University of Virginia Library

Act III, Scene iii

[Enter] WELLBRED, EDWARD, BRAINWORM, BOBADILL, MATTHEW [and] STEPHEN
WELLBRED

Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and exceedingly well carried!

EDWARD

Aye, and our ignorance maintained it as well, did it not?

WELLBRED

Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not know him? I forgive Master Stephen, for he is stupidity itself!

EDWARD

'Fore God, not I, an' I might have been joined patent with one of the seven wise masters for knowing him. He had so writhen himself into the habit of one of your poor infantry, your decayed, ruinous, worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his half-dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine easy amble, and made it run as smooth of the tongue as a shove-groat shilling. Into the likeness of one of these reformados had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing every trick of their action, as varying the accent, swearing with an emphasis, indeed all, with so special and exquisite a grace that (hadst thou seen him) thou wouldst have sworn he might have been sergeant-major, if not lieutenant-colonel to the regiment.

WELLBRED

Why, Brainworm, who would have thought thou hadst been such an artificer?

EDWARD

An artificer! An architect! Except a man had studied begging all his lifetime, and been a weaver of language, from his infancy, for the clothing of it, I never saw his rival!

WELLBRED

Where got'st thou this coat, I mar'l?

BRAINWORM

Of a Houndsditch man, sir. One of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker.

WELLBRED

That cannot be, if the proverb hold; for, a crafty knave needs no broker.

BRAINWORM

True sir, but I did need a broker, ergo.

WELLBRED

Well put off--no crafty knave, you'll say.

EDWARD

Tut, he has more of these shifts.

BRAINWORM

And yet where I have one, the broker has ten, sir.

[Enter CASH]
CASH

Francis, Martin, ne'er a one to be found, now? What a spite's this?

WELLBRED

How now, Thomas? Is my brother Kitely within?

CASH

No sir, my master went forth e'en now; but Master Downright is within. Cob, what, Cob? Is he gone too?

WELLBRED

Whither went your master, Thomas, canst thou tell?

CASH

I know not, to Justice Clement's, I think, sir. Cob!

[Exit CASH]
EDWARD

Justice Clement, what's he?

WELLBRED

Why, dost thou not know him? He is a city magistrate, a justice here, an excellent good lawyer, and a great scholar; but the only mad, merry, old fellow in Europe! I showed him you, the other day.

EDWARD

Oh, is that he? I remember him now. Good faith, and he has a very strange presence, methinks; it shows as if he stood out of the rank from other men. I have heard many of his jests i' university. They say, he will commit a man for taking the wall of his horse.

WELLBRED

Aye, or wearing his cloak of one shoulder, or serving of God: anything indeed, if it come in the way of his humour.

CASH
Goes in and out calling

Gasper, Martin, Cob! 'Heart, where should they be, trow?

BOBADILL

Master Kitely's man, 'pray thee vouchsafe us the lighting of this match.

CASH

Fire on your match, no time but now to vouchsafe? Francis, Cob!

BOBADILL

Body of me! Here's the remainder of seven pound, since yesterday was seven-night. 'Tis your right Trinidado! Did you never take any, Master Stephen?

STEPHEN

No truly, sir; but I'll learn to take it now, since you commend it, so.

BOBADILL

Sir, believe me (upon my relation), for what I tell you, the world shall not reprove. I have been in the Indies (where this herb grows), where neither myself, nor a dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space of one and twenty weeks, but the fume of this simple only. Therefore, it cannot be but 'tis most divine! Further, take it in the nature, in the true kind so, it makes an antidote that, had you taken the most deadly poisonous plant in all Italy, it should expel it, and clarify you, with as much ease as I speak. And, for your green wound, your Balsamum and your St. John's wort are all mere gulleries, and trash to it, especially your Trinidado; your Nicotian is good too. I could say what I know of the virtue of it, for the expulsion of rheums, raw humours, crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I profess myself no quacksalver. Only, thus much, by Hercules, I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any prince in Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious weed that ever the earth tendered to the use of man.

EDWARD

This speech would ha' done decently in a tobacco-trader's mouth!

[Enter CASH and COB]
CASH

At Justice Clement's, he is: in the middle of Coleman Street.

COB

Oh, oh!

BOBADILL

Where's the match I gave thee? Master Kitely's man?

CASH

Would his match, and he, and pipe, and all were at Santo Domingo! I had forgot it.

[Exit]
COB

By God's me, I mar'l what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco! It's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house,

last week, with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them (they say) will ne'er scape it: he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward. By the stocks, an' there were no wiser men than I, I'd have it present whipping, man or woman, that should but deal with a tobacco-pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the end, as many as use it; it's little better than ratsbane, or rosaker.

BOBADILL beats [COB] with a cudgel
ALL

Oh, good Captain, hold, hold.

BOBADILL

You base cullion, you.

[Enter CASH, with the lighted match]
CASH

Sir, here's your match;

[To COB]

come, thou must needs be talking, too, thou'rt well enough served.

COB

Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant you: well, it shall be a dear beating, an' I live.

BOBADILL

Do you prate? Do you murmur?

EDWARD

Nay, good Captain, will you regard the humour of a fool?

[To COB]

Away, knave.

WELLBRED

Thomas, get him away.

[Exit CASH and COB]
BOBADILL

A whoreson filthy slave, a dung-worm, an excrement! Body o' Caesar, but that I scorn to let forth so mean a spirit, I'd ha' stabbed him to the earth.

WELLBRED

Marry, the law forbid, sir.

BOBADILL

By Pharaoh's foot, I would have done it.

STEPHEN
[Aside]

Oh, he swears admirably! By Pharaoh's foot! Body o' Caesar! I shall never do it, sure, upon mine honour, and by St. George, no, I ha' not the right grace.

MATTHEW

Master Stephen, will you any? By this air, the most divine tobacco that ever I drunk!

STEPHEN

None, I thank you, sir.

[Exit BOBADILL and MATTHEW]

Oh, this gentleman does it rarely too! But nothing like the other. By this air, as I am a gentleman: by-- Practising, to the post

BRAINWORM
[Aside]

Master, glance, glance! Master Wellbred!

STEPHEN

As I have somewhat to be saved, I protest--

WELLBRED

You are a fool; it needs no affidavit.

EDWARD

Cousin, will you any tobacco?

STEPHEN

Aye, sir! Upon my reputation--

EDWARD

How now, cousin!

STEPHEN

I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier, indeed--

WELLBRED

No, Master Stephen? As I remember, your name is entered in the Artillery Garden.

STEPHEN

Aye, sir, that's true: cousin, may I swear, as I am a soldier, by that?

EDWARD

Oh yes, that you may. It's all you have for your money.

STEPHEN

Then, as I am a gentleman, and a soldier, it is divine tobacco!

WELLBRED

But soft, where's Master Matthew? Gone?

BRAINWORM

No, sir, they went in here.

WELLBRED

Oh, let's follow them: Master Matthew is gone to salute his mistress, in verse. We shall ha' the happiness to hear some of his poetry now. He never comes unfurnished. Brainworm?

STEPHEN

Brainworm? Where? Is this Brainworm?

EDWARD

Aye, cousin, no words of it, upon your gentility.

STEPHEN

Not I, body of me, by this air, St. George, and the foot of Pharaoh!

WELLBRED

Rare! Your cousin's discourse is simply drawn out with oaths.

EDWARD

'Tis larded with 'em. A kind of French dressing, if you love it.

[Exeunt]