Love is blind, and a wanton;
In the whole world, there is scant one
—–­Such another: 
No, not his mother. 
He hath pluck’d her doves and sparrows,
To feather his sharp arrows,
And alone prevaileth,
While sick Venus waileth. 
But if Cypris once recover
The wag; it shall behove her
To look better to him: 
Or she will undo him.

Alb.  Wife, mum.

Alb.  O, most odoriferous music!

Tuc.  Aha, stinkard!  Another Orpheus, you slave, another Orpheus! an
Arion riding on the back of a dolphin, rascal!

Gal.  Have you a copy of this ditty, sir?

Cris.  Master Albius has.

Alb.  Ay, but in truth they are my Wife’s verses; I must not shew them.

Tuc.  Shew them, bankrupt, shew them; they have salt in them, and will brook the air, stinkard.

Gal.  How!  To his bright mistress Canidia!

Cris.  Ay, sir, that’s but a borrowed name; as Ovid’s Corinna, or
Propertius his Cynthia, or your Nemesis, or Delia, Tibullus.

Gal.  It’s the name of Horace his witch, as I remember.

Tib.  Why, the ditty’s all borrowed; ’tis Horace’s:  hang him, plagiary!

Tut.  How! he borrow of Horace? he shall pawn himself to ten brokers first.  Do you hear, Poetasters?  I know you to be men of worship—­He shall write with Horace, for a talent! and let Mecaenas and his whole college of critics take his part:  thou shalt do’t, young Phoebus; thou shalt, Phaeton, thou shalt.

Dem.  Alas, sir, Horace! he is a mere sponge; nothing but Humours and observation; he goes up and down sucking from every society, and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again.  I know him, I.

Tuc.  Thou say’st true, my poor poetical fury, he will pen all he knows.  A sharp thorny-tooth, a satirical rascal, By him; he carries hay in his horn:  he will sooner lose his best friend, than his least jest.  What he once drops upon paper, against a man, lives eternally to upbraid him in the mouth of every slave, tankard-bearer, or waterman; not a bawd, or a boy that comes from the bake-house, but shall point at him:  ’tis all dog, and scorpion; he carries poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail.  Fough! body of Jove!  I’ll have the slave whipt one of these days for his Satires and his Humours, by one cashier’d clerk or another.

Cris.  We’ll undertake him, captain.

Dem.  Ay, and tickle him i’faith, for his arrogancy and his impudence, in commending his own things; and for his translating, I can trace him, i’faith.  O, he is the most open fellow living; I had as lieve as a new suit I were at it.

Tuc.  Say no more then, but do it; ’tis the only way to get thee a new suit; sting him, my little neufts; I’ll give you instructions:  I’ll be your intelligencer; we’ll all join, and hang upon him like so many horse-leeches, the players and all.  We shall sup together, soon; and then we’ll conspire, i’faith.