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Till all become one harmony,
Of Honour, and of Courtesy,
True Valour and Urbanity,
Of Confidence, Alacrity,

Of Promptness, and of Industry,

Hability, Reality.

Nor shall those graces ever quit your court,
Or I be wanting to supply their sport.

A CHALLENGE AT TILT,

AT A MARRIAGE.

THE DAY AFTER THE MARRIAGE.

The Court being in expectation, as before,

Enter Two CUPIDS, striving.

1 Cup. It is my right, and I will have it.

2 Cup. By what law or necessity? Pray you, come back.

1 Cup. I serve the man, and the nobler creature.

2 Cup. But I the woman, and the purer; and therefore the worthier. Because you are a handful above me, do you think to get a foot afore me, sir? No, I appeal to you, ladies. boy, in this presence.

1 Cup. You are too rude,

2 Cup. That cannot put modesty in me, to make me come behind you, though; I will stand for mine inches with you, as peremptory as an ambassador. Ladies, your sovereignties are concerned in me; I am the wife's page.

I Cup. And I the husband's.

2 Cup. How!

I Cup. Ha!

2 Cup. One of us must break the wonder; and therefore I that have best cause to be assured of mine own truth, demand of thee, by what magic thou wearest my ensigns? or hast put on my person?

1 Cup. Beware, young ladies, of this impostor; and mothers, look to your daughters and nieces: a false Cupid is abroad: it is I that am the true, who to do these glad solemnities their proper rites, have been contented, not to put off, but to conceal my deity, and in this habit of a servant do attend him who was

yesterday the happy Bridegroom, in the compliment of his nuptials, to make all his endeavours and actions more gracious and lovely.

2 Cup. He tells my tale, he tells my tale; and pretends to my act. It was I that did this for the Bride: I am the true Love, and both this figure and those arms are usurped by most

unlawful power.

Can you not perceive it?

Do not I look liker

Am I not more a child?

Ladies, have none

a Cupid than he? of you a picture of me in your bosom? Is the resemblance of Love banished your breasts? Sure they are these garments that estrange me to you! if I were naked, you would know me better: no relic of love left in an old bosom here! What should I do? 1 Cup. My little shadow is turned furious.

2 Cup. What can I turn other than a fury itself, to see thy impudence? If I be a shadow, what is substance? Was it not I that yesternight waited on the bride into the nuptial chamber, and, against the bridegroom came, made her the throne of love? Had I not lighted my torches in her eyes, planted my mother's roses in her cheeks; were not her eyebrows bent to the fashion of my bow, and her looks ready to be loosed thence, like my shafts? Had I not ripened kisses on her lips, fit for a Mercury to gather, and made her language sweeter than his upon her tongue? Was not the girdle about her he was to untie, my mother's, wherein all the joys and delights of love were woven?

1 Cup. And did not I bring on the blushing bridegroom to taste those joys? and made him think all stay a torment? Did I not shoot myself into him like a flame, and made his desires and his graces equal? Were not his looks of power to have kept the night alive in contention with day, and made the morning never wished for? Was there a curl in his hair that I did not sport in, or a ring of it crisped that might not have become Juno's fingers? His very undressing was it not Love's arming? Did not all his kisses charge? and every touch attempt? But his words, were they not feathered from my wings, and flew in singing at her ears, like arrows tipt with gold?

2 Cup. Hers, hers did so into his; and all his virtue was

borrowed from my powers in her, as thy form is from me. But that this royal and honoured assembly be no longer troubled with our contention, behold, I challenge thee of falsehood; and will bring, upon the first day of the new year, into the lists, before this palace, ten knights armed, who shall undertake against all assertion that I am a child of Mars and Venus: and in the honour of that lady (whom it is my ambition to serve) that that love is the most true and perfect that still waiteth on the woman, and is the servant of that sex.

I Cup. But what gage gives my confident counterfeit of this? 2 Cup. My bow and quiver, or what else I can make.

1 Cup. I take only them; and in exchange give mine, to answer, and punish this thy rashness, at thy time assigned, by a just number of knights, who by their virtue shall maintain me to be the right Cupid, and true issue of valour and beauty; and that no love can come near either truth or perfection, but what is manly, and derives his proper dignity from thence.

2 Cup. It is agreed.

I Cup. In the meantime, ladies, suspend your censures which is the right; and to entertain your thoughts till the day, may the court hourly present you with delicate and fresh objects, to beget on you pretty and pleasing fancies! May you feed on pure meats, easy of concoction, and drink that will quickly turn into blood, to make your dreams the clearer, and your imaginations the finer !

So they departed.

On New-Year's Day, he that before is numbered the second CUPID, came now the first, with his ten Knights, attired in the Bride's colours, and lighting from his chariot, spake :

1 Cup. Now, ladies, to glad your aspects once again with the sight of Love, and make a spring smile in your faces, which must have looked like winter without me; behold me, not like a servant now, but a champion, and in my true figure, as I used to reign and revel in your faces, tickling your soft ears with my

feathers, and laying little straws about your hearts, to kindle bonfires shall flame out at your eyes, playing in your bloods like fishes in a stream, or diving like the boys in the bath, and then rising on end like a monarch, and treading humour like water, bending those stiff pickardils of yours under this yoke my bow; or, if they would not bend, whipping your rebellious vardingales with my bow-string, and made them run up into your waists (they have lain so flat) for fear of my indignation. What is Cupid of no name with you? have I lost all reputation, or what is less, opinion, by once putting off my deity? Because I was a page at this solemnity, and would modestly serve one, for the honour of you all, am I therefore dishonoured by all, and lost in my value so, that every juggler that can purchase him a pair of wings and a quiver, is committed with me in balance, and contends with me for sovereignty? Well, I will chastise you, ladies; believe it, you shall feel my displeasure for this; and I will be mighty in it. Think not to have those accesses to me you were wont; you shall wait four of those galleries off, and six chambers for me; ten doors locked between you and me hereafter, and I will allow none of you a key: when I come abroad, you shall petition me, and I will not hear you; kneel, and I will not regard you; I will pass by like a man of business, and not see you, and I will have no Master of Requests for you. There shall not the greatest pretender to a state-face living put on a more supercilious look than I will do upon you. Trust me-ha! what's this?

Enter 2 CUPID, with his company of ten Knights.

2 Cup. O, are you here, sir! You have got the start of me now, by being challenger, and so the precedency, you think. I see you are resolved to try your title by arms then; you will stand to be the right Cupid still? How now! what ails you that you answer not? Are you turned a statue upon my appearance? or did you hope I would not appear, and that hope has deceived you?

1 Cup. Art thou still so impudent to belie my figure? that in what shape soever I present myself, thou wilt seem to be the

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