As art and nature have not better'd much;
Yet ours for want, hath not so lov'd the stage,
As he dares serve th' ill customs of the age,
Or purchase your delight at such a rate,
As, for it, he himself must justly hate:
To make a child now swaddled, to proceed
Man, and then shoot up, in one beard and
[swords,

weed,

Past threescore years; or, with three rusty
And help of some few foot and half-foot

words,

Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,'
And in the tyring-house bring wounds to

1

With three rusty swords,

LIBRAR

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

CALIFORNIA

Nor creaking throne comes down the boys
to please:

Nor nimble squib is seen to make afeard
The gentlewomen; nor roul'd bullet heard
To say, it thunders; nor tempestuous drum
Rumbles, to tell you when the storm doth

come;

But deeds, and language, such as men do use,
And persons, such as Comedy would chuse,
When she would shew an image of the times,
And sport with human follies, not with
crimes.2

Except we make 'em such, by loving still
Our popular errors, when we know th' are ill.
I mean such errors as you'll all confess,
By laughing at them, they deserve no less:
Which when you heartily do, there's hope
left then,
[like men.
You, that have so grac'd monsters, may

And help of some few FOOT AND HALF-FOOT WORds,

Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars.] The author takes occasion in this prologue to ridicule the common practice of the stage-writers; their deficiency in plot, their ignorance of the dramatic unities, with their several imperfections both in sentiment and style.. Possibly Shakspeare himself, by the help of a proper application, was designed to be included in this censure. The "foot and half-foot words," a translation of Horace's Sesquipedalia Verba, allude to expressions of a most unmeasurable length, hich were commonly made use of by the authors of that age; and were supposed to give magnificence and sublimity to their diction. It was about this time, that compound epithets were first introduced into our poetry; and to what licentiousness of style they were perverted, appears from the following lines of Bishop Hall, who is drawing the character of the Poetaster Labeo.

"He knows the grace of that new elegance,

"Which sweet Philisides fetch'd of late from France,

"(That well beseem'd his high-styl'd Arcady,

"Though others mar it with much liberty);

"In epithets to join two words in one,
"Forsooth, for adjectives cannot stand alone:
"As a great poet could of Bacchus say,

"That he was

Semele-femori-gena."-VIRGIDEMIARUM Lib. VI. Sat. 1. And sport with human follies, not with crimes.] This distinction is made expressly from the precept of Aristotle; who assigns the ro yoîov or the ridiculous, as the immediate subject of comedy. Poetic. Sect. 5. but makes the crimes of men, as being of a more serious nature, the particular object of the tragic poet,

B

VIMU

SCENE I.

ACT I.

Kno'well, Brain-worm, Mr. Stephen. Kno. A GOODLY day toward! and a fresh morning! Brain-worm, Call up your young master: bid him rise,

sir.'

[him.

Tell him, I have some business to employ
Brai. I will, sir, presently.

Kno. But hear you, sirrah,

If he be at his book, disturb him not.
Brai. Well, sir.2

Kno. How happy yet, should I esteem

myself,

Could I, by any practice, wean the boy
From one vain course of study, he affects.
He is a scholar, if a man may trust
The liberal voice of fame, in her report,
Of good account in both our universities,
Either of which hath favour'd him with

come, couz.

3

Step. 1, I know that, sir, I would not
ha' come else.
How does my cousin
Edward, uncle?

Kno. O, well couz, go in and see: I doubt he be scarce stirring yet.

Step. Uncle, afore I go in, can you tell me an' he have e're a book of the sciences of hawking and hunting? I would fain borrow it.

Kno. Why, I hope you will not a hawking now, will you?

Step: No, wusse, but I'll practise against next year, uncle: I have bought me a hawk, and a hood, and bells, and all; I lack nothing but a book to keep it by.* Kno. O, most ridiculous.

