Monologue

Leath Monologue from Bartholomew Fair

From Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson

male · comedic · 1:33 min

Well, luck and Saint Bartholomew! out with the sign of our invention, in the name of wit, and do you beat the drum the while: all the foul i' the Fair, I mean all the dirt in Smithfield,--that's one of master Littlewit's carwhitchets now--will be thrown at our banner to-day, if the matter does not please the people. O the motions that I Lanthorn Leatherhead have given light to, in my time, since my master Pod died! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the city of Norwich, and Sodom and Gomorrah, with the rising of the prentices, and pulling down the bawdy-houses there upon Shrove-Tuesday; but the Gun-powder plot, there was a get-penny! I have presented that to an eighteen or twenty pence audience, nine times in an afternoon. Your home-born projects prove ever the best, they are so easy and familiar; they put too much learning in their things now o' days: and that I fear will be the spoil of this. Littlewit! I say, Micklewit! if not too mickle! look to your gathering there, goodman Filcher.

Rehearse Leath's monologue

Run it out loud with a spotlight that follows your voice, line by line, until it's off the page. Free to start, no credit card.