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• Let us not think what future ills may fall,

But drink deep draughts of love, and lose them all. [Exit Tor. with the Queen. 'Ray. No matter yet, he has my hook within him. Now let him frifk and flounce, and run and roll, And think to break his hold: he toils in vain. This love, the bait he gorg'd fo greedily, • Will make him fick, and then I have him fure. "Enter Alphonfo and Pedro.

Alph. Brother, there's news from Bertran; he defires • Admittance to the King, and cries aloud, This day shall end our fears of civil war;

For his fafe conduct he entreats your prefence,
And begs you would be speedy.

Ray. Though I loath

The traitor's fight, I'll go: attend us here.' [Exeunt. Enter Gomez, Elvira, Dominick, with Officers, to make the ftage as full as poffible.

Ped. Why, how now, Gomez; what makeft thou here with a whole brotherhood of city-bailiffs? Why, thou lookest like Adam in Paradife, with his guard of beasts about him.

Gom. Ay, and a man had need of them, Don Pedro ; for here are the two old feducers, a wife and a prieft, that's Eve and the ferpent, at my elbow.

Dom. Take notice how uncharitably he talks of church

men.

Gom. Indeed you are a charitable belfwagger: my wife cried out fire, fire; and you brought out your church buckets, and called for engines to play against it.

Alph. I am forry you are come hither to accuse your wife; her education has been virtuous, her nature mild and eafy.

Gom. Yes; fhe's eafy with a vengeance, there's a certain Colonel has found her fo.

Alph. She came a fpotlefs virgin to your bed.

Gom. And fhe's a spotless virgin ftill for me she's never the worse for my wearing, I'll take my oath on't: I have lived with her with all the innocence of a man of threefcore; like a peaceable bedfellow as I am.

Elv. Indeed, Sir, I have no reason to complain of him for disturbing of my fleep.

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Dom,

Dom. A fine commendation you have given yourself; the church did not marry you for that.

Ped. Come, come, your grievances, your grievances. Dom. Why, noble Sir, I'll tell you.

Gom. Peace, fryar! and let me fpeak first. I am the plaintiff. Sure you think you are in the pulpit, where you preach by hours.

Dom. And you edify by minutes.

Gom. Where you make doctrines for the people, and ufes and applications for yourselves.

Ped. Gomez, give way to the old gentleman in black. Gom. No! the t'other old gentleman in black fhall take me if I do; I will fpeak firft; nay, I will, fryar, for all your verbum facerdotis, I'll fpeak truth in few words, and then you may come afterwards, and lie by the clock, as you ufe to do: for, let me tell you, gentlemen, he fhall lie and forfwear himself with any fryar in all Spain; that's a bold word now.

Dom. Let him alone; let him alone; I fhall fetch him back with a circum-bendibus, I warrant him.

Alph. Well, what have you to say against your wife, Gomez ?

Gom. Why, I fay, in the first place, that I and all men are married for our fins, and that our wives are a judgment; that a bachelor-cobler is a happier man than a prince in wedlock; that we are all vifited with a household plague, and, "Lord have mercy upon us" fhould be written on all our doors.

Dom. Now he reviles marriage, which is one of the feven bleffed facraments.

Gom. 'Tis liker one of the seven deadly fins: but make your best on't, I care not; 'tis but binding a man neck and heels for all that! But, as for my wife, that crocodile of Nilus, the has wickedly and traiterously confpired the cuckoldom of me her anointed fovereign lord; and with the help of the aforefaid fryar, whom heaven confound, and with the limbs of one Colonel Hernando, cuckold-maker of this city, devilishly contrived to steal herfelf away, and under her arm felonioufly to bear one cafket of diamonds, pearls and other jewels, to the value of thirty thousand piftoles. Guilty, or not guilty; how fayeft thou, culprit?

I'll

Dom. Falfe and fcandalous! Give me the book. take my corporal oath point-blank against every particu lar of this charge.

Elv. And fo will I.

Dom. As I was walking in the streets, telling my beads and praying to myself, according to my ufual custom, I heard a foul out-cry before Gomez's portal; and his wife, my penitent, making doleful lamentations; thereupon, making what hafte my limbs would fuffer me, that are crimpled with often kneeling, I faw him fpurning and fifting her most unmercifully; whereupon, ufing Christian arguments with him to defift, he fell violently upon me, without respect to my facerdotal orders, pushed me from him, and turned me about with a finger and a thumb, just as a man would set up a top. Mercy, quoth 1. Damme, quoth he. And still continued labouring me, 'till a good-minded Colonel came by, whom, as Heaven fhall fave me, I had never seen before.

Gom. Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!

