And fashion'd her, and form'd her; she had the sweat

Both of my brows and brains, my lady knows it, Since she could write a quarter old.

Lady L. I know not

That she could write so early, my good gossip; But I do know she was so long your care,

Till she was twelve year old; that I call'd for her, And took her home; for which I thank you, Polish,

And am beholden to you.

Rut. I sure thought

She had a lease of talking for nine lives————
Pal. It may be she has.

Pol. Sir, sixteen thousand pound

Was then her portion, for she was, indeed,
Their only child and this was to be paid
Upon her marriage, so she married still
With my good lady's liking here, her aunt:
I heard the will read. Master Steel, her father,
The world condemn'd him to be very rich,
And very hard; and he did stand condemn'd
With that vain world, till, as 'twas proved after,
He left almost as much more to good uses
In sir Moth Interest's hands, my lady's brother,
Whose sister he had married: he holds all
In his close gripe. But master Steel was liberal,
And a fine man; and she a dainty dame,
And a religious, and a bountiful-

Enter COMPASS and IRONSIDE from the house.

You knew her, master Compass

Com. Spare the torture,

I do confess without it.

Pol. And her husband,

What a fine couple they were, and how they lived

Com. Yes.

Pol. And loved together like a pair of turtlesCom. Yes.

Pol. And feasted all the neighbours?

Com. Take her off,

Somebody that hath mercy

Rut. Ŏ he knows her,

It seems.

Com. Or any measure of compassion:
Doctors, if you be Christians, undertake
One for the soul, the other for the body.
Pol. She would dispute with the doctors of
divinity,

At her own table; and the Spittle preachers:
And find out the Armenians.

Rut. The Arminians.

Pol. I say, the Armenians.

Com. Nay, I say so too.

Pol. So master Polish call'd them, the Armenians.

Com. And Medes and Persians, did he not?
Pol. Yes, he knew them,

And so did mistress Steel; she was his pupil. The Armenians, he would say, were worse than papists:

And then the Persians were our Puritans,'

Had the fine piercing wits.

Com. And who, the Medes?

Pol. The middle men, the luke-warm protes

tants.

Rut. Out, out!

Pol. Sir, she would find them by their branching: Their branching sleeves, branch'd cassocks, and branch'd doctrine,

Beside their texts.

7 And then the Persians were, &c.] Gossip Polish means perhaps to say, the Precisians.

Rut. Stint, carline; I'll not hear. Confute her, parson.

Pol. I respect no parsons, Chaplains, or doctors, I will speak. Lady L. Yes, so it be reason,

Let her.

Rut. Death, she cannot speak reason.

Com. Nor sense, if we be master of our senses. Iron. What mad woman have they got here to bait?

Pol. Sir, I am mad in truth, and to the purpose; And cannot but be mad, to hear my lady's Dead sister slighted, witty mistress Steel.

Iron. If she had a wit, death has gone near to spoil it,

Assure yourself.

Pol. She was both witty and zealous,
And lighted all the tinder of the truth
(As one said) of religion, in our parish;
She was too learned to live long with us!
She could the Bible in the holy tongue,

8

And read it without pricks; had all her Masoreth,

Knew Burton and his Bull, and scribe Prynne gent.

Præsto-be-gone, and all the Pharisees.'

She could the Bible in the holy tongue,

And read it without pricks ;] She understood it in the original language, which she read without the towel points: but the good lady seems not to be quite at home in the next hemistich, unless she means to say, that Mrs. Steele read the Bible also with pricks. 9 Knew Burton and his Bull, and scribe Prynne, gent.

Præsto-be-gone, and all the Pharisees.] Henry Burton published a tract in the year 1627, entitled, The baiting of the Pope's Bull. This was the person who lost his ears with Prynne and Bastwick.

Prynne is rightly characterised by the title of scribe; If our author means any particular person by the term Prasto-be

Lady L. Dear gossip,

Be you gone, at this time, too, and vouchsafe
To see your charge, my niece.

Pol. I shall obey

If your wise ladyship think fit: I know

To yield to my superiors.

Lady L. A good woman!

[Exit.

But when she is impertinent, grows earnest,
A little troublesome, and out of season:
Her love and zeal transport her.

Com. I am glad

That any thing could port her hence we now Have hope of dinner, after her long grace.

I have brought your ladyship an hungry guest here,

A soldier, and my brother, captain Ironside;
Who being by custom grown a sanguinary,
The solemn and adopted son of slaughter,
Is more delighted in the chase of an enemy,
An execution of three days and nights,
Than all the hope of numerous succession,
Or happiness of issue could bring to him.
Rut. He is no suitor then! [Aside to Pal.

Pal. So it should seem.

Com. And if he can get pardon at heaven's hand For all his murthers, is in as good case

As a new christen'd infant: his employments
Continued to him, without interruption,
And not allowing him or time or place

gone, one may imagine he alludes to the famous Dr. Preston, at that time the head of the presbyterian party. WHAL.

A reflection on Prynne seems to be intended by the introduction of the word gent. I am not much acquainted with the title-pages of his multifarious works; but some exception appears to have been taken at this designation of his quality, since the same circumstance is ridiculed by Cowley :

"Written by William Prynne, Esquire, the

Yeare of our Lord, six hundred, thirty three.

To commit any other sin, but those.

Please you to make him welcome for a meal, madam?

Lady L. The nobleness of his profession makes His welcome perfect; though your coarse description

Would seem to sully it.

Iron. Never, where a beam

Of so much favour doth illustrate it,
Right knowing lady.

Pal. She hath cured all well.

Rut. And he hath fitted well the compliment.

Enter sir DIAPHANOUS SILKWORM and PRACTICE.

Com. No, here they come; the prime magnetic guests

Our lady Loadstone so respects: the Arctic,
And the Antarctic! sir Diaphanous Silkworm,
A courtier extraordinary; who by diet

Of meats and drinks, his temperate exercise,
Choice music, frequent baths, his horary shifts
Of shirts and waistcoats, means to immortalize
Mortality itself, and makes the essence
Of his whole happiness the trim of court.

Sir Dia. I thank you, master Compass, for your

short

Encomiastic.

Rut. It is much in little, sir.

Pal. Concise and quick; the true style of an

orator.

Com. But master Practice here, my lady's lawyer, Or man of law, (for that is the true writing,) A man so dedicate to his profession,

And the preferments go along with it,

As scarce the thundering bruit of an invasion, Another eighty-eight, threatening his country