XII I CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE DATE DUE Cornell university Ubrary PR2711.B931885 v.1-8 Works. Cornell University Library The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013133479 ^be EriGltsb E)tamati8t8 V^W'VV^'N.'VVVVVVVX'VX'S/S/S.^VVVVSA./VN.'VVVVVX/VV'VVV THOMAS MIDDLETON VOLUME THE FIRST THE WORKS THOMAS MIDDLETON EDITED BY A. H. BULLEN, B.A. IN EIGHT VOLUMES VOLUME THE FIRST LONDON JOHN C. NIMMO 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C. MDCCCLXXXV ^ BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON Ul^l Oii TO ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, GREAT AS SCHOLAR AND CRITIC, GREATER AS POET, THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED BY THE EDITOR. PREFACE. The works of Thomas Midddleton were collected in 1840 by Alexander Dyce. This edition has long been out of print, and the need of a new edition has been keenly felt. Of Dyce's editorial work it would be diffi- cult to speak too highly ; he was a man of wide and accurate reading, and his critical acumen was consi- derable. I have, of course, made a very free use of his notes. In the present edition are included some pieces that were unknown to Dyce. These are : (i) a prose tract entitled The Peace-Maker, or Great Britain's Blessing, 1618, which has been erroneously ascribed to James I. ; (2) A Musical Allegory, 1622 (printed for the first time), from a MS. preserved among the Conway Papers ; (3) The Triumphs of Honour and Virtue, 1622, reprinted from the Shakespeare Society's Papers. I have also included a sUght tract relating to Sir Robert Sherley, which Dyce rejected on insufficient information. The two parts of The Honest Whore will be printed hereafter among Dekker's works. VOL. I. b viii Preface. The etched portrait of Middleton is from a rough woodcut prefixed to Two New Plays, 1657. I have to return my warmest thanks to my friend Mr. C. H. Firth for his great kindness in reading the proof-sheets of the present volumes and aiding me with valuable suggestions throughout. My friends Mr. S. L. Lee and Mr. W. J. Craig have also given me occasional help. 13M May 1885. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. DEDICATION PREFACE INTRODUCTION BLURT, MASTER-CONSTABLE THE PHCENIX MICHAELMAS TERM 211 liCG xi I VCT, 99 t-C3 PUBLISHER'S NOTICE. Four hundred copies of this Edition have been printed and the type distributed. No more will be published. INTRODUCTION. It should be an editor's aim to cultivate a nice sense of proportion and eschew exaggeration. Uncritical eulogy has the effect of irritating or repelling the reader ; and when a poet has stood the test of time for nearly three centuries, his position needs no strengthening by violent displays of editorial zeal. Middleton's most recent critic 1 has not hesitated to affirm that "in daring and happy concentration of imagery, and a certain imperial confidence in the use of words, he of all the dramatists of that time is the disciple that comes nearest to the master." The reader who gives to these volumes the study they deserve will discover that this statement is not made at random, but is the mature judgment of a balanced mind. The comedies of intrigue show ready invention and craftsmanlike skill, though the plots are sometimes thin and the humour often gross ; for dignity of moral senti- 1 The writer of the anonymous article on Middleton in the ninth edition of the Encyclopcsdia Britannica. VOL. I. C xii Introduction. ment the serious scenes of A Fair Quarrel have hardly been surpassed ; The Changeling, Women beware Women, and The Spanish Gipsy are among the highest achieve- ments of the English drama. Thomas Middleton was the only son ^ of William Middleton,^ gentleman, who settled in London, and there married Anne, daughter of William Snow. The date of the dramatist's birth may be fixed circ. 1570; and it is probable that he was born in the metropolis. There is no evidence to show whether he received an academical training. A Thomas Middleton was admitted member of Gray's Inn in 1593, and another in 1596; the earlier entry probably refers to the dramatist. In 1597 Middleton began his literary career with The 1 There was also a daughter, Avicia, who married (i) John Empson, (2) Alan Waterer. From C 2 Vis. Surrey, 1623, p. 328, Coll. Arms, Dyce gives the following pedigree, which is also found (translated) in Harl. MS. 1046, tol. 209 ; — WiLLiMus = Anna filia Edwardus = Barbara fil. MiDLETON de London Will. Snow MoRBECK I Will. Palmer de London de co. Warr. I i i Thomas Midlkton = Maria fil. et cohscr. Avicia uxor Johis de Newington in com. Edv. Morbcck de Lon- Empson de London Surrey chronographus don unus 6. Clericorum renupta Alano Wa- ciuitatis London 1623. I Cancellariae terer de London Edwardus Midleton fil. et haeres aetatis 19 annoque 1623. 2 His arms were : Argent on a saltier, engrailed, sables, a castle of the first. On 23d April 1568 Sir Gilbert Dethick, Garter king-at-arms, assigned him as his crest : On his torce, argent and sables, an ape pas- sant and chain, gold mantled, argent, double gules. — Dethick' 5 Guifts, Vincent, 162, fol. 215, Coll. Arms (quoted in full by Dyce). Introduction. xiii Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased. As we know of no other writer of the same name, I fear we must hold the drama- tist responsible for this intolerable and interminable per- formance. The fluency of the versification is aggravat- ing to the last degree. Through stanza after stanza and page after page we plod, vainly hoping to find something to reward us, some flash of inspiration ; and when we reach the end, we are too dejected to congratulate our- selves on our release. It is extraordinary that a man of Middleton's brilliant ability should have perpetrated so insipid a piece of work. When the dramatists turned their hands to sacred subjects, the result was seldom satisfactory ; but few have shown themselves so ill-fitted as Middleton for this class of composition. Middleton was again before the public in 1599 with Microcynicon, Six Snarling Satyres. His name is not on the title-page, but some preliminary stanzas, headed His Defiance ' to Envy, are signed " T. M. Gent. ; " and there is no reason to doubt that the initials belong to the dramatist These satires call for little comment. " Brief, but tedious," will be the censure of most readers, and I dare not question the justice of the finding. Following in the steps of Marston and Hall, Middleton thought it necessary to adopt a rugged rhythm and bar- barous phraseology. At the time of publication these " snarling satyres " may have interested a small esoteric circle of readers, who were able to read between the lines and applaud the hits ; but the salt has long since lost its savour. We cannot determine at what date Middleton began xiv Introduction. to write for the stage. The earliest reference to him in Henslowe's Diary (ed. Collier, p. 221) is an entry dated 22nd May 1602, from which it appears that he was then engaged with Munday, Drayton, Webster, and some others not named, in writing a play called Ccesar's Fall, for which Henslowe advanced five pounds on ac- count. Under date 29th May (ibid. p. 222) is an entry recording the payment of three pounds to Dekker, Drayton, Middleton, Webster, and Munday for a play called too harpes, i.e. Two Harpies. On 21st October (ibid. p. 227) Middleton received four pounds in part payment for The Chester Tragedy, and on 9th Novem- ber two pounds " in fulle paymente of his playe called Randowlle earlle of Chester" (ibid. p. 228), which was doubtless the same piece as The Chester Tragedy. From an entry dated 14th December 1602 (ibid. p. 228) we learn that Middleton was paid five shillings for writing a prologue and epilogue to Greene's Friar Bacon, when that play was revived at court. There is another entry (ibid. p. 241), dated 2d October 1602, recording the pay- ment of twenty shillings to Middleton on account of an unnamed play written for Lord Worcester's company. Time, which " hath an art to make dust of all things," has spared neither Ccesar's Fall, nor the Two Harpies, nor The Chester Tragedy (which Malone in a moment of forgetfulness identified with the Mayor of Queenborough), nor the prologue and epilogue to Friar Bacon. In 1602, then, Middleton was closely employed in dramatic writing; but it is fairly certain that he had begun work a few years earlier. The date 1599 has Introduction. xv been assigned to the excellent comedy The Old Law, which was first published in 1656 as the work of Massin- ger, Middleton, and Rowley. If the play was written in 1599I (a point on which we cannot speak with certainty), Massinger could have had no hand in the original com- position, for in 1599 he was a youth of fifteen. Probably Massinger did no more than revise the play on the occasion of its revival at the Salisbury Court Theatre ; I doubt whether he added a single scene. Rowley's share was certainly considerable. When he is writing at his best, Rowley is one of the drollest of writers. He was a poor hand at constructing plots ; he was often guilty of the most atrocious absurdities ; his verse hobbled badly when it came from his pen, and in its passage through the press was reduced by the old printers to a rudis indigestaque moles ; he roared like a bull of Bashan when he ought to have been dignified. But he had a genuine gift of humour ; and at times (as in A Woman never Vext and passages of AWs Lost by Lust) he could wring our heart-strings with pity. I would unhesitat- ingly assign to him the scene (iii. i) where Gnotho, anxious to put away his old wife Agatha and take a younger, bribes the parish-clerk to alter the date in the register. The conclusion of The Old Law is the drollest " In iii. I, the Clerk, after reading from tlie parish-register, •• Agatha, the daughter of Pollux, born in an. 1540," observes, ' ' and now 'tis 99." At first sight we should feel inclined to pronounce that 1599 must be the date of the production of the play. But it is well to tread cautiously, remembering that the play was not printed until 1656, that it has de- scended in a very corrupt state, and that both copyists and printers constantly blunder over dates. xvi Introduction. of all drolleries. To the relief of the old courtiers and the dismay of their gaping heirs, Evander, the Duke, has just pronounced void the law which condemned to death all men of fourscore years and all women of threescore. At this moment Gnotho and his friends are seen ap- proaching in riotous mirth, preceded by a band of fiddlers and followed by the sorrowing wives, who are being con- ducted to execution. Gnotho, more forward than the rest, has a double business in hand ; he is provided with his new bride, and when he has seen Agatha despatched by the hangman, he will proceed to church to solemnise the second marriage. " Crowd on afore ! " he shouts impatiently to the fiddlers. The Duke calls a halt and inquires the meaning of the procession. Gnotho, anxious to make an end of the business, very briefly explains, and then shouts again to the fiddlers " Crowd on ! " Evander demands more light on the matter, but Gnotho is in no mood for parleying. "A lusty woman, able-bodied, and well-blooded cheeks," says Evander," eyeing Agatha; "sure I cannot think that she be so old,"— to which Gnotho replies that he will bet Evander two to one she is of the full age. Evander commits the case to the consideration of the old courtiers. Gnotho listens with amused pity while they sternly denounce his conduct, and when they have ended exclaims, "A mess of wise old men ! ye are good old men, and talk as age will give you leave." But at length, by slow degrees, he is brought to realise the true state of affairs. There is nothing in Massinger's or Middleton's plays to match the drollery of this scene ; but whoever has read Introduction. xvii Rowley knows what a rich vein of whimsical humour he could sometimes discover. Yet in this very scene Mid- dleton's presence is plainly visiJDle; the humour is Rowley's, but without Middleton's help the Duke and old courtiers would not have preserved so dignified a de- meanour. To Middleton probably belong all the serious parts of the play. The scenes in which the wantonness of the young court-gallants and Eugenia is so spiritedly represented are unquestionably by Middleton, and the talk of the lawyers in the opening scene is quite in his manner. The Old Law was a favourite with Charles Lamb, who wrote of it — "There is an exquisiteness of moral sensibility, making one to gush out tears of delight, and a poetical strangeness in all the improbable circum- stances of this wild play, which are unlike anything in the dramas which Massinger wrote alone. The pathos is of a subtler edge. Middleton and Rowley, who assisted in this play, had both of them finer geniuses than their associate." Whether the plot was original or borrowed I cannot say. A few years ago Anthony Trollope constructed a slight novel, The Fixed Period, with a plot of somewhat similar character. There is only one quarto of The Old Law, published in 1656, and the text is deplorably corrupt. Numerous emendations, sometimes excellent and sometimes needless, were made by Monk Mason and Giffbrd. Perhaps I ought to have allowed myself more freedom in the matter of emenda- tion. Among my corrections there are two I regard as tolerably certain. Hippolita pleading before the xviii Introduction. young courtiers for the life of her old father-in-law, says (v. I):- " For yet, methinks, you bear the shapes of men, (Though nothing more than merely beautifeaus To make you appear angels)," &c. GifTord converted the italicised words into "merely beauty serves^' and this emendation was adopted by Dyce ; but Gifford's reading is quite unintelligible. My own correction, " mercy beautifies,'' is, I venture to think, unassailable. Again : Leonides, admiring his daughter- in-law's devotion, exclaims — " That the stronger tie of wedlock should do more Than nature in her nearest ligaments Of blood and propagation ! I should ne'er Have begot such a daughter of my own." Gifford and Dyce read "strong" for "stronger.'' The true reading is certainly " stranger" which gives us the desired antithesis. Dyce considered the tragi-comedy of The Mayor of Queenborough (first printed in 1661) to be one of Mid- dleton's earliest plays. I do not follow him in laying stress on dumb-shows as evidence towards fixing the date. We have a dumb-show in The Changeling, which is certainly one of Middleton's maturest works. Web- ster gives us dumb-shows in The White Devil. My own view is that The Mayor of Queenborough was originaUy an early play, but that it underwent considerable revi- sion at a later date, and has descended in its revised form. In iv. 3 (see vol. ii. p. 86) there are some lines Introduction. xix which contain a resemblance, too close to be accidental, to a passage in The Tempest. Middleton frequently imitates Shakespeare, but it is hardly likely that Shake- speare (as Reed supposed) was on this occasion return- ing the compliment. Many passages are so strikingly fine that I cannot but believe them to have been written when Middleton's genius was in its full maturity. What a grip there is in such lines as these ! — • "We are all, my lord, The sons of fortune ; she has sent us forth To thrive by the red sweat of our own merits." Or take these lines on woman's lust : — ^ " 'Tis her cunning, The love of her own lust, which makes a woman Gallop down hill as fearless as a drunkard." Or these on Thong Castle : — " Why, here's a fabric that implies eternity ; The building plain but most substantial ; Methinks it looks as if it mock'd all ruin. Saving that master-piece of consummation, The end of time, which must consume even ruin. And eat that into cinders." Again and again we are arrested by the bold utter- ance, the fine dramatic ring of the verse. Yet the play as a whole leaves little impression on the mind, and has the appearance of being an immature production. The odd confusion of chronology is a mark of youthful treatment. Only at, an early stage of his career would Middleton have ventured to introduce a Puritan into a chronicle play which deals with Hengist and Horsus. Rowley, who wrote The Birth of Merlin, would have had XX Introduction. not the slightest hesitation in the matter, and Heywood was equally indifferent; but Middleton in his mature work shows due respect for chronology. The plot is repulsive. Vortiger is a monster of iniquity, and his brutality towards his gentle wife, Castiza, is peculiarly disgusting. Roxana is a creature of lust, effrontery, and guile. Middleton's later studies of depraved femi- nine character are among his highest achievements ; but Roxana cannot for a moment compare with Bianca in Women beware Women or Beatrice in The Changeling. The comic scenes were doubtless effective on the stage ; they are somewhat tiresome by the fireside. In Row- ley's hands the Mayor would have been a more amusing figure. It is for the detached passages of noble poetry that students will value this tragi-comedy, which is admirably adapted for purposes of quotation. Lamb has introduced one short extract from it into his essay The Superannuated Man: — "I no longer hunt after pleasure ; I let it come to me. I am like the man ' that's born and has his years come to him In some green desert.' " ' The extract is from i. i, where Constantius seeks to be relieved from assuming the cares of royalty : — " I know no more the way to temporal rule Than he that's bom and has his years come to him In a rough desert." 