Epicoene; Or, The Silent Woman Part 3

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 G.o.d, '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 fas.h.i.+on, 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 gla.s.s, 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 into a chamber, where the poor madam, for haste, and troubled, s.n.a.t.c.h'd at her peruke to cover her baldness; and put it on the wrong way.

CLER: O prodigy!

TRUE: And the unconscionable knave held her in complement an hour with that reverst face, when I still look'd when she should talk from the t'other side.

CLER: Why, thou shouldst have relieved her.

TRUE: No, faith, I let her alone, as we'll let this argument, if you please, and pa.s.s to another. When saw you Dauphine Eugenie?

CLER: Not these three days. Shall we go to him this morning? he is very melancholy, I hear.

TRUE: Sick of the uncle? is he? I met that stiff piece of formality, his uncle, yesterday, with a huge turban of night-caps on his head, buckled over his ears.

CLER: O, that's his custom when he walks abroad. He can endure no noise, man.

TRUE: So I have heard. But is the disease so ridiculous in him as it is made? They say he has been upon divers treaties with the fish-wives and orange-women; and articles propounded between them: marry, the chimney-sweepers will not be drawn in.

CLER: No, nor the broom-men: they stand out stiffly. He cannot endure a costard-monger, he swoons if he hear one.

TRUE: Methinks a smith should be ominous.

CLER: Or any hammer-man. A brasier is not suffer'd to dwell in the parish, nor an armourer. He would have hang'd a pewterer's prentice once on a Shrove-tuesday's riot, for being of that trade, when the rest were quit.

TRUE: A trumpet should fright him terribly, or the hautboys.

CLER: Out of his senses. The waights of the city have a pension of him not to come near that ward. This youth practised on him one night like the bell-man; and never left till he had brought him down to the door with a long-sword: and there left him flouris.h.i.+ng with the air.

PAGE: Why, sir, he hath chosen a street to lie in so narrow at both ends, that it will receive no coaches, nor carts, nor any of these common noises: and therefore we that love him, devise to bring him in such as we may, now and then, for his exercise, to breathe him.

He would grow resty else in his ease: his virtue would rust without action. I entreated a bearward, one day, to come down with the dogs of some four parishes that way, and I thank him he did; and cried his games under master Morose's window: till he was sent crying away, with his head made a most bleeding spectacle to the mult.i.tude. And, another time, a fencer marchng to his prize, had his drum most tragically run through, for taking that street in his way at my request.

TRUE: A good wag! How does he for the bells?

CLER: O, in the Queen's time, he was wont to go out of town every Sat.u.r.day at ten o'clock, or on holy day eves. But now, by reason of the sickness, the perpetuity of ringing has made him devise a room, with double walls, and treble ceilings; the windows close shut and caulk'd: and there he lives by candlelight. He turn'd away a man, last week, for having a pair of new shoes that creak'd.

And this fellow waits on him now in tennis-court socks, or slippers soled with wool: and they talk each to other in a trunk. See, who comes here!

[ENTER SIR DAUPHINE EUGENIE.]

DAUP: How now! what ail you sirs? dumb?

TRUE: Struck into stone, almost, I am here, with tales o' thine uncle. There was never such a prodigy heard of.

DAUP: I would you would once lose this subject, my masters, for my sake. They are such as you are, that have brought me into that predicament I am with him.

TRUE: How is that?

DAUP: Marry, that he will disinherit me; no more. He thinks, I and my company are authors of all the ridiculous Acts and Monuments are told of him.

TRUE: S'lid, I would be the author of more to vex him; that purpose deserves it: it gives thee law of plaguing him. I will tell thee what I would do. I would make a false almanack; get it printed: and then have him drawn out on a coronation day to the Tower-wharf, and kill him with the noise of the ordnance. Disinherit thee! he cannot, man. Art not thou next of blood, and his sister's son?

DAUP: Ay, but he will thrust me out of it, he vows, and marry.

TRUE: How! that's a more portent. Can he endure no noise, and will venture on a wife?

CLER: Yes: why thou art a stranger, it seems, to his best trick, yet. He has employed a fellow this half year all over England to hearken him out a dumb woman; be she of any form, or any quality, so she be able to bear children: her silence is dowry enough, he says.

TRUE: But I trust to G.o.d he has found none.

CLER: No; but he has heard of one that is lodged in the next street to him, who is exceedingly soft-spoken; thrifty of her speech; that spends but six words a day. And her he's about now, and shall have her.

TRUE: Is't possible! who is his agent in the business?