The Works of the British Dramatists: Carefully Selected from Theoriginal ...

TO THE READER.

Ir thou beest more, thou art an understander, ❘ times their own rudeness is the cause of their and then I trust thee. If thou art one that takest up, and but a pretender, beware of what hands thou receivest thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened, than in this age, in poetry, especially in plays: wherein, now the concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals,1 as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers, as they do fencers or wrestlers; who, if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows: when many

disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good, and great; but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness, than a faint shadow. I speak not this, out of a hope to do good to any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages: because the most favour common errors. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those that, to gain the opinion of copy, utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskilful, to think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed.

The sickness hot, a master quit, for fear,
His house in town, and left one servant there;
E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know

A Cheater, and his punk; who now brought low,
Leaving their narrow practice, were become
Cozeners at large; and only wanting some
House to set up, with him they here contract,
Each for a share, and all begin to act.
Much company they draw, and much abuse,
In casting figures, telling fortunes, news,
Selling of flies, flat bawdry with the stone,
Till it, and they, and all in fume are gone.

1 naturals-native dispositions, natural gifts.

election-choice, discrimination. Aies-familiar spirits.

2 copy-copiousness, plenty.
4 The sickness hot-the plague.

PROLOGUE.

Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours, | Howe'er the age he loves in doth endure
We wish away both for your sakes and ours,
Judging spectators; and desire, in place,

To the author justice, to ourselves but grace.
Our scene is London, 'cause we would make

known,

No country's mirth is better than our own:
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now call'd humours, feed the

stage;

And which have still been subject for the rage Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen Did never aim to grieve but better men;

The vices that she breeds, above their cure.
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased,
But will with such fair correctives be pleased:
For here he doth not fear who can apply.
If there be any that will sit so nigh
Unto the stream, to look what it doth run,

They shall find things, they'd think or wish'
were done;

They are so natural follies, but so shown,
As even the doers may see, and yet not own.

Sub. Thy worst. I fart at thee.

Face. Not of this, I think it.
But I shall put you in mind, sir; at Pie-corner,
Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls,
Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
Piteously costive, with your pinch'd-horn-nose,

Dol. Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen! And your complexion of the Roman wash,

for love

Face. Sirrah, I'll strip you

Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,
Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard.

Sub. What to do? Lick figs

Out at my

Sub. I wish you could advance your voice a little.3

Face. Rogue, rogue!-out of all your sleights. Dol. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?

Sub. Oh, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks

With good strong water, an you come.

Dol. Will you have

The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all?

Hark! I hear somebody.

Face. Sirrah

Sub. I shall mar

Sub. Yes, you were once (time's not long past) the good,

Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that
kept

Your master's worship's house here in the Friars,
For the vacations-

Face. Will you be so loud?

day;

Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes;
A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloke,
That scarce would cover your no buttocks-

Sub. So, sir!

Face. When all your alchemy, and your algebra,
Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of

trades,

Could not relieve your corps with so much linen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I gave you countenance, credit for your coals,
Your stills, your glasses, your materials;
Built you a furnace, drew you customers,
Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside,
A house to practise in-

Sub. Your master's house!

Face. Where you have studied the more thriv

ing skill

Of bawdry since.

Sub. Yes, in your master's house.
You and the rats here kept possession.

Make it not strange. I know you were one could

keep

Sub. Since, by my means, translated suburb- The buttery-hatch still lock'd, and save the chipcaptain.

Face. By your means, doctor dog!
Sub. Within man's memory,

All this I speak of.

pings,

Sell the dole beers to aqua-vitæ men;

1 three-pound-thrum-one whose livery was made of the ends of a weaver's warp (thrums) or course yarn, of which three pounds were sufficient to make him a suit. -WHALLEY. Gifford thinks it may mean that his livery cost him but three pounds.

1 collect-recollect.

2 costive-dried up, pinched.

3 advance your voice-speak louder.

4 kibes-chaps or broken chilblains, especially in the

heel.

5 dole beer-beer to be doled, or dealt out to the poor. 6 aqua-vitæ men-sellers of aqua-vitæ, or spirits.

pots,

Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee
In the third region, call'd our state of grace?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopher's work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit

For more than ordinary fellowships?

Giv'n thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?

Made thee a second in mine own great art?
And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel?
Do you fly out in the projection?

Would you be gone now?

Dol. Gentlemen, what mean you?

Will you mar all?

Sub. Slave, thou hadst had no name

Dol. Will you undo yourselves with civil war? Sub. Never been known, past equi clibanum,3 The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars, Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been

lost

I vails at post-and-pair, &c.- Vails was money given to servants. Post-and-pair was a card game played with three cards each, wherein much depended on vying or betting on the goodness of your own hand; somewhat like brag. The servants received a small gratuity for the letting out of counters' to count with at play.

