ALL
Ha! ha! ha!

JOHN
Another round, and then let every man devise what trick he can in his
fancy, for the better manifesting our loyalty this day.

GRAY
Shall we hang a puritan?

JOHN
No, that has been done already in Coleman-Street.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Or fire a conventicle?

JOHN
That is stale too.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Or burn the assembly’s catechism?

FOURTH GENTLEMAN
Or drink the king’s health, every man standing upon his head naked?

JOHN (to Lovel)
We have here some pleasant madness.

THIRD GENTLEMAN
Who shall pledge me in a pint bumper, while we drink to the king upon
our knees?

LOVEL
Why on our knees, Cavalier?

JOHN (smiling)
For more devotion, to be sure. (To a servant.) Sirrah, fetch the gilt
goblets.

(The goblets are brought.  They drink the king’s health, kneeling.  A shout of general approbation following the first appearance of the goblets.)

JOHN We have here the unchecked virtues of the grape.  How the vapours curl upwards!  It were a life of gods to dwell in such an element:  to see, and hear, and talk brave things.  Now fie upon these casual potations.  That a man’s most exalted reason should depend upon the ignoble fermenting of a fruit, which sparrows pluck at as well as we!

GRAY (aside to Lovel)
Observe how he is ravished.

LOVEL
Vanity and gay thoughts of wine do meet in him and engender madness.

(While the rest are engaged in a wild kind of talk, John advances to the front of the stage and soliloquises.)

    JOHN
    My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast. 
    My joys are turbulent, my hopes shew like fruition. 
    These high and gusty relishes of life, sure,
    Have no allayings of mortality in them. 
    I am too hot now and o’ercapable,
    For the tedious processes, and creeping wisdom,
    Of human acts, and enterprizes of a man. 
    I want some seasonings of adversity,
    Some strokes of the old mortifier Calamity,
    To take these swellings down, divines call vanity.

FIRST GENTLEMAN
Mr. Woodvil, Mr. Woodvil.

SECOND GENTLEMAN
Where is Woodvil?

GRAY
Let him alone.  I have seen him in these lunes before.  His abstractions
must not taint the good mirth.

    JOHN (continuing to soliloquize)
    O for some friend now,
    To conceal nothing from, to have no secrets. 
    How fine and noble a thing is confidence,
    How reasonable too, and almost godlike! 
    Fast cement of fast friends, band of society,
    Old natural go-between in the world’s business,
    Where civil life and order, wanting this cement,
    Would presently rush back
    Into the pristine state of singularity,
    And each man stand alone.