Step. Nay, look you now, you are angry, uncle; why you know an' a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting-languages now-a-days, I'll not give a rush for him. They are more studied than the Greek, or the Latin. He is for no gallants company without'em: and by gads-lid I scorn it, I, so I do, to be a consort for every hum-drum; hang'em, scroyles! there's nothing in 'em i' the world. What do you

A goodly day toward! and a fresh morning! Brain-worm,

Call up your young master: bid him rise, sir.] Thus are these lines printed in the common editions of this poet, without any regard to the measure or quanitty of the verse. It must be owned that the metre of the comic poets, in the age of Jonson, was extremely loose and irreg lar, often requiring to be helped out by the speaker. The voice, as it was necessary, must either slur over, or lengthen out a syllable to preserve the numbers. An elision in the word your, by marking it in this manner y'r, would guide the pronunciation in the reading. There is, however, an expletive, that might easily be omitted, and might probably have been the player's insertion: and the verse would be better, if we read it thus:

Brain-worm, call your young master: bid him rise, sir.—Mr. SEWARD. These observations are equally ingenious and just; but I have still ventured to retain the old reading, principally on he authority of the first folio, which was printed in the poet's life-time, and under his own inspection. The defect in measure is probably in the first line; which becomes a perfect verse by contracting the word toward into one syllable, and which undoubtedly must be so pronounced.

2 Brain. WELL, SIR. An elliptical expression; It is well, sir;,probably borrowed from the Latin form of speaking, usual on such occasions.

Rogo nunquid velit; RECTE, inquit, abeo.-TEREN. Eun. Act. II. Scen. 3.

I, I know that, sir!] Ay, &c. The antient way of writing this affirmative particle was only with the vowel I, and a comma after it. This is followed in the old and last edition likewise, and I have conformed to it in the present.

4

I lack nothing but a BOOK to keep it by.] Falconry was a favourite diversion of this age. Mr. Stephen having purchased a hawk with all its furniture, is ignorant how to keep it secundùm artem. For the service of connoisseurs like himself, books were then wrote upon this subject. A treatise of this kind by one George Turberville is yet to be found, and may perhaps be of infinite service to the curious in this science. In the same manner they fought duels by the book.

"Nor stand so much on your gentility,

'Go cast away your money on a kite,

Serv. Save you, gentlemen.

Step. Nay, we do not stand much on our gentility, friend; yet you are welcome, and I assure you mine uncle here is a man of a thousand a year, Middlesex land: he has but one son in all the world; I am his next heir (at the common law) Master Stephen, as simple as I stand here, if my cousin die (as there's hoped he will), I have a pretty living o' mine own too, beside, hard by here.

Serv. In good time, sir.

Step. In good time, sir? why! and in very good time, sir: you do not flout, friend, do you?

Serv. Not I, sir.

Step. Not you, sir? you were not best, sir; an' you should, here be them can perceive it, and that quickly too; go to: and they can give it again soundly too, an' need be.

Serv. Why, sir, let this satisfy you; good faith, I had no such intent.

Step. Sir, an' I thought you had, I would talk with you, and that presently.

Serv. Good Master Stephen, so you may, sir, at your pleasure.

Step. And so I would, sir, good my saucy companion! an' you were out o' mine uncle's ground, I can tell you; though I do not stand upon my gentility neither in't. Kno. Cousin! cousin! will this ne'er be left?

Step. Whoreson base fellow! a mechanical serving-man! By this cudgel, an' 'twere not for shame, I would

If

Kno. What would you do, you peremptory gull?

you cannot be quiet, get you hence. You see, the honest man demeans himself Modestly towards you, giving no reply To your unseason'd, quarrelling, rude fashion;

And know not how to keep it, when you ha' done?] The great number of hawks or falcons kept in that age, and the manner of their food, will appear from the following passage: "I would our falcons might be satisfied with the division of their prey, as the falcons in Thracia were, that they needed not to devour the hens of this realm in such number, that unless it be shortly considered, our familiar poultry shall be as scarce, as be now partridge and pheasant. I speak not this in dispraise of the falcons, but of them which keepeth them like cockneys."-Sir THO. ELIOT'S Governour, 1. i. c. 18. Lond. 1580.

"We do not stand much on our gentility, friend. This answer is made with exquisite humour. Stephen piques himself on being a gentleman; Kno'well had just reproved him for a rough illiberal behaviour, and cautions him not to presume upon his birth and fortune. Master Stephen doth not seem to relish this advice, but at the entrance of the servant, he discovers his regard for what his uncle had been saying, by the repetition of his last words.

