SCENE I.

_Goldsmiths' Row._

TOUCHSTONE, QUICKSILVER, GOLDING, _and_ MILDRED, _sitting on either side of the stall_.

_To._ Quicksilver, Master Francis Quicksilver, Master Quicksilver!

_Enter_ QUICKSILVER.

_Qu._ Here, sir (ump).

_To._ So, sir; nothing but flat Master Quicksilver (without any familiar addition) will fetch you; will you truss my points, sir?

_Qu._ Ay, forsooth (ump).

_To._ How now, sir? the drunken hiccup so soon this morning?

_Qu._ 'Tis but the coldness of my stomach, forsooth. 10

_To._ What? have you the cause natural for it? y'are a very learned drunkard: I believe I shall miss some of my silver spoons with your learning. The nuptial night will not moisten your throat sufficiently, but the morning likewise must rain her dews into your gluttonous weasand.

_Qu._ An't please you, sir, we did but drink (ump) to the coming off of the knightly bridegroom.

_To._ To the coming off an' him? 19

_Qu._ Ay, forsooth, we drunk to his coming on (ump) when we went to bed; and now we are up, we must drink to his coming off: for that's the chief honour of a soldier, sir; and therefore we must drink so much the more to it, forsooth (ump).

_To._ A very capital reason! So that you go to bed late, and rise early to commit drunkenness; you fulfil the scripture very sufficient wickedly, forsooth.

_Qu._ The knight's men, forsooth, be still o' their knees at it (ump), and because 'tis for your credit, sir, I would be loth to flinch. 30

_To._ I pray, sir, e'en to 'hem again then; y'are one of the separated crew, one of my wife's faction, and my young lady's, with whom, and with their great match, I will have nothing to do.

_Qu._ So, sir, now I will go keep my (ump) credit with 'hem, an't please you, sir.

_To._ In any case, sir, lay one cup of sack more o' your cold stomach, I beseech you. 38

_Qu._ Yes, forsooth.

[_Exit_ QUICKSILVER.

_To._ This is for my credit! servants ever maintain drunkenness in their master's house for their master's credit; a good idle serving-man's reason. I thank time the night is past; I ne'er waked to such cost; I think we have stowed more sorts of flesh in our bellies than ever Noah's ark received; and for wine, why my house turns giddy with it, and more noise in it than at a conduit. Ay me! even beasts condemn our gluttony. Well, 'tis our city's fault, which, because we commit seldom, we commit the more sinfully; we lose no time in our sensuality, but we make amends for it. O that we would do so in virtue, and religious negligences! But see here are all the sober parcels my house can show; I'll eavesdrop, hear what thoughts they utter this morning. 54

_Enter_ GOLDING _and_ MILDRED.

_Go._ But is it possible that you, seeing your sister preferred to the bed of a knight, should contain your affections in the arms of a prentice?

_Mi._ I had rather make up the garment of my affections in some of the same piece, than, like a fool, wear gowns of two colours, or mix sackcloth with satin.

_Go._ And do the costly garments--the title and fame of a lady, the fashion, observation, and reverence proper to such preferment--no more inflame you than such convenience as my poor means and industry can offer to your virtues? 65

_Mi._ I have observed that the bridle given to those violent flatteries of fortune is seldom recovered; they bear one headlong in desire from one novelty to another, and where those ranging appetites reign, there is ever more passion than reason: no stay, and so no happiness. These hasty advancements are not natural. Nature hath given us legs to go to our objects; not wings to fly to them. 73

_Go._ How dear an object you are to my desires I cannot express; whose fruition would my master's absolute consent and yours vouchsafe me, I should be absolutely happy. And though it were a grace so far beyond my merit, that I should blush with unworthiness to receive it, yet thus far both my love and my means shall assure your requital: you shall want nothing fit for your birth and education; what increase of wealth and advancement the honest and orderly industry and skill of our trade will afford in any, I doubt not will be aspired by me; I will ever make your contentment the end of my endeavours; I will love you above all; and only your grief shall be my misery, and your delight my felicity. 87

_To._ Work upon that now. By my hopes, he wooes honestly and orderly; he shall be anchor of my hopes! Look, see the ill-yoked monster, his fellow!

_Enter_ QUICKSILVER _unlaced, a towel about his neck, in his flat-cap, drunk_.

_Qu._ Eastward-ho! _Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia!_[31]

_To._ Drunk now downright, o' my fidelity!

_Qu._ (Ump).[32] Pull eo, pullo! showse, quoth the caliver. 95

_Go._ Fie, fellow Quicksilver, what a pickle are you in!

_Qu._ Pickle? pickle in thy throat; zounds, pickle! Wa, ha, ho! good-morrow, knight Petronel: morrow, lady goldsmith; come off, knight, with a counterbuff, for the honour of knighthood.

_Go._ Why, how now, sir? do ye know where you are? 102

_Qu._ Where I am? why, 'sblood! you jolthead, where I am!

_Go._ Go to, go to, for shame; go to bed and sleep out this immodesty: thou shamest both my master and his house.

_Qu._ Shame? what shame? I thought thou wouldst show thy bringing-up; and thou wert a gentleman as I am, thou wouldst think it no shame to be drunk. Lend me some money, save my credit; I must dine with the serving-men and their wives--and their wives, sirrah! 112

_Go._ E'en who you will; I'll not lend thee threepence.