1 It is also given in the Fragments appended to Extracts from the Garrick Plays in Hone's Table Book. These Fragments are unpardon- ably omitted from collected editions of the Specimens and Extracts. Introduction. xxi It will be perceived that by the change of rough into green, Lamb has given a novel significance to the pas- sage. First on the list of Middleton's printed plays is Blurt, Master Constable, 1602, a sprightly, well-written play, containing some charming poetry. The scene is laid in Venice. Hippolito and Camillo, returning from the wars, are received by Hippolito's sister, Violetta. Camillo, a suitor to Violetta, has brought with him as prisoner a French gentleman, Fontinelle, whom he delivers into his mistress's hands as a trophy of war. Charmed with his grace of manner, Violetta falls in love with her prisoner at first sight ; and her passion is reciprocated. The lovers contrive to baffle the machinations of Hippolito and Camillo, and at length are secretly married. Severe censure has been passed, quite undeservedly, on the con- clusion of the play. Professor A. W. Ward, who usually takes pains to be scrupulously accurate, observes in his account of Middleton {Engl. Dram. Lit., ii. 74) ; — " The lightness and gaiety of writing in Blurt, Master Constable (printed 1602), cannot render tolerable a play with so vile a plot. Beginning pleasantly, and indeed prettily enough, with the sudden passion of a lady for the prisoner brought home from the wars by her lover, it ends offensively with the unfaithfulness of the prisoner, who has escaped and married the lady, and is finally brought back to her by a device which resembles a parody on the plot of AlVs Well that Ends Well." But, if I have read the play rightly, Mr. Ward has misstated the matter. Hippolito and Camillo, in their anxiety to effectually sunder the xxii ^Introduction. young lovers, endeavour to clap up a match between Fontinelle and the courtesan Imperia. Hippolito broaches the matter to Imperia, and — that she may not buy a pig in a poke — sends her Fontinelle's portrait; she is delighted with the portrait and welcomes the proposal. In iii. i, Hippolito and Camillo offer Fon- tinelle his liberty if he will marry Imperia, but he indig- nantly rejects the proposal and is sent back to prison. Frisco, the courtesan's page, is then employed to visit the prisoner and use his powers of persuasion. At this point the plot is not so plain as we could have wished, and it is probable that a scene between Frisco and Fontinelle has been lost. A plan of escape is devised during the prison conference : Fontinelle is to change clothes with Frisco and repair to the courtesan's house. Meanwhile Fontinelle sends by Frisco a letter to Violetta, • bidding her come at midnight to Saint Lorenzo's monastery, and bring a friar to conduct the marriage. The poet leaves us to fill in details. When the marriage had been solemnised, it remained for the bride and bridegroom to seek a place of shelter. What was to be done, for the hour was late ? The course they took is as plain as day. It was agreed that Fontinelle should go to the courtesan's house, pretending that he had come to carry out his engagement, and that Violetta should presently follow to claim her husband. It is a violent absurdity to suppose that Fontinelle's speech to Imperia in v. 2 is the language of genuine passion : — " Now, by the heart of love, my Violet Is a foul weed (0 pure Italian Jicmier!) Introduction. xxiii She a black negro, to the white compare Of this unequalled beauty. O most accurst, That I have given her leave to challenge me ! But, lady, poison speaks Italian well. And in her loath'd kiss I'll include her hell." The parenthesised words ought to be enough for any reader ; but we have, besides, the explicit statement of Violetta at the close of the play : — " My Fontinelle ne'er dallied in her arms ; She never bound his heart with amorous charms : My Fontinelle ne'er loathed my sweet embrace : She never drew love's picture by his face : With prayers and bribes we hired her both to lie Under that roof" Of course I do not deny that it would have been more decorous for the marriage-night to have been spent under some other roof than the courtesan's ; but it must be remembered that the young lovers were not in a position to pick and choose their lodging. Helena's device in AlTs Well seems to me far less defensible than Violetta's. Fontinelle's conduct throughout is the con- duct of an honourable gentleman. I am sorry that Mr. Ward should have misrepresented the plot; but I allow - that Middleton ought to have rendered such misrepre- sentation impossible by supplying more details and leaving less to the reader's imagination. It is not easy to carry in one's head the plots of several hundreds of plays ; and so careful a stage-historian as Mr. Ward may well claim indulgence for occasional lapses. We may assume that Middleton's marriage with Mary, xxiv Introduction. daughter of Edward Morbeck/ one of the six clerks in Chancery, took place in 1602 or 1603 ; for his son Edward was born in 1604. There were no other chil- dren of the marriage. In 1604 were published two interesting tracts, Father Hubbard's Tale, or the Ant and the Nightingale, and The Black Book, the former was entered in the Stationers' Books on 3rd January 1603-4, and the latter on 22nd of the following March. The address To the Reader pre- fixed to Father Hubbard's Tale is signed T. M., and the Epistle to the Reader prefixed to The Black Book bears the same initials. There cannot be the slightest doubt ^ that these initials belong to the dramatist. With a light hand the writer exposes the foibles and vices of the time. He was evidently a great admirer of Nashe — to whom he makes many allusions — and reflects in his own 1 See pedigree on p. xii. In Harl. MS. 1046, fol. 209, the name is written Marbecke, , 2 Mr. Carew Hazlitt lias the hardihood to assert "there is no pre- tence whatever for assigning this volume [Father Hubbard's Tate] to Middleton," whose claim to T/!e Black Book he denies with equal emphasis. Middleton, according to Mr. Haditt, "usually put his name to anything that came from his pen ,■ " but A Mad World, my Masters and A Trick to Catch the Old Oneheai merely the initials " T. M." Mr. Hazlitt assigns these tracts to Thomas Moffat (or Moufet or Muffet), a medical writer and author of a curious poem on the manage- ment of silkworms. There is a good hfe of Muffet in Cooper's Athen. Cantab., ii. 400-402. He spent his closing days in retirement at Bul- bridge, near Wilton, in the capacity of retainer to the Earl of Pembroke. That this man at the end of his career (he died in 1605) should have abandoned scientific studies to attack the vices of the town is prima facie unlikely ; and Mr. Hazlitt adduces not a grain of evidence in sup- port of his extraordinary theory. Introduction. xxv pages something of Nashe's marvellous brilliancy. To students of the social life of the early seventeenth cen- tury these tracts — and similar writings of Dekker and Rowlands — are invaluable. In Father Hubbarcfs Tale we are shown how a rich young spendthrift squanders in dicing and debauchery the hard-earned fruits of his father's parsimony, until at length he is driven to join the ranks of the sharpers who have fleeced him, and assists in ruining other young heirs. The elaborate description of the young prodigal's apparel is quite in Nashe's vein of whimsical extravagance. We are con- ducted in The Black Book through the rowdiest parts of the metropolis, Tumbull Street and Birchin Lane, the haunts of drabs and thieves. Middleton's knowledge of London, like Sam Weller's, was extensive and peculiar. In the same year (1604) Middleton assisted Dekker in the composition of The Honest Whore. We find in Henslow's Diary (ed. Collier, p. 232) the following entry : — "Lent unto the company, to geve unto Thomas Deckers and Middelton, in earnest of ther Playe called the pasyent man and the onest hore, the some of v" 1604." The First Part of The Honest Whore was issued in 1604, and the Second Part in 1630 : on the title-pages of both parts only Dekker's name is found. I agree with Dyce that Middleton's share in this play was inconsiderable. Dekker had, as Lamb says, "poetry enough for anything." His sympathy with sinful and sorrowing humanity was genuine and deep; but his xxvi Introduction. poignant feelings sometimes found expression in lan- guage which seems to have the air of insincerity. In the fine scenes where Hippolito implores Bellafront to abandon her vicious course of life, and again where he strives to undo the effect of his former teaching, one feels that the arguments and illustrations are enforced with over-heated vehemence. This note of exaggeration is never absent from Dekker's work ; he let his fancy- have full swing and did not write "with slower pen." But he was the most natural of writers, lovable at all points, full of simplicity and tenderness. The character of Orlando Friscobaldo is drawn in Dekker's cheeriest, sunniest manner. I would ascribe to Middleton the scenes (i. 5 and iii. i) where the gallants endeavour to irritate the patient Candido. Bellafront's preparations for receiving visitors, and the conduct of the gallants on their arrival (ii. i), closely recall a scene in Michaelmas Term (iii. i). In these scenes, and in a few comic scenes of the Second Part, we recognise Middleton's hand, but hardly elsewhere. About the time when the First Part of The Honest Whore was composed, Dekker went out of his way to acknowledge a slight obligation under which he lay towards Middleton. On the 15th March 1603-4, King James, with the Queen and Prince Henry, paid a state visit to the City, and Dekker was employed to write a pageant for the occasion. When the pageant was printed (1604), he appended to the speech of Zeal the following note : — " If there be any glory to be won by writing these lines, I do freely bestow it, as his due, on Introduction. xxvli Tho. Middleton, in whose brain they were begotten, though they were delivered here : qua nos non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra voco." As the speech is only sixty lines long, it is curious — considering how indifferent the dramatists were to literary etiquette — that he should have made this acknowledgment. Had Middleton's share in The Honest Whore been at all considerable, we may be tolerably sure that his name would not have been omitted from the title-page. X^ After 1604 Middleton published nothing until 1607, in which year appeared The Phoenix'^ and Michaelmas Term. Both these comedies are full of life and move- ment. Phoenix, son of the Duke of Ferrara, is solicited by his father, at the instance of some disaffected courtiers, to travel in foreign parts that he may gain observation and experience. He agrees to the pro- posal, but requests that he may be accompanied only by a single attendant, Fidelio ; for he suspects treachery, and is determined to outwit the courtiers. Instead of travelling abroad, he disguises himself and travels in his own kingdom, with the intent not only to keep a sharp eye on the courtiers, but to detect what abuses are rife throughout the land. In the course of his per- ambulations he discovers notable roguery. There is Tangle, an "old busy turbulent fellow, a villainous maltworm, that eats holes into poor men's causes," ^ In vol. i. p. loi, I say that The Phtenix "was licensed by Sir George Buc, gth May 1607." I ought to have said " licensed /»r printing. " So on p. 213 in regard to Michaelmas Term. VOL. I. d xxviii Introduction. who talks in a legal jargon that becomes somewhat tedious. Then there is Falso, a justice of the peace, who takes bribes on all sides, and keeps a set of rascally serving-men, who employ their leisure in committmg highway robberies. We are also introduced to a worth- less sea-captain, who has grown tired of his wife, and signs a bond for the sale of her ; and to a wanton city madam, who by robbing her husband supports a needy knight for her pleasure. In this nest of villainy there is found one honest man, Quieto, who (like Candido in The Honest Whore) is at peace with everybody and allows nothing to ruffle his equanimity. There is an abundance of amusing intrigue and lively situations. The poetry put into the mouth . of Phoenix is of a high order. Genuine eloquence is shown in the apos- trophes to " sober Law, made with meek eyes, persuad- ing action" (i. 4), and to "reverend and honourable Matrimony" (ii. 2). The latter passage, as Dyce re- marked, bears some resemblance to the lines beginning "Hail, wedded Love !" in the fourth book of Paradise Lost. In Michaelmas 2erm we see a young gentleman, Master Easy, caught in the snares of a griping usurer, Quomodo. Tighter and tighter in each successive scene the meshes close round the victim. In the end all comes right ; villainy overreaches itself, and Master- Easy not only gets back his lands, but is left in lawful possession of the bloodsucker's wife, a spirited woman. Michaelmas Term is full of excellent fun, and the reader has only himself to blame if he fails to find amusement. Introduction. xxix Quomodo's one ambition was to be a landed proprietor- When he sees that his dream is about to be realised, his exultation is delightfully comic. He dwells with gusto on the prospect of the Whitsun holidays, when he will ride down to his estate in Essex " with a number of citizens and their wives, some upon pillions, some upon side-saddles," his son, Sim, riding ahead in a peach-coloured taffeta jacket. There will be good store of logs for Christmas ; and he intends to astonish the citizens' wives by the quality of the fruit from his orchard. His parting words to the victim whom he has fleeced of everything are drolly cordial : — " If it please you, sir, you know the house ; you may visit us often, and dine with us once a quarter." ; A Trick to Catch the Old One^ and The Family of Love were published in 1608 : the former had been entered in the Stationers' Registers on 7th October 1607, and the latter on the 12th of the same month. I do not hesitate to endorse Langbaine's brief but emphatic judgment on A Trick to Catch the Old One : — " This is an excellent old play." The plot is as follows. JAn improvident young gallant, Witgood, who has mortgaged all his property to his usurious uncle. Lucre, repents of his evil courses and is anxious to make a new start. He pretends that he is the accepted suitor to a rich widow from the country. The so-called widow is a courtesan. 1 A kind of proverbial saying. Cf. Day's Isle of Gulls, ii, 5 ; — ' ' We are in the way to catch the old one. " XXX Introduction. who throws herself into the scheme with uncommon zest. A shrewd innkeeper is engaged as her serving- man and despatched to Lucre's house to make inquiries on his mistress's behalf about Witgood's fortunes. He feigns to be unaware that he is addressing Witgood's uncle ; he wants to hear from some sober citizen whether the match contemplated by his mistress is d esirable, and whether Witgood is a man of substance. Lucre pricks up his ears at once. Poor relatives are a nuisance, but when a timely stroke of luck promotes them to afflu- ence, then the case is altered, and those who formerly neglected them are ready with suit and service, even where little or no personal advantage is to be derived. Lucre is the more pleased to hear of his nephew's good fortune because he anticipates that the widow's lands may eventually pass from Witgood's possession to his own. For some months he had refused to see Witgood, but he now sends a messenger to say that his nephew would be a welcome visitor. Witgood replies that he is very much occupied, and he begs to be excused. Lucre's eagerness is doubled ; he renews the invitation in a more cordial manner. Presently Witgood arrives and is congratulated by his uncle, who cheerfully under- takes to supply his present necessities and stop the mouths of importunate creditors. Then Witgood in- troduces the widow, with whose appearance Lucre is charmed. Meanwhile the news of the engagement has been noised abroad, and the prodigal's creditors assemble to congratulate him, vying with each other in pressing their services upon him. The rumour reaches the ears Introduction, xxxi of Onesiphorous Hoard, Lucre's mortal enemy; and Hoard determines to endeavour to supplant Witgood in the widow's affections. Taking with him some trusty companions to substantiate his statements, he goes to the widow, exposes Witgood's former extravagances and present poverty, and proposes himself as a more eligible suitor. The widow professes herself vastly indignant against Witgood and accepts Hoard in his stead. On that very day she was to meet Lucre and Witgood in order to make final arrangements for the marriage. There is no time to be lost ; so it is agreed that under some pretext she shall slip from Witgood's company, where- upon Hoard and his friends will surprise her and carry' her by boat to the sanctuary of Cole Harbour, where a parson shall be in attendance. Lucre is furious when he discovers that the prize has been carried off by his hated antagonist. Away he hies with his nephew and friends to Cole Harbour. Hoard has no objec- tion to discuss the situation, for the marriage has just been secretly performed. ^The courtesan and Lucre converse apart ; she pays ^m jhome soundly : did he expect that she would marry a beggar? let him restore the lands and then she will marry his nephew. To thwart his adversary he gladly catches at the pro- posal, and volunteers besides to make his nephew his heir. When the mortgage has been given up, Lucre learns that he has made the sacrifice too late. Mean- while Witgood is still exercising his brain, anxious to reap the full benefit of the situation. He asserts that there was a pre-contract between himself and the widow, xxxii Introduction. and threatens to bring the matter into a court of law. Hoard is violently alarmed, and eagerly adopts his wife's proposal that Witgood should be bought off. At first Witgood is inexorable — he will have law ; but finally he consents to abandon his claim on condition that his creditors' demands are satisfied. When this difficulty is settled, Hoard prepares a marriage feast and invites his friends, including Lucre and Witgood (who has meanwhile secretly married Hoard's niece) among the guests. The denouement is exceedingly amusing. Hoard's brother, on being introduced to the bride, recognises Witgood's mis- tress, and a scene of some confusion follows ; but finally Hoard puts a good face on the matter and reminds the guests that " the wedding dinner cools." It will be seen that in writing this comedy Middleton was more anxious to amuse than to teach a moral lesson. Grave moralists may argue that it is reprehensible for a man to fasten his cast-off mistress on his bride's uncle ; nor am I inclined to dispute the reasonableness of the contention. But we must not bring the squint looks of " budge doctors of the stoic fur" to bear on these airy comedies of intrigue. Middleton could morahse severely enough when the occasion required ; but in the present instance his aim was to provide entertainment, and he succeeds admirably. It is impossible not to admire the happy dexterity with which the mirthful situations are multiplied. The interest never flags for a moment, but is heightened at every turn. The Family of Love is written with Middleton's usual freedom and facility. As he had been before the public Introduction. xxxiii for some years, it is curious to note the modesty with which he refers to himself in the prologue : — " If, for opinion hatli not blaz'd his fame, Nor expectation filled the general round. You deem his labours slight," &c. In the Address to the Reader he mentions that the play was in the press before he had notice of it, " by which means some faults may escape in the printing ; " and he adds that " it passed the censure of the stage with a general applause." Your Five Gallants was entered in the Stationers' Registers on 2 2d March 1607-8, under the title of Fyve Wittie Gallants. The quarto, which is very care- lessly printed, bears no date, but was probably published in 1608. The five gallants are "the broker gallant," "the bawd gallant," "the cheating gallant," " the pocket gallant," "the whore gallant," — a choice fraternity of vagabonds, whose manner of life is described with much gusto. There is an allusion in iv. 2 to the closing of playhouses in time of plague. The year 1607 was a plague-year. On 1 2th April the Lord Mayor in a letter to the Lord Chamberlain announced that the plague was increasing in the skirts and confines of the city ; and suggested that orders should be given to the justices of Middlesex to interdict the performance of stage-plays at Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, and other out- lying districts. 