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SHAKESPEARE’S DOUBTFUL PLAYS. 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 -oOj^O-o- 
 
 EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION , 
 
 BY 
 
 A. F. HOPKINSON. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 M. E. SIMS & Co., DELANCEY STREET, CAMDEN TOWN, N.W 
 
 1891. 
 
AP » 2 2 n 242 teach 
 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 - 0 - 
 
 V 
 
 A Yorkshire Tragedy * was entered at Stationers’ Hall 
 by Thomas Payer, on the 2nd of May 1608, and printed by 
 him in the same year, with the title of A Yorkshire Tragedy, 
 not so new as lamentable and true. Shakespeare’s name, as 
 the author, was printed on the title page. It had been 
 previously acted at the Globe theatre (of which Shakespeare 
 was part proprietor), with three other short dramas, which 
 were all performed together under the general title of All's 
 One, or Four Plaies in One . 
 
 Under these circumstances it seems inexplicable how it 
 should have become to be regarded as a doubtful perform¬ 
 ance. At that time, 1608, Shakespeare must have been 
 resident in London, and probably superintended the business 
 affairs of the theatre in which he held so large a pecuniary 
 and literary interest; and even with our knowledge of the 
 fact of Shakespeare’s negligence of his name and fame, it 
 seems hardly credible that he should have allowed such a 
 thing to have passed without a remonstrance ; and in the 
 position he then held as the leading literary genius of the 
 day, his remonstrance would have carried with it an irre¬ 
 sistible weight. Assuming the play is not his, and that he 
 was aware of its publication (a fact which it is only natural 
 
 ^Stationers’ Register. “ 2nd May 1608. Master Payer entered for his 
 copy under the handes of Master Wilson and Master Warden Seaton a 
 book called a Yorkshire Tragedy, written by William Shakespeare vjd. 
 
 i169653 
 
11 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to believe), his silence in the matter makes him a passive 
 party to the disreputable fraud practiced upon the public. 
 It is but just to state that this tragedy was excluded from 
 the first and second folio editions of the bard’s works which 
 were given to the public by his brother performers, Heminge 
 and Condell, but whether its exclusion was intentional or 
 through ignorance, it is now hopeless to enquire ; and 
 knowing the player-editors’ carelessness in their duties it 
 is not of much importance. The play was printed (with 
 other doubtful ones) in the 1664 folio edition of Shake¬ 
 speare’s plays, but whether it was restored to its rightful 
 position has from thence been an open question, and its 
 place since then has been among those works of doubtful 
 authenticity. 
 
 The question as to its authenticity has been argued and 
 debated with considerable critical acumen, and sometimes 
 warmth, by both parties, for and against, and little ground 
 has been left for anything new or original to be said on the 
 subject. Some of the ablest and most acute commentators 
 on Shakespeare have contended that it is a genuine work 
 of our national poet; while others, equally learned and 
 acute, have rejected it as spurious. Mr. Steevens argued in 
 favour of its authenticity, and discovered “ at least three 
 characteristics of Shakespeare,—his quibbles, his facility of 
 metre, and his struggles to introduce comic ideas into tragic 
 situations.” Malone was partially convinced by Steevens’s 
 arguments and admitted they had so much weight with 
 him, that he was unable to form a decided opinion either 
 way. Schlegel, a learned and sympathetic Shakespearean 
 critic, was convinced of its genuineness, and declares that 
 its “ tragical effect is overpowering.” The German, Tieck, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 • • • 
 111 
 
 who translated all the doubtful plays of Shakespeare into 
 his own language, has not hesitated in giving his opinion 
 in favour of its authenticity ; and Isaac D’Israeli exclaims 
 “ surely the Yorkshire Tragedy at least possessed an equal 
 claim with the monstrous Titus Andronicus not to be re¬ 
 jected from Shakespeare.” Sir Walter Scott speaks of the 
 tragedy as being “ erroneously attributed to Shakespeare”; 
 and Hazlitt was of opinion that it was more after the man¬ 
 ner of Hey wood than that of our great bard. 
 
 The terrible crime on which this tragedy is founded, was 
 committed in the year 1604, and caused general excitement 
 and curiosity throughout the country. It was the custom 
 of the dramatists of those days—as it is with the novelists 
 of our own time—to seize upon any domestic incident or 
 tragic tale that engaged the public attention, and work it 
 up into a hasty comedy or tragedy, in which they appealed 
 to the feelings of the audience, not always in smoothness 
 of metre or refined language, but by dramatic situations 
 which reached their perception and their hearts at one and 
 the same time. This fact should be always borne in mind 
 when reading the works of our old dramatists, and will 
 account for much of the hasty and unequal work they have 
 left us to wonder at and admire. Two instances occur of 
 this hasty dramatising of current events : the drama under 
 consideration, and the noble tragedy Arden of Feversham, 
 
 The village of Calverly is situated in the West Riding of 
 Yorkshire, about six miles from Leeds, and it was there the 
 crime was committed. The account is thus given in Stow’s 
 Chronicle:— Walter Callverly, of Calverly, in Yorkshire, 
 Esquire, murdered 2 of his young children, stabbed his wife 
 in the bodie with full purpose to have murdered her, and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 instantly went from his house to have slaine his youngest 
 child at nurse, hut was prevented. For which fact at his 
 triall in Yorke hee stood mute, and was judged to he prest 
 to death^according to which judgment he was executed at 
 the castell of Yorke on the 5th pf August.” 
 
 Such is the story on which this little tragedy is founded ; 
 the details are meagre, but the situations are well adapted 
 for pathetic and tragic treatment. How has the author 
 used the material at his disposal ? The work can be very 
 conveniently divided into three parts, which might be thus 
 distinguished :—Before the Tragedy,—the Tragedy,—and, 
 After the Tragedy. It is difficult to understand what bear¬ 
 ing the opening scene, in which the three servants appear 
 for the only time, has upon the rest of the story; as it 
 stands it could very well be dispensed with, without injury 
 to the plot or the play ; the only explanation of its presence 
 that has been attempted, is that the author had intended 
 to further develope the story, but finding the material at 
 hand too slight had abandoned the idea as impracticable 
 and confined himself to the mere facts of the subject before 
 him. This short scene, however, in my opinion, throws a 
 strong light on to the readers mind, and seems to reveal 
 the author of the play. I cannot read the scene without 
 being struck with the similarity of expression therein, to 
 that of Shakespeare’s recognised works. In the next scene 
 we are introduced to the cause that leads direct to the com¬ 
 mission of the crime. Dicing and dissipation have ruined the 
 Master of Calverly Hall; he has gambled away his inherit¬ 
 ance ; beggary, disgrace and ruin stares him and his children 
 in the face, yet his mania for gambling is as strong on him 
 
 as ever. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 v 
 
 “I will not bate a whit in humour. ” 
 
 lie exclaims, and commands his wife, in language as violent 
 as it is coarse, to dispose of her jewels and her dowry— 
 
 “ to give new life 
 
 Unto those pleasures which I most affect.” 
 
 His neighbours, gentlemen of his own station, remon¬ 
 strate with him on his evil courses, but he has entered too 
 deeply on his career of vice to be turned from it by their 
 admonitions. To his pangs of remorse he adds another 
 torment (for which there is apparently no foundation), by 
 imagining his wife is unfaithful to him. Here the first 
 germs of the crime seem to vegitate in him.— 
 
 “ My strumpet wife. 
 
 It is thy quarrel that thus rips my flesh, 
 
 And makes my breast spit blood ;—but thou shalt bleed.” 
 
 The wfife, who is passive and obedient throughout the 
 play, endeavours to stem the stream of ruin that has settled 
 down upon them, by procuring, through the influence of 
 her uncle, a place of emolument at court for her husband. 
 He rejects the offer in coarse and contemptuous language. 
 
 “ Shall I that dedicated myself to pleasure, be now confined in 
 service ? to crouch and stand like an old man i’ the hams, my 
 hat off ? I that could never abide to uncover my head i’ the 
 
 church? Base slut ! this fruit bear thy complaints.” 
 
 • 
 
 “ Money, whore, money, or I ’ll—” 
 
 He threatens her with his naked dagger, and a portion of 
 the tragedy is only prevented from premature accomplish¬ 
 ment by the sudden entry of a servant. 
 
