Ant. ’Tis to be described by signs and tokens. For unless I were possessed with a legion of spirits, ’tis impossible to be made perspicuous by any utterance: for sometimes he must take austere state, as for the person of Galeatzo, the son of the Duke of Florence, and possess his exterior presence with a formal majesty: keep popularity in distance, and on the sudden fling his honour so prodigally into a common arm, that he may seem to give up his indiscretion to the mercy of vulgar censure. Now as solemn as a traveller,[47] and as
grave as a Puritan’s ruff;[48] with the same breath as slight and scattered in his fashion as a—a—anything; now as sweet and neat as a barber’s casting-bottle;[49] straight as slovenly as the yeasty breast of an ale-knight: now lamenting, then chafing, straight laughing, then—— 140
Feli. What then?
Ant. Faith, I know not what; ’t had been a right part for Proteus or Gew. Ho! blind Gew[50] would ha’ done ’t rarely, rarely.
Feli. I fear it is not possible to limn so many persons in so small a tablet as the compass of our plays afford.
Ant. Right! therefore I have heard that those persons, as he and you, Feliche, that are but slightly drawn in this comedy, should receive more exact accomplishment in a second part; which, if this obtain gracious acceptance, means to try his fortune. 151
Feli. Peace, here comes the Prologue: clear the stage.
[Exeunt.
[35] We have an Induction before What you Will and The Malcontent. Ben Jonson was particularly fond of introducing preliminary dialogues, which are usually so tedious that we are fain to exclaim with Cordatus (in the Induction to Every Man out of his Humour), “I would they would begin once; this protraction is able to sour the best settled patience in the theatre.”
[36] I.e., the poverty of the theatrical company. It was common for an actor to represent two characters (or more) in the same play. For example, William Shurlock personated Maharbal and Prusias in Nabbes’ Hannibal and Scipio, 1635; and in the same play, Hugh Clerke, besides taking the part of Syphax, personated the Nuntius.