_Enter Pierre._

_Pier._ My friend, good morrow; How fares the honest partner of my heart? What, melancholy! not a word to spare me?

_Jaf._ I'm thinking, Pierre, how that damn'd starving quality, Call'd honesty, got footing in the world.

_Pier._ Why, powerful villany first set it up, For its own ease and safety. Honest men Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves Repose and fatten. Were all mankind villains, They'd starve each other; lawyers would want practice, Cut-throats rewards: each man would kill his brother Himself; none would be paid or hang'd for murder. Honesty! 'twas a cheat invented first To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues, That fools and cowards might sit safe in power, And lord it uncontrol'd above their betters.

_Jaf._ Then honesty is but a notion?

_Pier._ Nothing else; Like wit, much talk'd of, not to be defin'd: He that pretends to most, too, has least share in't. 'Tis a ragged virtue: Honesty! no more on't.

_Jaf._ Sure thou art honest!

_Pier._ So, indeed, men think me; But they're mistaken, Jaffier: I'm a rogue As well as they; A fine, gay, bold-fac'd villain as thou seest me. 'Tis true, I pay my debts, when they're contracted; I steal from no man; would not cut a throat To gain admission to a great man's purse, Or a whore's bed; I'd not betray my friend To get his place or fortune; I scorn to flatter A blown-up fool above me, or crush the wretch beneath me; Yet, Jaffier, for all this I'm a villain.

_Jaf._ A villain!

_Pier._ Yes, a most notorious villain; To see the sufferings of my fellow creatures, And own myself a man: to see our senators Cheat the deluded people with a show Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of. They say, by them our hands are free from fetters; Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds; Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow; Drive us, like wrecks, down the rough tide of power, Whilst no hold's left to save us from destruction. All that bear this are villains, and I one, Not to rouse up at the great call of nature, And check the growth of these domestic spoilers, That make us slaves, and tell us, 'tis our charter.

_Jaf._ I think no safety can be here for virtue, And grieve, my friend, as much as thou, to live In such a wretched state as this of Venice, Where all agree to spoil the public good; And villains 

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