From the WIND-MILL.] This house then stood at the corner of the Old Jewry, towards Lothbury; and was remarkable for the various changes it had successively undergone. The Jews used it at first for a Synagogue; afterwards it came into the possession of a certain order of friars called de Pænitentiá Jesú, or Fratres de Sacca, from their being clothed in sackcloth. In process of time, it was converted to a private house, wherein several mayors had resided, and kept their mayoralty. In the days of Stow, from whom this account is taken, it was a wine-tavern, and had for the sign a wind-mill.

See Srow's Survey by STRYPE, L. III. p. 54.

E. Kno. That scarce contents me. What countenance, pr'ythee, made he, i' th' reading of it? was he angry, or pleas'd?

Brai. Nay, sir, I saw him not read it, nor open it, I assure your worship.

E. Kno. No how know'st thou, then, that he did either?

Brai. Marry, sir, because he charg'd me, on my life, to tell nobody that he open'd it; which unless he had done, he would never fear to have it reveal'd.

E. Kno. That's true: well, I thank thee, Brain-worm.

Step. O, Brain-worm, didst thou not see a fellow here in a what'sha'call-him doublet? he brought mine uncle a letter e'en now. Brai. Yes, master Stephen; what of him? Step. O, I ha' such a inind to beat himWhere is he? canst thou tell?

Brai. Faith, he is not of that mind: he is gone, master Stephen.

Step. Gone! which way? when went he? how long since ?

Brai. He is rid hence: he took horse at the street-door.

There is a way of winning more by love,

Step. And I staid i' the fields! horson Scander-bag rogue! Oh that I had but a horse to fetch him back again!

Brai. Why, you may ha' my master's gelding, to save your longing, sir.

Step. But I ha' no boots, that's the spight on't.

Brai. Why, a fine whisp of hay, roul'd hard, master Stephen.

Step. No faith, it's no boot to follow him, now let him e'en go and hang. Pr'ythee, help to truss me a little. He does so vex

me

Brai. You'll be worse vex'd when you are truss'd, master Stephen. Best keep unbrac'd, and walk yourself till you be cold; your choler may founder you else.

Step. By my faith, and so I will; now thou tell'st me on't: How dost thou like my leg, Brain-worm ?

Brai. A very good leg, master Stephen ; but the woolleir stocking does not commend it so well.

Step. Foh, the stockings be good enough, now summer is coming on, for the dust: I'll have a pair of silk against winter, that I go to dwell i' th' town. I think my leg would shew in a silk hose

Brai. Believe me, master Stephen, rarely well.

Step. In sadness, I think it would: I have a reasonable good leg.

Brai. You have an excellent good leg, master Stephen; but I cannot stay to praise it longer now, and I am very sorry for't. Step. Another time will serve, Brainworm. Gramercy for this.

E. Kno. Ha, ha, ha.

[Kno'well laughs, having read the letter. Step. 'Slid, I hope he laughs not at me; an' he do

E. Kno. Here was a letter indeed, to be intercepted by a man's father, and do him good with him! He cannot but think most virtuously, both of me, and the sender, sure; that make the careful costar' monger of him in our familiar epistles. Well, if he read this with patience I'll be gelt, and

And urging of the modesty, than feur, &c.] TERENCE is the author of these sentiments, which are adapted with the utmost propriety of character to the temper of the speaker.

Pudore & liberalitate liberos

Retinere, satins esse credo, quàm metu.

Malo coactus qui suum officium facit,
Dum id rescitum iri credit, tantisper cavet.
Hoc patrium est, potiùs consuefacere filium

Sua sponte rectè facere, quàm alieno metu.—Adelph. Act. I. Sc. 1.

* I think my leg would shew in a silk hose] The humour of these half-witted gallants, with relation to their dress, and particularly the furniture of their legs, is frequently taken notice of by our old comedians.

"Sir Tob. I did think by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the "star of a galliard.

"Sir And. Aye, 'tis strong; and it does indifferent well in a flame-coloured stocking." SHAKSPEARE'S Twelfth Night, Act I. Sc. 4.