French Lords.
1 Lord.
Nay, good my lord, put him to't: let him have
his way.
-- 422 --
2 Lord.
If your lordship find him not a † notehilding, hold me
no more in your respect.
1 Lord.
On my life, my lord, a bubble.
Ber.
Do you think I am so far deceiv'd in him?
1 Lord.
Believe it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge,
without any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman; he's
a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly
promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your
lordship's entertainment.
2 Lord.
It were fit you knew him, lest reposing too far in
his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and
trusty business in a main danger fail you.
Ber.
I would I knew in what particular action to try him.
2 Lord.
None better than to let him fetch off his drum;
which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.
1 Lord.
I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprize
him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not from the
enemy: we will bind and hood-wink him so that he shall suppose
no other but that he is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries,
when we bring him to our own tents; be but your
lordship present at his examination, if he do not for the promise
of his life, and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to
betray you, and deliver all the intelligence in his power against
you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never
trust my judgment in any thing.
2 Lord.
O for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum;
he says he has a stratagem for't; when your lordship sees the
bottom of his success in't, and to what metal this counterfeit
lump of ours will be melted, if you give him not John Drum's
entertainment, your inclining cannot be removed. Here he
comes.
-- 423 --
George Sewell [1723–5], The works of Shakespear in six [seven] volumes. Collated and Corrected by the former Editions, By Mr. Pope ([Vol. 7] Printed by J. Darby, for A. Bettesworth [and] F. Fayram [etc.], London) [word count] [S11101].
