University of Virginia Library

The Description of the Scene.
The first thing that presented it self to the sight, was a rich Ornament, that enclosed the Scæne; in the upper part of which, were great branches of Foliage growing out of leaves and huskes, with a Coronice at the top; and in the midst was placed a large compartiment composed of Groteske work, wherein were Harpies with wings and Lions clawes, and their hinder parts converted into leaves and branches: over all was a broken Frontispiece, wrought with scrowles and masque heads of Children; and within this a Table adorn'd with a lesser Compartiment, with this Inscription, CÆLUM BRITANNICUM: The two sides of this Ornament were thus ordered: First, from the ground arose a square Basement, and on the Plinth stood a great vaze of gold, richly enchased, and beautified with Sculptures of great Releine, with frutages hanging from the upper part: At the foot of this sate two Youths naked, in their natural colours; each of these with one arme supported the Vase; on the cover of which stood two young women in Draperies, arme in arme; the one figuring the glory of Princes, and the other Mansuetude: their other armes bore up an Oval, in which, to the Kings Majesty was this Impress, A Lyon with an Imperial Crown on his head; the words, Animum sub pectore forti: On the other side was the like composition, but the design of the Figures varied; and in the Oval on the top, being born up by Nobility and Fecundity, was this Impresse to the Queens Majesty, A Lilly growing with branches and leaves, and three lesser Lillies springing out of the Stem; the words, Semper inclita virtus: All this Ornament was heightned with Gold, and for the Invention and various composition, was the newest and most graceful that hath been done in this place. The Curtain was watchet, and a pale yellow in panes, which flying up on the sudden, discovered the Scæne, representing old Arches, old Palaces, decayed walls, parts of Temples, Theaters, Basilica's and Therme, with confused heaps of broken Columnes, Bases, Coronices and Statues, lying as under ground, and altogether resembling the ruines of some great City of the ancient Romans, or civiliz'd Britaines. This strange prospect detain'd the eyes of the Spectators some time, when to a loud Musick Mercury descends; on the upper part of his Chariot stands a Cock in action of crowing: his habit was a Coat of Flame colour girt to him, and a white mantle trimm'd with gold and silver; upon his head a wreath with small fals of white Feathers, a Caduseus in his hand, and wings at his heels; being come to the ground, he dismounts and goes up to the State.
Mercury.
From the high Senate of the gods to you
Bright glorious Twins of Love and Majesty,
Before whose Throne three warlike Nations bend
Their willing knees, on whose Imperial browes
The regal Circle prints no awful frownes
To fright your Subjects, but whose calmer eyes
Shed joy and safety on their melting hearts
That flow with cheerful loyal reverence,
Come I Cyllenius, Joves Ambassadour:
Not, as of old, to whisper amorous tales
Of wanton love, into the glowing eare,
Of some choyce beauty in this numerous traine;
Those days are fled, the rebel flame is quench'd
In heavenly brests, the gods have sworn by Styx
Never to tempt yeilding mortality
To loose embraces. Your exemplar life
Hath not alone transfus'd a zealous heat
Of imitation through your vertuous Court,
By whose bright blaze your Palace is become
The envy'd pattern of this under-world,
But the aspiring flame hath kindled heaven;
Th'immortal bosomes burn with emulous fires,
Jove rivals your great vertues; Royal Sir,
And Juno Madam, your attractive graces;
He his wild lusts, her raging jealousies
She layes aside, and through th'Olympique hall,
As yours doth here, their great example spreads,
And though of old, when youthful blood conspir'd
With his new Empire, prone to heats of lust,
He acted incests, rapes, adulteries
On earthly beauties, which his raging Queen,
Swoln with revengeful fury turn'd to beasts,
And in despight he retransform'd to Stars,
Till he hath fill'd the crowded Firmament
With his loose strumpets, and their spurious race.
Where the eternal Records of his shame,
Shine to the world in flaming Characters:
When in the Crystal myrrour of your reign
He view'd himself, he found his loathsome stayns;
And now to expiate the infectious guilt
Of those detested luxuries, he'll chace
Th'infamous lights from their usurped Spheare,
And drown in the Lethæan flood, their curs'd
Names and Memories. In whose vacant roomes
First you succeed, and of the wheeling Orbe
In the most eminent and conspicuous point,
With dazling beames, and spreading magnitude,
Shine the bright Pole-star of this Hemisphear.
Next, by your side, in a triumphant chaire,
And crown'd with Ariadnes Diadem,
Sits the fair comfort of your heart, and Throne;
Diffus'd about you, with that share of light
As they of vertue have deriv'd from you,
Hee'll fix this Noble train, of either sex;
So to the British Stars this lower Globe
Shall owe its light, and they alone dispence
To th' world a pure refined influence.

