INGENIOSO. Danter, thou art deceived, wit is dearer than thou takest it to be: I tell thee, this libel of Cambridge has much fat and pepper in the nose; it will sell sheerly underhand, when all these books of exhortations and catechisms lie moulding on thy shopboard.
DANTER. It's true: but, good faith, Master Ingenioso, I lost by your last book; and, you know, there is many a one that pays me largely for the printing of their inventions: but, for all this, you shall have forty shillings and an odd bottle of wine.
INGENIOSO. Forty shillings! a fit reward for one of your rheumatic poets, that beslavers all the paper he comes by, and furnishes all the chandlers with waste-papers to wrap candles in; but as for me, I'll be paid dear even for the dregs of my wit: little knows the world what belongs to the keeping of a good wit in waters, diets, drinks, tobacco, &c. It is a dainty and a costly creature; and therefore I must be paid sweetly. Furnish me with money, that I may put myself in a new suit of clothes, and I'll suit thy shop with a new suit of terms. It's the gallantest child my invention was ever delivered of: the title is, A Chronicle of Cambridge Cuckolds. Here a man may see what day of the month such a man's commons were enclosed, and when thrown open; and when any entailed some odd crowns upon the heirs of their bodies unlawfully begotten. Speak quickly: else I am gone.
DANTER. O, this will sell gallantly; I'll have it, whatsoever it cost: will you walk on, Master Ingenioso? We'll sit over a cup of wine, and agree on it.
INGENIOSO.
A cup of wine is as good a constable as can be to take up the quarrel
betwixt us.
[Exeunt.
ACTUS I., SCAENA 4.
PHILOMUSUS in a physician's habit: STUDIOSO,
that is, JAQUES man, and PATIENT.
PHILOMUSUS.
Tit, tit, tit, non point;[62] non debet fieri phlebotomia in coitu Lunae.
Here is a recipe.
PATIENT.
A recipe?
PHILOMUSUS.
Nos Galliâ non curamus quantitatem syllabarum: let me hear how many
stools you do make. Adieu, monsieur: adieu, good monsieur.—What,
Jaques, il n'y a personne apres ici?