(I warrant) I do not pamper up too lusty. I keep them under with red
herring and poor John all the year long. I have dammed up all my
chimneys for fear (though I burn nothing but small coal) my house should
be set on fire with the smoke. I will not dine[132] but once in a dozen
year, when there is a great rot of sheep, and I know not what to do with
them; I keep open house for all the beggars in some of my out-yards:
marry, they must bring bread with them; I am no baker.

WILL SUM. As good men as you, and have thought it no scorn to serve
their 'prenticeships on the pillory.

SUM. Winter, is this thy son? Hear'st how he talks?

WIN. I am his father, therefore may not speak,
But otherwise I could excuse his fault.

SUM. Christmas, I tell thee plain, thou art a snudge[133],
And were't not that we love thy father well,
Thou shouldst have felt what 'longs to avarice.
It is the honour of nobility
To keep high-days and solemn festivals;
Then to set their magnificence to view,
To frolic open with their favourites,
And use their neighbours with all courtesy;
When thou in hugger-mugger[134] spend'st thy wealth.
Amend thy manners, breathe thy rusty gold;
Bounty will win thee love, when thou art old.

WILL SUM. Ay, that bounty I would fain meet, to borrow money of; he is
fairly bless'd now-a-days, that 'scapes blows when he begs. _Verba dandi
et reddendi_ go together in the grammar rule: there is no giving but
with condition of restoring.
Ah! _benedicite_:
Well is he hath no necessity
Of gold nor of sustenance:
Slow good hap comes by chance;
Flattery best fares;
Arts are but idle wares:
Fair words want giving hands,
The _Lento_[135] begs that hath no lands.
Fie on thee, thou scurvy knave,
That hast nought, and yet goes brave:
A prison be thy deathbed,
Or be hang'd all save the head.

SUM. Back-winter, stand forth.

VER. Stand forth, stand forth: hold up your head; speak out.

BACK-WIN. What should I stand, or whither should I go?

SUM. Autumn accuses thee of sundry crimes,
Which here thou art to clear or to confess.

BACK-WIN. With thee or Autumn have I nought to do,
I would you both were hanged, face to face.

SUM. Is this the reverence that thou ow'st to us?

BACK-WIN. Why not? What art thou? shalt thou always live?

AUT. It is the veriest dog in Christendom.

WIN. That's for he barks at such as knave as thou.

BACK-WIN. Would I could bark the sun out of the sky;
Turn moon and stars to frozen meteor