THIRD GENTLEMAN
But is your poet-born alway tipsy with this liquor?

JOHN
He hath his stoopings and reposes; but his proper element is the sky,
and in the suburbs of the empyrean.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Is your wine-intellectual so exquisite? henceforth, I, a man of plain
conceit, will, in all humility, content my mind with canaries.

FOURTH GENTLEMAN
I am for a song or a catch. When will the catches come on, the sweet
wicked catches?

JOHN
They cannot be introduced with propriety before midnight. Every man must
commit his twenty bumpers first. We are not yet well roused. Frank
Lovel, the glass stands with you.

LOVEL
Gentlemen, the Duke. (_Fills_.)

ALL
The Duke. (_They drink_.)

GRAY
Can any tell, why his Grace, being a Papist--

JOHN
Pshaw! we will have no questions of state now. Is not this his Majesty's
birth-day?

GRAY
What follows?

JOHN
That every man should sing, and be joyful, and ask no questions.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Damn politics, they spoil drinking.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
For certain,'tis a blessed monarchy.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
The cursed fanatic days we have seen! The times have been when swearing
was out of fashion.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
And drinking.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
And wenching.

GRAY
The cursed yeas and forsooths, which we have heard uttered, when a man
could not rap out an innocent oath, but strait the air was thought to be
infected.

LOVEL
'Twas a pleasant trick of the saint, which that trim puritan
_Swear-not-at-all Smooth-speech_ used, when his spouse chid him with an
oath for committing with his servant-maid, to cause his house to be
fumigated with burnt brandy, and ends of scripture, to disperse the
devil's breath, as he termed it.

ALL
Ha! ha! ha!

GRAY
But 'twas pleasanter, when the other saint _Resist-the-devil-
and-he-will-flee-from-thee Pure-man_ was overtaken in the act, to plead
an illusio visus, and maintain his sanctity upon a supposed power in the
adversary to counterfeit the shapes of things.

ALL
Ha! ha! ha!

JOHN
Another round, and then let every man devise what trick he can in his
fancy, for the better manifesting our loyalty this day.

GRAY
Shall we hang a puritan?

JOHN
No, that has been done already in Coleman-Street.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Or fire a conventicle?

JOHN
That is stale too.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Or burn the assembly's catechism?

FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Or drink the king's health, every man standing upon his head naked?

JOHN (_to Love