 In the following scene we meet with the rather pompous 
 
VI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 personage the Master of the College, who has journeyed 
 from his university to intercede for Mr. Calverly’s brother 
 who has been arrested as security for debts which his profli¬ 
 gate brother (the Husband) had failed to liquidate. In this 
 scene the skill of workmanship is exquisite ; the Husband’s 
 real object is cleverly hidden by a piece of consummate 
 dissimulation which serves to mask the purpose that is ever 
 present to his mind. After the disappearance of the Master 
 of the College, the Husband indulges in a long soliloquy 
 which might mislead the reader into believing that the dis¬ 
 course of the Master had awakened in his breast a feeling 
 of remorse for his past follies. If the repentance be genuine 
 —which is doubtful—it does not last long; he resolves to 
 murder his wife and children, and the next moment puts 
 the resolve into practice by stabbing his eldest boy, and 
 with his reeking body in his arms he seeks the chamber 
 where his wife and second son are ; the latter he despatches 
 in the same brutal manner, and succeeds in seriously injur¬ 
 ing his wife but is again prevented from carrying out his 
 diabolical intention by the opportune appearance of a ser¬ 
 vant on the scene. Here we reach the climax of the play, 
 and the dramatic situation strikes on the reader’s mind 
 with overpowering force. What can be more pathetic than 
 the opening of this scene which discovers the Maid with 
 the child in her arms and the Mother sleeping in peaceful 
 unconsciousness of the shocking fate that has overtaken 
 her eldest born ? The Maid’s words seem to breathe a pathos 
 that can be better felt than described. 
 
 “ Sleep, sweet babe, sorrow makes thy mother sleep : 
 
 It bodes small good when heaviness falls so deep. 
 
 Hush, pretty boy ! ” 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vii 
 
 The Husband enters with his bleeding son, and the scene 
 changes to one of the most tragic intensity. After killing 
 his second son and wounding his wife, he leaves the house 
 wdth the intention of seeking his child at nurse and thus 
 complete his plan of extermination by dispatching him. In 
 the meanwhile, the servants have aroused the house; a 
 party is hastily gathered together, and with the Master of 
 the College at their head they set forth with the purpose 
 of overtaking Mr. Calverly and preventing him carrying 
 his fell design into execution. By one of those accidents 
 which a supreme power sometimes places in the path of 
 criminals, the Husband’s horse stumbles and throws him; 
 his object is yet unaccomplished ; he finds himself unable 
 to proceed and he rails and curses his untoward fate. He 
 hears the hue and cry at his back and gives utterance to 
 one last cry of disappointment and despair. 
 
 “ What fate have I! my limbs deny me go. 
 
 My will is ’bated ; beggary claims a part. 
 
 0 could I here reach to the infant’s heart.” 
 
 His pursuers overtake him, he is captured and carried 
 before the magistrate. He shows no remorse for his hideous 
 crime, but rather sorrows that he leaves a child alive. 
 
 “ I repent now that one is left behind ; 
 
 My brat at nurse. I would full fain have weaned him.” 
 
 In the next and concluding scene we are introduced to 
 the Husband after his sentence, and just as he is being led 
 away to execution. The glamour seems to have cleared 
 from his eyes, he beholds the hideousness of his unnatural 
 crime, and repentance thaws his stubborn and obdurate 
 heart. He entreats to see his wife before the dread sentence 
 
VI11 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the law is carried out. The Wife is brought in and the 
 scene that follows is marked with a beauty and pathos not 
 to be equalled in any other part of the play. Expecting 
 reproaches from her, he "finds nothing but love and forgive¬ 
 ness, which constrain him to exclaim— 
 
 “ But thou hast devised 
 
 A fine way to kill me ; thou hast given mine eyes 
 Seven wounds apiece.” 
 
 He acknowledges the justice of his punishment and seems 
 to intimate that he must have been possessed of the devil, 
 to have committed the vile murder of his two innocent 
 children. He kisses their dead bodies and exclaims :— 
 
 Farewell ye bloody ashes of my boys ! 
 
 My punishments are their eternal joys.” 
 
 With this assertion of poetical justice the play closes. 
 
 Such is the story of the crime as we find it in the play. 
 According to Mr. Steevens, the author has slightly deviated 
 from the story as it is related in Yorkshire. The immediate 
 cause of the crime seems to have been a suspicion in Mr. 
 Calverly’s mind of his wife’s infidelity. “Mr. Calverly (says 
 Mr. Steevens) is represented to have been of a passionate 
 disposition, and to have struck one of his children in the 
 presence of his wife, who pertly told him ‘ to correct chil¬ 
 dren of his own when he could produce any’. On this 
 single provocation he is said to have committed all the 
 bloody facts that furnish matter for the tragedy before us.” 
 The author apparently had this fact in mind when he put 
 these words into the Husband’s mouth :— 
 
 “ Puh ! bastards, bastards, bastards ! ” 
 
 The principal characters in the tragedy are two in num¬ 
 ber, to neither of which has the author given a name except 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 IX 
 
 the indefinite one of Husband and Wife, and they are known 
 as such throughout the play. The explanation of this fact 
 is that the murder on which the drama is founded occurred 
 only a few years before it was dramatised, and the author 
 
 • 
 
 did not consider himself at liberty to use the real names of 
 his characters, and was of opinion that fictitious ones would 
 be out of place as the true ones were generally known. 
 
 The Husband is depicted as a man of coarse and violent 
 passions ; proud, selfish and brutal in disposition. Pie is 
 haunted by the suspicion that his wife is unfaithful to him. 
 The horrible thought is ever present with him; it cankers 
 and corrodes his mind and brings out all the evil passions 
 of his nature. His wife expostulates with him on his bad 
 habits, she asks him the cause of his discontent, and elicits 
 the following reply.— 
 
 “ A vengeance strip thee naked ! thou art cause, 
 
 Effect, quality, property ; thou, thou, thou ! ” 
 
 Among his many vices is that of gambling, which he pur¬ 
 sues with all the spasmodic energy of his violent nature. 
 
 “ Dice and voluptuous meetings, midnight revels,” 
 frit away his inheritance, and he finds himself face to face 
 with beggary. Having dissipated his ample fortune anti \ 
 reduced “ thrice three thousand acres into the compass of a 
 little round table,” he has not the manliness to face the 
 worst and strive to mend it by forsaking his evil ways. He 
 looks into the future and beholds his sons grown up into 
 beggars. His false pride appeals to his vile passions and 
 they whisper him a way out of his dilemma ; he resolves on 
 the wholesale murder of his family, and forthwith sets 
 about putting his plan into execution. This fact proves 
 him to have been of a thoroughly depraved disposition, or j 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 suggests the idea that he is possessed of the devil; and his 
 wife seeks to explain his extraordinary conduct by suppos¬ 
 ing he is subject to demonical influence. 
 
 “ So much unlike 
 
 Himself at first, as if some vexed spirit 
 Had got his form upon him.” 
 
 The author evidently had this thought in his mind as the 
 reason of his commiting the crime, for we find the Husband 
 alluding to the same idea. 
 
 “ Now glides the devil from me, 
 
 Departs at every joint.” 
 
 Again— 
 
 “ O, ’twas the enemy my eyes so bleared.” 
 
 At the time this drama was written the mass of the 
 people, from the monarch to the peasant, were saturated 
 with superstition ; witchcraft and demonology were univer¬ 
 sally accepted, in fact it was regarded as a fashionable 
 belief. This circumstance may account for the author in¬ 
 troducing it as a probable explanation of Mr. Calverly’s 
 extraordinary crime. The Husband’s character has been 
 declared inconsistant. I cannot view it in that light. To 
 me he seems both consistant in character and purpose. The 
 only instance in which inconsistancy can be fixed upon him 
 is in the scene with the Master of the College, when the 
 moralising of the collegian appears to awaken in his breast 
 a feeling of sorrow for his sins. That I take to be intended 
 as a masterpiece of dissimulation, and the next moment 
 proves it to be such, for he proceeds in his plan of murder¬ 
 ing his whole family by killing his eldest son. His repent¬ 
 ance in the end is rather sudden, but in making it so the 
 author has followed nature ; the repentance of murderers, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xi 
 
 both in fiction and real life, is invariably left to the last 
 moment, when there is nothing further to hope for, and in 
 the nature of things must strike the mind as being violent 
 and abrupt. 
 
 The character of the wife is the very antithesis of that of 
 the Husband. She is patient, yielding, affectionate and 
 submissive. Love of her husband, not fear, may be taken 
 as the keynote of her character. Her submission tp the 
 violence and abuse of her husband, is the outcome of love ; 
 the object of her affection may be a worthless profligate, 
 but nevertheless he is the object of her love. It may be 
 urged that a woman of spirit would rather have left her 
 husband than put up with the coarseness and vulgarity Mr. 
 Calverly bestowed so lavishly on his wife ; granted, but alj 
 women are not women of spirit ; Mrs. Calverly was not a 
 woman of spirit, and in that respect she presents one of 
 those striking contrasts which occasionally meets and as¬ 
 tonishes us in real life. She is willing, nay eager to sacrifice 
 her own interests for the privelege of worshiping her idol 
 and calling forth a recognition cf her worship from him. 
 
