Another street.
Enter Lipsalve and Gudgeon at several doors with their pages, Shrimp and Periwinkle.
GUDGEON
Master Lipsalve, welcome within ken; we two are so nearly linked, that if thou beest absent but one two hours, thy acquaintance grows almost mouldy in my memory.
LIPSALVE
And [thine] fly-blown in mine; how dost thou do?
SHRIMP
Fellow page, I think our acquaintance runs low too; but if it run not o’ the lees, let’s set it a-tilt, and give ‘em some dregs to their mouldy, fly-blown compliments.
PERIWINKLE
No, rather let’s pierce the rundlets of our running heads, and give ‘em a neat cup of wagship to put down their courtship.
SHRIMP
Courtship? cartship: for the tongues of complimenters run on wheels. But mark ‘em, they ha’ not done yet.
GUDGEON
And i’faith how is’t? Methinks thou hast been a long vagrant.
LIPSALVE
The rogation hath been long indeed: therefore we may salute as ceremoniously as lawyers when they meet after a long vacation, who, to renew the discontinued state tale, they stretch it out with such length, that whilst they greet before, their clients kiss them behind.
SHRIMP
If his nose were put i’ the remainder of that state tale, he would say ‘twere an unsavoury one.
PERIWINKLE
I wonder why many men gird so at the law.
SHRIMP
I’ll tell thee, because they themselves have neither law nor conscience.
GUDGEON
But what news now? How stands the state of things at Brussels?
LIPSALVE
Faith, weak and limber, weak and limber; nothing but pride and double-dealing. Virtue is vice’s lackey; beggars suck like horse-leeches at the heart of bounty, and [leaves him] so tired and spur-galled that he can be no longer ridden with honesty.
GUDGEON
Well fare the city yet. There virtue rides a cock-horse, cherished and kept warm in good sables and fox-fur, and with the breath of his nostrils drives pride and covetousness before him, like’s own shadow. Beggars have whipping cheer: bounty obliges men to’t, [and liberality gives money for scrips and scrolls, sealed] with strong arms and heraldry to outlive mortality. Love there will see the last man born, never give over while there’s an arrow i’ th’ quiver.
LIPSALVE
Now we talk of love, I do know not far hence so good a subject for that humour, that if she would wear but the standing collar and her things in fashion, our ladies in the court were but brown sugar-candy, as gross as grocery to her.
GUDGEON
She is not so sweet as a pothecary’s shop, is she?
LIPSALVE
A plague on you, ha’ you so good a scent? [Aside] For my life, he’s my rival.
GUDGEON
Her name begins with Mistress Purge, does it not?
LIPSALVE
True, the only comet of the city.
GUDGEON
Ay, if she would let her ruffs stream out a little wider; but I am sure she is ominous to me: she makes civil wars and insurrections in the state of my stomach. I had thought to have bound myself from love, but her purging comfits makes me loose-bodied still.
LIPSALVE
What, has she ministered to thee then?
GUDGEON
Faith, some lectuary or so.
LIPSALVE
Ay, I fear she takes too much of that lectuary to stoop to love; it keeps her body soluble from sin: she is not troubled with carnal crudities nor the binding of the flesh.
GUDGEON
Thou hast sounded her then, belike.
LIPSALVE
Not I, I am too shallow to sound her, she’s out of my element. If I show passion and discourse of love to her, she tells me I am wide from the right scope; she says she has another object, and aims at a better love than mine.
GUDGEON
O, that’s her husband.
LIPSALVE
No, no, she speaks pure devotion; she’s impenetrable: no gold or oratory, no virtue in herbs nor no physic will make her love.
GUDGEON
More is the pity, I say, that fair women should prove saints before age had made them crooked. [Aside] ’Tis my luck to be crossed still, but I must not give over the chase.
LIPSALVE
Come hither, boy, while I think on’t
Lipsalve and Shrimp confer.
GUDGEON
[Aside] Faith, friend Lipsalve, I perceive you would fain play with my love. A pure creature ’tis, for whom I have sought every angle of my brain; but either she scorns courtiers as most of them do, because they are given to boast of their doings, or else she’s exceeding strait-laced. Therefore to prevent this smell-smock, I’ll to my friend Doctor Glister, a man exquisite in th’ art magic, who hath told me of many rare experiments available in this case. — Farewell, friend Lipsalve.
LIPSALVE
Adieu, honest Gregory; frequent my lodging, I have a viol de gambo and good tobacco.
Exeunt Gudgeon and Periwinkle.
Thou wilt do this feat, boy?
SHRIMP
Else knock my head and my pate together.
LIPSALVE
Away then; bid him bring his measure with him.
Exit Shrimp.
Gerardine is travelled, and I must needs be cast into his mould. My flesh grows proud, and Maria’s a sweet wench, &c. But yet I must not let fall my suit with Mistress Purge, lest, sede vacante, my friend Gudgeon join issue:
I’ll rather to my learned doctor for a spell,
For I have a fire in my liver burns like hell.
Exit.