Sir, you're a Gentleman, and probably understand this fine Feeding: But if you please, I had rather be at Board-Wages. Does your Epictetus, or your Seneca here, or any of these poor rich Rogues, teach you how to pay your Debts without Money? Will they shut up the Mouths of your Creditors? Will Plato be Bail for you? Or Diogenes, because he understands Confinement, and liv'd in a Tub, go to Prison for you? 'Slife, Sir, what do you mean, to mew your self up here with Three or Four musty Books, in commendation of Starving and Poverty?

VALENTINE. Why, Sirrah, I have no Money, you know it; and therefore resolve to rail at all that have: And in that I but follow the Examples of the wisest and wittiest Men in all Ages; these Poets and Philosophers whom you naturally hate, for just such another Reason; because they abound in Sense, and you are a Fool.

JEREMY. Aye, Sir, I am a Fool, I know it: And yet, Heav'n help me, I'm poor enough to be a Wit –– But I was always a Fool, when I told you what your Expences would bring you to; your Coaches and your Liveries; your Treats and your Balls; your being in Love with a Lady, that did not care a Farthing for you in your Prosperity; and keeping Company with Wits, that car'd for nothing but your Prosperity; and now when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another.

VALENTINE. Well; and now I am poor, I have an opportunity to be reveng'd on 'em all; I'll pursue Angelica with more Love then ever, and appear more notoriously her Admirer in this Restraint, than when I openly rival'd the rich Fops, that made Court to her; so shall my Poverty be a Mortification to her Pride, and perhaps, make her compassionate that Love, which has principally reduc'd me to this Lowness of Fortune. And for the Wits, I'm sure I'm in a Condition to be even with them –

JEREMY. Nay, your Condition is pretty even with theirs, that's the truth on't.

VALENTINE. I'll take some of their Trade out of their Hands.

JEREMY. Now Heav'n of Mercy continue the Tax upon Paper; you don't mean to write!

VALENTINE. Yes, I do; I'll write a Play.

JEREMY. Hem! – Sir, if you please to give me a small Certificate of Three Lines –– only to certifie those whom it may concern; That the Bearer hereof, Jeremy Fetch by Name, has for the space of Sev'n Years truly and faithfully serv'd Valentine Legend Esq; and that he is not now turn'd away for any Misdemeanour; but does voluntarily dismiss his Master from any future Authority over him –

VALENTINE. No, Sirrah, you shall live with me still.

JEREMY. Sir, it's impossible – I may die with you, starve with you, or be damn'd with your Works: But to live even Three days, the Life of a Play, I no more expect it, than to be Canoniz'd for a Muse after my Decease.

VALENTINE. You are witty, you Rogue, I shall want your Help; –– I'll have you learn to make Couplets, to tag the ends of Acts: d'ye hear, get the Maids to Crambo in an Evening, and learn the knack of Rhiming, you may arrive at the height of a Song, sent by an unknown Hand, or a Chocolate-House Lampoon.

JEREMY. But Sir, Is this the way to recover your Father's Favour? Why Sir Sampson will be irreconcilable. If your Younger Brother shou'd come from Sea, he'd never look upon you again. You're undone, Sir; you're ruin'd; you won't have a Friend left in the World, if you turn Poet –– Ah Pox confound that Will's Coffee-House, it has ruin'd more Young Men than the Royal Oak Lottery –– Nothing thrives that belongs to't. The Man of the House would have been an Alderman by this time with half the Trade, if he had set up in the City – For my part, I never sit at the Door, that I don't get double the Stomach that I do at a Horse- Race. The Air upon Banstead-Downs is nothing to it for a Whetter; yet I never see it, but the Spirit of Famine appears to me; sometimes like a decay'd Porter, worn out with pimping, and carrying Billet-doux and Songs; not like other Porters for Hire, but for the Jests sake. Now like a thin Chairman, melted down to half his Proportion, with carrying a Poet upon Tick, to visit some great Fortune; and his Fare to be paid him like the Wages of Sin, either at the Day of Marriage, or the Day of Death.

VALENTINE. Very well, Sir; can you proceed?

JEREMY. Sometimes like a bilk'd Bookseller, with a meagre terrify'd Countenance, that looks as if he had written for himself, or were resolv'd to turn Author, and bring the rest of his Brethren into the same Condition. And Lastly, In the Form of a worn-out Punk, with Verses in her Hand, which her Vanity had preferr'd to Settlements, without a whole Tatter to her Tail, but as ragged as one of the Muses; or as if she were carrying her Linnen to the Paper-Mill, to be converted into Folio Books, of Warning to all Young Maids, not to prefer Poetry to good Sense; or lying in the Arms of a needy Wit, before the Embraces of a wealthy Fool.

 

Enter Scandal.

 

SCANDAL. What, Jeremy holding forth?

VALENTINE. The Rogue has (with all the Wit he could muster up) been declaiming against Wit.

SCANDAL. Aye? Why then I'm afraid Jeremy has Wit: For where-ever it is, it's always contriving it's own Ruine.

JEREMY. Why so I have been telling my Master, Sir: Mr. Scandal, for Heaven's sake, Sir, try if you can disswade him from turning Poet.

SCANDAL. Poet! He shall turn Soldier first, and rather depend upon the outside of his Head, than the Lining. Why, what the Devil has not your Poverty made you Enemies enough? Must you needs shew your Wit to get more?

JEREMY.