Non annorum canities est laudanda, sed morum.
SCENE, The Author's Lodgings. Enter NASUTUS and POLYPOSUS.
Nas. I pray You let' s go see him, how he looks After these libels.
Nas. Do you think so? I should be sorry for him, If I found that.
Pol. O, they are such bitter things, He cannot choose.
Pol. No. Here's his lodging. We'll steal upon him: or let's listen; stay. He has a humour oft to talk t' himself.
Nas. They are your manners lead me, not mine own. [They come forward; the scene opens, and discovers the Author in his study.
Aut. The fates have not spun him the coarsest thread, That (free from knots of perturbation) Doth yet so live, although but to himself, As he can safely scorn the tongues of slaves, And neglect fortune, more than she can him. It is the happiest thing this, not to be Within the reach of malice; it provides A man so well, to laugh off injuries; And never sends him farther for his vengeance, Than the vex'd bosom of his enemy. I, now, but think how poor their spite sets off, Who, after all their waste of sulphurous terms, And burst-out thunder of their charged mouths, Have nothing left but the unsavoury smoke Of their black vomit, to upbraid themselves: Whilst I, at whom they shot, sit here shot-free, And as unhurt of envy, as unhit. [Pol. and Nas. discover themselves. Pol. Ay, but the multitude they think not so, sir, They think you hit, and hurt: and dare give out, Your silence argues it in not rejoining To this or that late libel.
Aut. 'Las, good rout! I can afford them leave to err so still; And like the barking students of Bears-college, To swallow up the garbage of the time With greedy gullets, whilst myself sit by, Pleased, and yet tortured, with their beastly feeding. 'Tis a sweet madness runs along with them, To think, all that are aim'd at still are struck: Then, where the shaft still lights, make that the mark: And so each fear or fever-shaken fool May challenge Teucer's hand in archery. Good troth, if I knew any man so vile, To act the crimes these Whippers reprehend, Or what their servile apes gesticulate, I should not then much muse their shreds were liked; Since ill men have a lust t' hear others' sins, All good men have a zeal to hear sin shamed. But when it is all excrement they vent, Base filth and offal; or thefts, notable As ocean-piracies, or highway-stands; And not a crime there tax'd, but is their own, Or what their own foul thoughts suggested to them; And that, in all their heat of taxing others, Not one of them but lives himself, if known, Improbior satiram scribente cinaedo What should I say more, than turn stone with wonder!