Or any other waking dream on earth:

Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe,

They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids;
Such are thy beauties and our loves! Dear saint,
Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues,
That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all
things;

The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot,
Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame,
Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee,
He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise——
Mos. And what he will, sir.
A greater good than wisdom is in nature.

Riches are in fortune

Volp. True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory
More in the cunning purchase of my wealth,
Than in the glad possession, since I gain

No common way; I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with ploughshares, fat no beasts
To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,
Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder :
I blow no subtle glass, expose no ships

To threat'nings of the furrow-faced sea;
I turn no monies in the public bank,

No usurer private.

Mos. No, sir, nor devour

Soft prodigals.

You shall have some will swallow

A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch

Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it;
Tear forth the fathers of poor families
Out of their beds, and coffin them alive
In some kind clasping prison, where their bones
May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten:
But
your sweet nature doth abhor these courses;
You loathe the widow's or the orphan's tears

Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries
Ring in your roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.
Volp. Right, Mosca ; I do loathe it.

Mos. And, besides, sir,

You are not like the thresher that doth stand
With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn,
And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain,
But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs ;
Nor like the merchant, who hath filled his vaults
With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines,
Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar :

You will not lie in straw, whilst moths and worms
Feed on your sumptuous hangings and soft beds ;
You know the use of riches, and dare give now
From that bright heap, to me, your poor observer,
Or to your dwarf, or your hermaphrodite,

Your eunuch, or what other household trifle

Your pleasure allows maintenance--

Volp. Hold thee, Mosca,

[Gives him money.

Take of my hand; thou strik'st on truth in all,

And they are envious term thee parasite.

Call forth my dwarf, my eunuch, and my fool,

And let them make me sport. [Exit Mos.] What

should I do,

But cocker up my genius, and live free

To all delights my fortune calls me to?

I have no wife, no parent, child, ally,

To give my substance to; but whom I make

Must be my heir; and this makes men observe me : This draws new clients daily to my house,

Women and men of every sex and age,

That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels, With hope that when I die (which they expect Each greedy minute) it shall then return

Tenfold upon them ; whilst some, covetous
Above the rest, seek to engross me whole,
And counter-work the one unto the other,
Contend in gifts, as they would seem in love :
All which I suffer, playing with their hopes,
And am content to coin them into profit,
And look upon their kindness, and take more,
And look on that; still bearing them in hand,
Letting the cherry knock against their lips,
And draw it by their mouths, and back again.--
How now!

Re-enter Mosca with Nano, ANDROGYNO, and

CASTRONE.

Nan. "Now, room for fresh gamesters, who do will you to know,

They do bring you neither play nor university show; And therefore do intreat you that whatsoever they rehearse,

May not fare a whit the worse, for the false pace of the

verse.

If you wonder at this, you will wonder more ere we

pass,

For know, here is inclosed the soul of Pythagoras,

That juggler divine, as hereafter shall follow ;

Which soul, fast and loose, sir, came first from Apollo, And was breathed into Æthalides, Mercurius his son, Where it had the gift to remember all that ever was done.

From thence it fled forth, and made quick transmigration

To goldy-locked Euphorbus, who was killed in good fashion,

At the siege of old Troy, by the cuckold of Sparta

Hermotimus was next (I find it in my charta).

To whom it did pass, where no sooner it was missing, But with one Pyrrhus of Delos it learned to go afishing ;

And thence did it enter the sophist of Greece.

From Pythagore, she went into a beautiful piece,
Hight Aspasio, the meretrix; and the next toss of her
Was again of a whore, she became a philosopher,
Crates the cynick, as itself doth relate it:

Since kings, knights, and beggars, knaves, lords, and fools gat it,

Besides ox and ass, camel, mule, goat, and brock,
In all which it hath spoke, as in the cobbler's cock.
But I come not here to discourse of that matter,
Or his one, two, or three, or his great oath, BY QUATER!
His musics, his trigon, his golden thigh,

Or his telling how elements shift; but I

Would ask, how of late thou hast suffered translation, And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation. And. Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you see, Counting all old doctrine heresy.

Nan. But not on thine own forbid meats hast thou ventured?

And. On fish, when first a Carthusian I entered. Nan. Why, then thy dogmatical silence hath left thee?

And. Of that an obstreperous lawyer bereft me. Nan. O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee!

For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee?
And. A good dull mule.

Nan. And how! by that means

Thou wert brought to allow of the eating of beans?
And. Yes.

Nan. But from the mule into whom didst thou

pass?

And. Into a very strange beast, by some writers

called an ass;

By others a precise, pure, illuminate brother

Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another;
And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie,
Betwixt every spoonful of a nativity-pie.'

Nan. Now quit thee, for heaven, of that profane nation,

And gently report thy next transmigration.

And. To the same that I am.

Nan. A creature of delight,

And, what is more than a fool, an hermaphrodite !
Now, prithee, sweet soul, in all thy variation,

Which body wouldst thou choose to keep up thy station?

And. Troth, this I am in: even here would I tarry Nan. 'Cause here the delight of each sex thou canst vary?

And. Alas, those pleasures be stale and forsaken; No, 'tis your fool wherewith I am so taken, The only one creature that I can call blessed; For all other forms I have proved most distressed. Nan. Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still. This learned opinion we celebrate will,

Fellow eunuch, as behoves us, with all our wit and art, To dignify that whereof ourselves are so great and special a part."

Volp. Now, very, very pretty! Mosca, this

Was thy invention ?

Mos. If it please my patron,

Not else.

1 I.e., of a Christmas-pie.