 “ Sir, do but turn a gentle eye on me, 
 
 And what the law shall give me leave to do, 
 
 You shall command.” 
 
 Even the suspicion of her chastity, which her husband 
 wrongfully tries to fix on her, is met, not with reproachful 
 violence, but a steadfast and unchangeable love. 
 
 Heav’n knows how these words wrong me : but I may 
 Endure these griefs among a thousand more.” 
 
 Her pure and unselfish love urges her to sacrifice every¬ 
 thing on the altar of her affection, even to her dowry upon 
 which her children are to depend in the future for a living. 
 
Xll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 “ Consume it, as your pleasure counsels you, 
 
 And all I wish even clemency affords ; 
 
 Give me but pleasant looks, and modest words.” 
 
 To the last lier love is true to its first inspiration ; she 
 is willing to surrender home, children, everything, if she can 
 but save and enjoy the worthless object upon which it is 
 lavished. The character of the Wife is consistant in every 
 respect; the individualisation is strongly marked, and true 
 to nature. The annals of real life furnish us with many 
 Mrs. Calverlys. 
 
 The other characters in the play are of little consequence; 
 tliey are merely lay figures that serve to support and render 
 the personification of the Husband and Wife more striking 
 by the force of contrast. 
 
 There is every indication that this little drama was a 
 hasty effort to catch the whim of the moment and present 
 it to the people in all its grim realism ; under such circum¬ 
 stances inferior workmanship and feeble characterisation 
 may be excused. But are such defects to be found ? The 
 beauties are many and palpable; the defects few and in¬ 
 definite. The situations are striking and dramatic; the 
 pathos deep and penetrating, reaching the heart with that 
 directness of aim which is the most prominent characteris¬ 
 tic of our early dramatists. The characters are drawn in 
 bold, lifelike outline, and a master’s hand can be discerned 
 in the tracing ; their language is forcible, natural and ap¬ 
 propriate to the situations in which they are placed. 
 
 Considering the shortness of the composition, there are 
 many passages of great beauty and power ; poetic thoughts 
 clothed in poetic words which are not unworthy of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XUl 
 
 author to whom this play has been attributed. A few pas¬ 
 sages will suffice in support of the assertion.— 
 
 Again— 
 
 “ I see how Ruin with a palsied hand 
 Begins to shake this ancient seat to dust: 
 
 The heavy weight of sorrow draws my lids 
 Over my dankish eyes : I scarce can see ; 
 
 Thus grief will last ; it wakes and sleeps in me.” 
 
 “ Now glides the devil from me, 
 Departs at every joint ; heaves up my nails. 
 
 O catch him torments, that were ne’er invented ! 
 Bind him one thousand more, you blessed angels, 
 In that pit bottomless. Let him not rise 
 To make men act unnatural tragedies ; 
 
 To spread into a father, and in fury 
 Make him his childrens’ executioner.” 
 
 The Husband’s sorrow on viewing the bodies of his mur¬ 
 dered children is expressed in a passage of great beauty 
 and pathos. 
 
 “ Here’s weight enough to make a heartstring crack, 
 
 O were it lawful that your pretty souls 
 
 Might look from heav’n into your father’s eyes, 
 
 Then should you see the penitent glasses melt, 
 
 And both your murders shoot upon my cheeks ; 
 
 But you are playing in the angels’ laps, 
 
 And will not look on me.” 
 
 Perhaps the greatest defect of this dramatic trifle is the 
 occasional irregularity of its versification ; this fault, how¬ 
 ever, may be urged in a greater or less degree against any 
 of our poets, and even Milton, who is held up as a pattern 
 of severe and correct metre, is not without it. The existence 
 of this defect may be explained or condoned by the fact 
 that the drama was hastily written, and that the author 
 intended at some future leisure to prune its excrescences 
 
XIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and reduce its ruggedness to metrical harmony, a leisure 
 which the pressure of circumstances did not permit him. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly this Yorkshire Tragedy has been at¬ 
 tributed to Shakespeare. What evidence have we that it is 
 his? The external evidence is strong and pertinent, and 
 appears to me conclusive. It rests upon these two points ; 
 the Stationers’ register, and the title page of the first quarto, 
 both of which bear the name of Shakespeare. The argument 
 advanced against this evidence is that unscrupulous prin¬ 
 ters of the period were accustomed to seize the name of a 
 popular author and attach it to a work of inferior merit, 
 for the sake of the increased sale it was likely to bring them. 
 Is the present work one of inferior merit ? if it be not, the 
 necessity for the deception disappears ; and if it be an in¬ 
 ferior performance, how are we to explain the strange fact 
 of Shakespeare countenancing the fraud by allowing his 
 name to be tacked to it on two seperate occasions? To 
 answer by saying he was careless of his fame so long as his 
 writings paid,-is simply begging the question. Would an 
 author of the present day sit calm and silent while a work, 
 of which he had every reason to feel ashamed, was being 
 fathered on him and sold to the public as his production? 
 I venture to answer No. Human nature is much about the 
 same in the nineteenth as it was in the seventeenth century. 
 Besides, it was acted at the Globe theatre, and printed and 
 published at a time when Shakespeare must have been 
 resident in, or frequently visiting, the metropolis, and it 
 requires an extraordinary stretch of the imagination to 
 suppose that the work was not brought under his notice. 
 Of course there is the vague probability that he did see and 
 know of the fraud, and that his carelessness or indifference 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xv 
 
 allowed him to wink at the deception, but I cannot believe 
 it. So far the external evidence. The internal evidence 
 seems to me as strong and conclusive as the external. I 
 cannot read the opening scene or the following passages— 
 
 If marriage be honourable,” act i, so ii. 
 
 “ 0 thou confounded man ! ” etc. act ii, sc n. 
 
 without feeling and thinking that I am reading Shakespeare. 
 The phraseology, the mode of thought and expression, the 
 poetry and grace of language appear to me to savour strongly 
 of the characteristics of Shakespeare’s acknowledged pro¬ 
 ductions. One of the arguments advanced against its au¬ 
 thenticity is the time at which it appeared. It is contended 
 that a work of so little merit could not have been produced 
 by him at the time that gave birth to Lear and Macbeth. 
 Why not? I am willing to admit that A Yorkshire Tragedy 
 is unequal and vastly inferior to either of those master¬ 
 pieces, but are authors’ works one level equality of merit ? 
 Our whole literary history contradicts the assumption. The 
 marvel is that Shakespeare should have produced so many 
 works of such splendid equality and perfection; it is this 
 fact that raises him head and shoulders above his brother 
 giants of the drama. But the same fact does not prove that 
 he was incapable of writing below the level of his splendid 
 equality. Are Marlowe’s, Beaumont and Fletcher’s or Mas¬ 
 singer’s works of the same level equality ? Take their great 
 contemporary, Ben Jonson, who produced a mass of rich 
 and varied writings, and the number of his plays that show 
 a maximum of uniform excellence, can be counted on the 
 fingers of either hand. Among all the old dramatists, next 
 to Shakespeare, Ford and Shirley may be mentiond as the 
 
XVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION . 
 
 only dramatic writers who show a level equality of merit, if 
 we take the whole of their plays into consideration. 
 
 I am not saying that A Yorkshire Tragedy is a master¬ 
 piece, or that it is equal to the best works of our great 
 poet, but I do say it is a creditable performance and one of 
 which he need not have been ashamed. The pity of it is 
 that its creator is shrouded in doubt; could that point be 
 definitely settled, I feel assured that its author’s name would 
 spell the magic word Shakespeare. 
 
 A. F. HOPKINSON. 
 
 London , January 31 st. 1891. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 o 
 
 HUSBAND. 
 
 MASTER or A COLLEGE. 
 
 A KNIGHT, a Magistrate, 
 SEVERAL GENTLEMEN. 
 OLIVER. \ 
 
 RALPH > Servants . 
 
 SAMUEL. ) 
 
 Other Servants. 
 
 Officers. 
 
 A Little Boy. 
 
 WIFE. 
 
 Maid-Servant. 
 
 SCENE,—Calverly in Yorkshire, 
 
 'J^Oo- 
 
A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I .—A room in a Country House. 
 
 Enter Oliver and ralph. 
 
 Oliv. Sirrali Ralph, my young mistress is in such a pit- 
 tiful passionate humour for the long absence of her love— 
 
 Ralph. Why, can you blame her ? Why, apples hanging 
 longer on the tree than when they are ripe, make so many 
 fallings ; viz. mad wenches, because they are not gathered 
 in time, are fain to drop of themselves, and then ’tis com¬ 
 mon you know for every man to take them up. 
 
