Page:Works of Sir John Suckling.djvu/218

198 Prithee, exchange some of thy good counsel for deeds.

If thou be'st

An honest devil (as thou seem'st to be),

Put a sword into my hand, and help me to

The sight of this apparition again.

Peridor. Well,

Something I'll do for thee, or rather for

Myself.

1st Devil. Come, let's go relieve our poet.

2nd Devil. How?

Relieve him? He's released, is he not?

1st Devil. No, no:

Bersat bethought himself at the mouth of the cave,

And found he would be necessary to

Our masque to-night. We have set him with his feet

In a great tub of water, in which he dabbles,

And believes it to be Helicon. There he's contriving

'II' [sic] th' honour of Mercury, who, I have told him,

Comes this night of a message from Jupiter

To Pluto, and is feasted here by him.

Devil. O, they have fetch'd him off!

Poet. Querer per solo Querer,

Or he that made the 'Fairy Queen.'

1st Thief. No, none of these:

They are by themselves, in some other place;

But here's he that writ Tamerlane.

Poet. I beseech you,

Bring me to him; there's something in his scene

Betwixt the empresses a little high

And cloudy: I would resolve myself.

1st Thief. You shall, sir.

Let me see—the author of the 'Bold Beauchamps,'

And 'England's Joy.'

Poet. The last was a well-writ piece, I assure you;

A Briton, I take it, and Shakespeare's very way.

I desire to see the man.

1st Thief. Excuse me; no seeing here.

The gods, in compliment to Homer,

Do make all poets poor above, and we,

All blind below. But you shall confess, sir.

Follow.