evil one set you on finding all this heathenry?

Page. Oh, we are all barristers of Love's court, Sir; we have
Ovid's gay science conned, Sir, ad unguentum, as they say, out of
the French book.

Wal. So? There are those come from Rome then will whip you and
Ovid out with the same rod which the dandies of Provence felt lately
to their sorrow. Oh, what blinkards are we gentlemen, to train any
dumb beasts more carefully than we do Christians! that a man shall
keep his dog-breakers, and his horse-breakers, and his hawk-
breakers, and never hire him a boy-breaker or two! that we should
live without a qualm at dangling such a flock of mimicking
parroquets at our heels a while, and then, when they are well
infected, well perfumed with the wind of our vices, dropping them
off, as tadpoles do their tails, joint by joint into the mud! to
strain at such gnats as an ill-mouthed colt or a riotous puppy, and
swallow that camel of camels, a page!

Page. Do you call me a camel, Sir?

Wal. What's your business?

Page. My errand is to the Princess here.

Eliz. To me?

Page. Yes; the Landgravine expects you at high mass; so go in, and
mind you clean yourself; for every one is not as fond as you of
beggars' brats, and what their clothes leave behind them.

Isen [strikes him]. Monkey! To whom are you speaking?

Eliz. Oh, peace, peace, peace! I'll go with him.

Page. Then be quick, my music-master's waiting. Corpo di Bacco! as
if our elders did not teach us to whom we ought to be rude! [Ex.
Eliz. and Page.]

Isen. See here, Sir Saxon, how this pearl of price
Is faring in your hands! The peerless image,
To whom this court is but the tawdry frame,--
The speck of light amid its murky baseness,--
The salt which keeps it all from rotting,--cast
To be the common fool,--the laughing stock
For every beardless knave to whet his wit on!
Tar-blooded Germans!--Here's another of them.

[A young Knight enters.]

Knight. Heigh! Count! What? learning to sing psalms? They are
waiting
For you in the manage-school, to give your judgment
On that new Norman mare.

Wal. Tell them I'm busy.

Knight. Busy? St. Martin! Knitting stockings, eh?
To clothe the poor withal? Is that your business?
I passed that canting baby on the stairs;
Would heaven that she had tripped, and broke her goose-neck,
And left us heirs de facto. So, farewell. [Exit.]

Wal. A very pretty quarrel! matter enough
To spoil a waggon-load of