 Oliv. Mass, thou say’st true, ’tis common indeed. But 
 sirrah, is neither our young master returned, nor our fellow 
 Sam come from London ? 
 
 Ralph. Neither of either, as the puritan bawd says. ’Slid, 
 I hear Sam. Sam’s come : here he is; tarry ;—come i’faith : 
 now^my nose itches for news. 
 
 Oliv. And so does mine elbow. 
 
 Sam. [ Within.] Where are you there ? Boy, look you 
 walk my horse with discretion. I have rid him simply: I 
 ■warrant his skin sticks to his back with very heat. If he 
 should catch cold and get the cough of the lungs, I were 
 w r ell served, were I not ? 
 
2 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT I. 
 
 Enter' sam. 
 
 What Ralph and Oliver! 
 
 Both. Honest fellow Sam, welcome i’faith. What tricks 
 hast thou brought from London ? 
 
 Sam. You see I am hanged after the truest fashion : 
 three hats, and two glasses bobbing upon them ; two rebato 
 wires upon my breast, a cap-case by my side, a brush at my 
 back, an almanack in my pocket, and three ballads in my 
 codpiece. Nay, I am the true picture of a common serving- 
 man. 
 
 Oliv. I’ll swear thou art; thou may’st set up when thou 
 wilt: there’s many a one begins with less I can tell thee, 
 that proves a rich man ere he dies. But what’s the news 
 from London, Sam ? 
 
 Ralph. Ay, that’s well said ; what’s the news from Lon¬ 
 don, sirrah ? My young mistress keeps such a puling for 
 her love. 
 
 Sam. Why the more fool she; ay, the more ninny-ham¬ 
 mer she. 
 
 Oliv. Why, Sam, why ? 
 
 Sam. Why, he is married to another long ago. 
 
 Both. I’faith? You jest. 
 
 Sam. Why, did you not know that till now ? Why, he’s 
 married, beats his wife, and has two or three children by 
 her. For you must note, that any woman bears the more 
 when she is beaten. 
 
 Ralph. Ay, that’s true, for she bears the blows. 
 
 Oliv. Sirrah Sam, I would not for two years’ wages my 
 young mistress knew so much : she’d run upon the left 
 hand of her wit, and ne’er be her own woman again. 
 
 Sam. And I think she was blest in her cradle, that he 
 
scene i.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 3 
 
 never came in her bed. Why, he has consumed all, pawn’d 
 his lands, and made his university brother stand in wax for 
 him : there’s a fine phrase for a scrivener. Puh ! he owes 
 more than his skin is worth. 
 
 Oliv. Is’t possible ? 
 
 Sam. Nay, I’ll tell you, moreover, he calls his wife whore, 
 as familiarly as one would call Moll and Doll; and his 
 children bastards, as naturally as can be. But what have 
 we here ? I thought ’twas something pulled down my 
 breeches ; I quite forgot my two poking-sticks : these came 
 from London. Now anything is good here that comes from 
 London. 
 
 Oliv. Ay, far fetched, you know, Sam. But speak in 
 your conscience, i’faith ; have not we as good poking-sticks 
 i’ the country as need be put in the fire ? 
 
 Sam. The mind of a thing is all ; the mind of a thing is 
 all; and as thou said’st even now, far fetched are the best 
 things for ladies. 
 
 Oliv. Ay, and for waiting gentle-women too. 
 
 Sam. But Ralph, what, is our beer sour this thunder ? 
 
 Ralph. No, no, it holds countenance yet. 
 
 Sam. Why then follow me; I’ll teach you the finest 
 humour to be drunk in: I learned it at London last week. 
 
 Roth. I’faith ? Let’s hear it, let’s hear it. 
 
 Sam. The bravest humour ! ’twould do a man good to 
 be drunk in it; they call it knighting in London, when they 
 drink upon their knees. 
 
 Roth. ’Faith that's excellent. 
 
 Sam. Come follow me ; I’ll give you all the degrees of 
 it in order. 
 
 [Exeunt, 
 
4 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT I. 
 
 SCENE II— An apartment in Calverly Hall. 
 
 Enter wife. 
 
 Wife. What will become of us ? All will away: 
 
 My husband never ceases in expense, 
 
 Both to consume his credit and his house ; 
 
 And ’tis set down by heaven’s just decree, 
 
 That riot’s child must needs be beggery. 
 
 Are these the virtues that his youth did promise ? 
 
 Dice and voluptuous meetings, midnight revels, 
 
 Taking his bed with surfeits ; ill beseeming 
 The ancient honour of his house and name ? 
 
 And this not all, but that which kills me most, 
 
 When he recounts his losses and false fortunes, 
 
 The weakness of his state so much dejected, 
 
 Not as a man repentent, but half mad. 
 
 His fortunes cannot answer his expense, / 
 
 He sits, and sullenly locks up his arms ; 
 
 Forgetting heaven, looks downward ; which makes him 
 Appear so dreadful that he frights my heart: 
 
 Walks heavily, as if his soul were earth ; 
 
 Not penitent for those his sins are past, 
 
 But vexed his money cannot make them last: 
 
 A fearful melancholy, ungodly sorrow. 
 
 O, yonder he comes ; now in despite of ills 
 I’ll speak to him, and I will hear him speak, 
 
 And do my best to drive it from his heart. 
 
 Enter husband. 
 
 Hus . Pox o’ the last throw! It made five hundred angels 
 
scene ii.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 5 
 
 Vanish from my sight. I am damned, Fm damned ; 
 
 The angels have forsook me, Nay it is 
 Certainly true ; for he that has no coin 
 Is damned in this world ; he is gone, he’s gone, 
 
 Wife. Dear husband. 
 
 Hus. 0 ! most punishment of all, I have a wife. 
 
 Wife. I do entreat you, as you love your soul, 
 
 Tell me the cause of this your discontent, 
 
 Hus, A vengeance strip thee naked ! thou art cause, 
 Effect, quality, property ; thou, thou, thou. [Exit, 
 
 Wife. Bad turned to worse ; both beggary of his soul 
 And of the body ;—and so much, unlike 
 Himself at first, as if some vexed spirit 
 Had got his form upon him. He comes again. 
 
 Re-enter husband. 
 
 He says 1 am the cause : I never yet 
 jSpoke less than words of duty and of love, 
 
 Hus. If marriage be honourable, then cuckolds are hon¬ 
 ourable, for they cannot be made without marriage. Fool! 
 what meant I to marry to get beggars? Now must my 
 eldest son be a knave or nothing ; he cannot live upon the 
 fool, for he will have no land to maintain him. That mort¬ 
 gage sits like a snaffle upon mine inheritance, and makes 
 me chew upon iron. My second son must be a promoter, 
 and my third a thief, or an underputter; a slave pander. 
 Oh beggary, beggary, to what base use dost thou put a 
 man ! I think the devil scorns to be a bawd; he bears 
 himself more proudly, has more care of his credit. Base, 
 slavish, abject, filthy poverty ! 
 
6 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT I. 
 
 Wife. Good sir, by all our vows I do beseech you, 
 
 Show me the true cause of your discontent. 
 
 Hus. Money, money, money ; and thou must supply me. 
 Wife. Alas, I am the least cause of your discontent, 
 
 Yet what is mine either in rings or jewels, 
 
 Use to your own desire; but I beseech you, 
 
 As you are a gentleman by many bloods, 
 
 Though I myself be out of your respect, 
 
 Think on the state of these three lovely boys 
 You have been father to. 
 
 Hus. Puh •! bastards, bastards. 
 
 Bastards ; begot in tricks, begot in tricks. [may 
 
 Wife. Heav’n knows how these words wrong me: but I 
 Endure these griefs among a thousand more, 
 
 0 call to mind your lands already mortgaged, 
 
 Yourself w r ound into debts, your hopeful brother 
 At the university in bonds for you, 
 
 Like to be seized upon ; and— 
 
 Hus. Have done, thou harlot, 
 
 Whom though for fashion-sake I married, 
 
 I never could abide, Think’st thou, thy words 
 Shall kill my pleasures ? Fall off to thy friends ; 
 
 Thou and thy bastards beg ; I will not bate 
 A whit in humour, Midnight, still I love you, 
 
 And revel in your company ! Curbed in, 
 
 Shall it be said in all societies, 
 
 That I broke custom ? that I flagged in money ? 
 
 No, those thy jewels I will play as freely 
 As when my state was fullest. 
 
 Wife. Be it so. 
 
 Hus , Nay I protest (and take that for an earnest) 
 
I 
 
 scene ii.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 7 
 
 [Spurns her . 
 
