Volume Ix Part 25 (2/2)
A mere empiric, one that gets what he hath by observation, and makes only nature privy to what he indites; so slow an inventor, that he were better betake himself to his old trade of bricklaying; a bold wh.o.r.eson, as confident now in making of[54] a book, as he was in times past in laying of a brick. William Shakespeare?
JUDICIO.
Who loves Adonis' love or Lucrece' rape, His sweeter verse contains heart-robbing life, Could but a graver subject him content, Without love's foolish, lazy[55] languishment.
INGENIOSO.
Churchyard?[56]
Hath not Sh.o.r.e's wife, although a light-skirts she, Giv'n him a chaste, long-lasting memory?
JUDICIO.
No; all light pamphlets once I finden shall, A Churchyard and a grave to bury all!
Thomas Nash.[57]
INGENIOSO.
Ay, here is a fellow, Judicio, that carried the deadly stock[58] in his pen, whose muse was armed with a gag-tooth,[59] and his pen possessed with Hercules' furies.
JUDICIO.
Let all his faults sleep with his mournful chest, And then for ever with his ashes rest: His style was witty, though he had some gall, Something he might have mended; so may all: Yet this I say that, for a mother-wit, Few men have ever seen the like of it.
INGENIOSO _reads the rest of the names_.
JUDICIO.
As for these, they have some of them been the old hedge-stakes of the press; and some of them are, at this instant, the bots and glanders of the printing-house: fellows that stand only upon terms to serve the term,[60] with their blotted papers, write, as men go to stool, for needs; and when they write, they write as a bear p.i.s.ses, now and then drop a pamphlet.
INGENIOSO.
_Durum telum necessitas_. Good faith, they do, as I do--exchange words for money. I have some traffic this day with Danter[61] about a little book which I have made; the name of it is, A Catalogue of Cambridge Cuckolds. But this Belvidere, this methodical a.s.s, hath made me almost forget my time; I'll now to Paul's Churchyard; meet me an hour hence at the sign of the Pegasus in Cheapside, and I'll moist thy temples with a cup of claret, as hard as the world goes.
[_Exit_ JUDICIO.
ACTUS I., SCAENA 3.
_Enter_ DANTER _the Printer_.
INGENIOSO.
Danter, thou art deceived, wit is dearer than thou takest it to be: I tell thee, this libel of Cambridge has much fat and pepper in the nose; it will sell sheerly underhand, when all these books of exhortations and catechisms lie moulding on thy s...o...b..ard.
DANTER.
It's true: but, good faith, Master Ingenioso, I lost by your last book; and, you know, there is many a one that pays me largely for the printing of their inventions: but, for all this, you shall have forty s.h.i.+llings and an odd bottle of wine.
INGENIOSO.
Forty s.h.i.+llings! a fit reward for one of your rheumatic poets, that beslavers all the paper he comes by, and furnishes all the chandlers with waste-papers to wrap candles in; but as for me, I'll be paid dear even for the dregs of my wit: little knows the world what belongs to the keeping of a good wit in waters, diets, drinks, tobacco, &c. It is a dainty and a costly creature; and therefore I must be paid sweetly.
Furnish me with money, that I may put myself in a new suit of clothes, and I'll suit thy shop with a new suit of terms. It's the gallantest child my invention was ever delivered of: the t.i.tle is, A Chronicle of Cambridge Cuckolds. Here a man may see what day of the month such a man's commons were enclosed, and when thrown open; and when any entailed some odd crowns upon the heirs of their bodies unlawfully begotten.
Speak quickly: else I am gone.
DANTER.
O, this will sell gallantly; I'll have it, whatsoever it cost: will you walk on, Master Ingenioso? We'll sit over a cup of wine, and agree on it.
INGENIOSO.
A cup of wine is as good a constable as can be to take up the quarrel betwixt us.
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