Act 1 — SCENE IV.
Reading edition
A Room in an Inn.
Enter Groom lighting in Phœnix and Fidelio.
Groom. Gentlemen, you’re most neatly welcome.
Phœ. You’re very cleanly, sir: prithee, have a care to our geldings.
Groom. Your geldings shall be well considered.
Fid. Considered?
Phœ. Sirrah, what guess[816] does this inn hold now?
Groom. Some five and twenty gentlemen, besides their beasts.
Phœ. Their beasts?
Groom. Their wenches, I mean, sir; for your worship knows those that are under men are beasts.
327Phœ. How does your mother, sir?
Groom. Very well in health, I thank you heartily, sir.
Phœ. And so is my mare, i’faith.
Groom. I’ll do her commendations indeed, sir.
Fid. Well kept up, shuttlecock!
Phœ. But what old fellow was he that newly alighted before us?
Groom. Who, he? as arrant a crafty fellow as e’er made water on horseback. Some say, he’s as good as a lawyer; marry, I’m sure he’s as bad as a knave: if you have any suits in law, he’s the fittest man for your company; has been so towed[817] and lugged himself, that he is able to afford you more knavish counsel for ten groats than another for ten shillings.
Phœ. A fine fellow! but do you know him to be a knave, and will lodge him?
Groom. Your worship begins to talk idly; your bed shall be made presently: if we should not lodge knaves, I wonder how we should be able to live honestly: are there honest men enough, think you, in a term-time to fill all the inns in the town? and, as far as I can see, a knave’s gelding eats no more hay than an honest man’s; nay, a[818] thief’s gelding eats less, I’ll stand to’t; his master allows him a better ordinary; yet I have my eightpence day and night: ’twere more for our profit, I wus,[819] you were all thieves, if you were so contented. I shall be called for: give your worships good morrow. [Exit.
328Phœ. A royal knave, i’faith: we have happened into a godly inn.
Fid. Assure you, my lord, they belong all to one church.
Phœ. This should be some old, busy, turbulent fellow: [a] villanous law-worm, that eats holes into poor men’s causes.
Enter Tangle with two Suitors, and Groom.
First Suit. May it please your worship to give me leave?
Tan. I give you leave, sir; you have your veniam.—Now fill me a brown toast, sirrah.
Groom. Will you have no drink to’t, sir?
Tan. Is that a question in law?
Groom. Yes, in the lowest court, i’ th’ cellar, sir.
Tan. Let me ha’t removed presently, sir.
Groom. It shall be done, sir. [Exit.
Tan. Now as you were saying, sir,—I’ll come to you immediately too.
Phœ. O, very well, sir.
Tan. I’m a little busy, sir.
First Suit. But as how, sir?
Tan. I pray, sir?
First Suit. Has brought me into the court; marry, my adversary has not declared yet.
Tan. Non declaravit adversarius, sayest thou? what a villain’s that! I have a trick to do thee good: I will get thee out a proxy, and make him declare, with a pox to him.
First Suit. That will make him declare to his sore grief; I thank your good worship: but put case he do declare?
Tan. Si declarasset, if he should declare there——
First Suit. I would be loath to stand out to the judgment of that court.
329Tan. Non ad judicium, do you fear corruption? then I’ll relieve you again; you shall get a supersedeas non molestandum, and remove it higher.
First Suit. Very good.
Tan. Now if it should ever come to a testificandum, what be his witnesses?
First Suit. I little fear his witnesses.
Tan. Non metuis testes? more valiant man than Orestes.
First Suit. Please you, sir, to dissolve this into wine, ale, or beer. [Giving money.] I come a hundred mile to you, I protest, and leave all other counsel behind me.
Tan. Nay, you shall always find me a sound card: I stood not a’ th’ pillory for nothing in 88; all the world knows that.—Now let me despatch you, sir.—I come to you presenter.
Second Suit. Faith, the party hath removed both body and cause with a habeas corpus.
Tan. Has he that knavery? but has he put in bail above, canst tell?
Second Suit. That I can assure your worship he has not.
Tan. Why, then, thy best course shall be, to lay out more money, take out a procedendo, and bring down the cause and him with a vengeance.
