SCENE 1.1.

A ROOM IN CLERIMONT'S HOUSE.

ENTER CLERIMONT, MAKING HIMSELF READY, FOLLOWED BY HIS PAGE.

CLER: Have you got the song yet perfect, I gave you, boy?

PAGE: Yes, sir.

CLER: Let me hear it.

PAGE: You shall, sir, but i'faith let nobody else.

CLER: Why, I pray?

PAGE: It will get you the dangerous name of a poet in town, sir;
besides me a perfect deal of ill-will at the mansion you wot of,
whose lady is the argument of it; where now I am the welcomest
thing under a man that comes there.

CLER: I think, and above a man too, if the truth were rack'd out
of you.

PAGE: No, faith, I'll confess before, sir. The gentlewomen play with
me, and throw me on the bed; and carry me in to my lady; and she
kisses me with her oil'd face; and puts a peruke on my head; and
asks me an I will wear her gown? and I say, no: and then she
hits me a blow o' the ear, and calls me Innocent! and lets me go.

CLER: No marvel if the door be kept shut against your master, when
the entrance is so easy to you—well sir, you shall go there no
more, lest I be fain to seek your voice in my lady's rushes, a
fortnight hence. Sing, sir.

PAGE [SINGS]: Still to be neat, still to be drest—

[ENTER TRUEWIT.]

TRUE: Why, here's the man that can melt away his time and never
feels it! What between his mistress abroad, and his ingle at
home, high fare, soft lodging, fine clothes, and his fiddle; he
thinks the hours have no wings, or the day no post-horse. Well,
sir gallant, were you struck with the plague this minute, or
condemn'd to any capital punishment to-morrow, you would begin
then to think, and value every article of your time, esteem it
at the true rate, and give all for it.

CLER: Why what should a man do?

TRUE: Why, nothing; or that which, when it is done, is as idle.
Harken after the next horse-race or hunting-match; lay wagers,
praise Puppy, or Pepper-corn, White-foot, Franklin; swear upon
Whitemane's party; speak aloud, that my lords may hear you;
visit my ladies at night, and be able to give them the character
of every bowler or better on the green. These be the things
wherein your fashionable men exercise themselves, and I for
company.

CLER: Nay, if I have thy authority, I'll not leave yet. Come,
the other are considerations, when we come to have gray heads
and weak hams, moist eyes and shrunk members. We'll think on
'em then; and we'll pray and fast.

TRUE: Ay, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our
want of ability will not let us employ in evil!

CLER: Why, then 'tis time enough.

TRUE: Yes; as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to
effect his business the last day. O, Clerimont, this time, because
it is an incorporeal thing, and not subject to sense, we mock
ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery
indeed! not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the
matter still.

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 God, '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 fashion, 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 glass, 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, snatch'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 pass 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. Th