 I will for ever hold thee in contempt, 
 
 And never touch the sheets that cover thee, 
 
 But be divorced in bed, till thou consent 
 Thy dowry shall be sold, to give new life 
 Unto those pleasures which I most affect. 
 
 Wife. Sir, do but turn a gentle eye on me, 
 
 And what the law shall give me leave to do, 
 
 You shall command. 
 
 Hus. Look it be done. Shall I want dust, 
 
 And like a slave wear nothing in my pockets 
 
 [Holds his hands in his pockets. 
 But my bare hands, to fill them up with nails ? 
 
 O much against my blood ! Let it be done ; 
 
 I was never made to be a looker on, 
 
 A bawd to dice ; I’ll shake the drabs myself, 
 
 And make them yield: I say, look it be done. 
 
 Wife, I take my leave: it shall, [Exit, 
 
 Hus. Speedily, speedily. 
 
 I hate the very hour I chose a wife : 
 
 A trouble, trouble ! Three children, like three evils, 
 
 Hang on me, Fie, fie, fie ! Strumpet and bastards ! 
 
 Enter three gentlemen, 
 
 Strumpet and bastards ! [tongue ? 
 
 1st Gent. Still do these loathsome thoughts jar on your 
 Yourself to stain the honour of your wife, 
 
 Nobly descended ? Those whom men call mad, 
 
 Endanger others; but he’s more than mad 
 
 That wounds himself; whose own words do proclaim 
 
8 
 
 A YORKS HIKE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT I 
 
 Scandals unjust, to soil his better name. 
 
 It is not fit ; I pray, forsake it. 
 
 2nd Gent. Good sir, let modesty reprove you. 
 
 3rd Gent. Let honest kindness sway so much with you. 
 TIus. Good den ; I thank you, sir ; how do you ? Adieu ! 
 1 am glad to see you. Farewell instructions, 
 
 Admonitions ! [Exeunt gentlemen. 
 
 Enter a servant. 
 
 How now, sirrah ? What would you? 
 
 Ser. Only to certify you, sir, that my mistress was met 
 by the way, by them who were sent for her up to London 
 by her honourable uncle, your worship’s late guardian. 
 
 Hus. So, sir, then she is gone ; and so may you be ; 
 
 But let her look the thing be done she wots of, 
 
 Or hell will stand more pleasant than her house 
 
 At home. [Exit SERVANT. 
 
 Enter a gentleman. 
 
 Gent. Well or ill met, I care not. 
 
 TIus. No, nor I. 
 
 Gent. I am come with confidence to chide you. 
 
 Hus. Who ? me ? 
 
 Chide me ? Do’t finely then; let it not move me: 
 
 For if thou chid’st me angry, I shall strike. 
 
 Gent. Strike thine own follies, for ’tis they deserve 
 To be well beaten. We are now in private ; 
 
 There’s none but thou and I. Thou art fond and peevish ;' 
 An unclean rioter; thy lands and credit 
 
9 
 
 ecEN* u] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Lie now both sick of a consumption : 
 
 I am sorry for thee. That man spends with shame, 
 That with his riches doth consume his name ; 
 
 And such art thou. 
 
 Hus. Peace. 
 
 Gent. No, thou shalt hear me further. 
 
 Thy father’s and forefathers’ worthy honours, 
 
 Which were our country monuments, our grace, 
 Pollies in thee begin now to deface. 
 
 The spring-time of thy youth did fairly promise 
 Such a most fruitful summer to thy friends, 
 
 It scarce can enter into men’s beliefs, 
 
 Such dearth should hang upon thee. We that see it, 
 Are sorry to believe it. In thy change, 
 
 This voice into all places will be hurled— 
 
 Thou and the devil have deceived the world. 
 
 Hus. I’ll not endure thee. 
 
 Gent. But of all the worst, 
 
 Thy virtuous wife, right honourably allied, 
 
 Thou hast proclaimed a strumpet. 
 
 Hus. Nav then I know thee ; 
 
 Thou art her champion, thou ; her private friend; 
 The party you wot on. 
 
 Gent. 0 ignoble thought! 
 
 I am past my patiept blood. Shall I stand idle, 
 
 And see my reputation touched to death ? 
 
 Hus. It has galled you, this ; has it ? 
 
 Gent. No, monster ; I will prove 
 My thoughts did only tend to virtuous love. 
 
 Hus. Love of her virtues ? there it goes, 
 
 Gent. Base spirit, 
 
10 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT I. 
 
 To lay thy hate upon the fruitful honour 
 Of thine own bed! 
 
 [ They fight, and the hus. is hurt. 
 
 Hus. Oh ! 
 
 Gent. Wilt thou yield it yet ? 
 
 Hus. Sir, sir, I have not done with you. 
 
 Gent. I hope, nor ne’er shall do. 
 
 [ They Jight again. 
 
 Hus. Have you got tricks ? Are you in cunning with 
 Gent. No, plain and right: [me ? 
 
 He needs no cunning that for truth doth fight. 
 
 [hus. falls down. 
 
 Hus. Hard fortune ! am I levelled with the ground ? 
 Gent. Now, sir, you lie at mercy. 
 
 Hus. Ay, you slave. 
 
 Gent. Alas, that hate should bring us to our grave ! 
 
 You see, my sword’s not thirsty for your life : 
 
 I am sorrier for your wound than you yourself. 
 
 You’re of a virtuous house ; show virtuous deeds ; 
 
 ’Tis not your honour, ’tis your folly bleeds. 
 
 Much good has been expected in your life; 
 
 Cancel not all men’s hopes : you have a wife, 
 
 Kind and obedient; heep not wrongful shame 
 On her and your posterity ; let only sin be sore, 
 
 And by this fall, rise never to fall more. 
 
 And so I leave you. [Exit. 
 
 Hus. Has the dog left me then, 
 
 After his tooth has left me ? O, my heart 
 Would fain leap after him. Eevenge I say; 
 
 I’m mad to be revenged. My strumpet wife, 
 
 It is thy quarrel that rips thus my flesh, 
 
act ii, sc i.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 11 
 
 And makes my breast spit blood ;—but thou shalt bleed. 
 Vanquished? got down? unable e’en to speak? 
 
 Surely ’tis want of money makes men weak: 
 
 Ay, ’twas that o’erthrew me; I’d ne’er been down else. 
 
 [Exit, 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I .—Another room in Calverly Hall. 
 Enter wife and a servant. 
 
 Vs-“> f T - . *s •: ’* *• . .» 
 
 Ser. ’Faith, mistress, if it might not be presumption 
 In me to tell you so, for his excuse 
 You had small reason, knowing his abuse. 
 
 Wife. I grant I had ; but alas, 
 
 Why should our faults at home be spread abroad ? 
 
 ’Tis grief enough within doors. At first sight 
 Mine uncle could run o’er his prodigal life 
 As perfectly as if his serious eye 
 Had numbered all his follies: 
 
 Knew of his mortgaged lands, his friends in bonds, 
 Himself withered with debts ; and in that minute 
 Had I added his usuage and unkindness, 
 
 ’Twould have confounded every thought of good : 
 Where now, fathering his riots on his youth, 
 
 Which time and tame experience will shake off,— 
 Guessing his kindness to me, (as I smoothed him 
 With all the skill I had, though his deserts 
 Are in form uglier than an unshaped bear,) 
 
12 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. [act ii. 
 
 He’s ready to prefer him to some office 
 
 And place at court; a good and sure relief 
 
 To all his stooping fortunes. ’Twill be a means, I hope, 
 
 To make new league between us, and redeem 
 His virtues with his lands. 
 
 Ser. I should think so, mistress. If he should not now 
 be kind to you, and love you, and cherish you up, I should 
 think the devil himself kept open house in him. 
 
 Wife. I doubt not but he will. Now pr’ythee leave me ; 
 I think I hear him coming. 
 
 Ser. I am gone. [Exit, 
 
 Wife. By this good means I shall preserve my lands, 
 And free my husband out of usurers’ hands. 
 
 Now there’s no need of sale ; my uncle’s kind ; 
 
 I hope, if aught, this will content his mind, 
 
 Here comes my husband. 
 
 % » 
 Enter husband. 
 
 Hus. Now, are you come ? Where’s the money ? Let’s 
 see the money. Is the rubbish sold ? those wise-acres, your 
 lands ? Why when ? The money ? Where is it ? Pour it 
 down ; down with it, down with it : I say pour’t on the 
 ground; let’s see it, let’s see it. 
 
 Wife. Good sir, keep but in patience, and I hope my 
 words shall like you well. I bring you better comfort than 
 the sale of my dowry. 
 
 Hus. Ha ! What’s that ? 
 
