAPT. A health, Ned: what shall I call it?

CARE. To Master Sad! he needs it that avows himself a lover.

SAD. Gentlemen, you have the advantage, the time, the place, the company; but we may meet when your wits shall not have such advantage as my love.

PLEA. No more of love, I am so sick on't.

CON. By your pardon, mistress, I must not leave love thus unguarded: I vow myself his follower.

JOLLY. Much good may love do him. Give me a glass of wine here. Will, let them keep company with the blind boy. Give us his mother, and let them preach again: Hear that will, he has good luck persuades me 'tis an ugly sin to lie with a handsome woman.

CAPT. A pox upon your nurse; she frighted me so, when I was young, with stories of the devil, I was almost fourteen ere I could prevail with reasons to unbind my reason, it was so slaved to faith and conscience. She made me believe wine was an evil spirit, and fornication, like the whore of Babylon, a fine face, but a dragon under her petticoats, and that made me have a mind to peep under all I met since.

WID. Fie, fie! for shame, do not talk so: are you not ashamed to glory in sin, as if variety of women were none?

JOLLY. Madam, we do not glory in fornication; and yet I thank God, I cannot live without a woman.

CAPT. Why, does your ladyship think it a sin to lie with variety of handsome women? If it be, would I were the wicked'st man in the company.

PLEA. You have been marked for an indifferent sinner that way, captain.

CAPT. Who, I? no, faith, I was a fool; but, and I were to begin again, I would not do as I have done. I kept one, but if ever I keep another, hang me; nor would I advise any friend of mine to do it.

JOLLY. Why, I am sure 'tis a provident and safe way: a man may always be provided and sound.

PLEA. Fie upon this discourse!

CAPT. Those considerations betrayed me: a pox! it is a dull sin to travel, like a carrier's horse, always one road.

WID. Fie, captain! repent for shame, and marry.

CAPT. Your ladyship would have said, marry and repent: no, though it be not the greatest pleasure, yet it is better than marrying; for when I am weary of her, my inconstancy is termed virtue, and I shall be said to turn to grace. Beware of women for better, for worse; for our wicked nature, when her sport is lawful, cloys straight: therefore, rather than marry, keep a wench.

JOLLY. Faith, he's in the right; for 'tis the same thing in number and kind, and then the sport is quickened, and made poignant with sin.

CAPT. Yet 'tis a fault, faith, and I'll persuade all my friends from it; especially here, where any innovation is dangerous. 'Twas the newness of the sin that made me suffer in the opinion of my friends, and I was condemned by all sorts of people; not that I sinned, but that I sinned no more.

CARE. Why, ay, hadst thou been wicked in fashion, and privily lain with everybody, their guilt would have made them protect thee: so that to be more wicked is to be innocent, at least safe. A wicked world, Lord help us!

CAPT. But being particular to her, and not in love, nor subject to it: taking an antidote every morning, before I venture into those infectious places where love and beauty dwell; this enraged the maiden beauties of the time, who thought it a prejudice to their beauties to see me careless, and securely pass by their conquering eyes, my name being found amongst none of those that decked their triumphs. But from this 'tis easy to be safe; for their pride will not let them love, nor my leisure me. Then the old ladies that pay for their pleasures,--they, upon the news, beheld me with their natural frowns, despairing when their money could not prevail; and hated me when they heard that I for my pleasure would pay as large as they.

JOLLY. Gentlemen, take warning: a fee from every man; for by this day, there's strange counsel in this confession.

WILD. Captain, you forgot to pledge Master Careless! Here, will you not drink a cup of wine? Who's there? Bring the oysters.

CAPT. Yes, madam, if you please.

WILD. Proceed, captain.

PLEA. Fie, Master Wild! are you not ashamed to encourage him to this filthy discourse?

CAPT. A glass of wine then, and I'll drink to all the new-married wives that grieve to think at what rate their fathers purchase a little husband. These, when they lie thirsting for the thing they paid so dear for----

_Enter a_ SERVANT _with oysters_.

CARE. These, methinks, should be thy friends, and point thee out as a man for them.

CAPT. Yes, till the faithful nurse cries; Alas, madam! he keeps such a one, he has enough at home. Then she swells with envy and rage against us both; calls my mistress ugly, common, unsafe, and me a weak secure fool.

JOLLY. These are strange truths, madam.

WID. Ay, ay; but those oysters are a better jest.