1 1 See Analytical Index of the Series of Records known, as the RcTnembrancia, p. 337. xxxiv Introduction. A Mad World, my Masters,^ licensed on 12th October 1608 and printed in the same year, is a pleasanter play than the preceding. The characters of Sir Bounteous Progress, the liberal knight who keeps open house for all comers, and Harebrain, the jealous husband, yoked to a demure light-o'-love, are very ably drawn ; and the situations are worked out with the adroit briskness that we admired in A Trick to Catch the Old One. The deception practised by the counterfeit players recalls the similar incident in the Mayor of Queenborough. Middleton seems to have been tickled with the notion of converting wanton wagtails into wives. In A Trick to Catch the Old One, Witgood succeeded in marrying his mistress to his wife's uncle ; in A Mad World the tables are turned, and Follywit finds himself united to his uncle's mistress. The victims in both cases submit with a good grace. A large part of Mrs. Behn's City Heiress, 1681, was conveyed from A Mad World. In 1609 Middleton published a slight tract com- memorating the exploits of the adventurous Sir Robert Sherley, the youngest and most remarkable of the Three English Brothers.2 As the dedication to Sir Thomas 1 A pamphlet by Nicholas Breton, printed in 1603, bears the same title. I suppose that "A mad world, my masters," was a. sort of proverbial expression. " An excellent account of these remarkable men is given in The Sherley Brothers, an historical memoir of the lives of Sir Thomas Sherley, Sir Anthony Sherley, and Sir Robert Sherley, Knights. By one of the same house [the late Evelyn Philip Shirley, Esq.] Roxburghe Club, 1848. The play of The Three English Brothers by Day, Wilkins, and William Rowley, is reprinted in my edition of Day's Works, 1881. Introduction. xxxv Sherley is subscribed " Thomas Middleton," I have felt bound, against my inclination, to include this uninterest- ing tract among our author's works. The Roaring Girl, written in conjunction with Dekker, „/^ was published in 1611.1 Of Mary Frith, the Roaring Girl, whose adventures are so graphically described "by the dramatists, I have given some account in a pre- fatory note to the play (iv. 3-6). In the Address to the Reader Middleton says: — "Worse things, I must needs confess, the world has taxed her for than has been written of her ; " and he concludes with the very proper observation — " We rather wish in such discoveries, where reputation lies bleeding, a slackness of truth than ■ fulness of slander." Under this judicious treatment the Amazon of the Bankside becomes an attractive figure. She moves among rowdies and profligates without suffer- ing any contamination; she has the thews of a giant and the gentleness of a child. Secure in her " armed and iron maidenhood," and defying the breath of scandal, she daffs the world aside and chooses a life of frolic freedom. She can converse with rogues and ^ Mr. Fleay confidently fixes the date of composition before Novem- ber 1604. "The date is proved by the allusion in it to Westward Ho. This play was revised by Dekker about 1610-11." I need hardly say that the allusion to Westward Ho proves nothing, for it would have been quite as intelhgible to the audience in 1611 as in 1604. Besides, I strongly doubt whether Mary Frith had come into notoriety so early as 1604. At the earliest computation she was not bom before 1584-85. When Mr. Fleay says *' this play was revised by Dekker," be is of course merely expressing his own belief, — not an ascertained fact. My view is that the two authors worked on the play together, and this view is clearly supported by internal evidence. xxxvi Introduction. cheats in their cant language, and knows all their tricks and subterfuges. Her hand is heavy on swaggerers, but she has a woman's ear for a tale of lovers' distress, and is quick to render efficient aid. The conception is strikingly fresh and original. We can distinguish, I think, with some approach to exactness, Middleton's share from Dekker's. Throughout the first act Dekker's hand is clearly traceable. The description of the fur- niture in Sir Alexander Wengrave's house is quite in Dekker's vein of fantastic extravagance, and is closely paralleled by similar descriptions in the Wonder of a Kingdom. When Sir Alexander says — " Then, sir, below The very floor, as 'twere, waves to and fro, And like a floating island seems to move Upon a sea bound in with shores above," we are at once reminded of Torrenti's boast in a Wonder of a Kingdom — " I'll pave my great hall virith a floor of clouds. Wherein shall move an artificial sun, Reflecting round about me golden beams, Whose flames shall make the room seem all on fire. '' The dullest reader must perceive that the same fancy was at work in both instances. Middleton never in- dulged in these airy extravagances. Sir Bounteous in A Mad World has far homelier notions of magnificence. The second act opens precisely in Middleton's manner. The very names of the characters — Laxton, Goshawk, Greenwit, Gallipot, &c. — are evidence in his favour. Introduction. xxxvii This style of nomenclature, which Middleton commonly adopted in his comedies, was not affected by Dekker. Then the characters are just such as we find in other plays of Middleton. Mistress Gallipot may be compared with Mistress Purge in The Family of Love or with Falso's Daughter in The Phmnix ; and Mistress Openwork, the jealous scold, is a repetition of Mistress Glister in The Family of Love. The dialogue is conducted with Mid- dleton's usual smartness and rapidity. The second scene of act ii., where Sir Alexander, having overheard his son courting Moll, implores him to abandon the suit, has Dekker's naturalness of sentiment and fluency of metre, a not unpleasing mixture of blank verse and rhyme. Act iii. is mainly by Middleton : the feigning of the precontract in the second scene is a repetition of the device in A Trick to Catch the Old One ; the con- duct of Laxton and Gallipot is precisely the same as that of Witgood and Hoard. As to iv. i, where young Wen- grave brings the Roaring Girl to his father's house, I am not at all sure about the authorship, but I incline to Middleton ; the next scene, before Gallipot's house, is evidently Middleton's for the most part, but the rhymed speeches at the end seem to belong to Dekker. The whole of the fifth act I would ascribe to Dekker. Those who have read Dekker's Bellman of London and Lan- thorn and Candlelight are aware that he made a special study of the cant language of thieves. He has turned this knowledge to account very largely in the last act of the present play. We next hear of Middleton in i6 13, when he was xxxviii Introduction. employed to write a pageant, The Triumphs of Truth, to celebrate the Mayoralty of Sir Thomas Middleton.i There are two editions of the pageant, and to the second is appended the " manner of his lordship's entertain- ment " at the opening of the New River Head. Pageants are usually tedious, and The Triumphs of Truth is no ex- ception to the rule. The speeches are smoothly written, but the songs are poor. The pageant seems to have been mounted on a costly scale, and some of the em- blematic inventions are curious. Envy was represented " eating of a human . heart, mounted on a rhinoceros, attired in red silk, suitable to the bloodiness of her manners." One of the chief features of the pageant was an emblematic representation of the Grocers' Company (to which Sir Thomas Middleton belonged) in a water- spectacle : — " Then ... his Lordship and the worthy company are led forward toward the water-side, where you shall find the river decked in the richest glory to re- ceive him ; upon whose crystal bosom stands five islands, artfully garnished with all manner of Indian fruit-trees, drugs, spiceries and the like ; the middle island with a fair castle especially beautified ; " the castle representing the newly-established forts of the East-India Company. It must have been peculiarly gratifying to the Lord Mayor to read the following exordium, in which modern readers will find a spice of satirical humour : — " Search all chronicles, histories, records, in what language or ' Judging from the dedication, there appears to have been no rela- tionship between the dramatist and Sir Thomas Middleton, Introduction. xxxix letter soever; let the inquisitive man waste the dear treasures of his time and eyesight, he shall conclude his life only in this certainty, that there is no subject upon earth received into the place of his government with the like state and magnificence as is the Lord Mayor of the city of London." What eloquence ! what a climax ! That sentence ought to be written in letters of gold and set up in the Mansion House as a monument in perpetuum. Middleton then proceeds to impress on the civic autho- rities the necessity of employing a competent pageant- writer, one whose invention can match the brilliancy of the scenic shows. I am sorry to add that he takes the opportunity to deal a blow at Anthony Munday : — " It would heartily grieve any understanding spirit to behold, many times, so glorious a fire in bounty and goodness offering to match itself with freezing art, sitting in dark- ness with the candle out, looking like the picture of Black Monday." Munday came in for plenty of knocks, but his poetical credit stood high in the city ; and, in spite of Middleton's sneer, he was employed as pageant- maker during the next three years. On 4th January 1613-14, a masque by Middleton, The Mask of Cupid, which was never printed, and of which no MS. is known to exist, was performed at the Merchant Tailors' Hall, as we learn from the following entry in the City Records (under date i8th January 1613-14):— "Item: it is ordered by the Court that Thomas Middleton Gent shall be forthwith allowed upon his bill of particulars such recompense and charges, as the committees lately appointed for the ordering of xl Introduction. the late solemnities at Merchant Tailors' Hall shall think meet, for all his disbursements and pains taken by him and others in the last Mask of Cupid, and other shows lately made at the aforesaid Hall by the said Mr. Mid- dleton." 1 The solemnities were in honour of the recent marriage of Robert Kerr, Earl of Somerset, to Lady Frances Howard. In Howes' continuation of Stowe's Annates (ed. 1615, p. 928) there is an account of the magnificent reception of the infamous pair at Mer- chant Tailors' Hall. The comedy JSfo Wit, No Help like a Woman's, pub- lished in 1657, bears some indications of having been written circ. 1613. Weatherwise, in iii. i, says : — "If I, that have proceeded in five and twenty such books of astronomy \i.e. almanacs], should not be able to put down a scholar now in one thousand six hundred and thirty-eight, the dominical letter being G, I stood for a goose." Among Shirley's Poems, 1646, is a prologue to a play (acted in Dublin) called No Wit to a Woman's. This play was without doubt Middleton's, and the passage quoted above — which suggests the date 1613-14 — was introduced by Shirley on the occasion of the revival of the play at Dublin. Of course Shirley may have been reckoning in round numbers; and perhaps we ought not to put too literal a construction upon the words. From Weatherwise's references to his almanac, we gather that the play was produced in June. It is one of Middleton's ablest comedies, but it leaves a 1 Quoted by Dyce from Rep. No. 31 (Part II.) fol. 239 t. Introduction. xli somewhat. unpleasant taste in the -mouth. The charac- ters have more variety than in the earlier comedies. Sir Oliver Twilight is a very humorous and original creation. He will not part with a penny-piece to his son and daughter at their marriage ; but they are wel- come to live with their partners under his roof and have all their wants supplied : — " 'Tis his pride To have his children's children got successively On his forefathers' feather-beds." Equally original is Weatherwise, who regulates all his actions by the signs of the zodiac. Savourwit, Sir Oliver's servant, is a fellow of infinite resources and matchless impudence. The deception practised by Mrs. Low-water, in assuming man's apparel and going through a mock marriage with the wealthy Lady Goldenfleece, would be a hazardous experiment on the modern stage ; but Eliza- bethan audiences were accustomed to such exhibitions. Philip Twilight is an unsatisfactory character. His mother and sister on their passage to Guernsey had fallen into fhe hands of privateers, had been separated and sold. After nine years comes a letter from the mother — " Which related all Their taking, selling, separation, And never meeting ; and withal requir'd Six hundred crowns for ransom. " Philip Twilight is sent by his father with the ransom ; but instead of applying the money to its proper uses he spends it on his own pleasure. While thus employed xlii Introduction. he meets with "a sweet young gentlewoman, but one that would not sell her honour for the Indies." He secretly marries her, and brings her home to his father's house as his long-lost sister, pretending that he has re- ceived sure intelligence abroad of his mother's death. With the fortunes of a damnable young scoundrel who shows such heartless disregard for his mother's suffering it is difficulty to have any sympathy. Probably Mid- dleton was following some Italian novel, but it is a pity that he did not represent young Twilight under a plea- santer aspect. A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, printed in 1630, is stated on the title-page to have been performed by the Lady Elizabeth's servants at the Swan on the Bankside. I take it on the authority of Mr. Fleay ^ (who has made a special study of the perplexing history of the theatrical companies between 1576 and 1642), that there was no Princess Elizabeth's company before 161 1, and that before 1 6 1 7 the company had removed to the Cockpit in Drury Lane. Mr. Fleay reminds me (in a private communication) of the statement made by John Taylor, that early in 161 3 "all the players except the King's men had left their usual residency in the Bankside and played in Middlesex, far remote from the Thames." But as the Princess Elizabeth's company may have acted occasionally at the Swan after this date, I am not inclined to think that we are justified in saying that the Chaste Maid must have been produced in or before 1613. 1 See his privately printed tract On the History of tlie Theatres in London, 1S82. Introduction. xHii The company appears to have left the Bankside be- cause it was unable to compete with the King's men. After the destruction of the Globe (June 1613), when their too powerful rivals repaired to Blackfriars, the Princess Elizabeth's company may have returned to their old quarters. The Chaste Maid is the only extant play that we know to have been acted at the Swan. The play is exceedingly diverting, but I cannot conscientiously commend it virginibus puerisque, for the language and situations occasionally show an audacious disregard for propriety. Lamb quoted the exquisitely droll soliloquy in which Master Allwitt, the contented cuckold, describes the blessedness of his lot. If the reader, disregarding the anathemas of virtuous critics, gives the Chaste Maid a hearing, I can promise him plenty of entertainment. Civitatis Amor was written to celebrate Charles's assumption of the title of Prince of Wales (4th No- vember 1616). As the signature "Thomas Middleton " is found in the middle of the pageant, after the song of Peace, it is not improbable that another hand wrote the later part. We may dismiss without comment The Triumphs of Honour and Industry, 161 7; The Inner Temple Masque, 1619; and The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity, 1619. In 161 7 appeared the admirable ii\3.y A Fair Quarrel, in which Middleton was assisted by Rowley ; a second edition with additional comic matter followed in the same year. Lamb quoted in his Specimens the duel' scene and the scene where Captain Ager before the VOL. I. g xliv Introduction. duel seeks to be resolved of his mother's honour from her own lips. The exquisite criticism which Lamb passed upon those scenes will be familiar to every reader. It may be said without hesitation that, outside Shake- speare's highest works, there is nothing in the English drama more affecting, nothing nobler, than the colloquy between Captain Ager and his mother. That scene and the duel scene I believe to belong to Middleton. To such a height of moral dignity and artistic excellence Rowley never attained. We may safely assign to Rowley the boisterous comic scenes. Middleton's humour is of a quieter character ; he had little liking for noisy horse-play. Apart from the scenes where Captain Ager and the Colonel are concerned, I cannot trace Middleton's hand with any clearness. At the end of the first act Rowley's metrical harshness strikes upon the ear, and through- out the scenes relating to Fitzallen and Jane we sel- dom escape from it. The incident of the Physician tempting Jane is very unpleasant, but powerfully treated. Rowley was a writer of high ability, but he was sadly wanting in artistic form and refinement.