Shall I stay captive in the outer court, An eye, lip, nose, hand, foot, or other part, Move not, which only can make the return. The body's love is frail, subject to change, One and the same, proceedeth first from weighing, Benevolence breeds friendship, friendship loves: A lost, oblique, deprav'd affection, From note of which though for a while we may Cannot Cannot be cleans'd. For what was hitherto 91 These and the preceding extracts may serve to shew the poeti cal fancy and elegance of mind of the supposed rugged old Bard. A thousand beautiful passages might be adduced from those nume, rous court masques and entertainments which he was in the daily habit of furnishing, to prove the same thing. But they do not come within my plan. That which follows is a specimen of that talent for comic humour, and the assemblage of ludicrous images, on which his reputation chiefly rests. It may serve for a variety after so many serious extracts. THE THE ALCHEMIST. A COMEDY. BY BEN. JONSON, Epicure Mammon, a Knight, deceived by the pretensions of Subtle (the Alchemist), glories in the prospect of obtaining the Philosopher's Stone; and promises what rare things he will do with it. MAMMON. SURLY, his Friend. The Scene, Subtle's House, Mam. Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore In novo orbe. Here's the rich Peru: And there within, sir, are the golden mines, Great Solomon's Ophir! He was sailing to't Three years, but we have reach'd it in ten months. I will pronounce the happy word, Be rich, This day you shall be spectatissimi. You shall no more deal with the hollow dye, Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping Or go a feasting after drum and ensign, No more of this. You shall start up young Viceroys, And And unto thee I speak it first, Be rich. Face answers from within. Sir, He'll come to you by and by. Mam. That's his fire-drake, His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals You are not faithful, sir. This night I'll change And early in the morning will I send And buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury, Sur. What, and turn that too? Mam. Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, And make them perfect Indies! You admire now ? Sur. No, faith. Mam. But when you see the effects of the great medicine! Of which one part projected on a hundred Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon, Sur. Yes, when I see't, I will. Do you think I fable with you? I assure you, To whom he will. In eight and twenty days Restore Restore his years, renew him like an eagle, Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids. Sur. The decay'd vestals of Pickt-hatch would thank Of Nature naturized 'gainst all infections, Past all the doses of your drugging doctors. Sur. And I'll Be bound, the players shall sing your praises, then, Mam. Sir, I'll do't. Meantime, I'll give away so much unto my man, Shall serve th' whole city with preservative Weekly each house his dose, and at the rate Sur. As he that built the water-work, does with water? Mam. You are incredulous. Sur. Faith, I have a humour, I would not willingly be gull'd. Your Stone Cannot transmute me. Mam. Pertinax Surly, Will you believe antiquity? Records? I'll shew you a book, where Moses, and his sister, And Solomon, have written of the Art? I, and a treatise penn'd by Adam. Sur. How? Mam. Of the Philosopher's Stone, and in High Dutch. Mam. |