r knaves than they will fall into the company.

Now sir, if the writer be a fellow that hath either epigrammed you, or
hath had a flirt at your mistris, or hath brought either your feather,
or your red beard, or your little legs &c. on the stage, you shall
disgrace him worse then by tossing him in a blancket, or giving him
the bastinado in a Taverne, if, in the middle of his play, (bee it
Pastoral or Comedy, Morall or Tragedic) you rise with a screwd and
discontented face from your stoole to be gone: no matter whether the
Scenes be good or no; the better they are the worse do you distast
them: and, beeing on your feet, sneake not away like a coward, but
salute all your gentle acquaintance, that are spred either on the
rushes, or on stooles about you, and draw what troope you can from the
stage after you: the _Mimicks_ are beholden to you, for allowing them
elbow roome: their Poet cries, perhaps, a pox go with you, but care
not for that, theres no musick without frets.

Mary, if either the company, or indisposition of the weather binde you
to sit it out, my counsell is then that you turne plain Ape, take up a
rush, and tickle the earnest eares of your fellow gallants, to make
other fooles fall a laughing: mewe at passionate speeches, blare at
merrie, finde fault with the musicke, whew at the childrens Action,
whistle at the songs: and above all, curse the sharers, that whereas
the same day you had bestowed forty shillings on an embrodered Felt
and Feather, (Scotch-fashion) for your mistres in the Court, within
two houres after, you encounter with the very same block on the stage,
when the haberdasher swore to you the impression was extant but that
morning.

To conclude, hoard up the finest play-scraps you can get, upon which
your leane wit may most favourly feede, for want of other stuffe, when
the _Arcadian_ and _Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues
sharpened to set upon you: that qualitie (next to your shuttlecocke)
is the onely furniture to a Courtier thats but a new beginner, and is
but in his A B C of complement. The next places that are filled, after
the Play-houses bee emptied, are (or ought to be) Tavernes: into a
Taverne then let us next march, where the braines of one Hogshead must
be beaten out to make up another.

_Thomas Dekker._

OF MYSELF

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates
his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears
to