A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 02

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Tapio Riikonen
and PG Distributed Proofreaders
Originally published by Robert Dodsley in the Year 1744.
The Interlude of Youth Lusty Juventus Jack Juggler A Pretty Interlude, called Nice Wanton The History of Jacob and Esau The Disobedient Child The Marriage of Wit and Science.
See Hazlitt's Handbook, 1867, p. 464, and Remarks .
CHARITY. Are you so disposed to do, To follow vice, and let virtue go!
YOUTH. Yea, sir, even so: For now-a-days he is not set by, Without he be unthrifty.
CHARITY. You had need to ask God mercy; Why did you so praise your body?
CHARITY. Ah, yet, sir, do by my reed, And ask mercy for thy misdeed, And thou shalt be an heritor of bliss, Where all joy and mirth is; Where thou shalt see a glorious sight Of angels singing, with saints bright, Before the face of God.
YOUTH. What, sirs, above the sky? I had need of a ladder to climb so high! But what, and the ladder slip? Then I am deceived yet, And if I fall, I catch a queck; I may fortune to break my neck, And that joint is ill to set: Nay, nay, not so.
CHARITY. Oh, yet remember, and call to thy mind, The mercy of God passeth all thing. For it is written by noble clerks, The mercy of God passeth all works; That witnesseth Holy Scripture, saying thus: Miseratio domini super omnia opera ejus : Therefore doubt not God's grace; Thereof is plenty in every place.
CHARITY. This question is but a vanity; It longeth not to me Such questions to assoil.