_Qu._ 'Sfoot; lend me some money; _hast thou not Hiren here?_[33]

_To._ Why, how now, sirrah? what vein's this, ha?

_Qu._ _Who cries on murther? Lady, was it you?_[34] how does our master? pray thee cry Eastward-ho!

_To._ Sirrah, sirrah, y'are past your hiccup now; I see y'are drunk. 121

_Qu._ 'Tis for your credit, master.

_To._ And hear you keep a whore in town.

_Qu._ 'Tis for your credit, master.

_To._ And what you are out in cash, I know.

_Qu._ So do I; my father's a gentleman. Work upon that now. Eastward-ho!

_To._ Sir, Eastward-ho will make you go Westward-ho:[35] I will no longer dishonest my house, nor endanger my stock, with your licence. There, sir, there's your indenture; all your apparel (that I must know) is on your back, and from this time my door is shut to you: from me be free; but for other freedom, and the moneys you have wasted, Eastward-ho shall not serve you. 134

_Qu._ Am I free o' my fetters? Rent, fly with a duck in thy mouth, and now I tell thee, Touchstone----

_To._ Good sir----

_Qu._ _When_[36] _this eternal substance of my soul_--

_To._ Well said; change your gold-ends[37] for your play-ends. 140

_Qu._ _Did live imprison'd in my wanton flesh_--

_To._ What then, sir?

_Qu._ _I was a courtier in the Spanish Court, and Don Andrea was my name._

_To._ Good master Don Andrea, will you march?

_Qu._ Sweet Touchstone, will you lend me two shillings?

_To._ Not a penny.

_Qu._ Not a penny? I have friends, and I have acquaintance; I will piss at thy shop-posts, and throw rotten eggs at thy sign. Work upon that now. 150

[_Exit staggering._

_To._ Now, sirrah, you! hear you? you shall serve me no more neither--not an hour longer.

_Go._ What mean you, sir?

_To._ I mean to give thee thy freedom, and with thy freedom my daughter, and with my daughter a father's love. And with all these such a portion as shall make Knight Petronel himself envy thee! Y'are both agreed, are ye not?

_Am._ With all submission, both of thanks and duty.

_To._ Well then, the great Power of heaven bless and confirm you. And, Golding, that my love to thee may not show less than my wife's love to my eldest daughter, thy marriage feast shall equal the knight's and hers. 163

_Go._ Let me beseech you, no, sir; the superfluity and cold meat left at their nuptials will with bounty furnish ours. The grossest prodigality is superfluous cost of the belly; nor would I wish any invitement of states or friends, only your reverent[38] presence and witness shall sufficiently grace and confirm us. 169

_To._ Son to my own bosom, take her and my blessing. The nice fondling, my lady, sir-reverence, that I must not now presume to call daughter, is so ravished with desire to hansell her new coach, and see her knight's Eastward Castle, that the next morning will sweat with her busy setting forth. Away will she and her mother, and while their preparation is making, ourselves, with some two or three other friends, will consummate the humble match we have in God's name concluded.

'Tis to my wish, for I have often read, Fit birth, fit age, keeps long a quiet bed. 180 'Tis to my wish; for tradesmen, well 'tis known, Get with more ease than gentry keeps his own.

[_Exeunt._

[31] A hackneyed quotation from _Tamburlaine_.

[32] Old ed. "Am pum pull eo," &c.

[33] A favourite quotation of Pistol's ("_Have we_ not Hiren here?"). It is supposed to come from Peele's lost play _The Turkish Mahomet and Hyren the Fair Greek_.

[34] This line would seem to belong to the _Spanish Tragedy_, but it is not in the text that has come down. When Horatio is stabbed by the assassins, Bellimperia cries:--"Murder! murder! Help, Hieronimo, help!" She is forced off the stage, and then Hieronimo enters, exclaiming, "What outcries pluck me from my naked bed!" (a much-ridiculed line). But in a passage of Jonson's _Poetaster_ (iii. 1), where there is clearly an allusion to Jeronimo, we find the line (slightly altered) that Quicksilver quotes:--

"_2d Pyr._ Ay, but somebody must cry _Murder!_ then in a small voice.

_Tuc._ Your fellow-sharer there shall do't: cry, sirrah, cry!

_1st Pyr._ _Murder, murder!_

_2d Pyr._ _Who calls out murder? lady, was it you?_"

[35] "_I.e._, will make you go to Tyburn. So in Greene's _Second Part of the Art of Conny Catching_, sig. 2:--'And yet at last so long the pitcher goeth to the brooke that it cometh broken home: and so long the foists put their villainie in practice that _Westward they goe_, and there solemnly make a rehearsal sermon at _tiborne_.' Again in the third part, sig. C, 'the end of such (though they scape a while) will be sailing _Westward in a carte to Tiborn_.'"--_Reed._

[36] "When this eternal substance of my soul Did live imprison'd in my wanton flesh, Each in their function serving other's need, I was a courtier in the Spanish court: My name was Don Andrea." --Opening lines of the _Spanish Tragedy_.

[37] Broken pieces of gold.

[38] Frequently used for _reverend_.