[_Exit_.
PAGE.
My masters, I could wish your presence at an admirable jest: why
presently this great linguist my master will march through Paul's
Churchyard, come to a bookbinder's shop, and with a big Italian look and
a Spanish face ask for these books in Spanish and Italian; then, turning
(through his ignorance) the wrong end of the book upward, use action on
this unknown tongue after this sort: First, look on the title, and
wrinkle his brow; next make as though he read the first page, and bite
's lip;[98] then with his nail score the margent, as though there were
some notable conceit; and, lastly, when he thinks he hath gulled the
standers-by sufficiently, throws the book away in a rage, swearing that
he could never find books of a true print since he was last in
Joadna;[99] inquire after the next mart, and so departs. And so must I;
for by this time his contemplation is arrived at his mistress's nose
end; he is as glad as if he had taken Ostend.[100] By this time he
begins to spit, and cry, Boy, carry my cloak: and now I go to attend on
his worship.
[_Exit_.
ACTUS III., SCAENA 4.
_Enter_ INGENIOSO, FUROR, PHANTASMA.
INGENIOSO.
Come, lads; this wine whets your resolution in our design: it's a needy
world with subtle spirits; and there's a gentlemanlike kind of begging,
that may beseem poets in this age.
FUROR.
Now by the wing of nimble Mercury,
By my Thalia's silver-sounding harp,
By that celestial fire within my brain,
That gives a living genius to my lines,
Howe'er my dulled intellectual
Capers less nimbly than it did afore;
Yet will I play a hunts-up to my muse,
And make her mount from out her sluggish nest.
As high as is the highest sphere in heaven.
Awake, you paltry trulls of Helicon,
Or, by this light, I'll swagger with you straight:
You grandsire Phoebus, with your lovely eye,
The firmament's eternal vagabond,
The heaven's promoter, that doth peep and pry
Into the acts of mortal tennis-balls,
Inspire me straight with some rare delicies,[101]
Or I'll dismount thee from thy radiant coach,
And make thee poor[102] Cutchy here on earth.
PHANTASMA.
_Currus auriga paterni_.
INGENIOSO.
Nay, prythee, good Furor, do not rove in rhymes before thy time; thou
hast a very terrible, roaring muse, nothing but squibs and fine jerks:
quiet thyself a while, and hear thy charge.
PHANTASMA.
_Huc ades, haec animo concipe dicta tuo_.
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