He is a fool with a good memory and
some few scraps of other folks' wit. He is one whose conversation
can never be approved, yet it is now and then to be endured. He has
indeed one good quality: he is not exceptious, for he so
passionately affects the reputation of understanding raillery that
he will construe an affront into a jest, and call downright rudeness
and ill language satire and fire.
FAIN. If you have a mind to finish his picture, you have an
opportunity to do it at full length. Behold the original.
SCENE VI.
[To them] WITWOUD.
WIT. Afford me your compassion, my dears; pity me, Fainall,
Mirabell, pity me.
MIRA. I do from my soul.
FAIN. Why, what's the matter?
WIT. No letters for me, Betty?
BET. Did not a messenger bring you one but now, sir?
WIT. Ay; but no other?
BET. No, sir.
WIT. That's hard, that's very hard. A messenger, a mule, a beast
of burden, he has brought me a letter from the fool my brother, as
heavy as a panegyric in a funeral sermon, or a copy of commendatory
verses from one poet to another.
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