 Wife. Pray do not fright me, sir, but vouchsafe me 
 hearing. My uncle, glad of your kindness to me and mild 
 usuage (for so I made it to him), hath in pity of your de¬ 
 clining fortunes, provided a place for you at court, of worth 
 
13 
 
 scene i.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 and credit; which so much overjoyed me— 
 
 Hus. Out on thee, filth ! over and overjoyed, when I’m 
 in torment ? [Spurns her.'] Thou politic whore# subtiler 
 than nine devils, was this thy journey to nunck ? to set 
 down the history of me, of my state and fortunes? Shall 
 I that dedicated myself to pleasure, be now confined in 
 service ? to crouch and stand like an old man i’ the hams, 
 my hat off ? I that could never abide to uncover my head 
 i the church ? Base slut ! this fruit bear thy complaints. 
 Wife. 0, heaven knows 
 
 That my complaints were praises, and best words, 
 
 Of you and your estate. Only my friends 
 Knew of your mortgaged lands, and were possessed 
 Of every accident before I came. 
 
 If you suspect it but a plot in me, 
 
 To keep my dowry, or for mine own good, 
 
 Or my poor children’s, (though it suits a mother 
 To show a natural care in their reliefs,) 
 
 Yet I’ll forget myself to calm your blood : 
 
 Consume it, as your pleasure counsels you. 
 
 And all I wish even clemency affords; 
 
 Give me but pleasant looks, and modest words. 
 
 Hus. Money, whore, money, or I ’ll— 
 
 [Draws a dagger. 
 
 Enter a servant hastily. 
 
 What the devil ! How now ! thy hasty news ? 
 
 Ser. May it please you, sir— 
 
 Hus. What ! may I not look upon my dagger ? Speak, 
 villain, or I ’ll execute the point on thee. Quick, short. 
 
14 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT II. 
 
 Ser. Why, sir, a gentleman from the university stays 
 below to speak with you. [Exit. 
 
 Hus. • From the university ? so ; university:—that long 
 word runs through me. [Exit. 
 
 Wife. Was ever wife so wretchedly beset ? 
 
 Had not this news stepped in between, the point 
 Had offered violence unto my breast. 
 
 That which some women call great misery, 
 
 Would show but little here; would scarce be seen 
 
 Among my miseries. I may compare 
 
 For wretched fortunes, with all wives that are. 
 
 Nothing will please him, until all be nothing. 
 
 He calls it slavery to be preferred ; 
 
 A place of credit, a base servitude. 
 
 What shall become of me, and my poor children, 
 
 Two here, and one at nurse ? my pretty beggars ! 
 
 I see how Ruin with a palsied hand 
 Begins to shake this ancient seat to dust: 
 
 The heavy weight of sorrow draws my lids 
 Over my dankish eyes: I can scarce see ; 
 
 Thus grief will last; it wakes and sleeps with me. [ Exit. 
 
 SCENE II.— Another Apartment in Calverly Hall. 
 Enter husband and the master of a college. 
 
 Hus. Please you draw near, sir; you’re exceeding welcome. 
 Mast. That’s my doubt; I fear I come not to be welcome. 
 Hus. Yes, howsoever. 
 
 Mast. ’Tis not my fashion, sir, to dwell in long cir¬ 
 cumstance, but to be plain and effectual, therefore to the 
 
scene ii.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 15 
 
 purpose. The cause of my setting forth was piteous and 
 lamentable. That hopeful young gentleman, your brother, 
 whose virtues we all love dearly, through your default and 
 unnatural negligence lies in bond executed for your debt,— 
 a prisoner ; all his studies amazed, his hope struck dead, 
 and the pride of his youth muffled in these dark clouds of 
 oppression. 
 
 Hus. Umph, umph, umph ! 
 
 Mast. 0 you have killed the towardest hope of all our 
 university, wherefore without repentance and amends, ex¬ 
 pect ponderous and sudden judgments to fall grievously 
 upon you. Your brother, a man who profited in his divine 
 employments, and might have made'ten thousand souls fit 
 for heaven, is now by your careless courses cast into prison, 
 w'hich you must answer for ; and assure your spirit it will 
 come home at length. 
 
 Hus. 0 God ! oh ! 
 
 Mast. Wise men think ill of you ; others speak ill of 
 you ; no man loves you : nay, even those whom honesty 
 condemns, condemn you : and take this from the virtuous 
 affection I bear your brother; never look for prosperous 
 hour, good thoughts, quiet sleep, contented walks, nor any¬ 
 thing that makes man perfect, till you redeem him. What 
 is your answer ? How will you bestow him ? Upon des¬ 
 perate misery, or better hopes ? I suffer till I hear your 
 answer. 
 
 Hus. Sir, you have much wrought with me ; I feel you 
 in my soul: you are your art’s master. I never had sense 
 till now; your syllables have cleft me. Both for your words 
 and pains I thank you. I cannot but acknowledge grevious 
 wrongs done to my brother ; mighty, mighty, mighty, 
 
16 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. [act ii. 
 
 mighty wrongs. Within, there ! 
 
 Enter a servant. 
 
 Hus. Fill me a bowl of wine. [ Exit see. 
 
 Alas, poor brother, bruised with an execution for my sake ! 
 
 Mast. A bruise indeed makes many a mortal sore, 
 
 Till the grave cure them. 
 
 Re-enter servant with wine. 
 
 Hus. Sir, I begin to you ; you’ve chid your welcome. 
 
 Mast. I could have wished it better for your sake. 
 
 I pledge you sir:—To the kind man in prison. 
 
 Hus. Let it be so. Now, sir, if you please to spend but 
 a few minutes in a walk about my grounds below, my man 
 here shall attend you. I doubt not but by that time to be 
 furnished of a sufficient answer, and therein my brother 
 fully satisfied. 
 
 Mast. Good sir, in that the angels would be pleased, and 
 the world’s murmurs calmed ; and I should say I set forth 
 then upon a lucky day. [ Exeunt mast, and see. 
 
 Hus. 0 thou confused man ! Thy pleasant sins have 
 undone thee ; thy damnation has beggared thee. That 
 heaven should say we must not sin, and yet made woman ! 
 give our senses way to find pleasure, which being found, 
 confounds us ! Why should we know those things so much 
 misuse us ? 0, would virtue had been forbidden ! We 
 should then have proved all virtuous ; for ’tis our blood to 
 love what we are forbidden. Had not drunkenness been 
 forbidden, what man would have been fool to a beast, and 
 
scene ii.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 17 
 
 zany to a swine,—to show tricks in the mire ? What is 
 there in three dice, to make a man draw thrice three thou¬ 
 sand acres into the compass of a little round table, and with 
 the gentleman’s palsy in the hand shake out his posterity 
 thieves or beggars ? ’Tis done ; I have done’t i’ faith : ter¬ 
 rible, horrible misery ! How well was I left ! Very well, 
 very well. My lands showed like a full moon about me ; 
 but now the moon’s in the last quarter,—waning, waning ; 
 and I am mad to think that moon was mine ; mine and my 
 father’s, and my fore-fathers’: generations, generations.— 
 Down goes the house of us ; down, down it sinks. Now is 
 the name a beggar; begs in me. That name which hun- 
 dreds of years has made this shire famous, in me and my 
 posterity runs out. In my seed five are made miserable 
 besides myself: my riot is now my brother’s gaoler, my 
 wife’s sighing, my three boy’s penury, and mine own con¬ 
 fusion. 
 
 Why sit my hairs upon my cursed head ? 
 
 [ Tears his Mir. 
 
 Will not this poison scatter them ? 0, my brother’s 
 
 In execution among devils that 
 
 Stretch him and make him give ; and I in want. 
 
 Not able for to live, nor to redeem him ! 
 
 Divines and dying men may talk of hell, 
 
 But in my heart her several torments dwell; 
 
 Slavery and misery. Who, in this case, 
 
 Would not take up money upon his soul ? 
 
 Pawn his salvation, live at interest ? 
 
 I, that did ever in abundance dwell; 
 
 For me to want, exceeds the throes of hell. 
 
 Enter a little boy with a top and scourge. 
 
18 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT II. 
 
 Son. What ail you, father ? Are you not well ? I cannot 
 scourge my top as long as you stand so. You take up all 
 the room with your wide legs. Puh ! you cannot make me 
 afraid with this ; I fear no vizards, nor bugbears. 
 
 [He takes up the child by the skirts of his lone/ coat 
 with one hand, and draws his dagger with the other. 
 Hus. Up, sir, for here thou hast no inheritance left. 
 
 Son. O, what will you do, father ? I am your white boy. 
 Hus. Thou shalt be my red boy ; take that. 
 
 [Strikes him. 
 
 Son. O, you hurt me, father. 
 
