THE ALCHEMIST.
11
ACT I. SCENE I.
A Room In Lovewit's House.
Enter Face, in a captain's uniform, with his sword drawn, and Subtle with a vial, quarrelling, and followed by Dol Common.
Face.Believe 't, I will.
Sub.Thy worst. I fart at thee.
Dol.Have you your wits? why, gentlemen! for love—
Face.Sirrah, I'll strip you[1]
Sub.What to do? lick figs[2]
Out at my
- ↑ Face. Sirrah, I'll strip you———] "Our poet could not possibly have chosen a happier incident to open his play with. Instead of opening with a dull narration, you have action; and such action too, as cannot possibly be supposed to happen at any other time, than this very present time. Two rogues with their punk, are introduced quarrelling, and just so much of their secrets is discovered to the audience, as is sufficient for the audience at present to know." So far Upton talks judiciously:—but when he proceeds to inform the reader that "our learned comedian does not deal in vulgar English here, but in vulgar Attic or Roman expressions," and quotes Aristophanes and Horace, to prove his assertion; it is impossible to suppress a smile at such a ridiculous abuse of learning. The "vulgarity," with the leave of this tasteless idolater of the ancients, is truly English, and had been used to good effect, long before Jonson's time, by numbers of his countrymen, who never heard of the Plutus, or the Ibam forte via.
- ↑ What to do? lick figs &c.] This alludes to a story told by Rabelais. In revenge for an insult offered to the empress by the Milanese, the emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, led her mule into the public square; there "par son ordonnance le bourreau
