A monologue from the play by Thomas Middleton
NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from A Trick to Catch the Old One. Thomas Middleton. London: George Eld, 1608.
HOARD: What a sweet blessing hast thou, master Hoard, above a multitude! Wilt thou never be thankful? How dost thou think to be blest another time? Or dost thou count this the full measure of thy happiness? By my troth, I think thou dost: not only a wife large in possessions, but spacious in content; she’s rich, she’s young, she’s fair, she’s wise: when I wake, I think of her lands–that revives me; when I go to bed, I dream of her beauty–and that’s enough for me: she’s worth four hundred a year in her very smock, if a man knew how to use it. But the journey will be all, in troth, into the country; to ride to her lands in state and order following; my brother, and other worshipful gentlemen, whose companies I ha’ sent down for already, to ride along with us in their goodly decorum beards, their broad velvet cassocks, and chains of gold twice or thrice double; against which time I’ll entertain some ten men of mine own into liveries, all of occupations or qualities; I will not keep an idle man about me: the sight of which will so vex my adversary Lucre–for we’ll pass by his door of purpose, make a little stand for the nonce, and have our horses curvet before the window–certainly he will never endure it, but run up and hang himself presently.
