Smith. Pray, how was that, sir?
Bayes. Why, sir, I contrived a petticoat to be brought in upon a chair (nobody knew how), into a prince's chamber, whose father was now to see it, that came in by chance.
Johns. God's-my-life, that was a notable contrivance indeed!
Smith. Ay, but, Mr. Bayes, how could you contrive the belly-ache?
Bayes. The easiest i' the world, i'gad: I'll tell you how; I made the prince sit down upon the petticoat, no more than so, and pretended to his father that he had just then got the belly-ache; whereupon his father went out to call a physician, and his man ran away with the petticoat."—Rehearsal.
[19] Not Matthew, but Martin, as it is correctly printed before.—Ed.
[20] "To begin with your character of Almanzor, which you avow to have taken from the Achilles in Homer; pray hear what Famianus Strada says of such talkers as Mr. Dryden: Ridere soleo, cum video homines ab Homeri virtibus strenue declinates, si quid vero irrepsi vitii, id avide arripientes. But I might have spared this quotation, and you your avowing; for this character might as well have been borrowed from some of the stalls in Bedlam, or any of your own hair-brained cox-combs which you call heroes, and persons of honour. I remember just such another fuming Achilles in Shakespeare, one ancient Pistol, whom he avows to be a man of so fiery a temper, and so impatient of an injury, even from Sir John Falstaff his captain, and a knight, that he not only disobeyed his commands about carrying a letter to Mrs. Page, but returned him an answer as full of contumely, and in as opprobrious terms, as he could imagine:
'Let vultures gripe thy guts, for gourd and Fullam holds,
And high and low beguiles the rich and poor.
Tester I'll have in pouch, when thou shalt lack,
Base Phrygian Turk,' etc.
"Let's see e'er an Abencerrago fly a higher pitch. Take him at another turn, quarrelling with corporal Nym and old Zegri: The difference arose about mine hostess Quickly (for I would not give a rush for a man unless he be particular in matters of this moment); they both aimed at her body, but Abencerrago Pistol defies his rival in these words:
'Fetch from the powdering-tub of infamy
That lazar-kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet, she by name, and her espouse:
I have, and I will hold,
The quondam Quickly for the only she.
And pauca.'