COR. Marry, because we'll imitate your actors, and be out of our humours.
Besides, here are those round about you of more ability in censure than we,
whose judgments can give it a more satisfying allowance; we'll refer you to
them.
[EXEUNT CORDATUS AND MITIS.

MACI. [COMING FORWARD.] Ay, is it even so? -- Well, gentlemen, I should
have gone in, and return'd to you as I was Asper at the first; but by
reason the shift would have been somewhat long, and we are loth to draw
your patience farther, we'll entreat you to imagine it. And now, that you
may see I will be out of humour for company, I stand wholly to your kind
approbation, and indeed am nothing so peremptory as I was in the beginning:
marry, I will not do as Plautus in his 'Amphytrio', for all this, 'summi
Jovis causa plaudite'; beg a plaudite for God's sake; but if you, out of
the bounty of your good-liking, will bestow it, why, you may in time make
lean Macilente as fat as sir John Falstaff.
[EXIT.

THE EPILOGUE

AT THE
PRESENTATION BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH

BY MACILENTE.

Never till now did object greet mine eyes
With any light content: but in her graces
All my malicious powers have lost their stings.
Envy is fled from my soul at sight of her,
And she hath chased all black thoughts from my bosom,
Like as the sun doth darkness from the world,
My stream of humour is run out of me,
And as our city's torrent, bent t'infect
The hallow'd bowels of the silver Thames,
Is check'd by strength and clearness of the river,
Till it hath spent itself even at the shore;
So in the ample and unmeasured flood
Of her perfections, are my passions drown'd;
And I have now a spirit as sweet and clear
As the more rarefied and subtle air: --
With which, and with a heart as pure as fire,
Yet humble as the earth, do I implore
[KNEELS.
O heaven, that She, whose presence hath effected
This change in me, may suffer most late change
In her admired and happy government:
May still this Island be call'd Fortunate,
And rugged Treason tremble at the sound,
When Fame shall speak it with an emphasis.
Let foreign polity be dull as lead,
And pale Invasion come with half a heart,
When he but looks upon her blessed soil.
The throat of War be stopt within her land,
And turtle-footed Peace dance fairy rings
About her court; where never may