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part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation! Iago, my reputation—

Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound: there is more sense in that, than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving. What man!-there are ways to recover the general again. Sue to him, and he's your's.

Cas. I will rather sue to be despis'd.-Drunk! and squabble! swagger! swear! and discourse fustian with one's own shadow! Oh thou invincible spirit of wine! if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee Devil.

Iago. What was he that you followed with your sword? what had he done to you?

Cas. I know not.

Iago. Is't possible?

Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains; that we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

Cas. It has pleased the devil, Drunkenness, to give place to the devil, Wrath; one unperfectedness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself.

As

Iago. Come, you are too severe a moraler. the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not

befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.

Cas. I will ask him for my place again - he shall tell me I am a drunkard!--Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast!--Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.

Iago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well us'd; exclaim no more against it. And good lieutenant, I think, you think, I love you.

Cas. I have well approv'd it, sir.—I drunk!

Jago. You, or any man living, may be drunk at some time, man. I tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the general. Confess yourself freely to her; importune her help, to put you in your place again. She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This broken joint between you and her husband, entreat her to splinter; and, my fortunes, against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

Cas. You advise me well.

Iago. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.

Cas. I think it freely; and, betimes in the morning, I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me.

Jago. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant: I must to the watch.

Cas. Good night, honest Iago.

Shakspeare.

BAYES'S RULES FOR COMPOSITION.

SMITH, BAYES.

Smith. How, sir, helps for wit!

Bayes. Ay, sir, that's my position: and I do here aver, that no man the sun e'er shone upon, has parts sufficient to furnish out a stage, except it were by the help of these my rules.

Smith. What are those rules, I pray?

Bayes. Why, sir, my first rule is the rule of transversion, or regula duplex, changing verse into prose, and prose into verse, alternately, as you please.

Smith. Well, but how is this done by rule, sir?

Bayes. Why thus, sir; nothing so easy, when understood. I take a book in my hand, either at home or elsewhere (for that's all one); if there be any wit in't (as there is no book but has some) I transverse it; that is, if it be prose, put it into verse (but that takes up some time); and if it be verse, put it into prose.

Smith. Methinks, Mr. Bayes, that putting verse into prose, should be called transposing.

Bayes. By my troth, sir, it is a very good notion, and hereafter it shall be so.

Smith. Well, sir, and what d'ye do with it then? Bayes. Make it my own: 'tis so changed that no man can know it-My next rule is the rule of concord, by way of table-book. Pray observe. Smith. I hear you, sir: go on.

Bayes. As thus: I come into a coffeehouse, or some other place where witty men resort; I make as if I minded nothing (do ye mark?) but as soon

as any one speaks-pop, I slap it down, and make that too my own.

Smith. But, Mr. Bayes, are you not sometimes in danger of their making you restore by force, what you have gotten thus by art?

Bayes. No, sir, the world's unmindful; they never take notice of these things.

Smith. But pray, Mr. Bayes, among all your other rules, have you no one rule for invention? Bayes. Yes, sir, that's my third rule: that I have here in my pocket.

Smith. What rule can that be, I wonder?

Bayes. Why, sir, when I have any thing to invent, I never trouble my head about it, as other men do, but presently turn over my book of Drama common-places, and there I have, at one view, all that Persius, Montaigne, Seneca's tragedies, Horace, Juvenal, Claudian, Pliny, Plutarch's Lives, and the rest, have ever thought upon this subject; and so, in a trice, by leaving out a few words, or putting in others of my own-the business is done.

Smith. Indeed, Mr. Bayes, this is as sure and compendious a way of wit as ever I heard of.

Bayes. Sir, if you make the least scruple of the efficacy of these my rules, do but come to the playhouse and you shall judge of them by the effects.But now, pray, sir, may I ask you, how you do when you write?

Smith. Faith, sir, for the most part, I am in pretty good health.

Bayes. Ay, but I mean, what do you do when you write!

Smith. I take pen, ink, and paper, and sit down.

Bayes. Now I write standing; that's one thing: and then another thing is-with what do you prepare yourself?

Smith. Prepare myself! What the devil does the fool mean.

Bayes. Why, I'll tell you now what I do :-If I am to write familiar things, as sonnets to Armida, and the like, I make use of stew'd prunes only; but when I have a grand design in hand, I ever take physic and let blood: for when you would have pure swiftness of thought, and fiery flights of fancy, you must have a care of the pensive part.In fine, you must purge the belly.

Smith. By my troth, sir, this is a most admirable receipt for writing.

Bayes. Ay, 'tis my secret; and, in good earnest, I think one of the best I have.

Smith. In good faith, sir, and that may very well be.

Bayes. May be, sir! I'm sure on't. Experto erede Roberto. But I must give you this caution, by the way-be sure you never take snuff when you write.

Smith. Why so, sir?

Bayes. Why it spoiled me once one of the spark ishest plays in all England. But a friend of mine, at Gresham College, has promised to help me to some spirit of brains-and that shall do my business. Buckingham.

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