[Exit Quicksilver.
To. This is for my credit! servants ever maintain drunkenness in their master’s house for their master’s credit; a good idle serving-man’s reason. I thank time the night is past; I ne’er waked to such cost; I think we have stowed more sorts of flesh in our bellies than
ever Noah’s ark received; and for wine, why my house turns giddy with it, and more noise in it than at a conduit. Ay me! even beasts condemn our gluttony. Well, ’tis our city’s fault, which, because we commit seldom, we commit the more sinfully; we lose no time in our sensuality, but we make amends for it. O that we would do so in virtue, and religious negligences! But see here are all the sober parcels my house can show; I’ll eavesdrop, hear what thoughts they utter this morning. 54
Enter Golding and Mildred.
Go. But is it possible that you, seeing your sister preferred to the bed of a knight, should contain your affections in the arms of a prentice?
Mi. I had rather make up the garment of my affections in some of the same piece, than, like a fool, wear gowns of two colours, or mix sackcloth with satin.
Go. And do the costly garments—the title and fame of a lady, the fashion, observation, and reverence proper to such preferment—no more inflame you than such convenience as my poor means and industry can offer to your virtues? 65
Mi. I have observed that the bridle given to those violent flatteries of fortune is seldom recovered; they bear one headlong in desire from one novelty to another, and where those ranging appetites reign, there is ever more passion than reason: no stay, and so no happiness. These hasty advancements are not natural. Nature
hath given us legs to go to our objects; not wings to fly to them. 73
Go. How dear an object you are to my desires I cannot express; whose fruition would my master’s absolute consent and yours vouchsafe me, I should be absolutely happy. And though it were a grace so far beyond my merit, that I should blush with unworthiness to receive it, yet thus far both my love and my means shall assure your requital: you shall want nothing fit for your birth and education; what increase of wealth and advancement the honest and orderly industry and skill of our trade will afford in any, I doubt not will be aspired by me; I will ever make your contentment the end of my endeavours; I will love you above all; and only your grief shall be my misery, and your delight my felicity. 87