A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 1

A Select Collection of Old English Plays.

Vol. IX.

by Various.

HOW A MAN MAY CHOOSE A GOOD WIFE FROM A BAD.

_EDITION

A Pleasant conceited Comedie, Wherein is shewed how a man may chuse a good Wife from a bad. As it hath bene sundry times Acted by the Earle of Worcesters Seruants. London Printed for Mathew Lawe, and are to be solde at his shop in Paules Church-yard, neare unto S. Augustines gate, at the signe of the Foxe_. 1602. 4to.

[There were editions in 1605, 1608, 1614, 1621, 1630, 1634, all in 4to.

It is not improbable that the author was Joshua Cooke, to whom, in an old hand on the t.i.tle of edit. 1602 in the Museum, it is attributed.]

[PREFACE TO THE FORMER EDITION.[1]]

This play agrees perfectly with the description given of it in the t.i.tle; it is certainly a most pleasant conceited comedy, rich in humour, and written altogether in a right merry vein. The humour is broad and strongly marked, and at the same time of the most diverting kind; the characters are excellent, and admirably discriminated; the comic parts of the play are written with most exquisite drollery, and the serious with great truth and feeling. Of the present piece there were seven editions, within a short period, with all of which the present reprint has been carefully collated, and is now, for the first time, divided into acts and scenes.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

OLD MASTER ARTHUR.

OLD MASTER LUSAM.

YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR.

YOUNG MASTER LUSAM.[2]

MASTER ANSELM.

MASTER FULLER.

SIR AMINADAB, _a Schoolmaster_.

JUSTICE REASON.

BRABO.

HUGH, _Justice Reason's Servant_.

PIPKIN, _Master Arthur's Servant_.

_Boys, Officers, &c_.

MISTRESS ARTHUR.

MISTRESS MARY.

MISTRESS SPLAY.

MAID.

_Scene, London_.

A PLEASANT CONCEITED COMEDY; WHEREIN IS SHOWED

HOW A MAN MAY CHOOSE A GOOD WIFE FROM A BAD.

ACT I., SCENE I.

_The Exchange_.

_Enter_ YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR _and_ YOUNG MASTER LUSAM.

Y. ART. I tell you true, sir; but to every man I would not be so lavish of my speech: Only to you, my dear and private friend, Although my wife in every eye be held Of beauty and of grace sufficient, Of honest birth and good behaviour, Able to win the strongest thoughts to her, Yet, in my mind, I hold her the most hated And loathed object, that the world can yield.

Y. LUS. O Master Arthur, bear a better thought Of your chaste wife, whose modesty hath won The good opinion and report of all: By heaven! you wrong her beauty; she is fair.

Y. ART. Not in mine eye.

Y. LUS. O, you are cloy'd with dainties, Master Arthur, And too much sweetness glutted hath your taste, And makes you loathe them: at the first You did admire her beauty, prais'd her face, Were proud to have her follow at your heels Through the broad streets, when all censuring tongues Found themselves busied, as she pa.s.s'd along, T'extol her in the hearing of you both.

Tell me, I pray you, and dissemble not, Have you not, in the time of your first-love, Hugg'd such new popular and vulgar talk, And gloried still to see her bravely deck'd?

But now a kind of loathing hath quite chang'd Your shape of love into a form of hate; But on what reason ground you this hate?

Y. ART. My reason is my mind, my ground my will; I will not love her: if you ask me why, I cannot love her. Let that answer you.

Y. LUS. Be judge, all eyes, her face deserves it not; Then on what root grows this high branch of hate?

Is she not loyal, constant, loving, chaste: Obedient, apt to please, loath to displease: Careful to live, chary of her good name, And jealous of your reputation?

Is she not virtuous, wise, religious?

How should you wrong her to deny all this?

Good Master Arthur, let me argue with you.

[_They walk aside_.

_Enter_ MASTER ANSELM _and_ MASTER FULLER.

FUL. O Master Anselm! grown a lover, fie!

What might she be, on whom your hopes rely?

ANS. What fools they are that seem most wise in love, How wise they are that are but fools in love!

Before I was a lover, I had reason To judge of matters, censure of all sorts, Nay, I had wit to call a lover fool, And look into his folly with bright eyes.

But now intruding love dwells in my brain, And franticly hath shoulder'd reason thence: I am not old, and yet, alas! I doat; I have not lost my sight, and yet am blind; No bondman, yet have lost my liberty; No natural fool, and yet I want my wit.

What am I, then? let me define myself: A dotard young, a blind man that can see, A witty fool, a bondman that is free.

FUL. Good aged youth, blind seer, and wise fool, Loose your free bonds, and set your thoughts to school.