Enter Momus attired in a long darkish robe all wrought over with ponyards, Serpents tongues, eyes and eares, his beard and hair party coloured, and upon his head a wreath stuck with Feathers, and a Porcupine in the forepart.
Momus.

By your leave, Mortals, Good-den Cozen Hermes; your pardon good my Lord Ambassador; I found the tables of your Armes and Titles, in every Inn betwixt this and Olympus, where your present expedition is registred, your nine thousandth nine hundred ninety ninth Legation. I cannot reach the policy why your Master breeds so few States-men, it sutes not with his dignity that in the whole Empyræum there should not be a god fit to send on these honourable errands but your self: who are not yet so careful of his honour as your own, as might become your quality, when you are itinerant: the Hosts upon the high-way cry out with open-mouth upon you for supporting pilfery in your train; which, though as you are the god of petty Larceny, you might protect, yet you know it is directly against the new orders, and opposes the Reformation in Diameter.

Merc.
Peace Rayler, bridle your Licentious Tongue,
And let this presence teach you modesty.

Mom.

Let it if it can; in the mean time I will acquaint it with my condition. Know (gay people) that though your Poets, who enjoy by Patent a particular priviledge to draw down any of the Deities from Twelftnight till Shrove-tuesday, at what time there is annually a most familiar entercourse between the two Courts, have as yet never invited me to these Solemnities, yet it shall appear by my intrusion this night, that I am a very considerable person upon these occasions, and may most properly assist at such entertainments. My name is Momus ap- Somnus-ap-Erebus-ap-Chaos-ap-Demogorgon-ap-Eternity. My Offices and Titles are, The Supreme Theomastix, Hupercrittique of manners, Protonotary of abuses, Arch-Informer, Dilator General, Universal Calumniator, Eternal Plaintiff, and perpetual Fore-man of the Grand Inquest. My Priviledges are an ubiquitary, circumambulatory, speculatory, interrogatory, redargutory immunity over all the privy lodgings, behind hangings, dores, curtains, through key-holes, chinks, windows about all Venerial Lobbies, Skences or redoubts, though it be to the surprize of a perdue Page or Chamber-maid; in, and at all Courts of civil and criminal judicature, all Councels, Consultations, and Parliamentary Assemblies; where though I am but a Woollsack-god, and have no vote in the sanction of new Laws, I have yet a prerogative of wresting the old to any whatsoever interpretation, whether it be to the behoof or prejudice of Jupiter his Crown and Dignity, for, or against the Rights of either House of Patrician or Plebeian gods. My natural qualities are to make Jove frown, Juno powt, Mars chafe, Venus

blush, Uulcan glow, Saturne quake, Cynthia pale, Phœbus hide his face, and Mercury here take his heels. My recreations are witty mischiefs, as when Saturne guelt his father; the Smith caught his wife and her Bravo in a net of Cobweb-Iron; and Hebe through the lubricity of the pavement tumbling over the Half-pace, presented the Emblem of the forked tree, and discover'd to the tann'd Ethiops the snowy cliffes of Calabria with the Grotta of Puteolum. But that you may arrive at the perfect knowledge of me by the familiar illustration of a Bird of mine own feather, old Peter Aretine, who reduced all the Scepters and Myters of that Age tributary to his wit, was my parallel; and Franck Rablais suck'd much of my Milk too; but your modern French Hospital of Oratory is meer counterfeit, an arrant Mountebank, for though fearing no other tortures then his Sciatica, he discourses of Kings and Queens with as little reverence as of Groomes and Chamber-maids, yet he wants their fang-teeth, and Scorpions tail; I mean that fellow, who to add to his stature, thinks it a greater grace to dance on his tiptoes like a Dogg in a Doublet, then to walk like other men on the soles of his feet.