2 scarab-beetle; Lat. scarabeus.

mean.

3 equi clibanum-horses oven,' whatever that may cozening with a hollow cole, &c. cheating the simple by pretending to conjure with a bit of charcoal having a hole in it, in which was put the dust and scrapings of gold and silver. Searching for things lost, &c. this method of divination, says Gifford, of remote antiquity, yet retains its credit among the vulgar.

Erecting figures, &c.-delineating schemes of the different positions of the planets, with respect to the several constellations. House, in astrology, is the twelfth

part of the zodiac-GIFFORD.

taking in, &c. this was a common mode of divination. The glass was a globular crystal, or beryl, into

ing it.

Dol. [Snatches FACE's sword.] You'll bring your head within a cockscomb, will you?

And you, sir, with your menstrue'

[Dashes SUBTLE'S vial out of his hand.
Gather it up.-

'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.
I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,
For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
Have you together cozen'd all this while,
And all the world, and shall it now be said,
You've made most courteous shift to cozen your-

selves?

You will accuse him! you will bring him in

[TO FACE. Within the statute! Who shall take your word? A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain, Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust So much as for a feather: and you too,

[To SUBTLE.

Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult,

which the angels Gabriel, Uriel, &c., entered and gave responses, as Lilly says, 'in a voice, like the Irish, much in the throat.' This was one of the most artful and impudent modes of imposture, and was usually conducted by confederacy.

1 Told in red letters-i.e. all these tricks were to be

printed in red letters, and hung up by Face in St. Paul's.

2 Gamaliel Ratsey was a notorious highwayman, who always robbed in a mask, no doubt, as hideous as possible.

3 For lying, &c.-i.e. for eating more than his share prisoners. GIFFORD. of the broken provisions, collected and sent in for the

4 brach-any fine-nosed hound; here used as 'a

mannerly name for a bitch.

5 By this statute all witchcraft and sorcery were declared to be felony without benefit of clergy.

6 laundring-washing; hence laundry, from the same root as lave; barbing-clipping.

7 menstrue, or menstruum-solvent.

8 dog-bolt-see p. 45, note 5, col. 1.

9 Blackfriars was the favourite residence of Puritans at the time; the principal dealers in feathers and other vanities of the age.

And claim a primacy in the divisions!
You must be chief! as if you only had
The powder to project with, and the work

Were not begun out of equality?

The venture tripartite? all things in common ?
Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs,
Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
And lose not the beginning of a term,

Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
And take my part, and quit you.

Face. 'Tis his fault;

And labour kindly in the common work.

[Bell rings without.

Sub. Who's that? one rings. To the window, Dol. [Exit DOL.] - Pray heaven

The master do not trouble us this quarter.

Face. Oh, fear not him. While there dies one a week

O' the plague, he's safe, from thinking toward
London:

Beside, he's busy at his hop-yards now;
I had a letter from him. If he do,

He'll send such word, for airing of the house,
As you shall have sufficient time to quit it:
Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter.

I pray you let him know that I was here!

Face. [aloud and retiring.] God be wi' you, sir,

Sub. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside. His name is Dapper. I would gladly have stayed,

I only used those speeches as a spur

To him.

Dol. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make

A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours,

but

Good faith, sir, I was going away. Dap. In truth,

I am very sorry, captain.

Face. But I thought

Sure I should meet you.

Dap. Ay, I am very glad.

I had a scurvy writ or two to make,

That scarce have smiled twice since the king And I had lent my watch last night to one

came in,

A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals,

Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride,
Or you t' have but a hole to thrust your heads in,
For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree.
And may Don Provost ride a feasting long,
In his old velvet jerkin and stain'd scarfs,
My noble sovereign, and worthy general,
Ere we contribute a new crewel garter
To his most worsted worship.

That dines to-day at the Sheriff's, and so was robb'd

Of my pass-time.

Re-enter SUBTLE, in his velvet Cap and Gown.

Is this the cunning-man? 3

Face. This is his worship.

Dap. Is he à doctor?

Face. Yes.

Dap. And you have broke with him, captain? Face. Ay.

I objects-urges.

2 fermentation 'is the sixth process in alchemy, and means the mutation of any substance into the nature of the ferment; cibation, the seventh, is feeding the matter with fresh substances, to supply the waste. Sol and Luna are gold and silver, each of the planets representing a metal. GIFFORD. As Gifford remarks, an adept himself might be puzzled by some of these terms, and therefore the reader need not expect an explanation of all.

3 King James succeeded to the English throne in 1603; this was written in 1610.

* to see me ride, &c. - To see me carted,' as Upton says, 'as a bawd, and you, as a couple of rogues, to lose your ears in the pillory.'

Screwel-a kind of fine worsted.

