Married, you ventur'd for my single life,

Widow'd, by me to gain the name of wife.

Merch. What, pause at the motion? You are not My sister, if you deny him.

Phil. Let me plead for him.

Sus. O, doubly link me to you! be you styl'd

My brother and my father.

Old For. With you let my age join, and make me proud To say that, in my last of days, barren of issue,

I have got so fair a daughter.

Young For. Sweet, your answer?

Mrs. H. Sir, I should much mistake my own fair ends, Should I alone withstand so many friends.

I am your's, and only so.

Young For. I your's the same;

And, Lady, now I kiss you by that name.

Enter Clown.

Clown. What, kissing already! then I smell another wedding towards; and in no fitter time than now. Prepare yourselves, gentlemen and gentlewomen. Make a hall! for I come to present you with a mask.

Phil. What mask?

Clown. Not such as ladies wear upon their faces, to keep the foul from the fair; but a plain mask, or rather more properly I may call it a mumming, because the presenters have scarce a word to speak for themselves.

Phil. If there be any that appear as friends,

And come to grace our feast in courtesy,
Admit 'em, prithee.

Clown. That shall I, sir, and with all expedition,
And that without drum, without fife, or musician.

Enter William, John, Goodwin, and Foster. These two lines shall serve for the prologue.

Now enter,

Yet

Scena prima—Dramatis persona. These be the actors. let me entreat you not to condemn them before you hear them speak.

Phil. Amazement startles me. Are these my brothers?

Clown. By the father's side, it should seem; for you know he was a hard man; and, it should seem, 'tis but a hard world with them.

Phil. And these my false friends, that distrusted Heaven, And put their faith in riches? I pray, gentlemen,

How comes this change?

John. How comes this change, say you? no change of pastures, which they say makes fat calves, but change of drink, change of women, change of ordinaries, change of gaming, and one wench in the Change—all these help'd to make this change

in us.

Wil. And change is no robbery. I have been robbed, but not at ruff; yet they that have robbed, you see, what a poor stock they have left me. A whore stole away my maidenhead ; ill company my good conditions; a broker robbed me of my apparel; drink of my wits; and dice of my money.

Phil. This is no more than expectation.

But how come you thus alter'd?

(To Goodwin and Foster.)

Clown. If you had said halter'd, sir, you had gone more roundly to the business.

Fos. Sir, there was coining laid to my charge, for which (tho' I acquit myself) I made my estate over unto a friend, (for so I thought him) but now he has cozened me, and turned me out of all.

Good. In dead of night my counting-house was broke ope by thieves, and all my coin (which was my whole estate and the god I then did trust in) stole away; I left a forlorn beggar. Phil. Oh, wond'rous! why, this passes!

Clown. It may pass among the rest for a scurvy jest; but never like Mother Pass's ale; for that was knighted.

Merch. Ale knighted? how, I prithee?

Clown. You have heard of alo-knigLts: therefore it is not improbable that ale may be knighted.

Merch. Thy reason.

Clown. Why, there is ale in the town that passes from man to man, from lip to lip, and from nose to nose. But Mother Pass's double ale, I assure you, sir, sir-passes; therefore knighted.

Phil. Leave trifling; for more serious is the object
Offer'd before our eyes. In these, Heav'n's justice;
In these a most remarkable precedent

To teach within our height to know ourselves!
Of which I make this use. You are my brothers,
(A name you once disdain'd to call me by)

Your wants shall be reliev'd. You that distrusted
Heav'n's providence, and made a mock of want
And other's misery, no more deride!
Part of your loss shall be by me supplied,
According to my power.

Young For. My noble brother!

You teach us virtue; of which I could wish
All those that see good days make happy use.
So those distress'd; for both there's precedent.
But to our present nuptials. Reverend father!

Dear lady! Sister! Friend! Nay, Brothers too!
But you, sir, (to Philip) most conjoined and endear'd !
In us, the world may see our fates well scann'd :
Fortune in me by Sea, in you, by Land.

[Exeunt omnes.

FINIS.

NOTES.

Page 6, line 17. Nor wound, to ask your pardon.] Id est, Nor if you should be wounded.

Page 7, line 30, and presumes he will not fail.) This should be "And I presume."

Page 18, line 14. Betwixt us play the sticklers.] The sticklers were the moderators of a combat, Mr. Steevens thinks from their carrying sticks, but Mr. Nares from the verb to stickle, to arbitrate. The expression, "with his shop-club," in this passage, seems to favour the former interpretation. Many examples might be found, but we always prefer one from Shakespeare :—

"The dragon-wing of Night o'erspreads the earth,
And, stickler-like, the armies separates."

Troilus and Cressida, act v., sc. 9.

Page 19, line 8.

Our gentry baffled.] For gentility.

Page 20, line 3.

Fail the place, or suit your weapon's length.) I cannot understand this. Young Forrest must mean that he will not fail, either to meet Rainsford at the place, or to suit his weapon's length.

Page 21, line 24.

of an old proverb.

66

Something hath some savour.] This is the half The whole of it is in Swift's Polite Conversation:

Something has some savour, but nothing has no flavour."

Page 21, line 34, the four bare legs that belong to a bed.] In Swift's Polite Conversation, we have: "Consider, Mr. Neverout, four bare legs in a bed; and you are a younger brother."

Page 26, line 12. I'll go teach you hayt and rec.) "In the eastern counties, according to Forby and Moore, the ejaculation Hait-wo! or Height! is now used only to turn a cart-horse to the left; and Ree! is given by the latter as a command, which causes a movement to the right.

In Yorkshire, for gee-oo, the carters say hite and ree. Height nor ree, neither go nor drive, spoken of a wilful person."—Way's Promptorium, in V. Hayht.

The earliest Latin Dictionary makes the best old English glossary.

In Nash's Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600, is another account of hay-ree—

"Harvest. Hay, God's plenty, which was so sweet and so good, that when I jerted my whip, and said to my horses but hay, they would go as they were mad.

"Summer. But hay alone thou say'st not, but hay and ree.

"Harvest. I sing hay-ree, that is, hay and rye, meaning that they shall have hay and rye, their belly-fulls, if they will draw hard."

In the old Enterlude of "John Bon and Mast Person" we see the words in action:—

"With haight, black Hab!

Have again, Bald, before, hayght, ree, whoo!

Cheerly, boy: come off, that homeward we may go."

Page 30, line 29. And hand to hand? In single opposition.] "In single opposition, hand to hand," is a line from Shakespeare's I Henry IV., act i., scene 3. Heywood was fond of quoting the great master; and Rowley has the same line in Webster's and his Thracian Wonder, act v.,

scene 2.

Page 31, line 25. Of some that swiftly ran towards your fields.] We have here an answer to the Rev. A. Dyce's question, in his Remarks on Mr. Collier's Shakespeare: "Could Mr. Collier, in any English writer, point out an example of the expression some of worth being employed for some person? He certainly could not. 'Some of worth' (in Pericles, act v., sc. 1) cannot possibly mean 'some single person of worth' it can have no other meaning than 'some persons of worth." And see Sylvester's Du Bartas, Judith, book 6. Let us all learn diffidence in our comments upon each other, even though we may be as wellread as Mr. Dyce! Quis est tam lynceus, qui in tantis tenebris nihil offendat?

Page 38, line 1. All ways are laid.] So in II. Henry IV., act iv., scene 10. "Jack Cade. These five days have I hid me in these woods, and durst not peep out, for all the country is laid for me."