174 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES pieces without intellect or characters.) Among the rest, he singles out — " How monstrous and detested is't to see A fellow, that hath neither art nor brain, Sit like an Aristarchus, or stai-k ass. Taking men's lines, with a tobacco face, In snuff, still spitting, using his wry'd looks. In nature of a vice, to wrest and turn The good aspect [regard] of those that shall sit near him From what they do behold ! " This passage may best be illustrated by another from the Induction to " Cynthia's Revels," performed, it will be remembered, at the Blackfriars, by the children (boys) of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel. " Third Child. — Now, sir, suppose I am one of your genteel auditors, that am come in, having paid my money at the door, with much ado, and here I take my place and sit down : I have my three sorts of tobacco in my pocket, my light by me, and thusjl begin. At the break he takes his tobacco.'] By this light, I wonder that any man is so mad, to come to see these rascally tits play here. They do act like so many wrens or pismires — not the fifth part of a good face amongst them all. And then their music is abominable — able to stretch a man's ears worse than ten — pillories, and their ditties — [these dashes doubtless represent whiffs] most lamentable things, like the pitiful fellows that make them — poets. By this vapour, an 'twere not for tobacco — I think — the very stench of 'em would poison me, I should not dare to come in at their gates. A man were better to visit fifteen jails — or a dozen or two of hospitals — than once adventure to come near them. How is't ? well ? First Child. Excellent ; give me my cloak.* Third Child. Stay ; you shall see me do another now, but a more sober, or better-gathered gallant ; that is, as it may be thought, some friend, or well-wisher to the house : and here I enter.
- Whalley notes that the usual mark of the person who spoke
the prologue was a long black velvet cloak.