^ He is too blunt and emphatic, — there is too much of the fortiter in modo. In Calendar of Domestic State Papers, under date 19th July 1618, I find— "Licence to Wm. Alley, at nomina- 1 "The plot of Fitzallen, Russell, and Jane," says Langbaine, "is founded, as I believe, on some Italian novel, and may be read in English in the Complaisant Companion, octavo, p. 280. That part of the Physician tempting Jane and then accusing her, is founded on a novel of Cynthio Giraldi. See Dec. 4, Nov. 5." Introduction. xlv tion of Thomas Middleton, of the sole printing and publishing of a book by Middleton called The Peace- maker, or Great Britain's Blessing." The pamphlet here mentioned was printed anonymously in the same year by Thomas Purfoot, and a second edition appeared in 1619. In the British Museum Catalogue it is ascribed to King James ; and the mistake is not surprising, for Middleton was hoaxing his readers — posing before the public as his royal master. The preliminary address " to all our true-loving and peace-embracing subjects " reads like James's ipsissima verba. There is an attempt throughout to keep up the deception; but occasional hints show clearly enough that James was not the writer. In sig. B. I we have " Let England then (the seat of our Salomon) rejoice in her happy government." It is too absurd to suppose that James would refer to him- self as " our Salomon." A great part of the pamphlet is taken up with a tirade against the practice of duelling, which had been denounced five years earlier in "A Publication of His Majesty's Edict and severe Censure against private Combats and Combatants." The circum- stances connected with the publication of The Peacemaker are most mysterious. Perhaps Middleton applied to James to allow the pamphlet to be issued with the royal imprimatur, and it is possible that James complied by writing the preliminary address ; but more probably the whole business was an elaborate joke on Middleton's part. The virtuous indignation expressed against tobacco must have pleased James:—" That witch Tobacco, which hath quite blown away the smoke of Hospitality and xlvi Introduction. turned the chimneys of their forefathers into the noses of their children." The vein of pedantry (assumed for the nonce) must have been equally gratifying to the wise fool. I am puzzled by the pamphlet Much more trouble than usually went to the writing of masques appears to have been spent on The World Tost at Tennis, 1620.1 ~&exi Jonson said that " next himself only Fletcher and Chapman could make a masque ; " but Mid- dleton and Rowley have amply proved their ability on the present occasion. The invention is ingenious, the speeches are finely written, and the songs are smooth. First comes an Induction, consisting of a lively colloquy between the "the three ancient and principal recep- tacles,'' Richmond, St. James's, and Denmark House. Richmond is jealous of the prestige acquired by Den- mark House, who in very graceful language quiets her fears by the assurance that all three sisters shall be held in equal honour : — ' ' The round year In her circumferent arms will fold us all. 1 " In all the copies, says Dyce, "of this masque that I have seen, a portion of the letterpress has been cut off from the bottom of the title-page by the binder. " The copy before me has the letterpress cut away at the top, but preserves the date 1620 at the bottom : on the title-page is an emblematic engraving. This copy, which is bound up with some quartos of Rowley's plays, belongs to the library of Worcester College, Oxford. I take this opportunity of thanking the Provost and Fellows of that society for their generosity in lending me at various times rare quartos from the fine dramatic collection in the College Library. There are three copies of The World Tost at Tennis in the British Museum. In one the title-page is plain and bears the date 1620 ; in the other two— which have the emblematic engraving— the date has been cut away. Introduction. xlvii And give us all emplojrment seasonable. I am for colder hours, when the bleak air Bites with an icy tooth : when summer has sear'd, And autumn all discolour'd, laid all fallow, Pleasure taken house and dwells within doors, Then shall my towers smoke and comely show : But when again the fresher mom appears. And the soft spring renews her velvet head, St. James's take my blest inhabitants. For she can better entertain them then. In larger grounds, in park, sports and delights : Yet a third season, with the western oars. Calls up to Richmond, when the high-heated year Is in her solsticy ; then she affords More sweeter-breathing air, more bounds, more pleasures ; The hounds' loud music to the flying stag. The feathered talenter to the falling bird. The bowman's twelve-score prick even at the door. And to these I could add a hundred more." The masque opens with a dialogue, marked in the early parts by Rowley's metrical irregularity, between a soldier and a scholar. While they are deploring the neglect shown to men of their profession, Pallas descends and chides them for their discontent. She begins by affirm- ing that there should be no divorce between arts and arms, — " For he's the complete man partakes of both. The soul of arts join'd with the flesh of valour. And he alone participates with me." She then proceeds to preach a homily in praise of poverty. The soldier ventures to respectfully reply, "there's yet a competence which we come short of." To this Pallas rejoins that the cause may be as much xlviii Introduction. "in your own negligence as our slow blessings ; '\ but they shall prefer their complaints to Jupiter, who pre- sently descends to the sound of music. Jupiter delivers his views after a very trenchant fashion : — " 'Tis more than Jupiter Can do to please 'em : unsatisfied man Has in his ends no end ; not hell's abyss Is deeper gulf d than greedy avarice ; Ambition finds no mountain high enough For his aspiring foot to stand upon : One drinks out all his blessings into surfeits, Another throws 'em out as all were his, And the gods bound for prodigal supply : What is he lives content in any kind ? That long-incensed Nature is now ready To turn all back into the fruitless chaos." Then to show the malcontents what in old time " arts and arms commixt . . . did in the world's broad face," Pallas calls on the Muses to lead in the Nine Worthies. When this show is ended and Jupiter is again beginning to chide his petitioners. Time enters weeping and ex- plains the causes of his sorrow, — how landlords and usurers greedily long for his coming, but when he arrives they bend their plodding heads over their money-bags, let him pass unnoticed and then instantly sigh for his return ; the lawyer drives him off from term to terra ; the prodigal sickens him with surfeits; the drunkard sets him on his head topsy-turvy ; all the women hate him, and with " gloss and pencilry " wipe off the impression that he sets upon their cheeks. Time having retired, Jupiter denounces vain-glorious pride, and to rebuke Introduction. xlix modern extravagance in the matter of apparel, summons the Five Starches (daughters of Deceit), who perform a grotesque dance, and after a short dispute for precedency retire. Jupiter now descends from his aerial machine, and " to show the strange removes of the world, places the orb, whose figure it bears, in the midst of the stage ; " whereupon Simplicity enters, takes up the orb and moralises on the changes that have been eifected in the world. While he is thus engaged Deceit enters; a dialogue follows, in which Deceit strives to gain the good graces of Simplicity, but is obhged to retire dis- comfited. Then is heard within a reaper's song in praise of Simplicity. Presently Deceit re-enters in com- pany with a King. Simplicity resigns the orb to the king ; Deceit offers to relieve the king of the burthen, but his offer is rejected with scorn and he slinks away, returning successively with a Land-captain, a Sea-captain, a Flamen, and a Lawyer, who each in turn receive the orb, and who are all equally resolute in refusing to resign it to Deceit. Finally the orb is given back to the king ; Deceit, in company with the Devil (who arrived at a late stage of the proceedings), finding himself baflSed at all points, withdraws not to return ; and the others, after an exhortation from the king, presently follow, leav- ing the original characters in possession of the stage. Jupiter then delivers a valedictory address to the soldier and scholar, impressing upon them that it will be their own fault if they fail to prosper, for never was a brighter career open for soldiers and scholars. He alludes specially to James' patronage of learning, and to the 1 Introduction. opportunities offered by the war in the Palatinate. The malcontents recant and the masque closes. There is one great merit in The World Tost at Tennis ; it is not tedious, as masques so frequently are. The verse was something more than a peg on which to hang the costumes. By the fireside it can be read with pleasure, and, handsomely mounted, it must have been received on the stage with applause. On 6th September 1620 Middleton was appointed to the office of City Chronologer. His appointment is thus recorded 1 in the City Records ; — " 1620, 6th September, i8th James I. — Thomas Mid- dleton, admitted City Chronologer. Item, this day was read in Court (of Aldermen) a petition of Thomas Middleton, Gent, and upon consideration thereof taken, and upon the sufficient testimony this Court hath received of his services performed to this City, this Court is well pleased to entertain and admit the said Thomas Middleton to collect and set down all memorable acts of this City and occurrences thereof, and for such other employ- ments as this Court shall have occasion to use him in ; but the said Thomas Middleton is not to put any of the same acts so by him to be collected into print without the allowance and approbation of this Court; and for the readiness of his service to the City in the same employ- ments this Court does order that he shall receive from henceforth, out of the Chamber of London, a yearly fee 1 Analytical Index to the Series of Records known as the Remem- hrancia (printed for the Corporation in 1878), p. 305, n. The exact date of Middleton's appointment was unknown to Dyoe. Introduction. li of 6/. 13J. 4v /j.o\)(!i!a of this refined age to the Elizabethans. Middleton may be charged with extravagance and coarse- ness. True : but he could make the blood tingle ; he 1 In the ballad on the puUing down of the Cockpit by the prentices (Shrove Tuesday 1616-17) we find : — ■ " Books old and young on heap they flung And burnt them in the blazes, Tom Dekker, Haywood, Middleton, And other wandering crazes," But I am not at all sure that the ballad is genuine. It is given in Collier's Hist, of Eng. Dram, Lit., ed. a, pp. 386-388, "from a con- temporary print." Introduction. xciii could barb his words so that they pierce the heart through and through. If The Changeling, Women be- ware Women, The Spanish Gipsy, and A Pair Quarrel do not justify Middleton's claims to be considered a great dramatist, I know not which of Shakespeare's followers is worthy of the title. ADDENDA. Vol. l.j!. 129, note 1.— "Steaks of velvet " are probably panels or squares of velvet inserted in the cloth. In Your Five Gallants (iv. 5) we have "white blankets cut out in steaks," i.e. in square pieces. Vol. I. p. 217, note i. — Besides the allusion to the tipple of " lambswool," there is certainly a reference to lamb-skin («.f. parchment) bonds. See vol. iv. p. 391, 11. 9-12. Vol. II. p. 273, note 2. — Mr. H. C. Hart, of Dublin, supplies me with an apposite quotation from Sharpham's Fleire, 1607, in regard to the (temporary?) disuse of blue coats by serving- men : — " Flo. By this light I'll never suffer serving-men come near me again . . . unless the rogue kiss his hand first. " Fleire. O madam ! why ? since blue coats were left off, the kissing of the hand is the serving-man's badge : you shall know him by't." Vol. II. p. 320, note 2. — I withdraw my suggestion 'Cas.V froating = fretting, embroidering. Mr. Hart has convinced me that the meaning is " rubbing in a perfumed oil to sweeten the garment." He refers me to Ben Jonson's Cynthia's Revels, v. 2 : — " Taste, smell ; I assure you, sir, pure benjamin, the only spirited scent that ever awaked a Neapolitan nostril. You would wish your- self all nose for the love on't. I frotted a jerkin for a new- revenued gentleman yielded me three-score crowns but this morning, and the same titillation." In England's Parnassus, 1600, are two quotations (pp. 281, 321) subscribed "Tho. Middleton " and " Th. Middl." They belong (as Dyce observed) to . Christopher Middleton's Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocesier. BLURT, MASTER-CONSTABLE. Blvrt, Master-Constable. Or The Spaniards Night-walke. As it hath bin sundry times priuately acted by the Children of Paules. Patresq ; severi Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carmina dictant. London, Printed for Henry Rockytt, and are to be solde at the long shop vnder S. Mildreds Church in the Poultry. 1602. 4to. "Blurt" was a contemptuous interjection ; and " Blurt ! Master Constable!" appears to have been a proverbial expression. Dyce refers to English Proverbs, p. 14 (ist series), appended to Howell's Lexicon Tetraglotton, 1660. In Ben Jonson's Tale of a Tub (ii. i), Hilts calls the High Constable of Kentish Town " old Blurt." DRAMATIS PERSONS. Duke of Venice. HiPPOLlTO, brother to Violetta. Camillo, in love with Violetta. Baptista, \ Vkmlio?""' [ ^'"'tian gentlemen. ASORINO, ) Curvetto, an old courtier. FONTINELLE, a French gentleman, taken prisoner by Camillo. Lazarillo de Tormes, a Spaniard. DOYT, page to HlPPOLITO. DANDYPRAT./a^^ to Camillo. Truepenny, page to Violetta. PiLCHER, page to Lazarillo. Frisco, servant to Imperia. Blurt, master-constable. Slubber, a beadle, his clerk. Woodcock, a watchman. Friar. Gentlemen, Servingmen, Watchmen, &^c. Violetta, sister to Hippolito. Imperia, a courtesan. IlMPERINA,!^^'-'^''^""'''"'^- Ladies. SCENE, Venice. BLURT, MASTER-CONSTABLE. ACT I. SCENE I. A Room in Camillo's House ; a Banquet set out. Enter Camillo, Hippolito, Baptista, Bentivoglio, and ViRGiLio (with gloves'^ in their hats, as returning from war), leading in Violetta and other Ladies : DoYT and Dandyprat ^ attending. Hip. Ay, marry, sir, the only rising up in arms is in the arms of a woman : peace, I say still, is your only paradise, when every Adam may have his Christmas 1 It was the custom for gallants to wear their mistresses' gloves (or even garters) in their hats. Michael Drayton in the Battaile of Agincourt, describing the departure of the EngUsh troops for France, tells how " The nobler youth, the common rank above, On their curvetting coursers mounted fair, One ware his mistress' garters, one her glove, And he a lock of his dear lady's hair." ' "Dandyprat" is a term often apphed to a dwarf or page.- Cf. Middleton's More Dissemblers besides Women, iii. i : — " There's no good fellowship in this dandyprat." There was a small coin of that name. /It 6 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acti. •J Eve. And ^ you take me lying any more by the cold sides of a brazen-face field-piece, unless I have such a down pillow under me, I'll give you leave to knock up both my golls ^ in my father's hall, and hang hats upon these tenpenny nails. Viol. And yet, brother, when, with the sharpest hooks of my wit, I laboured to pull you from the wars, you broke loose, like a horse that knew his own strength, and vowed nothing but a man of war should back you — 12 Hip. I have been backe'd since, and almost unbacked too. Viol. And swore that honour was never dyed in grain ^ till it was dipt in the colours of the field. Hip. I am a new man, sister, and now cry a pox a' that honour that must have none but barber-surgeons to wait upon't, and a band of poor straggling rascals, that, every twinkling of an eye, forfeit their legs and arms into the Lord's hands ! Wenches, by Mars his sweaty buff-jerkin (for now all my oaths must smell a' the soldado ^), I have seen more men's heads spurned up and down like foot-balls at a breakfast, after the hungry cannons had picked them, than are maidenheads in Venice, and more legs of men served in at a dinner than ever I shall see legs of capons in one platter whilst I live. 28 1 If. 2 A cant term for hands. ' iTiMsxsVs Lectures on the English Language [ei. 1862, pp. 55-62), the etymology and meanings of the word "grain" are elaborately discussed. * Soldier. — The Spanish form. SCENE I.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 7 First Lady. Perhaps all those were capons' legs you did see. Virg. Nay, mistress, I'll witness against you for some of them. Viol. I do not think, for all this, that my brother stood to it so lustily as he makes his brags for. Third Lady. No, no, these great talkers are never great doers. Viol. Faith, brother, how many did you kill for your share ? Hip. Not so many as thou has done with that villanous eye by a thousand. 40 Viol. I thought so much ; that's just none. Cam. 'Tis not a soldier's glory to tell how many lives he has ended, but how many he has saved: in both which honours the noble Hippolito had most excellent possession. Believe it, my fair mistress, though many men in a battle have done more, your brother in this equalled him who did most. He went from you a worthy gentleman ; he brings with him that title that makes a gentleman most worthy, the name of a soldier ; which how well and how soon he hath earned, would in me seem glorious to rehearse, in you to hear ; but, because his own ear dwells so near my voice, I will play the ill neighbour and cease to speak well of him. 53 Viol An argument that either you dare not or love not to flatter. Cam. No more than I dare or love to do wrong ; yet to make a chronicle of my friend's nobly-acted deeds, 8 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acti. would stand as far from flattery in me, as cowardice did from him. Hip. 'S foot, if all the wit in this company have no- thing to set itself about but to run division upon me, why then e'en burn off mine ears indeed. But, my little mermaids, Signior Camillo does this that I now might describe the Ninevitical motion ^ of the whole battle, and so tell what he has done; — and come, shall I begin ? 66 First Lady. O, for beauty's love, a good motion ! Hip. But I can tell you one thing, I shall make your hair stand up an end at some things. Viol. Pirithee, good brother soldier, keep the peace : our hair stand an end ! pity a' my heart, the next end would be of our wits. We hang out a white flag,^ most terrible Tamburlaine, and beg mercy. Come, come, let us neither have your Ninevitical motions, nor your swaggering battles. Why, my lord Camillo, you invited me hither to a banquet, not to the ballad of a pitched field. 77 Cam. And here it stands, bright mistress, sweetly attending what doom your lips will lay upon it. Viol. Ay, marry, sir, let our teeth describe this motion. Second Lady. We shall never describe it well for fumbling i' th' mouth. 1 Motion = puppet-show. The "motion of Niniveh" is frequently mentioned by old writers. Another popular "motion " was the "city of Norwich. " 2 Cf. Marlowe's Tamburlaine, pt. i, iv. 2, 1. no, &c. SCENE L] Blurt, Master-Constable. 