razed and penniless poverty,
Serving poor poverty without hope of gain;
Kind children of a sire unfortunate;
Green clinging tendrils round a trunk decay'd,
Which needs must bring on you timeless decay;
Fair living forms to a dead carcass joined;--
What shall I say?
Better the dead were gather'd to the dead,
Than death and life in disproportion meet.--
Go, seek your fortunes, children.--

_Simon_. Why, whither should we go?

_Sir W_. _You_ to the court, where now your brother John
Commits a rape on Fortune.

_Simon_. Luck to John!
A light-heel'd strumpet when the sport is done.

_Sir W_. _You_ to the sweet society of your equals,
Where the world's fashion smiles on youth and beauty.

_Marg_. Where young men's flatteries cozen young maids' beauty.
There pride oft gets the vantage hand of duty,
There sweet humility withers.

_Simon_. Mistress Margaret,
How fared my brother John, when you left Devon?

_Marg_. John was well, sir.

_Simon_. 'Tis now nine months almost,
Since I saw home. What new friends has John made?
Or keeps he his first love?--I did suspect
Some foul disloyalty. Now do I know,
John has proved false to her, for Margaret weeps.
It is a scurvy brother.

_Sir W_. Fie upon it.
All men are false, I think. The date of love
Is out, expired; its stories all grown stale,
O'erpast, forgotten, like an antique tale
Of Hero and Leander.

_Simon_. I have known some men that are too general-contemplative for
the narrow passion. I am in some sort a _general_ lover.

_Marg_. In the name of the boy God, who plays at hoodman blind with
the Muses, and cares not whom he catches: what is it _you_ love?

_Simon_. Simply, all things that live,
From the crook'd worm to man's imperial form,
And God-resembling likeness. The poor fly,
That makes short holiday in the sunbeam,
And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird
With little wings, yet greatly venturous
In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element,
That knows no touch of eloquence. What else?
Yon tall and elegant stag,
Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns
In the water, where he drinks.

_Marg_. I myself love all these things, yet so as with a
difference:--for example, some animals better than others, some men
rather than other men; the nightingale before the cuckoo, the swift
and graceful palfrey before the slow and asinine mule. Your humor
goes to confound all qualities. What sport