Ben Jonson - The Magnetick Lady. Act 3. Chorus. lyrics

CHORUS. Dam. This was a pittiful poor shift o' your poet, Boy, to make his prime Woman with Child, and fall in labour, just to compose a quarrel. Boy. With those borrowed Ears, have you heard, Sir, all this while, that you can mistake the current of our Scene so? The stream of the Argument threatned her being with Child from the very beggining; for it presented her in the first of the second Act with some apparent Note of Infirmity or Defect; from knowledge of which, the Auditory were rightly to be suspended by the Author, till the Quarrel, which was but the accidental Cause, hastned on the Discovery of it, in occasioning her affright, which made her fall into her Throws presently, and withing that compa** of time allowed to the Comedy; wherein the poet exprest his prime Artifice, rather than any Errour, that the detection of her being with Child, should determine the Quarrel, which had produc'd it. Pro. The Boy is too hard for you. Brother Damplay, best mark the Play, and let him alone. Dam. I care not for making the Play: I'll damn it, talk, and do that I come for. I will not have gentlemen lose their Privilege, nor I my self my Prerogative, for ne'en an over-grown or supernnuated Poet of 'em all. He shall not give me the Law: I will censure, and be witty, and take my Tabacco, and enjoy my Magna Charta of Reprehension, as my Predecessors have done before me. Boy. Even to licence, and absurdity. Pro. Not now, because the Gentlewoman is in travel: and the Midwife may come on the sooner, to put her and us out of our pain. Dam. Well, Look to your Business afterward, Boy, that all things be clear, and come properly forth, suited, and set together; for I will search what follows, severly, and to the nail. Boy. Let your Nail run smooth then, and not scratch; lest the Author be bold to pare it to the quick, and make it smart: you'ff find him as severe as your self. Dam. A shrewd Boy! and has me every where. The Midwife is come, she has made haste.