Merc.
No more impertinent Trifeler, you disturb
The great affair with your rude scurrilous chat:
What doth the knowledge of your abject state
Concern Jove's solemn Message?

Mom.

Sir, by your favor, though you have a more especiall Commission of employment from Jupiter, and a larger entertainment from his Exchequer, yet as a free-born god I have the liberty to travel at mine own charges, without your Pass or Countenance; and that it may appear, a sedulous acute observer may know as much as a dull flegmatique Ambassador, and wears a treble key to unlock the mysterious Cyphers of your dark secrecies, I will discourse the politique state of heaven to this trim Audience.—

At this the Scæne changeth, and in the heaven is discovered a Spheare, with Stars placed in their several Images; born up by a huge naked Figure (only a piece of Drapery hanging over his thigh) kneeling and bowing forwards, as if the great weight lying on his shoulders opprest him, upon his head a Crown, by all which he might easily be known to be Atlas.

—You shall understand that Jupiter upon the inspection of I know not what vertuous presidents extant (as they say) here in this Court, but as I more probably guess out of the consideration of the decay of his natural abilities, hath before a frequent convocation of the superlunary Peers in a solemn Oration recanted, disclaimed, and utterly renounced all the lascivious extravagancies, and riotous enormities of his forepast licentious life, and taken his oath on Juno's Breviary, religiously kissing the two-leav'd book, never to stretch his limbs more betwixt adulterous sheets, and hath with pathetical remonstrances exhorted, and under strict penalties enjoyned a respective conformity in the several subordinate Deities; and because the Libertines of Antiquity, the Ribald Poets, to perpetuate the memory and example of their triumphs over chastity, to all future imitation, have in their immortal songs celebrated the Martyrdom of those Strumpets under the persecution of the wives, and devolved to posterity the pedigrees of their whores, bawds, and bastards; it is therefore by the authority aforesaid enacted, that this whole Army of Constellations be immediately

disbanded and casheer'd, so to remove all imputation of impiety from the Cœlestial Spirits, and all lustful influences upon terrestrial bodies; and consequently that there be an Inquisition erected to exspunge in the Ancient, and suppress in the Modern and succeeding Poems and Pamphlets, all past, present, and future mention of those abjur'd heresies, and to take particular notice of all ensuing incontinencies, and punish them in the high Commission Court. Am not I in election to be a tall Statesman think you, that can repeat a passage at a Counsel-table thus punctually?

Merc.
I shun in vain the importunity
With which this Snarler vexeth all the Gods,
Jove cannot scape him: well, what else from Heaven?

Mom.

Heaven! Heaven is no more the place it was; a Cloyster of Carthusians, a Monastery of converted gods, Jove is grown old and fearful, apprehends a subversion of his Empire, and doubts lest Fate should introduce a legal succession in the legitimate heir, by reposessing the Titanian line, and hence springs all this innovation. We have had new orders read in the Presence-Chamber, by the Vi-President of Pernassus, too strict to be observed long. Monopolies are called in, sophistication of wares punished, and rates imposed on Comodities. Injunctions are gone out to the Nectar Brewers, for the purging of the heavenly Beverage of a narcotique weed which hath rendred the Idæaes confus'd in the Divine intellects, and reducing it to the composition used in Saturns Reign. Edicts are made for the restoring of decay'd Housekeeping, prohibiting the repair of Families to the Metropolis, but this did endanger an Amazonian mutiny, till the Females put on a more masculine resolution of solliciting businesses in their own persons, and leaving their husbands at home for stallions of hospitality. Bacchus hath commanded all Taverns to be shut, and no Liquor drawn after ten at night. Cupid must go no more so scandalously naked, but is enjoyned to make him breeches though of his Mothers Petticotes Ganimede is forbidden the Bed-chamber, and must onely minister in publick. The gods must keep no Pages, nor Grooms of their Chamber under the age of 25. and those provided of a competent stock of beard; Pan may not pipe, nor Proteus juggle, but by especial permission. Uulcan was brought to an Oretenus and fined, for driving in a plate of Iron into one of the Suns Chariot-wheels and frost-nailing his horses upon the fifth of November last, for breach of a penal Statute, prohibiting work upon Holy dayes, that being the annual celebration of the Gygantomachy. In brief, the whole state of the Hierarchy suffers a total reformation, especially in the point of reciprocation of conjugal affection. Venus hath confest all her adulteries, and is receiv'd to grace by her husband, who conscious of the great disparity betwixt her perfections and his deformities, allows those levities as an equal counterpoize; but it is the prettiest spectacle to see her stroaking with her Ivory hand his collied cheecks, and with her snowy fingers combing his sooty beard. Jupiter too begins to learn to lead his own wife, I left him practising in the milky way; and there is no doubt of an universal obedience, where the Lawgiver himself in his own person observes his decrees so punctually: who besides to eternize the memory of that great example of Matrimonial union which he derives from hence, hath on his bed-chamber-door, and seeling, fretted with stars in capital Letter, engraven the Inscription of CARLOMARIA.