 Hus. My eldest beggar, 
 
 Thou shalt not live to ask an usurer bread; 
 
 To cry at a great man’s gate ; or follow, 
 
 “ Good your honour,” by a coach ; no, nor your brother : 
 
 ’Tis charity to brain you. 
 
 Son. How shall I learn, now my head’s broke ? 
 
 Hus. Bleed, bleed, [Stabs him. 
 
 Rather than beg. Be not thy name’s disgrace : 
 
 Spurn thou thy fortunes first; if they be base, [blood 
 Come view thy second brother’s. Fates ! My children’s 
 Shall spin into your faces ; you shall see, 
 
 How confidently we scorn beggary ! [Exit with his son. 
 
 SCENE III.— A Room in Calverly Hall. 
 
 A maid discovered with a child in her arms; the mother 
 sleeping on a Couch beside her. 
 
 Maid. Sleep, sweet babe; sorrow makes thy mother sleep : 
 It bodes small good when heaviness falls so deep. 
 
19 
 
 scene hi.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 Hush, pretty boy ; thy hopes might have been better. 
 
 ’Tis lost at dice, what ancient honour won*: 
 
 Hard, when the father plays away the son ! 
 
 Nothing but misery serves in this house; 
 
 Ruin and desolation. Oh ! 
 
 Enter husband with his son bleeding. 
 
 Hus. Whore, give me that boy. 
 
 [Strives with her for the child. 
 Maid. 0 help, help ! Out alas ! Murder, murder ! 
 
 Hus. Are you gossiping, you prating, sturdy quean ? 
 
 I ’ll break your clamour with your neck. Down stairs ; 
 Tumble, tumble, headlong. So :— 
 
 [He throws her down , and stabs the child. 
 The surest way to charm a woman’s tongue, 
 
 Is—break her neck: a politician did it. 
 
 Son. Mother, mother; I am killed, mother ! 
 
 [wife awakes. 
 
 Wife. Ha, who’s that cried ? O me ! my children ! 
 
 Both bloody, both bloody ! 
 
 [ Catches up the younger child. 
 Hus. Strumpet, let go the boy; let go the beggar. 
 
 Wife. 0 my sweet husband ! 
 
 Hus. Filth, harlot ! 
 
 Wife. 0, what will you do, dear husband ? 
 
 Hus. Give me the bastard. 
 
 Wife. Your own sweet boy— 
 
 Hus. There are too many beggars. 
 
 Wife. Good, my husband— 
 
 Hus. Dost thou prevent me still ? 
 
20 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. [act ii. 
 
 Wife. O God ! 
 
 Hus. Have at*his heart. 
 
 [Stabs at the child in her arms. 
 
 Wife. O, my dear boy ! 
 
 Hus. Brat, thou shalt not live to shame thy house— 
 Wife. Oh heaven ! 
 
 [NAe is hurt and sinks down. 
 Hus. And perish !—Now begone: 
 
 There’s whores enough, and want would make thee one. 
 
 Enter a servant. 
 
 Ser. 0, sir, what deeds are these ? 
 
 Hus. Base slave, my vassal ! 
 
 Com’st thou between my fury to question me ? 
 
 Ser. Were you the devil, I would hold you, sir. 
 
 Hus. Hold me ? Presumption ! I ’ll undo thee for it. 
 Ser. ’Sblood, you have undone us all, sir. 
 
 Hus. Tug at thy master ? 
 
 Ser. Tug at a monster. 
 
 Hus. Have I no power ? Shall my slave fetter me ? 
 
 Ser. Nay, then the devil wrestles ; I am thrown. 
 
 Hus. O villain ! now I ’ll tug thee, now I ’ll tear thee; 
 Set quick spurs to my vassal; bruise him, trample him. 
 
 So ; I think thou wilt not follow me in haste. 
 
 My horse stands ready saddled. Away, away; 
 
 Now to my brat q.t nurse, my sucking beggar : 
 
 Fates, I ’ll not leave you one to trample on ! 
 
 [ Exeunt. 
 
scene iv.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 21 
 
 SCENE IV .—Court before the House. 
 
 Enter husband ; to him the master of the college. 
 
 Mast. How is it with you, sir ? 
 
 Methinks you look of a distracted colour. 
 
 Hus. Who, I, sir ? ’Tis but your fancy. 
 
 Please you walk in, sir, and I ’ll soon resolve you ; 
 
 I want one small part to make up the sum, 
 
 And then my brother shall rest satisfied. 
 
 Mast, I shall be glad to see it. Sir, I ’ll attend you. 
 
 [Exeunt. 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I .—A room in Calverly Hall. 
 
 The wife, servant, and children discovered. 
 
 Ser. Oh, I am scarce able to heave up myself, 
 
 He has so bruised me with his devilish weight, 
 
 And torn my flesh with his blood hasty .spur: 
 
 A man before of easy constitution, 
 
 Till now Hell power supplied, to his soul’s wrong: 
 
 0 how damnation can make weak men strong ! 
 
 Enter the master of the college and two servants. 
 
 Ser. O the most piteous deed, sir, since you came ! 
 Mast. A deadly greeting ! Hath he summed up these 
 
22 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT HI. 
 
 To satisfy his brother ? Here’s another ; 
 
 And by the bleeding infants, the dead mother. 
 
 Wife. Oh! Oh ! 
 
 Mast. Surgeons ! surgeons ! she recovers life:— 
 
 One of his men all faint and bloodied ! 
 
 ls£ Ser. Follow ; our murderous master has took horse 
 To kill his child at nurse. 0, follow quickly. 
 
 Mast. I am the readiest; it shall be my charge 
 To raise the town upon him. 
 ls£ Ser. Good sir, do follow him. 
 
 {Exeunt master and two servants. 
 Wife. 0 my children ! 
 
 ls£ Ser. How is it with my most afflicted mistress ? 
 Wife. Why do I now recover ? Why half live, 
 
 To see my children bleed before my eyes ? 
 
 A sight able to kill a mother’s breast, without 
 An executioner. What, art thou mangled too ? 
 
 1st Ser. I, thinking to prevent what his quick mischiefs 
 Had so soon acted, came and rushed upon him. 
 
 We struggled ; but a fouler strength than his 
 O’erthrew me wdth his arms, then did he bruise me, 
 
 And rent my flesh, and robbed me of my hair ; 
 
 Like a man mad in execution, 
 
 Made me unfit to rise and follow him. 
 
 Wife. What is it has beguiled him of all grace, 
 
 And stole away humanity from his breast ? 
 
 To slay his children, purpose to kill his wife, 
 
 And spoil his servants— 
 
 Enter a servant. 
 
 Ser. Please you to leave this most accursed place: 
 
scene ii.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 23 
 
 A s urgeon waits within. 
 
 Wife. Willing to leave it ? 
 
 ’Tis guilty of sweet blood, innocent blood: 
 
 Murder has took this chamber with full hands, 
 
 And will ne’er out as long as the house stands. [ Exeunt . 
 
 SCENE II.— A high Road. 
 
 Enter husband mounted; the Horse stumbles and falls. 
 
 Hus. 0 stumbling jade ! The spavin overtake thee ! 
 The fifty diseases stop thee ! 
 
 Oh, I am sorely bruised ! Plague founder thee ! 
 
 Thou run’st at ease and pleasure. Heart of chance ! 
 
 To throw me now, within a flight o’ the town, 
 
 In such plain even ground too ! ’Sfoot, a man 
 May dice upon it, and throw away the meadows. 
 
 Filthy beast! 
 
 [A cry in the distance .] Follow, follow, follow. 
 
 Hus. Ha ! I hear sounds of men, like hue and cry. 
 
 Up, up, and struggle to thy horse ; make on; 
 
 Dispatch that little beggar, and all’s done. 
 
 [A cry in the distance.'] Here, here ; this way, this way. 
 Hus. At my back ? Oh ; 
 
 What fate have I ! my limbs deny me go. 
 
 My will is ’bated; beggary claims a part. 
 
 0 could I here reach to the infant’s heart! 
 
 Enter the master of the college, three gentlemen, and 
 attendants with halberds. 
 
 All. Here, here ; yonder, yonder. 
 
 Mast. Unnatural, flinty, more than barbarous ! 
 
24 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. [act hi. 
 
 The Scythians, even the marble-hearted Fates, 
 
 Could not have acted more remorseless deeds, 
 
 In their relentless natures, than these of thine. 
 
 Was this the answer I long waited on ? 
 
 The satisfaction for thy prisoned brother? 
 
 IIus. Why he can have no more of us than our skins, 
 And some of them want but fleaing. 
 
 ls£ Gent. Great sins have made him impudent. 
 
