Lau. We must do something: Help, help! thieves, thieves! we shall be murdered. Mar. Where? Where are they?

Lau. Here, sir, at our chamber-door, and we are run into the balcony for shelter: Dear uncle, come and help us.

Mar. Back again quickly: I durst have sworn they had been in the garden. Tis an ignis fatuus, I think, that leads us from one place to another. [Exit MARIO, and Servants. Vio. They are gone. My dear Camillo, make haste, and preserve yourself.

Cam. May our next meeting prove more propiti

ous!

Aur. [To BENITO.] Come, sirrah, I shall make you sing another note when you are at home. Ben. Such another word, and I'll sing again. Aur. Set the ladder, and mount first, you rogue. Ben. Mount first yourself, and fear not my delaying.

If I am caught, they'll spare me for my playing. [Sings as he goes off. [Exeunt.

Vouz entendrez parler d'amour.

ACT III.

SCENE I. The Front of the Nunnery.

ASCANIO, and HIPPOLITA, at the Grate. Hip. I see you have kept touch, brother.

Asca. As a man of honour ought, sister, when he is challenged. And now, according to the laws of duel, the next thing is to strip, and, instead of seconds, to search one another.

Hip. We will strip our hands, if you please, brother; for they are the only weapons we must use.

Asca. That were to invite me to my loss, sister; I could have made a full meal in the world, and you would have me take up with hungry commons in the cloyster. Pray mend my fare, or I am gone.

Hip. O, brother, a hand in a cloyster is fare like flesh in Spain; 'tis delicate, because 'tis scarce. You may be satisfied with a hand, as well as I am pleased with the courtship of a boy.

Asca. You may begin with me, sister, as Milo did; by carrying a calf first, you may learn to carry an ox hereafter. In the mean time produce your hand, I understand nun's flesh better than you imagine: Give it me, you shall see how I will worry it. [She gives her hand.] Now could not we thrust out our lips, and contrive a kiss too?

Hip. Yes, we may; but I have had the experience of it: It will be but half flesh, half iron. Asca. Let's try, however.

Hip. Hold, Lucretia's here.

Asca. Nay, If you come with odds upon me, 'tis time to call seconds.

[ASCANIO hems.

The Prince and LUCRETIA appear.

Luc. Sir, though your song was pleasant, yet there was one thing amiss in it,-that was, your rallying of religion.

Fred. Do you speak well of my friend Love, and I'll try to speak well of your friend Devotion.

Luc. I can never speak well of love: "Twas to avoid it that I entered here.

Fred. Then, madam, you have met your man ; for, to confess the truth to you, I have but counterfeited love, to try you; for I never yet could love any woman: and, since I have seen you, and do not, I am certain now I shall 'scape for ever.

Luc. You are the best man in the world, if you continue this resolution. Pray, then, let us vow solemnly these two things: the first, to esteem each other better than we do all the world besides; the next, never to change our amity to love.

Fred. Agreed, madam. Shall I kiss your hand on it?

Luc. That is too like a lover; or if it were not, the narrowness of the grate will excuse the ceremony.

Hip. No, but it will not, to my knowledge: I have tried every bar many a fair time over; and at last have found out one, where a hand may get through, and be gallanted.

Luc. [giving her hand.] There, sir, 'tis a true one. Fred. [kissing it.] This, then, is a seal to our perpetual friendship, and defiance to all love. Luc. That seducer of virtue. Fred. That disturber of quiet. Luc. That madness of youth. Fred. That dotage of old age. Luc. That enemy to good humour.

Fred. And, to conclude all, that reason of all unreasonable actions.

Asca. This doctrine is abominable; do not believe it, sister.

Hip. No; if I do, brother, may I never have comfort from sweet youth at my extremity.

Luc. But remember one article of our friendship, that though we banish love, we do not mirth, nor gallantry; for I declare, I am for all extravagancies, but just loving.

Fred. Just my own humour; for I hate gravity and melancholy next to love.

Asca. Now it comes into my head, the duke of Mantua makes an entertainment to night in masquerade: If you love extravagancy so well, madam,

I'll put you into the head of one; lay by your nunship for an hour or two, and come amongst us in disguise.

Fred. My boy is in the right, madam. Will you venture? I'll furnish you with masking-habits.

Hip. O my dear sister, never refuse it; I keep the keys, you know I'll warrant you we will return before we are missed. I do so long to have one fling into the sweet world again, before I die. Hang it, at worst, it is but one sin more, and then we will repent for all together.

Asca. But if I catch you in the world, sister, I'll make you have a better opinion of the flesh and the devil for ever after.

Luc. If it were known, I were lost for ever.

Fred. How should it be known? You have her on your side, there, that keeps the keys: And, put the worst, that you are taken in the world, the world is a good world to stay in; and there are certain occasions of waking in a morning, that may be more pleasant to you than your matins.

Luc. Fye, friend, these extravagancies are a breach of articles in our friendship. But well, for once, I'll venture to go out: Dancing and singing are but petty transgressions.

Asca. My lord, here is company approaching; we shall be discovered.

Fred. Adieu, then, jusqu' a revoir; Ascanio shall be with you immediately, to conduct you.

Asca. How will you disguise, sister? Will you be a man or a woman?

Hip. A woman, brother page, for life: I should have the strangest thoughts if I once wore breeches. Asca. A woman, say you? Here is my hand, if I meet you in place convenient, I'll do my best to make you one. [Exeunt.

Enter AURELIAN and CAMILLO.

Cam. But why thus melancholy, with hat pulled down, and the hand on the region of the heart, just the reverse of my friend Aurelian, of happy memory? Aur. Faith, Camillo, I am ashamed of it, but cannot help it.

Cam. But to be in love with a waiting-woman! with an eater of fragments, a simperer at lower end of a table, with mighty golls, rough-grained, and red with starching, those discouragers and abaters of elevated love!

Aur. I could love deformity itself, with that good humour. She, who is armed with gaiety and wit, needs no other weapon to conquer me.

Cam. We lovers are the great creators of wit in our mistresses. For Beatrix, she is a mere utterer of yes and no, and has no more sense than what will just dignify her to be an arrant waiting-woman; that is, to lie for her lady, and take your money.

Aur. It may be, then, I found her in the exaltation of her wit; for certainly women have their good and ill days of talking, as they have of looking.

Cam. But, however, she has done you the courtesy to drive out Laura; and so one poison has expelled the other.

Aur. Troth, not absolutely neither; for I dote on Laura's beauty, and on Beatrix's wit: I am wounded with a forked arrow, which will not easily be got out.

Cam. Not to lose time in fruitless complaints, let us pursue our new contrivance, that you may see your two mistresses, and I my one.

Aur. That will not now be difficult: This plot's so laid, that I defy the devil to make it miss. The