This is as much I am sure as either your Knowledge or Instructions can direct you to, which I having in a blunt round tale, without State-formality, Politique inferences, or suspected Rhetorical elegancies, already delivered; you may now dexterously proceed to the second part of your charge, which is the taking of your heavenly sparks up in the Embers, or reducing the Æthereal lights to their primitive opacity, and gross dark subsistance; they are all unrivited from the Sphear, and hang loose in their sockets, where they but attend the waving of your Caduce, and immediately they reinvest their pristine shapes and appear before you in their own natural deformities.

Merc.
Momus thou shalt prevail, for since thy bold
Intrusion hath inverted my resolves,
I must obey necessity, and thus turn
My face to breath the Thundrers just decree
'Gainst this adulterate Sphear, which first I purge
Of loathsome Monsters, and mis-shapen formes:
Down from her azure concave, thus I charm
The Lyrnean Hydra, the rough unlick'd Bear,
The watchful Dragon, the storm-boading Whale,
The Centaure, the horn'd Goatfish Capricorne,
The Snake-herd Gorgon, and fierce Sagittar:
Divested of your gorgeous starry Robes,
Fall from the circling Orbe, and e're you suck
Fresh venomin, measure this happy earth,
Then to the Fens, Caves, Forests, Desarts, Seas,
Fly, and resume your native qualities.

They Dance in those monstrous shapes the first Antimask of natural deformity.
Mom.

Are not these fine companions, trim play fellows for the Deities? yet these and their fellows have made up all our conversation for some thousands of years. Do not you fair Ladies acknowledge your selves deeply engaged now to those Poets your servants, that in the height of commendation have rais'd your beauties to a parallel with such exact proportions, or at least ranked you in their spruce society. Hath not the consideration of these Inhabitants rather frighted your thoughts utterly from the contemplation of the place? but now that those heavenly Mansions are to be voyd, you that shall hereafter be found unlodged, will become inexcusable; especially since Vertue alone shall be a sufficient title, fine, and rent: yet if there be a Lady not competently stock'd that way, she shall not on the instant utterly despair, if she carry a sufficient pawn of handsomness; for however the letter of the Law runs, Jupiter notwithstanding his Age, and present austerity, will never refuse to stamp Beauty, and make it currant with his own Impression; but to such as are destitute of both I can afford but smal encouragement. Proceed Cozen Mercury, what follows?

Merc.
Look up and mark where the bright Zodiack
Hangs like a Belt about the brest of heaven;
On the right shoulder, like a flaming Jewel,
His shell, with nine rich Topazes adorn'd,
Lord of this Tropique, sits the skalding Crab:
He, when the Sun gallops in full career
His annual race; his ghastly claws uprear'd,
Frights at the confines of the torrid Zone,
The fiery teame, and proudly stops their course,
Making a solstice, till the fierce Steeds learn
His backward paces, and so retrograde
Post down-hill to th' oppos'd Capricorne.
Thus I depose him from his laughty Throne;
Drop from the Sky into the briny flood,
There teach thy motion to the ebbing Sea,
But let those fires that beautifi'd thy shell,
Take humane shapes, and the disorder show
Of thy regressive paces here below.

The second Antimask is Danc'd in retrograde paces, expressing obliquity in motion.
Mom.