Second Suit. Then he will come indeed.
Tan. As for the other party, let the audita querela alone; take me out a special supplicavit, which will cost you enough, and then you pepper him. For the first party after the procedendo you’ll get costs; the cause being found, you’ll have a judgment; nunc pro tunc, you’ll get a venire facias to warn your jury, a decem tales to fill up the number, and a capias utlagatum for your execution.
Second Suit. I thank you, my learned counsel.
330Phœ. What a busy caterpillar’s this! let’s accost him in that manner.
Fid. Content, my lord.
Phœ. O my old admirable fellow, how have I all this while thirsted to salute thee! I knew thee in octavo of the duke——
Tan. In octavo of the duke? I remember the year well.
Phœ. By th’ mass, a lusty, proper[820] man!
Tan. O, was I?
Phœ. But still in law.
Tang. Still in law? I had not breathed else now; ’tis very marrow, very manna to me to be in law; I’d been dead ere this else. I have found such sweet pleasure in the vexation of others, that I could wish my years over and over again, to see that fellow a beggar, that bawling knave a gentleman, a matter brought e’en to a judgment to-day, as far as e’er ’twas to begin again to-morrow: O raptures! here a writ of demur, there a procedendo, here a sursurrara,[821] there a capiendo, tricks, delays, money-laws!
Phœ. Is it possible, old lad?
Tan. I have been a term-trotter[822] myself any time this five and forty years; a goodly time and a gracious: in which space I ha’ been at least sixteen times beggared, and got up again; and in the mire again, that I have stunk again, and yet got up again.
Phœ. And so clean and handsome now?
Tan. You see it apparently; I cannot hide it from you: nay, more, in felici hora be it spoken, 331you see I’m old, yet have I at this present nine and twenty suits in law.
Phœ. Deliver us, man!
Tan. And all not worth forty shillings.
Phœ. May it be believed?
Tan. The pleasure of a man is all.
Phœ. An old fellow, and such a stinger!
Tan. A stake pulled out of my hedge, there’s one; I was well beaten, I remember, that’s two; I took one a-bed with my wife again[823] her will, that’s three; I was called cuckold for my labour, that’s four; I took another a-bed again, that’s five; then one called me wittol,[824] that’s six; he killed my dog for barking, seven; my maid-servant was knocked at that time, eight; my wife miscarried with a push, nine; et sic de cæteris. I have so vexed and beggared the whole parish with process, subpœnas, and such-like molestations, they are not able to spare so much ready money from a term, as would set up a new weathercock; the churchwardens are fain to go to law with the poors’ money.
Phœ. Fie, fie!
Tan. And I so fetch up all the men every term-time, that ’tis impossible to be at civil cuckoldry within ourselves, unless the whole country rise upon our wives.
Fid. A’ my faith, a pretty policy!
Phœ. Nay, an excellent stratagem: but of all I most wonder at the continual substance of thy wit, that, having had so many suits in law from time to time, thou hast still money to relieve ’em.
Fid. Has the best fortune for that; I never knew him without.
332Tan. Why do you so much wonder at that? Why, this is my course: my mare and I come up some five days before a term.
Phœ. A good decorum!
Tan. Here I lodge, as you see, amongst inns and places of most receipt——
Phœ. Very wittily.
Tan. By which advantage I dive into countrymen’s causes; furnish ’em with knavish counsel, little to their profit; buzzing into their ears this course, that writ, this office, that ultimum refugium; as you know I have words enow for the purpose.
Phœ. Enow a’ conscience, i’faith.
Tan. Enow a’ law, no matter for conscience. For which busy and laborious sweating courtesy, they cannot choose but feed me with money, by which I maintain mine own suits: hoh, hoh, hoh!
Phœ. Why, let me hug thee: caper in mine arms.
Tan. Another special trick I have, no body must know it, which is, to prefer most of those men to one attorney, whom I affect best: to answer which kindness of mine, he will sweat the better in my cause, and do them the less good: take’t of my word, I helped my attorney to more clients the last term than he will despatch all his lifetime; I did it.
Phœ. What a noble, memorable deed was there!
