SCENE I.—AN APARTMENT AT THE COURT.

ENTER AMORPHUS AND ASOTUS.

AMO. Sir, let not this discountenance or disgallant you a whit;
you must not sink under the first disaster. It is with your young
grammatical courtier, as with your neophyte player, a thing usual
to be daunted at the first presence or interview: you saw, there
was Hedon, and Anaides, far more practised gallants than yourself,
who were both out, to comfort you. It is no disgrace, no more than
for your adventurous reveller to fall by some inauspicious chance
in his galliard, or for some subtile politic to undertake the
bastinado, that the state might think worthily of him, and respect
him as a man well beaten to the world. What? hath your tailor
provided the property we spake of at your chamber, or no?

ASO. I think he has.

AMO. Nay, I entreat you, be not so flat and melancholic. Erect
your mind: you shall redeem this with the courtship I will teach
you against the afternoon. Where eat you to-day?

ASO. Where you please, sir; any where, I.

AMO. Come, let us go and taste some light dinner, a dish of sliced
caviare, or so; and after, you shall practise an hour at your
lodging some few forms that I have recall'd. If you had but so far
gathered your spirits to you, as to have taken up a rush when you
were out, and wagg'd it thus, or cleansed your teeth with it; or
but turn'd aside, and feign'd some business to whisper with your
page, till you had recovered yourself, or but found some slight
stain in your stocking, or any other pretty invention, so it had
been sudden, you might have come off with a most clear and courtly
grace.

ASO. A poison of all! I think I was forespoke, I.

AMO. No, I must tell you, you are not audacious enough; you must
frequent ordinaries a month more, to initiate yourself: in which
time, it will not be amiss, if, in private, you keep good your
acquaintance with Crites, or some other of his poor coat; visit his
lodging secretly and often; become an earnest suitor to hear some
of his labours.

ASO. O Jove! sir, I could never get him to read a line to me.

AMO. You must then wisely mix yourself in rank with such as you
know can; and, as your ears do meet with a new phrase, or an acute
jest, take it in: a quick nimble memory will lift it away, and, at
your next public meal, it is your own.

ASO. But I shall never utter it perfectly, sir.

AMO. No matter, let it come lame. In ordinary talk you shall play
it away, as you do your light crowns at primero: it will pass.

ASO. I shall attempt, sir.

AMO. Do. It is your shifting age for wit, and, I assure you, men
must be prudent. After this you may to court, and there fall in,
first with the waiting-woman, then with the lady. Put case they do
retain you there, as a fit property, to hire coaches some pair of
months, or so; or to read them asleep in afternoons upon some
pretty pamphlet, to breathe you; why, it shall in time embolden you
to some farther achievement: in the interim, you may fashion
yourself to be careless and impudent.

ASO. How if they would have me to make verses? I heard Hedon
spoke to for some.

AMO. Why, you must prove the aptitude of your genius; if you find
none, you must hearken out a vein, and buy; provided you pay for
the silence as for the work, then you may securely call it your
own.

ASO. Yes, and I'll give out my acquaintance with all the best
writers, to countenance me the more.

AMO. Rather seem not to know them, it is your best. Ay, be wise,
that you never so much as mention the name of one, nor remember it
mentioned; but if they be offer'd to you in discourse, shake your
light head, make between a sad and a smiling face, pity some, rail
at all, and commend yourself: 'tis your only safe and unsuspected
course. Come, you shall look back upon the court again to-day, and
be restored to your colours: I do now partly aim at the cause of
your repulse—which was ominous indeed—for as you enter at the
door, there is opposed to you the frame of a wolf in the hangings,
which, surprising your eye suddenly, gave a false alarm to the
heart; and that was it called your blood out of your face, and so
routed the whole rank of your spirits: I beseech you labour to
forget it. And remember, as I inculcated to you before, for your
comfort, Hedon and Anaides. [EXEUNT.]

SCENE II.—ANOTHER APARTMENT IN THE SAME.

ENTER HEDON AND ANAIDES.

HEDON. Heart, was there ever so prosperous an invention thus
unluckily perverted and spoiled, by a whoreson book-worm, a
candle-waster?

ANA. Nay, be not impatient, Hedon.

HED. 'Slight, I would fain know his name.

ANA. Hang him, poor grogan rascal! prithee think not of him: I'll
send for him to my lodging, and have him blanketed when thou wilt,
man.

HED. Ods so, I would thou couldst. Look, here he comes.

ENTER CRITES, AND WALKS IN A MUSING POSTURE AT THE BACK OF THE
STAGE.

Laugh at him, laugh at him; ha, ha, ha.

ANA. Fough! he smells all lamp-oil with studying by candle-light.

HED. How confidently he went by us, and carelessly! Never moved,
nor stirred at any thing! Did you observe him?

ANA. Ay, a pox on him, let him go, dormouse: he is in a dream
now. He has no other time to sleep, but thus when he walks abroad
to take the air.

HED. 'Sprecious, this afflicts me more than all the rest, that we
should so particularly direct our hate and contempt against him,
and he to carry it thus without wound or passion! 'tis
insufferable.

ANA. 'Slid, my dear Envy, if thou but say'st the word now, I'll
undo him eternally for thee.

HED. How, sweet Anaides?

ANA. Marry, half a score of us get him in, one night, and make him
pawn his wit for a supper.

HED. Away, thou hast such unseasonable jests! By this heaven, I
wonder at nothing more than our gentlemen ushers, that will suffer
a piece of serge or perpetuana to come into the presence: methinks
they should, out of their experience, better distinguish the
silken disposition of courtiers, than to let such terrible coarse
rags mix with us, able to fret any smooth or gentle society to the
threads with their rubbing devices.

ANA. Unless 'twere Lent, Ember-weeks, or fasting days, when the
place is most penuriously empty of all other good outsides. D—n
me, if I should adventure on his company once more, without a suit
of buff to defend my wit! he does nothing but stab, the slave!
How mischievously he cross'd thy device of the prophecy, there?
and Moria, she comes without her muff too, and there my invention
was lost.

HED. Well, I am resolved what I'll do.

ANA. What, my good spiritous spark?

HED. Marry, speak all the venom I can of him; and poison his
reputation in every place where I come.

ANA. 'Fore God, most courtly.

HED. And if I chance to be present where any question is made of
his sufficiencies, or of any thing he hath done private or public,
I'll censure it slightly, and ridiculously.

ANA. At any hand beware of that; so thou may'st draw thine own
judgment in suspect. No, I'll instruct thee what thou shalt do,
and by a safer means: approve any thing thou hearest of his, to the
received opinion of it; but if it be extraordinary, give it from
him to some other whom thou more particularly affect'st; that's the
way to plague him, and he shall never come to defend himself.
'Slud, I'll give out all he does is dictated from other men, and
swear it too, if thou'lt have me, and that I know the time and
place where he stole it, though my soul be guilty of no such thing;
and that I think, out of my heart, he hates such barren shifts: yet
to do thee a pleasure and him a disgrace, I'll damn myself, or do
any thing.

HED. Gramercy, my dear devil; we'll put it seriously in practice,
i'faith. [EXEUNT HEDON AND ANAIDES.]

CRI. [COMING FORWARD.]
Do, good Detraction, do, and I the while
Shall shake thy spight off with a careless smile.
Poor piteous gallants! what lean idle slights
Their thoughts suggest to flatter their starv'd hopes!
As if I knew not how to entertain
These straw-devices; but, of force must yield
To th