This Crab, I confess, did ill become the heavens, but there is another that more infests the earth, and makes such a solstice in the politer Arts and Sciences, as they have not been observed for many Ages to have made any sensible advance: could you but lead the learned Squadrons with a Masculine resolution past this point of retrogradation, it were a benefit to mankind worthy the power of a god, and to be payed with Altars: but that not being the work of this night, you may pursue your purposes: what not succeeds?

Merc.
Vice, that unbodied, in the Appetite
Erects his Throne, hath yet, in bestial shapes,
Branded, by Nature, with the Character
And distinct stamp of some peculiar Ill,
Mounted the Sky and fix'd his Trophies there:
As fawning flattery in the little Dog;
I'th bigger, churlish Murmur; Cowardize
I'th timerous Hare; Ambition in the Eagle:
Rapine and Avarice in th' adventrous Ship
That sail'd to Colchos for the Golden fleece:
Drunken distemper in the Goblet flowes;
I'th Dart and Scorpion, biting Calumny;
In Hercules and the Lion, furious rage;
Vain Ostentation in Cassiope:
All these I to eternal exile doom,
But to this place their emblem'd Vices summon,
Clad in those proper Figures, by which best
Their incorporeal nature is exprest.

The third Antimask is danc'd of those several vices, expressing the deviation from Vertue.
Mom.

From henceforth it shall be no more said in the Proverb, when you would express a riotous Assembly, That hell, but heaven is broke loose, this was an arrant Goal-delivery, all the prisons of your great Cities could have vomited more corrupt matter: but Couzen Cyllenius, in my judgment it is not safe that these infectious persons should wander here to the hazard of this Island, they threatned less danger when they were nayl'd to the Firmament: I should conceive

it a very discreet course, since they are provided of a tall Vessel of their own ready rigg'd, to embark them all together in that good Ship called the Argo, and send them to the Plantation in New-England, which hath purg'd more virulent humors from the politique body, then Guiacum and all the West-Indian druggs have from the natural bodies of this Kingdom: Can you devise how to dispose them better?

Mer.
They cannot breath this pure and temperate Air
Where Vertue lives, but will with hasty flight,
'Mongst fogs and vapours, seek unfound abodes;
Fly after them, from your usurped seats,
You foul remainders of that viperous brood:
Let not a Star of the luxurious race,
With his loose blaze stayn the skyes chrystal face.

All the Stars are quench'd, and the Sphear darkned.
Before the entry of every Antimask, the Stars in those figures in the Sphear which they were to represent, were extinct; so as, by the end of the Antimask in the Sphear no more Stars were seen.
Mom.

Here is a total Ecclipse of the eighth Sphear, which neither Booker, Alestree, nor any of your Prognosticators, no nor their great Master Tico were aware of; but yet in my opinion there were some innocent, and some generous Constellations, that might have been reserved for Noble uses; as the Skales and Sword to adorne the statue of Justice, since she resides here on Earth onely in Picture and Effigie. The Eagle had been a fit present for the Germans, in regard their Bird hath mew'd most of her Feathers lately. The Dolphin too had been most welcome to the French, and then had you but clapt Perseus on his Pegasus, brandishing his Sword, the Dragon yawning on his back under his horses feet, with Python's dart through his throat, there had been a Divine St. George for this Nation: but since you have improvidently shuffled them altogether, it now rests only that we provide an immediate succession, and to that purpose I will instantly proclaim a free Election,

O yes, O yes, O yes,
By the Father of the gods,
And the King of men,

Whereas we having observed a very commendable practice taken into frequent use by the Princes of these latter Ages, of perpetuating the memory of their famous enterprizes, Sieges, Battels, Victories, in Picture, Sculpture, Tapistry, Embroyderies, and other Manufactures, wherewith they have embellished their publick Palaces, and taken into Our more distinct and serious consideration, the particular Christmas hangings of the Guard-Chamber of this Court, wherein the Naval Victory of 88. is to the eternal glory of this Nation exactly delineated: and whereas We likewise out of a prophetical imitation of this so laudable custom, did for many thousand years before, adorne and beautifie the eigth room of Our cælestial Mansion, commonly called the Star-Chamber, with the Military adventures, Stratagems, Atchievements, Feats, and Defeats, performed in Our Own person, whilst yet Our Standard was erected, and We a Combattant in the amorous Warfare. It hath notwithstanding, after mature deliberation and long debate,

