Aye, and destine only that time of age to goodness, which our want of ability will not let us employ in evil?

CLE. Why, then 'tis time enough.

TRU. Yes: as if a man should sleep all the term, and think to effect his business the last day. Oh, Clerimont, this time, because it is an incorporeal thing and not subject to sense, we mock ourselves the fineliest out of it, with vanity and misery indeed: not seeking an end of wretchedness, but only changing the matter still.

CLE. Nay, thou'lt not leave now ––

TRU. See but our common disease! With what justice can we complain, that great men will not look upon us, nor be at leisure to give our affairs such despatch, as we expect, when we will never do it to ourselves: nor hear, nor regard ourselves.

CLE. Foh, thou hast read Plutarch's morals, now, or some such tedious fellow; and it shows so vilely with thee: 'fore God, 'twill spoil thy wit utterly. Talk me of pins and feathers, and ladies, and rushes, and such things: and leave this Stoicity alone, till thou mak'st sermons.

TRU. Well, sir. If it will not take, I have learned to lose as little of my kindness, as I can. I'll do good to no man against his will, certainly. When were you at the college?

CLE. What college?

TRU. As if you knew not!

CLE. No faith, I came but from court yesterday.

TRU. Why, is it not arrived there yet, the news? A new foundation, sir, here i' the town, of ladies, that call themselves the Collegiates, an order between courtiers and country-madams, that live from their husbands; and give entertainment to all the Wits and Braveries o' the time, as they call 'em: cry down, or up, what they like or dislike in a brain, or a fashion, with most masculine, or rather hermaphroditical authority: and every day gain to their college some new probationer.

CLE. Who is the president?

TRU. The grave and youthful matron, the Lady Haughty.

CLE. A pox of her autumnal face, her pieced beauty: there's no man can be admitted till she be ready nowadays, till she has painted and perfumed and washed and scoured, but the boy here; and him she wipes her oiled lips upon, like a sponge. I have made a song, I pray thee hear it, o' the subject.

 

Boy sings again

 

Song

 

Still to be neat, still to be dressed,

As you were going to a feast;

Still to be powdered, still perfumed:

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

 

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:

Such sweet neglect more taketh me,

Than all the adulteries of art.

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

 

TRU. And I am, clearly, o' the other side: I love a good dressing before any beauty o' the world. Oh, a woman is then like a delicate garden; nor is there one kind of it: she may vary every hour; take often counsel of her glass, and choose the best. If she have good ears, show 'em; good hair, lay it out; good legs, wear short clothes; a good hand, discover it often; practise any art, to mend breath, cleanse teeth, repair eyebrows, paint, and profess it.

CLE. How? Publicly?

TRU. The doing of it, not the manner: that must be private. Many things that seem foul i' the doing do please, done. A lady should indeed study her face, when we think she sleeps: nor when the doors are shut should men be inquiring; all is sacred within then. Is it for us to see their perukes put on, their false teeth, their complexion, their eyebrows, their nails? You see gilders will not work, but enclosed. They must not discover how little serves, with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity while they were rude stone, before they were painted and no burnished? No.