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THIRD GENTLEMAN.

And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?

JOHN.

Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from the quality and neighbourhood of their noble relative, the brain, refuse to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.

But is your poet-born always tipsy with this liquor?

JOHN.

He hath his stoopings and reposes; but his proper element is the sky, and in the suburbs empyrean.

of the

Is

THIRD GENTLEMAN.

your wine-intellectual so exquisite? henceforth, I, a man of plain conceit, will, in all humility, content my mind with canaries.

FOURTH GENTLEMAN.

I am for a song or a catch. When will the catches come on, the sweet wicked catches?

JOHN.

They cannot be introduced with propriety

before midnight. Every man must commit his

twenty bumpers first. We are not yet well roused. Frank Lovel, the glass stands with you.

LOVEL.

Gentlemen, the Duke. (fills)

ALL.

The Duke. (they drink)

GRAY.

Can any tell, why his Grace, being a Papist→

JOHN.

Pshaw! we will have no questions of state
Is not this his Majesty's birth-day?

now.

What follows?

GRAY.

JOHN.

That every man should sing, and be joyful, and ask no questions.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

Damn politics, they spoil drinking.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.

For certain, 'tis a blessed monarchy.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

The cursed fanatic days we have seen! The times have been when swearing was out of fashion.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.

And drinking.

FIRST GENTLEMAN.

And wenching.

GRAY.

The cursed yeas and forsooths, which we have heard uttered, when a man could not rap out an innocent oath, but strait the air was thought to be infected.

LOVEL.

"Twas a pleasant trick of the saint, which that trim puritan Swear-not-at-att Smooth-speech used, when his spouse chid him with an oath for committing with his servant maid, to cause his house to be fumigated with burnt brandy, and ends of scripture, to disperse the devil's breath, as he termed it.

Ha ha ha!

ALL.

GRAY.

But 'twas pleasanter, when the other saint Resist-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-thee Pureman was overtaken in the act, to plead an illusio visus, and maintain his sanctity upon a supposed power in the adversary to counterfeit the shapes of things.

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JOHN.

Another round, and then let every man devise what trick he can in his fancy, for the better manifesting our loyalty this day.

GRAY.

Shall we hang a puritan?

JOHN.

No, that has been done already in Coleman

Street.

SECOND GENTLEMAN.

Or fire a conventicle?

JOHN.

That is stale too.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.

Or burn the assembly's catechism?

FOURTH GENTLEMAN.

Or drink the king's health, every man standing upon his head naked ?

JOHN. (to Lovel.)

We have here some pleasant madness.

THIRD GENTLEMAN.

Who shall pledge me in a pint bumper, while we drink to the king upon our knees?

LOVEL.

Why on our knees, Cavalier?

JOHN. (smiling.)

For more devotion, to be sure. (to a servant.) Sirrah, fetch the gilt goblets.

(The goblets are brought. They drink the king's health, kneeling. A shout of general approbation following the first appearance of the goblets.)

JOHN.

We have here the unchecked virtues of the grape. How the vapours curl upwards! It were a life of gods to dwell in such an element: to see, and hear, and talk brave things. Now fie upon these casual potations. That a man's most exalted reason should depend upon the ignoble fermenting of a fruit, which sparrows pluck at as well as we!

GRAY. (aside to Lovel.)

Observe how he is ravished.

LOVEL.

Vanity and gay thoughts of wine do meet in him and engender madness.

(While the rest are engaged in a wild kind of talk, John advances to the front of the stage and soliloquizes.)

JOHN.

My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast.

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