held first in our own inscrutable bosome, and afterwards, communicated with Our Privy Councel, seemed meet to Our Omnipotency, for causes to Our self best known, to unfurnish and dis-array Our foresaid Star-Chamber of all those Antient Constellations which have for so many Ages been sufficiently notorious, and to admit into their vacant places, such persons onely as shall be qualified with exemplar Vertue and eminent Desert, there to shine in indeleble Characters of glory to all Posterity. It is therefore Our divine will and pleasure, voluntarily, and out of Our own free and proper motion, meer grace and special favor, by these presents to specifie and declare to all Our loving People, that it shall be lawful for any Person whatsoever, that conceiveth him or her self to be really endued with any heroical Vertue or transcendent Merit, worthy so high a calling and dignity, to bring their several pleas and pretences before Our Right Trusty and Welbeloved Cozen and Counsellor, Don Mercury and god Momus, &c. Our peculiar Delegates for that affair, upon whom we have transferred an absolute power to conclude, and determine without Appeal or Revelation, accordingly as to their wisdomes it shall in such cases appear behooful and expedient. Given at our Palace in Olympus the first day of the first Month, in the first year of the Reformation.

Plutus enters, an old man full of wrinkles, a bald head, a thin white beard, spectacles on his nose, with a bunch back; and attir'd in a Robe of Cloth of gold.
Plutus appears.
Merc.

Who's this appears?

Mom.

This is a subterranean Fiend, Plutus, in this Dialect term'd Riches, or the god of gold; a poyson, hid by providence in the bottome of Seas, and Navil of the Earth, from mans discovery, where if the seeds begun to sprout above-ground, the excrescence was carefully guarded by Dragons, yet at last by humane curiosity brought to light to their own destruction; this being the true Pandora's box, whence issued all those mischiefs that now fill the Universe.

Plut.

They Dance the fourth Antimask consisting of Countrey people, Musick, and Measures.
Merc.
Plutus, the gods know and confess your power,
Which feeble Vertue seldom can resist;
Stronger then Towers of Brass, or Chastity;
Jove knew you when he courted Danae,
And Cupid wears you on that arrowes head
That still prevailes. But the gods keep their Thrones
To enstal Vertue, not her Enemies.
They dread thy force, which even themselves have felt,
Witness Mount-Ida, where the Martial Maid,
And frowning Juno, did to mortal Eies
Naked, for gold, their sacred bodies show,
Therefore for ever be from heaven banish'd.
But since with toyle from undiscover'd Worlds
Thou art brought hither, where thou first didst breath
The thirst of Empire into Regal brests,
And frightedst quiet peace from her meek Throne,
Filling the World with Tumult, Blood, and War,
Follow the Camps of the contentious earth,
And be the Conqu'rers slave, but he that can
Or conquer thee, or give thee Vertues stamp,
Shall shine in heaven a pure immortal Lamp.

Mom.

Nay stay, and take my benediction along with you. I could, being here a Co-Judge, like others in my place, now that you are condemn'd, either rail at you, or break jests upon you, but I rather chuse to loose a word of good councel, and intreat you to be more careful in your choice of company, for you are always found either with Misers, that not use you at all, or with fools, that know not how to use you well: be not hereafter so reserv'd and coy to men of worth and parts, and so you shall gain such credit, as the next Sessions you may be heard with better success. But till you are thus reform'd, I pronounce this positive sentence, That wheresoever you shall chuse to abide, your society shall add no credit or reputation to the party, nor your discontinuance, or total absence, be matter of disparagement to any man, and whosoever shall hold a contrary estimation of you, shall be condemn'd to wear perpetual Motley, unless he recant his opinion. Now you may void the Court.

Pænia enters, a woman of a pale colour, large brims of a hat upon her head, through which her hair started up like a fury, her Robe was of a dark color full of patches, about one of her hands was tyed a chaine of Iron, to which was fastned a weighty stone, which she bore up under her arm.
Pænia Enters.
Merc.

What Creature's this?

Mom.

The Antipodes to the other, they move like two Buckets or as two nayles drive out one another; if Riches depart, Poverty will enter.