CAPT. But she's abused that will let such reason tame her desire, and a fool in love's-school; else she would not be ignorant that variety is such a friend to love, that he which rises a sunk coward from the lady's bed, would find new fires at her maid's: nor ever yet did the man want fire, if the woman would bring the fuel.

PLEA. For God's sake, leave this discourse.

WID. The captain has a mind we should eat no oysters.

WILD. Aunt, we came to be merry, and we will be merry, and you shall stay it out. Proceed, captain.

WID. Fie, captain, I am ashamed to hear you talk thus: marry, and then you'll have a better opinion of women.

CAPT. Marry! yes, this knowledge will invite me: it is a good encouragement, is it not, think you? What is your opinion? Were not these marriages made in heaven? By this good day, all the world is mad, and makes haste to be fooled, but we four: and I hope there's none of us believes there has any marriages been made in heaven since Adam.

JOLLY. By my faith, 'tis thought the devil gave the ring there too.

WID. Nephew, I'll swear I'll be gone.

CAPT. Hold her, Ned [_He points at_ SAD], she goes not yet; there's a fourth kind of women that concerns her more than all the rest--_ecce signum_! She is one of those who, clothed in purple, triumph over their dead husbands; these will be catched at first sight, and at first sight must be caught. 'Tis a bird that must be shot flying, for they never sit. If a man delay, they cool, and fall into considerations of jointure and friends' opinion; in which time, if she hears thou keep'st a wench, thou hadst better be a beggar in her opinion; for then her pride, it may be, would betray her to the vanity of setting up a proper man (as they call it); but for a wencher no argument prevails with your widow; for she believes they have spent too much that way to be able to pay her due benevolence.

WID. As I live, I'll be gone, if you speak one word more of this uncivil subject.

JOLLY. Captain, let me kiss thy cheek for that, widow. You understand this, widow? I say no more. Here, captain, here's to thee! As it goes down, a pox of care!

WID. Jesus! Master Jolly, have you no observations of the court, that are so affected with this of the town.

CON. Faith, they say, there's good sport there sometimes.

PLEA. Master Jolly is afraid to let us partake of his knowledge.

JOLLY. No, faith, madam.

CAPT. By this drink, if he stay till I have eaten a few more, I'll describe it.

JOLLY. What should I say? 'Tis certain the court is the bravest place in the kingdom for sport, if it were well looked to, and the game preserved fair; but, as 'tis, a man may sooner make a set in the Strand; and it will never be better whilst your divine lovers[225] inhabit there.

CARE. Let the king make me master of the game.[226]

CAPT. And admit us laity-lovers.

JOLLY. I would he would; for, as 'tis, there's no hopes amongst the ladies: besides, 'tis such an example to see a king and queen good husband and wife, that to be kind will grow out of fashion.

CAPT. Nay, that's not all; for the women grow malicious because they are not courted: nay, they bred all the last mischiefs, and called the king's chastity a neglect of them.

JOLLY. Thou art in the right. An Edward or a Harry, with seven queens in buckram, that haught[227] among the men, and stroked the women, are the monarchs they wish to bow to; they love no tame princes, but lions in the forest!

CAPT. Why, and those were properly called the fathers of their people, that were indeed akin to their nobility: now they wear out their youth and beauty, without hope of a monumental ballad, or trophy of a libel that shall hereafter point at such a lord, and cry, that is the royal son of such a one!

JOLLY. And these were the ways that made them powerful at home: for the city is a kind of tame beast; you may lead her by the horns any whither, if you but tickle them in the ear sometimes. Queen Bess, of famous memory, had the trick on't; and I have heard them say, in eighty-eight, ere I was born, as well as I can remember, she rode to Tilbury on that bonny beast, the mayor.

CAPT. I would I might counsel him, I'd so reform the court.

CARE. Never too soon; for now, when a stranger comes in, and spies a covey of beauties would make a falconer unhood, before he can draw his leash, he is warned that's a marked partridge; and that and every he has by their example a particular she.

WILD. By this light, the six fair maids stand like the working-days in the almanac; one with A scored upon her breast, that is as much as to say, I belong to such a lord; the next with B, for an elder brother; C, for such a knight; D, possessed with melancholy, and at her breast you may knock an hour ere you get an answer, and then she'll tell you there's no lodging there; she has a constant fellow-courtier that has taken up all her heart to his own use: in short, all are disposed of but the good mother, and she comes in like the Sabbath at the week's end; and I warrant her to make any one rest that comes at her.

