SCENE 1.1.

A ROOM IN CLERIMONT’S HOUSE.

ENTER CLERIMONT, MAKING HIMSELF READY, FOLLOWED BY HIS PAGE.

CLER: Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy?

PAGE: Yes, sir.

CLER: Let me hear it.

PAGE: You shall, sir, but i’faith let nobody else.

CLER: Why, I pray?

PAGE: It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir;

besides me a perfect deal of ill-will at the mansion you wot of,

whose lady is the argument of it; where now I am the welcomest

thing under a man that comes there.

CLER: I think, and above a man too, if the truth were rack’d out

of you.

PAGE: No, faith, I’ll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with

me, and throw me on the bed; and carry me in to my lady; and she

kisses me with her oil’d face; and puts a peruke on my head; and

asks me an I will wear her gown? and I say, no: and then she

hits me a blow o’ the ear, and calls me Innocent! and lets me go.

CLER: No marvel if the door be kept shut against your master, when

the entrance is so easy to you—well sir, you shall go there no

more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady’s rushes, a

fortnight hence. Sing, sir.

PAGE [SINGS]: Still to be neat, still to be drest—

[ENTER TRUEWIT.]

TRUE: Why, here’s the man that can melt away his time and never

feels it! What between his mistress abroad, and his ingle at

home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle; he

thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well,

sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or

condemn’d to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin

then to think, and value every article of your time, esteem it

at the true rate, and give all for it.

CLER: Why what should a man do?

TRUE: Why, nothing; or that which, when it is done, is as idle.

Harken after the next horse-race or hunting-match; lay wagers,

praise Puppy, or Pepper-corn, White-foot, Franklin; swear upon

Whitemane’s party; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you;

visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character

of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things

wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for

company.

CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I’ll not leave yet. Come,

the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads

and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We’ll think on

‘em then; and we’ll pray and fast.

TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our

want of ability will not let us employ in evil!

CLER: Why, then ‘tis time enough.

TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to

effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because

it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock

ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery

indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the

matter still.

CLER: Nay, thou wilt not leave now—

TRUE: See but our common disease! with what justice can we complain,

that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give

our affairs such dispatch as we expect, when we will never do it

to ourselves? nor hear, nor regard ourselves?

CLER: Foh! thou hast read Plutarch’s morals, now, or some such

tedious fellow; and it shews so vilely with thee! ‘fore God, ‘twill

spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins, and feathers, and

ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity

alone, till thou mak’st sermons.

TRUE: Well, sir; if it will not take, I have learn’d to lose as

little of my kindness as I can. I’ll do good to no man against his

will, certainly. When were you at the college?

CLER: What college?

TRUE: As if you knew not!

CLER: No faith, I came but from court yesterday.

TRUE: Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation,

sir, here in the town, of ladies, that call themselves the

collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams,

that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the

wits, and braveries of the time, as they call them: cry down, or

up, what they like or dislike in a brain or a fashion, with most

masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority; and every day

gain to their college some new probationer.

CLER: Who is the president?

TRUE: The grave, and youthful matron, the lady Haughty.

CLER: A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty! there’s no man

can be admitted till she be ready, now-a-days, till she has

painted, and perfumed, and wash’d, and scour’d, but the boy here;

and him she wipes her oil’d lips upon, like a sponge. I have made

a song, I pray thee hear it, on the subject.

PAGE. [SINGS.]

Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As you were going to a feast;

Still to be powder’d, still perfum’d;

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art’s hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:

Such sweet neglect more taketh me,

Then all the adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

TRUE: And I am clearly on the other side: I love a good dressing

before any beauty o’ the world. O, a woman is then like a

delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it; she may vary every

hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If

she have good ears, shew them; good hair, lay it out; good

legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often;

practise any art to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eye-brows;

paint, and profess it.

CLER: How? publicly?

TRUE: The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many

things that seem foul in the doing, do please done. A lady

should, indeed, study her face, when we think she sleeps; nor,

when the doors are shut, should men be enquiring; all is sacred

within, then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their

false teeth, their complexion, their eye-brows, their nails? You

see guilders will not work, but inclosed. They must not discover

how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal.

How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people

suffered to see the city’s Love and Charity, while they were rude

stone, before they were painted and burnish’d? No: no more should

Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are complete and

finish’d.

CLER: Well said, my Truewit.

TRUE: And a wise lady will keep a guard always upon the place, that

she may do things securely. I once followed a rude fellow...