LOVEL
Vanity and gay thoughts of wine do meet in him and engender madness.
(While the rest are engaged in a wild kind of talk, John advances to the front of the stage and soliloquises.)
JOHN
My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast.
My joys are turbulent, my hopes shew like fruition.
These high and gusty relishes of life, sure,
Have no allayings of mortality in them.
I am too hot now and o'ercapable,
For the tedious processes, and creeping wisdom,
Of human acts, and enterprizes of a man.
I want some seasonings of adversity,
Some strokes of the old mortifier Calamity,
To take these swellings down, divines call vanity.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
Mr. Woodvil, Mr. Woodvil.
SECOND GENTLEMAN
Where is Woodvil?
GRAY Let him alone. I have seen him in these lunes before. His abstractions must not taint the good mirth.
JOHN (continuing to soliloquize)
O for some friend now,
To conceal nothing from, to have no secrets.
How fine and noble a thing is confidence,
How reasonable too, and almost godlike!
Fast cement of fast friends, band of society,
Old natural go-between in the world's business,
Where civil life and order, wanting this cement,
Would presently rush back
Into the pristine state of singularity,
And each man stand alone.
(A Servant enters.) Gentlemen, the fire-works are ready.
FIRST GENTLEMAN
What be they?
LOVEL The work of London artists, which our host has provided in honour of this day.