SIR WALTER WOODVIL.  SIMON WOODVIL. (Disguised as Frenchmen.)

    SIR WALTER
    How fares my boy, Simon, my youngest born,
    My hope, my pride, young Woodvil, speak to me? 
    Some grief untold weighs heavy at thy heart: 
    I know it by thy alter’d cheer of late. 
    Thinkest, thy brother plays thy father false? 
    It is a mad and thriftless prodigal,
    Grown proud upon the favours of the court;
    Court manners, and court fashions, he affects,
    And in the heat and uncheck’d blood of youth,
    Harbours a company of riotous men,
    All hot, and young, court-seekers, like himself,
    Most skilful to devour a patrimony;
    And these have eat into my old estates,
    And these have drain’d thy father’s cellars dry;
    But these so common faults of youth not named,
    (Things which themselves outgrow, left to themselves,)
    I know no quality that stains his honor. 
    My life upon his faith and noble mind,
    Son John could never play thy father false.

    SIMON
    I never thought but nobly of my brother,
    Touching his honor and fidelity. 
    Still I could wish him charier of his person,
    And of his time more frugal, than to spend
    In riotous living, graceless society,
    And mirth unpalatable, hours better employ’d
    (With those persuasive graces nature lent him)
    In fervent pleadings for a father’s life.

    SIR WALTER
    I would not owe my life to a jealous court,
    Whose shallow policy I know it is,
    On some reluctant acts of prudent mercy,
    (Not voluntary, but extorted by the times,
    In the first tremblings of new-fixed power,
    And recollection smarting from old wounds,)
    On these to build a spurious popularity. 
    Unknowing what free grace or mercy mean,
    They fear to punish, therefore do they pardon. 
    For this cause have I oft forbid my son,
    By letters, overtures, open solicitings,
    Or closet-tamperings, by gold or fee,
    To beg or bargain with the court for my life.

    SIMON
    And John has ta’en you, father, at your word,
    True to the letter of his paternal charge.

    SIR WALTER
    Well, my good cause, and my good conscience, boy,
    Shall be for sons to me, if John prove false. 
    Men die but once, and the opportunity
    Of a noble death is not an every-day fortune: 
    It is a gift which noble spirits pray for.

    SIMON
    I would not wrong my brother by surmise;
    I know him generous, full of gentle qualities,
    Incapable of base compliances,
    No prodigal in his nature, but affecting
    This shew of bravery for ambitious ends. 
    He drinks, for ’tis the humour of the court,
    And drink may one day wrest the secret from him,
    And pluck you from your hiding place in the sequel.