9 Hip. Yes, yes, I have a trick to make us understand one another.'knd ^ we fumble never so. Viol. Meddle not with his tricks, sweetheart. Under pardon, my lord, though I am your guest, I'll bestow myself. Sit, dear beauties : for the men, let them take up places themselves. I prithee, brother fighter, sit, and talk of any subject but this jangling law at arms. go \They seat themselves. Hip. The law at legs then. Viol Will you be so lusty? no, nor legs neither; we'll have them tied up too. Since you are among ladies, gallants, handle those things only that are fit for ladies. Hip. Agreed, so that we go not out of the compass of those things that are fit for lords. Viol Be't so : what's the theme then? First Lady. Beauty ; that fits us best. 99 Cam. And of beauty what tongue would not speak the best, since it is the jewel that hangs upon the brow of heaven, the best colour that can be laid upon the cheek of earth ? Beauty makes men gods immortal, by making mortal men to live ever in love. Second Lady. Ever? not so : I have heard that some men have died for love. Viol. So have I, but I could never see't. I'd ride forty miles to follow such a fellow to church ; and would make more of a sprig of rosemary at his burial than of a gilded bride-branch at mine own wedding.^ no 1 If. 2 " Rosemary, as being an emblem of remembrance, was used both lo Blurt, Master-Constable. [act'i Ca7n. Take you such delight in men that die for love i Viol. Not in the men, nor in the death, but in the deed, Troth, I think he is not a sound man that will die for a woman ; and yet I would never love a man soundly, that would not knock at death's door for my love. Hip. I'd knock as long as I thought good, but have my brains knocked out when I entered, if I were he. 117 Cam. What Venetian gentleman was there, that hav- ing this'^ in his burgonet did not (to prove his head worthy of the honour) do more than defy death to the very face ? Trust us, ladies, our signiory stands bound in greater sums of thanks to your beauties for victory, than to our valour. My dear Violetta, one kiss to this picture of your whitest hand, when I was even faint with giving and receiving the dole of war, set a new edge on my sword, insomuch that I singl'd out a gallant spirit of France, at funerals and weddings. Compare The Pleasant History of John Winchcomb, in his younger yeares called J acke of Newberie : "Then was there a faire bride cup of silver and gilt carried before her [the bride], wherein was a goodly braunch of rosemarie gilded very faire, hung about with silken ribonds of all colours : next was there a noyse of musitians that played all the way before her : after her came all the chiefest maydens of the countrie, some bearing great bride cakes, and some garlands of wheate finely gilded, and so she past unto the church." Sig. D 3, ed. T.6'iS.—Dyce. Cf. Herrick's poem To the Maids to walk abroad : — " This done, we'll draw lots who shall buy And gild the bays and rosemary." So in Morley's Canzonets, 1593 : — " Then run apace And get a bride-lace And gilt rosemary-branch the while there yet is catching." 1 i.e. his mistress' glove in his helmet. SCENE I.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 1 1 And charged him with my lance in full career ; And after rich exchange of noble courage, (The space of a good hour on either side), 130 At last crying, Now for Violetta's honour !• I vanquished him and him dismounted took, Not to myself, but prisoner to my love. Viol. I have heard much praise of that French gallant : good my lord, bring him acquainted with our eyes. Cam. I will. — Go, boy, fetch noble Fontinelle. \Exit Dandyprat. Hip. Will your French prisoner drink well, or else cut his throat ?. Cam. O, no ! he cannot brook it. 140 Hip. The pox he can ! 'S light, methinks a French- man should have a good courage to wine, for many of them be exceeding hot fiery whoresons, and resolute as Hector, and as valiant as Troilus ; then come off and on bravely, and lie by it, and sweat for't too, upon a good and a military advantage. Cam. Prithee, have done ; here comes the prisoner. Enter Fontinelle and Dandyprat. Viol. My Lord Camillo, is this the gentleman Whose valour by your valour is subdued ? Cam. It is, fair lady ; and I yield him up jcq To be your beauty's worthy prisoner. Lord Fontinelle, think your captivity Happy in this ; she that hath conquered me Receives my conquest as my love's fair fee. 12 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acti. Viol. Fair stranger, droop not, since the chance of wars Brings to the soldier death, restraint, or scars. Font. Lady, I know the fortune of the field Is death with honour, or with shame to yield, As I have done. Viol. In that no scandal lies : Who dies when he may live, he doubly dies. i6o Font. My reputation's lost. Viol. Nay, that's not so ; You fled 1 not, but were vanquish'd by your foe : The eye of war respects not you nor him ; It is our fate will have us lose or win ; You will disdain if I you prisoner call ? Font. No, but rejoice since I am beauty's thrall. Hip. Enough of this; come, wenches, shake your heels. Cam. Music, advance thee on thy golden wing. And dance division from sweet string to string. "'" Font. Camillo, I shall curb ^ thy tyranny, 170 In making me that lady's prisoner : She has an angel's body, but within't Her coy heart says there lies a heart of flint. [Music for a measure : ^ whilst Fontinelle speaks, they dance a strain. Such beauty be my jailor ! a heavenly hell ! The darkest dungeon which spite can devise 1 Olded. "flee." 2 A friend of Dyce's proposed *' curse.'' 5 A stately dance, with measured steps. SCENE!.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 13 To throw this carcass in, her glorious eyes Can make as lightsome as the fairest chamber In Paris Louvre. Come, captivity, And chain me to her looks ! How am I tost, Being twice in mind, as twice in body lost ! 180 [ViOLETTA oti a sudden breaks off; the rest stand talking. Cam. Not the measure out, fair mistress ? Viol. No, fair servant, not the measure out : I have, on the sudden, a foolish desire to be out of the measure. Cam. What breeds that desire ? Viol Nay, I hope it is no breeding matter. Tush, tush, by my maidenhead, I will not : the music likes me not, and I have a shoe wrings me to th' heart ; besides, I have a woman's reason, I will not dance, because I will not dance. Prithee, dear hero, take my prisoner there into the measure : fie, I cannot abide to see a man sad nor idle. I'll be out once, as the music is in mine ear. 193 Font. Lady, bid him whose heart no sorrow feels Tickle the rushes with his wanton heels : ^ I've too much lead at mine. First Lady. I'll make it light. Font. How? First Lady. By a nimble dance. 1 Imitated from Romeo and Juliet, i. 4 : — " Let wantons, light of heart, Tickle the senseless rushes with their heels." (Before the introduction of carpets, floors were strewed with rushes.) 14 Blurt, Master-Constable. [actj Font. You hit it right. First Lady. Your keeper bids you dance. Font. Then I obey : My heart I feel grows light, it melts away. [They dance , Violetta stands by marking FONTINELLE. Viol. In troth, a very pretty Frenchman : the carriage of his body likes me well ; so does his footing ; so does his face ; so does his eye above his face ; so does him- self, above all that can be above himself. 203 NCamillo, thou hast play'd a foolish part : Thy prisoner makes a slave of thy love's heart. Shall Camillo then sing Willow, willow, willow ?i not for the world. No, no, my French prisoner ; I will use thee Cupid knows how, and teach thee to fall into the hands of a woman. If I do not feed thee with fair looks, ne'er let me live ; if thou get'st out of my fingers till I have thy very heart, ne'er let me love ; nothing but thy life shall serve my turn ; and how otherwise I'll plague thee, monsieur, you and I'll deal : only this be- cause I'll be sure he shall not start, I'll lock him in a little low room besides ^ himself, where his wanton eye shall see neither sun nor moon. So, the dance is done, and my heart has done her worst, — made me in love. Farewell, my lord ; I have much haste, you have many thanks ; I am angered a little, but am greatly pleased. 1 The burden of the ballad reprinted by Percy from a black-letter copy in the Pepys' collection at Cambridge. Everybody knows how pathetically the old song is introduced in Othello. 2 i.e. by himself. SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. iS If you wonder that I take this strange leave, excuse it thus, that women are strange fools, and will take any thing. [^^^■'- ^^" Hip. Tricks, tricks; kerry merry buffji How now, lad, in a trance ? Cam, Strange farewell ! After, dear Hippdito. ^^ 0, what a maze is love of joy and woe ! '^ ^Exeunt Camillo and Hippolito. Font. Strange frenzy ! After wretched Fontinelle. 0, what a heaven is love ! 0, what a hell ! 230 <\\<-'^'' {Exit; and then exeunt Ladies, Baptista, 6- B 1 8 Bluri, Master-Constable. [act: Filck. Follower to that Spanish-leather gentleman. Bluri. And what are you, sir, that cry out upon me — Look to his tools. — What are you, sir ? speak, wha are you ? I charge you, what are you ? Laz. Most clear Mirror of Magistrates,^ I am a servi tor to god Mars. Blurt. For your serving of God I am not to meddle why do you raise me ? 6) Laz. I desire to have a wide room in your favour sweet blood, cast away your name upon me ; for ] neither know you by your face nor by your voice. Bluri. It may be so, sir : I have two voices in any company; one as I am master-constable, another as I am Blurt, and the third as I am Blurt master-constable. Laz. I understand you are a mighty pillar or post in the chitty. Blurt. I am a poor post, but not to stand at every man'? door, vs^ithout my bench of bill-men. I am (for a better) the duke's own image, and charge you, in his name, to obey me. 73 Laz. I do so. Blurt. I am to stand, sir. in any bawdy-house, or sink of wickedness. I am the duke's own grace, and in any fray or resurrection am to bestir my stumps as well as he. I charge you, know this staff. charge, neighbour Dogberry." In Glapthorne's Wit in a Constable there is a charge to the watch (evidently suggested by Much Ado, iii. 3). 1 An allusion to the poem (or rather collection of poems) of that name. SCENE n.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 19 Sluh. Turn the arms to him. Blurt. Upon this may I lean, and no man say black's mme eye. Laz. Whosoever says you have a black eye, is a ca- mooch.i Most great Blurt, I do unpent-house the roof of my carcass, and touch the knee of thy office, in Spanish compliment. I desire to sojourn in your chitty. Blurt. Sir, sir, for fault of a better, I am to charge you not to keep a soldiering in our city without a pre- cept : 2 besides, by my office, I am to search and exa- mine you. Have you the duke's hand to pass ? Laz. Signior, no ; I have the general's hand at large, and all his fingers. 91 Blurt. Except it be for the general good of the commonwealth, the general cannot lead you up and down our city. Laz. I have the general's hand to pass through the world at my pleasure. Blurt. At your pleasure ! that's rare. Then, rowly, powly, our wives shall lie at your command. Your general has no such authority in my precinct ; and there- fore I charge you pass no further. 100 Laz. I tell thee I will pass through the world, thou little morsel of justice, and eat twenty such as thou art. ^ The term camouccio occurs in Every Man out of kis Humour. Gifford thought it might be a corruption of ' ' camoscio, a goat or goat's skin," and mean "clown or flatnose, or any other apposite term which pleases the reader." Canwoch must be connected with Fr. camus. 2 A justice's warrant. 20 Blurt, Master-Constable. [act i. Blurt. Sir, sir, you shall find Venice out of the world : I'll tickle you for that. Laz. I will pass through the world as Alexander Magnus did, to conquer. Blurt. As Alexander of Saint Magnus did ! that's another matter : you might have informed this at the first, and you never needed to have come to your answer. Let me see your pass : if it be not the duke's hand, I'll tickle you for all this : quickly, I pray ; this staff is to walk in other places. 112 Laz. There it is. Blurt. Slubber, read it over. Laz. Read it yourself. What besonian ^ is that ? Blurt. This is my clerk, sir ; he has been clerk to a good many bonds and bills ^ of mine. I keep him only to read, for I cannot ; my office will not let me. Pilch. Why do you put on your spectacles then ? Blurt. To see that he read right. How now. Slubber ? is't the duke's hand ? I'll tickle him else. 121 Slub. Mass, 'tis not like his hand. Blurt. Look well ; the duke has a wart on the back of his hand. Slub. Here's none, on my word, master-constable, but a little blot. Blurt. Blot ! let's see, let's see. Ho, that stands for the wart ; do you see the trick of that ? Stay, stay ; is there not a little prick in the hand ? for the duke's hand 1 From Italian besogno — a beggar, rogue. ' Of course a play on the words ("bonds and bills") is intended. See note i, p. 17. SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 21 had a prick in't, when I was with him, with opening oysters. 131 Slub. Yes, mass, here's one; besides, 'tis a goodly great long hand. Blurt. So has the duke a goodly huge hand ; I have shook him by it (God forgive me !) ten thousand times. He must pass, like Alexander of Saint Magnus. — Well, sir, — 'tis your duty to stand bare, — the duke has sent his fist to me, and I were a Jew if I should shrink for it. I obey ; you must pass : but, pray, take heed with what dice you pass; I mean, what company; for Satan is most busy where he fin Lds_'"'"p Hl^p himsplf Your namep sir ? 142 Laz. Lazarillo de Tormes in Castile, cousin-german to the adelantado ^ of Spain. Blurt. Are you so, sir ? God's blessing on your heart ! Your name again, sir, if it be not too tedious for you ? Laz. Lazarillo de Tormes in Castile, cousin-german to the Spanish adelantado. Slub. I warrant, he's a great man in his own country. Blurt. Has a good name : Slubber, set it down : write, Lazarus in torment at the Castle, and a cozening German at the sign of the Falantido-diddle in Spain. No, sir, you are ingrost : you must give my ofificer a groat; it's nothing to me, signior. ij4 Laz. I will cancel when it comes to a sura. 1 The King's lieutenant of a country. Cf. Fletcljer's (7) Love's Cure, ii. I :— " Nay, we are all signiors here in Spain, from the jakes-farmer to the grandee or adelantado." 2 2 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acti. Blurt. Well, sir, well, he shall give you an item for't. — Make a bill, and he'll tear it, he says. Laz. Most admirable Blurt, I am a man of war, and profess fighting. Blurt. I charge you, in the duke's name, keep the peace. i6i Laz. By your sweet favour, most dear Blurt, you charge too fast : I am a hanger-on upon Mars, and have a few crowns. Pilch. Two ; his own and mine. \Aside. Laz. And desire you to point out a fair lodging for me and my train. Blurt. 'Tis my office, signior, to take men up a' nights ; but, if you will, my maids shall take you up a' mornings. Since you profess fighting, I will commit you, signior, to mine own house. But will you pitch and pay,^ or will your worship run — ■ 172 Laz. I scorn to run from the face of Thamer Cham.^ Blurt. Then, sir, you mean not to run ? Laz. Signior, no. Blurt. Bear witness. Slubber, that his answer is, Signior No : ^ so now, if he runs upon the score, I have 1 " Pitch and pay " = pay down immediately. It has been suggested that the expression originated from "pitching goods in a market and paying immediately for their standing." 2 Timur Khaun. = "Signior No " = Nicholas Nemo, Mr. Nobody. In Samuel Row- ley's Notle Soldier one of the characters is named ' ' Signior No. " Cf. Day's Isle of Gulls (p. 59 of my reprint) : — " Duke. And you'll maintain that fashion ? Viol. Signior, No." Day dedicates his Humour outof Breath to "Signior Nobody." SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 23 him straight upon Signior No. This is my house, sig- nior; enter. Laz. March, excellent Blurt. Attend, Pilcher. 180 \Exeunt Lazarillo, Blurt, and Slubber. Re-enter Doyt and Dandyprat. Pilch. Upon your trencher, signior, most hungerly. Doyt. Now, sirrah, where's thy master ? Pilch. The constable has prest him. . , Doyt. What, for a soldier ? Pilch. Ay, for a soldier ; but ere he'll go, I think, in- deed, he and I together shall press the constable. Dandy. No matter ; squeeze him, and leave rfo more hquor in him than in a dried neat's tongue. Sirrah thin-gut, what's thy name ? Pilch. My name, you chops ! why, I am of the blood of the Pilchers. 191 Dandy. Nay, 's foot, if one should kill thee, he could not be hanged for't, for he would shed no blood ; there's none in thee. Pilcher ! thou'rt a most pitiful dried one.^ Doyt. I wonder thy master does not^ slice thee, and swallow thee for an anchovies. Pilch. He wants wine, boy, to swallow me down, for he wants money to swallow down wine. But farewell ; I must dog my master. igg Dandy. As long as thou dogst a Spaniard, thou'lt ne'er be fatter : but stay ; our haste is as great as thine ; yet, ' i.e. dried pilchard. ' ' Dried pilcher, " like ' ' poor-john, " was com- monly used 35 a term of abxise. 24 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acti. to endear ourselves into thy lean acquaintance, cry, rivo 1 hoh ! laugh and be fat ; and for joy that we are met, we'll meet and be merry. Sing. Pilch. I'll make a shift to squeak. Doyt. And I. Dandy. And I, for my profession is to shift ^ as well as you : hem ! \Music. Song. Doyt. What meat eats the Spaniard^ Pilch. Dried pilchers ^ and poor-John.^ 210 Dandy. Alas, thou art almost marr'd 1 Pilch. My cheeks arefalVn and gone. Doyt. Wouldst thou not leap at a piece of meat 1 Pilch. O, how my teeth do water 1 I could eat : 'Fore the heavens, my flesh is almost gone With eating of pilcher and poor-john. [Exeunt. ^ A bacchanalian exclamation, of doubtful origin. 2 "Viz. trenchers, platters." — Dyce. 3 Cf. Nashe's Lenten Stuff: — "If Cornish pilchards, otherwise called Fumadoes, taken on the shore of Cornwall from July to November, be so saleable as they are in France, Spain and Italy (which are but counter- feits to the red herring as copper to gold or ockamy to silver), much more their elbows itch for joy when they meet with the true gold, the true red herring itself. " * ' ' Poor-john " was an inferior sort of dried hake. ( 25 ) ACT II. SCENE I. A Street. Enter Fontinelle^cw tennis, and Truepenny. Font. Am I so happy then ? True. Nay, sweet monsieur — Font. O, boy, thou hast new-wing'd my captiv'd soul ! o^<-- Now to my fortune all the Fates may yield, For I have won where first I lost the field. True. Why, sir, did my mistress prick you with the Spanish needle ^ of her love, before I summoned you from her to this parley ? Font. Doubts thou that, boy ? True. Of mine honesty, I doubt extremely, for I can- not see the Uttle god's tokens upon you : there is as much difference between you and a lover, as between a cuckold and a unicorn. . f 13 Font. Why, boy ? True. For you do not wear a pair of tuffled, frowning, ^ Cf. Nashe's Anatomic of Aisurditie (Works, ed. Grosart, i. 25) : — " She is more sparing of her Spanish needle than her Spanish gloves ; occupies oftener her setting-stick than shears, and joys more in her jewels than in her Jesus." The best needles were made in Spain. 