VAL. Very well, sir; can you proceed?
JERE. Sometimes like a bilked bookseller, with a meagre terrified countenance, that looks as if he had written for himself, or were resolved to turn author, and bring the rest of his brethren into the same condition. And lastly, in the form of a worn-out punk, with verses in her hand, which her vanity had preferred to settlements, without a whole tatter to her tail, but as ragged as one of the muses; or as if she were carrying her linen to the paper-mill, to be converted into folio books of warning to all young maids, not to prefer poetry to good sense, or lying in the arms of a needy wit, before the embraces of a wealthy fool.
SCENE II.
Valentine, Scandal, Jeremy.
SCAN. What, Jeremy holding forth?
VAL. The rogue has (with all the wit he could muster up) been declaiming against wit.
SCAN. Ay? Why, then, I’m afraid Jeremy has wit: for wherever it is, it’s always contriving its own ruin.
JERE. Why, so I have been telling my master, sir: Mr. Scandal, for heaven’s sake, sir, try if you can dissuade him from turning poet.
SCAN. Poet! He shall turn soldier first, and rather depend upon the outside of his head than the lining. Why, what the devil, has not your poverty made you enemies enough? Must you needs shew your wit to get more?
JERE. Ay, more indeed: for who cares for anybody that has more wit than himself?