Bartholomew Fair: A Comedy

Bartholomew Fair: A Comedy

Stage. Gentlemen, have a little patience, they are een upon coming, instantly. He that should begin the play, master Littlewit, the proctor, has a stitch new fallen in his black silk stocking; twill be drawn up ere you can tell twenty: he plays one o the Arches that dwells about the hospital, and he has a very pretty part. But for the whole play, will you have the truth ont?I am looking, lest the poet hear me, or his man, master Brome, behind the arrasit is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English. Whent comes to the Fair once, you were een as good go to Virginia, for any thing there is of Smithfield. He has not hit the humours, he does not know them; he has not conversed with the Bartholomew birds, as they say; he has neer a sword and buckler-man in his Fair; nor a little Davy, to take toll o the bawds there, as in my time; nor a Kindheart, if any bodys teeth should chance to ache in his play; nor a juggler with a well-educated ape, to come over the chain for a king of England, and back again for the prince, and sit still on his arse for the pope and the king of Spain. None of these fine sights! Nor has he the canvas-cut in the night, for a hobby-horse man to creep into his she-neighbour, and take his leap there. Nothing! No: an some writer that I know had had but the penning o this matter, he would have made you such a jig-a-jog in the booths, you should have thought an earthquake had been in the Fair! But these master poets, they will have their own absurd courses; they will be informed of nothing. He has (sir reverence) kickd me three or four times about the tiring-house, I thank him, for but offering to put in with my experience. Ill be judged by you, gentlemen, now, but for one conceit of mine: would not a fine pomp upon the stage have done well, for a property now? and a punk set under upon her head, with her stern upward, and have been soused by my witty young masters o the Inns of Court? What think you of this for a show, now? he will not hear o this! I am an ass! I! and yet I kept the stage in master Tarletons time, I thank my stars. Ho! an that man had lived to have played in Bartholomew Fair, you should have seen him have come in, and have been cozend in the cloth-quarter, so finely! and Adams, the rogue, have leaped and capered upon him, and have dealt his vermin about, as though they had cost him nothing! and then a substantial watch to have stolen in upon them, and taken them away, with mistaking words, as the fashion is in the stage-practice. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49461
Author: Jonson, Ben
Release Date: Jul 16, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English