26 Blurt, Master-Canstable. [acth. ungartered ^ stockings, like a gallant that hides his small- timbered legs with a quail-pipe boot : ^ your hose stands upon too many points,^ and are not troubled with that falling sickness which follows pale, meagre, miserable, melancholy lovers : your hands are not groping con- tiually — 21 Font. Where, my little observer ? True. In your greasy pocket, sir, like one that wants a cloak for the rain, and yet is still weather-beaten : your hat nor head are not of the true heigh-ho block, for it should be broad-brimmed, limber like the skin of a white pudding when the meat is out, the facing fatty, the felt dusty, and not entered into any band : * but your hat is |of the nature of a loose, light, heavy-swelling wench, too f strait-laced. I tell you, monsieur, a lover should be all loose from the sole of the foot rising upward, and from the bases or confines of the slop ^ falling downward. If you were in my mistress's chamber, you should find othergates ^ privy signs of love hanging out there. 34 Font. Have your little eyes watched so narrowly ? 1 Truepenny is mentioning the ordinary symptoms of love-melancholy. Cf. Overbury's character of An Amorist : — " He is untrust, unbutton'd, and ungarterd, not out of carelessness, but care. " 2 So called from the plaits or wrinlcles. Dyce quotes appositely from the Romaunt of the Rose (v. 7212) ; — " And high shewis knoppid with dagges, ^h-a-l frouncin [i.e. wrinlde] like a quale-pipe. Or botis riveling as a gipe." 3 The tagged laces by which the hose was fastened to the doublet. ■» " Band " was another form of "bond." 5 Loose breeches, s Otherways. SCENE I.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 27 True. O, sir, a page must have a cat's eye, a spaniel's leg, a whore's tongue (a little tasting of the cogi), a catchpoll's hand, — what he gripes is his own ; and a little, httle bawdy. Font Fair Violetta, I will wear thy love, 40 Like this French order, near unto my heart. Via ^ for fate ! fortune, lo, this is all, At griefs rebound I'll mount, although I fall ! Enter CpmiiaX) and Yii^'SQiiATQ from tennis; Doyt and Dandyprat with their cloaks and ra;piers. Cam. Now, by Sgint Mark, he's a most treacherous villain. Dare the base Frenchman's eye gaze on my love ? Hip. Nay, sweet rogue, why wouldst thou make his face a vizard, to have two loopholes only ? When he comes to a good face, may he not do with his eyes what he will ? 'S foot, if I were as he, I'd pull them out, and if I wist ^ they would anger thee. cq Cam. Thou add'st heat to my rage. Away, stand back, Dishonour'd slave, more treacherous than base ! This is the instance of my scorn'd disgrace. Font. Thou ill-advis'd Italian, whence proceeds This sudden fury ? 1 Here, and in 1. 39, a pun is intended -.—cog and keg, bawdy and body. ' An expression of impatience or defiance, s ' ' And if I wist "= If I thought. 28 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acth. Cam. Villain, from thee. Hip. Hercules, stand between them ! Font. Villain ? by my blood, I am as free-born as your Venice duke ! Villain ? Saint Denis and my life to boot. Thy lips shall kiss this pavement or my foot. 59 Hip. Your foot, with a pox ! I hope you're no pope, sir : his lips shall kiss my sister's soft lip, and thine the tough lips of this. Nay, sir, I do but shew you that I have a tool. Do you hear. Saint Denis? but that we both stand upon the narrow bridge of honour, I should cut your throat now, for pure love you bear to my sister, but that I know you would set out a throat. Cam. Wilt thou not stab the peasant That thus dishonours both thyself and me ? Hip. Saint Mark set his marks upon me then ! Stab ? I'll have my shins broken, ere I'll scratch so much as the skins off a' the law of arms. Shall I make a Frenchman cry O ! before the fall of the leaf ? not I, by the cross of this Dandyprat.^ 73 Dandy. If you will, sir, you shall coin me into a shilling. Hip. I shall lay too heavy a cross upon thee then. Cam. Is this a time to jest ? Boy, call my servants. Doyt. Gentlemen, to the dresser ! ^ Cam. You rogue, what dresser ? 1 " Dandyprat " was a small coin. Many coins were marked with crosses. The dramatists were constantly playing on the word cross. 2 "When dinner was ready, the cook used to knock on the dresser with his knife, as a signal for the servants to carry it into the hall. But SCENE I.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 29 Enter Servingmen. Seize on Fontinelle, And lodge him in a dungeon presently. 80 Font. He steps upon his death that stirs a foot. Cam. That shall I try : as in the field before I made thee stoop, so here I'll make thee bow. Font. Thou playdst the soldier then, the villain now. [Camillo and Ms men set upon him, get him down, disweapon him, and hold him fast. Font. Treacherous Italians ! Cam. Hale him to a dungeon — There, if your thoughts can apprehend the form Of Violetta, doat on her rare feature ; Or if your proud flesh, with a sparing diet, Can still retain her swelling sprightfulness. Then court, instead of her, the croaking vermin 90 That people that most solitary vault. / Hip. But, sirrah Camillo, wilt thou play the wise and / venerable bearded master-constable, and commit him indeed, because he would be meddling in thy precinct, the words put into the mouth of the facetious Doyt appear to have been those usually employed by the usher to the attendants on such occasions. In the notes to the Northumberland Household Book, p. 423, are ex- tracts from "Lord Fairfax's Orders for the servants of his household [after the civil wars]," where, among "The Usher's Words of Direc- tion," we find, — " Then he must warn to the Dresser, ' Gentlemen and Yeomen, to the Dresser.' " Gifford (Massinger's Works, vol. i. p. 166) has cited from a note of Reed on Dodsley's Old Plays this passage of Lord Fairfax's "Orders," &c., as if it contained the warning of the cook ; and Nares, in his Glossary (voc. Dresser), has made the same mis- take."— ZJj'ce. 30 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acth. and will not put off the cap of his love to the brown-bill i of thy desires ? Well, thou hast given the law of arms a broken pate already ; therefore, if thou wilt needs turn broker ^ and be a cut-throat too, do. For my part, I'll go get a sweet ball, and wash my hands of it. Cam. Away with him ! my life shall answer it. loo Font. To prison must I then ? Well, I will go, And with a light-wing'd spirit insult o'er woe ; For in the darkest hell on earth I'll find Her fair idea to content my mind. Yet France and Italy with blister'd tongue Shall publish thy dishonour in my wrong. O, now how happy wert thou, could'st thou lodge me Where I could leave to love her ! Cam. By heaven, I can. Font. Thou canst ? O, happy man ! This [is] a kind of new-invented law, no First feed the axe, after produce the saw. Her heart no doubt will thy affections feel, For thou'lt plead sighs in blood and tears in steel. Boy, tell my love her love thus sighing spake, I'll vail 5 my crest to death for her dear sake. \Exit, guarded by the Servingmen. Cam. Boy ? what boy is that ? Hip. Is't you. Sir Pandarus, the broking* knight of Troy ? Are your two legs the pair of tressels for the Frenchman to get up upon my sister? 119 1 See note i, p. 17. 2 "A play on the word broker, which meant pander."— Z'y^. 2 i.e. lower. ■• i.e. pandering. SCENE I.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 31 True. By the Nine Worthies, worthy gallants, not I : I a gentleman for conveyance ? I Sir Pandarus ? Would Troy, then, were in my breeches, and I burnt ^ worse than poor Troy ! Sweet signior, you know, I know, and all Venice knows, that my mistress scorns double-dealing with her heels. Hip. With her heels ? O, here's a sure pocket dag ! ^ and my sister shoots him off, snip-snap, at her pleasure. Sirrah Mephostophihs,^ did not you bring letters from my sister to the Frenchman ? True. Signior, no.* 130 Cam. Did not you fetch him out of the tennis court ? True. No, point, far ma foi ; you see I have many tongues speak for me. IfiJ). Did not he follow your crackship^ at a beck given ? True. Ita, true, certes, he spied, and I spitting thus, went thus. Hip. But were stayed thus. True. You hold a' my side, and therefore I must needs stick to you ; 'tis true : I going, he followed, and follow- ing fingered me, just as your worship does now ; but I struggled and straggled, and wriggled and wraggled, and at last cried vale, valete, as I do now, with this fragment of a rhyme, 144 ^ The word * ' bum " is frequently used sensu obscceno. See note on Marlowe's Works, iii. 234. 2 Pistol. 3 The Fiend in Marlowe's Faustus. * See note, p. 22. ^ " i.e. boyship — little mastership." — Dyce. 32 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acth. My lady is grossly faU'n in love, and yet her waist is slender ; Had I not slipt away, you would have made my buttocks tender. ~ \_Exit. Dandy. Shall Doyt and I play the bloodhounds, and after him ? Cam. No, let him run. Hip. Not for this wager of my sister's love ; run ! away, Dandyprat, catch Truepenny, and hold him ; thy- self shall pass more current.^ 152 Dandy. I fly, sir ; your Dandyprat is as Ught as a dipt angel. 2 \Exit. Hip. Nay, God's lid, after him, Camillo ; reply not, but away. Cam. Content ; you know where to meet. \Exit. Hip. For I know that the only way to win a wench is not to woo her ; the only way to have her fast is to have her loose ; the only way to triumph over her is to make her fall ; and the way to make her fall — 161 Doyt. Is to throw her dowji. Hip. Are you so cunning, sir ? Doyt. O Lord, sir, and have so perfect a master ? Hip. Well, sir, you know the gentlewoman that dwells in the midst of Saint Mark's Street ? Doyt Midst of Saint Mark's Street, sir ? Hip. A pox on you ! the flea-bitten-faced lady. 1 An allusion to the coin " Dandyprat." 2 Old writers constantly joke irreverently about "angels.'' In the Unfortunate Traveller Nashe has a pun about an "angel of light." (The angel Was a gold coin of the value of ten shillings.) SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 33 Doyt. O, sir, the freckle-cheeke[d] Madonna ; I know her, signior, as well — '7° Hip. Not as I do, I hope, sir. Doyt. No, sir, I'd be loath to have such inward acquaintance with her as you have. Hip. Well, sir, slip, go presently to her, and from me deliver to her own white hands Fontinelle's picture. Doyt. Indeed, sir, she loves to have her chamber hung with the pictures of men. Hip. She does. I'll keep my sister's eyes and his painted face asunder. Tell her, besides, the masque holds, and this the night, and nine the hour : say we are all for her : away. Doyt. And she's for you all, were you an army. 182 \Exeunt severally. SCENE II. A Room in Imperia's House. Enter Imperia, and Trivia and Simperina with perfumes. Imp. Fie, fie, fie, fie, by the light oath of my fan, the w&ther is exceeding tedious and faint. Trivia, Sim- perina, stir, stir, stir : one of you open the casements, t'other take a ventoy^ and gently cool my face. Fie, I ha' such an exceeding high colour, I so sweat ! Simperina, dost hear? prithee be more compendious; why, Sim- perina ! 1 Fan. VOL. I. C 34 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acth. Simf. Here, madam. Imp. Press down my ruff before. Away j fie, how thou blowest upon me ! thy breath, (God's me !) thy breath, fie, fie, fie, fie, it takes off all the painting and colour from my cheek. In good faith, I care not if I go and be sick presently : heigho, my head so aches with carrying this bodkin!! in troth I'll try if I can be sick. 14 Triv. Nay, good sweet lady. Simp. You know a company of gallants will be here at night: be not out of temper, sweet mistress. Imp. In good troth, if I be not sick, I must be melan- choly then. This same gown never comes on but I am so melancholy and so heart-burnt ! 'tis a strange garment : I warrant, Simperina, the foolish tailor that made it was troubled with the stitch when he composed it. 22 Simp. That's very likely, madam; but it makes you have, O, a most inconyi body! Imp. No, no, no, no, by Saint Mark, the waist is not long enough, for I love a long and tedious waist ; besides, I have a most ungodly middle in it ; and, fie, fie, fie, fie, it makes me bend i' th' back : O, let me have some music ! Siitip. That's not the fault in your gown, madam, ^ut of your bawdy. \Music. 31 Imp. Fa, la, la, fa, la, la, — indeed, the bending of the back is the fault of the body, — la, la, la, la ! fa, la, la ! fa, la, la, la, la, la ! 1 Delicate. The word is of common occurrence, but its etymology is obscure. SCENE 11.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 35 Triv. 0, rich ! Simp. O, rare! Imp. No, no, no, no, no; 'tis slight and common all that I do. Prithee, Simperina, do not ingle 1 me ; do not flatter me, Trivia : I ha' never a cast gown till the next week. Fa, la, la, la, la, la, fa, la, la, fa, la, la, &c. This stirring to and fro has done me much good. A song, I prithee. I love these French movings : O, they are so clean ! if you tread them true, you shall hit them to a hair. Sing, sing, sing ; some odd and fantastical thing, for I cannot abide these dull and lumpish tunes ; the musician stands longer a-pricking them than I would do to hear them. No, no, no, give me your light ones, that go nimbly and quick, and are full of changes, and carry sweet division. Ho, prithee, sing ! Stay, stay, stay ; here's Hippolito's sonnet ; first read it, and then sing it. S° Song. 2 By Trivia and Simperina. First. In a fair woman what thing is best? Second. / think a coral lip. First. No, no, you jest ; She has a better thing. Second. Then 'tis a pretty eye. First. Yet 'tis a better thing. Which more delight does bring. Second. Then 'tis a cherry cheek. 1 Wheedle. * Old ed. " Reades . Song." 36 Blurt, Master-Constable. [act u. First. No, no, you lie ; Were neither coral lip, nor cherry cheek, nor pretty eyes, ^ Were not her swelling breast stuck with straw- berries. Nor had smooth hand, soft skin, white neck, pure eye, 60 Yet she at this alone your love can tie. It is, O, 'tis the only joy to men, The only praise to women 1 [Second] What is't then ? First. This it is, O, this it is, and in a woman's middle it is plac'd, In a most beauteous body, a heart ?nost chaste I This is the Jewel kings may buy ; If women sell this jewel, women lie. [DoYT knocks within ; Frisco answers within. Fris. l_witkin.] Who, the pox, knocks? Doyt [within-l One that will knock thy coxcomb, if he do not enter. 70 Iris, [within.] If thou dost not enter, how canst thou knock me ? Doyt [within.] Why then I'll knock thee when I do enter. Iris, [within.] Why then thou shalt not enter, but in- stead of me knock thy heels. Doyt [within.] Frisco, I am Doyt, Hippolito's page. 1 Old ed. " Were neither lif, nor cheekes currall, nor cherry eyes.^^ SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 37 Fris. [within.] And I am Frisco, squire to a bawdy house. Doyt [within^ I have a jewel to deliver to thy mistress. Fris. \within.] Is't set with precious stones ? 8i Boyt [wiikin.] Thick, thick, thick. Fris. [wiMn.] Why, enter then, thick, thick, thick. Imji. Fie, fie, fie, fie, fie, who makes that yawling at door? Fnier Frisco, and Doyt wiik Fontinelt^e's piciure. Fris. Here's signior Hippolito's man (that shall be) come to hang you. Jmp. Trivia, strip that villain ; Simperina, pinch him, slit his wide nose. Fie, fie, fie, I'll have you gelded for this lustiness. 9° Fris. And! she threatens to geld me unless I be lusty, what shall poor Frisco do ? Imp. Hang me ? Fris. Not I; hang me if you will, and set up my quarters too. /mj>. Hippolito's boy come to hang me ? Doyi. To hang you with jewels, sweet and gentle; that's Frisco's meaning, and that's my coming. Imp. Keep the door. Fris. That's my office: indeed I have been your door-keeper so long, that all the hinges, the spring-locks, and the ring, are worn to pieces. How if anybody knock at the door ? 103 o 8 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acth. Imp. Let them enter. \Exit Frisco.] Fie, fie, fie, fie, fie, his great tongue does so run through my little ears ! 'tis more harsh than a younger brother's courting of a gentlewoman, when he has no crowns. Boy ! Doyt. At your service. Imp. My service ? alas, alas, thou canst do me small service ! Did thy master send this painted gentleman to me ? Ill Doyt. This painted gentleman to you. Imp. Well, I will hang his picture up by the walls, till I see his face ; and, when I see his face, I'll take his picture down. Hold it. Trivia. Triv. It's most sweetly made. Imp. Hang him up, Simperina. Simp. It's a most sweet man. Imp. And does the masque hold? — Let me see it again. 120 Doyt. If their vizards hold, here you shall see all their blind cheeks : this is the night, nine the hour, and I the jack! that gives warning. Simp. He gives warning, mistress ; shall I set him out? Doyt. You shall not need ; I can set out myself \Exit. Imp. Flaxen hair, and short too ; O, that's the French cut ! but, fie, fie, fie, these ^ flaxen-haired men are such pulers, and such piddlers, and such chicken-hearts (and 1 The figure that struck the bell on the outside of a clock. 2 Olded. "this." SCENE II.] Blurt, Master- Constable. 39 yet great quarrellers), that when they court a lady they are for the better part bound to the peace ! No, no, no, no; your black-haired man (so he be fair) is your only sweet man, and in any service the most active. A banquet, Trivia; quick, quick, quick. 134 Triv. In a twinkling. — 'Slid, my mistress cries like the rod-woman, — quick, quick, quick, buy any rosemary and bays ? ' \Aside and exit. Imp. A httle face, but a lovely face : fie, fie, fie, no matter what face he make, so the other parts be legitimate and go upright. Stir, stir, Simperina ; be doing, be doing quickly; move, move, move. i4r Simp. Most incontinently.