Page:The Plays of William Shakspeare (1778).djvu/93

Rh much new atten is there dambd by being mothered to death in darknee. But on the very ruhes where the commedy is to daunce, yea and under the tate of Cambies himelfe mut our feather’d etridge, like a piece of ordnance be planted valiantly (becaue impudently) beating downe the mewes and hies of the oppoed racality. For do but cat up a reckoning, what large cummings in are purs’d up by fitting on the tage. Firt a conpicuous eminence is gotten, by which meanes the bet and mot eenciall parts of a gallant (good cloathes, a proportionable legge, white hand, the Perian locke, and a tollerable beard,) are perfectly revealed. By itting on the tage you have a ign’d pattent to engroe the whole commodity of cenure; may lawfully preume to be a girder; and tand at the helme to teere the paSS undefinedage of cænes, yet no man hall once offer to hinder you from obtaining the title of an inolent over-weening coxcombe. By itting on the tage, you may (without trauelling for it) at the very next doore, ake whoe play it is; and by that quet of inquiry, the law warrants you to avoid much mitaking: if you know not the author, you may raile againt him; and peradventure o behave yourelfe, that you may enforce the author to know vou. By itting on the tage, if you be a knight, you may happily get you a mitree: if a meere Fleet-treet gentleman, a wife: but aure yourelfe by continuall reidence, you are the firt and principall man in election to begin the number of We three. By preading your body on the tage, and by being a jutice in examining of plaies, you hall put yourelfe into uch a true cænical authority, that ome poet hall not dare to preent his mue rudely before your eyes, without having firt unmakt her, rifled her, and dicovered all her bare and mot mytical parts before you at a taverne, when you mot knightly, hal for his paines, pay for both their uppers. By itting on the tage, you may (with mall cot) purchae the deere acquaintance of the boyes: have a good toole for ixpence: at any time know what particular part any of the infants preent: get your match lighted, examine the play-uits’ lace, and perhaps win wagers upon laying ’tis copper, &c. And to conclude, whether you be a foole or a jutice of peace, a cuckold or a capten, a lord maior’s onne Rh