Now like a thin
chairman, melted down to half his proportion, with carrying a poet
upon tick, to visit some great fortune; and his fare to be paid him
like the wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of
death.
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.
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