MASTER ARTHUR.
OLD MASTER LUSAM.
YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR.
YOUNG MASTER LUSAM.[2]
MASTER ANSELM.
MASTER FULLER.
SIR AMINADAB, _a Schoolmaster_.
JUSTICE REASON.
BRABO.
HUGH, _Justice Reason's Servant_.
PIPKIN, _Master Arthur's Servant_.
_Boys, Officers, &c_.
MISTRESS ARTHUR.
MISTRESS MARY.
MISTRESS SPLAY.
MAID.

_Scene, London_.

A PLEASANT CONCEITED COMEDY; WHEREIN IS SHOWED

HOW A MAN MAY CHOOSE A GOOD WIFE FROM A BAD.

ACT I., SCENE I.

_The Exchange_.

_Enter_ YOUNG MASTER ARTHUR _and_ YOUNG MASTER LUSAM.

Y. ART. I tell you true, sir; but to every man
I would not be so lavish of my speech:
Only to you, my dear and private friend,
Although my wife in every eye be held
Of beauty and of grace sufficient,
Of honest birth and good behaviour,
Able to win the strongest thoughts to her,
Yet, in my mind, I hold her the most hated
And loathed object, that the world can yield.

Y. LUS. O Master Arthur, bear a better thought
Of your chaste wife, whose modesty hath won
The good opinion and report of all:
By heaven! you wrong her beauty; she is fair.

Y. ART. Not in mine eye.

Y. LUS. O, you are cloy'd with dainties, Master Arthur,
And too much sweetness glutted hath your taste,
And makes you loathe them: at the first
You did admire her beauty, prais'd her face,
Were proud to have her follow at your heels
Through the broad streets, when all censuring tongues
Found themselves busied, as she pass'd along,
T'extol her in the hearing of you both.
Tell me, I pray you, and dissemble not,
Have you not, in the time of your first-love,
Hugg'd such new popular and vulgar talk,
And gloried still to see her bravely deck'd?
But now a kind of loathing hath quite chang'd
Your shape of love into a form of hate;
But on what reason ground you this hate?

Y. ART. My reason is my mind, my ground my will;
I will not love her: if you ask me why,
I cannot love her. Let that answer you.

Y. LUS. Be judge, all eyes, her face deserves it not;
Then on what root grows this high branch of hate?
Is she not loyal, constant, loving, chaste:
Obedient, apt to please, loath to displease:
Careful to live, chary of her good name,
And jealous of your reputation?
Is she not virtuous, wise, religious?
How should you wrong her to deny all this?
Good Master Arthur, let me argue with you.

[_They walk aside_.

_Enter_ MASTER ANSELM _and_ MASTER FULLER.

FUL. O Master Anselm! grown a lov