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I'll gage my gauntlet gainst the envious man

That dares avow there liveth her compare.

LUBECK.

Sir Robert, you mistake your counterfeit.

This is the Lady which you came to see.

SIR ROBERT.

Yes, my Lord: She is counterfeit in deed,

For there is the substance that best contents me.

LUBECK.

That is my love. Sir Robert, you do wrong me.

ROBERT.

The better for you, sir, she is your Love—

As for the wrong, I see not how it grows.

LUBECK.

In seeking that which is anothers right.

ROBERT.

As who should say your love were privileged,

That none might look upon her but your self.

LUBECK.

These jars becomes not our familiarity,

Nor will I stand on terms to move your patience.

ROBERT.

Why, my Lord, am

Not I of flesh and blood as well as you?

Then give me leave to love as well as you.

LUBECK.

To Love, Sir Robert? but whom? not she I Love?

Nor stands it with the honor my state

To brook corrivals with me in my love.

ROBERT.

So, Sir, we are thorough for that Lady.

Ladies, farewell. Lord Marques, will you go?

I will find a time to speak with her, I trowe.

LUBECK.

With all my heart. Come, Ladies, will you walk?

[Exit.]

SCENE IV.

The English Court.

[Enter Manvile alone, disguised.]

MANVILE.

Ah, Em! the subject of my restless thoughts,

The Anvil whereupon my heart doth be

Framing thy state to thy desert—

Full ill this life becomes thy heavenly look,

Wherein sweet love and vertue sits enthroned.

Bad world, where riches is esteemd above them both,

In whose base eyes nought else is bountifull!

A Millers daughter, says the multitude,

Should not be loved of a Gentleman.

But let them breath their souls into the air,

Yet will I still affect thee as my self,

So thou be constant in thy plighted vow.

But here comes one—I will listen to his talk.

[Manvile stays, hiding himself.]

[Enter Valingford at another door, disguised.]

VALINGFORD.

Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love

Seek thou a minion in a foreign land,

Whilest I draw back and court my love at home.

The millers daughter of fair Manchester

Hath bound my feet to this delightsome soil,

And from her eyes do dart such golden beams

That holds my heart in her subjection.

MANVILE.

He ruminates on my beloved choice:

God grant he come not to prevent my hope.

But here's another, him I'll listen to.

[Enter Mountney, disguised, at another door.]

LORD MOUNTNEY.

Nature unjust, in utterance of thy art,

To grace a peasant with a Princes fame!

Peasant am I, so to misterm my love:

Although a millers daughter by her birth,

Yet may her beauty and her vertues well suffice

To hide the blemish of her birth in hell,

Where neither envious eyes nor thought can pierce,

But endless darkness ever smother it.

Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love,

Whilest I draw back and court mine own the while,

Decking her body with such costly robes

As may become her beauties worthiness;

That so thy labors may be laughed to scorn,

And she thou seekest in foreign regions

Be darkened and eclipst when she arrives

By one that I have chosen nearer home.

MANVILE.

What! comes he too, to intercept my love?

Then hie thee Manvile to forestall such foes.

[Exit Manvile.]

MOUNTNEY.

What now, Lord Valingford, are you behind?

The king had chosen you to go with him.

VALINGFORD.

So chose he you, therefore I marvel much

That both of us should linger in this sort.

What may the king imagine of our stay?

MOUNTNEY.

The king may justly think we are to blame:

But I imagined I might well be spared,

And that no other man had borne my mind.

VALINGFORD.

The like did I: in friendship then resolve

What is the cause of your unlookt for stay?

MOUNTNEY.

Lord Valingford, I tell thee as a friend,

Love is the cause why I have stayed behind.

VALINGFORD.

Love, my Lord? of whom?

MOUNTNEY.

Em, the millers daughter of Manchester.

VALINGFORD.

But may this be?

MOUNTNEY.

Why not, my Lord? I hope full well you know

That love respects no difference of state,

So beauty serve