Men. Begone; Put not your worthy rage into your tongue; One time will owe another. [Hear.]
Cor. On fair ground, I could beat forty of them.
Men. I could myself Take up a brace of the best of them; yea, the two tribunes.
Com. But now 'tis odds beyond arithmetic:
And MANHOOD is called FOOLERY, when it stands
Against a falling fabric.—Will you hence,
Before the tag return? whose rage doth rend
Like interrupted waters, and o'erbear
What they are used to bear. [Change of 'predominance.']
Men. Pray you, begone:
I'll try whether my old wit be in request
With those that have but little; this must be patched
With cloth of any colour.
Com. Nay, come away.
The features of that living impersonation of the heroic faults and virtues which 'the mirror,' that professed to give to 'the very body of the time, its form and pressure,' could not fail to show, are glimmering here constantly in 'this ancient piece,' and often shine out in the more critical passages, with such unmistakeable clearness, as to furnish an effectual diversion for any eye, that should undertake to fathom prematurely the player's intention. For 'the gentleman who wrote the late Shepherd's Calendar' was not the only poet of this time, as it would seem, who found the scope of a double intention, in his poetic representation, not adequate to the comprehension of his design—who laid on another and another still, and found the complexity convenient. 'The sense is the best judge,' this Poet says, in his doctrine of criticism, declining peremptorily to accept of the ancient rules in matters of taste;—a rule in art which requires, of course, a corresponding rule of interpretation. In fact, it is no bad exercise for an ordinary mind, to undertake to track the contriver of these plays, through all the latitudes which his art, as he understands it, gives him. It is as good for that purpose, as a problem in mathematics. But, 'to whom you will not give an hour, you give nothing,' he says, and 'he had as lief not be read at all, as be read by a careless reader.' So he thrusts in his meanings as thick as ever he likes, and those who don't choose to stay and pick them out, are free to lose them. They are not the ones he laid them in for,—that is all. He is not afraid, but that he will have readers enough, ere all is done; and he can afford to wait. There's time enough.
First Pat. This man has marr'd his fortune.
Men. His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for his power to thunder. His heart's his mouth; What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent; And being angry, does forget that ever He heard the name of death.
[A noise within.]