Mam. But when you see th' effects of the great medicine, Of which one part projected on a hundred Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon, Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum; Surly. Yes, when I see't, I will Do you think I fable with you? I assure you, The perfect ruby, which we call Elixir, Not only can do that, but, by its virtue, To whom he will. In eight and twenty days, Mam. Nay, I mean, Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters, The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood, But taking, once a week, on a knife's point, The quantity of a grain of mustard of it; You are incredulous. Surly. Faith, I have a humour, I would not willingly be gull'd. Your stone Cannot transmute me. Mam. Pertinax Surly, Will you believe antiquity? records? I'll shew you a book where Moses and his sister, And Solomon have written of the art; Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam Surly. How! Mam. Of the philosopher's stone, and in High Dutch. Surly. Did Adam write, Sir, in High Dutch? Mam. He did; Which proves it was the primitive tongue. [Enter Face, as a servant. How now! Do we succeed? Is our day come, and holds it? Face. The evening will set red upon you, Sir: You have colour for it, crimson; the red ferment Has done his office: three hours hence prepare you To see projection. Mam. Pertinax, my Surly, Again I say to thee, aloud, Be rich. This day thou shalt have ingots; and to-morrow Give lords the affront. Face. At his prayers, Sir, he; Good man, he's doing his devotions For the success. Mam. Lungs, I will set a period Where's thy master? To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master For I do mean To have a list of wives and concubines Equal with Solomon: I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft: But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse And multiply the figures, as I walk. * * My mists I'll have of perfume, vapoured about the room To lose ourselves in; and my baths, like pits To fall into: from whence we will come forth, A wealthy citizen, or a rich lawyer, Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow Mam. No. I'll have no bawds. But fathers and mothers. They will do it best, Best of all others. And my flatterers Shall be the pure and gravest of divines That I can get for money. We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the medicine. My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, My footboys shall eat pheasants, calver'd salmons, Drest with an exquisite and poignant sauce; Face. Sir, I'll go look A little, how it heightens. Mam. Do. My shirts I'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light, As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment, My gloves of fishes and birds' skins, perfum'd Surly. And do you think to have the stone with this? One free from mortal sin, a very virgin. Mam. That makes it, Sir, he is so; but I buy it. Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald, Act ii. scene 1. I have only to add a few words on Beaumont and Fletcher. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, the Chances, and the Wild Goose Chase, the original of the Inconstant, are superior in style and execution to any thing of Ben Jonson's. They are, indeed, some of the best comedies on the stage; and one proof that they are so, is, that they still hold possession of it. They shew the utmost alacrity of invention in contriving ludicrous distresses, and the utmost spirit in bearing up against, or impatience and irritation under them. Don John, in the Chances, is the heroic in comedy. Leon, in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, is a fine exhibition of the born gentleman and natural fool: the Copper Captain is sterling to this hour: his mistress, Estifania, only died the other day with Mrs. Jordan and the two grotesque females, in the same play, act better than the Witches in Macbeth. |