ly sold, said somewhat sharply, Why, Sir, will not those cuppes serve as good a man as yourselfe?' Heywood readily replied, 'Yes, if it please your Grace; but I would have one of them stand still at my elbow, full of drinke, that I might not be driven to trouble your man so often to call for it.' This pleasant and speedy reverse of the former wordes holpe all the matter againe, whereupon the Duke became very pleasaunt, and dranke a bolle of wine to Heywood, and bid a cuppe should alwayes be standing by him.”

"I have seen," says Oldys, "A briefe Balet touching the Traytorous takynge of Scarborow Castle," subscribed at the end, "I. Heywood." Imprinted at London by Thomas Powell, on a broadside of two columns, bl. letter. (It is among the Fol. Vol. of Dyson's Collections in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries.) Thomas Stafford, who took that castle, 23 April 1557, and proclaimed himself Protector of the Realm, was beheaded 28 May following, and three of his accomplices were hanged."

This Heywood also printed "A Balade of the meeting and marriage of the King and Queen's Highness. Imprinted by W. Ryddel on one side of a large half sheet."*

ART. XXXIV. The VVorkes of Iohn Hievvood newly imprinted. A Dialogue conteyning the number of the effectuall Prouerbes in the English tong compact in a matter concerning too maner of mariages. With one hundred of Epigrammes:

*Oldys' MS. notes to Langbaine.

mes.

& three hundred of Epigrammes opon three hundred Prouerbes, and a fifth hundred of EpigramWhereunto are now newly added a sixt hundred of Epigrammes by the sayd Iohn Heywood. Imprinted at London in Fleetstreete neare onto Saint Dunston's Church, by Thomas Marsh. 1587. 104 leaves.

JOHN HEYWOOD was one of our earliest dramatic writers. His birth-place is not certainly ascertained, and the authorities are nearly equal, to consider him either of London, or of North Mims, near St. Alban's, in Hertfordshire. This is the only material variation in the account of his life, which may be referred to in any biographical work. He was patronised by Sir Thomas More, and from his introduction became a principal favourite with royalty. Henry the VIII. delighted in his skill in music, while his wit and comic humour equally distinguished him at court during the reign of Mary. The following are specimens of the jokes that afforded entertainment to his august mistress, as preserved by Camden. When Mary told him the priests must forego their wives, he wittily answered, "your Grace must allow them lemans then, for the clergy cannot live without sauce." Upon the Queen inquiring what wind blew him to the court, he answered "two, specially the one to see your Majesty." "We thank you for that (said Mary;) but, I pray, what is the other?" "That your Grace (said he) might see me." When he saw one riding that bare a wanton behind him, he said, "in good faith, sir, I would say that your horse were over-laden if I did not perceive the gentlewoman you carry were very light." With the trifling

vanity and character of a jester he was still a determined follower of the Roman Catholic cause; from which, upon the demise of the Queen, he became an exile, and died at Mechlin about 1565.

His pretensions as a writer are founded more on quickness of capacity than extent of learning. The various parts of this volume obtained an extraordinary degree of popularity; but there was not much labour in collecting a string of dull conceits uttered upon any or upon every occasion at the festive board. From his Dialogue may be said,

"I come (quoth I) to bee one heere, if I shall, It is mery in hall when berdes wag all." Warton considers that his epigrams "are probably some of his jokes versified;" and has given several specimens of his poetry.* The Dialogue was printed 1547, 1549, and "as newly overseen and somewhat augmented," 1561. The three hundred epigrams, says Warton, before 1553, and the whole of this volume 1562,+ 1566, 1576, 1587, 1598.

At the back of the title of this volume is

"The Preface.

Among other thinges profyting in our tong,'

Those which much may profyt both old and yong:

Such as on their fruit wil feed or take hold,

Are our common plaine pithie prouerbs old;

* Vol. III. p. 87.

+ Upon the authority of Herbert; but the title is not given in full. Ritson adds the "sixte hundred" of the epigrams to the edition of 1576, Bibliographia Poetica, p. 241, where a note on the supposed omission by Herbert may be erased, as the edition alluded to is mentioned among the corrections of that editor's work at p. 1797.

Some sence of some of which being bare and rude,
Yet so fyne and fruitful effect they allude,

And their sentences conclude so large a reach,
That almost in all thinges good lessons they teach.
This write I not to teach but to touch: for why,
Men know this as wel, or better then I.

But this and this rest; I write for this,
Remembring and considering what the pyth is,
That by remembrance of these prouerbes may grow
In this tale, erst talked with a frend, I show

As

many of them as wee could fitly finde Falling to purpose, that might fall in minde;

To th' entent that the reader readily may

Finde them and mind them, whan he will alway."

The dialogue follows, describing an acquaintance in love with two women; the one from affection, a maid" of flowring age, a goodly one," without patrimony; the other a pecuniary attachment to a rich widow. Upon the difficulty of chusing, a relation is made of two marriages formed upon similar events, and both terminating in disappointment and misery. The enquirer concludes with remaining single. It is divided into two parts of thirteen and eleven chapters. The following lines are spoken by the starving husband and a friend, after an ineffectual application to an uncle and aunt.

"By hooke or crooke nought could I win there; men say,
He that cometh eury day, shall haue a cocknay.
He that cometh now and then, shall haue a fat hen ;*
But I gat not so much in coming seelde when,

*The proverb of the cockney and hen is repeated with nearly the same words by Whalley, in a note on King Lear, as taken from the Scourge of Folly, by Davies. (Reed's Shak. Vol. xvii. 425.) It seems

As a good hen's fether, or a poore egshell;

As good play for nought as worke for nought, folke tel. Well well (quoth he) we be but where we were,

Come what, come would, I thought ere we came there,

That if the worst fell, wee could haue but a naie;
There is no harm man done in all this fray;
Neither pot broken, nor water spilt.

Farewell hee, (quoth I) I will as soone be hilt,*
As waite againe for the mooneshine in the water.
But is not this a prety piked† matter,

To disdeigne me, who mucke of the world hoordeth not,
As he doth, it may rime but it accordth not.

She fometh like a bore, the beast should seeme bolde, For shee is as fierce, as a Lion of Cotsolde ;

uncertain if the word cockney did not bear a double meaning; the one, probably originating in some corrupt phrase, not yet perfectly ascertained. Whatever may have been the doubt alluded to by Steevens of it in another sense, it is determinedly shown by the following passage in the second part of Heywood's Dialogue to be applicable to a cock.

"Haue ye not heard tell, all couet all leese,

A, sir, I see, yee may see no green cheese

But your mouth must water. A good cocknay coke
Though hee loue not to buy the pig in the poke,

Yet snatch yee at the poke, that the pig is in,

Not for the poke, but for the pig good chepe to win;
Lyke one halfelost, till greedy grasping gat it,

Yee would be ouer the style, ere yee come at it."

* Hid.

+ Reed's Shak. Vol. X. p. 360.

Thus Davies in one of his epigrams;

"Carlus is as furious as a lyon of Cotsold."

Again in the play of Sir John Oldcastle, you old stale ruffian, you lion of Cotswold." These allusions are not supposed to originate in the games of Cotswold, which, "I believe," says Mr. Malone, "did not commence till the reign of James I. I have never seen any pamphlet that mentions them as having existed in the time of Elizabeth." Reed's Shak. Vol. XII. p. 124. The following conjec