Pov.

They Dance the fifth Antimask of Gypsies.
Mom.

I cannot but wonder that your perpetual conversation with Poets and Philosophers hath furnished you with no more Logick, or that you should think to impose upon us so gross an inference, as because Plutus and you are contrary, therefore whatsoever is denyed of the one, must be true of the other; as if it should follow of necessity, because he is not Jupiter, you are. No, I give you to know, I am better vers'd in cavils with the gods, then to swallow such a fallacie, for though you two cannot be together in one place, yet there are many places that may be without you both, and such is heaven, where neither of you are likely to arrive: therefore let me advise you to marry your self to Content, and beget sage Apothegms, and goodly moral Sentences in dispraise of Riches, and contempt of the world

Mer.
Thou dost presume too much poor needy wretch
To claim a station in the Firmament,
Because thy humble Cottage, or thy Tub
Nurses some lazy or Pedantique vertue
In the cheap Sun-shine, or by shady springs
With roots and pot-herbs; where thy rigid hand,
Tearing those humane passions from the mind,
Upon whose stocks fair blooming vertues flourish,
Degradeth Nature, and benummeth sense,
And Gorgon-like, turns active men to stone.
We not require the dull society
Of your necessitated temperance,
Or that unnatural stupidity
That knows nor joy nor sorrow; nor your forc'd
Falsly exalted passive Fortitude
Above the active: This low abject brood,
That fix their seats in mediocrity,
Become your servile minds; but we advance
Such vertues onely as admit excess,
Brave bounteous Acts, Regal Magnificence,
All-seeing Prudence, Magnanimity
That knowes no bound, and that Heroick vertue
For which Antiquity hath left no name,
But patterns onely, such as Hercules,
Achilles, Theseus. Back, to thy loath'd Cell,
And when thou seest the new enlightned Sphear,
Study to know but what those Worthies were.

Tiche enters, her head bald behind, and one great lock before, wings at her shoulders, and in her hand a wheel, her upper parts naked, and the skirt of her Garment wrought all over with Crowns, Scepters Books, and such other things as express both her greatest and smallest gifts.
Mom.

See where Dame Fortune comes, you may know her by her wheel, and that vail over eyes, with which she hopes like a seel'd Pigeon to mount above the Clouds, and pearch in the eighth Sphear: listen, she begins.

Fort.

They Dance the sixth Antimask, being the representation of a Battle.
Mom.

Madam, I should censure you, pro falso clamore, for preferring a scandalous cros-bil of recrimination against the gods, but your blindness shall excuse you. Alas! what would it advantage you, if vertue were as universal as vice is? it would onely follow, that as the world now exclaimes upon you for exalting the vicious, it would then rail as fast at you for depressing the vertuous; so they would still keep their tune, though you chang'd their ditty.

Merc.
The mists, in which future events are wrapp'd,
That oft succeed beside the purposes
Of him that works, his dull eyes not discerning
The first great cause, offer'd thy clouded shape
To his enquiring search; so in the dark
The groping world first found thy Deity,
And gave thee rule over contingencies,
Which to the piercing eye of Providence,
Being fix'd and certain, where past and to come,
Are always present, thou dost disappear,
Losest thy being, and art not all.
Be thou then only a deluding Phantome,
At best a blind guide, leading blinder fools;
Who, would they but survey their mutual wants,
And help each other, there were left no room
For thy vain aid. Wisdom, whose strong-built plots
Leave nought to hazard, mockes thy futile power.
Industrious labor drags thee by the locks,
Bound to his toyling Car, and not attending
Till thou dispence, reaches his own reward.
Onely the lazy sluggard yawning lies
Before thy threshold, gaping for thy dole,
And licks the easie hand that feeds his sloth.
The shallow, rash, and unadvised man
Makes thee his stale, disburdens all the follies
Of his misguided actions, on thy shoulders.
Vanish from hence, and seek those Ideots out
That thy fantastick god-head hath allow'd,
And rule that giddy superstitious crowd.

Hedone, Pleasure, a young woman with a smiling face, in a light lascivious habit, adorn'd with Silver and Gold, her Temples crown'd with a garland of Roses, and over that a Rainbow circling her head down to her shoulders.
[Hedone Enters
Merc.
What wanton's this?