CARE. Ay, marry, if she were like the Jews' Sabbath, it were somewhat; but this looks like a broken commandment, that has had more work done upon her than all the week besides.

CAPT. And what think you--is not this finely carried? you, that are about the king, counsel him, if he will have his sport fair, he must let the game be free, as it has been in former ages. Then a stranger that has wit, good means, and handsome clothes, no sooner enters the privy chamber, and beats about with three graceful legs,[228] but he springs a mistress that danced as well as he, sung better: as free as fair. Those at first sight could speak, for wit is always acquainted: these fools must be akin, ere they can speak. And now friends make the bargain, and they go to bed, ere they know why.

JOLLY. Faith, he's in the right: you shall have a buzzard now hover and beat after a pretty wench, till she is so weary of him she's forced to take her bed for covert, and find less danger in being trussed than in flying.

CAPT. And what becomes of all this pudder?[229] after he has made them sport for one night, to see him touze the quarry, he carries her into the country; and there they two fly at one another till they are weary.

CARE. And all this mischief comes of love and constancy. We shall never see better days till there be an act of parliament against it, enjoining husbands not to till their wives, but change and lay them fallow.

JOLLY. A pox, the women will never consent to it: they'll be tilled to death first.

WILD. Gentlemen, you are very bold with the sex.

CAPT. Faith, madam, it is our care of them. Why, you see they are married at fourteen, yield a crop and a half, and then die: 'tis merely their love that destroys 'em; for if they get a good husbandman, the poor things yield their very hearts.

PLEA. And do you blame their loves, gentlemen?

JOLLY. No, not their love, but their discretion; let them love, and do, a God's name, but let them do with discretion.

WILD. But how will you amend this?

JOLLY. Instead of two beds and a physician, I'd have the state prescribe two wives and a mistress.

WILD. Ho! it will never be granted: the state is made up of old men, and they find work enough with one.

JOLLY. We will petition the lower house; there are young men, and (if it were but to be factious) would pass it, if they thought the upper house would cross it; besides, they ought to do it. Death! they provide against cutting down old trees, and preserving highways and post-horses, and let pretty wenches run to decay.

CARE. Why may it not come within the statute of depopulation? As I live, the state ought to take care of those pretty creatures. Be you judge, madam: is't not a sad sight to see a rich young beauty, with all her innocence and blossoms on, subject to some rough rude fellow, that ploughs her, and esteems and uses her as a chattel, till she is so lean, a man may find as good grass upon the common, where it may be she'll sit coughing with sunk eyes, so weak that a boy (with a dog) that can but whistle, may keep a score of them?

WID. You are strangely charitable to our sex on a sudden!

CAPT. I know not what they are; but, for my part, I'll be a traitor, ere I'll look on and see beauty go thus to wreck. It is enough custom has made us suffer them to be enclosed. I am sure they were created common, and for the use of man, and not intended to be subject to jealousy and choler, or to be bought or sold, or let for term of lives or years, as they are now, or else sold at outcries:[230] _Oh yes! who'll give most, take her._

WID. Why do not some of you excellent men marry, and mend all these errors by your good example?

JOLLY. Because we want fortunes to buy rich wives or keep poor ones, and be loth to get beggars or whores, as well as I love 'em.

PLEA. Why, are all their children so that have no fortune, think you?

JOLLY. No, not all: I have heard of Whittington and his Cat,[231] and others, that have made fortunes by strange means, but I scarce believe my son would rise from _Hop, a halfpenny and a lamb's-skin_;[232] and the wenches, commonly having more wit and beauty than money, foreseeing small portions, grow sad and read romances, till their wit spy some unfortunate merit like their own, without money too; and they two sigh after one another till they grow mysterious in colours, and become a proverb for their constancy: and when their love has worn out the cause, marry in the end a new couple; then, grown ashamed of the knowledge they so long hunted, at length part by consent, and vanish into Abigail and governor.

WID. Well, gentlemen, excuse me for this one time; and if ever I invite you to dinner again, punish me with such another discourse. In the meantime, let's go in and dine; meat stays for us.

CAPT.[233] Faith, madam, we were resolved to be merry: we have not met these three years till to-day, and at the Bear we meant to have dined; and since your ladyship would have our company, you must pardon our humour. Here, Master[234] Sad, here's the widow's health to you.

[_Exeunt omnes._