g,
We'll eat our noon-tide meal; and, dinner done,
One of us shall repair to Nottingham,
To seek some safe night-lodging in the town,
Where you may sleep, while here with us you dwell,
By day, in the forest, expecting better times,
And gentler habitations, noble Margaret.

SIMON
_Allons_, young Frenchman--

MARGARET
_Allons_, Sir Englishman. The time has been,
I've studied love-lays in the English tongue,
And been enamour'd of rare poesy:
Which now I must unlearn. Henceforth,
Sweet mother-tongue, old English speech, adieu;
For Margaret has got new name and language new.

(_Exeunt._)

ACT THE THIRD

SCENE.--_An Apartment of State in Woodvil Hall--Cavaliers drinking._

JOHN WOODVIL, LOVEL, GRAY, _and four more._

JOHN
More mirth, I beseech you, gentlemen--Mr. Gray, you are not merry.--

GRAY
More wine, say I, and mirth shall ensue in course. What! we have not yet
above three half-pints a man to answer for. Brevity is the soul of
drinking, as of wit. Despatch, I say. More wine. (_Fills._)

FIRST GENTLEMAN
I entreat you, let there be some order, some method, in our drinkings. I
love to lose my reason with my eyes open, to commit the deed of
drunkenness with forethought and deliberation. I love to feel the fumes
of the liquor gathering here, like clouds.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
And I am for plunging into madness at once. Damn order, and method, and
steps, and degrees, that he speaks of. Let confusion have her legitimate
work.

LOVEL
I marvel why the poets, who, of all men, methinks, should possess the
hottest livers, and most empyreal fancies, should affect to see such
virtues in cold water.

GRAY
Virtue in cold water! ha! ha! ha!--

JOHN
Because your poet-born hath an internal wine, richer than lippara or
canaries, yet uncrushed from any grapes of earth, unpressed in mortal
wine-presses.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
What may be the name of this wine?

JOHN
It hath as many names as qualities. It is denominated indifferently,
wit, conceit, invention, inspiration, but its most royal and
comprehensive name is _fancy_.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
And where keeps he this sovereign liquor?

JOHN
Its cellars are in the brain, whence your true poet deriveth
intoxication at will; while his animal spirits, catching a pride from
the quality and neighbourhood of their noble relative, the brain, refuse
to be sustained by wines and fermentations of earth.