“Ignorant fools are bearable, Master Silas! your wise ones are the worst.”
“Or else what mortal man shall say Whose shins may suffer in the fray?”
“Thou reasonest aptly and timest well. And surely, being now in so rational and religious a frame of mind, thou couldst recall to memory a section or head or two of the sermon holden at St. Mary’s. It would do thee and us as much good as _Lighten our darkness_, or _Forasmuch as it hath pleased_; and somewhat less than three quarters of an hour (maybe less than one quarter) sufficeth.”
“Or he hangs without me. I am for dinner in half the time.”
“Silas! Silas! he hangeth not with thee or without thee.”
“He thinketh himself a clever fellow; but he (look ye) is the cleverest that gets off.”
“I hold quite the contrary,” quoth Will Shakspeare, winking at Master Silas from the comfort and encouragement he had just received touching the hanging.
And Master Silas had his answer ready, and shewed that he was more than a match for poor Willy in wit and poetry.
Thou hadst other bolts to kill bucks withal. In wit, sirrah, thou art a mere child.”
“Little dogs are jealous of children, great ones fondle them.”
“An that were written in the Apocrypha, in the very teeth of Bel and the Dragon, it could not be truer. I have witnessed it with my own eyes over and over.”
“He will take this for wit, likewise, now the arms of Lucy do seal it.”
“Silas, they may stamp wit, they may further wit, they may send wit into good company, but not make it.”
“An thou art for walls, I have one for thee from Oxford, pithy and apposite, sound and solid, and trimmed up becomingly, as a collar of brawn with a crown of rosemary, or a boar’s head with a lemon in the mouth.”
“Egad, Master Silas, those are your walls for lads to climb over, an they were higher than Babel’s.”
“Thou art a wall To make the ball Rebound from.
“Thou hast a back For beadle’s crack To sound from, to sound from.
The foolishest dolts are the ground-plot of the most wit, as the idlest rogues are of the most industry. Even thou hast brought wit down from Oxford. And before a thief is hanged, parliament must make laws, attorneys must engross them, printers stamp and publish them, hawkers cry them, judges expound them, juries weigh and measure them with offences, then executioners carry them into effect. The farmer hath already sown the hemp, the ropemaker hath twisted it; sawyers saw the timber, carpenters tack together the shell, grave-diggers delve the earth. And all this truly for fellows like unto thee.”