Gray.  Shall we hang a puritan?

John.  No, that has been done already in Coleman Street.

2_nd Gent_.  Or fire a conventicle?

John.  That is stale too.

3_rd Gent_.  Or burn the Assembly’s catechism?

4_th Gent_.  Or drink the king’s health, every man standing upon his head naked?

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

3_rd Gent_.  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 vapors 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 soliloquizes.

John.  My spirits turn to fire, they mount so fast. 
My joys are turbulent, my hopes show 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 enterprises of a man. 
I want some seasonings of adversity,
Some strokes of the old mortifier Calamity,
To take these swellings down, divines call vanity.

1_st Gent_.  Mr. Woodvil, Mr. Woodvil.

2_nd Gent_.  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.

(A servant enters.)

Servant.  Gentlemen, the fireworks are ready.

1_st Gent_.  What be they?

Lovel.  The work of London artists, which our host has provided in honor of this day.