1 Claridiana is the hero of the romance called The Mirror of Knighthood.

2 quodling-Gifford, with some countenance from the context, thinks this a sportive appellation for a young quill-driver, derived from the quods and quids of legal phraseology. Nares and others think Dol means codling -a young raw apple, fit for nothing without dressing. 3 cunning-man-man of skill.

Dap. And will I tell then! By this hand of flesh, Would it might never write good court-hand more, If I discover. What do you think of me,

That I am a chiaus? 2

Face. What's that?

Dap. The Turk was here.

As one would say, do you think I am a Turk? Face. I'll tell the doctor so.

Dap. Do, good sweet captain.

Face. Come, noble doctor, pray thee let's prevail;

This is the gentleman, and he is no chiaus.

Sub. Captain, I have return'd you all my answer. I would do much, sir, for your love. But this I neither may, nor can.

Face. Tut, do not say so.

You deal now with a noble fellow, doctor,

One that will thank you richly; and he is no

Let that, sir, move you.

Sub. Pray you, forbear

Face. He has

Four angels here.

Sub. You do me wrong, good sir.

[chiaus:

Face. Doctor, wherein? to tempt you with these spirits?

Sub. To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril. Fore heaven, I scarce can think you are my friend, That so would draw me to apparent danger.

Face. I draw you! a horse draw you, and a halter,

You, and your flies together

Dap. Nay, good captain.

Face. That know no difference of men.

Sub. Good words, sir.

Face. Good deeds, sir, Doctor Dogs-meat. 'Slight, I bring you

No cheating Clim o' the Cloughs, or Claribels,
That look as big as five-and-fifty, and flush;
And spit out secrets like hot custard-

Dap. Captain!

Face. Nor any melancholic under-scribe, Shall tell the vicar; but a special gentle, That is the heir to forty marks a year, Consorts with the small poets of the time, Is the sole hope of his old grandmother; That knows the law, and writes you six fair

hands,

1 Read was a conjurer of the time, convicted of practising the black art.

Chiaus was a special envoy sent from the Porte. In 1609, a chiaus was sent by Sir Robert Shirley from Constantinople, who, before his employer arrived, had Chiaused choused or cheated) the Turkish and Persian merchants out of £4000, and decamped.

An angel was worth about 10 shillings. Clim of the Cloughs, &c.-ie. no ranting heroes of old ballads and romances. Clim was a celebrated archer often mentioned in the Robin Hood ballads.

5 That look as big, &c.-five-and-fifty was the highest number to stand on at the old game of Primero. If a Rush (a run of cards of the same suit) accompanied this, the hand swept the table. -GIFFORD.

Is a fine clerk, and has his cyphering perfect,
Will take his oath o' the Greek Testament,
If need be, in his pocket; and can court
His mistress, out of Ovid.

Dap. Nay, dear captain

Face. Did you not tell me so ?

Dap. Yes; but I'd have you

Use master doctor with some more respect.

Face. Hang him, proud stag, with his broad velvet head!

But for your sake, I'd choak, ere I would change
An article of breath with such a puckfist:1
Come, let's be gone.

Sub. Pray you, let me speak with you.
Dap. His worship calls you, captain.

Face. I am sorry

I e'er embark'd myself in such a business. Dap. Nay, good sir; he did call you.

Face. Will he take then?

Sub. First, hear me

Face. Not a syllable, 'less you take.

Sub. Pray you, sir

Face. Upon no terms, but an assumpsit.

Sub. Your humour must be law.

[Going.

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Sub. Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester,

As they do crackers in a puppet play.

If I do give him a familiar,

Give you him all you play for; never set him: For he will have it.

Face. You are mistaken, doctor. Why, he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly; none of your great familiars.

Dap. Yes, captain, I would have it for all games. Sub. I told you so.

Face. [Taking DAP. aside.] 'Slight, that is a new business!

I understood you, a tame bird, to fly
Twice in a term, or so, on Friday nights,
When you had left the office, for a nag
Of forty or fifty shillings.

Dap. Ay, 'tis true, sir;

But I do think now I shall leave the law,
And therefore-

Face. Why, this changes quite the case.
Do you think that I dare move him?

Dap. If you please, sir;

All's one to him, I see.

Face. What! for that money?

I cannot with my conscience; nor should you

Make the request, methinks.

Dap. No, sir, I mean To add consideration.

Face. Why then, sir,

I'll try.-[Goes to SUBTLE.] Say that it were for all games, doctor?

1 puck-fist-perhaps originally, puff-fist; the fungus called puff-ball or fuz-ball. Metaphorically, a term of reproach, equal to 'vile fungus,' 'scum of the earth.'NARES.

2 set-stake a wager with.

3 A rifling fly. Rifling was a game at dice; or does it here mean simply 'robbing?' Ay-a familiar spirit.

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