A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 34

If any man or woman--

SIR RADERIC.

That's too low.

IMMERITO.

If any man or woman can tell any tidings of a horse with four feet, two ears, that did stray about the seventh hour, three minutes in the forenoon the fifth day--

PAGE.

A book of[95] a horse, just as it were the eclipse of the moon.

[_Aside_.

SIR RADERIC.

Boy, write him down for a good utterance. Master Recorder, I think he hath been examined sufficiently.

RECORDER.

Ay, Sir Raderic, 'tis so; we have tried him very throughly.

PAGE.

Ay, we have taken an inventory of his good parts, and prized them accordingly.

SIR RADERIC.

Signior Immerito, forasmuch as we have made a double trial of thee--the one of your learning, the other of your erudition--it is expedient also, in the next place, to give you a few exhortations, considering the greatest clerks are not the wisest men. This is therefore, first, to exhort you to abstain from controversies; secondly, not to gird at men of worship, such as myself, but to use yourself discreetly; thirdly, not to speak when any man or woman coughs--do so, and in so doing, I will persevere to be your worshipful friend and loving patron.

IMMERITO.

I thank your worship, you have been the deficient cause of my preferment.

SIR RADERIC.

Lead Immerito into my son, and let him despatch him; and remember--my t.i.thes to be reserved, paying twelvepence a year. I am going to Moorfields to speak with an unthrift I should meet at the Middle-Temple about a purchase; when you have done, follow us.

[_Exeunt_ IMMERITO _and the_ PAGE.

ACTUS III., SCAENA 2.

SIR RADERIC _and_ RECORDER.

SIR RADERIC.

Hark you, Master Recorder: I have fleshed my prodigal boy notably, notably, in letting him deal for this living; that hath done him much good, much good, I a.s.sure you.

RECORDER.

You do well, Sir Raderic, to bestow your living upon such an one as will be content to share, and on Sunday to say nothing; whereas your proud university princ.o.x thinks he is a man of such merit the world cannot sufficiently endow him with preferment. An unthankful viper, an unthankful viper, that will sting the man that revived him.

Why, is't not strange to see a ragged clerk Some stamel weaver or some butcher's son, That scrubb'd a-late within a sleeveless gown, When the commencement, like a morris-dance, Hath put a bell or two about his legs, Created him a sweet clean gentleman; How then he 'gins to follow fashions: He, whose thin sire dwells in a smoky roof, Must take tobacco, and must wear a lock; His thirsty dad drinks in a wooden bowl, But his sweet self is serv'd in silver plate.

His hungry sire will sc.r.a.pe you twenty legs For one good Christmas meal on New-Year's day, But his maw must be capon-cramm'd each day; He must ere long be triple-beneficed, Else with his tongue he'll thunderbolt the world, And shake each peasant by his deaf man's ear.

But, had the world no wiser men than I, We'd pen the prating parrots in a cage.

A chair, a candle, and a tinder-box, A thacked[96] chamber and a ragged gown, Should be their lands and whole possessions; Knights, lords, and lawyers should be lodg'd and dwell Within those over-stately heaps of stone, Which doating sires in old age did erect.

Well, it were to be wished, that never a scholar in England might have above forty pound a year.

SIR RADERIC.

Faith, Master Recorder, if it went by wishing, there should never an one of them all have above twenty a year--a good stipend, a good stipend, Master Recorder. I in the meantime, howsoever I hate them all deadly, yet I am fain to give them good words. O, they are pestilent fellows, they speak nothing but bodkins, and p.i.s.s vinegar. Well, do what I can in outward kindness to them, yet they do nothing but bewray my house: as there was one that made a couple of knavish verses on my country chimney, now in the time of my sojourning here at London; and it was thus-- Sir Raderic keeps no chimney cavalier, That takes tobacco above once a year.

And another made a couple of verses on my daughter, that learns to play on the _viol-de-gambo_-- Her _viol-de-gambo_ is her best content; For 'twixt her legs she holds her instrument.

Very knavish, very knavish, if you look into it, Master Recorder. Nay, they have played many a knavish trick beside with me. Well, 'tis a shame, indeed, there should be any such privilege for proud beggars as Cambridge and Oxford are. But let them go; and if ever they light in my hands, if I do not plague them, let me never return home again to see my wife's waiting-maid!

RECORDER.

This scorn of knights is too egregious: But how should these young colts prove amblers, When the old, heavy, galled jades do trot?

There shall you see a puny boy start up, And make a theme against common lawyers; Then the old, unwieldy camels 'gin to dance, This fiddling boy playing a fit of mirth; The greybeards scrub, and laugh, and cry, _Good, good!

To them again, boy; scourge the barbarians_.

But we may give the losers leave to talk; We have the coin, then tell them laugh for me.

Yet knights and lawyers hope to see the day, When we may share here their possessions, And make indentures of their chaffer'd skins, Dice of their bones to throw in merriment.

SIR RADERIC.

O, good faith, Master Recorder, if I could see that day once?

RECORDER.

Well, remember another day what I say: scholars are pryed into of late, and are found to be busy fellows, disturbers of the peace. I'll say no more; guess at my meaning. I smell a rat.

SIR RADERIC.

I hope at length England will be wise enough, I hope so, i'faith; then an old knight may have his wench in a corner without any satires or epigrams. But the day is far spent, Master Recorder; and I fear by this time the unthrift is arrived at the place appointed in Moorfields. Let us hasten to him. [_He looks on his watch_.

RECORDER.

Indeed, this day's subject transported us too late: [but] I think we shall not come much too late.

[_Exeunt_.

ACTUS III., SCAENA 3.

_Enter_ AMORETTO, _and his Page_, IMMERITO _booted_.

AMORETTO.

Master Immerito, deliver this letter to the poser in my father's name.

Marry, withal some sprinkling, some sprinkling; _verb.u.m sapienti sat est_. Farewell, Master Immerito.

IMMERITO.

I thank your worship most heartily.

PAGE.

Is it not a shame to see this old dunce learning his induction at these years? But let him go, I lose nothing by him; for I'll be sworn, but for the booty of selling the parsonage, I should have gone in mine old clothes this Christmas. A dunce, I see, is a neighbour-like brute beast: a man may live by him. [_Aside_.

[_AMORETTO seems to make verse_.

AMORETTO.

A pox on it, my muse is not so witty as she was wont to be: ---- _Her nose is like_ ---- not yet; plague on these mathematics! they have spoiled my brain in making a verse.

PAGE.

Hang me, if he hath any more mathematics than will serve to count the clock, or tell the meridian hour by rumbling of his paunch.