CLARE. Till when you please, where'er you live or lie,
Your love's here worn: you're present[349] in my eye.
Enter LORD FALCONBRIDGE and SIR WILLIAM SCARBOROW.
LORD. Sir William,
How old, say you, is your kinsman Scarborow?
WIL. Eighteen, my lord, next Pentecost.
LORD. Bethink you, good Sir William,
I reckon thereabout myself; so by that account
There's full three winters yet he must attend
Under our awe, before he sue his livery:
Is it not so?
WIL. Not a day less, my lord.
LORD. Sir William, you are his uncle, and I must speak,
That am his guardian; would I had a son
Might merit commendations equal[350] with him.
I'll tell you what he is: he is a youth,
A noble branch, increasing blessed fruit,
Where caterpillar vice dare not to touch:
He bears[351] himself with so much gravity,
Praise cannot praise him with hyperbole:
He is one, whom older look upon as on a book:
Wherein are printed noble sentences
For them to rule their lives by. Indeed he is one,
All emulate his virtues, hate him none.
WIL. His friends are proud to hear this good of him.
LORD. And yet, Sir William, being as he is,
Young and unsettled, though of virtuous thoughts
By genuine disposition, yet our eyes
See daily precedents, [how] hopeful gentlemen,
Being trusted in the world with their own will,
Divert the good is look'd from them to ill;
Make their old names forgot, or not worth note:
With company they keep such revelling,
With panders, parasites, prodigies of knaves,
That they sell all, even their old fathers' graves.
Which to prevent we'll match him to a wife:
Marriage restrains the scope of single life.
WIL. My lord speaks like a father for my kinsman.