Re-enter Groom.
Groom. Sir.
Tan. Now, sir?
Groom. There’s a kind of captain very robustiously inquires for you.
Tan. For me? a man of war? A man of law is fit for a man of war: we have no leisure to say 333prayers; we both kill a’ Sunday mornings. I’ll not be long from your sweet company.
Phœ. O, no, I beseech you.
[Exit Tangle with Groom.
Fid. What captain might this be?
Phœ. Thou angel sent amongst us, sober Law,
Made with meek eyes, persuading action,
No loud immodest tongue,
Voic’d like a virgin, and as chaste from sale,
Save only to be heard, but not to rail;
How has abuse deform’d thee to all eyes,
That where thy virtues sat, thy vices rise!
Yet why so rashly for one villain’s fault
Do I arraign whole man? Admired Law,
Thy upper parts must needs be sacred, pure,[825]
And incorruptible; they’re grave and wise:
’Tis but the dross beneath ’em, and the clouds
That get between thy glory and their praise,
That make the visible and foul eclipse;
For those that are near to thee are upright,
As noble in their conscience as their birth;
Know that damnation is in every bribe,
And rarely[826] put it from ’em; rate the presenters,
And scourge ’em with five years’ imprisonment,
For offering but to tempt ’em.
Thus is true justice exercis’d and us’d:
Woe to the giver when the bribe’s refus’d!
’Tis not their will to have law worse than war,
Where still the poor’st die first;
To send a man without a sheet to his grave,
Or bury him in his papers;
’Tis not their mind it should be, nor to have
334A suit hang longer than a man in chains,
Let him be ne’er so fasten’d. They least know
That are above the tedious steps below:
I thank my time, I do.
Fid. I long to know what captain this should be.
Phœ. See where the bane of every cause returns.
Re-enter Tangle with Captain.
Fid. ’S foot, ’tis the captain my father-in-law, my lord.
Phœ. Take heed.
Cap. The divorce shall rest then, and the five hundred crowns shall stand in full force and virtue.
Tan. Then do you wisely, captain.
Cap. Away sail I: fare thee well.
Tan. A lusty crack of wind go with thee!
Cap. But ah——
Tan. Hah?
Cap. Remember, a scrivener.
Tan. I’ll have him for thee. [Exit Captain.]—Why, thus am I sought after by all professions. Here’s a weather-beaten captain, who, not long since new married to a lady widow, would now fain have sued a divorce between her and him, but that her honesty is his only hinderance: to be rid of which, he does determine to turn her into white money; and there’s a lord, his chapman, has bid five hundred crowns for her already.
Fid. How?
Tan. Or for his part or whole in her.
Phœ. Why, does he mean to sell his wife?
Tan. His wife? Ay, by th’ mass, he would sell his soul if he knew what merchant would lay out money upon’t; and some of ’em have need of one, they swear so fast.
335Phœ. Why, I never heard of the like.
Tan. Non audivisti, didst ne’er hear of that trick? Why, Pistor, a baker, sold his wife t’other day to a cheesemonger, that made cake and cheese; another to a cofferer; a third to a common player: why, you see ’tis common. Ne’er fear the captain: he has not so much wit to be a precedent himself. I promised to furnish him with an odd scrivener of mine own, to draw the bargain and sale of his lady. Your horses stand here, gentlemen?[827]
Phœ. Ay, ay, ay.
Tan. I shall be busily plunged till towards bedtime above the chin in profundis. [Exit.
Phœ. What monstrous days are these!
Not only to be vicious most men study,
But in it to be ugly; strive to exceed
Each other in the most deformed deed.
Fid. Was this her private choice? did she neglect
The presence and opinion of her friends
For this?
Phœ. I wonder who that one should be,
Should so disgrace that reverend name of lord,
So loathsomely to buy adultery?
Fid. We may make means to know.
Phœ. Take courage, man; we’ll beget some defence.
Fid. I’m[828] bound by nature.
Phœ. I by conscience.
To sell his lady! Indeed, she was a beast
To marry him; and so he makes of her.—
Come, I’ll thorough now I’m enter’d. [Exeunt.
336