^ — Move, move, move ? O sweet ! \Aside and exit. Imp. Heigho ! as I live, I must love thee and suck kisses from thy lips. Alack, that women should fall thus deeply in love with dumb things, that have no feeling ! but they are women's crosses, and the only way to take them is to take them patiently. Re-enter Frisco, and Trivia and Simperina setting out a banquet. Heigho ! set music, Frisco ! .Fris. Music, if thou hast not a hard heart, speak to my mistress. \Music, 151 Imp. Say he scorn to marry me, yet he shall stand me in some stead by being my Qanpiede. If he be the most decayed gallant in all VeniceTlmT myself undo myself ' Immediately. 40 Blurt, Master-Constable. [act h. and my whole state to set him up again. Though speak- ing truth would save my life, I will lie to do him pleasure. Yet to tell lies may hurt the soul : fie, no, no, no ; souls are things to be trodden under our feet when we dance after love's pipe. Therefore here, hang this counterfeit ^ at my bed's feet. i6o Fris. If he be counterfeit, nail him up ^ upon one of your posts. \Exit with the picture. Imp. By the moist hand of love, I swear I will be his lottery, and he shall never draw but it shall be a prize ! rnpyTTTTn hnnrh^ within. Fris. [jm'thin.] Who knocks ? Cur. [within.] Why, 'tis I, knave. Fris. [within.] Then knave knock there still. Cur. [within.] Wut^ open door? Fris. [within.] Yes, when I list I will. Cur. [within.] Here's money. Fris. [within.] Much!* Cur. [within.] Here's gold. Fris. [within.] Away ! Cur. [within.] Knave, open. Fris. [within.] Call to our maids ; good ^ night ; we are all aslopen.^ [Entering. Mistress, if you have ever a pinnace to set out, you may 1 Portrait. 2 As a piece of counterfeit money is nailed up. 3 Wilt. * An ironical expression, — implying little or none. 5 Olded. "God." 6 Asleep. SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 41 now have it manned and rigged ; for Signior Curvetto, — he that cries, I am an old courtier, but lie close, lie close, when our niaids swear he lies as wide as any courtier in Italy— 173 Imp. Do we care how he lies ? [Curvetto knocks again within. Fris. Anon, anon, anon ! — this old hoary red deer serves himself in at your keyhole. Cur. [wilAin.] What, Frisco ! Fris. Hark ! shall he enter the breach ? Imp. Fie, fie, fie, I wonder what this gurnet's head makes here ! Yet bring him in ; he will serve for picking meat. [Fxit Frisco.] Let music play, for I will feign myself to be asleep. [Music. 182 Re-enter Frisco with Curvetto. Cur. [giving Frisco money.'] Threepence, and here's a teston ; ^ yet take all ; Coming to jump, we must be prodigal : Hem! I'm an old courtier, and I can lie close : Put up, Frisco, put up, put up, put up. Fris. Anything at your hands, sir, I will put up, because you seldom pull out anything. Simp. Softly, sweet signior Curvetto, for she's fast. 190 Cur. Hah ! fast ? my roba ^ fast, and but young night ? She's wearied, wearied : — ah, ha, hit I right ? ' "Or tester (so called from the head, teste, stamped on it), i.e., six- pence : it was originally of higher value." — Dyce. ' Wanton. — Bona roba was a common term for a courtesan. 42 Blurt, Master-Constable. [acth. Simp. How, sir, wearied ? marry, foh ! Fris. Wearied, sir ? marry muff ! ^ Cur. No words here, mouse P^ no words, no words, sweet rose ? I'm an hoary courtier, and lie close, lie close. Hem! Fris. An old hoary courtier? why, so has a jowl of ling and a musty whiting been, time out of mind. Me- thinks, signior, you should not be so old by your face. 200 Cur. I have a good heart, knave ; and a good heart Is a good face-maker ; I'm young, quick, brisk. I was a reveller in a long stock,^ (There's not a gallant now fills such a stock,) Plump hose, pan'd,* stuft with hair (hair then was held The lightest stuffing), a fair cod-piece, — ho ! An eel-skin sleeve lasht here and there with lace, High collar lasht again, breech lasht also, A little simpering ruff, a dapper cloak With Spanish-button'd cape, my rapier here, 210 Gloves like a burgomaster here, hat here (Stuck with some ten-groat brooch), and over all A goodly long thick Abram-coloured ^ beard. 1 An expression of contempt. Cf. First Pt. Honest Whore, ii. i : — *' Marry muff, sir, are you grown so dainty? " 2 A common term of endearment. 3 Stocking. * Witii panels or stripes inserted. 5 Dyce quotes from Soliman and Perseda, 1599, sig. H. 3 ; — "Where is the eldest sonne of Pryam? That ahrahavi-couloured Troion." In tapestry Cain was represented with a sandy-coloured beard ; Judas with a red beard. Steevens thought that " Abraham " might be a cor- SCENE II.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 43 Ho God, ho God ! thus did I revel it, When Monsieur Motte lay here ^ ambassador. But now those beards are gone, our chins are bare ; Our courtiers now do all against the hair.^ I can he close and see this, but not see : I'm hoary, but not hoary as some be. 219 Imp. Heigho ! who's that ? Signior Curvetto ! by my virginity — Cur. Hem ! no more. Swear not so deep at these ^ years : men have eyes, And though the most are fools, some fools are wise. Imp. Fie, fie, fie : and you meet me thus at half weapon, ope must down. Fris. She for my life. {Aside. Imp. Somebody shall pay for't. Fris. He, for my head. \Aside. 229 Imp. Do not therefore come over me so with cross blows : no, no, no, I shall Blurt. Garlic, and the rest, follow strongly. \Exit with Watch. Duke. O what a scandal were it to a state, To have a stranger, and a prisoner, Murder'd by such a troop ! Besides, through Venice Are numbers of his countrymen dispers'd, 51 Whose rage meeting with yours, none can prevent The mischief of a bloody consequent. Re-enter Blurt atid Watch, holding Fontinelle and his weapons. Blurt. The duke is within an inch of your nose, and therefore I dare play with it, if you put not up ; deliver, I advise you. Font. Yield up my weapons, and my foe so nigh ! Myself and weapons shall together yield : Come any one, come all. Omnes. Kill, kill the Frenchman ! kill him ! 60 Duke. Be satisfied, my noble countrymen : I'll trust you with his life, so you will pawn The faiths of gentlemen, no desperate hand Shall rob him of it ; otherwise, he runs Upon this dangerous point, that dares appose i His rage 'gainst our authority. — French lord, Yield up this strength ; our word shall be your guard. Font. Who defies death, needs none; he's well prepar'd. Duke. My honest fellow, with a good defence. Enter again ; fetch out the courtesan, 70 And all that are within. ' Oppose. > 94 Bhirt, Master-Constable. [act Blurt. I'll tickle her : it shall ne'er be said that brown bill ^ looked pale. \Exit with Watc, Cam. Frenchman, thou art indebted to our duke. Font. For what ? Cam. Thy life ; for, but for him, thy soul Had long ere this hung trembling in the air. Being frighted from thy bosom with our swords. Font. I do not thank your duke ; yet, if you will, Turn bloody executioners : who dies For so bright beauty 's a bright sacrifice. i Duke. The beauty you adore so is profane ; The breach of wedlock, by our law, is death. Fo7if. Law, give me law. Duke. With all severity. Font. In my love's eyes immortal joys do dwell; She is my heaven ; she from me, I'm in hell : Therefore your law, your law. Duke. Make way, she comes. Re-enter Blurt leading Imperia, the rest of the Watch with ViOLETTA masqued. Jvip. Fie, fie, fie. Blurt. Your fie, fie, fie, nor your foh, foh, foh, cann( serve your turn ; you must now bear it off with head an shoulders. < Duke. Now fetch Curvetto and the Spaniard hither ; Their punishments shall lie under one doom. AVhat is she masqu'd ? 1 See note i, p. 17. SCENE III.] Blurt, Master-Constable. 95 Blurt. A punk too.— Follow, fellows : Slubber, afore. \^Exit with Watch. Viol. She that is masqu'd is leader of this masque. What's here? bows, bills, and guns ! Noble Camillo, [ Unmasqidng. I'm sure you're lord of this misrule : ^ I pray. For whose sake do you make this swaggering fray ? Cam. For yours, and for our ^ own ; we come resolv'd To murder him that poisons your chaste bed, 100 To take revenge on you for your false heart ; And, wanton dame, our wrath here must not sleep ; Your sin being deep'st, your share shall be most deep. Viol. With pardon of your grace, myself to you all. At your own weapons, thus do answer all. For paying away my heart, that was my own ; Fight not to win that, in good troth, 'tis gone. For my dear love's abusing my chaste bed. And her ^ sweet theft, alack, you are misled ! This was a plot of mine, only to try no Your love's strange temper ; sooth, I do not lie. My Fontinelle ne'er dallied in her arms ; She never bound his heart with amorous charms : My Fontinelle ne'er loathed my sweet embrace ; She never drew love's picture by his face : When he from her white hand would strive to go, She never cried, fie, fie, nor no, no, no. ^ Old ed. " I am sure you are lord of all this misrule.'' Lord of Mis- rule was the title of the person who presided over the Christmas revels in noblemen's houses, 2 Old ed. "your." s Imperia's. g6 Bhtrt, Master-Constable. [act With prayers and bribes we hired her, both to lie Under that roof : for this must my love die ? Who dare be so hard-hearted ? Look you, we kiss, And if he loathe his Violet,^ judge by this. i \Kissing hi; Font. O sweetest Violet ! I blush Viol. Good figure. Wear still that maiden blush, but still be mine. Font. I seal myself thine own with both my hands. In this true deed of gift. Gallants, here stands This lady's champion : at [t]his foot I'll lie ^ That dares touch her : who taints my constancy, I am no man for him ; fight he with her, And yield, for she's a noble conqueror. Duke. This combat shall not need ; for see, ashame( Of their rash vows, these gentlemen here break 15 This storm, and do with hands what tongues should speal Omnes. All friends, all friends ! Hip. Punk, you may laugh at this : Here's tricks ! but, mouth, I'll stop you with a kiss. Enter Curvetto and Lazarillo, led by Blurt and the Watch. Blurt. Room ; keep all the scabs back, for here come Lazarus. Duke. O, here's our other spirits that walk i' th' night Signior Curvetto, by complaint from her, And by your writing here, I reach the depth 1 Olded. "Violetta." 2 Used transitively. ?cENEiii.] Blurt, Master-Consiable. 97 Of your offence. They charge your climbing up To be to rob her : if so, then by law 141 You are to die, unless she marry you. Imp. I ? fie, fie, fie, I will be burnt to ashes first. Cur. How, die, or marry her ? then call me daw : Marry her — she's more common than the law — For boys to call me ox ? no, I'm not drunk ; I'll play with her, but, hang her ! wed no punk. I shall be a hoary courtier then indeed. And have a perilous head ; then I were best Lie close, lie close, to hide my forked crest. 150 No, fie, fie, fie ; hang me before the door Where I was drown' d, ere I marry with a whore. Duke. Well, signior, for we rightly understand. From your accusers, how you stood her guest. We pardon you, and pass it as a jest : And for the Spaniard sped so hardly too. Discharge him. Blurt : signior, we pardon you. Blurt. Sir, he's not to be discharged, nor so to be shot off: I have put him into a new suit, and have entered into him with an action ; he owes me two-and-thirty shiUings. Zaz. It is thy honour to have me die in thy debt. 161 Blurt. It would be more honour to thee to pay me before thou diest : twenty shillings of this debt came out of his nose. Laz. Bear witness, great duke, he's paid twenty shil- lings. Blurt. Signior, no, you cannot smoke me so. He took twenty shillings of it in a fume, and the rest I charge him with for his lying. VOL. I. G 98 Bluri, Master-Constable. [actv Laz. My lying, most pitiful prince, was abominable. Blurt. He did lie, for the time, as well as any knigh of the posti did ever lie. 17; Laz. I do here put off thy suit, and appeal : I warr thee to the court of conscience, and will pay thee b] twopence a-week, which 1 will rake out of the hot ember; of tobacco-ashes, and then travel on foot to the Indie; for more gold, whose red cheeks I will kiss, and beat thee Blurt, if thou watch for me. Hip. There be many of your countrymen in Ireland,- signior ; travel to them. i8( Laz. No, I will fall no more into bogs. Duke. Sirrah, his debt ourself will satisfy. Blurt. Blurt, my lord, dare take your word for as mucl more. Duke. And since this heat of fury js_alLspent, And tra^ shapes meeTajmical' event, Let this bright morning merrily be.crown'd With dances, banquets, arid choice music's sound. ' \Exeunt omnes. 1 " Knight of the post " was one who gained a living by giving falsi evidence. Cf. The Man in the Moon, 1657 : — " How now, what art thoi whose head hangs down like a bulrash? O its a knight oftlie post, •< public and forsworn varlet. This fellow for 12 pence shall swear th( richest man in England out of his estate, and oaths goes down will him as easy as a sow sucks a tub full of wash ; and hath as good ai appetite to forswear himself as a big-belMed woman longs for butter milk." 2 This clearly refers to the 6000 Spaniards under Don Juan d'Aguilar who landed in Ireland to support Tyrone's rebellion. They landed ii September 1601 ; fortified themselves at Kinsale ; and were obligei to capitulate in June 1602. THE PHCENIX. The Phoenix, as it hath teene sundrye times Acted by the Children of Paules, And presented before his Maiestie. London Printed by E. A. for A. /.J and are to be solde at the signe of the white horse in Paules Churchyard. 1607. 4to. A second edition — inaccurately printed — appeared in 1630. The Phcenix was licensed by Sir George Buc, 9th May 1607. DRAMATIS PERSONS. Duke of Ferrara. Phcenix, his son. Proditor, 1 LUSSURIOSO, > nobles. Infesto, ) FiDELio, son to Castiza. Captain, married to Castiza. Falso, z. justice of peace. Latronello, 1 FuCATO, > his servants. FURTIVO,^ ) Knight. Tangle. QUIETO. Groom. Constable. Boy. Drawer. Soldiers. Suitors. Nobles, Gentlemen, Officers, &'c. Castiza, mother to Fidelio, and married to the Captain. Jeweller's wife, daughter to Falso. Niece to Falso. Maid to Jeweller' s wife. SCENE, Ferrara. 1 He becomes Falso's servant at the death of Falso's brother. See i. 6. THE PHCENIX. ACT V SCENE I. A Chamber in the Palace of the Duke of Ferrara. Enter the Duke, Proditor Lussurioso, Infesto, and other Nobles, with Attendants. Duke. My lords, Know that we, far from any natural pride, Or touch of temporal sway, have seen our face In our grave council's foreheads, where doth stand Our truest glass, made by Time's wrinkled hand. We know we're old ; my days proclaim me so ; Forty-five years I've gently rul'd this dukedom ; Pray heaven it be no fault ! For there's as much disease, though not to th' eye, In too much pity as in tyranny. lo Infes. Your grace hath spoke it right. Duke. I know that life Has not long course in me ; 'twill not be long Before I show that kings have mortal bodies ' In the old eds. there is no division into acts and scenes. 1 04 The Pkceizix. [act i. As well as subjects : therefore to my comfort, And your successful hopes, I have a son, Whom I dare boast of Lus. Whom we all do boast of ; A prince elder in virtues than in years. Infes. His judgment is a father to his youth. Frod. Ay, ay, would he were from court ! \_Aside. Infes. Our largest hopes grow in him. 20 Frod. And 'tis the greatest pity, noble lord, He is untravell'd. Zus. 'Tis indeed, my lord. Frod. Had he but travel to his time and virtue — O, he should ne'er return again ! [Aside. Duke. It shall be so : what is in hope began,i Experience quickens ; travel confirms the man. Who ^ else lives doubtful, and his days oft sorry : Who's rich in knowledge has the stock of glory. Frod. Most true, my royal lord. Duke. Some one attend our son. Infes. See, here he comes, my lord. Enter Phcenix, attended by Fidelio. Duke. O, you come well. 30 Fhce. 'Tis always my desire, my worthy father. Duke. Your serious studies, and those fruitful hours That grow up into judgment, well become Your birth, and all our loves : I weep that you are my son. 1 Old eds. "begun," — which destroys the rhyme. 2 So ed. 2.— Ed. i. "Who's." SCENE I.] The Phcenix. 105 But virtuously I weep, the more my gladness. We have thought good and meet, by the consent Of these our nobles, to move you toward travel, The better to approve you to yourself, And give your apter power foundation : To see affections actually presented, 40 E'en by those men that owe " them, yield[s] more profit. Ay, more content, than singly to read of them. Since love or fear make writers partial. The good and free example which you find In other countries, match it with your own. The ill to shame the ill ; which will in time Fully instruct you how to set in frame A kingdom all in pieces. Phx. Honour'd father, With care and duty I have listen'd to you. What you desire, in me it is obedience : 50 I do obey in all, knowing for right. Experience is a kingdom's better sight. Prod. O, 'tis the very lustre of a prince, Travel ! 'tis sweet and generous. Duke. He that knows how to obey, knows how to reign ; And that true knowledge have we found in you. Make choice of your attendants. Phoi. They're soon chose ; Only this man, my lord, a loving servant of mine. Duke. What ! none but he ? 1 Own. io6 The Phcenix. [acti. Fkm. I do intreat no more ; For that's the benefit a private gentleman 60 Enjoys beyond our state, when he notes all, Himself unnoted. For, should I bear the fashion of a prince, I should then win more flattery than profit. And I should give 'em time and warning then To hide their actions from me : if I appear a sun, They'll run into the shade with their ill deeds, And so prevent ^ me. Frod. A little too wise,^ a little too wise to live long. [Aside. Duke. You have answer'd us with wisdom : let it be ; Things private are best known through privacy. 71 [Exeunt all but Phcenix and Fidelio. Phcz. Stay you, my elected servant. Fid. My kind lord. Fha. The duke my father has a heavy burden Of years upon him. Fid. My lord, it seems so, for they make him stoop. Fhx. Without dissemblance he is deep in age ; He bows unto his grave. I wonder much Which of his wild nobility it should be (For none of his sad ^ council has a voice in't). Should so far travel into his consent, 80 1 Anticipate. 2 "So Shakespeare : ' So wise, so young, they say, do ne'er live long. ' — Richard III., act iii. so. i."—Dyce. * Grave. SCENE I.] The Phcenix. 107 To set me over into other kingdoms, Upon the stroke and minute of his death ? Fid. My lord, 'tis easier to suspect them all, Than truly to name one. Ph«. Since it is thus. By absence I'll obey the duke my father, And yet not wrong myself. Fid. Therein, my lord. You might be happy twice. Pha. So it shall be ; I'll stay at home, and travel Fid. Would your grace Could make that good ! 