Dom. Ay, and, Oh, Lady! Oh, Lady too! I redouble my oath, I had never feen him. Well, this noble Colonel, like a true gentleman, was for taking the weaker part you may be fure-whereupon this Gomez flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, the devil being strong in him, and gave him baftinado upon baitinado, and buffet upon buffet, which the poor meek Colonel, being proftrate, fuffered with a most Christian patience.

Gom. Who? he meek? I'm fure I quake at the very thought of him; why, he's as fierce as Rhodomont; he made affault and battery upon my perfon, beat me into all the colours of the rainbow; and every word this abominable priest has uttered is as falfe as the Alcoran. But if you want a thorough-paced liar, that will swear through thick and thin, commend me to a fryar. Enter Lorenzo, who comes behind the company, and ftands at his father's back unfeen, over against Gomez.

Lor. [Afide.] How now! What's here to do? My cause a trying, as I live, and that before my own father: now fourfcore take him for an old bawdy magiftrate, that ftands like the picture of Madam Juftice, with a pair of scales in his hand, to weigh lechery by ounces.'

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Alph.

Alph. Well-but all this while, who is this Colonel Hernando?

Gom. He's the first begotten of Beelzebub, with a face as terrible as Demogorgon. [Lorenzo peeps over Alphonfo's head, and ftares at Gomez.] No; Ilie, I lie; he's a very proper handfome fellow! well proportioned, and clean fhaped, with a face like a cherubin.

Ped. What, backward and forward. Gomez, dost thou hunt counter?

Alph. Had this Colonel any former defign upon your wife? for, if that be proved, you fhall have juftice.

Gom. [Afide.] Now I dare fpeak; let him look as dreadful as he will. I fay, Sir, and will prove it, that he had a lewd defign upon her body, and attempted to corrupted her honefty. [Lorenzo lifts up his fift clenched at bim.] I confefs, my wife was as willing as himself; and, I believe, 'twas the corrupted him; for I have known him formerly, a very civil and modeft perfon.

Elv. You fee, Sir, he contradicts himself at every word he's plainly mad.

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Alph. Speak boldly, man! and fay what thou wilt ftand by: did he strike thee?

Gam. I will fpeak boldly: he ftruck me on the face before my own threshold, that the very walls cried shame on him. [Lorenzo holds up again.] 'Tis true, I gave him provocation, for the man's as peaceable a gentleman as any is in all Spain.

Dom. Now the truth comes out, in spite of him.
Ped. I believe the fryar has bewitched him.

Alph. For my part, I fee no wrong that has been offered him.

Gom. How? no wrong? why, he ravished me with the help of two foldiers, carried me away vi& armis, and would have put me into a plot against the government. [Lorenzo holds up again.] I'confefs, I never could endure the government, because it was tyrannical: but my fides and fhoulders are black and blue, as I can ftrip and fhew the marks of them. [Lorenzo again.] But that might happen too by a fall that I got yesterday upon the pebbles. [All laugh. Dom. Fresh ftraw, and a dark chamber: a most manifest judgment; there never comes better of railing against

the church.

Gom

Gom. Why, what will you have me fay? I think you'll make me mad: truth has been at my tongue's end this half hour, and I have not power to bring it out, for fear of this bloody-minded Colonel.

Alph. What Colonel ?

Gom. Why, my Colonel: I mean, my wife's Colonel, that appears there to me like my malus genius, and terrifies me.

Alph. [Turning.] Now you are mad indeed, Gomez this is my fon Lorenzo.

Gom. How? Your fon, Lorenzo! It is impoffible. Alph. As true as your wife, Elvira, is my daughter. Lor. What, have I taken all this pains about a fifter? Gom. No, you have taken some about me: I am fure, if you are her brother, my fides can fhew the tokens of our alliance.

Alph. [To Lor.] You know I put your fifter into a nunnery, with a strict command not to fee you, for fear you should have wrought upon her to have taken the habit, which was never my intention; and, confequently, I married her without your knowledge, that it might not be in your power to prevent it.

Elv. You fee, brother, I had a natural affection to you.

Lor. What a delicious harlot have I loft! Now, pox upon me, for being fo near a-kin to thee.

Elv. However, we are both beholden to fryar Domi. nick, the church is an indulgent mother, fhe never⚫ fails to do her part.'

Dom. Heaven! what will become of me?

Gom. Why, you are not alike to trouble Heaven; thofe fat guts were never made for mounting.

Lor. I fhall make bold to disburden him of my hundred piftoles, to make him the lighter for his journey indeed 'tis partly out of confcience, that I may not be acceffary to his breaking his vow of poverty.

Alph. I have no fecular power to reward the pains you have taken with my daughter: but I fhall do it by proxy, fryar your bifhop's my friend, and 'tis too honest, to let fuch as you infect a cloyster.

Gom. Ay, do, father-in-law, let him to be ftripped of his habit, and difordered-I would fain fee him walk in

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