Volume Xiv Part 64 (2/2)

Neither shall you discover a mouse peeping out of a mountain, believe it.

[Sidenote: _Nulla fides spectanda feris, nec gratia victis._]

TRIL. No, nor a monkey dancing his tricotee on a rope, for want of strong lines from the poet's pen.

[Sidenote: _Corpora distendunt versibus affanda nefandis._]

TIM. You are i' th' right on't, Trillo. These pigmies of mine shall not play the egregious puppies in deluding an ignorant rabble with the sad presentment of a roasted savage.

[Sidenote: _Tempora sunt Cuculi gratissima labilis anni;_]

TRIL. Your conceit is above the scale of admiration. But the subject of your invention, sir? Where may you lay your scene; and what name [do] you bestow upon this long-expected comedy?

[Sidenote: _Cornua sunt sponsis trista, laeta procis._--Auson.]

TIM. My scene, Trillo, is Horn Alley: the name it bears is ”Lady Alimony.” The subject I shall not preoccupate. Let the fancies of my thirsty auditory fall a-working; if ever their small expense confined to three hours' s.p.a.ce were better recompensed, I will henceforth disclaim my society with a happy genius, and bestow the remainder of my time in catching flies with Domitian.

TRIL. Excellent, excellent! I am confident your acrimonious spirit will discurtain our changeable taffeta ladies to a hair.

TIM. Thou knowest my humour, and let me perish if I do not pursue it. Thou hast heard, no doubt, how I never found any branch more pleasingly fruitful, nor to my view more grateful, than when I found a woman hanging on it; wis.h.i.+ng heartily that all trees in mine orchard bore such fruit.

TRIL. If your wish had proved true, no doubt but your orchard would have rendered you store of medlars. But your hour, sir, your hour.

TIM. You know, Trillo, our theatral time to a minute. One thing I must tell you, and you will attest it upon our presentment, that never was any stage, since the first erection of our ancient Roman amphitheatres, with suitable properties more accurately furnished, with choicer music more gracefully accommodated, nor by boys, though young, with more virile spirits presented.

TRIL. I'm already noosed in your poetical springe, and shall henceforth wish, for your sake, that all crop-eared histriomastixes, who cannot endure a civil, witty comedy, but by his racked exposition renders it downright drollery, may be doomed to Ancyrus, and skip there amongst satyrs for his rough and severe censure.

TIM. Parna.s.sus is a debtor to thee, Trillo, for thy clear and serene opinion of the Muses and their individual darling; of which, meaning to imprint our addresses all the better in your memory, our stage presents ever the most lively and lovely fancy:--

”Where th' stage breathes lines, scenes, subject, action fit, Th'

age must admire it, or it has no wit.”

TRIL. Yet I have heard, Timon, that you were sometimes stoical, and could not endure the noise of an interlude, but snuff at it, as the satyr did at the first sight of fire.

TIM. All this is most authentically true; but shall I unbosom myself ingeniously[106] to thee, my dear Trillo? As his hate to woman made Eupolis eat nettle pottage, so became I fired in my spirit. My experience of a shrew drove me to turn the shrewd comedian; and yet all our boxes are stored with complete doxies; nay, some, whose carriage give life to this day's action.

TRIL. May the poet's day prove fair and fortunate! Full audience and honest door-keepers. I shall, perchance, rank myself amongst your gallery-men.

TIM. We shall hold our labours incomparably heightened by the breath of such approved judgments.

_Enter_ MESSENGER.

MES. Sir, here is a proud, peremptory, pragmatical fellow, newly come into our tiring-room, who disturbs our preparation, vowing, like a desperate haxter,[107] that he has express command to seize upon all our properties.

<script>