89 Ph«. I can : and, indeed, a prince need no[t] travel farther than his own kingdom, if he apply himself faith- fully, worthy the glory of himself and expectation of others: and it would appear far nobler industry in him to reform those fashions that are already in his country, than to bring new ones in, which have neither true form nor fashion ; to make his court an owl, city an ape, and the country a wolf preying upon the ridiculous pride of either: and therefore I hold it a safer stern,^ upon this lucky advantage, since my father is near his setting, and I upon the eastern hill to take my rise, to look into the heart and bowels of this dukedom, and, in disguise, mark all abuses ready for reformation or punishment. 102 Fid. Give me but leave unfeignedly to admire you, Your wisdom is so spacious and so honest. 1 "i.e. (I suppose) a safer course to steer. Stern is used by our early writers in the sense of steerage, helm." — Dyce. l,.?,!^.-'.. 1-V-, io8 The Pkcenix. [acti. Fh(B. So much have the complaints and suits of men, se ven, nay, seventeen years neglected , still interposed by coin and great enemies, prevailed with my pity, that I cannot otherwise think but there are infectious dealings in most offices, and foul mysteries throughout all profes- sions : and therefore I nothing doubt but to find travel enough within myself, and experience, I fear, too much : nor will I be curious ^ to fit my body to the humblest form and bearing, so the labour may be fruitful ; for how can abuses that keep low, come to the right view of a prince, unless his looks lie level with them, which else will be longest hid from him ? — he shall be the last man sees 'em. 117 For oft between kings' eyes and subjects' crimes Stands there a bar of bribes : the under ofiSce Flatters him next above it, he the next, And so of most, or many. Every abuse will choose a brother : 'Tis through the world, this hand will rub the other. Fid. You have set down the world briefly, my lord. Fhce. But how am I assur'd of faith in thee ? Yet I durst trust thee. Fid. Let my soul be lost. When it shall loose your secrets : nor will I Only be a preserver of them, but, If you so please, an assister. Fhoe. It suffices : That king stands sur'st who by his virtue rises 130 ' i.e. nor will I scruple. SCENE I.] The Phcenix. 109 More than by birth or blood ; that prince is rare, Who strives in youth to save his age from care. Let's be prepar'd : away. Fid. I'll follow your grace. — S^Exit Phcenix. Thou wonder of all princes, president, and glory, True Phoenix, made of an unusual strain ! ^ Who labours to reform is fit to reig n. '')f'~ How can tTiat^kTng'Be safe that studies not The profit of his people ? See where comes The best part of my heart, my love. 140 Enter Niece. ^ Niece. Sir, I am bound to find you : I heard newly Of sudden travel which his grace intends. And only but yourself to accompany him. Fid. You heard in that little beside the truth ; Yet not so sudden as to want those manners. To leave you unregarded. Niece. I did not think so unfashionably of you. How long is your return ? Fid. 'Tis not yet come to me, scarce to my lord, Unless the duke refer it to his pleasure ; 150 But long I think it is not : the duke's age. If not his apt experience, will forbid it. Niece. His grace commands, I must not think amiss : Farewell Fid. Nay, stay, and take this Qomfort; 1 Inborn disposition. 2 Justice Falso's niece. Her name nowhere, appears. iio The Pluenix. [acti. You shall hear often from us ; I'll direct Where you shall surely know ; and I desire you Write me the truth, how my new father-in-law The captain bears himself towards my mother ; For that marriage Knew nothing of my mind, it never flourish'd i6o In any part of my affection. Niece. Methinks sh'as much disgrac'd herself. Fid. Nothing so, If he be good, and will abide the touch ; A captain may marry a lady, if he can sail Into her good will. Niece. Indeed that's all. Fid. 'Tis all In all ; commend me to thy breast ; farewell. \jExit Niece. S.'{- So by my lord's firm policy we may see. To present view, what absent forms would be. \Exit. SCENE II. A Room in the Captain's House. Enter the Captain with soldiering fellows. First Sol. There's noble purchase,^ captain. Second Sol. Nay, admirable purchase. Third Sol. Enough to make us proud for ever. Caf. Hah? 1 Plunder. SCENE n.] The Phoenix. 1 1 1 First Sol. Never was opportunity so gallant. Caf. Why, you make me mad. Second Sol. Three ships, not a poop less. Third Sol. And every one so wealthily burdened, upon my manhood. Cap. Pox on't, and now am I tied e'en as the devil would ha't. II First Sol. Captain, of all men living, I would ha' sworn thou wouldst ne'er have married. Cap. 'S foot, so would I myself, man; give me my due ; you know I ha' sworn all heaven over and over ? First Sol. That you have, i'faith. Cap. Why, go to then. First Sol. Of a man that has tasted salt water to com- mit such a fresh trick ! Cap. Why, 'tis abominable ! I grant you, now I see't. First Sol. Had there been fewer women 5i' Second Sol. And among those women fewer drabs Third Sol. And among those drabs fewer pleasing Cap. Then 't had been something First Sol. But when there are more women, more common, pretty sweethearts, than ever any age could boast of Cap. And I to play the artificer and marry ! to have my wife dance at home, and my ship at sea, and both take in salt water together ! O lieutenant, thou'rt happy ! thou keepest a wench. 31 First Sol. I hope I am happier than so, captain, for a' my troth, she keeps me. Cap. How ? is there any such fortunate man breath- 1 1 2 The Phoenix. [act i. ing ? and I so miserable to live honest ! I envy thee, lieutenant, I envy thee, that thou art such a happy knave. Here's my hand among you ; share it equally ; I'll to sea with you. Second Sol. There spoke a noble captain ! Caf. Let's hear from you ; there will be news shortly. 41 First Sol. Doubt it not, captain. [Exeunt all but Captain. Cap. What lustful passion came aboard of me, that I should marry ? was I drunk ? yet that cannot altogether hold, for it was four a'clock i' th' morning ; had it been five, I would ha' sworn it. That a man is in danger every minute to be cast away, without he have an extraordinary pilot that can perform more than a man can do ! and to say truth too, when I'm abroad, what can I do at home ? no man living can reach so far : and what a horrible thing 'twould be to have horns brought me at sea, to look as if the devil were i' th' ship ! and all the great tempests would be thought of my raising ! to be the general curse of all merchants ! and yet they likely are as deep in as myself; and that's a comfort. O, that a captain should live to be married ! nay, I that have been such a gallant salt-thief, should yet live to be married ! What a fortu- nate elder brother is he, whose father being a rammish ploughman, himself a perfumed gentleman spending the labouring reek from his father's nostrils in tobacco, the sweat of his father's body in monthly physic for his pretty queasy harlot ! he sows apace i' th' country ; the tailor o'ertakes him i' th' city, so that oftentimes before the corn SCENE II.] The Phcenix. 1 1 3 comes to earing,^ 'tis up to the ears in high collars, and so at every harvest the reapers take pains for the mercers : ha ! why, this is stirring happiness indeed. Would my father had held a plough so, and fed upon squeezed curds and onions, that I might have bathed in sensuality ! but he was too ruttish himself to let me thrive under him ; consumed me before he got me ; and that makes me so wretched now to be shackled with a wife, and not greatly rich neither. 72 Enter Castiza.^ Cas. Captain, my husband. CaJ>. 'S life, call me husband again, and I'll play the captain and beat you. Cas. What has disturb'd you, sir, that you now look So like an enemy upon me ? Cap. Go make a widower [of me], hang thyself ! How comes it that you are so opposite To love and kindness .■' I deserve more respect, 80 But that you please to be forgetful of it. Cas. For love to you, did I neglect my state. Chide better fortunes from me. Gave the world talk, laid all my friends at waste ! Cap. The more fool you : could you like none but me ? Could none but I supply you ? I am sure You were sued to by far worthier men. Deeper in wealth and gentry. 1 So ed. 2. — Ed. i "earning.' 2 Oldeds. "his Lady." VOL. I. 114 The Phcenix. [acti. What couldst thou see in me, to make thee doat So on me ? If I know I am a villain, 90 What a torment's this ! Why didst thou marry me ? I W. You 'think, as most of your insatiate widows, That captains can do wonders ; when, alas,i The name does often prove the better man ! Cas. That which you urge should rather give me cause To repent than yourself. Caf. Then to that end I do it. Cas. What a miserable state Am I led into ! Enter Servant.^ Cap. How now, sir ? Serv. Count Proditor Is now alighted. Cap. What ! my lord ? I must Make much of him ; he'll one day write me cuckold ; 100 It is good to make much of such a man : E'en to my face he plies it hard, — I thank him. Enter Proditor. What, my worthy lord ? Prod. I'll come to you In order, captain. \Kisses Castiza. Cap. O that's in order ! A kiss is the gamut to pricksong. \Aside. ^ Old eds. '"lasse." 2 Old eds. "seruus." SCENE II.] The Phcenix. 1 1 5 Prod. Let me salute you, captain. \_Exit Castiza. Cap. My dear Esteemed count, I have a life for you. Prod. Hear you the news ? Cap. What may it be, my lord ? Prod. My lord, the duke's son, is upon his travel To several kingdoms. Cap.'^ May it be possible, my lord, no And yet so little rumour'd ? Prod. Take't of my truth ; Nay, 'twas well manag'd ; things are as they are handl'd : But all my care is still, pray heaven he return Safe, without danger, captain. Cap. Why, is there any doubt To be had of that, my lord ? Prod. Ay, by my faith, captain : Princes have private enemies, and great. Put case a man should grudge him for his virtues, Or envy him for his wisdom ; why, you know. This makes him lie bare-breasted to his foe. 120 Cap. That's full of certainty, my lord ; but who Be his attendants ? Prod. Thence, captain, comes the fear ; But singly ^ attended neither (my best gladness), Only by your son-in-law, Fidelio. 1 Perhaps a better metrical arrangement would be — " Cap, May it be possible, my lord, and yet So little rumour'd ? Prod. Take it of my truth. " 2 Ed. 2, "simplie." 1 1 6 The Phoenix. [act i. Cap. Is it to be believed ? I promise you, my lord, then I begin to fear him myself; that fellow will undo him : I durst undertake to corrupt him with twelvepence over and above, and that's a small matter ; has a whorish conscience ; he's an inseparable knave,^ and I could ne'er speak well of that fellow. 130 Frod. All we of the younger house, I can tell you, do doubt him much. The lady's removed : shall we have your sweet society, captain ? Cap. Though it be in mine own house, I desire I may follow your lordship. Prod. I love to avoid strife. — Not many months Phoenix shall keep his life. \_Aside and exit. Cap. So ; his way is in ; he knows it. We must not be uncourteous to a lord ; Warn him our house 'twere vild.^ 140 His presence is an honour : if he lie with our wives, 'tis for our credit ; we shall be the better trusted ; 'tis a sign we shall live i' th' world. O, tempests and whirlwinds ! who but that man whom the forefinger ^ cannot daunt, that makes his shame his living — who but that man, I say, could endure to be thoroughly married ? Nothing but a divorce can relieve me : any way to be rid of her would rid my torment ; if all means fail, I'll kill or poison her, and purge my fault at sea. But first I'll make gentle 1 One whose knavery cannot be put away from him, an irredeemable rogue. 2 Old spelling of " vile." 3 The forefinger pointed at him in scorn. SCENE III.] The Phoenix. iij try of a divorce : but how shall I accuse her subtle honesty ? I'll attach this lord's coming to her, take hold of that, ask counsel : and now I remember, I have acquaintance with an old crafty client, who, by the puzzle of suits and shifting of courts, has more tricks and starting-holes than the dizzy pates of fifteen attor- neys ; one that has been muzzled in law like a bear, and led by the ring of his spectacles from office to office. 157 Him I'll seek out with haste ; all paths I'll tread. All deaths I'll die, ere I die married. [Exit. SCENE III. Another Room in the Captain's House. Enter Proditor and Castiza. Prod. Pooh, you do resist me hardly. Cas. I beseech your lordship, cease in this : 'tis never to be granted. If you come as a friend unto my honour, and my husband, you shall be ever welcome ; if not, I must entreat it Prod. Why, assure yourself, madam, 'tis not the fashion. Cas. 'Tis more my grief, my lord ; such as myself Are judg'd the worse for such. Prod. Faith, you're too nice : You'll see me kindly forth ? Cas. And honourably welcome. [Exeunt. 1 1 8 The Phcenix. [act i. SCENE IV. A Room in an Inn. Enter Groom lighting in Phcenix and Fidelio. Groom. Gentlemen, your most neatly welcome. Phx. You're very cleanly, sir : prithee, have a care to our geldings. Groom. Your geldings shall be well considered. Fid. Considered ? Phoi. Sirrah, what guess ^ does this inn hold now ? Groom. Some five and twenty gentlemen, besides their beasts. Phx. Their beasts ? Groom. Their wenches, I mean, sir; for your worship knows those that are under men are beasts. u Phce. How does your mother, sir ? Groom. Very well in health, I thank you heartily, sir. Phx. And so is my mare, i'faith. ' Groom. I'll do her commendations indeed, sir. Fid. Well kept up, shuttlecock ! Phx. But what old fellow was he that newly alighted before us ? Groom. Who, he? as arrant a crafty fellow as e'er made water on horseback Some say, he's as good as a lawyer ; marry, I'm sure he's as bad as a knave : if you have any suits in law, he's the fittest man for your com- pany ; has been so toused ^ and lugged himself, that he is 1 Guests. * Pulled violently about. Old eds. " toward ; " Dyce " towed." SCENE IV.] The Phcenix. 119 able to afford you more knavish counsel for ten groats than another for ten shillings. 25 Phx. A fine fellow ! but do you know him to be a knave, and will lodge him ? Groom. Your worship begins to talk idly ; your bed shall be made presently : if we should not lodge knaves, I wonder how we should be able to live honestly : are there honest men enough, think you, in a term-time to fill all the inns in the town ? and, as far as I can see, a knave's gelding eats no more hay than an honest man's ; nay, a ^ thief's gelding eats less, I'll stand to't ; his master allows him a better ordinary ; yet I have my eightpence day and night : 'twere more for our profit, I wus,^ you were all thieves, if you were so contented. I shall be called for : give your worships good morrow. \Exit. 38 PhcE. A royal knave, i'faith : we have happened into a godly inn. Fid. Assure you, my lord, they belong all to one church. Pfue. This should be some old, busy, turbulent fellow : [a] villanous law-worm, that eats holes into poor men's causes. Entet Tangle with two Suitors, and Groom. First Suit. May it please your worship to give me leave ? Tan. I give you leave, sir ; you have your veniam. — Now fill me a brown toast, sirrah. Groom. Will you have no drink to't, sir ? 1 So ed. 2. — Omitted in ed. i. 2 A vulgar form of " I wis " (the reading of ed. 2), which is a corrup- tion of "i-wis," i.e. "certainly, assuredly." 1 20 The PJioenix. [act i. Tan. Is that a question in law ? Groom. Yes, in the lowest court, i' th' cellar, sir. 5° Tan. Let me ha't removed presently, sir. Groom. It shall be done, sir, \Exit. Tan. Now as you were saying, sir, — I'll come to you immediately too. Pha. O, very well, sir. Tan. I'm a little busy, sir. First Suit. But as how, sir ? Tan. I pray, sir? First Suit. Has brought me into the court ; marry, my adversary has not declared yet. 6° Tan. Non declaravit adversarius, sayest thou ? what a villain's that ! I have a trick to do thee good : I will get thee out a proxy, and make him declare, with a pox to him. First Suit. Tha!t will make him declare to his sore grief; I thank your good worship : but put case he do declare ? Tan. Si declarasset, if he should declare there — First Suit. I would be loath to stand out to the judg- ment of that court. Tan. Non ad judicium, do you fear corruption ? then I'll relieve you again ; you shall get a supersedeas non molestandum, and remove it higher. 72 First Suit. Very good. Tan. Now if it should ever come to a testificandum, what be his witnesses ? First Suit. I little fear his witnesses. Tan. Non metuis testes? more valiant man than Orestes. First Suit. Please you, sir, to dissolve this into wine, SCENE IV.] The Phcsnix. 121 ale, or beer. \Giving money.] I come a hundred mile to you, I protest, and leave all other counsel behind me. Tan. Nay, you shall always find me a sound card : I stood not a' th' pillory for nothing in 88 ; all the world knows that. — Now let me dispatch you, sir. — I come to you presenter. 84 Second Suit. Faith, the party hath removed both body and cause with a habeas corpus. Tan. Has he that knavery? but has he put in bail above, canst tell ? Second Suit. That I can assure your worship he has not. 90 Tan. Why, then, thy best course shall be, to lay out more money, take out 2i procedendo, and bring down the cause and him with a vengeance. Second Suit. Then he will come indeed. Tan. As for the other party, let the audita querela alone ; take me out a special supplicavif, which will cost you enough, and then you pepper him. For the first party after the procedendo you'll get costs ; the cause being found, you'll have a judgment ; nunc pro tunc, you'll get a venire facias to warn your jury, a decern tales to fill up the number, and a capias utlagatum ' for your execution. Second Suit. I thank you, my learned counsel. 102 Fhos. What a busy caterpillar's this ! let's accost him in that manner. Fid. Content, my lord. Fhoi. O my old admirable fellow, how have I all this 1 Writ of outlawry. 12 2 The Phmnix. [act i. while thirsted to salute thee ! I knew thee in octavo of the duke Tan. In (7rfaw of the duke? I remember the year well. Phx. By th' mass, a lusty, proper^ man ! no Tan. O, was I ? Phx. But still in law. Tan. Still in law ? I had not breathed else now ; 'tis very marrow, very manna to me to be in law ; I'd been dead ere this else. I have found such sweet pleasure in the vexation of others, that I could wish my years over and over again, to see that fellow a beggar, that bawhng knave a gentleman, a matter brought e'en to a judgment to-day, as far as e'er 'twas to begin again to-morrow : raptures ! here a writ of demur, there a procedendo, here a sursurrara,^ there a capiendo, tricks, delays, money-laws ! Phoe. Is it possible, old lad ? 122 Tan. I have been a term-trotter ^ myself any time this five and forty years ; a goodly time and a gracious : in which space I ha' been at least sixteen times beggared, and got up again ; and in the mire again, that I have stunk again, and yet got up again. Ph