WOODVIL
This keeping of open house acquaints a man with strange companions.

(Enter, at another door, Three calling for Harry Freeman._)

     Harry Freeman, Harry Freeman. 
     He is not here.  Let us go look for him. 
     Where is Freeman? 
     Where is Harry?

(Exeunt the Three, calling for Freeman.)

WOODVIL Did you ever see such gentry? (laughing).  These are they that fatten on ale and tobacco in a morning, drink burnt brandy at noon to promote digestion, and piously conclude with quart bumpers after supper, to prove their loyalty.

LOVEL
Come, shall we adjourn to the Tennis Court?

WOODVIL No, you shall go with me into the gallery, where I will shew you the Vandyke I have purchased.  “The late King taking leave of his children.”

LOVEL
I will but adjust my dress, and attend you. (Exit Lovel.)

    JOHN WOODVIL (alone)
    Now Universal England getteth drunk
    For joy that Charles, her monarch, is restored: 
    And she, that sometime wore a saintly mask,
    The stale-grown vizor from her face doth pluck,
    And weareth now a suit of morris bells,
    With which she jingling goes through all her towns and villages. 
    The baffled factions in their houses sculk: 
    The common-wealthsman, and state machinist,
    The cropt fanatic, and fifth-monarchy-man,
    Who heareth of these visionaries now? 
    They and their dreams have ended.  Fools do sing,
    Where good men yield God thanks; but politic spirits,
    Who live by observation, note these changes
    Of the popular mind, and thereby serve their ends. 
    Then why not I?  What’s Charles to me, or Oliver,
    But as my own advancement hangs on one of them? 
    I to myself am chief.—­I know,
    Some shallow mouths cry out, that I am smit
    With the gauds and shew of state, the point of place,
    And trick of precedence, the ducks, and nods,
    Which weak minds pay to rank.  ’Tis not to sit
    In place of worship at the royal masques,
    Their pastimes, plays, and Whitehall banquetings,
    For none of these,
    Nor yet to be seen whispering with some great one,
    Do I affect the favours of the court. 
    I would be great, for greatness hath great power,
    And that’s the fruit I reach at.—­
    Great spirits ask great play-room.  Who could sit,
    With these prophetic swellings in my breast,
    That prick and goad me on, and never cease,
    To the fortunes something tells me I was born to? 
    Who, with such monitors within to stir him,
    Would sit him down, with lazy arms across,
    A unit, a thing without a name in the state,
    A something to be govern’d, not to govern,
    A fishing, hawking, hunting, country gentleman?
    (Exit.)

SCENE.—­Sherwood Forest.