Sim. [from within]. What so, Lampatho! Good truth, I will not pay your ordinary if you come not.
Lam. Dost thou hear that voice? I’ll make a parrot now 140
As good a man as he in fourteen nights.
I never heard him vent a syllable
Of his own creating since I knew the use
Of eyes and ears. Well, he’s perfect blest,
Because a perfect beast. I’ll gage my heart
He knows no difference essential
’Twixt my dog and him. The whoreson sot is blest,
Is rich in ignorance, makes fair usance on’t,
And every day augments his barbarism.
So love me calmness, I do envy him for’t. 150
I was a scholar: seven useful springs
Did I deflower in quotations
Of cross’d opinions ’bout the soul of man.
The more I learnt the more I learnt to doubt:
Knowledge and wit, faith’s foes, turn faith about.
Sim. [from within]. Nay, come, good signior. I stay all the gentlemen here. I would fain give my pretty page a pudding-pie.
Lam. Honest epicure.—Nay, mark, list. Delight,
Delight, my spaniel slept, whilst I baus’d leaves, 160
Toss’d o’er the dunces, pored on the old print
Of titled words, and still my spaniel slept.
Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, bated my flesh,
Shrunk up my veins; and still my spaniel slept.
And still I held converse with Zabarell,[464]
Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw
Of antic Donate; still my spaniel slept
Still went on went I; first an sit anima,
Then, and it were mortal. O hold, hold! at that
They’re at brain-buffets, fell by the ears amain 170
Pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.
Then whether ’twere corporeal, local, fix’d,
Extraduce; but whether ’t had free will
Or no, ho philosophers
Stood banding factions all so strongly propp’d,
I stagger’d, knew not which was firmer part;
But thought, quoted,[465] read, observ’d, and pried,
Stuff’d noting-books; and still my spaniel slept.
At length he waked and yawn’d and by yon sky,
For aught I know he knew as much as I. 180
Sim. [from within]. Delicate good Lampatho, come away. I assure you I’ll give but twopence more.
Lam. How ’twas created, how the soul exists:
One talks of motes, the soul was made of motes;
Another fire, t’other light, a third
A spark of star-like nature;
Hippo water, Anaximenes air,
Aristoxenus music; Critias, I know not what.
A company of odd phrenetici!
Did eat my youth; and when I crept abroad, 190
Finding my numbness in this nimble age,
I fell a-railing; but now, soft and slow,
I know I know naught but I naught do know.
What shall I do—what plot, what course pursue?
Qua. Why, turn a temporist, row with the tide,
Pursue the cut, the fashion of the age.
Well, here’s my scholar’s course: first get a school,
And then a ten-pound cure; keep both. Then buy
(Stay, marry, ay, marry) then a farm, or so:
Serve God and mammon—to the devil go. 200
Affect some sect—ay, ’tis the sect is it,
So thou canst seem, ’tis held the precious wit.
And O, if thou canst get some higher seat,
Where thou mayest sell your holy portion
(Which charitable Providence ordained,
In sacred bounty, for a blessèd use),
Alien the glebe, entail it to thy loins,
Entomb it in thy grave,
Past resurrection to his native use!
Now, if there be a hell, and such swine saved,
Heaven take all—that’s all my hopes have craved. 210