ACTUS I, SCAENA 2.
Enter JUDICIO and INGENIOSO.
JUDICIO. What, Ingenioso, carrying a vinegar bottle about thee, like a great schoolboy giving the world a bloody nose?[35]
INGENIOSO. Faith, Judicio, if I carry the vinegar bottle, it's great reason I should confer it upon the baldpated world: and again, if my kitchen want the utensils[36] of viands, it's great reason other men should have the sauce of vinegar; and for the bloody nose, Judicio, I may chance, indeed, give the world a bloody nose, but it shall hardly give me a crack'd crown, though it gives other poets French crowns.
JUDICIO. I would wish thee, Ingenioso, to sheathe thy pen, for thou canst not be successful in the fray, considering thy enemies have the advantage of the ground.
INGENIOSO. Or rather, Judicio, they have the grounds with advantage, and the French crowns with a pox; and I would they had them with a plague too: but hang them, swads, the basest corner in my thoughts is too gallant a room to lodge them in. But say, Judicio, what news in your press? did you keep any late corrections upon any tardy pamphlets?
JUDICIO. Veterem jubes renovare dolorem, Ingenioso: whate'er befalls thee, keep thee from the trade of the corrector of the press.
INGENIOSO. Marry, so I will, I warrant thee; if poverty press not too much, I'll correct no press but the press of the people.
JUDICIO. Would it not grieve any good spirits to sit a whole month knitting out a lousy, beggarly pamphlet, and, like a needy physician, to stand whole years tossing and tumbling the filth that falleth from so many draughty inventions as daily swarm in our printing-house.
INGENIOSO. Come, I think we shall have you put finger in the eye, and cry, O friends, no friends! Say, man, what new paper hobby-horses, what rattle-babies, are come out in your late May morris-dance?