with her deserved fame.  Her cities would dissolve, traffic would decay, friendships be broken, were not my speech the knot, mercury, and mastic, to bind, defend, and glue them together.  What should I say more?  I can never speak enough of the unspeakable praise of speech, wherein I can find no other imperfection at all, but that the most exquisite power and excellency of speech cannot sufficiently express the exquisite power and excellency of speaking.

COM.  SEN.  Lingua, your service and dignity we confess to be great; nevertheless these reasons prove you not to have the nature of a Sense.

LIN.  By your ladyship’s favour, I can soon prove that a Sense is a faculty, by which our queen sitting in her privy chamber hath intelligence of exterior occurrences.  That I am of this nature, I prove thus.  The object which I challenge is—­

    Enter APPETITUS in haste.

APP.  Stay, stay, my lord; defer, I beseech you, defer the judgment.

COM.  SEN.  Who’s this that boldly interrupts us thus?

APP.  My name is Appetitus, common servant to the pentarchy of the Senses who, understanding that your honour was handling this action of Lingua’s, sent me hither thus hastily, most humbly requesting the Bench to consider these articles they allege against her, before you proceed to judgment.

COM.  SEN.  Hum, here’s good stuff; Master Register, read them.  Appetitus, you may depart, and bid your mistress make convenient speed.

APP.  At your lordship’s pleasure. [Exit APPETITUS.

MEM.  I remember that I forgot my spectacles; I left them in the 349th page of Hall’s “Chronicles,” where he tells a great wonder of a multitude of mice, which had almost destroyed the country, but that there resorted a great mighty flight of owls, that destroyed them.  Anamnestes, read these articles distinctly.

ANA.  Art. 1.  Imprimis, We accuse Lingua of high treason and sacrilege against the most honourable commonwealth of letters; for, under pretence of profiting the people with translations, she hath most vilely prostituted the hard mysteries of unknown languages to the profane ears of the vulgar.

PHA.  This is as much as to make a new hell in the upper world; for in hell they say Alexander is no better than a cobbler, and now by these translations every cobbler is as familiar with Alexander as he that wrote his life.

ANA.  Art. 2.  Item, that she hath wrongfully imprisoned a lady called Veritas.

Art. 3.  Item, That she’s a witch, and exerciseth her tongue in exorcisms.

Art. 4.  Item, That she’s a common whore, and lets every one lie with her.

Art. 5.  Item, that she rails on men in authority, depraving their honours with bitter jests and taunts; and that she’s a backbiter, setting strife betwixt bosom friends.

Art. 6.  Item, that she lends wives weapons to fight against their husbands.