 Mast. He has shed so much blood, that he cannot blush. 
 2nd Gent. Away with him ; bear him to the justice’s. 
 
 A gentleman of worship dwells at hand : 
 
 There shall his deeds be blazed. 
 
 Hus. Why all the better. 
 
 My glory ’tis to have my action known; 
 
 I grieve for nothing, but I missed of one. 
 
 Mast. There’s little of a father in that grief: 
 
 Bear him away. [Exeunt. 
 
 SCENE III.— A room in the House of a magistrate. 
 Enter a knight, and three gentlemen. 
 
 Knight. Endanger’d so his wife ? murder’d his children ? 
 1st Gent. So the cry goes. 
 
 Knight. I am sorry I e’er knew him ; 
 
 That ever he took life and natural being 
 From such an honoured stock, and fair descent, 
 
 Till this black minute without stain or blemish. 
 
 1st Gent. Here come the men. 
 
 Enter the master of the college, fyc., with the Prisoner. 
 Knight. The serpent of his house ! I am sorry 
 
scene hi.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 25 
 
 For this time, that I am in place of justice. 
 
 Mast. Please you, sir— 
 
 Knight. Do not repeat it twice; I know too much : 
 Would it had ne’er been thought on ! sir, I bleed for you. 
 
 ls£ Gent. Your father’s sorrows are alive in me. 
 
 What made you show such monstrous cruelty ? 
 
 Hus. In a word, sir, I have consumed all, played away 
 long-acre ; and I thought it the charitablest deed I could do, 
 to cozen beggary, and knock my house o’ the head. 
 
 Knight. 0, in a cooler blood you will repent it. 
 
 Hus. I repent now that one is left unkilled ; 
 
 My brat at nurse. I would full fain have weaned him. 
 
 Knight, Well, I do not think, but in to-morrow’s judg- 
 The terror will sit closer to your soul, [ment, 
 
 When the dread thought of death remembers you; 
 
 To further which, take this sad voice from me, 
 
 Never was act played more unnaturally. 
 
 Hus. I thank you, sir. 
 
 Knight. Go lead him to the gaol; 
 
 Where justice claims all, there must pity fail. 
 
 Hus. Come, come ; away with me. 
 
 [Exeunt hus., fyc. 
 
 Mast. Sir, you deserve the worship of your place: 
 Would all did so ! In you the law is grace. 
 
 Knight. It is my wish it should be so. Ruinous man ! 
 The desolation of his house, the blot 
 Upon his predecessors’ honoured name ! 
 
 That man is nearest shame, that is past shame. 
 
 [Exeunt,. 
 
26 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 [ACT III. 
 
 SCENE IT.—Before Calverly Hall. 
 
 Enter husband guarded , master of the college, 
 GENTLEMEN, and ATTENDANTS. 
 
 Hus. I am, right against my house,—seat of my ancestors: 
 I hear my wife’s alive, but much endangered. 
 
 Let me entreat to speak with her, before 
 The prison gripe me. 
 
 His wife is brought in. 
 
 Gent. See, here she comes of herself. 
 
 Wife. 0 my sweet huband, my dear distressed husband, 
 Now in the hands of unrelenting laws, 
 
 My greatest sorrow, my extremest bleeding ; 
 
 Now my soul bleeds. 
 
 Hus. How now ? Kind to me ? Did I not wound thee ? 
 Left thee for dead ? 
 
 Wife. Tut, far, far greater wounds did my breast feel; 
 Unkindness strikes a deeper wound than steel. 
 
 You have been still unkind to me. 
 
 r 
 
 Hus. ’Faith, and so I think I have ; 
 
 I did my murders roughly out of hand, 
 
 Desperate and sudden; but thou hast devised 
 A fine way now to kill me : thou hast given mine eyes 
 Seven wounds apiece. Now glides the devil from me, 
 Departs at every joint ; heaves up my nails. 
 
 O catch him torments, that were ne’er invented ! 
 
 Bind him one thousand more, you blessed angels, 
 
scene iv.] A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 In that pit bottomless ! Let him not rise 
 To make men act unnatural tragedies ; 
 
 To spread into a father, and in fury 
 Make him his children’s executioner; 
 
 Murder his wife, his servants, and who not ?— 
 
 For that man’s dark, where heav’n is quite forgot. 
 
 Wife. 0 my repentant husband ! 
 
 Hus. 0 my dear soul, whom I too much have wronged; 
 For death I die, and for this have I longed. 
 
 Wife. Thou should’st not, be assured, for these faults die 
 If the law could forgive as soon as I. 
 
 [ The two children are laid out . 
 Hus. What sight is yonder ? 
 
 Wife. O, our two bleeding boys, 
 
 Laid forth upon the threshold. 
 
 Hus. Here’s weight enough to make a heart-string crack. 
 O were it lawful that your pretty souls 
 Might look from heav’n into your father’s eyes, 
 
 Then should you see the penitent glasses melt, 
 
 And both your murders shoot upon my cheeks ! 
 
 But you are playing in the angels’ laps, 
 
 And will not look on me, who, void of grace, 
 
 Billed you in beggary. 
 
 O that I might my wishes now attain, 
 
 I should then wish you living were again, 
 
 Though I did beg with you, which thing I feared : 
 
 O, ’twas the enemy my eyes so bleared ! 
 
 O, would you could pray heav’n me to forgive, 
 
 That will unto my end repentant live ! 
 
 Wife. It makes me even forget all other sorrows 
 And live apart with this. 
 
 / 
 
A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. [act iii. 
 
 28 
 
 Officer. Come, will you go ? 
 
 Hus. I ’ll kiss the blood I spilt, and then I ’ll go: 
 
 My soul is bloodied, well may my lips be so. 
 
 Farewell, dear wife ; now thou and I must part; 
 
 I of my wrongs repent me with my heart. 
 
 Wife. 0 stay ; thou shalt not go. 
 
 Hus. That’s but in vain ; you see it must be so. 
 
 Farewell ye bloody ashes of my boys ! 
 
 My punishments are their eternal joys. 
 
 Let every father look into my deeds, 
 
 And then their heirs may prosper, while mine bleeds. 
 
 [Exeunt hus., and officers. 
 Wife. More wretched am I now in this distress, 
 
 Than former sorrows made me. 
 
 Mast. 0 kind wife, 
 
 Be comforted ; one joy is yet unmurdered ; 
 
 You have a boy at nurse ; your joy’s in him. 
 
 Wife. Dearer than all is my poor husband’s life. 
 
 Heav’n give my body strength, which is yet faint 
 With much expense of blood, and I will kneel, 
 
 Sue for his life, number up all my friends, 
 
 To plead for pardon for my dear husband’s life. 
 
 Mast. Was it in man to wound so kind a creature ? 
 
 I ’ll ever praise a woman for thy sake. 
 
 I must return with grief; my answer’s set; 
 
 I shall bring news weighs heavier than the debt. 
 
 Two brothers, one in bond lies overthrown, 
 
 This on a deadlier execution. [Exeunt omnes. 
 
 O-Oj^oo- 
 
\f 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 29 
 
 A NOTE. 
 
 The following note by Mr. Steevens will prove of interest 
 to most readers.— 
 
 “ I am told, such general horror was inspired by the fact 
 on which this play is founded, that the mansion of Mr. Cal- 
 verly was relinquished by all his relations, and being per¬ 
 mitted to decay, has never since proved the residence of 
 persons of fashion or estate, being at present no more than 
 a farm-house. They say also, it would be difficult even 
 now to persuade some of the common people in the neigh¬ 
 bourhood, but that the unfortunate master of Calverly Hall 
 underwent the fate of Regulus, and was rolled down the 
 hill before his own seat, enclosed in a barrel stuck with 
 nails. Such is one of the stories current among the yeo¬ 
 manry of the circumjacent villages, where it is likewise 
 added, that the place of Mr. Calverly’s interment was never 
 exactly known, several coffins supposed to be filled with 
 sand having been deposited in various parishes, that his 
 remains might elude the pursuit of the populace, who 
 threatened to expose them to public infamy on a gibbet. 
 They were imagined, however, at last to have been clandes¬ 
 tinely conveyed into the family vault in Calverly church, 
 where the bodies of his children lie; and it was long be¬ 
 lieved that his ghost rode every night with dreadful cries 
 through the adjoining woods, to the terror of those whose 
 business compelled them to travel late at night, or early in 
 
30 
 
 A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY. 
 
 the morning. I have related all this mixture of truth and 
 fable, only to gain an opportunity of observing that no 
 murders were ever more deeply execrated, or bid fairer for 
 a lasting remembrance.” 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY A. F. IIOPKINSON, DELANCEY STREET, CAMDEN TOWN N.W.