Mom.

This is the sprightly Lady Hedone, a merry gamester, this people call her Pleasure.

Plea.

They Dance the seventh Antimask of the five Senses.
Merc.
Bewitching Syren, guilded rottenness,
Thou hast with cunning artifice display'd
Th' enamel'd outside, and the honied verge
Of the fair cup, where deadly poyson lurkes:
Within, a thousand sorrows dance the round.
And like a shell, Pain circles thee without;
Grief is the shadow waiting on thy steps,
Which, as thy joyes 'gin tow'rds their West decline,
Doth to a Gyants spreading form extend
Thy Dwarfish stature. Thou thy self art Pain,
Greedy, intense Desire, and the keen edg
Of thy fierce Appetite, oft strangles thee,
And cuts thy slender thread; but still the terror
And apprehension of thy hasty end,
Mingles with Gall thy most refined sweets;
Yet thy Cyrcæan charms transform the world:
Captains, that have resisted War and Death,
Nations, that over Fortune have triumph'd,
Are by thy Magick made effeminate.
Empires, that knew no limits but the Poles,
Have in thy wanton lap melted away.
Thou wert the Author of the first excess
That drew this reformation on the gods.
Canst thou then dream, those Powers, that from heaven have
Banish'd th' effect, will there enthrone th'cause?
To thy voluptuous Den, fly Witch, from hence,
There dwell, for ever drown'd in brutish sense.

Mom.

I concur, and am grown so weary of these tedious pleadings, as I'le pack up too and be gone: Besides, I see a crowd of other suitors pressing hither, I'le stop 'em, take their petitions and prefer 'em above; and as I came in bluntly without knocking, and nobody bid me welcome; so I'le depart as abruptly without taking leave, and bid no body farewell.

Merc.
These, with forc'd reasons, and strain'd Arguments,
Urge vain pretences, whilst your Actions plead,
And with a silent importunity
Awake the drousie Justice of the gods
To Crown your deeds with immortality.
The growing Titles of your Ancestors,
These Nations glorious Acts, joyn'd to the stock
Of your own Royal vertues, and the clear
Reflex they take from th'imitation
Of your fam'd Court, make Honors story full,
And have to that secure fix'd state advanc'd
Both you and them, to which the labouring world,
Wading through streams of blood, sweats to aspire.
Those antient Worthies of these famous Isles,
That long have slept, in fresh and lively shapes
Shall straight appear, where you shall see your self
Circled with modern Heroes, who shall be
In Act, what-ever elder times can boast,
Noble, or Great; as they in Phrophesie,
Were all but what you are. Then shall you see
The sacred hand of bright Eternity
Mould you to Stars, and fix you in the Sphear.
To you, your Royal half to them shee'll joyn
Such of this train, as with industrious steps
In the fair prints your vertuous feet have made,
Though with unequal paces, follow you.
This is decreed by Jove, which my return
Shall see perform'd; but first behold the rude
And old Abiders here, and in them view
The point from which your full perfections grew
You naked, antient wild Inhabitants,
That breath'd this Ayr, and prest this flowery Earth,
Come from those shades where dwels eternal night,
And see what wonders Time hath brought to light.

Atlas, and the Sphear vanisheth, and a new Scæne appears of mountaines, whose eminent height exceed the Clouds which past beneath them, the lower parts were wild and woody: out of this place comes forth a more grave Antimask of Picts, the natural Inhabitants of this Isle, antient Scots and Irish, these dance a Perica or Marshal dance. When this Antimask was past; there began to arise out of the earth the top of a hill, which by little and little grew to be a huge mountain that covered all the Scæne; the under-part of this was wild and craggy, and above somewhat more pleasant and flourishing: about the middle part of this Mountain were seated the three Kingdomes of England, Scotland, and Ireland; all richly attired in regal habits, appropriated to the several Nations, with Crowns on their heads, and each of them bearing the ancient Arms of the Kingdoms they represented. At a distance above these sat a young man in a white embroidered robe, upon his fair hair an Olive garland with wings at his shoulders, and holding in his hand a Cornucopia, fill'd with Corn and Fruits, representing the Genius of these Kingdoms.