SCENE III.

_Another Street._

_Enter_ LIPSALVE _and_ SHRIMP, _meeting_ GUDGEON _and_ PERIWINKLE.

GUD. Master Lipsalve, welcome within ken: we two are so nearly linked, that if thou beest absent but one two hours, thy acquaintance grows almost mouldy in my memory. LIP. And thine[227] fly-blown in mine: how dost thou do? SHR. Fellow page, I think our acquaintance runs low too; but if it run not o’ the lees, let’s set it a-tilt, and give ’em some dregs to their mouldy, fly-blown compliments. PER. No, rather let’s pierce the rundlets of our running heads, and give ’em a neat cup of wagship to put down their courtship. SHR. Courtship? cartship! for the tongues of complimenters run on wheels: but mark ’em; they ha’ not done yet. GUD. And, i’faith, how is’t? methinks thou hast been a long vagrant. LIP. The rogation[228] hath been long indeed: therefore we may salute as ceremoniously as lawyers when they meet after a long vacation, who, to renew the discontinued state tale, they stretch it out with such length, that whilst they greet before, their clients kiss them behind. SHR. If his nose were put i’ the remainder of that state tale, he would say ’twere an unsavoury one. PER. I wonder why many men gird[229] so at the law. GUD. But what news now? how stands the state of things at Brussels? LIP. Faith, weak and limber, weak and limber: nothing but pride and double-dealing: virtue is vice’s lackey; beggars suck like horse-leeches at the heart of bounty, and leave him[230] so tired and spur-galled that he can be no longer ridden with honesty. SHR. I’ll tell thee, because they themselves have neither law nor conscience. GUD. Well fare the city yet! there virtue rides a cockhorse, cherished and kept warm in good sables and fox-fur, and with the breath of his nostrils drives pride and covetousness before him, like’s own shadow: beggars have whipping cheer: bounty obliges[231] men to’t; and liberality gives money for scrips and scrolls, sealed with strong arms and heraldry to outlive mortality: love there will see the last man born, never give over while there’s an arrow i’ th’ quiver. LIP. Now we talk of love, I do know, not far hence, so good a subject for that humour, that if she would wear but the standing collar and her things in fashion, our ladies in the court were but brown sugar-candy, as gross as grocery to her. GUD. She is not so sweet as a ’pothecary’s shop, is she? LIP. A plague on you! ha’ you so good a scent?—For my life, he’s my rival. [_Aside._ GUD. Her name begins with mistress Purge, does it not? LIP. True, the only comet of the city. GUD. Ay, if she would let her ruffs stream out a little wider: but I am sure she is ominous to me; she makes civil wars and insurrections in the state of my stomach: I had thought to have bound myself from love, but her purging comfits make[232] me loose-bodied still. LIP. What, has she ministered to thee then? GUD. Faith, some lectuary[233] or so. LIP. Ay, I fear she takes too much of that lectuary to stoop to love; it keeps her body soluble from sin: she is not troubled with carnal crudities nor the binding of the flesh. GUD. Thou hast sounded her then, belike. LIP. Not I, I am too shallow to sound her; she’s out of my element: if I shew passion and discourse of love to her, she tells me I am wide from the right scope; she says she has another object, and aims at a better love than mine. GUD. O, that’s her husband. LIP. No, no; she speaks pure devotion: she’s impenetrable; no gold or oratory, no virtue in herbs nor no physic will make her love. GUD. More is the pity, I say, that fair women should prove saints before age had made them crooked.—’Tis my luck to be crossed still, but I must not give over the chase. [_Aside._ LIP. Come hither, boy, while I think on’t. [LIPSALVE _talks apart to_ SHRIMP. GUD. Faith, friend Lipsalve, I perceive you would fain play with my love. A pure creature ’tis, for whom I have sought every angle[234] of my brain; but either she scorns courtiers, as most of them do, because they are given to boast of their doings, or else she’s exceeding strait-laced: therefore to prevent[235] this smell-smock, I’ll to my friend doctor Glister, a man exquisite in th’ art magic, who hath told me of many rare experiments available in this case. [_Aside._]— Farewell, friend Lipsalve. LIP. Adieu, honest Gregory: frequent my lodging; I have a viol de gambo and good tobacco. [_Exeunt_ GUDGEON _and_ PERIWINKLE.]—Thou wilt do this feat, boy? SHR. Else knock my head and my pate together. LIP. Away then: bid him bring his measure with him. [_Exit_ SHRIMP.]— Gerardine is travelled, and I must needs be cast into his mould. My flesh grows proud; and Maria’s a sweet wench, &c.[236] But yet I must not let fall my suit with mistress Purge, lest, _sede vacante_, my friend Gudgeon join issue: I’ll rather to my learned doctor for a spell, For I have a fire in my liver[237] burns like hell. [_Exit._