MAM. Good lady, give me leave --

DOL. In faith, I may not,

To mock me, sir.

MAM. To burn in this sweet flame;

The phoenix never knew a nobler death.

DOL. Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy

What you would build. This art, sir, in your words,

Calls your whole faith in question.

MAM. By my soul --

DOL. Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.

MAM. Nature

Never bestow'd upon mortality

A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature;

She play'd the step-dame in all faces else:

Sweet Madam, let me be particular --

DOL. Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance.

MAM. In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask

How your fair graces pass the hours? I see

You are lodged here, in the house of a rare man,

An excellent artist; but what's that to you?

DOL. Yes, sir; I study here the mathematics,

And distillation.

MAM. O, I cry your pardon.

He's a divine instructor! can extract

The souls of all things by his art; call all

The virtues, and the miracles of the sun,

Into a temperate furnace; teach dull nature

What her own forces are. A man, the emperor

Has courted above Kelly; sent his medals

And chains, to invite him.

DOL. Ay, and for his physic, sir --

MAM. Above the art of Aesculapius,

That drew the envy of the thunderer!

I know all this, and more.

DOL. Troth, I am taken, sir,

Whole with these studies, that contemplate nature.

MAM. It is a noble humour; but this form

Was not intended to so dark a use.

Had you been crooked, foul, of some coarse mould

A cloister had done well; but such a feature

That might stand up the glory of a kingdom,

To live recluse! is a mere soloecism,

Though in a nunnery. It must not be.

I muse, my lord your brother will permit it:

You should spend half my land first, were I he.

Doe