Then sees a play till six;[546] and sups at seven;
And, after supper, straight to bed is gone;
And there till ten next day he doth remain;
And then he dines; then sees a comedy; 10
And then he sups, and goes to bed again:
Thus round he runs without variety,
Save that sometimes he comes not to the play,
But falls into a whore-house by the way.

FOOTNOTES:

[545] Cf. a somewhat similar description in Guilpin's _Skialetheia_ (Ep.
25):--

"My lord most court-like lies abed till noon,
Then all high-stomacht riseth to his dinner;
Falls straight to dice before his meat be down,
Or to digest walks to some female sinner;
Perhaps fore-tired he gets him to a play,
Comes home to supper and then falls to dice;
Then his devotion wakes till it be day,
And so to bed where unto noon he lies."

[546] If the play ended at six, it could hardly have begun before three.
From numerous passages it appears that performances frequently began at
three, or even later. Probably the curtain rose at one in the winter and
three in the summer.

IN AFRUM. XL.

The smell-feast[547] Afer travels to the Burse
Twice every day, the flying news to hear;
Which, when he hath no money in his purse,
To rich men's tables he doth ever[548] bear.
He tells how Groni[n]gen[549] is taken in[550]
By the brave conduct of illustrious Vere,
And how the Spanish forces Brest would win,
But that they do victorious Norris[551] fear.
No sooner is a ship at sea surpris'd,
But straight he learns the news, and doth disclose it;
No[552] sooner hath the Turk a plot devis'd
To conquer Christendom, but straight he knows it.
Fair-written in a scroll he hath the names
Of all the widows which the plague hath made;
And persons, times, and places, still he frames
To every tale, the better to persuade.
We call him Fame, for that the wide-mouth slave
Will eat as fast as he will utter lies; 20
For fame is said an hundred mouths to have,
And he eats more than would five-score suffice.

FOOTNOTES:

[547] This word is found in Chapman, Harrington, and others.

[548] So MS.--Old eds. "often."

[549] Groningen was taken by Maurice of Nassau. Vere was present at the
siege.

[550] The expression "take in" (in the sense of "conquer, capture") is
very common.

[551] An